"So do we have any leads yet?" Cat asks avoiding eye contact with me. I knew it would be weird after yesterday. She looks around the room at Beck and Jones.
"Not exactly. We went through the surveillance videos in the warehouse and got a particle look at the guys face. I sent the picture to a buddy of mine and he's working on reconstruction the other half so we can run it through facial recognition. But other than that, we've got nothing." Jones explains.
"Damn it." Cat says quietly, obviously disappointed. Almost on queue Jones's phone rings and he smiles. He picks it up and says, 'Hey man. Got anything?'
Cat looks up at him waiting for him to get an answer. Jones grabs a piece of paper and scribbles down something. He holds it up to show Cat what it says.
Check my email
Cat nods, logs into her computer, and logs into Jones's email. She opens the attachment and saves it to her computer. She drags and drops it into the facile recognition area and it starts to search though the database. She narrows it down to Caucasian men because it was obvious. Hundreds of faces flash across the screen. Still looking down at the computer, Cat raises her eyes to meet mine. We hold that sensual stare for a few moments before we're interrupted by a dinging sound. Cat's eyes shoot back to the computer. She turns it to face us.
"Collin Gray. Age 34. Baseball fan. 6 foot 2 inches. 187 pounds. Resides at 322 West 57nd." She says listing some information.
"Let's give him a visit." Cat says looking over at me and grabbing the keys. I stand up quickly.
The ride over was completely silent. Every once and a while she would look over at me. I would catch her staring and she would turn quickly. It was practically a game of eye tag and it was driving me insane. We pull up outside a small apartment complex, only about 4 stories high with about 8 rooms. Cat and I get out of the car and walk inside towards the front desk.
"Special Agents Valentine and Shapiro, FBI." I say showing the man behind the desk. We're here to see Collin Gray." The desk man looks past us and nods. We turn to see a younger man walking out of the building.
"He was just with him." The desk man says. Cat runs after him.
"Sir. Excuse me. Can we have a minute?" She asks. The man stops and turns to her. She shows him the badge and he chuckles.
"What did I do now?" He smiles sarcastically. "I'm John Harken." He introduces himself. He was a nerdy looking guy, glasses and dark curly hair, kind of like me a few years back.
"We're here to see Collin Gray. The man at the desk said you were just with him?" I say walking up behind Cat.
"Yea I was. What's going on?"
"Why were you up there?" Cat questions.
"We met online. I'm a collector. He said he had some baseball cards from the 30's he wanted to sell and I was interested." He explains.
"Well we know this much, if you had an appointment, Gray's probably in there." Cat nods and we both run up the stairs. Before the door we draw our guns. She looks at me and nods, before I kick in the door.
"FBI! STAY WERE YOU ARE!" Cat shouts as we bust in. The lights were on and the TV was still staticy like it was just on.
There was a loud bang and I race over to the window. A Man in a Yankee's jacket jumps off of a dumpster and onto the ground. "Beck, Jones. He's coming your way..." I say into my radio directly to them. There was some shouting and I could hear Jones say 'FREEZE FBI!'
I tell her walking into the kitchen where she was. There were some baseball cards out on the island, the ones Harken was talking about. Cat flips through the pages, admiring the laminated cards.
"They're in really good condition." She tells me.
"Baseball fan?" I ask her.
"Grew up watching with my dad." Cat says softly. She steps away and around the island and stops dead in her tracks.
My radio makes a noise and I hear Jones over the radio, "Cat, Robbie, get out of there. The suspect just pulled out some sort of device. I think he armed something."
"Come on guys, let's get out of here." Cat says hearing her radio. Everybody starts to scramble out. Cat walks around the island were the baseball cards were.
Click
"Did you hear that?" She says hesitant to move.
"Yes…" I say not moving.
"I think I just stepped on a pressure plate." She says slowly not daring to move. I was standing about 5 feet in front of her just staring.
"I'll call bomb squad." I say quickly pulling out my phone.
"I'm going to need a team to 322 West 57th. My partner and I went to check a lead and the house was rigged. My partner's on a pressure plate." I tell dispatch.
"Hang tight. They'll be there in 5 minutes." The woman on the other end says.
"Thanks."
Cat looks up from her feet and at me. I've never seen someone look the way she did. Her face was as white as a ghost and her hands were trembling. The fear in her eyes made me want to vomit. I take a step forward.
"STOP!" Cat screams at me. "A shift in weight might make it blow. And if not, I'm not taking the chance of you being on it too." She says getting quieter with each word.
I reach for her hand staying about 2 feet away. "You can't move…" I tell her.
"I know." She whispers. I give her hand a squeeze and it stops trembling for a second. She gives me a small smile but I knew she was absolutely terrified.
"Mind over matter… think about it that way." I tell her.
"What do you mean?" She asks.
"The mind of a human is capable of almost anything. It's why we can wake ourselves up when under hypnosis. It's why we can stop ourselves from vomiting when we're nauseous. When you think about something. When you tell yourself nothing's going to happen, it doesn't. It's how we overcome difficult physical situations. Cat, nothing's going to happen. We're going to get though this perfectly fine. After words, I'll take you out for a beer. We'll talk and have fun. Then maybe next weekend I'll take you to a ball game." I try to calm her.
"Robbie… don't… Don't lie to me. What if bomb squad can't do anything… Don't tell me it will be fine, if I'm going to die."
"But you won't." I smile. "I'm not leaving you." I tell her.
"Robbie. You have a family. You have your mom, your dad, and your sister… I'm not going to let you take your life away from them…" She tells me letting go of my hand.
"I don't care." I tell her. "We're going to get through this… together. I promise."
"Robbie. No." She insists. A tall man walks into the room.
"My name's Joe. We've got bomb squad down stairs x-raying the ceiling. Just hand tight for a few more minutes. We're going to get you out of here." The man tells her kindly. He was much better than the man we saw at the warehouse yesterday. He was a dick. "But until then, we ask that all other people vacate the area." He says looking at me. "It's in your best interest."
"No. I'm fine. I'm not leaving. I made a promise." I tell the man who looks a bit concerned but ends up turning around and walking back down the stairs.
"Robbie… Have I ever told you how much I hate you?" She tells me angrily.
"Hate me?" I question. "Are you kidding me? You've loved me since the first day we met!" I give her a look. She chuckles it off.
"No way!" She disagrees.
"Admit it. We've got nothing to hide. No one is up here." I tell her.
"Nope. Not even close Robert Shapiro." She says.
"Come on. The first day we met, I saw the way you looked at me. And since then it's only gotten even sexier." I refused to lose this because we all knew the truth.
"I know what you're doing. You're trying to distract me from the fact that I might explode." She tells.
"What?! No. I'm trying to get you to admit that I'm right. Since the first day you saw me, you've wanted to strip me down." I laugh.
"Ugh. Gross." Was all she had to say.
"What? Is a 6 pack not good enough for you?" I ask her.
She shakes her head. "You don't have a 6 pack." She argues.
"Wanna bet?" I say unbuttoning the button down shirt I had on to reveal a t-shirt underneath. I lift that up to prove her wrong. She looks me up and down.
"Well I stand corrected…" She whispers looking at the toned muscles I had hidden under my shirt.
"Thought so." I laugh. "And what about all the times you flirted with me?" I ask her.
"What? Before or after we agreed no flirting?" She asks.
"So you're admitting you did?" I challenge.
"Never said that." She argues.
"You did too!" I say knowing I'm not only winning this argument, but getting her off the topic of bombs and death. "You know, like during the case with the sewer tunnels used during the prohibition. When we went undercover into the bar. I had told you that you needed to unbotten another button and the way you looked at me when you did it, it left me breathless! I would consider that flirting." I tell her.
"So you're now admitting to me that you have a thing for me?" She questions.
"I think it's quite obvious that I've had a 'thing' for you." I tell her. She nods knowing it's true.
"Well, the FBI has a strict policy against dating co-workers, so it wouldn't have worked." She states.
"Are you saying you would like it to have happened?" I ask.
"No. I'm just saying that if it did, it wouldn't have worked." She explains.
"So you're saying you have a 'thing' for me too?" I ask.
"Oh my god. You just don't stop!" She avoids the topic.
"Why are you avoiding my question?" I say being flirtatious.
"Really Robbie. You're so mature." She chuckles.
"I am very mature for your information. Now answer the question." I say.
She folds her arms and gives me a look. It wasn't the 'shut up your pissing me off' look but more of a 'Seriously? Right now?' kind of look.
"Fine. Don't answer the question. That obviously is a yes." I smile. "Are you hungry?" I ask her.
"Why?" She looks at me confused.
"Because when they come up here and tell us that everything's cool, there's this awesome diner down the street. My treat?" I tell her.
"Well I did miss my breakfast." She accepts. "You know… If I'm stuck here standing on a bomb for hours… I'm kind of glad I'm stuck here with you." She smiles.
"Hey. So we've x-rayed the rest of the floor. There are no other explosives. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Agent Valentine, you're standing on a sensor plate wired to a detonator. Stepping on the sensor plate is kind of like cocking the hammer of a gun. You take the weight off there, it's like pulling the trigger." He imforms her.
"I know. I worked explosives for 2 years back in LA." She sighs but the fear in her eyes grew more and more each second.
"So then you know, it's very important you don't move until we figure out how to disarm it." He tells us. I look back over at Cat. "There's 10 kilograms of RDX, it's an explosive nitroamine used in the military. It's more powerful than TNT and C4. Possibly even combine. We're going send in a camera to see exactly what we're working with.
No one's POV
Victoria Gate, the director of the FBI steps out of her office and rushes over to Jones and Beck.
"What's going on?!" She says.
"Cat's on 10 kilograms of RDX. It's enough to blow the whole building and then some." Jones explains.
"So what's the plan?" Gates asks. They both look at each other and back to her. "Please tell me there's a plan! We're got one of our own agents out there!" She says seriously. Gates was strict and serious. He nick name in the precinct was 'Iron Gates' because she was badass. "What do we have on our suspect?"
"His names Tony Dena. He's 42. It looks like his motive was revenge. A few weeks back NYPD took care of a bombing. Blew up a house downtown. It turns out the woman who was killed, Victoria Domingo, testified against him in his arisen trial 6 years ago. He was supposed to be in prison for 20 years or more but his case got flipped and he got out 14 years early."
"Then why the hell would his booby trap his own apartment?" Gates looked confused.
"He was let out because some evidence looked to be tampered with by police so there was nothing to hold him. The police put him away for 6 years for something he might now have done." Beck explains.
"So a vendetta against cops." Gate looked a bit reassured because they were one step closer to getting Cat out of there.
"Sir, he wanted this to happen." Jones says. When Gates took over as director a few years back, she never wanted to be called ma'am because it made her feel that people though she was less capable than a man. She made everyone since then, call her sir or director. Sir kind of stuck.
"Well we're not gonna let it. You get him in a box. I want to know how to deactivate that bomb. I don't care what you do to get it, this is one of our own we're talking about." She turns and goes back to her office.
Jones and Beck walk towards the interrogation room where Dena was waiting. The second that door was open Jones spits out the first question.
"How do you deactivate it?" He shouts right next to Dena's ear. "I want to know, now." He said quieter which scared the man sitting in the chair.
"Who says it can be deactivated?" Dena comes back sarcastically. Beck takes off his jacket and hands it on the camera the was recording every move. He turns and smiles at Dena.
"Now they can't see anything." Beck says rolling up his sleeves.
Jones grabs his face by the jaw and checks and tightens his grip. "How do you deactivate it?" He asks.
The man shrugs and Jones gets into his face. "You better pray that it can, because the person on that bomb, she's a friend of mine. Do you know what happens when someone I'm close to gets hurt?" Jones whispers into the man's ears.
"She's not going to be a friend of yours for long." He chuckles.
"See but you're going to help us. You know how the bomb was made. The detonator, the fuse, all the little parts. You stop any of those parts from working and the bomb fails. That's how it works." Beck says leaning over the table inches from Dena's face.
"I'm not done yet, none of this is over."
"Then you're going back to jail. And there isn't a prison around thats—" Jones is cut off.
"You want to save your friend? I want a lawyer. Now." He says and refuses to talk anymore.
Robbie's POV
"We're estimating the trigger plate to be about 3 feet by 3 feet." Joe says spray painting a circle around Cat with that width. Cat looks up and stares at the ceiling. "So no one crosses this line." He says.
"So how long is this going to take?" I ask Joe.
"We don't know yet. We still don't know exactly what kind of device we're dealing with." Joe tells.
"Well we can't have her just stand there!"
"I'm ok Robbie." Cat tells me.
"No you're not! Why can't we replace her with something of equal weight?" I ask him.
"Look the plate she's standing on can sense the slightest change in weight. You try to transfer the weight, you'll set off the bomb."
"So what are we supposed to do, just stand here?" I ask him.
"No you, Agent Shapiro. All non essential personal must leave."
"I am essential personal." I tell him
"Robbie." Cat says looking at me seriously. "It's ok."
"We've got guys down stairs trying to figure this out right now. Cat, just sit tight and I'll be back later to check on you." Joe looks at me and waves me to follow.
"No, it's ok." I say refusing to move. Joe gives up and leaves unwillingly.
"Robbie! Please, there is no reason to put yourself in danger. There's nothing that you can do here." Cat tells me trying to persuade me to leave.
"Nothing? Who's going to be your bomb buddy?" I ask her jokingly but still serious.
"My bomb buddy?" She asks.
"You heard what he said; you're going to be standing here for a while. If I don't stay, who's going to keep your spirits up? Who's going to take your mind off of getting tire?" I ask her.
"Robbie, I'm going to be fine. I feel fine." She tells me.
"That would be great if you were a reliable judge of your own feelings, which clearly you're not." I explains.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks unfolding her arms and staring at me.
"I'm sorry! Exhibit A, according to you, you felt nothing for me when we first met. Which we both know is bull." I start again.
"Are you actually going back to that?!" She argues. "I get it. I'm not going down this path. You can leave now." She says looking down refusing to make eye contact.
"I will leave if you admit you had feelings for me when we first met." I compromise.
"Fine. I did have feelings for you when we first met…" She says. "I couldn't stand you."
"Bull. Shit. You loved me. Ok fine. Well what about all of the touching?" I ask her.
"What touching!?" She freaks.
"The times you jabbed me in the chest. Or maybe when you've held my hand. Oh there are so many more."
"The only reason I've held your hand was for comfort. And if I recall, you grabbed and held my hand earlier. And the times I jabbed you in the chest? You so dissevered it." She informs me.
"You know if you had anyone else as a partner, they could press charges for sexual harassment. You're lucky you have such a considerate partner." I tell her jokingly.
"Sexual harassment?" She asks. "You've got to be kidding me. And come on, you've had your moments. What about that one case where I needed a lift so I got up on your shoulders. I asked you to grab my legs and what did you grab?"
"Well your legs are very close to… Whatever." I chuckle remembering it.
Cat gets quiet and looks down. "It's going to be ok right?" She looks at me completely and utterly terrified.
"Yea. Those guys down stair have it under control. They know what they're doing. They've done it thousands of times." I tell her.
A small smile forms on her face. I was glad I was there to comfort her. Joe walks in and shows us a black box with a flashing red light.
"This is the detonator. It's tamper proof so we can only disarm it with the right 5 digit code. That's 100,000 combinations." He sighs. "But we're not giving up. Nowhere near it. We're going to get you off of this, Ok?" He tells us.
No One's POV
The lawyer walks out of interrogation and over to Beck and Jones. "My client has agreed to give you the disarming code under a few conditions." Jones shoulders relax and beck lets out a small sigh of relief.
"Ok?" Jones lets him proceed, but instead he hand him a file folder with a single paper in it.
"Full amnesty." Jones reads the first. "You've got to be kidding me. This man killed someone the other night. He's about to kill my friend."
"I know. But if you couldn't tell, he's not budging." The lawyer explains.
"I can work on these other things, food, cloths, even a phone." Jones tells him.
"He says he's not going back to prison. He walks or he won't help her." He sighs.
"You're a lawyer. You've been out of law school what, 2 maybe 3 years?" Jones asks.
"18 months." The lawyer corrects and seems a bit embarrassed.
"Ok… Listen to me. That agent standing on the bomb… she needs to get through this. Do you understand me?" The lawyer shrugs.
"I'm doing what I can, I swear." He tells Jones. Beck walks in to the conversation.
"I'll take this to the DA but we're going to need a plan B." He walks out and to Gate's office. She makes the call and tries to plead but it didn't work. She hangs up the phone.
"DA's not going for it. Turning a mad-man loose on society to save a single person… even hers, is against everything we stand for.
"I'll go back to the lawyer. See if he can get though to Dena." Beck says. Jones stands where he is and stares down Gate. Something no one has ever had the guts to do. After a minute he walks out to see Beck and the lawyer talking.
"I talked to him and he said he isn't going to give anything unless he walks." The lawyer explains. "I swear I'm doing everything I can."
Jones turns and looks at the man in disgust. "Do me a favor… Keep our boy busy over there. I'm going to go see Dena in holding…" Jones explains.
Beck knew what he was talking about but there was no other option, not in either of their minds. He walks off and over to holding. He walks in and crack his knuckles turning to make sure no one's there. He goes to open Dena's holding cells when he sees him on the floor coughing up blood with a pencil though his jugular. "I NEED A MEDIC!" He shouts as an officer runs in. They unlock the cell and trying to keep the man alive. The medics come and cover him with a sheet.
"How in the hell did he get that pencil." Gates asks.
"That freaking lawyer gave it to him trying to encourage Dena to come up with different demands." They both walk out.
"He just got out of prison. Then he starts taking lives. Why?" Jones continues.
"I think I can answer that." Beck cuts in. "Turns out Dena has stage 4 brain cancer. Found out last month he was going to die anyway. And these two bombs aren't the only ones. 2 weeks ago there was a bombing in Connecticut that killed the ADA on his arisen case."
"He said he wasn't done yet." Jones says stopping dead in his tracks.
"Make a list of all the people who were on his case, the people during his prosecution and his trial. We need to warn them." Gate instructs. "Find all the info on these two bombs. It could help deactivate this one. Find anything and everything you can about this man."
So there are some things like the 'grab my legs' thing, that i made up. It wasn't written but there's more than i can write haha. Well there is more to this chapter that i will update soon. And sorry i didn't put it up Wednesday, the whole thanksgiving this was crazy haha.
Well REVIEW!