Spinning my cane anxiously, I watched as Lindsey made the exchange. I knew she had it covered, that we'd been at this long enough that she knew what she was doing, but I couldn't help it. I got paranoid thinking of her dealing with this crap by herself. Say what you will about hawks, but Lindsey isn't exactly the epitome of a threat.

"Another day, another deal." She sighed at me, with a good natured roll of her eyes as she hopped back into the van.

"And another theft," I pointed out, quirking my brows. "Let's not forget how those jewels were acquired."

Snorting, she rolled her eyes again, "Yeah, well, I'd just like to thank Muggsy for having such a second-rate security system."

"Cheers, bro, I'll drink to that."

Minor recap: Muggsy was a Muggshot enthusiast. Think he may have been related? Like a grandson or something. Certainly looked like the guy―real name was Albert, though, and he was so dang enthusiastic about being just like ol' Muggshot he took up trying to be a gang member. And this morning, in search of some missing loot from Henry's personal stash, we ended up hitting Muggsy's base, and hitting it hard.

He never knew to expect us and wasn't at all prepared.

We left him tied up for Henry and his Interpol folks to find later.

The call we'd gotten from Henry before the drop implied he was very amused to have found the dog strung up by the shreds of an old tank-top.

Other than that, though, we hadn't really done much this past year.

There'd been plenty of heists, sure, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Just some public spots, then some more private establishments, and so on and so forth. I'd mostly been hitting rich executives for the past four months or so, though that was more a matter of getting some real money out of the ordeal than any particular grudge I had against them. Thankfully, rich folks in this universe were typically slightly less slimy than the ones in the real world.

None of them could figure out how I kept getting in and past their security, but I was getting to the point I was pretty highly wanted. My entries in the Thievius Raccoonus were getting long and exciting, much like everyone else before me.

Now, a year older and most certainly a year wiser than when we started, we unfortunately had bigger fish to fry than snagging some socialite's family heirlooms to sell on the black market.

Apparently, someone out there was targeting Paris.

With bombs.

Couldn't freaking tell you why, or why it was our problem and not the problem of the police, but that was how things stood. We'd been getting tips for months, and we'd been doing what we could in the meantime, but we hadn't gotten very far. We also hadn't gotten Henry involved on advice from one of the tipsters. Getting Interpol involved wouldn't help, really. Not in the long run. They might be able to stop this person temporarily, but they had enough people behind them that they weren't likely to stop if they were in prison.

And Lord knew Interpol wouldn't kill them.

Not that I particularly wanted to kill them, but hey. Whatever had to happen, I guess.

If nothing else I could throw them at someone who would kill them. Like Acanthus, maybe.

Psh, nah. Acanthus would just throw them to someone else.

Too complicated.

I'd deal with it myself.

So far, Lindsey hadn't had much luck figuring out who the mysterious rudeass was, but she was trying. The lack of reliable leads didn't help at all―but I couldn't blame anyone for not coming forward. When dealing with a bomber, it was hard to get reliable tips. Everyone was too worried about getting blown to bits. Rightfully so, especially in this guy's case. They'd started a long time ago, had really started in on it about a year ago.

On the bright side, the hideout Acanthus had provided us with was still safe and apparently difficult for police to find even when our van could be seen from the road most days because we were heathens who parked it in the yard instead of the garage. It was definitely a boon when it came to needing to run home quick after a hit and provide Henry with enough time to come up with a reasonable excuse for why we'd gotten away again. It also provided us the peace of mind we needed in order to hunker down and try to figure out what we were going to do about le bombardier de Paris.

… Sorry, still don't speak French. Just wanted to add some flare to calling them the Paris Bomber.

Soon arriving home, we clambered on out of the van and waltzed on into the hideout with matching smiles. I tossed greetings to Rudy and Rajan as I passed them on my way into the kitchen, since Lindsey and I had more than earned a quick snack.

They greeted me in return, both already dressed for what we would be doing after Lindsey and I finished up.

Speaking of Rajan…

I had, despite my woes from the year before, managed to hide my annoying crush on him from everyone except for Cooper. Everyone else had no clue what I felt and I was happy to keep it that way. My relationship with him was friendly, fairly close, and he didn't seem to think I was acting weird at all. Probably because he had no basis of comparison, of course, but Lindsey and Rudy didn't notice anything weird either which was good.

Not that they really had a decent basis of comparison either, but still.

Cooper, on the other hand, knew and wouldn't leave me alone about it.

Before that can turn into an argument, however, since I know she thinks she's justified in having nagged my ear off about it for a year, moving on. To the good part, y'know?

Due to a tip that Lindsey had managed to dig up at a far higher price than any of us had thought was reasonable, but had been necessary if we wanted the information, we were about to head out to Russia.

Namely, to the Krack Karov Volcano―Clockwerk's old lair of doom.

The ruins of said lair were long since lost in the molten lava continuously bubbling at the base, but a new structure had been erected there in recent months. Something more suited to a smaller, more reasonably sized animal like myself or the rest of my team and high enough above the lava that unless the thing straight-up erupted, it wouldn't face any real issues.

Our informant had, reasonably, refused to tell us their name, and we allowed it primarily on the basis of his name being a liability to him. We wouldn't, after all, want the Bomber to end up hurting our only decent informant.

That would be bad biscuits, and bad biscuits make the baker broke.

We decided, before Lindsey and I took off to do our drop, that we'd be heading to St. Petersburg first. No real reason as to why aside from setting up a temporary base of operations. After so much time, we weren't exactly rookies at moving from town to town quietly, even if Paris provided our main base, so the stop in St. Petersburg before we headed out to actually lay siege to the volcano fortress wouldn't take long. If nothing else, it would give us a place to sleep and review our information after we did some recon before the actual hit on the place.

After some brief discussion while we finished getting ready to go, we decided that I would drive instead of Rudy. Apparently so that he could do recon with Lindsey when we got there, although I wasn't entirely sure what his driving would have to do with his recon abilities… Not that I cared. I was just happy to be driving my own van further than into the inner city for once.

Cooper, of course, just kept giggling. Said something about how they weren't just going to be doing recon together.

I agreed, of course, but didn't press the matter with either of them. I respected their privacy and likewise they never invaded mine unless they had to.

We set off around sunset in order to avoid most of the police in the city, although they weren't likely to be an issue anyway. They were used to my van and probably wouldn't bat an eyelash at me leaving the city again like I seemed to every few weeks for the last year.

Driving past Henry's place on purpose, I caught him as he was getting out of his cruiser. I grinned, waving, and he returned both gestures.

After that, there wasn't another interruption, and I had the vague thought that this whole deal was getting too easy.