3
Major General Markham of the United States Air Force offered a “Welcome Aboard” greeting that Ivy quickly discovered was indistinguishable from a Drill Sergeant’s first day briefing of new recruits, except with less yelling. He was concise, to the point, and he required one hundred and twenty seconds to impart his sage wisdom. Even appropriate “yes, sir” and “no, sir” comments were superfluous and she abandoned them inside the first fifteen seconds of the one-twenty.
Three minutes after entering the near silent White House Military Office, she was sitting at her desk—one cubical in a pod of four—and feeling a case of vertigo. Her head spun like she was the first-ever person through a starship’s experimental transporter. One moment she’d been flying aboard an HMX-1 Sea King. The next wo
