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applied the slightest touch of fuchsia lipstick to accent the apple-green dress she planned to wear. Major, as Herculeans called him, was Ursa Minor’s boss and already at work. Peacock started her new assignment three months earlier, protecting the President of the United States, and Major would soon receive the first update on her performance.
    Kolb already knew her performance would be flawless, and yet, Kolb regretted that Peacock had lost her commitment to the dream of being an ultimate warrior. Pendleton, and Ursa’s poor judgment, caused the problem. If Peacock had willingly worked as a team member, she’d have saved herself a lot of pain.
    Peacock despises me , Kolb thought. She’d hoped Peacock would be a friend, a collaborator, even a partner in advancing the science of mind-control. However, both of them were too bullheaded to get along. Too bad for dear Peacock. Once Peacock’s implant adjustments were complete, Beatrice Kolb became Peacock’s mistress.
    Dressed and ready for work, Kolb headed out to her red Corvette and drove to The Klingerman Institute, a front for the Hercules’ Mental Development Center. Her team of twelve gathered for her daily briefing, and she shouted instructions from the hallway before ever entering the conference room.
    “I want a full report on all scans taken in the last twenty-four hours.” Kolb brushed by Doctor Chang Nyugen, her assistant and entered the room. “Highlight reactions deviating from probe instructions.”
    For ten minutes, the researchers reported normal responses from Peacock per program and per plan, until Doctor Nyugen rose up to speak. Nyugen studied brainwave communication in battlefield situations with the military and collaborated on the communications helmet used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kolb brought him onboard to help install Peacock’s new implant.
    “Ursa tests her skillfully regarding her husband. She’s kicked Pendleton off his pedestal, thank God.” Nyugen passed out the technical support data. “I have no doubt she’ll kill him at our command. When the threat to America’s financial security has passed, our most powerful enemy, Arthur Pendleton, will die at her hand, and then she can be renamed and reassigned.”
    “Well that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Kolb grumped. “Until the time when his death won’t bankrupt the world’s economy, we must play defense.”
    “Hercules’ leadership has to deal with that reality,” Nyugen said. “The science says she’ll kill him.”
    “I heard but in your tone.”
    “There is one glitch. We can’t change her feelings for her son. I doubt she could destroy the child on command.”
    Kolb drummed her fingers on the conference room table. She’d never had a child and never wanted one. In the larger scheme of things, she doubted the child would pose a future threat. In today’s world, dictator’s sons had trouble succeeding their fathers. Some ugly mob would probably kill him if he ever tried. Her greater concern lay in the fact that there was a glitch at all. If one developed, could another crop up, and so on?
    “Tell no one outside this room. Chang, you and I will study this dilemma ourselves.”

Chapter 5
     
    The six members of the Jame’e-ye Rowhaniyat-e Mobarez , Combatant Clergy Association of Iran gathered to consider Russia’s intentions. They reclined to eat in an off-white color, drab room. From the ceiling hung a large decorative twelve-armed crystal lamp, one arm for each of the Twelve Imams of their faith.
    As all good Shia clergy, they each wore a black turban and a black sleeveless aba open in the front. Save for one, whose turban and aba was white, and he headed the gathering. After the appropriate greetings, their leader, Grandayatollah Dariush Vahid al-Sistani, rose to speak.
    “Our world boasts many Great Satans,” he said in a strong, steady voice. “And one is stomping his feet on the s oil of Turkmenistan. We sat still when the Russians made war against our