"Please."

"Save it for someone who gives a shit. Kidnap a little girl? You and I have only just begun."

The agents stopped them downstairs.

Christine gave Pepper the sit rep.

"We'll lead the way. Gentlemen, lights up."

The agents turned on their flashing red lights and put Christine and Bat into the van.

Then the procession left, Code Three for Palatine.

Two agents were left behind to take Ragman into custody. He was taken to the jail, fingerprinted and booked. He would make bail and walk free within twelve hours and the agents knew that. But for now, he was in custody and they were going to make inquiries of him. Lots of inquiries. It was going to be a long night for Luis M. Sanchez aka Ragman.

61.

She was twenty-three, the victim of a home invasion while her husband was in the city, and had a fifteen-month-old to care for. They came into her farmhouse and locked her, with her baby, in the upstairs master bedroom closet. The makeshift lock consisted of a chair pushed backwards up under the doorknob.

The baby's diaper was overflowing and she was starving. Two hours past her bottle and she wouldn't stop crying. So Teresa Merrill did what all good mothers would have done. She placed her back against the closet wall, raised both legs with feet against the locked door, and kicked with every bit of strength she had. Surprisingly the door easily swung open and crashed against the exterior wall.

She climbed to her feet and inhaled a huge lungful of smoke.

The house was on fire.

Without another thought she scooped up her baby and tore downstairs. Which was when the saw the man, nude, laid out on the backboard. He was strapped from head to toe and it was unknown whether he was breathing. So she placed her baby on the floor and released all straps. His eyes were still closed. She patted his face. Nothing. So she slapped him-once, twice. His eyes fluttered open and she shook him "C'mon, mister, they've put us on fire."

He shook the cobwebs from his brain. The smoke curled into his nose and he abruptly regained consciousness. He sat up.

"What?"

"The house is on fire. Let's get you outside."

He swung his legs over and stood. Wobbly at first, he reached for her shoulder.

She didn't mind. She had seen nude men before. Besides, this one was no threat; he could hardly stand. She picked up the baby, snagged Thaddeus' suit pants, and led him outside onto the porch. Smoke was everywhere, as the place had been doused with kerosene from the barn and then set ablaze.

He wanted to go back inside for his shirt. She refused to allow that.

"Sit tight," she said. "The neighbors will notice and call someone."

At which point he fainted dead away.

She heard sirens approaching.

"That didn't take long," she remarked to her baby.

They pulled in, a van with flashing lights and three bikers with flashing lights.

"Call the fire department!" she cried, which was unnecessary. The call had already been made by Special Agent Pepper from several hundred yards back down the road.

The house wouldn't be saved. The accelerant gave the fire too much of a head start.

But the occupants were saved. They were transported by the EMTs to the hospital. Thaddeus was treated for smoke inhalation and kept overnight. Minor wounds were cleaned and dressed. The FBI agents posted local police officers at his door. The FBI gave Bat a ride back to Christine's car. Christine remained behind at Thaddeus' bedside. She would spend the night there, upright and alert, her Glock in plain view.

The mother was examined in the ER and released. The baby was given a bottle of formula from the hospital nursery. The crying subsided and the mother breathed a prayer of thanks.

62.

Saturday morning he worked until nine-thirty. The cleaning crew arrived and Juan Marenzenga appeared with his cart on the twenty-ninth floor of the American United Building. Thaddeus knew the FBI agents were downstairs, waiting for him to leave on foot or by car. They would be stationed in their black cars along the curb. Another car would be waiting across from the building's parking garage exit ramp. He knew there would be no shaking them by normal means.

He waited until Juan was inside his office, switching on lights so he could clean the wastebaskets and vacuum. Thaddeus met him in the client waiting area.

He stuck out his hand. "I'm Thad. What's your name?"

"Juan." The small Mexican man looked suspicious. For one thing, he was expecting to find the office empty. For another, he was surprised and startled that a gringo was taking the time to speak to him. Strange, indeed. He took a step toward the door. "Should I come back later?"

Thaddeus smiled at the man. "No need. But I'm wondering whether you would like to earn an extra five hundred dollars this morning?" He reached inside his wallet and extracted five hundreds. He held them out to Juan.

Juan refrained from accepting the money. But he wasn't disinterested. "What do I have to do?"

"You know the loading dock where you take the trash?"

"Yes."

"I want you to take me there."

Juan's look was totally quizzical. "Why don't you just take the elevator there? You don't have to pay me no five hundred dollars for that."

"No, you didn't understand me. I want you to take me there."

"How could I do that?"

Thaddeus pointed at the trash cart. It was five feet long, four feet high, on four six-inch wheels. A broom and two mops thrust upward from a canister on one end, a push bar extended across the other. It was black and said "49" in stencil characters.

Juan eyed the cart. "You mean take you in that?"

"Yes. I need to get out of the building without being seen."

"Is this your office?"

"It is."

"Are you running from the police?"

"I'm not. Would that make any difference?"

Juan grew perplexed. "No. Not really."

"Look. You want the money, I need a ride. Deal?"

Juan extended his hand as he nodded. "Deal."

"Let's go."

"Wait. What will you do at the loading dock? Do you have a gun?"

Thaddeus spread open his suit coat and did a 360. "No gun. No knife. Just a harmless lawyer."

"Abogado."

"S, soy abogado."

"S."

"Are you ready?"

"Please, let me help you in."

"No need."

Thaddeus swung his legs up and over and settled back in the trash. The cart was half full of discarded paper towels from the restroom, discarded copy paper, and dozens of Chicago Tribunes and Daily Suns. He immediately began covering himself. Juan joined in and Thaddeus crossed his hands on his abdomen and settled in for the ride.

THE CAB RIDE from the American United Building back over to Schaumburg ate up twenty-five minutes, as Saturday morning outbound traffic heading was peaking. Stop and go, stop and go. Thaddeus sprawled across the back seat, staying low.

He smiled. Ragman's new American girlfriend sent him to the Barrington Farmers Market every Saturday morning without fail.

THE MARKET WAS OUTDOORS, canvas stalls lined the street, and the pungent smell of barbecue spread. The crowd numbered in the hundreds, all drawn there by the promise of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Lost in a throng of shoppers, Thaddeus squeezed in beside his man. Getting next to him was easy, as Ragman was checking out the young women in their halter tops and shorts. Thaddeus knew what was going on behind those driving glasses, knew they were seeing young flesh and ignoring the rest. Nobody would miss this guy. He was Mr. Hip, Slick, and Cool.

Perfect, thought Thaddeus, as he watched Ragman ostensibly shopping for bananas but secretly shopping the girls. Even very young ones, the elevens, the twelves.

When a young mother with a thirteen-year-old daughter gave Ragman a frosty glare, his eyes darted down to the banana display. She didn't move, which unnerved him.

Suddenly, he lifted a bunch of seven fruit to the sun, turning, turning. It appeared he was looking closely for spiders, for the fruit was known to ship from Latin America to Chicago with tarantulas stowed onboard. He held the bunch at the proximal portion of the vine and carefully examined it. Waiting, waiting, while the angry mother moved on.

Ragman bent to replace the bananas in the display. Thaddeus, at his side, took one step back and jammed the 9 mm behind the man's ear. He pulled the trigger three times.

The yellow-lensed sunglasses flew into the display. He splayed forward across the yellow fruit.

Thaddeus almost laughed as he pulled back into the crowd and disappeared. Bananas, he thought with a rush. The guy had actually let his guard down over a bunch of bananas. Thaddeus turned and put his back to the clamor as the looky-loos formed a circle around Ragur Amman Hussein, aka Ragman. "Is that blood?" the woman in the yellow shorts coveralls squealed.

Christine had left the Tesla parked along Monagle Street. Thaddeus strolled nonchalantly through the crowd. He snapped the latex gloves from his hands as efficiently as the heart surgeon following transplantation. The gloves were stuffed inside a front jeans pocket. Fingerprints could be lifted from the inside of the gloves. No clues, not for the retinue of CSIs that would overrun the scene.

He opened the car and congratulated himself. Three down. The targets had multiplied. It was like when Thaddeus was a young boy stripping the bark from rotting cottonwoods. The scorpions, exposed to the glaring Arizona sunlight, would scatter by the thousands. Same thing here. While not as many, they were every bit as deadly.

And the original six-now three-who formed the group. Special Agent Pepper had referred to them as a cell. What of them? He slid across the seat, an angry scowl pulling at his face.

They were a matter of national security, that much was now known.

The why and the where and the when remained to be found out, though he already had a pretty good idea of the why.

For him, he was finished with it. Let the FBI clean up the rest.

He had his man face-down across a fruit stand. The new and improved Ragur Amman Hussein arrived in paradise at ten thirty-one a.m. Thaddeus wondered what the welcome was like.

Once the body was removed the merchant would spray and sell the yellow fruit anyway.

The guy wouldn't be out a nickel.

THE END.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.