“For you, professionally? Somewhere between a letter in your file and the end of your career, and I genuinely can’t narrow it further today.” Kessler picked her glasses back up.

“For the conviction — that’s the one you should be asking about, and I don’t think you have yet.”

“Say it.”

“If a court finds the investigating officer had an irreconcilable conflict and proceeded anyway, everything that flows from her participation is exposed.

Not automatically vacated. Exposed.” She looked at me steadily. “And if that conviction gets vacated, the chain of custody on your architecture reopens.

Everything the government has said for seven years about who owns Project Vanguard gets re-litigated by a man who has nothing left to lose.”