Melody entered Ops with Harmony right behind. Making her way down to station forty-seven, she looked over the Agent's shoulder until he'd finished typing in a query and could turn around and speak to them. "Where is he now?" she asked him.

"Still at the Mountain Breeze Motel, room 109. He hasn't left his room since he checked in."

Melody frowned. "Thats..." she pointed to a note on the screen. "over seven hours now. He didn't come out for lunch?"

"No, not for anything." Said the young man.

"Alert all Agents in the area. No, scratch that. Alert all Agents west of the Rockies. He's long gone."

"I assure you, Agent Pettibone, no one has gone in or out of that door..."

A voice came from behind them. "Agent Pettibone, I'm Barker, Ops watch supervisor. What makes you think this, uhh..." he glanced at the monitor. "Loong Wang might not be in his room?"

Melody looked at Barker with some disbelief. "To start with, if he were in there, it would be almost 24 hours since he last ate. He ducked out of the hotel restaurant in Chinatown this morning when he supposedly went to breakfast. He was tailed from there to the Mountain Breeze, and he didn't stop to eat, right? So it's midafternoon and he hasn't eaten since dinner yesterday."

"Granted. What else?"

"Look at that motel. It was built as a Holiday Inn in the mid-sixties."

Barker peered at the image on the small color monitor, from a camera in the stake-out car. "Possibly. I won't dispute it. So what?"

"So what?! Doesn't anybody here have any field experience?!"

"Now, see here, Pettibone! You may not be aware of it, but we lost a lot of fine Agents not long ago, and..."

Melody glared at Barker. "I'm aware of of it. I was there."

Belatedly, Barker realized who he was talking to. "Oh. Uh, sorry, Agent Pettibone, but could you just enlighten us as to what we should know, but don't, about old former Holiday Inns?"

Melody took a deep breath, let it out. "Sorry I snapped at you, Agent Barker. Okay, sure. All the Holiday Inns built on this plan-" She pointed at the image of the motel- "two stories, back-to-back rooms, usually three buildings in a U shape around the office and pool- have a central pipe and cable chase in each building. It's a space the length and height of the building and about eighteen inches wide, although a few are narrower. All the electrical, phone, and alarm wires, TV cables, and plumbing are run in it. You can get into it from any room through a little panel under the bathroom sink, move through it freely, and come out in any other room in that building, or through a door at either end. Loong Wang almost certainly stripped and showered, moved through the cable chase to another room on the outside of the building, which we should have been watching but aren't, showered again, dressed in new clothes and probably a disguise, and left in a different car. He probably has a six hour lead on us."

Barker put a hand to his forehead, grimacing in disgust. "Well, that's my ass. Thompson, alert all Agents west of the Rockies, like she said, to be on the lookout, and send Wang's info. Maintain the surveillance until morning, when we can send in an Agent dressed as a maid, just in case he is still there, and remind them that they're probably being watched themselves. Jenkins, Taylor, see if you can give me a projection of where he might be headed from here. The rest of you, as you were, but if you have info or suggestions, I'm all ears." He went off to relay the bad news to the station chief.

Harmony turned to Melody, who had taken a nearby workstation and was calling up information. "Does this mean these guys know about our new bugs and tracers already?"

Melody paused and looked up. "Possibly. They may just be assuming their existence based on our past progress in that field, without having any hard info. We don't know yet what he did, I'm just assuming he got rid of the bugs somehow."

"Why did you assume he'd take that second shower after he got to the other room?"

"That's easy. I've been in those cable chases. They're very dusty, with random grease blobs and plumbing leaks. He'd need another shower." Melody turned back to her work station.

A line appeared on the map of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah on Melody's screen, running northeast from San Francisco, highlighting the route of Interstate 80. She selected and assigned an icon of a Chinese-style dragon, then a yellow capital 'A'. Hitting a function key caused the dragon icon to move along the line, northeast through Sacramento to the Mountain Breeze motel outside the little town of Emigrant Gap, at the mouth of Donner Pass, with the big A hot on its tail. Melody went back to the icon file.

Harmony sat down at a vacant workstation and checked her in box, acknowledging some memos, including one announcing that she was to start receiving special duty pay. Finishing, she looked up to see Melody still busy and Barker approaching again.

Barker stopped where Jenkins and Taylor were working. "What do you have?"

Taylor replied, "He'll probably continue on to Reno and do some tail-shaking maneuvers. He won't assume that one trick shook us off completely. Second most likely is he'll double back to Sacramento and do the same thing. After his handlers think he's clean..." Taylor shrugged.

Barker scowled but nodded, acknowledging the logic, although he'd hoped for some brilliant insight. Just then one of the big seven by ten foot screens on the wall above them lit up, showing a map of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Barker looked up to see a jade green dragon icon move northeast out of San Francisco , pursued by a big yellow A. As the dragon approached Sacramento, a bronze colored stylized rat's head icon headed out of San Francisco. The dragon icon stopped at Emigrant Gap, then turned into a green question mark. The yellow A stopped there and stayed. The bronze rat's head icon paused there briefly, then continued on to Reno, and stopped there. A clock readout in the lower right corner of the display indicated the date and time corresponding to each position of the icons.

Barker looked toward Melody and saw that her large monitor had an identical display. His expression changed to something that hinted at a grateful smile, but preserved deniability. "Who's the third player?" he asked.

"Ratboy." Replied Melody.

"All right! Looks like we're back in the game! Good work, Pettibone. Thompson, Jenkins, Taylor, I need to know what room on the outside of the building he emerged into. I want to know who rented that room. I want to know what car he left in and who rented it if it was a rental. I want a line on everyone who was involved in this maneuver, and I want to know who they work for and who he works for. Stay low profile for now, but if you need to go overt for something, come see me. Pettibone, Powers, get a tagging team and go to Reno. Find Loong Wang and re-tag him." Barker turned back to stare at the big screen, deep in thought.

Melody turned to Harmony, who looked like she was about to pop. "Show me bored professionalism."

"Are you nuts?! I'm going on a field assignment with you!" Harmony bounced a little in her seat.

Melody leaned closer to her sister and said in a low voice, "One, if you go running up to Loong Wang looking like that, he'll plug you and be gone before you can say 'oops.' And two, I'm not sure Barker realizes you're not a special op yet. So if you want to go with me, look cool and professional and check some flight times. I don't think flying is going to save us much time over driving. Find out. I'll check on the tagging teams."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Melody wiggled a little in the custom Ferrigno bucket seat of her Agency-modified Viper. She was climbing through the darkness toward Donner Pass, past a series of small communities and exit villages. "So I called Mavis in planning, and she told me there was a big rivalry going between tagging teams B and D. Since team D was the one that was supposed to retag Wang when he made his move, it was tempting to give them another shot, figuring they'd be eager to redeem themselves, and they were already familiar with the target. But I figure team B will try even harder, for a chance to really rub D's noses in it."

Harmony's laughter came through the speakers. "Exactly what I'd have done. And you called me a Mata Hari. I bet you could teach me a few tricks in that area."

Harmony was having difficulty keeping her Honda in touch with Melody's Viper on the curving uphill road, even though it was an interstate. She longed anew to be a special operative, with all the attendant perks, including a fast, powerful car with all the special equipment. She wondered if she could at least wheedle a turbocharger out of somebody. Melody's taillights disappeared around the next curve just as she said, "Maybe I could, but you're too young for those."

Harmony eased her accelerator pedal down another notch. "Too young, am I? Then I must be too young to dress up like a hooker and knock on Loong Wang's door, too!"

Melody chuckled. "No, actually, you're just right. Usually it's only the young hungry ones and the old worn-out ones who work these old motels. The more affluent businessmen stay in the newer hotels and it's much harder for the hookers to get at them."

Harmony rounded the curve and caught sight of Melody's taillights again. She certainly wasn't gaining any ground on her. She mashed a little harder on the pedal. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you? What am I supposed to do if he's there and says yes?"

Melody grinned. "You watched the training films. You know what goes where. Seriously, there isn't a chance in a thousand that he's in there. You're just a plausible excuse to ring his room phone and knock on his door before the maids start to clean tomorrow morning. When he doesn't answer, the forensics team goes in, and we go get a bite to eat and press on to Reno."

"Yeah, but what if he is there? What if he invites me in and hands me the money?"

"Well... use your imagination. Go with the flow. Have some fun, pick up a little extra dough."

"MELodeee!!"

"Harmony, even if he were there, which he isn't, he would not do that, not now that he's finally been contacted. You could be a vice cop for all he knows. Or FBI. Or us. No matter how horny he might be, he's way too suspicious to accept."

"Rrrr... I guess so. So I get to dress like a cheap whore and freeze my exquisite tushie in this cold night air basically for nothing. Or for the amusement of the other Agents. Just one more crappy job for the junior Agent."

Melody smirked in the semi-darkness of the Viper's cockpit, knowing that Harmony would be enjoying her time in the spotlight, her grousing notwithstanding. "Think of it this way. A lot of Agents will be watching you for that minute or so, including some back at HQ, and probably some at World HQ. Do it right and look good doing it. One or more of those Agents might be asked to recommend you one day. Remember what I said about angels. There's the motel, ahead on the right."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." mused Harmony. "Hey! You passed it! Where are you going?"

"I'm going on ahead to find a place to eat. I heard the Sam Shoemaker

memorial buffet is up here someplace."

"Who was he?"

"The first member of the Donner party to be eaten."

"Eewwww! MELodeee!"