I’ll never forget the first thing Lorenzo Alcazar said to me: “You came in that thing?”

It was my first ‘run with the Bulldog, and even the fixer that set up the job was expecting my old rig. But frankly, after the fourteenth time overhauling the rear suspension from weapons damage, it was time to let it go. “This mission is about stealth,” the fixer said. "That thing’s about as subtle as …"

“As a troll,” I answered. “But the thing is, trolls are everywhere. I dunno if you’ve noticed this, but a troll in a panel truck making a delivery can go literally anywhere.”

“Fine, if you say so. What’s it packing?”

“Not a thing,” I said, winking. “We get stopped and searched, we’re completely clean.”

“And if there’s trouble?”

“Trust me,” I replied.

Two hours later, the meet was over, and I was feeling smug. The truck had indeed been stopped and searched, two separate times – but with no contraband on board, we were not stopped. Alcazar met his contact, made his deal, and we were headed back to the airfield. But just about that moment, Alcazar spoke to me for the second time. “I think that Dalmatian is tailing us.”

My fixer chimed in. “Yeah… looks like three of them, actually. So much for not carrying any weapons.”

“Relax,” I said. “I don’t tell you how to do your job.”

I made some calculations, and decided we were still outside missile range. I set the autopilot for the Bulldog and turned my attention to my escorts. Feather was right – there were three Dalmatians – but two of them were mine. They targeted the one that was actually chasing me, and opened up with the guns.

When the chaser was down, I set them to patrol our remaining distance to the airport and turned my attention back to the Bulldog.

“Not bad,” was the last thing Alcazar said to me on that run.

But the next time he came to Seattle, I got a call.