Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry everyone for the delay, life is getting in the way! Work, to be more precise. I know, I know…it's a terrible reason!

Dom mopped the sweat from his brow. His fingers were cramping up. He couldn't remember the last time he had sat at the Engineer's Console wearing his belt – the metal buckle was digging painfully into his skin. He wondered if String would notice if he nipped out to his locker and changed into his (beltless) flight suit. Hitting the ENTER key and grunting in satisfaction as the Airwolf computer initiated the search programme he keyed in, he hefted himself out of his chair.

String felt Dom's warm hand clasp his shoulder. "You OK, kid?" a cool bottle of water was proffered over that same shoulder, shaking him out of his reverie.

"Thanks, Dom."

"We'll find some answers soon, I'm sure. Any luck with the report?"

"Some." String spit the word out between tense lips. His rigid spine told Dom that he was worried about their friends. Cait had filed a report for the day she went missing, but through some unknown glitch more than half of it had ended up in gobbledygook. From what String could put together, Cait had two possible suspects – Carter, the primary Research Engineer, and Karakasthi, the computer technician temporarily attached to the division. "Not bad for a day's work," thought String to himself, admiringly. From what he could make out, Cait was thorough, factual and to the point. Raising his voice slightly, he said, "Dom, I can't make anything else out. Can you try and get Dr Hansen on the screen for me? She, or someone who works for her, maybe can try and put it some sort of algorithm decoder if the fault was in the transmission or something…."

"Sure, String. I'll patch her right through."

String could hear Dom working the keyboard and speaking into his headset. Eschewing his normal heavy helmet for the much lighter headset, he adjusted the mike and waited. He didn't have to wait long.

"Hawke?" the tiny screen in front of his flickered to life.

"Hi, Dr Hansen."

"Dom's just transmitting Cait's report now. I'll see what I can do with it, I'm not leaving it to one of my techs," said Dr Hansen in a soothing voice.

"Have you heard anything about Michael, Marella or Cait?"

"Well, as soon as I heard, I went up to Michael's office. One of his aides was there – Bianca, I think it was – I don't know her very well, she's new – and she told me that Marella was taking Michael to his therapy appointment, then to a meeting and they weren't expected back today."

"And?" prodded String as Dr Hansen paused.

"So I called his satellite phone…"

"So did we!" interrupted Dom.

Frowning at Dom, String leaned closer to the screen. "And?"

"It was off."

"Yeah."

"I don't know Michael all that well, but isn't it SOP that satellite phones are on 24-7? And Michael is conscientious to a fault…I can't think of a reason why he would turn his phone off. At the very least he would leave for Marella to answer. I've got a bad feeling about this, Hawke."

"I just wish we had some way of finding out what those guys in the R&D department with the laser are doing right now," grumbled Dom.

String could have sworn he saw Dr Hansen wink.

"You do," she said, with a twinkle. "I dropped in the R&D department on my way back to my lab, and left something that I thought might help."

"What?" growled String. As the words left his mouth, String heard a low hum in his headphones, interspersed with a few words of chatter.

"A transmitting microphone. I've patched it through."

"You're brilliant, Dr Hansen."

"I've also left one on Bianca's desk. Between the two of you, and Airwolf, I'm sure you can monitor them both. Dom, did you manage to get both frequencies? I've sent it to your station."

"Yes, thanks Dr Hansen."

String surreptitiously worked the muscles in his clenched jaw, shoulders and back. He grinned to himself. Finally, they had an advantage.

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