The map on Ferrante's desk had not been there this morning.
Sabatini had put it there. He had put it there without being asked, which meant the data had reached the point where waiting for the request felt worse than the presumption of acting without it.
He had been in this office for enough years to know the difference between those two thresholds. He had crossed the second one twenty minutes ago.
"Southern corridor," he said. He did not point at the map.
The map spoke for itself. The red marks that had started as scattered points across European cities had begun, across the past seventy-two hours, to resolve into something with a direction.
"Every new possession in the past three days is closer to the site than the one before it."
Ferrante looked at the map.
He said nothing.
"They are not moving toward population centres," Sabatini said. "Three of the last five possessions were in rural areas.
