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  Whatever Father Johnny was, she doubted very much that he was blind. Unless this belonged to Kelly. But from what Kat could tell, Kelly didn’t live in this house.

  Kat took two steps toward the rack and stopped. Her right hand began to shake. She might not believe in God, but God may have just believed in her.

  It was a crazy thought. The kind only a desperate person would even consider. But she was a desperate person, wasn’t she? There was some-thing about the mystery surrounding Johnny that could get her out of this fix. She hadn’t come here to eat pizza before being sent to jail.

  Kat moved up to the rack, ran trembling fingers over the pistols, and pulled one of them off the wall. Its black steel gleamed in her hand, cool to the touch. She’d fired several guns in the desert before,with boys showing off their toys. A tug on the slide revealed a round chambered. He was the kind who would leave his weapons loaded, she thought.

  She stared up at the automatic weapon on the wall. Set the pistol down and reached for the larger gun. Held it gingerly.

  Then she slid the pistol into her belt at her back, cradled the automatic weapon in both hands, and returned to the living room.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  THE COUNCIL.

  Kinnard led Darcy and Billy to the basement of Constitution Hall across Eighteenth Street from the U.S. Department of the Interior. They entered through a supply dock and made their way down a service elevator—all new over the last several years, Kinnard said—and into a large conference room.

  Seated around one end of an oval cherry table, nursing drinks in crystal glasses, sat four men and two women, leaning back and talking in familiar tones. A couple of dozen high-backed chairs surrounded the table. Variable indirect lighting was set on low. The Hyundai plant in Lewistown had half a dozen similar conference rooms, all built to impress visitors and presumably to improve efficiency. Though with a full bar near at hand and such comfortable leather chairs, Darcy wondered how much of a priority efficiency really was here.

  The conversation stalled, then stopped entirely. All eyes turned to them. All heads, to be more precise. Darcy couldn’t see their eyes because they all wore dark glasses.

  Yes, of course. She still had a hard time believing this ability she supposedly had was real. What had she really done to prove it? Talked Billy into kissing her. She was a girl, he was a guy, they’d shared a crush the last time they’d been together. Did it really take some kind of super-human power to talk him into kissing her?

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like for you to meet our guests,” Kinnard announced with a knowing grin. “Billy Rediger and Darcy Lange.” Then to Billy and Darcy, “Meet the Council of Seven.”

  “Council of Seven,” Billy said. “I thought this was more of an informal group.”

  “Well, yes. But if I’m right, that will all change tonight.”He pulled out two chairs. “Have a seat.”

  Darcy sat at the head next to Billy and crossed her legs under the table.

  “Forgive the glasses. I took the liberty of insisting they all wear protection. We don’t want all the Capitol Hill secrets bared to the world.” A chuckle. “Not yet, at any rate.”

  There were six plus Kinnard. The four men all sported white shirts and ties; two wore navy blue jackets. The two women wore blouses, one pink silk and one white cotton, pants or skirts beneath the table, Darcy couldn’t tell. At first glance she would place all but Kinnard and one of the women over fifty. All meticulously groomed and comfortable.

  None of them had yet spoken. They simply stared from behind their protective lenses. David Abraham may have confided in Kinnard or another one of these power brokers, but that didn’t necessarily make them all cozy bedfellows.

  The room seemed robbed of air.

  “Maybe introductions would be appropriate,” Kinnard said. He went around the room clockwise using two fingers to point out each member.

  Lyndsay Nadeau, attorney general, the older woman in white. Looked nearly anorexic.

  Ben Manning, Democratic senator from Nevada. The only black man in the group.

  Fred Hopkins, Democratic representative from New York. Overweight and short.

  Annie Ruling,White House chief of staff, the younger woman in pink. The prettiest of the bunch by far.

  Sanchez Dominquez, Republican senator from Illinois. Looked like a brother to the Hispanic president, Cesar Chavez.

  Newton Lawhead, associate director of the FBI. Gray hair, pale face.

  Brian Kinnard, with the CIA. And that’s all he would share. Probably the only one here who could handle a gun with ease.

  He smiled. “You’re probably wondering how such a powerful and diverse group of leaders ever managed to agree on a meeting place. Let me assure you, it wasn’t easy.”

  “Well, you got us here,” the senator from Nevada, Ben Manning, said. “The question is, can you keep us?”

  “I only have a few minutes,” the chief of staff said. Annie. She kept her eyes on Billy. “Why don’t we cut to the chase?”

  They were a skeptical lot, and Darcy didn’t blame them. She wondered what kind of favors Kinnard had called in to get them all here.

  “Of course,” Kinnard said. To Darcy and Billy: “Like I told you, this may take some convincing.”

  The attorney in Billy rose to the surface. “So, in essence, we rushed down here to meet with six highbrows who are a breath away from throw-ing us out on the street?”

  “Close,” Annie Ruling said.

  “Then I’d have to advise my client to reserve her thoughts,” Billy said.

  “Client? Is that what you are, Miss Lange? I was led to believe you haven’t seen each other for thirteen years.” So Annie wasn’t used to being handled by people who wore jeans.

  “You think I would walk into this den of snakes without proper representation?” Darcy said.

  The attorney general, Lyndsay Nadeau, smiled from the far side.“Feisty. That’s a start. But can you bite, darling?”

  Billy stood. “I think it would be best for us to leave.”

  “And go where?”Kinnard snapped.“Into the arms of Ricardo Muness?”

  “He’s got a point,” Lyndsay said.

  Darcy stood to show her solidarity with Billy.

  “No,” Billy said. “But once Muness understands what we can offer him, I think he’ll be friendly enough. We appreciate your efforts in rescuing us this morning. The flat was a nice place to rest up. The food was excellent. But I’m afraid we’re in the wrong room now. We really have to be going.”

  He started to turn. Posturing, Darcy thought. All posturing, and she loved Billy for how smoothly he did it.

  “Sit down, son,” the attorney general said. “None of us can say how Brian managed to pull this off, but you have the ear of seven of the most powerful people in the United States. Let’s at least examine the reason for this rather unusual gathering, shall we?”

  He looked at her. “To what end?”

  “Well . . . If you can do what Brian says you can . . . Trust me, we’ll be interested.”

  Billy looked at Darcy, who was feeling quite good about the way the meeting was going down. She’d never understood herself to enjoy conflict of this sort, but she certainly couldn’t deny that at the moment she felt positively exhilarated.

  She sat and Billy followed her lead. “So you want a show-and-tell, is that it?” she asked.

  “Something like that.”

  Now Kinnard was smiling.

  “Fine, then let’s start with Annie,” Darcy said. “Chief of staff, right? Do you mind taking your glasses off, Annie?”

  She hesitated, then lifted her hand.

  “I warn you, this could get embarrassing,” Billy said.

  Her hand stopped on her glasses. “Is that so?”

  “Please try not to think about any . . . say, inappropriate relationship you might have engaged in during the last few years. Any derogatory thoughts about your neighbor’s appearanc
e, or any parts of your own body that you might find embarrassing.As long as you don’t think about it, you should be fine.”

  The chief of staff sat speechless.

  “You wanted a show-and-tell,” Billy said. “You show, I tell. Unless, of course, I’m bluffing.”

  “Can he really do that?” Annie asked Kinnard.

  He shrugged, but he was grinning.

  “Think of a number, Annie. Do you mind if I call you Annie? Think of a number between one hundred and one million. Write it on the notepad in front—”

  “Please, we didn’t come here for parlor tricks. This is ridiculous.”

  Billy studied her for a moment. “You’re right, it’s been done, hasn’t it? Then just remove your glasses, all of you, remove your glasses and let’s see where this takes us.”

  No one did.

  “How does it work?” FBI man Lawhead asked.

  “You already know how it works. I see your eyes, I see the thoughts in your consciousness.Not the ones stored in memory banks, but those you are actually aware of at any given moment. Usually no more than five or six thoughts.”

  He’d explained his theories to Darcy earlier, and after a quick search on the Net and some testing she’d agreed to under the strictest conditions, they confirmed that those theories were at least likely.

  Annie pulled her notepad forward, scribbled something under a cupped hand, and turned it over. “Okay, what number did I just write?”

  “Think about it, remove your glasses for a second, and look at me.”

  Annie reached up and lifted her glasses. The moment they’d cleared her forehead, Billy spoke. “127,333,” he said.

  She froze, glasses hovering over her forehead.

  “And now you’re trying to figure out how I could have done that. You’re efficiently running through a list of possibilities. Mirrors, no. Cameras, no. Other surveillance gadgets, but you know the room was swept before this meeting. No chance. And you’re reminding yourself that you don’t know me, never met me, besides, the number was completely random, not your birthday or something those who know you might be able to guess at. Should I go on?”

  Annie lowered her glasses. Turned the notepad over for them to see.

  127,333

  Lawhead stared at the number. “So you’re saying you can actually read thoughts as if they were in a book.”

  “The thoughts in your immediate consciousness,” Billy said. “Care to try?”

  Lawhead removed his glasses, stared at Billy for a few seconds, then replaced them.

  “Your grandmother is in Saint Gabriel’s Hospital, Columbia, Ohio. You’re hoping the Vitamin B therapy they administer this afternoon will mitigate the adverse affects of the selective radiation administered last month.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Fragments.”

  “What kind of fragments?”

  “A hangman’s noose. Doubts. Fear.”

  “You can read emotions?”

  Billy shrugged. “I don’t know. Thoughts about emotions maybe. I’m not exactly practiced yet.”

  “Does it come and go?”

  “Not so far, no. I see your eyes, I pretty much know what you’re thinking.”

  “This is absolutely incredible.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Kinnard said, “think of the implications.”

  Ben Manning, the black senator from Nevada, was frowning. “I am, and I’m not sure I like them. What about her?” Nodding at Darcy.

  She glanced at Billy. Compared to him, her ability was virtually untested. Apart from the kiss, of course. She wasn’t about to seduce anyone in this room.

  Again, Billy came to the rescue. “Darcy can . . . what shall we say . . .help people do what they want to do. Or know they should do. Or what is logical to do. Or something like that.”

  “So you don’t actually know what you can do?” Annie said.

  “Well, evidently I can be persuasive. You’ll have to ask Billy. He kissed me this morning.” She dropped the admission in his lap and sat back to see how he would deal with it.

  “Not exactly what I’d call a miracle,” Lawhead said.

  Billy’s face had reddened a shade. “Trust me, sir, her ability to persuade isn’t tied to any adolescent fantasies. Her words can be quite influential.”

  “You can persuade people to do what they’re predisposed to do,”Annie said. “As Newton said, that’s not exactly a miracle.”

  “What do you want me to do, fly around the room for you? I’m not some freak on the Net. Please, take your glasses off. Just for one second.”

  The president’s chief of staff plucked her dark lenses off and stared Darcy down with baby blues.

  “Surely there’s at least one person in this room you’d love to slap for the way they’ve conducted themselves lately. This is, after all,Washington. Slap them now.”

  At first there was no change in Annie’s demeanor.“Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Just one slap, honey. He deserves it, you know he does.”

  Sweat beaded on Annie’s forehead. She tapped a French manicured nail on a glass half filled with amber liquor. “This is ludicrous.What a juvenile suggestion.”Her lips were trembling, just barely, but enough to betray her struggle. “The fact that you would even think of this shows just how immature you are. Yes, this isWashington—not some sorority house!”

  Darcy leaned forward, speaking low, enunciating each word clearly. “He deserves it, you know he does. And you know he would slap you if I asked him to. Under the plastic smiles in Washington, everyone wants to slap his neighbor. Do it now, Annie.”

  The war being waged in Annie’s mind was now not only unmistakable but a bit frightening. No one rose to her position in this town without having extraordinary control of her faculties.

  “This is ridiculous . . .”

  But that control was slipping.

  “Okay, I think you’ve made your point,” Ben Manning said.

  “Slap him, Annie. Do it now.”

  “I can’t! Don’t . . .” She stopped, closed her eyes, trying to maintain the last threads of control. When her eyes snapped open, Darcy knew something had changed.

  Annie reached over and struck Ben Manning on his shoulder with an open hand.“No!” She struck him again, unleashing a fit of anger directed at the Nevada senator. “No, no, no! How dare you threaten to expose the president’s university binges over his stand on the health-care bill? He was just a kid!”

  Annie stopped, stared at Darcy with wide eyes, slipped her glasses back on, and then lowered her head into her hands.

  Okay. Awkward.

  “Please tell me I didn’t just do that,” Annie mumbled, face red.

  Ben Manning had paled. The rest didn’t know how to react except to look between Darcy and Annie.

  “Forgive me, Ben,”Annie said, turning to the man. “I . . . I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean any of it . . .” She swallowed. “Well, yes, I did mean it, actually. Every word. But I had no right to act so unprofessionally. I’m sorry.”

  Lyndsay Nadeau smiled. “Well, well, well . . .” The attorney general looked like she was enjoying herself. “My deepest apologies, Brian. I’m impressed.” She addressed Darcy. “Can you make people do things they don’t want to?”

  She was about to say no when Billy spoke. “It’s too early to know.”

  “You may find all of this amusing, Miss Nadeau,” Ben Manning said, “but I find it troubling. Setting these two loose in our nation’s capital would be incredibly irresponsible!”

  “Which is why we are here,” Kinnard said.

  “Ben’s right,”Annie said, arms crossed now. “This could be dangerous.”

  “Unless they work for us,” the overweight senator from New York, Fred Hopkins, said.

  “We’re not guns for hire,” Darcy snapped.

  None of them seemed too interested in her comment.

  “Imagine these two on the Senate floor,” someone said.

  “
Heaven help us all.”

  “Whatever the advantage, two minds with these abilities would destroy Washington,”Manning said. “We can’t allow it.”

  The attorney general faced him. “What are you suggesting?”

  For the first time, the full extent of their predicament settled over Darcy. She and Billy presented a real danger to the men and women in this room. One that might push them to extreme measures.

  She turned to Billy and saw that a trail of sweat marked his temple.

  “Yes, Ben, what are you suggesting?” he demanded. “That we should be suppressed somehow, knocked off?”

  The senator just stared at them.

  “Why don’t you bolster my trust in you by removing your glasses so that I can see what you’re really thinking?”

  But Manning made no move to remove his glasses.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Lawhead snapped. “We’re looking at what might be this country’s most valuable asset. I suggest we put our minds to protecting that asset!”

  “Agreed,” the attorney general said. Lyndsay Nadeau watched Darcy with a smile.“Don’t you worry, dear. Argument is just part of the whole process.”

  “You’re right,” Annie said. “This could be good.”

  Manning shook his head. “If you’re thinking we should use them to manipulate discussions made on the hill . . .”

  “Come on, Ben, no one’s suggesting we waltz Darcy into the White House to seduce the president,” Lawhead said. “There are other ways to test the waters, so to speak.”

  “Assuming our two guests are in favor of working with us,” Lyndsay said. “This is more about them than us.”

  They looked at Darcy and Billy.

  “Yes, assuming,” Lawhead said. “Brian?”

  Kinnard had worn a perpetual grin. He might not hold the most power in this room, but he was clearly the mastermind.

  “Our proposal is simple,”Kinnard said to Darcy and Billy. “Commit to this council. Change Washington with us. Change the world. In exchange, we will provide for you without limitation. More importantly, we will guarantee your security. You are already in the crosshairs.”