Chapter One.
Jacob had spent five years of his life chasing down Raymond Reddington. The assignment had been handed over to Ressler only a couple years after his graduation from Quantico and they had expected the young agent to fail dismally. Reddington was nicknamed the Concierge of Crime for a reason. He was the best of the best, but Ressler's team had come so damn close so many times. Close enough for Jacob to have caught three rounds to the gut that had sidelined him permanently. He hadn't thought he'd ever get another chance at the man. This was like Christmas.
"How the hell did you catch him?" he asked after a moment, gaze never leaving the screen.
"He turned himself in."
That caught his attention and he whipped around to stare at his friend. Ressler shrugged. "That was my reaction."
"Just turned himself in?"
"Walked into the FBI building and asked to speak to Assistant Director Cooper."
"You know, if he'd done this years ago it would have saved us a lot of trouble."
"No kidding."
"He brought in a briefcase filled with information and aliases," Cooper chimed in. "We haven't received any demands from him yet, but they're bound to come."
"Oh yeah," Jacob agreed, "the bastard is definitely smug enough to waltz into the FBI and think he can run the show." He felt the muscles in his face twitch ever so slightly and he tilted his head to the side, gaze back on the man sitting in a box below them. His expression was unreadable to pretty much anyone looking, he knew, but inside he was swinging wildly between halfway giddy with the turn of events and angry enough to rip him to shreds. It had been a thrill to chase him down over the years. Being involved with Ressler's task force had given him a chance to channel the darker aspects of his personality into a constructive action rather than letting them control him, but now that he was benched he couldn't help but feel a little resentment over it. He wouldn't give his life with Liz up for anything, but he hated the feeling of being idle.
He turned a curious gaze on Ressler. "So are we going to take a couple rounds at him?" he asked quietly so that only the ginger man could hear him.
"We're going to wait to see what Cooper's orders are," Ressler answered and Jacob rolled his eyes a little, receiving an aggravated snort from the older man in return.
"Get the audio up," Cooper barked at his technicians and the sound buzzed loudly, crackling and then finally settling out.
Reddington must have heard it from where he was because he looked up towards the camera. "Evidently someone with the authority to make decisions has arrived. I think I smell the stench of your cologne, Agent Cooper. Smells like hubris."
Ressler shook his head from his place next to Jacob and the taller man crossed his arms over his chest, studying the feeds. There was more to this than met the eye, and both of them knew it. Reddington didn't do anything without a motive, but what could have possibly driven him to turn himself into the FBI was yet to be seen.
Cooper stepped up to the a microphone, his voice steady as if he regularly spoke to high-end criminals such as Reddington. For all Jacob knew, he did. "You turned yourself in."
Reddington smirked from his place in his glass box. "And I'm sure you're curious as to why," he answered. "There's a man that you're not after yet, but you will be. Victor Isaacs is responsible for abductions all over the world. High end, difficult to reach targets are his speciality. You'll find a list of his most well-known victims from the last decade in the briefcase that you confiscated from me. The FBI hasn't linked these cases yet, but I promise you, they were orchestrated by this one man. I want him. Now you will want him. So let's say for the moment that our interests are aligned."
Cooper motioned to one of his agents to find the paper that Reddington had indicated and Jacob shifted his weight. "He's not lying."
"The man is a notorious liar," Cooper countered and Jacob shrugged.
"And I have one hell of a BS meter. Sure, the man lies all the time. He could beat our best lie detector machines if he needed to, but right now, I'm telling you, sir, he's not lying."
Cooper's gaze shifted past him and to Ressler. "I learned a long time ago not to question him on this," Ressler grumbled and Jacob smirked.
"Sir, we're finding connections from this Victor Isaacs to all of these victims here," an agent told him and Jacob's smirk only grew.
The assistant director shook his head a little and Ressler shot him a glare. He schooled his expression as he watched Cooper step back up to the microphone. "You have my attention, Reddington."
"Oh good. That didn't take long. Now, Isaacs is currently working a job that will put a rather prominent politician in jeopardy. I am happy to help you track him down before this happens, but-"
"There are no buts," Cooper snapped.
"Of course there are. You don't get without giving a little, Agent Cooper. I imagine that you've brought in your top men on my case. I'd also imagine Agent Ressler is in the building. Who else? Is the whole team back together? Jonica and Raimo? Tell me, is Phelps still around did that last round finally get to him?"
Jacob stiffened a little where he stood and he could feel eyes on him from around the room.
Reddington chuckled. "I'd like to speak to the lead agent on my case. Until you can provide that, I won't say another word."
Cooper reached over and snapped the communication line off. "Ressler?"
"Yes sir."
"Get down there and get the answers out of him. If he's right about this, we don't have any time to waste."
Ressler gave a sharp nod and glanced over to his friend. "You don't have to-"
"You think I'm going to miss this for anything?" Jacob asked, his smile dark and he ran a hand through his shortly cropped hair.
"Of course you wouldn't," Ressler sighed. Nor would he ask him to was left unsaid, but Jacob caught it loud and clear. He followed the other man back down to where the box sat in the middle of the large opening. He didn't have time to sort through his own feelings on the matter, so he pushed them down, burying them under several layers of calm topped off with confidence. Reddington would push buttons. That was what he was good at. The key was not letting him know if those buttons hit home or not, and Jacob was as good at keeping up a facade as Reddington was at trying to crack it.
Reddington's smile broadened as the two men walked towards the box. "Well, look at this. The gang is back together. All for me?"
"Hardly," Ressler snorted. "We're here, now it's your turn."
The trapped criminal's gaze slid past Ressler and settled on Jacob. "You look much better now, Agent Phelps. A little more colour in your cheeks now that you're not half dead. Tell me, how long was that recovery time? It must have been-"
"Isaacs," Jacob said firmly. "Unless we're wasting our time. In that case we have better things to do."
"A pretty wife at home, so I hear," Reddington murmured and it was everything Jacob could do not to visibly tense at that.
"While your partner's fiance left, yours stayed. Amazing what life decisions can be made in the wake of barely avoided disasters. I do hope it didn't put a rift between the two of you."
"Looks like we're wasting our time," Ressler said, turning his back.
Jacob had barely gotten around to following him when Reddington began chuckling. "Oh, some things never change. That's always good to know. Senator Whyler. That is the next man on Isaac's list. This is my olive branch, gentleman. You may take it or leave it, but I'd suggest that you take it unless you'd prefer to explain to the good senator's widow that you could have stopped his death and didn't."
Neither of them said another word as they walked away, footsteps echoing through the large room as the made their way back up the stairs and into the viewing room. Cooper's attention was on them as soon as they entered, but it lingered on Jacob. The younger man knew why, but he brushed past it. "I assume I'm here for my opinion on this. This is it: if we pull Whyler out of Isaacs' reach he'll know we were tipped off. We'll lose him. We need to be ready to take Isaacs down as soon as he makes his move."
"Use the senator as bait?" Cooper asked, his tone sounding like he was trying to decide if Jacob was serious or not.
"We'll be in close enough, but yeah, if we want to bring this guy in. Otherwise we just save one life. Okay, but there'll be others."
"I'll take your advisement into consideration," Cooper said tightly. "We'll take it from here."
"I'd like to stay on to see it through, whatever you decide to do."
"You're not cleared for field duty."
"So what? I'll hang back when the others go in. Put me in a car for all I care."
Cooper straightened his back a little, standing a couple inches taller than Jacob, but the younger man had no problem holding his head high as he waited. "Fine. You're with Agent Ressler, but you are not to engage, is that understood?"
"Yes sir."
As soon as Cooper turned, Ressler sighed. "Now your wife is going to kill me."
"This is a mistake."
Ressler glanced over at Jacob in the passenger seat of the FBI issued SUV, long legs bent at the knee and the heels of his boots wearing against the leather of the seat itself. "Scuffing the seats? Yeah. It is. What are you, twelve?"
Jacob snorted and let his feet fall heavily to the floor, still slumped in the seat. "Reddington wants something. I'm just not sure what yet."
"Isaacs."
"Yeah, well, it's got to be more than that. We chased the man for years and it's not like he ever just gave up. There's more to this."
Ressler sighed, gaze drifting out over the undercover agents ready for anything to go wrong. Cooper had decided to play it safe and escort the senator to safety. Jacob had grumbled about it, but that hasn't been a surprise. They'd worked on enough assignments together that the older man was used to it. "So you think giving Reddington a chance to get ahold of the senator would have been the right play?"
His former partner perked. "I don't think Whyler is the one Reddington's after."
"So you do think he's after Isaacs?" He'd forgotten just how difficult it could be to get a straight answer from him. He was never sure if it was because the younger man got lost in his own thoughts or if he tried to be difficult. It really could have been either one.
"Just don't know why. That's what I don't trust."
Ressler couldn't say he disagreed. The whole thing felt like a trap to him. After twenty years of evading authorities Reddington shows up on their doorstep? No, it didn't set well with him either. Neither did letting a senator get abducted and killed. He didn't have to trust Reddington to accept the intel.
"And there goes our chance of catching the guy," Jacob huffed as they escorted the intended victim out the side door. His dark blue gaze shifted over to Ressler. "You should be in there. I don't need a babysitter."
The older man shrugged. "It's fine."
A smirk tilted Jacob's lips. "You're not looking for the senator."
Ressler didn't dignify it with an answer, but instead his attention swayed to movement along the backend of the building. He heard Jacob shift in his seat. "I'll take the south end-"
"No, you'll stay in the car," Ressler cut him off. "That was the deal."
Jacob sat back hard, an irritated expression plastered across his face.
Ressler shook his head. "You're the one that chose to take a desk job and didn't try for active field duty again."
"Not getting shot at for a while seemed like a decent life choice," he grumbled.
"Still might be. You'll stay, right?"
"I'll stay," the younger man grumbled, but Ressler had known him long enough not to trust him on it. Jacob could lie with the best of him when it suited him, and Ressler had watched him twist people around until they were questioning themselves rather than him. it had made him damn useful in the field when they had needed to go undercover. It also made him a pain in the ass because, no matter how loyal he could be if he deemed a person worthy of it, he picked and chose what he considered necessary truths. It drove Ressler up the wall.
"Just stay put," he growled as he slipped out of the vehicle. He risked one glance back in warning before taking off after Isaacs who had already circled around, just barely out of sight. He rounded the corner after him only to have to duck back, bullets flying in his direction and Ressler let out a low curse. He pressed his back up against the building, waiting and timing it before returning fire.
He waited a moment, listening carefully. He heard gunshots, but they weren't coming in his direction. After a beat he risked a look around the corner to see an irritatingly familiar figure walking towards the writhing figure on the ground who was clutching at his bleeding leg. Ressler snorted as he started forward towards Jacob, noting the frown on his former partner's face. As he closed the gap, he saw why. The man that had been shooting at them looked like Isaacs from a distance, but up close it was clear he was a decoy. Ressler turned his gaze on Jacob. "You were supposed to wait in the car."
"Excuse me for saving your life, and look. This guy's still conscious. I count this as a win." Jacob crouched down and his lips tilted in a smile that had always made Ressler a little nervous. "So our new friend here can tell us where Isaacs really went."
"Man, you're going to get us all killed," their bleeding captive hissed.
"As opposed to just the two of us?" Jacob growled back. "I doubt Isaacs paid you enough to deal with the fallout of trying to kill a couple of feds."
There was something in the decoy's gaze that was making Ressler uncomfortable. He'd pulled his phone out to call for a medical team to come around when the man choked out something about a bomb. Jacob's gaze jerked up to meet Ressler's and took hold of the man's collar to haul him up as Ressler barked a warning into the phone to clear the building.
The explosion picked them up off their feet and carried them through the air. Ressler hit hard against the pavement of the empty lot next to the building. His ears were ringing and he blinked hard to clear his head, finding blood trailing close to his eye from a cut. He reached up and wiped at it, trying to gauge the damage done.
Jacob was sitting up slowly, looking mostly intact, but Victor Isaacs' decoy lay still, facedown on the pavement. Ressler shook his head, instantly regretting the movement.
"You okay?" He looked over, finding Jacob rocked forward so that his elbows were braced against his bent knees, expression bordering on worried.
"Yeah. You?"
The younger man gave a short nod, rolling to his feet. They didn't speak as they hauled the unconscious man up between them and started around towards where help would be. This was a mess.
They rounded the corner to see people scurrying in all directions. Medical teams and security details were all over the place, pulling people out of the damaged building and helping those that were injured. The SUV that they'd come had been caught in the blast, the windows blown out and part of the inside looked like it was in the process of catching fire.
"Really glad I didn't wait in the car," Jacob quipped from the side and Ressler rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long day.
The fallout was tremendous. They had gotten the senator out, but the casualty rate was still climbing after the explosion. After getting checked out by medical and cleared, Jacob was sure the only reason he hadn't received the lecture of a lifetime was because Cooper was too busy with damage control to care.
Reddington, of course, denied any knowledge of the bomb. Questioning him was only sparking Jacob's temper, and after a few minutes he had to take a walk before he broke the obnoxious man's jaw. He kept telling them that they were looking at it all wrong, lecturing them like they were school children.
"You look like you need a breather," Ressler said from where he was standing in the doorway.
Jacob had found an office where he could pour over files, trying to find something they hadn't thought of yet. They needed an in that Reddington didn't provide. There was no way they could trust him after this.
"Jake?"
"Yeah?" he answered automatically, realizing he hadn't answered the first statement. "Yeah. Breather might be good. I barely had time to call Liz and let her know that it's a takeout sort of night."
"Bet she loved that."
Jacob shrugged. "I'm just hoping I don't end up on the couch tonight when she sees the evidence I can't hide," he grumbled, motioning to his bruised face and the medical tape that was holding a gash along his cheekbone together.
"Good to have someone that cares," Ressler said, his voice a little regretful.
"Yeah," Jacob agreed softly and stood. "I'm going to go grab dinner with her, shower, and I'll call you to see where we stand."
"Jake, this was just a consult. You don't have to-"
"I'm in now, Ress. You can't just pull me off it now." He paused, tilting his head and studying the other man. "Listen, I know I'm supposed to be out of the field, and I know I didn't exactly live by that today-"
"If you had you'd have been dead," Ressler said gruffly, pulling the first real smile from Jacob in hours.
"Did the perfect Boy Scout just admit that bending the rules can get you somewhere?"
"Don't put words in my mouth, Phelps," Ressler grumbled, a hint of a smile just barely visible. "Go home and see your wife. Just don't you dare put all the blame on me just because I'm not there to defend myself."
Jacob grinned as he stood. "When would I ever do that?"
"Every chance you get. Get out of here."
A chuckle escaped him as he grabbed his coat and eased it on, moving past his old partner. "The day sucked, but it was good working with you again."
"Little more exciting than your desk job?"
"Don't get me started." He stepped out of the office and started towards the lift, a car waiting for him so that he could easily get back when he was done. That was it, though, he promised himself. They had Reddington. He wasn't going anywhere. The job would finally be done and he would actually have a part in its ending. It was satisfying, but he couldn't let himself get caught up in the rush. He and Liz were building a family and he'd made promises to her he didn't intend to break.
Jacob was still running scenarios in his mind of how to ease the the blow of the conversation they were about to have and assure Liz that this was a one-time deal by the time he'd picked up Chinese and gotten to the front door. He could hear Hudson barking from the side yard and he pushed the inside door open. "Babe, sorry I'm late. It's been…" His voice trailed off as he saw the wreck their home had been left in. Lamps overturn, a chair from the dining room left in pieces, and his heart sank when he saw blood on the corner of the table. Takeout dropped from numb fingers as his wife's name left his lips, shouting it uselessly to the empty home. He rushed to the back door, pulling it open and Hudson came flying in as his cell phone rang loudly in his pocket. No Caller ID showed across the screen and he answered it. "Phelps."
"Agent Phelps, so glad to catch you," came an unfamiliar voice in the other end. "By now I imagine you've gotten home and found what's missing."
"If you hurt her, I swear to you-"
"I want you to call off the search."
"I don't have the authority to do that," he managed.
"Then I would suggest you find someone that does. Your wife's life depends on it, Agent Phelps."
The line went dead in his ear and Jacob felt numbing fear course through him. It was rare, so very rare, that he almost didn't recognize it. Slowly he dialed a different number.
"Nothing's changed in the hour you've been gone," Ressler's snappy voice greeted him.
"He took her, Ress," Jacob breathed. "Isaacs took Liz."
TBC
Notes: The timeline is starting mostly the same on this, with Red showing up in 2013, but because he's not showing up to out Jacob to Liz, things will, of course, be a little bit different and will be differing from the show in many ways because of the change in the dynamics of relationships. I'm about 13.5K into the writing process right now and I can't tell you how excited I am for this. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and if you'd like to see any specific blacklisters. They may or may not be able to be worked in, but I can look :)
Next time - Elizabeth Phelps is held captive and Raymond Reddington may be the FBI's best lead.
