Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

Driving until they well away from the park, M-One pulled into the parking lot of a car-washing facility and looked around. "M-Four, open that garage door."

David ignored the dark stare as M-Four, a guy named Robert Muldowney, shoved past him on his way out. Instead, he worked his way up to the space between the two front seats. "Sir?"

"Yes?" M-One's eyes never left the nearby road.

"The other team, they hadn't finished their job when they left."

That remark earned him a raised eyebrow. "Explain."

"When I followed them…" Against orders, David thought but didn't say "…I overheard them talking about a woman, and how she had escaped the ambush. One of the men said something about if she got what they wanted. She was some kind of computer hacker…"

The rattle of metal against metal interrupted him as M-Four pushed the garage door up, revealing a large interior with hoses and other cleaning equipment. M-One drove inside. "Soap it down and get every scrap of paint off," he ordered.

David scrambled outside and grabbed a wand as M-Four turned the washing system on. As soon as the soapy water hit the van's dark gray paint, it began to flake and slough off in large sheets, dissolving into a sludgy mess that dribbled toward the drain. Underneath was a pristine white coat. Inside, M-One hit a button, and the license plate rotated to a completely new number.

David smiled, humming the James Bond theme under his breath. Sometimes the old ways are still the best ways, he thought. He examined the fender damage caused by the SUV's graze, making sure that no paint traces from the other vehicle had been left over in the wash. Five minutes later, they had completely transformed the van. He also knew they wouldn't show up on any street cameras, since M-One had activated a scrambler that would knock out any recording devices in a one-block radius. Anyone using a digital camera at the time was out of luck.

Their leader pulled the van back out, and David and M-Four cleaned up, making sure that all of the paint was washed down the drain, and leaving the tools exactly where they had found them. M-Four closed and locked the door.

Tara beat David back to the side door. "M-One wants to see you up front."

"Yeah, time to face the music. Sorry to make you lose your seat."

"Don't worry about it." She held up a funny-looking piece of foam with what looked like a black piece of plastic inside. "I need to play with this at the console anyway. Recovered it from outside the house — figured the other team put it there for surveillance."

"Nice going, rook — ah, M-Three." David flushed, all too aware that he hadn't been nearly as proficient in executing the mission as their newest teammate. He clapped her on the shoulder and headed up to the front of the van.

"Now that we're undercover again…" M-One's gray eyes flashed at David, letting the other man know he was still accountable for the breach of orders earlier "tell me everything you heard — every single word."

The woman shivered in the chill evening air as she watched the bustling activity around Wyvil Road. The entire area had been secured by police tape, with the street blocked off at both ends by Metropolitan Police Service vehicles and uniformed, armed officers bustling everywhere. Beyond the cordon, media vans swarmed, with perfectly pressed and coiffed reporters jockeying for the best shots and interviews as they scrambled to get on the air. The woman made sure to avoid the roving cameras at all costs.

For the moment, she was safe enough among the crowd of people peering and peeking, everyday, ordinary folk looking for a bit of excitement, their voices overlapping as they tried to find out what was going on:

"Do you know what happened?"

"Probably a drug deal gone wrong. Wankers most likely lit each other up…"

"I saw some of the lodgers around…they seemed like nice enough people…"

"Dear God, what is that smell? Someone been trudging around in the sewers?"

At that last bit, she moved a couple meters away, all too aware that she was the one most likely causing the odor the last person had complained about. Even as she stood there, watching the chaotic scene, a part of her mind repeated that she needed to move, needed to get the hell out of there, just casually turn around and walk away, another spectator who had grown bored with watching the police and was heading for home. But she stayed, waiting to see the proof with her own eyes.

Waiting for the bodies to be removed from the scene.

It had seemed like only moments ago — had it really been an hour? — when she had finished with Harry and sent him on his errand, hiding the few cigarettes left in the pack because, well, by the time he got back, she'd be gone from his life forever.

As soon as she'd heard the front door close, Marlene had slipped out of the bed, grabbed her clothes and run to the bathroom, cleaning up and getting dressed in under three minutes. Pulling her long hair back in a ponytail, she had grabbed her laptop and case, trotted to the door and opened it to reveal her brother about to knock, an impish grin on his face as he sniffed the air.

"You two getting cozy in here?"

"Don't be gross. Are we done?"

He held up a matching, soft-sided computer case and patted his front jeans pocket. "I finished the final run downstairs while you were — taking care of business. We're out of here." He nudged her as they walked to the stairs. "Next time we do a run like this, we need to find a group with a hot woman as the leader. Maybe a blonde."

"I'll be sure to put that on my list. Now come on." She had been about to put her foot on the first step when she heard a noise from downstairs — a noise that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

Who's up at this hour? she wondered. None of the cell members should have been moving around — the sedative she had added to their dinner of vegetarian curry would have ensured that. And Harry had been taken care of by her personally. So who's left?

"What's the holdup?" Ray peered around her, trying to see into the gloom of the ground floor.

"I heard something — like a footstep," she whispered.

He frowned. "Probably just the crappy old house settling. Here…" he pressed the flash drive into her hand "…I'll go have a look. Hang back until I call you."

She waited on the landing as he crept down the stairs. He had only taken a few steps when the noise sounded again, a bit louder this time. "Hey, who's down there? Gabe? Aron?"

Marlene peered around him, trying to see in the dimness, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. She wanted to call Ray back up, tell him not to go down there, but before she could, a black-clad arm extended out from the archway leading to the back hall, with something even darker extending from its fist.

The sneeze of the silenced pistol made her choke on her warning. The gun coughed again, making Ray gasp as each bullet impacted his body. He sagged, clutching the railing, then slid down the rest of the staircase to land in a messy heap on the floor. The arm pointed down at his face, and fired the pistol twice more.

Marlene clapped her hands over her face to keep from screaming. She was frozen with terror, unable to comprehend what she had just seen. The arm moved forward, with a night-clad figure materializing in the dim hallway below her, his face covered in a strange mask with large, eerie goggles over his eyes. The shooter checked her brother's body, then looked up the stairway as he lifted one foot to begin the climb. The motion shocked the breath from her body, but then the strange, masked head looked down the hall as it and Marlene heard the same noise — a key turning in the lock of the front door.

Leading with the pistol, the intruder stalked down the hallway. Only when he was out of sight did Marlene move, creeping back to the door without making a sound and slipping into the bedroom. After the door was closed and locked, she remembered at last to suck in a breath. She heard a strange, muffled thump from downstairs, and realized what it probably was — Harry had just been shot.