Captain Gus Lukenbach is a doctor who first joined the Navy as an aviator. He's accustomed to success and hungry for promotion to rear admiral. His next assignment must be a prestigious one if he is to win his star. Senior Medical Officer of an aircraft carrier might do it. But the Bureau of Naval Personnel thinks that medicine and flying don't mix, and Vice Admiral Griffin, head of the Navy's Medical Command, feels Gus hasn't "paid his dues." Griffin can convince the Navy's "barons" to blackball Gus when the selection board meets. Gus goes to billy Caldwell, a retired carrier skipper, for advice. "Navy Medicine isn't the real Navy, Billy," grumbles an agitated Gus. "The admirals in the Pentagon don't hold the ones at BUMED accountable, so they get away with anything short of murder." Neither Gus nor Billy realizes the accuracy of the accusation. Nothing his friends can do will prevent Gus from being sent to the hospital at Newport. The place is run on favoritism and personal whim. For speaking out against the more egregious practices, he's exiled to USNS SOLACE, an ultramodern hospital ship converted from a massive tanker captured in Iraq. The ship is Vice Admiral Griffin's baby, to enhance his legacy. As a personal favor the Chief of Naval Operations authorized the bureaucratic sleight of hand to avoid legislative notice. A junketing congressman discovers the gigantic vessel steaming with the fleet, and denies its legitimacy. On his return to Newport, Gus learns a sailor died in the Alcohol Rehab Drydock: Failure of basic medical practice plain and simple, but the cover-up is already in place. Navy Medicine spares no effort to silence Gus. Not even an unprecedented inspection by the Army Inspector General can stop the vendetta The length to which BUMED will go to terrorize the Lukenbach family is matched only by the subversion perpetrated by his friends to bring about justice, in the astonishing final round of this deadly, high-stakes game.