A few days later, I got a very nice note from Tommy Whitehall, thanking me profusely for everything I did. I can’t say we’d gotten to know each other well, and the circumstances of our relationship were certainly awkward, if that’s the right word to use. I did like him, though. And I thought he was a damned fine officer, too. If I were still an infantry officer, and I was getting ready to go into battle, I’d love to have a guy like Tommy on my flank.

A few days after that, I got an equally nice note from Allie saying she really enjoyed working with me and hoped I was feeling better. She actually gave me her address and phone number in case I ever needed anything. And I decided that maybe my first order of business once I got out of this hellhole was to go look her up and take her to dinner. I mean, she’s not the type I usually take to dinner, since she’s a little tall for me, and there’s that spiky hair, and I knew we’d draw some odd stares, but when you get right down to it, the honor and pleasure would be all mine.

Maria and Allie and Whitehall, and everything else about this case, had certainly forced me to do a lot of hard thinking about whether gays should be allowed to serve openly in the ranks. On the face of it, why not? Is this country really so rich in patriots that it can afford to turn down any Americans who volunteer to spend a few precious years of their lives in its service? And hey, do you ever hear anyone bitching about collecting taxes from gays who admit they’re gays? Right.

On the other hand, I’m just not sure us heteros can handle it. Maybe it’s our problem and not theirs. But it’s still a problem.

Imelda dropped by a few times. She brought my mail and a bottle of castor oil she insisted would cure all ills. She can be fusty and old-fashioned that way. The third time, she sat beside my bed and heckled me to quit faking it and get my ass back to work. She’d never admit it, but I knew she missed having me around.

And what about Imelda? Is she really gay? Nah, I don’t think so. I figured she was just trying to force some fresh air into my closed mind. If you really know Imelda, you know she’s not above a little playacting when it serves her. Like when she came by to see me in my hospital room that last time in Korea. She wasn’t checking on my health. She was there to get the doctor to wake me up, then guilt me into exerting one last breath of effort for Tommy Whitehall. See, Imelda’s that way. She does whatever it takes to get the job done. She’s old Army right down to her OD green undershorts. And if you think Katherine’s devious, Imelda could kick her ass at chess any day.

Then one day I watched on TV as the defense minister of North Korea paid a visit to the South Koreans, and every spinmeister on every talk show began yabbering about the surprisingly sudden breakthrough in relations between these two implacable foes. They called it a miracle, but it wasn’t any miracle.

I mean, North Korea’s lonely and broke and has millions of starving and unhappy people, and no matter how stubborn it is, any idiot can tell the clock’s running out on their future. What I figured was, Choi’s plot was a last-ditch attempt to have it their way. And had it worked, North Korea’s defense minister might still be visiting South Korea, only in a slightly different capacity – at the head of his three-million-man army. Of course, there were no guarantees it wouldn’t eventually end up that way, but the chances were suddenly much smaller.

On the second day of the fourth week, just when I thought I’d go crazy with boredom, I got my first glimpse of hope and salvation. She came waltzing into my room, wearing her usual pinstriped pantsuit with a bulging shopping bag under her arm. She didn’t say anything at first. Instead she grabbed a chair, went over and closed the door, then she actually propped the chair underneath the knob so nobody could peek in.

I sat up in bed and shyly hiked the sheets around my chest.

She walked over and fell onto the edge of my bed. “Hello, Attila.”

I smiled. “Hey, Moonbeam.”

She smiled back. “Wait’ll you see what I brought you.”

She reached into the bag and withdrew guess what? A magnum-size bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. No kidding, it was the biggest damned bottle I’d ever seen, and it was filled with that glorious, throat-searing golden liquid. It must’ve cost at least five or six hundred dollars, I figured. I rubbed my eyes and stared at it.

“Go ahead,” she told me, prodding the bottle in my direction. “I couldn’t afford it on my salary, but OGMM decided you deserved to be compensated for your out-of-pocket expenses.”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, the Army’s got these fairly stiff regulations against accepting a gift that costs over fifty dollars. And from an organization like OGMM, to boot.” Then I yanked the bottle out of her hand. “Of course, when it’s compensation for legitimate expenses, I’m sure that’s a different thing.”

I swiftly screwed off the top and took a long gulp. My eyes actually glazed over and my throat felt like it was on fire.

“Where’s Tommy?” I asked when I could finally speak again.

“He’s home, on leave.”

“Uh-huh. He going to stay in or get out?”

“He hasn’t made up his mind. He has some bitterness. And he knows that if he stays, he’ll be under a microscope.”

“Yeah, tough decision. I guess he’s talking it over with your mom and dad, huh?”

It isn’t often that you surprise Katherine Carlson, but I got her on that one. I mean, I really got her. Her head reeled back and her mouth hung open.

“You knew he was my brother?”

“Hell yeah. The whole time,” I assured her.

“Liar.”

I shrugged. Of course, I should’ve known it when Ernie, Whitehall’s old cadet roomie, told me about that picture Tommy kept on his desk. That had to be a photograph of his sister. Or I should’ve seen the family resemblance any of those times we were together in those cells. I didn’t, though. Not until I saw them both through the camera’s eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Maybe I would’ve been more sensitive. Maybe I wouldn’t have stuffed my foot in my mouth so many times.”

“You? Sensitive? God, Drummond, give me a break.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, I was respecting an old oath.”

“Tell me about it.”

“When Thomas left for West Point, he made the whole family swear we’d stay away from him.”

“Why? Was he ashamed?”

“Maybe a bit, but we didn’t take offense. What we all decided was that he was actually ashamed of the Army, that it could be so closed-minded. The Army wouldn’t have approved of us.”

“Because your parents are hippies?”

“Certainly that. But when Thomas got older he really didn’t approve of their life, either. It just wasn’t for him. Remember that old TV series Family Ties?”

“What? Tommy was Michael J. Fox?”

She chuckled. “To a tee. Everybody in the commune was mystified by him. The rest of us were dressed in hand-me-downs, but Thomas always wore pressed pants and shined shoes. Whenever we played cowboys and Indians, the rest of us would fight to be the oppressed Indians, but Thomas always wanted to be the cavalry officer. Why do you think I call him Thomas, instead of Tom or Tommy? He insisted on it. He was just different.”

“And maybe he was worried about the fact you work for OGMM?”

“That, too.”

I nodded because she had a point. As much as I love the Army, it’s a pretty one-way organization. It’s famous for being one-way. Conformity and uniformity are almost synonymous with the word “Army.” Alternative lifestyles just aren’t real appreciated by the green machine.

I said, “That why you do it? That why you specialize in military gay cases?”

“It might be part of it. You didn’t think I was doing it because I was gay, did you?”

“Hell no,” I lied.