Second Thoughts and Last Chances

By

Latikia

Edited by

The Old Fart

Copyright © 2007, 2008

Chapter 17

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan generated Executive Order 12333, which, among other things, stated that “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” This order had been preceded by similar restrictions from Presidents Ford and Carter.

I’ve often wondered about the legality of presidential Executive Orders. Are they? Legal, I mean? Less than a law? More than an Act of Congress? The same? Do they really have any meaning at all, or are they just words on paper with the same force of law as a Washington Post op-ed piece?

From a logical point of view they can’t have that much legal standing. After all, if Ford and Carter had said the same thing, why did Reagan feel the need to say it over again?

Has anyone ever been tried and convicted for violating an EO? Not that I’m aware of, but then again I’m not allowed to go to Justice and ask. Yeah, yeah…I know I could’ve just picked up the phone and called, but where’s the fun in that?

Anyway, the real reason for EO 12333 was, at least in my mind, public relations, pure and simple. Back in 1973 the CIA's Family Jewels report came out; a compilation of agency misdeeds commissioned by agency director James Schlesinger. It detailed so-called CIA depredations from the Eisenhower into the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon years. Apparently the CIA had been busy trying to kill any foreign leader with either communist or anti-American tendencies. And let’s face it, that’s a not-inconsiderable portion of the world. When official word got out it was every politician for himself, culminating in a cover-your-ass spectacular the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Washington since the Tea Pot Dome scandal. The CIA was crippled internally, hammered in the court of public opinion and began its long, painful slide towards becoming a perennial punch line for late night talk show hosts and comedians across the country.

And as a result, every president from Ford on has found it necessary to climb to the top of the Washington monument and proclaim loudly to the world that he does not endorse, and in point of fact strictly forbids, any “person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government” from ever again engaging in, or conspiring to engage in assassination.

But if they really meant it, it’d probably be a law…don’t you think?

I made a quick stop at the office for two reasons. First, to withdraw some money from one of the several slush funds the CIA keeps. You never know when you’ll need several hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills for some covert operation. Second, to arrange for the exclusive use of one of the private executive jets the Agency executives like to think of as their own personal taxi. I contacted one of the stand-by flight crews and told them to file several flight plans, one for Chicago, one for Seattle, one for Dallas, one for Miami, one for Atlanta and one for San Diego. I’d let them know in the morning, after we were airborne, which one we’d be using.

Then I drove into D.C. for my meeting.

I’d given Coburn and McMurphy their instructions the day before; they knew where and when to bring Harold Roberts along with the evidence they’d collected.

I leaned back in my leather upholstered chair and gazed around the sub-committee chamber. It was quiet and peaceful. That was because I was alone. It wouldn’t last.

Budgets. I knew the axe was coming. I also knew I had a limited number of responses available to me. How can a generally unknown civil servant pry open the death grip a senate oversight sub-committee has on the purse strings?

The U.S. government doesn’t work on the same fiscal year calendar as the private sector. Their fiscal year begins in October, not January. Because of this, budgets have to be debated and approved during the summer months, usually during June and July, so that they can be voted on and sent to the President for signing before the end of the government’s fiscal year. For example:

Union Calendar No. 97
 
105th CONGRESS
 
 1st Session
 
 H. R. 1775
 
 [Report No. 105-135, Part I]
 
_______________________________________________________________________
 
 A BILL
 
 To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1998 for intelligence and 
 intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the 
 Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency 
 Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
 
_______________________________________________________________________
 
 July 1, 1997
 
 The Committee on National Security discharged. Referred to the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union.
 
 
 
 
 
 Union Calendar No. 97
105th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 1775
 
 [Report No. 105-135, Part I]
 
 To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1998 for intelligence and 
 intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the 
 Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency 
 Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
 
 
_______________________________________________________________________
 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 
 June 4, 1997
 
 Mr. Timmons introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
 Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
 
  June 18, 1997
 
 Reported with an amendment, and referred to the Committee on National 
 Security for a period ending not later than July 1, 1997 for 
 consideration of such provisions of the bill and amendment as fall 
within the jurisdiction of that committee pursuant to clause 1(k), rule 
 X.
 [Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed 
 in italic]
 
 July 1, 1997
 
 The Committee on National Security discharged. Referred to the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union.
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on June 4, 
 1997]
 
_______________________________________________________________________
 
 A BILL
 
 
 
 To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1998 for intelligence and 
 intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the 
 Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency 
 Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
 
 This Act may be cited as the ``Intelligence Authorization Act for 
Fiscal Year 1998''.
 
 TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES
 
SEC. 101. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
 
 Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 1998 
for the conduct of the intelligence and intelligence-related activities 
of the following elements of the United States Government:
 (1) The Central Intelligence Agency.
  (2) The Department of Defense.
 (3) The Defense Intelligence Agency.
 (4) The National Security Agency.
 (5) The Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, 
 and the Department of the Air Force.
  (6) The Department of State.
 (7) The Department of the Treasury.
 (8) The Department of Energy.
 (9) The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
 (10) The Drug Enforcement Administration.
 (11) The National Reconnaissance Office.
 (12) The National Imagery and Mapping Agency.
 
SEC. 102. CLASSIFIED SCHEDULE OF AUTHORIZATIONS.
 
 (a) Specifications of Amounts and Personnel Ceilings.--The amounts 
authorized to be appropriated under section 101, and the authorized 
personnel ceilings as of September 30, 1998, for the conduct of the 
intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the elements listed 
in such section, are those specified in the classified Schedule of 
Authorizations prepared to accompany the bill H.R. 1775 of the 105th 
Congress.
 (b) Availability of Classified Schedule of Authorizations.--The 
Schedule of Authorizations shall be made available to the Committees on 
Appropriations of the Senate and House of Representatives and to the 
President. The President shall provide for suitable distribution of the 
Schedule, or of appropriate portions of the Schedule, within the 
executive branch.
 
SEC. 103. PERSONNEL CEILING ADJUSTMENTS.
 
 (a) Authority for Adjustments.--With the approval of the Director 
of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of Central 
Intelligence may authorize employment of civilian personnel in excess 
of the number authorized for fiscal year 1998 under section 102 when 
the Director of Central Intelligence determines that such action is 
necessary to the performance of important intelligence functions, 
except that the number of personnel employed in excess of the number 
authorized under such section may not, for any element of the 
intelligence community, exceed two percent of the number of civilian 
personnel authorized under such section for such element.
 (b) Notice to Intelligence Committees.--The Director of Central 
Intelligence shall promptly notify the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee 
on Intelligence of the Senate whenever he exercises the authority 
granted by this section.
 
SEC. 104. COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT ACCOUNT.
 
 (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated for the Community Management Account of the Director of 
Central Intelligence for fiscal year 1998 the sum of $147,588,000. 
Within such amount, funds identified in the classified Schedule of 
Authorizations referred to in section 102(a) for the Advanced Research 
and Development Committee and the Environmental Intelligence and 
Applications Program shall remain available until September 30, 1999.
 (b) Authorized Personnel Levels.--The elements within the Community 
Management Account of the Director of Central Intelligence are 
authorized a total of 313 full-time personnel as of September 30, 1998. 
Such personnel may be permanent employees of the Community Management 
Account elements or personnel detailed from other elements of the 
United States Government.
 (c) Classified Authorizations.--In addition to amounts authorized 
to be appropriated by subsection (a) and the personnel authorized by 
subsection (b)--
 (1) there is authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 
 1998 such amounts, and
 (2) there is authorized such personnel as of September 30, 
 1998,
for the Community Management Account, as are specified in the 
classified Schedule of Authorizations referred to in section 102(a)…
 
 
 
It goes on like that for quite a few pages, including a handful of classified indexes and addendums that the Freedom of Information Act will not let you see. The budget for my department gets included in that handful. And where other branches of the government get to submit and defend their requests for money during the summer to a full committee, I have to present mine to a pair of sub-committees…in January, when most of Congress is still on vacation. I didn’t want to be there, the members didn’t want to be there and consequently the budget had taken serious hits each and every damn year since I’d signed on.
 

I was jostled out of my musings by the opening of a door on the far left and the emergence of a pair of individuals, a man and a woman, who began scanning the room with electronic gizmos they’d brought for just that purpose. The gadgets were smaller and more sophisticated than the stuff in use when I’d attended my first meeting eight years before. Oddly enough though, in spite of the new gadgetry, it seemed to take the pair about the same amount of time to finish scanning. They left and not more than five minutes later the first member of the sub-committee entered from a hidden doorway just behind the semi-circular desk/table/podium where the membership would sit in judgment.

“Good morning, Dr. Blacktower.” he offered before taking his place near my left.

The man was the most junior of the thirteen senators who sat on the Investigations subcommittee, having just completed one third of his initial six year term. The junior senator from North Dakota, and a member of the majority party, had surprised a lot of people by accepting a seat on the Investigations subcommittee. It wasn’t one of the more powerful or publicly recognized groups within the Senate and as such wouldn’t help much in getting re-elected.

“How are you today, Senator?”

“Troubled, sir. Deeply troubled.” he replied with a nervous half-smile and a raised eyebrow.

Fairly young, by senate standards, thirty four year old Daniel Gilmore had been elected to fill a seat vacated by the retirement of a long sitting senator from the opposition party. He was an intense and studious man who, I thought initially, was somewhat out of his depth. Prior to his election he’d been a professor of political science at his state’s one and only major university. I wasn’t sure his studies had prepared him terribly well for the realities of political life in Washington.

“Any chance I might be able to help?”

He shook his head slightly. “Not really. I’m afraid you are the source of my troubles.”

I raised an eyebrow of my own.

“You’ll be hearing all about it shortly.” he said cryptically.

“Cutting my budget by that much, are you?” I suggested softly.

He shrugged, but didn’t say anything else as the remaining members began filing in and took their places around the table.

The sub-committee chairman, a gray haired man in his late sixties by the name of Raymond Jones, rapped his little wooden gavel on the desk top and called the group to order. He looked up from the papers spread out before him and peered over the tops of his reading glasses.

“Good morning Doctor.” He glanced around momentarily before returning his attention to me. “No assistants this morning?”

I wondered for a moment if he were trying to be funny, or if it were possible he was so out of touch that he just didn’t know.

I gave him a wolfish grin and shook my head fractionally. “The twin blades of House and Senate have cut my budget so much over the years that I can no longer afford the luxury of assistants.”

Senator Gilmore chuckled briefly.

The co-chair, the only woman on the sub-committee and the senior senator from, of all places, California, smirked at me from beneath the layers of pancake makeup plastered over her face.

“Yes…well…do you have any opening remarks you’d like to make before we begin?” Senator Jones asked.

“Not just yet, but I will have a thing or two to announce later on in the proceedings.” I got up, moved around the table and stepped forward to stand directly in front of the chairman and his co-chair.

“I would, however, like to offer a little preamble. I’ve been submitting reports to both this and the House’s sub-committee for the better part of six years, and as of today I’ve yet to see or hear a single word in response. About the only things I ever hear from your two committee’s are excuses why my budget has to be cut yet again along with the latest in politically motivated limitations on my personal movement in and around the capitol. It has crossed my mind that my efforts, and those of the few people left in my department, don’t interest you folks very much. So…in an effort to educate, entertain and enlighten, I’ve decided to put on a little Show-and-Tell.”

I reached into my jacket’s inner pocket and removed my cell phone, hit the speed dial and waited. It rang one time on the other end before being answered.

“Number One, send Mr. Roberts in with the bags. The two of you may return to work. And thank you both. Good job.” I said into the device before shutting it off and returning it to my pocket.

A moment later, the door on the far left opened and Harold Roberts, dressed in his finest dark suit entered the chamber, three large woven shopping bags filled with files and papers griped tightly in his hands.

“Mr. Roberts, good morning. Come on in and join us.” I suggested with a friendly smile.

Roberts gave me a tentative smile in return and headed in my direction. I gestured to what I’d come to think of as the defendant’s table. “Go ahead and put the bags down there and have a seat.”

I turned back towards the dais.

“Senators, allow me to introduce Harold Roberts. Mr. Roberts is currently a senior member of the Russian Analytical Unit at the FBI. He’s been with the FBI since 1975, and has, since 1978, been selling classified information, first to the Soviets and after the USSR’s collapse to the Russians.”

Gilmore looked up sharply. “You found a Russian spy at the FBI?”

I shook my head. “Technically Mr. Roberts is not a Russian spy, senator. He’s what we in the business call a traitor. Those less in favor of pejoratives might prefer the term espionage agent. Those of a more humorous bent might suggest that Mr. Roberts is a ‘highly motivated, free market intelligence dispersal activist’. But, as far as I’m concerned, traitor pretty well covers it. And it didn’t take much investigating to find out what Harold’s been up to. A little less than two weeks. It only took a few hours to get a signed confession, a list of all his past and present contacts, bank account numbers where his payoffs went as well as a complete life history.”

“Dr. Blacktower, I was under the impression that your job was limited to the CIA.” the chairman said.

“I wondered who was going to bring that up; and how quickly. Strictly speaking, yes, you are correct Senator. I did try to get the FBI Director to conduct the investigation, but he was, for reasons of his own, either unable or unwilling to do so. You might want to ask him about that one of these days, but that is, of course, up to you.”

I turned away from the dais and moved along side of the chair where Roberts was seated and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Okay Harold, tell the nice senators your story. Keep it short and to the point.” I commanded.

Harold talked for about half an hour, explaining his path to the FBI, his involvement with the Soviets, the types of information he’d sold, the names of the Soviet agents he’d dealt with, the amounts of money involved and his two meetings with me.

The members of the committee sat open mouthed during his entire statement. I’d stood next to Roberts during his entire presentation, removing my hand from his shoulder about five minutes in.

“This man is in your custody, Doctor?” the senator on the chairman’s right, August Wilson of Wyoming, asked once Harold stopped talking.

I paused a few seconds before replying.

“Custody…I suppose you could call it that. It might be helpful to keep in mind that no one in my department, myself included, is legally authorized to arrest or detain anyone. We are not the police, the FBI, or agents of the Justice Department. That’s one reason why none of the people we’ve apprehended have ever gone to trial.”

Senator Gilmore coughed gently, clearing his throat.

“I’ve spent the past two days reading those reports you mentioned, Doctor, and I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all, Senator.”

“In your reports you state, for the most part, that after debriefing and follow-up investigation, four fifths of these suspects…”

“Not suspects, Senator, self-confessed espionage agents, spies and traitors.” I interrupted. “Each report I’ve submitted has had the individual’s signed confession attached.”

“I stand corrected, sir. Four-fifths of these traitors were returned to their former positions and are still working for the CIA. Is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Why?” he asked pleasantly.

I gave the man a faint smile. Maybe he wasn’t so far out of his depth after all.

“The people I’ve returned to duty are now functioning as what are euphemistically referred to as double-agents. We feed them false or misleading information to keep their handlers happy, and disinformation so that it’s possible to track and trace other government’s intelligence networks. Once my department catches a spy, if practical we turn them then hand them over to Operations, who are then in charge of running them from that point on.”

“I see…I think. You said that once you turn these spies, if practical you hand them over to Operations?”

“In effect, yes.”

“Could you expand on that a little more?”

I nodded my head fractionally, stepped around to the front of the table and sat on the front edge. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave them all a brief smile.

“Getting a suspected spy to confess isn’t particularly difficult, and turning them is almost as easy. The only significant problems arise over the issue of practicality. The biggest worry I have to deal with is whether or not the person in question can believably function as a double agent. Will their handlers continue to trust them once we start rolling up their network? Are they capable of passing on the right kinds of information; by which I mean the kind we can alter or falsify, while remaining viable as double agents? Plainly speaking, are they convincing liars? Four-fifths of these people met my criteria for becoming functional doubles. Not one of them has been compromised and to date they are still on the job and hard at work…for both sides.”

Gilmore’s eyes sparkled with humor.

“And those who failed to meet your criteria? What about them?”

I let my face go cold and still.

“Are you quite sure you want to know the answer to that question, Senator? Are your colleagues sure they want to know?”

Gilmore’s open, trusting, innocent and obliviously faked expression impressed me no end. The guy was a shark posing as a goldfish.

“What harm can there be in knowing the truth, Doctor?” he asked brightly.

I swung my gaze across the dais. “One should be very careful not to confuse facts with truth. And knowing the facts makes plausible deniability very difficult.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and locked eyes with the co-chair. “The fact is that those individuals who did not meet my criteria for becoming double agents were of no further use to us. They died.”

The senior senator from California’s eyes got big and bright and glassy. For the first time in my life I intentionally tried to increase the production of what Evan and Janis called my pheromone factory.

But no matter how or what I tried there didn’t seem to be any real change, emotionally or physically, on the part of anyone in the room, so I abandoned the idea for the time being and went back to sending low levels of lust and desire at the co-chair. She licked her collagen injected lips and tugged at the tight collar of her expensive designer blouse. I gave her a crooked smile and the tiniest flash of Lilly’s most recent orgasm. The senator’s eyelashes fluttered, her nostrils quivered and her burgeoning double chin wobbled as she exhaled loudly.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, you said they died?” Senator Jones repeated.

“Yes Senator, they died.” I returned my attention to the subject at hand. “Autopsies were performed and confirmed that they died from either massive heart failure or brain embolism.”

I saw Roberts visibly wincing out of the corner of my eye.

“Who did the autopsies?” the chairman demanded.

I frowned slightly as if trying to recall. “Two were done by the D.C. coroner, one by the Alexandria coroner’s office; one was done at Bethesda and one by the Baltimore coroner.”

“Don’t you find it odd that they all worked, and spied, at the CIA, yet their deaths were spread out all over the area?” Gilmore asked politely. The man was going to go a long way in politics, if he could keep his peers from discovering just how astute he really was.

I shrugged and uncrossed my arms, standing up slowly. “They lived all over the area, senator. I think it would have been much more suspicious had they’d all died sitting in their Agency cubicles, don’t you? The way it worked out all but one died at home. The one who was autopsied at Bethesda happened to be there visiting a friend at the time of death. Just a matter of luck, I suppose.”

Gilmore nodded his head in understanding.

“The doctors at Bethesda weren’t able to save the man?” the co-chair had recovered enough to interject herself back into the discussion.

“Actually, that particular spy was a woman…fairly young too. I believe she was twenty-eight or nine. Curiously enough, she’s the only one of the five who didn’t have a heart attack. The emergency room staff did what they could, but the damage was extensive and she was brain dead almost immediately. Her body gave out the following day.”

The co-chair glared at me.

“You don’t seem to be terribly broken up about it…about any of their deaths.” she accused.

I took a couple of steps forward, my eyes bored down at the woman’s lined face. No amount of makeup could hide the ravages of time and excess. And from what I’d heard, the old bat had known a thing or two in her day about how to party. I let her feel my lack of concern, my apathy and disdain.

“Should I be? Remember, we’re talking about traitors Senator. I personally won’t give a second thought to, or lose one night’s sleep over, the death of anyone who’d betray this country for money. You, of course, are free to think or feel any way you like.”

“You killed them, didn’t you?” she accused weakly.

I lifted one eyebrow and feigned surprise. “That is a malicious, libelous and completely unsupportable accusation. How can you even suggest such a thing? You know as well as I do that government employees are expressly prohibited from activities of that nature. Besides which, their autopsies all confirmed that, in each and every case, death was from natural causes.”

I let my voice grow cold and harsh. “In any event…paying death benefits is still considerably less expensive than a public trial. And there’s much less in the way of bad publicity. Or perhaps you’d prefer the bad publicity and expense, as well as the entire world being made aware of our government’s inability to keep its secrets secret? I realize, of course, that occurrences of that sort make for wonderfully messy political in-fighting. They give you political types tremendous opportunities to bash one another, and us, in the media. But I’m not in the business of giving you people free sound-bytes or helping you get re-elected. My department and I are apolitical.”

I shifted my eyes to the left, to the middle aged man sitting on the chairman’s right.

“Getting back to Senator Wilson’s question, yes…Mr. Roberts is presently in my custody. And now that you folks know about him and his crimes the question uppermost on my mind is what do you intend to do about him?”

There was a prolonged and strained silence. They looked and felt stunned.

“What are we going to do about him?” the co-chair very nearly whined.

“Yes, you. You see, I know that Congress is planning to cut my budget once again. Do you imagine that makes me very happy? Or cooperative? Or sympathetic to your wants or needs? When I first took the job as Dr. Wills’ deputy, Internal Security had more than thirty people on the payroll. There are now fewer than ten. Our funding has been systematically reduced, each and every year since then, and by extension our staff. Still, despite those annual cutbacks, we’ve continued to do our job. We’ve located and eliminated, on average, three moles or traitors a year. And in removing the threat these individuals represented to the CIA in particular, and the U.S. government in general, what has it cost the American taxpayer? Not one red cent above or beyond what it cost to fund us each year. I don’t know if any of you are aware of this, but prior to 1991 the average cost of an espionage trial was in the neighborhood of three million dollars. More, if you add in the expense resulting from the appeals process. Not to mention the cost of maintaining the convicted individual, or individuals, within the federal prison system for an average term of twenty years.”

I paced along the inverted length of their raised bench, making eye contact with each senator along the way, broadcasting frustration and disgust all the while.

“We never expected, or asked for, honors, pats on the back, or even so much as a simple thank you. But a little practical gratitude would have been nice. Sufficient funding so we could continue to do our job would have been nice. A little respect would have been welcome. But what did we get? No money, no respect, and I personally have been slapped with restraining orders signed by the whole damned Congress. You apparently don’t want me to do this job, but what with our little department having been created by Presidential decree and all you can’t just up and eliminate it, so I’m going to solve all our problems in one fell swoop. You don’t want me to do the job, and I sure as hell don’t need the continual aggravation. So it’s finished. I’m gone.”

I reached into my jacket and pulled out the envelope I’d addressed and sealed earlier that morning.

“As of today, I’m shutting down the CIA’s Department of Internal Security.” I slapped the envelope down between the chairman and co-chair. “Inside you’ll find my letter of resignation. Pass it on to the President when you’re done reading it, would you?”

I took a step back and swept my eyes from one side of the dais to the other. They stared back with blank amazement. Sheep weren’t supposed to stand up on their hind legs and tell the shepherd to shear himself.

“Let the CIA find their own spies from now on, if they can. Let the FBI and the Justice Department come up with the money to investigate arrest and convict them, assuming they can be bothered. Another reason for my resignation…I don’t much care for the limits I’ve been stuck with. I mean honestly, what’s the point of keeping the CIA free of spies when there are other branches of the government that are even more infected? I spend far too much time plugging a leak here and there, and then having to watch helplessly as they open up somewhere just out of reach. I don’t need the aggravation and I’m no longer willing to put up with it. So, as I said, it’s over. I will not name a successor and Congress cannot by law appoint one, so Internal Security ends today with me.”

I turned around, went back to the table, gathered up my briefcase and gave Roberts, who’d been sitting there with a dumfounded look on his face for quite some time, a cold smile.

“Doctor? Please, a moment longer…if you would?” Senator Crawford of Delaware, also a junior senator but about ten years older than Gilmore, spoke up.

I allowed myself a slight smile, set my briefcase back down and turned around.

“Yes?”

“You have an obligation…a duty…”

I raised my hand, palm forward, as if stopping traffic. “Please, spare me. You don’t give a rat’s ass about duty, obligation or about representing the people who voted for you. You represent the power blocks and parties that got you elected. I understand that. I accept that. I, on the other hand, represent no one and am obligated to no one. I did my job because I was asked to by the man who recruited me. I did it because it needed doing. You seem to be of the opinion that I owe some kind of loyalty to those of you in this room. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“This government pays your salary, Doctor. We fund your department and provide you with a measure of power and independence that few people in the world will ever have. I’m afraid I don’t understand your eagerness to throw that away in a minor dispute over money.” Crawford said with a condescendingly smarmy smile.

“I’m not the least bit surprised, Senator. For you it’s all about money. You’ll never understand those of us who don’t worship at the alter of the almighty dollar. I value other things. Things like honor, justice and integrity; doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, never mind that it’s unpopular. For example, when I leave this chamber, Mr. Roberts will go free and that will be the end of it. He shouldn’t go free, but who’s going to hold him accountable? Not the FBI and certainly not you. So he’ll walk out of here scot free. No problems for him, no more for me, and whatever problems you lot might have…well, I’m sure you’ll work them out without our help. Harold Roberts and all the other traitors and spies running around Washington have just become your problem. I know it’s easier for you, more comfortable, if there’s a protective layer between what has to be done and those of you who want it done. My guess is you’ve been thinking all this is like some kind of game. You sit safe and warm in your offices and at your fundraisers, carefully examining the board before making a move and then sitting back to watch the fun unfold. But it’s not a game to me. I have to deal one on one with ugly circumstances and even uglier people. It’s not good clean fun from my point of view. My hands get dirty on a regular basis and I don’t have the luxury of putting the responsibility or blame off on someone else the way you folks have been doing for so long. So I’m thinking the time has come for you lawmakers to step out of your safe little cloisters, get down into the muck where I’ve been and get yourselves a taste of reality. Do you understand me now, Senator?”

Crawford glared at me with scorn and anger. “Doctor, we could simply refuse to accept your resignation, find you in contempt and have you locked up until you agree to do what you’re told.”

My response started out as a derisive snort, evolved into a chortle and moved on to full blown laughter in a matter of half-seconds. I couldn’t help it…I tried, but I just couldn’t help it. Why did self-important people continuously imagine they were capable of intimidating me? It must have been ego, early senility, or some other form of dementia. Not one of them was physically intimidating. Hell, not a one of them was even close to my size. They really had bought into the illusion of power granted by their election to office.

I stopped laughing and began broadcasting fear…low frequency, sub-sonic, bone rattling, mind boggling, bowel loosening fear. With just a taste of terminal apprehension thrown in for good measure.

I moved closer, leaned down, put my weight on one forearm and pushed my face close to Crawford’s.

“Is that a threat, Senator? You really don’t want to threaten me, not unless you’re ready to personally back it up.” I suggested conversationally. I could hear him swallow loudly as the blood drained from his face. “Are you threatening me, old man?”

I’m sure Izzy would have said I was being a bully. She would have said I was no better than our brother Ivan, and she’d have been right. But I was tired of being reasonable, tired of being rational and agreeable with people who were unwilling to behave in a like manner. I was fed up with having to deal with other people’s emotions; with their greed, their ambition and lust for power; fed up with their condescension, arrogance, conceit, veiled threats and petty power plays. They still thought they could manipulate me, use me for their own purposes. All I’d ever wanted was to do my job as well as I could.

You still can. Just do with this bunch like you did with the CIA brass.

I’d have to do it all over again year after year. I don’t want this job that badly.

Senator Crawford backed his chair away from me until he ran into the wall behind him and could go no farther. I gave him a broad, toothy grin and stood upright. I noticed a strong scent of ammonia coming from the man, and I wasn’t the only one. Distaste and disgust were on most of the faces of those closest to him. Pity was on the rest.

I stood up and nodded. “No, I didn’t think so.”

Walking back to the table, I picked up my briefcase and headed for the exit.

I was about half way there when the co-chair’s voice nasal voice came barging out of the amplification system.

“You can’t just quit!”

I turned around to face the thirteen senators, all of whom looked like they’d just learned that spotted owl was on the menu in the Senate dining room.

“No? I’m pretty sure I can. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I just did.”

The woman, looking like a frumpy, matronly version of Jackie Kennedy, stared at me, pleading with her eyes, sweat beading her makeup encrusted forehead.

“You can’t just walk away and let a spy go free. You took an oath!”

“No, senator, I took a job. I no longer want that job, so you people decide how to deal with him.”

I let my eyes move from each one in turn; trying to compel them by force of will alone to meet my stare.

“You know, if you really thought we were such a huge problem you could have just gone to the President and asked him revoke the department’s mandate. If you were that worried…” My voice trailed off as a thought came to me. I should have seen it sooner. It’d been staring me in the face for years and I’d somehow managed to avoid seeing it.

Shit!

Dr. Wills had been the first to recognize it. He’d even pointed it out to me, way back then.

It made a stupid kind of sense; limiting the budget, restricting my access, keeping me busy single handedly doing a job that should, by rights, have taken a couple dozen trained agents. They’d never been worried about the department, per se. They were worried about me.

I suppose I should have been honored, or touched, or…no, the best I could do was grimace.

“Fuck it.” I snarled vehemently. Every other person in the chamber visibly flinched. “Your insecurities are your own concern. None of this is my problem any longer. None of it. Anyway, as the chairman so adroitly pointed out, the FBI isn’t officially within my purview, so there’s nothing I could legally have done about Harold, even if I’d wanted to, is there? The man’s confession is essentially meaningless in court, so he’d simply return to work and probably go right back to selling classified information, once he figured the heat was off. And it’s not like the FBI’s going to give a damn or do anything. They had their chance. Hell, they wouldn’t even prosecute him for physically assaulting one of their own office workers. But I suppose you can always take that up with the Director the next time he comes before your little committee.”

I saw Gilmore suppressing a grin while trying to look dour. I started wondering who in that room was manipulating who?

“What do you want to stay?” the chairman asked hesitantly.

“To withdraw my resignation? Quite a lot. Probably more than you’ll be willing to give. You see, I can do much better now that I’m a free agent.”

Senator Gilmore grimaced theatrically and held up a folder.

“It might be helpful if the committee were to review some of these reports I pulled up out of the archives.” he said to the chairman.

“What reports are those?”

The folder was passed from hand to hand up the line until they landed in front of the chairman. He began leafing thru the pages, stopping from time to time to look up at me with disbelief.

“Are these reports true, Doctor?” he demanded after scanning the documents, handing a couple of pages to the co-chair on his left.

“I have no idea what you’re looking at, so I couldn’t say.” I reminded him.

“These are reported contacts with diplomatic personnel of foreign governments.”

“Are they the reports I submitted?”

He nodded his head. “They all have your signature on them.”

“Then yes, they are factual. I don’t submit false reports.” Misleading or incomplete, maybe…but never false.

“There are,” Senator Gilmore announced, turning to face his fellow committee members, “some forty reports here, all submitted by Dr. Blacktower over the past seven years, of efforts by foreign governments and agencies to recruit him. To lure him away from the CIA.”

The co-chair looked up from her reading. “Some of these offers are incredible. Were they serious?”

I smiled diffidently. “I believe so. In any event, what I reported was what they offered.”

“And you turned them all down?” she asked, as if I were insane. Upon reflection, I just might have been.

“I wouldn’t have turned in the reports if I’d accepted, now would I? Although, wouldn’t it be side splittingly funny to find out that your chief spy hunter was actually a spy? But I’m not, so you can give your paranoia a breather. I gave my word.”

“To who? You’ve already said you never took an oath of office.” the chairman said.

I glared at the man. “I gave my word to Dr. Wills; remember him, the man who held this position before me? Our word was the only oath either of us ever required of the other.”

“That’s not the most encouraging or reassuring statement I’ve ever heard.” Jones said flatly.

“Ask me if I care, Senator. It was never a part of my job description to encourage or reassure anyone about anything. I was recruited to be a hunter, and that’s what I did. Heavy emphasis on the past tense.”

“Do you honestly believe that once you leave the CIA any of these offers will remain valid?” Senator Gilmore inquired.

I shrugged. “One or two, perhaps. I’m fairly certain that most of them were no more than tests of my character and loyalty.”

“What makes you think they won’t just have you killed, once you’ve left the protection of the CIA?” the co-chair asked.

“Protection? Lady, there’ve been four attempts on my life since I took this job in ‘91. The CIA, despite your blind faith and childish optimism, has never yet been able to protect me.” I shook my head sadly, remembering each attempt and the faces of my attackers.

“And as far as the offers go, I don’t think it would be bragging to say that there’s no one in the world who’s as good as I am at what I do. No one. I’ve got a rather marketable skill set, Senator, and while I may have little or no value in your eyes, there are others who feel differently. Hell, even if no other government on the planet wants my services, I can easily make five times what I do now in the private sector. I hear corporate espionage is booming these days.”

I stood quietly and felt the uncertainty and concern flow thru each and every one, along with irritation and confusion. Somehow it had never occurred to them that if they pushed long and hard enough I might just pick up and walk away. They actually believed that I’d put up with their crap until I got old, hoping that eventually I’d give them a replacement more to their liking. As if.

Senator Jones turned away from his co-chair, desperation writ large across his face.

“What do you want?” he asked again.

I smiled.

“First and foremost, I want unhindered autonomy. Your committees can keep their oversight for all I care, but I want those damned Acts of Congress repealed immediately. If I agree to stay, I’ll go where I want, when I want and I’ll prosecute spies and traitors wherever the hell I find them.”

“I can’t promise you something like that; we’ll have to take it to the full House and Senate.” he temporized.

I shook my head. “Nice try, but no. Nothing I’m asking for is in any way negotiable. You either agree here and now or I walk. How you get the House and Senate to go along is up to you, but I’ll be holding those of you here in this room accountable for sticking to whatever terms we finally agree on.”

The man’s shoulders slumped and his head dropped. “Alright. What else?”

“The department’s budget will be restored to what it was in 1991, plus an additional five percent per year for every year since then. I don’t care what other offices or departments you have to stiff in order to get the money, but I expect it to be available no later than the end of February. And the five percent increases will continue each and every year, without discussion or debate, from now on.”

The Senator looked like he was trying to choke down an undercooked chunk of sea urchin.

“Anything else?” he snarled half-heartedly.

“The only other thing I want is your agreement to my demands, in writing and signed by every single member present here today and notarized. And I want it in my hand within the hour.”

“You power mad sonofabitch!” the co-chair muttered under her breath. The microphone in front of her amplified her comments.

I raised one eyebrow and waited for a long count of fifteen. “Come to think of it, there is one other thing...” I said coldly.

“Jesus Christ, what now!?” the chairman exclaimed. Senator Gilmore looked interested, as did several of his nearest colleagues.

I raised my arm and pointed to the senior Senator from California. “Her immediate resignation from the Senate. Signed, witnessed, notarized and on its way to the White House within the hour.”

There was a prolonged dearth of human generated sound at my pronouncement…then:

“NO! I won’t do it!” she screeched loudly, causing one hell of an electronic feedback squeal.

After they pulled their fingers out of their ears, there were quite a few agreeable expressions around the dais. The co-chair was apparently not all that well liked by her peers.

I glared daggers at the lot of them. “Think fast people, because my offer expires in five minutes. You know what I want and how I want it. Either give it to me or don’t…your choice. But, just to add a little spice to the proceedings, you might also want to remember that I’ve been privy to all the classified information coming into and leaving the CIA for the past eight years. No one in the country knows as much about the secret inner workings of our government as I do. Are you comfortable letting all that knowledge just walk out the door?”

Senator Gilmore looked at me as though I’d just pointed a gun in his face.

“You’re a walking time-bomb.” he said quietly.

I nodded. “Maybe so. But up till now I’ve been a loyal one. I prize loyalty above everything but justice, Senator. And I believe in keeping my word; which also means that I’ll be expecting you folks to keep yours, or there’ll be some serious hell to pay. That I also promise.”

The chairman cast a sideways glance at his co-chair then looked helplessly in my direction. “There’s no way we can force a Senator to resign against her will.”

I smiled.

“If the rest of you agree to my terms, I’ll convince the Senator from California that it would be in her best interests, in the nation’s best interest, to resign. And she’ll gladly do it.”

“Like hell I will!” she screeched loudly, overloading the speaker system once again. “Let’s just have the CIA kill the sonofabitch!”

The ears of several senators perked up attentively on that cheerful note. I chuckled quietly to myself. This group was not really the best or brightest I’d worked with over the years. Actually rather slow and dim, apart from Gilmore.

I gave them all a confidently lazy smile. “Yeah, why don’t you do that? I’ll just stand around and wait while you make the call and have an assassin delivered to the door.”

“He’s just one man! What are you pussies so afraid of?!” the co-chair raged.

I took a few steps, and loomed over the panicky woman. “Shhhhh!” I shushed her, reaching out and pressing an index finger over her pinched lips, then linked and burnt her emotions down to the root, before implanting a ring of relaxed disinterest. She slumped back down in her seat and looked up at me with a mouth-breather’s stare on her now vapid face.

“Doctor…that was…what?…uh, never mind. I don’t want to know. What about him?” the chairman pointed vaguely in Harold’s direction.

“Mr. Roberts…yeah that is a poser. What should we do about Mr. Roberts?” I asked rhetorically. “Tell you what; sign the agreement and you’ll never need to concern yourselves with him again.”

Harold Roberts started fidgeting and looking around for another exit.

I linked with the man and shot him a blast of pain. He twitched momentarily, groaned loudly and slumped back into his seat.

“Stay still Harold. Very still.” I warned. “Remember what we talked about the other day.”

He nodded his head, resigned to his fate.

I moved back towards the dais, locking eyes with the chairman. “So, do we have a deal?”

“Do you really hate your job so much?” he wondered, mostly to himself I thought.

“Not at all.” I said evenly. “What I hate is having to deal with you people. Politicians make me nauseous.”

“We’re just regular people, same as you, trying to do a difficult job the best way we know how.”

I very nearly choked.

“Don’t start believing your press releases, Senator.” I lifted my arm and swung it out and around to encompass all of them behind the dais. “None of you are even remotely like regular people. I’ve read your files, each and every one of you. Most of you have never held a regular job in your life.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “And if you’d been doing this job the best way you knew how, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? So, for the last time; do I continue doing my job the best way I know how, or do I drop the whole fuckin’ mess squarely in your elitist laps?”

His eyes narrowed and I could feel the outrage and impotent anger building. “You’re rather arrogantly elitist yourself.”

I grinned widely. “Well then, maybe you should give Senator Gottschalk’s idea a try.” I said, inclining my head in the direction of the drooling woman sitting next to him.

He glanced over at his co-chair and shuddered. “Would it do any good?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, if you’d thought of it before now.”

“We could still try.”

I nodded. “You could try. But I’ll know if you do. I have eyes and ears all over this town; in the FBI, the NSA, the Pentagon as well as the CIA. I’ll know, Senator, and I’ll hit back harder and faster than you can possibly imagine.”

He sighed dramatically. “Yeah, that figures.” He looked around at his fellow committee members, who all, with the exception of the drooling Senator Gottschalk, nodded their agreement. “Alright Dr. Blacktower. You’ll have everything you want and in writing.”

I reached the defendant’s table in four long strides, tossed my briefcase down on top, pulled out the chair next to Harold Roberts and sat down.

“Then let’s get busy Senator. You have papers to draft and get signed, including Senator Gottschalk’s resignation. Make it weepy and heartfelt; just the way she’d like it.”

I sat back and waited, keeping myself amused by running various emotions thru both the senator and Harold, just to see what sort of effects they’d have, while senators and their aides rushed about in what we used to call in the army a cluster fuck. I was just applying a touch of itchiness to the senator, some twenty minutes later, when young Senator Gilmore decided to pay me a visit.

He flashed me his youthfully sincere smile and took a seat on the leading edge of the table.

“How do you think it’s going so far?” he asked.

I cut my link with the once again drooling Senator Gottschalk, and tilted the chair I was in back on its rear most legs.

“Not quite the way I’d originally intended, but I got where I needed to.”

He looked at me, waiting for some recognition of his role in events.

“Do you know why I’m so good at catching spies, Senator?” I inquired.

“I don’t know that you’re all that good Doctor. Three a year, in a town like this?” he shook his head sadly.

“Senator Jones did point out, and correctly I should add, that my job has been strictly limited to hunting for spies within the CIA. Of course this town is chock full o’ spies. I could make a career out of the State Department and our embassies alone. Or the UN for that matter. Diplomatic immunity can be a crippling pain in the ass, don’t you think? It would bug the hell out of me, if I were the least bit interested in legalities. But back to why I’m good at what I do…I’m good because I can tell when someone is lying. Every single time. I’m also quite good at detecting when I’m being conned. Like right now, for instance. You’d like me to believe that your able assistance on my behalf was the deciding factor in having reached an agreement with the committee. You’d like me to believe that I couldn’t have done it without you, and that I owe you some sort of gratitude...am I right?”

His sudden feelings of consternation were quite amusing.

“Don’t take this the wrong way; because I mean it as a compliment, but one of these days, if you keep on the way you’re going, you’ll be the most mendacious cocksucker on Capitol Hill.”

His wobbly smile collapsed into a hearty scowl. “That’s your idea of a compliment?”

“What did you expect; a mutual masturbation society meeting? You’ve gotten yourself into a dirty business, and don’t kid yourself into believing that it isn’t a business. And like any other big business, if you want to get to the top you’ll have to tell a lot of lies, kiss acres of ass, probably spend a lot of time on your knees with the power blocks, special interest groups and lobbyists, and you will, at some point, end up selling what’s left of your soul. But you’ve got the basics down pretty well so far. You seem abler than most at handling the intrigue. Politicians who don’t come from rich or established political families, or who haven’t attended the prestigious Ivy League prep schools and colleges, always seem to have the hardest time handling the intrigue.”

“You don’t appear to have much trouble with it.”

I laughed softly. “Oh, I had more than my share…to start with. But I had good teachers. And as I said, I can tell when someone pisses in my pocket and then tries to convince me its gold. I didn’t need or want your help this morning. In point of fact, you may have done your own career more harm than good by appearing to have assisted my cause. But that’s your lookout. Oh, one other thing…who suggested that you come over here and chat? It wasn’t Crawford by any chance?”

His face went slack for an instant and then twisted into an expression of disgust.

“Yeah, I thought as much. See, Crawford might be as new to this game as you are, but he has more powerful mentors than you do, Senator Gottschalk and the minority Whip foremost among them.”

I could see by his expression and the whirl of emotions that the man was desperately trying to make two and two equal five.

“Don’t strain yourself. They’re just using you as a screen, to keep me from noticing what they’re up to.”

“What are they up to?” he forced himself to ask. I shrugged.

“If I had to guess, which I do since I don’t actually know, but if had to guess I’d say that Gottschalk’s allies have rallied to save her, and by extension themselves, and the only way to ensure her survival in government at this point is to eliminate me.”

“You don’t think they’d really…”

“Sure, why not? If I were in their place I would. It’s a good idea, if you can make it work. Of course if you can’t it does have a nasty habit of blowing up in your face.”

“But who could they get? Not the CIA?”

I shook my head. “No…that’s the one place they definitely won’t be getting help from. Let’s see, this calls for some basic arithmetic; FBI is currently in danger from me and Harold Roberts, so I think we could count on their director’s willing assistance. NSA…no, physical intervention isn’t really their strong suit. State? They have to rely on the Marines for protection…when they actually let them do their jobs. No, no help from State. Pentagon? Could be…but that would require more advance notification than I’ve allowed our friends over there. I’d rule out the military. Justice? Now there’s something to think about. Justice has shooters. Justice has the Treasury, which has DEA and ATF. Definitely some shooters in that bunch. Local police? Also a possibility. Seems like everybody and their brother has a SWAT team on standby these days.”

“Would they really go that far?”

“Would you?” He looked pensive for a moment. Roberts, sitting next to me, looked up, suddenly interested.

“Doctor, I agree that you’re a colossal pain in the ass, but assassination?”

I shrugged one shoulder in response. “I’m not just a colossal pain in the ass; I’m a colossal pain in the ass who has far too much access to extremely sensitive information, and who is, as we speak, on the verge of becoming completely independent of the congressional leash. If they give in, I’ll be even more dangerous than I was before.”

“What’s different now?”

“Think, Senator. Use your head. Before, I was limited to hunting spies at the CIA. Congress even went so far as to pass a fuckin’ Act to keep me far-far away from Justice and State, because they knew if I ever caught wind of spying there I’d go in after it. And who knows what I might turn up if that happened? Of course after today there’s no place in government that I won’t be able to go. And that is going to scare an awful lot of powerful people.”

“Can you blame them?”

I gave the man a bright smile. “Not if I had something to hide…or if I knew of someone who did.”

“I doubt that’s the main thing on their minds right now.”

“You haven’t been in this town long enough then. The longer you’re here, the more you have to hide, and consequently the more you have to fear.”

He shook his head. “I get that. But I’m thinking that what they’re even more afraid of is one man having what amounts to unlimited power.”

I chuckled momentarily. “I doubt it. This town lived with J. Edgar Hoover for nearly fifty years and even that didn’t bring the republic crashing down. No, what they’re worried about is protecting their own little fiefdoms. I’m just the barbarian invader who’s threatening the status quo.”

“You think so?”

“Pretty sure. Otherwise they’d have just let me walk out of here when I offered to resign. It would also explain the three people hiding in this chamber that I can’t account for.”

“What?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Gilmore…try to keep up. What have we been talking about for the past ten minutes? Gottschalk’s allies have smuggled three shooters into this chamber during the past half hour, probably disguised as aides, but just as likely by using an alternate entry point that I can’t see from here. However they got in, they’re here and waiting for a signal.”

Gilmore tensed up, his face blanched and he jumped to his feet and started trying to look everywhere at once.

“Calm down, Senator. It’s unlikely they’ve been told to kill you. Although…what with all your earlier assistance, I could be wrong about that.”

He looked ready to puke, shit himself or pass out, and couldn’t quite decide which to do first.

I reached beneath my suit jacket with both hands and bought out both of my 10mm Glocks and set them down on the table in front of me. Gilmore’s eyes grew wide as he took in the large pair of handguns. Harold tensed up and began radiating a sense of hunger.

“Relax. I’ve got a permit to carry these, even in here.” I turned to look Harold in the eyes. “Don’t even think about it.” I snarled at him.

Roberts pushed his chair and himself away from me.

“What are you going to do?” Gilmore asked frantically.

I looked over towards the dais. “That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether they try to kill me before or after I get what I want.”

“Why aren’t you scared? You should be scared. I’m scared and they aren’t even after me.” he hissed.

I laughed softly. “You hope. Look, I wasn’t kidding when I said that there’ve been four previous attempts on my life. And that’s just since I started working for the CIA. I used to be a soldier, so I’m kinda familiar with people wanting to kill me. It ain’t the greatest feeling in the world, but it’s not even close to the worst. Besides, how do you know I’m not scared? Because I’m not pissing myself or running around like a chicken with my head cut off? It is possible to be afraid and not show it.”

“So you are scared!” he exclaimed triumphantly. I laughed silently.

“No. Not at all.”

I stood up smoothly, taking one pistol into each hand and leaned forward, resting the barrels on the table top.

“Senator Jones!” I called out loudly.

Jones was huddled with Crawford and a man I hadn’t seen before. But I recognized the type. Taller than average, heavier than average, more muscular and better dressed than he should have been, with a coiled wire coming out the collar of his jacket and leading to the device stuck in his left ear.

“Mr. Chairman, time’s up. Where are my documents?” I demanded.

Jones looked like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“What? We…we still have fif…fifteen minutes left. We aren’t ready!” he stammered.

“I don’t like being jerked around…senator. Get me my goddamned fuckin’ documents or the deal is off.” I said with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.

Crawford glared poison darts at me, whispered something to the thick necked man with the earpiece and then noticed that I had guns in my hands. He blanched.

The man with the earpiece saw Crawford reacting to me and took a look himself. Up to that point he’d gone out of his way to avoid looking directly at me since entering the chamber, knowing as well as I did that focused attention draws attention. His eyes narrowed, growing hard and cold. “You brought us here for him?” I heard the man snap at Crawford.

Senator Crawford was trapped between Gottschalk’s chair, Senator Jones and the man built like a fullback with nowhere to go. The heavily built man’s upper lipped curled into a sneer and he snarled with real feeling, “You’ve killed us, you simpering ass.”

“Just do your damned job!” Crawford nearly shrieked. The man with no neck whispered briefly into his hidden microphone, almost regretfully, and that’s when I felt the first set of chilly emotions aimed in my direction.

“Call them off.” I suggested loudly, while reaching out to pull in the emotions from every person in the room.

“Oh shit!” Roberts moaned. He scrambled up, trying to get as far away from me as quickly as he could. I lashed out with my foot and smashed the side of his knee joint. It bent inward and he fell back into his seat with a loud exclamation of pain.

Too late.

‘Fraid so.

What do we do?

What we have to.

Horror, terror, paralyzing gut-wrenching fear…amplified and magnified to levels high enough to immobilize a heard of elephants. Men screamed and fell to the floor, most passed out almost immediately. The few who remained conscious wept loudly.

I moved around the table, stepping over the prostrate Senator Gilmore’s body, and keeping a careful watch headed towards the dais. I climbed over the wooden contraption and pulled the man with the earpiece away from the two inert Senators. Tucking the pistol in my left hand back into its holster, I then slapped the man across the face until he regained consciousness.

“Do you want to get out of this alive?” I asked. His eyes were wide and he shivered with fear. He frantically nodded his head.

“How many did you bring with you?”

“Three.”

“Where are they?”

His arms waved in several directions. I shook my head. “Show me.”

The man clambered to his feet and started scrambling to my right. About ten feet to the side, almost at the end of the dais, he stopped and pointed at a well dressed woman who lay on the floor next to a fallen senator.

I bent down quickly and removed the hand gun from the holster on her hip.

“Pick her up and put her on the table over there.” I said, pointing to the table where Roberts was.

He hoisted her up in a fireman’s carry and moved her to the table, laying her out carefully.

“The other two?” I asked when he was done.

The second was on my far left, at the opposite end of the dais, just behind the chair where Gilmore had been sitting earlier. “Put him with the woman.” I ordered, after disarming the inert form.

“Okay, where’s the last one?” I asked when he dropped the figure from his shoulder into the chair I’d occupied before this farce had begun.

He pointed behind me, to the back of the chamber. The room wasn’t all that deep, but because of the lighting, it was heavily shadowed; so much so that I could barely make out the rear wall, even with my exceptional night vision.

“Go get him, and be quick about it.”

The man hurried off into the shadows and I went to stand next to the moaning Harold Roberts.

“I told you to stay still, Harold. You were in no danger.”

Roberts looked up at me, grimacing from the pain in his leg. “I did everything you wanted me to, but sitting in a target gallery wasn’t part of the deal.” he snapped.

“The deal is whatever I say it is.”

“You promised it would be quick and painless. You promised!” he whimpered, clutching his knee.

“Yeah, I did.” I linked quickly and removed his pain. Harold exhaled loudly with relief just as my new buddy with the earpiece returned, another body slung over his shoulders.

“Is that the last of them?” I demanded, shifting my link.

“Yes. Only the four of us.” he gasped. For a man built as well as he was, he wasn’t in the best of condition, sweat beading his florid face. He dropped to one knee and lowered his burden to the floor beside Senator Gilmore before standing up to face me full on.

“What now?” he wanted to know.

“You know who I am?” I inquired gently.

“By reputation and description only.” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Charles Naismith.”

“DEA or ATF?”

His eyebrows rose. “ATF.”

“The others?”

“They’re part of my unit.”

“What did your superiors tell you?”

“Only that we were to get here ASAP and follow Senator Crawford’s instructions to the letter.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

I shook my head with disgust. Justice really didn’t want me getting close to them. I could feel that Charles was telling the truth, but knowing it was true didn’t make the knowledge any more palatable.

“And what did Senator Crawford tell you?”

“That there was a man here who’d confessed to selling secrets to the Russians, and that there was a good chance the man was armed and might try to shoot his way out of the building.”

“And you believed that load of shit?”

He shook his head. “Not after I got a chance to look things over. Not after he pointed you out as the spy.”

“We’re in a bit of a spot here, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, especially me and my team.”

“Especially you. But you’re in luck, because I’ve got a way out of this mess…one that makes you and your team look good.”

“Oh?”

I pointed to Harold with my pistol. “This man actually has been selling secrets to the Russians, and the Soviets before them. All you and your team have to do is shoot him. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Charles gave me a disbelieving look. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I snarled. The man took a step back, raising his hands defensively.

“No sir…no you don’t.”

“Then wake your people up, get them back into position,” I tossed him the two 9mm pistols I was holding, “and be ready to fire when I tell you.”

Harold was shaking like a dead branch in a high wind. I linked with him again and burnt out all his emotions. Then I walked back to the dais, leaned over and linked with Senator Crawford. I gave him a ring loaded with terror, fear and sexual ecstasy and fused it securely into place. Then I went around and began slapping people awake.

I had about half of them up and generally awake by the time Charles had his team up and moving into their former places. As they returned to their positions I returned to the defendant’s table, opened my briefcase, took out the small revolver I’d stashed there, and handed it to Harold.

“Just hold it. Nothing else.” I told the nearly comatose man in the chair. He nodded and gripped the gun tightly in both hands.

Then I went to the side of the table, lifted Senator Gilmore to his feet and gave him a couple of shakes. His eyes opened, fluttered momentarily and then opened widely.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

Charles had returned to his place and was assisting Senator Jones who was trying to get Crawford to his feet.

That’s when I linked with Harold and sent an agonizing stab of pain into his left butt cheek.

Harold roared loudly, lept upright…landing awkwardly on his damaged leg, yelled again and brought up his hands in front of him…the hands that held the revolver.

“Gun!” I bellowed loudly, nodding sharply at Charles who spoke clearly into his hidden microphone.

“Take him out!”

Three shots exploded in the chamber, not quite sounding like one shot, but close. Harold jerked as the slugs hit him, looking almost as if he were trying to perform a clumsy dance move. I held my link with the man and filled his body with amplified levels of pleasure and continued to do so until I felt him die. I broke the link and looked around the room. Those Senators who were on their feet stared open mouthed as Harold Roberts, former FBI agent, confessed spy and traitor, dropped bleeding from three holes in his upper body to the Senate chamber floor in a heap and lay unmoving.

Senator Gilmore turned his head away from me and vomited.

I focused my attention on Senator Jones who had, only an instant before the shots rang out, discovered that Senator Crawford was dead. The chairman met my eyes and visibly winced.

“Don’t ever fuck with me.” I mouthed silently. He nodded his understanding and let Crawford’s body slide back down to the floor.

I hoped he understood. I really did. None of us wanted there to be a next time.