Crossover

by Leviathan0999

When Michael is hired by Agent Harris to help a former neighborhood kid cross over from dark to light, he finds that help can come from an unexpected source.

CROSSOVER

A "Burn Notice" story

by Leviathan

In the world of covert operations and espionage, anonymity is more than the coin of the realm, it is the air you breathe. It is a cloak, comfortable and protective, and without it, you stand naked and defenseless. In short, you're dead.

That's why a spy's active lifespan is so brutally short. Usually a covert career lasts less than five years. Contrary to what TV and movies tell you, the very concept of a "Famous Secret Agent" is absurd.

The old man, maybe seventy years old, looked tough and hard as he sat alone at the small table, regarding them over his Mojito. His hairline had receded to a white C-ring around his head from just in front of his ears. His beard was white as well, except for dark streaks continuing from his iron-grey moustache, and in the center of his chin, a third dark streak underlined his rather cruel mouth. The brows were straight and dark and the eyes behind the enclosing folds and wrinkles were acute and clear, a hard grey-blue.

Those eyes didn't move as they took in Sam's startled double-take, took in his hand tapping Michael's forearm, Michael's glance and his startled pause. They did flicker up and down Fiona's trim figure, but Michael barely even caught that.

"Is it really him?" Fiona asked quietly.

"Woah, yeah," said Sam. "Last I heard, SIS had him as Head of Station C. That was years ago, though." He scratched the back of his neck. "I'll tell you, Mike, I never thought I'd see him in the flesh! Double-oh numbers may be passé, but I never heard he'd lost so much as a step. If he's in on this game, it's going to be a lot more interesting."

Michael nodded, taking another covert glance, and seeing the grey-blue eyes, without indicating, notice it.

"Pretty cool, though," said Fiona, in a sort of hushed, almost awed tone Michael was pretty sure he didn't like at all. "I mean, that is James Bond!"

Of course, there are exceptions.

---

3 days earlier

"Listen, Mike, this may seem a little weird, but I promise, it's legit. It's real work, and a real paycheck. So, you're not going to freak, right?"

Michael stopped to regard his friend. "Sam, I never feel good when you say things like that."

"Have I ever steered you wrong?" Sam asked quickly.

"Well..." began Michael.

"Beirut doesn't count! It was a double-blind operation. How was I supposed to know about the other team? Anyway, I meant in lining you up with work."

"I'm really not going to like this," said Michael, as he followed Sam's broad-shouldered lead back to the table, "am I, Sam?"

"You are, you are," said Sam. "When all is said and done, you're going to like it fine."

They sat down together by the empty seat at the back corner table, beside the mostly-full pitcher, the tall tumbler of Iced Tea.

Michael stiffened at the silhouette that appeared in the lighted doorway back from the restrooms, and started to rise, but Sam held him in place with a hand on his forearm. "Trust me, Mike."

The man who slid into the seat behind the Iced Tea was late in his middle years, with lines around his sunken eyes and habitually tight mouth. The light brown hair slicked back from a receding hairline was streaked with gray behind the leading prow of his widow's peak, but his mustache had kept its color. His look from Michael to Sam was serious, and he nodded at Sam with a kind of grudging respect.

"Hell, Sam," he said. "When you told me you could get him here to meet me, I didn't think you'd manage it." He turned back to Michael. "I appreciate you coming, Mr. Westen."

Michael's brief glance at Sam Axe should have blown a smoking hole through him the size of a basketball, but his gaze was impassive as he turned back to FBI Special Agent Macauley Harris, who had spent months with his partner, Special Agent Morris Lane, keeping Michael under government surveillance.

"It's my pleasure, Agent Harris," said Michael, smiling broadly. "What can I do for the FBI?"

Harris scowled and sat back, and they were interrupted by a waitress, a pretty, tough-looking Cuban, maybe twenty years old, with fine proud breasts she used to advantage.

"Two more tumblers," Michael told her. "And our own pitcher of iced tea."

"I was thinking of a bottle of Dos Ecces..." began Sam, and trailed off, looking at Michael's You're in enough trouble face, and finished, "...but now that I'm thinking about it, that iced tea sounds mighty refreshing. Extra lemons, though, honey, nice and tart, if you know what I mean."

Her eyes traveled up and down Sam, dismissing him. "I know exactly what you mean."

Sam laughed. "Oh, I'll bet you do!"

"Sam..." warned Michael, and nodded politely to the waitress, who returned it with a smile and headed for the bar.

Harris had sat stonily through this interplay, and waited until the waitress was out of range before he sat forward and said, "This has nothing to do with the Bureau, Mr. Westen. Strictly personal. And I mean strictly. I pay you in nothing but cold, hard cash, no documents or information or messages about your damned burn notice. It might have escaped your attention but there are things going on in this world that have nothing to do with your espionage career."

"You came to me, Agent Harris," said Michael neutrally. "I didn't come to you."

"And I'll pay you a fair price for your services, just like anybody else you've dealt with here in Miami. But those are my ground rules. Cash and carry, or he can take his chances."

"He who?" asked Michael, sitting forward.

Harris didn't give an inch. "My terms?"

Michael sat back and ran the tip of his thumb across his mouth. The waitress appeared with the tumblers of ice, two sliced lemons on a plate and a pitcher of sparkling brown iced tea. Michael smiled his thanks, poured himself a glass, and took a long pull. Sam busied himself with lemon slices and sugar, before pouring tea over it all, and shaking it in his glass. He winked at Harris, as if to say, "It's all over with, you've got him."

Michael glared at his friend before returning to Harris. "All right, Agent Harris," he said. "Cash and carry. Who's 'he?'"

"He's Elpidio Fernando Sanchez. Well, he was. I remember him as Pidi. Little boy lived three houses down, skinny brown kid with a high-pitched laugh running under sprinklers in the summer time. These days he's Muhammad Islam Yusuf. Converted to Islam back... 1999, 2000 maybe. He was seventeen then. You'd see him in the Seven-Eleven arguing with newspapers about how Israel deserved what it got for repressing Palestine, you know. The West was at war with the Muslims, and the Muslims could never win, but they'd always be right. Nine-Eleven came along, and it was like somebody plugged this kid into a light socket or something. Number of people died, didn't seem to sink in with him, he was just electrified that these Muslims struck against America, and won."

"Charming kid," said Michael, sourly.

Harris grunted. "Tell me about it. Anyway, not long after that, he heard about John Walker Lindh, remember him? Pampered suburban kid from California who'd been captured fighting for the Taliban? Well, Pidi – excuse me, Muhammad – decided that was the best idea he'd ever heard. Then he pretty well disappeared." Harris looked across at Michael. "Damn if he didn't manage to get himself over to Pakistan and seek out the Taliban, join up. Got from there into Al Qaeda, and before he knew it he was making bombs – he was pretty good at chemistry and stuff, before he dropped out of school – and figuring out ways to ship them out to the field without them being found. Taught them a lot about masking compounds and so on. It got hot for him pretty quickly, though, so, they moved him over to Europe, had him recruiting for local cells. Apparently, quite a success story for them."

"I just like this kid better and better," said Michael.

"Look at it this way, Mike," said Sam, "You may not take the job, but you can't claim Mac here whitewashed the kid to get you on board."

"True enough," said Michael.

Harris took another drink. "About a year ago, he was brought back to Pakistan, to one of the central camps. First thing they did was honor him with a stoning. One of the women had been caught with lipstick. He got to cast the first stone. First time he was directly involved with a death, and, well... You know how it is. It's different. It's all real. He's seen more stonings of women, seen men beaten, maimed, in the villages they control. And he started thinking that maybe that's not what Muhammad had in mind. He's remembering seeing Muslims and Christians and Jews here in the States, all working together to fund homeless shelters and food kitchens. So he left."

Harris poured more tea from the pitcher, took one of the lemon slices, and squeezed it into his drink. "Well, you know how those folks are about Apostasy. They get him again, and they're going to behead him. But there's more. He's got intel. He's got the recruiting networks in the U.K. and Spain and Portugal. Do you have any idea what we could do with that stuff? It's huge. It's huge. They'd kill him to protect that, anyway."

Michael sat back. "Okay, so you take him back, you pump him for intel, you ship him off to Gitmo. I don't see my role."

"He's back here in Miami. He's hiding out. There's an Al Qaeda cell here that wants to kill him."

"And you want...?" asked Michael.

"I want him. I want his intel, I want his knowledge. I want..." Harris looked up at Michael. "Listen, I remember this smiling, happy kid who ran through sprinklers. I want... I need to know how he went from that to..." He paused again, pulled at his iced tea. "Okay, listen. You read any coverage of the Seven-Seven bombings in London? It was the same thing. Three nice young kids, and a teacher everybody loved. Friend of one of the kids said, 'If you knew Shezzi' – that was his nickname – 'you would love him.' Kind of kid who'd help old ladies across the street, and he ended up blowing himself and a bunch of innocent commuters to hamburger on a double-decker bus. You ask yourself, How did that happen? And that happened, at least partly, because a kid I remember running under my sprinkler helped turn him into a monster. And someone right here in Miami turned little Pidi into that monster. There are kids in England, in Spain, in Portugal, right now, being turned into more monsters. And there're kids who will be unless someone can stop it. I want to stop it... But I don't want him in Gitmo. I don't know if everybody deserves a second chance. But I think little Pidi does."

"Does he?" asked Michael. He was suddenly aware again of the small, puckered dimple, down low on his left side, remembered the grim face of Fiona Glenanne, lit by muzzle-flash. "Well, maybe he does at that. I'll need to meet him. If I take the job, what does it pay?"

"Ten thousand," said Harris. "Lemuel, my oldest, got a full scholarship to Harvard." he grinned. "That's freed up some funds."

"Well, then," said Michael, standing up, "tell Lemuel congratulations from me, and call me when you've set up the meet. I'll start looking for angles."

As Michael placed a ten on the table to cover his and Sam's drinks, Harris reached, put a hand on his forearm again. "Listen, about that crack earlier... I know you're not just interested in yourself and whoever burned you. Hell, Morris and I learned that much, at least. I'm just... This is hard. You understand?"

Michael actually did smile then, a small creasing of his lips as he glanced at Harris. "It's all right, Agent Harris. Thank you."

---

One fact of life for spies is that you can't always pick your friends. The business of secrets is dirtier than, say, manufacturing -- maybe even Cable TV -- and everyone in it does things they're ashamed of. You learn to set some of your personal convictions aside, and let the ends justify the means.

But sometimes, that's pretty hard, and, after 9/11, any American who can hear the words "Taliban" and "Al Qaeda" without a flash of rage is probably not to be trusted. You die fast in this job, though, if you can't get control of your emotions. Follow your heart into disaster once or twice, and you learn to get a grip.

"So, Michael..." Fiona's eyes were bright with mischief. "You're working for an Al Qaeda recruiter now?"

"So far, I'm just going to meet with him," said Michael. "Learn the situation. See how I feel about it."

"See just how low you can go?" Fiona asked, and Michael and Sam looked up at her sharply.

"How long ago was it you were working for the IRA?" asked Sam.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she spat.

"It means," shot back Sam, "that you're in no position to call anybody else low. I was in London in December of '83. I remember the Harrods bombing."

"Six people died, Sam. 9/11 took out--"

"That just means your buddies weren't as good at it! I'm supposed to be--"

"Enough!" Michael's voice was a whipcrack. "This is not productive. All I'm doing is deciding whether or not to take a job."

"Well, I believed in my cause!" said Fiona.

"You believed in adrenaline!" muttered Sam.

Fiona opened her mouth to fire back an answer, But Michael put a hand on her arm. "He's got a point, Fiona. You know that. I know all you were actively involved in was conflict with armed military, but money you brought in gun-running paid for St Mary Axe and Bishopsgate."

She sat back as if he'd slapped her. "Jaysus, Michael!"

Michael's eyes widened. It was the first time her accent had slipped since she'd adopted it, and for those two words, her voice was pure Belfast. "Fi..."

"Is that what you think, Michael?" Fiona, her voice East-Coast American again, looked down at her hands in her lap. "I'm no better than bin Laden?"

Sam's mouth was a hard line, his eyes concerned as he looked back and forth from Michael to Fiona.

"Fi..." Michael sank down in front of her and covered her hands with his own. "You stopped. You were out of the Provos long before the Ceasefire."

Her hands clenched under Michael's. "Too many pubs. Too many discotheques. Too many..."

"Too many," sad Sam, quietly. He reached across, touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry Fi. I was out of line."

"No, you weren't," she murmured. "I was." She turned back to Michael. "Do you really think he's changed?"

"I'll know that when I talk to him." Michael said. "But I know he's valuable, and it's worth finding out."

---

2 days earlier

A hideout's no good if it's easy to figure out. If he's being pursued, a pro won't stay where he'd stay, because that's where his pursuers will look. He'll hole up in uncomfortable surroundings, a place he'd be likely to avoid if he could. I once knew a Nigerian rebel who hid for six months in a Klansman's basement, before taking his host's advice and going back to Africa.

It's also a good idea to perform whatever business you need to in public, the bigger the crowd, the better. Crowds are anonymity, crowds are witnesses, and in Miami, crowds are often really well-armed. If you're on the run, crowds are safety.

The dancer's body shone with oil as she gyrated under the hot lights, her skin a deep chocolate brown, and her large, plump nipples almost black. The small Hispanic man pointedly refused to look up into her as she reached a hand down and spread her shaved vulva. Michael smiled as he offered her the twenty, and told her, quietly, "The college boy over there had to break one of his fifties to pay for that martini. He still has a few more."

Her expression floated from offense to avaricious amusement, and she shimmied down the bar toward the young blond man in the letterman's jacket.

Muhammad Yusuf scowled. "Harlot."

"She's got a living to make," said Michael. "Kids to feed." The oil hadn't quite hidden the stretch marks.

Yusuf's scowl deepened, then, to Michael's surprise, he laughed. "I suppose she'd say worse about me, wouldn't she? Killer, murderer, terrorist." he looked back at Michael. "A year ago, I'd have said she should be stoned to death."

"And now?" Michael seemed only vaguely interested.

Yusuf regarded him for several long seconds. "Now, she makes me sad. Now I think that she's wasting, throwing away, something that should be worth diamonds. Now I think her sin is punishment enough."

Michael sat nodded slowly. "And yours?"

Yusuf nodded again. "That's the question, isn't it? I know with you I'm pleading for my life. Why should you care? Why should you spare me? Put yourself at risk to save me? Mr. Harris told me you don't just work for money. He told me you have to believe. I can't tell you why you should believe I'm worth it. Most days, I can't tell you why I do."

"Maybe you could tell me why I shouldn't," said Michael, not really knowing why.

"Oh, now that's much easier. You shouldn't because I spent five years in three countries finding frustrated young people and telling them how the Great Satan, America, was responsible for all the world's evil. Because I helped perfect a system...

"You see, Mr. Westen, there's this guy. He's everywhere in the world, in every town, in every neighborhood. He's older, not very smart, or well-educated, but he has this earthy, boisterous sense about him, this certainty. He believes the stupidest things, and says things that would give offense and start arguments if anyone else said them, but he's a good-living, big-mouthed, roguish old fellow, and somehow it seems like there's no point in arguing with him. He's the one who tells you how when he goes to the store, he sees women use food stamps to buy luxury goods, and drive away in a Cadillac. That genetic studies done in the fifties and covered up in the sixties prove that blacks are more likely to commit violent crimes.

"In the Muslim world, he says that no Jews died in the World Trade Center.

"Well, you get him to be a youth soccer coach, to volunteer at cookouts, anyplace he's around teenaged boys, and you watch the boys. When he talks about how Israel and the CIA conspired behind 9/11, how the Jews secretly run the world's media, you watch those boys, and one in a hundred will nod slowly, thoughtfully, and you can see them thinking, Ah! That explains it!"

Yusuf scrubbed his hands down his face. "You target those boys. You start to vet them, you get somebody close to them to talk about Madrassas and the evils of America, of the Jews, and you see if they're taking it on board. Maybe one in twenty. And on they go, more radicalized, always in secret. In three years, five years, they're strapping on a bomb, and marching off to die for Allah."

He looked at Michael. "I did that. I came up with starting with That Guy. I know about a hundred of him in England. A hundred and fifty in Spain. Ninety in Portugal. I know them because I chose them, because I taught men how to watch them and steer them. I did that."

"So what do you want to do now?" Michael asked. "Just set up housekeeping in South Beach, and live happily ever after?"

Yusuf shook his head. "No, sir. I want... I want to see my mother again. I want to hug her and apologize to her. I want to give what I know to someone who will care, someone who will try to unmake the monsters I've made. I can't undo what I've done, but I want to make some kind of amends."

"But not be punished?" Michael's voice was bland, his expression gave away nothing.

"There is no escaping my punishment. I live with it every day of my life. As bad as anything they can think to do at Guantanamo. I wake up screaming from it. But I can't make amends from a cell, now can I?"

Michael sat looking at him for a long time. "All right, then." He slid a card across to him. "This is my card. Call me at noon tomorrow, and I'll let you know where I stand."

"Gracias," said Yusuf. For that moment, he was just another of Miami's army of Cuban emigrés. "I will call."

---

There are a lot of things I miss about working for the Government. I miss the travel, the foods, the languages. I miss knowing what I'm doing is important, that it matters to whole nations. Sometimes, though, what I miss the most is knowing that I'm just the hired help. It's not fun being the executioner, but it's a lot better than having to appoint yourself judge and jury, as well.

Lightning coursed through the sky, lighting Michael's apartment, and his bare chest and arms, in flashbulb shades of white and blue. Thunder followed almost immediately with the percussive crash of well-aimed artillery. The Miami of the movies and TV was always sunny days, clear, starry nights lit by a big full moon. A tropical paradise. The reality was long days of oppressive heat and spoon-thick humidity that built and thickened as the hours wore by, until the atmosphere exploded by the evening into electric violence. Usually storms would exhaust themselves before evening had settled into night, but now night was pushing toward morning, and still, as Michael wandered, sleepless, through the large spaces of his flat, the tempest lashed at the sturdy club building.

Images kept flowing through his mind as he paced. Shaky home-video footage of innocent civilians being carried away from the London transit bombings. A quote from a newspaper interview with a World War Two veteran: "I've been blown up by better than you lot!" The grim, sincere brown man, hunched over his soft drink at the strip club. The little brown boy he'd only seen in Harris' words, laughing as he leaped through the water of a lawn sprinkler. Thick black smoke roiling from twin skyscrapers.

If you knew Shezzi, you would love him. Lightning strobed through the loft again, freezing him in space in stark white. I've been blown up by better than you lot! The thunder rattled the small metal items in bins at the workbench. A three-inch bolt fell to the floor, and Michael stooped to pick it up as it rolled to his feet. There is no escaping my punishment.

The burring sound of ringing was background noise, and he almost started when Fiona's sleepy voice said, "Michael? What is it, are you all right?" from the phone he was surprised to find himself holding to his ear.

"What did you think on 7/7?" he asked, hoarsely.

He heard her breath sucked in. "Do you want me to tell you I burned with hatred, Michael? That I was sickened?"

"I want you to tell me the truth."

There was a long silence. Lightning flashed, and Thunder followed it, and then echoed from the phone, as the sound reached Fi, and was transmitted back to him by satellite.

"I thought it was well done," she said quietly. "I thought they did it like pros, and I was impressed. I thought the Provos never did as well."

Michael silently absorbed this.

"What do you think now?" he asked.

"I... I'm offended. We wanted the Brits out of Ulster. It seems.... Within reach. Those kids killed fifty people in the name of global caliphate. What the hell's the point? We weren't without sin, we killed more than our share of bystanders, but... Global caliphate? It's just a waste." She paused. "I dunno, Michael, maybe I'm just older."

Again the silence echoed between them.

"What are you thinking, Michael?" she asked.

"I'm thinking you're my friend. You're chaotic and violent and prone to overaction, but you're someone I care about. You're a good person. If it was you, Fi? If it was you coming to me for help after working for the IRA? I wouldn't hesitate."

"Do you think I've become a better person, Michael?"

"Yes." His voice was barely a croak.

"Can he be?" It was the voice of a teacher, now.

"I.... I think so," murmured Michael.

"Go to sleep, Michael," said Fiona, and the phone lit with a message reading Call Ended.

Michael dropped it on his bedside table, and closed his eyes against the flare of lightning. By the time the rolling thunder had followed, he was asleep.

---

1 day earlier

Criminals are businessmen. All it takes to get them off your back is enough money to make it worth their while. Governments can sometimes be bought off, as well. With them, it's Quid Pro Quo. You give them what they want, they give you what you want. Fanatics, on the other hand, are a problem. Someone who believes he's the Hand of God is impossible to bargain with. That leaves two choices: Kill them or fool them. And after the first couple of hundred, killing them gets to seem a lot like work.

Fiona pushed her hands back through her hair, nimbly tying it into a simple ponytail with a tie-wrap from the counter. She nodded thanks to Sam as he placed an ice-cold bottle of Dos Ecces on the table in front of her. "I don't see how we can do it, Michael."

"I gotta tell ya, Mike," added Sam, handing across another frosty bottle, "I agree with Fiona, which, in itself, ought to scare you some! Getting his intel isn't something we can do in a day, or even a week. It's going to be months, maybe years, of debriefing, and that's with him co-operating! I mean, Hell, he can't live here that long, and he's not safe on his own!" Sam gestured around the loft. "The only way to keep him out of Guantanamo is to keep him away from the spooks, but if we want to get his information we've got to give him to them."

"And either way, Al Qaeda won't quit until he's dead," added Fiona. "You could maybe smuggle him out of the country with a false flag, but I just don't see how we do that without losing what he knows."

Michael pulled at the cold beer, listening to his friends outline the box he saw himself in.

"You gotta pick two," said Sam. "You can save his life and keep him out of Gitmo. You can save his life and get his goods. Or you can get his goods and keep him out of Gitmo. Something's gotta give."

Michael placed his bottle on the table. "Well, that's it then. We need his intel, and we need to keep him out of Gitmo. So we let them kill him."

"Excellent!" said Fiona.

"Good deal," agreed Sam. "Let's call Harris and get this show on the road."

---

That Day

Fiona kept glancing over at the old man. Sam did too, but at least under cover of looking at his watch. He had good enough reason for that last: Mac Harris – when, Michael wondered, had he become "Mac?" -- was now more than ten minutes late.

"Fi, Sam, for God's sake, stop," said Michael. "It's embarrassing. He's not going anywhere."

"That's why I'm watching him," said Sam. "You ever heard of an operation went smoother when he showed up?"

"Which is strange, when you think about it," murmured Fiona, "because if there's one thing you can say about him, it's that he's very, very smooth."

"He's older than your Grandfather, Fi," said Michael. "You're ogling an octogenarian."

"An octogenarian who could beat all three of us in a straight fight," added Sam.

Michael scowled. "You don't know that."

"Yeah," agreed Sam, "and I have no desire to find out. The man's a legend!"

"I'm pretty sure he's older than your grandfather, too!" Michael replied.

Sam grinned. "Have you met my grandfather?"

The door from the kitchen banged open, releasing a momentary din of commotion into the restaurant, and Harris ran through, followed by the shouts of the cook. His eyes swiveled left and right through the room, and locked on Michael's, and he shook his head once, swiftly, before shouting "Everybody down!"

As Michael dove, his hands unnecessarily pressing down on the shoulders of his friends, he noticed the old man diving with the grace of a cat, overturning his table into a makeshift shield facing the door, and grabbing the ankle of the pretty Cuban waitress, pulling her behind it with him.

Then there was a thunderous ringing in the air, and Michael saw the plate glass of the front windows actually bowing in toward him before they exploded into a glittering confetti of tiny glass daggers, and Michael was trying to knock their table over as he turned away, spreading the fabric of his jacket to try to shield Sam and Fi's faces. A million pinpoints of pain erupted across his back, and then the wave of heat struck him like a giant's fist, driving him down on top of his friends.

He lay stupidly for a moment, his whole world the ringing in his head, before shaking it off. His fingers felt pulses -- "Yeah, yeah, I'm with ya," Sam gasped – while his eyes tracked for motion, and he saw the aged form of Bond at the bar, grasping the edge and vaulting himself over, near where he'd last seen Mac.

By the time Michael was there, the old man was looking up at him from beside Harris' supine form. "Your friend's alive, Westen. As far as I can tell, he'll be all right." Bond's Scots accent had deepened in the years since the samples Michael had heard were recorded. Bond was slipping Mac's wallet back into his pocket. "I'm surprised to see you working with the Bureau. You're very much out of favour."

"I thought you were retired," Michael shot back.

"I am." Bond's voice was indifferent. "You'd think a man could find a place in the world to holiday without being pulled into this sort of nonsense."

"Yeah, well," Sam's voice was close behind Michael, "things are tough all over." He gestured at Harris. "How's Mac?"

Bond's voice was almost kind. "I'm sure he'll be fine. No obvious sign of serious injury to his head or chest." Bond's head indicated the restaurant floor. "I'm sure that's not the case for the rest."

Michael nodded. "Sam? Fi?"

They both dipped their heads, and Sam Axe said, "We got it, Mike. Fade," as they turned to start checking victims.

Bond looked back at Michael. "You oughtn't be caught here, I imagine. Police must be on their way. Go."

Michael's eyes narrowed at the authority in the old Scot's voice, but the fact was, he was right, and they both knew it.

"Thank you," he said finally, and walked quickly around the milling kitchen staff, who'd poured forth to see what happened, and out through the back.

---

Sun Tzu said that no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy. This is never truer than in the world of covert operations. In small ways and large, plans always, always change. Sometimes the other guy is smarter, sometimes he's dumber, sometimes he's weaker or stronger. And sometimes, he's just plain crazier.

Covert professionals are like professional card players. They know the odds, and they play them with mathematical precision, and keep their cool when a wild card gets dealt into their hand.

"You see what I mean, Mike?" said Sam. "He shows up, and the bodies are flying everywhere!" He peeled a bloodsoaked piece of a napkin from a small wound on his neck. "This is a whole new ball game now!"

"Give me the numbers, Sam," said Michael, evenly.

"Two dead," said Sam. "Couple guys sitting right in front of the window. Twenty-eight in the hospital. Three of them are iffy."

"I think we have to drop out," added Fiona. "A car bombing in Miami? Now we're looking at an honest-to-God terrorist attack on American soil, the same thing that happens in Israel and Iraq every day. DHS will be flooding the zone. It's too hot."

"Yeah," said Sam, tearing the corner off another napkin and pressing it onto his neck. "Letting the cell think they got him would have given us breathing room to start getting names from Yusuf. Could have been enough to get him a deal. But now that there's a car-bomb in the picture, there's no way the spooks'll move. He goes straight to Guantanamo, whatever he tells them."

"Well..." Michael was looking out the window. "No way our spooks will move. There are others."

"It does seem awfully convenient, doesn't it?" mused Fiona. "Especially when one of the networks is the UK."

"Of course," Michael's voice was even, "he says he's retired." His voice took on a Scots brogue. "On holiday."

"True," said Sam. "And we all know spies never, ever, ever lie about what they're doing. What could you have been thinking, Fi?"

Michael smiled. "Retired or not, he'll have contacts. And the British are a lot calmer about this stuff, even after 7/7."

"More used to it," said Fiona, in a tone that caused Michael's head to rise.

"Well, hell," Sam began, but was interrupted by a pounding at the door.

Michael made his way over, and looked through the hidden peephole.

The exasperated face of James Bond was staring straight at him. "Westen," he barked, "let me in for Christ's sake, before whoever's watching you notices!"

---

Spies all share certain things in common. Lots of training, for one thing. An awareness of the hidden structures and patterns that underlie day-to-day life. Where civilians go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, spies see infrastructures with vulnerabilities: Roads, sidewalks, food-supply-chains, banking systems.

And all spies have a desire not to be seen, not to be known. You want to make a spy squirm? Show up at his house. It will set him back on his heels, make him uncomfortable – downright twitchy, in fact. It will make him feel exposed, make him feel vulnerable, and make him feel like you're better at tradecraft than he is.

And sometimes, that will be true.

Michael stepped back quickly, pulling the door open, and almost tripped over his own shoes as he did so.

The old man strode past him, grey-blue eyes racing over the loft as if they knew what to expect before seeing it. He nodded with seeming satisfaction at Fiona and Sam, and looked back at Michael, who stood with his hand on the knob of the open door.

"Perhaps you should close that," he told Michael dryly, and Michael shook his head and obeyed.

"What brings you here?" Michael asked as he followed in Bond's wake. He gestured around the apartment with a toss of his head. "Not exactly a holiday destination, after all."

"Yes, well," Bond's tone was dark. "That's a bit of a loss for the day already. The police at the bar said there's an Al Qaeda cell working in Miami."

"You bugged the police?" asked Sam.

Bond's face was deadpan. "If you call a champagne glass against the kitchen door bugging, certainly." He turned back to face Michael fully. "I called an old friend of mine. Vivienne Michele."

"Publisher of the Sun," supplied Sam.

"She's got quite a file on you. There are a lot of holes, of course, not enough to go to press, and Viv's not sure that publishing would be a good idea anyway. But from what she's got, it seems like since you've been, er, demobilized in the field, you've set up shop as a sort of neighborhood do-gooder here. Tradecraft for hire to the deserving underdog." Bond smiled. "If Al Qaeda is blowing you up, well... You're in deeper, more dangerous waters."

As if you didn't know, thought Michael. He drew a deep breath. "Well, Mr. Bond, what with getting blown up by Al Qaeda and all, I've got a fairly full week, so if you could--"

"Well, what with you getting me blown up by Al Qaeda, It seems to me that if I want to enjoy my holiday, I'll have to keep an eye on your mess." Bond pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. When he spoke again, his tone was kinder. "Listen, you did very well, there." He glanced around at Sam and Fiona. "All three of you did." He turned back to Michael. "I think you could use my help. Am I wrong?"

Michael regarded him silently for a long, long moment. "No," he finally said. "No, you're not. Just how 'retired' are you?"

The gaze Bond returned should have caused Michael to whither away. "Very."

"But your word is still good with your Service? You can still make a call?"

Bond's shoulders seemed to slump a little. "If I must. But I decide, Westen. Tell me your story, and then we'll see."

Put two nurses or two teachers or two hookers together in a room, and they talk shop, sinking into jargon that no outsider will understand. The same is true of other caring professions, like spying. It's fun, it's more secure, you get to sound mysterious... And it's quick. Talking to someone who understands your business, you can just hit the high points, and they'll know the rest.

"So," said Bond, "you want me to call my people, and steal a legitimate American target from American territory, spirit him away to one of our safe houses, and milk him for intelligence, in violation of treaties, agreements, and years of traditional cooperation between my service and all of yours?"

Michael's eyes crinkled, just slightly, glancing over at Fi as he blandly nodded. "That works."

Bond looked him in the eye. "Consider it done. I think we'll want to go through C, and minimize his travel. I'll call the head of station, and get her setting up the safe house."

"How long?" asked Michael.

"Three days, maybe four. I'll let you know." Bond paused. "The family?"

Michael shook his head. "No brothers or sisters. Father was killed when he was eight. Stepped into a bodega during a robbery."

"I'll make sure there's room for the mother then," said Bond. "Will you be picking her up?"

"Sam," replied Michael.

"I will?" said Sam, his tone surprised.

Bond glanced at him. "I've heard you were once quite good, Axe. And probably still in the field, but for that sense of humour."

Sam shrugged. "Well... And my feet. Worst foot odor you ever smelled, even the French could smell me coming."

This startled an actual laugh from Bond, and he nodded at Sam. "Good. We'll keep a pair of your socks in reserve in case we need a devastator."

He returned his gaze to Michael, sizing him up for another long moment. "I don't know what to make of you, Westen. Your record is, well..." Bond cleared his throat. "But your current status... Still, Viv tells me you're trustworthy, burn notice or no. You've bitten off quite a mouthful this time. I damned well hope you can chew it."

"So do I," Michael said to it. "So do I."

---

There are some people who are simply obeyed, no questions asked. Police get argued with, firefighters are sometimes shot at, and even the FBI and Department of Homeland Security find themselves frequently at odds with civilians over even the simplest of instructions. So if you want to get someone away from their home with no questions asked, there's really only one choice.

"Mrs. Sanchez? Chuck Finlay, Metro Dade Gas and Electric." Sam smiled down at her. "I'm here about the leak."

"Leak?" Rosa Sanchez frowned at the tall, burley man with the handsome smile. "What leak, what are you talking about?"

"You didn't receive the call?" His eyes widened. "They probably decided not to risk the spark from the phone ringing. This is more serious than I thought!"

"What? You mean a gas leak?"

"Yes!" Sam's face was grim, now, his voice urgent. "I'd say we can risk ten minutes to get what you'll need, but we have to get you away from here!"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Mrs. Sanchez cried. "I don't smell gas!"

"That's the worst part!" answered Sam quickly. "You know, natural gas is colorless and odorless. The smell you associate with gas is an ingredient we mix in to alert you in case of a leak. If you don't smell it, then that means the leak has escaped that safety measure!" He squeezed past her, into the house. "Now come on! Pack up some clothes, and if there are any photographs or anything, get them together quickly!"

Eight minutes later, Sam was placing the third cardboard box into the back seat of the rental, and closing the front passenger door firmly beside Rosa Sanchez. She was a trim, handsome, brown-skinned woman, maybe ten years his senior, with warm brown eyes and streaks of silver in her space-black hair. She looked at him through the car window, then past him toward her house, sucking her lower lip between her teeth.

"It's a lovely house," Sam told her as he climbed behind the wheel, "and it would be a shame to lose it, but it's not worth your life."

"No," she agreed, quietly. "It just seems incre?le, unbelievable, that mi casa – the house where I loved my Fernandoand raised Elpidio – could just volar, just blow up! It just seems impossible."

"I know how you feel," said Sam, as he pulled away from the house, hating himself for the lie, for dragging an innocent woman in a heartbeat away from the home she loved with his phony tale of explosive peril in the placid home. "But with that gas leak, it really could go sky-high at any moment."

As he finished speaking, a flicker of movement drew his eyes. The house seemed to deform in the rear-view mirror, as if it had been a shaped rubber balloon that was suddenly, savagely being over-inflated, and it seemed as if the shallow roof tried to take off like a rocket before crumbling in the center to be engulfed by the fireball. Glass windows were shattering all through the block, and Sam heard himself uttering a high-pitched, almost squealing yelp of surprise as he swung the wheel to turn them down a side-street, the shock wave helping slew the rear end of the car around before he gunned it and got them into the lee of the neighboring houses.

Rosa and Sam stared at one another a moment with wide, awed eyes, both of their brains racing with the knowledge of how briefly they'd been out and away. Then, as they heard the distant sound of planks and other debris hitting the pavement – and neighboring houses – Rosa Sanchez bust into tears.

---

"Mike, I'm telling ya," Sam said into the cell phone, pacing back and forth in Madeline Westen's back yard. Madeline was in the kitchen with Rosa, making her coffee. "It was the goddamnedest thing I ever saw. No sooner had I told her the house could blow up at any second than the damn thing blew up!"

Michael chuckled grimly. "Sam, you must use this power only for good."

"Oh, yeah, Mike, that's really funny!" Sam looked back at the kitchen window, the shadow of Madeline moving behind the curtain. "Listen, are you going to come out here and talk to your mom, and Mrs. Sanchez? She's got it that I'm not from the gas company, and my saving her life wins me some time, but she wants to know what the Hell's going on."

"I'll be there, Sam," said Michael, calmly. "I just have to pick up Yusuf first. Mom should be able to keep her occupied."

"Okay, Mike," said Sam. "But don't take too long, okay?"

"Soon as I can, Sam," said Michael, and the phone signaled the end of the call.

---

Scorched Earth is a military strategy that's lost a lot of popularity since Sherman burned Atlanta. It's messy, it's cruel, it's wasteful, and it makes it a lot harder to make today's foe into tomorrow's friend. In covert conflicts, it's even less popular, because it draws so much official attention. But if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and terrorist organizations think they thrive on public atrocities, so when they start what should be a secret fight, they tend to fight it as if it was just another attack. With that mindset, Scorched Earth makes sense.

Have I mentioned that I really hate fighting terrorists?

The strip club was nearly empty. Yusuf sat in the same seat, drinking milk from a tall tumbler. The same stripper danced her way languidly along the narrow stage, moving instinctively in time to the music, eyes closed and head swaying dreamily, her body shining with oil.

Michael slipped into the seat beside him. "We have to go, Muhammad. Right now."

"I heard about the bar," the small, dark man replied. "As if anybody hasn't. More blood on my hands."

"The good news is that we got your mother out of her house. I've got a place for you. Call it a safe-house. She's there now. Come on."

They started for the door, and suddenly, Yusuf stopped. He dug in a pocket, and pulled out a handful of bills. Michael saw Benjamin Franklin on one of them. "Just a moment," he said to Michael. "Please."

Michael nodded, and Yusuf walked briskly to the dancer, holding up the cash. Her eyes widened as she looked at it.

"Go home," said Yusuf. "I have been rude to you. There is danger. Go home." He turned to the bartender. "Close up. Go home. Please."

The bartender shook his head, spat a few derisive words of Spanish, and Yusuf replied quickly. The bartender turned away, polishing glasses. Yusuf looked back up to the dancer.

"Please," he said.

Her eyes were wide as she looked at him. He shook the money at her again.

"I... All right." She reached, took the money. "Thank you."

She trotted quickly through the door into the back room, and the bartender snarled.

"Listen to them, friend," said Michael, and he and Yusuf were out the door.

The Charger was turning out of the parking lot when the driver dove out of the rusty AMC Pacer they were passing, letting it run, unmanned, toward the wall of the bar.

A lot of people talk about the evils of violence on television and in the movies. The real problem, though, is not that they're too violent, but not violent enough. The violence of popular entertainment is sanitized, and as a result, people think that violence has no consequences. Take explosions. When Bruce Willis is running full-tilt away from an exploding car, truck, bus, spaceship or planet, it seems as if all he has to avoid are the flames and the shrapnel of that car, truck, bus, spaceship or planet, and he'll be fine. The fact of the matter is that what kills people in explosions is the simple brute force of the blast itself. Remember, that's what rendered the car, truck, bus, spaceship or planet into shrapnel.

The shock wave kills, and your job is to make sure that there's something solid between you and it before it can.

Michael stamped down on the accelerator as hard as he could, and slewed the Charger around to the left, leaping into the alley between a pawn shop and a locksmith. He put a hand on the back of Yusuf's slender neck and pushed him down toward the floorboards, and the shattering crash of the explosion rocked the car against the nearest brick wall.

Michael looked at the crushed side-view mirror hanging from the driver's-side door and cringed. For a car this old, they weren't that easy to find.

Yusuf straightened up, and looked at Michael. "We have to go back. Make sure she-- Make sure they got out!"

Michael regarded him for a moment. Clients were always telling him what to do. He hated it when they were right. He slammed the car into reverse, and screeched into a quick turn out of the alley to face back toward the strip club. The building had mostly collapsed, and flames roiled upward into thick, heavy black smoke. A swarthy man in jeans and an aloha shirt stood in the entrance of the parking lot, looking back at them, holding an Uzi.

One thing that you have to remember about weapons is that, for all the finesse and skill using them involves, there is a point at which any of them comes down to sheer brute force, and the bigger, stronger guy wins. The more weight behind the sword thrust, the more power behind the stroke. Bullets weigh a few ounces a piece. A 1974 Dodge Charger weighs around a half-ton.

Again, Michael floored the gas, and the Charger leaped forward toward the gunman. He stared for a terrified second, and then jumped left. Michael savagely swung the driver's door open, and caught him on the hip, flinging him viciously against the dumpster. The clang! his head made was loud in their ears, even over the screech of the Charger's brakes and the roar of the flames.

Yusuf rolled out of the passenger side as Michael did the driver's, and Michael stared at him for a moment, then nodded, and they trotted together towards the staff-only door on the side of the building.

The only reason they weren't blinded and suffocated with smoke was that much of the ceiling was now open to the sky, and they struggled through to the door marked "Lockers."

Inside, the row of metal lockers, bent obscenely by the force that threw them, lay pressed against the wall opposite their anchors, and from the ridiculously small place underneath, one slender brown hand reached. Michael felt for a pulse, and the hand moved, and they heard the woman's cry for help. The far plywood wall of the locker room was warping, smoldering. The flames would be through soon.

Michael looked at the lockers, the hand, and Yusuf's slight frame.

"All right, listen, Mohammad. I'm going to try to get some of the weight of these lockers off her, You get her by the wrist and try to slide her out." Yusuf nodded.

"Ma'am?" Michael called.

"Chantale!" cried the woman's voice, weakly, and Michael smiled grimly. The human impulse to make the insane normal with social niceties was an old friend.

"All right, Chantale. I'm Michael, and the man you've seen here so much is Mohammad. We're going to try to get you out. It's risky, because we don't know how you're hurt, but if you stay here, you'll burn, okay? This is probably going to hurt like hell, but try not to fight us."

He got his back turned to the lockers, and bent at the knees, reaching back to grasp the edge of the lockers with his hands. "Ready?"

"Not really," said Chantale, and Yusuf squatted down to grasp her wrist in both his hands. Her fingers wrapped hard around his left wrist in return.

Michael counted to three, and heaved upwards, using the muscles in his legs, and there was a loud metal-tearing sound, and Chantale screamed loudly, once. There was a sound from the plywood wall behind him, a soft Whoosh! and Michael knew the wall was igniting. The lockers shifted upward, and Michael bellowed, "Pull, Mohammad, pull hard!"

Yusuf backed up, step by step, hauling the screaming Chantale with him. She had pulled on a white tee-shirt, but it was tearing down the front, a jagged piece of metal hooked into it, and she shrieked as it started to tear into her breast. Yusuf released her wrist and darted in, pressing her skin back, gently, pressing her flesh down off the ragged points, and then he palmed her breast gently so that the back of his hand would scrape along the metal as he pulled her by her armpit. Once her breast was past the deadly metallic fangs, he moved back, his hands under her arms pulling her more quickly. Her left leg was smashed inside her blue jeans. The pantleg looked like a denim sack of lumpy cream-o-wheat.

Yusuf lifted her by the grip he had and Michael approached and reached down for her legs. He grasped her right knee easily, and then said, "I'm sorry, Chantale, hurt is too small a word."

He took the ruin of her left thigh in his other hand, and and straightened. She screamed, sharp and loud, and Yusuf said, very tenderly, "That is good, Chantale, scream it out, it helps."

Then they were out of the building and half-trotting toward Michael's car, and set her down on the alley floor, leaning back against the wall. She panted with her pain, teeth gritted, and slowly opened her eyes. Michael had found the Uzi and brought it back. There was an approaching howl of sirens.

"Ramon?" asked Chantale.

"The bartender?" said Michael, and on her slight nod, he shook his head. "Didn't see him, but I don't think there's much hope."

The sirens were louder. Michael looked over at the form of the car-bomber. Unconscious? Dead? He couldn't chance it. He handed the Uzi to Chantale, and jerked his head toward the supine form. "Don't let him leave before the police arrive."

"He done this?" Her voice was hard, and the Uzi swung up to point at the still form, muscles in her arm and hand rigid.

"No, Chantale," said Yusuf, one gentle hand on her arm. "Trust me now. Trust me. No."

She looked at him for a long moment, then her left hand was fisting his shirt, pulling him closer, and her lips met his cheek. "Thank you, sir."

"Come on," Michael said, as the sirens approached. Yusuf hesitated a second, then dove back into the Charger, and Michael was back in the driver's seat, starting the engine, putting the car into reverse yet again.

They missed the police by less than twenty seconds.

Michael's phone rang almost immediately after, and he scooped it easily out of his pocket, glancing at the display as he raised it. "Yeah, Sam!"

"Bad news, Mike." Sam's voice was quiet. "Your mom's place is crawling with feds. DHS, mainly. You're red-hot as of right now. I'd ditch that Charger if I was you."

"Gotcha," said Michael, pressing the button as he slid the phone back into his pocket. He glanced over at Yusuf. "We're going to have to change some plans on the fly."

He swung right, and drove toward the city's center.

---

When you need to hide, the best thing to do is have a well-thought-out plan, prepared weeks or months in advance. Failing that, mixing into a crowd works pretty well. Also, if you're associated with some distinctive piece of hardware, like a black 1974 Dodge Charger, it may be a good idea to get away from it and stay away from it. Cars tend to be easy enough to come by.

The six-storey garage opposite Dade Trust charged $38.00 per day. Michael remembered his father, when he was a kid, swearing that $5.00 a day for parking was akin to robbery with violence. Of course, his father was usually swearing about something, so Michael didn't put much stock in it.

They had spent 12 minutes and about a hundred dollars in a tourist clip shop, and now they were wearing purple belts and powder-blue tee-shirts reading "Welcome to Miami," and bumping hips a lot. Michael was slightly amused at the ease with which Yusuf had dropped into the improptu cover, his body language, like Michael's, saying "Couple." Yusuf was also carrying a cheap camera, with which he photographed statues and interesting buildings. As cover went, it wasn't much, but it would do.

They wandered and ducked among the tourist crowds, insanely marching in the Miami heat, as Michael moved them toward a slightly seedier neighborhood, until he finally saw what he was looking for. Three or four hookers stood on adjacent corners, waving at passing cars.

Michael approached the closest, a slightly plump black woman with a '70s-style fro, bleached platinum blond.

"Well, hello!" he said brightly. "I just love that do! Do you use Clairol? I think the low-priced brands are really just as good as those salon products, don't you, Raoul?"

He was looking at Yusuf for his input, who immediately scowled. "Joo get whatchoo pay for, mang," he replied, thickening his Cuban accent to the edge of parody. "I only juse the Paul Mitchell." He turned to the hooker. "Ain' tha' righ, chica?"

She looked back and forth between them. "I don't think," she said, in a rich Jamaican accent, "you gemmun are buying what I'm selling, you know what I mean?"

"What!?" Yusuf sounded affronted. "You think, we a couple of queens, not good enough for your Island Coochie?"

"Raoul!" cried Michael, tiredly, "Not again, man!"

A mid-sized Lincoln that was slowing down picked up speed again and sped away, and the hooker's eyes widened. "Look, if you two wanna buy, all good, I give you a group rate, yeah? But I got a livin' to make!"

Michael barely even spared her a glance, glaring at Yusuf. "Every time you think I'm taking you for granted, you threaten me with a vagina! You don't want it any more than I do!"

"Maybe I do!" Yusuf replied heatedly. "Joo don' know everything I do!"

"I know what you don't do!" Michael shot back. "You don't do that!" he pointed at the hooker's crotch.

There was a screech as a recent-model Cadillac pulled up beside them, and a tall, rangy black man stepped out, moving quickly up into Michael's personal space. "There a problem here, man?" he asked. "You're cramping Missy's style."

"You the pimp?" asked Michael, conversationally.

"And if I am?" the man asked.

Michael shrugged. "I'll feel better about this."

The uppercut snapped the tall man's head back, and he actually rose into the air for a moment before collapsing in a heap at their feet.

"Come on," Michael told Yusuf.

Show me a pimp with a nice, new Caddy, and I'll show you a man who won't admit it to anyone, much less to the cops, when he gets knocked out and has it taken away from him by couple of flaming, bitchy queens.

---

"Barry! How are you?"

The money launderer's voice sounded a little sad in Michael's cell phone. "At a guess? Not as well as I was before I answered the phone."

Michael chuckled, turning the Cadillac randomly North on a side street. "Now that's unkind, Barry. I never cause you real trouble!"

"But do you ever call just to chat, Michael? Just to shoot the breeze, pass the time, express how much you care for me?"

"Why would I do that?"

"So I could yell at you for wasting my valuable time! What do you need, guy?"

"Got anybody who had to bail late on a real-estate scam?" Michael asked.

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning condos or some such that are ready for occupancy but not occupied. Preferably with electricity."

There was a long pause.

"I'll get back to you, Michael, Only one I can think of is a guy I can't get jammed up. I gotta find out if he objects to potentially-violent squatters."

Michael paused. "If he's insured, that would be better. You seen the news last couple of days?"

"You're in that?"

"Yeah."

Barry laughed. "You know, Michael, that might just act in your favor."

Michael chuckled. "Yeah, I'm aware of the irony. Get back to me, Barry?"

"Sure, sure." The money launderer's voice was amused. "Hang in there, Michael."

Michael switched off the phone, and was about to return it to his pocket, when it rang again.

"Hello," he said, returning it to his ear.

"Westen." The Scots voice was firm, sounded much younger than its fourscore years and seven. "You've been making trouble."

"Not really, Commander," said Michael. "It's just sort of following me. Well, following Yusuf."

Bond's answering grunt was not without humor. "I know the feeling. Can you cache him somewhere?"

"I'll know soon," replied Michael, scolding his hindbrain for trying to work in a joke about a small Czech. "Can I call you back?"

"You can, now that I've called you with this damned thing!" Bond growled. "Progress! Feh! In my day, phones were a leash you could slip!"

Michael grinned, thinking for a moment of an age when espionage was performed without the help of satellites and the Internet, by courageous, lonely men who went into enemy territory with no backup and no lifeline. "It's a whole new world, Commander Bond."

"One I prefer to watch over the rim of my martini glass!" Bond shot back, and the phone lit up with the "Call Ended" screen.

---

There are two ways to do Covert Operations. The right way involves months or even years of planning, training, back-up and exit strategies. The other way involves being overtaken by events without being knocked on your ass. Von Clauswitz says that you must plan on your enemy's capabilities, not his intentions. But when your enemy's forces and resources are as much an unknown as his plans, all you can do is take it as it comes, and try to react fluidly enough to reach your objectives regardless. A lot of times, you have to come up with new plans on the fly.

Fortunately, I'm not bad at that.

Michael was walking back from the small bodega, two cups of yoghurt and a box of plastic spoons in hand, when his phone rang again. He handed the Yoghurt and spoons in through the passenger window to Yusuf, and pulled it from his pocket, glancing at the Caller ID before answering it, "Yeah, Barry."

"Okay, I got you something. Palm-Frond Condos. Right on the beach, opposite Bill Sadowski Park. The model is ready for occupancy, but there have been... Contract problems among the partners. If you can meet a guy in a half-hour, he'll give you a key for the model unit. The, uh... The partners aren't all that happy in business together, so if they could split a nice insurance check, well, nobody would cry about it, but there can't be any investigations pointing back at them."

Michael smiled as he slid behind the wheel. "Barry, you're a deeply, deeply beautiful man. Where do I go for the meet?"

"Target," Barry said. "The one down southwest.''

Michael winced, thinking of all those tempting bull's-eye logos. "I hate that store, Barry."

"Yeah, well, I'd have suggested Macy's, but your contact's daughter loves those Sami Hayek fashions!" Barry chuckled. "Be standing in front of the Pharmacy sign, eating yoghurt."

"Eating Yoghurt?" asked Michael.

"It seemed a good bet," Barry chuckled. "You gonna be there?"

"I'll be there, Barry. Thanks."

"No need for thanks this time, Michael. Lotta backs getting scratched here."

---

Ask any covert operative, and they'll all tell you: It's better to deal with criminals than spies or terrorists. They're reasonable. They've got a business to run, and the smoother it runs, the happier they are. There are gradations of criminals, though, and the ones you want to deal with are the seasoned pros. They just go about their business, doing their jobs, and if you don't interfere with the profit margin, they're fine. The worst to deal with are the crazy ones. Some guys get hired into a machine because they're bughouse crazy, and like to hurt or kill.

Somewhere in between, but in their way crazier, are the amateurs. They get their ideas from TV and movies, and how they're going to react when those expectations aren't met is unpredictable. When your work is secret and not entirely legal, unpredictable is bad. And a guy who ought to be working for an insurance company and grilling back-yard steaks in Boca Raton, but somehow blundered into crime, big crime especially, may make the damnedest of bad decisions if he thinks things are going wrong enough to give him a bad name with a condo association.

If you've got to deal with an amateur, though, you can do worse than a real-estate scammer. The worst thing they're likely to want to do is burn down the evidence, and if you can take that task off their hands and leave them secure in the knowledge that a professional will take care of it, they'll fall all over themselves to let you have it.

The man was shortish, red-haired, with pale, fair skin that would never tan if he stayed in Miami a hundred years, just blotch, burn, peel and repeat. He was wearing an Aloha shirt Sam would have turned his nose up at, and shorts that proved conclusively that some men should be required by federal law to wear long pants. The girl, perhaps fourteen, trailing behind him, carrying several large white plastic bags emblazoned with Target's disturbingly assassin-friendly red "Bullseye" logo, possessed his coloring without its flaws, blue eyes so startlingly pale they seemed almost gray, and a kind of serene, mature beauty that mesmerized the eye. Michael found himself thinking she should be a model, not for magizines or designer fashions, but for painters and sculptors.

"You Barry's friend?" the man asked Michael.

Michael swallowed his spoonful of yoghurt. "That I am."

The man looked around uncomfortably.

"Relax," Michael said, smiling broadly. "Nothing wrong with giving a guy a key. No need to make this look like a dope deal." He reached out and shook the man's hand.

"I wasn't ready," the man said. "Key's still in my pocket, I'm sorry!"

"I said relax," Michael replied. "This isn't some secret hand-off, it's a handshake. Just reach in your pocket and hand me the key."

The daughter's eyes were cool and quiet on Michael, assessing carefully. Michael tipped her a wink, reached out and touched her nose with her forefinger, and she smiled distantly.

Her father fumbled in his pocket and produced a standard Yale key, and Michael reached to take it with a casualness he hoped was enough for both of them.

"Thanks again," he said easily, clapping the man casually on the shoulder. "Great to see you both!" He winked at the daughter again, funny, friendly, and her cheeks pinkened with a blush.

"Keep him out of trouble, you," Michael told her, with the easy bonhomie of an old friend.

"I will," she replied, her voice soft and light. "I don't think hes cut out for this."

"Many aren't," Michael replied, smiling widely. "Nothing wrong with that." He nodded to them again, and walked back away towards the waiting Cadillac.

---

They'd been driving for about five minutes when the old man sprang upright in the back seat, saying, "Westen."

"Jesus Maria!" cried Yusuf, as Michael shook his head, regarding Bond's self-amused grey-blue eyes in the rear-view mirror.

"Hello, Mr. Yusuf," Bond said casually. "I'm helping Michael find you a way out of this mess. The name is Bond. James Bond."

"How did you get in here!?!?" Yusuf said.

"Quietly," Bond replied with a grin, "while Westen was meeting his nervous friend."

Michael was holding a key up over his shoulder. "Temporary safe-house. How's your arrangement going?"

"Goodnight called me back," said Bond. "It will be ready tomorrow, noontime, and there'll be a boat to pick up our friend,here, at dawn at the marina on Ball Island. Cayman Islander named Georges Quarrel. Father was a friend of mine."

"You sound like you're enjoying yourself," said Michael, quietly.

"Don't be fooled," replied Bond. "I'm enjoying my retirement."

Michael chuckled. "From the looks of things, your retirement isn't all that different from your career."

"It was until I made the mistake of drinking near you," growled Bond.

"Of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world..." said Michael.

"Believe what you want," grunted Bond.

Silence settled in the car for a moment, and Michael looked again at the angry grey-blue eyes in the mirror. "I'm sorry."

The eyes stayed hard for a moment, then glanced out the window. "It's easy when you're in the thick of it. It's only when you're done, you look back and count the cost. Blood is treasure, and too many friends spilled too much of it." He looked back up into Michael's eyes in the mirror, seeming to see them clearly through the red lenses of his sunglasses. "Do your best to look out for your friends, Westen. You'll be glad in the end that you did."

Michael held his gaze for a moment, before turning his attention back to the road.

---

It's far too easy, in this line of work, to think of the people you work with as assets. What are they good at, what are they good for, how do you manage them? But even spies need people in their lives, people to care about and trust. In the end of the day, it's good to have friends.

Madeline Westen's arms squeezed Mrs. Sanchez for a moment as she looked over her shoulder at Sam. "You take care of her, Sam," she said, her voice a little hoarser, a little rougher, than the cigarettes could account for. "Don't let her get hurt."

"I'm all over it, Mrs Westen," said Sam.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I wish you wouldn't call me that! You're almost old enough to date!"

Sam grinned. "But nowhere near good enough."

Madeline smiled fondly at her son's friend, flushing slightly as she released Rosa. She looked deep into her dark eyes. "You trust Sam, Rosa. Trust Sam, and Fiona, and trust my boy. They'll take care of you, I promise."

As they climbed together into the back seat of the big rental car, Rosa turned toward Fiona, reached for her hand.

"It will be all right, Mrs. Sanchez," said Fiona. "Michael's very good at this, and Sam and I aren't bad, either."

"Thanks, Fi," said Sam over his shoulder as he pulled out of Madeline's driveway. "That's about the nicest thing you've ever said about me!"

Rosa Sanchez smiled wanly. "It isn't guns or bombs I'm worried about."

Fi turned more directly toward the older woman. "What do you mean?"

"My Pidi-- Now he's Mohammad? -- He's done some terrible things, hasn't he? Terrible things." She looked down for a moment. "I don't-- How will I talk to him about it? All while he was gone, I was hating the people attacking America. Blowing up those trains, killing all those people in Madrid. The subways in London. Now I learn that was my Pidi! He did... terrible things."

"He learned from it, Mrs. Sanchez." Fiona's voice was soft and intense. "He learned from it, and now he's trying to make amends, trying to be a better person."

"It's just... It's very hard for me, Fiona." Rosa's voice was low. Quiet. "Those people... They are monstruos, monsters! My Pidi was a monster! I did not raise him to be that."

Fiona stared out the window at the passing palm trees. "No," she finally said. "No, you didn't. And that means you can help him now, help teach him that he can be more man than monster." She looked back deeply into Rosa's eyes. "He's lucky there, lucky to have you. Lucky his mother didn't teach him to value a cause over his conscience, didn't teach him that his life, that any life, was worth less than--" She paused. "Than some cause. In Iraq, the mothers of suicide bombers are proud of their sons for murdering innocents. Surely you can take pride in Mohammad turning away from that."

"I...."

Sam turned and spoke over his shoulder. "Think about all it's cost him, Mrs. Sanchez. All it's cost him, and all it's going to. He's doing that, paying that, to make amends."

"Yes..." Rosa's voice was barely a whisper. "Yes, I suppose he is."

---

You have a lot of ideas about the life of a spy, and most of them involve danger, adventure and excitement: Fights and explosions and car chases. And the truth of espionage is that there's more of that than the actual agencies would like you to believe. It really isn't all bland bureaucrats reading foreign newspapers in some office building in Washington. But still, there's an awful lot of your time spent just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Ask any spy, and he'll take gunfire over hours in an empty room any day of the week.

The "Model Unit" of the Palm-Frond Condominiums was cheerily decorated in Cuba Chic. An artfully tattered Cuban flag hung on one wall, and the furniture was all Rattan and pale silk. The three men sat tensely on the edges of a couch and chair that seemed to have been stolen from the set of the "Miami Vice" remake.

"Where are they going, again?" asked Yusuf.

Bond glared at him, but Michael just quietly said, "A woman named Veronica. Old, uh, friend of Sam's. I spoke to Sam at my Mom's house and he'd made the arrangements. They'll leave there and meet us at the marina."

"Right, right," breathed the small brown man. "And he said mi Madre seemed all right? She's, you know...coping?"

"So far," Michael answered.

Yusuf ran brown hands down his face. "She is going to kill me!"

"She loves you, Muhammad," said Bond, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Whatever you've done, she's always your mother."

Michael looked up at the clock. 2:07. It wouldn't be time to move on this until 3:30 or so. He sighed.

"They're going to meet us at the marina?" asked Yusuf, again.

"That's right, at the Marina," Michael replied as Bond sighed.

---

Being associated with some distinctive piece of hardware, like a black 1974 Dodge Charger, as I said before, can be a problem. Only in movies do successful spies have a trademark. But there are times when that handicap can be turned to your advantage. Tradecraft has a lot in common with stage magic, and as much as the man in the tuxedo wants you not to look in one direction, he wants to make sure you do look in another. And that's where the charger comes in.

The watchers by the garage were pretty good. Michael only found the third when the first and second glanced over at him. He ducked almost low enough to be hidden by a Taurus wagon, and had to spend an extra few seconds crouched behind the Volvo before he could be sure they'd see him ducking into the garage and slipping around the frame of the door to the stairwell.

He took a couple of extra moments looking around and under the Charger. The smart move for the cell would be to watch it and try to follow Michael where he was going, but his experience wasn't that al Qaeda always – or even often – chose smart over destructive, and it would do their plans no good if the thing blew sky-high when he put the key into the ignition.

But these guys were smarter than the average jihadist, and the only unpleasantness Michael met when he turned the key was the Charger's all-too-usual stubborn, grinding unwillingness to start. He juggled gas and ignition, and coaxed the engine to life.

The old Dodge V-8, though, was like a high-school athlete. Hard to get to wake up in the morning, but, once roused, a true powerhouse, roaring with solid confidence as Michael spun it down and through the six-storey garage, letting the tires squeal loudly amidst the concrete walls.

The Charger burst forth from the garage in an explosion of splinters from the wooden barricade, and Michael swore quietly to himself while fishtailing loudly around the corner, thinking what replacing it would add to the expenses on this operation. For a long piece of wood painted yellow and black, a traffic barricade was terrifically expensive.

There was a long, tense moment before the headlights showed up behind him, and then Michael could relax, knowing he'd be leading a cell of homicidal terrorists back to his client.

---

When true fanatics swear upon your death, they're like the terminator. Criminals, you can deal with by making killing you more expensive and troublesome than leaving you alone, and most governments can be persuaded not to kill you in exchange for cooperation, but the real crazies will hunt you forever if that's what it takes, and absolutely will not stop until you are dead. On the other hand, very few have Austrian accents. Anyway, if terrorists want to kill you, the only way to stop them is to let them. And that can mean bringing them home when the time is right.

Michael actually had to circle the condo building to bring the Charger back to where he could park it somewhere visible. Instinct had taken over for a moment, and he'd forgotten he wanted it seen. It was almost two full minutes before the Pontiac cruised slowly by, driver making a great show of not looking at the condo. Michael heard it speed up almost immediately thereafter, and quickly fade into the distance.

It was another five minutes before the rented Buick Regal showed up, and the lean man with the dark mustache stepped out of it. "Mike? You there?"

Michael stepped forward from the shadows, threw the keys, and his brother caught them deftly. "Don't get cute, Nate. Just drive it to the mall."

Nate's face froze. "Yeah, thanks, Mike. Appreciate the vote of confidence."

"It's serious this time, Nate. You could get hurt."

"All right, all right! Straight back to Mom's, then!"

Michael shook his head. "The mall, Nate. If all goes well, you can pick it up tomorrow, and keep it for a week. But I don't want it sitting in front of Mom's house or yours until I'm sure these guys are gone, you got that?"

Nate sighed. "All right, Mike, all right, I got it."

Michael allowed himself a bit of a smile. "Good man, Nate. You're really helping me here. Don't think it's nothing."

Bombs are nasty business, and you never want to be near them when they explode. But sometimes, you have no choice. If you have to let someone think they blew you up without actually going sky-high, then you want the kitchen or the bathroom.

In the kitchen, the place to hide is the refrigerator. Not behind it. In it. I know, I know, you spent your childhood hearing how when an old refrigerator is thrown away, the door has to be removed, and they were deathtraps for children. That comes from the old days when the fridge door had a latch that locked it from the outside. The modern fridge is held closed with a magnet, and the problem isn't getting out afterwards, but keeping it closed during the explosion.

If you're small and thin enough, the kitchen also offers the dishwasher and the oven. The bathroom may offer a decent bathtub. If it's a shower enclosure, stick to the fridge.

Bond looked sourly down into the antique iron claw-footed tub. "It's been a few years since I had to be flexible enough to get into one of these well enough to be under cover."

"Think you'll be better off in the fridge?" asked Michael.

Bond just grunted and climbed in, sliding down to lay on his back, his knees above the level of the rim.

Michael nodded and smiled, and trotted back to the kitchen. The dishwasher and fridge both stood open. Their inner racks had been stacked neatly under the hardwood table. Yusuf was pacing in the room, running his hands back over his head nervously.

"I almost wish they'd hurry," he told Michael.

"I know the feeling." Michael looked again into the emptied-out space of the washer.

They kept looking out through the streetside window, and it almost killed them. Michael was never sure what led him to look back out the kitchen window at the beachfront, fifty feet behind the condo, but when he did, he saw the prow of a cigarette boat pointed right at them, a huge plume of spray rising behind it.

"Yusuf! Get in, now, now now!"

Yusuf ducked into the fridge, pulling the door behind him, and Michael glanced again back out at the leaping, driving prow, and forced himself to take his time, sitting back into the open dishwasher, sliding his legs in, reaching to pull the door shut. As he pulled up the doorway, he heard the low thrum of the boat's engines, pitch suddenly changing up to a howl as the boat leapt up the sand.

Then he was in darkness and silence, and the seconds seemed to stretch out into hours before the sudden percussive SLAMMM!!!!!! and the little metal box was flying, tumbling, with Michael inside it, feeling like he now knew what a die felt like in a game of craps aboard a ship in a hurricane.

There was a blast of heat that he did feel, and one wall of the cube as it settled into place grew warm quickly.

The sound twanged on and on in Michael's head as he shook it, trying to bring himself back to full consciousness. As near as he could tell from inside it, the washer had been thrown around inside the kitchen like dice in a cup, bouncing off walls, ceiling, counters. It had come to rest door-down, and Michael threw his weight toward the heat, knowing that the side with open flames against it was most likely not to be obstructed. Once, twice, and the dishwater teetered and fell over, and Michael sighed.

He pushed at the dishwasher door with his hands. It didn't budge. Had the latch been thrown? He reached up and touched the knob where the latch fastened, and it was bent sideways, with no hooked tongue in evidence. Not latched then: the pounding flight had bent the dishwasher out of true, wedging it shut. Michael's eyes flickered around the near-perfect darkness, saw slender orange lines around the door that showed the seal was no longer watertight, and he tried to shift backward, so he could bring his feet to bear on the door.

There was a sharp rap on the outside, and the rough Scots voice: "Westen!"

"It's jammed, Commander."

Bond's voice sounded exasperated. "Hang on, then!"

There was silence, then a scrape, and then a metallic screech, and the door popped open. Bond stood crouched, backlit by fire, looking relaxed as he dropped the prybar. Michael slithered out of the cramped metal box, and stood, pulling his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth in the eye-smarting smoke.

"I'll get the car," Bond said. "You fetch Yusuf."

Michael glanced around through the smoke and flames as Bond danced agilely around smoking debris to the front door, and realized that his little hidey-hole had been blown out of the kitchen and into the living room. He turned to the kitchen doorway, and saw a growing inferno, pieces of boat and bits of appliances everywhere.

By the counter, with his back to Michael, Yusuf stood, holding a large carving knife in his left hand as if he were getting ready to slice a steak. The orange glow of the flames turned the sweaty brown of his skin into molten gold, and the lean muscles of his arms and back were as beautiful as if carved by Michelangelo. He stood perfectly still for a moment, head bowed as if in prayer, and then drew a breath, and moved. In one smooth motion, he lay his good right hand palm-up on the counter, while the left hand raised easily and fell quickly, the long, sharp kitchen blade removing the smallest three fingers of his right hand, and a web of skin connecting them. He grunted harshly, coughed in the smoke, then picked up the severed chunk of his hand, and slashed it savagely sideways across a ragged edge of torn metal from the stove, leaving the bloody web of flesh a tattered mess.

Michael stared, eyes wide, mouth a tight line.

Yusuf turned to him, tossing the bloody digits to the floor. "Souvenir," he said. "Help them believe." His mouth crinkled into a kind of smile. "Everybody needs to believe."

There was a bang and whoosh of flames as an aerosol can in a cabinet went up, and the reality of the burning house caught up with them.

"Let's go," said Michael.

---

In the world of secrets and lies, the word "Legend" refers to a cover story. It's all the details, many of them verifiable, of all the lies of a covert agent's life.

But sometimes spies are so interested in our tradecraft that we forget that these little words of ours have other meanings, older meanings, meanings from the real world. A world where legends are heroes or monsters. A real world where heroes and monsters are, in the end, only human.

Michael stood back in the shadows, watching, as Rosa Sanchez slid from the back of Veronica's Cadillac. The blonde woman sat stiffly behind the wheel, Sam equally stiff beside her.

Rosa's eyes swept the dock, found Mohammad Yusuf, and she ran to him, embracing him. The hiss of his breath told her he was hurt, and she stared wide-eyed down at his crudely-bandaged right hand.

"Pidi! You're hurt!"

"It's nothing, Mama. I did it to make us safe."

"But, Pidi!" Her face and voice were profoundly shocked. "Your hand."

"Mohammad," said Yusuf, his voice gentle and kind and very, very firm. "My name is still Mohammad. I did awful things, Mama, in Allah's name, but I still believe in him."

"Mohammad, Pidi, I don't care!" She embraced him again, burying her face against his chest. "I have my boy back."

There was a sound of wind and cloth and rope, and in the pearlescent pre-dawn light, a medium-sized boat approached under carefully-managed sail. Michael trotted up, joining Bond at the deck to catch a thrown lanyard, and they pulled the vessel to the docks.

The man who jumped nimbly from deck to dock was tall and slender, with skin the color of Cafe au Lait.

"Cap'n!" His voice was deep and resonant, with the tropical flavors of the islands in his accent. "So good to see you again! How's retirement!"

"A damned sight too active for my tastes, Georges!" replied Bond with a laugh clasping the big, brown hand in both of his.

"Not if you're the man my father told me about," replied Georges, easily.

Bond looked down. "I'd call him a damned liar, if he was here to laugh about it."

"They's a few feet, Cap'n, o' dat Crab Key, where grass grows green and flowers sweet, an' that's all the eulogy he'll ever need." He turned toward the embracing pair. "Mrs. Sanchez? Mr. Yusuf? I'm Georges Quarrel. Please, come aboard, the less time we we're here, the better. It'll be much of a day's sail out to motor range, and then a few more hours to Jamaica. Might may be we'll do a bit of fishing. Bring in a pus-fella or two."

Quarrel helped his passengers aboard the boat, looking askance at Yusuf's mutilated hand, blood soaking through the crude bandage. "I'll see to that, sir," he said, "once we're out of harbor."

He shook Bond's hand once more, nodded over at Michael, who was standing now with Sam and Fiona and Veronica, the latter looking both confused and moved by what was going on here. "Ladies," he boomed, "Gemmun, it's been a pleasure!"

Then Bond was tossing lines to him, something in his bearing suggesting that he'd enjoy jumping aboard and feeling the sea under him again, and Quarrel was pushing off, aiming for open water, and letting out a sheet. The wind caught the sail, and the boat was quickly receding.

Michael watched it go with an odd, contemplative half-smile.

"Sam..." Veronica's voice was hushed. "Sam, that was a lovely thing you just did."

"I was only part of it, baby. Michael's--"

"Michael's Michael. I'm talking to you." She took him by the hand. "Come on," she said. "Let's go talk."

Sam shrugged at Fiona as he let the blonde woman pull him back to the car.

Fiona returned it with a smile and a nod toward Michael. She stepped close to him. "What happened to Yusuf's hand? Hurt in the explosion?"

"You could say that," replied Michael. "He cut off three fingers with a kitchen knife, left them as evidence. Proof of death." He paused. "There was a moment, there, though... Maybe it was more than that. Maybe some sort of..." He trailed off, shrugged.

"Hell of an offering," murmured Fiona, her own eyes dark.

"Well!" Bond's voice was almost hearty as he approached. "That's that, then. You did well, Westen."

Michael nodded. "Thank you, Commander."

Bond turned to Fi. "Miss Glenanne, it's been a pleasure."

Her smile in return was radiant. "Could still be even more of one."

Bond smiled. "Once upon a time, girl."

"Why not this time?" she asked, her voice husky. Michael winced.

Bond looked back at her for a moment. "Good point," he finally said. "Westen, the keys?"

Michael silently handed the old man the keys to the stolen Caddie, and Bond handed her into it as if it were a carriage.

As Bond rounded to the driver's door, Michael saw Fiona look down at her own right hand, her expression very still. Then the door slammed, and she smiled brightly over at Bond, and the car started easily, and spun away into Miami, leaving Michael behind, alone, in the settling dust.

Legends are heroes and monsters, and heroes and monsters are no more than men. In the grand cosmic scheme of things, questions of good and evil, sin and redemption, are way above my pay-grade. But there's one thing I do know: When you're crossing back over from the darkness to the light, there is always, always, a price to be paid.

THE END