The call with Rafael was scheduled for noon on Thursday.

By Wednesday night Kira had reviewed every piece of intelligence we had on him and arranged it in order of relevance across the desk in a way that told me she'd been thinking about this since the summit was first discussed. I leaned in the doorway and watched her for a moment before she noticed me.

"You've been in here four hours," I said.

"I'm preparing."

"I can see that." I came in, looked at the spread. "You've done more research ...