Wow! What a way to wake up, or down, depending on your perspective. I hit the floor so hard, at first I thought it was an earthquake. I was under the coffee table and television was askew. When I regained my wits, I realized I had fallen off the couch where I had apparently gone to sleep the night before while watching some crappy movie. I got up, went to the bathroom, and got another shock when I looked in the mirror. I was so stunned I almost fell into the bathroom. When had I turned into my grandfather? I hadn't shaved for a few days and the scruffy beard adorning my face had grown in Santa Claus white. That would have to go. I'd been going for distinguished, not dead. I took care of that as quickly as possible and tried not to think too much about my birthday coming up next month.

After I scraped the overnight grunge off of my teeth and took a fast shower, I stepped out of the bathroom to hear my phone ringing. "Good morning", Marge said, far too cheerfully to my still somewhat muddled frame of mind. "I've got some information on a location for our favorite guy."

"You do? Where might he be?"

"Well, according to one of my more reliable c.i.'s, he's squatting in a loft on McDougal, in the Village."

"Sounds like this might be out of our league, you plan on inviting S.W.A.T. to the party?"

"That's the idea. Pick you up in about an hour?"

"Sounds like a plan."


Marge picked me up and, bless her, she'd brought me some coffee and a breakfast sandwich. We were on our way to be on scene as S.W.A.T. executed an arrest warrant on Carlos.

"Marge, what do you think about that call I got from Biscuit's brother Wayne? Seemed to me he was cooking without all the burners on, if you know what I mean. Maybe it's a "family thing", or meth, or schizophrenia, but he was speaking pure word salad. He could have just been scared shitless after what happened to his brother, but some of what he said made a little sense. I'd be scared shitless too in his place. With 50 g's out there, assuming both of those boys were paid 25 thousand each, someone's going to be looking for that kind of money."

As she pulled to a stop behind a police van parked about a block away from our destination, Marge turned to me and said, "I think we both have the same idea about what happened there. Carlos was cleaning up some loose ends.

What did you think of that coroner's report I got from Georgia?" she asked me. It looked pretty hinky to me. The coroner down there seemed to think our boys were dead long before their car hit that light pole, caught fire, and blew up. And did you get a look at the list of chemicals they found in the wreckage? I remember when cars just had things like gas, oil, and antifreeze. Looks like these new ones have nitric acid, potassium nitrate, potassium chlorate, and a whole laboratory of other things I can't even pronounce."

Marge told me she had a friend who'd been with the BATF for the last twenty years. He said that car had to have had eight to ten pounds of C-4 in it when blew up. Apparently, there were also traces of something called Clark. Her friend told Marge that Clark was and old World War II recipe for poison gas, something like Ricin, and those two boys were long gone before that explosion hit them. Thank God for small mercies, huh?"

Marge said she had done a little research and figured there were probably less than a hundred people walking around in this country who might know what that stuff was, much less what it could do or how to make it.
The radio suddenly crackled to life.

"Car 47, we're in position, waiting for your command to proceed."

Marge keyed her mic and responded, "Roger that, you have a go. Proceed to apprehend the suspect."