>What they -should- have done is sent in a small team of plainclothes
>Enforcers...they couldn't have possibly passed for students, but they
>could have passed for parents, if there were only two. They should
>have stayed and scoped out the place for a few days, find a place
>where Devlin went alone (Ironically, his practice sessions at Bancroft
>Tower would have been perfect), and nabbed him without anyone else
>being the wiser.

Perhaps, but there seemed no need to do this. This is an extremely involved arrest procedure, the kind of thing better suited to an elaborate sting operation than the simple arrest of a single blip. In special cases, perhaps this would be done, but the intel Roger's people had didn't indicate that this was a special case. Far from it, in fact - their preliminary investigation indicated no Underground presence here, and thus no backup for Devlin. A simple, straightforward squad arrest - what was attempted on the Quad, the standard procedure in such cases - was prescribed by standing procedures. The lockdown of the campus was a precautionary measure, intended to snag any members of the Underground they might have missed in their initial sweep, but they really didn't expect to find any. They were just doing what the book says to do.

You have to understand - as a general rule, telepaths on the run don't make close friends among the normals. There was no reason, based on past history, for the Corps to expect Devlin to have such a large, loyal and exceptional group of friends. Certainly they knew about the Duelists' Society, having had an agent in the school staff for a few weeks, but come on - if you were a highly-placed law-enforcement official would you take a group of high school students who fancy themselves "duelists" seriously?

>People disappear all the time, the Psi Corps might
>never have been suspected by any but his allies in the Underground.

... er, if Devlin abruptly disappeared, I should think Amanda, for one, would considerably more than suspect the Corps.

Yes, Roger did screw up. He failed to react flexibly enough when the situation changed; his first indication of trouble should have been the unexpected and unusual resistance put up by Devlin's companions at the time of his arrest, to say nothing of the identity of one of them. (The fault there is not entirely his; he wasn't informed by the arresting officer of Amanda's claim, and the fact that she's a princess isn't kept in the general school files - Roger would have had to crosscheck with Immigration & Naturalization Services or recognize the name "Dessler" to realize that immediately.)

When it became clear to him who Amanda was, he should have released her, but at that point, the damage was already done, so he decided he might as well keep her a while longer and see what he could get. This, too, was an error in judgment, but by then he was angry about the whole situation and not thinking clearly.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/