[ WP ] Governments around the world send undercover agents into a drug cartel . All of the real members quit leaving only undercover agents who still think that everyone else is a real member .

The stench of a Cuban cigar hung in the air, mixed sulfurous stench of gunpowder and wet earth. In the cold cruel light of half dead fluorescence, the concrete walls leered like granite tombstones. An unattended clock marked no more time. The overturned table, its toppings spilled, its legs askew, half covered one of the bodies. The other two basked in their funereal light, the bullet holes just beginning to crust, as the smoke stepped aside to admit a man still living. 
 
 He stepped across the chaos. The puddles of water and blood and cocaine swirled around his footsteps. *Three bodies*, he noted. *Clean*. Moving with professional precision, he snugged his leather gloves tighter into his sleeves, the trenchcoat bunching slightly. His knife parted the American's shirt. Another moment and the microrecorder concealed there, no bigger than a pea, was gone, slipped in a trenchcoat pocket. And the job was done. 
 
 The man in the trench coat allowed himself a rare moment of reflection. All that had or would ever be of this man's dedication was in his pocket. He could have no government funeral, no salute, no gold star. This man had given that up in service up to live among scum, to work against them from the inside. To subvert the growing international collusion between criminals. Perhaps, dying next to two of them, he had attained some kind of ultimate success in that regard. 
 
 The man in the trench coat straightened, turned, focused. After years of cleaning up messes, the brief flicker of pity surprised him. Why should this man's death mean more than the undercovers, spies, double and triple agents whose compromised bodies he'd cleaned in the course of time? The American on the floor had served his country well, and his information would - 
 
 A slight creek metal on metal in the next room was all it took. The man in the trench coat folded himself back into a dark corner, waited, watched, pistol out, as another low life, muscular, with Slavic features, out of breath, clomped into the room. With a brief glance at the American and Chinese corpses, the Russian crossed to his companion under the table, reached down inside the corpse's jacket, and presented the top of his balding head like a bullseye. *Too perfect. * 
 
 The fourth corpse fell to the floor, gushing fresh blood over old, as the man in the trench coat waved the gun smoke away from his face. *Four bodies*, he thought. *Clean. Almost too good for this drug running, arrogant scum. * Gun in hand, he stepped to his kill to retrieve the bullet, dislodging it with another fine flick of his knife. He pocketed it, and paused. 
 
 Drug running, arrogant scum with sharp, new haircuts. *Odd. * The man in the trench coat pivoted, bent to examine the dead bald man's hand, still tucked in his comrade's coat. A Swiss coat, he observed. *Also odd. * Who was this pair of dapper thugs? He separated the two, lifted the fresher corpse's arm. *Manicured fingernails*, he noted, as pried open the dead Russian's fingers to reveal another microrecorder. 
 
 The Chinese bullet made a clean hole just above the left lapel of the trench coat. The man inside it fell sideways, splashing slightly in the growing layer of muck. His eye above the slime slid, slowly, laboriously to the boot that stepped in front of his face. Chinese Intelligence, he noted. *Odd. * Or was it? His eyelids fought his will as the man in the boots stooped to the Chinese corpse, reached behind the collar, and retrieved something. Something small, it seemed. No bigger than a pea. 
 
 Relinquishing his eyes for the last time, the man in the trenchcoat squeezed his trigger. Boom, pop, splash. 
 
 *Six bodies*, he thought. *Clean. But for what? *
