Femke was waiting for us outside the Council meeting room when Quaid and I arrived in Hong Kong. From the grim expression on her face he'd either filled her in on what happened or things weren't going well on her end. She greeted me warmly and personally, so I could only assume the latter and was actually bummed. At least if she was mad at me that meant there might be progress made.

"Welcome," she said to Jiao after Quaid introduced the young ...