Disclaimer: This is part 5 in my story. Don't you think that I owned anything or anyone in this story I would've mentioned it by now? Really...

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Jake walked up to the bar where Sara was waiting. Thing was, she wasn't waiting alone, she was waiting with a man. He looked familiar, but Jake couldn't quite place him. Then suddenly, it hit him. This was THE guy. The guy who had knocked him out at the Rialto, the guy who had spied on him and Sara at the ad agency, the guy who was just a general pain in the ass as far as Jake was conccerned, and now he was just sitting right next to Sara.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Sit down," Ian instructed, leaving no room for refusel.

"Who the hell are you anyway?" Jake asked, almost yelling.

"Jake, please sit down," Sara told him in a nicer tone.

Because it was Sara who had asked, he took the seat next to her and waited for an explanation. Just for effect, he moved his coat slightly to clearly reveal his holstered gun. Ian did the same.

Sara sighed. From what she could tell these two clearly did not like each other. And not just in the way Gabriel and Ian had interacted. Gabriel had clearly been scaredd of Ian and Ian had been annoyed toward Gabriel. But Jake was clearly angry at Ian and Ian looked extremely annoyed and untrustingly toward Jake. Something told Sara that the slightest unexpected movement or provocation would result in…well, Sara sure didn't want to find out.

"Jake, this is Ian. He's a friend , and I think that you're a friend of mine too. As a result," she said, eyeing both guys, "I want you two to be nice to each other."

"What do you mean you THINK I'm a friend?" Jake asked, slightly offended.

"It's complicated, give me a break. As far as I'm concerned, I don't even know you."

"What'd I do?" Asked Jake, taking this out of context. Deciding not to take Ian's advice, Sara began telling Jake of why she was the way she was.

"Listen Jake, I have no memories right now. From what I can guess, Cortese slipped something in my drink last night at a club, and I have very little patience left, and if you too start killing each other, I WILL officially lose it, understood!" Sara said loudly, out of breath. "Now," she said calming down,"this is actually pretty simple. Apparently I found out that Cortese is actually an international ar-"

"Arms dealer," Jake finished for her. "How could you have known that?"

"I got an anonymous tip telling about his next meet. I went and found that out. I tried to follow him but I couldn't. Later that night I got a phone call from a friend of mine at a club who told me he was there. I went and something got put in my drink. I went home and went to sleep. When I woke up I had no memories."

Taking this all in very slowly, Jake asked, "So your not going to Ireland for Conchobar's funeral?"

Sara shook her head impatiently, "I don't even know who Conchobar is. All I know is what Ian told me. Besides, why would I spend all the money to fly to Ireland for the funeral of a friend who I hadn't even seen recently, who lived in another country?'

Catching Ian's lie, Jake quickly decided to abide. Ian was right about lying to Sara on that subject. After Joe Siri had died, she had been hellbent on revenge against Cortese. Then Conchobar had died and she had gone into premature depression. Those were too phases that Jake didn't want Sara to have to re-live. Jake also assumed that if Nottingham had lied about Conchobar, he had probably also lied about Siri.

Turning his attention back to the present, Jake told Sara and Ian about Besign and about Irons.

"If Irons blackmailed Cortese into poisoning Sara's drink to make her vulnerable," Ian said carefully, avoiding anything that might lead to the Witchblade, "it would make sense the way he did it. It also means that the anonymous phone calls were probably from Irons or a paid employee. Irons wanted to make sure that Sara found out about his true occupation."

"Why would he do that?"

Taking the question the wrong way, Ian explained, "If somehow this ever got to court, which it never will, the jury would simply see it as Sara found out and Cortese dealt with her. There would be no room for Irons in the picture. It would make everything appear very simple and understandable to the outside world."

"That's not what I meant. I meant why would he go through all the trouble to make her lose her memory?"

This time Sara was the one who realized that everyone was not on the same information level. Jake didn't know about the Witchblade, Sara could tell. And since she had apparently known Jake for a while, if she had never told Jake about it before, Sara wasn't about to now. She would instead wait until she had all memories back before she made any major decisions. And something told Sara that telling someone about the Witchblade was a major decision.

"We need to find Cortese," Ian told Jake, ignoring his earlier question.

"He's in hiding right now so it won't be easy."

"What about computer hacking?"

"What about it?"

"You work for Irons, you must know his system," Jake told Ian.

"I know computers and the system," Ian admitted, "just not well. They aren't exactly my specialty."

"But you could try," Sara prompted.

"I'd need a pretty advanced hookup and some serious equitment."

"That might be a problem," Jake admitted.

"Not nessecarily," Sara pointed out. "We could use Gabriel's computer. It's not a Cray but I know the guy made it more updated and advanced then your average PC."

"It would probably work," Ian conceded.

"So let's go find Gabriel."

"He's out of town," Sara explained.

"He was in-town this morning."

"He left for California earlier today, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we-"

"broke into his apartment," Jake finished.

"Let's go," Ian said, ignoring Jake.

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Cortese was about to go ballistic. He should have never gotten involved with Irons and that stupid girl. But he had no reason not to. Irons would turn him into the cops for the murders of Evenmere and Cross, and the cops would give their right legs to crucify him. And all Irons had wanted was for a guy to slip something in her drink. It wouldn't even kill her! At the time it hadn't been a hard decision. But now as he thought about it, he was more nervous. There was nothing to stop Irons from still turning him. Plus, once Irons did, Cortese would have nothing to even prove he had ever known Irons. As he thought about it more and more today, Cortese started to think like Ian and realize that Irons really had devised the perfect little plot. Somehow she had spotted him at his last deal and the fact that he had slipped something in her drink would surprise no one. Besides, who would ever believe that a billionare would go to all that trouble to wipe the memory of one cop. Cortese had no way out, and he knew it.