Sandy stiffened, just a little, and the effect was almost as if he'd been slapped. He sat up a straighter and picked up his cards to neaten them before placing them closer to Scott on the table.

He was a realist, no doubts about that. Practical, when it came to most things. But the JSA wasn't most things. And his honor and his duty, to his legacy and to the organization, was one of the few things that could actually throw him out of his perpetual fatigue and depression into something else.

Like anger.

"My chairman gave me an assignment," was his answer, curt and 'professional' for a given value of professional.