Michael appeared at Nikita's side.  "I have a possible location," he said to her.
Turning to Walter, he said, "Give us everything we can possibly carry.  Operations has already approved the inventory."

         "No backup, Michael?"  Walter remembered the last time there was no backup,
and that Nikita had returned gravely injured.  The most memorable time before that,
Simone had not returned at all.

        Michael returned Walter's questioning look with a blank stare and a soft, "No,
there's no time.  Madeline will coordinate tactical from here, but it's basically a two-man mission.  We need to be in and out quickly.  Nikita, be at van access in 15 minutes."  Michael pivoted on his heel and left.

        An explanation from Michael was unusual, and Walter took it as a sign of Nikita's influence on the younger man.  He shook his head as he continued to gather the inventory Michael had requested.

        Nikita was mystified as well, for the more she learned about Michael, the less it
seemed she really knew.  "No backup and Madeline listening to everything we say.  This ought to be an interesting mission, Walter."

        "Just be careful, Sugar.  I hate it that you're going in alone.  That's never a good
idea."

        Nikita patted the grizzled older man's shoulder.  "We'll be fine.  After all, I'm going in with Michael, and there's no one I trust more on a mission.  He's proved himself to me, Walter."

        Walter gave an imperceptible shake of his head.  "Even after all the things he's
done ‘to' you, Sugar?"

        Nikita gazed at Walter with luminous blue eyes and said a little wryly, "It's all been part of the job--of keeping me alive, that is.  I understand a lot more than I used to, really." Nikita gave Walter a quick kiss on his seamed cheek and left to go meet Michael.

        "Be safe, Sugar," he said softly.

        Birkoff sat in a chair looking at his Uncle Nick's henchmen.  They looked back at him as if he were going to attack them at any moment.  What a joke, he thought.  They had untied his feet, but his hands were now tied behind him and to the chair back as well.  Birkoff couldn't see a computer anywhere.  He didn't think he'd ever been in this house before, and he still had no idea where he was, except that he was back in the b osom of his family.  A family he had prayed he would never see again.  The thought of where he was sent chills down his back.

        "Hey, I need to take a leak.  My uncle make any provision for that?" he asked
insolently.

        "Nah!  We'll ask him when he comes back.  You can suffer till then," the tall one laughed.

        "What can it hurt?" Birkoff asked.  "You both are twice my weight.  All I want to
do is pee."

        The shorter guard snorted and said, "He's right.  What's the little wimp gone do?  Pee on us?"

        "Yeah, well all right."  He started untying Birkoff from the chair, but his hands were still bound behind his back.

        They herded him down a hall and to the right.  The shorter guard opened the back room door.  Whew, he thought as the odor of ammonia hit him.  Obviously no women at this house.  "Well, are you going to untie my hands, or are you going to do the honors for me?" he simpered.

        The shorter guard looked at the taller guard, who shook his head and said, "Untie his hands."

        It was a relief to have his hands free, and Birkoff spent a minute rubbing his wrists in order to increase the circulation to his hands.  "Do you like to watch?" he asked.  "I  mean, where am I going to go?  I don't even know where the hell I am."

        The guard slammed the bathroom door, giving Birkoff the freedom to look for first for another way out.  There was  only a small transom style window, but he thought that maybe with his small physique, he could manage to squeeze through.  He turned on the water faucet slowly to hopefully imitate the sound of emptying his bladder.  Although Birkoff spent most of his life in front of a computer, he did work out a little and was agile enough to stand on side of the bath tub and open the window.  He hoisted his body through the window and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

        The window was much higher from the ground than he had anticipated, for the
grade was not level and it dropped sharply from the house.   Birkoff rolled for twenty feet before being stopped abruptly by a dog house.  "Grrr," came the ominous response of the inhabitant inside the dog house.

        Birkoff saw that there was a chain and decided to make a run for cover before the disturbed canine could arouse himself enough to exit and take a chunk of prime Birkoff flesh.  A quiet groan escaped his lips as he sprinted for the trees behind the house.  That twenty foot roll had given him some new bruises.

        As he flung his body into the dense brush, the guard dog began to bark in full
voice.  Lights flashed on everywhere around the compound.  Birkoff knew where he was now and knew he was in the deepest sh** imaginable.  His Uncle Nick and the two guards came running out of the house.  Birkoff knew he his best chance for escape was to get to the computer and decided to make for the house while they were all out looking for him.  He began a circuitous route back to the front of the house, while they headed for the woods.

        Michael drove along silently.  Nikita sighed as she asked impatiently, "Michael, are you going to tell me where we're going and who has Birkoff?  Is a briefing too much to ask?"

        Michael glanced briefly at Nikita.  "Birkoff has been taken by his family.  They are a Russian Mafia family who emigrated to this continent ahead of Gorbachev's fall.  They are involved in several areas:  drugs, arms and some minor espionage.  They suffered a  great loss of life  about eight years ago and are just now recovering some of their  influence."  Michael's voice was monotone as he recited the facts.

        "Eight years ago?  About the time Birkoff came to Section?  I suppose there is a connection," Nikita prodded not so subtly.

        "Yes."

        "Michael!  First you tell me you are responsible for Birkoff being in Section, then someone else tells me that you and Simone brought him back from a mission.  Tell me the whole story, Michael.  I'm tired of the bits and pieces I have to quilt together to form the framework of your life."  Nikita was hurt.  What she saw in front of her was the old Michael, and she didn't intend to say ‘welcome back.'

        "Nikita, we need to focus on the mission.  I need to think as I drive.  I need to go over all the possibilities.  We can go over all the details later."  Michael wished Nikita would remember that Madeline was listening to every word they said.  He pointed to his receiver to remind her.

        Nikita nodded and said petulantly for Madeline's benefit, "Fine, Michael.  Focus
on the mission."

        "There's a reason for everything I do, Nikita."  ‘Focusing on the mission' was the last thing on Michael's mind.  A similar trip eight years before was on it instead.

         "Michael, focus!"  Simone  hissed softly as Michael's right hand crept its way up her thigh.  "We're almost there."

         Michael smiled and winked at his wife, then placed his right hand back on the steering wheel.  They were on their way to infiltrate and take down a Russian Mafia family, the Birkoff's.  "We're supposed to be a couple in love," he said teasingly.  "Think we can pull it off?"

         Simone smiled, "Possibly."  Her Asian ancestry gave her face a piquant appeal.  She was not classically beautiful in the oriental sense, but Michael loved her deep brown eyes and mischievous smile.  She had brought him a reason to live, a reason to come back from missions.  She had helped him learn to insulate himself from what he had done and what he had to do.

         When he had finished training with Madeline, he had been bereft of emotion and feeling, but the instant he had met his new team member, Simone, he had felt an electric current running through him that energized and renewed him.  Amazingly, Simone had felt it too.

         They had now been partners for several years now, and Michael was already the team leader.  They had reached their destination in the  dreary  foothills of the Terenee Mountains.  A small farm house was the site of the Birkoff compound.  Several guards had marked their entry and awaited them with drawn machine guns as Michael and Simone stepped down from their vehicle.

        "I'm Michael and this is my wife Simone, Gregori is expecting us."  Michael was slow and deliberate in his movements, so that the guards would not be spooked into any rash response.

         "We know."  The sullen leader of the guards motioned with his head for them to enter the house.  Michael and Simone walked ahead of them.

         Inside the small house, Gregori Birkoff rose to greet them.  He had a short but powerful build, dark brown, intelligent eyes and a suspicious look on his face.  "So you are the team who is going to help me with my  French contacts?"

         "If that's what you need us to do," Michael responded.  "We have many skills you might want to utilize,  for a price," he added.  "Computers, contacts here and in the Far East."  Michael nodded toward Simone.   Michael and Simone needed access to the Birkoff's computer system.  Section had finally traced the multiple unauthorized violations of  the CIA's system to this Birkoff family.  There had been other incursions on other agency systems as well.  Michael and Simone were there primarily to destroy the fledgling espionage network that the Birkoffs had begun to build.

         "One stop shopping as the Americans would say!"  Gregori laughed. "Well, my computer system is one of the best," he bragged.  "Would you like to see it?"

         Michael shrugged and looked at Simone, "Sure.  Why not?"

        "How much longer, Michael? Why would Birkoff be in danger from his family?
You'd think--"

 Michael interrupted, "They probably consider him a traitor to the family.  Let it go for now, Nikita.  All you need to know is that, he's in grave danger from his family, and we need to extract him.  They will resist."

 Nikita rolled her eyes at Michael's stubborn disinclination to talk and sighed.  How much of his attitude was for Madeline's benefit, and how much was the old Michael  emerging, Nikita wasn't sure, but she certainly felt there was more on his mind than rescuing Birkoff.

        Nikita was correct in her feelings.  Michael often wished that Nikita would learn the gift of silence.  Simone had it, especially on missions.  She had been a prime example of the ‘mission mode,' that was now  second nature to him.  Although he had been promoted to team leader status before her, Simone had still taught him many lessons on their missions together.

        Michael and Simone followed Gregori Birkoff into the adjacent room.  It was filled with computer equipment and accessories.  It was easy to see why this group was so successful at their incursions into the various government agencies.  A youth sat keying busily at one of the terminals.  He was thin, bespectacled and sported a bruised cheek.

        "You let your kid play games on your system?" Michael asked with a voice that was rife with disbelief, but Simone merely raised an eyebrow at the circumstance before her.

        Gregori snorted, "My ‘kid' is a computer genius, and he designed and built our system.  You would be amazed at what he's accomplished for us."  He gave a hardier than necessary slap to his son's shoulder.  The young man jumped in response, as if he expected something worse.

        Michael was sickened at the signs of abuse before him, but rescuing a child wasn't part of the mission profile.  Destroying the computer system, however, was.  "That's an impressive feat for one so young," he responded.

        Section One would be stunned to learn that their computer nemesis was a kid who barely looked to be in his teens.  He continued to watch the youngster, who turned to him abruptly and said, "Take a picture, it'll last longer."  Then he cringed as if he  expected Michael to retaliate.

        "Your kid has a smart mouth, Gregori.  Are we gonna do a deal or not?" Michael wanted to see more of the house.  Simone followed alertly at his  side as they left the room that housed the computer system.

        Gregori led them to a back room that served as his office.  A heavily scarred wood desk and three straight back chairs were the primary  furnishings.  Gregori  seated himself in the chair behind the desk and motioned for Michael and Simone to take the other two.

        "I need someone who can run interference with my French contacts.  I don't speak the language too well, and I'm never sure if I'm being cheated or not."

        "If all you want is an interpreter, Gregori, you could find one a lot cheaper," Michael told him insolently.  He stood as if to leave.

        "Michael, Michael, of course, I need more than an interpreter.  I need your contacts as well for another venture I have in mind," Gregori hastened to mollify his new acquaintances.

         Michael raised an eyebrow, "What else do you have in mind, Gregori?  Simone and I don't work cheaply, and we don't do penny ante jobs."

        "Just exactly what does Simone do, Michael?  What are her skills?"

        Michael smiled, for he knew where Gregori's mind was going.  He had seen Gregori's surreptitious glances at Simone's trim figure.  "She's the tough one of the two  of us.  She's the one that will cut the throat of anyone that touches her," he said softly as he lovingly caressed her cheek.

        Simone's brown eyes glinted as she gave a half smile and said one word, "Right."

        Gregori coughed and said, "Right."
 

Continue on to Part III