Melody approached her house with habitual caution, or in this case, instructed Harmony to do so. Today it paid off. Two scruffy looking men were just sidling up to the front yard. Melody had Harmony park in front of the second to last house in the block before hers and reached for the small binoculars she kept in the glove box.

The tall thin one was caucasian, the shorter, stockier one Latino-ish. They were headed in the general direction of the door, but both seemed interested in the shrubbery. Melody handed the binocs to Harmony and pulled a small fifteen-power telescope from the glove box. Higher magnification showed the tall man as having eastern european features. The other one made Melody think South American, but she couldn't be sure. They had rung the bell and were standing there swiveling their necks a lot while they waited, as if scanning the neighborhood for possible threats. They also glanced more often than seemed warranted at an old van parked across the street.

Melody turned the telescope on the van. Lettering whose freshness contrasted oddly with the van's dull, neglected paint job read 'High Regard Lawn Caring'. After noting that the van lacked not only a trailered riding mower but even a trailer hitch, she turned her attention to the front passenger side window. Nothing was visible therein, but she caught a flicker of movement in the rearview mirror. Laying the telescope down, she said "There's a third man in the van. I bet the first two hide in the shrubbery."

"Really? You think it's an ambush? For you?"

"More likely for me than for Prairie Dog. As far as I know, she hasn't done anything to get on anyone's hit list. If one of them hides behind that tall evergreen at the near corner of my house and the other goes into the hedge between mine and the next house, it'll be a classic Albanian Troika pattern."

"Albanian Troika pattern? I don't remember learning about that."

"It was originated by Smersh in the old days. The idea is to triangulate the target so he's taking fire from three sides, while holding down the danger of the ambushers hitting each other. It maximizes the effectiveness of poorly trained personnel. Smersh stopped using it when their training improved and they went to two-man teams. I think even the Albanians have stopped using it now."

"So who would these guys be?" asked Harmony.

"The tall guy could be Albanian or Bulgarian, the other one looks Central or South American, and we can't see the third person. They don't look like heavy enough hitters to have been sent after me, unless there's a Vulcan gun mounted in the van. Maybe they really want to mow the... nope, there they go."

Just as Melody had predicted, the tall man sloped over to the hedge separating Melody's yard from the one beyond, and the other headed for the bush at the near corner of her house. Melody pulled her Agency phone and hit a speed dial number.

Melody closed her phone and looked over at Harmony. "Prairie Dog is on her way here and out of contact. Apparently she left her phone at HQ. The two closest Special Ops and a cleanup team are on their way, but Prairie Dog will arrive first, and probably be killed. So I'm going to take these guys out."

Harmony looked aghast. "But you can't! You're not ready! You're not healed!"

"I'm going to kill them, not wrestle them. I won't break a sweat. Drive me around the block and drop me off behind the corner house there, and I'll call when I'm done."

"The hell you say! We're doing this together, or I'll park two blocks back and go in alone!"

Melody glared at Harmony. Harmony glared right back. Finally Melody cracked a little smile. "Are you sure you're up for this? Killing isn't something everyone can do, not even everyone with Agency training."

"I'm sure. We have to do this to save Prairie Dog's life. These guys need killing. And you're my sister and you're injured. No way am I gonna let you try this alone."

Aminanda Fogrolo crouched between the strange northern bush and the corner of the ridiculously large house. Only one small woman lived in this house that was big enough for the entire extended family in which he had grown to manhood, and most of their livestock. Often now he wished he hadn't left his family group and his tribe and their simple way of life in the jungle. These foolish people had way too many things, and they were forced to work like ugly women all day long to pay for their things and the huge houses needed to hold the things, leaving them very little time to enjoy the things.

When the Shining Path men had come into Aminanda's tribe's territory, they had told his people about the great quest they were on to free all the people from the Capitalist Opressors. Neither Aminanda nor his people had ever seen a Capitalist Opressor, but they sounded very bad. And they had had knives and machetes and other nice useful things, even guns, so Aminanda had gone with them for a while.

The Shining Path people had admired his jungle skills and had given him some nice things, and he had killed some capitalist opressors for them. And they had given him the other thing. Cocaine. At first it had seemed to magically enhance his skills and abilities, but now he knew that it did not. But now he needed it just to not feel bad.

Aminanda took out the picture and looked at the woman's face. He would not mind making her his woman, but he must kill her instead. Then he would get much money, enough to go back home with many things for himself and his people, enough to make him a big man. Then he could sit in a sweat bower and drink herb water and sweat the cocaine out. Just this one small woman to kill first.

They said this woman was very dangerous, very skilled at killing. They said she had killed many more men than Aminanda, and that he must be very cautious and ever alert. Aminanda doubted. Maybe she had killed a lot of stupid unskilled Northern men, but she would have no chance against him. She would be dead before she knew he was...

Aminanda felt a small person land on his back and a small hand cover his mouth. His lightning fast reflexes... The second to last thing Aminanda felt was the very cold steel knife blade in his neck. The last thing Aminanda Fogrolo felt was very very dizzy as the blood pressure in his brain dropped suddenly to zero.

Melody jerked her hand away as soon as the man's larynx was severed and he could no longer cry out, but the blood from his carotid artery sprayed everywhere, some of it soaking the sleeve of her blouse and her lower arm. "Damn", she thought, mildly annoyed. The assassin collapsed, futilely clutching his throat.

Melody darted around the back of her house and the back end of her neighbor's hedge. Although she knew where he was, at first she was unable to get a visual fix on the second assassin from this side. Then a branch of the hedge quivered faintly and she had him. Melody noted with amusement that a concrete goose, painted in the latest decorative art colors, was seemingly staring right at him from a few feet away. Melody smirked a bit. Okay, slight change of plans. She shifted her swiss army knife to her left hand.

Glancing across the street, Melody could see Harmony jogging up the sidewalk, approaching the van from behind. Her long slim legs flashed, showcased by the khaki shorts that had been slacks a few minutes ago. Her firm, perky breasts bounced just a little beneath her tank top. Her strawberry blond hair, pulled back in a ponytail, swayed enticingly. Another slight rustle of the hedge was a strong indication that target number two was also watching Harmony.

Noiseless as a cat, Melody stole up behind the eastern european, seized the concrete goose by the neck, and swung it violently into the back of his skull. He fell out the other side of the hedge and hit the driveway like a dead man.

A second later, a muffled pistol shot sounded from across the street. Harmony jogged around the front of the van, tucking something into her waistband, then across the street and up the driveway. Melody, kneeling by the eastern european man, looked up at her. "You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine." Replied Harmony. Pointing with a thumb over her shoulder, she continued, "He's dead. Very black skin, probably sub-Saharan African. I could've taken him alive."

"As it turned out. But we had no way of knowing what he had in that van, or what he was prepared to do. We had to think of our safety and the safety of the neighborhood." Melody searched her sister's eyes. "Does it bother you?"

"No! He came here to kill you! He had it coming!" Harmony looked down, her expression pensive. "Well... maybe a little."

"And it should. If it ever stops bothering you, it's time to get out."

Harmony looked at her sister anxiously. "And you?"

Melody looked at the man lying immobile on her driveway, blood seeping through his hair. "That other guy... he was barefoot. His feet looked like they'd never worn shoes. He died an awful long way from home, in a strange land."

"And this guy?"

"He's not dead." Stating that simple fact brought Melody back to the exigencies of the moment. Retrieving her keyring from Harmony, she unlocked her garage door and stepped inside. She took a roll of duct tape off a shelf and handed it to Harmony. "Tape him up. I'm going to put these clothes in cold water before the bloodstains set."

Emerging from the house a few minutes later in some old clothes she hadn't taken when she'd moved out, Melody saw that the two Special Ops had arrived. One was watching the prisoner, and the other was across the street, checking out the back of the van. She approached the nearest one, remaining inside the garage. "Hi. I'm Sunspider. Call me Donna."

"Two-stroke. Call me James." James was about six feet one with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, and looked to be short of thirty. "Good work, Donna. Harmony went to get your car. The cleanup crew will be here in a couple of minutes."

"And Prairie Dog?"

"She went back to HQ to get her phone."

Melody looked down at her feet, as did James. The prostrate assassin broke the silence with a faint groan.

Harmony pulled into the driveway and as close as she could without running over the would-be hit man. Melody said,"Well, gotta go. The less my face is seen around here, the better, especially right now. Oh, tell the cleanup guys there's a concrete goose just on the other side of this hedge with my bloody handprint around its neck."

James waved and nodded as Melody slid into the passenger seat of her black Viper and Harmony backed them out of the driveway. When they were a couple of blocks away Harmony asked, "Where to? Back to HQ?"

"No. We can email our reports in, and I'm not up for another run through the parking garage today. My knife wound is mad at me for playing with that goose."

"For what?"

"I used a concrete goose to clout that second guy. It was a little heavier than optimum for a truncheon."

"Oh, no! You didn't reinjure yourself, did you?"

"No, it's just warning twinges. I'll be fine in the morning."

After a minute, Harmony asked, "D'you think that guy has information that will lead us to Loong Wang's bosses?"

"I doubt it. Whoever tricked or otherwise persuaded the Chicoms to import those eleven nukes did not send the three stooges back there to set an Albanian Troika ambush for me."

"I was thinking about that. When Loong Wang tells them you went up against three thousand Chinese Special Forces, and lived, what kind of a hit will they put out on you?"

"I've been thinking about it too. Either some sort of massive overkill, like a truck bomb, or the best hired gun on the market, or just try to be ready for me when I come to them."

"Yikes! And you've been living like this for three years?"

"They've only taken notice of me in the last year or so, and I'm just now into the 'deadliest Special Op' category. Thinking of getting your own apartment?"

"No! Not till you throw me out, or at least till you're fully recovered. Melody, there has to be a way you can retire from being deadliest Special Op besides Hunsacker's way!"

"I think it's being discussed. Now that the last of the Old Guard have retired or gone to glory, changes like that will be easier. But they'll have to work out how to do it. With me, it might require a new name and a new face. I don't know if I'd want to do that. And I don't like the idea of running and hiding just because some bad guys don't like me."

"More like ALL the bad guys. You can't kill 'em all, Melody."

Melody's face contorted into a silent snarl. "I can make a sizeable dent!"

"You already have, but they're breeding faster than you can shoot 'em. You want to see your grandchildren, don't you?"

"I dunno... do I have to have children first?"

They smirked in silence for a bit, then Melody half turned to Harmony and said, "You did well back there, Harmony. I'm proud of you. This will look very good in your record. And, since you've killed an enemy in the line of duty, you'll start getting special-duty pay."

Harmony glanced at her sister, then back to the road. "That first thing you said means a lot to me. And I guess you know I'm very proud of you."

After another short silence, Harmony asked, "What about Prairie Dog? How will this look in her record?"

Melody's small smile faded. "Not very good. She made a serious mistake, the kind of mistake that gets you killed. It's probably not enough to spoil her chances of making Special Op by itself, but she'll have to make up for it somehow, just to get back to square one. This assignment was a chance for her to help herself, like you did, but she hurt herself instead. She also embarrassed her angel."

"Angel?"

"Whoever stuck his neck out and said she was ready for this. Actually, in this case, it could have just been her resemblance to me, but usually you need someone above you who has some confidence in you to get the kind of assignments that give you a chance to prove yourself. Remember that."

"I guess you've got gobs of angels, if you even need any anymore."

"That's not quite as great as you make it sound. When everyone thinks you can do anything, you get assignments like "Walk into enemy headquarters alone and unarmed, and see if they try to kill you."

Harmony smirked. "Awww, they wouldn't..." then she gasped. "Omigosh, they did! The Jade Dragon!"

Melody's expression did not change, but her voice took on a grim note. "Yeah. Four damn times."