They took Harrison out through the service corridor at 05:15.

I watched it on the security feed.

No handcuffs yet — that would come later, after the formal processing — but Dana walked directly beside him and the general's aide followed three steps behind.

Harrison didn't look back at the building.

He stared straight ahead, chin level, the way he had been trained to walk into hostile territory.

Old habits.

Marcus stayed.

He refilled his coffee, settled into the chair across from my desk, and waited while I closed the external feeds and ran a full security reset on the door console.

The breach had damaged the outer frame.

The door itself had held better than the manufacturer's specifications promised.

I made a note to send them a letter.

"How long have you been in D.C.?" I asked.

"Six weeks," Marcus said.

"We needed time to verify the transfer records independently before we could move."

"Who's we?"

"Dana's team.

And the general has been aware for about four months." He set his cup down.

"He was the one who contacted me, actually.

After Patricia tried to access a classified naval logistics file in February and the system flagged the anomaly to his office."

"She got greedy."

"She always was," Marcus said.

"Harrison just made it easy for her."

I sat down.

Outside, the Capitol lights were beginning to soften as the sky moved toward gray.

I had been awake for less than an hour and already the day felt like it had been going for years.

"The phrase in the messages," I said.

"*When she's gone.*"

Marcus looked at me steadily.

"We don't believe it was a direct operational plan," he said.

"The current assessment is that it referred to removing you from the network infrastructure.

Forcing you out professionally.

Discrediting you if necessary."

"But you're not certain."

He didn't answer immediately.

That was answer enough.

"There are three messages in the later sequence," he said, "where the phrasing becomes less ambiguous.

Dana's team is working through them.

That's part of why tonight needed to happen when it did."

I sat with that for a moment.

Five years.

I had spent five years building firewalls that protected his communications, managing access credentials for his family, erasing digital footprints that I now understood had never been innocent.

And somewhere in those five years, the conversation had shifted from *use her* to something that required a less polite word.

"You should have told me sooner," I said.

"You were still inside the marriage when we started building the case.

If Harrison had suspected you knew—"

"I know." I cut him off, not unkindly.

"I know."

My secure phone lit up on the desk.

Not Harrison's number.

That line was still blocked.

Patricia Vance.

I looked at the screen for two full rings.

Then I picked up.

"Claire." Her voice was composed.

Warm, even.

The same voice she had used at every family dinner, every holiday, every moment she had wanted something from me while making sure I understood I was a guest in her world.

"I think we should talk."

"It's five-thirty in the morning, Patricia."

"I'm aware.

I've been made aware of quite a few things in the last hour." A pause.

"I'd like to meet.

Today.

Somewhere private."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I think it's a very good idea," she said, and the warmth dropped by precisely one degree.

"There are aspects of this situation that you don't fully understand yet.

Information that could change how you're perceived in all of this.

Information about your own history with the department that Harrison has been holding for some time."

Marcus had gone very still across the desk.

"What kind of information?" I said.

"The kind that becomes relevant when federal investigators start looking at everyone connected to a classified network," Patricia said.

"Not just the people who misused it."

I kept my voice even.

"Are you threatening me, Patricia?"

"I'm offering you a conversation," she said.

"Before things become complicated for both of us."

The line was quiet for a moment.

"I'll be at the Hay-Adams at noon," she said.

"The corner table.

Come alone."

She ended the call before I could respond.

Marcus leaned forward.

"She's trying to establish a private channel before her own exposure is formalized," he said.

"She wants to know what you have and whether there's a version of this where she walks away."

"Is there?"

He picked up his coffee.

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"That depends entirely on what she says at noon," he said.

"And whether you're willing to wear a wire."