Depending on it's accuracy, I'll bet it's a lot like the James Bond series -- the book form, that is. Fleming knew quite a bit about what actual Secret Service life is like -- it's about as exciting as tracking down a network intruder, except the intensity of a "chase gone bad" is probably a bit more all-or-nothing.

I learned COBOL way back when (1984 to be precise, then used it for a few years and it eventually rotted out of my brain). I was thinking of coming out of COBOL Retirement back when I heard what huge demand Y2K was putting on the lack of COBOL knowledge. What happened to the Y2K COBOL team -- did they help the state of CA then? I'm guessing if CA didn't find a replacement in 10 years (which is not-so-suspiciously just before everyone starting fretting over Y2K), I don't really see it happening now, or I'd dig out my old COBOL disks, dirty up my resume (re)writing a few more COBOL programs, send out a resume, and move to sunny CA and $clean $up -- but anyone whose been a contractor has already thought like this.