" Let's make it number five."

"Five?"

"Four so far."

"Impossible…"

"What?"

"This is amazing."

"We're just decharging. It's two months since that time in Washington."

Lyons thought back. Washington. Flor had flown into Dulles and called him at Stony Man. They had an evening and most of the night before his pager buzzed with a call from Stony Man. He flew to Guatemala, she flew to Colombia. He traveled as a soldier, she as a courier. They both fought. He felt his identity returning, the fears and hatreds and horrible, shuddering memories rushing into the pleasure-drained void of his mind, like a flight of bats crowding through the eye sockets of a skull.

"Please don't talk."

"Who wants to talk?" Her legs circled him. She locked her ankles behind him. He smelled the fragrance of her hair. The bed began to squeak and rock. Once again he started to slam into her.

Laughing, she responded to his violence with slow, sensuous writhing of her hips. But after a minute of his body slamming her, she whispered, "Easy. Easy. Slow down. Easy."

He continued slamming her. She told him, "Stop it. Slow down, you're hurting me."

Grabbing her hips in his hands, he continued, not seeking to give or gain but only desperately wanting unconsciousness.

Flor defended herself. Grasping his head in both hands, she pressed her sharp thumbnails against his closed eyes. She put only slight pressure against the eyelids as she warned him, "Stop now!"

Lyons threw himself aside, twisting his face away from the knives of her thumbnails, reflexively straightarming Flor away to a safe distance. His breath came in gasps as he leaned against the headboard.

A siren screamed from the highway, the sound rising and falling, coming closer. The years of service with the LAPD left him with the habit of listening for the identity of the vehicle. Only an ambulance, surely, taking an accident casualty to the hospital?