The A.F.R. escalation: the mirror-ambush of the Québec juniors; acquiring the auteur's family

pivotal · 19 Nov YDAU (2009)

• When: 19 November YDAU (2009), per dateline; Balbalis drives north into the blizzard that night
• What: Where the Ennet House infiltration feeds the novel's endgame. With all leads on "this veiled performer" come back negative, Fortier and Marathe activate the most drastic operation for locating the Master: acquiring members of the auteur's immediate family, "perhaps in public." Fortier departs for the Phoenix "technical interview" (the Orin acquisition, Mlle. Luria P—— attending) while Marathe runs the preliminary — intercepting and replacing the Québec junior tennis squads en route to E.T.A.'s gala. Balbalis drives the modified Dodge van north through the blizzard to install a large mirror across the southbound lanes of U.S. Interstate #91 (an old F.L.Q. trick — the chartered bus's own headlights will delude it off the road); surviving children beyond the six the van can hold "would be allowed to die for leur rai pays." The thread carries this because the operation grows directly out of Marathe's Ennet House reconnaissance (ev19). See the A.F.R., E.T.A., and Samizdat threads.