This week in the saga

The chapter opens on a ledger. Tuesday morning a second state is put under fraud investigation, and by that evening the spoils of the January strike are announced as an accounting matter: thirty to fifty million barrels of sanctioned oil, sold at market price, the money controlled by him personally. Wednesday afternoon he watches a clip from a street in Minneapolis and calls it a horrible thing to watch. Friday a tanker that left without permission is seized at sea and turned around. Saturday, in two sentences, a country on the other side of the world is told that freedom is available and that the United States stands ready to help. And on Monday evening the instrument arrives for it too: any country doing business with Iran will pay twenty-five percent, an order he describes as final and conclusive.