This week in the saga

The last week of the chapter opens with a withdrawal: the Guard comes out of three cities, and he says they will be back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again. Friday at three in the morning another country is told that if it kills its own protesters the United States will come to their rescue, locked and loaded. Four hours later the doctors report perfect health and a third aced examination. And at twenty past four on Saturday morning, in five sentences, the strike: a large-scale operation against a South American country and its leader, who has been captured, with his wife, and flown out. Seven hours later there is one more line, and it is a caption — the man is aboard a warship. Then Monday afternoon, with a head of state in custody, he is posting about a governor.