Section 12 Summary

"Positional Analysis"

The title of this section refers to a moment in a game of chess when a player considers how best to both react to his opponent's move and act in support of his own goals. Meanwhile, three short quotes present opposing views of chess - that it's analysis, imagination, and intuition.

April 1973. As she drives to a meeting for which she has no appointment, Catherine reflects on the events of the previous night. These include the way she was taken back to her hotel by Sharrif after Solarin disappeared from the nightclub, how her thoughts kept her awake (see "Quotes," p. 279), and how she spent the early hours of the morning studying the books on mathematics given to her by Nim.

She arrives at the Algerian Ministry of Oil and bluffs her way into a meeting with Kamel, an important government...