Address criticisms to [xazqrten@cox.net]

******************************

   Agent Baar wasted no time, after Susan returned her phone, in contacting her 
superior and reporting the situation that she and Susan faced. She reported 
that possibly three members of her security team had been killed and that she 
had gotten nothing but a run around when she had tried to contact the Atlanta 
police chief to get SWAT team support. The only replies that she received were 
that her superior would investigate the situation. She noted to herself that 
her superior’s voice never changed during the short exchange. 

   Agent Baar was already on the second floor of the building and entering the 
first office in her assignment to get the people working on the floor evacuated 
from the building, without any of them going near the building’s underground 
garage.

   The third office she entered was the office of the district attorney. When 
she explained why the office personnel should evacuate, the district attorney 
became obstinate. In short order, he put her in what he considered her place. 

   As she turned to leave his office, Agent Baar looked at the district 
attorney and said, “Have it your way, but when your people are killed and/or 
injured, I’m going to be a witness to your decision and you can swing in the 
wind. If my boss is correct, there won’t be any of you left alive, so it may 
never come up.” She then walked out of the office.

   The district attorney was surprised to see his office staff starting to 
leave. His secretary looked at him and said, “If you want to stay be my guest, 
but I’m leaving. If you’re still here when this over, you can fire me.” As she 
walked toward the door; the remainder of the office staff immediately followed 
her.

   Seeing his staff leaving, the district attorney retrieved his suit coat from 
his inner office and quickly followed them out of the building.

******************************

   Susan walked down the courtroom aisle and approached the judge’s bench. 
Before Judge Engles could say a word, Susan asked, “Is there an exit from the 
building through your chambers?”

   Miffed, Engles asked, “Why?”

   Susan quickly explained about the hit squad and the fact that the SWAT team 
was on its way.
 
   Judge Engles called the bailiff and prosecuting and defense attorneys to the 
bench. As she gave them instructions, Susan was already walking out of the 
courtroom. She repeated the same scenario in the remaining courtrooms. She 
noted that there was a steady stream of people descending the stairway from the 
second floor and they were quietly exiting the building. 

   In less than ten minutes, the entire building had been evacuated without the 
hit squad members being aware of it.

******************************

   Susan was telling the security officer that he would have to leave the 
building with Agent Baar. He was resisting her orders by stating that he 
couldn’t leave his post until he was ordered to do so by competent authority. 
Susan tried to reason with him, but it was a wasted effort.

   A man who hadn’t yet left the building was watching the scene as he talked 
on his cell phone. As he watched, Susan finally stopped arguing with the guard 
and just looked at him for a few seconds. After that, the guard moved to follow 
Agent Baar out of the building.

   Susan moved toward the man with the cell phone. “You have to leave the 
building, now.”

   The man started to argue. Susan then remembered seeing him earlier that 
morning. At that point, she took his cell phone before he could stop her. She 
held the unit next to her ear and said, “Tell your man to get the hell out of 
the building before I throw him out.”

   A male voice on the phone said, “Put him back on.”

   Susan handed the phone back to the man. He listened to the voice on the 
other end of the circuit for a few seconds then answered, “Yes, sir.”

   He looked at Susan then turned and started to walk away. Susan said, “Good 
choice, Mister…”

   “Does it make any difference?” he asked. “My people are already out of the 
building.”

   “I know. I can handle these cretins until the SWAT team arrives.”

   He thought of her taking on a dozen heavily armed killers, and the idea left 
him feeling very cold inside. Inside his head, he thought he heard a female 
voice say, {Don’t sweat it, lieutenant. I’ve got everything under control now 
that the civilians are safely out of the building.} He turned his head to look 
back at Susan, but she was already at the guard station familiarizing herself 
with the controls, using the information she had pulled from the guard’s mind.

   Later, she would be appalled at how easily she had snooped into the thoughts 
of unsuspecting people, but at the present time she was completely occupied 
with how she was going to cope with the death squad.

   Outside the courthouse, Agent Baar and the security guard were busy getting 
people to move across the street from the courthouse.   

******************************

   In the upper parking garage under the courthouse, the death squad was 
gathered at a van passing out body armor and weapons.

   “Tell me again, why we’re waiting until just before the place breaks for 
lunch to commence the attack?” asked Gabe Saunders.

   “The boss wants to have time to set up a contingency plan is all I know,” 
replied Fred Horn.

   “Contingency plan for what?” asked Saunders.

   “I suppose it’s just in case we screw this operation up. Is that good enough 
for you? Besides that’s when the most regular confusion will be occurring.”

   “Knowing that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling,” responded Saunders. “Joe, you 
better go and take care of the guard. Let us know if everything is go.”

   Joe Adams walked away from the rest of the group. He wasn’t wearing the body 
armor, so as not to panic anyone until his comrades were busy doing their 
thing. Instead he carried it in a small gym bag along with a silenced automatic 
weapon similar to an Uzi except that its bore was ten millimeters and used a 
fifty round clip.

******************************

   Susan had familiarized herself with the lockdown controls located in the 
guard station. There was nothing to do but wait for the killers to make their 
first move. It wasn’t long in coming. She was biting her lip and reviewing what 
Charley had taught her about mind-controlling a crowd. He had taught her how to 
make people ‘not see’ her even when they were looking straight at her. He had 
also taught her how to create visions in a people’s mind by simply jogging 
memories in certain parts of their brains. She even learned how to input her 
memories into a person’s mind to make them see something that never happened. 
In short, Susan was about to put her training to the test. If it worked, she 
was home free and there would be twelve dead assassins before the day got very 
much older. If it didn’t, she wouldn’t live very long. She had already made up 
her mind about the outcome. She sensed that someone was approaching. It only 
took a moment to zero in on the person’s thoughts. [Here we go,] she thought to 
herself.

******************************

   Lieutenant Ray Davis looked through the front window of the SWAT van. They 
were approaching the courthouse and there was a very large crowd of people 
milling around on the street and in the park located across the street from the 
front of the courthouse.

   “What the hell is going on up there?” he asked rhetorically. He hadn’t 
expected an answer, but the driver spoke up.

   “It looks like someone must have evacuated the building, lieutenant. I can 
see what looks like a couple of judges in the front of the crowd.”

   Davis thought about it. He realized that their job had just become very much 
easier if the courthouse was empty of everyone except the hit squad. The van 
pulled up in front of the crowd and the SWAT team started exiting the van. They 
were already wearing their body armor and carrying their weapons. In pairs they 
fanned out to cover the entrances and exits of the building including the 
parking garage entrances and exits.

   A young woman approached Davis. “Who are you?” asked Davis.

   With a neutral expression her face, Agent Baar replied, “I’m the secret 
service agent you clowns ignored.”

   Davis supposed he deserved her rebuke. “Where is General Wayne?”

   “She’s inside manning the guard station. She’s waiting for you and your men. 
Oh yes, she’s unarmed.”

   “I was told she would be armed to her teeth.”

   “She neglected to take my weapon when she chased me out of the building.”

   Approaching Lieutenant Davis, the man Susan had chased out of the courthouse 
said, “May I have a word with you, lieutenant?”

   Davis walks a few steps from Baar and stops. The unidentified man said, “The 
men and women that are intending to kill the general, won’t talk or negotiate, 
lieutenant. They will shoot you and your men on sight. I tell you this so that 
you won’t lose anyone trying to act like a normal police officer.”

   “Just how do you know this, Mister…?”

   “It’s my business to know, lieutenant. My name is not important, but you’ll 
find that the hit squad members do not exist in any database available to you. 
If there is anything there, it’ll show that they’re dead.”

   “Lieutenant Davis, I think that three of my people are down somewhere in the 
building. I haven’t been able to contact them for more than half an hour,” said 
Agent Baar.

******************************

   As Joe Adams approached to door at the top of the stairway leading from the 
first level of the parking garage to the main floor of the courthouse, Susan 
began feeding him images of a hallway filled with people coming and going from 
courtrooms and other offices. Adams opened the door and walked onto the main 
floor of the building. He was greeted by the vision of a normally operating 
business building, with people coming and going completely unaware that 
anything was out of the ordinary. He smiled to himself and walked toward the 
guard station. The guard had his back to the approaching assassin and was 
caught completely by surprise when Adams shot him in the head at close range. 
Oddly enough, no one seemed to even be aware of what had just happened. Adams 
had stood behind the guard and had kept him from falling out of his chair. 

   Adams looked over the control panel of the guard station and familiarized 
himself with the building lockdown controls. At the same time, he spoke softly 
into his ear-microphone giving his comrades the signal to start putting their 
plan into operation.

******************************

   Susan kept concentrating to keep in contact with Lt. Davis’ mind. The news 
people were using her image as a focus for a string of purely speculative 
comments about what was transpiring inside the courthouse. What she could ‘see’ 
made her heart feel warm and fuzzy. The assassins had finished ‘killing’ 
victims in the courtrooms and their associates were in the process of ‘killing’ 
victims in the offices located on the upper floors of the courthouse. They were 
completely unaware that the victims they had killed existed only in their 
imaginations.

   As Susan continued to ‘watch’, the assassins started to ‘see’ the inner 
monsters that she had keyed into their subconscious minds. The monsters were as 
real as they could be to those ‘seeing’ them. They reacted the way she thought 
they would. They tried to ‘kill’ the monsters with bullets.

   Davis and the men with him were completely confused. They were watching 
hired killers shoot at what could only be something invisible, since they 
couldn’t see anything for the people to be shooting at.

*****************************

   In the mayor’s office, the chief of police watched the television and 
listened to the comments coming from the reporter. “Who’s the broad on the 
screen?”

   “Whoever she is, that looks like some kind of uniform she’s wearing,” said 
the mayor.

   One of the councilmen commented, “I think I saw her on the news just last 
Friday. It was some kind of change of command ceremony. I think she might be a 
member of Earthforce.”

   “I pulled a tour in Earthforce. They don’t have any uniforms that look like 
what she’s wearing,” replied the chief.

   Just then the reported identified Susan. “We can’t get close enough to ask 
her any questions, but some of the people who were evacuated from the 
courthouse have identified her as General Susan Ivanova-Wayne. We don’t have 
any information as to why she evacuated the building, but the gunfire that can 
be heard in the background seems to be coming from inside the courthouse.”

   The focus of the camera quickly switched to a view of the upper windows on 
the main floor of the courthouse. It was apparent that the windows were being 
shot out from the inside the building. “They seem to be firing wildly at 
something. We don’t know what they’re shooting at, but the windows on the main 
floor of the courthouse are being randomly shot out. The police are now trying 
to move people farther away from the building,” barked the reporter.

   “Well, we know who she is now,” observed the mayor.

   “Why do you suppose she’s here and why would she evacuate the building?” 
asked the chief.

   “I suggest you get on the horn, Sean, and find out. I’d like to know before 
we have reporters coming out of the woodwork,” said the mayor.

******************************

   In spite of Susan’s admonition not to do so, Lt. Davis stood up from behind 
the protection of the guard station and yelled; “This is the polic…” his words 
were cut off by the fusillade ricocheting off the walls and the guard station. 
Davis ducked back down behind the guard station and looked at his men. “It 
seems that General Wayne knows what she’s talking about.”

   “You damned near got killed trying to prove the point. I suggest, 
lieutenant, that we take these guys down as fast as possible.”

   “Point taken. Return fire, shoot to kill.”

******************************  

   Susan observed everything transpiring inside the courthouse from Lieutenant 
Davis’ perspective. It looked like Davis and his crew had things under control. 
Susan pushed away from the car she was sitting against and walked over to Judge 
Engles who was standing on the inside of the police line. It only took a few 
minutes to convince the judge and the prosecuting and defense attorneys that 
she could answer any further questions via video link and that her presence was 
no longer a necessity at the trial, whenever it got rescheduled. She told Agent 
Baar to call her when she was finished with the local police. Borrowing Agent 
Baar’s phone, Susan called the number Wallace Ashley had given her earlier that 
morning and got the club’s name and address.

   As Susan went under the police tape, members of the video media accosted 
her. Her answer to all the questions put to her, as she pushed her way through 
the throng of reporters, was, “Ask the police officer in charge. He has all the 
answers.” 

******************************   

   Less than thirty minutes later, Susan found herself sitting at table with 
Wallace and Helen Ashley and a half dozen of their friends. “I’m very curious, 
Wally. Why go to so much trouble to bring me here to meet your friends?”

   “When we served together, Susan, you never expressed any interest in 
politics or any of the political parties.”

   “Nothing’s changed in the intervening years, Wally. I still don’t like 
politicians or politics. The farther I stay from them the better.”

   “Let me introduce my friends anyway. You may find them useful in the future.”

   “If it’ll make you happy, have at it.”

   Wallace introduced Susan to his friends and gave her a thumbnail sketch of 
their business interests and politics. She paid careful attention to everything 
that was said, even though, outwardly, she feigned mild disinterest.

   Susan sipped a mixed citrus fruit juice drink and took a bit of the salad 
that had been served by the waiter. She looked around the table for a few 
minutes studying the other people at the table. Finally, she asked, “What can I 
do for each of you or all of you? I’m in no position of real power. I don’t 
directly control any real money. So, as an individual I once met used to 
ask, ‘What do you want?’”
 
   The man to Wallace’s immediate right spoke. “General Wayne, you’re now the 
head honcho of Earthforce’s largest single department in numbers of civilian 
employees which includes at least twenty thousand military personnel. My 
numbers also show that your department’s budget exceeds a hundred billion 
credits a year.”

   Susan looked at the man, introduced as Hugh Oliver, CEO of a large computer 
firm. “I haven’t had a chance to review either the department budget or it’s 
manpower allocations. Even if your numbers are right on the mark, what does it 
mean? I’m supposing you have a point to make.” The group exchanged looks. Then 
Oliver said, “During your tenure, General Wayne, you are going to be 
responsible for the starting and terminating of a great many contracts both 
large and small. You will undoubtedly also be overseeing the closing of bases 
and reducing of personnel requirements. Those are, to say the least, very large 
changes.”

   “Your marching orders, so to speak, General Wayne, are to shake up the 
department and make it more efficient. Is that right?” asked the man to 
Oliver’s right.

   “It’s nice to know that someone has taken an interest in my career, but I 
still have no idea what it is you want.” Susan didn’t like where the 
conversation appeared to be heading. “I’m not sure what you want, but I don’t 
like this conversation.”

   “In the past, you have rolled up a very impressive list of accomplishments. 
I think it’d safe to assume that you will approach this assignment with the 
same intensity that you have demonstrated in those assignments. You’ve already 
said that you have no interest in politics or politicians. It appears that 
politicians and politics are interested in you.” Oliver handed a folder down 
the table to Susan.

   Susan read the contents of the folder. She thought back to a comment of 
General Leftcourt’s and the data pad he had left on the couch in her office, 
then she read the contents of the folder one more time to make sure she was 
indeed seeing what she thought she saw.

   “This data is interesting, but it still doesn’t tell me what you want from 
me.”

   “There’s a major election next fall, General Wayne. Both major parties would 
like to make a clean sweep of the presidency and the legislature. The house and 
senate are almost evenly divided. If either party can mount a really strong 
turnout, they may be able to do just that.”

   “You still haven’t told me what you want. Spit it out.”

   Oliver looked at Ashley and the other people in their group. It was clear 
that dealing with Susan was not something with which he was comfortable. It was 
bad enough that she was a high-ranking Earthforce officer. What was worse was 
her apparent complete disinterest in the whole matter. The data contained in 
the folder he had handed to her had not only made it plain exactly what the 
present political situation was, it had some predictions based on extensive 
polling. Susan was aware that these polls had not been made public.

   Ashley looked across the table at his friend. “Susan, the blunt truth is 
that we think you would be almost unbeatable by anyone who is presently in the 
race. The only question I have is which party do you belong to. I already 
explained that you would probably not be interested.”

   There it was. Susan thought about the irony of the whole idea and smiled to 
herself. Surely, they must know that no telepath could be elected to any 
political office. Non-telepath politicians would never stand for having 
opponents or friends that they couldn’t readily lie to.

   “You people are aware of the fact that I’m a telepath, aren’t you?”

   “General Wayne. The question about you being a telepath was one of the 
questions we asked in our polls. It isn’t in the package you just read because 
it turned out to not be a problem with ninety percent of the respondents; 
however, that may just be applicable to you since you’ve been so much in the 
news lately and are seen as a real hero.” 

   “Be that as it may, I have a day job now. I’ve been entrusted with quite a 
bit of responsibility and I intend to see it through. That doesn’t leave any 
room for a political career, even if I wanted one, which I don’t. Also, I’m 
pregnant and expect to deliver sometime early next summer. I can just see me 
speaking at political rallies looking like I’ve swallowed a medium size 
watermelon. So, thanks, but no thanks. If that isn’t enough, I play with a 
band, I’m recording music for sale, and I’m expecting to be doing some 
commercials, and I’m having my autobiography written from many hours of 
recorded material.”

   “It’s a pleasure meeting you, General Wayne,” said Oliver, “even if you have 
turned us down. I expect we won’t be the last group from all sides to approach 
you.”

   “I won’t take that bet, but they won’t be successful either.”

   Joan Little, an ad executive, excused herself and went to the ladies room. 
On her way back, a newscast on a video unit in the bar-lounge area caught her 
attention. She couldn’t hear the words, but the image on the screen was General 
Wayne. When she got back to their table, which was in a small room set off from 
the main dining area, she said, “Wally, you might want to get the waiter to 
turn on that video unit and put it on the news channel. It looks like all hell 
has broken out down at the courthouse and your friend here is somehow 
involved,” said Joan Little.  

   Ashley pushed a button on the tabletop and called their waiter. A minute 
later, the video display came alive with an image of an on-the-scene news 
reporter trying to explain what was being shown to the audience.

   “At the moment, we don’t have a total body count. In the background, we can 
still hear sporadic shots being fired. Back to you, Bob.”

   “Stay with us, folks, for the latest on the courthouse shootout. For those 
of you just tuning in, here is a quick recap of what we know so far. This 
morning at approximately 11:00 a.m., the city’s swat team responded to an 
anonymous phone call warning that there was a team of individuals in the 
courthouse who were planning to kill as many people as possible.” As the 
newsman read his copy, a continuously changing background of videos ran behind 
him. “We have learned that the entire courthouse was evacuated by unnamed 
individuals. The police are interrogating these individuals in an attempt to 
learn what motivated them to act as they did.” 

   In the background, the video showed Susan leaning against a car. The camera 
followed her as she walked away from the car and caught her telling the 
reporters to ask the police officer in charge about what was happening in the 
courthouse, as she pushed her way through them.

   Susan chuckled then laughed. “He’s so full of it that it’s not even 
funny.”   

   “Why do you say that?” asked Little.

   “My security chief and I were the unnamed individuals who evacuated the 
courthouse.”

   Everyone at the table looked at Susan. “Say that again,” requested Oliver.

   “My security chief and I evacuated the courthouse and called in the SWAT 
team. I had to virtually threaten a police captain to get him to deploy them. 
It seems that the chief of police has instituted a policy of him being the only 
one who can deploy the SWAT team. He is incommunicado in a meeting with the 
mayor. It’s a sorry way to run a metropolitan police department. It hamstrings 
the main violence response team.”

   “Why don’t you tell us the whole story, Susan?” asked Ashley.

   Between bites of her salad and sips of her drink, Susan told them what had 
transpired that morning. She left out anything concerning what she had done to 
the killers’ minds. Her audience looked stunned at her revelations.

   “You could actually hear her thinking about how much she was going to enjoy 
killing you?” asked Little.

   “Yes,” responded Susan.

   “Why didn’t you immediately contact the police?”

   Susan looked at the woman like she was an idiot, and her response indicated 
as much. With ice dripping from her voice, Susan said, “I believe I told you 
that I did in fact report what I learned to the police and they ignored me. 
It’s quite possible that their actions, or lack thereof, cost the lives of 
three EA Secret Service agents. I’m going to make sure there is a complete 
investigation. If what I believe turns out to be fact, I’m going to have 
somebody’s head for a souvenir and some careers are going straight into the 
toilet. I told a fib when I said I didn’t have any real power. I do have a 
great deal of influence in high places. I also have access to some 
investigative assets that would boggle your mind.”

   “I’m sorry, General Wayne. I wasn’t thinking before I spoke,” said Little.

   “Ms. Little, don’t try to lie to a telepath. You’re right about one thing – 
you weren’t thinking. I’m rather used to people making rash statements to me 
and about me; so, you haven’t covered any ground that hasn’t been covered in 
the past.”

   “I’m sorry, Susan,” said Ashley.

   “You have nothing to apologize for, Wally. The bastards were sent to kill 
me. I know who sent them, and I will see that it’s handled appropriately.”

   “Aren’t you going to tell the police?” asked Little.

   “Why would I do that? Except for one special dispensation, what I learn 
using my psi abilities isn’t allowed in court. Anything else learned as a 
result of using that information is also not allowed. Besides, the people 
responsible for the showdown at the Griffin Courthouse are beyond the reach of 
the local police. Anything I might tell the police would only alert whoever 
sent the assassins to how much of a danger I present to them.”

   At that time, Ashley’s cell phone rang. It was Agent Baar for Susan. Agent 
Baar was going to have to stick around to help with the investigation of 
exactly what had happened in the courthouse. Susan would have to return to 
Stockton by herself.

   Susan finished her meal and asked the waiter to bring her a separate check. 
She explained that she couldn’t accept the meal since it could be construed as 
representing an unauthorized gratuity because of the other people present at 
the table. Wallace wasn’t happy with the situation, but he kept it to himself. 
His guests hadn’t known how to deal with someone like Susan and had probably 
ruined any plans he had of getting her involved in the upcoming presidential 
election. He was positive that she could win and carry the house and senate 
with her. Susan did accept his offer to take her to the airport. 

******************************

   During the ride he apologized for the behavior of his associates. 

   “I really wish that you would take Wally up on his offer,” said Helen.

   “Helen, I wouldn’t be President of the Earth Alliance for all the money on 
the planet. It’s bad enough that I have to meet and greet these slime-ball 
politicians. I damned sure don’t want to be one of them,” replied Susan.

   “I understand now why you tried to avoid anything that would draw 
unwarranted attention when you were younger and afraid of being discovered by 
the Psi Corps, Susan, but that part of your life is over. This is the new day 
dawning. Why do you have such a distaste for politicians now?” asked Wallace.

   “My true hatred and distaste of them comes from dealing with them during my 
tenure as executive officer of Babylon 5. Also, the crap that I had to endure 
from the ambassadors of the various races didn’t help endear them to me either. 
I discovered that politicians are the same regardless of their culture, race, 
species and whatnot.” 

   “I take it that you didn’t like your tour on Babylon 5,” said Helen.

   “There were good parts, bad parts, and some parts were just parts. Having 
said that, let me make it clear, my tour on Babylon 5 taught me more than I 
would have ever imagined possible before I got there. It was a complete 
education as concerns learning how to read people and how to deal with them.”

   Shortly, Ashley’s limousine pulled up beside Susan’s shuttle.

   “Very impressive, Susan. How do you rate it? I don’t know of any other 
general in the EA who has their own Minbari shuttle,” said Wallace.

   “It’s one of the perks of being the equivalent a flag rank officer in the IA 
Anla’shok. I also have a whitestar assigned to me.”

   “Could you explain that?” asked Helen. “How can you be a member of two armed 
forces at the same time?”

   “It’s a special dispensation between the EA and IA. Because of my actions on 
behalf of both alliances, they thought it would be a good idea. In matters that 
affect only the EA, I serve the EA. In matters that concern only the IA, I 
don’t get involved, unless the IA specifically requests my services. If it’s a 
matter between the EA and IA, I will only participate as a mediator. I won’t 
take up arms against either one. I have a whitestar assigned to me for my 
personal use. If I’m serving as a flag rank officer for the IA, then I’ll have 
a war cruiser for my flagship and about a dozen or so escorts consisting of 
whitestars , heavy cruisers, light cruisers and whatnot. The flagship will be 
commanded by a shai alyt - roughly equivalent to a two general star general. A 
shai alyt na would be equal to a three or four star general depending upon the 
assignment. In the Anla’shok, my rank is shai alyt na-tuk. I’m the only person 
in the IA to hold that rank. In the EA, it would be what used to be a five star 
rank – what they called general of the armies. I function in a strategic 
advisory and tactical operations planning capacity. They aren’t going to allow 
me to get within a light-year of a firefight. The IA has commitments from all 
of its members to supply military forces if the need arises. All of those 
forces, including the Anla’shok, the Minbari Warrior Caste, and Earthforce 
units under IA, officially come indirectly under my command at that time. I’m 
in overall command, and the commanders of the various individual forces answer 
to a layer of IA officers drawn from the same military units, and on the top 
rung, I call the shots in collaboration with the Entil’za, the IA vice-
president and the IA president. If nothing else, you can see how my being 
elected EA president could be considered a conflict of interest of major 
proportions.”

   “And you said you had no real power,” commented Helen.

   “I don’t. I mean I can’t just give any of those people a direct order or 
anything like that.”

   “Like hell you can’t, if the situation warrants. Susan, you may just be the 
most powerful, or at least the most influential person in the Earthforce.”

   “For some reason, I don’t feel particularly powerful. Besides, I have enough 
to worry about, what with trying to reform the Earthforce and being on 
someone’s hit list.”

   Ashley and his wife both looked at Susan and had the same thoughts. Susan 
never even gave her status and position a first thought, much less a second one.

******************************
   
   In their limousine, on the way home, Helen looked at her husband and 
asked, “Is she for real?”

   “Yes, she is. As long as I’ve known her, and that’s been a damned long time, 
she has been one to focus on the job at hand. She can see what needs to be done 
and she gets it done – one-way or another. I’m glad I don’t have her 
responsibilities. I wouldn’t have them for ten times what I make, which is 
magnitudes more than she is being paid.”

   “I don’t know. Having your own personal star cruiser is quite a perk. I 
mean, the President has Earthforce One, but that’s just an overgrown yacht. The 
whitestar has real firepower, and her shuttle must make some of her fellow 
officers just a bit green with envy.”

   “It’s still no substitute for cold hard cash.”

   “I get the feeling from her that money isn’t her first consideration.”

******************************

   By the time Susan got back to her office it was already after lunch. She no 
sooner walked into her office than Colonel Mark Pearson walked in right behind 
her to let her know that they, her personnel selection group, were waiting for 
her in the main conference room. She couldn’t help but think that it never 
rains but it pours.

   “How could you schedule a meeting if you didn’t know what time I’d return?”

   “The group was busy working and I received a call from Agent Baar that you’d 
be leaving Atlanta very shortly.”

   “Let me guess; a phone call to the control tower and you knew when I’d be 
arriving.”

   “No magic involved, general.”

   For Susan, it was going to be a very long day. She had already been awake 
and on the go for thirty-two hours and she had at least eight more to go.

******************************

Late Monday afternoon in a briefing room in Atlanta police headquarters:

   Chief of Police Sean Tucker, Mayor Andrew Landon, Agent Janice Baar, Police 
Captain Ralph Noland, Police Lieutenant Ray Davis, Agent Lonnie Albright, the 
Atlanta chief EA Security liaison, and Nancy Ellison, Agent Baar’s senior 
superior officer, were sitting around a meeting table. Chief Tucker was the 
first to speak.

   “Today I had my authority usurped by Captain Davis. I don’t care what the 
circumstances are; I won’t stand for having my orders superceded by a 
subordinate! What gives Agent Baar the idea that she can threaten my people and 
me with impunity?”

    Agent Baar responded, “To be accurate, chief, I never threatened anyone. My 
charge did.”

   “Your charge! I thought a charge was someone you have under control! Am I 
wrong?” 

   Nancy Ellison answered for Baar, “Normally, chief, that would be true; 
however, Agent Baar’s charge is Lieutenant General Susan Wayne. She doesn’t 
exactly take orders from anyone - unless she wants to. If I were you and your 
people, including you Mayor Landon, I’d not piss General Wayne off.”

   “We can’t be having people think they are above the law, Ms. Ellison,” said 
Mayor Landon.     

   “What are you suggesting, Mr. mayor?” asked Agent Baar.

   “I suggest that General Wayne make herself available to Chief Tucker and his 
people for questioning,” replied the mayor.

   “You’ll have to issue a warrant for her arrest if you want to question her, 
and I seriously doubt that you’ll find a local judge who’ll issue one. She 
hasn’t committed any crime, nor is she suspected of committing any crime, Mayor 
Landon,” replied Ellison.

   Landon knew Ellison was correct. Chief Tucker was dreaming if he thought 
Wayne would come back here just to satisfy his ego and curiosity.

   “I also suggest, Chief Tucker, that you not come down on Captain Davis and 
Lieutenant Ray for their actions. Doing so will most certainly get General 
Wayne’s attention,” said Agent Albright.

   “I’d like to know who in the hell was responsible for this mess, Agent 
Albright, and what was the whole purpose of it?” asked Tucker.

   “We honestly don’t know, Chief Tucker. We were concerned with protecting her 
from the DTGT people, but no way would they mount an operation like this – even 
if they could. Their entire endeavor is killing as many telepaths as possible. 
As long as they keep with their telepath agenda, most police forces are 
probably not going to waste resources that, from their point of view, can be 
better used otherwise,” said Ellison. “My feeling is a life is a life. 
Unfortunately, everyone doesn’t share that enlightened view. That being said, 
there is the matter of my three dead agents. I understand that the lack of 
response of your people and yourself may be directly responsible for those 
deaths, Chief Tucker.”

   Chief Tucker looked furious. “There is nothing to support such a claim, Ms. 
Ellison.”

   “Really!” bit off Ellison. “Agent Baar, please play the recordings that you 
made of your calls to the police department this morning.”

   “Recordings?” blurted out Tucker.

   “General Wayne made me record all my conversations with your people and the 
other people I talked to in conjunction with our request for backup from your 
SWAT unit,” said Agent Baar.

   Davis, Noland, Chief Tucker and the mayor all exchanged looks with one 
another. “Yes, recordings, Chief Tucker. I think it may be a good idea to 
release them to the local media. I’m sure they’ll find them interesting – to 
say the least.”

   “I thought this was a meeting to get a handle on what transpired today Ms. 
Ellison,” said the mayor.

   “Oh, it is, but I’m going to have someone’s ass for the killing of my 
agents. Whoever is proven to be responsible for that is going to be mine,” 
responded Ellison.

   Mayor Landon looked at Agent Albright. “I’m sorry, Andrew,” said 
Albright, “but I’m afraid she is quite correct. Your police department dropped 
the ball very badly and will have to answer for it. The director won’t sit 
still for anything less.”

******************************

   Colonel Neil Hammond looked across the table at his XO, Lieutenant Colonel 
Fred Massey, Master Gunnery Sergeant Edward Higgins, and Lieutenant Lonny Ward 
and asked, “Who wants to start? What happened out there, today. I watched a 
firefight live on the news earlier today. The EA Secret Service lost three 
agents. I’m not a happy camper, gentlemen. We got caught with our collective 
pants down. How did General Wayne make you, lieutenant?”

   “I don’t have a clue, colonel. I never did anything to give myself away. I 
didn’t follow her or anything else. I didn’t even pay any attention to her 
either,” replied Ward. “I knew about the hit team, but as per directions, I 
never interacted with the team who was supposed to actually be protecting her.”

   “There had to be something that caught her attention. I want you to go over 
everything you did or didn’t do until you figure out what it was. Get copies of 
all the monitor records and go over them. Was there any good news?”

   Higgins smiled then spoke, “There is at least one piece of good news, 
colonel. We took out two snipers near the airport where General Wayne’s shuttle 
landed. We spotted them from our lookout post on top of the Vance building. I 
figure that the locals will find them when the stink starts to be picked up by 
the building fresh-air vents. We checked and the roofs were secured from the 
inside; so, we figure they were already in place before General Wayne even 
arrived this morning.”

   “Now tell me why we didn’t pick up on the kill squad before General Wayne 
did? Lt. Ward knew about them.”

   “We weren’t expecting such an all attempt, colonel. We expected maybe a lone 
assassin or maybe two, but not a fully equipped twelve man team,” replied 
Massey.

   “Gents. We know that EA Intelligence is gunning for her. They caught us 
totally unprepared and it cost three good agents their lives. That is totally 
unsat. If General Wayne hadn’t got wise to them, we’d be explaining a massacre 
to the CJCS and his friends. They won’t accept failure. We’re supposed to be 
the pros – not her.”

   “We have better news from Stockton, sir. They have a complete setup in place 
there,” said Massey. “We even have monitors in her private office and it’s 
monitored 24/7 to guard against things like the poisons Ed mentioned.”

   “We need to know what EA Intelligence has up its sleeves, gents. If they 
farmed this out, they’ll do it again. We need to know as soon as they do,” 
commented Hammond.

******************************

   Renaldo Carlucci was watching the news reports for the umpteenth time. He 
had wondered what the EA Intelligence people would attempt. Now he knew. It 
would be suicide to accept the commission now. The general and her security 
people would be at a very high state of alert. If he were her security chief, 
he’d be doubly alert for the foreseeable future. Those people weren’t idiots 
regardless of what the intelligence people thought. 

   Carlucci had been giving retirement quite a bit of thought lately. He had a 
plan to make the EA intelligence boys pay for it. They would be desperate 
shortly. All he had to do was to play the good fisherman and wait. He sat down 
at his keyboard and began to type.

******************************

   It was 2200 hours and Susan had just finished a long, hot, soaking bath. She 
was trying to keep her eyes open long enough to make it to her bed. She laid 
down and was asleep before her head hit her pillow. 
                                                                         . 
******************************

   Lieutenant general Manuel Sanchez looked at the prepared video clips for 
what had to be the hundredth time. Each time he watched them his blood pressure 
rose a few more points. He watched as general Susan Wayne pushed her way 
through the throng of reporters, saying nothing of any interest to any of them. 
He watched as twelve body bags were carried out and loaded into the back of a 
van labeled “CORONER”. Those were twelve of his people. They were contract 
people, but they had been using them for years and he had come to consider them 
part of the ‘family’. He wasn’t happy with the three body bags containing the 
bodies of Earth Alliance Secret Service agents that were loaded into that same 
van a few minutes later. Fifteen people had been killed – and for what? The 
only thing that had been accomplished was to get Susan started trying to find a 
way to destroy him and his organization. He just knew that she knew who was 
responsible for the debacle. The real fly in the ointment was the killing of 
two of the organization’s finest snipers. They had had their heads literally 
blown off. Their bodies when retrieved had only a few bone fragments held onto 
the stump of their necks by a few pieces of skin. He had heard of bullets that 
could do this, but not any that were fired from a shoulder weapon.
   
   A civilian, wearing gloves and the black clothing favored by former psi 
cops, asked, “Why watch these videos repeatedly, Manuel? They’re only going to 
drive your blood pressure through the roof. We can’t change a damned thing in 
them.”

   Major Brown entered the room and asked, “You sent for me, General Sanchez?”

   “Sit down, Major Brown. There’s something I want you to see; then I want an 
explanation.” 

   Major Brown had already been informed about what Sanchez was doing and he 
was sweating blood waiting for the order to report to the general. Brown had 
already seen the videos that he was now watching for yet another time.

   After the videos finished, Sanchez looked at Brown. “What happened, major?” 
he asked in a calm monotone voice.

   Major Brown was afraid. The only other time he had heard General Sanchez 
talk like this, it had cost an agent his life for screwing something up.

   “I don’t know, general. All of our people are trained how to keep their 
thoughts from being read by a casual telepathic scan,” said Brown.

   Sanchez was silent for a minute. “How do you think they were compromised?”

   “We have no real idea, general. All of our people were using the techniques 
they have been trained to use.”

   “Manuel, please run the scene from the courthouse monitor again?” requested 
the psi cop.

   The telepath watched the selected parts of the monitor recordings. “I know 
how they found out, Manuel.”

   Sanchez looked at the psi cop. “The floor’s yours, Roy.”

   “Play the first monitor recording again. This time watch General Wayne very 
carefully.”

   After the video ended, Sanchez said, “I still didn’t see anything.”

   “At one point, she looks like she is distracted by something, and she is. 
That’s when she hears the singing and math garbage in the background noise that 
all telepaths fight to keep from hearing. It’s what can drive an untrained 
telepath around the bend. She heard your people singing in her mind. She most 
likely wondered why that many people would be engaged in an effort that was 
designed to confuse a telepath. In other words, Manuel, the very thing they 
were doing to hide their thoughts was what caught her attention. In the next 
clip, she is talking to some man and one of your assassins is sitting less than 
five meters away. Notice that your person apparently becomes interested in the 
conversation between General Wayne and the older man. At that moment, she 
probably lost her concentration on the singing and General Wayne scanned her. 
Wayne probably got everything your person knew in those few seconds. Remember, 
she is an extremely powerful telepath and she was probably tutored by her 
husband who was a psi cop in his own right.”

   “Are you trying to tell me that…No you aren’t. I already knew it, from the 
incident with the ‘Valen’s Path’.”

   The psi cop looked at Major Brown and explained, “The techniques that your 
people were using were never intended to fend off a P-10 or higher rated 
telepath. General Wayne is completely off the old Psi Corps scale; so, what 
your people were doing only acted like a beacon to her.”

   Major Brown looked very upset. “We sent them in and set them up to be 
discovered because of the instructions we gave them. I take responsibility, 
General Sanchez. I was the one who directed them to be instructed to use the 
telepath avoidance actions.”

   Looking at the psi cop, Sanchez responded, “That won’t be necessary, Major 
Brown; however, that doesn’t explain the killing of the snipers. Does it?”

   “No sir. Someone had to be looking for them…had to have been expecting them. 
That was probably not General Wayne’s security people, either. They weren’t 
expecting us at the courthouse. There almost has to be another player in the 
game, sir.”

   “I agree, major. But, who else would even care.”

   “Maybe I can offer some insight, Manuel. You said that when you stayed at 
the BOQ at Stockton, the area monitors covering the entrances and exits in the 
vicinity of your room had glitches at two different times about forty-five 
minutes apart. A telepath of General Wayne’s level could do that.”

   Major Brown looked horrified. “Oh, my god! She was there. What could she 
have learned, sir?”

   Sanchez looked stunned. “How about just about every dirty little secret 
we’ve had for the last god knows how many years. I mean every little project 
that could cause them to shut us down or hang us by the freaking neck until we 
are certifiably dead. Even worse, who else might know?”

   “Manuel, you have some very big problems and killing General Wayne isn’t 
going to make them go away. In my opinion, she and her husband might well be 
the very least of your worries.”

   Sanchez looked at the telepath. He had the deer-trapped-in-the-headlights 
look on his face, as did Major Brown. Both men were feeling a knot in their 
bellies – the knot a doomed man about to be hanged gets as he hears the 
creaking of the trapdoor starting to drop away from under his feet.

   They had tried to solve a problem that had only existed in their own 
suspicious/treacherous minds; in doing so, they had actually tried to kill 
Susan Ivanova-Wayne. Unfortunately, much too late, they realized that killing 
her would not change the course of events that was leading to the destruction 
of them and their beloved intelligence agency. The only remaining question was 
exactly what the timeline for the destruction would be.

******************************

END PART 33

34

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