From the mezzanine, Victor could still see the front row.
I knew because I felt his gaze before I found him. He stood at the railing while Lorraine spoke urgently beside him. Blake held a phone against his ear, one hand covering his mouth.
General Hale noticed where I was looking.
“You can ask the staff to move him,” he said.
“He has an invitation.”
“He has a seat. That’s all he has.”
I looked down at the program resting in my lap. My name appeared halfway down the page, beneath a description of the medal I had come to receive. Nothing on that page belonged to Victor.
“He can stay,” I said.
Hale nodded, but he remained beside me for another moment. Over six years, he had learned when I needed an answer and when I needed someone to stand there quietly.
A woman in a dark blue suit approached us. “Colonel, the Secretary would like to see you before we begin.”
I rose and followed her through a side door.
The room beyond was small and crowded with staff. Someone moved a stack of folders off a chair. A photographer checked the batteries in his camera. At the far end, the Secretary of Defense was reading a sheet of paper marked with yellow tabs.
When he saw me, he set it down.
“Maya,” he said. “How are your people?”
It was the question I had hoped he would ask.
“Captain Ruiz is walking again,” I said. “Sergeant Kim has gone home. The others are still receiving care.”
The Secretary nodded. “I’m glad.”
Three months earlier, a transport convoy had suffered a catastrophic brake failure during a mountain descent overseas. One vehicle struck another before its driver could force it into an emergency lane. Eight soldiers were injured.
They survived because the following vehicles maintained the spacing my team had insisted upon, despite months of complaints about slower deliveries.
That spacing was one small part of the program being recognized today.
The program itself reached much farther. We had rebuilt the way essential supplies were tracked from factory to field unit. Every transfer had to be recorded, every substitute part identified, every urgent shipment checked by someone who did not stand to profit from its arrival.
It had taken four years. Most of the people who made it work would never appear in a photograph.
“The citation says you led it,” the Secretary said, watching my face. “I know you have objections.”
