"I'm the motherfucker trying to keep you and your friends out of prison," Sam replied to the newly arrived Wayne Summerall, setting aside for the moment his promise to modulate his use of profanity in front of the girls. This was no time to be submissive or accommodating. The mercenary's voice and his very demeanor said plainly that he was on the prod. "Now get your silly ass in here and eat a fucking donut."

As Sam spoke, Summerall pushed a few steps farther into the room, an incredulous look on his face. There was another Gifted mercenary at his side. Lydia's smile and the teasing wave she gave the man suggested the second fellow was the same Blaine "Chick" Merrick who they'd presumed to have fled the country.

Merrick's presence might be a problem, a very big problem—he likely would hold a grudge against Lydia after the hiding she'd given him that night at the warehouse—but Summerall could be an enormous dilemma. The original plan had been to win the leader's support and hope the man would sway any others that might be present. But it was now clear from Sam's conversation with Nan and the others that Summerall's leadership was far from solid. Several had spoken dismissively of him. All seemed at least somewhat annoyed at his arrival.

Worse, Wayne had entered the room in something just short of outraged disbelief. Those present, former Morse people all, had been wary of Sam's pitch, but none so far were openly hostile to it. Nan even seemed on the verge of signing on. Sam could not afford to allow Summerall to bully the others. He braced himself and spoke.

"Like I told your pals, I'm here to help you." In a few short words, he summarized the offer he'd made the others. "I'll stay here until you decide, but our offer is a one-time thing. Come with us today, or you're on your own with the authorities."

"Nobody's going fucking anywhere," Summerall roared. "We stick with the fucking mission, we move the rest of the cargo, and when it's done, we un-ass the AO. Period."

"When was the last time you heard from those two clowns from the FBI?" shot back Nan.

"Bitch, I swear to God ...," began a livid Summerall.

"I have fucking told you about the way you speak to me," the woman warned as she slowly came to her feet. The look she gave Summerall was sheer ice. "And I have had about all the shit I'm going to take from you about 'the mission.' The only reason your broke ass is back here in Illinois is because you got jacked in New York. You'd be laying your silly motherfucking ass on a beach somewhere in Spain right now, if you hadn't. Now fuck off."

Summerall stood impotent and trembling as Nan turned to the others.

"You all decide for yourselves. I'm going with this guy." She nodded toward Sam. The woman turned on her heel and left the room, Sam presumed, to gather her belongings.

"There's three or four hundred million dollars' worth of equipment in this building," said a more restrained Summerall. "If you want to walk away from that, it's fine with me. That's more for the rest of us."

The others seemed to hesitate, the specter of vast wealth no doubt jostling within them against the likelihood of imprisonment or death at the hands of the authorities.

It now was obvious to Sam what this place was and what the mercenaries were storing there. Last year, Sam and Tommy had destroyed what Hollirich equipment they'd found, as they found it. The contents of this building likely were the last remnants of the corporation's so-called research, boxed up for shipment to Morocco, so Hollirich might resume its ghastly scheme in a more amenable locale.

It occurred to Sam why so much money was at play in Summerall's undertaking. Whether Summerall and his gang were shipping this equipment for Hollirich, or they were ransoming it back to them, as it now appeared, this building contained an evil the old Chicagoan refused to let out into the world.

It was now or never.

He stepped forward to a point where he was about six inches from Summerall, standing between the man and the table and struck his best oratorical pose.

"One of the best friends I ever had," he said aloud, as he faced those assembled, "a woman who was like a sister to me, ended up in one of Hollirich's dungeons. You may not want to hear it, but I'm going to tell you what they did to her."

Sam glared toward Wayne, as if daring the taller man to interrupt, and continued, his voice now filled with wonder.

"You know what she could do? My friend could look into another person's future, literally. Can you imagine that? She could look at a person and see their future." He paused, glancing again about the room. "But she couldn't read her own future. So, a bunch of government assholes grabbed her off the streets one day—all because some Hollirich shareholder thought her Gift might be a nifty present to give his grandkids for Christmas—and they started cutting and chopping on her and experimenting on her with every imaginable chemical, poison, and toxin ... until her frail little body couldn't take it anymore. And then they kept it up for months after she'd died, slicing her remains into tinier and tinier pieces for whatever ...."

"They did that with hundreds of people like us in a basement on The Farm," he continued. "And those few—those very few who survived that shithole—they shipped them off to another camp in Montana, like they did Lydia here, where they let politicians hunt them for sport ... for sport!"

"Now, you can come with me or stay," said Sam as he turned again to Summerall, "but there is no fucking way in Heaven or Hell that anything in this fucking place is going to Morocco, or anywhere else, to help torture people so some goddamn politician can get reelected and some motherfucking Hollirich shareholders can get richer."

"Well, I'm out 15 million dollars," screamed a now hysterical Summerall. "Are you going to write me a fucking check?"

"Do I look like the motherfucking Federal Reserve to you, motherfucker?" shouted Sam as he crowded Summerall against the doorframe.

Sam had hoped, nay, prayed, to avoid a fight when he and Lydia had arrived there, and he knew he still could—but only if he stepped carefully. Rather than press the issue of the warehouse, it would be easy to call Tommy and simply to have his friend come late that night and level the entire building and everything in it.

But something had snapped in Sam while he'd recited the painful tale of Amy Lascar, a story that had taken him months to piece together even partially. Everyone ... everyone wanted to get rich from his friend's bones.

He'd had enough.

"You're fucking broke, so am I," he continued in his deepest and most commanding voice, his face now mere inches from that of the taller Summerall. "Sin loi, motherfucker."

To Sam's surprise, the mercenary blinked first and drew back his head an inch.

"Change of plans," barked Sam. "If you're coming with me, get your gear. If you're not coming with me, you still might want to get your gear ... because I'm burning this motherfucking dump to the ground."

"The fuck you are," screamed a suddenly volatile Merrick. The man, who had glanced toward Lydia several times since his arrival, had seemed not to recognize the young woman from the one night he'd encountered her.

And then Lydia spoke.

"Chick, am I going to have to whip your ass again?" she said in a taunting voice that Sam hadn't imagined her capable of.

Jesus, thought Sam as he leapt in front of Lydia and grabbed for the lunging and shouting Merrick. When he did, something exploded on the right side of his head, and he felt himself sail across the room into the corner. Summerall almost immediately was on top of him, sending a series of powerful blows to Sam's head.