By Order of the President

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.

He was also officially one of Naylor's officers. The manning chart of Cent-Corn showed under the J-5, the Special Activities Section, and under the SAS, the Special Assignments Section, a list of names of officers and enlisted men on special assignments. One of them read