Emerging in the heart of Op-Center called the "bullpen," Rodgers made his way through a maze of cubicles to the action offices ringing the hub. Unlike the offices above, the rooms here could tap into intelligence resources that ranged from satellite imagery to communicating directly with operatives around the world to accessing computers and databases that could accurately predict the rice harvest in Rangoon five years hence.

Rodgers was using Hood's office while the chief was away. The office was situated next to the conference room affectionately known as "the Tank." The Tank was surrounded by a wall of electromagnetic waves that prevented electronic surveillance. Rumor had it that the microwaves could also cause sterility and insanity. Staff psychologist Liz Gordon half-jokingly said that the waves explained a lot of the behavior that took place within these walls.

Alert and energized despite a late Saturday night on the town, Rodgers entered the code on the keypad beside Hood's office door. The door popped open, the lights came on, and for the first time in six months Rodgers smiled with contentment. At last he was in charge of Op-Center.

Even so, he knew he wasn't being entirely fair to Hood. He had his den-mother side, as Ann had said. But the Director was a good man. He was well intentioned and, more important, he was a highly capable manager. And it was efficient to delegate authority internally to a group of relatively autonomous experts like Martha Mackall and Lowell Coffey II, Matt Stoll and Ann Farris. But more and more, Rodgers felt that OP-Center needed to be run by one man's will, like Hoover's FBI. It had to be run by someone who didn't consult with the CIA or the National Security Council before acting, but let other organizations know what he was doing after the fact. After defusing a war in Korea and the potential bombing of Japan, he had come to believe that Op-Center needed to be more aggressive on the world stage, rather than reactive.

Which is one reason it can't continue being anonymous, Rodgers thought. But there was time enough to do something about that… something passive, like leaking information to the press, or something dramatic, like sending Striker on the kinds of missions that had made Israeli commandos so feared and respected. Missions that didn't have to be attributed to others' operatives, the way their recent attack on the missile site in North Korea was attributed to the South Koreans.