Four years ago when Kumi Warren did her special agent field training at Quantico, they put her through just about every kind of computer and photography course an undercover operative was likely to make use of. But they never got into anything like what she had just seen – or hadn't seen – on Layla's phone screen. I mean, I was right there looking at her myself.

And with Boxboy having an interest in the situation, it was mandatory she check it out. So off she went.

And she owed that much to Jevy.

The kid had become her roommate by default. She'd arrived in the city and started working the streets, and, tough as she was, didn't have a clue. Didn't know how to make enough to cover that flea-bag SRO hotel she was staying at. So even though it would risk the hooker cover Kumi had established for herself, she took Jevy in and let her sleep on the couch in the one-bedroom efficiency she rented over by the docks. She spoke to some of the other girls and got Jevy a spot in Boxboy's lineup – a mixed blessing but at least it got the kid work. And it wound up being useful for Kumi's other trade, another pair of eyes on this slime pimp the anti-terrorism people had assigned her to track.

She became Jevy's surrogate big sister, the only person the kid could really talk to, and Jevy, once you got her going, loved to talk. Boxboy, along with his hookers and porn productions, had big ambitions with the heroin and illegals he was bringing in – Middle East illegals who might not have any hesitation about whipping up a bomb.

Jevy had no idea Kumi was working undercover.

The seed for Kumi's espionage career was planted when she read The Silence of the Lambs and saw how FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling played cat and mouse with the serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic psychologist who eventually became her mentor. The fictional Starling became Kumi's role model, to the point where she chose criminology as her college major. She met with a Bureau recruiter her senior year and one of the things he considered a plus was that she was the daughter of mixed-race parents. Her African-American father had been a U.S. serviceman stationed on Okinawa when he met and married Kumi's Japanese mother. Kumi's impressive Bureau test scores and positive headquarters interviews sealed the deal for the career she now pursued. She went into training at the FBI Academy right after college, and, like Starling, finished in the top quarter of her class.

The closest she had come to anything like that woman vanishing in the picture tonight was on a crime scene tape she saw where an undercover agent she'd gone through basic with had been decapitated. He was Hispanic, spoke fluent Spanish with no accent, and had been working undercover with the DEA on a drugs-for-weapons bust of one of the Mexican cartels. Somebody had screwed up and blew his cover. The scene of him with no head was so awful that her eyes refused to see what was on the screen in front of her. Or maybe that was just the way she remembered the experience – that she had seen the grisly image but had blanked it out.

And now there was that ghost image and what happened to Jevy. Not quite so horrific but bad enough. And she couldn't help but feel somehow responsible. So pay attention and see where scumbag Boxboy takes you.

She still could make him out up ahead, about to cross against that red light. She followed him for another twenty yards or so until a man's voice called from behind her.

"Hey, Babe."

She turned around and saw two men coming this way with that look guys get when they want to get laid.

She recognized them, had worked them in a double with Layla in fact. They were assholes, liked it rough, and she didn't have time for this.

"Sorry, guys, I'm busy." Wishing she wasn't wearing this mini-skirt up to her butt, these open-toed spikes.

She turned to keep on after Boxboy, was pulled back around by a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"You don't remember us?" the guy with the heavy hand said. "The fine time we all had with your friend?"

The other one said, "Maybe you can call her for a reunion."

Kumi looked at her shoulder. "Take your hand off me."

"Hey, no offense," Heavy Hand said, giving her a squeeze before letting go.

Kumi could smell the booze on both of them. "We'll do it another time, okay? Right now I gotta go."

She turned to leave but Heavy Hand grabbed her again. "What about something quick, just the three of us? We got a car."

"Can't do it. I've got another gig."

"Our money's not good enough, that it?"

This time he didn't let go. His friend came up and grabbed Kumi from behind. This wasn't going well. Kumi bent sharply forward, jackknifing herself and pulling the guy behind her off balance. She put her right leg behind the guy's left knee and straightened up quickly. Gave him a sharp elbow to the gut that sent him tripping backwards over her leg, sending him sprawling onto the sidewalk.

Heavy Hand cocked his arm to throw a punch and suddenly found a gun in his face – a Beretta Bobcat Kumi kept tucked in her custom-cut jacket for moments like this.

"Whoa," he said.

Kumi said, "You got two seconds to pick that piece of crud up off the sidewalk and get your lame asses outta here."

She waited with the gun pointed at him until he did just that. Watched the two of them hobble off down the sidewalk and get into their car that was parked by a hydrant. The lights came on and after a moment the car started coming toward her. Accelerating. She stepped back from the street. Shit, they could have their own pieces in there, rifle, shotgun... She ducked down and kept her gun aimed at the car, panning with it as it started to pass. Sure enough, the window went down and a hand came out.

She heard Rotate on this! as the car went by and the hand gave her the finger.

She lowered her gun and stood up, watched the car drive up the street in the direction Boxboy went. When the taillights disappeared around a corner she focused on the sidewalk ahead. Too dark to see much, too dim to see Boxboy. Couldn't see the other two either.

She took off her heels and started to run, shoes in one hand, gun in the other.

She got to the first corner and looked both ways. No sign of him or the others.

Went on to the next corner and same thing. Nobody in either direction.

She stopped and stood there and cursed herself. They could be anywhere now.

She could double back and check those side streets and maybe luck out. But for the moment anyway, chances were, because of those two assholes, she'd lost them.