The jazz band was playing something fast and sad in the corner of the room. Silas Winterbourne stood by the window of his Chicago office, watching the rain streak the glass. Behind him, the man he had just arrested was sitting on a leather couch, waiting.

Dexter Davenport was thirty-one years old and already had the kind of face that made people trust him. High cheekbones, steady eyes, a mouth that looked like it knew how to keep a secret. He wore his West Point class ring on a chain around his neck, not on his finger—too conspicuous, he had said once, when Silas had asked him about it.

"You know what's funny?" Dexter said. He was not looking at Silas. He was looking at the jazz band, at the pianist's hands moving across the keys like they had a mind of their own. "I actually believed you."

Silas turned from the window. "Believed what?"

"That I could fix things. That the war was worth something. That if I just kept doing the right thing, the right thing would keep coming back to me." Dexter smiled. It was a small, broken smile. "I'm a cavalry officer, Silas. I charge things. That's what I do. I don't think about what's on the other side of the charge."

Silas walked to the desk. He picked up a piece of paper—a forged order, signed with a name that didn't belong to him, dated three days ago. It was good forgery. Better than good. It was perfect. And it was his.

"You violated direct orders," Silas said. His voice was calm. It was always calm. "You charged a position that wasn't yours to charge. You put twelve men in the hospital and a battalion in disarray."

"I know what I did."

"Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like a man who's been carrying something too long and finally dropped it."

Dexter looked at him then. Really looked at him. "And what do you see?"

"A man who wants to believe in something again. After the war, after everything we saw—I thought maybe the New Order Association could be that thing. Something worth believing in. Something that made it all mean something."

Silas set the forged order on the desk. "You can still be part of it. You can still make it mean something."

Dexter stared at the paper. He thought about the twelve men in the hospital. He thought about the battalion in disarray. He thought about the letter he had received that morning from Senator Wells, his former commander, the man who had recommended him for promotion and then, in the same letter, made it clear that his daughter Evelyn would never marry a man who couldn't control himself.

He thought about the way Wells had written it—polite, measured, devastating. "I have every confidence in your military abilities, Lieutenant. I wish I could say the same about your judgment when it comes to matters of personal conduct."

"I'm in," Dexter said.