Marathe's quadruple-agent calculus — "The authority made a spire of…"
The authority made a spire of her fingers beneath her chin and gazed at Marathe’s cocked head with a face of respect and sympathy but not solicitude, also which made snapping her neck with one hand seem a sad choice for Marathe.
Context
"Respect and sympathy but not solicitude": Pat Montesian looks at a veiled man in a wheelchair exactly the way Fortier claims no American can look at the damaged (p. 723, above) — and the look literally disarms the assassin, making the neck-snap option "a sad choice." The A.F.R.'s contempt-thesis about U.S. sensitivity meets its one refutation, and she's holding the intake clipboard.