The doors opened onto a wall of men.
Eight of them, maybe ten, all in the black shirts. GUARDIANS OF THE WALLS across every chest in hard white letters, standing in a loose arc in front of the car with their hands loose at their sides, waiting on us the way men wait on a delivery.
The lobby light behind them was brighter than the car's. Ordinary building light. The kind that had watched people clock in and out for years.
The Donman's heart came back down the moment he saw them. I heard it go — three fast beats and then nothing, the rhythm of a man who has just stopped being outnumbered. The tightness left his jaw. His shoulders settled.
Max's voice was clear now. The speech rolled in through the open doors, polished and rising, the crowd answering him in waves.
Two corridors between this car and the front doors, and past the front doors, a crowd, and whatever he'd built in the middle of it.
