The private conference antechamber next-door to the Grand Round hall smelled of stale filter coffee, ozone, and wet raincoats. Heavy sound draperies dampened the distant roar of political arguments echoing from the assembly floor. There, the plenary session had dissolved into forty-five minutes of emergency recess.
Arthur sat on a low metal stool beside a working mapping table, unlacing the top two eyelets of his right combat boot to relieve the pressure on an old shrapnel ache.
At his feet, Grimm right away took up his standard bivouac position. The six-hundred-two-pound direhound lay with his massive ribs pressed firmly against Arthur’s shins, his scarred chin resting heavily across the steel-capped toe of Arthur’s left boot. His breathing was slow, rhythmic, and heavy. It shook through the sole of Arthur’s foot like the idling hum of an armored carrier engine. Every time Arthur shifted slightly, Grimm let out a faint, grumbling sigh, refusing to budge an inch.
On the filing cabinet across the room, Vesper lay stretched out like a silver ribbon, one hind leg dangling off the edge. Her amber eyes remained fixed on the zinc-coated steel mesh of the ceiling air-flow intake, her notched left ear twitching at intervals of twelve seconds.
