Steve stood up from his chair and stalked around the dimly lit interrogation room. He checked his watch again, but that only made him angrier. Shane had left the room hours ago; it was already 6:30 a.m.

There would be hell to pay for last night, Steve thought, and Shane was the least of Steve's worries. Caroline had been furious when he called around midnight to tell her that he would be unable to get Stephanie. Not only was she angry that he could not tell her why he was late; the call had woken Shawn who had to be on his boat at 6 a.m. Then there was Kayla. Caroline told him that Kayla had called, looking for him. She would be worried and angry that Steve had not called her. And, to top it off, Steve had to be at his job interview in just a few hours.

He walked over to the door and pounded on it. "Hey there! Tell me what the hell's going on!"

After a few minutes of pounding, the door opened and an agent looked in. The man had a large welt near his eye. He glared at Steve, said, "Sit down and shut up," and slammed the door shut. That left Steve with more time to stew.

He did not care what Shane said. I did the right thing. If it wasn't for Donovan and the damn ISA screwing things up, I would have had Alamain dead to rights. That's more than the ISA's done with all their money and agents.

Steve tried to suppress the tiny voice deep in his head that maybe Shane had a point. The ISA could have gotten a warrant. But Steve dismissed the thought. If he had told the ISA about the wine bottle, Shane would have just sat on the information. He would have probably held a bunch of meetings and gathered his "task force" to talk about it. Meanwhile, Lawrence would have had plenty of time to do whatever he wanted to do. No, in this case, action was needed; Steve was right.

Besides, Steve did not owe the ISA anything. Shane might keep mentioning Egypt, but they both knew the score there. Steve was an afterthought. Nobody in the ISA cared about him.

He checked his watch again. 6:40 a.m. This was getting ridiculous. He turned toward the door and called out, "You can't keep my locked up in here! I want a lawyer!" Just as he finished, the door opened and Shane stepped back inside. Steve smirked. "I guess that got your attention."

Shane looked at him, his face betraying nothing. "No," he said evenly. "The only thing that has my attention is the fact that my team just dismantled Alamain's wine cellar and found nothing. So either you're making up this 'Jacaranda' story or your little escapade earlier tonight caused Marais to get rid of the evidence."

"I'm not lying," Steve said, angrily.

"No . . . I don't think you are." Shane's sounded completely calm, as he crossed the room and ran his hands through his hair. "Why, Steve?" he asked. "Tell me why?"

He just doesn't get it, Steve thought. "I told you, Donovan. I had him - and you and your damn ISA buddies just screwed it all up! Dammit!" Steve turned away and kicked at the wall. I would have had him! He turned back and yelled. "I had him!"

"We saved your life. . . ." Shane shook his head. "Not just tonight."

Steve glared at Shane. "Stop saying that. You want to me to act all grateful to the ISA - to you - but I don't owe you anything. And don't try to tell me the ISA would have brought me out if it wasn't going into that compound for other reasons." He watched as Shane started to respond, but then fell silent. "See . . . you won't even defend them. Same with tonight. If you didn't think I'd screw up your investigation, you would've left me to Alamain's dogs."

"That's not true," Shane said. "I was not going to leave you."

That caused Steve to let loose with a harsh laugh. "Give me a break, Donovan. You're ISA through and through, and I know exactly how the ISA operates. Hell, remember Jericho? I was there. Stockholm? I was there too. I've seen what the ISA does. I've seen what it does to its own people." Steve continued to laugh bitterly. "Nothing - and nobody - is more important than the damn mission."

"I see." Shane leaned against the far wall and crossed his arms. "So . . . since you don't believe in the ISA, you're perfectly free to interfere with our investigation? It's better that Alamain goes free just so you can prove that your way is better than ours?"

"I told you this is personal!" Steve knew he was about to lose his cool again, but he did not care. He wanted to wipe that smug, superior look off Shane's face. "I had him, Donovan. In 30 minutes, I got closer to putting Alamain away for good than you've gotten in months. So, yeah, I don't give a damn if I messed up your investigation. I had just as much right to be there; Alamain took nine months of my life-"

Shane cut him off. "And what? That gives you the right to take the law into your own hands? Tell me something, Steve. Let's say, by some miracle, you managed to avoid the security guard who, I'll have you know, was only about 30 feet from you when we opened that shelf. Let's say you got to the basement, found the bottle, and managed to get out of there. What then?"

"We'd have had whatever he was working on. You'd have had that stuff," Steve said. "You'd know what Lawrence had and you'd have put him away."

"Oh come on," Shane snapped. "You were a bloody cop for god's sake. You know Alamain's attorneys would have gotten that evidence thrown out of court long before a trial."

Unable to contain his anger any further, Steve felt his entire body shaking. His hands curled into fists. "I don't care! So what if it never sees a courtroom. Your scientists could have figured out what it was and how to counteract it. There would be one less threat to deal with." Steve paced across the room. "At least I was doing something to stop him. We both know that putting him in prison doesn't do any good."

"And if you'd told me what you remembered, we could have done both," Shane said.

Steve gave a sarcastic smile. "Yeah, right. If I'd told you, you wouldn't have run for a warrant; you'd have just sat on your hands and waited. Talked a lot, probably. Meanwhile, Lawrence Alaiman would be proceeding merrily along with whatever he plans to do with this stuff."

Shane said nothing and Steve smiled inwardly. He had put Mr. ISA in his place.

"There really is no point to this," Shane finally said. "You're going to keep insisting everything you did was right."

"That's right, Donovan." Steve walked toward Shane. "You can just sit there and talk about 'plans' and 'logic,' but I was going to get some results. So what if I don't play by your rules? Your rules don't work with a guy like Alamain. We play by the book and he just laughs at us."

"So your solution is just to throw the book away?" Shane was shaking his head, which just stoked Steve's anger again.

"That's right!" Steve yelled. "You throw the damn book away and take a guy like Alamain down any way you can!"

"This isn't the Wild West, Steve." Steve could see that Shane's face was turning red. "There are rules and procedures-"

Steve turned from Shane and slammed his hand on the table. "Damn your procedures! They didn't stop what happened to me. They didn't stop Alamain from raping Jennifer. Hell, they didn't even put him in jail. He's only there because Kim broke the rules and let you blackmail Alamain into pleading guilty."

"Steve-"

"No! You know I'm right." Steve knew this was pointless. Shane had bought into the company line. Steve took a few short breaths then turned his head toward Shane. "You used to know when playing by the rules didn't work. You sure as hell didn't play by the rules when it came to your brother."

Steve saw Shane's jaw tighten at the mention of Drew. "That's right," Steve said. "I remember that too. So you can talk about procedures until you're blue in the face, but tell me, Donovan, what are you going to think about those procedures when you're watching them put Andrew's coffin in the ground? Will you sit there and say, 'At least I followed the rules.' Will-"

Before Steve could react, he was grabbed and shoved backwards against the wall. Shane had a hold of his jacket and their faces were only inches apart. "Don't you say another bloody word!" Shane said, his voice little more than an angry snarl. The calm veneer was gone entirely. For a second, Steve was reminded of the time Shane had blindsided him at Savannah's recording studio when trying to find out where Bo and Hope were. That was one of the few times Steve could remember Shane losing his cool. Good, maybe I'm getting through to him. But when Shane spoke again, it was in a tight, even voice. "If anything happens to my son, Steve . . . I swear . . . his blood will be on your hands - because of what you did last night."

"Yeah . . . you just tell yourself that," Steve said. "But remember that all of your fancy bugs didn't tell you about that car that almost hit Andrew or those bullets at the school yard." Steve's voice softened for a moment. "Alamain knows your game, Shane. The only way to stop him is to change the rules."

Shane released Steve's jacket and stepped back. Then he took a few deep breaths and straightened his tie. Any sign of anger was gone. Steve knew that Shane was back to the company man. He would never understand that protecting your own by any means necessary was the only rule that mattered.

"So what are you gonna do now, Donovan?" Steve asked. "Lock me up?" He held his hands out in front of him and dared, "Go ahead and cuff me."

Shane stared back, his face impassive. Then he turned, walked to the door, and pounded on it. When it opened, Shane told the agent outside, "Take Johnson back to his car." Then he turned back to face Steve. "You just used up your 'get out of jail free' card. Next time, you won't be so lucky."

Steve waited for Shane to disappear from view. Then he sauntered over to the door and grinned at the ISA agent with the bruised eye. "So boys, we're going to go for a little ride. Since your boss is so into Monopoly, how 'bout we cruise by Boardwalk and Park Place on the way?"