There was no rusty chainsaw. Which was too bad, Nikita thought; it could have been a useful prop.

Faith and Xander playing with knives, though, while Nikita fingered her handgun and they alternative pressing George with questions, was a decent enough replacement, though. They weren't playing "good cop, bad cop," they were playing "good cop, worse cop, homicidally insane cop."

The mercenary had courage, Nikita had to give him that. A lot of people she knew, even some soldiers, would have gotten nervous watching what the three of them were doing, and started talking immediately.

George held out, giving out nothing but the soldier-of-fortune equivalent of name, rank, and serial number, even after she'd slapped him once or twice.

She knew that torture, a lot of the time, only got the person being tortured to tell you what they thought you wanted to hear; it certainly wasn't reliable in any sense of the word. That she'd used it, even on someone like Ari, shamed her. Not because Ari was so good he hadn't earned a beating or two, but that she A, was supposed to be better than that, and B, damn well knew better.

A preliminary slap, however, wasn't necessarily out of order. It was like the old joke about the man who bought a stubborn mule: First you have to get their attention.

So she and Xander had each hit the man once. (Faith had quietly murmured in the corner of the room that she was better off not doing that kind of thing, for a variety of reasons, not least of which that her full-strength slaps had the potential of breaking the man's neck.

Those had established their willingness to hurt him to within an inch of his life. Then, a promise of letting him go if he talked and George finally broke down and told them that Panos, their leader, had been the second man taken.

That meant he'd ended up being interrogated by Michael. "Okay," Xander said. "We'll see whether this pans out. If it does, you're good. As long as you never bother us again. In fact, finding another line of work might be in your best interest. Something that doesn't involve killing people for money. Capisce?"

"Huh?" George said.

Rolling her eyes, Nikita said, "Do you understand?"

"Yes," George said. "I understand."

"Good. Now, come on."

"If you put me back in with them after I've talked they'll kill me," George said.

"How will they know you've talked?" Faith said. "Ain't like we're going to tell them."

They marched him back to the holding area. Xander quietly told the two young women guarding them to keep an ear out on what they were saying, just in case. When they got back outside, they split up. "I'm heading down to the administrative wing," he said. "See what kind of executive decisions have been made."

He headed down a hallway to the right Nikita was barely aware of – "Like the weapons closet," Faith told her. "Don't worry about it" – and they kept walking.

"Tell me something," Nikita said.

"What do you want to know?" Faith asked.

"What's the command structure like around here? I mean, you seem to be in charge, but then Xander heads down the hallway for an 'executive decision' –"

"Our command structure is loose as it can get and still have us have one. Giles is in charge of the whole organization – including our satellite schools, plus any branch offices we have. Robin's the head of this school. Me, I'm in charge of the Slayers when it comes to Slaying duties – and when we're under attack. Ain't like G―" by which Nikita assumed she meant Giles – "Or Robin can't handle that; ain't like I can't handle the administrative bullshit, but I hate it. So we all fill in where we can."

"And Xander?"

"Supersub," Faith said. "He'll teach, he'll administrate, he'll counsel, he'll do whatever it takes, wherever he has to."

"Willow's your tech person, then."

"And the Head witch," Faith said, "But she ain't actually based out of here. She and her girl Kenny had a blowup and she came down here from New York for a couple of weeks to cool off. Stephie's the main witch of this branch –"

"I met her, I think."

Faith said, "Yeah, she was the one who helped you and Xan with the Russian mob way back when, isn't she? Anyway, she's on vacation right now. Everyone else does what they can. You get a shitload of leeway here, long as you keep someone else in the loop if you got the chance. Everyone can figure out what they're good at and work on it, long as they're ready to drop everything if they got to. Claudia, for instance – she's a hell of a tactician. Half the time girls in the field go to her with questions about how to handle specific situations instead of me. Which is cool by me."

"Okay," Nikita said. "It just seemed a lot looser than I'm used to."

"Probably is, if you're talking about Division," Faith said. "Also, we don't kill people for fucking up."

"Officially, neither did Division," Nikita said. "Officially, people were 'cut loose'."

"Like from the end of a rope dangling from a chopper five hundred feet up?" Faith asked.

"Something like that," Nikita said.

"Here we are." Faith knocked on the door; a voice from within said, "Advance and be recognized."

"And that would be Andrew," Faith said. Our 'morale officer'." They walked into the room and found Michael, a young woman Nikita didn't really recognize, and the young man from the lunchroom.

"And lo, our noble efforts have succeeded!" Andrew said.

"Really?" Faith asked.

"Yes! This gentleman has informed us that he, in fact, is the leader of the band of ne'er-do-wells that assaulted our fortress, and his name is Panos –"

"Andy, this ain't the time."

Andrew paused. "Right. Sorry about that."

"Well done," Nikita said, looking at Michael.

"I didn't do much," Michael said, "I called him a name and told him he'd never be able to have children anymore if he didn't talk, Zena over there threatened to do worse, and then Andrew took over."

"Make him stop talking," Panos said. "I will tell you anything. I will give you all of the money in my bank account. Just make him stop talking." The desperation in his voice would have been funny if the situation itself wasn't so serious.

"What did you do to him?" Nikita asked.

"I just asked his opinion on whether Sam Beckett was secretly a Time Lord," he said. "Can you believe he's never even heard of Doctor Who? Well, of course I had to explain everything to him in detail . . ."

"I think that's against the Geneva Convention," Nikita said, and when Andrew looked mildly hurt, she said, "Good job."

He smiled. "Thanks."

"Okay. Z, take Andy here, check on the situation down the hall, and help if you can," Faith said.

"Remember," Andrew said, pausing right in front of the door. "I can always come back." His evil grin was cheesy enough to belong on a pro wrestler, but it worked.

Michael and Nikita sat down together. Faith paced. Xander leaned against the door. "Okay," Michael said. "Tell us about Amanda. Everything you know. Where is she?"

"I've only met her once. That was in Pennsylvania. It was just outside York. The restaurant was called Isaac's." Panos, who for all his fluency in English had apparently never heard of commas, went on like this for about ten minutes, giving them pretty much everything he knew about Amanda. Unfortunately, he didn't know where she was holing up. "It is not in York. That would be too obvious. Amanda is too smart for that."

"Okay," Xander said. "We get why you went after Nikita."

"That isn't saying we like it," Michael said, grimly.

"Right," Xander said. "Being paid to kidnap and kill people doesn't put you on the side of the good guys. That alone makes you and your men contemptible pieces of shit, and we seriously doubt anyone would miss you if we just killed all you, weighted your bodies, and dumped you in the middle of Challenger Deep."

Suddenly, Panos stood up, only to be brought short when a knife from Faith whizzed by his ear and Michael caught him from behind and wrestled him back into his chair. "Easy there, buttercup," Xander said. "We didn't say we were going to kill you, only that you're not exactly in the running for most beloved people on the planet. Sadly, our problems with you going after our pal Nikita there are the least of our concerns.

Nikita said firmly, "And it's not like those are small problems."

Xander said, "Not at all. Thing is, you were also willing to go through us to do it. And that, we really don't like. It's turned this from Nikita having a few friends backing her up when she goes after your boss, to having her own army."

"An army did me no good," Panos said.

"Our army kicked your army's ass," Xander replied. "And we didn't even have guns."

"That is true," Panos said. "Who fights with bows these days?"

"No one expects medieval weaponry!" Xander said gleefully. Everyone blinked. "Oh, come on. Monty Python?"

"No, I got it," Nikita said. "I just didn't think it was funny." Xander could go from deadly serious to juvenile joking in five seconds flat. Nikita imagined that made a lot of people underestimate him.

"Everyone's a critic," Xander said, mock grumbling.

"Anyway," Faith said. "Here's the deal, 'buttercup.' You want to live? Do exactly what we say. In a few minutes we're going to give you back your phone." Nikita and Faith had come up with this plan earlier. "Then you're going to call Amanda and tell her you weren't captured."

"A man named Peter is my second-in-command. He saw me get captured," Panos said.

"Then he saw wrong," Nikita said. "If she gets suspicious and hangs up too soon, you're dead. Oh, and just to make sure you don't try to slip one by us – English the whole time."

"And even if you try something in Greek," Michael said, in Greek, "Remember, at least two of us understand it."

"That is to the right," Nikita said, and was rewarded with puzzled looks from both Panos and Michael. Mentally, she reviewed what she'd said – ah. "That is . . . correct," she said.

"Screwed up the language?" Faith asked. "Yeah, happened to me once. Went with Pinky and a Watcher to Quebec – there was a wannabe master vampire setting up shop there. After we got done – dude made Harmony seem like a genius – we stopped off at a local restaurant and Pinky convinced me to try the snails. I tried ordering – I picked up some French in prison – and the waiter looked at me like I was crazy. I tried again, and Pinky finally ordered for me. I asked her what the fuck had happened, and she told me that I'd ordered a flight of stairs instead. She's been giving me shit about it ever since." Since she was grinning at the memory, though, Nikita doubted she was that upset.

"Anyway," Nikita said. "make up whatever you have to. But keep her talking."

"You're going to try to trace her," Panos said. "I doubt you will succeed. My best man tried. I do not hire incompetents. Her signal was being bounced all over the world. It ended up on the Galapagos. I doubt she is down there studying the finches."

"I'm going to have to agree with you," Michael said. "Amanda never was much of an animal lover. If she can't experiment on it, wear it, or eat it, she doesn't care."

Xander said, "Anyway, no offense to 'your best man, but – you know what? Your best man can take all the offense he wants. He was part of the crew trying to kill us all, I'm betting. Anyway, compared to our computer person, he sucks."

"Especially when it's your computer person, plus our computer person." Nikita said.

"Point," Xander said. "So, Panos. You ready to go give this a try?"

Panos said, "I am ready. I assume my men will also be released? I will not save myself if they all die." Nikita gave him a small amount of credit for loyalty. She'd run into far too many people in her day who were willing to throw whoever they had to in the line of fire to survive.

"Everyone'll live, buttercup," Faith said.

"Then we have a deal."

As they were leaving the room, Panos said. "Wait a moment. Vampires?"