One week from today, on Saturday November 3rd, three days before the election, Chandler would appear at a special Houston prayer breakfast, broadcast live to the state and the nation.

His host would be the Reverend Josiah Shepherd, the man who’d told the country that God would reward those who sent geneticists and fertility doctors to hell. The man whose followers had murdered Breece’s parents.

Well, if there was a hell, Breece was going to send both men there, first class.

Taking lives was serious business. Every person they killed had the potential to live forever. Breece refused to do that lightly.

“Wives?” he asked.

“They chose their husbands,” Ava replied. “Guilty.”

“Supporters?” Breece went on.

“They’re material supporters of Chandler’s war on science,” Hiroshi said. “Guilty.”

“Security?”

“Soldiers,” the Nigerian said. “They chose which side to fight for.”

“Press?”

There was a pause this time.

“What’s the risk?” Ava wanted to know.

“How far back will they be from the stage?” Hiroshi asked.

They debated it for some time, then opted to scale the weapon down. They left it easily large enough to take out their primary targets, but small enough that the danger to news media should be small.

Finally Breece came to the last check. “Children?”

“Seats are five thousand dollars a pop,” Hiroshi said. “Shouldn’t be any kids there.”

“We can’t rule that out,” Breece said.

“They’re being raised by the enemy,” the Nigerian said. “They’ll grow up as the enemy.”

“Not all of them,” Breece said.

“It’s an acceptable risk,” Ava added. “They’ve killed more than enough of ours.”

Breece looked at her, and she held his eyes. He thought of her own trauma, the nightmares that still woke her, her own baby dead in her arms.

Breece nodded. “Acceptable risk.”

They gathered at the garage, then spent the next two hours rigging up the shielding. They unrolled fine mesh panels, adhered the panels to every surface, connected each to its neighbors, tested, found holes in the shielding, fixed connections, and repeated until they were done. In the end they had a Faraday cage that would keep any electromagnetic signals inside the garage from leaking out. They rolled out a thick carpet to protect the mesh on the floor, and then it was time for the next phase.

Ava led this one, driving alone in a nondescript car with borrowed plates. Breece and the Nigerian followed discreetly, three cars back, ready to provide backup.

They parked in the outdoor lot on the east side of the Houston Sands Mall, and waited for their target to arrive for her weekly hair appointment.

The white Cadillac pulled into the lot eighteen minutes later. It parked and Mrs Miranda Shepherd, wife of the Reverend Josiah Shepherd, stepped out.