Okay, I'm going to try to set this down just the way it happened. If you think I'm crazy or delusional, just check out some of the facts. A little of it made the national news, but a lot of what I'm about to tell you no one knows but me.

I guess it really started the day we got that order from the FBI. Nothing unusual there, I worked for the now defunct McKenna Inc, and we worked for government agencies all over the world. And what did we do for these agencies? Well, we gathered information. Thanks to the computer age, almost anything you want to know is out there somewhere, if you know where to look and how to get at it.

We were a small company, and we worked out of a three-room office suite on the fifth floor of a forty story building in Manhattan. Now I live in a small town in West Mass, deep in the Berkshires, and I write fantasy novels for a living. A quiet uneventful life, but safe.

That day, the day it all started, my boss, Mr. Hutchins, the soon-to-be late Mr. Hutchins, called me into his office and shoved a folded paper into my hand. "This one is yours, Sally. Do a good job and there'll be a nice little bonus for you later."

Yeah, operative word, 'little'. Back at my desk, I unfolded the paper, studied the contents and sighed. Nothing exciting in this one. But I was the rookie here, so I couldn't expect to get the creamy assignments. No fieldwork. No company paid flights to exotic places. Just lots and lots of time on my computer checking out websites, hacking into bank accounts, personnel records, lots of phone work, sift through all the information, work up a dossier and hand it in to the boss. Blow the 'little' bonus on some new clothes and a dye job to cover my gray hairs. Pretty routine. Right?

His name was Manuel Montoya. Sure it was. He had been asked, so I learned later, by his family to change his name. That wasn't a joke. His father was the CEO of a wealthy, well-regarded Venezuelan business conglomerate. Not a bad smell anywhere.

Well, except for Manuel, and he reeked. Bad boy from the get go, bounced out of practically every private school in North and South America, he had been arrested for petty theft and aggravated assault twice before the age of fifteen. Nothing else showed up in his juvenile records. Of course, you know as well as I do that what he actually got caught at would be just the tip of the iceberg. How did I get his sealed juvenile records? My secret. All this stuff appeared under his real name, which I have promised his father never to reveal in gratitude for his having helped to save my life.

By the time he had graduated to full adult status at eighteen, he was the prime suspect in two drug-related murders, had a thriving business fencing stolen goods, and was believed to be involved in dozens of illegal operations, and he had friends and contacts in practically every known terrorist organization in the world. He was also amassing an impressive fortune when he disappeared in Rio while being chased by some really ticked off Brazilian cops. He was twenty-two.

He resurfaced a few years later as Manuel Montoya in the Colombian highlands, ensconced in a some former drug lord's bombed out fortress, rebuilt and refortified with his ill-gotten gains, a wannabe dictator with a yen to rule the world. Dime a dozen. And that's all he ever would have been, and the FBI would never have gotten so interested in him, except somebody was funding the little cretin and over the next few years some scary stuff had come down through the electronic chatter, something the feds had picked up on and wanted to know more about. Like what he was buying, who he was buying it from, and most importantly, who was putting up the wherewithal.

And that was what we did. In hindsight it might have been better if Mr. Hutchins had given the assignment to a more experienced researcher. Someone who might have realized how quickly the surveillor could become the surveillee. But there was nothing to warn me that my forays into the internet were being monitored by an outside agent, nothing to indicate that everything I downloaded was also being routed to a remote resource, nor did anyone at McKenna think to double check my connections. We had seriously underestimated Montoya and his pals.

Of course, there was my toothache to distract me, too. I was so engrossed in the unfolding drama of King Manuel's sorry empire that I ignored it, swallowing one capsule of ibuprofen after another when the pain got too bad, each day finding an excuse to put off calling my dentist. In the end it was this neglect that saved my life�the first time.

Researching Manuel was like peeling away the sections of an onion, with each succeeding layer more pungent that the one before until finally Friday morning, I put it all up on my computer screen and read it, decided I had found everything that was in the public domain, punched the print button and watched the pages drop into the tray one by one. I gathered them up and knocked on Mr. Hutchins office door, one hand pressed over my swelling, aching jaw.

I waited while he read them slowly and silently, shaking his head, and then he looked at me his face solemn, but all he said was, "You did a good job, Sally." He regarded my bulging cheek with sympathy and added. "Call your dentist and take the rest of the day off. I'll see you on Monday." And he turned back to my report reading it again, slowly, starting at page one.

But Mr. Hutchins would not see me or anybody else on Monday. My dentist worked me in immediately and it was while she was packing amalgam into a Grand Canyon-sized cavity that I heard the sirens. Lots of them; police, fire, ambulance.

"Must be a real do." My dentist mused idly, no big deal, just everyday life in the Big Apple.

When she finished with me, I headed back to my office, having had forgotten the book I was reading and wanting it for the weekend. It seemed that all Manhattan was moving in my direction, some people were running and there was an air of excitement usually lacking in city crowds. Whatever the 'real do' was, I was headed straight for it. When I saw the plume of smoke rising above the building where my office was located I began to run, too.

There was a gaping hole where the fifth floor and McKenna had been located and the police, firemen and EMTs were everywhere. I stopped, my heart hammering in my throat, and grabbed at the elbow of a man who was running past me, "What happened?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? Boiler, gas. Maybe a bomb?" His eyes glittered with excitement. "Hard to tell."

"Was�was anybody k�k�killed." I desperately wanted to hear that everybody had gotten out safely.

He looked at me incredulously. "Are you kidding, lady? The whole fifth floor went�.ka-boom. Nobody walking away from that one."

I don't know what made me decide to go home instead of telling the cops that I might be the last living employee of McKenna Inc. Some niggling little survival instinct, maybe, that suggested to me, subconsciously, that this might have something to do with the report I had given my boss that morning. Of course, at the time I thought it was just paranoia, the work of an overactive imagination. Which I got, in spades. Which is why I now write fantasy novels for a living. Under a pseudonym.

But that was what I did and it bought me a few days breathing space, before the whole world, including some very bad dudes, knew that Sally Weber of the former McKenna Inc. was alive and kicking.

At home in my apartment, I sat the whole weekend in my bathrobe, crying, glued to the television, unable to turn it off. At first, no one was trying to hide the fact that it had been a bomb and that McKenna Inc. had seemed to be the main target. That's all anybody knew and, true to form, the cable news stations did it to death. Sunday at noon it was announced that the FBI was involving itself in the investigation as a possible terrorist attack, and the news stories went suddenly quiet. Over the next few hours, I learned that the crops were failing again in North Africa, two more hopefuls had signed on as candidates in the next presidential primaries, a Hollywood fluffy was getting a divorce, there was a train wreck in Michigan, and yet another unknown dinosaur fossil had been dug up in Mexico. Nothing more was said about a bomb in mid-Manhattan. Not then, not ever.

If I had been feeling a little paranoid before, now I was now working myself into a state of true anxiety. I spent the rest of the day telling myself not to be so stupid. By midnight, I had rationalized events to the point that when my phone rang, I picked it up without a second thought. It was my mother. Geez, I had completely forgotten about my mother. She never listened to the news, and Nebraska was a long way from New York, but somehow she had learned about the disaster at McKenna. I lied to her. Hey, if you can't lie to your mother, who can you lie to?

"I'm okay, Mom," I said, making it up as I went along. "I quit working for McKenna weeks ago. That's right. Got a nice little secretarial job downtown. Where? It doesn't matter where, Mom, it's just a temp anyway and I'll be going on to a full time job somewhere else in a week or two. Huh? Oh it was gas, Mom, natural gas. You know how dangerous that stuff is. Not a bomb. No. Ha,ha, you know how people are, Mom, every time something explodes they think it's terrorists. Yes, it was tragic. No, Mom, the building I'm in now is all electric. That's right Mom. Okay. Good night, Mom. I love you."

Whew. I sat the rest of the night on the couch/bed hugging my teddy bear. I had brought him with me from home when I moved to the city. His name was Theodore. Original, huh?

I had left the television on and during the early morning news broadcast, I heard something that chilled me. It was the first broadcast I had heard since yesterday that referred to the explosion and all that was said was that it had been traced back to a gas leak. (Oh sure, the only gas outlet in the building was in the basement) and that all the dead were accounted for except for a certain Sally Weber, who had worked for McKenna Inc. and whose remains were not among those recovered.

Probably, I should have gone to the FBI right then, but it sounded so�so�melodramatic. In the end I decided to stay put and plan my next move. Like to the West Coast. But my rent was paid until the end of the month, and that dossier and what it implied bothered me. It was unlikely that Mr. Hutchins had passed the report along to the FBI before his world blew up. It was gone along with my computer, but I could spend the next few days reconstructing it to the best of my memory; shove it into an envelope and mail it to the Feds. My duty as a good citizen would be done and it would be out of my hands. Feeling like the heroine in a bad thriller, I found a notebook and a pen, and sat down at the coffee table to begin my task. Even if the explosion had had something to do with the report, it didn't occur to me in any real sense that anybody would be interested in me. I was just an insignificant junior researcher after all.

And that was why I continued the habit of eating my lunch in the fresh-air caf� across the street. A sandwich and a tall glass of iced tea, lemon, no sugar. This caf� had both waiters and a take-out window so you paid your money and made your choice. Me, I liked being waited on. Monday, promptly at noon, I worked my way across the busy street and settled at my favorite table, placed my order, and pulled a novel out of my bag, intending to spend a quiet hour reading and trying to put the horrific events of the past few days out of my head, if only for the moment.

But I was distracted by two men sitting together at a nearby table. One of them was a big guy with long chestnut brown hair and wearing a dark blue loose-knit pullover shirt opened at the neck and brown pants. He was gorgeous. The other was smaller, with a head full of unruly yellow curls and wearing faded jeans, a purple tee and a purple and white plaid shirt. Blondie seemed to be entertaining himself by teasing the heck out of Big Gorgeous Guy, who seemed to be wavering between amusement and annoyance.

Shortly after I had ordered, Blondie got up and sashayed past my table. I looked up, he looked down and then he bestowed upon me a smile so dazzling that every hormone in my body started doing the tango. Geez, and I thought I was past that sort of thing. This guy was way beyond cute, under the plaid shirt I could see that the body I had thought small, was compact, sturdily built and deliciously muscled.

He didn't speak or stop, but just kept walking toward the take-out window. I sneaked a look at Big Guy and was startled to find that he was watching me. He gave me an embarrassed, but warm smile, and looked away. Blondie passed me again a few minutes later going in the opposite direction with a tray loaded with hot dogs in buns that looked as if he had piled on super helpings of every available condiment, and two huge glasses of iced tea.

My order came and we all ate. I distinctly heard Big Guy complaining to Blondie about the amount of mustard on the hot dogs, but that was the extent of the conversation. I had the slightly uncomfortable feeling that they kept sneaking looks at me, although I couldn't catch them at it. Must have been my ravishing good looks.

The next day, at noon when I went for lunch, I was more than startled to see that they were there again, seated at the same table as if they had never left. Except that Big Guy was now wearing a green shirt and Blondie had a yellow tee under a solid purple shirt and green jeans. He looked like a big bruise.

Again, after I had settled at my table and placed my order, Blondie got up to go to the take-out. This time, the smile he gave me as he passed my table was accompanied by a wink. And this time he ordered burgers and cokes. This time Big Guy complained about the ketchup.

Wednesday, same deal. A smile and a little wave. Chicken nuggets and root beer. Big Guy complained that there wasn't enough barbeque sauce.

Enough was enough. I can't say that at this point I had made any connection between these two and what had happened at McKenna, but I was becoming more than a little nervous. Not that these guys were scary in any way, but, well, the whole thing, their being at the caf�, at the same table, at the same time every day was making me a tad edgy. Of course, Sally, you moron, you are there at the same table, at the same time every day. Well, I could fix that.

At eleven thirty on Thursday, I climbed to the second story of my apartment building and I peeked through the hall window. I could just see Big Guy's head above the hedge that screened the caf�'s patio from the street. When I tried again at twelve; they were still there. At twelve thirty, still there and again at one o'clock. The hell with it, I was starving. I could either eat at home or go to the caf� and ignore them. I crossed the street, plopped down at my usual table and signaled a waiter. My order placed, I waited, carefully not looking at Blondie and Big Guy.

Sure enough, as soon as my waiter had disappeared into the restaurant, Blondie got up and headed for the take-out. He wasn't smiling this time as he passed my table; in fact, the quick glance I got was a definitely worried one, as if I had done something alarming.

That was enough for me. I snatched up my purse and headed for the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Blondie stop in his tracks halfway to the window. He yelled something that sounded like. "hurt" and then "wait". I turned slightly but he wasn't looking at me, his eyes were scanning the street I was about to cross. A chair scraped the floor behind me as Big Guy got up and I heard him say, "is that one of them?" and Blondie answer. "I think so." And I ran.

I never saw the car until it was too late. It had been parked along the side of the road with the motor idling, and when I ran into the street, it pulled away from the curb and accelerated. I had only time enough to see it bearing down on me and the impassive face of the driver behind the wheel when something as solid as a boulder hit me, driving me forward and rolling with me away from the wheels of the automobile, which seemed to pass within inches of my head.

When the world stopped spinning and I could think again, I was lying near the curb and Blondie was sprawled on top of me. He was just as solid as he looked, but cuddly, too. It felt pretty good.

"That was close," he said. English with just the merest hint of an accent, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Something of what I was feeling must have showed in my face, because when Big Guy appeared in my range of vision, his face was a blend of anxiety and amusement. "You can let her up now," he said.

I almost snapped at him, told him to mind his own business, but I caught Blondie looking down at me with a big grin on his kisser like he could read my mind. Oh yeah, this one knew exactly what effect he was having on me and was loving it. But he sprang to his feet. So fast, I didn't even see it happen. First he was on top of me and then he was standing over me reaching down to help me up.

I let him pull me to my feet and stood dazed, clutching his hand, and wondering if it was safe to move on my wobbly legs or would I just fall flat on my face if I tried, but Big Guy wasn't going to let me linger in the street. He came up close behind me and I could have sworn he was shielding my body with his own. At least that's how I felt. Protected. "Can we go to your apartment?" he asked.

Now even a dumb little girl from Nebraska knows not to let strange men into her apartment. My reluctance must have showed on my face, because they assumed identical postures of innocence and guilelessness, which, thinking about it now, looked quite funny. These guys didn't come from around here; that was for sure. There was nothing of the pallid city dweller about them. They were well-built, clean and healthy-looking, perfectly conditioned, and they moved with a natural grace you don't get no matter how much you work out in a gym. Their tanned flesh was smooth and golden as if they were used to outdoor living in a softer, warmer climate, and their eyes were clear and steady and blue and� Okay Sally, down girl.

Making up my mind wasn't the hard part. It was finding my keys. My purse had gone flying when Blondie tackled me. We found it in the road where it had been run over a few times, but my keys were undamaged. Big Guy kept hopping around behind me, keeping his body between me and whatever, and looking as if he expected Godzilla to appear over the rooftops at any moment, but finally we got inside the building and he relaxed. A little.

He still hovered restlessly as I fumbled in the lock with a key that had suddenly seemed to grow a couple of extra notches. Blondie leaned against the wall waiting patiently, completely at ease, but watchful, like a cat. Blondie was almost always completely at ease, but watchful, like a cat. Big Guy was watchful, too, and very cautious, but usually in a state of either high or low anxiety. After I got to know Blondie better, I understood why.

Big Guy shut the door behind us and locked it. That made me a little uneasy until I looked at Blondie who was watching me with that dazzling grin on his face again, and I reflected that being ravished might have gotten a bad rap.

But ravishing me, willing or not, was definitely not what was on their minds. Big Guy searched the apartment thoroughly; peeking into the one small closet, behind the furniture, under the couch and even opening the oven door, while Blondie stood to one side of the window and peered through the curtain. Just like in the movies.

"See anything?" Big Guy looked up from where he was on his knees examining the kitchen cabinets.

"Nothing suspicious."

"Good, let's hope they didn't see us come in here."

Huh? Let's hope 'who' didn't see�who were these guys anyway and what in blazes was going on here? I asked, but all I got in response was an enigmatic smile from Big Guy.

My apartment was small. One bedsitting room, a kitchen alcove and a postage stamp bath. And I was not the tidiest of housekeepers. They seemed not to mind or even to notice. Blondie moved some books, magazines, a pile of clothes, a pot of macaroni and cheese (how did that get there?) from my couch/bed, pushed Theodore to one side and made himself at home with his hands locked behind his head and his boots on the coffee table. I didn't complain; that's the way I sat, too, and his boots were clean. I stood in the archway of the kitchen, not sure what I should be doing. Offer them something? Coffee, tea, me? Big Guy paced back and forth for a while, obviously deep in thought, and then stopped in front of me.

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves," he said.

Okay. That was a good place to start. "I'm Sal�"

"Sally Weber. Yes, we know." Big Guy said, scaring the heck out of me. Okay, this wasn't a casual encounter, then. Like that hadn't already occurred to me. "I'm Jim and he's Bob."

"Hey!" There was a squawk of protest from the couch. "You were Jim last time. It's my turn. You be Bob."

Big Guy looked like there was nothing he'd like better than to debate the virtues of being Jim or being Bob with Blondie. In fact, I got the impression that this sort of banter was an intrinsic part of their relationship. But there just wasn't time right now. "Okay, okay. You're Jim." Big Guy, I mean Bob, looked back at me. "Do you know why that guy in the car was trying to kill you?"

There nothing like being blunt to give a girl a heart attack. When my poor ticker settled back into its normal rhythm again, I managed to gabble out, "K�k�kill me? T�t�that was an accident�wasn't it?" I looked first, at Big Guy, then Blondie. Or Bob and Jim. Neither was smiling. "Okay, so it wasn't. You tell me? Why would anyone want to kill me?"

Big Guy didn't believe in beating around the bush. "You were the one who prepared the report on Manuel Montoya." Not a question, a statement of fact.

"Would you like some coffee?" My voice, falsely bright, sounded loud in the silence. Big Guy almost smiled.

Almost. "No thank you. Did you keep a copy of the report?"

All business. I could do that. "No. The hard copy and the computer and the backup disc were all in the office when it�ah�blew up."

"But you remember the details?"

I opened my mouth to reply and then snapped it shut again, remembering I didn't know these guys and they hadn't even given me their right names. It might be better at this point to keep what I knew to myself.

But Blondie/Jim had seen the notebook on my coffee table and was craning his neck to read it without actually being so rude as to pick it up. "Herc. Over here."

Herc? What kind of a name was Herc? Bob aka Herc crossed the room in two long strides, well it was a small room, and dropped down beside Blondie. He had no such compunction about picking up my reconstructed report on Manuel Montoya and reading it. I could have tackled him, I suppose, to reclaim my property, but that might have turned out to be more fun than useful.

When he finished he looked up at me and his face was grim. "This is all true?"

"To the best of my knowledge. My sources were quite reliable."

He had exactly the same expression of his face that Mr. Hutchins had had, "What were you planning to do with this?"

"Ah, send it to the FBI?"

He smiled then, a warm approving smile and I felt all fuzzy inside like a little girl who had done something to please her favorite adult�of the male persuasion. He really was gorgeous.

"Good. I think it would be best if we delivered it personally."

"By we, I guess you mean you and him." 'Jim' grinned at me. "You don't need me, right?" So why did I feel so disappointed?

But the 'Herc' guy was shaking his head. "You're not safe here. It'd be better if you came with us."

I had just opened my mouth to inquire why I wasn't safe in my own apartment, when the answer burst through the window. I swear, even before the glass exploded, Blondie was on the move. He caught me around the waist and shoved me to the floor, covering me with his own body. Getting shot at does have an upside. I heard a loud crack as the mirror on the opposite wall erupted into a thousand pieces and some of the knickknacks scattered about the room suddenly flew into the air, shattering before they fell to the floor

Drive-by shootings aren't exactly unheard of in the city, but you never expect they will happen to you, especially less than an hour after someone has tried to flatten you with a Caddy. The light bulb finally went on. Obviously, I would be better off with these guys, whatever they were up to, rather than running around on my own with a big bulls-eye painted on my butt. Blondie had saved my life twice already and I had no objection if he wanted to make it a life work.

The echoes of the automatic rifle were now ringing in my ears, but I had heard nothing prior to the shattering of the window. "How did you know?" I asked Blondie astonished as he helped me up. He either had the ears of a fox or he could outrun bullets.

"Two thousand years of experience."

"Huh?"

"Is now a good time to tell her, Herc?"

'Herc' was picking himself up from the floor behind the coffee table where he had taken refuge. "Better wait until we're in the car, Iolaus, or else we'll never get her to go with us."

"And that's supposed to mean�what?" I asked Blondie, who now seemed to have acquired yet another name. Iolaus.

"It means you're gonna think we're a coupla of nut jobs." He answered with a grin.

Too late. But I would cast my fate to the wind and a change of underwear in a duffel bag and go with them anyway.

Strangely, there was no uproar from the rest of the tenants. No one called or came to inquire if I were all right. But this was New York and folks tended to feel safer if they minded their own business. No one called the police either, apparently, for none showed up during the rest of the afternoon and my heroes didn't seem to think it necessary to call them.

It was mid afternoon by then and Big Guy decided we should wait until just before dark. I made some sandwiches and coffee and we ate. Blondie had quite an appetite for such a little, I mean compact guy, but then, I guess you got to feed up that kind of energy. I found the remains of a chocolate cheesecake cake; it was a little stale, but that didn't stop Blondie from scaffing it down. He was still hungry, but Big Guy put his foot down about going out for doughnuts.

The rest of the afternoon went by too quickly. We were starting to feel like a family. I finished up my notes on the Montoya report, adding more details as I ferreted them out of my memory. Big Guy watched the news on TV for a while and then switched to a soccer match. Blondie took a shower, emerging from the bathroom only after all the hot water was gone, wearing nothing but a blue towel tied around his waist, and looking like a cute, wet puppy as he shook water drop out of his curls. Big Guy looked up from the soccer game and frowned. I fanned myself with my latest issue of Oxygen

"What??" Blondie asked, innocently, "I'm decent."

"That's debatable." Big Guy snorted.

"I gotta wait for my skin to dry off." Blondie gave his friend a toothy grin and went to see if he had missed anything in the frig on his first go-round. I debated offering to dry that golden skin for him, but somehow managed to keep my mouth shut.

Finally, Big Guy got up, stretched, snapped off the TV and announced that it was time to go. Blondie had just come back from the bathroom fully dressed, and I picked up my duffel bag, which contained just one change of clothes, a comb and a toothbrush, plus the all important notebook. Something told me it might be a good idea to travel light.

We stopped in the hall where 'Herc' told 'Iolaus' to get the car.

"You mean, you're gonna let me drive?" he grinned, his face lit up with surprise and anticipation.

"Only because if they're still out there, you have a better chance of getting to the car and back then I do. You're smaller, faster, and harder to hit."

"Key?" Blondie held out his hand.

"We don't have the key any more." Big Guy reminded him. "You'll have to start it the old-fashioned way."

"The key was in it when we got it." Blondie insisted.

"You lost it, remember? When you were taking a bath in the fountain in Central Park."

"Oh yeah, I forgot."

Before I could make any sense out of this at all, he was gone.

"What were you doing in Central Park? Besides bathing, I mean." I asked Big Guy to pass the time while we waited.

He seemed to be on the alert, listening�for what? Gunshots? But he answered me. "We're camping there. We always stay there when we're in New York."

Camping? Well, for sure, why did I have to ask? Did I really think Mr. Clean and Mr. Green would do something as decadently normal as putting up at the Waldorf?

"No one in his right mind would camp in Central Park."

"It was Iolaus' idea. He loves the place. Says it's the only place in the city where he can fish, although the fish there are really pitiful. But there are a lot of nice quiet spots to camp especially near the Meer."

It was Iolaus' idea. Figures. Before I could recite a laundry list of excellent reasons why one didn't hang out in those 'nice quiet spots' especially after dark, I heard the screech of brakes outside the door. No gunshots though, so I guessed the baddies had either gone or were waiting for bigger game. Like me.

The car was a canary yellow Prius. Two door. Big Guy peeked out and surveyed the neighborhood. He sure was the cautious type. Then he pulled me into the crook of his arm and ran me to the car, yanked open the passenger door, slammed up the front seat and tumbled me, all in one motion, into the back. Then he pushed the front seat back and hopped in, and even though he ducked, he whacked his head pretty hard.

"Gods damned car," he muttered.

Blondie seemed to find this hilarious.

"Next time get a bigger one," Big Guy growled.

"Hey, this is fine�for us normal sized-people." Blondie looked back at me. "You fine?"

"Fine," I muttered still trying to twist around so that I could face forward. The back seat was designed for a six-year-old, and a small one at that. It already held two packs, one a blue and black L.L.Bean carryall, very neat and tidy and, the other, a grungy-looking brown knapsack of indeterminate origins. It wasn't hard to figure out which belonged to who�whom.

"Okey - doke, let's go." He threw the Prius into gear and floored it.

"Hey," I shrieked, "Wait for the�."

Blondie yanked the wheel around without looking back and gunned the little car into the street. Brakes squealed, horns blew, and I could hear angry shouts from other drivers.

"�the traffic to clear." I finished lamely.

Blondie laughed. "I love driving. Especially in the city." He passed a car barely missing the oncoming traffic and I closed my eyes and bit my lip, trying not to scream.

"Do you have a license?" I asked when I could breathe again.

"A license for what?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.

"Oh god."

I expected Big Guy to make some sort of protest, but he was calmly checking the rear view mirrors.

"Well?" Blondie asked him.

"I'm not sure. There's a blue Chevy that might be following us."

"Good guys or bad guys?"

"Just how many people do you expect to be following us?" I wanted to know.

"You never can tell." Big Guy looked over his shoulder and smiled at me.

Okay. Cryptic. But I gathered that I was not in any immediate danger of being riddled by bullets. And there were a lot of questions I wanted answers to before we carried this little adventure any further. I knew this had something to do with Manuel Montoya, but that was all. "So who are you? Who are you working for? And how do I fit into this?" Not too likely these two sexy hunks just dropped out of the sky to rescue a damsel in distress. Then again�

"Green Ford. Two cars back." Big Guy was looking into his side mirror.

"What happened to the blue Chevy?"

"Turned off."

Was it my imagination or were they ignoring my questions? Okay, I'd just keep bugging them until they coughed up some information.

"So, are you going to tell me your real names? I mean, now that I'm in a two-door car, can't jump out when I panic or do I have to guess? Like Twenty Questions."

"I like Twenty Questions." Blondie grinned at me in the rear view mirror. But his eyes slid past mine and I guessed that they were locking onto the green Ford that was following us.

Figures. "Give me a hint."

"Okay. Who's your favorite Greek hero?"

"Jason," I answered quickly. "You know, the Argonaut guy."

They exchanged grins. "We know Jason, the Argonaut guy." Blondie giggled. "Wait 'til the next time we visit him in the Fields. He'll get a kick out of knowing, there's a foxy babe two thousand years in the future who thinks he's a hero."

Nobody but nobody has ever called me a foxy babe before. I was so distracted that I almost lost the thread of our conversation. I was also starting to think these guys were seriously nuts. "Would anybody care to explain that to me?"

"Sure. Jason's not alive. Hasn't been for over two thousand years. He's in the Elysian Fields, and we visit him, oh every year or so. Okay?" Blondie turned around in his seat to see my reaction, which was the same as his companion's, we both yelled at him to watch the road. Which he did, just in time to avoid piling into the rear end of a Lexus.

"He's dead, you mean?" I asked, after my heart had calmed down.

"Shhh," Blondie said glancing at his companion. "Herc doesn't like the 'd' word. Brings back bad memories."

"Oh sorry," I said, and then added. "What kind of a name is Herc?"

"Short for Hercules. That was the answer to the first clue. Ever heard of him?"

"Who hasn't? But I asked you to tell me your real names."

"You got 'em. He's Hercules and I'm Iolaus."

"Hercules I know, who's Iolaus?"

Iolaus sighed. "You'd think after two thousand years�"

I searched my memory. I had taken a course in Ancient Greece in college and the name rang a bell. Faintly. Oh yeah� "a guy named Iolaus helped Hercules slay the hydra. In some versions he was his nephew and in others, his lover. You were named after him?"

"Getting warmer."

"Okay, you're spies and Hercules and Iolaus are your code names?"

"Nope."

"This is some kind of role-playing game? You pretend to be heroes and then go out and find someone to rescue and I happen to be it?" The Prius' back windows were very small and I didn't think I could squeeze through and besides we were in heavy traffic.

"Not exactly."

"Well, what is it? Exactly."

"He is Hercules and I am Iolaus."

"The real ones."

"The real ones." 'Iolaus' looked back and shot a radiant smiled my way, imperiling us once again as the little Prius snapped at the heels of a white delivery truck. "Where's that green Ford, Herc?"

"Still two cars back and holding. Watch the road."

"Okay, as soon as it's dark, we'll lose him."

"You're in a bright yellow Prius; you don't exactly blend. How do you expect to lose him?" I snapped. I was pretty miffed. In the past few days I had nearly gotten blown up, run over and shot and these two jokers were playing name games with me.

"You'll see." Something in my tone made Blondie glance back quickly and then he turned his attention to the road. "You are safe with us, you know." He said softly.

Safe. Yeah, he was right. I did feel safe with them. "Okay," I sighed, "You're Hercules and Iolaus, two ancient Greeks come to the future to rescue me from danger, and you're taking me to Washington, to the FBI. In a yellow Prius."

"Close, but still no cigar. We're not going to Washington in the Prius, Herc'll get carsick, and we didn't�"

Hercules, if that was really his name, laid a hand on Iolaus' arm. "Maybe we'd better leave the rest for later. No sense pushing our luck."

"'Kay."

We had been wheeling up and down streets for close to an hour, crossing the bridge into Manhattan at one point, and the green Ford never left us. It was fully dark now. The afternoon rush was over and the evening rush was just beginning. You didn't get any breaks between rushes in New York. Iolaus eased the car away from the busy main streets into the less traveled sidestreets. For a guy who wasn't from here, he sure seemed to know his way around the city.

He drove like a pro. What I had perceived at first to be a brazen recklessness was actually supreme confidence in his own abilities combined with bold fearlessness and raw courage. I found out later that that was pretty much how Iolaus approached everything he did.

He wove the little Prius expertly in and out of the thinning traffic, the Ford keeping pace with him, always being careful to stay at least two cars lengths behind. We had just turned a corner onto another street and two blocks ahead was an intersection with a green light. Iolaus glanced at his companion. "Now?"

"Good place as any." He pulled down his shoulder belt and snapped it. That seemed like a good idea so I did the same. Iolaus didn't bother. He put a few cars between us and the Ford and gunned the Prius, jockeying the little car around the right hand corner of the intersection practically on two wheels just after the light had turned red and directly in front of a Lincoln entering from the cross street. The Lincoln's driver laid on the horn, but Iolaus paid no attention and sent the Prius racing ahead passing everything in front of him, usually on the right-hand side, until he reached the next intersection. Another hair-raising right turn, a heart-stopping left and Iolaus slowed the Prius to a crawl. All three of us scanned the street. The Ford was nowhere to be seen.

"In here." Hercules pointed to the entrance of an alley.

The alley was pitch black, not a speck of light filtering into it, but when I pointed out that it was a dead end, the guys ignored me. After a quick look back to make sure the Ford was still out of sight, Hercules nodded and Iolaus rammed the little Prius into the alley at full throttle. Halfway to the end, he double-clutched and pulled the wheel sharply to the left. The Prius did a perfect 180 in the center of the alley and it only scrapped the enclosing walls a little. Iolaus drove forward, parked the little car behind a handy dumpster, turned out the lights, switched off the ignition and we waited quietly.

Not five minutes later, we saw the Ford drive by the opening slowly, and ten minutes later it drove by again going in the opposite direction.

"We go?" Iolaus asked.

Hercules hesitated, as if he were thinking. "Wait." He said. I had already decided he was the plan man in this odd twosome. Iolaus was the guy who did the fun stuff.

Half an hour later the Ford drove by again, this time going a little faster.

"Persistent, aren't they?" Iolaus said.

"Uh huh, but now, hopefully, they think we've lost them. What they do next depends on how many of them there are. They might stake out Sally's apartment, but that's okay, we're not going back there. I'm pretty sure they know what we've got and what we plan to do with it, so they might watch the all the nearby FBI offices and maybe send someone to Washington, although I'm pretty sure they don't know exactly who we are going to see. Or they might search every alley and side street in this part of town. That would take a long time and they could run into some pretty nasty vermin, and I'm not talking about the rats."

"Speaking of which, maybe we'd better head out before some of that vermin finds us." Iolaus peered around the alley, but it was too dark to see anything. He had already taken the precaution of locking the doors.

"Good idea," Hercules said and I agreed. Dark alleys are not the most restful places to be.

Iolaus drove without lights to the head of the alley and Hercules got out to scope the streets.

"Do you think that's wise? For him to be out there, I mean?" I asked Iolaus.

"Huh," he snorted and gave me an look like I'd said something screamingly funny. "I thought you'd studied Greek History or.uh�Mythology in school."

"So?"

"So? What was Hercules famous for?"

"His strength. Oh. But don't you think that's carrying fantasy a little too far. He could get hurt going around thinking he's the strongest man on earth."

Iolaus thought that was even funnier.

Hercules climbed back into the car somehow managing to avoid whacking his head again. "All clear."

"Okay. Where to?"

He looked around the tiny Prius and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "We need a decent car to drive to Washington. I'm not going on the freeway in this tin can."

"Hey, this is an environmentally responsible vehicle. It gets 50 miles per gallon on the open road."

"Before or after you get flatten by a semi? We need something bigger. How about that Thunderbird you liked so much?"

Iolaus snorted. "That thing's over forty year old and a gas hog!"

"All the better." Hercules smiled slyly, "Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight."

I had expected another tire squealing performance, but Iolaus drove with perfect decorum, crossing into the Bronx, stopping at all signal lights, obeying the signs; making an effort not to attract any unwanted attention. Hercules kept an eye out for the Ford or any other car that might seem a little too interested in us. We wound our way through a labyrinth of residential streets until Iolaus parked the car in a small lot near an upscale neighborhood and near a three-bay garage. He switched off the ignition and quietly opened his door.

"Need any help with the alarm?" Hercules asked.

"Nah. I'm on it." It took Iolaus only seconds to disable the alarm system, pick the lock of the garage, quietly slide up one of the doors and disappear into the interior. Apparently, he had had a lot of experience with this sort of thing.

"You're stealing a car?" I hissed at Hercules. And they had seemed like such nice boys.

He started to answer, but Iolaus came back into view and beckoned to us.

"All clear, let's go. Hand me out the packs " He stood by the car while I climbed out, not too happy about the impending grand theft auto charge I could see in my immediate future, but not really having any other options either. Maybe I could plead insanity.

It was a bright blue 1960 T-bird with oceans of gleaming chrome, wire wheels, continental kit and what I am sure attracted Iolaus to this particular car, a customized paint job featuring winged dragons, in full flight along the front fenders, midnight blue scaled creatures with sapphire eyes and great jets of yellow and orange flame billowing from their fanged jaws. Not really the sort of car not to attract attention in, but that didn't seem to worry the guys at all.

It had been backed into the garage and sat facing the bay, poised for flight. Iolaus politely opened the door for me and ushered me in rather grandly into the back, and then slid behind the wheel. Hercules took up a position behind the car and Iolaus put the gear stick into neutral.

If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't have believed what happened next. Hercules pushed the T-bird out of the garage, no big deal, even I could have done that, but the street was a long gradual slope and I thought, of course, we'd coast down the road until we ran out of hill, Iolaus would do his hot wire act and we'd be on our merry way. But our way lay uphill and Hercules, a linear-thinking guy if there ever was one, apparently decided if that was our direction that's the way he was going. Now the T-bird was not the biggest car than came out of the early 60's when cars were built along the lines of yachts, but it was no damned compact either, and it was built heavy. Hercules walked that sucker all the way to the top of the incline with no more effort than if he had been pushing a baby buggy.

When he climbed into the passenger seat, he wasn't even breathing hard. "How�?" I stammered, my mouth gaping open.

He grinned good-naturedly. "Technique."

Some technique.

Iolaus hot-wired the car so quickly and expertly I didn't even realize what he was doing until the T-bird roared into life. It was a damned good thing we had taken the precaution of putting some distance between us and its point of origin. The engine, a souped up V-8, was probably waking up babies in Connecticut, certainly it splintered the night air of this quiet neighborhood.

The guys exchanged looks. "Well," Iolaus said sheepishly, "I never did hear the thing running."

"I think," Hercules said archly. "we'd best be leaving�now."

"Gotcha." Iolaus slid the automatic gearstick into drive, hit the accelerator and the T-bird took off like a rocket. Iolaus grinned. "Cool."

Hercules sighed.

"You know, the people in those houses must have hear that." I yelled, picking myself up from where I had been thrown against the back of the car and long past patience with these idiots. "And the owner of this boat is probably calling the cops right now. You won't be hiding this bird behind a dumpster." I was trying to find a comfortable spot in what passed for a back seat in this monstrosity.

"Chill, Sally." Iolaus said, reasonably. "No way, that guy's calling the police."

"And why the hell not?" I asked acidly. "You stole his car."

"That guy's wanted on seven warrants in three states including this one for a lot of really, really bad stuff. Including murder"

"Oh that's just ducky. You realize you left your Prius back there. He may not call the cops, but if�no�when he traces that car back to you, we'll have a murderer on our trail along with the rest of the crowd."

"Well, yeah, that could have happened, if the Prius had belonged to us."

"Oh, god. Did you steal that, too?"

"From a drug dealer. Small timer. The big wheels drive Mercedes."

"So you steal cars just from bad guys." I snorted. "Just a couple of saintly Robin Hoods."

"Hey, he was a nice enough fellow," Iolaus said, "for a wussy rich kid, but he was no saint. His father was afraid he wasn't going to amount to much so that's why he asked me to give the kid archery lessons. He was a natural. Ramped up the poor kid's confidence no end and when his world needed a hero, there he was and he became�a legend�just like us." And he giggled.

"Liked his mead a little too much, though." Hercules said disapprovingly.

"Drunk as a skunk when he split that arrow and won that contest." Iolaus agreed. "Just goes to show you."

Just what that went to show me he didn't explain, but this was carrying fantasy a little too far. At times these two sounded perfectly normal and then they'd go off on something like this. It was time to get the subject back on track.

"You guys ever hear of Rent-a-Car?"

"Well, yeah, but they always want you to bring it back�in good condition�and that doesn't happen to us very often. Besides you need a driver's license to rent a car."

Considering the dents in the Prius from its close encounter with the buildings along the sides of the alley, I could see his point. "Neither of you has a license?"

"No, why should we?" Iolaus settled comfortably into the cozy bucket seat the Ford Company had nicely provided for the driver. "We can drive just fine without one."

By this time we had reached the freeway and the T-bird was barreling down the road at what seemed to be a great rate of speed. Now I know these big cars sometimes seem to be going faster than they really are, but the fluorescent road signs were whizzing by at a pretty steady blur. I peered over Iolaus' shoulders at the speedometer and nearly wet my pants when I saw the needle lying on the right hand side at 110. Hercules saw it too, and said rather mildly, I thought, considering the circumstances. "Uh, Iolaus, that's miles, not kilometers."

"Oh." Iolaus let up on the gas a bit and the car slowed gradually to a point between 75 and 80. "Sorry. I thought that seemed a little fast."

"Want me to take over the driving?"

"No way. We want to get to Washington before next week. Herc drives like a little old lady," he confided to me, glancing over his shoulder. Obviously he's never heard of the little old lady from Pasadena.

"Okay," 'Herc" told him, sounding resigned, "but try to keep the speed down, okay."

Oh yeah, I can imagine the ensuing scene if we should get stopped for speeding. But if Hercules was going to keep an eye on Iolaus and Iolaus was going to watch the road, I decided it was time for Sally to catch some zzzzs. The events of the day (had it only been twelve hours since Iolaus had knocked me out of the way of that Caddy?) were finally ganging up on me and I was exhausted. I made a nest as best I could in the back using our packs for cushions. I thought I would probably lie awake, but lulled by the steady drone of the T-bird's engine and the creamy-smooth ride of the car, I fell asleep almost instantly.

I awoke to the sound of voices arguing. The guys were at it again. The sun was up and we were on a road lined with small plazas and strip malls.

"Where are we," I asked sleepily.

"Hi. Welcome back." Hercules broke off his conversation with Iolaus and smiled back at me. He must have been awake all night, but he looked as fresh as a daisy. Iolaus was still in the driver's seat, so I guessed Hercules never did manage to get the wheel away from him. "We're in D.C., but it's too early for Reggie to be in his office. We're deciding where to have breakfast."

"Who's Reggie?"

"Micky D's" This from Iolaus.

"Reggie is Micky D's?" I asked, my brain still fogged from sleep.

"Reggie is an FBI friend of ours. I called him when we first arrived in New York. He's in the loop on the Montoya case and we're taking the notes to him." Hercules added emphatically to his friend. "No McDonald's. I want to go some place where we can get a decent meal, fresh cooked, bacon, eggs, home fries, hotcakes, home-made muffins. You know, the good stuff?" He was scanning the sides of the street. "There."

We were passing a small cluster of office building and commercial businesses and tucked amidst these was a small eatery called "Sally's Homestyle Diner" and in the window a sign proclaimed that "Breakfast Served Until Eleven. "Sally's Diner. Serendipity. This okay with everyone?"

"Okay, by me," I said. "Just don't blame me if the food's terrible."

Iolaus cheerfully agreed, opting for Sally's with the same alacrity he displayed in stumping for McDonald's. Food was food as far as he was concerned.

The food was excellent, perfectly cooked and plentiful. Hercules ordered bacon, home fries, and scrambled eggs with a blueberry muffin; I ordered oatmeal, toast with jelly and orange juice. Iolaus wolfed down a double platter of bacon and eggs, a stack of toast and a heap of fries. Then he ordered the largest sized serving of hotcakes with butter and real maple syrup. Hercules made no comment and I suspected this was his usual breakfast fare.

"So tell me about Reggie." I said as Hercules and I waited for Iolaus to finish his hotcakes. This was my show, too, and I thought I ought to know all the players as well.

"We have dealt with him before. He can be trusted, and if we're lucky our friends haven't gotten on to him yet and we can get to him without any trouble." Hercules glanced at the clock on the wall. "He should be in by now; I'm going to call his office and let him know we're here." He got up and went to a pay phone near the restaurant entrance. I amused myself watching Iolaus mopping up the last of the syrup with the last pieces of hotcake, wondering where the heck he put it all. He must have an elastic stomach or maybe that hollow leg my mother was always going on about when I ate too much.

After a brief conversation on the telephone, Hercules returned. "Okay, let's go. Reggie's waiting for us." He was still being cautious though and gave the parking lot a visual going over before they tucked me between them and ran to the car. There was a crowd of teenagers circling it, admiring the oh-so-esoteric dragons and Iolaus shooed them away with such good-humored amiability that they actually left without argument, insults, obscenities or any of the other things teens usually do when confronted by unreasonable adults. He would have made a great child psychologist�or juvie officer.

Reggie's office was in a small brick building tucked among a lot of other small brick buildings, all branch offices for low-echelon employees of government agencies. It was sort of like finding your way around a sixties housing development; it was a good idea to come home sober. But Hercules and Iolaus knew exactly where to go. Iolaus parked the T-bird as close to the door as he could, which happened to be squarely across a walkway that bisected a well-tended lawn, and Hercules pushed me quickly into the building, Iolaus sauntering casually behind with his trademark what-me-worry? grin on his face.

It was a typical waiting room, whether you were visiting your broker, your dentist or your congressperson, complete with cheap furniture and bored receptionist. Iolaus stopped just inside the door and leaned against the wall, positioning himself so that he could see the entire room and everybody in it. I waited with him while.Hercules approached the receptionist.

He leaned over the desk and spoke to her; she looked up, indifferent, probably planning to give him a hard time, until she got a good look at him. I really can't put my finger on the change that comes over some women when unexpectedly confronted by a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Maybe it's the body language or the slight pinking of the cheeks or the subtle altering of facial features. Anyway, I could almost hear her heart beginning to beat faster and feel her knees turning to jelly as she smoothed back her already stiff, flawless hairdo and reached for the interoffice phone.

Reggie met us at his office door looking as if he expected a horde of terrorists, thugs and other criminal types to be hot on our heels. Another worry-wart type, he and Hercules should get on like a house afire. "Tom. Dick. It's good to see you again." He ushered us into the office, and after a quick glance up and down the hallway, shut the door.

Tom and Dick. Well okay. I wondered which was which, or to be more precise who was going to be whom. I guess I would blow their cover if I asked so I would have to listen and find out.

Hercules did the introduction thing. "Sally, this is Reggie Pillsbury, Reggie, Sally Weber."

I managed not to snicker; Reggie did resemble the Pillsbury doughboy somewhat. A pale office type, slightly overweight with a puffy face, sandy hair and freckles. But his eyes were soft and kind behind his rimless glasses and his welcoming smile was warm. I decided I was going to like Reggie.

He showed me to a chair and settled himself behind his desk. Hercules and Iolaus sat down and we all looked at each other.

"Coffee?" Reggie asked politely.

"No thanks, we've eaten." Hercules answered. "Um, Sally, the notebook?"

Oh! It was me we were all waiting for. I hastily pulled the book out of my bag and handed it to Hercules, who immediately handed it to Reggie. We all waited patiently while he read the report, turning the pages with agonizing slowness. Finally he looked up, his eyes roved from Hercules to Iolaus and then settled on me. "Where did you get this information?"

Well, where I had gotten most of it were places I wasn't supposed to be, and this was the FBI I was talking to. I gulped and shook my head. Reggie seemed to understand as he smiled softly. "Maybe we should offer you a job." He looked up at Hercules. "If Manuel Montoya should decide to use this weapon, he could create a lot of misery and death. Do you have any idea where he's hiding it?"

Hercules cleared his throat. "Senor�er�our sources tell us that there is an underground bunker at Montoya's hideout. That would seem to be the logical place."

"I'll have our satellite people get on it. We must be sure. If he should get to it before we do�well, you know bio weapons are easy to hide and almost impossible to locate. We'll only get one shot at this."

"And then what?" Iolaus wanted to know.

Reggie shook his head. "I don't know. Any force of any size we send into those mountains would be detected long before they could secure the bunker. We'll have to play it by ear after we get the satellite reports. Unless, of course, you know where we could whistle up a one-man army in a hurry."

Hercules and Iolaus exchanged glances. Hercules rolled his eyes and Iolaus giggled. "Would you settle for a two-man army?"

That was the point at which I was summarily removed from earshot. Apparently this was a need-to-know deal and I didn't need to know. Reggie stowed me in an inner office about the size of a walk-in closet and told me to stay put. Of course, I tried to listen through the door, but it was soundproofed. So I cooled my heels, first sitting at the tiny desk and then pacing back and forth across the floor. It was a very small room and that got old fast. I jumped when finally I heard the doorknob rattle and Hercules and Iolaus walked in. Their faces were solemn and regretful.

"Sally," Hercules said to me. "Reggie is going to look after you. We feel you are no longer in any danger; you only need to be cautious. He has a place here for you to stay, and in a few days, someone from the New York bureau will go with you to your apartment to pick up your things. The Bureau will help you find a new place and a new job."

"And a new name and identity?" I asked warily. The Witness Protection Program. Wow! How was I ever going to explain this to my mother?

But he shook his head. Apparently my fate was not going to be so dramatic. "No, that won't be necessary. Just relocation, that's all. No one will be looking for you. Just don't do anything to attract unwarranted attention."

Like bathing in the fountain at Central Park? Okay.

"Sally," Hercules grabbed me and gave me a big hug. It was sort of like being squeezed by a boa constrictor. "It was nice to have met you."

"Same here." Iolaus stepped up to say goodbye with a hug and a warm kiss that left me feeling all squishy inside. He stepped back and smiled at me, his blue eyes full of love and concern.

I did manage to stumble out a few words of good-bye, although for the life of me, I cannot remember them now. I could just look at the two of them, my heart sinking into my shoes. Just like that�my big adventure was over. No more hair-raising car chases, no more heart-stopping rescues, stealing cars, no more having the most fun I'd ever had, with the craziest, loveliest guys I had ever met, and being more scared than I had ever been in my whole life.

I sat alone after they had gone back into the main office, feeling the tears sting my eyes, and telling myself not to be so stupid. I was lucky to have gotten through this business without getting killed and I should be grateful that it was over. But I wasn't. I was never going to see my two wonderful heroes again and all I wanted to do was howl out my disappointment. There was a big box of tissues on the desk, how many weepy females did Reggie stash in here, anyway? I helped myself to a handful and had a good cry.

When Reggie came to get me later, I had composed myself pretty well, but my eyes must still have been pink. If he noticed he didn't say anything. The main office was empty; the guys had disappeared as if they had never been. I didn't inquire concerning their whereabouts and Reggie didn't offer any information. When we left the building, I noticed the T-bird was gone.

It was noontime and he bought me lunch at a nearby caf�. We chatted about the weather, family, my future plans, his dog, whatever came up. I decided Reggie was a sweetie, maybe not as dashing as my former companions, but he'd do. I even got as far as wondering if he were married; he wore no ring, but it seemed rather dumb to ask.

After lunch, he drove me to a multi-family house in the suburbs and walked me to an apartment near the rear of the building. He unlocked the door and handed me the key, telling me he would look in on me that evening and gave me a phone number where I could reach him if I needed anything. Then he left. Less than two minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Thinking he had forgotten to tell me something, I yanked it open. Well okay, I was new at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff and the guys did tell me I was no longer in any danger. Which just goes to show you how much they knew.

The man standing at the door was definitely not Reggie. He was lean, lanky with greasy black hair and a mustache like a villain out of a western movie. I started to shut the door, but he stopped me and lunged into the room. I had just enough time to tell myself what a moron I was before my head exploded and everything went black.

I woke to the heavy thrum of engines. I had only flown on small planes a couple of times in my life, but I remembered the sensation, and this was it. I suppose I should have been thankful I was still alive, but this flight to wherever couldn't be a good thing.

It was when I tried to move that I discovered that I was lying on a hard metal floor and that my hands were tied behind my back. It was dark and it felt like I was beneath a thick blanket. My legs were free but where was I going to run, and my mouth ungagged, but who was going to hear me scream? I could hear the muffled murmur of voices, but no words and I had the impression they were not speaking English.

My head hurt like hell and I needed to pee, but attracting any attention to myself didn't seem like a good idea. Not that I thought they were going to go away and forget all about me. I thought I fell asleep, or maybe lost consciousness, but I wasn't sure. I only knew that I suddenly felt the plane touch ground. I waited, but nothing happened; I could still hear the voices, but there seemed to be fewer of them. The engines had been switched off, but no one came near me. But within minutes the engines roared into life again, and the plane began to move, gathering speed as it taxied down a runway, and then was airborne. A refueling stop, I guessed.

I dozed on and off for what seemed like hours while the plane droned on. Finally, the blanket covering me was removed, and I lay blinking in the light of a small cabin. The one window was pitch black. Reggie had promised to check on me that evening so he probably already knew I was amongst the missing. I wondered if he would launch a search party. Not that he was going to find me up here.

A man, it was Lank and Greasy again, held out a plate of some pretty repulsive-looking food and then realizing belatedly that my hands were tied, set the plate down and yanking me around roughly, undid the knots.

But I had a more pressing need than food. "Bathroom?" I croaked, not knowing whether or not Greasy spoke English. But he understood anyway and after hauling me to my feet pointed toward a door at one end of the cabin.

There were six other men seated around the cabin. Some eating, some drinking, some smoking or some combination of the three and they looked me over as I crossed to the bathroom, making me really nervous. But if all they wanted was a woman to ravish, they had gone to a great deal of trouble.

I stayed in the bathroom as long as I dared, getting my fear and panic under control. My face in the cracked, watery mirror over the sink looked white and scared. I wished with all my heart that Iolaus would show up and do his save-Sally act. But he was long gone and I was on my own.

No one seemed the least bit interested when I finally got up the nerve to go back into the cabin. After all, it wasn't as if there was any place for me to escape to unless I jumped out of the plane and I wasn't that desperate yet. The men had started up an impromptu game of poker with much yelling and gesturing, obscene and otherwise, and the consumption of an impressive amount of booze. Most likely featuring marked cards and a lot of aces up sleeves, too. The plate of food looked no more appealing than it had earlier, so I slid down against the cabin wall and huddled there watching the men warily, expecting at any moment the arguments would turn violent, guns and knives would appear and all hell would break loose.

But the boys managed to keep their tempers in check, and an hour or two later I could feel the plane descending. It landed with a bump and a grind. The pilot must have thrown on the brakes hard because we all lurched forward as the plane came to a screeching halt. Someone opened the door while Greasy roughly retied my hands. I seemed to be his special charge. How comforting. But he didn't seem particularly happy about it. Tough. Served him right for hitting me so hard.

It was dark outside the plane. No street lights, no automobiles, no rows of lighted windows, nothing except the stars, which seemed bright and closer than I had ever seen them before, even in Nebraska, and not far away two points of light. The air was different from any I had ever experienced, thin, sharp and cold with a jungly scent. We definitely weren't in Kansas.

Greasy hauled a big flashlight from the pocket of his jacket and led the way down a narrow track toward those two points of light with me directly behind and the rest of the gang bringing up the rear. Diving into the underbrush in a desperate escape attempt seemed like a waste of good energy.

The two points of light were accompanied by a dozen or so dimmer ones, all emanating from a huge stone and clay structure, which I was pretty certain was Manuel Montoya cozy mountain retreat. It came as no big surprise, but it scared the heck out of me all the same. According to my dossier, Montoya had a lot of charming hobbies, murder and torture being two of his favorites.

We were let through a heavy wooden door by two big nasty-looking guards with big nasty-looking guns. Greasy dragged me to an inner door, opened it and shoved me in, then slamming it shut and locking it, leaving me alone in the dark. There was one barred window, through which I could see a small square of the brilliant star-spangled sky. It didn't exactly light up my life, but it was better than being in absolute darkness.

My hands were still tied so digging my way around the bars was out. There was no chair or bed so I sat down on the floor and waited�and waited�and waited�and waited. I fell asleep at least briefly and when I awoke the sun was shining through the window sending the shadow of the bars across the floor.

The door lock clicked, a man came in and all I knew about him was that although he was also lanky and unkempt, he wasn't Greasy. I almost missed him. This man carried a plate of food and a cup of liquid, which he sat on the floor beside me and bent over to untie my hands, and then left. The liquid was water, too bad, I could have used a beer about then. But the food looked better than the airline fare, a chunk of bread with no moldy bits, and a little mound of mixed meat and vegetables�and an apple. Someone was concerned about my health. That was good. I guess.

A half an hour later my new keeper returned and escorted me to a small, smelly, windowless room that held a strange contraption that I assumed to be some sort of toilet and a rusty sink with a rusty faucet from which trickled even rustier water. He politely waited outside while I did the necessary; I wasn't going anywhere.

This ritual was repeated at high noon, at least according to the sun, which I could just see through the bars of my window. This time my meal was a sandwich of dry bread and some kind of meat, a cup of sourish juice and a banana. My hands had been left untied. I had tried to loosen the bars, but they were thick and embedded into solid rock, so that was a bust.

The afternoon passed slowly. Except for the sound of occasional footsteps passing my prison, I heard nothing and no one came near me. As adventures go, this one was sure turning out to be one huge bore. Shortly after dark, another meal was brought along with a thin blanket, another trip to the ladies', and I was left alone for the night.

I slept fitfully, trying to keep my mind off the question of why had I been brought here, and what might be coming tomorrow, but you try that when you are a prisoner in a strange place, a strange country for an unknown reason. See how restful it is. I felt tired and draggy in the morning even though my jailer brought me a platter of ham and eggs, bread and an actual mug of delicious, steaming coffee. Real coffee, wonderful coffee. Well, after all, we were in Colombia.

I decided against throwing it in my keeper's face as a gesture of useless defiance and, instead, I drank it gratefully. My enthusiasm for the coffee must have communicated itself to my warden for he brought me another mug of it to drink with my lunch. Which was a good thing since there would be no supper of any kind for any of us.

Late in the afternoon, I could hear people stirring about outside my door as though something big was going on. It probably didn't bode well for me, a feeling that was proven correct when two men burst in and, wordlessly, seizing my arms, marched me out of the room. I made a token resistance as a good heroine should, but that only made them tighten their grip until my fingers started to tingle.

I don't even remember now what the room I was escorted into looked like. My eyes were immediately riveted on the man seated behind a polished table, sprawling ungracefully in a wooden chair. His eyes were on me as I entered and it was like looking into the eyes of a cobra; they were the coldest, deadest eyes I had ever seen on any human being. With a sickening chill I knew I was in the presence of the infamous Manuel Montoya himself

The only picture I had ever seen of him was in a yearbook from one of the private schools he had attended. A dark, rather handsome boy of fourteen; it had been taken shortly before he had been arrested for the first time. There was little of the boy left in this man although he was not much past his thirtieth year. And he was already the wealthy, well-connected leader of a formidable and highly successful criminal organization. A real overachiever.

He rose from the table and approached me. He stood very close, evil seemed to ooze from every pore of his body. Terror coursed through my veins, turning my legs to wet noodles, and I would have fallen if I were not still being held upright by the guards. "So," he said, in heavily accented English. "This is the little girl who has been spying on us."

Fainting seemed like the coward's way out, so I swallowed hard and tried to look brave, at least outwardly. I thought about Iolaus and how he would react to a situation like this. Crack a joke, I supposed, but nothing funny occurred to me at the moment.

"Now, you will tell me who you told and what they plan to do with the information you gave them and when they plan to do it." He spoke very slowly and precisely, his eyes boring into mine, and I fought to resist the urge to look away. "You will tell me now and then I will let you go unharmed."

Sure he would. I knew how this scenario would play out. I would spill my guts and then weeks later my chewed up, half-decomposed body would be found somewhere in the jungle. If it were ever found at all. Strangely enough, something about being a dead girl walking put a little stiffening into my spine.

I didn't actually announce my refusal to talk in words of utter contempt as I would have liked to have done; I really doubt that I could have uttered a sound if I had tried, but something about my stance or the look in my eyes must have clued him in because his eyes narrowed. "Then," he snarled, "we shall have to do this the hard way."

That was so melodramatic I wanted to laugh out loud, not because it was funny, but because of the sheer horror that welled up from the pit of my stomach.. I wondered if I would withstand the torture. All I had gleaned from the conversation at Reggie's office was that Hercules and Iolaus would most likely be coming for Montoya's little bio toy, but I didn't know when or how. But I would never risk putting their lives in jeopardy, no way, no how. Uh-uh. No matter what this creep did to me. .

Somewhere I found my words and managed to stammer out that I knew nothing in what I hoped was a nobody-ever-tells-me-anything voice, but I could tell he didn't believe a word of it. He nodded to the guards who were still holding my arms and they led me out of the room. To ye olde torture chamber, no doubt. How barbaric. Hadn't these guys ever heard of sodium pentothal? I was a little surprised that Montoya did not accompany us. He struck me as a man who enjoyed doing his own dirty work.

They led me through a dim gas-lit corridor that seemed to run directly under the mountain and through a door into another corridor that was musty and cold. No gaslight here. One of the guards switched on a flashlight revealing a passage so dank and drear that Count Dracula would have felt right at home in it. The dungeons, no doubt; where else would you keep a torture chamber? I half expected to hear the groans and cries of other victims, but the place was as silent as a tomb and only the far away drip, drip of water broke the silence.

There was another door at the end of this corridor with new corridors running off to the right and left, but apparently we had reached our destination. I tried not to think of what lay behind this door as one of the guards fished a bundle of keys out of his jeans and fumbled through them with one hand, obviously not willing to let go of me with the other. So four hands were now occupied, two holding me, the third with the keys and the fourth holding the flashlight aloft so that key man could see what he was doing. Both distracted and only half aware of their surroundings, I mused, a perfect time for a handsome hero to appear out of the blue, or in this case, out of the darkness, and rescue this desperate damsel in dire distress.

And it happened so fast I didn't see a thing. Key man, having just separated one key from the rest of the bunch, was reaching toward the keyhole, and flashlight man had just tilted the beam of his torch to provide him with the necessary light and then there were two sharp smacks like solid flesh hitting solid flesh, and the guards were lying on the stone floor, unconscious. I was suddenly free, standing between their prone bodies with my mouth open in surprise.

"Hi Sally. Fancy meeting you here." I whirled. He was right behind me, his golden curls tumbling over his forehead, and his dazzling smile lighting up the dark passage made dim by the flashlight that had fallen from the guard's hand and still burned, reflecting its light crookedly from the stone wall.

"Iolaus!? How? Where?"

One of the guards moaned and tried to sit up, and Iolaus clipped him neatly under the chin with the toe of his boot. The man collapsed. "I was just hanging around. Gave me quite a turn when I saw you coming down the corridor with these two bozos. Hellova time for a Colombian holiday."

"Oh Iolaus. I'm so�so�glad to s�s�see you." I babbled out all the fear and desperation of the past two days, alternately crying and laughing; it was just sinking in that I was not going to die that day. At least not right then.

"Easy Sal." Iolaus held up one hand to halt the torrent. "You can tell me the whole story later. Right now I've got a job to do."

"Job?" A thought struck me. "Montoya's stuff. His little epidemic in a bottle?"

"All taken care of. Herc's got it stashed where they won't be finding it. We're killing time, doing what we can to even the odds a bit before the troops arrive. I'm tidying up inside and Herc's doing the yard work." He bent down and plucked the ring of keys that hung loosely from the guard's hand. "This room might be a good place for a temporary employee hangout, don't you think?"

He quickly found the proper key and unlocked the door. I don't really know what I had expected to find. I guess a big gloomy chamber full of medieval instruments of torture. A rack, perhaps, or thumbscrews, or whatever the heck those big structures are with all the sharp knives sticking out of them. But it was just a small square room of stone, boasting nothing more than two chairs and a plain wooden table with a bare light bulb hanging over it. It still gave me the willies. Iolaus switched the light on and surveyed the room. It didn't take long; there was nothing else to see and no windows, no other doors.

"This will do." He dragged the guards inside and frisked them, coming up with pistols, knives, a garrote and even two hand grenades. These guys were ready for anything. He piled the weapons just outside the door. "Wait here. I got three more clients down the hall."

Not very far down the hall. Within moments, he was back with an unconscious man slung over one shoulder, dumped him on the floor and went back twice for the others. Then we frisked them, I was getting the hang of it and it was rather fun seeing what we came up with. In the end we had six pistols, one guy had two, a real gunslinger, a machete, a switchblade and an assortment of other knives. Three garrotes, three hand grenades and two assault rifles.

"What are we going to do with all this stuff?" I asked, after we had dumped our booty with the first batch and locked the door. We couldn't very well carry it all. Iolaus was stuffing the grenades in his pockets, an activity I thought rather dangerous, but he assured me they wouldn't go off until after the pins were pulled. Okay, I'd seen my share of war movies, but it still wasn't comfortable being in the presence of small objects that were capable of blowing you to bits.

"There's a pit down one of these corridors, looks like it might have been an part of an old drainage system. We can toss the rest of this stuff into it. Keep the flashlight."

We carried it all down to the pit that proved to be deep and dark�and dry since there was no telltale splash when we dropped one of the rifles in it. That was followed by the other rifle and the garrotes, nasty things, I said and Iolaus agreed. I hesitated before dropping in the last of the pistols. "Shouldn't we keep one of these." I asked. It seemed like a good idea; it might come in handy at some point.

"Nah," Iolaus shook his head. "I hate the things. You know, they kinda spoiled the hero business. Swords, knives, bows and arrows, those are civilized weapons. Herc can catch knives and arrows with his bare hands." He chuckled. "Thought he could catch bullets too, the first time we got shot at. Poor Herc, the damned thing shattered his hand. Surprised the Tartarus out of him, too. Took days to heal up."

There really didn't seem much I could say to that. Railing at him for role-playing while we were trapped in a fortress of murderous�well�er�murderers seemed a little ungracious seeing how I was counting on him to save my butt. Changing the subject seemed my best option.

"So what now?"

"Now, we look for stragglers and take them out of action. The fun should start in about an hour and then we can get out of here."

"The fun?"

Iolaus grinned. "You'll see."

I stayed behind him as he prowled the corridors silently. During the next hour we found six more guys, four loners and a pair indulging in an activity in a dark corner that you don't really want to know about. The keys, which Iolaus had brought with us, opened other doors and we found nice, safe little repositories for all our charges. We put the happy couple in a room by themselves. They didn't seem too distressed about being POWs and considering what was about to happen, we probably saved their lives. If they managed to escape going to prison, I hope they took up another line of work, and are now living happily ever after.

The sound started as a low drone that had been lurking at the edge of my consciousness for some time before its steadily increasing throb finally brought it to the surface. I looked a question at Iolaus and he grinned. "Helicopters. Looks like the troops are here."

The noise became rapidly louder; although muffled by the stone that surrounded us. Now I could hear the sounds of sporadic gunfire, and the faraway shouts of men. This went on for some time, while Iolaus and I worked our way carefully up a corridor, keeping an eye out for any of Montoya's men who might decide to try to hide here. But I guess they were all loyal soldiers, willing to lay down their lives for their cause, because we saw no one. I was just thinking that now would be a good time to get out of here when the whole enclave was shaken to its foundation by a thunderous explosion.

"Missiles Time to go." Iolaus grabbed my hand and we ran. He had an amazing sense of direction. I had no idea which way was out, but he led us unerring to a door that I recognized from when I had come in. The enclave was made of clay and stone and so was not afire, but it seemed as if everything burnable inside was, if you could even see the flames through the dust and grit that filled the air.

We waited, hidden from view against the wall as men, carrying rifles, ran past our position. Sometimes one or two would stop and fire through the empty window casings at unseen enemies, but none came our way. Some were yelling what sounded like orders in Spanish and they all seemed to be moving in one direction, which I assumed was the way out.

Another explosion rocked the fortress, sending up more clouds of dust. After enough of it had settled so that we could see that all the soldiers were gone, Iolaus gave my hand a light tug. I followed him around the corner and tried not to choke on the grit that hung heavy in the air. I couldn't see much, but Iolaus seemed to know the way. He led me blindly from one room to another. We encounter no one; but the gunfire and the screams and shouts of the combatants grew louder. More explosions rocked the fortress.

When we reached the main door it stood open, hanging crookedly on its hinges. Iolaus found a sheltered spot just inside where we could see what was going on, but we could not be easily spotted ourselves. The scene outside was like a nightmare from hell; everything seemed to be ablaze with flashes of fire from the guns spurting in every direction plainly visible in the near darkness. The noise was deafening, the sharp bursts of automatic gunfire, and shouted orders were occasionally drowned out by the blasts of the rockets. The fortress was rocked again as another missile hit the building just under the eaves. I crept closer to Iolaus more for comfort than safety. Safety was a non-issue here.

Off to our right, what was left of Montoya's army was entrenched on a sunken terrace that ran the whole length of the building. They were still a formidable group and heavily armed. The walls of the terrace were waist high and gave them a good cover base from which to defend themselves. By pressing ourselves against the wall we could just see a quarter of the terrace without risking being seen ourselves.

Four men were pulling two heavy boxes out of a storage area near the wall of the fort and uncrating the contents. I heard Iolaus suck in his breath as he realized what they were.

"Missile launchers," he whispered. "Heat seekers. Those baby's will do real damage." He looked up at the helicopters hovering in the darkening sky; they had retreated to a safe distance out of the normal range of fire, but they would be easy targets for these rockets.

Iolaus motioned for me to stay put while he crept through the door. My heart jumped into my throat, he was in plain sight if any one of the soldiers should look back, but they were all completely absorbed in the battle. I wondered what kind of foolhardy stunt he was planning, until I saw him pull two of the grenades out of his pockets and yank the pins. He waited a few seconds and them threw them one after the other lobbing them high into the air over the terrace and then dived back through the open door. He grabbed me and pulled me down as the grenades exploded with a tremendous bang. Funny thing about war movies explosions; you don't feel the incredible force of the displaced air as it rushes toward you.

But we felt it. I was half way to the ground with Iolaus' arms about my waist when I was suddenly slammed into the wall and knocked breathless with him on top of me. This was getting to be a rather nice habit. He rolled off me and we both just sat for a few moments letting the air flow back into our lungs before climbing to our feet.

In the glow of the fires, Iolaus' eyes glittered like sapphire and the flames turned his hair to red-gold. His face was grim; there was no sign of the laughing devil-may-care adventurer now.

"You okay?" I asked, fearing than he had been injured by flying shrapnel or had collected a stray bullet.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I just don't like killing people, that's all."

"They were bad guys. " I reminded him softly. Maybe it's a character flaw, but I wasn't feeling any pain over Montoya's creeps. I was just hoping the big man himself was among the dead or dying.

Iolaus' smile was grim. "Maybe just misguided."

"I would think after two thousand years you'd be used to it." I said teasingly, without thinking, and then wanting to bite my tongue when his smile faded.

"If I ever get use to this," he said, "I'll quit doing it."

Iolaus' impromptu attack seemed to have turned the tide of the battle well in favor of the invaders. When a quarter of the terrace exploded, the attacking force took advantage of the distraction to move closer and more grenades were now being lobbed into the area. But the defenders were far from done; They were giving it back as good as they got, and the thunk of another rocket launcher could be heard from the other end of the terrace resulting in an explosion out near the airport that seemed to set the whole area on fire.

Iolaus swore under his breath and pulled the last grenade out of his pocket as he headed for the door. I almost yelled for him to stop, it was well out of his range and with all the what-do-they-call-it ordnance flying around I was afraid he would be hit. But he paid no attention to me, took three long terrifying steps out onto the terrace, pulled the pin, and threw the grenade with all his might toward the far end. Then he dove for the door, but it was too late. Even as the explosion rocked the terrace, one soldier spotted him and fired, barely missing, as Iolaus scurried into the fort, grabbed my hand and prepared to make a run for it. Not that that was any good place to run. What was still standing of the enclave was well involved in fire and we could hear the crashing of the walls as the rest of the structure began collapsing. It was just a matter of either being shot or burned to death.

The soldier who had fired at Iolaus and missed and one of his mates were crossing the terrace toward the place where we were hidden. It was looking pretty bad, but just before they reached the broken door they stopped and looked up. At the same time we heard what they were hearing. The slow, heavy beat of a helicopter blade, a very large one from the sound of it, and from around the corner of the building like a monstrous misshapen bird rose an attack helicopter, a gunboat, bristling with weapons. Flames were already spurting from the two heavy machine guns mounted on its underbelly as it began its strafing run across the terrace, reducing the patio bricks to dust as it went.

Our pursuers were the first to die. The relentless firepower of the gunboat was impossible to escape and it was all over in seconds. The remaining defenders threw down their weapons and raised their hands in a desperate attempt to save their own lives, and the helicopter broke off its attack, but still hovered overhead ready to resume firing if need be; its downdraft blowing up the dirt and dust adding to the chaos. Very quickly the terrace was swarming with soldiers in camouflage seizing and securing the prisoners, and the war was over.

The burning fortress was rapidly getting to be a bad place to hang around in, so Iolaus and I walked carefully onto the terrace with our hands up in case some overzealous soldier mistook us for the enemy. We'd have hated to get shot by friendly fire after surviving all this. But the officer who seemed to be in charge; a lieutenant I think, but I'm no expert on military insignia, approached us, smiling.

"You Sally Weber?" he asked me.

"Huh? Yeah." I answered, surprised.

"Reggie's gonna be really happy to see you." He looked at Iolaus. "You must be Iolaus?"

"Yep."

"You throw those grenades?"

Iolaus nodded.

"Well, thanks." He gave Iolaus the old guy high sign, is that some sort of universal brotherhood thing?, and then added. "Your ride back to Washington is out on the tarmac. Your big friend is waiting for you there."

Iolaus grinned. "Thanks. Come on, Sally."

We said goodbye to the lieutenant and headed down the track toward the little airstrip. As we got closer we could see a second plane, this one small and silver, a very classy mini-jet, looking quite elegant and out of place next to the battered and beaten jobbie I had come in on. How the pilot had managed to land it on the small strip I don't know. Hercules was standing next to the plane talking to a slender gray-haired man and he looked up just we reached edge of the tarmac.

What happened next happened was so unexpected that to this day I'm not sure what I actually saw and what I later surmised or was told. I was a few steps ahead of Iolaus and had just begun to raise my hand to wave to Hercules when out of the corner of my eye I saw the man step out from behind the tree. I thought, at first, it was one of our soldiers searching the area for stragglers, and then in the light of the fires that still burned, I saw the glitter of those cold, black eyes. The man raised the automatic rifle he carried in his arms and I froze.

I heard Iolaus shout my name and at the same time I saw Hercules stiffen and start to move in our direction. In the stark firelight, I could even see Montoya's finger begin to curl around the trigger and then Iolaus was there between us. Just before I heard the sound of the rifle, I saw him arch backward as the fabric of his purple and plaid shirt was shredded and stained red by the stream of bullets that tore into his body. I heard myself scream, adding my voice to Hercules' bellow of rage.

There was a sharp snap and the rifle went silent, but I was only dimly aware of it at the time; all I could see was Iolaus, turning slowly in the firelight as he fell. I stumbled forward to catch him forgetting everything else in my fear. He fell against my shoulder, his weight bearing us both to the ground and I pulled him gently into my arms.

"Oh, no, no, no. Oh, God, Iolaus. Please. No! Don't� " I sobbed. I couldn't say the word 'die'. Now I understood why Hercules had such a phobia about the word. My tears fell on his pale cheeks as I stroked them, willing him to open his eyes and speak to me.

And amazingly that's just what he did, and smiled sweetly at me. "Don't cry, Sally," His voice was little more than a whisper and he paused to catch his breath as his eyes began to glaze. "It'll be okay, you'll see." His eyes roved behind me as if he were searching for someone. "Tell �Herc�" He took in one last feeble breath and let it out with a small sigh as the light faded from his eyes.

I cradled him tightly against my shoulder, buried my face in his curls and cried hopelessly, not wanting to believe he was really gone, and suddenly Hercules was crouching beside me. I looked up at him through my tears, his face was a blend of anxiety, anger and what�resignation�but not the passionate grief I was expecting. I could not have been wrong about these two; that they shared a powerful bond and an undying love the like of which I had never seen before. That life for one without the other would be unendurable.

"I hate it when this happens," Hercules muttered, "I'm always afraid�"

What he was afraid of he wasn't going to share with me. Gently he pried Iolaus out of my grasp and cradling him against his chest, he rose effortlessly. "I have to take him home," he explained, "Iolaus likes to wake up in his own room."

Oh god, I thought, he's in shock; that would explain his bizarre reaction to Iolaus' death. He thinks Iolaus is just hurt and is going to get better. His face was distracted, remote and lost as if he didn't know quite where he was or what he was doing.

But he gathered his thoughts long enough to look down at me and say "Senor B� will take you to Washington. I've got to go." And without another word, he turned and walked toward the battered plane that had belonged to Montoya's gang.

"Hercules�?" I got to my feet and ran after him, but he didn't look back. It was if he had forgotten my existence.

When he disappeared into the airplane, I stopped. There was nothing left for me to do, but go home. The slender gray-haired man by the silver plane gave me a sad, rueful smile as I approached him. "Senora, I am so sorry about your friend. Poor Earnest."

"Earnest?"

"Yes, Frank and Earnest. Didn't you know their names?"

"I�ah�"

He smiled a little in sudden understanding, "Ah, yes, I see, Incognito. Very good. I am sorry, Senora, if I had been a little quicker�"

Hanging loosely in his right hand, he carried a small pistol. "You shot Montoya!" His name hit me like a ton of bricks. "Oh my god, you're his father!"

"Yes." He answered simply.

"I'm so sorry, I�God, you had to shoot your son? I'm�."

He shrugged and waved away my condolences. "Manuel set himself on this path a long time ago," he said, looking over at where Montoya's body still lay on the ground near the edge of the airstrip. "Now it is done." The sharp look he gave me clearly said that this subject was now closed. He would grieve in his own way in his own time. "Now, my dear, we must get you home."

"Home." I said as a sudden thought struck me. "Her�he said he had to go home. Where�?"

"He lives in Greece. At least that's where he had come from when he arrived in Caracas and I assumed�"

"He's going to fly that wreck all the way to Greece." The plane had taxied down the runway, and was now circling at the end to get into position for take-off. "Who's flying it, anyway?"

"Oh, Senor Frank can fly the plane himself."

I had the crazy thought that maybe he'd just fly out over the ocean until the plane dropped into the water. He looked so lost. Perhaps he intended to end it all with his friend at his side. "He mustn't be alone. I should go with him."

"Oh, he will not be going home in that aircraft. His own plane is at an airport in Caracas and his sister is waiting for him there. I'm sure she will look after him."

His sister? Neither he nor Iolaus had mentioned a sister. But why should they have. I was just relieved that Hercules would not be alone when the reality of the loss of Iolaus hit him. Something else that Senor B said struck me.

"They came to you? I thought�"

"There is much to tell, my dear, but it can wait until we get to Washington. Now come along."

Senor B, I might as well call him that since I cannot use his full name here, escorted me politely into his jet, settled me into a luxuriously upholstered seat and went to the bar to pour me a drink that I sure needed right then. It was an excellent cognac and I sipped at it as the little jet roared off the tarmac, barely clearing the end of the runway. Senor B had a very skillful pilot.

For the first part of the journey, I dozed off and on. Senor B seemed to understand that I needed some time to come to grips with what had happened and left me alone. But every time I drifted into sleep I would immediately awaken with the sound of gunfire ringing in my ears, the acrid scent of smoke in my nostrils, and the aching grief of feeling Iolaus' body going limp in my arms. I finally gave it up altogether and spent the rest of the trip huddled miserably in my seat, staring out of the window at the black starless sky and trying not to cry.

It was daylight when we arrived at Dulles and Reggie was waiting for us just outside the gate. He didn't say anything, just gave me a big hug and shook hands with Senor B, before leading us both to his car and driving us to his office.

Once there, he briskly ordered a round of coffee, settled us into comfortable chairs and himself behind the desk, and then cleared his throat.

"I had a called from Tom this morning, in Caracas. He and his sister are on their way back to Greece. I'm so sorry about Dick." He was regarding me sympathetically while he said that; was my attachment to Iolaus so obvious? I batted away the tears that stung my eyes. There was plenty of time for that later.

Senor B was confused. "Tom? Dick?" he asked.

"Frank and Earnest." I offered in the way of explanation. It was Reggie's turn to be confused. He raised his eyebrows at me and I added. "They introduced themselves to me as Bob and Jim."

"Interesting." Reggie commented.

"Very," agreed Senor B. "I wonder who they really were."

I smiled and remained silent. They would always be Hercules and Iolaus to me. Whether or not that was their real names, those were the names by which they had called each other and the ones they had obviously preferred, so I would always think of them that way.

But now was the perfect time for some long overdue explanations. "What I want to know," I began "is how and why they got into this mess in the first place."

Senor B smiled. "I guess I should answer that, although I'm a bit fuzzy on the why. You see, my dear, I had a�what-do-you-say�a mole, in Manuel's organization almost from the time he set it up. They had an impressive electronic monitoring system and when you began to research him at McKenna, you were discovered by his technicians very quickly."

Figures. As a spy, I was pretty pathetic.

"My operative notified me, and I had my people begin their own surveillance and sure enough, you were accessing and compiling some information that individually meant little, but taken as a whole could have been very incriminating."

Okay, another undetected surveillance. But oddly, his comments almost counted as praise and pleased me very much. Only to be shot down with his next sentence.

"Of course, we had no idea that it was you, personally, doing the research, my dear." He smiled at me kindly. "We only knew it came from McKenna. It gave me quite a turn when my operative sent me the urgent message that a cease and desist order had been placed against the organization."

"Cease and desist?"

"What you would call a 'hit'."

"Oh." How stupid of me not to have detected the surveillance, or rather, surveillances, in the first place. Those deaths at McKenna would lie on my conscience for a long time.

He patted my hand as if reading my thoughts. "You mustn't take it badly, my dear. None of this was your fault in the least."

Maybe not, but it sure felt like it. "And the bomb?" I wanted to know. Had to know if anything could have been done to prevent it.

"I sent some of my people to New York, but we had no idea when or in what form the 'hit' would occur. I'm sorry, my dear."

I nodded. At least, he had tried. "What about�er�Jim and Bob?"

"That was the strangest thing about all of this. They showed up at my office in Caracas only a few days after the surveillances had begun. They told me they also were monitoring my computers, and Manuel's as well as McKenna's �"

"What?" I squawked. "Was there anybody not watching my computer?"

Reggie poked his hand in the air. "Er�I guess that would be us."

Apparently, the only people not monitoring this caper was the FBI, the ones with the best resources to actually do something about it.

"That sort of thing is illegal, you know." Reggie added, rather primly, I thought.

The FBI's got scruples. Go figure. I turned back to Senor B. "So they wanted�what? A job. Hunting down the bio weapon?"

"They wanted to stop the bio weapon, of course, and they wanted to prevent the loss of innocent lives. But they were not asking for a job; they do not work for money, they told me. They only wanted information."

"And you gave it to them?"

"Everything I knew up to that point." At my incredulous look, he shrugged, "Well, there was something about them that inspired my confidence." That was true, I had felt it myself. "They were very distressed to hear about the impending 'hit' on McKenna and decided they must go directly to New York. I offered them the use of my jet, thinking that with my connections it would be easier for them to bypass customs. They accepted my offer, thanked me and left. I did not see them again until I met up with Frank at Manuel's airstrip."

I sat silently, chewing on my lip, thinking of all that had happened since then. Senor B stirred beside me, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a checkbook. He scribbled on one of the slips of paper, tore it from the pad and handed it to Reggie. "Now, I must go," he said rising to his feet. "Reggie will give you my address and someday when all of this is but a sad memory, I would like it very much if you would write and tell me your story." He patted me gently on the shoulder. "Do not be sad, Sally, Earnest gave his life to save yours, and that is a precious gift. You must guard it well."

I wasn't willing to let him go so easily. I jumped to my feet, wrapped my arms about his neck and kissed his weathered cheek. He was going home to bury his son, a son who must have been at a happier time, a small and beautiful child bouncing on his father's knee. I felt so much pain for this kind, gallant elderly man. He gave me a quick squeeze, and then he was gone.

"Now, Sally," Reggie said, motioning me back to my chair. "We must decide what to do with you."

"Me?" I thought I would be going back to my ruined apartment and pick up the pieces of my life the best I could.

As if echoing my thoughts, Reggie asked. "Do you want to go back to New York and resume your life there?"

I thought about it some more and shook my head. "Not really." I didn't want to go back to New York; city living hadn't agreed with me all that much to begin with. But I didn't want to go back to Nebraska either.

Reggie was still holding the check Senor B had given him and he now reached into his desk draw and pulled out another similar slip of paper. "These are for you, Sally," he said as he handed them over to me. The two checks were both written out payable to me and they totaled a very large sum of cold cash.

"But�?" I looked from Reggie to the checks, bewildered.

"When Tom first called from New York, I tried to hire him as an outside agent in the Montoya case, but as he had said to Senor B, they did not work for money. When he called this morning, he asked that I give whatever we would have paid them to you. Senor B's check is written in the amount he would have paid to them if they had been willing to work for him. The money is yours�for services rendered to your country."

Enough for a new start anywhere I wanted to go. Tears stung my eyes again. I felt very grateful and humble for the gifts and good wishes from these good men who were strangers to me despite all we had gone through together.

After stopping at the little apartment to collect my duffel bag, Reggie took me home with him, sensing rightly that I would not want to be alone. Home was a neat ranch-style house in the suburbs shared with him by his wife (rats) and two kids. His wife was pretty, sweet and charming (rats again) and either I didn't appear to pose much of a threat to her domestic harmony or she was used to Reggie dragging in strays, for she greeted me warmly, without turning a hair, fed me, she was also an excellent cook, and showed me to a comfortable guest room. The house was tidy and spotless and the children well-behaved. Looked like Reggie had hit the jackpot.

I managed to sleep off and on for the rest of the day and through most of the night, waking only occasionally to the sound of guns echoing through my mind. Mostly I dreamt of Iolaus, that dazzling smile, the wayward golden curls, his earthy, herbal scent, the solid feel of him whenever we had come into close contact. I cried a lot that night, cried for the loss of him, of that radiant, joyful presense being gone forever from this world. My heart ached for Hercules for I understood how hard it would be for him to face the rest of his life without Iolaus, what having him in his life had meant to him. I had only known him for a few days and I felt a little of that too.

Toward dawn, I had slept enough. The house was quiet so I lay awake, trying to force my mind onto the immediate problem of my future. New York and Nebraska were still out, I hadn't changed my mind there, but where to go. Last summer a co-worker and I had driven up to the Berkshires to visit her sister, and I had fallen in love with the quiet beauty of the place. That co-worker was now gone, a victim of the McKenna bomber, but the memory of those quiet mountains lingered on.

I had always dabbled around with writing fantasy and had notebook after notebook filled with unfinished stories with never enough time to devote to completing them. With a start I realized that now I had just that, and enough money to live frugally for quite some time if that was what I chose to do. And now I had thought of the perfect place to do it.

I told Reggie and his wife of my plans over breakfast and they were very encouraging. Reggie insisted that I stay with them another day to rest up and let my plans gel, and his wife added her insistence to his without a shadow of reluctance. So it was the next morning when a big black sedan pulled into the driveway, and Reggie introduced me to Archie who was going to drive me to New York where I would be delivered to a New York bureau and another agent who would take me to my apartment to collect my belongings and would see that I got safely to Massachusetts. Apparently I was no longer competent to handle my own affairs. I was now a government responsibility and they were going to see to it that little Sally didn't stub her toe. It was a bit annoying, but I was grateful, too.

Archie turned out to be good company. An energetic chatterbox, he liked girls, the New York Giants, skiing, boxing, cars, dogs and fast food, in that order, and he regaled me all the way to the city with his real life and often hilarious adventures in these areas. My only part was to offer occasional encouragement and ask a question or two when I needed enlightenment on some point or other. He bought my lunch at Burger King just outside the city and half an hour later pulled into the parking lot of a big brick building.

My new keepers were Larry and Ed, both tending toward taciturnity, so we drove in silence to my apartment. It was in even a bigger mess than we had left it what�five�six days ago; it seemed like a lifetime. Obviously Montoya's boys had ransacked it hoping to find that elusive report. But it seemed that they hadn't stolen anything, maybe there was honor among terrorists or maybe my shabby belongings were deemed not worth the bother. The building manager had come by and replaced the shattered window; no security deposit return for Sally.

I found a few empty cartons to pack my stuff into and Larry went out, returning a few minutes later with a few more he had cadged from a nearby store and an armload of newspaper. The guys busied themselves wrapping my breakables with paper and packing them into the boxes, the dirty dishes along with the clean. That was okay, I would sort it all out when I got where I was going. I packed my clothes and went into the bathroom.

The blue towel that Iolaus had used was still lying on the floor where he had dropped it. I put that in a carton along with other towels, toiletries, my hair dryer and assorted stuff. It was while clearing the shelf over the sink that I found the amulet. It was dark green jade, polished and worn smooth by age. I remembered it hitting my nose when Iolaus knocked me out of the way of that car and I vaguely remember seeing it resting on his chest as he lounged on my couch. But I didn't remember ever noticing it again after he had showered. Didn't even think about it again.

They say that if you do that, if you leave something that you value behind when you visit a place that means you subconsciously want to come back. Two tears trickled down my cheeks. Iolaus would never be coming back to reclaim his amulet. I wrapped it carefully in the blue towel and tucked it into the carton. I'd ask Reggie to sniff out an address for Hercules in Greece, and I would send it to him.

The apartment came furnished so I had no large objects to deal with. I expected Larry and Ed to help me find a place to store my things until I settled, and then drive me to the bus or train, but instead, after packing my cartons into their car, another large black sedan, they headed out of the city, across the bridge and swung north. Looked like I was getting a taxpayer ride to Massachusetts.

It was nearly morning when we entered Springfield, the city I had chosen as my jumping off point to the Berkshires. The folks at the Marriott welcomed me, ushered me into a comfortable room; Larry and Ed sprung for my first two nights there, lugged my stuff into my room, said goodbye with two hearty handshakes and were gone.

Three weeks later, I was living in a little town in the mountains. I had found a small rental cottage, unfurnished, but I now had money to buy some furniture, I owned a used economy car, had found a part-time job writing copy at home for a local TV station, and was going through my notebooks looking for just the right venue to launch the writing career of one Sally Weber, fantasy writer extraordinaire. Actually, I write under a pseudonym, but that's my secret.

But the days of my adventure were never far from my thoughts, and in particular my memories of one endearing, blonde hero. Iolaus wandered through my dreams almost every night. Some of these dreams were simply wonderful remembrances of him alive, talking, laughing, full of the joy of living, but others were dark, disturbing nightmares of death and sorrow. These latter dreams left me feeling tired and unwell the next day, unwilling and unable to face the normal activities of the day.

It was on a morning after one of the bad dreams, when I was dragging myself around my little cottage, drinking endless cups of coffee and trying to shake off the dregs of the night that there was a knock on my door.

I was frowning irritably when I opened it, fully intending to deal ruthlessly with whoever had dared disturb me in my misery, but stopped in my tracks when I beheld Hercules standing on the step with two small square boxes in his hands and a big, goofy smile on his face.

'How dare he', was my first thought. "How dare he stand there grinning as if nothing's happened after I have just cried all night long over his lost friend; the friend who was supposed to mean everything to him.'

I might have decked him right there, certainly my hand was involuntarily curling into a fist when I spotted a jumble of yellow curls just behind his shoulder and another bright, grinning face popped into view. "Hi Sally."

I stood with tears starting from my eyes, unable to speak or move for two heartbeats. For one crazy moment I was sure that Iolaus must be a cyborg; that Hercules had a warehouse of full of them and when one was damaged beyond repair, he simply activated another. Then regaining my senses, I walked forward, wrapped both my arms around his neck, buried my face in his shoulder and cried. He was warm, alive, and very real.

So we stood there for a while with him patting my back consolingly as if he were used to having women soaking down his shirt, which he undoubtedly was; it probably happened to him on a regular basis, until finally Hercules cleared his throat.

"Oh yeah," Iolaus said. "Herc brought a present for you. Cheesecake."

I rolled my head to one side a little so I could look at Hercules with one eye and snuffled. "Chocolate?"

"Uh-huh." He said. "I'll go make some tea."

Except for the bathroom, the first floor of my cottage was all one room with the kitchen and dining area on one side and the living room on the other. Hercules laid the boxes on the coffee table and headed for the kitchen area, while Iolaus shuffled into the living room, somewhat hampered by me still clinging to his neck, not wanting to let go lest this should be another dream and not wanting to awaken�ever. Although my cottage was not much bigger than my apartment had been, it boasted a real bedroom in a tiny loft overhead, so I was now the proud possessor of a real sofa. Iolaus sat me down on it and one by one pried my fingers off while Hercules bustled efficiently around in my kitchen, heating water and looking through the cupboards for cups, saucers, plates and my teapot.

Iolaus finally freed himself from my clutches, and to my relief, he didn't disappear nor did I awaken alone and teary-eyed from one of my dreadful nightmares. And for the first time I noticed he held a bouquet of flowers in one hand. Violets, blue and purple and huge, flowers like I had never seen before. He smiled at my astonishment as he handed them to me. "Dite made them." he said, as if that explained everything.

"Dite?"

"My sister." Hercules said from the kitchen. "She doesn't get many worshippers these days so she's into crafts."

"Worshippers?" Uh-oh, this was turning into one of those conversations.

"Yeah," Iolaus said. "Not many folks follow the old ways anymore. They call us pagans."

I must have still looked confused because he added patiently. "Dite? Aphrodite?"

"Aphrodite? The Goddess of Love?" I was stunned. I didn't know how Iolaus was alive. Perhaps he hadn't been dead after all, God knows, I'm no medical expert, and Hercules had been right after all; he was only badly wounded. But they were sticking with their original story. Gods are immortal and if the Goddess of Love were real, she'd still be around somewhere and Hercules� Belatedly I remembered that he was supposed to be a half-god, the son of Zeus. So maybe they weren't ancient Greeks traveling through time to do hero work, but it was just as incredible to think that they were immortal. And where did Iolaus fit in?

To cover my confused thoughts, I fingered the lovely blooms gently. "They feel so real," I said.

"They are real." Iolaus told me. "But they will never die and they don't need water, although you should give them a spray bath every week or so or they'll look all wilty. At least that's what Dite told me to tell you."

"Immortal flowers?" I looked at Iolaus and he looked back at me, grinning broadly. And suddenly I believed. Perhaps I had suddenly lost my sanity, but I believed. Everything. The man sitting beside me was an immortal, an immortal half-god was making tea in my kitchen, and the Goddess of Love had sent me real flowers that would never die. I believed it all, Completely. The whole shtick.

Hercules walked into the living room bearing a tray loaded with dishes, silver and a pot of tea and I jumped. I felt awkward and shy around him now; how was one supposed to behave in the presense of a god, even a half one. Something in my manner must have communicated itself to him for he smiled at me warmly. Oh lord, he was beautiful, just like a god should be and I relaxed. God or no god, he was my friend.

Iolaus reached out for one of the boxes, but Hercules put down the tray, slapped his fingers away and pointed to the second one. "Lunch first."

"Herc's so nurturing." Iolaus smiled at me. "Never leaving me to my own dissolute devices. Always making sure I behave properly."

Hercules sat down on the other side of me, removed the lid of the second box and lifted out a plate of sandwiches. "Left to your own 'dissolute devices' you would always eat your dessert before your dinner," he growled.

"See?" Iolaus' grin was radiant, impish and irresistible. I laughed, for the first time in a long time feeling completely happy. I picked a sandwich off the plate determined to earn my share of the cheesecake, while Hercules poured the tea.

"Oh, say Sally," Iolaus said suddenly as just remembering something. "Did you find a�."

"Oh yes," I interrupted, certain that I knew what he was going to say. I jumped up from the sofa and ran up the narrow stairway to my bedroom. The jade amulet, still wrapped in the blue towel, was tucked in the corner of the bottom drawer of my dresser, right where I had put it when I had unpacked.

I carried it down to him and placed it in his hands. He smiled as he looped it over his head and settled it carefully in place against his chest.

"Now you look like you again." Hercules chuckled.

"And I feel like me again." Iolaus grinned at me. "I've had this since I was a teen-ager. It belonged to my father."

Wow! And that would make it over two thousand years old. Funny, but that didn't seem so strange anymore. All of my incredulousness had vanished upon my acceptance. Still the idea of them being children and then teens in that long ago era was a bit unsettling. There was an agelessness about them that made it seem as if they had arrived on earth fully grown.

It suddenly popped into my head that they might not be the only immortals around. "Are there others?" I asked.

"Others?" Iolaus exchanged a look with Hercules. "You mean other immortals?"

I nodded.

"Well, if you mean besides gods, there have been others," Iolaus said slowly. "We've run into a few along the way. But they usually don't stick around for more than a few centuries."

"Why not?"

"Well, being immortal can be a real drag, particularly if you're lonely. After you've outlived a few generations you can get really depressed. So they get it undone."

"How do they get it undone?"

"They go hunt up the god who made them immortal in the first place and have him�or her�undo it, so they can go to their afterlives as souls."

"Oh," I chewed on my lower lip thinking. "But you two have been around for over two millennia."

Hercules grinned. "I never get bored or lonely, I've got Iolaus."

"And I've got Herc." Iolaus gazed at me with such a perfect imitation of his friend's face that I burst into giggles. And I understood. They were so different, but with each one's differences complimenting the other. Iolaus, an irrepressible bundle of kinetic energy, fast, smart and skilled, always in motion or ready to spring into action when the need arose, and Hercules, thoughtful and kind, as graceful as a cat, his awesome strength there when needed, his calm demeanor a steadying influence on his quicksilver partner. Not in my wildest fantasies could I have invented a more perfect pair of heroes.

They stayed for the rest of the afternoon and we talked about all sorts of things. The gods of Olympus and what life had been like in the ancient days and about the wonderful and the awesome things they had witnessed throughout the long centuries of their immortal lives. When we emptied the teapot, Hercules made another and we talked some more while finishing the cheesecake. But finally, sadly, the light began to fade and Hercules announced that they must go.

We prolonged our goodbyes at the door. I sternly forbade myself to cry. It was unlikely that I would ever see them again and I would not let their last sight of me be that of a red-nosed, tear-stained wreck. Some women look gorgeous when they cry, but I'm not one of them. When at last we reached our final round of hugs and kisses; Hercules looked awfully sad and Iolaus was positively misty-eyed. I watched from the door as they walked down the path to the car waiting at the gate. A green Grand Cherokee this time, very sedate, Hercules must have picked it out.

I watched as Hercules laid his arm across Iolaus' shoulders in a gesture so endearing that it sent a sharp pain through my heart; and Iolaus turned his face slightly toward the demigod and smiled so sweetly that I nearly cried. There was a wrangle at the gate over who was going to do the driving that Hercules won and they climbed into the car. Hercules started the engine and with a final wave they were gone.

That was nearly ten years ago. I still live in the little cottage, except that now I have a cat for company, and the cottage belongs to me, the owner having died and his heirs having been willing to sell it. I no longer write copy for the television station; I make enough on my fantasy serial books to support myself comfortably. I have a small, but loyal following for my tales of two immortal heroes who travel through time and history righting wrongs and protecting the innocent.

There is more gray than brown in my hair now, and I am no longer looking for or even wanting that elusive 'Mr. Right'. My neighbors think I am odd and eccentric, and perhaps they are right, but they do not bother me and are even cordial when we occasionally meet in town.

Perhaps my greatest claim to eccentricity is my shrine. I built it myself in my living room with no knowledge at all of how such a thing should be done. But I think it is the heart and the intent that count anyway. It stands upon an old packing crate, a collection of pretty pots filled with flowers and at the center the bouquet of violets sent to me by the goddess to whom my shrine is dedicated. Iolaus' blue towel, neatly folded sit on one side of the bouquet and a pink heart pin that my mother had given me when I was a child on the other. Two sandalwood candles in pink holders stand on either side of the shrine and I light them whenever I pray.

Well, I guess to call what I do there praying is kind of a stretch. My motives for worshipping the Goddess of Love are purely selfish. It occurred to me that if I could win her favor, I might be allowed, when I die, to go to those Elysian Fields that Hercules and Iolaus told me of. And meet Jason and Alcmene and Iphicles, and all those marvelous people, whose stories were told to me that long ago day, and whom I shall never forget. And there, too, I might see my heroes again some day. I don't know for sure if Aphrodite is listening, but sometimes I think I feel her nearby, in the faint scent of an unfamiliar perfume or the light echo of a girlish giggle.

But best of all I like to sit in front of the shrine with the candles lit and dream of two amazing men, immortal heroes, walking side by side down through the ages, the last and best hope of a race slipping into decay. The finest of our kind; the epitome of our most cherished dreams of salvation and redemption.

Esto perpetue

The End

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