The motorcades drifted down the street with Canadian police providing the traffic security. There were a number of Canadian Mounties on their horses; they looked resplendent in their red uniforms. But they were also brightly colored sitting ducks when it came to an actual armed confrontation.

He knew exactly what it was like to lose a child. And that fact wouldn’t matter in the least in this circumstance. There could be no commiseration among such people despite the seeming commonality of loss, because it was actually each parent’s totally unique hell.

Just know that one answer over the other does not equal a solution. It’s only a decision.

Complacency by the masses is my greatest weapon.

A politician and his entourage on the campaign trail were like a herd of elephants: they could travel nowhere lightly. They stomped the earth until it hurt with the weight of the guards, chiefs of staff, spokespersons, speechwriters, publicity folks, gofers and others. It was a spectacle that if it didn’t make you laugh would at least cause you considerable worry about the future of the country.

Life had coincidences. Serendipity abounded. Wrong place, wrong time. It came as the result of seven billion people jostling each other within the span of a single planet. But there was an unwritten rule in police work: There are no coincidences. All you needed was more in-depth investigation to show that there are no coincidences.

And he and millions of others had just fought a world war to ensure that neither anarchy nor fascism nor anything else would replace the reasonable screwing over of people without money by those who possessed damn near all of it.

It is asking a lot. But when you’re attempting to do something truly extraordinary, isn’t it fair to ask a lot in return?

Luther glanced at the framed prints on the nightstand and wryly observed the twenty-something “little woman” next to the seventy-something husband. There were many types of lotteries in the world and not all of them state-run. Several.

She works in the intelligence field. They’re trained to lie and sell it like the truth. They obviously undergo the same indoctrination as politicians.