Her eyes darted to me, then to General Drummond.

“What did you say to him?” she demanded, her voice dropping to a low, angry hiss.

“We didn’t have to say anything, Helen,” I said. “The records speak for themselves.”

“You have always been a jealous girl, Emerson,” she said. “You’re trying to ruin your brother because you couldn’t make something of yourself.”

“I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps,” I said. “I made myself.”

“A grunt,” she spat. “A brute who belongs in the mud.”

Captain Hayes appeared from the ballroom doors, his face grim.

He walked straight to General Drummond.

“Sir,” Hayes said. “The technician just loaded the presentation. The slides are queued.”

Helen’s eyes widened slightly.

“What presentation?” she asked. “This is a retirement ceremony.”

“It was,” Drummond said. “Now it is an inquiry.”

The light from the ballroom doors flickered as the main projector screen began to lower.

A loud static hum echoed through the speakers of the sound system.

The crowd inside the ballroom grew quiet as the first slide appeared on the wall.