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On the last day that he would take Maggie Thornton to lunch before making her his Maggie Lee, Captain H.F. Lee considered yet another version of the kinds of conundrums he would have in his second marriage because of his past … 24 years in the Army, complete with tours in both Special Forces and the Judge Advocate General service. 

Colonel Lee had made a LOT of enemies while in JAG, and some of them didn't have sense enough to quit while they were alive and ahead.

“Do I tell Maggie about the little scrape I had today while out jogging?”

She would hear about it as a terrible, terrible accident that had happened in downtown Big Loft – and it was.

But it had been more than that.

Bad things happen when you try to track down an elite Special Forces man to kill him, on his ground.  Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes, the bear gets you.

Colonel Lee knew, to the day, when Colonel Donitz would be released from military prison – Mr. Donitz, stripped of rank and dishonorably discharged, and now a felon.

He knew the man's psychological profile, and predicted, accurately, what he would do and even that he would do it on the news that Colonel Lee was getting married on January 31.

Colonel Lee accurately predicted even the day: January 30, 2020.

Colonel Donitz's wife had divorced him and taken the children and everything else.

He had nothing to lose, and nothing to gain but revenge.

So, he made his way to Big Loft with his little remaining money, and set out into the streets of Big Loft to find his quarry, who was known to jog in the mornings around the city.  

Finding one man jogging through downtown among the many … next to impossible unless he makes it easy for you to find him … but Colonel Donitz missed the gentle warning Colonel Lee had given him by being so obvious.  

A supposed wrong turn into a dead-end alley … and Colonel Lee, hardly breaking a sweat, turned around and jogged in place as Colonel Donitz closed with him … sort of … Colonel Lee moved forward a bit, and Colonel Donitz, even though he was holding a gun, moved back … STILL terrified of the man called “the Angel of Death.”

Colonel Lee finally stopped jogging, and waited while Colonel Donitz tried to bluster up his courage.

“You took everything from me, Lee – EVERYTHING – and now I'm taking everything from you!  You're quick enough to maybe stop me, but either I'm going to kill you, or make you have to kill me and spoil your whole marriage!”

“There is at least one other possibility, Colonel.”
“What!”

“Look up.”

“I'm an Army man too, Lee – you don't think I'm going to fall for a trick like –.”

BAM! CRASH! SPLAT!

“I tried to warn you, Colonel Donitz.”

Much later on, the news would show that there had been an accident at the Tory Building – a loaded basket, 20 stories high, had fallen from a crane.  The men above had escaped through a window before the collapse, but the basket had crushed a man standing just beneath it.

“Oh, how sad!” Mrs. Lee-to-be said after seeing it in the morning news.  “He was a veteran – he had his troubles but that is so sad, isn't it, Harry?”

“A tragedy,” Colonel Lee said solemnly.  “People need to take a higher regard for safety.”

Colonel Donitz hadn't.  He had paid the price.  Colonel Lee decided to leave it right there.

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