The hearing entered its sixth hour.
The air in the hearing room had grown thick and stale.
The spotlights overhead were still stark white and glaring. Leo drank the last drop of water from the paper cup in front of him.
His throat was burning, and his vocal cords felt painfully dry.
For the past six hours, he had been like a sparring partner thrown into a boxing ring, taking a barrage of heavy blows from the Republican senators.
"Regarding the exemption clauses of the *National Environmental Policy Act*..."
"Regarding labor standards for interstate logistics..."
"Regarding the privacy and security of supply chain data..."
Every question was a carefully designed trap. If he revealed the slightest weakness in his answers, tomorrow morning's headlines would tear him to shreds.
But he hadn't fallen.
The two-hundred-page Q&A prep script had done its job.
