Not intended to infringe on any “the Fugitive” copyrights anywhere and anyhow.  Please don’t sue us—we just did this for fun.



CHAPTER ONE: Nostrum


Maybe it was like climbing from the car after driving at night and the way the stars all streamed toward you. The crux of the world used Sam as its center, while he—with his boot heels, as ever, dug in—stood firmly in place. Everything was changing, and yet nothing ever had changed him…till now. He could feel the gravity pulling at him, like fingers of the future dragging him back into its stream. He was fighting it with every thing he had in him.

“Cal, what the hell am I supposed to do?” he asked softly of their blackjack oaks that stood out starkly against an eastern Texas sky.

Nothing ever answered him anymore.

How he wanted to be unhappy again, in the strangest, weirdest way. It might knock off a measure of the guilt that had accrued around the edges of the full year and change. Or just be numb and casual once more…yes, just that even. Not carrying this new warmth inside him…like some personal goddamned miracle awakening. Just living…existing…being alive as if the means to an end… Not giving a damn anymore.

You know what he’d tell you to do…

The steps he’d heard coming from across the field, after the slam of a Federal car door, finally reached him. Her footsteps stopped, her labored breathing eased as she seemed to catch up with the air around her.

“This damned place isn’t near anywhere, Samuel H. Gerard,” Jasmine Dillard spoke at last. “You out to kill an old black lady in your day? What in the hell is William of Orange, Texas? Why’d you tell me it wasn’t far from New Orleans?”

“Coz if you’d known it was all the hell out here, you’d have hauled me back to Camp Beau.”

“Wrong direction. I’d have pulled you into D.C. I come with my orders from the Bone Yard. That’s why I’m standin’ here.”

“That and to make my life a living hell.”

“Naw, that’s just a fringe benefit,” she said. She yanked something out of her purse and aimed it like a weapon straight at Sam’s heart. “Chief Deputy Marshal, y’all got your marching orders. You are to report tomorrow at seven in the am, fit and proper.”

Gerard held up his hands. “Whoa, hold it right there, Jasmine. I am taking personal time. You signed for it.”

“You aren’t on personal time, you’re just hiding. From more than just me. Only your momma’s known you longer than I have, Samuel. Don’t try that malarkey with ol’ Jazzy here. It isn’t about to play.”

“I am on leave.”

“Your leave is cancelled.”

“By whom?”

“By the Special Operations Group, Office of District Affairs.” She glanced at her paperwork. “For the protection of a Federal Witness to give testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies viz-a-viz FDA Drug Approval Protocols. Standard US Marshal duties. Read ‘em and weep.”

“Federal witness? Jazzy, I am a bloodhound; I am not some Camp Beau sheepdog. Get one of your puppies to take this mess.”

“You ain’t even heard the name of the sheep,” she said, grinning.

“Wait, hold it right here,” Sam said, his face losing color through the rugged course of comprehension. He took several full steps back behind the stone bench on which he had been sitting. “You said FDA Drug Approval. Which drug approval?”

“Let’s see, it’s some major drug manufacturer involved here. Yeah, that’s right, oh, what was the name now— here it is, Devlin-MacGregor.”

“No!” he said, firmly. “Not a chance. No way, no how. Uh-uh. Absolutely not.”

Jazzy leaned forward, focusing her eyes on his own dark, unconquerable stare.

“There’s nobody but you who can do it, Sam. C.H.F.T.F requested you by name when they submitted the mobilization voucher to S.O.G. I wouldn’t have put anybody else on the case even so. You know the witness; you know the backstory and the detail. I’m not about to let you slip this because you’re holed up out here on Heartbreak Hacienda.”

“Am I speaking some language unknown to you, Jasmine? I said no. Flat out—no. This Federal witness is a personal friend. That goes against all Marshal policy—“

“Marshal policy, my ass. I been reading your electronic mail. Yeah, you can yell at me later for it. You haven’t even returned that sweet fellow’s phone calls in a month. If you had, you would know our boom boys have been pickin’ up chatter.”

“What kind of chatter?”

“Death threats.”

Gerard’s brow furrowed through to flesh. “What kind of death threats?”

“Death threats. You talk, we’ll kill ya. They don’t come in many colors, Sam. You know he has been getting them regularly. And the chatter has gotten loud since the Provasic hearings were announced to the public. No one knows the case like you do. I figure if we must strike, we must strike through the mast.”

“Oh, hell, okay, you had to fight unfair and quote Melville at me.” Gerard grabbed the papers away from her. “I thought these damned hearings weren’t for another year.”

“They moved ‘em up. All the publicity from Sykes’ Capital Murder conviction, I expect. You know politicians. The Bone Yard bon ton royale are aquiver at the potential political windfall from all this.”

“And where does that place Richard?”

“Oh, well, isn’t that something? You just gave him a name.” She rewrapped her muffler around her throat. She settled herself back on the bench that Gerard had abandoned. “Now that it’s out in the open, let’s talk about the real issue here.”

Sam sighed, shaking his head in resignation at the futility of avoiding the topic at hand. “I know better than to try to talk you outta talkin’ about anything. What issue?”

“You know what issue. And this I say as your friend. Calder Cromwell was a fine man. But he’s dead, Sam, now goin’ on nine years. It’s past time to move on.”

“Why, thank you, Dear Jasmine. As you might have noticed, I have had a passel of dates over the last nine years.”

“Dates, sure. Plenty of throwbacks, but no keepers. You’re an expert at reeling in the ones too weak to hold.”

“Haven’t you become the all-knowing oracle all of a damned sudden?”

“It’s my job to know these things. And the way you’re bucking and thrashing every time you so much as look anywhere near Richard Kimble, I’m thinking there’s something to all this one whole lot more than a good friendship. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“Your imagination is workin’ overtime, Jasmine. And Cosmo’s is, too.” He leafed through the papal bull. “Richard’s a friend. You might recall he once had a wife.”

“I might recall my ex once had one, too, and he’s living in Springfield Summit with his new blond boyfriend. With the damned degree paid for with the sweat off my aged brow.”

Gerard rubbed his fingers together. “World’s tiniest violin, Jazzy.”

“I know, I know. Stop changing the subject anyway. Now, you are going to be spending the next five days holed up in a safehouse somewhere in the state of Old Virginy. I pulled nearly the whole team, but we’re stashing Henry and Biggs across the street. Gonna be you and Cosmo and Poole babysitting Dr. Kimble until this all hits the Beltway. We stake it at 7 AM straight up tomorrow morning. Got it?”

He exhaled, long and low. At last, he nodded. “Got it.”

“Good.” She checked her watch. “And I might just add, while we’re still near the topic, it’s no mortal sin to be happy, Sam. Doesn’t make you disloyal. Doesn’t make you unfaithful. You can’t live your life for a dead man. So stop sitting out here on this scrubby piece of east Texas catdirt acting like you’re so damned downhearted when all’s it is, is you feel guilty ‘cause you’re not unhappy anymore. And maybe because you never been this happy in the first place.”

“You know, you really could give Solomon a run for his money.”

“Solomon never had to deal with you. And I do believe Job woulda hung himself by now.” She poked at his chest. “We clear?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, to quote the Beatles. Cosmo will want his junk food. Bobby will need that sports network package he watches, whatever the hell it’s called. Dr. Kimble may have some wishes, too, I expect.”

“Check, check and all that. And what about you? What can I special order for my favorite Chief Deputy?”

“For me? Nothin’.” He frowned a little. “Unless you got some busted heart insurance in your old kitbag.”

“Now, Samuel… You’re givin’ up before you’ve even got started!”

He shook his head, at the dark, pervasive truth of things unseen. “So help me, Jasmine. This isn’t the kiddyland bumper cars. A man could really hurt himself on this ride. Hurt himself like he’s never been hurt before.”

“Those are the only ones worth boarding, Samuel. Now cheer up. Really. There’s no getting out of this so you might as well hang tough.”

Gerard pouted a little, nodding again. “Guess it’d be pointless to try to talk Richard out of testifying.”

“Yeah. As pointless as trying to get you to do something you weren’t gonna do in the first place.” She aimed her finger at him, pulled the unseen trigger. “Checkmate.”

He grinned in resignation, slapping playfully at her finger weapon. “Smugness is not becoming in a woman of your stature.”

She smacked a kiss to his forehead, and then rubbed away the remnants of bronze lipstick. “And faking heartbreak is pointless when you’re falling in love.”

“Please don’t say that word, Jasmine,” he said, laughing from an edge of fear unlike any he had ever known. “Hell, don’t even joke about it.”



Camp Beauregard had been warm and humid, but Sam likened as how Louisiana had just been born that way. Virginia was green through the heart of the distant Blue Ridge, as the plane made a slow circle for the airstrip that didn’t officially exist. The Marshal Office had requested it via a “Memorandum of Understanding”. Quantico as a professional courtesy—in the same sense that the Mafia extended “professional courtesies”—allowed the use of the landing strip to the Marshal’s service.

The plane set down with an uneasy grace in the late morning rain.

“What the fuck county jurisdiction is this?” Renfro groaned, staring out the window at the glistening tarmac, as if he might read it on a street sign somewhere. It fell to him today to fill out the schedule to submit to the brass, to give the brass something to fill in their own time sheets.

“Prince William County,” Sam said.

“Where Quantico is? You’re jokin’. ”

“Well, hell, yes, Cosmo. I just live to give you false information, don’t I?”

“Alright, alright, Prince William it is. It just sounds so… I dunno… I mean, nothin’ personal… but… kinda light in the loafers, if you know what I mean.”

“Why do people always say stuff like that? Nothin’ personal. It’s like some get-out-of-jail-free-card for insults. You’re a big silly sack of shit, but hey, nothin’ personal. How could I possibly take that personally?”

“Who spit on your grits this morning, sunshine?”

“I didn’t need any help today.”

“You’re tellin’ me.”

Renfro yanked Sam’s duffel from the overhead, and then pitched it to him. Cosmo tugged his own cabin carry from under his seat. “Next time you do the scheds, Sammy boy. I’ll doze off in my seat. I got a purple stripe on my shield now, too, you know.”

“Wow, that’s only about the fifteenth time today you’ve reminded me of that.”

“Seventeenth. And counting.”

Poole had the door opened and the stair struts down by the time the two men walked up to the ramp. “Bobby and Henry are with the guest,” she said. “They’re going to meet us in Manassas. I hope to hell and back that somebody made some coffee.”

Gerard hoped the smile he felt burning brightly inside him hadn’t surfaced to his lips, at the very sound of the words “the guest”.

“Long as it isn’t Biggs’ coffee,” Renfro said. “Biggs’ coffee is even worse than Sam’s.”

“There’s nothing in the world wrong with my coffee,” Sam said.

Cosmo shook his head. “Not if you’re dyin’ wool.”



The chopper murmured to itself, like some big-eyed bug watching from the woods. The side of the helicopter read CARFTF, but the pilot was hiding that behind a hull tarp that matched the overall scheme of the colors. Today, the flags came down till whenever they went up again.

“Why don’t they give ‘em acronyms so somebody can say it without spellin’ it all the time? With the Kimble case, it was GLRFTF. Now it’s CHRFTF. Why don’t they just call it Lakes or Capital or drop the damned FTF altogether so we can call ‘em somethin’ easy?”

“Because, Cosmo,” Sam said, having already taken his seat, “they live to annoy you.”

“At least you admit it now.” Renfro kicked back the chopper hasp for the others to enter. He moved to the rear; the protocol they followed almost reflexively now, to sit behind his Chief Deputy. “Hope it’s a better safehouse than the last shithole they stuck us in. Even the roaches had flea collars.”

Poole crawled to the left and perched on the other side. “It’s Manassas, there aren’t any shitholes there.” Poole pulled down the dark glasses from over her head to cover her sleep-deprived eyes. “It’s probably one of those butt ass ugly executive mansions near the Centreville Mall.”

“More likely one of those split levels on the poor side of town,” Sam said. “The adversary will be watching for movements too near the Bone Yard.”

From whatever he was doing, wherever he was doing it, the chopper cox hopped into his perch at the helm. “Hey, Gerard, I hear you’re back to babysitting again.”

Cosmo grinned. “Hey, McDougal, I hear Sammy kicked your ass all the way around Quantico and fed it to the wild boars.”

“He never did that.”

“Yeah? Well, give him a few minutes.” Renfro slapped at the controls. “Do what they pay you to do, will ya? Letterman you’re not.”

With a final smirk, the chopper pilot pulled up on the stock and boosted them as if on a shaft of air to the tops of the trees.

Gerard punched the portable to life, saying into it, “Team 23 has gone white to black. We are on our way.” He clicked it out.

“Oh and thank you, Cosmo.”

“Thank me for what?”

“Thank you for keeping my mind off…things.”

Renfro grinned to himself, finishing the last page of the usual paperwork. “All included in the service package, Boss.”



It had been a long, long, long nightmare…but each morning awakened him a little more. Even now, as he sat there casting his hazy reflection across the milky swimming pool surface, the nightmare stalked him like a shadow. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder…he’d done the required coursework in his time. It wasn’t unknown in some post-surgical cardiac valve patients with a taste of their own mortality, though no patient of his had ever presented to the point of diagnosis. The surgeon didn’t see that once the stitches were healed: the general practitioner and specialists did.

…and now here he was a living, breathing clinical example to behold.

Every morning, there was a little more of this day, and a little less of the night—he was less the reactive animal with terror coiled in muscle and more the man who remembered now that it was over, really, really over, even before he woke up.

His wedding ring still attached to his hand, felt much like a vestigial member. The promise it had once represented, he had never broken. It had been torn from him, yes—stolen from him forever, that one dark night. And now the gold just felt cold against his skin—he wore it like a reflex memory—the reluctance to realize she was never coming back… the wish of his heart to not forget her completely…

He turned away from the memory to check his wristwatch. He wondered…and not for the first time… where Sam was.

He refocused on the canvas before him. He sketched out a deep blue line.

“How’s it goin’, Rich?” the Deputy Marshal they called Henry said as he orbited around him.

“Fine, thanks, Henry. You?”

The black man shrugged…trying to seem casual…clearly surveying the sky. “You drawing a picture, huh? What’s that, pen and ink?” He was still checking the horizon.

Kimble nodded and smiled. “Yes, I am. Yes, it is.”

Another fidget…another search for subject. “I heard you did all those sketches we saw at your…at your old place there on the near northside?”

“Yes, most of those were mine. Over the years. A few belonged to colleagues. A lot of surgeons are artists. Keeps the handy steady and the eye trained.”

“Yeah, I’d heard that. Listen, anything I can getcha until they get here? Beer? Soft drink? We can even find some lunch, if you don’t mind Biggs’ cooking. I think he‘s ordering pizza or something.”

“No…nothing…thanks.”

“Give a shout, if there is.”

“I will.”

Henry was gone again, walking far around the circumference of the yard, giving Kimble his own time and space.

A good man… a nice man… one of the team of good and nice people who had scooped him out of a sea of madness and set him back on dry land once more.

If Richard closed his eyes and opened them again, he could still see the lights on Michigan Avenue—the whirling salsa step of many cop car beacons, out of synch, all in line, creating their disequilibrium dance. That light and sound had come to mean cold terror to him in the days before…the short and dark time above the edge of memory.

But as Richard walked around them that time, Sam Gerard stood tall beside him—between him and the CPD.

Richard remembered…would remember for the rest of his life…the feeling of his wrists as they were freed from the cuffs…the strong and steady hand that had freed him. The first set of kind eyes he’d looked into in so long…the first gaze since Helen died that had received him without hatred.

Richard checked his pen strokes and then his watch. And he wondered…and truly not for the first time… where Sam was.



The only law enforcement helipad near the Beltway that wasn’t the exclusive property of the Senate, Congress and the Big Mambosa himself was the pad behind the Manassas Centre police station. S.O.G. was supposed to have tactically cleared the landing but, as usual, no one had told the cops. As the skids hit the pad, they had drawn the vigilant notice of four local officers, standing ready but away.

Gerard dragged his jacket pockets for the badge and flashed it through the window at the closest ones. One of them nodded.

The chopper blades floated back, they emerged from the craft, dragging the little gear they were lugging. Gerard gave the men waiting a closer view of his badge.

“Marshal’s Office,” he explained.

“Which county?” one of the cops said…some sergeant from the band of his badge.

“United States,” Gerard said. “Officers, there’ll be a Federal agent here in a moment. He’ll be taking your names and badge numbers to further debrief you through S.O.G. channels. We thank you for your continued assistance and would now appreciate your getting the hell out of our way.”

As the three of them kept walking, Renfro grinned back at the ones still watching them. “Every one of them, Sammy, I swear to Christ, their jaws are dragging the ground.”

“Must be a slow crime county.”

“I guess.”

Some field deputy had driven up on the lot, with perfect timing, to deliver to them the company car — black four-door basic sedan. The driver deputy left the car and climbed aboard the chopper the team had only moments before left behind.

Gerard had been handed the keys. Poole took the backseat in order to lie down. Renfro pumped down the window to drink in morning air.

“Man, I hate heaters,” Cosmo announced. “The brisk cold wind is my best friend.”

Poole tossed her knit cap at him. “We know, we heard. A thousand times.”

Cosmo slapped back the tossed cap, and then reached for the service booklet they always stuck in these cars. Gerard was already backing out of the helipad launch, to crawl up to the curb and locate a street.

“New London Street runs east to west or north to south?” Gerard said, rubbing at his brow, trying to think of anything but what might lay ahead…really ahead…

“East to west, Sammy,” Renfro said, yanking down the sun visor to reveal the map. He tapped it for Sam. “Jesus, you gonna be okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m…fine.” He squinted at the visor map, and then flipped a look at Cosmo. “However, New London Street runs north to south.”

“Right, Samantha,” Cosmo said, smirking. “North to south. Just like I said it did.”

Sam grinned back. “Why thank you, Deputy Renfield… your assistance is, as ever, appreciated.”

“Deputy Renfield. Hey, that’s cute, that’s clever, like Renfro, only its the bugs and mice guy. What does that make you though, Count Dracula?”

“Chief Deputy Dracula, to you, young man.”

Renfro shook his head at the woman in the backseat. “You gotta love this guy.”



Gerard had called the safehouse most correctly: it was a ranch house, built sometime in the 1960s, with a whole host of garish frontage issues not-so-cleverly disguised with 1990s ornamental topiary. Without looking, Sam could almost see the multi-colored flood lights around the kidney-shaped swimming pool. It was all a part of the scheme. The one update included clad black windows, which allowed the occupants to look out, while no one else could look in…and no one trying to look from the street could tell the windows were darkened. The place just looked empty or entirely unused.

Gerard drove the Lincoln up the circular drive and into the back courtyard, confronted by a hedge. A garage door opened for their entrance.

“Team 23, black to white,” he said into the phone, then killed it before leaving the vehicle. “Cosmo, make sure we’ve got a tight lid on us. No flights, no echoes, no leaks and no friendlies unless I say they’re friendly.”

“Got it,” Renfro said, hopping out of his side of the sedan. “Want I should cue the hearts and flowers, too?”

“Cosmo, make no mistake, I will hurt you.”

“I been lookin’ forward to it all day.” Renfro grinned up in his face, pointing the paperwork at him. “You’re adorable when you’re like this. Gervaise, isn’t he adorable when he’s like this?”

Poole finally crawled out of the back seat. “Cute as a bug’s ear,” she groaned, trudging away from the men and toward the house.

Gerard grabbed back the paperwork from Renfro, chiefly to give himself something to focus on once the immediate task was over. To sign off the record, Gerard leaned against the plumbing van which had obviously been used to transport the “guest”. “Cosmo, once you’ve had your fill of aggravating me, will you kindly scout the interior corridor so we may go inside?”

“Samuel,” Cosmo replied, smirking, “Poole just went in to do that, which you’d have noticed if you’d been looking in that direction.”

“Excellent, we may proceed then.”

“Yes, I think we may.” Cosmo pinched at his face. “You’re just adorable!”

Gerard had opened the door, but Cosmo was first to walk through it, into a long double swan neck entrance that craned one nape to a corridor that blinded at a wall. The second bent slightly to reveal a room quietly abuzz with activity. According to the control scheme Sam had hung in his memory, this would be the operational hub.

“Christ, this place looks like Jackie Kennedy exploded or something,” Renfro said, scowling around at the dated décor, then glancing over at the tall man who had just come to stand in the door. “Hey, Bobby, we got the lid on?”

“Yeah. We’re black.”

“Sam says no friendlies.”

“Poole told us.”

“Yeah, but apparently nobody told the Eats-a-Pizza guy out front.”

Biggs shrugged a little. “We got hungry.”

“Wonderful. Call Bugtussel, have them trace said pizza guy and do a stat background on him. Make sure he checks out.”

“Already done. Before we called them.”

“Atta boy. Where’s our guest?”

“Out by the pool. Said he wanted some time to draw. We cleared the periphery. We’ve got fielders to the left and right of us. Oh, and one of your kids called on the Scatterline. Something about a hamster?”

“Wonderful, that damned demonic Smurf again. Where’s the phone?”

The words with the moments flickered past Sam like the stars again in transit toward an optical illusion. He walked past both men into the hub room, to a distant set of black clad French doors draped with segmented cantilever blinds…straight out of House Beautiful, 1967. Outside, Henry was walking as casually as a U.S. Marshal ever walked, peering occasionally through the bending Cypress trees which framed the yard. Both gates were padlocked. There were no visible windows or buildings behind the wall of trees. No sign of anything that might be used to hide a camera. The periphery bug sweep had come up cold and clean.

At the edge of Sam’s unerring peripheral vision, something caught his sight. Had he known what it was, he would never have looked toward it… just as it wasn’t wise to stare too long at a solar eclipse. It was, right then, the first place and the last place in the world he wanted to gaze. His Marshal instinct overrode his first reaction.

The subject of his attention was dressed in feather gray and gentle blues, and with the wind against him, looked like nothing so much as a lost rain cloud. He was seated beside the swimming pool, staring at the water.

Once his Marshal mind disconnected, he once again felt the hard knot tying up his brain. It had probably already been there, but other thoughts had obscured it for a time.

Somewhere behind him, Gerard made his mind focus on other voices that had drawn closer to him.

“Alec, Daddy’s workin’ here,” Cosmo was saying. “What’s so—? Where? Put your sister on. Give me patience…mou theos! What? Mattie? This is your father. No — take Papa Smurf out of Barbie’s Dream House immediately … No, Barbie will have to get a dog someplace else. Listen to me, listen to… I swear, Mattie I’ll put Uncle Sam on the phone. I swear I will. I swear!”

Gerard turned away from the French doors to extend his hand to Renfro like an offer. Cosmo surrendered the phone gladly.

Sam put his ear to the phone. “Mathilda? Hello, young lady … yes, I am fine. Please remove the hamster from the Dream House this very instant. All right? Everything settled? Well done. Your father will speak to you later. Yes, we love you, too.” Gerard smiled, returning the trackphone to his Assistant Chief.

Renfro shook his head. “Even my kids listen to you better than they listen to me. I still got the purple stripe on my badge, though.”

“Sixteen times,” Gerard said.

“Eighteen. Just try countin’ on your fingers next time, Boss.”

“Sam.”

His name had been shaped by the voice of one person …one person in particular. It was a spoken word that could only have been uttered by one voice in the world.

The sound slammed into his thought processes from behind, nearly upending every other consideration jockeying for position in this fractal cascading kaleidoscope that passed for Sam’s practical mind on an op first day.

“Hey, Rich,” Sam responded, trying like all hell to sound casual and friendly while fighting to free the tethers sinking anchors to the floor of his gut. “Glad to see you’re settled in. I apologize in advance for the incursions on your personal liberties. Unfortunately, until you have been conveyed to your appointment, they will be necessary for your well-being. Rest assured no Federal witness in the long history of the U.S. Marshal has ever come to harm while in our custody. It is our aim to keep you as happy and comfortable as possible, given the situation. I trust we’re treating you well so far.”

Kimble grinned. Shook his head fondly. “Hello to you, too, Sam.”

“Heya, Doc,” Cosmo said. “Don’t mind him. Sammy’s always got stage fright on opening night. If you’ll excuse us, Adjunct Deputy Biggs and I have duties in the rest of the house.”

Bobby’s stare traveled uncertainly from Cosmo to Sam to the newly arrived man. “Duties?”

Cosmo gave him a senior officer’s directive in the form of a hard, dark stare. “Yeah, duties. For starters, you can show me where the coffee is. With all the pizza being delivered, someone did remember to make coffee, right?”

Biggs nodded. “Yeah, sure, I did.”

Renfro shook his head. “C’mon, we’ll go make it again,” he said, nudging Bobby with him into the hall.

Richard Kimble hadn’t looked this fine and rested in Gerard’s own memory. Though Sam’s memory of him wasn’t long…it was, most certainly, deep and wide. Sam didn’t want to look too long or too well for his assessment, but even a cursory glance for a casual smile had told him his new old friend was truly on the mend.

Kimble flashed his gently broken smile in reply. “You’re a hard man to get hold of, pal. Six weeks ago, it was like you pulled a disappearing act on me.”

“Yeah, I know. And I know you called … and left messages, I guess. I just… I have had a lot of matters to attend to. Personal stuff. I took personal time. I did email.”

Kimble’s voice sounded forgiving if not relenting. “Once. Yeah, once you emailed. You and I had gotten to be friends, I thought. In fact, you guys are about the only friends I have left. You and some friends at work…well, at, you know, the hospital.”

“Yeah, I know. I did hear your review didn’t go well. Sad to see hospital directors are as stupid as the rest of the godforsaken human race is sometimes. And trust me, we are… friends. Good friends, I think. I just, it was, you know, life…stuff.” He tried a vaguely nervous laugh. “Endless rituals.”

“Okay. I can appreciate that. Just so you’re not avoiding me. I thought maybe I’d said something or done some—”

“No!” Sam snapped sharply, to knock that thought utterly out of the ballpark. “Of course not. It was just my life. But now we start over…okay?”

“Sounds great.”

“Good. And on that note, we’d best get settled in our not quite so deluxe accommodations. ”



The secondary swan neck hall that blinded at a wall, unfurled into a corridor of closed doors. Yellow stickies had been unceremoniously tacked on various entries. It was, perhaps, life as directed by someone more comfortable with a filing system. The one marked Guest was across from the one marked Renfro. Poole was by the primary entrance from the foyer.

“Where are you?” Kimble asked, looking around at the names on the door.

Gerard averted his eyes to open their door, hoping the action seemed more a deed of necessity than an attempt at disarming the moment…which, in fact, it had been. He gestured for Kimble to proceed.

“Chief Deputy always bunks with the guest.”

Kimble exhaled a little, as if in relief. “I have to admit, I’m glad. I still can’t shake this feeling… like somebody walking on my grave…”

“It lasts awhile. It goes away. Thank heavens. But nobody is going to walk on your grave without first setting foot on mine. Got it?”

Richard smiled without hesitation. It was a new occurrence before Sam’s eyes. “Thanks.”

“None needed.”

Two double beds had been moved diagonally; both headboards banked so that one bed would be nearest to the door and yet allow the occupant an aimed stance toward the opposing window if needed. No matter how the antagonist got at them, the Chief Deputy would get at them first.

Richard’s suitcase was on the second bed from the door. Sam’s amalgam of personal items stowed in many compartments in a larger satchel had been perched on the bed in the way of the world.

Sam yanked the safehouse diagram out of his jacket pocket, waving it open. “Seems we have a bathroom right there, which is certainly a happy fact. It has a standing shower and a hot tub. Down the hall are the supply closets with linens and the like. The towels aren’t going to be Royal Calvert grade on the Federal dime, but they shouldn’t scratch your skin too badly. The kitchen is to the left of the sitting area we have for a hub. Said kitchen is fully outfitted with the usual and the somewhat unusual, as my Assistant Chief seems to have an uncomfortably intense relationship with snack cakes bedecked with cartoon characters. We limit him to one a day however.”

Kimble grinned. “I’ll use caution when approaching.” He lowered himself to the edge of the secondary bed, as if to test its firmness. “So what happens now?”

“We chum the water.”

“Come again?”

Gerard’s phone beeped in his hand. He slapped the answering button. “This is Gerard.” Sam leaned back, staring up to the ceiling as if for a last grain of patience. “First of all, Cooper, can the Universal Time, you been around me enough to know I don’t do that. Just tell me the hour and minutes in good ol‘ plain human time. Okay. I got it.” Gerard killed the line. “Speaking of what happens now, the team is all clear, so we can start the process.”

“The process of what?”

Gerard actually thought he might have blushed a little. “Sorting through your thirteenth month.”



CHAPTER TWO: The Thirteenth Month


Kimble looked around the room in which he was seated—what had been, in some prior incarnation, somebody’s dining room. All traces of entertainment had been stripped away and the dining ensemble traded out for a long enough conference table.

Cosmo Renfro entered with a stack of manila file folders under an arm. He dealt one to every empty place, until he fi-nally set a copy before Kimble.

Renfro forced up a smile, before he settled into a chair of his own. “So, how you doin’, Doc? Okay?”

Smalltalk. Something Richard didn’t do well. Something he did as well as he socialized at cocktail parties, which was poorly.

Kimble nodded. He had come to know Sam as well as anyone he had ever known. Sam was, in fact, his best friend now. Of the rest of the team, all had drifted toward the reaches of Richard’s private life…invitations to gatherings, inclusions on special occasions. All but Renfro accepted. Cosmo seemed to keep Kimble at bay with a kind of fortress of warmth—a happy, smiling citadel.

Even so it hadn’t been difficult to love Cosmo. Richard knew he only owed him half of everything, as Kimble had heard the full story more than a few times from Sam. He also knew Cosmo had Sam’s complete and unquestioned trust; something Kimble knew was not easily gained.

“Doc?” Renfro said again, staring at him with a gently teasing smile.

“Fine. Fine. Sorry. My thoughts are everywhere.” Say anything…anything… He leaned forward. “You’ve known Sam a long time, haven’t you?”

The other man laughed. “Yeah, like forever. We been through everything together. He’s the best. But I guess you know that already, don’t you?”

Richard nodded. “As well as most people. But I guess you’d know that best of all.”

Renfro shrugged. “Yeah, well, I worked with a lot of Chief Deputies. And I can honestly say, Doc, you don’t know how lucky you were.”

“Oh, I know,” Richard said sharply, quickly. He shook his head, as if to send away any possible notion that he did not understand this very fact. “I know exactly how lucky I am. Be-lieve me. The best day of my life, aside from meeting my wife, was meeting Sam and you guys.”

Renfro nodded, politely. “You pickin’ up the pieces after all of that?”

Kimble shrugged. “It’s a hard thing to get over.”

“Yeah, I understand, on account of I been married to Marisa for around thirty thousand years.”

“It’s good…being married.” Kimble fought for a smile—brought up a sad one. “It was…for me, I mean.”

“Yeah, I know, Doc. I know. There’s nothin’ worse than losin’ the one you put down good roots with. Nothin’. Watched my old man go through it. Die slow, like a tree pulled out of its roots. Saw Sam go through it, too.”

Richard Kimble was nothing less than stunned by that off-hand chunk of revelation. “Sam was…married?” he said.

“I thought maybe he’d told you by now.” Cosmo tugged at his collar. “Okay, well, I opened my big mouth that much. And it ain’t no secret. And hell, I don’t think Sam even owns a closet—“

“You mean he’s gay?” Kimble said quickly, as if seeking some final affirmation.

“So he did tell you? ”

“No.” Kimble exhaled loud and long. At last, he smiled…opening his eyes ahead of him, at a very different vista. “Well, not exactly. I had thought he might be. I’ve been to Sam’s house, of course, and the only photo of prominence there is of a man about his age. ”

“That’s Calder. That’s the one he lost. Like ten years ago now. Never really got over it. You know the drill.”

“Yeah.” Kimble nodded, feeling through a whole range of gentler emotions. “Was it a line of duty thing?”

“Naw, nothin’ that dramatic. Cal was a firefighter, but he got stomped on by a horse one weekend on their ranch. The way real life happens, you know? Poor guy never knew what hit him. Worst of it was Sam…found him. Hit him hard and bad for a long time.”

Kimble winced with the depth of sympathy of someone who’d suffered the same form of torture. “Yeah…I know how it is…believe me.”

“Exactly. Afterward, Sam almost quit the Marshal. The only reason he didn’t I think was his loyalty to the team. And the fact it’s all he ever wanted to be. I mean, I ain’t lyin’, for me it’s a paycheck and a benefits package.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Renfro shrugged. “Well, I figure I owe my team members a good game anyway, right? I mean, I work hard. So anyway, Camp Beauregard in Louisiana…that’s sorta our Quantico… called me in for the team assignment and gave me the best one they had, so I stayed. If I hadn’t made Team Sam, I’d be with the Frisbees by now, no contest. Twice the money and half the hassle.”

Kimble nodded. “I’d always heard that.”

“It’s always been true. I mean, Camp calls me in when they assigned me and they’re apologizing to me. This is like twenty plus years ago, right? Not that it would be all that much better now, but I mean, Sam’s the best and they’re apologizing to me. Because he likes to sleep with guys. I say, can he aim and shoot straight? Yeah, they say…so hey, I’m like, fine. I got six brothers, twenty-two boy cousins and tons of male friends. I seen ‘em all naked more times than I can chisel out of my memory with an axe. It never gave me much of a thrill that I particularly noticed but hey, Sam’s is the best team there is. Plus, the Brass figured I was clued-in, on account of my oldest brother being gay…I guess… I mean, he was gay… or something…I guess…”

“He was gay?”

“Yeah…I guess…” Renfro pulled at his collar a little, again. “He was a Manhattan vice detective. He…killed himself. Another statistic. Poor guy. That’s my big, long sad story, right? But it’s over. It helped me know somethin’ about what Sam went through. And I’m here, and I have been ever since.”

Kimble smiled his appreciation. “You’re a wise man.”

“Me? No. A wise ass maybe. Sam’s a pretty wise man, though, but don’t tell him I said so.”

Kimble laughed. “Sam’s a whole lot of things, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, Doc, he is. He truly is. And you ain’t even touched bottom yet.”

“What bottom haven’t I touched?” Gerard asked, as he walked quickly into the room.

Renfro shot back. “I was just keepin’ the Doc entertained with tales of our heroic days of yesteryear.”

“Must’ve been right quick.”

“Well, yours were, yeah. And I didn’t even tell him about the time I saved your butt back in your own candy ass state.”

“Are you seeking to impugn the name of the great and sovereign Republic of Texas, Assistant Chief Deputy?” Sam asked dully, sinking into the chair at the head of the table…there had never been a question that it was his.

“Nope, boss, just yours.”

Gerard shook his head and smirked. “Atiende, bambini,” he called in a voice to include the rest of the house. “We must learn to know our enemy.”

Kimble watched the rest of the team conform to unconscious patterns, probably fashioned from working together so long. Each other person filed in to take his or her own place at the table, already laid out with the folders Renfro had provided.

When everyone was seated, Sam went on.

“Okay, if these people know enough to want Richard dead, chances are they intersect with him somewhere in his history. We have that to study. Beyond that, we know the enemy only by how it reveals itself by its actions. So, we ask the old Latin legal question—Cui bono? To find the criminal, you learn who stood to profit from the crime. First rule of wealth building is you buy low, you sell high. We need to establish the commodity. What would bring enough money that somebody would kill to protect it? Whaddya buy, whaddya sell?”

“Pharmaceuticals,” Renfro said.

Gerard motioned him on. “And who profits from pharmaceuticals?”

Kimble brushed back his hair in thought. “Doctors, pharmaceutical companies—“

“Research labs—“ Poole said.

“Politicians,” Renfro said suddenly, his eyes tending toward Sam. “And we’re here in Washington, which ties it in more.” He looked toward Kimble. “What kinda drug company lobby is there on Capitol Hill?”

Richard shrugged. “I don’t know. They make a lot of money, so they’d have a lot of influence.”

“A lot of influence, yeah,” Gerard said. “But their parent companies are petrochemical companies –”

“Big oil?” Renfro said. “Holy shit, I didn’t even think of them…”

“Biggest lobby in the land.”

“And that kinda money could buy a lotta influence.”

Kimble leaned forward, as if to understand it all. “You’re saying you think Senators have been bribed?”

“No,” Renfro said. “Too many checks and balances, Doc. We’re not gonna have a conspiracy of Congressmen or anything like that. The scheme would be localized to where they’d do the most good, if they wanted to help push along the process, I mean...”

The Chief Deputy nodded. “We’re thinkin’ the Food and Drug Administration.”

Kimble looked from the Chief to his Assistant. “Wait. You think the FDA is involved?”

Sam’s voice deepened into soft, even tones. “I think the FDA had to be, at some level, Richard. Those old boys kick tires, so somebody was purposefully overlooking the balds when it came to Provasic.”

Kimble sat far back, taking it all in with slow and equal measures. “This all sounds like some Robin Cook novel.”

Gerard tried to smile a little. “All it takes is a couple of people in high places to look the other way. No big conspiracy needed. With fossil fuels drying up, drugs could be the black gold of the new frontier. Ever since ol’ Spindletop blew, oil has made a whole lotta people a whole lotta rich on the sweat of a whole more lotta poor people like my family. Drugs have even greater profit potential to these monsters. Everyone can live without cars if we have to, but you’re ill or in pain…or someone you love is in agony? You are gonna pay what it takes to stop it…to your last dime in the world, if need be. Profit potential like that would give top dollar to influence peddling. We’re not talking about warm-blooded people here.”



Richard Kimble shook his head, staring out at near space as if seeking some inner light. “I guess… it makes sense. If they greased the wheel, the approval would go more smoothly.”

Sam nodded. “Some doctors with holdings get impatient with the FDA; make a few calls to a few highly-placed friends. Presto, instant criminal conspiracy. The central problem was you—in a position to shut them down. They couldn’t buy you. Somebody…Nichols presumably… knew you well enough to know that. But someone out there still knows you well enough to know that. That’s why they’re threatening.”

Richard stared down into his empty hands, at the wedding ring still occupying his ring finger. “And that’s why Helen died.”

“Yes,” Sam said simply, gently. “And these are the monsters that killed her. We follow the root system back to the source. We will find them, Richard.”

Kimble smiled with certainty. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

“Yeah, you’d be the one to know.” Sam grinned, moving his attention quickly in another direction, as if to keep his mind from settling too close to a topic. “We look at your background again, with a fresh eye. Look at all the people you’ve known. See if we can find names cropping up together in places where they shouldn’t be, that kind of thing.”

“In that kind of scenario,” Richard said, “who can we trust?”

“No friendlies, Doc,” Renfro said. “That means nobody outside this house and the one across the street.”

Gerard nodded. “I trust my kids—they’ve put their lives on the line a thousand times for me—and I trust you because I know that I can among all men. Beyond that, I’m not about to bet your life on Esprit de Corp.”

Richard smiled. “Thanks, Sam.”

“None needed. And that all brings us to…your 13th month.”

“The 13th month,” Richard said. “That’s my psych profile? Or something like that?”

“Here it is, fresh off the fax from Evanston,” Renfro said, tapping the thin folder before him. “Your copy is in front of you. Doc, keep in mind this document was put together when we thought you were—“

“A killer,” Richard finished it for him. “It’s all right, Sam prepared me.”

Gerard went on, “If there was any other way, we would do that instead. This profile pays no mind to the subject’s feelings. We spill all your secrets out and try to spell a whole lotta things with them—some of them aren’t too nice. “

“It’s all right, Sam,” Richard said softly, evenly. He smiled a little. “I promise not to take it personally. Trust me—nothing could make me feel badly about you people for the rest of my natural life.”

Sam looked down and away, perhaps uneasy with the power of Richard’s words. Kimble recognized the expression…he had seen it on this same man’s face on their way from Michigan Avenue that night… Hundreds of cops, dozens of detectives, but no one… no one... had listened to him, until Sam and his team did. Not one bothered to do the math…ask the questions…

Cosmo laughed to break the silence. “Wait till you taste Bobby’s coffee.”

Biggs slumped back in his chair, his arms twisted solemnly before him. “It’s not that bad.”

“The same thing her victims said to Lucretia Borgia,” Renfro said. “Before the foxglove took effect.”

“They made up that foxglove thing. I’m an ignorant sodbuster and even I know that,” Sam said, pointing at Cosmo before tapping the folder before him. “Choir of the First Church of Sam Gerard Savior, kindly open your hymnals to page one. Richard, you ever notice how cop calendars have thirteen months?”

He thought. Nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I have actually.”

“Criminals… the kind we get in our crosshairs anyway… tend to be ritualistic. They follow patterns, cycles that are driven by more than just calendar days. Moon phases, holidays, holy days, feast days, sabbats and solstices.”

“Hitler’s birthday, Stalin’s birthday, anniversary dates of global events, terrorist attacks—“ Renfro added.

“And times that are special and specific to the person we’re dealing with,” Gerard added. “Secret anniversaries of the heart.”

“Longfellow.” Richard smiled. “Some ignorant sodbuster.”

“Saw it in Reader’s Digest,” Sam said with a wink

Poole went on, “That means a criminal’s year breaks down into twenty-eight calendar days. That gives us a thirteenth month, and that’s what we call all the stuff that drives him, compels him, that makes him crazy…that makes him do what he does…”

Kimble nodded. “Understood.” He waited a moment before opening the folder before him. “And so this is all the stuff that compels me…or compelled your understanding of me.”

“Exactly. Obviously, there’s still somebody out there,” Sam said, staring with determination at the page before him. It was as if he didn’t dare look up. “Somebody who is afraid you can finger him with your testimony.”

Kimble shook his head. “I wish I knew whatever he does. So help me, I can’t think of… anyone. There are always going to be people you don’t like as much as you like other people. People you get along with better than others. I mean, that’s life. But I can’t think of anyone who qualifies as this kind of… monster… Then again, I never would have thought it of Chuck.”

“All of which brings us to Cosmo’s theory.” Sam pointed to Renfro.

Renfro cleared his throat softly, seemingly reluctant to speak his mind. He leaned forward a little. “Okay, here’s my problem—and no offense intended to the late Mrs. Kimble, but my gut doesn’t sit so well with your father-in-law. He looks… iffy to me.”

“Steve?” Richard said, as if he clearly couldn’t have heard Renfro right. But he thought again…waving away his usual reluctance for the provisional moment. “Helen was his daughter. He loved her. Steve and I had our differences, sure. Some big ones. Who doesn’t, with in-laws? But he did love his daughter. Of that I’m certain.”

Renfro shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t in it the whole way. Maybe he jumped ship when they brought up the whole murder scenario. But now he’d be in a place to save his own jambon, if you know what I mean.”

“Your in-laws were curiously absent at your trial, Richard,” Sam said, saying it with a hint of recrimination for the in-laws in question. He looked at him directly for the first time since the wink.

Kimble spoke haltingly from a still raw wound, “Her mother died when Helen was a baby. Her grandparents are all gone. My wife was an only child.”

Gerard shook his head. “I dunno, I don’t have any kids, but my daughter’s husband’s up for killing her? I’m gonna be there. Out of loyalty to my child, if for no other reason. Particularly so, if I know he didn’t do it—and even more if there was some inadvertent involvement in the daughter’s death. Guilt alone would put me there.”

“Maybe he didn’t feel guilty because he wasn’t involved at all,” Richard suggested. “You’re presupposing his involvement.”

Gerard nodded. He gentled his voice. “Yeah, Richard, we are. We are. That is our job. That’s what we’re doin’ here.”

Kimble waved away the explanation. “I know, I’m sorry. I promised not to take it personally. And here I am… But Steve is eliminated now anyway. He’s dead.”

“We know, so we’re thinking known associates,” Sam said. “Renfro, my criminal conspiracy expert, you are a vision of distraction. Dare I ask what you are thinking?”

Renfro deliberated a moment, and then dropped the pen he’d been tapping, like his final trepidation tossed away. “Doc, how come you and Helen’s dad didn’t get along so well?”

Kimble shrugged. “It’s complicated.” He leaned back in his chair. His hand folded first into a fist, which he tapped silently at the folder before him. “Before I met Helen, I knew her father. He was a resident medical professor. That’s what I wanted to be, before I met my wife. At lectures, I met Steve and through him, Helen. Before that, I…dated somebody Steve didn’t…approve of.”

Sam frowned a little. “Who was Steve to tell you who to go out with?”

“He just took…exception to them for various reasons. At least when I started seeing Helen.”

“What was his problem with the other girl?”

“Listen…it’s a long story. Essentially Steve thought I was marrying Helen for her money, I think. Eventually, when I offered the prenup, he came to realize that I did love her. And after my practice took off, it was no longer an issue, of course. He and I still didn’t care much for each other.”

Sam stared away like he was following a thought. “What was the other girl’s name?”

Richard shook his head. “I’d rather not involve someone else. I know what it feels like to be dragged into something in which you played no part.”

“Still, it might be a worthwhile area to pursue.”

“No, Sam. Really. There was only ever a tenuous connection. There would be no point.”

“Okay, I’ll go with your instinct for now, it’s usually right.” Gerard nodded toward Renfro. “You got anything?”

Renfro reached for one. “How did the late lamentable Mr. Trent purchase the pig farm, as it were?”

“He died while I was…inside,” Richard said. “I guess it was a malignant neoplasm of some kind. A secondary recurrence through the lymphatic—“

“Doc,” Cosmo said, “English for Dummies here. I left my Grey’s Anatomy in my other purse.”

Kimble smiled, nodded. “Sorry, I’m used to talking health stuff to other doctors. Cancer that had spread to other organs, lets say. He’d battled it for years.”

Cosmo grimaced. “Thus no grand intrigue behind it?”

“Don’t think so.”

Cosmo cleared his voice like another uncomfortable theory was coming Kimble’s way. “Looks like your father-in-law was really into strategizing the Pim ponies, though. He had three open sports books…quite a straight five-card poker habit, too. A real betting man’s game.”

“There you go again,” Poole said.

Renfro covered his face, looking like he was waiting primarily on patience. He looked toward Kimble to explain. “Deputy Poole and I got an ongoing disagreement about roulette. I hate it, she loves it. Which is why she’s always broke.”

“I see people win at roulette all the time.”

“Yeah, but do you know any professional roulette players, Gervaise? No, because there aren’t any. You know why? Because people only play pro at something they make money at.”

“As much as we’re all enjoying this fascinating discussion on the differences in casino game profitability, we should press on to more pertinent topics,” Sam said firmly and without a hint of inflection.

“Yes, Chief.” Renfro looked back to the doctor. “What I’m sayin’ is Steven Trent’s profile doesn’t fit a Gambler’s Anonymous initiate. I don’t see him selling his daughter’s life for even a big a chunk of change to pay off bookies, is what I’m saying. He’s a crafty son of a buck. He’s at that table in his head a long time before the other players. And he antes it up so high he even scares off the golden circle boys. And he knows the game better than anybody. You couple that with some anti-social attitudes and you got some big problems.”

Kimble gestured his agreement. “But Steve’s dead.”

“He may have had connections. Poker men meet lots of unusual people. He’d be playing with people on his own level, which means he’s gonna be swimmin’ with some sharks. Maybe some wayward FDA people, who knows? Would he have any contacts with that whole food chain?”

Kimble thought a moment, his gaze sweeping helplessly across a field impossibly large for such a brief search. “I guess. Maybe. I didn’t know any of his friends, after Helen and I married. We didn’t socialize other than at family functions. And even then we didn’t speak.”

Renfro nodded. “I’m gonna run him. Dredge his background. We only surfaced him for your case, so we’re going to go down the next level. Known associates, where he hung out, that kinda thing. It’s your wife’s family, so we wanted you to know.”

“I understand.” Kimble smiled quietly a moment, considering before asking something more.

“Tell you what,” Sam said, seeming to sense something…pointing at the profile. “Why don’t you read through that yourself, if you’re not comfortable with discussing it here?” Gerard’s kind eyes grew even kinder. “I’d like you to go over it… read it. Read it, but don’t take it to heart once it’s read. None of those speculations ever really applied. There were mitigating factors we didn’t see at first. Like your obvious love for Helen…and the grief you felt at her death… Northside Homicide would’ve seen them, too, if they had looked.”

“They were hampered by not having you,” Kimble said, and then sitting back as if half-surprised he’d spoken the words aloud. He gestured to indicate the table. “You guys are the best.”

“Sure, you meant us, too, sure you did,” Renfro said. “Its okay, Doc, we’re accustomed to being hidden by the Big Dog’s shadow, such as it is.”

“You shooin’ the mule again, Cosmo?” Sam said, tossing Renfro an amused glance. Toward Richard, he went on more gently. “It doesn’t matter now. None of it. The problem with the world is good people doubt themselves… bad people don’t. You’re gonna be haunted with guilt for what we thought and didn’t think and what the sheer circumstances of her death might have represented to you. But it has no bearing on anything, because you didn’t choose it. Understand?”

Kimble nodded, more than a little awed at Sam’s words and the passion within them. “I know, I know.”

“Good. Now then, Renfro, time check.”

“Yikes,” Cosmo said, looking at his watch. “Where’d the damn day go? It’s 4:13. You get older; I swear it’s like hour-glass sand—the less time you got left, the faster it flows.”

“What time is sundown?” Sam asked.

Bobby reached for his notes. “8:02 PM. Moonrise is at 2:51 AM.”

“Alright. We make no outside movements until 8:30 PM and none after two AM. They got sats on us, they can still see us, but we don’t have to make it easy for them.”

“My god,” Richard said. “You think these guys may have access to satellite technology?”

“Sam doesn’t take any chances,” Renfro said. “And I mean any.”

Kimble nodded, almost understanding. “But earlier, I was outside—“

“They can’t skirt us within twenty-five feet of the house,” Renfro explained. “It affects the whatsits thingy going back to the central doomaflotchet. These are technical words…write ‘em down. The patio area is safe. So is the yard. Unless they somehow got onto us while you were outside the carrier, or unless they’re deep in an agency with access to the system, which they‘re not, we’re safe for now.”

“When we hit the street is another matter entirely,” Gerard said, gently but firmly. “At no time, will you be in more danger than that. I won’t lie to you, Richard. But I’m stickin’ with you every step of the way and ain’t nothin’ happenin’ to you so long as I’m there. Entiendes, mi amigo?”

Richard smiled. And there was more to his smile, he sensed, than even he knew. “Sí, entiendo.”

“Outstanding.”

“Can we have the next meeting with subtitles?” Renfro asked. “Some of us don’t speak French so good.”

“Some more of us can barely speak English,” Poole replied.

“Yeah,” Cosmo said, “but we don’t make fun of you anymore about it, do we?”

Gerard cleared his throat softly, tapping the table for attention. “When we have adjourned this meeting of the Hotel Algonquin regulars, I’d like to pull a team effort together. Poole, you and Bobby plot out every possible route to the Senate chambers. We need a careful itinerary over the next three days.”

Gervaise nodded, snapping her gum for dramatic effect. “Got it.”







The Evening…

There was a quietness that set upon safe house ops unlike any Sam Gerard had ever known. It was the quiet of both silent reflection and guarded wariness. It was the noiselessness of the sleeper and the sentry. It was one of the things he hadn’t missed when he left his early baby-sitting days behind at the Marshal. It was the kind of silence that made a man look inward, and these days, that was the last damned place Deputy Marshal Gerard wanted to look.

As if seeking some hedge against the quiet, he slipped the gun magazine back into the ASP until it clicked cleanly between the chamber and the bolt. Gerard latched the bingle then holstered his service pistol in the sling beneath his jacket sleeve. The garment lay at ready between the two beds.

Richard had been watching the process from the far bed, the folder from earlier laying open on his lap.

As Sam looked up, he saw Richard watching. Sam smiled. “Don’t like guns, huh?”

Kimble grinned in return. He glanced warily at the jacket below. “Gee, how could you tell?”

“While I was cleaning it, you looked a little pekid.”

“I kept thinking it might…you know…go off or something.”

“Cartridge was out. Sorry. Probably should’ve told you.”

Richard nodded. “Yeah, Sam, that would have helped. You might have noticed I’m not much of a gun expert.”

“Yeah, I noticed. At our little Mexican tunnel stand-off. About the same time I started thinkin’, this is supposed to be some mad dog killer?”

Richard laughed… at the breadth of the memory. “I guess in your line of work, guns are a necessary evil. In my line of work, we see the aftereffects.”

“We see the aftereffects, too, Richard. And I don’t care much for guns either; except for the instant I need one. It comes down to some people need ‘em…some people don’t. We need ‘em.”

Kimble nodded his understanding. “What was that a… Glock?”

“Naw. Glock’s a street sidearm. That was an S&W. You got elephant for prey; you don’t arm yourself with buckshot.”

“I’ll nod my head as if I know what that means.” Kimble’s grin tipped sideways a little, his eyes slowly reflecting concern. “You think we’re hunting elephants?”

“No. But elephants are hunting us. They’re not gonna find us, though, if I can help it.” He nodded to the folder before Richard. “How’s the reading coming?”

Kimble shrugged a little. “Plot’s not much. Weird that it seems so alien. It’s my own life… my old life. With some unusually melodramatic conjecture at the end.”

“The revelations will come in time,” Sam said, “after you mull over it awhile. The rest of it is wild surmise based on false assumptions. That’s all it ever was.”

“I know that.” Richard suddenly laid aside the folder. “I just…I don’t know, it’s all so final…” He was staring again into the room’s one full illumination—the yard light filtering in gathered patches through tree leaves and knotted patterns in the macramé drapery. It all made for impossible configurations on the thin beige carpet, as if unreadable tea leaves for the encrypted future. “One day, she’s there… next day she’s gone. Just…gone. But I know I don’t need to tell you about that.”

Sam stopped cold at his words. At length, he grinned knowingly and fondly with a kind of awkward grace. “I see our friend Cosmo’s been talkin’ again.”

“Yeah. A little. It just sort of happened actually. We talked quite a bit. He told me about his brother.”

“No matter. No big secret. And, yeah, Richard, I been there.”

Kimble nodded. “One day your life is whole and good, and then suddenly, it isn’t. The other half of your life is blown away. Was it that way for you?”

Sam nodded. “At least I didn’t get thrown into purgatory like you did. What I went through was bad enough on its own.”

“You want to talk about…all that…I’d be glad to listen.”

“One day…some other day…I’ll be happy to tell you. But for a whole lotta reasons, I’d rather not talk about Cal right now.”

Kimble nodded, almost sadly. “I understand. Actually, it was kinda nice to learn some actual background on Sam Gerard. You know so much about me, but I know next to nothing about you.”

Caught utterly off-guard, Sam had to stop to consider…as if he had never thought of it before. “You know lots about me.”

“Not by comparison.”

“Well… not much to tell.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“I’m sittin’ right here. What do you wanna know?”

“Well, you’re from Texas, right?” Richard said. “Must have been difficult for you…growing up. Did your parents know?”

Sam looked up with a sly smile. “Did my parents know what?”

Richard’s grin bent a little. “That you never answer a direct question.”

Sam laughed loudly. “All right. A wise man knows when he is beaten. Since you are Dr. Richard Kimble, I am throwing in the towel before we even get started.” Gerard unlaced his wristwatch, to reach across and put it away in his jacket pocket. “No, my parents didn’t know. They were usually gone. There are only so many professions you can get without an advanced education in my part of Texas…where I am from, yes… my mother was a night nurse. Most men worked oil or ranching. My old man did a little both…emphasis on little. He mostly specialized in getting’ tossed out of seedy Tejana honkytonks.”

Kimble’s smile turned sad. “You didn’t get along with him, huh?”

“No. Why? Did you get along well with your father?”

“Yeah, I did, actually. We were really close.”

“Well, for you, I’m glad, Richard. But it wasn’t that way for me. Wasn’t that way at all.”

“How come? The…lifestyle thing?”

Gerard tripped silently over several thoughts in his mind before arriving finally at one. He sighed softly before he admitted it aloud. “Naw. He…left…when I was young.”

“Divorce?” Kimble said with a frown of sympathy.

Sam smiled at some secret flash of black humor. “No, Richard. He just…was gone. Look, my old man was a crazy mean son of a bitch who used to beat the shit out of us with the same crop he used on the horses. Happily, I take after my late mother. That what you were looking for?”

Kimble nodded, looking away. “God. I’m…sorry…”

“Never mind. That’s over, like Cosmo says. That’s history. I got through it and that’s all that counts. And I have no living family but my kids…the ones on my team, I mean….since Calder died… and before you came along.”

“You mentioned Cosmo…he told me himself about his brother. It makes you wonder how one man can do what you’ve done and another man can wind up a statistic and stereotype.”

Sam smiled sadly. “Nicodemus Renfro was nobody’s statistic or stereotype. Did Cosmo tell you what happened?”

“No. Just that it happened.”

Sam shook his head and hard. “Poor guy was in love with his partner and didn‘t know it. Some people are like that, you know—compartmentalize, especially with gay relationships. It took watching the man he loved shot dead to trigger his revelation. Then one evening after his partner’s funeral, Nico Renfro signed his Last Will and Testament, told his three little girls that he loved, then put his service revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Goddamned act of selfishness, if you ask me.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly.”

Richard opted for silence a longer moment. “I can sympathize, though. I thought about that a time or two in the beginning. Joining Helen. I guess all survivors do.” He waited a moment before asking, “Does…this…guilt feeling…ever go away?”

“I won’t lie to you. Not so that you can tell it. It gets easier to handle, but it doesn’t leave you. You just get used to it, kinda like living next to the railroad tracks. You have to bear it, because that’s what you have. It’s just the way things are…we play the game with the hand we’re dealt, Richard.”

“I keep thinking…I should…it should have been me.”

“Don’t…” Sam said quickly. “I used to rewrite it dozens of times in my dreams…trying to wonder why the hell we bought that horse… why the hell I didn’t do the gentling…why it wasn’t me who died…”

“Thank God it wasn’t you,” Kimble said sharply, quickly. He appeared surprised at the power of his own words. “I mean, I’m particularly glad it wasn’t you.”

Gerard’s lips moved after words that tapered off into a narrow silence. At last, he lifted his eyes to meet the bright, almost frightened stare there waiting for him.

Gerard’s words, as they came to him, were quiet pieces of light… dulcet and measured… gifts from a deep place, self-reflective. “And by that same token, for what it is worth, I’m very glad it wasn’t you, too.”

Richard smiled, clearly moved, but laughing as if to ease the tension of the moment. “Anything to change the subject away from you, right?”

“See. I toldja you knew me pretty well.”

Somewhere moments twisted together to chain up one hour after another. It was dark long hours into the evening. The formless patterns in the world had given way to the shadows around them, thick and crooked and cool.

The prison doors in his dreams had never opened.

He remembered the dark, cold, grey drab of the enclosure…the angry, naked light of that world. The way bright Morning clawed at you to awaken you…and the way Night spilled in on you like dirt pouring into an open grave. There was nothing there but the purposeless movement of time and temperature. Light was a menace…the dark was a threat. The hordes shifted in hopeless, measureless footsteps forward…like the clatter of something mindless, memoryless, over metal. There was nowhere to go but here. Tomorrow didn’t matter.

That world was a fist that surrounded you. You never left it…you never moved beyond its grip.

He had never reached Death Row. He had never seen the word. He had only heard the stories of it. The one, block word …

CONDEMNED

…stenciled in big, discolored letters…as if a designation for livestock… over the door through which those sentenced to death would walk away from the land of the living.

Where he was still trapped, in some dark place in his head, where he saw the word every night…every single goddamned fucking night…

“Purgatory, Richard,” something cold breathed labouredly through his soul. “Like the nuns said. Doesn’t matter you’re free…you’re still here with us… and you know the world can fall away…any time…any time…any time we want…”

there ain’t no justice, screamed the man out at night, in the deepest hours at the lock-up… like the conscience of the soul itself.

CONDEMNED

In his cell, in the dark, before his long crawl back into life, he had laughed with bitter irony at the memory of fundraising dinners…

Against the death penalty…

How many had he attended? He had said the right words…did the right things…wrote the big checks. Standing in gatherings with other affluent professionals, holding his cup filled with the rich man’s moral palliative…sipping from the vin rose of the lamb… nibbling the canapés of the host. He had uttered the litany of intellectual debate regarding the obvious evils of the death penalty.

What had he known…what had he ever really known…?

He wanted to live as keenly as he wanted Helen’s killer to die… as he dreamt, night on night, of killing the bastard himself…

In his dreams, the truth seeped into him with the chill of the walls—the stone cold essence of long dead bone.

Don’t believe, the old-timer had told him, what the Man says about the Row. It ain’t like that. It ain’t like that at all.

The words had come from Grampus, an old Jersey mob torpedo with a lifetime in one yard or another…he’d had his sentence to Death Row commuted, but was now on his way back there again. He was nice enough, so long as you weren’t “one of the people he owed shit to”. He had taken an inexplicable liking to Richard for some reason Kimble could never understand but for which he had been pragmatically grateful. Grampus had been the one to show him the ropes in the lock-up.

“Something mild in your eyes I like,” Grampus had said, by way of explanation. “Reminds me of people you don’t see in here. Reminds me of the world out there.”

The Row, said Grampus, was one big black hole in the world. There was no dead man walking… there were no preachers following prisoners on their último paseo… There was no walking of any kind to an execution. There was nothing but some struggling, screaming creature being dragged by five guards to the doorway…to that doorway that looked like an angry demon’s mouth…

Looks like a fucking examination room…

At that point of the story, Grampus always got very quiet, his blank eyes filled with the indistinct shadows of something too terrible to think about directly. “We always heard the condemned man’s heels dragging… We always heard the screams… horrible…high-pitched… demented, terrified… and you could feel it so real you could be him… could feel the hands bending you back to the board… feel the stupid fuckin’ antiseptic sting to your arm… They say you can smell it…”

“How would they know?” Richard had asked him roughly the first time through his story.

“The ones who got the Governor’s call. Those guys… you know, they come back. And besides, we all lived it with ‘em, every fuckin’ time.”

Kimble had always been a man who wanted to know the truth…no matter how awful it was. Better the iniquity he knew… far better a well-known evil then a half-known danger in the dark.

“Go ahead,” Richard had coughed out, wanting the story to go on and to pass by at the same time.

“So you lay there and you wait…they wait and you wait… they’re standing around, talking about dinner plans…tickets to a fuckin’ game…and there you lay hoping to Christ the phone will ring… One out of three times, they say, so your whole being is tied to that hope and the poison shit feeds up that tube… and you can watch it crawl… They’re still talkin’ about motherfuckin’ dinner and you’re on one slender hope for the motherfuckin’ phone to ring… Sometimes it does…”

“Then it stops,” Richard had said, the first time, breathing out every inch of the way.

“But the other times, the phone doesn’t. And the guards say you just lay there, with your eyes wide open for some extra measure of time, while the liquid seeps up to the needle in the arm… And when finally the liquid breeches the IV and the time is all gone, the guards say the guy fights against it… like when you get surgery, and you fight to stay awake. But this isn’t just going under, this is going out forever... there ain’t no wakin’ up from this… the dark is going to drag you down with it, no matter how hard you fight…”

Kimble’s heart pounding in his head, the whole world screaming through his mind…

“Richard,” a voice broke through sleep like a fist breaking ice to reach for him, to pull him back to the top. “Richard.”

Richard shut his eyes against the nightmare and opened them up to vague patterns of a real world.

Kimble arose from his sleep, half-awake and already fighting. Sam caught the man before he could move any more.

Hands climbed Sam’s chest, anchored against shoulders, hands that grabbed so tightly Sam thought they’d be pulled down by the weight. The Hands felt like they sought to reach farther, but then grasped so tightly, they couldn’t go on.

Sam eased himself down to meet the level of his eyes…to lessen the drag and somehow center Richard’s flight.

“Rich,” he said sharply, as he saw—in the moment—a little memory surface in Kimble’s eyes. “Look here. You’re here. With us. And that’s all over.”

Kimble nodded. Breathed. He was awake. “Over.”

“Was it that nightmare again—?”

“Yeah,” he said, quickly, as if to stop the question.

“It’s all over. It’s gone for good.”

Richard nodded, shut his eyes, and pushing away the remnants of the dream. “Yeah… thank god… thank god… it’s gone.”

“You okay?”

He waited, considered, nodded again. “I guess. I mean, now, I am, yeah… Thanks, pal. You just rescued me from a nightmare. Again. Jesus…”

Richard slid down again to the edge of his bed. He was clearly still shaking off the chill of unseen places.

“I’d like to say I understand,” Sam said gently, probing at the edges of the wound. “But I’m here, Richard… if you need…”

Richard laughed darkly, nodding quickly. He tapped the other man’s nearest shoulder. “Just don’t go too far, okay?”

“Not so long as you want me here, Richard. So, what about those nightmares? Think you can sleep past ‘em now?”

Richard kept laughing a little. Shook his head. “I should try. But those dreams make horror movies seem like Easter Parade.”

“Shoot, Easter Parade scared the shit outta me,” Sam said, grinning sideways. “Tell you what, you sleep. I’ll sit up awhile. If I think you’re lookin’ twitchy, I’ll wake you up.”

“That wouldn’t be fair—“

“Fair…will you forget fair? Now put your head to a pillow this instant. That’s an order.”

“I think you were born giving orders,” Richard said, doing as he was told.

Gerard leaned up against the other man’s bed, his back connecting easily…and apparently thoroughly unintentionally…with Richard’s shoulder. “Some people were born to need ‘em. You gonna sleep?”

“I’m going to try.” There came a lengthy, deliberate pause. It was a quiet filled with purpose. “And thanks, Sam…”

Gerard tossed him back an awkward smile. “You ever aim to stop thankin’ me for just doin’ my job?”

“You didn’t just do your job,” Kimble said. “Northside Homicide did their job.”

“Northside Homicide,” Sam said, “is dumber than a box of rocks. It’s a big damn miracle any of ‘em find their way to the precinct in the morning. I figure they got a bunch of big signs to help them find their way or somethin’.”

Kimble chuckled, shook his head. “Face it, Sam. You gave a damn. That makes you extraordinary.”

“Extraordinary?” he said. He hoped it wasn’t obvious the effect those words had actually had. “Dr. Kimble, you are far too easily impressed.”

“No. I’m not.”

“And anyway you saved my life. I expect we’re even.”

“Not by a long shot, pal.”

Sam Gerard was very glad at this point that his back was toward him.

He laughed, looked toward the ceiling. “Now get some sleep.”

Shoot, Easter Parade scared the shit outta me

Yeah, that was a right charming thing to say, Samuel. Nicely done. Why didn’t you just show him your stupid card tricks?

When had been the last time he’d been this tongue-tied and uncertain around a man? Well, then, he reckoned it was something like…oh, never…

In love? Well, shit I guess.

Every tear on this man’s face felt like Sam’s personal responsibility. Every hitch in his voice became Sam’s duty.

All of which makes me happier than hell, lonely as the grave, and as guilty as all get out.

‘…And maybe because you never been this happy in the first place.’

As ever, Jasmine Dillard had only spoken the truth.

Sam knew—it would be so easy…so damned easy…to fall into him… To tear away the mysteries that were born that night and continued to build even now…to just begin it all, wherever it led them.

Then again, a moment later, he wanted to scream, “Have you gone crazy or somethin’?” at himself.

Rule number one for all Lone Star gay men was don’t fall for heterosexuals.

But this felt so real… in him, for both of them. He and Richard. This was it. This was it for him. Sam knew it…hell, he’d always known it. Even before the day he’d seen him full face on, at the top of the spillway. The day that was nothing more than a recognition of what had always been. How was that for a fairy tale? And to think he’d always preferred the worst of the real to any fantasy.

But he’d never had a choice. Really. The die was already cast before their paths had ever crossed.

And here, you don’t even believe in destiny, Samuel, he thought to himself, while behind him the other man slept peacefully again.


CHAPTER THREE: The Man's Name was Adam Carylon


Sam had awakened with a blanket thrown around him… a blanket spread over him in the night.

The other man was still asleep. His warm brown hair spilled into his eyes…the thin sheet barely fitted to his body. Sometime in the night, Kimble had shed his clothes. Gerard was singularly grateful…and yet distinctly regretful… he hadn’t been there for the dark night unveiling.

He swept a hand over the fall of Richard’s hair without moving it. Sam almost touched his chin but not quite.

Sam made his way from the room.

“Bobby found this off the Intel dump, Boss.” ” Renfro said quickly as Sam entered the operations room. Cosmo handed him papers. “This close to the Bone Yard, I guess they do monitor captures. It got flagged for the data pool because it kept repeating off the Citizen Text Band…teletext, they call it in our neck of the woods. Looked like gibberish, but the data boys said it’s some weird language or somethin. They thought at first it was Arabic…maybe terror talk, you know? The system red flagged us because it mentions the number of the safehouse, and the node was in proximity. It’s less than ten miles.”

“There goes my hope of a happy morning.” Sam took the papers to his own. “What language does it look like?”

“Samantha, do I look like a linguist to you? Beats the hell outta me. Klingon. Esperanto. Somethin’. Some of it doesn’t even look real.”

Poole, sitting nearby, said, “Maybe Hebrew?”

“In Manassas?” Renfro said, hiking an eyebrow.

“It’s called a guess,” she replied.

Sam finally considered the text before him. It was a written exchange, tabled bidirectionally via teletext…

Ayeerth? Thoo Grasano?

Buri tarim but gami

Areerth? Geth! Gloral leat?

Laisk my jeel and my jeel will laisk your gilhairt…

ód sícer niuc Mútás.

And so it went on, pages and pages.

“Well, isn’t this somethin’,” Sam said till every last breath in him was gone. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

“That really says somethin’? And you know what it says?” Renfro said, incredulous.

“How much is there?” Sam cut past the question.

“About ten pages in all.”

Gerard looked to the secondary door where Bobby was standing. “Robert, hop on that internet contraption, will ya? See how many people in the southern United States are semi-literate in somethin’ called Gammon.”

“Gammon?” Renfro said. “What’s Gammon?”

“Somethin’ I want Bobby to look up.” He gestured for the junior man to be on his way, and then looked again at the others. “Gervaise, get Henry on the phone. Have him call Mom—transmit the full message text to an NCIS or a G-2 lin-guist, whichever the MI-5 boys recommend, and get a proper translation of it. It’s afternoon here and after dinner on their watch, so ask him to order up something nice for delivery as a thank you.”

“Call Mom? That’s still redneck speak for phoning Great Britain, right?” Renfro said, his confusion at maximum. “You’re sayin’ you want Henry to call MI-5? You’re joking…”

“Well, of course, Cosmo, it’s all about makin’ you laugh, didn’t you know that? No, Cosmo, I’m not jokin. I only know some bits and pieces of this stuff. We need a serious linguist to look at it. Poole, ask him to get on it pronto.”

“Got it.”

Renfro shook his head. “Are you tellin’ me that’s an actual language? It’s not just made-up gobbledygook?”

“Some of it looks like Gaelic,” Kimble’s voice came from the door, looking at the document as Poole walked it around him.

Gerard nodded. “A lot of it is Gaelic. Thrown in with a little English, Romani, some Hebrew, other stuff. Gammon is just a word the speakers use for it. Some people call it the Cant.”

“They speak this in the US?” Renfro said. “How come I never heard of it?”

“Knowing the length and breadth of your formidable knowledge of Indo-European languages, Cosmo, I can’t imagine why,” Sam said.

Renfro smirked. “There can’t be that many people who speak Hebrew and I heard of it.”

“The Cant is a secret language. It’s spoken by a group of people called Travelers. They don’t teach it to outsiders,” Sam said. “It’s supposed to keep them culturally distinct. If you taught it to a Grasano, you got tossed out of the tribe.”

Renfro shrugged. “What in the holy hoppin’ hell is a Grasano?”

“An Englishman.”

“You mean like in Fee Fi Fo Fum?”

Sam nodded. “I mean as in anyone who isn’t a Traveler. My grandmother fell in love with my granddad and that was all she wrote between her and her family. I got some of the language from her. I could read enough of that to be concerned. It looked like somebody was giving our route to the Bone Yard—east on the I-66 and onto the US 50. I’m not takin’ any chances. We’re gonna redirect our map to the Senate.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, why?” Renfro said, “Sammy, there aren’t a lot of other ways to go. This is the best and fastest one.”

“What’d I tell you? I said we’ll find another. It’s only forty miles, give or take a step. On that day, it’s gonna seem like the longest ride of our lives, I promise you.”

“Estimates of 20,000 to 100,000 people, Sam,” Biggs said, having returned to the door. “Nobody’s sure.”

Gerard snapped the back of his hand against a near wall. “Yeah, shit, that’s about what I thought.” He looked across to Kimble. “Richard, you ever heard of the Cant?”

Kimble shrugged a shoulder. “Not that I remember.”

“Biggs…Poole… you?”

The other two shook their heads.

“Okay, that settles it. We change our route.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Sam. That’s a standard route to the city sights,” Cosmo said. “It may be just a coincidence. We’d be sacrificin’ up to ten minutes routing it differently. A whole lotta shit can go down in that ten minutes.”

Gerard nodded. “100,000 speakers of the Cant. 300 million Americans. What’s that, one in what?”

Richard volunteered, “One in three thousand.”

“At best, one in three thousand. And all of a sudden, our little group, the odds drop to one in six? I am always suspicious of such timely providence, Deputy Renfro.”

Renfro shrugged. “Could be another coincidence, Sam.”

“Way too many of those things all of a sudden for me to feel comfortable.”

“It is an awfully small statistical sampling,” Richard said. “It’s really too limited to draw an inference.”

Gerard shook his head. “In this case, the stakes are so high; I’ll draw ‘em from what I got.”

“Let me get this straight here,” Renfro said. “You thinkin’ they didn’t pick the language because nobody knows it? You’re thinkin’ they picked that language because they knew you’d know it?”

Gerard nodded. “We’ve got an air tight operation. They want to somehow throw us a curve ball. What better way than to stick something out there the government would pick up on? A weird language discussing the Capital district.”

“Pretty big stretch, Sammy,” Cosmo said, shaking his head.

“Why that set of directions, Cosmo?” Sam asked. “And why use some half-dead language nobody’s heard of but me?”

“Why not just fly it overhead on a plane banner, Sam? It’s probably just some people who speak it passin’ through, askin’ for directions to the tourist places from a fellow traveler, so to speak. It’s a coincidence probably. For all we know, it’s a whole damned convoy of ‘em..stretchin’ all the hell back to Redneck Hillbilly Hollow, West Virginia…and let me apologize for the southern ethnic slurs upfront, so we can just get that out of the way…”

Gerard was listening inwardly—he shook his head decisively. “My gut says they were either born yesterday or they’re hoping we were.”

“Okay, okay,” Renfro said. “What would be the point of this?”

“To taint our data,” Gerard said. “They might be figurin’ we won’t fall for it, but that it might affect our decisions anyway. It’d be an awfully sly way for the bastards to throw us off our game. There aren’t many other major pathways into the Bone Yard. It would help control the game board.”

“How are they going to know your background, though?” Kimble said.

“They would if they’re in the Alphabet Agencies,” Biggs said, suddenly from the side. “One of the main ones. Doesn’t take a lot of clout to run some names…make some calls.”

“That’s my point,” Sam said. “Thank you, Bobby.”

Biggs grinned. “Well, while you’re thanking me you can admit to the fact you’re a big bare-faced liar, Sam Gerard…”

Sam looked around…showing surprise, affecting indignation. “Pardon me, but I never lie. Richard here was holdin’ my gun on me and I still told him the truth.”

“No, you didn’t,” Richard reminded him.

Gerard smirked away the comment. “Well, let’s say I spoke a courageous untruth.”

“In this case, you lied—and on Saint Patrick’s Day, too.” Biggs said.

“Your grandmother was Irish. The people who speak that language are Irish Travelers, so you’re part Irish. You have to be.”

“Robert, hate as I do to thwart your youthful process of discovery, it so happens there are also Scottish Travelers. My grandmothers on both sides were of Scots-Irish heritage, which is not the same thing at all as being Irish. My grandfathers were both English-Cherokee, for all those playing the home game.”

Biggs pouted a little. “Well… you almost lied.”

“Face it, Sammy, you got off on a technicality. Scottish…Irish…what’s the real difference?” Renfro said.

“No more than, say, the Greeks and the Italians.”

“Hey,” Renfro said, aiming his finger. “Watch your mouth. But getting back to the important stuff, for a moment, if no one minds, this still might be a coincidence. We’re just guessing.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t mind guessin’ if the alternative is taking a chance with Richard’s life.”

“Don’t get your panties twisted, Samuel. I’m on your side, remember? I agree. But we bug outta here now? We gonna raise a big cloud of dust.”

“Yeah, I know it. I know that, which is why we’ll stay put, for the moment. It’s secure here. We’re covered on all sides. They probably don’t even know where we are. They may also be trying to tickle us out of hiding…”

“Okay,” Renfro said, rubbing a finger at his forehead, “If we’re not takin’ the major highways, how the hell are we gonna get the Doc there on D-Day? You got some secret Star Trek transporter device I don’t know about?”

“Naw. I’m thinkin’, to be safe, we’ll take him side streets.”

“What?” Cosmo said, his mind clearly scrambling up some road atlas in his head. “Like Grant to Lee, Independence then Pennsylvania? Those kinda side streets? That’s gonna add fifteen minutes to the drive easy. We’re fifty minutes anyway to the last bolt hole. We’ve gotta move him with heavy local P.D. artillery. We can’t gang it on side streets.”

“No, they will be watchin’ for a parade. We move light and fast,” Sam said. “You know how that little bastard knew John Lennon was on the sidewalk? He saw the entourage. Fame leaves a trail. So does the law. We hoe the row together, and no one else. Me and Richard in a car, driving. That’s our parade.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure. Whatever you say, Boss.” Renfro slung a heavy glance at Biggs. “Bobby, you go check the data pool for me again, will ya? See if we have any more of this stuff comin’ in.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, leave so the Daddies can talk, I’m hearin’ ya.”

“Naw, nothin’ like that,” Renfro said, smiling. “We need you to check to be on the safe side. Don’t wanna go into tonight flying blind, right?”

When the junior grade Marshal had gone, Cosmo turned on his heels and aimed his eyes straight at his Chief Deputy and oldest friend in the whole frickin’ world.

“Samantha, have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?” He glanced like a second thought at Kimble. “Sorry, Doc. A little domestic situation here.”

“I can leave if—“

“No,” Gerard said quickly. “It’s your life on the line, Richard. You stay put. Cosmo, you will bug chopper shadow us as far as you can. When you hit the no fly zone, you drop back and we’ll have horizontal cover on us, five square miles.”

“Horizontal cover on side streets? In D.C., in the middle of the fuckin’ noon rush hour? Forget about it. What are we gonna do, walk on walls? What if they box you in at a stoplight or somethin’? That’s beyond batshit crazy, Sam, that’s Super Hero comic book crazy. Hell, even Spiderman would tell ya you were nuts.”

“We got government involved, Cosmo—“

“That’s speculation—“

“Its speculation based on hard facts, and not a whole lot else to go with it! All right, Cosmo, you tell me how we gonna do this if we’ve got parallel interagency involvement—and you know there’s a strong possibility. They gonna know what we know and what we send over the horn to the retinue. We can’t chopper in witnesses anymore, thanks to the 1990 no-fly. We don’t have the budget for enough black-and-whites to flank us. We travel heavy; we drag along a whole lot of ballast to cover for. Every Marshal is another worry on your mind. You know that as well as I do. The more Marshals we have, the more chances of one of ‘em gettin’ shot.”

“The fewer Marshals, the more chances you’re gonna get shot.”

“I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Well, I’m not. You don’t want ballast? Fine, Super-Sammy, you bring me along, too. I go or I don’t sign off on this. No way, no how. Consider me your ballast resistor.”

“Ballast resistor? Well, yeah, that’s pretty close to what I was gonna call you, but not quite. I told you I don’t need the extra worry—“

“I’m not a worry, Sam. I’m not a field grunt. I can handle myself out there as well as you. By yourself, this is a one-man suicide mission and you fuckin’ know it. With two of us, it has a shot. After all these fuckin’ years, I finally broke you in; I’m not up to training another Chief Deputy to put up with my shit. Call it, Sam. On or off? On or I call Jazzy and you know what I’ll say—el estar en amor con un heterosexual le ha hecho loco.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard the wind blow before. Okay, you’re on. But we still got forty-eight hours. Maybe something will turn up from our musings and this will be moot.”

“They sure talk weird where you’re from.” Cosmo ran fingers through his hair. “All right, what’ll we do about a route? We gonna plan one?”

“Nothing official. Patton used road maps when he reached the edge of the Allied cartography. We’ll take a page from him and opt for a Thomas Brothers Map Guide.”

“Now he’s playin’ like he’s Patton,” Renfro said, shaking his head, as if to rattle loose a few bits of patience. “Okay, mi capitán, I’m going to go ride roughshod over the troops. See if we can kick loose some side street recon. Before I lose what’s left of my senses, that is.”

“Onward then. And Cosmo, no offense, but your Spanish is every bit as bad as your taste in fashion.”

“Thanks, Boss. And no offense, but you’re as stubborn as a backward Oklahoma jackass. Later, Doc.”

Gerard grinned at Renfro’s shadow until it had gone away with the man. He shook his head in the aftermath, and then pointed Richard toward to a nearby crop of sofas. “You ready to get at it again?”

But Richard said nothing—for a long enough time that Sam finally looked up to inquire after his silence. He met Richard’s open, worried eyes.

“This really that dangerous for you?” Kimble asked.

“In this case…if what I think is happening…yeah, Richard, it is. I won’t lie to you. But nothing is going to happen to you. I promise you.”

“What’s going to happen to you?”

“That’s my worry. That’s my job. Let me deal with it. My plan is to get all of us through this unharmed. Nobody’s on a suicide run, despite what Cosmo said.”

“Well, it will be safer with him along, right?”

“Cosmo’s not goin’ along. And yeah, I know what I told him, but I just said that to shut him up. He and Marisa have kids dependin’ on ‘em. I’m not riskin’ him on this one. I can go it alone. Bobby and Henry are too green, Geravise is too close to her pension. I’m at the top of my game. I’ve done this for years. And I got nobody depending on me.”

“You’ve got me,” Richard said quickly, sharply, something shaking through the surface of his voice. “I’m your friend. And Cosmo is…he and your other friends need you.”

“Richard—“

“I’ll put it this way, Cosmo goes or I don’t go. I’ll call it all off. I won’t testify.”

“You can’t do that. You know you won’t be totally safe until you put your testimony on record.”

“And you won’t be safe going it alone if I do.” Richard’s chin stiffened against a tremor behind it. He spoke through tight teeth. “I mean it, Sam. You know I do what I say. Cosmo goes with us or I call it off. All of it. I’ll phone Senator Beecham right now.”

“Richard, Jesus Christ, think about how important this is—“

“You’re more important,” he roared back at him, without hesitation. “You’re more important. I can’t do anything to bring Helen back. But I can keep you alive.”

The words alone struck Sam silent to the bone. Words without precedent in their relationship. Words without precedent in Sam’s whole life. Words as much a string of revelation as was the intensity of the emotion that spoke them.

“Richard…”

“Cosmo goes or I don’t, Sam. Simple as that.”

It took a full moment for Sam to consider it all. Finally, finally, he nodded and rubbed at his eyes. “All right, Richard, all right. Looks like I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Cosmo goes, too.”

“Good. And don’t think you can say that to shut me up, too, and then get around it at the last moment. You won’t.”

Sam laughed finally…again, then again. “Richard, I know better than to think I could ever get around you.”

“Good, because you can’t.”

Richard Kimble for a moment walked the distance to the sofa. He looked at it, but did not sit down. Instead, he turned around toward Sam. Kimble’s eyes, as always, were as young as they were old…his gaze as gentle as it was spirited. He looked, as much as anything, like a man on the way to some careworn confession of the soul.

“Sam, I’ve said this much… I may as well tell you the rest.”

“The rest of what?”

Richard smiled gently. “I wanted to say this some other way… a better way. You’ll know why in a moment. But it seems important to say this now. Right now. Before…yesterday…you asked me about the person I dated before Helen. The one that Steve didn’t like. You remember?”

“Of course I remember.”

“I didn’t tell you because it’s not just me involved. It wasn’t lack of trust in you, Sam. But there were someone else’s interests involved in this, too. I made a promise to this person to not divulge…certain information. I have kept that promise for many years.”

“I can appreciate that, Rich,” he said softly, nodding for him to go on.

Kimble walked another short and restless path to a wall full of generalized, non-specific art prints. He just stood there for what seemed like an infinite interim, before he finally turned back toward Sam.

“… the person I dated before Helen…was a man named Adam Carylon.”

It might have been an impact kick to his gut for the force of the recoil that hit him.

It might have been something splitting him in two, and then bringing him together again. It might have been a lot of things, any one of which would have had to bust him apart and rig him back up in pieces. In a moment, he might have forgotten to breathe if his lungs hadn’t ached at the lack of air and shocked him into a thin encounter with the apparent moment…that thin little instant in time.

His hand reached for an anchoring doorframe as he slowly turned away from Richard. He grasped at its edge, so solid and sure.

He chose some words. He cleared his voice. He hoped the damned words came out right. “Your father-in-law—“

“Was concerned I was some gay gold-digger, I guess. And there was some homophobia poured into the mix. Eventually, he realized I…went both ways, as they used to say when I was a kid… He finally accepted that I loved his daughter more than anything.”

Finally, a little air. A little, he could breathe. Gerard shook his head hard, to clear it, to help it keep working.

“I can imagine it wasn’t easy,” he heard himself saying by rote, a response straight out of the Camp Beau empathy training manual.

“That was why. See, there’s nothing to it. I didn’t think the information was worth anything or I’d have told you earlier.”

Sam almost laughed at that…at how wrong that was, on so many levels, in so many evident ways. “You never know where something important crops up,” he heard himself saying—another Bugtussel trainer retort. “I’ll run the name on the QT. See if anything—“

“Sam,” Kimble said, walking up beside him. “Didn’t you hear what I just said to you?”

On three parts resolve built on many years honing a Marshal’s nerve, Gerard looked toward him.

Sam was looking Richard straight in the eye—angry Kimble eyes—dark anger clouding the usually calm but confident blue, not unlike hazy morning over cloudy water. It was the first time Sam had been immediately aware that they were exactly the same height.

“Wouldn’t you say…” Richard said, obviously hurting. “…it’s time for you to stop running?”

Sam Gerard was now beyond any possible critical assessment of what the hell was happening. The words he had just heard couldn’t possibly have been said and yet there the wording was…a linguistic Loch Ness monster out for a morning swim. It spun his whole world so hard, he could hardly track a heading back to sane. He opted for the obvious. “I’m not running from anything, Richard, I’m just trying to—“

“Shove the sarcasm,” Kimble said sharply. “Stuff the southern axioms and while you’re at it, can the dry Texan wit, too.”

At that point, he was utterly lost. “Doctor, I don’t demean your heritage. Kindly don’t demean mine.”

“I’m not demeaning it. I’m saying, right now, it’s a smokescreen. With all the time we’ve known each other, over the last few months you have continually pushed me away. At first it was subtle, like your habit of calling me Doctor when things got too intense, just like a moment ago. The reason you didn’t say my name is you’re terrified of the sound in your voice when you do say it. I’ve heard it. I always have. As Cosmo would say, el estar en amor con un heterosexual le ha hecho loco.”

“Shit,” Sam said, wishing he was anywhere doing anything else right at that moment. “I was hoping to hell and back you didn’t pick up on that.”

A soft cough at the doorway drew their attention. It was Biggs, looking awkward, holding a file folder. “Excuse me, but Sam, we’ve got the full translation of that Traveler stuff, if…you know…you want to see it.”

“Speaking of poorly timed translations,” Gerard said, taking a step away from that door and toward the other, holding out his hand for the folder which he was immediately conveyed to his hands.

He scanned its contents. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Our itinerary. What the hell it means, is anybody’s guess.”

“What do we do?” Biggs said.

“Tell Renfro to call the Thomas boys and get them to cough up their newest data. New streets, dead streets, that kinda thing. You get hold of City Works, see about any new structures…parking garages…shopping malls…transit centers…things we can use as a travel route in a pinch. Its level and you can drive on it; I want to know about it. Renfro supervises. You and Gervaise vet the data together. We need more than one set of eyes on this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam had thought about walking away from the conversation… the previous anomalous conversation…merely moving away toward operations, and hoping that would bring it to an end. But the stab at his soul he received when he looked toward Richard’s eyes still shining at him told him that could never be an option. And it probably wouldn’t have worked.

“Rich, I have to do this—“

“Two hours,” Kimble said, in a fine mixture of annoyance and hurt. “You’ve got two hours, Sam. Then we talk. No matter where you are. The pool still secure?”

Sam nodded, unable to meet his eyes again. “Yeah, we’d have been flagged by the task leader if it wasn’t. We have sentries. Just stay within earshot of operations.”

“I will. And I’ll be waiting for you. For two hours.”

Gerard nodded, wincing a little at the sound of the French door slicing open and the sound of it slamming closed again.

Biggs asked, “Is Dr. Kimble all—“

“Fine,” Sam said quickly. “He’s fine. We’re all fine. Life is sweet and light and dandy. Now lets get the hell with Renfro and hammer this shit out so I know where we’re standing come the morning.”



To Sam, a body of water in darkness had always seemed a sacred thing—a soupçon of the universe caught in the tides of earth as if to its own safe-keeping.

As a boy, the water had been the river Neches, deep and verdant and wild, beyond his boyhood woodlands. Or the Perdenales when he ventured down to Blanco County to see his father’s family…or even the Los Ebanos when he booked it up to Hildago County to his maternal grandfolks’ orange and berry farm…the oasis of his troubled adolescence.

Tonight, this swimming pool appeared as deep and mysterious as any river or lake in his experience, mainly due to the man whose reflection in it had been captured perfectly against the night.

Richard was seated on the top of the patio table at poolside. He was wearing black, which the floodlights had given a cobalt glow. He swirled clear liquid around the snifter that he cradled in his hand. He was a visual definition of instinctive class on a casual scale.

It was only at times such as this that Sam remembered—they both came from very different lives. Two men living similarly complex histories in very different places.

Kimble’s face was a trifle less hurt than before…his expression less overtly brooding.

“I’m pleasantly surprised. If you’ll forgive my resorting to our usual repartee, I thought I’d have to hunt you down.”

“I hear ya,” Sam said, fighting to level his voice…wishing there was something to look at other than the man beside him…not that he would have looked anywhere else. He snagged a chair and drew it into the half-formed circle Richard and the table had begun. “I came out here because I’d rather not do this in public, and I know you too well than to think you wouldn’t keep your promise.”

“You’re right. I would have,” Richard said with absolute conviction. “And I’d have started this wherever you were standing at the time.”

“Richard, there’s—“ Sam said, standing to turn away…to maybe even walk away.

“Don’t!” he said. His voice burned softly in the low light. “Don’t even try to deny it. You have to feel this. I know you do.”

Sam’s mouth moved after a struggling equation of word on word that never truly made a sentence. At last, he folded his arms like a tight wall against all outside intrusion.

“Of course I feel it,” he said, his words bursting and fading like a pulled whiplash: impassioned, thwarted and finally fading out of fear.

“Then why are you fighting it?”

“I’m not fighting anything. Richard, it’s just…not possible.”

“How is it impossible? And it could be beautiful—“

“Beautiful,” Sam said, as if the word tasted bitter to his tongue. “Don’t you sound like a prom buck on his first date—“

“Don’t patronize me with Texas bromides!”

“Then don’t spin Yankee horseshit fairytales to me. You want to know about my experience of beauty? You wanna know about me and where I come from and all about my father? Fine, Richard, here’s my historical minute for ya. My father murdered my mother… there. That’s why he went away.”

Kimble sighed audibly, shaking his head. “Dear god, Sam…”

Sam signaled for him to stop. “Don’t…I know, it’s over, like I said. It was an accident, he didn’t mean it, but she was dead anyway. I was nigh onto eleven years old when I watched it happen and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it. I live with that helplessness. I live from one day to the next, not knowing if I’ll live another twenty-four hours. I don’t know if I can keep my kids alive—and shit, I already lost one of ‘em. Hell, I don’t even know for certain I can keep you alive for that long.”

“Sam, I’m…sorry… about all of that…all of it. If I could take it from you, I would. But people lose people. I lost Helen. Cosmo lost his brother. But it’s also the past. You said that yourself.”

“It’s not the past. I thought it was, but it’s not, Richard. The El Embargo river people when I was a boy called it Uno Mismo de la Sombra. Maybe it’s just the way I am. Maybe it’s part of my nature. Maybe it just so happens good people die on me.”

“That’s self-pitying superstitious crap and you’re smart enough to know it.”

Sam lowered his voice to where the only other person in the world to hear his words would be the man to whom he spoke them. “Look, Richard, I only ever said I love you to one person in my life and he died on me. I don’t think it’s in me to ever say it to anyone again. Is that what you want for yourself? My life isn’t a place for happy endings. I want you to have a happy ending…with a good, long life…the life you deserve. Someone to love you as much as you—”

“No,” Richard said shortly, biting his words off at the source. “You want to avoid what you know to be true, because you feel guilty about it.”

Gerard tried to look away. “And just what do I have to feel guilty about?”

Kimble slipped off his perch to close the distance between them, and move back into Sam’s line of sight—standing near enough to gaze directly into the other man’s eyes. “About the fact you love me more than you did Calder—“

“How dare you—“

“I dare because I love you—and I have enough guts to say it first.”

Sam rubbed at the center of his forehead as if it might make his brain work faster. “What am I supposed to say to somethin’ like that?”

“The truth, Sam, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“The truth?” Sam said, with a dark chuckle that almost sounded like a groan of pain. He committed himself again to the chair he’d drawn up to his own. “Rich, isn’t it possible this is just gratitude where you’re concerned?”

“Don’t you think I thought of that? I tested every feeling I had over and over again, believe me. I didn’t want to feel this much this quickly. So quickly after Helen. If anything attests to the sheer power of this, it’s that fact.” Richard’s eyes focused solely on Sam. “I loved Helen more than I thought I had the capacity to love another person, but the simple truth is what I feel for you is more. It is…it just is. It feels like this is what I’ve been moving toward my whole life…it tears me up inside to think that, but I have no choice, because I know it to be true. And I know you have to sense this, too.”

“My God,” Sam whispered to himself, a small utterance…a prayer to an inner reservoir of faith in different gods. “I didn’t ever think for a moment… not an instant… you were feeling something like I was feeling…”

Kimble sighed again, this time like he meant it, for a very long time. “Thank God. At least we can talk about it. If I have to fight for you, I’ll fight you, Sam. Make no mistake about it. I’ll do what it takes. I tell you this in case you’ve somehow missed this fact over the time we’ve known each other.”

Sam almost smiled. “That has not escaped my notice,” he said, as if invisible hands gripped his throat.

“Good.” Kimble reached to touch the edge of Sam’s face, a touch from which the other man only flinched a little.

Gerard stood up to escape further escalation of the moment. “Richard, we can’t do this now.”

“Why not?”

“You know why. Whatever happens…where ever this goes… It has to wait till later.”

“Why? The coach tell you your legs won’t be good for the game? I’m a doctor. That’s nonsense.”

“I have to focus—“

“You have to feel, and that’s the problem. If the last long stretch of my life has shown me anything, it’s that we only have this moment now, Sam. This moment. This night. No other …not for sure anyway… And anyway, as a grown man, I can tell you that you really need very badly what I can offer…if you hear what I’m saying…“

“And I say U.S. Marshal Protocol says—“

“Protocol? Noah’s ponytail couldn’t have been by the books. I’m fairly sure Bobby’s 24 hour sports channels aren‘t, also. Oh, and I’m absolutely sure your letting me slip away at the Cook County Jail wasn’t Standard Operating Procedure.”

For a few moments, Sam looked down as if Richard’s words had fallen with his voice, into the open air and out to make some scattered pattern on the ground. He circled a moment or two, rearranging the original question… constructing a possible reply.

“Richard,” Sam said, resolved to grin. “You wanna pass me by that one more time? I let you what? “

“Don’t even try, Sam,” Richard said. He leaned his smile nearer Sam’s eyes. His words came soft as his breath on the other man’s face. “Cook County Jail near the Marshal? You’d been there lots of times. You knew that door was bullet-proof glass—that nothing shot through it would hit me. Every bullet you fire is a potential misfire—you have to account for every one, so you don’t waste them, especially not in anger. Earlier, on the stairs, you called my name to give me a start. You tailed me to make sure I got there. Your team falls behind the leader, so you set the pace—my little gambit helped a little, but not that much. You used the shooting as a diversion so I could escape. I saw the look on your face.”

Gerard grinned a little more widely than normal. “Boy howdy, Sherlock, you got it all figured out. You truly have an excellent imagination, Richard. Really. I want to say that you ought to write for the motion picture trade. Give it up, Richard. The simple fact of the matter is you were too durn smart for me. Game to Kimble.”

Richard wasn’t having any of it. His eyes were clear, unchanged, unmoved. He brightened his smile. “Bullshit. I’ve gone over it a hundred times in my mind. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Deny it all you want, Sam, but I know…I know…. What assures me all the more is you didn’t bite my head off at my very suggestion of it…”

Sam smiled up at stars. “Are you saying you think I would allow an escaped convict to slip us while under my lead? All my years of damn near semi-distinguished loyalty to the United States Marshal’s Service and you think that of me?”

“When I’m the escaped convict? Yeah, I know that. And when you were already thinking I might be innocent? Yeah, I think that, too. You knew I was leading you somewhere, pal. And you let me take you there without first thinking of your pension.”

Sam grinned even more widely than before. He shook his head. “Well, much as I’m enjoying these Amazing Tales, I have no time to stand here and listen. We’ll have to delay further discussion of all these matters until after I have conveyed you safely to where you need to go. My head has to be in business.”

Kimble once again took up the slack in the space between them. This time, he had Sam backed up against the table and around the leg of a chair. Again his hand invaded the boundary between them, reaching toward Gerard’s face. Sam managed to move enough away to escape its contact.

The power of Richard’s gaze—the potent love so evident before was now focused on him without once looking away. “When I feel something…when I know in my heart that it’s right… I don’t let anything stand in my way. It’s all that kept me alive, all those weeks. And I love you, Sam. So much that it scares you. Think of it, though—I jumped off the face of a dam to escape you. Can you imagine what I would do now to reach you?”

“Richard, please… I’m in charge of keeping you alive. Don’t you see? I can’t be getting hot and bothered here.”

Kimble’s gaze was pained and impassioned, hard as time and soft as memory. He looked a little hurt and a whole lot angry, but more than that, he appeared very much like a man on a mission. With it all, he smiled. “Hot, Sam? You don’t know the meaning of that word. But I’m going to teach it to you.”




CHAPTER FOUR: The Ultimate Gameboard


There hadn’t been as much as a shadow of sound from his end of the bedroom. The unstated fault line had been drawn somewhere in between the two men’s beds. Sam had created it by staying on that side of the border at all times. And Richard, so far, had not challenged the frontier either.

Still, Gerard could feel Kimble’s gaze on him… though Sam himself didn’t dare even glance across the room.

Sam focused his eyes on the page of his book…the page he’d just read through for the twentieth or so time.

“Must be some page you’re on,” Richard said, distantly. A smile was circling his face, threatening to land. “You’ve been reading it for over an hour.”

“It’s the Ovid,” Sam said shortly. “I’m reading it in the original Latin.”

“It’s Cormac McCarthy. I saw the cover earlier.”

Gerard finally folded down the chapter. “Well, it’s not much of a page-turner.”

“Actually, I’d heard that one is pretty good, as western novels go.”

“Calling Cormac McCarthy a western novelist is like calling Jane Austen a romance writer.”

“Maybe, but at least it got you talking to me. Now why don’t we discuss the real problem?”

“Why not?” At once, Sam pitched the book he was reading into empty space. It landed, somewhere, between them. “If you’re gonna keep jabbering, I’m not liable to read any more of it anyway. You seem to know everything, Richard, why don’t you just tell me what my problem is and spare both of us a lotta time and bother?”

“I think I know one of the problems.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Actually, I’d been thinking… about how unusual men like you are…”

“Men like me? Tired and irritated ones who just want to go to sleep?”

Richard grinned. “No, powerful men with alternative lifestyles. Tough gay guys. I mean, the kind of man you want people to think you are. Your personal life is like one long hunt for a man that’s tougher than you are.”

“You don’t say,” Sam replied distantly.

“I say. It’s deeply compelling in some profound corner of your mind, I’d imagine… Relieving you of responsibility. Making you do the things you want to do anyway. To the extent the other man demands. You know how it is. I know how it is, too. I’d never force the issue, of course. Not that I could… you have twenty pounds on me at least. But there’s a…way to do it…to get it done… Just as satisfying, I think.”

Gerard stripped off his t-shirt and flung it into a corner of the bed. He lay down, turned away, more than guarded now.

“We have got a long day tomorrow, Richard,” Sam said, bolt awake but determinedly distant. “A longer day the day

after.”

“And miles to go before we sleep.”

“Miles for you maybe but I am going to sleep—“

“Here’s the thing,” Richard said quickly. “I know you…better than you know yourself. I know how you think. You know how I think. Right? Isn’t that the way we played the game? But there’s one thing I know about you that you can’t know about me.”

“We playin’ twenty questions here?” he said vaguely, still trying to sound distant. “I give, Richard. You win. What‘s the answer?”

“The answer is simple. There’s one great thing about loving a doctor. We know all kinds of interesting things. For instance, I know all the places of all the muscles with all of the nerves in all the most interesting delicate locations. It can speed things up…slow things down…make everything more interesting. Oral sex from a doctor is positively…well…”

“Richard,” Sam said, punching his pillow to tuck it further under his head. “I have asked you—“

“And I’ve told you…” Richard said, his voice as low and supple as smooth jazz, “…what my goal is for the night.”

“I’m not some testosterone-addled adolescent—“

“You won’t need to be. I’m a grown man and so are you and that makes this much more interesting. Slower but more certain. Much more intense when it starts to burn. Tougher. Harder. Sweeter. Very, very hot…”

“Will you kindly stop this stuff—“

“No. Sam. Never. I will never, ever stop.”

“You’re telling me,” Sam said, shaking his head as if at everything that was rising within him.

Richard grinned. “It never ends, for the rest of our lives. But you know that, don’t you? And what’s more, you know that you never want it to.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes…” he said, standing up with the poise of a man without doubt, “that’s so.”

Richard Kimble moved with a sense of refinement…a form of gracious masculinity…the confident elegance of a gentleman tiger. Just watching him walk was to observe a moment of art. The very act of it made Sam Gerard burn with a steadily gnawing fire.

Watching him now finally cross the line… move across the room…

It was almost as if he felt his world changing. It seemed like a whole passionate plunge had been triggered, from which there was no possible way to pull out. A seen and unseen series of events, forever predestined. Not that he’d have done anything…and he did mean anything… to stop them…

Richard smiled as he sat, slowly but certainly, on the bed to Sam’s side. “I mean, think of all the distinct nerves just in the head of the penis, to say nothing of the ones in the rest of your body. Doctors know all that. There are nerves just in your thighs that, when expertly manipulated, can make your crotch ache divinely… Do you know where they are, Sam? I do. Do you know how many very effective ways the major nerves in the glans can be stimulated by a learned tongue? It’s truly amazing what a little information can do..”

“I’m not a kid, Richard. I bet I’ve got considerably more experience in that sort of thing than you.“

“You think?”

“Oh, yes.” He smiled. “I think.”

“So I’m not having any affect on you right now,” Kimble said, his fingers sliding up the inside of Sam’s nearest leg. “Not even a little?”

“I didn’t say that. Not at all. But you are gonna stop this, this instant or—“

“What? What are you going to do, Sam? Leave? You can‘t leave me alone—you know that.” He laughed. “You’re going to punish me because I’m bad? And you don’t think that won’t lead to somewhere interesting?”

“You are a test of my patience, Dr. Kimble.”

“Yes, I am. That‘s the point. And not only a test of your patience… a test of your real capacity to deny yourself…to deny me…what we both want more than even we can guess. I mean, how really committed are you to resist, given the circumstances? Do you even know?”

“Do you?”

As if his answer, Richard reached to touch his face—a touch from which Gerard didn’t withdraw…this time, he reacted as if it was a gentle relief. “I mean, really, what can you do to stop me?” Kimble asked. “That’s the whole of it. You’re not in charge with me. You know you’re not. You can strut and swagger all you want, but it doesn’t change a thing. You were the dominant male with Cal, I’m almost certain. But you’re not with me. We’re evenly matched, the two of us. It could go either way, at any time. That’s what makes you sweat. I know because it makes me sweat even more than you.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,“ Sam said, with a slow and reluctant smile. “I swear to god, you’re straight out of some mythological play… some fury trying to stalk me to the edge of my sanity.”

“That would be ironic,” Richard said, smiling. His hand moved boldly up the first muscular ridge of denim over Sam’s nearest thigh. The muscles there immediately tightened, contracted… Kimble’s fingers probed knowingly to relax the warm and rigid muscle. “This region I’m working on here is the patella. Tightening the muscles here can sometimes delay an erection. Men do that by instinct. We can’t have that, can we?”

The sound of an involuntary gasp being wrenched from a complex, taciturn man was a wild and wondrous thing, even for the complex man himself.

The gasp had gripped Richard’s name in a swarm of other sounds; the visceral, blood-born noise of surrender. Like a symbol of his victory, Kimble’s hand slipped boldly up to encompass Sam’s crotch. After a moment to smile at the other man as if sweetly savoring his response, Richard massaged his encouragement through the distending denim and zipper.

“You hot son of a bitch,” he whispered, borrowing a breath from some future time. “I ought to get up from here and—“

“And what? And what, Sam? I know you have to say that, but you don‘t really want to. Not really. Not now. Not when everything is riding on you, hm?” Richard whispered. “Big man, big talk, gonna show me who‘s boss, right? But you want this… in everything you are, you want this… I know you do, Sam. I know it.”

“You’d better be damned sure of that, Richard.”

“I am. I know. You’ll never be quite strong enough to stop me. Not quite. You’ll talk a good game…you might even try to throw me off you, but you’ll just be a little too slow, a touch too weak… just enough, right? You’re a good man. You’re a man I love. And I’m going to see to it you get everything you‘ve needed for a long time. I‘m going to give it to you personally.” He reached across to stop a sweat trickle streaming down Sam’s chin. He touched the fingertip to his tongue. “Just savoring the little victories, Sam.”

“Oh, just give me a minute or so, you’ll be tasting much more than that.”

“You think so?” Richard flashed the smile of a hungry panther in love. “Maybe. Maybe not though. Love making isn’t a matter of moments…it’s an art over time. A single love-making session can go on between two minds for days…weeks even. And that’s really the organ involved, isn’t it? The brain is the ultimate game board, especially when hearts are in play. And we both know where we stand with that, even if one of us won‘t admit it.”

Richard’s fingers ran up to the straining, throbbing bulge beneath blue cotton denim, a shape that vaguely indicated the primary vein through Sam’s now steadfast cock.

A sharp intake of breath—a hard groan dragged out of him, Sam’s whole body reacted with a spasm to his touch.

Kimble’s fingers never compromised. They spoke to the firm witness to his skill for all the seconds through which he slowly curled around the now thoroughly hard and helpless man beside him…helpless before what Richard was doing against his groin. And what he would do next.

“You know, we‘ve never kissed, Sam. Not yet,” Richard whispered, sweeping his fingers across the other man’s lips. “I‘ve thought about us kissing though, haven‘t you? I mean a lot…I was pretty obsessed with it for awhile. You know, the first shy kiss, and then the deeper ones. I finally heated myself into a need for more… complex fantasies, but the dream kiss came first, especially the prize. I‘ve thought a lot about the taste of your tongue… That‘s always the dream that comes first.”

“To hell with your dreams,” Sam groaned, grabbing him and jamming their mouths together in an anxious, hungry plea of desperation. Kimble’s response was devout and tender and loving and as delicious as it was woefully brief.

As Richard withdrew his tongue to break the kiss, he whispered in a voice thick with awe, “That was what we wanted…what we both wanted…”

His hand moved from Sam’s hard, hot crotch to his face, to question it softly.

“Here’s the thing—you know we don’t have time tonight,” Richard whispered. “We don’t…we just don’t. You know that…and I’m going to let hyper-responsible Deputy Sam in just enough to have his way.”

Sam’s eyes shut tight: a reflex reaction to what he’d just been told. The general wave of tension tightened to a finish until he had no choice but writhe against it on one very pleasant edge of pain.

Gerard laughed, in amazement, in a stunned kind of rapture at his own response. “You bastard…”

“I know…I should be ashamed of myself, but given the circumstances, I‘m not,” Kimble said. He kissed him quickly again then stood away from the bed for an instant. He whipped off his shirt to his t-shirt and finally shed that. He yanked off the belt from his slacks and finally pitched those away. He wasn‘t wearing anything else. And to Sam Gerard, that was a lovely thing indeed.

“Oh, Richard,” he said, shaking his head.

“I know, Sam. I know. If we’d started earlier, maybe there would have been enough time. But not now. Too much to do tomorrow.

Too much at stake. Not enough time. I’m a doctor, so I know you’ll get enough sleep… I mean, enough. To do what you have to. Besides, you’ll be amazed at how responsive you’ll be tomorrow. By the way, that’s the real reason coaches tell their players not to fuck…to frustrate their muscles into alertness…responsiveness….”

“I am already there,” Sam said, his soft voice hitching against the quiet.

“I know, Sam. But you know, to really fuck…to fuck like we both want to… we’d have to push the beds together and that might bother the guy across the hall. I mean, really. It would be very obvious. To Cosmo, I mean.” He smiled another hungry smile.

Sam chuckled like a warning sound. “When this is over, you have no idea how much serious, serious, seriously hard payback you got comin’, Dr. Kimble.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” Richard said. “Yes, I do. That’s what it’s all about, Sam. But then the longer it takes, the more fucking fantastic it’ll be when we get there.”

Gerard shook his head, laughing at everything…at all of it. “Oh, my God, Richard…my God…”

“You’re telling me. Now get to sleep…” Richard laid himself down like a lovely man knowing he was being observed. He gave him his last smile of the evening. “Good night, Sam. Like they say, sleep tight.“





It was past midnight before Sam could manage to relax. It was 12:30—born witness by a final glimpse of his desk clock—before he finally, mercifully fell asleep.

He awoke to blue-green eyes smiling fully into his. A soft, sweet breath like a memory on his face. Before Sam could move or speak, his lips were covered by a kiss. A searching, commanding, probing act that pried through his teeth with a restless tongue.

As Sam surged up out of half-sleep to respond, Richard simply moved away. Just walked off. He moved leisurely to his bed, poking through the first things in his suitcase…newly on his way into morning.

The moments summoned a smile of strangely irritable joy to the Deputy Marshal’s lips. “Oh, you again… I almost forgot about you.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

Well-known footsteps came purposefully up the hall. A knock rattled the half-open door.

“You ladies decent?” Renfro called in.

“Hell, no,” Sam said.

Renfro pushed into the room. “Good coz we got spotcheck already on us. I talked to the numbnuts at Bugtussel about the damned helipad problem yesterday.”

Richard grinned. “Dare I ask what the hell Bugtussel is…you guys have been talking about it since yesterday.”

Renfro gestured through some invisible diagram. “Bug-tussel, you know. From television—“

“No, no, I gleaned the cultural reference, I meant what is it to you guys?”

“Well, Camp Beau is Quantico, right?” Cosmo said. “Well, I guess Bugtussel is Central Receiving.”

“Okay, got it. Thanks.”

Cosmo flashed his big, friendly pretense of a grin. “No problem. You want I should tell you anything else you don’t know, Dr. Kimble, just ask. I probably won’t know it either, but we can always ask Biggs.”

“It’s Richard,” he said.

“Yeah, right, sorry, Richard.” He turned his focus back to the Chief. “I cleared the venue through the P.D. traffic brass so we won’t get traffic cops out there driving us nuts. They think it’s a Frisbee operation. Once we’re gone, they’ll probably be out there snortin‘ up the fuckin’ white line.”

“Renfro’s little riff on how beat cops often greatly admire the FBI,” Sam explained to relax Richard’s hiked eyebrow of curiosity.

Renfro tapped his watch. “Tempus est fugiting, Sammy.”

“Isn’t it always?”







Goal Post was the shuttered warehouse on Old Wheelwright Road only three blocks from the bivouacked safe house.

The dry run route had been taped to the sun visor on the generic stock performance sedan. Sam had yanked off the route paper, staring at it vaguely, as he walked one last circuit around the car for a final check.

“How many runners we got, Henry?”

“Two and two. Two block, two assist.”

“Check and check. Thanks. Go tell ‘em to get into place. Renfro, where you at?”

“Keep your skirt on, Sammy, I was calmin’ down Biggs,” Cosmo said, setting down a nearby car phone, borrowed off a runner. “He’s always nervous when the ‘rents leave him baby-sitting.”

“Bobby’s fine. You just like sayin’ ‘rents. You ready? I want to do this fast and flawless. We gonna raise dust as it is.”

“I’m ready.” Renfro yanked a pen from his pocket, unfolding his own copy of the route. “The scale is one-half city block in the run-through to one mile real. Twenty blocks—ten east of Old Wheelwright and ten west—nothing indicating the house directly. That’ll keep us situational to the hub, but distract any potential audience. I figure we got four routes to the goal. Old Wheelwright warehouse northside stands for Senate North where we are supposed to enter. The runners don’t know our possible directions…they’ll have to figure them out from the road maps and our actions. That’s the goal here—to see if we can evade and avoid on surface streets. One route gets blocked, we’re in trouble, two get blocked, we’re in big shit trouble, three get blocked—”

“We’re a big dead skunk on a bag of chips. I gotcha.” Sam called out to the others near him, “All right, places, gentlemen, lets make this look like we mean it coz we better or we’re dead.”

“Call the first maneuver, Sam,” Cosmo said, slamming his way into the passenger side as Gerard took his place at the wheel.

“We goin’ Alphabet to State, right?”

“Yeah, once we make the territory. There’s construction on the Dirksen to Hart areas. I’m thinking New Jersey over Constitution is way too big a wild card, with Union Station Plaza right there. And we gotta bring him from the northside, too. Obviously, we gonna have the hard fight farther from the goal, because there won’t be so much heat. If we’re goin’ Grant to Lee and you’re still plannin’ on usin’ your Spidey senses, I think we’re pretty much stuck with New London to White, and Maryland to Old Connecticut Boulevard. From the bolthole destination up the 66 to Memorial Bridge maybe. That‘s my solution anyway.”

“Yeah, looks like a good one. Okay, green light us. We goin’ Fake New London to Fake White Street. You buckled in?”

“What do you think, Marshal Leadfoot?”

“Still and all, you best hold on.”

Renfro held on and how, but the run-through didn’t give him enough time to so much as exhale.

Even at that, it lasted a lot longer than Cosmo thought it would. If it hadn’t been Sam in the ring, this circus would have gone tents up in fifteen minutes. With the big dog, it lasted every tick of twenty-three. Finally, the third alternate access was located and blocked. And Sam hit the brakes into a nasty, lock-up counterpoint skid. He left a lot of rubber behind.

“Well, shit!” Gerard slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, then spat out an additional string of expletives the likes of which Cosmo had never heard uttered by his senior Deputy and this was really, really, really saying something. “How’d they do that?”

“Are you shittin’ me? I’m stunned to my fuckin’ socks you lasted this long.”

Gerard looked at the first blocking car and behind at the second. He scouted all directions for a potential escape. His gaze, finding nothing, finally settled into a dark, hard stare at the man beside him.

“There’s a fourth, right?”

“Give it up, Sammy! You know better than that—you don’t take a course without an alternate.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you don’t. You don’t step on Superman’s cape, you don’t take candy from strangers, you don’t mess with Texas, and you don’t take a fuckin’ course without a fuckin’ alternate!”

“Well…maybe they did it wrong. Maybe they cheated. Was this hard gamin’? Did you tell ‘em to cheat?”

“Yeah, Sam, that’s right, you got me, I live to deceive you. Give me a break. Of course I didn’t. I’m on your team, remember?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” He groaned again. “I’m just… sore… I get riled up when you do this shit.”

“What shit did I supposedly do?”

“You know…make sense. I hate it when you do that. Yeah, okay, all right, you’re…right. We’ll take the original route.”

Cosmo supposed if his eyes were made of rubber they might well have bounced out of his face and rolled along several full feet before he could have remembered to retrieve them.

He grabbed at his chest—felt for the dash. “I’m dreamin’ this, right?”

“Naw, you’re not dreamin’ nothin’.” Kicking back the seat’s slider, Sam finally climbed from the car and slammed the door behind him.

Cosmo followed suit, staring over the top of the car as if his superior might spontaneously explode.

“So, tell me, Mr. Purple stripe,” Gerard said, quietly…disquieted. “What do you think we should do tomorrow?”

“Wait, wait, wait here. Sam Gerard is asking for my opinion? Ave Maria, it’s a miracle … I must testify to the world, my Mamme was right — Saint Vasilios answers prayers!”

“Yeah, yeah, Cosmo, that’s real funny, very clever. You see me laughin’? Now answer the question, goddamn it.”

Renfro laughed, at the very idea…at the very, very, very idea… but he savored the moment anyway.

“My recommendation? You know my recommendation. There ain’t no way around it—we gotta book it down the main damned highway. I-66 and onto the US 50. We don’t do that, we’re going to end up road kill in some Dairy Queen parking lot in the armpit of Southeast Baltimore. What kinda epitaph is that? We got cut off on all sides out there…and that’s just with our prowl game cars and they ain’t even tryin’ hard, Sammy.”

“Yeah, God forbid we end our days at a Dairy Queen…a fine and venerable American institution, I might add.”

“Yeah, whatever, they’re Scrumpdillyishhus, ya happy? Are we set now? We’re takin’ him the highway?”

Finally, Gerard nodded. “Yeah, yeah, we’re takin’ him the highway.”

“And we’re takin’ him, by the way. Plural, as in us, as in you and me, and not just the royal We. So don’t even think about ditchin’ yours truly at the altar.”

Gerard squinted at him suspiciously. “Richard talk to you?”

“No, Richard didn’t talk to me. Although I’ll definitely talk to him now to find out why you just asked. He didn’t have to talk to me. You think I’m not onto your shit by now, Sammy? Even with everything, I still know you better than anybody…even Dr. Richard Dimples. And since we brought up the Doc, there’s one other thing we gotta discuss.” Renfro looked around, seeing Henry now marking off the other game cars. Cosmo gave the third man the official kill sign, which meant they could all head into their original stations.

He dragged Sam by the arm to the sidewalk, to a deep-set area, beyond any hope of eyes or ears.

“What’s with all this?” Sam asked.

“It’s this… it’s just this… I want you to listen a minute more. This is private, between old friends stuff. I know you’re in love big-time. I know it’s with Richard Kimble. A dumb Jersey boy I ain’t. Hell, I even put in a good word for you with the Doc. But it’s spilling into work now, Sam…it’s spilling into work. The last two days, you been talkin’ crazy…like I never heard you talk before.”

“Cosmo—”

“No, you hear me out. You owe me that. I always been your second in command. You sneeze, I cough… you trip, I fall. It’s been that way since we started. But you almost got me killed on our last little Kimble excursion. I ain’t givin’ you a second shot at my swan song, Sammy. I don’t owe you my life. But I’m not letting you head off to play Suicide Solo either. Get your fuckin’ brain workin’, Gerard. I mean it. You’re the best Marshal I ever worked with so I know that you know what I’m sayin’ is true.”

Gerard looked upward at an unrelenting sun. Finally, he looked down…he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know it.”

“Saint Vasilios, you are the man! All right, I feel like I’m in the zone here, so I’m takin’ a chance, I’m takin’ a big chance—now I have come to know way more about male/male intimacy than I ever thought I would…believe me. The little I do know shows me that—gay or not—you need to go and get laid, Samuel. You are tighter than a thoroughbred stallion put out to stud—“

“Cosmo, don’t… Texan sayings just sound silly comin’ outta you.”

“Okay, call it whatever you like. You need it. Whatever you want to do to the Doc…and please, mou theos, don’t tell me… you go and do. With my blessings because you really, really need that, Sam. Really and really. If you don’t, I’m liable to choke you senseless with my bare hands around your stupid cracker throat.”

Again, Gerard nodded. “Okay, okay. And while we’re on the subject of sex and all, I must say it’s somewhat sad to have your easy blessings, Cosmo.”

Renfro focused again, knowingly, guardedly. “Yeah? Why?”

“Well, being as how you and I pined after each other all those years, it’s hurtful to have you move on so easily—“

“Yuck! Stop that!” Cosmo said, clamping his hands over his ears. He looked like he’d been cattle-prodded with a high shock ratio. “My fuckin’ ears! Get back in the car, Sam.”

He grinned. “I thought we were talkin’ about sex.”

“Get in the car!” Renfro said, kicking the door open wider for him, while he kept his hands clamped over his ears. He hurried to the driver’s side. “Then I gotta find a bottle brush to clean out my filthy frickin’ head.”





“This man is depraved,” Renfro said, pointing to Sam, as the two walked back into the ops room to find Biggs shuffling paper. Behind him, in a chair, Kimble was reading something big and weighty…some tome from a shelf Gerard had seen there earlier.

“You just findin’ that out?” Sam said, squinting as Renfro walked out of the room, muttering under his breath.

Bobby nodded in Renfro’s wake. “What’s up with him? Time of the month?”

Gerard shrugged. “You got me. He’s been actin’ hinky all day.”

“Ha…ha,” Biggs said, with a well-aimed sneer. “Well, nothing is happening here. A couple of hang-ups on the line. Probably wrong numbers. Rich has been reading. I’ve been looking over the logs.”

Sam nodded. “For the record, tomorrow, we’re takin’ Cosmo’s route on the highway. I think it makes the most sense.” He moved his attention once over to Kimble. “Especially seeing as how I’m being ganged up on.”

“You’re paranoid,” Richard said, still reading, but half of his mouth curving up into a grin.

“You just findin’ that out?” Bobby said over his shoulder. He pointed toward the hallway to indicate his next destination. “Gervaise wants me to help inventory the stock for tomorrow.”

“Which reminds me,” Sam said, turning toward him fully before the other man might leave. “We got some A.P.I. and M82s in the rack munitions?”

“Some…I think,” Biggs said, laughing. “We takin’ on the Navy Seals or somethin’?”

On Sam’s face, there was not even the suggestion of a smile. “Better make sure they’re in the array. Just in case. Oughta see if we can scare up a couple of bullpups in case, too.”

“Wait. You are serious?” There was a hard, hovering silence from the other man. “You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me, right…?”

“Do I appear to be?” Sam asked, yanking a spiral binder from on top the ops action desk. He opened it, signed it, spun it back around again. “We don’t know what we’re fightin’ tomorrow, Bobby. I sure as shit don’t want us fightin’ it with one hand tied behind our back.”

He nodded raggedly. “Hell, no. I just hate the idea…”

“You think I don’t?” Sam said. “But anybody goes down, it’s not gonna be one of our guys, it’s gonna be one of theirs, no matter who they are.”

“But for Christssakes….Sam…”

“Let that be my sleepless night. You’re just carrying the big dog’s spears. Vaya…Ayuna, Roberto. Pronto.”

“Yeah, okay, I‘m leavin,” Biggs said, making his way out the door.

This time, Kimble put the book all the way down. “Dare I ask what that was all about?”

“You can ask.”

“Would you tell me?”

Gerard groaned a little, pushing back in his chair. He balanced the heel of his boot on the edge of the desk before him. “I’ll tell ya. No reason not to. I told Biggs to put some armor piercing bullets in our ammo for tomorrow. Just in case we have interagency involvement, which means we might have combatants with self-loading guns and body armor.”

“God,” Richard said, seeming paler by the moment. “This is all becoming very real.”

“It is very real. But by this time tomorrow, it’ll also be very over. We got a pretty good chance nothin’ at all will happen.”

“But you don’t think that’s likely…” Kimble said, not a question, but a statement of fact.

“No, Rich, I don’t,” he said. “They came after you one time. They’ll go for you again. This time, thank God, we have warning.”

“This time, thank God, I have you,” Richard said simply, this time with no attempt to mask his meaning.

Sam grinned as broadly as he could manage given the circumstances. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Something…anything…to keep from talking about soccer…or football…or hockey...”

“That is an occupational hazard with Bobby, yes.” Gerard smiled a little more than usual. “Speakin‘ of my team, my Assistant Chief Renfro has given me orders for later this evening. These involve your active participation.”

“You don’t say,” Kimble said.

“I do say.”

“Why in hell do I always fuckin’ walk in at the worst possible fuckin’ moment?” Cosmo said, having heard the last snippets of conversation and therefore sending the remainder of his attention up a wall and into a ceiling light fixture.

“A mystery I have pondered for years,” Sam said. “Turn around, Cosmo. It ain’t gonna bite ya. Whaddya got?”

“Look what the cat dragged in while we were out playin’ Batman and Robin,” Cosmo said, showing him the page. “Bugtussel got a hit on the name you gave me. The one Dr. Kimble gave you. It’s a phonetic variant, since we just wild-ass guessed at the spelling. Doc, if you could scribble down the right one, we’d appreciate it. Then we’ll check our work.”

Kimble reached for a pen from the ops action desk. He jotted the information down, handing the memo to Cosmo.

Renfro squinted at the writing, clearly impressed. “Yeah, that’s the spelling. I thought you guys were supposed to write bad… That’s clear as fuckin’ day.”

“Yeah,” Richard said, “and I hate golf, too.”

“Gonna run that across CRISS Desk,” Sam said, taking back the paper. He considered it, his face intense with thought. “Cosmo, you hang with Rich for a bit?”

Cosmo shrugged. “Sure. I don’t mind sittin’ one out.”

“Sam?” Kimble said…a simple word spoken as a complicated question.

Gerard nodded, smiled. “Everything’s fine. Let Cosmo tell you more bullshit stories about me. Although, for the record, I now understand I do that at my own peril. You two gangin’ up on me can’t ever be a good thing where I’m concerned.”

Richard laughed. “You’re just finding that out?”

Richard’s gaze followed after Sam, until he had moved from the room and the hall and the space before him.

“He’ll be back, Doc,” Renfro said.

Kimble nodded. “I know.”

“He thinks I talked to you, though I told him I didn’t, even though I did, given the circumstances.”

“I’m sure he’d have figured that out regardless.”

“Maybe.”

“He’s a very…headstrong man.”

“He better be, in his cowboy boots.” Renfro laughed aloud. “You ever really known a Texan before?”

“Nope. I think Sam’s my first.”

“Driest sense of humor on the planet, I don’t care what anybody says. I paid for three months of therapy before I figured out he was mainly jokin’ when he was cutting me dead all the time.”

“So how did a Jersey native cross paths with a Texan?”

“I was headquartered down at Houston for a time…great city, warm and friendly people, but my year in hell…FYI. 100 degrees, 80% humidity and nobody’s allowed to complain. You do and they bring up how some great figure of history once lived through one hell of a lot worse and he did it with Malaria or some shit and he didn’t complain, like this should have some meaning to you.”

Kimble nodded. “I know. I’ve been there.”

“That’s when Sam and I teamed up…back before the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, right? Our first case, we were after a repeater—a multiple murderer— and the bastard was a peckerwood homeboy. So he knew the lay of the land and he thought we didn’t. We chased the little shithead all the way till he jumped into the Kieran River… very fast water—very deep and dangerous with chigger bugs as big as your fuckin’ fist. Professional divers told us no way, Jose, were they goin’ in after him. The Indian name for that river means Water That Makes You Dead. Like we’d take their word on anything—I mean they only been here fifty thousand years, right? But guess what Sam Gerard did?”

“Dove in after him,” Kimble said, without a doubt in his voice.

“You got it. But he dove in two feet deeper than the perp did! He came up the other side, collared the bastard and dragged him back to the shore easy as you please, like he was some naughty kitten on a night raid. Sam was all leeches and chigger bugs from his hair to his heels—green pond mud from his toes to his teeth, too. I said, Gerard, the drop net would’ve bagged him. He wasn’t goin’ far. We coulda nailed him down stream. Why the fuck did you do that? Sam says, I did it just to show the little bastard that the good guy could do it better. Now that’s a Texan.”

Kimble’s laugh moved into a gentler expression, revealing the reason for the questions. “You care a lot about Sam, don’t you?”

“Yeah…sure. Why?”

“It just seems like a lot of your happier memories are around him.”

Renfro visibly, physically withdrew from his openness…his easy, uncompromised warmth. “I’m supposed to entertain you, right? Sam stories are the best entertainment in this…situation.” Renfro stood up out of the chair. He went to the window, to check through the blinds across the yard. “You shouldn’t read so much into it, Doc. It’s just, you know, me talkin’. Ask Sam, I talk a lot.”

“I wasn’t reading anything into it.”

“Kinda sounded like you were.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t. I just hope, you know, you’re…okay…with everything. You’re obviously important to Sam. You’ve become pretty important in my life, too. It matters to me that you’re happy with all of this…with Sam and me.”

“Happy with what?” Cosmo said. “Of course I’m happy with it. Why wouldn’t I be? None of my business.”

Kimble smiled a little to try another approach. “I was wondering. This is a little thing maybe, but I find it odd. Why is it you never call me by my first name? The others all do. I had thought we were friends now, even more than I am with the rest of the team, but so far with you it’s either Doc or even Doctor Kimble.”

“It’s a sign of respect,” he said, as if that should be obvious. “I was the youngest of fourteen kids. I had respect drummed into me early.”

“And at first, I appreciated it. But we’re friends now, I thought. I’d rather have it Cosmo and Richard, if that’s okay with you.”

He shrugged easily, quickly, as if wanting as much as anything to move around the topic. Up came the humor shield. “Yeah, why don’t you be Richard, I’ll be Cosmo, how’s that sound?”

Renfro stopped his words at the sight of Sam Gerard at the door. The other man stared forward, unseeing. The look on Gerard’s face switched Cosmo into business mode fast.

“We just found a little magpie. A magpie named Adam,” Sam said, shaking his head. The anger was clear and vibrant and filling in the shadows of his face. “Cosmo, you and I are gonna pay him a visit at his workplace. We gonna have us what they used to call a little hoodah party.”

“Where does he work?” Richard said, loudly, scaling a wall of sound before either man could leave.

Sam tendered him a sympathetic smile. “At a little place called the Food and Drug Administration.”







Gerard hadn’t really known what to expect…or more precisely, who to expect…until the angry little monkey scampered into his endless maze of cubicles, his pink cheeks puffed out with some mild bother at the moment. He was scowling at a message card in his hand.

“Mr….Gerard?” Carylon said, as if Sam’s last name were somehow French…as in Monsieur Depardieu. No matter the obvious was the English pronunciation…never mind that…no, let’s flaunt our effete pretentiousness. More probably, Carylon was trying to behave as though he didn’t know who Sam was.

Sam would’ve surely hated him then, if he hadn’t hated him already.

This boy had fallen a long, long way if Richard Kimble had once found something worthy in him…and had kept his secret for so many years.

“It’s Jahrard…Deputy Marshal Gerard,” Sam said, standing up with Cosmo. “This is Deputy Marshal Renfro. We’re on special assignment with Special Operations Group, Office of District Affairs, U.S. Marshal’s Office. We’ll need to speak with you in private.”

Carylon leaned his head back a little, as if to study Sam. “You did something big. You were, like, on the news or something, right? I mean, I know you…know your face.”

Cosmo grinned with all its secret meaning. “You probably remember us from coverage of the Richard Kimble case. I imagine you’ll remember his name.” Renfro thumbed in the direction of the hall “Mr. Carylon, we really should take this somewhere private, dontcha think?”

Somewhere private was some little Food and Drug meeting room—a former storage closet transformed into a conference room with a long table and a few chairs shoved in at the sides. That was the way of progress in Bureaucrat Land…as Sam Gerard himself knew too well.

INTER-FADA read an intercom system on the table.

Bet they thought that was right clever, he reflected with a scowl in its general direction. He turned around to see Carylon sinking quickly into a chair. His face had gone from puckish annoyance to mild concern to what was now a clear and present state of panic.

“What is this…about?”

Sam looked him squarely in the eye—no defeat, no surrender, no prisoners. “Why don’t you tell us, Mr. Carylon?”

“I haven’t a clue what you—“

“Richard Kimble,” Sam said, wielding the name like a weapon as he broke through a sputtering trail of protest, “is going to testify tomorrow before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services regarding the FDA Drug Approval process for Provasic. Did you know that?”

“Yes, I think I’d heard—“

“You’d heard?” Sam said, walking the length of the room, from a space near the door they had entered, to a window on the other side of this man. Gerard had four inches on him easily, and he used every one. “So it’s just some big coincidence that you…somebody Richard used to know…should turn up workin’ at the Food and Drug right about the same time? And it’s just a big coincidence you knew Charles Nichols, too? And all the threats Richard has been getting…all of that, all of that together…all a big damned coincidence, huh?”

“Yes,” Carylon said, trying on a casual laugh with his current posture, “I would have to say it was. “

“And I would have to say you’re a piss poor liar, Mr. Carylon. I don’t like coincidences. I don’t believe in ‘em much either.”

“Excuse me?” Carylon said, looking Sam up and down. “Who are you to come in here and talk to me this way? Some Oakie redneck with a Federal badge?”

Gerard said carefully, evenly, and fully in the other man’s face. “I am all that stands between a good man and a whole lot of high test white trash wanting to stop him from telling his story. Now you can determine for yourself the extent of your personal involvement in what goes on from here. If you ever were a friend of Richard’s you can do the honorable thing and help us protect him. You might be the only persona rodentia we’ve caught in our legal traps. You don’t help us, we may not rat catch anymore. That means, somethin’ happens to Richard, I’m comin’ after you and you alone. I advise you to start talking in order to share the wealth around, my man. Hear me?”

Carylon’s thoughts were obviously racing…assessing…considering. He steepled his fingers against a darkly paneled wall beside him, as if he was spiderlike vying for some slender sense of balance and control.

“I don’t know much,” he said weakly.

“Tell us what you do know.”

“Just…” he made a small, despairing, helpless gesture. “You have to realize, I didn’t do this out of spite. I have no problem with Richard. Nichols smoked me out. I didn’t even know him. He knew me. I don’t even know how he knew me other than the fact I owed money to…people…”

“Bingo,” Renfro said, from Gerard’s side.

Sam nodded toward him. “You a horse better or a poker man?”

“Horses. If I played poker, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“If you played poker well, you wouldn’t be in this mess, no,” Sam said. “All right, you’re playing the game a lot better now. Give us names and places and we’ll make sure you’re treated well.”

“I don’t know a lot of names! There are other people… other places. I’m not really sure who or where. Believe me, if I knew, I’d tell you.”

“I reckon you should cough up what you do know.”

“Gus…this guy named Gus. At least, they say that’s his name. He calls himself that.”

“Gus?” Sam said, hard, as if it meant something. He yanked a pad of paper out of his pocket, opening it and finding the pen in what amounted to one sustained movement. “You sure they said Gus?”

“Yeah, hard to mistake that for anything else.”

“How and when did this Gus make contact?”

“Electronic mail at first, then phone calls. It started way before Helen Kimble died. Gus asked me to do certain things…help things along here. They alleviated parts of my debt in exchange…you know, so I wouldn’t get my legs broken.”

“What kind of voice?”

“Basic white male voice. American accent. West coast… maybe. I don’t remember anything distinctive. I thought that was it until the other day when I got another call. Out of the blue. Somebody needed to know the stats on the Provasic hearings. We’re sending people, so we had that information. Date, time, witnesses, entrance points.”

Sam looked up from his jotting. “You give it to ‘em?”

Carylon looked away, shrugged a little. “Yeah, I gave it to them.”

“You’ll need to give it to us then. Everything.”

He shrugged again, more certain this time. “Of course. Sure. Whatever.” Carylon yanked a card out of his jacket pocket, he handed it to Gerard. “I was just doing up the staff indexes for tomorrow. For our official witnesses.”

“You gonna be one of ‘em?”

“No. I’m just an office flack.”

Reading the card, Gerard grimaced a little, looking aside to Renfro. “They know we’re bringin’ him in North Side.”

“Hey, Boss, I know!“ Renfro said. “What say we bring him in an hour later on the South Side, right? Just change the parameters. Just a matter of callin’ ahead to the Senate Sub-Committee. Hey, that was easy. Thanks, Adam.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m right glad we came over here,” Sam said, smiling largely. He extended a hand with his card to Carylon. “We do thank you for your continued assistance. You think of anything else, we’d be pleased to have you call us.”

“I will,” Carylon said, looking decidedly relieved.

As Renfro let the Federal logo inscribed glass door swing fully closed behind them, he surreptitiously watched Carylon make a hurried path to a phone.

“That little son of a bitch,” Cosmo said knowingly. “Jesus, I love it when you Hillbilly Homeboy these bastards.”

“Yeah, well you gave me the set-up,” Sam said, tucking his notepad away. “He takin’ the bait?”

“Like a hound on a hickory stick.”

Gerard bit his lip on the way to his tongue. “No Texan sayings, Cosmo, remember?” He shook his head. “We got a damn bigger problem, though. Our friend Gus.”

“What about him?”

“Not a him…but an It. G—U—S,” Sam said sharply, darkly. “There’s a GUS Command, based at Quantico. Government of the United States.”

“Holy Mary,” Renfro said, his mouth gaping open at the impact. “Fuckin’ Military Intelligence?”

“Welcome to the new gold standard, Mr. Renfro.”

“Sammy… what the hell are we gonna do?”

“Same thing we were gonna do before… Just a lot more of it… We are gonna worry.”



The garage door closed behind them. Before Sam could even leave the car, the door from the house had opened. Richard was stepping down to the garage floor, looking, waiting.

“Anything?” Richard said, when Sam could hear him.

“Not a lot. Adam said it wasn’t personal. He’s a flunky with a bookie debt, like Cosmo figured. We may have planted something with him, though. Why you here alone? Where’s Biggs?”

“He got away from me, Sam,” Bobby said, coming up behind him from the house.

“Yeah,” Gerard said, slamming his car door. “He has a habit of doin’ that. All right, since everybody’s here, lets sort out the stocks. Bobby, you check into the A.P.I.’s?”

“We’ve got more than enough,” he said. “Unless we’re really fighting the fuckin’ Navy Seals. It’s all on loads for the morning.”

“Good, because we may need it all.” Sam moved over to a shiny black trunk turned upward and pushed to the side. He whipped out a key from his pocket, opened its series of locks. He yanked out the first flakpak and passed it over to Richard. “This is to introduce you, Dr. Kimble, to the low, low fashion which is known as Kevlar compounded full torso body armor. You will put it on…you will put it all on. It is uncomfortable, it will ride up on you like a Scotch taped bunny tail in the middle of July, and it will itch like five full days of poison sumac with no hope of calamine lotion, but it’ll keep you alive should a bullet hit most regions of your body. You’ll be sore as you ever thought you could be, but you’ll be breathin’.”

“Yes, Master,” Richard said, grinning.

“Hey,” Renfro said tersely. “He’s catchin’ on good now.”

Sam chucked two more of them to Renfro and Biggs, passing along two more for the unseen others to Bobby who immediately turned to take them into the house and on to their destinations. Sam moved to lock up the trunk again.

“Hey,” Kimble said. “So where’s yours?”

“Where’s my what?”

“Your body armor, Chief Deputy Marshal,” Richard said. “I don’t see you holding any.”

“I got some. I hate to carry that stuff around.”

“Grab some now.”

“I will—“

“Now.”

Gerard looked to the ceiling. “Okay…okay…okay. Jesus. But see it’s like this, Richard. I once was aboard the Indianapolis? 1100 men went into the water, only 316 came out. And I swore right then and there I’d never put on a bullet proof vest again—“

“One more time, Sammy,” Cosmo said, coming a moment between them. “That was a movie called Jaws. This is a little thing we call Life. Those were life vests. These are bullet proof vests. They ain’t even similar. Now do what the Doc says before I shoot ya myself.”

“Thanks for straightening me out on that, Cosmo.”

“Yeah, sure,” Renfro said, moving around them, “It is my perpetual pleasure …”

Kimble pointed to the storage device in question. “Get it, Sam. Now.”

Gerard groaned, but finally reopened the trunk with a quick snap of key, and yanked out another. “All right, all right. As Cosmo knows, I got another in my room, but if it makes you happy, it makes me happy.”

“It does.”

Renfro responded behind them with a snorting laugh. “Gerard, you are so fuckin’ married.”

“Thank you, Cosmo,” he said, smirking.

“Yeah, well you ain’t even welcome.”

Renfro turned and walked away, much too abruptly.

Kimble looked to Gerard for an answer, Sam only shrugged. He nodded Richard toward the house.

“Give us a minute, Rich?”

“Sure, sure… is he okay?”

“That’s what I aim to see.”

Richard nodded and moved back into the house, closing the door behind him.

Gerard walked up to a point just beyond him… this good man…this good friend…a better friend, he’d never had; his second in command. He knew better than to try the direct route. On the way to Cosmo Renfro that was always the slowest avenue of approach. Renfro had been raised in a Hoboken Greek and Irish neighborhood where every male over thirteen years had a ten foot horizontal invisible circumference around where they were standing—one that could only slowly and with great caution be approached.

Instead Sam leaned up against the car where Cosmo was standing. The other man was dutifully noting mileage off the odometer.

Gerard cleared his throat, crossed his arms semi-casually. “How come you look like you’re pretty punk about somethin’…”

“Because I am,” Cosmo said, his voice almost lost to the quiet. “I’m fuckin’ scared. Aren’t you?”

“Hell, yeah. But we been scared before.”

“Yeah...? I ain’t never been this scared before.”

“And you know the offer still stands to let you sit this out…”

“And you know better than to ask me about it again, so shut the fuck up about it.” Renfro signed off the books, flipped the folder up to the dash of the car, and then slammed its still open door. He locked it with the slam.

Cosmo shoved a notepad back into his pocket. He looked up as if half-hoping that Sam had somehow vanished into thick air. “What?”

Sam shrugged. “I was just thinkin’… rememberin’… Remember that serial killer from Orleans? Thirty-eight kills, all of ‘em kids?”

“Naw, I forget every Marshal action that almost makes me piss myself.”

Gerard tried a smile. “Well, when he made for the Sharon Caves, who had to drag him out of there with nary a flashlight between us? We both shook so hard afterwards, the car damn near rattled to pieces. But we survived. And we brought him to justice. Those were some good times, huh?”

“Yeah. We were young then.”

“Yes, but we’re better now. Why don’t you go on inside…call Mari and the kids? Take the rest of the evening. Everything is staged. There’s not a whole lot left to do.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Renfro said, in a kind of empty voice, turning to make his way to the door. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Not a complaint? Not a single rebuff? Not a well-aimed acerbic Cosmo Renfro retort? He couldn’t be that scared.

Sam started to move along with the other man before ending the pursuit after several steps. He stepped up to block the other man’s progress. “Cosmo…”

Renfro stopped, waited, groaned to himself. “Sam, I told you, I’m fuckin’ fine already. Go play baby-sweetie-nice-nice with Richard. Lay off me!”

“Yeah, sure, I will. I will the minute you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I told you—“

“You didn’t tell me shit. You tell me somethin’ that makes sense.”

“Nothin’. I’m just… I got somethin’ in my head, okay? I don’t even know what the fuck it— It’s nothing… Nothing… Okay? Now leave me the hell alone.”

He moved around Sam, to the door and on into the house.

The pursuit didn’t end until Sam made it end— at the door to the bedrooms when Cosmo tried to go left into his and Sam pushed him toward a hard right. Sam pushed him into the room Gerard shared with Richard. Sam half-closed the door, leaving it ajar. He had Cosmo summarily cornered.

“What is this?” Sam said. “You gonna go off to your room now and sulk like a moony rookie with a crush? You and I talk to each other.”

Renfro turned around, with a whole lot more on his lips than he let himself say. He caught it all back through an inner battle. Slowly, he turned a tight circle, and stared into a far corner for a moment or two of composure.

“No, no, we don’t, Boss… “ he said, almost sadly. “You and I yell at each other. But I don’t want you holdin’ my hand. I’m not Biggs, I’m not Newman. I don’t ask for your help. I don’t even know what the problem is… but I’ll sort it out. Just gimme some fuckin’ room…like my own room for instance… okay?”

When Renfro tried to move around him again, Sam grabbed a passing shoulder until the other man stopped. “Cosmo… You know you’re my best friend, dontcha?”

Renfro snapped back from the touch…as if his old friend’s hand bore an electric charge. “Jesus! You breathin’ paint fumes or somethin’? You and I don’t say this shit to each other. We snipe at and insult each other. You got all touchy-feely and shit lately. You fall in love, you get stupid. Jesus.”

The unseen third party in the room gathered up from a distant corner. “Everything okay?” It was Kimble.

Renfro grabbed the door open. “Hell, talk about being ganged up on. Listen, Doc, you deal with him, will ya? He’s a one-man glucose tolerance test tonight. At least I won’t have to worry about his sorry freakin’ ass when he’s with you. And please don’t let him near me till he’s nice and normal and nasty again.”

Renfro walked around them both, toward the door again, but then stopped, nearly out of the room. He pushed his hand at empty air, as if in debate with an unseen opponent that was giving him a direct order. “All right, all right, all right. Sam?”

“I’m standin’ here. I hardly had time to go anywhere yet.”

Cosmo sucked up an audible breath, which he breathed out just as noticeably. “Okay, I should say it, too. I know I should say it, too. I get lectures about my reciprocity problem from Mari every fifteen fuckin’ minutes at home. I don’t need ‘em at work, too. Okay… You’re my…friend, too. There…I said it.”

Sam allowed a momentary pause to slip past. “I said best friend. You yellowed on the best part.”

“It’s true, I heard it,” Richard added, nodded.

Cosmo flipped a terse look at Richard, then one back at Sam. “Well, Mari’s my best friend.”

“Well, put like that, Richard’s mine, too. I never heard about a rule that says you can’t have more than one.”

Renfro’s gaze wrestled with the possibilities. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, okay, you’re my bestest friend. Are you happy? Can I go to my own room now?”

“Naw. Not yet. First, I think you could use a good kiss.” Sam looked to Richard. “That’s from a movie, too.”

“Very funny,” Renfro said, shaking his head as the end of the sentence before leaving the room behind. “Now I’m gonna go the fuck away before I puke on myself or somethin’.”

He closed the door behind him with a determined thud.

Gerard was shaking his head with a smirk as he turned around, but Richard’s expression in return was gentler and more tender.

“You do know,” Richard said, “that he’s jealous, right?”

“Jealous?” he said. “Jealous of what?”

“Jealous of us… the two of us… where you’re concerned.”

“Cosmo? Naw!” Gerard said, laughing at the very idea. “A couple weeks back he got his Marshal Command colors. Today I let him make a field decision. I think he sees it like a pass-or-fail test on his leadership skills. He’s running himself pretty hard about it. That’s all.”

“I know if I’d had a close friend for a lot of years and suddenly there was someone in his life I thought to be more important to him than me, I think I’d feel left out. Platonic or not platonic…”

Gerard considered it further. With every thought, his face softened a little more to the prospect. “Well…maybe. I can’t ask him directly though. I try for a heart-to-heart, he’d buck me off like a bad birthday pony. You saw what happened just then.”

Kimble paused a moment. “You want me to talk to him?”

Gerard thought…nodded. “Yeah…maybe… Later…” He looked around toward Richard. “I tell ya, seems like every-body in my life is full of surprises this week.”

“Good ones, I hope.”

He nodded. “The best.”

“Which reminds me,” Richard said, his voice curling into a purr at Sam’s side. His hands pinched the gravity axis points behind the other man’s shoulders, and then yanked his shirt out then over his head. “You going to be easier to handle tonight?”

Sam grinned at his own secrets. “Dr. Kimble, I am never easy to handle.“

“We need no U.S. Marshal to tell us this,” Richard said, his finger drawing an invisible circle on the bare chest over Sam’s heart. “How was your response time in the field today?”

“Just fine, Coach. Like you said. It took me until nearly 1 AM to get any sleep, though, after you about drove me to the edge of sanity and back. Something I’m not anxious to try again.”

“As if you have a choice?”

“Oh, Richard, I have every choice in the world.” He walked toward him, backing the other man slowly against a wall. “To think I was gonna go easy on you, on account of your being straight all those years and since you hadn’t had a man on you in awhile. Well, you blew that mercy all to hell and back last night.”

Kimble had complied conditionally with the backward movement, but his smile hadn’t flickered for an instant. “I’ll bet.”

Sam Gerard could only laugh. “There I was, almost two years ago, standin’ above that spillway teetering over that dam. Hell, it scared shit outta me just standing near it. When I saw you, rather than be taken in, jump…off…that…goddamned…dam… I said, Samuel Houston Gerard, if Richard Kimble doesn’t like to have sex with men, there just isn’t a god.”

“I certainly hope my revelation doesn’t trigger some religious conversion.”

“Not likely no, except where you’re concerned,” Sam said. “But I had no idea…not even then. Not even when I looked into your eyes…. So help me, not even then did I know.”

Richard’s eyes lit up like a thousand crystalline light metaphors Sam reached for yet found nothing to fit them.

“Sam, you’d better follow that up with a kiss or I’ll be forced to take action.”

“Maybe I just won’t do it, as revenge for last night,” Sam said.

“Maybe,” Kimble said, moistening his lips, “you’ll try not to.”

Sam strode three full times forward, his fingers pushing their way into Richard’s hair, to interlace behind the other man’s head and make certain there was nowhere for the man to move, not that Richard tried. Their mouths met in the middle.

Kimble opened his lips to the incursion. What had last night been a mischievous flirtation was now a warm, inviting welcome. Richard’s response never hesitated—seemed destined to draw on, appeared likely to continue…

Sam dragged their lips apart, forcing himself to step away. He was lecturing himself from within. “You’re gonna get me going again then shut it off, so I think for the moment I’ll cool it myself.”

Richard gave him a lazy, taunting smile. “It doesn’t make sense that I’d stop now, Sam.”

“The hell it doesn‘t.”

“No, really, think. I was the one who dragged your shirt off. You didn’t hesitate. A moment ago, I didn’t resist the kiss, did I? And the reason I gave for last night was that we started too late. If you’ll check the clock, you’ll see we have plenty of time.“

“Who was it who said, a single love-making session can go on for days…weeks even?”

“I said it can go on, not that ours would. In fact, you’ll recall I said carpe momentum—grab the moment. What other moment is there than now? Think—it makes sense that I’d go through with it. That I’d do what I was teasing you with last night. And you’ve been given permission, right?”

“And maybe I’ll end up like Charlie Brown on his back in the football field. You know, the hero or the goat?” Sam said, pacing up, still eyeing him with suspicions.

“The first time ever I’ve been compared to Lucy van Pelt. Maybe, in this case, the doctor isn‘t in.”

“And maybe you just want me to play rough. Maybe I should give you what you want.”

“Ah, but you might not have to,” Richard said, closing the distance between them again.

His hand didn’t hesitate for a moment, reaching straight for the tight denim fly. Instead of rubbing over surface, Richard’s fingers slipped down the zipper. His finger tips brushed rumors over the fabric of Sam’s briefs, troubling at the hard, knotted heat within. “Oooh,” Richard said, “now that’s progress… We actually have your zipper open…”

“I am still unconvinced,” Sam said, gritting his teeth against the response from his body.

“No fair fighting it. Besides you never know,” Richard said sharply, reaching the other hand to one thigh muscle then the second, to demand their compliance. He moistened his lips. “Maybe I’m going to give you everything you want…”

“And maybe you’re just driving me crazy again.”

“You pays your money, you takes your chance. So sit down, Sam. Sit down on the edge of the bed…and receive what I’m going to give you…whatever it is.” He urged Sam’s shoulders down and eased him back against the bed. “You know you want every second of it…whatever it is.”

“Just like I know you got serious payback coming, Richard, when the time comes.”

Kimble’s lips conquered a nipple, his hand sweeping down over chest and belly muscles that contorted at his touch. It tore a groan from the other man, causing Richard to slip his hand into denim and white cotton and drag it all away… a wild, hungry movement that would have knocked Sam back if he hadn’t been sprawled across his bed already.

Before Gerard could move, his own personal fury named Richard wrapped himself around him, preventing his escape.

Richard grasped the hard reality of Sam’s erection in his own studied hand…. a shy flirtation of fingertips followed by a first earnest tug. The reaction was vivid—immediate.

Sam’s whole body arched upward at the prospect…at the promise.

Richard’s tongue wove a moist path to Sam’s cock, licking around, kissing across, chewing a moment at hard tufts of hair, finally sweeping down thigh and up into his nutsack to goad teasingly. Richard sucked tenderly at one side, then the other, then doggedly…leisurely…licked up the length of Sam’s shaft.

“What do you think, Sam?” Richard murmured against his sought-after goal…this blood-pumped muscle miracle. “Think I’ll go through with it this time?”

“Does it matter what I think?” he moaned hard, his lungs as tight as the rest of his body.

Richard whispered. “Sam, you’re catching on. I know you too well. You don’t think I’m going to… you think I’ll stop, so you’re fighting me… Your cock should be throbbing by now.”

The words had pulled past a first layer of reserve and Sam showed signs of surrender.

“You seem awfully sure of myself.”

“About this, I am.”

Richard wrapped his careful hands around Sam’s now pulsing penis, speaking to each inch of it…to each fiber of it…in one way or another. His palms wove three kinds of muscular rotations folded into one caress that immediately flooded his lover’s penis with a new and almost certainly pleasantly excruciating rush of blood. His tongue lapped anxiously at the moisture glistening on the glans cleft. He lapped again every where he felt a reaction.

The pleasure torn out of Sam was loud and gut-wrenched and unlike any sound Richard had ever heard fly from the other man’s lips. It was a sound in the shape of his name.

“Richard…please…” Sam pleaded…for what surely must have been the first time he had ever begged anyone for anything.

“What do you think, Sam?” Richard said, his voice sunk into a velvet depth. “Will I make you cum? Will I suck you off? Will I do it?”

Richard’s tongue once more sweetly bothered the whole of it, from head to scrotum.

“No,” Sam groaned, shaking his head against the screaming going on through his body. “You son of a bitch, I don’t think you will… I think you’re going to leave me like last night…”

Richard chuckled with a low bit of mischief. He pressed something cool against Sam‘s open thigh. “Not even when I’m going to prepare you for something extra,” he asked, squeezing sticky wetness across the skin—a wetness through which he swept his fingers. “I’m going awfully far to turn back now.”

“That’s the whole—fucking—idea,” Sam gasped out, gulping air, coughing the words.

“You think?” Richard whispered, running his slick hand down over Sam’s scrotum and up to his ass. He probed the slickened finger tenderly…indelicately…into place up the other man’s ass. “But this seems so promising…”

“I don’t fucking care,” Sam said.

“But you do…your whole body wants it… You want it so bad you’re fucking shaking. So tell me what you think, Sam. Am I going to give you what you need so badly?”

“No… you’ll stop… you’ll fucking stop…”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Really sure?”

“Yes!”

Richard‘s soft, aroused chuckle was a taunting, sweet and terrible sound. Before his lips and mouth and throat engulfed Sam‘s cock, he whispered, “You’re wrong.”

He had never wanted anything this badly in his life… not on bad nights or on good… Not when on the edge of a win or a loss… Nothing had been craved this much… needed this much… He wanted this moment more than he wanted to breathe again.

Sam Gerard flexed like one extended muscle unfolding into tangible bliss.

“That’s how much I love you, Sam,” Richard whispered to him, as it struck.

It was a long climb out of a fight for thought. A long way up to the surface.

It was deep night, suddenly. Outside, a seemingly meaningful pattern of stars. The full moon had risen as a cool white circle on the rug.

Sam Gerard shook his head hard, wondering distantly how long or how short the time had been. The power of the rush had been enough to screen out detailed features of time and space. It couldn’t have been that long, according to his own swift assessments.

“Richard?” he whispered.

“Here, Sam,” the voice beside him said. He was smiling down into his eyes. “Oh ye of little faith.”

“What the hell happened?”

“You had the wind knocked out of you… or a diaphragmatic cramp, your choice of description. My fault for pushing you that hard,” he said. “Relax, Deputy Marshal, you were only out for a couple of minutes.“

“I feel like a virgin schoolboy,” Sam said, pulling Richard toward him. “Problem is it kinda killed the momentum for you.”

Richard laughed, tracing a gentle path across his lips before he kissed at it. “We’ll do that tomorrow. That’ll be our celebration. Tonight was for you.”

“After what you just did… that doesn’t sound very fair to me…”

“What were we saying yesterday about fairness?” Richard said, wrapping around him.

Sam laughed, drawing Richard’s head against his chest. He whispered his lips against the other man’s forehead, toward the soft crest of thoroughly untamed hair.

“My god, Richard…”

“I know,” Kimble said gently. “I was just thinking the same thing.”



Chapter Five

The Longest Ride

The Kevlar embedded cataphract didn’t feel any better than Sam had said it would. As heavy and cumbersome as it was, Kimble still had to pull on clothing on top of it. When the last of that—his long-sleeved shirt went on—he elected to carry the coat.

“Why do movies always show people running around with this stuff like its nothing?”

“Because,” Sam said, chortling at the comment for a moment, “they never have to run around with this stuff.”

“Running tight, Boss,” Cosmo called in through the slightly open door.

“Copy…roger…gotcha,” Gerard called back, checking his wristwatch. He banged on its face. “Of all the days for this piece of shit to pack up…”

Renfro entered the open door. “I called and talked to my cousin Shecky at Capitol Police and—“

“Your Blue Cap cousin’s name is Shecky?” Sam said, his brow riddled with amazement.

“No, Gerard, I pulled it out of my ear to really put some intrigue in the day. Yes, his name is Shecky. If we can kick it to Memorial, the Blue Caps will pick us up from there, if we get into any trouble. He’ll be watchin’ for us.”

“The Blue Caps are the best trained force in the world,” Sam explained to Richard. “They screen ‘em harder than they screen the Marshals, and they screen us harder than the FBI. We get you there, we’re in safe hands.” He looked to Renfro. “How’s the outside weather look?”

“Everything is quiet. A little…too quiet.”

Gerard nodded. “What I expected. Any weird shift changes… reassignments… police deployments… shit like that on the radar?”

“Nothin’ Bobby could find. We’re armed, we’re fueled, everyone is in their places with bright smiling faces. We’re ready when you’re ready, S.G.”

“Richard?” Sam said gently.

He nodded. “Let’s get this fucking thing over with and put it behind us.”

Gerard pointed to Cosmo. “Renfro takes it from here. Because of how things are with you and me, we’re making him the tactical leader when it comes to your ground delivery.”

“Understood.”

Cosmo looked to Richard. “Doctor Kimble, when we’re out walking, I’m in front, you’re second and slightly to my right and slightly to the boss’ left where he stands third. It’s called a falling leaf approach…don’t fuckin’ ask me why. It protects you from most angles, as long as we shift intermittently. When Gerard says shift, he and I move… We know where you are, we know where we need to stand. You stay where you are, no matter what. Got it?”

Kimble nodded. “Understood. But doesn’t that put you two in greater jeopardy?”

“Not really. They ain’t aimin’ for Marshals. The shooters won’t waste ammo on us because it’ll draw attention to them and they’ll lose the shot anyway. They’d rather wait for line of sight and we’re not gonna give it to ‘em. . Once we’re in the groomsmen’s car… we’ll explain that in a second… we’re safe as long as the windows don’t blow out or the car doesn’t roll over.”

“The car we’re riding in is called a groomsmen’s car,” Sam said, stowing his own piece after flipping the safety. “Meaning it gets everybody to the church on time. It’s specially outfitted and bullet proof. It makes our only main area of concern from the car to the car and from the car to the building. Also, there’s the possibility we might be run into or collided with in transit. If the car runs into a problem or if we get fired on while walking, that’s what all the firepower is for. There will be a lot of it at ready. I know you don‘t like guns, but you‘ll be looking at some heavy artillery, so get used to the idea.”

Kimble nodded again. “Okay. I understand.”

“No matter what happens,” Renfro said. “No…matter…what…happens. I don’t care if you hear us catch mortar fire…bazookas…Godzilla…what-have-ya… If we’re attacked, you crawl from your rear seat into the security trunk and you stay there. The hatch locks and seals behind you. There’s an emergency dispatch mechanism with oxygen, a cell phone and a light display. The trunk is impermeable. They can’t shoot it open, they can’t ram it open, they can’t even fuck it open.”

“What about you and Sam?”

“That’s our job. We are professionals. We’ll take care of ourselves. We can do that a lot better if we know you’re out of the line of fire.”

“You can’t be serious. I’m sorry but if I hear…”

“Doctor Kimble,” Cosmo said, “believe me, we’ll all be a lot safer if you just do as we direct. Believe me, wiser heads than ours have gamed this out about a gazillion times. We know what works and what doesn’t. What doesn’t is to have even a well-meaning person try to help. Get in the trunk and stay there, if the situation arises. The object is preventing that from happening.”

“Okay,” he said, a little paler for the effort. “I understand.”

“Advisory Guest,” Cosmo said into his portable, before stowing his main piece into his shoulder holster and then sliding back into his leather jacket.

Sam reached a hand up to grasp Richard’s shoulder, squeezing it a firm and resolute moment before letting it go. “We’re ready for them, Rich.”

He nodded, inhaling, exhaling. “I know.”

“Timed at Out,” Cosmo said, closing the connection off, stuffing it into his jacket. “The race is on, guys.”



“Who’s shadowing us in the chopper?” Sam asked.

“Gervaise.”

“I’d much rather have you up there, Cosmo.”

“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me down here, I guess. Live with it.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Fuck it. Let’s just get your goddamned parade marching, shall we?” Renfro said, walking down the hall and to the left, before he motioned them to follow.







The groomsmen’s car lay in wait inside the long garage, down into the dark of which the three men in unison walked. The doors opened as Renfro triggered a device in his hand. He moved the door wider and gestured Kimble into the rear.

Gerard sat down at the edge, snapping his fist against the seat beside Richard, a part of which sprang open. “We’ll leave this down. We give the word, you crawl right through there.” Sam pointed to the handle behind it. “Once you’re inside, pull that toward you, and then turn it hard right to lock it. That seals you in.”

“Sam, there is no way in hell I’m going to—“

‘Yes, you will,” Sam said shortly, insistently…no breathing room for doubt. “If you want this to succeed, you will. And you’ll promise me that right now.”

Finally, he nodded. “All right, I … promise.”

“Damn good thing. I’d have had to open a can of whoop ass if you hadn‘t.”

Kimble snickered. “I’d like to see you try, pal.”

Sam’s smile moved away as quickly as he did… as he walked to the driver’s side, while Renfro had slid into the passenger seat on the automobile’s right. Before Richard’s eyes, both men fell into a complementary process that seemed utterly unconscious and yet carefully designed, even if Renfro appeared to be resisting it a little. Kimble felt sure it was the art of simply knowing each other for this many years. Through all the fear and trepidation and anxiety, Kimble thought he felt a bit of jealousy kicking at his own gut. Easy to see why… to envy such an old and well-tried bond.

He felt certain that, if lives were reversed, Cosmo Renfro—even in this state—would never let Sam down if he was truly needed. Theirs was a decidedly deeper friendship from those Richard had discovered he had, too late, with most of his former friends.

The sight of a gun… as much a “gun” as an alligator might be called a “reptile”…holstered to a storage piece in front between the two men. That sighting let to another…and another…

“Is that,” Richard heard himself say, “a machine gun?”

Gerard considered the one he was indicating. “No, but it’s a machine pistol.”

“Like that’s better?”

“It’s just what it is.” Sam tapped the longer barrel. “That’s a machine gun. And that’s a self-loader right there…not as fast as a machine gun, but with better velocity… And this is a Glock.”

Kimble swallowed hard, felt pale. “We still elephant hunting?”

“Hunting? Hell, Richard, we drivin’ the whole herd. That’s why we’re packing. We’re not beat cops pickin‘ up street hustlers. We deal with monsters.” He nodded to the rear seat. “Settle back now. Try to relax as best you can. We’re on our way to the Bone Yard.”

“Hopefully that remains a figure of speech.”

Gerard laughed darkly, nodding. “That is the operational objective, yes.”

Renfro commanded the portable again. “White to black, Ground Team 23 Heavy. B.Y.H.W.C. We have ignition.”

The garage door arose behind them—like a crack in the dark through which leaked a gradually expanding light.

The groomsmen’s car backed out of the drive. Seeing their two tag cars in position to move, they allowed one to proceed and as Gerard pulled away, the second moved into position behind them.

“Henry’s in the front car about ten miles up, Bobby’s in the back about five miles, Richard,” Sam said. “We got Gervaise riding shotgun in the sky. We’re surrounded by our own.”

“We’re about seven miles out from the entrance onto the 66,” Cosmo said. “We’ll need to be especially vigilant when we hit the highway. You may as well enjoy the scenery till then. It’s a cool stretch of road from Manassas up to the Bone Yard. Lots of pretty neat stuff to see.”

“We’ve got three access points over the Potomac—Roosevelt, Memorial and 14th Street Bridges?” Gerard said.

Renfro nodded. “A couple of smaller ones, too, Adams Memorial for one. On the outside, we got the Beltway, but we don’t want that. Well, not unless the Gerard School of Fucked Up Itinerary is still in session.”

“Renfro,” Gerard said, in the voice of a senior officer.

“I apologize,” Renfro said, volleying an angry glance in his direction. “Okay?”

Gerard held the stare for a few full moments, finally nodding as if in compromise. “Okay…now. But later, we gonna talk.”

“Later. Right. Much later.”

A few miles later, the rolling green road became the more manicured artery of a highway. Still, in every direction, nothing but the occasional non-combatant.

“We got twenty-two miles of this, Richard,” Sam said evenly, directly. “There are only a handful of places they’re going to attempt an intercept. They’re almost all along this stretch of highway. Getting through this is the primary hurdle.”

Renfro was looking at something fixedly in the rearview mirror. He turned around to make the car directly.

“Something bugging me about that black Buick Century. The new one. It would seem to have more pep than this tank looks like its got, but it’s hanging back behind us. Why?”

“What do the plates look like?”

Renfro squinted some more. “Shit, I think they’re dip plates. That’s gonna take longer than fuck to run.”

“Better start now,” Gerard said.

Cosmo clicked on the portable. “Gervaise, call the State Department and get a fast run on a dip plate. Roger Simon 2359. I can’t tell what the leaves are. Talk back when you got somethin’, will ya?”

“What’s a…dip plate?” Kimble asked.

“Diplomatic license plates,” Sam said. “Means the car belongs to a diplomat…someone with immunity to the laws that govern us mere mortals. The plates take twice as long to run because we have to go through diplomatic horseshit channels. Stupid jackass bullshit bureaucrats.”

Gerard swung a shared smile for Renfro which went unseen…or unnoticed.

“Don’t hold back your thoughts, Sam. Tell us what you really think, Sam,” Gerard said, tossing a second look to Cosmo. “Well, somebody has to keep up your end of the conversation.”

“I’m doin’ my job.”

“You always do your job, Cosmo.”

The portable flashed. “That was fast,” Renfro said into the phone, but his words fell off to receive more important ones. “What? Oh, fuck, how large…? North or South or… ? Shit.” Renfro killed the line. “When’s the last time you saw a snow plow this time of year near the Bone Yard?”

“Oh…like…never…”

“Yeah, well, we got a snow plow headed up to merge with us on a diagonal on-ramp. It has no plates. We have a milk truck without sides and no plates to the right hand ahead of us. We have Mr. Buick hanging back way too far for my liking.”

“They’re gonna box us.”

“Looks like. They were gonna box us on the goddamned highway. Probably at the switch just like you fuckin’ said. Shit. You were right. You were right the whole fuckin’ time.” He grabbed for the street map, snapped it open.

“What’s our cut-off over to the small Memorial?” Sam asked.

Renfro navigated through the street atlas. “We can take George Mason or North Glebe over to Lee, then Lee to Arlington for a straight hop to the Mem, but if we do George Mason we’re gonna have to float hard to the right rail to exit. North Glebe is beyond it.”

Gerard nodded. “Good, that’ll shock ‘em. Be hard for ‘em to regroup. We wait till the next exit. See if Gervaise clears the car. If she does, we give them till North Glebe. If not, we float for Mason.”

“Tighten your belt, Doc,” Renfro said. “We’re playin’ Cowboy James Bond from here on out.”

Kimble gave a nervous laugh, yanking at his already cinched up seatbelt. “I’m way, way past you.”

“A little fear is a positive survival characteristic,” Sam said, flipping a smile at the rear view mirror.

Renfro clicked the portable. “Speak to me, Gervaise. We’re sittin’ on a keg here and I don’t mean the fun kind.”

“We got two in the Buick,” Sam said, “only two will fit on that snow plow. Lets assume we got at least two in the truck. And let’s hope to hell we pull Henry and Bobby with us.”

“Gervaise flagged ‘em, but she got nothin’ on the fuckin’ dip plates. You know that truck’s got more than two people in it. Maybe a fuckin’ assault squad. They were gonna roll us at the midway and buffalo us, the bastards. Just like you said.”

“Yeah, well, Granddad ran Bathtub Willie for the Carolina mob. He taught me to drive…” Sam said. “Arm up and give me the word, Renfro. Count off four and then we high tail it.”

Renfro braced his foot, reached down for the M.P.. “Got it. Hold onto somethin’ solid, Doc. One—two—three—”

Gerard slammed the gas, and the seemingly docile urban road sedan screamed to the far right rail and fairly flew off the exit, then bounced around a corner onto the city street and slid up to a traffic light. They immediately got the green to turn.

“Jesus,” Cosmo coughed out, the force of gravity swinging him back upright in his seat. “Did your grandpa drive or drink the Bathtub Willie?”

“Little of both. Where we at?”

“We got five points of transit,” Renfro said, “after the main links and that’s where we get to the bridge. Our straightest route to the Bone Yard. That’s the Blue Caps checkpoint Charlie.”

“Gotcha.”

“There’s one wild ass back-up plan, too.”

Gerard grinned. “With you, there always is.”

“Gee…thanks.”

Sam glanced at the mirror to check on Kimble. “You not gettin’ bored on us, are ya, Richard?”

“Nothing a couple of beers won’t cure.”

“We’ll get to that, I promise.”

The portable flashed. “Yeah?” Renfro said with more than a little apprehension. “Fuck. Is he— Okay, okay. I gotcha.” Renfro held the phone away a moment. “They hit Bobby with a spike strip. That’s gotta be GUS.“

“It ain’t the Royal Navy. Is he—“

“Just tire damage. He flagged unies so he’s okay. At least now we know we sniffed them out. We also know we’re short one man we can’t afford to lose.”

“They gonna pick off Henry if they can. Tell Gervaise to have Henry float off into traffic. Tell him to track us with the dead line ranger, but stay out of sight. Gonna be just you and me, partner.”

“You hear that?” Renfro said to the receiver. “Okay, we gotcha.” Cosmo clicked out the portable.

“Okay, we shoot up side streets,” Sam said. “If Lee is blocked, we go to the second, and then what?”

“We try for the third one, a straight shot up. And then, if that’s obstructed, there’s a fourth.”

It was no more a straight shot to the checkpoint than Renfro had thought it would be.

Their first access was traffic clogged…the second street was blocked by a road crew…the third street, a dawdling crossing guard with kids around him…

“Looks too iffy to me,” Renfro said.

Gerard made a command decision. “We go for the fourth,” he said, and turned.

As soon as they turned, a pair of green government cars swooped in to the lock point of the short street to park perfectly in their way.

“Fuck,” Renfro spoke for both of them.

Beyond it, above the rising street, the old bollards and bits of the bridge stays were clearly visible. Beyond it, the gleaming vestiges of the Bone Yard. All of it, taunting them with proximity.

Before Sam could back out, two other green government cars fell in behind their own car.

Renfro slammed off the portable to signal an emergency situation. “Son of a bitch, it’s just how it called it in the game.”

“They gonna hail us to strand us, then ram us. Richard, time for the trunk. Go. Now.”

“We got an alternate,” Renfro said, opening up the twin shunts for the machine pistol. He opened one shunt to each side. “See the old pump shed there? Jam the car forward, back it up hard—force the pump shed hatch. Behind the shed’s a scullery alley—it still exists but not on maps. It’s a straight shot to the bridge. Beyond there my cousin’s waiting. You two run. You got four blocks.”

“Hold on.”

As men advanced from their cars, Sam jammed the sedan into reverse—the impact bowed the tin housing—splitting it open, where they could see a narrow passage between two walls.

Gerard reached back for the seat hatch—he and Richard pulled it open. Sam shoved Kimble ahead of him, then looked once more at the man staying behind.

“What about you?”

Renfro jerked back around, having set vollies in each direction, out the window shunts. The shots were big and loud and frightening all by themselves—fireworks that killed. “The car will shield me till help gets here. This is a mess I made. Get the Doc out of it. Scoot. Leave. Vamoose. Now.”

“I’m comin’ back for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Beat it.”

Sam shoved Richard ahead of him—shielded by Renfro’s round spray shot through one shunt, then the other, straight into the midst of dead space. There was nothing in its way—there was nothing that needed to be.

Through the crippled shed, rose a green up cropping of tall grass beyond a convex curb. Something that had once streamed rubbish into a river that could no longer contain the refuse.

“This gonna be fun to run on,” Sam said, pointing Richard in the downhill direction.

Kimble looked back. “Where’s Cosmo?”

“Keepin’ ‘em off us.”

“By himself?”

Gerard pushed him hard toward the goal. “The faster you’re there, the faster I’m back. Just run, Richard.”

“Yeah,” Kimble said, dragging Sam with him. “I can do that.”

They ran and Sam kept one eye scouting behind them, around them.

No one had followed them, but Sam knew they were there. Military Intelligence didn’t let themselves be seen.

They ran at the slant down the steepled embankment that once channeled into the mother river. It was only a matter of blocks, but it seemed like a matter of miles before Sam finally surged ahead to block the eyelet alley…the one that fronted the street where it started the bridge.

The bridge yaw was in sight, as Sam trained right against the benching houses, trying to see in every direction. Nothing. Nothing but the backs of dead buildings…old houses…old and overrun yards…

Jetting ahead of them, the wandering Potomac…and its ambitious climb toward a place of power.

The first zing whizzed past them like a jetpack mosquito. The second, was a down aim that whispered too near Sam Gerard’s ear.

Warning shots from an expert marksman in a building to the left. “They’re trying to spook me off you,” Sam said, pushing Richard between him and the bridge. “You walk that way, I’m backing you up there. Stay behind me. Don’t move to either side.”

“It’s your game, pal.”

Gerard yanked the portable out of his jacket, clicking it on. “DCCP, advising you of Marshals under fire. We got one on the scullery run and another about to get killed on the midway to the Memorial side.”

“Understood,” the voice shot back, and then a volley of commands trammeled across the open system.

Sam felt like the world was suddenly moving, until he realized they had passed from the solid, old pavement to the floating midplane beyond the bridge’s primary port.

Over it, the mythic gleam of old calcified bone that lent the place its Marshal’s nickname. The branch of memorial Belvederes…the swathe toward Pennsylvania Avenue…and, most importantly, the sight of the Senate Chambers.

They were in Blue Caps country.

“Hey, are you Sam?” called up a voice from below them as he climbed up the bridge slant, out of a narrow building marked Police.

A man…a Blue Cap…was standing there, staring up at them. Most importantly, the man sported familiarly intense eyes and an unmistakably Renfroesque face.

Sam blocked Richard against the building. “Who are you?”

“I’m Cosmo’s Cousin Zotico.”

Sam stepped back, unsure. “I thought Cosmo’s cousin is named Shecky…”

The Blue Cap rolled his gaze up and down the wall. “Does Cossi still call me that? I hate it. Sounds like a Catskills comic or somethin’. It’s okay, I know you guys. We got guarded transport ready.”

Sam hesitated a moment. “Well then you won’t mind a question. Who is Papa Smurf to the Family Renfro?”

The Blue Cap looked a little befuddled. “You mean… Cos’ kid’s hamster?”

“And that is the winning answer.” He gently ushered Richard through the door. “I gotta go help my partner. Into your hands I entrust my entire life. Guard him carefully.”

“Dr Kimble’s life, you mean? Yeah… no problem. We got 240 of us. We control this Hill. They ain’t comin’ here. You just watch your ass down there, though.”

Sam looked deeply into eyes he had come to know better than any. “I gotta get Cosmo.”

“I know. Go. And hurry.”

“Richard…”

Kimble had turned for the moment, following as if on automatic, to let the Blue Cap lead the way. “Yeah,” he said, briskly, “what?”

Gerard met his eyes. “I love you.”

Kimble’s smile might have been seen anywhere, even beside a midday sun beating against the limed white surface of an old ugly Federal building.

“I know,” Richard said, his eyes brightening beyond the presence of tears. “That’s from a movie, too.”







Renfro saw the Blue Caps descend and it was a sobering sight indeed.

They hit like a combination of SWAT team and Navy Seal. They didn’t strike with numbers, they hit with bully force. They stormed one dark green government car to squash the team hailing bullets in Cosmo’s direction; they forced another team off the front. The other dark green government car had no choice but to bucket out and run. Renfro made a head note of the plate numbers. He knew it had been a futile effort nonetheless.

A Blue Cap came wandering toward him, with the same purposive if unconcerned gate Renfro would have also used in a controlled situation. It made Cosmo exhale all the way to the ground.

“Hey, you Zotico’s cousin?” the taller one asked.

“Zotico Renfro? Yeah, that’s me— I’m Cosmo. You DCCP?”

“Yup, that’s us. It came over the annex radio you had trouble down here. It’s our jurisdiction too so we hopped the river. Looks you’re your guys mopped up though. How old was the Marshal who bought the farm?”

“What…?” Renfro said, feeling the fingers of the first fears clutching at his gut.

The Blue Cap shrugged, looking to his partner. “Somethin’ came over the radio that a U.S. Marshal got killed. We figured it was one of you guys.”

The world around him lost color.

He couldn’t hear it. Not a sound. Not the river. Not his blood. Not the pounding of his probably beating heart.

Images flickered through his head to an obvious conclusion.

“Sam?” he heard the weak voice of a rational, logical part of himself asking, while the rest of him just slumped backward against the car just behind him.

His hands…gone numb, both of them…all at once. The world at once. Just dead. Sickly cold where it met his flesh. Insensate then to mask a pain that if, not numbed, surely would have killed him. Pain like an arrow ripping through him.

He was standing in negative space. A world without Sam Gerard?

It simply wasn’t possible…

The blood in his body ran cold around his neck and shoulders. It spilled out into his arms and hands and legs and feet. Had he been shot himself? It seemed as if he might have fallen to the ground. Maybe even, he was dead.

He was against a mental wall: a blank, dark, towering wall. And that was going to be the view for the rest of his life and forever…and forever… and ever…?

“You guys are the best trained police force in the world?” he heard something impossible speak just beyond him—a familiarly snide and thoroughly precious voice biting at the edges of his mind.

It was loud enough and sharp enough that it snapped him out of shock enough to look around…away from that impossible conclusion…

“… I told you people a U.S. Marshal was about to get killed,” a voice intervened to stop things right at the end of Renfro’s world. “This is the goddamned Marshal I was talkin’ about right here— Way to scare the holy hell outta somebody…”

“Sorry, buddy, we just heard—“

“Yeah, I guess you just heard. Why don’t you just hear it over there?”

The rest of the sounds sunk into the background hiss of the blood roaring once again in his ears. Renfro’s fingers released the edge of the car—turned around enough to see the man attached to the voice now looming beside him.

To see Sam’s face… to hear the curve of his voice as it hit the wind…

“Cosmo,” Sam said, his eyes darkest with concern. “You all right?”

He had been looking at him but, at last, Cosmo saw him.

He found himself reaching for Sam’s face…touching it…testing its solidness. “Sam?”

“Yeah, yeah, Cosmo, I’m fine.” He caught the hand. “I’m here.”

“Jesus,” Renfro coughed back. “Christ, I thought… I mean, for a minute there… They said… I mean, they heard… and I thought … “

“I know—they got the report wrong. I’m just fine, but you don’t look so great yourself right now… Somebody get this man some water?”

“I mean, I thought you were...” Cosmo felt blind panic pushing forward…threatening to storm…to scream forward with a hundred things out of hidden places… This is ridiculous. ( Just because of what … just because of)… To it all, he could only whisper, “…Holy Mary Mother of God…”

“Come on, sit down in the car,” Sam said, seemingly to unseen people around them.

“No,” Cosmo said, batting away the offer. He was gasping for air, fighting to think. Fighting to be okay…to seem okay. You’re overreacting. “I‘m okay. Just…a little…stunned…I… Where‘s the doc…you get him over the bridge?”

“Yeah, Richard’s safe. I got word on the portable. I gotta get back, though.”

“Yeah, sure. Go.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure,” he said, faking it, because a command performance of any ruse was better than looking into the treachery of Sam Gerard’s eyes in that point in time. “Go on, I’m fine.”

Cosmo looked around—for anywhere, any port, any sanctuary, to hell with the fuckin’ storm. Somewhere—some little store…a hiding place… Somewhere…anywhere…to run. First think of something to say.

“Hell, I gotta buy somethin’ for my kids. You know how it is. They wanted…somethin’… from this fucking… place…”

“Cosmo,” the voice reached out for him, “Where you gonna be at?”

“Somewhere. Anywhere,” he answered to the world on the general question, “Shit, I’m goin’ fuckin’ anywhere but here…”

The last thing Cosmo heard, as he rushed away, was Sam’s voice, shouting, “Henry, stay on him till I get back…”







A Blue Cap at dispatch confirmed Richard had gotten to the Chambers. Beyond that all, for Sam Gerard, it was a long walk back.

A quiet walk—a walk filled with the usual drifts of people and traffic in the usual patterns of place and time.

Oddly enough, Gerard found himself catching a cab to the Senate Chambers North Side, where the sound of the hearings had been filtered out into the wingback quad.

Some obnoxious, pompous voice, that had clearly cut its milk teeth on Southern Baptist pulpit pontification, was the first unseen voice Sam heard come shooting out of the speakers. “The data you provide and provided by the hospital will, of course, be entered into the official testimony of record in our assessment of the handling of these matters. We have your documentation. Additionally, we thank you, of course, for your sworn testimony and signed affidavits. Is there any official statement beyond your record of evidentiary fact you would like to enter into the Senate evidence file today?”

“Yes. Senators…” another voice, a better voice, reached Sam Gerard’s ears. It made the Marshal smile all the way to the ground. “You see,

a funny thing happened on my way to the Senate Hearings today. Some people tried to kill me. I have to say that’s nothing new to me in the last years. People have tried before and, barring that, they tried to condemn me to Death Row so the State could finish the job. It seems they want to kill me for the sole reason that I couldn’t sleep at night if I knew my personal profit was killing someone else. News to me that this is a major virtue, but apparently it is these days.”

Sam was not surprised to see the face behind the smirking voice…Senator Hampstead “Horsehead” Norris, officially from the Republic of Texas. To attest to this he’d had many photo ops in his silly, chew-topped goat-roper hat and his dance bar cowboy boots. Along with it all, he waved a thick fake Texan accent like a plastic junk shop sword. In truth, the bastard was a hot house bulb first sprouted in Maine and then cultivated in a southwestern direction with just enough swagger and bullshit. A son of an old Yankee family…a son so useless to his kinfolk they had league-farmed him into politics just to get him out of the way at home.

Sam had been pleased to not vote for him several times.

Norris was now the high ticket whore of the petrochemical companies…of the pharmaceutical gods. He played to the ignorant and arrogant and the outright stupid.

Here, the man was sitting forward in his chair, aiming his sneering contempt without even the most superficial effort to disguise it.

“We know, of course, of your unfortunate misadventure with the State of Illinois justice system, but as for the United States Senate, shall we limit your testimony to the approval process for Provasic, Doctor?”

Okay, slapping the crap out of a U.S. Senator would probably not put Sam Gerard on a positive course toward his pension. But he had to admit it damned near came close to being worth it…

But Richard’s voice intervened. “Senator, I have. What causes a Provasic is greed. That’s what put my life on the line…and the lives of the good and decent people who make a scintilla of what you and I do who risked their own lives to get me here today. We were all endangered by that greed,” Kimble said, his gaze clearly scanning the audience for the one whom he finally saw. His relief was unmistakable and his smile was meant only for Sam.

Gerard nodded and smiled from the back, to signal his recognition and reassurance.

Kimble reluctantly turned back to the Sub-Committee. “You see, Senator, every one of you benefits. You benefit from the blind cynicism I see on your face—and the ethical evasion that cynicism combined with greed spawns within this political system. That cynicism threatens to undermine the very idealism of our people which is one of our only common traits. That cynicism, Senator, would laugh at our Mr. Smith Goes to Washington romanticism, but that romantic notion is what protects us. Maybe it’s a simple and perhaps puerile statement, but it is nevertheless in our case true—what guards our nation is the simple decency of individuals who stand up against the State. It has always been that way for us. One man or woman who dares to make a difference.” Richard’s gaze smiled directly at Sam. “I’ve been honored to know a handful of them… I wonder which of you Senators will follow their example.”



Chapter Six

The Longest Night

“Hey, fella, aren’t you the star of Dr. Smith Goes to Washington?” a voice called to him from the sub-antechamber beyond the Senatorial audience in all its tuck and roll and pomp and circumstance.

Richard grinned back into the face of the man he loved…the one for whom he’d been looking. “Dr. Smith? Wasn’t he the weird guy on Lost in Space?”

“Weird is in the eye of the beholder, Richard. Never forget that.”

“Around you, I promise I won’t…” Kimble grinned, while remembering and looking around. “Strange to just be able to stand here. Out here. In the open.”

Gerard nodded, shrugged. “Ah, that’s all over. You did your worst to ‘em. You testified. You turned over your evidence and established the chain of custody. They can’t come after you now…it just draws the finger toward them and makes ‘em look worse.”

“Is Cosmo—?”

“He’s…fine,” Sam said, as if not fully sure himself. “The cavalry made it in time. I expect we’ll catch up with him in a bit.”

“Thank God.” Richard Kimble looked up, into the marble-like vestibules of earthly power and where it seemed to extend all the way down the steps to the busy street.

Robert Biggs was walking toward them, having double-parked his official car on the pull-up beyond them.

“You weren’t in an official car, they’d give you one helluva parking ticket for that,” Sam said, nodding in its direction.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m doin’ it. Gives me a thrill. Last great act of defiance, Chief. So cane me.”

“No, thanks.” Sam looked around behind Biggs…looking for someone else. “You guys find him?”

“No. And we looked. Gervaise, Henry and me. We covered the waterfront, every inch, lookin’ for him. He pulled a Harry Houdini on us, like you would say.”

“Maybe he just took a cab back to the safe house,” Kimble suggested.

Gerard shook his head. “I doubt it. You didn’t see the look on his face.”

“What look?”

Sam glanced at Richard with a subtle request for delay…a clear suggestion that this topic would be best saved for elsewhere.

“Anyway, why are we worried about Cosmo?” Biggs said. “He’s a 44 year old U.S. Marshal with a sidearm as big as Brazil. Henry saw him alive and walkin’ and talkin’ just an hour or so ago. And he was buying crap for his kids at a store. Renfro can take care of himself. He’s probably just gone home, which is maybe what we should all do.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I just…” He shrugged. For the moment, he shook the thought away. “Robert, Richard and I kinda got a favor to ask. Our car sorta got…towed, you might say. Can you give us a ride back to the safe house?”

“Like I have a choice?” he said. “After I drop you off, me and Gervaise and Henry are bookin’ it on a shuttle. I’ve had about all I can handle of Marshal Army Man week. And we’re all sick of the stench of that river.”

Gerard smirked. “Yeah, tell me about it.“







The safe house was dark and almost spectrally quiet as Biggs dropped them off at the door. The break team had been through to sweep up. Papers and logs and all residue of operations had been harvested and indexed in some big file somewhere or other. Tell-tale signatures of three of its occupants had been removed: the Marshal pack it in and pack it out policy. The coffee cup of a fourth sat lonely on a table—Renfro’s cup, where he had left it just this morning.

“So much for that theory,” Sam said, as he and Kimble walked through an otherwise lifeless house and onto the patio…equally empty. The pool gleamed with an easy light, something like the bluer depths of Richard’s eyes. “You know, I’m almost going to miss this place.”

“I am going to miss it…even with all the bad, so many good things happened here.” Richard let a moment pass. “He’ll be okay.”

“I know. I just…it’s just a feeling I can’t shake off.”

“Bobby’s probably right; Cosmo is probably at home right now.”

Gerard nodded. “Probably. And here we are alone, the rest of the night to ourselves, and I’m standin’ here worring about it. Not too smart of me, given there is one very important thing still left to do…”

“Such as?”

Sam grinned, reaching over to claim Kimble’s collar and pull him gently toward him just to push him tenderly away. And walk him backward toward the pool.

“A little thing called payback, Richard,” Sam said. “Remember? Get your clothes off.”

“Out here?” Kimble said, smiling, but looking around. “We’re not gonna have dinner or something first?”

“No, we are not going to have dinner or something first. You still have strength to eat, we can order out later. I told you that you had serious payback coming.”

Kimble laughed, again glancing around. “Outside? Isn’t this…illegal?”

“Not in your own guarded yard its not. We got nothing but empty sentry sites overlooking us. Nobody but God and me gonna see you. So get your goddamned clothes off, like I said.”

Kimble unbuttoned the last of his buttons, dragging the shirt tail from his slacks. He peeled off the shirt, slung it toward the table. “Am I making progress?”

“Some. You made me crazy for two damned days. We gonna give you some of what you got comin’ right here and now. I’ve been savin‘ up.”

“I’ll just bet you have.

“We’re not making progress fast enough,” Sam said, reaching across to yank free a belt loop and move down his fly. “There, that’s better. You’ll want to move it along now.”

“Aren’t you going to shed some yourself?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam said. “Just now we’re talking about you. So finish what you started so I can finish what you started.”

“You just love giving orders, don’t you?” Richard asked, shucking his shoes and socks.

“To some people more than others. Naked, Richard. You know what that means.”

“I’ve got the general idea, yes,” he said, finally shedding his slacks. He threw those away into the expanding night. He smiled brightly, as if confident of the fact that the other man was thoroughly enjoying the sculpted swells of his naked body. He unstrapped his watch, setting it gently on the table. He flashed him a flirtatious smile. “What’s the plan, Deputy Marshal? You gonna hurl me into the pool and fuck me there?”

“Yeah, I’m considering it.” He reached for Kimble’s shoulder, pulled hard to drag him close. Their smiles became a staring battle…Gerard’s turning into a greedy grin. “How long’s it been since you had another man suck your cock?”

Richard‘s voice lingered over every syllable. “Fourteen years.”

Gerard’s grin stayed. “I expect you’ve thought about it a time or two since then.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then I’m thinking I might just show you that a gay man with a lifetime of practice can beat out a bi boy with a medical degree.”

“Is that what you’re thinking?” Richard said, trying on a Texan twist to his words. “Well, why don’t you get your fucking clothes off while you’re thinking? Besides, I seem to remember your enjoying the fuck out of what the bi boy with the medical degree sucked out of you last night.”

“Oh, yes,” Sam said. “I did. One helluva lot more than I even let on. But that just gives me a personal best goal post to shoot for. And I love to win.”

“What a coincidence…so do I,” Richard said, reaching out as if only to smooth a hair from Sam’s eyes, but actually snaring an arm. He took gravity’s advantage.

He shoved Sam into the swimming pool. He dove in after.

Sam shook his head as he came up out of the water. “I shoulda known that was coming.”

Richard had already surfaced and was walking from the center into the shallows where he was. “What a shame. You got your new shirt wet. Out here at night, it’s liable to get cold in those wet clothes. Better get them off. Doctor’s orders.”

Sam stripped off the red sweater, letting it float freely. “I thought the doctor wasn’t giving the orders tonight.”

“He is while the lawman’s falling down on the job,” Richard said.

“Am I? Well, why don’t you perch on that top step there and watch me climb back up?”

“And if I do?”

“Then I’ll show you how a gay man sucks cock.” He nodded to the steps. “Like I said, you got some wicked nasty payback comin’ Richard. Lord only knows where we’ll go from there.”

“I bet you have a few ideas.”

Sam chuckled softly to himself. “More than a few, Richard. One in particular. Now get your ass on that step before I hurl you up there by force and show you no mercy at all.”

Kimble made the move with one push forward. “Is this the step you’re thinking of?”

“That’s the one,” Sam said, reaching into a water-soaked denim pocket. He pulled out a packet, waving the moisture off of it. “I’m glad this shit is water-proof.”

“Me, too. Believe me.”

Gerard opened the packet and emptied the contents into his hand. It looked like two membranous surgical gloves. He flipped one up to the edge of the pool. The other he pulled over two fingers where the “glove” immediately softened into an ointment against the heat of his hand.

With the other hand, he leaned Richard back against the top of the pool steps, positioning him gently…meeting no resistance.

Sam climbed a step to overshadow him completely, “So who’s on top now, Richard?”

“Who do I want to be?”

“You aim to keep answering questions with questions?”

“Do you?”

Sam’s answer was to reach under Richard’s ass and thrust up for a direct entry. “Not any more.”

Richard reacted like a man struck by lightning, albeit of a sweet and amenable kind.

Then Sam’s finger probed up for somewhere specific, to trigger an explicitly planned response.

Richard’s cry was raw and real. “Holy Christ. What the fuck are you doing?”

“Makin’ you crazy,” Sam whispered, his tongue tasting the edge of Richard’s ear. He moved the finger again. He got the response…again. “Teaching you a lesson about experience versus knowledge. And a little humility.”

Richard once more knocked back copious amounts of air. “A lot of humility,” he choked out, his eyelids snapping shut at the rush.

“Naw, a lot of humility comes next.”

Sam’s mouth claimed Richard’s cock.

It felt to Richard like something loving had found every pleasure place in him—each place now passing under the passion of Sam’s teeth and tongue.

Richard only whispered Sam’s name…because he couldn’t manage any louder sound. Every larger sound evaporated quickly at the white hot boiling point of bliss.

Bliss gave way to a searing pleasure that dragged him down until the last shreds of sound streamed from Richard’s lips.

He felt the cool air touch the tears on his face…

“You all right?” Sam asked, his voice full of the big bird-eating grin he had spilled all over his face. He was using pool water to wash the rest away. “Don’t frown, Dr Hygiene. Its got a filtration system. Our tax dollars at work.”

Kimble had reached for another of the skin oil soluble oil gloves, pulling it over his fist. “I have more practice at this glove-wearing stuff.”

“Whaddya think you’re gonna do with that?”

Richard reached down to grab Sam‘s cock. “Something you need.”

As clearly as Sam responded to Richard’s hand, he responded even more to a concern. “Richard, you ever done that thing before?”

“Yes.”

“Fourteen years ago?” Sam said, with a wicked tilt of an eyebrow.

“No,” he said, smiling a little sadly. “My Helen was adventurous… Need I say more? Scenes from a Marriage.”

“Your first marriage,” Sam corrected him, as his face telegraphed the impact of Richard’s keen attention to his cock.

“My first marriage,” Richard whispered. He tossed the remaining four gel gloves to Sam. “I think you know what to do with these. And please no bucolic greased pig metaphors.”

“I’m not laughing anymore.” He nodded toward the grass. “You get over there and lie down on your belly like a good boy.”

“When it comes to this stuff, I am never a good boy.”

“Then I like that even better.”

Sweet earth at night wove a heady aroma—a fragrance of gentle evenings and newly faded blooms. As Richard’s head pillowed against his arms, his whole naked body settled easily into soft earth. The mud even felt nice against his groin.

Richard felt a very slick hand slip into the cleft of his ass, an ambitious finger like before, only slipping around for an entry. It swabbed something sticky up and down and over him. The motion once again awakening that pleasure on the edge of pain… wafting into the kind of hard, knotted aching joy that cramped at his lungs long enough to steal his breath away. It felt like Sam, communicating with flesh… the essence of him whispering over Richard’s skin.

“You sure about this?” the other man gasped out one final question of discovery.

“Oh…god…yes.”

That hard knot of pleasure unraveled widely until Sam’s cock plunged in to expand it even more. His hand stroked gently over Richard’s belly, to calm his nerves there to trigger the reverse response from his crotch. It worked sublimely.

“This is…”

“Hush,” Sam said softly, his jacking rhythm now tough and steady inside him—increasing pace as he reached down to grab Richard’s dick up in a tighter fist—to drag Richard with him.

Richard responded by clamping every muscle inch of his ass down on the man inside him—a dare to further Sam along.

The reaction was tough and fast and hard. It ripped a twisted scream that, from a quiet man, was a staggering sound. A lovely sound.

Richard found himself turned over… pulled to the surface… to stare up into a much loved face. They were gulping at the same night…rolled sidelong against the same cool, Olive grass. They were, at last, in the same time and place.

Richard reached up to smooth away a trespassing hair from his lover’s face.

Moments went away as they listened together to the far-away caps and breakers of sounds from somewhere else.

Richard waited for Sam to move before asking.

“Tell me something.“

Any other person might have said “anything”. From Sam, it was an honest, “If I can.”

“How in the world could I have fallen down that hell hole and ended up exactly where I was supposed to be?”

Sam laughed gently, moving a kiss across Richard‘s face and into his hair. “I don’t know, but when you figure it out, would you tell me? There’s not much about this whole thing that doesn’t left me stuck at wonder.”

Richard chuckled, looking up at the night. “I seemed to recall your little confession on the old Memorial Bridge. What was it now? Three brief words?”

“I love you. Yeah, okay. Twice given out in my lifetime and you got the other one.”

“I think we’ll be teaching you to say that a lot,” Richard said, plucking one of his own eyelashes from Sam’s face.

“If anybody can, Richard,” Sam whispered, “I expect it‘s you.”



Chapter Seven

Reflected Light



Awakened by some distant noise, Richard found himself outside, still wrapped around Sam. Kimble was turned toward the swimming pool. It was now deep night, with stars spilling around them like four points from a silver shawl. The one difference was a pattern of reflection across the surface of the pool. The pattern moved darkly over the lamp-glittering surface where floated a night’s fall of leaves and dead mimosa. The shape of it was angular and methodical…no water-refracted abstract pattern. It was clearly resulting from something moving in the house.

He and Sam were supposed to be alone. The digital on his wristwatch read 2:13 am.

He nearly woke Sam, but then heard Renfro talking softly to himself…the thoughtful mutter of someone walking through a task. There was a sound of shifting…a steady movement…as if he was currying things from one room to the other.

He exhaled relief at the sound…both that it was a friend, and that it was this friend, whom he now could see was clearly all right.

Gently, Richard extracted himself, leaving Sam still curled around sleep. Richard slipped into his slacks and quietly crept inside.

Cosmo had collected his few bags in one place. As Kimble watched, Renfro removed a key from his command fob and placed it palm-down on the entry desk. From his pocket, he removed a paper, which he fed into the entry desk’s fax machine. He pressed a few numbers and with his fist hit send.

Richard heard the other man’s very gentle sigh. There was nothing happy in the sound of it.

Kimble felt caught in the moment at a deep place of sympathy. Sam had told Richard all there was to be told. They had talked about it deep into the night.

“You shouldn’t come up on a Marshal like that, Doc, it can be dangerous if they don‘t know you,” Cosmo said, his voice empty and flat as he tossed it over a shoulder.

“I didn’t know you saw me.”

“I’ve been in law enforcement twenty some years. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d’ve turned in my badge.”

Richard nodded, glancing at his bags. “So, were you just planning on leaving in the night?”

“Yeah, Doc, I was,” he said, looking around, the very essence of apprehension written large across his gaze. “Where is—“

“Asleep. He’s asleep outside. No, I didn’t wake him. I thought you and I should talk first.”

More than a little relieved, Renfro finally moved around him. He didn‘t once meet his eyes. “I don’t have a lot to say,” Cosmo said, as he signed off some book on the entry desk. “Paperwork, paperwork…half my fucking job.”

Richard smiled gently. “Why don’t you tell me about what happened? What Sam told me happened…”

Cosmo looked around. “Nothing much happened, Doc. Just the usual… Sam played the manly rescuer, you were the handsome hero, and I was Sam‘s yelling board as usual.”

“That’s not how I saw things at all. But that wasn’t what I was talking about anyway. I mean what happened after…”

“Nothing happened after.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Well, somebody got the story wrong. I got a taxi coming. Time for me to go home. Good working with you, Doc. I’m glad it all—“

“You know,” Richard broke in. “The simple numbers were against you. Or for you, as the case may be.”

Cosmo looked around, his glower suggesting he surely couldn’t have heard him right.

“What numbers?”

“Statistics,” Richard said. “They say most people are bisexual to greater or lesser degrees. Of those, a large segment of people are more or equally attracted to their same gender. That leaves an awfully large margin of possibility.”

“Wonderful. Lies, damn lies and statistics? At two in the frickin’ AM. What the hell does any of that have to do with me?”

“I just mention it, in case it might make it easier for you to accept your feelings.”

“What feelings?”

“Fourteen kids in your family, right? Okay, at 10% of the population maybe Nico was the only gay one. Despite your protestations a couple of days ago, that leaves a lot of room for at least a couple of bisexual Renfro’s—“

“Watch your mouth,” he said, steering a warning finger directly into Kimble’s face. Each word was spoken through a carefully clenched jaw. “I like you and I respect you, Doc, but that’s my family you’re talking about. Our private lives are none of your business.”

“I know it’s scary,” Kimble said, loudly and earnestly. “I know it is. I’ve been there. It’s bound to be terrifying at your age especially. But if you’ll only listen—“

“No, you listen, Richard. You listen.” His voice wrestled with what was slowly building in his body, rising up to the level of his eyes. “I hope you enjoy many, many good years with Sam…I hope you two build a beautiful life together. But as soon as my taxi is here, I am out of it. I am sick of this. This madness. This Sam Gerard bullshit insanity… I want to go home where my life still makes some sense—”

“Sam is not going to let you leave…”

“Sam doesn’t have a whole lot to say about it, I’m a grown—“

“…especially when he knows for sure what he already suspects…”

“Which is?”

“That you’re in love with him.”

Cosmo turned… open-eyed, in a kind of half-baked righteous outrage that never fully made it to the fore.

“Doc,” he said, in a voice that might have been as frightened as it was angry, “you‘ve really lost it now.”

Richard smiled tenderly, nothing but the certainty in his voice needed to meet the other man’s refusals. “Maybe it was a gradual realization, over time. Or maybe it just hit you today, suddenly; like it dawned on your brother…the one difference is that Sam isn’t dead.”

Cosmo stalked his next words through a series of steps…a tight little circle…as if following a thought out to its inevitable end.

“What I think…” he finally said, “What I feel is my business and nobody else’s. I’m going away now, Doctor. Goodbye.” He opened the door, to move his bags out to the front doorway.

Richard stood in his way…breaking through, going on, and refusing to metaphorically fall over Cosmo’s host of barricades. “There’s no reason Sam can’t love both of us, you know.”

“Where the hell is my cab?” Renfro desperately begged the air.

Richard said softly, “When you’ve gone through what I’ve gone through, you get way beyond the need for the old answers and you’re perpetually open to new ones. I can see an obvious and beautiful solution.”

Cosmo’s eyebrows crowded together in a kind of internal, fragile half-surrender. His eyes focused down into dark, blue points of purposeful light. There was a brilliant flash of wonder in the dark of them, followed by an internal war of shadows: what might have been the whole world moving through them…and then suddenly, a rising wall of abject fear.

“I don’t know what the hell you mean—“ he said, something…everything… catching at the bend of every word.

“Yes, you do. That’s why what I’ve just said scared you so badly. You’re a clinical vision of terror. The kind known by men in that awful, wonderful moment they realize that the thing for which they secretly long isn’t completely beyond their grasp. Is in fact, just beyond their reach.”

“Listen to me, okay? Yeah, I had this anger thing going the whole time this week. Maybe I was being a homophobe and got all weirded out because of your relationship with Sam or yeah, maybe I felt left out, I dunno. Earlier when somethin’ happened with Sam, the shock I think made me snap back to what happened to my brother. If anyone saw anything, it was that. The situation was similar, so my head went back there and coupled with all the feelings… if the Boss saw anything on my face, it was an overreaction to all that. It all just brought up a ton of shit…”

“Keep saying that often enough, perhaps you’ll really believe it.”

“Alright gloves off. You listen to me and believe me. I am a happy man. I have two wonderful, precious children who mean more to me than you can possibly know, I have a beautiful wife for whom I would die in a New York minute—“

“And none of that changes a thing about the way you feel about Sam.”

Renfro shook his head, in momentary stunned silence. “You son of a bitch—“

“That’s right. You be angry. You be as angry at me as you need to be. At least that means you’re not ignoring it. Better yet, send the cab away that just pulled up outside. Go home tomorrow.” Richard lowered his voice to a momentary intimacy between them. “C’mon, Cosmo. Lets talk this through. Nothing has to happen unless you want it to.”

Cosmo shook his head hard. His voice trembled like brittle shingles torn away by falling ice. “I can’t do that.”

“Then that just proves my point. This has nothing to do with your wife and your love for her. That doesn’t change. This is about you and Sam…and me, if you want it that way. C’mon, Cosmo, stay over. If for no other reason than the fact Sam is worried about you.”

“Yeah,” Cosmo said, his gaze reaching across to Sam’s shirt spread out to dry across a patio chair. “He looks real worried about me.”

Outside, the sound of power steering paused where it moved up into the circle drive, beyond the door. A single, well-timed beep from the horn claimed the quiet.

Cosmo yanked open the door as if his last hope for survival.

“This isn’t going away, Cosmo,” Richard said.

“Oh, yes it is,” Cosmo said, his voice once and for the final time, catching on everything he hadn’t said…had never said. “Yes it is going away, far away, just like I am.”







Aftermath

The twin doors opened wide as if welcoming arms to receive him. He closed the doors behind him, almost melting with relief into the inside depths of their cherry wood walls.

Home. Cool. Constant. Sanctuary. Safety.

“Thank God,” he said, sighing softly through his own internal noise becoming a quickly growing quiet.

His favorite chair, his favorite lap robe, his self-built shelf of books…the pictures of his family across his great-grandmother’s antique pie safe and up another wall. The tell-tale testimony of his good, sane life.

His eyes were still smarting from some murky hours of hard if sporadic tears. The commercial red eye hadn’t helped a lot either, especially when he’d busted up while listening to in-flight music—okay, while not listening to in-flight music. He had wept quietly at the gaps in the music tracks as he avoided every love song in the Beatles Anthology as if a new and hidden host for the plague. How many songs? Too many songs.

Cosmo Bastiaan Renfro, what the hell are you? 14? Get a fuckin’ grip.

“Cossi!” a sweetly rough attempt at a voice reached out to him from behind. Turning to the room, he saw that his very elderly Mamme was hobbling solely on the power of a grandmother’s concern.

“Mamme!” he said, slipping off the outside him, pulling on the inside him like a wonderful, comfortable sweater. He caught hold of her, mid-step, guiding her around to the couch. “You know you’re not supposed to be standing!”

“Yah, yah!” she said, signaling in wide, hand circles that she tacitly if reluctantly agreed. With a gentle hand, she swept his hair away from his blue eyes, as if to divine some ready wisdom from them. “Ligos manos…why you cry?”

He shook his head. “Tipote,” he said, laughing.

She nodded. “Kati,” she said.

“Allergia,” he said, laughing even more lightly.

“You never lie so good to Grandma,” she said, pinching at his chin.

“You’re right. I don’t. I know.” He reached over, to take up her tiny dry leaf of a hand into the shelter of his own. He thought of something to say that wasn’t a lie, but wasn’t the full measure of the truth. “I sorta lost a friend.”

“He died?” she said, grabbing at her chest. “Not the Doctor— or Sam! —“

“No…no… Dr. Kimble and Sam are fine. Nobody died. Everyone’s alive.”

“Eycharisto theos,” she said, relieved.

“I’m sorry, Mamme. I’m okay. Really.” He squeezed both her hands tenderly in his, as if careful to not crush something both fragile and dear. “Where is Marisa?”

“Supermarket,” she said, smiling.

He forced a smile in return. “How’s the leg? You been stayin’ off it like the doc said?”

“Much better,” she said, nodding. “And I try to.”

“Good. It’ll be all better soon. Like I told you, huh?”

“I know,” she said cheerily, her gaze moving in the direction of the short hall through which passed a small storm of sound with three different fronts. “See, they are home now.”

“I’ll go help,” he said, standing to move in that direction.

“Cossi…”.

“Yes, Mamme,” he said, looking back for the moment.

“You never lose a friend…”

He smiled sadly, a smile for her approval only, since at the edges of that smile, there was nothing else but doubt. “If you say it, Mamme, I’ll try to believe it. Just stay off the leg now, okay?”



Cosmo grabbed the first and largest bag he saw. He swung an eager kiss at Mari…the face of his first love—the love of his youth. That love had only deepened in him through all their long shared seasons that somehow, some way had formed the treasure of years.

The face beamed the moment she saw him. “You’re home early!”

“Yeah, I cut and run ahead of schedule,” Renfro said and tried to laugh. He grinned at the contents of the bag. “Hey, look at that, you only bought the store.”

“I did not!” she said, giggling like a schoolgirl. “You wouldn’t believe Kelly’s. Packed…ugh! And the new butcher was such a jerk to me. I asked him to grind up turkey for Mamme? He tried to charge me extra. How long have we gone there? I told him, you want I should go somewhere else, then just you try to charge me extra, you jerk. There’s that big new Food Queen on Brand Street. I’ll go there.”

“You been saying that since the big new Food Queen opened,” Cosmo said, smiling like the sound of her words had been set to music. He pilfered a green apple from a paper bag. He rubbed the apple up his jacket sleeve. “It ain’t so new. I don’t think it’s even a Food Queen anymore. So did he do it for free?”

“Yeah, he did it. Oh, the TV’s on the fritz again. No sound now. Last time it was no picture, remember? I guess it’s being thorough.”

“I’ll check it,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “Probably should just break down and buy a new one. I mean, it’d be cheaper than—“

“Cossi!” Marisa broke sharply through his words with a loud, shaky voice. She was staring at him through wide, dark eyes…quietly, carefully… The longer she watched, the more her gaze grew concerned. Finally, her face confirmed its unqualified frown. She touched at his cheek. “Were you crying?”

“No! Of course not, I got allergies or somethin’.”

“That doesn’t look like allergies, Cossi.”

“Of course it is. What do I have to cry about? I’m lookin’ at my girl.” He touched her face gently, then blew her a kiss. “It’s been a long day. The whole Kimble thing. It’s over. I’m beat. You know how it goes.”

“Anything much happen?”

“Naw, it was a wash. Cake walk, in and out. Told you there wasn’t nothin’ to it.”

“Thank God. I’m glad it’s all over for poor Dr. Kimble.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said, gnawing absently at the flesh of his apple. He considered the faint marks he had made. “Mari, one thing I was thinkin’. I know it’s a big step. I been with…Sam a long time. But I got my command colors. I think maybe I’m gonna want to pull my own team from now on.”

“Your own team?” she said, dropping a box of cornflakes to the very ground. She aimed at him a glare of abject bewilderment. “Just two weeks ago you said it was a lot of bother and stress for no more money and you never wanted to leave Sam—“

“Daddy’s home!” a high, happy voice came sailing out of the foyer and up to cling to his leg. Behind it, bright blue eyes and a worshipful little girl’s smile.

Cosmo lifted tiny Mathilda into his arms. He planted a kiss in her hair. “How’s my baby bunny? You been leavin’ poor Papa Smurf alone?”

“Yeah, I did. Where’s Uncle Sam?”

“Uncle Sam had personal business, Mattie.” He pulled out of his pocket two light-up Capitol Hill key chains. “Here, I got you and your brother somethin’. See, just like where the President works. Go give Alexander his, okay?”

“Thanks, Daddy!” she said, as she was lowered gently to the ground only to bound off in an exuberant direction.

When he turned back, Mari’s jaw was still at full gape. “What,” she said, “is wrong? And don’t give me any grande basura about allergies.”

“Why do I need to have something wrong?” he said, slapping on the kitchen light, to aid his putting away of cans. “Why can’t it be that I want to be my own man now? Why can’t it be that I’m tired of playing shoddy second to Sam Gerard? It’s getting to me, okay, Mari? It’s getting to me. I get crap in my head that doesn’t belong there. I got feelings… This job, it takes such a bite…you know that…”

“With whom do you live? I know that. But so that means you’re going to get even more stressed out with your own team? Besides, you worship Sam Gerard—“

“No, I don’t,” he snapped. “He’s a human being, like everybody else.”

“Okay, you love him.”

“Jesus,” he said, wincing.

“You do. You guys love each other. He’s family, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes maybe men get too close…I don’t know...” He slammed away the rest of the canned goods, folding up the bag. Slapping it into the storage closet, he lifted himself up to perch on a small kitchen table behind him. “I’m just feeling weird and confused and … even a little nutty sometimes…”

“What?” she said, finally. She closed the refrigerator solidly and solemnly on everything perishable now put away. She walked across to take his face fully into her hands and lift it up for final inspection. “What, Cos? What is this?”

“Listen, Marisa…it’s not anything!” he said, forcing a laugh. He grinned as widely as he could. “I’m a little depressed. I’m makin’ a three ring circus out of a couple o’ juggling acrobats, eh? You know me. I constantly and always exaggerate, right?”

Cosmo flinched at the sound of the wall telephone ringing behind him.

He stood away from it, as if the phone itself might see right through him. “If that’s Sam, I’m not here,” he said, quickly.

“What do you mean, you’re not here?” She grabbed for the counter cordless, yanked up the aerial. “Hello… Yeah, Sam, he’s here—he’s right here. What is wrong with him? I haven’t seen Cossi like this since…ever…” She exhaled a sigh that went a long way down to nothing. “Well, talk to him, will ya? He doesn’t want to talk to you, but I’m gonna make him. Yeah, yeah, just a second—“

She extended the phone to him, like a gauntlet. “You come to this phone and you talk to Sam.”

“I’m not a frickin’ kid, Marisa.”

“And I’m not your goddamned answering service, Cos. Sam called for you. You come to the phone and handle it. I got dinner to cook. And take it into the den so the kids and Grandma won’t hear it, in case you two yell like you usually do.”

Finally, he took the phone…staring at it, as if it was simply the last thing in the world he wanted to see or touch.

Blindly, he marched ten steps into the den and slammed the door behind him. He drank in full measure of the dark…his thankfully sound-proof little den.

The word itself broke against his voice as he spoke it into the phone. “Yeah?”

At first, there was no greeting…no sound…just a profound presence radiating across the connection. “What in the hell is this thing from Camp Beau that I’m holdin’?” the inimitable voice asked, in a manner impossible to ignore.

Renfro again breathed deeply, against the gentle stinging once more bothering his eyes. “Somethin’ that’s been comin’ for awhile.” He fought to hold his voice to a single, resonating line. “We always knew the day would come.”

“Oh, no we didn’t. I didn’t see this comin’ at all. And neither did you until now. You saved our lives today… We’ve done that for each other a lotta times. I don’t care how many times we yell at each other. We got bonds that just don’t break this way.”

“Well, maybe they do,” he said, battling back the build-up growing once again behind his eyes. He collapsed into the arms of his favorite chair, fighting for some unknown source of composure.

“No,” Sam said. “No, they don’t. I saw the look on your face when you thought I’d been killed, Cosmo. And Richard tells me you walked in here and out of here last night, looking like you’d sold your soul to some two-bit street preacher. So I know now the three of us gotta have a serious talk.”

“No we don’t. We don’t have to do anything but stay the fuck away from each other.”

“That’s not gonna happen… That’s never gonna happen. I won’t let it happen.”

“Maybe it’s not your decision for once, huh? Maybe the great Sam Gerard doesn’t call the shots for once.” Cosmo knew it was coming…felt the tides in his eyes pulling at him from within and without. He tensed up against its final impact. He would rather die on that very spot than cry in the presence of Sam Gerard, even through the portal of a phone. “I got responsibilities. I got a family that I love…”

“No one is saying you don’t…” Sam said gently, his impossibly kind voice now gentler than the other man could bear. At last, he spun Renfro’s name into a gentler web of sound: “Cosmo, listen to me…”

“Don’t—“

“The three of us can figure a way through this.”

“Through what? Don’t act like you know anything, coz you don’t know. Anything. I’m ignoring it, Gerard, okay? Because that’s what grownups do. In the real world. That’s what adults with responsibilities do. We ignore this kinda stuff.”

“Like your brother ignored it?”

The words were a direct hit on his heart… no way he could avoid them. When they struck, they split him up and down then shook him utterly apart; there was no way to bring himself around. He knew he was going down.

“Don’t you talk about my brother!” he said, the sob breaking through the wall. “I am not my brother. You don’t know shit about my brother—“

“I know more about Nico than you do. I know him from the inside. Which is how I know you’re goin’ through somethin’ you can’t possibly comprehend. And it’s the same thing Nico went through…the same thing, Cosmo…don’t lie to yourself because I won’t let you. I’m not about to let you die. Lying to himself is what killed your brother.”

“My brother was a selfish jerk who only cared about his own needs… I am not him.”

“Your brother was a human being. And for one split second, he was a coward, like most of us are for one split second every so often in our lives. But the one thing in the world that I know you’re not is a coward. You have the courage to face this. To deal with it in a real way. To live with the integrity I know you have. To give your children a real person to look up to…somebody who makes peace with himself. I didn’t die like the man that Nico loved. I’m still here and I’m not gonna let you destroy yourself. You hear me?”

“Please,” he said, his voice finally surrendering to the swells and surges bursting out of him now at impossible velocities and volumes, “please, for God’s sake, don’t make me think about this…”

“Cosmo, this doesn’t mean anything comes to an end… Richard helped me to see that. You love your family…I love your family. That never is gonna change. This is about you and Richard and me, it’s not about you and Mari.”

“It’s about nothing, Gerard. It’s about nothing. Now for godssakes, leave me the fucking hell alone.” He snapped the line dead, hurled the receiver to the throws. But as if at contact, the telephone rang again.

He knew if he didn’t answer it, Mari or the children would. And there would be deeper and more awful consequences for which to answer.

He grabbed it up but before he could speak, Sam’s voice stormed over the line: “We either deal with this on the phone right now or Richard and I come over there right now. Which is it?”

“I answered it, didn’t I?”

“Good. I’m glad. So now we’ll talk and then tomorrow, we’ll start another chapter in our lives…”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Cosmo snapped.

“Cosmo... You only hung up before because I was getting through to you. You know now we’ll find a way to work around this. Something beautiful can start tomorrow and nothing but nothin’ has to end.”

“That’s not possible… Not possible, Gerard. Forgive me for the fucking Texas fucking saying, but wild horses couldn’t fucking drag me back there… coz I can’t let ‘em drag me back there.” He inhaled a rattling wealth of despair…a single compression through multiple layers of pain… “I love you. Oh, fucking hell, all right, I confess. Mea fucking culpa… I love you. Jesus, I never meant such words in my whole fucking life. And you can’t possibly know how badly I want to believe everything…every thing… you’ve just said.”

“Then believe it, because it’s true, Cosmo.”

“No, it’s not true. I can’t believe its true… I can’t believe it… just like I can’t ever see you again.”

“I won’t let you do this—”

The last fragments of Renfro’s heart…of his will to resist…of everything he had believed in through so many years…fell into a cold, dark maw at the center of himself. The light, in a vacuum, had nowhere else to go.

“It’s already done. Goodbye, Sam,” he whispered and hung up the phone.

He made his hand move the cordless phone to the small square beige coffee table. He let the receiver drop. He drew his arms around himself, as if to shield the dark and the cold at the seat of himself… as if he might hide from himself behind this tall internal wall of doubt. His palms slipped over his eyes, wiping away everything they could. From his pocket, he withdrew a washed out deli napkin with a work-related hastily written note. He used the unwritten end to dab at his eyes.

The door to the den opened a little. A young boy peeped in, smiling like the sun. The only warmth possible in a bare little room.

“Hi, Dad,” he whispered and waved the keychain at him, “I wanted to say thank you… but Mom says that you’re on the phone.”

“I was… I’m not now.” He shoved the pain all away behind the door inside, and forced himself, with everything he was, to flash a small and certain smile. “Come in here; give your old man a hug. I haven’t seen you in days. How’s my hero? You finish the Velcro project for the science fair?”

“Yeah, but Mom helped.” Alec slipped into the room, moving carefully up to his dad. He shyly kissed at his father’s face. “Were you crying?”

“Who? Me? Of course not. Daddies don’t cry. You know that.”

“They do sometimes. When Pappe and Grandpa died. And your friend from work. Like you said.”

“That’s true, that is what I said. And they do. But not for stuff like this, okay?” He tweaked the young boy’s nose. “I just got a bad cold and a runny nose or somethin’. So where’s Mom? She got dinner ready?”

“Almost.”

Cosmo pinched gently at the little boy’s face. “We better go see to it, before the Gorgons eat it all, eh?”

Alec waited a moment, lingering to consider him. He laced an arm around his father’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you’re sad, Daddy.”

“I’m not! Alekky, I toldja. I’m good.”

The other door popped open. It was Marisa. “What friend did you lose?” she said, the alarm in her eyes renewed…her voice teetering at the edge of panic.

“Nobody!” Cosmo grinned, as Cosmo always grinned. “I told Mamme almost lost. Almost lost, okay? Somebody at work. But nothin’ happened. Long dull story.” He grabbed Alec’s head in his hand, pushing the boy before him and toward his mother.

She seemed appeased…relieved…for the moment anyway. “Did you talk things out with Sam?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine with Sam. It’s all good. Just time to move on, you know? Big crisis over,” he said, ushering the bits of his family ahead of him and into the distant heart of the house.

