16 hours earlier

Boathouse near the university waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle

The moon had begun to set and darkness crept into the alley. Time passed slowly. Logan shivered, unable to move much with his hands secured behind the chair. Then, over the wind, he noticed a scraping sound coming from the far end of the alley. As the sound came closer, Logan thought he could make out someone or something moving towards him from the far end of the alley, away from the boathouse door.

"Logan," came the faint whisper.

Logan's old classmate from Yale, his new informant, walked haltingly toward Logan and fell to his knees. It was Tim Young, his face caked in dirt and sweat streaked.

"I've finally found you, I should have known they would bring you here," he whispered, his breath coming in gasps as he emerged from the shadows.

Hands still tied, Logan glanced up and down the alley, but no one else was there.

"Tim? What are you doing here? You need to get out of here. I don't know how you got mixed up in this, but you need to go now."

"No, Logan. I'm so sorry, Logan. You're the one mixed up in this. I'm the reason you're here. I'm so sorry," Tim rushed on. He continued on, the words tumbling out faster now. "But they were holding my family hostage. They said I would never see them again if I didn't help them. I thought it would just be a matter of passing on a little information to an Eyes Only contact. I made good bait, they said. I never thought I'd recognize my contact. I never thought it would be you. I never thought Logan Cale would be Eyes Only," Tim's eyes looked wildly at Logan.

Logan could only stare back.

"After I met with you that day in the diner, I knew you weren't just a contact. Hell, I knew you'd worked with Nathan Herrero at the Pacific FP, like Eyes Only had mentioned in the hack. I knew your style. You'd helped me get my first job at Yale. I knew those eyes."

"You told this scumbag I was Eyes Only?" Now there was steel in Logan's voice.

"No, of course not. But somehow he figured out that we had known each other and he suspected you were connected to Eyes Only. He wanted any details about your personal life, but I told him that I hadn't seen you in years…that I didn't even know about the…chair. I didn't tell him anything, I swear. He slammed me around for a while, but I didn't tell him anything," his voice became desperate now. In the moonlight, Logan could now see that Tim's face was cut and bruised. His left arm seemed to hang limply at his side.

"So if you didn't tell him, maybe he still thinks I'm an informant. He wants me to lead him back to Eyes Only," Logan began.

Tim shook his head. "I didn't have to tell him. I think he figured out that you were Eyes Only. Maybe it was your Free Press connection? I don't know. The only thing he couldn't wrap his head around was the fact that you were in this wheelchair. Now he's just toying with you. People who get brought to this alley don't come back."

Logan's voice was harsh. "So what are you doing here?"

"I came back to warn you, but I'm too late." Tim's voice had dropped to a whisper, "They left me to die in a warehouse across the lake, after I'd done everything they asked. My family…they're gone. He took them anyway," Tim sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Logan. Maybe I can still help you escape," Tim reached around the back of Logan's chair and cut away the tape from his hands.

Suddenly, one of the doors leading to the alley burst open. The squat man strode quickly toward Logan, a semi-automatic raised. Tim was still partially hidden by Logan's chair.

"Let's get this over with," the man snarled, pointing the weapon at Logan.

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the gleam of Tim's gun as he drew it shakily from his coat. As Tim rose up beside him, both men fired. Shots rang out in the narrow alley. Then, there was silence.

Tim lay sprawled on the ground at Logan's feet. His breathing came in ragged gasps. He looked down at the gun in his hand and flung it into the darkness. A pool of red was slowly spreading under his chest.

"I'm sorry I gave you up, Logan. You've done so much for Seattle, for so many people. I guess it's too late to say sorry."

"No, Tim. I don't think it's too late to say sorry" But it was too late to save the informant's life. Logan tried to staunch the flow of blood, but he had lost too much. Tim lay still and did not move again.

Logan's mind spun. What had just happened? He had been brought here as a result of one informant's betrayal. Now, his captor had come back to the alley to finish him off, but had ended up in getting killed in a shootout with a man who wasn't even supposed to be here. In the end, Tim had returned to try to save Eyes Only, but had only gotten himself killed. In a few minutes, the other men would be coming through that door if their leader didn't return soon.

Logan had his hands free now and he had a gun, but how far could he get in ten minutes? Besides, his anonymity was his most valuable shield to protect Eyes Only and Max and Eva. Even though the other men hadn't seen his face, they knew about the chair and it wouldn't be too hard to track down Eyes Only even if he escaped somehow.

Unless…there was some way to stop them from searching, or, at least, buy himself a little more time. Logan stared down at the body at his feet, its outline thrown up in relief against the bare concrete. He thought of Eva, who he hoped was speeding away from him at that moment. He thought of his Max. He had to try.

Locking his brakes, he slid onto the ground next to the Tim's still body. He tugged off his own shoes, with their smooth, clean soles and swapped them with Tim's shoes. Moving around to Tim's head, he yanked the shirt and jacket off the body. Teeth chattering, he stripped off his own sweater and jacket and maneuvered them onto the body.

How long had it been since the shots had been fired? The goons would be back soon if their leader didn't emerge. Logan pulled on Tim's parka, shoving the bloody shirt into the pocket. Arms working steadily, Logan moved himself around to Tim's feet. He tilted his wheelchair onto its back next to the body. Grunting with effort, he hoisted the Tim's legs up as high as he could and slid the chair underneath them. He moved himself back behind the chair, locking the brakes. Grabbing the back of the chair, he hoisted it off the ground. For a moment, he thought the chair and the body would both come crashing down, then momentum took over and the chair was upright.

Tim's lifeless body now sat in the wheelchair, wearing Logan's clothes. The other men hadn't seen his face clearly. As far as they knew, there was only one man in a wheelchair, sitting in the alley awaiting his fate.

How many minutes had passed? Feeling more and more vulnerable, he gathered up Tim's gun and the other man's semi-automatic and pulled himself backwards away from the door to the boathouse, through which he expected to men to emerge any moment.

Logan could hear the voices of the men deep in the boathouse. The building on the other side of the alley was even older than the boathouse. It had old-fashioned trash chutes leading from the upper floors to the ground floor. Logan scooted himself as quickly as he could to the nearest trash chute door, directly across from the door to the boathouse. The metal door measured about three feet square, with the lower edge a couple of feet off the ground. Pulling his feet and legs around, out of the way, he nudged his hips as close as he could to the wall. Opening the small door and reaching into the dark opening, he fumbled for some sort of handhold between the bricks to drag himself in. Wedging his fingers into the cracks and grabbing hold of the edge of the door, he heaved his head and shoulders into the yawning opening. Using every once of leverage he could muster, he hauled himself into the opening. He inched himself gradually into the chute. When he was reasonably sure that his feet had cleared the opening, he rolled onto his back. Grabbing onto the knees of his pants, he dragged his legs toward him. Tucking them as close as he could, he rolled awkwardly, swinging around so that his head now faced out.

Logan's head was now just inside the tunnel of the trash chute. He closed his hand around the semi automatic next to him. The moon had set and the alley was dark again. Logan cracked open the door of the trash chute and trained the gun on the boathouse door directly opposite him. Tim's body in the chair sat directly in front of Logan, just a few feet away. Logan slid the safety off the gun.

In the dim light, he saw one of the men step cautiously into the alley. It was now or never.

Logan opened fire, spraying the wall next to the man with bullets.

"What the hell is going on out there?" The man ducked back into the boathouse. Logan heard the muffled shouts of the men inside.

"Didn't Vann go out there to finish him off?"

"I don't know. It's pitch black out there, but all I see is Vann on the ground and that idiot in the wheelchair trying to blow my head off. There isn't going to anything left of him when I'm done with him," the man cursed.

In few seconds, Logan heard the voices of reinforcements returning. Logan said a silent apology to Tim. Still hidden in shadow, he opened fire through the crack in the door. Livid now, his captors let loose with all full fury of their arsenal, firing from windows and not even bothering to enter the alley now. The wheelchair with the body in it spun wildly under a hail of bullets. Logan pulled the metal door of the trash chute closed. The men continued for a solid minute, emptying their weapons. Finally, the shots died down amid the whoops and yells of the men. Logan laid the gun down, checked the latch on the door. Then, he let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.