Van had become used to government and industry people sucking up to him a little. He knew that it wasn’t personal. It was his job title that got those firm handshakes, those invitations, and all that flattering mail. He was the Deputy Director for Technical Services of the Coordination of Critical Information Assurance Board. For a brief period, mostly while stuck inside a concrete vault in West Virginia, Van had been able to assess some of their stupidest ideas and technologies, and thank God, to quickly get rid of some of them.