Degas shook his head. "Not for lack of trying, I'm afraid. As I said, I was a kid; I wanted to do everything I could. But my superiors wouldn't let me, until I was older and knew more. So the only thing I was guilty of was joining, which I've been forgiven for--and I think I've paid any criminal debt I owed. I became a trooper because I was a Brother." A trooper with a good Academy record, fifteen of his twenty-one active duty years in Special Ops--critically wounded several times, but living that long at all in Special Ops qualified as a real miracle--with numerous operations to his credit that he'd refused well-deserved awards for, as he'd refused promotion beyond the one to First Lieutenant he'd had to accept to remain in service. She'd wondered about those refusals, but Odeon had said he'd claimed personal reasons. Now that she knew, she respected him for it; that was his way of atoning. "You've decided to follow me, so your confessor said you have to accept my judgement--and he knew you'd decide to follow a woman. That sounds peculiar--did he give you any reason?" "Not exactly, ma'am. He just told me he knew, with absolute certainty, that if I lived long enough I'd find the one I needed." "Um." That statement made Cortin uncomfortable; she didn't like the idea of something being predetermined, the way Tony made this sound. Still, it had been his choice to join Team Azrael. "Why did you choose me?" Degas frowned. "I'm . . . not positive. Your record, of course, and you've got the same sort of odd attraction Shannon does--except that with him it's lethal, evil, and with you it's . . . I don't have the words. 'Good' sounds soft, and that it certainly isn't . . . maybe 'creative'? And definitely not evil; after Shannon, I can feel evil." He looked at her, his gaze steady. "Following you feels right, if you'll still let me." Membership in a terrorist organization normally carried sentences of excommunication and death, but there were, on rare occasions, mitigating circumstances. Degas had been young, that sin had been forgiven, and he'd done more than enough to help the Kingdom to repay any harm he might have done. Cortin reversed his gun, handing it back to him. "You're still in, Tony. And I'd advise keeping this conversation between the two of us." "Gladly!" Degas' expression was one of pure relief. "We won't mention it again, then." She started the car and pulled back onto the dirt road. "I've got to stop at the Harrison ranch for a few minutes, then we can finish our drive."