In Leo’s memory, the silence that followed had lasted several minutes. Probably it wasn’t that long.

At last, he’d shrugged.

“Say I do this,” he said. “Would it make me a Triple Mitzvah Man?”

Charlotte’s smile grew larger, but her eyes had been very serious.

“This mitzvah’s mine,” she said. “I’m giving my only child something special. Someone. If he agrees to be her godfather. And promises to take care of her if I can’t.”

Another silence. Leo had swallowed hard. Taken a deep breath. And nodded once.

“OK, I will,” he said. “I promise.”

That was eight years ago.

Where are the child’s parents? Will the child maintain an active relationship with them? Will they call or visit? Explain.

At his kitchen table last night, Leo had felt his eyes go hot and wiped them fiercely. Then he’d stood up to get Mack, carried him back to his tank in the bedroom and hit the sheets.

And this morning in Carol’s office there had been China and all its secrets. And the CIA and NGIA and all their secrets. And all of those secrets adding up to what Carol had rightfully stated could be a recipe for war.

Leo grabbed a pen from the cup on his desk. He was used to writing reports the way every other cop or investigator wrote them. Nothing but the relevant and observed facts of a case.

The form in front of him was different. It wanted him to spell out his thoughts and feelings, and he wasn’t sure he even knew how to do that.

What do you observe to be the child’s understanding of why she has separated/moved from the parent(s)? Explain.

Leo breathed, hesitated, breathed again, tapped the paper with the pen. And wrote,

Rachel Pemstein’s parents are both deceased. Her father died before she was born. Her mother died in a car accident during the cyberstrike of ’23. Her understanding of it...

His hand suddenly froze. He realized he had no clue about Rach’s understanding of their deaths. He’d never asked.

There were plenty of reasons. He had been in the hospital for months while a distant aunt took care of Rach. Afterward he spent several more months on a breathing machine at home. And then he went back to work, and there was the attack on Janus Base. And now there was China and everything else.

Reasons. Good ones, he thought.

But were they, really?

Leo sat there a little longer. Thinking about Charlotte. Thinking about Rachel. Thinking about what he needed to do.

“OK, I will,” he said abruptly into the silence. “I promise.”

A minute later he reached for the phone.

The hack wasn’t difficult or complicated. She just had to be patient, methodical and orderly.