A/N: Thank you so much for all the kind words and reviews. I really appreciate all your enthusiasm. You guys are the best

Please note: This chapter is unedited, my beta Fredda (Rangegirl1234) was ill and is just catching up, but since I had this written, I wanted to post it.

Things I didn't know, I googled, so if you find obvious errors, they are all mine.

Chapter 10 The abduction

When we got to the restaurant Tank and Lula were already there and had been taken back to the private room to wait for us. They were engaged in a serious lip lock when we walked into the back room and didn't even hear us approach until Ranger cleared his throat, "You need to be more aware of your surroundings, Sherman," and laughed, as they broke apart startled, then Tank spoke somewhat apologetically.

"Good to see you guys," he began, trying to get himself under control. "I was hoping we'd have a chance to talk in person before we left the country and you two went underground. There's a lot of things going on that don't seem to make sense individually and even when I try to put them together I'm still drawing blanks. Our four heads are better than my one, so hopefully by the time we have to leave in the morning we'll have been able to put some two and twos together and have them equal four."

Lula added, "Yeah, and for the next hour or so, I'd like to have my BFF back, and forget that she someone's target." Lula pulled me into a big bear hug. "White girl, how you doing?"

We held each other in the embrace and I whispered. "Lula, I am so glad you and Tank figured it all out. When you guys get back, can we to talk? I'm scared shitless about what's happening with me and Batman."

"The way I figure, it's all cool," she whispered back. "Meant to be."

The waitress came back to take our drink order and Lula and I ordered margaritas, while the guys each had a beer. A little while later our waitress came around again for our dinner choices. Somehow Lula and I got caught up in catching up and I never even opened my menu, so when I did a quick scan to see what I wanted, I realized there were two of everything. Lula and I had been sipping our frozen goodnesses through the little straws and I was well on my way to being sloshed. "Oh shit." And I tapped on Carlos' arm, "Batman, can you order for me, I think I had too much to drink."

"You only had one drink Babe?"

"Yeah, but it was a big one, and I didn't have much for lunch."

"I think you should have some of this bread to absorb the alcohol," he said and cut off a big slice from the loaf on the table and gave it to me. "And you should probably eat something with a lot of protein. Do you like fish Babe?"

I made a face that said 'no, no, no' and Carlos got the hint.

"I know you like burgers. This isn't exactly a burger place, but I'll bet they can make you one," he said looking at the waitress, who nodded in reply.

"Can she get some fries too?" I heard him ask.

"Sweet potato or regular?" the waitress droned out boredly.

"Regular," I answered closing my eyes in hopes that the two Lula's sitting across from me would magically turn back into one when I opened them.

That wasn't the case. I noticed that there was a small chaise with a lot of pillows on it in the corner of the room so I went over to it to lay down until out food arrived. "Just ten minutes guys, I can hear everything you say, just want to close my eyes for a few minutes." Or at least until the spinning stops.

"Babe, we can get the food to go if you'd rather be in your own bed?"

"No, I'm good, really, I can feel the bread working already," and I really could, or at least I thought I could. And in truth, that wasn't my own bed…in fact I'd never even slept in it before, although if it was anything like the bed in his apartment, I'd be in seventh heaven as soon as I got under the covers. But I was still pretty weirded out by all of Batman's confessions, and I wasn't ready to fall asleep alone.

I woke with a start when I head a food cart coming into the back room. Actually I think the smell of my burger and fries was what woke me. I tentatively lifted my head and looked out of one eye. No doubles. So I tried the other eye…thank goodness for small miracles. I got up slowly and walked over to the table.

"How do you feel, Babe?" Carlos asked as he took my hand, kissed it then pulled me to him.

"You know…I think I'm ok, but that burger and fries are definitely calling my name. And a coke, I see you ordered me a coke. I love you Batman!" The three of them laughed out loud at my outburst, but as we all settled down to eat, the room quieted.

Tank spoke first after we all had a few forkfuls of food, "I'm going to lay out what we know right now, if anyone can see a pattern, please jump in." And we all nodded in agreement. "Number one," Tank continued, counting on his fingers, "Ranger and myself are going to be served court martials by the feds, that is if they can find us to serve them to us. To sidestep this, Steph and Santos, and later Steph and Ranger were/are posing as Victor and Jennifer Colón. Number two, Manuel Garcia, an ex Rangeman Miami employee, jumped Ranger, who was posing as Victor Colón at the time, for no apparent reason. Number three, there was another man apprehended at the scene for carrying a gun, but he seemed to check out and was let go. Number four. Garcia was arrested in front of our building in Trenton three weeks ago, we assume he was scoping out the place and maybe checking up on Ranger. Number five; the chauffeur that picked Steph and Santos up at the airport was bogus. Number six, this same bogus chauffeur was spotted at the Ritz where the Colón's were staying...or at least where he thought they were staying, last night. Number seven. Stephanie was texted a picture of her and Ranger embracing on the beach. Sending this picture to Stephanie's phone tells me that whoever sent it knew this was Ranger and Steph, not the Colóns." He paused. "I think that's it for now."

Lula broke in, "The way I see it, we have two, possibly three things going on. The feds are one thing. The ex-Rangeman employee is the other. The person who texted Steph could fit into either bucket, or it could be it's own thing. But all the other points that you just listed Tankie, seem to point to the ex-employee. Has anyone run a check on other exes? Could a couple of them have banded together, to get even, maybe?"

"Good thinking Lula," Ranger, who I knew was not a big Lula fan, broke in and praised her. "I thought the same thing and asked Silvio to check that out. Silvio emailed Santos pictures of all the ex-Rangeman Miami employees, and none of them were the man Steph and Lester saw."

"What about Rangeman Boston, or Rangeman Trenton," she tried again, "did Lester look at pictures of ex-employees from there too? Specially if Garcia was spotted in Trenton, that might be the connection."

"Good point," I interjected and my heart filled with pride for her, she was really thinking on her feet. "Can we get pictures of all ex-Rangeman employees to Les?"

Tank had his phone out, dialing Brown as soon as the last of Lula's question came out of her mouth, and he pulled her in tight and spoke to her while he waited for Bobby to pick up. "Baby, that was good." And I saw Lula beam and then her face changed.

"What if it's not an ex-employee that Garcia has teamed up with? Maybe you should send Lester pictures of all employees," she added to her thought. "Know what I'm sayin'?"

We all nodded, very impressed with Lula's line of thinking. I've always known, but was glad that Carlos and Tank saw, she had much more to offer than people usually gave her credit for. I think Carlos often wondered why the two of us teamed up-the less than competent and the incompetent, and was glad he saw first hand what she could bring to the party.

We finished our meal thinking about Lula's strategy. I couldn't see it being a Trenton employee because not that long ago I went over every single one with a fine tooth comb, and as I had said to Ranger at the time, he had one very well oiled machine there, but I knew little about Miami and even less about Boston.

"If it's Trenton, it's not a current employee," I blurted out. "but it could be an ex...although I've been working with you guys for a while and I haven't seen any turnover...in fact everyone is so loyal, what are your stats on that?"

"Early on we went through a lot of personnel changes. I wasn't sure what kind of person we needed and we hired a number that didn't work out," Ranger interjected. "But once our core team was in place...Tank, Santos, Brown and myself, we started making smart hires, most of those guys are still with us today. The one ex-Trenton person who comes to mind is Donny Pearce. He was a big guy with a lot of anger issues, in a way similar to Garcia. He thought his job allowed him to be an enforcer and we got some bad press from his actions, I think he was the main reason the TPD and Rangeman didn't see eye to eye in the beginning, remember Tank?"

"Yeah, I was thinking of him too, we should have someone run a check on him ASAP."

"I have my laptop back at the house with all my programs on it, I can start the search tonight," I started to say, then realized where I was staying. Carlos' programs probably made mine look like child's play. "Actually, I saw Carlos' office earlier, I bet I could do a more thorough search from there," and I looked to Carlos for affirmation.

"Babe, thanks for offering. I'll take you through what I have and between the two of us we can start running that tonight. Should we order coffee and dessert and then head back to my place?"

Hell with everyone else, I was getting dessert and I knew Lula probably wanted some too, so when the waitress came by to see how we were doing, I asked for the dessert menu. They had a molten chocolate cake on the menu...one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world. I almost asked for a double order, but didn't want Tank to think poorly of me, so I only ordered one. Lula had some raspberry cheesecake thing and the guys had black coffee. God what was wrong with them?

I didn't think I'd make it back to the house without stopping at a ladies room, so I asked Lula if she wanted to join me, just as much to talk as to pee. I thought I caught sight of Ram as we turned the corner, but maybe that was my imagination, what would he be doing here?

"What I tell you girlfriend? Knew Batman would come clean one of these days. What he say got you sittin' there all holding hands and everything?" Lula started in on me.

"I still can't figure everything out, he says we'll talk more after you and Tank leave, but he's told me more than once that he loves me and this afternoon he told me he wanted me to move in with him and that he wanted to spend his life with me. I'm kind of freaking out, Lula."

"But you love him, right? I mean you always used to tell me you loved both of them and now that we know Cop is a scumbag, it all worked is'self out. You look happy, you look like you getting some."

"I don't know about happy, dazed is more like it."

"When Tankie and I get back, we'll talk, but in the meantime don't do anything stupid, you hear me?"

We washed our hands and went back outside to meet the guys and I swear I saw Cal as we rounded the corners. "Lula, is that Cal?" I asked, more to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

"You can't miss Cal girlfriend, wonder how they let him in such a upscale place as this?"

We caught up with the guys out front, Tank and Carlos had already paid the bill and I decided to ask him, point blank. "I swear I just saw Ram and Cal here, are they guarding us or something?"

One word answer, "Babe," and I knew I was right.

We drove back to Carlos' house in our separate cars and after we did the key fob gate thing, I realized that we weren't going into the house the way we had before…we were heading past the house and around the corner to the back. Carlos had never taken me this way before and I was surprised to find a four-car garage on the property. Carlos fobbed it open the same as he did the house and pulled in to the first spot, the second spot was already occupied with a car that looked surprisingly like the Mercedes CL65 we were just driving around Florida. Tank filed into the third spot and we all got out.

"Carlos, is that the car we just left in Opa-Locka? It looks just like it, it even has Florida plates?"

"I had it brought up for you."

"Wasn't that a rental?

"Babe."

"How did it get here so fast? We just got here about 6 hours ago? Doesn't it take something like 24-hours to drive up from Florida? And you know how I am with cars, I do better with used ones."

"Babe." Long pause. "I had it air freighted up, I think it just got here and it is a used car, we drove it through Florida," he grinned, then gave me his 200-watt smile and moved closer to me. "I told you that I wanted to pamper you...this is my first attempt at pampering."

Lula's mouth dropped hearing this, "White girl, you heard what I said before?"

I was as dumb-founded as she was, I didn't know what to say. "Batman can we talk about this later?"

"Sure Babe. I want to show you the gym, I left it off our tour earlier and if I know Tank, he'll want to hit it either tonight or first thing in the morning." With that Batman led us up a flight of stairs, and opened a door over the garage.

I was shocked to see an almost perfect replica of the gym at Haywood, but perhaps with a few less of everything. Then he took my hand and led me to another door, and through a small hallway to an apartment, "And this is where our friends and families can stay when they come to visit, it has two bedrooms, a bath and a half and a full kitchen. And it's very quiet back here, all you can hear are the waves rolling in." Then he smiled that wolf-grin smile of his, "We don't need your granny sneaking in on us when we're making love."

Lula looked at me again, "girlfriend," was all she said, perhaps a little sternly.

It was getting late and I was exhausted from the day. I knew I still had that search to run and as we turned to head back to the main house, I yawned loudly. "Sorry, I think everything is catching up with me. Carlos, can you show me how to use your programs? We can let them run overnight and just print everything out in the morning...Tank, Lula, what time is your flight?"

"We need to be in Monmouth by 11," Tank told us, "if we get up around 7 and check the results of your search, we can let Bobby know what to look for and have a leisurely breakfast. The airport is only about fifteen minutes away, and it's a charter, so even if we're a few minutes late, it's not going to go anywhere."

We went back to our respective rooms; us to change into more comfortable clothes before heading into Carlos' office to find out all we could about Donny Pearce; Tank and Lula to relax in the sitting room for a while. I got all comfy in my cotton boy-short, tank-top pjs and Carlos led me into his office. He closed and locked the door, pulled me to him and kissed me-a lot of tongue this time.

"Batman, we've got some business to take care of first."

"Mmmm, I'm trying, Babe."

"Seriously, Batman," I broke apart, "Let's start this first, I brought my laptop so we can start multiple searches at the same time, then we can play." And I lovingly bit him on his nose.

It didn't take long for Carlos to show me how to use the equipment in his office and how to pull up the information I couldn't get on my limited software, while we ran the obvious stuff on mine.

That in the works, Carlos pulled me to him again, his hands all over me as he kissed me, "Babe, I want to make love to you, over and over again, look what you do to me," he said as his very hard penis poked me in the stomach. "I have fantasies of taking you on this desk, then in front of the fireplace, in my kitchen, the jacuzzi and on my bed." He thoroughly kissed me. "Then we move outside...I want to fuck you in the pool, on the deck, make love to you on the beach, under the stars."

Carlos was whispering all the things he wanted to do to me when there was a knock on the office door. "Ranger, I just spoke with Santos, Manny never arrived."

We broke apart quickly, Ranger adjusted himself then opened the door to let Tank in. "What do we know?"

"He was supposed to have been on a two o'clock flight out of Newark. Santos checked the seated passenger list, he never made that plane."

"Shit, did we check with his girlfriend? Maybe something came up."

"Yeah, I just got off the phone with Mariella, he should've made that flight, he left in plenty of time. Before calling me, Santos had Hal pull up the GPS tracker on his Explorer, it's parked in the short term parking lot at the airport. Something happened between the lot and the terminal. Cal and Ram are still on duty, I sent them over to Newark to poke around. Let's pull up some records from your office, do we know if he had a RFID chip injected under his skin? I have one, you, Santos and Brown do too, I know Cal and Ram and Hal opted for it, but not sure about Manny," Tank was saying as Carlos pulled up Manny Ramos' personal files.

"Looks like he had one implanted in early December but it stopped working a few weeks ago. He hasn't had the faulty one replaced yet, maybe we can jump start it back into working order from Trenton?"

All I heard was 'chip injected under the skin,' and that Carlos, Tank and a few of the other guys had them. The thought was making my skin crawl and my stomach turn and I was getting seriously creeped out...too much information.

Ranger was on the phone with Hector, Rangeman's resident technoid, speaking an excited Spanish a mile a minute. He turned to Tank and Lula, then to me to elaborate, "Babe, Tank, Lula…Hector got a blip, looks like Manny is in one of the warehouses down by the river. We need to send in a few teams, Tank and I can't go, we'd be giving up our cover, but you and Lula can if you want to be part of the action. It's an hour drive from here, Philipe can take you to Haywood if you want to leave now." As much as I wanted to be there when we emancipated Manny, my body was shutting down quickly and I was in serious need of sleep.

"I think there are better people than us to send in," I said hoping Lula would agree and thankfully she nodded in accent.

"As much as I want to be there too, we'd be in the way and maybe give up your cover, Batman," Lula added to my thought.

At this point all I wanted to know was that Manny was safe or would be soon, and then I wanted Carlos' arms around me, his lips warm on my skin and the promise of penetration in my near future. And I bet Lula wanted the same. But with her 'Tankie.'

We all felt we had done the best we could, Carlos and Tank would be on call for the rest of the night should anything unexpected go down and all four of us, as couples, went off to our respective rooms to spend time with our partners.

"Babe," Carlos began, "maybe not tonight because we are too tired, but I promised I'd teach you some things that would make you very happy. I once told Joyce that I would ruin you for all other men and I want to follow through on my promises. Your choice when, but I want to share some things you'd never learn in school, this is a different kind of anatomy lesson."

Now I was really freaked out, what could Batman know that I didn't? I mean after all there are just so many parts down there, right? And adding this to everything else he'd told me over the last few of days I was seriously going to have to hold myself back from bolting. We were clearly in a different league.

I was still giving myself the psychological evaluation, when Carlos came over, put an arm around me kissing my hair, and broke into my train of thought, "Babe, did I upset you? You know I would never hurt you, don't you? Nothing bad, Babe, you have to trust me."

"You know I trust you with my life, Batman, but you're saying things that are scaring me. I don't understand a lot of it, but I do trust you to be honest with me." Then I decided to be flip, "I thought you already ruined me for all other men?"

Batman just shook his head, "Not yet, Babe."

Ok this conversation seemed to be deteriorating quickly, time to change the subject, "Carlos, can we pull up a feed and watch what's going in in Trenton? You mentioned that Hector was going to set it up so we'd be able to see the warehouse in real time."

"Yes, we can pull that up on the laptop or iPad, but I'm not sure it's a good idea just yet. We don't know for sure that they didn't discover the RFID implant and remove it or worse, I'd rather hear that Manny is ok before we start looking at what could be disturbing video."

"I didn't think of that...will they call you when the teams are in place? Are you and Tank going to watch?"

"Let's get some sleep. Tank and I are on call, Hector will let us know when we are needed. I'd like to feel you next to me for the next couple of hours."

Oh shit, I hope this isn't the lesson. "Ok, Batman."

True to his word, Carlos just held me, caressed me and kissed me until I fell into a very pleasant and comfortable sleep. His bed was just what I would have expected it to be...from the pure white, perfectly ironed, Egyptian cotton 1,000-count sheets that made me feel all warm and happy, to the red canopy above casting a soothing effect over everything...and I don't know what kind of mattresses Carlos buys, but I've never slept better than I do in his beds. Mmmm, I'll have to ask.

I woke up alone to the sun just coming up outside. It all came back to me...Manny, Tank and Lula, Carlos' promises...so I got out of bed, put on a robe and padded down the hall to his office to see if I could find out what was going on. Carlos' and Tank's eyes were glued to the computer screen where a streaming video feed was still in progress. I didn't want to just barge in, in case things weren't going well and there was something they didn't want me to see. "Carlos, can I come in? I asked."

"Mmm, Babe," he answered getting up, coming over and kissing me good morning. "It took us all night to get to him, let me bring you up to speed. They must have some pretty sophisticated equipment because they found the chip, cut it out of Manny and left it in the warehouse for us to find. There wasn't a lot of blood...but it was his, so we assumed he was still alive and that they had moved him, probably to throw us off. Zero was able to locate him through a couple of minute drops of blood that he spotted outside another abandoned warehouse about a half mile away. We have men in place now and are ready to take down the kidnappers and get Manny out of there."

"Can I stay and watch?" I tried, hoping he'd let me see Rangeman in action.

"We don't know what to expect, but my men are good at what they do, so this should be fairly routine...pull up a seat."

I saw men in full combat gear outside a warehouse on the video feed. I could make out Bobby and Zero in the foreground. Although we couldn't hear anything only watch what was unfolding, Bobby seemed to be in charge and his hand was in the air. I saw Bobby's hand drop as if in a signal, and the men moved forward rapidly. The place was surrounded and I could see Bobby speaking through a bullhorn. Nothing happened. I saw him bring the bullhorn back to his mouth again and watched the chords of his neck tighten. I could tell he was yelling. He signaled again, two men rushed forward, took out the door and went inside, two other men followed a few feet behind, and two more a few feet behind them. I could see some kind of commotion, but couldn't tell what was happening in the building. My sense of timing was all off, but maybe ten minutes passed before I saw three guys come out...two Rangemen on either side of a man slumped over being almost carried out. I could tell it wasn't Manny. A few minutes passed and another threesome came out of the building, two Rangemen on either side of struggling, slumped over man...not Manny.

I knew six Rangemen went in initially, so that left two still inside. I wanted to ask Carlos what was going on, but he and Tank were too intent on the screen to be disturbed. There seemed to be some more commotion and two new Rangemen went in with a stretcher. A few more minutes passed and the four remaining Rangemen came out with Manny on the stretcher. I couldn't tell if he was dead or alive, but I saw Bobby run up to the stretcher with his medic bag, so I assumed he was alive.

Suddenly the phone in Ranger's office rang and Tank picked it up. "Speak," I heard him say. Tank put the phone on speaker and we heard Cal's voice come over the line.

"We got Ramos out. The kidnappers aren't in great shape, we had to subdue them to get them out of the building, but they'll probably live. I think Ramos was beaten, he's been in and out of consciousness, Bobby is with him now. We called ER, they're on their way. They're going to take him to St. Francis. Tank, have a good trip, we'll be in touch with Ranger as things unfold. Oh, and just so you know, one of them was Donny Pearce." And he disconnected.