Title: The Geek Rock Series
Fandom: The Lone Gunmen
(Part 2 of 8)

In this installment... fast cars, fast women, a snitch named Steve, hints of Jimmy's hidden depths, Starbucks jokes, Watergate jokes, the Department of Homeland Security's somewhat shady origins and more proof that Frohike Knows Best.

2. Undone (The Sweater Song)

Summary: "If you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as I walk away."

Oh no it goes, it gone, bye bye, do I think, I sink and I die
If you want to destroy my sweater pull
This thread as I walk away.
As I walk away!
Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked.
Lying on the floor, lying on the floor!
I've come undone.

Over the years, Byers had come to expect he might be called upon to do some unusual, even unpleasant, things in the pursuit of truth and justice. In the past thirteen years he had lied, fought, perpetrated petty thefts, defied the F.B.I., spent the night in jail, even committed the occasional felony. But one thing he could honestly say he'd never anticipated was new car shopping with Jimmy Bond.

"I think I can get a pretty good trade-in on the Trans Am," Jimmy was saying from behind the wheel of a sleek, black sports car, the make and model of which Byers had already forgotten.

The sun was bright, the air already a little sticky even though it was barely ten o'clock. Spring in D.C. had a way of just appearing like that, as though someone, somewhere, had thrown a switch. Every April the weather went from rainy and cold to hot and humid in the space of a heartbeat. Jimmy was sprawled across the leather bucket-seat, a hand resting on the steering wheel and a leg poking out the open door.

"What do you say we take it for a spin?" he said. He was wearing shades, the same gunmetal grey as the chrome on the car. "You can drive this time."

"I've never really been much of a car guy, Jimmy."

"Aw. Come on." He slid out of the driver's seat, grabbing Byers by the shoulder and urging him forward. "Give it a try. I guarantee it won't disappoint."

The salesman, who had been hovering deferentially all this time, hurried forward. "You'd like a test drive?"

"Definitely." Jimmy walked around and got into the passenger's seat. The salesman handed Byers the keys, then jumped into the back.

"Why don't we take it out onto 66?" the salesman suggested as Byers turned the key in the ignition."Open it up a little."

Jimmy reached over and automatically switched the radio to WHFS and a techno-flavored remix of the Beastie Boys.

They drove for awhile, the salesman spouting jargon while Jimmy listened and nodded seriously. It really was, Byers was forced to admit, a very nice car. Eventually, he pulled over and let Jimmy drive. Jimmy rolled down the windows, turned the radio up and grinned the whole time. Byers chanced a glance in the rearview and could see the salesman smiling at the prospect of an impending sale.

He was right to. Jimmy bought the car.

Byers, who had never bought a brand new car in his life, watched in fascination while the other two haggled politely over paperwork, financing and trade-in value. Then he watched as Jimmy casually tossed in what seemed to him an obscene amount of cash as an additional down payment and drove the car off the lot.

Out on the freeway again, Byers shook his head and said, "I'm impressed."

"A car's an investment. If you let it lose its value, you lose money on the investment." Jimmy shrugged. "Plus, I just got an advance for being in this football documentary."

"A documentary?"

"Yeah. I always said no to stuff like that before. You know, I had plenty of money already, so I felt like it was... uh, you know..."

"Excessive?"

"But now," he grinned at Byers. "Now the money isn't just for me. So I feel like it's okay to take it."

"It would have been okay before, Jimmy," he said.

But Jimmy shook his head. "Not for me, not back then. Too many of those guys I knew... It stopped being about the game; it was about the money. Just the money, and the things money could get them: fancy cars, big houses, big parties, drugs, women."

"But you loved football."

"Everything about it."

"Why did you quit?" Byers asked suddenly, realizing that none of them had ever bothered before.

"Things happen," Jimmy said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel and focusing on the road.

"Like w-"

"Hey, do you want to stop off and grab a burger?" Jimmy asked, very clearly changing the subject. "I'm starving. We can split a basket of fries."

The words reminded Byers of the last time he'd seen Yves, and he had to stifle a sudden flash of guilt. What would Jimmy say if he knew about that?

She'd dropped out of their lives after Miami, disappearing as abruptly as she'd appeared, and no one had really seemed to care much. Except, of course, Jimmy. He'd never said anything, but after all this time, Byers could tell. It wasn't as though Jimmy was all that hard to read to begin with.

I really ought to tell him, he thought. Despite their differences, despite how occasionally exhausting Jimmy could be, he really did consider him a friend.

He wouldn't tell, though, and he knew it. He'd been all through this with himself before. No matter how guilty he felt, he wasn't going to tell Jimmy anything. He'd promised Yves, of course, but he knew that wasn't the real reason he'd chosen to keep quiet, the reason he continued to keep quiet. If he betrayed her trust, even if it was for her own good, she wouldn't help him find Susanne – and that, he knew in his heart of hearts, made him a selfish bastard.

"Yeah, sure," he said at last, looking over at Jimmy. "Let's go get a burger."

Byers was getting weirder by the day, and coming from Melvin Frohike that was saying something.

Byers had spent the morning cruising around car dealerships with Jimmy and hanging out in bars with people Frohike was more accustomed to seeing on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The very concept of Byers having a beer before 11:30 on a Tuesday was weird enough in itself, but throw in the fact that he'd come home talking about fuel injection and all-wheel drive, his tie tucked haphazardly in his coat pocket, and you had more weirdness than Frohike was quite equipped to handle.

"So," he said tentatively, "how did it go?"

"You get Jimmy all tucked in for a nap after his big day?" Langly had been in a crappy mood all morning, looking to pick a fight. Frohike had so far refused to indulge him, but Byers straightened up abruptly at the words and turned a cold eye on Langly. "Seriously, Byers. Why do you even bother?"

Frohike winced, and waited for Byers to respond in that clipped, repressed tone he used whenever he was really cheesed off. He didn't. He just shoved a check at Langly, shrugged off his suit jacket and walked away.

"Oh," Langly said, actually looking genuinely apologetic. "Sorry, man."

"Nice, Langly," Frohike said. "Real nice."

He followed Byers over to the far end of the room, where the other man was seated in front of his laptop pretending to read through email.

"We can't continue to take his money if both of you really feel that way about him," Byers said at last. "It isn't right."

"It's not that," Frohike said, sitting down beside him. "I think it's that Langly doesn't like feeling like we owe him. I don't like it much myself." He paused. "Besides, Langly's still got emotional damage from high school. The big football star slumming with us misfits for kicks? That's got to sting a little."

"Well, he needs to get over it."

"What's this really about, Byers? I mean, I know you like the kid and all... but there's something else going on here."

"Is it at all possible for us to have a conversation that doesn't involve you practicing amateur psychoanalysis on me?" he snapped. "It's getting really old."

"I'm just worried about you," Frohike replied, because it was it true. He was worried about Langly lately, too, but Byers seemed more immediately on the verge of imploding.

Somewhere along the way he'd wound up playing surrogate dad to these two screw-ups. How exactly had that happened? He'd even caught Jimmy giving him that look a few times, that 'Hey, Dad! Look at me!' look. He didn't know much about Jimmy's background, but he got that same sense from the kid: a gaping Dad-shaped hole smack in the middle of his psyche. A need to have a hero, or, failing that, be a hero.

What a sorry collection of characters they all were.

Of course, Frohike's own dad had been a great guy, so he wasn't entirely sure what his excuse was. Maybe it was the excitement and adventure. It certainly wasn't the money – or the chicks. The women they met in this line of work tended to be the kind who would rip out your heart as soon as look at you – and he was including the former Dr. Modeski in that assessment. Not that he'd ever say as much to Byers. Not directly, anyway.

He shook his head, as though he could physically push the thoughts away. That sort of soul-searching was best done alone, in the dark, over a bottle of Jack Daniels, if at all possible – not on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

The best thing for all of them was to keep moving, for the moment. They'd figure out the rest later.

"Get your coat, Byers," he said. "I've got a lead on a story at Georgetown."

"Take Langly," Byers replied shortly, still staring at his screen.

"Langly's busy." Frohike picked up the suit jacket Byers had draped across the back of the chair and tossed it at him. "Let's go."

With a slight sigh, Byers shut down the computer and put on his coat. Once they were out in the van, he said, "What's this story we're chasing?"

"I'm actually a little fuzzy on the details."

Byers made a face that clearly expressed his disapproval.

"Over the past couple weeks, I've been getting emails from this guy. A PhD. He says he's one of our readers and that he has a story that might, and I quote, 'be right up our alley'."

"And you believe him?" Byers made the face again.

"Of course not. But I thought it was worth checking out. The guy was nothing if not insistent. It might turn out to be nothing, but if it isn't..."

The History Department at Georgetown was located in a squat, modern building, done in the worst style of late-20th Century university architecture.

"Not exactly ivy-covered halls, are they?" Frohike said, as they walked through the automatic double doors and into the chemically cooled interior. The department apparently already had their air conditioning running even though it was barely 65 degrees outside.

"I think this is it," Byers said, pointing at a name plate on one of the doors, nearly obscured by posters and political cartoons. The door was half-open already, so he knocked, then eased it the rest of the way open.

The outer office was a mess of books and papers, tossed haphazardly over chairs, desks and stools. A student was sitting cross-legged next to a shape that might have been a second-hand sofa if not for the stacks of journal articles, sorting through them and putting them into plastic file boxes. She only looked up when Byers cleared his throat.

She had straw-colored hair plaited into Pipi Longstocking braids, haute-geek horn-rimmed glasses and freckles across her nose. The overall effect made her look about twelve.

"We're here to see Dr. Moncrieff."

She blinked at them through her glasses and Frohike had the sense that she didn't really need them to see.

"We don't have an appointment," Byers prompted gently.

The girl shook her head and stood up. "Sorry. It's just that you look a little old to be taking Western Civ, and the administration usually sends its threats via email." She brushed imaginary dust from her jeans. "Who should I tell him is here?"

"Just tell him we're from The Lone Gunmen Publishing Group. He'll know who we are."

Obviously, so did she. She raised an eyebrow and gave them a closer look before knocking on the door to the inner office. It opened a crack and she stuck her head in.

"Reg? There are some people to see you. They're from…" The rest of her words were lost as she leaned farther into the office.

"Really?" the voice from inside the office sounded absolutely delighted. "Send them in, send them in!"

She held the door wide for them. "You heard the man."

Dr. Moncrieff looked to be in his early forties, dark-haired and going a bit silver at the temples, but he greeted them with boyish enthusiasm.

"You know, I didn't really think you'd come. I really didn't." His spectacles slipped down the bridge of his nose and he pushed them back into place with a distracted hand.

He reached out and shook each of their hands vigorously, like a dog that had just learned a new trick. His graduate student was still standing in the doorway.

"Kate?" he said. "You know I hate to ask, but do we have any coffee brewed?"

"And you know I don't mind getting coffee, so you should stop apologizing," she said. "Gentlemen? Cream, sugar?"

"Just black, thanks," Frohike said. "Maybe a shot of JB, if you have it."

"Funny." She turned to Byers. "And you?"

"Nothing, thank you."

Moncrieff offered them each chairs, though he had to clear the stacks of books from them first. Kate brought in coffee, and when she handed Moncrieff his mug, a look passed between them that Frohike couldn't quite decipher.

"Thank you," he said. "You're welcome to stay and listen, Kate, if you'd like..."

"That's- That's all right. I need to finish grading the exams for the 104 class. It's at 3:45, Reg. Don't get so caught up in this that you forget, okay?"

"I won't, I won't," he said, bounding after her and shutting the door.

There was something vaguely doggy about Moncrieff overall. He put Frohike in mind of a large and mildly befuddled sheepdog.

"Professor-" Byers began, folding his hands in his lap.

Moncrieff sat back down behind his desk and held up a hand. "Even my students call me Reg. Please."

"All right," Byers said. "You contacted us-"

"That's right," Frohike stepped in. "I'm the one who responded to your emails. You said you had a lead on a story we might be interested in?"

"Yes, yes. You have a very interesting publication, by the way. I've been using it in my higher level classes for several years now..."

Byers turned to Frohike with a look of disbelief, then back to the professor. "You use The Lone Gunman as a resource for your classes? I wouldn't have thought our paper would exactly be suitable for the reading list, if you take my-"

"I like to include a, uh, wide variety of perspectives." He grinned. "You should have seen Kate's face when she made up the reading packets for the 301 sections. Your articles came right after The Washington Times and right before Freedom Magazine."

"No hidden agendas there, I guess," Frohike muttered.

"My students at the 300 level and up study modern history, the twentieth century and post-World War II in particular. My specialization is information dissemination," he said. "Specifically, information created and distributed by the government. What some people like to call propaganda."

"You don't call it propaganda?"

"That's too simplistic a term, too easily dismissed. What our government does in fact is far more complex than mere propaganda. And," he paused, "given the events of the past year, what we're seeing now is absolutely unprecedented, even by those standards. It's been a fascinating avenue of study. I have several very promising students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Including Kate," he indicated the door, "who you've already met, of course."

"I see," Byers said, shooting Frohike a look that suggested he was doubtful about where this was going.

"I've lived and worked in D.C. for a long time now. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who work in government. Because of what I do, people tend to pass along tidbits, anecdotes, things like that. 'Another one for the Big Brother file, Reg...' Well, I'm sure the two of you know what I mean."

"Sort of."

"Over the past few months, I've had this feeling... The mood has changed abruptly. People aren't laughing about my 'Big Brother' files anymore."

"With respect," Byers began, "I'd suggest that the whole country feels that way right about now-"

"I didn't call you here just because of my bad feeling," Moncrieff said with perfect humor. "That would be silly. I have a friend at Immigration. He's been hearing talk of this new security agency being proposed. It has him a little nervous, so he asked me to look into it. You know, see what the press is saying, that sort of thing."

He slid an open file across the desk.

"The agency is designed to be aligned with FEMA and Immigration, among other existing agencies. Sort of a way to tie all the threads together and work across the old bureaucracies. They claim that, in the wake of 9/11, they're trying to develop a more effective system for sharing intelligence."

"That actually doesn't sound like a bad idea..." Frohike began.

"It's not. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's desperately needed. The agency itself isn't the problematic part. Doing a little digging, beyond the politics, beyond the stated aims of the agency... that's where things start to get weird."

"How weird?"

"Not terribly at this point. But there were enough pieces that don't quite fit that I decided to keep an eye on it. See, we're talking about a program that has yet to be approved by Congress, but they're already preparing the infrastructure. Without a budget. Where's the money coming from? There's also this," he said, smoothing yet another file open in front of them.

"Press releases?"

"Yes, from various government agencies over the past four months, all of them announcing the reassignment of key personnel to a new, as yet unnamed, project." Moncrieff paused. "I think they're gathering these people together, quietly of course, from various top secret programs. People who specialized in counter-terrorism, R&D, domestic security in the late '80s and early '90s. We're not talking about official appointees. They're being brought in as consultants, loosely tied to classified projects, laying the groundwork."

"What for?"

"That's the question, isn't it? I don't know. That's why I came to you. Superficially, it all seems to lead back to this new security agency, but at this point there isn't much of a paper trail. Just rumors, personnel shifts. It isn't much."

"And you think we can find out more?" Byers asked, looking skeptical.

"You clearly have access to more highly-placed sources than I do-"

"Yeah. Sometimes. These days our access is... less accessible," Frohike said, unsuccessfully trying to suppress the thought of whatever the hell was going with Mulder at the moment. "But still, we can try."

"So you'll look into it?" Moncrieff asked, his expression caught somewhere halfway between relief and excitement.

"We'll look into it," Frohike said, standing up.

Byers twitched slightly, as though he wanted to protest.

"We'll look into it," Frohike repeated firmly. "No promises, though."

"Here." Moncrieff handed Frohike a file. "I made copies of everything."

Kate the grad student looked up from grading papers as Moncrieff let them out of his office.

"It's 3:30, Reg. You're going to be late. You won't make it across campus in time unless you leave now."

"What would I do without her?" he said with a distracted smile, grabbing a satchel from a hook on the wall and shaking both of their hands as he hurried out.

Byers turned to catch the door before it closed, but Kate stopped them.

"Reg is a good guy, you know." She stood, stacking papers neatly on the desk and moving out from behind it. "He's a true believer, in this ideals of this country, in standing up for the little guy. He also believes in the basic goodness of other people." She smiled sweetly at each of them in turn. "I, on the other hand, don't. People suck."

"And your point is?" Frohike asked.

"Just a friendly warning that if you're playing him, I'll probably spot it before he does."

"Hey, he called us, sister-" he began.

Byers interrupted him. "We may be many things, Miss-"

"Grey," she supplied.

"We may be many things, Miss Grey. But we're truthful about what we stand for."

"I hope so." She watched Byers for a long minute. He didn't look away.

"You know, I didn't actually believe you guys existed," she said at last, walking over and holding the door open for them. "I thought you were just clever pseudonyms for some disgruntled government employee."

"Well, you're half-right, kid," Frohike said. "We've got at least one former federal employee on the payroll."

"And yet you put your actual, real names on the things you publish," she said, scrutinizing them both as though they were a particularly intriguing logic problem, "making you extremely kill-able if you were ever to stumble onto something truly controversial."

Ignoring her implication that they'd yet to publish anything significant, Frohike said, "We've got to put our names on it, kid. People don't believe in anonymous sources anymore."

"Oh, yeah? Tell that to Deep Throat."

"You mean Ben Stein?" he deadpanned. "Were you even born yet when Watergate happened?"

She stifled a laugh as Byers grabbed him by the sleeve and propelled him toward the hallway.

"This has been extremely educational," she said, still smiling, and closed the door behind them.

Byers' first thought when he reached the address he'd found in his Sunday issue of the Times was that there had to have been a communications breakdown of the worst order. He parked the van in the lot of a strip mall in suburban Potomac, amid the SUVs and mini-vans, and found himself standing outside a KidZone. KidZone was one of those immense indoor playgrounds -- the last refuge of paranoid parents, afraid to let their kids play outside. All the play was supervised, safely inside, away from kidnappers, cuts and scrapes or harmful UV rays. All the edges were rounded off, even the floors were padded. The automatic door slid open while he was standing there and he thought his eardrums might shatter from the unholy din inside.

Yves had to be mistaken – or out of her mind.

He went in, though, afraid to linger too long at the window, lest one of the mothers decide he was a friendly neighborhood pedophile and call the cops.

He had trouble locating Yves at first, among the track-suited soccer moms and BabyBjörn-wearing dads. She was sitting at one of the low tables, watching the children play with the same slightly lost expression he used to see on Susanne's face when she thought no one was watching. She'd taken care, once again, to blend in with the surroundings: her hair pulled back, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, the unremarkable uniform of a young suburban wife. She had her chin propped on one hand, the other cupped around a kid-sized hot chocolate.

"Yves?" he said, coming up behind her. "It's me."

"And I was expecting a tall, dark, handsome stranger." She turned to face him.

He ignored that, pushing a discarded pizza pan aside and taking a seat next to her at the table. "You were supposed to contact me over a week ago."

"Things got complicated." She shrugged.

"Complicated how?"

"In ways that don't have anything to do with you."

"Family matters?" he said, and was both shamed and a little vindicated to see her flinch.

"I know you think you understand, that you know who I am," she said flatly, "but you don't."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

"Just for the record?" he said, after a long moment, hoping to change the subject. "This is a horrible place for a clandestine meeting."

"Nonsense," she replied coolly. "It's perfect. No one can overhear us, certainly," she gestured around at the general din, "and anyone who notices us will think we're here with little Mackenzie over there." She waved at a dark-haired little girl climbing the ladder of a hot pink plastic slide. The girl waved back.

"Accomplice of yours? You're recruiting them awfully young, aren't you?"

"She's a sweet little girl. I told her mother she reminded me of my little sister."

"And she bought that?"

"Parents love to be told that their children are precious." Yves smiled at him, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Would you care for a drink? They have hot cocoa, Pepsi Cola or Kool-Aid."

"What flavor is the Kool-Aid?"

"Purple, I think."

"No thanks. I'll pass." He leaned his elbows on the table. "So, what have we got?"

"I have a way to get us into the Federal Detention Center, but there's something I need you to do for me..."

"Hi, Lily." The little girl who'd waved at Yves was standing at the end of their table. "Can I have my soda?" She pointed at a pink and lavender to-go cup near Byers' elbow.

"What do you say, Mackenzie?"

He turned to look at at Yves. She was smiling at the little girl, the expression on her face softer than he'd ever seen it.

"Please?" Mackenzie said.

Byers smiled, picked up the drink and handed it to her.

"Is he your boyfriend?" she asked frankly, regarding him with wide dark eyes.

"He's a friend, and he's a boy," Yves replied, looking obscurely amused.

Mackenzie continued to stare.

"Well," Yves prompted, "introduce yourself. This is John."

"Hello," he said, feeling a little awkward.

His dreams about that perfect, unattainable American existence had always included children. Abstractly, anyway. In reality, they made him slightly uncomfortable. Children were fragile, complicated little creatures, full of questions he couldn't quite bring himself to lie in answer to.

He'd been an only child, of course, and a quiet one at that. Too sensitive for good sense, his father used to say. As an adult, he had little interaction with kids. Almost none of his friends had them, and Meg had been skittish about the subject, no doubt guessing (rightly) that he wouldn't have made a particularly reliable prospective dad. Those dream children had always been blond and blue-eyed, anyway, not looking much like either Meg or him.

Mackenzie grinned at him, then turned and headed back toward the slides with a wave.

"Lily?" He turned to Yves, as Mackenzie scampered away. "Another anagram?"

"Something like that."

"So what is it you need me to do?"

She smiled at him, but it was her usual, restrained smile, not the genuine one she'd had on her face while she was watching Mackenzie.

"I just need you to talk to some people, have some paperwork prepared." She paused. "And pick out a nice suit. I'd suggest a blue tie, silk maybe. It works with your eyes."

"What? No high-tech gadgets? No breaking and entering?"

"Not this time. Maybe next time, if you're a good boy..." He could never quite tell when she was laughing with him and when she was laughing at him. "This time, I have a better way."

"Which is?"

She paused significantly. "Do you know any lawyers?"

He drove past Meg's house three times that afternoon before he gathered together enough guts to actually stop and knock on the door.

He couldn't help thinking of it as her 'new' house, despite the fact that she'd been living there since they first separated. He'd only been inside twice. The first time he'd shown up there, Meg had kicked him out unceremoniously and served him with divorce papers the very next day. Granted, he'd been heroically drunk and begging her to take him back – it hadn't been one of his finer moments. The second time had been in 1995, three days before Christmas. He'd been moving out of the townhouse in Vienna and into the building in Takoma Park with Langly and Frohike. Cleaning out the attic, he'd found a box of Meg's things: old photos from high school, from college, of her family, flowers pressed between the pages of thick books of poetry, a lace handkerchief, the ticket stub from a U2 concert. The remnants of a younger, softer Meg, one who'd been able to look at him without that mixture of loss and bewilderment on her face. Once he found the box, he couldn't stand to have it in the house any longer than he had to. It smelled like old paper and Love's Baby Soft and apple-scented hairspray. He'd driven the thing over to her that night. She'd invited him in for coffee, a clear peace offering, but he'd declined and gotten the hell out of there as fast as he could.

Needless to say, given past precedent, he wasn't expecting this to go particularly well.

He knocked twice before she came to the door, looking through the peephole to see who it was. For a long moment, he was afraid she might not open it at all.

"John," she said, pulling the door wide. "What are you doing here?"

She was barefoot, in blue jeans and a white cotton tank top, her hair pulled back from her face. She clutched a book in one hand, marking the page with her index finger.

"I'm sorry to bother you at home. It was on the way back from-" he faltered.

"Oh. Well. It's not that I'm sorry to see you... just, maybe you should call first? I mean, next time."

"I think I was afraid that if I waited to call, I'd find an excuse not to."

"Oh," she said again.

There was an extended pause.

"Come in," she finally said, motioning with her book. "Do you want, you know, coffee or tea or anything?"

The house didn't look anything like the one they'd lived in together. That house had been new, with thick carpets and matte eggshell walls. This one was a turn of the century cottage, with window boxes, hardwood floors, and a wide fireplace in the living room.

"I'm fine," he said, sitting down on a squashy, slip-covered sofa. All the furniture in their old house had matched: tailored, beige twill pieces his mother had helped pick out. "Thanks for asking, though."

"Okay," she said, sitting down herself. "So, why did you come here?"

"I need your help with something."

Meg blinked. "My help? You're not being indicted, are you?"

"No," he said. "It's not like that. Not entirely like that, anyway. I do need a lawyer for this, though..."

But she was already shaking her head.

"Meg, please." He leaned toward her. "You know I wouldn't ask if it weren't important."

"Actually, I don't know that. I don't know that at all. In fact, for all I know, this is part of some half-cocked plan to prove that a young Karl Rove leaked the Pentagon Papers, or something equally ridiculous..."

"It isn't."

"So you say."

"Because it's true," he said, a little annoyed.

"Okay, then," she said, "what is it about?"

When he hesitated, she said, "Please don't lie to me, John. Not if you want me to help you."

"I'm working on something, something that has to do with people who've been detained by the federal government." Not the entire truth, but not technically a lie. "They won't let journalists in, but they will allow observers from human rights organizations in. I need a lawyer who's willing to file all the proper paperwork."

"You don't work for human rights organization."

"No, but a friend of mine does." A friend of Yves', strictly-speaking, but he wasn't especially inclined to worry about the semantics.

"And why can't this friend have the paperwork filed?"

That was a good question, one he'd asked Yves himself. He hadn't gotten a particularly satisfactory answer.

"Because this is my project," he said instead. "Because this person is already going out on a limb to do me a favor."

"And you want a favor from me now, as well." Meg chewed slightly on her lower lip, looking thoughtfully at him.

"I trust you, Meg. That's why I'm asking."

"I'm going to make some coffee," she said, getting to her feet. "Are you sure you won't have some?"

"Sure. I will, if you're going to."

He followed her into the kitchen. The kitchen was pleasantly cluttered, done haphazardly in terra cotta and pale greens, and smelled vaguely of oatmeal cookies. Meg turned her back to him and started going through the rituals of making coffee.

"This is a nice house," he said. "I'm not sure if I've ever told you that before."

"No, you haven't." She switched the coffeemaker on and turned to face him.

"Well, it is."

"Do you really still live in that warehouse?" she asked. The coffee began to perc and bubble in the machine.

"Yes, we do."

She shook her head. "I can't even begin to imagine you in a place like that."

"It's cozier than it looks from the outside."

"A lot of things must be," she said, giving him an unreadable look.

They lapsed into silence again.

After a moment, he said, "Are you going to help me or not?"

"No." She sighed heavily, crossing her arms over her chest. "I won't do it. If you're up to something illegal, I could get disbarred. I won't risk that, not even for you."

"Meg-"

"I won't risk it, but I might be able to put you in touch with someone who will."

That answer was actually better than he might have hoped. He stayed for a cup of coffee, something he probably should have done when she'd offered seven years before. He tried not to regret that decision as he was driving back to Takoma Park. If he ever let regret in, if he truly started to think about all the tiny choices, all the split-second decisions he'd made over the years, he'd never stop second-guessing himself.

Jimmy's new car was illegally parked in the alley when he got home, and the scent of food greeted him when Langly opened the door.

"Hey," he said, a slice of sausage pizza dangling from his mouth.

Funny how neither Langly or Frohike seemed to mind Jimmy's presence as much when he showed up bearing pizza and chicken wings.

He followed Langly into the kitchen, where Frohike and Jimmy sat amidst of pizza boxes and scattered papers. Catching sight of Byers, Jimmy brightened up considerably.

"Hey, man!" he said, slugging Byers on the shoulder a little harder than was strictly necessary. "Have some wings."

He handed Byers a plate and a Snapple iced tea, remembering to add a squeeze of lemon without being told.

"Where've you been all day?" Frohike sounded vaguely put-out.

'Meg's," which, once again, was only a half-truth, but those seemed to be coming to him more easily lately. It must have been Yves' influence.

"What's that?" he said, pointing at the papers Frohike was sorting through, in an attempt to change the subject.

"A little background on our new friends."

"And which friends would those be?"

"The good professor and his girl friday. Check it out." Frohike settled back in his chair and began to read, "Reginald Moncrieff was born in 1960 in New Hampshire. Let's see... Working class family, both parents now deceased. Put himself through college by bartending... Apparently, he was the first one in his family to actually graduate from college. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He was married briefly while he was a post-doc student at Cornell. No kids. She left him. He didn't take it particularly well. He took a leave of absence and bummed around South America for a year. Not a bad idea, if you ask me," he said, with a significant look at Byers. "Dr. Moncrieff lives out in Prince William County, alone except for an English sheepdog named Betsy. Well, you know what they say about people and their pets..."

He shuffled the files around. "And then there's Katherine Grey. Born August 20, 1977. Her father's retired Navy; he served in the Gulf. Mother's a part-time General Education instructor at Olympic Junior College. It looks like little Katie was the perfect kid: sports, clubs, awards, scholarships. Oh, and look at this! She was Poulsbo, Washington's Junior Miss in 1994. That's precious. Graduated summa cum laude in '99 with a BA in History, and now she's on the fast-track to her PhD at Georgetown."

He looked up. "You realize that these two are probably the most above-board and respectable subscribers we have, right?"

"So you think we can trust them? That we ought to pursue this story?"

"I don't know about trusting them, but the story's intriguing."

Langly tossed him a dry erase marker, which Byers caught with fingers stained with wing sauce.

"Mark it on the board, already."

Byers got up and walked over to the white board where they kept track of all their ongoing stories. He was writing in Reg Moncrieff's tip and assigning different aspects of research and fact-checking to each of them when he became aware of someone hovering over his shoulder.

"You're on here, Jimmy," he said without looking over. "I've got you working with me on press coverage."

"I'm he'll really appreciate that," said the very un-Jimmy-like voice behind him. It was Langly.

"Sorry. I just assumed. You're both tall."

"Yeah, but I take up less space." Langly leaned against one of the desks, a Mountain Dew in one hand. "You think this is a real story?"

"It certainly sounds like it could be."

"So, uh, what's with you and the wife?" Langly said. "You don't even mention her name for, like, five years and all of a sudden you're spending cozy Sunday afternoons together."

"She isn't my wife anymore, and it isn't like that. We're just trying to be friends again. She went through a lot because of me – I owe her that much."

"Okay, man. It's not like I have a whole lot of experience with that sort of thing... I just wondered."

There was a long pause.

"Is it making you, you know, happier?" Langly sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable, his voice low so the others couldn't hear. "Having somebody, even just as a friend?"

Byers opened his mouth to answer, not at all sure what to say, when a crash from the other room interrupted.

"Jimmy, I swear to God..." they heard Frohike say, followed by a stuttered apology from Jimmy.

Langly sighed heavily, but for once didn't make a snide remark.

"He's-"

"Too damn big for this place," Langly finished, but appeared to let it go, walking back over to Frohike and helping Jimmy stack blank CDs back on the spindle.

Frohike rolled his eyes, folding pizza boxes and smashing them into a jumbo-sized black garbage bag.

"Okay. Somebody needs to take out the garbage."

"I'll do it," Jimmy said.

Frohike watched him go with an odd expression on his face.

"What is it?"

"I was just thinking about that time we went down to New Orleans to bail Mulder out." He grinned. "Remember Officer Cecilia? Que linda."

"Didn't she put you in handcuffs?" Langly said. "And not in the good way?"

"That she did." After a moment, Frohike's grin faded. "How sad is it that I've started to think of those as the good old days?"

"Things seemed less complicated then, I guess."

Byers looked from one to the other. "And you're blaming Jimmy for that?"

"At least Mulder didn't break things," Langly said.

Byers gave him a look.

"Much."

Frohike sighed. "Besides, I'm not blaming the kid. He's just kind of a symbol of how much things have changed for us. If Yves were still around, I think I'd probably feel the same way about her."

"Funny you should bring her up," Langly said. "Somebody hacked into the FBI's counterterrorism database last week. Rumor is, the job had her fingerprints all over it."

"So, what?" Frohike said. "You think she's about to turn up again after all this time?"

"Could be. We'd better be prepared in case she does."

They looked at each other, and then at Byers, who remained resolutely silent on the subject.

Reg Moncrieff turned out to be an enthusiastic source of information. So enthusiastic,in fact, that the boxes of files, photos, tapes and reports he'd managed to accumulate were apparently already threatening to swamp his limited office space. About a week after their initial meeting, a mildly exasperated Kate Grey called and left a message, asking if someone could come collect some of the materials.

Jimmy showed up just as Byers was trying to coax the van's engine to life on less than a quarter of a tank.

"Jimmy!" Byers jumped out of the van and jogged over to the car, where Jimmy rolled down a window. "How do you feel about a trip over to Georgetown?"

"Sure." He revved the engine.

"Fantastic. Let's go," Byers said, opening the door on the passenger's side and getting in.

The outer office was empty, but unlocked, and they could hear voices coming from the other room. A female voice, speaking quickly, rose and fell behind the closed door. Byers could pick out the words "crackpots," "respectable researcher" and "tenure" but nothing of Moncrieff's response.

Boxes were stacked up against one wall, blocking the path to a storage cabinet and threatening to topple over at any moment.

"I think those are what we're here for," he said, leaning slightly against the door to Moncreiff's office and knocking tentatively. "Would you mind taking a few down to the car?"

"Lifting heavy boxes?" Jimmy said softly. "This is what you wanted my help with?"

"And sorting through everything once we get it home," Byers said with a sudden stab of guilt.

"Sure. Okay." Jimmy nodded and went to rescue the most precariously-placed box.

Byers knocked again. The door opened and Kate peeked out.

"Oh, it's you." She opened the door a little wider. "Did you come to pick up those files?"

"Yes. Thanks for the call." He paused, feeling a little awkward. He wondered briefly if she knew he'd overheard some of her conversation with Moncrieff. "That's a whole lot of files."

"I may have gotten a little overzealous," Moncrieff said from inside. "Come on in."

"I sent one of my associates down to the car with a box or two already. I hope that's all right."

"Yes," Kate said. "That's great. Please take it all. I nearly lost a toe yesterday."

Moncrieff waved Byers to a chair. "I'm glad Kate called you. I have some new information to show you as well."

"Aside from the six boxes full of files?"

"Yes," Moncrieff said, sitting down himself and rummaging in a drawer. "I just got these this morning..."

"Well, if you gentlemen will excuse me." Kate edged toward the door, reaching behind her back for the doorknob.

"Stay, Kate," Moncrieff said. "Please."

"I can't. I have seminar."

"Not for another hour..."

"Well, I want to get coffee first. At this time of day it'll take at least twenty minutes to get through the line and get my latte." Her gaze flicked to Byers. "Sorry."

She slung her bag over one shoulder and headed for the door.

Once she was gone, Moncrieff said, "My research assistant thinks you're a bad influence on me."

"That's understandable. Many people aren't ready to hear about the things we've uncovered."

He smiled. "Kate's a pragmatist. She reminds me that I need hard facts to back up my ideas. It's a good quality in an assistant." He paused. "I think she gets a little worried about me, too. I can be a bit, um, obsessive.'

"Who can't?"

Moncrieff grinned at that.

"Here we go," he said, finally pulling a stack of glossy photos from the desk drawer. "A photographer at the Post took the first few at a press conference last week. The others are older, but they're all of people associated with this classified project."

Byers reached across the desk and began to sort through the pictures. Most of them were fairly boring, candid shots of suit-wearing government types unveiling a logo, fielding questions from journalists. When he got to the bottom of the pile, though, he stopped short.

One of the photos contained the very last thing he'd expected: a familiar face. Two, actually. His breath caught in his throat.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, picking up the photo.

"From my friend at INS. I'm not sure when it was taken, though." Moncrieff got up and stood over his shoulder. "Did you find something?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I know these two – or, at least, I did," Byers said, tapping his fingertips against a grainy black and white image of Grant Ellis and Susanne Modeski. "They were R&D -- weapons research, chemicals, behavior modification, really nasty stuff."

"And you think they might be involved in this new agency?"

"I doubt it," he said grimly. "They're dead."

"Oh."

Byers leaned over the photo again and indicated a dark-haired man whose face was slightly obscured by a lens flare. "Who is that with them?"

"Dunno. I could ask Steve, though."

"Your snitch at the INS is a guy named Steve?"

"He isn't a snitch. He's a concerned citizen, and an old friend of mine from high school." Moncrieff took the photo from Byers and flipped it over. All that was written on the back was 'White Stone, 1996.'

"In the meantime, can I keep this?" Byers asked.

"Yeah, sure. Keep them all."

"Hey," Jimmy said from the doorway, "I don't think we're going to be able to fit all those boxes in my car. I managed to fit three of them in the trunk, though."

"That's okay, Jimmy," Byers said, motioning him into the office. "I can come back from the rest of them in a day or two. It'll probably take us that long to sort through the first batch anyway."

Moncrieff got to his feet and leaned acroos the desk. "I'm Reg Moncrieff, by the way." He extended a hand. "Nice to meet another of the brains behind The Lone Gunman."

Jimmy made the slightest of faces at the characterization, but didn't say anything.

"Jimmy Bond." He shook Moncrieff's hand heartily.

Byers swept the photos into a manila envelope and tucked them under one arm. Jimmy didn't know much about Susanne, and he didn't feel like going into the whole story here in front of Moncrieff.

"Are you ready, Jimmy?" he said. "Let's go."

Jenna Clifford had mall hair, a thick New Jersey accent and didn't look or act remotely like any other lawyer Byers had ever met.

"So," she said, sitting down behind her desk, "you're the dreaded ex-husband." She leaned forward, scrutinizing him from underneath her impressively permed bangs. "I was expecting someone slightly-"

"More insane?" he put in helpfully.

"Beefier. You know, more of a Lifetime Television, deadbeat dad type."

"Meg gave you the impression that she and I had the sort of relationship that might have ended with someone setting a bed on fire?"

Jenna grinned. "Nah. She doesn't talk about it at all, and I admittedly have a bit of an overactive imagination. She's so sweet and patient, I guess I just automatically cast her as the long-suffering wife."

That part was true at any rate. His expression must have said as much, too, because Jenna's face softened abruptly.

"I'm an asshole," she said. "I didn't mean to dredge up anybody's ancient history. Sorry." She got up and poured them both cups of hot, black coffee. The mug she handed Byers had The Daily Show logo printed across the front in bright blue.

"So Meg says you need help. Something a little... out of the box?" She made a face and took another drink of coffee. "God, I hate that expression."

"It's apt, though," he said. "I completely understand if you'd rather not get involved. Meg didn't want to." Her refusal bothered him, even though he'd had no reason to expect her help.

Jenna laughed. "I have a bit of a reputation for, shall we say, pushing the envelope. As long as it isn't completely against the law, I can probably handle it."

"One of my associates and I need to get in to see a federal prisoner. We have a contact at a human rights group who's agreed to help us out on that end, but we need a lawyer to file all the appropriate paperwork."

"That's it? And Meg wouldn't do it for you?" She seemed surprised. "If there's anything else, Mr. Byers-"

"John."

"Fine. If there's anything else going on here, John..."

"You want to know up front. I get it."

She shook her head. "No, you don't. If there's anything going on here that I don't know about, anything illegal, I want you to keep it that way. If I knowingly help you in the commission of a crime and you get caught, I get disbarred. At best." She leaned forward. "So what I'm saying, John, is that what I don't know? I can't be compelled to testify about."

"All right." He shook his head. "You're the first person in recent memory who's encourage me to lie to them."

"Not lie. I just don't want you to volunteer anything. Can you do that?"

"I can do that."

She smiled at him. "Then I'll file all the appropriate motions. I should have something for you by Tuesday."

The next time he went to Moncrieff's office, Byers brought coffee.

Kate was at her desk when he walked into the office. She didn't seem quite as unhappy to see him as before. A small improvement, but a welcome one. Her hair was loose this time, in slightly messy waves around her face. She looked up, pushing a lock of it out of her face, and took off her glasses.

"Hello again. Did you come for the rest of those boxes?"

"Yes, and to see Reg, if possible."

She hesitated, looking as though she was going to refuse to let him in.

"I, uh, brought coffee," he said, awkwardly holding a cup out to her.

She looked at it a bit suspiciously. "Are you trying to buy me off?"

"Maybe a little," he said honestly, and was relieved when she began to laugh.

"Well, you're very good at it. The way to my heart is through caffeine." She reached out and took the cup from him. "I'd half-decided to lie and tell you that Reg was in class the next time you showed up."

"Only half?" He sat on the edge of the desk and took a drink of his own coffee.

"The very small part of me that thinks Reg might not be a complete eccentric kept interfering."

"So I get to go in?" he asked. When she hesitated, he indicated the coffee. "I compromised my principles to get that. It ought to be worth something."

"Why? Starbucks trying to take over the world?" she laughed. Then, "You're not kidding, are you?"

"Corporate interests around the world engage in underhanded tactics and unfair competition to the point of..."

She looked mildly offended. "They use Fair Trade beans, you know."

"Let's just say that, given the choice, I prefer to support small local businesses."

"When I was a kid, Starbucks was the little, local coffeeshop on the corner," she said, shaking her head, "not the focal point for some vast conspiracy to force everyone to drink overpriced coffee and listen to digitally remastered jazz."

"Branding is insidious. You study propaganda, you ought to know that already."

"Sure." She leaned back in her chair and took a sip. "But it's a long way from Rupert Murdoch or White House talking points to gourmet coffee."

"Not as long as you probably think."

She was quiet a moment, then said, "How do you function, Mr. Byers?"

"It's John, and I don't," he said.

She shook her head again. "Well, Reg is right in the middle of preparing for a lecture series, but I think I can let you in just this once." She hefted her latte. "Just as thanks, for compromising your principles and all."

He heaved himself up off the desk. "Thanks."

"John-"

He turned and looked back at her.

"Next time bring scones and I'm all yours."

He must have blushed a little, because she gave him a knowing smile and turned back to her computer.

He felt vaguely guilty for some reason. It was just an off-hand comment, after all, an innocent (not entirely serious) flirtation. Normal people did this all the time. He'd forgotten how.

He was beginning to suspect that Frohike was right, he thought as he knocked on Moncrieff's door, women were bad news.

They met for coffee in the morning, about three hours before they were scheduled to be at the prison.

Starbucks was threatening to become a recurring theme in his life.

Yves took his arm and gently steered him into line with all the other suit-clad yuppies, clutching stainless steel travel mugs and waiting for their early morning caffeine fixes. Yves blended in as usual, in a severe black suit and carrying a slim, leather briefcase. He noticed she ordered her latte with nonfat milk, as though maybe she actually had to work at it a little to squeeze into those Emma Peel catsuits of hers. It was one of the only self-consciously stereotypical feminine things he'd ever seen her do. He wasn't sure, though, if it was authentic or just part of the button-down façade she was projecting that morning.

"Just coffee," Byers said to the barista, and steeled himself for the by-now familiar dance of deciphering which blend, how large and whether or not he wanted room for cream.

He felt rather than saw Yves turn away, moving from her place beside his shoulder.

"He's here," she said, walking away and leaving him to gather up his cup and lid to trail along behind her.

Yves' contact was a handsome, dark-haired man in his late twenties, wearing a navy blue suit and a gold wedding band. He greeted Yves in Arabic, clasping her hands, then extended a hand to Byers.

"Hanif Hussain," he said. They shook hands. "I'm with Amnesty International."

"John Byers."

"Yves' told me about you. It's nice to finally meet you."

They found a table in a far corner, away from the crowded entrance.

"What exactly has Yves told you?" Byers asked. She certainly hadn't bothered to mention what, if anything, she might have said about him.

"That you're a journalist. That you're interested in seeing justice done, in telling the truth." Hanif paused. "I don't know whether you'll see anything today that will be helpful for you, but the more transparent we can force the government to be, the better."

"But surely they don't know who I really am?" Byers glanced over at Yves. "Right?"

"That's right. It's simple investigative journalism, John. You've been undercover before," but she said it without any of the exasperated sarcasm he'd come to expect from her. In front of Hanif, her manner was entirely different than he'd ever seen before. She was friendly, deferent, all her hard edges smoothed over.

"Yes, plenty of times. But generally I know what my cover story is beforehand."

"That's easy," Hanif said, sliding a manila file across the table. "You're fellow observers. We're simply there to ask some questions of a high-value prisoner, make sure he's being treated fairly. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I can do all the talking. Mostly you're just there to watch."

"But Naser will talk to us, right?" Yves said, softly. "That was part of the deal."

"Yes, he'll talk."

Yves and Hanif exchanged a look that set Byers' survival instincts tingling. There was something else going on here, something the two of them weren't letting him in on.

He ought to have known. This was Yves, after all, and she never did anything without an ulterior motive.

"Who exactly is this Naser? And why do you want to talk to him?"

"Hassan Naser is a suspected terrorist, possibly with al-Qaeda connections," Hanif said, "though that part is up for debate. The FBI thinks he was trying to set up a terrorist training camp out in Montana."

"And you don't think so?"

"It doesn't really matter. He may be guilty. I may even think he is. What's important is ensuring that he receives a fair trial, on the evidence, not because of the current social climate."

"Isn't that risky for you," Byers asked, "given the current climate?"

"Radicalism is a serious social problem, across cultures," Hanif said. "People have every right and reason to be concerned, to be angry. It's what we do with those emotions that matters. It's important that cooler heads prevail, you know? We can't lose our perspective, or our values. To accomplish that, I may have to take some personal risks. I accepted that a long time ago."

His cell phone rang and he looked down at the display.

"I have to take this. Excuse me," he said, flipping open his phone and heading for the door.

When they were alone, Yves said, "What do you think of him?"

"He seems… idealistic."

She smiled. It was one of her rare, genuine smiles, but a little sad. "I thought you two might get along."

"Did you?"

She took a sip of her fat-free latte, the first he'd seen her take since they sat down. "Hanif believes that by preaching love and pacifism, by ensuring justice and fairness for everyone, that he can eradicate the root causes."

"But you don't believe that."

"I believe it might work, in a perfect world. But the world we have is far from perfect."

"That's just a convenient excuse to do nothing," he said, "to never have to take a stand. It makes it easy to pretend there's no clear difference between good and evil."

She gave him a look that he couldn't quite decipher. "I believe in evil, Byers. But the most powerful force in the world isn't good or evil, it's self-interest."

"What's really going on here, Yves?" he said abruptly. "You're up to something, and if I'm going to put myself on the line, I think I have the right to know-"

"You're getting what you want," she said shortly. "So don't complain. We'll walk right past her cell on our way in. You can confirm it's her, scope out of the lay of the place." She turned toward the door, where Hanif had just re-entered, tucking his cell phone in a jacket pocket. "Just try not to be too obvious, all right?"

Hanif drove an American-made car, a big, oil-gulping Buick with a chrome grill and leather bucket seats that hinted at Detroit's long-past glory days.

The detention center was just off the beltway in Virginia, far from the residential neighborhoods but close enough to Langley and the CIA for convenience. The prison was squat and grey, partially visible from the road between the trees. As they drove through the first of several security checkpoints, he could see Yves in the front seat, tying a dark blue scarf over her hair.

"A gesture of respect," she said, catching sight of him in the mirror and anticipating his question.

Inside the center, there was even more security, which was probably to be expected. Byers couldn't help wondering, though, if the heightened measures were in place because of the grey-area status of so many of the prisoners being held there.

"We're with Amnesty International," Hanif said, giving a guard one of his business cards. "You should be expecting us."

The guard scanned over a list on his clipboard. "Uh-huh. I'm going to need to see some secondary I.D., though, Mr. Hussain." He put a slight, possibly unconscious, emphasis on Hanif's surname. "From the other two, as well, please."

Another guard came forward and held a hand out to Yves, who unfastened her briefcase and placidly produced the fake documentation she'd prepared that morning. Her I.D. listed her as one Della Weer, originally of Sacramento, California. Yves managed the accent fairly well, too, flattening out her vowels and adopting the slightly staccato, questioning lilt native to the West Coast.

Byers' own freshly made driver's license and passport said he was Jon Wilson, 35, of Bethesda, Maryland.

"We're going to need to see your birth certificate, too, Mr. Hussain," the first guard was saying when Byers looked up again.

Hanif frowned, digging his birth certificate from his briefcase.

"I was born and raised in Detroit, you know," he said, handing the document over with the air of someone who was slowly becoming resigned to that sort of treatment.

The other guard's gaze skimmed over Yves' headscarf, but he handed her identification back without comment. They scrutinized Byers' I.D. pretty heavily, too, so it was possible that the posturing was more to express dislike for Amnesty International in general. Either way wouldn't have surprised him much.

"This way."

They walked through the maximum security area. All the prisoners were kept on lock-down, apart from one another and hidden from view. It gave Byers a sudden shudder of memory, thinking about Texas and being alone in the dark with the taste of blood in his mouth.

In theory, of course, men and women were kept in separate facilities. But where better to hide a prisoner the government wasn't supposed to have than someplace she wasn't supposed to be? The documents they'd found (that Yves had found) said she was here, at the end of this block. He'd thought that if he could just figure out where she was, a way to save her would present itself. That's how the A-Team did it, Jimmy's voice echoed softly in his head. Somehow, though, now that he was here, he didn't think that approach was going to work.

They reached the end of the block and rounded the corner. All he would have to do to confirm Susanne's presence was turn to his left...

His breath stopped in chest. The cell was empty.

Somehow they made it the rest of the way to the secure room where Hassan Naser was waiting for them, but Byers wasn't aware of it. He hoped Yves was paying attention in case they had to get in or out in a hurry.

"Remember," the guard was saying as he unlocked the door, "anything and everything you say in here will be recorded. Audio and video, so behave yourselves, okay?"

Hassan Naser sat, his hands folded politely, at the far end of the table. When Hanif introduced himself, Naser responded in Arabic, his voice clear and articulate, his manner entirely engaging. Even through the language barrier, Byers could tell that Naser was incredibly charming and persuasive. Yves had a look of intense concentration on her face, as though she had to work hard to keep up with the gist of the conversation. For his part, Byers didn't understand anything past the greeting.

"In English, please," Hanif said, glancing from Yves to Byers to the security camera above the door. "Just to make sure everything stays out in the open." He paused. "Are you being treated well?"

"I'm locked in a cage," Naser said. "What do you think?"

Hanif made a note on a legal pad, but kept asking questions.

"I can't imagine," Naser said after several minutes of this, "what you hope to accomplish."

"I want to help you."

"There is no helping me this way. There's no helping any of us."

"You'd rather, what?" Yves said, speaking for the first time. "Blow up supermarkets? Kill schoolchildren?"

Naser turned to her. "I did not say that. There are those, though, who see that as the only way left to them."

"What you did in Morocco?" she said. "Was that the only way you had left?"

"I thought you were here to help me," Naser said, sitting back and scrutinizing her.

Yves leaned across the table. "Hanif wants to help you. I just want to know where your money came from. I want to know where you got your equipment."

"What money?" he asked, casting a look at the camera.

"Fine. You don't want to talk about the money? We won't." She paused, leaning even closer and lowering her voice. "Tell me about Khwaja al-Jafari. You met with him in Cairo last year."

Naser's expression didn't change at all. He just watched her for a long moment.

"Now I know who you are," he said, with the slightest of smiles. "It's illuminating to have finally met you."

"No doubt," Yves replied coolly.

"I saw Khwaja in Cairo. It was entirely social, though." Naser paused. "He looked well, if you wanted to know – and he did mention you briefly, now that I think about it. He wondered where you'd gotten to after you left Boston." There was another pause. "Now I know."

"Too bad you won't be able to tell him," she said, straightening up.

"Oh, I won't be in here forever..."

The door opened, cutting him off. "Time's up. Let's go."

Naser smiled at her again before shuffling out, flanked by two guards.

Byers chanced a look at Yves, her expression was curiously blank. She looked entirely collected as they gathered up their things and were escorted back to the main security checkpoint.

They walked past the cell again on their way out. This time it was occupied. The woman inside was thin, her light brown hair lank and her eyes cold. She looked at Byers as he passed, their gaze locking for a moment. The despair in her expression sent a chill through him.

She was also very clearly not Susanne.

"That's not her," he whispered, numb with shock. Yves turned sharply to look at him, then, catching herself, looked forward again.

"It isn't her," he repeated.

"Don't say anything else," Yves warned softly, putting a hand on his elbow.

Hanif dropped them near the Springfield metro station, miles from either Yves' car or the Starbucks where they'd met that morning.

"Thank you," she said, taking his hand.

"Did you get what you needed, Yves? Did it help at all."

"It did," she said, with a slight glance at Byers. "For both of us, I think."

Byers shook his head, but managed to take Hanif's hand and thank him properly. Once the car pulled away, though, he leaned against the archway that led down to the metro stop.

"Did you plan this?" he asked, finally. "Is that the reason you said you'd help me?"

"I saw an opportunity, so I took it," she said. "I could have easily done this on my own, Byers. I certainly didn't need you for it. But when the situation presented itself..." She shrugged. "It made sense to do things this way. No matter what, at least one objective would be accomplished. As it is… we're both one step closer to what we want. Win-win, as they say."

She stepped onto the escalator and he had no choice but to follow. A gust of air, tinged with the scent of grease and free-floating electricity, blew up from the station below.

"Why don't I feel much like I won today, then?"

"Would you rather have gone on thinking she was being held in there? Now you can move on to a new avenue of investigation."

"I can?" he said, feeding his ticket into the turnstyle. "Or we can?"

"I'll still help you, if that's what you're asking."

"But you're only helping because it relates to something you want to investigate yourself. Don't you ever want to do something simply because it's the right thing, Yves?"

She didn't answer for a long moment. "And what makes you think that what you're doing is the right thing?"

"It just is. I know it in my heart."

"Well, good for you then," she said. "I don't have nearly those sort of instincts."

The platform was nearly empty, the crush of the early commute ending around 10 a.m. There were a few college students waiting for the Blue Line, a few harried day camp counselors trying to keep their charges in line with nametags and plastic jumpropes. Otherwise, though, the station was eerily quiet as the lights along the track began to flash, signaling the arrival of a train. Yves chose an empty car and stepped inside. He followed, sitting beside her on one of the hard plastic seats. The doors closed behind them and the train lurched to a start.

"I do admire good people," she said, turning to stare out the window. "I just don't have the luxury of being one."