Chapter 6

It had not changed at all, Michael noted, and that made it feel so much worse than it should have. 
The hospital was the same as it had been almost four years before, with perhaps the exception of the magazines in the waiting room being slightly less out-of-date. The waiting room in the Intensive Care Unit even had the same chairs as he had sat in before, the night his life changed, the night he met the Social Welfare Agency. 
Jean Croce and little Rico were absent, as were the police guards, two thankfully different aspects among the sameness that threatened to overwhelm his senses. A few nurses seemed familiar but it was the balding, bespectacled man in a doctor’s lab coat that Michael remembered the most. He stepped to the man’s side as he checked a chart at the nurse’s station, approaching with a solid hold on his thoughts.
“It’s been a long time, Doctor Loiselle.”
The man looked up at Christiansen, focusing for several moments to remember the face before finally admitting he could not place it. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“Three years ago or so. A young woman named Janet Wells was brought in, the victim of one of those horrid snuff gangs. You made a call to Italy for her.”
“Oh my... Yes, I remember now, Mr. Christiansen?”
The man’s eyes showed a lack of assuredness that Michael found interesting. He had to wonder what the CIA said to him after Michael had left.
“That’s right. You have a good memory for the extraordinary.” Michael glanced at the chart, noting that it was just as he had expected. It was Alexandria’s.
“What can I do for you tonight?”
“The girl, Alexandria Gravois... How is she?”
“I’m afraid I cannot discuss that. Last time I confided in you because the girl was American, but I’m afraid I can’t say much on this.”
Michael stopped the man’s turning away with a gentle but firm grab of his arm. “Doctor, that girl is an orphan, and I saved her life twice now. I think I have a right to at least a little information.”
“She is alive but not doing well at all. Two weeks is about all I can give her.” The doctor’s hands shook as he sipped from a bottle of water and Michael made a note to do a few further checks on the man. Doctors were supposed to be steady at all times.
“Can I see her?”
“It’s after hours, but she is awake. Maybe seeing you will help her spirit. Down the hall and third room on the left. Don’t stay too long, she is pretty weak still.”
The doctor’s sudden resignation to his demands made Michael suspicious. The next comment cemented the suspicion further...
“By the way, Mr. Christiansen... What happened to the other girl?”
Michael stopped mid-step and shut his eyes tight, forcing the image of Janet Wells’ comatose body from his mind as he glanced to his right at the room she had been in that night.
“She... didn’t last very long. Certainly not as long as she deserved.”

The machines beeped quietly, the sound familiar and revolting to his senses, bringing back to mind his extended stays in hospitals. Nothing would ever make him feel at ease in one. The lines were connected to the girl, her brown hair longer than he remembered from their short time together. Even though it had been a matter of weeks, he could see the difference in the girl’s maturity in her face. She had bags under her eyes and the frail body of someone who had worked herself into complete exhaustion.
Michael stepped closer and his movement caught her interest, her blue eyes gazing at him and trying to focus through the effects of the drugs. Her lips curled into the slightest semblance of a smile, which confused Michael. Nothing would ever get him to smile under the same conditions.
“Hello, Alexandria.”
Her left hand tipped up enough to emulate a wave of acknowledgement. Conversation with a chest tube in would be nearly impossible, though most of what he had to say was one-sided anyway. He pulled up a chair and settled in next to her, holding her hand gently.
“There are a few things we need to talk about.” 
The solemn tone of his voice made it clear that it would be tough. After a short moment of consideration she squeezed his hand firmly to tell him to go on.
“First, I’m sorry about your parents. I had just found out when the apartment was attacked. If that had not happened I would have found some way to help you get started on your own. Sonya would not have let you out of her sight if she had known. We simply weren’t...” He paused as he considered the wording to use. “We did not expect that could be the case and really weren’t prepared for it. I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I would never let that sort of thing happen if I could prevent it.”
The girl had strength enough, he saw. She had already cried that pain out of her body and now was able to express that she understood what he meant. Two gentle squeezes made it clear to him, taking a bit of the weight off of his shoulders.
“Second, I want you to know how proud I am of you that you had decided to make your way in life in spite of the hardships. It’s not an easy thing to do at your age and takes incredible courage. I knew someone else who had that strength within her and I know it’s not an easy way to live.”
He had the feeling that she was not sure how to think about that. He could not tell that she had mixed feeling about being praised for failing in spite of doing her best.
Hesitation set in, however, and he could not bring himself to voice his next statement, in spite of what he had told himself he should do. He could see it in her eyes... She had a pretty good idea that her situation was not good, but she was not sure it was as bad as she thought it could be. He had planned to tell her, to avoid lying to her and thereby ensure that every moment between now and the end was spent well, rather than being pissed away as he had with Jamie. It was a promise he had made to himself and Jamie’s departed soul that he would never do that again.
But as he looked down on the fragile form in the bed and the blue eyes that still held life, he could not bring himself to form the words that may just shatter what was left of her spirit. Tanya, Jamie, and Emily had all taught him how powerful and vibrant a human spirit, even one that had been broken, could be. Knowing that had made him believe that honesty should trump concern in regards to spiritual strength, but now he was not sure of that. Being honest now- forcing her to face the inevitable death for days, maybe weeks- might only hurt her rather than embolden or strengthen.
Alexandria’s hand slipped from his grasp and she placed a finger on the top of it, slowly drawing a question mark and dotting it with more force to emphasize her concern. His face had betrayed his indecision.
“It’s nothing. I’m still pretty... stunned... at seeing you like this. It hurts my heart that this has happened and I can’t say that I’ll ever get used to the helpless feeling I have when I see someone in bad shape in a hospital bed.” A thought crossed his mind and made him smile weakly in irony. “I should probably be more concerned if I ever did get used to it.”
Alexandria squeezed his hand tightly, her eyes saddened by his pained look- I’m sorry. 
It stunned him. She was apologizing for making him sad while he was withholding the fact that she was going to die. It was now just too much to take, really. He had to get out of there.
“Listen... The doctor said I could only stay a few minutes and I’m sure he’s giving me an evil eye at this point. I’m going to let you get some rest, okay? I’ll be down the hall if you need me.”
She was alone in the world, injured, and in pain. The feeling of impending death had to be in her mind somewhere. Regardless, Alexandria gave his hand a final firm grasp before letting go and motioning him to leave. She was mature enough to understand and at least pretend to be strong.
“I’ll check in on you tomorrow morning.”
She waved again as he stepped out the door, closing it behind him and leaning against it to keep his bottled up feelings in the room with her, separated from himself at least for a little while.

Ferro knocked on Lorenzo’s office door, curious as to what the sudden request was about. Being called to his office in the morning was common enough, but this late in the evening was an oddity, even more so since she knew him to be punctual in his leaving for his home when nothing was planned.
His voice beckoned her to enter and her eyes fell on her boss, standing pensively at the window overlooking the courtyard, yet another odd scene. If that were not enough change for one evening, Ferro’s eyes moved to the figure seated in the chair across from the lavish desk, surprised more perhaps by who it was more than she would eventually be by the situation.
Aya Gallo, dressed uncharacteristically in a business suit, sat in the chair with a relaxed air, which was something Ferro had never seen a cyborg do in the presence of Lorenzo. They were programmed to have total respect for him, always properly attentive and stiff. To see Aya, someone who only had ever dressed professionally when the kill required her to do so, dressed as she was meant that things were simply not going as usual.
“Sit down, Ferro, we have a mission to discuss.”
“Yes, sir.” She took a chair next to Aya and frowned when the woman smiled at her, even waving slightly with her left hand. It was the smile of a snake.
“Christiansen is in Paris. It looks like he landed himself in a small amount of trouble with the law there and some friends have alerted me.”
“He was baiting us with that letter.”
Aya laughed softly at Ferro, amused a bit by her blindness. “I’ve been studying him quite thoroughly the past two weeks. It’s not surprising he would rattle our chains a bit as he simply passed through.”
Aya’s laugh had not gone unnoticed and Lorenzo turned from the window to sit down, his face a mask of impassiveness.
“Regardless of his intentions, we had no choice but to react to it. The teams we sent to investigate found nothing to indicate he was here, but when dealing with that man it would not be unexpected for him to remain undetected for a length of time. I have recalled all of the teams for reassignment since it looks like he will not be leaving Paris any time soon.”
“Why are the Parisians holding him?” Ferro had not seen anything come down from Intel, so it must have been to Lorenzo directly.
“He apparently shot and killed a man who was trying to rape a woman.”
Aya smiled, knowing Michael’s weakness would never really change.
“Ferro, I want you and Aya to go to Paris and monitor his moves. I have a feeling that he is planning to return here as soon as he escapes that city.”
Aya frowned. “Just observing?” Her tone spoke of a desire to do more than simply watch her nemesis eat and sleep in a cell.
“For now. I will let you know if my plans for him change. You should plan for his elimination in case it may be necessary, which is why I’m sending you, Aya.”
Ferro was unhappy with the idea of shepherding a vengeful cyborg around a foreign city without a clear objective. They were supposed to be point-and-speak killing machines, not wander-aimlessly-around-and-wait servants. Focus was the only thing holding most of them solidly in line and yet Lorenzo felt he could trust the pair of them to freelancing about France with no objective.
Aya stood and gave a nod of her head to Lorenzo’s orders. “I understand. Thank you, Chief Lorenzo.”
He waved his hand at the door, “that will be all.”
Aya left the room but Ferro remained in place, her mind whipping through the possible scenarios, her body tingling with an apprehensive fear that she rarely felt since she was the one who so often made things go according to plan. This time, however, there was no plan that she had been let in on, and that concerned her.
“You’re still here.”
She swallowed her professionalism and spoke her mind to her boss, a man who had given her everything she had now. “Setting that girl loose in Paris is an enormous mistake, Pieri. She has only revenge in her twisted little mind and she does not even know the reason that it will ultimately fail. It is the same reason I keep trying to quietly advise you to back off of Christiansen...”
Lorenzo turned to face Ferro, his face as cold and emotionless as she had ever seen. If her dropping of their interpersonal formalities had any effect on him, he did not show it. “And that is?”
Her voice caught in her throat- as if the truth she so well understood could not possibly be heard by someone such as himself. She forced it out, though, in the hope that he would see the light.
“Because Michael Christiansen is not a man who can be judged or killed by any method we know.”
An intrigued look passed across Lorenzo’s face in a flash as he contemplated what she had said. It was her chance to end it before it ever got too big to contain.
“He sees things in people... things no one should be able to grasp so easily. He is instinctually gifted. He doesn’t know when to give up. Most damning, I think, is how he can rally people around him. Fighting him is fighting everyone he knows and he does not surround himself with pushovers. Aya cannot be made to understand that her perceived wrong that has blown so out of proportion in her mind is only going to bring about her own destruction. I believe your actions and plotting against him are going to result in the same even if the reasons are different. You... We have already killed the woman he loved, his closest friends... He will not let that go so easily. But if, IF, he were to decide to simply let it go, your actions are antagonizing him into having to react and he will not be able to ignore that. He will fight to his last breath and we both have seen the destruction that he can bring down upon his enemies when he is desperate.”
His eyes never left her, even as emotion had filtered into her voice, something he found curious. Ferro was always entirely disassociated from her emotions yet here she was begging him to leave Christiansen alone.
“Ferro... Are you afraid of him?”
He could see it then. If he had asked the question about anyone else her eyes would have narrowed at the insult. Ferro feared nothing but professional failure. Her eyes went wide though, showing her surprise at the self-realization of the fact.
It took her a moment to recover, time Lorenzo allowed for his long-trusted aide. “I would never admit that to anyone but yourself, Chief Lorenzo.”
“I see.” He sat down in his leather chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and folding his hands pensively as he evaluated her. It was not stress that was bothering her, but the entire idea of crossing with Christiansen. The man had made a mark on his most trusted person and Lorenzo could not be comfortable with that.
“When was the last time you had a long vacation, Ferro?”
Ferro flinched, knowing exactly where this was going but being unable to stop it. “Not since the cyborgs went mission-capable, sir.”
“Hmm... Has it been that long?”
She could see his mind ticking away at how long it had really been, just how long they had been pushing themselves without any self-regard.
“Very well then... Take a month off, Ferro, starting tomorrow. Go rest your body somewhere nice and relax your mind. When you come back, I hope to see you better equipped to deal with the matter. I’ll arrange for Aya to have a handler on her mission and for one of your people to take over your work.”
“Sir, I-“
Her attempt to protest was cut off with but a wave of his hand. “I have already made up my mind, Ms. Milani. You are of little use to me in the worn-out shape you are in right now. I need the clear-headed and determined Ferro in this position and the way you’ve been acting clearly is not up to your normal standards. Please, Ferro... I need you up to the task for the coming months and I think it is best if you go along with this. Perhaps by the time you return this entire Christiansen matter will be resolved.”
The door closed behind her, the image of Lorenzo flipping through some folder the sight-picture her mind captured just before it clicked shut. He was unfazed by her plea, by her counsel... In that moment, Ferro could feel nothing but failure at her attempt to save her boss from his own shortsightedness. No, that was not it. He could clearly see and understand where his actions would force Christiansen to move. He simply no longer cared.

She excused herself from the office and drove home in a daze. It really had been a long time since she had made the effort to relax and enjoy life, and now that she was faced with having to endure it, her mind simply did not know what to do. Her entire reason for living the past seven years had been removed in an instant, leaving a dark, gaping hole in her psyche that she could not understand, let alone begin to fill.
That thought encompassed her mind well into the night and through the bottle of wine she emptied in the meantime. It was well after midnight before she decided it might be best to go to bed, and in spite of the best efforts of her furniture to spoil the welcome respite awaiting her, she managed to stumble into her bedroom and collapse on the bed, her eyes glazed in a dazed trance of alcohol-fueled depression.
It was two long minutes, if the blurry numbers on her nightstand clock were to be believed, before she realized that she had left her nightstand gun out the entire day, an act that was uncharacteristic of her normally orderly mind. It was another before she had a thought that made her smile softly, her hand closing carefully on the loaded gun and pulling it onto the pillow her head was resting on.
Her problem, the entire reason Lorenzo had taken her off her job and removed her only reason for living, was the emotional bias she held for Michael Christiansen. He had gotten to her, had infiltrated her heart in a way that she had not anticipated, and then he had left. Her anger that night she had last seen him was at her own failure to pursue him, to get back in control of her own life by seizing what she had desired, if only for a few brief minutes. When he had walked out her door, he had left her paralyzed in fear that someone out there knew her intimately, had control over her, and had vanished into the night before she could react and break the hold.
Her professional side, as inebriated as the rest of her mind, had latched onto the new desire to remove the threat by any means necessary. She knew how to fix things for good. There was a way to break Michael Christiansen’s hold over her. It had to be done.
The pistol was cold in her pale hand and she noticed that she had missed some of the carbon fouling that was caked on the front of the slide around the muzzle in her last cleaning. It was a pointless observation that hardly seemed to matter now. There would be a bigger mess when it was all over.
Ferro Milani closed her eyes and sighed, satisfaction washing over her at the thought of being free of Michael forever.

Paris was now more of a gray blur in his mind than the City of Lights. It was depression, he knew, but knowing and dealing with it were two different things. Though he had expected it to come it was not any less harmful to his heart or mind, but the walking helped a little, if only the body.
Alexandria was not going to live much longer without either the healing touch of God Himself, or a body made in Italy. To say that Michael was less than a firm believer was an understatement. He believed in Fate and Luck and skill. Whether Fate was a tool of God he did not know for certain. 
The events in his life, the sheer strokes of fortune that seemed to shield him at times, led his mind to believe that maybe there really was something larger at work. Jamie had believed that to be so, as had Emmy to an extent. Listening to Jamie spell out her Divine Mandate to kill Ian Amherst had been amusing, but it had only taken their continued advancement towards that goal in spite of the outright impossibility of it to charge his soul with more power than he’d ever felt. The grenade in the warehouse... It was statistically unlikely. 
A NATO M67 grenade has less than a one-percent failure rate. The carton he had taken it from was new production with a proven lot, something the people in the SWA armory actually kept track of. It had not been exposed to any deteriorating conditions. It really should not have failed. But here he was, alive, because of the statistically unlikely failure of an explosive at a critical moment.
He could only look back on it and wonder whether the curiously calm feeling he’d had at the moment Jamie yanked him into the hallway was the touch of God or merely the adrenaline surge caused by waiting for death.
There were other moments as well, but they all added up to his being required to believe entirely in Luck/Fate, or God. Intellectually he could think of no way to really be in the middle of the two, but here he was. He did not know what to believe in. If there were a God and His law was the Truth, then Michael was going to spend eternity in Hell for what he had done in his life. In that regard Fate was a less-cruel and certainly more attractive option. Sure some of the things he had done were in the best of intentions, but can you really justify the prolonged torture of people for information even if it saves lives?
Fate, however, could not answer his questions or explain away the things that had happened. There had to be something more to it. He felt it with every fiber of his being, with the same certainty that accompanied his instincts when they told him he was in danger or being followed. The main question in his mind on that train was that if God was real, then what was Michael’s role in the universe?
A cathedral... 
Somehow his walk had brought him to the steps leading into one, not far from the hospital. There was a warm resonance from the building that cut through the cold, pre-dawn air, picking at his senses and beckoning him to draw closer. Michael had always been a realist, finding life itself more appropriately dealt with via an unfiltered perception. So what was this feeling he had that compelled him to move towards religion? Why had his body chosen to walk the steps and touch the door handle?
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!”
Michael froze in place, his hand tensed to draw open the door, having only been stopped by the voice from the path behind him. There was a long pause but he refused to look behind him. Her presence was suddenly beside him, whispering in his ear with her arm draped across his shoulder.
“Sinners like us will burst into flames the moment we cross the threshold. Or so I’ve been told.” Sonya pulled his hand from the door, taking it in her deceptively graceful ones and turning Michael to face her.
“Sonya...” Michael felt relieved for some reason, as if a weight had been lifted.
“I’m glad I found you, Michael. And from the looks of it, I was just in time. What were you going to do in there, confess?”
She had a bemused smile. He had to admit though that the thought was funny on the surface: An ex-CIA operative stepping into a church to confess his many sins.
“I- I’m not sure. I think I just needed to go some place quiet for a while. To think.”
Her eyes caught something in the way he said it, perhaps latching onto a measure of regret he had let slip.
“An interesting idea, though forgiveness does not always lead to redemption. I like to think that comes from a different place in the heart.” She still held his hand, leading him back down the steps to the street. “I think it’s from the place where courage and regret meet and have wild, unbridled sex. You have to have courage to face the things you regret and so redemption is only possible through understanding yourself.”
Michael threw her a questioning glance, unsure as to why the normally aggressive Sonya was being philosophical all of a sudden. “Have you been drinking?”
Her eyes sparkled a little and she smiled. “Off and on. While you were in jail and the hospital I’ve been checking in with my old contacts. Some of them had a few interesting things to say regarding you.”
“Oh? I thought I had dropped off the Russian radar long ago.”
Sonya shrugged and smiled again. “In Russian intelligence, old habits kill YOU! In any case, they keep an eye on everything. There seems to be an Italian team working in the city somewhere and one of them had a cello case.”
He could tell by the amused look in her eyes that she wasn’t joking. There was a fratello in Paris, probably on the hunt for him.
“I see. Any pictures?”
“Unfortunately no. My friend said they were being held by the station chief and placed on a back-burner because of the summit.”
“Summit?”
Sonya frowned, finding Michael’s lack of awareness to be disturbing. “You didn’t notice? Security has been increased across the city because of the G-8 summit. With all of the fun in the Middle East your American President stayed home and sent a Senator in his stead. There’s been a few rumors that someone’s decided to try to assassinate him so he’s hiding out.”
He shook his head, knowing better. “The President is a cowboy. He wouldn’t bail on a meeting because of an assassination threat. Everyone from Al Qaida to Hamas to Tehran has vowed to take him down if they get the chance. No, something else happened to keep him away.”
The entire situation had his mind going, though not entirely in a circle. He could feel a lead trickling on the edge of his conscience, like the warm feel of blood from an unnoticed wound, but he really had no place to go to fill the holes. 
After a few minutes of thought he realized that it was pointless. If the SWA wanted to kill Senator Schmedlap for some reason Michael would be better served to keep a wide birth, lest they send the second shot towards his head. Besides, he had enough on his plate to keep him busy.
“You’re not sulking anymore, Michael.” Sonya’s observation didn’t surprise him at all.
“I’m too busy thinking to be depressed. Try as I might, I can’t think of any way to help the girl, besides going back to the Italians on my knees.”
A glance told him what she thought of that idea, and he entirely agreed.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Even if they were to consider it without killing me, they would never go for it.”
She turned to face forward, her face showing a resolve that he could almost hope was contagious. “Then I guess we’ll have to keep looking for another solution.”

Aya Gallo glanced around her at the French architecture, convinced that there really wasn’t anything special about it. Then again, it took more than building to get her body charged up. Fighting was one thing, killing another. Sex was always good, though certainly that had tapered off. 
There was a growing need in her body that was slowly swelling in concert with her seething hatred for Michael Christiansen, and there really was not anything she could do about it. Her attempts at self-satisfaction had been frustrating at best and outright painful at worst. It would seem that her handler had locked himself in as the only one who could let her find satisfaction. She’d had a thought about asking Belisario about it, perhaps in the hopes that whatever conditioning he had done could be adjusted, but that idea fell through an hour later when Lorenzo had asked her to his office.
It kept her awake at night, the frustration, and it only fed her savage hatred for Michael Christiansen. It was the only place she could turn that longing and frustration towards and not go entirely insane. She knew that, more than anything, the death of Michael Christiansen by her hand would be the most explosively satisfying moment of her life.
“Aya? Where are you going?”
She nearly jumped, her focus broken by the handler she had been provided for this trip.
“I was just thinking.”
“Well stay focused. I don’t want any mistakes.”
“Yes sir.” Her soft smile disguised her hatred for the leash she had been placed on. The only person who could ever rein her in was Ricardo. This man and his little girl were simply in her way. There really was not much she could do about it though as they had made sure that she understood her place under him.
“There is the best spot there.” She pointed to the building in the distance, surrounded by buildings that were taller. Snipers pick a high place to have an unobstructed view. What the movies failed to note was that real snipers know better than to pick the highest if there is any other option. High places made it difficult to escape, not to mention they were obvious once you realized there was a sniper around.
This spot was better in that either of the buildings beside it were just as good, if not better, to shoot from. That would help to confuse the origin of the bullet once it hit. Escape would be relatively easy since it was an apartment building. 
“We have plenty of time on our hands. Lets make a pass by the target zone and see how it will work for us.”

Hospitals were all the same everywhere.
The thought flashed through Michael’s mind that there was probably some kind of conspiracy in that fact but he shrugged it off, letting his eyes rest lazily on the comatose form of Alexandria. Her breathing was steady due to the respirator, but there was the sense that even the machine was struggling a bit with the endeavor, continuing on not because there was hope but because it was told to. Her organs, what was left of them, were slowly failing. A week seemed optimistic. It was more than likely a matter of days.
He took this in stride, or at least told himself that it was such. His less-emotional side was already handling the minute-to-minute features on his face, but every now and then it would take a short respite and a pained look would form there. His imagination had no trouble bouncing between Janet Wells and Alexandria as the resident of the bed. He had counted four times already when he had looked up and seen Janet’s face, or was it Jamie....
He shook it off. It didn’t matter which one he referred to because they had been one in the same, with only the slightest of changes in the facial structure. Their heights varied only by two inches, their builds had been about the same with the exception of Jamie’s “augmented” breasts. It was utterly pointless to continue his habit of worrying which one he referred to, especially since she was dead.
Jamie, he would always feel closer to that persona, had always looked at him from her hospital bed at the agency with eyes that spoke of hope, even if the sadness was immediately evident. She had been a person who brought light to the world by her sheer existence. The loss of someone like that had been a loss for the world.
Now, as he looked on the immobile form of yet another beautiful young woman who had survived one bad experience and went into the world with hope rather than anger, he could not help but be saddened by the fate which was taking it’s time on her. She deserved better. She deserved to live a life of her choice, or to at least have some say in how she molded it.
“Michael?”
He had not heard the door open, so surrounded by his own depressed thoughts as he had been. Sonya was leaning in, her voice a respectful whisper in spite of the unresponsive nature of the patient. He looked at her without realizing that his face still held the look of sadness that it had taken on during his rumination. Her questioning look was slight, but reflected her concern for him, tipping him off as to what he had done. Both hands rubbed his face tiredly and wiped the look from it.
“Michael, I thought you might want to know that your phone has been beeping. It’s a text message, repeated twice five minutes apart.” She held it out to him as he stepped to the door. “Do CIA agents give their numbers out to everyone they meet?”
This was odd. 
“Plenty of people had my number, but you’re the only one still alive that I can think of.”
The message was typed clearly without abbreviations, and without a doubt had taken some time to write. He read through the first message from the unidentified number and noted that the second message was identical, having only been sent to get his attention since it had not already been acknowledged.
“What’s it say?”
“Someone wants to meet with me. Alone and at the Hotel du Louvre.”
“Someone you know?”
Michael’s eyes responded with annoyed suspicion. “If someone who knows me wants to meet me like this, it’s not casual. Most know better that I only meet in crowded public places.”
Sonya shook her head in amazement of his paranoia. “And here I thought my people were bad. So what are you going to do?”
A glance at his watch told him that he only could just make it after a shower and change of clothes. “I don’t have enough time to investigate this person. I’m going to have to go in blind.”
Sonya smiled, the hint of Michael’s “game on” tone helping her to relax a little, certain that he was not taking anything about this at face value.

Something had changed, Michael thought to himself as Sonya drove him to the hotel in her rented car. The lights of the city were warmer tonight than the previous day. Instead of a blur of points he could see the subtle hues that the each one had that made it different from the others. The cold, colorless world he had felt himself to be in that morning had been replaced by a familiar feeling that he could not place or describe beyond the fact that he was comfortable in it. It wasn’t reassuring so much as it was instinctually familiar, like how a pair of underpants are constrictive at first but then simply cease to be noticed, becoming one with their owner.
A soft laugh made Sonya’s head spin around to see what was so funny. Michael was smiling. It was almost enough of a shock to divert her attention from the car braking suddenly in front of her. Her fast reaction saved them from a minor collision and when she looked back at him the smile was gone, replaced by the neutral expression she had seen so many times before a raid. 
“Something wrong?”
He broke from his distracted thoughts enough to look at her. “No, just lost in thought.”
Whatever it was he was thinking about was not something he wanted to discuss, she could tell that plainly. It was just one of those little quirks he seemed to develop at times that no one, not even Emmy, had understood. He would talk in his own time if he felt like it.
The Hotel du Louvre was a few minutes ahead and Sonya knew the valet would try to open the doors for them. She slipped her hand behind her back and pulled a Walther PPK, setting it on the console between them.
“You can take my gun. I have plenty stashed around the city.”
Michael let his fingers drift across the engraved slide, the cold steel still warm from the contact with Sonya’s body. There was a feeling from it, perhaps one of regret or sadness, something that made him shake his head, sliding it back towards her.
“No. I don’t think I’ll need it this time.”
“Are you sure?” She had never known him to go willingly unarmed into any situation.
He thought about it once more, coming to the same conclusion in spite of not knowing why. “Yes. If something happens, I’ll just ad-lib. I work best when I’m unpredictable.”
A weak smile from her lips told him that she still was not sure about this, but there was really nothing to say otherwise. “Contact time is seven tomorrow. If I don’t hear from you I’ll start hunting.”
“Okay. Check on the girl when you get the chance and call if there’s any serious change.”
The car pulled into the hotel and the valets moved to open both doors, Sonya waving her side’s off before he got too close. Michael climbed out and leaned his head in, speaking quietly, “If something happens, I’m leaving it all up to you. My drop is in a safe-box in Amsterdam. The Inspector we dealt with there has the key. Take what is there and follow the instructions to the letter. By the end of it all, you’ll be safe in the Caribbean with no one the wiser.”
She nodded, knowing that he was just looking after his only remaining friend. “Don’t make me need it. I hate hot weather.”
Only a minute later he was at the front desk, waiting for the clerk to retrieve the message left for him. Inside the envelope was the card for the best room in the place, the Pissarro Suite. Michael was no stranger to opulence but this was starting to make him more nervous than curious. Whoever it was he was to meet was not shy about spending money.
It wasn’t hard to find at all, as there were not a lot of rooms that had double-doors. The lock clicked and he pushed open the door slowly, trying to get his eyes accustomed to the darker interior of the room. The lights were off but the glow of the Jacuzzi lights put a bluish glow in the room, providing a decent image of the room through the various silhouettes cast by the furniture. He closed the door and stepped into the room, now invisible in the darkness, a state his mind relaxed considerably into even as the dangers of the situation were continually being focused on.
A gentle splash of water and the dark form of an arm reaching to the edge of the light, slowly retracting with a champaign glass that was enjoyed for a moment before being returned to its place empty. A long, drawn-out sigh met Michael’s ear, only audible because he was so focused on everything around him.
“You’re late...” The voice was soft and seductive in accented English. He had the feeling of familiarity, though he could say that he had never heard it before. He certainly would have remembered. 
He stepped closer, his interest peaked enough to push a little caution to the wind. “I had trouble finding it.”
A gentle laugh, this time stronger and more assured. “You never change. A lie is your instinctual defense. In that we are the same.”
He caught the voice, knowing now that he had walked into a trap of some form. The water splashed again and the woman stood, stepping from the tub, her graceful motion imprinted in his mind as it clashed with what he had always known. She toweled off and stepped closer, the light catching her face just right and showing him what he had never expected to see.
Michael was trapped by his own body, his mind unable to work past the stunning image in front of him. Her bare skin still glistened with the drops of water, her form trim and lithe, and proportioned perfectly for her height, the look of sensual hunger in her eyes, and finally the gun in her right hand, concealed in the shadows since being removed from under the towel.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Michael Christiansen.” 
“Ferro...” 
Her smile was an unmasking of her intent, a show of her true nature at that moment. Michael felt his heart accelerate as fear took hold of a part of him. He should have played it Bogart, accepting Sonya’s gun and making sure he had the advantage by taking the lead and heading off her movements.
“What do you want, Ferro?” She was perceptive enough to sense his mostly-concealed fear but she might not know how close he was to lashing out in reaction to her. As insane as it was, he had to let her get closer.
A shrug loosed several droplets of water, which slid down her shoulder and across her bare chest. “I’m not entirely sure myself. I know I had to see you, to have you at the business end of my gun. Thinking back on it, I cannot say that I really thought it through. How strange.” 
Her face showed amused curiosity at her self-analysis, the delicate feet moving her around him, just out of reach.
“You’re angry...” Maybe she didn’t know what she was feeling but he certainly had a few ideas. Maybe he could force her in a direction.
“You’re damn right I’m angry.” Her voice was still calm and even, and meant that she was beyond the level of irrational reaction. Whatever she was going to do was going to be careful and deliberate. “Lorenzo sent me on a month’s vacation because of you. He believed I could not be impartial in regards to you, and the worst part about it is that he is right. He no longer trusts me, a trust I worked for years to earn, and you took that away from me.
“I never meant to hurt you, Ferro. You helped me and I thanked you for it. That was all.”
Anger flashed like lightning in her eyes, and was just as quickly gone, her calm demeanor constantly reasserting itself over her emotional bursts. Still... Michael could not really say that she was calm. His body could feel her aura and it was puzzling, not at all like her normal self.
“Michael Michael Michael... Why must you continue to lie?” She stepped closer and laid her free hand on his shoulder, tracing her fingers slowly and seductively down his arm. The motion sent a shudder though his body, a reaction she felt, and she took his hand in hers as she leaned close and brushed her lips against the curve of his jaw. The muzzle of the gun jabbed into his neck, holding him in place as she gently licked his lips. 
“You’re a vampire, Michael Christiansen. You seduce women, use them, and leave a trail of bodies in your wake. You feed on the living who willingly let you, unsure even as to the reason why. The carnage and destruction that are sure to surround them is plainly visible, yet they desire you. Right now....”
Ferro’s whispers trailed off as she passionately kissed him. He could feel the frustration and anger at herself through it but her desire was the most prevalent emotion. Her body yearned, be it for him or someone else, but she could not focus enough to overcome that nor ignore it. She was burning hot, her skin flushed pink from the hot water and her arousal, and it was all he could do to avoid falling into the same state. 
“Ferro, stop this.”
Her lips sucked at his neck a few times before she bit him, the pinch of skin just sharp enough to tell him she was not going to go easily. The pain was quickly soothed by the slow circling of her tongue and her hand slipping down between their bodies, her fingers raking across the material of his pants.
“I have something you need, Michael Christiansen, and the price for it is what I need. That’s fair, right?”
Her hand maneuvered with unexpected precision, touching flesh and making the remainder of his body feel embarrassed at the fact he was responding to her. He’d been unable to respond to Sonya’s efforts so why now?
“Michael...” The voice was that of a starving animal. “Don’t make me say it. Just....”
Another passionate kiss interrupted her words and her body pressed against his, her entire being unstable, unsure whether it wanted to give in to the fire it felt.
The kiss broke and left both gasping for air, a pause in which Michael could see to Ferro’s soul as their eyes locked. She was in pain, and she had sought him out in the hopes of soothing or ending that pain. His free hand slid to her gun and pulled it away from his body, slowly pointing it away to avoid a mishap.
“You don’t need this.”
“Yes I do. I can’t give up control again.” She had glanced down, away from his piercing eyes, and her voice was timid now, afraid, even as her desires continued to fuel her trembling.
He could sense it now, her fear of herself. She was thrilled and enjoying the long-lost feelings she had sworn off so long ago but was afraid of allowing them to manifest in their whole, afraid that if she let them go she would never be able to reign them back in. It would change her, change what she had worked so hard for, and it scared her more than anything else she had known.
His fingers lifted her chin up into another kiss, softer and more intimate in nature than what she had been forcing on him. His natural weakness for women who suffer filtered through his action into a form of comfort for her, a calm place amidst the turmoil that was her passion. The move gave her pause, blanking her mind and making her unsure as to what was going to happen to her. With just one instinctual action Michael changed the balance of power to his advantage. 
“Trust me, Ferro.” Whispered words, sounds her mind had to work to hear, an effort it would certainly put forth because it needed a place to anchor to maintain sanity. As strong-willed and controlled as she normally was she was now in a state that needed guidance. His actions before, and her moment of humanity that led to her finally breaking down her walls, were his responsibility.
“I- I can’t. I can’t give in again. I can’t let you hold this over me any more.” 
Even as she said the words she released the gun into his grip and shuddered in a humiliated anguish. He tossed it away onto a chair and turned his attention back to her lips, pressing his forehead to hers gently for a moment before finding her lips again.
“I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t know I left you with this pain. It was supposed to be a gift for you to enjoy by building it into something of your own.”
“I never wanted it. I never asked for it.”
He smiled softly and slipped a hand to the small of her back, gently rubbing his fingertips into it while kissing just below her ear. “You didn’t have to. I could feel it within you, wanting just a little release. I didn’t know that my helping you would hurt you so much.”
A soft cry, barely more than a whisper, escaped her lips as he kissed her neck. Michael’s concern about traps and his safety slipped further away, his mind and body getting caught up in his control. Ferro, the Ice Queen of Italy, the penultimate professional woman, was under his control at that moment. It was enough to make any man feel a foot taller.
“Understand that I don’t want to control you, nor do I want to hold something over you. What I want...” His hand pulled the one he’d been holding behind her back, pinning it up just enough to force a wave of helplessness through her body and mind. “What I want is to set you free from this burden you’ve taken on yourself. You’ve been so cold inside, so lonely, for so long. I’ve lived like that and it hurts, it hurts so much later on. You realize that the part of you that was so unimportant before is the part that is an empty hole. Loving and being loved... When you’re young and ambitious it doesn’t seem to matter much. When you get to our age you realize that you are empty inside, and start to feel like you’ll always be like that, all the while your heart screams out in pain.”
She had calmed out of her frenzy but was still in an emotional mindset. Michael could probably back out of this now and there would be no way she could stop him. Her eyes looked into his, however, a silent plea inside them that she did not even know she was whispering.
His lips met hers again and he pulled her closer, trailing his lips to her neck and then her ear as his hands gently wandered. His whispered words made her body relax the last bit of resistance.
“Trust in me.”

The morning light filtered in through the sheer curtains, the brightness just enough to stir Michael from his light sleep. His body still felt void of strength and a quick glance at the clock told him why: he had only slept two hours. Some repressed part of his mind had broken loose during the night and ravaged the woman sleeping contentedly next to him. There were slight bruises on her body, places he had grasped for a better hold or teased and tormented to raise her arousal even more in the heat of the moment. Several marks were from his mouth, the indentations from his teeth still visible on the pale flesh. The sight was a bit arousing in itself, made more so by the knowledge that he had been the one to do it.
He shifted slightly and winced as his waking nerves reminded him that he had not come out of their encounter unscathed. He could count the burning furrows on his back from her fingernails, the searing pain from their infliction a mere side-note among the jumbled sensations that had hit him in that moment. Michael felt a smile form on his lips, perhaps the first real one in a long time.
Ferro stirred, slowly coming awake through the exhaustion she must still feel from the four trips into total ecstasy. Her mind was confused even now, unsure where or how she had ended up feeling as she did, not unexpected since she had blacked out that final time. She had come to for a few moments before falling asleep, her words in Italian gibberish and nonsensical.
It slowly dawned on her what had happened through the night, even if all of the details were still a jumbled mess in her memory. She rolled over enough to look at Michael and gave his smile a curious look in return.
“What are you smiling so broadly for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m half expecting you to tell me to put some pants on before we talk.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back over into her pillow, thinking about the night and trying to find her feelings about it through the haze. It was troubling for her. She did not feel regret, really. Her body was exhausted, her mind hazy from the fatigue, but she felt lighter, perhaps even better, than she had before. She felt warm inside and it was a feeling she could not entirely explain.
“What happened?”
Michael had sat up and stretched a bit. “We had sex. It was a long, protracted battle of wills, the likes of which has not been seen since Thermopylae. I’m not entirely sure who won.”
Ferro blushed; a curious event that had Michael gazing over her body to determine just how low that blush went. “I- I never felt it like that before. I don’t know what happened to my control.”
“There was no need for control. You simply did what your body desired. That’s the nice thing about one-night stands, Ferro... You get it and go, and the emotional aspects are kept to a minimum.”
Her “bastard” was muffled by the pillow but the tone was obvious. A part of her mind was already starting to nag her for her act, so he had to make sure that she did not go away angry, lest she seek him out again with a bit more intent to kill.
Michael leaned over and kissed her neck, a touch she started to jerk away from by instinct, but relaxed into as the sensation took her back to that place in her mind that was so satisfying. A soft sigh escaped her lips as he nipped her neck with his teeth and he knew that she was changed from being a machine into perhaps a mere cyborg, her body that of a woman’s even if her mind was not.
“Don’t look on this as something to regret, Ferro. Look at it and see it for what it is- a renewing of the best parts of your humanity. Not many people get back what they throw away.”
“So I should be indebted to you?”
He smiled again and rolled over, slipping from the covers and starting to locate his clothes. “No. At least not if you provide me the information I need like you promised.”
Ferro closed her eyes tight at the memory of her words the previous night. They had been said in her drunken heat, her body demanding what he had and her mind only agreeing with that idea rather than questioning it. Did that mean she had sold her body? On reflection she had to reason that it wasn’t like that, and at worst it could be the same as her efforts to bed her way into target-range of those mafioso in her younger years.
She rolled over and let the sheet slip from her body, placing herself on display just once to distract Michael Christiansen. “And what do you feel, Michael? You’ve just slept with a close advisor to the man who killed your friends and lover. Does that bother you?”
“Why should it?” Michael passed it off verbally but his mind gave his mental-image’s ass a few kicks anyway. “I am prepared to kill my way to Lorenzo when the time comes. You being here means nothing towards that goal. If anything, fucking his confidante, the person he values most, makes me feel a little better about things.”
The eyes that turned to her contained a sharp hint of Michael’s anger, even as his smile showed just how satisfied he was with the evening. “Besides, I don’t really think you had much to do with the attack in Amsterdam. A part of you fears me, and I would say that part of you was likely telling Lorenzo what a mistake he was making. But he didn’t listen to you, did he?”
“No.” Michael was in her mind again, his skill at reading into her on display and troubling to behold. “No, and it’s because he has something planned for you. I don’t know what it is. I think he’s been slowly seeing a change in my professionalism and has left me out of it because of you.”
“I see.” He finished buttoning his shirt and started working on his tie. “What can you tell me about the fratello in town right now?”
Her eyes closed and she thought about what to tell him. Revealing an agency operation in a way that could prevent it meant that she was betraying it, that she was a traitor. The next thought was that she already was one, her act in warning Michael of his impending demise back at the agency as traitorous as it comes. She had aided the enemy of her organization and could never take that back.
“I don’t know much”, she lied, “but I know they are here to assassinate the U.S. Senator.”
“How? Why?”
“I don’t know.” 
Michael squinted at the wall, weighing the feeling of her duplicity against the effort needed to force the rest out of her. She was saving face in her own mind, protecting what she still had. If she ratted out the whole plan she could never look Lorenzo in the eyes again, and that meant she was through. Her life might even be forfeit. He could not push her that far.
“Force composition?”
“One fratello plus a rogue cyborg, the one you fought in the alley and whose handler your friends killed.” Ferro sat up on the bed and pulled the sheet around her, covering up her body in an unconscious effort to protect her self a bit more from his interrogation. “She’s after your life, Michael, as she blames your actions to be the cause of her handler being killed. She can’t be talked out of it and is only obeying the agency’s orders because of the conditioning. I’ve warned Lorenzo that she’s ticking away towards a break-down but he insists on using her.”
Michael nodded, filing everything away in place in his mind. “That’s because he knows that only someone unhinged and pissed off can get to me.” He glanced again at the woman on the bed and felt a part of his mind trying to mesh the aggressive and passionate Ferro of last night with the calm, collected one watching him now. “Perhaps you’re proof of that concept.”
“It’s not something I want to think about further.”
“Hm. Too bad.” He picked up her panties and gently handed them to her, showing a respect and consideration that she did not expect. The moment was gone just as fast and he finished dressing, making sure he had his phone and wallet. 
Ferro caught a pained look on his face as he stepped towards the door, avoiding eye contact with her and setting his sight on the way out of this complicated encounter. He stopped at the door to the suite’s living room and cast a half-glance in her direction, still avoiding her eyes.
“Don’t lose sight of the woman you are at this moment, Ferro. She’s not cold or lonely, afraid or uncertain. She’s beautiful, and it would be a tragedy for you to let go of her again.”
He spoke the words over his shoulder but she felt his piercing eyes boring into her soul, dredging up that which she had put back into place. 
“Michael...” 
The whispered words dispersed into the vacuum left by the slowly closing door.