With the economy tanking, it probably wouldn't be that hard to find land for sale, and funding was trivial for a time-traveler to acquire.  Empire City's building code was unreasonably complex and so was the state's -- regardless of where the Spoiler intended to site his headquarters, getting some sort of waiver would doubtlessly be a good idea.<br/><br/>Kismet was Elaine Tatlelik, whose work with several private military contractors had taken her all over the world in her adult life.  It took a while to figure out exactly when her luck had kicked in -- statistically absurd as it might have been, it was still a subtle thing -- but eventually the Spoiler narrowed it down to a nighttime battle just over a year past, in Bulgaria, where at one point the soldiers ambushing Tatlelik's squad suddenly found their weapons misfiring.<br/><br/>It wasn't clear why, until he remembered that the date was of mystical significance -- the stars were supposed to have been in unprecedented alignment that night, or something.  Quite a few of the world's legitimate mystics had been confused, disappointed, or relieved when very little seemed to happen.  It seemed that Tatlelik had simply been standing in the right place at the right time...