“Yeah, we just got in some new satellite photos. Definitely not operational and our people are starting to question whether it ever will be.”

“Saber rattling?”

“There’s a good chance. Those assholes will do anything for attention.”

“Not our attention, though. China seems to be pulling back their support. They have better places to concentrate their resources.”

“Agreed. More and more, China’s about giving Kim just enough to keep his head above water.”

It was a fair analysis in Kennedy’s estimation. Chinese leadership despised instability, which prevented them from pulling out entirely. But as a rising world power, their relationship with Pyongyang was becoming an embarrassing relic.

“And that’s it,” her second-in-command said with the grin that had helped make him such a star inside the beltway. “Things have stayed at a slow simmer a lot longer than I thought it would.”

“The calm after the storm,” Kennedy agreed. The collapse of America’s power grid, even though it lasted a relatively short time, had shaken the world to its core. The desire and resources to cause trouble were still in short supply. That wouldn’t last forever, though. It never did.

“Even the Russian trolls have backed off. What do you think, Irene? Have we finally put the fear of god into that prick Boris Utkin?”

“I doubt it.”

“No? You think he’s sitting back planning something?”

“I think he’s sitting back watching.”

“Watching what?”

“Anthony and Catherine Cook. I’ve met Utkin a number of times and I can tell you that he’s genuinely confused by why anyone would want to live in a democracy. He sees it as chaos for the man on the street and stifling for the born rulers like him.”

Nash leaned back in his chair and stretched the familiar kink in his back. A souvenir from a bomb blast in Afghanistan. “And you think he might see the Cooks as sharing that worldview?”

“It’s a possibility. What about you? What do you think?”

“Honestly? I think democracy’s tricky. We’ve seen that over and over again when we’ve tried to export it. And even organic movements like the Arab Spring tend to fall flat on their faces. I thought we were particularly good at it, though. And why not? We don’t just learn it from birth. In a way, it’s baked into us. With obvious exceptions, our ancestors took a lot of risks for the opportunity to breathe free.”

“You said thought. That you thought we were particularly good at it. Past tense.”