Mrs. Lee-Williamson decided that she could handle this herself and tell her boss about it when the regional director returned from lunch.

She highlighted Major Miller’s message with the cursor, pressed the COPY key, and then the END and WRITE keys. When a blank message form headed FROM CIA REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR SOUTHWEST AFRICA appeared on her screen, she typed, after she thought about it a moment, DISTLIST4, and, when she pressed the ENTER key, it caused distribution list number 4 to appear in the addressee box on the message form:

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

SECRETARY OF STATE

DIRECTOR, FBI

DIRECTOR, FAA

CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

Then, as an afterthought, she added to the list of addressees:

COMMANDING GENERAL CENTRAL COMMAND

There had been several complaints from Central Command concerning their not being given timely notice of certain events and Angola was within CentCom’s area of responsibility.

She moved her cursor to the message box and typed:

FOLLOWING RECEIVED 1133 23 MAY 2005 FROM LUANDA, ANGOLA, IS FORWARDED FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

Then she pressed the INSERT key and Miller’s message appeared on the screen.

Mrs. Lee-Williamson then pressed the SEND key and the message was on its way. Then she called up a fresh message blank and began to type.

STACHIEF LUANDA

REFERENCE YOUR SATBURST 01 23MAY05 RE POSSIBLY STOLEN AIRCRAFT. WITHOUT DIVERTING SUBSTANTIAL ASSETS, ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP FURTHER REGDIR SWAFRICA

When she had pressed the SEND key again, she decided it was time for a cup of coffee. She locked the printout of Miller’s message in a secure filing cabinet, locked the office door, and headed for the cafeteria.

[TWO]

Office of the Commanding General United States Central Command MacDill Air Force Base Tampa, Florida 1645 23 May 2005

General Allan B. Naylor routinely used two computers in his office suite. One he thought of as the “desktop” computer, although it was actually on the floor under the credenza behind Naylor’s desk. The other, which he thought of as the “laptop” computer, he brought to work with him each morning and took home at night.

When he was in the office, the laptop sat either on Naylor ’s desk, where it could be seen by those sitting at his of fice conference table, which butted up against his desk, or it sat before the commanding general’s chair on the larger conference table in the conference room next to his office, where it was similarly very visible to others at the table.

Quite innocently, the laptop had acquired an almost menacing aura. None of those at either table could see what was on the laptop’s screen, and it is human nature to fear the unknown.

Everyone at either conference table became aware that at least once every ten minutes or so, the CG’s attention was diverted from what was being discussed by the conferees to the laptop screen and he would either smile or frown, then look thoughtful, and then type something. Or return his attention to the conferees and ask a question, or issue an order obviously based on what had been on the laptop’s screen.

General Naylor had learned his laptop was commonly known among the senior members of his staff as the “IBB”—for “Infernal Black Box.” More junior members of his staff referred to it, privately of course, in somewhat more imaginative and scatological terms.

Having the laptop on the commanding general’s desk and on the conference table had been the idea of Command Sergeant Major Wesley Suggins.

“General, if you turn that thing on and sign on to the Instant Messager, I can let you know who’s on the horn. You follow, sir?”

It had taken General Naylor about ten seconds to follow Suggins’s reasoning.

General Naylor often thought, and said to his inner circle, that Napoleon was right when he said, “Armies travel on their stomachs,” that during World War II someone was right to comment, “The Army moves on a road of paper,” and that, he was forced to the sad conclusion, "CentCom sails very slowly through a Sargasso Sea of conferences.”

Tags: W.E.B. Griffin Presidential Agent Thriller
Source: readsnovelonline.net