The Life and Times of Harley Gage

by Vol lady

Gage has been underground for years, but passes Mickey Kostmayer a note - he's discovered the Company has a mole. McCall, Scott and Kostmayer hunt for the mole and for Gage, but Control is looking, too, and Gage is trying to keep himself alive.

All recognizable characters, settings, places, etc. are the property of their

respective owners.. No copyright infringement is intended. No money is involved.

The Life and Times of Harley Gage

The soup was good, really good, just the thing to take the edge off a chilly morning, and Mickey Kostmayer enjoyed every single spoonful of it. For a while, sitting there in the delicatessen among the homeless men and the characters in their three-piece suits fumbling through their briefcases, he didn't even think about having to leave for South America in three days, although spending the winter in Caracas didn't sound completely bad. New York City after October was bitter, with the wind whipping through the steel and concrete canyons and the dirty snow piling up into icebergs along the curbs. Kostmayer shivered at the thought and ate more soup. Good, hot soup. That's the ticket to take all your troubles away, at least for a few minutes.

Somebody dropped a note on the table in front of him while he was in mid-sip, and Kostmayer felt a body move behind him and keep going. He looked up and saw the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man with salt-and-pepper hair and a three-piece suit head out the door. He realized it was the man who had been sitting on a few seats down at his table. Kostmayer had only vaguely noticed him - he looked like all the other boring businessmen in the room. Kostmayer started to get up, grabbing the note, intending to go after him, but in a blink he was out of the deli and onto the street with all the other men who looked exactly the same. Kostmayer sat back down a read the note.

It was written in the Cyrillic alphabet the Russians still used, but the words were in English. "You have a mole. A man, doctoring intelligence. The KGB is not as strong as they want you to think. The Arab world is stronger. Pay attention. HG."

HG? Kostmayer jumped up again, pocketing the note, and hurried out the door, but the man was long gone into the crowd. HG?

Kostmayer wasn't sure how to handle this, but he forgot his soup and hurried back to the Company office. The place might have been top secret and fronted as something it wasn't, but it was still just an office underneath, with phones ringing and secretaries typing and mail coming in and going out. Kostmayer still didn't know what he was going to do when he went into Control's office and waited in the outer room while the secretary buzzed Control and told him he was there.

"Is it important?" he heard Control ask.

Kostmayer nodded when the secretary looked up at him.

"He says it is," the secretary said.

"Send him in," Control said.

Kostmayer went right in and found Control clicking off his computer screen. Something Kostmayer wasn't supposed to see, obviously. Control wore his usual scowl and didn't even motion Kostmayer to sit down. He just looked up, impatiently, and that's when Kostmayer decided what he was going to say.

"I just got handed a note."

"A note? That's what you've interrupted me about?"

Kostmayer handed him the note, and Control read it, all the way through to the Cyrillic "HG." He looked up at Kostmayer skeptically.

Kostmayer said, "I didn't get a good look at the guy who handed it to me. I only saw the back of him. Guy in a three-piece suit. But he was the right size."

Control folded the note and kept it. "Where?"

"At a deli where I got some lunch."

"And you believe this? And you believe it came from Harley Gage? Come on, Mickey, why would Gage do us any favors?"

Kostmayer shrugged. "I never understood why Harley did anything."

Control waved a hand and looked away. "Get out, and the next time you see Gage - if in fact this was Gage - kill him."

"I figured it couldn't hurt to check this out," Kostmayer said. "That's it."

Kostmayer turned to leave, but Control said, "Wait a minute."

Kostmayer stopped and turned around.

"Assuming this is from Gage, how do you think he got the information?" Control asked.

Kostmayer shrugged again. "He speaks Russian. I figure he's been hanging out at places the Russians haunt."

"He'd risk being recognized."

Kostmayer smiled. "If that was Harley, he was sitting right next to me for ten minutes or so and I didn't recognize him."

"He didn't say anything to you?"

"Nothing," Kostmayer said. "You know he risked a lot contacting me with this. He knows that if I recognized him, I might have killed him. That's worth something, Control."

Control put on a skeptical frown. "You'd never kill Gage, and we both know it. So does he. I'll check the story out. If this leads anywhere - I'll see."

Kostmayer smiled a little and turned to go.

"Mickey - "

Kostmayer turned back one more time.

"If Gage contacts you again, I want to know right away."

"Didn't I tell you right away this time?"

"I also want to know if you find out he contacted McCall."

Kostmayer tried to look thoughtful. "I'm not sure he'd want to put Robert in the middle of this."

"Nevertheless, Mickey," Control said.

Kostmayer relented, nodding. "I won't hold out. If this is legit, it could be pretty important."

Control rubbed his forehead. "You're damned right about that."

-----

Kostmayer left the office and left the building, heading straight for a nearby bar where he knew he could use the phone and not be overheard. He kept an eye out for somebody from the Company following him - he didn't trust Control any more than Control trusted him. The thought made him smile. Stupid way of life. But he wanted to contact Robert McCall as quickly as possible. Kostmayer suspected that Gage wouldn't contact him, but he was certain that McCall would want to know if there was a chance Gage was still alive.

Every now and then over the years Gage's name came up, or something happened to remind both him and McCall of what had happened - how many years ago was it now? Five or six. Gage dropped out of sight, abruptly and completely, because both the Russians and the Company had put the hit out on him and he really had no choice. McCall had never stopped carrying the guilt that came with his involvement in putting Gage in prison two years before that, and Harley's disappearance just rubbed salt into the wound. McCall would want - no, need - to know that Gage was still alive, still all right, and after everything, still Gage.

In a moment he had McCall on the phone from the bar and was saying, "I think I just heard from Harley Gage."

McCall said nothing for a moment, but then asked, "Why do you think that?"

Kostmayer told him about the man in the deli and the note. He even told McCall the substance of the note, even though technically he shouldn't have.

McCall had the same reaction Kostmayer had had. "If that was Harley, he took a big risk contacting you."

"Well, he thought it was important."

"It IS important. I hope Control took it seriously."

"He did."

McCall said, "Then he should cancel the hit on Harley."

Kostmayer said, "Robert, if I find out Harley's contacted you, I'm supposed to tell Control."

"So Control can pardon him, or kill him?"

"Frankly, I don't know which. So, don't tell me if he contacts you, okay? That way I don't have to lie."

"He hasn't contacted me, Mickey. That's the truth. Actually - I thought he was dead." McCall was silent for a moment, then said, "And he still may be. Have you considered this might be disinformation?"

"Yeah, I have. But I saw the back of the guy who left me the note. I'd bet anything it was Harley, Robert. He's alive. He's okay."

McCall's sigh was audible. "Well, if he is, I wonder what the hell he's been doing with himself all these years."

----

Harley Gage was actually watching from across the street when Kostmayer came out and hurried away from the deli, and he smiled. He knew the minute he heard this information at that Russian hangout he'd been frequenting, that Kostmayer was the guy to give the information to and this was the way to do it. Kostmayer could never resist a little mystery. He'd go straight to Control now, and he'd convince Control this had to be taken care of - because as sure as Kostmayer loved a mystery, Control detested uncertainty. Control had to know everything, had to be absolutely certain of everything, had to be completely in charge of everything. That was why he was "Control," after all.

So, I've done my bit for my country, Gage said to himself. Now I can go back underground before somebody catches onto me and I end up dead in some alley. He chuckled to himself. Right, sure. You've put yourself right back into the game, you fool, and you know it. You never would have started going to that Russian bar if you hadn't wanted back in. Admit it. You miss it. You miss the adrenalin rush. You miss the fight. You miss the mystery as much as Kostmayer does, so you're going right back to that bar, on schedule, pretending you don't know any Russian and picking up what you can until they start to catch on. If they ever do. Things in the old Soviet are a mess, and the old KGB is a mess. Does the old KGB even still exist? The Soviet's breaking up. Who knows who's running their old intelligence system now. You haven't even seen Francesca in New York in the past five years. Hell, after you and Dyson pulled McCall away from the KGB, they probably sent her to Siberia.

Gage chuckled again. If the Company and the KGB had known he'd never left New York, they'd kill him just for pulling that little ruse on them. If they'd known he'd disappeared just by changing his name, getting a haircut and glasses, wearing three-piece suits and carrying a briefcase, they'd wet their pants. Six years he'd been getting away with that now, playing the businessman, investing the money Dyson had given him, developing his own little industrial espionage business and selling intelligence to that elite little group, separate and apart from the networks and circles the Company and the KGB operated in.

But you just couldn't stay away from the Rooskies, Gage. You had to get back into that, even if it was just around the edges. You're playing a dangerous game, you know.

Yeah, I know. That's why I'm doing it. I miss the risk. I miss the game.

I gotta be out of my mind.

-----

Control had several people within the Company he was pretty sure he could trust, but none at all he was certain he could trust. In the bottom of his heart, he believed that anybody - ANYBODY - could be bought, if the right incentive could be found. Hell, even Robert McCall had been lured away. Granted, it wasn't by a person, and maybe he had been pushed away rather than lured away, but he had gone, and under his skin, Control had taken that as a personal betrayal. No one could be trusted 100%. So how was he going to deal with this mole?

He had to look into it, at least. He turned in his chair and studied a big map he had on his wall, a map of the world as it stood when he first moved into this position years ago. It wasn't so valid now that the Soviet world was falling apart, but he left it up as a reminder that the world was not a static place, that he had to be able to move with it when it moved. His agency had to be able to adjust to the constant changes. HE had to be able to adjust.

He thought about people in his organization. He thought about Kostmayer and McCall. Yes, they still were the two people he trusted the most. They might cross him, and they had crossed him in the past, but at least their reasons were predictable. Their final allegiances were to each other, like a father and son. And where did Harley Gage fit into that relationship? The black sheep brother-in-law who came through for them every now and then. Why would Gage come through now? He'd been underground for years. What would make him come to the surface now? A threat to the Company? No, not the Company. Definitely not a threat to him, Control. Maybe for his country. Maybe. But definitely for McCall or Kostmayer. But then, if Gage knew it was a threat to one of them, wouldn't he have named names?

Control felt his head start to fog up. He was overthinking. He had to stop thinking and start doing, somewhere. He decided to go with the notion that it was his country Gage was interested in protecting and that even if he didn't have a name, Gage knew McCall or Kostmayer or both might have some personal interest in finding out who this mole was. Assuming that led Control to thinking about certain people within the Company that Kostmayer cared about or at least worked beside with some regularity, and people McCall might still be in touch with. Control made a mental list, focusing on names that meant something to both McCall and Kostmayer. There were only a few, and they were people who had been around when Gage worked for the Company, although Control had no idea if Gage knew them. They were people Control knew little about personally, but they were a starting place.

Control buzzed his secretary. "Karen, get Marshall Jones on the phone for me, would you?"

He didn't wait for the "yes, sir." He immediately went back to thinking. For all anybody knew here, Marshall Jones was an old school friend Control lunched with now and then. In reality, he was a contractor Control used on personal matters. Lunching with Jones and raise no eyebrows, and he could hire Jones to run things like credit and bank records checks on the Company people Control had put on his mental list. If there was extra money to be found in any bank accounts anywhere, Jones would find it, and find it fast. Then, at least, Control knew he would have a direction to move in.

Then, if it turned out one of the people he suspected might be the mole, he could go to Robert McCall and maybe get some more help in dealing with this.

-----

When McCall hung up the phone, he stood there in his kitchen for a long time. He couldn't believe it. He looked at his hand, and it was trembling. The news Kostmayer had given him hit him far deeper than he would have dreamed was possible. He went through a jumble of emotions in a matter of seconds - relief that Gage was still alive, concern that he was putting himself back at risk, and concern about the information he was carrying. If there was a mole in the Company like the one Kostmayer described, it was a serious, serious situation. The trouble with jumbling emotions, though, is deciding which one to deal with first.

The front door opened. McCall jumped, suddenly snapped back to life, alarmed - who was coming into his apartment? Then he saw Scott looking up at him curiously, and he relaxed. He'd totally forgotten Scott was on vacation from his job this week and was coming over to take him to lunch.

Scott was just as startled as his father was. He'd often let himself in with the key, and his father had never had this reaction before. You NEVER caught Robert McCall so completely off-guard. NEVER. He knew right away something was wrong. "You all right, Dad?"

"Yes, sorry, I was thinking," McCall said.

Scott came toward him. "What's going on?"

McCall took a deep breath. He knew he couldn't tell Scott everything, but there was one thing he could tell him. "I just found out that Harley Gage is still alive."

Memories shot through Scott's mind. He could see that diner where he first met Gage, after he and Kostmayer and Dyson had gassed him and gotten him off the prison bus, and the first thing Gage did was try to kill him. Scott detested him - but then Gage had helped save his father, and his father had taken him in, and Scott had learned the whole story of what had happened to him. Like his father, Scott had to try to reconcile a bundle of conflicting events and feelings in a few seconds, but the look on his father's face said the only thing that mattered right now was what Robert McCall felt, not what Scott McCall felt.

"Where is he?" Scott asked.

"I don't know," McCall said. "He dropped Mickey Kostmayer a note in a delicatessen and disappeared again."

"Is he sure it was Harley?"

"Yes, he's sure. I'm not certain that I am, but Mickey is sure."

"What was the note about?"

McCall waved a hand. "Company things. Not our concern." Of course, McCall considered it his concern, but definitely not Scott's. He never wanted Scott involved in Company things.

"What do you want to do?" Scott asked. He knew his father. News like this was not something he could just take in and file away.

McCall looked up at him. "I want to go to lunch."

"Dad, if Harley's alive, he might need something. He might need help."

"Well," McCall said thoughtfully, "I don't know how we'll find him any easier now than we could have over the past six years. But we can have lunch at a delicatessen I know. Mickey says the soup is very good."

-----

Devon O'Toole was a true Irishman, straight from County Waterford via Yale and MIT, with dark wavy hair, bright blue eyes and the open grin of a man who was always either in a pub or on his way to one, but he ran the day shift of the intelligence section like an engineer - methodical, logical, direct, and occasionally maniacal. That curious mix of personalities intrigued Kostmayer from the first time they met and they became quick drinking buddies, so O'Toole was not surprised when Kostmayer came into his office.

O'Toole positioned his office so that he could see both the elevator and the entrance to the area that was full of intelligence officers in very private little rooms. There was always a guard posted at that entrance, but O'Toole still liked being sure that no one could get to the intelligence area from anywhere in the building without passing him. The sound of the elevator arriving made him blank out his computer screen and look up, and he stood and smiled, holding out his hand.

Kostmayer took his friend's hand and shook it warmly. "How's it going, Devon?"

"Another day, another little surprise," O'Toole said. "I haven't seen you for a while, Mickey. Where have you been keeping yourself?"

"Busy," Kostmayer said and flopped down into the chair in front of O'Toole's desk.

"So this is a business visit."

"No, not really. I just haven't touched base with you for a while. Anything interesting going on?"

"I wish I could say there was something I couldn't tell you about, but it's been pretty bland around here lately. Same old stuff has been coming in for weeks."

"Isn't that a little strange?"

"Not necessarily. Winter coming on, things quiet down in Eastern Europe. Ought to heat up in the Middle East soon, but you really can't depend on anything predictable from the Middle East, so, who knows? How about you? Anything good coming up?"

"I'll be pushing off again in a couple days."

"Where?"

"Well, I can't say, but it'll be warmer than New York, at least."

O'Toole leaned back with a sigh. "I'm jealous. I always wanted field work, but the Company always wanted me here. I guess I'm just the office type down deep."

"Trust me, field work ain't all that interesting, either. You think sitting around in an office all day is bad. Just try sitting crammed in a car in some alley for 36 hours straight and peeing into an empty mayonnaise jar."

O'Toole grunted. "Okay, you just cheered me up."

"I thought we might catch a drink at The Horse later, catch up on our love lives."

"That'll be a short conversation. Sure, I'll meet you at about six."

Kostmayer nodded and got up.

As he was leaving, he admitted, just to himself, that he felt awkward down here now. If Gage was right - his buddy Devon could easily be the mole. He sure was in a position to alter the intelligence that came in. But that couldn't be. It would be too easy to cross-check with the agents who reported to him, the ones who gathered the data in the first place. No, it had to be somebody in that room beyond O'Toole's office. At least, that was the way Kostmayer saw it. Or wanted to see it.

-----

New York delis were always loaded with choices, written on menus hanging over the counter, packed into refrigerated cases in front of the counter. Making a decision could make a man dizzy. Soup, but what soup? Sandwich? What sandwich? Fruit? Salad?

Scott thought he would fall over before he made up his mind, but Robert McCall simply smiled and told the man behind the counter, "Vegetable soup, two slices of rye bread, dry, cup of coffee."

"Uhhhh - the same," Scott ended up saying.

McCall smiled and then addressed the middle-aged man taking the order. "Did you see a wiry-looking man here earlier, left without finishing his soup?"

"Yeah, I saw him," the man said. "Didn't really pay any attention."

"Did you see a man in a business suit sitting nearby who left just before he did?"

The man looked up, not smiling, not frowning. "There were lots of them. People come and go, and most of them are in business suits. I don't pay a lot of attention."

The man took McCall's money. McCall said, "This man would have been a little over six feet tall, broad-chested, graying hair, wearing glasses."

The man gave him his change. "Like I said. There were lots of them."

McCall smiled and nodded thanks, giving it up. The man behind the counter turned away and came back with the two soups, four pieces of rye bread and two coffees on a tray. McCall took it and turned, looking for Scott who was no longer behind him. He spotted him at a table further back in the shop, waving at him. He was not alone at the table. McCall carried the tray in that direction.

Kostmayer was half-way through a corned beef sandwich. McCall was not surprised to see him here. "Eating again?" he said as he put the tray down.

"I got hungry," Kostmayer said.

Scott unloaded the tray while his father sat down beside him. "So," he said bluntly, "just how are we going to find Harley?"

Kostmayer chuckled. "I think we're going to have to wait for Harley to find us again."

"Not necessarily," McCall said. "He's clearly been frequenting the places in town where the Russian agents gather to talk."

Kostmayer knew that and was planning to follow up on it, but, "Robert, I'm not sure you and Scott ought to get into this one."

"Because it's Company business?" McCall asked and shook his head. "Perhaps, but Harley Gage is another matter. If you disagree with that, why did you call me?"

"You're right," Kostmayer said. "I knew what you'd want to do."

"I trust Control is handling the Company matter."

Kostmayer said, "I trust," and did not mention his planned meeting with Devon O'Toole after work.

"So, we just need to check the places the Russians hang out," Scott said.

McCall looked hard at his son, and Scott turned and looked hard back at him. There was no way Scott was going to be left out of this. So maybe Gage had tried to strangle him once. Gage still saved his father from a Russian grave. Scott would never forget that. And McCall knew he'd never forget. "Yes," McCall said. "Do you have the time?"

"I'm on vacation, remember?" Scott said.

McCall looked at Kostmayer. "Mickey?"

"I'm shipping out in three days, and I'm busy tonight," Kostmayer said, "but I was planning to hit the Meer around four."

"Scott can try the Russian Tea Room," McCall said. "I'll visit a couple of other places. That's a start, at least."

"Well, I don't speak a lot of Russian, so let's just hope we see Gage and we know him if we see him," Kostmayer said, shaking his head, still amazed he never recognized him earlier and thinking about the laugh Gage was probably having over that.

"I don't speak ANY Russian," Scott said.

"You won't really need to at the Tea Room," McCall said. "And you won't draw any attention there. Just look for a man who looks like Harley."

"And what are we going to do if any of us sees him?"

"Call your father," Kostmayer said right away. "And don't lose Gage."

"Should I say anything to Harley?"

"No," McCall said. "Don't let on you recognize him, and if you can help it, don't let him see you."

"Okay," Scott said with an uneasy sigh. "I guess we got a plan."

"We got a plan," Kostmayer agreed.

They finished eating fairly quickly after that, got up and left the deli. They never did look closely at the man who was sitting with his back to them at the table behind Kostmayer.

-----

Gage breathed easier after McCall, Scott and Kostmayer left. They were going to do what he hoped they would do when he left the note with Kostmayer - go looking for him. They would go to the places they figured he might have gotten his information, and by doing that they would increase the chances that more information about this mole would be discovered. Control would work on this problem from the inside and maybe also from outside the Company, but now there were more people going straight to where the information was likely to surface. That was good. That was what he had hoped they would do.

Except that he thought it would only be McCall and Kostmayer. He hadn't planned on them bringing Scott into this.

Gage struggled with another decision now. Should he get up from his table in the deli and go after them? He had heard every word they said, and they hadn't talked about what they would do if in any of those Russian bars they heard anything about the mole. Surely Kostmayer had told McCall what the note said, but what about Scott? If they hadn't told him, Scott could be hearing all kinds of information at the Russian Tea Room and not have any idea what he was hearing, even if Russian agents were discussing it in English. That was not good. That would be no help at all. And it could be bad for Scott.

But then, seeing them again, seeing them together again, reminded him of far better days. True, those days hadn't seemed so great at the time, but compared to the way he'd been living the past six years, they were at least grounded. He had found friends he had become close to over the few months he was with them. He had found people he actually almost loved. But that was a reason NOT to get up and go after them.

You're still on hit lists, Gage. You're on a higher profile now than you've been in years. There might be a Company hit man waiting around the next corner for you. If you go after them, you could be putting them right in the line of fire.

Damn.

Gage gave them a couple of minutes and then left. If McCall and Kostmayer heard anything about the mole in the places they went to, they had enough Russian to know it and they would pass it on, but Scott did not. They had sent Scott to the Russian Tea Room, not a place Russian agents would be likely to talk about their shadier activities, but there was always the stupid chance that for that reason, that would be the place they WOULD talk about them. If there were agents there, and Scott looked too much like he was trying to find someone - the Russians were naturally a suspicious lot. They could turn on him just because he was there.

No, no, stop it. That's not likely to happen. You're overanalyzing, Gage. You've gotten way out of practice at this. You're worrying too much about things with practically no chance of happening.

But…

Gage made his decision.

He hurried over to the apartment he'd been renting on the East Side and changed from his business suit into casual tourist clothes and a pair of glasses with lenses that looked like mirrors to anyone looking at him. There was a chance Scott would see him, and he did not want to give away his businessman persona - it had been working too well over the years. He also donned a Yankees baseball cap and practiced a slumping posture in the mirror.

Well, you wouldn't fool your mother, but you might fool Scott McCall, he told himself. God knows you better fool the Russians and any Company agents that might be hanging around. You're no great loss to the world, but if you get Scott McCall killed -

He looked at himself hard for a minute. If this backfired, if Scott somehow got hurt, he'd never forgive himself. Why hadn't he thought about this before he gave Kostmayer the note?

You idiot, you've really outsmarted yourself this time.

------

Control listened to every word Marshall Jones said over the phone, but did not take notes. He had warned Jones that he didn't want anything in writing about this, and that it was between the two of them and no one else. He didn't tell Jones what it was all about, and Jones knew not to ask. Jones just rounded up the information Control had asked for and relayed it to him verbally over the phone. When he was done, Control thanked him, and Jones said, "Now, I've forgotten about it."

Control hung up and turned things over in his mind. He was hoping that Jones would come up with some unexpected money in the accounts of some one particular person. He had not counted on money turning up in the accounts of three particular people.

Control grumbled out loud without noticing it. At least it seemed likely one of these three was the mole, but was it possible all three were in on the same operation? Or worse yet, were there three turncoats who were working for three different operations? Was it possible he was going to have to go looking for two additional plots against the Company?

Control checked the clock - it was a little after three. The intelligence operatives downstairs changed shifts at four. The three suspects were all on the day shift, which meant they'd be going home in about an hour. Control thought about just getting them up here and firing them, but that rubbed him the wrong way. True, it would get rid of his problem, but it would keep him from getting to the root of it and that meant it could come right back.

He was going to need help. He made a decision.

He buzzed his secretary. "Get Mickey Kostmayer up here for me, please," he said.

In a few moments, his secretary buzzed back. "Kostmayer is not in the office, sir," she said.

Control grumbled out loud again. He should have known. Kostmayer probably went straight to Robert McCall with the information that Harley Gage might still be around, and now the two of them were probably out there looking for him. "Get him on his cell phone. I want to talk to him right away."

A few moments later, the phone rang and Control picked up.

"This is Kostmayer," his voice said.

"Where are you, Mickey?"

"Changing my clothes and planning on going over to the Meer," Kostmayer said.

"The Meer?"

"I guess I should have said something to you. I want to nose around some."

"For information, or for Gage?"

Kostmayer was quiet for a moment, but then said, "Both, I guess."

"Did you tell Robert McCall about this?" Control asked.

"Uh - yeah."

"And McCall is out there looking for Gage, too."

"Yeah, and he'll keep his ears open for anything, too, you know. I thought I had to tell him about Gage, Control. You know how things have been eating him up over the years."

"Yes," Control said quietly. He knew. Control rubbed his nose. "All right. I want you to call me if you get anything at all today, but tomorrow morning I want you back in here. I want you to do something on this end."

"Will do," Kostmayer said.

Control hung up and shut his eyes. Then, on impulse, he got up and wandered down to the intelligence section, where Devon O'Toole sat reviewing something behind his desk. O'Toole looked up at Control, not overly curious because Control had been down here before, but he was kind of itchy about the way Control was staring past him into the room where the agents did their work. Kostmayer wandering down out of the blue, and now Control doing the same thing.

Control could not see the people he wanted to see. He assumed they were all at their computer terminals in their little rooms. He couldn't see what they were doing.

"Can I do something for you, Control?" O'Toole asked.

Control looked down at him and tilted his head toward the agents' room. "I want to wander around in there for a bit."

"Sure," O'Toole said and nodded at the guard.

The guard let Control into the room, and Control wandered around. He stopped at a few doors and peered in. Several people looked up at him curiously but went right back to work. Control was careful not to show he was zeroing in on anyone in particular, but he was also careful to look extra hard at the three people he was interested in. One was wearing earphones, apparently listening to some broadcast from someplace. The other two were reading on computer terminals. Control could not see what they were reading.

Each of the three people looked up at him. Control made sure he made long eye contact with each one before he moved on.

When he left, he simply said, "Have a good evening, O'Toole."

"Thank you," O'Toole said as Control walked out. "You too."

But O'Toole knew he wasn't going to have one.

-----

Gage couldn't remember the last time he'd been to the Russian Tea Room. It just wasn't really a hangout for the Russian intelligence community, more a place for higher New York society, although high-brow Russians did frequent it as well. Gage suspected McCall and Kostmayer had sent Scott here just to make him feel useful while not letting on they were just keeping him out of the way. Gage had second thoughts about going in when he considered that. Surely he was just overreacting, but he couldn't get the nagging sense that Scott could get into trouble out of his mind. And it couldn't hurt to waste one afternoon.

As soon as he went in the door he started scanning the place. The maitre d' scowling at his baseball cap caught Gage's attention. He grinned lamely and took the hat off, but he did not take the glasses off when the maitre d' kept scowling.

"I've been to the eye doctor. Eyes are dilated. Light hurts like crazy."

The maitre d' looked at the rest of Gage's outfit skeptically, and Gage knew the eye doctor story didn't go with the tourist get-up, but maybe there was an advantage to that faux pas. Maybe the suspicious Russians would focus on him and away from Scott, wherever Scott was.

The maitre d' showed Gage to a table out of the light from the street, and it was then that Gage saw Scott, sitting in the back of the room, pretending to read a book while he drank tea. Gage took his seat in a way that let him see both the front door and Scott, and he ordered some heavy Russian coffee and the Russian Tea Room equivalent of a doughnut. Then he started listening.

He picked out some people talking in Russian at a table half-way between his and Scott's, and another group closer to the front. The place was not packed and it was easy to follow the conversations. Trivial stuff - the weather back home in Moscow, filthiness of the New York subway system, movie somebody watched last night. Nothing that would have excited Scott even if he did understand Russian.

Gage enjoyed his coffee and pastry, now and then glancing up at Scott, who now and then was glancing up at everyone else. Gage caught him glancing his way once, but Scott averted his eyes when Gage caught him at it, and Gage didn't think Scott had recognized him. The Russians continued to talk about the likes of how the World Series had come out and somebody's brother in Dallas.

This is one damned waste of a day, Gage thought. The only threat to Scott here is that he'd get bored to death. Funny, the boy's put on weight. Guess he's not really a boy anymore. Wonder what he does for a living? Not in this intelligence business, that's for sure. The old man wouldn't stand for that. Wonder how McCall's been? Wonder how pissed he is at me for running out on him like that? I hope Dyson gave him that message for me. Wonder if Dyson's still alive? He really dropped out of the game, didn't he?

Gage caught himself. His mind was wandering too far, and suddenly one of the tables of Russians - the one between him and Scott - had turned quiet. Gage could only pick up pieces of words now, but he watched closely and tried to read lips.

Eyes were easier to read. Every now and then, someone would glance Scott's way.

Gage looked very closely at the Russians. Three men, but one had his back to him. The other two had that grey look the Russians had all over them - grey skin, grey eyes, grey expressions. The one with his back turned had dark hair. None of these guys looked like either of the two Gage had overheard yesterday at that Russian bar on Seventh Avenue, the two who talked about the mole loud enough for him to hear. But this group here seemed awfully concerned that Scott was just sitting there looking at a book, and it seemed more intense than regular Russian paranoia.

Gage got up and headed for the men's room. His path took him by the table of Russians, who seemed unconcerned with him coming that close. Gage caught a few words more clearly - "agent," "I don't know," "could have heard," "not good."

Damn it. I think they made him.

Gage made a quick decision and headed for Scott's table. "Holy mackerel, it's little Mikey Watson!" Gage bellowed and threw himself into a bear hug with Scott that attracted all the attention in the room.

Scott didn't really see him coming and had no idea who he was or what was happening.

Gage quickly pulled Scott up out of his seat. "Boy, look how you've grown up! I know you don't remember me, but I'll bet you remember my cute little daughter Nina you took to the prom, don't you? She's right down the street shopping! Come on, boy, you gotta come see her!"

Gage never gave him a chance to say a word, but hustled him right out the front door.

Scott started protesting and trying to pull away as soon as they were on the street. "What the hell is this?! What are you doing?!"

"Saving your ass," Gage whispered sharply into his ear and quickly pulled him around the corner, into an office building, and straight for an elevator.

Even Gage had no idea where they were, but he was assuming the Russians would be following and he wanted to get out of sight fast. He hustled Scott into an elevator as soon as one turned up, looked around to verify the Russians were nowhere around, and then pushed the button for the highest floor. The door closed on only the two of them.

Scott backed himself against the far wall. "What the hell is this?!"

Gage let out his breath and took his glasses off. "Well, you were looking for me, weren't you?"

Scott's mouth fell open. "Harley."

The elevator door opened on the fifth floor, and someone else got on. Gage took Scott by the arm and hustled him off, saying, "Here, this is the right floor."

They were alone in a hallway. Gage looked fast from one direction to the other. There was no one around. Gage spotted the fire door and the emergency stairs and took Scott there.

They stopped just inside the stairwell. No one was around. There was no sound of anyone using the stairs.

Gage looked straight at Scott. "Now, you listen to me. You get back down to that lobby, call your father, get him to come pick you up in front of this building and stay out of sight until he gets here. Three of those Russians at the tea room made you, and I don't know what they're up to. I just know whatever it is, you don't belong in it."

"What were they saying?" Scott asked.

"Nevermind. You wanted to find me. You found me. But I think you found trouble, too. They knew you were there to look for somebody and I think they thought it was them. I'm going to try to divert their attention."

"Harley, you can't - "

"Look, Scott, something really bad is going on, and if you get caught up in it, I'm never gonna forgive myself, and I've got enough regrets to last me for a while. So just do what I told you to do, okay?"

Scott stared hard at him. "Harley, you can't just keep disappearing and reappearing like this. Don't you know it's eating my father up, wondering what's happened to you? He thought you might be living in some gutter someplace or even dead."

Gage glared. "Scott, I got my life under control. You don't need to be worrying about it."

Scott glared harder right back at him. "It doesn't work that way, Harley! You don't - drop into people's lives and make people care about you and then just drop out!"

"Hey, I didn't drop in. You dragged me in, remember?"

Scott backed off, exasperated, but still glaring. "Yeah, okay, you're right, we dragged you in. It's your life. You do what you want."

Gage's gaze lowered. "Look," he said more softly, "I know you and your father are worried about me, but I'm all right. It's just - I'm still a target! And now I'm tangled up in things I just don't want you to get tangled up in, okay? Your old man can take care of himself, I know, but I don't know where all the fingers in this thing reach into and I think you already stepped on one of them. Go home, talk to your father, tell him I'm okay but you, Scott, have to stay out of this."

Scott continued staring, but he finally nodded. "Okay."

Gage took off down the stairs without another word.

"Harley!" Scott called.

But Gage didn't answer, and Scott didn't follow him.

-----

Scott had to go back down to the lobby before he could get any reception on his cell phone. Once there, he stayed away from the windows, called his father and told him what had happened. Twenty minutes later, he saw his father's car pull up outside and double park. Scott hustled out and jumped in the passenger door. McCall immediately pulled away.

"Dad, tell me what's going on," Scott said before he said anything else. "Why did Harley think I was in trouble?"

McCall debated for a moment, but only a moment. Scott was not a boy anymore and McCall knew he had no business pulling him into things without telling him everything he was in for. He had made that mistake already. He wouldn't make it anymore. "Harley's note to Mickey said that the Russians had planted a mole in the Company intelligence gathering force. I assume Harley overheard something in the tea room about that, or something that made him think whoever he was listening to was a danger to you."

Scott sighed, finally beginning to relax again. "Somehow Harley knew I'd be there."

"Yes. He had to have followed you from the delicatessen where we had lunch. He may have been in there somewhere."

"I'm sorry I let him get away from me, Dad."

McCall glanced his son's way. "Don't worry about it, Scott. He's a trained agent and he's been in hiding successfully for years. I never expected you to hang onto him for long if you spotted him."

"I tried to get him to come back with me. He just seemed to think it was too dangerous."

McCall remembered why Gage had gone underground in the first place - to keep from placing him and Kostmayer in the line of fire because the KGB and the Company both were out to kill him. The Company, at least, was probably still out to kill him. And whatever the Russians called their "Company" now was probably still after him, too. "He was probably right."

Scott remembered when Gage disappeared, too, but all his father had said to him at the time was that Gage was on a KGB hit list and didn't want to get anybody else tangled up in it. Scott had surmised for himself that the hit was because Gage had saved his father from the KGB. He and his father had never spoken about that. Scott knew his father felt guilty for that and for Gage's going to prison in the first place. Scott never knew how to take that guilt away, and he didn't know how to do it now. All he could say was, "I'm worried about Harley, Dad."

McCall could read all there was to read in that. He tried to put his emotions away and concentrate on the facts of this lousy situation. Right now he wanted to console his son, not assuage his own guilt. "Did I ever tell you how I came to know Harley Gage?"

"No," Scott said.

McCall had to stop at a light. It gave him a moment to collect his thoughts. "I met Harley when he was in his late 20s. He was working for a man who was doing some construction work on my apartment. Now, I could tell right away that Harley was no rocket scientist, but he was too smart to be hanging drywall. I began talking to him. He never told me this directly but I got the feeling he'd never had any family - maybe was the child of some woman or woman-child who dumped him on someone's porch when he was a baby and he was raised in some orphanage in New York somewhere. He'd dropped out of high school but gotten his GED, and when I met him he was taking college classes in criminal justice. He wanted to be a policeman. He'd work all day and study at night. He wasn't always the most disciplined man, but he was very determined, and I admired that. So, I got him into the Company."

"Dyson said he'd been with several agencies and screwed it all up."

The light turned green, and McCall pulled away, nodding. "Harley's discipline problems never left him, but then, he never had anyone to teach him self-discipline. He had problems in the Company, moved on voluntarily to other organizations and just kept moving on until I got Control to give him a second chance. The Company sent him to Moscow, and he found his niche there as a double agent. He was one of the best bureau chiefs we ever had there, until on a trip to New York, he was forced to kill a Company agent who had tried to kill his KGB superior. Then politics took over, and Harley had to take a fall."

McCall left it at that.

Scott could sense the bitterness in him. He had always suspected that the role he had to play in Gage's imprisonment was one of the things that drove him away from the Company. He was never more sure of that than now. But his father had never told him so much about Gage before. No wonder the guy was a nut-job sometimes, a tough fighter all the time. "So, what do we do now?" Scott asked.

"I'd feel better if you just stayed at the apartment for the next couple of days," McCall said. "I don't know where this is going to go, but Gage is right. It is very dangerous."

"Dad, I'm not a child."

"You're not a trained agent, either. Everyone else involved in this is."

"I gotta be able to do something." Scott wouldn't say it out loud, but his father wasn't the only one who felt guilty about Gage being in trouble because he'd gotten McCall away from the KGB six years ago. Scott knew he'd had his own part in that.

"You can," McCall said. "I'd feel better if we had a central communications point, because if I can get a message to Harley, I want him to be able to get in touch with us. He's already talked to you. He might be willing to do it again, so I want you at the apartment, next to the phone."

Scott didn't necessarily like the idea of being locked inside for several days on his vacation, but he understood. "All right," he said. "What are you going to do?"

"First, I'm going back to the tea room. Harley might still be in the neighborhood, and even if he's not, those Russians he was worried about might be. I'm going to forward my cell phone calls to the phone at home."

"If you do that, I won't be able to reach you."

"The tea room doesn't like cell phones going off. You can reach me at the tea room's number. I'll take the cell off call forwarding and check in when I leave. I just don't want it to go off while I'm there - the things can be helpful, but they can be a damned nuisance, too."

-----

Gage had no luck diverting the Russians' attention, because he could never find them. He walked around the neighborhood twice and even went back to the Russian Tea Room, apologized for dashing out, and paid his bill, but the three Russians who had zoomed in on Scott were nowhere in sight.

Well, maybe that's good, he told himself. Maybe they weren't up to anything anyway. Maybe it was just regular Russian background insecurity. And even if it wasn't, even if they were involved in this mole thing or something else, maybe it shook them up and something will crack somewhere.

Gage posted himself near a store window across the street from the office building where he'd met Scott and was watching when Scott came out and climbed into the Jaguar at the curb. Gage felt a lot better when the car drove away with Scott in it. McCall would get Scott out of the danger zone, and that would get this whole thing back on track with one less complication to worry about.

Good for you, Harley. You finally did something right.

Suddenly very tired, Gage went into a coffee shop across the street from the tea room to get a cup of coffee and collect his thoughts. He sat himself at a spot where he could look out of the window to see if the Russians went back to the tea room and quietly sipped his coffee for a long time. He gave a lot of thought to what he was going to do next, but in the end, he just didn't know what he was going to do.

Gage toyed with an idea quickly, one he'd considered and discarded before he ever gave Kostmayer the note. He could simply come out of hiding, let McCall and Kostmayer know he was alive and well and take his chances with the Company and the Russians. After all, McCall and Kostmayer were trained agents. They didn't need his protection. He could go over to McCall's apartment right now and end this craziness.

No. They didn't need his protection, but they didn't need him throwing them in the way of the demons who were after him, either.

You've been doing this for six years, Gage. You can keep doing it for a while. Maybe the Soviet falling apart will get the Russians off your back. Maybe the Company will cut me some slack if I help them with this mole and call off the hit.

And maybe the Seventh Cavalry will rise from the dead and save everybody's bacon.

Gage closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. It was starting to pound. With a sigh, he dropped his hand and took another sip of coffee. That was when he saw McCall go into the Russian Tea Room across the street.

Well, that makes sense. I was there. The Rooskys were there. Of course McCall would go there.

McCall was across the street.

Without thinking, Gage got up, and before he knew it he was stepping off the curb and heading across the street.

Don't do this, Harley…..

Suddenly, the blaaaaaaahhhh of a car horn and the side of a yellow cab grazing his leg snapped him back to his senses, and he backed up to the curb again. And he thought better of going over to the tea room. It was enough that McCall was on the job. That was what mattered.

You've put him in a nasty enough position just chasing this mole, Gage. You've kept the assassins away from him for six years. Keep it up, keep it up.

Gage went back up to the sidewalk and headed home. A quick sandwich for dinner, an hour or so relaxing, a change of clothes, and he could hit a few more Russian bars.

Inside the door of the Russian Tea Room, McCall heard the blast of the car horn and looked up to see the tourist dodge the cab. He was glad the guy wasn't hit. He turned away and walked toward the maitre d'.

-----

Kostmayer was more than ready for a few drinks by the time six o'clock rolled around. His afternoon at the Meer had been a complete waste of time. All he learned were a few new Russian swear words and bad jokes. He wondered how McCall, Scott and Control were faring and called McCall's cell phone while he walked the ten blocks from the Meer to the Horse to meet with Devon O'Toole, but it was Scott who answered.

"Where's your father, Scott?" Kostmayer asked.

"At the tea room," Scott asked. "I'm at the apartment. He forwarded his calls. He wants me to stay here and be a sort of communications central."

"So you found something at the tea room?"

"Yeah. I found Harley."

Kostmayer stopped dead, right in the middle of the sidewalk, drawing glares from people who literally ran into him.

"Actually, he found me," Scott continued and explained everything that had happened.

Kostmayer ducked into a doorway and plugged his other ear with his finger so he could hear the whole story. When Scott was finished explaining, Kostmayer blew air out of his mouth, making his lips vibrate for a moment, and said, "Well, at least Harley's alive."

"Dad told me about the mole, Mickey," Scott said.

Kostmayer wasn't surprised, after everything else.

"He wants me to stay off the street, just in case Harley was right about those Russians looking for me."

"Well, it can't hurt to have a 'communications central,'" Kostmayer said. "Tell your father I'm going to the Horse. I'm meeting Devon O'Toole. He'll know who that is. I want to see if I can figure out anything from him without telling him about the mole. Tell your father I'll call when I head home."

"You'll keep your cell phone on?"

"Yeah, it'll be on. Call me if there's anything to tell me."

Heading back into the stream of foot traffic, Kostmayer picked up his pace and made it to the Horse in just a few minutes. He thought O'Toole might already be there, but the two of them got to the door at the same time. After a few back slaps and hellos, they went in together and got a table against one of the walls.

O'Toole sat down with a heavy sigh. "Days like this I wish I was out in the field like you."

Kostmayer chuckled. "Say that when it's 30 degrees out and snowing, or when they send you to the Dominican during hurricane season."

"Yeah, well, at least you don't have to read all day until your eyes fall out."

A tall, dark-haired waitress came by and took their drink orders. O'Toole gazed after her as she walked away. "I think I'll come here more often."

"So, what's going on in your world?" Kostmayer asked casually.

"Funny you should ask," O'Toole said. "You come down to my domain out of the blue today, and then Control comes down out of the blue a couple hours later. What IS going on in my world that I don't know about but you do?"

Well, that was blunt, wasn't it? Kostmayer chuckled. "Control doesn't discuss his concerns with me - thank God. What was he after when he came down?"

"He didn't say much, just walked around staring at my people in their little cubicles like he was trying to intimidate them. Seriously, Mickey, is something going on?"

Kostmayer shrugged. "I don't know. I was only in the office for a few minutes around the time I talked to you."

"You're working on something that has something to do with my people, though, aren't you?"

"You know if I was, I couldn't tell you, so I'm not gonna tell you if I'm not."

"It bothers me, Mickey. If somebody in my department is under the microscope, I think I oughtta know."

Kostmayer decided to go on the offensive. "Unless it's you."

-----

It was after eight when Kostmayer and O'Toole left the Horse, following a couple hours of drinking, flirting with the waitress, and avoiding the subject of the Company or any meaningful conversation of any sort. When they parted Company, Kostmayer wondered what he could believe and not believe about O'Toole's story and thought about hitting another Russian bar, but decided he'd talk to McCall before he made up his mind about either one. He found a quiet doorway of a closed office building and pulled out his cell phone.

This time, McCall answered his cell phone, and Kostmayer said, "It's Mickey. I was hoping to hear from you earlier than this."

"I wish I had something to say," McCall said. "But I haven't learned anything more, and I haven't seen Harley. Where are you?"

"Leaving the Horse. Where are you?"

"Well, now, that is an interesting matter."

Because McCall was sitting in his car in a parking garage, and Control was sitting beside him.

Kostmayer said, "I get the feeling you're about to surprise me."

"In a way. Go back to the Horse and I'll pick you up in front in about ten minutes."

Kostmayer said, "Okay," and McCall hung up. Wondering what was going on, Kostmayer went back to the Horse and waited out front, as instructed. When McCall pulled up and Control stepped out of the passenger side door to let Kostmayer into the back seat, Kostmayer got the picture.

Control stood holding the door open with his back, giving Kostmayer his usual baleful glare. Kostmayer gave him a little smile and climbed into the back seat. Control sat back down in the front passenger seat, and McCall pulled away.

"Let's go to your apartment," Control said.

McCall obliged him and they drove without anyone saying a word. McCall found a parking place a block away from his building, and they walked to his apartment together just as wordlessly. No one said anything until they entered McCall's apartment and met Scott standing there waiting for them.

Control looked at Scott, then looked at McCall. "You dragged Scott into this?"

"He's minding the phone," McCall said and gave Scott a warning glance. Say nothing about seeing Harley Gage, the look told him, and he could tell Scott got the message.

Kostmayer went over to the sofa and plopped down. Scott sat down more tensely, his gaze shifting from Control to his father. McCall dropped his car keys on the counter between the kitchen and the living room and headed for his brandy stash.

"A drink, Control?" McCall asked.

Control stood with his back to the kitchen, looking at Scott and Kostmayer. "No, thank you," he said slowly.

"Scott? Mickey?"

"No, thanks," Kostmayer said, and Scott shook his head.

McCall poured himself one and came back to stand beside the sofa, facing Control. Now everyone was looking at Control, waiting.

Control let them wait for a few moments before he said, "I want to know what you've been doing," he said flatly. "And don't ask about what. The situation is far too serious to beat around the bush."

"All right," McCall said. "Mickey told me about the note from Harley. He and I have been checking out the Russian bars."

"Like I already told you," Kostmayer said, more to tell McCall what he'd already said to Control than to say anything to Control.

"Looking for what?" Control asked, glaring at Kostmayer but then addressing McCall again. "Gage or the mole?"

"Both," McCall said.

"And you've found?"

"Neither."

Control stared at McCall, who stared back coolly. Then he looked at Kostmayer hard. Kostmayer smiled. Then he looked at Scott.

Scott was the one who could never keep the truth from his face. Control knew if he looked the boy in the eye long enough, Scott would give away whatever Control wanted him to. So he stared, and Scott stared back. There was nothing much in there this time, and Scott did not blink.

Control looked back up at McCall. "You know the Russians are still after Gage."

"I assumed," McCall said. "And so is the Company."

"I have no choice, Robert."

"Sure, you do. You always had a choice. The Company could have taken him in and given him a life someplace, something better than hiding underground year after year. It was just a lot safer, a lot cleaner, a lot less bother to find him and kill him. Or so you thought. And now, for some reason, you still think it is."

"It's not my call. And the only place we can guarantee his safety is prison. You know he'd rather live underground than go back there."

"Yes, I know," McCall said. "But that's a cop-out, Control. There were other choices. The Company simply declined to go with any of them."

"Be that as it may," Control said and looked over at Kostmayer. Then he glanced at Scott and straight back to Kostmayer. "Scott knows everything?"

"Everything," Kostmayer said. Except, of course, he hadn't had a chance to tell anyone about his conversation with O'Toole, but Control didn't need to know that yet, either.

Control stared at Scott again, but again, Scott did not crack. Control finally gave up and sighed. "All right, I'll have a brandy."

McCall smiled and went to pour one for him.

-----

Very early the next morning, as Control sat in his office reviewing a couple confidential personnel files, his secretary buzzed him. He expected her to say Kostmayer was there, as he'd instructed him to be, but she said, "Devon O'Toole would like to see you, sir."

"Send him in," Control said and put the files into his desk drawer.

A moment later, O'Toole entered, closing the door behind him, and Control motioned him to the chair in front of his desk. O'Toole sat, and Control looked at him, waiting.

O'Toole cleared his throat and then said, "I think there's something going on in my department."

"What?" Control asked.

"I'm concerned about some of the data I've been getting," O'Toole said, and explained to Control everything that he had explained to Kostmayer the night before.

"Who?" Control asked when he'd heard O'Toole out.

O'Toole gave him the three names that Control's bank records search had given him - Archer, diSantis, Klinch.

"Tell me about these people," Control said.

O'Toole shrugged. "They've all been fine at their jobs. Nothing outstanding. No problems, though."

"Does any of them talk to you very much? Personal matters, sports, water cooler talk, anything like that?"

"No. Actually, they each keep pretty much to themselves."

"The most reserved people in your department, would you say?"

"Yes, I guess that would be fair."

"Do they talk to each other much?"

"Not that I've noticed."

"Any recent changes in habits? Better clothes? Anything like that?"

"No, I really can't say I've noticed anything like that, either. Except for the intel they've been sending through, there just doesn't seem to be anything different about them since they came on."

"They all came in at pretty much the same time, didn't they?" Control asked.

"Yes, they did, come to think of it."

"All right, here's what I want you to do," Control said. "I want you to keep this from everybody in your division. I want you to review every bit of intel very carefully and give me a summary at the end of the day, what you got and who you got it from. Straight to me, not through my secretary. I'll put Kostmayer on it, but absolutely no one else is to know you're doing it, and you are not to mention any of this to anyone but me or Kostmayer. Got that?"

O'Toole nodded. "Do you want me to try to get to know them better or anything?"

"No. I don't want you to change your work habits with them in any way. Everything else is to be business as usual, but if anything happens that strikes you as meaningful, you report it straight to me, nobody else."

O'Toole nodded.

Control dismissed him with a motion of his head toward the door. O'Toole got up and went out. Control watched the door close behind him.

Control thought about what he'd heard for a moment. Then he buzzed his secretary. "Get me Marshall Jones."

Control leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and thought.

The secretary buzzed. "Mr. Jones is out, sir. He'll have to call back. But Mr. Kostmayer is here to see you."

"Send him in," Control said.

Kostmayer came in, closing the door, but he did not sit down and Control did not motion him to.

Control simply said, "Did you see O'Toole leaving here?"

Kostmayer nodded. He had explained everything about his meeting with O'Toole to McCall and Scott last night, but after Control left. The uncomfortable uncertainty about O'Toole made him give the guy a chance to come to Control on his own, and it looked like he had. But Kostmayer had to admit to himself that his discomfort wasn't any better just because O'Toole had come in.

"He told me he was getting eerily similar intelligence from three of his people and that it was diametrically opposed to intel he was getting from others." Control looked at Kostmayer, waiting for a reaction.

Kostmayer just looked back.

"O'Toole's an old friend of yours, isn't he?" Control asked.

"I've known him a few years," Kostmayer said.

"Is he our mole?"

Kostmayer was used to Control being blunt, but him being this blunt startled him. But Kostmayer couldn't say no. "I don't know," was the best he could do. "What makes you think he is?"

Control didn't answer that one. He turned slightly in his chair and looked at his map on the wall. "The decline and fall of the Soviet Union is shaking everything to the core, Mickey. You know that. I can understand why the Russians would want us to think they're still a strong player. The weaker they get, the harder they're going to try to make us think they're strong. Do you think they're going to approach three low level intelligence people, or the one who does the combining and the filtering?"

"Good point," Kostmayer said.

Control looked up at Kostmayer. "You had drinks with O'Toole last night at the Horse."

Kostmayer realized he should have known that if Control suspected O'Toole, he'd have had him followed. He nodded.

Control said, "He came in here this morning because you felt him out last night. We need to seriously consider that he's trying to point us to three of his low-level people to divert us from him."

Kostmayer nodded again.

"And that he will bolt sooner or later."

Kostmayer nodded one more time.

"I don't want him to bolt," Control said. "I want you to make him feel comfortable that we're buying what he's selling."

Kostmayer said, "You've got me leaving for South America the day after tomorrow."

"Postpone it. Go down now and talk to O'Toole, tell him you're sticking around and I've put you on the three people he's fingered - Archer, diSantis, and Klinch. Tell him you're going to be digging around in their backgrounds. Tell him whatever else you need to tell him to convince him he's not the target."

"Okay."

"Then I want you to keep hitting the Russian bars and seeing if you can find out anything."

"Will do," Kostmayer said. "Do you really want me to dig on those three?"

"No, I've got that covered, and I've got the background on O'Toole covered. You just convince him he's in the clear and see if you can find the people Gage got his information from."

"All right."

"And I want to know the minute you find Gage."

Kostmayer was startled again. He wasn't sure what to say to that. He wasn't sure he could comply with it, either.

Control stared hard at him. "I'm working on getting the hit taken off of him. I need to talk to him. If you find him, I want you to set that up."

Kostmayer felt the back of his neck crawl. "All right," he said.

Control dismissed him with the same head-nod he'd given O'Toole, and Kostmayer left, but he left with an ugly feeling in his stomach. He could handle spying on O'Toole. He was an old friend, but he had his doubts about him just as Control did. That part of what Control wanted didn't bother him at all.

But Kostmayer didn't believe Control was doing anything to get the hit taken off Gage. He thought he was being used to set Gage up to be killed.

And he knew he couldn't do that.

-----

Kostmayer went down to O'Toole's office and stuck his head in. When he gave O'Toole the thumbs-up, O'Toole grinned uncomfortably, and Kostmayer came in to sit down with him.

Making sure the guard was out of earshot, Kostmayer leaned over the desk and said, "It's cool. You did the right thing."

"I hope so," O'Toole said. "I still wonder if I'm imagining things."

Kostmayer shrugged. "Control has me checking out your three friends. If they're clean, I'll clear them. If they're not, I'll nail them."

"He said he was going to put you on it."

Kostmayer nodded. "I'll check it out. You let me know if anything comes up here. And maybe we can talk over drinks again after work, okay? I'll keep you filled in."

O'Toole nodded, but he did not look happy.

Kostmayer got up, smiling. "Don't worry. You did the right thing, even if you still have qualms about this. We got three leads to follow. Thanks for that."

O'Toole nodded again. "If they're bad, I hope you get them out of here."

Kostmayer said, "I will."

Kostmayer left, feeling a little bit like a heel, but beginning to get mad, too. If Control was right and O'Toole was the bad guy in this, O'Toole was playing him for a chump. He bristled at that.

Kostmayer left the building, but instead of diving into an investigation of Archer, diSantis and Klinch, he headed for McCall's apartment. It was still early. McCall would be lingering over his morning coffee and checking the newspaper for whatever he might glean out of it. And Kostmayer was right. That was exactly what was happening when Scott let him in.

"I think we got a lead on the mole," Kostmayer said right away and explained what Control was thinking and what he wanted Kostmayer to do about it.

McCall nodded to it. "He may be right, and he may be wrong. One thing is certain - if your mole is Mr. O'Toole, he won't be meeting his Russian contacts in public anymore."

"Do you think Harley knows who the mole is?"

McCall shook his head. "If he did, he'd have told Mickey outright."

"And he knows O'Toole," Kostmayer said. "If it is O'Toole, Harley would have said so. So, it's either not O'Toole, or Harley hasn't seen who it is."

"Which means we need to spend another day frequenting the places Russians frequent," McCall said.

"Yeah," Kostmayer agreed.

"What about Harley?" Scott asked.

"What about him?" Kostmayer asked.

"Aren't you still going to look for him? I mean, he might have saved my life yesterday. He might be in trouble himself."

"He's been in trouble himself for the past six years," Kostmayer reminded Scott.

"He may have gone right back underground," McCall said, and there was a noticeable sadness to his voice. He really did want to find Harley Gage and do something to help him, especially if it turned out he did save Scott's life yesterday. "But we'll keep looking for him. If he's going to turn up, it'll be because he's looking for the mole, too, and we'll be frequenting the same places."

Kostmayer looked at McCall. "Control ordered me to tell him if and when we find Harley."

"That's no surprise," McCall said. "The Company still has Harley on the hit list."

"Yeah, but I always felt like he wasn't really on CONTROL'S hit list," Kostmayer said. "After this morning, I'm not so sure."

"I thought you told me Control helped Harley get away in the first place," Scott said to his father.

McCall nodded. "There's no telling what might have changed in the background. Control may have no choice politically but to find Harley."

"Or maybe I'm just wrong," Kostmayer said. "Control did say he was trying to get the hit off Harley. I just - don't know if I believe him."

"Well, it's easily handled," McCall said, and smiled. "You'll tell him if we find Harley. You'll just tell him a little too late to do anything about it."

-----

Gage looked in the mirror at his hair, graying now at the temples, and he decided it needed a little more gray. The lines in his face weren't quite deep enough, either. He wanted to look older today. He was nervous about today.

There's going to come a day, Gage, when either the Russians or the Company will catch up to you. They're a step closer now that you surfaced again. If you want to live long enough to get safely back underground again, you'd better change this handsome face of yours into something less desirable to look at. Or at least something less familiar to your old pals.

A little more gray to the hair, a little make-up applied strategically with a light hand, and Gage was happy that he'd aged himself another 10 years or so. He fetched a different pair of glasses and wore a different business suit, and he practiced that slump again that he had used for the tourist yesterday. He was satisfied with the look.

He checked his watch as he went out the door. It was nearly noon. It would take him half an hour or so to walk to the Russian Tea Room. He wanted to look for those Russians who had made him hustle Scott out of there yesterday. If they were there again today, he wanted to hear more of what they were talking about. He wanted to know if they were in on something, or if they were only being Russians when they fingered Scott. Then, later, he'd go to that bar where he caught wind of the Company mole and do some more listening. There was nothing there yesterday, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be anything there today.

But there was no luck at the Russian Tea Room. He stayed for an hour but began to suspect some of the Russians who were there were looking closely at him. He didn't want them to connect him with the tourist who hustled "Mikey Watson" out the day before, so he left.

He had not seen the men who had zeroed in on Scott the day before.

He had no idea that they had seen him.

He walked to the Russian bar he'd been at before, planning to spend several hours in a corner looking morose, mumbling in Russian if anybody questioned him, listening in on any conversation he could hear. The moment he walked in the door, however, his plans changed.

It was dark in the place, and before his eyes could adjust, two men came in behind him and had him by the arms, dragging him through the place toward the back. Gage struggled as best he could, blurting out Russian curses and trying to trip these guys or whatever else he could do while he sounded shocked and innocent, but it was no use. They had him out the back and in the alley in seconds.

They shoved him up against a wall, sending a garbage can clattering. They smashed him back so hard it crushed his left shoulder and his left arm went numb. Gage glared up into the faces of the men who had him and saw two of the men from the Russian Tea Room.

"Harley Gage," one of them said in a thick Russian accent.

"Ktaw?" Gage said the Russian word for "who?"

They smashed him back again. His head smacked against the wall and he went dizzy.

The other Russian smiled into Gage's face and said, in English, "Francesca says hello."

Gage knew instantly they were going to kill him. He kicked out and caught one of them in a very tender spot, at the same time wrenching his right arm free and smashing the heel of his hand up into the nose of the other. They both went down, and Gage ran like hell.

But not fast enough.

He didn't hear a shot, but he felt a burning stab go into the lower left side of his back and out the front. He stumbled and grabbed but kept on running, and when he stumbled out into the street he tried to straighten, look like nothing was wrong, and get lost in the crowd. The street was blessedly full, and Gage disappeared into the mob as fast as he could.

He never looked back, but he never really needed to. If they had been able to spot him, they'd have caught up to him fast enough and pulled him aside again. He felt good and lost.

But he also started to feel dizzy, and the hand that held his side was getting sticky. He had to find a place to duck into as fast as he could, and home was too far away. He shouldered his way into the nearest door and found himself in a drugstore. Great, he thought, straightened and made his way through the first aid department, where he grabbed some rolled gauze off the shelf. He spotted the door to the storeroom in the back and hurried through. There was a bathroom just inside with the door open. He ducked in and closed and locked the door.

"Aw, God," he finally breathed out loud and sank onto the toilet. As quickly as he could do it, he pulled his shirt out, opened the gauze and started packing the entry and exit wounds and wrapping. He wrapped the entire roll of gauze around his midsection as many times as it would go, then he tucked the end into the wrappings and sank sideways against the sink.

He was feeling light-headed, from shock or loss of blood or something. Damn it, I'm going to die in a dirty drugstore bathroom, sitting on the toilet. At least I've got my pants up.

No. No, I'm not going to die here.

He had thought about being stuck in some position like this for several years now, and he knew all along there was only one thing he was going to be able to do if and when the time came. He hated doing it, but he had no choice.

He gave himself a few minutes to catch his breath and ease the dizziness. Then he got up, straightened like a man unhurt as best he could, and headed out the door.

-----

As Harley Gage was contemplating the meaning of his life in the drugstore bathroom, Kostmayer was perched in a doorway across the street from the Company offices, where he'd been since noon, waiting for Devon O'Toole to come out and take a lunch break. At about the same time Gage left the bathroom, O'Toole came out of the office and onto the street. Kostmayer followed at a very discrete distance, pulling the hood of his jacket up over his head so that with his face down it would be hard to see who he was.

Kostmayer was certain that someone else from the Company was following O'Toole, and he was right. He could spot the guy fairly easily, a middle-aged man carrying a newspaper and following a little too closely. Kostmayer could see O'Toole checking around him, and even O'Toole made the guy. Kostmayer watched O'Toole duck into an office building on a corner with entrances on two streets and stayed where he could see both entrances, but the Company man was too close. He parked himself on the corner to watch both entrances, but the street was crowded, and he did not see O'Toole come back out the way he'd gone in and reverse direction down the street. Kostmayer did see it and continued following.

Surely O'Toole wasn't dumb enough to actually meet with anyone, even if he thought he'd lost the guy tailing him. Kostmayer gave him the benefit of the doubt and started looking for a drop of some sort, but in this crowd, he knew it might be hard to spot.

O'Toole circled back the way he was originally going, walked a few blocks and then bought a hotdog from a vendor. He sat down on a low wall with about 20 other people who were eating. Kostmayer found a spot to watch without being seen and waited. O'Toole stayed there for ten minutes or so, munching, drinking a soda, looking around. A woman sat beside him, but she was with another girl and spoke only to her. Kostmayer didn't see O'Toole pass anything to her. After about ten minutes, O'Toole got up, threw his trash into a nearby can and headed back in the direction of the Company office.

Kostmayer hustled over to the trash can, but someone was beating him to it. A tall, grey-looking man in sloppy clothes dug through the trash and came up with the piece of paper O'Toole had discarded, wrapped around the remains of a bun, which he started to eat. Kostmayer sat down on the wall and watched. Just another homeless guy? Maybe, but instead of throwing the wrapper away, he shoved it in his pocket and walked away.

Well, I can follow him and roll him for it, Kostmayer thought as he got up, but his cell phone rang. Kostmayer pulled it out as he walked, trying to keep the bum in sight, but the bum was picking up speed.

"Kostmayer," he said into the phone.

"Mickey, it's Scott, you gotta get over here fast."

"The apartment? What's going on? What's happening?"

"He's here. Right now. He's here."

Kostmayer knew who it had to be. "I'm on my way."

Kostmayer changed direction and ran.

-----

Kostmayer let himself in and ran up the steps to McCall's apartment. Scott had the door locked, but Kostmayer had a key and got in fast.

There he was, sitting at the dining room table with his shirt off, a clean bandage wrapped around his middle and a bloody bandage lying on the table in front of him. Standing beside him, Scott looked up, almost as pale as Harley Gage was. Gage looked up, too, but he smiled.

"Gage, what the hell - " was all Kostmayer could say.

Gage chuckled wearily. "Nice to see you too, Mickey."

Kostmayer looked around. McCall wasn't here. "Where's your father?"

"He's coming," Scott said. "Harley's been shot."

"How bad is it?" Kostmayer asked.

"Bloody, but not really that bad," Gage said. "Bullet went through my left side. I don't think it hit anything vital. I've put on a little weight over the years. I suppose if I was ten pounds lighter, it would have missed."

Scott looked worried. "I'm not so sure, Mickey. He's lost a lot of blood. I think he needs to go to the hospital."

"No," Gage said right away.

It was then the door opened again and McCall came in. He stopped dead in the kitchen, and everyone looked up at him. He looked so long and hard at Gage that Gage smiled self-consciously and looked away.

McCall took everything in accurately. "How bad is it?" was the first thing he said.

"I think he needs a hospital," Scott said.

"No," Gage said again. "I just need a couple hours to rest, then I'll be out of your hair. I'd have gone home, but this was closer."

Both Scott and Kostmayer backed off from Gage as McCall came closer. They couldn't tell if McCall was going to hug him or slug him, but McCall just looked down at him for a long time and finally said, "Just what the hell do you think you've been doing?"

"Staying alive," Gage said fiercely and fast, and he locked eyes with McCall.

But McCall was no blinker. "You should have come straight here the minute you suspected that mole."

Gage took a deep breath. "I don't think this has anything to do with the mole," he said, glancing at his bandage. "I think this is just the good old Russian hit that finally caught up to me."

"You sure it's the Russians?"

"It was the guys who fingered Scott in the tea room. They told me 'Francesca says hello.'"

His old Russian boss and lover, the woman he betrayed to rescue McCall six years earlier. McCall sat down in another chair at the table, facing Gage.

"You look like an old man," McCall said.

Gage smiled a little. "You're beautiful, too, McCall."

"What are you going to do if you just leave here?" McCall asked. "The Russians have spotted you. The Company won't be far behind."

"I've got money," Gage said. "I'll change my name again and leave town."

"Have you been in New York all along?"

Gage's smile grew. "You don't know how many times I've been ten feet away and even the great Robert McCall never knew it."

McCall finally smiled. Then he said quietly, "You need a hospital, Harley."

Gage shook his head. "No. They know they hit me. I'm dead if I go to a hospital."

"Then you'll stay right here. Mickey and I are working on that mole, but Scott can stay here with you."

Gage nodded. "Okay."

McCall stood up and waved Kostmayer and Scott over. "Help him into the spare room."

Kostmayer and Scott each took and arm, and Gage got up with their help and a groan. "Just like old times," he said as they helped him from the table.

McCall smiled again as they helped him away. Same old Gage.

-----

Control was just coming into his office when he found Kostmayer standing at his secretary's desk.

"Here he is," Karen said when Control came in.

Kostmayer looked around at his boss and said, "I need to see you."

"Come on in," Control said and led the way into his inner office.

Kostmayer closed the door behind him but did not sit down. He just said, "I think you're right about O'Toole," and explained about the drop he saw.

Control sat down and took it in. "What makes you think it was a drop and not just a street person catching a meal?"

"O'Toole sure went out of his way to lose the tail you put on him and get back to one particular hotdog vendor," Kostmayer said. "I guess he could have made the drop with the vendor instead - "

"Or also," Control said.

Kostmayer nodded. "Either way, it gave me a bad feeling."

Control knew part of that bad feeling came because O'Toole was Kostmayer's friend, but friendships were damned fleeting in this business. "What happened to the homeless guy?"

"I don't know. I lost him."

Control cocked his head. "You lost a homeless bum in a crowd of Manhattan business types?"

Kostmayer shrugged. He wasn't about to tell Control about Scott's phone call or Harley Gage. Better to just seem incompetent.

"Not like you, Mickey," Control said.

Kostmayer said, "I guess I was a little distracted about O'Toole. Not every day you have to finger a friend." He hoped that little bit of melodrama would be convincing enough to keep Control from thinking too much.

Control just grunted and leaned back in his chair. "Did you convince O'Toole it was the other three we were after?"

"I think so," Kostmayer said.

"Well, why don't you head down there now and put icing on the cake? Tell him we got bank records and it looks like he's right about these guys. Tell him we want him to keep an extra eye on them."

Kostmayer nodded. "You want me to do anything else with him?"

Control said, "Follow him when he leaves here today." Control checked his watch. "His day ends in about twenty minutes. If he tries to run, I want to know about it."

Control gave him a dismissive nod of the head, and Kostmayer went out the door.

Control sat there for a few minutes, thinking, waiting. There was no way Kostmayer just lost that homeless bum. He was just not that incompetent. Somebody had called him off, and Control knew who it was. And he had a good suspicion why.

When he thought he'd given Kostmayer enough time to get on the elevator and be gone, he took his handgun from his desk drawer and put it in his holster. Then he got up and left his office, telling his secretary, "Have a nice evening, Karen. I'll see you tomorrow."

-----

Kostmayer did as he was ordered and went straight down to see Devon O'Toole. The Irishman was at his desk, working on something on the computer that he blanked out as soon as the elevator door opened. Kostmayer went in a sat down across from him, then leaned across the desk toward him.

"It's cool," Kostmayer said very quietly. "We have bank information, and you're right. You just need to keep an extra eye on them and we'll nail this shut soon."

O'Toole nodded, but he looked very uncomfortable.

"Is something wrong? Something happening?"

O'Toole shook his head. "Just - uncomfortable spying on my own people, you know? I've never had to do this before."

"Yeah, I hear you," Kostmayer said. "You want to get together after work and talk?"

"No. I'm supposed to leave in a couple minutes. Dentist appointment. Regular life happens even to spies, right?" O'Toole gave a little grin.

"Well," Kostmayer said, "give me a call if you change your mind after they're through drilling on you. Alcohol can do wonders to dull the pain."

Kostmayer got up, wished O'Toole a good evening, gave a happy nod to the guard and got back on the elevator. Then he went straight to a spot across the street where he could watch for O'Toole to leave the building.

Somehow Kostmayer just knew O'Toole was going to run. Something told him the note O'Toole dropped the bum was the distress call, and the Russians were either going to pick him up and rescue him this evening, or kill him. Kostmayer didn't really have any idea what he was going to do about it. Maybe he could spot what was going on and interrupt it, but it was already beginning to get dark and the streets were getting even more crowded with people heading home after work. He wondered if he should call Control.

It was too late. He saw O'Toole come out of the building and head down the street.

Kostmayer paralleled him on the other side of the street, losing him in the crowd once or twice, finding him again, trying to focus on his gait as a clue to which one of the thousands of men in trenchcoats was O'Toole. This just isn't going to work, Kostmayer thought and crossed the street as soon as possible. If he caught up to O'Toole, he could give him a friendly "hi" and stick with him, and maybe that would keep him from bolting, at least tonight.

Kostmayer worked his way toward O'Toole through the mob as fast as he could. He saw a black van double parked at the next corner. O'Toole picked up his pace, and the side door of the van opened for him. Kostmayer started to run.

But he tripped over somebody, and he went sprawling up against two other people.

"Hey, watch it, damn it!" somebody yelled.

No one helped him up. He scrambled to his feet in time to see the van turn the corner.

License plate. He saw it and memorized the number, and as fast as he could he called for information on it. It took several long, long minutes. Kostmayer hurried as best he could along the street to try to keep up with the van, but he lost it just as his contact came back on the phone and said, "Stolen."

Kostmayer stopped on the street and swore.

-----

Scott looked in on Gage every once in while over the course of the afternoon while Gage slept in the spare room. He lay there with his pants and shoes still on, looking like he was ready to jump up and run at a moment's notice, but he was snoring away in a deep sleep every time Scott looked in. Scott began to be more comfortable that Gage wasn't going to die in the spare room today.

Scott looked out of the windows a lot more often than he looked in on Gage. With his father and Kostmayer nowhere around, he felt like he had to be more vigilant. What if the Russians who had tried to kill Gage had followed him here and were just waiting to storm in? That thought bothered him more and more, even as he thought it ought to bother him less and less. After all, his father and Kostmayer had left quite a while ago. If the Russians had followed Gage, they'd have burst in by now. Still, Scott was fighting nerves.

More than once he eyed the places where he knew his father had hidden guns. Years ago his father had shown him where they were and how to use them, but the thought of ever having to resort to them had always turned Scott's stomach. Today, though, he found himself mentally rehearsing what his father had shown him how to do: how to shoot, how to shoot to kill.

It was nearly five when Scott turned the lights on in the living room and went to check on Gage again. He found him sitting on the side of the bed, putting his bloody shirt back on. Scott was surprised. He didn't expect Gage to wake up for hours.

"How are you doing?" Scott asked.

"I got cold," Gage said. "What time is it?"

"Five or so."

Gage grunted. "Your father and Kostmayer here?"

"No, they're both out, but everything's been all right here."

Gage nodded. "I think I'll be going before they get back," he said and stood up stiffly, holding his side.

"No, I don't think so," Scott said.

Gage looked up at him with raised eyebrows.

Scott stepped a little closer, not so much concerned that he was going to have to catch Gage when he fell over, but feeling like he needed to tell this guy a thing or two. "They could be out there waiting for you."

"They've been out there waiting for me for six years," Gage said.

"And you've been running and hiding for six years."

Gage began to glare at him. "And doing a damned good job of it, too. I'm alive. You're alive, your father's alive, Kostmayer's alive. It's working out pretty good if you ask me."

"So you're going to keep doing it?"

"Yeah!"

Scott shook his head helplessly. "Harley, how can you live this way? What kind of life is it, hiding from everybody you know - "

"Scott," Gage said, startlingly quiet, calm, but nevertheless intense, "it's what I have to do. I'm not suicidal. I don't want to get killed, and I don't want to get anybody else killed, either. I knew this was coming. Every agent knows something like this is coming sooner or later. It comes, you get used to it."

Scott didn't believe any of that crap. He was sure Gage didn't believe it either. Gage wanted to come out of hiding and live like a man, not like a rat in a sewer. No man wanted to live that way. Scott shook his head again. "You know my father's been eating himself up over what happened to you, don't you?"

Gage looked away and buttoned his shirt. "Yeah, I know. But like I told you before, I'm all right."

"Tell that to your shirt," Scott said, eyeing the bloodstains, and walked out of the room.

Scott headed back to the living room, wondering whether he should call his father and tell him Gage was planning to leave. Force of habit took him to the window to look out. It was getting dark, but other than that he didn't expect to see anything he hadn't seen before.

But he saw Control, getting out of a car at the curb.

Without even having to think about it, Scott grabbed the nearest hidden gun and the wireless phone. He punched in his father's cell phone number and headed back to the spare room. His father answered right away, and as he was going into the room where Gage was now putting his jacket on, Scott said, both into the phone and to Gage, "Dad, Control is here."

Gage froze.

McCall quickly said, "You haven't let him in."

"No," Scott said, turned and went back to the front window. "He was getting out of a car, but he hasn't rung the bell yet." He looked out the window, and Gage came into the room behind him. "I can't see him now, Dad."

McCall spoke fast. "He might be breaking in. Keep Harley in the back room. I'll be there as soon as I can. DO NOT CALL KOSTMAYER. I don't want Control knowing that Mickey knows where Gage is."

"I have one of the guns, Dad," Scott said and took a deep breath. "Dad, I'm not going to let him kill Harley."

Gage looked up, surprised not only at the words, but at the resolve in Scott's voice. There was no trembling in it, no indecision.

My God, he's going to kill Control, Gage thought. He's really going to do it if he has to, to defend me.

"Don't do anything rash, Scott," McCall said quickly. "I can be there in five minutes. Just keep things under control."

"Okay," Scott said, pressed the off button on the phone, and stuck the phone in his pocket. Then he looked at Gage. "Get back in the spare room."

"I'm gonna head down the back steps," Gage said.

"You don't think Control came alone, do you?" Scott asked, very solid, very forceful.

Just as Gage was about to respond, there was a noise at the front door, and Control quietly broke his way in.

To find Scott standing there, holding a gun at his side, shielding Gage. Except that Gage was a bigger man, and Control could see him easily.

"Hello, Harley," Control said calmly.

Gage said nothing and did not move, but his mind raced. How do I get out of this without Scott killing Control? That's the most important thing right now - I can't let Scott kill a man, especially not Control.

Scott said, "Get out of here, Control. You've got no business here."

Control raised an eyebrow, as surprised as Gage had been at Scott's attitude. "You don't know how I wish I didn't, but I do. You need to move away from Gage."

Scott raised the gun and pointed it at Control. "No."

"Scott, don't do this," Gage said.

"So you just want me to let him kill you, Harley?" Scott asked. "I thought I heard you say you weren't suicidal."

Gage looked toward the back door, wondering if Scott had been right and Control wasn't alone. He looked at Control and couldn't tell what the answer was, but every second he stayed increased the chances that Scott would shoot Control.

Gage made his decision.

While Scott and Control were eyeing each other, Gage abruptly broke for the back door and left without another word, wishing to high heaven he knew how this standoff between his old boss and the boy who was now a man was going to turn out. He hurried out and down the back stairs, expecting that someone would kill him at any moment, but no one did. He held his side and walked quickly down the alley.

And away.

Scott heard him leave, but didn't flinch, even if it did completely surprise him. Hearing no shots outside, Scott hoped it meant there was no one there to kill Gage. He kept the gun on Control though, because he didn't want Control going after Gage anytime soon. They stood there like that, staring at one another, Scott holding the gun in a hand so steady it surprised even him.

Control finally said, "I could take you in for interfering with a government enforcement agent, Scott."

"You could," Scott said.

"Do you realize what damage Gage can do if the Russians get him and make him talk?"

Scott had a thought. "I wonder about that, Control. Harley's been out of the loop for years. Any information he has is so old, it's useless."

"He still has valuable information, Scott. He's a dangerous man," Control said and started to turn.

"Don't make me fire on you, Control, because I will," Scott said.

Control looked at him. The gun was still rock steady. Control was impressed.

McCall suddenly came in the front door behind Control. Control glanced over his shoulder then back at Scott. Scott's hand was wobbling now, very slightly.

McCall took out his own weapon and pointed it at Control, saying, "You can put the gun down, Scott."

Scott lowered his arm and moved aside so that he wasn't in his father's line of fire. He was still amazed that his mind was so clear, so accurately taking things in and reacting sensibly. But he was suddenly very tired, too. "Harley's gone, Dad," Scott said. "I don't know if Control has anyone going after him, but I didn't hear any shots outside."

"I didn't bring anyone with me," Control said. Then he looked at McCall. "Put the gun down, Robert. I'm not going anywhere."

Scott had moved to the window again. It was quiet outside and darker. Cars moved slowly, people walked calmly under the streetlights, as always.

McCall lowered his gun slowly, half thinking Control had come to kill Gage, but half thinking he didn't do it because he really didn't want to. After all, if Control really wanted Gage dead, he wouldn't have come alone, but there was really no way now to know for sure how this would have turned out if Scott had not drawn the gun. McCall put his own gun away. "Gage is really going to fly away now, you know," he said.

"I know," Control said. "But Scott would have killed me if I tried to stop him." Control said that very plainly. It was a fact.

McCall and Scott exchanged looks. McCall suddenly shivered inside - was it from pride, or from fear?

Because Scott had never looked more like him.

-----

Kostmayer checked in at the office only to learn that Control had left, so he called him on his cell phone. At the moment his cell phone buzzed him, Control was sitting down on McCall's sofa. He took the call, listened to Kostmayer explain what had happened with O'Toole, and invited him over to McCall's. They could all have a little chat together.

Kostmayer went through a litany of unhappy language in his mind as he hurried over, but when he got there he found things amazingly calm. Control was on the sofa finishing a brandy, McCall was in the kitchen where the smell of coffee was coming from, and Scott was sitting on a chair by the window. Kostmayer looked at each one of them, and they looked at him. Kostmayer had no idea where Gage had gone, or if he was still hidden in the spare room, but from the looks on the faces, he figured gone was the right guess. The only question was, what kind of "gone."

Control looked into his brandy, then back up at Kostmayer. "Mickey, did you know Harley Gage was here?"

Kostmayer did not look at McCall or Scott, but he caught a warning look from the former out of the corner of his eye. "Harley was here?"

"All right, I'll take that for what it's worth," Control said, put his brandy down and stood up. He walked up to Kostmayer and looked him in the eye. "If I ever find out you know where Gage is and you don't tell me, I will reassign you to Central America for the rest of your life. Got that?"

"Got it," Kostmayer said, trying to sound like he had no idea what was going on.

"You're sure the Russians have O'Toole?" Control asked.

Kostmayer nodded. "Black van picked him up. I got the plates, but they were stolen."

Control sighed. O'Toole in Russian hands wasn't as bad as Gage in Russian hands. O'Toole's knowledge was only in the area of the Company that read newspapers and intercepted dispatches. O'Toole couldn't name any meaningful names the Russians didn't already know or do any other deep damage, but losing him still hurt. If there were any others working with him from within the Company, they'd be all that harder to find now. "All right, we'll start damage control tomorrow," Control said, looking around at McCall and Scott. "Maybe there's a way we can work on getting O'Toole back. I'll leave you all to compare your notes, and Mickey, I'll see you first thing in the morning in my office."

Kostmayer nodded, and Control left.

McCall immediately raised a finger to his lips, and he and Kostmayer prowled around the room until they came up with one listening device and were satisfied there were no others. Even then, McCall motioned his companions to the dining room, where Control had not gone.

"What happened? Where's Gage?" Kostmayer asked as soon as they stopped near the dining room table.

"Gone out the back door before I got here," McCall said. "Scott held Control off until he could get away."

"Scott?"

Scott had sat down at the table and looked up with a sigh. "I couldn't let Control have him. He saved Dad's life years ago. He saved mine yesterday. Control was going to kill him."

"I'm sorry, Scott," McCall said. "I shouldn't have left you in the middle of all this by yourself."

Scott shook his head. "I never thought I'd ever do that."

"Do what?" Kostmayer asked.

"Feel so much like shooting a man. Feel so much like shooting someone I know. Something - strange just sank into me. I was calm, I knew what I was doing, I went through all the options in my head, and when there was no other answer - I pointed the gun at Control. And I would have shot him."

McCall and Kostmayer looked at each other.

Scott shook his head again. "Harley wanted me to back off, but I wouldn't. He went out the back door and I covered him." He shook his head again. "I don't know how you do this kind of work. I don't know how you - threaten to kill one friend and let another one just disappear out of your life."

When Scott said that, he looked first to the living room where Control had been standing, and then toward the back door where Gage had left, vanishing again, like a ghost who was never really there.

McCall followed his gaze to the back door. Gage was definitely gone, just as gone as he'd been for the past six years. McCall looked back down at his son. "We all knew the rules when we got into it. Things need to be done. Sacrifices have to be made." But then he sighed. "Did that sound as stupid to you as it sounded to me?"

Kostmayer gave one short, unhappy laugh.

Scott just quietly said, "Yes."

Epilogue

Across town, Harley Gage bought some more gauze and some aspirin at a drug store, then found a branch of his bank that was open late and withdrew all of the emergency money he kept there. Handling other investments could wait.

He knew he was going to have to change his name and location, but he decided to risk going to his apartment for a couple minutes to pick up a few clothes and the cache of phony IDs he had made up when he first went underground. He jammed some things into the bag from the drugstore, then threw on his overcoat to hide his torn jacket and bloody shirt, and hurried back out into the street.

His back and side hurt, very sharply now and then, but he put a hand inside his coat and held onto it. No one would notice he was hurt. No one ever looked at anyone else at rush hour anyway.

He had no idea where he was going to go. He wished he could just crawl into bed and stay there until he healed.

He wished a lot of things.

THE END