Nimec looked out over the sportster’s hood scoop and through the restaurant window and watched its short order cooks working over their deep fryers and grills. Big Eddie’s was a family business that had first opened its doors when Eisenhower was president and stayed under the same family’s continuous management for going on half a century. It still held annual sock hops and for all Nimec knew Big Eddie, if he’d ever existed, continued to run the show. Though more likely it would be Big Eddie Jr. or Big Eddie III.

“Don’t sweat it,” he told Megan. “You’ve had to make your own adjustments. I can see the boss handing over more responsibilities to you. See him easing himself out of things little by little. He’s still Gord. He’s looking healthier. But he isn’t what he was before the bio strike. And he won’t be again, will he?”

Megan looked at him.

“No,” she said. “He won’t.”

Nimec sat facing the windshield for several moments, then turned partially toward her.

“So you see where I am tonight,” he said. “Thinking about changes. The ones that are happening, and the ones that aren’t. And none of it’s in my control.”

Megan nodded. The carhop rolled up with a tray of food in disposable containers and hooked it over the half open window. She reached into her apron pocket to fill her hand with tubs of cocktail sauce, tartar sauce, and ketchup, set them on the tray with the meals, and then asked Nimec if he cared for anything else besides the check. He told her he didn’t, noticed her sweet, easy smile again, and added a generous tip to his payment.

Megan held a hand out over the stick shift.

“Okay, pass me the greasy delights,” she said.

They leaned back in their bucket seats and ate quietly.

“I’ll tell you something,” Megan said after a while. “When you wanted to bring Tom Ricci into a command position with Sword, I was convinced he’d never work out, and went along with the move assuming you’d eventually see how wrong it was. Yet now I feel I’m having to defend the rightness of your choice to you. Tom came through tremendously in Kazakhstan, and then again in Ontario. He lays everything on the line, and it’s probably true that sometimes not all of him comes back from it. But if that costs us, imagine what it has to cost him. How hard it must be to live up to what he demands of himself.”

Nimec considered that a second. He dipped a shrimp into some tartar sauce with his fingers and put it in his mouth.

“You’ll need to keep an eye on Ricci while I’m gone,” he said.

“Yes.”

“There’s a lot of anger and frustration between him and Rollie Thibodeau, and I can see a blowup in the making. It’s pretty clear from all the little things. Like how they say each other’s names. And the way they act whenever they’re together in the same room. You’re going to have to watch out for that, too.”