Chapter 5:

The night was still... The sounds of the city were blurred as if coming from inside a concrete box, and the familiar feeling set Michael Christiansen noticeably on edge. The electric surging through his body held a part of his mind hostage in genuine fear, or was it despair, of what would surely come, just as it had the several other times he had felt it.
“You’re nervous?” Sonya took his arm in hers and lent some support in her friendly way.
“No.” He lied. The fanciful worries of a man who had lost everything dear to him several times over were only a sad tale to others, and certainly far beyond their comprehension. “I’m just trying to think of what I’m going to say to her.”
Sonya smiled for him, helping to draw him out of his funk. “Just be honest and I’m sure she’ll understand.”
Pierre had come through for them. He had called early that morning and spoke of a restaurant manager friend who mentioned the young girl he had recently employed. The description fit adequately enough, and a few inquiries by Michael’s friend had landed them her regional accent and approximate time of arrival in the city. Her name was simply the confirmation.
“I hope so.”
The restaurant was busy but the service excellent, and they were shown to their reserved table, sipping their drinks and waiting for their dinner within only a few minutes of stepping through the door. Michael could see a bit of Italian influence in the French restaurant’s trimmings, something he doubted he could have picked up on had he not spent two years getting used to the style. 
“Feeling better, Michael?”
Sonya was relaxed, having downed almost her whole glass on an empty stomach. Her eyes sparkled slightly more than usual, hinting at her mischievous mind’s musings. She was a good friend and companion, but her odd lack of tolerance could be unbearable at times.
“Yeah. I’m just worked up, that’s all. My last time in Paris was a bit busy.”
“Things will go as planned, I just know it.”
Her certainty was almost infectious, quieting his still softly-ringing alarm bells into more of a muted series of thumps. He thought about his words to Alexandria until the food arrived, deciding to just let things fly once they met again face to face. 
The dinner was excellent, to be expected given the price tag, and having paid, he stopped the waiter long enough to ask about the girl.

Alexandria hefted the two trash bags and stepped through the back door, pausing twice to set down the particularly heavy bags on the short walk to the dumpster. She was getting weaker, she could tell. Her meager living and small calorie intake simply was not enough to keep up with the long days of hard work. Sweating over the endless dishes and hauling the heavy garbage, among other things, was wearing her small body beyond its means. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold out at this pace.
It took all her effort in both arms to lift the first bag over the rail. The second was tougher still, weighing almost thirty kilos. How they managed to load the bags that heavy she simply could not understand. It crashed into the dumpster at last and she sagged against the nearby wall, catching her breath and willing her heart to slow down. 
The sounds of the city still bounced off the turn in the alley though the brick seemed to muffle it a little, quieting it to a simple background noise. It was that quieting that allowed her to hear something that made her stop after just three steps towards the door, cocking her head to help clarify what she thought she heard.
The sound came again- more distinguishable this time, and a frightened part of her mind recognized it though it could not stop her body from stepping quietly to the dark corner to investigate.
Her breath caught, the silhouetted scene backed by the street’s lights just barely discernable in the darkness of the alley. The muffled scream came again and she could now see it was from a woman on the ground, her mouth gagged with the fabric of her torn dress and a knife to her throat. The man on top of her was occupied for the most part with raping her, his ferocity showing in the way he would stop to punch the woman’s body, making her scream into the gag in spite of his knife’s edge against her flesh.
The young woman started to step forward, her instincts to fight the madness before her making her move even before she could think. Her fear grabbed hold and made her pause. She had no strength to fight him with, no weapon... What if she failed and ended up being his next victim, her body beaten and violated as it had been before? What could she do?
Another scream, longer and more painful than the last, forced her to move. It had been her scream only a few months ago, that night unforgettable for the pain and anguish. Even if she was weak, she could not just simply walk away and allow this to go on.
She stepped silently as she could, closing the distance by almost half before she started to pick up the pace, her footsteps barely a warning to the engaged man as Alexandria screamed barbarically at the top of her lungs, slamming her shoulder into the rising man at full speed and knocking them both to the ground. She rolled clear to her left and got to her knees, rearing back with her fist and slamming it into the face of the stunned man. Her left hand grabbed his shirt and her right continued punching, hitting as hard as she could while filled with the fear of her past. Her eyes poured tears, her hysterical, gasping sobs coming almost in rhythm with the punches. She hated him. She hated everything he stood for, and it was he who had done that terrible thing to her before. Her body poured its strength into her assault, the man’s face battered and bleeding but retaining life in the fearful eyes.
The man’s arm moved and Alexandria jerked sideways, a sharp, searing pain ripping into her left side. She twisted away and felt the knife come free, tearing flesh pulling a scream from her lips even as she struggled to her feet, backing against the wall to prop herself up, and readying a defense against the man who was also getting to his feet now. 
Her left side burned horribly and she could feel the blood gushing from the gash as she held her hand against it. She was already feeling light-headed in spite of the adrenaline coursing through her body but she was committed to the fight and giving up now meant certain death. Her eyes caught those of the man and she felt the fear course through her, making her heart skip a beat before turning to burning hatred again as her instincts focused her on finishing him before he finished her. 
He lunged at her, knife held high, and she grabbed the swinging arm in both hands, turning to direct the thrust past her and driving her elbow into his eye, using his momentum to cause as much injury as she could. Her strength faded as she arrived at the end of the motion, allowing the man to pull the knife back and towards her, cutting another gash on her left side. His arm swung up and the balled fists holding the knife slammed into her chin, making her see stars for the first time in her life and sending her crashing to the alley floor next to the hapless victim he originally started with.
The man was breathing heavy, his right eye shut from pain, his left staring at the girl with fury, fury that he acted on, dropping onto her legs with his knees. The pain from her cracking legs paled in comparison to the searing plunges of the knife into her chest and she instinctually screamed, the sound gurgling with blood as the knife found a lung.
Three shots banged through the alley, sharp and deafening, rousing Alexandria’s focus in time to see the third shot blast out the front of the knife-man’s head, his blood and brains coming out in a kind of mist before he fell over beside her. Someone had come to save her...

The kitchen staff looked at Michael and Sonya with curiosity as they crossed through towards the alley door. He waved at them with a comic smile, using brevity to force them from interfering with their transit. He halted just inside the door, the scream from beyond it sending a paralyzing chill down his spine. A glance from Sonya brought him back and he kicked through the door, both their guns drawn even before the door banged against the wall. They looked both ways in the alley before another yell led them to the turn, and they rounded it to find a Hitchcock-inspired silhouette of a man thrusting a knife into someone, someone Michael felt certain was Alexandria Gravois. 
His sights came up but he froze as his mind planted doubt and fear into his body, the stunning moment broken only when the girl’s gurgled scream bounced across the brick walls. His body freed and his mind worked automatically, the shots breaking clean and the Tritium sights snapping back down on target perfectly, sending two forty-caliber projectiles into the target’s back by his spine, then another through the top of his head as the back arched reflexively in pain, anointing the alley with all the knowledge contained within it.
It was over in seconds, the flashes and reports deafening though unnoticed through the target fixation. He could hear his own breathing but Sonya’s yelling lips made no sound as she pulled a tactical light from her purse and played it onto the crimson-soaked scene. Michael could only stand in shock, the heat from his lowered pistol noticeable as it cascaded up and across his hand.
“MICHAEL!!!”
He heard that one as the ringing subsided a little, and snapped from his shock enough to rush over to the two victims, letting his basic first-aid take over his mind for a while since it seemed to be having trouble dealing.
“This one’s hurt. Numerous hard hits to her chest and stomach, possible internal bleeding here, and a light cut on her neck.” Sonya turned from the older woman to the young one, letting a gasp escape as the light played across the numerous lacerations they could see amid the blood-soaked clothes. “These are deep. She’s going into shock!”
The girl’s eyes rolled back into her head and the clammy, pale skin showed that she was rushing along towards death.
“Jesus, Michael... She’s going to die if-“
He did not hear any more than that. Sonya’s words were blocked out by the fog in his head and he did not understand why he was feeling so confused. It was as if his mind was simply freezing every time he tried to think. He had never felt quite like this and the more resilient part of his mind screamed at him to focus and act, while the rest of his mind locked onto a memory from just a few years ago in a darkened warehouse, surrounded by the same crimson scene.
“Oh no. No, damn it, NO!”
He knelt next to the girl, oblivious to the corpse of the man he had just killed, and placed his hand on her face, caressing it the way Jamie had found so comforting in her last moments.
“Please... Please Alexandria? Don’t let go. I know it hurts, I know you want to sleep, but you have to fight it. You can’t die like this. Hang on to my hand and don’t focus on anything but staying alive. You found the strength to fight back from what happened before, so you have to find the strength to keep fighting.”
He grasped her hand tightly and refused to let go, even when the paramedics arrived five minutes later and started to load her into the van, he held on. Finally a policeman pulled him away, holding onto the broken man tightly to prevent him from leaving. Sonya watched on quietly from against the wall, her hands still dripping the blood she had tried so desperately to slow.
The police had already started taking statements from witnesses, all of whom stated they had little knowledge of what had happened except that it was “that man” who had fired a gun. The original assault victim was also transported to the hospital, far too deep in shock to give any kind of coherent statement to police. In spite of his worries about the girl, a part of him was already speaking up about how he had to be ready for what was to come next.
“What is your name, sir?”
Michael looked up at the policeman who was addressing him with hand on baton, aggressively defensive in posture out of fear for his own safety.
“Doe. John Doe.”
“Monsieur, where is your weapon?”
Things were not going to go well this time at all. 

At least Sonya had enough common sense to ditch hers at some point before the police got to her. They allowed her to clean up and sit alone in an interrogation room, unrestrained by anything but the door. Michael however was still bloody, handcuffed, and sweating under a harsh lamp he was pretty sure was stolen from a cop-drama prop department. It was the usual good cop- bad cop play, the script so predictable as to be annoying.
“You think you’re funny? The fake name was pointless. We know exactly who you are, Michael Christiansen. We keep every unauthorized immigrant we come across on file. It’s been a few years but you are once again involved in the murder- excuse me- attempted murder of a young woman. You just can’t keep your hands clean, can you?”
Bad Cop was not getting anywhere with his baiting. They might know his real name from the previous report but they did not know as much as they thought.
“So now... We have two women, one raped and beaten, the other stabbed repeatedly and fighting for her life, and a dead man with three gunshots from a ten-millimeter gun. Excuse me, forty-caliber. You’re an American, and Americans love their guns, something we in Europe have grown out of as a society.”
Michael glared a little at the man at that, the long night, stress, and hours under the lamp weakening his temper’s restraints. “For such a civilized society, your people certainly seem to be at the mercy of the criminals.”
“It is the government’s job to protect the people, not yours!” The man spit the words at him.
“Then I suggest you lay off the croissants, Tubby, and start doing your job so that innocent women aren’t being raped in darkened alleys!”
The cop struck Michael before his cohort could stop him, knocking Michael over onto the floor, still handcuffed to the chair’s back. They spoke rapidly in French, Michael catching almost every word through his aching head, and Bad Cop left, leaving the smaller Good Cop to deal with the mess.
“I am sorry. One of his family was murdered by such a criminal as the man you killed, and that man was never brought to justice.” He unlocked the handcuffs and helped Michael to stand up, then righted the chair.
“Crime affects everyone at some point. You’d think he’d be happy to have one less on the street.” Michael sat back down and accepted the coffee the man slid across the table to him.
“Do you deny killing the man?”
“No. He was attacking those women and I felt a moral obligation to stop him.”
“Do you deny shooting the man?”
It was a formality, Michael knew. This was not the United States. Europe’s self-defense laws were nearly nonexistent, in many places it was a crime to even fight off an attack with so much as an improvised club. What he considered a moral justification, perhaps even a duty, was to them a heinous crime. It might even be worse than the rape and murder he had stopped.
“No. No, I shot him three times: Mozambiqued the bastard from twenty-five feet as he was plunging the knife into the girl. Blew his frontal lobe all over the alley and watched him hit the ground, dead before he even started to fall. And you know what? I don’t regret it. I gave both of those women a second chance at living, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to accept some Socialist bullshit about how I’m such an evil person because I not only killed the man, but I used such a feared and objectionable weapon to do it. Take the moral stick out of your ass and shove your useless pacifism where it belongs. Maybe then you can actually begin to stop the real criminals rather than just amusing them with your antics.”
The interrogator recoiled slightly from the statement, sensing the hatred dripping from what was essentially the confession they were wanting. He really felt a little sorry for this Michael Christiansen. He was a man who truly felt justified in what he had done, and the act itself really was a public service. But he was going to get railroaded for it anyway by a system that really was broken by moral standards. Such a thing was worth a little pity.
“You understand your rights under French law, do you not?”
“I’ve lived here before, so yeah, if you want to call them that for a few laughs.”
“Then I am done here for now.” He stood, stopping in the open doorway to look at Christiansen. “For what it’s worth, I think I can thank you for taking that man off of the street.”
“I’ll be sure to think fondly of you as I rot in prison.”
The man closed the door and stepped to the collected group of detectives and officers who had been listening in to the room’s conversations.
“We have some new charges to go along with the weapons ones, Philippe. Three counts of murder.”
“Murder?”
One of the detectives handed over a file. “Two men in a warehouse and one in a submerged car, from two years ago. There was a third man in the warehouse that may also be his doing, but he’s definitely an accessory to it.”
“How do you know?” He looked back at the door, unsure what to think now.
“The ammunition. In the past five years there were only five killings with Forty-caliber ammunition. The first two were from a Glock pistol and we are pretty sure we got the man who did it, even if we can’t link him to it. The shell-casings at the scene were everywhere. The two in the warehouse were also forty-caliber, but all of the shell-casings had been picked up. The car in the river had several forty-caliber bullets lodged in the trunk interior, and no casings were found at that scene either. None of those bullets were fired from a Glock or H&K gun, which have polygonal rifling in the bores. That leaves most of the other manufacturers, but I have a hunch that the Smith&Wesson this Christiansen had is going to match up to all of them under the stereoscope.”
“He’s not going anywhere, regardless. Find him a cell and lets see what we can stick him with.”
“The prosecutor is going to have a fun time with this. He’s got his eyes on Parliament.”

Twenty-six hours... He had been in the French cage for a full day now and it really had not become any more amusing. It was the longest time Michael had ever had to sit in the slammer and the lack of sleep afforded him by the relentless lighting and loud neighbors had him wishing he had tried to escape when he had a chance.
Perhaps the worst part was the lack of contact with Sonya. He had no idea how the girl was and that made him miserable, even more than the through of spending the rest of his life behind bars. In that line of thought, he had to admit that he had lost control of himself and allowed a confession to be pulled from his lips. He had hung himself with a rope of his own making. So much for being a hardened spook.
An officer approached and unlocked the cell, waving for him to follow. “You have a visitor.”
The short moments of elation were crushed when he was led into another interrogation room and then forced to wait ten minutes in solitude. It wasn’t Sonya wanting to see him, that much was certain.
After twenty minutes, a heavy-set man in a nice suit entered with Michael’s file in hand and a briefcase in the other. Maybe this was his lawyer coming to tell him to plead guilty to everything.
“Monsieur Christiansen, my name is Henri Fitzroy, the lead prosecutor for your case.” He sat down without bothering to shake hands and opened the file folder. “It seems you have a problem. Your confession to killing that serial rapist is going to put you away for quite some time, but it’s the three other bodies found in and connected to a warehouse that are what I want answers about.”
Michael flinched and nearly swore aloud for his continual bout of weakness. He was better than this, yet he had somehow started falling through every weakness he had never had before.
“I haven’t been to any warehouse around here.”
“No? Your gun says you have.” He tossed down a couple of photos from the ballistics lab that compared the recovered bullets side-by-side. “Two years ago you killed three men, one with gunshots, another with bullets and a knife, and the other by drowning in a vehicle’s trunk. I have enough evidence to convict you, and if these were less civilized times, even executed.”
“A confession is a formality?” 
The man smiled softly, perhaps enjoying watching such a man squirm a bit. “It will take a few more weeks to tie up the loose ends but yes, I have enough to put you away for the rest of your life, even without an admission. You also will not find a lawyer who is willing to try to convince the courts otherwise. Certainly you will have one provided, but the best you can hope for is a reduction in the number of lifetimes your bones will sit in a cell.”
Michael eyes the man carefully and without a hint of emotion or sign of his thoughts. The way this man was dealing with the situation was puzzling, and one only taunted someone from a position of power for two reasons: Ego and profit.
“What do you want?” He made no effort to hide the suspicion from the statement.
“Merely an understanding. A man who kills without hesitation and regard for himself for the mere purpose of charity is a rare thing to encounter, particularly in my profession. Last night’s adventure is consistent with what my sources have been telling me about your personality, so I have to wonder whether the previous three killings were of the same mindset. Knowing that may influence the outcome in your favor, though I certainly cannot guarantee that.”
Carrot and a stick... He wanted Michael to cop to the charges and close up the other case. The answers would not be especially helpful to Michael’s case, as murder was murder. Even still, his instincts were telling him to speak up in order to at least satisfy the curiosity about the man’s motives. The man did not need to bait him like this: he had everything he needed to put Michael away. No, this was genuine curiosity in search of the truth.
“You’re an interesting man, Mister Fitzroy. But what I have to say on the matter cannot be recorded. There are others involved that I have an honor-bound duty to protect.”
“Protection of criminals?”
“Protection of the innocent. There were two people there who deserve their privacy, and to be protected from having to remember that night. I won’t give them up for anything.” His eyes turned deadly serious as he leaned forward. “Including my life.”
“Hmm.”
There was a long wait as the prosecutor thought through the situation. Michael hoped the conversation was at an end, but the man stepped to the door and spoke a few words to the man outside and then returned to his chair.
The lights turned off, leaving the room in complete darkness but for a crack of light around the door. There was silence but for the breathing of the two men and the slightest whisper of office noise from outside the room.
“It may seem overly dramatic but this is the only way. The lights of this room are linked to the recorders, and even if they were still recording, the audio only would be inadmissible in court since it violates the requirements of the process. Now, tell me about those men. Why did you kill them?”
Without a face to read, the man’s voice carried his intentions, something Michael was not sure he understood about himself. He was being honest enough.
“Because no one else would.”
The lack of understanding could be felt from the other side of the table.
“Those men were instrumental in the rape in murder of three women, among many others I don’t know about, and were in the process of acting on two more. I had hunted them in the hopes of catching their leader, but he skipped out, and had directed them to kill the girls. Myself and another individual acted quickly, killing the men before they could harm the innocents. The one in the trunk... well, he had information I needed.”
“This was revenge?”
“To an extent. It was also preventative. I knew that every one of them I took out made for several fewer victims of their crimes. Many fewer families and friends would grieve because of the deaths of those men. You ask if I regret my actions against them? How could I?”
There was silence from the other side for several minutes as the prosecutor considered the information. “And the innocents you spoke of?”
“They were dropped off in a place of safety by a friend, and only asked to keep any details they may have overheard to themselves. I don’t know where they are today, but I hope they’ve made the best of the second chances they received.”
“I see.”
“I doubt it.” Michael let some contempt slip into his voice. “My friends and I have killed more than a hundred slavers and snuffers throughout Europe in the past two years. Every one of them had a history we could not change, but a future plan we could prevent. Every life we took saved several, maybe dozens of lives. You cannot imagine the stress, the frustration, the elation, or the guilt that comes with such a task. No ‘ordinary’ person can.”
“Guilt?” The prosecutor’s comment was more intrigue than surprise.
“You’ve sent people to prison for life, but have you ever actually killed someone?” Michael opened up his soul a bit, and in self-analyzing, he continued to understand a bit more about himself. “It’s a task that poisons a little bit of yourself each time. Even a just killing, to save someone who is dying right in front of you who does not deserve to die... Even that brings on little pangs of guilt inside. Cold sweats, nightmares, even physical shakes as you hold the gun on the next one. Believe me when I say that you would never want to be me. The faces that haunt you in the darkness, even now, would make you wish for death to claim you.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because no one else will.” Michael wished the lights were back on, if only to break the sensory deprivation his lack of sight was edging him into.
“But who are you to judge them?”
“Don’t misunderstand me, I am no saint. I’m as much a sinner as the next man. The fact remains, however, that these people are largely beyond the law. You can catch a few, even imprison them, but it’ll never truly cure them of their evil. That’s assuming that you can get them behind bars. Many of them are clever, or part of larger organizations. Getting to these is difficult, and getting evidence of their crimes almost impossible. I’m afraid that the only way to deal with them is as harsh as possible, and the law simply does not allow for that. It can’t. To catch them you have to think like them and be just as ruthless. No police officer can be that way. It’s counter to everything they have built within themselves to do the job.”
Fitzroy shook his head in the darkness. The idea that some people were simply beyond the means of the law was not foreign to him, but the belief that a man should have the power to judge them was perhaps a little difficult to accept. The law was the law and no one man should decide something like that.
Even still, the words of this man who had obviously judged so many in clear conscience were interesting. “You believe the law cannot do anything to stop them?”
There was a soft laugh from Christiansen. “No. By all means you must do what you can. Keeping the pressure on helps some. But you have to be willing to accept that there are means beyond the law, and those means are absolutely necessary to slow or stop the carnage.
You are viewing what I’ve done as some sort of crime against humanity, but the reason I can sleep at night is because I know that it is not. What those people do to kids is the real crime against humanity. All of those possible sources of wonder the world will never hear from... It’s no different than abortion, really. What value is there on a life that never got the chance to contribute to society? What loss have we suffered? If you take my acts and view them against the crimes of those I stop, which is the more egregious and damaging to mankind. I don’t think there’s any contest.”
Silence loomed for several minutes and allowed Michael to reflect on the results of his actions, both bitter and sweet. 
“I’ll tell you now, Mr. Fitzroy, that what I have done is not without its influences on my body, mind, and soul. What I’ve done is slowly killing me. The nightmares and the painful flashes of memories... I can’t tell someone who has never had such things exactly how they feel, but I know that my soul does not appreciate the strain I’ve placed on it. Perhaps I should listen to it, but I know that I can’t. Maybe once I would have, but my experiences of the past few years tell me that my soul should burn for eternity rather than let innocents that I have power to save be sacrificed. It’s not about being noble or righteous, it’s about doing the right thing. In this day and age, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye than do what is right, if only because it is easier. I refused to turn a blind eye anymore. The only people I have killed are those I was sure were guilty. 
Once upon a time, a person who did the right thing, regardless of how hard it was for them, was applauded and looked up to. Maybe that’s passé in this decadent and socially over-conscious age, but its binding principles hold no less true. The law of man changes, the laws of God, the fundamental concepts and visages of right and wrong, do not. Maybe that makes me something of a Crusader, but I don’t care for titles like that. My conscience is my guiding light, and having seen numerous examples of what doing nothing to stop this plague results in, I simply could not help but act.”
Fitzroy sat in thought for a few minutes, unsure of what he had expected from this man but certain that what he had received was not it. Gears were turning in his head and created confusion between instinct and habit that he was having trouble working through in any expedient manner. It was going to take time to figure it all out but he could be certain of one thing Christiansen had impressed on him: that he was being honest. Prison did not scare him so much as failing to stop the scum he had been fighting.
He stood and stepped to the door, opening it and letting the light from the hall fall on Michael’s blinking eyes.
“Mister Christiansen, I want to thank you for your time. I was expecting something quite different than what I found and it is an interesting study of man. I’ll have to think on this for a while. Good day.”
The man left, leaving a guard to escort a confused Michael back to his cell, neither of whom knew what to think of the strange actions of a normally determined and focused man.

Morning came again and Michael opened his eyes, having managed a few hours of sleep in spite of his restless nature in the confines. He had been placed in an isolated cell, all alone, and the semi-security that provided had allowed him to relax enough to clear his head. All of the talking he had done had landed him in hit water, he knew, and this time he was going to pay for his carelessness.
An hour later, a female officer unlocked the cell, waving him to follow. “Let’s go, Mr. Christiansen.” Her English was accented cutely but skilled enough.
“Where to?”
“You will see.” Her eyes were nearly impassive, perhaps showing the barest glint of annoyance.
She led him through the lockdown gates and to another interrogation room where his personal affects and a set of clean clothes were waiting.
“I’ll wait outside while you get dressed. Knock when you are finished.”
He was confused. These were not the action given to those heading to trial. “Wait a minute!” 
The door closed and left him alone. He was along for a ride and the only current choice was to stay on until he could find a way off. Two knocks reopened the door and the woman led him through the hall to a desk where a clerk shoved several sheets of paper at him to sign. He read them quickly, realizing that they were papers for his release, the gist being that all charges had been dropped.
“What is this about?”
Michael looked into the eyes of the twenty-something brunette who had been giving him the magical mystery tour, finding some amusement there at last.
“It’s just as it says. The charges have been dropped and you are free to go. I have been instructed to drive you to your hotel. For safety reasons.”
He gave the woman a confused look but decided no to look a gift horse in the mouth, signing the papers quickly, certain from her look that they were not some kind of trap. She signed them as well and then escorted him out into the morning sun, the first daylight he had seen in three days.
A police car was waiting and she let him ride in the front with her, a situation that left him even more confused. Maybe things were simply that much different here than back home. In the U.S., cops did not let anyone not in their uniform ride up front. It was a psychological issue regarding safety, he was sure.
She was true to her word, escorting him to his hotel room and then following him inside, frowning at the mess the investigative team had made in tossing the place.
Sonya had not been there since the evening they had left, he could tell. Their spare papers and money were still hidden in the base of a table-lamp where he had hidden them, something the cops had failed to find in their efforts and which raised an eyebrow on his new friend.
Michael eyed her for a moment, trying hard to figure out what it was all about, then finally gave up and poured himself a well-earned drink from the bar.
“I’m not sure what to think of all of this.” 
“There really is not much to be concerned with. The prosecutor dropped the charges and instructed me to bring you here. What you do now is up to you, though he asked me to tell you to not make any more trouble in his city.”
He believed it, but he still did not understand. “I need to know why. I’m suspicious by nature and can’t let it go without knowing why.”
The woman settled into a chair opposite from him and gazed with a look he had seen before, one that was the least expected in this time and place. It was admiration.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” She removed her hat, discarding the slight shadow it may have been throwing in the light. Her hand brushed aside the reddish-brown hair that hung in front of her right ear and revealed a pale scar, perhaps a few years old.
Michael stared at her, searching his nearly faultless memory of faces, trying hard to remember. It flashed into being, the heat of the lights and the smell of the spent gunpowder acrid in his senses once again. 
Michael blinked, matching up the images. “I... I’m not sure what to say.”
“I do. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” She leaned over and kissed the stunned man on both cheeks, her warmth expressed as well as anyone could. She settled back into the chair with a smile. “My friend Julie said to thank you as well. It took her a long time to get over what happened that night, but she has found her way now.”
The blonde and brunette from that warehouse... the one he had hoped to kill Ian Amherst in. Michael had come face to face with a life he had saved and it had become something good. It warmed a heart that had grown so cold.
“Excuse me, where are my manners? My name is Elise Rousseau. My uncle is Henri Fitzroy, and he felt I should have the chance to thank you in person. I became a policewoman after that night to do what I can to save women like you had saved me. It was the only thing in my heart.”
“I’m glad things have turned out well for you, Elise.”
The woman relaxed into a friendly chatter, as if they had been friends forever. “It’s still pretty fresh in my mind, you know. Occasionally I’ll wake up in fear, unsure of where I am or what is happening. I can still feel the hit that caused this scar, more so on those nights, and it scares me to think that I might have been assaulted and killed that night if it weren’t for the actions of two strangers. The understanding of how fickle life can be has pushed me these past two years. I haven’t wasted any second of the life you saved and I can’t thank you enough.”
Her eyes had started to tear up but the need was fought down by her inner strength, strength she had found and learned to use in such a short time.
“I would like to thank your lady friend as well. Her words that night made me think about my life and set me on this path, giving me strength to pursue it with all my strength.”
Michael nodded, “Jamie had that effect on people.”
“Had?” The sadness was there in his eyes, sadness she had seen in her line of work and understood. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Every time I remember her, I find something else about her that I remember I loved. So long as I remember, I can see her face.” He let that sink in before continuing. “She died after killing the man who was directing those men who hurt you. She had no fear and was smiling at the end, satisfied in her works.”
“Then I won’t be sad for her.” A mutual nod between them left the discussion closed, opening up space for the current situation.
“Why has your uncle done this for me? Surely he can’t just make it okay.”
She thought about it, putting things into order. 
“My uncle is a proud man. He has sent a lot of criminals away and made the city safer. His life has been focused on doing the best job he can because it would someday lead to a legislative office, a place he can make real changes for the better. This has been his goal since university. He told me last night that somewhere along the way, he had lost what was most important, his sense of right and wrong. Sure, he obeyed and upheld the law, but the true feeling of doing what is right had faded from his thoughts, and some of his ‘victories’ in the courtroom were hollow in retrospect. Your conviction, though certainly upholding the law, would have been the worst. Sending away a man who fought evil with every fiber of his being, not for glory or satisfaction, but for the sake of others and to uphold the standards of what is right. Putting away a man like that would be criminal in it self. At least that’s what he explained to me.”
“Won’t that hurt his aspirations?”
“Yes.” The woman shrugged, mimicking the answer her uncle had given her. “Making your case disappear is impossible, and some people in government had already been preparing to praise Uncle for it publicly. In the end, though, it came down to what you spoke to him about, the necessity to do what is right in spite of how hard it is. He looked at me a long time and decided that it was right to drop the charges, not only to thank you for saving me, but to allow you to continue saving others.”
“I see.” Someone had paid the good karma he had earned. “I can’t thank both of you enough for this.”
“You don’t have to. It was a repayment of debt, if such a thing could be accomplished by so little.”
It made him uncomfortable, as if he was taking something from them, but when he thought about the situation it only made sense. He had to accept this payment, if only to respect the act.
“You never owed me anything, really, but I’ll accept this. There is someone else who needs me right now.”
The woman looked back up with her eyes lost in thought, the bright life returning to them when she remembered. “Oh, the girl who was stabbed! She’s in the hospital, still in serious condition. I’m afraid that is all I know of it. Would you like me to take you there?”
Michael shook his head and waved her off. “No. Thank you for the offer, though. I have to get showered and changed, and make a few calls before I head there. You should go back to your duties.” 
He stood and offered to shake her hand in thanks, but the woman stepped closer and wrapped her arms around him, giving a strong hug and following it with a kiss on his cheek.
“Never change who you are and what you fight for, Michael Christiansen. There are simply not enough people like you in this world. I will try to be, but it will take time.”
He looked her in the eyes and saw her determination, even though it really was not on display. He could feel it with all certainty. This woman would succeed him eventually in her own way.
“I know you will.”

The woman left and Michael’s heart ached, thoughts about the night he had saved Elise making him wish Jamie or Emmy were there beside him. Both had an enthusiasm for action that he desperately needed at the moment. Emmy would have seen the moral side of things, Jamie would have thrilled for the action alone. And then there was Tanya...
“Fuck...” He pounded the wall of the shower and wished the water could have washed away his frustration and pain. Three women he had fallen in love with, three brilliant lights in life itself, all of them gone forever. Two had been avenged but the third was still pending, waiting for Michael to summon the blind fury and deep hatred that would satisfy the outstanding debt in full.
Pain from within the soul hurt more than the physical, he knew. Thinking about his loss boiled a part of him that had been lukewarm at best since the closing moments in that barn outside of Kiev.
It was hazy in his head now, though he knew it had been so vivid only a couple of months before. He focused on it as he lay on the bed, willing the faces, names, and emotions from those weeks back to the surface where they would fuel his resolve.

His and Emmy’s infiltration into a trafficking ring in Kiev had been agonizingly slow and methodical, all the while the names on his missing-person’s list fell out of their reach. The gang had been tough to crack, their methods solid and efficient, and Michael always had to focus his mind off of the fact that every ninety-six hours they spent trying to get in more people on his list simply vanished from known existence. He could not tell how many had vanished between the night they started their efforts and when the final shot had been fired. To be honest, he had never wanted to know. It was simply too much for one man to bear.
Even still, what information he did have was enough to go on, and after three weeks of careful work showing the enemy what they needed to see to trust him, and getting enough information to drop a raid with, his team had acted.
The opening moments saw six of the guards dead in a coordinated strike that SWAT teams would envy. The door burst in, the firefight was intense, and then Michael kicked open the door to the final room, expecting anything but what he had found.
They were all dead already.... Every single child. 
Somewhere after the first shots sounded the leader of the group had executed each of them in turn, slitting their throats with a dull kitchen knife. He had been expecting something along the lines of what Michael had planned, and in a few heated words to the crusader, had explained where Michael had gone wrong: he had assumed that his acting was sufficient.
The look in Michael’s eyes was not one of a predator of children, but of men. He had no taste for the acts and had therefore shown himself to be a liar. The gang leader’s last act had been to deny Christiansen of what he sought, and so the children lay dead, all records of the ones that had been sold off deleted or burned. 
Michael had killed the man with the hatred he felt for himself. The pain from his failure hurt more than anything he had ever felt, but nothing could ever get those children back. Emily would not let him apologize to the families personally, choosing to do it herself under the guise of a “more personable” approach to tragedy. 
In the end, the intel they gathered there helped break up a few more smaller cells, but such victories were hollow in light of the failings, or at least Michael felt that way. Fighting to save a life and falling short made for serious personal stress every time the memory surfaces. It was no wonder why he had been unable to get it up.
Emily... Her brilliance and passion were pure and were no different than Jamie’s or Tanya’s major strengths. They had all been such different people but their strength had made him whole again after such a long time of being empty and broken. Now he had to move on and find his own strength.
Michael sat up and stretched the stiffness from his back, a testament to the Parisian jail designers, and then dressed in his only remaining Armani suit. He had to get to the hospital to see Alexandria. He owed himself that much.