Opening paragraphs................

     Carver paced the control room, watching over the front forty.  The towers were spread out before him in perfect neat rows.  They hummed quietly and efficiently and even with all he knew, Carver had to marvel at what technology had wrought.  So much in so little space.  Not a stream  but a swift and torrid river of data flowing by him every day.  Growing in front of him in tall steel stalks.  All he needed to do was to reach in, to look and to choose.  It was like panning for gold.
     But it was easier.
     He checked the overhead temperature gauges.  All was perfect in the server room.  He lowered his eyes to the screens on the workstations in front of him.  His three engineers worked in concert on the current project.  A attempted breach thwarted by Carver's skill and readiness.  Now the reckoning.

-Michael Connelly,  The Scarecrow