Oath of Honor

her upcoming annual leave with her mother and sisters over Christmas,

not dealing with a new job, no place to live, and no idea of what the

next day would bring. She definitely hadn’t planned on attending the

wedding of the year.

All that had changed when she’d gotten a call informing her she

was at the top of a very short list for a job most people in the navy,

let alone the nation, had never even heard of. The anonymity of the

position didn’t bother her—in fact, she preferred working alone and

was happy contributing behind the scenes. The next rung in her planned

career ladder had been a professorship at the Uniformed Services

University where she was stationed. She’d joined the navy because

she’d needed the scholarship to go to medical school, and while she

liked the structure, she was an academic at heart. She wanted to teach,

take care of her patients, and let others wage war. She hadn’t been sure

she wanted a job that was going to throw her into close contact with the

most powerful people in the world on a daily basis. She’d asked for a

day to think it over—they’d given her four hours.

Heading into an unknown situation without the proper preparation

made her wary. Order, discipline, and perseverance had brought her

• 13 •

RADCLYfFE

from her working-class neighborhood in South Philadelphia to the

United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and finally to the National

Military Medical Center in Bethesda. Knowing what she faced—in the

ER, in the field, in life—kept her cool and in control. If she never relied

on anyone or anything to run interference for her, she had no one to

hold accountable for the outcome except herself.

She’d called her best friend Emory for advice—not just because

she’d known Emory since they’d shared a cadaver at Penn, but because

Emory knew intimately the landscape and the people Wes would be

spending every moment of her life with for the next year, or maybe the

next five.

“Are you kidding, Wes?” Emory had said when Wes reached her

en route to the island. “It’s an amazing opportunity. God, you’ll have

a front-and-center for events that might change the future of the whole

world. And you’ll be doing what you’re trained to do.”

“But I’m a teacher, not a clinician,” she’d protested.

“Uh, excuse me—don’t you teach trauma care to military medical

personnel?”

“Yes, but—”

“And didn’t you spend ten months supervising a field hospital—”

“Yes, but—”

“And—”

“Emory,” Wes said patiently, “I suck at politics.”

“Huh.” Emory fell silent for a moment. “This is true.”

“So—”

“Should I mention honor and duty and—”

Wes sighed. “No. I already considered that.”

“And?”

And she’d said yes to this new job because to do otherwise

seemed impossible. She’d rarely been faced with impossible decisions,

and she wasn’t sure yet how she felt about a situation she didn’t

control. Nevertheless, she’d called her boss, Rear Admiral Cal Wright,

and said she was honored to accept, and he’d passed the word up the

chain of command. Her final security interview wasn’t scheduled until

tomorrow, but she’d been told to liaise with her new unit today. Several

teleconferenced interviews and a lot of rushed paperwork later, here

she was.

Short of any more surprises, she’d be moving her hastily packed

• 14 •

Oath Of hOnOr

belongings to a government-provided apartment within walking

distance of the White House as soon as she could arrange movers. Until

then, she’d be in a hotel. She was used to moving at short notice, but

she usually knew what she faced.

1155. In five minutes, she’d find out.

She slowed her rental car as a red pickup truck pulling a battered

fishing boat on a rickety trailer edged onto the narrow two-lane in front

of her. She could just make out a hard-packed-dirt boat ramp half-hidden

in a narrow strip of pines separating the winding coast road from the

pristine shore on the ocean side of the island. The pickup headed in the

opposite direction, probably bound for the huge marina she’d passed

a half mile back. The marina boatslips, marine offices, and waterside

cabins that ringed a narrow-necked inlet were the only commercial

development she’d seen since leaving the mainland.

Mentally she ran down the stats she’d received by e-mail that

morning. Whitley Island was privately owned and home to one of the

largest private military contractors in the nation. Tanner Whitley had

inherited Whitley Industries on the death of her father over a decade

before, and she’d expanded into government security as American

geopolitics exploded globally. Personal info on Whitley was scant.

She lived with a female naval officer, and from what Wes had seen

of the island, industrialization had not followed Tanner Whitley home.

The few visible private residences were separated by large tracts of

untouched evergreen forests and set well back from the undulating

shoreline along the Atlantic. The place was wild and beautiful, even