The President left, trailed by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Av Lincoln walked over to Hood.

"Congratulations, Paul. I sense an ass-kicking." He leaned close. "Just make sure it isn't your ass that gets kicked."

He was right. The President had never given Op-Center a foreign crisis, and doing so now meant that he intended to strike hard and decisively, if given the chance. Should anything go wrong, he could pin it on the new kids on the block, shut down the agency, and suffer only minimal political damage. Then Hood could take a low-paying position at the Carter Center or the United States Institute of Peace, a convert to pacifism, a reformed sinner trotted out for public scourgings at dinners and symposia.

Av gave him a thumbs-up as he left, and after collecting his thoughts, Hood followed him to the elevator. In addition to having to take the fall for any failure, Hood wasn't keen on having to spend the next four hours playing ringmaster to a bureaucratic turf war as he teleconferenced with everyone who had been in attendance, formulating a cohesive strategy from six people with six very different agendas. It was part of the job, and he did it well, but he hated the way people did what was best for party and agency first and second, and for the country a distant third.

Still, there was the bright side to look at, the chance that he might just pull all this off. And as he contemplated that, the adrenaline began to flow. If the President was willing to take risks with Op-Center, Hood had to be willing to take greater risks to make sure that Op-Center earned its international credentials once and for all. Like one of his heroes, Babe Ruth, when you got your turn at bat you swung for the home run, not the double, and you didn't think about striking out. Even if, like the Babe, you did that sixty percent of the time you stepped to the plate

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Tuesday, 5:25 A.M., Quantico

Marine Corps Air Station, VA

The battle was long and hard-fought, bodies falling everywhere, faces twisting in anguish, commands and cries shattering the early morning silence.

"They're such assholes," Melissa Squires said to the other wives around the picnic table. She tapped the back of her husband's pager. "You'd think they could just have fun with this."

"The kids are," said one woman, wincing as she watched her daughter fall from her father's shoulders in the middle of the in-ground pool. "Oooh that'll leave David in a bad mood today. He and Veronica were out there at four forty-five practicing their moves."

The eight women watched and picked at the bacon, eggs, and muffins that were fast becoming cold. The daily pool war had run over, but they knew better than to call their husbands to the table before it was through. They'd only get pissed off, and they wouldn't come anyway: not with their honor at stake.