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response to that bit of hyperbole, Simon placed a well-publicized call to the Vatican, where his call was promptly accepted. He reportedly assured the Pope that those words had been the paper’s, not his. He reportedly handled the situation with such sincerity that the Holy Father issued a press release to the effect that they both played on the same team—though presumably Simon dressed in the Protestant locker room—and His Holiness appreciated Simon’s work in advancing the ball for Christ.
    While Simon was molding himself into a first-round pick in the worldwide evangelical draft, I had done less to recommend myself to the squad. At first, things went well enough. I blew the doors off my entrance exams and attended Texas A&M on a full-ride scholarship. I graduated in three years with a major in sociology and a minor in business administration. My interest had always been criminal justice, though, and immediately after graduation I trained as a security specialist with the Dallas police SWAT unit.
    After a year, on an impulse, I applied to the Secret Service. To my surprise I got hired, primarily, I’m sure, because of the well-publicized story of how I had dispatched two serial rapists at a Texas Panhandle campsite. Newspapers throughout the country had treated me as a tragic heroine, while the local authorities felt so sorry for me that they displayed a pointed lack of curiosity about the close-range shot to Chad’s head. The Secret Serviceapparently determined that a female with that sort of calm under fire was just what they were looking for in a political climate that prized diversity.
    I served four years in Washington and received two decorations for my work. One, in particular, recognized the “extraordinary commitment” that I demonstrated to a certain Arab dignitary from a tiny Middle Eastern emirate that was a particularly helpful ally to the United States. While working on the president’s advance security team for an international conference on democracy, I foiled an assassination attempt on the sheik with what I will politely call my backside. The region’s top surgeons labored for the better part of thirty minutes to remove three pieces of shrapnel from my left buttock.
    The next morning most of the major American papers ran front-page photos of the dignitary standing next to my hospital bed, smiling broadly while handing me a medal signifying his nation’s second-highest honor. The headlines can be summed up by the Tribune’s: “Secret Service Hero Works Tail Off for Democracy.”
    That’s where my government career peaked.
    To say that I was drummed out of the Service would be an exaggeration, but I definitely didn’t receive a farewell dinner and wristwatch. During the conversation in which my supervisor nudged me toward retirement, he said that I had developed quite a reputation, which was true. The combination of the Panhandle killings and the Dubai incident had made me into probably the best-known Secret Service agent since Kennedy’s assassination.
    Unfortunately, my Service account had some debits as well as credits. I was widely viewed as an agent inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. While I had never hurt anyone, I had shot out two tires and a security camera—all intentionally. (I won the Service’s marksmanship contest three years straight.) In a service that doesn’t do much shooting, that placed me in rarefied air.
    More to the point, though, my supervisor noted that rumors about after-hours drinking and carousing had not enhanced my career standing. After all, propriety was one of the minimum requirements of the Service. He suggested that perhaps I should get some professional help, which angered me so much that I stalked out and headed for the nearest bar. There, as I vaguely recall, I picked up another in a long series of nameless, faceless, and generally shiftless guys in my continuing quest for the answer to the question: Are there any good men left out