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“Not Oscar-worthy?”

Max wagged his hand side to side and smiled “But, then, I know you better than Tate does”

“I thought you were quite convincing,” Overholt said as he walked from the side of the room where he couldn’t have been seen on ca on”

“As long as he didn’t realize that the deepfa

ke softas overridden”

Eric and Hali, ere sitting at the coh-fived each other

“The deactivation was invisible,” Eric said

“I agree,” Juan said “There’s no way he would have continued the conversation if he had known Let’s bring back our friends on-screen, Hali”

“Aye, Chair from both sides”

Juan wished he could have revealed that Tate gave himself away and rubbed in his face the fact that his plan to frame Juan had been utterly wrecked, but Juan had resisted the urge, knowing that tipping Tate off would just a the Portland washis old partner enraged about being bamboozled Tate, on the other hand, would have had no such impulse control

All the ti on in the background, and now the participants in it appeared on the view screen Two people sat at a conference table while a third lounged behind theainst the wall

The first person was Patricia Kubo, Director of the CIA The former senator fro away a headache

“What a mess,” she said in a strained alto “If I hadn’t seen you talking to Zachariah Tate and Catherine Ballard in real tiether We were so sure he was dead, and now he basically ad a US nuclear attack subo ship”

The other seated person had flaray suit Vice President Jainal founder of NUMA, chewed on his unlit cigar and nodded slowly

“True, it’s a mess,” he said “But it’s a et the civilian freighter Avignon There doesn’t seee”