Detective Golden walked into the precinct conference room and took one of the chairs near the whiteboard.  There were all manner of pictures, notes, and strands of yarn stretched from one item to the next.

"Anything new?" he asked.  "Let's start with Black Knight."

"Nothing," Sykes said, opening a manilla folder in front of him.  "All the paperwork checked out on our mercenary friends.  They're all legally registered with the State of New Jersey as armed private security officers.  The company itself and its parent are both foreign corporations, so connecting the dots with the finances is going to take more time."

"So they didn't break the law," Golden thought out loud.  "But why were they at the Scalera house in the first place?"

"They claim it was a clerical error," Sykes answered, his disbelief obvious.

"A clerical error?" Golden repeated in amused incredulity.  "That's a new one."  He sighed. 

"Robert Fox?"

"Released from Monmouth Medical yesterday morning.  Docs said he just woke up from his coma on his own, right as rain.  Didn't remember a thing about the previous day, the house, why he was there, any details about who tied him up or why...nothing."

"That's convenient," Hamilton noted.

"Yeah, I thought so.  As with the others, he's legally registered and lawyered up.  We got nothing."

Golden sighed again - a bad habit.  "Okay, what about our mystery guests?"

Hamilton took that one.  She produced a printout and slid it down the table.  "We've got a lead on that stolen SUV, the one we theorized they used to escape the scene.  Three seperate eyewitnesses saw it parked at the end of the Highlands ferry parking lot, down by the water."

"The one at the end of First Street?"

"That's the one.  One of our witnesses said he thought they were going to drive right into the bay.  They stopped, got out, talked for a bit, and then got back in and drove off."

"Is it me, or does that sound odd for a group of people just involved in a shoot-out at a private home?"

"It gets better." Hamilton slid another printout down the table to her boss.  "EasyPass recorded four hits on the SUV's plate number in the hour that followed - Parkway north, Turnpike east, Lincoln Tunnel.  They're in Manhattan."

"It's like a trail of breadcrumbs," Golden murmurred as he reviewed the data.

"But why would they escape, and then leave an obvious trail as to where they're going?" Sykes asked.  "Why not avoid the tolls altogether?  There's got to be a dozen ways to get to Manhattan from here."

"Could be intentional," Hamilton offered.  "Maybe they want to be caught?  Or maybe it's a ruse to get us looking in the wrong direction.  Or maybe it's just a dumb mistake.  Crisis makes people do stupid things."

"No, no..." Golden's mind was turning over and over like an engine trying to start.  It needed to catch on something.  He got up and stood in front of their case board.

"Okay... they're at the Scalera house, naked," Golden started, pointing at a picture of the house.  "We've got no record or witnesses as to how they got there, but they're there.  They steal some clothes, make a few omelets, surf the net about animals and genetics, and then Fox shows up based on a clerical error.  He's seen as a threat, so they tie him up and somehow get him to fall asleep."  The detective's finger moves to indicate a hand-written list of possibilities.  'Drugs' had been crossed out with a notation 'toxicology = no', leaving 'nerve agent' and 'hypnosis?'. 

"Black Knight shows up, presumably to rescue Fox but that's an assumption.  They fight, doing some damage to the house, and then the police arrive to make it a three-way fight.  Some MacGuyver builds this guy..." Golden's knuckle raps a picture of the device from the garage.  "... while it's all going down, no less, and uses high-frequency sound to render everybody unconscious, including a Mrs. Alana Peete, who happens to be driving by the house when the device is activated."  He raps his knuckle this time against a picture of a middle-aged woman.

"The unconscious Mrs. Peete drives her car into the telephone pole across the street, after which the group of unknowns pulls her from her car and uses it to flee the scene, but not until after the orangutan enters one of the police cars and removes the mobile data terminal."  Golden's knuckle moved to a still photo taken from a video feed from inside the police car in question.  It clearly showed the primate working to remove the computer.

"That's got to mean something," Sykes proposed.  "Why take the MDT when there's a shotgun in the door?  And what's a monkey want with a computer, anyway?"

"Orangutan."

"Whatever.  It doesn't add up."

"Given that the Scaleras reported a laptop as one of the items stolen, it might be connected."

"Stay with me people," Golden interjected.  "So, they escape a police firefight in the SUV and decide to drive a mile down to the ferry where they park in plain view within a public area to have a chat by the ocean, after which they don't change vehicles but instead hop back into their stolen car and drive to Manhattan, running automatic toll lanes all the way."

"You're right," Golden said to Sykes.  "It doesn't add up.  Half the time they act like high-end professional assets and the other half like half-wit amateurs."

"I still think they want us to think they're in Manhattan, that it's a ruse.  I mean, running the automatic toll lanes in a stolen getaway car?  Nobody's that stupid."

"Maybe they got lost," Sykes joked, causing both him and Hamilton to laugh.

Golden stared at the board, his story turning over in his head, and over, and over, and...

"Not stupid," he said under his breath as a theory to fit the facts began to take shape.  "Ignorant."
 

* * * * *

 
"What do we know?"  Sir William Tyron Black sat in his high-backed office chair, nearly a throne, behind a massive antique oak desk in his office within the Black Knight Industries LLC office building.  His tone brooked no interest in anything that wasn't factual.

"The intelligence I was given was woefully inadequate," replied Joshua Brighton, Colonel, US Marines, retired, who had led the assault team on the Scalera house.  He delivered the blow easily, even brazenly given that Catherine McManus was sitting right next to him. 

"We weren't given any data on any special abilities the opposition posessed.  As such, we simply weren't prepared for the level of resistance we encountered.  Rest assured, next time we'll be ready and we'll take them down in order."

"Save your assurances for someone who cares to hear them," Sir William shot back.  Joshua didn't flinch like most people would have - he was too well seasoned for that - but the man knew the ground he was on was shaky and didn't grow balls either.

"All I expect from you, Colonel, is a set of requirements.  I want to know what you need to track these people down and bring them in alive.  Consider your budget unlimited.  Catherine, you will give the Colonel security access to everything in Applied Sciences."

Catherine was taken aback.  The paramilitary commanders were never given access to research data simply because they presented too good of an espionage target.  Many of these men had checkered pasts or other levers which a competitor or a foreign government could use to turn them.

She opened her mouth to speak.  "Sir William, if I may--"

"You may not!" William snapped at her, cutting her off with an intense glare.  "Colonel, be prepared to discuss your plan with me tomorrow morning, oh-nine-hundred.  Dismissed."

The mercenary stood and offered a nod and a "Sir William," before making his retreat.  Retreat was something he loathed, but given the mood in that room he didn't let it bother him.

When the man had left and the door closed, Catherine was the first to speak.

"With all due respect," she started in an injured tone, "I have done nothing to warrant such treatment from you."

"The colonel was right," Sir William replied, calmly, smoothly, as he stood up from his desk chair and walked over to the bar set against the far wall.  "You left too much out of the mission jacket."

He poured a glass of scotch from a crystal decanter and looked back at her over his shoulder.  "You were overconfident, not to mention over-ambitious.  Take it from someone who's been doing this for seven hundred years: you can't do this type of business on the cheap."

The seven hundred years comment caught her off-guard.  "I'm sorry, I'm not following you, Sir William."

The wealthy scottsman strolled back to his desk and placed his rocks glass on the surface.  As he moved behind his chair to grasp the large runed sword which hung on a wall mount, he explained.

"I'm not sure I can trust your judgement, anymore, Cathy."  Her eyes were fixed on the sword, her mind racing.  "I think it's time to make some changes around here."

She took off from her chair on a sprint for the door.  Before she could cross the halfway mark, Sir William spoke words of ancient power that caused the runes etched along his blade to flash blue-white.  He levelled the sword at her and, as his incantations continued, an etherial ghostly veil reached out to surround her. 

With sudden, immediate panic, Catherine felt her body stiffen, impossibly captured.  William barked out an intelligible command and swung his sword backwards.  His prisoner flew through the air, helpless as a rag doll, to crash into the chair she had been using, then the desk, and finally the wall.

The impact had stunned her, but only just.  Catherine looked up to see a man standing over her.  It was Sir William...but it wasn't.  This man was taller, and much larger, his hair just as white but long and straight.  The strands of it lifted and danced in the energy nimbus being emitted from his sword.  He was leering down at her like she was a bug he would crush for sport, like she was nothing but amusement to him, and she knew real terror.

"Wh-wh-who...are you..."

"All will be explained," a gravelly scorcerous voice from hell explained to her.  "But first..."

Dominus's eyes flared a bright, brilliant red.  They had become as two small red suns to her.  She stared into them and felt herself slipping, the sound of a thousand voices all whispering to her at once.  It felt like falling, but not landing.  Just falling... falling...