But the physical realm, not the psychological one, was what commanded Janson’s full attention. For the next two hours, Janson scrutinized detailed topographical maps, grainy satellite imagery of the multiphase rebel incursion, and old blueprints of what had once been a colonial governor general’s compound and, before that, a fortress—the building on Adam’s Hill known by the Dutch as the Steenpaleis, the Stone Palace.

Again and again he stared at the elevation mappings of Adam’s Hill and of the Stone Palace, moving back and forth between overhead views and structural blueprints. One conclusion was inescapable. If the U.S. government had declined to send in the SEALs, political considerations were only part of the story. The other part was that any exfiltration operation had an extremely remote probability of success.

Lang’s associates knew it. He could see it in their faces: they were asking him to conduct a mission that was essentially doomed from the start. But perhaps nobody was willing to tell Márta Lang. Or she had been told and refused to accede. It was clear that she regarded Peter Novak as somebody worth dying for. She would give her life for him; and people like her were always willing to give the lives of others as well. Yet could he say that she was wrong? American lives had frequently been lost in pursuit of derisory gains—putting up a bridge over the Dak Nghe, for the tenth time, that would be destroyed, for the tenth time, before morning came. Peter Novak was a great man. Many owed their lives to him. And, though he tried to put it out of his mind, Janson knew he was among them.

If people were unwilling to put themselves at risk to save such an apostle of enlightenment, what did it say about the ideals of peace and democracy to which Novak had devoted his own life? Extremists scoffed at Westerners and their lightly held beliefs, yet was extremism in pursuit of moderation not itself a moral contradiction? Wasn’t Janson’s recognition of that fact what had driven him to retire?

Abruptly, Janson sat up straight. There was a way—perhaps.

“We’ll need aircraft, boats, and most of all, the right operatives,” he told Lang. His voice had subtly shifted, from the mode of gathering information to that of issuing orders. He stood and paced silently. The make-or-break factor was going to be the men, not the machinery.

Márta Lang looked at the others expectantly; for the moment, anyway, the look of grim resignation had lifted.