Chapter 21: The Decision About Reyes

He told them at seven in the morning, when the facility was quiet enough that their voices wouldn't carry.

Vasquez was already at the table when Marcus came in, a cup of tea going cold beside her elbow, a fabrication run spread across the surface — six identity sets for the Westside families who had come through the Baltimore operation and needed new documentation before their existing papers were flagged. She looked up when he entered, read something in his face, and began stacking the fabrication sheets into a single neat pile without being asked.

Carol was leaning against the wall near the window. She had been awake since before five — he'd heard her moving through the east corridor when he'd come back from the checkpoint room, her footsteps measured and quiet, the particular pattern of someone who has stopped pretending sleep is available to her. She had a mug in her hand. She was watching the light change through the reinforced glass in the way she did sometimes, when she thought no one was observing her — not looking at anything specific, just watching, like she was making sure the sky was where she'd left it.