Chapter 10

Maddie knew that Sam was in pain after all the activity. God only knows where he left his medications; probably still at the loft. She watched him lying on the bed, trying to get comfortable, but finding no relief. It pained her to see him that way, as much as it hurt not having any contact with Michael's friends for so long. Unable to take much more, she got up and approached his bedside. He rolled to his side facing away from her, but she could tell by the set of his back and shoulders that he was awake. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached out, touching him lightly on the shoulder. "Sam?"

"Yeah, Maddie." He turned, laying on his back and focusing on her with tired, pain filled eyes.

"I have some aspirin in my purse. I'm sorry I don't have anything stronger." She smiled sheepishly.

"Ah, yeah, sure," Sam said, his voice weak. "It's better than nothing."

After Maddie gave him the aspirin and a glass of water to wash it down, Sam flattened himself on the bed again and tried to relax. Jesse sat in a chair near the door keeping his ears tuned to a couple talking. The voices rose in volume and tapered off on their way past the room. Otherwise it was pretty quiet; in a few months, the spring breakers would come and destroy the serenity. The relative peace was an advantage making it easier to detect anything that sounded out of the ordinary.

Night fell and Jesse and Maddie were tired. She was also bored staring at Sam's sleeping form. He seemed too pale, and his skin was a little clammy the last time she checked on him. Otherwise, he seemed to be resting well. She was afraid to put on the television and either wake Sam or mask the sounds that Jesse monitored, so she occupied her mind thinking about the day when Michael would come home and give up this crazy life. If it meant moving away from Miami and finding some sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere, she would gladly give up everything to make the move. She was tired of this, sick of worrying and hurting for Michael and his friends. They all needed a rest.

"Maddie, you should probably get some sleep," Jesse advised.

Maddie woke with a start, realizing that the room was dark except for a single light that hung over the table where Jesse still held his vigil. Somehow, she'd fallen asleep sitting in the uncomfortable wicker chair.

Turning to Jesse, she asked, "Are you okay? You must be tired too."

"In a couple hours I'll wake up Sam and he can take over. He's had about six hours of sleep," Jesse replied and looked at his watch. "It's almost midnight."

"Do you think that those men could have found us yet?" She was tempted to look out through the curtains, but in all the times she got involved in Michael's cases or wound up in trouble because of them, she learned that certain actions could expose them to danger.

"I don't know. We might easily have someone out there watching." Jesse answered and yawned. "In the morning I'll go out and grab us some breakfast, and I'll be watching the area. I know what our guys should look like if these are all Borovsky's team trying to clean house."

"Clean house." Maddie's eyes widened. "You're not saying… you don't think that they've… killed… Michael and Fiona." She swallowed. "Do you?" Silently, she prayed that she'd misinterpreted his statement.

Jesse sighed heavily, and Maddie knew he hadn't intended to let his reservations slip like that. "I don't know, Madeline. I hope not."

"Me too." Maddie stood, and as she slipped past Jesse to go to the bathroom and prepare for bed, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Good night, Jesse."

"Same to you, Maddie."

Maddie finished in the bathroom and lay on the bed closer to the entrance. Sam stirred on the other bed when her mattress creaked, his eyes flying open and his gun in his hand when he perched on the edge of the bed. "Sorry, Sam. It was just me." She pulled the covers up around herself.

Sam calmed his breathing. "Oh, okay." Running his hand through his hair, he asked Jesse, "Are you ready to switch?"

"I was going to let you sleep a little longer."

"No," Sam said as he rose and approached the door. He glanced out the peephole. "Quiet out there."

"Yeah," Jesse answered softly.

"Go on, I've got this. I'm awake now, no way I'll get back to sleep." Sam jerked his head toward the bed. "Go ahead, Jesse. I've got this covered."

Jesse and Maddie settled in to sleep until the sun rose. Meanwhile, Sam listened to the stillness outside. He cracked the window open because he couldn't believe that it really was that dead out there, but other than the hiss of the surf and the low murmur of a car passing, only a few voices drifted up to the second story. Lovers out for an early morning stroll, most likely. It reminded him of the times he captured Elsa, ripped her from her duties and the things that tied her down, and escaped with her to the ocean. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her acting like a kid, splashing him and laughing, her hands scooping up the water and flinging it over her head. The two always wound up soaked and full of sand by the time they were done, but the look of contentment on her face made it all worthwhile. Sadness crashed down on him as he realized he would never see that again. Stop thinking about that, or you'll find himself pouring out a bucket of tears again and this time you've got an audience. That'll never do.

A couple hours later, Jesse awoke with a start. "Hey, what time is it?"

Sam answered, "It's seven thirty. You should grab some more sleep, Jesse."

"Nah, I'm good." He got up and stretched. "I'll go run and get some breakfast from that little cafe just down the street. Be right back."

While he was gone, Maddie awoke with a smile for Sam, and she retreated into the bathroom to put herself together. It wasn't very often that Sam saw her as un-together as she was at that moment, not even during the times he stayed with her when he was in between lady friends. Jesse banged on the door, a plastic bag hanging from his fingers containing a hearty breakfast for three, and a tray holding coffee in large to-go cups. When Maddie emerged from the bathroom looking more like herself, the three sat down to eat.

"I'd really like to know how Borovsky's guys decided we were worth picking on," Jesse said, holding his cup of lukewarm coffee in his hands over a half-eaten breakfast. "It's been going on almost two months and only now they strike at us. It doesn't make sense."

"Jesse, I've been holed up in my house all this time with that thing on my ankle thanks to them. This isn't a new thing," Maddie exclaimed with the memory of that time etched into her scowl. "I wanted to call you, or go see Sam and ask for help, but I couldn't. The phone, the house, everything was bugged and I was booby trapped…." She broke off, losing her composure. She latched onto the arms that Sam put around her as he held her close. Into his chest, she spoke. "You don't know how hard it was to pretend everything was fine when my friends came over."

"And I thought it was bad being stuck in bed for weeks at a time," Sam muttered. "Shh, it's okay, Maddie. That's all over with, and we'll find out who's responsible for this. No doubt when we uncover them, we'll discover where Mike and Fi are." At least, that's what he hoped.

When Maddie recovered, Sam let her go. She sat straight in her chair and peered through the chink in the curtains. While he and Jesse discussed the situation, she remained silent.

"Let's take a few steps back here," Sam said, picking up his fork and stabbing a piece of sausage that he waved in the air as he spoke. "Borovsky was killed in Odessa. Diana and her partner Ray were responsible for that. Hmm, I think I should write this down." Sam dropped the utensil, rose, and walked the few steps to the desk without assistance, returning with a pad of paper and pen bearing the motel's logo. "Okay, Borovsky's dead. Diana's partner Ray dies in the gunfight that killed Borovsky, and she winds up getting burned because of what happened."

"That's crazy," Maddie interrupted, looking at Sam with disbelief in her expression.

"I know. But Card was her supervisor. There must have been some kind of connection between Borovsky, Anson, and Card. Diana took out one of the trio, Mike wouldn't play with Anson, so there's a lot of desire for revenge there from Card's point of view." He let out a breath. "Maybe Card wants everyone involved to suffer, and he's getting desperate."

"But isn't he in government custody," Maddie asked.

"Yes, he is, but Card is smart," Jesse replied. "He might have someone working for him pulling some strings to get Borovsky's men to try to take us all out."

"And Diana," Sam added.

"Yeah. This whole thing is nuts," Jesse said after a long drawn-out breath. "Sam, how many people are we talking about in Borovsky's crew?"

"Back in Russia, he started with six, other than himself. The big guy died with one of his lower echelon guys. Diana apprehended one, so now we're down to four guys wandering out there somewhere. They're all on the list." Sam pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and held it up for them to see.

Maddie chewed on her bottom lip. "Could they all be guarding Michael and Fiona somewhere?"

"It's possible." Sam leaned over the table and peeked out the gap, scanning the walkway and the street below. People were out and about, but no one Sam recognized. "Nobody looking like surveillance out there. It's a good thing I remember those guys from way back when. Granted, they've changed over the years, but there are things like habits and mannerisms that don't change as radically." He rested against the seat back.

Jesse added, "Not usually."

"Right," Sam answered. Picking at what was left on his plate, he sighed. "I wish Diana hadn't had Georg delivered to the Feds. There's no way we'll have a chance to interrogate him, and if someone in the agency is still cozying up to these guys, he could be a free man by now and back with his buddies." He dropped his fork, pushed away his plate and got up to pace the floor. His legs hurt, but his frustration bothered him more.

"You know you're walking better than you were yesterday," Maddie pointed out to him with an encouraging smile.

"Who knows, maybe forcing myself to run was a good thing," Sam replied, standing in the narrow space between the beds with hands on his hips. He pulled his phone from his pocket, scanned his phone listings, and pressed one. "I've got an idea."

With Jesse and Maddie listening, Sam conducted a conversation in Russian mixed with a smattering of English words. When he finished, he sat on the edge of the bed and told them what he learned. "That was a buddy of mine in Immigration, an ex-Russian national who proved useful to our country, and he defected back in the day. His current job is to help the CIA and other agencies keep tabs on who comes into the country, legally and illegally." He noticed the confused look Maddie gave him. "Believe it or not, Maddie, sometimes the nastiest criminals fly in with a commercial airline and waltz right through security and customs without anyone being the wiser."

"So how does your friend pick them out of the tourists and businesspeople?"

"Oh, he has his ways. Anyway, he was able to tell me when five Russians came to town almost three months ago. Since then, they've traveled to DC and back, but they didn't fly. They rented a car and drove."

"Weird," Jesse said, and his eyes lit up. "You think maybe they were looking for a place to stash Mike and Fi along the way to DC? But why would they want to take them there?"

"Probably an arrangement they had with Card, but now that he's in federal custody, everything's fallen apart. They may not know what they're supposed to do now," Sam said.

"We need to grab one of these guys and interrogate him," Maddie said, getting into the conversation.

"Maddie's right," Jesse said with a sigh of resignation. He glanced at Sam. "Does your friend have a way of tracking their car?"

"He's working on getting clearance to monitor the tracker on the car." He turned to Maddie and explained, "Most rental companies these days have the ability to track their vehicles. Shoot, if the government wanted to, it could monitor everybody and anything as long as they have a chip in them." Sam shook his head, knowing he was getting off track. "Anyway, the point is, once he gets the signature, and we go to the loft to grab Mike's laptop, we can keep an eye on wherever they drive."

"You want to go back to the loft." Maddie inclined her head and looked at Sam as if his spine wasn't the only thing injured in the accident. "It's too dangerous."

"We have to take the chance," Jesse argued. "Without that tracking software, we can't do anything but sit and wait for them to find us and attack again."

"I hate this," Maddie grumbled. "I'm tired of worrying about the people I love dying."

Sam frowned and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Let me call someone and see if they can help." The phone rang a few times, and then Sam spoke. "Oleg. Hello, it's Sam Axe." He listened to Oleg's response, grinned and replied, "We're working on that. That's why I called you. I need some help. We need Mike's laptop, it's on the breakfast bar in the loft. Can you bring it to us? We're at the Breaker Motel."

It was risky giving his location over the phone, but he knew Oleg was a suspicious enough ex-Russian spy who made sure his lines of communication were clean. Sam ended the conversation shortly after getting an answer from Oleg, and as he returned the phone to his pocket, he announced the good news.

"Oleg is going to the loft to get the laptop and he's bringing it here."

"That's great." Jesse smiled. "I can hardly wait to start tracing these guys."

"I don't understand how you two can continue to do this," Maddie muttered, picking up a cigarette. She'd held off up until now, but she was desperate for one. The flame touched the end and she took in a heady drag. "I'm so afraid all this work and trouble will be for nothing, that Michael and Fiona are dead, and…." She couldn't finish.

"Mike and Fi are the reason we're doing this, Maddie," Sam replied. "We're willing to risk everything to get them back alive and in one piece."

"Have a little faith, Maddie." Jesse gave her a reassuring smile. "We know what we're doing. Mike knows how to survive under detention, and I'm sure Fiona is no dummy either. If there's any way, they will survive and we'll find them."