The second was a photograph I should have handed to someone in 2019.

“This came to my secure phone eleven days after Thorne’s arraignment,” I said, and put it on the table.

Daniel was just a foolish middleman. Vanguard belongs to us. You kicked the hornet’s nest, Colonel Shaw. We see you.

And beneath it, the image. Me in the NICU. Milk-stained, hollowed out, holding four pounds of my son in one hand. Shot from the ceiling angle of Walter Reed’s internal CCTV.

Nandakumar looked at it for a long time.

“When did you report this?”