Kinsmen of the Dragons
Copyright© 2013 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 16: Rethinking
Sue Ellen dragged Sam into a small, dark corridor. “I never picked you as someone likely to suck up to the bosses!”
Sam was taken aback. “What? I wasn’t sucking up to anyone!”
“That whole basketball shit.”
“Sue Ellen, honestly — are you blind?”
“I know a suck up when I see one!”
“You don’t know anything about this, do you?”
“Who cares what it’s about.”
“Sue Ellen, the president and I agree on the team who will likely win. We agree on nothing else. Haven’t you noticed what goes on in your office at this time of year?”
“Pools. BFD. We have pools for baseball and football playoffs. There are pools for the championship games, so what?”
“Gawd, woman! Have you been living in a nunnery?”
“What the hell are you talking about, old man?”
“You must never have been either a jock or sports fan!”
“I left that to my old man and his guys.”
“Sue Ellen, have you ever heard the phrase, ‘When in Rome, shoot Roman candles?’”
“What do you mean?”
Sam saw that Amanda was there, staring intently at Sue Ellen.
“I mean the half or more of the men is this country have fantasy football, baseball or basketball teams. The college basketball championships are the premiere betting arena of sports. Maybe half the men in the country have a bet down on March Madness.”
“I saw you sucking up to the president.”
For the first time, Amanda spoke. “Like you sucked up to Sam so you could interview me? Like there was very damn little you wouldn’t have agreed to, if that’s what he’d wanted?”
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” Sue Ellen said weakly.
“Sue Ellen, it’s a guy thing. A jock thing, with Sam. He holds the president mostly in contempt. He’s never done anything Sam thinks as worthy. He hasn’t, Sue Ellen. But he’s trying! He knows what’s ahead for his family if we lose. Let Sam work; he knows what he’s doing.”
“If he knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t be just a detective.”
Amanda started laughing. “You know his sort better than me! Why isn’t he a sergeant?”
“I have no idea!”
“Yes you do! This is one of those times you’re denying what you know. You think Sam is a suck up — you know better. You know way better! Sam is pain in the ass to bosses! That’s why he keeps getting screwed. He’s gonna do it now, with the president, too. And you are going to be sitting there wishing you’d kept your God damned mouth shut for ten minutes.”
“Amanda, it is true I was hoping to get the president in a good mood. He’s better at decisions when it’s all on the line. On the other hand, he’s happy to postpone a decision anytime it looks like he can. He can’t put this one off anymore, he just can’t. The admirals, the generals, the politicians — they are yes men, they just have to be to get anywhere. Yeah, there are mavericks like Sloane, but he’s got his eyes fixed on the ‘big picture.’ He needs to take a step closer and look at things up close. Others, like Admiral Stewart, are so busy with their jobs, they don’t think about anything else. Me? I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, and a sweet cherub to watch over. She’s hardly any trouble at all!”
Both Sam and Sue Ellen were surprised when Minerva showed up, running. She shook her finger in Amanda’s face. “Don’t you dare! If I even think you will try that, I’ll kill you where you stand!”
“Jeez! It’s not a big deal!”
“Just like cutting off someone’s arm and eating it isn’t a big deal! They have two, after all!”
“Don’t be gross. I was thinking ‘hot foot’ Sam. Give you a few lighted matches in your shoes.”
“I have tried to hint to you that you should do no more medicine with your abilities. Let me be more explicit. If you’d done what you did to that man where we are from, you’d have lost your abilities. If he dies after what happened, you would die as well.
“It is as unthinkable for one of us to directly kill another person with our mind as it is for you to contemplate cannibalism.” Minerva lowered her voice.
“Do you realize that with a single thought you could kill every left-handed red-head on the planet?”
Amanda gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “Good God! I would never do something like that!”
“It is something we learn as young children, just as you learn not to eat your playmates. I could have killed every one of the beasts in your ocean with a single thought. Then I’d have killed myself, as I would be a dangerous monster, too dangerous to have around.”
She turned to Sam and Sue Ellen. “She saved that man’s life. She worked on your bruise, removing dead tissue and the like. She could have stopped your heart with no effort. Instead of not letting that man bleed to death internally, she could have removed every single blood cell in his body — and moved them halfway to the Moon. All the way to Mars. She could do what she did to that vehicle to any man, woman, child or other creature she could sense. And her senses are now — very keen.”
Sam looked at her and then turned to Amanda. She shrieked, and grabbed Sam hard, hugging him for all she was worth. “Don’t! Please don’t! I can’t lose you!”
Sam looked at Sue Ellen. “When we go in there, you and Amanda sit with the others. I’m ... I’m going to sit down next to the president. Pretend you don’t know me after that. The shit is going to hit the fan.”
“Do you know what you’re doing, old man?”
He tapped his head. “Head,” he waved at the meeting room. “Meet lion’s mouth. Insert the one in the other. No sweat, piece of cake. I do this all the time.”
He turned and pushed Amanda towards Sue Ellen and headed down the hall trailed by the rest. The most troubling thing was the pasty white complexion of Minerva, and the fact that Amanda could barely move.
The conference room was chaos, as Heather was having screaming hysterics, Demeter, Minerva’s brother had appeared, and looked ready to kill someone.
The president looked at the four newcomers and spoke, “Obviously, something has come up. What is it?”
“We should clear the room first. I would suggest leaving just you, Admirals Stewart and Sloan, and those on my side of the table.”
The warmth in the president’s voice vanished. “We should clear the room?”
“Think of you acting on a request by me, Mr. President.”
“And there’s a good reason for clearing out most of my advisors?”
“Yes, sir. All but two, including everyone else; even the Secret Service.”
“And you won’t give me a reason?”
“Sir, if I give the reason in front of this many people, no matter how tight you think you have security, the story will be out in a few minutes. After that, I can not predict what will happen. At a guess it will make the concern about nuclear attacks on our cities look like a fart in a tornado. If you fail to clear the room I’ll start explaining at the top. Then it will be too late. A person of above average intelligence will only need a few seconds to figure it out. The dummies a few minutes. Once the subject is even broached, you will start having your ‘advisors’ asking if they can have a potty break, or want to get something they left in their quarters, or get something from the mess...
“It will be out of your control.”
“The Secret Service won’t let me be in here by myself with you.”
“Aside from the fact that if you can’t trust us, the country’s toast, you mean? One. You can specify one. If that person talks, it’s on you, not me.”
“You are getting very presumptuous.”
“Mr. President, I intend to make this as temporary as I can, but for the time being there’s a new sheriff in town. I can’t honestly predict what’s going to happen in the best case scenario — but the worst case scenario is all of our deaths and the deaths of everyone in the country. Clear. The. Room.”
The last three words were most emphatically said. Admiral Stewart spoke first. “I’ve gotten to know Commander Vega and Heather Zimmerman very well in the last few days. They are sitting here. The naval officer is pale, and Heather Zimmerman looks like she is doing something even harder than dropping missiles on sea serpents. Mr. President, like Detective Holland, I can only advise. I say to clear the room.”
There was a hushed silence, then the president asked people to leave, using sweeping gestures of his hand. A half dozen Secret Service agents were left, along with the President, the two admirals, and Sam’s side of the table.
Sam pointed at two of the agents. “These two aren’t working in collusion, both are contemplating what they are going to title this chapter of their memoirs.”
“You can read my mind?”
“Pretty much, sir. And yes, I know what buttons to push, how far I can go pushing them — and when to stop.”
“Agent Reynolds, you can stay. The rest of you out.”
When there was hesitation, the president laughed. “If I’m dead when you return, kill them all.”
A few seconds later, they were alone.
“And now, Detective, time for the big reveal.”
“Mr. President, while the oath I rendered when I entered my service wasn’t the same as those the military officers present gave, I felt that I had a duty to my nation, my government, its elected officials, its people — as well as those folks from Phoenix.
“You have asked Corporal Godwin, Commander Vega, Amanda Feather, Heather Zimmerman, Minerva, her brother, Ben Schooland and myself to participate in a military operation, which will involve an attack on the territory of an enemy. A nuclear attack.
“I have no problem with such orders, sir. None. I doubt if Corporal Godwin or Commander Vega does either. It’s why we’re here, after all. Yes, you are asking young women, barely into their teens, to risk their lives in the enterprise. And lets face it: if our country was under nuclear attack — in fact when it was under attack, we used whatever means were available to us, including a nuclear response. We will face the same thing; odds are we will not all come home, sir. That’s a hell of a thing to put on a teenager’s shoulders.
“So, for a short period of time, I have you by the short and curlies. It won’t last long, like I said, and I’ll be thankful when it’s over and I can go back to Sam Holland, good detective, but a screw up in a supervisory role.
“Before I say anything else, I want a quid pro quo from you. And I think I’ve demonstrated that I’ll know if you’re lying. Certainly, Amanda, Heather and Minerva will know.
“You have a couple of hours to get it done: speak to the American people tonight. You’ve kept them in the dark. You’ve talked openly of our losses, but cryptically of what we didn’t lose. That was good for a while, but I’ve been out there, sir. You can see it and feel it; people are starting to fret.
“It is my feeling that if things are allowed to come out piece-meal, it would be very bad. You need to describe what the Navy has sacrificed to achieve — and you need to let the cat out of the bag about the attacks on the cities. Like I said, our enemies will try to defend themselves just as we would — a hail of nuclear weapons is a probable response.
“Your technical advisors, those not lost in fantasies of ‘nuclear winter’ and the like, will tell you what would be involved in strikes on twenty or thirty cities. If we haven’t evacuated, casualties will be terrible. If we have, they’ll be grim, but we’ve dealt with grim before.
“Then I’d speak a lot of brave words, promising victory in the end. Mr. President, you will not like what is coming next, not philosophically or politically.”
“And what comes next?”
“Quid pro quo. Make the promise and mean it, or shoot me. I’ll never support you, your plans or anything else about this. It will be quits. Further, I will attempt to persuade others to my point of view. Not only from my side of the table, but the country at large.”
“You have to know I don’t respond well to threats.”
“Threats, Mr. President? We are beyond threats. From here on out, your main enemy is going to be objective reality.
“What was upsetting everyone a short time ago with Minerva’s threat to kill Amanda.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Why do you think no punishment is too severe for a monster like Hannibal Lector?
“I made a personal joke about Amanda; it’s almost unconscious on my part. I’ve spent the better part of my life trading barbs like that with my partner. She was pissed, justifiably pissed, and so she decided to pay me back. A simple thing; no big. Actually, I would have admired it. She was going to give me a hot foot, sir. Stick some matches in my shoes and light them.”
“And this is funny how?”
“I have to say, sir, when you have a juvenile sense of humor, we think it’s hilarious. Now, sir, I’m going to ask you to put your hands on the table in front of you for a few minutes — you’ve been waving them around.”
“Again, what gives you the right to order me around?”
“This is for your safety, sir. I don’t fully understand how things work.”
Abruptly, there was a common yellow pencil, sticking in one side of the President’s water bottle and out the other. There was a trickle of water going down the side. A moment later, there was a second pencil through the bottle.
Amanda spoke up, “Minerva says she can’t even threaten, Sam. I don’t understand...”
“We are barbarians,” Sam told her. “Uncouth and uncivilized.”
He turned to the president, and gestured at the growing puddle. “This, sir, is objective reality.”
“And I fail to see what you mean.”
“That, sir, was the same ability or technology or whatever you want to call it, that stopped IBCMs in midflight. That’s the same technique that Minerva used to drop nukes close to critters.
Admiral Sloan spoke up. “I was a little slow, sir, I’m sorry. I was so busy trying to see the forest, I stopped looking at trees. I’ve worked with special operators, sir. It’s easy to train a soldier to pick a target a couple of hundred yards away, and have him shoot at that target. He never knows if the reason his target went down was him, someone else, or the man just stumbled. It’s several orders of magnitude more difficult to train some to stick a bayonet in an enemy, and even more difficult to train him to wrap his hands around someone else’s throat and kill him.
“Some years ago, Tom Clancy wrote a novel where a CIA analyst stopped the President of the United States from nuking a city where one man, and a few cohorts, had caused an American city to be nuked. Hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, sir. But what this fictional president intended was the same sort of infamy. Only a few of the people in that town were guilty of anything. That sort of action should be morally repugnant to any American president.”
“Minerva told Amanda that if she used matches on my feet, she’d kill her. Then, though she didn’t say it, I suspect if she’d have killed Amanda with her mind, she’d have killed herself in shame.
“Sir, that bottle is two feet from your heart. Those pencils could just as easily been delivered through your heart. Sir, life as politicians knew it, has been changed forever.”
“Pardon me?”
“Right now, there are three people in this room who could kill you on a whim; actually, just two, because Minerva couldn’t do it on a bet. A simple statement of fact, objective reality, Mr. President.
“From the first minute of the first day she was on Earth, and not at home, she could have killed all of the ‘sea serpents’ with a thought. Thousands of her people have died over the years fighting these monsters. One of her level could have done it in a second centuries ago.
“Mister President, a little thought experiment. You’re the president and you’ve been stranded with five thousand folks on a island. You have sufficient food for half them. What do you do?”
“Obviously, look for food.”
“Not start deciding on who’s for the soup pot?” Sam said innocently.
“Good God no!”
“Minerva can’t bring herself to kill a fly directly with her mind. She can, like a soldier, squeeze the trigger. Any rational person is going to look at that and say that’s an asymmetrical response. You should be able to kill either way.
“Except it’s not symmetrical. As Minerva told Amanda, Amanda could kill every left-handed red-head on the planet with a single thought. That would take a lot of work and a lot of trigger pulls to do it manually.