No, there was no time for niceties at all. I hurled myself forward with all of my speed. As I passed Dani, I nudged her to the ground as gently as my haste and my desperation would allow me to do. Moments later, I was among the trio of shooters who sought to do my young friend harm.

What was it with gangsters and automatic rifles? For my part, such weapons caused me no real harm. The right shot at the right time no doubt could have killed me, true. But the salvo of rounds the men fired did little more than puncture my flesh and score my skin in a way that caused me great pain. And what was pain to someone like me?

I grabbed the first of the trigger-happy idiots by the throat, twisted, and then flung him down the sidewalk as an example to the others. I then was in the thick of them, and it took me but a short time to snatch away rifles, to strike throats, and to brutalize my opponents in a way they never would forget. It was ever the case, despite their many gadgets, that human flesh was weak, and I proved that adage now.

In mere seconds, the men who first had emerged from the building's large garage door had been killed or dispatched, but, before I knew it, rounds were striking me from elsewhere, as another batch of angry and violent Russian thugs emerged from the building and loosed their shots at me.

Let them. I had promised myself that I would help Dani, and every round that struck me was a bullet that would not harm her. Pain was a lie, an illusion forged by the weak to excuse their failures. I never was a person to believe such deceptions.

It took but moments for me to dispatch or to disable this new round of attackers, and before I allowed another group of guards or thugs to emerge from the building, I turned to move toward where last I'd seen Dani. By then, she had rolled toward the street and wisely had concealed herself behind a sturdy vehicle.

There was no time for negotiating with her, or for comforting her. The agent was so beside herself that she hadn't even drawn her sidearm. Better in any case that she not hear my voice. No, she was a slim and supple young thing, so I snatched her up by her waist and did my utmost to speed her away from the danger that threatened her.

I made first for a spot across the street behind a large lorry, where our assailants might have a poor chance at finding their mark. Soon after, I pulled my young cargo close, calculated my chance of leaping with a burden in my arms, and flung myself up the side of the buildings opposite the drug lab from which we had fled.

The bullets fired by our enemies continued to rain, but I was swift and held my charge close, sheltering her with my body as I did, and soon we were out of sight of our attackers. Only then was I able to slow our flight, and that just a little. Not five minutes later, after bounding across roofs and leaping across roadways, did I feel it safe to descend to the ground and to deposit my young fare on the safety of solid ground.

The young agent was something of a mess by that time, and I sat her down on a plastic chair outside a tiny pizza place. The kid wasn't quite hysterical, not sobbing or crying as one might expect, but she was so frozen by shock that I felt the need to recover her cellphone from her jacket pocket and to call someone on her caller log named "the Boss," alerting the fellow to her current location. Afterward, I dialed 9-1-1 on the same phone and then returned it to the pocket in which I found it.

It was only then that I made my single mistake of the evening, rather, my single serious mistake. The young woman had begun to come to her senses, and I allowed myself to meet her gaze. It was only for a moment, and it wasn't clear whether she recognized the eyes that looked back at her, but I met her gaze, nonetheless.

A moment later, I was gone.

I wasn't trying to be enigmatic by my sudden departure. The idea that young Agent Gaudin might have recognized me was trouble enough, but I had no intention of being present when the FBI or the local police department arrived.

Damn, this was an ugly mess. Still, I stayed in the area until the first police units arrived and it looked like Dani was safe. There always was the possibility that our gangster friends were out looking for her. I hadn't gone to all that trouble just to allow her again to fall victim to crime.

I even lingered somewhat on a nearby rooftop after the police arrived, just to catch an earful of what she might say to her bosses. About 20 minutes later, the feds began to show up, and I listened carefully to what Dani had to say to them. It was only slightly cheering that she was unable to give a cogent explanation to what had happened that evening.

Clearly, she was not supposed to have been in the area on her own. The scolding she took from her boss, Special Agent Grebe, if I remembered correctly, told me that. But it was somewhat heartening that she didn't mention me at all. Either she still was in shock, or she realized that no one would believe her outrageous story of being spirited away across the rooftops.

Either way, it was a difficult position for me. If she told her bosses that someone had carried her away as I had done, no big deal. But if she truly had recognized Bess Porter as her rescuer, a very big deal it would be. A very big deal, indeed.

Had I just ruined my heavenly existence in New York City? Going back to my nomadic and rootless life would be no great burden. That was something that eventually would happen. But losing my life with Fallon so soon? Oh, my heavens, that was too much to think about.

Fuck it. I'd worry about that later. There weren't too many things I couldn't lie my way out of, and I had promised that I would help the young FBI agent.

So, I withdrew and over the next 30 or so minutes made my way back to the warehouse that I only recently had fled. It was no surprise that the feds and local police already were there, and I sat back and surveilled the place from half a block away.

I didn't trouble myself to ascend to the roof of the lab and look around again, though it did come to mind that I should keep a wary eye out for police drones in the area. There didn't seem to be any, but I scolded myself for not having been more vigilant earlier.

As for the warehouse, there was no good news.

It was obvious that all of the gangsters had fled and taken their product and workers with them. They'd even taken the bodies of the men I had killed and injured on the street. The only thing that remained was some traces of blood and a few puddles of urine from the bodies of the mangled fellows.

But what a wonderfully efficient system they had! I would have bet my eyeteeth at that point that, though barely an hour had passed since I'd fled the place with Dani, the villains already had their new site set up and running and were producing and packaging narcotics.

Fucking brilliant.

No. I was not going to become a drug lord. But I wanted very much to meet the person who was.