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FOX Academy:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love Who Spied Me

Book III - The Curse of the Yellow Monkey

Book IV - Wait For No One

Book V - Dawn of Vengeance

Chapter 8 - Heavenly Shades of Night are Fallen

As the group around the daycare centre broke up another creature, unnoticed in the shadows of the fruit trees that decorated the grounds of the Academy, closed the electronic device he was holding. Kain Algorath would have recognized the equipment, it was used for capturing cell phone data to clone illegal phones and listen in on the originals. You could also suck the PIN numbers out of someone's network device and the algorithms for any encryption being used. You then downloaded these into an unlocked phone and you essentially became an invisible entity on the network, able to listen in, locate other users, or contact them if that was your desire.

The creature pulled a regular cell phone from its pocket and made a call.

"I have the information you wanted from the Vixen's phone. As you predicted she was in contact with the one called Silver. What would you like me to do with it?"

Kain would also have recognized the voice of the creature using the device. He had heard it once before, over the speaker of his laptop in his dorm room at the private high school he had attended in Virginia. He would never forget it, because it was the voice that had compelled him to go to his closet and open the door, revealing the dead and battered body of Naomi hanging from the railing. She had been a CIA White Hat hacker sent to stop the criminal hacker known as 'The Long Guy', who was using Kain's skills and his innocence to break into the American defence and intelligence institution servers. Naomi had been Kain's lover briefly, before the Long Guy had killed her and left her body to scare Kain into cooperating. It was that voice that Kain heard in his nightmares. It was the same voice that responded to the instructions delivered over the cell phone on the grounds of the Foreign Operations eXecutive.

"As you wish. I will leave the altered phone in the usual place. And when this is done, the vixen will be mine, to do with as I please?" There was a pause as he listened. "Very good. I will await your signal." He slid the phone closed and turned toward the headquarters building. There was no one in sight. Walking briskly, but calmly, he strode over to the building, nodded to the RCMP guards as he showed his pass, and used the proximity card to enter the restricted area. Back at his desk he locked the workstation so that only he could access it later and picked up his bag, the one he carried his specialized equipment in. Visions of what he would do to the tall crimson vixen filled his head. Once he removed her dangerous mechanical paw he would take her to a secluded spot he had found along the Ottawa River, he would drag her to the edge of the water, and he would see how fast she could swim. And when he caught her, he would rip the clothes from her body and he would ....

"Calling it a night Mister Wodsworth?"

The black caiman spun on his heels to regard the creature that had addressed him. It was a middle-aged mouse, one of the FOX analysts that had not been fired. The mouse, a friendly female, had made great efforts to get the reticent reptile talking, to no avail. She was a wizard with data, but not very good at reading people.

"Um, no. Just stepping out to, uhm, have a bite with a friend." He blinked his blood-red eyes slowly. "I have to come back and attend to some, ah, unfinished business later."

"I swear Henry, can I call you Henry? Of course I can! I swear ... you are going to work yourself to death if you don't slow down. You need to get out and get more exercise."

"I'll take some time off, once I'm finished this work, miss ....?"

"Claire."

"Miss Claire. I promise. This time tomorrow I'll be, uhm, taking on one of my colleagues in a little competitive, ah, one-on-one.

"Oh! Basketball. Very healthy. Good for the abs." She poked him in the midriff playfully. He grinned painfully, fighting the urge to bite her head off. He side stepped her and headed for the exit. She called after him. "Best of luck tomorrow. Get out there and slaughter 'em!"

"My thought exactly."

* * * * * * * *

The conspirators were gathered in the inner room on the second floor of the yellow house on Gladstone Avenue in the early evening, but the mood was much more sombre than before. Some of George's crew were keeping watch from the street, to warn of any threat approaching. Vikki and Kain had guns in their paws, ready to rush out and face whatever foe approached. Marcel was leaning against the wall, scowling and cleaning his claws with a stiletto he had pulled from his sleeve. Geno was present at this meeting. She could not go back to the Academy because she had rearranged the features of one of the RCMP officers in order to alert Vikki about the threat to her son. She squatted against the wall, rhythmically flicking the blade of her personal weapon, a switchblade disguised as an antique crucifix, in and out.

The only one that was not armed or looking apprehensive was Silver. He was sitting perfectly still in the big arm chair with a blank expression on his face. His eyes were closed, he was breathing softly, and he was not making a sound. For those used to hear him whistling Tchaikovsky, Edith Piaf, or the Righteous Brothers in times of stress, this silence was the most disturbing thing of all.

"What is he doing?" Marcel whispered to Vikki.

"I don't know." She sniffed. She had arrived before any of the rest and had spent her time alone with Silver crying against his shoulder. Even then he had been unusually quiet and cold. It filled her with foreboding. "Why don't you ask him?"

To her surprise, Marcel did tackle the subject, but not head on. "Silver," he began, "who is this Colonel Sun, and why is he doing this?"

Silver's eyes opened, but he did not move them to focus on any of them, nor did he change position. "Sun GangZhi." Silver said without emotion. "It means Steel Willed Son, or Resolute Son, I suppose. He's a half civet cat, half tiger from Chengdu, Sichuan province in the People's Republic of China. Despite being a sadist and a pervert, he was a rising star in the Ministry of State Security, one of the youngest ever promoted to Colonel, and he was destined for the politburo, until 1990 that is. Sun tried to use the in-fighting between the leaders after the Tian An Men incident to advance his career. He had already compromised our senior agent there, Yellow, and his assistant. They set me up for Sun to capture, and then he traded me for information that would have propelled him straight to the top."

"But he could not help but give in to his perversions." Silver paused, his brow furrowed as if he was in physical pain. He rubbed the scars on his chest through his shirt as he continued. "He tortured me, almost to death, in his private chamber of horrors, and ..." Silver's voice choked momentarily, "... and he let his band of brutal guards rape me, repeatedly." Silver fell silent, staring off into space. Marcel thought that he would have to prompt him but Silver started speaking again on his own.

"He was cocky and incautious, sensing victory. I stole the information he had traded for me, and left him with nothing. I hear that when he discovered the loss he stripped the hide off a young panda, literally, and I feel sorry for that. He probably would have survived the setback, and continued his steady rise to become one of the senior leaders, but for our intervention. W had his contacts leak what had really happened to the right people and Sun's career went into a nosedive. He's barely been able to hold on to his job in state security since then. He's been posted to the back country, and given mundane assignments, like investigating minor corruption on joint development projects."

"Where he met the Long Guy and compromised our future Commissionaire of the RCMP." Kain interrupted.

"Most likely." Silver agreed. "I read anything that popped up in the intelligence reports with his name, somehow knowing in the back of my mind that we were not finished with each other yet, but he dropped below the horizon a few years back."

"I realize that were not exactly the most welcome creatures around town right now," Marcel said, a little edginess beginning to show in his voice, "but what are we doing sitting here when we could be out kicking butt and rippin' those guys a few new ...." He stopped abruptly when he remembered what had happened to Silver in that cell.

"Tailholes?" Silver finished for him. "Because it's Sun's game. Only he knows what the next move is. If we go out tearing up the town we will either be taken out by the police who think we are murderers or exhaust ourselves on a wild goose chase."

"It's like a chess game." Vikki observed. Silver played chess occasionally against his friend, Tancred Williams. Unfortunately, he usually lost.

"No. Sun isn't a chess player. He plays Go."

"Go what?" Geno asked, thinking of Go Fish, a card game she and her convent school classmates had managed to turn into a sexual adventure.

"Just Go, or WeiQi in Chinese." Silver answered. "The game is played by two players who alternately place black and white stones on the vacant intersections of a grid of nineteen by nineteen lines. Once placed on the board, stones cannot be moved elsewhere, unless they are surrounded and captured by the opponent's stones, then they are removed. The object of the game is to control a larger portion of the board than the opponent. You can spread your stones out to influence large areas initially, or concentrate them for mutual support. Part of the strategic difficulty of the game stems from finding a balance between the two."

"That's it?" Marcel asked. "It sounds pretty simple."

"There are a few more rules, but it's not as easy to master as it sounds. A true master can see ahead many moves and place traps for his opponent, leaving them with almost no options but to follow along until his stones are dead. That's what they call it when you are out of moves for a particular group of stones - dead."

"How do you win this game?" Kain, who had played variations of it on line, inquired.

"It varies from region to region, but typically, the one who controls the most territory wins. With the Chinese scoring method, all the 'dead' stones are removed them the remainder and the spaces they surround are counted."

"So those of us who haven't been taken out already just wait around with you 'dead stones' until we're taken out too? Is that the plan?" Geno asked, pressing the button to make the spring loaded blade in her cross snap out loudly.

"No. Instead of placing a stone, a player may pass if no useful moves remain. Sun has been placing his stones where we can't see them and removing ours for too long. I intend to pass this round and force him to reveal his strategy."

"Then we kick ass!" Marcel said eagerly.

"Maybe." Silver shrugged, still without emotion. "I think that Sun may have miscalculated in assuming that some of us as out of the game. But we can't expose ourselves, or his forces will surround us and then we really will be dead. There is one other option though."

"What's that?" Vikki looked up hopefully.

"A player cannot play a stone in such a way that would kill off a group of their stones, subject to one important exception. The rule does not apply if the play results in the capture, or death, of one or more of the opponent's stones. The downside is that you are likely to lose the stone you used to make the play the next round, but if you can take out one of your opponents key stones by doing it .... then it's worth it"

"What do they call that rule?" Vikki asked suspiciously.

"The suicide rule."

"What are going to do? Exactly?"

Silver looked at them for the first time, letting his gaze drift from one to the other until it came to rest on Vikki. "I'm going to put myself right in the middle. Then while he's focused on me those miscounted stones of ours will go to work rescuing Leslie and eliminating Sun's minions."

"I get to do the basset." Geno said in a nasty tone. Vikki ignored her.

"If you walk into his trap it will be suicide." Vikki told Silver angrily. "Do you really expect to beat him at his own game?"

"I think that it is our only chance."

She wiped more tears from her eyes. "Why is he torturing us like this? Why doesn't he just kill you and get it over with?"

"The more he takes away from me first the more he wins." Silver shrugged. "Just like Go."

"What more is there to take away?"

"My legacy."

"Oh my God!" Vikki said, clutching her throat. "Do you think that he will kill Leslie?"

"No." Silver replied shaking his head sadly. "Worse."

* * * * * * * *

It was still light out when Acting Deputy Commissionaire Parker arrived at the RCMP headquarters complex, but it stayed light out quite late this time of year, and the compound was almost deserted. Not that the headquarters was ever really empty. There was the National Operations Centre and various divisions that kept a twenty-four and seven watch, and there were always a few workaholics hanging about. Tonight, however, it felt deserted, and Charlie attributed that to her mood. She felt abandoned and adrift, unsure what was true and what was a lie anymore. Worse, she suspected that she was the cause of some of it.

She made her way through the various layers of security into the inner sanctum where the most senior leaders had their offices. As a chief inspector she had not rated space in this wing, but now that she was a deputy, all doors were open to her.

She examined the hallway as she approached the offices of the Commissionaire. They were paneled in heavy dark wood carved in the likeness of the bison that had formed the Northwest Mounted Police to put down the Riel rebellion. This part of the building was imposing, but it was also in need of repair, the lights were too dim and it lacked air conditioning. Charlie wondered if it was worth all the effort she had put in to get here.

In the Commissionaire's office the west highland terrier was waiting for her, as he said he would be. She had called immediately after the incident at the daycare centre and demanded a meeting. He had been on his way to a charity dinner but promised to duck out as soon as he could and meet her here, in his offices. She realized something as she knocked on the heavy wooden door. The RCMP still had the enforcement role for counter-intelligence in Canada, and they were paranoid of being infiltrated by double agents, so they routinely monitored the communications and conversations in the building. But of all the places in all the buildings that the Force owned, the Commissionaire's office was the one place that was guaranteed to be free of monitoring devices. So anything that the westie said would be heard by her ears only, and if she ever tried to use it against him it would be her word against his. Even if he was not the son of a powerful political family that would mean the end of her career.

"Ah, Patricia." The Commissionaire smiled cautiously as Charlie entered. "To what do I owe this honour?" He waved a paw at a comfortable leather chair opposite his desk.

"There have been some unsettling developments over at FOX." Charlie said, not bothering to sit. "I need some assurances that what we are not being manipulated by outside forces. I need to know who your source is."

The westie looked chagrined, but a little scared too. "You doubt my motives in this matter?" He said, a little too hastily.

Charlie had not, not until now. She had assumed that the Commissionaire, not famous for his intellect or strong will by any means, was merely being manipulated. Now she began to suspect darker purpose behind his actions.

"How was it that you managed to get word of the killings so quickly?" Charlie went directly to the point. "Even before they happened it seems."

"What are you talking about?"

"The direction you issued after the squirrel was murdered. It came unusually fast."

"I am a decisive creature. I do not need to agonize over a decision or spend hours drafting my orders." The westie managed to look offended.

"Then you had better learn to delete the old versions of your memos from the metadata of your documents before you send them out. The time and date of each draft is recorded, and if you do not wipe them before sending the file as an attachment it is a simple matter of looking it up in the editing features. We have caught and prosecuted a dozen mafia bosses because of this."

Charlie kept a straight face as the westie went even whiter than his fur. It was true, what she had said about the files and the prosecutions, but she had not had time to do this with his orders, she did not even have electronic copies of them. However his look told her all that she needed to know. He was bent, and she had helped him do something very, very bad. She casually placed the tips of her digits on his desk and leaned on them, to keep from falling over as her legs threatened to give out under her. It was all she could do to keep her face neutral.

"Now you listen to me Parker." The Commissionaire snarled. "This is bigger than you or me. The future of our economy and our position in the world depends on our getting out from under these ... these ... Neanderthal cold war attitudes and into more flexible relationships with former foes. Opportunities came about that were exploitable. Action was required. You can appreciate that can't you?"

"People died."

"Nobody that would not have died anyway." He blurted. "The squirrels were drug addicts, doomed to overdose or die at the paws of one of their customers. The fox Paquin was a pervert, and a killer. He would have been killed by other inmates in prison or cost us a fortune to keep in isolation. And those aardvarks, criminal gang members with a short life expectancy. Would you mourn them?"

Charlie was shocked into silence. Squirrels, plural? And who the hell was Paquin? She could not, for once in her life, think of anything to say. The thought that she was a willing accomplice to this filled her mind.

Apparently the westie took her silence for consideration, perhaps projecting his personality faults onto her.

"Think about it Patricia." He said persuasively. "We clear up a number of cases, subdue that rogue agency and advance our careers all at the same time. I'm the first civilian Commissionaire and I'll be remembered for this coup. You could follow as the first female Commissionaire, and show all of those large breed idiots something, eh?"

Charlie wanted to vomit, just like she had the first time she went undercover and had to act nice to a thug who bragged about smashing debtor's heads in with a nail-studded baseball bat. The only difference was that she had been sickened by the thug then, she was disgusted with herself now. She licked her lips and swallowed to force the bile back down.

"It will all be over soon." The westie assured her. "The silver fox will be out of the picture and the rest of them, what is left of them, will scatter. FOX will be wide open for us." He beamed up at her, waiting for her assent.

"I should get back and make sure everything is running smoothly then." She managed to say.

"That's the ticket." His smile broadened. "You run along and see to things there. I'll worry about the tidying up those lose ends, email attachments and such, eh?"

Charlie nodded, she could not trust herself to speak, and turned to leave. Not since talking her way out of a species traders den had she felt so vulnerable. What if he got suspicious, called her back?

He did not. The door of his office closed behind her with a solid 'thud' and she walked down the long paneled corridor alone. It seemed to take forever, and all the while the likenesses of the famous bison stared down on her, challenging her to do the right thing. But what was the right thing?

She came upon a framed photograph, one of the few from the era when the force was first formed. It showed the bison posing with some of the local children in one of the outposts the Force occupied. He was holding two of them by the paws and smiling like a typical grandfather, which, if she recalled her Force history correctly, he was at the time. One of the children was a beaver, a child of the Cree. The other was a fox kit in Eastern clothes. Probably the son of the local detachment commander. The kit looked a lot like the one the authorities had taken away earlier today.

But Ruby, the vixen Beausoleil, did not think that they were the authorities. She thought that it was part of the plot to discredit and unbalance that silver fox she was so fond of. Charlie recalled the look on the kit's face as he was loaded into the van, and that of his mother when she had made her chilling statement. She looked back at the normally stern face of the bison as he beamed down at the children.

She was suddenly certain that doing the right thing did not involve putting any children at risk, or separating them from their parents.

Charlie continued out of the executive wing and exited the building. The sun had set while she was inside, and only a shallow line of indigo separated day from night. She descended the thirty stone steps outside the headquarters building and stood looking left and right; at a loss as to what to do. She noticed a small figure, half hidden in the shadows of the trees in the small park opposite the headquarters. The figure looked familiar.

"George?" She called. "Is that you George? I have not seen you in years."

"Good." George said as he emerged from the shadows. "That's the whole point of surveillance, isn't it?" He came closer to her than he ever had dared before. He stood the way Silver had coached him to, loose but confident, strong but not threatening. She did not back away, as he had feared. In fact, she put a paw on his chest and looked up at him with those deep, dark basset eyes, and she said, "George, we have to get a message to Silver!"

* * * * * * * *

Back at the Central Experimental Farm things were quiet. Most of the public servants that worked there, those from the Foreign Operations eXecutive as well as those from the Ministry of Agriculture, had gone home for the night. At FOX Headquarters only the RCMP guards, the new IT security guy, and the party poodle Mademoiselle Chienne-Caniche remained.

Shortly before eleven in the evening, when the guards were due to change shifts, a convoy of white vans arrived at the building. The off-going shift commander, who had been waiting out front for his replacement to arrive, stepped up to meet the lead van. The creature in the shotgun seat jumped out to intercept him.

The rottweiler from the evening shift was expecting his colleague, a German shepherd, but was surprised to see a panda approaching. The panda was large, young and fit. It did not greet the rottweiler, but held out a sheath of papers as it closed on the canine. The RCMP officer examined them in the light of the streetlamp.

"A private security firm?" He looked up at the panda. "What for?"

"Other agencies are questioning the motives of the Commissionaire." The panda replied. He had a slight accent. "We've been hired to give the Force the appearance of being at arm's length."

"Oh." The rottie nodded. He had heard of the in-fighting between the security agencies over the future control of FOX. It seemed like a reasonable measure, the extra shifts were straining the local pool of officers anyway. "Well, come on in and I'll give you a turnover brief and a quick tour."

"That will not be necessary." The panda replied. "We have arranged for one of the agency employees to do that." He pointed. The dog looked around and saw the IT security guy, the big black reptile with the creepy red eyes, waiting by the entrance.

"Okay then." The shift supervisor keyed the microphone on his radio and call his crew to gather in the parking lot. "Have fun with this bunch. We've already had three tied up and one with his head smashed in."

"I am sure that we will be able to maintain control." The panda said stiffly. He turned and signalled his comrades to dismount.

Friendly type, the rottweiler thought sarcastically as he walked to the parking lot to give his boys the good news; no more bullshit guard duty.

* * * * * * * *

Miss CC, the party poodle who acted as secretary for the Director and Chief of Staff, watched the exchange through the Chief of Staff's office window. With the window open a crack, and the help of a little device she kept around for such emergencies, she was able to hear their conversation as well.

She was immediately suspicious. Like all previous Directors, the basset Parker relied on Miss CC's intimate knowledge of the computer network and filing system. Like any good executive secretary, Miss CC had designed it to be too complicated for the typical executive to manage alone. The basset should have been notified if there was going to be a change in personnel, and therefore, Miss CC should have known first. The caimen's involvement only made her more mistrustful. Even Parker did not like that one.

She continued to watch as the vans unloaded and the leader of the new arrivals conferred with the scaly intruder. She noted that all of the creatures gathering on the lawn were Asian species. There were a number of pandas, a few bamboo rats, some tigers, a couple of Asiatic black bears, and one civet cat. Except for the cat, which appeared middle aged, the rest were young. A quick scan of their whispered conversations with the electronic eavesdropping device revealed that they were speaking a foreign language. Japanese, Korean, or Chinese perhaps.

As if he knew others were listening, the leader turned to the rest and shushed them.

"Speak English." He demanded. He had pronounced it 'Ingrish'.

She had seen and heard enough. Miss CC went back to her office and sat down behind the big antique desk that the current Director, the golden fox Tancred Williams, had picked out for her. She opened her purse and took out one of her matched .357 magnum revolvers. She took the other from its hiding place under the desk. She took off the loose jacket she had been wearing, strapped on a double shoulder holster, and then slipped the guns into it. With the special wooden grips resting against the sides of her ample breasts she checked her speed loaders before attaching four of them to the belt on her skirt. Finally, she pulled the jacket back on. It was cut to hang naturally even with ten pounds of hardware slung underneath.

From a hidden compartment below the bottom drawer of her desk she pulled the master code card. Technically the only copy of the card that would open every lock and door in the academy was kept in the Director's safe, which only the Director and his Chief of Staff, and Miss CC, had the combination to. But Miss CC had removed it as soon as the RCMP raid had stared, and placed it in her desk, just in case. She was glad that she had done so. Even if the caimen changed the access codes through the computer interface this card should still work.

Miss CC had to get out of the Headquarters, where non-agency electronic communication devices were suppressed, and call Silver. But first, she needed to make sure that the last loyal members of the Academy were safe. She used the master code card to neutralize the alarm on the emergency exit near the executive offices and headed for the dorm.

First stop, Dongo Fett's room.

* * * * * * * *

'Charlie' Parker dropped George off outside the grounds of the Academy because he did not want to be seen getting out of her car at the headquarters. She proceeded to the parking lot closest to the building and parked in the spot reserved for the Chief of Staff. She noted that Tancred Williams' gold Mercedes convertible was not in his spot. He was either tied up in another inquiry or at his chalet in the Gatineau Hills. She wondered who the big gay fox might have with him up there, and what they might be doing. Her brow wrinkled in distaste as she locked her car and strode over to the entrance.

Immediately upon entering the lobby, where lost tourists were directed back to the agricultural museum and botanical gardens, Charlie's senses went on alert. She looked around to see what had set them off. It took a few seconds, but she finally realized what the problem was. The guards were wrong. She did not recognize any of them. They were wearing the same grey coveralls but without the subdued RCMP insignia.

Instead of going into the restricted area Charlie spun around and confronted the guards at the desk.

"Who are you people?" She demanded.

"Private security. No more police. Too obvious." The panda at the desk replied.

"Where are you from? Who authorized this?"

"Private security. No more police. Too obvious." The panda repeated, looking uncomfortable. Behind him, a bamboo rat was speaking some foreign language into a portable radio transmitter.

"I'll get to the bottom of this." Charlie vowed as she turned back to the door to the restricted area. Imagine, using minimum wage rent-a-cops fresh off the boat to secure the most clandestine agency in the nation. What bonehead thought that one up? Charlie frowned. Her proximity card wasn't working. She would have to get the guards to let her in.

That proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Charlie was rapidly losing her patience as the guard either did not want to let her in or did not understand what she wanted. When she heard the door open behind her and turned to see who it was.

"Problems, Ms Parker?" It was the black caimen, Henry Wodsworth, that the Commissionaire had brought in. There was another of the guards standing behind him, a small feline with a tiger-striped head and Asian features.

"What is going on here?" Charlie demanded. "Who authorized the change of the guard? And why won't my pass card work?"

"It's just a temporary measure. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow."

"Let me in to the office. I have to make a call on the secure phone." Charlie said commanded. "That's still working I hope?"

"Are you going to call the Commissionaire?" The caimen inquired.

"Not that is any or your business, but no. I think it is time that the Deputy Clerk heard about this." Charlie pushed the reptile aside and grabbed the door handle. It refused to open. She glared at him, but he was whispering to the cat at his side. Charlie could not make out the words, it sounded like the same language the guard was using on the radio earlier. The other guards had come out from behind the desk and were standing on each side of her now. Charlie's anger evaporated as she realized that she was trapped.

"That will be enough out of you Ms Parker, or may I call you Patricia?" the feline spoke with a slight accent.

"Who the hell are you?" Her anger was coming back fast.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Colonel Sun Gangzhi. Now you must excuse us as we are preparing for the visit of a special guest. Henry, find someplace to store Ms Parker for a few hours. When we are done with the fox we will shot her with his gun and position her body to make it look like they died confronting each other."

At the caimen's signal the guards grabbed her arms. She struggled to reach her service pistol but they removed it before she could get a paw on it. Following Wodsworth, the muscular young creatures lifted the much shorter basset hound off the ground and carried her in the direction of the interrogation cells.

* * * * * * * *

At exactly midnight Silver's phone rang. He glanced at the screen. According to the display the call was coming from Vikki's phone. He looked at her with arched eyebrows and showed her the phone. She frowned and pulled the phone George had given her out of her pocket.

"He's cloned it." Kain observed. "Must have had someone close enough to intercept her last call."

"It would have to have been someone already inside FOX headquarters." Vikki said. "No one else showed up in the short time we were outside."

Silver shrugged and flipped the phone open.

"Hello." He listened for a few moments, opening his mouth to speak once or twice, but shutting it slowly as whomever he was listening to went on without a pause. As he started to speak a third time the phone went dead and he stared at it for a full minute before anyone spoke.

"Who was it?" Vikki asked apprehensively

"It was Sun."

"What did he say? Is Leslie alright?"

"Leslie is fine for now. He said that if we want him back that I have to meet him on the mechanical target range before dawn. I can bring only one weapon, and I have to go in alone. Sun says that he will be inside the range, also alone, but with someone watching to ... terminate Leslie if we break the rules. I have to enter before dawn, or we will never see our son again"

"He's going to kill our son if you don't meet him for some 'high noon' shootout?"

"No. He is going to take him back to China and adopt him."

"That's not funny." She snarled.

"I wasn't trying to be funny. He really will take Leslie back and adopt him. He told me so." Silver explained. "Sun has no children and in his culture a worthy adoptee is as good as a child of his loins for carrying on his legacy. He will take him somewhere surrounded by so much security that we can never hope to get Leslie back out again. But more to the point, he will be raising our kit to be just like him, a brutal, sadistic, evil creature. He knows that we could not live with that."

While he spoke Silver took out his Glock and examined it. He unloaded it, worked the slide and pulled the trigger several times to check the action. When he was done he reloaded, putting a round in the chamber and then replacing the magazine with a full one. He checked the loops on his belt. There were four more full magazines there. Counting the round in the chamber, he had eighty six shots.

"Eighteen bullets aren't enough for one duel?" Marcel asked

"I have a felling there is more to this setup than a one-on-one shootout." Silver replied. "Best to come prepared."

"So what do we do now?" Geno asked.

"Here's the plan."

* * * * * * * *

Miss CC entered the junior agents' quarters using the master pass card and went straight for Dongo Fett's room. She used the card again, rather than knocking, and was not surprised to see Dongo sit up suddenly clutching a pistol in his good paw. Agents are notoriously light sleepers.

"It is me, Marie." Miss CC called as she closed the door. "We must hurry."

"Alright then." Dongo said, throwing the blankets aside to reveal his twin pricks. They twitched in happy memory of their last encounter with the party poodle. "But are you sure you don't want to have a drink first, or something?"

"I am not here for that!" She said harshly, then softer, "Not right now anyway." Quickly, she explained the situation to Dongo. "Now we must go get Joel out of his cell." She concluded. "He is the only one left around that we can trust."

"And after that?" Dongo asked.

"We play it by the ears."

Dongo strapped on his mechanical left arm, making sure that the contacts were well seated and that everything was in working order. He dressed in camouflage clothing, throwing an extra shirt and pants at Miss CC, who was still in heels, miniskirt and a tube-top under her jacket. He grabbed an FN C1 that he had modified for short-range sniper tasks from the closet and holstered his personal side arm. Once he was ready to go he followed her as she used the pass card to open emergency exits without setting off the alarms, keeping to the lesser traveled paths and corridors of the Academy until they came to the interrogation cells.

By coming in the back way they had avoided the guards at the entrance. Each cell had a solid door, so passers-by could not see who was in them. It kept conspirators from seeing their colleagues and FOX staff that did not have a need to know from learning who was being worked on. Hopefully the guards would not check inside the lemur's cell until morning.

Joel was asleep when they entered, and took some time to wake up. He had a rough night in the country lock up before being brought here. Miss CC quietly filled him in.

"So where do we go now?" Joel asked as they slipped out the back, again thanks to the master pass card. They hid behind the bushes around the corner from the entrance to the interrogation wing, checking to see if the coast was clear.

"We go to meet George."

"Who the heck is George?" Both Dongo and Joel said in unison, but Miss CC shushed them, a group of creatures was approaching.

When the group got closer they could see that it was the black caimen leading two guards that were carrying the struggling Ms Parker. They went into the interrogation wing without hesitating. Miss CC took that opportunity to move her little group across the lawn and into the shadows of the Headquarters building.

"It looks like Parker is no longer in charge." Dongo observed when they were safely away from the well-traveled trails. "Do you think that we should go collect her once they leave?"

"No. She cannot be trusted." Miss CC decided after a short pause. "She can sit this one in."

"Out." Joel corrected. "She can sit this one out."

"She is not out she is in; in the cell, in custody, in the merde." Miss CC countered, never able to see the logic behind some of the English idioms. "She is sitting in. Which is good, one less stranger to worry about."

"There are more strangers?" Dongo asked. "Besides the caimen and the fake guards I mean."

"You have not seen her? Flitting from shadow to shadow, keeping parallel to us but well away?" As a trained bodyguard, Miss CC was alert to movement in her peripheral vision. Dongo and Joel both looked around, but could see any sign of the creature she was referring to.

"You think that it is a female?" Joel asked just to confirm. Miss CC tended to mix genders in English.

"Oh yes, definatement. She is someone who knows how to hide and how to move silently. You big clumsy males could never move with such grace." The poodle confided.

Dongo loosened his pistol in its holster and checked to make sure the safety of the rifle was off. "You think that she is with them?"

"She has not attacked us yet, and has not alerted the enemy to our presence, therefore she not unfriendly." Miss CC shrugged. "Come, we waste time! We must find George. George will take us to Silver."

* * * * * * * *

The FOX mechanical range was one of the largest and most elaborate of its kind in the world. It was roughly the size of a hockey arena, and could be arranged in dozens of configurations on up to four levels. Lighting, temperature, winds, and smells were controlled by computer, as were over a hundred life-sized mannequins. The mannequins could be hostile, neutral, friendly or hostages. Hostile mannequins were armed with dye-shooting weapons, dull knives and occasionally, nerf bats. The object was not to injure an agent, just humiliate them enough to learn a lesson. In turn, agents used low-impact dye bullets so not to damage the hostiles, because animatronic mannequins are very expensive.

Like many of the Academy buildings, the range was designed to blend in with the nearby Central Experimental Farm. Because of its size, however, only a large barn would do. It had been built in an isolated spot, to cut down the number of tourists mistaking it for one of the Agricultural Museum barns. It was a fifteen minute walk to reach it from the main cluster of Academy buildings, or a two-minute drive. The parking lot behind the range was small. The students that used it most did not usually own cars, and by the time they became agents they were used to the walk, only using their vehicles in the worst weather. It was usually deserted, especially in the middle of the night, so the arrival of a small silver two-door Toyota Yaris was something of an event.

Silver parked the car that he had been assigned just before the takeover by the RCMP in the middle of the empty lot. As he was suspended with pay pending an inquiry he was entitled to keep it, but he wished that Gus had picked something a little roomier. He had difficulty climbing out because he was driving with the seat all the way forward, to close to the steering wheel for his tall, wide frame. He had to twist his body around and ease his legs out one at a time before he could slide his wide shoulders out. On the passenger side, Vikki was having even more trouble. She was several centimetres taller than her mate and had to bend almost double to get out. She cursed as her foot caught on the edge of the door and made her stumble.

Silver stretched to loosen up and looked around. The area appeared deserted, but he knew that the lot was monitored by closed-circuit television from the FOX Ops Centre. Seeing no immediate threat however, he relaxed a bit and reached down to release the driver's seat, allowing it to fold forward so the passengers in the rear could exit. Vikki did the same on her side.

Kain Algorath tumbled out of the driver's side, gasping for breath and waving his paws in front of his nose.

"Goddam it Marcel." He complained. "What crawled up your butt and died?"

Marcel did not answer Kain. Over on the passenger side he and Geno were stuck halfway out the door.

"I told you to let me go first." He whined, trying to shake loose the seatbelt that his left arm was tangled in.

"And I told you not to eat all those chilli burritos I brought you at once, dupec! Kurwa mac! If you think I'm spending an instant more in Marcel's chemical cloud of death you have another think coming cwel.

"I hate it when you swear in Polish. I never know if I should be offended or not." Marcel said, his anger rising.

"You should be. Next time I ride in your lap." She spat back.

"Your fat ass wouldn't fit in my lap." Marcel stepped up to her and almost shouted in her face.

"I'm gonna ..." Geno grabbed his shirt, but her hips were grinding against his.

"Nothing. You are going to do nothing." Vikki separated them with some force. "Remember why we are here. Leslie is in danger and Silver is about to face off with a sadistic murderer. Focus, goddam it!"

The two fell silent, chastised. Kain changed the subject to break the tension. "Are you sure that it was okay to bring us openly like this? Sun did say for you to come alone."

"I was told to enter alone. There was nothing about brining a few friends to stand watch outside." Silver replied. "Sun is very meticulous. He would have been more specific if he wanted to be. No, he is taunting us, and very sure of himself. He has taken over FOX and its network of monitors, so he thinks that he controls the board. We have to take that control away from him."

"How are we going to do that?" Vikki asked.

"We have to blind him, at least inside the range. Otherwise he will be able to get reports on my movements while his remain invisible to me. If we can take over the whole network of cameras that would be even better."

"We're going to need an access port for that." Kain pointed out. "Even then it may be impossible if they are monitoring the system. That caimen sounds like a tough customer." He had brought his own laptop, and it was full of hacker tools and other software that would be useful. But if the caimen was indeed the Long Guy, as Kain suspected, he would have a hard time countering his moves. He wished that he had brought along the unaccounted for laptop, the one that he could access the FOX servers with, even though that would have revealed his unauthorized relationship with Ophelia. Better to ask forgiveness after saving the day than watching all of his colleagues cut down one by one.

"There are several portals around the Academy that are tied into the camera network that bypass the central control." Silver said. "There is one here at the range. Joel has been using them to video various employees yiffing when they think no one is watching. He thinks that I don't know about it, but I see everything he records and remove the really embarrassing stuff. Still, he has quite a collection built up."

Marcel went pale under his black fur. Geno went red under hers.

"Uh, there wasn't, you know, anything involving caramel ice cream and leeches, was there?" Geno went even redder when Kain and Vikki's eyebrows both rose.

"He burned that one onto a gold-plated DVD I hear; supposed to last forever, those ones."

Marcel was mumbling about the various uses for lemur guts once removed from their owner and Geno was swearing in Polish again, but since they were not angry at each other there was no danger of them suddenly making up with a public display of intimacy. Silver lead the group to the wall on the end of the range where a large black box was mounted. He produced a key and unlocked it, swinging the door open to reveal ... nothing.

"Oh shit. Rusty must have found it just before he was reassigned." Now for the first time since receiving the news that Colonel Sun had taken Leslie, Silver looked worried too.

Just then a soft whistle, barely audible, came from the shadows beyond the parking spaces. Silver turned, and returned the call. A moment later four figures emerged and jogged toward them. As they got closer Kain recognized Miss CC, Dongo, Joel and George, the weasel.

"You little ring-tailed deviant..." Marcel took a threatening step toward Joel, a double edged shiv magically appearing in his paw. Joel hid behind Miss CC's ample butt.

"Stop it Marcel." Silver pulled the little fox back. Joel, your recorder is gone." He indicated the empty box. "Is there another nearby?"

Joel was too startled to react to the sudden revelation that Silver knew about his little sideline. "There is another on the roof." He stammered. "A back-up for when Rusty found this one."

"Alright!" Silver said in triumph. "We are back in business. Here's what we need to do." The other's gathered around. "Joel, take Kain up on the roof and show him where the portal is. Geno, you go with them to provide cover in case the enemy comes after it, which they will once they see us interfering with their signal. Your first priority is to search through the signals until you find out where they are holding Leslie; they are sure to be monitoring him closely. Once you find him Vikki and Dongo will go after him."

Vikki nodded, it made sense to send her after her kit, and Dongo was her junior agent.

"What about us?" Miss CC pointed at herself, Marcel and George.

"George will watch and monitor communications. You and Marcel will cover the outside of the range. Keep them from getting to the roof if you can, and notify me if anyone goes into the range after I do." Silver looked around. "Have any of you seen Parker? I was hoping that she would have come to her senses and joined us by now."

"She is in the interrogation cells." Miss CC informed him. "The reptile took her there. I think that she is to be killed and have it blamed on you, mon cher."

"What? Charlie is in danger!" George squealed. "I mean, I can't let Acting Deputy Commissionaire Parker be harmed. We are both RCMP officers, after all. It's my duty to rescue her."

"I have the master pass card." The poodle held it up. "We could sneak in and break her out."

"You would be willing to help save Charlie?" George asked, astonished. "She said that you hated her and were doing everything you could to make her life miserable."

"Eh, nothing personal. I had to protect my agency, non?" Miss CC shrugged and looked away. "Besides, she has not signed my Christmas bonus yet."

Silver stared hard at the weasel for a moment before making up his mind. "Okay, new plan. You and Marie go get Parker, but once you have her, stop sneaking about and make some noise. Make like you are attacking the headquarters from that side." He turned to Marcel. "You get into position on this side. Kill anyone that comes in this direction and once the firing starts you attack from the opposite side. Sun will think that we are threatening the control centre and move to counter it. With luck, we can distract him long enough to rescue Leslie and take back FOX.

"Meanwhile, you will be locked in the range with that maniac." Vikki pointed out. What is your plan to deal with him?"

"Not dying is as far as I've gotten." Silver said as he checked his gun one last time before entering the range. "I'll let the other details sort themselves out as we go."

* * * * * * * *

Kain tried desperately to keep up with Joel while trying to ignore the fact that they were forty feet above the ground. They had climbed a huge white oak that grew beside the range, overhanging it at one point. At the moment, Joel was leaping from branch to branch in the moonlight. Geno was running along close behind him. Kain was clinging to a branch and edging out cautiously.

"Hey, wait up." He called. "Why did you have to put your recorder on the roof for anyways?"

Joel stopped and turned, hanging by his tail alone. "I'm a lemur, and wasn't expecting company. Geno isn't having any problems keeping up."

"She's a cat. She's used to climbing."

"Don't foxes climb?"

"Some of them." Kain mumbled, thinking of the grey fox, Bill Hanlon. "The nerds."

But Joel had already turned and continued on. Kain followed as best as he could. He caught up to the other two in the middle of the roof, examining a box disguised as an air vent on the peak. Kain looked at the slippery tiles sloping sharply away and shuddered, but he continued along the narrow ridge until he too was looking down at the box.

"You should have everything that you need here." Joel pointed out the components. "Access port, power supply, video feed, audio."

"Can we monitor the whole network from her?" Kain asked apprehensively.

"Sure. It's set up to monitor the cameras in this location specifically, but we can access the entire network. Let me show you how."

Kain got his computer out and started plugging it in while Joel explained how the network was set up. While they talked Geno took up a position where she could observe the surrounding area as well as the route they had taken through the tree. Fully qualified for field work, she moved swiftly, surely and gracefully.

"I'm entering the range now." Silver's voice came through the ear-pieces that everyone had donned. His radio-telephone would be live the whole time that he was inside the range. The others would have to switch to transmit mode to be heard. Chatter had to be minimized to keep from distracting the fox at a crucial moment.

"There is a three-dimensional body scanner, like the one at the airport, just inside the entrance." Silver reported. "Obviously I have to step in and get checked out for extra weapons. Hang on a second." There was a scraping noise. Kain guessed that Silver was putting his radio with the spare clips for his gun. It was similar in size and shape and may escape detection. Then again, he thought, Sun might not even care who was listening, he might even appreciate an audience.

A low hum coming over the channel indicated that the scanner was operating. When it stopped Kain heard some shuffling noises, and then a booming, hollow voice.

"Welcome Mister Silver. I see that you have followed the rules as stated. That is good. It would have disappointed me to execute you inside the scanner for a minor rule infraction. Shall we begin?" Kain quickly navigated to the camera that monitored the range's control room in case Sun was there. The room was empty. The half-tiger, half-civet must be linked into the building's loudspeaker system remotely, he realized.

"I'm ready whenever you are Sun." Silver answered.

"Then enter the labyrinth, Mister Silver. You will find me somewhere inside, that is, if I do not find you first." The voice dissolved into soft laughter before being cut off abruptly. Kain started scrolling through more than a hundred cameras that monitored the Academy grounds and buildings.

"The range is set up to resemble the souk." Silver commented. "It appears that all the special effects are turned on, flickering lights, foul smells, animated mannequins; probably to distract me."

Kain listened to the running narrative while he checked cameras. Images of empty rooms and deserted lawns flickered past. He knew that the old fox would have his gun out by now and would be holding it loosely out in front of him. While all agents were great shots, Silver's instinctive shooting skills were legendary. It was a good talent to have when your targets tended to appear unexpectedly, moved fast, and shot back.

A shot rang out. Marcel and Joel both cringed before they realized that it had come through the ear-pieces. It was followed by two louder reports, from Silver's gun no doubt. Kain had to resist keying his microphone to ask what had happened.

"Damn, that complicates things." Silver swore. "Sun has turned on all the adversary mannequins." He explained. "But they aren't firing paint rounds; they have live ammo. I'm going to have to avoid them or take them out as I go along. Good thing I brought extra bullets."

"There's too many of them." Vikki's voice came over. "Can't we shut them off?"

"Not unless Algorath can hack into the main control server. The only way to stop them is by hitting one of the kill zones on their head or torso. I'll just have to harbour my ammunition and use just one bullet per hostile." He said matter-of-factly. Coming from anyone else it would seem like bragging, but Kain knew that the fox was fighting for his son's life as well as his own, and that he was serious, dead serious. He concentrated on the computer screen, willing it to find the kit.

Silver fell silent. Twice, the sound of distant gunfire was answered by a single crack of the fox's Glock. They had reached the cluster of cameras that covered the headquarters building, and Kain had to slow down in case Leslie was being held amongst a group of the fake guards. He saw the black caimen sitting at Kain's former workstation and he paused for a second, wishing that he was looking through the aiming camera of a tomahawk missile.

They left the headquarters behind and moved on to the service buildings. Most of them were empty and dark, but the night-vision capability of the cameras showed grainy green glowing interiors. He saw an empty garage, an empty boiler room, an empty workshop. Then there was a large machine in a well-lit room with stone walls. It looked like a giant meat grinder. There was a large opening in the top of the machine, and a crane for lowering things into it. At first Kain thought that the bundle at the end of the crane's cable was a bag of garbage, it was the same dark green, but them he noticed that it had a tail, a bright red brush with a white tip. It was a fox kit in a green one-piece jumper.

"I've Found Leslie." He announced after activating the mike. "He's hanging over a large machine in a small stone room. The machine has a conical opening in the top, and the base is glowing like a gas water heater."

"That's the old document shredder." Silver informed him. "We don't use it anymore but back before computers we had keep all the reports and intelligence summaries in hard copy and had to destroy them when we were finished with them. There was quite a pile of them at the end of every month, so we installed an industrial-strength shredder and incinerator. It starts automatically when something is dumped into it. That machine can grind steel printing plates to dust and the burners fire up at three thousand degrees Celsius."

"Oh my God!" Vikki's voice cut in. "Where is this thing?"

"In the old stone cistern, behind the garage." Silver informed her.

"We're on our way."

"Wait a second Vikki." Kain interrupted. He had used the computer's image enhancement software to take a closer look. "There is a little black box with a blinking red light taped to the chain. Looks like a remote detonator. There's a side-bar signal on the video channel. It's probably the command channel for the device."

"You'll have to kill that signal before they can get Leslie." Silver almost shouted. The sound of new gunfire cane from the range. "Sorry, close one. Kill that signal."

"I'm on it." Kain assured him. He knew that he would have to work fast, not only because Vikki would be in position soon, but because the little fox was wiggling at the end of the chain, bouncing occasionally like he was in a jolly jumper. Kain had not told Silver or Vikki, but each time the kit bounced another link on the chain slipped through the pulley, and lowered him that much closer to the maw of the waiting machine.

Kain called up a simple bit of software from his collection, and killed the detonator's command signal. He smiled and reached for the microphone, but suddenly the signal was back. The smile faded from his face as he checked the new signal. Someone had countered his program and then changed the signal to one that was less susceptible to interference. Kain grit his teeth and invoked another routine. The signal faded, wavered, and returned, almost as strong as ever.

Kain swore under his breath, ignoring Joel's inquiries as to what the problem was. He brought up his most powerful software, a modified version of the shifting code that the Long Guy had given him to break into the CIA, Pentagon, and NSA with. He ran it against the signal, and sat back to see what happened.

It seemed to be working fine at first. It neutralized the signal and shifted to a new configuration each time the operator at the other end tried to change it. But after a minute his adversary began to catch on, and he was soon matching the permutations of the software move for move, allowing the signal to get through, if only sporadically. Unfortunately, with this kind of device even sporadic connections were enough to send a detonate command.

Kain bit his lip and thought hard. There was only one creature in the world who knew this software, the hostile hacker who called himself the Long Guy. And the caimen Henry Wodsworth had to be that creature. Memories of that last night in Virginia came flooding back, making Kain's eyes water. The demanding voice of the Long Guy coming from his computer's speakers. The limp and battered body of Naomi in his closet. The final act of defiance that had defeated the Long Guys plot.

Kain sat straight up. There was only one way to resolve this standoff.

"Geno!" He snapped, his voice full of unfamiliar authority. "Come here."

"What is it Kain?" The cheetah asked as she slid back along the ridge to join them.

"Remember the routines I taught you when we were breaking into the command network of the platypus's flood control systems last year?" He continued after she acknowledged him. "Do you think you can run them by yourself?"

"Sure." She had a photographic memory, and was certain that she remembered the sequences. "But where are you going?"

Before replying, Kain picked up the backpack he kept his electronic devices in. He reached in, and pulled his own pistol from it, already in its holster. He strapped it on and added two spare clips.

"I'm going to meet an old friend." He said. "You two stay here and keep interfering with that signal. When it finally dies you can give Vikki the go-ahead."

"Okay, you got it." Geno leaned over the keyboard and her paws began to fly as Kain left the roof.

"Joel," Geno said in a mild tone, "can you do something here to help me out?"

"Sure Geno. What?"

"Get your paw off my ass."

* * * * * * * *

Kain climbed down the tree considerably faster than he had climbed up it and sped off for the headquarters. He had to get into position before Miss CC and George started their attack, but he could move fast until he caught up with Marcel at least.

With Geno and Joel busy on the roof, and no one left on the ground outside the range, there were no eyes to spy the figure that left the shadows and followed him.

* * * * * * * *

Author's note: The aforementioned ass-kicking will commence forthwith in the next and final chapter of 'Dawn of Vengeance'.