The roar of the crowd was a physical pressure against his flesh, a wave of noise that should have been suffocating. Yet within Elian, there was only a vast, echoing silence. He stood behind the podium, not a triumphant one reveling in adoration, but a solitary peak above the storm. The cheers, the faces full of wonder, the precipitous escape of Adekunle and the paralyzing fear of Obi—it was all data. Critical data, but data just the same. It was the measurable result of an equation he had spent so many years attempting to solve: Integrity + Truth = Power.
He left the conference building not swaggering, but in the same measured step by which he entered. The people parted before him, not in fear, but in a kind of awed wonder. They were extending their hands to touch the edge of a robe they
