I came, I stole, I conquered, I got out. End of story.
-- Julian Lawndsley (chapter 4)

Importance: Throughout the novel, Julian’s former career as a financial trader remains murky. This simple summary of his career, offered by Julian in a moment of first-person narration, exemplifies this ambiguity. Instead of offering a detailed history, he simplifies his apparently extravagant and successful career into a short series of blunt phrases. His conclusion that this is the “end of [the] story” suggests a deep unwillingness to fully process the events, as well as the attendant regrets, of the past.

To achieve a technological brief, Al Qaeda or the Chinese or whoever else you please would have to dig a bloody great hole in the middle of that runway upstairs, and be gone by morning.
-- Todd (chapter 5)

Importance: Edward’s theft of classified British intelligence presents a crisis for the Secret Service partly because the organization attempts to maintain a constant...