He took it. He held it in both hands for a moment, looking at it, and then set it down on the counter very carefully, next to his own, the two black handhelds side by side.
"I'll need to see your TWIC," he said, and then he heard himself, and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's procedure. I've got to log you in. Anybody coming through. I didn't mean..."
"I know what procedure is," Rania said, and she lifted the lanyard from around her neck and handed him the card.
He looked at it, once, at her name and the photo, and then at her face, once, and wrote it down in the visitor log with the time, 0211, and gave it back. It took him about eight seconds.
"My supervisor came at nine," he said. He did not seem able to stop talking now that he'd started. "Fuselier. He took my statement. Gulfline's asked for me off the account. Sentinel's suspending me pending a review, starting tomorrow, but they didn't have anybody to cover tonight, so." He gestured vaguely at the shack, the stool, the log. "I'm the last one. I expect I'm done after this. I expect that's right."
She did not say anything. She did not say it wasn't right.
"My boy was on that dock," Wade said. "Beau. My son. He was on the line gang. He was leaning on the number two bollard when you told them to move."
Rania stood very still in the drizzle.
"I didn't know that," she said.