25 October 2014 – Hilltop Road, Lancaster, Massachusetts

Sabrina burst through the basement door to the kitchen. It crashed against the wall. The adults in the living room turned to stare at her.

“ALAMO! ALAMO! ALAMO!” she shouted as she ran for her father’s office. Behind her, Keiko and Jeff’s drink glasses hit the coffee table. They grabbed their phones that had been on vibrate. They hadn’t heard the alerts. They snapped urgent orders at their guests.

In the office, Sabrina pressed her thumb to the fingerprint lock on the gun safe door and pulled it open. She buckled on the web belt that held her fighting knife’s sheath. Jeff rushed into the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got over a dozen hostiles with weapons over the back perimeter fence and halfway to the house. There’s an SUV creeping up the access road! I figure there’s another four or five in the car.”

She tied the knife’s sheath to her right leg and pulled ‘her’ shotgun from the safe. She put a mixed load of shells into it before pouring more buckshot shells into a pouch on her belt.

“I energized the fence in case there’s another group coming, but it won’t be long before that first group is here. We need to buy time for people to get downstairs!” Sabrina positioned the shotgun across her back on its combat sling.

“I had Alex and Pete get my friends into the panic room. I activated the silent alarm and I'm pretty sure it went out, but I think the bad guys cut the cable and internet at the pole. The message probably went out via cellular in that case. Our internal network is still up so I activated the recorder for the inside cameras. There’ll be a record of what happens. And I made sure the magnetic locks are active on all the exterior doors.”

Sabrina saw muzzle flashes on the camera feed. Bullets shattered windows in the living room and headlights swept over the office windows. Guests cried out in shock and fear. Sabrina tapped the security application to dim the house lights almost to the point of darkness. She heard more shouts of distress from the front hall where their guests retrieved their shoes.

Jeff reached past Sabrina and pulled his SWAT portable from its charger. He turned it on and waited for it to connect to the statewide radio network.

“County, this is CEMLEC SWAT Medic Three with urgent traffic.”

Someone hammered the front door. Something bounced off the reinforced polycarbonate sidelight window. Guests scampered back toward the kitchen.

“They’re here,” Sabrina muttered.

An arm reached past Jeff to pull a shotgun from the safe. He looked over his shoulder to see Sally Dadashova hand the shotgun to Hamish MacDougall. She reached in again and took another gun for herself.

“Would you hand us some shells, please?” she asked as she put her phone away.

“What are you guys doing?” Jeff asked while Sabrina tossed boxes of shells to Sally and Hamish.

Sally ignored the question. She hung her State Police badge from a chain around her neck. “Is that your SWAT raid armor, Jeff?”

“Yeah?”

“Put it on.”

“And these too, Dad,” Sabrina said, handing out shooter’s safety glasses.

“Medic Three? County is answering, sir. Send your traffic,” a voice from the radio said.

“County, I have a home invasion in progress at my residence. We are under attack from an estimated twenty, that’s two-zero hostiles. Send us everything you’ve got and anything you can get.”

“Understood, Medic Three. Stand by on this channel and …”

The message cut off when an explosion roared in the distance. Some guests screamed again when they heard the sound and felt the shock of it. Jeff’s radio and their cell phones began searching for lost signals.

“They must have dropped the cell tower next door,” Jeff said while his radio bleeped. Sabrina handed him a loaded shotgun. Hammering at the front door continued as she locked the safe.

Their four-person fire team dashed back to the kitchen. Another spray of bullets punched through the living room windows. The first knot of guests followed Keiko down the basement stairs, spurred on by the chaos swirling around them.

The front door burst open. Two shotguns roared out in the hall behind Sabrina seconds later. The last huddle of guests pushed through to the basement staircase as the shotguns thundered. Sabrina saw her father lock the basement door and break his key off in the lock. Now the emergency escape pole was the four defenders’ only way down to the panic room.

Another crash of glass drew Sabrina to the back hall. She crept forward to cover that approach. Her father hissed in frustration behind her when she moved away from the emergency escape. That crash of glass from their flank worried her.

The family intended to reinforce the large, ground-level windows by the back patio with polycarbonate, but a supply shortage caused them to gamble that reinforcing the downstairs family room windows first would be a wiser choice. They hoped the back yard fence would be deterrent enough. It was a gamble they just lost.

A <thud> and the crash of shattering glass sounded from a window in the living room. The top of a ladder poked into the opening. Sabrina crept through the kitchen and aimed her shotgun at the top rung. An intruder’s head appeared above the frame. She fired. The rifled lead slug shattered the man’s head and sent him tumbling backward off the ladder. She ducked back behind the kitchen island and kept moving while a burst of gunfire erupted through the window, scattering chunks of ceiling and walls behind her. Seconds later Sabrina heard the metal locking bar for the mechanical room’s door slam into place.

She peeked around the corner to the back hall. Three men stepped in. They shaded their eyes against the halogen spotlights shining in their faces, positioned to make it difficult for intruders to see into the kitchen. They advanced toward her. Sabrina doubted they could see her waiting in the dim kitchen through the glare. She slung her shotgun across her back again, drew her knife, and waited for them to step into the kitchen. When the first one came close – looking the wrong way – she attacked.

Sabrina struck silently with a vicious overhand strike to the base of the first one’s neck. He died without a sound. The second man suspected nothing until her leg struck from the gloom and kicked him in the chest, staggering him back into the third intruder.

Sabrina leaped and grabbed Number Two and shoved them both stumbling backward into the wall. She drove the spiked pommel of her knife down into the closer man’s skull, crushing it. She reversed her knife and stabbed its blade into the other’s neck just under his chin, piercing his trachea, ripped the razor-sharp blade across, and severed his carotid artery and jugular vein. He died spraying her with his blood.

She heard the crunch of glass to her left when two more intruders stepped into view. She dropped her knife and pulled her shotgun around, pulling the trigger while racking the slide. Two rapid shotgun blasts put the men down. Those two wouldn’t trouble her family again.

“SABRINA!”

Her father’s bellow snapped her out of her red haze of rage. She picked up her knife, wiped it clean on a dead man’s shirt, and backpedaled to the kitchen. She slipped her knife into its sheath, then reloaded the shotgun. Her father ushered Hamish and Sally – both injured – into the emergency escape shaft while scanning for more threats. Sabrina saw more bodies littering the front hall near the ruined front door and in the living room.

Another attacker hammered on the door from the gym while Jeff frantically urged her to get inside the escape shaft. The hammering noise stopped. Through the door, she heard a shotgun cycling as she passed the entry. Jeff grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. His pull turned Sabrina to face the door.

The shotgun blast punched through the interior steel door spraying shrapnel into the kitchen. She yelped as jagged metal peppered the left side of her face and her left shoulder. A pellet tore at her ear. More shrapnel peppered her safety glasses. She didn’t have time to process the pain before her father ‘encouraged’ her to jump into the escape shaft. He punched the emergency lock button and powerful magnets built into the door frame behind him snapped on.

Sabrina took in her fellow defenders’ conditions in the brighter lights of the basement: Sally had a wound to the outside of her left thigh which soaked that area of her blue jeans a dark red, saturating the dish towel she held to it. Hamish looked mostly unhurt other than a laceration and minor abrasions on one forearm. Seeing her facial wounds, they both hugged Sabrina tight while Jeff slid down the pole. He pulled heavy steel plates out from the walls on their tracks and locked them together around the pole, blocking anyone from following them down.

“Why didn’t you guys get down here right away as I told you to?” Jeff asked them. “And like you should have, young lady?” he asked Sabrina.

“Casus foederis, laddie. Casus foederis,” Hamish replied as he unloaded his shotgun.

“And what the hell is that?”

“It’s Latin for ‘case for the alliance,’ Dad,” Sabrina answered. “One online source describes it as ‘a situation in which the terms of an alliance come into play, such as one nation being attacked by another.’”

“Aye, laddie,” Hamish confirmed. “You and the lass were næ going through that alone.”

The four limped to the entrance into the panic room while they heard hammering at the doors from the back yard and upstairs. Another thumbprint opened access to the panic room. They closed and locked the heavy door behind them as their family and friends welcomed them.

An avalanche of police officers arrived minutes later, though it took close to a half-hour for them to coordinate and secure the scene. Sally had gotten through to C Troop dispatch before the cell tower fell, so the State Police were part of the response along with the Worcester County deputy sheriffs, Lancaster PD, and anyone else neighboring towns could spare. They hunted down two attackers out in the vast back yard. The remaining four inside didn’t go quietly, either. Those who took down the cell tower next door hid in the woods beyond but State Police helicopters with infrared cameras guided even more heavily-armed officers to them.

The panic room was designed for a maximum of ten people-. Twice that number forced people to sit wherever they could find space. Some sat on the floor. The Knox family and their guests made the best of the cramped quarters while they waited. At least there was a bathroom available. There wasn’t enough of a cell signal to make calls without the tower next door, but Jeff was able to send a text to DMD’s on-duty supervisor and inform him of everyone’s condition.

Pete looked for shrapnel in Sabrina’s facial, ear, and shoulder wounds. He pulled out any fragments he found with tweezers, cleaned her wounds with alcohol, and bandaged them. He knew the police would take the injured to a hospital, but he was confident he’d found all the shrapnel.

Sabrina looked around the room while her boyfriend did his ‘exploratory surgery.’ Josh had cleaned and bandaged Sally’s leg wound himself. He now cradled her in his arms as they sat in one of the chairs. Keiko fussed over Jeff’s new shoulder wound. Ruby and Naomi treated Hamish’s arm while Miriam looked on in amusement. Most of the guests expressed gratitude for the Knox family’s quick and decisive actions, but Liz Turner had to prove how much of a dumb bitch she was.

“What the hell are those stupid cops doing?” she whined for the third time. “Aren’t they ever coming down here to get us out?”

“They’re a little busy rounding up the people who tried to kill us just now, you flipping airhead,” Nora Bellamy snapped. “Maybe you’d like to step outside and see how well you do stopping bullets with your too-tight tank top? I don’t think your silicone-enhanced chest is going to help you.”

“Shut up!”

“Why don’t you do us a favor and shut up, Liz?” Alex replied, standing up for his girlfriend. “We’re all tired of being in here, too.”

“My parents are going to sue your family for this!” she shot back.

“For the love of God would you stop whining?” Erica asked. “If the Knoxes weren’t as prepared as they were, we’d all be dead right now! Or worse!”

Jeff shook his head while walking to the armored door. He checked the camera feeds from the mechanical room before he unsealed it.

“Why don’t some of us step out into the mechanical room so we don’t feel so cramped?” he suggested. The “and so we can get away from Liz” was implied. Once out of the panic room he walked over to the security system equipment while dodging the water droplets falling from the ceiling. “The sprinklers upstairs must have activated,” Sabrina heard him mutter to himself.

“What are you doing, Dad?” she asked while approaching with Pete.

“I’m copying the video files from all the camera feeds recorded during the attack,” Jeff replied as he plugged an external hard drive into the computer running the system. “The alarm company will have a copy once we get internet back, but who knows when that will be. I want at least one backup made before the police seize this computer.” The first copy finished and he plugged a second drive into the computer. When the second copy finished, he handed it to John Jones.

“You know neither Josh nor I will be able to represent you in this, right?” John asked. “We’re directly involved this time.”

“Yeah, I know. Get a team of hard-chargers from your firm to cover our asses.” Jeff replied as he looked over at Sally, Hamish, and their dates as they stood with Sabrina and Pete. “Sorry, you guys. Didn’t mean for you to get torn up like this.”

“It was probably inevitable this would happen today, Dad, given the date,” Sabrina replied.

“Why should today’s date matter?”

“Really? You’re the man whose wife gave him a copy of Henry V as her first gift to him when they dated!” Sabrina laughed.

“Oh, right. It’s Saint Crispin’s Day.”

“‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …’” Sally recited.

Hamish nodded. “‘Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. And say These wounds I had on Crispin’s day,’” the burly Scotsman said as he held up his bandaged forearm.

“‘But she’ll remember, with advantages, what feats she did that day,’” Sabrina added. “Someone’s gonna have to explain these ‘advantages’ to me, though.”

Jeff rolled his eyes as his phone chirped. He read the text sent by the DMD supervisor. “You amateur thespians leave your weapons on the shelves over there and go gather everyone up because the cops want us outside.”

Sabrina drummed her fingers on the tabletop in the interview room, bored from the long wait. With so many people to interview, the State Police detectives sent some to Lancaster’s police station and brought others here to their Leominster barracks. She asked for her lawyer when the State Police showed her into the room.

Since her parents were among those being interviewed this time, they were elsewhere in the building and she waited alone. Sabrina’s attorney was with her parents. Without a clock in the room, she had no idea how long she’d been in here. At least a trooper had poked his head in a few minutes ago and asked if she needed a drink or to use the bathroom. Sabrina closed her eyes and attempted to meditate.

The door sprang open sometime later with a loud twisting of the knob, causing Sabrina to open her eyes again. Framed in the doorway stood Lisa Phillips, the attorney general of Massachusetts. Sabrina sat up, instantly on-guard. AG Phillips approached with a smirk on her face.

“I’ve got you this time,” the woman said softly. She placed a legal pad and pen on the table before she sat down. “How many people did you kill tonight? Six? Seven? I knew you were some sort of serial killer! You’re going away for a long time, and so will your parents for being accessories before the fact.”

Sabrina tried to remember what Josh Abernathy and her parents had said in the past about being questioned. They hadn’t had a chance to say anything on the subject with everything else going on tonight. All she remembered at the moment was that she should say nothing or, at the most, ask for a lawyer and then say nothing. Sabrina sat silent as she stared back at the woman.

“What, nothing to say?” AG Phillips taunted, still wearing the same smirk. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to sign this statement saying that you murdered those men, and then you’re going to outline how your parents systematically turned you into a killer.” She pushed an unsigned letter across the table and placed her pen on top of it. The AG sat back with a triumphant smile.

Sabrina couldn’t keep the fury she felt from showing in her glare. She ground her molars together as she crossed her arms in front of herself. She reminded herself not to give anything to this woman.

“Lawyer,” she growled.

“It will be a lot easier if you simply sign that statement, Sabrina,” the AG said in her best silky-smooth politician’s voice. “I will convince the court to go easier on you if you do, otherwise you won’t get out of jail until you’re old enough to be a grandmother.”

‘She’s bluffing,’ Sabrina told herself. ‘She’s trying to make you angry enough to say something she can use against you.’ The young woman closed her eyes and searched for her center again. “LAWYER!” she barked while reopening her eyes. The door sprang open again.

“Who the hell are you?” snapped a familiar voice.

Sabrina looked over to see Bettina Novak, her very unhappy attorney from Mr. Abernathy’s office standing next to Ted Brewington. Mr. Brewington didn’t appear very happy, either.

“I am the attorney general of Massachusetts,” Lisa Phillips responded.

“How wonderful! Who the hell gave you permission to talk to my client?”

“Oh, we were just having a friendly chat.”

“Then you can get out,” Bettina spat. She stepped closer, snatched the letter in front of Sabrina, and read it. “You don’t have that permission, you’re accusing her of a crime, and any conversation you did have with my client will be excluded! I happen to know she already requested an attorney be present before questioning. Since I have not yet had the opportunity to meet with her, you had better disappear.”

“And you and I need to discuss boundaries regarding this case,” added Ted Brewington. “I am the district attorney of this county! This is my case!”

“And I am the attorney general of this commonwealth! I have jurisdiction over any case in this state!”

“And the two of you can take your dick-waving pissing match somewhere else!” Bettina snapped. She glared and pointed at the door until the other two lawyers left the interview room. Bettina made sure the door was closed before sitting down across from her teen client.

“Those two …” Bettina muttered. Looking at Sabrina, she asked, “How long was she in here before I came in?”

“Not long, under a minute.”

“Good. Was she trying to piss you off and make you say something she could use against you?”

“Yeah,” Sabrina admitted. “She tried, but I didn’t say anything other than to demand my lawyer.”

“Nicely done, Sabrina. My guess is she’s going to petition the SJC – Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court – to remove Ted Brewington from this case because he and Jason used to work together. I’m sure she’ll argue that they’re friends and Ted wouldn’t be impartial. Even if she’s successful in having him removed and this case is turned over to her, I’ll have her dead to rights.”

“How?”

“The same way Jason did when this happened the first time. This is a clear-cut case of self-defense and the defense of others even without bringing MGL Chapter 278, Section 8a into my argument.” Bettina pulled a legal pad out of her briefcase. “Okay, walk me through it.”

Sabrina tried not to smile at the frown on Lisa Phillips’ face when the AG walked back in. Keiko Knox sat in the interview room glowering back at the AG. Sabrina could see her mother’s presence had the AG off-balance. Two State Police detectives walked around the AG and into the room. One sat at the interview table while the other pulled a chair to one side of the room. She would watch Sabrina for any sort of reaction during the questioning. Lisa Phillips huffed before she sat at the interview table.

The detectives questioned Sabrina in a straight-forward and very professional manner. They didn’t try to confuse Sabrina into contradicting herself much at all. Sabrina parsed their questions more than once and glanced at Bettina before answering. Bettina replied “Asked and answered, Detective!” for Sabrina only two or three times while the detectives questioned her client. She snapped out that challenge just about every time the AG asked a question, however.

When the State Police detectives indicated they had no more questions for Sabrina, the AG asked more questions of her own – mostly loaded, leading questions. Bettina Novak shot those out of the sky. AG Phillips finally gave up and left the room. The detectives sighed in relief and began gathering up their notes.

“We have nothing further, Counsellor,” the female detective said as she rose from her chair. The woman then turned to Sabrina with a slight grin. “Although, if we hold your client long enough, she won’t be able to wreak her usual havoc when her Shockers play my son’s team in two weeks.”

“Two weeks? Does he play for Billerica or Amesbury?” Sabrina asked.

“Billerica.”

“My teammates won’t let your son’s team off the hook that easily even if I’m not there, Detective.”

The detective laughed and followed her partner out of the interview room. A uniformed state trooper escorted the three women to the lobby of the barracks.

The courtroom confrontation with Attorney General Phillips never occurred. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts denied the AG’s petition to remove the Worcester County DA’s office from Sabrina’s case. They rejected the petition within hours of receiving it. There was no hearing. Ted had recused himself and assigned one of his ADAs to handle the case the night of the attack before the AG ever got involved. Therefore, there was no conflict.

With Ted Brewington’s office still in charge, no charges were ever filed against Sabrina. Only the surviving attackers were charged.

Two weeks following the attack, Sabrina received another letter on Youth Citizenship Foundation letterhead. The new letter assured her that the YCF stood by its earlier award and that the latest incident only served to confirm their opinion of her character. A handwritten postscript appeared at the bottom of the letter:

You go!

Bethany Oldham

The family home at 308 Hilltop Road had been well and truly trashed in the second attack. The attackers tried to set fire to the house, which was an attempt to vent their frustration after the Knox family and their guests escaped to safety. Sprinklers on the first floor and in the gym kept the damage to a minimum, but everything in those areas had been soaked and ruined. Keiko growled in anger when she first heard the news. Then she ordered Jeffrey to gut the entire house before remodeling. A shipping container in the driveway held salvageable items the family wanted to keep while contractors stripped the house to the studs.

The Takahashis’ house at 304 Hilltop had a small area of the living room set aside as a shrine to her Uncle Ken. Sabrina and her mother spent many hours meditating in front of his small portrait – both needed to quell their anger and bring themselves back into balance. Her father never really felt much benefit from meditation, but Sabrina saw him talking to Alex often after the attack, and he spent more time than usual in the workout room at DMD. Ryan’s relationship with Liz Turner imploded within a week of the attack. He withdrew and became more sullen, even after Jeff attempted to help him talk out his feelings.

“Sabrina? You okay?” Pete Knapp asked his girlfriend as they walked to their homerooms the Monday after the incident.

She glanced over with a resigned look on her face Pete had never seen. The bandages on her face and ear made her look sadder. “I guess,” she shrugged. “Just waiting for the other shoe to drop – again.”

Pete stopped in the middle of the hall. “Hold up. Do you think I’m gonna dump you like Moose did or something? You think I’m that shallow and insecure?” Sabrina shrugged again. Pete pulled her in for a scorching kiss, then led his dazed companion to a convenient window seat. “Does that seem like I want to break up with you, Sabrina?”

“Uh …”

“Look, growing up with my mom has taught me a great many things. I know there are plenty of things she is better at than me. Mom’s a better accountant than I’ll ever be …”

“That is her job, you know …”

“Don’t interrupt. The point I’m trying to make, Sabrina, is that I have no desire to go into the military, law enforcement, or any other branch of public service, but I have great admiration for those who do – at least the honest ones. You’re already more badass than I’ll ever be. I think it’s a bit of a turn-on, personally. You’ve been training for this your whole life. Your parents have shown you how to lead your whole life. I’ll be happy being a research chemist. Do I care that others will be able to do things I can’t? No. I’m an average hockey player, and that’s my best sport, but that’s good enough for me. I’m reserving my greatness for other things.

“As I said, the fact that you can be such a badass and maintain a loving, soft, cuddly side is very attractive to me and I, for one, am not about to end this relationship. I’m just glad I was able to help you keep everyone safe Saturday night.”

“Cleaning and bandaging my wounds was very much appreciated, also,” Sabrina said. She kissed him again. The kiss lasted a few seconds before someone cleared their throat behind Sabrina.

“Don’t you two lovebirds have somewhere to be?” Mr. Lanier asked with a smile.

“No, sir,” Pete answered, hugging Sabrina tight when she tried to stand up. “I can’t imagine anywhere else I need to be that’s more important than where I am right now.”

Mr. Lanier laughed out loud. “Speaking as someone in a long-term relationship I’d say that’s the right answer, Mr. Knapp. As your principal, however, I must point out that you only have three minutes to get to your homeroom before the bell rings.”

“And if I plead that I was assisting my wounded girlfriend to her homeroom first?”

“You would likely be told that you should have managed your time better, Mr. Knapp.” Mr. Lanier smiled at them again. “Two minutes.” The two teens took off running.

“WALK!” echoed down the hall after them.

The pair made it to their homerooms with seconds to spare.

“I can’t believe you’re already taking the SATs, Sabrina …”

“Is it rough having your little sister taking them at the same time as you are, Alex?”

“Given where you’re trying to get to? No, not really, not for me. You’ll have to ask Ryan how he feels yourself. I can’t begin to guess what he thinks these days.”

“Can I get a pass on that? He’s still not all that happy with me after the Halloween party attack.”

“I don’t know why he’s not. We’re still breathing.” Sabrina looked over at Alex. “Sabrina, he and I never heard those alerts come in. If you hadn’t, there’s a very good chance we’d all be dead, along with many of our guests.”

“Yeah, I guess …”

The Shockers 2014-2015 season began in earnest at the beginning of November. They charged out of the starting gate and hadn’t looked back yet – they were undefeated. By the end of November hockey had again become Sabrina’s primary focus, while her schoolwork continued to be exemplary. Two weeks before Christmas, Bettina Novak notified Sabrina and the other defenders from October that they needed to meet with the task force investigating the slavers.

The four filed into Abernathy & Associates’ conference room one afternoon the week before Christmas, flanked by their legal team. Even though the meeting wasn’t supposed to be confrontational, Bettina and her fellow attorneys weren’t taking any chances. Sabrina saw Hamish give a slight start when he noticed one of the other men with Ted Brewington.

The DA introduced those with him. Hamish avoided eye contact with a man named Pablo Centaño, a special agent from the FBI’s New York office, and tried to look as unassuming as possible. Sabrina wasn’t sure how the big, red-headed Scotsman would accomplish that. During the meeting, the task force told the four that they hadn’t had much further luck in tracking down the slavers.

“Yer years of experience have næ helped you track them down, Pablo?” Hamish asked the FBI agent. The man’s head whipped around at the sound of Hamish’s voice and he stared in disbelief. “Are ye all right, laddie? Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost!”

“… it’s impossible …” the agent whispered.

“T’is næ impossible since I be sittin’ right here, Pablo. Are yer parents well?”

“… p-parents? Colin? Is it really you?”

“Well, the name is Hamish now but, aye, t’is me lad.”

The agent rose from his seat and wrapped Hamish in a long hug. “God, it’s good to see you again! They told us you were with Rory and his family when … when … There was a funeral and everything!”

“Colin truly died that day, lad,” Hamish told his former partner with sadness in his voice. “Those in the Home Office and me bosses at the Constabulary knew I’d næ be any good any longer, and that I’d be a danger tæ everyone if I stayed. T’was a convenient fiction at the time.”

“That group tore itself apart, Colin. Hamish. They started fighting amongst themselves and took each other out, not that we at Special Crimes didn’t help that dissension along at all … Most of them were dead by the time I left Scotland. The ones that weren’t dead were looking at long stretches as guests in Her Majesty’s prisons.”

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt, but can we get back to the briefing?” Ted Brewington asked.

The remainder of the briefing boiled down to the task force stating that they were making progress against the slavers, but there was still work to be done.

“Do ye have tæ rush back to New York, Pablo?” Hamish asked the FBI agent as the meeting broke up. “I’d like tæ catch up if we could?”

“No, I don’t need to be back to the office until after the holidays. Rank hath its privileges, don’t you know?”

“Aye, I’ve heard that,” Hamish replied with a smile. “Could I buy ye a drink then, laddie? I seem to remember yer fondness for a good stout.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Hamish, but I’ll accept.”