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WARNINGS: None, I think this time...
The following minutes were a combination of chaos and orders being called out in every direction.
One team of agents lead by Diana stopped the car and got James arrested. It all went smoothly and except from a few curse words from James, he didn't pull up much of a fight. Then again... Who would've done that with 4 guns pointed at you and a terrifying Agent Berrigan calling the shots? However, when she started asking questions about Neal and Mozzie, James clamped up immediately.
Other agents and officers were quickly securing the 3 people by the van. They had been about to flee, but despite their efforts in getting the van started, the engine had only spluttered and it didn't take long before all 3 men were on the ground and handcuffed.
The FBI had been prepared for anyone being hurt and had already called for paramedics to join them, but no one had expected the need of firefighters.
Both Peter and Jones had run towards the house as soon as they got information about the fire, but when they reached the courtyard they realized that it would be impossible to save anyone who might have been inside. Huge flames were everywhere, windows exploded, and it would be a matter of minutes before everything would be gone.
They rushed to the aid of two S.W.A.T. members who were on the ground in front of the house.
"Are you alright?", Peter asked.
The agents were coughing slightly, but both of them nodded in confirmation.
"Yeah", one of them said. "We tried to get in there, but the fire was too powerful, almost like an explosion!"
"Come on, we have to get you away from here", Jones said helping the agent to his feet.
An officer from the local police came to assist them and he supported the other S.W.A.T. agent. Little burning pieces of the house fell around them, ashes flew in the air, and the heat was strong.
Peter looked up and scanned his surroundings.
"Scour the area!", he yelled to the nearest agents. "Look for anyone who might have been inside but made it out!"
Peter's eyes flickered in all directions, searching for movement, back to the house, to the only window left that wasn't already covered in flames. He moved a little backwards, away from the house, to put some distance between himself and the heat from the fire, and then he circled back to get around to the other side. One of the local officers joined him at the same time as he got the latest update on the radio.
"Bennet won't talk!", Diana's voice announced, "but we found fake ID papers in the car."
Peter was just about to tell Diana to bring Bennet back to the station for interrogation, when the officer next to him exclaimed:
"There's someone over there!"
Peter's attention was quickly drawn towards the direction, the officer pointed at.
"Neal? Mozzie?", Peter yelled, and they both quickly ran to the figure that was slumped on the ground not far from the side of the house. Too close to the fire in Peter's opinion.
When they neared, Peter recognized Mozzie, and he crouched next to the little guy, noticing blood on his clothes. Mozzie groaned, and Peter breathed a sigh of relief that he was still alive. The officer called it in on the radio and asked for paramedics to get moving fast.
Peter put a hand on Mozzie's back, hardly daring to turn him around, but he couldn't help himself from asking the question he both wanted and feared to know the answer to right away.
"Mozzie? Mozzie, can you hear me? Where's Neal? Was Neal in the house?"
Peter's heart was racing.
"Mozzie?", he repeated while trying to locate the source of the blood.
"Suit?", Mozzie asked in a weak voice.
"Yeah, it's me... You're gonna be alright, Mozzie. Just hang on", Peter reassured him.
He put pressure on the wound he had found in Mozzie's right side, and it resulted in more groans from the guy. Peter almost didn't dare to ask again, but he had to know.
"Mozzie, where's Neal?"
"He's...", Mozzie breathed deeply, obviously in pain.
"Ooow... He... They left... Think they...", Mozzie turned to face Peter, who was trying to be patient, trying not to shake the hurting man to get the answers he needed.
"Who left?", Peter asked.
"Every.. everyone", Mozzie sighed.
Then he seemingly pulled himself together and looked straight at Peter.
"They took him... away. James sold him...", Mozzie said.
"They sold him out?", Peter asked a little puzzled. "To whom?"
Mozzie shook his head slightly, but before he managed to say anything else, the officer interrupted.
"Agent, Sir... There's no one else around here. The paramedics are on their way. They'll be here in a few minutes."
Peter only nodded, his attention was back at Mozzie who was saying, almost whispering, something, Peter could barely hear. He bent down closer, and when he realized what Mozzie was saying, he almost stopped breathing for a moment.
"Turner gave... son... of a bitch... papers for N-Neal... was paym'nt..."
"Rachel Turner?", Peter interrupted in surprise.
"No... Father", Mozzie said and continued slowly. "Find him... Suit. I'll... I'll be... 'right", he waved a weak hand in the air.
"When Mozzie? When did they leave?"
Mozzie shook his head again, closed his eyes for a moment, before he answered.
"Don't know... sure... Not long..."
Peter quickly told the officer to take over and put pressure on the wound. Then he grabbed the radio and barked out a few orders, first of all telling Diana to get Bennet to talk and make it fast. Then he told Jones to talk to the other men they had arrested on the scene.
"You did good, Mozzie", he said and patted the little paranoid guy who - for some reason - had become a part of his life through Neal, and smiled: "Just hang in there, okay? Hang in... Help will here in a minute."
Peter got up and was about to leave, when the weak voice of Mozzie spoke out once again.
"Did ya... ya get him?"
Peter turned around and looked at Mozzie whose face was contorted in pain.
"Bennet, you mean?", he asked.
Mozzie nodded.
"Yeah, we got him!", Peter said, and targeted the officer he added: "Stay with him until one of my agents take over!"
The officer confirmed the order as the paramedics arrived and immediately started working on Mozzie. Peter ran towards the front of the house, staying far away from the heat, but still trying to make the run as short as possible. It wasn't easy and he noticed several places where the fire had spread to nearby plants and trees. Right when the thought that this could spread dangerously fast struck him, he heard the sirens getting closer. He hoped that at least that meant they didn't have to worry about wildfires as well.
Peter got hold of one of his agents and quickly told him to go be with Mozzie, follow him to the hospital, and make sure to get as many details from him as possible as soon as Mozzie would be able to talk. He would've liked to ask Diana to handle that, but he needed both her and Jones in their search for Neal.
Diana had placed the handcuffed James Bennet in the backseat of a car and she had spent the last 10 minutes trying to get him to talk, to tell them where Neal was, but Bennet had said absolutely nothing.
Diana hit the roof of the car, frustrated.
"He's your son, dammit!", she yelled at James.
James turned his head, and looked straight at Diana. His eyes didn't hold any emotions at all, when he simply stated:
"Only by blood!"
Diana slammed the door, and turned to the nearest officer.
"Watch him!", she commanded angrily.
The young officer immediately complied and kept a watchful eye on the suspect, fearful of the female agent who looked ready to kill anyone who came too close.
Diana decided to join Jones and try her luck on some of the other suspects. Even if James was the man behind it all, surely the others must know some details, too, and she would for sure pull out everything they knew.
The whole area was still a bit chaotic, and the smoke from the fire was beginning to sting in her eyes. She noticed that several of her colleagues and the local officers had covered nose and mouth with cloths or scarfs, and she wanted to do the same, but she also wanted to show her most intimidating side. No scarf for her then!
She was on her way to where the other suspects were held, when she noticed Peter returning.
"Diana!", he called out.
"Yes Boss?", she waited for him to catch his breath and then Peter relayed all the information, he had gotten from Mozzie.
"Is he alright, Peter?", she asked slightly worried about the little guy, the surprisingly good babysitter for Theo.
"He's been shot, but I don't think it's too serious. It seems like he managed to get out of the house on his own", Peter replied. "The paramedics are with him now, and so is Agent Parsons."
A moment later Peter gathered his own team for a short briefing, and they split into smaller groups. Some agents would stay on the scene, the rest would go back to the local police station, interrogate their suspects and look into Rachel Turner's father to figure out where he could have taken Neal.
Jones had already tried to get Sean Williams to tell them where Neal might be, but he had asked for a lawyer right away. When Greg heard that, he had followed his brother's lead. All three of them were in the back of different cars, ready to be taken to the station, but Jones wanted to give it a last try on Tyson Banks before leaving. Peter approved.
For the first time since they had arrived to the Williams' residence, Peter looked at his watch. It had only been half an hour. Neal couldn't be far away. They needed to act fast. Maybe they could get the chopper in the air to look for possible cars... Wait a minute... Cars? Peter's eyes scanned the area until he spotted the officer from the first patrol car on the scene not that far away.
"Excuse me, officer?", Peter yelled and in quick strides approached the officer he had spoken to briefly on arrival.
"Yes, Agent?", the officer replied, eager to be of any help to the FBI.
"You said you passed a few cars on your way down the road, right?", Peter inquired.
"Yes, Sir. We passed two cars only...", the officer confirmed, and before Peter had time to ask for more information, he continued.
"One was an old truck with a driver and one passenger. The other was a black SUV, only the driver was visible. The windows were tinted, but it looked very expensive, Sir."
"Did you happen to get parts of the license plate?", Peter asked, very interested in the black SUV.
"Oh, I got something better than that", the officer smiled. "We had the patrol camera rolling"
He guided Peter back to the police car, rewound the recording and Peter couldn't be help revealing a little smirk when the officer paused on an image of the suspicious car that would most definitely fit to a Colonel in the US Army with a back story like Rachel Turner's father.
"Get the recording back to the station immediately", he said and noted the license plate on his phone.
A moment later Jones had another update. Tyson Banks had spoken a little, when he realized that the game was over. However, he hadn't had much information to share except that he had confirmed that Neal had been part of an exchange between his own and Rachel Turner's father. Colonel Turner and this other guy – apparently his so-called "right hand" - had left the premises shortly before 9 AM. He didn't know where they went, but yes they had indeed been driving a black SUV.
Inside, Peter was extremely frustrated that they had been THAT close to being there when the exchange had taken place. They could've taken down all six of them AND rescued Neal and Mozzie if they had only been here 15-20 minutes earlier.
On the outside, however, Peter was deeply professional, and after a brief conversation with the leader of the S.W.A.T. team and the local Chief from Beacon Police Department, maps were studied and road blocks set up in strategic places. You could get pretty far away from the area in half an hour, but the SUV had been heading towards Route 9, and they would most likely continue on that, unless they had a place to go in the nearby area which seemed unlikely. If they went South they would be going back in the direction of New York, but if they headed North they would've reached highway 84 that could bring them across the Hudson or they could've gone even farther up North towards Poughkeepsie.
Peter ran a hand across his face and realized that he was actually rather dirty. It must be the smoke from the fire, he thought, but realized that part of it was also Mozzie's blood. He sighed inwardly, not too pleased with the situation. They had taken a huge step forward in finding Mozzie and arresting James Bennet and his goons, but he still felt that they had also taken a step backwards again in their efforts in finding Neal. However, this time at least they knew both who to look for and what to look for.
Peter took a deep breath. It would only be a matter of time, before Neal was back safe, too. They had several leads this time. However, he did wonder what Rachel Turner's father wanted with Neal. After all, Rachel was in prison, super-max, and he would call the Warden and tell them to up the security and keep an extra eye on Turner. Not even Neal would be able to free Rachel Turner by then – not that he thought, Neal would ever participate in breaking her out of prison.
"We're ready to go, Boss!", Diana said pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Let's go then!", Peter confirmed and was actually looking forward to getting away from the smoke, and the "organized chaos" that still seemed to rule the area.
Miles away a black SUV was heading West on highway 84 with a still sleeping Neal tightly secured in the back seat completely unaware of Mozzie's rescue, his own fate and the FBI's efforts.
Next to him, Colonel Turner was on the phone.
"Is the room ready? Good... And what about Rach? Everything going according to plan? Great... We will be there in about an hour."
TBC...