"They may say that," the President continued, "but the real reason you are on this committee is that Chief Justice Potter told me you should be on it, and I have learned to listen to Harry when he tells me I should do something." The President did not elaborate any further on the matter.

"One final thing: I encourage all of you to draw on any resources you can, but it is ultimately your assessments that I want to hear. Don't quote me any outside experts unless you're willing to defend what they say." He turned to the two FBI men.

"Roland, Alex, please bring the rest of the group up to date on what you have learned so far." His eyes scanned the eleven faces. "I'll see all of you tomorrow morning," he said in parting, and then the President and his wife left the room.

"I don't understand why you're having a dinner party for that...for the former Governor," Arthur 'B.I.' Bedderson amended.

"If you're going to talk that way about him, I'll take back my offer to put you on the guest list," his mother said with a smile. "He doesn't talk that way about you."

"Not to you, he doesn't," the big man shot back with a laugh. "We don't know what he says about me to his mother. Probably calls her up every day to tell her I cost him the election." The elderly woman laughed out loud at the image of Ken Flanagan dialing up his mother to whine about her son.

"To answer your question, I am having this dinner because I had promised that I would. If I had known at the time how the Governor treated you and your people, I might not have agreed to it. But I did, and I'm not about to go back on my word."

"Like he did, you mean." Lois Bedderson frowned at her son's comment. She had been outraged when Flanagan had appointed the legal counsel from one of the casino companies to head Missouri's Gaming Commission. It had made her consider, for a brief instant, that her son might be right about the man. But Lois Bedderson had been a Democrat for over sixty years, and so she had championed Flanagan while wishing he had character.

"You just don't like him because he's a Democrat," she came back, but her retort lacked conviction.

"That's not the reason, and you know it, Mom. I'd back Harold in a heartbeat," he said, referring to the Democratic Missouri Senator who had championed concealed-carry legislation in 1995 and kept his promise to his supporters. "I don't like Ranagan because he's a statist Democrat," the man corrected. "And for the same reason, I don't like that jerk Jerry Abel because he's a statist Republican."

"Well, Abel is a jerk," she agreed, embracing common ground. Her son displayed both strong support for and virulent opposition to candidates in both parties, depending on how he squared their actions with the Bill of Rights. Lois Bedderson found this absence of allegiance to one party very unnerving.

"Hey," the big man said as his gave his mother a hug, "I won't do anything to embarrass you at your dinner. I'm always friendly to all these guys in the legislature. When they find out you got more juice than they thought, lot of times they change their tune. It's a lot easier for them if you haven't burned any bridges." His mother nodded in understanding.

"Flanagan's Chief of Staff told me how polite and decent you and your friends were up in the Capitol." She smiled sadly. "He even went so far as to tell me the Governor said he wished he'd been willing to talk to you. I think he regrets shutting you out."

"Of course he regrets it," Bedderson laughed. "It cost him the election."

"Hm, gh, wh...what?" Cindy Caswell mumbled as she came fully awake. It was the sound of a shot that had brought her out of her light sleep, but she did not know that. Then, a few moments later, she heard the distant sound of a large vehicle on the gravel road that went from the edge of Henry Bowman's property to his house. Seats aren't too bad for this she thought as she opened the door of her dark red Toyota, stepped out, and stretched. Damn. Why didn't I remember he wouldn't be alone? Henry Bowman was in the passenger seat of the approaching army truck. A man she had never seen before was driving.

Allen Kane killed the engine and the two men opened their respective doors and climbed down out of the tall vehicle.

"You just get here?" Henry asked. "We've just come straight-through from Idaho. Cindy, this is Allen Kane from Indiana. Allen, this is my friend Cindy Caswell."

"I wish I had a welcoming committee like this at my house," Allen said with a laugh. Cindy smiled.

"Pleased to meet you," she said as she held out her hand. Allen shook it before he realized that his own hands were far from clean. Cindy did not notice. "I've been checking on your place every night before I go in to work. I read about all that stuff in the papers, and I thought you could use an extra set of eyes here until you got back."

"Krause was supposed to be taking care of that. Speaking of which-how'd you get in? They had a new lock on the gate, which I just shot off to get through." Cindy smiled and held up a key.

"I talked the Sheriff out of a copy. He believed me when I told him we were friends. UPS dropped off a package for you. It's in my trunk."

"Grab it, and let me open up the house and get the alarm turned off, and you can sit in there if you want while Allen and I unload my stuff. Then I'm going to take a long-overdue shower and put on some fresh clothes, and after that I'm going to throw some steaks on the grill. Allen and I haven't had much to eat today."

"Show me where they are and I'll take care of that while you unload and clean up." Henry gave her a look. Just because I overcooked them once Cindy thought as her face flushed.

"That's okay, Cindy."

"Henry Bowman, I am perfectly capable of cooking steaks for you and your friend without ruining them," she said irritably. "Just because I don't often eat meat myself, and one time I let the hamburgers stay on a little too long is no reason to assume I can't be trusted at a barbecue grill. I watch your house for you, and the first thing you do when you get back is act like I'm an idiot."

"Tell Cindy how you like your steaks cooked, Allen," Henry said. '"Well done' would be a good answer," he added in a stage whisper. The three all started laughing.

"Henry, have you been reading the papers?" Cindy asked as she flipped the steaks over on Henry's aluminum thawing plate. The sound of Allen Kane's shower running came faintly through the open door. "Do you know what's been going on while you've been away?" You 'd have to have been on an island not to have heard about it she thought. Henry sat at his kitchen table and sipped at his orange juice.

"Something about ATF agents shooting themselves down over my woods, and some others gone missing, and now one of the missing agents is sending out messages on the Internet about how ATF is corrupt and out of control, and he's going to do something about it. Some guy named Blair. It's in all the papers, and Krause filled me in on what happened here."

"Not 'going' to do something about it, Henry," she said as she sat down across from him. "He's been doing it. Killed something like eight or ten ATF agents in a few days, and published the whole list of all the other ones in the country on the Internet. Some people have apparently been jumping in to help." Damn I wish he was alone Cindy thought again.

"Didn't they catch a couple of those guys? That's what I heard somebody say."

"Two of the copycats. And they were stupid." Might as well spell it out Cindy thought when she saw Henry staring at her. "Look," she said, glancing in the direction of the guest room where the water was still running, "I wanted to talk to you for a while in private, but it looks like I'll have to give you the short version while your friend's still in the showe r. I think this Wilson Blair guy is on to something, but he's focused on the wrong people. He's concentrating on ATF agents 'cause he was one, but they're not the real problem. The ones who really ought to squirm are those reptiles up in the Capitol building."

"I assume you're talking about getting screwed over in Jefferson City year after year on the concealed-carry bill."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about." At least he hasn't yet told me I'm nuts she thought. "Why are you telling me this? Isn't that how the other guys got caught-running their mouths? If you want to go pop Governor Flanagan, you should just go do it and keep your mouth shut. Nobody knows, nobody can rat you out. Keep your mouth shut and you'll never spend the night in jail. Goes double if you're a woman."

"I know that," Cindy said. "But I don't think you'd sell me out, and...I need your help. Not help doing the actual killing," she said quickly, "but...advice beforehand. So I don't do anything stupid." God, didn't that sound moronic she said to herself.

"You mean anything stupid apart from plotting murder in the first place, I assume," Henry said mildly. "You're forgetting that helping plan a murder makes me equally guilty, and now I'm the one who has to worry the rest of my life that you'll get your tit in a wringer about something else and serve me up to the cops to get out of it. Headlines would read, ' Machine gun dealer forces stripper to do his killing'. Forget it, Cindy." He still hasn't said he's against the principle Cindy thought. Time to go for broke.

"You have a guarantee that that won't happen," she said softly. "When I met you at AA and told you about what happened to me in Vegas, I didn't give you the whole story. I think you suspected that, and I think you did your own checking and found out most of the truth. That was when you told me about the killing of Joe Columbo's would-be murderer, and of the benefits of keeping one's mouth shut."

"I remember that."

"Well, just in case you didn't find out exactly what happened, I'll tell you. While Tony Farratto was lying in bed and I was sitting on his face, I took out one of the hardwood spikes I was using to hold my hair up and I drove it straight down his eye socket and into his brain, where I stirred it around until I was sure he was dead. Then I turned on the shower, got dressed, and left town. I know from you that Sal Marino took his body somewhere and set it up to look like Tony was shot to death, and then took over Tony's business. Sal isn't looking for me and wouldn't care if somebody told him where I was.

"But Tony Farrotto still has living relatives, and I think you could easily get word to them about what really happened, and I think they would know who to ask the right questions of to see if the story was true. And I think that after that happened, I would have a more unpleasant death than I can possibly imagine, and there would be nothing I could do about it." Henry nodded, but remained silent for a long while.

"What you did then was survival. That's a lot different from killing a man because of how he voted on something." Cindy Caswell shook her head.

"Not on those kind of votes. Wheelchair ramps, or warning labels on cigarettes, sure." Got to make him see this she thought. Don't want Henry to think I'm this psycho killer b itch from hell. Then again, maybe I am, now. Cindy took a deep breath.

"I was snatched off a street in Chicago when I was eighteen years old. At that time I didn't realize that no one besides me had any compelling interest in stopping something like that f rom happening. So for the next two and a half years, I was passed around like a plate of cookies to a bunch of men who order people beaten or killed as easily as you or I would order a pizza. These men were free to do anything they wanted to me. Which they did. Slapping was pretty common, and a few liked to use lit cigarettes. Any one of them could have killed me for pleasure, and my owner-that's what he was-would have acted the same as if his best friend had spilled grape juice on his carpet.

"I manage to get out of that living nightmare with most of my sanity, and all I really want to do is keep the same thing from happening again. But the wise men in our state government say 'Guns are for the police, honey, they're the professionals. Maybe you and that girl you live with should stay inside at night'." She stared Henry in the eye, and at that moment the sound of running water stopped. Allen had just finished his shower.

"I'll sleep like a baby afterwards," Cindy told him, "but I need you to tell me what to do." Say yes, damn it. "What makes you think I'd have a better plan than you would?" he asked. Cindy rolled her eyes.

"Henry, you know about that stuff. You just do. You also have a very...orderly mind. What? What's so funny?" she demanded as Henry broke out laughing.

"Thank you. I think," he added. "One question," he said, after he had regained his composure. "Will you do whatever I say?" Cindy thought about that for a moment. It's what I've been begging him for, isn't it? "Yes," she said finally.

"Then I want you to sit down with Allen after he gets dressed, and I want you to tell him exactly what happened to you in Las Vegas and I want you to tell him what you want me to help you do. And while the steaks are cooking, you're going to watch a videotape I made that I think you'll find very interesting. Then over dinner, we're going to talk about some things."

"But I don't wan-" Cindy stopped in mid-sentence. "I know what I said, but..." Why bring this other guy into it? she thought, but left the fear unspoken.

"The other thing is," Henry said gently, "the Missouri legislators are going to have to wait. There's bigger fish to fry in Washington." Washington! Cindy thought. If Henry wants to go after the feds, he and his friend must have been thinking about this too. She nodded once.

"I'll go tell Allen." She stood up and walked into the living room.

"I still can't believe it," Cindy Caswell said as she finished the last of her salad. "And the third helicopter isn't off missing somewhere, it's at the bottom of the quarry out there? Jesus!" Henry pushed his chair back from the table and drained the last of his ice-water.

"The question now is, do you really want to hook up with Allen and me on this deal? If you pull some solo number on your own and keep your mouth shut, you'll never get caught. The two of us, on the other hand, are going to be setting off a whole raft of alarm bells, and right now the feds are standing around at a bunch of murder scenes where I've already been." Henry scratched his jaw as he stared at the floor, then looked up.

"For all we know, the President will invoke the Emergency Powers Act and make everyone in the country give the feds a hair sample for DNA matching. I was pretty careful, and looked real close, but I might well have left a hair or two at one of those places. And that's just one possibility. There are probably another hundred I haven't thought of." Cindy nodded as she considered that.

"Won't they be stretched pretty thin?"

"That's the plan," Allen Kane broke in, "but Henry's right. These guys have an ungodly amount of manpower. Everything else just got put on next-to-zero priority. Counterfeit team, organized crime case squad, auto theft crew, all those feds have been yanked off what they're doing and put on the Who's Whacking ATF Guys detail."

"I'm in, fellas. I found out in Vegas that I was one of Sal's throwaways, and it was just a goddamned miracle that he decided to keep me around instead of leaving me in an alley with a bullet in the back of my head. Ever since I learned that, it's seemed like whatever time I've got left is a bonus. I'm going to take the advice I saw on a license plate, once: Live Free Or Die."

"New Hampshire," Allen said. "Used to be, at least."

"That may sound good," Henry said quietly, "but you're going to feel a whole lot different in your guts when the time comes-a whole lot different than you do right now. This isn't an Outfit wiseguy who's about to torture you in the middle of a rape. This is premeditated murder of people with families, and lovers, and kids in nursery school, and worries about the future, just like us. And on top of that, these are people who champion the democratic process. You are going to be killing a man because he voted the wrong way."

"No," Cindy said without hesitation, "I am going to be killing a man because he voted away something that was not his to vote on in the first place. The people making the laws think that anything is okay if they can get 51% of the legislators or the people to go along with it. One hundred per cent of the people making the rules in the Vegas outfit thought it was just fine for me to be locked in a room and taken out when it suited them. I've had enough of that."

"Sounds good in theory," Henry agreed. "However, if you told People magazine the story of your Las Vegas ordeal and what you did about it, you'd be hailed as the country's bravest woman. When we get found out-and let's not mince words, we probably will- we are going to have well over one hundred million American citizens believe we are the most evil people this country has ever seen."

"There'll be a few who think differently."

"I think she's with the program," Allen said. Henry smiled in spite of himself.

"In that case," he asked, "How do you feel about having sex with some of these guys? It'll make it a lot easier."

"No problem," Cindy said immediately. She turned to Allen. "I enjoy sex with women. With men, there's no pleasure for me, but it's no worse than, say, shoveling snow off the sidewalk."

"Wish my ex-wife had liked it that much," Allen said dryly. / like this guy Cindy thought as she burst out laughing. Allen and Henry joined in. Breaking the tension felt good to all three of them.

"What do you have in mind?" she finally asked Henry.

"Got a few ideas. Can you take time off on short notice without raising any eyebrows?"

"No problem. I haven't had a vacation in almost a year. That's almost unheard of among the girls at the club. I'll tell Troy tonight."

"How about we shove off tomorrow, then? Allen and I can work out the details tonight while you're at work. When do you have to be at the club?"

"Eleven-thirty. I've been working midnight-to-close lately."

"Four hours," Henry said, looking at the clock on the wall and chewing on his lip.

"What're you thinking?"

"Want to do a little tune-up run before you go in to work, get your adrenaline going?" Henry asked. "Such as?"

"U.S. Congressman Jerry Abel, guy who the gun groups around here got elected a while back. Soon as he got in office, he went and voted for that stupid magazine ban in '94 and the bill to throw out the Fourth Amendment in '95."

"The dorky-looking lawyer? Lives west of St. Louis?"

"That's the one. His wife's a lawyer, too, and I don't think he'd still be married to her if he wasn't afraid it would hurt his career. Jerry likes to drink, and I'm pretty sure I know where. Think you could pick him up, get him to take you somewhere for a quickie in his car?"

"Worth a try. I've got a bunch of different outfits for the club in my bag. What kind of girl would be most apt to get his motor running, do you think?"

"Rhonda's a frump that looks like she'd rather suck a hundred lemons than one cock, so almost anything should work. I would say that athletic, cheerful, and straightforward about liking sex ought to do the trick on Mr. Abel. And on 98% of the rest of the men in this country, for that matter."

"Say a young girl in a thin cotton dress, impressed with his important position and who finds boys her own age childish? Something like that?"

"You clearly don't need my advice."