I knocked once, the sound echoing off the painted brick walls.

The door opened almost immediately.

Marcus Vance was a tall man in his late forty, his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled to his elbows.

His eyes went straight to the bulk under my coat.

“You’re Eleanor Harrington,” he said, stepping back to let me pass.

“Eleanor Vale,” I corrected him.

“Come in,” he said, closing the door behind me and locking it.

The room was small, crowded with green metal filing cabinets and a heavy wooden desk.

On the desk sat a secure government laptop and a half-empty cup of cold coffee.

“You sent the encrypted summary,” Vance said, leaning against the edge of the desk.

“The Senator read it twenty minutes ago.”

“He wants to know if the signatures in the original logbook are authentic.”

“They are,” I said.

I pulled the plastic sleeve from my coat and laid it on the desk.

I unzipped the plastic and slid the heavy canvas book out.

Vance did not touch it immediately.

He looked at the gold-embossed seal of the military intelligence unit on the cover.