The meeting ran two hours past where it should have and every minute of the excess was someone else's doing.
Three of his Madrid lieutenants around the operations table the morning after they'd arrived, the particular kind of meeting that couldn't be postponed and couldn't be done by phone. The Lorenzo concession had sent ripples through the European operation and ripples, unaddressed, became waves. He managed them with the efficiency that had become involuntary over fifteen years of managing things that couldn't wait for him to feel ready. He made decisions faster than the men across the table expected him to make them and more finally than they were accustomed to, which was the correct approach. Uncertainty in a room was contagious. The only treatment was someone in the room who appeared to have none.
