Chapter 1

I awoke naked, chained and strapped to a cold metal chair. I could hear voices in the distance, I recognized Mr Riley.

“Sir, please don’t do this. I’ve had nine bosses since I began this job. Each time one of them even thought about doing something remotely like this something bad happened to them.”

“Rubbish, superstitious stories.”

“No, sir. It’s real. General Howard sent a sniper to kill him. He died,” Mr Riley said.

“Men die, soldiers know that.”

“He slipped on bubble gum and fell four stories out of a parking garage. Bubble gum! That same afternoon a tree fell over and crushed General Howard’s car while he was driving down the highway. Broke his neck, he was going to be medically discharged, but after the President learned what happened he was stripped of rank and pension.

“General Franks ordered his arrest over the phone, but never showed up to sign the order. A team went to his house. He was dead of a heart attack, he apparently took his wife’s medication instead of his own by accident.

“It’s karma sir. Anytime somebody tries to harm him the universe squashed them like a bug. How many flat tires did you have today coming here?”

“Six. Not sure what happened, changed vehicles four times.”

“It’s karma sir. Remember Colonel Forth? He was assigned to this group just before you. He’s still in a coma. Announced that he wasn’t afraid of some curse, and decided to go to Tulsa to arrest John for insider trading. He was in a tiny fender bender, rear-ended, on the way to the airport, and his airbag exploded in his face blinding him, he went off the road and into a river.”

“How many times had this happened?”

“Injuries and deaths to colleagues and operational supervisors? Over 40 since President Reagan signed the executive order that we guard him. You’ve seen the videos we have of that sword. He made it in front of our soldiers knowing we were videotaping it.

“It wasn’t the Mayor who made that sword off limits. It was one of our guys. He went to retrieve it and it knocked him on his butt with an electrical discharge. Our guy figured it was stuck in a buried power line. John just walked over and plucked it out of the ground. No power lines under that street, hell all of lower Manhattan had no power at the time.”

“He sure has you spooked, doesn’t he? I’m going in there, and I’m going to get answers.”

“Every President since Reagan has renewed the order sir. This is illegal. You pursue this and it’ll cost you your career, and probably your life,” Mr Riley warned.

He stepped into view, and gave me a long piercing look.

“Tell me about your past lives,” he commanded.

“Made up stories. We get one life, to live as best we can then we die just like any other living thing. There is no heaven, and no hell but our own conscience,” I said.

“Tell me about your children, how did you have so many?”

“One injection a day for eight days in my left testicle just before puberty began. I pump hormones and stem cells from that testicle into a woman, and she immediately ovulates. 99.9% success rate. It also makes them orgasm for a few hours.”