Two mushy oranges. Two rubber-skinned apples. He should have known better than to buy fresh fruit. Hot sauce. Taco sauce. Steak sauce. Worcestershire sauce. Yellow mustard. Sweet relish. Ketchup. All jumbo size. Geez, this is from last summer’s cook-out. Man, Jimmy. This is some old shit.

I look at him; he’s face down in a puddle of lemon juice. I think, my refrigerator used to look just like this. On days like these, when I’m kneeling in what’s left behind, I think I’m glad to be out of Section Two. What kind of life is that, really? You might as well have a target on your back. But God help me, there’s still a part of me that wants it to be me out there with them, chasing whoever did this to Jimmy.

Napoleon's fingers tightened spasmodically around the glass. He tilted back and took a swig and then another, and then banged the empty glass down on the coffee table as the alcohol – whisky, he identified with very little interest – burned its way down his throat. He coughed once, then looked at his partner, whose expression gave nothing away. "Say what you came to say, Illya."

Illya reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled something out, tossed it onto the table between them. A reel of tape.

He was so patient, he was a stone. They folded the maps, gathered what supplies they could salvage from the remains of the aircraft, and headed for the river, all in silence.

He even waited while they walked a mile downstream to find the easiest crossing point. He waited until Illya was ankle-deep in freezing water before broaching the subject again; timing, after all, was everything.

"So, Illya."

"No."

"You idiot," Illya hissed, "what do you think you're doing? What if one of them saw you?"

Napoleon risked a glance over his shoulder. The cavern seemed devoid of people; still, sometimes Illya could detect snipers or spies hidden in places Napoleon wouldn't think to look. "Who? Where are they?"

"Everywhere! Crowds of people, walking round in a ring. They must have all come in while I was bringing you here."

The distance between them didn't matter, however chaste it might appear. Napoleon could seduce without the touch of so much as a finger; this much contact was practically cheating. A couple of jokes, a few sincere compliments, an innocent (or not so innocent, depending) suggestion, and this woman would be thoroughly and inescapably charmed. As they always were.

As you were, Illya reminded himself, with a self-deprecating shake of his head. Even if it wasn't really like that, as Napoleon told him, more than once and quite insistently. "This is different," Napoleon kept saying.