Timely

Scholar and showman, Urquhart knew in all his most sensitive bones that this was the time. There was a furious logic to this day-after-the-day, a logic he would have recognized even without Tate's nudge and a wink and "my friends around the Beltway" over lunch.

He could feel the timing. He could feel a lot of things. Something had been at work in the world, some wavefront of rapid change only dimly felt but no less powerful for that. The waves passed through everything and everyone, transforming as they went. You only had to check the mirror.

Urquhart knew all about it, but still when the moment came he found himself charged and restless, unable to sit and watch. A troubled man. So as darkness stole down the western sky, Urquhart opened his back door and stepped out into the scrub.