THE PRESIDENT WAS clearly unhappy. As he leaned back in his chair -- fingers steepled -- he glared across the desk in the oval office.

     “So, General McIntyre, what you’re telling me is that we’ve had this ability -- to kill up to five miles away with sound -- that can’t be stopped, even with 150 feet of reinforced concrete or 16 feet of solid lead -- that we’ve had this technology for the past fifty years. And you didn’t think I’d be interested.”

     “Plausible deniability, Mr. President,” the general said. “In the event we used it some place for crowd control or on some black ops mission. Inasmuch as the Geneva Convention did disallow it, you couldn’t be caught with your political pants down, so to speak.”

     The president wasn’t amused. “And you didn’t think the fact that someone could kill me or my family as we sleep, or while we’re riding in a motorcade, or flying on Air Force One, or presumably protected in the bunker under the White House--”

     “Mr. President, if I may,” General McIntyre said, gently insinuating himself back into the conversation, “all of the places you just mentioned have been fully protected since the ‘60s.”

     “With matrices of paper straws?” the president said with a note of disbelief.

     “Excuse me, Mr. President,” the general broke in again. “Who, may I ask, told you about paper straws?”

     "General, you have no idea how secure it makes me feel just to hear you even ask that question." 

     The president was now beyond sarcasm. "If you must know, the terrorist himself recommended that I wear long johns with a pullover hood made out of paper straws."

     “Very funny,” laughed the general.

     “You don’t see me laughing, do you, General? In case you’re not tracking, this is an election year.” The president’s tone was the same as he used when lecturing his dog. “That means pressing the flesh, kissing babies, being interviewed, photo ops. I suppose you’re gonna to try and tell me I’m protected from this thing in all these venues as well?

     “I’m waiting, General, for your lighthearted words of reassurance.”

     “Mr. President,” the general said -- weighing his words carefully as if he was walking through a minefield -- “This is our own technology.

     “It’s been securely mothballed for almost half a century.”

     The president squinted as he stared daggers at the general. “I’m sure the Federal Reserve in both Denver and San Francisco, or, for that matter, a sitting federal judge in Hawaii, will find that answer more than reassuring. 

     "Quit wasting my time! And get me one of those goddamned paper straw suits with a hood. In fact, I’ll take suits for my entire family -- and one for the dog -- in Navy blue with the presidential seal on the front, sometime today, if that’s not asking too much.”