"He's mine!" said Throttler, swaying over toward Agent Supervisor Megane. "Answer, mortal!
"When my first is a task to a young girl of spirit,
And my second confines her to finish the piece,
How hard is her fate! but how great is her merit
If by taking my whole she effects her release!
"Name her!" the sphinx finished. By now her jaws were less than two feet away from Megane's own, which were gaping as widely as hers, in proportion—but it was a very different proportion. She'd snap his head off as easily as a man bites the top of a carrot.
"Huh?" said Megane.
"Wrong answer!" Throttler's jaws gaped still wider, as she started the bite.
"Stop! Stop!" shouted Cruz. "Throttler, you can't eat him!"
She paused, frowning toward the sergeant. "Why not?" she demanded irritably. "I followed the rules."
"Uh..." Cruz tried to think up an answer.
Fortunately, Mac's wits were working faster than his. "He's poisonous, Throttler. You'd probably survive, big as you are, even though a bite out of him would kill one of us in a few seconds. But it'll make you really sick."
She drew her head back a little, looking down at Megane with eyes that were a bit crossed. "Really? Humans usually aren't."
Cruz picked it up from there. "He's not actually human," he said, shaking his head. "It's what they call evolutionary camouflage."
"Like some toads in—in—the Amazon, I think," added Mac.
Miggy Tremelo weighed in, using his very best academic demeanor. "I'm afraid they've got the right of it, Throttler. There's quite a literature on the subject, in fact. This one"—here he gave Megane a disdainful look—"is a member of a species called Securitus cretinii. They grow like weeds in the swamp areas of Washington, D.C.—inside that dreaded zone known as 'the Beltway.' Because of their appearance, they're able to infiltrate jobs where they can mimic human beings. Especially jobs in the Pyramid Security Agency, where it isn't hard to imitate cretins. But, as a last defensive resort in case they get caught, their flesh is highly toxic."
Throttler pulled back a foot or two farther. "Really?"
"Oh, yes. It's quite a public health problem, because they're so obnoxious that people naturally want to gobble them right down when they catch one. We have to give school children special classes on the subject."
Riddles aside, the sphinx wasn't actually the sharpest pencil in the box. So Cruz thought there was a good chance this might work. And since Throttler's next course of action was obvious, he had the answer ready.
"Well, then," said the sphinx, drawing back an enormous—and very deadly-looking—lion's paw, "I'll just swat the life out of him, then."
As stupid as he might be, Megane at least had enough sense to finally realize the sphinx was perfectly serious and he was on the very edge of mortal existence. Naturally, though, all he could manage himself was an inchoate squawk of protest and an upraised hand that would have sheltered him about as well as a toothpick.
"No, don't!" said Cruz. "You'll scatter his contents all over the place. Those are even more toxic than the outside."
Blessedly, the lieutenant joined in. "He's right, Sphinx. We get trained in paratrooper school on how to dispose of them. They have to be carefully quarantined first—every part of them intact." Evans grinned. "Then we bury them alive in a special place. It's called Thule Air Base. An Air Force buddy of mine was stationed there for a few months once, on Securitus cretinii disposal duty. The temperature in the winter gets down to forty below zero and they once recorded surface winds of two hundred miles an hour."
He was now giving Megane a look that could only be described as evil. "Yup, that's where this fellow is headed, sure enough." He jerked a thumb at the two other PSA agents who'd also managed to avoid the snatch. They were standing a little ways off, being closely watched by the paratroopers. "These two also."
Throttler was startling to look mollified. "That's pretty good. A bit grisly, actually. It'd be a lot more merciful if you just let me—"
Firmly, Evans raised his hand. "Can't, Throttler. Yes, I know it's a terrible fate. But those are The Rules, when a Securitus cretinii gets caught."
The sphinx had a great respect for The Rules. "Oh, well. In that case, you have to do your duty."
Evans nodded. Then, gave the Humvee a quick scrutiny. "Don't really have room for all three of them in the Humvee, Professor Tremolo. Not with a proper guard on them. Might I..."
"Oh, certainly, Lieutenant. By all means use the limo." He sighed, heavily. "Lamont won't mind, wherever he is."
"And where do you want me..."
Tremelo tried to figure out the best place to keep Megane and his two fellow agents under detention. That was a tricky question, actually. Whatever black eyes Helen Garnett was going to come out of this with, the woman still had enormous power and influence. Not to mention an instant readiness to use bullying tactics.
Fortunately, the problem solved itself that very moment. Two more vehicles came racing up and screeched to a stop. They both had U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service insignia.
Best of all, Miggy recognized the man who immediately climbed out of the passenger seat of the first vehicle. The director of the service himself, no less, Mark O'Hare. Miggy had never met him personally, but he'd seen photographs of the man. Fortunately, unlike all too many of this administration's appointments, O'Hare actually had real credentials for the job.
He also had a temper, clearly enough. When he came up, he gave Megane a look that was every bit as evil as the one Rich Evans had given—but had not a trace of the lieutenant's humor.
He didn't have much of the lieutenant's protocol, either.
"Is this the rotten motherfucker?"
Megane looked very offended and started to say something, but a growl from Throttler put a stop to that. The sphinx was still not more than ten feet away.
O'Hare gave her a very friendly look. "Hi, Throttler. Sorry about all this."
"Oh, it's okay, Mark. I'm feeling a little sorry for them, actually. Ever since the soldier here told me they were condemned to being buried alive at Thule Air Base. Sounds horrible."
O'Hare now glanced at Evans. "Is that what you told them?"
"Yes, sir. The, uh, Throttler was about to... well. Eat him."
The Director nodded. "I can believe that." He was back to giving Megane that very evil look. "And you know what, Pissant? Under the law—if you'd bothered to check—she'd not suffer any penalties, either. There's a completely different set of rules that apply to the sphinx"—he glanced at the dragons—"as well as Bitar and Smitar."
Throttler looked very smug, at that point. So did the two dragons. Megane was obviously furious, but he still had enough sense to keep quiet. At least, as long as Throttler was within jaw range.
"I've got a problem concerning custody, Director O'Hare," said Miggy. "Under the circumstances..."
"Professor Tremelo, I believe?" O'Hare stuck out his hand and Miggy shook it. "Yeah, I know, it's a little tricky. However, under these circumstances—you should know that I've been in touch with both Senators Abrams and Larsen, and they've been in touch with the media—I've got quite a bit of latitude. The Fish and Wildlife Service does have police powers, and we're not restricted to federal property when endangered wildlife is involved."
Again, he gave Megane that very hard look. "Which it certainly is, in this case—and with the nation's best known endangered species, at that. Most popular, too."
He lowered his voice enough that the sphinx couldn't hear him and growled at the PSA agent, "You stupid, arrogant asshole. You'll be lucky if you wind up reading a thermometer and recording wind speeds at a military base seven hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. Did you—or that shithead boss of yours—really think you could get away with something like this?"
Abruptly, he waved his hand. "Never mind, don't answer that. Who cares what you think?"
He gave Evans an appraising look. "I've got police powers, but we're not really set up to keep prisoners. Normally, we'd just take an offender to the nearest police authority and turn them over. However..."
Evans smiled. "I'll have to check with the commander of Fort Campbell, of course. But I'm pretty sure the 101st Airborne will be willing—delighted, rather—to provide our fellow federal toilers with the wherewithal to keep these Pissants under guard for the moment."
He transferred the smile to Megane. "You wouldn't believe how popular these fellows made themselves at Fort Campbell. And seeing as how it's officially Fish and Wildlife making the arrest—we're just lending a helping hand, so to speak—I can't see where Ms. Garnett can squawk."
"Oh, she'll squawk," said O'Hare, who was now smiling himself. "But the thing is, right about now I think she's mostly squawking in fear, not fury. Okay, Lieutenant. Talk to your commander and ask him on my behalf if he's willing to put these bums up, so to speak, at the 101st's base. If he wants to talk to me personally"—O'Hare pulled out his wallet and extracted a business card—"this has my cell phone number on it."
Things were moving much more quickly than Miggy expected. So quickly, in fact, that he realized those first calls he'd had Rachel make to the senators had stirred up a firestorm. How else explain how quickly O'Hare had gotten here? He couldn't possibly have made the flight from Washington, D.C. on that short a notice—not even if he'd been flown in on a fighter plane. He had to have arrived in Chicago already.
Like a shark, smelling blood in the water.
It was easy to forget, sometimes, how an overly powerful agency like the PSA—especially one prone to bullying—could pile up a huge number of enemies. And how fast those enemies could move, once they saw a chance to take them down a notch.
Or ten.
"I've got to get back to my office, people," he said quietly. "I think everything's blowing wide open. And this area's not safe any longer, anyway. With those new absorptions, the pyramid's certain to have expanded again. We'll need to move the perimeter out another hundred yards, probably. Maybe two hundred, with that many idiot PSA agents going in."
"But... Neoptolemeus..." protested Medea.
"Is in a mythworld with Dr. Lukacs and the Jackson family," said Miggy, gently. "You know Jerry Lukacs and Lamont Jackson well enough, ma'am, and I know Marie Jackson. Your boy couldn't be in better, more careful hands. Now will you all get in the vehicle and get back, please? There is no guarantee that if you got snatched you'd end up in the same place or would be able to help."
A corpse fell from the sky. It was wearing a brass cuirass, and a Greek-style horse-hair-crested helmet. A ten inch by five inch piece was missing from its chest. Smoke still rose from the hole.
One of the dragons leaned in and sniffed. "Chargrilled."
Agent Supervisor Megane gaped in horror.
Miggy turned to Evans. "Load that corpse up and let's get out of here, now. Some of your men may be snatchables."
Lieutenant Evans realized that might well be true—especially with a private who'd somehow managed to get himself arrested over pizza. However, he knew the essential trick of military success. Sergeant Cruz might not be part of his squad, but he was the best NCO around. "Sergeant," he said, with a nod, which was all that was necessary to say.
"Sir," said Cruz.
A minute and a half later they were all heading out, the Humvee first, one SUV abandoned and the other driven by a paratrooper, the remaining agents under guard in the limo. Megane probably wished desperately that he could call in to his own authorities—but his helmet and those of his remaining "hoplites" had been left behind to talk to themselves.