Sometimes, like today, he liked to sit in a corner and listen to them talk. He sat in front of his laptop, which was plugged into a modem so he could surf for information to put together a coherent position paper on the latest curveball the Republicans had thrown them, and listened with half an ear as Toby, CJ, Leo and Josh fought about who had had the busiest day.

"And then I had the meeting on the hill..." Josh was saying.

"...joint Chiefs of Staff arguing like 5-year-olds..." Leo complained.

"...had to bribe Danny to drop it..." CJ sighed.

"...so you can all shut up," Toby concluded.

Sam smiled to himself, knowing that none of them had heard a word the others had said. He glanced up to see if they were even looking at each other. As he had expected, they were paging through the mass of files in the middle of the table, giving less than half their attention to the conversation. It was all they needed, really.

His smile made an external appearance as he looked back at his computer, only to die slowly when he saw the screen was black. As he opened his mouth to call attention to this unexpected and somewhat inconvenient occurrence, words flashed up to replace the nothingness.

'We're ba-ack,' they read.

Sam's mouth twitched. 'Who's we?' he typed, knowing exactly who "we" was.

'You know bloody well who.'

'Sorry, no.'

'We! Us! Who else?'

'You've lost me.'

'Come on,' the screen complained, 'Stop playing games.'

Sam relented. 'What do you want?'

'Long time no hear,' replied the screen, apparently satisfied that the exchange was back on track.

'I've been busy.'

'That busy?'

'Go away, I'm out of the game,' Sam typed, looking casual.

'No one's ever out of the game.'

'I beg to differ. I work for the President now.'

'And I'm sure that's a perfectly legitimate way to serve your country. But this one's more fun.'

'Go away.'

'It's a minor job. Very minor.'

'So get someone else.'

'We want you.'

'Tough.'

'Your country needs you.'

'My country's got me. Go on, play the patriotism card again,' Sam wrote, hoping his sarcasm would be communicated. 'That's not enough to get me back.'

'How about that and 30 000 dollars?'

Sam stared at the screen, then typed, 'I thought you said it was a minor job.'

'Yes. Protection.'

'Then get someone else at a third of the price.'

'We don't want anyone else.'

'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why me?'

'Because. All that Mission Impossible stuff is child's play to you,' came the incredibly insincere reply.

'Cut the crap.'

Pause. 'Colleen wants you,' the reply finally came, managing to seem shame-faced even when read.

Sam's eyes widened. "No way. Forget it. She's been trying to get me in the sack since day one. The woman is scary.'

'50 000.'

'No.'

'60.'

'No.'

Slightly desperately: '80. That's my limit.'

'It's not about the m9ney,' Sam typed, looking over to his friends, then sighed at the typo. 'Money, I mean,' he added.

'It's for your country! And an added bonus: a nice supplement to your retirement fund.'

'Why should I agree for reasons that don't apply to me?'

'Because you're bored.'

Sam tried to think of a comeback that would end the conversation permanently, but failed. Apparently taking his lack of response as acquiescence, the person he was communicating with typed, 'I'm sending the basics.'

'No,' Sam typed frantically, but alas, he was too late. The screen went blank briefly, then the words 'End communication' flashed across it, followed closely by 'Incoming file transfer. Accept (yes/no)?'

Sam blinked at the screen. The words blinked back. He lifted his gaze and let it travel around the room, resting briefly on each of his friends, who were now good-naturedly ribbing each other about taste – or lack thereof – in clothes. He looked back at the screen.

'Accept (yes/no)?'

Bored? He wondered. In my profession? He thought about it, and the conclusion he reached was: Hell, yeah. He typed, 'Yes.'

The words changed to 'Transfer in progress' and then quickly to 'Transfer complete'. This lingered for a moment, as if reluctant to leave the comfort of Sam's laptop, before Sam was finally returned to his position paper.

"Take Sam, for example," CJ was saying. "Who, even as he diligently slaves away for the American people, is always impeccably dressed, if not in a suit then in casual clothes that not-too-subtly announce 'good taste'. Even if his haircut does leave something to be desired." CJ stopped, examining the subject of her discourse closely. "Sam? You okay? You look kind of... Uh... grim and excited all at once." Sam looked at her blankly for a moment, then unclenched his jaw and allowed his features to relax into a sheepish grin.

"Sorry." He searched for an explanation. "I was trying to think of a synonym for 'inconceivable'. Couldn't think of one, but the challenge was appealing."

"Do you need one?" Toby asked.

Sam shrugged. "No, but it bugs me..."

"Outlandish," Josh suggested.

"No-o...." Sam said thoughtfully. "That's not really what inconceivable means."

"He's right," said Toby.

"Isn't," said CJ. Good-natured bickering followed, until Leo acted as a tiebreaker, ruling against "outlandish" as a synonym for "inconceivable", but in favour of it as a word in general.

Later that night, Sam found himself somewhat awkwardly scaling the side of a tallish apartment building.

He was kitted out entirely in black – black T-shirt with a black turtleneck over it, equally black jeans, and similarly coloured sneakers. His socks, to break the monotony, were bright Day-Glo orange with purple dots on them. He also wore, backwards, a black baseball cap with the word "SWAT" stitched onto it in white, and had a backpack slung over his shoulders.

As he climbed, he lamented the fact that no good sports-type stores were open this late at night, so he had no gear to help him out. At least the building is brick, he told himself encouragingly, so there are some handholds.

Carefully, every muscle tensed, he shifted his right hand upwards and slid his black-glove-clad fingers into a handy crack. Then the left. Then the feet. He continued in this not-as-slow-as-expected manner until he reached the sixth floor, at which point he began moving sideways, toward a nearby window.

The muscles in his left arm protested wimpily as he put most of his weight on it for the few seconds it took to locate the windowsill and grip it with his right hand. Then, relieved, he transferred the other hand to the sill and hauled himself up.

Just call me Spiderman, he thought smugly.

The window, Sam noted with considerable pleasure, was unlocked. Quietly sliding it open, he entered the darkened room on the other side. He had checked, so he knew that this apartment was empty.

"Bedroom," he whispered to himself, noticing as he moved through the apartment how nice it was and making a mental note to check here for vacancies the next time he moved.

He decided that it was safe to assume the bedroom was the room with the big, cob-webby four-poster bed in the middle. Destination reached, he dropped the backpack, lay down with an ear to the floor, and listened. Hearing nothing, he made use of tools in his pack which I couldn't be bothered to research or make up names for, to quietly and efficiently drill a hole in the floor. He spent the next five minutes with an eye pressed to the opening which led to the apartment below, until he was satisfied that there was no one in that room. Thus assured, he proceeded to utilize other, similarly unresearched tools, to make a larger, man-sized hole.