Chapter 11

Stephanie was ready for a weekend marathon of non-stop sex, but couldn't hide the soreness in her pussy and acceded gracefully to Wei's demand that she give it some time to heal before starting again. I was grateful because I was a little sore, too, and I still wanted more time with Jun.

Jun, being the kind-hearted soul that she was, laughed at my condition on the way back to my place and said, "That's okay, Darren. We'll just use my cock for the rest of the weekend and give your poor abused pee-pee a rest!"

I grinned at the implications of that, and though I didn't think my trauma was quite that severe, her solution held a certain appeal.

Before sunrise on Monday morning, the six of us found ourselves again following Master Sung through a new series of Tai Chi exercises.

"All things have energy." He stated, continuing his fluid motions. "A master of his chi can seek out and use that energy. Ancient warriors were known to cause inanimate objects to fly at their opponents through the power of their chi. This has been dramatized in motion pictures and modern fiction. What is not so widely known is that most of the warriors who were capable of such feats were better known, in their day, as healers. With the power of their chi they could remove an arrowhead lodged deep in a wound, or separate the poison from a person's blood, and even close a gaping wound as if it never existed."

I flashed back to the Museum in the Festung Hohensalzburg when Sun and Jun had guided me through the exercise of removing the bullet from Talibah's body. Why had we never investigated other uses for that power? I had no answer other than that we had other things on our minds.

With our memory of that episode available to all as a guide, however, all of us, including Stephanie, astounded Master Sung with our ability to thread needles and pass basketballs around, and even to heave spears into a bullseye without touching them.

Master Sung, praising himself for being such a great teacher, then moved us on to the more delicate tasks of fooling electronic devices. We saw no need to burst his bubble, and simply continued with the lessons.

The remainder of the week found us practicing various techniques for baffling electronic sensors. Some could simply be 'frozen' so that they never deviated from their 'normal' states. With others, particularly digital devices, we learned to detect and repeat the 'normal' signals while blocking the signals that warned of our presence. Thermal sensors could be negated by using our chi to absorb the extra heat of our bodies and pass it on to something else. We even got good enough to filter our images out of a video signal.

The Gemini people were going crazy trying to track us as we disappeared from both sight and sensors and then reappeared in a totally different part of the estate. Stephanie entertained thoughts of how easy it would be to sneak out past the security people, until we reminded her that WE would always know where she was. That was the power of this shared link. We could disappear from every known method of detecting our presence, but we would always know where each of the others of our team were. Now we began to understand the Master's insistence on teaching us these skills before we undertook our next mission.

Friday evening found us gathered in Steve Hastings' study going over last-minute plans for what we hoped would be our final mission to DC.

"Between what we got from the CIA, and what you retrieved from the computers in the House and Senate office buildings, we have enough solid evidence to have them convicted several times over for treason, fraud, abuse of power and God knows how many election law violations." Hastings said. "You will be able to gather a bit more evidence if you give the bugs time to work and return to their garage, but it's not absolutely necessary. They're going to tell you that they've got the Press in their pocket as well as the judiciary, but they forget the old saying that 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' I've been investing heavily in media companies, and own a couple outright. I'm also a big stockholder in several others, as well as a big advertiser, so this will get enough objective coverage to make a difference. As for the judiciary, we have some leverage there, as well. Most of this administration's appointees have skeletons in their closets that we can rattle, if need be, as do most of the sitting justices. I'm not looking to force a particular outcome on them, mind you, but I'll make damned sure they remain impartial. I'll break it through a friend of mine who writes for the Chronicle. He'll appreciate the scoop."

The mission was set for Tuesday night, and while Stephanie was not to leave California, she would act as our communication base, letting others know what was going on. We debated with Steve over the roles we should play in this. I had been the front man with the Deputy Chief of Staff and the Senate Majority Leader, and I thought it would be good to have one of the G-girls take down the Prez and VP, but Hastings insisted, with the girls' backing, that it would be better to have me, as a veteran of one of their wars and the victim of their attacks, to be hatchet man.

For practice, and because the government's watchdogs might be watching for our return, we purchased our tickets under assumed identities and remained invisible to airport surveillance at both ends of our flights. Anyone who wanted to check would find that we had used the tickets we bought, but they would not find a video record of our passage through the airport, either at San Francisco or Dulles.

Tuesday afternoon, each of us, individually, followed a careless badgeholder through the security gates and into the White House without raising any alarms.

Making our way through the busy hallways of the West Wing took all of our new skills as well as some of the old. You can fool sight and hearing, but touch will override them if you allow a solid contact, so we had to be very careful, especially when passing doorways or turning corners, not to collide with anyone. It helped to have 'the Sight, ' since, through the eyes of my chi each of us could avoid being overtaken and accidentally bumped from behind, as well.

We could detect a number of new sensors and video cameras that had been added recently, and those added to our burden. I was beginning to appreciated Master Sung's insistence on driving us so hard to maintain our 'camouflage' even under extreme circumstances.

The 'Shadow Staff' meeting was scheduled to be held at 7:00PM, according to documents recovered from various computers, and Jun and I were already in the Oval office, waiting, invisible, as the President's closest 'unofficial' advisors filed in.

The President's Secret Service agents, including an extra contingent, undoubtedly brought in after the former Deputy Chief of Staff's warning, were dismissed for this meeting, and as soon as the doors closed behind them, Jun and I revealed ourselves to the President. Only he could see or hear us as we ordered him to dismiss the advisors except for the Vice President.

Naturally, he called for Secret Service. Unfortunately for him, they could neither hear his call nor see that anything was amiss, thanks to interference from Mei and Sun. The others in the room looked at each other as though the President had finally lost it.

"No one can see or hear us except you, Mr. President." I told him, and he looked around to notice, for the first time, that the others were whispering guardedly to each other. "If you don't dismiss them, they're all going to think you've gone off the deep end. Of course, that would serve our purpose almost as well, but we'd prefer to do this more quietly."

He may have been ignorant and illiterate, but he did retain a modicum of intelligence.

"Uh, somethin's come up that I need to take care of." He told the others. "I'll have my sec'tary call y'all to re-schedule. If you'd just kinda hang back, Mr. Vice President, I need to talk to ya."

Amid muttering and speculation about the President's mental health, the other filed out.

"When your secretary asks, tell her not to disturb you until further notice." I told him. I could see the Secretary approaching the door through the eyes of Sun, who was stationed outside the office. The sudden departure of the meeting attendees probably had her worried.

I should have realized that they would have set up a number of coded phrases for the President to use to warn his secretary in an emergency, and when I felt the secretary's alarm level rise, I didn't need Jun's warning to tell me he must have used one of them.

"You just don't know when to leave well enough alone, do you Mr. President." I admonished him as Jun knocked the Secretary unconscious.

I finally allowed the confused Vice President to see who was addressing the President, noting idly that the 'bug' that had been sucking the data out of the Presidential computer, had re-docked in my shoe.

"I do not believe that the former Deputy Chief of Staff failed to deliver our message to you." I addressed the two of them. "So I have to assume that you chose to ignore it. Perhaps you thought that, here in the security of the White House, we couldn't touch you. As you can see, not only can we touch you, if we chose to do so, we could kill you both with no one the wiser. Every instinct I have tells me that you two need killing worse than anyone I've done before, but there are other considerations, so I'll deliver this last warning, and if you don't heed it, your party will take a long time recovering from the scandal that will erupt."