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the same. Then, some years ago, when the balance of power shifted in Washington the automobile changed ...”
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about, Barry?” Stormy asked with a frown.
    â€œJust listen for a moment. The men and women in power, the liberals, instead of demanding that the punishment for stealing a car be made more severe, demanded that the car itself be made more theft-proof. At whose expense? The consumer—the long-suffering taxpayer—who must foot the bill for all the nonsense that comes out of Washington. Remember, Stormy,” Barry’s tone was sarcastic, “don’t let a good boy go bad. Always take the keys out of the ignition. Stormy, good boys don’t steal cars, punks do.”
    Stormy looked at him, an exasperated expression on her face. “Barry, you can come up with the damndest analogies I have ever heard.” Then she laughed. “But I see your point. Okay, all right. You don’t have to convince me that big government is out of control. I agree with you. And I know you have a very difficult decision to make. I also know you don’t think much of the press. But in this case, we can help you.”
    Pete’s and Repeat’s heads suddenly rose as one, their ears pricked up, eyes looking in the same direction.
    Barry sniffed the air. The odor of nervous human sweat filled his olfactory sense.
    â€œWhat is it?” Stormy asked.
    The hybrids growled low in their throats.
    Barry threw himself against her and pinned her to the ground just as a bullet whined over their heads, the crack of the rifle a split second behind it.
    â€œI feel like I’m back in Bosnia,” Stormy muttered.

Five
    Barry shoved Stormy behind the bank of the creek into a slight depression in the earth. Pete and Repeat were already there, belly down on the ground. “All of you, stay! And don’t move!” he ordered, and then was gone, slipping through the brush and timber.
    Stormy looked into the eyes of the big hybrids, their snouts about three inches from her face. “Life with your friend is certainly not lacking in excitement,” she muttered.
    Pete licked her on the nose.
    Barry ran for about fifty yards, then cut to his left, jumping over the creek and bellying down on the other side. He got his bearings, then began slipping toward where the shot had come from. He rose to his feet and began running just as the rifle banged again, then once more. Barry burst out of the brush and jumped, landing on the man, feet first, both his hiking boots impacting against the man’s chest and knocking him backward, the rifle falling from his hands.
    The sniper recovered very quickly and rolled to his feet, coming up with a knife. In the sunlight that managed to filter through the thick timber, dappling the ground with shards of illumination, Barry could see the blade was honed down to a razor sharpness.
    Barry could also see that the man was not an experienced knife fighter. He held the weapon all wrong. Instead of moving his free hand to distract his opponent, the man was moving only the blade. Barry did not think he had ever seen the man before.
    The man lunged at him, and Barry easily parried the move, sidestepping with the grace of a dancer—a vocation he had worked at in the seventeenth century in Italy.
    The man cursed him. Barry’s only response was a smile.
    The assailant tried to fake Barry out, and that got him a hard right fist to the mouth that crossed his eyes and brought a bright stain of blood to his lips. Before he could fully recover, Barry whirled and kicked high in a classic savate move, the sole of his boot slamming into the side of the man’s face and knocking him to the ground. The knife slipped from suddenly numbed fingers. Barry moved in quickly and applied a pressure hold to the man’s neck. In a few seconds, the man was asleep and softly snoring.
    Barry used the man’s belt and strips of his shirt to truss him up