National people were the wrong people to attempt that security job. A nation, any nation, was just too small. Any cable map could show you the enormous fiber-optic pipes that circled the planet. Tycom Transatlantic, Emergia, Americas-II, Africa ONE, Southern Cross, FLAG Europe-Asia. Pipes laid across the planet’s sea bottom at fantastic expense and effort. Specifically built to reach distant, extremely un-American places. Places like Santiago, Capetown, Mumbai, Perth, Shanghai, and Kuwait City. Places chock-full of alien computers owned by very un-American people.