Vancouver.

December of 1992.

Vancouver, British Columbia.

When a man goes down, the whole squad feels it. His pain reverberates through his brothers. When I was deployed, I spent so much time with my comrades that sometimes it felt like we were one person – sometimes it felt like the men who died were limbs that had been severed, senses that had been cut off. I had no reason to feel that way about Dino, who I had only just met, but as he lay there with his leg suspended from the ceiling, his eyes glazed with pain, I felt that same responsibility to him – that same desire to punish the people who had hurt him.

I sat with him all night and into the morning, keeping guard as much as I was offering support. He had no one else, nothing else. He insisted we keep Phil out of this.

"I almost died last year."

He was mostly quiet, but every now and then Dino made conversation. It was usually about whatever was playing on the little television in the corner, or how cute his doctor was – his confession took me by surprise.

He tilted his head to look at me, his eyes only half-open. "I took too much, or a bad batch, or something. It was hard to hear them when I woke up. Phil was there. He looked so disappointed. And you know what I did when I got home? I found my stash and got high again." He drew one floppy arm up and mopped the sweat from his forehead. "I should have died. I wish I had."

I was not equipped to comfort him. I crossed my arms and stared hard at the TV, wishing I was somewhere else. I hated being around sad people. I never knew what to say.

But he went on, "If they hurt Phil… I just…"

"Phil is going to be fine." I glanced over, finding his eyes on me – hoping, wanting. I groaned. "Sam is sweet-talking the police to see what they know about Chimaera. Once we have something to go on, we can make a plan. So just… stop whining."

"You have great bedside manner. You should've been a doctor."

I snorted. "Medicine is almost the opposite of my job."

"What is your job?"

I stood up, rattling the chair and startling him. "Do you want something from the cafeteria? I'm starving."

I stepped out of the room, not giving Dino a chance to respond. It was the second time he had asked what I did for a living. His curiosity was natural, but the question always threw me. Larry said I had a lot of options – private security, high school gym teacher, whatever the hell I wanted to say – but when it came time to say it, I could never come up with anything reasonable.

A pair of people stepping off the elevator caught my attention and I ducked around the corner.

One of them was Amelia, the one who had supervised Dino's injury.

And the other one was a familiar face. Yora. She was on the border watchlist, but not for extortion. She was wanted in connection to the murder of a United States citizen. Her face was not available to the local police. She was being targeted by my organization, specifically, which made me suspect the person she had killed was no ordinary citizen.

The two of them went into Dino's room. I stayed where I was, watching their shapes move around, making sure they were not suffocating him with a pillow. I couldn't hear what they were saying.

A nurse appeared and asked them to leave, reminding them that he could only have one visitor at a time.

Dino looked a little pale when I went back to his room.

"What did they want?" I asked.

"What do you think?" he said, a little venom in his tone. "They want me to call Phil."

"What did you say?"

"I said no."

I looked him up and down. He didn't have any obvious new injuries. It was brave of him to turn them down. "Did they hurt you?"

He shook his head, staring off at the wall.

I sunk back into my chair, struggling with this new information. Yora was a target. I could call Card and get the order to terminate her within an hour. But that would not be the end of this problem. She was part of an organization, and I had no doubt someone was ready to take her place. I would have to kill them, too, and the person behind them, and the people who might try to fill the void they left behind. It would quickly become a bloodbath, a cascade of bodies, a long series of funerals and crying families and flowers and tombstones.

If that was not the way, what was?

Sam came back an hour later, looking tired. We sat down in the cafeteria. He dug into a BLT and I picked at a plate of baked spaghetti.

"So, just as a frame of reference, everyone at the police department was just so nice. It was like I had stepped into an alternate universe where the police genuinely cared about me and my well-being. I felt like I was cradled in their arms, a precious baby under the protection of the law."

"Sam…"

"Right. Chimaera." He took a big bite of his sandwich. "I posed as a journalist, obviously. It didn't do me much good. Whatever they know about it, they're keeping it under wraps. I did talk to a detective, er, Gag…? Gagnon! He seemed very interested in my interest. I was as vague as possible, but I definitely have the hook out if we end up needing him."

I finally took a bite of my meal, my stomach rumbling. It had been a long night. "I think I got more information than you here at the hospital."

"How is that?"

I told him about the little visit they had paid Dino, leaving the most interesting information for last. I was still unsure how to say it.

"Her name is Yora."

"No last name? Very villain-y."

"It's a codename. The prevailing theory is that she's really Yolanda Randolph – she went missing from a small town in Pennsylvania, and around the same time, Yora appeared just south of the Canadian border."

"You sure know a lot about her." He looked suspicious.

"I recognized her face and called a friend."

"So, what did she do to get on your shady boss's radar?"

I glared at him, a signal to keep his voice down. "She killed someone. I'm not sure who."

"How does this help us stop her?"

"Well, that's the thing. I could… make a call to my handler. He would give me the order to…"

Sam cocked an eyebrow, saying nothing. He was waiting.

"But I'm not doing that. Someone else would take her place and take on his debt. I want to dismantle the entire organization."

"In that case, I have the perfect cover."

"Is it Chuck Finley?"

"That's Charles to you, pal. I'll infiltrate as a low level-"

"No, Sam. I have a plan. But I need you to trust me."

Sam regarded me wearily, "I hate it when you say that."