"Mark, it's basic risk reward," intoned Clark as if he were speaking to a teenager. "Not everyone in Washington wants to raid the CIA like you do. Most of them think that Kennedy will do just fine, in fact probably better than anyone else we could find. To them there is no reward in blocking her nomination." He took a drink of Scotch and added, "Only risk"

"I'll offer them some reward. I'll fill their reelection coffers with cash."

The senator thought about this for a second. "That might work on a few of them, but not enough to make it happen. The only way to stop her nomination at this point is to find something damaging in her past. The senators on my committee will not vote against her over differences of opinion. She has too good of a reputation for the work she's done as the head of Counterterrorism."

"Then we'd better find something in her past and end this thing before it gets started."

"I've looked, and there isn't anything."

"Bullshit. You don't get to where she is without breaking some of your stupid oversight rules."

Clark knew in fact that Kennedy had trampled all over those rules, but she had done so because Clark and several other very important senators had asked Thomas Stansfield to do something about the increase in terrorist attacks against the U. S. The result was the formation of the Orion Team. An organization supported by the Agency but outside the Agency. Their job in a nutshell was to take the war to the terrorists. The hunters became the hunted. To use the Orion Team against Kennedy would be a very risky proposition. If she decided to take others down with her, it could get very ugly indeed. That particular information was far too valuable to trust Ellis with, though, so Clark just shook his head and said, "There is nothing. Believe me, I've looked."

"Maybe your sources aren't as good as you thought," replied Ellis, who was very proud of himself for using Clark's own retort against him.

Unflappable as ever, Clark flashed a big grin and said, "I am my own source."

"Well, I'm going to have some people check her out."

"Be my guest, but be very careful."

"Why? What in the hell do I have to fear from her?"

"Oh, Mark, you don't know where you tread. Do you know anything about this woman's mentor?"

"Stansfield?"

"Yes." Clark grinned in admiration for the old spymaster. "Thomas Stansfield was not afraid to have people eliminated."

"You mean killed."

"Of course, but only those who were stupid enough to plot against him and let their identities be known."

"So you think Kennedy has the same ruthless side that her boss did."

"Oh, I never said it was ruthless. Thomas Stansfield was not a ruthless man. He was very calculating. If you tried to do this country harm, or his agency, or him personally," Clark shook his head, "you were apt to end up dead."

"You didn't answer my question," Ellis stated with irritation in his voice. "Is Kennedy capable of having someone killed?"

"I'm not sure, but I sure as hell don't want to find out."

The billionaire stomped his foot on the ground like a petulant child. "Dammit, I am getting killed! My portfolio is down forty percent! My investors are down over fifty percent! It's bad enough that the market is in the tank, but it's unacceptable that I'm flying blind! I spent way too much fucking money on Echelon!" Ellis pointed to himself and shouted, "I want a return on my fucking investment!"

Clark was about to tell Ellis to calm down, but thought better of it. The man was beyond recovery at the moment. His thoughts turned to Echelon, the super secret program started by the National Security Agency back in the seventies. Through a series of ground stations located around the globe and satellites in space the agency began intercepting telexes, faxes and phone calls. Using supercomputers and highly advanced voice recognition software the NSA was able to sift through millions of calls daily, and sort out the ones that were interesting. Somewhere along the way some people got the bright idea of targeting certain foreign companies that were direct competitors of U. S. firms. The information was then passed along to, for example, a certain U. S. telecommunications company that was up against a French company for a lucrative bid. Echelon continued to morph into the nineties. Worried about the spread of U. S. technology, the super snoops at the NSA began to monitor communications in and out of Silicon Valley. Senator Clark, as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, got to see what was being discovered firsthand. The information he got was valuable to men like Mark Ellis. Who was working on what? How close were they to bringing their product to market? Who wanted to buy whom? Ellis had made a killing on the information. Clark had helped to create a monster, and now he was forced to deal with it.

After the long moment of thought Clark said, "It is not my fault that Echelon was shut down."

"Well, you guys should have killed that bitch when she went to the press and blew the whistle."

The "bitch" Ellis was referring to was an employee of the NSA who had heard one too many intercepted phone calls and decided it was a bad thing for the U. S. government to be spying on its own people. "Mark, we like to avoid killing people after they've gone to the press. It looks rather bad."

"Don't patronize me. There are ways."

"And we tried all of them." Ellis was actually getting under Clark's skin. "We made her look like an absolute nut and scared everybody with the exception of 60 Minutes away. You aren't in jail; I'm not in jail ... no one is in jail. No one has even been brought up on charges. Mark. I'd say we did a pretty good job of handling what was very close to being a disaster."

"This is a disaster!" snapped Ellis. "Didn't you hear me? My portfolio is down forty percent. My clients are getting killed and some of them are threatening to walk."

Clark breathed a heavy sigh and placed a hand on Ellis's shoulder. Leading him back toward the terrace he said, "Two years from now, your portfolio will be back up. Ten years from now it will be double what it was before this whole mess started. Everybody is getting killed right now."

"I'm not everybody," moaned a frustrated but slightly calmer Ellis. "I want Echelon back. I want a CIA director who will play ball. I need that information."

Clark kept his hand on the billionaire's shoulder as they stopped near the edge of the terrace. "Mark, I will get you the information you need. I promise." "What about Kennedy? You've told me before we have no chance of controlling her." "I said it would be difficult, not impossible." While squeezing Ellis's shoulder Clark looked out across the water and thought of a possible solution. The trick was to get someone else to do his dirty work. He had to stay above it all. He had to stay close to the President and maintain his confidence. Then when everything was right he would strike.