Her fingers obeyed before her mind caught up. The book shut with a soft snap that sounded, in the stillness, much louder than it was. She held it against her duty belt with both hands, as if it might spring open again and go on accusing an eighty-two-year-old man of offenses she had been so sure of an hour ago.
"Sir," he said. "Sergeant Major, I have to ask. Fort Benning — excuse me, that's an old habit, I know the name's changed — the recon instructor course, in the eighties. Were you—"
"I was there a while," James said.
"I thought so." Reed let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "My drill instructor at my first school was a hard man named Delaney. Staff Sergeant Tom Delaney. Every story he told when he wanted us to understand the difference between being strict and being fair started the same way. 'Sergeant Major Harris would have had your hide for that — and then he would have stayed up half the night making sure you understood why.' I heard your name for sixteen weeks before I ever saw a picture of you. I didn't place it until the colonel started talking. I should have."
"You weren't issued my picture with your badge, Sergeant," James said, and there was the faintest dry humor in it. "You can't be faulted for that."
Ortiz stepped forward again. "Sergeant Major, with your permission, the men would like—"
"No," James said.
"Have them stand at ease, Daniel," James said. "They've been standing like fence posts in the sun long enough, for no reason that serves anybody. I'm an old man on a motorcycle who got pulled over on a highway. That's all that's happened here that concerns them. The rest is tomorrow, at the post, where it belongs."
"Sir, they rendered honors because—"
"I know why they did it, and I thank them for the intention of it." James looked past Ortiz to the line of soldiers and raised his voice just enough for the last man to hear. "At ease, gentlemen. Please. And thank you. That's an order, if you need it to be one, though I'd rather it was just a request from somebody who's stood where you're standing and knows how hot a road gets through boot leather by mid-morning."
That undid her more than anger would have. She had been braced for humiliation — for Ortiz to demand her badge number, for the old man to turn the full weight of who he was on her in front of a company of soldiers. Instead he stood in the sun with his helmet in his hand, waiting, as patient as when she had been writing him up for offenses he had politely told her he had not committed.
"I was wrong," she said. The words came out scraped. "Not just about who you are. I was wrong before that. You told me your registration was in the saddlebag and I didn't want to hear it. You told me the plate light was working this morning and I—" She stopped. "I had made up my mind what kind of stop this was before I got out of the car, sir. My mind was made up about men on motorcycles a long time before today, and I brought all of that with me. I'm sorry. I am truly sorry."
James studied her for a moment. "What's your first name, Officer Carter?"
She blinked. "Emily, sir."
"Emily." He nodded, as if filing it away with care. "My wife was a nurse. Margaret. Maggie. She had a saying for days when somebody came into her emergency room already braced for the worst and took it out on whoever was nearest: 'Grief makes people certain about the wrong things.' I don't know your story, and it's not my business. But nobody gets as set on a subject as you were set this morning without a reason underneath it. That doesn't make the stop right. It just means I understand there's more to it than a citation book."
"Now," James said, brisker, as if enough grace had been dispensed and it was time to be practical, "because it matters that it be said out loud in front of witnesses, and then we can let it go — my documents were in order, Officer. License current. Registration current, in the left saddlebag, where I told you it was. Insurance card with it. I wasn't speeding — I was doing fifty-two in a fifty-five, because this old machine likes fifty-two and so do I, at my age. I say it not to rub your nose in it, but because tomorrow people will hear a version of this morning, and I'd like the record straight. You were doing a job out here. You were doing it harder than it needed to be done, and on the wrong man — but I know the difference between a bad officer and an officer having a bad, wrong-headed morning. I don't believe you're the first kind."
Ortiz cleared his throat. "Sergeant Major, if I may get us back on the road — we have a staff car. Air conditioning, a driver, room for your bag. You could ride in comfort and we'll trailer the motorcycle, or one of my men can ride it in. You've had a morning. Nobody would think less—"