"Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated T. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

So here we are at the conclusion, after the previous chapter ended in kind of a double cliffhanger.

I'm putting this up as a last chapter and a short epilogue. Chapter notes are included if anyone cares. For now, thanks to everyone for reading, and remember that feedback, positive or negative is always welcome.

Chapter 6 - The Doghouse Has A Beautiful View

Happy Hour at Karlino's ran from three to eight, which was actually more than an hour, but with a dollar off all drafts it made for way more happiness than could be contained in just one hour. The place was close enough to the Manhattan Detention Complex that half the shops at street level were bail bondsmen, although there was an acupuncture clinic next door and a Vietnamese restaurant across the street. Sloan and Max weren't lucky enough to grab one of the few spaces in the nearby lot, so they had to settle for a walk from the deck on Hester Street.

They grabbed a couple of seats near the end of the bar. Sloane ordered a Margarita. Max asked the bartender, a stick thin young man with sleeve tats, piercings in both ears, and nerd glasses, for a vodka gimlet.

"Fresh squeezed lime juice or Rose's?" he asked.

"Fresh squeezed, please," Max replied. "I can't stand the taste of corn syrup," Max said to Sloane as the bartender reached for a bottle vodka from the shelf behind him.

"Me neither," Sloane answered, scanning the room.

"Looking for someone?" Max asked.

"Chris. He should be here soon." She looked over towards the door, and her face brightened at the appearance of a slender man with dark, spiky hair and few days growth of stubble wearing an untucked linen shirt and jeans. Sloane motioned him over, and greeted him with a hug. "This is Chris Miner. Chris, this is Max Hardy. We're working together now."

"Max Hardy the detective?" Chris asked.

"Guilty," Max replied. "But I'm not a detective any more. I just joined the Bureau. I started today."

"Sounds like a promotion," Chris said, smiling. 'Congratulations". Chris, Max decided, had a very nice smile.

"Thanks," Max said. "Yeah, it's a promotion. Actually my Lieutenant in the Intel Division said it would improve the Bureau and the NYPD."

"I'm sure he was joking."

"I don't know, he looked pretty serious when he said it. I hear you're an artist."

"I paint. Right now, I'm actually helping with set decoration in a theater." He turned to the bartender. "An old fashioned."

"Sloane!"

Max turned to see a woman in a dark pantsuit with short, strawberry blonde hair and freckles who introduced herself as Amy Hendricks.

"Come join us," the blonde said. "We've got a table over there."

"Sure," Sloane replied. "Come on, both of you. Time to meet some of the crew. "

A couple of tables had been pushed together at the far wall. A heavyset man with a blond moustache was making an emphatic point about what, exactly, he had told those assholes in personnel. Next to him sat a second man with sandy brown hair who seemed to have heard it all before. He was ignoring the other man and looking at Max. Maybe he thought she was attractive, or maybe he just wished someone would get the blond haired man to shut up.

"Introductions all around," Sloane said. "This is John DiPaulo," she said, indicating the blond man, who had paused for a moment at Max and Sloane's arrival. Sloane pointed to the other man. "And Gary Burnworth. Everyone, this is Chris Miner, and Max Hardy."

"Nice to meet you," Gary said. "Ryan shows up here sometimes, but I think he's working tonight."

"Shows up here?" Max asked, surprised.

"Yeah, Jermain Waller comes with him. He's in recovery too. They have each other's backs, so to speak."

"So how did you get posted here?" John asked.

"I requested it."

"So Ryan's going to reassemble his team, then?"

"Mike's overseas, still," Max explained.

"He's not coming home?"

"Not any time soon," Max said. The drinks arrived, and Max took a rather large sip of hers.

"I thought that the two of you were...you know" John said. He polished off the little bit of the light brown liquid left in his glass and turned to the waitress. "I'll have another," he said.

"No," Max shook her head. "It's complicated."

"My God, he left you?" Amy asked. "I am so sorry."

"Thanks. I thought maybe he'd come back or call, or whatever. But it's been a long time, and...I don't know."

"I know it sucks," Amy said

"I'm surprised they assigned you here," John said.

"Why?" Sloane asked sharply. "She was outstanding at Quantico."

"Oh, well...I just thought that given, you know, all the stuff that happened..." He let the thought trail off.

Gary, safely out of John's field of view, rolled his eyes. "Looking to the future," he interjected, "you're working with Sloane and not Ryan."

"I did some stuff for Ryan this morning," Max replied. "But Sloane's a really good partner and I'm leaning a lot. We're gonna be a great team."

"Maybe you'll team up with Ryan again," Chris said.

Max took another large sip of her gimlet. A lot of bartenders didn't use enough vodka when they made them, but this guy didn't seem to have that problem. And she was, she reflected, going through this one at a good clip. "It won't be the same," she said. "But I have a feeling that one way or another, we'll be working together a lot."

II

Mike was still too dazed from whatever they had hit him with to count exactly how many hands were holding him up and frisking him. He knew that if he could divide the hands by two, it would tell him how many of Duskos goons there were. He was still trying to work it out when he felt hands relieving him of his Glock, his spare mags, his phone, and his wallet. More hands were zip tying his wrists behind him. Dusko stood in front of him, watching the goons work. "Did Gray pay you to sell me out?" Mike asked.

"No. Gray hasn't got enough money to buy me. But someone else does. Someone who wants you to be an embarrassment to your government before you die."

"I don't get it."

"You will confess on camera to the kidnaps and renditions you have performed. Including the attempt to kidnap Mark Gray."

"Like hell."

"An accurate word, I think."

One of the goons slapped a piece of duct tape across his mouth, and a hood was pulled over Mike's head. A moment later, someone punched him hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He fell to the ground, wondering if he was going to puke inside the hood. He heard Dusko's voice giving orders. There were no more hands on him, but he wasn't going anywhere. Minutes passed, and the hands were back, hauling him to his feet. He was being half dragged, half carried through the door. It wasn't far, so it must have been the door he had kicked in. More voices. Four in all, he thought.

He was lifted, dumped unceremoniously into the trunk of a car, and then the lid was slammed shut.

So much for doing the wrong thing the right way. If there ever even was a right way, I've done this in the worst way possible.

III

Dusko took a burner phone out of his pocket and dialed the number Zamir had given him. "We have the package," he said.

"There's a problem," Zamir replied. "The safe house is blown. Marta has betrayed us after all.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Tell them to return the package to the warehouse. They'll understand what it means. Go with them. I'll meet you there."

IV

The gunmetal colored Peugeot moved slowly down the narrow street to avoid attracting attention.

When one has a kidnap victim in the trunk, it pays to obey the traffic laws. "You shouldn't have hit him like that," the man in the passenger said. "Zamir doesn't want him damaged. He wants to do the damage himself."

The driver, a sullen man with a shaved head, glanced over at him, and then focused his attention on the road. "I didn't thump him that hard."

"You gave Dusko directions to the alternate site?" his companion asked.

"Of course. You know, as far as I'm concerned that thumping I gave him is just practice for what I'm doing to that asshole Gray. I liked Petar. He was all right."

"Gray will likely be dead by the time we get there. The girl too."

"They'll make her talk first," the driver said.

"That won't take long," the passenger replied. "Turn here." They turned to the right, easing out onto a two lane street that wasn't much better lit than the one they had just left. Around them was a warren of houses, mostly cinder block with metal roofs. On the right was a rusty and ragged chain link fence with a higher sheet metal fence behind it, white, splattered with graffiti.

"Hey," one of the men in back said. "There's a car behind us."

The driver looked into his rear view mirror, seeing, too late, the headlights close behind and gaining rapidly. The car was moving over into the other lane as if to pass, but swerved and it's front bumper it the rear tire of the Peugeot hard. The Peugeot spun sharply to the left, making a right angle turn as the driver lost control. Along the left side of the was a ragged chain link fence with a white sheet metal fence spattered with graffiti behind it. The Peugeot slammed into the fence, right below some English graffiti that said BUBE KISS. It crashed through the chain link fence, easily bending down a length of sheet metal fence as well.

The man in the passenger seat recovered his wits first, and looked back to see that the other car had stopped, the driver had gotten out, and was walking quickly towards them. A woman with blonde hair, drawing a pistol. He reached for the gun in his shoulder holster and had just gotten his hand on the butt when bullets shattered the window glass and sent sharp crystalline fragments flying through the car. He heard one of the men in the back cry out in pain. He felt momentary pain from shards of glass hitting his face a split second before a bullet entered his skull just above his right ear.

V

Erin watched the Peugeot drive away from the metal building, started her BMW, and began to follow. She'd have to wait for him to get to a two lane road before she made her move, because she needed a road wide enough to pass. But she'd have to be quick, because once he got to Ulica Nekrassov, it was only a short distance before he made it to a four lane boulevard where there would be too many witnesses, and he'd be moving too fast. What she was about to try could kill everyone in the car, Mike included, if she tried it above 60 kilometers per hour.

The Peugeot turned onto the Ulica Nekrassov. Erin hit the gas, whipped around the corner and closed rapidly on the Peugeot ahead. He was accelerating, in a hurry to get where to wherever he was taking Mike. Shit. At too high a speed, this would cause the target car to flip over. She eased over into the other lane as if she were about to pass. With any luck, they'd think she was a reckless driver in a hurry until it was too late. As her front bumper drew even with the car's rear wheels, she turned the steering wheel, bringing her BMW to within a foot of the target, and then turned sharply, hitting the rear wheel with her front bumper. The Peugeot went out of control, spun to the left, and went head on into the metal fences on the left, one chain link, and a solid fence behind that.

She slammed on the brakes and came to an abrupt stop. She got out of the car and drew her Glock, moving rapidly towards the Peugeot. There could be up to four guys in that car. However many there were, she was going to have to kill them all.

The reflection of a streetlight on the window glass of the car made it impossible to see her targets, and the glass might change the trajectory of her bullets. She took aim at the front passenger side window. Shoot to break glass, and then shoot to kill. Her bullets shattered the glass, revealing a man in the passenger seat. Before he could react, she put her front sight on his head and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. Behind him, she could make out the outline of the driver. She kept squeezing the trigger while advancing on the Peugeot and the driver slumped over.

She switched her aim to the back seat, turning the rear window into crystalline shards. Two men in the back, the one closest to her trying to get down behind the imaginary cover of the car door. The man behind him was trying to get out on the far side and take cover behind the vehicle. She had to kill him first, because if he got out, he might get behind the trunk where they'd put Mike. She fired four shots in rapid succession, and he went down, but fell outside the vehicle. Was he still a threat?

She reached for a spare mag. She had fifteen rounds in the Glock, but she wasn't sure how many she'd fired, and didn't want it to go dry in the middle of a fight. She hit the mag release, letting her first magazine drop to the ground and slapped the fresh mag into the gun. She resumed firing, putting six rounds into the rear passenger side door. If the man on the other side thought that a car door would protect him from bullets, he was in for a rude awakening.

She ceased fire and approached the Peugeot, aiming her Glock at the rear door. He might still be a threat. His head reappeared above the door, and she could see that he had a pistol in his hand that he was trying to bring to bear, but he was moving slowly, probably wounded Three more shots, fired as she closed the distance on the car, finished him off. She looked in through the shattered read window, and saw the fourth man lying with his feet still inside the car, and his body on the ground outside.

VI

Mike lay in the trunk of the car, sweating beneath the stifling hood, his head still hurting from being sapped, his stomach hurting from being punched, wondering if it was a tractor trailer or a freight train that had just hit the car. He could hear gunshots outside, glass shattering, and the metal on metal sound of bullets punching through the car body. He wondered who the hell was killing whom, and when they'd get around to him.

The shooting stopped. No more noise outside. A moment later, he heard car door open, and after that, the sound of the trunk key being inserted and turned. The lid opened, and the hood was yanked off his head. He looked up, not knowing who to expect.

Erin.

She yanked the duct tape off his mouth, and he gulped air. She pulled what looked like a multitool out of her pocket, and started working on the zip ties on his wrists. "Are you OK? Can you walk?"

"Yeah. Just get me out of here."

The zip ties loosened. "That's got it," Erin said. "Let's haul ass."

Moments later Erin was burning rubber to accelerate away from the scene.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. "Do you need medical attention?"

"No. Where are we going?"

The road ahead turned into a Y exit, and not stopping to yield, she gunned the engine and made a turn that left Mike's stomach behind, merging into a four lane road divided by a grassy median. She looked around for any sign of pursuit or police, and eased it down, keeping her speed just slightly over the speed limit to avoid attracting attention.

"We're not going back to your hotel or the safe house. And we've got to ditch this car. I've got a contact who can hide us for a while until the Agency can arrange an escape rout."

"I'm not leaving without Mark."

"That's your call, but I hear Macedonian prisons are the suck."

"Where did you come from?" he asked. "How did you know?"

"I bugged your phone."

Mike looked at her with open mouthed astonishment.

"I figured you might pull some kind of shit, since you were here to kill Gray. So I had your phone number monitored. That thing's not encrypted, and Uncle Sam is deep inside most phone systems, in this part of Europe anyway. So they got you talking to Dusko. After that, we used your phone as a tracker, since it has GPS. And when you met Dusko, we had it switched on remotely and we got every word on speaker. "

He shook his head in apparent disbelief.

"I warned you about the goddam phone," she said.

"I'm an American citizen, you know. You're supposed to get a warrant when you bug my phone."

"Yeah right. I'm sure you and Ryan would have got a warrant."

He looked ahead, realizing the absurdity of what he's said, and burst out laughing. "At least I was right about one thing. You do know a lot about hunting."

VII

Mark looked round the room, searching for some opening. The dining room of the safe house was a bit crowded at the moment, with two of Zamir's men holding guns on him from across the table, and a third standing behind Marta. Zamir stood off to one side, near the kitchen door. With two men holding guns on him, his chances of taking them down unarmed were nonexistent.

No matter. If I'm going to die, then I'll die with my teeth in someone's throat.

"I feel really bad about this," Mark said. "If I'd known you were coming I would have fixed enough for all of us. We could have bonded over dinner."

"I'm almost tempted to let you finish.," Zamir replied. "The condemned should have a last meal."

"You're right," Mark grinned. "You can have the rest of mine."

"I wouldn't want to deprive you. I really came to ask Marta a few questions, but it seems almost pointless. I can guess most of the answers."

"Zamir, I'm sorry," Marta sobbed.

"Let me guess," Zamir interrupted. "The woman from the club contacted you, and you sold me out."

"I didn't think you'd let us go," Marta said.

"I wouldn't have. But your death would have been quick and painless. Now, however..."

He drew something from his pocket that, with a flick of his wrist, sprouted four inches of black oxide blade. "Marta, I'm going to ask this only once. Tell me about the woman from the club. Who did she work for?"

"She said she worked for Doctor Arthur Strauss."

"The American serial killer? That's absurd."

"I swear, that's what she said."

"Somehow I doubt it. No matter. I'll simply hurt you until I'm satisfied that you couldn't possibly be telling anything but the truth." He nodded in the direction of the dining room window, which looked out on the back deck. "Close the blinds," he said to one the men holding a pistol on Mark. "She may have been signaling someone."

The man moved to comply. He moved to the window and reached for the handle dangling from the top corner. As he did, there was she sound of breaking glass. A jet of blood, bone fragments, and brains sprayed from his head. Droplets of blood landed on the table and splattered the man aiming at Mark. A flower vase on the other side of the room shattered as the high velocity bullet kept going, through the back wall and into the next room.

More breaking window glass, this time from a much larger object. A black cylinder about six inches long and two inches across came sailing though the window. It landed somewhere on the dining room floor a split second before the world exploded.

VIII

Eliza pulled the pin on the flashbang grenade as soon as she heard the shot. She'd told Kaminsky that she'd assault when he opened fire from his position in the trees behind the house. She tossed the grenade in through the glass window, and ducked to the left, so as not to be blinded or concussed by the blast. Precisely 1.5 seconds after it left her hand, the grenade went off. She could see light from the detonation illuminating the back deck like the flash bulb of the gods. She brought up the silenced Skorpion machine pistol slung under her right shoulder and thumbed the selector switch to single shot.

There was a door to her left. It didn't lead directly to the dining room, but she had to get in somehow. She fired four shots into the lock and kicked the door in. She found herself in what looked like a living room. There was a door on the right side of the room that probably led to the dining room. She flipped the selector switch on the Skorpion to Maximum Fun.

A man came staggering out of the door in front of her holding a pistol in his hand. It wasn't aimed at anything, and he probably couldn't see to aim it anyway. She squeezed the trigger on the Skorpion, aiming low. A burst of full auto fire stitched its way up the man's torso, the muzzle of the Skorpion climbing abruptly from the recoil. He went down, but she realized that she'd gotten excited and burned off a whole magazine. Shit. She ejected the mag, drew a fresh one from under her left shoulder and slapped it in.

She moved cautiously towards the door. As she did someone in the other room who was crouching down low reached around the corner and took aim at her. She reacted instantly, bringing the Skorpion to bear.

They fired simultaneously. The range was close, but her opponent was dazed, excited, or a bad shot. His bullet ruined a perfectly good thirty six inch TV on the back wall. Her burst was more controlled this time. Most of it went high from the muzzle climb, but enough of it caught him that he fell with his body across the entrance to the dining room. She paused for a moment. She could see the end of a table through the open door, but she couldn't see anyone else. She hoped that no stray bullets had hit Mark Gray. She cautiously moved up to the door, took a breath to steady herself, and then came around the corner, her Skorpion at the ready, prepared to sweep the room. A man was crouching at the far end of the table. He stood. She covered him with her Skorpion, ready to cut him down, but then recognized Mark Gray. He ignored her, turned away, and ran into the kitchen.

IX

Mark found himself on the floor, unsure how he'd got there. Whatever that thing was, it had gone off close to him. He looked around, trying to gather his wits. He could see, under the table, that Marta was lying still on the floor. He heard, from somewhere nearby, a burst of automatic weapons fire, and a moment later, a body hitting the floor. One of Zamir's men was crouched by the door to the living room, clutching a pistol and not paying him any attention. He crawled towards Marta.

She was still alive, her lips moving, mouthing the words "I'm sorry." Her throat had been slashed. Zamir was nowhere to be seen. The shooting had come from the living room, so he probably hadn't gone out that way.

Another burst from an automatic weapon, and the man by the door fell. Mark stood and made a dash for the kitchen. He paused long enough to grab the knife he had used on Petar from its wooden block. Zamir Tolka was a dead man.

X

Eliza took in the scene in the kitchen. She could see Marta on the floor, lying in a spreading pool of blood. She'd read that Zamir favored a knife. The problem now was to find Mark Gray and get him out of here if she could. That meant finding and killing Zamir before he had a chance to kill Mark.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice was telling her that the smart play was to get out of here, go back to the hotel, enjoy some more of that Scotch, get a good nights sleep, and go home. Let these animals fight it out. But if Zamir killed Mark, this was all for nothing.

So find Zamir.

He hadn't gone past her. If he was trying to escape he might go for one of the cars. Probably not, though, since he knew there was a sniper, and he'd be exposed trying to get to the garage. He'd go out through the front, since that would put the house between him and Kaminsky. She ducked back into the living room and turned towards the entrance hall. She saw no sign of Gray or Zamir, but she found the front door open. She ran for it, and found herself on an outside deck that led around the corner of the house. Still no Zamir. There was a staircase leading down to ground level. She headed down it, her Skorpion at the ready.

When she got to the bottom, she looked around and saw no one. To the right, she could see light coming from a downstairs window, the deck ran around the house to the left, and that was where the garage was. Could Zamir be going for a car after all?

She headed left and realized her mistake when Zamir stepped out from the shadows beneath the deck. She tried to whirl and bring her Skorpion to bear, but he was too close, and grabbed the end of the silencer with his left hand. He had the knife in his right hand, and he was stabbing for her leg.

She stepped back and used her left hand to get inside and block his knife hand, but she was surprised, and he was stronger. He pulled hard on the now useless Skorpion and made another stab at her with his knife hand. She managed to block again, but lost her balance, He shoved hard on her gun arm and she went down hard on her back. She found herself looking up at him, wondering why he didn't finish her off. Instead he let go of her gun and dropped his knife, a stunned expression on his face.

Because Mark Gray was stabbing him in the back. Repeatedly. Zamir fell forward, and she could see Mark. He reached down and seized her by the throat in a grip that felt like a bear trap.

"You." He stared at her, as if wondering what to do. Eliza hoped he would make up his mind before her brain was completely starved of oxygen.

He released his grip just as blackness was beginning to swim before her eyes.

"She's dead," he said simply.

"I'm so sorry," she managed to croak. "I tried."

He sat down on the ground, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and began to sob uncontrollably.

Eliza managed to sit up and take stock of herself. She decided that the blood on her clothes was Zamir's, and not hers. At length she heard cars pull into the driveway and looked up. Stinnes, Kaminsky, and Juliana. Kaminsky came running up to her. "Are you alright?" he asked. She nodded wordlessly.

She was aware of Juliana kneeling down by Mark Gray, and going into the spiel they had rehearsed. "Mr Gray, I represent the interests of Dr Arthur Strauss. We've come to take you home."

XI

Max opened her eyes reluctantly to discover that the ceiling over her head wasn't hers, nor was the couch she was lying on, and that her head was pounding. These facts, she decided, were probably related. She sat up slowly, and found that someone had thrown a blanket over her, and placed a pillow under her head.

"Good morning," a voice said. She turned to find Sloane standing in what looked like a bedroom door wearing a robe.

"Hi. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Chris and I brought you back here. I'll make us some coffee, and you can get a shower."

"Thanks I need both. I don't know what happened."

Sloane sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "I do. But I really don't think this is the best way to deal with it."

"It's not. John's right. I'm surprised they let me come back here."

"I'm glad they sent you here. And don't listen to John, because believe me, nobody else does."

"It just all got to me," Max said. "It's a huge change in my life. I was so proud of finally getting accepted. I leave, and when I come back, everything's different. And no one to come home to."

"You've got Ryan. You've got me. And if Mike doesn't come back, there will be someone else. One of those four million guys I mentioned. Come on, let's get you some coffee."

XII

Ryan was sitting in a café having coffee and a bagel before work when the call came from Dan Shelby. "Hey buddy. You're up early."

"Earlier than you think. I got a wake up call this morning about your pal Weston. He's really stepped in it this time."

'What happened?" Ryan asked.

"Apparently he got played by this CI that put us on to Gray. His Agency contact smelled a rat, but Weston violated orders, went in solo, and almost got himself snatched. This CIA hot shot saved his ass, but there's dead bodies all over Skopje. Weston is holed up in a safe house and they're arranging an escape rout, but the Agency is screaming bloody murder."

"Is he OK?"

"He's not hurt, but if they tie those dead bodies to the US he's gonna be looking for work as a rent a cop. I know he's important to you. So if they ask me for a recommendation, do we bring him in?"

"Tell them..." Ryan paused. He had been about to say "tell them to bring him home."

But if they bring him home in disgrace, will he be able to face Max?

"Tell them what?" Shelby asked.

"Tell them to leave him in the field. If possible."

"You do realize that if this turns into a diplomatic incident, then it's gonna be way the fuck out of my hands."

"I know," Ryan said. "Thanks."

"How's Max working out?" Shelby asked.

"Really good. She's going to be one of the best."

"Maybe I'll finally get to meet her some time."

"I'm sure you will," Ryan replied. "And I really appreciate this."

"Well I've got a meeting with Associate Director Mahoney, so I have to go. Talk to you later."

"Later."

"And Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"Be good."

XIII

Sloane stepped out of Gina's office, leaving the door open behind her. Gina's door was always open, unless she was dealing with personnel matters or something classified. This meeting had been a personnel matter, namely Sloane's evaluation. It was top notch, which had known it would be. She was on her way back to check on Max, when she was waylaid by Amy Hendricks, who had a file in her hand and was headed in the direction of the Command Center.

"How's Max?" Amy asked.

"She's kind of got a headbanger, but she's OK."

"Sucks about Mike leaving her like that."

"Yeah, it does," Sloane replied.

"Maybe we could introduce to someone."

Sloane had been about to detach herself and get back to her desk, but froze in her tracks. Amy's taste in men was dubious at best.

"Maybe Tom Reyes," Amy continued.

Sloane supposed that her face must have betrayed her feelings.

"You're not prejudiced, are you?" Amy asked.

"No," Sloane replied. "Assholes come from every race, creed, and color. And you know what they all have in common?"

"What?"

"They're all assholes."

"Jesus, Sloane..."

"He's a lousy agent," Sloane said. "And several other kinds of trouble besides. I gotta go. We'll talk later."

XIV

Erin's contact proved to be a Turkish man named Cairo Aslan who lived in a spacious house in the hills southeast of Skopje. Studen something or other. He had a spare room, which Erin used, and a couch that folded out into a bed for Mike. Cairo, Erin explained, was a bit old fashioned.

Cairo's back deck commanded a lovely view of a town in the valley below with a five syllable name, Studen something or other. It was a beautiful morning and Mike sat sipping Turkish coffee, waiting for Erin to return. She'd forbidden him to go out or to go back to the hotel to collect his baggage. Mike suspected that if he tried to leave, Cairo, a tall, fortyish man with a hard face and arms like a stevedore, might have something to say about it.

His first day here, she'd arranged a visit by an American man who examined his injuries, asked him how many fingers he was holding up, and had him follow his index finger around. Mike suspected that the man was some sort of military medic and part of the special ops backup team she'd mentioned his first day here. In addition, she'd also gone to meet someone to arrange a way for him to get out of the country.

And she'd confiscated his phone. He couldn't blame her, although he was thinking of asking for it back so he could call Max.

He heard a door open behind him. It was Erin. She was wearing jeans, a loose fitting gray blouse, and sneakers. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. He thought she was beautiful. She sat down next to him at the round, wrought iron table. "How are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm good. Just enjoying the view. I may be in the doghouse, but at least the doghouse has a beautiful view."

"And physically?"

"Better. The bruises are healing up, but the feeling like a fool isn't."

"That'll get better too. I've been making some arrangements. They'll have papers delivered here, and a disguise kit. Once you're over the border, you should be all right. We've booked a flight. You leave day after tomorrow."

"What about you?"

"I leave this afternoon. They'll send a guy out to deliver the papers and help you with the disguise kit."

"Where are you going?"

"After Dusko. The Company is somewhat pissed. I'm not sure yet what's going to happen to him. He tried to kidnap and murder an FBI agent, so the Bureau wants him alive. They want him tried and sent to prison. The problem with that is that in order to try him, we'd have to admit that we were in a place we're not supposed to be, doing something we're not supposed to do. It'll all be decided way above my level. But my guess is that Dusko is going out with a bang instead of a whimper."

"Will you do it?"

"Officially we don't violate 12333. My orders are to bring him in, and I will. They want to talk to him. After that...People can get shot trying to escape."

He shook his head, as though in disbelief.

"It's not like you've never killed anyone," she said softly.

"What about Mark Gray?" he asked.

"Someone hit that safe house the same night they tried to take you. Five dead, none of them Mark Gray. Marta Pandev was killed, probably executed. Someone slit her throat. One of the dead guys was Zamir Tolka."

"The terrorist?"

"Yeah. That's who Dusko was probably working for. Someone stuck a butcher knife in his back."

"Let me guess. Mark's fingerprints were on the knife."

"That's my guess too, but we don't know that yet because the Macedonian cops don't have Gray's prints on file, and if we start dropping hints we're admitting we were there. Eventually they'll query Interpol, and yeah, I think the prints are coming back as Gray's.

"The running bet," She continued, "is that you were going to be executed on video after confessing to taking part in renditions. This all took serious money to set up, and we don't know where it came from. A government, maybe. But there's no sign of Gray."

She fell silent for a moment, looking at the town below. "I've done renditions. Snatch jobs. It was the wrong way to go here. We could have requested Gray's extradition. And maybe we'd have Gray, and a much lower body count. I work for people who are going to one day hate living under the rules they made up as they went along."

"So who hit the safe house?"

"That's a damn fine question," she said. "The current narrative in Washington is that Gray was rescued by someone he paid himself after he figured out that Zamir wasn't planning to leave witnesses. Zamir had a knife. He probably did Marta when he realized he'd been double crossed. Marta could have acted as a go between for whoever Gray contacted."

"And what do you believe?" Mike asked.

"Gray was being paid by someone, probably Zamir, which explains the big deposits in that bank account you found. But there's no large withdrawals. Not from the account in Skopje, or from any other account anyone knows about. What did Gray pay this hit team with? Did he win the lottery somewhere? Did he hold a yard sale? It's the kind of theory you come up with when you're scared of the truth."

"Who the hell would actually want Mark for anything besides target practice?" Mike asked.

"I don't know. And that worries me." She gave him a faint smile. "On a different subject, I'm on a plane to Vienna real soon. I can't let you make a phone call, not even on my phone. But if you want me to call Ryan when I get to Vienna and tell him you're OK..."

"That's OK," Mike said. "He knows, I'm sure."

"Anyone else you'd like me to call?"

"I'll call her myself when the time comes.".

"So when is that?"

"I don't know," Mike said miserably. " I screwed this all up."

"Mike, I like you a lot. You're a good man. Let me give you some advice. Go home. Please. On the first available flight and without Gray. Because even if you get him, even if you survive, it's not worth what it's costing you. Gray's head on the wall is not worth your life, and it's not worth every good thing in your life."

"I can't," he said. "I have to find him."

Erin nodded , took his hand in hers, and squeezed it gently. "I have to go," she said, and stood. "I hope you find your way home. And I hope she's there waiting."

"I hope so too," Mike replied. "But I kind of doubt it."

"Well if she's not," Erin grinned, " look me up."

"I will. Thank you. For everything. You be careful."

"You too," she said. She turned, and walked back into the house, leaving Mike sitting alone, admiring the view from the hillside on a perfect late summer day.

Musical Interlude - Happy by Stabbing Westward.

=========================Chapter Notes=============================

A few random notes on things you may not be familiar with.

A gimlet is a cocktail traditionally made of gin and lime juice. I prefer one to one, and so does Max. A lot of people claim you should use Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice, but America subsidizes corn farming and so high fructose corn syrup ends up in nearly everything as a sweetener. It tastes nasty ( I think) and probably helps cause diabetes. Max, Like me, prefers fresh squeezed juice and simple syrup as a sweetener. A lot of people prefer vodka to gin in their gimlets. In this, Max is misguided.

An old fashioned is a mix of bourbon, simple syrup, bitters, and water, served on the rocks with a maraschino cherry and an orange slice.

A Margarita is a complicated cocktail made with tequila. There are a blue million recipes for Margaritas available online. Most tequila cocktails are complicated, because you have to mix a lot of stuff with tequila to be able to choke that shit down.

Erin's maneuver that she used to stop the kidnapers is called PIT (precision immobilization technique.) The move is sometimes called PITing a vehicle. It can stop a car, but at speeds above 35 mph is likely to cause the car to flip, which stands a good chance of killing the occupants. Remember what I said about not trying this stuff at home.

Everything Erin did to monitor Mike's phone is possible. Remember this, if you ever need to do something you don't want to be caught at, and leave the phone at home.

Executive Order 12333 was signed by President Ronald Reagan on December 1st, 1981. It's posted at the CIA's web site. Section 2.11 reads " No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination."

So what about all those drone strikes America has done since 9-11? Well, they're illegal under 12333, but what's a few illegal killings among friends? Richard Nixon once said that if the President does it, it's not illegal. Apparently Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama agreed.

For people who aren't the President, it's usually a matter of saying that were people shot resisting, or trying to escape, or they thought he had a gun, or whatever. By now Americans have seen enough iffy police shootings to know how that game is played.

No, this is not a political message. It's just a factual statement that a.) assassinations are illegal, and b.) the law against assassinations gets ignored from time to time. I take no position here on whether that's good or bad, but it does happen to be true.

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