After delivering the report, the runner bobbed and fled.
Reid turned his head just enough to look at Ethan. "Just to confirm that my hearing is still fine, you heard the words I did?"
"Audit and reassignment review," Ethan repeated. "Which is how they say 'we promised to leave you alone until we didn't.'"
"I'll pour you a drink at eleven fifty," Reid said.
"Maybe two," Ethan said.
They shared a look that had too much in it to say out loud.
Then Reid pushed off the rail, clapped Ethan's shoulder once, and walked away with his dish towel slung over one shoulder like a white flag that meant nothing in a place that didn't accept surrender.
…
By noon the council chamber was full.
It wasn't a grand hall, Fort Aegis had no patience left for grand. Rather, it was a reinforced amphitheater carved out of an old hangar.
