Krel Belmont left the office on the top floor of the Nine-Star Building, walking backward with the deferential air of a highly trained elite bureaucrat.
Only after the doors closed automatically did he turn and step into the corridor leading to the outer wing. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he saw the azure sky stretching over the entire city skyline. The promising young general and inspector of the Bureau stood in place for a full half minute before finally nodding to the officers waiting at the far end of the corridor.
They responded crisply.
There were four officers who looked exceptionally capable: a lieutenant colonel, a major, and two others. They were aides to General Finn Berenkest, and they were always on standby at the desk in the corridor outside their superior's office. Unless summoned, they naturally wouldn't go in to disturb him.
Whether Krel Belmont himself had received professional training was still unclear, but these officers were obviously well trained.
"Sir, have you finished speaking with the minister?" the chief aide, a lieutenant colonel, asked as a matter of routine.
"We have. We even went through half a dozen glasses." Krel kept smiling easily. "Well, I'll be off, then."
"Thank you for your hard work, sir." The aides stood at attention and saluted, watching Krel leave with impeccable form.
Even then, they hadn't noticed that a high-level psychic battle had just taken place inside the office.
In fact, it wasn't just them. The entire Nine-Star Building had failed to notice what had happened on the top floor of Tower D. All the staff were still going about their normal work—or rather, their very busy work.
That was understandable. The crowds marching through the city had already swelled to three hundred thousand. As the headquarters of the national security department and