After Jace left, I had a few minutes downtime before I had to be on the move again. Always before walking into one of these things I cleared my head, using an ancient technique an old master had taught me long ago. It called for total concentration and nothing more, just focus on releasing everything from my thoughts one at a time, until the mind and psyche were clear of all white noise. Then replacing each parcel piece by piece. It was almost like washing the brain before restoring it with clean Intel. I couldn't afford to f**k up in this meeting, these guys had to buy what I was selling, hook line and sinker. Anything goes wrong and months of hard work goes down the drain. Though it was pretty much in the bag and things had already started moving, there was always that element of surpri