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the Army runs the comms.”
    “You worked here once, didn’t you?” Susan asked her boss.
    “Clinton National Security Council Staff for three years,” Rusty whispered.
    “I won’t tell a soul,” Susan whispered back.
    They walked down a few steps and turned to face a wooden door, a television camera, and a telephone. On the door was a large colored plaster-of-paris Seal of the President of the United States and a brass plaque reading, “Situation Room, Restricted Access.” Rusty picked up the phone and looked into the camera. “MacIntyre plus one.” The door buzzed and they walked into a cramped anteroom.
    Off the anteroom was a small, wood-paneled conference room. Ten large leather seats were forced in tightly around the solid, onepiece wooden table. A brass sign holder sat in front of every seat with a name of a principal, or member of the Cabinet-level National Security Council’s Principals Committee. A dozen smaller seats lined the walls. On the wall above the chair at the head of the table there was another presidential seal. In one corner Susan noticed a closed-circuit camera behind a darkened glass globe. A door with a peephole was in another corner. A large white phone console sat on a sideboard near the head of the table. The far wall had three digital clocks: “Baghdad,” “Zulu,” and “POTUS.” Zulu, Susan knew, was military speak for Greenwich Mean Time, or London. Doing the math quickly, she realized that today POTUS was Los Angeles time, the President of the United States was on a West Coast swing. POTUS time was whatever time zone the commander in chief occupied. “I never saw the final talking points for your boss’s meeting with the Chinese Premier,” Defense Secretary Conrad was complaining as he leaned over the table across from Deputy Secretary of State Rose Cohen. “You guys have to be tough with those bastards. They are after the same oil we are.” Cohen was sitting in for the Secretary of State, who was in Asia. Before she could even start to respond, Dr. William Caulder, the National Security Advisor, moved quickly into the room and sat at the head of the table, under the President’s seal.
    “Let’s begin. This is mainly about China, but we will do some current odds and ends as well.” He opened a loose-leaf binder to the agenda. Reading aloud, he ticked off the business at hand. “China: strategic assessment and then Chinese missiles in Islamyah, MacIntyre, IAC; bombings in Bahrain, Peters, National Counterterrorism Center; Bright Star Exercise, General Burns, and then you wanted to raise a restricted item, Henry?” The National Security Advisor looked above his half-glasses at the Secretary of Defense, who nodded back.
    Like Deputy Secretary of State Rose Cohen, MacIntyre was also standing in for his bosses, Sol Rubenstein at the IAC and Anthony Giambi, the Director of National Intelligence, both of whom had begun skipping more and more of the contentious sessions. Rusty had, therefore, briefed the Principals Committee many times before. The PC, as it was known, was all the National Security Council members except for the President and Vice President. If the national security departments and agencies made up one big conglomerate, then the PC was their board of directors.
    “Okay, first, the summary of the latest intelligence estimate on China, a briefing from the Intelligence Analysis Center, Mr. MacIntyre,” the National Security Advisor intoned, sounding as though he were chairing someone’s Ph.D. oral exam.
    As MacIntyre opened his briefing book, a wooden panel receded into the wall, revealing a large plasma screen. On it flashed the first slide of his briefing, “China Emboldened by Economic Power.” He began, “The stunning economic growth that China experienced over the last decade has enabled it to modernize its cities, create a domestic automobile industry that is now successfully exporting here, develop its own impressive technological research