Light dawned on the chief of staff’s face as Neal finished his point, and Neal’s voice became deadly serious, “Over the past year, my friends and I have successfully planned and executed a massive military operation right under the noses of both the American government and the very satellites we have just destroyed. If you think we are now going to become some ancillary part of this ‘task force’ of yours, you are sorely mistaken.”

Neal held the man’s stare a moment and then his smile returned like sun from behind a cloud. He patted Jim on the back once more and said, “Now, Jim, I am sure you will have lots of questions, and we can get started on those soon enough, but for now I want you to listen very carefully to the colonel here. As head of the air force branch of the new task force, he has a detailed list of the key people we are going to need on the team, and a plan for our initial projects. For my part, I am going to leave you in his inordinately capable hands as I have some other matters to attend to.” And with that, he nodded, grinned broadly at the colonel, and walked off to check in with the obviously distressed admiral still talking on the phone.

In the wake of Neal’s newfound confidence, Jim looked at the colonel as if searching for some sanity in a world gone mad. Jim Hacker was a political puppeteer of the highest order. He got people to do what the president needed them to do by any means necessary. And he realized now that being told his business by a political nobody was actually harder for him to swallow than the events of the last few hours had been.

For the colonel’s part, he was only slightly less shocked. It was a side of his scientist friend that Barrett hadn’t seen since they had first met back at the Array so long ago. Now he was seeing it with the weight of a hard-won reputation behind it and he had to admit that it was good to see the old Neal Danielson again. He was surprised only because Neal had been absolutely right when he said that Barrett had a plan. Ever the organizer, Barrett did indeed have a list of the people the task force would need, a preliminary one at least, and some initial action items that they should be working on.