"Bitch!" Summerall screamed, clearly intending his words for Lydia, "that was a two-million-dollar piece of equipment you just totaled."

As Sam began to walk the 80 or so feet toward the two men, Lydia hollered back at the man, "Yeah, and your boyfriend there is still a cunt."

Merrick bolted after Lydia, who soon was running and laughing ahead of the man. Her first insult was followed by a long series of poisonous and petty invectives aimed at the mercenary's looks, intellect, and manhood. The insults trailed off into the distance as she ran.

The Chicagoan focused on Summerall.

"Wayne, there is no way in hell any of that equipment is going anywhere," said Sam as the man approached. "If I don't destroy it now, a friend of mine will be along this evening to level this place—assuming the police and FBI don't get here first."

Sam wanted to give the man another chance to walk away, to put this all behind him, but it was obvious Wayne Summerall now was a man consumed with rage. The moment the two men were within spitting distance, the giant lunged at Sam and the fight was on.

Wayne was strong, and surprisingly quick for a man his size, but Sam had fought life-or-death battles with Gifted opponents throughout his life. He just needed to stick to a strategy, one that accentuated Sam's toughness and downplayed the other man's great power.

Namely, Sam's best bet was to stay on his feet and to keep moving. Another opponent might still emerge from the building, and he had no intention of allowing the men to again pin him on the ground. Even one on one, Summerall was vastly stronger than Sam, which gave the younger man an advantage in grappling.

But the man couldn't absorb a fraction of the punishment that Sam could soak up, and though weaker by comparison, Sam still could punch with great force, hard enough to kill a normal man with a single blow. The inverse was not true. As strong as Summerall was, no single blow of his could cause serious or permanent harm to Sam. It was the main lesson Sam had drawn from the savage pummeling he'd taken earlier.

So Sam needed to keep punching and to keep moving. His strategy was to work Summerall's nose, eyes, and ears—and the man's kidneys and groin, if the opportunity presented itself—and even to allow the younger man to get his licks in from time to time, to convince Summerall that he was hurting Sam, in order to keep the man from attempting a wrestling clinch.

Keep moving, keep boxing. It would wear Summerall down. And keep talking, hopefully his words might find some purchase.

The strategy worked almost as Sam had intended. Their first exchanges showed that Summerall was much quicker, and the man at first scored far more solid blows than Sam had imagined he would. And they hurt. Several times he hit Sam with such force that it sent him flying through the air or skittering along the tarmac.

But the man's speed rendered him careless. Sam was only fetching one blow to Summerall's three, but all of Sam's blows landed where he wished them to land—nose, eyes, and ears. Within minutes, a faint trickle of blood began to flow from the larger man's nose, and it soon became apparent that the injury also affected the young man's vision. His punches became incrementally less precise, as if his ability to gage depth had begun to diminish.

The combat was fast, furious, and brutal, and there was no opportunity for either fighter to take a breather. As the two fought, the older man methodically moved in and out and continued to work the giant's face, wearing him down one blow at a time, attempting in the in-betweens to reason with the man. He tried every imaginable way to convince the mercenary to put his old lifestyle behind him, to move on with his life, to forgo living upon the suffering of others.

It was as if Sam reasoned with a brick wall.

Summerall obviously was in great shape, and he in no way flagged, but by the end of five minutes the man was breathing from his mouth and gasping to get a proper breath. Several times he'd attempted to grasp Sam in holds, and at one point he managed to get his hands on Sam and to toss him hard against one of the cars parked nearby. The side of the vehicle buckled beneath the force of the collision, but Sam was up and dancing in a flash and delivered another hard series of blows to Summerall's face that the man was only able to answer one-for-one.

Throughout the melee, Sam kept one eye peeled for additional adversaries, and he was aware that Sokol, bags in hand, had arrived soon after the contest had commenced. Much to the Chicagoan's relief.

But within minutes of Sam extricating himself from the mangled car, a shouting Feist emerged from the hangar door. Where the man had been up to that point was not clear, but it now was obvious he intended to enter the fray. It was Sam's real worry, that he might be pinned between two opponents at the same time, from different directions. And the Chicagoan danced away from the hangar, fists at the ready, attempting to put Summerall between himself and Feist.

But out of nowhere, Lydia veritably flew into the man, her shoes not even touching the ground the last 30 feet of her juggernaut course. She struck Feist a dozen times before he even righted himself, and her reply to the first blow that he was able to land against her was to leap in the air, delivering the poor chap a flurry of front kicks that were too many and too fast to follow, let alone to count, before she again touched the ground.

Feist was a tough kid, strong and quick, but Lydia outmatched him in every way. It was only after a few dozen heartbeats that Sam realized that Summerall, like him, was watching the sudden battle, slack-jawed and silent.

Seconds later, Summerall moved, as if to intervene in the combat between Lydia and his companion. Three long strides brought Sam to the man, and in one fluid move, he grasped Summerall around the waist, lifted him, and tossed him a dozen feet onto his head.

That got the man's attention. Why the felon had been so foolish as to turn his back on Sam was a mystery—perhaps he just didn't take Sam seriously—but the sudden fury with which he now attacked Sam suggested that he may have been waiting for Feist all along, hoping the two of them together would make short work of him.

Although still struggling to catch a proper breath through his damaged nose, Summerall attacked with a renewed wrath. He began landing punch after punch on Sam. The blows were brutal and hard, but they lacked the necessary accuracy, and most were wasted on the Chicagoan's shoulders, arms, and chest. Sam's counters were far more precise and continued slowly to work on the man's eyes and nose.

Within moments, his daughter's struggle with Feist was lost to Sam's sight, but he knew it continued by the sound of Barret's hoots, hollers, and taunts against her teammate for getting his "ass kicked by another girl."

Sam kept a clear and level head during the battle, and after another five minutes or so of brutal whirlwind fisticuffs, it became clear the bigger man was struggling to continue. By that time, the discoloration around Summerall's eyes was obvious, and he was having a tough time seeing. More and more of Sam's blows were cutting through his defenses, and the accuracy of the man's own punches and kicks had diminished. He was barely landing one punch to Sam's three.

Sam disengaged and gave a quick look around. Their fight hadn't taken them far from the building. Barret and Sokol were standing by the van with their bags, a patient look on the face of each. It occurred to Sam that such one-on-one contests likely were a banality under Morse's sadistic brand of leadership, if what Brian Severance had said of the man was any indication.

"We can keep doing this until the police show up, Wayne," he told his grunting and seething opponent. It was still early in the day, and no spectators had yet gathered to bear witness, but that was only a matter of time.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught sight of someone leaving the hatch door. It was Nan, bags in hand, and with her came the faint odor of petrol.

"Wayne, pack it in," she called out. As she did, she turned and tossed something back through the door. When she again spoke, her tone was stern and even. "I just drained the fuel trailer in the warehouse. We don't want to be around when the locals get here."

There was a sudden flash and the smell of burning fuel. The sound of rapid footsteps from behind caught Sam's attention, and he turned to see Lydia jogging toward him. A barely moving Feist lay on the tarmac about 100 yards behind her.

"Oh ... the donuts," she whispered, as she took up her place at Sam's side and stared at the burning hangar. Aside from having mussed up hair and a few faint bruises, the young woman looked her normal happy self.

"Where's Merrick?" It was Barret speaking.

"I dunno," a smiling Lydia called back to the woman. "I let him catch me over by that tree line," she pointed to an area a few hundred yards north, "and then kicked his ass. I think he'll be okay."

Sam had not lost track of Summerall, but realized he need no longer worry. The man sat back on his haunches and regarded the now wildly burning building calmly, as if it were a holiday bonfire.

"Let's go," Nan said shortly, as she approached the van with her bags. She turned to Summerall. "You coming?"

"Nah," he said. "Me and Chick'll go it alone—ask Feist, though." The man was tranquil, and there was no hint of defeat or anger in his tone.

Sam turned, as if to entreat the man further, but Nan shook her head firmly. The Chicagoan understood and shrugged. The mercenaries, despite their sniping and scratching at one another, were members of a team—a screwed up and dysfunctional team, no doubt—and they knew one another well. In a strange way, they even looked after one another.

All in all, it was a healthy sign. Loyalty, even impaired and damaged loyalty, was a hint that these people had the capacity to fit in someplace and that they were able to work with others. They might have a chance at something approaching a normal life after Morse and Hollirich, the only existence many of them had known.

Still, Summerall was past reasoning, and it was unlikely Merrick would deign to seek or to accept assistance after another pasting by Lydia. Sam fished the keys from his pocket, and as they arranged their bags in the back, Nan and the others confirmed his impression.

"They come as a team," Sokol said of Summerall and Merrick. "They'll make do somehow."

After they'd piled in the vehicle, Sam, Lydia, and their new companions checked on Feist, who by then had begun to hobble back toward the parking area. Despite Sam's entreaties, and a few minutes friendly badgering by Sokol and Barret, the man opted to stay with Summerall.

They left the three men as they were, and Sam and the small group made their way back to the highway just as the first emergency sirens sounded in the distance. Nan—who had taken shotgun as if it were her right—looked over at him.

"That shit's gotta hurt," she said.

"What's that?" Sam flipped on the AC and pulled two bottles of water from the cooler between them, passing one to the woman.

"Rumor is that Wayne got his lunch handed to him by an old fella in New York."

"I heard the same thing."

She regarded him a moment longer. "You old guys are sort of scary," she said flatly.

He nodded sagely, wincing in pain only once. He would feel this fight tomorrow.

"Lydia, honey, call your sister and find out where they are. We can stop and meet them for lunch on the way home."

The youngster, who had been nattering pleasantly with her new friends in the back, complied with her usual cheerfulness.

"What's everybody hungry for?" Sam asked the van.

It ended that simply.