Fort Wool was across the channel and had been erected so that crossing fields of

fire across the water could be deployed. That meant that ships trying to get

through here could not hug one side of the channel in order to escape a pounding

from the shore guns.

 

It was all a moot point now. Fort Monroe had never been fired upon in nearly two

hundred years, and had never fallen into enemy hands. And it never would unless

the completely impossible happened and a foreign enemy managed it.

 

Or, thought Puller, if America had another civil war.

 

With the current political climate, he thought that a more likely scenario than

the North Koreans coming ashore onto Virginia soil.

 

With the post closing, the Commonwealth of Virginia had been given back much of

the land the fort occupied. Most of the residential property had been sold or

leased, though the commercial real estate side had been slower to come around.

 

Puller drove down the causeway leading to the fort’s entrance, passing red,

rusting ships in the water with names like Sassy Sarah.

 

He found a parking space near the massive Chamberlin Hotel, which was now a

retirement community, and proceeded on foot. He had snagged the camera he used

at crime scenes from his duffel and hung it around his neck.