Dianne's Dilemma — John Russo

Single and nearing thirty-six, Dianne Evans, computer specialist for the US Justice Department, is a compulsive perfectionist. Discovering missing material from one of the files she was transposing into the department's new database, she was reluctant to bring it to the attention of Sam Goldman, her new supervisor, and with good reason. She had recently been transferred to Justice from IRS after she insisted that there was an inaccuracy in the new IRS auditing program she had been working on. Her IRS supervisor had disagreed and, rather than put up with Dianne's insistence that the program was flawed, arranged to have Dianne, whom she considered a troublemaker, transferred with excellent references to the Justice Department where they desperately needed programmers with high security clearance.

Sam Goldman, Dianne's new supervisor, had been happy to get her. Approaching retirement, Sam felt the transposing of Justice's files into the new database would be the largest assignment of his career, and most likely the last. Dianne's obsession with accuracy could only benefit the program.

Partway into the transposition, Dianne discovered an empty file with the heading “M. Brutus.” She tried unsuccessfully to ignore it and continue, but she couldn't let go. How could she proceed if she were responsible for the work? It had to be accurate. Gathering up the sections of the material she was copying that had omissions, she went directly to Goldman's office. When she pointed out the file with the missing data, he recognized that it was an active WITSEC (Witness Security Program) file. This was to be the beginning of Dianne's dilemma and the dangerous consequences that caused a threat to her life and the start of a lasting romance.