The duck-pond drain; Tine at the State House Annex window; his son and Steeply as his operatives

timeline_event

texture · ? Nov YDAU (~mid-November)

When: "? Nov YDAU," a gray mid-November weekday (the annual Public Garden pond-draining)
What: From an eighth-floor window of the State House Annex (Beacon and Joy Sts.), U.S. Chief of Unspecified Services Rodney Tine stands "with his hands at the small of his back," ruminative in "a martial at-ease," watching the crowd ring the Public Garden's man-made duck pond as it is drained for winter. Behind him in the conference room sit his working intelligence apparatus — a stenographer, an aide, a Deputy Mayor, the Director of the Mass. Division for Substance Abuse Services, and "Unspecified Services Regional Operatives Rodney Tine Jr. and Hugh Steeply." (The scene fixes the org-chart: Tine Jr. and Steeply both operate under Tine Sr.; TINE JR. DISTINCTION — this is the son, a Regional Operative, n.257, not the Chief.)