[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:
MRS N??????
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.
There would be a muted beep, he would drop his eyes to the screen and see that Mrs. Naylor was inquiring:
CAN YOU PICK UP TWO DOZEN EGGS AND SOME RYE BREAD AT THE
To which, without causing the conference to come to a complete stop, he could reply:
The next development-which he thought was probably inevitable-was the realization that since he was connected to the Internet, his personal e-mail was thus available.
The purpose of the conferences was to make sure everybody knew what everybody else was thinking, had done, or was planning to do. Very often General Naylor knew what most of the conferees were going to say when they stood up. Listening to something he already knew-or at least assigning his full attention to it-was a waste of time. Time that could be better spent reading what, for example, his sons thought would interest him.
Both of his sons were in the Army and in Iraq. The oldest was a lieutenant colonel who had followed his father and grandfather into Armor. The youngest was a captain who commanded a Special Forces A-Team engaged in rounding up Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Both of them-and he was very proud of the way they handled this-routinely sent him information they thought he might not otherwise get-even though everything military in Iraq was under his command-and would like to have. The information they sent met two criteria: It was not classified; and it contained not the slightest hint of criticism of any officer.
There were many periods in many conferences when Naylor felt justified in reading e-mails from his sons instead of hearing one colonel or general explain something for the fifth time to a colonel or general who just didn't seem to be able to understand what he was being told.
The conferees had no idea what the commanding general might be typing on his IBB, only that he had diverted his attention from them to it.
The little box in the lower right corner of the laptop screen flicked brightly for an instant and then reported:
YOU HAVE A NEW E-MAIL FROM CHARLEY@CASTILLO. COM
Charley Castillo had a unique relationship on several levels with Allan B. Naylor, General, U.S. Army, Commanding General of the United States Cen-tral Command, any one of which would have given him access to Naylor's private e-mail address.
One, which Naylor often thought was the most important, was that both he and Elaine considered him a third son-the middle son, so to speak-even though there was no blood connection between them. They had known him since he was twelve, when Charley had become an orphan.