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qualified candidates. Every time.”
    â€œSo you’re saying that Europa is developing programs that the other four Cray operating systems in use do not exhibit?”
    â€œPete Golding and his constant refinements of Europa. She is learning on her own.”
    â€œOkay, your warped system wants this kid. Tell me about him.”
    â€œXavier Morales, age twenty-five. Born with osteoporosis and has been confined to a wheelchair since the age of five. He has a mother whom he supports and a brother, deceased. He is a prodigy. Graduated high school at thirteen and MIT with a doctorate at twenty-one. Hell, even I heard of him coming up through MIT’s system. Pete was also aware of him … he was and is a legend. After college he dabbled in software design but it bored him. Then the murder of his older brother by a drug dealer sent our boy into another area of interest—finding and ruining everyone and anyone who had anything to do with his brother’s murder. He tracked down everyone from the man who fired the ill-timed shot that killed his brother, to the dealer’s connections, and then finally all the way to the source—the now-reorganized Nuevo Laredo Cartel in Mexico and its boss of bosses, Richie Gutiérrez.”
    â€œOne bad hombre,” the president remarked as his memory recalled the ruthlessness of the man who ended the infighting in northern Mexico simply by killing anything that walked or crawled in the region.
    â€œYes, a bad man who once had far more money than he has now, because of young Morales.”
    â€œExplain.”
    â€œOur boy deciphered his banking codes, back-doored the security systems of no less than twelve Swiss banks, drained his assets into untraceable accounts in the greater Los Angeles area. Youth organizations, boys and girls clubs in East L.A., and finally the coup was when he transferred one hundred million, five hundred thousand dollars, roughly eleven thousand dollars each into the bank accounts of everyone in his mother’s old neighborhood, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back and got him caught by the cartel.”
    The president just looked at Niles, who had answered for Jack. “I don’t give the kid very good odds of a long life if he picks and chooses his enemies in such a manner.”
    â€œWell, sir,” Jack said, “you’re right on that point. Gutiérrez and his goons got to him through his mother.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œHe’s being held in the cartel’s own private prison in northern Mexico affectionately called the House Where Hope Goes to Die. Gutiérrez has something special planned for the kid’s demise as soon as he returns from South America after arranging new banking partners. We estimate our boy Morales has about six days left before the bastard has him torn to pieces in one of his prison gladiator shows he likes to put on.”
    â€œFor a kid in a wheelchair?” the president asked, angered at the brutality of the cartel and Gutiérrez in particular.
    â€œYes,” Niles said as he pulled the folder from the president’s hand and closed it. “And we want permission to go get him out, or rather, Europa wants him out.”
    â€œEuropa wants you to literally invade a neighboring country and kidnap someone?”
    â€œYes, an American someone.” Jack sat looking at his boss without flinching. Now knowing what this search for new personnel was for, his enthusiasm had grown by leaps and bounds.
    â€œWho else?” he asked instead of answering Collins’s challenge about Morales being an American.
    Niles replaced the first folder with a second. The president scanned the pages inside with his eyes going wide for a split second. He closed the folder.
    â€œApproved, good luck with your recruiting on this one. Getting Morales out may be far easier than dealing with this guy.”
    â€œOh, we have the perfect persuasion heading to