Nasi smiled as Ed filled the shot glasses and pushed them to their respective destinations. “Actually, there was one last reason to come out and visit you here, Mike.”
“Which was?”
Nasi lifted his shot glass. “To do this.”
Stearns looked at his own glass before taking it up. “Yeah. Seems like old times.”
Ed Piazza, raising the whiskey, reflected that, with Stearns soon to go into battle in the vicinity of Zwenkau, and Nasi heading off to Prague to help Morris Roth forestall one of the most infamous pogroms in history, it was all too possible that this time might be the last time they all lifted a glass of cheer together. Indeed, fate had been improbably kind to them, thus far.
Ed Piazza did not share this thought, but instead, joined them in sipping the whiskey in silence, as old friends often do when they reflect on the uncertainty and peril of coming days.