Reiko climbed into the ambulance and drove off, heading for home. She began thinking about how she warned the gangs about Nancy, how she went this far, and again wondered why. They helped each other in the past sure but was that the reason she was doing this now? Or was there some other reason? What Nancy did, what happened to whoever she fought against, was none of Reiko's business. So why did it bug her? The fact others might get hurt? "Bullshit." The job hadn't affected her, Reiko was sure of that. She looked in the mirror and saw that someone was behind her. Something about it made her think she was being tailed, enough for her to turn off to see if they followed. Taking it easy Reiko began thinking of the best route to take, not wanting to raise any alarms by speeding off or going around in circles but so that she could see what they were up to.

******

"Cunt's beginning to piss me off." Reiko knew that it would look suspicious if she went all over town...there was a place on the edge of her area of operations where she could park the ambulance. On the way she picked up the radio. "Ichijo, seem to have picked up a tail."

"Roger, can you make him out?"

Reiko looked but couldn't see without it looking obvious. "Nope." She wondered just what the fuck was going on. "Doubt it's kids though."

"What's your location, we'll send a police unit your way."

Now that idea definitly did not appeal. "Negative on that," Reiko replied, biting back a sharp retort. "Hold off for a bit." There was a takeaway up the road, Reiko turned and steered the wagon in, wondering what whoever was following her would do when she came to a stop.

*******

Reiko waited in the ambulance for a few minutes for something to happen, finally guessing whoever was on her tail had lost interest, it was just coincidence, whatever. Still she reached for a wig that gave her the appearence of having black bobbed hair as opposed to being bald and softened her face somewhat, she came up with the idea so as not to frighten people on emergancy callouts, and made her way inside. The stench of cooking meat was in the air, putting Reiko off any idea of eating and instead she looked around, seeing if she could see who might have been after her. Fuck this. She was fed up, quickly reasoning that there was nothing that could be pinned on her. She might have encountered gangsters, she could pass that off as it being a false call. There was nothing on her or in the wagon, just her history. And between cops on the take and fuckheads torturing other fuckheads in Iraq, they wouldn't want to dig too deeply.

******

"Hello?" Lucian Allen spoke quietly, nervously, hoping no one would hear. "Um, it's mom. You know she no longer works in the army? Well I think I need help with her." He looked about, outside, not seeing the Land Cruiser or Kawasaki nearby. That meant she was still gone. "Would you be able to do that?" Lucian's enthusiastic voice was quickly hushed as he said his goodbyes and left, eager to get to bed before his mother came home.

"What are you doing up and about?" Nancy Allen might not have had the muscle she had when she was still in service but she was still an imposing sight, especially to a little boy. She had switched the light on and judging by her clothing she had obviously been out.

"Nowhere," her son replied nervously.

Nancy slowly walked towards him, her piercing gaze distracted for only a second to look at the time. "It's after four in the morning," she pressed, sensing the fear in the boy. "You weren't looking for something to eat, going to watch TV?"

Lucian shook his head. "I guess I just couldn't sleep."

Nancy relaxed the intensity of her face, finding the way he was acting...odd. It seemed he was deathly afraid of her, but for the life of her she didn't know why. Might he have figured it out? she wondered. After a pause she reached out and drew him in gently, cradling his head in her arm. "Come on," she said, leading him back to bed.