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There were various aspects of her brother's life, Rosie mused, that she could take exception to. Being a skinflint wasn't one of them. After the Company visited, things had to be shifted around quite fast in order for the shipment to get through. Not like Manny hadn't made contingencies for this sort of thing, and frequently. One downside of being an entrepreneur is that you can't always settle for a Plan B. On some occasions, you might be required to fall back as far as Plan R (as in Run), Plan S (as in Split), or even Plan X (which describes the language you use when you discover just how deep in it you've stepped). With Manny, however, contingencies had to have a touch of the luxurious, or why bother going to so much trouble to work for yourself?

Following the disastrous failure at the warehouse, the Company had to fall back and regroup. Their options were either to prove that the hints and rumors of gunrunning were true (or at least reliable enough to get a warrant to give the premises a proper shakedown) or storm the place and hope for the best. The former required finding a corrupt judge who didn't mind second-guessing criminal activity; the latter required finding a corrupt judge who would overlook illegal search and seizure because the ends justified the means. Since there was never a shortage of corrupt judges, this shouldn't have proved to be a problem. The advantage of being a two-snout operation was that you didn't have to get half a hundred muzzles and tails lined up in order to take action. Add in the buck-passing called "credible deniability," and the wolf siblings counted on six to twelve hours of escape time from the warehouse itself and another 24 to 48 before the cross-the-pond arrangements could be made. It was a case of "that dog won't hunt" turned into "that elephant can't dance."

Rosie had to smile at the explanation that her brother had given for his tactics. It made no sense for them to try to transport the crates out of the warehouse themselves; quite apart from the crates being so heavy, it was sometimes a good idea to keep a bit of distance between you and your merchandise. Inventory can be so difficult to handle these days. Arrangements were made for the Stateside members of Liam's cadre to enter the warehouse through what he jokingly referred to as the "priest hole," which avoided any necessity of going through any visible door above ground. She and her brother strolled out the front door (locking up behind themselves, of course - can't be too careful, these days) and to a waiting cab that took them to the swankiest hotel in the city, where they booked into one of the luxury suites, ordered room service breakfast, then took a nice nap before their spa appointments later in the afternoon.

They were watched, of course, but as long as they were completely law-abiding (on the surface, at least) and away from the contraband, it would be particularly difficult for the locals, the feds, or the Company to do much about it. Detained for suspicion would last 48 hours tops, and with Manny's lawyers in the mix, it was more likely to be about four hours tops. Arresting them for suspected terrorism was a great one these days, as it could be made on the flimsiest of excuses (mostly having to do with fur color, species, or country of birth), but the fly in that ointment was that it would not necessarily help them get to the contraband, nor to find out where it was going and who was behind it. As a result, Rosie and Manny hid in plain sight, enjoying the luxuries of an extravagantly appointed world-class hotel. Rosie, in particular, enjoyed the full-body massage and fur treatment provided by a particularly nice-looking young marmoset who was equal parts professional and flirtatious, never once crossing the line yet making the female wolf feel glamorous and desirable. Good customer service doesn't have to include actually servicing the customer. Manny was clearly a touch jealous of her; he rather liked the look of the masseur for himself.

Afterward, they had retired to their suite, certain that someone (unlawfully, of course) had time to bug the place to its limits. This was easily established when they found one bug that was so patently obvious as to be insulting; the real equipment was stashed elsewhere, no doubt, and no worries. That whole contingencies thing. Everything was already in place, arranged by burn-phone and a favor or two called in.

In the very early evening, Manny had called down to order a nice dinner and to have the concierge order up two good seats for the Sondheim revival show several blocks toward midtown. When the valet entered with their meal, two young wolves stepped in right after him, a nice young male and female, who opened their eyes, maws, and arms to Manny and Rosie, hugging them and making a great frenzy of their paws, arms and facial expression. The valet, too well-trained to ask questions, was grateful when Manny drew him aside and used a universally-understood gesture to explain that the visitors were deaf and dumb. The valet nodded graciously, accepting the large gratuity with an equally universally-understood gesture that he would gladly keep his mouth shut.

The other couple, who had been enjoying their stay in a room several floors below (and who were neither deaf, dumb, nor stupid), continued their gesturing after the valet had left. Manny and Rosie kept up a bit of chatter about their meal for the benefit of the listeners, using sign language confirming last-minute instructions. About an hour or so later, a very well-dressed couple left the suite, took the lift to the lobby, picked up their tickets from the concierge, and took their leisurely walk to the theater, no doubt followed by several agents from one or another of the various three-initial task forces involved. Some little time later, hotel security cameras showed that the room service trolley was quite properly taken to the service elevator by a dark-furred young canid with a short tail, as none showed from behind his hotel livery (Manny had, somewhat painfully, stuffed his usually lush and well-groomed tail down the back of one pants leg, which caused a bit of a limp on his part - all of which added to the surprise). There seemed to be some confusion in the kitchen later, as no one could account for the trolley with the livery draped across it, tucked into a corner of the preparation area. The trolley had its usual white nearly floor-length drape more or less in place, but the space that usually held various extra plates, utensils, sauces, napkins, and other afterthoughts was conspicuously empty. None of the cameras picked up on the delivery. Although ingress and egress to the kitchen was covered by cameras, the kitchen itself was not.

At the time, no one questioned why a couple of chefs would be going into the garage still wearing their aprons and hats. On either side of a blind spot, a cab appeared and disappeared, without seeming to have had enough time to pick up or drop off anyone, but that cab was later found to have made a visit to a small, private airstrip on the far side of town. By that time, the Gulfstream on which Rosie found herself was long since gone and effectively off the radar in every important sense.

She sighed, quietly, happily. There was no doubt it would hit the fan at one point or another, but right now, she was warm, comfortable, lounging across one of the couches in the open cabin of the small jet and sipping ginger ale. No real "bubbles" until after this was over; there's just no sense in impairing one's judgment when Manny was pulling one of his "impossible missions." For one thing, they were usually enough fun that you wanted to make sure that you were awake for it all.

Manny lay sprawled across the other couch, peacefully asleep. He had a knack for being able to make himself fall asleep just about any time that he wanted to, allowing him to get what he called "wolf naps" at a moment's notice. If anything unusual happened, he could be awake in a flash. However, short of a sudden change in altitude, direction, power set, or an explosive decompression, he would sleep through just about anything. She envied him that. Rosie had been resting, but actual sleep was sporadic and not entirely rejuvenating. After all this was over, she was going to hold her brother to his promise that they would have at least as luxurious treatment in Ireland as they'd had stateside. She found herself wondering if there were any such thing as an Irish marmoset...

Just as the thought began to allow her a particularly sensual daydream, Manny stirred, flicked his tail, then stretched from tip to toes, his muzzle seeming cavernous as he sucked in a bushel or so of air and yawned with gusto. Shifting to a more upright position, he glanced over to her and smiled. "How are ya, sis? Get any sleep?"

"Nothing that I'd dignify with such a word, but I caught a few winks here and there."

"Gods, what an opening..."

Rosie laughed. "Thank you, I think. It's a little creepy when your brother thinks you're hot."

"No worries; I bat for the other team, after all. Although since we're headed for the U.K. in general, I'd probably better stay with 'ginger.'"

"Where did that term come from?"

"Cockney rhyming slang. Ginger beer, which rhymes with..."

"'nuff said," she grinned. She paused, her tail shifting awkwardly. "Manny, I know this is important to you, and I'm not going to back out now, but... would you tell me what really happened between you and Liam? I never did know."

Her brother's eyes cast down, an ear twitching, a sense of melancholy touching the air. "I still remember a time when IRA was something that you arranged with your accountant." He looked up at her, a sad smile on his face. "The Irish Republican Army was around a century before that, of course. Liam was never really party to it. He'd talk a good fight, and he had pals who were probably involved with more than a bit of mere hooliganism. Liam was Sinn Féin, as old as the IRA but what was usually called the 'more socially acceptable member of the family.' In theory, at least, Sinn Féin deals only in the ordinary dirty tricks of politics, not the violence that the Provisional IRA is at least accused of, if not actually responsible for. The name is Gaelic for 'we ourselves,' although some say 'ourselves alone' is the greater intent of the phrase.

"Liam is as Irish as you can get, all the way back a dozen generations and more." Manny stretched again. "He grew up quick with his fists and full of blarney for the tourists. Handsome lad, which was part of the problem. Every young female in the land seemed to be after him, and he could never understand why he just didn't want anything to do with them. He blamed it on having to be the hard-as-nails type, being with 'the boys' all the time, fighting, being rough-and-tumble, being a 'real male.' And then..." The wolf sighed, shook his head a little. "He had the misfortune of meeting me."

"What's so unfortunate about that?" Rosie grinned a little. "Apart from the obvious, of course."

"The idea of 'playing with the boys' meant playing rough."

"I thought that's how you liked it."

She chuckled at first, mostly because of some of the wilder stories she'd heard from her brother, but her expression quickly changed to something much more serious. The story was in Manny's eyes, and it wasn't one to be laughed at.

"He was transparent to me, like crystal, like the most beautiful cut crystal I'd ever seen. I knew what he wanted, what he needed, even before he did. And I did everything I could to keep it from happening. It's a closed club, you see, and anyone outside of it becomes suspect, becomes a potential hazard. Everything from the religion he'd had drilled into him from the day he was whelped, to the oaths and secrets he'd had to keep all his adult life, all that told him that what he wanted was wrong, or dangerous, or disallowed. For his cronies, having a female would have been bad enough, but as you know, females are to be controlled and protected."

"Of course," she said, matching the tone of his sarcasm. "But to be gay..."

Manny nodded somberly. "He fought himself over it, usually with laughter, and later with language, and finally he fought me directly. It's a wonder that I don't have a scar from the roundhouse he gave me, much less a broken jaw."

"You're not one to get caught by a simple swing. Did he catch you off guard?"

The wolf shook his head slowly, his ears slightly splayed. "I didn't raise an arm. I rolled with it, which is probably what stopped the damage, but even so, it was a haymaker that lifted me off my hindpaws. I was sprawled on the floor of the grotty little room that I stayed in while visiting County Cork. I didn't get up, for a moment because I couldn't, and then because I knew that if I moved, he'd keep coming at me. He stood there, huffing like a steam engine, and his eyes... you know how some people's eyes change color when they get angry or frightened? Liam's eyes seemed to glow red, like a fire from inside, like coals from a forge or the Inquisition's torture chambers. It's not something you ever want to see leveled at you. I lay there, staring back, not daring to blink, nor to move."

For a long moment, Rosie sat, trying to keep her tail still and her tongue in her head. The look in her brother's eyes was somehow both wonderful and terrible. When he finally spoke, it was more a whisper, like a prayer or a dirge.

"He fell to his knees, staring at me, then he crawled over to me, slowly, lay down next to me, put his head on my chest and sobbed like a lost pup. I just held him in my arms and pet his head while his tears washed clean a few decades of agony that I couldn't imagine having gone through, much less surviving. After something like an hour, he fell asleep on me, never having said a word. He had exhausted himself from holding back for so many years, and I was the pillow that was soaked with tears more eloquent than any words could ever be."

The female wolf fought her own tears. All she'd ever known about Liam was a name, a story of a time when Manny's life had been put in jeopardy, seemingly because of Liam's doing, and she'd learned how to hate bringing up his name. Manny didn't bring it up either, and she was beginning to understand why. Her brother had called him an "old flame," but she had no idea that the fire had burned so hot.

"When he woke, I thought he'd run away screaming, or maybe start punching me again. Instead, he sat up and just looked at me. His eyes hadn't a touch of red to them anymore; they were soft, calm, and a different kind of burn. This was a time before either of us had any need of false passports; we could go anywhere we wanted. Liam took us to the seaside city of Ostende, Belgium - a place where it would be highly unlikely that either of us would be noticed or recognized. Gay rights were recognized as far back as 1795, and by 2003, it was the second country in the world to legalize gay marriage. We could be anyone we wanted to be, and for a week, we were."

Manny's eyes misted a bit with memory. "The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is breathtaking. It has twin spires that are 72 meters tall. It's designed in the Neo-Gothic style, and although the original stained glass windows were destroyed during the world wars, they've long since been restored." He smiled slightly. "Almost enough to make you convert to Catholicism. I always wondered if that's why Liam took me to visit it.

"It was on our last day there together, and he took me into the alcove where the statue of Mother Mary stood before several small prei-dieu along with the racks of votive candles. He lit one, knelt before the statue of the virgin, and whispered words I couldn't catch, while I stood to one side, head bowed for respect if not actual reverence. After several moments, he crossed himself and stood to face me. He took me in his arms and kissed me as if for the first time... or perhaps, I feared, the last. And though we'd done much together that expressed such emotion, it was the first time that he'd ever said he loved me. He told me that, if there were another life, he would have called in the priest and have us married right then and there. He said that, as far as he was concerned, we were married there in Ostende, and that anytime we could return there, we would live, and love, and laugh as husband and husband. This, he told me, was the life outside of life. Elsewhere in the world, we could be friends and business associates, but here, we could strip to our bare fur, to our bare hearts and souls, and be who we truly were to each other."

The wolf managed a tiny smile. "Irishmen. Even the toughest are romantics."

Rosie hated crying, and even worse, she hated crying in front of anyone. She did her best to fight it off as she asked, "Is that were you go on those European visits you take sometimes?"

Her brother nodded slowly. "At least part of every trip is spent there. Anywhere else in the world, I'm a rake, taking pleasure where I find it, or perhaps just letting off steam, if you'll forgive the joke. Truth is, though, Liam spoiled me for anyone else. A seaside town in Belgium is the only place where I'm really alive. The rest of the world has everything else a fur could want, but Ostende is where my heart lives."

"Have you thought about what it's going to be like, seeing him in Ireland?"

"It's okay, sis. We see each other from time to time, away from our spiritual home. We're still friends, guys who hug the macho way and clap each other on the back, make inappropriate remarks about females, toss back a pint or two in the pub. We even stole a kiss once, in a dark alley, but it wasn't quite right somehow. We knew that we'd just have to crawl back into our disguises again only moments later, so since that, we've never done anything anywhere but Ostende. Our oasis. Our honeymoon hotel, maybe. Call it what you like."

For a long moment, Rosie didn't speak. It wasn't like Manny to keep secrets from her, but she could see why he'd kept this one for so long. It was unique to him, perhaps the one special thing in all his life.

"You can't tell him, you know. Not yet, and certainly not while we're in Ireland. You'd be even more a liability to his cronies than I would be; at least they've met me, worked with me before. You're going to get sniffed pretty hard, sis. Don't take it personally."

She nodded as the cockpit door opened and a liveried fox stepped out to greet the two of them. "We'll be approaching the airstrip in about thirty minute, Señor y Señiorita Delgado. The approach will over water, and the weather looks to be pretty calm for a change. Even so, I'll probably be requesting that you buckle up in about ten minutes or so. Pays to be safe."

"Thank you, Captain," Manny replied with a smile. "I couldn't agree more."

After the pilot returned to the cockpit and closed the door, Rosie raised an eyebrow. "Delgado?"

"You'd have preferred, maybe, Manischewitz? I don't think we'd pass the kosher test."

"Yes, but Delgado? Papa hated that guy!"

"Then who better to take the heat?"