SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

Darryl Lister had been waiting twenty minutes in Portero's undersized backwoods shack. How did he stand this crummy, uncomfortable furniture? The guy lived like a refugee.

But not for too much longer.

He heard a car pull up outside and gestured to Venisi, one of the two men he'd brought with him, to check the window. He looked out and nodded.

Okay. Portero was here. Darryl took a deep breath. He'd been steeling himself for this moment since the word had come down a few hours ago. Now that it was here he wanted to get it over with. They'd been through a lot, Portero and he, but the time had come to put the past aside and deal with the present.

Darryl pointed to either side of the front door; Venisi and Markham nodded, drew their pistols, and moved into position.

He's seen my car, he thought. He'll be expecting me, but not them.

A few seconds later Portero stepped through, dressed in black BDU shirt and pants, his face tight, obviously ready for a confrontation. He immediately spotted his two extra guests and his hand darted toward his sidearm, but stopped halfway.

"Let's not do anything precipitous, Portero," Darryl said.

Portero glanced around the room. "Maria?"

"She's in the bedroom. She didn't feel a thing."

Portero squeezed his eyes shut. "You didn't have to - "

"Yes, I did." Markham had held her down while Venisi put a bullet through her brain. She'd looked very peaceful when Darryl had looked in on her. "And it's your fault. If you'd dumped her when I told you, she'd still be alive now, but you're bigger than the rules, aren't you, Portero. Now hold still while these two gentlemen search you."

Darryl had warned his two men about Portero. He'd seen the guy in action - tough, fast, vicious - and didn't want any slipups. Venisi covered him while Markham removed Portero's pistol from his holster and did the pat down.

"What's this all about?"

"Clean-up time. The time when you tie up the loose ends, mop up the floor, close the door, and walk away."

When Markham was done, he nodded.

"You're telling me I'm a loose end?"

"Eminently so."

Portero looked at the ceiling. "I see."

Darryl had to admire his composure. No breakdown, no begging. But he'd expected no less. If he kept this up, the next five minutes would be bearable.

"The Old Man found out about Snyder and Grimes," Darryl told him. "I had to say you hid their deaths from me as well."

That had been one hairy meeting. The Old Man had just received word that the DoD had reversed its approval for Operation Guillotine - soon as the Pentagon heard about the sim's baby, it decided it wanted nothing to do with monkey commandos - and he was in a frothing rage. For a few bladder- clenching moments there Darryl had thought he might be scheduled for a one-way ride into the woods, but he'd managed to shift all the blame to Portero.

"Snyder and Grimes brought your loss total to six men - five KIA and one Section Eight. But that's only part of the reason I'm here." He gestured toward the door. "Let's step outside."

Portero led the way, followed by Venisi and Markham. Darryl brought up the rear.

"It's all falling apart," he said as he ejected the clip from the pistol that had been used on Maria. "The sweetest arrangement ever - ever - is tumbling down around us. All because you didn't do your job. So now we have to fall back. Covering our tracks isn't going to be enough. We have to erase them."

One by one he began removing the .45 caliber rounds from the clip.

"For instance, as we speak, there's an inferno raging in the middle of an Idaho nowhere, roasting a lot of monkey meat. When the arson squad, or whoever eventually gets the job, starts to sift through the ashes, they're going to have a lot of questions, but no answers."

When he got down to the last round, he left it in the clip and pocketed the others.

"Since no clean-up can be guaranteed perfect, another aspect of the process is to provide plausible deniability for the high-ups should the dogs come sniffing their way. That means removing the weak or the too-visible links in the chain. You, unfortunately, fall into both those categories."

"I thought we were friends."

"We were. But this goes beyond friendship. It's not like I have a choice, so don't make this harder than it already is. You botched a number of crucial ops and, worse, made a spectacle of yourself at that hospital this morning."

Darryl watched him bristle at this, but Portero said nothing. Couldn't blame him. Why talk? Nothing he said would change anything.

"And because I brought you in, it falls to me to usher you out."

Darryl checked the pistol to make sure the chamber was empty, then wiped it and the clip clean with a handkerchief. He handed both to Portero.

"So...it's time. After all we've been through, I feel it's only fair to offer you a chance to do the right thing."

Portero took a deep breath, then nodded and accepted the weapon.

"I'd like to do it alone."

"I think we'd all prefer that." Darryl gestured to the trees. "Do it in the woods." That was where Darryl had planned to leave the body anyway. It might be months before anyone found it, if ever. "But don't try anything cute, Portero. Stay in sight. I'm giving you the option to go out like a man. Try to run and we'll hunt you down like a dog."

Another nod from Portero as he stared at the pistol and the clip in his hands, then he turned and walked into the trees.

"Spread out," Darryl told Venisi and Markham in a low voice. "Triangulate on him. Keep him in sight. He starts to run, take him down."

But Portero acted the good soldier. He walked about a hundred feet along a path into the trees, stopped beside a big oak. He faced them and raised the pistol to the side of his head.

Jesus, he's looking right at us.

Darryl's instinct was to turn away, but he forced himself to watch.

The shotcracked through the chill air, Portero's head jerked to the left, and his body collapsed into the brush.

Darryl let out a breath. Done. Clean and neat.

He gestured to Venisi and Markham. "Check him out. If he's still breathing, finish him."

He'd heard of people surviving some outrageous head wounds. And with the way things had been going for Portero lately, who knew? He might have botched this too.