Belated Christmas present for you guys. Happy holidays and Happy New Year.

BTW, I'm doing some revising of the earlier chapters, so don't be surprised if you re-read them and they aren't exactly how you remember them.

3-7-77

October 8, 2034

Kalispell, Montana

I shouldn't have gone to Helena. Important treaty negotiations or no important treaty negotiations, article or no article, job or no job, I should have stayed in Kalispell; should have kept an eye on the house; shouldn't have left the two of them alone for three days.

It all started out fine: I left Helena when I was supposed to, I got back into town without any problems, I turned in the story Bill wanted, I had lunch with my correspondent friends, I left work in a pretty good mood. Everything was fine right up until I saw tire tracks on the dirt road to my house.

I don't have mail delivered to my house, I don't have service with Schwann's, and my correspondent friends didn't have a car. So why would there be tire tracks on the road to my house?

I knew then that something was very, very wrong.

I might've speeded, but I didn't care; I had to get back to the house, had to see if everything – and everyone – was where I'd left it. When I pulled into the drive, I stopped only long enough to turn off the car and lights before rushing through the door to confront what was inside.

Glass from the window littered the kitchen counter, sending shards of afternoon light to the far corners of the ceiling. I found my pantry and refrigerator wide open – both completely empty. There was a heap in front of the closet at the end of the hall; closer inspection revealed Grandpa Corny's paperbacks and Gram's Campfire Girl dress thrown carelessly in a jumble of clothes. The light was on in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet cleared out, the toilet paper gone. The pictures in the hall had been tossed into a haphazard stack right next to the couch, leaving the walls bare save for the nails, jutting out into empty space like dead trees after a forest fire.

I picked up an aerial photo of Our Lady of the Rockies and one of me and Cassidy the day she graduated high school. I could barely see the images, though – they were obscured by the large, spider-web cracks in the glass, created when they were taken off the wall and chucked just a little too hard. The images blurred still further as water came to my eyes.

It was while I was sitting there, hugging a pair of pictures to my chest, that I heard a light thump!. I froze. After a few seconds passed, I heard another one. Then I heard another noise; the sound of someone fiddling around with –

The door to the basement flew open with a loud bang!. I cried out and jumped to my feet like a startled cat, dropping the pictures. As I did so, I heard an exclamation of pain from just inside the door, and even in my distraught state of mind, I knew the voice. I jumped over the pile of pictures, ran in front of the basement door, and had just enough time to brace myself before I was sent toppling to the ground by at least two hundred pounds of muscle and bone.

I have never been so happy to have a pistol pointed at me in my life.

"Mary?" The gun drooped as recognition – and relief – lit Johannes's eyes. "Thank God, it's you."

"Yeah, it's – holy crap, are you okay?!" I'd just noticed that some of his hair, which usually looked like polished sliver, had taken on a rustier shade and luster, and I didn't need to play twenty questions to figure out why. "What happened?!"

"I'm fine," he said. "I just got a bad knock on the head. I'll be fine. But…" His eyes made contact with mine.

Up to that point, I'd seen many emotions in Johannes Mueller's eyes. I'd seen anger, irritation, boredom, confusion, shock, frustration, amusement, contentment, relief, merriment, sorrow, despair. However, when we locked eyes that October afternoon, I saw something that I had never seen in his face before, and the instant I realized what it was, my bones went cold.

It was pure, raw, unadulterated fear.

Oh God.

"It – it was yesterday," he said. "We were just getting back from the bathroom and – (indecipherable mumbling) – we didn't know what to do; there were too many of them. They broke my cane, so I couldn't stand, and -"

I didn't understand a word he was saying; he was talking too fast, his voice pitch kept changing, and he couldn't form even one coherent sentence.

Someone has broken into my house, I thought, and trashed it, and now Johannes is freaking out. Then I realized something. Oh God, where is Raffaele?

"Johannes," I said. "Stop. I can't understand you." He stopped. "Now, in less than ten words, tell me: what happened?"

His reply was so quiet I had to ask him to say it again.

"D2Ms." And then, "They took Raffaele."

Oh God.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say something, anything – but the only thing that came out was some sort of shaky whimpering noise. More tears came out; I couldn't stop shaking. I tried to speak again.

"Johannes-nes-nes-nes, I-I-I think we should-ould-ould -" I couldn't form a sentence either. I wasn't even sure of what I was saying; all I could hear was Oh God oh God oh God what do I do what do I do what do I DO?!

It is during times like these that Girl Scout survival training kicks in.

Do not panic. Take a deep breath. Bring your emotions under control. To steal an adage from the Brits, "Keep Calm And Carry On." So I closed my eyes. I breathed in, I breathed out. I breathed in, and then breathed out. I breathed in and out until I stopped shaking. Then I opened my eyes and squared my shoulders. Right. Time to get down to business.

"Johannes," I said, "did you hear them say anything about where their base is?"

He nodded. "It's in Whitefish."

Ah-ha, so that's where they were. Maybe there was a chance after all.

"How badly are you hurt? Are you dizzy?"

He raised one eyebrow. "I'm a little sore, but otherwise I'm fine. Why?"

"If I gave you directions, do you think you could drive?"

Now both eyebrows came up. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because I'm about to break into a D2M camp to rescue an Italian soldier and I need someone in my car, on standby, so that we can book at the drop of a hat." I looked Johannes in the eye. "You in?"

Was it crazy? Oh, yes. Did I have a plan? Fuck, no. Probability of us dying? High enough to allow for pause. Did we have any other choice? Not really.

Johannes stared at me for a long, hard moment. Finally, he said, "You do realize that this is a bad idea, right?"

"Maybe," I said. "But you know what they say: 'Fortune favors the bold'."

Johannes looked at me a moment longer. "Clearly," he said, "you're an idiot." Then, his mouth turned up into one of his trademark grins and a small glint appeared in his eyes. "But you know what? You're my kind of idiot."

"Glad you approve."

He chuckled and cracked his knuckles. "Well then, what are we waiting for?"

Alea iacta est.