Encounters and Betrayals.

Manhattan, New York

Patrick scooped out a spoonful of fried rice from the takeout box onto a paper plate. Maria watched him eat vigorously, his chopsticks carrying huge portions of food to his mouth.

"Slow down, old man," she admonished him.

"What, am I eating too fast?"

"Like there’s no tomorrow." She snickered.

He frowned at the remark. "Don’t say that."

"Why are you so tense?"

"I’m second guessing. Maybe we should’ve had one more person on this job."

"Maybe we could’ve brought the entire 82^nd Airborne Division, too."

He looked skyward. "That’s a good idea. Let me call them. Seriously, Maria. We have a lot on our hands tomorrow. If this place is crawling with as many thugs as we’ve seen on peak days this past week, we might be in for a very short ride."

"I’ve never seen you like this before. Usually you have ice water in your veins. Are you out of practice?" she asked archly.

He gave her a disapproving look. "Shut your mouth; I’m fine."

"Patrick, we’ve gone over our plan. We’re ready for this."

He smiled. "Look who’s the teacher and who’s the student now." He pushed the food around on his plate, then asked, "Do you trust me?"

She sighed deeply. "I’m here, aren’t I?"

"Yeah, but I can tell you aren’t so sure about me."

"I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jittery. But between you and the Serbs, I’ll take you any day."

"That’s reassuring."

Patrick stared at her a moment, then stood up and walked over to where she sat. Maria watched him as he bent over to kiss her on the cheek. She jerked away as his lips touched her skin.

"Patrick, don’t . . ."

He straightened up, then hung his head in embarrassment. "I’m sorry, Maria. I know we’re supposed to be working, but I just can’t help thinking about how it used to be. Do you remember it?"

"Of course. But those days are gone."

"I know that, but it’s just . . ." He searched for words. "I’m looking at you across this table, and you’re just so beautiful that I . . ."

Maria stopped him. "Please; don’t say that . . ."

"Why not? Why can’t I tell you how I feel?"

She looked down. "Too much has happened. I can’t go back there."

Patrick turned away and walked over to the window of the hotel room. They remained in silence. Finally, Maria announced, "I’m going back to my room now. I’ll see you tomorrow at 0900." Patrick nodded, and she walked out of the room.

As Maria rode the elevator to her floor, she stared at her image in the mirrored wall. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t need the money. I don’t need the work. And Patrick . . . . What was he thinking tonight, anyway? I mean, I’ve had my share of lovers, but after all this time and all we’ve been through he expects me to pick up where we left off?

She recalled a day from their past . . .

West Bank, Israel

Patrick motioned to the two Mossad agents to regroup. Maria joined the circle. He whispered to the group, "When Avi and I detonate the flash grenades, I want to make sure that we wait until all four of them are outside before we take a shot. Okay?"

The female Mossad officer, Shira, nodded. "We’ll wait."

Patrick pointed at Maria. "Make sure you keep your fire concentrated. We don’t want anything to go astray. Shira will take out anybody who gets away from us."

Maria, irritated at the suggestion that anyone would escape the wrath of her machine gun, responded with a terse, "Yeah."

It was morning twilight, and the four assassins were targeting a house occupied by four Hezbollah guerrillas. The male Israeli agent, Avi, and Patrick worked their way to the side of the house. Shira and Maria took positions on a slope just south of the building.

Maria set up her machine gun on a tripod that she stabbed into the soil. Shira took hold of her sniper’s rifle and lay flat on the ground. She looked over her shoulder at Maria.

"So, how old are you?"

"Twenty-four. Why do you need to know?" Maria went about her business of setting up the gun.

Shira rolled her eyes. "You’re too young. Patrick shouldn’t be sending us little girls to fight Hezbollah."

"Excuse me, but how do you say ‘go fuck yourself’ in Hebrew?" Maria snarled at her. "You can put that rifle away now, old lady, because I’m going to take care of business."

Shira was surprised by the vitriolic outburst. She turned her attention away from Maria and focused on the house.

Avi and Patrick were at the side now, aiming their grenade launchers at a window. Patrick raised his arm, giving the signal that they were ready to go. Maria gripped the gun tightly and put gentle pressure on the trigger. She felt the butt of the stock dig into her shoulder as she aimed at the front door of the house.

The flash grenades shook the quiet morning stillness. Smoke billowed from the window where the devices entered. Avi and Patrick crouched low, holding their assault rifles ready in case anyone attempted to exit from the rear.

As expected, the men inside were startled from their sleep and ran into the street to avoid the explosions. They had their guns with them, but they were out in the wide open. Maria saw them through her sights. You guys are really, really dead.

One, two, three, . . . Maria counted to make sure all their targets had left the building. Come on; where’s the last one? Three . . . four! When the last man stumbled out of the smoky house, Maria pulled the trigger. The gun spat fire as she moved it in a tight radius. Shira looked for a shot, but she couldn’t find one. As quickly as it had started, the fight was over: even from that distance in the twilight, it was plain to everyone that Maria had annihilated the men.

They were in a predominantly Palestinian section of the West Bank, so everyone was in a hurry to escape. Patrick and Avi ran back to the van. Shira jumped into the driver’s seat and Maria took the passenger seat. When everyone was on board, they sped away from the scene.

In the van, Patrick and Avi congratulated Maria, slapping her on the shoulder and chanting her name as if she’d just won a sporting contest. Shira never turned her eye from the road in front of her.

Later that evening at their hotel in Tel Aviv, Patrick and Maria lounged about the room, discussing the day’s events.

"So what does Shira have up her ass, anyway?" Maria drank from a tall bottle of beer.

Patrick went through his suitcase as he changed his clothes. "Huh? Shira? She just thinks that the Mossad doesn’t need us. Just like we think we don’t need them."

"No, I mean she was giving me a lot of attitude out there. About my age. ‘You’re too young to fight Hezbollah,’" Maria said, parroting the woman.

"Forget it. You proved yourself to them today. Hell, you proved yourself to me. I’ve let you in on a lot of assignments before, but this was a big one. This means you’re ready to do the kind of work that Shira does."

Maria looked at him, indignant. "What does she do that I don’t do?"

"She does jobs on her own, for one. No other agents around. Just her and her gun."

"I can do that," Maria asserted arrogantly.

"Oh, can you?" He crossed his arms and stood at the foot of the bed where Maria was lying. He had taken his shirt off, and Maria admired the thin but muscular design of his physique. "You can do jobs without me now?"

"I don’t need you. What did I need you for today? You were just the decoy."

"What sort of decoy would you use if not me?"

Patrick smiled at her as she lay there. She was wearing a white v-neck t-shirt and blue jeans with the legs tucked into a pair of brown cowboy boots. Her dark hair flowed in radiant strands over her shoulders and across her face. He could tell she was getting a little buzzed from the alcohol she’d had. "What’s your decoy?"

She smiled brightly at him. "I don’t need a decoy. I’m the decoy." She sat up and scooted to the foot of the bed where Patrick was standing. From there she reached out and ran her hands along his thighs. "I can trick men with my feminine wiles, you see."

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Do you really think you can? Show me."

She leaned closer, her caresses moving over the bare skin of his abdomen and brushing against his groin. "I’ll show you."

She began to stroke him and tug at the waist of his pants. Finally, she pulled him forward so that he fell onto the bed, straddling her. His mouth was hovering over her face; he moved lower to kiss her, but she backed away.

"Not so fast, partner."

She rubbed his shoulders and ran her hands along his chest. For awhile he let her work on him while he admired her from above. Then he reached down to push the fabric of her shirt away from her stomach, revealing her navel. He bent over and pressed his lips against the soft skin of her belly, occasionally darting his tongue into the recess of her navel. He realized that she’d managed to unfasten his pants, and that she was tugging them off with her feet. When she had them around his ankles, she grabbed him and pulled him earthwards, his weight pressed down against her.

She began to kiss his mouth wildly; she grabbed his face with both hands and drew him into her. After a moment, he took his hands and ran them up the side of her body, pulling the t-shirt with them. He sank his face into the area between her breasts and began to unhook her bra. After he removed it, he brushed his lips against her nipples; he delighted in hearing her moan at the sensation, the nipples responding with eagerness to his touch. She lost herself in his ministrations, closed her eyes, and bit her lower lip.

He pulled back and looked into her eyes. She smiled widely at him. As he gazed at her face, he saw her reach behind her back and yank the .45 semiautomatic from the waistband of her jeans. She jammed the barrel of the gun into his neck and purred to him, "Bang! You’re dead."

He could feel his whole body shiver. He had forgotten that she’d promised to seduce him this way. He could feel himself filling with pleasure at the thought of being lured into this deadly trap by his young protégé.

She pulled the gun away from his neck and said, "You see? I could’ve killed you."

"Do you think you can spare my life for another day?"

"Like the king does for Sheherazade in the Arabian Nights?" Maria asked. "She had to tell the king a new story every night. I’m not that keen on stories. What can you do for me?"

"I can pleasure you. Be your sex slave."

"Sounds promising. But it’s going to take quite a man to please someone like me for a thousand and one nights. Do you think you can do it?"

"What other choice do I have?"

"None. You either fuck me senseless every night, or else you die."

She placed the gun in front of her mouth and began to lick the barrel with long, up and down strokes. Then she ran the cold steel of the weapon all along her breasts with a circling motion.

"Naughty," Patrick scolded her. "Why don’t you try that on my gun?"

"Do you have a gun hidden in your pants, too? Wait a minute! Let me feel you down here . . ." She reached between his legs and felt him up. He felt his body stiffen as she gently took him in her clutch. "Oh, you do have something hidden down here!"

"How does it feel?"

"Like it’s made of steel," she giggled. "Are you going to shoot me dead with it?"

"Only if you’ve been a bad girl," he said.

"I killed four terrorists today. Does that make me bad?"

"Very bad."

"Then you’d better blow me away," she said breathlessly.

Patrick sank onto her body. Maria felt his skin glide against hers. This wasn’t her first time with Patrick; they’d celebrated a number of successful operations the same way. It was different, though. He’d been pleased with her rapid progress, and she was eager to please him even more.

How many times will I work with him again? she wondered with a touch of melancholy . . .

Ozone Park, New York

They arrived at the nondescript apartment building located near JFK International Airport. The sun had gone down a few hours earlier, and the neighborhood seemed eerily empty.

"Here we are," Patrick announced. "Ready?"

Maria nodded. "Yeah. See you in there."

"Be safe."

"You, too."

She checked herself in the mirror one last time. There was some risk that the Serbs would recognize her as Markovic’s assassin, so she wore a simple disguise of a blonde wig and sunglasses with pale yellow lenses – enough to distract them just long enough to catch them off guard. Because they were planning separate entries into the building, Patrick dropped her off near the front of the building, then drove around to the alley in back.

She walked to the front door of the building, silently cursing the stiletto-heeled slides she was wearing as part of her hooker costume. I’m going to have to lose these fucking shoes as soon as I can . . . She drew her coat more tightly over her shoulders, which were mostly exposed by the silvery, sequined dress she was wearing. I look like a trashy slut! I hope some pimp doesn’t try to mess with me before I get in.

She pulled on the door handle; it was unlocked. She stepped inside the tiny foyer of the building. Next to a small table, two men were seated playing a card game. They looked up and stared at her. She smiled at them, then pretended to wait for the elevator.

"It doesn’t work, lady," the younger man said to her. She looked over at them and saw what looked like a shotgun poking out of a bag at their feet. "Who are you looking for?"

"I’m supposed to meet some guy here."

"No one lives here now."

"Don’t you guys live here?" She walked over to them.

The man laughed. "Yeah, we live here." He eyed her, his gaze clearly loaded with intentions. "You are prostitute, lady?" He laughed again. Maria noticed that the other man didn’t seem to understand the conversation.

"That depends on how much money you have," she replied.

"Oh, I have a lot of money, lady. Why don’t you come here, sit with me?"

She inched closer. "Not until I see the green."

"Oh, come on, lady!" he protested. The second man, despite his inability to speak English, was obviously enjoying the encounter. The first man opened his jacket to retrieve his wallet. He had it open just long enough for Maria to see the holster holding his gun. "How much this costs?" The man held up a five dollar bill.

"More than that! That won’t buy my toes," she answered. She saw him make the translation in his head, then look down at her feet. She wiggled her painted toes peeking out of her slides.

I’ve got this guy by the balls now. He’s history.

He tossed the bill on the floor. "Maybe just the toes for now, okay?" He slouched in his chair and sat with his legs wide apart.

Great. This is going to require balance, she thought. She kicked off a shoe, raised her leg, and placed her foot in the man’s crotch. She applied pressure with her toes and her heel, kneading him with the whole of her foot. His eyes rolled back as she worked on him.

"You like that?" she asked.

"Yeah, that feels good! Keep going."

"What about your friend over there? Does he get a turn?"

"Him? Nah, he’s a dumb piece of shit. Doesn’t speak English."

"What are you guys, anyway?"

"Serb."

Like there was any doubt.

Maria’s foot job made the man grunt approvingly. She looked down at her watch to see how much time she had left before she had to rendezvous with Patrick. Shit! I’ve got less than two minutes to get upstairs.

Seeing her check her watch, the man asked with disappointment, "Is my time up?"

With coldness in her voice, Maria replied, "It’s up."

Her foot still between his legs, she gave him a swift kick, sending him and his chair falling backward. She reached into her fur coat and withdrew the silencer-equipped 9mm. With lightning speed, she fired three shots at the man. The bullets ripped through him, leaving him dead in his toppled chair.

She turned to the other man, who reached for a handgun at his side. Thhnk, thhnk, thhnk – the gunshots nailed him. He fell off his chair and into the corner. She stepped over to him and noticed he was still moving and writhing about.

"You must understand a little English. You know the word ‘goodbye,’ right?"

The man managed to make a muffled grunt, "Bitch!"

"What a vocabulary! Can you say, ‘She shot him dead with her gun?’ Here; let me show you what I mean."

Maria knelt next to him, placed the tip of the silencer just a few inches from his temple, and fired. His head snapped to one side, blood singed against the skin surrounding the wound. She stood up, stepped back, and looked over the scene.

Just tell them the bitch was here, thank you.

As Maria stood there, she felt herself wobble. She looked down to see she was still wearing one of the stiletto heels. "Screw these damn things!" she said as she kicked off the other shoe. She began to climb the stairs. Suddenly, a voice called down from above in a foreign language.

I don’t speak Serbo-Croatian, pal. She waited around the corner for the man to come into view. As he came down the steps, he saw Maria below him and stopped. Through the darkness of the dimly-lit stairwell she could tell that he was one of the men Radovic sent to Los Angeles to have her killed. Despite her disguise, he recognized her, too, and reached for his gun. Maria raised her 9mm first and aimed it at the man. She let fly a volley of shots before he could take aim. He fell face-first and rolled down the steps, where he landed at her feet. She cautiously prodded him with her foot and circled him with her gun prepared for further action.

"You gave me quite a scare, sneaking up on me in a dark stairway like that. What’s a girl to do?" She shot him one more time to finish the fight.

After a moment of observation, she was satisfied the man was in the throes of death. She stepped over him and ascended the stairs.

The lighting was poor, so she tossed her sunglasses aside. As she tiptoed up the steps, she whispered into the tiny microphone attached to her coat.

"I’m running late. I’ve got three down by the front door. The area is secured. You there?"

She could hear a muffled response come through the little earphone. "I’m late, too. I’ve run into a little problem here. I’ll meet you where we planned. Out."

A little problem? What the hell is he talking about? What kind of little problem? As she continued upstairs, she threw another clip into her gun. This is a bad time to have a problem, Patrick. She muttered under her breath, "Don’t let me down, you son of a bitch."

Milan, Italy

The rumors traveled through the small circle of elite assassins and spies Maria worked with: Patrick Sullivan has gone freelance; he’s a renegade, a traitor, a turncoat. He’s doing jobs for organized crime. Watch out for him.

He was blamed for a number of incidents that had a definite anti-American thread running through them: a Colombian official who supported American intervention in the drug war; a Saudi who was a little too friendly with the U.S. during the Persian Gulf War; even a Canadian publisher who had been a vocal advocate for free trade.

Maria didn’t believe them. Not just because of her relationship with him; from a professional viewpoint, the hits didn’t bear his signature. It didn’t seem like his modus operandi. Nevertheless, there was enough evidence against him to make her doubt her old partner. Besides, no one in Washington had heard from him in months. Contracts were being farmed out to other hired guns, and Maria benefited from his sabbatical.

Maria walked with Gabriel, a young and handsome operative she’d partnered with several times in Patrick’s absence. She had grown to respect him professionally because he knew not to step on her toes. "Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you what to do," he told her. His professionalism and his all-American sense of duty were too much for her: she felt the urge to corrupt the man, and she resolved to bed him the first minute she could.

She was with him in Italy on a project of an unusual nature: she and Gabriel were assigned to protect a federal witness in a case against an Italian physicist charged with selling classified information to terrorists. The case was so tightly guarded that federal marshals were not asked to provide the protection; only the CIA and its "subcontractors" were notified.

Gabriel and Maria met the witness in the lobby of his office building.

"Buon giorno, Dr. Strozzi," Gabriel said to the man. "The car is waiting outside. There’s been a change of plans; we’re flying out of Malpensa instead."

"Yes, Malpensa."

"Do you have any more bags?"

"No, this is all."

They led the man outside to the Mercedes sedan parked on the other side of the street. Gabriel opened the trunk and began to put the luggage inside. Maria let him in the back seat. She saw papers falling out of the man’s briefcase and suddenly remembered a document they needed.

"Gabriel! I forgot to get that affidavit from the carabinieri," she called out to him.

"Why don’t you go back and get it, and I’ll start the car."

Maria turned and hurried back to the office building where the state police officers were waiting. As she approached the doors of the office, a huge explosion knocked her off her feet. Glass in the surrounding buildings shattered. Dazed, she picked herself up off the ground, pulled out her sidearm, and turned back to the car. She was shocked to see that the Mercedes was engulfed in flames. The carabinieri ran outside the building with their weapons drawn. Some of them approached the burning car, but they couldn’t get close.

It’s too late; they’re already dead.

There was confusion; people on the street ran inside, and people inside ran into the streets. She squinted through the smoke and chaos, looking for some sign of the culprit. Down the street, she spotted a man calmly exit a building and get into his car. His hair was as white as an old man’s.

You motherfucker!

She raced across the cobblestone street to him. The car started to drive away. She knew she was too far to hit him, but she fired a warning shot at the car to let him know she was there.

She stood there in the street, paralyzed by rage. She clenched her fists, squeezing the gun with all her might. "Patrick Sullivan, you fucking bastard!" she shouted at the escaping car. She turned to the burning Mercedes.

How am I going to explain this? They’re going to kick my ass for this screw-up. What a fucking mess. Poor Gabriel; he was a good guy. He didn’t deserve this.

Maria paced about in a tight circle, her fist tightly clenched on her handgun. Patrick. So what they said about you is true. Hard to believe just a few months ago we were working side by side. You think you can get away with stuff like this? You think you can sell your services to the highest bidder? You’re that good? Now that the government will probably never hire me again, I might just join you in your dirty world. And one of these days, we might meet again. We just might. Watch your back . . .

New York

Maria passed the fourth floor of the building and was about to go higher when Patrick’s voice shouted through the earphone.

"Get the hell of out of here – NOW!"

She could hear the fear in his voice, and it startled her. "What’s going on? Hello?" She wondered what could be happening upstairs. She was supposed to meet him on the sixth story, where Rado and his men would be. Most of their bomb-making materials should have been on the same floor. She knew something must be seriously wrong for him to command her to abort the mission.

She started to head back down the stairs, but stopped when she heard a flood of voices below. They spoke anxiously and excitedly in their Slavic tongue.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! There must be ten of them down there! She turned around and returned to the fourth floor. She thought about meeting Patrick upstairs, but he had clearly warned her not to come up. She heard the men below doing a door-by-door search. She knew it was only a matter of time before they made their way to her floor.

"Patrick, come in! A whole busload of them just arrived and they’re making their way upstairs. I can’t exit; can’t abort. Please advise."

She waited for an answer; there was silence.

"Patrick? Are you there? This SUCKS, Patrick! I’m getting screwed down here! Where are you?"

More silence.

Where the fuck is he? Is he dead? Thoughts raced through her head: How did Patrick know so much about Markovic’s and Rado’s movements, anyway? Is he really still working with Washington, or is this a setup? That’s what this is, isn’t it? Is he working for the Serbs? That bastard sold me down the river. She waited.

Suddenly, the sound of automatic weapons firing somewhere upstairs echoed through the building. Maria was caught in limbo: the men downstairs were surely going to race upstairs now, and whatever was happening above her was just as dangerous.

A door to one of the apartments flew open. Maria turned and saw two men exit, alerted by the gunshots, holding AK-47s. She opened fire on them. The lead man out the door walked right into her fire. He fell backwards onto his colleague as the fatal projectiles pierced him.

Maria dropped to one knee as the second man tried to push aside his mortally wounded partner, who was leaning heavily against him. She fired again. The limp body in front of the man acted as a shield, stopping most of the rounds. Realizing that the bullet-riddled body was his only protection, he tried to maintain his grip on it, but a few bullets traveled straight through the dead body and struck him. He let go of the man, who tumbled to the ground. He fell, too, and his face skidded hard against the astroturf-like carpet in the hallway. As he lay on the floor, the man struggled to regain his hold on his gun so he could take one more shot at the woman. It was lying just a few feet away – if only he could drag himself over there . . . but something inside him must have told him that his efforts were futile. He stopped and looked up at his killer. Maria had seen that look many times before: it was an expression that was part resignation, part awe. He knew he was dead, but he couldn’t believe that this enchantress in front of him was responsible for it. Wasting no time, Maria leapt over to him and, at point blank range, launched a bullet into his head.

She picked up the dead man’s AK-47 and swiveled quickly towards the stairwell where Rado’s guards were coming. She saw the tops of their heads peek over the railing. To discourage them from coming any closer, she fired a fusillade at the men. Plaster and wood exploded everywhere as the assault rifle tore up the building. One of the guards made the mistake of climbing too far up the stairs, and it cost him his life. The gunfire pounded him against the wall and left him in a lifeless, crimson heap.

She backed up into the room from where the two men had emerged. She slammed the door shut and shoved a heavy armoire in front of the door. That’ll give me about thirty seconds, but not much more.

She looked around the room. There was a window at the other end. She ran to it and flung it open. There was a fire escape outside. No good; they’ll nail me on the way down. Next to the fire escape was a thick cable that ran up the side of the building. It looked like a heavy communications wire. Could I rappel down the side with that? She tested the strength of the wire; it seemed a bit loose, but she had little choice.

Inside the room she saw several large canisters. They were labeled N₂H₄O₃ – she recognized them as the ammonium nitrate Rado was using to build his bombs. This might be a way out! She searched the room for more materials. On a table were some newspapers; next to them was a cigarette lighter. Will this work? Maria spread out the newspapers in a short span on the floor leading up to the ammonium nitrate to build a fuse. She tried to recall her training, singing the mnemonic song she was taught: Not too short, not too long; lots of fuel or else you’re gone. She then lit the paper with the lighter. Patrick, you better be dead already or a long way away from this building.

As she set fire to the newspapers, rounds of ammunition punched through the door and the armoire, barely missing her. She shot back through the furniture and the door. Splinters of wood flew everywhere. She could hear the bellowing of the men who were struck down by her bullets. She slung the AK-47 over her shoulder, reached through the window to grab hold of the wire, and stepped outside.

She quickly rappelled down all four stories, then jumped down to the sidewalk below.

She ran down the street as fast as she could. She had only gotten fifty yards away when an earth-shattering explosion ripped the building. It was followed in quick succession by two more explosions. Chunks of stone and wood pelted her in the back and the head as the apartment disintegrated.

Maria kept running. She knew that if he was alive, Patrick wasn’t going to rendezvous with her as they’d planned. Where do I go now? After sprinting for nearly five minutes, she was out of breath. She slowed down and walked. Her bare feet were bleeding and sore. She could hear the sirens of police cars and fire engines screaming as they made their way to the site of the mayhem.

She spotted a taxi cab parked in front of a convenience store. The driver was inside, eating. She tapped on the window. Without looking up, he waved her away.

"Off duty," he shouted. She tapped again; he looked up at her. His eyes grew wide and he raised his hands.

That’s a weird reaction, she thought. Then she remembered the AK-47 that was still draped over her shoulder. She took it off and rapped the barrel against the window. "Get out."

The man hurried out of the car. She walked over to the driver’s side and poked the gun into his gut. "Are the keys in the ignition?"

"Yes."

"Thanks for the car." She hopped in, tossed the gun onto the seat next to her, and drove off.

As she circled back to Manhattan, she pondered Patrick’s fate. It didn’t make sense to her. What was the problem upstairs? Was that him shooting at the Serbs, or were they shooting at him? And if he survived, did he have time to get out of there before the whole place went up?

She blasted the volume of the radio and stepped on the accelerator. I don’t care. Whatever happened to him, I just don’t care.