library. The men left him there.

 

He didn’t sit. He had no idea what was about to happen, but he would take it

standing.

 

He tensed when the door opened.

 

He came immediately to attention.

 

The man wasn’t in uniform, but he once had been.

 

And more importantly, he was one beating heart removed from being the commander

in chief of all the armed forces of the United States. That fact alone required

Puller to treat him with military respect.

 

He was the vice president of the United States, Richard Hall.

 

Before that he’d been a U.S. senator from Virginia. And before that he’d been a

one-star under Puller’s father’s command.

 

Puller knew all this. And he’d also met the man once, over twenty years ago,

before Hall had traded in his uniform for a suit and the life of a politician.

 

Hall was about five-ten, and still retained much of the muscular build he’d had

as a soldier. His hair was white and thinning, but his handshake was firm and