[ WP ] `` Daddy , are we the bad guys ? ''

My wife tapped me on the shoulder, looking very pale as she came out of the tiny airplane bathroom holding a stick. 
 
 
 `` I'm pregnant,'' she said quietly in Russian, so the girl would n't wake up or understand us. Shit, we had just started our mission! Our target was sprawled out across three of the seats in the Alliance's private plane, still out from the drug my wife had hidden in her coffee, handcuffed. They were too tight, and the girl was bleeding. We did n't get a chance to discuss it, since she woke up seconds later. 
 
 
 Eventually, when my wife started to show, we disclosed the pregnancy to the higher-ups. Normally, if a Guardian has a young child, their charge ( s ) ( that is, those kidnapped ) are reassigned to others; you ca n't provide optimal charge protection if you're caring for a baby! However, in this case, they let us stay with the girl, to give her stability. Anyway, there were two of us, and the Alliance had us living in the main bunker a little ways out of Zurich. Very secure. No extradition. 
 
 
 Everything was great, for a few years. My wife and I, and even the girl, doted on little Marie. She became a very smart, old-soul little three-year-old in no time. We tried our best to insulate her from the work we did, the work all around her, but it was hard to tell if it was working. 
 
 
 One day, she came up to me at my office. She would have had to get past two locked doors and walk down a half-mile of confusing halls! `` Marie, sweetie, what are you...?'' I asked. 
 
 
 She stared me down and stomped her tiny, patent-leather clad, foot. `` Daddy! Are we the bad guys?'' 
 
 
 `` No!'' I reflexively exclaimed. 
 
 
 `` But you take kids away from their mommy and daddy!'' 
 
 
 I sighed, hoping I could have put off this conversation for another few years. `` Sweetie, sometimes that's what we have to do. The kids that live here- it's so they can have a safe home. There are... bad people, who want to hurt these kids because their skin looks different, or they ca n't walk or are sick with something they'll have their whole life, or if they are a girl who likes girls or a boy who likes boys. We take them here, so the bad people do n't find them. But you do n't need to worry about the bad people! Daddy will always protect you, just like I- all of us- protect the other kids.'' 
 
 
 She looked confused, but eventually got it with some more help from me. Then, I went back to my computer screen. I was checking our dealings, calling forgers, arranging payoffs for customs officials, and e-mailing some Chinese smugglers. Of course, a huge organization like us... needs funds to run, fraud or theft or mob ties be damned. And we needed five to ten complete identity papers a year from the best forgers in Europe- because when the kids got to be old enough, we'd let them go, with a new identity, new face, new name, relying on their training and instincts to protect them from then on. Plus, separate forged passports for bringing those kids in who needed to come in from overseas, and then we also needed to bribe some customs high-ups to bend the usual rules on manifest and flight-path and item listing. 
 
 
 And the Chinese smugglers? That was the brainchild of one Dr. Park, a South Korean doctor affiliated with us. We needed our own on-base doctors, tech gurus, teachers, and regular labor- cleaning, security details, etc. The labor supply just was n't there, as you never know who might rat you out to Interpol. So, he suggested going north for the answer. The ten-year project by which the organization paid Chinese `` brokers'' to help refugees escape North Korea, and for all necessary expenses to make the escapees legal and bring them here, was working wonderfully. Then, since we freed them, we effectively owned them. That's not to say we did n't treat them well; but they knew, one word to authorities, and they'd be under arrest for fraud and many other charges. 
 
 
 `` It's all grey,'' I said softly to myself after Marie had flounced off. `` I do n't know, but we're sure as hell better than those neo-Nazis we're up against.''
