@The heavy oak floorboards groaned under the boots of the approaching man, a low, rhythmic sound that cut through the chatter of the room like a blade. The two young bucks standing beside my stool didn’t hear it at first. They were still basking in the cheap warmth of their own cruelty, chuckling over the prospect of sending me off to find a candlelit wine bar with miniature cheese boards.

Thorne froze. The trap had snapped shut, and there was no graceful way out. If he backed down now, he would lose every ounce of respect from the men in this room—the very soldiers he had spent years manipulating into his personal loyalist faction. If he accepted, he knew damn well his neglected equipment and undisciplined troops would fail the strict, uncompromising standards I was famous for enforcing.

"You’re bluffing," Thorne muttered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "You haven't even seen the motor pool yet. You don't know the state of our gear."

"I know every single serial number, every missing part requisition, and every excuse you’re going to try to use," I replied, stepping back and picking up my bourbon. "Tomorrow morning, 0500. Be there, or I’ll come to your quarters and drag you out myself in your PT shorts."

Without waiting for his answer, I turned back to the bar, tossed a twenty-dollar bill onto the polished wood, and finished the last drop of my drink.

"Goodnight, Frank. Keep the change."

"Yes, ma'am," the old bartender said, offering a crisp nod of genuine respect.

Vance stepped in instantly, falling into step beside me as I walked toward the heavy wooden exit doors. The entire bar remained frozen in a stunned silence. Even Miller looked like he wanted to dig a hole through the floorboards and hide until retirement.

As we pushed through the doors into the cool, crisp night air of the Virginia countryside, the storm clouds were finally breaking, letting a brilliant silver moonlight spill across the parking lot.

"That was a hell of a gamble, Colonel," Vance said, shaking his head with a mixture of awe and residual adrenaline as he unlocked his government-issue pickup truck. "Thorne’s got half the senior NCOs in his pocket. If he sabotages the drill tomorrow—"

"He won't sabotage it," I interrupted, pulling my car keys from my pocket and looking across the gravel lot toward my rented sedan. "He’s too arrogant to sabotage it, and too cowardly to back out. He thinks he can out-maneuver me on the range like he used to do back at Fort Hood."

Vance paused, his hand on the door handle of his truck. "And can he?"