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time,
up to the second floor while Aden kept his ears and eyes peeled. No one seemed
to take any notice of the happy couple.
    Mrs. Burns, however, on the first floor, had seen them
coming, as she sat in the dark, looking at activity on the street. She knew
they were foreigners by the way the young man had had a near miss getting out
of his vehicle. "That foreigner parked against the flow," Mrs. Burns
said aloud to no one in particular as she moved away from the window in her
wheel chair.
    "Who else could they be visiting but the Italian,"
added Mrs. Burns, the 'I' pronounced like 'eye'.
    The elderly woman continued her monologue, her wheel chair
swiveled about as her window curtain fell back into place.
    "Time for a nice spot a tea. He'll 'of been tidying up
before his guests arrive. So that was the noise I heard," continued Mrs.
Burns.
    Sarah made fast work of the lock. It was a standard device.
Despite his clandestine existence, Tony knew better than to have too many locks
on his door. People around here were as honest as the day is long. Smart, thought Sarah, a fancy lock would have set him apart. The lock responded
to her work and opened. Just after Sarah sprung the lock, she rang the bell,
lending credibility to their arrival. Aden joined her and they said loud
'hellos' as they executed their Weaver stances and then searched the home.
Training kept them covering each other as they moved towards the noise in the
bathroom. Their Berettas, stretched out in front of them, nosed into each room.
Sarah called the codeword 'Eilat' out softly so that Tony would know he was
among friends, to no avail.
    When Sarah opened the bathroom door, her eyes took in the
torn plastic shower curtain laying half in and half out of the tub. The shower
was running, but the stopper was out. Tony looked like a fully-dressed stroke
victim that had died in the tub with a torn bed sheet around his neck.
    "Zak. Get in here, now," Sarah said, into her
communication device.
    Aden turned off the water and holstered his weapon. They had
checked the whole apartment before coming into the bathroom. He walked into the
front room and waited by the door for Kefira and Zak. When they arrived, he
opened the door so that they would not have to wait. He carefully closed the
door after they entered, locking it this time.
    "He's in the bathtub. What we heard was him sliding
with a loud bump into the tub because the material securing him to the shower
head disintegrated."
    "Show me," said Zak.
    Zak got on his phone and cursed their misfortune as he
waited for an answer. He gave the exact address, time, date and spoke the
words: "about four hours done," into an answering machine and clicked
his secure phone off. The four of them looked at the body. The flesh was not yet
stiff, so they estimated that the murder happened in the last four to eight
hours. Aden reached into the tub and poked the knees.
    "Something's amiss here."
    He took out a razor sharp knife, unclasped it and cut the
pant leg nearest him.
    "Bandages on the knees. Someone cleaned up here."
    He then proceeded to cut the bandage around the knee. Kefira
stopped him.
    "What exactly are you up to? Aden, what are we going to
do with him?"
    "Second question first, I already called a clean-up
crew. They should be here just after we leave. Now the first question, Aden is
helping us by using his unparalleled powers of observation. Sarah could you
turn on the 'tube'," said Zak, replying to the questions asked of Aden by
Kefira. Aden kept cutting the bandage around Tony's knee.
    "'Kneecapped.' 'Thar's a Fenian bin here abouts',"
said Aden in an attempt at humor, using a very poor example of an Irish lilt.
No one laughed.
    He went on to explain the Fenian habit of shooting out the
kneecaps of troublesome people, especially traitors or collaborators.
    "At least we seem to be on the right trail," said
Kefira. She added, "Fenian means MacAuley was here just before us."
    "Could be someone trying to make it look like