Chapter 7

The debriefing room was a rectangle of pale green paint and fluorescent light.

Nadia had been in a dozen like it over the years. The same metal table, the same two chairs, the same camera in the corner with its red light off. The same feeling of sitting at a table where you are the only person whose name is a problem.

The man across from her was in civilian clothes — khakis, a blue button-down, no tie. He was fifty-ish, grey at the temples, with the kind of face that had learned to show nothing. He introduced himself as Miller, and he didn't offer a hand.

"Recruit Okafor," he said, sitting down across from her. "Or is it something else now?"

"It was always Okafor," she said. "The recruit part was the disguise."

Miller almost smiled. "And the basic training?"

"That was also the disguise. Nobody looks twice at a recruit."

"And yet," Miller said, leaning back, "a recruit named Grady Pruitt looked at you at least four times, and he kept looking."

Nadia said nothing.

"It's going to be all over the closed-circuit communication by morning," Miller said. "A room full of witnesses. A torn shirt. A tattoo. The Colonel who named it out loud. There's no putting that back in the box."

"I didn't put it out of the box."

"No," Miller said. "You didn't. Which is interesting." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Because people like you — people who've been where you've been — are usually extremely careful. They don't join basic training under an alias. They don't allow contact with three hundred strangers in an open field. They don't put themselves in front of that much public exposure."

Nadia's eyes were steady. "It was the best way to disappear."

"Disappear, or advertise?"