Chapter 16: The General's Door

Rodney's POV

They let me out of the cell at noon with my belt in a plastic bag.

The desk sergeant, a heavy man with a London accent, handed me my tie and did not meet my eye.

"There's a call for you, sir," he said. "Holding in the back."

"Who?"

"He didn't say. He said you'd know."

I knew.

I took the phone in a gray room with a table bolted to the floor and a camera in the corner.

"Rainey," said my general.

"Sir."

"I have watched it four times."

I closed my eyes.

"Sir, with respect, that was a domestic matter, and I was provoked."

"You were drunk on a public street in a foreign country, in uniform, with a girl's arm in your fist," the general said.

"And you said, on camera, that she swore never to tell anyone."

"Tell anyone what, Colonel?"

I did not answer.

"The video is at nine million views," he said. "My wife's sister sent it to me this morning with a heart on it. A heart, Rainey."

"General, I can explain every part of it."

"Can you explain the Inspector General's file on the staff car?"

"It's a misunderstanding."

"Can you explain a dead brother with no child on any Army record?" the general said.

"Or an application essay from a girl who calls herself that brother's daughter?"

"Columbia flagged it to the Department. It came across my desk before breakfast."

My mouth had gone dry.

"I can find the records, sir."

"There aren't any," said the general. "I looked."

"There's a private named Thomas Rainey, nineteen, dead at Benning. No wife, no child."

"And you told the post chaplain, at his memorial, that your brother left behind a daughter."

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