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.

The FBI summary about the Clark murder had caught his eye for three reasons. First, it seemed that there was an obvious potential link to terrorists, albeit domestic ones. He firmly believed that those were the most dangerous because they outnumbered the imports. Second, it was a horrific murder of an apparently innocent victim. Third, there was the subject of her thesis.