The diner was Elara's pick: loud room, high-backed booths, three blocks from a barracks.
Close enough that a Defense Force uniform barely drew attention, far enough that the wrong badge still had to cross a street before it became a problem.
The man waiting in the booth was a sergeant in his fifties, gray at the temples.
His cap sat crown-down beside a cup of coffee he had let go cold. Caleb noticed the cap first. A man kept it on when he was only his rank. He took it off when he had decided to speak as himself.
"Caleb, this is Sergeant Okafor," Elara said. "He came to me. I checked him three ways before I let him near you."
"Clean?" Caleb asked.
"Clean enough to risk the meeting. That is not the same thing."
Elara's hand rested on the booth back, not on him. "I'll be at the counter. If anyone comes in wearing the wrong badge, I'll see them before they reach the door."
She went to the counter. Okafor watched her go, then turned his cup a quarter-turn.
