Senator Fox shut her eyes. "Please, General. We can do very nicely without the grandstanding."

"I'm not trying to be dramatic," Rodgers said. He stood and tugged the hem of his jacket. "I just don't believe in doing anything half-assed. You're an isolationist, Senator. You have been since the tragedy in France."

"This has nothing to do with that--"

"Of course it does. And I understand how you feel. The French did not find your daughter's killer, didn't seem to care very much, so why help them? But you've let that get in the way of the larger picture, of our national interests."

Martha said, "General, I didn't lose anyone abroad and I agree with the Senator. Op-Center was created to help other agencies, not to help other nations. We've lost sight of that."

Rodgers turned and looked down at Martha. "Your father sang a song called 'The Boy Who Killed the Lights,' about a white kid who shut the lights in a club so a black singer could sing there--"

"Don't quote my dad to me," Martha snapped, "and don't tell me that I'm lucky to be in'this club, General. Nobody helped me get this gig--"

"If you'll let me finish," Rodgers said, "that wasn't the point I was making." Rodgers remained calm. He didn't raise his voice to women. That wasn't how Mrs. Rodgers had raised her son. "What I was trying to say before is that what Goschen called 'splendid isolation' simply doesn't exist anymore. Not in the music world and not in the political world. If Russia breaks down, it affects China, the Baltic republics, and Europe. If Japan suffers--"

"I learned all about the domino theory in elementary school," Martha said.

"Yes we all did, General Rodgers," Senator Fox said. "Do you really believe that General Michael Rodgers and Op-Center are the tent poles which hold the infrastructure up?"

"We do our part," Rodgers said. "We need to do more."

"And I say we already do too much!" Senator Fox shot back. "When I was still new to the Senate, U.S. warplanes were not permitted to fly over France en route to bomb Tripoli and Benghazi. The French are supposed to be our allies! At the time, I said on the floor of the Senate that we bombed the wrong capital. I meant it. More recently, Russian terrorists blew up a tunnel in New York. Was the Russian Ministry of Security hot on the trail of these murderers? Did your new best friends at the Russian Op-Center warn us? Even today, are their operatives hunting for Russian gangsters on our shores? No, General, they are not."

"Paul went to Russia to establish a relationship with their Op-Center," Rodgers, said. "We believe we'll get their cooperation."