"Ok, so you think you can track this? I've run every scan I can to trace this back, there is nothing more I can do and believe me I can do a lot."

"I don't doubt it Ms Sato but I have something you don't."

"Oh?"

Tosh stood with her arms crossed. Riley hadn't missed the almost hostile stance of the young woman. It reminded Riley of herself as a younger woman, protective of her work, of her intellect.

But right now she didn't need it. Sighing she turned to Tosh,

"Look, I know your brilliant, I followed your career for a while and you where nothing if not astonishing. But I'm brilliant too; you need to understand that, it's not me bragging anymore than it is when you tell everyone how brilliant you are. It is fact, deal with it. I have one purpose here and that is to find Ianto and I think we are brilliant enough to do that together so from what I see you have one choice…work with me and maybe we can teach each other a few things and save someone we both love?"

Tosh was quiet, contemplative, after a short while she spoke,

"That's a great speech."

"Yeah well you come up enough brilliant people in your life you gotta find something that gets them to work with you so I take it your in?"

"Tell me where to start."

"Like the Von-traps…. Let's start at the beginning. The break-in here, you have CCTV?"

Expertly Tosh called up the footage and played it for her

Tosh watched Riley closely as the footage played out. Riley watched, absorbing the information. When the bullets rebounded from the force shield she paused the footage, rewound and played back again, pausing it at the moment just before Jack fired. Tosh watched as she zoomed into the larger intruder's hands and then preceded to clean the image up.

"There it is"

There what is?"

Tosh leaned closer to the image.

"It's a force shield. We came across some in a recon mission outside of London in my third year at Torchwood, took us ages to work them out, they draw heat and power from the user but they were always notoriously unstable. They used to cut in and out all the time, one of them exploded blowing a hand off so we gave up on them and archived them after 6 months."

Riley frowned, looking deep in thought.

"What?" Tosh asked.

"What did they get from your systems?"

"They accessed and downloaded Ianto's personnel file, the entire Archive section that we have on computerized file which is about half of our known archives. They got everything we had on Torchwood London and they had a look around the schematics of the Hub and the Plass. At first I thought they had downloaded the schematics too but it looks like they just had a look at it."

Riley nodded.

"They were probably looking for a safe place to teleport, the Hub would interrupt the signal too much."

Tosh nodded.

"I've been looking at the data they got and the way they got it. They seemed to go for stuff on weevils first, then got Ianto's personnel file, then got the rest of the archive stuff which tends to make me think that they were after Ianto's file and the weevil stuff all along, the rest was a cover up."

" 'You can see things a person tries to hide by the way they try to hide them' I like the way you think."

Tosh blushed,

"Pity I didn't see it before, I could have prevented all this."

Tosh bent her head, the worry clearly evident across her face.

"From what I hear and from what I remember of Thomas, if he wanted Ianto, at some point sooner or later he would have gotten him no matter how careful any of you where. You and me…..we are the best chance for getting him back and ending all of this."

She gave Tosh a half smile which she responded in kind.

"Let's get down to it then."

Tosh nodded rolling her neck.

"We better get him back I miss him around here. I'm beginning to understand why he understands so much of what I do if he was your apprentice."

"He was always a quick study, one of the fastest minds I had ever seen, and his coffee…does he still make coffee?"

"Oh yes, he has ruined us all, no-one makes it better than Ianto. One of the many other reasons we need him back."

"Let's get to it. Show me your tracking program."

Tosh nodded; despite herself she liked this woman, smart, straight down the line and someone who cared about her friend as much as she did.

*********************

Owen glanced at Gwen nervously as Jack drove hell for leather through the streets of Cardiff to the apartment of Justin Samson. Twice already Owen had seen his life flash before him and not for the first time he was grateful Gwen was in the front seat even though he was feeling car sick.

Jack brought the SUV to a sudden halt and was out of the door before the engine stopped firing.

Both Gwen and Owen ran to catch up with him, Gwen trying to get his attention.

"Jack."

But still he kept walking.

She grabbed his arm.

"Jack wait, please. Do you want to lose this lead?"

At this Jack stopped.

"I'm listening, make this quick."

"We all barge in there he could escape out the back or teleport again, we have the element of surprise Jack, let's use it."

"What did you have in mind?"

Gwen could almost taste Jack's impatience.

"You and Owen go round the back and wait for my signal. I'll ring the doorbell and play the helpless maiden with car troubles while you two move in, that way we have him cornered."

Jack seemed to consider this before nodding his agreement and the two men moved off.

After a few minutes Gwen tapped her coms.

"In position?"

"Go Gwen."

Gwen unbuttoned the two top buttons of her blouse and pulled her cleavage up. Tousling her hair she walked to the front door and pressed the button.

Holding her breath and praying someone was home she felt enormous relief when she heard footsteps on the other side as they approached the door.

Plastering her best 'I wanna fuck you smile' on her face she aimed it at the young man who opened the door, the same man from the CCTV footage.

"Oh hi, I was, um wondering if you could help? I'm having some car troubles and my phone has died, can I use yours?"

The young man found it very hard to drag his eyes from Gwen's breasts to her face, licking his lips he nodded, motioning Gwen inside.

Gwen entered the house and was led down a corridor until he stopped abruptly and span around to face her. Gwen instinctively fingered her gun that was hanging from it's holster. He stared at her, she stared back. Then Gwen realized he was not staring at her face but still fixated on her breast.

Bloody hell, thought Gwen, it's just some sex starved kid.

"Phone's just there" He pointed to a table halfway down the hall.

"Thanks."

As he started to turn around Gwen could see the blurry outline of Jack and Owen at the back door at the end of the hall, thinking quick she fake tripped, making sure he caught her on her way down. Fake giggling she leaned in to him, half dragging him with her toward the ground.

"Ohh I'm sorry, I'm such a klutz. Thanks for catching me."

"Uh...um... no problem."

"Your girlfriend home honey?"

Gwen whispered in he's ear.

Gulping he shook his head.

"Excellent."

He flinched as he felt someone elses hot breath in his ear as it sent a wave of menace over him.

He felt the hard end of a gun against his back, at least he hoped to hell it was a gun, and it suddenly dawned on him, that 'woman broken down outside his house' fantasy only happened in the pornos he had stashed upstairs, and he was now in deep shit.

"Don't worry kid, this is just a gun cos I sure as hell ain't that happy to see you"

"Who the fuc....ahhhhh.."

Jack cracked him right in the kidneys as his knees buckled.

"I don't like that kind of language in front of the ladies. Nice work Gwen, or should I say, nice work to the girls?"

Gwen poked her tongue out as she buttoned up the top buttons of her blouse.

"You and Owen do a search of the place, Mr Samson and I are going to have a little friendly one on one."

TBC