Marathe & Steeply, the outcropping — "Steeply himself had a small and…"
Steeply himself had a small and unregistered Taurus PT9 taped to his shaved inner thigh, which was the main reason he was reluctant to sit down on the outcropping’s stone; the weapon was unsafetied.
Context
Under the whole night's talk, the tradecraft never relaxes. Steeply won't sit because an unsafetied Taurus is taped to his shaved thigh; Marathe keeps "[o]ne hand… below the blanket at all times" on the Sterling; and Marathe runs his own quiet disguise even here — "Marathe always disguised the boggling size of his arms under a long-sleeved windbreaker," hiding the A.F.R.'s tell-tale over-developed limbs from the man he's ostensibly confiding in. Both bodies are armed and both are concealed; the intimacy is a surface over two operatives who have not for one second stopped casing each other.