Book Four: The Trap — 3.

Colin and Arthur drive through the wet English night toward Basingstoke, sparring over Colin’s sleepless habits, polyamory, and Arthur’s idealism. Arthur frames King Sorrow as a weaponized imagination and hints at a plan, stressing Sorrow’s post‑Easter fatigue as the moment to strike. He asks how Easter went; Colin describes covert strikes on AQI in Ramadi.

The talk reopens old wounds: Arthur recalls that the Iraq “shock and awe” was largely channeled through King Sorrow on his watch, a burden that drove him to retreat to a ruined Scottish abbey to pray among ghosts. He challenges Colin’s deterrence logic and asks why King Sorrow wasn’t turned on Osama.

Colin argues for game‑theory deterrence, claiming brutal overreaction saves American soldiers and discourages adversaries, and mentions imminent operations in Ramadi. Arthur worries such actions create the next Osama. The exchange lays bare their long‑standing philosophical divide: punitive spectacle versus moral cost.

Shifting to practicalities, Colin explains his post–North Carolina accord with Paul Follett (Mr. Francis): he holds a dead‑man’s switch on Thermopylae crimes while receiving regular intelligence and target lists, refusing payment to keep Donna’s trust. He notes the leverage has enabled firings, appointments, and even potential sway over a future presidential ticket.

Arthur questions Donna’s tolerance of any pact with the people tied to her brother’s death; Colin replies the killers are dead and Follett helped her survive. Arthur warns that destroying King Sorrow would end their bargaining power. Colin answers that losing leverage is worth freedom—and that ending Sorrow is the goal.