Exterior — Out Front of an Unnamed Washington Building (night, political ultimatum scene)

Night air bites at the curb as a single car idles under a wash of streetlight. Pavement gleams; a door opens and closes with a brittle click. Two men stand between the building and the vehicle—one steady, paternal, delivering an uncompromising ultimatum; the other defiant, chest rising and falling against the cold. Engines thrum, distant city traffic murmurs, and the space collapses into a private, public threshold where political fate is spoken, loyalties are tested, and exile is first pronounced.