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had to ask where we were going.
    “No one from Portland will think to look for us in Vancouver.”
    I had to laugh, “You’re right. That’s brilliant. Portlanders think that Vancouver is just the place you have to explain isn’t Canada.”
    She got off the interstate almost immediately after we crossed the bridge and quickly pulled in to the parking lot at the Red Lion. As I stepped out of the car my legs were a bit on the wobbly side, but she strode away confidently. I hurried to catch up.
    “What were they doing? Why were they shooting at us?”
    Like a viper she spun on her heel, grabbed the front of my shirt with one hand and the back of my head with the other.
    “You will shut your mouth until we’re in my room.”
    She shoved me away, spun and kept walking. I guessed that the car chase might have her stressed out a bit, that’s why she wasn’t being as nice to me. We got to her room and she immediately opened the curtains and looked out over the Columbia River. The gray water reflected the gray skies under the Interstate Bridge. Across the water we could see the old Red Lion’s burned out shell staring at us.
    I was afraid to say anything after her last reaction, so when she turned back from the window I was even more scared. Anka was crying silently. She wouldn’t look at me. She just stood there, staring at the ground and crying. Every once in a while her shoulders would shrug up as she gasped for breath, but she made no noise. I felt the tears fill my eyes as I watched her.
    I approached her slowly. My confused fear at her anger in the parking lot battled my instinctive response to comfort her. Carefully I put one arm around her shoulder, ready to snatch it back as if she’d bite me. She stiffened, but didn’t resist. The next time her shoulders heaved with her mute sobbing I gently pulled her into an embrace. Her rigid posture held. Her arms remained at her sides. For several minutes we stood there, me holding her and her stiffly weeping.
    Without warning she pulled back, pushed my arms away and stalked off to the bathroom. I looked after her, but she didn’t turn or offer any sign that I existed. I heard her splash some water and blow her nose before coming back out to the main area.
    “Right, now tell me what you know about Dr. Grosskopf.”
    Her face showed all the signs of her extended crying, but her voice was iron hard. She strode toward me, sat down on one of the beds and motioned for me to sit down on the other.
    “Are you okay?”
    “What do you know about Dr. Grosskopf?”
    “Oh, um…not much. I just responded to that ad. The first time I met him was after you did my interview. He just did some tests and then offered to pay me double to come back. I was planning on it too, but then I saw him on the news and it seemed like a bad idea.”
    “So you’ve never met the doctor before or had any involvement with neuron-enhancement therapy?”
    “Anka, I don’t even know what that means.”
    “The men who were following us, have you ever met them before?”
    “Not before they attacked me downtown.”
    “And how did you know they were going to attack you? You were ready for them.”
    “I didn’t know they were going to attack, but I did know they were following me.”
    “How?”
    “Well, they stand out in a crowd. I thought they might be following me so I changed MAX trains a couple times. They always stuck with me and stayed in my car. I was going in circles but they stayed with me.”
    “Very observant of you. How did you overpower them?”
    “Um…I used a wrist lock on the first one, then I head butted the second before finishing him off with a roundhouse.”
    “And when did you study martial arts?”
    “Oh, when I was a kid.”
    “So as a child you picked up jujitsu, kung-fu and karate to the level that you could, years later, fight trained attackers?”
    “Um…”
    “How did you really learn that stuff?”
    “I learned it from watching TV, okay?”
    “Amazing,” she