Page 160 of Only the Hunter

Silence. She could tell me to leave.

“You’re not asking questions.”

“Not one,” I concur.

She nods once. “Give me photos. I’ll build the array.”

I give her six names and photos. Hanford is third. Harridan is fifth. I arrange them that way deliberately—not first, not last, no positional bias that a defense attorney could later argue influenced the result. I include two other DOJ officials whose access levels are comparable, a federal judge who overlapped with my caseload, and a name I’m confident is clean, included only to anchor the procedure.

I do all of this before I check my phone.

Before I see that Rebecca Hanford is already in the building.

The interview suite is a standard configuration—table, four chairs, a mirror that everyone pretends is a wall. The man across from Delgado is somewhere in his mid-forties, with the particular physical economy of someone who has spent time being professionally unobtrusive. His lawyer, a private defense attorney whose card I clocked when I came in, sits to his left. She’s good—I recognize the firm.

I sit against the wall, behind Delgado’s sightline, in front of the mirror.

The man doesn’t look at me when I enter. That’s information.

His lawyer does. That’s also information.

Delgado opens with the procedural framework—the parameters of what’s being discussed, what cooperation looks like, what the offer on the table requires. The lawyer responds with the counter-parameters. It’s a conversation I’ve been part of dozens of times from the other side of the table, and I let it run without tracking the specific language because that’s not why I’m here.

I’m watching his hands.

People who are trained to control their faces forget about their hands. The slight tension in the fingers when something lands. The stillness that isn’t natural stillness. I’ve built cross-examinations around hands.

Delgado opens the folder.

“I’m going to show you a series of photographs,” she says. “I’d like you to tell me if you recognize anyone.”

The lawyer nods. The man’s expression stays neutral.

First photo. A federal judge. Nothing.

Second photo. A DOJ official from the Civil Division. Nothing.

Third photo. Rebecca Hanford.

I watch his hands.

Nothing.

I let out a breath so slowly it doesn’t make a sound.

Fourth photo. Another DOJ official. Nothing.

Fifth photo. Michael Harridan.

His right hand flattens against the table.

It’s not dramatic. It’s not a flinch or a recoil. It’s a single, involuntary press of palm to surface—the body’s response to recognition before the mind can edit it, like the body anchoring itself before impact. Two seconds, maybe three. Then his hand relaxes and he looks at Delgado and says nothing, which is what his lawyer has told him to do.

But I saw it.

And Delgado saw it.

And from behind the mirror, someone else saw it too.