This week in the saga

The chapter opens on a homecoming. Tuesday midday all twenty living hostages are back and the burden is lifted, but the job is not done and Phase Two begins right now. An hour later, on his standing authorities as Commander-in-Chief, a boat is destroyed at sea. Thursday he tells the other side that if the killing continues there will be no choice but to go in and kill them. Then Saturday afternoon the sentence that gives the week its shape: it was his great honor to destroy a very large drug-carrying submarine on a well known transit route — a vessel under the water, named, sunk, and posted. Sunday a South American president is called an illegal drug leader and the payments stop. And Monday, at home, ground is broken for a ballroom and the East Wing comes down to make room for it.