The Doctor had not deactivated once since being kicked out of the program all those days ago. Holograms weren't designed to feel fatigue, but he was definitely experiencing exhaustion on some level or another. He was used to being deactivated for a few hours a day at least, just to get a break from consciousness and to keep his program refreshed; and even when he was activated, he'd become accustomed to some leisure time.

He was pouring over the scans of the senior officer's brain patterns again, when Naomi Wildman's voice came in over the comm.

"Wildman to Sickbay."

The Doctor tapped his combadge. "What is it Naomi?"

"A few things happened in the program you might wanna know about. First, Chakotay was talking in his sleep—well that's not the first thing that happened, but it's the biggest…" The Doctor sighed inwardly as the girl rambled on. "See, he was asleep, and Seven found him. And I heard him say the name 'Seska,' and 'Voyager.'" That got the Doctor's attention. "Seven heard it too. She asked him what he was talking about, but when he woke up he couldn't remember."

"Did it stir anything for Seven?"

"No. She was just as confused as her character would be. She thought he was talking about some old movie."

Damn.

"Did you say there was more?"

"Yeah! Tuvok remembered the Vulcan neck-pinch, but he looked confused by it afterwards. It just came on instinct to him. And later on, Billie—I mean B'Elanna—she growled at Tom like a Klingon."

"Perhaps the brainwashing is beginning to degrade." The Doctor wasn't certain if this was a good or bad thing. This could be a sign that the senior staff was "waking up," or it could mean that their minds were simply cracking altogether. "Keep me posted Wildman. Make a list of everything you see or hear them do that hints to remembering their real lives."

"Way ahead of ya Doc. I've been taking notes pretty much this whole time. Um," the girl's voice softened, as she asked someone else in Astrometrics, "Was there anything else…?"

"Yes," Tal Celes's voice came over the comm. "The visuals are starting to degrade. I'm trying to reroute power from less crucial sources on the ship so we can get a clearer picture, but for the moment, our viewing experience is getting fuzzy."

The Doctor nodded. "As long as you can still make out which blurs are which senior officers and keep tabs on their life signs, I don't see how it should be a big problem."

"Knock on wood," Naomi warned.

The Doctor sighed in agreement, and rapped his holographic knuckles on his metallic desk.


The sky was beginning to lighten when Tom, Harry and Billie were nearing the city. Billie told Suzie the cab driver that she didn't need her help anymore, and asked the woman not to mention her to anyone, even paying her a very generous tip to keep quiet. She hoped that hadn't seemed too conspicuous.

Tom, meanwhile, wasn't too concerned about conspicuousness, drinking from his whiskey bottle right there in front of Billie, Harry and all the passing cars, while driving. As they neared a long bridge crossing the river, Tom almost took them right into the railing.

"Tom!" Billie cried out, as he barely swerved back into place.

Tom hiccuped, "Sorry"

Billie snatched his bottle from him, rolled down her window, and began pouring it out onto the street. In the back seat, Harry rolled his own window down and stuck his head out, to watch the trail of booze sprinkle the road as they cruised onward. Tom looked at Billie as if she'd just killed some small pet of his, but turned back to the road, saying nothing. When she'd finished pouring, she chucked the bottle right over the edge of the bridge, sending it into the river.

"So, Tom," Billie said casually, rummaging through the car's floor and finding another half-empty bottle, "you and Charles were war buddies?"

Tom scoffed. "I think we lost the 'buddies' part after everyone found out the reason I transfered from the Air Fo—what the hell are you doing?"

Pouring the next bottle out the window, Billie reported, "Effective immediately, this is a dry ship." She finished dumping the bottle, then tossed it off the bridge.

Tom pleaded, "Billie, have a heart!"

"I will when you will." She began searching for another bottle, and quickly found one.

"Look," Harry said from the back, as Billie emptied the next bottle. "You're together now. Once we get that Bird, we'll" Noticing that Billie was searching again, he pointed under Tom's seat. She thanked him, and Tom threw him a death glare, as Billie drained bottle number four. Harry continued. "When we get the Bird, we'll have enough money to go someplace where we can all start clean. So why don't you two just kiss and make up?"

"Lips that touch liquor shall not touch mine," Billie declared poetically, letting the bottle shatter onto the road.

Tom snorted. "You were a real Prohibitionist back in Chicago!"

"I'm not sure what you're doing is legal," Harry warned Billie as she began pouring a fifth bottle out.

"You see any cops around here?" she asked dryly.

"Actually yes!" Harry pointed down the road, making both Billie and Tom jump.

Surely enough, a police car was coming at them from the opposite direction, flashing lights. Tom looked around the dark bridge, as if entertaining the idea of trying to flee. They were in the middle of a long thin bridge, with no room to turn around. Tom finally admitted defeat and pulled over, right next to the railing. Two cops stepped out of their car and approached the Buick, shining flashlights.

"Step out of the car please."

As Tom, Harry and Billie climbed out of the vehicle, Tom asked with some pitiful hopefulness, "How fast was I going officer?"

"It's Lieutenant actually," the gray-haired cop said. "Lt. Cavit." He thumbed to his slightly-younger (or maybe just hair-dyed) comrade, who scowled at them. "This here's Officer Green. And what might your names be, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I'm Mo," Tom said without missing a beat. "This is Larry," he thumbed to Harry. "And—"

Before Tom could finish his prank at the expense of Billie's curly hair, Officer Green cut him off.

"Sir, we had a report from a concerned cab driver about a pregnant woman leaving a house with two men of your descriptions. You fit the descriptions of two fellows named Thomas 'Chicago,'" the cop laughed humorously, "and Harry Kimut—Kimee—somthin' Chinese."

Harry seemed too wearied by their bad luck tonight to care about the racial insult.

Cavit finished for his comrade. "You two are linked to a brawl witnessed on Delta Street around midnight, and you've also been implicated in a recent drive-by shooting. And you," he turned to Billie, "Would your name be Wilhelmina Torres?" When she didn't answer, he continued, "Your father was recently arrested for the murder of Mickey Kazon."

"I know that," Billie said quietly. "I didn't pick my father."

Green glared at her. "But you gotta admit, it looks awful suspicious when the daughter of a murder suspect shows up in the company of two suspected gangsters."

Cavit at least sounded a bit forgiving. "Look nobody's in trouble yet. But we're gonna have to take you all down to the station with us."

Billie nodded slowly, working to hide her panic. "Right…alright…"

Tom's face had gone bone white.

Harry suddenly he asked, "What about the dog? Can Spunky spend the night with us, or can one you take him to my house for me?"

When Harry glanced towards the car window, the two policemen were just stupid enough to follow his gaze. Green squinted and leaned forward, actually looking for a dog.

Harry tackled Green, knocking the cop right into the Buick, and began attempting to wrestle his gun from him.

Tom and Billie were momentarily stunned. But when Cavit reached for his own gun, Billie flipped around and gave him some kind of martial arts chop in the chin that sent him to the ground, and swiped his gun from him, as if this kind of thing was her professional job. Panting, she looked down at the gun, and then at the stunned cop, as if wondering where the hell that move she'd just performed had come from.

Tom could only stand and stare stupidly, while Harry wrestled Officer Green, and Billy looked around the bridge, gun in hand. Cavit remained on the ground, awake but blinking widely, as if his brains were temporarily too rattled for him to do anything.

Tom turned to Harry and the other officer, searching for an opening to join in the fight. Somehow, the wrestling took Harry and Green around to the other side of the car. Green finally smashed Harry's head against the door hard enough to stun him long enough to reclaim his gun. The cop took a few steps back, nearing the edge of the bridge, and aimed his pistol at Harry. Harry reflexively kicked the cop in the middle, sending him tumbling under the railing and off the bridge.

Harry's eyes bulged. Behind him, Billie gasped, and almost dropped her gun.

"Come on!" Tom threw opened the door of the Buick.

Officer Cavit was just pushing himself up when the the car tore off down the bridge, Harry still struggling to get his door properly shut.

Billie was screaming in Harry's ear. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Harry stared ahead blankly. "If the cops got Tom, they'd find out who he was...about the Air Force..."

"You killed a police officer!" Billie exclaimed.

"I didn't mean to! I—"

"Change of plans." Tom cut them off. "We're finding a place to lie low. Chuck'll be fine with Indiana."

Billie continued to glare at Harry, panting frantically. After a few seconds she threw herself against the car seat and folded her arms over her pregnant stomach, staring ahead in disbelief.


In Astrometrics, the screen displayed a variety of video quality from the holodeck. The grid showing Tom, Harry and B'Elanna was clear as crystal, while the one showing events back at the café was jumping and full of static. The captain was barely even visible for all the white noise clouding her sitting room in the Queen's Cabin. Tal Celes was working furiously to fix the visual, while the Delaney twins were still trying to decode the dampening field around the holodeck. Naomi was typing away at her PADD, while Icheb kept his eyes on the senior officers.

"Every time they're about to converge as a group," Naomi noted, "Something pops up and stops them. If we didn't know it was Seska now, I'd've just thought the program was written by a really lazy author."

"Agreed." Icheb sighed deeply, and pinched his nose-crest. "She's preventing them from confronting each other head-on. She wants to keep them in the dark about each other's whereabouts and motives."

"Typical Seska," Megan Delaney scoffed. "She's trying to manipulate all of them into killing each—"

"Yes, Megan," her twin snapped, "We've figured that one out. Can we just concentrate on finding a weak spot in this program?"

"Don't start fighting," Tal warned. "I'll bet that's exactly what Seska wants!"

"Okay," Naomi changed the subject. "So Billie, Tom and Harry are on the run from the law. Now what're Annie and Chuck up to?"

Icheb glanced up at the quarter of the screen focused on Seven and Chakotay. "Clichéd romantic banter."


"I'm not leaving that Bird."

"I'm not asking you to."

Annie was leading Charles through the empty café. He limped carefully after her, nursing his cracked arm and ribs. The rising sun cast shadows of the half-closed blinds over them that felt uncomfortably like prison bars. She brought him around a corner and into the coat room, where several unclaimed coats and jackets hung.

"I don't suppose I can get my coat or hat back?" Charles asked sarcastically.

Annie found his old gray fedora and tugged it onto his head like a frustrated mother dressing her kid for school. His trench coat and suit jacket were long gone, probably sill in Tom's car. So she unfolded the coat he'd been using as a pillow earlier.

"It might be a bit roomy," she said, throwing it around him like a cape, careful not to touch his broken arm or ribs. "But it's been here for months. No one's coming back for it."

He smirked as he shrugged into the coat. "How do you know the owner's not—" His grin vanished when he saw the bullet holes in the coat's chest.

Flatly, Annie said, "You need a hospital."

She took him out the back door and helped him wave down a cab. It took a few minutes, but soon enough a Aeon Rides taxi pulled up, driven by a large middle-aged man who looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here. He shook out his black bowler hat while Annie helped Charles into the car, and actually did the spit-and-wipe move on its iridescent purple brim. Luckily Charles was too distracted by his injuries to care about his questionable chauffeur. Charles winced as Annie eased him into the seat. The cabby quickly reached under Charles to grab a magazine off the seat before he sat down (Scientific American, Issue #42: Einstein's Theory of Relativity).

Glancing at Charles' injuries, the driver said dryly, "Don't tell me: you need to get out of the city A.S.A.P."

Charles stared at the driver. "Sounds like you've swung by this place before."

"He just needs a hospital," Annie told the driver, paying him. "St. Cochrane's should be closest. Go straight down Grendel Street—"

"I know where the hospital is, you pedantic drone," the cabby snorted, snatching the money out of her hand.

"Come with me Annie," Charles pleaded. "I can get you out of this underworld."

"And into yours?"

Charles' face fell. The cabby gave him a look, as if silently agreeing with Annie.

Annie took a step back onto the sidewalk. "I'll give your office a ring tomorrow afternoon. I assume you'll be out of the hospital by then."

He nodded. "I'm in the phone book."

"Go." She turned to the cab driver. "Now."

As the taxi pulled away, she heard the driver mutter to Charles, "Dames. They'll drive you insane. Literally...!"

Once the cab was out of sight, she returned to the café and hurried up to Kitty's sitting room. Annie rapped on the door, almost frantically.

"Be right there," Kitty groaned.

When the door opened, Annie was faced with the dreaded Kitty-in-the-Morning. Kitty blinked through a fatigued eye and her star-covered nighttime patch, dressed in a crinkled white robe. Her hair reminded Annie of the creatures from horror pictures.

Raising her eyebrow, Annie asked, "Up late I take it?"

Kitty rubbed her face. "Too many calls, not enough coffee." She removed her hand from her face and placed it on her hip. "So what'd you find out?"

Annie resisted the urge to swallow, or look to the side. She was a natural when it came to lying to strangers, but she was not used to lying to her mentor. And she had a lot of baloney to sell Kitty right now.

"He doesn't have it." Annie said with conviction. "I doubt he'd even be capable of getting his hands on it. He isn't very bright."

"What makes you say that?"

"You mean aside from the fact that he just marched right in here and demanded the Bird from you, then got into a brawl over it against three of your men, in a street where there could be any number of witnesses? Well, let me think. He tried offering me five-thousand dollars to betray you and join him in his hunt for the statue." Annie's lips turned up in a half-smile. "I asked him what he needed the Bird for so badly if he already had that kind of money, and he just went quiet."

Annie wasn't certain how to turn the subject to her next lie. Now her face faltered.

Kitty looked at her under her eyebrows. "Annie? Are you in love with him?"

Annie found herself asking the same question. "'Love' is such a strong word," she said finally.

Kitty let out a long sigh and looked away.

"He's no threat to us anymore," Annie argued. "Even if he were stupid enough to try ratting us out, who will believe an Indian whose father was a bootlegger for California's most wanted gangster?"

"A thorough investigator perhaps! These coppers aren't all as dim as the movies make them out to be Annie! You of all people should know that."

"I of all people know how often human beings may underestimate each other on the basis of race."

Kitty shook her head. "I don't want him leaving, he knows too much. We're keeping him here until—" She stopped at the look on Annie's face. "Annie, you didn't."

"He needed a hospital."

Kitty took a step back into the sitting room, throwing her hands up.

"He was groaning," Annie said quickly, "making all kinds of noises. He would've attracted attention."

"I'm surprised you didn't want to keep him here so you could nurse him back to health yourself."

"I have bigger fish to fry. Which reminds me of the other thing I needed to tell you. I saw the Bird."

Kitty looked back at her sharply. "Now you've got my attention."

"When I sent Charles into the cab," now she allowed herself a swallow. "I saw a car on the other side of the street. There were three men milling around it, they looked like the kind that worked for Mickey Kazon. They opened the car's trunk just for a moment, and I saw it."

"How much of it did you see?"

"The entire thing. From the back angle. I could make out every stone on its tail feathers. I don't know if they saw me or not, but they slammed the trunk shut and took off like a bullet."

Kitty slowly took a seat on one of the sofas. Her voice became hard, almost as if she were testing Annie. Which she undoubtedly was. "Which direction?"

"Northwest. They went straight through that alley between Hrothgar's Meat Market and and Furfly Books, and then turned to the left. That's the last I saw of them."

Kitty's eye and patch turned to the floor, as she apparently thought over her next response. She glanced back at the gaping hole in the wall where the Bird had been hidden hours before. Finally she stood up, and touched Annie's arm.

"You did good tonight Hanson. I'll leave Charles be. You can have your brave, as a reward for a job well done."

Annie tried to look as if she found this choice of wording mildly amusing, rather than infuriating.

Kitty nodded. "Go home and get some rest. Be back here at the usual time."


As soon as Annie was headed down the stairs, Kitty slowly closed the door and bolted it. Then she picked up her phone and dialed.

"Mr. Gardener? …Forget about Frankenstein and the elf; I've got someone new for you to tail."


"Really Mr. Excelsior, there's no need for you to come along."

"Mr. Felix," Tim cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief as they walked. "I have no interest in your 'medicine.' If you wish to take morphine like most of us take coffee, that's not my concern, unless I'm paid for it to be my concern. I'm a private detective, not your doctor."

They were strolling through a very sketchy part of town. It was nearing lunch time. After escaping Jon Gardener, they'd grabbed a few hours of sleep at the house, and the following morning Kaaren had informed them of Tom and Harry's departure. Apparently the pair had returned to the house as planned, but then left quickly when an old girlfriend of Tom's showed up pregnant. Ned and Tim had both gotten the distinct feeling that Kaaren was leaving out some important details, but she'd insisted that that was the sum of it. Then she'd said she was tired, from being up all night worrying about her husband, and went back to bed.

"Alright then," Felix said. "What part of going with me to get my 'medicine' interests you, and who's paying you to be interested?"

"I want to talk to your dea—friend, Willy. From what you tell me, he's quite familiar with the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. He might be able to give me some leads on Mr. Gardener."

Ned wrinkled his nose. "You've been talking nonstop about that creep all night. Remember Tim, we're being paid by Miss Marquis to get that statue for her. And you said yourself, we're private detectives, not policemen. What do we care if some cuckoo is on the loose-pan?"

"That 'cuckoo' was following us last night." Tim reminded him. "And I know better than anyone what Mr. Gardener is capable of."

Changing the subject, Ned asked, "That story Kaaren told us, about Tom's old girlfriend showing up…do you feel like she left anything out?"

"She did seem a bit on edge," Tim admitted, putting his glasses back on. "But it must have been quite a shock, to meet an unmarried pregnant woman, made that way by someone Kaaren considers a friend. Particularly for someone as sheltered as Kaaren."

Tim left out the fact that he strongly suspected Kaaren and Tom of having an affair.

"Ned, old pal!"

Willy stepped out of an alley, wearing a grin remarkably similar to Ned's. Willy seemed to have the same skin condition and poor taste in facial hair as Ned, too. He and Ned shook hands, and caught up, while Tim hung back and observed.


"Wixiban," Naomi pointed at the drug dealer on the screen. "Neelix showed me pictures and told me stories. They were buddies, back when Neelix was living outside the law."

"And here he's Neelix's drug dealer," Icheb mused, leaning one elbow on the railing under the large screen.

The visual display was starting to clear up, at least temporarily. A few grids were still slightly fuzzy or jumped here and there, but for the moment at least, the observers were having no trouble seeing what was going on in the holodeck.

Tal scratched her segmented nose. "So Willy is dragging Ned into his bad habits, just like Wix did that time he and Neelix tried to rob Voyager."

Naomi smirked at her. "I thought the grownups weren't supposed to be listening in on the kids' conversations. Aren't you supposed to be focusing on the hologrid readings?"

"You wanna trade?"

Icheb suddenly nudged Naomi, and pointed up at another grid on the screen.

Naomi followed his gaze, then shook her head. "What?"

"Look at the nurse."

Naomi craned her neck for a better look, and then her eyes widened.


Charles was not a man who indulged in drugs, but he was enjoying the morphine the nurse had given him. He almost wondered if she'd overdone it. She was no spring chicken, and he wouldn't put it past her to have mixed up his dosage. He felt a bit sorry for her, a woman her age having to work to support herself. He felt like he might melt right into the hospital bed. He was covered up to his neck in a white sheet, hiding his bandages.

The nurse touched his arm in a way that felt a tad too intimate. "How are you feeling?" she asked in a low distant voice.

He opened his mouth to respond, but lost the words. He replied with a sloppy, stoned nod.

He wasn't sure if it was the drugs, but he was finding the woman's make-up very distracting. Charles didn't like to make cruel judgments, but good grief, her make-up was horribly overdone and out of date. That bow-style lipstick and hair-thin "eyebrows" were a style that had died with the Great Depression. Or should have, at least. Her silver hair was yanked into a bun that looked painful.

The nurse left his bed, and headed for a phone that was sitting on a shelf in the tiny room. Even after all the times his boxing career had sent him to the hospital, Charles still wasn't sure what determined who got their own room, and why some had certain accessories like phones. Sometimes he woke up in his own private hospital room, and sometimes he woke up in a long hall lined with beds. This time he had his own room, and apparently it came with a telephone.

As the nurse dialed the number, Charles found something off-putting about her expression. She stared ahead at the window, her eyelids low and a small smile on her lips. Why were the curtains shut?

The person on the other line answered.

"Hello," the nurse said. "I'm a friend of Annie Hanson's. Can you put me through?"

Charles shot up—or tried to. That was when he realized he was strapped to the bed, underneath the sheet. Before he could call out for help, a ball of fabric was stuffed into his mouth, and a gag was being tied on. He knew who was silencing him before he even dared to arch his head back and look. After Seraphine finished tying on the gag, she mockingly "shushed" him and folded her arms on the bed. She was dressed as a nurse, and wouldn't have stood out in the hospital if not for the ridges on her nose. She watched the other woman at the phone with a smile. Charles gave up struggling and slammed his head back onto the pillow, heaving.

He heard Annie's voice come in on the other line.

"Hello Anita," the older nurse drawled. "I found your package at the safe." A pause, as Annie said something indiscernible. "No Anita dear, I'm afraid you're not in the clear. Did you really think you were going to fool me with a tin spoon?"


On the other line, in her dressing room, Annie felt her heart rate increase.

"What are you talking about?"

"That lump of clay you left for me, in that public safe," Bruna Rike sneered. "Did you think I wouldn't check to make sure that the Bird was inside? Did you really think you could just stick any old piece of metal in there and I'd just assume it was the statue?"

Annie stammered. "I gave you the Bir—"

She stopped, and replayed it in her mind.

She'd found the fake clay bricks in Kitty's sitting room. She'd pulled the entire lump of clay out of the wall. She'd dug into it just enough to see a tiny hint of silver, and assumed—

Oh god.

Breathing rapidly, Annie replied, "Kitty didn't tell me she had a decoy."

"Didn't she now. I wonder why. One would've thought, after all you two had been through, that you'd be trusting each other."

Annie suddenly remembered the story she'd given Kitty earlier that day, about seeing the Bird in the trunk of some fictitious gangster's car… Now she was replaying that conversation with Kitty, and Kitty's reaction after Annie had lied to her.

Annie felt as if she were being crushed on both sides between two elevator doors.

"I'm disappointed in you Annie." Bruna said quietly. "I'll be keeping…" Bruna's voice shrank, as she moved away from the phone to ask someone on her end, "What's his name again?"

On the other line, Annie heard another woman with a clear sharp voice say, "Charles."

Annie's phone almost slipped out of her hand.

Shaking, she put the receiver back to her ear. On the other end, she could hear Charles muffled voice, apparently trying to shout something to her through a gag.

"I'll be keeping Charles until you get me that Bird. Get it for me like a good girl. Oh, and if you have any ideas about telling Kitty why you tried to rob her and lie to her, I'll know. I have eyes and ears everywhere. If that happens, I just might forget which medications I'm supposed to administer to my patient. A single dose of the wrong drug can be fatal."

The mysterious pain in Annie had felt in the back of her head a few hours earlier suddenly returned, full-force. Annie blinked, seeing spots. She felt pain throughout her body, particularly in the areas coated in metal. She gripped the phone and the arm of her chair to steady herself.

The other woman added, "And don't bother with the police. I've got more than a few of the top officers on my side anyway." Annie heard the sound of high heels, and woman's voice came right up to the receiver. "If you think Janeway can beat us with one of her harebrained schemes before we kill your boyfriend, then by all means,"

Annie shook her head. "Jane who?"

There was a pause. "Sorry, I was thinking of someone else." The woman sounded like she was referring to some kind of inside joke.

Bruna finished, "You have until midnight this Thursday, Anita."

Charles' muffled cries were the last thing Annie heard before the line went dead.

Annie continued breathing heavily, as the pain in the back of her head continued to rise. The phone fell from her hand, hitting the desk, and then Annie's head collided with the floor.


It was Tal Celes who contacted Sickbay.

"Celes to Sickbay, Chakotay's been captured by Seska and the Queen, and Seven passed out. I'm relaying the last few minutes of the recording to you."

A few moments of silence followed, as the Doctor replayed the footage. When he spoke, the hologram sounded like he was diagnosing a fatal illness. "Her failsafe…"

The Bajoran's brow furrowed. "Her what?"

The Delaney sisters swapped a glance.

"Failsafe?" Jenny repeated.

She looked at Naomi and Icheb, who were closer to Seven than anyone else in the room. Naomi just shook her head and shrugged, equally baffled. Icheb was likewise stumped. His green eyes climbed back to Seven's unconscious body on the lower grid, which was jumping back to static again.

"It's a long story," the hologram said. "But in short, Seven doesn't always handle emotional trauma well. She could be in as much danger as Chakotay right now. Out of curiosity, where is the Bird statue?"

"No clue," Tal said. "The video's been getting buggy again. We're missing entire chunks now. It's a miracle we got Seven's feint."

They signed off the comm., and Naomi and the three women stared at the screen, where half the grids were flickering.

Jenny Delaney drummed her fingers on her console. "If I were Captain Janeway, where would I hide a priceless statue?"


Kitty Indiana stood in her sitting room, touching up her hair in front of a mirror on the wall. She was kind of getting tired of the pile of curls over her forehead, but she was momentarily out of ideas. What the hell was she doing worrying about her hair for? Her closest associate, Annie Hanson, was betraying her, and she didn't have an inkling as to why.

Annie couldn't have done it because she wanted the Bird all to herself; she'd never been a greedy person. No one on this side of the Atlantic knew that Annie had been a Nazi, and obviously no Nazi that had managed to escape justice would go to America; so she ruled out the idea that someone might be blackmailing Annie with her past. The only thing Kitty could possibly fathom was that it was somehow related to Charles Liberty, because Annie was infatuated with him. It would be a real stretch for Annie to betray Kitty and jeopardize their entire mission over a schoolgirl crush. But she was inexperienced in any relationship beyond shallow seduction. With any luck, her tail Jon Gardener would be able to offer some clues, after following Annie around for a bit.

Kitty rose from the sofa and strode to the counter where the elegant coffeepot sat. She knelt down and opened the cupboard, where she kept her coffee grounds and accessories. She pulled out the extra-large can of Maxwell House coffee, a size designed for coffee shops or restaurants that had to make massive amounts of coffee at once.

She pried off the lid, and sifted through the grounds until she found it. She pulled out the bundle, and untied the string that held on the newspaper wrappings. The newspaper fell away, to reveal the silver, gem-encrusted bird, looking as perfectly polished as it had the day Tommy Chicago and Harry Kimitsu had brought it to her.