But it hadn't gone down that way. Not at all. His parents had immigrated from Mexico and had held fast to the old ways. He couldn't relate to them or to the kids running the streets. So he retreated into himself, got into ham radios, and talked to people all over world.

During high school he flourished on the ever-growing Internet but lacked the social skills to have any close friends. By the time he graduated, he was part of a hacker community that, well, got him into a little trouble. Petty stuff, initially, but his "skillz" soon implicated him in a case of identity theft that left him staring into the eyes of a North Hollywood detective, Ms. Roberta Perez, who took him under her wing, got him off of some serious charges, and suggested that he join the army before he did something even more stupid.

Perez's brother Enrique was in the army, and he sat down with Ramirez to explain that the military wasn't just for people who couldn't hack it in society like Ramirez had thought.

Ramirez wouldn't lie and say that the army didn't have its share of dummies and criminals (like most government-run organizations), and he had encountered a few of those exceptional individuals during boot camp. But his time in boot was life altering. His drill sergeant, Paul "Papa" Montgomery, had taken a liking to him, and, after driving him to within an inch of death, Montgomery had practically ordered Ramirez to apply for Ranger School.

Long story short, he was accepted and served two tours right here along the border and had already won the Purple Heart and a Silver Star--all while working on his undergraduate degree in history.

And then some administrators at Officer Candidate School got the bright idea to offer him a desk job.

Were they kidding? They'd advertised it like a promotion, even hinted that he was getting a little old for the battlefield. He was now only thirty-one.

Ramirez had tried to be polite, saying what an honor it was to be offered a desk job after engaging in some of the most exciting, adrenaline-pumping operations known to mankind. Yes, what an honor it would be to replace ink-jet toner cartridges and squint at applications files stored via outdated software instead of thwarting the efforts of those who wanted to terrorize and control others.

All right, so maybe he wasn't exactly polite. His wiseass attitude and keen sense of humor were the products of years of living in the field and contending with the great ironies of life. The high school introvert had finally grown up.