Reid kept looking at his watch. The other tac agent would be back from the airport any time now and Lightholler wasn't giving them anything. Was it time to move on to Joseph, or pursue the Tunnel angle? She gave Reid what she hoped was a veiled look of entreaty.

He took the cue.

"Well, Captain," Reid said, "what's it going to be?"

"Don't know. I can't think straight," Lightholler replied, and he was clearly troubled. The prisoner's arrival had prised something loose. "I need to eat something. I need to take a piss."

"Captain. Please." Reid had seen it too. He gave Malcolm a look of mock horror.

"Captain," she said gently, "if you would just-"

The phone's sharp peal startled her. She glanced up at Reid, who responded with a shrug. She picked up the phone.

Reid moved to the door. He was beckoning the tac agent, saying, "Piss break."

The agent made a show of weary indifference as he released Lightholler from the table. He clamped the free bracelet around Lightholler's other wrist and led him out.

"Make sure he washes his hands," Reid called out after them. He looked back at Malcolm with a smirk.

She gazed at him questioningly. Why had he cut Lightholler loose? Why had he broken their rhythm?

"This is Evidence in Savannah," a voice was saying over the line.

"Sorry. Agent Malcolm here. What have you got?" She snatched a scrap of paper from her notes.

"The print matches you requested are back."

She cupped the mouthpiece and said to Reid, "Prints are back."

"'Bout fucking time," Reid replied. He was still standing by the door, watchfully.

"Go ahead," she said to the lab technician, and he gave her the details. She asked if he was certain, and he confirmed it was a verified match. She looked over at the prisoner. Her hands were shaking.

The technician was still talking, saying something about a partial print. He paused, mid-sentence, and said, "I'm sorry, did you say you were Agent Malcolm?"

She wondered what was taking Captain Lightholler so long, wondered how to play this out, and here was another asshole struggling to come to terms with a female operative. She said, "Yes, this is Agent Patricia Malcolm."

"Are there any other agents there with you? I'll need to talk with one of them."

She held the phone away from her for a moment, fuming, and caught Reid's eye.

"What?" he said.

She rolled her eyes and handed him the phone. She looked across at the prisoner and shook her head. "What were you thinking?"

There was a sudden brisk movement at the corner of her eye. Why was Reid holding his pistol?

"You fucking bitch."

"Reid?"

"You fucking conniving bitch." Reid held the gun centred on her chest. He closed the door and walked back to the table. He perched on its edge. "Evidence control just came through with the partial print off Kennedy's gun, honey, and it's yours." His voice was a snarled rasp.

"Are you insane? Of course my prints are on it. I'm the one who disarmed him."

He lashed out at her chair with an abrupt kick. She landed on the floor, her legs twisted beneath her. He was standing over her with the pistol in her face. He kicked her again. His boot smashed into her hip, sending a searing jolt of pain down her leg and up her spine.

"I'm talking about the gun from New York. The gun from Osakatown."

Hot tears streamed down her face. "That's impossible. You know that's impossible."

"Is it?" He reached for the phone again, his eyes never leaving her.

"I'm being set up." She tasted tears and blood in her mouth and she was crying and she was furious with herself and terrified beyond any previous concept of the sensation. "Framed like Joseph."

"Your precious, fucking Joseph. You copied the serial numbers, you faked the whole fucking thing." He dialled a number and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Bring your men in now. This shindig is over."

He slammed down the phone. He groaned and dropped to the floor.

The prisoner was standing above him. He had Reid's pistol in one hand and the ashtray in the other. The ashtray had a clump of blood-tangled hair on its scored edge. He looked down at Malcolm and said, "Are you okay, miss?"

She looked over at Reid. His face was pressed against the floor, a trickle of blood was pooling near his mouth. An ugly bruise was forming over the base of his skull. His chest moved with shallow gasps.

She looked back at the prisoner; he was swaying a little in the tide of his exertion. He kept the gun aimed at a point just beyond her.

He said, "Are you alright?"

She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. Her leg ached and there was a dull throb where Reid's boot had connected. She wanted to vomit. "I'm okay."

"I'll need your gun."

She patted herself down awkwardly. Her skirt was heaped up above her knees and she had to struggle to remove her jacket. She said, "It's in the outer office."

Reid was starting to move, his fingers scrabbling at the cement floor. The man who had been her prisoner reached for Reid's cuffs. With one eye still on her, he twisted Reid's wrists up and locked them behind his back. Reid groaned.

She looked up and said, "What are you going to do now, Mr Morgan?"

VIII.

The tac agent rapped on the interrogation room door. The door swung open.

Lightholler hesitated at the entrance and a shove from behind propelled him into the room.

Agent Reid was gagged and cuffed to the desk. The lower part of his face, caked with fresh blood, was bound by a roll of bandages. Agent Malcolm was on her knees.

Morgan, unfettered, held a gun at the back of her neck. Reid saw them and let out a stifled howl.

Lightholler stepped back. The tac was right behind him, reaching for his weapon.

"Hold it right there." Morgan's voice was gravel.

Reid bellowed, kicking at the desk.

"Easy, bud. Relax." The tac had his hand on the holster.

Lightholler slammed a heel where the tac's shin should have been, overshot and tumbled. The tac glanced down at him and drew his pistol.

The room shuddered explosively. Lightholler was deafened. He saw Morgan's lips move. "Drop it."

The request was redundant. The tac agent's forearm was torn flesh and bone. He was staring at it incredulously. He said, "Shit," as his pistol clattered on the floor.

Lightholler booted it to the far corner of the room.

Reid fell silent.

"Oh, fuck." The tac agent was bent over, nursing his arm.

"Get those off." Morgan was pointing at Lightholler's wrists.

"Jesus Christ," the tac agent howled.

"Captain?" Morgan urged.

Lightholler struggled to his knees and reached for the agent's key chain. The agent, in an oddly obliging manoeuvre, shifted his wounded elbow to facilitate the exchange. Lightholler removed the keys. The question roared in his brain. What the hell happened to Morgan?

The historian's pale eyes were still watery blue but they fixed towards some undefinable distance. His face was lined and carved from steel. Possessed.

"Can you manage, Captain?" Morgan asked in his new voice.

Lightholler nodded. He fumbled with the key, slipping it into the lock. A twist and he was free. He rubbed at his wrists, still dazed.

"Captain?"

Lightholler looked up. He was remembering the last time he'd seen Morgan, in the Shenandoah's hangar. What had happened since? Where was Hardas?

"Would you mind cuffing the agent?"

The tac had his injured arm pressed close to his chest. Lightholler hesitated, read Morgan's glance, and proceeded to apply the cuffs. The agent growled his anguish.

Lightholler got to his feet and retrieved the other pistol.

"We have to get out of here," Morgan said. "This piece of shit," he gestured towards Reid with a nod, "just called in some backup."

Despite a thousand questions, Lightholler shifted the tac agent to one of the chairs while Morgan attended to Agent Malcolm.

"I'm sorry about that." Morgan was extending an arm towards her. She waved him away angrily and rose to her feet. "Take a seat." His gun was now trained back on her.

She dropped into one of the chairs.

Reid was making feral noises at the back of his throat while the tac moaned a low keening lament. Blood pooled on the dirty floor. Morgan tugged the bandages away from Reid's mouth.

Reid tried to spit.

"Who's coming?" Morgan asked.

"Girl scouts." Reid's saliva was more formed, it splattered against Morgan's shoes.

Morgan turned. "Any ideas, Captain?"

Lightholler stared back wordlessly.

Morgan's eyes narrowed. He looked over at Malcolm, who now sat with her hands under her thighs, rocking gently. "She can get us airborne."

"Don't you do a fucking thing for them," Reid said through gritted teeth.

Morgan advanced on him with the back of his hand raised. He turned to Malcolm, as if seeking her approval. She looked away. He dropped his hand and replaced the crude gag. He reached for the phone and ripped it from its socket. He grabbed the back of the tac agent's chair and pushed it up against Reid's. He tied their wrists together with the bandages and the phone cord. He examined the tac's wound and bound the skin above it with a spare strip.

Gesturing towards Malcolm with the gun, he said, "This way, if you will, miss."

She rose unsteadily, avoiding the wild fury of Reid's eyes. Lightholler took her arm and this time she didn't resist. They followed Morgan out of the interrogation room.

IX.

The sounds registered indistinctly at first, faint and far away-the muffled slam of a door, the furtive scurry of running feet-but the gunshot's echo rang clearly in Kennedy's ears.

His thoughts pounded inchoate; murderous and feral, plotting impossible retributions. A part of him realised that it had been small arm's fire, loud and abrasive, rather than the softer crack of a rifle. He felt the raw graze of his throat but couldn't recall shouting. Only the gripped steel bars of his cell were real. Those, and the gunshot's proclamation: no companions, no journal and no hope.

The running footsteps drew nearer, quickened, and a part of him realised that it would all be over soon.

His eyes fixed on the gun first. He only had a vague impression of the forms that stood beyond the bars. They blurred into the aspect of Lightholler and Morgan. He'd sought to save a world by snatching it from fire. He'd only served to fan the flames. Morgan's spectre, the charred evidence of his crime, shambled to one side. He wondered where Hardas's ghost hovered and it was all he could do not to mouth a muted apology.

"Major, are you okay?" the spectre rasped.

Time jerked forwards. The gun didn't fire, the shapes didn't resolve into his enemies. He stared at Morgan thickly for a moment, trying to make sense of it all.

"Joseph?" Lightholler advanced. He had a set of keys in his hand.

Kennedy stepped back from the cell door. Lightholler wore a spray of dried blood on his shirt. Morgan, scarred by older wounds, had a smear of fresh blood on his sleeve. Blood on the keys.

"We're alright," Lightholler said.

"Whose blood?"

"A bit of everyone's, Joseph."

Only then did he notice Patricia. She was standing across the room from him, watching their reunion with silent censure. She stood awkwardly, favouring her left leg. Her clothing was rumpled but there was no apparent sign of injury.

"What happened?" Kennedy asked.