Charles Byrnes

Charles Robert Byrnes, more commonly referred to as simply Byrnes was an officer of the NSA from 1978 to 1989 and held the rank of Major, earned partly through service in Vietnam. Byrnes, along with then-Lt. Colonel Robert Donaldson and then-Major Nicholas Kudrow were the three NSA officers selected to develop an impenetrable communications code for the US government in 1986. All three were given acess to a team of expert cryptographers and two billion dollars of funds for development, and it was determined that whoever developed the most effective code first would receive a promotion and have his code implemented into the national security system. In March 1989, Byrnes' team made a critical mistake that, although it didn't disqualify them, his rampage against the Lynch family of Chicago and expectant mother Jenny Lynch did, however, driving Byrnes insane and sending him to a high-security government mental hospital, where he remains to this day.

Alternate Universes

 * In Alternity, Byrnes is the primary antagonist and CEO, founder, and president of United Global Industries (UGI), the world's largest corporation.