Falls Church, Virginia, December, 2077, Monday…

William Pennestri had never been awe-struck by the positions he held. At the present, as intelligence czar and DHS Secretary, he was nominally number five in the US government's executive branch. In times of relative peace on the international front, he was informally second or third. Especially now, since Tomas Delgado's VP was a wishy-washy take-all-speaking-engagements and go-to-all-ceremonies person who had only been chosen as Delgado's running mate in order to win some of the states on the liberal coasts. Not that it had mattered. Delgado had won the election in a landslide.

Unlike a lot of career politicians, most people that worked for him considered Pennestri to be a decent enough fellow, if somewhat isolated. He had played the double role of National Intelligence Director and DHS Secretary in the Delgado administration since the spy czar Curt Miller had died suddenly from a heart attack. Now Pennestri preferred to let the DHS Assistant Secretary keep tabs on day-to-day operations of the department while he dedicated himself to politicking.

Delgado's picks for State and Defense were also ho-hum as far as Pennestri was concerned - competent enough, but not particularly ambitious. Pennestri, on the other hand, had plenty of ambitions. He was probably the smartest political appointment Delgado had made.

As a representative from Michigan, Pennestri had played the lobbyists and special interests in order to build up a strong political machine that had carried his hand-picked successor into office as well. He also had many beholding to him in both the House and Senate, so much so that his nomination to the DHS post had sailed through the Senate in record time.

Through either of his roles, Pennestri was connected to the CIA, FBI, DEA, INS, Coast Guard, FEMA, and other floaters in the alphabet soup of acronyms. As National Intelligence Director, he was their boss. He had to meet with their directors often, as did the National Security Adviser. There was considerable overlap between the responsibilities of those two. Which one of them wielded the most power seemed to be a random historical event. In the Delgado administration, it was the Intelligence Director, but in other administrations it had just as often been the Adviser. Sometimes the two battled it out as they had done a month ago on the Hill during a Senate subcommittee's hearings.

He was a Henry Higgins man, dapper and urbane, who was one of those rarities in Washington, a little eccentric and elitist while being a servant of the people with a work ethic and scruples. He maneuvered with the best of them and even bent the rules a little now and then, but it was all to do the best job possible. In spite of some DHS personnel's opinion of him, he often dug down into the details that interested him, although he tried to never lose the big picture.