The kid Mark Swann raised his hands as if to say Don’t shoot! “It’s coming. But we’re going to want airtight encryption before we start broadcasting intelligence outside the building. You can email anything you want. But in terms of putting up video imagery or data that appear elsewhere, or bringing broadcasts in here? That’ll happen on a case-by-case basis with each partner. CIA, NSA, the White House if it comes to that, even FBI headquarters. They’ve all got their own procedures and we’re going to be following their leads.”

Don nodded. “Okay, Mark. I like it already. Can you give Agent Stone and me about twenty, maybe thirty minutes? And send Trudy Wellington in here?”

Swann nodded. “Sure.”

When he left, Don looked at Luke.

“Funny kid,” Luke said.

“Whiz kid,” Don said. “My goal here is to hire the best. And when it comes to that, it isn’t always the guy who fits the suit the best. In terms of technology, usually it isn’t. We’re cowboys in here, Luke. We’re the kids who color outside the lines. That’s what they want from us. The FBI director said that himself.”

“I’m with you,” Luke said.

“You should be. You’re one of the best special operators I’ve seen in my long career, and in terms of coloring outside the lines… well…”

Suddenly a young woman appeared in the doorway. If anything, she was even younger than the guy who just left. Don was staffing this place up with children. This child, however, was beautiful. She had long, curly brown hair. She wore a dress shirt and slacks that hugged her curves. She wore big red eyeglasses that gave her a slight owlish appearance.

“Don?”

“Trudy, come in. I want you to meet Luke Stone. He’s the man I told you about. Luke, this is Trudy Wellington. She is our new intel officer. She’s another whiz kid, graduated MIT as a teenager, spent a couple of years in CIA listening stations. Now she’s with us, ready to take a quantum leap to the next level of spycraft.”

Luke shook hands with the young woman. She was a little sheepish, wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. Hell, she was still a kid.

Luke glanced back and forth between Don and Trudy. Something about the body language…

Nah, it was impossible. Don had been married for thirty years. He had a daughter and a son who were older than this Trudy person.

“Trudy’s going to brief us on the mission we have on deck.”

Trudy sat right down at the conference table. Luke and Don did the same. She immediately took the keyboard, pulled the small monitor forward, and typed in her information. Her office computer’s desktop appeared on the large flat-panel display on the wall.

“You already know how to use this?” Don said.