“And that, my cadets, is the way it really happened. Not the way it should’ve happened, but the way it really happened.”

Lieutenant Colonel Adam Halstead killed the light of the projector that illuminated the stained film map of Europe labeled “May 7, 1945.” He looked across the room of West Point cadets sitting in the gray light of a mid-December afternoon, light that filtered through a bank of windows and drawn shades to his left. The buzzcuts and bobs were directed backward and the forty pairs of eyes held uncomfortable stares focused on the professor of military history standing behind his projector. The man with the buzzcut beginning to gray at the temples swept across the sea of faces with his own eyes, then looked away. “I want to thank all of you for an excellent semester studying the history of World War Two. Class dismissed.”

The mass exit for the door and the renewed blazing of the overhead lights were coupled with the mumbling of the students comparing notes on their activities of the remainder of the afternoon, and on the study sessions that would ensue before Halstead’s final exam. One cadet approached the professor standing ramrod straight at the back of the room to hand him an overdue paper, and a second approached a bit more hesitantly, saluting and mumbling, “Sir.”

“Yes?” Halstead asked with a glare.

“You and I have a session tomorrow morning to discuss my paper—”

“Yes, at ten-thirty.”

“Well, sir, I was talking to O’Brien,” the cadet continued with a Midwestern twang that grated on the officer’s ears, “and he told me he has a session scheduled in the same slot.”

“Is that so?” Halstead asked with an unsurprised tone. “Well, I’m sure it can be worked out. Just be at my office tomorrow at ten-thirty.”

The cadet took a step away. “Should I tell O’Brien, sir?”