Three weeks passed after the assassination attempt. Three weeks of building, of strengthening, of watching the informal network grow into something none of them had anticipated. The coalition, for all their money and connections, seemed to have retreated—waiting, watching, planning their next move.
But the coalition wasn't the only threat.
It started small. A disagreement about strategy during a planning meeting. Nothing unusual—Elian had learned that passionate people often disagreed passionately. But then the disagreement festered, spread, and infected other conversations. By the end of the second week, what had been a unified alliance of reformists was showing cracks.
The two men at the center of it couldn't have been more different.
Dr. Obiora Okeke was fifty-eight, a former univer
