Panic's not the word I'd use Neumann thought, but he made no comment. "What about the agents' vehicle?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Vanished. Keys were in Agent Hildebrandt's pocket, though. Maybe it was a spare set."

"One more mystery." Alex Neumann sighed. "Masters, I want the bullet fragments from the dead agents segregated and sent up here overnight for analysis. Then I want your men to go back and scour that area for fired brass and any other evidence. Widen your search past where the men were shot. If the shooters were prairie dog hunters, they may have been shooting in other spots and been less careful. Get back to me as soon as you have anything."

"Yes, sir."

I have my own theory Alex Neumann thought as he hung up the phone. We're not going to win this one.

August 6 "This party is like being in the losing team's locker room after the Super Bowl," Arthur 'B.I.' Bedderson whispered to his mother. "We're the only ones smiling."

"Hush," she said, biting her lip to keep her composure. "They'll hear you." The elderly woman often disagreed with her son's libertarian political views but he could always make her laugh.

"They'll probably loosen up after they knock back some more of the free booze," Bedderson offered. "Ken Flanagan told me he had a nice talk with you," his mother said. Bedderson shrugged.

"No percentage in me being mean-spirited. And in any event, I only talk politics to the opposition when I'm in the Capitol. Certainly not at my mother's dinner party."

"I think he's still bitter about losing. And especially that 'Flanagan Death Clock' billboard."

"I was neutral on that one. You shouldn't let sensationalism overwhelm reason, even when they say the same thing." His mother nodded. It was one point on which they agreed. "As to the election," Bedderson went on, "you'd think some of these guys would figure out that ultimately, people always move towards freedom."

"You planning to point that out to them, are you?" She asked. Bedderson laughed.

"As I said before, no discussion of politics here. At least not from my lips," he amended. "Shall I go over and strike up a conversation with Mrs. Kinser? I could tell her how much I admire Billie Jean King," he suggested innocently. Representative Kinser and his wife were both at the party for the ex-governor, amid rumors that she was leaving him for another woman.

"You're terrible," Bedderson's mother said, turning her head so no one could see her smile. "I should have insisted you stay home."

"I think I'll get a drink and go mingle." Bedderson headed for the bar and ordered a tonic water with lime. He wasn't about to put any chemicals into his system until well afterwards.

"Have you been upstairs?" Bedderson asked. "Mom keeps her parties on the first floor, but I know she'd want you to see the rest of the house."

"No, I haven't," the ex-Governor said.

"I'll give you a quick tour. Oh, wait-I told Mom I'd check on something in the kitchen." He smiled suddenly. "Won't take a minute. Go on up the front stairs and I'll meet you in the upstairs hall." He nodded towards the far end of the seventy-foot marble hallway, past the door to the living room where most of the guests were gathered. "Mom's got some artwork up there she's very proud of." Before the older man could answer, Bedderson had turned on his heel and headed towards the kitchen. Ken Flanagan hesitated a moment, then began walking towards the marble stairs.

"Beautiful," Flanagan said as he looked at one of the sculptures in the upstairs hallway. "Not just this sculpture, but the whole house." In both architectural design and interior furnishings, the quality of Lois Bedderson's home far eclipsed the Governor's mansion in Jefferson City that Ken Flanagan had inhabited for one term.

Flanagan was from a town in rural Missouri where it was unusual to find two graduates of a state university in the same family. He was still not entirely at ease with someone whose parents, grandparents, and greatgrandparents had all received degrees from Ivy League institutions. This was particularly true when Flanagan was on the other man's turf, and even more so given that Bedderson was three inches taller and outweighed the ex-Governor by almost a hundred pounds.

"Built in 1912," Bedderson said of the house, nodding to acknowledge Flanagan's compliment. "Just before the creation of the Federal Reserve."

"Did you grow up here?"

"Yes, my parents bought it before I was born. When Dad died a few years ago, I thought Mom would move someplace smaller, but she likes being able to hold parties. Like this one."

"She's very kind." Bedderson smiled at the compliment, then shrugged.

"As I say, Mom likes putting the house to good use." Flanagan nodded. There was a long silence, and Ken Flanagan began to look more and more uncomfortable.

"Ah, listen," he said finally, "I, uh, don't have a problem with...you carrying a gun," the ex-Governor finished quickly. "If you had come to me originally, I'm sure I could have accommodated you." Bedderson gave the older man a puzzled look.

"I could have given you a special dispensation," Flanagan continued. "Several of my aides have them."

"Oh, that's not the problem, sir," Bedderson answered with a dismissive wave of his fingers when he understood what Flanagan was talking about. "I carry police creds. Have for more than fifteen years." Now it was the ex-Governor's turn to look baffled.

"I'm on the force of three different departments," the younger man explained. "Give them weapons instruction a couple times a year, that kind of thing."

"Then why...?"

"Why spend twenty thousand dollars out of my own pocket pushing for a carry law? Because my having police creds doesn't do any good for the people who work for me at the plant. It doesn't help my wife when she's away from me, like tonight. It doesn't help the two women that clean this house for my mother, who both live in fourth-floor walk-ups in north St. Louis. And it won't help my daughter when she grows up. I wanted a law for them." Flanagan looked dumbfounded for an instant, then quickly recovered.

"I understand what you're saying, but having people carry guns is not the answer. It's what I've always believed, and I'm not going to change my mind."

"Well, that's something we can agree on completely," B.I. Bedderson said with a genuine smile as he scratched his beard. "A person should always stick with what he truly believes in, and fight for what he thinks is right. And I also think that's enough political talk for me for a social occasion." Bedderson took a deep breath as he looked around the upstairs hallway. "The people downstairs are probably waiting for you, and-oh, hell."

"What's the matter?" Flanagan asked immediately.

"The back of your suit jacket. There's something smeared on it. No, don't take it off here, let's go in the bathroom. There's some soap and towels in there, and I'll bet we can find some spot remover if we need it. Josephine always kept some in every bathroom when I lived here. It's probably just something from one of the food trays. This way," he urged, indicating the third of four doors evenly spaced along the seventy-foot wall.

"This used to be my room, years ago," Bedderson said as they walked by the four-poster bed. "Now it's a guest room. Over here," he said, pointing the older man towards a door in the far corner.

The bathroom was one of two on the front side of the second floor. The big stone house had been designed with four large bedrooms comprising the entire south face of the second story. Each bedroom door locked from the inside with a deadbolt. The two east and two west bedrooms were connected by a shared bathroom between each pair. To facilitate privacy in a bathroom with two doors opening into two different bedrooms, both doors were fitted with dual, opposite-side deadbolt locks. Thus, a person using the bathroom could prevent entry from either or both bedrooms, and someone in either bedroom could secure himself from someone inadvertently entering from the bathroom.

As he ushered Flanagan into the large tiled room, Bedderson glanced at the handle for the deadbolt on the opposite door. It was where he had set it, in the locked position. He also noted that the shades and drapes on the window were drawn shut, as was normal.

"Here, let me take that," he offered as he closed the door and simultaneously shot the bolt. The century-old mechanism was a precision one, and like all the locks in the house, it was well-lubricated with the synthetic gun oil Break-Free CLP. The sound of the bolt was completely masked by the noise of the latch snapping into the recess, just as it had been on Bedderson's numerous practice runs.

Flanagan shrugged out of his grey suit jacket and let the younger man behind him slip it off his arms. Before the ex-Governor could turn around, Arthur 'B.I.' Bedderson clamped his arms around the older man in a powerful bear hug and lifted him a few inches off the floor.

Ken Flanagan opened his mouth, but before he could cry out, his central nervous system was hit with a 120,000-volt blast from the stun gun Bedderson had jammed against his throat. Flanagan lost voluntary control of every major muscle group in his body, and would have collapsed on the tile but for the fact that Bedderson was holding him aloft.

Flanagan's mouth was open and quivering as Arthur Bedderson eased him onto the floor by the toilet. As a precaution, Bedderson twisted the ex-Governor's left wrist in such a way that attempted escape would cause bones to break. Then he laid the stun gun down on the tile. As he knelt by the incapacitated man, Bedderson unbuttoned the left cuff, pushed up the sleeve, then reached into his own jacket pocket for a nylon pouch closed with Velcro. With a move he had practiced dozens of times in the last week, Bedderson opened the pouch one-handed, grabbed the hypodermic inside, shook the pouch away, then exposed the needle by holding the plastic cover in his teeth and unscrewing the syringe. Bedderson slipped the needle into the proper spot on Flanagan's left arm and depressed the plunger until it bottomed.

"See how that feels," he said softly to his captive. "I hear it's great while it lasts." Ken Flanagan's eyes opened wide, and for an instant a beatific expression appeared on his face. "One thousand one, one thousand two..." Bedderson counted under his breath as he let go of the syringe and relaxed pressure on Flanagan's wrist. When he got to 'nine', the ex-Governor closed his eyes. A few seconds later, the man stopped breathing. Bedderson let go, but continued to watch as he opened the medicine cabinet. He removed a zippered vinyl case, being careful to touch only the corners as he did so. The case had previously contained a set of computer tools. Now it was set up as an addict's 'works'. Bedderson forced the dying man's hands around the vinyl, smudged the prints, and left the open case on the floor.

Then Bedderson withdrew the envelope with the three Polaroid photos from his right inside jacket pocket and shook them out onto Flanagan's open palm. Bedderson pressed the slack fingers onto the glossy emulsion several times, smudging some of the prints and making the photos well-handled. He used the empty envelope to scoop up the pictures, and slid them into Flanagan's trouser pocket. By this time, exGovernor Ken Flanagan's heart had stopped beating. Bedderson wiped the syringe that was still in the corpse's arm, then repeated the process of putting Flanagan's fingerprints on the plastic tabs and his thumbprint on the plunger. He did the same with the protective cap that had been on the syringe.

"We've all got to fight for what we believe in, Ken," Bedderson whispered as he stood up and stretched. "Now all the dead victims can rest in peace," he added, thinking of Tom Fleming's comment about Klaus Barbie. He glanced around to see if he had forgotten anything, then unlocked the far door and stepped into the end bedroom. The room was dark, but Bedderson knew its layout. He made his way to the only other door, which led to the hallway, unlocked the deadbolt, and cracked the door. No one was in the upstairs hall.

Bedderson closed the bedroom door behind him and walked quickly to the back hallway. He was in what had been the servants' wing when the house had been built in 1912. He softly descended the back stairs, walked through the back hallway, and into the kitchen area. A half-dozen men and women were busy with food preparation.

"Arthur! I didn't know you were here tonight."

"Hi, Harold," Bedderson said cheerfully to the man who had been catering Lois Bedderson's dinner parties since her son was in diapers. "Running out of anything?"

"Not yet," he answered, laughing at the old joke. "Get you a drink?"

"Psychic as always. Just Seven-Up for now."

"Coming up." Harold went into the pantry where the bar was set up and came back shortly with a double rocks glass made of Baccarat crystal.

"Thank you, sir," Bedderson said as Harold handed him the glass. He snared a couple of the hors d'oeuvres from one of the silver trays, then went back out to mingle.

"Where's the Governor?" Lois Bedderson asked.

"Probably having dinner in the Governor's mansion."

"Smarty. You know who I meant."

"Probably in the bathroom," her son suggested.

"I haven't seen him for quite a while. His wife's looking for him."

"Maybe he went outside to smoke a cigarette, or something."

"He can do that in here-I don't have any rule against it."

"Sometimes people go outside anyway. Hey, it was just an idea. I don't even know if he smokes or not." Bedderson furrowed his brow. "Want me to go check outside?"

"Would you?"

"Be glad to," he answered, and got up from his chair. Lois Bedderson glanced around the room, then started talking to one of the other women at her table.

"No luck," Arthur Bedderson said when he returned.

"I'll ask around."

"Don't do that yet," her son said quickly. "Have you noticed anyone else missing?" he asked under his breath. "A woman, most likely, although it doesn't have to be."

"What do you mean?" his mother asked, her eyebrows going up as she caught the implication. "Got a better explanation? I'll go get one of his former aides and we'll hit the guest rooms quietly." "What can I do?"

"Keep his wife occupied," he instructed. Lois Bedderson nodded and stood up from the table as her son walked away in search of Flanagan's entourage.

Arthur Bedderson spotted a slender man with slicked-back hair and grabbed him by the elbow. "Is Flanagan off humping someone?" he asked abruptly. "His wife's looking for him."

"Uh, no, of course not...well, I mean-"

"Look, I've got my mother keeping her busy, but if he's got his dick out somewhere, I suggest we find him before she does. He's not outside and he's not anywhere here on the first floor."

"Right," the man agreed, recovering quickly. "Ah...," he added, not sure what to say.

"What do you want to hit first, basement or second floor? Basement's all storage space. Upstairs is all bedrooms."

"Upstairs."

"Okay," Arthur Bedderson said, and led the way towards the marble stairway. The aide paused at the landing and surveyed the guests in the hallway below him, hoping Flanagan would somehow come into view. Then he continued up to the second floor.

"Check those four rooms at the front. Doors should all be unlocked. I'll hit the back of the house and the old servant's wing." Bedderson hurried off down the hallway. The aide stepped over to the first door and rapped on it gently with his knuckles.

"Uh, Ken?" he whispered. "Ken?" he repeated, a little louder this time. When there was no answer, he turned the knob and opened the door an inch. Lois Bedderson's bedroom was empty. The man closed the door and went on to the next one on his right, where he repeated the procedure. This room was dark. "Ken?" he said once more. When there was no answer, he felt around until he found a light switch and discovered the room was lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves. It was obviously the family library. The man saw a door in the far left corner, so he walked to it and slowly turned the knob. It was Lois Bedderson's bathroom, and was twice the size of the one the aide used at his own home. The man closed the door and went back out to the hall.