The chronological order of my stories is now listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 15 - Crowbars Rule The Night

Midnight, as Thursday, October 22d turned into Friday, October 23d. We had two heavily armed anti-terror SWAT-like teams from the FBI. All were dressed in black, with black armor with "FBI" printed in yellow on the back... except for Cindy and I, whose armor had "POLICE" in silvery-white on the back. Cindy and I were deputized into the SBI for this mission, despite the FBI leading it.

"We have one squad at Energy Dynamics." Jack Muscone quietly said, in almost a whisper. "And everyone else here, inside and outside the building. Are you sure about this, Don?"

"Want to bet a hundred dollars?" I replied.

"Hell, no." said Jack. "I still don't know how you figured out that Energy Dynamics had a directed-energy weapon. They didn't even tell me that, until my boss assigned me to lead this little welcoming party for the perps. But we're taking a risk splitting off some of our forces."

"It'll be enough, but it's necessary." I said. "Everything's been a diversion, even the threat to Energy Dynamics." I looked around, mentally re-thinking our preparations. We were not at Energy Dynamics. I had realized that a far greater threat loomed, and that threat was what we had to defeat.

We were at the StatePowerCorp nuclear plant.

"They're changing the guard now." said Cindy. We watched as the evening shift guards were replaced by identically dressed night shift personnel. All of the oncoming guards looked young and muscular compared to the older evening shift men. The shift leaders at the front gate were talking, but I could not tell what was being said.

"I don't see anyone fitting Marcus's description." Cindy whispered.

"Neither do I." I said. "But these night shift guards are not on the up-and-up." I pulled out my burner phone and texted to all the well-armed agents to watch the guards.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, the 'guards' began stripping their uniforms off, revealing all-black underclothing. They put full head masks on, with only an open space for their eyes. The men at the front gate opened the gate. A pickup truck and a larger cargo truck pulled inside.

Jack Muscone was typing instructions into his burner cellphone on who would take down who. I just watched as the majority of the perps came inside, with a wooden crate that was about 18 inches square.

"How are they going to get into the secure area?" whispered Cindy as we watched.

"Watch." I said. Indeed, it was a bit gruesome, but the perps came up to the door that led to the secure areas, the actual reactors and the control rooms. One man took a jar of some solution, opened it, and pulled out an eyeball with the optic nerve still attached. As he put the eyeball up to the retinal scan, another man put a fake rubber hand onto the fingerprint reader.

"Chen's eyeball." I said. "They took his prints from his body and took out his eye to defeat the systems here, which are the same as at Energy Dynamics." I whispered. We watched as some of the men moved into a room that preceded the control room, and others moved to the door of the reactor room itself.

The perps had radios, and when the men at the reactor room said they were in position, the men in the control room anteroom slid an access card into the security pad next to the control room's door, then entered the code numbers.

"We got a problem." said the guy working the keypad. "The number failed."

"Try the backup number." said the next man, who was the group leader. It failed also. The time to close this out was nigh.

I typed in the text word "NOW" and sent it. FBI agents swarmed inside and outside, moving against the 'guards' as well as both groups of men inside the facility. Everything was going perfectly...

... and then it all went to shit. Seeing they were betrayed and about to be captured, every perp's hand went to his mouth, and I could even see the foam on some of their chins.

"They're all taking cyanide!" I gasped, realizing too late what was happening. And indeed it was too late... we did not take a single one of the criminals alive.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Stop berating yourself." said Jack's boss, the FBI Deputy Director. Jack, Cindy and I had been in the nuclear power plant's control room, having evacuated the staff to safety. We had watched everything from the monitor screens inside that had secondary control of all the security cameras. After the danger was over, we let the staff resume their jobs as we talked in a conference room near the office section of the Plant.

"Dammit," I said, "I should have thought of that possibility! We had them, sir, but I left one tiny fucking hole in the net, and they swam right out of it... in a manner of speaking, of course."

"How do you stop them from taking cyanide?" said Jack Muscone.

"TASERs!" I growled. "We sneak up on them and juice the living shit out of them, or we hit them with tranquilizer guns, or something to incapacitate them before they have a chance to pop the cyanide capsules into their mouths!"

"Easy, son." said the DepDirector. "You've still detected and defeated an enormous threat here. We've stopped them from exploding the reactor core, which would've killed a lot of people, and made a quarter of this State and the one west of us uninhabitable and unable to sustain human life for years... not to mention poisoning the River with radioactive materials and threatening Midtown, it's water supply, and its people. By the way, Jack, have your people secured that polonium fuse?"

"Yes sir." said Jack Muscone. "It's in the secure area where they keep radioactive materials. We'll return it to State Tech in the morning after the sun has come up."

The eighteen-inch-square box had held a cylinder made of the element Polonium. If that cylinder had been fired into one of the reactors, it would've created a massive nuclear bomb and explosion, as polonium gives off the particles that begins the chain reaction. I need not say we wouldn't be celebrating a post-case dinner if that had happened. This device was what the perps, disguised as SBI Security, had stolen from State Tech, setting the fire in the adjoining building to cover their audacious actions.

Cindy was listening on her cellphone, then hung up. "Aurelius Marcus is among the dead." she said. "He was riding shotgun in the cargo truck, and leading the group from there. When our agents attacked, he and the driver also took cyanide. He did have a huge knife with brass-knuckle type rings for a handle, which I'll bet will perfectly match the wounds to Collins, Chen, and Velasquez."

"I won't bet against you on that." I said. "By the way, Jack, have your agents at Energy Dynamics seen or heard anything?"

"I'll go check." said Jack. He left the room.

Cindy and I watched as the FBI wrapped up their operations, bagging the bodies for transportation to the City for autopsies, making their reports and such. "What happened to the real night shift guards?" Cindy asked. "If you alerted them or substituted for them yourselves, the perps would've realized the game was up."

"They're okay." I said. "I called the Governor after the Collins killing, and told him I thought there was a threat to a State facility somewhere. He had the State call for full new night crews at all the power plants, and then they did it again last night, which allowed the Bad Boys to slip a team into the plant."

Cindy was gaping. "You knew enough to do that?!" she said, half angry and half in pure awe. "You knew what was going on after the first killing?"

"Not completely." I said. "But Collins was also an agent... a former agent. We'll talk more about that later. And you should by now realize that I knew that BDSM instead of Punk was going to be next because I was seeing even deeper..."

Just then, Jack Muscone entered the room, looking grave. "Sir," he said to his boss, "we couldn't get ahold of our guys at Energy Dynamics, so I sent some people over there. Our guys were all found dead, and the energy weapon is gone."

"Oh my God!" gasped the Director.

"Ohhhhhh, shhhhhhittttt..." I said. I looked at the ceiling then let my head fall between my shoulders, feeling the pain of failure. "Oh my God..."

Cindy began rubbing my shoulders. "You did all you could, Don." she said as Jack and the Director discussed what had happened.

"He beat me, Cindy." I said. "The god-damn son of a bitch beat me. The power plant was the diversion; he wanted the weapon. And he got it. He..."

Then it dawned on me. I looked over at Jack and his boss, then pointed with my left hand right at the Deputy Director. "No, he didn't beat me. This is your doing."

"What?" gasped Cindy. Jack was trying to look shocked, too. The Deputy Director looked as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I said "I just realized it: with Chen's eyeball at the power plant here, you were hoping to find a mole in Energy Dynamics, someone using his... or more likely HER live eyeball to access the weapon there. So you pulled back your people from there to make it look like the perps had clear access, and they'd move in only if someone showed up and tried to take the weapon."

"Pay up!" said a voice coming into the room, which I recognized as my own wife's. Laura strode in, wearing all black, also wearing an armor-vest with "FBI" on the back. The Deputy Director and Jack both handed her $100 bills, grimaces on their faces.

Laura smiled at me as she took the money. "This'll help." she said. "Dog food is damned expensive."

"And worth every penny." I replied, in defense of Bowser. My wife gave me a second, more sardonic smile.

"Commander," Cindy said loudly. "I believe I should place under arrest... the top leadership of the FBI and CIA. Their gambling habits are getting out of control, especially when they don't learn their lesson to never... bet... against... the Iron Crowbar."

"I'd agree, except I think the CIA Agent is a hot babe." I said, making Laura smile. "I think I'll slip the handcuffs on her myself, and at a... better time." That made Laura blush and Cindy burst out laughing the same way her sister Molly often did.

"Yes, you got us, Commander." said the Deputy Director. "I was hoping to catch a mole over there. I guess you know who, too."

"Sure." I said. "Tomoko Shimono, a.k.a. 'Asa Akira', the rogue and now-'disavowed' CIA Agent who may have tried to recruit Roy Chen, but more likely kept tabs on him."

The FBI DepDirector peered at me then said "Jack, I guess nobody showed up over there?"

"No sir." said Jack. "Nothing at all."

"Continue enhanced protection there." said the DepDirector. "The bastards might try again in a few days if we peel back now. So... how do we keep the Media from finding out about this and reporting it?"

"I can handle that." I said.

Part 16 - Appointments

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" shouted the redheaded reporterette from in front of the Federal Building at 7:00am sharp, Friday morning, October 23d. "Channel Two News has learned that the murders of David Collins, Roy Chen, and the man found hanging from University Memorial Stadium, known to authorities only as 'Velasquez', have been solved!

"Town & County Police Commander Donald Troy issued a statement that the murderer, a professional hit man named Aurelius Marcus, was pursued by authorities into Rivers County, where he committed suicide rather than surrender to Police. Commander Troy stated that the killings were money-related, that Velasquez in particular had debt problems, and the TCPD is closing these cases."

Bettina continued: "In other news, the fire that badly damaged the Physics Building at State Tech has been determined to be arson. Because the fire was on campus, the SBI, directed by gubernatorial candidate Jack Lewis, has taken over the investigation. And now let's go to Nick Eastwood for a report on the big Homecoming game tomorrow! Nick!"

"Thank you, Bettina." said Nick Eastwood. "Homecoming is usually a festival of events on Campus followed by an expected win against a lesser opponent. But this year the Bulldogs are struggling, and the most excitement on Campus was the body found hanging from the Stadium. Channel Two Sports has confirmed that the Athletic Board and Athletic Director met earlier this week to discuss the fate of Coach Russ Bronson, but we do not know if a decision has been made. Meanwhile, the Wildcats have this weekend off, giving them two full weeks to prepare for the Bulldogs on the Wildcats' home turf..."

"We are going to get skunked." said Cindy as we watched in my office, avoiding the coffee klatch and possibly being observed after our exciting previous evening. "Maybe not this week against Taco State, but next week... geez."

"Here's some info between you, me, and the lamp-post." I said. "The Athletic Board did decide: Coach Bronson will be fired even if the Bulldogs beat the Wildcats. They're going after the Wildcats' defensive coordinator as the next head coach. The good news is that Coach Marshall, who you remember from that PED scandal and Ferrell and Ikea trying to set him up, will be promoted to defensive coordinator at my School."

"Good for him." Cindy said. "I do remember him; he's a good guy. One of the few Wildcats I can say that about."

"Present company included?" I asked.

"Not at all." Cindy said emphatically as she got up off the sofa. "You, sir, are the very essence of the Dark Side of the Wildcat Force." I chuckled as she left the office.

She has no idea how right she is, I thought to myself... no idea...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Laura was in one of the examining rooms of her clinic next to her office, wearing her white coat and stethoscope, looking every bit the medical doctor and gynecologist she was.

"Okay," she said. "Well, you're extremely healthy and pretty fit for a woman in her sixties. Even so, that's the issue: you're not an eighteen-year-old girl anymore, Phyllis."

Laura's mother-in-law, Phyllis Troy, was sitting on the examining table. She said "Is that why intercourse is becoming so painful for me?"

"I'm afraid so." Laura said. "It's a very natural post-menopausal thing. There are some medications I can prescribe, and some good lubricants will help. But I know how you prefer these very well-hung young men you've been dating, and their large sizes are not making your situation any better, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I do." Phyllis said with a sigh. "Intercourse is not as enjoyable, either. But I guess I can still give those young men head, can't I?"

"Absolutely." said Laura. "Just as I intend to give your son a blowjob every morning until the day one of us departs this earth."

"I hope that won't be any time soon." said Phyllis, who became introspective. "Don has locked horns with an incredibly evil person, who would love nothing more than to kill all of us, and especially my son."

"I worry about him, too." Laura said. "But I get this feeling... that Don is a lot farther ahead in this Game than he is letting on. A lot farther..."

Part 17 - Solution

Friday evening, October 23d. The party at The Cabin was attended by myself, Laura, Cindy, Teresa, Martin Nash, Sandra Speer of the FBI as his date, Jack Muscone, Tanya Perlman, Daniel and Melina Allgood, Joanne Cummings, and Chief Griswold. Various babies also were in attendance, and Mrs. Griswold and my mother Phyllis were keeping them (and Bowser, of course) upstairs.

Theo Washington had been invited but could not come, as he and his wife were attending a Homecoming function. Likewise, Myron and Mary had declined to visit, and I understood why...

...because, in a very rare public appearance, the Deputy Director of the FBI was joining us for the first time.

"Wonderful view." he said to me on the back deck as everyone ate supper. "Really nice job of rebuilding this place, too."

"Did you ever see the old Cabin?" I asked.

"Yes, yes I did." said the FBI Deputy Director. "I knew Mr. Bonniker very well, and visited him here a couple of times." I made a mental note of that and filed it in my 'mind palace'.

After our supper of catered barbeque chicken, pork and beef, everyone was invited to help themselves to the spirits or wine at the bar set up on a side table in front of the window opening to the kitchen. Soon, Cindy tapped her glass with a spoon.

"Okay guys, it's time." my partner and cousin said. "The Iron Crowbar has done it again."

There was an acclaim. The FBI Deputy Director stood up and said "Everyone, what you're about to hear needs to be kept in this room. Most of you have clearances of one level or another, so it should be okay, but I'm sure you understand the need to keep quiet about it. Don?"

"Yes sir." I said. "And please do refrain from discussing this in the future. Having said that, this was definitely an interesting case. I couldn't tell some of what I know because of the Federal-level security interests. But I'll try to tell enough here so everyone can see what happened."

I began: "We first had the killing of David Collins. It appeared that there was no sense to this killing. There were seemingly no connections between him and Velasquez, and the man we now know was Aurelius Marcus.

"However, there was one tiny bit of information that came to me later as important: Collins had majored in biochemistry, a Science; then he majored in ceramics, seeming an Arts field but actually useful for Materials Engineering; then finally personnel management, a Business field. Collins was not wandering around in those disciplines; he was being trained by his benefactors, which was the Federal Government."

"FBI or CIA?" asked Tanya, figuring it out quickly.

"Don't answer that." said a voice. It was not the FBI's Deputy Director but the CIA's... my wife, Laura.

"I'll let you deduce the answer from that right there." I said, which did not amuse Laura as I continued: "Anyway, I did a quick check on Collins and found that, but realized that my inquiry would be noticed and eyes would begin watching us." I did not bother to tell them that I knew this because of the 'Eyes Only' screen on my computer.

"So what happened is that Collins ended up doing hiring and personnel assignments of scientists for a project that Energy Dynamics has been working on for some years. They worked it with Dynacorp for a while, then took it over fully after we busted up Alicia Foster in the 'Credit Card Caper' case.

"Collins was into the Punk Scene, and his employers' also wanted to use him to seek out any Enemy agents or moles. But he botched it up so badly that he soon became a pariah in the Punk community. In addition, Collins was not the best employee, and was soon cut loose completely from the project as well as his employment with that certain Federal Government agency."

I went on: "So the question at hand was 'why' Collins was killed. I did realize immediately, as did some of you, that the killing was seemingly senseless, maybe just for practice. It was later, upon finding out that he had once been a Government employee, that I realized he was murdered on purpose. The perps knew who he was, and they knew that Collins would recognize what was going on when the next crime occurred."
"Whaaa?" gasped a whole lot of people.

"Ohhhhh." said Cindy. "This is how you knew another crime was going to happen."

I sipped some water, then continued. "Yes, Crowbar 2. The only reason to kill Collins was because when they killed Chen, which was still to happen in the future, they realized Collins might hear or see news of it and would know of the threat to Energy Dynamics and the nuclear power plant. So they eliminated him simply as a precaution. I didn't know all that at the time, but I was already seeing that Collins's' death did indeed have purpose with respect to future events."

"Four hundred years ago..." whispered Jack Muscone as he shook his head.

"The scary thing," I went on, as everyone struggled to digest what I was telling them, "is that they knew a lot about the people in this project, not to mention the security arrangements, and enough to know that Collins had to be eliminated."

"Yes, we at the very highest levels consider that a very scary thing." said the FBI DepDirector. My wife nodded in agreement.

"So, everyone," asked Chief Griswold, his cheeks rosy as he sipped his third glass of bourbon, "who besides the Iron Crowbar is sharp enough to figure that out?"

"I am sure," I said, "that they employed someone to help them in this: a... Consultant of Crime. And their Consultant is definitely sharp enough, and thorough enough, to see the little things and leave no hanging threads."

"Or so he thought." said Cindy. "Except for that little thread with a Red Crowbar." An acclaim of agreement followed.

"Okay, so that's the Collins killing." I said. "And from it, we had Velasquez, who suddenly went all missing. And because Velasquez was associated with Whippet's, we had a BDSM connection after 'Punk' didn't seem right. So I knew that something was up, but I didn't have the full details. Even so, I acted too slowly. If I'd acted with more speed, I might've found out that Chen was our person of interest. But the Perps got him before I could figure it out. Another death on me."

"Bullshit!" said Tanya, not liking my self-recriminations. "You're not a psychic, Don."

"But I'm the nephew of one." I said, making Cindy smile. "I was just a little bit slow, and we even had Reynolds and therefore Whippet's in our sights, even though he's innocent in all this. We were close, so close."

"Even so," Cindy said, "there was no guarantee that Whippet's was the right answer, and you'd have to get the names of the clients -or- we'd have to run undercover operations. We didn't have that kind of time, so you can't blame yourself." There was general agreement by everyone... except the redhead with the Red Crowbar.

"Maybe." I said. "But what I did know was that when something happened, they would be ready to act fast with their plan. I had contacted the State, and had them call for new night crews for all of their guarded facilities, which included the prisons, the power plants, and State Government buildings. The State does this on occasion, but this time our bad guys were looking for an opportunity to insert some perps, and took it."

"Which undoubtedly saved lives." said the FBI DepDirector. "They very likely planned to kill the night guards normally on duty and substitute themselves. That means they knew who the night guards were, and therefore knew they could substitute for them when the State called for a new crew."

"I get the feeling that Federal forces were cooperating with the State on this." I said.

"You might not have been the only one that called the Governor, Don." Laura replied.

"Whew!" gasped Jack. "I almost lost another hundred there." I just gave him and his boss looks as everyone else broke out laughing.

"All right, Don," said Cindy, "keep going. I'll spank the gamblers with the Blue Crowbar later."

"O-kay." I said. "I think I told some of you that the next crime would be the important one, and it was. Roy Chen was a regular at Whippet's, as was the woman Shimono... she probably had Roy go to the parking lot, and right into the arms of his kidnappers Velasquez and Marcus. Bad day for Chen: thought he was about to have a hot night with a hot Asian babe, and got something completely different."

"Any idea where she is?" asked Sandra Speer.

"No. And I suspect we won't see her at Whippet's again." I said drily. "So they got Roy Chen. Now the bad guys knew that the security at Energy Dynamics and the nuclear power plant was the same. People from Energy Dynamics frequently worked with and conferred with the power plant people, and of course they had very high level security clearances. So they used the same security, which is a retinal scan as well as fingerprints and entering a four-digit keycode."

"Ohhhh," said Joanne Cummings, "so that's why they tortured him, to get the keycode."

"Yes." I said. "They took pliers and crushed his knuckles, then ripped out a fingernail before he finally talked. I would even venture to guess he gave them the number after the knuckle crushing, and they still ripped out a fingernail to make sure the number he gave was the real one."

"Once they had what they wanted, they killed Chen, took his eyeball with some of the optic nerve--"

"Why do that?" asked Martin Nash. "The optic nerve, I mean..."

"The eyeball had to be upright for the scanner." I said. "Imagine a picture of an eye looking right, the lens on the right side. The optic nerve is at left, slightly below center; west-south-west on the picture. Squeamish stuff, to be sure. But it allowed them to orient the eyeball for the scanner."

"Anyway," I continued, "once they had the data, they dumped the body and planned to hit the power plant the very next night. They also killed Velasquez, whom they no longer needed, and hung him from the Stadium bleachers. I have no idea why they would do that in such fashion."

"And then you contacted us." said the FBI DepDirector. "We thought they were going to hit the Energy Dynamics lab, and take the project. When you came in and said you thought they'd hit the power plant and explode the core, I realized that this was something far bigger. But how did you know?"

"The fire at State Tech." I said. "I might add that this was the same reason they didn't take Chen's eyeball and go straight to the power plant that night. They needed a polonium ring to breed the chain reaction that would make the reactor into a nuclear bomb and explode it. They got it from State Tech the next day. That had to be the very last stage of their preparations, for obvious reasons--"

"Maybe we should not go into detail on any of that." said the FBI Deputy Director. He was right.

"You're right, sir." I said. "So they set the fire at State Tech, got what they needed from the evacuated building next door, then transported it across the State to the nuclear power plant. And I came to you Federal guys, who already had an idea of what was going on but needed your suppositions redirected to the actual threat. So, like General Andrew Jackson in 1814, we took a little trip downriver, and we didn't fire until we saw the whites of their eyes, pun fully intended."

"I've got a question." said the FBI DepDirector. "Why didn't you come to us earlier? We may not have saved Chen, but we might have prevented the attack in the first place."

"Ah, but then we never would've caught all these mercenaries they hired, as well as Marcus." I said. "Kind of like the Corrigan Cell, we had to flush out as many of them as we could. And I was hoping to get more information on their... Consultant."

I continued: "Well, we didn't catch them, as they took cyanide. Ergo, my plan to trap them in the anterooms was a poor one." I said. "I failed to think about the possibility of them committing suicide by cyanide ingestion when they were going to be captured. I left a thread hanging, Crowbar 2, and as a result we got no live prisoners to interrogate and lead us to the bastard behind this god-awful crime attempt."

"Still, you stopped it, and they are no longer a threat to anyone." said Cindy.

"Any questions?" I asked.

"Velasquez." said Martin Nash. "What was his role?

"I would imagine..." I said, "that our Consultant of Crime knew Velasquez was in deep financial trouble, and offered Velasquez a way out by paying him well to do a few things. Velasquez hired Marcus as his muscle and did what he was told: butcher Collins, then kidnap Chen. Once they had Chen and his information, Velasquez was also the recipient of Marcus's knife in the back; in fact, he might have been killed in front of Chen to show Chen what was about to happen if he, Chen, didn't talk and give up the keycode."

"Who called in the Chen crime scene?" asked Joanne Cummings, who continued to impress me with her astuteness. "I mean, why do that and alert us that that crime had happened?"

"That is a damn good question, Joanne." I said. "It is possible that it really was someone innocent that called it in. Or it could be our Consultant being just a little bit too cute. Maybe he thought that we'd keep looking in the Other World, the Punk and BDSM scenes, having no idea that we were so close to solving his actual intended crime. He does tend to get a bit cute and overdo it sometimes, and that right now is our only advantage against him and our best shot of getting him."

"Or it could be someone else." said Cindy. "Someone who is no friend of our Consultant, and who wanted to help us, albeit quietly and secretly."

"That could well be." I said. Hmm, I thought, does Cindy know something? Was that a good guess? And who is our secret friend? Rita? Someone else?

"I have one question," said the FBI DepDirector before I could go into a reverie over Cindy's comment, "and it is a questioning baffling the highest leadership of the entire Federal Government, including the White House's best counter-terrorism experts: why in the world did they want to blow up the nuke plant? By that, I mean yes it would do tremendous damage, kill people, scare the Nation and the World. We thought it might be a ransom once they took control of the plant, but there were no notes or communications equipment, or anything to suggest they were going to stay. It looks like they simply intended to turn the plant into a nuclear bomb and set it off. In addition, the NSA reports no chatter from any cells, no activity in the United States or overseas, so we don't think this was a coordinated attack with anything else. So the question is: Why?"

"Gosh, if the entire Federal Government has no idea, then l'il ol' me certainly would be at a loss." I said. "But I can theorize without data--"

"Whhhoooooooooaaaaaaaa!" came a chorus. My fellow officers were messing with me.

"Yeah, I know." I said, grinning. "But I'll indulge here. First, maybe they would've taken the plant hostage, and then you would've gotten a communication from someone. Second, this would've been disastrous, but I can think of worse things that would kill a lot more people. Third, maybe they wanted to see if they could explode a reactor core, so they can try again later, elsewhere. Fourth, in my mind I'm putting myself in the perpetrator's place, and what I come up with is that he was doing it as a demonstration of his sheer power, of what he is able to accomplish. Just sending his calling card, if you will."

"Maybe they wanted to take out 'The Vision'?" Cindy queried. "It's upstream, but the fallout might've reached them and forced their Headquarters to evacuate."

"That's Iron Crowbar thinking, there." I said. "I'm not sure if displacing 'The Vision' would affect a group of young people that are taught to 'roll with it' and would just move elsewhere, but yes, they could've been a target, too."

"Just pure Evil at work, sir." said Joanne Cummings with righteous anger. "Just pure Evil for the sake of Evil. I think I need to go pet Bowser before I head home..." She headed upstairs.

"She loves that dog more than she loves listening to you, Don." quipped Laura, getting a laugh out of the FBI people.

"Bowser. Chick magnet." I said. "He restores order to Nature, and makes everything right with the world..."

Part 18 - Aftermath

Just about everyone else was gone. Laura and the FBI DepDirector were talking in the front room. Tanya was upstairs with my mother, chatting as the children (and Bowser) slept. Jack Muscone and I were on the back deck in the chilly air of the night. The lights of the Town twinkled below us, and I saw the light of a train as it came out of the west and made the curve south just before the River.

"They tried hard to keep that information from you, Don." said Jack. "I saw you were looking into Roy Chen, but my boss cut me off when I tried to look into it myself. Then I was told that Les Craig was handling it. And they told me that if you called and asked, I was to not to say anything. I didn't understand any of it, until you told my boss and your wife more about it than even they really knew."

"Yes." I said. "And I can tell they're not happy about something, either. Not my knowledge, but I think even they were kept out of the loop on some things. But I still appreciate you giving me that heads up."

Jack Muscone and I had long since worked out a series of code phrases that we could use to communicate if there was trouble. We had phrases if we were captured and forced to call the other person, and we had phrases if something was wrong but we were unable to speak freely.

So when Jack had said that he had to lay off the double cheeseburgers, I understood that it was his code phrase that he was muzzled and that someone was keeping information from me.

"I need to tell you this, also." said Jack, "Almost every one of those perps was drugged up. Amphetamines and other stuff, stuff we know is used by Islamist armies in the Middle East when they go into battle. Amped 'em up. Made 'em fearless in battle, made them feel no pain."

"Where can I get some of that?" I quipped.

"Heh." replied Jack. "By the way, some of those guys were drug addicts already. Looks like they were all hired for this work as mercenaries. And the drugs also made them compliant; they followed orders readily, including every last one of them taking cyanide instead of being captured."

"What were their ethnicities?" I asked.

"Mixture of Black, White, and Latino." said Jack. "Nearly all served in the American Armed Forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or both."

"Hmmm... interesting." I said.

"Don, something is wrong here." said Jack. "I trust my boss, I trust my team. I don't trust Les Craig nor just about anyone else in the Bureau. That may be unfair to a lot of them, but there is something going on, some.. unrest. Maybe corruption, even. My boss is totally focused on Superior Bloodlines, so much so that he almost completely overlooked this threat that you, thank God! figured out. All I can say is that you should keep your head on a swivel."

"I appreciate your warning... and I agree with you." I said. "The Consultant of Crime has all of us as nervous as cats in a room full of rocking chairs. He can strike at any moment, and God only knows what his next attempt to devastate us will be."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Only one small lamp lit the master bedroom of The Cabin, bathing it in a warm glow. The curtains were drawn. Laura and I were naked, lying on the bed. My wife was sitting on top of me, my cock sheathed to the hilt in her warm, sopping wet pussy.

I sucked Laura's hanging breasts, enjoying the flow of warm milk, swallowing my late-night snack until her udders were drained. She was moaning, grinding her cunt on my throbbing cock... which remained throbbing due to the gray viagra I had taken.

"Unnh!" I gasped, feeling my wife's cunt clamp hard on my cock. She was coming. I pushed up hard into her, making her gasp loudly. My hands slid down her sides to her waist just above her hips, and I held her tightly as she rode me in her orgasmic bliss.

"Mmmmm, that was sooooo good!" she whispered. She leaned over and kissed my mouth deeply, then settled onto me, her breasts pressing into my chest. "I love you, darling."

"I love you, too." I said. I felt the tops of her feet on my thighs as she slid them up back and forth, knowing how I enjoyed that. I let my hands slide past her hips to grasp and knead her asscheeks.

"Soooo," she said, stroking my hair as she looked down into my eyes, "there were some questions I could not ask you in front of everyone..."

"We do have the most amazing pillow talk, don't we?" I asked with a grin, making Laura smile and chuckle.

"Yes, we do." she said. She kissed my mouth then asked "So why didn't you come to me right after getting that first 'Access Denied', 'Eyes Only' message, when you first looked into Collins's past?"

"I was caught up in the murder side of it." I said. "I'd have gotten around to you about it eventually."

Laura looked at me with something of a knowing smirk. "Darling, we have been together over three years, and I can tell when you have ulterior motives for something."

"Well then," I said, "I'd better plead the Fifth. But seriously, when Collins was killed I didn't have enough data to warrant coming to you, nor to the FBI. And when Chen was killed, I did come to you."

"Fast work there, stud." Laura said sarcastically. I felt her squeeze her pussy around my cock as she kissed my mouth, then began nuzzling my neck.

"Well," I said, "I also wanted to capture the entire gang of mercenaries. And if I'd told you and especially the FBI too soon, you might've moved too fast, and prevented the attack, instead of catching them in the act."

"Now that sounds a little more believable." Laura said. "But it was really too bad you didn't think about the possibility of them taking cyanide... though you've seen that happen more than once now, and you never forget a damn thing..."

"You are as brilliant as you are beautiful." I said, chuckling. She had realized that I had thought of the possibility... and I had let them kill themselves.

Yes.

Why? Because Jack's boss was trying to move too quickly. The Consultant of Crime was behind this attack, and I knew there was no way we'd ever prove it nor tie him into it. And he'd slip away if they'd been captured alive, or if the crime had been prevented instead of allowed to happen.

Laura settled down onto me again, letting her head rest on my shoulder and upper chest. My cock was still in her pussy, but we were tiring and I would soon lose my erection and it would slip out.

"Pretty risky to let it go that far." Laura said.

"Honey," I replied, "how much do you know about how nuclear weapons work?"

Laura said "I know the basics. I know how to deactivate the triggering devices, or at least I did know when I was an Agent in the field. And I'm one of a dozen people that can confirm the codes if and when the President releases nuclear weapons for use."

"But the physics of it?" I asked. Laura said she wasn't so familiar with that.

"Well," I said, "I can tell you this: a nuclear weapon, at least a uranium or plutonium fission device, is a ball of the material with a cylindrical core cut out. That cylinder is separate from the ball, and when the weapon activates, an explosive rams the two parts back together so that it exceeds critical mass. At the end of the cylinder that is rammed into the ball is a polonium ring, which gives off the particles to start the chain reaction."

"Yes, I know that." said Laura.

"But that could not have set off a nuclear reactor core at a power plant." I said. "Those are not built as masses of material,but as rods of fuel with other rods to control the reaction. At worst, we would've had another 'Chernobyl', which would be disastrous, but not a nuclear explosion. And reactors in this country are pretty safe; we would not even have had a 'Chernobyl' or 'Three Mile Island' incident out of it."
"So..." Laura said, beginning to understand, "... you're saying that while there was a threat, it wasn't what we thought it was. So... why did they steal the polonium from State Tech? And why were they going to use it?"

"Because, my love," I said, "they thought that was what they were doing. They thought it was going to be a nuclear explosion. They were told to lower the polonium into the reactor core, and it would explode. They were probably told to lower it slowly and drive out of there as fast as they could, or maybe they knew it was a suicide mission. But either way... it wouldn't have worked."

"So..." Laura said, her mind ablaze, the gears turning, "why in the hell did they do that? What is going on?!?!"

"And that," I said, "is why I didn't come to you immediately about the 'Eyes Only' message. The Consultant of Crime was and is behind this, and I was and am trying to fathom his reasons... and in doing so, it'll be one more way to catch him and bring him down... and his organization, as well. I want him, but I want the hundreds that are following him..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Saturday, October 24th. After watching the University's Bulldogs beat Taco State by a score of only 20-13 in the Homecoming game, Cindy and Teresa moved outside to the patio of the Cop Bar. There was a chill in the late afternoon air, so they pulled up to the lighted fire pit.

"So Don and Laura are up at Lake Watchacoochie for the weekend?" Teresa asked.

"Yeah." said Cindy. "They're going to look at a property up there, and if Don likes it, they'll buy it. Laura says it's his birthday present... but I think she has better ideas of what to give him for his birthday."

"God, how lucky is that guy to be married to a sex professor." Teresa said.

"Depends on how you look at it." Cindy said with a half-grin. "He also has to keep up with her. He must singlehandedly keep Viagra in business."

Teresa made a sound that seemed to be a bark; it was laughter for her. Cindy then peered over at her friend.

"And speaking of keeping up," Cindy said, "you're all but living with Don's nephew, who from what I hear is the absolute hottest and most long-lasting stud in the State, much less the County. So who's the lucky one?"

"Yeah, right." Teresa said. "But I am starting to miss him when he goes on trips; and yes, he is damn good in bed. Better than my ex-husband, even better than..." she stopped.

"Jack Burke?" Cindy asked. Teresa just nodded.

"Listen," Cindy said, "I'm going to go visit my father at 'The Vision' tomorrow, have lunch with him. Jenna swore off, she's busy with case prep for Monday. Why don't you come down with me?"

"I..." Teresa said, then realized she actually wanted to do it. "Okay." she said.

After a few moments of beer consumption and contemplation as they looked at the fire in the fire pit, Cindy said, "Teresa, can I ask you something. Just between us, never let it get out?"

"Sure." said Teresa.

"What do you know of Patrol Officer Lydia Green?"

"Uh," said Teresa, "she's assigned to Vice at Headquarters, like Rudistan and his boys are assigned to MCD at Headquarters, so she's not in one of the Precincts. She's a decent officer, nothing spectacular. Looks a bit overweight but is in good shape, again like Rudistan. Never had a real problem with her. Why?"

Cindy said "Can you very quietly check her out for me? Check her background, maybe even follow up on her patrols and such?"

"Sure, but why?" Teresa asked. "You think she's dirty?"

"Not in the traditional sense." said Cindy. "But again just between you and me, and I haven't even told Don this yet: when I was interrogating Reynolds and shaking him down for some names, I told him that he was being framed to take the fall for the murders. It was a fib to scare him, of course, but... one thing I said to him was that he'd be found hanging from the University Stadium."

"Ohhhhh." said Teresa. "And Velasquez was found hanging from the bleachers."

"Yes." said Cindy. "Don didn't understand why they did that, and normally he'd be right: it was an unnecessary finesse. But I realized later that I'd said that to Reynolds. And guess who else was in the room, and was the only other person in the room?"

"Lydia Green." said Teresa, understanding. "Are you sure I.A. wasn't listening in?"

"They could have been." said Cindy. "I haven't stolen any anti-bugging devices yet, though I'd love to have one of those. But anyway, Green was in the room, as a Uniformed presence is required at all interrogations thanks to that bastard Ikea beating up people. So she's my number one suspect."

"I'll look into it, and see if she's up to anything." said Teresa.

Part 19 - Epilogue

The leaves were a beautiful array of oranges, yellows, and reds, Wallace Bedford noted as he looked through the large window of his formal living room in his New England mansion. He was waiting for his guest to arrive, and was mentally preparing himself for the meeting. This was no ordinary business rival, but a colleague... or antagonist... of tremendous power and organizational abilities.

The butler announced his arrival and he entered the room, seeming to command it with his presence. Wallace Bedford strode up to greet him, shaking his hand warmly.

"Ah, Wallace," he said, "allow me to present you with this small gift as a token of my gratitude for your hospitality."

"You're too kind." said Bedford, taking the bottle of sherry, seeing that it was a very rare and expensive brand. "Allow me to pour us a couple of glasses?"

"By all means." he said. Soon they were seated. He sipped his sherry first, not only as the guest but in the ritual to show the beverage was safe for consumption. Wallace sipped of his glass.

"Ah, excellent. You are a connoisseur." said Bedford. "You always have had an appreciation for the finest things."

"Yes." he said. "I prefer the wealth of selection to the wealth of accumulation. This sherry is an example. I don't need much in my life, but a drink such as this is something to be sought, and appreciated. It is something the unwashed masses, the common man, cannot properly understand."

"I understand, and I agree with you." said Bedford, whose own wealth by accumulation was considerable.

"How is your son doing?" he asked.

Bedford said "He's doing fairly well, for now." Bedford's son was very sick with a blood disease. "The medications are working well for now, but the doctors have said that he will need a liver transplant within the next few months. We're hoping to get through Christmas before that becomes necessary. He's not the best candidate, from what I'm told, as his blood type and other factors suggest he might have a higher rejection rate than most. But we'll worry about that at it's proper time. So how may I be of service to you today?"

"We have much to discuss." he said, getting to the point of this business meeting now that the required niceties were over. "As one of the most influential... and generous... leaders of Superior Bloodlines, I felt that I should apprise you of the national situation."

Wallace Bedford was extremely proud of the fact that one of his direct ancestors had been a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan in the years just after the Civil War. And even though he lived in New England now, and most of his work was done in Boston and New York, he still yearned for a nation that was free of the pollution of 'undesirables', particularly Blacks.

"Yes." said Bedford. "We're starting to have some trouble. That bastard Deputy Director of the FBI is concentrating totally upon us. We're having to shut down operations in several places because the FBI keeps popping up. Their agents are all too easy to spot, so we lay low until they leave. But it's setting us back, and time grows of the essence."

"Yes, our FBI Deputy Director is not our problem." he said. "He thinks he's king, like Priam within the walls of Troy... but it is his Wildcat with a Crowbar, his Hector, that is our real threat."

"The Iron Crowbar?" said Bedford. He poured them both some more sherry. "Priam is hard to assassinate. He is protected within the walls not of Troy but of Washington, D.C. But the one named Troy, who is protecting him, you believe he is the problem?"

"Oh yes." he said. "I can assure you that if I set my mind to it, Priam would fall. But Hector? the Iron Crowbar?" He shook his head. "That is the luckiest man on the face of this earth. He has somehow escaped multiple assassination attempts. But he will share the fate of Hector: I will drag his dead body behind my chariot until his head falls off his neck."

Bedford could see the feeling, the passion, the anger welling up behind the other man's eyes. He realized that the Iron Crowbar's time on this earth was very limited.

"What is the Iron Crowbar doing now, while you're away and visiting me?" asked Bedford.

"Ah, I have one of my best people keeping him under observation." he said. "He has no idea how deeply I've penetrated the institutions he mistakenly trusts."

"I'm sure. By the way, we do have one question of you." said Bedford. "Why in the world did you try to blow up that nuclear power plant?"

"Ah, that." he said, sipping his sherry with a smile. "First, I really was after the Energy Dynamics directed-energy weapon. But the FBI had it evacuated out of there, so we went for the power plant. That is not a problem, as they'll return the weapon project to Energy Dynamics within a few weeks, and we will simply walk in and take it at our leisure."

He continued: "But unlike what the FBI and the Iron Crowbar believe, the reactor core was not going to explode. But now the FBI is scrambling. They are scared to death of another attack on another facility, and they are having to scatter their forces like a covey of partridge, desperately trying to stop my next move... and they have no earthly idea what that is going to be."

"And what is your next move?" Bedford asked.

He smiled, then was unable to stop himself from chuckling. "Oh, you'll see. In time. Suffice it to say that the niggers will suffer great agony, the God-cursed Jews will feel pain and death that not even the blessed Holocaust could deliver to them, and Superior Bloodlines, as well as other worthy groups of the Elites, will rule the world as it should be, in what the politicians like to call the 'New World Order'."

"And you're right there behind them, in the shadows, like a Spider in the center of a huge web, controlling everything." said Bedford.

"Controlling?" he said. "Not really. I only desire to control my organization, and those things that I can control. I leave the New World Orders to you and your friends of the Elite class. By the way," he said as he drained the last of his sherry, "when the time for your son's transplant comes due, let me know. 'Vauxhall' happens to be one of my most profitable schemes..."

Finis.