Angelina! I ground my teeth with rage, fired more shots into the air so that the spectators who had been admiring my nude form now dived for cover. I managed to keep just enough peace of mind to memorize the numbers on the car.

Back in the house I thought briefly of calling the police, as any good citizen would, but since I have always been a very bad citizen I instantly dismissed the idea. Mighty is Slippery Jim diGriz in his wrath! Revenge would be mine! I turned on the compterm, mashed my thumbprint on to the ID plate, punched in my priority code, then the number of the kidnap car and asked for identification. Not a very complex task for a planetary computer and the answer appeared on the screen as soon as I hit the PRINT button.

When it did I dropped numbly into the chair. They had her. This was far worse than I had imagined. Now, look, don’t go thinking that I am a coward. Quite the opposite, I say humbly.

You are looking at a survivor of a lifetime of crime—who has also survived another lifetime of crimefighting after being drafted into the Special Corps, the elite galaxy-wide organization that uses crooks to catch crooks. That I have stayed relatively sound in mind and body all these years certainly speaks well of my reflexes, if not my intelligence. It was now going to take all my years of experience to extract my dear wife from this nasty situation. Thought was needed, not action and, though it was still early in the day, I cracked out a bottle of 140 proof Old Thought Provoker and poured a generous amount to lubricate my synapses.

With the first sip came the realization that the boys would have to be in on this one. Angelina and I, doting parents, had labored to shield them from the cruel facts of the world, but that time was over. Their graduation from school was still a few days away, but I was sure that this could be accelerated with the correct persuasion in the proper quarters. Strange to think they were almost out of their teens already; how the years slip by. Their mother—Angelina, my kidnapped treasure!—was as beautiful as ever. As for myself, I may be older but I am no wiser. The gray in my hair has not affected the lust for gold in my heart.