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community.
    They made a handy pair. McFarlane assumed the political aspects of the job, advising the president and working with Congress, a task that Poindexter was happy to avoid, since he held American lawmakers in about as high esteem as he did pirates. Poindexter handled the back office, managing the NSC staff with precision and, everyone seemed to agree, genuine affability. He liked the staff, and they respected him. He expected no more or less than their loyalty and devotion. But not just to him—to the system that served the president. At this moment, it was revving up for crisis mode.
    Poindexter got out of bed and descended the staircase of his modest two-story Colonial, careful not to wake his wife, Linda, and their sleeping sons. He opened a small door just off the kitchen. Another set of stairs took him to the basement, where he kept a private set of rooms—an electronics shop and a home office. He bent down, spun the combination lock on a government-issued two-drawer safe, and pulled out a new “laptop” computer, called the GRiD Compass, which he’d rigged up with an encrypted data connection to the White House.
    At about ten thousand dollars apiece, the Compass’s only significant customer was the U.S. government. It had purchased the machines for space-shuttle astronauts and Special Forces troops, who appreciated that the rugged apparatus wouldn’t break when they jumped out of a plane with it. Poindexter, an engineer by training, was impressed with the machine; its designers included a British engineer who went on to design the first computer mouse for Apple and a Cornell electrical engineering graduate who later invented two handheld computers, the Palm Pilot and the Treo.
    Poindexter set the heavy device on a table he’d built into the wall and opened its clamshell case. The orange monochrome screen glowed, and the forty-seven-year-old sailor donned his large Navy-issued trifocals, which had gold aviator frames. He’d requested the midrange lenses especially for looking at computer screens, which he found himself doing a lot lately. Poindexter had designed his office like a secure facility. He augmented the usual phone line with encrypted voice and data connections. An intricate panel of wires hung on the wall of the electronics shop, just behind the office. Telephone repair-men stared at the setup in slack-jawed amazement on the rare occasions Poindexter summoned them to the house.
    At the White House the staff was likely in a frenzy. But here, in darkened serenity, Poindexter went to work. He checked message traffic on a new electronic mail system called PROFS Notes, which he’d talked IBM into letting the NSC staff try out. Poindexter had grown tired of playing telephone tag and chasing people down at the office. The e-mail system was quite a timesaver and such a hit that eventually all White House staffers got access.
    Poindexter had been brought to the White House to bring the place into the technology age. In June 1981, Dick Allen, Reagan’s first national security adviser, gave Poindexter the intimidating task of upgrading the Situation Room, which was, despite popular notions, a technological backwater that lacked many of the basic necessities for keeping the president in touch with the world. Poindexter, then a military assistant, eagerly assumed the position and made great strides in little time. The Situation Room was outfitted with modern communications equipment. And now he was putting the finishing touches on the new $14 million Crisis Management Center, a technological outpost in the Old Executive Office Building, the imposing Second Empire- style building next to the White House where the NSC staff kept their offices. Poindexter had installed videoconferencing systems, large screens on the walls, and links to the systems that ran diplomatic, military, and intelligence cable traffic.
    This new nerve center—combining the Situation Room and the