The formal briefing document arrived on a Monday morning, three weeks after Gangneung.
It came to my office in the usual way — sealed, marked confidential, carrying the particular weight of a document that contained the beginning of something. I had opened many such documents over my career. The feeling of them had not changed: the contained awareness that what was inside the envelope represented, for someone, a problem serious enough to reach the level of formal investigation. The beginning of a significant effort. The beginning of a significant cost.
I made myself tea before I opened it. This was a habit I had developed — the small deliberate pause before beginning, the refusal to let urgency make the opening premature. A document that had been in transit for twenty-four hours could wait another six minutes while the water boiled.
Then I read it.
