"That's confidential, Jon," the President answered. "But I think that we must face up to the fact that all legislators, both active and retired, are now at risk. Especially those who have supported stricter gun control measures," he added.

"You're leaving something out, Mr. President," Carl Schaumberg almost shouted. "Two legislators have now been killed. Aaron Siteman was beaten to death in Georgetown, barely a week ago. These people are not just killing legislators, they are killing Jews!"

"Ah, Congressman Schaumberg," Dick Gaines broke in, "there was actually another murder a few days before Siteman's. Congressman Jerry Abel, from my state. He was a gentile, I think. And a Republican."

"That was a cheap sex thing," Schaumberg said in dismissal, "and everyone knew he was drunk all the time." Then he turned back to the Chief Executive. "Mr. President, this is the beginning of another Holocaust!"

"Carl, let's you and I have a talk after the meeting. I see your point, and I have an idea of what to do until we get a better handle on this." He turned to the rest of the group. "We have some things to go over here, people, and I'd like to get through them."

The task force meeting lasted less than half an hour. Every person there left with the vague feeling that it had been a waste of time.

"Congressman, it's Bud again, at the Times. How are you today?"

"I'm okay."

"Listen, my editor didn't think we should kick Dwight Greenwell too much white he was down, so he killed the piece I did for him."

"Look, I told you everything I knew, it's not my fault he didn't like your-"

"No, no, that's all right, Congressman." Don't get your bowels in an uproar, dick-head Henry thought. "I'm not about to run that other thing. I just thought I'd see if anything new happened with the task force."

"Oh. Well, nothing really went on today, except about Senator Katzenbaum. The President warned us that other legislators might be at risk, and then Carl Schaumberg went ballistic and said it was another Holocaust."

"A Holocaust? He used that word?" Henry asked, as a smile formed on his face.

"Yeah. Because of Congressman Siteman getting killed a week or so ago. I reminded him that Congressman Jerry Abel from Missouri got murdered, too, but he didn't seem to think that counted."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing. Oh, at the end of the meeting, I heard the President talking with Schaumberg. He was trying to talk him into taking some time off for a couple of weeks."

"Congressman Schaumberg? Taking time off?"

"Yeah."

"Hm. You know, that makes me wonder about something, Congressman Gaines," Henry said thoughtfully. Let's see if I can orchestrate this. "Has the President suggested bringing on someone to address this issue? Someone from the Holocaust Center, for example?"

"No, not that I remember."

"Really. That surprises me." Then Henry made a few comments and asked several more questions. Dick Gaines talked a little longer, then the two men ended their conversation.

When Henry Bowman hung up the pay phone, he was smiling.

The dog was gun-shy, and for an animal with that condition in rural Missouri, the first week of July was a terrible time of the year. Independence Day itself was the worst. Firecrackers and bottle rockets popped incessantly. There seemed to be no escaping the distant explosions which made the mixed-breed named Betsy so miserable.

When the two oldest boys in the family started lighting firecrackers out in the field behind the house, Betsy shot out from under the porch and ran. She ran northwest, which put the house between her and the two boys, then angled through the woods when she heard noises off to her right a half mile away. Ten minutes later, she was more than two miles from home, and the sounds were almost inaudible.

The dog continued trotting west, and barely slowed when she came to the barbed-wire fence with the NO TRESPASSING signs every hundred feet. Betsy slipped between the second and third strands without touching a single sharp point, and kept going on the unfamiliar terrain.. She was not lost, for her homing instinct was excellent, but she was on a section of land where she had never strayed before, for obvious reasons.

After several more minutes, Betsy was thirsty from her run. She stopped, raising her muzzle in the air to sniff. She smelled water, and something else. The water smelled good, but the something else smelled absolutely wonderful.

Betsy took off towards the smell at a fast trot.

"Dad, Betsy's got something dead again."

"Well, you go take it away from her and put it out in the burn barrel. If she's rolled on it and she stinks, take her over by the welding shed and wash her off. Take the nozzle off the hose, so it doesn't spray her, and be careful when you wash around her eyes. Then you come in and get a bath. Your mama's going to have dinner ready soon."

"Okay," the boy said, and ran off. In a few moments he returned to the window and again spoke through the screen. "Dad," he said, "Would you do it? It really stinks bad."

"Okay, Mr. Sensitive Nose," he said, laughing. "Probably another groundhog she killed a few days ago. They'll get ripe in a hurry in this heat. You go get cleaned up for dinner."

"Thanks."

The man could smell the stench when he stepped into the kitchen. There, on the other side of the screen door at the base of the back steps, was Betsy. She was panting and wagging her tail happily, waiting to be praised for the treasure she had deposited on the doorstep for her master. It was torn and rotten, and missing a section. To the Vietnam combat veteran, however, it was also unmistakable.

Betsy had brought home a human hand.

The man grabbed a piece of newspaper off the kitchen table and wrapped it around the decaying flesh. He thought for a moment about the disassembled select-fire ChiCom AK47 that was in his footlocker in the shop, brought back from Southeast Asia in his duffel bag in 1970. Inviting the police and maybe the feds over to the house would serve no good purpose, and might get him in a world of trouble.

He threw the hand in the trash can, put some other things on top of it, and tied the trash bag shut with several wraps of duct tape. Then he dragged his two trash cans out to the end of the drive.

Because of the holiday, pick-up would be the following morning.

"That was barbaric. An appalling thing you people did."

"It wasn't my doing, Judge Potter, but that's of no consequence," Ray Johnson said over the phone. "I confess I wasn't sorry when I found out," he admitted. "But name-calling isn't going to get either side what they want. Has the President thought about my clients' offer?"

"Yes, and he thinks he was perhaps too quick to decide last time. He also wishes that you would have called sooner. Things have gone on too long with no dialogue between us." The President's starting to sweat already Ray realized Henry was right about making them wait.

"The move is his, Judge Potter. What we want is the same thing we wanted three weeks ago, back when a lot of dead federal agents were still alive. No money, just action. Action and reform. What do you think he will say?"

"There are a number of areas on your list of demands where you and he can reach complete agreement. Let me get my notes." Ray heard the sound of papers shuffling. "Here we are. The President has already drawn up the new policy guidelines for federal agencies concerning the carrying of weapons while on duty. Would you like to hear the language?"

"Not right now, Judge Potter. What else?"

"On the issue of federal inmates currently serving time for firearms law violations, he is prepared to set up a judicial review committee whose sole function will be to assess each case and determine if the early release of the convicted prisoner would pose a risk to the community. The committee would have the power to expunge the criminal record, in some cases."

"I see. And ATF?"

"They would be under tighter supervision. A review of their practices will be held in open committee hearings. New appointees would be put in key positions, such as Director, and also the head of Imports branch. Your designees," Potter added.

"Judge, that's unacceptable," Ray said quickly, "and although I only met you once, I suspect you're a little embarrassed at having to deliver the news. What the President is offering is a syphilitic whore conducting business as usual, with a little extra lipstick and eyeliner to pass inspection in bad light." That got Potter's attention Ray thought to himself as he heard the intake of breath. "You have our list, you are losing this war, and what you offer to do is trivial. A joke. Some sham hearings and vague promises of 'reform' that will never occur." Ray heard Potter sigh.

"Mr. Jones, I don't think that you understand the way things have to be done in the legislature."

"Judge Potter, I understand exactly the way things are done. Deals are cut, and compromises are made, and everybody shakes hands when they come to a final agreement. And then if things don't work out and they have to change the agreement, then the standard line is, 'Oh, we made the best decision based on the information available at the time.'

"And that all works fine if you're negotiating a new lease on an office building, or an end to a baseball strike, or who's going to get the contract to build the new interstate highway overpass, or how to divvy up some tax money.

"But it doesn't work at all when the issue is fundamental rights, Judge. The Branch Davidians were burned alive, and when hearings finally happened two years later, the government says 'Koresh was having sex with children, and ATF made the best decisions possible given the information available at the time.' No one said, 'Tax agents should not use machine guns and grenades to attack citizens for any reason. That is morally wrong.'

"A law that puts men in prison because a piece of wood is too short isn't 'the best decision given the information at the time.' It is morally wrong, and always has been. The federal government has painted itself into a corner on this issue, Judge, and you know it. In order to fix the problem, the President needs to shout something that no one in Washington is willing to even whisper. He needs to say to the public, 'What we have been doing is morally wrong.'

"That's what the problem is, isn't it, Judge?" Ray asked. "Robbery is robbery, assault is assault, and murder is murder, but for decades, Washington has done its best to turn our most valuable, productive, honest citizens into felons."

"Those are the issues we need to be discussing, Mr. Jones. That's why these talks are so important." Sounds like a line they told him to say Ray thought. His heart wasn't in that one.

"There's not much to discuss, Judge. The people I represent would much rather risk being caught or killed by the FBI than accept what the President just offered. Why? Because they will accept no less than freedom, and what he has suggested is a nicer-looking set of shackles."

"Mr. Jones, I really think we should discuss this further."

"We will. Three weeks from today. August eleventh. That should give the President time to think about what I've said. In the meantime, my clients will be listening to the radio for the President's answer. If the President isn't going to insert the fluff news piece we talked about before, at 12:10 tomorrow, then you need to give him this exact message. I assume this call is being recorded?"

"That's not my area of expertise."

"Well, in case the FBI's equipment is malfunctioning, please write down the message I've been asked to convey: 'Both ends? What a player!' Is that clear?

"Both ends question mark, what a player exclamation point."

"Right," Ray Johnson said. "I'll call again on the eleventh." Ray was about to hang up, then stopped to add one more thought.

"A lot can happen in three weeks, Judge."

"You need me to bring anything for your party for the ex-Governor?" Arthur 'B.I.' Bedderson asked his mother as he prepared to leave. "Folding chairs? More tonic? A bail bondsman for his kid? Give me some notice, it's coming up in two weeks."

"Now you hush," Lois Bedderson scolded. "I threatened to rescind your invitation, and I can still make good on that. Bail bondsman..." She shook her head and fought back the smile that threatened to form. "I've got plenty of everything. Just make sure your beard's trimmed and you wear a suit that's been recently pressed."

"Yes, Mom," he said, and gave his mother a hug before departing. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Come in, come in," Congressman Schaumberg said pleasantly as he opened the door to his apartment. "I must say, you people are prompt. I just got back in town not twenty minutes ago. Are you on the tactical squad also?" he asked the woman. Schaumberg spent longer eyeing her than he did her male companion.

"Yes, sir." The two agents on bodyguard duty glanced at each other and smiled faintly. It was obvious to them that Congressman Schaumberg liked the idea of two full-time protectors.

"Congressman," the man said softly, glancing around as he and the woman put away their ATF credentials, "Director Greenwell doesn't want to take any chances. Particularly someone who gets around as much as you do and who lives in a place this size."

"This building?" Schaumberg said, pleased that his concerns were being given such serious attention and that the agent was impressed with where he lived. "I don't think so. This place is quiet as a tomb," he said, laughing as he ushered the pair inside his apartment. "That's the main reason I live here," he added as he closed the door. The man and the woman shared a look.