She could almost smell the elusive thief. So many times, he had been right in front of her. A month ago, she had him. She really did. All she had to do was play it cool. She didn't. She lost control, and lost her quarry. She still remembered the incident like it had happened ten minutes before. She remembered having Cooper right in her sights. Had she fired, there would have been no punishment. Cooper had assaulted a police officer with a weapon. He had evaded capture. Hell, he waved a gun at them. She was justified in putting two into his chest. Why did she lower her aim? He was a criminal! Was it because she had turned in her shock pistol for live ammunition? Carmelita decided that wasn't it. It wouldn't have made a difference. She'd shot bad guys before, even killing a few. She never thought once about it before, and never thought twice about it afterwards. Why couldn't she bring herself to shoot Cooper? Two hours of angry thoughts finally managed to break through Carmelita's tough exterior shell.

"Damn!" Fox cursed loudly, enough to startle Fedorov, who was attempting to sleep. She saw the blue-haired wolf's look of concern, and turned her head away.

How much longer? She thought. She answered her question with a look at her watch. Eight hours. Eight hours stuck in a plane with only thoughts of her failures to keep her company.

Sly crept into the school's garage. The first thing he noticed was the smell of gunfire and blood. He didn't even spot the bodies until he was well inside. Six men in suits lay scattered about, in various stages of bleeding through their numerous bullet wounds. A seventh body lay with its hands behind its back, its dead stare straight up into the face of a blood-spattered rabbit who had, apparently, been crying to himself since the shooting stopped. The kid didn't even notice Sly as he moved about the room.

"I could use a report, Sly!" Bentley roared. Cooper didn't answer, instead keeping his gaze locked on the two students. Memories of his family's murder came back to him. He could remember the confusion and utter loneliness of being bereft of your only family in the world. He had no friends, and how could he? He was always on the move. "Sly!"

"Yeah, what?" Cooper snarled into the microphone.

"What did you find?" There was a long hiatus.

"Nothing. Money's gone. Judging by the amount of drugs, I'd say it was a lot. Both sides are here. Abercrombie and Elser did a number on these poor guys." He left out the part about the dead teenager.

"I knew coming after these guys was a mistake! They're just too dangerous! They'll kill us all for sure!"

"Bentley?"

"Y-yes?"

"Shut up. We're going to take these guys for all they've stolen, and that's final."

What time is it now? Fox asked herself. She looked down at her watch. It had been only about ten minutes since she last checked the time. The image of Sly Cooper kept reappearing in her mind. She was getting closer. A man made his way back to the bathrooms. He moved quickly enough to cause Fox to notice. When he disappeared into the restroom, it explained his haste. Fox propped her head on her hand and her elbow on the armrest.

"Detective Fox," Fedorov turned away from the window as he spoke, "how did you know to look under homicide?" Fox glanced over and saw genuine curiosity.

"Call it a hunch."

"Hunch?"

"Just a feeling I had. There's no way for someone to disappear like that unless they don't have any family ties. The fact that there wasn't any kind of family anywhere hinted at it."

"How long were you looking at those files? When I arrived--"

"Six hours. You saw the fourth bundle I was working on." Fedorov paused, his eyebrow raised.

She needs a husband, he thought. He looked past her to the other passengers in the plane.

"What?" Fox asked when Matkovich grabbed her hand and pressed it into the armrest. She saw Fedorov's eyes narrow and his brow furrow. She turned to her left, towards the central aisle. It was a Koch automatic. The sleek, black finish screamed military. The man from the bathroom then had a brown mask on, the kind with one large hole for the eyes, all rather useless since he's been seen by about a hundred people on the plane already, not to mention numerous security cameras around the airport. Fox's first instinct was to reach for her gun and blow that sonuvabitch away, but the hearty Russian held her arm fast. She tried to pull her hand away, but Fedorov just gripped tighter. When she figured it to be useless, she leaned in.

"What're you doing?" she whispered as the gunman moved forward in the plane.

"There's more than one!" Fedorov nodded to the first-class section. Two more men wearing masks were milling around. The first thing Fox noticed was that they were all light-brown-furred mice. They all wore subdued color suits, blue ties and brown masks. The passengers began to freak when they saw the guns and the masks, doing the usual chatter and screaming.

"Shut up!" one of the hijackers shouted, waving his pistol. It seemed to work. The three men assaulted the cockpit. From what she could see, Fox figured they had gotten through to the pilot and copilot. After a few minutes, the announcement speakers turned on.

"Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking," his voice was calm. Good. Perhaps he was Air Force trained. He wouldn't try any heroics and get everyone killed. "Uh, we're experiencing a slight change in management. The gentlemen in the masks have control of the aircraft." The system was turned off before the statement was completed.

"Damn," Fox muttered as she settled into her seat. Fedorov, however, wasn't so still. His mind was working quickly. His head twisted this way and that. As long as those guys were up front, he'd take advantage of the situation.

"Carmelita--" it was the first time he'd used Fox's first name, "When I tap my nose, get ready. When I pull on my ear three times, we will crash these guys." He scooted past Fox and across the aisle, up a few rows and into a vacant seat.

"Who are you?" a rather plump bear asked with a Russian accent. Fedorov leaned into the aisle and back into his seat. The bear looked around, trying to determine where the wolf had come from. "What're you doing?" Fedorov silenced the man by lifting up his shirt and exposing his .54. He let his jacket back down and brought his tail around, smiling a little when one of the masked gunmen returned and didn't notice the change in seating.