"Do you have any idea what a disaster this is?" Tarrington said, his voice midway between exasperation and fury. It was a rhetorical question so Shane said nothing. He was going to receive a lecture, so he might as well get it over with. "An absolute disaster, Shane. I've had no less than a dozen calls asking what kind of outfit we're running here. When you start trying to drag federal judges out of bed in the middle of the night to sign search warrants, word gets around."

"We had no choice," Shane said.

"Except the warrant turned up nothing." Tarrington continued to pace around the field director's office, which had been turned over to the ISA Chief the minute he arrived on his private jet from Washington. Shane suspected the field director was just outside the door, listening to every word. "I got calls from the Chief of Staff, the Deputy Chief of Staff, the directors of the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service and even the blasted Secretary of the Interior."

Shane raised an eyebrow. "The Secretary of the Interior?"

"Yes," Tarrington said, as he stopped and glared at Shane. "He's golf buddies with Judge Fredericks - the judge who told you to wait until the court opened this morning. Oh, and I also got calls from the Chief Judges of three different district courts. They don't like it when we go judge hunting."

"I was only 'judge hunting' because it was an emergency," Shane explained. "We just needed a judge who would get out of bed for a few minutes to listen to the request and sign the necessary forms."

"You should have waited," Tarrington yelled.

Shane sighed. He had already explained this, but he figured there was no harm trying once more. "If we waited, we would have given Ivan Marais even more time to destroy the evidence. Yes, if I'd known what Steve was up to, we could've planned ahead, but I had no choice."

"You did have a choice." Tarrington started to pace again. "You could have left well-enough alone. If Johnson chose to break the law, so be it."

"And leave him to be caught by Alamain's people?" Shane said. "Tarrington . . . they would've killed him."

Tarrington nodded. "I know, but it wouldn't have jeopardized the operation." He sighed. "You're letting your personal feelings interfere, Shane. You're a good agent. You're one of the best we've ever had, but you cannot put personal feelings before the operation."

"Personal feelings?" Now Shane was growing exasperated. "This has nothing to do with my personal feelings. I would not leave a man to be murdered, especially one who's given as much to the ISA as Steve has." Shane stood up. How could Tarrington even think like that?

"Sometimes you have to cut your losses, Shane." Tarrington studied him. "I know that's always been hard for you to accept. You should've done it in Iraq when Malik Abbas was hurt-"

Shane shook his head. They had gone over this a few times since his return to Salem, but Shane disagreed. "There was a chance he could've survived."

"But he slowed you down and nearly got you and Salim killed," Tarrington said. "You're only alive by sheer luck. That was a tactical error, and last night, you made the same mistake - putting the life of one man above the entire mission."

Shane took a few deep breaths to compose himself, before he spoke. "It wasn't just one man, Tarrington. It was Steve Johnson - a man who's given us almost as much information on Lawrence Alamain as we've managed to obtain from dozens of operatives around the world. Without Steve, we wouldn't even know that Alamain's trying to develop a toxin."

"But we already had that information. You didn't need to let Johnson go and ruin the ongoing surveillance."

"Fine," Shane snapped. "Okay, I shouldn't have done it. I should've let Steve be murdered and then anything else he might know would go with him to whatever hole Alamain's people would have dumped his body in. Are you satisfied now, Tarrington?"

Tarrington stared at Shane for a long moment, then shook his head and crossed his arms. "Sometimes, Shane, I think getting involved with Kimberly was the worst thing that ever happened to you."

"This has nothing to do with my personal life," Shane repeated.

"Perhaps. And perhaps not. But there was time when you understood what was necessary to accomplish a mission." Tarrington shook his head again, but seemed to have reached the end of his anger. "So tell me what you plan to do to deal with this disaster?"

Shane leaned back in his chair. "We'll need to regroup," he said. "We know Lawrence is developing a toxin and Dr. Bowers and her team in D.C. have some ideas about what we might be facing. I want to have her meet with someone at University Hospital-"

"What?" Tarrington's eyes widened in surprise. "That could cause-"

"It would be completely confidential," Shane said. "Look . . . Lawrence Alamain has every reason to hate Salem. If he decides to test his toxin somewhere, it's going to be here. We need someone at the hospital who can alert us to any unusual cases."

"And who would that someone be?"

Shane paused. "Carly Manning."

"You mean Katarina Von Leuschner? The woman who lied to you and all those people who were nearly killed in Alamainia?"

"Yes," Shane said evenly. "And also the woman who manufactured the cure for the virus." That shut Tarrington up. "You asked me to explain my plans, and bringing in Carly is one aspect. We already have men going into the prison to see if we can figure out how Lawrence is getting his instructions out. And we will turn our focus to what our foreign operatives are managing to learn at Alamain's research facilities."

"And the house?"

Shane shook his head. "I think it unlikely that Lawrence will use that house again. He'll decide it's too vulnerable. The biggest problem we face is that we'll need to try to figure out how Lawrence plans to bring the toxin or its components into the country. We've issued alerts to customs, every airport, port and border crossing to look for"Jacaranda" wine, but unless we get exceedingly lucky in the next few days, we have to figure he won't use the wine bottle trick again."

"And what about Johnson?" Tarrington asked.

Shane quirked an eyebrow. "What about him?"

"He's an impediment, Shane. We cannot let him interfere again." Tarrington turned away for a moment. "Besides, your plan for him failed. He was supposed to tell Kimberly what he remembered and she was supposed to pass it on to you. Obviously, that did not happen."

Shane had a bad feeling about where Tarrington was going with this.

Tarrington turned back to face Shane. "I'm having Johnson removed from Salem - as a matter of national security."

"You can't," Shane said, leaping to his feet.

"Of course I can." Tarrington frowned. "Don't let your personal sympathy for Johnson get in the way of what's right for this mission."

Shane stood firm. "Steve's been through more than most of us could have survived and he's just getting his life back. Okay, yes, he interfered last night. . . ." Shane barely knew what he was saying, but the words came unbidden. "But he's right about one thing. We are not going to nail Lawrence Alamain playing by the book. We've been chasing our tails for the past year and all we managed to do was put him away for a few months - and that was because Kimberly tossed the book away."

"Shane. . . ." Tarrington said his name slowly, an obvious warning.

"No." Shane felt his jaw tighten. "I won't let you do it. Steve has been through enough."

"Don't let your emotions cloud your judgment," Tarrington said, sternly. "I understand that Johnson was once part of your family, but you cannot let that overtake reason."

"I'm not." Even as he responded, though, Shane felt a twinge of doubt. Why was he defending Steve? Only a few hours earlier, Shane had debated locking Steve away. Was he letting his emotions control him? Was he thinking about Kayla and Stephanie, and how much they had already suffered? So what if I am. It's still the right thing to do. Of course, "right" and "wrong" hardly mattered in the upper-echelon of the ISA, so Shane tried to come up with something that would appeal to Tarrington. "Look, Tarrington. . . . Even if you have doubts about whether Steve's told us everything, I can assure you that the one way to guarantee we don't get anything else from him is to lock him away."

"And you suggest it's preferable to leave him out there as a loose cannon?" Tarrington looked even more doubtful than he sounded.

"Yes," Shane insisted. "There's nothing he can do at this point to undermine our plans. It's not like he'll be at the prison or looking into the Alamain operation outside the U.S."

The room fell silent and Shane could tell that his logic had little effect. Time to speak in a language that Tarrington will have to understand. "And it's certainly preferable to the public relations nightmare you'll create if Steve is taken into custody. His brother owns a newspaper and you can be sure that he will make sure the national press picks up on the story about how the ISA has removed a man from his family in the 'interest of national security.' That story will then be followed by numerous others showing how Steve was believed killed in the line of duty and finally returned to his family only to have the ISA take him away again."

Tarrington crossed his arms. "The press would need to know who took Johnson. Or do you think we're incapable of making a man disappear?"

Shane swallowed hard. "I can guarantee the press will know."

The implications of his words obviously registered, as Tarrington studied Shane. "You know what would happen if you leaked something like that."

I'd be kicked out of the ISA and possibly arrested for leaking classified information. Yes, Shane knew. "It's not very different than what I put on the line when I accepted the mission to free Steve, is it?" Shane knew he had Tarrington on the defensive and moved in for the kill. "If you think you had angry phone calls from cabinet secretaries this morning, just think about the calls you'll get when the story of the ISA kidnapping a U.S. citizen hits the front page of the Washington Post."

Tarrington gave Shane a look full of disapproval. "You've gone soft, Shane."

Shane ignored the gibe and glared back at his boss. He had never stood up to Tarrington like this before. Usually, even when he disagreed with his boss, Shane had his say and then complied with orders. "I didn't risk my life and career for Steve just so you could do something equally worse to him."

"And you're willing to risk your career for him again?" Tarrington's threat was plain.

"If that's what it takes to stop you." Shane was not bluffing; he would go to the press - to Jack Devereaux no less - if necessary. Still, playing a game of chicken with the Chief of the ISA was a game few would attempt.

And fewer would win.

Tarrington looked away. "Very well, Shane. You win for now." He looked back and eyed Shane again. "I just hope you don't live to regret it."