“Kowalski, good to hear from you. What’s wrong?”
“Sir, I’m at the Oak Barrel Diner off Route 9,” Frank said, his eyes fixed on the scene. Raymond was now slowly, painfully, pushing himself out of the booth. “There’s a situation here. An elderly gentleman, VFW blazer, garrison cap. He’s got a rack of medals you could see from space.”
There was a pause on the other end.
“Describe him.”
“Eighty-something. Silver hair. Steady as a rock even with these kids screaming in his face. Sir, I think it’s him.”
Frank’s voice dropped even lower.
“I think it’s Clark. Raymond Clark.”
The silence on the line was now heavy, absolute.
Then Thorne’s voice returned, stripped of all pleasantries, cold and hard as granite.
“Are you certain, Kowalski?”
“The Silver Star is center on his rack, sir. It’s Gunny Clark. I’m sure of it. And they’re throwing him out. A bunch of college kids and the manager. They’re making him leave right now.”
“Stay there, Master Sergeant,” Thorne commanded.
The use of Frank’s old rank was not a suggestion.
It was an order.
“Do not engage. Do not let him leave the property if you can help it. I am handling this. We are five minutes out.”
The line went dead.
Frank Kowalski slipped his phone back into his pocket.
He took a deep breath.
The cavalry was coming.
The call ended in a spartan, impeccably organized office at a Marine Corps recruiting station two miles away.
Sergeant Major Marcus Thorne, a man whose physical presence seemed to bend the very air around him, stood up so fast his heavy oak chair shot backward and slammed against the wall. His face, a road map of discipline and hard-won experience, was a thundercloud of disbelief and fury.