"Shit," the younger one opined, without heat. "Just kill us now."

"There ain't no easy way out, boys. You done a bad thing. What you got to decide now is how do you want to pay your debt to society."

Scithe was having fun.

His question was not meant to be answered. Neither villain tried. Both were, now, lost souls wandering a desert of despair.

Tinnie said, "They could probably get some cooperation points if they came clean right now, couldn't they, Senior Lieutenant?"

I took a closer look at Scithe. Sure enough, he was sporting senior lieutenant's pips. He was bounding up the law-and-order ladder.

The man had a knack for something besides mooning after redheads. He could get villains to keep him happy by confiding in him, urged along by his implying that he could provide something they wanted badly: a way out.

"Gentlemen, you have to give me something. I know you aren't stupid." Which was a bald-faced lie. "You know how the system works. You'll go to the Al-Khar because I can't not take you in. We have to see if you're on the wanted book for something ugly. If you have no majors there, you could walk out under your own power." In chains, headed for the swamp. "You know we do let folks go to encourage the rest of you to cooperate. So far, here, all we've got is a jimmied lock and some folks who aren't happy about getting waked up in the middle of the night. So why not tell me? What's the story?"

The elder brother thought he'd give cooperation a chance. Condemnation to the Little Dismal Swamp project amounted to a death sentence. Though some prisoners might complete their sentences, someday. None have yet but the project isn't all that old.

"We was supposed to catch the woman and take her someplace. The guy wasn't supposed to be here. If he was, we was supposed to bop him on the head and get out. With her."