Cars flashed by Lawrence's van in the fading sunlight, their tail lights reflecting off the pavement like falling embers. Inside the van, Conagher half-knelt between the front and middle row of seats, one hand gripped on Lawrence's chair as he peered through the windshield. In the passenger's seat, Ivan hummed to himself happily, tapping his feet to a beat that only he could hear.

"We're gonna miss him if you don't speed it up a little." Conagher snuck a glance at the speedometer. "You're doing twenty-five. It's forty through here."

Lawrence shrugged, ignoring what felt like the hundredth car that flew past them with its horn blaring. "She doesn't go much faster than this, mate."

"If you'd just let me have a look at the engine-"

"None doin'. I won't have you tamperin' with my car." Lawrence shot Conagher a glare through the rearview mirror. "Knowin' you, you'd stick 'er on tank treads and have 'er firin' lasers."

Conagher shrugged. "They'd be smallish lasers. Discreet-like. Sophisticated, even."

"No." The van approached a street sign. Lawrence tapped the brake and squinted. "Standifer Road. That the one?"

"Nah, we're looking for Brinkley. Pretty sure it's a few blocks up."

With a sigh, Lawrence coaxed the van back up to its top speed. The motor rattled in protest, sending black clouds of smoke billowing into the air. Ivan continued to hum, occasionally punctuating the tune with Russian words neither of his companions could translate.

"So how did you know Soldier's out here anyway, mate?"

"I was late to work and took a shortcut down Brinkley. The idiot ran out in front of me with a stop sign in his hands. Nearabouts ran him over."

"Did he recognize you?"

"Pff. No idea. He hollered something at me, but I was so late I just kept going. When I came back by that evening, I tried to talk to him, but he told me fraternizing with an on-duty peace officer was a fineable offense. Then he threw a hamburger wrapper at my head."

"Yeah, that sounds like 'im." Lawrence tapped the right blinker. "Brinkley. There she is."

As the van slowed, Conagher shifted so he was sitting in the middle seat. He shoved a pile of dirty clothes aside, pausing to cast a disgusted glance in Lawrence's direction, then tugged the seat belt out of its holster and snapped it around his midsection.

"What you doin' that for? We're almost there."

"I told you before. The idiot ran out in front of me, and I don't fancy flyin' through yer windshield when y'hit yer brakes."

"Ah. Makes sense." The steering wheel creaked under Lawrence's tight grip. "Where's the crossing?"

"Right up the road. Y'can't miss it."

All three men leaned forward as they neared the intersection. A knot of students waited at one side of the road, surrounding a slicker-clad figure holding an eight-foot stop sign. Lawrence grinned. "There 'e is."

But as the crossing guard moved forward, Conagher frowned. A white-haired woman stood in front of them, her yellow jacket bright in the van's headlights. She smiled at the men in the van and gave them a half-wave as the kids surged around her and across the street.

"Nice evening, huh?" She called through the van's open passenger side window.

Ivan nodded. "Is very nice."

As the last few stragglers hurried to the other side of the road, Lawrence whipped around to face the back of the van. "I thought you said he'd be here, Conagher."

The woodshop teacher returned Lawrence's glare with one of his own. "I ain't psychic, Mundy. This was my best bet."

Lawrence ran a hand over his face and bit back a groan. The leads he'd garnered in six weeks of scraping for any news of his former colleagues had run out, extending only as far as Ivan and Conagher's locations. The unexpected knowledge from Conagher had been a stroke of luck, one he'd counted on to lead them to the rest of the Reds. Now they'd hit a dead end. He had four days to find the rest of the team and get them back to Tuefort, otherwise it was back to a life of fishing squirrels out of chimneys for terrified housewives. Miss Pauling had made it clear – if he couldn't get them back to the fort by then, Redmond's chunk of land was as good as lost. Lawrence should have known better, should have expected the dumb luck that took him to Ivan and Conagher to run out. A string of whispered curses flew through Lawrence's lips.

"'scuse me, Miss." Conagher undid his seatbelt and scooted so he was between the two front seats again. He leaned across Ivan until he was halfway out the window. "We're lookin' for a, uh, friend. Calls himself John Doe. Last we heard from 'im, he was workin' as a crossing guard here."

Something hard flitted across the woman's eyes. Her free hand balled into a fist. "Oh, I remember him." With one last look to make sure her charges had made it across the street, the woman lowered her sign.

Lawrence opened his eyes. Were they back on track?

"Owch! Engineer's elbow is in Ivan's spleen!"

"Ah, sorry about that." Conagher leaned back and half-crawled to the van's side door. It swung open with a squeal, allowing Conagher to hoist himself out. "Y'wouldn't happen to know where we could find him, would you ma'am?"

For one long moment, the woman stared at them, and Conagher was afraid she was about to send them off without any word on Doe. She hadn't looked too happy when they'd brought him up, after all.

Finally, the crossing guard took a deep breath. "Pull up next to the curb. I might be able to point you in the right direction." She turned and made her way back to the sidewalk, her tightly-coiled gray hair bouncing as she walked.

Conagher turned and pulled the door shut. "You heard her. Pull in."

"John Doe was terminated from this position last week." The crossing guard – she had introduced herself as Carol – rested the stop sign against the wall next to her. "There were some… questions about his methods."

"Questions?" Conagher crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the van. Lawrence stood next to him, his expression unreadable.

The look Carol gave him dripped with suspicion. "I imagine you fellows are well aware of the way John acts if you call him a friend. They said he had a habit of hitting windshields with his sign if they didn't stop fast enough for his liking. Wound up with more complaints in a month of working here than most guards do in their entire careers."

Ivan nodded his approval from his position in the passenger's seat. He leaned out the open window as much as his size would allow. "That sounds like Soldier."

Lawrence's stomach churned. There was no sense in telling that oversized idiot to shut up about old nicknames. They'd already done it a hundred times. He turned his attention back to Carol. If she had heard Ivan use Doe's old moniker, she didn't react to it. "And, er, do y'happen to know where he took off to, after he left here?"

Carol shrugged. "He was always talking about making extra money doing 'real man's work.' Far as we could gather, he spent most nights at the pit."

"The pit?"

Conagher cleared his throat. "It's a fighting ring in the back room of that tavern by the highway. Been there a couple times, myself." He turned to Carol. "And you think we could find him there?"

"Well, he sure isn't welcome around here anymore." Wind whipped at Carol's jacket. She jammed her hands in her pockets. "That's the only other place I can think of."

Thunder sounded overhead. Lawrence glanced at the sky with a scowl. The van handled even worse in the rain. "Let's get movin' then, mates. Soon."

The Texan directed a grateful nod in Carol's direction. "We sure do appreciate the help."

With a shrug, Carol wrapped her hand around the stop sign and turned to leave. "Just don't be bringing him back here. We've all had enough of him."

"Well, folks," Lawrence said as he and Conagher slid back inside the van. "Who's up for a little excitement?"

Author's note: Technically this is only half a chapter. Think of it as a preview, or a stand-alone, or a deleted scene. I cut it in two for a couple reasons. One, I didn't want to upload a 3,400 word document and make some mondo-chapter that would be a beast on one page. Two, this part of the story really isn't necessary, but I loved the idea of Solly having a brief stint as a crossing guard and didn't want to cut it out.

What I'll do is upload the second half - the actual plot-progressing half - Friday, like usual.

Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for the reviews so far. Tune in for more tomorrow!