It came hard off the Atlantic that morning, sharp with salt and cold enough to slice through the thin dawn light. It tugged at her windbreaker, whipped loose strands of dark hair across her cheek, and made the giant American flag at the main gate crack like a rifle shot overhead.
She stood on the curb beside a government sedan that had dropped her off twenty minutes earlier than scheduled, three cardboard banker’s boxes stacked at her boots, and looked through the chain-link gate at the base she was about to command.
Blackwater was sprawling and gray and restless even before sunrise. Forklifts beeped near the loading yard. Sailors in coveralls crossed the pavement with coffee cups and clipboards. Trucks rolled toward the piers where destroyers and supply ships sat in the half-light like iron cliffs.
Officially, Evelyn was not supposed to arrive until 0900 for the change-of-command ceremony.
Officially, there was supposed to be a driver, a protocol officer, and a polished reception at the front office with the outgoing leadership lined up to greet her.
Instead, a highway accident had snarled traffic, her driver had been rerouted, and Evelyn—who had spent thirty-one years in the Navy and did not believe the universe ended when a schedule slipped—had told the Pentagon aide fussing over the phone to stop panicking.
“I’m capable of entering a base without a parade,” she had said.
