“I’ll testify,” Mercer said. “I’ll tell them exactly what I just told you.”

“Sir, that’s going to hurt me.”

“Yes,” said General Mercer. “It’s going to hurt me considerably more, and I’m going to do it anyway, and Evelyn — ” he waited until I looked at him ” — you’re going to be glad of it in about four years.”

Chapter 15 — The Question I Was Asked

The Inspector General hearing convened on the ninth of April in a windowless room in Alexandria with a panel of three and counsel for the IG, a careful, unhurried man named Alden Reeve.

Kessler’s instruction, given eleven times in eleven different ways over six weeks, was simple: keep every answer inside the question, volunteer nothing, and do not, under any circumstances, explain myself.

I want to record that she was right and that I did not take her advice.