Disclaimer: I own only the plot. And the twistiness.

(sighs) I swore I wouldn't do this to myself. And yet, here I am posting something else again.
Can be considered either a oneshot or a sequel to Infiltration.

(Edited 11/05 for clarity. As per my new policy, anonymous reviews get answered in my profile.)

"Your first assignment."

Weathered fingers took the offered paper, turned it over thoughtfully.

"I can do it. I know just how to go about it, too."

-

There was no warning. There couldn't be, with the certainty of watchers.

He merely had to trust that they would catch on; they were intelligent enough. If they didn't go through with their parts, everything would fall through, but he felt no apprehension. It was out of his hands now, and there was only the familiar rise of heightened awareness that came at the start of every job.

Let the performance begin.

-

Officer Satou stood numbly, leaning against the squad car with Officer Takagi gripping her hand as they stared at the scene before them. The street was illuminated in flashing blue and red, another officer setting up a cordon and another calling for backup and an ambulance, but for a frozen moment she could only stare at the small body of the boy whose presence had become so familiar on investigations.

He would not be running around, asking questions or peering at evidence others had missed this time.

He was wearing his usual outfit, instantly recognizable even when he was sprawled forward on a hillock, thick black glasses knocked askew and head turned to the side. Even from the road she could see the ugly, bloody red circle of a gunshot wound.

"Takagi," she said numbly, and felt him twitch. "Find those other kids that always follow him around and keep them away from here. They don't need to see this."

He shifted, awkwardly. "I don't know if I can, you know how it is trying to keep them away from crime scenes…"

"This is different. He was their friend."

The unspoken thought that the children would be even more determined to investigate than usual and get themselves into serious danger hung in the air. She felt more than saw his nod and heard him moving off, soon breaking into a trot. Still numb, but paralysis broken, she steeled herself and began to move toward the body. It seemed somehow better that someone that had known him should make the initial inspection.

She had barely stepped onto the grass, shielded from sight by the trees, when she was brought up short by a strong arm pinning her arms in place, something hard poking her side. From behind the calm voice of a middle-aged man, roughened by cigarettes, murmured in her ear. She stood rigid as his breath put pressure on her skin, smelling faintly of ash when the breeze carried it to her face.

"That wound may be fatal. Or it may not be. But if any of you approach any closer, obstruct my business, or treat this case in any way as though it might not have been, then it will be."

A beat.

"Understand?"

She nodded, slightly, stiffly, and the presence vanished as though it had never been. She forced down her immediate impulse to whirl around to look, remembering the warning. When she did turn around, glancing out of the corner of her eye, there was nothing there.

Except for a whisper on the breeze.

"Delay them."

Satou could have pretended the encounter had never happened. She could have done a hundred things to sabotage whatever the stranger had planned. She could have called for backup and told the others about her visitor. She could have approached the body, or simply not have distracted her fellow officers for those few minutes. She could have aired her suspicions, her doubts.

She could have merely kept silent when the ambulance came, and the emergency personnel went into the grove, only to find nothing but a red stain on the grass. She could have let them analyze the crime scene unmolested, instead of pushing for it to remain undisturbed for a more expert team to come in later. She could have sounded less certain when telling them that there was no way the child had survived, could have neglected to work in a dozen subtle ways to get the paperwork to have the little boy officially filed as deceased from gunshot wound started, even as the attendants replaced the black body bag in the back of the ambulance, empty. It made things easier that she did not have to try in order to appear worried or even distraught, but still professional.

She could have done many things to disobey that quiet command, but she did not.

Because while she had stood rod-straight in the shadow of the trees, refusing to shiver in the subtle breeze on her neck, she had heard an odd undertone in those words, 'Or it may not be.'

An undertone she had heard before, in other voices. Heard before two robbers had walked straight into a post office filled with undercover police. Before a bomber had been surrounded by the police, still staring a school that had not exploded.

And so she gambled.

And did not have to pretend to worry, for the uncertainty and the possibility she might have picked wrong were as strong as grief.

-

From the concealment of a nearby spinney, a hand reached down for a shoulder.

"Police are gone. Time to 'dispose of' your body. "

Strong, sure hands flipped the small form over, deftly removing all trace of the red ooze from the ground and anywhere it might drip or smear. A few receding steps, a similar operation on the remaining traces on the hillock, a few moments' work with a shovel and bag.

A small, still form was wrapped in a cloth, more carefully than any watcher might suspect, and hoisted on a shoulder. A route was taken through shadows and back ways out of sight to a black car, whose trunk was opened. The burden was deposited with just enough care not to make noise, and the lid shut equally quietly.

The car was driven through deserted roads, the interior silent except for the driver's breathing. It rolled past streets of abandoned warehouses and fenced lots until finally pulling in a working factory, around the back of the building.

Next to a sign marked "Incinerator."

The bags with the soiled cloth and the bits of turf went into the chute first. A lever was pulled, a furnace spat white heat, and any evidence that might have been gleaned from the traces vanished in the black smoke billowing from a chimney.

Then the cloth bundle was placed in the chute, the cover pushed shut. A lever was pulled.

And a man got back into a black car and drove away, not looking back once.

(Edit: Since it was requested, another chapter has been posted as a tie-in to Infiltration. If you don't like this ending, see if that makes you feel better.)