Sixty Four

Exiting the terminal, they saw a beautiful young woman wearing the uniform of an Army captain. Seeing them, she came over and introduced herself as Katrina Murphy. She explained that she was the aide to General Callahan. “By the way,” she added, “to clarify matters, on duty Mike is General Callahan, while Kelly is still General Jackson.” Then she grinned and said, “Of course, if it ever came to having to make a choice, Kelly would dump ‘General Jackson’ and be ‘Mrs. Callahan’ in a heartbeat.”

Introductions were completed and she led the way to an army staff car parked at the curb. As they headed toward Ft. Meade, Kim, seated with Brad in the back seat, said, “I’m curious about something: Katrina, I know that you’re the daughter of President Solov of Russia, but Katrina has never sounded like a Russian name...”

“You’re right. It’s not,” Katrina replied. “My mother was German. She was a dancer ... a very good one, I hear. She danced with both the Kirov and the Bolshoi Ballets. My mother