2

Since he had to get to Canada fast, he went over to Rags’s place over the taco stand and woke him up by pounding on the door until he almost broke it down. He had a major hangover (big surprise), so he poured triple espressos down his throat until he felt conscious enough to form complete sentences, and asked him to teleport him to Toronto. Rags looked at him funny until he could make the words come out of his mouth. “Why d’nt ya use Bob’s powers to ‘port yerself?”

Somehow, that seemed to be a really silly question. “I don’t have that much of his power. Can you give me a lift?” Although he phrased it like a question, it really wasn’t.

Rags did, probably just to get him out of his hair, and at his behest teleported him to a rather bland office block in Toronto, inside a dark parking garage to limit the chances of anyone seeing them come in. Rags immediately returned to L.A., while he walked out into the sunshine of a clear Toronto afternoon, about three hours closer to dusk.

On the next block over was a big, imposing modern office building that seemed to sprawl in the center of its own courtyard, and it didn’t hide the fact that it was a government building. People in suits came in and out of the large smoked glass doors, and he passed a couple of uniformed cops standing at attention outside. They looked at him like a potential threat.

The inner lobby was heavily air conditioned, and had more security, this time in plain clothes, milling around with the civilian and government workers. He could feel them watching him with intense suspicion - why? Because he was the only person who wasn’t wearing a suit? - when he went up to the front desk. The receptionist, a slightly plump Korean woman with a pleasant face, looked up at him with a hard eyed wariness as he approached. “I have an appointment to see Colonel Lafayette.”

Her look was frankly disbelieving. It was probably an effort of will not to scoff. “Your name?”

“Logan.”

She looked at her computer screen, fingers tapping away on her keyboard with a machine gun rapidity, and he saw her eyes widen ever so slightly as she found his name. Abrams said he’d be alerting him, and he “knew about his case”. That sounded somewhat ominous, but he figured if he’d gone this far, he might as well go all the way.

The woman - whose security badge identified her as Christine - picked up her phone and punched the appropriate button. “Sir, a Mister Logan is here to see you.” She listened for a moment, and then responded, “Yes sir.” before hanging up. She looked at him with a stiff formality, all disbelief scrubbed from her expression. “He’s sending an aide down to escort you up. It’ll just be one moment.”

He nodded, wondering why he needed to be escorted. Maybe it was protocol. “Sure, thanks.”

There was a bank of elevators dominating the rear of the lobby, and he watched them, trying to see if he could guess which one was the aide sent for him. The third elevator to arrive and spill someone out into the lobby contained a single person, a uniformed female soldier with hair so short you could barely see a wisp of dirty blonde hair peeking out from beneath her cap. Her hard brown eyes settled on him, a hawk sighting its prey, and he knew she was his escort. Why did he have a feeling she was told to look for the man who didn’t seem to belong?

She came up to him like a person preparing to spar, and asked, “Are you Mr. Logan?” Her voice had a light Newfoundland accent, which he thought was mildly amusing.

“Indeed I am. Lead on.”

Annoyance flashed across her raw boned face, as if she found his casualness personally insulting, but rather than comment on it, she spun stiffly on her heels and marched back towards the lift. He followed, suppressing the urge to mimic her walk and her ramrod straight posture. He had no idea why the urge to do so had come on so suddenly - he blamed Bob. It seemed like the type of thing Bob would do.

They rode up to the fourteenth floor in silence - like she even wanted to be in the same elevator with him; why would she bother to talk to him? - and he followed her down a sterile white corridor, the industrial carpet a bland and uninspiring beige. None of the doors they passed were marked in an obvious way, so that’s probably why he needed an escort.

She stopped at the fifth door down the hall on the right, and rapped on the door before opening it. “Mr. Logan, sir,” she said, stepping in and then moving aside to let him in.

Colonel Peter Lafayette stood up from behind his desk, which sat before a large window overlooking Toronto. It wasn’t a great view, but still impressive, one indicative of status. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said mechanically.

She nodded, saluted, then turned to leave, closing the door behind her.

Lafayette’s office really said nothing about him - it was all sterile chrome, beige and white, with no personal effects, although he figured that would be typical of a rigid or career military man. He was tall and broad shouldered, not in bad shape for a guy in his fifties, thinning brown hair combed back severely over a kind of anonymous face, made memorable only by his square jaw. He wondered if that opened him up to Dudley Do-Right comments. “Logan … may I call you that?”

He shrugged. “Might as well. Nothin’ else to call me.”

He nodded tersely, as if that made all the sense in the world. “Of course. Thank you for coming in. I understand your reluctance after being off the grid for so long.” Lafayette was connected to Joint Task Force Two (JTF2), part of the Special Operation Forces. JTF2 was concerned mostly with counter-terrorism, which was where this technically fell. There was very little known about JTF2, though, as it was as secretive as any part of the military-industrial-intelligence complex.

He snorted humorously, collapsing in the hard backed chair in front of his desk. “That’s a very nice way to put it.”

Lafayette sat down, keeping his posture achingly straight. His expression gave nothing away. “David told me you had some conditions.”

“Yeah. I do this my way, and this is not a permanent thing. I do the gig, completely off the books, and get the hell out. Is that understood? I’m not back in the game; I’m not one of you. Clear?”

He studied him, his eyes the color of an overcast sky. “That is acceptable. David said you weren’t really interested in coming back at all.”

“No, I wasn’t. But I checked out the scene in L.A. - it was definitely a Black Fire hit.”

He nodded tersely. “We know. We had confirmation -”

“Oh, and I have one more demand,” he interrupted, as he wanted to get it out before he forgot. It was the deal breaker; if he said no, he would walk. “I want to know what I did for you people. Supposedly the files have been destroyed, but come on - the Organization couldn’t have gotten everything.”

Lafayette got a strange look on his face, one that seemed to indicate grim amusement, and suddenly he pulled out a manila envelope from beneath a blue file on his desktop, and slid it across to him. “You were, under a succession of pseudonyms, a key operative for Canadian Intelligence; a translator, both civilian and military; and a decorated sniper for the Emergency Response Team, the paramilitary arm of the RCMP. The Organization did sadly have a plant within the Canadian government, and they were able to destroy your files, but we did find some forgotten scraps. These are all of them to date.”

His heart started beating rapidly at the mention of the word “sniper”. He knew he must have been - he had that weird knowledge and skills that had cropped up from time to time - but he couldn’t quite believe it. He took the file and glanced at the contents. It was just a single sheet of paper, giving pseudonyms, dates of “activity”, rank and citations (if any), and sometimes a thumbnail sized identification photo, to prove it was indeed him. The ERT was like the Canadian equivalent of SWAT, if he remembered correctly - they were the guys you called out for hostage situations, major league shoot outs, and other bad shit. That would explain how he knew how boring it was to be a sniper, and how he knew his guns.

He closed the file, mainly because he didn’t want Lafayette to see him getting shaken over yet another puzzle piece of his past falling into place. “So, the bombing - what do you know that I don’t?”

He raised a pale eyebrow at that, and opened his blue folder. “I suppose that depends on what you know. Security cameras caught who is most likely our bomber this time out, Mitchell Soames, a C.I.A. operative who had been in Asrahar, working under the identity of aid worker. The thing is, we have him verified in Asrahar as of ten o’clock last night.”

He didn’t even need to think about what that meant - it almost felt like he was slipping into a groove he hadn’t realized he had. “They have a teleporter.”

“Or someone of similar ability, yes, as there no way he could have gotten from Rasiva to Los Angeles in that short of time, even if there was a flight leaving at ten o’ one - and I can assure you, there wasn’t.”

"So what was Soames doing on the Metro?"

"Now that we don't know. But some reports of our bombers before detonation have them as highly disoriented."

This all felt so strangely familiar. "Telepath?"

"Perhaps. Or maybe Occam's Razor applies - perhaps they're just drugged."

"You can't tell from the blood?"

He shook his head. "Considering we have to scrape it burnt off the walls, no." Lafayette glanced down at his folder, and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Because the only Westerners who go to Asrahar these days are aid workers, journalists, and missionaries, you'll be going as Logan Chandler, a reporter for the Toronto Sun."

Logan took the piece of paper from him, mentally approving the last name Chandler - after Raymond Chandler. He suddenly wondered if it was one of the pseudonyms he used with these people; it might make sense that they'd resurrect it. "Is there a Toronto Sun?"

"There is now," he replied dryly. "Your byline has been added to several international stories on their website."

"You got that up fast."

"Anybody can create a very realistic website, given an hour's head start and a room full of techs. You were also nominated for a Pulitzer two years ago for your series on the resurgence of heroin production in Afghanistan post-Taliban."

He scoffed as he checked out the sheet, which was basically a phony C.V. and some random stats he probably ought to know for his cover. His middle name was Marlowe? Cute. "Wow - they just give those things out to anybody, huh?"

"Your cover is slightly complex for a reason. You need to tell everyone that you're in Asrahar to report on the recovery effort since the last earthquake. But the truth is you're actually there to do a story on this mysterious Black Fire cult. You may feel the need to discreetly leak that out to one or two people, as necessary."

"A cover for a cover?" He was only briefly puzzled. Again, he could feel gears kicking in, some part of his consciousness that he hadn't used in a long while; the part that could spit out words like "sitrep" and "egress", as Marc might say. "Oh, right. Because he'd be a fucking nut if he admitted it right off the bat. It'd also scream "trap"."

Lafayette nodded, lips pressed together tightly. "It'd be lethal for a real Western journalist to admit such a thing, but Black Fire themselves would see it for what it was - bait. Not that they're all that scared of discovery."

"Not if they picked a CIA agent as their latest bomb."

"Correct. They're taunting everyone now; they want us to know we can't touch them."

Logan folded up the sheet of paper, and shoved it in the front pocket of his jeans. He knew he'd have to destroy it soon, but that was easy enough - rip it to small bits and flush it down a toilet. Even the most dedicated spy wasn't going to sift through a septic tank for soggy scraps of paper. "Let them keep thinking that."

"Oh, we will. The Brits are employing members of MI-6 to the area, and while they'll be covert, we expect them to know they're in the area on their trail. The Americans are, we believe, sending the Organization in. They should keep them distracted enough that your placement will be easily overlooked, and accepted for what it is."

"Not if the Organization see me. They know who I am; I think I'm on their personal most wanted list."

He met his gaze steadily, eyes like chips of flint. "Deal with that however you see fit."

There it was - carte blanche. He was basically saying "Kill them if you want to; we don't care". Not that he needed their permission ...

"This is a ghost operation," Lafayette continued, as if he hadn't just told him he could take out America's reps with extreme prejudice. "I'm sure you know what that means as a professional ghost, but just for the record, if you are caught we will disavow all knowledge of you. Anyone who checks will not find you in our records; you were never here, and we don't know who you are."

Professional ghost? Was he referring to the fact that he'd dropped out of life for so damn long, or was that an actual job description? "Ghosts" were a special type of operative; they usually got sent in to take care of the dirty work, and leave no trace of themselves behind. Was that what he did for Canadian Intelligence? Was he, at one point, one of their ghosts? (There was Marc's explanation for how he was able to drop off the radar for so long: he was trained to do it.)

Logan nodded, getting it better than anyone. He was pretty certain now that he'd been in this situation before. Maybe there weren't that many records of him for the Organization to destroy. "I won't get caught." And if he did, Black Fire would regret it. The Organization would regret it even more.

"I'm inclined to believe you." He closed the file and paused, long enough to signal a subject change. "There's an internet cafe on the next block. I suggest you go there, have a cup of coffee, refresh your memory on Asrahar and the region. One of our people should meet you shortly, and give you your passport, visa, and other things you might find necessary for your trip. But I do need to know if you still have a preference in sidearms."

Still? That was a curious choice of word. "I don't need a gun."

"No, perhaps not, but we believe our adventurous journalist friend might smuggle one on with him for personal protection. What do you think he'd carry?"

Ah, okay - he had a point. He didn't worry about protecting himself, because he knew he could; Logan Chandler might not be so certain in his invulnerability. "How about an HK USP Compact, nine millimeter?"

Lafayette considered that. "Easy to conceal, lightweight, just expensive enough to make him feel he's getting the top of the line. Sounds good. Standard ammunition?”

He mulled that over, trying to decide what kind of person Logan Chandler was going to be. “No - hollow points. He thinks he’s macho.” He figured Chandler would be living out a personal dream to be Hemmingway, with just a touch of Hunter S. Thompson; a stupid son of a bitch who thought he was an adventurer, who thought he was doing something noble, but could only lie to himself for so long before he had to get shitfaced.

Lafayette nodded in what seemed to be approval. “You do know what you’re doing. That’s good.”

Logan shoved himself up to his feet, wondering exactly what that meant. “You think I wouldn’t?”

“I wouldn’t have agreed to bring you in if I did. It’s just that I know the Organization … did things to your mind.”

Fucked it ‘til it was oatmeal was the implication, and he supposed he should thank him for not saying it aloud. “Abrams vouched for me, yeah?”

“He did.”

“Then you know it doesn’t matter. This is a job I can do.”

Lafayette stood as well, somehow managing to keep his rigid military bearing. “Excellent. Once you arrive Asrahar, a package will be sent to your hotel room. Inside the package will be a case, and a satellite phone. If you need to get in touch with us, use it, but when not in use, I recommend you store it in the hotel safe or a safe deposit box. If anyone spies the sat phone -”

“My cover’s blown. Yeah, I know the drill.”

“Call us when you’re ready to be extracted, or need help. Any information you can give us about Black Fire will be appreciated - but we don’t expect full dossiers or warm bodies.”

Intelligence flaks really did like to talk obliquely, didn’t they? He was saying “Kill them all” without saying a single one of those words. None of them cared exactly what happened to Black Fire, as long as their threat status was reduced to zero.

Which was fine with him, because that was exactly what he intended to do, whether he got permission or not.

3

People who said it never rained in Southern California had obviously never come to see him. Angel was fairly certain a little rain cloud followed him around everywhere. He could hear the rain tapping against the window like skeletal fingers, trickling down the gutter with a sound that was almost percussive.

He would have looked outside, but it wasn’t nearly as overcast as it should have been on a rainy day. He glimpsed out the side of the blinds, but the glare hurt his eyes, and that was that. He sat behind Bren’s desk, and surfed through the files he’d kept. Because he had an eidetic memory, all his reports had an incredible amount of detail - he not only typed up their eye color, but what they’d most likely had for breakfast, and how expensive or cheap their shoes were. Bren was probably a natural detective simply because he could remember every single detail with crystal clarity. He should encourage him to try and enter the police department.

Things hadn’t been slow since the death of Ananga; they too had been dead. Which was a good thing, actually, as he’d given everybody the week off, since there was such a general upset over the temporary death of Bob. It had shaken him even, and why he wasn’t sure, because Bob had chosen to do that, he knew someone had to die and picked himself; his death was not Angel’s fault. And yet after losing everyone else in his life, it felt personal, and it felt hard. It took him a day and a half to stop feeling like shit, and he still hadn’t quite gotten over the anger.

Giles didn’t take the week off. He took a day, and then came back, even though there were no clients. Basically he’d spent the day rearranging the books according to some personal formula, looking things up, and stocking up on magical items. Giles was of the opinion they should prepare for “war”, simply because a lot of the beings Wolfram and Hart pulled in probably hadn’t gone away just because the big gun they were supposed to support was dead. They could still come after them, and probably would. The only thing holding them back was the fear of Bob - if they found out he was actually dead, they were totally screwed. Angel’s way of preparing had been to hit the auction houses and antiquaries in search of weapons and old, powerful items. The funny thing was, he’d found quite a few.

He hated waiting. He wanted to be more - oh, he shuddered to even think a buzzword - “proactive”, but so far, Wolfram and Hart had gone underground, laying low to perhaps avoid the wrath of any Powers. How long would that last, though?

Giles was out on one of his shopping trips - apparently, the magic shops were all low on dried mandrake root, which he found personally disturbing - and that’s why he was surprised when the office door opened. He almost said “Back already”, except it wasn’t Giles he smelled.

“Wow, did I walk into a funeral home by mistake?” Faith wondered, looking around before giving him a smart ass grin.

“It’s a sideline I’m considering,” he deadpanned. “What brings you here?”

She kicked the door shut and shrugged, water droplets glistening like glass beads in her dark hair. “Had nothin’ to do, figured I’d swing by and see if you guys needed some help. But I’m guessin’ not.”

He leaned back and rubbed his eyes, tired of staring at the computer screen. “Not at that moment, no. How are you doing?”

She flung herself in the chair in front of the desk, slumping down and putting one of her boots up against the desk edge, so casual she was almost comatose. “Pretty good actually. What about you? Still fumin’ about Bob?”

“No, I think I’m getting over it. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Sure, why not?”

He pushed himself up, carrying his own empty mug over to the coffee pot. According to Bren, it also had a “cappuccino function“, but he had no idea how to activate it, and was almost afraid to try. Besides, since when was plain old coffee not good enough? People were just going nuts for coffee that had precious little coffee in it. “So where is everybody?” Faith wondered.

“Bren and Naomi have the week off, unless something comes up, and Giles is out searching for mandrake root.” Since he figured she meant absolutely everyone, he went on as he searched for and found a clean mug. It was Brendan’s - it had a Far Side cartoon on it that Angel didn’t have the balls to admit he didn’t get - but since he wasn’t here, he figured Bren wouldn’t care. “Mordred went back to England, or wherever he’s from; Xander is back working on the construction site, and asked me not to ever admit knowing him - which I’m happy to do; and … well, I honestly don’t know where Logan is. Hanging around, I suppose.”

“Oh, I know where he is,” Faith said, in a strangely knowing, amused voice.

He filled both their mugs, hoping this pot of coffee was better than the last one - that tasted like graveyard dirt. “You talked to him?”

“A bit. Honestly we didn’t talk much.” She paused briefly. “He’s one of the best fucks I’ve ever had.”

Angel fumbled the mug in his hand, and nearly dropped it. When he turned to look at her, she was giving him a Cheshire Cat grin, amused by his sudden clumsiness. “You could warn a guy before you say something like that, you know.”

“What, and miss the reaction?”

He scowled at her as he gave her Bren’s mug and retreated to the other side of the desk. He really wasn’t that surprised she and Logan had gotten together in that fashion, not considering how they looked at each other when they first met. You could almost smell the hormones. “So I take it he’s recovering somewhere?”

That made her smile, eyes sparkling like this was too much fun - or he was too much fun, whichever. “Naw, he had some business in Canada to take care of, but he’ll be back soon. So tell me, how old is he really?”

He sat down and took a sip of his coffee, which was hot enough to burn his lips. He wasn’t sure it tasted any better. “What did he tell you?”

“He said he didn’t know, but he figured if he was honest, he was probably pushing a hundred. But he was yankin’ my chain, right?”

“Umm, no, not really. I’m pretty sure he’s at least one hundred years old, probably more. His healing factor severely retards the aging process, to the point where his chronological age is hard to pinpoint.”

Faith was staring at him in disbelief, her jaw slack. “Come on! You guys are shitting me!”

He shook his head, adding a small shrug. “I think Logan feels much the same way. He doesn’t like to talk about his age. The fact that he mentioned it to you is something.”

She raised her eyebrows at that. “Is it? You mean, like -”

But she never got to finish her sentence, as there was an odd noise, a sort of muffled, reversed “pop” in the back of the room, and they were both on their feet, tense and defensive, even as they saw Mordred appear out of this air.

The half-Human hybrid sorcerer looked at them both suspiciously, like he knew they really didn’t like him. “Did I interrupt a tea party?”

Angel crossed his arms over his chest, staring at him with as neutral an expression as possible. “No, we w-”

“I don’t give a toss,” he interrupted curtly, walking towards his desk. He eyed Faith warily, as if aware she could probably get a good shot in if she really wanted to. He held out a slip of paper, little more than a Post-It note. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

Angel took it, and scanned it quickly. It was just a name, Elias French, and an address for a place in Malibu. “What is this?”

“The name of the man who intends to rebuild the Circle of the Black Thorn.” Mordred turned and returned to the back of the room. “Consider this a favor you owe me.”

Before Angel could tell him to go fuck himself, Mordred had disappeared again.

Faith looked at the piece of paper with a curious look on her face. “So what does that mean exactly?”

Mordred could be lying to him, but it seemed unlikely, mostly because he would have stayed around to enjoy the show. “Trouble,” he admitted, wondering if it was time to call in the troops.

Or maybe he should just take care of this problem himself this time.