Earlier that day, at the outskirts of New York<br/><br/>Lewis Kochinski was giggling with joy as he put the final touches to his latest masterpiece. He was in his nice, roomy and comfortably warm garage, at his work bench. Making the bomb had been easy, there were no limit to the things you could find on the internet these days. The remote detonator was trickier though. He didn't want to use a timer, he wanted the pleasure of detonating the bomb himself. He also wanted to be there to see the effect, but not close enough to get hurt himself.<br/>Lewis had always hated kids as long as he could remember, even when he was one himself. Cute little angels? Try sadistical little monsters, their school yard bullying had made his life a living hell. By the time he had grown up he was carrying so much rage inside that he thought he'd catch fire.<br/>One day, bored out of his mind, he had taken a wooden box and driven long, sharp nails into it, pointy side up. That night he had sunk it in the local lake, right at the place where he knew the local kids would dive on hot summer days. He read later that week in the paper about how a 13 year old boy had hurt himself pretty badly on it. The paper asked why anyone would do such a horrible thing to an innocent child. Lewis knew why. Cause fuck them, that's why! They were hardly innocent, and Lewis himself was suprised by the joy his act of revenge had brought him. He knew he had to do more, he now had purpose.<br/>Now, Lewis wasn't a stupid man. He actually concidered himself something of a genious. He took every precaution, he wasn't about to get caught when there was so much to do. He would only get more of his revenge after carefull planning, always making sure his acts couldn't be traced back to him. Deed upon deed followed, always with a couple of months in between, and always in different parts of the city. Burying broken glas in the sand under the swing sets had been inspired. His first acts had been followed by many more, all of them works of art, but switching the candy in a local supermarket for poisoned ones at Halloween time, now that had been ingenious. The result? 2 kids dead, 17 in the ER getting their stomachs pumped, and a whole lot of chaos and fear created.<br/>The thrill of taking lives made him sloppy though. The rate of his acts increased, and soon the police was knocking on the door. Oh, they hadn't been able to pin anything on him, he was far to clever for that, but it still reminded him that he needed to be carefull. It hadn't been all bad though. He had sued the city after he was found innocent, and he had won a large sum of money. It had made it possible for him to buy the beautifull house he now lived in, located at the outskirts of New York. Stupid cops. He had turned defeat into victory, he was untouchable.<br/>"Up to your old tricks, are you...Lewis?" The voice almost gave Lewis a heart attack, he hadn't heard anyone enter. He quickly spun around. A rather tall, well built man closed the door behind him. He had brown thick hair and green eyes. His sideburns and southern accent made Lewis think of Elvis, though they didn't really look alike. He was very handsome though, and Lewis could feel a sting of envy. He cleared his throat.<br/>"I don't think we've met, mr...?" The man just gave him a quick, cold smile.<br/>"My name isn't important, Lewis. Why I'm here is though. We are going to talk about your past and future sins."<br/>"My sins?" Lewis asked. "What would those be?" This was unsettling, who was this man?<br/>"The sabotaged playgrounds, the poisoned candy, you take a pick." The man gave Lewis a cold stare, but Lewis face slowly turned into a grin. The man was a cop! He was sure of it, the way he moved and talked. Lewis could read people, and this man was clearly a cop or his name was Susan. They couldn't convict him, so now they try to scare him, eh? Well, that was harassment, that was. With any luck he could sue the city again, get himself another fat check. His lawyer was very good.<br/>"I was cleared of all those charges, or haven't you heard? I got an appology and a big fat check and all," Lewis said, grinning at the cop.<br/>"Sure, I heard about it. But you were guilty none the less. And that wasn't everything, was it? Howabout those signs you removed last winter, for example?" That coment rubbed Lewis smirk from his face. He knew what the man was talking about. Last winter he had removed a couple of signs warning about thin ice at the local lake. A brother and a sister had went through and drowned. The problem was, it had never been connected to him, people even thought it had been an accident, so the cop shouldn't have known about it. And he was still talking, running through a long list of things Lewis had done, things no one else should know about!<br/>"Quite an imagination you have there, officer," Lewis replied, smiling in satisfiction as a look of suprise appeared on the man's face. He had been right. "The problem is, that's all it is. Fantasies. Now, I suggest you turn around and get the hell of my property, or my lawyer will sue you for everything you got!"<br/>The man looked unfaced by Lewis threat. He just kept talking.<br/>"Yes, you might have managed to weasel your way out of court, you may have played the entire justice system for a fool, but your sins are catching up to you...right now."<br/>The cop looked suprised as the first bullet grazed his head, even more so as the second hit him dead center in the chest, making him take a step back, then crumble down on the floor. Lewis was standing there with a horrified expression on his face, a smoking gun in his hand. He had suddenly realized that the cop wasn't just all bark and no bite, he had actually meant to hurt him! In fear, he had reacted instinctivly, reached for his gun and fired. The expression on his face slowly changed as the reality of what he just had done started sinking in. He had killed a cop! And that wasn't all, he was absolutly sure he'd get away with it. Nothing could hurt him, he was invincible! He walked closer to the body. Sure enough, the first bullet had been fired in panic, but the second had hit it's mark. He could see from the blood that the fool hadn't been wearing a vest either. Lewis leaned closer with perverse fascination in his eyes. The first bullet had almost ripped the man's left cheek right off, baring his teeth in a morbid grin. Lewis couldn't help but start giggling. "You think that's funny, eh? Well, who's laughing now!" He gave the body a good kick in the side, it felt great. To think he had once feared this man, if only for a second or two. He wasn't worth fearing, he was pathetic. And now dead.<br/>Lewis leaned down, inches from the dead man's face. "You were right," he wispered to the corpse with a smirk on his face. "I did it all, and more! And the best of all is that I will do more, oh so much more, and only because you weren't man enough to stop me."<br/>Lewis gasped in terror as the man's eyes suddenly opened, his hand darting out and catching Lewis by his throat in a vice like grip. Lewis was to shocked to do anything more than gasp for air, he didn't even remember his gun until the man's other hand caught him by his wrist. No! This was impossible!<br/>"Care to wager on that?" the man said, the movement of his jaw clearly visable through his wound as he spoke. Lewis tried to blink away tears of fear as the man twisted his arm, the barrel of his gun slowly turning towards his own face...<br/><br/>Carl Barker was druming with his fingers against the steering wheel. The snow had started to pour down now. He didn't like this, it was taking to long.<br/>"Two shots, then a long ass pause, then another shot. What do you think that mean?" Leroy asked from the back seat.<br/>"The first shots probably mean our friend got himself into a bit of problem," Chris replied from the seat next to Carl. "The last shot most likely mean he found a way out of it."<br/>The three men would have stood out in any crowd, no matter where. To begin with, they all were extremly fit. They were also very handsome, though in different ways. Leroy had the black athlete thing going for him, with ebony skin, shaved head, a big toothy smile and a six pack men would kill for. Christobald de la Cruz had the spanish charmer look working for him, looking like he'd belong on the deck of a ship, comanding the spanish armada. His dark, soulfull eyes, dark hair and goatee, and his mischevious smile made him look like a lovable scoundrel. In fact, if he'd ever dressed up as a pirate women would be just as likely to choose him over Johnny Depp as the other way around.<br/>Carl himself? Well, with his blond hair, blue eyes and lantern jaw he would have been perfect for a Nazi recruitment poster, if he'd been born in Hitler's Germany. As it was he made people think of Captain America, baseball and mom's apple pie. Heck, he even made his Tom Seleck moustache look fashionable. He was the indisputable leader of the team.<br/>His eyes finally caught the shape of a man making it's way through the snow. Soon the fourth, and youngest, member of their team had planted his butt in the back seat. Carl inspected him. Apart from a few blood stains on his clothes, there were no traces of his wounds.<br/>"Problems?" Carl asked.<br/>"None that I couldn't get out of," came the reply. The cocky attitude and rockabilly look of their newest member sometime got on Carl's nerves, but it looked like he'd come through for them. He nodded approvingly. "Gun," he said. Billy, as the fourth member was called, did as he was told, holding up a gun that Carl caught with a handcarchief, quickly pocketing the gun.<br/>"You could actually use that again," Billy said. "I never did get around to using it myself." They all looked at him in suprise.<br/>"Now, I think it's time you tell us exactly what happened," Christobald said, Leroy nodding in agreement.<br/>"Well, I admit the creep suprised me, he didn't have a registered gun, I looked it up before we came here. He thought he had finished me, boy was he in for a suprise. I made him give his own gun a blow job. He won't hurt no more kids, I can promise you that." He told his story in a nonchalant way, but he seemed to be pretty pleased with himself. The other three men glanced at eachother.<br/>"Then what?"<br/>"Since it suddenly looked like a suicide, I made sure it would hold up to scrutiny. I removed every trace of me being there. My blood is covered with a pool of his own, for example. I doubt anyone will notice. I also took the time to write a suicide note on his laptop. A lot of "I can't stand the guilt, oh please God forgive me, I must put a stop to myself". I basicly made him confess to all his crimes, it should give the parents some relief."<br/>The three men looked at him in astonishment, not saying a thing for a long while. Then suddenly Christobald turned in his seat and punched Billy on the shoulder, a big grin on his face.<br/>"What did I tell you guys, what did I tell you? He's much more than a pretty face, isn't he? This boy is going places!"<br/>"Welcome to the gang, little dawg!" Leroy said, mussing up Billy's hair, making him protest loudly. Carl nodded with an aproving smile on his face.<br/>"Yes, welcome, I'll say you passed the test with flying colors. Now, all there is left is to figure out what to call you." The three older members looked at eachother, all smiling and nodding in agreement.<br/>"Well, there can be only one name for a cracker like you," Leroy said with a grin. "Say hello to the team, Hound Dog!"<br/><br/>Half an hour later the car was parked at the shore of a frozen over lake. They knew from before that a big hole had been cut in the ice recently, for winter bathers of all things, and Billy was now submerged in the icy water, cleaning away the last traces of his recent activeties. Leroy was burning his clothes, they had brought a spare set and some towels for him. Carl and Chris was sitting in the car, the heat at maximum for when he'd come up of the water.<br/>"So, now there is four of us," Chris said. "Who would've thought? I thought for sure I was alone in the world when you found me, and now we are four." Carl nodded with a dreamy smile on his face. It almost seemed to good to be true.<br/>"You know Taylor will be a problem, right?" Chris said, his face suddenly serious. "He will start wondering why he is being excluded. I mean, it was alright back when there were just the two of us, and maybe even three, but four out of five? No, he will wonder, I think he already is." Carl nodded, he had the same doubts.<br/>"I didn't want to say anything, but I think I've found another. Already in Swat, none the less. I didn't want to say anything before Billy was initiated, but now five out of five actually sounds like a real possibillity." Chris face cracked open into a big, amazed smile.<br/>"Another!? And already in Swat? What are the odds? Seriously! And you can arrange the transfer?"<br/>"I'm pretty sure I can," Carl replied. "You know the chief eats out of my hand as long as I make him look good and bring in the votes for him."<br/>"Ok, so I'll talk to Taylor then? Have a heart to heart, make him understand that it would be best if he put in for transfer?"<br/>"You do that. I'll talk to the chief as soon as possible, I can't wait to see the suprised look on his face."<br/>"Really?" Christobald said with a big grin. "He's something out of the ordinary then, the new member? Someone special?"<br/><em>If you only knew, old friend,</em>Carl thought while returning Christobald's smile,<em>if you only knew...</em>