1 Torridian   The Trainer 2
PROLOGUE — 03/15/99 FRI

Conference Room at CIDAR Headquarters

Restricted Confidential” and “CIDAR doc #1999ts.512.001. v23,” typed in a prominent but sterile Courier font, identify the contents of a two-inch D-ring binder. Below the labels are official seals of several intelligence agencies united under the control structure of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government.
Mr. White — a slender African American with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard — holds the document securely with both hands, his right thumb anxiously rubbing back and forth over the open page. Setting the document down decisively, he rubs his tired eyes with his left hand, gently tapping his right index finger on the table.
This is the third time he has seen a version of this particular report. The other twenty times it came up for review, he was too busy making policy decisions based on other reports. Policy decisions rubber stamped by various executive branch agencies all the way to the White House.
Had it been humanly possible for him to see those other twenty versions, he would have greeted each with an open mind. White remembers vividly when he used to submit these types of reports. His face hardly had a crease and his hands were steadier and much less weathered. Was it time, or the frustration of seeing those reports glossed over or misused, that unsteadied his hands and carved so many wrinkles into his face? He wasn’t sure. If he were an ordinary man, he would cynically say the latter. It must have more to do with time. After all, before drafting reports came many years of gathering and analyzing the intelligence that went into such reports. In the early years, there weren’t many people working in the Advanced Analytic Tools office within the Directorate of Science and Technology of Central Intelligence. How odd it seems that so much time 		could have passed.
Mr. White continues to rub his eyes, then looks up at a man and woman. They remain seated in the same seats they had chosen when they first entered the room just prior to lunch. Their eyes, parched and irritated, continue pouring over pages upon pages of information, as their pens mark a fragment of a thought here and there in the margins. Pillars of light from overhead track lights illuminate the conference room table. A closer look at the mounds of material reveals that each person sits with an identical set of reports and binders. Each also has a behemoth mug of black coffee. Only Mr. White’s is freshly filled and steaming.
Although it could normally seat a dozen people comfortably, the conference room seems to close in on its three inhabitants. The air, continuously replenished by a softly hissing ventilation system, seems stale and chronically dry. Without windows to help gauge the passing of time, a clock on the wall hints at the remnants of a day as it displays ten o’clock. Only rings on the coffeepot, not quite empty, and the sogginess of a once-fresh ham and cheese sandwich on the edge of a crumb-strewn tray help illustrate the passing of that day. Clearing his throat, Mr. White speaks.
“Rico, show me the simulation. I want to see it again.”
Rico, a smartly dressed, twenty-five-year-old with dark, Spanish features, looks up, breaking his train of thought. When he hits the button of a remote control resting next to his coffee cup, the room lights steadily dim until their luminosity all but vanishes. Simultaneously, a projection screen rolls down revealing a graphic of the continental United States. A computer graphics simulation commences, depicting red, blinking splotches hitting a half-dozen targets across the u.s. in rapid succession.
With a kind of dry, matter-of-factness, Rico explains what the graphics are showing. “Shortly after the ball drops in Times Square, a nuclear assault will decimate the populations of the highlighted cities.”
“And it gets worse,” recalls Mr. White, again rubbing his weary eyes with his left hand before reaching for his coffee.
The simulation advances to include red dots speckling, then engulfing a patchwork of large sections of the map.
“A simultaneous release of lethal biological agents will taint the municipal water supplies of about a half-dozen metropolitan areas,” explains Rico.
Mr. White thinks about the increasingly sophisticated logistics being employed by the independent cells. Just a few months ago, such a coordinated effort wouldn’t have been considered possible. Reflecting on the timing and the outcome of the attack, he remarks, “Containment efforts would be hampered both by

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