Chapter 4

The words "they're sending a car for you tonight" sat in the room like a stone dropped into shallow water.

Nobody moved for a long time.

Grady looked between Nadia and the colonel, the confusion on his face resolving slowly into something else — the first glimmer of understanding that he'd done something far worse than insult a quiet recruit. He'd ripped the cover off something that was supposed to stay covered.

"Sir," he said, and the word came out thin. "What happens to her?"

Halloway's look told him the question itself was too big for the room. "That depends on what she wants to happen."

Nadia had picked up the torn strip of grey fabric and folded it once, then again. She stood with it in her hand, looking at it, not at them.

"Sir," she said to Halloway. "The car. How long do I have?"

"You're not going anywhere," Halloway said. "Not yet. I need to understand what happened here first."

"Happened, sir?"

"You were in basic training under a name that isn't on our records. You're carrying a mark that hasn't been seen in twenty years. And a room full of private citizens just watched three days of harassment culminate in you being exposed in front of everyone. That's a story I have to be able to tell headquarters without them deciding I'm compromised."

Grady's mouth went dry. "Compromised?"

Halloway didn't even look at him. "Recruit Okafor. If they'd known you were coming, this would have never happened."

"I told them not to tell you," Nadia said quietly.

Every head snapped toward her.

Halloway's face was stone. "You knew I was in charge here?"

"I knew someone was in charge. I didn't need to know who." She paused. "It's cleaner that way. Fewer variables. I don't need anyone carrying the weight of knowing where I go."

"Except your father," Halloway said.

"Except my father."