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

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:

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.

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

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 office 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."

The problem during these conferences was that there were always telephone calls from important people-such as Mrs. Elaine Naylor, or the secretary of defense-for the commanding general. General Naylor always took calls from these two, but some of the calls were from less important people and could wait.

Sergeant Major Suggins usually made that decision and informed the caller that General Naylor was in conference and would return the call as soon as he could. But sometimes Sergeant Major Suggins didn't feel confident in telling, for example, the assistant secretary of defense for manpower or someone calling from the White House that he was just going to have to wait to talk to the boss.

In that case, there were two options. He could enter Naylor's office, or the conference room, and go to the general and quietly tell him that he had a call from so-and-so, and did he wish to take it?

The moment the sergeant major entered the conference room, or the office, whoever had the floor at the moment in the conference would stop-often in midsentence-and politely wait for the sergeant major and the general to finish.

This wasted time, of course, and prolonged the conference.

The second option-which Naylor originally thought showed great promise-was a telephone on his desk and the conference table, which had a flashing red button instead of a bell. That had been a failure, too, as the instant the button began to flash whoever was speaking stopped talking, in the reasonable presumption that if the general's phone flashed, the call had to be more important than whatever he was saying at the moment.

From the beginning, the use of the laptop to announce calls had been a success. Naylor always caught, out of the corner of his eye, activity on the laptop's screen. He then dropped his eyes to it and read, for example:

Or:

Or:

Whereupon he would put his fingers on the keyboard and type:

Which meant "Be Right There," and, further, meant that he would stand up, say, "Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen," and go into a small soundproof cubicle, which held a chair, a desk, and a secure telephone, and converse with his wife or the secretary of defense.

Or, in the case of General Hardhead, for example, he would quickly type:

Which stood for "Not Now. Have Him Call Back in an Hour."

Or:

Which stood for "Find Out What, and Deal With It If Possible."

General Naylor found he could get and receive messages in this manner without causing whoever had the floor to stop in midsentence and wait.

But then, starting with Mrs. Naylor, he began to get messages directly from those in his inner circle, rather than via Sergeant Major Suggins, those who were very privy to the great secret of Naylor's e-mail screen name.