“That’s as crazy as going out in this storm. She told you that?”

“She didn’t. But I’ve no question in my mind that’s what happened. She knows things, Dad. All sorts of things. And now she needs help. When a good friend needs help, you don’t call on somebody else. You go yourself.”

The words struck a chord deep within Tom. Yes, he knew that. He’d been taught that. He’d lived that. But where had Jack come by it?

And yet he couldn’t allow himself to bend here, couldn’t let Jack go out into that storm against twenty men.

“Where’s that written?”

Jack slipped out from under the table and rose to his feet, his face barely a foot away. He tapped a finger on the center of his forehead.

“In here. Right in here.”

Yes…that was where it would be. But not the only place.

He tapped his son’s chest, over the heart. “In there too.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. There too.”

And as they stood staring at each other, Tom flashed back to Korea. That had been the Marine code: Nobody gets left behind. At least nobody still breathing. Sometimes you had to leave your dead, but you never left your living. If someone was stranded, or hurt and unable to get out on his own, you went in and got him.

And you didn’t call on anyone else because there wasn’t anyone better. You were US Marines, the toughest sons of bitches on earth. It was a matter of pride. If you couldn’t do it, no one could.

Back at Chosin, when Tom took that piece of shrapnel in the gut, he’d radioed in that he’d been hit and couldn’t make it out. He’d expected his buddies to want to come and get him, but figured there was no way with all the shit coming down on the Fifth. But damned if three of them hadn’t shown up after dark and carried him out.

“Help me lift off this top,” Jack said.

“What on earth for?”

“Let’s just do it.”

Tom grabbed one side, Jack the other. They lifted it, tilted it, and leaned it against the kitchenette counter. Then Jack reached into the hollow interior of the post and came up with a black plastic bag. Its lumpy contents clunked together as he laid it on the counter.

“What the hell? How’d that get in there?”

“I put it in the other day. Let me tell you, I had one hell of a time maneuvering that tabletop around on my own.”

“But what’ve you got in there?”