Above
The Line

Below the line, loyalty is personal.
Above it, loyalty has a price.

Sergeant Daniel Reade has spent his war below the line, where the plan belongs to someone else and the cost belongs to the men who carry it out. Now the Army wants to make him an officer.

He goes back to school in Vermont, a combat veteran among teenagers, with Sarah beside him and a sealed letter from an officer he swore he would never read. Then Fort Benning. Then Fort Drum. Then a rifle platoon of his own at a small outpost in Khoristan, in the valley next to the one where his father died.

His company commander is polished, careful and quick to take credit for the fix Daniel made on the ground. His interpreter grew up in a village where Daniel’s father once wrote down the names of the children. And an old enemy is still keeping a ledger.

Then Daniel writes an order, knowing what it will most likely cost, and signs his name to it.

His evaluation comes back in three sentences. The last one reads: Requires continued observation.

Some letters you open because you have to.

Above the Line is Book Three of The Daniel Reade Novels. It follows The Second Voice and Same Valley.