A/N - Set late Season 5 - apres-Ann, pre-Brian & Finn. Slight A/U. Disclaimer: As always and with much regret, I do not own the rights to WAT.

BEYOND THE VEIL

Chapter 1

Four days and nothing! Special Agent Jack Malone sat staring at the child's photograph that looked up at him from the open case file on his desk. It was late in the evening and his exhausted team were taking it in shifts to go home and get some much-needed rest. They had been working around the clock for the last four days and much to their frustration, they were getting nowhere.

Amy Nolan was their latest missing person. She was a beautiful, innocent child, nine years old and up until then, unspoiled by the ugliness of life. Her parents had done everything right. They educated her, provided for her physical and emotional needs and kept her safe. They tried to cocoon her from all that is wrong with the world. Having recently met them, Jack considered them good people. They didn't deserve what they were going through, he thought. Mind you, nobody did.

Their child had just vanished. It had happened so simply and so quickly. She and her Mom had arrived home from the market and parked in the driveway of the family home, a modest bungalow outside Brentwood. As her mother unloaded the bags of groceries from the car, she asked Amy to bring the emptied trashcan in from the sidewalk. Her mother had only been inside a couple of minutes. When she came back outside, her daughter was nowhere to be seen. The trashcan was still on the sidewalk. Her daughter had vanished into thin air.

As with all his cases involving missing children, Jack was finding the case very tough, both physically and emotionally. He had barely slept over the last few days, working around the clock to try and bring this child home safely. He could associate completely with what her parents must be going through. Having daughters himself, cases like this always tended to strike a chord close to his heart. Jack considered it fortunate, though, that Amy's parents were oblivious to the horrors that Jack himself had witnessed throughout his career, the scenes that haunted his dreams. He knew only too well that once 48 hours had passed, the likelihood of finding the girl alive had severely diminished. They were now well past that window.

Almost immediately after the initial report to the FBI that first day, Jack and his team had canvassed the Brentwood neighbourhood and interviewed dozens of people. TV news reports ran her picture and asked the public for help. An Amber Alert had been issued. All this had pretty much drawn a blank. One neighbour did mention seeing a man parked in the street, sitting in a silver or grey sedan. They didn't recognise the model nor get the licence plate. However, it was enough for Jack to order Danny and Elena to pull the list of registered sex offenders and to cross-check it with DMV records. This was done and after the first twenty-four hours they still had nothing. They interviewed half a dozen men, all who had convictions and who lived within a two-mile radius of the Nolan home. However, following the interviews and having checked their alibis, the FBI was satisfied that they were not involved in Amy's disappearance.

The day after her disappearance, the Tuesday morning, Jack and Vivian visited Amy's school. They spoke to her teacher and some of her classmates. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A happy child, a good student, a good friend and lots of fun were phrases used frequently in their conversations. She was just a regular kid. Viv and Jack were walking through the hallway of the school, talking to the principal as they returned to her office when Jack noticed a maintenance man crouched down, talking to a young pupil, his hand on her shoulder. At first glance, it seemed innocent enough, but then the man turned his head in Jack's direction. Their eyes met. In that split second, Jack's gut instinct kicked in. When the guy held Jack's gaze and then turned back to the child with a disturbing smirk on his face, Jack just sensed something was wrong with that picture.

When they got to the principal's office, Jack asked for the names of all staff, both teaching and non-teaching. She duly obliged and armed with the list, Viv and Jack returned to their office and quickly began to check the backgrounds of everyone listed. To Jack's dismay, with the exception of a few DUIs and one breach of the peace, everyone on the school staff was as clean as a whistle. On the screen in front of him, however, remained a single DMV photo, that of Paul Bartlett. He was the guy whom Jack had witnessed talking to the child in the school corridor. He stood staring at the photo, without speaking.

Vivian noticed this and asked why he was so interested in this one particular staff member. Jack explained to her what he had seen and reluctantly told her his theory. Ever the pragmatist, Viv was quick to remind him not to get blinded by his unfounded theory because it could lead the investigation in the wrong direction. Jack knew she was right, that they couldn't afford to waste time on a hunch. Inwardly, though, Jack just couldn't let it go. He made a mental note of Bartlett's address. It turned out it was only a mile and a half from the Nolan residence. He asked Martin to check out this guy's history and background. Martin discovered that Bartlett moved around a lot, never staying in a job for very long. Most of his employment was in large organisations such as schools, hospitals and the occasional sports facility. He also checked to see if there had been any cases of child disappearances or assaults around the times he worked in those areas. There was only one reported incident involving a child in one town where Bartlett had worked previously. Paul Bartlett's name was not even mentioned in the police report. Despite hours of trawling through records and police reports, they found nothing alarming in his background. Jack, however, was not convinced.

He had witnessed this guy in action, albeit only for a few fleeting seconds, but in that short time he saw how trusting the child was of him. But Jack was more perturbed by the flicker of whatever it was he saw in Bartlett's eyes. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it bothered him. By that stage, it was drawing close to the golden 48-hour window. Jack knew the statistics all too well. If this little girl was found dead because of the FBI's inaction, Jack would never forgive himself. He pushed his team to the brink to find something, anything, that would merit a search warrant. Despite their best efforts, they could find nothing incriminating.

Jack felt hog-tied. A little girl's life was at stake. Against his better judgement, Jack ordered that Paul Bartlett's house be searched the next morning. His team knew that they didn't have probable cause or a warrant, but they had worked with Jack long enough to trust his methods. They arrived out at Bartlett's house within the hour. They knocked and as soon as he opened the door, they barged right in, Martin and Danny subduing Bartlett, who was, by then, livid. He hurled abuse and protested his innocence as he watched the agents search his home, rifling through his personal possessions. He screamed that they had no warrant and that were infringing on his civil liberty and made no bones about his intention to sue.

After searching for over an hour, much to everyone's frustration, they turned up nothing. It galled him, but Jack had no choice but to walk away. He resisted his primitive urge to take Bartlett by the neck and to throttle the missing girl's whereabouts out of him. Maybe if his team hadn't been there, he would have, but he had already taken too much of a liberty and knew that by doing so he had jeopardized any chance of a case against this guy going to trial. But he didn't care. His priority was to find the child alive. Others could worry about the justice end of things. He stormed out of the house, incensed and frustrated, leaving Samantha and Vivian to question an unco-operative Bartlett.

Paul Bartlett sat on the sofa in his living room, looking pleased with himself. He was less than helpful, making the occasional lewd comment to Samantha and leering at her. He disgusted her and Sam was starting to get a sense of what Jack was feeling towards him. Eventually the team left the house, no further on in their case than they were when they arrived. Bartlett stood at the front door and watched as they drove away. Jack felt sick when he saw the smug look of satisfaction on Bartlett's face as they drove past. It only added fuel to the gnawing feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

By the time they returned to the office, Alex Olzcyk was waiting, pacing around Jack's office. He didn't look very happy. He ordered Jack to close the door as he entered. Once the door was closed, Olzcyk let fly, furiously berating Jack. He had just received a call from a lawyer representing Paul Bartlett, who told him that his client would be pressing charges for harassment if the FBI approached him again without a warrant.

"What the hell are you playing at, Jack?" he yelled. "If one of your agents entered a premises without a warrant, you'd suspend him. You have a short memory," he said, reminding him of how the prosecution of Graham Spaulding had collapsed because of a similar lapse in judgement. He ordered Jack to stay away from Paul Bartlett unless he had hard, irrefutable evidence that he was somehow involved in the case.

"Amy Nolan is still alive. I just know she is and if bending a few rules helps me get her back to her parents, then I'll bend them," Jack responded boldly.

"No you won't. I know you, Jack Malone. You'll break 'em all, but at what cost?" Olzcyk asked.

Jack did his best to explain to Olzcyk his theory about Bartlett, but Alex was having none of it.

"She's nine years old!" Jack reminded him.

"Play by the rules, Jack, or I'll have no problem taking you off the case," Olzcyk warned. "I mean it, Jack."

Jack glared at Olzcyk but somehow managed to hold his tongue for fear of saying something that he might regret later.

"And stay away from Bartlett!" Olzcyk shouted back as he left the office.

Jack remained silent, deliberately not agreeing or disagreeing to do so. Olzcyk turned away, still fuming with rage as he stormed down the corridor towards the elevator. Samantha was in the bullpen when she noticed Alex stomping out of Jack's office. He was obviously not in a good mood and Sam already suspected she knew why. She couldn't help herself. She had to see if Jack was okay. She knew how hard he took cases like these. She was sure he hadn't slept in days, the bags under his eyes and the stubble on his chin testament to that. She couldn't help herself. Once she was sure Olzcyk was gone, she headed for Jack's office.

She looked through the glass door as she prepared to knock. Jack was sitting behind his desk, holding his head in his hands, looking exhausted and discouraged. As soon as she knocked, he straightened up and waved her in.

"Hey," she said familiarly as she entered.

"Hey yourself," Jack replied. "Anything?"

Sam shook her head.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, taking the seat in front of him. "It's just…well…I saw Olzcyk leaving."

"Oh, he looked that mad, eh?" Jack asked with a grin.

"You could say that," Sam replied, returning his smile.

"Well, I kinda ticked him off with that unauthorised search of Bartlett's place," Jack admitted as he ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I don't doubt it," Sam replied. She looked at Jack with concern etched across her face. "Jack, you really need to get some sleep. Why don't you go home for a few hours, get some rest, maybe a shower? You can't think straight when you're exhausted. I'll call you if we get anything," Sam promised.

Jack looked at her, eyebrows raised at her audacity but touched by her concern. He realised that he must look pretty shocking for Sam to come in to his office and say it. If he were being honest, he would have admitted how tired he actually felt. His head was pounding and even his vision was starting to blur every now and again.

"Okay, I'll grab a few hours here on the couch," Jack said relenting somewhat.

"Fine, but I'll be standing at the door, making sure that no one disturbs you," Sam said seriously, knowing how much of an achievement it was just to get him to rest.

Jack laughed as he stood up and removed his suit jacket. He loosened his tie and opened up the top two buttons of his shirt, all the while trudging to the sofa. He emitted a worn out groan as he collapsed onto the sofa. He fluffed one pillow before swinging his legs up onto the leather couch.

"Good, now close your eyes and sleep. I'll wake you in a few hours," Sam promised as she closed the blinds around the office before leaving.

Jack lay on his back, one hand behind his head, staring at the ceiling. The events of the last 72 hours were milling around his head. Soon his body's primitive need for sleep took over and before long he was sound asleep.

TBC

A/N - It gets more interesting, I promise. Reviews always appreciated!