Agent Rex Edgewater felt all the blood drain from his body down into his boots in an instant and the sensation left him lightheaded. It was only through sheer coincidence that he caught Curtis York's eyes before Red did. They had scrambled up to the cave after Red spotted York and growled: "There's the sonofabitch". She took off up the rock face and scraped her knee in the climb. In the brief instant that she looked down to examine the scratch, Rex gave York the look—the universal secret agent sign for 'undercover shut-uppa you-face'—but York gave no notice that he'd understood. In fact, the guy looked darn near drugged.

He wasn't answering any of her questions, and Red was getting angrier by the second. She gave York's shoulders a shove and sent him stumbling back into the cave. When she went to follow him, she looked down into the dirt on the floor of the cave and stopped dead in her tracks. Covering the floor on the mouth of the cave were thousands of scratches in the dirt. Weird symbols and glyphs that Edgewater didn't recognize, but if he was any judge of character he knew that Red did. If York was responsible for the markings, and by the looks of the dirt on his knees and under his fingernails he was, then he must have been at this for hours--if not days.

Red didn't follow York back into the cave. She stood where she was and began to tremble slightly. She turned around to face the world and covered her face with her hands. When Rex moved beside her, she dropped her hands and said flatly: "Madison's not here."

She didn't speak on the walk back to the camp and frankly he had no idea of what to ask. When they got back to the main camp, Red went directly to the back door of the kitchen. She turned around and almost seemed surprised to see him there. "Get away from this," she said. But he told her that he'd offered to help her, and he meant it. He lied and told her that if Ivan was her friend, then he was his friend too. His words came out in a rush, but it had no effect on Red. She just shrugged her shoulders and went into the kitchen.

The commercial-grade freezer door stood imbedded in the far wall. It wasn't guarded, and it wasn't locked. The pair walked towards it and Red showed no hesitation in throwing open the door. The cold air hit Rex's sweat-dampened skin and sent a shiver through him. There, on the floor next to a flat of orange juice concentrate, was Scrump. If not for the neat bullet hole in his forehead, looking all the world like a napping elf. Red seemed uneasy about just where to grab the body, and muttered something about going to get a blanket. She walked past Rex and out the door of the freezer like she didn't see him.

Rex Edgewater squatted down on his heels next to his fallen comrade. Funny how the life of an agent can slip away so unnoticed. The guy probably saved the free world a half-dozen times and now this. In his reverie he whispered: "Jesus, Jake. You wall-eyed jackass. How'd you end up like this?"

The freezer suddenly darkened and Rex spun around to see a furious Red. Behind her, filling the door and blocking all possible escape, was Ivan Turgenev. The giant menacingly pulled a cleaver from his apron string. Red walked slowly towards him, and said in a hissing whisper: "I know the wall-eyed jackass, Jake Scrump, because he tried to put me in prison for life. How do you know him?"