From his perch above Calloway's, Angus Moran peered down into the sparse gathering below. Very few people visited his establishment during the daytime, since he wasn't stupid enough to serve them alcohol until after dark. A couple of familiars haunted the place, as addicted to the location as to the substance it served, but Angus gazed through them without interest. He looked for one of a few faces that mattered. He would judge by the looks on the faces just how successful his day's work had proven.

If Sam Lincoln walked through the door, the young man should look shaken and afraid. A greenhorn, he would find such tactics as Moran had utilized tasteless. If Lincoln seemed relieved, Moran would know that the mission had at least partially failed.

Carson McReynolds would saunter in with smug confidence either way, but his face would reveal the truth. A slight smirk would indicate victory, a furrowed brow, defeat. If McReynolds seemed displeased, then Jerome Weathers still lived, though perhaps not the girl.

From any of his other operatives, Moran expected less emotion, and he would find little to glean from them without direct contact.

Of all the faces he expected, though, the one that rushed in caught him completely by surprise, especially because Angus Moran never expected to see panic on the face of his most seasoned veteran. Angus Moran jumped to his feet and barreled down the stairs. He faced whatever challenge lay ahead like he always did: like a bull in a rage.

***********

Barbara recognized the sound as soon as it rang out, and her head whipped around to see if Mario had heard as well. He had strolled up a few moments before, his frustration apparent, and a somber mood had settled over both of them as they realized that they had not found Marissa. When his eyes met hers now, their intensity matched her own. The noise sounded from so far away and came with such an echoed reverberation that most in her vicinity would not have realized its true source, but Barbara had lived in dread of the sound all morning. She had, though, expected it to come from much closer, and she had expected a different sort of panic, one calling more for immediate action. Now all she could feel was the choking panic of powerlessness.

Almost as soon as she moved toward the sound, some of Jerome's security detail rushed to his side. Apparently, they knew the sound well, and they whipped Jerome away from the crowd and toward Marshall Crenshaw's waiting vehicle. Barbara and Mario, over Professor Garner's protestations, ran a beeline in the direction of the noise. The professor and Carl, after a moment of indecision, followed Mario.

They searched for several minutes before they found the source of the noise, and when they did, only Barbara could maintain her self-control. For the Garner's, the scene felt all too familiar, and the young men had to hold up their father lest he fall.

There, on the pavement, lay the lifeless Marissa Erinson, a gash of blood matting her hair. Atop her lay Tony, sprawled immovable in a protective position, and the white of his shirt had largely succumbed to a relentless flow of crimson that seeped from the bullet wound on his chest.

************

Before Alistair could reach the stairs, Angus had descended them and dragged him to the back hall where Sam Lincoln had, a few days earlier, tried to interrogate Marissa Erinson. Angus would not have panic affect his business, whether justified or not, but he knew that he needed to hear Alistair out. Seeing Alistair in such a state sent Angus Moran into the closest thing he ever knew to fear, though he would have labeled it fury.

Angus controlled his tone before he began his own interrogation. "Alistair, I know you wouldn't come see me in all this state if you did not have a good reason. Still, I'm hoping that you might have overestimated your need for concern."

"I've killed the professor's son," Alistair panted, his eyes darting like swatted flies around the corners of the room, to the doors and through the windows.

At the words, Angus balked for a minute, but reason returned quickly. "Are you sure he was the professor's son, and are you sure he's dead? Professor Paul Garner we're talking about, yes."

"Yes, Paul Garner, and yes, it's his son. That first day that I observed her, I saw him skulking around, so I checked him out. Turns out, he worked for Jerome Weathers's campaign, so I figured he was just there to mess with Sam that day."

"You're sure he's dead then? And the girl?"

"I don't know," the Scotsman moaned. "I don't know. I know he had lots of blood on him. And she had blood on her head where I aimed the shot. And neither of them was moving."

"Why didn't you finish the job?" Angus pressed, the first hint of his internal seething leaking to the surface.

"I don't know how it happened! Everyone showed up so fast, I had to run! I walked over to them to prod them; you know, to see if they was breathing. Before I could reach them, I heard the running footsteps behind me. Like someone knew where we was," Alistair moved to panting his words again, and though Moran wanted to rein him in, the Scotsman's panic had grown contagious. How had someone as seasoned as Alistair shown enough stupidity to run straight to Calloway's.

"Who was running at you? Was it the cops?"

"I don't know. I just saw the one, the little lady, so I know she wasn't a cop, but I didn't see who was behind her."

Instead of responding, Angus rushed out the door of the room and toward the front entrance. As he had feared, he heard a commotion outside. He ran back to Alistair. "Get out now. You led them here, and I won't let them find you inside. You can get out, or we'll get rid of you; the choice is yours."

Alistair glanced up, the panic leaving his face for the first time. From the beginning, he had not liked the assignment, and he thought he finally understood why. He deserved to suffer for going along with it. Never should he have agreed to kill an innocent person. Now that he had done it, he hated himself, and the threats of Angus Moran bounced off of him as impotent.

Before Moran could utter another threat, Alistair had hoisted himself out the same window from which Tony had leapt with Marissa, and the Scotsman rapidly disappeared into the distance.

Angus might have breathed a sigh of relief, but he could hear the growing tumult outside in the main gallery. Until that day, the police had relentlessly sought opportunity after opportunity to enter Calloway's, but they had never successfully produced one. Pursuit of a criminal gave them all the permission they needed, and now Angus peeped out into the dining room to the sight of his worst nightmare. As many as twenty armed police spread themselves around and throughout his gallery. Several had found their way upstairs to the Rats' headquarters. Angus quietly shut the door and edged back to the room from which Alistair had jumped.

On the way, he grabbed a ladder from a closet and a bag with several thousand dollars. A foot shorter than Alistair, he wouldn't survive a jump from the window without injury, so he risked the wobbly ladder and made his way safely to the pavement. The money would get him as far as Chicago, and though he would have to pay some dues, he knew his cousins would take him in. It's the nature of the business, Angus reasoned. Of course, the books in Calloway's would give the police enough to put away the rest of the Moran clan, not to mention all of the Rats and most of the McReynolds. A few other politicians, as well. Angus cast them not a thought as he sped away from the previous nine years of his life. If he knew anything about himself, he knew that he would build again, no matter how far he fell before he began to rise.