"Can't what? Fulfill our expectations?"

"Yes."

"Then you have a problem, Michael."

The image on the computer screen re-froze and the audio fell silent. After a moment, the computer screen went dark.

Nikita blinked several times, then lifted her gaze to meet Madeline's. Drawing on some very hard-earned lessons, she clamped down on the emotions roiling within her. Birkoff's assessment--"Because that's who he is, Nikita. And that's how he survives."--reverberated through her brain.

"Very instructive," she said coldly after a few seconds.

A hint of something--could it possibly be approval--glinted in Madeline's eyes. "I thought it might be."

Nikita drew herself up, exerting every bit of discpline she had to keep her expression blank. She had to get out. Now. "Is that all?"

The older woman considered this question for a moment or two then inclined her head. "For the time being."

Nikita pivoted on one heel and moved swiftly toward the door. She was a step away from the exit when Madeline spoke her name. She checked her stride, but didn't turn around. She'd have more than enough of face-to-face conversation with La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

"What?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"Do you believe Michael's dead?"

Tears shimmered across Nikita's field of vision. She sucked in a deep, desperate breath, willing herself not to break down. To weep in this place, in front of this person, was something she would never, ever do. "No, Madeline," she finally answered. "I do not."

Madeline didn't pursue the issue. For this, Nikita was profoundly grateful. She took the other woman's silence as permission to leave and made her escape.

She was halfway down the corridor when her gratitude dissolved in a soul-scalding rush of insight.

Madeline hadn't needed to ask why she found the idea that Michael was gone for good so unteneable she refused to entertain it. Madeline knew.

**********

Back in her office, Section One's chief strategist sighed softly and drummed her neatly manicured fingers against the smooth surface of her desk. After a moment, she leaned forward and turned her computer monitor back to its correct position. Then she tapped on her keyboard. The screen returned to life. The image it held unfroze. The scene she'd reviewed more times than she cared to consider played out to its real conclusion.

"So, I destroy what Nikita is to keep her alive...or I condemn her to death while her soul's still intact," the young man she regarded with intense pride and occasional pity summed up in an uninflected voice.

"If you decide to limit yourself to binary thinking, yes. But I've never noticed you were inclined toward that particular failing."

"Meaning--?"

"Meaning--" Madeline watched herself reach out and brush a lock of hair back behind Michael's left ear. The gesture, like nearly everything else she did, could be read many different ways. Michael's stoic acceptance of the physical contact was similarly open to interpretation. "--she's your material. Make the best of her."

**********

If Deirdre Alessi had intended to shock or horrify, she failed. The man she'd named Michael didn't even blink at her statement that she'd taken the lives of her husband and child. "I don't believe you," was all he said.

"You should," she answered. "They're dead because of me."

"That's not the same thing as your having killed them."

She closed her eyes, conjuring up the images of two, white marble grave markers. The last time she'd visited those silent stone markers she'd left a bouquet--dainty pink rosebuds mixed with baby's breath--on one, a pen-and-ink sketch on the other. At neither had she shed a tear.

"Yes," she replied with absolute conviction. "It is."

"No, it isn't."

She opened her eyes. "How would you know?"

Her enigmatic visitor had a talent for disappearing into himself. He did so now, but for only a few moments. When he emerged from wherever it was he'd withdrawn to, he reached across the table and took her hand, interlacing their fingers. It was the first time he'd touched her. Deirdre trembled, feeling the contact clear down to her toes.

"Tell me what happened."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

She stared at him, feeling like a moth contemplating a flame. She'd recited the story so many times, she reflected. To the police. To the prosecutors. To the seemingly endless parade of psychiatrists who'd consulted on her case. Yet to none of these trained, well-intentioned professionals had she revealed the crushing sense of guilt she felt about the murders of her husband and child. It was only with this violence-marred stranger that she'd been able to admit...

"Tell me," he urged again, holding her gaze.

And she did.

"I was just out of art school when I met Vince. I witnessed something connected to an investigation he was working on. I'm not very good at describing things in words, so I drew pictures of what I'd seen. They helped. Quite a lot, as it happened. After the case was closed, Vince asked me out. We fell in love. A year later, we were married. At the same time, I began doine some freelance work for several law enforcement agencies. Suspect sketches, from witness interviews. I--oh, I don't know how to explain it, exactly. Vince used to say I had a knack for getting people to remember things, then seeing those...things...through their eyes."

Deirdre paused, recalling a few of the other things her late husband had said about her unusual ability. He'd helped her find the inner strength to face up to the more disturbing aspects of her talent. Michael remained still and quiet while her thoughts drifted back, his fingers mated intimately with hers.

"I stopped working for the police while I was pregnant," she eventually resumed. "I...feel...things when I draw. I didn't want my baby exposed to any of those emotions. But after Sara was born, I went back to it. I suppose I was trying to make the world just a little safer for her."

Deirdre looked down at the table. She knew Michael was watching her. She could feel the weight of his scrutiny. She wondered fleetingly whether he thought what she was saying sounded insane.

"Sara was about eighteen months old when the murders began," she went on, her voice thinning. "They were...horrible. Incredibly vicious, but absolutely controlled. The killer knew exactly what he wanted to do and he did it. Over and over and over again. He left no evidence. He was going for his sixth kill when he was interrupted by something. His would-be victim managed to escape. He'd hurt her badly, but she got away from him and she survived. Once she was strong enough to talk, I was asked to work with her. To put together a composite sketch."

Deirdre paused again, her breath hitching in her throat. Still, Michael said nothing. There was something compelling--almost seductive--about his silence. It drew her out far more effectively than even the most insightful questions could have.

"I spent hours on the sketch," she finally continued. "When I finished it and showed it to the woman--Marlene, her name was--she became hysterical. 'That's him! That's him!' she kept shrieking. Nothing could calm her down. The doctors had to sedate her. The authorities copied the drawing and released it to the press. Somehow, my name leaked out. The killer...fixated...on me. He decided we had some kind of connection. That I 'saw' him as he truly was. He wanted us...he wanted us to be together. And he decided my family was standing in the way of this."

She lifted her head, seeking Michael's eyes. He met her gaze evenly, wordlessly communicating his unconditional willingness to listen to however much--or however little--she chose to say. If it hadn't seemed vaguely sacrilegious to do so, she would have compared his attitude to that of a priest, hearing confession. After a few moments, she went on.

"No one realized what he was thinking until it was too late. About a month after the sketch was published, I was invited to New York by the owner of a prominent art gallery. He was interested in showing my work. Sara and Vince were supposed to come, but Sara caught a cold. I wanted to cancel the trip. Vince insisted I go." She swallowed convulsively, then forced herself to continue. "It was after midnight when a pair of police officers came to my hotel and told me what had happened. I didn't want to believ it. I'd spoken to Vince on the phone that evening. I'd even sung Sara to sleep. I remember saying it had to be a mistake. That they couldn't be...d-dead. They couldn't be! But...but they were."

At last, Michael spoke. "And you blame yourself."

"If I'd been there--"

"You would have died along with your husband and your little girl."

She met bluntness with bluntness. "I wish I had."

Michael's eyes cut briefly toward the drawer to the right of the sink. She knew in that instant that he understood the lure of the handgun in contained. But when he returned his gaze to hers, his reaction to this comprehension was impossible to gauge. "Do you think that's what they'd wish?"

Deirdre discovered she'd started to tremble. She stiffened, trying to control the involuntary shudering. Michael's fingers tightened over hers.

"Do you?" His voice was soft, but edged with steel. It was the voice of a man accustomed to having his inquires answered. She'd watched Vince conduct an interrogation once. He'd used a similar tone.

"N-no?" she whispered.

"No," he repeated, his grip moderating from contraining to near-caress. "Now, tell me the rest."

Deirdre drew a shaky breath. Her thoughts were scattered like dry leaves in a windstorm. It look her a long tie to rake them together. Finally, she did as she'd been bidden.

"The killer left a letter at the scene, explaining why he'd done what he'd done. He said...he said I was his and that he'd claim me when the time was right."

"So the authorities used you as bait."

She felt her lips twist. "Not willingly. I blackmailed them into it."

Something she couldn't put a name to moved through the depths of Michael's remarkable eyes. "And--?"

"The killer turned out to be an ex-cop. That's one reason he left such clean crime scenes. He realized it was trap, but he couldn't resist. He managed to divert the surveillance teams and came after me. I had a gun. He laughed and said he knew I wouldn't--couldn't--use it. He came closer. And closer. And when he got so close I could smell him, I fired. I emptied an entire clip into him. I was still pulling the trigger, killing him over and over, when the police burst in. I turned the gun on myself at that point. Unfortunately--" she gave a bittle little laugh that hurt her ears as well as her throat "--it's hard to blow your brains out when you've used up all your ammunition."

Michael released her hand and leaned back in his chair. His expression was impossible to read. "What happened then?"

Deirdre looked down at the table again. She could still feel the warmth of her companion's strong, supple fingers. "I had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized. I was released about a month ago. I came here."

"Planning to put a bullet through your head."

She lifted her head with a jerk, stung by his clinical tone. A sudden spurt of anger sang through her. It was an emotion she had't experienced in a long, long time. It made her a little dizzy. "Are you worried about being stuck with the mess?"

"Not at all. If you pull the trigger, it won't be until after I'm gone."

The anger got stronger. "Oh, really?" she countered scornfully. "You think your presence gives me a reason to live?"

"I think it's given you back a reason to draw. And to judge by what I've seen, art is your life."

Deirdre surged to her feet before she realized what she was doing. Knocking into the table as she stood. Cups rattled in their saucers. A teaspoon fell, clattering against the floor. "Vince and Sara were my life!!"

"And they're dead and buried, Deirdre." Michael spoke the words with shattering intent, like a vandal throwing a brick at a plate glass window. "Misplaced guilt can drive you to join them in the grave, but it won't produce a resurrection. A monster you had no part in making murdered your husband and child. The question now is whether you'll allow him to destroy you, too."

She stared at him, her throat working. Blood pounded sickeningly in her temples. Her breathing pattern began to unravel into a series of choky gasps. "Who are you?" she cried rawly. "WHAT...are you?"

Michael's hazel eyes sheened silver for a moment, then turned shadowy. "I don't know," he replied, his accent intensifying. "But I understand that life is a gift. And I don't believe a woman with your courage truly wants to throw it away."

Deirdre turned. She had to get out. To get away. She took two faltering steps, then felt her legs start to buckle. She went down clumsily, her knees slamming against the floor, A keening sound retched up from the center of her being. She collapsed forward, landing heavily on her palms.

"Oh, God," she moaned. "Oh...God..."

A moment later, she felt a strong pair of arms come around her and gather her close. She struggled fiercely for a few seconds, then surrendered with a heartbroken sob. She shifted her body and pressed her face against a hard wall of tautly muscled flesh.

****

In the end, "Michael's" real name and history didn't matter. She would remember him for the rest of her life as the man who'd held her safe as she'd wept for the first time since being told that the two people she held most dear had been slaughtered by a madman.

**********

"Working yourself into a coma isn't going to bring him back, Sugar."

Nikita sat up with a jerk, tearing her eyes away from the computer screen she'd been studying. "W-Walter!" she exclaimed, wondering how long the older man had been standing in the doorway of Michael's office. Something about his posture and the doleful expression on his seamed face told her it had been quite awhile. "I...um...I..." She blinked, losing track of what she'd intended to say. "Why are you still here?"

Section's weapons master shrugged. "Business."

"Oh." Nikita massaged the back of her neck, deciding it was better not to inquire about the exact nature of this 'business.'

"Where's Birkoff?"

"Gail dragged him off a few hours ago." Led him away like a zombie, was closer to the mark. The young computer whiz had pretty much lost it, his brain and body finally rebelling against the ungodly stresses to which he'd subjected them. Nikita had actually been grateful for his semi-collapse. It had come at a time when she'd seriously been considering asking Madeline to authorize a sedation.

"Mmm." Walter ambled into the office, clearly uncomfortable. "Has he, uh, found anything?"

"No." Nikita lowered her hand from her nape, trying to remember how many headache tablets she'd popped during the past twenty-four hours. At least double the maximum recommended daily dose, she was sure. Not that it had done much good. "And he's got so many search programs running, I'm surprised he hasn't crashed the system."

"I heard another body washed up--?"

"Definitely not Michael." She'd seen a visual. While scarcely a stranger to violent death, the condition of the corpse in question had brought her close to vomiting. "But the tentative ID links it to the first one."

"Freelance terrorist with some unusual connections to the government."

"Uh-huh."

"Tied up in whatever it was Operations had Michael doing."

"Apparently." The 'whatever' remained infuriatingly vague. To say that Section's chief was being tight-lipped about this situation was to understate the case in the extreme.

Walter shook his head, sighing heavily. "I get the impression there's some really ugly inter-agency s--- coming down. And with a wildcard like Michael in the mix..."

Nikita licked her lips. "Do you think he's still alive, Walter?"

"Honestly?" Another head shake. Another sigh. "I don't know. He's shown a hell of a lot of talent for survival in the past. But in this case...I just don't know."

"Do you--" she swallowed "--hope he is?"

The older man studied her for several seconds, his brow furrowing. When he finally spoke, his voice was raspier than it had been. "Look," he began. "It's no secret I've had a hard time getting past what Michael was willing to do to you in that warehouse--"

"Walter--"

He forestalled her atempt to finally set him straight about her 'cancellation' with a gesture. "No, Nikita. Let me get this out. It took awhile, but I managed to wrap my mind around the concept that Michael was following orders when he pulled a gun on me and ordered Birkoff to detonate. Getting my gut to go along..." He sighed a third time. "I don't pretend to understand exactly what's happening between you two. Frankly, I'm not sure I want to. There are some things that are a little too kinky, even for me. But I've seen how you've been since you got the word Michael was missing. Even if I thought he was the worst bastard on the planet--which I don't--I wouldn't want him dead because I've got a pretty good idea of what it would do to you if he didn't make it back."

Nikita rubbed her eyes. "I could deal with him being killed," she said quietly. "Somehow...I'd find a way to cope with it. But right now, when nobody knows anything for sure--when everywhere we look there's another goddamned question mark--"

She stopped, her breath hissing out between her teeth. Was this what Michael had experienced during those six months she'd been out of Section? Had the uncertainty gnawed away at his ability to hope like some rabid, relentless beast. Had it eaten and eaten...until there was nothing left but doubt and fear and emptiness?

She closed her eyes, remembering the expression she'd seen on his face when he'd spotted her in Lyons. He'd looked like a man who, after having accepted that fate had consigned him to a very palpable hell, had suddenly glimpsed the possibility that there was a heaven. And the emotion she'd heard when he'd confessed that he'd thought he'd lost her...

What had followed that admission had not been slow or soft or sweet. It had been fast and fierce; an act that had had almost as much to do with a desperate desire to possess as it had with the consummation of a long-denied passion.

Michael had staked a claim on her in the shadowed confines of the barge she'd tried to delude herself was a safe haven from the realities of who she was and what she'd become. But at the peak of his sexual taking, there had been an unconditional surrener of the soul. The emotional barriers had come crashing down and he had ceded to her his self-control--the one thing Section had not succeeded in stripping away from him.

She was only now coming to terms with how powerfully this must have affected him. Now, when it might very well be too late to act upon this understand. And when it came to defining the dimensions of the feeling that had lurked just beneath the surface of his oh-so-quiet statement that he hadn't known how much he'd needed--

"Nikita?"

She opened her eyes, acutely conscious of a throbbing ache between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together. Something clenched, deep within her belly.

"I think you need to go to bed, Sugar," Walter said gently.

"No point," she replied, shoving a handful of hair back over her shoulder and shifting in her chair. She wondered whether her cheeks looked as warm as they felt.

It was, she recognized later, an indication of how deeply concerned the older man was that he didn't seize upon this last line as a cue to launch into a ribald riff about how there were a lot of things to do in bed besides snooze.

"At least take a break," he urged instead. "I'm sure Birkoff has this computer search thing rigged so that if there's anything remotely resembling a hit, we'll be hearing bells, whistles and sirens."

Nikita sighed tiredly. Walter was dead-on in his assessment of what Birkoff had done, of course. There was no real reason for her to sit alone in Michael's office, staring at endless streams of data. She couldn't decipher more than twenty--maybe thirty--percent of it. Maybe a brief respite would help her regain some perspective.

"I've got a couple new toys you could try out on the range," Walter coaxed. "A little bang-bang, boom-boom might be therapeutic right now."

Nikita considered the offer, rotating her left shoulder, then her right. It was a little unnerving to admit, but her frustration level was running so high that blowing a bunch of targets to bits might very well--

She snapped off this line of thought, abruptly deciding that although Walter was pushing the right theme, he was playing the wrong variation. She scooted her chair back and stood.

"Sugar?"

"I really appreciate the invitation, Walter," she said sincerely. "But I think I need to get a little more...primal."

**********

The monsters that lurked in the darkness slithered back into Deirdre Alessi's cabin shortly after midnight. But she was not their target. It was Michael they sought; Michael they found.

What roused Deirdre from the soundest sleep she'd had in nearly three years, she could never say for certain. She only knew that she surfaced from a deep, dreamless slumber with the conviction that something was terribly wrong.

She experienced a few moments of disorientation immediately after she awoke. It was something of a shock to find herself tucked up in bed like a child, clad in nothing but a pair of white cotton panties and the ancient, over-sized pullover she dimly recalled changing into after she'd returned from her errands. She had no recollection of having come into her room, much less of having undressed herself and gotten into bed. She wasn't even sure what she'd been doing--

The sluice gate of memory opened abruptly and all that had happened began flooding back, filling her mind.

"Michael," she whispered, every instinct she had telling her that the alarm she was feeling was linked to him.

A moment later, she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. The wooden floor was chilly against the soles of her bare feet. She felt her nipples pucker in response to the touch of the cool night air.

The bedside lamp in her room had been left on. The lights in the rest of the cabin were off. Fortunately, it was very clear outside. There was enough illumination from the moon filtering in through the sheerly curtained windows to allow her to make her way without running into a wall or tripping over a piece of furniture.

She heard Michael moan as she reached the doorway of the cabin's main room. She froze, shocked to the core by the anguish in his voice. He sounded like a man in torment.

The moan became a mumble. French, although most of the words were slurred and indistinct. Deirdre thought she caught a name--Simone?--but she couldn't be sure. And something about a boy. A dead little boy.

His...son?

She lifted her right hand, pressing shaking fingers to trembling lips. Had Michael lost a child, too? And was the impact of that loss so devastating that it transcended conscious memory? Had she turned to him earlier this evening because she'd sensed--at some inexplicable, visceral level--that he'd understood how devastating a blow Sara's murder had been because he'd experienced such a blow himself?

She moved forward, her heart in her throat, her eyes huge against the semi-darkness. Michael was on the sleeper sofa in the middle of the room. He was shifting around, struggling as though trying to free himself from a web of restraints. If the rucked up condition of the bed linen was anything to judge by, this thrashing about was not a recent development. The quilt she'd given him to use had been cast off. The top sheet was tangled around the lower part of his obviously naked body.

Deirdre hesitated when she reached the edge of the bed. She wasn't afraid of Michael. Still, she'd seen enough to recognize that whatever else he might or might not be, he definitely was a man whose defensive responses operated on a hair-trigger.

Vince had been similarly--although not, she thought, quite so mercilessly--trained. There'd been a difficult incident shortly after they'd become lovers when she, in all innocence, had tried to wake him from what sounded like a bad dream. Almost before she'd had a chance to comprehend what was happening, he'd had her shoved up against the headboard with her arm twisted behind her. A second or two later, realization had caught up with reflex. He'd gone pale, uttered an obscenity she'd never heard him use before, and released her. He'd looked as though he might be physically ill.

Once she'd gotten over her initial shock, she'd been prepared to let the episode slide. Vince, on the other hand, had been appalled by what he'd done. He'd left the bed--left her--and withdrawn into himself. Their entire relationship had been threatened. She'd finally had to indulge in what she could only describe as a flaming show of redhead-style temper to break through the emotional wall he'd erected between the two of them. She wasn't normally given to anger, but once she got cranked up--

"Nikita," Michael suddenly said, his diction very clear. "I'm...sorry."

Nikita? Deirdre repeated the exotic-sounding name silently. She'd heard it before. Michael had spoken it twice when she'd been trying to rouse him back to consciousness on the morning she'd come within a few seconds of killing herself. The first time, his tone had been infused with grief. The second time, it had held a hunger so heated it had made her blush.

Who was Nikita? she wondered. And what in heaven's name had Michael done that he felt driven to apologize to her from the depths of a nightmare?

She reached out and laid a hand very gently on her visitor's upper right arm. His skin was sheened with sweat, yet slightly clammy. "Michael?" she said, pitching her voice to soothe. "Michael, it's Deir--"

He came awake the way a predator attacks its chosen prey: With single-minded swiftness and lethal intent. In the space of a single, savage heartbeat, she was trapped, turned, and pinned to the lumpy sofa bed mattress. Had she not had some inkling of what might occur, she probably would have succumbed to shock. More dangerous still, she might had tried to resist. And that, she had not a shred of doubt, would have cost her her life.

But just as her mysterious house guest's reaction to a subconsciously perceived threat was faster and more ferocious than Vince's had been; his comprehension of his mistake was quicker and more complete as well.

"Deirdre," he whispered, his eyes going very wide. A split second later, she was free and he was slumped on the edge of the mattress, his face buried in his palms. His posture exuded shame and self-loathing.

Deirdre levered herself into a sitting position, trying to control the involuntary shuddering that had gripped her body. With a mega-surge of flee-or-fight adrenaline coursing through her veins, it wasn't easy.

"It's all right," she declared, recognizing that whatever degree of remorse her late husband had experienced in the aftermath of their unfortunate misunderstanding, it was nothing compared to the guilt this man was heaping upon himself.

"I could have killed you," he countered, his voice muffled by his hands.

"But you didn't." She eased a little closer, clamping down on an impulse to reach out to him. She'd long since noted that, for all his innate sensuality, 'Michael' did not like to be touched. "You realized who I was and you let me go."

He said nothing. His breathing was ragged. She sensed--rather than actually saw--that he was trembling. The possibility that he was crying occurred, shaking her in ways she couldn't begin to explain.

"Michael," she said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice. There was no response. She tried again, invoking his name a lot more sharply.

After a few seconds, he lowered his hands and turned his head to look at her. The expression on his uniquely attractive face made ber breath snag somewhere between lung and lip. He looked as though he were being torn apart from the inside.

Her eyes stung, compassionate tears pricking at the inner corners like tiny needles. "It's all right," she told him fiercely, repeating the words she'd spoke a minute earlier. "I'M all right."

He blinked, seeming to have difficulty focusing. "Why did you--"

"You were having a nightmare. I tried to wake you up from it."

His features tightened for an instant, causing her to suspect that he remembered far more than he wanted to about the images that had so profoundly disturbed his slumber. "You...should't...have."

Grimacing inwardly, she decided to take a slightly different tack. "Point taken," she retorted. "Next time, I won't."

He caught his breath as though he'd just taken a blow, then shook his head. "There won't be a next time."

Her heart seemed to stop. "M-M-Michael," she stammered, buffeted a welter of confused--and confusing--emotions. "No. You don't m-mean--you c-can't--"

Deirdre asked herself much later whether she precipitated what happened next by reaching out and placing her right palm against his bare chest. The contact clearly jolted him. She felt the sudden thud of his heart. Heard his lungs empty in a startled rush of air. Saw, despite the dimness of the room, the abrupt dilation of his pupils.

He lifted his right hand very slowly. Whether the lack of speed was due to a disconnect between mind and muscle or to a desire to give her every possible opportunity to evade his touch, she didn't know. But by the time his long, lean fingers cupped the side of her jaw, she was trembling with expection. Searingly sweet shivers danced along nerve endings she'd asumed had atrophied from lack of use. She felt the tips of her breasts contract into taut rosettes.

He tilted her face up, his thumb finessing the curve of her cheek. Then slowly...oh, so slowly...he lowered his mouth to claim hers.

Her eyelids fluttered down. Her pulse was pounding, hammering in the tips of her fingers and toes. Her brain hazed with the musky scent of male arousal. Her universe narrowed to the moment...to the man.

Michael's lips moved. Shaping hers. Pleasuring hers. Teasing them apart with irresistible expertise. She yielded to his coaxing on a melting sigh. A moment later she arched her body into his. She brought her hands up, tangling her fingers in his thick, wavy hair. It was such a volutuous luxury to taste and touch him...to be tasted and touched in return.

She opened her mouth further, angling her head in offering and invitation. The movement of her own tongue, becoming to his, was shyly sinuous.

More. The word throbbed through her bloodstream and thrummed in her brain. Every fiber of her body seemed to vibrate with need.

More! He was being so careful. So...cautious. She could feel the urgency of his desire, yet he was holding himself in check with iron reins.

Just when she thought she could endure the disciplined deliberation no longer, Michael's control started to come apart. His hands slid down her body and slipped beneath the hem of her pullover. She whimpered deep in her throat as his fingers mapped the faint curve of her belly and traced the shallow indentation of her navel. After a few shuddering seconds, he began to caress upward...

For all she'd confessed to him about her past, there was one crucial piece of information about her confrontation with the man who'd murdered her husband and daughter that she hadn't disclosed. A split second after Michael's questing fingers found the ugly evidence of her omission and began to explore it, Deirdre realized that she--they--were on the verge of doing was a mistake.

She covered her hands with her own, holding them still. "N-no," she managed to say, not knowing whether she'd be heeded--not, in truth, entirely sure she wanted to be. "Michael. Please. I...I c-can't."

**********

"...don't have to ask who taught you that nasty little trick," Gellis sneered as he picked himself up off the padded floor of one of Section's small workout rooms.

Nikita stared contemptuously at the other cold op. In point of fact, the martial arts "trick" to which he'd just referred was something she'd picked up from Jurgen. But there was no disputing that the wait-for-the-moment strategy she'd followed in applying it was the result of Michael's careful training.

She and Gellis had been sparring--with increasing violence--for thirty minutes or so. He'd come into the workout room shortly after she'd begun beating the bejeesus out of a punching bag.

She'd known that accepting his suggestion that they try a few rounds "one-on-one" was ill-advised. It wasn't that she didn't think she could match him. For all his supposedly superior size and strength, she'd seen him in action enough times to be confident that she could trump his physical advantages with speed and smarts. But there was something...hinky..about the man. His apparent fixation with Michael--and, by extension, with her--added an unsavory factor to the mix.

Still. Her mood had been just volatile enough to prompt her to ignore her misgivings and go along with his invitation.

But now--

"Thanks for the fight, Gellis," she said, flipping her sweat-soaked ponytail over her shoulder. "But it's time for me to call it quits."

Whether she subconsciously wanted to goad him into what he did next was something Nikita did not summon the nerve to examine closely for a long, long time. Certainly, pivoting away and giving him her back was a very provocative thing to do. But she honestly didn't recall until afterward that Michael had used the same tactic on her following his calm recitation of Section's "welcome" speech.

Gellis charged her from behind. Whether he'd never been instructed--as she'd very definitely been--about the efficacy of going for an opponent's kidneys didn't much matter. He managed to knock most of the breath out of her by slamming her up against the wall.

She twisted like an eel, biting back a yelp as he dug his knuckles into an acutely sensitive pressure point. She managed to break free long enough to deliver a punch, then was captured again. It quickly became clear that Gellis' intention was to cause grievous bodily harm...or worse.

How much worse became sickeningly clear when he reached around, grabbed her left breast and squeezed. At that point, Nikita turned feral. The polished Section operative reverted to down-and-dirty, street survivor form.

She lifted her foot about eighteen inches then slammed it down into his instep, wishing savagely that she had on stiletto heels. As Gellis grunted in pain, she pivoted around and hammered her elbow into his solar plexus. The force of the blow jarred, clear up through her shoulder. She followed the movement through by driving her knee up into his unprotected groin. As he doubled foward, she laced her hands together and chopped the back of his neck. He went down, whimpering pathetically, his hands cupped--a little too late--over his crotch.

Nikita stepped back, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. She hoped the son of bitch would pee blood for a month.

"Gaaahhh..." he groaned, the sound not quite human.

"There are a few things I know I didn't learn from Michael, Gellis," she spat out. "Get up before I leave and I'll show you a couple more of them. And if you ever--EVER--lay a hand on me again, I'll put you down...permanently."

She waited for a few seconds, struggling against the urge to kick her fallen foe in the head, then stalked out of the workout room. She was moving so fast, so furiously, that she crashed into someone. That she managed to the impulse to lash out at this new "enemy" was something of a miracle.

The person she'd collided with was the Asian-looking operative she'd seen with Michael on the day she'd returned from her "vacation". He recovered from their way-too-close encounter more quickly than she did, giving her a small bow and saying something in Japanese.

"I...I'm sorry," she said, scrambling to regain her emotional equilibrium. She smoothed her hair back with a shaky hand. "I don't understand--"

The man ducked his head. "Sumimasen," he said with an embarrassed grin. "Excuse me, please. Housekeeping was informed there is a small mess to be cleaned up in this room."

Nikita got a little weak in the knees. She put out a hand, bracing herself against the corrider wall. She dimly realized that her palm was bleeding. "H-Housekeeping?"

"Nothing significant, apparently," came the mild reply.

Gellis was going to be cancelled. There was no other interpretation to put on the situation. While Nikita couldn't exactly summon up a sense of regret about this, she was shaken by the realization that she had to take a least a small portion of responsibility for his impending execution.

"Who--?"

"I believe the order came from Operations."

"Oh." She didn't know what else to say.

The "housekeeper" made another small bow. "I am Takeo."

Nikita found herself bowing back. "Uh...I'm Nikita."

"I know." Takeo smiled briefly, then grew very serious. "You are working on the search for Michael, yes?"

She sighed, feeling as though she'd just been lumbered with a one-ton weight. "Yes," she affirmed, her voice thickening. "But with very little luck."

"You must have patience."

Her head swam sickeningly for a moment, but she managed to steady herself. "I'm...trying, Takeo. Believe me, I'm trying."

Takeo bowed yet again. "Gambatte kudasi, Nikita," he intoned solemnly.

"Which...means?"

"Ask Michael when he returns."

**********

"Can't?" Michael repeated softly, buffing the pads of his thumbs against Deirdre's skin. A flash of curiosity about an unexpected flaw in its creamy smooth texture was superseded by a surge of very masculine satisfaction as he felt her shudder in response to his touch. He watched as a wave of color darkened her cheeks, then drained away. "Or won't?"

"I--" Her slender throat worked. The jump of her pulse was visible despite the comparative lack of illumination in the room. The crystalline gray of her eyes turned smoky with a mixed of carnality and confusion. "It's the same thing for me." She drew an audibly shaky breath. "Please, Michael. I know I acted like...that it seemed...but...I c-can't do this with you. I don't--oh, p-please."

He let a few moments tick by. Hunger prowled through him like a caged animal, clawing cruelly at the bonds of his self-restraint. He shifted, achingly aware of the hard rise of his arousal.

Something--he shied from classifying it as intuition--told him that he was more than capable of overcoming Deirdre's reluctance. He wouldn't need force. The tools of persuasion--of seduction--were at his disposal.

His voice.

His face and body.

His...brain.

He knew precisely what words would sway this woman, he realized with a chill. And in precisely what tone those words should be uttered. He knew where and how to kiss and caress, as well. He could maneuver Deirdre Alessi into yielding herself--into wantonly begging him to take her--in a matter of minutes.

Probably less.

Somewhere...somehow...for some unknown purpose...he had learned to transform what was supposed to be the ultimate affirmation of human intimacy into an act of manipulation. And he was sure--absolutely, utterly sure--that he had applied this damnable knowledge like a whore many times in the past. He had used it efficiently. Effectively. And with an essential indifference to the debasement inherent in doing so.

The idea sickened him. And shamed him at a level he could barely comprehend. It was almost more intolerable than his gut-level conviction, a conviction buttressed by countless mental images, that he had spilled the blood of innocents.

He let go of her. To continue touching her with hands that undoubtedly had killed and unquestioningly had corrupted was unthinkable. He edged back, desperate to put a little distance between them. He pulled at the sweat-damp bedsheet, covering his nakedness.

What his expression was, he didn't know. But to judge by the emotions he read in Deirdre's delicately sculpted features, it obviously wasn't as controlled as he'd hoped it was.

How in God's name could she make herself so vulnerable to him? he wondered angrily, dragging a hand through his tangled hair. Didn't she understand that he was unworthy of her trust? Didn't she understand that he'd use it against her, like a weapon? She was so perceptive about so much else. Why did she willfully blind herself to what kind of man he was?

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

The apology rocked him as nothing else--not a furious slap across the face, not a ragingly abusive denunciation--could have. Michael had no explanation of why this should be so. He only knew that the sound of those two simple words ripped at him like razor-sharp talons.

"No," he said, shaking his head. What he was denying and why, he had no idea.

There was a long silence. At least, it seemed very long to him. Time had become a frighteningly nebulous thing as far as he was concerned. Concepts like minutes, hours and days--to say nothing of past, present and future--had lost much of their meaning.

She started to reach out to him, but short-circuited the gesture a split second after beginning it. He watched her fold her hands, saw her lock her fingers together so tightly her knuckles turned white. Then, incredulously, he heard her confess, "I...I've only been with one man in my life, Michael."

He blinked several times, wondering why she'd made the admission. Was she attempting to excuse what some might view as her sexual capriciousness? Was she trying to assuage his ego? Or...

...was she simply offering him a core truth about herself?

"You want to be faithful to your husband's memory," he said after several seconds.

She nodded slowly, her lovely tumble of reddish-gold hair moving silkenly about her face and shoulder. "That's part of it."

"And the rest?"

She met his gaze very evenly. "Is you," she answered. "You have a life, Michael. It's probably not easy. It's certainly not safe. It may not even be one you chose for yourself. But you DO have a life--" she unfolded her hands and lifted them in a brief but eloquent gesture "--out there. And I think there's someone in that life who means a great deal to you. Someone who might be deeply, even irreparably, hurt if you and I...if we...made love. And as much as I w-want you, I don't want that on my conscience."

He had no conscience as far as he could tell. And the notion that he was capable of caring--and of being cared for in return--in the way she'd just suggested--

"No, Deirdre," he said flatly. "There's no one in my life."

"What about Nikita?"

He had one of the mental flashes that had been bombarding him with increasing frequency. Long, fair hair. Brilliant blue eyes. A passionate mouth.

"Ni..ki..ta?" he repeated. There was no denying that the trio of syllables felt familiar on his tongue.

"You said her name tonight. In your sleep."

"During the nightmare."

"You said it the first morning, too. Before you regained consciousness."

Another silence. He sat very still. Searched very deep. There was something. But he couldn't...quite...find it.

It must have shown.

"I AM sorry, Michael," Deirdre said again.

He shook his head automatically. "There's no need to be."

She shifted a little, her eyes sliding away from his. "I think...I think I should go back to my room now."

"I think that would be wise." His voice was thicker than he would have wished, but under control.

She clambered off the sleeper sofa. The pullover she had on rode up as she did so, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of thigh. She tugged the garment back into place, flushing slightly, still not meeting his gaze. Had he been inclined to doubt her assertion that Vince Alessi had been her first and only lover, her obvious awkwardness would have persuaded him to believe.

"Good night," she said softly.

"Bon nuit," he replied.

She turned, took several steps away from the sofa bed, then checked herself and turned back to face him. Her expression was earnest, her eyes very direct. "Will you promise me something?"

It would have been easy to say "Yes, anything." But he couldn't. Wouldn't. "That depends on what the 'something' is."

She nodded as though she'd expected this caveat. "Fair enough. The 'something' is that you'll be here in the morning."

He caught his breath. "Deirdre--"

"I won't ask for anything beyond that, Michael," she interrupted. "I know you're going to leave. That you can't stay here. I KNOW that. But I also know I don't want to wake up and find you gone without a good-bye."

"If I told you farewell now?"

She smiled a little, her gray eyes luminous. "I'd offer to make you a sandwich for the road and wave you on your way."

Her candor--her courage--disarmed him. Unmanned him, almost. Yet they in no way made him feel weak. Quite the contrary. He didn't puzzle over the contradiction. He simply accepted it.

"I'll be here in the morning," he finally pledged. "I give you my word of honor."

**********

The air in the room seemed to thin after Deirdre left, as though some critical component of the atmosphere were dependent on her being there. Although the man who'd learned to answer to the name Michael felt her absence keenly, he was grateful that she'd gone.

He wanted--needed--to be alone. In solitude there was...well, not safety, precisely. He did not feel "safe" with himself. But solitude did offer an opportunity to focus. It gave him a chance to try, yet again, to answer the questions that were tormenting him.

He reviewed the tumultuous events of the past six hours carefully, assessing his actions with unflinching thoroughness. Amnesia or no, it was not in his nature to spare himself.

The sound of Deirdre's heartbroken sobs echoed painfully through his mind. Had he helped her by forcing her to confess to and confront the guilt that was so obviously devouring her alive? He desperately hoped so. Because if he had, it might begin to atone for what had happened later.

He could have killed her, he recalled with a shudder. If he knew nothing else for certain, he knew that. He could have snapped Deirdre Alessi's slim, satin-skinned neck as casually as another man might snap a matchstick.

Yet she'd trusted that he wouldn't. She'd plainly had some idea of what his reaction might be if she'd tried to rouse him from his nightmare, yet she'd gone ahead and done it anyway. And she hadn't resisted when he'd behaved like an attack dog. He'd loomed over her, literally holding her life in his hands, and she'd trusted him--a man without a name, without a past--not to do her harm.

She'd trusted him to stop making love to her when she'd asked, too. She'd trusted him to ignore the promise of complicity in her physical responses and accept her stammering rejection--to take her at her word, when most of her actions argued that what she really wanted was for him to do just the opposite.

He sighed heavily, pressing the heels of his palms hard against his temples. Trust was a burden too difficult for him to bear, he thought. Because without trust, there could be no betrayal and his nightmares told him that betrayal was an integral part of his existence.

He did not want to betray--in any way, shape or form--the woman who had wept in his arms for the family she'd lost.

He could take some comfort from the fact that his desire for Deirdre had been genuine. And very specific. His hunger had been for HER, and only for her.

Or...had it been?

There was no denying that there had been a strange overlay of emotion to every kiss--every caress--they'd shared. The moment Deirdre had placed her palm against his naked chest, he'd felt something within himself shift...then shatter. He'd been assailed by a disorienting sense of deja vu.

A series of images--erotic, explicit--flickered through his brain.

Eyes the color of aquamarines, staring up at him in now-or-never challenge.

Hair that looked like spun sunshine and smelled vaguely of smoke, spilling across a dingy pillowcase.

A long, lithe body created of cream and apricot and rose, moving beneath his in an ancient and irresistible rhythm.

"Nikita." The name escaped his lips on a hushed half-groan. He felt himself stiff and stiffen.

Was she--?

Had he--?

Were they--?

He didn't know, and it was devastating him by inches.

He lowered his hands to his sides, clenching and unclenching his fingers, struggling against a storm surge of emotion. With Nikita--if that was who the woman he kept seeingin his mind's eye was--he might not have been able to stop, he thought suddenly. With her, a simple "no" probably would not have been sufficient to turn the tide of his need. It would have been easier to amputate a limb than to rein in his headlong rush toward consummation.

For all that he'd been knocked off balance by Deirdre's gentle touch, he'd still had command of himself when he'd lowered his mouth to claim hers. His ability to exercise control--to discipline, to defer, to deny--had essentially remained intact. But where the beautiful blonde who haunted him both waking and sleeping was concerned...

He had charge of nothing when he was with her.

Nothing...and everything.

He cursed with quiet intensity in a quick succession of tongues, then cast aside the sheet he'd drawn around himself earlier and got up. The garments he'd shucked off before lying down to sleep were on the floor. He retrieved them, frowning briefly at his carelessness, then dressed himself in a few swift movement.

He looked around, not at all certain what to do next. The urge to get out, to move on, was very strong. But so was the conviction that he couldn't. He was tethered to Deirdre's cabin by a promise, at least until morning.

This was not to say that he believed himself incapable of breaking the pledge he'd made. Precisely the opposite. One of the many reasons he'd been wary of giving Deirdre his word about anything was that he loathed the idea of offering her what might turn out to be counterfeit currency. Still--

His questing gaze snagged on the computer he'd used earlier in the day. He couldn't explain how he'd known how to operate the device. He'd simply sat down and done it.

Not that he'd gained many insights from the experience. He'd scanned a score of news sites in a half-dozen different languages, searching for something--anything!--that might jog his memory. A few headlines had caused frowns. A few others had triggered an inchoate sense of concern. But nothing he'd read had provided him with any concrete clues about his identity. There'd been no "click" of recognition.

Except, perhaps, at the very end. He'd been distracted from his foray into cyberspace by the rumble of a vehicle pulling up outside the cabin. He'd gone rigid at the sound, unnerved by the abrupt realization that he'd lost track of the time and let down his guard. An edgy look out the window had informed him that he wasn't going to be made to suffer for his lapse. It had been Deirdre's car he'd heard and she returning from her errands alone.

He'd returned his gaze to the computer, intending to log off the Net and shut down. He'd been startled to notice that he hadn't stopped typing. A split second after this fact had sunk in, he'd focused on the data he'd unwittingly brought up. The screen had been filled with line after line of what had looked like jibberish.

Letters, clustered in groups of five, spelling out nothing.

Sequences of numbers, apparently randomly generated.

Long, meaningless strings of mathematical symbols and punctuation marks.

He'd stared at the monitor, an odd sense of connection jittering through him. A moment later, the computer had produced what could only be described as a video hiccup and the screen had gone to black. A moment after that, Deirdre had walked in the front door. The expression on her face as she'd registered his presence had preempted his attention.

Something she'd said the evening he'd found Vince Alessi's handgun came rushing back to him.

"It's called muscle memory," she'd declared, trying to explain his unlooked-for facility with firearms. "The brain may not consciously recall how to do something, but the body does. Dancers rely on it. And athletes. It's why people can get back on a bicycle after years and years..."

He crossed to the small table where the computer was and sat down at it. He turned on the power and booted up, his movements very precise. Then he paused for several moments, making a conscious effort to slow his breathing and center himself.

He closed his eyes.

He cleared a quiet space in his mind.

Finally, he lifted his hands to the computer keyboard and began to type.

**********

"I thought you were going to get some sleep, Birkoff."

"I did." Although uttered through a mouthful of partially-chewed Oreos, the response was perfectly understandable.

"How much?"

"Enough." A gulping swallow. "More than you."

Nikita sighed wearily, silently admitting the younger man probably had a point.

Nearly ninety minutes had elapsed since her unsettling encounter outside the workout room. While she'd spent a few of those minutes being violently sick in the women's lavatory, the bulk of them had been taken up with trying to scrub the feel of Gellis' filthy hands off her skin.

After cleansing herself as thoroughly as she could, she'd dried off, put on a fresh set of garments and pinned up her wet hair. The clothes--a white tank top and loose pants--were Section standard. Her coiffure--a haphazard ponytail skewered with a pair of plastic pins--was not.

She'd headed back to Michael's office by the most direct route possible. She'd seen a number of operatives she knew along the way. More than a few had given her what she could only describe as nods of approval. One or two had seemed to reluctant to meet her eyes. Obviously, the news of Gellis' cancellation had already gone out on the Section grapevine.

She hadn't really been surprised to find Birkoff sitting at Michael's desk. And she certainly hadn't been taken aback by the fact that he was less than receptive to a lecture on the necessity of taking care of himself. Still, given the pallor of his skin and the gray-purple smudges beneath his eyes, she'd felt compelled to try...

"Anything?" she asked after a brief pause, moving to stand behind him.

"Not really." The young computer whiz glanced back and forth between the two monitors he had set up amid the mess he'd made of Michael's desk. "Something popped up from South Africa about an hour ago, but it turned out to be backwash intel from an old mission. And there was a weird little glitch in the computer's security system this afternoon. Simon caught it. He flagged it to my attention, really low priority."

"So...you don't think it's significant?"

Birkoff grimaced, peering at the screen to his right. "Nuh-uh. But I'm tweaking one of the search programs to track--WHOA!"

Nikita's heart somersaulted. "What is it?"

"Somebody--oh, s---. Okay. Okay." Birkoff was hyperventilating, quivering like a bird dog about to flush a covey of quail. "Yeah...yeah..."

"Somebody's--what?" While Nikita had seen Birkoff get excited on occasion, she'd never witnessed him coming quite this unglued.

"Somebody's trying to make an...uh...unathorized connection."

She leaned in, scanning the screen that had such a chokehold on Birkoff's attention. While her computer skills had sharpened considerably over the past few months, she knew she was nowhere near his league. Nor Michael's, for that matter.

She frowned, the nape of her neck prickling. What she was looking at wasn't totally unfamiliar, she realized. But it wasn't what she was accustomed to, either.

"That's not Section standard," she said slowly.

"Not anymore." Birkoff's fingers were flying over the keyboards.

"Excuse me?"

"It's before--dammit, NO!--your time, Nikita." Tap-tap-tap. Back slash. Shift. Tap-tap. Shift. Back slash. Tap. Enter. "Before mine, too."

"How long ago--"

"Ten, maybe twelve, years."

Nikita caught her breath. "Then M-Michael--"

"Oh, yeah." Birkoff switched to the other keyboard, hammering out a sequence then clicking rapidly through a series of files. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon--" he urged, squirming in his chair. "Gimme what I need."

"But if it's obsolete--"

"It's not. Just superseded. There are still some vestiges--" He broke off, his eyes going huge. "Yes! Oh, man, YES! I knew it. I goddamned KNEW it!"

"Knew--"

"Shut up and let me do this." Birkoff went back to the first keyboard and started typing, muttering to himself as his fingers danced. "Okay...okay. Firewall's in place, no chance of a breach. Trace trap...yes. Running. Okay. Okay. Reactivate the code. Open the back door...okay. C'mon. Try the password again."

The monitor blinked, then blanked. Nikita bit back a groan of dismay. She was trembling. A second later, a message appeared on the screen.

CONNECTION ESTABLISHED

Then, nothing.

"Do something," she said hoarsely, her voice holding a mix of plea and imperative.

Birkoff shook his head. "It's not in the protocol."

She jerked the back of his chair. "Screw the protocol, Seymour! If there's any chance this is Michael--"

"All right. All right." Birkoff thought for a moment, then entered a line of symbols and hit the send key. "There."

No response.

"Birkoff--"

Another line of symbols. Nikita had no idea what they were intended to communicate.

Again, no response.

She lost patience. Leaning over, she brushed Birkoff's hands off the keyboard. He resisted for a second--not unlike a child defending a treasured toy--then allowed himself to be shoved aside. He exhaled on a shocked-sounding hiss when he read the message she typed.

>MICHAEL ARE YOU THERE?

She hit the send key and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Still, there was no response.

"Nikita," Birkoff finally ventured, something very close to pity in his tone. "I've got to close this down and report--"

"NO!" she exclaimed fiercely. If she'd had a gun, she probably would have pulled it on him. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Michael on the other end of this computer connection and nothing--nothing!--was going to stand in the way of getting him to acknowledge it.

She cleared the screen with a quick slap then retyped the message she'd inputted before...prefacing it with two words. Her fingers shook as she did so, but there were no mistakes.

>IT'S NIKITA. MICHAEL ARE YOU THERE?

She wasn't given to praying, but she breathed a supplication to God and any other deity who might be listening as she hit the send key.

A minute went by.

Then another.

Finally, one word came back:

>YES.

**********

Because he'd seen her at her worst, Deirdre wanted to look her best when she said good-bye to the man she knew only as Michael. A frivolous objective? Perhaps. But should he choose to think about her in the future...

If the gleam of intensely masculine appreciation she saw in her houseguest's gray-green eyes when she walked into the cabin's main room was any indication, she achieved her goal of creating an attractive impression and then some. The slow curving of his sensually-shaped lips as he rose to acknowledge her entrance made her feel a bit breathless.

"Good morning," he said, his softly accented voice lending a caressing intimacy to the greeting.

She opened her mouth to respond with similar politesse, but shut it again when the pleasantry jammed in her throat. Her fragile sense of euphoria faded away. No matter that she'd practiced for this final encounter while she'd curled her hair, applied cosmetics and donned a pretty, cream-colored dress. No matter that she'd implicitly given him her word that she'd bid him farewell without a fuss. Now that the moment had arrived, she couldn't go through with it. She couldn't pretend his departure wasn't going to leave her bereft.

"Is it?" she countered.

"Is it...what?"

"A 'good' morning."

A hint of surprise streaked through his eyes. It was succeeded by what she could only describe as a look of calculation. His hazel gaze cooled. His mouth firmed. He did more than mentally distance himself from what he clearly thought was about to become an awkward situation. He...disconnected.

Deirdre felt a tremor of apprehension as she watched the transformation. In the space of a few heartbeats, the man in whose arms she'd cried out nearly three years' worth of anguish seemed to disappear. The person who stood in his stead was a stranger. A stranger whose face, although still extraordinarily appealing, was as blank as an uncarved grave marker.

She took a deep breath, trying to see beyond the change. "Her" Michael was still there, she told herself. Behind that stony, almost inhumanely steady stare...

"All right, M-Michael," she began, wincing inwardly at the brief break in her voice. "I know I said last night that I understand. That I...know...you have to leave here. But it doesn't have to be right now, does it? Stay a few more hours. A few more days. You're not fully recovered. You still need--"

"No." That was the extent of his response. An uninflected negative, underscored by a small back-forth of his head.

"Why not?"

His impulse was to end the discussion by turning on his heel and walking away. Deirdre could read it in the shadowed depths of his eyes. But something caused him to override his instinctive behavior pattern. "I can't" he answered with palpable reluctance.

"Can't, or won't?"

He said nothing, but she knew he recognized the words as his own. After a moment she pressed, "It's because of what happened last night, isn't it."

"Deirdre--"

"You didn't hurt me, Michael!"

His mask cracked for just an instant. But that instant was enough to reveal how desperately he wanted to believe her assertion. Then the fissure closed up and her mystery man said calmly, "Perhaps not. But if I stay, I will."

"You won't!" It was a cry from the heart.

"You don't know that."

"Yes," she insisted, struggling against the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. "I do!"

"All right, then." Despite the intensity of their back-and-forth, his voice remained absolutely level. "*I* don't know it. I still don't know who I am. Where I come from. What I've done."

"But you're proceeding on the assumptions that you're someone awful from somewhere ugly who's done something terrible."

There was a painful silence. While it lasted long enough to give Deirdre plenty of time to regret the cruelty of her words, it was not of sufficient duration to allow her to formulate an adequate apology for them. Finally, she ventured, "Michael--"

"I've been in contact with someone," he interrupted.

Had a giant rabbit hole opened in the floor and swallowed him up, she wouldn't have been more stunned. "In c-contact with someone?" she repeated stupidly. The words could have been uttered in Swahili for all the sense they made. "But--h-how--?"

"Your computer." His lips twisted. "I'm afraid your telephone service has proven itself less than dependable again. It went out while I was on-line."

A dozen wildly contradictory thoughts cartwheeled through Deirdre's mind. Among them was a suspicion that 'Michael' had bolloxed up the phone system deliberately. Hard on the heels of this unsettling possibility came the downright ugly notion that maybe, just maybe, she'd been played for a fool from beginning to end. That his "amnesia" had been some kind of ploy...

"Your memory's come back, then?" she asked tightly.

He stiffened, clearly understanding the subtext of her question. But he did not try to defend himself against her sudden doubts about his integrity. Quite the contrary. He seemed almost...relieved...by her withdrawal of trust.

"Pieces of it," he answered after a moment.

Pieces. What KIND of pieces? How MANY pieces?

"This 'someone' you contacted--" she broke off as he averted his gaze, her temper spiking. "No!" she exclaimed sharply. "Don't look away from me, Michael!"

His eyes returned to hers. The expression they contained made her shiver. "You don't think I'm capable of lying to your face?"

Deirdre licked her lips, hearing the warning in his words and recognizing that she was getting in way over her head. She didn't care.

"I'm sure you are," she returned with a touch of acid. "But I also think you'd find it more difficult to be dishonest while looking me in the eye than while staring off at something else."

There was another silence. Because she knew there was no point in trying to outwait him, Deirdre was again the one to break it.

"Going back to the 'someone'--"

"It would be better not to discuss my contacts."

He could slam the conversational door and lock it, but he couldn't stop her from rattling the knob. "Better for whom?"

"Everyone concerned."

"I see." She shifted uncomfortably, fingering the soft fabric of her dress. After a few seconds, she backtracked a little and tried a new tack. "So...what happens? You've arranged some kind of, uh, rendezvous?"

"Yes."

"Not...here."

"No."

"I could drive you to wherever it is."

The offer slipped out of its own volition. The ludicrousness of it didn't fully register with Deirdre until after she'd finished speaking. Once it did, she felt herself blush from breast to brow. Of all the stupid--

"Thank you, but no," Michael responded courteously, treating her idiotic suggestion with face more gravity than it deserved. "I need to go alone."

She struggled to regain her emotional balance. "Do you...trust...these people, Michael?" she finally asked. "The ones you're supposed to meet?"

It was an impolitic question, to put it mildly. Her companion grappled with it for several seconds then replied with unexpected candor, "I don't know." He hesitated another second then added, "But one of them is named...Nikita."

Deirdre studied him, her heart aching, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. Then an idea occurred to her. She didn't take time to analyze the pros and cons. She simply acted.

"Wait here," she commanded as she pivoted away and headed into the kitchen.

Her mood was such that she didn't immediately comprehend why she felt a jitter of wrongness when she pulled open the drawer to the right of the sink. Then she figured it out. The drawer hadn't--

"I oiled it yesterday," Michael said quietly.

Deirdre jerked, her fingers closing around the butt of the automatic pistol. She took a steadying breath then turned, taking care to keep the weapon pointing down toward the floor.

"I told you to wait in the other room," she chided, conscious of the thud-thud-thud of her heart.

"Sorry."

She grimaced, feeling her cheeks start to heat again. Her irritation at having been snuck up on metamorphosed into something infinitely more volatile. Her about-to-depart house guest was standing well within touching distance. His proximity sent tiny ripples of awareness dancing through her blodstream. She clamped down on her wayward responses and forced herself to focus on the business at hand.

"I...I want you to have this."

The "this" was Vince's gun. She reversed it and held it out.

"Why?" Michael didn't move.

"Because you need it more than I do."

An emotion she could decipher flickered through his changeable eyes. Still, he did not take he firearm. "It was your husband's."

She lifted her chin a notch. "I have other--better--ways to remember Vince."

Michael waited a moment longer, giving her every opportunity to rescind the offer. Finally, he accepted the weapon with a quiet thank you. After checking it with the same fluid swiftness he'd demonstrated previously, he tucked the pistol in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back.

"You never did learn to make noise when you walk," Deirdre observed after a short silence, summoning up a smile. She hoped it didn't look as crooked as it felt.

He smiled back. The unalloyed sweetness of the expression made her a little dizzy. "You should have gotten me a bell."

"Gotten you a--" she echoed, then stopped as recollection kicked in. She whirled back to the counter and retrieved a small paper bag she'd deposited on it when she'd returned from her errands the afternoon before.

Opening the sack, she fished out the small impulse purchase she'd made at the local hardware store. "Actually, I did," she announced with a shaky laugh. "Get you a bell, I mean. It's pretty cheesy. The clapper's basically a BB pellet on a piece of wire, but I thought..." Another laugh, even unsteadier than the previous one. "Well, who cares what I thought. Here."

Michael's fingers were exquisitely gentle as he took the cheap little trinket from her cupped palm. The bell was attached to a thin chain. To her great astonishment, he looped the chain over his head. The bell bounced against his chest with a tinny-sounding ting-a-ling as it dropped into place.

"Merci," he murmured in a low, liquid voice, gathering both her hands in his own and raising them to his lips. "J'suis--"

The window over the sink shattered inward with explosive force. A canister sailed into the kitchen. Before it landed, Deirdre was flat on the floor, pinned protectively beneath Michael's hard body. He hissed something in her ear. She scarcely recognized his voice.

There was a blinding flash.

A deafening ker-BANG!

And then, for Deirdre, there was nothing.

**********

"--on line and you lost him," a cold op named Teller said, his dark gaze bouncing from Birkoff to Nikita and back again.

"The connection crashed," Birkoff ground out. Nikita put a hand on his forearm, knowing that he was near the end of his emotional rope. She understood how he felt. They'd both been through the wringer and it seemed likely there was worse to come. "That's why we couldn't complete the trace. If we had--"

"--we wouldn't be facing a mission that calls for an eight-person primary and two back-up teams," another cold op--a strapping African-American named Sinjin--declared. "We could have done a quick, clean snatch and Michael'd be in debrief right now, having his brain drained of this intel Ops is so torqued up about."

"Easier said than done, if the memory loss is legitimate," a sharp-eyed female operative named Leyla commented. She looked at Nikita, clearly searching for a diplomatic way to press the issue that was on a lot of people's minds. "The amnesia. Doesn't it seem a little...dicey...to you?"

Nikita grimaced. She'd been over this territory several dozen times with Madeline, Operations and several of Section's psyche staffers. She'd even had a session with a syntactical analyst who'd done a word-by-word analysis of the on-line messages she and Birkoff had exchanged with the individual who'd claimed to be Michael.

"Maybe," she admitted. "A little. But that doesn't mean--"

She broke off as Operations stalked into the briefing room where she and nearly two dozen other Section operatives were gathered. The expression in his pale eyes was like dry ice: So cold, it burned. Madeline followed in his wake, her spine stiff, her face set.