PART 1: The Silence of the Broom
“Are you deaf, old lady? I said, move it.”
The voice was sharp, laced with the unearned confidence of youth, cutting through the humid, metallic hum of the Naval Amphibious Base gym in Coronado.
Evelyn Harper didn’t flinch. She kept her back to the speaker, her rhythm unbroken. Swish. Scrape. Swish. The bristles of her push broom traced the edge of the wrestling mats—a sacred space of exertion and combat, now just another surface gathering dust. To anyone passing by, Evelyn was invisible. She was just the ‘maintenance staff,’ a fixture in a gray uniform, smelling faintly of Pine-Sol and stale coffee. She was seventy years old, her hair white and pulled back in a severe bun, her movements slow but deliberate.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!”
The young Navy SEAL, glistening with sweat and radiating impatience, stepped into her personal space. His shadow swallowed her small frame. Petty Officer Reed. He was twenty-two, built like a Greek statue, and fresh out of BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). He wore his arrogance like a second skin, and right now, that skin was flushed with irritation.
“We need this space,” Reed barked, towel draped around his neck. “Go empty a trash can somewhere else.”
Evelyn stopped. She slowly straightened her spine. It wasn’t a quick movement; it was a mechanical alignment, vertebrae clicking into place one by one—a process that spoke of miles logged and heavy burdens carried long ago.
She turned. Her face was a map of wrinkles, but her eyes—pale, calm green—were startlingly clear. She didn’t speak. She just held the young man’s gaze.
This quiet defiance, this utter lack of intimidation, was the spark that lit the fuse.
Reed wasn’t used to being looked at; he was used to being looked up to. He frowned, puffing out his chest to display the golden Trident pin stitched onto the breast of his workout gear. The Budweiser. The shiny symbol that said he was the elite.
“Let’s be clear,” Reed stated, leaning in, his tone shifting from annoyance to professional contempt. “I’m not asking for your schedule. I am an Active Duty Operator. This mat is needed for immediate mission-essential dry runs. The delay you’re causing costs minutes of training. That costs lives. Do you understand the Chain of Command, or is that too complex for the cleaning lady?”
Evelyn’s eyes drifted down. She wasn’t looking at his muscles. She was looking at the Trident. Her gaze was unreadable.
“The floor needs to be swept,” she said finally. Her voice was soft, like dry leaves skittering on pavement. “Keeps the dust down. Better for your lungs.”
Reed threw his head back and laughed—a loud, theatrical bark that echoed off the steel girders. He looked around at his teammates, seeking an audience.
“Did you hear that, boys? The janitor is giving us medical advice on air quality control!”
He turned back to her, his smile vanishing. “Listen, sweetheart. When your lungs are full of water and sand in a combat zone, you don’t worry about dust. You worry about surviving. That broom is the only ‘weapon’ you’ve ever held. So take it, and shuffle back to the supply closet.”
He punctuated the command by shoving the end of her broom.
Clatter.
The wooden handle hit the polished concrete with a sharp crack.
The gym went silent. The rhythmic clanking of weights stopped. Even the treadmill runners paused.
Evelyn stared at the broom on the floor. A small scuff mark marred the wood. She didn’t look angry. She looked… disappointed. Profoundly weary. She slowly knelt to retrieve it, her movements careful, preserving the dignity of the tool.
As she bent over, the collar of her gray uniform shifted.
Just for a second.
The fluorescent lights caught something on the back of her neck, just below the hairline. The skin was aged, but the ink was still dark, the lines sharp.
Reed didn’t notice. He was too busy gloating.
But Master Chief Grant did.
Grant was leaning against a squat rack across the room, a forty-year veteran who had seen everything from Desert Storm to the mountains of Afghanistan. He usually let the young pups bark; it built character. But when he saw Evelyn bend down, he froze.
He squinted. His heart hammered a sudden, violent rhythm against his ribs.
He knew that symbol. He’d seen it in classified archives. He’d seen it in grainy, black-and-white photos from the 1950s that were stamped EYES ONLY.
It was a Trident. But not the one Reed wore.
This one was black. And it was wrapped in the coils of a sea serpent.
Grant pushed himself off the rack, his face draining of color. That wasn’t just a tattoo. That was the mark of the Mako Unit.
The ghosts.
The Mako Unit was a legend, a rumor, a “deep black” operation from the Korean War. The files said they were an experimental NCDU (Naval Combat Demolition Unit) team. Three people. All female. Tasked with swimming into frozen enemy harbors to cut nets and disable mines with nothing but knives and explosives. They were considered “pre-expendable.” If they were caught, they didn’t exist.
Master Chief Grant looked at the frail woman picking up her broom.
Impossible, he thought. They all died. The mission logs said there were no survivors.
But the tattoo didn’t lie. The specific curvature of the serpent’s tail… that was the signature of a specific tattoo artist in the Philippines in 1951.
Grant started walking. Fast.
Reed was still talking. “That’s better. Now you’re learning your place.”
“Petty Officer Reed!”
Grant’s voice cracked like a whip.
Reed jumped, spinning around. “Master Chief! Just clearing the area, Master Chief.”
Grant didn’t look at Reed. He couldn’t take his eyes off Evelyn. She was standing again, dusting off the broom handle. She met Grant’s stare. There was a flicker of recognition in her eyes. A silent plea: Don’t.
“Is there a problem here, Master Chief?” Reed asked, confused by the intensity.
“Secure your gear, Reed,” Grant said, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and awe. “Get out of my sight. Now.”
“But, Master Chief, the janitor—”
“Her name,” Grant whispered, stepping into Reed’s personal space until their noses almost touched, “is Ms. Harper. And if you speak to her again, I will have you scrubbing latrines with a toothbrush until you retire.”
Reed, bewildered and stung, grabbed his towel and retreated to the locker room, his buddies trailing behind him.
The gym was empty now, save for the Master Chief and the Janitor.
Grant stood at attention. He didn’t mean to, his body just did it.
“Ms. Harper,” he said softly. “I… I saw the mark.”
Evelyn sighed. It was the sigh of a deep ocean current. She adjusted her collar. “It’s just a doodle, Master Chief. From a lifetime ago. Let it be.”
“Mako Unit,” Grant said. “Wonsan Harbor. 1951.”
Evelyn’s grip on the broom tightened. Her knuckles turned white. The air in the gym seemed to drop ten degrees. The smell of Pine-Sol faded, replaced by the phantom scent of diesel fuel and freezing saltwater.
“I was told there were no survivors,” Grant pressed.
“There weren’t,” Evelyn said, her voice hollow. “The girl who swam into that water… she died there. I’m just the ghost who swam back.”
PART 2: THE GHOSTS OF WONSAN HARBOR
The Locker Room: Echoes of Arrogance
The heavy steel door of the locker room slammed shut behind Petty Officer Reed, but it didn’t shut out the burning humiliation that was crawling up his neck. The steam form the showers filled the air, thick with the scent of menthol soap and aggressive masculinity, but Reed felt cold.
He threw his towel onto the bench with a wet thud. The image of Master Chief Grant standing there, eyes wide, treating that… that janitor like she was a visiting Admiral, replayed in his mind on an agonizing loop.
“You okay, man?” It was Miller, one of the newer guys, drying his hair nearby. “The Master Chief looked like he saw a ghost out there.”
Reed scoffed, unlacing his boots with violent jerks. “Grant is losing it,” he spat. “He’s been in the teams too long. Probably got TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) or something. Did you see him? Bowing and scraping to a cleaning lady?”
Reed stood up, peeling off his shirt. He looked at himself in the fogged mirror. The golden Trident pinned to his discarded uniform on the bench seemed to mock him. He had worked three years for that pin. He had survived Hell Week. He had survived the pool comp. He was a warrior. And she was… dust.
“I’m not letting this slide,” Reed announced to the room. A few heads turned. “The gym is a Tier One asset. It’s for operators. Having civilians cluttering up the staging area with mops and buckets during prime training hours is a safety violation. It’s a security risk.”
He grabbed his phone from his locker.
“What are you doing?” Miller asked, a hint of hesitation in his voice.
“I’m filing a formal Hazard Report,” Reed said, his thumbs flying across the screen. “Base Operations needs to know that the janitorial staff is obstructing active duty training. If Grant won’t clear the deck, the bureaucracy will. I’ll have her reassigned to the chaotic mess of the barracks latrines by Monday morning.”
He hit ‘SEND’ on the digital form. A smirk returned to his face. He felt powerful again. He had used the system, the very chain of command he accused Evelyn of not understanding, to crush her. He didn’t know that he had just signed his own professional death warrant.
The Archives: Hunting the Phantom
While Reed was plotting his petty revenge, Master Chief Grant was engaged in a desperate excavation of history.
He hadn’t gone back to his workout. He hadn’t gone to the mess hall. He had gone straight to Building 402—the Naval History & Heritage Command Archives, a dusty, windowless brick building on the far side of the base that most SEALs didn’t even know existed.
The air inside smelled of decaying paper and old glue. Grant flashed his ID to the civilian clerk, a man named Henderson who looked as ancient as the files he guarded.
“I need a lookup,” Grant said, his voice urgent. “Service record. Name is Evelyn Harper. Service dates roughly 1950 to 1953.”
Henderson adjusted his glasses, typing slowly into a computer that looked like it belonged in a museum. “Harper… Harper… barely anything here, Master Chief. Standard discharge. ‘Logistics Support.’ Looks like she was a secretary in San Diego.”
“It’s a cover,” Grant said, leaning over the counter. “Look deeper. Cross-reference with ‘Unit 731’ or ‘Amphibious Scouts.’ Look for the keyword ‘Mako’.”
Henderson stopped typing. He looked up over his spectacles. “Mako? That’s a myth, Master Chief. Old sailors’ talk. Giant squids and female frogmen. None of that is in the digital database.”
“It’s real,” Grant insisted. “I saw the mark. I need the physical files. The restricted stacks.”
Henderson sighed, seeing the intensity in the Master Chief’s eyes. He grabbed a ring of keys. “Follow me. But if the dust gives you an asthma attack, that’s on you.”
They walked down narrow aisles of cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling. It took an hour of digging. Grant’s hands were covered in gray soot. Finally, in a box marked ‘Misc. Naval Assets – Decommissioned – 1952’, he found a manila folder sealed with red wax that had long since cracked.
The label read: PROJECT MAKO – EYES ONLY – ADMIRALTY CLEARANCE.
Grant’s heart hammered against his ribs. He broke the seal.
The first page was a photograph. It was grainy, black and white, taken on a beach somewhere in the Pacific. Three young women stood in wetsuits that looked like modified rubber dry suits, holding Ka-Bar knives and breathing gear that looked dangerously primitive.
In the center was Evelyn. She looked barely eighteen. Her eyes were fierce, staring down the camera lens with a terrifying intensity.
Grant flipped the page to the Mission Report. Most of the text was blacked out with heavy ink, redacted by the CIA or ONI decades ago. But a few phrases jumped out at him, hitting him like physical blows.
…objective: Wonsan Harbor mining net… …water temperature: 34 degrees Fahrenheit… …Team Leader ‘Viper’ K.I.A… …Specialist ‘Siren’ K.I.A… …Specialist Harper (Codename: ‘Ghost’) sole survivor… …Successful detonation of Sector 4… …Estimated casualty prevention: 2,000 Marines…
Grant closed the file. His hands were shaking.
She hadn’t just been a Frogman. She had been the tip of the spear for an entire invasion fleet. She had swum into freezing enemy waters, watched her sisters die, completed the mission alone, and saved two thousand lives.
And Reed had mocked her for sweeping dust.
Grant pulled out his phone. He didn’t care what time it was. He dialed the direct line of Commander Brooks.
“Sir,” Grant said when the Commander answered. “I’m at the archives. You don’t need to come to the gym yet. You need to call Washington. We need the unredacted citation for the Navy Cross. Yes, sir. She has a Navy Cross. And sir? Bring the Marines. We’re going to need a color guard.”
The Memory: The Longest Swim
Back in the supply closet, Evelyn Harper sat on a plastic bucket. The smell of the harsh floor cleaner was usually comforting—it was the smell of order, of cleanliness. But today, the confrontation with the young man had cracked the dam she had built around her memories.
She closed her eyes, and the gym disappeared.
February 14, 1951. North Korea.
The water was black. Not just dark—it was a living, breathing void. The cold was a physical weight, a crushing pressure that tried to squeeze the air out of her lungs and the heat out of her blood.
Evelyn—then just twenty years old—floated on her back, three miles off the coast. Beside her were Sarah and Maria. They bobbed in the swell, their faces smeared with black grease.
“Too cold for a swim, Evie?” Sarah whispered. Her teeth weren’t chattering. They had trained past that. They had trained until the cold was just information, not a sensation.
“Just right for a picnic,” Evelyn whispered back.
They were the Mako Unit. An experiment. The Admirals believed that women had higher cold tolerance and consumed less oxygen, making them ideal for deep-endurance sabotage. They were wrong about the physiology, perhaps, but they were right about the spirit.
“Check gear,” Maria commanded.
Evelyn touched the canvas satchel strapped to her chest. Five pounds of C-4 explosives. A waterproof timer. A knife. No gun. A gun was heavy, and water drag would slow them down. If they were seen, they were dead anyway.
“Let’s go,” Maria said.
They flipped over and began the swim. No splashes. Just the silent, sinister glide of the combat stroke.
They swam for two hours. The cold began to seep into Evelyn’s bones, making her fingers feel like clumsy sausages. Every stroke was a battle against hypothermia.
Then, they hit the net.
It was a steel mesh curtain strung across the harbor mouth, designed to stop American submarines and landing craft. Interspersed in the net were magnetic mines—floating spheres of death waiting for the magnetic signature of a ship’s hull.
Their job was to cut a hole.
“I’ve got the left strut,” Sarah signaled with a hand motion.
Evelyn took the right. She dove. Down into the ink. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Her ears popped. The pressure built behind her eyes. She worked in total darkness, feeling the steel wires with numbing fingers. She used the heavy wire cutters, snapping the thick strands. Snap. Snap. Snap.
She surfaced for air, gasping quietly.
Suddenly, a spotlight swept across the water. A North Korean patrol boat.
“Dive!” Maria hissed.
They went under. But not fast enough.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Heavy machine-gun rounds churned the water into white froth. Bullets lost momentum quickly in water, but at surface level, they were lethal.
Evelyn saw a streak of red in the black water. Sarah.
She saw Sarah’s body go limp, drifting slowly downward into the abyss, the weight of her explosives dragging her to the bottom.
Evelyn wanted to scream. She wanted to dive after her. But Maria grabbed her arm, her grip like iron. The Mission, Maria’s eyes screamed through the murky goggles. Finish it.
They swam to the central mine cluster. Maria set the charges. Evelyn wired the timers. They were working perfectly in sync, a single organism of destruction.
Then, the patrol boat dropped a depth charge.
The shockwave hit Evelyn like a freight train. It threw her backward, tumbling her through the water. Her vision went white. Her lungs felt like they had burst.
When she regained her orientation, she found Maria. Or what was left of her. The shockwave had ruptured Maria’s internal organs. She was floating, still alive, but fading fast.
Maria pulled the pin on the timer. She looked at Evelyn and shoved her away. Go.
Evelyn swam. She swam with tears mixing with the salt water. She swam with the rage of a thousand storms. She swam until her muscles tore and her mind fractured.
Behind her, a dull WHUMP shook the ocean. Then another. A massive geyser of water erupted into the night sky. The minefield was breached. The net was down.
The invasion force could land.
Evelyn crawled onto the rocky beach of the extraction point four hours later. She was hypothermic, bleeding from her ears, and alone.
When the debriefing officer asked her what happened, she simply said, “The way is clear.”
She never spoke of Sarah or Maria again. She locked them in a box in her heart, burying them deep where the grief couldn’t touch her.
Present Day.
Evelyn opened her eyes. A single tear traced a path through the wrinkles on her cheek. She wiped it away with a rough hand.
“The way is clear,” she whispered to the empty closet.
She stood up. She grabbed a fresh bottle of bleach. There was still work to be done.
The Confrontation: The Weight of Paper
The next morning, the tension in the gym was palpable. The rumor mill had been working overtime. Half the base knew that Reed had filed a complaint; the other half knew that Master Chief Grant was on a warpath.
Reed stood near the dumbbell rack, holding a clipboard. He wasn’t working out. He was “collecting evidence.” He was noting times when Evelyn entered the cleaning zone, timing how long she took to empty a bin. It was harassment disguised as bureaucracy.
Evelyn pushed her cart onto the floor. She saw Reed. She saw the clipboard. She knew exactly what he was doing.
She didn’t stop. She began to mop the entryway.
Reed stepped in front of her, blocking her path. He didn’t shout this time. He smiled, a cold, predatory expression.
“Morning, Ms. Harper,” Reed said, tapping the clipboard. “Just letting you know, I’ve got six other guys to sign this statement. We’re documenting the slip hazards you’re creating. You know, at your age, maybe it’s time to retire. The state has homes for people who… struggle.”
It was a low blow. Vile.
“Excuse me,” Evelyn said, trying to step around him.
“I’m just thinking of your safety,” Reed said, stepping to block her again. “And ours. We can’t have senile civilians wandering around a spec-ops facility. It’s embarrassing.”
“That’s enough, Reed!”
The voice boomed from the entrance. It wasn’t Grant.
It was Commander Brooks.
But it wasn’t just Brooks.
Behind the Commander, the double doors were propped open. Two rigid lines of Marines in Dress Blues stood at attention, forming a corridor. Behind them, the morning sun glinted off the sleek black paint of the Commander’s official staff car.
Reed turned, his clipboard clutched to his chest. “Commander? Sir, I was just documenting a safety—”
“Silence,” Brooks said. The word wasn’t shouted; it was dropped like a guillotine blade.
Brooks didn’t look angry. He looked solemn. He was holding a black velvet box. Beside him stood Master Chief Grant, holding a folded American flag.
The entire gym froze. Everyone—from the guys on the bench press to the runners on the treadmills—stopped. The silence was absolute.
Brooks walked onto the mats. He walked in his dress shoes, violating the very rule Reed had been screaming about, but nobody dared say a word.
He walked straight to Evelyn.
“Petty Officer Reed,” Brooks said, his back to the young SEAL. “You have spent the last twenty-four hours filing complaints about this woman. You have called her a hazard. A nuisance. A relic.”
Brooks turned slowly. His eyes bored into Reed.
“I am here to correct the record.”
The Revelation: A History in Blood
Brooks gestured to the Marines. They marched forward, their boots striking the floor in perfect unison, creating a rhythmic thunder that echoed off the walls. They stopped flanking Evelyn Harper.
Evelyn stood clutching her mop handle. She looked at Grant. Grant nodded, a look of profound respect on his face.
“Attention to Orders!” Brooks bellowed.
Every service member in the room instinctively snapped to attention. Even Reed, confused and terrified, straightened his spine.
Brooks opened a folder he was carrying under his arm.
“The President of the United States,” Brooks began, his voice ringing with the cadence of official ceremony, “takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross, retroactively upgraded from the Silver Star, to Petty Officer First Class Evelyn Harper, United States Navy.”
Reed dropped his clipboard. It hit the floor with a loud clatter.
“For extraordinary heroism,” Brooks continued, reading from the unredacted citation, “while serving as Lead Demolition Specialist with the Special Reconnaissance Unit ‘Mako,’ in action against enemy aggressor forces in Wonsan Harbor, North Korea, on 14 February 1951.”
The room swirled. The young SEALs looked at each other in disbelief. 1951? A woman? Lead Specialist?
“Petty Officer Harper, in the face of freezing temperatures and heavy enemy fire, swam three miles into hostile waters without thermal protection. Upon the death of her commanding officer and teammate, Harper assumed command of the mission. Despite sustaining concussion injuries from a nearby depth charge detonation, she successfully manually armed and detonated demolition charges, clearing a path for the 1st Marine Division landing force.”
Brooks paused. He looked at Evelyn.
“Her actions directly saved an estimated two thousand American lives and ensured the success of the amphibious assault. Petty Officer Harper then refused medical evacuation to ensure the classified nature of her unit remained compromised, accepting a discharge into obscurity without recognition.”
Brooks closed the folder.
“She didn’t do it for the medal,” Brooks said, his voice dropping to a conversational, intimate tone that carried to every corner of the room. “She didn’t do it for the patch. She didn’t do it so she could strut around a gym and bully people.”
He turned his gaze to Reed.
“She did it because the job needed to be done. Because her country asked. Because her sisters died next to her, and she kept swimming.”
Brooks walked over to Evelyn. He opened the black velvet box. Inside sat the Navy Cross—the second-highest military decoration for valor that the United States can bestow.
“Ms. Harper,” Brooks said softly. “It’s about fifty years late. But on behalf of a grateful nation… thank you.”
He pinned the medal onto her gray janitor’s uniform, right over her heart.
Evelyn looked down at the medal. Her hand trembled as she touched the cold metal. She wasn’t weeping. She was standing taller than anyone had ever seen her.
“Thank you, Sir,” she whispered.
The Judgment: The Ripping of the Trident
The ceremony was over. But the justice was not.
Commander Brooks turned slowly to face Petty Officer Reed. The young man was pale, sweat beading on his forehead. He looked small. He looked like a child who had been caught playing with fire.
“Front and center, Reed,” Brooks ordered.
Reed walked forward. His legs felt like lead. He stopped five paces from the Commander and the Hero.
“You filed a report,” Brooks said, his voice dangerously calm. “You claimed Ms. Harper was ‘unfit’ for this environment. You claimed she didn’t understand the ‘Warrior Ethos’.”
Brooks stepped closer.
“Tell me, Reed. When was the last time you swam three miles in freezing water while being shot at?”
“Never, Sir,” Reed whispered.
“When was the last time you watched your best friends die and kept working?”
“Never, Sir.”
“Then you know nothing about the Warrior Ethos.”
Brooks reached out. His hand hovered over Reed’s chest.
“The Trident,” Brooks said, “is a symbol. It represents the brotherhood. It represents sacrifice. It represents the protection of the weak. You have used it as a badge of entitlement. You have used it to demean a woman who has forgotten more about courage than you will ever know.”
Brooks grabbed the golden pin on Reed’s uniform.
“You are not worthy of this.”
RIIIIIP.
The sound was agonizingly slow. The threads snapped one by one. Brooks tore the insignia off Reed’s chest with a violent finality. A small hole was left in the fabric, a jagged wound in the uniform.
Reed gasped, a sob escaping his throat. To a SEAL, losing his Trident was worse than death. It was the erasure of his identity.
Brooks held the pin up.
“Master Chief Grant,” Brooks barked.
“Sir!”
“Take this man’s bird. Put it in the safe. If he wants it back, he can earn it. He will re-qualify. And before that, he will serve a ninety-day rotation in Sanitation Maintenance. He will report directly to Ms. Harper. He will sweep her floors. He will empty her trash. And maybe, if he shuts his mouth and opens his eyes, he might learn what it actually means to serve.”
Brooks dropped the pin.
It fell through the air, spinning, and landed with a metallic tink at Evelyn’s feet.
“Dismissed,” Brooks said to Reed.
Reed stood there, shattered. He looked at the Commander. He looked at his teammates, who refused to meet his eyes. Finally, he looked at Evelyn.
He expected her to gloat. He expected her to smile.
She didn’t.
The Resolution: The Clean Line
The gym began to clear out. The Marines marched away. The Commander shook Evelyn’s hand one last time and departed.
Only Evelyn and Reed were left in the center of the room.
Reed stared at the floor. He was crying openly now, silent tears of shame running down his face. He had lost everything in ten minutes. His pride. His status. His identity.
He looked at the pin on the floor. He didn’t dare pick it up.
Evelyn sighed. It was the sigh of a grandmother watching a toddler scrape his knee.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, microfiber cloth—the one she used for polishing the mirrors.
She slowly bent down. Her knees popped, a sound that echoed in the quiet space.
She picked up the Trident.
She held it in her palm. She used the cloth to wipe away the dust from the floor, polishing the gold until it shone under the fluorescent lights.
She stepped forward. Reed flinched, expecting a slap.
Instead, Evelyn reached out and took his hand. Her skin was rough, calloused from decades of hard labor. She pressed the pin into his palm and closed his fingers over it.
“Son,” she said, her voice raspy but warm.
Reed looked up, meeting those pale green eyes.
“The uniform doesn’t make the man,” Evelyn said. “The metal doesn’t make the hero. It’s just jewelry.”
She tapped his chest, right over his heart, where the hole in his uniform was.
“The hero is in here. Or he isn’t. You lost your way. That happens. The ocean is big, and it’s easy to drift.”
She let go of his hand.
“You’ve got ninety days of sweeping to do,” she said, a faint, mischievous smile touching the corner of her lips. “Don’t be late. I run a tight ship.”
Evelyn turned around. She walked back to her cart, grabbed the handle of her push broom, and resumed her work.
Swish. Scrape. Swish.
Reed stood there for a long time, clutching the Trident so hard it cut into his palm. He watched the old woman—the Frogman, the ghost, the hero—methodically cleaning the mats.
He wiped his face. He put the pin in his pocket.
Then, Petty Officer Reed walked over to the supply closet, grabbed a second broom, and walked back out.
He didn’t say a word. He just stepped in line behind Evelyn, three paces back, and began to sweep.
[END OF STORY]
