“You flatter yourself.”
I ignored him.
“They also knew General Shepard would be here.”
Shepard looked toward Margaret.
“My visit was restricted to senior staff.”
Margaret’s lips thinned.
“Then someone in senior channels is compromised.”
A silence followed that had teeth.
Ethan rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Why? Why drag Claire into this?”
I looked at the black fabric.
“Because Reaper One isn’t dead.”
Shepard’s hand slipped from the chair.
For a moment, all the command authority in him vanished, leaving only a man haunted by an impossible sentence.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“I saw him,” I said.
Margaret’s eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago. Ankara.”
Ethan stared at me.
“You told me you were consulting in Berlin.”
“I was.”
“That’s not—”
“I took a detour.”
His laugh was small, wounded, disbelieving.
“A detour to Turkey?”
I kept my eyes on Shepard.
“I was leaving a meeting when I saw a man across the street. Same gait. Same shoulder drop from the shrapnel injury outside Al-Qaim. He turned before I could reach him.”
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