He did not turn on the overhead switch.

“Albright is a reasonable man,” Cole said, taking two steps into the study.

“He knows what a public trial would do to the recruiting numbers this quarter.”

“He knows what it would do to his own nomination for the Joint Chiefs,” I replied.

“That too,” Cole admitted.

“But you don’t have to be the one who burns the house down, Eleanor.”

“My father didn’t burn it,” I said, my hand tightening on the strap of my satchel.

“You did, when you signed his name to those manifests.”

Cole was silent for a moment.

I could hear the rain starting to tap against the windowpane behind me, a steady, rhythmic clicking.

“He was going to ruin us all for thirty-two crates of obsolete hardware,” Cole said.

“They were going to local militias who were helping us secure the border.”

“They were sold to the highest bidder, Cole,” I said.

“One of those missiles took down an transport helicopter three weeks later near Jalalabad.”

“You can’t prove that,” he said, his tone dropping an octave.