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now-stuffed briefcase and left the room.
    Reuben headed for his next class, hopelessly late, with his mind racing. He just recruited me. I don’t even know what the conspiracy is, and he recruited me just by appealing to my intelligence, my loyalties, my desire to be in on the action.
    The trouble was, this
did
appeal to him in all those ways and more besides.
    He’s got me pegged, Reuben realized. The only question remaining was: Is Torrent a good guy? If I join whatever clandestine work he’s got going, will I be on the right side?

THREE
NEW BOY
    Heroic love is to do what is best for the loved one, disregarding desire, trust, and cost. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know what is best for anyone.
    Captain Coleman—Cole, to his friends—still wasn’t sure whether getting assigned to Major Malich was the opportunity of a lifetime or the dead end of his military career.
    On the one hand, as soon as Cole got the Pentagon assignment, high-ranking people started dropping hints that Malich was regarded as more than merely promising—war hero in Special Ops, brilliant in strategic and tactical thinking, with the only real question being whether he would end up his career commanding in the field or from the Pentagon. “You just got your wagon hitched to the right horse, Cole,” said one general that dropped by his new office apparently just to tell him that.
    On the other hand, he’d been in his new position for three days and he hadn’t met Malich and couldn’t find out from anybody where he was.
    â€œHe goes out, he comes back,” said the division secretary.
    â€œGoes where, does what?”
    â€œGoes
away
” she said with a tight smile, “and eventually returns.”
    â€œAre you not telling me because you don’t know, or because you don’t trust me yet?”
    â€œI don’t know,
and
I don’t trust you yet,” she said.
    â€œSo what do I do while I wait for him to come back?”
    â€œIs this your first time in the Pentagon?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGo out and see the sights.”
    â€œIt’s not my first time in DC,” said Cole. “My parents took me to all the museums and I’ve already waited in line to see Congress and the Declaration of Independence and I’ve climbed the Washington Monument to the top.”
    â€œThen go to Hain’s Point or Great Falls of the Potomac and say ooh and aah, and get on a bicycle and ride the W&O trail from Leesburg to Mount Vernon. Or stay here and I’ll give you a whole box of pencils to sharpen.”
    â€œWhat are
you
working on while he’s gone?”
    â€œI’m the division secretary. I work for all the officers, including the Colonel. Once every two months, Major Malich gives me something to do. Other than that, I take messages for him and explain to his confused subordinates how they can kill time till he comes back so he can tell them nothing in person.”
    â€œTell them nothing—you mean even when he’s
here
he—”
    â€œWhy do you think you’re replacing a good man who only stayed for one month? Who replaced another good man who lasted three months because Major Malich gave him a huge pile of scutwork assignments without ever telling him what they were for and then thanked him and left
him
to sharpen pencils?”
    â€œSo you don’t expect me to stay.”
    â€œI expect you to grow old and die on the job here.”
    â€œWhat does
that
mean?”
    â€œIt means,” said the secretary, “that I’ve given up trying to understand Major Malich’s role in this building and I’ve also given up trying to help young officers who are assigned to him. What’s the point?”
    So here he was, three days later, with his pencils sharpened, having seen the statue of the giant at Hain’s Point and the new World War II Memorial and the FDR Memorial and the Great Falls of the Potomac. Was it