"Tell that inhuman son of a bitch he has three choices," she declared coldly. "He can pee in his pants. He can piss in a cup. Or he can scream bloody murder while we catheterize him with a goddamned drinking straw. But he does not--repeat, does not--get out of his seat until we're back on the ground. Understood?"

"Y-yes, m-ma'am," Leah stammered, her brown eyes huge. "Only, he doesn't seem to--I mean, I'm not sure I can--uh--you see, my Russian's not very--uh--"

"Not to worry, honey," Weitz interrupted easily, heaving himself up into a standing position. He was at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the slender brunette. Nikita had the fleeting impression that he was tempted to give her a there-there-there pat on the head. He'd probably concuss her if he didn't control the contact. "I'm fluent in the lingo. I'll make sure Kirilov gets Nikita's message, word for word."

************

Satisfied that Weitz would make sure Kirilov remained bound and uncomfortable for the duration of the trip, Nikita leaned back against the interior of the transport plane's hull once again. She took long, slow breaths, mentally undoing the knots of tension in her neck and shoulders.

Let it go, she told herself, not bothering to define precisely what "it" was. Just...let it go.

Eventually, she drifted off. She awoke with a jerk about an hour later. After a second or two of disorientation, comprehension clicked.

Smothering a yawn, Nikita swept her hair back from her face with both hands, then stretched her arms above her head. A quick glance around the cabin assured her that all was well. In fact, most of her fellow operatives were fast asleep.

The one notable exception was Simon the techie, who'd been assigned to run on-site systems for the just-completed mission. He was hunched over a portable computer console in the rear of the plane, apparently lost in his own little cyber-world.

Nikita stood up and stretched again, letting her mind wander. She soon found herself recalling Weitz's comments about Edgar and Michael and T2Cs. From there her thoughts shifted to Walter's question to Birkoff about the reconfiguration of the Kirilov mission profile.

How much did Michael change the plan? she wondered, drumming her fingertips against her thighs. And...why?

Succumbing to curiosity--and several other emotions that she chose not to put names to--Nikita picked up her personal data panel and headed toward the back of the aircraft. She came to a halt directly in front of Simon.

"Simon?" she said quietly.

No response. If it had been Birkoff she'd been addressing, Nikita would have assumed she was being ignored. With Simon...

"Simon?" she repeated, upping the volume just a tad. She didn't want to awaken anybody.

Nothing.

She huffed out an impatient breath, then leaned over the console and hissed, "Simon!"

The curly-haired tech jolted as though she'd jabbed him with an electric cattle prod and clutched his chest.

"J-Jesus, Nikita!" he stammered, glaring at her reproachfully. "Don't do that!"

"Cruising the Net for porn sites again?" she inquired with a drop of acid.

Nikita had mixed feelings about Simon for a number of reasons. Topping the list was her conviction that he'd been responsible for the bootlegged surveillance tapes of her and Michael which had made the rounds of Section HQ following the Armel mission. If she never heard someone make a joke about the word "relax" again, it would be too soon!

Simon went beet red, then blanched. "N-no," he denied, his voice pinched. He fumbled with his keyboard. "Of course not."

"Of course not," she mimicked nastily.

The computer technician crossed his arms in front of his skinny chest and scowled. "What do you want?"

"Do you have the original profile for this mission?"

"The original--"

"Edgar's. The one Michael reconfigured when he took over."

"Oh." Simon blinked rapidly, appearing only marginally less bewildered than he'd been a moment before. "Yeah. Uh, sure."

"Great." She shoved her panel at him. "Download it for me."

He accepted the device, but made no move to comply with her order.

"Why?" he demanded, studying her suspiciously.

None of your damned business, Nikita thought.

"Because I want to run a grammar check on it," she snapped.

Simon mulled this statement over for several long moments. Finally he said, "That's a joke...right?"

Nikita rolled her eyes. "Yes, Simon," she said with exaggerated politeness. "That was a joke."

"Then--"

"Just download the profile! And don't lose the one I've already got logged on."

*************

Nikita was completing her second review of the data she'd bullied out of Simon when she felt a familiar frisson of awareness prickle through her nervous system. She gave herself a moment to compose her expression, then lifted her head and looked up into Michael's face.

"What are you doing?"

His voice a note or two huskier than usual. Although his gaze was steady, his hazel eyes were a little clouded, as though he wasn't completely awake. His hair was ruffled, lending a hint of boyishness to his appearance.

For the first time in a long time, Nikita found herself thinking about Michael's age. He projected such a potent aura of disciplined maturity that it was easy to forget he was barely in his mid-thirties. By her calculation, his induction into Section had been at a slightly younger age than hers. He'd essentially survived his entire adult life--

"Nikita?" he prompted.

She considered giving him an offhand "not much" but quickly discarded the idea. If she didn't admit what she'd been up to, she couldn't ask him the questions that had been percolating through her brain for the past thirty minutes.

"Actually--" she reversed her panel so he could see the information she'd been studying "--I've been comparing the original profile for this mission with your reconfigured one."

He glanced at the data screen, then back at her. The sleepiness was gone from his eyes.

"Why?"

"Because I thought I might learn something," she said honestly. Then she smiled a little, recalling the quote Dr. Benjamin Aiken had used during the opening of his lecture on Monday. "Knowledge is power, and all that."

Nikita watched an oddly abstracted expression steal over her former trainer's striking face. She might have described the look as nostalgic had he been another kind of man. But since he was not...

"Meditationes Sacrae," he murmured.

"What?"

Michael drew a short, sharp breath, snapping back from wherever it was he'd gone. "The line you quoted about knowledge being power," he answered, his eyes flicking away from hers. "It's from Meditationes Sacrae by Francis Bacon."

"Which you've read?" She wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had. While Michael didn't flaunt his erudition, even she'd noticed that he seemed extremely well educated. Unlike Walter, who'd joked about knowing a little about a lot of things, Michael appeared to know a great deal about almost any subject that came up.

"A long time ago." He waited a beat. Then, with characteristic courtesy he inquired, "May I sit down?"

Nikita wondered briefly how he'd react if she told him no. While she generally appreciated Michael's gentlemanly behavior, there were times when his formality irritated her. They'd been lovers, for God's sake! He'd had her naked beneath him, sobbing out his name at climax. If he wanted to sit next to her, why the hell didn't he just sit?

Because then she'd probably accuse him of taking too much for granted, she admitted after a second or two, grimacing inwardly at what she recognized was a damn-him-if-he-did, damn-him-if-he-didn't scenario.

"Sure," she acquiesced. As he sat down she asked, "Do you read Latin?"

"Mmm." The distant look was back. "My mother wanted me to join the Church."

Nikita felt her jaw drop. Her first thought was that he must be joking. Although it had taken her a long time to get a fix on it, she'd determined that Michael did have a sense of humor. Slyly understated and rather intellectual, to be sure. Also, astonishingly subversive, given his status within Section's hierarchy. But once she'd finally learned how to look and listen for it...

No joke, she decided an instant later, studying his face. He's serious.

"Your mother thought you should become a...priest?" She tried--but failed--to strain the incredulity from her voice.

A nod. Nothing else.

It was typical of him to blitz her with this kind of revelation, Nikita reflected with an edge of anger. She'd experienced the pattern before and she hated the way it affected her. For reasons that were far beyond her comprehension, Michael would suddenly lower his emotional barriers, lob a psychological bombshell in her general direction, then revert to his usual, imperviously perfect operative form.

The weird thing was, she didn't think that he did it on purpose. Much less with any malice. The Michael who ran mind games on her was an infinitely smoother manipulator than the Michael who cracked open on occasion and gave her brief--and very likely involuntary--glimpses into his non-Section self.

She smothered a sigh, knowing that she had two choices. She could push for more information and risk yet another rebuff. Or, she could file away the astonishing fact she'd just learned for future reference.

"I didn't realize," she finally said, very softly.

Michael's eyes refocused. She thought she caught a flash of alarm flicker through their green-grey depths. A split second later, his defenses slammed back into position.

"There's no reason you should have," he replied.

***********

He was right, of course. There was no way in the world she could have known that his mother, of whom he'd spoken only once in nearly five years, had envisioned him as a priest. The notion of Michael--Michael!--pledging himself to a life of holy service was absurd.

And yet...

"What have you learned?" he asked after a pause.

"Learned?" Nikita repeated blankly, still entangled in the concept of Michael taking a vow of celibacy.

He inclined his head toward her data panel.

"Oh!" She scrambled to collect her thoughts. "You mean, about the mission."

"Yes."

"Well--" she hesitated, then decided to cut to the chase. "I learned that Edgar was ready to sacrifice at least three, probably four, members of his team to achieve closure. He...planned...their deaths."

"Within mission parameters."

"I realize that."

"So?"

"So, you were given the same mission parameters, but you reconfigured to protect your people."

Michael stiffened. Nikita could tell that he wanted to dispute her characterization of his motives. Typical. Had she spewed abuse at him, he wouldn't have blinked an eye. But let her try to offer anything even vaguely resembling a compliment...

"My tactical approach is different from Edgar's," he allowed, his diction even more precise than usual.

"And from mine," she immediately riposted. "And from just about everybody else's in Section a good part of the time."

"Nikita--"

"No." She shook her head, determined to make her point. "I've gone over your profile twice, Michael. Edgar's, too. And I have to tell you. If I'd been the team leader for this mission, my plan would have been almost identical to his. I would have taken the losses. Not because they were allowable under the T2C, but because I couldn't see any other option. Even after reviewing your profile--"

She broke off, staring at him, struggling against a sudden surge of emotion. There were so many things she wanted--needed--to say to him. So many things she wanted--needed--to hear back. But she knew this was neither the time nor place. Like it or not, there were parameters for this encounter.

"Don't you understand?" she demanded, her voice low and taut. "I can't figure out how you do what you do!"

Michael seemed genuinely flummoxed by her assertion. Or maybe he was stunned by the notion that she'd want to understand his thinking processes.

"I've been in Section a lot longer than you have," he responded with an odd combination of gentleness and hesitancy.

"It's not a matter of experience," she countered. "You operate on a level other people don't seem to be able to access very often, Michael. To extrapolate from intel is one thing. But you seem to anticipate without data. You develop contingencies for variables that aren't even in the sims! It's a little scary."

He stared at her without speaking for five, maybe ten, seconds. She had the unsettling feeling that her assessment had hurt him. That she'd struck him in a place so raw, he didn't even admit its existence to himself.

"I'm...sorry," he finally said.

She came very close to losing her temper. But the vulnerability she sensed in her ex-mentor--and the recolletion of Walter's pointed advice about cutting him some slack--enabled her to maintain control.

"I wasn't asking for an apology," she replied, choosing her words with care. "I'm just trying to make sense of things. I've worked with a lot of different people during the past six months. Some of them were very good at their jobs. But none of them was you. Not of them took--none of them takes what you call your 'tactical approach.' I mean, I put Edgar's profile up against yours--"

"Edgar may not be the best basis for comparison," Michael interrupted. His tone was dry. But there was a hint of something...

It was contempt, Nikita decided. And not just professional contempt, either. This was personal. It suddenly occurred to her that except for Michael's laconic, pre-briefing comment about Edgar being "temporarily off active status," there'd been no explanation for the abrupt reassignment of the Kirilov mission. Was it possible that--

"Did Jurgen teach you to play Go?" she heard herself ask.

The question was tactless, to say the least. And Nikita knew it. Had she been able to stuff the query back into her mouth and swallow it whole, she would have. But she couldn't.

Michael, strangely enough, seemed unfazed by the sudden foray into what should have been forbidden territory. "He told me to study it, yes."

Nikita gulped. In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself as a possibility occurred to her.

"How long did it take you to start beating him?" she queried.

A flash of something--surprise? admiration for her gall?--streaked through Michael's eyes.

"About eight months," he answered simply.

"And?"

"And I decided that if I were forced to play games, I preferred Madeline's favorite." He waited a beat, his sensually-shaped mouth twisting. "Chess."

***********

Had Michael gotten up and walked away at this point, Nikita would have understood. Only he didn't. He did avert his gaze for several moments. But his purpose seemed to be to check on the other members of the team rather than to avoid looking at her.

"Is Bacon on your syllabus?" he eventually asked, his eyes meeting hers once again.

Although the inquiry was in English, Nikita could only make minimal sense of it. "W-what?"

"At school. In your philosophy course."

"How did you--" she began, then stopped as comprehension clouted her. "Birkoff."

Michael touched her arm, wordlessly instructing her to calm down. Feather light though the contact was, it made Nikita's body tingle clear down to her combat-booted toes. The sexual responsiveness that she'd assumed--hoped?--six harrowing months of separation must have blunted reasserted itself, full force.

No, she thought. Please...no.

"He didn't volunteer the information," Michael said quietly, withdrawing his hand. His eyes were shuttered; his expressio, bland. But a vein in his left temple was throbbing. Nikita wondered if he had a headache. "I came across an undesignated file in the system. I asked him about it."

She caught her breath. What did he mean, he'd come across an undesignated--

Oh, God. Oh, God! Michael had seen the phony transcript and test scores. He might even have read the stilted admissions essay she'd written. And rewritten. And rewritten yet again. Which could only mean he'd--

"You've been keeping tabs on me." The assertion came out sounding more accusatory than she'd intended.

"When I could."

Nikita heard a wealth of regret in this simple, three-word admission. Regret that his ability to protect her during the past six months had been limited. Regret that she'd needed help and he'd been constrained from offering it. And beneath the regret, there was that sounded remarkably like a plea for her forgiveness.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her brain kicked into playback mode.

...you're not the only one who got chained to the goddamned mission treadmill after the episode with Adrian, Walter had told her. The big difference is that somebody, for some reason, has decided to give you a reprieve. But Michael's still running four minute miles wearing full field gear. And he's doin' it on a real steep incline.

Could she have been given her "reprieve" because of Michael? she asked herself. Had he accepted an intensification of the pressure on himself in exchange for an easing of the burden on her?

Nikita reopened her eyes, conscious of the weight of her former mentor's hazel gaze. She knew that there was no point in asking him what he'd done on her behalf. Even if he deigned to acknowledge that she had a right to inquire, he wouldn't tell her the truth. Not the whole truth.

"I'm, uh, not sure about Bacon," she said finally, seeking refuge in the topic he'd already raised. "I haven't really looked at the reading list. I mean, I just started class today. Or...yesterday, I guess it is now."

"You were at school when I called you in?"

She sighed, remembering the looks she'd gotten as she'd gathered up her things and made her way out of the lecture hall. "Yeah."

"I apologize."

"It wasn't your fault." She pulled a face. "Sure, it would have been nice if I could have made it through the entire hour of my first college class uninterrupted. But things happen, Michael. I understand that. I...accept...it. It's not as though you were sitting around Section plotting ways to ruin my attendance record."

"No." The concession was wry. "Nonetheless--"

"Nonetheless, nothing. I'll apologize to the professor after class on Thursday and that'll be that." Until the next time Section rang and she went running, of course.

"You intend to go back, then."

She frowned, wondering at his tone. After a moment or two she cocked her chin and said, "That's right. I do."

"Good."

The approbation in his voice warmed her. It also made her unwise. Almost without thinking she murmured, "I'm not going to give up on trying to get an inner life thateasily."

"Inner...life?"

************

Nikita wanted to kick herself. What was wrong with her? Bad enough, she'd turned her back on Madeline in the hallway outside the briefing room. But to drop her guard with Michael? Had she lost her mind?

He said her name. Quietly. For a split second, she thought he was going to touch her again. She didn't know whether to feel relief or resentment when he didn't.

She did know that he wasn't going to allow her to side-step. She could read the determination in his eyes. He intended to discover what she'd meant by her incredibly ill-advised comment.

"It has to do with something Adrian said to me," she finally elaborated.

Michael's expression blanked. Nikita wasn't surprised. If mentioning Jurgen had been an imprudent thing to do, bringing up the name of Section One's now-cancelled founder was...was...

Monumentally stupid.

Maybe even dangerous.

"Adrian," Michael repeated without inflection.

"Yes. The first time I met her--" she paused, sucked in a deep breath, then specified, "The time I lied to you about having been captured by members of L'Heure Sanguine. She--Adrian--told me her people had been watching me for some time. She said they hadn't detected much of an inner life."

"And you...accepted this judgment?"

"Adrian was a very perceptive woman."

"Granted. But perceptive isn't omniscient. She made mistakes."

Nikita flinched, a painfully familiar sense of shame washing over her like a scalding wave.

"She trusted me."

"That's not what I meant."

"It's still the truth. Adrian was wrong--dead wrong--to believe in me. But she was right about a lot of other things. Including the fact that there isn't very much to me once you get an inch or so below the surface."

Nikita stared challengingly at Michael for several moments, then glanced away, feeling the sudden prick of tears at the inner corners of her eyes. She blinked several times, ordering herself not to cry.

"Admit it, Michael," she eventually said, her voice thicker than she wanted it to be. "My inner resources are pretty inadequate."

************

Nikita heard the enigmatic, self-contained man sitting next to her sigh. A moment later, she felt the brush of his callused fingertips against her jaw. A white-hot shiver of reaction danced beneath her skin. She fought it, damning her treacherously responsive body.

"Nikita."

She pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering, stubbornly refusing to turn her face back toward his.

"Nikita." The provocatively accented voice turned autocratic. "Look at me."

Finally, she did. Whether she'd succumbed to the command or the caress--or to a combination of both--she couldn't say. It didn't really matter.

Aquamarine eyes met changeable silver-green ones.

"What?" She hated the fact that she sounded like a rebellious brat.

Michael lowered his hand. His expression was as serious as she'd ever seen it. Not grim. Or angry. But intense. Utterly focused. As though what he was about to say was more important than anything else in the world.

"If you were lacking in the way you seem to thnk Adrian's words imply," he declared evenly, "what she said wouldn't have hurt you as badly as it obviously has. You wouldn't have cared about her opinion. And you certainly wouldn't be trying to earn her posthumous approval by going to school."

It was one of the most extraordinary things Michael had ever said to her. The shock of hearing it rendered Nikita speechless for a good ten or fifteen seconds.

"I...I'm not doing it for her," she finally managed.

"For yourself, then?"

"Yes." It was the truth, she realized. The absolute, utter truth.

"I'm glad."

Still off-balance, Nikita said the first thing that came into her head. "You know, Michael, I can't help wondering what Adrian would have detected if her people had been watching you."

Her companion went very still. For a moment, he seemed to stop breathing. Then, "Are you so certain they weren't?"

The question was cool. Essentially rhetorical. Yet Nikita felt her body tighten as she considered the implications of it.

"No," she admitted slowly, recalled Adrian's matter-of-fact statement that Michael would cover for her unauthorized absence from Section because he loved her. "I'm not."

There was a long silence. Finally, goaded by an impulse she couldn't really explain, Nikita spoke again.

"Is it true Oversight is trying to recruit you?"

Michael didn't seem surprised by the question. In fact, Nikita had the distinct impression that he'd been waiting for her to ask it. What this might signify, she had no idea.

"Yes," he affirmed, glancing toward the front of the plane.

"Have they...made an offer?" This query was more tentative than the previous one. She honestly hadn't expected him to respond to her initial probe with such unquivocal directness. In point of fact, she honestly hadn't expected him to respond to it at all.

"No."

"But they will." She studied his partially averted face for clues about what he wasn't telling her.

"Probably, yes."

"So, what do you have to do? Give them a list of what you want?" Besides your freedom, she added silently.

His gaze slammed back into hers. Her pulse stuttered at the turbulence she glimpsed in his eyes.

"They already know what I want."

She moistened her lips. "I...see."

Desperate thought Nikita was for specifics, there was no way--no way!--she was going to press Michael to elaborate. Not with what she was reading in his face. As she pondered what tack to try next, she realized that her hands were shaking. She laced her fingers together in a semi-successful bid to control the tremors.

"I, um, suppose they put you through a lot of tests," she commented, feeling as though she was tiptoeing onto a tightrope stretched above a field of razor blades. "To determine whether you'd be...suitable."

"The final one was six months ago. I passed."

Her heart lurched at the self-loathing she heard in Michael's voice. She stared at him. He stared back, daring her to follow up with the logical inquiry. She suddenly found herself recalling how he'd looked the night she'd pulled a gun on him and demanded he give her one reason why she shouldn't put a bullet through him.

"S-six months?" she whispered.

"When I betrayed you to Section. Operations asked me whether I thought you were the one cooperating with Adrian. I told him yes."

And with that, Michael rose to his feet in a lethally graceful movement and left her.

************

Unlike some of his academic colleagues, Ben Aiken wasn't given to inspecting his classes for potential bedmates. Had he been, he undoubtedly would have homed in on the leggy, blue-eyed blonde long before her cell phone went off. To say that she looked like the kind of co-ed who might tempt even the most morally rectitudinous professor to contemplate indulging in a little sexual dalliance was an understatement.

Ben had been deeply annoyed when he'd heard the electronic warble. After more than a year's absence from teaching, he'd been feeling awkward and self-conscious about his return to the pedagogical podium. His instinct for establishing a speaking rhythm--which he'd developed despite a natural inclination toward shyness--had been dulled by lack of use. The last thing he'd needed was to have his concentration broken by the shrill announcement of an incoming phonecall.

It had taken him several seconds to locate the source of the irritating sound. By the time he had, most of the students in the hall had been turned around in their seats, staring at the offender.

He'd refrained from chiding the blonde for a number of reasons. First, her embarrassment at the interruption had been palpable. Even at a distance, he'd felt her distress. Second, it had been clear from her grim expression--to say nothing of the speed of her exit--that the brief call had involved some kind of emergency. And third...

All right, Ben conceded to himself as he shuffled his lecture notes into order. All right, already. The fact that his first glimpse of whoever-she-was had stolen his breath away had had a little something to do with why he'd kept his mouth shut. He'd realized that it would do nothing for his tenuous grip on the class's attention to begin stammering like a hormonally crazed schoolboy as one of his students rose from her seat and headed toward the door.

That he'd found himself thinking in ridiculously mythic terms--terms like Amazon and Valkyrie--as he'd tracked the mystery woman's preciptious departure had compounded his conviction that he'd be wise to remain silent. Likewise, his uncomfortable awareness that a significant number of the other males present--and a few of the females--had been watching the blonde with a convetous fascination similar to his own.

Ben glanced at his watch, then scanned the lecture hall in what he fervently hoped was a casual manner. It was five minutes before the hour and about half the seats were filled. So far, no tall blond beauty.

Maybe he'd imagined her, he thought with a rueful smile. Maybe nearly eighteen months without a woman had driven him to hallucinations.

Then again, maybe she did exist in flesh and blood reality but had found the opening moments of Monday's class so boring that she'd withdrawn from the course, never to return.

Could she have been offended by the implication of the jibe he'd made before he'd translated the quote from Bacon? he speculated. Perhaps she knew Latin and had resented his suggestion that she might not.

On the other hand, perhaps she didn't know Latin--didn't care to know Latin--and had come to the conclusion that he was a pompous intellectual ass because he did.

Exhaling sharply, Ben checked his watch again. Three minutes to go.

The flow of students into the lecture hall got heavier. The number of empty seats dropped to no more than a dozen.

He flipped through his notes one last time, pausing to frown over an instruction he'd scribbled on the margin of one of the cards the night before. Remember A! it decreed.

At least, he thought it was an "A." His handwriting, never easy to decipher, had deteriorated in recent years.

A--who? Aristotle? Aurelius? Augustine? Aquinas?

Well, when he got to that point, he'd either remember or he wouldn't. And if he didn't...

Ben ran his fingers though his hair, angling his hand as he brought it up so he could consult his watch yet again.

Less than sixty second until the class bell sounded. The hall was nearly full.

He felt a bit of a fool. A trifle hot under the collar.

She wasn't going to show, he abruptly decided. Or, if she did, she was going to show up late. Either way--

The door to the lecture hall swung open.

For the second time in three days, Benjamin Aiken, Ph.D., forgot how to breath. At least, that's how he diagnosed his reaction at the time.

Later, he realized that what he'd done was begun to remember how to live...not simply survive.

************

While it wasn't accurate to say that Ben stopped being aware of the blonde's looks during the next hour, the nature of her allure for him began to alter. Yes, her striking exterior continued to draw his eyes the way a magnet draws iron filings. But it was a burgeoning curiosity about what lay beneath the beautiful surface that ultimately held him in thrall.

He could tell, amost to the heartbeat, when the shift started to occur.

The fair-haired object of his interest had kept her gaze fixed on her computer screen during most of the first half of his lecture. Each time he'd glanced at her, she was typing furiously--almost as though she were trying to capture his words, verbatim. He'd seen her frown now and again, apparently angsting over her spelling. When he'd gotten a bit carried away with a parallel he was drawing and tossed out a reference to Euripides' Heracleidae, she'd slumped in her seat for an instant and rolled her eyes with exaggerated dismay. But she'd recovered a moment later and gone back to pounding her keyboard with renewed determination.

She'd lifted her head--indeed, her entire body had gone on alert--when he'd segued into a commentary on contrasting philosophic views of the "good" and "bad" uses of political power. And she'd leaned forward, her expression intent, as he'd begun soliciting opinions on the differences between an essentially virtuous individual whose exercise of power leads to negative consequences and an essentially corrupt person whose wielding of power produces positive results.

While a number of students had offered their thoughts--some eagerly, others in reluctant response to his prodding--the blonde had said nothing. Ben had considered "volunteering" her to make a contribution to the discussion, but had decided against it. Something in her face had warned him off. The "something" had communicated the notion that her view of power politics was far less theoretical than his own. It had also hinted that she found the observations of her classmates rather...naive.

If she took any notes during the second half of the lecture, he didn't see her doing it. It wasn't that she'd lost interest in the subject matter. Quite the contrary. She seemed almost desperate to make sense of the various philosophic perspectives he was outlining.

The intensity of her attention intrigued Ben at a very elemental level. It unsettled him a bit, too. For reasons he could't explain, her attitude reminded him of the decidedly sheltered nature of his own existence. He'd been cloistered by affluence and acaedmia for most of his life. The blonde, on the other hand...

It was strange. She projected the aura of a young woman who'd been around, in more ways than one. Yet there was a curiously...innocent...quality about her as well.

A surreptitious glance at his watch informed Ben that his hour was running out. It was a painfully familiar situation for him--much to be said and done, but a dwindling amount of time in which to say and do it.

Tamping down on a flash of frustration, he began tying up the threads of his lecture. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blonde ease back in her seat and cross her legs. Her expression was abstracted, as though her thoughts had turned inward. He had a feeling that those thoughts were not particularly happy ones.

"...conside a comment by Charles Caleb Colton," he concluded. "According to him, if you want to know the pains of power, you need to go to those who have it. But he also claimed that if you want to understand power's pleasure, you should study those who are seeking it. Next Monday, we'll take up Machiavelli's The Prince. It's probably one of the best self-help books ever written for would-be power mongers. The reading assignment is on the syllabus. And for anyone who needs to see me, I'll be in my office for the next hour or who. That's Room 315 in this building, right next to the broom closet."

************

Ben's announcement of his availability for consultation had been a pro forma kind of thing. He didn't really expect anyone to drop by. He'd already met with the half-dozen or so potential philosophy majors who were taking the required course. He'd also had predictable sessions with the academic suck-ups in the class. He figured that his students would pretty much steer clear of him until mid-terms.

Still. He wanted to make a point of being around. Just in case.

Just in case, what? he mocked himself after about ten minutes of solitary thumb twiddling and office tidying. Just in case the mystery blonde decides to show up and demand why in the hell you were staring at her? What would you tell her if she did? The truth?

Not bloody likely.

She must have noticed the effect she'd had on him, he mused, leaning back in his chair. He'd never met a beautiful woman who wasn't aware--at least to some degree--of the impact she had on other people. God knew, his stepmother had been. Fiona Dotrice Aiken had understood the power of her stunning good looks and had exploited it with incredible ruthlessness.

Ben closed his eyes, allowing himself to remember. Fiona had used her beauty to persuade his father to send him away to school when he was just turned ten. She'd viewed him as competition for the attentions of the man she was determined to have all to herself. She'd wanted him gone. Out of sight. Out of mind. Out of the way.

Ironically, it had been his exile to an exclusive boys' academy that had led to his introduction to philosophy and had shaped his choice of a profession. So while it had never, ever, been her intention, Fiona had actually influenced his life for the--

Someone knocked at the door.

Ben opened his eyes and straightened up. He shook his head, trying to clear out the toxic recollections. The past was over and done with. What mattered was the present.

Knuckles rapped against wood a second time in a quietly distinctive rhythm. Not demanding, exactly. But difficult to ignore.

"Dr. Aiken?"

The voice was female. And unfamiliar. It also carried a hint of uncertainty.

"Come in," he called, thrusting a hand through his hair.

The door opened inward. It was the blonde. She was even more striking close up than she'd been at a distance.

"Is--is this a bad time?" she asked throatily, glancing around. "If it is, I'll be glad to come back."

"No, no. This is fine." He scrambled to his feet, gesturing her inside. In his haste, he knocked over one of the piles of books he'd moved while neatening up his desk. A dozen or so cloth-bound volumes toppled to the floor. "Oh...damn."

He bent to retrieve the books, mentally berating himself for his clumsiness. A second or two later, the blonde hunkered down next to him. He caught a whiff of soap and sunshine. Their eyes met for an instant. He felt a quicksilver tingle of response. She blinked once, a faint tinge of color staining her creamy-skinned cheeks. After blinking a second time, she turned her attention to gathering the scattered tomes. It seemed to Ben that she took pains not to make any physical contact with him.

"Uh, where would you like--?" she asked after a few moments, rising from her squatting position in a seamlessly graceful movement.

"Wherever," he answered vaguely, standing up as well. He deposited the books he was holding back on his desk.

After a brief hesitation, his visitor followed suit.

There was an uneasy silence. Finally, the blonde cleared her throat.

"I'm, um, in your class, Dr. Aiken," she offered, swatting a lock of hair away from her face with her left hand. Ben couldn't help but notice that her ring finger was bare. He wondered about the accent he heard in her voice. The flattened vowels weren't American. Or British. Australian, he decided. "Philosophy 101?"

Ben's first impulse was to read her manner as coy. He found it extremely difficult to accept that she genuinely believed he wouldn't recognize her. And yet, his instincts told him that she wasn't the type to play male-female games.

"Yes," he acknowledged after a pause. "I know."

"I--" a self-conscious gesture followed by an embarrassed downward glance "--wanted to apologize for what happened Monday. The interruption with the cell phone, I mean. I'm sorry." She met his gaze again. "Really."

She had the most extraordinary blue eyes Benjamin Aiken had ever seen. Eyes to soothe a man's soul. Or slice to the very core of it. He had the feeling that it would be damned near impossible to look into them and lie.

"I appreciate that," he replied. "Miss--ah--?"

For a split second, the blonde seemed to blank. As though she'd forgotten her own identity. Then, hurriedly, she answered, "L-Lewis. Nikita Lewis."

"Nikita Lewis," he repeated, savoring the exotic first name. And then he recalled something he'd seen when he'd reviewed the class list in the wake of Monday's lecture, trying to guess who the blonde might be. "You're auditing the course, aren't you?"

She stiffened, seemed to brace herself. And odd expression--something like guilt--flitted across her face. "Is there a problem with that?"

Nikita Lewis was afraid he was going to rebuff her, Ben realized with a start. No. It was more than that. She expected him to tell her he didn't want an auditor in his lecture hall.

How in God's name had someone as vibrantly lovely as this young woman become so...so...ready for rejection?

Ben experienced a flash of emotion he couldn't define except to say that it transcended physical attraction. It also spurred him to do something quite out of character.

"No," he said decisively. "No problem at all, Ms. Lewis. As a matter of fact, it spares me from having to wrestle with a serious ethical dilemma."

"Oh?" Her tone was wary.

"If you were taking my course for credit, I'd have to grade your work. And if I had to do that, I could ask if you'd have coffee with me." He smiled briefly. "Well, actually, I could...but it would be wrong."

Nikita eyed him narrowly for several seconds, as though waiting for him to spring some kind of trap on her. Then her lips twitched. The defensive rigidity of her posture eased and a hint--just a hint--of flirtatiousness entered her astonishing sky-blue eyes. Ben felt the world tilt.

"Because it might be interpreted as an abuse of power?" she inquired delicately. "Professor...over pupil?"

Ah. So the lady had a sense of humor. Good.

"Something like that."

"Well, then--" she cocked her head, her fair hair rippling over the shoulders. The corners of her lush, unmade-up mouth curled upward. The change in her manner was remarkable. "I suppose my auditing your course spares me from having to wrestle with an ethical dilemma, too."

Now it was his turn to be wary. "How so?"

Nikita gave him a look that was as old as Eve. Ben knew in that moment that if he'd been in the Garden of Eden, he would have damned the consequences and gobbled down the apple.

"How so?" she echoed. "Well, to put it simply--I don't have to decide how far I'd go to get an A."

*************

When she looked back on it, Nikita decided that "having coffee" with Benjamin Aiken probably ranked as one of the most normal things she'd ever done with a man. Small wonder that she found the experience a little disorienting. As Walter had once sardonically suggested, "normal" was little more than a memory for the denizens of Section One. And in her particular case, even the memory was pretty iffy.

"I hope whatever the trouble was on Monday, it wasn't too serious," Ben commented, breaking off a piece of the bran muffin he'd ordered.

"Trouble?" she repeated absently, surveying the patrons of the small, off-campus cafe in which they were seated. The other customers were so ordinary, she mused. So wonderfully...ordinary.

There'd been times in recent months when the seeming obliviousness of those in the non-Section world had infuriated her. But not now. Right now, she could almost pretend--

"The phone call you got."

Suspicion sparked instantly, but she managed not to show it. Her memory arrowed back to the moment in Aiken's office when she'd temporarily blanked on her cover name. That was the kind of error that got operatives killed.

Focus, Nikita, she heard Michael's voice instruct her.

But she didn't want to focus, dammit! At least, not in the way her former trainer meant. She was trying to make a life for herself. Inner. Outer. Whatever. A life beyond Section. Maybe not a whole one. Maybe not even half of one. But at least a piece. She'd earned the right to it!!

Hadn't she?

Still. She knew she had to be careful. And not simply for her own sake. For Ben Aiken's, too. She remembered all too well Section's response to her fledgling relationship with Gray Wellman...

Nikita reached for a packet of sugar to put in her tea, stalling for time. Funny thing. Although this little interlude had been cast in terms of their "having coffee," neither of them was. She'd ordered tea and a cinnamon roll. Ben had requested orange juice and a bran muffin.

"Very healthy," she'd commented after their waitress--a skinny teenager with unnaturally black hair and a double-pierced nose--had ambled away. Her thoughts had started to stray to a man she'd seldom seen eat anything, healthy or otherwise. She'd yanked them back, chastizing herself.

"I skipped breakfast," Ben had explained, glancing away. She'd glimpsed an expression she couldn't interpret slide acros his face like a cloud across the sun.

"You don't like to lecture on a full stomach?" she'd suggested, teasing just a little.

He'd looked back at her. The expression she'd seen a moment before had been gone.

"No. It diverts too much blood from my brain," he'd quipped, drawing a laugh.

Nikita ripped open the sugar packet she'd picked up and poured its contents into her cup. It had felt good to laugh, she admitted to herself. A little strange, perhaps. But good. Maybe too good.

"Why do you assume the phone call meant trouble?" she parried, keeping her voice mild.

"Well, it's either that or contemplate the possibility you found the first few minutes of my lecture so intolerable you faked being upset and fled the hall."

Involuntary amusement at his charming self-deprecation made her relax. To be cautious was one thing, she thought. To be paranoid was entirely another. Michael was the one who--

Stop it! she ordered.

God! What was wrong with her? Maybe she could get Birkoff to invent an M-chip and install it in her brain. She could switch it on when she went off-duty and keep her thoughts Michael-free.

"I didn't flee," she quibbled, stirring her tea. "But I wasn't faking. There was a problem."

"I'm sorry."

Nikita winced inwardly at the achingly familiar phrase. "Not your fault."

"Still..." A pause for a drink of juice. Then, carefully, "Family thing?"

"Work."

Ben took off his glasses and tucked thim into his jacket pocket. His eyes were an intriguing shade of amber-flecked brown. Deep-set, with a fine network of lines radiating from the outer corners.

"And what sort of work do you do?" he wanted to know.

Nikita lifted her cup, blew across the surface of the steaming brew, then took a sip.

"Security," she answered succinctly, setting down the cup.

For reasons no one had deigned to explain and she had declined to explore, Section had taken steps to solidfy her rather ad hoc cover story during the past six months. Madeline had been the one to inform her about what was being done. She'd framed the announcement in rather denegrating terms.

"As you know, Nikita, a number of our operatives have the resources to double in a professional capacity outside Section," she'd said as she'd misted water over one of the orchids she'd taken to cultivating along with her bonsais. There'd been something profoundly disturbing about the combination of the exquisitely twisted trees and the blatantly sensual blossoms. "Michael, for example. In your case, however, the credible options are rather limited. So, we've concluded that it would be best if you stick reasonably close to the truth."

"Best for whom, Madeline?" She'd recognized that she was being baited but she'd snapped anyway, not really caring about the potential cost of doing so. "And which version of the truth?"

The older woman had turned and eyed her coolly. "The dossier's already on your P.D.A. You're Nikita Lewis, security specialist for an international consulting firm. Your work involves extensive travel on short notice. It also requires you to be discreet about your employers and your assignments."

"Gee." She'd levered herself out of the chair in which she'd been slumped, intending to walk out. "Does that mean I'm not supposed to mention I kill people?"

"Security?" Ben repeated, raising his eyebrows. "That sounds...interesting."

Nikita peered down at the pastry she'd ordered. It had looked luscious when she'd selected it. Now her stomach rebelled at the idea of eating anything so rich and sweet.

"That's one way to describe it," she conceded, pushing the plate away and picking up her tea again.

*************

"You don't want to talk about it," Ben said, wishing his social skills were more up to speed. He was out of practice with the male-female thing. Which wasn't to imply that he'd ever been particularly adept at getting-to-know-you chitchat. In point of fact, he'd always been pretty lame at it--as several of the women he'd dated had informed him. As for what his ex-wife had said--

No. Never mind that.

Nikita studied him without speaking for several seconds. She seemed a little sad. She also looked...well, once again, Ben had the sense that this young woman's frame of reference was a lot different than his own.

"It's not a matter of 'wanting,' Dr. Aiken," she finally said.

"Ben," he corrected. He'd been waiting for a chance to press this issue.

She hesitated, clearly uncertain about the wisdom of committing herself to calling him by his given name. He didn't think her reaction signalled that she shared his undeniably outmoded preference for maintaining a certain degree of formality in address. Quite the contrary. What he did think was that she didn't want to get in too far, too fast, with him. He also had the impression that despite her earlier quip about abuse of power, she had a decidedly hierarchical view of the relationship between professors and pupils.

"Please, Nikita," he urged. "Make it Ben."

"All right," she agreed after a moment. "Ben."

"Good," he returned, meaning it. That her capitulation to his request was a very small item in the grand scheme of things, he was willing to concede. Yet it felt like a big deal to him.

"Anyway--" a brief smile "--Ben. My work involves some very sensitive matters. Client confidentiality and all that. I can't talk about it." She paused, then gave an edgy laugh. "Well, actually, I can," she amended, seeming to harken back to his earlier remarks about ethical dilemmas and inviting her for coffee. "But it would piss off my boss in a major way."

He cocked a brow. Keeping his tone light he said, "I take it that's not very wise?"

"No." Another little laugh, this one a bit softer than the first. It held a touch of rebelliousness, too. "Which isn't to say I don't, on occasion."

"Piss off your boss in a major way, you mean."

He could see her doing it, he realized. He couldn't visualize exactly how or why, but he definitely could imagine her driving the people who thought they were in charge of her right up the wall every now and again.

He could also imagine it costing her.

"Mmm." Nikita took a sip of her tea, giving him a conspiratorial look over the rim of her cup. Ben had the feeling that he'd passed some kind of test. "It may not be wise, but it's good for the soul."

There was a pause. Not a completely comfortable one, but infinitely easier than the ones that had preceeded it. Ben ate another piece of his muffin, washing it down with a swig of orange juice. Nikita continued to sip at her tea.

"So, what drew you to Philosophy 101?" he eventually asked. He was genuinely curious. As passionate as he was about his area of study, he knew that most students considered it pointless. Oh, they might find it useful to skim through some psychobabble bestseller that offered up bastardized tidbits of wisdom from the great thinkers of the ages. But slog through Plato's Republic or Hobbes's Leviathan? Not unless it was absolutely required!

"It fit with my schedule."

"Ouch."

"And the topic...intrigued...me." She gave him an up-from-under her lashes look. "Power, I mean."

"Intrigued," he repeated, shifting in his seat. He took a quick drink of juice. Henry Kissinger's assertion about power being the great aphrodesiac flitted through his brain. He batted the thought aside, warning himself to cool down. "You couldn't have mentioned that first?"

"Sorry." There was a sparkle of mischief in her sky-colored eyes.

He cleared his throat. "Are you taking any other courses?"

"Not right now."

"Would you like to?"

Nikita toyed with her teaspoon, apparently considering his question--or was it her answer to it?--very carefully.

"I'm not sure," she replied slowly. "Going back to school is...well, it's sort of an experiment for me. Or maybe a test would be a better way of putting it. Someone said something to me a few months ago that really made me take a look at my life. Or my lack of one, if you know what I mean. I suppose you could say I'm trying to...mmm...find myself."

"And when you do?"

She seemed startled by the inquiry. "Don't you mean if?"

Again, the insecurity. It bothered Ben more than he would have thought possible on such short acquaintance. He wondered for the second time what kind of experiences could have damaged Nikita Lewis's self-esteem so badly.

And yet, she didn't impress him as a weak, wounded woman. Just the opposite. For all her emotional uncertainty, he felt a great deal of strength of character in her. And she was so damned...alive.

She was like a flame. He wanted to reach out and warm his hands on her.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"I watched you in class today, Nikita," he said quietly. "I got the feeling you finish what you start."

Her crystalline blue eyes widened, as though she'd just been given a surprise gift. She flushed from collarbone to brow.

"Th-thank you," she said, her voice husky.

"Of course, I also got the impression you're a bit shaky what it comes to spelling," Ben added, sensing that she was embarrassed by the intensity to her response and trying to leaven the mood with a pinch of humor.

Nikita blinked, then gave him a lopsided smile. The hot color in her cheeks cooled a few degrees.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Well..."

"What about you?"

The query could be interpreted in a great many ways. Ben decided to respond to it in the joking context he'd established.

"Me? I have trouble spelling--" He almost said C.I.A., but backed off at the last instant, remembering what she'd told him about her work. Or, rather, what she hadn't told him. While he didn't for a minute think that Nikita Lewis was some kind of spy (weren't spies supposed to be nondescript, blend-into-the-woodwork types?), he worried that she might think he did if he mentioned the Central Intelligence Agency, even in jest. "--I.O.U."

"That's bad," she acknowledged with a ripple of laughter. "You may be worse than my friend who thinks there's a 'w' in menage a trois."

*************

Great," Ben thought with a sudden stab of emotion. It took him a moment to identify what he was feeling as jealousy. Just great. She has a friend she's comfortable enough with to kid around about kinky sex!

His stomach knotted as an unpleasant possibility occurred to him.

Lord.

What if she and this friend didn't just kid about it? What if they--

No, he told himself firmly. Do. Not. Go. There.

"Your friend sounds like an interesting person," he commented. And I sound like a prissy jerk, he added silently.

Another rippling laugh, this one punctuated by a smile that positively radiated affection.

"Oh, yeah," Nikita concurred. "Walter is one of a kind."

Walter.

Nikita Lewis had a male friend with whom she felt comfortable enough to kid around about three-way sex. Damnation!

Well, maybe this Walter was gay, Ben speculated, pulverizing the remaining chunk of his bran muffin. Maybe her "one of a kind" remark was some sort of code phrase.

Except the woman sitting opposite him did seem the type who'd dance around a friend's sexuality.

"I take it you two are close," he commented carefully, wiping his crumb-covered fingers on a paper napkin.

"Not as close as he pretends he'd like us to be."

Huh?

"I don't...understand."

Nikita toyed with a lock of her hair, twirling it slowly around and around one finger. The expression in her dazzling blue eyes suggested that she was savoring some enjoyable memories.

"Walter's an incorrigible flirt," she explained after a few moments. "But he isn't really much on following through. At least, not with me. He's sort of...mmmm...my honorary dirty old uncle."

Old.

Old was good.

In fact, old was...great.

"Is this 'Walter' a friend of your family?" Ben asked, starting to relax again. He didn't figure the man was a colleague. Not with the business world as sensitive as it was to the threat of sexual harassmen litigation. Besides. Nikita Lewis did not strike him as a woman who'd let herself be bothered by a workplace letch.

The humorous warmth faded from Nikita's lovely face. A look of pensiveness settled over her features like a veil. Ben cursed inwardly, realizing that he'd put his foot in it somehow.

"I don't really have a family," his companion told him quietly. "No brothers or sisters. I never knew my father. And my mother...well, let's just say we haven't exchanged Christmas cards in a long time."

"I'm sorry."

He didn't know what else to say. And once he'd said it, he wondered whether it would have been better to have kept his mouth shut. Nikita seemed to have a problem with the two words he'd just uttered.

There was a short silence. Then:

"Do you have a family?"

He shook his head, relieved she hadn't snapped the conversational thread.

"None to speak of. I'm an only child, too. My mother was killed in a riding accident when I was three. My father died of a heart attack shortly after I graduated from college. I have an ex-stepmother someplace--"

"Ex-stepmother?"

"Fiona's had two husbands since my father left her a very rich widow. She and I don't exchange Christmas cards, either. In fact, I think our last communication was about ten years ago, through a pair of five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyers."

"Oh." Nikita stopped twiddling with her hair. "What about a...wife?"

The directness as a little disconcerting, but Ben liked it.

"I wouldn't be here if I were married, Nikita," he said, staring her straight in the eye. "For the record, though, I did have a wife. Briefly. I think Marianne was still writing thank you notes for the wedding gifts when we both realized we'd made a major mistake."

"I see."

"Are you--" he searched for the right word "--involved with anyone?"

He had the feeling she was tempted to glance away. Maybe even to fob him off. But after a moment she seemed to summon some force within her.

"There's a man I care about," she replied, holding his gaze steadily. "He--we--it's complicated, Ben. Or, maybe it's really simple, but I've just made it complicated. The bottom-line is, his work is his priority. I can't fault him for that. He's very good at what he does. One of the best. And what he does is very important. It...matters. But I need to...oh, I don't know. Move ahead, I guess. At least, figure out what's truly important to me. I can't sit around...waiting. Life's too short, you know?"

Ben nodded. Oh, yes. He knew. Far better than he wanted to.

"So, anyway," Nikita concluded, her tone becoming lighter. "No. I'm not 'involved' with anybody. But I think I could develop a thing for Machiavelli. I skimmed ahead in the textbook last night, and I have to tell you..."

****************

Their conversation drifted from topic to topic after that. While Ben found that Nikita was oddly ill-informed about some things he'd assumed were common knowledge, her grasp of current political events was astonishing. He suspected that her observations about certain international developments would stun more than a few of his colleagues at the faculty club into respectful silence.

She was a wonderful listener, too. Attentive without being oppressive or obsequious. Endlessly, enthusiastically inquisitive. And her sense of humor meshed with his own, which delighted him.

He'd just finished an anecdote about his Ph.D. orals when he saw her glance at her watch. Her eyes went round with something close to shock when she registered the time.

"Oh, my God," she groaned. "Seymour is going to kill me."

Ben clamped down on a sudden resurgence of the jealousy he'd experienced earlier. Nikita had said that she wasn't involved with anyone and he believed her. Besides. He was damned if he'd worry about somebody named...Seymour.

He checked his own watch. Felt a jolt of disbelief.

Jesus! They'd been talking for nearly three hours!

"Ben, I'm sorry," Nikita said, sounded genuinely regretful. "This has been terrific, but I really have to run. I'm overdue for an appointment."

"No problem," he assured her, reaching for the check.

"How much do I owe?"

He waved off the question, calculating the tip. He figured he should leave a very hefty gratuity, considering how long they'd lingered. "This is on me."

"Uh--I'm not sure--"

He looked at Nikita. Once again, he saw wariness in her beautiful blue eyes. He got the strangest impression that she was unaccustomed to having a man--no, to having anyone pick up the tab for her.

"Tell you what," he said after a moment. "Let this be my treat. You can pay next time."

Her lips parted on a sudden exhalation of breath. A delicate rose stained her cheeks. He thought back to how moved she'd seemed when he'd told her--with absolutely sincerity--that she didn't seem to be a quitter.

"Is there going to be a...next...time?" she asked. From another woman, it probably would have been coy. From her...

"That would be my vote," Ben answered, keeping his tone casual. Then he smiled.

Nikita studied him for a second or two, then smiled back. While the curving of her lips wasn't as provocative as it had been back in his office, it was pleasurably close.

"Then it's unanimous," she told him.

**************

The next time...

The phrase sang in Nikita's brain like an anthem as she passed through Section security processing. She felt girlishly giddy--happier than she'd been in a long, long time. The weight that settled on her each time she entered the subterranean world that defined her "real" existence seemed a tad less heavier than usual.

She moved rapidly down the corridor toward Birkoff's cyber-turf, her heels clicking out a rhythmic tattoo against the concrete floor. Her intention was to sail by Walter's work area with just a quick hello. The older man had taken the brunt of her rotten moods on any number of occasions. She felt it only fair he get a chance to share her current ebullience, at least for a few seconds.

Section's weapons master had other plans.

"Hey, Sugar," he drawled, stepping into her path. "Lookin' good."

"Feeling even better, Walter," she acknowledged.

"I've got something for you."

"Uh-huh." She vamped him with a flirtatious 'I've heard that line' before look. "Well, I've got an appointment with Birkoff. So much as I'd like to--"

"It's from Michael."

"M-Michael?" Her breath snagged in her throat.

"Yeah. He gave me something to give to you."

She frowned. "But why would he--"

"Why does Michael do anything?" Walter countered, pulling a wry face. "I'm just the delivery boy on this, Nikita. You want answers, go to the man himself. Assuming you can find him."

Still clutching her computer carrying case and her other school-related gear, Nikita followed the older man into his work space. Walter's last comment had hit home. She hadn't seen Michael since they'd parted ways at van access upon their return from the Kirilov mission. He'd gone immediately into a debriefing with Operations and from there into an interrogation session with the Russian scientist.

Determined to speak with him about his characteristically self-condemnatory assessment of what he'd done during the Adrian episode, Nikita had tried--unsuccessfully--to seek her former trainer out. She'd lurked around his office, accomplishing nothing but providing new grist for the Section gossip mill. She'd even come in shortly after dawn the day before because she knew that he and a Housekeeping operative named Takeo sometimes engaged in early morning martial arts sparring sessions. She'd found Takeo practicing a kata with almost otherworldly intensity. But Michael...

"Come and gone, Nikita," Takeo had informed her, bowing with grave courtesy. His exotically tattooed arms had been sheened with sweat. "Very sorry."

"Here we go," Walter announced, handing her a small package. It was rectangular in shape and neatly covered in brown paper.

Nikita frowned, experiencing a sudden wave of deja vu. She remembered another meticulously wrapped package, this one given directly to her by Michael on her first day back from a Section-sanctioned vacation. He hadn't specified its contents except to say that he was returning some things of hers.

Wanting a knife to slice through the duct tape on the outside of the mysterious item, she'd gone to Section's most reliable source of sharp objects--Walter. Still laboring under the mistaken belief that Michael had cold-bloodedly carried out orders that she be cancelled, he'd balked at the idea of cooperating at first, but ultimately handed over a switchblade.

What she'd found inside the box, carefully swathed in pristine tissue paper, was the collection of sunglasses that used to hang in her apartment. She'd assumed, based on something Jurgen had said, that they'd been lost to her forever. To discover that Michael had saved them--

"You gonna open it?" Walter questioned, not bothering to hide his curiosity. Nikita knew that he'd been only slightly less stunned by the sight of her old sunglasses than she. And although he'd never spelled them out, she also knew that he'd come to some potentially dangerous conclusions about why they'd been in Michael's possession during her six-month 'absence' from Section.

"Uh...sure," she answered, putting down her stuff. She had no doubt that Birkoff was fuming about her tardiness, but he was just going to have to wait another couple of minutes.

She undid the paper in a few deft moves. Her pulse kicked as she registered what she was holding.

"A book?" Walter angled his head to get a good look at the volume. "Michael's giving you books that come in brown paper wrappers?"

Nikita ignored the suggestive implications of the query.

"It's philosophy, Walter," she said quietly, touching the volume's cover with the tip of her right index finger. Once again, her former mentor had managed to thoroughly scrambled her emotions.

She vacillated between gratitude and aggravation. Which scenario was worse? she asked herself. That Michael knew the impact his gift would have on her and had given it anyway? Or that it had never occurred to him how much she might read into his unexpected gesture?

"Philosophy?" Walter echoed dubiously.

"Francis Bacon. Michael and I were talking about him the other day. About something he wrote."

"Huh. You two have--what? Some kind of private reading club?"

Nikita shook her head, feeling her hair shift against the nape of her neck. "It was tied to my going back to school."

The older man's eyes narrowed. "Michael knows about that?" he asked, abandoning his innuendo-laden tone.

She nodded, tucking the book into her shoulder tote and collecting her other gear. Time to cogitate on the mystery that was Michael, she decided. Right now, duty called.

"He approve, Sugar?"

The obvious response--that the time when her one-time trainer held sway over every facet of her existence was over--trembled on the tip of her tongue. But she never uttered it. Because even as she was bridling at Walter's question, she was recalling the rush of pleasure she'd felt when Michael had told her that he was glad she intended to go back to class.

"Yeah, Walter," she said after a moment, a small smile playing around the corners of her lips. "He does."

**************

Birkoff was having one of his periodic "I'm fine but everybody who works for me is f---ed up" snits when Nikita approached his work space a minute or two later.

"--wrong variable of correlation," she heard him inform one of his subordinated in a snottily condescending voice. "The data's totally bogus!"

"Y-yes, sir," the young tech he was berating answered, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head. Nikita had noticed that a number of the members of Birkoff's cyber-team adopted the defensive, turtle-like posture when their superior was on a tear.

There was a brief pause.

"So?" Birkoff demanded.

"So, w-what...sir?"

An explosive huff of breath. "So, go run the damned sequence again, Grimes! And get it right this time!"

Grimes gave a jerky nod and scuttled away.

Hoo, boy, Nikita thought, moving forward. And they claim women are temperamental!

"You're late," Birkoff snapped, glaring at her.

"And you're cute when you're mad," she retorted without missing a beat. She placed her shoulder bag and computer case on his cluttered desk. "A major asshole, but definitely adorable."

That stopped the young computer whiz cold. He gulped convulsively several times, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly.

"Wh-what did you just say?" he finally managed.

"I said, you're cute when you're mad," she repeated sweetly, surpressing a laugh. "I don't know whether it's the way your mouth gets all squinched up or that twitchy thing that happens with your eyelids, but it's very...hot." She cast a glance at Birkoff's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Gail, who was seated at a console a few feet away. "Isn't that right, Gail?"

The pert young technician started, then looked up, her hoop earrings swinging. "Huh?"

"Isn't Seymour adorable when he's angry?"

Birkoff growled.

Gail's eyes widened. Her gaze ping-ponged back and forth between her sometime lover and Nikita. After a few seconds, her somewhat petulant mouth curved into a witchy smile.

"Absolutely," she agreed, imbuing the word with a sexy little spin. "Especially the way his face gets all flushed and feverish-looking."

"Oh, bite me." Birkoff didn't specify at whom this suggestion was directed.

"Now you want me to use my teeth?" Gail riposted with a naughty giggle.

"You're out of luck, Birkoff," Nikita chimed in. "I've become a vegetarian."

The young computer genius rolled his eyes, apparently realizing that there was no way he was going to win in this kind of double-teaming situation.

"All right, all right," he grumped, the color in his cheeks a lot higher than usual. "Just...just get back to work, Gail. I want that interface code rewritten before the turn of the millenium."

"Aye-aye," Gail returned, giving him a saucy but genuinely affectionate look. After winking at Nikita, she turned back to her computer console.

Birkoff muttered something under his breath. Nikita caught the women "women," but that was about it.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she apologized after a brief pause.

"Yeah, sure you are." He yanked open the top drawer of his desk and took out several Oreos. He pointedly failed to offer her one. "What happened? You get kept after school?"

A gentle rush of warmth suffused Nikita. She smiled, remembering.

"Something like that," she agreed.

Birkoff stiffened.

"Are you kidding?" he demanded through a partially masticated mouthful of cookie.

His interest told Nikita that she needed to ratchet down her post-coffee-with-Ben mood a bit. If Birkoff was picking up on how good she was feeling...

"I had coffee with somebody from class," she said, shrugged. It struck her that her evasion was very Michael-esque. She shoved the thought away.

Birkoff digested this bit of intel without comment while he finished munching down his Oreos. Then he plucked a computer disk from a pile of stuff to his left. His manner reverted to the all-business mode.

"Okay," he said, extending the disk. "This is the sim. I need your input ASAP. And don't bother bitching to me about the format. I know it sucks. But it's the way Operations wants it."

**************

"And what Operations wants, Operations gets," Nikita murmured, slipping the disk into the pocket of her jacket. After gathering up her things once again, she turned away from Birkoff's work station. As she did, she glanced up toward the glassed-in aerie from which the leader of Section One monitored his domain.

She checked herself, frowning at what she saw. Operations was standing with a silver-haired man she didn't recognize. The two of them were gazing out at command and control. Engrossed in conversation, yet not making eye contact.

The stranger was tall and rapier-thin. His features, from a distance, looked hawkishly distinguished. He was clad in an immaculately tailored gun metal gray suit. A burgundy silk tie added a subtle touch of color to his subdued ensemble.

Definitely not a subordinate, she decided, studying the man intently. And not a supplicant for a favor from Section, either.

And outside contractor, maybe?

Or a representative from another agency?

"Birkoff..."

"Mmmm?" Birkoff was already back at his computer, his dexterious fingers dancing over the keyboard.

"Who's that?"

"Who's who?

"The man with Operations."

"Huh? Oh. Him. Warren Curtis. Liaison from Oversight."

Nikita caught her breath.

Oversight.

Oh, God. Of course!

"He's here because of--?" She couldn't finish the question.

"Yeah."

"Then why is he having a one-on-one with Operations?"

"Because Michael's not around." There was a get-a-clue edge to the response.

Nikita looked at Section's computer guru, a feeling of alarm spurting through her.

"Not around?" she repeated sharply. "What do you mean, 'not around'?"

"He's on a courier run to Berlin."

On a courier run to--

No. Couldn't be. That didn't make any sense.

"Since when has Section used Class Five operatives to run probationary-level errands?" she demanded.

Birkoff glanced up from his keyboard, a hint of exasperation in his expression. "Since four this morning when Operations hauled my butt out of bed and ordered me to roust Michael so he could fly off to the land of la dolce vida."

"Operations ordered--?"

"No. The damned Tooth Fairy."

"Did he know this Curtis from Oversight was coming to see Michael today?"

"Well, gee, Nikita. He didn't say. And for some reason I can't remember now, I didn't happen to ask."

"Birkoff--"

"I'd put the probability of his being aware of the appointment at, oh, ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine."

Nikita shook her head, trying to understand. "I thought Walter said no one's allowed to interfere with the recuitment process."

"Let me guess." Birkoff gave a humorless laugh. "You still believe in Santa Claus."

"But--"

"Read my lips, Nikita. We're talking about Operations."

"He...he doesn't want Michael to go to Oversight."

No. Maybe it was more basic than that. Maybe what Operations didn't want was for Michael--his most gifted protege, his most convenient whipping boy--to go free.

Maybe, just maybe, the head of Section One wa afraid of what might happen if that occurred.

Birkoff sighed heavily, his expression turning cynical. Behind his lightly tinted lenses of his glasses, his eyes looked very, very old.

"What do you think?" he asked.