Thirty seconds later, I’m in an elevator with a man—no, a boy—not much older than Steven. For no reason I understand, I think of what he might have been like as a college kid, sucking cheap beer through a funnel bong, pledging at a fraternity, dragging himself sleepy-eyed to an early-morning calculus class.

“Did you go to college?” I ask.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did you major in?” I’m thinking poli-sci or prelaw or history.

He stiffens next to me but doesn’t turn. “Philosophy, ma’am.”

“They teach you how to fire one of those in Epistemology 101?” I say, nodding to the service piece on his hip. I expect him to clam up, tell me it’s none of my business. Move along now, ma’am. Nothing to see here.

But he doesn’t. Instead, his lower lip trembles slightly, and I see the boy inside Sergeant Petroski’s smart uniform.

“No, ma’am,” he says.

The old saying goes Keep a stiff upper lip, but as I watch his reflection in the polished steel walls of the elevator, I think that it isn’t the upper lip we need to worry about. The bottom one gives our terror away. Every single time.

I decide not to torture him with further questions. Petroski’s only a boy, after all, a kid who took a wrong turn at a sign somewhere along life’s road, not so different from Steven. Although Steven, after a brief detour, turned back. Maybe this one will, too.

“There’s still time,” I say, not really knowing whether I’m talking to the young soldier or to myself.

The elevator doors slide open into their hidden pockets at the same time a mechanical voice—female, it turns out—says “Floor Five,” and the young Petroski turns slightly, extending his arm, showing me out. It’s so quick, I almost miss it, the three measured blinks of his eyes.

Blink once for yes, twice for no.

Or three times for Not Pure.

I bat my eyes at him, a gesture that the cameras might pick up, or not, but if they do, I can make something up. A bug in my eye, a stray lash, strain.

“Let’s go,” I say.

On Saturday afternoon, the fifth-floor corridor should be a ghost town, all those generals and admirals out golfing or batting tennis balls or playing Axis and Allies in their basements. But every office door is open, and behind every door is a man at a desk, busy and focused.

The third door on my right after we’ve left the elevator bank has a brass nameplate with WINTERS, J. on it. Inside, the man behind the desk looks up from his work, scowls, and returns to reading. He’s the same one I saw yesterday afternoon, and the same name I read on the Gold team’s list last night.