Something is wrong.  The National Security Adviser told himself to relax.  Something might be wrong.  Maybe Ritter was playing mind games.  Maybe even he'd seen that his course of action was the only proper one, Cutter speculated, and resigned himself to the inevitable.  After all, Ritter liked being Deputy Director (Operations).  That was his rice bowl, as the government saying went.  Even the most important government officials had those.  Even they were often uncomfortable with the idea of leaving behind the office and the secretary and the driver and most of all the title that designated them as Important People despite their meager salaries.  Like the line from some movie or other, leaving the government meant entering the real world, and in the real world, people expected results to back up position papers arid National Intelligence Estimates.  How many people stayed in government service because of the security, the benefits, and the insulation from that real world?  There were more of those, Cutter was sure, than of the ones who saw themselves as the honest servants of the people. I see.