“Oh. No, not going,” she said, a little brighter. But her face fell when she added, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Stanley looked up from the budget on his screen. “How about now? I have a moment.”

“Umm—later would be better,” she said.

That wasn’t like her. He wondered, as he read the wires, what she couldn’t just say, but mostly he thought about how to tell her about the Sissy report. He wanted it to give her more than a boost. He wanted to send her, just launch her.

When the time came, he took her to a conference room and put the DVDs on the big table between them. He wished there were more of a flourish, something in the family of drum rolls or cymbals.

“What’s this?”

She looked, as she usually did, alert but not impatient. At the ready—Vera’s default state.

“This is going to change everything.” It was absurd; he said it anyway.

“That would be nice,” she said, but minus any snark—she meant it.

He slid a piece of paper across the table.

“Take a look.”

She read for a moment, then stopped. “Stanley,” she said, then went on reading. “It’s about MECS,” she whispered a little later, puzzling it out.

“It’s one of fifty pages that mention MECS,” he said. “I just printed one for you.”

“Is this—what is this?”

“This is your pilot. This is what happened to her.”

She had an intense expression. It was—concentration, categorizing, and, he thought, hope.

“It’s from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” he said.

“The Sissy report?” She was bumped up now.

“The Sissy report,” he said. “The one Mitch was trying to get that day.”

“That,” she said. “I felt bad for him. I can’t believe it’s … it’s right here, right on this table.”

“It is.”

“How did you get this?” The admiration, he had wanted to see it from her, and here it was. He wished that his motives could have been pure—that he only wanted it for her, this unexpected triumph from the unseen corner.

“An old friend,” he said. Mabel. He really could call her that.

“Shouldn’t we tell Adam?” She looked distrustful, just somewhat, as if she wasn’t convinced of Stanley’s comportment at such a discovery.

“I met with him today.”

“What did he say?” The hope in her—it was fully ignited now.

“He wants you on this. No distractions.”

She seemed to lift up. “I will—I’m—Stanley, this is—he said that? I’m just—unbelievable … I just—I’ve had—but this—”