At the top of the stairs, the stranger paused. With his free hand, he opened the bedroom door a bit more widely, looked in. He released more light onto the landing, doing so. From the pool of dimness at the bottom of the stairs, Lisa (who by now, in her fear and tension, had the eyes of a lemur) could see quite plainly: he wasn't Leon. He turned his head in hawkish profile as he looked into Rippner's room.

Then he turned and looked down the stairs.

Right at Lisa.

"You've grabbed the knife sharpener, Miss Reisert," he said, very softly.

Lisa looked where he was looking: at her right hand. A round, hard handle as she'd reached for the knife block. Not the half-flat grips of the boning knife, the paring knife, even one of the steak knives. She looked in hopeless realization at the slender, blunt-tipped wand of metal in her hand.

The stranger chuckled, started down the stairs. He straightened his gun arm to his side. Lisa numbly held her ground.

"Why don't we go to the kitchen, and you can pick yourself a proper weapon?" His voice was absolutely polite. Not a hint of sarcasm.

He brushed past her and went back through the living area. Lisa started when the kitchen light came on. She stared at the knife sharpener in her shaking hand. She looked up the stairs to Rippner's bedroom door.

Then she turned and went toward the kitchen light.

*****

He was hanging his jacket on the back of one of the kitchen chairs when she came to a stop just outside the doorway. He looked over. He was, as Lisa had already noted, very tall. A young late-fortyish, dark hair swept back off a high forehead, leanly handsome. His eyes on her were very dark, very intent. He was wearing jeans and a charcoal-gray sweatshirt. A red-and-white logo crossed his broad chest. Blackhawks Hockey.

"I've put my gun away," he said. He smiled slightly, a little apologetically. As if he were uncomfortable making a joke at her expense. "Is that alright with you, Miss Reisert?"

Lisa nodded.

"As for a proper knife for you--" He reached into his jeans pocket and set something on the kitchen table. "Will this do?"

It was the S.O.G. The black-and-blue-handled lockback she'd taken to Leon's. As Lisa stared at it, he continued:

"The locking code on Rippner's front door wasn't set. I thought something else might be wrong. Been a long day, hasn't it?"

He had a very gentle voice. Lisa felt tears start in her eyes. "Yes."

"I'm John Carter, Miss Reisert. Jackson's minder. May I speak to you?"

She nodded.

"Cup of tea?"

"Sure."

He took a stainless-steel teakettle from the back burner of the stove, filled it at the sink tap. While the water heated and he searched Rippner's cupboards for tea, Carter continued:

"There's a rumor among the younger agents-- a sort of corporate urban legend-- that if someone is switching jobs and you kill him without going through the channels-- on your own initiative-- you step into his spot with all his perqs and a bonus to boot. Ah--" He smiled as he found the tea. He took two bags from the cellophane packet, set them on the counter, and went in search of mugs. "Completely false, but you know how it is: once scuttlebutt starts, it's impossible to stop."

Lisa watched him set two mugs on the counter. Her voice made hardly any sound: "Is Jackson quitting, Mr. Carter?"

"Transferring. Which I think is a good thing; he's--" He stopped; he looked at her, frowning. "Are you afraid of me, Miss Reisert?"

"Yes," Lisa replied honestly.

"Why?"

His expression and tone were absolutely guileless. Lisa looked back at him evenly. "Because I helped Jackson kill Leon."

"You mean, I should now torture and-or kill you because you killed one of my men."

She nodded.

"Would that bring him back? No. Would it make him a better agent if he were plucked-- undeservedly-- from the grave? Hardly." He turned his attention to the paper sacks on the kitchen table. "In effect, by harming you, I would be rewarding Mr. Leon's incompetence." He took from one of the bags a frozen pizza and turned to the refrigerator. With his other hand on the handle to the freezer door, he turned to Lisa and asked: "Why should I want to do that?"

"Groceries," she replied, realizing--

Carter looked momentarily perplexed. Then he smiled, stowed the pizza among the bag-meals in Rippner's freezer, continued unpacking. "Odds and ends. Thought I'd stop on the way. The wife wanted me to pick a few things up anyway. Rippner never has enough food-- make that junk food-- on hand. The problem with playing favorites. I worry about him--"

"You're married?"

"Eighteen years. Three daughters. Our oldest just turned fifteen." He smiled with all the weary pleasure of a seasoned proud father. His eyes when he looked at her again were warm and brown. "You mean your boss doesn't bring you groceries when you're sick and there's a travel advisory?"

Lisa shook her head numbly. Behind her, the teakettle keened a breathy whistle.

"Maybe you should come to work for me," Carter said.

*****

The grocery bags were folded and pushed neatly between the waste bin and the kitchen wall. They had yielded, in addition to the pizza, frozen egg rolls, frozen waffles, orange juice, milk, four bananas, four apples, four cans of soup, carrots, celery, microwave popcorn, peanut butter, saltines, a box of plain strawberry Pop Tarts, and a brick of Neapolitan ice cream. Lisa, despite herself, nearly laughed at the seeming transdimensionality of it, the space-efficient precision with which Carter had packed the bags.

Now she sat across from him at the kitchen table, a steaming mug set before her, watching him stir milk into his tea.

"Not quitting. Transferring. Security systems, programming and design." Carter took a cautious, appreciative sip of his tea. "It's my job now to facilitate things for him."

"Why is he transferring, Mr. Carter?"

"Do you think it's because of you--?"

Lisa felt her cheeks warm. She looked at her tea.

"A transformation at soul level? A change of heart? The love of a good woman--?"

"I don't love him," she said.

"Of course not. Forgive me: I was teasing you." He waited until she looked back at him. His expression was sincere. "Miss Reisert, do you know the average life expectancy of a man in Jackson's position?"

She took a sip of tea, shook her head.

"They count their time in months, not years. Jackson is well past due." He drank more of his tea, then shifted in his chair, a look of minor discomfort on his face. He reached to his side; Lisa watched him adjust the position of the holster at his belt. "I must apologize for the gun. Young men who've been trained as Jackson has don't always respond well to kindness."

"Are you saying he might hate me for helping him?"

"A form of projection. He might blame you for his weakness. Resentment leading to violence, maybe even your death. Miss Reisert, I've seen it."

A shudder tapped its way between Lisa's shoulder blades. "He's been very civil toward me."

"Pardon me for asking, but what do you know about human nature?"

"I have two thirds of a degree in psychology."

"You do--?" The brown eyes blinked.

Lisa smiled slightly as she reached again for her mug. "Not what it says in my dossier, Mr. Carter?"

He looked amiably caught out. "Your dossier says 'business,' Miss Reisert."

"I minored in psych. I work long hours in customer service. I can read people."

"Even the people you sleep with?"

"Even them." She looked at him. "Where do I fit in here, Mr. Carter?"

"Jackson is a very bright boy. We have to make sure that he can still function as a human being. He's chosen you as his sponsor, if you will. A source of healthy human interaction."

"Sex, you mean."

"If he wanted only sex, he would have gone through one of our screened escort services." Carter spoke frankly. "He's obviously comfortable around you; he appreciates your company."

"What if I refuse?"

"Refuse me or refuse him?"

"Either of you. Any of this. What if I said, 'Thank you for the one-night stand and the near-death experience, Jackson. It was fun, but I've got to go.'?"

"Go, then, Miss Reisert." Carter nodded over his shoulder, toward the door. "You are absolutely free to leave at any time. Though I will say it's a terrible night. You'd be much better off waiting until they've sanded the streets."

"And if I stay--?"

"We give you a killswitch."

Lisa was suddenly cold. "What is that?"

"If at any time he threatens you, harms you-- if ever you feel he's endangering you-- you call me."

It was as if the sleet outside were sifting through the walls of Rippner's building and filling her veins.

"And you kill him," she said.

Carter nodded. His dark eyes were troubled. "You have to understand, Miss Reisert: it's like rehabilitating a pit bull that's been used for fighting. Sometimes the animal is too far gone."

"He's not an animal."

"Then he has hope."

"What if I refuse the killswitch?"

Carter hesitated. Finally, very softly, he said: "Please don't make me do that."

"You'd kill him now."

Another terrible pause. "Yes."

"Oh, my God."

He kept his hands on the table, kept his eyes between them. His hands were large and strong-looking. Lisa could see the fine balance of him beneath the Blackhawks sweatshirt. Muscle and lethality.

"Who are you?" she asked quietly. "What are you?"

"A multi-national coalition of government operatives. I'm sorry, but we--" -- and here his expression relaxed slightly-- "-- we don't have a clever acronym. Nothing like S.M.E.R.S.H. or C.H.A.O.S. Not even U.N.C.L.E." He looked at her again, the trace of a smile on his lips. "We are not anarchists, Miss Reisert. We are not terrorists. We're facilitators, if you will. Social editors, not social engineers. A step outside the regular channels of government, regulation, and the law."

"You break the law as you see fit--?"

"We bend it, here and there. Turns out it's a very elastic thing. Our managers are trained to use the resources at hand-- personnel, materiel-- to accomplish the editing tasks we set for them. The best of them-- like Jackson-- know enough to make their targets use their strengths against themselves. A sort of mental judo. You're a caring person, Lisa. You have your whole life against you on that count. He knows that; so do you."

"I can't go against my nature, you're saying."

"Something like that."

"Can he?"

"Being a spook and a killer is a product of training, not of nature. He's not a psychopath. We try to avoid those, you see: they're too unpredictable in the field. A danger to themselves and others. Nature can't be changed, Miss Reisert. Training can."

A trace of a dry smile. "Through 'quality human interaction.'"

"That's a key component of it." He sounded honestly hopeful. "So are deprogramming and analysis."

"Is he worth saving?"

"Yes."

Somehow she wasn't surprised when he put one of his hands over hers there on the table, squeezed gently. Carter rose. "I should be going; you must be exhausted." He set his mug on the sideboard, near the sink. He put on his jacket. From an inner pocket he took a pen and a small notebook. He wrote something, tore out the page, placed it on the table near Lisa's mug.

On the paper were a phone number and a single word:

Bagels.

Lisa looked at it. "Will he be alright, Mr. Carter?"

Carter paused. He chose to answer for the here-and-now.

"He'd be dead or comatose by now if he weren't. I'd say he's at the sleep-it-off stage."

Lisa nodded. She rose, automatically the hostess, and moved with him to the apartment door.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he's out all night," Carter continued. "Get some liquids into him when you can. B-vitamins, too, if he has any around. He'll be ravenous in the morning. Emergency medical contacts-- I doubt you'll need them, but just in case-- should be on his landline." He offered Lisa his hand. "Good night, Miss Reisert."

She took his hand. His grip was warm, oddly reassuring.

"Good night, Mr. Carter."

"Home to my Dejah Thoris. Set the locking code this time, Miss Reisert, would you?"

He left. Lisa closed and locked the door behind him.

Dejah Thoris.

She rinsed her mug, set it in the sink.

Carter. John Carter.

Turning out the kitchen light. Passing through the dark living area as knowingly as a woman at home. Toward Rippner's bedroom, the expressionist triangle of light on the stairs.

John Carter, Warlord of Mars.

Lisa smiled.

*****

Carter had been right: she was exhausted. But she couldn't sleep. Not just yet. She sat beside Rippner on his bed, and she could tell by his breathing: he was awake.

"Who was he, Jackson?"

"Leon?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"We trained together; years back, I got a promotion he thought he deserved; he was jockeying for my job."

"You're quitting?"

"Transferring. I thought Carter told you."

Now she paused. Only for a moment. "How much did you hear?"

Rippner opened his eyes, looked at her. Some of the color had come back to his face. He smiled slightly. No coldness, though, in the set of his mouth. None at all. He sat forward, next to her, and gently shifted her hair away from the right side of her neck. In the moment before his lips touched her skin, a tremble passed through her. He could kill me right now. He could strangle me, break my neck.

She smiled as Rippner kissed her throat. A curious, wonderful sense of freedom. No fear.

"I still owe you for those bagels," he murmured.

"The note you left said something about dinner."

"Anywhere."

"One Aldwych. Indigo."

"That's in London."

"Mm hm."

"Talking a bit of vacation, are we?"

"My company owes me about three years' worth. How about yours...?"

"We'll have to fly. Once the weather clears. Eight hours on a plane, Lise. Think you're up to it?"

"You'll find a way to keep me distracted, Jackson." Lisa turned to him, traced Rippner's full lower lip. One light fingertip on his skin. He shivered almost imperceptibly. Smiled, the slightest trace of a knowing smirk. Lisa didn't mind. She smiled for him in return, just before she shut his smirk down with a kiss. "You always do."

THE END

A/N: Well, that's it. Thanks again for reading; thanks, too, for the kind comments. Let me know if you think Jackson and Lisa's adventure in London is worth the telling. In the meantime, take care-- and I'm sorry that Tom Cruise couldn't stop by to stomp those jellyfish and call 'em glib. (If that's not an obscure way to end this thing, I don't know what is. Heh. Good night, all. 'Til next time.)