His dinner partner and former law school classmate, while brilliant, was also a bit of a bore, and had insisted on the tab. They’d graduated from NYU’s School of Law twenty-six years earlier and since then they’d run into each other about once or twice a year, either at alumni events or at various professional functions. Every so often they’d grab lunch and catch up, but there was no doubt they had drifted apart. It was neither man’s fault, of course. Between careers and family, there was little time left for old friendships.

The two men had chosen drastically different paths after law school. Urness scored a coveted job with the Public Defender’s Office in New York City. After putting in three years of utter servitude, he bolted for the private sector and quickly earned a reputation as a fearsome trial attorney. By his midthirties he’d already argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. At thirty-nine, he started his own law firm and quickly grew it into one of most well known and successful in a city filled with high-priced law firms.

Adams, while not nearly as successful, was proud of what he’d accomplished. Following in the footsteps of his father, he went to work for the CIA. His first two years, while enlightening, were worse than anything he could have imagined. Since childhood he’d dreamed of becoming a spook. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be anything even remotely close to what he thought it would be. Adams had grown up in the house of a father who had fought in World War II and then gone on to work for the CIA in its Special Activities Division. His dad was rarely around, and that left a lot of time for a young, impressionable boy to dream about unseen heroism and daring exploits. Even in his absence the man managed to cast his huge presence over the house and the aspirations of his only son.

In the real world Adams found the Directorate of Operations at Langley to be staffed by crude, rude, and dimwitted ex-military types, who were challenged to think of the world in any colors other than black and white.