"This is ridiculous!"

"Agreed."

"This is madness!"

"Agreed!"

"Snipers and trackers are a peculiar breed, but they just don't turn into murderers overnight!"

"Juan, I believe Ian is as guilty as much as you do. You're preaching to the choir."

Valentin and Juan were loitering on the small over-hang on the 2nd floor of Headquarters which looked down over the main lobby but also gave them a good line-of-sight to the door of Dan's office. Valentin was leaning his forearms on the rail, starring downwards, while Juan leaned against the rail and watched like a hawk for Asha's appearance.

The minutes dragged on and on, but finally Asha appeared. Her face was shell-shocked, and her face was somehow near chalky pale even underneath her copper complexion. Her feet seemed to be moving on automatic, since her eyes were set in a thousand-yard stare, barely seeing what was in front of her.

Since she was heading toward the stairs at the front of the building, Juan quickly guessed that she was going outside.

"You follow her," Valentin said, "I'm going to get her coat from her locker."

Valentin hurried off toward the locker rooms, and Juan slowly followed Asha, careful to keep her in his sights but also careful to give her space. The two went outside, as Juan had predicted, and Asha started wandering away from Headquarters, seeming to pick a path at random. For a long time they wandered along. Valentin caught up quickly, his long legs easily eating up the distance.

"As she even noticed you yet?" He asked quietly.

"I don't think so," Juan replied.

Valentin muttered something harshly under his breath in Russian and then fell silent. Juan's Russian was nearly non-existent, so he had no idea what his friend had said, but he suspected that he didn't really want to know what Valentin had said, considering his tone-of-voice.

After over 45 minutes of walking, Juan finally saw a pattern in Asha' rambling path: they had almost made a giant loop—first following the main road away from Headquarters, then splitting off at a nearby service road, and then cutting back through the woods until they reached a small hill about a quarter-mile away from Headquarters that overlooked the building and the outdoor range but was nowhere close to the line of fire if a shot missed the backstop.

Asha sunk to a seat on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Juan and Valentin closed the distance between them, carefully making sure to make some noise so not to startle the probably jumpy sniper. She looked up when Valentin intentionally stepped on and cracked a small, thin branch.

"Hey," he said.

Looking up and back, she gave them a weak smile but did not reply. Gratefully accepting the jacket Valentin extended, she draped it around her shoulders and pulled it tight around her. The fact that Asha, who was rarely seen even in late fall without at least one jacket, had gone outside in just her vest was another sign of how troubled and rattled she was.

Valentin and Juan settled down beside her for a long vigil. The minutes ticked by slowly. Each was lost in thought.

After a long time had passed, Asha finally said, "I hate this. My life is falling apart around my ears, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Ian is in danger, and there's nothing I can do to help him."

"You can pray," Juan, a devout Roman Catholic, replied, "The Father always hears the prayers of His children."

"I hope you're right!" Asha's tone was doubtful, but she bowed her head nonetheless.

Pulling his battered but familiar wood rosary from his coat pocket, Juan joined her in prayer, crossing himself and then starting to murmur softly, "En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amen."