Sea of Fire Read Free Page A

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    That caught her with her guard down. “Talk to me about that.”
    “Most of them had to sandblast their most distinguishing features, make everything smooth to get where they are,” Hood told her. “What’s left is guided by constitutions or surrounded by domestic and international watch-dogs, constituents, and special interests.”
    “Is that a bad thing?” she asked.
    “Not necessarily,” Hood replied. “It prevents dictatorships. But it also slows progress to a glacial pace. The individual leader can’t move without the entire system moving with him or her.”
    “Still, what they do affects more than the bottom line of a very minor privately held company.” She sat back. “What about you?”
    “What do you want to know?” he asked.
    “How you do it,” she replied. “You don’t seem to be one of those bureaucrats who’s always on the make, looking for access.”
    Hood selected a bread stick from the basket. He dabbed it in a dish of olive oil and took a bite. He was not good at this either. When Sharon used to ask him how his day went, he never said much. There was no point starting a lengthy conversation because there were always interruptions. The phone, the kids, something on the stove or in the oven.
    “I’m interested in having the access it takes to do my job, not in collecting it,” Hood replied.
    “An idealist.”
    Hood shrugged a shoulder.
    “Is that a yes?” Daphne pressed.
    Hood looked at her. Daphne had a nice smile. It started at the eyes and made its way down. “Let’s say I try to do what’s right,” he replied. “When I screw up, it’s not out of malice.”
    “So you don’t possess the revenge gene that most people in big government have,” she said.
    “No,” he said. “Bastards invariably cause their own downfall.”
    “And that really works for you?” she asked.
    “It leaves me free to do more constructive things,” Hood said.
    Daphne laughed. “Lord, we are very different people. I hate SOBs or discourtesy or people who beat me at anything.” She regarded him. “I still don’t believe you have absolutely no bloodlust. Tell me if I’m overstepping some kind of first-date rule with this, but I read about those men who took the children hostage in New York. The ones you and your team killed. Didn’t you hate them?”
    “That’s a good question,” Hood replied.
    Daphne was referring to the renegade United Nations peacekeepers who had seized the Security Council during a party. Several children, including Hood’s daughter Harleigh, were among the young musicians providing entertainment. Hood and his number-two man, General Mike Rodgers, entered the chamber and, in a bloody gun battle, freed the captives.
    Daphne was regarding Hood intently.
    “I certainly hated what they did,” he told her.
    “But not them?” she asked.
    “No,” he answered truthfully. “They lost. Victory cost us something. Life always does. But it cost them everything.”
    “So you see it as a net gain for our side,” Daphne said.
    “I’m not quite that dispassionate about it, but yes. More or less,” Hood told her.
    “You’re more philosophical about confrontations than I am,” Daphne told him. The woman leaned forward again. “I hate my enemies, Paul. I despise them from my nose to my toes. And I track them. I follow their activities in the trade magazines and through the cocktail-party circuit. If they are executives in a public company, I check the stock several times a day. Each time it goes down, I’m a happy woman. I don’t miss an opportunity to cut their hamstrings. In fact, I go out of my way to get them.”
    “Well, that’s business,” he said.
    “No, Paul. It’s personal. I personalize it. I personalize everything. You don’t understand that, do you?”
    “It seems a little obsessive to me,” he admitted. “Or maybe that should be for me.”
    “It is obsessive!” Daphne agreed. “Who says that’s a bad thing?”
    “Well, there will always