Lee breathed in great gulps of air, desperately trying to come to terms with what he’d just revealed to and about himself. Amanda knelt by the couch in Pfaff’s office, hovering near him. He grasped onto her hands, a lifeline in the flurry of emotions that filled him. Her eyes swept over his face and he smiled once, a small bitter smile that was answered by one of her own. “Amanda… what in the hell am I going to do?” He sat up and pulled her up to sit beside him. She wiped his face with a Kleenex from the nearby box and drew in a deep breath before answering.

“I don’t know, Lee… but I do know that whatever it turns out to be, we’ll do it together and we’ll make it through.” She spoke quietly and with conviction.

The two of them stood and Lee began to pace up and down the length of Pfaff’s office. Finally coming to a halt in the center and in front of a patiently waiting Amanda, Lee stared into her eyes and reached out to hold her hands. He breathed in her presence, pulling her forward and leaning his head down to hers. Their foreheads rested together and they breathed in unison.

The mind numbing shock that had enveloped them began to clear as they struggled to absorb the newly confirmed information. Each had suspected, yet kept silent, unwilling to entertain the unacceptable. But now, Lee’s total and sudden recall forced them to cope. Their minds whirled and attempted to process and accept the facts before them. Their thoughts were, no doubt, radically different. Yet each came round to the same basic problem. How to salvage the situation they found themselves in right now?

Lee had broken. He’d been beaten, drugged and confused and he’d revealed everything he knew to the person his fogged mind had identified as Billy Melrose. Operation Silverstone had been lost. All its sensitive information had gone over to the wrong side of the Wall. One looming question filled his mind… ‘What do I do now?’

Looking at her, feeling and absorbing Amanda’s nearness; his partner, his wife, his best friend… They were together again and they were going to stay that way. The answer came through loud and clear… ‘Whatever I have to do, to survive and to be with her.’

Lee stood straighter and raised his head. His eyes shone bright with determination and more than a little anger. He may have been beaten and abused… but he wasn’t defeated yet! Not by a long shot.

He spoke firmly and loudly. “Come on, Amanda.”

“Where?” She followed his long stride without hesitation even as she questioned their destination curiously.

“Billy. I have to tell him that I know for certain that Marsh was involved; that I remember and can peg him. Billy can have him brought in.” He gripped her hand and squeezed hard. “I want him, Amanda. I want him bad.”

She only nodded and reached ahead of them to push the button for the elevator. The bell sounded and the doors slid apart. Scarecrow and his partner stepped inside and disappeared. From behind them, in the door of his office, Pfaff smiled and tapped the file he held on the palm of his hand. He nodded and murmured. “Scarecrow’s back.”

Moving swiftly to his desk and picking up the phone, he dialed an extension and spoke immediately. “Billy… Lee’s on his way… yes… very successful. My professional opinion is to let him run with it. He needs to see it through.”

Billy sat at his desk and stared across the cluttered expanse at Lee and Amanda. The pair of them had barged into his office, Lee demanding to bring Phillip Marsh in for questioning.

“Whoa, Lee. Slow down… Tell me what’s going on.” He thought he had a pretty good idea, but he needed to hear it for himself and for the record.

Lee sighed and let his mind go back to the interlude in Pfaff’s office. He recalled the panic and the pain of his memories and for just one moment, he wasn’t sure he could endure this again. The guilt and the anguish were so overwhelming… Even as he wavered, he saw, in his mind’s eye, his reason for going on: his wife and his family. He had to do his part to make the world a better place for them. His own desperate need for vengeance and justice pushed his will even further and he suddenly began to speak, “I remember everything that happened in that cottage, Billy. Everything. I broke. I gave them everything on Silverstone and now I want a chance to exact justice, to make amends.”

“Lee, I saw the condition you were in when Amanda and Francine pulled you out of there. You have nothing to make amends for. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were tortured and subjected to drugs that we had no knowledge of until then. No one is laying any blame on you!” Billy spoke earnestly, sincerely. Lee was reacting just as he suspected he would… with guilt and with a burning need for justice.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Billy. Someone is placing blame on me. I am. Maybe you’re right; I had no choice or chance of resisting them. Maybe I had no control over that situation. But I do have control over this one… I can bring Phillip Marsh in and see that he pays for what he’s done…. to me and to my family and to all that we believe in.” He looked at Billy, his gaze begging him to understand.

Billy stared at him hard. Excitement tinged his voice. “Lee, can you positively, without a doubt, say that Phillip Marsh was involved and that he was there at the cottage when you were held?”

“Billy, I know it was him. I remember everything.” A brief shadow crossed his face and he swallowed hard against the bile that rose with the newly reclaimed memories of the lost weeks of his life. “I want him in here…”

Billy Melrose suddenly made up his mind, nodded placidly and simply said, “Okay.”

Lee blew out a frustrated breath, prepared to steam roll right over Billy’s response. He expected Billy to object to his going out in the field so soon, but he had to make him see… “We have to get to him before he skips town… what did you say?” He stopped blustering and stared.

Billy chuckled and repeated, “I said, okay. In fact, Francine is already tracing his last known whereabouts.”

“Oh… well... good…” Lee stuttered to a halt and sat, suddenly tired. Amanda immediately moved to his side, silent and steady.

At just that time and without preamble, Francine burst through the door, waving a sheaf of papers. “He’s gone!” She dropped the papers on the desk and stared at the people gathered around her.

Three stunned faces stared back at her and then Lee demanded, “What?”

“He’s gone… all my sources say that Phillip Marsh walked out of the Marsh Industries Corporate Headquarters last night at five PM on the dot and he hasn’t been seen since. Not at home, not at his office, or at his club. He vanished… poof… like smoke.”

“NO!” Lee stood and snapped his fingers, shaking his closed hand in the air. “He isn’t gone… not yet.”

“What is it, Scarecrow? What are you talking about?” Billy leaned forward, intent on his friend’s words.

“He’ll go back to the cottage. He’s denied any knowledge of its use, but it’s been off limits to him and everyone else since I got out… until this week. The security tape was pulled down and it was released back to his possession, right?”

Billy nodded. “Yes… we couldn’t pin anything on him. His lawyers were braying about his rights and his possessions.”

“He’ll go back now… to cover his tracks and to destroy any evidence that the Agency might have missed. He’ll destroy it and all signs that I was there and what happened there. Then he’ll run.”

Lee gulped and quietly, calmly stated, “I’m going out there.”

Amanda started forward and would have objected, until she looked into his face. There, she saw reflected all the emotions and needs from her own ordeal after she thought he was dead. His fierce determination and the need to prove himself telegraphed itself to her and the others as well. She nodded. “I’m going with you.”

He nodded and looked at Billy. “So, am I going rogue or regulation?”

Billy reached, without a word, into a drawer and pulled out Lee’s new Agency ID. He also pulled out his own holstered weapon and handed them all to his friend. “Just keep it legal, Lee.”

He accepted the articles and moved to the door. Looking over his shoulder, Lee gazed past Amanda already at his back, and added, “Thanks, Billy.”

They moved out of the office and down the hall toward the elevator. Lee stopped suddenly and Amanda bumped into his back. He heard her soft ‘oof’ as she lost her breath from the impact and a great sense of familiarity and rightness came over him.

He grinned and shook his head before pivoting and heading back the way they came. He stuck his head around the door and spoke to one of the people inside.

“Francine, I’d appreciate it if you’d come along. Together, the three of us make a damn good team.”

“You got it, Scarecrow.”

Proceeding to the elevator, they stopped there and decided to meet in the Q Bureau, thereby allowing both Francine and Amanda to obtain their weapons. As they waited for Francine to join them, Lee watched his wife slip into the leather holster and fasten the silver clasp securely. She secured her gun firmly and reached for a jacket to conceal it all. Zipping the jacket and pulling it smartly over the waist of her jeans, she turned to find him staring at her intensely.

“What?”

“Nothing… I just realized something…” Lee sat still, watching her approach his position on the edge of the desk.

“Oh yeah? And what is that?” Amanda had picked up on the emotion in his voice and was now close enough to feel his breath against her neck when he exhaled.

His voice lowered another rough octave. “I remembered that they always used clean needles.” He closed his eyes briefly as if seeing the scene again. The sudden pinched expression cleared almost as soon as it appeared and the smile returned. “That means that I have most probably not been infected by a contaminated needle. The lab boys should be able to verify that in another 24 hours as well.”

Her eyes widened and she ran her hands over his thighs. “So that means, we can…”

“Oh yeah… we can and I’m sure glad.” Lee ran his hand under the open collar of her jacket and over the thin strap of leather concealed there. “This thing is damn sexy on you.”

He leaned forward and was just about to kiss her mouth when the door banged open and Francine rushed in.

“Well, it’s nice to see that some things don’t change!” She smirked and waggled her eyebrows at them.

Lee groaned and replied, “No, apparently not.” He grinned back, impudently and quickly pressed his lips to Amanda’s. “Well, maybe they do…”

Amanda laughed softly at them all and led the way out of the office and into the street where they all piled in her Jeep and drove toward the Marsh estate.