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three inch pencil. I'm most grateful for the crackers; I
know they're for resetting our palates, but I really need to get something in
my stomach. I’m still dizzy from Brotherhood.
    Our
host is a heavy-set man about our age with jet black hair and matching
fingernails. He has an unexpected amount of knowledge about the wines, much
more than his normal bartender looks suggest. He provides more detail than our
slightly drunk minds could really remember, and in the end we buy a bottle of
Cabernet Sauvignon and take it into the back where they have tables, food, and
live music. We enjoy the rest of our time here, but it never once leaves my mind
what had happened. What I want to know is that if we are being watched, is it
primarily Justin—or do I have to watch my back too?
    Lena
had been right to open my eyes to the possibilities, and I have made my
decision to keep going. It was time to grow a pair, this was not going to
change my mind.
    Fuck
being scared!
    There
are two options for me; I could be scared and hide or I could fight.
    I
popped a piece of cheese into my mouth and took a swig from my glass. "You
have a training compound of some kind, a firing range, something like
that?"
    "Yes,"
Justin answers full of uncertainty, wondering why I was asking.
    The
next thing out of my mouth was in no way, shape, or form a question. It was a
demand. "Tomorrow—you're taking me!"
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER
III
     
    S enator Scott Lewis is visibly overwhelmed. He keeps
catching himself ringing his fingers together nervously, and to stop himself he
runs his hands toward his knees to straighten his pants out over and over until
he forgets and goes back to the ringing. It's a terrible thing to realize your
entire life is a trap that you've asked for yourself.
    Sitting
in the room with him is most of the group responsible for getting him elected,
temporarily and then permanently just a few weeks ago. There's a few more, but
they will never come to a meeting like this, money guys and an ex-president
from the opposite party.
    A
tangled web woven.
    Some of
the men sitting in Lewis' own study are his friends and political allies. Some
of them, like Justin, he has no idea who they are or why they came. Those that
know him are the ones that asked him for this meeting, setting him up. They
told him, now that he was a Senator there was some business to take care of. He
didn't exactly know what they had meant about that, but he invited them over as
they requested.
    No one
talked for the first twenty minutes while they waited for everyone to arrive.
Lewis tried making small talk, but his guests were all acting a little too
serious. That's when he began getting nervous.
    I saw
it happening and so did Lena as we watch the surveillance cameras from the
safety of Justin's office. All the bugs we put in when we were selecting him were
going to stay now, maybe forever. We wanted Lewis a little scared, especially
for this meeting. Fear is good for control, so it is a welcome sight. It has to
be limited, though, so that Lewis is still concentrating more on what is being
said and less on not throwing up and shitting his pants.
    Justin
looks uninterested and unimportant, hanging in the background exactly where he
wants to be. His insignificance masks the fact that he is in complete control
of this meeting. Everything about to be said, and who will say it, has been
scripted by him. Even some of them arriving late is according to his plan.
    It
freaks me out, more than a little bit, to witness his accuracy, to know that he
can play anyone like a puppet—including maybe even me and I would never know
it.
    Justin
wanted the first person to speak to be someone Lewis knows, someone he trusts.
That fell to Austin Hill, the Administrative Press Aid for the last two
presidents and friend of Lewis' since college.
    "Scott,
obviously we're here for something important; something that concerns you
directly even though you have no idea what it is, but I