Two of a Kind

"So you think we're lying, or making this up, right?" I asked angrily.

"Clyde, you have to calm down. And for the love of God, please let me finish," he said. I sat back down and listened then.

"We've sent a team to surveil the location you mentioned. Even if what you claim is going on sounds iffy we have more than enough charges to to get a warrant. We have people checking on the guy you mentioned as possibly aiding him in financing, but do you have any idea of how Peters started out making his money?"

We all shook our heads. "He designed several uhm...designer street drugs and flooded several cities and a couple of small countries with his products before he disappeared and went into something more lucrative. He's currently being sought in connection with designing and marketing several supposedly untraceable PEDs."

We were all shocked. "Stein may be responsible for the way that sports have tipped lately. Especially in international or Olympic sports. You may have noticed that several small countries have suddenly begun producing a large number of athletes who are shattering world records and reinventing what is humanly possible, that's Frank N. Stein. So we're going to go into that complex as soon as we have an operational plan. Be ready because it'll probably be sooner than you expect," he said.

"That's great," I said.

"That's your tax dollars at work," he said smiling. "I'll be in touch." he waved and went back out into the parking lot where he got into his Mustang and drove off.

The three of us got Will and left the restaurant too. I started to say something, but Sarah gestured for silence. She reached into her purse and pulled put some sort of scanner. She ran it over each of us and nodded. Then ran it over the two cars. We weren't sure now he'd done it or even wheree they were, but our good friend Dan had managed to put some sort of locator tags on both cars. Since we didn't know the full capabilities of the tags we wouldn't talk about the case at all. Sarah also decided that we should probably drive to the office that she worked out of and switch cars before returning to the cabin.

We didn't want to let anyone know where we were so they couldn't surprise us.

Once we got to Rios investigations. Sarah used an even more powerful scanner to make sure that each of us was free of bugs or tags. We left the cars there. Until the investigation was over we'd leave them intact and broadcasting. If Uncle Sam wanted to believe that we were holed up at Sarah's office it was no skin off of our asses.

I was pleasantly surprised when we got back to the cabin to see Becca and Bonnie chatting away as if they were old friends. They had changed clothes to be more comfortable. The weirdest thing happened as Will got out of the car. They both stood up together and walked over to him. He looked back and forth between them which started both of them smiling.

"Okay, I get it," he said. "You think I can't tell you apart."

They nodded. Will walked around both of them and came back to the front. He reached out to the one on the left as both giggled and took her hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Bonnie," he said. She frowned and stomped her foot.

Then he grabbed the other one and hugged her tightly.

"How did you know?" asked Becca.

"I didn't until I saw the two of you from behind," he said.

"Are you saying our butts are different?" asked Becca.

"No, Honey," he said. "But when you and I uhm...reunited yesterday, you ended up with a few uhm...marks on your neck. Bonnie doesn't have those. Other than that, I wouldn't have been able to tell either."

We all settled in and had dinner. After that the two couples paired off and I found myself with Bonnie again. We'd just started to make small talk when my phone rang. It was Chris. He was out walking in the surrounding woods with Sarah and he was coming back to the house. Dan had called Sarah. Chris and I were going to be picked up in under an hour at Sarah's office to fly to Denver for the raid that they were doing on Stein's complex.

Sarah wasn't going. Apparently Dan's agency didn't think taking a pregnant woman on an op was prudent.

Chris and I barely had time to say our goodbyes. It had taken us fifty minutes to drive to the cabin from the office.

Chris made the trip back in forty five minutes. I had to close my eyes to avoid seeing the road as he drove Will's other Mustang back to the office. If we'd driven the car that we took to the cabin, we'd never have made it. The extra five minutes came in handy. We were actually inside the building when the three black SUV's pulled into the parking lot.

They outfitted us in black Tactical gear and filled us in on the plan. They had hacked into the main building's computer system and had seen that although Stein wasn't often there and when he was it was for very short periods of time, he was scheduled to be there that night at 1:15 a.m. to show the process to a possible new investor. The man apparently was a majority stick holder in a casino. I could just see him now offering some of his richest clients a chance to sleep with the woman of their dreams.

When the plane touched down in Denver, no one said a word. We'd been drilled over and over again on what we could and could not do. We knew our squad mates and what to look out for. And each squad had different goals and different objectives and targets.

Except for the fact that I had only one weapon, it was almost like being back in the service. Chris kept looking at the Sig Sauer handgun he'd been issued and shaking his head. I was sure that Chris would choose to get up close and personal if he encountered anyone. To each his own, I thought. I was just glad that Chris had chosen to take part. His job was over and had been over for a while. He could've been at home with his beautiful pregnant wife instead of being here to help me bring my own wife's murderer or at least the man who was most responsible for what had happened to her her down.

For my part, there was only one possible outcome. I know that we'd been told to take any suspects, especially Stein, alive, unless we were in danger of being killed or injured ourselves. But if I got Stein in my sights, his next lab would be a lot hotter and his boss would have horns, a pitchfork and a tail.

Even as we watched from the interior of another set of those all black SUV's, Stein's car pulled into the facility. We got a positive ID on him as he left his vehicle. I know it was him, because I'd seen him before and I was the one who picked him out among the three men who got out of the car. Another car that arrived with them, contained men I'd never seen before. They were probably Stein's cash cow and his retinue.

We waited for them to enter the building and then we silently approached from another angle. One team cut the heavy fence around the complex as we spread out to cover all of the exits and entrances.

We waited when we got there. Chris put a small charge on the locked door of our entry point and moved away to the side of the door and looked at his watch. Again I was stuck by how calm he was. Even the other two agents with us were nervous and they did this for a living.

At exactly the time we were supposed to move, we heard Dan's one word prompt, "Go," over the comm.

Chris pressed a button and the door was blown off of its hinges. We moved in immediately and started sweeping the building. There was utter chaos inside.

We checked the ID of every person we encountered and directed them outside, where the capture teams, would arrest them and take them to another location for debriefing, interrogation and possible charges. Some of the people here were innocent bystanders who just wanted to make a living. Others were scientists who knew that they were involved in illegal operations and would be prosecuted, jailed and lose their medical and scientific credentials for life.

Not very many of them put up a fight. Chris did get the chance to do an incredible scissor move with his legs to take down a huge security guy who thought he was Rambo. The agents on the scene were amazed at the ease with which he put the big guy on his back so he could be restrained.

About fifteen minutes into the op, a warning came over the comm. Stein had somehow gotten past us and was heading rapidly to the parking lot on the other side of the building where he was suspected of having a hidden vehicle.

I couldn't believe they hadn't considered that. Had the three stooges done the surveillance?

Chris grabbed my arm and dragged up the stairs. He'd memorized the map of the building and thought he knew a short cut. We'd been on the second floor so we went up to the third floor then back down to the second floor through a stairwell that cut down through the labs.

"Chris we're out of our zone," I said.

"You want Stein, don't you?" he asked. I just nodded and followed him. We were moving so quickly that I wasn't sure how the hell he knew where we were going. As he opened yet another door and then ducked a huge fist by bending backwards until his torso was nearly flat. I don't know how he kept his balance as he kicked straight forward hitting yet another huge guy in the nuts.

As the guy crouched holding onto his family jewels for dear life, Chris brought his elbow down on the man's skull so hard I could hear the crunch as I struggled to keep Chris in sight.

The altercation hadn't even slowed Chris down. Again I found myself wondering exactly what kind of childhood he'd had. It was difficult for me to rationalize the quiet, soft spoken man he was most of the time with the way he became at times like that.

With people running in every direction, he suddenly picked up an office chair and threw it through a large window. He jumped out of the window and onto the rooftop outside of it. It was only about a two foot drop. He ran along the edge of the roof looking down and pointing. I followed at a more sedate pace.

Chris started motioning wildly for me to hurry up and I saw what he saw. Two men just below us heading for a small garage-like building. I recognized Stein and my mouth narrowed.

Chris leapt off of the bulding's roof without losing a beat. The drop was at least fifteen feet. Let's face it. I know I'm over fifty, but fuck, I wasn't sure I could've made that jump when I was in my twenties. But if Chris could risk it to help stop a man who had ended the life of a woman he'd never met, I had to at least try. So I jumped. Did I jump as wildly as he had? Hell no, I'm too old for that type of foolishness. I quickly sat my ass down on the edge and scooted down as far as I could before letting go. Did I land as gracefully as he did. Fuck no, not anywhere close.

Honestly, I knew I shouldn't have tried that fucking jump in the first place, but I like to think that Shelly was proud of me wherever she was up there. The reality was that my left ankle snapped on contact with the ground. I was also lucky that my femurs didn't snap free of my pelvis and shoot up into my abdominal cavity. I did crack a tooth and break my nose as my head jerked so far forward that it hit my knee as well.

There I was on the ground with what sounded like explosions going off all over the building. I heard the sound of fire engines in the distance but the way this place was going up, I wasn't sure they'd be in time. I crawled to my feet with blood dripping from my face and found out that my left leg wouldn't support my weight. That ankle was definitely broken. I never realized it at the time but my career in kickball was over.

As my senses focused, I heard the sounds of grunts and looked to see Chris engaged with not one but three men at the same time. There were two huge body guards. I'd only remembered one. And Stein himself was trying to take jabs at Chris.

As I watched, one of the men pulled out a pistol. Before he could aim, Chris kicked him in the arm he held the pistol in. Chris kicked him in the elbow which snapped backwards causing the man to scream. Chris quickly turned to the other man and leaped into the air. He brought his fist down into the big man's face with the finality of a guillotine. But during the exchange, Stein had turned and ran. I pulled out my gun and leveled it at Stein. I shot him in the back. He jerked wildly and stopped running. I shot him again. The first shot caught him near his left kidney. The second shot in the upper back. Knowing that two thirds of the heart was on the left side; that was where I aimed. My aim was off a bit and I was trying to level the gun for third shot when I heard the screams.

"No we're supposed to take him alive. We can't prosecute him if he's dead." it was one of the squad leaders and he was clearly upset.

"You're out of your zone," he yelled. "You're not supposed to even be on this side of the fucking building. Why the hell is this place on fire? Who set off the charges? This is a cluster fuck."

"We got lost, dude," said Chris, smiling. He'd returned to his laid back surfer boy persona.

The pain in my ankle was overwhelming but I felt really good. I felt like justice had been done, whether Uncle Sam wanted it or not.

Two medical techs came on the scene they were heading towards me when the squad leader who was still pissed and shaking his head pointed them towards Stein.

"Fuck him," he shouted. "He's still talking shit. Take care of Stein."

They started working on Stein but were shaking their heads. An ambulance pulled up and they put him into it. One of the techs came over. "He won't survive the ride to the hospital," he said.

"Fuuuuuckkkkkkkkkk!" shouted the agent. He turned and looked at me.

"You killed him," he spat. "There goes our fucking case!"

"Works for me," I said. Even with the pain in my ankle, I was smiling more than I had in years.

The guy shook his head and just walked away in disgust. Dan came over to Chris and me then. He got a medical tech to look at my ankle. A few minutes later, I was loaded into an ambulance. Chris rode along with me. When we got to the hospital they gave me something for the pain and Chris went to call home to let everyone know what had happened.

I went to sleep shortly after that and when I woke up Chris and Dan were in the room with me. Chris just smiled and nodded. Dan shook his head.

"You know Clyde, you're no spring chicken," he said. "We got you the best doctor in the state, when it comes to joints. They put a carbon fiber pin your ankle. It's still going to be about six weeks until you get the cast off, but he thinks with time you'll be back to where you were before. But that still won't mean that you can go jumping off of rooftops with the school kids. Your old bones just aren't cut out for that any more. You're going to have to put all of that gung ho, hoo rah bullshit behind you."

I smiled again. He looked around the room and then closed the door.

"You guys can never tell anyone anything about what was going on there. Most of the agents there don't know what was going on. The science there was above their pay grades. Every member of Stein's staff who had an inkling of what was going on there has been incarcerated and will never see the light of day again. Luckily, out of all of those people, only a handful of them really knew what they were doing." He shuddered and shook his head.

"We found several...uhm specimens that were nearing the stages of completion. We terminated a couple of them. Luckily they hadn't reached consciousness. It wasn't like killing them because they had never been alive. It's a damned good thing that he didn't have any full grown clones walking around. That would have been awful. Since cloning is illegal and unethical, any specimens we found would have to be terminated after being studied for a while. This is a pure nightmare. The entire complex has been destroyed. Next we're going to level it, raze the sight and put up a daycare center. Your country and the world owes you guys a debt. this could have been really bad.

He looked around again. "The debt we owe you can never be repaid," he said. "Which is partially why A, we're going to name the daycare center after Clyde's wife. And B, I'm not going to mention that Clyde shot Stein, so he doesn't have to face any murder or interfering in a government investigation charges. You guys knew we needed that asshole alive.

Two hours later we were on a plane headed home.

* * * * * *

Epilogue

Clyde

I wasn't ready for it. I was prepared for and almost expecting to see Will and Becca holding onto each other like there was no tomorrow. The two of them loved each other, it was normal behavior. I was also prepared to see Sarah, doing a heavily pregnant woman's best attempt at running when the car pulled up. Even though she was in the business of investigating bad behavior and the sometimes bad things that happen when information about that behavior comes out, I expected to see her throw herself at Chris and check him out from head to toe to make sure the man she loves is still intact. I smiled even as the throbbing in my ankle alerted me that the pain was still there and would be for some time.

I stayed in the car as Chris got out so Sarah could see that he was fine. Then it happened. Bonnie slowly made her way around Becca and Will. She skirted the entwined forms of Sarah and Chris and made a beeline straight for me. When she got to the car, I think she noticed the difference in my face.

She yanked the door open and then saw the cast around my foot. Her face fell and I think I began to understand what Will must feel. When you see a face that is that beautiful suddenly change and see the pain on it, you'd do almost anything to bring back that beauty.

"What did you do to your foot?" she asked. The look on her face said that she wanted answers and she wanted them now.

"My foot is fine," I said jokingly.

"Then why is it in a cast?" she said loudly. Her voice was so loud and so shrill that that the other four noticed and tried to calm her down.

"He's going to be okay," said Chris.

"Shut up, Chris," she hissed, glaring at him. I noticed Sarah laughing. And Becca had a smile on her face too.

"Why is your foot in a cast?" she repeated, still maintaining her volume.

"I broke my ankle," I said. "It's fine, the surgeon said that..."

"What do you mean surgeon?" she asked. "They had to do surgery? Why didn't anyone call me?"

"I didn't know that I was supposed to...." I said.

"Yeah, you were supposed to," she said angrily. "This is going to mess everything up."

"Calm down," said Will. "It'll be fine."

"This is going to mess up your life too, William," she said. Will's mouth dropped open. If it hadn't been that the accent was missing, Bonnie sounded exactly the way that Becca did when she was angry.

"Well we do have one problem that we need to get together to find a solution to," said Chris. I nodded. Chris and Will helped me out of the car. I got my crutches and they let me walk but Bonnie wrapped an arm around my waist and walked the whole way with me.

As we gathered around the table, Chris and I explained the problem to them.

"So you mean that if anyone found out that Bonnie was alive that she'd be..." asked Sarah.

Becca and Bonnie looked at each other in that scary way that twins have of communicating without speaking.

"Is not really problem," said Becca.

"Nope, Clyde's ankle is the bigger problem," said Bonnie. "How did you break your ankle?" she asked me. Then she flipped her head towards Chris. "How did you let him break his ankle?"

Chris shrugged his shoulders. "It wasn't his fault," I said. "I should know better. I'm too old to be jumping off of rooftops and..." her eyes got huge.

"Clyde we all know that I'm going to have a shortened lifespan. But I don't want you dying before me," she said.