"I thought that might have been brought to my attention." Sigh. "Um, we finished dredging though the rubble."
    "Find anything?"
    "Plasma burned, battered, crushed body underneath the debris."
    "Positive ID?"
    "On what?" she snapped.
    "Good point."
    "Who was he fighting?"
    "His brother."
    "That'll give us something to start working on, I'll try and make sure we've got a positive on this thing."
    "His parents are in the hospital, has anyone checked on them?"
    "There are a lot of people in the hospital," she reminded me tersely.
    "I dropped them off on the roof of Mass General."
    "Okay, I'll check on that."
    I hesitated, decided it wouldn't hurt even if they were listening. "One more thing I wanted to mention to you, this is an outside chance but right now I'm not putting anything past them. If I show up anywhere at the station, run for your life."
    "You think they're going to start shooting you?"
    "No, just that I wouldn't put it past them to slap a shock collar on Tempest and send her around to give you a really bad day." After all, it's been twice pointed out to me that I'm one of two team members with a shred of a reputation left. How better to destroy it, if they're really serious about giving all of us a public hanging. I keep my expectations low these days.
    Winters groaned. "You guys have a way of ruining my morning. Scott tell you about the pharmaceutical warehouse?"
    "Yes."
    "Okay. We're checking up on something Scott thought of, that might give us a lead on what's Javelin's doing. A photo of the person who bribed Lanigan. They might be able to use that to ID him. Hopefully."
    "That would be a good start."
    "Let's see if we can get a step ahead of this guy."
    "How's everything else?" I asked.
    "Oh, the usual. If I see you, we're supposed to arrest you."
    "I figured."
    "Just so you know."
    "You won't be seeing us, I don't think."
    "Good. I don't want to have to arrest you."
    "I don't want to be arrested."
    "Okay. Stay low, keep careful."
    "Will do. You, too."
    Phoenix looked puzzled, so Lucky and I explained to him about Winters covering Reilly's vacation.
    "Oh. He still have that stick up his ass?" Phoenix asked casually. I choked on my coffee.
    "He actually defended me at my trial," Lucky informed him seriously.
    "Oh. I didn't know he was a lawyer." He glanced from one of us to the other. "What? What?"
    "As a witness," she sighed.
    "Oh."
    "Lucky, how do you want to do this?" I asked her, sitting down at the table with the two of them. "Pick them up from here, or head over from the office?"
    "We need to go someplace where they might be looking for us."
    "The office would probably qualify, then. See if our allies have dug up any leads."
     We sat around while the afternoon passed, fretting gently. Lucky scribbled notes to herself; I didn't ask what she was up to. Phoenix watched TV. I catnapped, still recovering from the previous night's efforts, and eventually wandered into the den with Phoenix Talon, who hummed along with the latest Starr Krunchies jingle.
    "One of my second cousins knew this guy who knew this guy who was eating Starr Krunchies, and he caught on fire!" Phoenix informed us. "Just watching TV, he ate four bowls, those things'll kill you. Whoosh, he was gone! No really, it happened!" he insisted when he realized that both Chandler and I were staring at him.
    "I've seen grosser things," Lucky offered without looking up.
    "I love this fraternity," our host murmured, turning away.
    "What fraternity were you in? I was Sigma Alpha Epsilon myself. Sig Sig Sig," Phoenix started chanting.
    "I have research to do," Chandler muttered, and departed for a quieter region of the house.
    "Don't worry, we're leaving," I called after him apologetically.

[Perspective switch: The Cave]

    "Hello?" I answered as the phone rang.
    "Hi," Scott chirped.
    "Someday I'll figure out why you're always so cheerful. What's up?" He told me about Dan, who he suspected had been responsible for bribing Dr. Lanigan. "Any clue on where he might be?"
    "Probably still somewhere in the city of Boston, probably registered under his own name."
     "Hopefully still breathing?" Not that I had much hope for that.
    "If we're really lucky. Hold still, I need to use my other lobe." He called K. Robeson on his other internal phone and set Sphinx on the problem, who promised to call back in fifteen minutes.
    "Oh, and Phoenix is back," I remembered to tell him.
    "Say hi for me. Of course, he doesn't know me."
    "We have some additional firepower, and his morale is totally unaffected by all this."
    "Oh good. Albert has a giant pile of paper that started with that little box of yours, and has apparently taken over an entire wall of the cave. Would you like me to ask him what he's doing?"
    "Sure. You can't exactly pass the phone over, can you?"
    "No, hold on." He asked Albert something and then asked me, "What did Susan Bates do for a living?"

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