Title: Shall We Play A Game?

Author: FraidyCat

Disclaimer: remains in effect

My Name is FraidyCat, and I'm a whump-a-holic.

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Chapter Twenty-Six: Is It Hot in Here, or Is It Just Me?

The trio had actually taken the bus from the Wilshire Blvd. headquarters to the downtown Y. The entire operation was planned under the assumption that someone could be watching the building all day, and things had to look as normal as possible. Other personnel from both the F.B.I. and LAPD had been brought in under the cover of darkness, from the rear of the daycare center, and should be in position already. The daycare director had volunteered to make a public, front-door appearance around 7; she would be taken out the back a few hours later.

Between the director, the F.B.I. and LAPD, over 90 percent of the parents of currently-enrolled children had been contacted. It took some talking, but most of them had agreed to show up at their regular times, kiddies and backpacks in tow. Good-byes would be said, and the parents would leave alone. Don was sure it was the most difficult thing any of those parents would ever do, despite all the promises in the world. The children wouldn't even take off their little coats and sweaters, but rather would be chaperoned immediately out the back, through the covered breezeway that led to the Y-proper. Once there, they would continue to yet another exit, where vans waited to shuttle them to a safe location some 20 miles away; the parents would no-doubt be waiting for them when they arrived.

As for the Y itself, no signs were being posted, but when members entered they would be informed that there was a power outage, and the gym was closed until further notice. The personnel that had been snuck into the back of the daycare center had parked in the Y's parking lot, so that it wouldn't look empty to curious onlookers.

The two businesses on the other side of the daycare center – a coffee shop and a dog groomery – had been a little more difficult to manage. What Don wanted to do, of course, was completely evacuate at least two city blocks around the center. If he did that, though, he might as well hang a sign that said 'Welcome, Cracker and Dawn'. He had to content himself with making sure the children were safe, keeping the Y as empty as possible, and having the city turn off all water access to the other two businesses. Hopefully, they would close themselves down when Don's contact at the city told them that it would be 8 o' clock that evening before the waterlines were repaired. It would be difficult to make coffee, or wash dogs, without water.

The bus stop was a block before the actual building, and the three hoofed it the rest of the way. Don nodded with satisfaction when he saw the huge backhoe digging up the playground, which was roped off and inaccessible. "Caution" and "Playground Closed" signs were strung up every few feet, the piece de resistance being a large, laminated placard facing the sidewalk, complete with an 'artist's rendering' of the non-existent center remodel taking place. Unless it was raining – which didn't happen all that often in L.A. – a daycare center without children playing in the yard at some point would be another dead give-away.

He grimaced as the word 'dead' floated through his head, and opened the front door of the center for Agent Warner. "Thanks again for helping us out on this, Liz. It's not unusual to see an occasional man in childcare these days, but people still expect the majority of employees in a place like this to be women."

Liz entered the room and turned slightly to smile at him – letting her eyes wander briefly to Agent Granger. "I'm glad I could help," she maintained. "Not only does Planet Green need their heads handed to them, I've been getting bored at the ATF. When you guys found the grenades, it gave us a good reason to get involved in this, too. Since I've worked with you before, it made sense to send me."

Colby brought up the rear and stared at the tiny chairs grouped around a tiny table. "Are you sure adults work here?" he asked, and then interrupted himself. "Hey, Don – Liz tested clean, too. That's great, right?"

Don looked pleased and confused at the same time. "Of course," he responded, looking from Colby to Liz. "I guess I didn't realize that everybody at the ATF was being tested."

Liz was only half-following the conversation, eyeing the "Library Corner", which was obviously intended for children too young to read. "Oh, they didn't. Just me."

Don was preoccupied, and not fast enough to avoid pushing himself into quicksand. "You must have been to Bernie's, then? Because the only other way…." His mind suddenly caught up with his mouth and it occurred to him that Colby was as red as the toy fire engine parked in the corner. Colby and Liz? What the hell? "Huh," he murmured, moving toward the back rooms to check on the status of the other personnel.

He shook his head, a tad surprised but very relieved to learn that it didn't bother him; he was both happy to be back with Robin, and honestly fond of both Colby and Liz. More power to them if they could find happiness with each other. He smiled genuinely. "Yeah, that's great, Liz. Which one of you wants to help prepare snack time?"

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Sarah pilfered somebody's old overcoat from a hook in the church's foyer. It was much too big for her, but she decided that it added to her disguise. With the 1970s polyester pantsuit and the coat, she probably looked homeless. If anybody saw her making a nest behind the dumpster, it would make perfect sense.

She was there by 3:30, rummaging by the light of the moon. She angled the dumpster slightly – not far enough to stick out into the alley, but a sufficient amount to create a pocket in which she could wait.

Four-and-a-half hours was a long time to wait, for most people – but not for Sarah. She had been waiting two years already.

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Aaron had been right the evening before: As soon as Cracker learned that the F.B.I. had breached the safe house and the cache of F1s, he put the coalition leadership into immediate lockdown.

He had sat cross-legged on the floor, one arm draped around Dawn's shoulders, and settled a grim gaze on Aaron. "We don't need the grenades – we'll do enough damage with the C4. But there has obviously been a leak."

Aaron had felt a bead of sweat dripping down his back and carefully schooled his face. In truth, the leak concerned him as well, even though he and Sarah had pulled a Judas. This leak was not coming from one of them – hell, they wanted some of the F1s themselves – but that probably wouldn't make Cracker feel better.

Aaron then decided it was a good time to remind everybody that he had almost been caught, himself. "I damn near walked right into the bust," he mused, shaking his head. "If they found out about the house, they could know about all our other drops, too." He held Cracker's gaze and didn't blink. "I think you're right; none of should go anywhere alone."

"It's probably Sarah," Dawn had grumbled. "She always was a bitch. I told Patty we should have killed her."

Cracker had frowned and looked at his woman. "I don't think she would turn herself in; you saw the Times this morning – there are Brucella-linked fatalities and she's up for aggravated murder, the same as you and I."

"You didn't leave her with a lot of options," Marcus had noted. When Cracker turned to glare at him he held up his hands in peace. "I'm just saying – she had nowhere to go, and no money to get there. Plus, she was plenty pissed when she left. Maybe she made a deal."

Cracker had seemed to think about that a moment, and Aaron tried not to hold his breath. Finally Cracker had delivered his commandment. "It doesn't matter if it was her," he informed them. "She was gone before we went after the C4 and picked our next target, so she can't tell them about that." He indicated the hovel they currently shared with a tilt of his chin. "She's never been here, so as long as we lay low tonight and watch each other's backs tomorrow, we'll be okay."

Patty, understandably nervous, had squeaked out a question. "Am I still supposed to get a van?"

Cracker had nodded, but glanced again at Aaron. "The guys will both go with you. Dawn and I will hit the daycare on our own. You three find something decent, switch out the plates – you can pick something up at a junkyard in the morning. Try to find a way to disguise the van. Dent it up real good, kick it – if you didn't have brains you wouldn't be part of leadership. You know where to go."

"MacArthur Park," Patty had supplied.

Cracker had nodded again. "Near the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station. Dawn and I can take the Red Line straight to you, and we'll be out of this sorry excuse of a city by four. Five, latest."

Aaron had murmured his agreement and kept his counsel, but he knew if he and Sarah had anything to say about it – Cracker and Dawn would be gone long before then.

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By the time David got to the third-floor fire escape in the Red Light Hotel, Ian was almost halfway down the alley. Sinclair swore under his breath and considered Eppes' morning lecture on teamwork a bust. No way had Edgarton allowed him five minutes to get situated before he started down the alley.

Granted, David was a minute or two behind schedule. He had intended to use the second floor fire escape, but the window leading to it had been painted shut – sometime in the 70s, by the looks of it. Still, he had taken the stairs two-at-a-time, not waiting for the ancient elevator, and reached the third floor well within the agreed-upon time frame. He shook his head as he cautiously raised the window, as quietly as he could. Ian was just too used to flying solo.

The window jammed halfway up, but there was a large enough opening for David to thread himself through, out onto the fire escape. He landed on the metal frame in a crouched position, staying well out of sight, silent as a cat.

He peered at Edgarton's back. The agent was just drawing even with a dumpster, and David could see that someone was leaning halfway inside, searching; by the looks of the oversized trench coat and the severely uncoordinated clothing – which culminated in a chartreuse knit cap, perched on a head of stringy hair -- a homeless dumpster diver. The hair was long, of some nondescript color not found in nature. From that and the slight build, David thought their diver was a woman. Edgarton stopped and glanced at her, then opened his mouth to speak.

David trained his Glock so that the bullet would tear into the middle of her back, and waited for an answer.

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Ian was pretty sure it had been five minutes.

He had made a big deal about looking at his watch when Sinclair got out of the parked car, but he just did it because it seemed to mean something to the other agent. Frankly, Ian was a little surprised he was even wearing a watch. In his line of work, he wasn't so much dependent on timing as he was on…well, on himself. He promised David five minutes, and then sat and twiddled his thumbs for at least that long.

When he figured that Sinclair had taken enough time to get situated on the second-floor fire escape overlooking the alley, Ian climbed out of the vehicle and stood for a moment on the sidewalk. He narrowed his eyes, looking first right, and then left. There was plenty of foot traffic at 7:30 in the morning. Since the gas crisis, more people were walking at least part of the way to work. There was no-one who remotely resembled Sarah, however.

The plan was for him to walk the alley once and then head back for the sidewalk, where he would wait for his Planet Green contact. When he entered the shadow-filled space between the hotel and the condemned apartment house, he walked slowly, giving his eyes time to adjust to the change in lighting. About halfway down the alley, on the side closest to the tenement, he spied a dumpster. Someone was half inside the thing, and he could hear the muttering from almost thirty feet away.

He let his eyes roam the rest of the alley, alert for the out-of-place, but kept returning his gaze to the dumpster. As he got closer, it was apparent that the diver was a female; probably homeless; almost certainly wacko. He forced himself to keep from looking up at the hotel's fire escapes – he didn't want to give Sinclair's position away to anyone who might be watching.

As he drew even with the woman in the dumpster, Ian stopped. He was facing her, but a safe distance away. "Sarah?" he asked.

The muttering didn't stop, nor did the woman lower herself to the ground. Her voice echoed from inside the dumpster. "Mine. Here first. Gitcher own, gitcher own. This'un's mine. Mine."

There was so much scratching against the side of the dumpster that Ian began to imagine that rats were running away from her. This was not a female in her right mind; probably just someone scavenging for breakfast. Besides, the hair was the wrong color. Ian wasn't even sure what color it was. "You can keep it," he assured the woman. "I'm just gonna keep looking for Sarah."

She pulled herself a little farther in, so that it looked like the dumpster was either claiming or regurgitating a body. Head-and-shoulders were completely inside now, and her feet banged into the side of the trash bin, a good 12 inches off the ground. "Git away. Git away, now. Mine. Mine."

Ian shook his head and continued down the alley. When he turned around at the end, he allowed himself a glance at the fire escapes on both sides. He didn't see anything on any of them – which was how it should be. Sinclair would make a good sniper.

He started to stroll back toward the street, and found his step slowing. The dumpster diver was gone, now, but Ian was oddly unsettled by her anyway. There was something…off. Maybe it was the color of the hair, he mused, continuing his walk. It was obviously not natural – and who would make her hair that color on purpose? And, unless she had found a box of Nice & Easy during her scavenger hunts, it seemed unlikely that she would ever be in possession of the money it took to have her hair done.

Ian froze.

Money.

She had been wearing boots worth a couple of hundred dollars, at least. The cheap polyester pantsuit and oversized trench coat had stood out in such sharp contrast because the expensive boots were banging against the side of the dumpster.

Ian frowned, and started walking again. There were possible explanations. The woman could have found the boots in a second-hand store. She could be an eccentric who owned half of L.A. but found her only pleasure in moldy loaves of bread she could steal from a rat. He glanced behind the slightly-angled dumpster before he passed. Whoever it had been, she was long gone.

Edgarton moved past the open dumpster, completely unprepared for the apparition that sprang from its bowels. Sarah had climbed inside while he turned around at the end of the alley, and stood pressed in the corner, listening to his footsteps. She had her right hand in the pocket of the trench coat, worrying the end of the knife's handle.

When she determined from the sound that he was close, she stuck her head into the opening and began to mutter in earnest while she made a show of climbing out. "Needs food. Fluffy needs food."

Ian started, backing away from the dumpster. "Whoa," he breathed.

The woman was about halfway out, and having some difficulty. One hand was clutching a bag of something that may have once been oranges, and she dropped it onto the asphalt of the alley and directed her words at him, but not her eyes. "Help me out. Need to go home. Fluffy wants to pee."

Edgarton shrugged, slightly embarrassed for having suspected this woman of subterfuge. It was obvious to him now that this was one of the city's victims. Best to help her out of the dumpster now, maybe slip her a ten and get her out of the alley before Sarah made her appearance.

He smiled politely and approached the dumpster, extending a hand.

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Afterwards, David had a hard time explaining what had happened.

He agreed that it was odd for someone to climb into a dumpster – unless it was someone who was odd already. Someone mentally unstable; someone homeless; someone like the woman scrounging for rotten oranges and half-empty beer cans. Ian had already spoken to her and moved on; he must have reached the same conclusion. He must have. Hadn't he?

David Sinclair wasn't sure he would ever find out. When Edgarton had stepped up to help the woman out of the dumpster, she had sprung at him like a coiled Jack-in-the-box, taking them both down to the asphalt. Shocked, Sinclair had seen a glint of steel; he had seen Ian draw himself into a fetal, protective position; he had heard her guttural, nonsensical screaming.

He had also heard Edgarton shout his name, and Sinclair trusted his partner. That was the way teamwork was supposed to be, right?

So he stood on the fire escape and attempted to draw a bead on the suspect. It was difficult, since they were both rolling around on the ground. For a moment, David's heart pounded and he hesitated; and then he saw the glint again, as she drew her hand back in preparation for another attack. Sinclair prayed to his grandmother and any God who was in heaven, and squeezed the trigger.

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She didn't know where it came from, but the round caught her in the shoulder with the force of a bull elephant. The knife clattered to the asphalt and she was blown backwards almost two feet. She screamed both in pain, and in rage – she could see the murderer still twitching, damn him. Her left arm was useless – amputated, for all she knew – but still she managed to reach out with her right hand, and pull herself toward the knife; pull herself toward her justification; pull herself toward the promised land.

She had nearly made it, when the second round crashed through the cheap lenses of her fake glasses, its force tearing the bright knit cap from her head and flipping her completely over, so that she was lying on her back. Her eyes were open; one was filled with blood, glass and brain matter – and the other stared sightlessly at the sky.

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Oh, no! Ian was knifed!! How badly was he hurt? How guilty will David feel for "letting" it happen, even though he blew Sarah into another reality? Will Colby and Liz find an empty toddler classroom and kill time until 2 o'clock?