The Killer

1

Vinovich felt the air against his fingers. He smiled. It had taken some time, but it looked like he finally could get out of the cell he had been thrown into. It would be good to get outside again.

It had been a long time since the Doctor had betrayed him to the Russians. His claim of wanting to defect had fallen on deaf ears. They just wanted to know why he had eaten the young.

They were delicious had not been an acceptable answer to his captors.

He pushed with his whole body. Stones and concrete slipped away from each other. He pushed again. He saw the narrow conduit behind the wall. He could use that.

He squeezed into the channel. He looked around, listening. He decided to work his way down the base of the wall. First, he had to cover his tracks some.

He spun in place, holding himself with his feet and back. He pressed the bricks back into place. He wanted them to think he had vanished. Once they found his escape route, they would be all over him.

He planned to be out of Russia by then. The Doctor would not have remained in enemy country for long after he had turned in his old comrade to the authorities. The network would have been rolled up and the operatives reassigned.

He needed to find a trace of his old comrade. He needed to go back to the old house. Then he could pick up the trail back to the States. He owed his old friend a lot of pain for the years he had spent buried under the Russian rock.

The Doctor and his moralizing had ruined a profitable time for him. He planned to get that back from his old comrade with interest. Before he could do that, he had to get out of the prison and see if his stash was still in place.

The rest would be a breeze in his estimation.

Vinovich descended between the walls, looking for a way out. He didn't want to be trapped between walls in his prison. He needed to make the most of this chance. He saw a vent and smiled. That looked like something he could use.

He pushed into the shaft, easing along. He didn't like the way the thing vibrated as he went, but it was the only thing he could think that he could use to get around the prison without causing problems.

He felt a breeze blowing on his face. He sniffed. It was fresh and spoke of outside air. He headed through the tunnel, tracking the air to its source. He smiled when he arrived at a grate over the vent shaft where it opened to the outside world.

Now he had to get through the grate and see where he was so he could finish his escape. His captors would be surprised when he took up his ways again. They would think they could track him anywhere.

They only caught him the first time because the Doctor betrayed him. Otherwise, he would still be doing what he wanted for God and Country. Once he was free, he would never be caught again.

He couldn't wait to talk to his former colleague. He had so much he wanted to say.

Once he was done with the Doctor, he could focus on the others who left him to rot in his prison cell. He planned to make their lives a hell like they had never thought possible.

He focused all of his attention on the grate. He saw the weaknesses in it. An ordinary man couldn't manage what he was going to do. They didn't have enough control.

He twisted in the vent until his feet was pressed against the grate. He bent his legs and kicked out. The metal popped from the bolts holding it in place. He pushed with his hands so his feet slid through the hole. He twisted so he could search for a toehold. Once he had that, he pushed himself out the rest of the way.

Vinovich paused to look around. He was on a wall above a cliff. He looked up. The top of the wall was far above, and he didn't see, or hear, any guards. The bottom descended out of sight. He thought he could hear some water.

He started down. He could try to climb to the top of the wall, but why bother. He would have to make his way back through the prison to an outside door. He might have to kill a guard for his uniform along the way. While he didn't mind killing, he didn't want the alarm going up until he was clear. Hacking his way through the guards would be a chancy thing even with his training. One of them might get lucky and get a good shot in and stop his escape cold.

How long did he have before they discovered his cell was empty? How long before they discovered how he had escaped? How much time did he have to get away from the prison and secure some kind of transportation?

How long before his former masters found out and went on the alert themselves?

He kept working his way down in the dark. He wanted to make the most of his newfound freedom. He smiled. Water was flowing down below. He could follow that to civilization.

The next problem once he was moving on the ground was keeping warm. He needed warmer clothes if he wanted to stay moving. Where could he get some?

Vinovich figured he would eventually reach a town before his need became critical. Then he could just take what he wanted from whomever he came across. That shouldn't be too hard.

He reached the bottom of the cliff which was a pile of rocks leading to a narrow strand of water heading downhill. He paused to catch his breath. Following the water was something they would expect him to do eventually. He knew that, just as he knew it was his easiest way to cut across the landscape.

He flexed his hands, then stretched his legs and arms. The muscles loosened enough for him to get started jogging along the river. He had to put as much distance between him and the prison before he could think about carrying out the rest of his escape from the country.

He wondered which way Moscow was. Their safe house was there. If he could reach that, he might get the answers he wanted.

He hadn't expected his escape to be this easy. Wearing a hole in the wall had taken some years, but now that he was outside, the rest had seemed ridiculously easy. Climbing down the back wall in the dark had presented no challenge at all.

He decided not to go back. Why make things more complicated? He had better things to concentrate on. He doubted finding the Doctor after all these years would be as easy as his escape.

The man would in another country, blending in, and gathering intelligence. He would have a new cover identity, and new codes to communicate with his superiors.

Finding their handler might be easier than finding his main target. The man was a bureaucrat. He would be in Washington, or New York, if he was still working for the command.

The handler might have retired. That would necessitate some file checking. He doubted his old credentials would allow that. He would need an in to get at those records.

Vinovich decided to put that aside. The world had changed since he had been imprisoned. The fact that he had never been traded back to the West probably meant that he had been disavowed. His old identity had probably been moved to the revoked files.

None of that would help him cover the miles to Moscow, and the crossing to the States. Once he was back on his home soil, he could worry about finding the man he was looking for.

Then the Doctor would understand what it meant to give your friends to the enemy.

He jogged along the bank of the river until he noticed a light in the distance. He paused to sniff the air. No one seemed to be around. The light must belong to a farmer. That might be the break he was looking for to cement his escape.

He smiled as he started toward the dot in the distance. He might be going home sooner than he expected.

2

They had done a lot of business across the former Soviet Union. Safe houses had been set up for their use. He had also set up several personal places in case he had to flee the network and ask to be recalled from his cover.

Vinovich had also set up his personal places to help with his other life. None had been discovered as far as he knew. That meant his other identities might be safe and waiting for him to dig up.

He might have to deal with the current residents. He doubted they wanted someone prying up the floor to retrieve his personal belongings.

He had been in prison for years. His cover identity had been used at his trial. No one had connected him to his real identity, and his work as an agent for the United States. The court had only been concerned with what he had done as a hobby.

No one knew what he was doing in either identity. One of his comrades must have turned him in to the Soviets. That was the only explanation that fit in his mind. Then they had rolled up their network and pulled out of the country.

He supposed he had been too confident in his ability to conceal what he was doing. He should have known better. His comrades had their own abilities. That would have made making the connection to what he was doing for his hobby as easy as freezing in a cold winter.

He decided to go to one of his places in St. Petersburg. He had been picked up in Moscow. The authorities would expect him to go back there to visit his old haunts. He had two houses in St. Petersburg with alternate identities waiting on him.

If the passports were okay, he could use them to get out of the country with no one knowing how he had done it. If worse came to worse, and he couldn't use the false papers, he could find someone and take theirs. It wouldn't be the first time he had done something like that.

He had stolen clothes and a car from the house he had encountered the night of his escape. He had left the owner unable to point the pursuit after him.

Driving across country had been easy, but he had dumped the car as soon as he could and stolen another one. Once the authorities had found the body in the house, they would send out a bulletin on the car. Then he would have to deal with the police when they found the car, especially if he was inside the car.

Killing police would draw the rest of the police forces to the scene.

A running battle would be exciting, but he didn't want that before he got his revenge. Catching up to the Doctor would have to be his primary goal. When he was done with that, he could return and take up his hunting again.

The agency would give him what he wanted when he returned to the States. He knew their members, and he knew he could take them out one at a time until he had his prize.

Vinovich abandoned his stolen car in a public garage. He made his way to where his primary haunt had been. Once he had his papers, he would feel safer about facing scrutiny from the patrolling police.

He should hunted down the Doctor and executed him when he knew the police were looking for him. That score would be settled instead of something that he was looking to settle now that he was free. Killing the network would have been enough to buy him time to get out of the country and hide somewhere else where he could blend in without the agency finding him.

Europe was full of places he had worked. He had treasure chests buried in every country.

He might check on one so he could tap into some funds to allow him to live comfortably while he was on the run when the agency realized he had escaped and was looking for his former comrades.

He paused when he reached the house he had bought and set aside for his old cover. Someone was living in it. He wondered if they had found his time capsule. He frowned as he considered what he had to do.

He decided that he had to go in and question the occupants. Then he could get his new face and use their money to get out of the country. He certainly couldn't allow them to live once he started digging up his things.

No one could be allowed to point the machine at him before he got out of the country. If he had time to play, that would make things better in his opinion. If he didn't, he would dig up his things and move on as best he could.

Either way, he wasn't going to leave witnesses to talk about what he was doing, and what they thought he was doing.

That would be too much of a risk to his new freedom.

Vinovich went to the door and knocked. He put on his non-threatening face as he waited for someone to answer the door. He had to get the door open before he could decide what to do next.

He stepped back as the door opened. The man looking at him didn't seem scared to see a stranger. He swung a left hand before the man could ask him what was going on. He followed up with a kick to a knee to limit mobility. A grab and twist dealt with the man before he could defend himself.

He shook his head at himself. He could have kept the man alive for a while so he could indulge himself. A simple neck snapping was beneath him.

He heard a woman crying out. Kids screamed. He advanced into the house. He had to do something to stop all the noise. He didn't want any of the neighbors calling for the police before he got what he wanted.

He crossed the room to where the woman stood yelling. He put her to sleep with a blow to the face. He turned and kicked the youngest, a girl, in the stomach. That produced vomiting. The older child, a boy, attacked him with swinging arms. He swept the boy around and slammed him into the floor. He tied the kids up with their own clothes. He carried the woman out of the room and tied her to her bed with the sheets.

What could he do with his captives? He had so many ideas rushing through his head. There was things he had never allowed himself. Time and obligations had made his pursuit of his hobby something to do between movements while he was taking care of other business.

Now he had all the time in the world. What did he do with it?

He realized he didn't have the time. He had to get his hidden assets and get clear of the house. He couldn't take the hours he wanted with a knife on his three victims. He had to get out of the country before someone missed the family and sent someone to look for them.

He checked his stolen watch. It was better to remove the temptation before he went about his business. Maybe when he reached America he could take his time with his victims while he searched for the Doctor.

For now, he had to move on as fast as he could before someone lucked on his trail and tried to catch up with him.

Speed was his ally now. Slowing down to feed his appetite was just asking for trouble. He made a face as he made his decision. He snapped their necks one by one. He stood in the kitchen after he was done. He shrugged as he looked around the room for the secret cubby he had installed to hold his belongings.

He slid the refrigerator out of the way. He reached down and pulled on the paneling on the baseboard. The wall snapped open to reveal a small safe. He pushed the buttons on the front of the door. The door snapped open. He reached in and pulled out the old money, and one of the ten passports.

He grimaced at the old notes. He went to the dead man and searched his pockets. That yielded newer notes. That would have to do to help cover the old notes being used. He didn't want to answer questions about the money.

He hid his safe again and looked around at the crime scene. He picked up keys. He made sure he could lock the door behind him, moving the dead father to his easy chair. He slipped out and went to the family car. He got in and drove away.

He wondered how long it would take before the bodies were reported. That was the amount of time he had before things turned to St. Petersburg. He had to get out of the country before that happened.

He couldn't be stopped now that he had completed the first step.

3

Vinovich smiled as he crossed the terminal toward the main doors. He was finally home. The first phase of his operation was over. Now he had to move to step two.

He had a close call about the passport. He had thought he would have to fight his way on the tarmac the way the security agent had looked at it. The customs agent had finally reminded him to renew the paperwork as soon as he could.

He had smiled and assured the man he would do that as soon as he got back from his business.

Standing in America after so long working for the government, and being in prison, he was giddy. The impulse to hunt raced through him. No one knew where he was, or what he was doing. He could find a goat and take his time while he looked for the Doctor.

He decided he could take a day before heading down to Washington. He could pick someone to work on in that time, and do whatever he wanted. The next day he could make his way down to Washington and plan his assault. If any of his comrades were keeping an eye out, they would already know he was free.

They would try to take measures to stop him from doing what he wanted to do. He might have to kill whomever was in charge to get what he wanted to move to the third phase of his operation.

If he started hunting, they would narrow down where he was and try to stop him from completing his mission. He didn't know if they had agents of his caliber, and weighed if it was worth it to let them know he was in town.

He wanted to work in the shadows. If the agency could turn the light on him, it wouldn't take them long to track him down. He wasn't going back to prison in Russia. He had satisfied some of his basic hunger there, but eventually they had locked him away from his goats. He smiled at the memory of guards finding his erstwhile nemesis flayed alive in the laundry, and still alive. They had wanted an explanation for what he did. He had replied he liked to eat livers.

He had taken a beating, but he had paid the guards back one by one as he worked on his escape. Some would never guard in a prison again. He had been locked down in the middle of ensuring accidents for his targets.

All that was behind him now. All he had to do was concentrate on the future and take natural measures to protect himself.

The first thing he needed to do was exchange his rubles for something in dollars. Once he had that done, he could head into the city and start looking for a goat to skin. It would alert the agency, but they probably already knew he was coming home to settle old scores.

His proclivities had made him a natural assassin. Being trained had just brought out the hunter part of his personality even more. Snatching victims from streets while carrying out missions had been easy.

The Doctor had ruined that for him. The trap, the trial, the particular prison where he had been taken were all part of how the other agent operated. He only got involved when he couldn't stir the pot enough to carry out an objective through cutouts.

The police arriving while he was getting ready to work on a goat had been more than just a coincidence. Then the Doctor approached him in the visitor chamber posing as his lawyer. The government expected him to stay in the prison until they could arrange something for him.

He was a fool to believe the Doctor. As soon as he was shut away, he was forgotten by the agency. They never tried to clear him, or ask for him in an exchange. They just left him in his false identity to rot.

Now that he was out, he planned to get even for the years he had lost.

He followed the signs until he found an exchange for his money. He found a kiosk. He handed in his rubles and got back a smaller pile of dollars. That wouldn't last long in New York.

He needed to see if his own funds was accessible. He should have enough funds to start his search from what he had skimmed between missions. He might be able to cut down his expenses if he came across a goat he could use up.

Once he was done, he could move on to another goat with enough resources he could use to make his next move. He might not have enough in hand to do anything if he didn't find someone he could use.

He walked out of the terminal. He scanned the row of cabs parked in front of the door before deciding to check out the long term parking. It might be good to have his own transportation. He would need to switch his plate with someone else's in case the owner arrived home while he had the vehicle out so he could pursue his business.

He didn't need to run afoul of a random policeman while doing whatever he could to locate his old friend.

The Son of Sam had been discovered because he had received a parking ticket while out hunting. Once they had zeroed on the car, tracing the killer had been easy for the police department.

He didn't plan to leave a trail while he was working on his mission. He didn't have time to kill policemen while trying to find out what had happened to his old allies. Of course, if one got in his way, that was the cop's problem.

Vinovich found a car that suited him. He looked around. He saw another car of almost the same make and color. He smiled at his luck. He took the plate off the car he planned to take, and exchanged it for the plate of the other car. When the car was reported stolen, the cops would find the other driver if he was on the road. That should buy him some time to move.

He used his talents to pop the door of the car and sat down behind the wheel. He reached under the dashboard and worked the wiring until the engine turned over. He was glad the alarm hadn't been set. Otherwise, he would have had to do some fancy footwork to get out of there before security showed up.

He drove to the gate and paid his way out in his stolen car. He turned and headed into the city. He wanted to find one of his treasure chests so he had money to burn. Then he had to drive south to Washington. A mobile base would allow him to break security on the agency quarters at his leisure.

He had been in prison for a long period. The agency and the project he belonged to might have been disbanded in the intervening time. No one might be there to give him the answers he wanted.

He couldn't worry about that. He had to secure funds, then make his way south. Once he had a look at the records, he might be out of a job. He smiled at that. He had been fired for a long time.

Once he had some idea of what he was dealing with, then he could make a better plan to get things done.

Hopefully the records would know what happened to the Doctor and where he was. Once he had that, he could take as much time as he wanted to get his revenge.

He watched the city as he drove away from the airport. He should have flown directly to D.C. His fear of discovery had urged him to take a stop away from the next stage of action and assess his future plans.

If the agency was watching for him to escape, they would be watching public transport to try to block him in so they could take him. That didn't fit in with his plans at all. Driving down to the city and taking a tour seemed the best way to foil that trap.

Their spotters at the building would have to be foiled in some way. He didn't want to get bogged down killing his enemies when the point was to infiltrate and get out with what he could about the Doctor.

Then he could move to the next step of his plan.

The only thing on his side was that no one knew where he was exactly. As long as he could maintain that, then he should be able to keep out in front of the agency until he was done.

He doubted any new agent was as good as he had been. The only reason he had been incarcerated was the Doctor had turned him in to the Russians. He could have hunted for a long time if that hadn't happened.

He was going to turn the Doctor into a goat so he could feel all the anger he was due when they met.

He headed south, stopping for fuel when he had to. He saw several goats he wouldn't have minded working on. He held himself back. His style was distinctive. He didn't want to give more of a warning than he already had.

He also didn't want to give the Russians a clue to where he had fled. The small trail he had blazed across their country had showed them that he was more dangerous than they had thought when he had been imprisoned. He didn't want to watch for them while he was setting on the agency.

When he had what he wanted, he would be glad to go back to Russia and show them what he could really do when he didn't need to hold back.

He might even send them mocking letters to rub in their ineffectiveness.

He smiled at the thought. He loved what he did. Striking fear and misery in any trying to stop him was the gravy on the meat as far as he was concerned.

He spotted a hitchhiker walking south with the traffic. He looked around. No one seemed interested in the young man. He decided he could take one chance. He pulled over to the shoulder of the highway so he could give his goat a ride.

"How's it going?" He rolled down the passenger window so he could be heard. "Need a ride?"

"Thanks." The hitchhiker got into the car. "Thanks for stopping. How far south are you going?"

"Washington." He smiled. His goat wouldn't travel that far. "It's no problem."

4

Vinovich cruised into the metro area of Washington tapping on the wheel of his stolen car. He had left several goats in pieces along the highway. Sooner or later, some animal would find the fragments, some jogger might spot something, a county or state worker might turn a package up.

That didn't matter. He planned to be in the middle of killing the Doctor before anyone turned in a hand with no fingers.

He drove across the city to the small office building where the agency had asked him to report before they sent him to Russia.

He doubted anyone was there. The years he had been in prison was more than enough time for the agency to shut down the front and move somewhere else. Maybe they had left something behind he could use to pick out their next operating spot.

He found the building after a few hours of searching. His memory used to be a lot better than this. He pulled to the curb as he looked at the front of the building. He didn't have to go inside to note that it was deserted.

He got out of the car and crossed the street. He wondered if they left his four digit code in the pad next to the door. Sometimes things like that were overlooked by the office people.

He pushed in his number code. The door refused to move like he expected. He tried the handle before stepping back. He didn't have a set of picks with him. He needed another way into the building.

He walked around to the back of the place. He didn't need some cop asking him what he was doing. He checked and found a back door next to an air conditioner unit backed up against the brick wall. He smiled at the window above the machinery.

He stood on the unit. He could just reach the sill of the window. He pulled himself up to sit on the sill. He braced himself so that he could stand on the sill and hold himself in place with his hands. He kicked a hole in the window as carefully as he could so he didn't cut himself. He forced the rest of the glass inside before he slipped inside the building.

He paused to listen. Nothing came to his ears. He nodded. No one was there with him.

He quickly searched the building. He stood in the last empty room. Dust covered everything just as he figured. There wasn't even a scrap of paper, or used food wrapper.

This was where his long journey to his revenge had started. Now it was for sell to any private user who wanted it.

He had met the Doctor and Marcel here. They had been given covers and told what the transportation would be. The three of them were to take up residence in the Soviet Union and undertake missions against the government. The tour was for three years at the time.

They had all extended their mission tours before he had been captured. The government didn't know he was a spy. They had captured him in regards to extracurricular goat farming. He had hoped the Doctor and Marcel would get him out.

They had left him to undergo trial and imprisonment.

They should have killed him.

Now he was looking for them to talk to them about their betrayal.

Where did he go from here? He looked around the room, seeing how it looked years ago instead of how it looked in the present. He didn't see anything that pointed him to anywhere specific.

The parent agency had been something buried in the Pentagon. He could violate the security there if he was good enough, and maybe had a support team. The problem was he didn't have any support, and couldn't rely on any.

He looked around the room again and saw something that interested him. The nameplate on the desk gave him a name to follow if it was real. He smiled. All he had to do was track the man down and ask him some questions.

He made his way back to the open window. He needed some way to find the man fast. He doubted it would be easy.

No one who knew who he was and that he was free would walk around without being on guard. They might take off to some place to avoid him. He would deal with that as well as he could.

He dropped down on the silent air conditioner unit. He stepped off to the pavement and walked around to where he had left his car. How did he start his search? Maybe he could find something out at the library. They used to have a Who's Who list. His target could be in that.

If he could find something about his target, he could try to find out other things from City Hall. He might have to break into the county records to get information.

He pulled into the library, looking for a spot away from the street. He didn't want a random police seeing his plate and calling it in. He was prepared to dump the car if he had to before he killed them and left their bodies in the trunks of their cars.

He didn't need to attract attention as this point of things. He knew he could go through the whole police department if he had to, but he didn't that much exercise.

Working in the shadows was what he had been trained to do. It produced results, and allowed him to operate without restraint when he wanted. He had left dead named targets for their bodyguards often enough.

Vinovich walked into the library, checking out the shelving, and other customers around him. None of them looked that dangerous to him. He walked through the open space, following signs for public computers. He watched the people searching the Internet and talking to others across the country.

When one of the people stepped away from a computer, he sat down in front of the screen. He looked at the login squares. He remembered what the numbers were in when the leaving girl had first sat down. He typed them in to the white boxes. The library's home page came up.

He smiled. That was easier than he had thought.

He wondered what would happen if he typed in the name of his contact from long ago. He typed that into the white box at the top of the page. The page switched to a list of people with the same name as his target.

He searched the list until he found the right man. He smiled when the man's face popped up on the box. He found an address with the picture. Now that he had a target site, all he needed to do was scope it out.

He copied the girl's actions to leave the computer for the next patron in line. He could get a map from the next convenience store he passed. Driving out to the location should be done in the day time. Breaking in should be done at night.

Once he had his talk with the august Joshua Davis Reynolds, then he would be able to move on to the next area of operations. He doubted he would be staying in Washington for much longer.

The Doctor was either on a mission, or been retired somewhere. All he had to do was find out which. Reynolds would be able to get him access to files to point him either way. Then the old man could be retired for good.

He wondered if Reynolds thought this day would come. He supposed it didn't matter. The agents had been trained to get in anywhere they wanted. Getting out was just a bit harder but doable.

Security could only do so much against anyone who really wanted to do things to a target.

He drove out of the city, looking for gas stations along the way. He found one busy with afternoon commuters. He went in and paid for gas and a map. He walked back to his car and hooked up the pump while he looked for the road he wanted on the map.

He found it after some looking. It was a short spur off a short road off a major road. He looked around and saw a sign for where he was. He found that on the map and marked down the route he had to go on the paper with his finger. Seeing the invisible line marked it in his memory until he didn't need it anymore.

He put the map away. He might need it later. He put the hose up and got behind the wheel. He had a few miles to drive to get to the target.

He couldn't wait to talk to Joshua Davis Reynolds. It should be enlightening.

He wondered how the other man would take it.

That should make this sidetrip all the more hilarious in his opinion.

He followed the mental line until he wound up on a road abutting on a bunch of farms and horse ranches. He watched the numbers on the mailboxes for the one he wanted. He looked through the fence at the small mansion in the trees. He didn't see any dogs, or cameras.

That was good.

5

Joshua Reynolds loved the sight of his place whenever he returned home. Being retired wasn't all that it cracked up to be, but his small mansion was an island against the outside world. He paused at the gate to enter the code on the keypad on a pole next to the driveway. He waited for the gate to roll out of the way before he drove through. He had a detached garage catty-corner to the big house. He used a remote to raise the door so he could park his BMW inside the garage. He got out and triggered the door before walking out of the garage.

He sorted his keys as he walked up to his house. He didn't remember leaving the lamp on in his office. He paused on the stone steps of his porch long enough to consider if he had left the light on, or not. He was surprised that he couldn't remember.

Reynolds opened the door and placed the keys on their hook before he went any farther. Something was wrong. The air had some kind of scent on it. He couldn't remember what it was off hand.

The elderly man decided that maybe he should arm himself and search his house. That seemed the best way to handle a possible home invasion.

His old service pistol was in his office. He clicked his dentures. And that was where the light was on where he couldn't remember if he cut it off, or not. He decided his possible burglar had cut the light on to search the office.

What was his counter move against going into the office himself? He didn't want to be shot with his own handgun. He decided his best move was to leave the house and call the police.

Reynolds turned to leave. He would rather be thought of as an old man who had too much imagination than be killed by a burglar who had searched his house while he was gone and hadn't got out when he came back.

He opened the door. A man stood in his way. He went to close the door, but a blow to the head drove him backward.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Reynolds." The man stepped into the wide space marked as a foyer. A slender hand pushed the wooden door shut. He smiled as he examined the older man.

"Prison hasn't been good for you, Sloan." Reynolds held his hand to the cut lip he had. "What do you want?"

"Where are the Doctor and Marcel?," said Sloan. He glanced in a mirror set up against the wall so Reynolds could take one last look at himself before he left the house.

He had to agree with Reynolds's assessment. He was thin, muscles of bundled leather under pale skin attached to a gangly skeleton. His hair had faded from a dark brown to gray and silver. Only his eyes burned as bright as he remembered from other viewings.

"How should I know?," demanded Reynolds. "I'm retired."

"Retired?" Sloan looked around. "How can you afford all this?"

"I invested my money and walked away with a small fortune." The retiree shrugged. "Real estate has been good to me."

"So you have no idea where the Doctor and Marcel are?," asked Sloan.

"After you compromised the operation, they were pulled out and reassigned. I retired after that. They don't tell retirees what operations are underway." Reynolds shook his head at his visitor. Gray hair had fallen out of place. He smoothed it back with a hand.

"Compromised?" Sloan's voice dropped some octaves. "They sold me to the Russians."

"You were eating kids." Reynolds glared at the former agent. "You were dismembering their corpses and leaving them across the field of operations. You were violating your operation's security, and harming civilians for no real reason."

"They were goats and goats are made to be eaten." Sloan advanced on his former case officer. "Where are the Doctor and Marcel? I want to know. I have things to say to them."

"I can't tell you." Reynolds wondered if he could trick his enemy into letting him get to his pistol. All he had to do was get in his office and open his desk. He decided that was heavily against the odds. "I play golf and sail now. I don't know where they are."

"Who would know?," asked Sloan. His voice was under his control again. He didn't mean to shout his questions. He couldn't kill this old man before he got what he wanted.

"Personnel." Reynolds shrugged. "If either one of them are still with the agency, or retired, Personnel would know. They probably have the name of the bank for direct depositing if your boys retired."

"Personnel?," repeated Sloan. "How would I talk to one of those people so I can get them to look at the files I need?"

"Got no idea." Reynolds almost smiled. "They put my check in the bank, and that's good enough for me."

Sloan searched his memory of his years in the States before he went overseas. He stood in hundreds of rooms, most resembling each other, listening to different conversations in fast forward. One exchanged line surfaced.

"Is the archive still in place?," asked Sloan. He had learned that old paper files were kept in boxes in a building in Washington somewhere. He didn't recall the address. Maybe Reynolds would know that.

"The Paper Mill?" Reynolds shrugged. "Maybe. Everything is getting computerized, but you might be able to find some hard copy if you're lucky."

"Where is it?," asked Sloan. This was where Reynolds would lie to him so he would assault one address when the goal was another. He had done the same thing when he was a field agent.

"I think it's somewhere in Virginia." Reynolds gestured in the direction of his office. "I used to have the address and numbers written down."

"Go ahead." Sloan waved his hand at the retiree. He wasn't the much younger himself, but fancied he was in better shape due to his conditioning and prison exercises.

Reynolds entered the office. He walked to his desk and sat down in the big chair behind it. He opened his desk's top drawer. His pistol rested in place. He reached for it and yanked it from the drawer. Pain struck across his forehead. He dropped the pistol to protect his face with his hands.

"That's the dumbest thing you could have done." Sloan picked up the pistol. "I already found the weapon."

A finger let the clip fall to the desk top. The empty space stared Reynolds in the face. Sloan threw the empty pistol across the room.

"The address, Reynolds." Sloan glared at his victim. "Don't make me ask you again."

Reynolds reached for a small rolodex. He put that on his desk. A quick flipthrough was enough to find the one address he needed.

He pulled the card out of the rolodex and held it up. Maybe he could attack the other man when he took the card. He doubted he would be able to kill the other man with his bare hands.

Sloan had been trained to kill people with his bare hands. A man in his late seventies probably wouldn't pose much of a threat to a killer like that. Reynolds had been trained too. He had a better than average chance in his own opinion.

Sloan took the card. He moved to put it in his pocket. He didn't want to get blood on it before he read it.

Reynolds jumped to his feet. One hand grabbed the desk lamp on his desk. He swung it as hard as he could, extending over the desk top to hit his target.

Sloan stepped back. The lamp missed him. He stepped in. One hand slammed the older man's head against his desk while he was off balance. The other forearm came down. The snapping of a thin neck filled the office.

"Why did you do that?" Sloan shook his head at the dead body. "If the Doctor wasn't forewarned yet, he will be when he finds out you're dead."

Sloan left the body where it lay. He retrieved the pistol, and magazine. He searched for a box of bullets he could use. It was time for him to move on to his next target.

The assassin walked out of the house. Maybe the police would think it was an accident when the body was discovered. There was nothing he could do about that. He had to find his real target and get to work.

He also had to come up with a plan if he couldn't find the Doctor.

It had been decades since he had tasted freedom. His target might not even be alive. No one would have told Reynolds if the man had died unless he was directly involved in the operation where his agent had been killed.

Sloan walked across the yard to the fence. He climbed over the wooden slats and dropped down to the other side. What was his next move? He walked to his car as he thought about what he could do. He decided to look at the address he was given. If he learned something he could use, that was fine. If not, he would have to come up with a plan b.

He had no idea what shape plan b would take. He doubted it would be something easy to carry out.

Sloan got behind the wheel and cranked the car. He drove away from the neighborhood. Luckily, he had been able to raid Reynolds's refrigerator before the man had come home. It would be hours before he needed to eat again.

He checked the card from the rolodex. He noted the address. He didn't have a map for the area. He needed to stop at a gas station. Directions and another map would be useful.

Sloan decided that he needed a nap before he did anything else. He needed to be fresh if he was going to break into a government facility and search a pile of records for the trail of his old friend.

Being able to sleep without fear had to be the best thing in the world. He loved it. Keeping one eye open had been such a habit while he was imprisoned, that sleeping soundly should do wonders for his mental state.

He would have to block the door if he stopped at an hotel. His car would be marked down. If anyone made the connection to the plate, one phone call would bring the police down on him.

He didn't have the time to fight against a bunch of policemen trying to get in his way. It was better if no one knew he had taken the car in the first place.

Sloan found a shopping center called Wal-Mart. He parked away from the doors, locking the car down before climbing into the back seat. Other cars were scattered across the parking lot. He might be able to nap well before the sun came up.

Once he had his nap, he would start tracking down the archive.

He had time before anyone discovered Reynolds's body. He had time as they tried to figure out what happened. He would face a dragnet once they knew he was out there.

At least the Russians wouldn't give out a warning to the West that one of their criminals had escaped a maximum security prison and may be on the loose in the West.

Sloan closed his eyes and concentrated on sleeping. He hoped his hearing would alert him to anyone getting close to the car. If not, he was sure he could get out of any trouble easily.

6

The sun woke Sloan in the morning. He rubbed his eyes. He felt hunger and a need for a bathroom. He got out of the car and decided to head into the Wal-Mart. He could get ready for the day in there. Then he needed to drive over to the Paper Mill and look around.

He doubted the security on the place was that much different than what it had before he had been assigned to Russia. It should be a place he could easily walk in and use as he felt he needed.

The government had plenty of facilities that were old and lightly guarded. It should be a breeze for him to get into this one. Then he could search the records for what he needed.

And if the security was updated, he had no doubt that he could open up anything in front of him. He had been trained hard enough to do that.

Sloan spotted a rack full of books as he searched for food and drink. An atlas waved at him from one of the shelves. He walked over and flipped it open. Maps of the local area gave him the general location of the Paper Mill.

He tucked the book under his arm and gathered his breakfast. Once he was done eating, he would do a quick lookover of the area. It was best that he knew the ground before he tried to fight on it.

He paid for his things and headed back to the car. He used the trunk to set things out. He made sandwiches from the small packages of ham, cheese, and hamburger buns he had bought. He used bottled water to wash them down. He gathered up his refuse and threw it in the closest trash can before getting behind the wheel of the car.

He inspected the atlas. Several general locations of government facilities were marked down by name. The archive wasn't.

He checked the index at the back of the book. He found the page with the road. He checked all the routes from where he was to the Mill. He hated to drive into Virginia, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

He would probably need to top off his car's gas somewhere along the way. If he had to run, he didn't want to run out of gas before he got clear of the facility.

He smiled as he considered his next few steps. He decided he might need binoculars before he pulled away from the shopping center. They might be useful to check security before he got close to the place.

Sloan went back into the Wal-Mart. He walked back to the sporting goods section. A shelf of different binoculars, telescopes, and range finders presented itself. He picked the one with the advertised longest range and paid for them. He walked back out to his car and drove out of the lot.

The countryside didn't have a straight road to where he wanted to go but after about an hour being lost, Sloan found the place. He pulled off the side of the road and watched the compound through his glasses.

He didn't see anything to worry about. One guard sat in a booth at the entrance. A chain link fence with barbed wire at the top ran around the parking lot. The building had windows on the bottom floor, but it looked like they didn't cover the whole lot.

He could either go through the fence, or the guard. Neither seemed sufficient to keep him out.

He decided that he could find a place and get a bolt cutter. Cutting through the fence at ground level should be all right. It didn't look electrified to him.

Sloan decided to wait and watch the place until nightfall. Maybe things would get better after the day shift went home. Some places worked on a nine to five. If this was one of them, everyone might clear out to give him space to get pass the guard and check the records inside.

Maybe he could get in if there was a night crew entering when the sun went down. That might give him some kind of hole he could use.

He thought this setup looked easier than some of the ones he had penetrated as Vinovich. After all, who wanted paper records when they could search a database in seconds?

Sloan wondered if his real name was buried in the piles of paper. It didn't matter. One name and a clue to a location was all he needed. If he didn't get that with his search, he would have to come up with a new plan.

The sun went down as he watched the building. His car sat in a lot down the road from the facility. A shift change had people milling around his car for a few minutes. Nothing happened at the Mill.

Sloan waited for the sun to vanish completely before he got out of the car. It was time to see if he could do what he wanted.

Sloan became a shadow floating from dark refuge to dark refuge. A different guard sat in the pillbox. Should he be killed, or left in place? The assassin slipped by the fresh guard while he was watching his computer.

He could kill the guy later if he had to.

Sloan avoided the cameras in the lot as he walked up to the front door. He noted the electronic lock designed to keep people like him out. How did he get around that?

He concentrated on what he had seen during the day. No one had come out of the door, or entered, as far as he could remember. Should he talk to the guard? He decided the guard wouldn't know anything. He was just there to keep people from driving into the lot by mistake.

The assassin looked at the lock. He looked up. Cameras were in place. As soon as he did something to the lock, the cameras would tell security who he was.

He grabbed the lock and pulled the face off the wiring. He quickly pulled the wires apart and spliced them back together. The door clicked open from the mild shock he had administered. He stepped inside.

Any security worth his pay would be running to the front door to talk to him. He listened. Nothing moved.

He supposed he had been expecting more of a reaction. Maybe he had been right. No one came to the place anymore. Its files were irrelevant without something to call them in modern times.

Sloan smiled. He didn't have to kill anyone if no one knew he was there. Putting the lock straight should only take a few moments. Then he had to slip pass the guard. That hadn't seemed like that big of a deal when he decided to break in. He doubted it would be that big of a deal when he left.

Sloan walked the halls. Some people worked in cubicles. None looked up to see who their visitor was. He kept moving so he didn't register as a threat to the office workers. He paused at the end of a row. One of the office people was typing in a password. He memorized the key strokes before moving on.

He found a locked cage full of file cabinets. He opened the door with a minimal effort. He opened one of the cabinets. He smiled. Files from the Stargate/M-12 era were present.

He searched for his real name. He found it after several tries. He pulled the file and looked through it. He smiled at the case reports in the folder. He lost the smile when he realized he didn't know the Doctor's real name. He closed the cabinet.

Sloan searched the file cabinets for the operation he had been assigned to when the Doctor had turned him over to the Russians. Maybe that one had the Doctor's real name. If it didn't, maybe he could check one of the computer databases.

A quick search produced the operating guidelines for Operation Inside. The agency had forwarded three operatives to conduct operations inside the Soviet Union. The names of the agents were redacted in the file. He found photos but no other identifier in the folder.

He took the photos of his group. Maybe he could use them somehow. Would one of the desk jockeys be able to help him?

He already had a password. Maybe he could sign in with the password he had seen entered on the computer. He didn't have anything to lose. If he couldn't find the connection himself, he could ask one of the file people how to find what he wanted.

Sloan slipped down to an empty cubicle. He wondered if what he was going to do would be noticed. He doubted the people present could stop him when he wanted to leave.

He typed in the handle, and password. The screen opened up for him. He concentrated on what he had seen the clerks doing. He put the arrow on the search slot. He asked for information on Operation Inside. The machine summoned the same thing he had already read in the file cabinet. He tried for the Doctor as a code name with the operation. Another file came up. He shook his head as the names of the agent and his training officer were black lines.

Sloan leaned back in his chair. That was a dead end. He noted that retired had been added at the bottom of the file. He closed his eyes. His target had quit his agency and was hidden under his real name. He could be anywhere in the world.

What did he do next? He refused to believe there was no way to get at the agent. There had to be something in his file that was useful.

He went over the file line by line. He didn't see anything that could help him. He had no idea where his former ally was. He needed to think about this.

He typed in a search for Marcel. Maybe he could find that man at least. Then he could kill one of his targets.

He smiled when Marcel's name came up. He was listed as retired also. A contact number was listed in the file.

Why was there a contact number in the file? He decided to call it. It might be nothing. It might be everything.

Sloan picked up the phone. He dialed the contact number. Where was the other end?

"Crichton Hospital," answered the call. "Press one for English. Two for Spanish."

Sloan hung up before the demand for two for Spanish was repeated in Spanish. The call meant that Marcel hung around this hospital, or was laid up in a ward. The contact might be an easy way for the remaining agents to keep track of him.

Should he visit the hospital and check on Marcel? He decided against it because of the other man's talents. He didn't want to walk into what looked like a trap for people like him.

Sloan could check if the man was there at his leisure. If he had been admitted, then he would be easy pickings. If he wasn't, clues to his real identity would have to be researched.

It was better to do that in person instead of thinking the man wouldn't know what was coming.

Marcel had a special talent for predicting how things went. There was no telling if that talent was still active. If it was, he would see glimmers to show that his old friend wanted to talk to him.

Sloan wanted to settle with the Doctor before he dealt with the operations planner.

He didn't see any way to go after the man. His identity was redacted, the only photo on file was decades old, and the agency had no way to contact the man. How did he find his enemy?

Sloan pondered his problem. Eventually the agency would know he was in America. There was an increased camera presence. One of them was bound to take his picture and alert his former employers he was back in the States.

He looked at the photo. If he could use that somehow, he could speed up his operation. Maybe a newspaper advertisement would help him. How many newspapers would he have to cover? How many false leads would he have to check out?

Maybe he could lure the Doctor into a meeting.

He pondered that idea as he sat in his borrowed chair. All he needed was copies of this picture and a way to get his message out. The Doctor would respond. He might have changed some over the years but he would not allow himself to be used.

Leaving the picture at a crime scene would spur the agencies of the United States to hunt the man for him. All he had to do was be there when the Doctor was located. Then he could exact his revenge.

7

Marcel Leadbetter found the Doctor slouching in his raincoat on an elevated train. Marcel looked the crowd over before taking a seat opposite of his friend. They hadn't seen each other in a long while, but the Doctor nodded when he saw him.

"Hello, Marcel," said the commuter. He had allowed his hair to turn into a bush on the top of his head, and wore a T-shirt with a picture of Elvis on it, and khakis. Lines bracketed his mouth as he smiled. "What brings you to the city?"

"Mark Sloan escaped from Russia some time in the last few weeks." Marcel wore his old suit of dark blue and a tie as pink as a salmon. "Heard anything about it?"

"I'm retired, Marcel." The Doctor smiled. "The agency doesn't tell retired agents what is going on in the world."

"Reynolds got a broken neck in his home." Marcel looked at the crowd. He shook his head at what he saw. "The agency thinks it was Sloan. He's looking for us."

"I have been living off the grid for a while, Marcel." The Doctor waved his hand at the train. "Mostly I walk around the city."

"If he can't find you, he will try to draw you out." Marcel coughed in his hand. "I'm expecting some collateral damage."

"How did you find me?," asked the Doctor. "I thought you had retired also."

"I'm keeping an eye on Kumich." Marcel shrugged. "I knew you wouldn't be far away. I just waited until I found a trace, and here you are."

"Kumich is on the FBI's watch list after what happened to Gambezzi," said the Doctor. "There's no reason for you to keep an eye on him."

"Don't kid a kidder." Marcel smiled. "I know you set the FBI on Gambezzi. Let's be honest about that. They still want to talk to you about your part in things."

"I will have to respectfully decline their invitation to the Federal Building." The Doctor smiled back. "I find that being free to act as I want suits me."

"That's how Sloan felt." Marcel made gesture to show he knew the difference. "You can't act as a vigilante against people you don't like."

"And I am not." The Doctor shrugged. "I have only acted as a vigilante to people I meet on the street."

"Gambezzi?" Marcel knew his friend too well to not notice the evasion.

"I did not expect Kumich to kill him to avoid being dragged into court," said the Doctor. "My original intention was for him to reform his loansharking business. That didn't go as well as I thought it would."

"I see," said Marcel. "I'm sure you acted with the best of intentions."

"Sarcasm suits you well, Marcel." The Doctor smiled. "So Sloan is free, and he is looking for me. What do you think he will do?"

"I think he will commit a crime and demand your presence at an unspecified meeting place." Marcel blinked. "We have bogies inbound at my two and three."

"They are some of Mr. Phuc's friends." The Doctor stood. "Wait here while I talk with them."

The Doctor advanced down the aisle. He said excuse me a lot as he pushed down the corridor between people. He smiled at the gang members as they reached under their jackets.

"Mr. Vinh, and Mr. Tranh," said the Doctor. "Do you really want to commit hostilities in the middle of this train car?"

"How do you know us?," said Mr. Vinh. He was the shorter of the two, compacted muscle under the gang uniform of jacket and jeans. Sunglasses covered his eyes.

"What about our brothers?," said Mr. Tranh. "You put them in the hospital."

"The police shot one man, and I assaulted the other." The Doctor spread his hands. "I am more than happy to assault you, but with Mr. Gambezzi dead, I would think you have better things to do with your time."

"The Russians have doubled up Gambezzi's contract." Mr. Vinh smiled at the eyebrow raising that caused. "They want you dead yesterday. We can do this here, or we can wait until the next station. I don't care."

The Doctor looked around at the civilians trying to get away from the action. He nodded to himself.

"I can wait until the next station if you can." He didn't go back to his seat. He stood in the aisle. Putting distance between him and his intended murderers would just make it easy for them to draw their weapons and shoot at him.

"Doctor." Marcel approached through the crowd. He leaned in close to keep his words unheard. "The police are waiting to board at the next station. They are looking for you."

"He's already put his plan in motion." The Doctor looked at the gang members. "I will go in and talk to them."

"These two?" Marcel gestured at the two hitters. "What about them?"

"What about us?," said Mr. Tranh. He advanced on the older men. They were obviously afraid of him and his partner.

"We're discussing whether we should talk to the police who are waiting at the next station for me." The Doctor frowned at him. "Do you mind?"

"You should talk to the police," corrected Marcel. "I'm not going to."

"Whether I should talk to the police who are waiting on me." He made a gesture at his old friend to say Happy?

Marcel nodded.

"We should kill you now then," said Mr. Vinh. He pulled a pistol from under his jacket. The next thing he knew he was kissing the inside of the train doors. His pistol got lost along the flight from the center of the aisle to the side.

Mr. Tranh held up his hands. The guy in the suit had him at gunpoint, and was way too calm about where he should be pointing the retrieved pistol.

The Doctor used his elbow on the back of his victim's head so he couldn't do much more than try to stay awake after what had happened to him.

"I understand you want the money from the contract, Mr. Tranh," said the Doctor. He straightened his raincoat. "I understand you want to get back at me for what happened to your comrades. Do not approach me on the train again. I will hurt you, and you will stay hurt. If you so much as risk another civilian, you will ride the rails. Savvy?"

"Ride the rails?" Tranh held his hands up to show he wasn't going to do anything.

"You get dragged behind the train until you come apart." Marcel lowered the pistol. "Sometimes you live if the connecting rope comes apart while you're being pulled along."

"Ouch," said Mr. Tranh. He made a face at the mental picture of bouncing along the train tracks behind one of the metal behemoths.

"The train is coming to a stop." The Doctor raised his head to listen. "Take Mr. Vinh and go down to the other doors. Make sure he understands he got off lightly. The next time won't be so pleasant."

"Here." Marcel emptied the pistol and handed Tranh the weapon and the magazine. He held out the bullet from the chamber alongside the rest. "He might want this back."

The gangster put the weapon in his belt, the magazine and bullet in his pocket. He dragged his comrade down the aisle. He watched the windows for anyone who looked like a policeman as the train pulled into the station. He spotted a man and a woman waiting on one side of the train. He maneuvered his friend to the other side of the train so they didn't see him dragging the sleeping shooter away from the train while they were talking to the Doc.

It was bad enough to have to explain to the rest of the Victor Charlies that his friend had been wiped by an old man. He didn't want to explain to the police why he had two guns, a sleeping friend with a bruise on his face, and people who might have heard what was said on the train about killing a guy for money. It was better to walk away at this point.

The Doctor looked out the train window. He shook his head slightly.

"I'm going to have to go, Doctor." Marcel started down to the end of the car away from where they had sent Tranh. "Good luck on whatever you plan to do to handle Sloan."

"He wants to draw me out." The Doctor smiled. "I will probably have to reveal to him where I am so I can draw him out."

Marcel walked to the end of the car. He stepped out in the section between cars and moved to the next car.

The Doctor thought about changing his habits. Too many people knew he rode the train now. He would have to do other things to fill the hours of his day. Who knew retirement would be so complicated?

He could easily duck the detectives waiting on him. He decided that he should talk to them. He needed to know what they knew before he made his next moves.

He doubted they knew everything, but there was no telling what Sloan had said in his message.

The train came to a stop. He looked down the aisle. The Vietnamese gangsters were getting off at the head of the car on the opposite side of the train than where the detectives waited in their suits. He smiled to himself. The door opened and he stepped out on the platform.

"Detectives Ennis, and Puckett." He put on a mask of calm as he let the crowd flow by. He could still escape if he wanted. "How do you do?"

"Are you beating up people again?" Detective Ennis gestured at the train. "911 was going crazy while we were coming up the stairs."

"A little difference of opinion that was sorted out." Doc put his hands in his pockets. "I assure you that there is no need for the police to be involved in this."

"We need you to come down to the station, Doc." Detective Puckett had a sour expression on her face. "No tricks, no Batman stuff. Got me?"

"I assure you that walking away is the farthest thing from my mind." Doc smiled. "What's the charge?"

"Nothing yet," said Ennis. He smiled. "We need you for bait."

"I see." Doc frowned. Sloan had already gone ahead with his plan. "I will be glad to help the city's finest in any way that I can."

"We'll get you a coffee on the way." Ennis gestured for his person of interest to start walking. "It's the least we could do before we throw you to the wolves."

"Thank you, Detective Ennis."

8

Detective Dave Ennis paused by his desk. He rubbed his chin as he looked at the gathering in his commander's office. He turned to block the Doc from view. He looked at Puckett. She frowned at the amount of suits on hand.

"Is that the Chief of Detectives?" She looked at Ennis instead of the office. "What's he doing here?"

"He's probably checking to see if you brought me in yet." Doc smiled as he sipped his coffee in the thermos cup they had gotten him. "This is a really neat device. Thank you."

"It was the only way around the no drink in the car rule," said Puckett. "Which we shouldn't have done since there are still charges against you over that stunt with Gambezzi's house."

"How is Mrs. Gambezzi and the children?," asked the Doc.

"Upset that Gambezzi talked to you and then he wound up dead." Puckett's frown deepened. "Did you kill Paul the Bull?"

"No. One of his associates did. A Mr. Kumich." Doc put the mug down on Puckett's desk. "Do not attempt to build a case against this man. He will kill you."

"You know the guy?," asked Ennis. The wheels in his head were turning with the new information.

"Yes," said Doc. "Don't think he will come along quietly. Just let things lay where they are."

"It's kind of our jobs to investigate murders," Ennis pointed out with raised eyebrows. "Even mobsters."

"Trust me when I say that Mr. Kumich will kill anyone he thinks is dangerous to his operations." Doc shook his head. "Let someone else handle this. It will be better in the long run especially since you don't have any evidence other than my word. You can imagine I am not going to be testifying against him."

"Are you afraid of this guy?," said Ennis. He shared a look with his partner. They had never seen this guy afraid of anything in their short acquaintance with the man.

"No," said Doc. "I have very few people that I actually like. I would hate to lose two of them because they wouldn't listen to good advice."

"Okay," said Ennis. "I can respect that, but handling dangerous people is our job. If you have something solid, we expect you to cough it up."

"We'll see," said the man in the raincoat. The tone was definitely noncommital and unwilling.

"Let's get back to the business at hand." Puckett looked at the office. "What are we supposed to do with all those people in the El-Tee's office?"

"Let's go in and find out what they want." Doc picked up the mug of coffee. "Then I will consider how to escape jail if charges are pressed."

He walked around the detectives, sipping coffee. He knocked on the door as Ennis and Puckett followed him. He stepped inside, nodding at the people crammed in the little space. His escorts took up a spot by the door in case they had to run.

"Lieutenant Davies, Agent Curtis, Agent Lawson, Chief Walford, Mr. Barnes, and Agent Gillespie," said the Doc. He smiled at the assemblage. "What do I owe the pleasure of this meeting?"

The federal people and the chief seemed taken aback that he knew them. Davies, and Barnes, had seen this trick before. They weren't shaken this time by it.

"Do you know this man?," asked Agent Curtis. He presented a photo of a young man with slicked back hair and a nose like an eagle's. The man glared at the camera.

"Yes," said the Doc. "It's me. I was a lot better looking back then."

"Do you know why it turned up at three different crime scenes?" Curtis put the photo away.

"Not really." Doc shrugged. "It's the picture from my personnel file. I assume that's why Agent Gillespie is here. Most of my employment was with the government."

"Do you know Joshua Reynolds?," asked Curtis. He produced a picture of a dead man with a bruise across his neck.

"He was my case officer when I was assigned to the Soviet Union." Doc sipped more coffee.

"Need to know," said Gillespie.

"They need to know, Agent Gillespie." Doc put his cup down. He didn't want to break it against someone's face if he had to escape the glass box they were in. "I was told by the operation planner that the third man escaped from Russia and is back home. I assume he left you some kind of message to locate me so he can learn where I am."

Curtis nodded. Lawson handed over a file. Doc opened it and frowned. He flipped through the pictures and reports, eyes scanning the contents in a few seconds. He paused at the message written in blood on a wall.

BRING ME THE DOCTOR OR ELSE

"Ah, Mark," he finally said before shutting the file. "You were always so dramatic."

"So you know this guy?," asked Chief Walford. "How do we stop him?"

"Mark Sloan was the third man of our operation." Doc handed the file back. "He's been trained to be invisible and unstoppable. As soon as you located me from the picture and called Agent Gillespie, he knew where I am. He's going to arrive in the city and kill whomever gets in his way while he is looking for me. The only thing the police department can do is stay out of his way."

"What makes you say that?," asked Barnes. Everyone looked at him. If Sloan was captured, he would have to arrange extradition back to the authorities of the original crimes.

"Sloan arranged for some way to plug into the federal response before he committed the murders in that file." Doc gestured at the manila folder in Lawson's hand. "That was how we were trained to work. Once the word got out that you were looking for someone called the Doctor, and you found me however you did that, depending on where he was plugged in, he knew. The only thing to be more sure is to do a press conference and hope he sees it so he will come straight here and try to kill me."

"Are you okay with that?," asked Curtis.

"Sure." Doc shrugged. "Let's do that. If you want to try to arrange a guard, pick people you don't care about. That way it won't hurt when they get killed."

"How good is this guy?," asked Davies. He held an electronic cigarette in his hand.

"Before I turned him to the Russians, he had forty confirmed enemy kills against soldiers and agents." Doc held up his hand to forestall Gillespie protesting the need to know. "The target areas were usually inside security of some kind."

"You turned him into the Russians?," said Curtis. "Can I ask why? Or is that classified too?"

"Mark Sloan liked to kill and eat children." Doc put his hands in his pockets. "The agency case officer decided that was something that could be overlooked. I and the operations planner disagreed. So we turned him in under his cover identity."

"The case officer was Reynolds," said Ennis. Everyone looked at him. "Come on. It's obvious. The guy gets out of Russian jail, comes home, who does he want to talk to the most? He wants to talk to the guy who left him in prison, maybe talk to the other people involved."

"Which he couldn't find on his own." Curtis and Lawson exchanged a look. "So he drops the picture at a crime scene and hopes we find the guy for him."

"Congratulations." Doc smiled. "Now he either waits until you have confirmed contact, or he scopes out the meeting place to get a look at me and all of you. The best thing for all involved is for you to let me walk out on my own. No one else gets hurt, no one else gets involved."

"What happens to you if we do that?," asked Davies.

"I'll work something out with Sloan." Doc shrugged. "It'll be okay."

"How many other murders will he commit if he can't find you?," asked Davies.

"As many as he wants." Doc shrugged. "He might be eating people right now."

"We're going to arrange a press conference." Davies put his e-cigarette down on his desk. "We're going to arrange a place for him to come kill you. Ennis, get a shirt and tie for him. Let's call the news people and get things started. We're going to need cooperation from the Bureau and more manpower."

"If this Mark Sloan is classified, his file will be out of reach from the Bureau." Curtis looked at Gillespie. "I expect anything we will get, it will be blacklined to be useless."

"I'll call the office and see if I can get a picture, but it will just as old as the one left at the crime scenes," said Gillespie. "Maybe we can get a picture from the Russians."

"Are you going to tell them he's an American?," asked Doc.

"I don't see how that will help things." Gillespie stood, straightening his tie with a big hand. "I expect you to keep classified things to yourself. You've violated a few laws telling these people what went on back then."

"The branch of the agency I worked in doesn't exist anymore." Doc shrugged. "I doubt you can file charges based on National Security after all this time. If you can, I will be glad to meet you in court."

"Don't tempt me," said Gillespie. "National Security can still put you in a prison until we figure out what to do with you."

The agent left the office. He pulled out his phone and started calling as he crossed the bullpen. His superiors would have to live with the revelation of an espionage effort in the former Soviet Union if they wanted to keep the rest of the operation buried.

He expected that they would sign an order to kill the Doctor to keep him quiet.

"Keep this under wraps as much as you can, Davies." Chief Walford put his cap on his head. "This is looking like a career buster if the press finds out everything we've just learned."

"They will go crazy over the city having to trade one criminal for another." Barnes shook his head. "It will look like we're striking a deal with a terrorist."

"We're going to get this guy." Davies tapped his desk. "If he is operating in the city, we will get him."

"You might send out some kind of alert to make sure parents keep their children close." Doc picked up his coffee. "If he changed targets, it won't be that effective. I imagine that the police department and the District Attorney will be raked over the coals if it came out they knew a cannibal was in operation and they didn't warn the public."

"I'll call the information office." Chief Walford headed out of the office.

Barnes left too. He glanced over his shoulder as he walked away. His last encounter with the Doc had not ended happily for him.

"We still have charges we want to bring against you." Davies pointed his electronic cigarette at Doc. "So does the Bureau. You cooperate and we'll try to make some of that go away."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Davies," said Doc. "I could not ask for anything more."

"Don't take off on your own." The Ell-Tee leaned back in his chair. "I know you, and I know how you like to do things. Not this time. I expect you to stay with whomever is assigned to you until this is over. No more cowboy crap. Got it?"

"I assure you that I will be within reach of your policemen and agents until this is over." Doc sipped his coffee. "Let's have this press conference. The faster we let Sloan know that I am waiting on him, the faster he will be here to try to kill me."

Ennis gestured for the Doc to leave the office. He followed at arm's reach. He had seen his subject move. He didn't want to be standing close if the retired agent decided to do things to get away from them.

"Stay here with Puckett." Ennis gestured at his desk. "I'll get a spare shirt and tie from my locker. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes."

"Take your time," said Doc. He waved the detective off as he sat down.

"This guy was a serial killer?," asked Puckett. She sat down at her desk. She tried to relax while she could. A guard detail was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Yes." Doc examined the desk in front of him. He noticed that everything was stacked by how much work had to be done to do some specific task. "His training allowed him to prey on anyone, but he liked to victimize children. Once I found out, I reported Sloan to Reynolds. Reynolds said he didn't care as long as Sloan could operate in country without jeopardizing the intelligence gathering we were doing. We trapped Sloan for the Russian police. Sending him to jail compromised the mission, but there are some orders I refused to consider obeying."

"How did you figure this out?," asked Puckett. There was some secret she didn't see behind everything. She could feel it tied in with the Doc's talent for knowing people who didn't know him.

"The country had more than a few reports of missing children and mutilated bodies. The scenes where the bodies were found matched where we were operating." Doc closed his eyes. "The police were going crazy trying to find the killer. It was interfering with what we were doing."

"So you connected him to these murders by the locations," said Puckett. "What did Reynolds think was going to happen if he was caught, and turned the rest of you guys in."

"Our agency was a small branch inside the Central Intelligence Agency," said Doc. "The pressure was to make it work. There was no way that they wanted to report to the brass that one of their agents had gone off the rails and was killing civilians. It was better to ignore it if the agent was still doing the rest of his job."

"I guess I can't blame you for doing what you did." Puckett would have probably shot the guy. She knew herself well enough to know that was her first thought.

"We should have put him in a grave," said the Doctor. He sipped some more of his coffee.

9

Dave Ennis didn't like the looks of the press conference. Anyone there could be the killer the Feds wanted. He also didn't like using someone as bait. He didn't mind being a target if that was the way to catch a murderer. He didn't like having someone else do it for him. It came across as a failure of responsibility.

"I'm ready for my close-up." Doc smiled. "Let's get this over with so I can get on with the rest of my day."

"You're going to be in custody until we get this guy," said Ennis. "You're our only bait."

"I assure you that you can't stop Sloan." Doc examined the crowd. "Happily he isn't here. That would lead to a practical demonstration of his skills."

"How did the Russians hold on to him for so long?," asked Puckett. She kept an eye on her side of the room. "How long was he in the stir?"

"I assume they monitored him constantly." Doc smoothed his borrowed tie down. "It's hard to escape when the guards are always in your area."

"Okay, Agent Curtis is waving at us." Ennis gestured for the Doc to step up to the podium. "Do you know what to do?"

"I will give the most provocative speech and answers to questions I can." The Doc smiled as he walked forward.

Lights from cameras lit up the speaking area. Reporters stood ready with note pads. The story would be covered by the local news and the cable stations. The hope was Sloan would see his target and head right for the city.

How the police and Bureau hoped to catch him when he did arrive in the city was anyone's guess.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Peter Chekov," said the Doc. "I have been asked to confirm I am the man in the photo left by the Butcher as he is known. I am that man. I believe that the man behind the monstrous murders is a man named Mark Sloan. He is an old acquaintance from my former work. I think old pictures of the man have been given out by the policemen in the room. Any questions?"

"What makes you think this Mark Sloan is the Brooklyn Butcher?," asked a reporter from the Conservative Report.

"Sloan was convicted of similar crimes in Russia years ago." The Doc nodded at Agent Gillespie waving at him. "He would hunt children and do things to them. The result is similar to what happened at the current crime scenes."

"Are you Russian?," asked a reporter from a small rag in the back of the room.

"Da." The Doc spoke a paragraph in Russian. "That was how I met Mr. Sloan."

The Doctor fielded another twenty minutes of questions, demonstrating a legend to show he had immigrated to the States after Sloan was captured, his current retirement, and his love for the city's train system. The Chief of Detectives gestured him out of the way to cut the conference short.

The Doc undid his tie and handed it back to Detective Ennis. He rubbed an eye as he left the room.

"That was impressive." Ennis put his tie in his jacket pocket. "I have never seen such a load of bull in my life."

"You can't expose all of the country's secrets." Doc smiled. "That would lead to trouble for you."

"I can see that." Ennis opened the door. "Now we have to put you in a safe house until we find this guy. Now that he knows where you are, he'll stop killing bystanders."

"He won't ever do that." Doc went through the door. "He will want to set up a meeting on his terms. I expect he will leave a message with the police department or the Bureau's office when he arrives in town. He will want to meet me in person somewhere out of sight of the police."

"We're not going for that." Ennis frowned. "He'll have to figure out where you are on his own. We'll arrange for an operation around the meeting area."

Doc shrugged. He pulled on his raincoat. He knew Ennis was the more stubborn one of the partners. He would never permit someone to walk into danger if he thought he could do it safer. He would just have to realize he couldn't make things safer for everybody.

Ennis jogged to get ahead of the Doc. He couldn't let their ward walk through doors ahead of him. Sloan might have been at the conference. He might be in the halls waiting for his chance to do something.

The detective was unprepared for the man in the raincoat to push Puckett on top of him. The door closed on the two of them trying to untangle themselves. He climbed to his feet and yanked the door open. He stepped out in the hall. He cursed.

"He took off." Ennis turned a circle next to the door. "We better put a BOLO out for him. I can't believe he did that."

"I can." Puckett rubbed her forehead. "He doesn't want us to get involved. We're his friends."

"If Sloan finds that out, he'll come after us too," said Ennis. "How is Sloan supposed to contact him if he jumped protective custody?"

"I don't know." Puckett straightened her jacket. "How would he arrange a drop?"

"He spoke Russian in the middle of the conference." Ennis snapped his fingers as he headed back to the conference room. "We need a tape of what he said."

"You think he told Sloan where to find him?," asked Puckett as she followed him. "Would he do that?"

"Oh, yeah." Ennis burst into the conference room. He found a local station reporter he knew. He walked over as the Chief was detailing the efforts to catch their mastermind. "Cynthia, I need a favor."

"What's going on, Dave?" Cynthia Johnson lowered her microphone so she wouldn't be speaking into it.

"I need a copy of what the Doc said while you guys were asking questions." Dave tried not to look at the Chief and Davies on the platform. "He took off."

"Seriously?," Cynthia smiled. "That's a scoop."

"You can't broadcast this." Dave made sure that the mike wasn't on him. "We need that copy so we can get him back. If the guy knows our guy is unguarded, there will be a body count."

"I want an exclusive if you catch this guy." Cynthia put the mike down. "Got me?"

"I will call you first." Dave glanced around. "I need this in a hurry."

"Harry?," asked Cynthia.

"I can get you a copy," said the cameraman. "I have a blank drive here."

He rewound the camera to the point where the Doc started speaking in Russian. He loaded that five minutes on a thumb drive and handed it over. He set the camera back to recording the conference for the station.

"Thanks," said Dave. "I will let you know when we get this guy."

"What next?," asked Puckett.

"We call Bob Garcia and get a translator who can speak Russian." Dave pulled out his phone. "Then we run our plan against Sloan and the Doc."

"You're being more optimistic than usual." Puckett held the door for him as he made the call. They started down the hall.

"These guys might think they're James Bond, but I know some things." Ennis listened to his phone. "Bob, I got an emergency request. I need someone to translate Russian, and I need it as soon as I get to the lab."

"What happens if you're right?" Puckett held the door for them as they headed for the garage.

"We figure out a way to bust them both." Ennis put his phone away. "We can't let them tear up the city."

"That's a great sentiment." Puckett led the way down to the front door. "If this Sloan is as good as the Doc says, he might be a whole different kettle of fish than what we usually pick up."

"The Russians picked him up," said Ennis. "We're better than Russians."

"The Doc helped the Russians." Puckett looked both ways before crossing the street. "He might help us if he lives through the meeting."

"I can't believe he did that." Ennis shook his fist at the sky as he crossed the street.

"Why not?," said Puckett. "He jumped off a train to make sure he couldn't be held when we took those Victor Charlies. He arranged for us to know about Stanson on the radio. He directly connected Franchetti and Scarpetta to unsolved murders so he could harass Paul Gambezzi over a coffee shop. What I can't believe is he let us pick him up off the train this morning."

"You forgot about the Russians he killed over that train hijacking." Dave pulled his car keys out and headed for his unmarked car. "It was self-defense, but throwing a man off the train is just something only the Doc would do."

"Tell me about it." Puckett went around to the other side of the car. "He knew we were waiting on him. That's why he let us take him at the station."

"Makes sense." Dave unlocked the car and got behind the wheel. "We'll chalk that up another thing we don't know about him. Let's see if we can solve this before Sloan gets away with it."

10

Ennis and Puckett walked into the sound lab. Bob Garcia was waiting on them with a man with a lot of tattoos on his visible skin. Bob smiled through his gray beard as he ushered them into the room with a big hand.

"Hi, guys," said Bob. "This is Vlad Pushkin. He's a translator for the gang squad. He was recommended by Downtown."

"Dave Ennis," said Ennis. He pointed to his partner. "Christine Puckett. We have a sample we need to have translated. We think it's Russian."

"I'm ready," said Pushkin. "It shouldn't be hard to translate."

Ennis handed Bob the disk he had gotten from Christine and her cameraman. He supposed he owed for that if it got him something he could use.

"Let me put it in the player," said Bob. He installed the disc and cut on the attached television monitor. He stepped back after pressing play.

The news conference came to life on the screen. Doc stood at the podium. He gave the reason for the news conference, breaking out in his strange speech in the middle of it.

"He said something about meeting," said Pushkin. "Play it again. I'm sure he also said eagles."

Bob rewound the footage. He pressed the button to allow the Doc to speak again.

"He is saying he wants a meeting at the house of eagles," said Pushkin. "I'm sure he is saying house of eagles. The other words are something like the time of moonlight."

"The time of moonlight?," asked Ennis. This could be the thing they needed to get back at the Doc for trying to ditch them.

"Yes," said Pushkin. "Usually when I see that, the two parties know where they are meeting because it's something they use all the time."

"How the heck would Sloan know where the house of eagles was here," said Ennis. "It has to be something similar to there."

"The time is the same thing," said Pushkin. "It has to be a time they used all the time. An outsider would not be expected to know when that was."

"They were both in Russia." Ennis rubbed his chin. "We have some time before the moon comes up. Let's see what we can find out about Russia that might point things out for us."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be much help," said Pushkin. "It's obvious your guy expects whomever he's talking at to get the message. That's why he didn't put in any specifics. He's talking in front of the world. He couldn't afford anyone trying to get in his way if they knew what he was saying."

"It's okay," said Ennis. "You've been a big help."

"Now we have to figure out where the meet is so we can catch our guy," said Dave. "See you guys later."

Ennis and Puckett headed back to their car. He climbed into the shotgun seat of the unmarked. He pulled out his phone. There had to be something about house of eagles on Google. How specific was the code phrase?

It had to be something to do with Russia. He didn't have enough information to figure out that link. The information had to be classified.

Maybe he could get something out of Gillespie. The guy must have scads of information they didn't want to tell to people like him.

The odds that he would share with his supposed allies was probably nil.

Dave pursed his lips as he closed his eyes. There had to be something there they could use. There had to be something he could do to get ahead of his problem children.

His phone beeped when its search was done. He looked down at the screen. There was a house of eagles in the city. It was an aviary in the city zoo. Birds of prey were housed in one outdoor facility. Smaller songbirds and others were in another.

"It can't be the zoo," said Ennis to himself. "That's too obvious."

"Maybe it's some kind of business, or office," said Puckett. "Maybe it's something that reminds them of Russia."

Ennis put in Eagle, Businesses, the city's name into the search engine. It spat back a list of hundreds. The top ten were all financial, law, and one self-storage place. Nothing stood out as a meeting place.

"We need to get a copy of Gillespie's files," said Ennis. "That would make this easier."

"Call Curtis," said Puckett. "He might be able to pry something loose from his fellow government agency."

"Don't have his number," said Ennis. "I do have the Ell Tee's."

He dialed Davies's private number. The lieutenant should be able to get something from the Feds. They probably would put on the outrage when they knew the Doc had decided to go it alone.

"Davies," said their commanding officer. "Go ahead."

"The Doc pulled a vanishing act," said Ennis. "He set up a meet with this Sloan guy. We need to know if there is any mention of a house of eagles in his operational files. It's the only clue we have."

"I'll call Gillespie," said Davies. "He might have something we can use."

"We have until the moon rises to find them," said Ennis. "That's the time of the meet."

"I'll call Gillespie," repeated Davies. "Hopefully he will have something."

The Ell Tee hung up.

"He's going to call Gillespie," said Ennis. "I don't think the spook will tell us anything useful."

"So what's your second choice?" asked Puckett.

"Let's head to the closet train station," said Ennis. "Unless the Doc stole a car, he has to get to his meet somehow."

"Good idea." Puckett paused at the next stop sign to get a bearing. She turned right and headed for the track on its pillars in the distance. A train barreled along in the opposite direction as she looked for signs to indicate where the nearest platform was. She saw one and pulled over and parked. She cut the engine as she studied the street.

Nothing moved as far as she could see.

"I don't like the fact if we board, we'll have to come back to get the car if the boss finds something and calls," said Puckett.

Ennis typed trains and house of eagles. It probably wouldn't produce an idea, but he didn't have anything to lose. He frowned when a picture popped up on his phone's screen.

"There is an Eagle Train depot," said Ennis. He held his phone up so Puckett could look at it. "It's about five blocks away from Central."

"It's the other way," said Puckett. She started the car and turned it around in the street. She didn't put on the light or siren. If they were going in, they wanted to have the element of surprise on their side.

If Sloan was as good as the Doc, they needed all the advantages they could get.

Ennis examined the picture. He decided that the two would be meeting away from the main doors. They would want some privacy so they could try to kill each other.

He wondered where in the building would things go down.

Ennis's phone rang. He checked the caller ID. Davies was on the line. Had he learned of a better ambush spot from Gillespie? Would he call them in?

"Hello, Boss," said Ennis. "Did you find out anything?"

"No," said Davies. "Gillespie didn't know of anything in the file mentioning eagles."

"We're heading for the Eagle Train Depot," said Ennis. "We're playing a hunch."

"I'm sending backup," said Davies. "Don't go in until they get there."

"It's just a hunch," said Ennis. "That might not be the meeting place at all. It just stood out from the other searches considering the person involved."

"A train depot would be just the place to even old scores," said Davies. "Wait for that backup."

"We'll meet SWAT at the door," said Ennis. He hung up the phone.

"We're meeting SWAT at the door?," said Puckett.

"You're meeting SWAT," said Ennis. "I'm going inside to make sure our hunch is right."

"I don't think so, Dave," said Puckett. "These two have shown they know what they're doing. It's crazy to get between them."

"I'm not thinking about getting between them, but we have to know for sure before we go in," said Ennis. "That way we can wave off SWAT and look for another location."

"We both go in, or neither one of us is going in," said Puckett. "That way when we're both dead, we don't have to stand before a board to explain why we disobeyed orders."

"It won't come to that," said Ennis. "It's hours before the moon is supposed to show."

"The Doc might be in there waiting already," said Puckett. "I have a feeling this is about settling old scores, and he regrets letting this guy live."

"The Doc said it was a three man team," said Ennis. "If he was the information gatherer, and Sloan was the assassin, where is the operation planner? You would think he would want to make sure things didn't go back to him."

"Maybe he warned the Doc we were waiting for him at the station," said Puckett. "We don't know enough about him to make a plan other than to watch out for him."

"And we have the meeting called in Russian," said Ennis. "Anybody who understood what was being said and what it meant could show up during the meeting."

"And we know the Russians wanted to collect the bounty from Gambezzi's contract." Puckett slowed the car as she looked for the train depot. She pulled to the curb. "There's your moonlight."

A sign for the Moonlight Theater hovered above the street. The current show was Waiting for Godot. The depot sat beneath it, a railroad track leading into the hangar from the oval of the main track running through the city.

"So moonlight wasn't a time, it was a confirmation of the scene," said Ennis. He got out of the car. He noted two black SUVs pulled to the curb further down the street. He noted the meager traffic as he crossed the street to get closer to the hangar.

He approached the SUVs from behind. He thought they were a little more expensive than the neighborhood warranted. You usually saw that in dealers and car nuts. He wondered which category the owners fitted in.

He walked up on the passenger side of the rear car. The window tint blocked him from looking inside. He thought about smashing the window. He decided that was for television and movie cops.

Puckett joined him on the sidewalk. Her hand held her pistol. She pointed at the inside of the car as she looked around.

"The plates come back to Freight Sail." She tried the door. It opened easily. No one was inside the car. "They have a hub here, but the company is based out of Russia."

Ennis walked up to the front car. He held up his shield to the window before opening the door. No one was inside that car either.

"Who owns Freight Sail?," Ennis asked. He pulled out his knife and stabbed the front tire on his side.

"Don't know," said Puckett. She stepped aside to let him stab the front tire on the second car. "I'd have to do a record check from the office."

"Let's just say our Russians are here," said Ennis. He pulled his own pistol after putting his knife away. "Do we wait, or do we go in?"

"We wait," said Puckett. "There's at least ten guys that can be fitted into these two cars. We don't have the firepower to take them on and make an arrest."

"We don't have the firepower to take them on if they come out here," said Ennis. "And we don't have cover. We're going to need some of that."

"So we're going in," said Puckett. She shook her head.

"First, we let SWAT know what's going on," said Ennis. He pulled out his phone as he walked toward the main gate of the fence around the depot. He stepped around the gate as he talked. Then he noted a shot guard in the guard house. He put that in the report to Dispatch as he advanced toward the hangar.

11

Sloan used the tracks to get to the hangar. It had been easy since there was a walk for mechanics to check the rails on the side of the track. He paused at the entrance to the hangar before entering.

Where was the Doctor? Where would he go? He had called the meeting. A security guard sat in his guardhouse. He didn't seem that concerned about anything not coming in from the gate. He wouldn't notice either of them from where he sat.

Sloan slipped inside the building. Train cars sat on their own rails. He noted the stages of refurbishment that was going on. No matter how many times they were fixed up and cleaned, eventually they would have to be junked. The city was trying to forestall that for as long as it could.

He blended into the shadows as he moved among the cars. Where was the Doctor? He had issued the challenge. It wasn't like him not to be there. The man defined stubbornness.

The former assassin decided that he should head up to the offices above the yard. It would give him a view of the place. And the Doctor might be waiting for him up there.

He wondered if the Doctor had armed himself. Probably not. The man hated guns, and killing. He probably thought he could do something with just his hands.

Sloan thought that was okay. He liked to use his hands as well.

He strolled through the yard, using the cars as cover. He didn't see any cameras. He supposed that the one guard was to keep people from entering from the street. He doubted anyone wanted to steal anything from the yards.

Sloan headed for a staircase to one side. It led up to the office area above everything. He checked for anyone watching him as he headed up the stairs. Maybe he had misread the words broadcasted over the television.

Maybe the Doctor had put the message out for someone else. He smiled. That would be too bad for the other person coming to the meeting.

He had the time to hunt more than one person. He already had a kitchen ready for more goats to feed his appetite. He had even splurged for a walk-in refrigerator to keep his supplies.

He drifted along the catwalk to the office. He sensed someone was there before he could get a clear view through the glass. He paused before he stepped into view.

Did he want this confrontation? What did it gain him? He could kill as many goats as he wanted now. No one could find him in this modern America. He didn't exist as far as the government was involved.

He could walk away and do whatever he wanted. No one could stop him.

Paying the Doctor back was necessary before he started his new life. He could have hunted all over the world with the Agency as his cover and shield. That had been taken away from him by his fellow agents.

Once he was done here, he would have a talk with Marcel. That should go swimmingly if he planned things right. The third man was their operations planner because of his training. He would be a hard man to pin down.

It was like he could see the future.

Sloan almost smiled when he saw the Doctor sitting in the office. He opened the door and stepped inside.

"Hello, Doctor," said Sloan. "I have been wanting to talk to you for a long time now."

"Still sore about being turned in?," said the Doc. He sipped from a plastic mug in his hand. "That was a long time ago."

"That was yesterday," said Sloan. "And yes, I am still sore about it. I'm surprised you didn't bring in the police on this. That seems to be your method of operation."

"Why would I do that?," said the Doc. He gestured with the cup. "This is between us. I wanted to put you down back then. I had a plot picked out. Marcel said it would be better if we just turned you in. It would keep the operation going, and Reynolds off his back."

"That sounds like Leadbetter." Sloan nodded. "His contact number is a hospital. What do you know about that?"

"Probably a cover," said Doc. "He's here in the city as far as I know."

"I'll catch up with him as soon as we're done talking," said Sloan. "I owe him something too."

"You won't talk to anyone else," said the Doctor. He put the mug down and stood. "That's the real reason I didn't want to involve the police. They have a set of rules where they have to bring you in. I think it will be better if you vanished in the night and no one knew where you went."

"I don't think you have the will to do something like that," said Sloan. His smile stretched into a grin. "You never killed any of the targets during the mission. I don't think you have what it takes to kill me now when your life depends on it."

"Come ahead if you think you have a chance," said the Doc. He gestured with a hand. "I'm waiting to see what you can do."

Sloan exploded forward, hands turned into killing weapons as he moved. He encountered resistance as his blows were diverted and blocked by his enemy. He gritted his teeth as he looked for an opening. His talent lit up sections of the Doctor's body to assail as he pressed his attack. He finally landed a punch to the face to drive the man away from his defensive position.

"You've lost a step," said Sloan. He hopped over the desk to get closer to his enemy.

"So have you," said Doc. He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. "Prison has dulled your ability."

"I don't think so," said Sloan. He grinned. "I think this fight has a foregone conclusion. When they find your body, it will instill fear among the civilians that I will be out there hunting them like a cat among pigeons."

"You still talk a lot, Sloan," said the Doctor. "Shall we?"

The two combatants came together. Elbows and knees were used as they tried to push each other back. Sloan went after a target, hoping to use his fingers as a spear. He found himself thrown across the room, hitting a wall with his back.

Doc sipped from his mug. He made a gesture with it to say good moves before he put it back on the desk.

He walked over to where Sloan was picking himself up from the floor. He went for a kick to the head. If he could land something that would knock the killer out, then the rest would be turning the man back over to the Russians.

A hand blocked the kick. Sloan backed away from his enemy to take a moment. He grinned. This was worth breaking out of prison.

The two men clashed again, hands and feet striking in the small space of the office. Neither man went for any of the objects littering the room to use as weapons. That wouldn't be right for this.

Finally Sloan was able to catch an arm and turn. That sent the Doctor through the window of the office. He jumped through the window to press his advantage. A kick sent him toward the rail of the cat walk. Beyond that was the trainyard below.

Sloan caught the rail and swung his body to stand on the outside of it, feet on the catwalk. He dodged a punch to the body and swung over the rail. He set himself, blocking punches and kicks trying to force him back.

A side door opened below. Men poured in. They wore black fatigues with protective vests and helmets. They carried rifles as they checked the firing lines from the door.

One of them spotted the two men fighting above them and pointed. Bullets flew across the gigantic bay. The catwalk and steps caught the projectiles. Doc and Sloan broke apart, seeking cover.

Sloan faded into the shadows. He looked around for a way down. No one hunted him. He saw electrical pipes leading down to the floor. He climbed on the railing next to the office and leaped. He caught the pipes. He started down to the floor.

Sloan dropped the last few feet to the floor of the hangar. He headed for a nearby train car. He needed the cover. Ten men wandering the floor with him was a small challenge. It should be workable if he kept moving from cover to cover.

He needed to get inside their lines where he was most effective. The rest would depend on how much he could do before he was noticed.

Sloan slid under the train car. He pulled himself along the tracks to the head of the car. Two pairs of boots were on either side of him. Evidently someone was imposing the buddy system to make it harder for him to do what he wanted to do.

He decided to take the men on his right. The rest of the group would be on the other side of the train car. That would make it harder for them to shoot at him while he went about his business.

Sloan slid out from under the car. He stood silently. He grabbed the man next to the train car by the head and neck. He pulled in opposite directions. The man went down with a series of loud snaps.

The other man turned at his partner falling. The edge of a hand struck his throat before he could complete his move. He fell to the ground, clawing at his neck. Sloan pulled his rifle from him. He used the butt end to stop the writhing.

He slid under the train car again. He shot the other two men in the legs with his stolen weapon. When they fell to where he could see them, he shot them in the head.

Time to move on.

12

Mr. Kumich had ordered a squad of his men to move against the mysterious Doc when he had seen the pronouncement on the television. The idea was to kill the man away from witnesses. The man had cost him some good contacts with the Gambezzi family. Taking him out of the equation meant making a deal with whomever replaced Gambezzi at the helm of his enterprise.

Knowing the man and his preference for trains, it had been easy to figure out where the meet was going to be. His men should be able to take care of the rest.

He had considered ten the best number, but had decided that twelve would be better. The first encounter with Doc had ended in failure for his men. He didn't want that again.

If his men didn't get the job done, they had better not come home. He didn't need losers working for him. They would be discarded and better people would be assigned the job.

There were plenty of criminal ex-soldiers floating around the underworld. You didn't have to look far for replacements.

Mr. Kumich listened to the radio chatter and didn't like what he was hearing. His entry squad had encountered two men. One of them was the Doc from the description of raincoat and bushy hair. The other man had to be the Butcher that the police wanted. The two targets had descended into the trainyard and started playing hide and seek with his forces. Except four of his men were already dead from the sound of things.

Kumich frowned at the radio. He should have sent more men to deal with this problem.

"Tell them to withdraw to the hangar doors," Kumich ordered his radio man. "They are to block escape from these two."

The radio man relayed the order. He nodded at the confirmation. He wondered at the order, but said nothing. The boss didn't like to be questioned.

Mr. Kumich waited for his men to check in. If the two targets got out of the hangar, then they would have to wait for another chance to kill them. He didn't want to wait for another chance when they were right there in his grasp.

He should have known that the Butcher would have some kind of training. His reports about the Doc indicated as much about him. He supposed that he had expected a mad dog to be more undisciplined. That had been a mistake.

"They only have four men left," said the radio man.

"Tell them to cover the front and sides of the place so the sharpshooters can take advantage if the targets try to flee from the area," said Kumich.

Either the Butcher or the Doc would have to leave the place through the openings his men were blocking. Two men expert with sniping rifles should have set up so they could shoot anything that fled the scene. One good bullet would take care of his problem.

If his men failed at that simple task, he might consider shooting them when they returned to report in person. It would be hard to kill his own men like that, but he couldn't let failure go unpunished.

Someone would have to pay the price for the failure.

"They're in position," said the radio man. "Nothing is happening."

"Tell them to wait in place until something changes," said Kumich. How long did they have before something happened?

Twelve men hadn't been enough. He should have sent more, knowing the Doctor as he did. The man had already fought off one team sent after him. He had thought that the other man would be enough of a distraction to finish the job.

He had not thought the Butcher anything more than a mad dog. It seemed he was wrong about that too.

His two mistakes had cost him some very good men. He had to save the rest if he wanted things to go his way.

"Tell them to fall back to cover," said Kumich. "They are only to engage the enemy if either man comes out of the depot. Snipers should be ready to shoot to cover the ground squad."

"An official car has arrived," said the radio man. "Two plainclothes police are looking through our vehicles."

"If they have to kill the police, so be it," said Kumich. "We will try to affix blame on another syndicate later, after this mess is sorted out."

"The order has been passed," said the radio man. "They know what to do."

Kumich leaned back in his chair. Everything depended on if the police could draw the two others out so they could be shot by his men. Naturally the police would have to go too. There could be no witnesses to what was going on at the depot.

If his men lost sight of all four, then he would shoot one of them as a lesson for the other three. That was the best way to teach a lesson.

The other three would understand the price of failure in the future and fight twice as hard not to lose again.

"The police are going inside the depot," reported the communications man. "They haven't seen our men from the looks of things."

"Its up to them on how things will turn out," said Mr. Kumich.

The radio chatter ceased as Kumich and his underling waited for news. If his men pulled off the kill shots, then everything was within the boundaries of fixable as far as he was concerned. Money could cover a multitude of sins.

If they couldn't, the targets would have to be located and dealt with once found. These two could not be allowed to roam the city. They were stirring up too much interest in the criminal day to day.

He didn't want to handle another killing. That attracted too much attention too.

He enjoyed his semi-reclusive lifestyle. He only dealt with people that had to see him face to face. Everyone else was kept at arm reach and dealt with by his lieutenant, Mischa. It made Mischa a target, but he had his own guards to protect him.

"Police are arriving," reported the radio man. "The survivors are preparing to pull out."

"Tell them to report to Thirty One," said Kumich. He grimaced at the failure of the mission. "I will want to know what they saw."

Kumich stood. He pulled his old Tokarev from his desk drawer and put it in his jacket pocket. He pulled on a peacoat. He didn't like the mission hadn't gone as planned.

"The snipers are staying in place as long as they can," said the radio man. "They are waiting for a visual on either the Doctor, or the Butcher."

The Russian mobster nodded. As long as they didn't interfere, the snipers should be undetectable from the ground. They would have to worry about police helicopters in the area. His men knew to withdraw if they were overrun by the law.

"Call me as soon as the survivors report they are away from the area," said Kumich. He walked from the office he kept for his more illicit activities. He had built it on the docks inside a space that used to be a speakeasy. There were two ways in, but only he knew of the third way out.

He used one of the hidden doors to access the parking lot next to the false freight company he used for cover. His driver waited beside his car. No one would get close enough to plant a bomb with Josef on duty. The man checked the car regularly for any sign of trouble.

Kumich walked to the back door of the car. Josef opened the door for him, then closed it when he was seated and belted in. He went around to his spot and climbed in behind the wheel.

"Take me to the Thirty One, Josef," Kumich said from the back.

"Yes, sir," said Josef. He turned the engine over and rolled away from the office and warehouse. He pulled through the gate and turned right. He drove along the industrial strip until he saw five buildings pushed together behind a fence. He rolled to a gate with a keypad on a stick next to it. He put in the code with a meaty finger to roll the gate out of the way. He rolled into the empty lot and parked behind the building.

The two men got out of the car and went to a door for trucks to use. Josef opened the door with a key that he kept hung around his neck. They went inside and went up to the management offices.

Kumich sat behind the old desk. Things had been carved in the wood, but he didn't care about old initials or catchphrases from people long dead. Josef stood by the door. If anything happened, the chauffeur had a clear view of things in the office. He had a fair to middling chance of pulling his weapon and dealing with anybody not willing to be reasonable.

Kumich wondered how long he would have to wait for news. He doubted his men would have a shootout with the police. He supposed he had a huge amount of time to fill while he waited.

The phone rang as he set up another game of solitaire with cards from his desk. He picked up the receiver. "Yes," he said.

"The men are on the way to the warehouse," said the radio man. "Mischa wants to know what he should be doing."

"Tell Mischa to gather all of our men and wait for orders," said Kumich. "Tell him to use Location One for that."

"Yes, sir," said the radio man. He hung up.

Kumich finished his game as he waited. He put the cards away when he heard almost silent steps approaching his office. He placed the Tokarev on the desk's top in case he had to use it.

Josef opened the door for the soldiers. He stepped to one side in case his boss decided to start shooting at the four men who entered the room.

"Who wants to tell me what happened at the train depot?," said Kumich. He placed his hands together as he watched the squad in front of him. He might have to make an example out of one of them.

Which one would it be?

"Sir, we deployed at the location and entered," said Nikolai Vulkoff. "We identified the two targets fighting in an office about two stories above us and maybe four times that length away. We opened fire on the targets. I lost sight of the targets after this. We split up to search the building. Single shots were fired. Then we engaged in a gunfight with one of the targets. He had obtained one of our weapons, and was using the top of one of the train cars to shoot down on us. We retreated under fire to the main doors."

Kumich closed his eyes as he considered what he had been told. They had lost six out of ten men to one man. They had lost a weapon to that same man. The Doctor had shown he was dangerous in his own way, and now this new man had proven just as dangerous.

He should have known more than ten men would be needed from the outset. He had thrown his men away against the two targets. He had to make up for that somehow.

"Report to Location One," said Kumich. "I have asked Mischa to gather as many of our men as he can. We are going to find these two men and kill them. Next time, don't miss."

The four men walked out of the office. One of them looked like he was about to breathe a sigh of relief. He waited until he was out of earshot before he did.

"We need to do a better job with this, Josef," said Kumich. He stood and put the pistol away. He walked out of the office ahead of his driver.

13

Ennis rubbed his face as he overlooked the crime scene from the catwalk above the train depot. It looked like the Doc still had Russian enemies in the city who wanted to do him in. That wasn't a surprise.

"We have video, Dave," said Puckett through the smashed window of the depot office. "Have a look at this."

Ennis walked inside the office. He disregarded the wrecked nature of the place. It told him there had been a fight. Pencils in holes pointed down so most of the bullets had come from the yard.

"What did you find, Puck?," Ennis asked. He stood behind her to watch the straightened monitor.

She ran the feed from the cameras without comment. The fight between the Doc and his old friend had moved like lightning across the office before they had taken it out on the catwalk.

Then the shooters showed up and opened up. The two agents had separated. One of the cameras picked up the Butcher killing the four men he had first encountered. He had moved through the yard while the Russians had looked for him. He shot two more before the rest filtered out to the big doors for the train cars being led on the tracks.

"How did the Doc and his friend get out of here?," asked Ennis. "What are we missing?"

"They didn't go out the big doors, or the side door," said Puckett. "The cameras don't show enough of the floor."

Ennis left the office. He looked around. How had the Butcher got down to the floor to kill the six men he had killed? He hadn't used the stairs. That was a long run through concentrated fire.

The detective frowned when he saw the conduits heading down to the ground floor. They were shielded from the gun fire by the office. Could one man climb down those pipes?

Ennis decided that one man could do it if he were trained enough and motivated enough to do it. He decided that he couldn't do it with his bare hands.

The Doc hadn't used that way. He had used some other way so he could elude the Russians. Which way had he gone, and where was he now?

Ennis doubted the Russians were going to give up after this. They had probably decided to retrench and pick up the Doc somewhere else. How would they conduct their strategy? Did they know things he didn't know?

They had figured out the outburst and what it meant faster than he had.

He walked down to the end of the catwalk. He found a ladder heading up to the roof. He looked upwards. The hatch was open. He looked back the other way. Bullet holes chased him to the ladder.

He started up the ladder. Maybe there was some kind of clue at the top of the steel rungs. He wondered if the Doc had been wounded. He didn't see any blood. Maybe the man had slipped away while the Butcher went about his work down on the floor.

Ennis climbed through the hatch and found himself on the roof of the hangar. He looked around. He didn't see any blood. He did see a footprint. He bent his knees to examine it. He smiled. It looked just like a tennis shoe print to him.

So the Doc had made it to the roof. He had gone somewhere from there. The print pointed toward the air-conditioning units above the office. The detective followed his imaginary trail slowly until he reached the edge of the roof.

How had he gotten down from there?

Ennis spotted a lightpole a few yards away. He scanned it while the wind pushed on him. Could the Doc have made the jump to the lightpole and slid down to the ground? Would he?

The detective looked around from his perch. He could imagine the Doctor had made the jump and escaped the situation. Where would he go now? Was he following the Russians? Was the Butcher?

He frowned at the implications. Maybe involving the Russians had been part of the plan. It didn't make sense on the face of it, but it could be a high risk move that the Doc would make. If the Butcher thought they were in his way, he might take steps to keep their feud between themselves.

What were the next steps he needed to take to keep things under control?

First, he had to get off the roof before he fell to the street below. Then he could think about what he had to do after that.

Ennis worked his way back to the hatch and climbed down to the catwalk. He nodded at one of the techs digging bullets out of the place. Some of them would match the weapons found on the ground. He had no doubt about that.

Puckett was still with the video. She wrote down a note in her notebook as she watched the film again.

"I think Doc used a roof access to go around the guys on the ground," Ennis said.

"They had the other exits covered from the looks of things," said Puckett. "The Butcher used a door behind the building to slip out according to this."

"The dead guys?," said Ennis.

"All Russians from the looks of things," said Puckett. "It looks like their boss is still mad about the train thing. How do you want to handle this?"

"The Doc is the key," said Ennis. "He's doing that bait thing again to see who he can draw out. It'll be like it was when Gambezzi was alive. We got to nip this in the bud."

"We could go by the company and see what they have to say about two of their cars being used in an attempted murder," said Puckett.

"They'll say the cars were stolen," said Ennis. "We need to look at the visible finances and see if there is anything that can be used to push against these guys. We can't let them keep gunning for the Doc while we're trying to find him and pick him up ourselves."

"What do you think the Butcher is going to do?," said Puckett.

"He's either going to keep trailing the Doc, unless he lost the trail," said Ennis, counting the options on his fingers. "He's going to kill someone and issue another challenge, or he is going to go after the Russians himself if he bothers to track them back to their boss."

"If he's able to keep up with the Doc, I think he will keep trailing," said Puckett. "If he can't, I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more dead Russians in the next few days."

"And he might kill someone innocent just to show he can," said Ennis. "These idiots might have messed up the only chance to bring this guy to heel."

"If the Doc could take him," said Puckett. She looked around the wrecked office. "He might not been able to do it."

"The Ell Tee is going to be here any minute," said Ennis. "How do we use what little we know to get back in the field before he shuts us down?"

"I think we should take a train ride," said Puckett. "Maybe Doc decided to do the same."

"That does seem to be his M.O.," said Ennis. "We can walk down to the next station from here."

"Let's go," said Puckett. She took a disc from the computer and bagged it. She put it in her pocket. "Maybe they're both there."

"Do you remember when we had ordinary murder cases?," said Ennis. He headed for the access staircase. "All we had to do was collect evidence and turn it in."

"Those were the days," said Puckett. She followed him down to the ground floor.

They left through the big doors, waving at the uniforms guarding the entrance. Ennis noted the lightpole he thought the Doc had used was close to the train tracks. It wouldn't have taken anything to slide down and land on the tracks to make his escape.

Why hadn't the Russians tried to stop him? He put that down in the question file. If he had crossed the roof while they were trying to deal with his old comrade, he might have been able to get down to the tracks before anyone had seen him.

Where would he have gone from there?

Riding on a train to gather his thoughts might be his next move with the interference of the Russians letting his old friend escape. How long would he ride the train before he decided on his next move? How long did they have to catch up to him?

Ennis led the way up the side of the tracks to where the trains would loop away from the hangar. A switch would keep them away until service was required on an engine or a car.

The detectives reached the station. Ennis checked his watch. He looked at the train times on the board. One was due into the station in five minutes.

"It won't be this train, but the next one," said Ennis. "According to my watch, he must have caught the b-train depending on the time factors."

"When did you get to be an expert on trains and their schedules?," asked Puckett.

"Since we started dealing with the Doc," said Ennis. "That's why I figure he took the a-train from here. They both go around the same circle, but the a-train was due in when we arrived at the depot. I feel like Doc and Sloan got out before that, and Doc would have come up here to escape. The question is did Sloan follow him, or go down to the next station and try to catch the same train later?"

"Does Sloan know that Doc likes to ride the train?," said Puckett. "He might not know."

"Good point," said Ennis.

The b-train rolled into the station. Ennis and Puckett checked the windows just in case they were wrong about the timing. No one with bushy hair sat where they could see them.

They watched the train roll out.

"If he isn't on the next one, we'll have to stop being lazy and start looking for him," said Ennis.

"Do you think he knew it was Russians that came after him?," asked Puckett.

"If he got a good look at them," said Ennis. "Would he go after them to clear the playing field is another question that bothers me."

"He might call the head boss up and give him a warning," said Puckett. "That worked so well with Gambezzi."

"Tell me about it," Ennis checked his watch. "I don't like this chasing behind everyone else. I want to get out ahead of the pack and stop this before it gets worse."

"The gang squad might know something," said Puckett. "They had their eye on the Russians before this."

"We put their boss in jail," said Ennis. "I don't see them helping us after that."

"Technically the Feds put Stanson in jail," said Puckett. "I don't remember your name coming up at all."

"Maybe they will give us some kind of lead to go on," said Ennis. "We need something."

The a-train rolled into the station. The detectives searched the windows. They saw a head of hair that resembled the one they wanted. They boarded the train and made their way to the car. The Doc waved a small greeting as they sat down.

"You want to tell us about the Russians?," asked Ennis.

"They work for Kumich," said Doc. "I assume he heard me arrange my meeting and thought it would be a good thing to interfere."

"Sloan killed the six men in the train depot?," asked Ennis.

"He took a weapon from one and used that on the others," said Doc.

"How do we stop him?," asked Ennis.

"I don't have a clue."

14

Sloan frowned as he blended in with his lookout. There were a lot of armed men moving into the building across the street from him. How did he want to approach things?

Should he go in and give them a surprise? His skills had not rusted away as much as he had first feared when he had escaped from prison. He could put down a few of the men before they could launch a counterattack.

One man against a group could be effective as long as he knew where to go and what to do. That was the essence of Sloan's training, and he remembered most of it.

Maybe he should gather information. If he knew who the chief was, he didn't have to worry so much about the rest of the Indians.

And one bullet could make the whole organization reset to figure out who was going to be the new chief.

Sloan worked his way around the three cameras he had spotted trying to keep the neighborhood under watch. He leaned against the side of the building. It was a block of brick with no windows, and few doors. He searched until he found a fire escape on the side.

The rollout ladder was high enough you couldn't reach it from the ground if you tried to jump to grab the bottom rung. Nothing was in the alley to use for a ladder.

Sloan did some calculations as he eyed the distance. He thought maybe he could grab the bottom rung with some finessing.

He stepped back to get a running start. He ran forward and up the wall next to the fire escape for a few brief seconds of defying gravity. Then he pushed from the wall and grabbed for the ladder with one hand. He caught the rung. He pulled himself up and twisted around to grab the first landing of the fire escape. He pulled himself over the railing.

Sloan made his way to the roof of the building. He had an idea what was going on inside. He just needed confirmation.

The six men he had killed at the depot spoke to themselves in Russian. Russian flowed over the radio they had used. Russian marked orders given to the four men on the ground he had not killed.

It had been nothing to follow them back to base when they had pulled out. He had just dumped the rifle so the police wouldn't stop him for questioning. And since the four men shared his problem of being armed and not wanting to be noticed, they had hidden their weapons where they could retrieve them later.

And since he knew where the weapons were too, he could retrieve them before the Russians went back to their cache.

Sloan's next obstacle was the emergency door on the roof. It was designed to only open outwards with a push from the handle. An alarm was set up to sound if it opened at all.

He examined the door. Maybe he could lever the alarm but he doubted it. Everything was on the inside and the door was made of metal. He had no way of opening the door as far as he could see.

Maybe he should try a door on the street level. It meant going through guards, but he didn't see a problem with that.

He doubted the Russians would be more effective against him than they had already shown.

Sloan went back to the fire escape. He slid down the railings, and then the ladder. He dropped to the ground. He went to the front of the building. No one seemed to have noticed his lurking around yet.

He slid along the wall to the front door of the brick cube. He checked the knob. It turned in his hand. He pushed against the door. It refused to budge.

Sloan gently knocked on the door. He waited patiently. Either someone would let him in, or they wouldn't. He decided that he needed to pick up a pick set to deal with these autolocking doors.

The door opened. A square face on a thick neck looked out. Sloan stabbed him in the eye with his knife before the guard could ask what was going on. The assassin pushed the body back inside, shoving the door out of the way with his shoulder.

Another man was on watch. He turned at the sudden violence. He had a rifle on a sling, and a pistol in a holster strapped to his leg. He paused to decide which one to go for with his hand. In that moment, Sloan crossed the room and delivered a punch to his throat. The man started choking as he fell to his knee.

Sloan retrieved his knife and cut the choking man's throat so he would stop making noise. He looked around for a hiding place. He didn't want anyone finding his two bodies anytime soon. He spotted a disused desk on one side of the room. He dragged the bodies over and dropped them behind the desk so a casual look would miss them. He took a rifle, pistol, and ammunition in case he needed them later.

He looked around the main room one more time. Nothing seemed out of place but a blood trail across the floor. There was nothing he could do about that. He needed to move on before someone came down to ask what was going on.

He walked across the open space to an elevator, and a set of steps. He took the steps up. He didn't need the ding of the elevator to announce his arrival.

It was better if he could do that with bullets if he had to use bullets in the first place.

He paused at the door. He cracked it open. A large group of men and some ladies stood in front of a screen. He smiled when he saw the Doctor's recent picture on the screen. Apparently he wasn't the Doctor's only enemy in the city.

What should he do about this?

He glared at the speaker when he recognized him. He should have known. The Doctor must have. They had tried to locate Velankoff for a long time after the sanction on Colonel Smirnovitch. And here he was ordering his army to track down the Doctor and him.

Did he want to execute the man in front of everyone? That would draw fire, and he didn't have a lot of cover he could use. He should wait until the briefing finished.

After that, a private talk would be in order.

He needed to get out of the staircase before the meeting broke up. Anyone coming his way would see him.

Sloan slipped down the stairs. He crossed the room to the front door. He paused at the autolocking door. He needed a way to keep it open. He went back to one of the men he had killed. He took the man's wallet. He pulled out several cards. He searched the desk. He found some paperclips, rubber bands, a pen, and some tape. He went to the door. He taped the cards over the tongue so it wouldn't engage and lock. He slipped outside and tested it. The door swung open easily.

He slipped down to the side of the building. All he had to do now was wait. If Velankoff showed his face, he could follow the man to his destination. If Velankoff stayed, then they could have a private talk about old times.

He couldn't wait to see the look on the man's face. The last time they had met, he had been forced to escape through a window because of bad timing. After that, the KGB officer had fled the country.

The Doctor had committed a lot of hours trying to find the man. The Agency ordered him to let it go, and go after other targets. It was somehow amusing that both men were in the same place at the same time.

He wondered if the Doctor had forgotten his target. He realized that was what had drawn the former agent to the city in the first place. He had somehow found Velankoff and was trying to do something without sanctioning the man.

Should he make things easier for the Doctor? What was his next move? He decided that talking to Velankoff might gain him some information. Then he could let circumstances write what happened after that.

The henchmen drifted out of the building. He watched them leave. He doubted they had found the two bodies he had left behind. That was a piece of luck for him.

He didn't see Velankoff. He gave stragglers five minutes. If they stayed behind when he went in, they got what he gave them.

When he was sure everyone had left, Sloan went to the front door. His trick worked and he walked inside. He crossed the room to the staircase and headed upstairs.

Where was his target?

He paused to listen before he pushed the stairwell door out of the way. His picture was on the screen now. He wondered where the man had gotten it.

Sloan realized the picture was from the fight at the train depot. Someone there must have had a camera. He didn't see one on the men he had killed. He needed to think about that.

He had to take better care to avoid having his picture floated around for the authorities to paste everywhere.

Sloan listened to the room. He heard movement behind a door he had missed the first time. He put it down to all the people standing in his way. He crossed the room silently, rifle in hand.

The door opened. Velankoff stepped out. He spotted his old enemy almost to the door to his office. He reached for his pistol, stuffed in his belt. A rifle butt stopped that. He went down in a daze.

"Hello, Captain." Sloan took the pistol and threw it across the room. "It has been so long since our last visit together. I see that you have earned a new position in the world since then."

"You," said Velankoff. "I thought you were in prison."

"I escaped." Sloan smiled. "It is a great coincidence to see you again after all these years. I thought you had retired to some tropical paradise somewhere."

"What do you want?," said Velankoff. "I know that you tried to kill me because I worked for the KGB. I no longer do that."

"You're interfering in a private feud," said Sloan. "I think I should do something about that before I get back to dealing with my old friend."

"So you are going to kill me now," said Velankoff.

"I don't see why not," said Sloan. "As soon as I am done with the Doctor, we would have had to talk anyway. The federal authorities would put men in the field to restrict my movements which would have restricted yours. Your men would be doing then what you want them to do now."

"I want to live," said Velankoff.

"I want to eat, but you are too stringy for me," said Sloan. "I think this is a good parting of the ways for us."

Sloan pulled the trigger on the rifle once. He placed it on the ground and retreated from the room. Someone would find the body eventually. Then the fun would really start.

Now he had to get back to his business and find the Doctor once more.

15

Dave Ennis's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. He didn't recognize it.

"Hello?," he said. "This is Dave. Who? Sure. He's right here."

"It's for you," said Ennis. He held out the phone to his prisoner.

"Really?," said the Doc. He took the phone and held it up to his ear. "This is the Doctor."

He listened to the caller, staring out the window of the train he rode with Ennis and Puckett. He grimaced at the news.

"Thanks, Marcel," said the Doc. He handed the phone back and grimaced at what he had learned.

"Bad news?," asked Ennis. He put his phone away.

"Sloan has killed Kumich," said the Doc. "Marcel just heard the gunshot. It looks like it's just us and Sloan now."

"He killed a gang boss?," said Puckett. "How?"

"I don't know," said the Doc. "Marcel gave me an address for the scene."

"We're not going anywhere near there," said Ennis. "We need to get you under cover, and think of a way to get Sloan."

"I already have a way," said the Doctor. "I just can't take you with me."

"What do you mean you can't take us with you?," said Ennis. "We're your protectors."

"You're just more targets for Sloan," said the Doctor. "I need you to spread the word to the Russians that Kumich is dead. That will stall them for long enough that I can come up with a plan to deal with this mess."

"How do we do that?," asked Puckett. "They won't believe us."

"I have a plan to deal with everything," said Ennis. He smiled. "The first step is a full response to the crime scene and press coverage."

"Really?," asked Puckett.

"Yes," said Ennis. "We need to give the Russians something else to do so they will stay out of our way."

"That sounds reasonable," said Puckett. "I can't believe I said that."

"Don't worry," said Ennis. "There might be a gang war, but that will be after we deal with Sloan."

"Oh, Goody," said Puckett. "Let's get started before I change my mind."

"It will be okay," said Ennis. "I guarantee you that we will not have to shoot anyone for the first part of this plan."

"That sounds good," said Puckett. "What is the first part of the plan?"

"We call Davies," said Ennis. He pulled his phone and called his boss. "Where's the body?"

Doc gave him the address Marcel gave him.

Dave called the Ell Tee. His plan had a lot of spots that didn't quite hook together in his mind, but he was sure they could make it work. A lot depended on cooperation from the Doc, and if Sloan had a tap into the communications somewhere.

"Davies," said the lieutenant. "Talk to me."

"We need a full rollout from SWAT and Forensics," said Ennis. "This is the address."

He gave the address to the Ell Tee.

"We need to have this posted on the news," said Ennis. "We need to broadcast the Kumich is dead, with a photo if you can."

"What's going on, Ennis?," said Davies.

"We got a tip that Sloan killed Kumich," said Ennis. "We need to let his guys know so we can buy time."

"Got it," said Davies. "Doc?"

"He's going to lend us a hand when you got that done," said Ennis. "I have an idea we can use to get this job done."

"Don't do anything crazy," said Davies.

"I can't promise that," said Ennis. He cut the connection. "Now we have to find some place to hold up while we wait for the news to broadcast about Kumich. Then we can do the second part of the plan."

"Sloan will be looking for us," said Doc. "He knows I won't leave while he is here."

"He can look for us all he wants," said Ennis. "What we want to do is keep ahead of him until we can lay our trap."

"So you have a plan?," said Puckett.

"A small idea," said Ennis. "We have to get off this death trap."

"It'll be another hour before we reach the station where you boarded in case you needed your patrol car," said Doc.

"We're getting off at the next train station and taking a cab," said Ennis. "Sloan might circle back and spot the car. We can pick it up later. We need to find a place we can watch the doors and a television for a bit to see if the boss is taking care of part one."

"That might cause the Russians to regroup," said Puckett. "I doubt they'll give up now that the bounty is in force."

"Hold that thought," said Doc. He stood and started to the end of the car.

"What's up?," whispered Puckett, leaning close to Ennis.

"I think he saw someone he didn't like," said Ennis. "We might need to back him up."

"Let's get this people out of the way," said Puckett.

They stood and held up their badges. He waved his hand to direct people away from whatever was going on at the other end of the car. He didn't need someone getting hurt when they were supposed to be hiding out.

Ennis shook his head. Doc stood with his hands in his coat pockets, talking to two guys wearing blue bandanas with red stripes. Nothing was loud, but the look on the gangsters' faces said they weren't liking what was being said.

Should he interfere? He did have a duty to protect his bait. He looked around. Most of the passengers were at the other end of the car, clustered around the exits. The only thing he could do was try to warn these guys off.

And then it was too late because the bandanas went for guns they had in their waistbands. Doc introduced one to a window with a shove from his hand. The other went down in a ball of agony. A foot came down on the back of his head.

The other man turned to get back in the fight. He ran into a forearm/elbow combination. Then his face slammed into a grip pole. He slumped to the ground.

"We can't take you anywhere," said Ennis.

"I regret that they wanted the money more than they wanted to see reason," said Doc. "Mr. Shoneson should know better by now."

"I bet," said Ennis.

"Leave them," said Puckett. "We need to get off the train before more goons show up. Someone's bound to get hurt."

"The station is coming up," said Doc. "We can get off there and head for the street."

"We'll have to get a ride," said Ennis. He looked around the car. "Hopefully, once Kumich's death is spread all over the city, that will take the bounty hunters off the table so we only have to worry about Sloan."

"Agreed," said Doc.

The train rolled into the station. Ennis wanted to take the two gangsters in, but settled for taking their firearms and their identification. He put the pistols in his jacket pocket before the train stopped. The trio stepped out on the train station's platform and headed for the stairs leading to the street.

"Let's see if we can hail a cab and head back to where our car is," said Puckett. "Then we can drive ourselves wherever we need to go."

"Good idea," said Ennis. "Sloan will probably go for the train now."

"He will if he talks to someone who knows my habits," said Doc. "We could trap him on the train if he got in close."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Ennis. "There's too many people in the way, too many places he could set an ambush, and escape routes we can't cover depending on how he tries to kill you. We need something better than a train for our trap."

"And you have such a place in mind?," said Doc.

"Yes, I do," said Ennis with a grin. "And we don't have to go on television to bait the trap."

"You make this sound interesting," said Doc.

"You're making it sound dangerous," said Puckett.

"I admit the plan is still half-complete in my own mind," said Ennis. He stood in front of a cab so the man had to stop. "But it has one advantage."

"What?," asked Puckett.

"We won't have to worry about anyone doing something to mess it up for us," said Ennis. He held one of the back doors open for Puckett and Doc before getting in on the passenger side. He gave an address near where they had left their car.

"Such confidence," said Puckett. "Earth to Dave. This guy is a killing machine."

"We've got our own killing machine," said Ennis. "But it won't come down to that."

"Seriously?," said Puckett.

"Seriously," said Ennis. "We're going to use Doc's original plan, but we're going to use a different way to inform our target so he won't think it's a trap."

"He'll think it's a trap," said Doc.

"And he's a killing machine," said Puckett.

"You two are worrying too much," said Ennis. "It'll be easier than falling off a log."

"Nothing is that easy," said the cab driver.

"Thanks for your two cents," said Ennis.

"You're welcome," said the driver.

Ennis closed his eyes. He saw his plan in broad strokes. A lot depended on Doc being right about Sloan monitoring communications. Once they broadcast where they were taking him, the killer would show up to even the score.

Could they close the trap on him when he did?

That part was the trickier part to do in his opinion. Davies broadcasting finding Kumich's body this early might draw questions. If they could bury that with a follow-up that their witness is in custody, awaiting trial, that might make Sloan take notice.

The problem was what could they do to stop him from killing their witness and bait.

He certainly couldn't get anybody but Davies on his side. The other brass would want Doc with five layers of security. That would certainly get somebody killed if Sloan decided he wanted to get inside and kill someone on the detail.

Ennis was okay with risking his own life, and the Doc's. He had problems with anyone else.

And there was a real risk of things backfiring and getting a bunch of cops killed. He didn't want that at all.

Everything depended on picking Sloan out and stopping him before he had a chance to do anything. And that was not going to be easy.

"Here you go," said the driver.

Ennis looked around. He didn't see their car. He looked again for the unmarked police car.

"It's a couple of blocks over," said Puckett. She got out of the taxi.

Ennis got out and looked around again. He nodded. He had been off on the address.

Doc paid the driver for the ride. The police looked at him.

"I still have my pension," he said. "It gives me some spending money."

Ennis nodded. He had grown accustomed to thinking of Doc as homeless. He shouldn't have been surprised the man had money.

The trio walked over to the unmarked police car as the cab pulled away. They inspected it, but it looked untouched. A bombing didn't seem Sloan's style. He seemed more the gunfight at close range type.

"All right," said Ennis. "Now we have to hole up until Davies is blasting Kumich is dead everywhere."

"Got a place?," asked Puckett.

"Yes, I do," said Ennis. "Plus we can stop and grab some burgers on the way and kill two birds with one stone."

"Coffee?," asked Doc.

"We can get some of that with our food," said Ennis. "I don't know how long things will take, but once it does, the second phase might not allow us a chance to eat."

"I don't think it'll take that long," said Puckett. "This Sloan works fast from the looks of things. Once we throw out our bait, we won't have to wait long."

"That's what I'm counting on," said Ennis. He started the car's engine. "He's fast and focused. He knows how to get in anywhere. And he can kill at a drop of a hat."

"I don't like this plan at all, Dave," said Puckett.

"Neither do I," said Doc.

16

Lieutenant Davies followed a SWAT team into the building at the address he had been given. He frowned at the bodies they found hidden by a table. He shook his head.

Sloan didn't mess around.

The SWAT team cleared the rooms in front of Davies. He watched in case he had to shoot at someone popping out of a room.

"It's clear, Lieutenant," said Sgt. Ditko. "You can move your people in here to secure the scene."

"Thanks, Sergeant," said Davies. He looked at the body of Kumich with a hole in his head. He wasn't going to feel bad that his city was a little safer until the next gang lord took over things.

Forensics people moved in. Pictures saved the crime scene for future references. The medical examiner came in with their assistants to move the bodies out. They handed over personal items for detectives to chase down and alert next of kin.

Davies pulled out his phone and called Curtis. The FBI might want to share some of the work on this. At the least, he could get them to issue the press release and handle the newshounds while he dug up what he could with his detectives.

"Curtis," said the Fed.

"Kumich is dead," said Davies. "We need you to inform the press."

"Sloan?," asked Curtis.

"Best guess," said Davies. "Sloan killed him because his men interfered in the fight at the train depot."

"He wants to keep things personal between them," said Curtis. "I don't like that all. He might try to go after us if he doesn't like us interfering."

"Yeah," said Davies. "That's another thing we'll have to worry about until this is done."

"I'll call the news and start spreading the word," said Curtis. "How do you want to play this?"

"Tell them that we received a tip and we are processing the scene in a joint effort," said Davies. "We need to make sure the word gets to the Russians so they'll slow down and take cover. Some of them will want to take on Sloan, or the Doctor, if they can find them. We want to discourage that."

"Got it," said Curtis. "Doc?"

"Ennis has him for the moment," said Davies. "He's supposed to call in when they go to ground."

"Got it," said Curtis.

Being out in the open and hunted by everyone in the underworld was a bad position to be in. They needed a hole to hide in until things could be settled.

"Also we will be sending you identifications for the other dead Russians we have here," said Davies. "You can handle the notifications for any family."

"I'll pass," said Curtis. "I'll call you back."

Davies looked around the crime scene. There wasn't anything he could do at the moment. He needed to check in with Ennis.

He had to make sure his two detectives were staying out of the way of the killing machine loose in the city. If they got axed, the C of D would be on his squad until he chased or reassigned most of them to other places. He wasn't going to allow that.

Davies pressed the button to call Ennis. He needed to know that his detectives were still on the loose and unhurt.

Maybe after this, the Doc would keep his head down. He had caused a lot of trouble for the city in the last year. It would be great to have him leave town after this was over.

The city had lost one major gangster. No one had been able to step into the void yet from Paul Gambezzi's death. How would things go with Kumich dead too?

The city didn't need another gang war.

"Hello, Boss," said Ennis. He sounded way too cheerful.

"We have Kumich's body," said Davies. "Where are you?"

"We have our car and are looking for some place to hide out," said Ennis. "How's things going?"

"We are working the scene," said Davies. "Curtis is handling the press. How did you know about this, Ennis?"

"One of Doc's friends called," said Ennis. "He apparently had an eye on Kumich."

"And he had your phone number?," said Davies.

Davies didn't like that. It meant another mastermind was on the field. It was another variable that could get his detectives hurt.

"I know," said Ennis. "I'm thinking it was the third man."

"The Doc's Russian team?," said Davies. That made sense. Sloan showed up after a killing spree. Why wouldn't the other man show up after that?

"Yep," said Ennis. "How long do you think it will take Curtis to dump everything on the press?"

"I don't know," said Davies. "You have some dumb scheme you want to try, don't you?"

"I wouldn't say that," said Ennis. "We're going to get some food and coffee. I'll call back when I have some place to hide."

"Keep an eye out, Ennis," said Davies. "This Sloan didn't lose a step being in prison."

"It will make it all the sweeter when we bag him," said Ennis. "I'll call you back when we know something."

"Right," said Davies. He cut the connection and put his phone away. He pulled put his e-cigarette and took a pull on it. He hoped Ennis wasn't hoping to trap the killing machine they were dealing with by using the Doc as a lure.

Sloan would kill all three of them if he got the chance.

At least Puckett was riding shotgun with Ennis. The lieutenant could count on her to slow things down when her partner tried to drag them into the deep water without looking. She wouldn't let Ennis do anything crazy if she could help it.

Davies snorted. He hoped she could keep him from doing anything crazy.

The lieutenant walked through the scene. His people were clearing the bodies, checking everything, bagging evidence where they could find it.

His phone buzzed. He answered the call. Curtis's number popped up.

"Go ahead," said Davies.

"The news has been informed," said Curtis. "It's a feeding frenzy down here."

"I imagine," said Davies. "We're still cleaning up here. I'll send over the reports when they're done. Sloan did a job on these people. He's fast."

"That goes with what the Agency guy said," said Curtis. "This guy survived for years in the Russian prison system. Who knows what he did to survive?"

"Can you put him in the loop?," asked Davies. "We're going to need an overseas connection to look into Kumich's connections."

"Right," said Curtis. "I don't know how much that will help, but maybe we can pick up some of the little fish trying to move in."

"I think some of the big fish will be visible after this," said Davies. "Turn him loose and see what he can get us. That might give us a clue to whom Sloan will kill next."

"I think the Doctor is who he wants to kill next," said Curtis. "What about your detectives?"

"Ennis checked in so they are okay for the moment," said Davies. "They are going to ground."

"Protective detail?," asked Curtis.

"Not yet," said Davies. "They don't have a safe place yet."

"I'll get a detail ready when we know something," said Curtis. "We will put up a cordon around the Doc until we get this guy in the bag."

"As soon as we know where they are, that will be the next move we need to worry about," said Davies.

"Right," said Curtis. "I'll call back if the Agency guy gives me anything we can use."

"Thanks," said Davies.

He put his phone away. Things were going better than he thought they would. He hated to see what the paperwork was going to be when this was done. A shelf in the evidence room would be taken up by this crime scene.

Davies made his way outside. Uniforms had the lot under guard. No one was getting in the scene while they were on the job.

He watched the ambulances pulled away with the bodies. How many more criminals could they bring in based on what Sloan did? The former agent had opened holes for them to attack the syndicate.

But Sloan was still going to try to kill his detectives. He couldn't allow that.

The third man had seen everything. Where had he been? He wasn't in the building. Sloan would have killed him with Kumich.

"Lieutenant?," said a tech with a tablet in his hand. "I found this on the computers with the body."

He showed Davies a picture of a man with a weathered face and short hair. The collar of a coat was visible at the bottom of the picture.

"I think this is the same man that was at the train depot earlier," said the technician. "The file seems to have been created from a phone picture."

"Make a copy, send it to the FBI to be released," said Davies. "Tell them this might be the guy we're hunting. It's up to them if they want to give it to the press."

"Will do," said the tech. He made a call as he walked away.

Curtis would probably add the picture in so more pressure could be brought to bear on their fugitive.

It would take time but they were throwing their net out. Someone would report the guy, and then it would be up to SWAT to make the arrest.

He didn't like being stuck at the scene while things were being handled by others. He wanted to get out there and look for the guy himself.

He spotted Kenner and Messacelli at the edges of the scene. They were talking to one of the SWAT guys. None of them looked happy. He walked over to ask them if they had found anything while they were goofing off.

"Hey, Boss," said Messacelli, shortened to the Mez by everyone. "We were just talking about the scene when you guys busted in."

"Do you know anything?," asked Davies.

The SWAT guy nodded and took off to avoid the expected tongue lashing. He vanished at the truck they used for transport and storage.

"Sure," said Mez.

"Anything pertinent to this?," said Davies. The words were mild but the glare was hot enough to cook turkeys at Thanksgiving.

"Sure," said Mez.

Davies raised his eyebrows at the perceived stalling.

"What Mez meant to say was this building is owned by a shell company which is owned by another one and so forth," said Kenner. "Chloe is checking it for us through one of her friends."

"Our receptionist is checking this?," said Davies.

"She has a couple of friends in the banking community," said Kenner. "So far what we have is waiting for a warrant for us to get it and confirm the paperwork. We might be at the edge of a money laundering scheme with ties overseas."

"Warrant?," asked Davies.

"It's being processed by the District Attorney's Office," said Kenner. He adjusted his glasses. "Also we've asked for warrants for everything on the premises."

"Computers?," said Davies.

"Everything," said Mez. "We're talking computers, phones, paperwork, anything that could link Kumich with the smuggling and narcotics trade. We have a bunch of detectives from other squads coming down to help us haul and sort everything. This might have started as a personal thing, but now it might be the stick everyone was looking for to arrest some Russian nogoods."

"And if any of the weapons we recovered can be linked to other crimes, we might have closed some of our open cases, and some cold cases," said Kenner.

"And the FBI?," asked Davies.

"Copies of our reports will go to them until this task force is dissolved," said Kenner.

"We can't leave our brothers and sisters out," said Mez. "Besides some of this might be Federal. They're going to be needed to press those charges."

"Is there a way to expedite all this?," said Davies. He put his e-cigarette in his mouth and puffed on it.

"Not really," said Kenner. "We're still waiting on the manpower from the other squads."

"Not to mention the warrants," said Mez. "We can't legally poke around until we get those."

"All right," said Davies. "When everything is in place, I want to know whatever you find out as soon as you find it out."

"That might take a while, Boss," said Mez.

"I don't care," said Davies. "If you have to work straight through the night, so be it."

"Straight through?," said Mez. He wasn't smiling now.

"Until the sun comes up," said Davies.

17

Ennis inspected the site of their trap. He thought it looked good. All he needed was the bait.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Dave?," said Puckett. "This is nothing but trouble."

"I think we can make this work," said Ennis. "If the Doc will be the bait for the trap, all we have to do is wait for Sloan to show up so we can take him down."

"He will probably kill the both of you first," said the Doc. He rubbed his chin with a hand. "I think it will be safer for you two if you aren't here when Sloan arrives."

"Nope," said Ennis. "This whole thing is my idea. I'm going to see it through."

"And we're kind of responsible for you," said Puckett. "We can't let you out of our sight without some kind of problem with the department. You're stuck with us."

"All right," said Doc. "When Sloan shows up, I want the two of you to at least move back a safe distance and let me do the heavy lifting. He hasn't lost his touch. He dealt with the Russians at the depot just as effectively as he had been in the old days. Two police people won't slow him down for more than a few seconds."

"We'll do what we can," said Ennis. "He's going to know it's a trap if he doesn't see some sort of presence here."

"Doesn't matter," said the Doc. "He's already going to think it's trap before he gets here and he will stake the area out. That's just standard procedure. It would be better for the two of you if he sees that you are watching from a distance so you can't interfere when he comes after me."

"What makes you think he'll leave us alone if we're at a distance?," said Puckett. "He'll take us out first because we're your watchdogs."

"She's got a good point," said Ennis. "That's why I don't want anyone else involved. They'll just get hurt."

"And they'll steal your glory," said the Doc with a smile.

"I don't need glory," said Ennis. His grin showed the lie. "I live for this stuff."

Doc and Puckett gave him almost identical looks of disbelief. Puckett shook her head.

"We make the call and let Davies know where we are, then we wait?," said Puckett. "That's not going to stop the Feds from rushing right over and getting in the way."

"I know," said Ennis. "That's why we have to send Davies a second message to tell him to keep them away. I don't think Sloan has kept up on all the technology that has passed since he was sent away. We might be able to surprise him."

"And this hotel is the place he would expect you to have a safe house," said the Doc. "Why has it been abandoned?"

"Narcotics seized it a few years ago," said Ennis. "We turned it into a safe house after that. There's enough room to keep a bunch of witnesses and their details without running across each other."

"It also allows a lot of access points for an attack," said Doc. "Sloan can come from anywhere while we're here."

"But we won't be here," said Ennis.

Ennis grinned at their expressions. He pulled out his phone. He sent a text message first. Then he pushed the contact button for Davies.

"Davies," said the Lieutenant. "Go."

"We're set up at the Glitter," said Ennis. "Let the Feds know, and we'll sit tight until you guys catch Sloan."

"Right," said Davies. "Keep an eye out, Ennis."

Dave hung up. He put his phone away as he headed for the elevator. The others followed him.

"Where is our real safehouse, Dave?," asked Puckett.

"Across the street," said Ennis. "I'm going to need your experience, Doc."

They rode the elevator down to the ground floor. Dave led the way across the empty lobby to the front door. He stepped outside. He turned in a quarter circle to his left, then to his right.

"Where would you set up to watch the building?," asked Ennis.

Doc pointed at a building across the street. It was a rental agency sharing space with an accountant and a dentist.

"Where would you set up to watch that building?," asked Ennis.

Doc examined the area. He pointed at a building down the block from the rental agency, but with enough height to watch it and the hotel.

"All right," said Ennis. "That's where we set up. Better grab some food and water. We might have a long wait ahead of us."

"Sloan won't be fooled for long," said Doc. "He'll smell a trap as soon as he doesn't see any movement in and out of the hotel."

"Luckily we have a condemned sign on the fence around the property and lights in the windows," said Ennis. "The rest will have to depend on what he expects from us after you took off the first time."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?," asked Doc.

"Never, ever," said Ennis. He smiled as he walked down the street.

"On the good side," said Puckett. "He might get killed in a few so you won't have to live with the gloating for long."

"That is a comforting thought," said Doc. "I like that very much. Thank you."

"No problem," said Puckett. "His ego just writes checks when he's right about something."

"You guys are such sore losers," said Ennis. "Don't be mad that my plan will bag us one notorious killer. All we have to do is wait for him to show up, and then we take him down."

"I think this was my plan first," said Doc. "It was a plan that would have worked if the Russians had not interfered."

"I know, but now it will work because only we three know the plan and whomever is tapped will tell the killer to walk into our trap," said Ennis. "All we have to do is keep our eyes peeled, and be ready to take him when he leaves the hotel."

"He doesn't have to leave through the front doors, Dave," said Puckett. "We need more manpower if we want to handle this guy."

"More manpower will mean getting someone killed," said Ennis. "We can act and deal with this as long as he doesn't know we're setting up to deal with him from a distance instead of letting him get close and do his thing."

"And if he does close?," asked Puckett.

"You two will die," said Doc. "Let me deal with him if we run into him face to face."

"I'm glad to let you do it," said Puckett. "He needs to go down. It doesn't matter at this point who does it."

"There's our supply depot," said Ennis. He pointed at a convenience store. "Let's get our snacks and drinks and set up. We don't know how long we have before he gets here."

"This all depends on if he is monitoring the communications net," said Puckett. "He might not have his wire in."

"He has it in," said Ennis. "I feel like I know this guy by now. He's going to come at us soon. Let's get our supplies and set up our duckblind."

"And while we are waiting, he'll be eating too," said Doc. "He's coming."

"Let's do this," said Ennis. "I want to be set up before he catches us on the street and starts shooting at us while we're trying to look for him."

He led the way into the stop and rob. They started piling food and bottled drinks on the counter. The counterman raised his eyebrows at the selections. He started running the merchandise under a scanner hooked to the register. He put things in plastic bags from behind the counter. He pushed the bags back as he filled them.

"Thirty five fifty nine," the counterman reported.

Dave handed over the money and took the change before he picked up his share of the bags. He smiled as he headed for the door. Puckett grabbed a portion of bags. She almost smiled when she noticed that Doc had grabbed up the bags with bottles of cold coffee.

Ennis led the way to the secondary building. He scanned the skyline as he moved. He hated the fact that he would be facing a guy capable of shooting at him from across the city.

He wanted a good chance to take the guy down.

The trio used a fire escape to get to the roof of the building Doc had selected to watch the lookout point Doc thought Sloan would use to scout the hotel. They selected a spot that was out of the way of any wind, sheltered by an airconditioner unit and a roof access block. Ennis had pocket binoculars he set beside his leg as leaned against the door.

"I hope he doesn't take too long," said Ennis. He opened a bottle of coffee and a small box of donuts. "I'll gain fifty pounds eating this stuff."

"Give Davies an hour, and then check in with him," said Doc. "Give him a specific room number that we should be using."

"Okay, got that," said Ennis. "That'll make him concentrate on those rooms instead of looking around for us."

"That will give us a slight edge," said Doc. "I would be happier if you two had long guns so you can keep him at long range."

"I do too," said Puckett. She picked up a bag of M&Ms and opened them. She picked out the pieces gently chewed on them.

"If worse comes to worse, I'll try to lead him away before he kills you," said Doc.

"That makes me feel better," said Puckett. She opened a bottle of water and sipped on it.

"You know I should have worked on a screen," said Ennis. He shook his head. "Camouflage would be great."

Puckett grunted at the thought. She looked around. They could use another wall for cover from the elements.

Doc smiled slightly. He pulled off his coat and turned it into a wrap. He leaned against the airconditioner. He closed his eyes and started snoring.

Ennis and Puckett shook their heads at the shadow beside them.

"I wish I could go to sleep that fast," whispered Ennis. "I should have thought about blankets myself."

"It's too late to get them," said Puckett. "We'll just have to wait Sloan out."

"I know." Ennis closed his eyes. "We can't even use our phones until daylight because the screens will light us up."

"Get some sleep, Dave," said Puckett. "I'll wake you in a few hours. Then I'll go down and get some blankets for us."

"Maybe I should go get some blankets right now," said Ennis. "We might have time."

"Move the car while you're at it," said Puckett. "Hurry up. We're exposed out here. If Sloan sees you, you're going to be in trouble."

Ennis stood. He headed down the fire escape. He rushed to the hotel, watching the roof. He did a simple check on the car before driving it off the grounds. He drove down the street and parked behind the convenience store. He grabbed supplies from the trunk and climbed back up to the roof.

He dropped behind the airconditioner. He spread out the blankets and created a small tent using the machinery and the roof access. He put the shotgun from the trunk close to where Puckett kept watch so she could shoot at anyone on the roof with a simple point and pull on the trigger.

"I didn't see anything moving when you were out," said Puckett. "We might have been lucky. If he did see you, we might have a visit sooner or later."

"Let's hope it's sooner," said Ennis. "Camping out is for the birds."

"Tell me about it," said Puckett. "Get some sleep, Dave. We're going to have to be sharp as soon as Sloan shows up."

"What do you think will happen when we do catch him?," said Ennis. He had a spare blanket to use as a wrap.

"The spooks will take him and use him as a bargaining chip with the Russians," said Puckett. "Worse case, they put him back out in the field and see how many guys he can kill for them."

"That's depressing," said Ennis. He closed his eyes. He let his mind wander, sorting through things to give them options if this plan failed.

Puckett used the binoculars to sweep the area as she counted the minutes passing.

18

Sloan sat in the safe house he had constructed from what used to be an old man's apartment. His focus was on the communications setup he had constructed from old memories and off the shelf parts.

He needed something to point to the Doctor again. He didn't want to wait for the man to slip his leash again. He wanted to take him unawares and deal with him without interference.

Running in their old Russian acquaintance had brightened his day. It also allowed the Doctor to escape into thin air.

Hopefully the authorities had gathered him into their folds so he would be easy to isolate and kill. Then Marcel would have to be tracked down.

Their security was easy enough to exploit. Once someone knew where the Doctor was, he would know shortly after.

"Curtis here," said the FBI voice.

"Ennis and Puckett have the Doc at a safehouse," said Davies. "They're keeping him there while we try to figure out what we're going to do about the rest of Kumich's people."

"All right," said Curtis. "Do you need more men?"

"No," said Davies. "The place is held over from Narcotics. No one knows we have it. We're going to keep him there until we figure out everything else."

"Right," said Curtis. "Our guys are going over Kumich's financials. He laundered a lot of money for a lot of people, as well as his other crimes. Some of it went to Gambezzi."

"We had a tip that Kumich had killed Gambezzi," said Davies. "We couldn't make it stick."

"Now you won't have to," said Curtis. "Thanks for the heads up. I'll let you know if we come up with something you can use."

"Right," said Davies.

Sloan listened to the dead air for a minute. He had a clue. He knew they would give him something. No one ever thought someone could listen in on their private talks.

All he had to do was find a hotel converted to police use from a narcotics raid. How hard could that be?

Sloan smiled. He had been away for a long time, but some things never changed. All he had to do was find the paperwork for the hotel. That meant walking into police headquarters and doing what he had to do.

He didn't have a problem with that. Taking a look around the enemy's headquarters would show him what he needed to do to evade them.

He went into the bathroom. He looked at his face in the mirror. He frowned. The police probably knew what he looked like from the Russian spying. He needed a minor disguise to help him out.

He checked the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. He frowned at the assortment of pills and bandages he found. A box of hair coloring sat by itself, unopened and unused.

Sloan took the bandages and hair color out of the holding space and put them on the sink. He closed the cabinet and examined his face in the mirror again. He didn't need to alter it a lot. He just needed enough to pass inspection from security.

He worked on his hair and face for thirty minutes before he was satisfied with the results. The last touch was a bandage on his cheek to suggest he had cut himself shaving. He pulled on a suit from the old man's closet. It was a little small, but it should be okay.

He checked himself one more time. He didn't radiate dangerous maniac to his own eyes. He put on a smile. That's the ticket. He looked up the police headquarters address and left the apartment.

Sloan drove across town in a borrowed car. The owner wouldn't miss it. He parked in public parking. Now he needed credentials to get into the building's private areas.

It was one thing to try to impersonate an officer. It was another to try without anything like a badge, or identification. He needed the badge at least.

Sloan watched for someone he could use to get into the building. He needed someone unaware of him in the car. He needed someone that looked like no one would miss them. He spotted a heavy set guy reading a paper. A badge winked on a lanyard as he walked.

The killer slid out of the car. He had to hurry if he wanted to take the guy before anyone saw him coming down the sidewalk. He made sure no one was watching them as he closed on the heavier man. His arm wrapped around the man's neck and he dragged the man behind a car. He kept up the pressure until he felt the man stop breathing.

He put the detective in the trunk of his car, took his badge and gun, closed the trunk lid. He looked around. No one seemed to have seen him. Now all he had to do was walk into the building and find a filing room. The rest would depend on if he had to shoot his way out.

Sloan put the false smile on his face as he walked into the building. He held up his badge as he walked through the lobby to the elevators. He checked the signs as he went. A filing room was on the second floor according to the one he saw. He took the stairs up.

He had arranged enough ambushes in elevators to not want to ride one if he didn't want.

Sloan stepped out on the second floor and paused to find the office he wanted. He walked down and stepped into the space provided for questers. A counter kept out people wanting to do their own searches. Two clerks sat at computers. A man with a briefcase asked the one on the left for everything to do with a case number. The other woman looked at the false detective with a sour expression.

He wanted to introduce her face to the counter top. He smiled and put on his most harmless face.

He could wait until he got what he needed before he did something she would regret.

"How can I help you?," asked the clerk. She peered at him over Ben Franklin glasses.

"I need every property seizure by Narcotics for the last fifteen years." Sloan smiled in genuine amusement at her expression. "I'm not real sure. I might need as far back as twenty."

"Really?," asked the clerk. She exchanged a look with the other woman.

"Just doing some cross checking," said Sloan. "We grabbed up this guy while we were picking up some Russian mob guys. He wants to trade what he has for leniency. I have to go through all of his haunts until we hit something. The D.A. doesn't want to give him anything if we can find it first."

"All right," said the clerk. "Let me set up the search."

She typed for a few minutes then pressed the enter button. She nodded when a list popped up.

"Let me print this off for you," said the clerk. She used the mouse attached to the computer to select and send everything to the office printer. The machine whirred as it kicked the paperwork out on the catcher. "I could have just sent the search to your e-mail."

"I like to have solid things to read," said Sloan. "Screens hurt my eyes."

"Tell me about it," said the clerk. She pulled the thick pile of paper off the catcher and handed it over. "Good luck."

"Thanks," said Sloan. He turned and headed out of the office. He retraced his steps to the main door and headed for his car. He needed to get rid of the body in the trunk and head back to his place to read his homework.

Once he was done with that, he could set up on the safehouse and see what he needed to do to get to the Doctor.

He smiled as he got behind the wheel of his car. He should get something to eat before he dumped the body. He decided to drive through somewhere and eat on his way to bury his victim. Then he could head to his own safehouse and go over his paperwork.

He couldn't wait to see the Doctor's face when they met again.

He drove until he found a desolate piece of land outside the city's boundary. He opened the trunk and dropped the dead man on the ground. He shut the lid. He grabbed the body and toted it to a set of bushes growing in a cleared space leading to trees. He dropped the body in the bushes. He walked back to his car, glancing back at the scene.

You couldn't see the body from the road. By the time anyone found it, he would be long gone.

He drove to his commandeered apartment's building and parked out of the way. He went back up to the place and sat down at his improvised work area. He went over the paperwork, marking out anything that wasn't a hotel.

He found a likely suspect with his careful searching. He needed to look it over so he could figure how to violate security.

Once he was sure that he could get in and out without problems, he would attack.

Police detectives, or SWAT, should not be that much of a problem for him. The Doctor was still just as good as he had been years ago. He was more dangerous than any policeman.

Sloan briefly wondered what the Doctor had been doing in the years since his imprisonment. How long had he worked at the agency? How many bodies had he left behind in his wake?

He put that consideration aside. He had to plan his next move. And it looked like he needed to look at the hotel he had found in the paperwork and see what he could see.

Two detectives and a retired philosophy major shouldn't be that much challenge for him.

He would have more trouble finding Marcel and dealing with him after all this time.

Sloan felt a twinge of hunger. He should have stopped somewhere. He went to the refrigerator and cut off a piece of meat from his goat and put it in the microwave. He would have to make do until he could hunt again.

Once he was done, he headed back downstairs to his car. He had to take a look at his ground.

19

Sloan drove by the hotel, circling the block to look it over. Keep Out and Condemned signs marked the fence around the property. A paper was taped to the glass door. That too was a sign that the building had been condemned.

He decided that he couldn't drive around again. He needed a place to park his car. Then he could check things out from a spot in the neighborhood. If everything looked okay, he could go in and look around.

He found a parking lot for a strip mall down the street from the hotel. He noted a convenience store on the other side of the closed property. He supposed he could get something to snack on from there if he got hungry during his watching.

He had scanned the neighborhood during his reconnaissance. He had picked out a building across from the hotel to take up a perch to watch the place for a bit.

He set a limit on how long he was going to wait. If he hadn't seen anything in an hour, he would go in and look around. He would deal with the Doctor and his bodyguards then.

If he saw movement in the hotel, he would try to figure out where it was and go in and target those rooms to accomplish his mission.

He considered the whole thing was a trap for him. It was something the Doctor would try. If it was trap, that made things easier for him as far as finding the other man and his protective detail.

The local police did not impress him with their ability to stop anyone like him. He could hunt and kill them all before they knew where he was. Bodies would cover every corner and open lot.

Taking on the police force was for when they had him cornered. As long as they didn't know where he was, he was as safe as being behind the walls of a fortress.

And he was confident he could get away from any pursuit with enough time. He had been trained to do things that no one would think of doing to carry out his goals.

He settled in and waited out his hour. He didn't see any movement. Was anybody in the safe house? He frowned. He would have to go in and make sure. He didn't like that at all.

This was looking more and more like a trap. He didn't see anyone else on the scene. Where was the police if this was a trap? Had the Doctor slipped away from them again?

Had he managed to arrange another meeting so they could settle their differences once and for all? That would be more the Doctor's speed. And he was as capable as Sloan as far as infiltrating and exfiltrating an area.

He could be waiting inside for his enemy.

Sloan saw that he had three options. One: he could leave and try to draw the Doctor out to a place of his own choosing. That would take time, and there was certainly going to be police around to try to stop them. Two: he could go in and look around. Maybe the Doctor was inside, maybe he wasn't. Three: he could wait until something happened that made sense like a shift change.

Sloan decided to go in and look around. He could pass himself off as a detective looking for his witness. If the Doctor wasn't there, he could come up with some other scheme to draw the man out.

Once he knew one way or the other, he could make a better plan.

If he was lucky, he might run into the Doctor while the man was sure he was safe. Then he could take care of his business and move on to hunting Marcel.

Marcel was ruthless. Threatening anyone other than him would be met with a cold indifference. He would have to come up with a better way to lure the planner out in the open.

Maybe the hospital would give him what he wanted. If Marcel was a resident, then he could take care of that easily enough.

Sloan descended to the street. He scanned the street before crossing to the opened gate in the fence around the hotel. He didn't see anything. He expected surveillance of some kind.

He didn't see any guards in the lobby when he opened the door. He expected something. Maybe he had guessed wrong about the hotel. He had time. He could search the place before giving up.

Sloan decided to start his search on the bottom floor. He expected to have an answer to his search in an hour at least. All he had to do was listen at the doors until he found the detectives listening to a television, or a radio.

Once he had the room pinpointed, he could go in and let them know how he felt about looking for his target. That would be enough to show the police not to get in his way.

Some of them wouldn't be stopped by his warning. That wasn't his problem. They were just goats to him. Very few people had exceeded him in dealing out death since his training. A policeman wouldn't even come close.

He didn't like the way his search was going. Nothing moved as he advanced along the ground floor. He would have to move his search upwards.

It looked like the Doctor was not there in the building.

He needed to make sure before he gave up. Once he was done with his search, he would have to think of some way of drawing the Doctor without others trying to interfere with him.

Maybe if he started killing policemen, that would be enough to draw the Doctor out.

The man was notoriously sentimental. That hadn't changed over the years.

Sloan worked his way through the building. He didn't find any evidence of habitation. The detectives must have lied to their boss. He would have to think of something else.

He started for the steps. He would reclaim his car and go back to his base camp. Finding out who was guarding the Doctor and how to find them was his new top priority.

Eliminating the Doctor's protectors would enrage the man. Finding him and killing him after that would be simple in his opinion. His fondness for the local train system would assert itself and he would be riding one of the trains within days of not finding Sloan.

The killer paused at the door to the lobby. Someone was in the building with him. He smiled. Maybe they could settle things after all.

He pushed open the door and stepped out in the lobby. He smiled when he saw the older version of his comrade standing in the middle of the lobby. The Russians wouldn't interfere this time.

"We meet again, Doctor," said Sloan. He couldn't stop the wide smile of a shark spreading across his face. "Where are your bodyguards?"

"They're breaking into your car, I suppose," said the Doctor. "You've come a long way for nothing."

"It's not nothing," said Sloan. He approached his ex-colleague. "I have wanted to kill you for a long time. You can't know how much I am glad to have this chance."

"You should be happy," said the Doctor. "You deserved worse than what you got. An easy jail sentence should have been smooth sailing for you."

"No sentence in a Russian jail is smooth sailing," said Sloan. He controlled his voice so he wasn't shouting his anger.

"Trading a Russian cell for an American cell isn't much of an improvement to my way of thinking," said the Doctor. "You could have just walked away. Vanished into thin air."

"I could never do that while you were walking around free," said Sloan. He advanced cautiously as he closed within arm's reach of his enemy.

"Too bad," said the Doctor. "Things would have been better for you if you had."

Sloan started with a jab. When that was knocked aside, he tried to turn it into an elbow to the face. His arm ran into a forearm. He smiled as he drove his enemy back. He had been getting strong in prison while the Doctor had allowed himself to waste away. He could already see the moves he needed to put together to win.

He just had to keep forcing his enemy until he pushed the man into the position he wanted so he could start landing body blows to cripple him. Then would come the finishing stroke.

They went back and forth across the lobby. The exchanges had drawn blood, but neither fighter had been hurt enough to let the blows affect them. Adrenaline dampened the effects as the fists landed with painful impacts.

Sloan went for a strangle hold after kicking the Doctor back. His bruises would have bruises in the morning. He couldn't help that. He had to kill his enemy and move on. He planned to terrorize the country for many years after this.

When he was done with his next target, Marcel Leadbetter, he might get out of the country and go somewhere he could hunt goats to his heart's contentment. That would be a better reward for his service than being locked away by his former friends.

He might send word to the agency to rub the salt in.

The Doctor threw him across the room. He stepped back to give himself some more room. He worked to keep his breathing steady as he raised his guard.

"You were never better than me, Mark," said the retiree. "And you never will be."

"I don't agree," said Sloan. He closed in, deciding to aim for the legs. Once you took out a knee, it was hard for the other man to run from you.

The Doctor closed to get inside the other man's reach. Hands began to blur as they punched-blocked-counterpunched in rapid succession. The only sound was the repetitive cloth on cloth, flesh on flesh.

Sloan forced the Doctor away with a shove. He still grinned, but his lips were bloody. A bruise and puffy skin closed one eye. He knew he would ache in a few hours after all this was done.

He swung a closed hand. Hands grabbed his arm and he reversed his standing and staggered backwards toward one of the windows. He braced himself to charge back into the fray.

The glass behind him broke with a tinkle. Then came the boom of a rifle shot. Sloan had almost turned at the sound of the glass breaking. He never heard the following crack. He fell to the floor. Blood sprayed around him.

Doc glanced at the corpse. He walked to the window. He looked up at the roof where Sloan had set up. A man in a suit looked back. Then he walked away.

Ennis and Puckett stood out in the street with their guns drawn. Police cars were arriving to block off the exits from the property.

The Doctor stepped outside. He heard Ennis's phone ringing and held out his hand. The detective handed it over.

"Hello, Marcel," said the Doc. "Good shooting."

"Enjoy your retirement, John," said Marcel. "I'm going to enjoy mine."

"When?," said the Doctor.

"Excuse me," said Marcel.

"When are you going to enjoy your retirement?," said the Doctor.

"When I take it," said Marcel. He ended the call.

The Doctor gave Ennis his phone. He straightened his coat. He looked at the blood on it. He shook his head.

"What was that about?," asked Ennis. He put the phone away.

"A goodbye from an old friend," said the Doctor. "I have to go. You'll be heroes for this."

"Heroes for what?," asked Puckett.

"While we thought we were setting up a trap to capture a dangerous cannibal, my old friend Marcel was using us as a cover to lure Sloan out so he could deal with him," said the Doctor. "I expect a governmental hush will come down to tell the department and the FBI to cover things up and report that two heroic detectives killed the dangerous fiend in a shootout."

"And if we don't want to do that?," said Ennis.

"I expect you will be disowned as bad cops and put out on the street," said the Doctor. "I think you might not want to rock the boat on this, Detective Ennis."

The Doctor walked toward the opened gate and vanished into the city beyond.