DUE SOUTH NINE

A Due South/Deep Space 9 Crossover
by Chris Lark cql@hopper.unh.edu
RATED: PG

Yes, I know it sounds corny, but don't worry about it--(at least I think) it's got a halfway decent plot. Being both a DueSer and a Trekkie is fun sometimes, as you're about to find out. ;) Yes, ONCE AGAIN, Tragically Hip/Sarah McLachlan songs lend their titles to the story's parts. If you have any questions (and PLEASE make them questions instead of comments), feel free to grab my ear at the above address. Enjoy. (Quick note--Ray is the old Ray, the better Ray.)

(Other quick note--takes place during DS9's fourth season, and during the year between Due South's second and third.)

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Intro: Impossibilium

"He's accelerated to warp nine. He's now passing the limits of the Terran system!"

"I'm detecting a power buildup in his navigational deflector, he could be charging a weapon!"

"Don't lose him, old man. We need him alive!"

Leaning forward in his chair, Benjamin Sisko glared at the rear of the small scout ship racing across Pluto's orbital path and into the Terran star system. This, at least, was affording a decent test of the Defiant's propulsion systems, he reflected; but they'd need the ship's speed and agility to catch this character. The last thing Sisko expected was for one of his officers to try to assassinate a Bajoran priest, but that had just happened during a special event on Deep Space Nine. Heroic efforts of other crewmembers had saved the priest, but the assassin had killed a few bystanders before being transported aboard this scout ship and taking off. The crew of the Defiant had piled aboard and been pursuing the assassin ever since.

"Chief, can you identify that power surge yet?" Sisko demanded.

Miles O'Brien had been trying to do just that ever since he detected the buildup, and it was looking less like a weapon and more like temporal energy. "I think so," he said. "It's looking more and more like temporal energy. I think he's about to open a time rift."

From the back of the bridge, Julian Bashir groaned audibly. "Not another one," he grumbled to himself.

Jadzia Dax scanned the distance between the Defiant and the scout ship,and a flash of optimism hit. "He's almost in range, I may be able to scare him off with a phaser shot across the bow," she reported.

"Keep pushing it," Sisko said. "Keep the phaser power low, and see if you can disable his engines afterward. Distance to Earth?"

"Twelve minutes, sixteen seconds, present speed."

"Signal the closest starship to try and cut him off."

Dax nodded, pushing as much thrust into the Defiant's warp engines as she could. The distance closed a little more, and O'Brien was still monitoring the power buildup.

"He may be getting ready to discharge," he said.

"Dax, can you detonate that discharge when he makes it?" Sisko said.

"Not without blowing up his ship as well, with a buildup that high," Dax answered, shaking her head. Sisko sat back and fumed, and the scout ship drew rapidly closer to Earth.

"Captain," O'Brien spoke up, "if he travels through time, I don't know if the rift will stay open long enough for us to follow him."

"Can you duplicate the rift?" Sisko asked.

"I can try." O'Brien made a gesture to Dax, who understood and monitored the buildup while O'Brien worked on duplicating it.

"His deflector's powering up, I think he's about to discharge!" Dax called out.

"Chief!" Sisko barked.

"I've almost got it!" O'Brien replied. "We'll have to decrease our speed so I can draw enough chronitons to create a rift!"

"He's activating his deflector!" Dax half yelled, complying with O'Brien's request. With the exception of O'Brien, everyone on the bridge turned their undivided attention to the viewscreen. They were just in time to see abright flash of light in front of the scout ship, followed by a blue-whitebeam of energy that shot forth from its main deflector. The beam came to a halt, and the rift burst open, leaving the scout ship free to zip through it and into wherever--or whenever--it had gone.

"Report," Sisko said.

"He's through his rift," Dax said. "I was able to take some sensor readings on the other side."

"And?"

"I didn't detect any ships in the system, no evidence of Starfleet. But I did read a number of satellites, a couple of space stations and a few shuttlecraft in Earth orbit."

"Sounds like the late twentieth or early twenty-first century," Sisko said. "Chief?"

"We're in business, sir," O'Brien said. "I've built up the same amount of chronitons he used."

"Let's get after him, then," Sisko said. "Activate the deflector when ready, Chief."

"Activating the deflector...now," O'Brien said, punching the button. The Defiant shuddered, and the same blue-white beam that had emanated from the scout ship now lanced forth from the Defiant. It was nearly a repeat ofwhat they had seen just a few minutes ago, except that now they were the ones headed through the rift. The Defiant lurched past the boundary layer between present and past, and having spit the ship out on the other side, the rift shriveled up and vanished.

"Engaging the cloak," Dax reported, hitting the cloak activator. The Defiant wavered and then disappeared from external view, and on the bridge, the lights dimmed.

"Any sign of him?" Sisko asked.

Scanning, Dax started with the point at which the scout ship had made its move. She fanned the scan radius outward, and just before scanning past Earth, she had the scout ship right in the middle of the screen. "Got him," she reported. "He's just entered Earth orbit at maximum distance."

"Pursuit course," Sisko said. Dax obeyed, and the Defiant changed course toward Earth. "Chief," Sisko said, "stellar readings. What's today's date?"

The stellar readings quickly gave O'Brien the answer: "April twenty-seventh, nineteen ninety-seven."

"Late twentieth century it is," Sisko observed.

"Somehow I'm not looking forward to getting back home," Bashir muttered to Major Kira, who was at the tactical station.

"How's that?" Kira asked, turning her gaze up to him.

"Suffice it to say you've never had to deal with Temporal Investigations before."

"Ahhh." Kira nodded in understanding, and she turned back to watching Earth grow closer on the viewscreen.

Dax, watching the sensor board, was alerted by an alarm squawking at her from the console. "I'm reading a transport in progress," she said. Bare seconds later, the scout ship disintegrated in a bright bloom of fire, which was promptly snuffed by the vacuum.

"Report!" Sisko repeated.

"Two people just transported to the surface," Dax said. "Their ship self-destructed a second later."

"Their location?"

Dax scanned the surface for transporter signatures, finding them in no time. "They materialised together in the middle of the North American continent. Or precisely..." Narrowing the radius, she found the exact location. "Someplace in the city of Chicago."

"Standard orbit," Sisko ordered. "Mr. Worf, you have the bridge. The rest of you, please join me in the briefing room."

**********

"Fraser, will you give it a rest for once? Cops don't give speeding tickets to fellow officers, you know that by now. For all they know, said cop is on a call."

"Well, I'm sorry, Ray, but I don't see how a fellow officer can know that unless you're using your warning light. Besides, since you're not on a call at the time, I just think it would behoove you to drive a little more safely."

"Are you saying I don't drive safely?"

"Far be it from me to accuse you of being an unsafe driver, but I'm merely suggesting that there is some room for improvement. By way of example, you were travelling at sixty-five kilometers per hour along a city street a minute ago, and then you took a curve with a radius of five point three meters without decreasing your speed."

Before Benton Fraser could continue this little soliloquy, Ray Vecchio jabbed a finger at him from the driver's seat of his elderly Riviera, cutting him off. "Don't start this again, Benny. I hear that smug little tone in your voice. You'd like nothing better than to pull me over right here if you were in your jurisdiction, wouldn't you?"

"Of course not, Ray," Fraser said defensively. "I wouldn't want to do such a thing to a friend. However, I would want to warn that friend if he was doing something unsafe."

"See?" Ray snapped triumphantly. "There you go again, telling me I'm unsafe. You're always looking for an excuse like that. If you want unsafe, go drive around town with my sister for a day."

"I said nothing of the sort."

"But you're thinking it, I know you."

Fraser deemed it wise to give up at this point, or he'd never hear the end of it. The move seemed to work; as he turned to stare out the window, Ray gave him a dirty look and then sighed. He settled back down and drove, and there was a long silence. Fraser considered bringing up the subject again, but decided against it, knowing that Ray would probably just go off the deep end again. Instead he waited for Ray to say something else, which he eventually did.

"You know, Benny, I've been wondering something."

"Pray tell."

"Have you ever thought about becoming a private investigator?"

"Well, admittedly the thought never crossed my mind. However, since most postings in the far North require the attention of only one officer, I suppose you could say that that qualifies."

Ray gave Fraser a dirty look as he took another corner on two wheels, and this time, Fraser made a concerted effort to ignore that. "No, what that qualifies as is Eskimo storyteller and champion dog-sled driver. I'm talking about actually having a crime to solve and then solving it. Ever think about it?"

"I think you're labouring under misconception, Ray," Fraser advised. "There have indeed been a number of crimes I solved in some past postings. As a matter of fact, shortly before I first came to Chicago, I pursued a man for several hundred kilometers for dynamiting some local rivers."

"And let me guess, most strenuous case you ever worked on?" Ray smirked.

"Aside from the case I was working on when I did come to Chicago--"

"Never mind about that. The point is, when I was a kid, I thought of what it might be like to be a PI. You know, it's not just detectives who get to shoot the bad guy or save the girl. I mean, sure, that's one of the reasons why I dreamed of doing that, but I knew it'd be a bitch getting my PI licence."

"Hmm," Fraser mused. "You're not thinking of leaving the force to become a private investigator, are you, Ray?"

"Not yet. The force is fine as is for now. One thing I ain't becoming when I leave the force is a lawyer, though. I've had my fill of them."

"You know, Ray," Fraser said reflectively, "when I was growing up, I didn't think my father would have it any other way. That was the main reason why I joined the RCMP. It just seemed appropriate to continue a family tradition."

"I thought the family tradition was librarians?"

"My Great-Uncle Prescott was a Mountie, actually. It was his family that had most of the Mounties, leaving the library to my grandparents."

"Hm. Must have booked a lot of people." Ignoring Fraser's glare, Ray snickered all the way around the Loop.

**********

With the entire senior staff assembled in the briefing room, Sisko turned on the screen at the front of the room, and it displayed a chart of the Chicago area at this point in time. "As you know, Lieutenant Moore and his accomplice beamed to some point in Chicago before their ship self-destructed," he was saying. "They materialised here--" he pointed at an alley off Chicago Avenue-- "and we lost them just afterward."

"If they destroyed their own ship while beaming down," Constable Odo noted, "that means that they have no intentions of returning to their own time. I'll admit, quite clever of them to beam down in a large, crowded city and make it all the more difficult to find them."

"Which is why we'll have to beam down after them and conduct our own search," Sisko said. "Commander Dax, Dr. Bashir, Chief O'Brien and I seem to be the least conspicuous members of the crew, so we'll conduct it. From what we saw on Deep Space Nine last week, Moore won't hesitate to kill anyone who steps in his way, so he'll doubtless kill someone else."

"Well, just as long as he doesn't kill anybody who's important to Earth's history," Kira interjected.

"Indeed," Sisko said. "Therefore, we'd best stop him before he does. Dax, you and Bashir will pose as members of the Chicago Police Department and work any investigations that might have anything to do with Moore and his accomplice. Try to avoid contact with superior officers, but if you meet a fellow detective who's already working on such a case, help out and cooperate."

"Will do," Dax nodded.

"Chief," Sisko went on, "you and I may be able to get inside information on Moore's presence and actions in the city. In this time period, some of the greedier people--and there were plenty of them--would often join organised crime syndicates in the hope of making something of themselves. The heads of these syndicates were always looking for a good hit man or assassin, and Moore fits the bill. You and I will have to try one of these syndicates to track him down."

"Sounds exciting enough," O'Brien grumbled sarcastically. He knew what organised crime was like in this time period--in a word, ruthless. He did hope that his portrayal of Falcon in Bashir's secret-agent stints would pay off on this.

"Major," Sisko continued to Kira, "you, Commander Worf and Constable Odo will remain here and coordinate the effort. Our teams may not be able to contact each other directly, so we'll have to report in to you, and you use the sensors to make sure we're alone before you relay any reports from one team to the other. And needless to say, all hands be careful and don't make any moves that might interfere with the time. Doctor, take a tricorder with you to examine anyone who might have fallen victim to Moore. Let's get to it." He turned the screen off, and all six filed toward the door of the briefing room and headed for their respective quarters to prepare.

Within twenty minutes, Bashir was in the transporter room, waiting for the other three to arrive. He knew Dax would have to camouflage her spots to pass herself off as a human, and Sisko and O'Brien were probably taking a while to look like authentic gang members or mobsters or whatever. Soon the door opened, and in ambled Dax; her hair looked the same, but she'd camouflaged the spots and donned a white shirt, blue blazer and jeans. She smiled as she saw Bashir, liking the look of his grey suit.

"Looks quite nice, Jadzia," Bashir observed, smiling back.

"So do you," Dax said. "Here, I replicated one of these for you. At least I think this is what they looked like at this point in time." She held out two detective shields in one hand, and Bashir took one, following Dax's example and clipping it to his belt.

"I don't suppose you need any further training with a handgun?" he presumed.

"Nope," Dax said, patting the holstered .45 under her arm. "I learned how to use one of these during some of my spare time at the Academy. I practise every now and then."

The door opened again, and Dax and Bashir turned to watch Sisko and O'Brien coming in. Their outfits were really something; O'Brien was a perfect facsimile of a motorcycle thug, complete with the leather jacket and the steel-toed boots. Sisko, on the other hand, was wearing a silk suit that made him look like the stereotype of a mobster. Oh well, if they'd fit in looking like that, then so be it.

"Why do I already regret this?" O'Brien grumbled.

"I can't imagine, Chief, but ours is not to reason why," Sisko said. "Are you two ready?"

"Um...yes, sir," Bashir said, still trying to take in their appearance.

"Then let's be on our way." The quartet stepped into the transporter chamber, and Odo stood ready at the controls.

"Beam us onto the roof of a two- or three-story building somewhere," Sisko said. "We shouldn't be seen from the street."

"Understood," Odo said, scanning for such a building. "Here we are. No one working on any other roofs, and I believe there's a fire escape near the site. The best of luck to you, Captain."

"Thank you, Constable. Energise," Sisko nodded. Odo obeyed, and the foursome vanished in a flurry of blue sparkle. No turning back for them now.

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Part 1: Live Between Us

The flashing red light on the Riviera's dashboard cleared most of Chicago Avenue for Ray as he drove toward the crime scene, and a steely-eyed Fraser put his hat on as he saw the throng of police cruisers and uniform officers up ahead. They had received the call five minutes ago: one dead body discovered in an alley, presumably from a gunshot wound. They should get the full report from the medical examiner when they arrived, although Fraser was planning to make a cursory examination of his own. Ray pulled over at the perimeter of the crime scene and stopped the car, and he and Fraser ducked under the yellow tape and walked into the alley.

"Any ID?" he called out to one of the uniforms, looking down at the body.

"Name was Mark King, sixteen-seventy North LaSalle," the uniform said. "As far as we can tell, he was shot. Don't know what the hell he was doing back here."

Fraser frowned, kneeling down beside the body. "That doesn't look like a typical gunshot wound," he observed.

"How's that?" Ray asked, squatting beside him.

"Look at the way the flesh around the wound is charred, and the hole in his shirt. It's too big to be a gunshot wound. It's as if somebody directed a narrow stream of fire into his chest. I've never seen anyone die this way before, Ray."

"Maybe he got hit by a freak lightning strike," a new voice suggested from behind them.

Fraser and Ray turned around, and Ray's pulse quickened a bit when he saw the woman coming up to them. Whatever she wanted with him, he sure wouldn't mind; that is, if the man with her didn't have something on her already. She did look rather familiar, though, and Ray knew why.

"You didn't land the starring role in 'Hellraiser Three', did you?" he asked.

"Um...no," Dax said, confused at first, but always quick to come up with an answer to such a question. "I guess you're thinking of somebody else."

"Yeah," Ray grinned. "Well, watch your back, you'll probably get trampled by legions of 'Hellraiser' fans."

"Okay, I'll do that," Dax said with a forced giggle. "Detective Jade Drexel, Homicide." She stuck out her hand, and Ray shook it firmly, introducing himself.

"My partner, Julius Bishop," Dax added, motioning at Bashir, and then Fraser stepped in to introduce himself.

"You're a Mountie?" Bashir observed.

"Yes. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don't really need exploring in this juncture, I've remained attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate."

"Well," Bashir said. "Who found the body?"

"Some vagrant who was passing through here," the uniform cop tossed in.

"All right, then," Bashir said to Ray. "Why don't you fellows go talk to him while we take a look at the scene."

"Or how about the other way around," Ray said peremptorily. "Welcome to my crime scene, pal."

"Ray," Fraser interjected, "these detectives are here for the same purpose as we are--or I should say, as you are, so it's not entirely unreasonable to allow them access to the scene."

"So why can't they talk to the guy?" Ray demanded.

"Because we have a lead that this is the work of a man we've been pursuing for a while," Dax answered. "For the past three weeks, we've been coming on this character's crime scenes, and this could be the one that leads us right to his door."

Ray wasn't quite ready to accept Dax's tall tale, but Fraser, of course, was. "Ray?" he said, holding his hand toward the mouth of the alley.

Ray sighed, glowered at Dax and Bashir, and gave Fraser a dirty look. "You know, Benny, why don't I just slough off my whole backlog on my fellow officers," he complained, tramping up the alley.

"I apologise for my friend, he does tend to be a bit tenacious when he's in charge of a crime scene," Fraser said to Dax and Bashir with a polite smile.

"Aren't we all," Dax said, squatting beside the body. Bashir was staring significantly at the uniform cop, who took the hint and followed Fraser out of the alley. Bashir squatted beside Dax, looked over his shoulder, and slipped his tricorder out of his jacket pocket, unfolding it.

"I sure hope this Vecchio guy isn't going to be too big a problem," Dax muttered.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Jadzia," Bashir assured her. "Twentieth-century Earth is much like twenty-fourth-century Ferenginar. When we talk to Quark, we might as well be talking to humanity's past." He studied the tricorder readings, cocking an eyebrow. "Sure enough, it's a phaser blast. This is Moore's work and no mistake. As soon as we can, we should get this person up to the Defiant before anybody can do an autopsy on him."

"The victim's attention must have been drawn when Moore and his friend beamed down," Dax surmised. "I'm guessing your secret-agent simulations have been a lesson in law enforcement?"

"More or less." Bashir folded the tricorder and got to his feet, looking toward the alley mouth again. "You know, Jadzia, Detective Vecchio is doubtless much better rehearsed in this line of work than either one of us. If we're going to catch Moore, we might have to rely on him and his Mountie friend to help us out."

Dax nodded. "You're right." She turned and ambled up the alley with Bashir at her heels, and they tracked down Fraser and Ray, who were talking with the vagrant and a friend of his.

"All right, thanks," Ray was saying. "Any place we can find you if we need to talk to you again?"

"Try down by the lamppost at the corner of Halsted and Akron," the bum answered. Ray closed his notepad, slowly getting tired of the varying addresses of the people he often questioned.

"Thank you kindly," Fraser said, sending the fellow on his way. He and Ray turned, and Dax and Bashir were walking over, gazing at them as if waiting for a report.

"Well, our friend says that he saw two men running out the other end of the alley," Fraser said. "They went in opposite directions. He also said that it looked like they were wearing their pajamas." He stared at Ray in bafflement, but not even Ray had any input on this. Pajama-clad serial killers had better not become a fad in Chicago, Ray thought to himself.

"Well, then, might I suggest we follow them?" Dax said.

With a smile that didn't betray any feelings Fraser could identify, Ray looked from him to Dax and nodded once. "Works for me." Turning around, he hailed one of the junior detectives standing at the edge of the scene. "Forbes, take over here and get the vic down to the morgue. I want an autopsy done by the end of the day." The other detective nodded, and Dax and Bashir exchanged concerned glances. They'd have to find some way to the morgue and get the body to the Defiant before anybody else got at it.

"Um," Bashir quickly spoke up, "are you sure you wouldn't like us to take the body down there for you?"

Ray gave him another dirty look. "Yes, I'm sure. Everything's well in hand, and I don't need too much assistance I.D.ing the body. Let's shake a leg." He marched into the alley, and Bashir gave Dax an apprehensive glance before following.

As the quartet walked through the alley, Dax decided to try and subtly find out where the body might end up. "So what precinct are you two from, anyway?" she asked casually.

"Well, actually, my last posting was at the RCMP's northern detachment in the Yukon," Fraser answered.

"Twenty-seventh," Ray said, ignoring Fraser. "How about you?"

"Thirty-third," Dax said.

"Thirty-third," Ray chortled, grinning again. "You guys got Walsh. He was my super before I came to the Twenty-seventh. Does he still grin all the time and look smug when he's chewing somebody out?"

"Not sure," Bashir said. "Fortunately we've never had the occasion to be chewed out by him or any other superiors."

"Lucky you. Fraser and I busted up a bar when he first came down here, and Walsh was all over us like flies on roadkill. It was all I could do to keep from literally wiping that grin off his face." They came to the end of the alley, and Fraser and Ray looked in both directions.

"You know, Ray, there was one time when my father and I were tracking a killer in the wilderness," Fraser remarked.

"And next thing you knew, the road forked and you had to split up, yeah, I know," Ray said irritably.

"Well, yes, but the point is that one of them was unfamiliar with the territory and was trying to find civilisation. He headed straight for the first civilisation he could see, not realising that it was an RCMP post."

"Point?"

There was a brief pause, and Fraser shook his head. "It's not important."

The four divided at this point, Fraser and Ray heading to the right and Dax and Bashir to the left. There was nobody on the back street that ran behind the alley, but there were a few windows, and there might well be someone sitting at one of them. Hearing a short, clipped yapping from behind them, Fraser and Ray turned to see Fraser's deaf wolf galloping up to join them.

"Ah, Diefenbaker," Fraser said. "Good of you to join us, now do you suppose you can make yourself useful?"

"I kind of thought leaving the heat on in the car would do some good," Ray smirked, rewarded by a loud growl from Diefenbaker.

"You didn't," Fraser said, aghast.

"Hey, it was either that or let him fall asleep and shed hair all over the upholstery," Ray told him. "Come on, mush." Off he walked, and Fraser, gazing at his friend's back in wonder, brought up the rear.

Diefenbaker sniffed his way after the killer, and as Fraser came up beside Ray, the detective tossed him an oblique glance. "You know, I sure hope this Drexel chick and her partner don't turn out to be too much of a problem," he commented.

Fraser shrugged. "Well, very rarely have we encountered much of a problem working with fellow detectives," he said. "Although there were the mild altercations you got into with Louis and Jack. But they never amounted to much."

Ray just blew Fraser's remarks off and changed the subject. "So what are you doing for dinner tonight, anyway?"

"I was thinking of a bite back at my apartment, unless you have something else in mind that you'd like to share."

"Well, I didn't really mean that. I think, maybe..." Ray paused as he tried to think up a good excuse. "Maybe we can avoid problems with these two. Maybe if we all went for dinner some night, we could get to know each other and avoid falling out any time. You think?"

"It's an idea," Fraser said, scratching his eyebrow and wishing he could be sure if Ray was telling the truth about his reasons for doing this.

**********

Dax and Bashir were getting nowhere on their end, and they were just about to break down and risk questioning people when Dax's comm badge chirped. She reached under her jacket and pressed it, and Kira's voice crackled, "Kira to Dax."

"Go ahead," Dax answered.

"The captain and the chief aren't getting anywhere on their end," Kira said. "They want you to go to the nearest police precinct and get into the computer network. Find out if anybody from a Chicago-based crime syndicate was killed, and if so, try to find a lead. The captain and the chief will try to infiltrate the syndicate by giving it that information."

"We'll try it," Dax said. She looked at Bashir, and the same thought passed between them; maybe they could kill two birds with one stone. "Find the Twenty-seventh Precinct and transport us to its morgue," she said. "Moore killed a man when he beamed down, and we have to get the victim out of here before anyone can do an autopsy."

"Understood. Stand by." Dax and Bashir stood still and waited, looking around to be sure they were alone. In a few seconds, the transporter beam dropped over them and they vanished from view.

When the sparkle of the beam had faded away, they were standing in a large room with a low ceiling, surrounded by metal slabs holding sheet-covered bodies. Reasoning that a recent victim would be closer to the door, they started at the row nearest the door. The victim they were looking for was second in this row, and Bashir hit his badge and removed it from his shirt. "Bashir to Defiant," he said in a low voice.

"Go ahead," Kira said.

"We've found the victim. Lock onto my signal and beam him aboard." He placed the badge on top of the body, which was subsequently beamed off the slab and aboard the Defiant. For certain, there would be confusion over where the body had disappeared to, but that didn't particularly concern either of them. With any luck, they'd be long gone by the time anybody
noticed.

"Let's go," Bashir said, nodding toward the door. Stepping cautiously, they sidled out of the morgue and looked up and down the corridor; they were still alone. Together they made off to the left and proceeded up to the squad room.

**********

Fraser and Ray, meanwhile, had followed Diefenbaker out onto a street a few blocks away. Now Diefenbaker was following his nose up the street, headed west, and Fraser was looking around. Ray noticed with a sense of annoyance that Fraser was frequently looking at the nearby street bums, and his gaze was also flicking around the windows above and across the street.

"Fraser," he sighed finally, "the wolf's hot on the trail, and half the people on this street probably saw this guy ride past on a pink elephant. What are you trying to do, catch a few sunbeams reflecting from the window?"

"I wouldn't quite say that," Fraser said. "I'm just wondering if anybody in the buildings hereabouts noticed the man running by. Although Diefenbaker is perfectly capable of tracking the perpetrator by smell, he still can't describe him to us."

"I don't see how that matters if we find this guy at the end of the trail."

Fraser shrugged and gave a concessive nod. "Well, yes, I suppose it wouldn't matter in that case." He watched Diefenbaker, who was now pausing at a railroad crossing. He was standing still and sniffing at the ground near one of the rails, and as Fraser and Ray walked up to him, he looked up at Fraser and yipped. He looked down the tracks, growling loudly.

"Hm," Fraser said. "It seems our man jumped aboard a train at this crossing and made his getaway. Can we find out what trains passed through here in the last hour or so?"

"Sure," Ray said, digging into his coat pocket for his cell phone. He turned it on and dialed the police department's number, then the extension of Elaine Besbriss's work station. Although Elaine had been Ray's civilian aide for the past several years, she had recently entered the police academy (with the ulterior motive of getting away from that work station).

"Twenty-seventh, squad room," Elaine answered after one ring.

"Elaine, it's me," Ray said.

"What's up, Ray?" Elaine asked. Behind her, Dax and Bashir, having just arrived in the squad room, overheard her saying his name. They both stopped short, and standing at a safe distance, they eavesdropped. As far as they knew, there couldn't be that many detectives named Ray in this precinct.

"Can you find out what trains entered or left Chicago on the Illinois Central main line inside of the last hour?" Ray asked.

"Can do," Elaine said with an imperceptible sigh. "I'll call you back." She lowered the receiver, then picked it up again and punched in a number. Dax looked over her shoulder and noted the line she was on, and she pointed it out to Bashir, who probably knew more about telephones from his holosuite games. Bashir went over to an empty work station, picked up the phone and pressed the top button, and he listened to the ringing tone until the phone was answered.

Dax cocked an ear toward Elaine, listening to her request information on inbound and outbound trains on the Illinois Central main line. Meanwhile, Bashir eavesdropped on the entire conversation, quickly memorising what the railyard dispatcher had to say. A minute later, Elaine thanked him, and Bashir made sure to hang up at the same time. While Elaine called Ray back, Dax turned and bent next to Bashir.

"What do we have?" she asked in a low voice.

"The dispatcher at the railway yard says that one train came in in the last hour," Bashir said. "Seems Moore made his getaway on that train. The dispatcher will put out the word to the people at the yard to keep an eye out."

"Good. Let's do what we're here for."

Bashir looked at the computer in front of him, and his face (and mind) went blank. He'd never seen one of these in operation before, and he had never anticipated having to use one. He shook his head in bafflement and looked up at Dax, who just wore a "scram" look. Bashir understood completely, and he rose and made room for Dax to sit down.

"Ooo," she said with an interested smile. "A Dell OptiPlex, Windows Ninety-Five. They have one of these at the Computer Science Museum in Seattle."

"You mean, they will have," Bashir reminded her.

"Uh huh." In no time, Dax had accessed the police department's computer network, getting a rather warm feeling as Bashir bent over behind her and leaned on the desk. She entered the search information, and they found themselves at the network site of the organised crime squad.

Entering some more search information, Dax waited for the results and read them aloud in a soft voice. "Looks like there's only been one," she said.

"Then the captain and the chief want to sneak into the Mercurio family," Bashir observed. He read the name, the modus operandi and the prime suspects, and he committed those to memory. Giving Dax a pat on the shoulder, he straightened up and made for the door. Dax quickly exited the computer network, hopped up and followed him into the corridor.

***********

Eventually, as Fraser and Ray walked along the tracks from the crossing, they entered the railroad yard limit and soon came upon the train that had come in on this track. Inasmuch as it seemed to be the only train on the track, Diefenbaker returned to his sniffing. He sniffed his way along each car, and Fraser and Ray were silent as they followed.

At the fifteenth car up from the train's rear, Diefenbaker stopped short and sniffed a bit closer. He planted his front paws on the bottom rungs of the side-mounted ladder to the boxcar's roof, and he sniffed up as far as his height permitted. He dropped back to all fours and barked loudly, and Ray gazed up the ladder at the top of the car.

"This must be it," he said. "I'll tell the yard boss to keep this train where it is and then get forensics down here." As he dug into his coat pocket again for his cell phone, Fraser started climbing the ladder on the car's back end. He ascended the rungs to the roof, and as he looked out across it, he saw no one still up there. There was no trace that anyone had been up there, which meant that either this character was very neat, or he had just hung onto the ladder on the way in.

Fraser descended the ladder and hit the ground next to Ray, who had just finished his call to the forensics team. "While we're waiting, Ray, perhaps we should ask around the yard."

"And have to organise another shelter for the blind?" Ray scoffed, thinking of the numerous times when they had canvassed neighbourhoods, only to find that no one had seen a thing. "Thanks, but no thanks, Benny. Why don't you do something useful and keep Drexel and Bishop off my back if they show up."

To Ray's chagrin, Dax and Bashir did indeed show up. They were part of the first wave of crime-unit officers to arrive, and as Fraser had feared, he didn't like the look on Ray's face when he saw them. Ray got his mind off their presence long enough to dole out the directions to the CSU technicians, who moved in on the boxcar with fingerprint dust and tape. As the techs picked bits and pieces of dirt off the bottom rungs of the ladder and dusted the upper ones for prints, the two newcomers stood nearby to observe.

"So this is his escape route," Bashir observed, pointing at the boxcar.

"Yes, we've traced him this far," Fraser said. At this, Diefenbaker hopped up, growling and yapping loudly. Fraser looked down, open-mouthed, and hurriedly rectified, "Or I should say, Diefenbaker traced him this far."

"Want us to take care of the prints for you?" Bashir queried.

"No, we don't," Ray said firmly. "Again, welcome to my crime scene. My crime scene, my investigation, my suspect."

Dax begged to differ, wearing a phony thoughtful look. "I distinctly remember saying that we've been chasing this guy for God knows how long. Captain Walsh put us on the case a long time before you received that call today."

"Want me to call and confirm that?" Ray said, reaching for his phone.

"Um, no, no," Bashir said hastily, holding up a hand. The last thing they needed now was any call that could blow their cover. "No, that won't be necessary. We need to work together. I've been thinking that we could all get together and talk about this, and avoid any problems before they occur. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Definitely," Fraser said.

"Good," Dax smiled at him. "I'm glad to hear it."

Giving Dax and Fraser a look, and not very comfortable with the way they were acting toward each other, Ray rubbed his nose and stepped back in. "Look, um..." he started. "Maybe we could get comfortable working together. I'm going to be a little busy doing interviews. If you want to do the fingerprints..."

Dax shrugged. "Works for me."

"Well, then, how about Scarpetta's, tomorrow night at seven thirty? I have to burn some midnight oil tonight, but I'm free tomorrow." Behind Ray, Fraser cocked an eyebrow and looked down at Diefenbaker. They both smelled sex and candy here.

"It'd be a pleasure," Dax said.

"Good." Ray sidled past her and stepped between the two boxcars on an evidence hunt. "Hey, Benny, you take root, or what?" he yelled over his shoulder.

Fraser turned his head, a bit flustered, and excused himself to Bashir and Dax. He summoned Diefenbaker, and he followed Ray, but paused when he noticed that Diefenbaker was still sitting there. He was eyeing Dax, and while Fraser was pretty sure of the reason, he wasn't about to let it interfere.

He knelt in front of Diefenbaker and stated sternly, "I'm sure that she's a very nice person and that soon enough, we'll get along just fine. But in the meantime, if you wouldn't mind cooperating for the duration of this case, you may get to know her even better." With that, he rose back to his feet, and Diefenbaker yapped and tagged along. The two would-be detectives watched them disappear between the boxcars, and Bashir turned to Dax.

"Well, then, I guess it's just the two of us for tonight," he said. "That is, if you wouldn't terribly mind joining me."

"Not at all."

On the train's opposite side, Fraser and Ray were watching the CSU technicians dusting away. A junior detective came up behind Ray with a report in his hand, and he handed it over. "Here, you wanted this?" he said.

Ray nodded, and the detective turned around and made himself scarce. In the meantime, Ray read the report, and Fraser minded his own business till his friend was finished. Ray could get incredibly irritated when somebody read over his shoulder.

"Well, looks like our vic didn't have a record," Ray said. "Couple dozen bucks in his pocket, no connections, zilch. Screams thrill-killing to me."

"Unless the perpetrator had committed a crime nearby and killed this man making his getaway," Fraser suggested.

Ray shook his head. "That won't wash," he dissented. "We haven't heard about so much as a jaywalking in that area in the past week. Like I said, my best guess is thrill-killing."

Another CSU tech climbed over the couplers between the cars, and he was holding up a plastic bag containing a wide piece of tape. There were several large spots of dust on the tape, evidently fingerprints. "Just one set of prints," the CSU tech reported. "Didn't go any higher than the fifth rung up."

"Okay, take them over to Drexel and Bishop over there," Ray said, motioning toward the other side of the train. The tech nodded, squeezed between the cars, and carried the bag over to Dax and Bashir. In the meantime, Fraser gave Ray a questioning look.

"Care for some assistance on tonight's work, Ray?" he asked.

"If you're looking forward to running paperwork around the squad room, sure thing," Ray smirked, ambling off toward the end of the train.

***********************************************************************
Part 2: Chagrin Falls

"Feeling up to this, Chief?" Sisko asked.

"I'd be feeling more up to one of Julian's holosuite programs than to this," O'Brien grumbled, doing up the two bottom buttons on his leather jacket.

"It's really no different from the Orion Syndicate, actually," Sisko said, although he knew that wouldn't be very reassuring.

"Oh, great," O'Brien said sarcastically. "I feel safe now."

Together, they walked into the class Italian restaurant just outside downtown Chicago, and they paused just past the front foyer to look around for a likely contact. O'Brien knew where to look--in most of Bashir's holosuite gigs, mobsters liked to hang out in either side rooms or corners--and he squinted at each one in view. Sure enough, there was a large, round table in one of the far corners of the restaurant, and a slick dresser was sitting with a number of men wearing similar outfits. As far as O'Brien could see, the label on all six of them was Armani.

"Over there," he said, nodding toward the corner. "That's as mobbed up as you can get."

"Let's give them a shot," Sisko said matter-of-factly, starting across the restaurant. With O'Brien at his side, he strode gamely to the table, and he drew the undivided attention of every man sitting at it.

"I beg your pardon," he began in his best businesslike manner, aiming his gaze at the man who seemed to be the head honcho. "By any chance, are you acquainted with one Rando Mercurio?"

The head honcho nodded. "Yeah, I work for Don Mercurio. The name's Giardano. Something I can do for you?"

"I understand that one of Don Mercurio's men, Chester DiRuglia, was killed in a hit recently," Sisko said. "Is he still interested in knowing who did it?"

"Aren't we all?"

"I should think so. After all, my friend and I do, and we don't even work for him. Yet." Sisko grinned, and Giardano cocked an eyebrow up.

"All right, why don't you give me the gory details and I'll give the Don a rundown next time I see him."

"Just a moment," Sisko said, holding up his finger. "I'm sure the Don would like to know the story behind this. However, my friend and I would feel far better to tell it to him ourselves. I'm guessing that he's been looking for a replacement."

"Right." Giardano paused for a second, then nodded and smiled as Sisko's point dawned on him. "Oh, now I get it. You want to work for Don Mercurio, is that it?"

"Let's say it's an ulterior motive," Sisko said. Behind him, O'Brien tried his best to stay back and out of the way. Let the captain do all the talking. In the likely event that they got into trouble, he ought to know how to talk his way out of it if he didn't feel up to fighting his way out.

"So you know who whacked DiRuglia," Giardano said, "you've got the nerve to approach Don Mercurio with the information, and as far as you're concerned, it's for his ears only."

"That's right," Sisko said.

"Well, then, I don't see why we're just standing around gabbing about it. Let's go have a chat with the Don." He tossed his napkin aside, pushed himself to his feet and motioned toward the back of the restaurant. Sisko moved past O'Brien and followed him, and O'Brien brought up the rear, muttering under his breath, "I hope you're happy."

**********

Since Fraser had something to drop off at the Canadian consulate before going home, and since Ray had to pack it in at the precinct, he caught a cab over to the consulate to take care of that. Diefenbaker trailed him up the stairs to the liaison office, and Fraser took an oblique glance at its front desk. As ever, there sat Constable Renfield Turnbull, and Fraser frankly hoped that he wouldn't notice him coming up the stairs. Turnbull seemed engrossed in humming "O Canada" and playing Minesweeper on his computer, so Fraser felt a bit of relief as he walked to his office door. However, humming hadn't affected Turnbull's hearing, and he looked up on hearing Fraser's footsteps.

"Ah, Constable Fraser," he smiled. "Welcome back, no doubt after a long, hard day--"

"Of making sure that the streets of Chicago are safe for all," Fraser finished, very close to getting annoyed at Turnbull's daily speech. "Thank you kindly, Constable, but I must say that's not exactly my daily routine."

"Ah, being of assistance to the police department," Turnbull grinned. "I'm sure you'd agree, sir, nothing could be better for international relations."

"I'm quite sure." Hoping to have lulled Turnbull with small talk, Fraser quickly made for his office. Turnbull, however, had already set his mind to it, so he got up from the desk and bashed his knee in the process. Even at that, he hastened over to the door of Fraser's office and yanked it open, standing right in front of Fraser and holding his hand toward it with an eager-to-please smile.

"Um, might I..." Fraser said, pointing past him. Only now did Turnbull realise he was actually in Fraser's way after opening the door, and he quickly stepped out of the way, his hurt knee taking the brunt. He promptly collapsed, and Fraser shook his head and extended his hand, pulling Turnbull to his feet.

"Thank you, sir," Turnbull sighed. "I should purpose to stop doing that."

"Yes, indeed," Fraser said, hoping that Turnbull meant opening his office door for him all the time. Fraser entered the office, and Turnbull returned to the front desk, whacking his other knee as he sat down.

Fraser stowed his files away in one of the boxes by the wall--his office was, in fact, a storeroom with a desk by the window--and looked down as Diefenbaker growled. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "Although I'm quite sure we'll be seeing Detective Drexel again tomorrow, that doesn't necessarily mean that she'll still smell of Reese's Pieces. Besides, she didn't seem intent on offering any to you." Picking his hat up from his desk, he walked out of the office, closing and locking the door behind him.

"You have nothing to worry about, sir," Turnbull called after him as he descended the stairs.

"You'll guard it with your life, yes, thank you," Fraser finished for him. Turnbull went back to humming and playing Minesweeper, and Fraser shuddered to think of what would happen if Inspector Thatcher came out and caught him at it.

**********

In the meantime, Ray was trying (and failing miserably) to convince Lieutenant Welsh that he needed this case. As far as he was concerned, Welsh wasn't listening to him very closely; he was just berating him for not making much progress with the case. "I understand you haven't even gotten a cause of death yet?" Welsh was saying.

"Look, sir, it's kind of hard to make progress when I've got these two know-it-all homicide cops jumping all over it," Ray complained.

"Oh, really."

"Yes, really. There's this pair from the Thirty-third who claim that their C.O. put them on this serial killer, and they say that the perp did this guy we found today. Now I didn't hear anything about a serial killer, but these two won't come off it. I'm trying to cooperate, but they're more hindrance then help."

"I see," Welsh said. "Keep trying for now. I'll have a little chat with Captain Walsh about these guys."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Ray said, starting to turn toward the door.

"Oh, and Vecchio," Welsh called out, stopping him. "Be advised, you might end up duking it out with Captain Walsh yourself shortly. As you know, I'm taking a little jaunt out to the West Coast at the end of this week. As for who's going to run this precinct while I'm gone, you and Huey had better set up a duel."

Ray frowned. "You mean that?"

"Not the part about the duel, but somebody's got to take care of things, and you and Huey are at the top of the list." Welsh got up and went over to a file cabinet, excavating a file on the current detriments to precinct ops. "You're lucky that Internal Affairs isn't buzzing around here at the moment, but while I'm gone, I don't expect them to show up here."

Ray hesitated, rubbing his upper lip and then his hands. "Uh, sir, I don't mean to anticipate or anything, but it sounds like your mind's already made up."

"I've already given all the dope to Huey, so you've still got a little while to think it over. Now, what's the rest of the story with this case?"

"Well, other than these two Fed wannabes, we may have an I.D. on the killer. We tracked him to a place where he left his fingerprints behind, so we were able to lift them. I'm just waiting for them to give us an I.D."

"Where'd you lift them?"

"From a freight train just off the Illinois Central main line."

"Uh huh. That's what, four, five blocks from the crime scene?" Ray nodded, and Welsh narrowed his eyes skeptically. "How'd you manage to tail him that far, with a slew of witnesses whom you conveniently forgot to bring up?"

Ray lowered his eyes, embarrassed. He'd hoped Welsh wouldn't get to that and make him admit that Diefenbaker had helped them with that. He took a deep breath, raised his eyebrows and began hesitantly, "Uh, well, we did it kind of like this...you see, up on the point..."

A despairing look crossed Welsh's face. "Please, don't tell me the wolf did that piece of dirty work."

"Well, um...sort of..." Ray felt the blood threatening to flood out of his cheeks, and he tried to look more apologetic than embarrassed.

"Oh, God help us," Welsh groaned. "I'd just love the look on Judge Carrigan's face when you testify that you apprehended the suspect by means of a wolf."

"Doesn't he qualify as a canine unit?" Ray shrugged.

"I'd say offhand that he qualifies as more of a lupine unit. No such thing as a lupine unit in this department or any other, as far as I know. You'll have fun getting past a judge with this."

"What if the prints drop a serial killer right in my pocket?" Ray said, tossing up his hands.

"What if?" Welsh's eyebrows rose, and he gestured toward one of the windows. With a small sigh, Ray nodded his head, turned around and stumped out of the office, closing the door behind him. Welsh, meanwhile, opened up Ray's file and Huey's file, looking to see which of them was preferable to take over the precinct. As he expected, Huey was looking better for the job, unless something unexpected came up that might change his mind.

Ray folded up his empty lunch bag and shoved it into the pocket of his raincoat, which he then pulled onto his back. He looked around the half-empty squad room, most of whose occupants had gone home for the night. As his gaze drifted over to the side door, Bashir and Dax showed up, the latter carrying a sheet of paper. Ray could see the dark splotches of fingerprints in the light shining on the paper's other side.

"Oh, Vecchio, you leaving?" she asked.

"Just about to," Ray said.

"We got an I.D. from the prints on the boxcar," Dax said. "It's the same man Julius and I have been trailing, Timothy Moore. We got a lead that one of his recent crimes might have been a mob job. Julius has an organised-crime informant who may be able to give him to us." She handed the sheet to Ray; little did he know, of course, that Dax had gone to the Defiant to falsify the sheet.

"Good work," Ray said. "I've got one more thing to do before I leave, and I need to see if we've got a cause of death yet."

"Oh, we took care of that, too," Bashir called after him as he walked out the side door. "Cause of death is unknown. We're running it against any unusual M.O. in the books."

Ray stopped short, turned around, and pointed his finger at Bashir. "Whoa, hold on a second. What precinct is this guy in?"

"Last place we saw him, he was under our wing," Bashir said.

Ray chortled. "Look, buddy, I don't care if you're trailing a serial killer or not. I haven't seen anything official enough to give you this case. As far as I'm concerned, it's my case, my crime scene, and my stiff, and quite frankly, I don't like it when some smarty-pants homicide cop interferes more than he cooperates."

"You don't have to like it, you just have to work with us," Bashir said.

"I have to work with you?" Ray repeated. "Sorry, pal. Uh-uh. You give me something right out of your captain's office and I'll live with that, but until then, we're gonna do this my way. Don't like it? Take it up with your C.O. and mine."

"I thought we were all working together on this?" Dax said.

Ray faltered. Under normal circumstances, he just might argue with that, but coming from her, he was finding it pretty hard to do that. "Yeah," he said finally. "I guess we are."

"Fine," Dax said. "Then we can all get back to it tomorrow. Your Mountie friend will still be along with us, won't he?"

"Fraser?" Ray laughed. "You kidding? There was one time when that guy went undercover in drag to solve a case. Damndest thing."

"It sounds it," Bashir said. "Sure you wouldn't like to join Jade and me for dinner tonight?"

"Nah, my mom insisted on a family dinner tonight. Some other time, maybe." Ray reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulling out his business card. "But there's my phone number, anyway, just in case something good comes up." Handing it to Dax, he gave them a short wave, and Dax bid him good night as he walked away from the squad room. Bashir crooked his arm and smiled.

"Shall we make a night of it, then?" he said.

"Just the two of us?" Dax said. "I don't see why not." She slid her arm under Bashir's, and they walked out of the squad room together. Bashir had been able to grab a nice fast Crown Victoria from the city motor pool, so as they walked down the corridor to the back stairs of the precinct, Dax gave Bashir a confused look. "'Drag'?" she asked.

"American slang for when a man dressed as a woman," Bashir answered. Dax nodded slowly, her eyes a little worried. From the ease with which Ray had used the term, she shuddered to think of how commonplace that activity was in this time.

**********

While Fraser and Ray had been having their respective tete-a-tetes with Turnbull and Welsh, Giardano had led Sisko and O'Brien to the restaurant's kitchen. He had led the way through it to a room buried in the back corner, and in that room, several men were sitting around smoking cigarettes, drinking booze and talking about business. O'Brien knew exactly what sort of business they were referring to, and he did his best to ignore it as Giardano pushed through the doors at the side of the room. On the other side was an office, with a liquour cabinet on one side, a bookshelf on the other and a desk in the middle. A grey-haired, portly individual sat behind the desk with a bodyguard on either side, and those two men were giving Sisko and O'Brien the evil eye.

"This fella says he might give you the guy who whacked Chet DiRuglia," Giardano said to the man behind the desk. O'Brien gave Sisko a look, and Sisko, reading his eyes, understood right away: This man was Rando Mercurio.

Mercurio looked up at his two henchmen and nodded, and the one on his right walked over to Sisko and the other to O'Brien. They searched them rapidly, and finding no weapons on them, they both nodded to Mercurio.

"Now, then," Sisko said, "if you wouldn't mind asking your men to leave us in peace..."

"He's insisting on seeing you in private, boss, but I don't know that you want to do that," Giardano cut in.

Mercurio, however, had looked both men right in the eye when they came in. He could tell when someone was coming for him with homicidal intentions, and by the look in their eyes, he knew that wasn't their intention. "Blow," he said to all three henchmen. "Nothing to see here." Giardano shrugged, looked at the two guards and cocked his head toward the door, and they sidled outside. With the door closed, Mercurio gestured after them.

"Don't worry about Giardano," he said. "He gets suspicious, but a troublemaker he ain't."

"Oh, why's that?" Sisko asked.

"Let's just say he's looking forward to the airing of 'The Last Don'. Always likes to let the new guys know it while he's breaking them in." Sisko and O'Brien looked at each other again; they'd both just learned something important. If they'd heard Mercurio correctly, it was a safe bet that Moore would be sticking around Giardano for a while.

Mercurio got up and walked over to his liquour cabinet, turning to Sisko. "Now, um..." He gestured at him, squinting.

"Saletti," Sisko said. "Albert Saletti. And my associate, Brian Callaghan." O'Brien nodded with a quirk of a smile to Mercurio, who took a bottle of red wine out of the liquour cabinet.

"Care for a drink?" he asked.

"A little of that red wine sounds nice," Sisko said.

"Any Scotch?" O'Brien chimed in, barely stopping himself from asking for synthale.

Mercurio looked over his shoulder at Sisko as he filled two wine glasses and a Scotch glass. "So Chet DiRuglia might find himself a little peace of soul, thanks to you. Let me guess, you two have been spying around a little bit."

"You might say that," Sisko said, nodding his thanks as Mercurio handed him one wine glass and gave the Scotch to O'Brien. "As a matter of fact, Brian here is a world-class computer hacker. When we heard about Mr. DiRuglia, he broke into the police department's computer network, accessed the files of their organised crime squad, and found out that it's almost definitely the work of the Verlucci family. We thought you'd like to know."

"You think straight, and that's a fact," Mercurio complimented him. "You volunteering to take care of business for me as well?"

"Not quite, but we might know someone who can. Do we guess correctly that you've taken aboard a new soldier or two lately?"

"One guy wandered onto my property yesterday. Said he'd do a job for me as long as he got compensated for it, so I agreed. This new guy says his name is Ted Murdock. Is he the one you're thinking of?"

Sisko looked at O'Brien for a second--it did sound like as good an alias as any. "You couldn't ask for a better man," he said.

**********

While Sisko and O'Brien were in the office with Mercurio, little did they know that Bashir and Dax had come into the restaurant and seated themselves on the other side. Bashir would have to remember this for a future holo-romp, he reflected--it was a two-person table, in a nice quiet corner of the restaurant, with a tall candle standing in the middle. He hadn't spent a night like this with Jadzia in God knew how long, if ever. Of course he'd like to talk about them, but he didn't want to launch right into that.

"So, Jadzia," he said finally, "what do you think about our colleagues?"

"That Mountie, Fraser, he's quite the man," Dax smiled. "I haven't seen a working style like his in...oh...two, three hundred years." Bashir breathed an imperceptible, gratified sigh--he'd been afraid that she had an ulterior motive. "As for Vecchio," Dax continued, "one word: wiseass."

"That he is, but as I said, we need him if we're to find Moore in time," Bashir said.

"And that's why you instigated him in the squad room?"

"All I said was that we had an I.D. and no cause of death. He took care of the rest."

Dax smiled and patted his hand. "I know, Julian, I'm just yanking your chain," she said. "I like yanking your chain. Haven't you noticed?"

"This wouldn't have anything to do with that little fantasy I told you about when we were trapped in the turbolift, would it?" Bashir inquired.

"I don't know, would it?" Dax shrugged, simpering. Anything to get off that particular subject. "After all, I did rescue you from Morn shortly thereafter."

"No doubt after the times when I put Verad out of business and exposed that little Joran scandal," Bashir smirked.

Dax closed her eyes and shook her head as she bent it. "Okay, you win," she said finally with a giggle. She raised her head and gazed into Bashir's eyes, sighing. "I can't remember the last time we did this together."

"Probably because there was no last time. Any chance that this won't be it?"

"Chance, yes. Promise, no."

Bashir's shoulders sagged, and he stared at her almost pleadingly. "Oh, come now..." he started to protest.

"I'm just kidding, Julian!" Dax laughed, squeezing his hand. "In fact, I think we should do this together more often. I can teach you how to recognise when I am kidding. Whaddya say?"

"I say that'll take some doing," Bashir said. "But I'm sure it'll be time well spent. Just give me the word, and a little change in plans can't hurt." There was a pause, and Bashir's eyes flicked around a bit, taking in their surroundings. "Like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Candlelight, nice quiet Italian music, low noise level, the two of us in a private little corner together...if you ask me, that's a far more conducive atmosphere."

Dax's smile warmed up a few dozen degrees, and as Bashir turned his hand over, she took it and gently squeezed it. "I don't see why not."

In his peripheral vision, Bashir saw the kitchen doors open, and with a bit of an effort, he tore his eyes from Dax and looked over that way. His eyes grew two-fold as he saw Sisko and O'Brien exit the kitchen in the company of a man who was no doubt a mobster. "Well, look who's just joined the party," he observed. Dax looked over her shoulder, and just as she was doing so, Sisko and O'Brien noticed them. Dax quickly snatched her hand away from Bashir's, and she turned around to avoid catching the mob guy's attention as well. Bashir, meanwhile, watched the trio walk over to the other side of the restaurant and rejoin the rest of their party there.

"Perfect timing," Bashir said. "I'll try to get the captain's attention so we can exchange information somewhere."

"Are you sure? We'll have to tell it to Vecchio, and it's three to one he'll read us the riot act."

"Not if he thinks that we meant to pass the information on to him," Bashir said. "I'll be back in a minute." He got up, looking significantly in Sisko's direction. Then he started to walk over to the washroom, and Sisko, having seen his look, turned to Giardano.

"Just so you know, Al--you mind if I call you Al?" Giardano said. "I don't mean to step on any toes or anything like that, but just so you know, the territory in this family is staked out. Just want you to know so you're not the one who starts stepping on toes."

"Understood completely," Sisko said. "Would you excuse me for a minute? Nature calls." He laid his napkin aside, got up, and strode over to the washroom. Go ahead and leave me alone with the gangsters, O'Brien thought, however tempted he was to say it out loud. Sisko disappeared around a corner, and when he entered the washroom, he went over to Bashir at the row of sinks.

"Report?" he said in a low voice.

"Jadzia and I are having a slightly easier time working with a Chicago detective on the case," Bashir said. "We don't have any solid leads on Moore yet, but we were hoping you and Chief O'Brien could help us with that."

"We certainly can," Sisko said. "We think we've landed in the same mob family as Moore, and you may be able to find out where he is. That man I was just talking to is James Giardano, the mob boss's right-hand man. If you can find his place of residence, watch it closely, because we think Moore may be with him while he carries out a vengeance hit on the Verlucci family. The chief and I will continue our own search, but I'll admit it'd be much easier if we knew exactly what to look for. Anything you find to that end, let us know, because Giardano only breaks one person in at a time."

"Understood," Bashir said with a single nod.

**********

Bright and early next morning, Dax went over to the 27th Precinct, insofar as she seemed to get on far better with Ray than Bashir did. She had found that there was only one James Giardano in the phone book, and while this might not even be the one to watch for, it was their best shot. She made her way up to the squad room, and Ray was already in his corner, hanging up his coat and putting his lunch bag in one of his desk drawers.

"Got him," Dax announced.

Ray jumped and whirled around, and then relaxed as he saw who was there. "Oh, hey, Jade," he grinned. "How's life treating you?"

"Can't complain," Dax said. "Want to know why?"

"No, let me guess," Ray said with good-natured sarcasm.

"We've got a solid lead on Moore," Dax told him. "Julius's snitch just found out where one of the head henchmen of the Mercurio family lives. We think Moore will be close to him while he's carrying out a vengeance hit."

"Verlucci family, right?" Ray guessed.

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Chet DiRuglia's case was assigned to a co-worker of mine. The M.O. and the location of the crime scene all ratted on Verlucci. You know where this guy lives?"

"Yep. I take it we're going to watch for him?"

Ray nodded and shrugged. "Of course, that cancels dinner tonight, but what the heck. I'll go talk to Welsh and see how long he gives us for the stakeout. No reason why we can't go when it's over, is there?"

"Want me to think of one?" Dax tossed him a cagey grin.

Instead of answering, Ray went straight over to Welsh's office, and Dax remained outside, as she had no call to draw anyone else's attention to herself. Ray found Welsh packing in a few personal items in preparation for his vacation trip, and Welsh looked up at the knock. "Ah, Vecchio," he said. "In case you're wondering, no, I haven't decided who to leave in charge yet."

"Uh, it's not that, sir. A snitch has given me a lead on the murderer I'm chasing. Sounds like he's hooked up with the Mercurio family and will even the score for Chet DiRuglia. We have an address on the guy, so if I can clamp a stakeout on him, I can catch him preparing a murder weapon and possibly saying something incriminating. Then I can follow him to his scene."

"You're sure of that."

"Nine out of ten hit men do their stuff at their homes. It's a lot less conspicuous than the centers of mob activity around here."

Welsh considered for a moment, then nodded. "Fine, Detective. Be there by noon, and you've got until my departure date to catch this guy. Oh, and why don't you take these other two with you. Be as good a time as any to learn to cooperate with them."

"Right." Ray ducked out of the office, rolling his eyes, and wishing he knew what made Welsh think that way. It wasn't like that would be the easiest task Ray would ever perform. Well, far be it from him to argue with Welsh once the orders were issued.

***********************************************************************
Part 3: Strange World

The two pairs took turns on the stakeout, and Fraser and Ray set up shop in the apartment building behind Giardano's condominium. They set up in a vacant apartment that afforded a perfect view through Giardano's back window, and they were ready to stake by ten in the morning. They stayed on the stakeout for four hours, after which Bashir and Dax took over for the next four hours. As evening drew on, Fraser and Ray went over to Ray's favourite pizza joint to pick up some pre-ordered pizzas and take them back to the stakeout; the foursome had agreed that a pizza party and a card game would be time well spent together.

By the time Fraser and Ray showed up at the apartment, Bashir was staring through the camera lens while Dax sat back and chomped down a bag of potato chips. More than once she offered a few to Bashir, but he declined, insofar as he was watching what he ate. Dax just shrugged--she didn't particularly mind, since she'd gotten to enjoy Terran snacks of the twentieth century. Then the door opened, and in came Fraser, followed by Ray with three pizza boxes in his hands.

"Okay, deepest dish in the city ready for the chomping," Ray announced. He plunked the boxes down on a nearby counter and opened one. "Extra cheese and pepperoni, that's mine."

"And mine," Bashir threw in, getting up.

Ray laid the box aside, and he opened the next one, grimacing as he saw its toppings. "Oh, geez," he complained. "All right, who ordered the beets and fish eggs?"

"Oh, that's for me," Dax answered, jumping up. Ray virtually threw the pizza box aside, and he and Bashir gave her disgusted looks. She just smiled, making off with the sixteen-inch pizza all to herself.

Ray opened the last box, chortled, and shook his head. "Need I ask who ordered the mushrooms and Canadian bacon?" he said, tossing the box to Fraser.

"Well, actually, Julius was looking forward to it as well," Fraser said.

Bashir whirled around and hastened back to the couch before Ray could scowl at him. Together the four of them plunked down around the card table, watching the place across the street.

"So tell me," Dax said after putting away three slices of the beet-and-fish-egg pizza. She licked her fingers and wiped them on a nearby napkin. "What do you guys usually do for fun on stakeouts?"

"Usually things like this, pizza and card parties," Fraser said. "Although there was one occasion when we were staking out a gunrunner's apartment, during which we got into a rather long discussion about signs."

"Oh, don't start with that, Fraser," Ray grunted, wondering if Fraser would start yakking about signs Dax might have sent him.

"Understood. Now then..." Fraser wiped pizza grease from his fingers and picked up the card deck. "Five-card stud, jack is wild, opening bet is twenty." He started dealing the cards around the table, tossing five to each player.

Ray picked up a bag of tiddly winks from the couch next to him and dumped them out into the middle of the table, and he and Fraser took several tiddly winks and stacked them up at their places. After a moment of watching them in mild confusion, Dax and Bashir followed suit, doing their best to duplicate Fraser and Ray's actions. This time, it was a tad easier for Dax than for Bashir--truth be told, it rather embarrassed Bashir, since Dax was the extraterrestrial here.

As the game got into swing, Dax stared thoughtfully through Giardano's back window and wondered if there was a way to gain a clue from this. She'd noticed that some of Fraser and Ray's conversations had given them some insight into where the case was going. Was there any possibility that it might work for her and Bashir, too? Biting absentmindedly at a pizza crust, she fanned her cards and looked across them at Fraser and Ray.

"Ever feel like you're from another world?" she said after a while.

"Naaah, but then I've never been to one," Ray said around a mouthful of pizza. Bashir was giving Dax a warning look, and she knew what concerned him, but she also knew that this might yet help.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Fraser chimed in. "You see, in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, you go where you're needed. I was posted to a number of areas in the North before coming to Chicago, and although most of them were relatively the same, there were a couple to which I did feel alien."

"What do you mean, 'feel'?" Ray muttered under his breath.

Fraser pretended not to hear that and continued. "There was one occasion when I was posted to Moose Jaw, and the last thing I could do there was fit in. I was just completely unused to living in the city, having been born and raised in the Far North and more accustomed to tracking in the wilderness."

"I'm guessing arrests didn't come easy," Bashir said.

"Not really, but that may have something to do with the fact that I was transferred five weeks later," Fraser said.

"And that we'll be finishing this game five weeks later if you don't get back into it," Ray cut in, staring significantly at the card deck.

"Oh, sorry," Fraser said. "How many would you like, Ray?"

"I'll take two," Ray said. Fraser gave him two cards, and Dax and Bashir both requested three. Fraser took one for himself, then laid the card deck aside and studied his hand.

"So how is it you were able to cope with Chicago this long?" Dax asked.

"If there was any reason," Fraser reflected, "I suppose it's because I came here with a specific duty in mind: to find my father's killer. I also had Ray to light the path and help me conform to the Chicago lifestyle. That was the basic difference."

"Yeah, and you should have seen what it took to conform him," Ray chimed in. "It was all I could do to keep him out of the bars and keep that hat off his head long enough to keep us from getting shot. It was when he could finally tell the difference between a dog sled and a seventy-one Riviera that I was sure he'd made it okay."

"Well, the point is," Fraser resumed, "that I do indeed know what it's like to feel like you're from another world somewhere. It's a whole new civilisation, where you never know what to expect, and you could be caught off guard at any time."

"This is true," Dax said. "You know, I was just thinking of a time when I first went to San Francisco. That was where I went to college. I arrived, and I thought the locals were going to eat me alive. I was almost afraid to leave my dorm for fear that I'd violate some local law or custom, and...well, it took me months to get used to it."

Bashir stared at Dax without a word, knowing that she was telling the naked truth. She'd told him about a lot of her disagreeable experiences at Starfleet Academy, and that had been one of the first. He was beginning to see what she was aiming for, and although it was a good idea by him, he wasn't exactly keen on the way she was going about it.

"Well, looks like it's gonna take you months to get used to playing poker, too," Ray said. "I call, opening at three hundred." He flipped a few tiddly winks into the pile at the center of the table, and at least for now, it looked like the game was getting off the ground.

"You know, this otherworldliness stuff is making me think of something," Ray said after a while.

"And what might that be, Ray?" Fraser asked.

"Two words: Ian MacDonald."

"Ah. Well, actually, I'm not certain that's the kind of otherworldliness we're talking about. Not so much a different world as a different reality...isn't that right?" Fraser glanced over at Bashir and Dax. The latter just shrugged, but the former stared distantly at something on the far wall as he opened his mouth to answer.

"Well," Bashir said finally, taking his jacket off, "reality is amazingly abstract. There are times when you feel like you're the only one who has a hold on what is real, especially when it seems that you notice some things that nobody else does. In fact, there have been times when I've felt like I was in a different reality altogether, where nothing was familiar and I felt like the only one who hadn't changed along with the rest of the world." Well, of course Kira had been with him at that time.

"Am I the only one around here who's in?" Ray demanded, spreading his hands.

"Sorry," Bashir said, flashing a look at his cards. "I raise."

"Benny?" Ray said.

Fraser frowned, studying his hand. "I'm still a little unclear on this," he said. "I have a drain, don't I?" He showed his cards to Ray, who gave him a look.

"Fraser, don't they teach you anything worthwhile in the armpit of the Frozen North?" he griped. "That's a flush, not a drain, and FYI, it means the chips are all yours."

"Oh," Fraser smiled. "Well, then, I daresay I'm getting used to this game bit by bit."

"Bit by microscopic bit is more like it," Ray grumbled. "'Drain'." As he was staring at his cards with an evil smile, Fraser used his cards to sweep the tiddly winks over to his place.

"Don't be too hasty there, Benny," Ray advised. "Are you accustomed enough to be aware that four of a kind beats a flush?"

Fraser stared a little apprehensively at Ray, knowing what he was getting at. "Yes, Ray."

"Pass 'em on!" Ray said triumphantly, laying his quartet of fours on the table. Fraser stared at them in surprise, and seeing Ray's look, he raised his eyebrows and one hand and shoved the tiddly winks over to Ray. Grinning, Ray collected them and took a particularly large bite of
pizza.

"How about you, Jade?" he asked with his mouth full.

"I don't know," Dax sighed. "I guess you've got me beat. All I have is a pair of couples."

Ray's grin was so evilly smug that he looked possessed to Bashir and Fraser, but Dax wasn't done yet. With her best poker face, she leaned across the table and locked eyes with Ray. "Or should I say..." she went on, turning her hand around. "A pair of couples of FIVES!"

Ray's smile was gone in the wink of an eye, and it was now Dax's turn to gloat. "Cough 'em up, Vecchio," she said.

Ray grudgingly coughed 'em up and volunteered to deal the new hand. By the time he started, the pizza was gone, but the game was still going forth. Bashir wondered if all eight slices of the beet-and-fish-egg pizza had something to do with the fact that Dax was currently slouching back in her seat with her eyes half-closed, listening to her companions talk. She'd also taken her jacket off and loosened her belt a little bit.

"Who was this MacDonald guy, anyway?" she asked presently.

"Oh, Ian MacDonald?" Ray grunted derisively. "The biggest fool who ever lied his way across the face of the earth. I lost my first car to that little weenie, and to top it all off, he comes back last year and drags us all the way to a U.S. Army base looking for aliens. I say yeah, bite me, but Roy Rogers here--" he indicated Fraser-- "drags me by the scruff of the neck to my doom. I kept telling him it was going to be for nothing, and I was right."

"Oh," was all Dax could say. That settled that--Vecchio wasn't too keen on extraterrestrial life or the discussion thereof. It made her feel like telling him the truth about herself.

"Okay, let's see here," Ray said, dealing the cards. "Four-card stud, nothing wild. Could have me a full house here, two, eight, six, no help for the Mountie, five, three..." He kept droning as he passed the cards out, and Dax was barely able to lean forward and pick up her cards. That was Definitely the Last Time she would try to put away an entire beet-and-fish-egg pizza on her own, but she also had to stay coherent to get the clues she needed.

Right out of the blue, Fraser spoke up. "In eighteen forty-five," he began, "a British explorer named Sir John Franklin, already famed for exploring the Arctic, was sent to find the Canadian Northwest Passage. His two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, set out in May of eighteen forty-five to find the passage, but a couple of weeks later, they both vanished. No less than forty expeditions were sent to find him, but the only one to succeed found only graves and thirty-odd dead bodies out of a hundred and five men. It's said that Sir John is still in that passage somewhere, guiding all who try to traverse it."

"So you're what, his reincarnation?" Ray said.

"What makes you think that?" Fraser asked.

Ray shrugged and shook his head. "Aah, you wouldn't know what I'm talking about anyway. Now, if you're going to call, call."

"Ah." Fraser studied his hand, and remembering what moves had been made since his last turn, he didn't see this game turning his way. Dax and Bashir had both raised, and he couldn't see either of their raises with the cards he had. "Oh, dear," he said. "I'm afraid I'm not going to call, Ray." With that, he folded and dropped his cards aside, sitting back.

"Good, me neither," Ray said, folding both his cards and his arms and glowering at Bashir and Dax.

Dax was wearing her impenetrable poker face again as she narrowed her eyes and threw Bashir a look. "Showdown!" she gloated, holding her cards in front of her face.

"Franklin was a professional explorer," Fraser said reflectively. "When I came to Chicago, I felt like an explorer myself. The only difference was, I wasn't a professional. As Ray conducted me through the Chicago lifestyle, I came to understand that amateur explorers need a guide at all times if they want to become professional. I can but hope it's worked."

Dax didn't say a word to this, but she simply nodded and stared at the surface of the table. That was all she needed to know.

By the end of ten minutes, Fraser and Ray had both taken their jackets off as well, and they were watching Bashir and Dax without a word. The two were leaning so far forward that their faces were little more than a foot apart, and they were squinting continually and making melodramatic calls. For some reason Dax looked a little pale, but it was either a trick of the dim light or just her intense concentration.

Thirty minutes had gone by before Bashir finally folded, letting Dax take it away. With an evil and triumphant grin, Dax swept the chips over to her place, and she patted them into a neat little pile and gave the three men a victorious look. "Girl power," she proclaimed. Ray sighed and gave Fraser a look, and Fraser merely regarded Dax with a new dose of respect. Bashir looked downright admiring. But as all three of them watched Dax, her smile vanished in a heartbeat, and she took a deep breath.

"Uh, I think I forgot something downstairs," she said, getting up. She gulped and walked quickly toward the door, and as she exited the room, all three men spotted her hand flashing up to cover her mouth.

"Hmf," Fraser said thoughtfully.

"She can hold her liquour all right," Bashir said. "Holding her pizza...that's a different story."

**********

Whether they were hanging around for a while or not, one thing Diefenbaker knew was that they had some awfully interesting pizza toppings. Did they have anything more interesting up their sleeves, or better yet, did the woman have something on Milk Duds? He knew she'd been snacking several times since he first saw her, so he decided to investigate further. When Dax and Bashir left the building that afternoon, Diefenbaker sneaked out behind them and followed them into the nearest alley.

"You realise you could have blown our cover last night," Bashir said to Dax after they'd left the building.

"I wasn't too worried," Dax said. "A fair chunk of the people in this time period don't believe in extraterrestrial life. Judging from what Vecchio said about their little trip to the Army base, something tells me he sure doesn't believe."

"And Fraser? If he felt like he was from another planet when he came here, one never knows."

"Not unless we ask him," Dax said. They paused and looked over their shoulders, seeing no one behind them; however, neither of them looked down far enough to see Diefenbaker almost at their heels.

Dax reached under her jacket and tapped her comm badge. "Dax to Defiant, ready to beam up," she said quietly. In a moment, the transporter beam enveloped both--no, all three--of them.

When Dax and Bashir materalised aboard the Defiant, the transporter operator was standing with his back turned to the pads. As he powered the transporter down, Diefenbaker hopped off the pads behind the pair and trailed them out of the transporter room. He had no call to draw attention to himself before he explored these strange new surroundings, so he kept quiet while he trotted out into the corridor. Wouldn't Fraser love to see this place, if Diefenbaker could just figure out how to get him to it. In fact, it was so enrapturing that he forgot all about Dax and her snacks, and he ran off in the opposite direction.

Bashir and Dax located Odo and Kira on the bridge, and the four of them stood back at the rear, keeping their voices low. "What's going on so far?" Kira asked.

"We spent the night on a stakeout with the police," Dax answered. "From the conversation we had, I realised something about Moore. As far as we know, he has no idea what to do with his surroundings. At all times, he needs to be with someone who knows this area better than he does."

"He will be, too, so he should walk right under our noses soon," Bashir interjected.

"Well, now we have such an idea," Kira said. "Or I should say, the captain and the chief do." She paused, an eyebrow cocking as Dax's suggestion dawned on her. "So if they can find someone down there who seems lost and confused, it's a one-in-five shot that it's Moore."

"Exactly," Dax smiled.

While the quartet conversed on the bridge, Worf was in the mess hall, wolfing down a plate of gagh. There were very few other people in the room, so when Worf heard the door hiss open behind him, he swallowed his present mouthful and turned to see who was coming in. But it didn't seem that anyone had entered or exited. Worf noncommittally turned back to his gagh, making a mental note to tell Chief O'Brien whenever he returned.

He hadn't seen anybody come in because he hadn't been looking far down enough. He had barely taken another bite before he heard a sudden panting, and who should jump on top of the table but Diefenbaker. Worf dropped his gagh and stared in surprise, but it was when Diefenbaker trotted over to his plate and stuck his nose into the gagh that Worf drew the line.

"Away!" he snapped. "What are you doing here?"

In reply, Diefenbaker stood erect and barked angrily at Worf, who jumped to his feet. "Security to the mess hall!" he exclaimed. Snarling, he pushed Diefenbaker off the table; however, he had a bad habit of underestimating his enemies. Diefenbaker came around for another pass, and he answered Worf's snarl, leaping into the air and knocking Worf backwards. On his fall, Worf took a good-sized blow to the head from a chair behind him, and he lay flat on the deck, out cold. Satisfied, Diefenbaker hopped back onto the table and casually started lapping up the gagh, oblivious to the laughs of the other crewmembers in the mess hall.

Inside of a minute, Odo, Bashir and Dax had arrived, along with an extra security guard. First they noticed Worf, unconscious on the floor. Then Diefenbaker caught their gaze, and Dax and Bashir's eyes grew two-fold.

"Diefenbaker?" Bashir gaped. "How did he get up here?"

"He must have been following us when we beamed up," Dax said, trying to keep a straight face. Subsequently she lost control, and she burst out laughing. It was just hilarious--Diefenbaker had overpowered Worf and was devouring his gagh! In no time, she had Bashir cracking up as well, along with everybody else except Odo. He couldn't help chuckling, though, knowing how he and Worf got along (or didn't quite get along). He stepped forward, reaching for the scruff of Diefenbaker's neck.

"All right, let's send you back where you belong," he said.

"Uh, Constable, I wouldn't try it," Bashir advised. "Not only is he deaf, he hates to be interrupted while he's eating."

"I suppose you have a better idea?"

"I've got one," Dax said, reaching into her jacket pocket. Up she came with a bag of M&Ms she'd gotten from the snack machine in the precinct, and she ripped it open and dropped a couple on the table next to Diefenbaker. Promptly, he lapped them up, and Dax dropped two more on the floor. It worked like a charm--Diefenbaker hopped to the floor and followed the trail, and Dax went on dropping M&Ms on the floor while Bashir went over to tend to Worf. Odo followed Diefenbaker and Dax, who left a trail of M&Ms all the way back to the transporter room.

Just as the bag was emptying, she dropped the last few on a transporter pad, then hurried over to the console and made sure the transporter was still on the same coordinates. As Diefenbaker lapped up the last few M&Ms, Dax energised, breathing a sigh of relief as Diefenbaker vanished from the pad.

"Well," she remarked to Odo, "at least we don't have to worry about him telling anyone."

"Hrmph," Odo concurred, sidling out of the transporter room. He had to smile to himself as he returned to the mess hall--truth be told, he felt that Worf had asked for it long ago.

**********

Fraser, sitting back from the camera, looked around the apartment and frowned. He was missing something, and it wasn't his father. Once he realised what it was, the first person he looked at was Ray. "When was the last time you saw Diefenbaker?" he asked.

"When I tossed him in the back seat before taking you home last night," Ray answered. "As you ought to know, I don't pay an inordinate amount of attention to that wolf. I wouldn't worry, either--he'll doubtless turn up at a doughnut shop somewhere."

"I haven't seen him since we relieved Jade and Julius," Fraser said thoughtfully. "But I'll tell you something: When he does return, I'll see to it he never comes within ten feet of Jade again. At least not while she's in possession of a bag of potato chips."

"Hang on a sec," Ray said, holding up his hand. He was looking through a pair of binoculars, and he saw the door swinging open. Fraser leaned forward to the camera and started taking pictures, watching two men enter the room. Ray took a close look at the one in the lead.

"Yup, that's Giardano, all right," he said. "He's Mercurio's go-fer. Sucks up to him every chance he gets."

"Hmm," Fraser said. "And the man behind him?"

"Don't know him. Looks like a hit man, though. Maybe it's this scumbag Drexel and Bishop are chasing."

"Hmm."

Ray lowered the binoculars long enough to glare. "Will you stop that?" he griped. Fraser raised an apologetic hand and nodded, and he went back to taking pictures. He and Ray clamped earphones over their ears, listening via the bugs that had been planted throughout Giardano's unit. If they'd had the slightest inkling that the second man was Timothy Moore himself, they would probably already be charging across the street right now to arrest both men.

"You know me," Moore was saying. "I'm pretty new to Chicago. I've got no idea what to do with myself around here, so..."

"Happens to us all," Giardano said. "I came over here from New York and thought I'd never have to quit following Don Mercurio's boys around. But now here I am, guiding the newbies myself. Anyway, I know there's a vacant apartment in the building across the street, on the second floor. Why don't you go have a look."

"Oh, great," Ray grumbled. "This is the only vacant apartment on the floor."

"Yeah, I'll do that, thanks." Moore turned around, and Giardano called to him again.

"Oh, one other thing," he said. "I've let Don Mercurio know that you'll be taking care of business today. He'll have the dough for you this afternoon at Bacchitto's, where his office is."

"Works for me. Thanks again." Moore nodded his thanks to Giardano, and out of the room he went. In the meantime, Fraser went on taking pictures of Giardano procuring a few nonessential items.

"What do you suppose he meant by 'taking care of business'?" he asked as he took the shots.

"Most likely that hit on the Verlucci family that Drexel mentioned," Ray said. "Be a big help if we knew where and when, but at least now we've got an idea where to catch him."

"We'd better get to that restaurant soon, then," Fraser concurred. He continued taking pictures, and he did so until he caught the motion at the building's back door. It was Moore coming out, so Fraser took a few shots of him crossing the street and entering their building. At this, Fraser and Ray both jumped to their feet and hastened to one of the back corners of the apartment.

"Ray," Fraser said, pointing at the closet.

"Aw, no, Benny, not another closet," Ray complained. "Can't we just hide behind the counter and wait for him to come in?"

"He may search the apartment, in which case he'll be infinitely more surprised if we're in the closet," Fraser said, holding the closet door open. In the meantime, Ray picked up the camera and the tripod and carried them over to the closet, placing them inside.

"And that is all that's going in that closet, do you understand?" he snapped.

Fraser cocked an ear toward the door, rolling his eyes upward. "I believe he's at the top of the stairs now, coming in this direction," he noted.

"Good," Ray growled, drawing his gun. "Fancy if Drexel and Bishop miss him and he falls right in my pocket instead." He held the gun ready, and Fraser tugged his sleeve.

"Ray, please?" he insisted.

"Forget it," Ray shot back. The doorknob squeaked, and the door swung open. Instantly Ray leaped into a firing position, gun held toward the entrant. "FREEZE!" he roared.

In reply, Moore stood stock-still for a moment, goggle-eyed. Then he jerked back out the door, slamming it behind him. Fraser and Ray were running after him in a heartbeat, sprinting down the hall and down the stairs after him.

Moore left the building and dashed across the street, but by the time he'd gotten to the other side, Giardano had already left the condo. Moore ran inside and up the stairs to the second floor with Fraser and Ray hot on his tail, and he dashed down the hall to Giardano's unit. Upon discovering that the door was locked (and not accustomed to kicking doors open), he made a mad dash for the stairs to the building's front door. Fraser and Ray both took the steps two at a time, gaining a little, but then losing distance when traffic got in the way. Moore was in an alley as they got to the other side of the street, and on the other side of a dumpster, he dived behind it, presumably for cover.

Fraser was the first to reach the dumpster, and he ground to a halt on the other side of it and looked down. There was no sign of Moore. There was, however, a basement window on the side of the building before them, so Fraser moved over to the window while Ray held his weapon ready. Fraser opened the window, and Ray held it while he slid through it and hopped to the floor of the basement. Ray then held his gun in his teeth while he slid through the window himself, and Fraser pulled a small flashlight from one of his belt pockets and searched for a light switch. He soon found one, and Ray quickly snapped the gun up and aimed it around the room. It was a boiler room, but there wasn't enough equipment in here to hide a man. They crept cautiously toward the door, and Fraser reached over to pull it open while Ray jumped out to secure the next room.

There was no sign of Moore out there, either, so Fraser and Ray kept creeping down the hall till they reached a stair flight to the first floor. Up they went, and they had no luck on the other side of the door at the top of the stairs. Sighing, Ray shoved his gun into his belt. "Looks like we missed him," he grunted.

"Afraid so," Fraser said. A distant look came over his face, and his eyebrows slanted downward. "Wait a minute," he murmured, starting for the building's front door. He went outside, led Ray down the steps to the sidewalk, and returned to the alley and the dumpster. Behind it, just as he had suspected, there was a sewer grate in the ground by the basement window.

"The sewer," he observed.

"Ohhh, no," Ray said, raising his hands. "You don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting me to follow you down there again. You can go down there and see if that teflon you spritzed on your uniform is working, but I'm NOT ruining another suit for you, understand?"

Fraser looked up from his kneeling position, frowning. "What exactly is teflon, Ray?"

**********

Being rather more hard-headed than most of the crew suspected, Worf was back on his feet and back on duty within the hour. With him out of their hair, Bashir, Dax and Odo were sitting around one of the tables in the mess hall. They had been so busy pursuing Moore from Deep Space Nine to Earth that they hadn't had much time to discuss why he'd tried to assassinate the Vedek in the first place. Odo had a padd on the table in front of him, searching for clues.

"Refresh my memory," Bashir said. "What exactly was Vedek Deron doing on the station? He was advocating an end to the cold war or something to that effect, wasn't he?"

"Peacenik is more like it," Dax said. "He was encouraging peace with the Cardassians. It was during his second speech on the promenade that Moore went after him."

"Which probably means Moore didn't want peace with the Cardassians," Odo said. "But why would he possibly want to be so violent as to attempt to assassinate him?" He rubbed his chin, and simultaneously, it hit all three of them:

"The Maquis." It came from each of them in unison.

"Where was his last assignment?" Dax asked.

Odo started scrolling on the padd, reading over Moore's personnel record. "Before he came to Deep Space Nine, he was assigned to the Lexington, patrolling the outskirts of the Badlands," he answered. "That's Maquis territory and no mistake."

"Makes sense," Bashir said. "As far as the Maquis is concerned, there's only one way to deal with the Cardassians, and that's genocide. If someone like Vedek Deron gains enough support, they cease to exist inside of a year."

"Well, I'm not saying I agree with their methods," Dax remarked, "but I'll say I sympathise with their feelings about the Hardassians sometimes."

Odo frowned. "Don't you mean the Cardassians, Commander?" he said.

"I do, but Hardassians sounds a bit more apropos," Dax shrugged.

Bashir shook his head, but couldn't help smiling as he shoved himself to his feet. "Jadzia, you've definitely been in the twentieth century far too long," he observed.

"I'm just trying to fit in, that's all," Dax defended, following Bashir to the door of the mess hall. He just rolled his eyes and nodded knowingly, and Dax threw up her hands. "I am!"

"Why don't we go see how the captain and the chief are holding up," Bashir suggested. "They may have found someone who seems a little out of his element." At this, Dax, knowing that they had work to do, dropped the issue and trailed Bashir to the bridge.

After a bit of scanning, they located Sisko and O'Brien's badge signals in a fishery on the shore of Lake Michigan. The sensor scans showed that they were alone, so Dax opened a channel. "Defiant to Captain Sisko."

"Go ahead," Sisko replied in a low voice.

"It's me, Benjamin," Dax said. "We've established Moore's motive for the assassination attempt. We think he's a Maquis operative sent to kill Vedek Deron and silence his advocacy for peace with the Cardassians."

"Captain," Bashir cut in, "we may also have found what you should look for. Have you and the chief noticed anyone who seems rather lost, who needs a little help making his way around?"

With a frown, Sisko looked at O'Brien, who did indeed have something to say to this. "Well, I did talk to a fellow in the restaurant while you were talking to Julian," he said. "He mentioned exactly that. From what he said, Giardano usually gets the new soldiers broken in. In fact, he said that Giardano would want to talk to the captain and me as soon as he was finished with this fellow."

"Did he mention a name?" Bashir asked.

"Ted Murdock, but we figure that's Moore's alias," O'Brien said. "Right now we're waiting for Giardano to bring his victim in here. We're pretty sure that Moore was the hit man, so this will confirm it for us."

"If it is, we can't do anything with him as long as Giardano's around," Sisko advised.

Dax nodded once. "We'll get right down there and meet with our associate in the police department."

"If we can't get past Giardano, it'll be up to you to bring him in, old man," Sisko told her. "Sisko out."

"Understood." Dax cut the comm channel, and she and Bashir exchanged a look and made a beeline for the port door. They walked off the bridge and made haste back to the transporter room.

**********

Ray barely waited for Welsh to call him in after he knocked on the office door, and he shoved the door open and marched inside. However, he found that a few things had changed subtly--Welsh's desk was cleaner than usual, and Welsh himself was decked out in an aloha shirt and a pair of slacks as he stuffed a few personal effects into a briefcase. He really was going out for a break, wasn't he?

"Ah, Vecchio," Welsh said. "I was just about to call you in here."

"The perp's in my pocket, sir," Ray announced proudly. "Fraser and I caught him talking to Mercurio's chief bootlicker. He'll be picking up his payment at Bacchitto's this afternoon."

"Give yourself a cigar, Detective," Welsh said. "And enjoy it while you're in that chair."

Mind blown out of the water, Ray bent his head slightly, eyes fixed on Welsh. "Sir?" he ventured.

"Huey's going to be at the tactical-team debriefing for the next couple of days. That only leaves one likely candidate to take charge here while I'm gone, and you're it." Welsh closed the briefcase, took one last look around the office to be sure he had everything, and then started toward the door.

"Yeah, but sir, I've still got a suspect to nab..." Ray protested.

"Don't see why you can't pass it on to your two colleagues, with whom I'm sure you're working far better by now," Welsh said with a minute smirk, putting on a fishing hat. "Have a good one, Lieutenant Vecchio." He patted Ray's arm, and he ducked out the door, striding through the squad room to the front doors. He didn't spare anybody or anything a second glance as he left--there were few things he'd like better than to get out of there and take a break after the past several weeks.

Ray watched him go, quite frankly still unable to believe it. Welsh really expected him to make a good lieutenant, even for a short while? Maybe he wouldn't mind hearing an Inuit tale from Fraser in a case like this. He plodded around the desk and plunked down in Welsh's chair, sighing. Flipping a bit through the papers on the desktop, he found that they were just about all business-related, and none addressed straight to Welsh. He'd been thorough about cleaning up before he left.

Presently, Fraser knocked on the door, and Ray looked up. Oh, geez, Fraser--just what he needed now. "Yeah," he grumbled, rubbing his forehead and beginning to change his mind about hearing an Inuit tale right now. Fraser entered, and he was justifiably surprised to see Ray sitting at the desk rather than Welsh.

"Ah, Ray," he said. "Leftenant Welsh wouldn't be in, would he?"

"Naaah, he's on his way out to California by now, where I oughta be," Ray grunted. "He left the precinct to me till he gets back. Bad enough I've got a case under my nose, but now this? I need a little relief, Benny."

"Well, you know, Ray, there was a time when my father's supervisor--"

"Never mind," Ray interrupted, holding up his hand. Now he'd completely changed his mind about being cheered up by an Inuit tale or any such thing. "All right. Then in my first action as temporary commander of this unit, I'm ordering myself to stake out Bacchitto's, wait for Moore to show up and give him the works when he does. Coming with?"

Fraser nodded, open-mouthed for a brief second; the shock was still wearing off. "Of course, Ra--uh, sir," he replied.

At the ring of his cell phone, Ray reached under his jacket and withdrew it from the inside pocket. "Vecchio," he said after turning it on.

"It's Drexel," Dax's voice filtered out of the earpiece. "Moore's just carried out the Verlucci hit, and we know where he is."

"We know where he'll be," Ray said, getting up. "Get over to Bacchitto's, and we'll be there to surround the place with a stakeout in twenty minutes."

"Right." Dax hung up, and Ray turned his phone off and dropped it back in his pocket, leading Fraser out the door. "We're outta here, Benny. Elaine, get fifteen units together and have them meet me in the tactical-team room ASAP." Out of the squad room he went, headed for the stairs.

**********

Dax and Bashir were waiting at Bacchitto's by the time the Riviera entered the parking lot, swung around the parked Crown Vic and stopped up ahead of it. Bashir was standing outside the car, and he went up to the Riviera's driver window as Ray opened it. "This is the place?" he said.

"Fraser and I heard the location right from Giardano's lips while we were on the stakeout," Ray said, getting out of the car. "All fits, too. The Mercurio family is nuts about this restaurant. The only trouble is, undercovers get in there and never hear a damn thing." He leaned into the Riviera, took the mike from the radio and hit the button. "All units, report in."

All units reported on their status in numerical order, and Ray listened to each report and nodded to himself with satisfaction. Every exit was covered, and the doors to the restaurant were under heavy guard. They wouldn't let a mosquito out of there unless Ray said so. In the meantime, Ray got into the car and kept a hold on the radio mike, and Bashir walked back to the Crown Vic and got into the driver's seat. They watched the restaurant like hawks, knowing someone had to show up soon.

In good time, a large black town car pulled to a halt at the side of the restaurant. Ray stiffened promptly, and he squinted at the licence number and hit the radio button. "Elaine, get me a vehicle registration on a nineteen eighty-seven black Lincoln town car," he ordered. "Illinois plate, Lincoln George Boston six four eight."

"Running it now," Elaine said. While Fraser and Ray waited and tried not to fidget, a man got out of the town car's passenger seat carrying a large black satchel. He walked from the car to the front doors of the restaurant, and Ray gave him a quick once-over to describe him to the officers inside the restaurant.

"Unit twelve, we've got a five-foot-eleven black-haired guy in a tan Armani suit coming your way," he said into the radio. "Let me know if he gives his satchel to anybody, then pick him up."

"Roger," the cop said. The bagman disappeared into the restaurant, and Ray, Fraser, Bashir, and Dax waited a bit impatiently for a likely target to emerge. In the meantime, Elaine's voice crackled from the radio speaker.

"Match on the licence plate, Ray," she reported. "It's registered to Dennis Funk. In case you're wondering, I checked him out, and he's a business partner of Rando Mercurio."

"Thanks a heap, Elaine," Ray said. "Your work's done." He switched frequencies and went back to waiting for the buzz from the cops inside, which nearly caught him off guard when it arrived.

"He's just handed his satchel to a six-foot-one scumbag in one of the side rooms," the cop said. "He doesn't have any backup that we can see. Unit ten and I are moving in."

"Book 'im," Ray answered. He and Fraser sat stiffly in their seats, not daring to blink as they stared intently at the doors to the restaurant. Rather wisely, the two cops had waited until the bag recipient's back was turned before they moved in to make their arrest, so the new bagman was out in less than ten seconds. It took less than two for Bashir and Dax to identify him.

"That's Moore, no doubt about it," Dax said excitedly.

"This is unit two, that's our man," Bashir called out into the radio.

"Wait till he gets in the car and is on his way, then we'll take him," Ray answered. Eyes locked on Moore, he watched him walk over to the town car, toss the satchel into the back seat, and get into the passenger seat. The wheelman put the car in gear and drove away from the restaurant, and Ray's hand flashed toward the ignition and started the Riviera.

"All units, he's on the road!" he shouted. "Units thirteen and fourteen, he's coming your way, block him off!" While Fraser turned the red dashlight on, Ray jammed on the accelerator and burned his customary inch of rubber leaving his parking spot. Bashir peeled out right behind him, and they sped toward the town car, which was almost up to the exit. Two police cruisers were on an intercept course, and the town car slowed down only briefly before it suddenly shot forward. The wheelman took a sharp right and bounced across the strip of grass separating the parking lot from the street, and he took off to the east. In a pinch, Ray and Bashir had matched his move, and they led the chase through the city streets toward Lake Michigan.

Fraser shot a look Ray's way, and as always, Ray was focused a hundred and one percent on the car before him. They came up like bats out of hell behind a line of cars at a traffic light, so the wheelman just veered into the opposite lane, paying no heed to the line of cars on the other side of the traffic light. When the light turned green, neither line was able to move right away--the town car had taken a two-wheel turn to the right and cut off both lines from proceeding. The half-dozen cruisers and unmarked cars currently in the chase rocketed around the bend after it. At this moment, those holosuite simulations of Bashir's didn't seem like such a waste of time to Dax; the driving habits he'd picked up there were paying off.

It could be much worse, Ray thought--it could be rush hour. At this time of day, there was neither much traffic nor many pedestrians, so he could concentrate completely on the town car without worrying about those. The downside was that there was less chance of the town car making a forced stop. He matched the town car's every move, thus avoiding a parked cab and an occasional pedestrian. Fraser could now see Lake Michigan up ahead, but Ray was so closely focused on the town car that he took no notice. Without slowing down, the town car shot across an intersection, crashing through a chain-link gate that barricaded an outlet road. They were on their way toward the waterfront piers, and the wheelman decided to try and lose a few of his pursuers by knocking over the boxes and crates stacked on either side of the road.

However, by this time, the Riviera was so close to the town car that the knocked-over items just sailed over its roof without hitting. The junk did fall fast enough to land in Bashir's path, but he didn't care. He and Dax couldn't let anything or anyone get between them and Moore, so he blew right through the falling objects, which glanced off the car's front and fell to the sides. On the straightaway, the speeds were easily exceeding 100 miles an hour as the chase proceeded toward the docks. Fraser looked behind him, gratified to see that no one had been deterred by the falling junk.

Moore didn't like the looks of the pursuit thus far, even when his accomplice--for the wheelman was indeed the accomplice who had gotten him off DS9--drove straight across two railroad tracks and slowed things down just a bit. Taken with the idea of sending one of the pursuing cars into Lake Michigan, the wheelman drove straight toward the edge of the pier, waiting until the last possible dwindling second before he swerved to the right. At that point, he was lucky he didn't drive into the lake. Ray and Bashir barely avoided that, and Dax nearly fell into Bashir's lap when she was pitched to the side. The remaining cars were prepared, and they sped across the piers after the town car, which now took a right into a storehouse. It got from one door of the storehouse to the opposite one in less than three seconds, as did the Riviera and the Crown Vic. With that move failed, the town car sped around the storehouse's front and back toward the street, all six pursuers still with it. Dax made certain of that when she looked over her shoulder, then gave Bashir a brief and rather nervous glance. The town car was making for a brief chain-link fence that ran between two structures and closed off the area from the street, and it did away with that fence in a pinch and brought all surrounding traffic
to a halt.

At least the stopped traffic made life easier on the cops (and two cop pretenders), who were able to maintain pursuit toward an alley. The town car turned right at this alley, skidded sideways briefly, and then rushed into the alley, and Bashir was spurred to close the distance even further when he saw what was in the small lot at the other end. A tall rack holding several empty oil drums stood just to the left of the alley, and Bashir's suspicions were completely accurate. The wheelman left the alley too late to veer and hit the rack head-on, but he was able to give it a rap with the side of the car. That was enough to destablilise the rack, and its top-heaviness sent it toppling over and dumping out every oil drum lying on it. Ray was still ultra-focused and about a meter away from the town car's rear, so the drums didn't slow him down. Bashir, however, had to do some fancy wheelwork to make it safely, and yet a drum still banged on the car's trunk as he sped away. That, of course, meant that the other four pursuing cars weren't as lucky. Now it was down to town car, Riviera and Crown Vic racing through an alley opposite the one they had been in.

"Enough is enough," Dax muttered, opening her window. She slipped her gun from the holster, and Bashir held the car steady as Dax leaned out the window and took careful aim at one of the town car's tires. She waited until the Riviera was in the clear, then took a pot shot at the town car's right rear tire. Two shots ripped through the rubber, and the town car abruptly sagged at the rear and swerved. It turned sideways in nothing flat, screeching as such until it was stopped by a particularly large heap of bags and boxes lying in its path.

Ray and Bashir stopped their cars just behind it, and all four leaped out, guns drawn except for Fraser. They bolted toward the town car, and Ray tore the driver's door open, dragging him out of the car with Fraser's help. Bashir and Dax, meanwhile, peered inside to look for Moore, but he had vanished completely. The passenger door was wide open. Somehow Moore had escaped from the car and from the cops.

"He's gone," Bashir informed Fraser and Ray.

Needless to say, Ray was even less happy to learn that than Bashir or Dax. He shoved the wheelman roughly toward the Riviera's passenger side, hearing Dax utter a loud curse and slap her hand on the town car's hood. Well, she could slap and curse all she wanted--he'd have a little talk with her when they hit the precinct.

***********************************************************************
Part 4: Three Pistols

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Ray demanded of Dax, pacing back and forth in front of her at the rear of the squad room. "You don't just shoot out a guy's tire to slow him down! You know it as well as I do!"

"I didn't see us catching him any other way," Dax retorted.

"Well, we didn't catch him, did we?" Ray shot back. "We could have caught up with him and crowded him off the road somewhere! We could have called for backup and had a spike mat rolled out in front of him, but no, what do you do instead?! You shoot his tire and give him just enough time to disappear without a trace!"

"Well, I sure didn't see you calling for backup!"

"Oh, yeah, you're right, maybe I should have just stayed behind instead of actually trying to catch the guy! 'Dispatch, there's this psycho westbound on Chicago Avenue with a trigger-happy homicide cop on his tail!'"

"All right, that does it," Dax snapped. "You want to catch this guy, you'll have to do it on your own. We're not going to waste any more time. We're going to do some actual police work here."

"Does that 'actual police work' involve shooting this guy dead on sight?" Ray barked.

"All right, all right, that's quite enough," Bashir cut in, stepping between them.

"Back off," Ray said officiously. "I'm in temporary command of this precinct, and your partner just perpetrated conduct unbecoming a police officer. On my watch."

"That's true, but she isn't under your command," Bashir reminded him. He turned to Dax. "And as for you, he's right. There were many far better ways to end that chase than shooting out Moore's tire."

"Let me ask you something, Vecchio," Dax said, pointing her finger at him. "If you're in temporary command of this precinct, why were you out there chasing around the city with us when you should have been in here commanding?"

Bashir put his hand on her shoulder and started to walk away, taking her with him. "At this particular moment, I don't think it's quite expedient to go into that," he advised. "We could spend our time far more wisely interrogating his accomplice. We don't have much longer to find him."

"Why do you think that is?" Dax said, cocking her head toward Ray.

With a very low voice, Bashir leaned closer to her. "We need him," he reiterated. "Let's face it, we don't know police procedure, and we've messed it up at least once or twice. This is more hindrance than help."

Dax sighed. She didn't like the way they were going about it, but she did have to face it; in their position, what other way was there? "You're right. But what do you suggest we do, besides just follow his lead?"

"Interrogate his accomplice and get back to the stakeout. If we're to do the former, we'd better let either Vecchio or Fraser do it, so nothing about his origins will slip."

Dax turned her head toward Ray, who stood with his arms folded, glaring. He didn't like the looks of this little private chat, and he was almost ready to interrupt when Dax turned. "All right, we'll have one more go at this," she said. "The wheelman's all yours, but we'll watch."

Fraser, who had been standing so quietly in the back corner that most of the squad room had forgotten his presence, took this moment to step forward and toss in his two cents. "One of us had best return to the stakeout, in case Moore returns to Giardano's unit with something incriminating to say."

"Good, you're hired," Ray said. "Now, we all want to get our rears in gear?"

**********

While Fraser got a lift back to the stakeout from a uniform, Ray went down to the interview room to have a chat with the wheelman. Dax and Bashir went next door into the observation room and watched through the two-way mirror, and Ray took off his jacket and started pacing back and forth in front of the wheelman, who sat at the table staring at its surface. "All right, you tell me where to start," he began loudly. "You want to tell me what your partner's done, or do you want to tell me where he went? Either one's going to help both of us out in the long run. I think you know the answers to both, and I think you also know that you're gonna serve plenty of time for accomplice to murder if you don't speak up."

"I sure hope he's right," Dax muttered. "Most people would rather speak up than serve time in a twentieth-century prison."

"Hey," Ray said, snapping his fingers next to the wheelman's head. "You alive there? Are you at least alive from the neck up? Gimme an answer, pal, before I send in the Mounties."

"Knowing him, he probably escaped through the sewer," the wheelman shrugged. "And I don't know what he did or who he did it with. All I knew was that I was supposed to take the bagman to the restaurant and pick Moore up. That's all I know, okay?"

"Not okay," Ray shot back. "Being a cop gives you instinct, and instinct gives you some damn accurate hunches. I oughta show you my record and show you how many times hunches have gotten me by. My hunch right now is that you know exactly where Tim Moore went and where he is now. If you tell me where he is, I go there and he ain't there, I let you back on the street and refer you to Tony Verlucci. Then I tell him you did the hit on his guy."

While the wheelman was getting the full impact of this statement and then trying to get over it, Dax leaned over to Bashir. "Moore escaped to the docking port through the service conduits, didn't he?"

"Yes," Bashir said. "Seems he's kept that habit up since he arrived here."

"I don't know, okay?" the wheelman insisted. "I swear to God, he probably escaped through the sewer, but I don't know to where."

Might as well send out the Mounties, Ray thought to himself.

Speaking of the Mounties, Fraser was sitting at the camera on the stakeout, keeping a constant eye through Giardano's back window. He sat back for a moment to rest his eyes, and it struck him that Diefenbaker still wasn't back. He'd gotten so caught up in the case that he hadn't pursued the matter of the wolf's whereabouts. It was then that he heard a snort and a pawing at the door, and he got up to open it.

No sooner had he cracked the door than Diefenbaker hopped inside, looking very excited about something or other. "Oh, there you are," Fraser noted. "I take it you've found another doughnut shop nearby." Diefenbaker ran over to the counter and jumped on top of it, yapping loudly and rapidly before he jumped back off. Fraser shook his head--Ray was probably right about Diefenbaker turning up at the nearest candy store or some such place. He went back to the camera and sat down, and just as he did so, the door to Giardano's unit opened.

Once again, Giardano and Moore themselves came in, and Moore was looking somewhat relieved. "I thought I'd never shake 'em," he was saying. "It's strange, isn't it? One of those brainless cops actually helps me to get away before they know it."

"You'd be surprised how many times they do that," Giardano said. "What do you want to bet that they're so busy looking for Adam D'Amato that they give you and me enough of a breather to dispose of the evidence?"

"Oh, speaking of that," Moore said. "There's two big pieces of evidence we need to dispose of ASAP. That pair that waited for us at the fishery?"

"The new guys, Saletti and Callaghan," Giardano recalled.

"They're new guys to us, but they're sure not new guys to the Verlucci family. They approached me one time to get me to do a hit for them, and I said nothing doing, I had better people to work for. I guess they took a swing by here to find out who'd be doing the hit on D'Amato. Now that they know it was the two of us, they're probably back at the Verlucci place right now ratting on us."

"If they are, they'll be back, and they'll be right under the gun," Giardano said. "That Saletti character...it'll be nice having him out of my way. I had a feeling he was trying to get way too friendly with Don Mercurio."

That was all Fraser needed to hear. He got up, put his hat on, and beckoned to Diefenbaker. "Let's go," he said. For once Diefenbaker obeyed--apparently he sensed that this was an urgent situation.

Fraser's first stop was at a pay phone outside the building, from which he gave Ray a buzz. When Ray's cell phone rang, he grabbed his jacket, withdrew the phone and turned it on. "What?" he demanded.

"Ray, Moore and Giardano just returned, and they're discussing two more members of the Verlucci family they want to hit. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that one of them is Julius's snitch."

"I'll pick you up in ten," Ray said, shutting the phone off. He threw his jacket on and rushed out of the interview room, joined by Dax and Bashir as they came out of the observation room to join him. Ray glanced quickly at Bashir on his way to the stairs. "Your snitch ever give you anything on the Verlucci family?" he asked.

Not sure of how on Earth this was relevant, Bashir looked at Dax in confusion, and she just nodded when Ray's back was turned. "Yes," Bashir said. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, Moore's about to cut his career short," Ray answered. He all but kicked open the door to the stairs, and he ran down them two at a time to the parking lot. Dax and Bashir followed in kind.

**********

Since the last hit had happened at the fishery, Bashir and Dax both thought it reasonable to assume that Moore would do his dirty work there again. It was a safe assumption, because right now, a large black limousine was pulling up in front of the fishery. From the back seat, Giardano and another of his henchmen got out on either side, hauling Sisko and O'Brien with them. Keeping guns in their backs, they shoved them over to the edge of the pier, where they brought them to a halt and faced them away from the water. Then they stood well back, their weapons remaining out.

"It's been a long time since I had the chance to bump off a rival," Giardano said with a sadistic grin. "Been waiting for this opportunity for a damned long time. Who knows? Maybe with you two out of the way, I'll be Don Mercurio's first choice for a replacement after he bites the dust."

"You're not even a member of his natural family," Sisko scoffed. "I know for a fact that mob dons only pick natural family members as successors."

"So why were you bucking for the job?" Without waiting for a reply, Giardano turned his head toward the limo. "Okay, Ted."

From the driver's seat of the limo stepped none other than Timothy Moore, holding a huge .357 Magnum and waving it around as he walked over to Sisko and O'Brien. Sisko thought darkly to himself that he should have known why the limo was one of those affairs with a partition separating the driver's compartment from the passengers.

"Just the man we wanted to see," O'Brien said.

"Last man you'll ever see, too," Moore said. "Believe me, boss, I wouldn't like anything better than to do this job myself."

"Why do you think I brought you along?" Giardano was still grinning, and he stepped back and allowed Moore to move in to do his job. Sisko and O'Brien stood as silent as the grave, positive that somehow, Dax and Bashir would either come to the rescue or track Moore down themselves after this.

Just as Moore was cocking back the Magnum's hammer, the roar of an engine drew everybody's undivided attention. Giardano whirled to his right, and he stood rooted to his spot as the speeding Crown Victoria homed in on him and hit him with bone-crushing force. He had no time to shout before he slammed into the windshield, breaking it and his spine simultaneously. Bashir brought the car to a screeching halt, and Giardano rolled lifeless off the hood and thudded to the ground.

While Moore made a mad dash for the limo, Dax leaped out of the car and plugged the other guard, who was coming around Sisko and O'Brien with his weapon ready. Once he was down, Bashir floored the accelerator again and veered onto a converging course with the limo. He foiled Moore's getaway by slamming into the limo's side, knocking the battery dead and the front left wheel askew. Moore was obliged to slide across the front seat and get out on the passenger side, making a dead run for the nearest building.

Ray had stopped the Riviera just behind the Crown Vic, and Fraser put his hat on as he shoved the door open. "I'll take care of Julius's friends," he volunteered, bounding out of the car and over to Sisko and O'Brien. In the meantime, Bashir had gotten out of the Crown Vic, and he and Dax were both firing on Moore until the hit man vanished into the building.

"Get after him!" Ray bellowed at Bashir and Dax. "I'll go around and try to cut him off!" With that, he slammed on the gas, turned the Riviera 180 degrees, and screeched away from the pier. Bashir and Dax were already leaping over the limo's hood and bolting for the building's back door, which had barely swung shut when they got to it.

Ray knew that by the time he got around the building, Moore would already be crossing the street and escaping into an alley or another building, so he drove right around the block and made for a side street on the other side of the block. In the meantime, Dax and Bashir were chasing Moore at full stride through the building, and he burst out of the front door and to the street. At this distance, neither Dax nor Bashir could get an accurate shot at him, and Dax muttered a Trill expletive as she and Bashir raced across the street after him. Moore was now on the sidewalk and looking over his shoulder as he dashed down the street, but he was cut off by Ray, who skidded the Riviera to a halt on the side street and obliged Moore to stop in his tracks.

"Police, freeze!" Ray roared as he jumped out of the car, gun out. Bashir and Dax closed to an accurate distance before snapping out their own weapons, grinding to a halt and taking aim.

"You're not going anywhere, Moore!" Bashir barked.

"We're gonna need another Timmy!" Dax chimed in.

Not as far as Moore was concerned. He looked over his shoulder just long enough to see the alley behind him, and the open sewer grate in it. He fired several shots at Ray, who returned fire, inciting both Dax and Bashir to duck and get out of his line of fire. That gave Moore the chance to make himself scarce in the alley, jumping down into the sewer. All three of his adversaries converged on the alley, looking down the opening.

"I'm going in after him," Dax said, holstering her weapon. As Ray stared incredulously, she dropped into the orifice and landed on the bottom with a splash. Ray and Bashir stood by, waiting for the word; instead, they heard gunfire echoing from several dozen meters away. There were several flashes from down below as Dax returned fire, then yelled up the shaft.

"He's going that way!" she advised her companions.

"We can't see you point at the bottom of a sewer!" Ray shouted back.

"To the right!" Dax answered. "You coming?!"

"Be right with you," Bashir called. Dax quickly ducked into the tunnel to her right, and Bashir shoved his own gun into the holster and leaped down after her. Ray remained in the alley, shaking his head.

"Not two more!" he groaned. He ran past the shaft and dashed to the other end of the alley, ignoring Bashir's query as to whether or not he was coming. Once out of the alley, he looked both ways, and a fair distance to his left was the entrance to a subway station. He headed for it at a dead run, shoving pedestrians out of the way as he went.

Bashir and Dax had trailed Moore up the sewer tunnel to another tunnel, a much larger one. The ceiling was vaulted, and the floor was actually a railroad track, lined on either side with lights of varying colours. Dax looked around, confused.

"Where are we now?" she asked.

"Subway," Bashir answered. "Subterranean mass transit. There should be a station nearby, and Moore will head for it." He hopped up onto the tracks, looked in both directions, and noted the brighter light to his left. He ran for it, Dax on his heels.

Ray bounded down the steps into the station, and as he'd feared, the place was so packed that he'd never find Moore. Process of elimination looked best, so he ran to the edge of the platform and looked up the tunnel. No sooner had he taken a look than gunfire hit his ears, and the muzzle flashes in the darkness were aimed away from him. The flashes from two more muzzles further up the tunnel were then visible, and Ray knew this was his quarry.

He promptly leaped off the platform and onto the tracks, ready for Moore. "Hold it!" he roared, his voice echoing in both directions and into the station. Moore had no intention of freezing, however. He opened fire on Ray, who shot back in a heartbeat, oblivious to the frightened screams and commuters hitting the station's floor. As Moore turned back the way he'd come, he was met with still more gunfire from Bashir and Dax. Cut off from both sides, he had to resort to a side tunnel on his left. He dived in, and Bashir and Dax gave chase.

Ray, however, knew where that side tunnel led: to a never-finished subway tunnel that was complete except for the tracks. There had to be another side tunnel further up that would allow him to cut Moore off. He sprinted up the tracks, looking for such a side tunnel.

In the meantime, Moore was in the unfinished tunnel, running through it to nowhere in particular. He turned around just in time to fire on Bashir and Dax as they emerged from the side tunnel, into which they immediately ducked back. Inasmuch as Moore had to reload, that gave Dax the time to step out and return fire, forcing Moore to take cover behind a ceiling support while he reloaded. Dax paused to dump out her spent clip, draw a spare from under her right arm, and shove it into the gun. That done, she and Bashir resumed their pursuit. The tunnel was lit only by construction lanterns strung along one wall, but it was enough for Bashir and Dax to see their target making a run for it. They jumped off the platform and onto the tunnel floor, trying to close the distance.

Back in the other tunnel, Ray had almost made it to another side tunnel, but he had a new problem: a train was approaching from ahead, and it was approaching fast. Ray paused briefly before he realised that he didn't have time to pause, and however insane it seemed, he ran straight toward the train. It was coming in at a good forty miles per hour, and it was about the same number of meters away from him by the time he reached the side tunnel. He dived over the third rail and into the side tunnel, throwing himself to the floor just as the train rushed past. Ray pulled himself together and to his feet, and he could see the light from the unfinished tunnel just ahead.

Moore looked over his shoulder, and Dax and Bashir were still on his case, too far away and running too hard to get a positive aim at him. He rounded a curve, and it gave him enough of a breather to pause, remove a large knife and reach up to the cord connecting the lanterns. He chopped the cord with one stroke, and every lantern in this section of the tunnel went out, plunging the area into impenetrable blackness. Bashir and Dax stopped dead in their tracks, puffing.

"What happened?" Bashir wondered in a whisper.

"I don't know, but I can't even see my hand in front of my face," Dax replied.

Talking or any other noise was a mistake, because it gave Moore a direction to shoot in. He came out from under his cover and opened fire, and the muzzle flashes lit up the tunnel just enough for him to see his adversaries. They leaped aside, and Moore maintained fire until his hand was hurting.

Ray had also halted where he stood, hearing the gunfire and seeing the muzzle flashes at the end of the side tunnel. He hastened on, and the next burst of gunfire clearly came from Bashir and Dax. They were able to see Moore up ahead, but were unable to get a fix on him before he disappeared back under cover. They had to settle with moving closer to his refuge.

The pause in their fire was long enough for Moore to continue shooting at them, and sparks flew as a couple of his bullets ricocheted from the metal ceiling supports. Bashir fired back, driving Moore back to his shelter and lighting Ray's way some more. Ray stepped up his pace, waiting for someone to fire again and show his proximity to the passageway's end. Dax helped him with that--he was only a meter away, and he covered it in a split second and paused again so as not to stumble off the platform.

The muzzle flashes guided his aim; Bashir and Dax were to his left, and they were firing at something to his right. Moore was almost right in front of him, and he eased along the platform, letting the muzzle flashes conduct him till he was at Moore's back. He hopped off the platform, and the sound of his landing prompted Moore to whirl around and open fire. Ray leaped to his right and shot back, and Dax and Bashir maintained fire from their end.

"These flashes are working wonders for my night vision," Bashir muttered to Dax.

"I saw Vecchio come in from the other tunnel just now," Dax said. "Crossfire time. We should be able to get a hold of him if Vecchio keeps his nose clear."

"One gun, three cops, both sides," Ray's voice echoed out of the blackness. "Bad odds."

Moore answered with another salvo of bullets, and Ray replied in kind, praying that he wouldn't hit his two friends. He didn't dare move any closer, for fear that Moore would fire again and hit him at point-blank range. There was a lull in the shooting, and Ray, Bashir and Dax didn't know the reason until they heard a scuffling noise. Moore had run across the tunnel and was climbing back onto the platform to get to the side tunnel. Immediately the three of them resumed fire, and Moore made it to the side tunnel on the muzzle flashes. Bashir and Dax paused quickly to reload, and Ray gave chase, vaulting up onto the platform. His companions followed him shortly, and the faint green glow from a track signal was visible at the other end, as was Moore's silhouette.

Moore emerged from the side tunnel and almost tripped over the third rail, but as it was, he toppled over it while trying to stop himself. He fell flat forward on the tracks, and as he picked himself up, he heard a loud rumble from up the tunnel. Another train was approaching, and its lights caught Moore just as he was getting to his feet. Bug-eyed, he leaped back into the side tunnel, but things were no better in there. With Ray in the lead, all three of his adversaries were standing with guns aimed right between his eyes.

"Lose the gun and the knife, pal, you've got nowhere to run," Ray ordered.

Slowly and stiffly, Moore tossed the gun aside, then reached into his belt and removed the knife. He held his hands up, and Ray looked over his shoulder at Dax and nodded. Dax holstered her gun, moved forward, and drew her handcuffs, shoving Moore up against the wall. Ray and Bashir lowered their weapons as Dax applied the cuffs.

"Timothy Moore, you're under arrest for the murders of Mark King and Adam D'Amato," Ray declared.

"And the attempted murders of Benjamin Sisko and Miles O'Brien," Bashir added. Ray went on rattling off Moore's rights, and Dax cautiously peeked up the tunnel to be sure no more trains were coming before she shoved Moore onto the tracks. Ray and Bashir followed them up the tunnel to the station.

***********************************************************************
Coda: Ahead By A Century

Fraser was waiting back at the pier with a full tactical team when Ray, Bashir and Dax returned with Moore in tow, Sisko and O'Brien still with him. Ray and Dax got out of the Riviera's front seat while Bashir dragged a sullen Moore out of the back, and he hung onto Moore's collar with one hand and his left arm with the other. Ray and Fraser reunited with Dax andBashir, meanwhile, sharing one more moment together before they went their separate ways. Truth be told, for all their differences, the four of them had finally gotten to like working together.

"You know," Ray was saying, "if you don't mind my saying so, I've frankly had enough jurisdiction fights to last me my whole career."

"I hear you," Dax said. "But as the saying goes, we arrest 'em and let the judges sort 'em out. Doesn't really matter anymore, does it?"

"Naah, let's call it even," Ray said. "You guys take care of this scumbag from here. Did I mention I like the way you think?" he added with a rather amused-looking smile.

Dax just shrugged. "What can I say?"

"You can say that it's time we beat a quiet retreat," Bashir said. "We must do this again some time. Minus the spam wars over jurisdiction, of course."

"Yes, indeed," Fraser said. "That would be a pleasure."

"It's certainly been a pleasure serving with both of you this time around." The look in Dax's eyes said "Especially with Fraser" and no mistake. Ray gave her a look, but as always, Fraser didn't seem to have the slightest idea what she was getting at. Bashir manhandled Moore away from them, and Dax ambled over to Sisko and O'Brien, with whom she started to walk off to the fishery.

"How'd you make out?" O'Brien asked.

"Can't complain," Dax said. "You?"

"It could have had more upsides than it did downsides," Sisko said. "Although I have to say, not many upsides could counteract that inevitable drop-in from Temporal Investigations. But let's deal with them when we get around to them." He didn't have to ask if his two companions concurred on this point. They simply disappeared into the fishery, where Dax turned to the captain and the chief.

"We've received permission to escort our friend Moore to a police precinct," she said. "Julian's taking him somewhere to beam him up to the Defiant."

"Go on with him," Sisko said. Dax nodded, and while she disappeared out the door again to rejoin Bashir, Sisko requested a beam-up for himself and O'Brien.

Within fifteen minutes, the two of them were back in uniform and back on the bridge. They waited patiently for Dax and Bashir to show, and all in good time, they did. For some odd reason they were both still in their detective guise, and Dax took off her jacket and draped it over the back of her chair as she sat at the helm.

"Is everything squared away?" Sisko inquired.

"Saw Moore to the brig ourselves," Dax said.

"Stopping only to make sure there were no lupine life signs aboard the ship this time," Bashir chimed in, sitting at one of the science stations at the front of the bridge.

Sisko squinted at him. "Say what?"

"It's a long story. We'll tell it on the way back to Deep Space Nine."

"Well, I can hardly wait to hear this story, so let's be on our way there," Sisko said. "Take us out of orbit, old man. Chief, I trust you can reverse the process to get us back home?"

"Already on it, sir," O'Brien answered, his voice betraying his eagerness to get the hell away from twentieth-century Earth and back to twenty-fourth-century Bajor. He never wanted to see Earth in this time period again as long as he lived. At least, not while posing as anything remotely resembling a mob soldier.

"Then back to the twenty-fourth century with us," Sisko said, sitting back and relaxing. It was still rather amusing to see Dax in that outfit, especially since he knew Curzon wouldn't be caught dead in any such thing. He could see this becoming a regular sight in Quark's in the future, so to speak.

**********

Since Ray hadn't put it past the other two to take Moore to the 33rd instead of the 27th, he and Fraser were on their way over there to talk to Captain Walsh (actually, Fraser's ulterior motive was to note commendations on both "detectives"). Fraser could still remember the last time he'd first shown up in this squad room, looking for "Detective Armani." Talk about a comedy of error.

"You think we'll run into those two again somewhere along the line?" Ray asked, going through the main doors into the squad room.

"Maybe," Fraser said. "It would be agreeable to work with them again, wouldn't it?"

"Que sera sera." Ray paused at the door to Captain Walsh's office, and he knocked loudly. At the captain's invitation, he and Fraser went in, and Captain Walsh put down the file folder in his hand. That irritating smirk that had always driven Ray nuts (and to the 27th) was still there, ageless.

"Well, well, Detective Raymond Vecchio!" Captain Walsh said. "Nose-spotter, bar-shooter, and Canadian-helper! Been a long time, eh?"

"Yeah," Ray said, wishing it could have been even longer. "Look, sir, I wanted to know about a couple of detectives in your homicide unit. I think they're holding a suspect I want to talk to. Jade Drexel and Julius Bishop."

Captain Walsh frowned, and Fraser and Ray sensed immediately that something was queer. "You say they're holding a suspect for you," Walsh said. Ray nodded, and Walsh went on, "And they're both members of the homicide unit in this precinct."

"So they said," Fraser replied.

"I can't see why they're covering their tracks, but those tracks certainly don't lead in or out of here," Walsh shrugged.

Fraser and Ray turned to look at each other--confusion and concern weren't the best of mixtures, and yet here they were, both feeling that mixture. False names? Impersonating officers? Did they have that suspect somewhere? Was the suspect even still alive and in town? Fraser and Ray would never know the answers to these questions, particularly not after the Defiant vanished through its self-created time rift, moving along home.

finis
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Those of you who are inexplicably interested, here's the music that
helped to write this story (recommended listening during the car chase).

LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A CAR
The Tragically Hip, "Fully Completely"

They don't know how old I am, they found armour in my belly
From the sixteenth century, conquistador, I think
They don't know how old I am, they found armour in my belly
Passin' out of machine-revvin' tension
Lashin' out at machine-revvin' tension
Brushin' by the machine-revvin' tension

Morning broke out the back side of a truck stop
End-of-the-line, real rainbow-likening luck stop
Well, you could say I became chronologically ****ed up
Put ten bucks in just to get the tank topped off
Then I found a place, it's dark and it's rotted
It's a cool, sweet kinda place where the copters won't spot it
And I destroyed the map, I even thought I forgot it
However, every day I'm dumping the body
It'd be better for us if you don't understand
It'd be better for me if you don't understand
Yeah!
(Break)

And I found a place, it's dark and it's rotted
It's a cool, sweet kinda place where the copters won't spot it
And I destroyed the map, but I can't believe I done it
However, every day I'm dumping the body
It'd be better for us if you don't understand
It'd be better for us if you don't understand
It'd be better for me if you don't understand
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Copyright 1998 by Chris Lark. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Due South and the characters therein are solely the property of Paramount Productions and Alliance Communications, and no copyright infringement is intended. Please do not reproduce this work for any purpose but personal, or copy to any other Web pages, without author's permission. Please do feel free to E-mail me at cql@hopper.unh.edu with any questions (if you're going to criticise, it comes a damn sight easier in question form) you have.
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