0738 EST (SAME MORNING)
OUTSIDE THE GATES OF
THE MANDERLEY ESTATE

Sarah and Julie exited the car first, each looking around, making sure they were alone. Harm was the last to crawl out of the vehicle, also shutting his door quietly.
“You didn’t have to come,” Sarah told him.
“Yes, I did. I wasn’t about to let you do this alone... especially considering...” Harm said, looking her up and down.
“I wish you’d leave THAT out of it,” Sarah said, moving right in front of Harm. She said something else quietly to him, then glanced over to Julie.
Harm nodded, then removed a gun from his belt. Sarah pulled two guns and a small box of bullets from the trunk of her car, placing one gun in her own belt and handing the other to Julie. Harm raised his eyebrows when he saw Sarah hand the girl a gun.
“Can you handle that thing?” he asked Julie, gesturing to the sidearm in her hand.
Julie responded by grabbing a handful of bullets, loading the gun and cocking it.
A shocked expression crossed Harm’s face. “I guess that’s a yes,” he said.
Sarah smiled at Julie. “You and Harm split up and take the grounds and the beach, I’ll take the house.”

Harm and Julie jogged along the garden path leading down to the beach. They came to a small cottage nestled in the trees. “I’m going in,” Harm said to Julie. “Cover me.”
Julie nodded once and raised her gun to her shoulder. As Harm entered the small house, Julie stepped a bit farther along the path, looking out towards the beach. She was about to turn and walk the other direction when something caught her eye. From the far distance, it looked like simply a red blob, but she had a pretty good idea what it really was.
“Harm!” she called towards the house, unwilling to take her eyes off the figure in the distance.
Harm raced out of the house, gun in hand. “What is it?” he asked.
“I think I found them,” she said, pointing to the red blob.
Together they raced the rest of the way down the path to get a closer look at the figure. They stopped when the dirt met the sand. The figure was now clear. It was him. He was seated on the beach, a small child resting in his lap. Julie put her gun in her belt and ran down the beach towards them. Harm hung back, allowing the girl to race ahead of him.
Leigha saw her sister coming down the beach and jumped up from her father’s lap, running to meet her.
Clayton Webb watched as his daughters met on the beach, the oldest picking up the youngest and swinging her around. Julie put Leigha down and together the two started toward their father.
“Why?” Julie asked when she and Leigha had finally reached their dad. “Why?” she asked again, this time tears welling up in her eyes.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Clay told his daughter. “I never wanted to hurt you. I was only trying to keep you safe.”
Julie nodded as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Daddy,” she said softly, throwing herself against him.
Clay embraced his daughter, lifting her off the ground and planting a gentle kiss on her head.
The pair finally let go when a man neared them on the beach. “Rabb,” Clay said as Harm finally met them.
“Webb.” Harm replied with an icy tone.
“Oh, Julianne, you didn’t drag Sarah into this, did you?” Clay said, suddenly realizing why Harm was there.
“I didn’t drag anyone into anything,” Julie replied, defensively.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Clay said, glancing up the hill towards the house. “Is she up there?”
Julie nodded. “We split up to look for you.”
“We’d better go find her,” he said, staring up at the house.
“Why?” Harm asked.
Clay, ignoring Harm, turned to his oldest daughter. Take your sister off the grounds.”
“Dad?...”
“NOW!” he said sharply.
Julie obeyed and grabbed her sister by the hand, running with her down the beach toward the side gate.
“What’s wrong?” Harm asked, but Clay had already begun to march up towards the house. “Webb?” Harm shouted, running to catch up with him.
Clay stopped about 25 meters from the house and crouched down behind a shrub. “Keep you voice down, Rabb,” he said quietly as Harm came up beside him.
“What’s going on?” Harm asked, watching as Clay pulled a gun from beneath his shirt.
“There’s someone in the house with Sarah.”
“Who?” Harm said, grabbing Clay by the collar.
“It doesn’t matter,” Clay said, pulling away from Harm and beginning to load his gun. “Sarah’s in there with him alone. He must have finally figured out where I’ve been hiding.”
“He?” Harm asked.
“Look, Rabb, you’re going to have to trust me on this.”
“I find that rather hard to do considering you’ve been dead for the past three weeks.”
Clay glanced over at Harm. “I don’t have enough time to explain,” he said, turning his attention back to his gun. “Unless you don’t mind getting Sarah back in pieces.”
Harm gritted his teeth. “Let’s go!”

Sarah was sitting on the floor in one of the estate’s parlors. Her gun had been kicked to the other side of the room and her eye was beginning to swell from her first encounter with the man. “Now, Sarah, we will wait for your friend to come. I know he must have figured out I am here by now.” The man smiled and stepped closer to one of the room’s windows looking for Clay.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Sarah began to crawl towards her gun. The man noticed what she was doing and walked up behind her, smacking her across the face.
“Now, now, Sarah. Perhaps you’re not as smart as I thought you would be,” he said, as she fell on her face, her mouth cut open and bleeding.
The man turned back to the window and spotted Clay entering the house through the kitchen. “Get up,” he told Sarah. She did so, dabbing at the blood coming from her mouth. He grabbed her and pulled her into a corner. “Quiet,” he ordered.
Clay entered the room from the doorway, his gun aimed at the opposite wall.
“Well Mr. Webb. What a pleasant surprise,” the man said, aiming his gun at Clay’s back. “Drop your weapon and kick it away.”
Clay did so, then turned to look at the man and Sarah.
“Good, Clayton,” the man said. “Now, sit.”
Clay once again did as he was instructed and the man threw her down next to him. Clay looked over at Sarah, who was still bleeding, and mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry.’
She stared at him for a moment before looking away.
“So, Simon,” Clay said, drawing the man’s attention. “You’ve resorted to smacking women around again.”
Anger flooded Simon’s face and he raised his hand to strike Clay.
“DON’T,” Harm said from the doorway, pointing his gun at Simon’s back. He had managed to sneak in through the window.
“Well, Mr. Webb. Still have a good assortment of friends around, do we?” Simon laughed, then aimed his gun at Sarah. “You shoot, she’s dead,” he said, turning to look at Harm. “Your choice.”
“Shoot him, Harm,” Sarah said.
Harm looked down at Sarah, deep into her eyes, and dropped his gun.
“Good,” Simon said, and pointed to the floor next to Sarah. “Now, sit.”
Harm sat, stealing a glance at Sarah before turning his attention back to Simon.
“Now, Mr. Webb. Where are those beautiful daughters of yours?”
A gunshot sounded and Simon fell to his knees.
“Right behind you,” Julie said, firing two more shots into Simon’s back, killing him.
Clay stood and walked over to his daughter, removing the gun from her hands. “One shot would have done it, Julianne.”
“I wanted to be sure,” Julie replied, her voice shaky. “He... he was the one that killed Mom,” she said this not as a question, but as a statement. “I recognized his voice.”
Clay looked down at the man that lay dead before him, then back to his daughter. “I killed his brother.”
Julie turned to look at her dad. “Is that why he shot Mom?”
“He was looking for me. She wouldn’t tell him where I was,” he glanced over at Sarah. “He just got out of prison and decided to come after me and my family.” Clay took a deep breath. “Where’s Leigh?” he asked.
“Hiding in the garden cottage. I figured she’d be safe there.”
“Go get her. I need to talk with Sarah alone for a moment,” he said. “Oh, Rabb,” he added before leading Sarah outside. “Call Kershaw and tell him I’m here, would you?”
Harm rolled his eyes.
“Kershaw?” Julie asked.
“Director of the CIA,” Harm replied.
She patted him on the arm as she made her way to the door. “Good luck.”

“Would you say something?” Clay demanded as he gently dabbed Sarah’s mouth with a handkerchief. She was standing next to him on the house’s deck, staring out at the ocean.
“What do you want me to say, Clay?” she asked, shoving his hand away. “That everything’s okay now that you’re not really dead? That I understand why you did this to me... to those two little girls?” She pulled away from his grasp. “No. I’ll never understand. Never.” She turned back to the ocean.
“Sarah, I love you. I did this for my children. Why can’t you see that?” Clay said.
Sarah turned and slapped him across the face. “Don’t you ever say that you did this for the good of your children. You weren’t there to see their hearts breaking. You weren’t there when Julie came to me in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because every time she closed her eyes, she saw images of that decayed body that she thought was you. You didn’t hear your eight year old’s cries or see her tears when I had to explain that she couldn’t ever see her daddy again, ” she stopped speaking as her eyes filled with tears. “No, Clay, you can’t tell me that you did this for their good.”
She began to walk away, but Clay caught her by the arm. “I did this for you too, Sarah,” he said. “I do love you.”
Sarah took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “No. You couldn’t love me and leave me to believe you were dead. You couldn’t have left me with two girls I’d never met to try and explain... no... NO,” she pulled her arm free and walked down the path toward the beach, avoiding contact with Kershaw as she did so.
“Sarah!” Clay called after her.
“Webb!” Kershaw called after passing Sarah.
Clay came down to meet him. “I can explain sir,” he said, looking down to Sarah.
“There won’t be any explaining this time,” Kershaw said and Clay looked at him. “In the government’s eyes, you are deceased, Mr. Webb. You will continue to be dead to the organization.”
“Sir?”
“Your status will not be reinstated, Clayton. I have some papers for you to sign and I believe you have a standard issue gun that I will need back,” he stopped speaking and began to walk into the house.
Clay looked back down towards the beach.
“Now, Webb.”

1116 EST
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLSCHURCH
(3 WEEKS LATER)

She raised her hand and rapped on the wooden door before her.
“Enter!” a voice called from the other side.
Slowly she turned the knob and stepped into the dimly lit room. She smiled. Sarah was sitting at her desk, surrounded by stacks of papers, taking a sip from a coffee mug.
“Julie!” she said, rising to give the girl a hug.
Sarah closed the door and motioned for Julie to sit down.
“How have you been?” Sarah asked.
“Good,” Julie responded. “Really good,” she smiled. “How about you? You didn’t look so good the last time I saw you.”
“I’m all right. Marines are tough,” Sarah smiled. “So, what brings you by?”
“I came to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
Julie nodded. “We’re moving tomorrow.”
“Moving? West, east, south, north?” Sarah asked, resuming her seat behind her desk.
Julie let out a small laugh. “Switzerland.”
“As in the country of?” Sarah asked, leaning forward on her desk.
“The very one.”
“Wow.”
“Dad needed to get away from everyone that knew who he was, what he was a part of...” she stopped speaking. “We’re all going to start fresh. Leigha will go to a new school, I have a job lined up at an advertising agency, and Dad gets to be a civilian for the first time in years.”
Sarah smiled. “So, you’re happy about the move? I mean Switzerland isn’t exactly the most ‘happenin’ place’.”
Julie smiled. “Dad told us it was either that or Siberia.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Good choice.”
“Yeah,” Julie chuckled.
“How is he?” Sarah asked, fidgeting with the handle of her coffee cup.
“Okay. He’s still getting used to being a normal person,” she pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m still having some trust issues with him. And he with me. He’s not used to relying on anyone. With time, though, I’m sure Leigha and I can change that.”
“You two are good for him,” Sarah said.
Julie nodded and smiled. “I’d better get going. I still have some packing to do. I don’t want to leave anything behind.”
“Yeah, moving across the world isn’t exactly like moving down the block,” Sarah said, then chuckled. “Or to another state for that matter.”
Julie nodded in agreement. “Sarah, I want to thank you for everything you did for us. I never could have gotten through it without you.” She stood and picked up her purse from the floor.
”Keep in touch, will you?” Sarah said, coming around from the desk.
Julie’s eyes misted with tears as she stepped closer to Sarah and enveloped her in a hug. “Of course,” she answered. “I’m going to miss you,” she added, gently pulling away.
“Me too.”
Julie took a deep breath, wiped a tear from her cheek and opened the door. “Bis dann, Sarah,” she said, grinning.
“Adieu.”