"Dack!" Paul warned me as he spun on the carpet. His voice was plaintive as if he knew all was lost. His scream echoed quite pathetic in its own way, like this person didn't have me dead to rights. Since I was still alive, perhaps things were not lost.

Staring down the barrel of my gun, I watched as the ebony figure from Brittany's room increased in size. Though no air conditioner was on, I felt a wave of ice air patter across my face. Though this imposing figure held a small version of an Uzi in each hand, I lowered my weapon.

The detective on the carpet twisted his head wild, not believing my actions and gasped, "Dack! Don't!"

From out of the hallway came a deep, comical voice that said, "Shut off yer squallin', ya wuss, or I'll give ya ticket to the sowin' circle!"

The gigantic figure took another step and lowered his guns. Dressed all in black as I was, this man wore clothing that is more casual. Combat boots, jeans and a t-shirt…but a long duster coat swept the floor as he moved. In the dim light long, straight locks of blonde hair spilled over the broad shoulders of the massive man. He put one of the guns away and scratched the chin of his bushy beard.

I put my gun away, sighed, and spoke into my cell-phone, "Hank, I must go. Bye. Detective, meet Thor Alexander. He's the agent from MAJESTIC SERVICES you never wanted to meet."

Thor rested his frame back on his right hip, standing in a non-chalant way as he hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. His piercing eyes, the color of glacial ice, focused on Paul, and said, "Heh. Pleasure is yours, there dick-boy. Don't get up on my part."

Wearing a sheepish look, Paul stood up again and I prayed that he kept his mouth shut. Thor could vivisect a man as easy with his mouth as with his bowie knife.

The giant blonde turned his head and looked at Brittany's computer bank. Though he hid it well, I knew he wasn't stunned by this display. His way oozed of confidence and arrogance. Thor Alexander wasn't the cat who swallowed the canary. He made them extinct. "What's new, snowman?"

Paul, breaking with my desires, spoke. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I'm sure my usually icy expression became one of frustration as Thor turned his face to the detective. Paul really didn't realize whom or what he was talking to. In many respects, since my banishment, I am restricted as to my activities. Thor bears no such bond.

Thor growled, "Watch yer ass, ol' son, or I'll make ya jealous of them sperm cells that didn't make it to yer mama."

Paul's face turned red and he was about to speak to the sneering agent when I interjected, "Thor, what exactly are you doing here?"

"Just passin' through, stopped by to say hi to one of our acolytes, seein' as ya weren't home," Thor said steadily, his southern voice-twanging heavy on his syllables. His eyes drifted to the computer again and then back to me. "Ain't nuthin' worth readin' in there, anyways."

Damn, I thought, he entered her database! My terror subsided, knowing she left nothing there for me to find…nothing at all. A new concept dawned on me and I asked him, "What did you do to her system?"

Faking a great shock, Thor clutched his huge chest and exclaimed, "Me? Ya jerkin' me off, frosty. What could a dumbass, ol' country boy ever do to one of these new fangled ‘puters? Hell, I thought the Internet was that stuff inside my bathin' trunks up till last year. Explains why I skinny dip exclusive-like now."

Paul blinked and his face quivered. He was trying to make sense of Thor's over powering, manure-laced rap and I knew this was impossible. Thor was re-directing Paul's mind away from the point and the damn cracker was good at it.

"I'm not that stupid, Thor," I told him.

Thor's tongue run across his teeth as his hands fell to his sides. His voice was grave, as he said, "Never thought you were, bud."

"Just passing through? That's very funny," I said calmly and glanced down at the sunglasses in my left hand. Now it was my turn to place mis-direction.

On cue, Thor looked at the shades and said, "Sunglasses at night. Damn, must suck to be albino even after the implants the docs gave you. Or are them night vision shades?"

I looked at the tiny computer screen inside the dark lense and thought, HE DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT THE GLASSES! Quickly, I said, "Night vision in case I missed something."

"Never can be too careful, ol' son," Thor responded and stretched his massive frame. Paul backed up, clearly intimidated by the giant agent. "Maybe bein' banished all this time has made yer senses dull. Ya think?"

It was driving Paul crazy to stay quiet and he asked a question with some merit. "Why did you come here? Chasing that CIA agent who beat up Brittany?"

I expected Thor's eyes to flare, figuring Paul hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, Thor didn't bite. Either Paul was wrong or Thor refused to show his hand. "Listen here Dick. Ya best stick to pallin' around with MAJESTIC Agents who are wrapped on the wrist and stay away from us active agents. We know a lot of stuff guys like Dack over there don't get invited to hear. So shut yer yap, lessin' I rip off yer nuts by way of yer mouth."

Paul's fiery temper was stoked and he grunted, "Get outta my town!"

Thor threw back his mane of blonde hair and laughed heartily. Suddenly, his head snapped level again and he shouted, "Who the fuck ya think ya are, dick, Batman? Yer town! This is Hank's town." Thor took a step forward and his voice lowered. "Its Hank's world. It ain't prudent fer ya to die…yet…so thank him fer yer life." His eyes then riveted to me and he stated, "That goes for you, too, snowman. Ya owe Hank yer life. He gave ya a reason to live and allowed ya to live still after ya fucked up back in 1996. The fact that ya never send him a card on father's day makes a tear run down my leg."

I stood to one side and tilted my head at the door. "It may be best if you go on, whatever you are here for."

Thor smiled and replied in a mock gangland dialect, "Just passin' through, homey! Lookin' fer an old pal, may go check out the titty bar tonight. Hey, Brittany dancin' this evening?"

I watched Thor swagger across the room and said, "No. A man claiming to be in the CIA, an albino no less, beat her to a pulp. She's comatose."

Thor's right eyebrow lifted in surprise, but his face wasn't full of grief. "That so? Damn shame. She was a pretty gal. Hell, with Majestic surgeons, she will be again, maybe even better. No sweat, pale-face."

Paul raged and took a step toward Thor as he said, "If you know anything—"

I barked, "Paul!" then said calmly, "Let it go."

Thor slipped on a leather biker's cap and tugged on the hard brim at the detective. "See ya in yer dreams, dick. I'll behave in yer city. I wouldn't want the dark avenger here lookin' up my ass. Besides, sweetness, what trouble could a dumbass bumpkin like me get into? Just out to party with a bud of mine I been mentoring."

When he departed, Paul rushed toward me, but I put up a finger to my lips. I walked over to her computer and pressed a few buttons. Paul couldn't contain himself and said, "Is that arrogant prick really one of you guys?"

Again, I motioned him to be quiet and mouthed the word "BUGGED" before waving my hands as if to embrace the room. As it arrived in Paul's head that Thor probably bugged the room, I found a screen that told me what I suspected. I pointed at the screen and wiped my hands across themselves, trying to tell Paul the computer was indeed wiped clean.

We left her apartment and started down the stairs. While we walked Paul asked, "Is his real name Thor?"

"As far as I know," I answered, trying to figure it all out, holding the sunglasses. "I used to work with him before I came to Peoria."

"He said you were banished."

I shrugged and replied, "Re-assigned. Whatever."

Paul let it go for a few moments and then questioned, "Do I want to know why?"

My fingers rubbed on the sunglasses and I said, "Not really. Not important to the case. I'll tell you sometime when I think it matters to you."

We rounded the last flight of stairs and Paul asked, "Were you and Thor partners?"

I glanced out one of the windows of the stairs at the Peoria night tinged in orange light and answered, "All MAJESTIC brethren are partners, but yes, I worked with him doing dirty tricks, government intrigue, altering history, you know the score."

Paul exhaled as if very tired and muttered, "I thought I did."

Relishing the silence of the moment, we went down the stairs. Once, my cell-phone rang but I reached in my coat and turned it off and on.

Paul laughed, "Not going to answer?"

"Not now. Probably Hank. I really don't want to speak to him or my stalker." Exiting the building, I raised the sunglasses to my face, framing them against the night. "I need time, Paul. Damn, he knew, though. Thor was lying."

Paul stepped toward the car and then stopped, looking back at me. "I bet he did know about it all! Damn, Dack! What if he did it? What if this albino guy led Brittany out there and Thor beat her up?"

I frowned and stated, "She looks too good for that. No, if that were his work Brittany would be in a drawer waiting for Medical Examiner Judy Spears. No, I think Thor knows this CIA man, but he didn't beat up Brittany."

Paul watched me as I worked with the dials on the glasses, trying to get the paper called PROTÉGÉ to scroll down. "So why is he here?"

"A good question," I granted him. "Brittany was keeping a separate log on this computer here. I wonder why."

"That small? How could she?"

I read the words on the tiny screen before my right eye and said, "Nano-technology. The chips are microscopic. She kept a separate log of things, probably voice activated if I were bright enough to see how to do it. Thor must've searched for something on the other computer, what I don't know. Here. This is the last thing she was working on."

Paul walked nearer to me in the alley and glanced at the nearby parking garage and four story tavern across the way. "What does it say?"

"She left this file on here because it was the last thing she looked up before she went to the station to get this guy. It is a report filed by MAJESTIC clerks over the woes of recruitment into our group. She was adding to it and commenting on it."

Paul asked, "Acolytes do that?"

I responded, "Our assistants are the eyes and ears of Hank at times. They know if we screw up and how we work. Putting new agents in the field may not sit well with the acolytes if they have to baby-sit an inferior product."

Paul chuckled and looked down the alley at a limo pulling away from the back of ALICE'S WONDERLAND.

"The brass in MAJESTIC are trying to get people from the Green Berets or Special forces to join our numbers, but are coming up empty for quality candidates. These men didn't train well, so Hank decided on picking the best of the best and assigning them with an active MAJESTIC agent for training. The program is PROTÉGÉ."

Paul bit his index finger and turned around in a circle. He was quite a nervous man for a detective, granted, but he was all heart. Mostly. Paul said, "Maybe this guy flashing CIA credentials was really a spook in training, one of you guys!"

I took a step into the alley toward my car and uttered the words, "Then why beat her up? If he recognized who or what she was, why do that?"

Two terrible feelings entered me just then. One, that this man knew of all my contacts thus endangering more of my friends in Peoria…that all of this was personal to me in some way. Two, a bullet.

I felt a siring pain in my right shoulder that made agony explode across my being. I'd felt this before. In the past, I'd been shot; a few times, it even passed through my body. My legs gave up and I fell to the street. What confused me was how the bullet passed through two layers of my coat's body armor?

Falling, I rolled and the ill-fitting glasses flipped off my face and clattered across the pavement. Lying on the hard street, my ears were full of a sucking sound of air punctuated by the shouts of the detective. I touched the wound on my shoulder and I saw my blood on the dark leather enveloping my hand.

The world rotated counter clockwise as a piece of the street near my face popped up, shot free by a silenced bullet from above. A few grains of dust fell into my eyes, not adding to my rather bad mood.

The detective fired, each bullet echoed loud and in a slowed manner as a silent intruder slit across my left eyebrow, causing a fount of blood to fill my eyes. I blinked and the world went from red to black.

Home