For most of its history NRO operations were spread across the United States. Management coordination was handled in the Air Force Office of Space Systems in the Pentagon. Technology issues were conducted from the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base in California. Intelligence studies were conducted from the CIA Office of Development and Engineering in Reston, Virginia.

Orbital control of NRO spacecraft was initially handled by technicians at the Onizuka Air Force Base in Sunnyvale, California, and then moved to the Falcon Air Force Station in Colorado. Signals intelligence other than photographic reconnaissance was handled by the National Guard at the Defense Support Program Aerospace Data Facility at Buckley Air National Guard Base in Aurora, Colorado. The U. S. Navy's NRO activities were centered primarily on technology upgrades and enhancement of existing hardware and software. These duties were shared by two competing naval groups: the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in Crystal City, Virginia, and SPA WAR Space Technology Directorate Division, SPA WAR-40, located at the Naval Research Laboratory across the Potomac River in the highly secure Building A59.

Though the NRO proved invaluable in bringing data back to earth, the management of the NRO itself became a nightmare of convolution and in-fighting. Though the government did not officially acknowledge the existence of the organization, its denials were a joke among the Washington press corps. No one would explain why so many people were obviously struggling with such rancor to control something that did not exist.

That changed in 1990 with the construction of a permanent NRO facility in Fairfax, Virginia. Yet even while the NRO's existence was finally acknowledged, few people had firsthand knowledge about its day-to-day operations and the full breadth of its activities.

Photographic reconnaissance operations director Stephen Viens was one of those men.

The consolidation of NRO activities under one roof did not end the competition for satellite time. But Viens was loyal to his college friend Matt Stoll. And he would do anything for Paul Hood, who stood by him during some difficult CIOC hearings about the NRO's black ops work.

As a result, no group, military or civilian, got priority over Op-Center.

Bob Herbert had telephoned at four p. m. What he needed from Viens was visual surveillance of a specific site in the Himalayas. Viens had to wait two hours before he could free up the navy's Asian Omni Com satellite, which was in a geosynchronous orbit over the Indian Ocean.

Even though the navy was using it, Viens told them he had an LAD-lifeanddeath-situation and needed it at once. Typically, the Omni Com listened to sonar signals from Russian and Chinese submarines and backed them up with visual reconnaissance when the vessels surfaced.