Chapter 19

Nate did not have a good night in his cell. He was starting to go into withdrawals and he also did not like being locked up, it conjured up the memories of when he was in the hands of the Barrington's and he slept restlessly and little. Tara had arrived at the facility earlier to deliver to him some fresh clothes for him to change into and to give him a message that his team would not interfere until asked to or until needed.

"You ok Nate." Tara asked looking at him and seeing the fatigue, seeing the pain, and seeing the signs of withdrawal. He was still healing from the horrific injuries he had received from Bertram and the gunshot to the chest he had received only a month ago. Sophie and the others had told her everything that had happened to them and to Nate the night before and she could see the toll this was taking on the Mastermind.

"No I'm not." Nate said honestly surprising her slightly.

"Ok well the lawyer that Sophie arranged will be here in about an hour so why don't you go get cleaned up and then we will meet with him. Your arraignment is set for ten."

Once he was finished he was taken to a private interview room where he would meet with his lawyer. Tara appeared with the lawyer about ten minutes after he was left there. Alan Baker was one of the best attorneys in Boston he knew, incredibly good and expensive Nate thought smiling to himself, Sophie was leaving nothing to chance. He spent the next hour explaining to the man what had happened, everything from his abduction, his torture, though not in detail, and everything that followed. He told him about Bertram's nefarious activities and prior deeds in the UK, and of course Tara had obtained all the files for him from Sterling and Bonano.

"Ok the main problem I can see here is the eyewitness testimony. Now it was a photo line up and the man as I understand it is a heroine addict who was there to get high so I can do something with that. If we can get that thrown out we have a good chance of having the charges dismissed considering all this other evidence. The other obvious problem is everything in here points to you doing the deed considering what they did to you, I mean we could look at a plea of self-defence in this case if it is not thrown out." Alan said. "Ok well at the very least I will try and get you released on bail Nate, but as this is a triple murder and this is only an arraignment, at the preliminary hearing we may have more of a chance."

"Yeah if they are going to hold me over for trial it's not likely that they will give me bail." Nate smiled at him, he knew how the system worked.

"Yes well, ok Nate I will see you in court later." Alan said standing and taking Nate's hand.

Two hours later Nate found himself in the courtroom sitting beside Alan and Tara. The hearing was brief, Alan argued that the only real evidence they had against Nate was the eyewitness who was unreliable at best and that there was no line up only a photo line-up which were notoriously unreliable, the rest of their case was circumstantial and built on suppositions. He argued that new evidence had been submitted which the district attorney was aware of that shed light on the case as a whole and asked for summary dismissal. The judge refused to grant that telling Alan he would have a chance to prove his case in court and present his case. The case was held over for trial and Nate was remanded without bail.

"I'll be in to see you later Nate." Alan said as the bailiff cuffed Nate and led him away to be taken back to the holding facility.

Tara immediately called Sophie and informed her of the outcome of the hearing and asked her to meet them to discuss the case with Alan. Sophie agreed to meet in the next hour at Alan's offices and then hung up the phone.

"So he is back in jail." Parker said with a pout on her face, this was not the plan.

"For now Parker." Sophie said. Nate's plan was not working at all and she did not like it but there was nothing she could do about it they would have to go through a trial it seemed, and Alan was good. With the evidence that they had she was almost sure the man would be able to win the case.

An hour later they walked into Alan's offices and were shown to the conference room.

"Sophie…" Alan said as he entered the room and gave her a hug. Sophie greeted him warmly and then introduced everybody else.

"So Sophie I need to go over everything again, from the beginning. We can't use the fact that Nate was held by this man and treated the way he was because Nate did not want to plead self-defence so I can't use it. It is mitigating but it cannot form the basis of the case. Now I believe there could be another person in play here a certain Elton…" Alan paused and looked down at his notes. "Peterson." He said. "I believe he was a particular friend of Barrington?"

"Yes Nate believes they were lovers and that this Elton would want to revenge the death of Bertram. Now the premise is that he blamed Bertram's father for his death, maybe the old man got tired of having to get Bertram out of trouble all the time, and that a fight ensued which lead to his death. Elton then came after Lord Barrington to make him pay for Bertram's death." Sophie said, she knew it sounded far fetched but it was what they had to work with now.

"I see and do we know where this Elton is now?"

"No." Eliot said. "Nate thought he was here in Boston but we don't know."

"Fine. Well that is as maybe, the problem is that Nate was taken, he was tortured and there is an eyewitness placing him at the scene, now I told him the best course of action in this case was to put in a plea of self-defence but for some reason he refused do you know why?"

"No…well yes, he feels guilty for what happened and feels he should pay for it." Sophie said honestly. The more she thought about it the more she was beginning to think that Nate had hoped this would work but honestly, it made him look more guilty than less innocent, and maybe that is what he had wanted, to go to jail, to pay for a crime he was forced to commit to keep them safe. Damn the man she thought her anger rising at him.

"I see…well that is going to make things difficult." Alan said quietly. "We have to get the eyewitness testimony thrown out or at least discredited because then there is no case against Nate, it is all speculation and he has a good alibi with the rehab centre he was at to recover from the injuries he sustained."

"How do we do that?" Parker asked.

"Well from my understanding the man is a heroin addict, so his testimony is unreliable at best." Alan said. "The identification was done by photo line-up…which brings me to my next question, why was Nate in a photo line-up in the first place, I mean was there some prior connection or incident that could have led them to suspect him?"

"No." Sophie said thinking about that too. Why would they have shown the man a picture of Nate in a line up? It did seem rather odd now that she thought about it.

"Ok well I will need some more information on that." Alan said making a note in his book as Hardison made a mental note to do his own investigation into the matter.

"So a preliminary hearing date has been set for a week from tomorrow, until then we can do nothing except prepare." Alan told them. "Depending on what we find out about the line up and the witness we can maybe get this thrown out then."

They left Alan's offices and returned the warehouse. Walking in Sophie poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on the sofa with the others joining her.

"Nobody knew about that meeting, not even us, except the man who arranged it right?" Eliot said not really asking a question but stating a fact.

"You think whoever he was set Nate up?"

"No…no I don't think so Parker." Sophie said she had spoken to the man and she did not think he had anything to do with this apart from the fact that he was going to meet with Barrington and supply him with whatever, probably a team of Hitters or guns.

"Ok so who else would have known about the meeting and more importantly who would have let slip to the police to look at Nate for the crime?"

"Good question Eliot and I have no idea." Sophie sighed.

"Well I am going to go over footage from the time, see if we recognise anybody going into or out of the station it was reported."

"Great but we don't know what we are looking for, you must also go through any taped calls because if it was a tipster that alerted them and put them onto Nate it would have been done that way." Eliot told the Hacker. They did not know what or who they were looking for, but it was worth a try.

"Well somebody set Nate up." Sophie said. She had not seen it before, maybe because they were too concerned about Nate and the condition he was in and then with getting him out of the clutches of Interpol to see it.

"Tara you need to go see Nate again and ask him if he has any ideas." Sophie said turning to her friend who had accompanied them back to the warehouse.

"These are going to be a couple of very hard days for Nate now." Eliot said softly, the man was going to go into withdrawal and there was nothing they could do to help him.

"Yeah…" Hardison agreed, he had been thinking the same thing. Nate had not looked good to him today either and he was worried about the man. It had only been four weeks since the whole affair with Barrington and Nate was still recovering physically from the injuries add to that the mental damage that he was not even trying to deal with, this was not going to be a good time for Nate at all and the man was alone in a jail cell.

"Well there is nothing we can do about that and they will take care of him there." Tara said seeing the concern on all their faces. "Let's just concentrate on getting something for Alan to use to get him out when they appear again."