Pursuit.

August of 1993.

Puerto Rico.

"Well, well, would you look who it is!" Sam strode forward and embraced me, always the type to make a scene in an airport. "How the hell are you?"

It had been a few months since Moscow, since Emma caught a ricochet in the neck and proved that being a spy was really just about trading lives. I had been throwing myself from mission to mission, trying to forget. It never worked.

I said, "Never better. What about you?"

"You know me. Living my best life." Sam put an arm around my shoulders, led me through the west exit – the exit that few people used, because the pickup area was in the east. "I figured you would be the perfect guy for this. Who doesn't love a good drug syndicate?"

I laughed, already in a lighter mood because of him. Sam was a special kind of person. "I read up on the plane. FERMA, huh? Stand for anything?"

"Oh, yeah. Farm."

"Kind of on the nose."

"We should tell them that once we catch them."

Outside, a dark car was waiting for them. Sam hopped in to drive. I admired the black tint on the windows, the shiny new hubcaps. It was out of place in Puerto Rico. "Nice ride."

"Like it? I got it special. Absolutely essential for the mission."

"I bet." I pulled my folder out, flipped it open again. "So what is the mission, exactly? You have all this information already. You could raid the place."

"I could, but I would miss the most important people." Sam glanced over, "Who made that for you?"

"I did," I responded simply. "I try to stay informed on your operations."

When I got the call from Sam, I looked into the FERMA situation. It was a nasty group operating primarily out of Puerto Rico at the moment, but the term was not entirely new to me. Larry and I had discussed it briefly. He thought it was an old spy tale, a shadow organization based in Russia and threaded throughout the world. I was leery of that, not willing to buy into speculation. It was enough to interest me, though, and to make me grateful that Sam called. It was something I wanted to put an end to, if it really existed.

"Well, I have a different folder," Sam said, retrieving his folder from the back floorboard and handing it over. "Welcome to Puerto Rico, Mr. Roger Stall – an alias, of course. Birthname Roger Fitzgerald."

I opened the folder, amused to find a picture of me next to that awful name. "So I'm a… money launderer? Spent a lot of time in prison for that."

"You were poorly behaved. Flip the page."

I flipped it over, found an extensive criminal record involving selling drugs in prison.

"You were a pain in the ass," Sam said. "I have five different prison guards who will say you were constantly finding creative ways to do business behind bars."

"How long have you been onto this group?"

"Six months now. I've made my way into the lower ring already – I handle some logistics, mostly with trucks and convenient road closures. But it seems their money launderer had a nasty run in with the law recently and they're in need of a professional."

"Sounds like a job for Roger Stall."

XxXxX

"I am highly qualified, believe you me," I said, in the strongest New Jersey accent I could manage. "You know what, actually, I sense a lot of negative energy in here. What do you want from me, buddy, huh?"

Sam shrugged across the room, standing there amongst a few other lower-level components of what our boss called the bottom ring of FERMA. A foundation of sorts. He was glaring at me, arms crossed, turning to spit on the ground every now and then.

Juan, my interviewer, snapped his fingers at me, "Pay attention to me. I am asking for your qualifications. You just march in here and demand a job. You don't even know who we are."

"I know who you are, farm guy," I said. "I heard about you in prison. Figured I'd try for the best, you know, shoot for the moon."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Juan pressed. "We are a shipping company."

I laughed, glanced around, "Yeah, yeah, you sure are, buddy. Listen, we can dance around it all day, but I'm experienced in your field. Shipping," I put it in air quotes, laughed again, "I got a lot of years for shipping. Made a lot of friends who do shipping. You can look me up, there, uh, what's your name? Billy. I'll call you that. No chance you're giving me a real name, anyway, ey? Listen, you look me up, call who you gotta call, and I'll be around. Leavin' my number right here." I placed a card on the ground at my feet, put my hands up, and walked away, glaring back at Sam as I went.

XxXxX

"I have new orders."

Card sounded as monotone and passive as he always did on the phone. No edge, no inflection, just easy authority, straightforward information. I admired that about him.

I said, "Superseding the old ones?" I was worried, because my current orders were to aid Sam in bringing down major players in FERMA. If I was suddenly sent back to Russia, Sam would be left on his own in this kill-or-be-killed syndicate. I was his backup.

"Yes. Four of the top lieutenants within FERMA have been redesignated as neutralize instead of capture. Your last report indicated there would be a meeting with the four of them at a remote location. Make it look like they disagreed."

Sam was going to disapprove. He hated that, specifically, about spies. Killing. But there were reasons behind these orders. Card must have new information about the lieutenants. Sam could never understand that they were better off dead than captured sometimes – better off dead than rotting in a black prison for the rest of their natural lives.

"Understood," I said, and hung up.

XxXxX

Honestly, it was a little ironic.

I thought I was out there to kill them, and they were really out there to kill me – they turned on us before I could turn on them. Shots went off. I dove into the bushes, catching a clip in the shin. Juan was the one doing most of the shooting. I fired back with a much bigger, more efficient gun, got a good look at the smug expression on his face, and then realized why he had it.

Sam was on the ground, dragging himself away.

I had hit one of the lieutenants, and the other two fled into the jungle, no doubt intending to double back as soon as the shots stopped. Juan was the one who hung around, leveling his gun at Sam.

I fired again, and Juan cursed, yelling, "Stupid gringo!" before he joined his buddies in the jungle.

"Sam!" I said, torn.

Sam was sitting up, panting, he waved me off. "Go get 'em, buddy, I'm fine. Caught one in the foot, is all. It's what I get for trying to kick a bullet."

I hit my knees beside him, cutting a portion of his shirt to tie around his bleeding foot. Blood poured from his shoe as I wrenched it off.

"Really, I'm fine-" Sam started, and then, "Oww."

"Sorry." I tightened the bandage again, said, "Find some cover," and then started my pursuit.

It was easy to see red when my hands were covered in blood. Sam was fine, but my brain hooked onto it. He was not going to like what I had planned.

XxXxX

I was four hours in.

All around me, the jungle seemed to be looming, pressing inward. One tree, one misplaced vine, one loud splash, and the hunt was over. My prey would flush. I was on a mission to neutralize, and he was on a mission to survive.

Only one of us could win.

I navigated carefully, thoughtfully, not pressing for speed as much as for precision. Juan had been running in circles for a while and I was trying to keep my path straight, to intercept one of his wide arcs. He might have thought his people were trying to find him, but the three of them had already met their end. One fell into a ravine not long after he fled the gunfight, and the other two had the nerve to try to ambush me. Juan was the only one left.

I was not as heavily trained in jungle navigation as I was in alpine forests and highlands, but the fundamentals were the same. Follow. Outpace. Outlast. Spies were trained for endurance, not sprints – in espionage and in good old fugitive hunting.

Another hour, another few miles of hiking. I was going mostly downhill, down a mountain we had crested hours ago. Juan had finally stopped going in circles, but he was making zigzagging paths through the forest, damaging ferns, slipping in mud, leaving blood in the water. I had grazed him with a bullet back at their meeting, slowed him down.

On the downhill path, Juan had slipped and slid a hundred feet or so into an embankment, leaving behind a shoe. I tied it to my backpack and kept going, determined to leave little evidence of what was going to happen here today.

Finally, hours later, deep into the evening, I found signs of him slowing down. A few places where he had fallen on his knees and put his hands in the mud. It was raining, drizzling constantly, wetting the ground and drenching me – drenching him. And it was a cold rain, giving me a heavy feeling. Juan was not trained to handle this kind of stress. I was.

I picked up the pace, encouraged. He had a strong will to survive, but it was not going to be enough. I had a single-minded purpose. I had a mission that differed from that of my companion – a companion who was back at the edge of the jungle, waiting for me.

He was a capture and prosecute kind of guy.

I ran into Juan as night was falling, gave him no chance to plead, or fight back. I put him down immediately, and then stood there, contemplating it. I was this person now, who did these things. Juan was part of FERMA, and FERMA was a new point of hatred for me. Its resurgence in Puerto Rico really pissed me off. We had spent months infiltrating it, gaining the trust of its members, trying to push into that top ring – failing. When they suddenly turned on us, our failure was painfully clear. We were not as trusted as we imagined, and nearly lost our lives for it.

But the lieutenants were dead now. Whoever the big boss was, he got a pass. Card did not mention him. I had completed my mission.

XxXxX

Sam was in one of the cars when I found him, armed and ready to defend his position. He hobbled out when he saw me, grinning, the shirt around his foot dyed scarlet. But his grin faded when he got a good look at me. Maybe I had that expression again, the one Sam always noticed.

Darkness.

He said, "Where are they, Mikey?"

I just shook my head, said, "Get in the car."

"Mike, come on." Sam followed. "We gotta go get them."

"They're dead," I clarified.

Sam stopped dead for a moment, "You didn't have to do that!"

"They fought back," I said, uncertain about how to defend myself without revealing that it was just a mission. "What was I supposed to do, Sam?"

"Mike, you're standing here justifying murder to me. I want you to think about that."

"It was self-defense."

"It's murder!" Sam threw his hands up. "You're so damn good at it, Michael. You're a natural, you really are. But you can't use that to avoid killing people? You know, you could solve a lot of problems and do a lot of good in the world if you wanted to."

Ouch. Maybe he was right. Larry had taught me a lot of things, and Card had taught me a lot of things – but the pure things came from Sam. When it felt like my original purpose was slipping away, Sam was there to remind me.

So, I lied.

"I'm sorry, Sam," I said, honestly. "I tried to take them alive, but I couldn't risk them coming back around to you, and I couldn't stop them. I've lost too many people lately, and I can't lose anyone else. Especially not you."

Sam softened, but the hard lines remained on his face. "I still believe in you, Mikey. You're a solid guy. I know you are. I didn't mean to insinuate that you killed them in cold blood. That's not you." He glanced at the jungle, sighed, "Come on. I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitoes."

That's not you.

Was it? I found myself in that cycle again, trying to be better for Sam. He was right, fundamentally. I was good at what I did – good enough to find alternative ways to solve problems. Anyone could fire a gun. Not everyone could infiltrate, divide, and conquer the way that I could. Not everyone could assume personas and convince even themselves that they were someone else, something else.

And on the inside, I wanted to help people. It came naturally. I was dealing with scumbags and criminals every day, but there were better people out there – like Emma.