I told him in the study.
Same room. Same fire. Same man at the desk at five in the morning, the hour he claimed belonged to border reports but had quietly become the hour he simply waited for me to find him.
I closed the door behind me. I crossed the room toward him. He stood, already reading my face the way he had learned to read it over these weeks, already understanding that something significant had walked into the room alongside me.
I showed him the image.
He looked at it.
Then at me.
Then at it again, his eyes moving back and forth between the small grainy still and my face as though checking one against the other for some confirmation he was not yet willing to trust.
He sat down.
Same as last time, on the edge of the desk, his legs apparently not quite reliable enough to kee
