The elevator doors opened, and Rufus staggered out of the tiny box, putting a hand up against the wall to keep from toppling over. What the hell was wrong with him? He could barely keep his eyes open—

Smoke!

Adrenaline did a wonderful job of driving the sleepies away. Smoke was billowing from under the door to Dr. Halligan's office, the same office that David Sinclair was working in. And Rufus was willing to bet that David had not abandoned his post, certainly not without letting someone know that it was getting a mite stuffy in there.

The door knob to Halligan's office was locked, and hot. More adrenaline: that meant that the fire was inside along with David! Rufus wrenched at the handle, trying to get it to open. No luck; he gave up and opted for the more direct approach. Stepping back, he used strong leg muscles to break the door down.

Smoke poured out.

It was tough to see inside, but what he could make out failed to reassure him. David Sinclair was slumped over the desk, computer parts scattered around him on both the desk and tossed haphazardly onto the floor. Licks of flame danced on the rug, in the trash can, and, Rufus noted with dismay, merrily burning rags had been stuffed into the computer tower itself to melt the innards enough so that even a well-designed rumor couldn't bring Halligan's data back to life.

Dammit, the smoke was getting to him! He could barely see two feet in front of himself, could barely keep his eyes open. It was getting tough to breathe; what the hell was wrong? He'd been exposed to the smokes for only seconds! He staggered, grabbed for the edge of the desk to steady himself, touched the warm flesh of the other agent already unconscious from smoke inhalation.

Drugs.

It came to Rufus Gordon in a dismayed flash: the coffee. It had tasted off. He had drunk a cup, Charlie had drunk a cup, and so, apparently, had David. There was no other way that an arsonist would have been able to wreak this amount of havoc in Halligan's office. There was no way that someone would have been able to overpower the FBI agent on alert against just such a move. Not unless the agent was no longer alert. Not unless the agent had been drugged.

Rufus forced himself awake, fighting against the combined effects of the narcotic and lack of oxygen. In the far distance he could hear a fire alarm going into action, shrieking out its warning. Little late, dude! With failing strength he grabbed David by the arms and wrestled him out of the chair. They ended up on the floor. Each individual muscle in Rufus's body joined in a sit down strike against any further action.

The door seemed a long ways away.


It always felt odd for the first few steps after an hour or so on top of a horse. Don and Colby handed off the reins to the stable hands, legs bowed from balancing on top of their mounts. Colby rubbed his backside. "Think the apartment building has a hot tub? I've done more riding in the last twenty four hours than I have in ten years."

"At least a hot shower," Don agreed, "and definitely before dinner. I'm more interested in knowing if David's had any nibbles at Halligan's computer. He didn't call us. Neither did Rufus."

"One of them would have called if anything had happened," Colby agreed. "Maybe nobody took the bait."

Don refused to give in to the doubts. "Has to be an inside job. Halligan didn't have a life outside of work. There's nobody who would want her dead outside of someone at Caldwell with something to hide. Let's go check on him, and how Charlie and Rufus are doing with Halligan's yield data."

"You want to wash up first? We're a little ripe."

Don considered. "We probably ought to. The nice, clean employees inside would probably appreciate it." He sniffed, wrinkling his nose. "Smelled good on the horse."

"And if you were another horse, Sarge would like you a lot more than he already does. Let's compromise, and call our friendly neighborhood FBI agents." Colby pulled out his cell, tapping in the appropriate speed dial setting. He frowned. "No answer. Voice mail picked up."

"Try again." It struck a wrong note. Even if David was in conversation with an employee he would have answered his cell. And the one-sided conversation any visitor would overhear would sound entirely natural for an agent to his team leader.

"Voice mail."

"Let me try. You see if you can get hold of Rufus. Or Charlie." Don tugged his own cell from his belt, thumbing it open.

"No answer here, either."

Neither man needed more data. As one, their steps increased in speed, heading toward the main research building. And when they heard the fire alarm clanging at the facility, they broke into a run.

Stewart and Nogales stopped them at the main entrance. There was a crowd outside; the employees were huddled in small groups, having been herded outside by the fire alarm.

"You can't go in there," Nogales said. "The firemen are here. They're handling it. We're getting everyone out."

"It's not a large fire," Stewart assured them, "but with all the chemicals we have inside we have to be careful. We don't want any explosions."

Don wasn't reassured. "Where are my people?"

Nogales glanced around automatically. "I don't see them. They must be on the other side of the building."

Large alarms were going off, and the alarms weren't just inside the building. They were erupting in Don's consciousness. "My people are inside."

"No, they're not. They're on the other side of the building. Go check; we have twelve different entrances. Everyone has exited the building." Nogales put a restraining hand on his chest. "Do a circuit around the perimeter. You'll find them. They're somewhere outside."

Don brushed it away. "They're not answering their cells," he ground out. "They're inside, and they're in trouble." Don never knew anything so clearly in his life.

"You can't go inside," Nogales argued.

"Watch me."

It took only seconds to get past the fire chief, a grizzled man with a very sensible attitude toward federal agents: let 'em have their way even if it gets them killed. No skin off my nose. He did assign a couple of men with oxygen tanks to follow Don and Colby inside, ready to drag their lifeless bodies out if something went boom with the agents in the lead. Don didn't care. He had three people inside, including my brother!, and couldn't get hold of any of them.

"Where's the fire?" he shouted at the man at the main entrance.

"Fourth floor." The fireman was maddeningly calm. "Somebody's office. The dead woman, I think. The crime scene place."

As Don had feared. This fire was no accident. There was a reason he couldn't get hold of David or Rufus. Charlie he'd expect not to hear a bomb go off next to his ear when he was playing with numbers but the two professionals would answer their phones if they possibly could. Which meant that they couldn't. Which meant that they were in trouble.

Don burst onto the fourth floor from the stairwell, Colby in his wake. They were stopped by the senior fireman on the scene. "You can't go down there."

"My people—!"

"Right there." The man pointed. "He pulled the other one out. He'd be dead by now if your man hadn't gotten to the other guy. Don't know how he did it. Smoke was pretty thick."

Rufus was half-awake, propped up against the wall, holding an oxygen mask against his face, gasping for breath. Even as Don looked, Rufus put up a weak hand to wave in acknowledgement that his boss was present. David couldn't manage that: he was down for the count, oxygen strapped to his face, being lifted onto a stretcher in preparation for a hasty retreat accompanied by the four husky fire-fighters carrying him and the stretcher.

Where was Charlie?

"No one else in the office," the fireman reported.

Don stared at him, hadn't realized that he'd asked the question aloud. "He's up one flight."

"Then he got out, maybe out the back. The smoke's still pretty thick on this floor and the next, but the fire itself was contained in this one office. The place is a mess. Nobody else was in any danger, just the pair in this office with the smoke. If your other guy was upstairs, then he left with the rest of the employees."

A quick look inside Halligan's office confirmed the fireman's diagnosis, but that still left Don one brother short. The computer tower in particular was a mess. "Stay with them," he ordered Colby. "I'm going to look for Charlie."

"Don?"

"Stay here," Don repeated. "Don't let David or Rufus out of your sight. There's a murderer on the loose. Somehow I don't think the computer caught on fire by accident."

"Don." This time it was Rufus, trying to keep his eyes open behind his own oxygen mask. "Don!"

"Rufus?" Don squatted beside the man.

Rufus clutched at Don's shirt. "Don, you have to go after Charlie! We were drugged! That's how he got to us!"

Don didn't need to hear any more. His worst fears had just been confirmed. He ran.

It was hard to see in the smoke-filled corridor, and unfamiliarity with the hallway didn't help. Which office had they stashed Charlie and Rufus in? They all looked alike. It was like a copier was spitting out identical offices and lining them up along the corridor, each with a plastic name tag to identify the usual occupant. Charlie's hadn't said anything; it was an office meant for a new hire and temporarily vacant. Two other offices weren't identifying much either; the plastic tags had started to melt under the heat. Don coughed, the smoke crawling into his lungs as well. He coughed again.

There it was, the office he'd left Charlie in. The door was closed; good, keep the smoke out. Rufus had done that much. But the power was off, the computer shut down, and Charlie wouldn't have been able to do anything. Where was he? Out on the far side of the research facility, sitting down on the ground somewhere? Please, please let his brother be safely outside.

Check it out. Don itched to pull his revolver out of his shoulder holster, knew that it was merely an instinctive response to danger. Charlie wasn't here, he'd been shuffled outside by conscientious firemen. He wasn't there. He wasn't inside that office, fuming over the lack of power to the computer.

Don eased open the door, as cautious as if there was a psychotic killer inside.

Muffled thrashing.

"Die, dammit! Die, already!" A voice full of anger and despair.

Damn good instincts. Don's pistol was in his hand in a flash, his left covering his right for stability. He kicked the door open the rest of the way, hearing it bang against the wall with a satisfying crash.

"Freeze! FBI!"

There were two people in the office, only one that he had to worry about. That one was busily engaged in holding a plastic bag over the other's face, suffocating him. The suffocatee, arms flailing helplessly and trying to remove not only the bag but the hands holding it in place, had distinctive dark and curly hair. Not much else could be seen from underneath the bag, but Don didn't need a second look.

"Get away from him! Now!"

William Bostwick cringed, knew that it was over. Frontal style assault was not his style. Sneaking up on a drugged consultant was. He stepped away, letting his arms droop to his sides, beaten. There was nothing for him to say, nothing to be done. It was over.


"Charlie! You okay?" Don's job was to keep his eyes on his suspect, so that the man didn't make another move. So that the man didn't try to kill again.

But Bostwick wasn't going anywhere. He was beaten. Don sneaked a quick look at his brother.

"Mmph." Gasp for air, with just enough vocalization in it to let Don know that his brother, although unhappy and oxygen-starved, was alive.

"Charlie?"

"Nice timing." This time Charlie actually managed to put words into his exhalation. "What happened?" His voice slurred off.

Another look. Rufus was right: heavy duty narcotics had taken the edge off the keen intellect flopped in a chair, the plastic bag that Bostwick had tried to use floating down from his good hand to the rug.

But smoke was still creeping in. Getting both perpetrator and victim out in one piece was a priority. "Charlie? Can you walk?"

"Been…doing it…for years…"

Excellent. Time to move, Eppes. Handcuffs went onto Bostwick—not letting you escape this one, slime!—and Don pulled Charlie out of the lounge chair by the good arm. Charlie protested, the words all but incoherent. It didn't matter; they needed to get out of here now. Don draped Charlie's good arm around his shoulders, ignoring the stagger in his brother's gait, and pushed Bostwick forward with the barrel of his gun. "Move it, Bostwick. Unless you want to burn up."


"Hustle it," Don growled at Bostwick, giving the man a hurry up push with the pistol to speed him through the door to the stairwell out into the main lobby. Charlie was getting heavier and heavier in Don's arms. Adrenaline had fueled his brother's forward momentum for the first two flights of stairs—so glad we're headed down, and not up!—but that had passed into oblivion. Charlie's head drooped lower and lower onto Don's shoulder and Don wasn't about to take bets that he could keep his brother on his feet all the way through the front door. "C'mon, Charlie. Wake up. You can do it."

"'M walking." Charlie jerked his head up, trying to stay awake. "Ow. Watch it," he added with all the indignation he could muster. It wasn't much; the drugs had damped down every sensation except for the throbbing in his arm. Not fair, he thought with what was left of his fading thoughts. One knee tried to give out. Don hoisted him back onto his feet.

The main door. Another minor outpouring of gratitude that it had been propped open. Bostwick staggered out through the exit, hands still cuffed behind his back and Don, Charlie in his arms, pushing him through.

Dammit, need some assistance with these two! Colby was already speeding away in the ambulance with David and Rufus, unavailable. Nogales? Where is she? No, wait, there's Police Chief Mullen, obnoxious piece of bigoted slime but with authority and knowing his job. "Mullen!" Don yelled. "A little help over here—"

Crack!

Bostwick fell. Don took Charlie to the ground, ignoring the yelp that the move ignited, rolling them into the bushes and less than ample cover. But it had only been a single shot. A sniper's shot.

A single shot that took Bostwick right between the eyes.


It took a surprisingly short period of time to clean up the crime scene. CEO Stewart very sensibly dismissed his employees and sent them all home and out of the way. Somehow, no one felt like working after seeing their chief researcher fall dead to the ground, eyes rolling sightlessly back into his head and blood and brains squirting out from the brand new hole he'd acquired in his skull. No one felt like working after realizing that their stock options, part of their generous benefits package, were all but worthless now that not just one but both primary researchers were dead. Every single employee was strongly considering updating their resume for the remainder of the work day.

That decision not to sell off the stock a couple weeks ago when the rumors first started didn't seem so smart now.

Don had a few higher priorities on his hands. Priority number one was persuading his brother that lying on a stretcher was a better choice than falling onto the ground and, incidentally, re-injuring his arm with the gunshot wound.

"I don't want to go back to the hospital," Charlie protested feebly. "I was already there."

"See? It'll be like home. You already know what it looks like."

"Not funny, Don. I don't need to go there."

The eyes were closed, but the mouth stayed open and babbling. Why couldn't it be the other way around? Eyes open and mouth closed? Fortunately, Don had the upper hand, literally. He lowered his brother to the stretcher, Charlie's knees turning to un-refrigerated gelatin once the support known as Big Brother was removed. Charlie had no choice: between the drugs, his brother, and the ambulance attendants, he was going. Don called on Police Chief Mullen once again, prevailing upon him to assign an extra cop to the ambulance just in case the second sniper decided to derail the emergency vehicle. This was getting annoying; the sniper was already in custody! Who was this new one who had just killed Bostwick?

Colby was next. A swift phone call clued in the younger agent, who promised to watch over Charlie as well as the other two FBI agents.

"You going to be okay out there alone, Don?" was Colby's concern.

"I've got three people down," Don replied grimly. "You stay there. How are David and Rufus?"

"Rufus is waking up. Doc says it'll be a while before they can identify what drug he and David were given. David's snoozing still, but coughing from all the smoke. Doc says he'll be hacking up a smoker'slung for the next week. They're both sucking down oxygen like beer."

"Great. They can add Charlie's blood to the mix and compare. Let 'em know that those tests will be used for part of the Prosecution's case. Dot the I's and cross the T's kind of stuff."

"You want me back as soon as the local cop arrives?"

"Yes," Don started to say, then interrupted himself. "No. Stick close to our people. We've still got another sniper out there, and the target really was Bostwick. I don't know where this case is going. I could have sworn, after seeing Bostwick go after Charlie, that he was our man. That those yield numbers of Charlie's were what pushed him over the edge. I thought that we'd closed the case when I pulled Bostwick off of Charlie. I was wrong, Colby. And I won't let anyone else be hurt because of it. Bostwick may have been a murderer, but he shouldn't have died. He was in my custody."

"What are you going to do?"

"Same thing as always. Investigate."


"Going somewhere?"

Rosa Nogales nearly jumped out of her skin. "Don! You startled me."

"Oh, it's 'Don', is it?" Don kept his voice steady. There was no echo in the tiny Security office, and the only light was from the fluorescent bulb overhead. The framed certificates Nogales had won for marksmanship and martial arts had already been taken down from the wall. "It's always been 'Special Agent Eppes' up until now." He eyed her coldly, looking at the papers in her hand, the box on her desk filled with small items. Just the type of box to hold small memento's for someone who had just been fired. Or someone making a hasty exit without benefit of two weeks' notice. "Care to tell me why?" He didn't mean the name.

"Why? I've let too much stuff accumulate in here. It's time to do a little house-keeping—"

"I'm not a fool, Rosa." Don moved to let the pistol show at his hip. The meaning was clear. Special Agent Eppes knew everything. "I should have guessed when we picked up Borowski. Bostwick didn't have those connections. The man didn't have the first clue as to how to hire a hit man, and Borowski wasn't even a real hit man. You had those connections, through the military. You knew Borowski was hurting for money, and you putthis schemetogether. Why?" Don repeated. "What did you get out of killing Alyse Halligan and Bill Bostwick?"

Rosa Nogales' eyes hardened. "Alyse was getting too close." It was the first admission that Nogales had done anything wrong, and there was no going back. "Another week, and Bill and I could have sold our stock and retired to some island to live as kings. Another week, and the rumors would have gone out, and stock prices would have sky-rocketed. But Alyse guessed the truth. And then Bill panicked. He would have given us both away; no thought for me." Rosa clenched her jaw. "Alyse took her own readings, didn't she?"

Don nodded. "She hid them in her computer."

"And your brother found them," Rosa said bitterly. "I wish Borowski hadn't missed. One less problem to deal with. Instead, he figured out what the true yield of K-19 was. How?" she asked. "I wiped that computer. There was nothing left. There were no numbers to pull out of that computer after I was through with it. How?"

Don grunted. "You almost got away with that part of it. You almost wiped Charlie's brain with concussion. Not quite lucky enough, though. Charlie has a way with numbers. In case you hadn't noticed."

Nogales tightened her jaw. "Now I really wish that Borowski hadn't missed. Damn idiot. Give him the best equipment there is, and he still couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. And got caught with his pants down, as well. I should have killed Borowski myself. He's lucky you found him as soon as you did."

"And you?" Don wasn't finished. "What did you get out of this? How much did Bostwick pay you to arrange this little charade? And why did you kill Bostwick? What hold did he have on you? Was he blackmailing you into this?"

It wasn't words. It was the look of naked fury that gave it away.

"You and he," Don realized flatly. "I should have guessed. And still you killed him. How long was it going on?"

"What, you don't think a big man like Bill could go for a little wetback like me?" Nogales sneered wildly. "Let me tell you, he was hot for me. He couldn't keep his hands off of me! Not like that frigid wife of his. He wanted me, not like those idiots in town. Not like the ones who look at me every time I walk into the grocery store and laugh and point. 'Little Mexicana, go back to your own side of the border.'? Well, I've got news for you, gringo: this is my side of the border! I fought for this country! I served! I have a right to be here, even more than you! How about you, gringo? Did you ever fight for your country? Do you deserve to live here, gringo?"

"I'm fighting for it right now." Don wished that he had his handcuffs in his back pocket. The bracelets were currently part of State's evidence, still manacling Bostwick's dead hands together until the local coroner could finish the autopsy. Don could think of a better use for them, something, say, like getting this spitfire under control. "I'm upholding the law. You remember that one? The one that talks about murder?" Time to finish this. "Are you going to come quietly with me?"

Special Agent Eppes should have known better. Nogales had learned to fight both fair in the martial arts dojo and dirty on the street. There were no weapons at hand, so she made do with what she had. Nogales grabbed the cup of pencils and paper clips and flung it at him.

The detritus acted like dirt, aimed straight for his eyes. Don yelped in surprise and covered his face to protect himself. In the intervening moment, Nogales dove at him. It was her only chance: a sudden attack to get her opponent off balance and escape.

Don had spent too many years in Fugitive Recovery. A sudden attack meant only one thing: that the perp was on the move. One hand went up to protect his face from the flying paper clips, the other swung around to guard against the very move that Nogales was trying for. He blocked, knocking Nogales' arm away.

Nogales had speed; Don had power. And Don had one more thing: a cold and unrelenting anger over two dead Caldwell bodies and three more barely breathing ones in the hospital with FBI labels. He used it to fuel his own speed. The next strike from her he grabbed and twisted, pulling Nogales into a hold that could only be broken with sheer strength. Strength that Nogales didn't possess.

"Let me go!" she shrieked. "Let me go!"

"Give it up!" he snarled into her ear. "You're done! Dammit, do you want me to break your arm?"

"Let me go!" Nogales insisted. "You have to let me go! You can't put me in jail!" She collapsed, no longer fighting him, no longer trying to escape. Sobbing. "I can't go to jail! Not there!"

Don stared. The last piece came clear. "You're pregnant with Bostwick's child!"

Damn.


"I'm not looking forward to the drive home," Charlie informed his brother, crawling painfully into the back seat of the Suburban, allowing Rufus to give him a helpful arm up the high step.

"I'm not looking forward to four hours or more of you either," Don retorted. "Couldn't they give you more drugs to knock you out for the whole thing? Easier on both of us. And if you throw up in the truck, you're cleaning it up."

Charlie ignored the threat. He tried—and failed—to find a comfortable position that would still take advantage of the inherent safety offered by the seat belt. "I get Rosa Nogales' motive: she loved Bill Bostwick. That kind of love I can put up with not having." He shuddered. "She killed him, intending to protect her child from being born in jail. But you still haven't explained why Dr. Bostwick did what he did."

"Yes, I did. You weren't there."

"You forced me to go to the local Emergency Room."

"Standard procedure, buddy, for incapacitated FBI agents. You were drugged. I sent Rufus and David, too. You should have heard the things you were saying while they strapped you onto that stretcher." Don chuckled for effect.

"Yes, but I'm not an agent." Charlie paused. "What did I say?"

"You don't remember?" Don was an expert at interrogation. He'd had several years of practice. Don was also an expert at teasing his brother; he'd had close to thirty years of practice at that. "Something about Amita? Tight pants?"

"Don!"

Rufus, having placed himself in the front passenger's seat, swiveled around so that he could observe both brothers. "I wouldn't mind a repeat," he offered, playing truce-maker. "Whatever it was that Bostwick put in that coffee, it was a kicker. You were talking, Don, but it was all I could do to keep my eyes open."

"You didn't keep your eyes open," Don informed the younger agent with a grin. "The only people I got to talk to were Colby, Mr. Stewart, and Police Chief Mullen. Listen carefully, children: Bostwick was our man, all along. He wanted the money; he was planning to sell his Caldwell stock to get it and then skedaddle out of the country with Nogales. But there were already serious rumors floating around that Formula K-19 was a bust, rumors that both Bostwick and Nogales knew were true. He knew they were true because he was the prime designer of Formula K-19. He needed some way to make those rumors sound false, which would drive up the Caldwell stock price, so that he could sell at a profit and get out from under fast. There was an off-shore tropical island in his future with a raven-haired Latina beauty to keep him company. A place where American authorities couldn't touch him or her."

"But Dr. Halligan was in the way." Charlie kept his eyes closed and his mind open. Don tried to ignore the lines in his brother's face. It was tough. Recovery would take more than a mere few hours.

"Halligan was in the way. Bostwick was falsifying his yield data, and the only one who knew that was Alyse Halligan. She had to go. Bostwick went to Nogales. Nogales hired a hit man by the name of Borowski—I've put Colby on that little detail to see if we can find out exactly how Nogales found him—and told him to take out Halligan. As a cover, they made it seem as though Bostwick himself was the target. Just to confuse the issue. No one expects the victim to take out a contract on himself."

"It worked. I'm still confused. Why did they go after Charlie? Didn't they realize that it would look suspicious?" Rufus asked.

"That was Bostwick. He was scared," Don said. "Scared people do stupid things. When you and Charlie stumbled across Halligan's hidden data, Bostwick knew that it was only a matter of time before Charlie put the figures together and discovered that it was the true yield data. And that would ruin the rest of his plans. His stock would plummet like a rock. He didn't realize that Rosa Nogales was already getting into position to wipe the computer. So Bostwick maneuvered Charlie out into the open where Borowski could take a shot at him and make it seem like Bostwick himself was the intended target. You were the one who gave me that clue, Rufus. You commented that Bostwick seemed nervous, but before the shooting. Things were a little too busy to pay attention at that time, but your instincts were right on the money. Good work."

"So by killing me…" Charlie let the line trail off with a little shiver.

"He would prevent anyone from discovering their deception." Don finished. "Of course, that wasn't right, either. Remember cue ball theory?"

"You're talking to two mathematicians," Charlie grumbled. "What about queuing theory? The cows weren't following what the theory said they should be doing."

"Exactly. Why not?"

"I'm a mathematician, not a veterinarian. Why not?" Charlie repeated. He adjusted the sling on his arm uncomfortably.

Don grinned. "You pointed out the discrepancy, and it cracked the case. The cows only went after the bales of hay that were grown with Formula K-19. They didn't line up equally at the bales of hay, only for those with the tasty formula. And it acted like a drug for them. They were addicted, and very cranky toward anyone getting between them and their K-19 hay fix." He suppressed a shudder, remembering the horns that had swung toward him while taking samples in the presence of those cattle. "If that data ever got out, the formula would be finished, no matter what the yield was. Caldwell—and Bostwick—would be ruined."

"And now they're finished anyway," Rufus pointed out. "No formula, no researchers, and a lot of stock not worth the paper it's printed on."

Don turned on the engine, waving at Colby in the other SUV, a still gray and wan David beside him in the passenger's seat. David too had spent an uncomfortable night in the ER, pouring oxygen into smoky lungs, right next to Charlie and Rufus, and was ready to go home and crawl under some familiar bed covers. "Not our problem. Sometimes research doesn't pan out. You don't fix it by lying. Or by killing your researchers. One thing that still bothers me, though: trajectory of the bullet that killed Halligan. Doesn't seem to work for me. I still don't see how those casings ended up where they did, given that Halligan was the actual target and not Bostwick." Don shrugged that detail off and moved on. That particular little detail wasn't important. Lots of things in the world didn't work out as they were supposed to. "Rufus, how'd you like working with Charlie? Learn anything?"

"Learned a lot," Rufus said fervently. "I think you're lucky to have him." He took a deep breath. "And I don't think I could do the same thing that he does. I don't have the background, or," he added honestly, "the talent. What are you going to tell Area Director Thomas?"

Don grinned. "The truth, Rufus. Just exactly what you said, with one addition: that you're a damn fine agent. It took guts to go after David to try to haul him out of that office. If you hadn't opened the door to Halligan's office, he'd be dead from smoke inhalation. Your work on horseback was commendable and would have saved Bostwick's life if he had been the actual target. And, more importantly, you noticed Bostwick's behavior. You may not have Charlie's talents, but you've got plenty of your own. You'll be a welcome addition to A.D. Thomas's staff."

"Thank you, sir."

"Though I think you may have witnessed the first mistake with numbers that I've ever seen Charlie make."

"Mistake?"

"Yeah. Bullet trajectory. What was it? Something about ballistics?"

"Yes, well, there's always a first time." Charlie kept his voice even and his eyes closed. Rufus looked straight ahead, hoping that his hair covered enough of his ears to keep the red from shining forth. Charlie relaxed against the side of the Suburban, struggling to find a comfortable spot for everything that ached. It wasn't easy. "And I do so make mistakes. Frequently. You just don't see them."

"Like I said: lot of stuff you can learn from Charlie, Rufus. Lot of stuff." Don turned his attention to the road, a small smirk playing around his lips. And refused to say another word for fifty miles.


Author's note: I'd like to publically thank Alice I for her earlier review of this fic. She talked about the ending that she thought might be coming up, and, after chewing on that for a while, I finally admitted to myself (at 4AM, no less!) that I was dissatisfied with my original ending to this story (and since I tend to be an arrogant and pig-headed sort, this was a tough admission to make). Within twenty-four hours of that admission, new scenes spewed forth, the ending changed, and I am a much happier camper. Hopefully everyone who reads this story will be likewise pleased. Thank you, Alice!