“Yet here you are, being the good little slave. The mighty have fallen again. Did he hear your weeping in desolation and offer you pity? Foolish, brother. Do you really think they’ll let you back in after what you’ve done?”

Franks picked up one of the broken table legs. The solid chunk of wood would make a decent club. Kurst had found himself a physical body, so now it was time to see just how durable that body was. “Enjoy life. It’ll be over soon.”

* * *

Monster Control Bureau Director Doug Stark had been called into headquarters for an emergency meeting, but it could wait until after he’d gotten something to wake himself up. Normally he’d go straight to his big office on the top floor and dispatch his secretary, but the problem with clandestine, middle-of-the-night emergency meetings was that there was no secretarial staff on hand to fetch his latte. The MCB building was busy 24/7, but most of that activity was in Media Control or SRT, and Admin worked civilized person hours. He could have sent one of his two bodyguards, but then he’d only have had one left actually guarding his body. So it was easier to just stop at the cafeteria on the way.

Details were sparse so far, but there was supposed to be a conference call with the President and the joint chiefs in twenty minutes. Of course, those people all got to gather in the White House situation room, but since his bureau was the bastard redheaded stepchild of the federal government, Stark was supposed to offer his advice from MCB headquarters. The Washington SAC and some other senior men were on their way in. Apparently something else had happened in Vegas, though nobody around him was competent enough to tell him what he’d been dragged out of bed for.

The cafeteria was quiet this time of night. There were only a handful of MCB staff sitting around plastic tables and their conversations awkwardly died off when they saw Stark and his bodyguards enter. He got several polite nods of greeting, but that was it. Stark knew he wasn’t a popular choice for director, but he was the boss, damn it. What did a man have to do to get a little respect around here?

Myers had gotten respect from the rank and file. It just wasn’t fair. The official record had proclaimed Stark as the hero of Copper Lake, his getting the nod for directorship was a no-brainer. Stark was a rock star. Yet, if Myers had come into the cafeteria in the middle of the night, then he would have been welcomed with smiles and handshakes. So how come they had loved Myers, but didn’t like him? It was a mystery. The cappuccino machine was off, which was just another annoyance on a long list of annoyances. “Damn it, Bill. Get me a Dr Pepper,” he snapped at one of his bodyguards.