A few minutes later Diego was sitting at the end of one table inside of a small, darkened room, and Dylan and Olivia Perry were seated at the other end. There was a pitcher of water with three paper cups, and an empty notepad and one pen placed directly in front of the "person of interest." One wall had a large mirror, and Diego had been in enough police interrogation rooms to know what was behind it.

Behind the window Patrick stood a few feet away in the next room, and Erin stood alongside him. The expression on Patrick's face was stone hard serious, and he said nothing as the interrogation began.

Olivia began the interview with a mildly cheerful yet mocking tone. "Hello again, mister Mejia? Or is it Mr. Padrote?" The reference to Diego's EVAChan handle was intentional on Olivia's part, in order to let him know that how much the Alliance knew of his activities. "I had hoped that we wouldn't be seeing you quite so soon."

"It wasn't my idea to be here," Diego growled.

"No?" Olivia said in mock surprise. "Then why did you direct your rideshare app to take you here?"

"I didn't do that!" he argued. "She's working with you…isn't she?"

Behind the glass, Patrick looked at Erin. "Did you do that?"

"Um, I might have," she said with a smirk.

In the interrogation room Olivia continued. "Well, no matter how you got here, what's important is that you're here now and quite conveniently so as we have so many new questions for you."

Diego tried to be firm. "I want a lawyer."

Dylan rested his chin on his hand. "No can do, compadre. When you crossed that entry gate into Alliance Base North, you entered Alliance-administered territory and here, especially in regard to EVA stuff, the rules of the host country no longer apply."

"I don't have to tell you anything!"

"Of course you don't!" said Dylan. "You can just shut your trap and then we get to toss you into a holding cell until the next ice age. And considering your lack of standing back home as a juvenile delinquent and all, I don't think the Peruvian government will mind so much."

"However," Olivia then cut in, "we can make all of this go away pretty quick if you can answer just one little question from us. How about that?"

"I didn't do anything to her," Diego said. "I didn't I swear."

Olivia winced a little at Diego's answer. "I don't recall actually asking that question yet. If you're referring to your rather predatory behavior regarding our little Tiger, I can assure you that being a dickwad is unfortunately still perfectly legal."

Diego knew where the conversation was being directed, and knew he couldn't cave in, not if he had any concern for his own life. He tried to play dumb, faking a confused look. "Uh, are you telling me that this is not about my dear Erin?"

The female agent's eyebrows rose high as she smirked, while Dylan lobbed the empty envelope Diego had presented Rei with onto the table. "You know what this is, don't you?"

"Ah, yes! That…that was an attempt on my part at a reconciliation with my dear Erin. I had made several attempts to reach her and as you know, she has a fiery temper. So I considered, perhaps, that her friend might be a better person to try and reach first in order to contact her."

Dylan was extremely skeptical. "You know how to write Japanese, Diego?" He showed him the front of the envelope, with the hiragana and kanji characters very neatly written out. "Because this seems like something a little out of your reach here."

"Well, I…I tried very hard, you know. I thought that Japanese people are very neat so I…searched the internet for the correct characters and then practiced several times…"

"How did you know this name?" Olivia again interrupted. "The name written here on the envelope. I'm pretty sure you didn't just search that on the web."

"The blue haired girl…resembles the well-known Evangelion pilot, of course…" Dylan immediately took the envelope and wacked Diego's face with it.

"That is some really stinky guano, Senior Padrote," said Dylan. "There's no fucking way you just used that name on the envelope, especially with those tricky fingers of yours writing this down so damn neatly like that."

"Who gave it to you?" Olivia asked.

Diego shook his head. "No one." The two agents looked at each other and smirked again. Olivia then leaned over the table at her subject.

"Well, no one has a name, or at least a physical description. And no one seemed very interested in that girl. What did he do? Threaten you?"

"I tell you there was no one."

"I'm pretty sure no one in this case also told you that they knew your gang buddies back in Lima and probably even showed you photos of them taken from some distance. Enough to establish that some people who actually are somewhat dear to you could find themselves at room temperature should you not cooperate with them. Am I correct about that?"

The scenario Oliva presented to Diego was in fact nearly exactly what had happened the day he was handed the letter. "There was no one. I insist upon this. I simply gave this letter to the girl to present a message to Erin, asking her, pleading with her, to contact me so that we could have a reconciliation. That is all. And if you had the envelope, then you have that letter too, correct?" Diego leaned back in the chair and smiled, knowing that the agents very likely didn't have the letter inside at all.

Dylan now started on him. "Senior Padrote, you don't seem like the kind of guy who would care so much about important stuff like Evangelion. You seem more like, you know, a player. A guy who just takes any opportunity he sees as profitable and runs with it. Yeah?"

"That is not a very generous description of me," Diego told him. "I have you know that was a top student within my school back home."

"Yes, and I also know that to get into The New Institute you have to be nominated by someone important and usually pretty well connected. And it seems rather unlikely that a kid with no parents and who had a juvenile record was suddenly thrust into this amazing educational opportunity."

"As I said, I was a top student and despite my past I was lucky."

"Oh, yeah," said Olivia, "you were awfully damn lucky. Not only were you lucky enough to get into TNI, once you were there you were also lucky enough to meet up with a girl who, despite using a cover alias and not ever having her part in EVA ever publicly disclosed, just so happened to be an EVA pilot."

"…along with her brother and her best friend," Dylan added.

"And on top of all of that, you also were on the EVAchan elite group, that invitation-only set of users who passed on whatever information they could get on EVA. Well, I'm guessing that was just something over than luck altogether considering just how many planets had to align in order for you to be here with us today."

Cornered, Diego grumbled. "What do you want?"

"One question only. What was on that letter?"

Ah, so you really don't have it. "I'm afraid that I've forgotten."

Dylan turned to Olivia. "This guy is not even serious," he told her. "Personally I think he's just trolling us." She faced Diego. "Listen, kid, don't waste our time with this crap."

Diego however continued his play in the game. "I might remember with a proper incentive."

"Hey, Senior Padrote!" snapped Dylan. "This isn't a TV show! We don't have to play by the rules here."

"Well, then neither do I, as apparently I could possibly have something you need and you have something that I do need."

"Such as?"

"An unlocked door from this facility, and I walk out of here."

"Sorry," said Olivia. "This isn't negotiable. Actually," she said and then leaned into him again. "We're just jacking your chain here. We already know what was inside, and we know that because we found out where that letter was dropped." What she said wasn't true, but she knew bluffing was well in order. "What we didn't know was whether or not you could be trusted, or would you turn out to be just some complete asshole. Now that I have that answered, we have what we need."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah," said Dylan, playing along with Olivia. "So, if you want to walk out of here, go right ahead. We won't stop you."

Diego leaned back in the chair, taken by surprise by the success of his gambit. "You mean, you are letting me go?"

"Absolutely," said Olivia. "Whatever we needed from you, we got it, so you can totally get out of here."

"And," Dylan, "I figure you'll have about a five-minute head start."

"You mean from the Alliance?" Diego asked.

"No," said Dylan, pointing to the mirror behind him. "From the guy who's behind that mirror. You do know who he is, don't you?" Diego couldn't see through the mirror but hazarded a guess and he didn't like the answer he had come up with.

"You should know," Olivia picked up the conversation, "that Erin's brother just got back from Camp X last week. That's the camp where they train the really top agents. Like, Double-0s and all that."

"Real License to Kill stuff," Dylan chimed in.

"Yup. Patrick just got back and he's been raring to try out his new skills. And here you are, you know, messing with both his twin sister and his girlfriend." Olivia smiled broadly. "Agent Dylan here and I have a bet that you're not gonna get five feet out the base gates before Patrick guts you like a fish and strings you up from the base air control tower."

"And I'm speculating that he's going to take his time doing that," Dylan added. "Don't forget: he's also an EVA pilot. This guy has killed things a hundred times your size, and that was just a job. This is going to be very personal for him."

"But, hey," said Olivia, "a deal's a deal so," she stood up and opened the interrogation room door. "Hasta la vista, baby!"

Diego didn't get up from the seat. Olivia and Dylan looked at each other and knew he had the game in their hands. "What's the matter? You wanted to get out of here, didn't you?"

"Perhaps we can…discuss things further."

"Aw, shit," said Dylan. "I really wanted to watch this happen!"
"There, there," Olivia comforted Dylan, "with this guy there'll be another time I'm sure."

"I'm serious!" Diego shouted as he looked nervously at the mirror. "Don't let me out of here!"

"Wait," said Dylan. "Did you just say don't let you out?"

"Yes! Don't let me go! Comprende?"

Olivia smirked. "I believe that is consent, freely given. Okay then," she swung the door closed and then took a seat. "One question: what was really on that letter."

"You…didn't have it?"

Dylan scoffed at Diego. "You're a juvie, we know this isn't your first round in a police station. How stupid do you think we are?"

Olivia ventured another educated guess. "That letter was written in Japanese, just like the cover, right?"

"Yes," Diego confirmed softly.

"And you know that because a shifty bastard like you opened it up, despite that those goons told you not to, right?"

"Also correct," he said.

"Because you don't trust anyone and that's your insurance policy, right?"

"Also correct, my dear agent," Diego replied, finally feeling some confidence come back to him.

"Good, then we're all on the same page. Let's make this brief: tell is what it said and I'll put Patrick back in his cage and you walk out of here, escorted by the two of us." She then slid over the memo pad that was on the table with the pen towards Diego. "So let's have it."

"I will need protection," he told them.

"From who, Patrick?"

"From the others, the ones who put me in this...unfortunate situation."

"If you want that," Olivia told him, "you need to answer more than one question. Also, just to cut you off here, if you want protection for your gang buddies back home we can ask the Lima police to, say, gather them up and then post them to a remote location somewhere in the Andes where it's not so easy to find them. But to do that, you'll have to answer a lot more questions. Is that understood?"

"Yes," he said.

"So," Oliva told him, taking the pen and slamming it down on the table. "Make it quick or this whole deal goes up in smoke and Patrick back there uses you for target practice. Deal?"

Fine, it's all up in smoke for me anyway. "Deal." Diego then wrote something on the pad. Both Dylan and Olivia looked at it. "What is this?"

"The truth of the matter," Diego told them, "is that the letter was written almost entirely in Japanese using characters that I didn't understand. The only thing that I did," he explained, "is what I wrote."

"Is this a code?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know what it is," Diego replied. "But it was written in English letters and those are numbers. And that is all."

Oliva showed it to Dylan, who examined it and then nodded in recognition. "We're good with this," he told the others. Dylan then grabbed the paper and hurried out of the room as Olivia faced her captive.

"Lucky boy," she told him.

Dylan ran to the adjacent room where Patrick and Erin stood and then barged inside, showing them the paper. "We have an address!"

What was written in roman characters on that letter was "Dudley 165," and this turned out to be 165 Dudley Street, an address in the abandoned Boston neighborhood of Lower Roxbury.

"You know where that is?" Patrick asked Dylan.

"When I was a kid we used to play at Roxbury State Park. Dudley street is just around there."

Olivia followed up. "What's around there?"

Dylan shrugged. "Mostly older houses, mixed in with apartments and some retail. The occasional church or school. It was high enough to avoid the worst of the incoming water damage, but it's still not in great shape."

"Does anyone still live in that part of old Boston?"

"Probably not anyone normal," Olivia quipped. "The heritage sites are all north of there, and there's no power or running water anywhere south of the river anyway. I'm sure there's a few squatters who have found places in the old city before it eventually gets leveled."

Patrick turned again to Dylan. "How far away from TNI?"

"An hour on foot, over the bridge and right down Mass Avenue. It'd be easy for ANGEL to make her way across that."

"Do you think that's their hideout or maybe just a meeting point?"

"Hard to think they'd give away their safehouse to her," Olivia mused. "I'd have to think they'd have another place that's a stronghold of some kind." Patrick then calculated the time.

"If Rei left TNI at 2230, she'd be there by 2330, by midnight at the latest," he said. "She still has a nearly ten hour jump ahead of us."

"That's enough time to get her out of Boston and then cover their tracks," Dylan said. "The sooner we can get there the fresher the site will be, but I don't think our chance are good to catch up to them yet."

"Got it," confirmed Olivia. "Let's get on the line with the director and fill him in. In the meantime, I'll get QRT set up for an air delivery and we jump the place." But Patrick waived her off.

"I think I should recon it first," he told her. "Let me see if anyone's still around and then if needed you can call in the cavalry." Olivia thought for a moment and then nodded. "That's fine, but just make it fast."

Patrick looked at his stopwatch, which now read 107 hours and 35 minutes. It still seemed like a lot of time but he knew that was deceiving. "Give me some wheels and I'll get it done." He looked over at Erin and then asked Olivia. "Anywhere here I can get a few candy bars?"

Within a half-hour Patrick was behind the wheel of an unmarked SUV loaned to him by the Alliance security team, with Erin seated next to him in front. Behind them in one of the passenger seats was Zummy, who still looked scared to death as he sat silently and wondered just why he was being taken to the wreckage of the old city. As Patrick sped over the Charles River on the MIT bridge he hit a torn-up portion of concrete and the SUV bounced wildly for a couple of seconds as Erin squealed. She then pounded Patrick on his right shoulder not so playfully.

"Do you even know how to drive?" she complained.

"Got my license, same as you," he quipped. "Anyway, I also got my Alliance badge so who's going to stop me?"

"I'm not worried about being stopped," shouted Erin. "I'm worrying about arriving in one piece!"

Patrick was slightly more careful for the rest of the drive as he sped down Massachusetts Avenue while following the GPS screen mounted on the SUV's dash. As he got to within a mile of the suspected location, he turned off the main road and into a small avenue that curved around the hillside of the old city. Old Boston was a mixture of still-standing houses and buildings combined with others that were burned down, drowned, or destroyed by other means in the intervening years between Second and Third Impacts, and the desolation spread for miles in several directions on the main island of the city. A perfect place to hide out, Patrick thought to himself. Using side streets he got to within one thousand yards of the target address and then finally stopped the vehicle.

Grabbing a set of binoculars, Patrick jumped out of the driver's seat and then jogged towards a still-standing but abandoned parking lot structure a few yards away. He climbed five flights of stairs and then got to the rooftop and carefully made his way to the eastern edge, trying to be careful not to be seen. Crouched at the edge of the rooftop lot, he searched with the binoculars for the target address, looking for a three-story white Victorian home. It didn't take him long to ID the hideout as matching public records for the house.

"That's the place," he spoke softly into his radio microphone. "No one visible."

"It's probably abandoned, already," said Dylan over the radio. He was with the QRT in helicopters that were parked just outside of TNI across the river, ready to lift off and pounce on the target on command.

"Alright, I'll go up there and see if anyone's still home. Will signal if we got any trouble."

"Roger," Dylan replied. Patrick then scurried back to the SUV and spoke to the others.

"Found the house," he said. "Sis, if anyone there were using something like satellite comms, could you hack it?"

"You mean crack it," Erin corrected. "Not if it's on a tight-beam connection. But I could use a signal to disrupt any communication, just as long as they're using some kind of electrical power."

"Well the power lines here in this part of the city don't work, so I'll bet they have a generator for anything big like that."

Erin thought about it for a moment. "Microwave would work. Just need to log into the Alliance drone control and get a hold of one of their birds that has a jammer."

"I'll call for a drone for air support," Patrick told her. "You got your terminal with you?" Erin picked up her small notebook from her handbag and nodded. "It'll only take a second, just give me the signal."

"Will do." He then faced Zummy. "Now, Zumwalt. You have an important job here."

"Me?!" David said with surprise.

"Yes. You are going to walk up to that house and then distract these jokers if anyone's home while I get inside."

"H-h-how am I going to do that?" Patrick then showed him the bag of candy bars.
"Simple. You're going to knock on their door and then they answer, you're going to tell them you're raising money for school and try to sell them these," he said.

"You're kidding! They're not going to believe me!"

"It doesn't matter. All you have to do is get their attention for a few seconds. They're probably just shut the door or tell you to go away, if they're there at all. And if they're not there, then no worries."

"But what if they are there and they s-s-shoot me or something?"

"Look," Patrick told him directly. "You helped Reiko get into this mess, you can at least do your part to help get her out. Now don't worry, I've got the rest under control." He handed him the bag of candy bars which David reluctantly took from Patrick. "Just go up there, and try to visit a few houses before you approach 165 Dudley. I'll be close by."

"Um, one other question."

"What?"

"If they want to buy the candy bars, how much do I sell them for?"

Patrick sent Zumwalt up ahead while he watched and prepared the rest of his weapons for the scouting mission. Erin looked at him with a puzzled expression, and Patrick knew why.

"You're wondering why I brought him here with us," he said to Erin.

"You're going to get him killed," she replied with concern. "Look, I've known him for months. He's not some sort of spy terrorist or anything."

"But you have to admit his whole participation in this Eva-chan thing is pretty problematic, Sis."

"He didn't kidnap her! I'm pretty sure of it."

"I'm not sure Rei was even kidnapped," Patrick replied. "Look, I agree, he doesn't seem the type for this, but we don't know for certain and I don't have time to sort out who's who."

"So you're sending him out there as bait?"

Patrick explained his plan further. "If he's nobody to these guys, they'll be trying to figure out why he's knocking on that door and I'll be there watching him when they do. If he's one of their own, they'll be something like a signal passed or they'll pull him in right away and I'll know it."

"And what if they just blow him away?" she asked.

"I promise you that won't happen," Patrick told her, and he tried to make sure she understood he meant it.

As Zummy made his way down the empty houses on Dudley Street, Patrick paced him at a distance, jumping in between the back yards of a row of properties while trying to keep from being either seen or heard. His hope was that the kid's presence walking down the street in an abandoned neighborhood was enough to get the attention of whoever it was inside that house.

When Zummy was a couple of doors away Patrick reached the target address of 165 Dudley. It was a three-story old Victorian painted white and looked in bad shape of a makeover with cracked wood panels and broken glass. Hiding from around the corner of the adjacent property, Patrick quickly brought up his IR visor and took a long glance at the house.

Three heat signatures, one's on the floor and a little small. That's a generator I'm pretty sure. So two guys then. Shouldn't be that hard to get in there and…

There was a noise to Patrick's front and he quickly darted behind the corner. Flipping out his mobile phone, Patrick placed it at the corner edge of the house and recorded what he couldn't see himself. He distinctly heard footsteps on wood stairs however, and knew that someone else had arrived. Recoiling the phone, Patrick made sure the volume was at zero and then played the video, revealing a third henchmen, dressed in black combat wear and a black overcoat, had arrived through the back door of the house.

Three then. He put the IR visor aside and prepped for the infiltration. Patrick himself wore a black-colored tactical utility suit, along with fingerless gloves and black tennis shoes (which were more quiet than combat boots). He checked his weapons, two holstered Sig-Sauer P226 9mm pistols, and attached a silencer to one of them. He then checked for his knives, two well-balanced Sykes-Fairburn steel models that were attached to either shoulder strap on his utility harness. Part of his training at Camp X had been on how to properly employ knives and while he liked the Sykes models Patrick sort of whished that someone would make a mini-sized ultra-vibrating Progressive Knife like his EVA had.

He keyed his audio and whispered. "I'm here. Is the new drone in place?"

Erin checked her notebook, where she had a video input for the drone's camera, now focused on the house in front of her. "We're ready."

"QRT is ready," added Dylan, who was standing in the door of a helicopter across the river. "If we get the signal, we'll launch."

"Roger that," replied Patrick. I'm going in. Erin, when I tell you hit the microwave."

"Roger," Erin said over the line.

"I'll click twice if I need QRT to bail me out. Here goes."

"Take care, bro," Erin whispered, and then she promptly started praying once Patrick went off the line.

Patrick left his audio keyed on, in order to avoid having to use a finger to do anything. He'd only have to hit the SEND button to click on the audio, and only if he was really in serious trouble, and Patrick hoped he'd never be in that spot.

Rookie mission…here goes….

Crouching down, Patrick sprinted towards the back of the hideout house and then made himself flat against the rear outside wall. He noticed a garage door that was closed, and relatively fresh tire tracks in the broken mud outside the house, and knew that the occupants had a getaway vehicle.

Going in the back door would be foolish: if not locked, it would certainly be set up with an alarm or trigger, so Patrick looked for a storm cellar opening. Fortunately there was one about six feet from him, so he grabbed steel wire cutters from his belt and again sprinted to the opening. It was small, about three feet by three feet, barely enough room to squeeze in. He used the cutters to snap away the steel grate on the outside, then after clearing enough he took a deep breath and jumped in feet first.

When he landed on the floor, Patrick came down hard on his ankles and tumbled over. He struggled to come up to his feet fast without touching anything in the abandoned storm cellar, which was a mess of old clothes and stacked-up boxes that were moldy and smelly from decades of exposure. The smell in the room was pungent enough to make Patrick want to puke, but he blew out air and then took another breath and got his bearings beyond the smell of the place.

The storm cellar was lit from sunlight out of the opening Patrick had come through in, and he could see one set of wooden stairs leading up to a closed door. Was that door locked? He'd assume probably, and that became his next obstacle. If it was locked by the door handle it could be picked or at worst he could snap off the handle with the bolt cutters, but if it was padlocked from the outside he might have to use an explosive to blow the door, and that would be the end of his stealth entry.

Fortunately the walls and floorboards of the old house were thin, and Patrick could make out what was being said above him by the three terrorists, who all spoke informal Japanese to each other.

"Did you get him?" asked one man with a deep voice.

"No. The Alliance got to him first." From that Patrick inferred that the man speaking was the one who had just returned, and the subject of the discussion was likely Diego.

"What do we do? He could identify us!" said a third voice, younger than the other two.

"We get out," ordered the deeper voice, which Patrick now took as the leader. "Sanitize this place, we'll set up a timer and get going, then let it burn once we're out."

"Understood," said the second man.

"Get a fire going," ordered the leader. "Burn anything that they can trace."

Patrick figured this was good for him, as his opponents would be busy trying to clean up their forensic traces and had definitely not noticed his entry into the house. However, now he would have to act very fast, as each piece of evidence was something needed for the larger investigation.

He looked at the wooden staircase up to the first floor and then checked to see if there was any other way upstairs from the cellar. There was not, so Patrick very carefully started up the steps with a silenced pistol in one hand and a lockpicking tool in the other. Very deliberately he took several second for each step, in order to conceal his presence and as he slowly went up he heard the men speak again.

"Who the hell is that?" one of them asked.

"What is it?" the leader replied.

"Some kid is going door to door," said the second voice. "And he's headed here."

Simultaneously a voice spoke into Patrick's earpiece. "He's approaching the house now." Zummy's coming.

"I don't like it,' said the leader. "See what he wants, if he's trouble we'll just take care of him."

Patrick now knew that the trap he had baited was about to be sprung. Knowing he needed to get to the first floor before Zumwalt showed up at the door, Patrick quickened his pace up the stairs. That was an unfortunate mistake, as the next step he took went straight through the wood plank and noisily into thin air.

"What was that?" said the leader. "Go check it out!"

"Zummy's at the door," came Erin's voice on the earplug, but Patrick now had more immediate worries. He quickly pulled out his leg from the broken stair step and bounded the rest of the way up the stairs. The door in front of him shook a little and then started to slowly swing open.

At the front door there was a few knocks. The leader peeked out the door's peep-hole but didn't make any sound. With no reply, the boy in front knocked again.

"H-h-hello?" a nervous Zummy called to the other side of the door. "Is anyone there?"

"Who the hell is he?" asked one of the terrorists.

"I think I know," said the leader, who then promptly opened the door.

Standing in front was David, dressed in his regular clothes and carrying a bag of candy bars in his left hand. He was trembling at the sight of the rough-looking Japanese man dressed in black.

"Umm…would…would you like to buy some candy bars?!" Zummy asked nervously. "It's for my school fundraising." David stood there unsure of what to do next as the two men studied him.

"Who is he," the man behind the leader asked in Japanese.

"I've seen him with the divine one," the leader responded. "He's the student who's frequently in the café with her." Sensing trouble, the man immediately grabbed for Zummy and pulled him inside the doorway.

From the drone camera above Erin watched as the terrorist grabbed Zummy. "Patrick!" she shouted into the microphone, "they've got him!"

No long worrying about being stealthy, Patrick gave her the signal. "Hit the microwave! Now!" Erin immediately keyed the command and simultaneously several things happened.

One was that the power generator that was inside the house suddenly began to whine, as internal circuit boards were being overloaded with invisible energy waves coming from above the house. Another was that the man who was opening the cellar door was now fully visible to Patrick as the door swung open, and Patrick was ready.

"There's a guy here!" the man shouted upon seeing Patrick, but he could nothing else as Patrick had his pistol at the ready and put two silenced bullets into his right shoulder at close range. Recoiling from the impact, the terrorist flew backwards from the doorway and into the wall behind him. The pistol in his right hand dropped to the floor and Patrick kicked it aside and as far as he could as he burst through the door. Instinctively Patrick turned and fired a third bullet into the man's left thigh to further immobilize him.

"Fuck, it's an ambush!" shouted the leader, who then shoved Zumwalt into the wall at the front of the house, while the second terrorist grabbed a weapon that was lying on the coffee table in the living room.

Patrick came into the house at full speed, pistol at the ready. In his line of sight were three people: the leader, about a meter to his left was Zummy, and two meters in front of them was the second man, who now had a AK-74 assault rifle in his hands. Patrick darted for cover into a small hallway as the man with the AK pulled up his rifle and fired a long burst in Patrick's direction.

Well, that got messed up fast, Patrick thought and he leaned against the wall in the hallway as the rifleman continued to fire towards him, explosively putting several bullets into the adjoining walls a yard away. Patrick knew a charge wouldn't work at that close range, and he fingered a grenade on his belt. This might get bad with Zummy close by but it's better then dying…. Patrick was about to flick open the grenade when a loud BOOM was heard.

The generator!

Erin's microwave attack on the generator had burned it out and it had then exploded, searing the rifleman in the middle of the living room. Patrick knew this was his chance and darted around the corner, pistol at the ready. The rifleman, his face searing in red and black from the blast, brought up the AK again but Patrick had the draw on him and promptly put two bullets into his chest, one of which blew out the back of his abdomen. The terrorist crumbled to the floor as his assault rifle crashed down.

Two down, one to go… Patrick then searched for the leader. From behind him there came a voice that shouted "Help me!" The leader was now to Patrick's left, with a Taiso 14 pistol in his hand and Zummy's arm gripped in his other hand. The leader aimed the pistol towards Patrick and fired, and the bullet zipped past Patrick's head towards it's intended target. He snapped his head to the right and saw the other terrorist, the one who had opened the cellar door and whom Patrick had wounded as carefully as he could, now sink to the hallway floor with a red dot in the middle of his forehead.

Patrick swung his pistol to the front again to face the leader, who now had his own pistol at Zummy's temple as he used him as a shield. The two men each shifted around the room, looking for an advantage. The leader then growled at Patrick as he stared him down. "Drop it now," he said in accented English.

"Go fuck yourself," Patrick replied in fluent Japanese. "You're dead already."

"I know who he is," said the leader. "Drop the gun or I'll kill the kid right now."

Considering his options, Patrick worked out what would be the best possible solution. He stopped moving and then very carefully he pulled his pistol backwards and dangled it by the trigger guard with its barrel pointed upwards.

"Drop it now!" growled the leader.

Patrick then tossed the gun to his right towards the kitchen, but he tossed it violently, just enough to get the terrorist to turn his head and look to where the gun had landed. As the pistol slammed into the kitchen wall Patrick reached to his left and grabbed the knife that was strapped to his shoulder, and as the man glanced back at Patrick he had already put the knife in flight. A half-second later it plunged into the base of his neck.

Rushing towards him as the leader tried to recover, Patrick grabbed the knife hit and pushed it harder into the leader's neck. The man's grip loosened on Zummy and he let go, and the boy promptly recoiled to the ground. With his other hand he tried to grab the knife but Patrick put both of his own hands on the hilt and shoved it in as they struggled. Without turning his head Patrick shouted to Zummy "RUN!" and the boy got himself up off the floor and darted out of the open front door. Fixing his eyes on the terrorist, Patrick continued to put the blade in.

Fuck I do this for Rei. How dare you even touch her.

The man continued to struggle until there was a crack that came from his neck and his eyes rolled up. A wheeze gurgled from his mouth and the body went limp, and with one final push Patrick shoved the now lifeless body against the wall and let go. It slid to the floor.

He pulled his second pistol from it's holder on his left hip, and Patrick turned around to the rest of the scene. There were two firmly dead bodies now, but the terrorist who had shot him with the assault rifle was still breathing as he lie on the living room floor with two wounds in his chest. Patrick walked over to him, now holding the pistol with his right hand.

The terrorist, like the others Japanese men who looked unkempt with long hair and unshaven beards, stared at Patrick as he crouched down. He didn't hold the pistol to the man's head, but instead held it up besides him barrel pointed at the air. Perhaps with two down he might re-consider his options, Patrick wondered.

Looking into the man's black eyes, Patrick asked him "where is she?" But the man smiled instead.

"Nowhere where you can reach her!" he spat out.

"Why did you take her?"

The man laughed. "We didn't. She came to us!"

"Bullshit."

"It's true," he said. "She's answered her calling."

"Where is she?"

The man paused and smiled again. "She's gone home."

I don't have time for this. "Tell me where she is!" Patrick shouted, now raising the pistol to the man' head.

"I'll tell you in hell," was the reply and then Patrick heard something drop onto the wooden floor.

Searching to his right, he saw it: a olive green-colored metal orb. Having trained with grenades at Camp X, Patrick immediately knew what it was and his heart-rate soared.

At Camp X, Patrick had been taught not only how to use grenades but also how to defend against them, an exercise in which the final course had been for one of his trainers to throw a very low-powered but live grenade at him and evaluate how Patrick responded. The stupid students had responded by trying to pick up the grenade and throw it back, which almost always resulted in wounded and broken hands. The smarter students knew that going prone on the floor was the better defense, and usually faired better. But the most successful students knew the only real means of defense was to put a layer between them and the grenade.

Patrick had about three seconds to do this, perhaps less. There simply wasn't time to think, only act.

The closest large object to him was a coffee table, the same table where the terrorist had picked up his rifle from. Patrick took both hands and flipped it upside down, then pressed it on top of the terrorist's body and where the grenade was by his hand. Then with a free hand he grabbed a worn-out cushion from a couch nearby and put it between the table and himself, and then he knelt on the cushion. At worst case, he knew, he'd lose his legs but he'd probably still be alive. At best he'd…

The grenade went off with a loud boom and Patrick found himself launched into the air, flying backwards. To his mind, the whole room seemed like it was moving in slow-motion, with the flash and smoke encompassing him like a windstorm. There was a loud ringing in his ears and a deafening whoosh that came from the center of the room. He could feel hot darts on the surface of his face. Then suddenly time contracted, and he went hard into the wall behind him.

He found himself face down on the floor, his arms spread on either side. Patrick heard stomping noises around him and his ears still rang loudly. Unsure of what was working and what wasn't, he wiggled fingers on both left and right hands, and then wiggled toes on left and right feet. All seemed okay.

"KID! GET UP!" Dylan called out to Patrick and he looked up. The agent was wearing body armor over a dark suit and had his pistol at the ready. "Patrick, are you alright?!" He didn't immediately answer, but just slowly propped himself on his knees and shook his head. Putting his hands to his face came back with small trails of blood.

"How do I look?" Patrick asked Dylan. It was all he could think of saying.

"Damn lucky to be alive," replied Dylan, handing him a white handkerchief. Patrick took it and wiped his face. There was a small amount of blood, but not gushers of it. Struggling, Patrick stood himself up off the floor and saw the QRT soldiers spreading throughout the house, rifles and submachine guns at the ready. Several went upstairs to search for any remaining terrorists or anyone else inside the house.

Patrick staggered a little but found his footing and walked around, trying to take in what had happened. The terrorist who had dropped the grenade was now a bloody blob of flesh draped in black. The coffee table was several feet away and had a gigantic hole ripped right through it, and the cushion was nowhere to be seen. There were two other bodies, one by the door and the other by the cellar stairs.

"ALL CLEAR," called out the leader of the QRT, who had checked out the two floors above them. "No sign of ANGEL upstairs."

"Damn it," said Dylan. "Was she even here at all?"

"Yeah," replied Patrick. "She was here. But probably not for long."

There were steps towards the front door and both Dylan and Patrick turned to see Olivia, also with body armor, rush through the front door with a satellite phone in hand. "Patrick! It's the director for you."

Patrick was surprised. "He called?"

"Actually I've had it on open channel since you went into the house," Olivia informed him, and then handed the phone over. Patrick took it and held it to his ear.

Kaji's voice came on the line, speaking Japanese. "Are you alright?"

"I got my bell run, but I'm okay," said Patrick. "Sorry, sir. No sign of Angel and we've got three bodies and no one to talk to."

"Was it their safe house?"

"Maybe. Only three guys here, deserted neighborhood. They had a van also and used it."

Kaji didn't comment but kept his focus. "Do a full forensic search and contact me back immediately with any findings. Did you interact with any of the targets or pickup anything? Any idea to her whereabouts?"

"The asshole with the grenade said she had gone 'home.' He also said she came on her own, they didn't take her. That seems fishy, but nothing more than that."

"If they moved her as soon as she arrived it's likely they took her to a vehicle, probably a boat. I'm willing to be the boat is their actual safehouse and this just an outpost that can be easily dumped once discovered. They still have a 12-hour jump ahead of us."

"Do you think they took her somewhere by boat, Kaji-san?"

He thought for a moment. "Not for the whole journey. Angel has an expiration date, whoever orchestrated this knows that and didn't waste time bringing her in. I'd think an aircraft was involved."

"Like maybe a VTOL picked her off of a boat," Patrick added.

"That fits, and then she'd be on her way back to Japan within about 12 hours from then. That could mean she's still in the air and on her way here." There was some commotion on the line as Kaji gave orders and then he returned. "There's an air defense alert already in Japan, we'll try to see if they can intercept anything coming in. In the meantime continue to investigate, perhaps their hideout will yield a few clues for us."

"Understood, hopefully you find her."

"Likewise. Please continue to keep me informed. Ciao." And Kaji hung up.

Patrick turned to the others. "The director thinks Rei was airlifted from here or close by, and thinks whoever did it was headed for Japan."

"We should try to figure out where the aircraft picked her up at least," wondered Dylan.

"Probably at sea," offered Olivia. "if they took her by boat and went out a few miles, they could have passed her onto something like a Thunderbolt and we'd never find out where it was."

"Well, let's look around and maybe we'll find something," said Patrick.