They were quiet for a moment

They were quiet for a moment. Heather stirred, and then fell back asleep. "Is she really going to be alright?" Janice asked. The kid was totally out of it. Was it good for her to be sleeping like that?

"Our natural instinct is to sleep when injured," Cole replied. "She's regenerating everything that was damaged."

"You're not sleeping," Janice pointed out, indicating his knee.

Cole shrugged. "I'm just a little older and better trained than her," he said. "I want to sleep," he admitted, "but I'm not going to." There was another pause. "So you never explained exactly how a CIA operative ends up teaching high school gym," he said conversationally.

She looked away. Six months wasn't nearly long enough to keep it from hurting when she thought of everything she had lost. She had given it up willingly for her team, but it still hurt. "You mean you don't know everything already?" she said, trying to joke, but falling far short of humor.

"Actually I did try to find out what happened to the illustrious Nightshade," Cole replied. "There was somebody who wanted to know why you disappeared, but when I got the records, they were all censored. Someone wanted you gone and everything that went with you."

She wasn't sure why, but Cole was easier to talk to than most. Maybe it was his earlier candor. Of course in the last six months, she had kept to herself not wanting to be close to anyone. She couldn't have any further contact with the four people that she had been the closest to for so many years. It was the agreement she'd made. Maybe it was because Cole was a little like them. He'd been in some hellacious situations, and Janice knew he must have had to do things that regular people would find wrong. Right, wrong…it was all subjective.

"We operate in five man teams," she said. Cole nodded. He knew that. "If I was considered good, it was because of my team. We were tight. There was nothing that could stop the five of us when we worked together. It was like being part of the same person, you know what that's like?"

"I did," he said softly. It gave her the encouragement to continue.

She smiled bitterly. "It seems so stupid. You'd think there would be some huge international conspiracy that I got involved with and that's what happened. Instead it was a matter of honor. Honor and loyalty to my brothers."

"One of the men I worked with, Kevin, was married to a diplomatic liaison. She spoke like nine languages and knew the customs of most of the major countries. She worked with the ambassadors coming in from other countries, helping them however they needed it, that sort of thing. Melissa was so sweet. She was always patient and understanding, and if there was one thing Kevin loved more than her, it was their little boy. He lived for them."

"Then a new diplomat came to the States, and she was assigned to helping him. He decided she would make an admirable mistress and propositioned her. She said no. He insisted. She refused." Janice sighed, wondering for the millionth time why didn't Melissa come to one of them. They could have done something. It could have been ended then without any real problems.

"Then one night she didn't come home from work. Kevin was going nuts for a few days while we all looked, and then…then…" Janice broke off. It still hurt. It wasn't like one more body should trouble her conscience, but Melissa was special. She didn't deserve what had happened to her. "To make a long story short," she continued, "we found out the diplomat raped and killed her. He had diplomatic immunity and there wasn't a damn thing that could be done. There were so many political implications that the US government couldn't even expel him as an undesirable. Kevin was told to drop it."

She snorted. "He was told that the situation was too "politically unstable" for them to pursue. We fight and die for the good ol' US of A, and in return? Nothing." Her eyes met Cole's. Whatever had happened to him, he seemed to understand. Maybe he did better than her. "I was not going to let it go. Kevin was the one who said we were all brothers, even the one with a skirt. Kevin had his son to look out for. Out of the four of us, any one would have done what I did. I was the first with the opportunity. The honor was mine, and I took it," she said with a fury.

"Who was it?" Cole asked. No wonder this had all been censored out. CIA brass would not want anyone to know that their people had more loyalty to each other than the government. The panic must have been pretty similar to when "Alicia" escaped from the base in Utah. Loyalty lay within. The rest of the world could go to hell. That's why they were all separated when Manticore was dissolved. Two or maybe three might see each other, but not all of them ever again.

"Nicolae Riespian," she replied, feeling vaguely pleased at the shock on Cole's face. Riespian had been the President of the European Coalition for six years, and then became the ambassador to the US. The post there was to get him familiar to the American leaders, and then he was going to be posted to the UN. He was extremely charismatic, and the possibility of him becoming the Secretary-General of the United Nations was very high. He came from a very wealthy family who had intense political ties all over Europe, and they were pushing behind the scenes for this to all happen. It would have happened.

"Didn't he die in a car accident?" Cole said. "Lost control when going too fast around some steep turns."

She shrugged. "Easy to lose control of the wheel when you got a bullet in the head."

Cole had to laugh. "You took that bastard out, and you're are still alive? I'm impressed."

That had to be the first time Janice ever told someone out of her team that she had taken a mark, and they responded with "I'm impressed". Then again, look at whom she was talking to. "I figured I would be killed," she said. "But I…arranged a few things. Things that would be very embarrassing to his family if they came out in a murder investigation, and they would come out. I was told to very quietly leave the CIA, and I guess they destroyed all records of what he did, and why I killed him."

"Remind me not to piss you off," Cole said.

She smiled, feeling much better, "Ditto," she replied.