Nathaniel's Chorus. Gary Lightfoot

showing it to Nathan or Chris, Neil turns the page over and sketches the hand of the policeman who had placed his hand on The Burb’s door earlier in the night. Neil then tears the two pages out of the pad and places them on the table in front of Nathan and Chris.

      “Look at the rings, they are slightly different, but look closely.”

      Nathan and Chris each lean in to take a closer look at the two sketches. Nathan recognizes what Neil was thinking of and sits back into the couch.

      “I don’t get it.” Chris says as he continues to examine the sketches.

      Neil points at the two rings, “I thought they were Fraternity rings. But look closely; the Greek letters on the sides are not a fraternity, or at least not a real fraternity.”

      Chris sits back and shakes his head, “I’m sorry guys; my Greek is a little rusty. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

      “Exactly!” says Neil, “the Greek alphabet, those letters are Φ Π Ψ. You pronounce them Phi Pi Psi, you know, P-P-P.”

      “Holy Crap!” Chris jumps up. “Those guys were tri-P?”

      Neil moves over to sit where Chris had been on the couch and pulls the two sketches over in front of him. “I don’t think these guys are with the same group.”

      Chris continues standing, “What do you mean Neil, you just told me they’re both Phi Pi Psi?”

      Neil points to the rings on the two sketches, “they’re the same but different.”

      Nathan scoots over next to Neil, “What do you mean bro?”

      “Look closely at the rings.” Neil moves the two sketches over in front of Nathan. “The ring on the dude in Pedro’s had this symbol on top of the stone, where the cop’s ring outside of the Big Donut, doesn’t have any symbol on its stone.”

      Nathan picks up the sketch of the man in Pedro’s, walks over to the dry erase board and draws the symbol. It’s a triangle with the letter P on the inside. He then steps back and says, “Neil I think you’re right. We’re looking at two different groups. I’ve seen this symbol before.”

      Nancy who had been listening from the kitchen area, now walks into the back room and says, “Junior, don’t you think you should tell Neil, what you’ve been up to?”

      Asela following behind Nancy asks Chris, “How ‘bout you honey. Confession cleanses the soul.”

      Chris begins first and tells Nathan and Neil how he had been called upon shortly after leaving the military to participate in a number of maneuvers. Chris would receive a call, told what type of aircraft he would be flying but he wouldn’t know where until he was briefed just prior to boarding the aircraft. Some of the missions were into Central America; some were half way around the globe. Chris would fly into a field, pick up a team and then fly home. He never asked who or why, only how far and if he would get a crew meal.

      Nathan follows Chris and tells of how he too was contacted after leaving the service. He would be told what to search for on the Internet, find the source and then write a program to disable it. Nathan would also write the initial search program to aid in the search for terrorist plots that may be imbedded in normal signals passed between ground stations and satellite transmissions. It was during one of these covert assignments that Nathan first saw the symbol of the triangle with the P on the inside of it.

      “About 4 years ago I saw that symbol, it was laid within a transmission from the Middle East to Singapore. I discounted it for a glitch in the program, symbols take on a different pattern in the trans, but the odd thing was, two weeks after that appeared, the CEO from Trans Star Telecommunications was kidnapped during a business trip to Singapore. He was held for 3 million dollars and then later found dead.”

      “I remember that,” says Neil, “I was up here painting your new sign. You kept ducking inside saying you were sick or something. Wait wasn’t that the first time the terrorist group, the tri-P claimed responsibility?”

      Neil looks at the board, points at the triangle with the P and says, “You’re thinking that, that symbol is the tri-P’s mark?”

      “Makes sense doesn’t it?” Nathan says.

      Chris puts his feet up on the coffee table and says, “You both don’t make sense. If that’s the tri-P, then who is this?” Chris holds up the sketch of the policeman’s hand in Long Beach.

      Nathan looks over at Chris, “Well that’s Phi Pi Psi.”

      “That doesn’t make sense Junior, think about it. You guys said that it was something that just you and your high school friends did years ago, right?”

      Nathan and Neil look at Chris with blank faces as Chris continues, “If it was something just for kicks back when you guys were in school, how does this policeman have a ring on today with the Greek letters for Phi Pi Psi?”

      Nathan visibly shivers as he says, “Holy Balls, what did we start?”

      Just then Neil hears a familiar sound, he runs from the backroom and attempts to look out the front window. Nathan and Chris follow behind,

      “What is it Neil?”

      “That sounds just like the car that followed me in Mexico.”

      The three men peer into the darkness as headlights turn the corner and begin to glide toward Footboards. The sound grows and begins to reverberate off the buildings. Nathan hits the master light switch on the wall, turning off all the lights in the building except the light illuminating the sign in the showroom window, the sign that Neil had painted 4 years earlier. As the car approaches, the three men duck out of sight. The car begins to slow, then accelerates and disappears down the street.

      Chris rises up to see if anyone else was looking out of the window, he sees both Nathan and Neil kneeling at the window.

      “Did you guys see what kind of car that was?”

      “Yep,” says Nathan, “a ’67 Pontiac Catalina.”

      Neil slugs Nathan in the shoulder, “told you!”

      Nathan leaves the lights off, but turns the alarm on and loads everyone up into The Burb. They drive silently to Nathan and Nancy’s house and settle in for a few hours of sleep.

      Chapter 7

      On the morning of the third day of the Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing, the Right Reverend Jeremiah Branch is sitting at his desk holding a transcript of the most recently produced tape by the tri-P. Branch looks over at his fellow senator and supporter, Senator James Bernard.

      “Well Jimmy, thankfully I do declare, it looks like it’s going to be just you and me for the next few days.”

      Senator Bernard sits solemnly in his chair and says,

      “Sir, are YOU sure that you HAVE things planned OUT entirely?”

      “Relax Jimmy, everything is playing out exactly as I have planned.” Branch walks over to his window. Washington’s skyline begins to glow in the morning sun.

      “Yesterday was the end of phase one, today with this new tape, we start phase two.”

      Φ Π Ψ

      Missing from the morning meeting is Senator Cindy Aaronson who was standing near the potential targets of the assassination attempt carried out by the tri-P yesterday. Among the targets were Senator Rowse and Senator Tillotson, both were uninjured but their aides were not as lucky. Senator Rowse’s aide, Russell Sikes, was walking in front of Senator Rowse and suffered a knife wound to the abdomen. He died in route to the hospital. Senator Tillotson’s aide, Shane Manygoats, a Native American from Shiprock New Mexico, was walking next to Senator Tillotson when the attackers ran toward them as they exited the Committee chambers. Shane pushed Senator Tillotson to the side and attempted to fight off the attackers. One of the two attackers, each wielding strange