There were four of them, hardened men used to gunfire and battle and each collecting a large sum of money for their efforts and their risk. They were men who were used to going into areas of the world where sane men feared to travel and bringing out whatever treasure-equivalent their masters desired. One was shorter than the others but possessed a more devious mind, and they valued him for that.

"Here," the devious one said, his voice so low that only his fellows could hear. "They're back on the trail. My guess is that they're trying to make a run for it. They know we're not far behind."

"Heavy-laden, too," another agreed. "They're carrying him out, probably put together a stretcher. The spook put 'em up to it."

"Yeah." The shorter one's face darkened with annoyance; he'd been the one to find one of his fellow mercs taking an unplanned for nap on the cold ground. The facts hadn't been hard to decipher: one of the FBI guys was as good—or possibly even better—than the mercs themselves. It was irritating in the extreme, and the group of professional soldiers wanted nothing more than the opportunity to even the score. No mere FBI guy would outdo them. "If they're moving quick, we've got to, too. We need to get to that math guy before they hit the road."

"That's all we'd need," the other groused. "They make it up to the road, somebody'll see them and call for more help. We'll lose him."

"Which means a hell of a lot of money." The third man knew clearly what his personal goals were—and how to obtain them. "Let's move out, double time."

They swung into a fast trot. The gait wouldn't break the four minute mile mark, but it wasn't designed to. It was designed to eat up the distance in a swift and efficient manner, something that two men loaded down with a stretcher of damaged mathematician wouldn't be able to do.

Five minutes, then ten. Then fifteen, and the mercenaries had yet to catch up to the FBI agents.

They were not yet dismayed. The scenario was obvious: the FBI agents knew that this was their only hope, to outrun the swifter mercenaries, in time to catch up with the larger group at the lodge for protection. The FBI agents would be hustling along as fast as they could.

It wouldn't help. The end would never be in doubt.

The devious one indicated the tracks: the stride of the footprints was getting smaller, indicating that exhaustion was setting in. The FBI pace would be slowing, which meant that the mercenaries would overtake them any minute. It was time to take precautions. Each mercenary swung his weapon off of his back in order to have it ready in their hands.

The smaller man held up his clenched fist in a silent gesture: stop. Now they needed to move slowly and silently. None of them could hear a thing, which suggested that the FBI agents ahead had reached their limit. They were taking a short breather so that they could once again carry their load at a breakneck pace.

More hand signals: two would circle around to the left, and the other two would take the right. They would sneak up silently on the FBI agents, and on the count of three, would place a well-aimed bullet where it needed to go. The follow up forensics team would determine that each one had died instantly.

Step forward, place each foot so that not a twig snapped below the military grade boot. Silence was imperative, that the FBI agents not hear the approach. Step. Step.

"What the—?"

The stretcher lay in the middle of the jogging trail, a silvery blanket covered a still figure. There was no one else there.

"Did they abandon the stretcher?"

"Tell me the damn math guy is dead!"

"Doesn't make sense—"

Click.

Colby's voice snapped through the clearing. "Federal Agents! Drop your weapons."

They were mercenaries. Not one of the four was committed to any cause greater than a solid paycheck, and losing his life would mean losing that paycheck.

They surrendered.

Slow going. That was the story of his life. Don had always plodded along, achieving his success through sheer hard work while his little brother simply dazzled his way through school and career honors with brilliance and an engaging smile. It wasn't fair, but—as his father would remind him—life wasn't fair. If you were lucky, your life wouldn't suck. It could be worse; he could have been born in a third world country and had his life cut short before the age of five from disease, pestilence, or famine. You think you got something to complain about?

Yeah, he had something to complain about. His brother, the brilliant one with the secret in his head that could bring down nations if it got into the wrong hands, was hanging onto him and trying to hang onto consciousness at the same time.

A leach, that was what Charlie was, at least to Don. A leach, always hanging on in some fashion or another. Growing up, Charlie had needed someone to leach onto so that the bullies wouldn't take his lunch money, his homework, whatever he had and the bullies didn't. Then Charlie leached onto Don's baseball team, drawing attention to himself and away from Don because his statistics showed exactly how to take advantage of each team member's talents and turn them into a winning team. They never won because Don was great player. Oh, no, that never happened. It was all Charlie and his statistics; Charlie, who never threw a ball or picked up a bat.

Here it was, happening again. Leach-hood. Simple, straightforward case, with DarkSeas planning something nefarious. Don investigated. Don sent out his team to pick up clues, and where did they lead? To Charlie. To Charlie and his statistics, the one who wasn't supposed to be involved in this investigation. Yet, here Don was, with Charlie, trying to save the world by saving Charlie. Years ago it had been the game that needed saving, the bullies that needed fighting off. Today it was the world, and Don would only hear about it if he failed to protect the leach. Otherwise, it would be Charlie. All Charlie.

Listen to him. Talk about sibling rivalry. Wouldn't the department shrink like to get hold of this? They'd bench him as fast as the time that he'd refused to take Charlie's advice about how to handle the runner on base. They'd said that he gotten benched because Don had refused to take the coach's orders, but the coach had been listening to Charlie. It was the same thing.

This too was the same thing. His brother-the-leach was hanging onto him as though he'd fall down without Don.

He would, too. The investigative field agent in Don came to the forefront and admitted the truth: his brother was seriously hurt, and if Don didn't get him to some very top notch medical care pretty soon, Don would be an only child.

That was the difference between then and now: degree. The degree of seriousness. Charlie's Ph. D. degree versus Don's lowly bachelor's. Not so lowly, Don reminded himself determinedly. That education alone put him in the top half of the United States and it had given him a good living. Hell, he could live just about where ever he wanted just by putting in for a transfer. Charlie didn't have that option, he realized; had to live where his university was. There were only just so many high end universities that would want his kid brother, and Charlie needed to live close enough to commute. Don had gotten to learn hand to hand combat, could defend himself when the need arose. Charlie—hell, look at him now. That was the answer. Charlie might have the smarts, the glory, the top position at a top-notch university, but did Don really want all the crap that went with it? Did Don want to have get permission from the State Department every time he wanted to go anywhere outside of the country? Did Don want to be the one hanging onto Charlie for dear life, hoping that his leg wouldn't fall off before they reached the road at the top of the next rise?

No way in hell.

They were twenty yards from the road. Don could see it from here, saw the black tarmac that signaled civilization. From there, Don could flag down the next car he saw and get Charlie to someplace a lot better than here, a place that didn't come equipped with mercenaries who wanted to rip the information out of the kid's brains.

Charlie wasn't going to make it, not up to the road. Don saw his brother's eyes rolling back into his head, felt the fingers lose their clutching grasp on Don's arm. Felt him going down.

Not yet. Don shifted his grip, bent to slip his shoulder under his brother's waist, and lifted him bodily into the air. He ain't heavy; he's my brother.

Charlie had the brains, but he couldn't do this. He couldn't drag his brother out of the woods when his brother was hurt. All the statistics in the world didn't matter if you didn't have the power to use what those statistics told you.

Don could use statistics, too. Charlie: lighter than Don by some fifteen to twenty percent. Charlie: less conscious than Don by one hundred percent. Charlie: in more trouble than Don by about a thousand percent.

Hah. Beat that, brother mine.

Don carefully lowered his brother into a shallow depression by the side of the road, making certain that the bushes would cover him enough so that the mathematician couldn't be seen by a car casually passing by. Chances were pretty good that anyone driving along this road would be an innocent bystander, but under the circumstances Don wasn't willing to take a chance.

There was something that he could take a chance on: his walkie-talkie, and his cell. If he could get hold of someone official at the Nine Oaks Lodge, he could instruct them to come pick them up, mercenaries be damned. Cell first; Don flipped open the small unit and looked at the distressing number of bars indicating that the nearest cell tower for carrying the communication was located on the opposite side of the mountain. No hope there. Don tucked it away, wondering how the electronics had managed to survive all the mud that he'd been involved with over the past several hours, and tried the walkie-talkie.

Static. Mostly; Don thought he heard someone on the other end. He'd need to move another several yards to try again, and the need was great. One more check on Charlie—his brother had already passed out in his nest of leaves and blanket of shrubs—and Don stepped out onto the roadway.

No vehicles, and that was disappointing, too. Hitching a ride would work as well or better than contacting his people at the lodge. He listened as he walked: nothing.

He tabbed on the walkie-talkie, grateful that the units were standard issue for any team planning to conduct a mission in a place like this. Cell phones were great for routine communication but they had drawbacks, too, and service in tower-starved areas was a big one.

Don tried again. "Eppes to Murphy. Murphy, you hear me?"

Static. Then—"Murphy here. Don, that you? Where are you guys?"

"Get out your map, Murphy. I hit a road, and I need a pick up, bad. Fast, Murphy. What's your situation there?"

"Under control. All the mercs took a hike into the back, down the mountain, except for the two that we nabbed first thing. Don't think we're going to catch 'em, Don."

"We got a few," Don told him grimly. "They tried to take us out. What about the researchers?"

"All of 'em are on their way to the nearest hospital, escorts alongside. Staff from the lodge, too. Help just arrived, like five minutes ago. Took their damn time about getting here; something about mis-communication."

"At least they arrived, and can help. Can you locate me?"

"Give me a few. I'll see if Eye in the Sky can find you." Murphy went off the air, and Don tried to look noticeable, standing in the middle of the road where there were fewer trees.

Murphy came back on. "Wave your arms."

Don obliged.

Another couple of moments. "Got you. We'll be there," and Murphy consulted his map, "in about twenty."

Not bad. The roads up here didn't cross frequently, and traveling in straight lines wasn't about to happen. Twenty minutes? The Eppes boys could do that, easy. They had just done several hours of hard.

Help was on the way. First things first: Don would get Charlie taken care of, loaded onto whatever vehicle Murphy had commandeered, and then he'd send out additional troops to help Colby and Ian with the remaining mercenaries. It didn't matter what Murphy had said; Don knew better. Those mercenaries hadn't been trying to escape. They'd been after Charlie. The fact that the FBI was getting in their way only made it more interesting.

Don returned to his brother, taking another moment to survey their surroundings. This was a good place to wait. They were located at a bend in the road, which meant that Don could see for almost half a mile in each direction. The sides of the road were tree-lined and bush-covered. No one would know that they were there until Don stood up and waved his team down, and that would only work in his favor. If a vehicle came up the road that Don didn't recognize, he didn't need to flag it down. Should'a asked Murphy if he was sending the FBI van or something that he grabbed from the parking lot.

Charlie was awake—well, half awake. The eyes were open, but dazed. Recognition took entirely too long, and Don felt uneasy. Was the fast and easy twenty minutes going to be too long for the man? Not that Don had any choice in the matter. Twenty minutes was how long it was going to take, assuming that Murphy's estimate was correct.

Don studied his brother's face, not happy at the all too obvious lines of pain that creased the ordinarily smooth features. "It's okay, buddy," he told him, brushing the dark locks of hair off of his brother's face, the individual strands held close together by mud and sweat. "Help is on the way. They'll be here soon."

Charlie nodded, a stiff little acknowledgment of Don's words. "Good," he whispered, closing his eyes. Then he whipped them open. "Don! The others! Professor Husinger—"

"All safe, buddy," Don interrupted. "We got to them in time. It's just you I'm worried about," he added, marveling at how true it was. Not just as my assignment, Chuck. You're my brother. Never thought I'd be thinking that, not the way I felt about you, growing up.

Charlie started to shake again. "Who were those people?" he asked, his voice barely above a harsh whisper. "They brought in guards, after we got there…"

"Yeah. They suckered you in, treated you like every other high end entrepreneurial business, and then brought in the big guns when it was too late for you to back out." Don knew that for a fact. The question would be: was it DarkSeas behind it all, a newly minted AutoDyne that had been created as a cover up for DarkSeas—or something altogether different? There were too many pieces for Don to try to weave together at the moment, and too many missing parts.

More shaking. "Cold," Charlie told him, trying to force his voice in something approaching normal. "You wouldn't happen…to have…a furnace around, would you?" His teeth were chattering.

Shock, Don diagnosed. The wonder was that it hadn't happened before. Or maybe it had, but Don and company had been too busy to notice. Priorities, Eppes: dodge the bullets first, cope with the broken leg next. He slipped his hands under Charlie's arms to draw his brother up against his chest, ignoring the hiss of pain that Charlie couldn't control. He wrapped his arms around Charlie, feeling the warmth from his chest seep into his brother's cold body.

"Thanks," Charlie murmured, unable to do anything more than shiver.

It would work. They had twenty minutes before the FBI van showed up, and staying quiet and hidden was the priority. Don could use the time to try to warm his brother as much as possible.

Ian frowned. "There are only four of them here."

Colby finished strapping the rope around the wrists of the smallest mercenary. The man's ankles had already been hobbled, and tethered to the nearest tree just to make things difficult for the prisoner. Colby understood immediately what the sniper was referring to. "Yeah. There were eight of them, weren't there?"

"Ten, originally. I took out two, first thing."

"So where are the other four?"

"Good question, Granger."

"Don't think I like the answer."

"Me, neither."

"Shall we see if we can dig up a better answer?"

"Yeah."