

Decidedly Not Official

Kathryn Judson

Copyright 2015 Kathryn Judson

Minor corrections January 30, 2016

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Also available in trade paperback.

This is a work of fiction. Characters and agencies do not represent real people or real agencies.

Central characters in this book have been featured in the MI5 1/2 series: Not Exactly Dead, Not Exactly Innocent, and Not Exactly Allies. Several of the Idaho characters in this book were introduced in Not Exactly Innocent. Harold MacAvoy was also in Trouble Pug.

# Chapter One

## The first calamity

Emma Hugh – to the annoyance of her husband – was learning to juggle. It was not that she was endangering the pricey knickknacks of which he had recently become enamored (she was a practical lady and prudently put breakable things elsewhere when she decided to start tossing balls wildly about). It was not that the situation looked so hopeless in the early rounds that it looked like she was wasting time and energy, nor that she was looking foolish in a way that might damage the family name. No. The annoyance, to his embarrassment and chagrin, was because her persistence had paid off and she was now becoming rather a good juggler.

He was world class at sleight of hand (and equally disciplined about deciding who knew about that talent). But he could not quite seem to get the knack of juggling. He'd been practicing behind Emma's back and, to his mind, was only getting worse instead of better.

He knew Emma wouldn't hold it against him that he couldn't juggle. But he had planned, or at least half planned, to become very, very good at juggling and surprise her by nonchalantly stepping forward one day for a surprise duet worthy of her talents. However, that dream was dust as long as he was horrible at juggling.

He wondered, for roughly the thousandth time, whether men who married young had less difficulty living with a talented wife than a man such as himself who'd planned on being a lifelong bachelor and had only surrendered to the lures of holy matrimony in solid middle age. After all, men such as himself had practice, as it were, in not planning surprise duets – and that during their most formative years.

"Dare I ask what you're thinking?" Emma asked.

"Probably not."

"Fair enough. Did I tell you I talked with Rebecca?"

"Hurley? Combs? Peterson?"

"MacAvoy."

"How many ladies named Rebecca do we know, anyway?"

"Ladies, three. Females but not ladies, something like five at last count."

Balls suffered a mid-air collision and scattered. Emma laughed and went after them, refusing to let a persistent limp get in the way of the fun. Richard smiled, caught up in her laughter and girlish scooting about; childish behavior that was somehow delightful in a woman every bit as old as he was, considering it was Emma.

"Catch," Emma called from the far corner of the room. She sent a ball to him. And then another. "Toss them back at me as we go," she said.

"Oh, no you don't," he said.

"Chicken."

"Hardly."

"Toss."

After a few rough passes and a careful realignment of distance between the two of them, they managed to get a pretty good routine going. Emma grinned _._ "I thought you'd been practicing."

" _Moi?_ " he said, with mock shock. All the same, he redoubled his concentration. It was amazing. With Emma to play with, this juggling business seemed easier. Also more fun.

"At a guess, you've changed thoughts," Emma said, after a few more passes.

"If we wish to be precise, I'm retracting a thought I had a second or two ago."

"Any of my business?"

"Absolutely," Richard said, gathering the balls as they came to him and refusing to toss them back. He put them on a table and walked to her. "A few mere seconds ago I was thinking how girlish you looked chasing after stray balls. Now, if you don't mind me saying so, I think you'd best not juggle with men other than my humble self. I hadn't any idea how incredibly sexy it is to juggle with a woman."

"Really?"

He scooped her into his arms and purred at her. "It was getting to be more than I could handle, at any rate."

"A likely story, but I like the hugging and purring." She hugged him tight.

"That's not a purr. That's a manly soft growl," he protested. He maneuvered for a kiss.

There was knocking at the door in a sequence formerly used by the agency for which they both worked. Outdated sequences being more worrisome than no sequence at all, Richard and Emma dove for weapons and Richard shoved her behind the couch before he checked the security cam. The security cam showed a young lady from the secret labs, holding a sleeping baby and looking beat up and distraught. Richard hesitated, wondering what she'd meant by using a retired signal. Usually it was a warning of some sort, an explanation that the agency person was acting under duress and only pretending to cooperate with an enemy.

The young lady slumped against the door, then shoved away and started away down the hall.

"It's Felicity Findlater with her baby. Cover my back," Richard said. He opened the door and dashed down the hall.

When he caught up with Felicity, she seemed to have trouble recognizing him. Once recognition gleamed, she wearily handed him the baby. "I'm so sorry. I know I shouldn't have come to your flat. But we were on the bus and it blew up and other stuff blew up and there's a gas cloud or something and I can't find Michael. Please watch Ellie for me. Please."

She moved off. Richard took a cautious sniff then grabbed her.

"I have to go. I can't find Michael," she said, trying to pull free.

"You'll do him no good without a good shower and scrub down first and a biohazards suit second, at a guess," he said. He tightened his grip and hauled for all he was worth.

Felicity's eyes widened. "Oh, no. If I've brought–"

"Not a word. I won't have it."

A neighbor came out of his flat. Richard told him, "There's been a gas attack of some sort. Back inside and tape windows."

The neighbor hesitated. "What's London coming to?" he asked, his mind seizing on the wrong thing during an emergency, as civilians are too often wont to do.

"Can you take on the task of notifying everyone in the building? I have a first aid case on my hands," Richard asked, in a way that wasn't asking.

The neighbor took in Felicity and Ellie and stepped back. "Is that baby dead!?" he yelped.

"Gas attack, you idiot! Move! There isn't time to spare," Richard barked as he got Felicity and the too-limp child to the door of his own apartment.

"Right! Count on me! I'll call management," the neighbor said, diving for the safety of his own environs, finally lively instead of dazed. The door slammed behind him, which Richard filed semi-consciously as the mark of a juvenile masquerading as an adult. Subconsciously, to emphasis the difference between himself and the other man, Richard shut his door quickly, decisively, but quietly.

-

Emma quickly got testing devices, washcloths, baking soda, and more sophisticated antidotes pulled out. She grabbed the baby with gloved hands and ran a sniffing device over her. Getting the readout, she quietly told Richard the name of the nasty stuff.

He grabbed syringes out of their at-home spy kit. He hesitated. "How much does one give a baby?" he asked.

"A wee bit while one does research," Emma said.

"Right," he said.

"At a guess," Emma said.

Richard froze. He gritted his teeth, administered a dose of antidote to Felicity, and turned again to the baby. He froze again, the thought that he might kill the child with an overdose flooding his mind.

"Get Felicity in the shower and scrub, lots of suds," Emma said, taking the syringe out of his hand.

Richard started to protest that he wasn't the person for that job, but whatever it was standing in front of him, no matter how much it externally resembled his beloved wife, it was not an entity to be argued with; this was without question the Emma of legend, infamously and coldly trained by the Americans. If the entity said to go scrub, it was dangerous not to. Besides, Felicity, his good and dear and loyal friend of several years – a woman who had saved his life a time or two – was standing there with blisters breaking out on her body. A thorough wash down was decidedly in order, and fast. He pulled a befuddled Felicity to the bathroom. To appease his sense of propriety, he tried washing her with her clothes on. But the thought that he was likely rubbing contaminated clothing against damaged skin overcame that squeamishness.

To his relief, his training suddenly manifested itself, and with the shift in mindset there was nothing personal about the proceedings: just necessity being acknowledged and met. Felicity didn't seem to quite understand what was happening, which was worrisome and a relief at the same time: worrisome because Felicity was ordinarily the sort of lady who didn't miss anything, and a relief because he didn't want her to understand he was dealing with her naked, even platonically and medically. It was outside the parameters, to say the least.

Richard heard running water from the kitchen and assumed that Ellie was getting a bath in the kitchen sink.

The sound of sirens, muffled drastically by the very good walls and tight windows, made themselves known. Another relief. He was trying to not feel responsible for the entire neighborhood, but it was impossible, really. He had the training, the experience, a couple extra syringes of antidote–

Antidote.

He hadn't given himself any. He presumed he was coming into contact with nasty stuff as it washed off Felicity.

Emma! How had he not thought to give her a jab? She would be getting what was coming off Ellie.

Although, she had thought to wear gloves, he reminded himself. Smart woman.

It was no good. Having thought of Emma, it was easy enough to think he'd washed the worst bit off and could take a small intermission, as it were, in Felicity's scrub-down. He propped her neatly in a corner of the shower stall and promised to come right back.

He ran to the kitchen. Emma smiled and held up a syringe. "Did you give yourself a shot?" she asked.

"No, but you first."

"Already gave myself one, and doubled Ellie's dose after calling the office. They've got a team en route. Ellie's breathing properly again, by the way, and her pulse is fine."

Richard felt himself crumpling.

"Steady," Emma said. She gave him a shot, and handed him the baby. "Don't faint with relief just yet. She needs you a while more. Keep running water over her. I'll finish with Felicity." With that she left.

Richard looked at the innocent, blistered child in his arms, and declared war on whoever had done this to her.

# Chapter Two

## The second calamity

Chief Stolemaker braced himself before entering his office. He knew Richard Hugh was in there, alone, waiting for him. The chief expected this conversation to be a hard one.

"He's grumpy," Darlene Dourlein, the chief's secretary said, issuing a helpful warning.

Stolemaker's face betrayed that this wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Perhaps I should rephrase that," Darlene said. "Our Mr. Hugh does not allow himself to become grumpy, of course. All the same, he's amazingly testy and unhappy for who he is. I don't know why."

The chief marveled that the man could catch wind of bad news that was so tightly restricted. It made the situation all that much worse.

"Chief? Are you all right?" Darlene asked.

"I'd rather go jump off a bridge than do this," he said.

"You're perhaps telling me more than I want to know," Darlene said. She made her voice light, but the chief caught the extra dampness in her eyes. He set his jaw and walked into his office.

Richard was scribbling on a note pad. Even from across the room, Stolemaker could see that he was making some sort of numbered list.

"Hello, Triple-O Five," Stolemaker said.

Richard looked up. "I'm not so sure you should be calling me that," he said.

"Well, for a few minutes yet it's perfectly all right," the chief said, in what Richard let pass over him like a bad joke that didn't deserve to be acknowledged.

The chief bit his lip, unhappy about his choice of words. It wasn't what he should have said at all, he decided. Not then. Not like that. Rats. They were not off to a good start.

Richard waved his list in the air. "I sniffed," he said, deep disapproval written in his voice.

"Excuse me, what did you say?"

"This, Chief, is a list of things I did wrong when Mrs. Findlater showed up at my doorstep. It's a ruddy wonder anybody survived. One of my biggest blunders was that right after she told me there was a gas cloud or something, I sniffed to see if I could smell gas. I've been trained in gas. I've been in war zones. I've been up against gas. The one thing you never do is to take in a nose-load to see if you can smell anything. And then I didn't wash her off correctly. It's a wonder she has any skin left. And–"

"Everyone survived. Get used to it."

"But I'd really rather that it was due to something other than dumb luck or a miracle. I mishandled the situation badly."

"Shame on you. It was serious and you shouldn't have fallen down like that. On the other side of that, I'm glad you want to learn from your mistakes. You're a good man. Now shut up," Stolemaker said.

Richard set his list down, pulled himself upright and focused his attention. "Sorry. Didn't mean to waste time. What's up?"

Stolemaker's prepared speech failed him. He sat silently, trying to craft a different way of saying what he had to say.

"Chief? Has there been another attack?"

"No. Well, not of that sort."

Richard got to his feet. "Emma? You have bad news about–"

"This isn't about your wife. Well, it is, in a way, but not anything like you'd be worried about. Sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Please sit."

"Don't leave me twisting."

"Nobody died. Nobody close to you has been physically maimed or captured that I know about. There haven't been any political assassinations or mass bombings in the last thirty minutes that I know about. Please sit. I already want to go kill myself. Don't make this worse."

Richard sat. "I'm due any reprimand you've got coming to me," he said.

"Shut up. It's not that. It's my unpleasant duty to tell you that our agency is being scaled back, and I've been ordered to make everyone with more than twenty years of service redundant."

Richard digested the news quietly.

"I'll have to make other cuts as well," the chief said. "But the other cuts are somewhat discretionary. I've had it explained to me in no uncertain terms that I have no leeway on the over-twenty-years crowd."

Richard whistled low. "Two things spring to mind. One is that I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. And, two, the UK's lucky you structured that hiring push the way you did, stressing picking up people with experience outside of spying so we didn't flood the agency with the barely weaned. Being a mature rookie is slightly more helpful than being a twenty-something one."

"I could do without your helpful understanding," Stolemaker said, but with a wan smile of appreciation.

"How soon?" Richard asked.

"As soon as each person can be rotated off whatever jobs they're on."

"And those of us on semi-holiday? Between assignments?"

The chief shifted his eyes to the wall.

"Not a problem," Richard said. "I've always been good at turning on a dime, if I do say so myself. How about my cover office?"

"BAAM will be closed within the month. In the meantime, you're to be off handling a family emergency. Sorry."

"It was getting too widely suspected of being something other than simply an investment firm. To be honest, we've likely held on to it too long already, purely out of sentimental reasons." Richard shifted slightly in his chair. "BAAM's employees?"

"Terrific severance packages. Also, most will get job offers dangled at them seemingly out of the blue."

Richard nodded his appreciation. It was the best he could hope for. He shifted slightly in his chair again. "The clients won't lose their shirts?"

"Not if they jump through the proper hoops that we've set up."

"We?"

"Close enough," the chief said loyally.

"I suppose that all too much of this whole mess was handed to you as a fait accompli and there's no sense screaming about it, even the parts you'd never have authorized had they asked," Richard said.

"I am sorry, Hugh. I haven't any idea why they couldn't let you wrap it up since you built it. Or, for that matter, let you keep it, and take it into a strictly civilian sphere of operation, since it's doing so well – if that was at all of any interest to you. If it's any consolation, they said it wasn't personal, it was just standard procedure to not place agents in positions where they might be tempted to do a bit of sabotage on their way out the door."

"I'd never harm the clients, nor the employees, nor my country, and I'm not into petty personal reprisals."

"I know that. I think they know that. I think they're just looking at having a massive and brutal cut-off of personnel, all of whom expected to be on the job a while yet. So they've built in safeguards to extend the probabilities that the agency will survive, and also to increase the possibilities that the people who survive the cut don't have to put up with too much demoralizing wailing and rending of clothing."

"Careful there, Mr. Stolemaker. I'm not too sure the higher-ups would like to hear just that choice of language or that carefully half-hidden tone of sarcasm," Richard said, in a tone that was taunting on top, but had admiration running under the surface.

Stolemaker fought down a blush. He looked Richard in the eye. "I'm letting Emma go, too. She hasn't been with us for twenty years, but she's been in the business longer than the rest of us, with all those years she had as an American agent. She deserves a chance to go wherever you go."

"She might not see it that way," Richard said.

"She'll have to accept it. I got wind of what they had in store for her, and I won't have it."

"She wouldn't like to know you're playing white knight and protecting her, I don't think."

"They want to hand her over to the psychologists and neurologists, etc. – some fancy, interdisciplinary team of experts. They want to study the effect of her training on her brain. They want to expose her to staged situations and map physical responses."

"Over my dead body," Richard said.

"That's two of us," Stolemaker said. "Should I tell her why I've come to this decision?"

"No."

"I'm not sure I should have told you."

"It didn't hurt. Perhaps I needed a reminder that this isn't exactly the agency I joined in my idealistic youth."

"I haven't decided if I'm resigning after all this is done. I'm not sure I can deal with this new mindset."

"Don't make the decision before you have the facts. You might be the thumb needed in the leaking dike, and all that rot. One other thing?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not sure I'd have the guts to do someone else's hatchet job. But I'm glad someone dared look me in the eye when they shoved me out the door. I'm not happy, but at least I don't have to feel like my country's gone cowardly. Gone to the idiots, maybe, with a wholesale sloughing off of irreplaceable experience. But at least I know we're not totally in the hands of cowards."

"I don't know whether to damn you or say thanks."

"We're even. But I've never stooped to killing the messenger yet."

"May I ask you something?"

"Always. That won't change."

"When I came in here, you said to not call you Triple-O Five. I thought you'd caught wind of the impending cuts. Now I don't think you did?"

"You blindsided me good and proper, when it comes to that."

"So why didn't you want to be called by your code name?"

"I didn't think I deserved it. Not with all the stupid mistakes I seem to be making lately. I wanted to ask you if you thought I was getting too old and creaky for this gig."

"I hate to see you going out feeling down about your service. You're still one of the best in the business."

"That's a scary thought," Richard said. He smiled, though. "I hate long goodbyes," he said abruptly. "How do we do this? Here are my keys. What else?" He stood up and reached for his holster.

"Keep your 1911. I've labeled it redundant and outmoded," Stolemaker said. "Not that it is, of course. But on paper it looks that way easily enough. Keep the holster, too, since it's tailor made for the gun and you."

"Taking our little victories where we can find them, are we?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Stolemaker said, his face plainly showing that he knew all too well what Richard was talking about. He hadn't been able to save his agents' jobs, but he'd done what he could. Finding a way for an agent to keep his favorite gun might not seem like much to the upper echelons, but at the field level it counted for a lot.

They stared at each other. Both knew the ordered action was lunatic. Each assumed there was nothing he could do about it. Words seemed inadequate, or likely to make the situation somehow worse. Silence also seemed inadequate. The situation was awkward, no two ways about it.

Richard cast his eyes around the chief's office, trying to transform familiarity into memory. He'd often been in situations where he thought it unlikely he'd make it back. This was different. This was knowing he'd never be back, but would be alive to know he had, at some level, been thrown into exile. This was being booted from a job well done, the latest gaffes aside. It wasn't betrayal, per se, and he recognized that frankly. But it was hard enough to take, whatever it was. He fought for some word, phrase, or category to fit – to solidly and intelligently define – the present situation, and failed. Whether the English language was lacking, or his own wit faltering, he wasn't sure, and wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He shifted his focus, trying to point it outward instead of at his own grief, which was mounting as the news sank in.

"I presume Dourlein knows the old guard will be leaving," Richard said. For as long as he could remember, through nearly all the chiefs Richard had served under, Darlene Dourlein had been in the front office, gatekeeper and anchor for his world.

"Not yet," Stolemaker said.

"I feel I should jot her a note or something, for you to hand to her after the beans are spilled. Although I'm hanged what I'd say. We're the oldest survivors around here, you know, she and I." A thought hit him. "Chief, tell me this directive only means field agents."

"All employees with more than twenty years of service, sadly enough."

Richard blinked. MI5½ was almost unimaginable without Darlene. Or some of the experts in analysis. Or lab personnel. Or...

He sat ungracefully down, weak in the knees. "I'm sorry, Chief. I hadn't understood what you were talking about. Losing all the most experienced field agents was bad enough to contemplate. This is a calamity. If I were you I'd likely go jump off a bridge or something."

"Don't think I haven't considered it."

Richard fixed him with a hard stare. "Don't."

Stolemaker shrugged.

"Promise me you won't," Richard said, quite serious.

"I hardly think I'm the suicidal type."

"Your word's good. Give it to me," Richard said.

"Like it's any of your business," Stolemaker said, testily.

"I don't let my chiefs hedge like that, you know," Richard said. "And until I walk out that door, I consider you my chief." Richard hit the intercom button. "Hey, Gorgeous, we need you in here, as soon as feasible," he said, not even bothering to find out if Darlene was alone in the outer office. What did it matter if some stray visitor, if there was one, overheard that summons?

Stolemaker made a half-hearted stab at the button to send his own message canceling Richard's, but didn't seem to have the strength for it. Darlene stuck her head in, slightly confused about being paged by Richard Hugh when the chief was in the room – but only slightly, since Richard had a reputation for being a smart aleck around chiefs (this is not to mention that he was the only person on the planet who got away with calling her "Gorgeous"). To put things on the proper footing she looked at Stolemaker and addressed him.

"Chief?"

"I'm not sure you should be calling me that," he said, without meaning to, and only because at the moment he didn't feel properly in charge of anything or anybody.

Since having a chief to look out for beat pondering the helplessness of his own situation, Richard happily took charge. "Dourlein, kindly secure what you need to secure out there. We need to have a talk," he said.

"I've already locked the door and set up the perimeter alarm, on the off chance you knew what you were talking about," Darlene said. She blushed. "Sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

Stolemaker laughed. But then he broke a letter tray on his desk.

Darlene had seen chiefs go through pretty much every sort of stress-related reaction known to man. She hadn't seen Stolemaker lose his cool like this before, but every man had his moments, in her book. It rather depended on what or who had been obliterated recently, usually. She rather feared another mass bombing in London that she hadn't heard about yet. Stolemaker had developed a particular antipathy toward murders-for-effect in London. She said nothing, and tried to project patience.

Stolemaker saw her carefully controlled face and felt sorry for her and rather ashamed of himself. "I seem to be scaring people all round, for all the wrong reasons today, Mrs. Dourlein. I'm sorry. If you're worried about attacks upon civilians or someone killing our agents off again, please don't. It's not that at all. Please, have a seat. Our friend Hugh here may have gone about it the wrong way, but I suspect he's come to the right idea. Perhaps it's best to get things out in the open, at least amongst the people to be most affected."

Darlene sat.

Stolemaker tried to speak. The words wouldn't come.

"Shall I?" Richard asked.

Stolemaker angrily cut him off with a shake of his head. Richard bit back a grin.

"You're a rat sometimes, do you know that?" Stolemaker said. "Pretending you'd butt in when you know you wouldn't have."

Richard shrugged. "You never know," he said.

Stolemaker looked at Darlene. "I've seen him pump backbone into other men with that same trick. I've seen Leandre Durand spur him to action with a similar trick. Sneaky devils, the both of them."

"So I've heard," Darlene said. She was more relaxed now. That the men could give each other a bad time was a good sign, she thought.

"Coffees all round," Stolemaker declared, getting to his feet to make clear that he'd get them. "There's no sense not being civilized under uncivilized circumstances." He went to the coffee maker in the back of the room and made himself busy.

Darlene turned to Richard. "We've both been axed, haven't we?" she said.

"Us, and everybody else with more than twenty years of service. Plus a few others. Perhaps a lot of others. The poor chap's had his department decimated by over-logical spoilt brats who think national security just magically somehow happens. Well, I'm guessing at the character study, obviously."

"I've been wondering. There have been signs of it coming."

"Well, yes there have been. But I stubbornly refused to pay attention. Seemed disloyal, somehow."

Darlene bit back a smile.

"All right. I didn't see it coming at all," Richard conceded.

"I'm an idiot," Stolemaker said, walking toward them with two brim-full coffee cups.

"Not by half, in my experience," Richard said.

"Oh, yes I am. I should know better than to turn my back on you two, for one thing," Stolemaker said. "And for another, I've drastically overfilled the coffee. Careful, now. Let's not add lap burns to our woes, shall we?" He carefully handed off the drinks, went back for his own, and then sat on his desk, facing them.

Darlene smiled at him.

"What did I do now?" he asked.

"I heard that one of the sticking points on whether to hire you was because at your previous job you liked to sit on your desk instead of behind it when you talked with people. The higher-ups weren't sure it was proper agency attitude, you know."

"Darn," said Richard. "If I'd known that, I could have used the procedure a time or two, just to bother people who needed to be bothered."

"I didn't know that," Stolemaker said. "I knew I was told I couldn't do it anymore, but no one told me that they'd considered it of enough importance to possibly scuttle the hiring."

"Dr. Orchard was quite bent out of shape over it, if I heard right," Darlene said.

"Dr. Orchard was a lunatic," Stolemaker said.

"No argument there," Richard said. "But we're skating awfully close to being ungrateful, juvenile, whatever-it-is-we're-almost-being ourselves. Aren't we?"

"Could I have a plain English translation of that?" Stolemaker asked.

"I'm feeling snarky enough as it is. Kindly don't feed the ill will. I'm apt to do or say something truly regrettable, the mood I'm in, given the least encouragement. End of translation," Richard said.

"Good point," Stolemaker said. "If we're assigned a sinking ship, the least we can do is stand up straight and sing 'Hail, Britannica' I guess." He braced himself with a deep breath and went to sit in the chair behind his desk. "Mrs. Dourlein, as you may or may not have been able to pick up from our idiotic ramblings, I've been ordered to downsize the department, but haven't been given much leeway in who I keep and who I let go. Everybody with twenty years or more of service is cut, and that's just the start of it."

"That means me, of course," Richard said. "And Emma's being cut, too, for different reasons. So, Mrs. Dourlein, you know where we live and I hope you know we'd love to see or hear from you from time to time." He got up, prepared to make a dignified but speedy exit if the chief would allow it.

"One question before you go, Mr. Hugh," Darlene said. "You're trained in finance. Am I better off quitting or waiting to be dismissed? Assuming I have the chance to quit before somebody makes it official, of course. And assuming I could quit without harming the department too much during its transition."

"I'd have to have the figures," Richard said.

"I'm an idiot," Stolemaker said.

"If you're fishing for another bit of reassurance, I should warn you I'm running dry," Richard said. "I'm starting to feel sick about all this, and it's sucking my guts out, if you want to know the truth."

"As long as we're trading unpleasant truths, the reason I'm an idiot is that it didn't occur to me to flesh out whether it did make sense for people to resign. That option just never presented itself to my mind."

"Why should it, given that you were shown a guillotine instead of the prospect of a trial?" Richard said.

"You sometimes have an unfortunate way of cutting to the car chase," Stolemaker said.

"So, sack me," Richard said.

Stolemaker tried to fire up some outrage, but couldn't since Richard had recovered his equilibrium and was smiling down at him.

"Mrs. Dourlein, if you'd let me have a couple of words alone with the chief?" Richard said.

Getting a nod from the chief, Darlene went back to the outer office. Stolemaker stood up so he was on an even level with Richard, who showed no signs of agreeing to sit back down, now that he was fully resigned to, and resolved on, leaving the agency.

"You'll want to explore what's best for Mrs. Dourlein and the others, of course. But for myself I'll take being sacked, regardless of the money," Richard said.

"Officially, it's not that. Officially it's early retirement. A reward, you know, for long years of invaluable service."

"Whatever. I'd prefer to know that I was kicked out. A matter of pride, you know. I was going to stand my post until I died or reached the limit."

"You've reached the limit, that's all."

"Yes, well, what I wanted to say is that Emma and I can afford to be proud. We've been lucky in the money department. Not that I'd like to be cheated out of anything that's coming to me – or that I'll stand for that, because I won't – but we don't need you to try to weasel us a few more pounds per annum. I'd rather have the satisfaction of a clean break."

"That's about all I can offer at the moment, I'm afraid."

"Did you ever promise you'd not kill yourself?"

"Hang it, I'm too angry to back off long enough to kill myself."

"That still sounds a bit hedgy. I'll never forgive myself – or you – if you kill yourself after you settle down and aren't as angry."

Stolemaker studied the wall. "Fair enough. I promise to never commit suicide," he said, quietly.

"I suppose I'd be pushing my luck if I demanded that you ate at least three servings of fresh vegetables a day?" Richard said.

"You would," Stolemaker said, his eyes sparkling behind a glistening of tears. "For what it's worth, I chose to tell you about the cuts first because I figured you'd... because... Oh, rot. Thanks for not being..."

Richard put a finger to his lips. "Shhhh. It's not over. The career may be. But I'd like for you to feel free to come say howdy once in a while, so let's not drag this out, shall we?" He took Stolemaker's hand and shook it. " _Hasta la vista_ ," he said. He sharply turned on his heels and walked out of the office, with the measured manly grace for which he was known, dignity in every inch of his bearing, but with not a whiff of haughtiness or conceit. It was a neat trick, especially under the circumstances.

Stolemaker stalled, to give Richard time to say goodbye to Darlene, and then stuck his head out into the outer office. "Has he always used Americanisms when he's being cute?" he asked.

"Only since he fell in love with Mrs. Hugh," she said.

"I need to buy you lunch," Stolemaker said.

"I'd love to," she said.

"You're not obligated," he said.

"Give me five minutes, or however long it takes to make sure Triple-O Three has what he needs in Jamaica."

"Whatever it takes. I'm flexible."

"It's a relief, really. Knowing it's really happening."

"Is it?"

The phone rang. Darlene held a perfectly normal conversation, with no trace of strain in her voice. She gave out no hints of impending doom. It was clear that she intended to be a pro right down to the wire.

Stolemaker felt his competitive streak kick in. He was not going to be outclassed on the outward march by Richard Hugh or by his secretary, even if his secretary was the incomparable Darlene Dourlein.

-

Richard took a long stroll around London. Now and then he hopped a bus or went in the Tube, to give his feet a rest and also to soak in more faces with more leisure. He studied people out of the corner of his eye, as he'd learned to do much better than the average citizen, and he mentally patted himself on the back for not making people nervous while he studied them.

He hadn't quite realized how much he'd felt responsible for, before this. He'd been an operative more than twenty years, after all – it was more like thirty, now that he stopped to count, that he'd devoted his life to crown and country and the concept of maintaining civilization. Except for the unfortunate flights of fancy inherent to being a rookie, he doubted he'd ever looked at total strangers and considered them his reason for being. But to look at them and know that their safety was suddenly no longer his job was a jolt.

"Let go," he told himself. "Let it go."

When someone caught him accidentally muttering "let it go" under his breath instead of silently, he decided it was time to go home.

Even going home had an oddness about it. Somehow, to walk through the door was, this time, to cross the threshold from one world to another.

He hated that he felt that way. He would have much preferred to be totally rational and logical about the whole affair. But there it was. It was impossible not to feel the universe had developed new borders, and he'd somehow been shipped from one side to another.

-

Emma took the news surprisingly well.

"I guess that frees us to do what we want to do?" she asked.

"But I don't want to take cruises and visit castles and other pensioner stuff," Richard groused.

"Who said anything about cruises and castles? I said free to do what we want to do."

He looked at her suspiciously.

"For a man who has spent his lifetime saving his country by using his very creative brain, you seem to be having trouble thinking outside the box at the moment," she said.

He looked at her warily.

"Isn't there someone you want to track down, or investigate, or something?" she said. "Something you'd like to infiltrate? Unfinished business?"

"I did not hear you say that," Richard said, carefully, gently, nervously.

Emma changed the subject.

The next day she had Felicity Findlater and Ellie over for dinner.

Ellie was surprisingly chipper and serene for a baby with slightly compromised lungs and the remains of a bad rash. Felicity was surprisingly together for a woman whose baby was sick, whose older children were off with an aunt who was scatterbrained, and whose beloved husband was still hospitalized. "He thinks it's a cosmic joke that he survived multiple tours of duty in the Middle East without a scratch and then got blasted here," she said. She didn't think it was any sort of joke, cosmic or otherwise, but she accepted that military men sometimes have a gallows humor that probably served a good end, so she took his awful jesting with a shrug.

Richard swelled with pride that the famous British trait of bearing up well in a crisis was showing itself in the younger generation.

He vowed he'd use his newfound liberty to good end, somehow. No sense leaving all the lifting on the shoulders of the young – not that he was old, really. Besides, there was that war he'd declared on whoever had damaged Ellie just because the poor innocent lived in the UK – more to the point, in his beloved England, historically the best place on Earth, if not quite all-shining at the moment.

That night, in bed, Richard said, "I think I've married a very dangerous woman."

"How's that?" Emma asked.

"Like inviting Felicity and the baby was just out of the goodness of your heart?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Emma teased.

"Uh huh," Richard said. "Tell me what your plan is, will you? I suppose you have something lined up already?"

# Chapter Three

## A convergence of trouble

Richard drank in the mingled smells of juniper and sagebrush, overlaid with a hint of pines from higher up.

He'd never planned to come back to the American West, but here he was, riding on the shirttails of his wife's citizenship, and seriously considering living in a small town for the first time in his life.

His relatives thought him cracked, of course, but that hardly mattered, except in a roundabout way. In England he was surrounded by relatives, none of whom knew what he'd really done for a living, and precious few of whom who could entirely put away their qualms about him marrying a foreigner, much less a very intelligent, forthright, and outspoken one.

When they'd heard that his precious investment firm had sold for a tidy sum, the wrong ones got cozy for the wrong reasons, and the good ones were strangely awkward, not quite sure how to handle his early retirement and presumably-astronomical rise in wealth.

The corner of his mouth flicked sideways and up as he thought about it. Kith and kin hadn't the least idea how wealthy he was. He'd lived more modestly than it had looked, and had invested wisely, and had several good savings accounts, and a good pension. Emma had lived even more frugally, living primarily off per diems and banking the rest, even before they'd met. Even with her habit of tithing, and her American-style tendency to send money to good causes and disaster relief efforts at the drop of a hat, she'd built up a tidy nest egg. She also had pension money rolling in, a small amount from the British for her short term of service there, and a surprisingly good amount coming in from an American agency. It wasn't the agency for which she'd worked, precisely, but a near cousin of same, one the Americans acknowledged openly, and could issue checks from without fuss.

As much to the point, perhaps, was that Emma didn't care if they were wealthy. "It's putting your trust in the wrong things," she said. Better yet, she meant it. They both of them knew how to live on next to nothing, happily. Not that he planned to live low. Not in the least. But it warmed his heart to know his wife loved him separately from his wealth, didn't love money for its own sake, and was utterly uninterested in status symbols. She liked to have money to use, but that was different. She was compassionate and unselfish in her ideas of how to use it. He hadn't thought to look for that kind of wife. For that matter, before he'd met Emma, it hadn't occurred to him that it was possible to find such a woman, much less find one of an appropriate age and education level, and single, and cheerful.

"A ha'pence for yur thoughts, guvnor," she lilted, from beside him, in an intentionally bad cinema version of a British accent.

"It seems so unlikely a place."

"Precisely the reason for setting up around here," she said in her normal voice.

"I like it. The landscape. The smells. The sounds."

"I didn't know if I should ask."

"I'm adaptable."

"I know."

"I wonder how many tons of smog I've processed in these lungs of mine, living in the city?"

"Methinks he doth say too much, perhaps?"

He shrugged. He was happy, he realized, simply that Emma was beside him. He wasn't sure the rest of it mattered, although, when it came to that, he did like it out here. He wasn't quite sure if he should tell her how much he didn't care about where they were as long as they were together. It seemed bad luck, or tempting fate, and they'd had their share of bad luck already in the relatively few years they'd known each other. (Only, he reminded himself, in Emma's presence he must never ascribe something to bad luck, or good luck either. It offended her sense of God and providence.)

A car crested the hill to the left of them. They shifted their attention to it as it wended its way into the isolated, narrow valley via the dusty one-lane dirt road. Emma gave off the aura of someone expecting a visitor.

"Emma, are you expecting someone?"

"I'm not supposed to say," she said, with a wink to show that she'd never have told him that much, if she wasn't sure of being forgiven by whomever was approaching.

Or, more precisely, by whomever was supposed to be approaching. She didn't seem sure yet that it was who she wanted. Despite her relaxed appearance, she had her hand where it could go to her gun quickly. She hadn't carried a gun in England, and Richard wasn't quite used to her having one, even though she was obviously well trained in its use.

He resisted the urge to pat his trusty 1911 Colt .45 to reassure himself of its presence, and turned to decipher who was behind the windscreen – correction, wind _shield_ , he told himself – of the approaching vehicle.

The car made three abrupt slowings, and then came on.

Richard laughed, sure now of what had been only a hunch before. "He's making fun of us, if you don't know," he said. "The first assignment we were on together, my chief ordered us to use that oh-so-not-subtle maneuver to identify ourselves to other agents. His chief matched the insanity by requiring his agents to wear a certain type of shirt so he could recognize them in a crowd. Or, I should say, by trying to make his agents wear a certain type of shirt. Somehow, the supply chain got gummed up. I'm sure I don't know how."

"And how did you and your fellows mutiny without mutinying?"

"I'm not sure I remember."

"Have it your way."

"Our feet kept slipping off the brake, unless we missed the pedal altogether. Dreadfully clumsy of us."

The car pulled to a stop at a seemly distance. A dapper, balding man of about 60 got out, wearing well-built, well-cut, workaday khakis, and a chambray shirt, the long sleeves rolled up to accommodate the growing heat of the afternoon. A person could be excused for thinking he was the sort of man to mow his own lawn (he had no lawn) or wash his own car (he had given up on car ownership, torching of cars having become too common where he lived). He had the sort of posture and stride that indicated he liked taking care of things himself, and disliked the idea of going to seed. He retrieved a cowboy hat from the back seat – not a Hollywood version, but the sort you could buy at a ranching supply store if you were shopping for a useful and economical hat that would last a while – and plunked it on his head as if he always wore such a hat (and never mind that he had almost never worn one outside of his trips to those parts of America where such hats were common enough to not draw stares, and never mind that he rarely wore any sort of hat whatsoever).

Richard bit back a grin. His friend did have his fun with costumes. Whether he was dressing to fit in, or defiantly dressing to shun local fads and fashion, he did have his fun with costumes. Except, of course, when he stood on his dignity and refused to have anything to do with costumes, and simply dressed normally for him. The man did have his whims, for better and for worse.

"We are too late, have you heard?" Leandre Durand said, once he was up to the Hughs.

Behind him, another car crested the hill.

"Do you often have people tailing you?" Emma asked, referencing a subject that neither gentleman would have broached if they could help it, it being the sort of thing that conjured up very bad mutual memories. Not that she shouldn't have told the men there was another car coming, but Richard wished that she'd worded it differently.

Durand turned to see what she was talking about. He frowned. "I have brought you trouble, perhaps," he said. But he stood calmly as he said it.

"No offense, Durand, but you're sending mixed messages," Richard said, as he unobtrusively stepped between Emma and the approaching vehicle, while refreshing his memory on the readily available cover within easy sprinting distance.

"If you are afraid it is some of your terrorists, I am assured that a remarkable little sleeper cell has been quietly rounded up just last night, including your suspect of the London gas attack," Durand said. "That is what I was leading up to, just now, with saying that we are too late. Except perhaps for the testimony you might provide in the highly unlikely case that you will be called upon to testify, I am not sure what else we might do for Ellie and the others."

"That's good news, in its way," Richard said. "But who do you suspect to be in this car?"

"Overgrown atheist hippies, who claim to be lawyers. That signifies nothing, of course. These days, most pseudo-liberals in America claim to be lawyers."

"A discouraging number of them are, as it happens," Emma said. "What is the cause du jour of this invading party, do you know?"

"Grazing rights, or rather the abolition of same. I made the mistake of enjoying a steak in front of them while at a restaurant for lunch. When they took it upon themselves to sneer at me, I claimed to be a cattle king of sorts, enjoying the fruits of my labor. It was a preposterous statement that I made, of course. But they seem to have no sense of proportion, and so did not understand that I was joking. When I tried to point out that no one could possibly own a billion head of cattle, they thought I was backing down, which they mistook for fear. I thought I finally had them set to rights, but who knows with such Pavlovians?"

"Pavlovians?"

"That is right, is it not? For people who react instead of think? Like Pavlov's dogs?"

"It works for me," Emma said. She took a look around. "Hikers moving in, three o'clock from the car," she said.

Richard, who had better eyesight than Emma at a distance, followed her gaze. "With guns," he said. "Rifles, to be precise."

"Do they look like normal people, or vegetarians of the 'kill the meat eaters' variety?" Emma asked, only half joking.

"Not standard anarchists decked out for television cameras, if that's what you mean," Richard said.

"'Possible friend or presumptive foe?' is what I mean," she said, to be clear.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Richard said. "But at this distance, strangely enough, they appear vaguely Russian."

"Ah, well, apparently the universe will have its jokes on us today, and not let us have only two sources of worry at once. There is a third group, more people on foot, coming down the hill behind you," Durand said, having done his own scanning. "At a guess, they are of Mexican ancestry, if not Mexican citizenship. They have long guns with large clips. They do not appear to be Uzis, if you are concerned about makes and models."

"I can't say that I am at the moment, but thanks anyway," Emma said.

To Richard, her voice betrayed that she was still willing to pretend to be a lifelong civilian, but only just. She was, in short, quite prepared to meet deadly force with deadly force, should violence erupt. Or, was she? He recalled with a worried twinge that she'd been studying church history, and was increasingly impressed with how the early Christian church had uniformly forbidden violence, regardless of circumstances. It didn't look like she was thinking of taking that attitude to heart just at the moment, but it seemed at least possible.

Richard took in the unlikely conglomerate of unexpected visitors, none appearing to be friendly. He tried to tell himself that a trap that closes slowly as you watch is intrinsically better than a trap that catches you by surprise, but at the moment it was a hard sell.

"We're in the middle of nowhere, for crying out loud," he muttered, as he straightened up and prepared to be charming. What else, he wondered, could he do under the circumstances, but play the lost but cheerful urbanite hoping for someone to point him back to civilization?

"I would say we are in the middle of a convergence instead of the middle of nowhere, but perhaps it is just that I do not know your incomparable language as well as yourself," Durand said. "But if you are, by any chance, planning to be the naïve lost tourist who finds all armed natives to be merely quaint, I will back you up as far as we can push it. With these odds, and given the infelicitous lay of the land, I am quite happy to play the dunce."

"Likewise," Emma said. "Depending on what we actually wind up being up against, of course."

"If that fails, I can admit to being a location scout for the movies. That works surprisingly well, regardless of culture. Usually, at any rate," Durand said, before he remembered that he and Richard had been using that cover, or one like it, when Richard had been forced to shoot a woman dead. Richard, being gallant and civilized, had not borne the situation well.

Richard, cued in by Durand's sudden regret, remembered the bad movie scout situation and winced. But a glance at Emma, and a feeling that she was in danger, brought him around again. Nearly. (He was sure he used to be able to recover faster, when he was young. And single. Marriage was wonderful, but it undoubtedly rearranged a man's mind and redirected his thinking.)

"Ah, well, those people in the car, they appear to be my crazed vegetarians. Allow me first shot at them, if you please," Durand said.

The vegetarians drove up too fast and stopped too close, and proved, upon exiting their overpriced car with belligerence written into every movement and expression, to be three scraggly specimens with the earmarks of long years of drug use etched into their taut faces and eyes. Durand sighed. In the restaurant's dim light, and perhaps subdued into their best behavior by the presence of surveillance cameras and crowds of witnesses, they had not looked quite so beholden to chemicals.

" _Bon apré-midi_ ," he said, wishing them a cheerful good afternoon in his native French. "I hope you have come, like ourselves, to enjoy the incomparable scenery of this charming valley." He smiled, and waved his arm to lure them into taking in the calm beauty of their surroundings.

"[Deleted] you!" one of the intruders said.

"I'll thank you not to use language like that in front of my wife," Richard said.

"[Deleted] you, too," the second said, employing something worse.

"We're lawyers," the third activist said, as if that cut off all possible excuses for complaint or dissent of any fashion.

After a half glance at each other to see if they were on the same page, Richard and Durand deftly decked all three men, happy for the excuse to get rid of the difficulties coming at them from one front.

Durand headed for his car and the Hughs to theirs, hoping to avoid being the subjects of an assault should the people approaching on foot prove to be as territorial as their body language suggested.

"Leaving so soon, are you?" a man said, with a foreign accent that was probably Siberian, as he stepped between the Hughs and their car, a half dozen strong men backing him up. "Before we have had the opportunity to thank you? Whoever you are?"

Richard tried not to look as surprised as he felt. His vaguely Russian hikers were, indeed, Russian, it seemed – out here, in the middle of nowhere, in a country where they didn't belong. He wondered where the rest of their party had gone. As if to answer the unspoken question, the leader cocked his head. Richard looked where indicated. Quite nonchalantly (obnoxiously nonchalantly), several men were stationed up the road, on the road itself, blocking the only drivable route out of the valley. The leader must have had them jog ahead, through cover. For that matter, this closer batch must have jogged to assure themselves of getting between him and his vehicle. This was, Richard decided, not a set of circumstances that lent weight to the myth that all people are basically nice, if given a proper chance.

Having tossed the naïve and diffident tourist ploy out the window when he and Durand gave a display of happily engaging in fisticuffs, he was obliged to take a different approach. "We seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere," he said. "And I seem to have developed an allergy of some sort to something in this valley. I can't imagine I'll want to come back. So, if you will just excuse us...?"

"Have you lost your name as well as your bearings?" the head Russian asked.

"No, but I object to providing it to someone who might call it in to the police to have me arrested for assault," Richard said.

The Russians laughed.

"We would not do that, I assure you," the head Russian said. "But, please, I must thank you for delivering this" – he waved his hand derisively at the wobbly lawyers, now up on their hands and knees – "even unintentionally, into our hands. These vermin have been trying to evict us from our land, but from a distance, hiding behind a toady judge. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the chance to tell them what I think, face to face. Perhaps I will talk them out of their schemes? Do you think it possible?"

"Never!" one of the rash activists screamed, oblivious to the fact that the Russians were heavily and conspicuously armed, and hostile towards himself. He and his buddies dragged themselves to their feet, rubbing their sore jaws and sending victorious looks toward Richard (he guessed they liked thinking they had something else on which to hang a lawsuit).

"Yeah, never," Activist Number Three said. "We're lawyers."

Emma had been watching the Mexican-appearing group approach. She edged Richard to one side so that they wouldn't be between them and the Russians, now that the Mexicans were coming into the open.

"You are all trespassing," one of the Mexicans yelled.

"Tell it to the lawyers here," the head Russian called back, taunting.

"We were just going," Richard said, trying to be obliging.

The Russians tightened ranks between him and his car.

"Or not," Richard said. "We're easy, and aim to please. It goes with being British, you know."

-

After rather a lot of jeering and taunting passing back and forth amongst everyone but the Hughs and Durand (the Hughs and Durand were attempting to be unnoticed, and impartial, and reasonable, and covertly prayerful), it became evident that there was a longstanding dispute about property use in and near the valley. The Russian gang had something going somewhere near the present fracas, details of which they didn't volunteer. The Mexican gang, using a neighboring plot or two or three, also had something going, details of which they didn't volunteer. At a guess, it was drug related, but under the circumstances it seemed impractical to be too curious about details. The activists, who had tailed Durand out of spite merely because they thought he had a cattle connection, apparently wanted to shut down all use of all sorts by everyone (except themselves, it sounded like), except possibly birdwatching, and that only with a permit, the funds from which would go into the already deep pockets of one or more of the organizations in which they had a vested interest (but, of course, they stood haughtily on principle, and weren't the least interested in the money).

That the activists had decided to run Durand off in person – the odds looking especially favorable, him being alone and a foreigner, and them feeling unnaturally powerful after a few drinks over a lunch the conversation at which was devoted to strengthening their already strong conviction that they possessed moral superiority and therefore ought to be in charge of everything, all expenses paid – would not have been a good idea even if it had turned out that they only had Durand to deal with, Durand being the sort of man who could handle such amateurs. But, of course, they did not have only Durand to deal with. They had now before them the very gangs they had harassed from afar.

The gangs, facing a mutual enemy, clearly wished to take advantage of the present situation to scare the eco-activists with mutual effort. The eco-activists, whether from native stupidity, an utter lack of sense, or the effects of smoking some of the very stuff likely being grown by the gangs, were throwing fuel on the fire, instead of listening. All in all, matters seemed to be getting worse instead of better. The Russians were caressing their rifles, the Mexicans were shifting their guns into firmer grips, and still, the lawyers kept invoking that they were lawyers.

Finally – just as Durand and Richard were agreeing via eye messages that if an opening did not present itself soon they had better make one, all the more so because Emma had gone stony silent, which was not always a good sign – the eco-activists got around to blaming Durand for their present troubles, which suited him well enough, because it gave him an opening to cement the growing feeling that in this dust-up, he was on the side of the gangs. The gangs, he noticed, were displaying more sense as well as more weaponry than his stalkers, and he wished to encourage them to remain sensible, if possible.

"Perhaps you will be so good as to tell everyone how we met, and why you are after me?" he said to the activists. "I reserve the right to give my own version following, but I give you leave to lead off, if that is how it is said in American English?" He bowed, slightly, in what he hoped was a noticeably European fashion. By all means, the gangs should be reminded that he was not from this part of the world, nor from their home parts of the world, and could presumably take himself away from their areas of operation with absolutely no inconvenience to his humble and reasonable self.

The lawyers, as he expected, tried to use the opening to bury him with his new acquaintances. He was, they said, going to ruin the valley by grazing thousands upon thousands of his billions of cattle there.

He begged of them to attempt to reconstruct the conversation in the restaurant word for word.

That task being beyond their abilities and against their inclinations (everything got magnified and pepped up and propped up, the more they focused on it) he begged leave to recount it as he remembered it, whereupon he did so, begging Emma's pardon about the obscenities provided in the narration of his opponents' side of the conversation. The gangs, he was happy to find, found the story amusing, on the whole.

In conclusion, diplomatically addressing the gangs jointly, he said, "I was trying to annoy them and drive them off by being preposterous, but apparently they have no sense of proportion."

It was perhaps not a good thing to say. The gang leaders on both sides suddenly saw their bothersome legal threats in a new light. Up until now, it had seemed possible to shove the problems away, by proving that they were bigger and badder than the next guy. But you cannot prove that you are bigger and badder than the next guy if your audience truly has no sense of scale.

An unhealthy silence descended.

Richard looked at Emma, and Emma met his gaze. What passed between them was not precisely 'it's been nice to know you' but it was close enough. They'd spent enough time in the field to know when they were up against men who killed people who seemed to pose too large a threat, and to know that the looks that had passed between the leaders of the two gangs, and the gang members themselves, did not bode well. That he and Emma and Durand had proved reasonable would be scant defense if they were, quite accidentally, witnesses to the murders of the activists, who, as yet, seemed to consider themselves blissfully exempt from possible harm.

Richard tore his eyes from his wife, and turned his attention to Leandre Durand, a longtime friend and colleague, and joint survivor of potentially deadly forays in crime fighting, and saw his friend outwardly composed, with only that funny light wrinkle in his upper left forehead that betrayed that he was thinking furiously. The funny wrinkle disappeared, and Richard knew that Durand had reached the point he had commended his soul to God, and was counting on inspiration, his own resources having failed him. He, too, quite obviously, felt the supposed desirability of murder dancing its way into various minds among their opponents.

The silence was broken by Activist Number One, who mistakenly thought that the uneasiness in the air was prompted by his finally having got his arguments – or his threats of unrelenting lawsuits – through the thick skulls of his adversaries, who suffered under the deficiency of not having attended the same university as himself. Surely, finally, they saw they would have to abandon their use of the valley, as much as they wanted to be there, since abandoning the valley was for the good of the planet, of which he and his friends were volunteer caretakers (on account of their moral and intellectual superiority).

"So," he said, a bit snarkily, to the leader of the Russian gang, "I am glad to see you are finally seeing reason."

Durand squelched a moan. He had nothing at all against reason per se, but nothing was more ruthless than unalloyed "reason," and the last thing needed right now was to encourage such trains of thought, since, truly, the most reasonable thing for the gangs to do was to eliminate what was in their way. To them, it would be no more out of the way to kill trespassers or activists, than for one of the vegetarian activists to drive a female bedmate to an abortion facility. The reasons, and the reasoning, would be identical. He longed to say so, but to mention it would be to admit that he understood the gangs to be capable of murder, and the best hope for everyone there, as far as he could see, was that the gangs could be made to think that the intruders thought them the sort of people who wouldn't even think of such a thing.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" the Russian gang leader asked the Mexican gang leader.

"We will split the ransom fifty-fifty," the Mexican gang leader offered, magnanimously.

"We're too far north for that, I think," the Russian said. "South of the border, or even near the border, I'd go along with that, but this far north I don't think we'd get away with it."

"Ransom?" Activist Number One said. "Surely you don't mean kidnapping?"

"Not that they don't deserve it, owning cattle," Activist Number Two said.

"I'll sue them for you, once they let you go free," Activist Number Three said to Durand and Richard, proving beyond any doubt that he had no sense at all.

"I am going to try an experiment," the Russian gang leader said. He aimed his gun at the head of Activist Number One.

"You can't do that!" Activist Number One said.

"You'll be sorry you did that!" Activist Number Two said.

"Yeah, we own the courts!" Activist Number Three said.

The Russian lowered the gun. "Unbelievable," he said. He looked at the Mexican gang leader. "I don't see how we stand a chance with them."

"Utterly hopeless," the Mexican gang leader agreed.

The eco-activists smiled, glad to see that the other side had given up.

"Get them something to write down any last confessions they might want to make," the Russian said, beginning to enjoy himself now that the proper course of action was making itself clear.

The eco-activists continued to smile, but a bit of doubt seemed to be making itself felt in their addled brains. They looked around, as if to have someone tell them that this was some sort of sick joke.

The Mexican leader gestured at Durand, Richard, and Emma with his gun. "Them?"

The Russian fixed a cold, appraising eye on the trio. "You've shown some willingness to not do anything stupid. If we let you go, will you continue to be sensible?"

"Sensible is our middle name," Richard quipped, easing his wife toward the opening the Russian squad was making in its human wall. When Emma hesitated, he pleaded with her, "Darling, suicide in the name of a good cause is still suicide."

"I'm so glad you understand," the Russian said, speaking to Richard but eyeing Emma, who was still hesitating, if not so much as before.

"I would like to propose an alternate course of action, if I may?" Durand said.

"Don't push your luck," the Russian said.

"But, please, if you will hear me? I think I possess the means to rid you of your difficulties, without increasing your chances of someday encountering the electric chair."

"Yeah, well, I already know how to do that. If I kill all of you, it makes me safer all the way around."

To have it put in words like that had a marvelous, and terrifying, effect on the members of both gangs.

"I am prepared to pretend I never heard that," Richard said, fighting for Emma's life as well as his own.

"You then, get out," the Russian leader said, waving him toward the now-open path to his car. "And if you think you can control your woman, she can go, too."

Richard started for his car, Emma in hand, but then stopped. He turned to Durand.

"Go," Durand said. "You are not Catholic. You are not, therefore, obliged to stay as I am obliged to stay."

Richard looked at the Russian gang leader, and at the Mexican gang leader. "If you don't mind, I'd like to hear what he has in mind."

"Are you crazy?" the Russian asked.

"No, I assure you. I understand perfectly that you can, and will, kill anyone who crosses you, and I am healthy and looking forward to my retirement. But my friend over there has a knack for coming up with win-win solutions, and I'd rather like to hear him out. Besides that, he is my friend, and if he is sticking, so am I."

"This isn't funny," Activist Number Two said.

"Oh, look, one of the lambs has finally noticed the wolves," the Mexican gang leader cooed. "Too bad it is too late."

"Ah, but if I can knock the imbeciles out with a drug that will erase their recent memory, and that will further make them susceptible to hypnotic suggestion, would that not suit?" Durand said.

"A likely story," the Russian said. "But a nice try."

"But it is true. I am not so respectable as I look, and in my line of work it pays to have means to make your associates forget that they have met you, or, on the other hand, have them acquire the urge to do something, or to avoid doing something or going somewhere. The hypnotic suggestion power, alas, is not entirely reliable, but I have yet to know anyone who could remember anything from the three days preceding the administration of the drug. The best I can promise you is that they will never think of you as having threatened their lives out here today, but perhaps we could plant in them a horror of offending immigrants, or something like that, eh? Would it not be fun to try? Would it not be useful, to turn them against their associates, if we can?"

After some lively discussion, and numerous whelps of disbelief-tinged protest on the part of the lawyers, Durand was allowed to shoot drugs into the eco-activists. He had only enough for two people, but he pretended it was just the right amount for three, and thanked his guardian angel that there would be none left over for his new acquaintances to try to take from him by force.

He was amused by some of the suggestions the gang members were earnestly planting in the ears of the unconscious lawyers, but in the end, feeling the duty of it, he loaded the helpless men into their car and drove away in it, Emma ahead of him driving the Hughs' car, and Richard behind in his rental car.

As they had promised the happily-conniving gang leaders, they abandoned the lawyers and their car at an unspecified, unoccupied Forest Service campsite that was way in the back beyond.

Even though the route out was extremely tricky, with many dead ends branching off left and right, many of them with likewise unhelpful branchlets, the Hughs and Durand decided to leave it to the lawyers' overpriced GPS system to get them out. Better that than leaving a paper map, which might trigger unhelpful suspicions if anyone wondered from whence it came.

They did, however, sit at a distance in Durand's car, watching over the rescuees until they became functional enough to call for help if they wanted it.

-

"How long does this generally take?" Richard asked, after about a half hour of watching from a distance, and seeing nothing but the reassuring/annoying rising and falling of the activists' chests as they breathed.

"Your guess is as good as mine, under the circumstances," Durand said.

"Clarify that, please," Richard said.

"I had to reduce the dose, considering I had only enough for two regular doses, but did not want to leave one lamb to the wolves and only rescue two. Whether a reduced dose reduces the duration, I have no idea. None. On top of that, I am sure that they have a serious amount of alcohol in their systems, because I watched them down drink after drink at the restaurant. Whether that will produce side effects, and whether those side effects will affect duration, I do not know. Additionally, I suspect they are intakers of illegal drugs, but which ones I do not know. Nor would it help answer your question, because, again, I am clueless as to how it would effect–"

"Would this help? Without any complicating factors, how long does it usually take?"

"It does not help. It is classified."

"Sorry I asked."

"Do not concern yourself. It is nothing."

"If you gentlemen will excuse me, I think I'll go sit on the riverbank for a while," Emma said. She got out of the car and went to the nearby river. The river curved just there in such a way that she was nearly sideways to the car, so had them in her side vision, if she decided to use her side vision.

Richard tried to decide if she'd just announced she wanted to be alone for a while, or if she merely wanted to get away from Durand, or merely wanted to get away from himself, or what.

"I give up," he said. "I have to go ask her if she's hoping I'll join her, or what?"

"Marriage has been good for you," Durand said.

Richard stopped halfway out of the car. "Do I want to know what you mean by that?"

"It is simple, really. You used to too often assume you knew what your closest friends meant. It led to some unfortunate misunderstandings at times. I am glad to see that you have learned you are not a mind reader, nor a heart reader."

"I'll get back to you on that, maybe," Richard said. He went to his wife. He came right back. "She wants to be alone, she says."

"Probably then she does, this being Emma. Perrine is the same way. We are fortunate men, to have wives who are honest with us. It is a mark of respect, you know."

Emma went to the activists' car and looked in. She came back to Durand's car. Richard hopped out to open a door for her. She got in, and he followed suit.

"Durand, since it's your classified drug, I'll leave it to you," Emma said. "They seem all right. But if they've got a combination of drugs in their systems, perhaps we should arrange to have them found? Now that the drug is likely wearing down some, or breaking apart in their bloodstreams, or whatever?"

"A woman after my own heart. I wish I had thought of that," Durand said. "Let us meet at my motel. I will arrange it before I get there. I think I can arrange to be useful, without being tracked."

"Using another classified device I don't know about, I suppose," Richard said, only half joking.

"Have pity on me. You are retired. I am not. It poses difficulties," Durand said. He gave them directions to his motel, and they left in their own car.

He gave them a head start so they wouldn't be seen leaving the area by oncoming rescue squads, then went to the activists' car, opened the driver's door with a gloved hand, and pushed the emergency alarm on the GPS system. To his satisfaction, he got a real, live person inquiring as to the nature of the problem. To his further satisfaction, when he jostled one of the groggy lawyers, the man responded with a confused moan and pathetic mutters, enough to suggest to a listener, especially one primed for emergencies, that a medical emergency was in progress. Satisfied that help was on its way, and convinced that the men were finally coming to, he drove away as fast as he dared, meaning to put as much distance between himself and the official rescue operations as he could, so that he could not reasonably be asked if he had seen or done anything.

He was pleased with himself. Not only had he saved his own life, and that of Emma, and that of Richard, and that of the pathetic lost lambs who were deluded into thinking they were lions, but also, in the end, he had not had to admit to his British friend that budget cuts in France had left him nearly bereft of equipment, including anything that would have served as a way to call for an ambulance without being traced.

-

Durand placed a call to headquarters. He had but a fourth-rate, bargain-basement phone, with ridiculously inadequate security walls, but for such a subject as he wished to address, there was no harm in it. Crime was fodder for conversation at all levels of society, nearly as universally as the subject of the weather forecast. To be worried about it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Hallo? Vivi?"

"That should be Mme Herriott, but you are probably too old to train to new tricks," the secretary of his chief said, with good nature.

"I am feeling old, if that is of any satisfaction."

"I did not mean to waste time. What is it I can do for you?"

"I did not mean to suggest it was a matter of urgency. Quite the opposite. I merely wish to become better informed of a matter before a meeting with foreign colleagues. The subject of foreign gangs establishing themselves in alarming ways in the American West has reared its head, and I need to know if it should concern me, or interfere with our business plans. If you are busy, I can skirt the issue for now."

Vivi Herriott had worked at the agency for a long time. She strongly suspected that Durand had already stumbled across foreign gangs, and might possibly be having a good shake after a close call, but there was no point, she knew, in trying to pin him down, not when he was in 'upholding the superiority of French Intelligence' mode. She professed herself happily able to help him at the moment, and pulled up the information on file. She reported that foreign gangs were, indeed, in recent years establishing operations all over in the western United States, with some sorts of operations in urban areas, and others in rural areas – that, indeed, it was probably dangerous beyond words to go out in the public forests without a properly wary and informed local guide, because there were drug-related facilities in the most serene-appearing places. Most of the gangs were Mexican or Russian, but that was just the start of things. One should also know, she said, that many of the gang members were, for all intents and purposes, slaves, and quite out of their heads with a terror of not pleasing their masters, and for good reason, considering that the gangs were becoming noted for kidnappings, torture, and murders of the more dramatic and nightmarish kinds – beheadings, dissolvings in acid, that sort of thing. Truly, evil incarnate had been unleashed, and he should keep his eyes open for hints of it.

Durand guessed that she was hoping to make him feel better if he had encountered difficulties, but he let it go. Undoubtedly, there were foreign gangs in the vicinity. Undoubtedly, the law enforcement reports would obsess on the dangers, perhaps to the point of overestimating them. He asked for specific figures, year by year, and thanked her and rang off, sure that he could now hold his own in a conversation about the present state of organized crime in the region, as far as was known.

After he got to his motel, he was not surprised that the Hughs now had at their fingertips much the same data as himself, in their case probably gleaned from the internet. None of them admitted to having just looked it up, but perhaps there was no need to. It had been clear, out in the valley, that none of them had expected what they had got. There was no sense to dwell on it. A person could not keep up with everything.

As the conversation progressed and branched out, both men noticed that Emma was being strangely silent. She was not being entirely silent, and she hadn't drifted off entirely into daydreams, but there was no question that she was only half-heartedly joining in, and was surprisingly tentative about what she did say.

"Are you feeling all right, darling?" Richard asked.

"Yes and no," she said.

"Perhaps we should be going?"

"Or perhaps you would like to lie down, or nap in a chair?" Durand said.

"Thanks, but no thanks, gentlemen. Physically, I'm fine. Mentally, that's another matter. There are two or three things about today's adventure that bother me... All right, there are many things about today's adventure that bother me... But more to the point, I am having to rethink what I thought I'd like to do in my retirement, and it's not easy, because I was excited about my plans. But I don't want to be another Jimmy Carter."

"You lost me on the Jimmy Carter corner, dear one," Richard said.

"No doubt," she said. "But let me see if I can pull my muddled thoughts into enough order to make sense. You know how Carter was widely ridiculed for his handling of the Iranian hostage situation?"

"As well he should be," Richard said.

"Yes and no. He failed, no question, and the United States lost a great deal of face over it, but what most people don't know is that he did quite a bit more toward resolving that mess than was made public. I don't remember the details, and certainly there were other factors in play, but as I remember it, he had a covert plan in motion that might have worked, but some freelancers got it into their heads to help, and quite by accident they derailed what he'd lined up. He could have been excused for screaming bloody murder and blaming them for the setbacks they caused, but he held his tongue and took the heat himself. He never did get anything else to work, as you know, but..." She paused, searching for the right words.

Durand laughed. "So now I know why you despise the man!"

"You're ahead of me," Richard said.

"But it is obvious, _mon vieux_. If the man's most humiliating failure was due to vigilantes, he has no excuse to gad about trying to compensate for the perceived failures of his successors, who undoubtedly have much going on that he cannot possibly know about," Durand said. He turned to Emma. "I am right, no?"

"Dead on the money. And I'm in the same boat. Today's adventures were accidental, of course. We were merely using my friend Kyle's request to run out to his too-little-used vacation ranch and enjoy the solitude while we plotted, and we found out the hard way that he had squatters. But here's the deal. I recognized some undercover cops in both gangs, and we put them in a horrible position and quite probably messed up weeks or months or even years of groundwork, and that got me to thinking..."

"Oh, bother," Richard said. "I didn't think of that."

"I think you did, in the back of your mind, based on some of the objections you raised while we were talking about coming over here, and tracking people on our own," Emma said.

"Don't try to let me off the hook. I only count what I get to the front of my mind, you know."

"Have I told you lately that I'm glad I married you?"

Richard blushed, which sent Durand into barely-hidden glee.

"But, anyway," Emma said, "I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I probably shouldn't be trying to collar suspects or tie up cold cases if I no longer have the means to check if someone's being left to roam about for a reason. So I've been depressing myself by switching back and forth between trying to figure out how to keep myself in the loop without proper authority (which I'm not sure I should do anyway), and trying to come up with something else to do that beats castles and cruises or gardening."

Richard started to say that at least she rather liked gardening, but decided it wasn't a good time to mention it, all the more so because he wasn't ready to tie himself down to one spot and surrender to leisure activities. "We'll think of something," he said. He turned to Durand, who was being too cheerful about the whole mess, in his opinion. "I suppose, old sport, that you've got your retirement all mapped out?"

"I hope to die in harness, God willing," Durand said.

"Good luck," Richard said, before realizing he'd said the forbidden 'luck' in his dear wife's presence. "Um, I mean... um... here's hoping that works out. That's just what I'd planned. But somebody cut our traces. Now what? We'd thought to trot down the road in our own harness, pulling our own wagon, but we find that without a driver we're apt to cause crashes doing that."

"There is that," Durand said. "Indeed, we have all had our difficulties from people who only wished to be useful. It is one of the curses of law enforcement. But, truly, I had not thought to put the two of you into such a position. You are well-trained, and experienced, and patient, and possess much sense, and..."

And it was no good. Retired agents were as much a menace as retired Presidents, unless they knew when to step aside, and they all knew that. At least, they had all known that, even if they had temporarily forgotten it.

"You will think of something, I am sure," he said. "It would not be like you to waste your lives, or not employ your skills."

"Suggestions?" Richard said.

"Oh, no. It is not my life," Durand said.

"That's never stopped you before," Richard said.

Durand laughed. "All right, you win. You are my friend. I will think about it. But at the moment, I cannot think of something. I have not yet begun to divorce the idea of you being what you were from the altered situation. My aging brain cannot turn so quickly as it did, you know."

"I know the problem."

"Ach, you have years to go before you decline to my level."

"You are cheering me up immensely. I can't tell you how much."

"That is what friends are for, is it not?"

Richard turned to Emma. "You're being quiet again."

"I'm thinking," she said.

Durand's phone rang. He stepped aside to answer it. When he rang off he rushed to pack his bags. "I am sorry. But something has broken on the Fro-... on a case, which must remain unnamed, and... I need to go..."

"We were just going," Emma said. "I need Richard's input on something. If you will excuse us?"

-

They had enough sense and decency to drive away so that Durand wasn't confronted with them sitting in the parking lot wondering where to go next.

"So late smart," Richard said, as he drove.

"How so?" Emma asked.

"I thought I'd like being my own boss."

"We're not there yet."

"Technically, we are."

"Technically, you're right. But in my book, a boss has to have a business, and we're still unfocused and untethered."

"That's an idea."

"Which?"

"Choosing a business."

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Would you like to run a store or something? I guess I've never asked."

"I'm game. But not eager."

"We'll move it down the list."

"Would you like to run a store or something?"

"No. Or, at least, I don't think so. Not unless we could find a field of commerce that wasn't over-regulated. If I'm going to be my own boss, I'd like to actually be my own boss, instead of being an unpaid puppet answering to masses of unrelated, non-cooperative, self-important bureaucrats."

"Move it way down the list then."

"Do I want to know what that quickly-squelched smile meant?"

"I just had a mad thought that perhaps we could devote some time to making the world safe again for the little guy who wants to mind his own business."

"Awfully tall order, but it's a thought. We might contribute to the cause, and a worthy cause it is."

"I'm not there yet."

"How so?"

"I'm used to saving lives instead of livelihoods. I know it wouldn't necessarily be a demotion, but it still feels like one."

"Perhaps we could assign it its own office in the Promoting Freedom Where We Can Business, and only visit it when business was slow in other divisions."

"I think we're getting closer. I like the idea of promoting freedom where we can."

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh?"

"This could get dangerous, you know."

"Heh," Emma said. "As if that doesn't appeal to you?"

"Life was easier when I didn't have a wife to worry about."

"Double heh," Emma said.

Richard was going to ask her what she meant by that, but decided to be content with the sparkle in her eye. "Watch out world, here we come, ready or not," he said under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

# Chapter Four

## Return to old haunts

Andrew Stolemaker strolled, with slight gimpiness, the streets of his childhood village, stopping now and then to chat with anyone who recognized him, even if they recognized him only faintly. There weren't as many of those as a person might imagine. Of his classmates, roughly half were dead, and the rest had, like himself, relocated, except for Sarah Jergin, who was upholding the spinster daughter tradition of over-tending an ailing, aging father, and pretending it was a sacrifice that she'd never married, despite the fact that she had run screaming from the prospect of marriage, or even the hint of interest from any male. The classes before him had even fewer survivors and nearly as high a relocation rate. The classes after him had stayed put a bit better, but he didn't know many of them. On top of that, it had become a village that drew telecommuters with no family ties to the place. All in all, it was only proving familiar in a misty, feeble way that made him feel increasingly out of place.

"You haven't stayed much in touch," Paul Stuart said, but indulgently, from his doorway. "If that be Andy I'm a-seeing, come for a gander at old haunts?"

"Aye, it's Andy himself, sick of the city, and fool enough to quit a job in these days and at my age," Stolemaker said.

"For all the years between, I know you well enough to guess you'd be no more fool than the average fellow, and likely less. Come in and greet Mother. She'll be sad if you pass along without a cup of coffee and a bit of bread. You know it."

"I do know it, Pastor. And if it's no imposition, I'd like to come in."

"Shhh, now. If it were a bad time, would not I tell you?"

"That's doubtful, you know."

"Ah, when you were a boy you never thought that."

"Dullard me."

"Come in, come in, and no more about it."

The elderly pastor deftly swept his visitor inside, in a move Stolemaker remembered from his troublesome youth, when there had been numerous chats with the pastor, some wanted, some not.

"Isabella, my love, look who has come for a visit, but Andrew Stolemaker himself, who's been off in London all these years," Paul said, as he led Andrew into a simply furnished kitchen and pointed him to a chair at the table.

"Oh, I am glad to see you," Isabella said, wiping her hands on an apron and veering for mugs. "Hot coffee, or tea, or something else?"

"Coffee, thanks, if it's no trouble."

"It's been a long time, now hasn't it?" Isabella said.

"I hate to admit it, but it's the first time I've been back since we buried Aggie," Andrew said.

"How are your children?" she asked.

"Well enough. I've three grandchildren, too, if you haven't heard, and one cooking. It's hard to get used to, your babes having babes of their own."

"I'll bet you manage," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"Well... It should be better, now I'm away from the job I had..." Without meaning to, he rubbed his legs, feeling the scars beneath them.

"Tell me you'll stay to eat," Isabella said.

"Oh, no. I've come with no warning. I wouldn't want to put you out."

"I'll just pop to the market for a few things, if you'll excuse me," she said. She hung her apron on a hook, and left before Andrew could get further protests together.

Paul settled more deeply into his chair and grinned. "There's no arguing with Mother when she wants to feed somebody, you know."

"But..."

"If you have an appointment and need to go let me know. But otherwise perhaps you'd like to tell me what's wrong. I don't preach anymore, but there's no retiring from the ministry, in my book."

"I can't say anything's wrong."

"Have it your way, if you'd like. But Mother wouldn't have left us like that if she hadn't seen a need for a man-to-man talk. There's plenty in the pantry. And that's bread in the oven you're smelling, and she doesn't often trust me to know when to take it out, despite that I can hear a timer ring well enough yet, and even though I know how to tap loaves to see if they sound hollow. A man does pick up a few tricks with age, after all. What's with your legs? Arthritis?"

"Bullet wounds. Somebody tried to kill me, and came close to succeeding. But that's not for broadcast."

"Both legs?"

"Aye."

"Ouch."

"Aye."

"And so you had to avoid the grandchildren for a while, for their safety?"

"I'm not sure I had to, but I did."

"Ouch."

"Aye."

"Do your children know why you kept your distance?"

"Not a bit of it."

"Life has its interesting problems, doesn't it?"

Andrew hesitated.

Paul sat quietly.

"I quit my job because I thought I was being asked to do something unethical, and I thought it was going to get people killed."

Paul grinned. "But you can't say anything's wrong, eh?"

Andrew grinned. "In better news, I'm courting a fine widow."

"That's wonderful!"

"It would be better if she hadn't been my secretary all this time I was at the job I just quit."

"No doubt. Does she still work there?"

"No. The 'something unethical' was actually several things unethical, a campaign if you will, and the main thrust of part of it was booting everyone who had been with the company over a certain number of years. I was obliged to send her out along with the rest."

"Does she know about the legs?"

"The attempted murder, you mean?"

"Aye. Just that."

"Oh, yes. Helped solve the case..."

Andrew fell silent again.

"Getting too close to state secrets, are we?" Paul asked.

Andrew looked at him.

"Barry Flanagan, rest his soul, was in his cups one day and bragged about how he was working for a secret agency, with none other than former fellow choir boy Andy Stolemaker for a chief. I didn't know whether to believe him, but now I wonder."

"Who else heard?"

"No one. Not even Mother. I haven't told her, if you're wondering. Didn't seem the sort of rumor to pass along."

"Thanks. And it's true. Barry was there when I got there. I had to sack him, when he couldn't stay sober or keep his mouth shut. I've wondered what he said afterward."

"Couldn't tell you about afterward, except that there turned out to be precious little afterward. When he prattled on to me, he said he was working for you. Shortly after that he jumped off the cliff over at Havington's farm. I can't say anyone seemed inclined to speculate on particulars. No sense building mysteries over drunks flinging themselves from one sort of ruin to another. Now I'm guessing it must have been right after he got let go."

"I had to let him go. He was endangering others."

"I'm not blaming you. He had his choices to make, and choosing to be a slave to drink was bound to cause him grief."

"Some people say it's a disease."

"I've no doubt that drinking too much pickles the brain and messes up body chemistry, but it's still a moral choice to start, and then it's another moral choice on whether to keep it up or beg God's help in breaking free of it. We all have our share of good turnings and bad ones, but from what I heard Barry got to where he thumbed his nose at repentance and wallowed in the muck as much as he could. It's a shame, but there it is. Some people run away from God, even after they've tasted His mercy, and God's too much a gentleman to hold someone by force."

"We're a sorry lot sometimes, us humans."

"Sometimes? What church have you been going to, that pretends we're not fallen creatures, in need of grace every day of our half-blinded, temptation-twisted lives?"

"I should probably dive for cover when I say this, but I've become a church hopper. When I go at all."

"Ah, well. Let's discuss this over dinner, if you don't mind. Mother has developed a fascination with church hopping. She has her theories on why this is sometimes a good thing, I should warn you. Where are you staying, and for how long?"

"The Waverly. I'm paid up through Tuesday next."

"Aggie's birthday."

"You remember?"

"It's the same day as Isabella's."

"I forgot."

"Why should you remember?"

The oven timer rang. Paul got up to assume his duties as assistant baker.

Andrew fought with his face, trying to hide his emotions. It had been too long since he'd talked with a man like Paul. It was a blessed relief, and at the same time almost more than he could stand.

"Needs another five minutes, I'd say," Paul announced of the bread, after he'd tapped it. "We'll see if I can get it in and out before Bella catches me not putting it back into the loaf pan. Works better without, and sometimes she does it that way, but it frets her when I try it, since I don't always think to watch the time." With deliberate care, he positioned the three loaves of bread directly on the rack, closed the oven door, and set a timer.

Andrew smiled, in part because he felt nervous.

"I'll translate that worried half-hidden grin for you, and you tell me if I'm correct," Paul said. "Your agile mind has just realized that I'm bound to burn grill marks on the loaves this way, not to mention that the bread will brown differently out of the pan than in, and so there's no way I'll escape my bride knowing that I've chosen to do the finishing outside of the pan. Correct so far?"

Andrew shrugged and smiled, this time more naturally.

"And you are right, my lad. But not to worry. Isabella is a gem, and forgives me for it, always, even when I get distracted and ruin her loaves. The wanting to be done before she gets home is that it always frets her to find me experimenting with it. Once it's done, she's not one to bother about it. Does your lady friend like to cook?"

"Probably more than she likes eating out, but I've not liked the idea of not treating her at this stage of things," Andrew said.

"And it is so awkward to buy a woman food to cook and hope that's a good compromise, isn't it?" Paul said, his eyes twinkling. "By the by, if you haven't tried that yet, I'd advise against it. I tried that with Isabella, and the only thing it solved was any doubts I might have had about her sense of humor, and her endless capacity to forgive me for my awkwardness."

"Of course, you two were very young."

"Aye. There is that," Paul said, "But if you're finding courtship easy because of your age, you're the first man I've met that's found it so."

"It is, and it isn't," Andrew said.

"Years of friendship behind it, then?"

"Aye. And she's a devoted Christian."

"That's good."

"More devoted than I am."

"That's bad."

"I'm working on it, though."

"That's probably good, depending on how you're going about it. And who you're letting help you."

Andrew settled more comfortably into his chair. "I canna tell you how long it's been since I've had someone knock iron against me like this," he said.

Paul grinned. "It seems to be doing you good. That's good. We'll get you sharpened up yet, Lord willing." He winked and got up to check on the bread. He pulled out a loaf and thumped on it. "Oh, much better," he said. He pulled the other two loaves out. They also passed thumping inspection. He pulled out cooling racks and set the bread on to cool. "Isabella always manages to get the racks out before she takes the bread out of the oven. I almost never do. It makes sense to do it, but somehow my mind doesn't think of having to cool the loaves until after I have them out. Sorry to tell you that about your old pastor, but there it is. I'm generally out of order in the kitchen."

"There are worse things, I suppose," Andrew said, settling into a feeling of being at home.

"Oh, aye," Paul said. "If you ever want to set your hair on end, get a job as a pastor. We get our share of the worse things." He took stock of his visitor before going on. "Not that I'm complaining. I'm happy enough to have better perspective than most men. And I'm happy enough to hear a man out, should he have even dreadful things he needs to haul before the Lord, and wants a bit of help with it."

Andrew fought with himself.

"Ah, well then, let's change the subject for now," Paul said. "After dinner, I need to go see Mary Scott. You're welcome to come along. She's not got long to live, and she'd love to see you."

"You don't mean Mary Scott who used to teach piano lessons? Is she still alive? She must be a hundred by now."

"One hundred and three, and doesn't look a day over ninety," Paul joked.

Andrew rubbed his knuckles as memories flooded over him.

Paul laughed. "Rapped your hands, too, did she? I never saw such a tartar for correct technique in all my days. But she's mellowed considerably. Still sharp and sees moderately well, but she's outgrown whipping people for being sloppy. Try to muster your courage and come along, why don't you? It would mean a great deal to the old dear." He cast his eyes over to the cooling bread. "I don't suppose Isabella mentioned in your presence whether that bread was for home use or for gifts, now did she?" he asked.

"Not that I recall," Andrew said.

"I guess that means I need to guess whether I'll be in trouble if I offer you some while it's warm, instead of waiting to see if it's already spoken for." He pondered a few seconds, then stood decisively. "On the other hand, she never likes it when I'm stingy with guests," he said. He cut them both generous slices, and drenched them in butter.

Isabella got home before they were done eating. She smiled happily on her husband, congratulating him wordlessly on taking proper care of a guest in her absence. She admired the bread that was left. "Oh, Paul, you always are so good at watching the bread when I'm called out on errands. It's perfect. I doubt I could have done better myself."

Paul shot Andrew a look that Andrew correctly translated as a wink, even though the eyelids didn't move.

# Chapter Five

## Lost children

Emma set the wanted ads aside. They had been interesting, in a useless sort of way, but there was no use wasting more time with a newspaper, as far as she could see.

Across the room, Richard caught her change of focus, closed the tabs on his computer tablet, and shut it off. "Let's go for a walk, why don't we?" he suggested.

"I've never been good at being at loose ends," Emma said.

"How well I remember," Richard said.

Emma studied him. "Oh, Savannah, you mean?" she asked.

"That and other times," Richard said. "Face it, lover, for our entire careers we have been shielded from loose ends to a remarkable degree, compared to normal people in normal occupations. Furthermore, we have had our jobs handed to us, one after another. We've also been told where would be good – or forbidden – to spend our holidays. It's been ruddy training for retirement."

"That's no excuse, you know," Emma said.

"I know," Richard said.

He went silent. The silence was a little too studied.

"All right, since I'm the brash American, I'll say it," Emma said.

"Say what?" Richard said, knowing full well what was coming.

"In addition to everything else, neither of expected to live long enough to retire."

"There is that," Richard said, "But it needs nuance. Before I met you, I didn't care if I lived that long. Now I'm glad of it. But here I am, head of the household, and without a plan. I apologize for that."

"Apology accepted. I'd rather point out that we got booted with no notice, well ahead of schedule, which gives you a good excuse. But I know you'd say it isn't any excuse, so I'll just accept the apology and let's go on from there, if that's all right with you?" She grinned. It was one of those grins that swamped him with the assurance that she loved and respected him, even when he wasn't living up to his own standards.

Richard laughed. Married life suited him far better than he'd imagined.

Retirement, on the other hand? It was unbearable.

He gritted his teeth, and escorted his wife outside for a walk.

The walk was no help at all. It just reinforced that he was too recently a spy to let his guard down, but not enough of a spy to still expect trouble at every turn.

It was galling. Whether it should be or not, it was flat out galling.

-

They tried touring Australia, visiting interesting places that fell short of being tourist haunts. It was no good. Australia had no known enemies of any significance, but likewise no actual friends one wished to relax with, not since the Durands had moved back to France. Plus, being a tourist at less popular places was still being a tourist.

They thought of going to France to visit Durand and his family. That had the upside that the Durands were good friends, and the downside that the Durands were good friends. It didn't seem proper, somehow, to show up when they might guess that it was because you were simply at loose ends. Besides, Durand was still employed, and perhaps it would be awkward for him to have ex-spies hanging about. They could ask him, and could count on him being honest enough in return (the man could be gallingly honest, as well as annoying philosophical), but it seemed bad form, if not asking for added grief, to ask him.

"It's almost worse, isn't it, that we have so much money?" Emma said one day.

"What's frightening, luv, is that I'm afraid I know what you mean," Richard said. "We've become the idle rich, haven't we?"

"It's starting to feel that way," she admitted.

To make themselves feel better, they gave a largish donation to a worthy charity.

It didn't help. Not much, at any rate.

"It's no good, luv. I'm not the 'parcel out pounds to people and call it good' sort," Richard said. "I need to have a hand in."

"I actually like that about you," she said. "But I confess that I don't have any specific suggestions about what we could put our hands to. Sorry."

"Nothing specific? How about something general?"

She shook her head. "I've been trying to think, but so far haven't come up with anything. I'm afraid I'm down to trusting that something will come up. It always has."

"List me as officially in the same boat," Richard said. "No, on second thought don't, since we're not in a position to be 'officially' anything."

"Speaking of that," Emma said, gingerly, "it ties in with something else that's popped to mind, one of the reasons it's been so hard to think up something to do. It has occurred to me that the government has been given the right to wield the sword, and therefore, unless we're duly sworn officers, I'm afraid that nine out of ten projects that have come into my mind are simply off limits to us now."

"I hate it when you're right," Richard groused, in a good-natured way suitable to a husband who knows his wife knows how to hear a statement like that in the proper way. "Besides that, for all the times I got classified as a lone wolf sort of operative, I never have been one. Not really. I'm rather at sea without Dourlein and a chief and dispatch – and even the ruddy labs, regardless of how many times they nearly blew me up."

He fell silent, gloomily thinking of Felicity from the labs and her baby, and just in general remembering people he'd worked with, from the still living to the long dead.

"Don't feel old," Emma said.

"Why ever not?" Richard said. "And was it so obvious?"

"I'm afraid so. Don't worry, we'll think of something. Or one of our friends will. We've been useful enough, on the whole. Someone might discover a need for us."

"In the meantime, what shall we do with ourselves? It's not like I'm going to ask a woman to go walking down random dark alleys with me, hoping to come across someone in need of rescue."

"How about a compromise, then? I've just remembered that they're shorthanded at the soup kitchen tonight. I could ladle, and you could wander about visiting with people, sniffing for someone in need of some sort of informal rescue that wouldn't likely cross up on-duty sorts."

"Which soup kitchen?"

"The one your friend Walter runs. And, no, I'm not suggesting we set up our own soup kitchen. At least I'm not there yet. I've spent my entire life roaming, and I'm not ready to tie myself down to one place yet, much less trying to manage a place open to the public. I might be persuadable on that. But at present it doesn't sit at the top of my list. Yours?"

"No, but, you're dodging. However in the world do you know that Walter's got a soup kitchen and that he's shorthanded?"

"When we bumped into him the other day, you wanted to give him your phone number, but you were planning to get a new phone and change the number in a day or two, remember? So we gave him my number, along with a suggestion that if he needed help with anything he should let us know. Remember? He sent a message while you were in the shower. I forgot to tell you for the very good reason that after I concluded that commonplace soup kitchenry might be a poor fit for you, I forgot he called. Here. It's the top voicemail. You listen." She called her mailbox and handed him the phone.

He listened, then promptly called his old colleague Walter, confirmed he had a soup kitchen, confirmed he wanted them there, and promised to come. He rang off. "I don't suppose you know any protocols on how one dresses for working in a soup kitchen, do you?" he asked his wife.

"Not sexily, I'm sure. And not in a tux, unless you have nothing else to wear. Other than that, probably pretty much anything else would work, at a guess, provided it's reasonably normal," Emma said.

"I used to sometimes resent it when the agency chose for me what to wear for this case or that one. I almost owe them an apology," Richard said.

"Which is probably galling, since we're not to contact anyone still working there," Emma said.

"A bit galling, yes. But I'm not sure I'd apologize anyway. Would likely embarrass the staff something horrible," Richard said. He eyed his wife's outfit. She'd acquired a knack for skirts and blouses that seemed suitable for an uncommon range of activities and places. She'd do. He pondered his own slacks and shirt. A bit too uptown, he thought. He steered her toward their vacation rental for a quick change of costume and a quick bite to eat (it seemed bad form to show up at a soup kitchen hungry, if you were rich), and then they headed to the soup kitchen, Richard hoping more than just a bit that Walter, formerly of secret services, might have something for them to do besides just help at a soup kitchen, but not something he could talk about over the phone.

-

The soup kitchen was surprisingly satisfying to work at, but also discouraging. Richard was used to dealing with less than savory characters, but most of them he'd dealt with were actually pretty lively and ambitious characters, with their ambition directed in horrible directions. The soup kitchen clientele, on the other hand, were a more mixed bag, leaning toward despondent.

Richard, with a knack for picking out pickpockets in a crowd, thwarted a couple of would-be thieves, which was satisfying. With his well-tuned regard for protecting females of any sort, he also steered ill-mannered louts away from women and children. That was also satisfying, despite the one woman darting him death wishes for his interference since she was a prostitute in search of paying customers.

Walter stepped in to help on that case. "Not here, Bev. You know we don't allow soliciting in here," he said, gently but firmly.

"Heh. It's not like I'm peddling magazines door to door," Bev snorted back at him, door to door salesmen being beneath contempt in her book.

"We don't allow anyone to sell anything in here. And if ever you get to where you'd like help getting out of what you're throwing yourself away on, we've got help for people like you," Walter said.

"I don't want help," Bev said.

"If you change your mind, the offer stands. But no more cruising around for pick-ups in here. Either put it on the shelf, or leave. I'm busy," Walter said.

Bev decided to 'put it on the shelf' and stuck around, pointedly eating by herself until Emma got a replacement for her task, and went to sit with her.

Richard fought off a husbandly urge to go join the two of them, but never left off watching them discreetly out of the corner of his eye.

Walter swung by and whispered in his ear. "Yes, I'm exhausted at the end of every day. Thanks for asking," he said. He winked and laughed and patted Richard on the shoulder and went on his way, giving special attention to any newcomers, most of whom, Richard noted, made him think of respectable families whose homes had burned down, at which time it struck them that all their friends and relatives had long since moved away for better jobs, leaving them stranded.

Emma's phone rang. She ignored it at first, but then thought it best to take a peek. Seeing who was calling, she stepped aside from Bev and took the call. Richard, sensing something was up, was almost to her when she held out the phone to him.

"Durand," she said.

Richard headed for a quiet spot and put the phone to his ear. "Hugh here," he said.

"You must drop whatever you are doing, and head to Boise, now, in my name if not your own. Our friend MacAvoy needs help, and my government will not release me, at least not just yet, and there is no time to lose."

"Nice try, but there's no need to make us feel useful. We're getting the hang of this retirement business."

"I would call you twenty variety of barbarian in as many languages if there were time, but it would waste time. Please, _mon vieux_ , our friend MacAvoy, who has had the sense to resign from the FBI because it was driving him mad, has been in a car accident, along with his lovely wife our friend Rebecca, and their five young children. And the children have gone missing. You being childless, perhaps you cannot understand, but you, being intelligent, perhaps you can, but in any case, is there any reason you and Emma cannot head immediately to Idaho and join in the search? Because I shall go mad in any case, but especially if you do not go."

"You lost me on the corner. There was a car wreck, and the children have gone missing?"

"Slowly. In this inadequate language of yours. The entire family was in a vehicle which left the road and went down a hill. When the crash was found, the parents were badly injured but no children were to be found. Dogs were brought in, and sniffed them, but only so far as the road. One must assume, for a starting theory, that someone put the children into another vehicle and drove away with them. Will you please stop requiring any further briefing before you have made travel arrangements?"

"Absolutely," Richard said, ringing off, waving apologetic goodbyes to Walter, and retrieving Emma nearly in the same swoop.

-

Having spent his entire adult life traveling extensively, Richard was slightly surprised to find that it was harder to arrange emergency visas and tickets than when he'd been traveling on the government's dime. It was harder, but he was determined and ingenious and resourceful – and rich – and so in short order they were in Boise, in an all-too-familiar parking lot, bracing themselves to enter an all-too-familiar hospital, to face what he wished would be a nightmare instead of reality.

Before retirement, however bad things were, he wasn't often tempted to wishful thinking. For that matter, during his career, he liked the worst cases. Gave a man purpose, or something. But this? This he wished would be a nightmare instead of reality.

Beside him, Emma bit back a small grin. He nearly asked about it, but decided not to. Most likely, she was watching him prepare to be the cheeky Brit, cheerful in the face of calamity, but with the proper reserve, of course. Mustn't let the side down, after all.

She wrapped her short arms around him, and gave him a quick hug. In public. It was hard being married to an American, but he was getting used to it. The hug, as embarrassing as it was, was also encouraging.

He took her hand and led her into the hospital. In the old days, it would have been a ploy; real spies, after all, aren't generally so stupid as to be attached to other people by hands except during an emergency, like pulling someone out of a river, or keeping them from falling down a cliff to their death, or something like that. Holding hands with a wife while walking across a parking lot just screamed 'civilian.' Also, it advertised that one was fond of somebody. He nearly pulled his hand away. Not that he wasn't fond of Emma, but perhaps it was still dangerous to advertise that there was someone to whom he was attached. After all, they did have enemies in Boise. Or, had had enemies there. And there might be associates left. Unlikely that, but possible.

The information desk was properly wary of letting them know which room Harold was in, Harold having worked in law enforcement locally in a high profile way. They were finally cleared, through no genius of their own, when Mrs. Tebbel of the FBI offices saw them on her way out, detoured, gave the gatekeeper her personal seal of approval, and escorted them up the elevator to visit her former boss.

"Well, that was a bit awkward," she said as they ascended. "Not knowing which names you're flying under at present."

"Richard and Emma Hugh," Emma said. "I'd offer to change back to Henry and Deborah, or whatever we were around here or whatever else you might like, but we no longer have the means to change ID and such. We're retired, if you hadn't heard."

"I'd heard. I'm still not sure whether to believe it, though. You've supposedly gone inactive on us before, you know," Tebbel said.

There wasn't much to say to that, and nothing helpful.

"How's Jarvis these days?" Richard asked.

"Still loves being pushed at warp speed in his wheelchair. And laughs at the drop of the hat. Can even hold something of a conversation now. Much better overall than any of us expected, given what happened to him. Never going to be self-supporting, though," Tebbel said.

"Still living with the Zieglers?" Emma asked.

"Yes, and they'd be glad to see you, after we've found the kids," Tebbel said, her face betraying a tic of emotion where it wasn't supposed to.

The elevator stopped, and Tebbel escorted them to Harold's room.

Harold was nasty-looking, with a swollen face and discoloration and scrapes and stitches. But he was awake enough and aware enough to notice them coming in, and to recognize them.

The look of relief on his face made Richard nearly blurt an apology in advance, in case he wound up not being of any help whatsoever. But, from habit as much as anything, and to cover his embarrassment, he smoothly said, "I'm getting tired of visiting you in hospital, old sport."

MacAvoy, being a similar sort of man, took it in the proper spirit, and properly ignored it.

"How's Rebecca? Have you seen her yet?" he asked.

"Not yet. Just got here. Thought we'd start with you," Richard said.

"I've got to get going," Tebbel said. "Call if you need anything, though. Feel free to give these two my private number if you want," she said, before taking herself off.

"It's hard on the old team," MacAvoy said. "They're all in the habit of reporting to me what they're working on and how it's going. A couple of them have literally bitten their tongues, trying to snap off what they'd started to say. But they've all been troopers about coming to see me, and I know they're pulling out the stops to..." His voice failed. He fought to regain control of himself. "How do five kids just disappear, anyway?" he said, through near sobs.

"We're here to help find them," Emma said. "And it's encouraging that the clues lead to someone driving off with them. It's not like we need to assume they're wandering around in the woods alone."

"I'm hanging onto every scrap of hope I can, but do me a favor and don't lay it on too thick," Harold said.

"I wasn't planning to. Let me know if I do it accidentally," Emma said. "Backing up a bit. You asked about Rebecca. You aren't happy with the reports you're getting?"

"In a word, no. But I'm tethered to all these tubes, and can't even hold a phone to use it. Not that she's likely to be able to hold a conversation either, from what I'm reading between the lines of the too-carefully-worded briefs I'm getting."

"I'm on it," Emma said, as she darted out.

"I saw that, by the way," Harold said to Richard as soon as she was out of earshot.

"What?"

"How she got your permission with a quick eye request, before assigning herself to scout duty," Harold said. "We're lucky, the both of us, having landed women who know how to be teammates."

There was an awkward silence, as Richard tried to come up with a good reply to that. For one thing, Harold had tried to marry Emma once upon a time. For another, who knew if Rebecca would ever be well enough to be a good teammate again?

Changing the subject seemed to be in order. Besides, there was a case on hand, and an urgent one at that, involving children.

"I got briefed by Durand, and I've been following the news as best I could on our trip here, but perhaps there's something you can add before we head out to look? Or some specific thing you'd like for us to do?" Richard said.

"Do you have any leads at all?" Harold asked.

"Not a one. At this point, we're going to maunder around relentlessly, making inquiries, and go from there. Unless someone has a better idea, of course. We're available to be placed wherever wanted. We're retired, you know."

"I heard. Including from you," Harold said. Like Tebbel, it was clear he wasn't sure whether to believe it.

He closed his eyes, and fell asleep, exhaustion and pain written into his features. Richard got the feeling that he hadn't meant to doze, but had only meant to take a second or two to regroup his thoughts. Rather than wake him, he used the bathroom facilities, combed his already tidy hair, wandered to the window and stared out. The view was a mix of pretty and ugly. The mood he was in, his eyes strayed most often to studying the ugly.

He switched to studying the people walking and driving below. They were a mix of pretty and ugly, too, he realized. But mostly, most of them seemed strained or lost or lonely, defensively pulled inside themselves. The tone they hauled around with them overshadowed their looks, at least it did if you let it.

There was a gentle rapping on the door. Richard turned to see a grinning Emma pushing a weak but beaming Rebecca in a wheelchair. Rebecca was slightly crooked in the chair, and held in place with ties. Behind them, a fretful couple of nurses hovered.

"We've come for a short visit. Can't stay long. She needs to get back to bed soon," Emma announced, cheerfully but professionally.

Her manner calmed the nurses some, but Richard guessed that Emma had talked them into doing something entirely out of order. Emma was good at that. She was, in fact, infamous for it, inside intelligence circles.

Harold woke, looked at the newcomers, and melted with relief.

Richard, not wanting to be present while another man was that emotional, fought off an urge to make his excuses and make a run for it, his wife firmly in hand beside him. Unfortunately, his wife was the only thing keeping the nurses from bolting with Rebecca, so he resumed spying on pedestrians below. It seemed the least he could do.

"Don't be shy," Rebecca said. It sounded like it was aimed at him. He turned his head slightly.

She smiled at him. "Thank you two for coming," she said. "We need all the help we can get right now. Pull up a chair and let us tell you all that we know."

Richard pulled up a chair.

# Chapter Six

## Up the mountain

To a man used to navigating impossibly narrow roads in teeming cities built before automobiles, it was a bit annoying that the road he was on managed to be only about a car and a half wide in most places, even though they were in wide open spaces; that is, with no buildings to prohibit expansion. (He freely conceded that the terrain and trees would have made it a chore to widen the roads. But terrain and trees weren't buildings in which someone had an investment, and therefore ought to be available to be flattened without a twinge, surely, if there was a reason for it.)

It's not that they were meeting enough traffic for it to be a real bother, but the stress of keeping track of pullouts as one wended through the wilderness was wearing. So far, he'd only had to backtrack once, to let a truck go by. Twice, he and the oncoming driver had managed to slide off onto their respective shoulders enough to squeeze by one another. Once, a sweet couple had backed up for him. Twice, though, impatient drivers going way too fast had overtaken him and passed him with only inches to spare. Their license plates were securely recorded in his memory, for the time being at least, mostly from a habit of noting identifying features of vehicles and people who caught his attention. He wasn't sure yet whether he'd turn them into law enforcement for it. A lifetime of steering clear of unnecessary entanglements in local affairs rather argued against it.

He'd also had to steer around horseback riders, most of whom seemed friendly, but only a few of whom seemed to know how to ride a horse.

At present, he was trying to work his way through a herd of free range cattle, who were proving every bit as ponderous as the few cattle with whom he'd been acquainted in pastures.

"Wildness hasn't seemed to improve their wariness any," he remarked.

"I wouldn't bet on a mama cow trusting you near her calf, though," Emma said.

"There's a story behind that, is there?"

Emma laughed. "They can also run faster than it looks like they can run," she said. "Which is something I found out from a mama cow who didn't like me being near her calf."

"Duly noted," Richard said, while battling a wave of homesickness for London.

Before they were quite clear of the herd, Richard's phone beeped, a map app signaling that they were at the scene of the crash. He found the nearest wide spot for parking, assessed the herd situation, and decided to tilt his seat back and catch a little rest until they passed by.

They didn't pass. He tried barking at them.

They mostly ignored him, but Emma laughed. At least it was the sort of laugh that advertised that she was amused at the situation, instead of laughing at him. She was good at that.

"I'm taking suggestions," he said.

"I'd lay off the barking," she said.

"I'd already gotten that far," Richard said, realizing as he said it that he was sounding more like an American than usual. The ruddy country seemed to be rubbing off on him. "Well, we haven't time for this. Watch my back," he said, as he got out of the car. He waved his hands at the cattle, hoping as he did so that he didn't look too much like a traffic cop directing traffic. Some yearlings took off in a panic, dragging older and younger cattle in their wake.

Richard strode to his wife's door and gallantly opened it for her and lent her a hand getting out. He'd have done it in any case, but it was especially satisfying to introduce a dash of civility out here in the wilds. Men with no manners, he mused, had no idea how much it bucked a fellow up to open doors and hand women in and out of cars.

The crash site, as he had feared, didn't offer any obvious clues. All the automotive evidence had been hauled off, and the rescue efforts and investigators had trampled here, there and everywhere. (Not quite, of course, but it seemed close enough to that to think so.)

He pulled out his phone and studied a map of the area. He heard a vehicle coming and started to stash his phone before remembering that these days everyone had video phones, and therefore no one would marvel at what he had in his hand, should he carelessly let them have a glimpse of it.

"I doubt there's anyone still camping around here who was here at the time of the crash," Emma said, "but we might as well ask around, in case anyone's heard or seen anything since then. Then I suppose we might check at the ranches up the road. It seems more likely that the kidnappers went down into populated areas or sped out of the area, but there's at a least a chance they bolted into the woods," Emma said. "Or do you have a different course of action in mind? I'm at the grasping at straws stage, and so early in it that any straw's as good as another one, for all that I know."

"Join the club," Richard said. "Campgrounds sound good, for starters. Ranches, not so much. They'll have regulars, who'll be able to spot anything out of place better than we could."

The vehicle that Richard had heard approaching turned out to be a pickup hauling a horse trailer. The driver slowed down while he and his passenger, a pretty young lady with haunting eyes, studied the outsiders.

Emma flagged them down.

"Car trouble?" the driver guessed.

"No. We're friends of the MacAvoys, and we're helping to nose around hoping to turn up anything that might be helpful in finding their children, who went missing here," Emma said. "If for any reason you don't feel comfortable calling the police with ideas or clues, please call me. I'm retired law enforcement, but I'm only curious about finding the kids who disappeared after the car crash." She handed them a card which listed her name and current mobile phone number.

The young lady turned a questioning gaze on her escort. He smiled reassurance at her.

He pocketed Emma's card. "Wish I did have something to tell you," he said, his face going dark. "There's lots I'll overlook, but taking kids away from their parents isn't one of them."

He glanced at his passenger, who was starting to cry. He nodded a goodbye, and drove off.

"You seem to have hit a nerve," Richard said.

"These days, lots of people have had nightmare run-ins with people who don't mind pulling families apart, even on baseless claims," Emma said. "And out in places like this, you can get lots of people hiding out from government agents, maybe even social workers. I'm not saying that's what's going on with those two, but that's my starting hypothesis, for whatever that's worth. Of course, these days, it's just as likely to be desertion, or a divorce, or sex traffickers that take kids away from their parents. Even some hospitals are sort of into what I'd call kidnapping these days, if they disagree with a parent over medical care. Who's to know what that couple or their friends have been through? I almost hate to even guess."

She limped down the hill to where the MacAvoy car had been slammed to a stop by a tree, and looked up at the road. She cast her eyes around. "They're lucky someone found them as soon as they did," she observed. "It's not like the crash would be right in someone's line of sight as they came down the road. For that matter, could anyone not on the passenger side going uphill be able to see it, do you think?"

Richard deftly worked his mind out of its default position on which was a passenger side of a car and which lane a car should be in whilst going uphill just there, walked the road to verify his wife's suspicion, and conceded the point.

"At least two people then. A driver and passenger," he said.

"Unless it was people on horseback or foot, of course," Emma said.

"Or motorcycles," Richard added. He thought about adding bicyclists, but bicyclists were at such a disadvantage for kidnapping there wasn't any reason to suspect them without cause.

"Most likely a car or van, of course," Emma said, "Given that there were five kids – and that their scent dropped off as soon as they got to the road. To be honest, I'd forgotten that they'd brought in dogs to sniff."

"All right then, not ruling anything else out entirely just yet, we've got at least two kidnappers, in a car or van most likely, because you need plenty of room," Richard said. "And it was someone going up the hill, even though there isn't much of anything up the hill except a handful of campgrounds and a couple of ranches."

"And sightseeing," Emma said. "People do often just go for drives, after all."

"Or, it might have been someone stalking Harold, with a grudge from his FBI days, and they found this to be an excellent spot to somehow run him off the road without bashing his car. Neither Harold nor Rebecca can remember the incidents leading up to the crash. Not reliably, at any rate," Richard said.

Emma joined him, took his hand, and gave it a squeeze. He leaned down and kissed her. He handed her back into the car, and they drove up the third rate road, scanning for clues, aiming for the nearest campground, hoping for a miracle.

# Chapter Seven

## Enlisting help

Richard was seriously considering tearing at his hair. He couldn't remember ever having done so, even as a child, and it was contrary to his idea of how a grown man – particularly a British gentleman – should act. But there it was. He was possessed of a strong urge to tear at his hair. "Why is it," he asked Emma, without keeping his voice low, or the exasperation out of it, "that I could spend well over a quarter century in an official capacity and essentially never get asked for credentials, but immediately after I'm out of the agency everyone and their pet cat wants to see proof of an official affiliation? Even after I explain that I'm not on an official investigation, but merely helping friends?"

"You might be exaggerating a bit," she said, calmly, with one eye on the latest round of uncooperative potential witnesses, who were enjoying beer out in the woods, around a campfire pit with no fire in it. "We've only been at this three days, and you've only been asked for proof of authority five times that I know about."

Richard considered filling her in on the times she didn't know about, but decided against it.

Emma sized up the men who were enjoying Richard's distress.

"Look, guys," she said, "I'm sorry that we've interrupted your little beer fest, and I'm doubly sorry that we're rookies at being unemployed and don't know how to investigate without a government team, and I'm triply sorry that we're reduced to visiting far-flung campgrounds and talking to men who realistically are probably going to miss even blatant clues that walk through camp, since they're too busy paying attention only to themselves, but if by chance anything useful gets past your boozy fog, please call the sheriff's office or something. Children's lives are at stake. Or, we hope they're alive enough to need help yet. Thanks for your time. We'll be going now."

She headed for the car, her face unreadable. Richard had to stride manfully to beat her to it so that he could be there in plenty of time to open the door for her without looking overly rushed.

As they drove up the mountain road, Emma's smile grew.

"Dare I ask what you find amusing?" Richard asked.

"I'm just wondering whether I need to call the sheriff and warn him I might have created some monsters," she said.

"I give up. I'm tired. Explain, please."

"I'd almost be willing to bet that one or two of those guys, if not the whole mess of them, will be providing what they hope are clues in short order."

"Dare I ask why you think that? They seemed a rather unpromising lot to me. But of course I'm not American."

"Darling, even a drunken lout of a man hates to have his manhood questioned. And on top of that, didn't you notice that in two of the cars there are car seats? They might not have full custody of their kids, for all I know, but they're at least willing to look out for kids. So then, I not only blasted their manhood, I suggested they could be heroes and help save kids if they'd just try to keep their eyes open. If they don't at least take a stab at being heroes, I'm going to be surprised. They're likely to botch it horribly, though, which could be annoying for the sheriff. But it seemed worth a shot, all the more so since we're down to long shots."

They were both silent for a few minutes. Richard pulled over and consulted a map. "We've hit all the campgrounds in the core area. Shall we start a second round, or strike out for new territory?" he asked.

"Let's go to town and check in, why don't we? I need a shower, I need to talk to Rebecca, and I want to have some face time with the official team instead of relying on phone calls and texts when we can find coverage. For that matter, perhaps they have something they need more boots on the ground for, but haven't thought to ask. Or, I'm open to suggestions. If you want to start a second round, I'm game."

Richard looked at her. She was game, there was no question of that. But she also needed a shower and a shampoo, as did he, the pair of them having slept in the car every night since their arrival in Idaho. They'd used dry shampoo and done sponge baths in creeks under their clothing, and they'd managed to keep clothing clean enough by wilderness standards, but between the grit and grime and the failure to turn up leads, they were both looking and feeling the worse for wear. He turned toward town.

Rather than go first to a hotel, he headed toward the Isaac Ziegler home. Ziegler was still in the FBI, and had worked under MacAvoy. He and his wife had taken in a handful of adults with special needs, among them a former colleague who'd suffered brain injury. Ordinarily, of course, Richard would have preferred to go to the FBI office and consult with him there – if he could catch him – and also he'd rather just avoid the adults with special needs, especially Jarvis, whom he'd known before the injury. But there were two things that argued against that. For one thing, it was awkward to visit offices as a civilian when you were used to waltzing in as a highly esteemed colleague. For another, it was demoralizing to be avoiding Jarvis, even with the very good excuse of being too busy helping search for children to be able to visit with him yet.

Besides, Ziegler and his wife had issued an invitation to come, even to use a spare bedroom, and join them for meals. Richard, though he'd have rather died than admit it, was feeling displaced enough to want to sit at a dinner table in a home instead of a restaurant, in hopes of whatever feeble sense of anchoring it might provide.

Besides, Ziegler had a great deal of sense and it was useful to talk to him, according to MacAvoy.

It was worth a shot. Sometimes talking to Durand had rearranged his thinking in helpful ways. It was certainly worth a shot.

It was getting dark before they could get there, so Richard pulled over a block away from the house and called first. Ziegler cheerfully invited them to come right on over.

For good form's sake, Richard waited a few minutes before starting the car. No sense advertising that you were practically on a man's doorstep when you called. Might as well let him think you were on the outskirts of town, still within easy jogs of hotels.

Jarvis and the others had already gone to bed, and only Ziegler and his wife were still up.

"Not a thing on our end," Richard said as he walked in. He'd rather meant to say hello and inquire into their health first, but somehow the report came out first.

"Not much on ours, either," Ziegler said, matching report for report. "And none that's substantial, or in need of volunteers. Louisa made a fine chicken casserole tonight. There's plenty. Let's fuel you up, and send you to bed, and we'll all hit the ground running in the morning."

It was in fact a fine chicken casserole, even to Richard's refined palate, and it was easy on a stomach Richard hadn't realized was tied in knots as much as it was. He nearly fell asleep in the shower before crawling off to bed. The next thing he knew it was daybreak and there were noises in the kitchen and the smell of coffee tinging the air. He slipped out of bed, being careful to not wake his wife, and checked out the kitchen.

Ziegler was in there alone. He smiled a welcome as Richard shuffled in.

"Part of your problem is just jet lag, you know," Ziegler said. Watching Richard's reaction, he laughed softly. "If you're wondering whether to thank me or punch my lights out, may I suggest a middle course, which involves just taking it in stride and moving along to the next thing? Here's a cup of coffee. Cinnamon rolls are over there. If you can't stand sweet in the morning, I'm making eggs, which will be ready in about five minutes. Don't ask for bacon. Louisa runs a kosher kitchen, but she also hates it when she can't feed a visitor something he wants. Spare us both, all right? Over there is a laptop that ties into my work files. If you'll promise to not go roving through files I don't open for you, I'll let you read everything I've got access to on the MacAvoy case. Which, frankly, is pages and pages of guesses and dead ends. But, hey, you're used to cases like that, and maybe you'll pick out something I've missed. I've got to leave in about 45 minutes. The computer's yours until then."

Richard glanced toward the bedrooms, wondering whether to go wake Emma and have her read over his shoulder, but Ziegler caught his eye and shook his head slightly.

All right, then. The man was willing to go out on a limb, but only so far. No sense pushing it, all the more so since Emma, as an ex-American agent, was likely on a suspected traitors list in some boneheaded offices at higher levels. Ziegler of course wouldn't have invited her under his roof if he'd believed that, but of course it was one thing to have a woman using your guest bed, and another to let her travel around inside your government files.

Ziegler was a good chap, and kept his coffee filled as he read, and answered questions and asked a few. Sensible ones, too.

Still, as he'd said, so far there was nothing to go on; no progress except the dogged exploration of one possibility here and another there, which was helping build up a map of what hadn't happened to the kids. By now, of course, the public was in on it, and the media, although the initial frenzy was already dying down. There were other circuses to watch, other crimes to be trumpeted as the sensation of the hour. But still, law enforcement was still active and a sizable portion of the public was still watching, and hoping.

Richard smiled. The previous case he'd been on in Boise, the populace, especially certain bartenders, had proven themselves to have sharp eyes and a thirst for justice. Not that there was much hope that bartenders would be useful in this case. Not that sort of case, it wasn't. Still, he'd almost be willing to place a bet on the public cracking this one. In this sort of case, that someone outside of law enforcement would stumble on a clue was usually your best hope, he'd found. The thought made him redouble his concentration. Whether he'd count as law enforcement or civilian these days was up in question. What wasn't in question was that he personally wanted to solve the case, regardless of which team (so to speak) would count it as a score.

All too soon, Ziegler had to retake possession of his computer and head off to work. Richard woke Emma, the two of them got dressed and ate a quick breakfast, and were off before the rest of the household was up. They'd planned an early start, after all.

At the hospital, they swapped notes with Harold but couldn't see Rebecca because she was in treatment. They didn't stay long. There wasn't any point. Once you say, "sorry, no news yet but we're heading out to get right back on it," there isn't much to say, and no reason to dilly dally.

To Richard's surprise, on the way out Emma insisted upon stopping at a sandwich shop inside the hospital, near a main entrance. By her manner, he knew both that she wasn't really hungry, and that he shouldn't bring up that they'd just eaten, and eaten rather well at that.

She ordered an extra couple of sandwiches and bottled orange juices, he presumed for lunch.

Belatedly, he realized that a young man, late teens or early twenties, was interested in them, but afraid to approach them.

He looked poor, and pinched, and worried. That wasn't uncommon in a hospital, of course, but it seemed a slightly different flavor of worry than usual.

He sensed that Emma was watching the young man, almost willing him to approach, without in the least looking like she was looking at him. A neat trick, that. He felt awfully proud of her. However, it wasn't working, and they were in a hurry.

He shifted his attention to the young man. "Can we help you?" he asked.

The poor kid (for all his years, he seemed a kid) nearly ran off, but he swallowed hard, and came forward, nervously. He clearly didn't like the setting, though.

"Here, let's go down the hall to a place we can talk without so much noise around us, shall we?" Richard said, in as friendly of a manner as he could muster, given that he would rather be tearing for the parking lot and rushing back out into the hunt. He gathered the bags of sandwiches and drinks, and shepherded Emma and the stranger down to a lobby of sorts, where he laid claim to a cluster of four chairs, two facing two, which offered a chance to talk without anyone listening in.

They sat, the young man nervously. Emma smiled and handed him an orange juice and a sandwich. He accepted the orange juice, and thanked her, but declined the sandwich.

'Good manners, hungry, but not willing to accept handouts past a beverage. Vestiges of a good character, at least,' Richard guessed.

"You were just visiting the parents of those kids who went missing, weren't you?" the young man asked.

Emma nodded. Richard followed her lead.

"Are they going to be all right?" the young man asked.

"We don't know. No one's found them yet," Richard said.

The young man stared at him.

"I think he's asking if Harold and Rebecca are going to be all right," Emma said. She turned her attention to the young man. "They're doing much better. They should be fine in a few weeks, at least physically. Of course it's dreadful what worrying about their children is doing to them. They love their children dearly. This not knowing anything is killing them."

"If a person thought they might know something, but, um, couldn't go to the police, not that I'm saying I know anything, but if I thought someone who couldn't go to the police might know something, how would they go about that, without getting into trouble?"

Richard would have liked to grab the kid and shake him until he spilled his information. Not that he generally approved of that technique, or had used it more than once or twice in his life, but under the circumstances it was tempting. Instead he settled more deeply in his chair to make it harder to fly out of it, and let Emma take over, since she seemed to be establishing a rapport with the suspect.

"We're helping look, and we're not with law enforcement; and the main thing, as far as we know, is getting the kids back home safely, if they're still alive," Emma said. "I'm Emma, and this is Richard. Here's my card. There's also an anonymous tip line with the sheriff's office, and I think that would likely be safe, but Richard and I would be happy to go anywhere and talk to anyone, if it would help, and we're not obligated to make reports to law enforcement, if that helps any."

"Yeah, well, I'm not saying I know yet, but maybe I'll get back to you, if I do find out anything," the young man said, carefully pocketing the card and patting it down tight to insure it stayed put and out of sight.

He stood. Richard stood with him, and stuck out a hand. The gesture seemed to surprise the stranger. He more or less froze.

"Is there a name we can use for you? It can be whatever you like," Richard asked.

"Tim," the young man said. "I'm not saying that's my name, but let's use that, for now. If I call you, I'll use that."

"It's a deal," Richard said.

The young man nodded, uncomfortably, but took Richard's hand in his and shook it, before nervously leaving.

"He's going to be afraid to call us if we follow him, isn't he?" Richard said, reluctantly.

"I'm afraid so," Emma said. She gave a half nod at someone across the room.

Richard looked over in time to see Mrs. Tebbel heading out the door like she'd planned all along to leave just then, and never mind that she'd just arrived to visit her old boss.

A few minutes later, she came back in.

"Got in a cab. I have the ID. Shall I call it in?" she asked.

Emma shook her head. "And do me a favor, and don't publish the guy's picture, either," she said. "As far as we know, he's just a concerned member of the public who thinks he might have stumbled across something that might help on the MacAvoy case, but he hangs out with gang members who will kill him if they catch him talking to the cops, even on matters unrelated to gang activity."

"How sure are you of that?" Tebbel asked.

"Maybe thirty percent. Less than that on the gang affiliation, but not by much," Emma said.

Tebbel smiled. "It's not like I have anything better to do at the moment. Got any pictures that are likely to be better than the security cams?"

"Check your phone," Emma said.

Tebbel checked her email and shook her head. "I will never get used to civilians having phones that can take pictures, much less phones that can do email, much less phones that can send pictures via email," she said.

"You and me both," Emma said. "Richard spent a fortune on this one. Already, you can buy something similar for half what we spent. I hate it, and keep messing up with it, but sometimes it's useful. Richard, why don't you give her a brief briefing, and then let's all get out of here and go to work."

"I'd feel better if Tebbel ran the pictures by Harold and Rebecca before she heads out of here, just to see if our friend 'Tim' is anyone they recognize," Richard said.

"Good point," Emma said.

"Give me your best two-minute report, and I'm upstairs with the photos," Tebbel said.

Richard got it covered in one minute, and they parted company.

As they left, Richard mused aloud about how easily Tebbel had been convinced to not have the cab stopped or followed.

"One of the other agents from her office was outside when she came in. She told him something, and he left. It's not going to surprise me if they know already where he got off. I'd rather not have feds tailing civilians without warrants or without better cause, but it's not my call," Emma said. "Besides, maybe that's not why he left. We may never know."

'How much do you want to bet that we'll never know,' Richard thought, but didn't say.

-

Their best lead so far having happened in the city, Richard decided to not head out into the mountains again just yet. He found a handy park for a nap and a picnic, and they rested and ate. And checked their phones frequently.

"Did Tim remind you of anybody?" Richard asked, after it had nagged on him for a while that Tim seemed familiar, in that odd cousin-y way that all too often just meant that someone was cursed with common features, or resembled a childhood playmate you'd forgotten over the years.

"That couple in the pickup with the horse trailer that we met at the crash site that first day," Emma said. "But I don't know why. So maybe I shouldn't have said anything, because maybe I'm wrong, and it's going to warp your memory."

Richard smiled at her. "Darling, I might be old and creaky, but I am a highly trained professional, fully aware of the dangers of potential false leads."

Still, annoyingly, he hadn't thought Tim reminded him of the couple in the truck before now, but now he did. Worse, he had no idea whether Emma had brought his own vague hunch into focus, or had merely planted an idea.

He turned the idea over in his head. The more he thought about it, the more he could make himself believe first one thing, and then another.

"Have you ever had a hankering to visit a dude ranch?" Emma asked.

"Not until today, but I think I know just the one," Richard said. "You'd better wash up here. It's a long drive ahead of us."

Emma headed for the restrooms.

Richard sat and pondered. It was a long shot, of course. There were two ranches up that road above the crash site, only one of which took in guests. And of course the young man and young woman hauling that horse trailer might not belong to either one. They might have just been camping in the area.

A picture of their license plate popped into his head. Thanks to his long years of training, he could recall it clearly. Feeling a bit guilty about it, he called Tebbel and asked if she could very discreetly run the plate for him. Like Emma, he hated to sic law enforcement on people without a strong cause, and in this case he wasn't even sure if his so-far-uninformative informant Tim really did remind him of those two, much less why he might. Swallowing his pride, he told her that, lest she put too much teeth into the effort, which would certainly be unethical.

Tebbel, at least, was an experienced agent. She understood about grasping at straws, whilst trying to protect the privacy and rights of bystanders.

At least, she seemed to.

At least, he hoped she did. Otherwise, he'd potentially fed innocents to a federal government that all too often got out of hand.

He wished he'd called the sheriff's office instead. That would have been marginally better. At least if the couple was innocent of any involvement in the crime, it would be better if their names never crossed through the FBI's search files. Of course, so far, there was no way to know that.

Emma came back. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Darling, I have become a rookie all over again, and am beginning to suspect everyone of being a criminal. I thought I had outgrown that. Wisdom comes with age, and all that rot," he joked.

Emma, he noted, knew that he was only half joking.

After this case was over, perhaps they should go into small scale farming or something like that after all, he thought. Or buy an island somewhere, to boat off to whenever they caught themselves becoming a menace to the people around them.

He shook off his mood and his musing, and escorted Emma to the car. They headed first to a supply store that had jeans and hats and such. Properly outfitted, they headed out to play dudes. Richard pointedly didn't try to make reservations. For poking your nose around, sometimes it paid to not give someone a chance to tell you that they were full up and there was no excuse to come just now.

# Chapter Eight

## The dude ranch

The dude ranch seemed singularly low on guests and activity for the height of tourist season.

"It's fire season," the young woman who met them in the parking lot explained. "Folks get spooked at the idea of maybe having to evacuate on a moment's notice. Plus, they miss the campfires. No campfires are allowed just now. If we get a rain, that will change. On the upside, when we have fewer guests, we can tailor your vacation to you all that much easier."

Richard got the idea that the woman was scared they wouldn't be able to pay the bills this year. Even if there hadn't been a sneaky reason for setting up there as a base, he'd have happily thrown himself on the registration book to help her, having as he did a weakness for people who wanted to work hard but simply didn't have a proper chance at it, not to mention a gallant streak when it came to women.

As they climbed the stairs to the lodge, he nearly tripped, which annoyed him. He regained his composure after the slightest flutter and sailed up the stairs in good form, which he felt redeemed the situation enough to not tarnish the reputation of English gentlemen on foreign ground.

Still, it was deucedly awkward.

"Hello. Didn't expect to see you here," he said cheerfully to the couple sitting on the porch.

The couple stared back, as they also tried to decide how much recognition was in order.

"Ah, perhaps you don't remember me," Emma said. "Emma Hugh, Richard's wife. How good to see you again."

The man on the porch took the cue. He stood and bowed slightly and said, with a flourish of his hand, "And may I present my bride, Darlene Stolemaker."

Emma went all American (to Richard's view) and was openly thrilled with the news, hastening over to congratulate the two of them. She even gave Darlene a hug, which Darlene happily returned. Never in his life having seen Darlene Dourlein happily hugging someone without a shred of professional reserve in evidence, it was jarring, but Richard stoutly pretended it wasn't.

"We're here on our honeymoon," Stolemaker said.

"Congratulations," Richard said. "We're just enjoying our retirement, and nosing about here, there, and wherever. If we'd be an intrusion–"

"No, not at all," Darlene assured him. "And Andy's retired now, too. It takes some getting used to, doesn't it?"

"I hadn't heard," Richard said. "Congratulations, if that's the word I want."

"It is," Darlene said.

"Ah, then I'll just go take care of the formalities and will see you later. Emma, darling, if you'd like to stay and visit, you might as well."

Emma gladly stayed, while Richard escorted the female ranch hand into the lobby. He hoped Emma would slide right into finding out why the others were really there, and whether they were at cross currents somehow.

-

It turned out that his old boss had actually married his longtime secretary, and they really were on their honeymoon. It also turned out that they had chosen that particular dude ranch for the same reason Richard and Emma had, which was in hopes of hearing or seeing something that might help in the search for the MacAvoy children. (No sense being entirely useless in retirement, after all, even if one was on one's honeymoon. Besides, they had each of them long wanted to try an American holiday, and what was more American or more romantic than a guest ranch?)

The reason they hadn't let Richard and Emma know of either their marriage or their plans rested on several points, not least being that Richard, in his ongoing phone woes, had replaced his phone number with a new one, as had Emma. Likewise, the Stolemakers had shed old numbers for new ones. In addition, all of them had new emails. In the shuffle, no one had been left with a way to directly contact the other couple.

That got remedied quickly. However, they were beyond cell phone service which meant the Stolemakers were effectively phoneless. Richard, with his deeper pockets, had a satellite phone, but even it wasn't usable at all locations on the ranch.

"It generally does take a bit to get used to being unplugged, but you'll get used to it," their hostess, now known to be Rhonda, said. "In fact, some of our regulars come here just because of that. Some men go nuts, being reachable every minute of the day."

Richard, being a man who was ordinarily driven nuts by being reachable every minute of the day, was nevertheless not entirely convinced he wanted to be de-phoned on this expedition. Still, there was nothing to be done for it, and he resolved to relearn the mindset of his early career, when even top-flight spies had had to use phone booths and hotel phones, or radios, or simply go long stretches without communicating with the office.

He'd rather liked going long stretches without communicating with the office. How far a man could fall, once he got spoiled with technology, he mused.

Later, as the four old friends sat eating together in the lodge's dining room, with only four other guests sharing the accommodations with them, an argument broke out in the kitchen. Only a bit of it came clearly, but enough to know that a man was chewing out Rhonda for taking on more guests, and that she was asking how they planned to stay in business if they didn't. The man answered something about her not knowing what was going on. Apparently, though, he wasn't going to tell her what was going on that she didn't know about. A short while later, he stomped out. Through the window, Richard saw that the man was old enough to be Rhonda's father, and looked enough like her that he might be.

Rhonda was out to check on them shortly after that, smiling, her eyes only slightly wet. Her shaking was under control enough that a man of less perception might have missed it, but she was shaking, whether from fear or anger or both, Richard wasn't prepared to say.

He acted like he hadn't heard a raised voice, much less any of the conversation, and that he saw nothing amiss now. His companions followed his lead. The other four guests were far enough across the room that they likely hadn't heard a bit of it, but there was a wee chance that they were also being polite and ignoring the girl's trouble.

After Rhonda had moved on, Richard studied the other guests out of the corner of his eye. One pair seemed American, the other European. Each couple had its own table, but were seated at tables that were next to the other, so that sometimes the conversation involved both tables. The Americans, true to form, were initiating the interactions, but the Europeans, he noted, were happy enough to visit once approached.

French, he guessed, on the Europeans, even though he couldn't hear them talk.

"Mr. and Mrs. Challies, aka Joel and Eileen, on the table to the left, of South Carolina. They have relatives in Seattle, who were supposed to join them, but backed out at the last minute. The other couple are the Bercots, Charles and Adele, from France. They're from the same town as Durand's son-in-law, but I haven't asked yet if they know him. Seemed a good idea not to bring him up," Darlene said, her eyes twinkling.

"Seems a good idea to me, too," Richard said. "I'm guessing that all the information you just gave was from the horse's mouth, and not verified, since you're retired?"

"You guess good," Darlene said, with a western drawl. "Sorry," she said. "The local way of talking seems to be contagious or something."

"In your case, it's charming," Richard said, gallantly, before remembering that he probably needed to dump the old playfulness, now that Darlene (aka Gorgeous) was married to Stolemaker. "Sorry," he said, "Old habits die hard. I'll work on it. In the meantime, is there any reason to think that any of that lot is here for anything but a self-centered bit of fun?"

"Not that I've noticed," she said. She looked at her husband.

"Not that I've noticed, either, but I've spent most of my life behind a desk. Give me a field briefing, and I can smell stuff in it. Put a field agent in front of me who's trying to pull something off, I might catch him. But ordinary people at guest ranches? I'm out of my element, I'm afraid," Stolemaker said.

"Join the club – but never say die, and all that rot," Richard said. He turned his attention back to his meal, which featured a meatloaf that managed to be tasty and of acceptable texture, but bore the marks of a dish that had been stretched with less expensive ingredients.

-

After dinner, Rhonda shepherded all the guests to a corral. To start things off, Richard and Emma, being new, were quizzed and then made to ride around the corral at a walk, one at a time on a sleepy old nag, so Rhonda could evaluate how well they managed at that.

Emma, Richard thought, would have been a good fit for the Jane Austen era, or at least an era like the Jane Austen era was portrayed in films. She had insisted on trying to ride in a full skirt. At a guess, from Rhonda's reaction, Emma was not only the first person to want to do that at this ranch, but possibly the only person on the planet who could have persuaded Rhonda to bend the rules about long pants being required. (To be sure, Emma did have the right sort of boots. And good ones, too, Richard thought with satisfaction, since he'd insisted on getting her top of the line cowboy boots of a particularly pleasing appearance. For cowboy boots.)

The mounting had been a bit tricky since Emma also wished to not be indecent at any stage of the proceedings, but once settled she had proven to be a decent horsewoman, as well as one who humbly took instruction from Rhonda. The two of them, he saw, were rapidly gaining respect for one another.

Ah, but it was hard to pay attention to that. Not with Emma looking like a film heroine. Even on a sleepy old nag.

When it was his turn, Richard resented that he'd be the center of attention. It went against the grain, all the more so since he had little experience with horses, and little of that good. In his experience they were sneaky devils, the lot of them, with minds of their own and no sense whatsoever. Still, he made the best of it, riding with excellent posture and aplomb, all the while hoping he looked less like Don Quixote and more like Gary Cooper, although he had his doubts, especially after he saw Monsieur Bercot fighting with his face in that annoying French way that Frenchmen did when they were amused and wished to appear civilized only on the surface, so that you knew that they were amused.

"All right, I know which horses to start you out on now," Rhonda announced. "Let me round up Tim and Lester to help get them saddled and then we've got just enough time to ride to the pond and back, I think." She headed to a stable.

"Oh, that's such a pretty ride. I just love it. You'll love it, too," Mrs. Challies exclaimed to Richard and Emma, her double chin and round belly bouncing as she rocked on her toes with childish delight.

Mrs. Challies, Richard thought, would be well suited to a war horse of the ancient world, one of the very big ones built to carry a man in full armor. He wondered what sort of ranch horse Rhonda would subject to such a weight. He smiled as he saw Rhonda returning, beside her a weather-beaten, cowboy-hatted man leading a draughtish sort of horse.

Mrs. Challies smiled in fond recognition of the beast. "Galaxy is my special horse," she boasted. "He likes me," she added, with an extra helping of pride.

Indeed, as unlikely as it seemed, the heavy-boned beast flipped his ears forward and perked up at the sight of her.

"This is Lester," Rhonda said to Richard and Emma. "He's our main hand with the horses. And behind, leading your horse, Mr. Hugh, is Tim. He's new this year, but he's doing very well, and is quite good with the horses. Lester, Tim, meet Richard and Emma Hugh."

If he hadn't been an experienced spy, Richard might have said, "We've already met." Because they had. In the hospital, while Emma was insisting upon sandwiches.

Instead he said, "I'm a know-nothing when it comes to horses. Absolute rookie. I might need extra help. Sorry about that," he said, apologetically.

"We're used to that around here," Lester said, encouragingly. "And don't mind Tim if he can't find his tongue. He's horribly shy with people. But he knows his horses." He gave Tim a pat on the back, and went to gather horses from the corral and get them saddled.

Everyone except Mrs. Challies and Richard got horses from the regular corral, Richard noted. He guessed, correctly, that the beasts in the stable were older or duller, or otherwise reserved for the hard cases amongst the dudes, who weren't to be trusted with a regular ranch horse. It was a blow to his pride, but easily deflected, since underneath the embarrassment he was secretly glad to have a beginner's horse.

"Tim, well met," Richard said, reaching out his hand for a shake. Tim's hand was even sweatier than it had been in the hospital, which was saying something. But, of course, the lad was working, and hard work it was, too; to heft saddles onto tall beasts, and to deal with dudes, on a summer evening that was awfully hot.

The ride was pleasant and uneventful, if you were man enough to ignore the heat, dust, mosquitoes and flies. Richard found himself hard pressed to keep his eyes and ears peeled for any hints of an unlikely clue from the woods or from Tim. It was just all too fun to watch his wife, so short, so petite, so pretty in her long skirt, with her long hair flowing down her back, riding a palomino that lacked just a bit of redness to match that honey-colored hair.

Considering that Tim was trying to be invisible, it was just as well that he had his wife to keep him diverted, Richard decided, considering how much he wished now, more than ever, to grab the young man by the front of his shirt and demand he tell him whatever it is that he thought might possibly be a clue to the whereabouts of Harold and Rebecca's young children.

_Dear God, the triplets are only five, and they're the oldest. Please God, help us find them. Help somebody find them, at least, and soon_ , Richard pleaded, in a vague and unfocused way, since he was in one of his spiritual ditches, in which he wasn't too sure about capable men resorting to prayer when they'd been handed a job to do.

His wife, he knew, thought prayer was proper at all times for all things, preferably at the front end of things, and she believed it was really communicating with a real God who really rearranged things when it suited His purposes to do so. It might be nice to have faith like that, but at present Richard didn't, and so he would pray, and then wonder if he should have.

Ah, but look how the lowering sun was shining through the trees, on his beloved wife. And back he went to wife watching, about which he had no qualms at all.

-

That night, Richard saw Tim wander by the lodge a couple of times after dark, looking like he had work to do.

Emma kept checking her phone. She got no calls.

-

The next morning, Lester volunteered to take a group of four guests on a ride, with Tim as his helper; while Rhonda took care of the other four, with Mr. Sawyer's help (whoever Mr. Sawyer was).

Richard discreetly encouraged Lester to take himself and Emma, hoping for a chance to talk to Tim privately. To his satisfaction, Lester was all too happy to accommodate him.

Lester put Tim in the lead spot, followed by the Stolemakers, then the Hughs, with himself bringing up the rear, riding the best looking horse on the place and leading a couple of packhorses.

Richard, with a mixture of pride and fear, was mounted on a horse from the regular string. Apparently, he'd acquitted himself well enough the night before to not require a beginner's horse, in the estimation of his hosts.

A few miles up the trail, he was feeling confident about the horse, a splendidly workaday beast called Tally-ho although he had nothing of a tally-ho spirit in him as far as Richard could tell. However, he wasn't feeling any too keen on having spent that much time with his back to a stranger. Nothing against Lester, especially, but a man who has spent his life fighting criminals simply does not like having his back to other people. And there it was. Being demoted to civilian was simply going to have its awkward situations, and riding along as next to last in a line of riders was just one of them. Richard gritted his teeth while keeping his face smooth, and kept riding.

-

They pulled up for lunch at a spot between a steep rock slope that probably could have been called a cliff without much insult to the English language, and a river. It was pretty, but again it was one of the worst sorts of spots to take an ex-spy. It was ruddy well set up for ambush, it was.

Emma, he noticed, was also uneasy. Likely no one else knew that she was uneasy since she was hiding it well, but as a husband, and as a highly experienced spy, he could tell.

Tim, meanwhile, was downright pasty. He looked like he wished he could bolt, but thought he couldn't.

Richard tried to turn that into a useful clue instead of a mysterious one, but couldn't.

Lester, meanwhile, was all hail-fellow-well-met and busy selling the beauty of the surroundings, the heartiness of the lunch he was going to fix over a fire soon, and the charms of rock climbing.

Rock climbing? Richard hadn't signed up for rock climbing.

Yet, there was no doubt that much of what was coming out of the packs on the pack horses was climbing apparatus. It wasn't the sort of stuff professionals might use on expert level climbs, but it was decidedly ropes and snaggy things to stick in rocks, and pulleys, and whatnot.

The chief – correction, Mr. Andy Stolemaker, civilian tourist; same man, different status – was begging out of the rock climbing. No wonder, considering he had old bullet wounds in both legs.

Lester, unaware of the bullet wounds, was cheerfully explaining that this was all much easier than it looked, and that if you could ride a horse as well as Andy had, you could tackle at least the bottom part of this little hill.

Emma, meanwhile, was showing an unexpected interest in rock climbing. Worse, she was awfully settled about it, in a way Richard had learned to go along with rather than fight. So, he cheerfully expressed himself all too glad to learn rock climbing as long as the lesson was short.

Lester assured him that it would take almost no time at all and told Tim to start the cook fire.

Tim unexpectedly showed some backbone and a willingness to buck authority. "Fires are outlawed just now because of the fire danger, and besides, you have four beginners here. You need at least two people to hold the ropes who know about holding ropes. It's the rules," he said.

Lester flashed a look of bad blood at him that seemed all wrong for the occasion. At a guess, Lester had had a lot of difficulty with Tim. Richard wondered, suddenly, how unreliable his almost-informant was. Perhaps he was the sort to go after rewards? It at least seemed possible, although it went crossgrain to his overall impressions of the young man.

Lester, in the familiar manner of good resort employees, quickly smoothed his face and his manners, and set it up so that he'd be in the lead, Tim behind him, and the guests behind. Shortly after, they were all roped together for a climb before lunch.

The climb was, in fact, not as hard as Richard had feared it would be, the cliff being steep but not vertical, plus there being abundant footholds and handholds, nearly enough to classify as a field of footholds instead of a scattering of them. Not once did he have to contort or stretch to reach a step with his foot or hand. He began to wonder why they were even bothering with the being roped together business.

Lester, near the top of the embankment, clumsily pretended to slip, unhooked himself, and smashed Tim in the face with his boot, sending him plummeting. Emma got unhooked in time, but the rest of them got knocked loose and skidded down the rocky face.

Richard grabbed at rocks. The others grabbed at rocks and each other. As they tumbled, they all got tangled in the rope and jumbled together.

The rope got hooked on rock. They jerked to a stop.

Richard had his left arm free, but couldn't reach any hooks or pins or knots or anything else that seemed useful.

"Hey, Juggler," Emma called down to him.

He looked up, through his fog of pain and lack of air. Emma gently tossed a pocket knife in the air to be sure of its heft, then, with a familiar cue, tossed it to his left hand. It was an excellent toss, and he made an excellent catch. He pushed the blade release, got a firm grip, and started sawing.

"Boulder!" Emma yelled.

Richard tucked his arm with its precious knife close. A large rock ricocheted off his side.

"Clear!" Emma called, from farther up the slope.

"For crying out loud, girl, I don't need you to go chasing murderers," Richard moaned, as he sawed harder at the rope.

He looked up to see Lester wrench loose an even larger rock and throw it with all his might at Emma.

Emma dodged sideways and hugged the wall. The rock missed her.

Lester, who had misjudged the physics of 'every action has an opposite and equal reaction' lost his footing and tumbled.

"Hug the wall with everything you've got!" Richard yelled at the others in his skein.

Lester rolled and skidded past, frantically grabbing rocks but failing to secure a handhold before bouncing out into thin air. A horrible thud followed. After that, silence.

"Be careful how you're cutting there. Don't want to drop people, after all, even though you're not far up, where you're at," Emma said, in a remarkably calm voice. Very businesslike, she was. "I'm on my way down to help. I promise not to hurry, so I won't knock rocks loose."

"We have to go get the kids loose and off the ranch, before Mr. Sawyer or anybody finds out about this," Tim said with difficulty through his broken teeth. "It's maybe their only chance."

"I'm in, if Andrew's well enough I can either leave him or he can come along," Darlene said.

"I'm in," Andrew said.

"That makes it unanimous, at a guess," Richard said, as he finally got the most constraining rope severed, and worked his way into position to untangle and unhook his fellows.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Lester, disappointedly, wasn't dead. Having got his breath back, he was painfully sitting up whilst reaching for a gun.

Richard slipped his remaining bonds in a quick maneuver worthy of an escape artist, jumped and scrambled down the embankment, employed elementary karate and in seconds had the fellow de-gunned and groaning. In short order Lester was de-knifed, de-phoned, and (as soon as Emma so kindly delivered the materials), he was trussed tightly in some of the ropes he'd so kindly brought along for murderous rock climbing.

"You shouldn't have come," Lester roared at Richard. "I saw the business card he was trying to hide. I know Tim brought you up here. I saw how you all know each other, even though Tim's been trying to hide that he knows you. You shouldn't have ganged up on me. You can't stop us. You can't!"

Richard found it enormously bracing to have a man say that he and the others couldn't stop 'us,' whoever us was. Felt like normal, that did. And just the sort of challenge at which he excelled, too, if he did say so himself.

"Might I suggest that wailing in a distressed manner whilst being injured, bloody, and trussed, whilst in mountain lion and bear country, is perhaps extremely unwise?" he said to his prisoner. "All the more so since we have children to rescue and simply must leave you alone for the time being?"

Lester went even grayer than he'd been already, which was gray enough to be worrisome.

Emma, Richard noted, was now hesitating about leaving the prisoner alone. Darlene and the chief, and even Tim, were also wavering a bit.

"We have five children to rescue. We need all of us. We have no time to lose. End of discussion. To horses," Richard commanded.

People still hesitated. "To horse," he said, more sternly.

To horses everyone went, as quickly as their injuries allowed. Tim at the lead, back down the trail a quarter mile they went, then off along a ridge, and then down to another drainage and across and around and around (it felt like around and around, at any rate). If they hadn't been in such a hurry, and if he wasn't afraid what his voice would sound like as each stride panged a little, Richard was pretty sure he'd have jokingly asked Emma if perhaps the common problem of people going in circles when they were lost had a corollary in feeling like you were going in circles when you weren't. As it was, afraid he'd never find his way out again should they lose Tim as their guide, he was checking his phone from time to time when the terrain seemed to open up, and storing up GPS readings when he could. Not that he knew how to find his way to a specific GPS reading using a civilian model of phone, necessarily, but surely someone in the battered little group could help him, if necessary.

The trail was rough. All too often, they had to pull to a walk.

Sometimes they had to insist that the horses clamber over logs. The first time this happened, and every log thereafter, Tally-ho gave a hint of how he might have acquired his name. When asked to go over the log, he sailed higher than required, in a funny maneuver that was part hop and part leap, sometimes with a flourish of a kick thrown in for good measure.

Tim, after the first such show of gymnastics, offered to trade horses, but Richard gamely refused. For one, he'd held his seat and he was determined to hold his seat from here on out, which seemed do-able now that he knew the horse liked to hop over logs. For another, at this stage of things at least, he figured that Tim was the only crucial member of the party, since no one else knew where they were going.

At long last, Tim pulled to a slow trot in a clearing and started waving an arm around like crazy, like a trick roper who had forgotten his rope.

Ahead, in the fringe of woods, someone mimicked the signal. There were additional hints of movement, like multiple people were going to cover over a goodly patch of landscape. Worrisome, that, but no sense letting on that you knew.

Tim slowed the rescue squad to a walk, patting his horse as he did so. Another young man, about Tim's age, stepped out to greet them as they pulled to a stop and dismounted. He had the air of a sentry. "What happened to you?" he asked Tim.

"Lester tried to kill us. We need to get the kids out. Now. These are friends of their parents," Tim managed to say, before his swollen face got so gummed up he couldn't talk.

The sentry signaled to someone hiding behind a tree who darted off and was soon back with a boy about five or six. The messenger pointed to the rescue party and whispered in the boy's ear. The boy shook his head.

"Nice try," the sentry said, pulling a pistol and indicating that it was time to leave.

Richard subtly raised a hand to say not so fast. "My name is Richard Hugh. This is my wife Emma. We're British. We knew the MacAvoys before they were married, but haven't been to the States recently, so don't know the children personally. My wife and Rebecca chat fairly frequently on the phone. I'm not sure how we can prove that, but surely there's something you can ask us, or we can ask the boy, that can convince you. All we want is to get them to safety."

The five-year-old strode up, with a face and manner that gloriously reflected both his father's Scottish background and his mother's mixed ancestry. "Are you who worked with Durand?"

Richard blinked. "Yes, Durand and I work together quite a lot, considering that he's French and I'm British. Or, we did. I've recently retired."

"What's his first name?"

"Leandre."

The boy ran to give him a hug.

"Please, Dusty, they aren't with the drug gang. I saw them at the hospital, and they were allowed in to see the parents," Tim got out, painfully.

"And Tim, who apparently knows more about local dangers than we do, insists that we need to get the children out now," Richard said, trying to hurry things along.

Tim nodded. "And get everyone else underground until I can get help back here for them, or until stuff blows over," he said. Blood ran down his chin, overcoating blood that was already there.

The sentry gave another signal, and soon four more children were delivered to the rescue party. They were loaded onto horses, the oldest behind saddles to hang onto their rescuer's waist, the younger ones in front to be held tight. From their perches they waved tearful goodbyes to the sentry and to a handful of other young people who were peering from behind shrubbery.

Instead of retracing the way they'd come, Tim headed cross country to the neighboring ranch. They had to go more gingerly, now that they were trying to keep children from falling off, and also because the horses were getting tired.

They went through several gates. When they came across a gate that was chained shut, Tim pulled wire cutters out of a pocket and cut the barbed wire fence to let them through. As they got close to the ranch headquarters, Tim steered them to a small draw and motioned to them to stay out of sight.

Richard decided that they were enough out of sight if he alone was peeking, and was careful to stay low and motionless. He watched Tim sneak to a smaller house, probably built for a ranch hand, and slip inside the back door.

While he waited for Tim to reappear, Richard scanned the ranch, memorizing the layout and watching for trouble. A familiar pickup and trailer were parked near a tractor that had seen better days. He checked his phone for old messages he might have missed. Nothing. Therefore nothing from Tebbel. No way of knowing if she'd found anything after running the plate, if she'd run it.

Tim came out and pointed to the draw. The young man who'd stopped at the crash site came at a cautious jog. Richard stepped out of hiding to meet him.

"Tim says I need to hide some people in my horse trailer and get them to town. Or I think that's what he's saying?" the young man said.

"We've found the children who were missing, but there's been some trouble with someone who tried to kill us, and Tim was mumbling about something that sounded like he was afraid of further trouble from a drug gang. I'm not sure. I'm having trouble understanding him through that cut lip and missing teeth, too," Richard said. "But in any case, we'd very much appreciate being driven to town or somewhere we can get backup from law enforcement, or our hands on a rental car, or something; and a horse trailer strikes me as a very good way of staying out of sight until we're off the mountain," Richard said.

The young man nodded, and the two of them herded the refugees to the horse trailer and inside.

"You, too," Richard said to Tim when he hesitated.

"But Amber's here," he said, waving at the small house.

"That's who was with you the other day?" Richard asked his driver. The driver nodded. "To be on the safe side, why doesn't she come with us? Then we don't have to worry about stray criminals finding anybody up here, whilst looking for us. It seems unlikely, but I'm not one to leave women behind during times of doubt."

The driver ran to get her. "Stay out of sight until I tell you, will you?" he pleaded once everyone was loaded. "I'm scared of these guys, and they won't think it's funny that I'm smuggling people out of here." He closed the doors on the back of the trailer, locking them in.

"Smaller people can get out through the slits back here, and larger people can get in and out the hay and tack doors up front," Amber said nervously.

"I doubt we'll have any trouble, but I appreciate the information," Richard said.

"I wish we'd packed everything. I don't want to go back," Amber said.

"There's hardly room for everything, but we'll make sure you can get your belongings, if you don't come back," Richard said.

Darlene got grandmotherly, and moved over to sit beside Amber. "Tim's face got bashed in before he could tell us much. Who is it that you're afraid of?"

"The gangs. Mr. Sawyer, who owns the guest ranch, made a deal with them and let them use part of his ranch for drugs, but they've pretty much taken over not only his place, but this one. This one belongs to my uncle, but he turned it over to Jake to run. That was before the gangs. Since the gangs, all our hands have either left or signed on with the gangs. They say they can work for both of us, no problem, but I don't believe them. We hate it, but we hate to give up, and we thought we could work something out, but they always want more, and we don't know what to do, because Jake spent time in prison and no one's going to believe him, or help him, either."

"As it happens, I've spent time behind bars myself. I know people who know how to look past that, if a man shows signs of reformation," Richard said.

The truck slowed.

"Let's all be quiet now," Stolemaker said, in his best grandfather tone, holding up his finger to his lips.

The MacAvoy kids huddled tight and were quiet as quiet could be, still as statues. Tim covered them with his body as the truck and trailer pulled to a stop. Richard's heart ached.

"What's back there?" a man demanded.

"Can't a man haul a horse trailer anymore without being asked what's in it?" Jake said.

"Nope," the man growled.

The back doors yanked open.

"Well, well, look what we have here," a couple of men said, as they sneered in.

Richard stuck his hands in the air and stood up. He had to stay bent over because he was so tall, but he stepped over and through the rest and stepped outside, as if he'd been asked to step outside.

"You again?!" a Russian-sounding man said.

"I might say the same thing, with equal surprise," Richard said. "Especially as I've gone to considerable trouble to be a couple hundred miles or so from what I thought was your territory. If you please, we didn't know you were around, and we're merely trying to get some children away from kidnappers and back home, and so why don't we all pretend again that we've never met?"

The Russian edged his underlings aside and looked inside the trailer more carefully.

"Ooh, but there's a sizable reward on that lot, now isn't there?"

"I'll leave it at a blind drop, if you like. Just please let us get out of here, before your competitors show up. I've no desire to be in the crossfire, and even less to have innocents involved."

"What competitors?"

"Gentlemen, with apologies for interrupting, as soon as we got within phone range, I sent messages to law enforcement, who are en route to meet us," Emma said.

"Nice try," the Russian said.

"Here's my phone, if you'd like to see the log and the text messages," she said. "But you might as well know that since I knew this was a high profile case and that all the agencies would want to claim that they'd rescued the kids, I sent to county and state as well as federal. If I know these guys, they are competing to see who gets here first."

The Russian grabbed the phone. He scrolled through. He swore. "Bug out, bug out," he yelled in Russian.

Even those of his gang who didn't know Russian got the message, and ran like their lives depended on it.

A helicopter crested a far ridge. Down the hill, dust kicked up as a car, or perhaps a series of cars, raced up the hill.

"Competition can be a good thing," Emma said. She started to hug Richard, but noticed that it hurt him. He was angry with himself that she'd noticed he was hurt. She leaned against him gingerly, and he pulled her tight.

"Rhonda!" Tim wailed, trying to push Jake back into the driver's seat, presumably to drive to the dude ranch and rescue Tim's pretty young boss if she needed rescue.

Jake, however, was having none of it, since to go back up the hill would mean taking Amber back up the hill.

"I have an idea," Richard said to Tim. "When the police get here, you and I will hitch a ride with some of them, and en route we can borrow a notepad from them, and you can write down whatever it is that we need to know. Meanwhile, Emma and the Stolemakers and Jake and Amber can make sure the children are all right, and Jake can be in charge of reporting whatever he feels needs to be reported on his end. Deal?"

There were sirens now, getting close, so Tim agreed.

Richard, with a cool calm won over many years of dealing with every level of law enforcement imaginable (and some that aren't imaginable), got the incoming cops sorted out in quick order, and had himself and Tim in a squad car on the way to the dude ranch in no time flat, after handing Emma into Andrew Stolemaker's keeping with Darlene deputized to keep her off the mountain no matter what. Not that Emma couldn't take orders from his humble self, but it was a relief to know that the chief, even though he wasn't still officially the chief, had her in hand. It was even more of a relief, in a way, that he knew that Darlene Dourlein Stolemaker was on top of the matter. The chief had been a good chief, but Darlene was a wonder, and always had been.

Borrowing a note pad helped considerably, especially after the cops agreed that all notes would go to Richard first, who had power over what they saw. Thus protected, Tim wrote like a madman.

As for the MacAvoy children, that had been a rescue attempt gone wrong. Some of his friends, who were squatters on a remote part of the dude ranch, had come across the car wreck, thought the parents were dead, and had decided to take the children in rather than hand them over to case workers. When they found out the parents weren't dead after all, they'd been trying to figure out what to do – when the foreign gang that had struck up a deal with Mr. Sawyer, Rhonda's father, had expanded onto that part of the ranch. Rhonda wasn't in on the deal, and wasn't to be told anything about it, because it was feared that she'd be too much of a threat if she knew anything. Mr. Sawyer had been trying to send her off to live with friends of hers, both to protect her and to protect his new cash cow, but she'd been thinking she needed to stay and help save the ranch, so it was a horrible mess. And now, with all this going on thanks to Lester jumping to conclusions and getting spooked and getting the police involved, how could he protect his friends, who used to be homeless, but had banded together to homestead, living off the land and (in a few cases) welfare checks, with as much honest work and odd jobs as they could work into the mix? They weren't bad people, he insisted. They were just homeless, and desperate; or they had been, before they banded together out on the ranch, which used to make enough money to employ most of the older ones.

Richard quietly asked if any of Tim's friends worked for the gangs.

They aren't supposed to, because we don't want to get mixed up in that, he wrote, but he wasn't sure if maybe a couple of them might be, on the side, just because they were desperate. As for himself, he'd not worked for them directly, but he knew what was going on, and Lester had promised to kill people, starting with other people like Rhonda, if Tim ever slipped up. So he'd felt stuck.

"Right, now I know better what we're up against," Richard announced to the two cops in the front seats. He filled them in on everything but the squatters, then quietly advised Tim that he thought it would be better if he told them about them, too, lest the cops get it into their heads that everyone they might meet on the premises who wasn't obviously a guest was most likely in the gang.

Tim, swallowing hard, agreed, and Richard filled the cops in on as much as he had. The cops asked some intelligent questions, which Tim answered in writing and Richard relayed verbally, keeping firm grip on the notes, lest they become courtroom evidence without his permission.

That done, Richard filled them in on the attempted murder on the rock face, and how that had turned out. He also told them that he was aware that this meant he was obliged to fill out reams of paperwork and answer endless questions, once the guests and the daughter of the owner were rescued, and the owner arrested.

"Yeah, we know about you," one of the cops said. "The FBI office told us you were nosing around, with their full knowledge."

The other cop laughed. "Or, more precisely, with as much knowledge as you figured was close enough to full knowledge. It's pretty clear they've worked with you before. Good enough man, they said, but used to working for a foreign government, so a bit dodgy."

The cops roared into the dude ranch, and ran into the lodge with Tim and Richard at their heels.

The Challies and the Bercots were sitting comfortably at a table, playing cards, while Rhonda strummed a guitar quietly for background music. They looked up in mild astonishment as the foursome of valiant men rushed to their rescue.

"What happened to you?" Mr. Challies asked Richard. "Tally-ho buck you off? He tried that with me once. Excellent beast otherwise. But like any horse, he has his quirks."

"Tim!" Rhonda yelped, having finally got a good look at his face.

He was getting ready to blurt something when the senior officer took charge, and asked Rhonda if her father was handy.

"Is that him?" Richard asked, nodding at a man outside, who was trying too hard to look like he wasn't hoping to make himself scarce after seeing a cop or a cop car. Tim nodded, and Richard went to the door and politely asked him if he could ask him something about his bill?

The cops came alongside him. "Cute move," one of them said, before announcing to Mr. Sawyer that he was under arrest.

# Chapter Nine

## A scheme begins to take shape, with difficulties

Richard took in the happy domestic scene crowded into the Ziegler's front room, and hid a smile.

While their ranch was being swept for drugs and bombs and other unwanted criminal activity, Jake and Amber were making themselves useful to the Zieglers, helping watch the disabled adults and – for the present – riding herd on three of the MacAvoy children, who were being babysat for the afternoon to give Rebecca a chance to have only two children to supervise for a change. Their livestock was turned loose on the range, so there wasn't any horrible rush to get back, although they planned to return before the end of the week. In fact, it sounded like they really did need to get back soon for something other than overseeing their herds. Something about putting up hay, or something. In the meantime, time spent in cramped, noisy, loving surroundings being treated like members of a large family seemed to be doing them good.

Rhonda had insisted on staying at the guest ranch and attending to guests, but she had plenty of help, from cops searching for gang members who had flunked bugging out, to Tim and his squatter friends, whom she'd pretty much adopted, and vice versa, and who were all too happy to help with the chores.

He'd told her that he and Emma would probably be back out for a few days after they'd tied up loose ends in town. But, for now, they were busy with this and that, even after they'd finally convinced law enforcement that there was nothing more left to tell them. The kerfuffle with Lester was still under investigation, of course, but no one seemed to doubt that he was a third-rate criminal who had set out to kill people and had his plan backfire.

The Stolemakers, now that the MacAvoy children were home, had taken themselves off on a real honeymoon, and he wished them well. He laughed as he recalled his old boss blushing as he recounted how his old pastor and his wife had somehow talked them into a wedding sooner rather than later, since they were both so old and life was so short (as the pastor had put it), and since they already knew the other person's character, and so on. It had been a lovely wedding in Stolemaker's boyhood church, but low key, since it was that of a widow marrying a widower, away from their usual haunts in London, and since it had, for all intents and purposes, been done with no planning. Of all the people on the planet he'd have thought least likely to be wheedled into a nearly impromptu wedding, it was those two. Not that it was a bad match. Quite the contrary. But, still, it was funny how it had finally come down.

"Wasso funny?" someone demanded from beside him.

"Oh, did I laugh out loud? Sorry," Richard said.

"Is-all-right," Jarvis said. "Like it when you laugh. Less-go for run! Laugh and run! Fun!"

"Do you mind taking him for a spin?" Louisa Ziegler asked. "He loves to go up and down the street."

Richard did mind, though he wished he didn't. He was still haunted by Jarvis-Who-Was, before all the brain damage and other injuries. He was growing to like the present Jarvis, but it was still difficult to deal with it. On top of that, it was hard to keep one's mind from galloping off with ideas of 'what if I wound up that way?'

Putting on his best manners, he wheeled Jarvis up and down the sidewalk, feeling conspicuous as he did so.

"Faster!" Jarvis demanded.

Richard went faster.

"No. Run! Run!"

Hoping no one saw him, Richard broke into a slow jog. He was still sore from battering against a rock wall, being jerked to a stop whilst wound in a rope, and galloping about on a horse, but he aimed to be obliging. At least up to a point.

A young woman jogger coming the other way stopped and glared daggers into him. Richard pulled to a stop.

"You shouldn't push him so fast!" she scolded.

"Sez who?" Jarvis asked. "Faster. Faster. Whoosh. Bumps!"

Another jogger, a man probably in his thirties, laughed and swerved across from the other side of the street. "Let me show you how it's done," he said, offering to take over the wheelchair.

"Mark, set, go!" Jarvis cried, happily.

Richard wasn't about to turn Jarvis over to a stranger, much less one who seemed vaguely familiar, as if he'd seen his picture somewhere, perhaps as a mug shot. Jarvis had been a good FBI agent. Perhaps he still had enemies. Perhaps, for that matter, it was one of Richard's own old enemies, gone athletic and older and unfamiliar.

"It's all right," Isaac called from his front door. "Mark's the best running companion Jarvis has. Bar none."

The MacAvoy children came tumbling out of the house, squealing "Mark, set, go! Mark, set, go!" and set up to watch the fun. Isaac came to stand with them.

Richard bowed and formally handed over control of the wheelchair to Mark. Mark dashed away at alarming speed, down the sidewalk, over the curb, slalomed down the middle of the street, whipped the chair over the far curb, ran like a madman down the other sidewalk. Jarvis had his hands in the air and was hollering victory whoops and the children were cheering them on.

The young woman jogger, though, looked like she was ready to call the police.

Isaac walked over to talk with Richard. "If you're wondering why Mark seems familiar, it's because he's an Olympic athlete. Moderately famous in these parts. He pushes Jarvis and the others around just to be friendly, but also because it's great training for the Olympics. The others he has to push at a walk because they don't like going fast, but Jarvis gives him a world class training session every time."

Isaac, Richard noted with appreciation, was one of those men who knew how to project a voice of normal pitch precisely as far as he wanted. Without seeming to be talking to the huffy female, he was in fact talking to the huffy female. The huffy female, he wasn't too surprised to note, was apparently susceptible to idolizing Olympic athletes.

"That is," Isaac continued, "when he has a fair field to play in. He's got peripheral vision that's off the scales, and reflexes of a cat, and hearing like a bat, and is trained in being uncommonly aware of his surroundings. That's why we let him run around in the street. Not a chance he's going to be surprised by a car, not here in the middle of the block. But try telling that to the schoolmarmish old woman who moved in across the street. She can't mind her own business, and finds athletes annoying in any case. So when she's home, we generally have to tone it down. I miss the days you could play outside without having to worry about busybody hags, but well, hissy fits are in fashion these days, aren't they?"

"LOVE THIS!" Jarvis yelled as Mark spun his chair in donuts in the middle of the street.

Mark stopped spinning, moved to the far sidewalk, and started walking with a sedateness proper to taking an old man into his wife's funeral. He leaned down and whispered in Jarvis's ear. Jarvis crinkled up his face and stuck out his tongue. Mark whispered to him again, and Jarvis tried to look less glum. A sports car rounded the corner and came down the street.

"Oh, it's her again," one of the triplets said. He flopped on the ground. His siblings followed suit.

The woman pulled into her driveway and parked outside her garage. As she walked to her house, she smiled a cold smile at Mark, and gave him a nod of approval.

After she disappeared into her house and had passed through her front room into the back, Mark spun Jarvis around a few times, sailed him into the street, whooshed him to the other side and onto the sidewalk, and dashed him to Isaac.

He stopped and saluted. "Jarvis returning to base, sir!" he reported, quietly, but with notable manliness.

The MacAvoy children were almost beside themselves with joy, but one of the triplets was holding the mouth of the two-year-old. When she stopped wriggling he took his hand off. "We have to be super quiet when the woman across the street is home," he explained to her.

She nodded gravely.

"People who squelch other people have no idea what they're missing," Isaac remarked, to no one in particular.

"Yeah," said one of the triplets, glaring at the house across the street.

"Ah, ah, no – no hating, not allowed, Scott," Isaac said. "That does no one any good. And, Maidie, it's all right. You can laugh and smile as much as you like. We'll stick up for you."

The little girl grinned and bounced.

"She loves being called Maidie, but that's not her name," Scott explained to Mark, presumably just because a hero ought not be left in the dark on such things, if you're a boy in possession of close knowledge.

"Yeah, Dad calls all the girls Maidie, even Mom, and they all like it," his brother and fellow triplet added. "But her name's Mary, and that's Scott, named after Walter Scott who wrote good stories, and I'm Steven, named after him," he said, pointing happily and proudly at Jarvis, who grinned back at him.

"Yeah, but people can't tell me and Steven apart," Scott moaned. "Even when we try to be different. Can you tell us apart?" he asked the woman jogger, who was still hanging on the edges of the conversation.

"I see a little difference," she said, obviously trying to be encouraging.

"That means no," Scott translated, with a sigh.

"Do you know that your father and his brother had the same trouble, and they aren't even twins?" Richard said.

"Really?!" Scott and Steven said in unison, looking more like clones than ever.

"Oh, yes. That's one of the reasons he moved to America. He got tired of people asking him which brother he was. He and his brother are still very good friends, but it has been easier not living in the same place," Richard said.

The boys grabbed hands and swooped Mary into a tight grip. "Well, we're never going to do that," one of the boys announced (Richard wasn't sure which one, just at the moment).

"You're welcome to supper, Mark. We'd be glad to have you," Isaac said.

"Noooo!" one of the boys moaned.

Mark, nothing daunted, asked why he didn't want him coming to dinner.

"Because we have to go home for dinner. And a birthday party. We're six today. All three of us triplets," Scott (or possibly Steven) said.

"Congratulations," Mark said. "I don't have anything along to give as a gift, but if Mr. Ziegler doesn't mind, I could give you each a running piggyback ride to the corner and back?"

Ziegler was forced to answer with a nod, because there was too much roar of excitement for words to break through.

Each of the boys was duly run to the corner and back, transported with joy even more than by Mark.

"And now it's time to take the children home," Louisa announced, coming out of the house, keys in one hand, a large tote of children's supplies in the other.

"I need to pick up Emma anyway. I could take them, if you like?" Richard said.

"Done," Louisa said. She got the car seats transferred from her car into Richard's rental and got the children buckled in.

The children tried to be good, but Richard was still tired when they got to the MacAvoy home.

Mary headed straight to the house, but her brothers grabbed her. "Dad and Mom keep trying to teach her that Dad used to be a cop and we need to not go running ahead of grownups, but she won't learn," one of the boys said, apologetically.

"Yeah, even after we got sort of kidnapped, by friends who thought they were helping, she won't learn. Are you going to see our friends, when you go up to the ranch?" the other said.

"I suppose I'll see at least some of them, most likely," Richard said.

"Give them a hug from us," the boy said.

"I shall certainly give them your greetings," Richard said, carefully not promising to hug anybody other than his wife.

He grabbed the tote and Mary's car seat, and let the boys each carry their own. He led his little herd of small humans to the front door, which was opened by an amused Emma.

"I was beginning to think you were avoiding me," Harold said from a chair as Richard walked in.

"Perish the thought," Richard said, even though it was true. He liked to style it as merely staying away whilst a family got reacquainted after a calamity and crime, but in his more honest moments he knew he was avoiding a situation he was afraid would become emotional.

"Stay for dinner, then," Harold said, his eyes betraying the fun he was having.

Richard looked to Emma, who looked agreeable to staying. He looked to Rebecca, who looked grateful that Emma was agreeable to staying. He pronounced himself agreeable to staying, and offered to help in the kitchen if wanted.

"Careful there," Rebecca teased. "I've heard you're not only a gourmet cook, but also know how to fix regular fare. I might take you up on your offer."

"I doubt I can live up to the hype, but I'm glad to help."

"Thanks, but you and Harold might as well sit and chat, or sit and maintain manly silence if you prefer. Emma and I and certain of the children have this meal pegged."

"He could help with decorations. He's tall. Taller than anybody here!" Scott said.

Feeling a bit like he'd slipped into an alternate universe, Richard took on the role of tall, helpful, honorary uncle assigned to a decorating squad for a birthday party for triplets who together and separately had an uncanny resemblance to a grown man with whom he'd battled some of the worst villains on the planet. At least his penchants for tidiness and engineering seemed to be useful here, as well as his knack for sleight of hand. Whenever he started feeling too domesticated, he stuck in a magic trick, to the delight of his pint-sized supervisors.

It was fun. He had to admit that. But it was wrenching, too. He'd waited too long to ditch a bachelor's life, and there would never be children or grandchildren to play with, teach, protect.

Emma swept over to him and gave him a hug and a smile. Her eyes told him that she knew he was fighting with himself. He smiled back at her. At least he'd had good enough sense to marry, and a remarkable woman at that.

Dinner was raucous, kinetic, full of laughter. The birthday party itself wasn't much of a party, if you defined a party by presents or organized games. Rebecca's sister showed up, to give auntly presence, with her five children in tow to provide cousinly input. Her husband would have come, but had to work. A Tanaka family showed up, consisting of parents and a girl in her teens. They were longtime friends of Harold's apparently, and also knew his brother in Scotland. The girl, Kisa, had even been to Scotland for a while, all by herself, visiting with the Robert MacAvoys. Mostly people sat around and relaxed and talked and laughed, and then people went home. No one had tried to impress anyone, Richard realized with something between shock and admiration. Not like the parties he'd been raised on, attended as an adult, or hosted. Who knew you could have a party, and not be concerned with looking good?

Being tall, he stuck around to help with taking down the decorations, but Harold declared they could stay up until morning.

He and Emma helped with washing up, thanked their hosts for including them in the festivities, and slipped out into the evening. Richard drove a couple of blocks and pulled over.

"I need to go walk downtown for a while," he said. "Maybe all night. Shall I take you to the Zieglers or a hotel or what?"

"Going to go looking for homeless people and wonder how many of them are like Tim and his friends were, before they made it to the ranch?" Emma guessed.

"How do you do that?" Richard said.

"I'm not a mind reader, if you're wondering. But I've been wanting to walk around and try to get a handle on the homeless around here. May I join you? If that's what you're up to?"

Fat chance getting her to stay home if that's what he was up to (and it was what he was up to) so he called Isaac and explained they wouldn't be there that night.

Isaac, good lad, didn't ask why, past asking if there was trouble.

"Not yet, and I'm not expecting any. Just need to check something out, that's all," Richard said.

"Good hunting," Isaac said, and rang off.

Richard found an ATM and got extra cash. For the next few hours, they found homeless people and took them to 24-hour fast food outlets, and asked questions and listened as their wary guests ate and answered. They also judiciously handed out fives and tens and sometimes twenties, so that their informants could get more meals on their own. People who seemed boozy or drugged got less. No sense helping someone destroy himself, after all.

As Tim had indicated, a surprising number of the homeless were young people who had aged out of foster care and been cut loose with no idea, really, what to do with themselves now that the government network they'd always had in control of their lives was gone.

"Sort of like being cut loose from a spy agency, in a way, isn't it?" Emma said, as they sat at a table alone, after they'd interviewed a particularly lost young woman.

"In a way. If you take away our experience, our age, our wealth, and our knack for making alliances," Richard conceded.

"Next time, if there is a next time, let's try to find out first whether there are any ministries that are set up to help with this, shall we? I feel awful just sending people back onto the streets, but I don't want to hand anybody into the hellholes of welfare, either," Emma said.

"My thoughts exactly," Richard said. "Are you up to going back up to the dude ranch today?"

"If I can sleep on the way," Emma said.

Richard smiled. He was sorry that he'd kept her up all night, but it did a man good to have a wife who was honest with him. Besides, it brought back memories. The first night of their first assignment together, she'd collapsed into sleep in the car on the way to the safe house. He had fond memories of that night, with its prowler, bomb squad, and other activity, and with it the chance to see Emma prove her bona fides as an undercover agent, even whilst battling jet lag.

"Wish I had a sofa bed for you," he teased.

She laughed. She remembered that night, too.

Richard sent a quick text message to Isaac to say he'd had an excellent hunting trip and was headed to the ranch.

A few minutes later, he got a reply asking if Jake and Amber, who were likewise headed up the hill, should bring the things that Richard and Emma had inside the Ziegler home instead of in the trunk of their rental car.

Richard replied no thanks, said he'd be right over, and changed course. Emma by this time was sound asleep. He woke her as they neared the house.

"We need to collect our things. Or, at least, it would be only polite," he said.

She laughed.

"Do I want to know what that's about?" he asked.

"I wonder what percentage of all the clothes I've ever worn or all the shampoo I've ever bought, etc., has been left behind mid-assignment somewhere, that's all," she said.

He didn't want to think about it. In the field, one generally kept close tabs on personal effects lest someone collect them for DNA testing or to wave under the nose of a tracking dog, but even with that consideration, he'd probably 'donated' a vanload of clothing to whoever came along afterward, and had tossed uncountable other items into dustbins or fires as he sacrificed supplies for the sake of not abandoning a chase.

"Being a spy is perfectly lousy training for normal life," he grumped.

"Ah, it's normal in its own way," Emma said, with a shrug. "Or, it was at the time, anyway."

Well, yes, it had been. As crazy as it had been, it was what was normal to him. And he missed it.

-

Richard noted that Amber, and to a lesser degree Jake, were reluctant to leave the hubbub of the home that had taken them in as guests.

"I say," he said, "I have the beginnings of an idea that I'd like to bounce off people. In short, I've got the funds to buy a large house on a bit of property, close enough in for people who live there to easily get to jobs, with the general idea being that it could be a home for young people transitioning out of foster care. To keep them from becoming homeless, and to give them a good-ish bit of moral support, and something like a family. Give them a network of friends, at any rate. The idea would be to rotate them out as they got on their feet, but with the understanding that they were always welcome. Emma and I spent last night meeting some people who could certainly use such a place, but I'd need help. House parents, for instance. Emma and I might be able to help, off and on, but I'd want people willing to stay put and invest in the people who come through. If it all went well, it would mushroom out, so to speak, with better and better networking as we got more graduates. People are messy, though. So there's no way of knowing whether it would collapse in on itself, like all too many well-meant projects do. But it seems someone ought to give it a go. The need is certainly there."

Jake looked at Amber. Amber looked at Jake. Hungrily.

Richard thought 'bull's-eye' and mentally patted himself on the back. He nearly commended himself on taking care of two birds with one stone, but found that the phrase still triggered thoughts of the insufferable Dr. Orchard.

"Yeah, there is a need," Jake said slowly, watching Amber out of the corner of his eye. "About half the people aging out in this country wind up homeless, at least for a while, and sometimes for a long while," Jake said. "Or, that's what I've heard... And I've known people like that. But, um... would you consider doing something like that out on a ranch? Like, um... ours? You wouldn't even have to buy the ranch, just help with running costs until it got self-sufficient."

"Well," said Richard, stroking his chin, "It's an idea, and I won't toss it out..." He watched Amber tense up. "But I rather favor being closer to town, so everyone's closer to a variety of job opportunities and also, quite frankly, because I want to avoid anything that might turn into a commune. Nothing against ranch jobs, or against country living, for those suited to it, but if I'm going to get people off the street I'd hate to answer for sending them up into an area where it's hard to get to town or mix with people outside the group. Chalk it up to me being an urbanite all my life, I guess, but there it is." Amber was apt to turn blue if she didn't start breathing soon. "I can't say that I've got this all thought through, by any means... Well, let's all think about it, shall we? I know there's a need, and I know I want to do something, and I know I've been lucky – blessed – in the monetary division. And I'd certainly consider the two of you as managers, if it at all appeals to you?"

"You're forgetting I'm an ex-con," Jake said, from inside an invisible coat of armor.

"Not in the least," Richard said. "Considering that people who live on the streets can get shifty, having someone who has spent time in jail with shifty sorts, but who has gone straight, strikes me as almost something of an insurance policy. Depending on the ex-con, of course. You'd do, most likely."

Amber ran to give Richard a big hug, oblivious to the fact that she was an extraordinarily attractive young woman when she was joyous. He fought down a blush, and gently moved her away, patting her on her shoulder like he might pat a puppy that needed calming down. Jake, seeing both Richard's difficulty and his reluctance to be in such a spot, kindly came and pulled his weepy wife away.

"Oh, Jake. Oh! I like the ranch and I'd be happy anywhere I could be with you and I don't mind if we keep ranching, but, oh, Jake, wouldn't that be wonderful, to help people like us, before they wind up like us. Or like we were, I mean. Oh, I'd better shut up before he thinks I'm too crazy for the job, but, oh!, and to be close to town, and friends, and church, and I'll shut up now." She grinned, and pretended to zip her lips shut.

Richard put his head on one side and studied Jake.

"Did you know we both spent time in foster care, and it split our families up?" Jake asked.

"No, I didn't," Richard said. "I had a hunch you'd like to help me out on something like this, but I didn't know why."

"Well, we knew that you hated it when children got taken from their parents, because you told us that much up at the crash site, the first time we met," Emma said. She held up their travel bags. "All packed. Got my shower. I'm ready when you are, lover. If you need a nap first, I'm all right with that."

"Where-ya going?" Jarvis asked.

"Back up to the dude ranch for a while," Richard said. "Way, way up in the mountains."

"I like mountains," Jarvis said. "Lots."

"Someday maybe he or somebody else could take you up, but they have other plans just now," Isaac said to him.

"Yuck. No fun," Jarvis said. He leaned back in his wheelchair and crossed his arms.

Richard, catching a look from his host, followed Isaac into the kitchen. Isaac informed him that Jarvis was perfectly capable of going into the mountains for a day or two or five, as long as he had someone who could help him in and out of his chair and help with basic hygiene and eating, all of which could be taught to a willing person with a moderately strong back in the space of a few minutes. "Other than his attitude, he's the easiest maintenance resident we've got," he said, to clinch the deal.

It was a challenge. Richard took it as such.

"Wouldn't you have to get permission from somebody?" he asked, in the best tones of a British gentlemen wishing to be law-abiding in every respect.

"Yes. Me," Isaac said. "In his case, I wheedled what amounts to a full adoption. According to the law, I'm his dad. As his dad, I like the idea of him going for a long drive up into mountains, and I can't get free, and Louisa isn't strong enough, even if she could get free, which she can't because of the others, for whom we must oblige rut-loving bureaucrats in bone-crushing detail. But if this isn't a good time, that's all right. Keep it in mind, though."

"How likely is it that he'd have flashbacks?" Richard asked, having lived through one too many flashbacks of other damaged agents in his day.

"Not very. He doesn't seem to recall anything of when he got hurt. Not the torture. Not the gunshots. Not the drugs. Not even the kids he saved, although he likes to get cards from them. As far as he can tell, they're just friends who like to send him cards."

"Thank God for small mercies," Richard said. He pulled his courage together. "Whilst not agreeing to take him anywhere, why don't you give me the instruction course on proper care and feeding, and we'll take it from there?"

"Deal," Isaac said.

After a briefing which made it seem do-able, he called Emma in for a bit of training and she likewise thought it looked do-able, if a little outside their usual skill set.

Isaac laughed. "What I've heard about you two, is that never stopped you yet."

There was that. In the spy business, they'd neither one asked for jobs that only used their usual skill set.

Bravely, they agreed to the proposition.

"All right, then. You can probably get him into your rental car, and I suppose we could smash his chair in somehow, but I'd rather you used the van. Much, much easier for the chair, and it would let Steven sit in the chair, which is more comfortable for him. I need to gas it up, and give Richard a quick training session on its quirks. See you in a bit," Isaac said, somehow taking leave of Emma for the both of them.

Richard would have thought that trick was a fine trick, if it hadn't been a case of him taking leave of his wife. Defiantly, he gave Emma a quick goodbye kiss, even though he generally didn't kiss her in front of others.

He rather hoped that what Isaac meant by 'its quirks' was that the van was secretly equipped for warfare, or at least sneakily armor plated. But no. The quirks, all two of them, were a gas cap that was a bit funky to take off and put on, plus the fact that it was a van. Isaac, it turned out, had a hunch that Richard was experienced in sports cars and luxury sedans, but entirely clueless on workaday boxy vans modified for wheelchairs.

He was right.

It didn't take much practice, though, to get the hang of knowing where it was on the road, and how to back it into parking slots and such.

"All right, now if you're in an accident I can feel it's an accident and not a lack of training. Thanks for being an attentive student and a quick learner. Let's get home. I need to get back to work," Isaac said.

Indeed, he did seem to need to get back to work, because when they got home, he had Jarvis loaded within minutes, man, chair, and baggage, and was then immediately into his own car and off.

Jarvis looked quite pleased with himself.

"Mountains, right?" he asked.

"Right. Mountains," Richard said.

"LOVE this," Jarvis said.

Richard got his and Emma's gear into the van, got Emma buckled in, and gave a hearty and reassuring goodbye to Jarvis's sort-of mother. She seemed to think he was trying to be too assuring, so he glided manfully into the driver's seat with his trademark smoothness, waved, and pulled out with precision, meaning to reassure her with his excellent van-driving abilities. At that, he did better, he thought. But then, he always had been good at adapting to new vehicles, even strange ones, plus he had general road awareness skills that transferred automatically from one vehicle to another.

Before they left the neighborhood, he caught sight of Mark, who today had a jogging companion. Even on second look, she seemed to be the young woman who had been distressed when Richard had pushed Jarvis 'too fast,' but intrigued and perhaps even charmed when Mark had run him around at breakneck speed and bumped him off of curbs and spun him around.

"Love is a wonderful thing," he quipped.

"Mark, set, go! Mark, set, go!" Jarvis yelled out of the window.

Mark and his new friend waved back.

"LOVE this," Jarvis said.

Richard, not wishing to seem unfriendly, waved at the pair as he drove past, and gave one of his best retired lady's man smiles at the girl. Mark, good man, took it in the proper spirit, and looked proud of himself for escorting an attractive young woman around.

Better yet, Emma didn't seem to mind. But then, she was the sort to know the difference between the smile a lady's man gave a girl, and a smile that announced he was through with all that nonsense, but still wished to pay a compliment.

He smiled at her, melted with gratitude. She grinned back at him, but considerately broke off eye contact quickly so he could get back to putting more concentration on driving.

"I don't suppose you can tell me how we got ourselves into this situation," he asked her.

"Not really. I suspect Isaac decided it would be good for Jarvis to get out, and after that we were sunk. I think I rather underestimated him, last time we were in Boise."

"That's more or less what I was thinking," Richard admitted. "Do you mind?"

"No. I could use a challenge, and besides, he does seem to be enjoying himself."

Richard studied his passenger in the rearview mirror. He was soaking up the sights as they went, and grinning ear to ear. At a guess, he was also oblivious to the fact that there was much evil in the world. Lucky chap. Or, blessed, at least in a way. After a career devoted to fighting evil, he'd been given a slot living in a world where evil wasn't a day to day factor. Not many men had that, not this side of eternity.

Not having gotten anywhere near enough sleep in the last 24, Richard found a park in a small town en route. There was a burger joint within sight of it, so he walked there for provisions while Emma sat with Jarvis in the park. As he walked back, he marveled for probably the thousandth time in his life at how naturally his wife adapted to the people around her. You'd have thought she was an old hand at overseeing a grown man in a wheelchair. The two of them were laughing, quite probably over nothing.

He ate with a practiced hurry designed to get the job done quickly without looking rushed, then grabbed a nap in the van. He tried to sleep lightly, in case the others might need his help.

When he woke and looked out, they were gone.

Fighting down a wave of panic, he looked around in all directions, as far as he could see. No Emma. No Jarvis.

All the uncoiling he'd done since retiring seemed to have robbed him of his steeliness, but he reached deep inside and restored it. His old chief Zanna Wyatt would have said he cloaked his soul as well as his eyes, as he prepared to do whatever it took, whatever the cost, to rescue those under his watch.

A grizzled old cowboy, bow-legged and twinkly eyed, sauntered up to the van.

"Yer wife said to tell yer that they're gone for milkshakes, with mebbe a stop at the bathrooms," he said. "Ah, there they come. Coulda saved misself the trouble of butting in and informing ya, if I'd waited a minute."

"I'm glad you told me. They aren't in the habit of wandering off, and we've had a kidnapping in the family before. It's funny how that doesn't ever quite go away."

"Oh, now I get it. She didn't say anything about a kidnapping, but I can see how that might change a set up. My family, we've had runaways. Same thing. You get to where you almost expect it," the cowboy said. "Sure enough. I understand that."

"Thank you. Might I buy you a milkshake or something for your trouble?"

"Heck no. We don't take payment for being neighborly around here. Thanks anyway," the cowboy said. He tipped his hat to Richard, and to Emma and Jarvis as they caught sight of him, and sauntered off to a dented old beast of a pickup truck, and headed off in the general direction of Boise.

"I love Idaho," Emma said as she came up to him. She handed him a milkshake. "It's a real milkshake, by the way. Real milk. Real ice cream. Hand blended as we watched."

"LOVE this," Jarvis said.

Richard felt himself uncoiling again.

-

Although it was cumbersome, once in the mountains Richard found it made sense to stop frequently at campgrounds and take Jarvis out, wheelchair and all, for a short stroll up and down the campground roads. For one, Jarvis seemed prone to car sickness on winding, tilted roads. For another, he so badly wanted to be out of the car, gaping at things, the sun on his face and the breeze in his hair, that he would unleash with begging for a stop if he felt it had been too long since a stop. Loud begging. Incessant. Or at least it felt incessant. Short sessions of rolling along in campgrounds solved both problems at once. That it also gave Richard's still stiff and sore body its own respite was merely icing on the cake.

"I'm getting old," he said to Emma, as they approached campground number five.

"No older than me," she joked.

Richard appreciated the jest. Both of them had had trouble, at the first, adjusting to meeting someone with the same birth date, both of them having been taught that it was bad luck to meet an 'unknown twin.'

"Could I really have been that superstitious?" Richard asked himself, squirming at the thought.

He pulled into the campground and got out. He got a thoroughly pleased and childishly excited Jarvis out. With Emma beside him, he pushed the chair along the dirt lane, marveling that he'd learned to notice how the smells of each campground were different, in part due to which trees were growing there, which depended to some degree, no doubt, to altitude.

On the trip back on the first round, he saw that another car had pulled into the campground, near an outhouse. No one was in sight. Of course the person was most likely in the outhouse, but he was pleased with himself that even with his guard down he was keeping tabs of how many cars were around, and where they were, and which persons in the campsites well down the way seemed to be camping and which were merely on day trips.

"You shouldn't have left me tied up around mountain lions," a man said as he burst clumsily from cover, gun in hand.

Richard again employed karate and again had the insufferable Lester on the ground and weaponless in short order. Not having anything at hand to tie him up with, he was keeping him pinned whilst Emma thought of something useful.

"And, again, you are proving useful," a man said, with Russian tones. Three men backed him up within view, with an unknown number backing him up out of view.

"You again?!" Richard asked, letting his honest surprise and dismay come through.

"I might ask the same of you, especially since you are driving what looks to be a surveillance van."

"It is not a surveillance van. It is merely a van modified to carry wheelchairs about, so that we might drive our friend here around," Richard said.

"And I might believe you, had it not come out during recent newsworthy events that you are named Richard Hugh and that you are from the UK, and that, curiously, you match the photos we have of Triple-O Five of MI5 1/2, who is also called Richard Hugh, when he is not being called something else."

"I'm fairly sure the UK doesn't have an agency named MI5 1/2," Richard said.

"Ah, but they have one _called_ that, don't they? Small and gnarly little branch of the intelligence services, isn't it, with both foreign and domestic duties?"

"Can't help you on that," Richard said.

The Russian ordered his men to prepare to shoot holes in the van to be on the safe side.

Richard didn't show the proper alarm, as he would have been expected to do had he been hiding a team in the van. So the Russian ordered a couple of his men to check it out. Richard tossed them the keys.

"I appreciate your cooperation," the head Russian said.

His lackeys, convinced they were walking into a trap, were less appreciative, but their fear of their boss was greater than their fear of MI5 1/2 operatives possibly being inside a van in a campground in Idaho.

The van proved empty and to all appearances ordinary, except for the modifications for hauling people in wheelchairs about.

"Look," Richard said, "I am retired and trying to have a nice, quiet holiday in the middle of nowhere, and my life has already become complicated enough today, since now I must take time to haul this third rate criminal down to law enforcement and turn him in for his second crime under my nose this month. I am really not feeling up to dealing with more than one measly little third rate criminal today, and I am perfectly willing to leave the rest of you to local efforts to drive you out. Which I thought they did already, to be honest with you. Usually when people bug out, they bug out better than this, you know."

The head Russian laughed. "I had heard you were a smart aleck, but I had no idea you could be so convincing. I am almost tempted to believe you. But, alas, even if I did believe you, there is a problem. Your prisoner is someone I want to have as my prisoner, because I think he will be useful to me."

"Look," Richard said, "If you're hoping Lester can help you, may I just point out that Lester here is an idiot. If you don't believe me, consider the rock face he tried to use as a murder weapon for five people roped together – or the mere fact that he tried to kill five people roped together while rock climbing. Of course we caught our fall before we reached the bottom. That is why people are roped together to begin with. And it wasn't a good cliff to use anyway. Lester here was quite a bit higher than us, plummeted the whole way without anyone to help him, and is still here. Besides that, he did it based upon an unfounded fear that we were after him, when we were there to find some kidnapped kids and thought he was merely an honest wrangler. Also, as you can see, he is stupid enough to commit fresh crimes whilst out on bail. If you think he'd be much of an asset to you, I am going to have to lower my estimation of you."

"Gentlemen, if I might get a word in edgewise?" Emma said.

"Oh, don't tell me that you are going to say that you sent for law enforcement and that they will be here any minute now," the head Russian said.

"Not exactly. But I was in the process of contacting them about Lester when you popped out. I tried cutting off, but I'm not used to this phone, and I was in an awful hurry to bail off, and now that I've had time to think about it I'm afraid I might have sent an incomplete text instead of putting it into draft mode. It seems to me that I ought to check, but I don't want to do so without your permission, because I don't want anyone to panic. For what it's worth, having once upon a time been in law enforcement, I know that incomplete messages which are not followed up by reassuring full messages can be more alarming than just about anything. May I check, please? Or would you like to look?" She held out her phone to the head Russian.

He took it, checked, and swore. Hit with an inspiration, he began to type his own message. Richard was annoyed, but Emma just shrugged.

Belatedly, Richard realized that Emma was fidgeting more than usual, but that she wasn't distracted or losing her nerve. In fact, she seemed like Emma on a case, in the middle of a situation which was starting to look up, her part being to stall for time and keep the focus from going where it shouldn't.

Belatedly, he realized there was more motion in the woods than could be accounted for by wildlife.

"I say, could someone take over holding this man down? My knees are killing me," he said.

The head Russian, annoyed to be interrupted as he struggled to type something helpful in something other than Russian, nodded at one of his men to take over.

Richard gratefully stood – in fact, his knees were hurting terribly, now that he stopped to notice – and positioned himself where if someone panicked and took a shot at him they weren't horribly likely to hit either Emma or Jarvis by accident, and where, simultaneously, he could keep attention away from the woods.

"Keep an eye on him. He's dangerous," the head Russian barked to his men.

Happy for the chance to do a better job of playing 'mama killdeer' than his wife, Richard raised his hands in surrender, not so high as to look ridiculous or to draw the stares of innocent bystanders who might drive into the campground to use the outhouse, but high enough to make the flunkies feel they really and truly had a prisoner.

They glared at him, presumably to assure him that they were up to watching the reportedly seriously dangerous Triple-O Five.

He smiled genially at them, just to be cheeky.

This made them nervous, which he wasn't sure was going to be helpful.

"I don't like this," Jarvis grumped miserably, with the first hint of fear Richard had ever heard in his voice.

Richard realized that Jarvis was noticing the motion in the woods. "Here, let me turn him a different direction, so he doesn't have to watch your boss? All right? That should make him less scared, and that will make him happier? All right?" he asked his guards.

No, it wasn't all right, his guards said, not willing that he should move an inch, now that they were watching him.

Emma, presumably less dangerous, got permission to turn Jarvis around. After that, she knelt and talked soothingly to him.

"Hah! That should do it!" the head Russian said, pleased with his hurriedly concocted message. He went to send it. He swore at the phone. "How do I know if I sent it? It seems to be saying that it did not go through?"

"You tell me. I'm too old to figure out mobile phones," Emma said. "I'd be glad to try to help you, but perhaps you should get one of your younger associates to help you? You could dictate to him, perhaps? Unless you are the quickest texter of the lot, of course."

"Ivan. Here. Now! Type what I tell you. If you don't get it to work, we will have to bug out again," the head Russian said.

Emma's phone rang.

"No! Not now!" the head Russian exclaimed in Russian, too upset to remember to use English.

"Perhaps I should answer it? Who does it say is calling?" Emma said.

"de France, it says."

"Oh, that might be for you, from Leandre Durand," Emma said.

The Russian looked at her with a look that only fell short of shock because he was refusing to come completely unglued in front of his men.

"Or, if you do not answer the phone, I can tell you from here that you are surrounded by an international force, and we have captured your hidden men already," Durand called from the woods. "But if you answer the phone, I will let Turomov talk to you."

"Hands in the air, everybody," another man shouted gruffly from nearby, but nowhere near Durand. His accent was American.

The head Russian assumed the air of a man who is resigned to facing an annoyance. In Russian, he told his men that America was the weaker sort of society and would let them out on bail soon, but in the meantime they were to allow themselves to be arrested. As long as everyone kept his mouth shut, there would be no harm done.

The Russians all stuck their hands in the air.

"Ah, now we are being reasonable," Durand said. "But I trust you less than my American colleague does, and so I will insist upon you all putting your weapons upon the ground and then getting face down upon the ground away from those weapons. Ah, thank you. It will avoid accidental shootings, I am sure."

Richard, to lessen the chance of violence, collected the weapons. Emma helped him.

The field properly prepared, Durand led a motley crew of campers into the clearing at a spirited run, and with Richard's and Emma's help soon had the Russians and Lester tied up and ready to hand over to proper authorities.

"Hah, we couldn't help you with finding the lost kids, but we've been itching to help clear these hills of drug lords. Never figured we'd get the chance, though. Whoo-hoo, that felt good!" one of the vigilantes crowed to Richard, while his buddies looked on, grins going from ear to ear.

"I hereby officially take back whatever I said and thought about you the other day," Richard said, graciously.

"Aw, that's all right. We were pretty sloshed that day. I probably wouldn't think much of you if I'd only seen you sloshed," the man replied.

Richard politely refrained from saying that he knew how to drink in moderation. Nor did he remark how impressed he was that the man had recognized him, which lent weight to the theory that the man hadn't been quite as sloshed as he liked Richard to think.

Durand laughed, and made a second round of checking to make sure that all the ragtag bundling done by amateurs was indeed up to the job of holding men prisoner until the police arrived. To his satisfaction, although they had been reduced to using every imaginable sort of camping oddment to hobble the criminals, the American volunteers had done an adequate job.

"Oh, probably I should call the cops and explain my message being cut off, and what the current situation is?" Emma said, going to retrieve her phone from the head Russian.

"Unless I miss my guess, you'll need to hurry to beat their actual arrival," Richard said, cocking his head the better to listen.

A helicopter swooped into view, guns hanging out the side. Cars screamed up the hill, sans sirens, but engines roaring. More cars were rushing down the hill. Likely some law enforcement had been up at the ranch, or at least up that way.

Richard smoothed his hair and tucked in his shirt, which had come partway loose during his little fight and wrestling match with Lester. No sense not looking tidy when one handed over criminals, after all.

The formalities of course took longer than they should, all the more so since the capture team consisted primarily of enthusiastic amateurs who hadn't the least idea how to brief an arresting officer. Not that they might have cared about proper form anyway, as much fun as they were having recounting their successful guerilla takedown of professional international bad guys.

In the meantime, since Jarvis was miserable, Richard got permission from the police to push him about. Regular pushing not cheering him up much, even when chickadees scolded from trees (which usually made him point and whoop), Richard tossed dignity to the wind and spun him some, and bumped him over fallen branches, and took to roaring him around at high speed.

Jarvis finally cast off his misery, pumped his fists in the air, and laughed. "LOVE this," he shouted.

Men not being questioned by the police got in line for a chance to push him around. Richard, issuing stern warnings not to dump him out, relinquished the chair to younger and stronger men who weren't gimped up by recent injuries. They took turns, one man pushing, others cheering him and Jarvis and applauding their antics. Other than when the police had to come drag away a man to finish up with a report, it went off without a hitch. Besides that, much joy was unleashed. There was something to be said for that.

Durand came up beside him. "Whatever their faults, you must admire the Americans for their spirit, no?"

"Do I ask you now or later what you're doing around here?" Richard asked.

"Later, _mon vieux_. Decidedly later, and in private," Durand said. "Which should be easy, since I am headed to the same guest ranch as yourself. Or did you not guess that already, from how I am dressed?"

Richard wasn't about to admit that he hadn't much noticed before now what Durand was wearing, which was inexcusable on his part, because the man was dressed like a cowboy. Again. Only more so, with tacky touches.

-

It was well after dark when they got to the dude ranch. Rhonda and Tim, having been alerted by police who had gone up ahead to do another sweep of the ranch for stray gang members, were sitting up waiting for them, in the dining room, playing cards with the Bercots.

Charles Bercot, upon seeing Durand, rose from his chair and greeted him with happy recognition and a hearty handshake, French style.

"Oh, Leandre, did you not tell them already that we are old friends? Shame on you, playing your silly games. Adele, my dear, this is Bertin's father-in-law, a good man, and the one who suggested to me this charming resort."

"I will, for the sake of my sanity, and out of friendly resolve, assume that you did not know about the problems of the gangs and murderers around here," she said, amiably.

Durand, being twice as French in his manners as he would have been at home, bowed and assured her that he would not have sent such a charming woman into harm's way, much less without a proper warning.

Richard, having known Durand for as long as he did, and as well as he did, refrained from inquiring as to whether Monsieur Bercot had been well aware of possible kidnappers in the area, and had come on purpose to try to find them, regardless of whether his wife knew of the scheme or not. For his friends Harold and Rebecca MacAvoy, and the sake of their five precious children toward whom Durand felt like an uncle, Durand very likely had placed deputies all over Idaho and neighboring states. And good for him. Although, to be sure, it would have been nice if, as M Bercot had said, Durand had not played his silly games and not told them one about another.

"We're full up, but the Bercots here were kind enough to offer to move to a smaller room so you could have the suite, if you want it. The suite is better set up for a wheelchair. The cops said Mr. Durand said he'd be glad to sleep on a cot, but they weren't sure whether he was wanting to stay with the Bercots or with you Hughs? Or Tim or one of his friends could sleep outside in a tent and he could have their bunk in the bunkhouse, but I hate letting an employee or one of his friends sleep outside even though they offered," Rhonda said, her face betraying that she'd never had to juggle people around because of having run out of room, and she doubted whether she was handling the situation satisfactorily.

"If he's up to it, I'm getting tired enough and beat up enough I could use some help getting Jarvis in and out of his chair and such, and I'd be happy to have him stay with us," Richard said.

Durand proclaimed himself only too happy to help his old friends, and everyone went off to bed.

-

The next day, Richard and Emma made a good stab at being on holiday with no worries in the world. They did a fair job of it, thanks in part to shepherding Jarvis around and enjoying his childlike delight in the horses and his popularity among the young people who had been homeless and were now living in the bunkhouse rent free thanks to Rhonda. They did gently query as to whether any of them would rather live in or near town, with mixed results.

Mealtimes were pleasant, spent with Durand and the Bercots. Richard still wasn't sure whether Charles Bercot had been in undercover law enforcement or had merely come over as a good-natured civilian at the request of his good friend Leandre to ensure that France had some eyes and ears in the game. Perhaps it didn't matter, he decided. In any case, it was impolite and perhaps not safe to enquire about it while he was enjoying a foreign holiday with his charming wife, who had not until yesterday even met the father-in-law of her dear young friend Bertin Nason.

That would be Bertin Nason, husband and father of two already, even at his tender age. That would be Bertin Nason, who had had the good sense to leave law enforcement before he got married, and thus had spared his delightful and devoted young wife the horrors that could go along with law enforcement, especially at the elite levels.

It wouldn't do to dwell on it, though. He looked at Emma, and thanked God that she had married him, despite his long practice at being a bachelor and his near-nomadic lifestyle and his habit of collecting enemies.

Despite the occasional pang of regret whenever he considered his past life with all of its mistakes, Richard enjoyed himself on the whole. It was good to have a day to rest, and unwind, and just visit with people. It was odd, but good. If nothing else, the old bones and muscles appreciated it. The people-watching was good, too, for that matter. He and Emma made a game of it; discreetly of course. People who suddenly developed a hankering to go to a dude ranch because it had hit the news for one of its employees trying to murder four of the guests along with another employee, and for the owner getting arrested on unrelated drug charges, were a questionable lot, to be sure; at least some of them were. But most of them seemed strangely normal enough. Perhaps they really had wanted to come before, and had merely needed a push. It seemed unlikely, but people were funny. Sometimes they could be like that. At any rate, there was life and action to the place now, with strangers happily acting like old friends with other strangers, in that casual way that Americans so easily adopted, which was fascinating, if a bit jarring to the sensibilities.

The next day, Rhonda let Tim take Richard and Emma and Durand on a horseback ride, while she and the Bercots watched after Jarvis. Richard wasn't quite sure he should leave Jarvis with others, but Durand vouched for his friends, and Jarvis openly adored Adele, and would likely take a nap for much of the time anyway, so off they went, planning to be gone just long enough to ride over to Jake and Amber's ranch and say hello.

Durand, of course, wished to see for himself the rock face where everyone had taken a tumble, but Richard pleaded that it involved a detour, and also that he wasn't prepared to spend that much time away from Jarvis, since he had to report back to Jarvis's 'father,' who wasn't anyone a sane person trifled with.

"I'll show you later, if you like," Emma said, proving that she, like Richard, wasn't sure whether Tim was ready to go face it.

"Or I'll show you, sir," Tim said, eagerly.

Durand made one of those faces that look bland but convey to longtime friends 'I thought I was right.'

Richard ignored him, and stuck to his story about not wanting to be away from Jarvis for very long, in part because it was true. In addition to not wanting to cross Isaac, he simply felt responsible for Steven. And also he'd learned to enjoy his company.

Tim had chosen their horses carefully. Although none had come out of the hard cases stable, there wasn't a one with dangerous ideas about how to get over vegetation across the path. Richard appreciated that, but at the same time rather missed Tally-ho. He'd gotten the job done, that horse had. And he had spunk, which was more than he could say about Trailmaster, his current horse, who seemed to think mastering a trail meant stopping just short of sleepwalking. He didn't say anything, though. Tim meant well, sparing them all the drama of riding spunky, quirky beasts.

Jake and Amber were mending the border fence, and so they stopped to chat with them there.

"I haven't been to a church in a long time," Emma stuck in after some general conversation on this and that, including the prospect of a home for people who had aged out of foster care. "Could you recommend one for tomorrow? In Boise, or near there?"

Jake and Amber looked at one another, in a strangely uncertain manner.

"We might as well tell them, even though it sounds funny," Amber said.

Jake looked dubious.

"The one we like to go to when we can make it to town is really wonderful, but it meets at a funeral home," Amber said.

"It's a start-up," Jake added, quickly. "Or I guess the proper name is a church plant. And the chapel there is really nice."

Durand was delighted. "Perhaps if more churches met in funeral homes, we could get people to take seriously the core teachings of the faith. It would be hard to be frivolous if one met always in a funeral parlor, I think," he proclaimed. He shifted his body into a position that all his friends knew all too well meant he was warming up for some serious philosophical tutoring.

Richard, not feeling up to a lecture, and also feeling a pressing need to retake possession of Steven's care as soon as possible, broke in to get directions and times and other important information, and said that he and Emma would likely give it a go.

Durand, after being reassured that as a Catholic he wouldn't be tarred and feathered for attending, proclaimed himself willing to worship there, at least once, before he headed home to France, which would necessarily be soon.

Jake and Amber weren't sure they could get free, in fact were pretty sure they couldn't, but said they'd try. If they didn't make it, please give their love to the pastor, they said.

Richard promised to pass along their greetings, and told Tim it was time to head back. Why Emma had decided it was time to head back to Boise he wasn't sure. It was as likely as anything else that she'd just realized how long it had been since she'd been to church, and badly wanted to go, and while she was at it thought it a good idea to check out the church their prospective house parents attended. That wasn't such a bad idea, now that he thought about it.

Jarvis was well and relatively happy when they got back to him, but he also looked like he was getting worn out, suffering perhaps from too much novelty after being used to spending most of his time in one place among people he knew. Chalk that up as another reason to leave early.

Richard made his apologies to Rhonda for the change in plans, but she told him it was all right. It just meant she could accommodate a couple who had shown up in hopes of a room, and was hanging around in hopes of a cancelation. Unless, of course, Mr. Durand wanted to keep the suite by himself? He was certainly welcome to do so.

"Alas, I must also go. It is nothing against your charming resort, which I hope to revisit at some time, perhaps with my family. But to accommodate a mutual friend, I am afraid my stay here, this time, would be better brought to a close." He said it with an almost Hollywood level of dramatic Frenchness, and for good measure kissed Rhonda's hand.

She bore up under it well, although she seemed the sort entirely capable of slapping a man for kissing her hand under any circumstance other than serious courtship, and quite right, too.

Durand tried to not look too pleased with himself, but it was clear that he thought he had upheld the honor of France without crossing into any disloyalty against his beloved Perrine. Richard kept his mouth clamped. As a Brit, he had his standards, but there was no point in explaining them to Durand, who knew them well enough, and enjoyed the cultural dissonance from time to time.

On the drive down the mountain, Durand alternated between following the van and leading it, driving his rented sports car. He tried to make puns about being in the van of the van, but failed miserably, in Richard's view. He also thoroughly and openly enjoyed it when they met an oncoming vehicle and had to back up to a wide spot in the road to let them pass.

"Is not foreign travel delightful?" he declared, as if there were no narrow roads in his beloved France.

At campgrounds, he took his turns pushing Jarvis up and down the roads, and seemed quite at home while at it. Richard caught a whiff of melancholy now and then, but of course Durand had also worked with Jarvis when he'd been at the FBI, and had also visited him in hospital after injuries. Of course he would be melancholy, in his distinctly philosophical way.

As they got to town, Durand made his goodbyes with a promise to meet them at church at the funeral home, Lord willing. Richard assumed that meant that he'd be there unless he got called out on a case, which was all too likely given Durand's level of expertise. For that matter, he might currently be on a case. It didn't seem right to ask, not now that he wasn't in any position to call into play the resources of British intelligence if needed.

"He mostly had a good time, he loves horses, he was a big hit with the former foster kids, but I'm afraid we've worn him out. He also gets green on windy roads, and so it helps to stop often and wheel him around campgrounds, if you don't know that already," Richard said by way of hello when Isaac came out to help them unload in his driveway. "And sorry. I usually say hello first to people and inquire as to their health before I file reports. Why I'm falling into a habit of skipping that step with you, I don't know, but I'll try to fix it."

"Doesn't offend me any," Isaac said.

"We also found out that he gets miserable around Russian criminals who haven't lost their accent," Emma put in.

"I heard," Isaac said.

"We thought you probably had," Emma said.

"We can discuss it later, if you want," Isaac said. He stuck his head in the van. "Hey, Steven. Glad to see you."

"Glad see you too. Mountains! Horses! Friends!" His face fell. "Bad road. Wanna go home."

"You're home. I'm glad you had a good time. Let's go inside."

"Wanna go for run first."

"You betcha," Isaac said.

He hadn't taken him far down the street when Mark happened by, and gave him a trademark spin and slalom dash down the street and back. "Mark, set, go! LOVE THIS," Jarvis hollered.

"You all right?" Isaac asked Richard as they stood side by side, watching.

Richard thought of giving him a flippant answer, but decided to be honest. "It had its tough moments, but yes, I'm all right. Better than all right. I healed some, spending time with him. Thanks."

"Welcome to my world," Isaac said, and let it drop.

Mark rushed up to them and slid to a smart stop. "Jarvis reporting to base, sir," he said, with a salute, before jogging off with spry ease, grinning.

Richard helped get all of Steven's stuff inside but didn't unload any of his or Emma's effects. "We'll bother you for a cup of coffee, if it's a good time for you, but we need to be off soon," he said.

In they went for coffee, and regaled Louisa with cheerful stories of their adventures, with Jarvis grinning as they told them, and then they took themselves off to a quality hotel, to have a quiet night with just the two of them for a change.

Not knowing the dress code of the church, if there was one, and fearing the ridiculous and irreverent wrath of the 'we dress casual' crowd if there was one, the next morning they dressed for church in what Richard thought of as office casual, which (he knew from hard experience) was still likely to be too formal for some cranky church people. Still, anything less than that, when he had better clothes on hand, just wasn't proper to wear to church in his mind. If he had to stare down some Pharisees, he would, that's all, especially if Emma wasn't right on hand. Emma favored ignoring the daggers of the people who were hung up on clothes. But, then, she had a knack for inspiring people to make allowances in her case. Remarkable woman, Emma.

When they got to the funeral home, they were pleasantly surprised to see the mix of people going in. It was, as Emma might describe it, the sort of gathering that could only be explained by Jesus. Old, young, well off, poor, tidy, sloppy, athletic, ill, variable ancestry; nothing to explain why that group would get together voluntarily unless they all loved Jesus, or were in the loving tow of somebody who loved Jesus. Richard finally dared to relax a bit. Churches like this were rare, but he'd liked most of them that he'd been to that were like this.

Durand's sports car wasn't in evidence. Neither was Jake's pickup. Emma, however, was ready to go in, so Richard swallowed what little nervousness was encouraging him to stay in the car, and hopped out to open her door and offer his arm.

Several people greeted them with waves or hellos even before they got inside, where they were welcomed warmly by still more people, but without that 'ooh, strangers!' overload that Richard hated but which had become all too popular in churches, at least to his knowledge.

When the pastor came to greet them, Emma said, "We're from out of town. Jake and Amber Halliday recommended this church to us while we were here."

"Oh, Jake and Amber. I wish they didn't live so far out. It makes it hard. But... oh, here they are!"

Points to Emma, Richard thought, for determining beyond all doubt that the pastor knows them, and likes to see them come in his door.

Before they could get all the greetings done with Jake and Amber, Durand walked in. With laser precision, he immediately determined who was pastor – a neat trick since the pastor was dressed neatly but in non-clerical garb, nearly a match of Richard's costume, in fact – and zoomed in on him.

"Hello, you are the minister, perhaps?" he said.

The pastor admitted to being the pastor.

"Ah, I am pleased to meet you, but we must clear something up. I am Catholic, so if you are communing today, I must politely decline. I do not wish for you to be offended, or to worry that I am suffering from unrepentant sin when I discreetly do not participate, but it is merely a matter of policy," Durand said, with no animosity, but with a not entirely invisible shield up.

The pastor didn't look the least daunted, which Richard put down in his favor.

"We observe the Lord's Supper every week," he said.

"Commendable. I commend you. Most Protestant churches do not. It is refreshing to find one which does," Durand said.

"And our rules, which I was just going to explain to these other first time visitors when you came in, and which I will review right before communion, are that we take communion very seriously around here. Our table is open to anyone who is a baptized believer, who is not holding onto persistent sin or under church discipline, and who recognizes that this is more than simply a symbol or a ceremony. We don't explain it the same way the Roman Catholic church does, but I assure you we don't think it's just a memory tool. The Bible has warnings about participating when you shouldn't, and we heed those warnings. Also, all women must cover their head during that portion of the service if they want to take communion. I can show you the Bible basis for that, if you like," he said, switching his focus to Emma.

"First Corinthians. Eleventh chapter. I'm good. I might even have a scarf in the car, if you don't have extras. Otherwise I'll sit it out this week," she said.

"We have extras," the pastor said, looking at her with relief and perhaps a bit of admiration. For a moment, Richard thought the pastor might even hug her.

Amber did run up and hug her. "Oh, I didn't think until just as we drove up, that we should have warned you. Oh, I'm so glad you don't mind. I don't even think about it, because I lived mostly in homes where when we went to church we always wore head coverings. And Jake and I have always attended churches like that. I simply forgot. I'm so glad you don't mind, because I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable, or, um, think we're weird, but I'll shut up now." She smiled and pretended to zip her lips.

"Churches where the women cover their heads I can understand. It's the ones that tie themselves into pretzels making excuses for ignoring Paul's instruction and church history that make me dizzy. But let's go in and find a seat, shall we? I like to pray before services," Emma said.

Amber cried and gave her another hug, led her to the scarf bin, and waited for Jake to come along and lead them in. As they waited, they donned their scarves, as did most of the women heading into the chapel. Apparently although the church only mandated covering during communion, most of the ladies were happy enough to cover for the whole service. Richard thought of his youth, when all women wore hats or veils to church, and wondered how it had become so odd to see women doing what had been so commonplace – in fact, expected – not all that long ago.

Durand commended the pastor on his church, and Richard on his choice of a wife and the apparent quality of his new friends, and escorted Richard up to catch up with the others.

The service was long, close to two hours, which was another fact Jake and Amber had forgotten to tell them. Although more informal than Richard was used to, it was meatier than the church in which he'd been raised. Durand sat away from them for the service, and looked sadder than usual – but, of course, attending a non-Catholic service was always a strain on him. Always had been. There was no reason that would ever change.

And yet. It didn't seem to be that sort of strain, necessarily. Richard decided to ask him after services what was wrong.

Durand threw him for a loop when, during the Lord's Supper, after hearing the full instructions and warnings, he partook, with the pastor's approval. Richard never would have bet on that happening, but apparently this church had met a previously unheard of standard for a non-Catholic church. Still, to be on the safe side, he'd leave it to Durand to decide if anyone outside this church ever heard about it. Perrine would probably trust his judgment, but Father Jules might just have a heart attack if he heard about it. It certainly seemed possible. Well, no, on second thought, Jules was manlier than most French priests. It was possible he'd grab Durand by the shirtfront and demand his apologies, followed by who knows how many acts of penance. Never mind a confession booth. Jules and Durand often had it out in the open. They were good friends that way.

Richard tried to get his mind focused, but he didn't get it wrenched back until it had spent a few seconds lingering on memories of a funky French church bus and its cargo of Parisian street urchins, now all safely adopted – unlike the homeless young men and women he'd seen on Boise's streets.

He cast his eyes on Jake and Amber (who were, ahem, properly focusing on the service), and felt a twinge of hope that somehow he'd be able to do something for people who were more homeless than he felt, which was saying something.

After services, three different families invited them home for lunch. Even after explaining that they were just passing through, the invitations held. Even after finding that they meant to stick to Durand, and hoped to have some time to visit with Jake and Amber, the offers held.

It was only then, after services, as people were milling around, happily visiting before heading off to lunch, and while he and Emma were trying to decide whether to take up anyone's offer of a home cooked meal, that Richard noticed Jarvis and his escort, a woman from the Boise FBI offices who'd been working there when they'd all worked together on a case. She was likely retired by now, but perhaps not. It was hard to guess her age, and the case hadn't been all that long ago. She smiled at him from across the room, but shook her head slightly, and wheeled Jarvis toward the doors. Probably she was working a case and didn't have time to visit, Richard guessed.

It had never occurred to him to offer to take Jarvis to church, even though he knew the Zieglers were Jewish and probably relied on volunteers to get Steven to services at least now and then. He mentally kicked himself.

"Oh, you know them?" the pastor said, by his elbow.

"Jarvis, pretty well. His helper looks familiar, but I can't say I know her," Richard said.

"Jake and Amber say they want to ask my advice on something, and said it might be good if you and your wife were along to answer questions, and so you're invited to lunch, if you're not taken already," the pastor said.

"It's not for lack of trying on the part of your parishioners, but I don't think we've accepted an offer yet. Have we, Emma?" he asked, turning to look at her.

She shook her head.

"Let me go check on what's bothering Durand while you're getting directions, and then I'll be ready," Richard told her.

"He's welcome, too," the pastor said.

Richard drew Durand down the hall, away from potential eavesdroppers. He considered trying a door to see if any of the rooms were open, but all the doors had small windows and the first room he came to had caskets on display. He decided to stick with the hall.

"I know you can't talk about anything that's work related, but if there's something else I'm all ears," he said.

"Ah, but I cannot talk about anything work related, either, but not for why you suppose," Durand said.

Richard briefly considered chewing Durand out for talking in riddles when he was in no mood to untangle riddles, but he kicked the urge aside. "Durand? Are you saying you got sacked, or what?"

Durand sniffed. "Officially, they will tell you that they dismissed me for insubordination, but that is just to satisfy their bureaucratic self-esteem. And also to save money, since they are now under no obligation to give me quite the same pension as before. They are hobbled by law from robbing me of as much as they would like, and we shall be fine, my family and I, especially after I find other work, but there it is. Whatever was plaguing your intelligence services is apparently contagious, and my country's intelligence services caught it."

"Are you saying that they let all senior personnel go?"

"Perish the thought that I should say such a thing," Durand said.

This being a funeral home, there were several handy benches for fainthearted grief-stricken people to sit down. Richard went to the nearest one and sat.

Durand sat beside him, and fought back tears. "It was bad enough when your country did it. But France? France? Even as corrupt as it has become, even as far as it has fallen, I could not imagine it would be so reckless as to do this. For myself, I do not mind so much. I am at retirement age. Past it, actually, by the present imbecilic standards. I had to fight to not get kicked out before this. But, oh, the younger ones. Who will look after the younger ones, and how will they hold the field, when the banner under which they are being asked to serve is so tattered and soiled?"

"This pastor doesn't miss much," Richard warned, as the pastor ambled down the hall toward them with the air of a man prepared either to help or to go away, whichever was wanted.

"I have a large house. Big wraparound porch. Come to lunch? Both of you?" the pastor said.

"If you ever come to France, you must meet Father Jules," Durand said. "But since I am not in Paris, if you are sure it is no trouble?"

"Oh, I'm betting it's trouble, from the looks of you two, but I can probably take it. And if not, did I mention that it's a large house, with a big wraparound porch, and that I know how to excuse myself when I desperately need a break?"

"You'll do," Richard said. He latched onto to Durand as they stood, and marched him outside. Emma, gracious woman, offered to drive their rental car, while Richard fed Durand into his rented sports car on the passenger side, got into the driver's seat, and drove to the big house with the wraparound porch, maintaining a friendly silence as he drove. Durand matched his friendly silence. They had been friends a long time, and were good at silence even when they had something to say. At the moment, neither one knew what to say, but they had been friends for long enough to not be much bothered by that.

The pastor's house was an older house, in a neighborhood with a mix of new and old houses. Many of them were quite large, with porches. A few had 'for sale' signs in the yard.

Durand perked up. "Perhaps, with the help of a beautiful real estate agent that I know, I could help you find a suitable house for your project," he said, gazing impishly at a house that looked run-down, but still appeared to have good bones.

"I can afford better than that," Richard said.

"But perhaps the young people would like to learn how to repair houses? And paint? It is fun to paint houses. I remember from when I was a boy, and my father let me help paint our house once," Durand said.

"I'll keep that under consideration," Richard said.

# Chapter Ten

## What came of the scheme

Richard juggled a screwdriver, a dry paintbrush, and a paint scraper, even sticking in a few maneuvers behind his back, before lobbing the screwdriver across the room to Emma, so that she could open up another can of paint. She caught it deftly, with the proper sort of dignity and nonchalance, and turned to work without batting an eye (she might get the British manner down yet, he thought). The people who had been working with them all week no longer paid much attention, but the newer hands were suitably impressed.

"Don't worry, ma'am," one of the volunteers said to the lady of the house, "Only the expert jugglers are allowed to juggle while we're painting, and they're always careful not to juggle anything with paint on it, or that might do damage to a wall or person if they flub up."

Richard had to fight down an urge to prove that screwdrivers would sink right into a wall if thrown properly. He wasn't quite sure where the urge came from, other than a growing habit of instructing the young when their naiveté slipped into a conversation. That and, of course, the simple fact that throwing a screwdriver into a wall was rather fun, once you'd learned to do it properly.

Ah, well, this wasn't enough of a slip to matter, and it was good to know that this particular young person had finally picked up on the careful boundaries placed around any sort of horsing around whilst maneuvering around paint cans, painting trays, wet brushes and rollers, etc., especially whilst working on the treasured property of other people.

He grinned encouragement and thanks at the young person, and glanced out the window at the painting job being done on the outside of the house down the street. His house. Technically Emma's, since it was easier to purchase in her name in this country. But, still, really, his house as well as hers. A fixer-upper, with good bones, that was providing work and training for young people as well as already serving as a catalyst for a strenuous, if highly unofficial, stab at neighborhood renewal. He shook his head. How in the world he'd wound up using volunteers from a church to oversee all that glorious mess of remodeling and painting, he wasn't sure he'd ever know. (But, then, this was hardly the sort of church he'd known most of his life, which was longer on show than on substance. It was beyond imagining that the sort of church in which he'd been raised would be any use at all if a person got them talked into helping on something.)

Down at that house, Amber and a few helpers began to hand out sandwiches and drinks. She cheerfully invited a passerby to join them. The passerby hesitated, but was talked into it.

Richard loved it. Amber and Jake were proving to be gems, not to mention the linchpins of the entire operation. But Amber especially had a knack for being neighborly, without being annoying about it.

"It's time for a lunch break, whenever you come to a good stopping point. Don't wait too long, though. They're already making a dent in the provisions down the way," he announced, as he began to tidy up.

A couple of young women looked at each other in near horror. "Oh, no. We promised we'd help fix lunch and we forgot," one of them wailed. Young men offered to clean their brushes for them. The girls gratefully handed off their messes, and ran out the door and down the street. It was delightful to watch them apologize to Amber, and just as delightful to see her forgive them and send them inside to work.

"If it's too far for you to walk, I could drive you," Richard said to his hostess.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to put you out any more than I have already. And, besides, isn't it just for the work crew?" she said, a bit flustered.

"We'd love to have you. And it's open to more than the work crew. I saw Amber snag someone off the street just now. Couldn't tell at the distance, but I think it might have been Mr. Hodge. Lives in the green house around the corner, with the huge lilacs, if I remember right."

His hostess wasn't about to admit that she didn't know who lived on her block, he could see.

"He doesn't get out much, but we're gradually getting him introduced to the other neighbors. One by one. If you haven't met him yet, I think you're about next on the list," Richard said, pouring on the charm as he did so.

"I think I can walk that far, but I might need help getting back?" the old lady said.

"Definitely not a problem. So that you know, lunch is nothing fancy. Just sandwiches and such. But we laugh a lot," Richard said, marveling that he was in a stage of life where he could say that in all truthfulness. And it was healthy laughter, mostly. That was a switch. He'd been raised on the humor of the elite classes, which for the most part was snobbery and hatred dressed up in wordplay.

"If we get too loud for you, let us know, ma'am," one of the young people said. "We don't mean to be obnoxious, but sometimes it happens."

The old lady smiled at him. The young man offered his arm, and escorted her out the door. Richard had to bite back a laugh as the young man walked on one side of her for a while, hastily switched to the other, then switched back. None of this crew had been taught that it is chivalrous to walk on the street side of a woman before Richard came along. At present, their eagerness to be chivalrous kept outrunning their ability to remember particulars. There was no question that this fellow knew there was a proper side to be on, but could not for the life of him remember which side it was.

The old lady pulled him to a stop and they had a short chat. She pointed him to the street side. He assumed the proper side, and they went on. Richard would have paid money to have seen the old lady's face as she walked down the street, on the arm of a gawky young man who wished to be chivalrous but needed pointers. That she'd been able to give him pointers was refreshing. So few old people still cared about such things, while so many had fallen into a habit of fussing at the young instead of helping them along.

Mrs. Lansing showed promise. Yes, indeed, she showed promise.

Emma being ready to go now, he lent her his arm and escorted her down the street. She, too, had had to be taught which side of the street a man should be on. But she had long since come to accept it naturally.

As they crossed the street, he could see that in their train they had more couples walking along, each woman conspicuously lawnside. It was a small victory in an uncivilized world, but it was a sweet one.

At the end of the procession were young women who either refused an escort out of misguided feminist training, or because they didn't think it proper to walk with a man they weren't courting. It was an interesting combination of females, to say the least. But behind them all were some dear retired couples, making sure no one dwelled too much on the awkwardness of pairing or not pairing for a short walk down the street for a lunch break.

One more day, and Mrs. Lansing's house should be done. Another couple of days, and the house Jake and Amber were living in would be done. And then he and Emma properly ought to take themselves off and get out of the way. It was wrenching to contemplate, but there it was.

The project of helping people transition out of foster care had undergone many tweaks and course corrections. After an existing ministry had been discovered which came alongside transitioning youth with job training, housing, training in everyday skills, and moral support, the decision had been to work more or less alongside them at least for the time being, providing a house which could be counted on to take in a few youth at a time, as needed. No sense reinventing the wheel, especially if you hadn't any experience in connecting wheels to axles to carts, so to speak. Or, to put it another way, no sense galloping off with good intentions on an untrained horse. A great deal of harm had been done with that approach. Besides that, Jake and Amber were young and inexperienced; and taking in strangers from lousy backgrounds had inherent hazards. All things taken together, it seemed better to partner them with a more experienced team, at least at the launch.

Jake and Amber were to rent the house at a subsidized rate until they got established, but they were renting to own. Richard appreciated that. He'd have been glad to have simply given them the thing, but Jake had enough integrity to not go for that, and good for him.

It was a biggish house, which at one time had served as a boarding house. Richard rather thought that boarding houses were due a comeback, but a quick look at the bureaucratic hurdles to that had convinced one and all that it was easier just to have a house and invite various and sundry friends to stay awhile just because you wished to be friendly and hospitable.

It had a big front porch, as did many of the houses within sight. The prevalence of porches had been a deciding factor, especially as it had been discovered that there were already people living in the neighborhood who knew how to use them. If the idea was to connect people to community, after all, it helped to be somewhere where people sat on porches and were willing to say hello and wave.

Amber had proved right off the bat that she was a natural for a neighborhood with porches. She loved to take walks and return greetings, for one thing. For another, first thing after the house had been bought, she'd entered the rundown kitchen before the renovators could tear it up and had baked bread enough to deliver a fresh loaf to every house within sight, and to a few beyond that. The neighbors had found it shocking, but endearing, that she had shown up fresh bread in hand, eager to be kind to whoever lived next to her.

She and Jake had also been the first to sniff out that most of the homes in the neighborhood contained families broken by divorce, desertion, abuse, and accusations. There were children around, but most were fatherless, and most of the rest got bounced between a mom and a dad, with the dads mostly getting them on weekends. So in addition to their main task there was community building to be done up and down the street, but they seemed glad to reach out to others, and superbly suited to the task.

The house was just under a mile from their pastor's. There had been suitable options closer than that, but Richard and Emma had thought it would be taking advantage of the man to set up closer. This was close enough for Amber and the pastor's wife to visit however much they wanted, but not close enough for Amber to run to them for help on every little thing. The pastor, after all, had a remarkably lively, diverse, and busy flock of his own to look after. Two flocks, actually, since he and his wife had eight children. (Eight! And a handsome and happy flock they were, too.) The elders of his church were all active, which helped, and the congregants looked out for each other, which helped even more, but, still, he had his hands full already, and it seemed unjust to tempt him to take on more by situating a ministry right under his nose.

The house was easy walking distance to a bus stop, and there was a large park only a few blocks away. All in all, it was a very satisfying location, for what they were after.

Jake unexpectedly turned up for lunch, his new boss in tow, to show off the progress that was being made.

Richard nearly laughed. Larry Carberry – who'd been helpful on The Northern Nightlight case – had moved up the ranks at the television station and now was in charge of who stayed on the air and who didn't, and who got hired and who didn't. He'd offered Richard a job when he'd found he was in town and might be available, but Richard, on a hunch, had instead steered Jake into a slot in backstage work. It seemed to working out well for all parties.

What was funny was how Larry couldn't seem to look at anything without seeing it inside a camera frame, so to speak, and it was painfully obvious that he was trying manfully to just let a young man share his enthusiasm for a new home instead of trying to rework it into a 30-second to three-minute television spot. And he was failing, which fact Jake hadn't tumbled to yet.

Richard wandered over to say hello. Larry edged him to one side, away from people.

"I don't suppose you're still with BAAM?" he asked.

"No. Lost that along with the other job," Richard said.

"Rot," Larry said.

"Do I want to know why?" Richard said.

"Besides me hoping for another interview on financial news, you mean?" Larry said.

"You seem to be hinting there's another reason," Richard said.

"I stumbled across something that smells like foreign espionage, and I wanted it checked out," Larry said.

"And?"

"Haven't lost your touch yet, I must say," Larry said.

"And?"

"Remember Dan Spenser? Little younger than me. CIA. Top marksman?"

"Vaguely."

"He's still in the business so I asked him, but he's gone missing, and as far as I can tell he never got the message to his boss before disappearing. They're giving me the 'we don't want to hear about it' routine, and they've squelched any enquiries on Dan. As retired CIA, I'm stuck. But I was hoping you were in a position to ask the Brits to try to care a little?"

"I'm sorry to say that the Brits have dropped a wall between me and investigations that makes the Great Wall of China look like the work of amateurs."

"Welcome to my world, vis-a-vis the CIA. But, here come some ears," Larry said. He seamlessly slid into small talk, before cheerfully soaking up the awed attention of admiring fans who only knew him as a man who had been presenting television business news for years and years.

Richard thought about telling him about the other project he had going in Boise, which involved buying a restaurant for a family that attended the little church that met in the funeral home. Downstairs they had the restaurant. Upstairs, they planned to have a residential discipleship program for men who had come to faith in Christ in prison, and needed help learning how to live 'on the outside.' They were modeling it after a successful project they admired in California, and they were delighted to finally have the financial backing to move ahead with it. Richard was proud of helping them out, but he thought that, after all, it was better done quietly. Otherwise you risked treating people like projects, and the world had enough of that. Too much, really. Way too much, in fact.

After lunch, Richard excused himself and drove to the FBI offices. He'd planned to go in, but as he got there Mrs. Tebbel was just heading out. She didn't seem in an unspeakable hurry so he flagged her down and dropped a carefully worded recap of Larry's story in her ear.

She smiled. "We're on it," she said.

"Without my help, you mean?"

"Since before today, I mean."

He bowed. "I shall leave it in your hands, then," he said.

"I should probably get a promise on that," she said.

"I know enough to know the dangers of freelancers, including myself. I have no plans to freelance. That's the best I can do. If I see Dan being dangled off a cliff with a machine gun to his head, I am relatively sure I shall feel obligated to attempt rescue unless he gives me a tried and true subtle hint that he doesn't want any help. Is that good enough?"

"It's going to have to be, isn't it?"

"Honestly, yes."

She wished him a good day, and went about her business. Richard went to check on the remodeling work at the restaurant.

"Oh, meet our first resident," the family in charge of the project told him, happily inviting him to shake hands with a man who had just been released from prison.

Not knowing what else to say, Richard said, "I wish you well," and shook the man's hand. Heartily. If one is a Hugh, one does not do limp handshakes, after all, unless one is undercover and the situation demands it.

"See! It's going to be all right," the family told the man, who was visibly relieved to have not been spurned, and who was strangely touched that someone had shaken his hand.

"Great minds think alike or something," Emma said from the doorway to the kitchen. She smiled. "I thought you might show up here sooner or later today. At any rate, they had so many people trying to paint at the other places that we were bumping into one another, so I figured I might as well see if they needed any help here."

"Do they?" Richard asked.

"They've let me putter alongside them, but no, not really. How about going for a walk? I could use one."

Without quite meaning to, at least consciously, the walk veered into areas where people who were homeless were hanging around trying to not look homeless. They bought one family of four a late lunch and ate with them, and steered a couple of younger adults to the ministry for 'transitioning youth.' Neither youth seemed likely to follow up, having developed an allergy when told it was a Christian ministry, but at least they'd done something.

"We've bungled civilization," Richard groused as they headed back to their car.

"Us and every society since Eve got what she thought were bright ideas," Emma said.

Richard tried to unleash a witty comeback, but considered that his wife had at least something of a point. Besides, even at their present gummed up muddy slide into debauchery, present-day America and England had more than their share of good people with compassion, many of whom he was starting to know rather well. It would be ruddy nice, though, if there was less suffering, evil, fear, and hunger in the world. He was tired of it. He was also tired of how it always seemed to grab attention more than the pleasantries of life, and could so often sound bigger than it was.

Outside the restaurant, he paused but didn't go in. He wanted to see the man just out of prison again, but at the same time the fellow unnerved him. Didn't seem prison material at all.

Abstractedly, he handed Emma into his car.

"Oh, wait. How did you get here?" he asked, as he recalled that they'd come separately.

"Tried out the bus from our new place to here. Turns out to be really easy," she said.

"Right. I'd hate to go leaving automobiles behind. Not that I haven't done it before, but it's rather cumbersome to clear matters up afterward," he said.

She just smiled at him.

He popped around and got in the driver's seat. "Any reason we can't wander out to that burger joint in that little town?" he asked. "For milkshakes?"

"None that I know of. All our projects are well in hand, being overseen by the people who will be running them. We're good," Emma said.

"We're so tidied up with proper deputies and successors that we're back to being at loose ends again you mean," he said.

"Wasn't that the plan, when we set out?" she asked.

"Yes. But I don't like being at loose ends, even at that," he said. But he grinned. Being at loose ends with Emma was still being with Emma. There was that.

"I'm beginning to hate my old life," he said.

"Don't. Without you doing what you did, a lot of the good stuff going on that you're helping with now couldn't have happened," she said.

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes."

"Still, it was lousy training in settling down. And I'm thinking now that it was cowardly not to have married young and been a father. A real father. Hands on and all that rot. Look at how much misery there is because of men like me, who dallied around but left the hard work of shepherding the young set to others."

Emma stared out at the scenery.

Richard kept silent until they were in the park, supplied with milkshakes, real ones, hand mixed to order.

"Emma, we've never talked about my past, but if you're wondering if all that lady's man stuff ever led to more than broken hearts, the answer is yes, but I don't know what to do about it. I wasn't actually as active as I liked people to think, and we were always careful with precautions, so there weren't many complications. But once... a woman got pregnant and wanted an abortion and I was fairly sure it was mine and paid her to not kill him. And gave her enough to live off of for quite a while. I offered more than money, but she made it clear that I wasn't welcome in her life, except for the money. Then they moved and I didn't bother tracking them for a few years, and then it wasn't easy to find them and I heard a rumor that she'd married and I gave up. In fact, I got so accustomed to pretending that it never happened that I more or less forgot it happened. Just one more failed relationship among scores of them, none of them worth remembering. I wish it hadn't happened. I'm sorry."

Emma studied her milkshake as she drank it through a straw. She shrugged. "I guess the upside to that is that we now have a project that only you can do. So now we know what to aim for, instead of going in circles."

"Are you serious? Wouldn't it be better to just let it go?"

Their old grizzled cowboy acquaintance came sauntering across the park, several sheets of paper flapping in his hand.

"Do you folks plan on heading to Boise or some other populated place this evening?" he asked. The sparkle was gone from his eyes.

"Can we help you with something?" Richard asked.

"If you wouldn't mind putting up these posters wherever folks let you, I'd sure appreciate it," he said. The posters, crudely cobbled together with poor layout and printed on a printer that was getting low on toner, had a picture of a young man, aged 15, and said that he was missing.

The old man looked too worn out to be standing, and too stubborn to sit uninvited, so Richard asked him to sit. The old man sat. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be this way. It's my grandson. The one that's always behaved himself. Some of the other kids have been lots of trouble, but he's never worried us a whole lot, except for once when he was five and wandered off and we caught him playing with a rattlesnake out in the desert three miles from home. But he was five then. No five year old has any sense. And he was just playing, anyway."

Richard stared at the poster. "How recent is that picture?"

"A few months ago," the cowboy said.

"Has he cut his hair since then?" Richard asked.

"Not last time I saw him. Was hanging down over his eyes last I saw. But of course he could have cut it since I saw him," the old man said.

Emma lifted her eyes from the poster and looked at Richard. She nodded slightly.

"All right, not to get your hopes up too much, but we were just downtown and saw a boy who looked something like this, who seemed homeless. We'll go look, but, I have to tell you, a lot of boys look a lot like this," Richard said.

"Let me go with you," the old man said, suddenly energized.

"On one condition. If we find him, we're going to investigate why he ran away before we send him home, and we're going to confirm you're really his grandfather. I doubt we need the precautions in this case, but it's just best to make sure we're not sending kids somewhere we shouldn't," Richard said.

"I can understand that. That's fine. I appreciate that. And you can run me by a police station for fingerprints if it would help any. But let's go. If there's any chance it's him, let's go before it gets too late."

During discussion on the way, it came out that the boy's mother had been going through one live-in boyfriend after another, sometimes with one-night stands between or simultaneously, and the grandfather didn't trust the current in-house tomcat. So perhaps the boy had had a good reason to bolt, after all. But why he hadn't bolted to a relative's house, or a friend's house, was the perplexing question. At least to the old man.

As they drove, Emma placed one call after another, checking out their options as well as their passenger. The passenger checked out. The options were messier, especially if social workers got involved.

They parked near the restaurant again and retraced their steps. The young people were still hanging around, trying to look like they weren't homeless. Richard jogged around the block so he'd be in a position to catch the teen if he ran upon seeing Grandpa.

He didn't run. He screamed his sense of betrayal that no one had helped him when it got dangerous, but he didn't run. Richard latched onto him and steered him down the street and into the car.

Grandpa called the boy's mother, said the boy was safe, but wanted to stay somewhere else for a few days. The mother was all too glad to agree, since him being gone made the boyfriend happy. Happier, at least.

Richard suggested they both come home with him for dinner, while they decided what to do next. He drove to the new place. The work crew was still there, but wasn't working. Girls were bouncing on their toes and clasping their hands, and the young men were standing about looking embarrassed and happy at the same time.

"Oh, Mr. Hugh, Mrs. Hugh, look!" Rhonda said, running to them with her hand extended, showing off a ring. "Tim proposed. I said yes. Oh, we had to come tell everyone right away, especially Amber since she's Tim's only relative, and we wanted to go out to dinner somewhere fancy to celebrate so we did that already and it was really nice, but we need to get back to the ranch. Oh, I'm so glad you got home before we had to leave. And– Oh, I'm sorry. Is there something wrong?"

"No, it's fine. We've all had a rough day, but you've cheered us up immensely. Congratulations. Tim seems a fine young man," Richard said.

"Congratulations," Emma said.

"Oh, I'm so happy I can't stand it," Rhonda said, heading back to friends, who wrapped her in tearful hugs.

"That young woman's father recently got arrested for drug dealing, she was in danger of her life from gangs, one of her employees tried to kill some of her paying guests, and her fiancé used to be homeless and recently got several teeth kicked out by a wannabe murderer. It's not a fairytale love story, but I'm rather happy with it all the same," Richard said to his passengers. "But that's not who I wanted you to meet. Let's go inside and see if we can't get somewhere with less feminine squealing, shall we?"

They detoured enough for Richard to shake Tim's hand and Emma to give him a hug, and – finding the young couple was just leaving – stuck around to wave goodbye. Then they ducked inside, out of public view.

The runaway soon found kindred spirits among the assembled young people – or at least he found young people who likewise came from horrible family situations. Richard wasn't sure that he'd have been able to get the boy out of there without assistance after that.

It was carefully explained to him and his grandfather that this wasn't any sort of sanctioned facility, just a place being set up to take in foster kids who were aging out of the system, or others who had fallen on hard times and were willing to follow the rules of the house. He was welcome to stay there for a few days, or however long they could work it out with whoever had parental rights. To be on the safe side, the grandfather was invited to stay at the same time, at least at first.

Richard drove the old man out to the little town so he could get his truck. He followed him home, in part so he could lead him from there back to the house in Boise, and in part so he could see where the old man lived. It was poor, but not debased. To ensure that everyone was in agreement, and so that they had it in writing that it was all right that the boy stayed in town for a while, they drove by to see the mother. Richard manfully kept from killing the boyfriend with his bare hands, he wasn't quite sure how, except that he rather wanted to be outside of prison instead of in it. The mother handed Richard an armload of unwashed clothes to take to the boy, not even bothering with a sack. Her teeth were rotting and she was gaunt, and otherwise gave off signs of drug abuse. Meth, most likely, and who knew what else?

Richard dug through his wallet and found a card he'd been given by someone at the funeral home church, who helped run a ministry for people with drug problems. He handed it to her. The boyfriend wasn't happy about it. The woman looked stunned that anyone might want to help her. Or that there might be any hope left in the whole wide world for anybody.

It was the last straw.

Richard's head spun with imaginative outcomes for his lost son, who might be a father by now, perhaps no better a one than himself, who hadn't fought being sloughed off by a wanton girlfriend, and hadn't kept in touch. There had been what had seemed perfectly good excuses at the time – and besides, he'd been busy saving the world, working in British intelligence. But the excuses seemed hollow now. He'd seen too many men who'd never recovered from being abandoned by their fathers. He'd sent a goodly number of them to prison, and none too few to their grave.

Emma thought they should go looking? Perhaps they should. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what had happened to the boy or his mother, but he wasn't going to be able to rest until he'd found out.

The universe felt like it developed new borders again, and again he felt he'd been moved from one territory to another.

Emma somehow knew this would happen. When he got back to their new place – no, Jake and Amber's new place – she already had their bags packed, and tickets back across the pond reserved. "To the horses," she joked (as if she'd ever let him back out now).

He assumed his best British cheekiness. "To the hunt," he said.

At the airport, while waiting for their flight, he called Durand. Durand claimed to be settling nicely into retirement, but he faux-grudgingly agreed to drop what he was doing if it would be of any assistance.

Richard grinned. "Watch out world, here we come," he said.

"What was that?" Durand asked.

"Nothing."

"It did not sound like nothing," Durand said.

"Just trying to gin up a little courage, that's all," Richard quipped.

"A likely story, but you can correct it when you get here," Durand said.

"Unless I decide to give you a taste of your own medicine, and keep my own counsel," Richard said.

"Bah. You are British. You will suffer until you explain yourself. It is ridiculous to put yourself through it, since I can keep secrets, you know."

"How have we ever remained friends so long?"

"It is a mystery of the universe," Durand said. "But having been friends so long, will you please tell me what is wrong, so that I might be braced for it. You are scaring me, if you must know. I am not accustomed to this much hesitance on your part. Spill, please. It is not civilized to not spill, you know. Not when you are speaking to an old friend."

Swallowing his pride, Richard explained the situation, at least as well as he could remember it. Time had made the details fuzzy and had wiped many clues clean away and he hadn't kept a journal of his private life to consult in his later years.

"We have worked on less than this, you know, _mon vieux_ ," Durand said, "And sometimes we have even prevailed."

It was impossible to determine if the man was complaining or trying to be reassuring, but Richard let it drop.

# Chapter Eleven

## Facing down dragons and ghosts, etc.

Something came up, and Durand wasn't able to join them in London after all. He assured Richard and Emma that he would help them as well as he could from where he was. He would not be more forthcoming than that. Then he reported that he had a lead. But perhaps not a good one. And then he assured them that he had shifted his attention to the matter fully – indeed he had invested once again in car ownership to facilitate his investigations, a modest vehicle, but helpful to the cause – but under the circumstances he had better work alone for now.

A month after that he invited them to the Vosges region of France, to the wonderful hotel run by his incomparable son-in-law.

"I'm rather busy at the moment," Richard said.

"But you will be better employed here. There is someone I wish for you to meet. I do not wish to say more over the phone."

He wouldn't budge, and so under the circumstances there was nothing reasonable to do except go to the Vosges region of France, to a pretty hotel along a pretty lake and hope that Durand, in a fit of French enthusiasm for wildly romantic causes (by French definition, not British), hadn't blabbed the embarrassing secret to too many extraneous people.

Not that most people would care these days, considering how fashionable it was to sleep around and then pretend it didn't matter, regardless of outcome. But, still, Richard's conscience had never been entirely at ease about it, and lately it had been driving him half mad, and he certainly didn't want everyone in on his secret.

It didn't help that Durand, when he saw them, looked like he wasn't at all sure whether he'd handled the situation correctly.

"Here, here," he said, apologetically. "Do you remember the Bercots? Both of them remarked to me at the ranch how strongly you resembled the stepson of his cousin who married a British woman with one son. I followed other, more likely leads, but that kept nagging at me. And so I came up to investigate – and also to visit my dear Berti and her dear Bertin and the grandchildren, of course – but, at any rate, I came up to see, and perhaps I am leading you down rabbit trails, but everyone is the proper age, and the proper appearance, and the wife of the cousin tells a mirror story to your own, and did so without leading questions from me, so I must ask you to brace yourself, and come to meet them. I am pleased to report that the woman, who now goes by Valerie, landed herself a well-off man who has been devoted to her, and that the boy – now a man, of course – grew up in a respectable home with not a shred of want, where he has been treated as a full member of the family, even by the most snobbish of the cousins and his annoying maiden aunts. He is grown, and married, and they have three children, so if there is truly a connection, you are a grandfather. They already have two very fine grandfathers, but there is a willingness to acknowledge you. Or, at least, no one is disposed to murder you. I have explained that there were extenuating circumstances, and Valerie was quick to explain that she did not blame you. I think that she did that to cover her own past, perhaps, but I let it go, since it was generous of her, I thought. And are you braced enough, or do you need to rest first? Long journeys can flatten even the best of men. How well I know it, especially at my age."

"To horse," Richard said, trying to sound braver than he felt.

"Is that an Americanism?" Durand asked.

"A joke that likely wouldn't translate," Richard fibbed.

"Oh, that puts to mind that Valerie is rusty on her English, and the son and wife and grandchildren are more comfortable speaking French, although they seem to know a fair bit of English. I, of course, can translate, if needed."

"I know French."

"You know mostly Parisian French, and you have been known to butcher it. But they do not expect better than that, since you are British."

"What do you want me to do?" Emma asked.

"I don't suppose you'd like to go," Richard said.

"I'm fine with it. I didn't know what you wanted, or what Durand might advise," Emma said.

"Oh, for the sake of the cousin who married Valerie, and to keep it all clear, let us have you along to prove that he is not chasing after an old flame," Durand said.

"Not any chance of that," Richard said.

"I warn you, she has aged well," Durand said. "But I assure you, she is devoted to the cousin, and he to her."

"Does this cousin have a name?" Richard asked.

"Jean. Officially it is Jean-Pierre, but there were too many Jean-Pierres in the family, and he did not like the name anyway, so he goes by Jean," Durand said.

Richard and Emma tidied up, and then along they went in Durand's poor little car, around to a villa on the other side of the lake.

"Jean has done very well for himself, no?" Durand said as they drove through the gate.

Jean himself met them at the door, by himself, which Richard put down in the other man's favor. Durand introduced them, they shook hands, and Richard apologized as best he could for the intrusion and assured him as best he could that he was merely making sure for himself that there were no amends he should make for mistakes made in his youth. If there were, he was prepared to do what was called for.

Durand collapsed in laughter. "Pardon me, but you should give it up on the French when you are not in top form," he said in English to his friend. To Jean, he made some explanations in French.

"I was able to translate what he said," Jean said in English. "I am used to common British mispronunciations and odd grammar." He invited them in.

A man nearly thirty years Richard's junior rose from a chair to greet them. He had an unnerving resemblance to one of Richard's long dead uncles, which wasn't helpful. It was bad enough to see himself in the man, without feeling like he was seeing a ghost into the bargain. He lightly balled his fist to keep his hand from doing a hex sign. Not that he believed in hex signs, or even thought they were acceptable, but still, his fingers weren't yet as Christianized as his head, apparently.

A striking woman in late middle age remained seated, studying him.

"I'm sorry, Richard. I should have let you know long before this that Loren and I were well situated," she said. "I didn't mean to cause you any worry, if I have."

"If I hadn't been an infernal cad, I would have kept in touch long enough to know that. I was wrong. I'm sorry," he said.

"As if you were given the chance? And as if your job allowed it?" she said. "Speaking of which, are you retired now, or are you taking a chance coming to see us?"

Richard couldn't for the life of him recall what he'd told this woman about what sort of work he did, or under what circumstances they'd met. "I'm retired," he said.

"From what?" Loren asked, gingerly.

Richard studied the people in the room, and decided to go for broke. "British intelligence. Secret services," he said.

Valerie looked vindicated, so he must have said the proper thing to bolster her image. For a moment, her old wantonness advertised itself, but she immediately got her face under control, and shot reassuring looks at her husband.

"Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce my wife, Emma. Originally from America," Richard said.

Introductions were made all around.

Richard and Emma, having passed the first rounds of inspection, were invited out to the back yard, in which there was an esthetically-pleasing Olympic-sized pool. Around the pool, looking excited and worried, were three little Hugh-like children, and their mother.

Their mother looked back and forth between Richard and her children and settled into looking glad that one mystery had been solved, but not too excited about the mystery man staying around.

Charles and Adele swept in from gardens down below.

"Oh, I heard you might be coming. How good to see you again," Charles said, barging in to shake hands and to tell the children that this was his good acquaintance from America, who was a hero who had battled off a would-be murderer and helped rescue five little children trapped on a ranch that had been overtaken by thieves.

"And part of the rescue he did on a horse named Tally-ho, who was a wild thing that hopped horribly and bucked and had a mind of his own, so was not necessarily easy to ride," Adele put in.

"And we were there, not right at the rescue, but nearby, and had crossed paths with the would-be murderer earlier without sensing the danger. So we can vouch for that adventure," Charles said.

The children loved the story, and loved it all the more when they saw that Richard was blushing.

"Oh, and remember Rhonda, our hostess?" Emma asked the Bercots.

But of course they remembered Rhonda.

"She and Tim – remember Tim, who was the one injured in the face by the would-be murderer? – they are engaged to be married," Emma reported.

Adele and Charles were delighted to hear it.

And from there, the stories went all over the board, with Durand sharing about the church that met in the funeral home and Emma explaining about the projects to help transitioning youth and the restaurant that will provide a home to men who became new men while in prison, to their adventure of helping an old cowboy find his lost grandson who had run away to the city, and taking the both of them to a house with a porch on a street full of houses with porches, where some people know how to sit on porches and be friendly, and others are being encouraged to give it a try.

Richard was a bit too dumbfounded to contribute much to the conversation, but he gave it a stab now and then, just to keep the side up.

Everyone was polite, and Charles and Adele and the children had the time of their lives, but soon enough it was time to make a polite exit. Richard again apologized to Jean, who saw them out by himself. They shook hands again, without animosity but with the unspoken agreement that Richard wouldn't come back.

Richard and Emma and Durand got back into Durand's poor little car, and went back around the pretty lake to the handsome hotel run by Durand's wonderful son-in-law.

Durand claimed other obligations and left them alone.

They went for a walk along the lake, holding hands, but not saying much. It was friendly silence, full of love, but there was no way to get the awkwardness out of it. Not yet.

When they got back to the hotel, Loren was waiting for them. "I hope you do not mind that I have come," he said.

"No, no, not at all," Richard said, with proper British form and with a firm resolve not to make an ass of himself. "Why don't you come to our room, where we can talk in private?"

Emma offered to leave the men to their chat, but they both invited her to stay. Begged, nearly, although none of them would have said so out loud, even if they had admitted it to themselves.

Richard immediately jumped to making further apologies, but Loren cut him off. "For one thing, I am a Christian. I have long since forgiven whatever there might have been to forgive. But I assure you that my life has been better than a man should expect for it to be," he said. "At any rate, it is water under the bridge."

"I'm not sure I should have stirred things up by coming. What I needed to know was that you and your mother weren't in need of rescue, and Durand had already assured me that that wasn't the case, well before we got to the villa. I hope I haven't caused any trouble for you or your parents," Richard said.

Loren shrugged. "If there is a storm, it would only be business as usual. Dad and Mum are devoted to one another, and there has never been violence to speak of, but Mum is a bit wild, as you might know. But on this situation, I do not expect a storm. Almost the contrary. It is good to have the mystery reduced to a real man who has regrets. Dad, especially, will appreciate that." He rolled his lips in and pressed them tight together, and stared at Richard, weighing what he should say.

Richard concentrated on looking patient, and willing to answer any wretched interrogation that might spring forth once the pondering morphed into courage. Never mind that he didn't feel patient, or willing to answer questions. He was going to give that impression if it killed him, and follow through as best he could.

"I hope you do not mind me asking," Loren said. "Oh, forgive me. I know you will mind me asking, because any man with any shred of humility would mind me asking, but please forgive me I am going to ask anyway. When I was young Mum sometimes told me that when she got pregnant she wanted an abortion, but that my father talked her out of it, and sealed the bargain with enough money for her to live off of for five years. She was very proud of the fact that she found and married Dad well before she ran out of that money, so that she was being supported for a time by two men instead of one. She said that likely my father would have kept paying long past that time, in regular installments, or whenever she asked, for that matter; but that she had decided it was safer to disappear into France under a new name and not stay in touch, because he might have wanted to keep in touch, and he had too dangerous of a job, and also was too forward and handsome for his own good. So, there it is. It is hard to know with Mum. She likes her dramatics, and to her the pinnacle of success would be to have two men paying for her upkeep at once. But, is it true? I am sorry to ask you, because of course you will not like to say, but I must know the truth. I have long since forgiven her, if it is true. So you must not fear that you will destroy us by saying. But I must know."

Loren's face softened, and he smiled a quirky half smile that went more sideways on the right side than upwards anywhere – another Hugh-ism, so startling to see on a French man – and Richard knew that before he opened his mouth to speak the other man already had his answer, just by what he hadn't been able to keep out of his eyes.

Not trusting what he might say if he spoke, Richard nodded.

Loren shrugged. "It's perhaps not as if we can blame the women, given how they are indoctrinated these days. Even Regina – my Regina – when she found out she was pregnant with our first, the first thing she asked me was 'whether we should keep it'! God have mercy. What have we done to our women, that they feel obliged to ask whether it is all right not to kill our offspring? And Regina claims to be a Christian, too!" His face went soft again. "She was relieved that I was horrified, and she has never asked such a question again. But it bothers me that she felt she had to find out that I would protect our own child. But, again, can we blame the women? It is how they are expected to act. We have let them be trained that way. And unless feminism goes out of fashion, I do not know what to do except refuse to accept it."

He shifted in his chair, his eyes betraying that his thoughts were jumping onto another track. "Here, now, that is not quite true. I have been thinking about the stories today about the house with the porch and the restaurant with the rooms upstairs for men who became new men in prison, and I have been thinking of the boys who live near me who have no father, and the old lady who lives across from us who has no family, and I am beginning to think I might do something. Not officially. Bah, it is madness to do anything through the bureaucracy that you do not absolutely have to do through the bureaucracy. But they cannot prevent me from being a Good Samaritan, however much they might like to. Not if I refuse to roll over, and I am in no mood to keep rolling over, I tell you. And better yet, after you had gone, Regina asked me if perhaps we might invite the old lady from across the street to Sunday dinner with us. She sometimes comes to our church, but we have never had her inside our house, even though she lives across the street from us! Heh. It is not much, but it is a start. We have been discouraged at how our neighborhood is not a neighborhood in anything but superficial appearances, but this weekend, if she is not too afraid of us to come, we will have the old lady to dinner, and from there, who knows?"

He was quite enjoying himself by now, and so was Emma.

"Well, here, I do not want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted you to know that I was glad that you came, and to tell you that I am all right, and that you did no harm in coming. If you had come five or six years ago, it might have been different, because you would have caught Dad before he became a Christian. These last years, especially these last few months, he has been going around making amends for wrongs that he did to others, sometimes over the howls of my mother, but he keeps at it, doggedly repenting of this and then that, and setting things to rights when he can. So, you see, the two of you have much in common at this stage, except that your wife seems glad of it, while Mum is afraid she is being robbed of her inheritance when he helps someone out. You should have seen her when he gave a car to a man who needed one, who had been beat out of honest work when Dad had used some dishonesty to get ahead. It was a sensible car, appropriate to the man's situation, of the sort to be reliable and not need constant repairs, but from Mum's response Dad might as well have given the man a private jet and a team of mechanics to go with it while tossing her into the gutter to starve. Oh, well, now I am saying too much. I am sorry. Here, let me give you how to get hold of me. After the shock has worn off, I hope you will feel free to get in touch." He pulled out a small notebook, and began to write. "If you lose this, you may always find me through Bertin, who runs this hotel. The son-in-law of your friend Leandre. That Bertin. When he took over the hotel he found that it had bad wiring. The prior manager knew about it, but trusted that it had formed the habit of not starting a fire, or something, because he did nothing about it. Bertin, as soon as he had his concerns, called right away for an electrician – that would be me – to rewire everything, and along the way we became good friends."

He ripped the page loose, stood, and held out the paper. Richard stood and took it.

"Well," said Loren, "Perhaps you can take more, but I am all shocked out for one day. That's electrician humor. Sorry. Most people don't appreciate it, but sometimes I forget that I am not around other electricians. But it's true. It has been good to meet you and I am glad you are here and glad to know that you are married and are well, and I have more that I would like to know and more that I would like to tell you, but I have had as much as I can take in for now. So, if you will excuse me?"

They shook hands. Richard saw him to the door.

Bertin happened to be replacing a light bulb in the hall. "Oh, Loren. Hang on. Do not get away just yet. I am just finishing here and I want to talk to you," he said.

"Do you need help there?" Loren asked.

"To replace a light bulb? For that, I do not need help, but thank you."

"A ladder is better for that than a chair, you know."

"But the chair was closer. And it is easier to put away. See. Here I put it against the wall again, and we are done. Come to my office. Marie-Bertrade has made some treats that she wanted to send home with you to Regina. Then we will let you go."

The two men headed down the hall.

"How is Martin? Has he got his cast off yet?" Bertin asked.

"Yes, but how he has kept from needing a new one, I do not know. This morning we caught him climbing the oak tree, to the farthest branches!"

"Ah, if any of your children give you gray hairs, that one will," Bertin said, as they disappeared into the stairwell.

Richard stared down the empty hall toward the stairwell. "I have wasted my life," he said.

"Not all of it, darling," Emma assured him, as she gently pulled him back into the room and wrapped him in a hug.

He kissed her, and returned the hug. Getting chipper (as if that would fool her?) he asked her where they should go now. "I'd say 'let's go home,' but I'm not feeling like we particularly have one just now," he said. "Except for wherever you are, which is home enough for me," he purred. He tightened his hug. He kissed her again, long and tenderly.

He moved her to arm's length and searched her eyes. "Seriously, though, what would you like to do next?"

"I can't say I have anything particular in mind," she said.

"Anything in general, then?"

She shook her head. "Something's bound to come up, though. It always does."

Richard's phone rang. He glanced at it, expecting it to be Durand, who could be safely ignored for the moment. It wasn't Durand. He answered the phone as quickly as he could. "How can I help you?" he said instead of hello. "Right... right... where?... all right... you can count on us, we're on our way," he said. He rang off and headed for his traveling bag. Emma dashed for hers.

"Who was that, or do I ask?" Emma said, as she filled the bag.

"Remember Jack from the special labs?"

"The one who finds excuses not to wear bomb suits, even when he should?"

"That's the one. The agency isn't moving quickly enough on something and he needs help, but whoever does it has to be unofficial and willing to not take any credit later."

"Sounds like our sort of gig," Emma said, her eyes twinkling. She zipped her bag shut. "To the horses," she jested.

"To horse!" Richard joked back, casting his eyes around the room to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything. Convinced they were as set as they could be under the circumstances, he bowed to his wife for the sheer fun of it, and escorted her out the door, at a goodly clip of a walk suitable to an emergency that didn't quite merit running, but came close to it.

For better or worse, for the first time all day he felt his old self again, and steadier and steadier with each step that he took toward a nasty little danger that needed addressing.

###

If you liked this book, I hope you will consider writing a review. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! - Kathryn Judson

Other fiction by the same author

Almost Hopeless Horse

Why We Raise Belgian Horses

Joanne and I Burn Up

Trouble Pug

Not Exactly Dead (MI5 1/2)

Not Exactly Innocent (MI5 1/2)

Not Exactly Allies (MI5 1/2)

The MI5 1/2 Omnibus

The Smolder (The Smolder)

The Birdwatcher (The Smolder)

The Unexpecteds (The Smolder)

The Hidden (The Smolder)

Dear Invader (Notes From Hiding, Part 1)

Dear Citizen (Notes From Hiding, Part 2)

Dear Neighbor (Notes From Hiding, Part 3)

To Whom It May Concern (Notes From Hiding, Part 4)

Isannah Here (Notes From Hiding, Part 5)

Notes From Hiding
Have you missed the earlier Richard Hugh adventures? Here's how the first book starts:

# Chapter 1 of Not Exactly Dead

## The Lady in the Trunk

_London, several years back, in the wee hours, in thickish fog_ – The driver of the luxury sedan (saloon, in Brit-speak) was driving amazingly well for a man who knew he had a gun pointed at his head. The man with the gun, on the other hand, was getting nervous. The driver didn't seem worried enough. People being kidnapped ought to be begging, the gunman thought. They ought to be falling over backwards to be nice to you, he thought. Someone being kidnapped ought not be acting so sure of himself, that was for certain. Maybe this was some sort of set up? The thought that maybe he'd been set up made the kidnapper angry. He wasn't sure how he could have been set up since he had the weapon and ought to be in charge. The uncertainty of what might be going wrong made him even more upset. "No funny business," he said from the back seat, trying to sound as gruff as possible. "If you start driving funny or try anything like reaching for gadgets, I'll just blow your [deleted] head off. I don't mind if we crash, see? I'm one of those lucky sods who doesn't care if he lives or dies, see?"

"I'm glad to hear it," a woman's voice said from behind the back seat. "And watch your language. There are ladies present."

The kidnapper dropped into a miserable, drugged heap. Behind him, a small, feminine arm pulled back behind a partially turned down seat. The driver reached back and deftly removed the gun from his abductor's limp hand, as a short woman of hard to guess middle age gingerly got the back seat turned down. The woman crawled into the car proper. After checking the kidnapper, and rearranging him some so he looked more like he was napping, she crawled into the front passenger seat and started to snap herself into the safety belt. She stopped, looked at the buckle quizzically, and shot a questioning glance at the driver. When he shrugged, she buckled herself in. A very observant person might have thought she braced herself just a bit as the two bits of the buckle connected. She smiled at the driver. "You'd be Richard Hugh, I believe," she said.

The driver didn't confirm or deny the name.

"Otherwise labeled Triple-O Five," the lady said.

The driver didn't bother to look astonished or confused, but he didn't confirm the code name, either.

"Unless, being British, you prefer Triple-Nought Five?"

Still no response.

"Or would that be something more formal yet? Treble-Nought Five, perhaps?" She thought she saw him bite his lip on the inside, but it didn't look as though he was going to budge. She decided to stick with Triple-O Five unless told otherwise. "I'm Emma Chapman. American. Code name Two Thousand Nine. And before you protest that Americans don't have a quad-number squad, perhaps you remember the project that got called the Frankenstein Project? That wasn't the official name, but it turned out enough monsters, heaven knows. I'm one of the survivors. Pleased to meet you, by the way. And if we're going to the Chunnel, don't you think we'd better lose our passenger first? Even a rookie inspector on a bad day is likely to notice what looks like a grown man dead in the back of a car, yes? Even if the fog doesn't lift? For that matter, I think we've upset a truck driver or two already. Excuse me, that should be lorry driver, shouldn't it? I haven't got a handle on the local lingo yet. Besides," she said, glancing back to reassure herself that the bad guy was still out cold, "he's not as dead as he looks and I estimate he'll be getting up, very grumpy likely, in about three quarters of an hour. Maybe less."

The driver quietly changed course.

"I hope that's relief I see on your face," Chapman said. "I know I'd be glad to know I wasn't in a vehicle with a murderess and a corpse."

The driver clearly didn't intend to respond to that.

Chapman fell into what could have been mistaken for companionable silence. Shortly afterward, the driver pulled into a curious garage in a curious location and some cheerful men in coveralls removed the unconscious kidnapper, and attacked the upholstery with high-powered vacuums and industrial strength fingerprint removers. "By the way," Chapman told the garage superintendent, "that new drug I used to knock the fellow out with? The recipients tend to wake up intensely angry and belligerent, and surprisingly agile and coordinated for someone who's been out cold. No need to worry about an antidote. It wears off nicely. Except for the mood problems."

"Right. Thanks for the warning," the superintendent said. "Perhaps you could name the drug for me?"

"I wish."

"Done here," the cleaning crew chief called out, with the pride of someone in charge of a really good pit crew.

"Out of here, both of you," the superintendent said to Chapman and the driver, "And don't count on us being here a second time."

"Of course not," Chapman said with a smile as she climbed back into the car. "NASCAR could probably use your services if you get tired of this," she called out as they left, which got her a harvest of sheepish grins.

"Really, I mean it," Chapman said to the driver. "Those guys are amazing."

The driver seemed determined to intimidate her with silence.

She matched his silence for a while. Then she laughed. "All right," she said, "in case you're wondering where to drive, I was hoping to get to Paris. I've come to England especially to talk to you. I don't need more than a few minutes for that, but I would appreciate a ride to France, if that's where you're heading. That is the case you're working on, isn't it? At any rate, for Pete's sake stop driving in circles. It's wasting gas."

"Why should you be worried about my petrol?" the driver asked in a cultured (but not snooty) voice.

"He talks! I thought he might have laryngitis or have had his vocal cords cut out," Chapman said to thin air. She shifted position, focus, and tone; getting businesslike. "Well, since you ask, Mr. Hugh, I happen to think you might need to make a run for it before the day is through, if my information is correct. Which it may not be, of course."

"Of course."

"I don't claim to be perfect."

"But you think you know enough to know who I am?"

"For an ordinary citizen, you'd be showing a curious lack of excitement over an apparently dead body in your back seat and women coming out of your trunk."

"Oh, are there more? You did say 'women,' plural?" he asked, interrupting before she could get around to mentioning the curious garage and its even more curious pit crew, which, now that he thought about it, he probably shouldn't have visited with a conscious outsider along for the ride, much less an intruder he didn't know.

"Sloppy English. Sorry. Not women. Just me, sir."

"Oh, now it's 'sir'?"

"Over here, you do outrank me."

"Over here?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, good grief," she said. She drew a phone from a pocket and (after a slight pause and glance in his direction) punched some numbers. She watched his hands as she did so and, sure enough, he reached toward where a man in his profession might be expected to have a holster, even in countries that officially frown on guns. He also, despite himself, glanced around to see if his kidnapper's gun was still lying about. It wasn't, of course. The men at the garage had taken it while they were cleaning. It wouldn't do to have a firearm of dubious history where it might get a stellar government employee suspected of unsolved murders or something.

"Hello," Chapman said into her phone. When she got a return "Hello" in a Received English accent, she held the phone in front of her, gathered her courage, focused her wits, and punched a button. A screen lit up to show a woman who looked like she was the sort to be in charge of things. (Please note: in those days, a phone with a video display was almost unheard of outside of elite circles. Also note: that Chapman could tie in to a covert British system was a rather impressive feat, as well as a subtle way of proving she wasn't your average civilian). "Hi. Remember me?" Chapman asked.

The woman on the other end appeared to be fighting noxious opinions, albeit in a dignified way. Chapman bit back a grin. "Yes, well, I'm in England and thought I ought to check in. Professional courtesy and all that. Could you quick run a voice check and confirm that I'm Two Thousand Nine from America?"

"You match," the woman-in-charge said, sounding a bit testy. "What's the point?"

Chapman noted that the woman didn't appear to bother with a voiceprint machine. She opted to let it pass. If Mrs. Wyatt wished to slide on through without high-tech backup, that was her call, and there wasn't any sense contradicting her.

On second thought, it was tempting to rub it in a little. Chapman kept her voice respectful, and the twinkle out of her eye, but said, "Very fast work, thank you, and now that you have the machine set up will you tell me if I'm dealing with Richard Hugh or with an imposter, please?" She swung the phone toward the driver. "Say something, okay?"

"Hello, chief. Sorry to bother you. I'll take it from here," he said.

Satisfied that bona fides had been established in both directions, Chapman said good-bye.

"Triple-O Five, are you in trouble?" the chief stuck in just before the connection closed.

After a few seconds of deep thought, Chapman said, "Maybe you should call her back?"

"Why?"

"If you want to be rescued when you don't need to be rescued, that's your business. But I'd like out before they get here if that's the case. It's too embarrassing, not to mention dangerous. All I need to tell you is that the maniac who keeps leaving Mighty Planetary Master messages on dead spies is probably on his way to England and I'm over here trying to intercept him."

"What has that to do with me?"

"I want to stick close to his next intended victim."

"And?"

"And, we caught him on a wiretap saying he was going to go get Richard for what he did to Nan, and from what we can tell, you're the most likely Richard. I haven't a clue which Nan he might be talking about. My agency can tie you to no less than eleven different Nancys or Nanettes." She paused politely, as if she hoped he'd drop a hint or two.

"Why not go to headquarters?" he said.

"You saw how your boss lady likes me. Give me a break."

Richard Hugh studied his passenger out of the corner of his eye. She looked rather like a middle-class woman who spent her spare time successfully selling raffle tickets for church bazaars. Her clothes were casual, but reasonably neat: tweed slacks, a brown shirt (not silky), sensible shoes with good, thick soles, a brown raincoat, perhaps reversible, with tannish lining. Nothing looked horribly expensive, or obviously cheap. Her shoulder length strawberry blonde hair was weeks late for a haircut and needed a wash. There was no gray in it, but it looked like it was beginning to fade. Her nails were neither particularly long nor particularly short, and were devoid of polish. Her head barely reached the bottom of the headrest. The faint and few lines in her face suggested that she smiled more often than not, but certainly wasn't one of those odd and scary people who did practically nothing but grin. This was hardly the sort of presence that would make his chief send out rescuers on his behalf, he thought. On the other hand, his chief had ended on an anxious note. Women! Inconceivable creatures, at best. He spoke at his dashboard. "Connect me with the chief. Give me a visual." A screen popped out of the lower dash, out of view of neighboring drivers. It stayed blank until the chief activated it at the other end. She came into view with one eyebrow raised. Hugh smiled and shrugged, as if to say he was sorry for any inconvenience. "So you know this lady?" he asked.

"I wish I didn't."

"Mind telling me why?"

"She attracts trouble."

"I don't attract trouble. I follow it. Sometimes I try to get in front of it, same as you guys," Chapman said.

Hugh gave in to temptation and smiled. It may have been a slightly condescending smile (although within bounds for well-bred gentlemen). After all, members of British intelligence are taught to take it as a matter of faith that no one else would – or could – operate the same way, much less as well as they; and he was in a special, unacknowledged branch of the service, decidedly elite. So of course it was silly that this slip of a foreigner was comparing herself to him. But there was no reason not to be polite about it. He managed to wipe the smile off his handsome, albeit middle-aged, face. He waited a few seconds to give his chief time to elaborate, but got only mute signals that Emma Chapman wasn't a welcome sight but certainly wasn't thought to be on the wrong side of things.

"I'm getting a later start than expected," Hugh said, "but I think I'll be able to make it to Paris for the party." He paused just slightly. "Over." Responding to 'over' said in isolation, the screen went dark and disappeared back into the dash.

Hugh assumed the chief could understand that he didn't want to discuss the matter any more than she did, at least not in front of his passenger. Besides, after all, the only real reason he'd called was to reassure her that he was in control of the situation. He considered that he had pulled that off, at least. He stifled a sigh. Female chiefs did need different managing than their male counterparts. Not that he didn't like this chief. But she did sometimes require more from a fellow than some of her predecessors, in his considered opinion.

Chapman looked at him until he acknowledged her presence. "Before I forget it," she said, "somebody called Hoddel – I'm guessing that's the crime boss Frank Hoddel, but that's just an educated guess – had several disgruntled and chatty men backing up the gunman who eventually fed you into the car. If their gossip is correct, there are three guys with sniper rifles near the Chunnel, masquerading as anti-terrorist patrols, meaning to knock you off if your kidnapper somehow didn't persuade you to drive off to wherever it was Hoddel wanted you. Unless you're going to change your route, why don't I drive, just for that part of the trip?"

"Not a chance."

"Just for–"

"No."

-

As they neared the Eurotunnel, Hugh mumbled, "I don't like this."

"Of course you don't," Chapman answered from the driver's seat. "No man in his right mind who has a very nice car can stand to have someone else driving it. Get back down and keep pretending to be napping. We're almost there. I hope you've stashed your gun and holster somewhere?" She took his stifled mumbling as reassurance that he'd properly hidden anything that might get them arrested or investigated. When he didn't sink out of sight fast enough for her liking, she shot him an exasperated look. He shot her an irritated look in return, but sank from view.

Chapman hummed a bravely happy tune, and shifted gears. It was a remarkably wonderful car in regard to gear shifting; everything felt so precise. On the other hand, even though the rearview mirror wasn't exactly right, she didn't fiddle with it. She could use the mirror if she craned her head. She treated that as good enough under the circumstances. The moisture on the windshield (windscreen in Brit-speak) was nearly enough to warrant wipers, but she didn't seem terribly interested in finding the wipers. A very observant person might have noticed that she was careful to keep her hands on the same spots on the steering wheel as much as possible, that she always shifted with her hand in exactly the same position, and that she lined her foot up carefully before she made contact with a pedal, as if she was afraid of touching something nasty if she deviated from previous efforts.

-

Hugh usually found ways to creatively fidget his way through the Chunnel – brush up on his French, read briefs, sing songs under his breath, practice whistling, whatever – but having a companion, especially a stranger, put a crimp in his style, he found. It helped his mood that she'd let him retake control of the car when it had come time to drive onto the train, but being in the driver's seat didn't help much, since it was almost impossible to ignore the fact that there was essentially an ocean above his head on this journey. He routinely argued for less expensive ways to travel across the Channel, but his superiors, bless them, couldn't seem to take the hint, and he'd decided he'd rather die than tell them he hated traveling under water.

"Ever been through the Chunnel?" he asked.

"No."

"Not much to it. Just a shortish spell of enforced idleness," he said, trying to sound encouraging.

"Do you mind if I read the paper?" she asked, eyeing a never-read paper in the back seat.

"It's yesterday's, I'm afraid."

"I'm sure there's something in there I don't know yet," she said. "Unless you're hinting it's not really a paper, but merely something disguised as a paper that–"

"Let me reach it for you," he said.

She turned out to be the sort of reader who read with intent focus. That put him in charge of watching out for both of them, he felt. That, and the fact he was the man in the car, not to mention the person on home turf. He got out to stretch, and to assess his surroundings. He made a point of looking pleasant and well to do, while giving off the impression that he was the sort of man who could look out for himself. It was an aura that had prevented trouble in the past. Besides that, he liked it. In short order, he could have provided a good description of the persons and vehicles in view, front or back. No one seemed particularly interested in him, unless you counted the woman in the car behind who puckered her lips at him in a playful stab at flirting, which he ignored. He got back in and waited for Chapman to nag him for being reckless or something. She kept reading. He wondered if she'd even noticed he'd been out.

"If you're waiting for me to remind you that you're suspected of having an ugly little checkmark next to your name, the fact is I didn't think you had forgotten. Anything you want a second set of eyes to check out?" she said, without looking up.

"No, thank you."

"Just holler if you want something."

"I'll let you know."

"Thanks for looking around."

"You're welcome."

"I don't suppose you're up on this stuff that's being reported out of Venezuela?"

"Can't say that I am."

"I think this reporter probably got led around by his nose on this story."

"It happens, I'm told."

"I'll leave you alone now, unless there's something you want to discuss."

"Can't think of anything, thanks."

Hugh picked up a section of paper and read, by habit holding the paper so it obscured part of his face, also by habit giving off the impression that he was aware of his surroundings without being wary. He moved the paper forward and back, trying to unobtrusively find a distance at which he could focus. The agency doctors wanted him to wear contact lenses, but weren't insisting upon it yet. Contact lenses seemed a massive bother, to be steadfastly avoided until actually needed. Glasses might be better, but only just. He wasn't looking forward to messing with those, either. He read half-heartedly. He liked his job, but sometimes too much came to a head at one time. Chapman's Mighty Planetary Master scare might be unfounded, but it had to be taken seriously. For another thing, Frank Hoddel wasn't by any means the only gangster he'd irritated lately. For that matter, worse yet, some sort of delayed reaction to having been kidnapped with a gun to his head was setting in. Not that he was afraid of dying. Not really. Not too much, anyway. Not during a crisis, at any rate. Dying whilst addressing an emergency seemed a manly way to go.

He wasn't about to let an American see him shake – even a little, even if mostly from relief – if he could help it, but his arms and hands weren't taking orders as well as they should, and the paper was amplifying the tremors. He set the paper down, and forced his mind onto other things.

Chapman kept reading, seemingly oblivious to his distress.

-

To Hugh's chagrin, Chapman somehow persuaded him to let her drive the first leg in France, on the theory that what she'd heard was that Hoddel's men were going to be near the Chunnel, but no one had said which side. He reluctantly and rather peevishly settled down for another 'nap.' Soon after, Chapman let loose a small whoop. It sounded very much like an ah-hah-so-I-was-right sort of a whoop. "You're not experimenting with any of the controls, are you?" Hugh asked. "I asked you not to, if you remember?"

This being before hands-off cell phones and other nifty devices transformed the world into one where people publicly talk to thin air as a matter of course, Chapman answered in a form of sing-song, so it would look like she was singing along to the radio instead of chatting with an invisible someone. (Besides, there's no sense hiding someone, and then talking toward the hiding place. It rather tends to defeat the purpose.) "Of course I'm not," she chanted more or less to a Rodgers and Hammerstein tune. "I just think we've found our guys. Three men in camo. Very interested in pearl gray sedans and keenly interested in the license plate. They swore when they saw me."

"I understand the sentiment," Hugh muttered to himself.

"Keep your head down if you want to take a peek to see if you know them. The shoulder this side of the road," she sang. "Behind us... now."

Hugh stuck his head up for a look. Gunfire erupted. Witheringly accurate gunfire, as it happened. If there hadn't been super-heavy-duty bulletproof glass in the way, Hugh would have had a serious head wound.

"I said to keep your head down!" Chapman snapped.

"You said to take a look!" he barked. He hadn't quite meant to bark, but having a bullet stop only inches from his face had jarred his normally placid nerves. Besides, as he reminded himself, the woman had barked first.

Chagrined even more by the attempt to justify himself than for the momentary lack of control, he sucked in a deep breath, tore his eyes off the bullet mark, and forced calmness into his voice. This was not a time to be arguing, not with his would-be killers piling into an oversize jeep-like vehicle. "I apologize–"

"Never mind that. I think I can bail out over the seat or something and let you in here, if you want to chance it. I don't feel real comfortable driving this particular car with mercenaries on our tail."

"Pull over. We'll switch then."

"Much better plan than mine. Thanks." She pulled over and stopped, shifted the seat back so Hugh would fit, and dove into the passenger seat. Hugh slid into the driver's seat, and pulled back into traffic. An onlooker could have been excused for thinking they'd rehearsed the procedure.

She pulled off a shoe and rummaged in it. She came out with three items that looked like they could be used to help prove authority. Her face fell as she looked at them. "Lovely, just lovely," she said, as she stuffed two of them back. "Let's try not to have to use this," she said, nodding at the credentials she'd decided to keep. "But if we do, for Pete's sake don't set it up so I have to say anything. The cover people have apparently seen fit to set me up as a mucky muck in the _Direction du Renseignement Militaire_ , and I don't speak French. Not enough for that, anyway."

After hearing her pronunciation of _Direction du Renseignement Militaire_ , Hugh agreed that she didn't know French well enough to pass as French, although he didn't say so. Plus, her being in the DRM was impossible, for several reasons that he didn't intend to state.

"What is that, anyway?" she asked. "Sounds like a Directorate of Military Intelligence maybe? Are they a secret police or something? I don't usually work in western Europe, to be honest with you."

"The others weren't any better, I take it," Hugh said, as he sped up some, but not enough to cause crashes (he hoped).

"The other options are a diplomat's ID from Zimbabwe, complete with a picture of a colleague of mine, and a badge for a Bobby Brown at Scotland Yard," Chapman said. "Bobby's spelled the masculine way. Or like slang for a cop. I'm not sure it's New Scotland Yard, either. The address seems funny."

Hugh hadn't the time to stare at his companion, but he gave the impression of staring by maintaining a prolonged silence as he drove. "By all means," he finally said, "I think you're best off with the one you selected. If you prefer being shot at sunrise to being laughed at on the spot, that is."

"Of course, your British suppliers have never goofed up that bad."

"Not recently, anyway," Hugh said. He allowed himself to project a rueful look that implied (correctly) that he had his own stories to tell about bureaucratic bungling (if, of course, he were the sort of man to tattle).

Chapman smiled her appreciation. "I won't tell anyone you said that," she said.

"You'd better not. On the bright side, if we're looking for a bright side, at least they issued you a phone that works over here."

"This time," Chapman said under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Hugh looked in the rearview mirror and didn't like what he saw. "Hang on," he said. "We might be in for trouble."

"I just love that good old British penchant for understatement," Chapman said, perhaps a bit overpolitely. "Oh, excuse me," she said, suddenly serious. "Were you hinting that I should call somebody?"

"No need, thanks. I've got it."

Chapman looked vaguely dubious. Hugh let her see him depressing a button in the steering wheel. She still looked vaguely dubious. Hugh decided that was reasonable for anyone whose life was possibly in danger, who was forced to rely on a stranger for protection, even a stranger known to be a seasoned agent, such as himself.

"Let me know if you want me to do anything," Chapman said.

"Will do."

\- End of Not Exactly Dead, Chapter 1 -

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