Brian Haig - President's assassin

She commented, though I suspect not with relation to anybody on this hillside, "But he taketh away more from some than others."

Indeed he does. I recalled a photograph of Jennifer Margold from the Bureau's background file, taken when she was about ten years old, still innocent, still pure, not yet in the grip of the malignant demons who would infest her soul.

The picture was lifted from a yearbook, perhaps, with twenty little boys and girls gathered in two rows, standing and staring brightly into the camera. They were all smiling happily and innocently, but for one; fourth from the left, in the second row, one little girl appeared sullen and distant, not looking at the camera but into an empty space, as though already aware she was soiled and impure and did not belong in this group.

The world can try men's souls, but truly, children should not have to witness and bear its horrors before their time. I think we create our own monsters, and then we wonder in amazement how they failed us, when it was we who failed them.

Phyllis took my arm again, and we began our long walk back up the hill.