The veins in General Eiling's forehead had graduated from "mildly irritated" to "medically concerning."
"You've been living too well," he snarled at the soldiers picking themselves off the floor. "You've forgotten what you're allowed to do in this army and what you are absolutely, categorically not allowed to do. Get out of my sight — every last one of you. I don't have time to deal with a bunch of useless bastards right now." His voice dropped to something quieter and far more dangerous. "And remember — your military careers end here."
That landed. Fear flickered across their faces, chased immediately by resentment — a combination Eiling had perfected over the years. But resentment without spine is just noise, and not one of them had the spine to make a sound. They filed out of the interrogation room in shameful silence.
Eiling turned to Jude.
He grabbed the chair — Jude still zip-tied to it — and hauled the whole arrangement upright with one hand. He studied the man's expression: glassy, unfocused, lips still faintly moving like he was savoring something.
Eiling's jaw tightened.
"Was the beer good?"
The question seemed to reach Jude from a very great distance. He blinked. Smacked his lips once, thoughtfully.
"Not bad," he said. "Could've used more of it, though."
Eiling's foot was already swinging back for a kick when Jude snapped to attention.
"Wait — wait. I know what you want! Stop hitting me! I know what you want!"
The general's foot stopped mid-arc. His eyes sharpened.
This was interesting.
What had begun as a purely personal grudge — the satisfaction of watching someone who'd annoyed him get worked over — had just mutated into something with actual operational value. Eiling hadn't planned for that. He smiled, slow and deliberate, the kind of smile that didn't reach anything behind his eyes.
"You'd better mean that." He leaned in close. "Don't think I won't know if you're feeding me lie just to avoid another round. I'll knock your teeth in one by one until something useful falls out."
In the back of his skull, Jude was laughing.
Oh, the irony. Ever since he'd absorbed master-level unarmed combat skills, his body had become something of a precision instrument — including its ability to absorb punishment. The punch yesterday, the kicks today — he'd rolled with every one of them, redirecting force through controlled muscle tension before it could do any real damage. Bruised on the outside. Fine underneath.
But he kept his face appropriately pained. He was committed to the performance.
"You're looking for a woman," Jude said. "Leather jacket, leather pants. Blonde. Very pretty. The kind of pretty that makes you want to cross the street."
Something warm moved through Eiling's expression — the closest he got to pleased.
"Good," he said. "Tell me where she is, and you walk."
"How do I know you'll keep your word?"
"Do you have a choice?"
Jude sat with that for a moment. Then he sighed — the long, resigned exhale of a man negotiating with gravity.
"I want to leave this base with you. Today. The moment you find her, you release me on the spot. That's the deal."
Eiling's smile spread. He thinks I'll honor that. The punches hadn't just loosened his mouth — they'd apparently rattled something loose upstairs. He agreed immediately, magnanimously, the way a man agrees to something he has no intention of doing.
"Absolutely. You have my word."
A knock at the interrogation room door.
"Sir." A soldier stepped in, expression carefully neutral. "A large number of reporters have surrounded your wife's building. They're asking for an interview."
Eiling stared at him.
Reporters.
He turned the word over, looking for an angle that made sense. Yesterday at the police station — was it that? But he'd brought a small detail, detained one Asian man, dismissed two officers. Routine. The press corps had never shown teeth over anything like that before. One call invoking military confidentiality and they'd fold like wet paper. They always did. That was the arrangement. That was how this city worked.
What is going on?
He dragged Jude up from the chair and hauled him toward the door.
He drove deliberately wide of his wife's building, taking the long route to loop through the adjacent alley. From there he could see the street. Sure enough — cameras, microphones, a full press scrum pressed against the front entrance like it was a premiere.
Eiling stared, jaw working. His wife was inside, probably ignoring them entirely. He'd deal with this later. Bette was the priority.
He put the car in gear.
The engine coughed once and died.
"What—"
He turned the key. Nothing. He turned it again. A sound like a small mechanical animal giving up on life, and then silence.
"Damn it. Why now—"
"That's General Eiling's car!"
The voice came from the street — clear, loud, immediate. Eiling watched in real-time as a wall of reporters pivoted in unison, identified the vehicle, and began moving toward it with the terrifying collective momentum of people who had questions and deadlines.
He snatched the walkie-talkie.
"I need a pickup — now. My car's dead. Whoever's behind me, get here immediately—"
But reporters, it turned out, moved faster than military escorts. Within seconds the car was surrounded. A forest of microphones pressed against the windows. Camera flashes went off like a strobe.
Eiling glanced in the rearview mirror. Jude was sitting very still in the back seat, looking cooperative and harmless and — Eiling had the unpleasant sensation — faintly amused.
He rolled the window down an inch. His voice was ice.
"Whatever you think you're doing, you are interfering with an active military operation. Consider the consequences very carefully."
The crowd surged louder.
"General Eiling — is that the same justification you used when you broke into the Central City Police Department yesterday? When you assaulted and detained an innocent civilian? When you unilaterally dismissed two serving police officers?"
His expression didn't change. "Every action I took was legal, authorized, and operationally necessary. I am not at liberty to disclose classified details to the press."
"So you're confirming those events occurred?"
"General Eiling — can you address the growing claims that your conduct reflects a pattern of extreme racial bias?"
"Why did you specifically target Detectives Singh and West for dismissal? Is it because they're minorities?"
"Did you use your authority to remove Officer Singh because of his ethnic background? And Detective West — was his dismissal racially motivated?"
"Admiral Eiling, there are videos circulating. Hundreds of comments from minority service members and civilians claiming they were targeted by you personally. Do you have a response?"
"Admiral Eiling—"
"Admiral Eiling—"
The voices collapsed into each other, a wall of noise arriving from every direction at once.
Eiling sat very still inside his dead car, surrounded by cameras, his carefully constructed world contracting around him with every passing second.
For the first time in a long time, General Eiling had nothing to say.