Tav thought about what ready meant. About the time since the first morning and the burned butter coffee and everything since.
"Yes," he said.
Alistair nodded once.
"Yes," he agreed.
• • •
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
— EVELYN —
Evelyn Hart arrived that night.
She didn't knock dramatically or announce herself through a megaphone. She stood in the hallway outside apartment 15C at 10:47 p.m. and knocked three times with the coded cadence that Ablation used for personnel identification, and when Tav checked the hallway feed on his phone he saw a woman in a black coat standing with the composed patience and every confidence the door would open.
He showed the image to Alistair.
Alistair's expression moved.
"Evelyn," he said.
"Your handler."
"Yes." He studied the screen. "She came herself."
Which meant something. Ablation handlers didn't personally execute final directives — they delegated that. If Evelyn was here alone, it was either an intervention or a warning.
Tav went to the door.
He opened it but did not step back.
Evelyn Hart looked exactly as the word handler should describe: immaculate and contained and professionally warm in the way of people who had learned to deliver all kinds of news behind the same expression. She was perhaps fifty, with dark eyes and the precise posture of someone who had worked around operatives long enough to have absorbed certain qualities from proximity.
She looked at Tav. Looked past him at Alistair, who had appeared in the hallway behind him.
"May I come in?" she said.
Tav stood aside.
She entered the apartment and took in the space with the quiet inventory of a professional, then turned to face both of them. Her expression remained composed.
"The Final Directive has been issued," she said.
The apartment was very still.
"Issued," Tav said. "Not pending."
"Issued this evening, following the incident at the foundation hall." She looked between them.
"Ablation's assessment is that the protocol has produced an attachment of sufficient depth to constitute an operational liability." "They're wrong," Alistair said.
"The assessment was based on monitoring data." Evelyn's voice was level. "The Pairing Protocol has a strict thresholds. You've both exceeded them substantially."
"The monitoring data reflects two people doing their jobs," Tav said.
"The monitoring data reflects two people consistently prioritizing each other over operational parameters." She held his gaze directly. "Last night, you left a primary extraction position to locate Keaton. The action compromised the exit sequence."
