She passed through the small town of Fort Montgomery and took the turnoff on 218 into Highland Falls, the town that lay just outside the main gate to the Academy.
Since Trace’s day, the Academy had expanded south, gobbling up what used to be Ladycliff College on the river side of the town and turning it into an extension of itself, housing the museum and a brand-new visitors’ center.
Trace had not been back to West Point since graduation and she turned into the visitor center to get acquainted with any further changes that might have occurred since her day.
Besides, she was still somewhat at a loss about how to proceed. She didn’t exactly envision herself digging up Custer’s grave on a bright, wintery Sunday morning. That might attract a bit of unwanted attention. She had never been in the cemetery during her time as a cadet and she had no idea how many people visited it or how accessible Custer’s grave was.
Despite the early hours, busloads of tourists were there at the center, eager to see how their tax dollars were being spent. Their official tour guides were the wives of officers assigned to West Point — a keen public relations move. The women could talk about their “husband’s cadets,” in a motherly tone, giving the impression of the Academy being one big happy family. That there were numerous off-limits signs posted all over the Academy saying “Authorized Personnel Only,” wasn’t noticed by most of the tourists. The signs blocked off all the barracks and academic areas from the public. A less naive person might wonder what it was the Academy didn’t want the public to see. After all, there was no classified training going on at the Academy and it was fully funded by the taxpayer.
Trace walked past a group waiting to board their bus and entered the center. A large gift shop to the right sold practically every article of clothing ever made with the valuable addition of a West Point emblem stenciled on it, along with assorted coffee mugs, glasses, pennants, bumper stickers, and posters. In the other direction, an area housed several displays telling about “life” at the Academy.
Trace veered left and stopped in front of a display, staring across the velvet ropes at a “typical cadet’s room.”
She was reminded of the different rooms she had inhabited in New South Barracks. Memories came back to her in waves, each one leaving a trail of emotion as the thought receded: the cold, winter nights that never seemed to end until they turned into bitter, gray mornings where plebe roommates would talk to each other only to pass essential survival information like who the officer of the day was, while they prepared their room for the daily AM — morning inspection; the sunny spring days with the trees high up on the cliff behind the barracks just beginning to show green and having the feeling in her chest that she just wanted to explode and be somewhere else and be doing anything else, not sitting here in her room studying Napoleon’s campaigns, afraid to walk out the door for fear of being stopped and hazed.
Trace had heard that there were some plebes who were so afraid of leaving their room to go to the latrine that they urinated in the sinks in their rooms. She was glad she had never been that desperate, although she and her roommate had ended up eating toothpaste, they’d been so starved in the third week of Beast Barracks. Toothpaste was authorized, but they couldn’t buy food at the small cadet store.
They’d been broken, some swiftly, some more slowly, depending on the strength of character each individual brought on R Day. By the end of the first day each new cadet had received a hair cut, been put in uniform, and marched in formation to Trophy Point where they’d sworn their oath of allegiance to the United States. By that time, half of them would have marched in step into the Hudson if told to do so, they were so disoriented. And instead of backing off, the pressure had increased through the years at the Academy until what resulted was a “graduate,” able to recite MacArthur’s duty-honor-country speech and the number and weight of the links in the Great Chain.
But they were not only supposed to be able to recite facts. Trace knew. They were supposed live Duty-Honor Country And she had tried as best she could for thirteen years in the Army. But something had gone wrong, badly wrong.
Trace curled her fingers around the rope blocking off the room and tried to remember who she was before she arrived at the Academy.
Because she now realized she no longer was who she had been when she’d graduated. And since her four years at the Academy had taken her previous life from her, she felt totally empty and drained.
Tears flowed for the second time in twenty-four hours, but these were not tears of anger, but tears of profound loss for the idealistic seventeen-year-old girl who had walked into a meat grinder in 1978 and seventeen years later finally realized she had gained nothing and lost everything.
From the visitor center it was only 200 yards to the main gate of the Academy grounds proper. As Trace drove to the gate, she wasn’t surprised when the military policewoman on duty waved her through despite the fact she had no Department of Defense decal on the windshield of the rental allowing access to the post. Because it was such a tourist attraction. West Point was an “open” post, meaning that anyone could enter.
Behind Trace, the MP’s head swiveled and noted the license tag. The MP dashed inside the small building that stood in the middle of the gate and picked up the phone.
She dialed the duty NCO at the Provost Marshall’s office.
On the other side of post, the duty NCO put down the phone and looked in the instruction binder he was issued when coming on duty. A new piece of paper had been paper-clipped to the front of it. The description of Trace’s car and its license tag number was there, with orders to be on the lookout and to report it if spotted to the phone number listed. The NCO noted that since the phone number had only five digits, it had to be on-post. He dialed and it was picked up on the first ring.
“Major Quincy.”
“Sir, this is Sergeant Taylor at the Provost Marshall’s office. We’ve spotted that red Beretta coming through Thayer Gate.”
“How long ago?”
“Not more than a minute. Do you want me to alert my patrols?”
“Negative,” the major said.
“Just order your people on patrol to look for it. If it’s spotted, your people are not to approach but simply to keep the car under observation and report to. you. You will immediately give me a call.
Is that clear, sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I say again, you are only to report back to me. Your people are not to approach the vehicle or alarm the driver in any way.”
“Yes, sir.”
The phone went dead. Sergeant Taylor was curious and also somewhat irritated with the officer’s attitude. He pulled out the reverse directory phone listing for West Point and looked up the number he had just called, wondering what office he had talked to. The five digits were listed under the office of the superintendent.
Taylor’s irritation disappeared. Whatever was going on was at the highest levels possible at the Academy, and one thing Taylor had learned after three years of duty at the Academy: there was the law, then there was the super intendant law, and the second one had overuled the first one on more than one occasion in Taylor’s experience. He remembered the time an MP had caught a pair of male cadets, naked and in a rather awkward carnal position up at Redoubt Number 4. The two cadets had been gone from the Academy the very next day and the MP shipped off to Korea with orders to keep his mouth shut. The story never made the blotter report or the news and that was the way West Point wanted it.
In the same manner suicides among the Corps of Cadets were totally blanketed with secrecy along with drunken accidents by senior cadets in their shiny new cars. Avoiding negative publicity was more important than anything else, even the law. Taylor wondered what the driver of the Beretta had done to draw the attention of the superintendant’s office.