Ace In The Hole

"NO!"

"Jesus Christ! Have you heard a word I've been saving?" Sweat had formed dark rings beneath the ace's armpits. "What are we going to do?"

"I'll tell the Secret Service that I was randomly skimming in a crowd, and picked up the surface thoughts of the assassin. His intent, but not his target or his method."

"Yes, yes, good." A new worry intruded. "But will they believe you?"

"They'll believe me. You humans are all so impressed by my mental powers." He patted Worchester's arm. "Do not worry, Hiram. We will stop him."

It was sheer bravado. And Tach had a feeling that Hiram knew.

"You sure this is where you want out, ma'am?" the uniformed driver asked, craning to peer through the window at the tent city sprung up like post-rain mushrooms in Piedmont Park. Day was really starting to happen, paling the flames of the occasional camp fire dying on the trodden grass. "I'm sure," she said and stepped out. The air was already congealing with a colloid of heat and wet, and diesel fumes, and the smell of secretions, human and not quite. She shut the door. The cruiser pulled away.

She resisted the urge to shoot the car a bird. When she'd asked for police protection, they'd just stared at her. Hoping to contain hysteria and speculation, the Atlanta police were stonewalling on the Peachtree murder. Even Ricky's name was being withheld, ostensibly pending notification of his mother in Philadelphia. Sara's involvement had not been announced either; perhaps in part as a buy-off gesture, the APD spokeswoman was telling the press that the murdered man's companion was being held under protective custody.

Sara knew full well that the Atlanta police were trying to damp dynamite in a mason jar-the explosion, when it came, was going to be that much worse for the attempt. All the same she was glad of it. Ricky's colleagues would learn his identity soon enough, and infer that she was the woman who'd been' with him when he was slain.

She dreaded what would happen then. She didn't even have a stirring of temptation to use the inevitable interrogation to try to expose Hartmann. She knew how futile that would be; Tachyon had done his job too well.

She put on her broad-brimmed hat, hoisted the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder. The intrepid reporter-now free lancewalking among the wretched of the earth, not to mention the butt-ugly, gathering their stories of anguish and repression: an act good for a few hours in the middle of a crowd.

She was afraid to be alone. Deathly afraid.

She began to limp up the hill.