"Yeah, I thought that way once myself. People expect us to know everything there is about every rock, puddle, and personality in the whole world." His eyes opened. "We don't. Never have. Never will. Disappointing, isn't it? The all-pervasive CIA. We have a fairly important question here, and all we have are probabilities, not certainties. How is the President supposed to make a decision if we can't give him facts instead of possibly learned opinions? I've said it before - in writing, even. What we provide people with, most of the time, is official guesses. You know, it's embarrassing to have to send something like this out." Jack's eyes fell on the Directorate of Intelligence report. Their teams of Russian experts had chewed on SPINNAKER for a week and decided that it was probably true, but could represent a misunderstanding.

Jack's eyes closed again, and he wished his headache would go away. "That's our structural problem. We look at various probabilities. If you give people a firm opinion, you run the risk of being wrong. Guess what? People remember when you're wrong a lot more often than when you're right. So the tendency is to include all the possibilities. It's intellectually honest, even. Hell of a good dodge. Problem is, it doesn't give people what they think they need. On the user end, people as often as not need probabilities rather than certainties, but they don't always know that. It can drive you crazy, Ben. The outside bureaucracies ask for things we often as not cannot deliver, and our inside bureaucracy doesn't like sticking its neck out on the line any more than anyone else. Welcome to the real world of intelligence."

"I never figured you for a cynic."

"I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist. Some things we know. Some things we don't. The people here are not robots. They're just people looking for answers and finding more questions instead. We have a lot of good people in this building, but bureaucracy mutes individual voices, and facts are discovered more often by individuals than committees." There was a knock on the door. "Come in."

"Dr Ryan, your secretary isn't -"

"She's having a late lunch."

"I have something for you, sir." The man handed the envelope over. Ryan signed for it and dismissed the messenger.

"Good old All Nippon Airlines," Ryan said after opening the envelope. It was another NIITAKA report. He snapped upright in his chair. "Holy shit!"

"Problem?" Goodley asked.

"You're not cleared for this."

"What seems to be the problem?" Narmonov asked.

Golovko was in the uncomfortable position of having to announce a major success with unpleasant consequences. "President, we have for some time been working on a project to penetrate American cipher systems. We've had some successes, particularly with their diplomatic systems. This is a message that was sent to several of their embassies. We've recovered all of it."

"And?"

"Who sent this out?"

"Look, Jack," Cabot said, "Liz Elliot took the last SPINNAKER seriously, and she wants State's opinion."