so was the Nur al-Allah in Syria, and in that sad country I saw innocent jokers stoned to death in the streets. Is that anguish something that we wish to see translated to our country?" Tach shook his head. "I think not. Gregg Hartmann-"
Is a secret ace, and a killer, came a thin, tight voice from the crowd.
People drew back, repelled by the madness in Sara's narrow face. Tachyon came half out of his chair.
"Shit!" muttered Jack.
"What are you going to do, Dr. Tachyon? He's one of yours. One of the devil's stepchildren, and only you can stop him." Tears blurred Sara's words.
"Do something. Mind-control her. Something," whispered Jack.
And make a bad situation worse? he shot back in a bitter telepathic message to the ace.
The crowd of reporters had turned on the woman like a pack scenting blood. She blanched and shrank back.
"Miss Morgenstern! On what ... Do you ... evidence ... does the Post ..."
The clamoring voices rose in intensity. To Tachyon's overstretched nerves the sound seemed to take on a physical manifestation, a wave about to break over that fragile form.
Sara whirled and vanished into the crowd of interested onlookers. Tachyon stared at the eager hungry faces of the press, and bowed his head. They had to be fed.
Mothers of my mother, forgive me, he prayed, and threw Sara to the wolves.
"That unfortunate girl does not deal well with stress," he called in a clear, penetrating voice. "Yesterday's revelations concerning her and Senator Hartmann-"
"Then there was an affair?" snapped Donaldson.
"No. The child was in love with the senator, and could not accept his continued refusal. I think she is torn between love for him, and a desire for revenge. Remember, hell hath no fury ..." His voice trailed away.
"Yeah," put in Jack. "I tried to interest the young lady in my charms during the tour, but she was obsessed with the senator. Sad," concluded Tachyon. But not as sad as what I've just done to her.
"Who the hell are you?" Sara demanded shrilly. The man who had hold of her arm ignored her. Or maybe the tumult of questions and rage breaking over them like a tsunami drowned out her words.
Something in his manner said he was ignoring her.
The discrete security goons had come out of it first, of course, advancing in their dark three-pieces, muttering into throat mikes as they converged on her. She was standing there erect and alone, challenging in her tea-green skirt and long-sleeved white blouse, chin elevated above a ruff considerably more modest than Tachyon's. She let the noise roll off her. She had spilled the truth out on the carpet like a turd shining and stinking in the hot TV lights, where it could not be overlooked or covered up. Now she would accept the consequences.
A hand caught her wrist. She turned, ready to aim a kick for a gaberdine crotch. Instead of a husky young jock, it was a small, gray, balding man with a round belly hanging in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. The watchdogs weren't even close.
Now the gray man was towing her out a side door with the modest but irresistible authority of an East River tug. The security toughs got caught up in the back eddies of delegates and reporters shouting questions at each other. Her last view of the function room was Jack Braun staring after her with his face rumpled up into a look of Sonny Tufts's bemusement, Tachyon beside him gazing about with neurasthenic dismay, like an underfed Regency buck whose man's man just farted in the wardrobe.
Her rescuer-or whatever the hell he was-dragged her down a corridor past incurious idlers, into a side service passageway. He used the momentum he'd imported to spin her around, back to a wall. A pack of reporters charged by, down the corridor, baying on the wrong trail.
"Is not the way to go about it," he said. He had the kind of gruff avuncular face only TV character actors have. His accent was ... Russian?
Sara lost it. This was simply too strange. She yanked her hand away, panicked more by the fact of contact than any ramification.
He pressed in on her. "No! You must listen. You are in very great danger-"
You're telling me, buster. She squirmed past him and raced away, throwing a high heel in the process, toppling into the wall, scraping along, supporting herself with her hands while she kicked frantically to free herself of the other.
"Little fool!" the man yelled after her. "The truth you have