Perseverance did pay off on occasion. As night fell upon Boise prematurely because of an oncoming storm, GO Thomas, flanked by militia officers, emerged from the capitol building and made his way down the steps to his waiting limousine. Jan and her crew were waiting. Lunging forward past militiamen, Jan shoved a mike in Thomas’s face and yelled out the first question that came to mind. “Governor Thomas, have you ordered the National Guard to stand fast and resist Federal forces?”

It was the sudden appearance of the woman he had once so desperately wanted to seduce rather than the question or her actions that caused GO Thomas to pause and face the journalist he found so alluring. For a moment he stood there, looking down into the warm and inviting eyes as he recalled how close he had come to possessing her. Here was his chance, perhaps his last to put an end to this insanity. With his armed escort off balance, GO Thomas wondered if he could say enough to make it known that he was no longer running the state, that all he wanted to do was end this terrible nightmare.

While the governor hesitated, Jan continued to press forward. Clearing her throat, she repeated her question. “Is the National Guard going to fight? Or is this short-lived rebellion of yours about to come to an end?”

Thomas’s hesitation to seize the opportunity Jan had given him permitted the militiamen around them to intervene before he could do any damage. While one man grabbed the governor by the arm and pulled him toward the limousine, two others pounced on Jan and her crew. One militiaman took the butt of his rifle and smacked it into the cameraman’s midsection, sending her to her knees. Another stepped between Thomas and Jan, using his body to physically force the journalist back.

Enraged by the actions of the militiamen and angered that he hadn’t acted sooner, Thomas tried to make his way over to where Jan was fighting to get free of her assailant.

From the limousine an arm holding a pistol emerged. Jamming it into Thomas’s back Osborn ordered Thomas to get in. “Give it up Governor, or she dies right here and now.”

Again Thomas hesitated. By now he had become convinced that Osborn was capable of anything. Ashamed, but seeing no good alternative, Thomas acquiesced.

Once they were safely in his limousine, Osborn turned to Louis Garvey. “It’s time we thinned that herd,” the Attorney General stated in a menacing manner that he used when he didn’t want the person he was addressing to disagree. “That one,” he went on, alluding to Jan, “would be a great place to start.”