"This better be good." Control stood beside Robert's table, the good table by the fireplace.

"Sit down, Control. Have a drink."

Control sat. "What, Robert?"

Robert poured him a deep Scotch. "Lily was here."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Earlier this evening."

"What did she want?"

"She needed to ask me a favor."

Control took a long drink. "What favor?"

"She wanted me to tell you something. Something that she didn't think she could tell you herself."

"Enough games, Robert."

McCall took a deep breath. Looked around the darkened restaurant. They were alone. There was no easy way to do this. "She's pregnant."

Control's face turned gray, stormy. "Ah, God . . . "

"She's keeping the child."

Ice. "What?"

Robert waited. As expected, Control threw himself to his feet. "What?" he demanded again.

"She's keeping the child."

"No."

"Control, please . . . "

"No!"

He headed for the door. Robert grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Control, don't do this. Don't take your anger to her. She has enough of her own."

"I have to see her," Control raged.

"You can see her. She will see you. Just calm down first. Just . . . think."

Control stopped struggling. "You're right, old son, you're right." Robert's grip relaxed. Control tore away from him and was gone.

# # #

Control had rarely been more blind, more oblivious to his surroundings. His enemies would have found him easy prey. But his luck - if that's what it could rightly be called - held that night; there were no enemies in New York City that night, or at least none waiting between McCall's restaurant and Lily Romanov's hotel room.

He blew past the bodyguard at the end of the hallway and knocked politely on the door. Ten seconds later, he made a fist and pounded on it. "Damn it, Lily," he shouted, "open this damn . . . "

The door opened. Lily stepped back to let him in, chained the door behind him without a word. She was barefoot, wearing dark sweat pants and a plain white T-shirt. Her eyes were huge and dark, the deep purple circles beneath them unconcealed. Her arms were painfully thin, the bruises sickly yellow, the burn marks barely faded.

He took a step toward her.

She took a step back. "You've talked to Robert."

"Yes."

"I'm not going to change my mind."

Control sighed, rubbed his hand over his whole face. "I didn't come here to argue with you. I came to see how you are."

He advanced. She retreated. She had lots of room to avoid him, in this suite. The living room was only slightly smaller than Control's apartment.

"I'm tired," she answered at length. "Do you want a drink?"

"At least one," Control agreed. He followed her to the mini bar, watched as she poured a miniature Scotch over a single ice cube in a water glass. She held the drink up and considered, then opened a second tiny bottle, poured it in, and handed it to him. "You're not joining me?" he asked. "No, of course you're not."

"No," she answered evenly.

He reached for her hand. She moved away. Elusive, as always, and he could not get the slightest hint what she was thinking. "You're not really serious about this, are you?"

"I am keeping this child, Control."

"Why?" he snarled. He remembered Robert's words, and tried very hard to put a lock on his temper. "Why?" he asked again, more calmly. "To punish me?"

"This isn't about you," Lily answered flatly. "It has nothing to do with you."

"I don't believe you."

She went to the window. "Because you're a self-centered egomaniac."

Control took a slow drink. So they were down to name-calling already? This was not the reunion he had pictured. Not by a long shot. As calmly as he could, he answered, "If it's about you, it's about me. It's about us."

"Us?" She practically spat the word. "There is no 'us'. There has been no 'us' for a year and a half. Not since you dumped me."

"I let you go to keep you safe."

"And that worked out just fine, didn't it?"

"You blame me for not coming to get you," Control observed.

Lily shook her head. "No. If you'd come for me, I'd be dead now."

"Then what is it?" Control demanded. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want this child!" she shouted.

Her voice had taken a thin, hysterical edge. Control had run enough interrogations to recognize it: it was the voice of a woman about to crack. Good, part of him sang, crack her and you'll find out the truth. But another part warned against it. Crack her, the man who had been her lover warned, and you will never get her back. She might forgive him anything else, but she would not forgive him this.

He ached to hold her in his arms and make it all go away. He moved. She retreated.

Control made himself stop chasing her, made himself sit down on the couch. "Lily," he said quietly, soothingly, "Lily, listen to me. I know you're lonely. I know you are, and I'm sorry for that. I know how alone you are, Lily, I know how I must have hurt you, and I'm very very sorry."

Words. Repetition, pattern, rhythm. He could have read her the phone book in that voice, and she would have uncoiled just the same. He knew this game very well, had done it hundreds of times. Even McCall was not immune to the words. And Lily -

She turned back to face him. "All right," she sighed. "I'm soothed, stop chanting at me."

And Lily was his adept apprentice at the charm of the voice. He abandoned the chant with a wry nod. "All right. Can we talk now? Just talk about this? Try to reason it out?"

She perched on the front edge of the arm chair across from him. "We can talk all you want. But I'm not giving up this child."

Control nodded, soothing still. "I understand why you want this child, Lily."

"No, you don't."

"I do. I've been to Langley. I've seen your apartment."

She snapped to her feet and retreated again.

"Lily," Control said, still calmly, still seated, "I understand. Believe me, I understand better than anyone. What it's like to live that way - I know. I know. And when we were together, you must have thought, there, that's done with, that's behind me. And then I sent you away. I know. I'm sorry. If I'd had any idea . . . "

"What?" she snapped. "You would have taken me back out of pity?"

"I would have felt less like I was taking advantage of you." She turned away, looking out the window again. "But Lily . . . I was wrong. I was wrong when I sent you away. I was wrong to think that I could live without you . . . "

"You did just fine without me."

"I hated it. I hated being alone. Just as you do. Lily, listen to what I'm saying. I was wrong. And I want you back."

She turned and stared at him, her arms crossed in front of her. Not smiling. Not believing.

Control stood up and walked over to her, slowly. She did not, at least, retreat. "I know that you want to keep this child because you think you have nothing else. But you do, Lily. You have me, if you want me."

"Are you telling me," she asked, her voice low and freighted with venom, "that I can have you back if I agree to kill my child?"

"No!" Control protested quickly. "That's not what I meant at all. I'm just saying, you don't have to put yourself through this because you don't want to be alone. You don't have to be alone. You don't have to have this child."

She shook her head. "You don't understand this at all, do you?"

"I understand that I love you."

Lily laughed grimly. "Is there anything you would *not* say to persuade me to abort this baby?"

"That was not a con, Lily."

"Of course it was a con. Everything you say is a con. It always has been. Get this, Control. Get it now. I am keeping my child!"

"Fine! Keep it! Good for you. Do anything you want, I don't care."

"And you never have!"

"Don't," Control snapped, his voice going soft and dangerous. "Don't write off what we had. I loved you and you knew it."

"You loved me when I was convenient."

"You made yourself convenient!"

"I did. You're right. But I'm not convenient anymore. In fact, with this kid around, I'm going to be damned inconvenient. Is that the problem, Control? Is this child going to cut into your drive-by sex life?"

"Damn it, Lily . . . "

"Get out."

"I'm not leaving until we've settled this."

"Settled what? There is nothing to settle, Control. You dumped me, we're done, I'm having a baby and it has nothing to do with you. There is nothing to settle. Get out."

Control reached out and grabbed her arm. "I am not leaving until this is settled," he repeated firmly.

Her eyes changed. Nothing more, just the eyes, a subtle click, a shade, an expression. A tremble ran through her body. "Let go," she hissed, barely louder than a whisper, full of rage.

In that instant, Control realized what he'd done. He'd been stupid, careless. After all that she'd been through, he was offering to manhandle her again. He dropped his voice; his anger left in a wave of regret and tenderness. "Lily, it's all right," he answered gently.

Too late. "Let go!" she shrieked. Her free hand came around at his head, and he grabbed it. She struggled and his grip tightened, forcing her arms down to her sides, trying to contain her, not to hurt her . . .

She looked up again, and he watched her go mad.

Her pupils blew wide open in a rush a adrenalin. Goose bumps covered her bare arms, and her body vibrated like a tuning fork. Her arms pressed out against his restraining hands, and it took all his strength to hold her. Because he could not let her go now.

There was no reason left in those eyes. No sense, no consciousness, no recognition. Nothing but rage and terror. Lily was gone, and in her body was some wild animal whose only instinct was to protect itself.

If he tried to let her go, Control realized, she would kill him. Not with a weapon, but with her bare hands, with her claws, she would tear his throat out, or his heart - and he might be able to restrain her, he had experience and body weight, but she had insane fury and the power of madness, and he was not sure he would survive.

His arms and hands burned with the effort of holding her overcharged little body. If he could just restrain her until her madness turned the corner, until she moved from fight response to flight, then maybe . . . maybe he would release her and she'd fly right out the window. Control shook with effort now, and she thrashed for freedom, strained to get her hands on him, kicked at him, tried to bite him, like an animal caught in a leg hold trap . . .

There was, Control remembered, a third side to the F-response. Fight, flight, and one other. He didn't know if he could induce it. He didn't know if he dared to try. But she was slipping out of his grasp, she was going to escape and spring at him, and he didn't know then if he could stop her without hurting her . . .

He took the chance. He drew her tighter, bent and put his mouth firmly over hers.

Her teeth sliced cleanly through his bottle lip.

He did not snap his head back, as was his instinct. Instead, he released her hands and slapped her ears sharply. She gasped, opening her mouth, and it let him escape. Her hands came at his head, and he caught them again. He didn't try to hold her this time; he pivoted on his left hip and shoved her backwards onto the couch.

Blood poured down his chin, and trickled down hers, and time stopped.

Lily slid to the floor, as if boneless, and rolled into a tight fetal ball.

Watching her warily, Control caught his breath. He took a towel off the mini bar, pressed it to his bottom lip. He explored the wound with his tongue. Perhaps a quarter inch below the lip, above the dimple, half an inch wide, and clean through. It hurt like hell, and it bled like crazy. He didn't care. He dipped the towel in the ice bucket and pressed it tightly against the wound. When he was calm, when he was sure he was calm, he walked over and sat on the couch.

Lily was silent, unmoving. He touched her shoulder lightly. She trembled at the touch, but made no other move. "Lily . . . " he said softly, mournfully. "Lily, please . . . "

"Go away," she wailed, very softly, from the bottom of her soul. "Go away."

He flattened his hand against her shoulder blade, willing her to feel the contact, feel the warmth. "I can't leave you like this. Let me call someone. Let me take you to a hospital."

"Go away," she cried again, a little stronger now, a deep keening sound. "Go away."

His eyes filled with tears. Control closed them. Felt her body tremble still at his touch. Someone needed to comfort her. She should not be alone. She should not have to be alone, not like this. Not the way she had been. Not always. Someone needed to comfort her.

But because of all he'd done to her, that someone couldn't be him.

# # #

"It needs to be stitched," McCall said dispassionately.

"No."

"Control . . . "

"No."

Robert gave up. He went and got his friend a drink - a tall one - and after a moment of consideration, a swizzle stick to drink it through. "Lily's all right?"

Control nodded. He was wearing one of Robert's undershirts; his own shirt was soaking in the bathroom sink, pretending it would some day release the bloodstains. "I got her put to bed. Kostmayer's going over to stay with her." He turned the icepack over and put it against his chin again. "If she doesn't snap out of it in the morning, I'll have her hospitalized somewhere . . . "

"Oh, that will make Washington happy."

"Screw Washington. They should have gone to get her." He shook his head. "I've never seen her like that, Robert. I don't think I've ever seen anybody like that. Just . . . raw, animal, just survival."

"You have it in yourself," Robert reminded him quietly. "Why are you surprised that it's in her?"

"That stupid song, I got a tiger by the tail. I thought it was just an allegory."

McCall brought his own drink and sat down. "What did you say that set her off?"

"It's not what I said," Control admitted. "I grabbed her."

"You're an idiot."

"Frequently, and especially where she's concerned." He stood up and circled the room slowly, sipping through his little straw past the ice and his swollen lip. "The worst of it, Robert, is that I told her the truth. I told her the absolute truth, I told her everything . . . and she didn't believe a word of it."

Which only proves, Robert thought, that she's intelligent and learns from experience. Did he ever believe a word that Control said? Every conversation he had with his friend was filtered through his knowledge that Control would lie to him in a heartbeat. In every talk they had, no matter how innocuous, Robert found himself wondering not if Control was lying, but where and how much. So, Control had confessed his love for the woman and she hadn't believed him. Whose fault was that?

But none of this needed to be said, and Robert did not say it.

"She thinks," Control continued, "that I'd say anything to persuade her to give up this baby."

"Wouldn't you?"

"No. No. Robert, you know better. I don't care about this baby. If it was her new boyfriend's child, some one-night thing even . . . but this. This has got to hurt her. To carry this child, to raise it? To remember that pain, every single day of her life?"

"It's her choice," McCall reminded him.

Control shook his head. "She doesn't even know why she's choosing it."

"And you do?"

"She's lonely."

"We're all lonely, Control."

"No. Not like she is." He went and helped himself to a refill of Scotch. "While she was missing, I pulled her personnel file. I went to find her next of kin. Not to say anything, just to see what the situation was, how the land lay . . . "

"To satisfy your curiosity."

"Yes. There's a name in her file, an address in Langley. Same address as her permanent residence, different apartment number. Turns out her next of kin isn't kin at all. He's just her landlord."

"Her landlord?"

"Her landlord. That's it. Not even a friend, just the landlord. So I let myself into her apartment."

Robert raised one eyebrow, but didn't comment. "And?"

Control sat down again. "It's furnished. Everything there came with the place. There's an empty box under the sink in the kitchen, and everything that's hers, all the stuff in the cupboard, everything in the refrigerator, would fit in the box. And there's a trunk in the bedroom, a footlocker. Every time she leaves on an assignment, she packs everything that's hers into the locker. There's a label on the top, instructions on who to call at the Farm to pick it up. And a note for me."

"Which you read, of course."

Control frowned. "Of course. It's just instructions, how to find her investments, how to reclaim them. She wants me to give an extra month's rent to the landlord, and put the rest toward some good cause."

"She knows about Sandstar," Robert guessed.

"Yes."

"And that's all."

"That's all, Robert. That's all she has, in the world. No family, no relatives, no friends . . . "

"She has friends, Control."

"Does she? Are you one of them, Robert? Do you know when her birthday is? What her favorite color is? Or is she just somebody that's easy to talk to when she drops by? You don't know her. Nobody does." Control scowled deeply. "She lives like that. Inside her own head, all alone. Her stuff all packed up in a footlocker so nobody's inconvenienced if she gets killed. She has nothing, Robert. You and I, we think we have nothing, but she has more nothing than you and I together ever didn't have."

Robert nodded solemnly. "Frighteningly enough, Control, I understood that."

"She had me, Robert. She had me, and I sent her away. I didn't know."

"You did what you thought was best for her," Robert answered. "You were dead wrong, of course, but you had the best intentions."

"And now," Control went on sadly, "now she has this baby. And it's all she has. So she can't let it go, no matter how badly it hurts her. She's keeping this - this thing - because she doesn't have anything else."

Watching his friend sink into morose and drunken contemplation, Robert stood up. "All right, then, Control," he said briskly. "You've identified the problem. Now what are you going to do about it?"

"There's nothing I can do," Control protested. "I can't change her mind."

"Then you'll have to change yours."

"What?"

"You love this woman. You want her back in your life. At least that's what you've told me."

"I do, but . . . "

"No. The woman now has a child. You have tried to separate her from the child, and have been bloodied for your efforts. So now you must make a decision. You can accept the child and perhaps win back the woman. Or you can reject the child, in which case you will never have the woman again. But those are your only options, Control. You have to make a choice."

"I can't accept this child, Robert."

"Then leave Lily Romanov alone."

"I can't . . . "

"You cannot help her. You can only hurt her further. And I," Robert said, straightening further, "I will not allow that."

Control stared up at him. "You're as mad as she is."

"Perhaps. But you've put her through enough."

"I do so love it when you put your shiny armor on, old son." Control stood up. "Your advice is commendable, as always. I will take it under advisement. Can I have another drink?"

Robert considered. "If you hand over your car keys."

Control pointed. "In my coat pocket."

"Help yourself, then."

Control poured, refilled Robert's drink as well. "Do you remember the emeralds, Robert?"

McCall did not follow this sudden shift of direction. "The what?"

"The emeralds. The ones Garcias gave us. The Colombian emeralds, remember?"

"Yes." McCall remembered. He had sold his share of them, invested in stocks. He was probably paying his rent off the emeralds, even now. "What of it?"

"I kept one," Control answered slowly, quietly. "It's in a safe, in my office. The big one. I had it cut. It's perfect. Deep green. Beautiful stone." He took a drink. "It's this beautiful, beautiful gem, and no one ever looks at it. It just stays in the safe, in a little velvet bag. I haven't had it out in years. I don't even look at it. I just keep it locked away, where no one ever sees it."

"I'm not following you," Robert admitted.

"Lily loves emeralds," Control said, and finally McCall understood how the emeralds related to the current situation. "She can't walk past a jewelry store without looking in the window. Not diamonds, not for her. Emeralds. And I have this perfect stone, this beautiful stone, and it never even occurred to me to give it to her. I'd rather . . . keep it locked away in the dark."

"Where it's safe," Robert prompted gently.

"Safe," Control agreed. "And giving no pleasure to anyone." He shook his head. "Could you do it, Robert?" he asked. "Could you accept this child?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, old son, we both know you're a better man than I am. Far better. If you loved her - if this were Manon, carrying this child - could you accept it?"

Robert considered, very seriously. "At this moment, if Manon appeared at my door with a horned devil in a diaper in her arms, I would accept it. If it were hers, if she loved it."

Control sighed.

"Maybe that's the key," Robert continued slowly. "To you and I, Control, this baby is an abstraction, a symbol, of the torture, of the rape . . . but it's something quite different to Lily, isn't it? It's a living being to her. It's not a symbol of anything, it's her child."

"And some Sandinista soldier's," Control snarled.

"It doesn't matter. Oh, it matters to you, but it doesn't matter to her. It's her child, Control. You threatened her child, and she damn nearly tore your face off. That wasn't just self-preservation at work. She was protecting her young."

"Do you have some point, McCall?"

"I do, Control, and it's simply this. Right now, all you can see of this child is Lily's pain. And you want to remove that pain, and it drives you mad that you can't. But even if you could remove the child, the pain would still be there. Wouldn't it?"

"It would be behind her, not in front of her for the rest of her life."

"Listen to me. You can't accept this child right now in part because you can't see it. It's not alive for you, like it is for Lily. It's not squalling in your arms, it's not wrapping its hand around your finger, it's not smiling up at you."

Control's scowl deepened. "Listen to me," Robert insisted again. "You don't have children, Control, you don't know how the whole world can change when you take an infant in your arms for the first time. Everything changes, Control. Everything." He paced slowly. "You don't have to decide now. Wait. Wait for this child. See him, touch him, hear him. See him in Lily's arms. See how she looks at him. And if you still see something evil, something you can't bear, then walk away then. But you won't, Control. You will see Lily's child. And then you can love him."

Control threw away the swizzle stick and downed his drink without reply.