The other problem was that increasingly electronic espionage had replaced hands-on human surveillance. The result was much less efficient mass-intelligence gathering. To Friday that was like getting meat from a slaughterhouse instead of hunting it down. The food didn't taste as good when it was mass-produced. The experience was less satisfying. And over time the hunter grew soft.

Friday had no intention of ever growing soft. When Jack Fenwick had said he wanted to talk to him, Friday was eager to meet. Friday went to see him at the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams hotel. It was during the week of the president's inauguration so the bar was jammed and the men were barely noticed. Fenwick recruited Friday to the "Undertaking," as he had called it. An operation to overthrow the president and put a new, more proactive figure in the Oval Office.

One of the gravest problems facing America was security from terrorists.

Vice President Cotten would have dealt with the problem decisively. He would have informed terrorist nations that if they sponsored attacks on American interests their capital cities would be bombed flat. Removing fear from Americans abroad would have encouraged competitive trade and tourism, which would have helped covert agencies infiltrate nationalist organizations, religious groups, and other extremist bands.

But the plotters had been stopped. The world was once again safe for warlords, anarchists, and international muggers.

Fortunately, the resignations of the vice president, Fenwick, and the other high-profile conspirators were like cauterizing a wound. The administration had its main perpetrators. They stopped the bloodletting and for the time being seemed to turn attention away from others who may have assisted in the plan. Friday's role in setting up the errori st Harpooner and actually assassinating a CIA spoiler had not been uncovered. In fact. Hank Lewis was trying to get as much intel as possible as fast as possible so he could look ahead, not hack.

NSA operatives outside Washington were being called upon to visit high-intensity trouble spots and both assist in intelligence operations and report back firsthand.

That was why Friday left Baker. Originally he tried to get transferred to Pakistan, but was moved to India by special request of the Indian government. He had spent time here for Mara Oil, helping them evaluate future productivity in this region as well as on the border between the Great Indian Desert in India's Rajasthan Province and the Thar Desert in Pakistan. He knew the land, the Kashmir) language, and the people.

The irony, of course, was that his first assignment was to help a unit from Op-Center execute a mission of vital importance to peace in the region. Op-Center, the group that had stopped the Undertaking from succeeding.

If politics made strange bedfellows then covert actions made even stranger ones. There was one difference between the two groups, however.

Diplomacy demanded that politicians bury their differences when they had to. Field agents did not. They nursed their grudges.

Forever.

CHAPTER THREE.