A crisp, dry cold had settled across the northern timberlands of the Westchester estate, stripping the last burnt-orange leaves from the sugar maples and leaving their dark, bare silhouettes stark against a pale November sky. The usual autumn haze off the Hudson River had given way to crystalline air, through which the distant stone pillars of the regional bridge looked clean, sharp, and immovable.
Inside the glass-enclosed north wing, the transition from crisis management to institutional routine had entered its second phase. Following our resolution of the European audit liaison bottleneck in Chapter 86, the Executive Council’s provisional committees were moving into active administrative trials. The high-frequency server racks beneath the house ran with a low, uniform hum—a sound so co
