Sam's news rolled around in Tommy's head for the umpteenth time since the two had spoken earlier in the day. He'd taken up a position overlooking the Georgetown home of Lester Savoy, the Secretary of Defense, about an hour before, but his thoughts were about time—time and coincidence—and how much easier their lot would have been if Brian Severance had approached Sam a few weeks earlier.

We might not have known what questions to ask him then, Tommy reminded himself. In any event, the man's information wouldn't have solved every problem they now faced. In fact, had Sam met the army captain mere weeks earlier, events would have progressed along a completely different arc. Such an eventuality might have forestalled or delayed Tommy's trip to Washington, and he would not have become aware of the Chinese agents he'd encountered the day before.

Things often happened for a reason.

Time enough for that problem later. For now, he needed to figure out how best to approach the SecDef.

He pondered simply going down and knocking on Savoy's front door. There was no visible trace of the retired general's military security detachment. But there were private security guards in the gated community in which the retired marine lived, and there was no telling who else might be watching—so, so many players were involved. And Tommy remembered Max's admonishments. These were perilous and fearful times, and Tommy had bungled far too many things recently. He wasn't about to fuck this meeting up.

So, he watched and kept an eye open for an unobtrusive way to approach the man, preferably while he was away from his home.

The SecDef hadn't gone out last night, and it didn't look like the man would be leaving the house tonight. The evening before, the fast-living retired marine had heated something in the microwave and watched part of a nature documentary, something about cheetahs, before falling asleep on the couch by 11:00.

The training schedule for tonight wasn't yet clear. The old guy was stripped down to his physical training uniform, so he probably was in for the evening. From the perch Tommy had taken just after sunset, he could see through the kitchen window and had a good view of part of the home's living room. His vision was uncanny, and even from nearly half a mile, he had a clear view. He absent-mindedly began to read what was written on the various post-its and fliers adhered to the refrigerator. It was mostly mundane odds and ends, pictures of grandkids, a few crayon drawings, some emergency numbers ... and, bingo.

"A training schedule?" he whispered to himself almost disbelievingly.

Sure enough, a neat and tidy paper was suspended from the top right corner of the refrigerator. On it, in what appeared to be a woman's careful hand, was a detailed list of instructions, various do's and don'ts to which the retired general was to abide during his wife's absence. Nowhere on the list did it say, "hot wings," but written boldly at the bottom, underlined thrice and in red ink, was a commanding NO SPICY FOOD.

Tommy was seized with a sense of brotherhood for the man, but, even better, his eyes caught the second item of the list. If the first item, "reheat leftovers," was yesterday's meal, then the second must be tonight's fare, "vegetable lo mein from Kim's." No sooner than Tommy had made this observation than Savoy sauntered past the fridge and took up the phone. A menu from Kim's restaurant, which had been held by a magnet on the refrigerator, was now in his hand.

A plan sprung to life. Pulling out his phone, Tommy searched for a Kim's restaurant in the Georgetown area and was rewarded with a phone number at the precise moment the old general began to speak to someone on the other end of the line. The man ordered egg-drop soup, two eggrolls, and a large order of spicy lemon chicken.

"You old rebel," Tommy murmured.

The moment the man in the window finished his order, Tommy began to dial.

"Hey, my dad just phoned in an order for 2116 Dumbarton Lane ... right, the name is Savoy. Could you add another order of lemon chicken to that, two orders of orange beef, and what do you have with garlic? ... great, two orders of that and six spring-rolls ... oh, and an order of vegetable lo mein. And you don't have to deliver. I'll be there to pick it up. Thirty minutes? No ... cash. Okay, see you then."

Tommy dropped without a sound from his rooftop perch, jogged to the rental car Philly had arranged, and 45 minutes later pulled into a spot three doors down from the Savoy residence. There still was no sign of the secretary's security detachment, but Tommy opted to stay in character—for good measure, the exchange of a few dollars at the restaurant had gotten him a Kim's t-shirt—and, posing as a delivery lad, he walked the bags of food to the front door.

It took only a moment for the general to respond to the doorbell. Up close, the man didn't look quite so much like "the Duke," nor was he as tall as the silver-screen cowboy, but the general moved down the hallway with the same rolling gait.

"Hey, bud," said the smiling man after opening the door, "that isn't all for me, is it?"

"I don't think so, sir. My battery's dead, though. Could I use your phone to call my boss and sort this out?"

The still-smiling old officer's fatherly paw took Tommy by the shoulder and steered him in the direction of the kitchen. The younger-looking man placed the eats on the counter and, instead of reaching for the telephone, began to unpack the bags of food.

Tommy felt the oldster's curious eyes on him, as he spoke. "Maxine Seifert said you'd be expecting me, general. I hope you don't mind the little subterfuge."

It wasn't uncommon for people's faces to run the gamut when realizing the truth of who Tommy was, and the general was no different. "And she said you were clever," replied the man, his face finally settling into a nervous smile. "But I half expected you to fly in through the window."

"Usually I enter that way, but I didn't want you to get in a jam with the home-owners' association."

"Or, better, you could have just walked up," replied the old marine.

"Sorry. Max's paranoia is spreading. I saw that your security detail wasn't around but didn't know who else might be watching."

"That was good thinking," said the man as he picked up and opened a food container. "Maybe I'm sounding paranoid, too, but things are crazier in this town than I've ever seen ... aww ... vegetable lo mein?" the old man squawked. "Really?"

"Just trying to keep you healthy, general." Tommy didn't try to hide his amusement. "But the kind of fear you're talking about shouldn't be a surprise. It's easy to be brave when you can see an enemy. And people have the courage of the moment to fall back on during crises ... like they did in '91. Sometimes ... often, it's only later, when people have too much time to think, that the real fear sinks in its nasty hooks."

"Amen to that, son," the general said. By that time, the man had taken several plates and forks from the cupboard and took up a seat on a stool opposite Tommy. "I'm dying to know, though, Kyle. How exactly was it you came to know Maxine? She never said."

"Ha!" Tommy barked. "Jan van Houtem, an old spook I used to know. He's passed on since, but I first met him in '41 and did some work for him in Cambodia in the 60s. I pretty much soured on government work right after that, but Jan found me again in '79—I never figured out how. It took him a few of years convincing, but he finally set me up with Max and a few others."

He caught the old man staring at him with his mouth slightly open.

"Yeah, I know, general ... I'm a lot older than I look."

"You look the same age as my youngest," the old man said as he shook his head in disbelief. "Maxine braced me but ...."

Wielding a set of chopsticks, Tommy began hooking orange beef straight from the carton. "What do you know about us, sir?" he asked after a few bites.

"Next to nothing," the old man admitted. "You'd think we would have some sort of institutional memory, but those few agencies who deal with folks with ... your ... powers are reluctant to share. And I suspect they self-lobotomize from time to time. That's no way to run an organization."

"Except for the files gathered over the last 25 years by Hollirich and that crowd," Tommy said, his desire to smile suddenly gone.

The secretary again shook his head, this time adamantly. His tone was apologetic. "Maxine told me about the SSA files that were improperly shared, and I saw some of the fallout on television. That never should have happened. All those files have been pulled since and placed on restricted servers."

"Then you understand the conspiracy Hollirich was involved in."

"I know a little about the role of the SSA and what they were up to. All that other stuff, about Montana and Utah ... I'm aware of a bit more, but not very much more. Hell, a lot of what I know about such things I learned from you, through Maxine."

"How's that possible?" Tommy felt a sudden sadness and even a small portion of wonder over the silly and byzantine nature of modern government.

"The military's a big part of the government," the general began in a slow and guarded voice, "but we're not the entire government. There is so much money and power at play that I cannot describe. Even inside my own department, there's just too much ... information, people, interests. No one can ever hope to tame it all."

"You do know the military was a part of the Hollirich conspiracy against us, don't you? As near as I can tell, it was funded through a series of military contracts."

The most uncomfortable look crossed the SecDef's face. Tommy couldn't help but feel for the man.

"Kyle, I know the broadest outlines, but I'm struggling to find out the details. Where should I start with that?" The old marine's tone was humble and sincere. It was now clear to Tommy that the general knew significantly less than he'd once imagined.

"As chance would have it, general, I know of an army officer who was privy to what happened in Utah, at least some of it. I don't know if he was aware of operations in Montana. I rather doubt it, but he knows all the main players in the project Hollirich was building around Ulysses Morse."

"An officer on active duty?" the general asked. The man seemed shocked.

"Look, general, come on ... he wasn't the only one." Tommy had to suppress some annoyance. "Since it was a DoD contract paying Hollirich's bills, there had to have been at least some officers or DoD civilians supervising at some level. But not everyone involved in the Hollirich conspiracy was equally guilty. Some were authors of the atrocity, some were profiteers, others still were just unwilling participants ... even slaves. The man I'm telling you about is an army captain named Brian Severance. According to a friend, he's with SOCOM at Bragg right now...."

Tommy had to hush the excited man. "General, don't bust this guy's balls. The captain was forced to join the group led by Morse ... because he's one of us."

It was like the SecDef had been physically struck. The man laid his fork down, blinked three or four times, and seemed to take a moment to let what Tommy said soak in. "You mean, there's someone like you ... someone with superpowers in the U.S. military?"

"We're all different, general. But, yeah, Captain Severance is like me. And if his supervisors ... your subordinates ... were working for you, rather than someone else, you'd know that already."

"Son of a bitch," barked the old marine angrily. He swore like a man long out of practice, but vehemently nonetheless. The general got up and began to pace the kitchen, deep irritation written across him, from head to foot.

Tommy gave the fellow a few minutes to cool off and then spoke.

"General, there was a time not too many years ago—back when you were a young officer, even—when people like me could walk the streets of this country without fear of abduction, murder, or worse. Hell, we could safely and proudly come forward and offer our services to help defend this country. All we needed to do was play by the rules like everyone else. I want my friends and family to be safe and, most of all, to be left the fuck alone. That's the only reason I'm here right now. It's the only thing I want. What do you want?"

The old officer finished his pacing after another lap of the kitchen and resumed his seat. "To start with," he said, still with a deep impatience in his voice, "I'd like some straight answers from the people who work for me. I understand bureaucratic inertia, but I'm on my last nerve with this bullshit."

"And what else?"

The old man's fury seemed suddenly to abate, and he let out a long breath.

"A lot of people thought Mallory Chaney was the smartest person to ever hold elected office in this country," said the old officer. "I don't know about that. She certainly had a lot of political clout, but wherever she is, she left us all holding a huge steaming pile when she disappeared. Everybody knew about the program she had going ... but the thing was so damn secret it didn't even have a project name. Pretty much everything having to do with the project is missing or destroyed. Documents were burnt, files deleted, personnel have scattered to the four winds. We have bits and pieces, but ...."

The old man seemed at a loss for what to say next. Tommy filled it in for him.

"Government lawlessness promotes government lawlessness," he said to the old man. "Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"As nasty as this political climate is right now, everyone is trying to capitalize, and the existence of ..."

"A mercenary army of superhumans?" Tommy again inserted.

The old man gave a haggard look that said Tommy had hit the nail squarely.

"General, I'm not going to be your kapo. I'm not going to play the role that Morse did to keep these people in line for you. The government or some faction in it decided to copy the Russians and build an army of superhumans. If you all would've just stopped there, I might have been more sympathetic. But you didn't stop there. You secretly began rounding up people like me, torturing, experimenting, liquidating ... all so a bunch of rich assholes could get richer."

Tommy stood and retrieved something from his pocket and took that moment to remind himself of why he was there, which was to win the aid of his host. It took a moment to tamp down his anger.

"Look," Tommy said in a calm voice, "I can help you with information part. I can sit down right now and draw out the broad details of what's been going on the last quarter century ... or at least what I know of it. And you can talk with Captain Severance, who was on the ground in Utah, if you need to know more detail of the personalities involved." He placed an item on the table. "There's a portable hard drive in that case with most of what we've collected on Chaney's nameless project, including about a terabyte worth of information we took from a man named Wayne Summerall, one of Morse's lieutenants."

The general took the black case with nervous hands while Tommy availed himself of a carton of spicy chicken. The older-looking man rotated the case in his hands, as if thinking.

"You're much more understanding and patient than I would be if I were in your shoes," the officer told him finally. "And I'm thankful for that."

"General, I know that people do ugly things when they're afraid, but I've lived in this country a long time. It was founded on the best and most noble ideas. People just need to find the guts to live up to those ideas."

"I wish it was that simple," said Savoy. "Having people like you around scares the shit out of everyone—and it brings out the worst in many. God help me," the retired general nearly pleaded, "but just having you here .... And I've known that people like you exist for going on four decades now."

"Then you need to remove people like me from the political equation," said Tommy calmly, "by doing away with programs like Chaney's. That's something only people with political authority can do, general. But one way or the other, that kind of atrocity has to stop. The way I see it, you folks in government have two choices. One, you can keep hunting us, rounding us up, and exterminating us. That will lead to nothing but pain and misery ... and not just for people like me. Or, two, you can treat us fairly and justly, like any other citizens. Either way, the surveillance, the keeping of dossiers, and the like must stop. That includes destroying everything Hollirich and the SSA collected on us."

"Kyle ... I understand stopping the outrages that took place under Chaney, but ...."

"General, please don't say 'societies have a right to defend themselves.'"

"That ...." The old general hesitated. "Okay, maybe I was going to say something like that. But it doesn't change the fact that people with your abilities are dangerous."

Tommy couldn't stop a wistful laugh. "You know, general, I spent most of February of 1945 in eastern Germany doing reconnaissance for the OSS ... simple stuff, updating maps, surveying potential targets, doing troop counts and the like. I was about 30 miles from Dresden when the city was bombed. The fires lit the horizon from there. What do you want to bet, general, that not a one of those pilots or bombardiers on that night was Gifted?"

The general seemed deep in thought for the moment but said nothing.

"My girlfriend loves werewolf movies," Tommy continued with a smile. "They scare the living hell out of her. The last movie she and I watched together, the monster only killed three people."

The old marine smiled back. "I get your point. We fear what we don't understand."

"No, more than that ... much more. In our society, we're taught to fear some things more than others, often to an irrational degree. You work for a president who could push a button and end life on Earth. The American capacity to wage even conventional war can kill many millions. Yet people willingly torment themselves in fear over what trifling harm someone like me might be able to cause. General, this is my country, and I love the people in it. On more than a few occasions, I've put myself in harm's way to protect it. But even if that weren't true, the evil normal folks can commit through the use of technology dwarfs my ability to do harm."

"Still ... I have to sell this to other people ..."

"To other cabinet members, maybe? Because your boss doesn't know about people like me?" asked Tommy.

"Yeah ... talk about The Caine Mutiny."

At reference to the old movie, the Duke's face took on a look somewhere between anger and bemusement, and suddenly neither he nor Tommy sought to check their laughter. Tommy sobered first.

"And you're wondering about what advantage there might be in taking that second choice I mentioned ... why you should be willing to stop monitoring people like us?"

"In a nutshell," the general said with a faint nod.

"Because if you do, you earn my friendship."

"I think I can trust that and value it," the marine replied looking him in the eye. "But let's say ... well, like I said, I'm not the only one to be convinced."

"Okay," said Tommy. "There's a practical reason. Most people with Gifts aren't nearly as powerful as you fear. A group of NYPD officers brought down one of Morse's toughest characters by themselves the other day ... because they got good advice and went in prepared."

The general's eyes lit up. "And where is this guy now?"

"Back on the street ... because some of your colleagues at Homeland Security sprung him an hour or so later."

The general's eyes again flashed with anger but quickly calmed. "Now you see what I'm up against ...," the old man began.

"With Captain Queeg at the helm? ... general, contact an FBI special agent named Ashford Caldecott-Nevarez at the New York Field Office. I met him a few nights ago. The truth is, I think he's something of an idiot, and I'm not completely certain he is a vessel worthy of placing any degree of trust in, but he's heading up an FBI investigation into people like me. I'll tell you what I told him. If people like me break the law, they should be afforded the same rights as everyone else ... and face the same punishments. But everyone gets a fair trial."

Tommy cracked open yet another carton. As they'd talked, he had gone through most of the beef, half the spring rolls, and was starting on the vegetable lo mein.

"Christ, son, you can put away the vittles," the secretary said in awe.

"Did you want half?" he said, waving the lo mein in Savoy's direction.

"Nah, that's all yours, but ... look ... Kyle," the general said, weighing his words, "I need to know that no more government officials are going to just ... disappear."

Tommy lay down the carton of food and bent his head in thought. After a few moments, he scooted his stool closer to the general's and looked him in the eye.

"I don't think there's any chance the existence of people like me can ever be made public, Mr. Secretary. I think you know that, too. But I want everyone, Gifted or not, to have the same protection before the law. I've served this country in five wars. For the past 25 years, I've lived peacefully and quietly. I own a business, pay my taxes, and obey the law ... until agents of a lawless government kidnapped and murdered someone closer to me than family. I let a lot of people from Chaney's conspiracy simply walk away from that. They'll certainly never be punished in a U.S. court."

"Now ... I'd be willing to go back to how things were before '91," he continued, "with people like me living quiet lives as long as they don't break the law or make public spectacles of themselves. With time and with the good behavior on the part of the government, I might even encourage others like me to volunteer for government service. But every agreement needs to have a means of enforcing it. I can't take the government to court for secretly abusing and murdering my friends ... I certainly can't go to my congressman and complain."

Tommy lay his hand on Savoy's wrist and gave a friendly squeeze. "What should I do when the government attacks and kills those I love? ... write a letter to the editor?"

"I get your point, son," said Savoy quietly. "But we have a government that's coming undone like thread, a president who, perhaps thankfully, is absent, and a lot of powerful people who are scared silly ... all who just want a little bit of reassurance."

"And I can give that to them, general: Don't abduct and murder my friends, and you have nothing to fear from me. That part is kindergarten simple. The problem is that I'm not the only thing you have to fear. This conspiracy of Chaney's hasn't disappeared. It's just gone overseas. And Chaney, for all her faults, was interested in making her friends rich by selling suffering to the U.S. government. The conspiracy is under Race Brannon now—or so I suspect. And I would wager any sum that you are willing to bet that he will sell that suffering to the highest bidder."

Tommy gave the general a moment to digest those words before adding, "And perhaps we should talk about China ...."