“I told you, he is—”

“He is Arthur Hale,” the Senator interrupted.

“The Arthur Hale.”

Sheriff Mercer looked back and forth between them, confused.

“I don’t care what his name is, Senator,” Mercer said. “He is on private property.”

“You idiot,” the Senator said, turning on the sheriff.

“If this man wanted us dead, we would already be bleeding on this carpet,” the Senator added.

“He is not a gardener.”

The Senator looked back at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror.

“He was the lead operative for the classified black-budget division,” the Senator said.

“The vanguard of the special projects group.”

“The man who dismantled the cartel in Bogota single-handed,” the Senator added.

Charles slowly set his glass down on the desk.

The confidence in his face began to fracture.

“That is classified,” I said quietly.

“You should not be speaking about it, Senator.”

The Senator swallowed hard and took another step back.

“I read the redacted files during the Senate oversight hearings,” the Senator said.

“Your unit did not exist on paper.”

“But your signature was on the execution orders,” the Senator added.