The hearing room was a cavern of marble and mahogany, designed to intimidate. Rows of leather chairs curved in a semicircle around a raised dais, where thirteen members of the Joint Oversight Committee sat behind a long, polished table. The walls were lined with portraits of dead statesmen, their painted eyes staring down at the proceedings with expressions of stern disapproval. The air smelled of furniture polish and old paper and the faint, metallic tang of anxiety.
Caleb Merrick sat at the witness table, his hands folded in front of him, his face carefully neutral. He had dressed for the occasion—a dark suit that the federal marshals had provided, the fabric stiff and unfamiliar against his skin. The wound in his side had healed enough that he could sit without wincing, though the ache
