Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?"

One of the things Christopher Chance totally admired about women was their widespread ability to shout with a hushed voice. Winston was pretty good at it, too, but Maureen Gray surely surpassed him by far. Standing in the tiny hallway of the row house she shared with her husband – what was his name again? Steven? Spencer? – she showed all signs of great agitation: Tense shoulders, fighting stance, twisted face and her voice was as fierce as a fighting cat's, but its sound level never rose above that of a whisper. He put on his most charming smile: "Since things clicked so well last time we wondered if you'd like to work for us again."

"Clicked so well? The only thing that clicked last time I "worked" for you was the safety catch of the gun this psychopath associate of yours used to force me into flying a deathtrap of a plane under minimum flight level, over a burning vineyard while we were being shot at and you were trying to pull somebody from a careening jeep into the cargo hold!" Definitely angry, she wiped a strand of dark auburn hair out of her face and looked over Chance's shoulder into his parked car on the driveway. "I see you haven't brought him today. Smart move of that baldheaded walrus to send you instead, poster boy, but forget it. I should call the cops!"

"You would be flying an MI-8MTV-5 this time…"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "But they're brand new on the market, costs stand at around 10 million$ a piece, how…" She caught herself. "You've heard me well. I quit flying a long time ago, I like being alive and I have no intention at all to ever even breath the same air as you people again!"

"Are you sure you don't want to get away from your mother-in-law for a while?"

Maureen's face turned pale with anger: "Are you spying on me?"

Chance lifted the pink-white porcelain figure of a rosy-cheeked ballet dancer from the tiny table under the wall mirror. "This…" he weighed the item in his hands "…is totally unlike you. You would have never wasted your hard-earned money on it, so it must be a gift. A gift that you usually don't display on this table because the wood of the surface is completely bleached by the sunlight. If this thing always stood here, a tiny spot would have kept the original color. My guess is you hate this ugly dust-gatherer and stash it away somewhere most of the time. It only comes out when the giver shows up for a visit. And since this is a typical "My-son-is-too-good-for-you"-mother-in-law gift, I think you've got a visitor right now."

She opened her mouth to contradict him, but at this very moment a rather high-pitched (as in screeching-trapdoor-hinge high-pitched) female voice yelled from the back of the house: "Maureen! I've just moved the fridge away from the wall and there must be a ton of dust gathered behind it. Don't you ever clean up there?"

"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't leave. We're going to have a big family dinner tomorrow evening. My sisters-in-law are coming down from Minneapolis, they're bringing their husbands and their children…" Her face showed signs of exasperation.

"The job is a piece of cake! You fly us in, you fly us out, you'll be back tomorrow morning at ten and have all the time in the world to prepare for the big event."

Before she could say anything, another voice, a male one this time, could be heard, coming from upstairs: "Maureen! Mother is calling for you! You could really lend her a hand since she's so nice to help you get the house ready for Heather and Fran. You know how they are, they'll surely check if you…" Footsteps came down the stairs and a middle-aged man with little hair and huge glasses came into view. "Oh, I didn't know someone was at the door…" He looked at his wife questioningly.

"Maureen!" The high-pitched voice again. "Take a look at what I found underneath the stove!"

"MI-8MTV-5", Chance mouthed.

Maureen's facial expression changed from exasperated to determined. "Darling, I'm sorry, but some unexpected developments at work have come up… My boss is at a conference, remember? Looks like he got himself into a bit of a tight spot, bookkeeping-wise. I need to go on an overnight trip to sort things out."

Furrowing his brow, the man readjusted his glasses in an unnervingly correct gesture. "You make it sound like a national emergency broke out and they've called you to save the world."

Eyes rolling, his wife sidestepped him and ascended the stairs. Slightly befuddled, he followed her: "Maurie, you're a vet's secretary. What could be so important that you drop everything the day before our traditional family get-together?"

She stopped abruptly and turned on her heels to face him directly: "Remember the bonus I received last month? Wouldn't it be nice to get another one?"

A couple of minutes later Mrs. Gray dumped her travel bag on the backseat of Chance's car, only to discover that Guerrero had been hiding there the whole time, listening in via ear piece. "You're a vet's secretary, Maurie. Whoa, could he have phrased that any more belittling?"

"Stuart is a good man and he didn't mean it that way", she snarled in reply.

"Yeah, let's call it a compliment in disguise."

Chance grinned broadly to himself while heading down the road towards the airfield where the helicopter was waiting. Guerrero and Maureen Gray were a highly entertaining combination. Throw in Winston and the heavily-armed crew that was standing between them and his new client held hostage on a container vessel, the next 24 hours were definitely going to be fun.