Chapter 16

"Mmm. . ." Sable pulled away laughing, they were sitting in her car making out like a couple of teenagers. "You know, we really should stop. Come on, what's it been, fifteen minutes?"

"Seems like more," Sands grinned wickedly, "What, you afraid of fogging up a couple of windows?"

"It's going to be more than a couple at the rate that was going," Sable retorted turning on the car determinedly.

"Spoilsport." After indulging in nearly an hour of 'toning and exercise' they'd both decided to conserve water and take a shower together. All he had to say was that if they were put in charge of the world's water supply people would be putting buckets outside their windows whenever it rained.

"I thought you were supposed to be resting," she put the car in reverse, turning a tight circle, she again was facing the road.

"I did plenty of resting last night."

"Sure you did," Sable thought back to last night and felt the happiness and unease war for supremacy. Things just seemed so good right now... Sands' eyes even seemed to be better. He wore the black sunglasses all the time though she could remember him before the incident. He'd worn sunglasses then, too.

"So you're feelin' alright?" Sands asked gruffly out of nowhere.

"Sure, why not. . . oohhh," she paused understanding what he meant. "Yeah, I'm good. You?"

"Better than ever," he reached over and turned the radio on. As if sensing her unasked question he offered an explanation. "Typical car radio, I can picture it in my mind, see where it would be, and from there it's easy."

"Photographic memory, I remember." Sable recalled the one exercise everyone thought was easy, but was really more difficult than they'd figured. The task was to look at a picture for ten seconds, then be given a new picture and within a minute tell everything that was different from this picture from the original.

For her and Sands it was a piece of cake. He said every one of them within the allotted minute and so had she. That was essential because on some of the missions they were appointed to it was crucial that everything be left exactly as it was.

"So what did Arnoldo want yesterday?"

"New mission of some sort," he relaxed into the corner of the seat leaning against the wall. "One of the top ten is loose again, Arnoldo's managed to make this the test run and all that crap. We're to find him once he surfaces again and then we go in and put the hurtin' on him, so to speak."

"Sounds too easy, what's the catch?"

"It's only going to be us," Sands replied dryly.

"So it's you and I versus one of the top ten criminals and his lackeys," Sable's blood warmed at the thought, a good adrenaline pumping all-out brawl.

"Just like old times," Sands grinned at the memories.

"And where does Dawes stand in all of this? He doesn't have any real say in anything does he?"

"Frankly, Dawes has no real say in anything we do unless he does it behind Arnoldo's back. Which we all know wouldn't be possible, not for that fuck-mook who can barely look after his own office."

Having remembered the directions clearly from the other day Sable pulled into the CIA building's parking lot just as nine o'clock rolled around. Arnoldo looked up from the files he had pulled on their new criminal. He set them aside as his two agents came into the room. The first thing he noticed was that something was. . . different. He hadn't seen Sable truly happy in a long time, it had only been once a very long time ago. . .

"So, who's the square?" Sands asked sinking down into one of the chairs.

Arnoldo sighed at the old phrase, it suited the situation well enough. What the agents did was go to find whomever it was they were searching for, box him in, and then finish him off.

Sands always referred to them as shapes; squares, triangles for the more important ones as three was a universal mystery number, and rectangles for the ones that weren't nearly as high on the list.

"His name's Jeffrey Kight. Murderer of the genius quality, he tracks them down and then stalks them so well that even we didn't know about it until too late. He's destroyed a number of families-"

"Yeah, yeah, what's the point. What do you know about him?" Sands interrupted.

"He wants us to find and kill him, right?" Sable asked from the doorway. She had been standing there yesterday, Arnoldo remembered. Now everyone who walked past was greeted with a cold look from her darkened eyes.

"Right," Arnoldo agreed, why it looked as if she was almost protecting him. He also knew that she would deny it until judgment day, but it was all progressing just as he'd planned. They would need to depend on each other for what was coming.

"When do we start?" Sands asked nonchalantly.

"Not for another few weeks."

"Bullshit," Sands retorted. "That's a load of bullshit if I ever heard it."

"You need to rest, the last thing we need is you passing out because your body can't take the stress you put it through."

It was at times like these Arnoldo cursed himself for being so blunt. Had Sands still had his eyes the look he would have pierced Arnoldo with could have killed the first five top criminals easily. He knew Sable would take care of the other five with the expression on her face.

"What was the first thing I told you when I joined the CIA." Sands said with quiet ferocity.

Sable returned to staring out from the doorway as Arnoldo waited in silence.

"I told you that if I died I didn't expect anything less than a cardboard box picked up in an alley somewhere buried six feet under. That's it, no casket, nothing. I also told you that if I were hurt I didn't want any compassion or pity shit. That's exactly the fuck what I said. Now what are you doing?"

"Watching out for you."

"I don't need anyone to look out for me. The mother hen's dead, I shot her and ate the wings for supper, savvy? Don't play father-figure with me, Arnoldo. You know I'm ready for this, I think you're just afraid that somehow me being able to return to work so fast is going to send me over that edge all the psychologists talk of."

"You'd be right in assuming that."

"He's completely sane, Arnoldo." Sable countered.

"Give me two days, Sands." Arnoldo finally came to the solution to their problems, "Four days in training to prove that you're as good as you say."

"Training?" Sands replied in the same low-fury voice. "Training! As in rookie, not good enough to win brownie points for the day!"

"No. Training as in instinct, experience, you versus everything we throw at you. I'll treat you like any other agent who wants to move up in rank. You show you're capable of everything I give you, you can take the mission the next day. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"And what do I do during these four days?" Sable inquired.

"What, you didn't think you'd be excluded from this did you?" Arnoldo raised a brow.

"Looks like the big bosses've been tugging on the old short and curlies, eh? Now we're in this together, sugarbutt."

"Oh, what fun." Sable loaded the gun and brushed her hair out of her face. "Where do we start?"

"You're not going to be needing that for awhile," Arnoldo motioned to the gun.

"Nope, first he wants to make sure we can color inside the lines," came the sarcastic reply from Sands.

"I pick red."

"Tick tock, kids. Follow me, single order." Arnoldo rolled his eyes at their antics and all knew exactly where they were going. Nowhere else except the training room.