"You said two days," Santini said for the third, or eighth or perhaps the twentieth time. Hawke had lost count and as Santini was pacing, he might have said it to the walls of the cell they shared without Hawke hearing or while Hawke was asleep.

"Yeah."

"Tell me why we agreed to do this again."

Hawke sighed. "We cooperate, Archangel's people get us out after a few days, long enough to make it look real. We don't cooperate, they arrest us anyway and we can rot in here for all they care."

"We should've just stayed at the Lair. They would've had to find us first."

"And it helps the Firm find the bastards who shot down Archangel's helicopter."

At least they were sharing a cell. After their arrest on Thursday, they'd been separated, as if the FBI thought they'd get a different story that way. Two nights in a cell by himself was anything but a hardship for Hawke but he was sure Dominic had been lonely. He wasn't sure if the Feds had changed tactics or why, but after the previous day's questioning, Hawke had been led back to Santini's cell, much to the old man's delight.

"It's Sunday if you hadn't noticed," Santini grumbled. "Thursday night they arrested us, and it's Sunday. That's a lot more than two days."

The bunks were almost comfortable, though the mattresses were thinner than most and the pillows nothing but a narrow slice of cushion, but they were clean and better than a lot of places Hawke had slept. And they were a lot more comfortable than sitting in the hard plastic chairs enduring question after question from FBI Agents and a number of people in dark suits who didn't identify themselves. Hawke sighed and shifted position on his bunk. He wished Dominic would settle down and put his feet up.

"Guess they didn't catch their prey yet," Hawke said, tamping down on his own impatience. Fishing taught a man patience. Stillness and patience were what the fisherman brought to the hunt, along with the right bait. The Firm had the bait; it remained to be seen if they had the patience to wait out their prey.

"Maybe we should call a lawyer," Santini suggested for at least the tenth time.

"On a Sunday."

"Yeah, on a Sunday! You think Sam Hobbes don't work Sundays?"

"He might, but I doubt he works Federal court," Hawke snorted. "This is a bit more than a speeding ticket."

"Yeah," Santini admitted with a heavy sigh. He sat, finally, on the bunk across from Hawke's, scratching his head. "How come you think Marella's not running things? I thought she was Archangel's number two."

Hawke turned his head towards Santini, frowned. "I don't know, Dom. Could be that she's the wrong level in the bureaucracy to officially be an Acting Deputy Director." He shrugged. "I think it's one thing to leave her in charge when it's short term, but this isn't short term."

Santini's paw of a hand covered the bottom of his face as he rubbed his mouth, hiding an expression Hawke could see anyway. "You think… you don't think Archangel… you said Zeus told you…"

Hawke sat up and swung his feet to the floor, sorting through what he'd been told and what he'd seen. "I think if he pulls through he's going to be out of commission for a long time and I think Zeus knew that when he picked Laban."

A reverberating clang of metal on metal echoed from somewhere down the hallway; Hawke sighed and muttered, "Here they come again."

"Maybe it's not for us this time," Santini suggested hopefully. "Maybe they're just bringing someone else in or out."

Hawke just looked at him.

"Okay, okay," Santini said with a smile, holding up his hands. "A man can dream, can't he?"

"You need a better setting for those dreams, Dom," Hawke said with a small smile.

The number of footfalls told him it was a small crowd coming down the hallway, which was a change from the single guard. Hawke stood and stretched, arms straight over his head, and then tilted his head side to side to work out the kinks. The first interrogation team had handcuffed him to the chair, the second team had removed the handcuffs, the third team had provided better than average coffee. It was like something out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Hawke kept his smile inside; Caitlin would never believe he'd come up with that analogy.

The parade stopped in front of their cell and Hawke shot Santini an "I told you so" glance that bounced off the other man. Hawke studied his visitors: the guard who had brought breakfast; Special Agent Hammond, looking decidedly irritated; and an older women, maybe Dominic's age, and less fortunately, his build, whose eyes raked them assessingly through silver rimmed eyeglasses.

"I want to call my lawyer," Santini said loudly, standing and folding his arms across his chest defiantly.

"No need for that Mr. Santini," the woman said in a gravelly voice. "Your attorney has arrived." She glanced at their jumpsuits with distaste and then turned to Hammond. "I'd like to speak privately with my clients while you have someone retrieve their clothing and personal possessions and start the out-processing."

Hawke looked at Santini, who was blinking his surprise, mouth slightly open as if stunned into silence. The guard unlocked the cell door and swung it open; the woman entered and then turned to Hammond. "I did say privately, did I not?"

Hammond mumbled something and then turned away, trailed by the guard. The female force of nature turned her attention on her very surprised clients. A hand shot out from the end of a gray worsted sleeve, which was attached to a gray worsted suit jacket, which matched her gray worsted skirt. Even the best of tailoring failed to make her look unlike a small gray tank.

"Gentlemen, my name is Agnes Dudley and I've been hired to represent you."

Hawke met her hand, a firm handshake, confident but not challenging. "Lady, I don't know you from Adam, but I admire anyone who marches in here and stirs things up like you have."

Santini shook her hand eagerly. "You said out-processing. That means you're getting us out of here?"

She smiled. "Yes, Mr. Santini. You and Mr. Hawke will be released shortly. I'm afraid there is a bit of paperwork to be performed but you should be out of here by lunchtime." A sharp gaze scanned them, noted the absence of wristwatches. "It's approximately 10:30 AM right now. The out-processing will probably take an hour. Questions?"

"Yes," Hawke said immediately. "Who hired you?"

"Let's just say that you gentleman have a guardian angel, shall we?" Ms. Dudley said with a conspiratorial smile.

Hawke exchanged a look with Santini.

"Then what took so long?" Santini demanded. "We were supposed to be here for two days only."

"That," she said, " is something for you to discuss with the person who hired me. Over lunch, if all goes as expected."

She looked around, and Santini conscious of his manners gestured to his bunk. "Would you like to have a seat?"

She sat and looked at Hawke expectantly.

"How'd you get us out on a Sunday?" he asked, sitting on his own bunk with a sigh. "I figured we were here through tomorrow for sure. Aren't the courts closed?"

"It's all in who you know, Mr. Hawke. It took a little time to have the arrest warrant thrown out by a judge, I grant you, and there was an obstacle that my client will discuss with you at lunch…"

"I thought we were your clients," Hawke interrupted.

Dudley smiled. "I mean the client paying the bills, as opposed to the ones I represent. That particular client would prefer to remain anonymous to law enforcement and other government agencies. I expect you will understand why."

"Uh-huh," Hawke said. "When did she hire you?"

"Thursday evening, or perhaps night, depending upon where you draw the distinction."

Hawke noted without surprise that she hadn't corrected his choice of pronoun.

"It took you three days to get us out?" Santini said suspiciously.

Dudley shook her head. "It took me less than a day, Mr. Santini. My instructions were to act as your attorney if you had not been released from custody by noon Saturday. Yesterday. My client," she smiled, "the paying one, apparently anticipated that there might be an obstacle to your timely release, correctly as it turned out."

"I think I know the name of that obstacle," Hawke growled.

"I imagine that you do."

They sat for a few moments in silence, Hawke brooding upon the double-dealings within the Firm, and simultaneously grateful for Marella's contingency planning.

"You had the warrants thrown out?" Hawke said finally. "What's stopping them from just getting a new warrant?"

"A distinct lack of evidence," Dudley said, looking a bit smug. "It's obvious that whomever wanted you arrested hand-picked the judge who signed the original warrant, and applied considerable political pressure to get it signed. The Ninth Circuit isn't that large, gentlemen. I doubt any judge in it will grant a warrant after Judge Tepper tossed this one out."

Hawke leaned forward. "Who are you, lady?" he asked, impressed despite himself.

"I'm your attorney, Agnes Dudley," the small gray tank answered with an impish grin.

Twenty minutes for their clothing, another fifty minutes for Ms. Dudley to badger the paperwork through and Hawke and Santini were free men, standing at the top of a daunting set of marble steps, belatedly remembering they hadn't arranged a ride home.

"Guess we could call a cab," Santini suggested without enthusiasm.

"You've already done so," said their lawyer, coming up behind them. "That cab waiting at the base of the stairs is yours and the fare has already been paid."

"You've got everything covered," said Hawke, half-impressed, half-suspicious.

"I think you'll find that I've played my part already," Dudley said. "The rest is out of my hands."

"Great," Santini groused.

"I have a feeling that this is more of Ms. Dudley's paying client remaining anonymous," Hawke said, and then turned to her and held out his hand. "You've restored my faith in the legal system, Ms. Dudley, and that was no small job. Thanks."

She shook his hand firmly, and then Santini's. "Stay out of trouble, please. Your friends have only so much pull."

Watching as she strode down the steps, Santini looked hurt. "I thought she liked us."

Hawke shook his head and tugged Santini down to the cab, peered in the window at the driver. "You waiting for us?"

The driver tore his attention away from the newspaper he was reading and sized up Hawke. "Yeah, I'm your ride. Hop in." He tossed the newspaper on the passenger seat and started the engine as Hawke and Santini climbed into the back.

"You know where you're going or you need directions to the airfield?"

The cabbie's backward glance was to check the traffic and he spared Hawke only a brief look. "I got directions, but it's not the airfield. Don't worry. It's where most guys go when they get out of jail." He pulled out of the parking space and smoothly into traffic that was surprisingly heavy for a Sunday around noon.

Hawke exchanged a glance with Santini and shrugged. "We don't like it, we can leave," he said quietly.

The driver took them away from the courts, out of the business district and into an area where the businesses were one or two story buildings. Hawke wasn't all that surprised when they pulled up in front of a bar.

"Smithy's?" Dominic asked.

It had a settled-in look as if it had been in place, unchanged, for a long time. Hawke scanned the parking lot. The cars were a mixed bag, mostly sedans and more than a few station wagons, with a few old junkers thrown in the mix. A neighborhood place, he decided.

"Here," the cabbie said, extending his hand over the front seat. "I'm supposed to give you this."

Hawke waited to open the sealed envelope until the cabbie had pulled away and he and Santini were on their way into the establishment.

"Says we're supposed to go in, head towards the men's room. There's a back door near the kitchen."

"A little too much cloak and dagger for me," Santini complained.

"Yeah."

Hawke walked into the bar, into a wall of cigarette smoke, the blare of televisions turned up too loud and yet still drowned out by the roar of conversation at the bar and at the tables to the left. He winced and pushed through the crowd, waving off the hostess with a promise that they were headed to the bar and by the way, where's the men's room? The small hallway at the back ran along the kitchen wall, the noise and heat seeped through the flimsy paneling, and it was a relief to push open the back door and emerge into air that was only soured by the trash bins.

A late model red sedan with sporty lines sat just at the end of the alley. Hawke climbed in the front passenger seat, ignoring Santini's protests about the back seat and eyed their driver.

"This," he nodded towards the bar, "really necessary?"

"Zeus is looking for you," Marella said as she shifted into first gear and exited the parking lot. "Actually, he's looking for Airwolf but he was counting on you being in a secure place while he does."

"And you don't want him knowing you had anything to do with getting us released."

"It would be a career limiting move," she agreed with a grimace.

Hawke stretched out. The inside of the car was more spacious than it appeared from the exterior and it was a lot nicer than anything he drove.

"Thanks for siccing that bulldog on the Feds for us," Santini said, leaning on the back of Hawke's seat.

Marella laughed. "Only you'd call retired Federal Judge a bulldog."

"Judge?" Hawke and Santini said simultaneously.

"She's a retired Federal Circuit Court Judge. Handled a lot of high profile cases. She retired about five years ago, got bored and started up private practice again three years ago. Judge Dudley's selective about her cases. She doesn't have to take everything that comes in the door."

"Uh-huh," Hawke said with a glance towards Santini in the back seat. "How'd you get her to take us on?"

Santini was looking around the inside of the car, fingering the leather upholstery, making approving faces.

"She owes Archangel a favor," Marella replied with a small smile, eyes never straying from the road.

"Speaking of which…" Santini piped up.

Hawke saw the smile vanish instantly; her knuckles tighten on the steering wheel.

"He's still in critical condition," Marella said with what sounded like a practiced absence of emotion. "We're transporting him to our clinic today."

"He strong enough for that?" Hawke asked, doubt evident in his voice.

"Zeus's orders. He is concerned that Archangel is vulnerable at the hospital and he's right. We can't protect him there."

"He need protection?" Santini asked.

"Something happened," Hawke said flatly.

"An intruder in ICU. An intruder that ran like hell when our security tried to stop him but dropped a syringe full of morphine."

"You think he was after Michael?"

"No idea, but we're not taking the chance." She bit her lip, downshifting and concentrating on the traffic. "He's a little stronger. They're weaning him off the ventilator."

"How come he wasn't taken there in the first place?"

"The paramedics made the call. UCLA is a Level One Trauma Center. They have specialists and treatment options that we just can't match and we're not too proud to go to the experts when we need them."

Hawke raised an eyebrow at her defensiveness and then considered whether she was really defending the clinic. It was clear they'd touched a nerve that was already strained. He arched back against the lumbar support in the front passenger seat. "Nice car. You allowed to drive something that isn't white?"

"Our personal vehicles are whatever we want them to be."

"Red suits you," Hawke said, pleased at the half-smile he elicited. "Our lawyer said something about lunch? And you answering a lot of questions?"

"Five minutes. Steaks at Roydon's and I'll answer all of the questions that I can." She spared a glance in Hawke's direction. "Roydon's has an excellent mahi-mahi."

"Now you're talking," Santini beamed.

"That's dolphin, Dom," Hawke said, not bothering to hide his amusement at Santini's stricken expression.

"Not like Flipper," Marella said. "It's dolphin fish, dorado, not porpoise."

"Right," Santini said doubtfully. "The steaks are steak, aren't they?"

"USDA Prime," Marella said cheerfully.

The red car darted quickly through traffic without drawing undue attention but Hawke noticed Marella checking her rear view mirror more than necessary for normal driving.

"We have a tail?"

She shook her head. "Just making sure."

Hawke saw Royden's Steak House on the right and opened his mouth in surprise when Marella passed it by without even slowing. She flipped on the directional and he held his tongue. Taking the second right after the restaurant, she backtracked several blocks and pulled into the rear parking lot of the restaurant, tucking her car between a Cadillac and Crown Vic, both of which dwarfed her little foreign sedan.

"I'm starting to feel like you don't want to be seen with us in public," Hawke said, letting humor twist his lips enough to soften his words.

"Nothing personal," she said, with a wry smile, "but right this minute, I would rather not be seen with you in public."

They followed her into the back door of the restaurant and directly to a booth, surprisingly not in the back, but tucked in a corner with good sightlines. It was clear she'd been there before or had scoped the restaurant beforehand. Food ordered, drink in hands, Hawke leaned back and scanned the restaurant. The bulk of the patrons had been seated in the front and their corner booth was not aligned in a row with other booths. They probably had a ten-foot buffer zone between them and anyone else. Archangel and Marella rarely used tradecraft around them but Hawke conceded, without much surprise, that they probably knew what they were doing.

Marella gave a tight smile. "The food's ordered. Time for the Q&A portion."

"How about a briefing to start?"

She nodded. "Okay." She paused and looked lost for a moment. "God, I don't even know where to start."

"Start with the bogus Airwolf. Who's flying it and why."

She reached for her wine glass and took a small sip. "I don't know who. While Ray Zinn is involved, we don't believe he's flying the helicopter, but the who is directly linked to the why."

"Which is?" Santini demanded.

"Politics," Hawke spat. "To discredit the Firm."

"Not politics," Marella said firmly. "At least not what you think. There are some details I can't share…"

"Can't or won't?"

"Both. Can't because it's a matter of national security and won't because it's a matter of national security, and because I'm neither an idiot nor a traitor."

Hawke set his jaw and gave her a disgruntled look.

"There is an ally of the United States," she said slowly in a low voice, "an ally who shall remain unnamed with whom we have cooperated on a number of operations over the years and with whom we have a policy of sharing some intelligence." Her brow furrowed. "Not raw data, but some analysis and reports."

Hawke nodded and Santini leaned forward.

"It is the Firm's opinion that over the past few years, the national intelligence agency of this particular ally has been penetrated by Soviet Intelligence to the point that it is severely if not completely compromised."

She stopped talking abruptly and leaned back to allow their waiter to place a basket of bread on the table along with their salads. Nodding politely, Marella waited until the waiter had retreated before continuing.

"Our opinion is by no means unanimous among our nation's intelligence agencies, though we have presented hard evidence and are making progress in the re-evaluation of U.S. policies. Our ally," she said carefully, "is aware of our position and is strongly refuting it. It would help their cause considerably if the Firm's reputation was damaged, if we were discredited to the point where our opinions lacked weight." She chewed at her lip before raising eyes back to meet theirs. "Airwolf is the Firm's Achilles heel. Moffett's theft and our inability to recover her is ammunition that can, and we believe is, being used against us."

Hawke devoured his slice of bread and digested the details of her summary. Marella pushed her fork around in her salad, distractedly separating its components into sections but not eating a bit of it.

"You think that Soviet Intelligence and this other intelligence agency mocked-up an Airwolf to make the Firm look bad."

"To discredit us, yes," she agreed. "And it's working. Not only can't we recover Airwolf, but we haven't been able to find and stop this bogus Airwolf."

"They went after Michael on purpose then? It wasn't coincidence."

"In retrospect, we can see why he was a particular target," she said unhappily. "Archangel heads up the Airwolf project. His division produced the evidence that raised the issue about the agency being compromised and he pushed it with the Committee and the NSC. Our inability to protect our own Deputy Director just makes us look even more ineffective than we already did, and it's hell on morale."

"Porca miseria, "Santini said in a low voice.

Hawke raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that blasphemous?"

"No," Santini said, shaking his head with disgust at Hawke's continued illiteracy in Italian. "That's the other one." He waved a hand at Marella to continue. "So this so-called ally of ours sent this fake Airwolf to discredit the Firm. You're trying to find the helicopter and the guys who are flying her. What's that have to do with us going to jail to convince someone that you recovered Airwolf?"

"Your trap work?" Hawke asked.

"Not yet," she confessed. "But I said two days and besides, I think we need you and Airwolf to help track down our bogey. I hope the arrest was enough."

Marella sipped at her wine, Hawke at his beer as the waiter delivered their meals. He winced as Santini cut into his steak, red and bloody.

"I still don't understand," Santini said, waiving a piece of steak on his fork, "what was the point of us sitting in jail."

"Think of it as a two-part operation," Marella said, applying her steak knife with surgical precision to the cut of beef in front of her. "We've suspected for some time that this particular ally, or perhaps the people who'd penetrated that ally's agency, had someone inside the Firm."

"Feeding them information about how the Firm suspected they'd been compromised," Hawke said.

Marella's eyes narrowed and she nodded. "Yes, and the details of our response to their operation they're running against us right now."

"Someone in a position to know what's going on?" Santini said, startled. "Madonne."

"Michael met with the Committee?"

"He was trying to get the Committee not to react to the provocation of this bogus Airwolf. Zeus agreed with his argument, others didn't."

"So they made sure the next incident was something the Firm couldn't ignore," Hawke said, and then rubbed a hand through his hair. He thought of Briggs in Intensive Care. "Christ."

"Now that was blasphemous," Santini chided. "So explain to me why we went to jail."

"To set a trap," Hawke said. "If it was thought that the Firm recovered Airwolf, the bogus Airwolf wouldn't be effective any more."

"Well, in theory," Marella allowed. "The two-part operation was to draw out the inside person using our decoy Airwolf as bait, while at the same time finding and grounding the bogus Airwolf. So far, neither has been successful."

"You should try fishing. Learn some patience," Hawke said.

"You think the person, that spy or whatever inside the Firm is going to try to steal your decoy Airwolf?" Santini asked, confusion all over his face.

"Nothing that complicated. But he or she would want to alert whomever's running them that we'd recovered Airwolf, that their operation had to be retooled, and then we'd identify him or her."

"And you're gonna know that, how?" Hawke asked.

Marella smiled and Hawke concluded that maybe he didn't need to teach her how to hunt or fish.

"That's one of the details that I won't share."

He watched her devour the steak with an eagerness that suggested that she hadn't eaten properly in days. She probably hadn't, he decided. Or slept. At least she had made it home at some point to change clothes at least once since he'd seen her last, though tension was still resident in every muscle of her body. He focused on his sea bass and let her finish her meal.

"You want Airwolf to track down this bogey," Hawke said quietly after setting down his knife and fork and pushing the empty plate away.

"We should've been doing that from the beginning," Santini exclaimed, conveniently forgetting his emphatic declaration that running a business took priority.

"We've got a target area, east of San Diego," Marella said. "We've been running a search in the area since about midnight Thursday, early Friday morning. Joint effort with the Feds and the local Sheriff's department, but no luck. We've got spotters surrounding it. The bogey hasn't left the area. We think it's still in there."

Hawke leaned back, away from the table. "You want us to take Airwolf and search for this bogey with the FBI? Our lawyer got the warrant tossed because of lack of evidence. We show up in Airwolf, that's all the evidence they need."

"Only if they see you, which they won't," she argued. "You use Airwolf's tactical database and sensors to scan for a Bell 222 and notify us when you find it. You never touch down, never get out. The FBI sees Airwolf, but they don't see who's flying her and God knows, they can't catch her."

He regarded her doubtfully. "And Zeus?"

Marella shrugged. "It's our obligation to recover Airwolf, Hawke. You know that. We're always going to try, especially after we've been so badly embarrassed."

"Archangel made me a promise."

"And it almost cost him his life," she snapped, anger failing to hide the sudden sheen of moisture in her eyes. "It still might."

"You going to honor his promise?"

She looked away, and though he couldn't see her face, he could see her swallowing, regaining control.

"I already have," Marella answered, very quietly. "I already am."