Free Turning Point by Barbara Spencer Page A

teenagers. They even boasted that they are happy to use drugs to bend their supporters’ minds to their will.’
    â€˜I read your report, Mr Anderson, very interesting.’
    â€˜You did. But why?’ Bill said with astonishment.
    â€˜Part of my job, sir,’ the young officer explained.
    â€˜You’re based here?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. It’s essential. This might have been a bomb scare – it has happened.’ He tapped his watch. ‘It took thirty minutes today to sweep these offices. We have twenty floors.’ He nodded to the US Representative. ‘We’re done here, sir. One of my men will stay behind and finish up.’
    â€˜Ladies and gentlemen, you are free to go…’ Representative Horrington indicated the officer standing by the door, who had begun to check security badges, noting the details. ‘Please don’t be alarmed when a security check is run on you. It’s standard procedure. Can you imagine,’ he confided to Bill, ‘how much paperwork this is going to create.’ He sounded despairing. ‘We’ll be up to our ears for the rest of the day.’
    Sean Terry appeared in the doorway. He squeezed past the little line of guests blocking the entrance who, like competitors at the start line of a half-marathon, were frantically trying to get away. He collapsed his long frame into an easy chair, conveniently placed opposite the line of presidential photographs.
    The suite of rooms was now almost empty. Waiters milled about clearing dirty plates and glasses, Stewart Horrington and his assistants had vanished into one of the inner offices, leaving the Secretary of State to chat with Emma Arneson, and Jane Oliver notebook in hand was telephoning.
    Abruptly, Sean Terry shrugged his shoulders, as if ridding himself of the snow falling outside. ‘Damn good job it wasn’t a bomb scare.’ He nodded towards the departing horde. ‘The elevators would have been out of action and that little lot would have found themselves walking down twenty floors. Most look so unfit they’d have struggled with five and you’d have been up to your asses in heart attacks by the time they reached ground level.’
    His face relaxed into a suggestion of a grin, something Scott knew was a very rare occurrence and, after the events of that morning, unlikely to reoccur for some time. The idea that innocent people often felt guilty for no reason appealed to SeanTerry’s skewed sense of the absurd. Well, it would, Scott thought. The agent was so obsessed with his pursuit of justice he had little patience with normal behaviour.
    Bill, carrying a plate of sandwiches in his right hand, side-stepped one of the men still packing his gear away and joined the group by the window.
    â€˜Bad day all round.’ he held out the plate. ‘Sorry Scott… Change of plan. We’re probably not going to be able to leave for a while. And you must be starving. Tuck in. You too, Tulsa.’
    The agent took a sandwich regarding Bill thoughtfully. ‘We just witnessed something far more serious than an overheard conversation,’ he said. ‘The woman you were talking to, the Norwegian. When I found that bug, she looked like she’d been dealt a death sentence.’
    â€˜You’re right. Emma Arneson had confided that Lotil Oil were being blackmailed,’ Bill kept his voice to a low murmur. ‘She was warned not to say anything. If she did, the price would be doubled. At the moment, it’s twenty billion dollars…’
    Tulsa whistled.
    Bill smiled apologetically. ‘Lotil is partly government owned and supplies sixty per cent of the country’s needs. It’s what we feared, Scott, that Styrus would eventually work. They proved it by stopping one of the rigs for a week. The computer system simply melted away without the slightest warning, every firewall bypassed. She begged for help and unfortunately I admitted I