Chapter 2: Acquire

"So why do you want to kill this woman?" an eerie feminine sounding voice said. There was a pause and a slight clicking sound right before the voice talked, someone was using a computer, Jake thought, typing out their responses and having a voice simulator say them so that he couldn't recognize the voice. It was smart, but annoying.

"She betrayed me," Jake lied, "and she abandoned me."

"Before I attack some woman I don't know I'm going to have to hear a more compelling story."

"Alright, but, ah, you have to promise me that, no matter what I say you will not hang up."

"I never make promises."

"Please, just, before you hang up, hear me out."

"Go on."

"I'm a cop."

"Goodbye."

"No, no wait!" Jake pleaded. "I'm in the system enough to know it doesn't work. This isn't about you, it's about her and what she did. So long as she get's hers I don't give a damn what you do."

"There is a basic bond of trust between a professional and a client. I, as the professional, can't very well have a good working relationship with a client I can't trust now can I?"

"Look, all I'm looking for is a chance to get back at her. I can't do it in the law, maybe you can do it outside."

There was a pause. "You're gonna have to prove your trustworthiness with fifty G's up front, and another fifty after the jobs done."

"Not a problem."

"Where's a cop gonna get a hundred G?"

"Evidence locker," Jake said nervously. He knew the cash would have to come out of the White Bulls lush account with the guarantee that this was an investment not only in peace of mind, but also one that would bring in a hefty return.

"I like you," the voice said with no warmness. "Now what did this girl do to you?"

"She was my partner,"Jake said, licking his lips. "Then, one day, she just snapped. I don't know, she threatened another officer with pictures of him with a hooker, said she'd take them to his wife."

"Maybe that officer shouldn't have been with the hooker in the first place."

"That's not the issue. The thing is she betrayed us. She started accusing our captain of killing people and covering it up, and . . . ah, I saw her getting cozy with a suspect in one of those interview rooms. Holdin' his hand, looking deep into his eyes . . . she let him beat the crap out of me and then she didn't do anything."

"Is this a jealously thing?"

"No!" Jake said, over defensively. "Bitch abandoned me."

"Abandoned?"

"She went psycho one night, blamed our boss for this old guy's suicide, attacked him in his own goddamn bed. So here I am, standing with all this work we were supposed to do together and it's all on me. And she's just gone."

"So what kind of revenge are you looking for?"

"I'm not looking for revenge, I want justice."

"True justice is impossible, you should know that. I suggest you look for revenge."

"I just want her to feel how I felt."

"And how is that?"

Finally, for the first time in the conversation, Jake was able to tell the truth. "I feel alone, like there's no one I can trust or turn to. Like a wave is crashing down on me and she's got the life jacket, you know, but she's not going to throw it to me."

"So do you want us to throw her in the bay and arrange it so you could deny her salvation," the voice asked. Because of it's synthesized, emotionless tone Jake wasn't sure if it's proposal was real or sarcastic.

"I want her to need my help, and I want to be able to say I choose not to."

"That can be easily arranged."

"Great," Jake said, a little stuntedly. "How do we set that up?"

"Give us her phone number."

"What?"

"Her phone number."

"Ah, ok." Jake said. "5, 5, 5, 4, 5, 3, 5."

"Now we come to the money."

"Yeah, I was wondering how you wanted to do that."

"It seems to me that the safest way would be a meet."

"A meet, you've gotta be kidding me?"

"Normally I would arrange for some elaborate drop off point. But I know you could but a tracer on the money or, if you were a little less ingenious, just put a man on following the cash until it reached me. I can not have this. At a meet you will be well covered by my gunmen at all times. Any tricky business and you're dead."

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?"

"A bond of trust between a person like myself and a person like yourself is impossible. Throughout this deal I feel its essential to proceed with the utmost caution."

"Right."

"So bring me the money tonight at three a.m. on the red line subway platform at Times Square."

"Three a.m.?" Jake groaned.

"Consider this a proof of your determination on the course you've set."

"Yeah, right, fine, I'll be there," Jake grumbled.

"I anticipate we'll have a very interesting working relationship."

"Right," Jake said, hanging up the phone. He had felt like a rat a lot in the last month, he'd done a lot of unethical things for the better good and he was at the point where every night he prayed that, somehow, a body of wrongs could make a right. He felt sick to his stomach and sick of his job and sick of himself. He wanted to call Sara and let her know what was coming but he knew that she screened her calls. She would only answer if she saw he was calling. He imagined himself, at best, the only person she could trust, at worse, one of a handful she would trust. And here he was, betraying her. "God, I'm sorry Sara," he said to the space she should have occupied before he rubbed his eyes, he felt much more tired now than he had before that conversation, pushed himself out of his chair, and went to beg Dante for 50 G's.

* * *

Sara Pezzini called three people on her cell phone, and three people called her. One was Jake McCartey, Nat's client. He wasn't an option. Another was Kenneth Irons, he actually called her from a host of different numbers, home, office, cell, car, etc. Irons was rich, he had a body guard. He was also out of the question. But the third person was promising. A young man who lived alone. He was a computer nerd; not used to and, hopefully, not up to a good fight.

Nat didn't know Miss Pezzini's relationship with Gabriel Bowman, but she had called him 15 times in the last month, and he had called her five. And the phone records of her apartment showed an even closer communication between the two in the months before that. Nat was thinking, or maybe hoping, that the pair were lovers. Yeah, Gabriel would definitely have to be the mark.

Nat started going into Gabriel's phone records. The only phone he had was a cell, registered as a business number. He was called by a lot of people and he called a lot of people. However, the vast majority of his acquaintances seemed to be out of the country; Greece, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, England, Ethiopia, Guam, she had never seen a more extensive list of incoming calls from far away places. Gabriel Bowman certainly would be interesting. But still, the one person he had the most contact with was Sara Pezzini.

"I got it Toph," Nat yelled. Her voice echoed in the vast warehouse filled with huge spindles of telephone wire and cold drafts.

"Hey great!" the older man said from across the building where he was putting the finishing touches on their holding pen.

Nat printed out all the information she could get about Bowmen, his name, age, address, social security number, billing record, credit card number, bank account number, etc. Before she was done she felt Christopher's strong hands plant themselves on her delicate shoulders. She leaned backwards in her chair so that his face was hovering over her. "Fifty thousand today," he said, excitement rimming his voice. "Hundred thousand tomorrow."

She laughed, and so did he, as he swivelled her chair around and around making her dizzy. She fell onto the cold concrete floor, still laughing with sheer joy and excitement as Toph collapsed next to her.

"This ROCKS!" Nat screeched. Her youth was never more apparent than in moments of pure excitement. And it was her youth that he loved.

"You rock," the man said lustfully, putting his hands on her face, kissing her, and then slowly working downward to her neck and beyond.

Nat giggled, giddy, high-pitched. It was a giggle that betrayed her youth and she did it every time he touched her that way. Soon the warehouse echoed with her giggles and the cold drafts and the cold floor disappeared as they kept each other warm.

* * *

It was three a.m. and Jake paced up and down as he waited for whomever it was he was waiting for. There was a uniformed cop standing, half dozing, over near the stairs that led to the street. There were two drunks sleeping in one of the darker corners over near the platform, but beyond that, the platform was deserted.

The westbound train zipped by, rushing the platform with a freezing wind that sent a chill down Jake's spine. As it slowed to a stop he could see all the cars were empty except one. He watched, almost amazed, as a young girl who looked to be about seventeen walked out of the subway and straight too him.

"Mr. McCartey?" she asked, her voice not all together confident.

"Yeah," Jake answered slowly.

"You've got something for me?"

"Yeah," Jake said again a little louder to be heard over the westbound train as it ripped past them and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. Jake was bewildered by the young woman. She was pretty, too young for Jake to really consider beautiful, with blond hair and red highlights cut in the latest fashion. She was wearing makeup, which should have made her look older, but she had too much on and the colors were too trendy to be taken seriously. Her skirt was cut high, her blouse was cut low and she looked too much like a streetwalker for Jake's comfort. The big difference, though, was that girls that young on the street were usually on something, they had to be to deal with all the crap they lived through. This girl's bright blue eyes were clear, sharp, focused: she wasn't addicted to anything . . . at least not anything illegal.

He handed her a plain goldenrod envelope with no distinguishing marks. "Feels about right," she mused as a large rumble followed by a gust of frigid air filled the platform. As the doors slid open she pushed past him and entered an empty car.

"Wait!" Jake said sharply as the reality of his situation struck him. He had just given the girl $50,000 and he had no assurance that she would follow through on the bargain, or even that she was a representative of the person he had bargained with. "How do I know . . ." he started, but he was too late. The doors slid shut and the train whisked away and he was left standing on the platform hoping against hope that he had not been had.

* * *

Gabriel thought he heard something. He opened his eyes, glanced at the clock, saw that it was only 4:48 in the morning and decided he couldn't have heard anything. He closed his eyes and drifted back towards sleep. Then he heard the distinctive 'brrring' of his computer being drawn out of it's early morning sleep by the movement of the mouse or the pressing of a key. For a second he thought that must just be Sara, she must have accidently hit something as she put her traditional thank you note up. But then Gabriel remembered that Sara hadn't called him early this morning. That he hadn't talked to her for the last two days and that she was probably resting comfortably at the Woman's Rescue mission under the assumed name of Emily Bronte.

"Oh, Sara," Gabriel groaned softly as he rolled out of bed. "Why weren't you homeless last night?"

The young man crept, quietly and foolishly across the floor of his bedroom and pressed himself against the door. His cell was in the other room, he had been up late talking to one of his suppliers, a pawnshop owner in Ho Chi Min City that always had something interesting to sell, and had left it next to the computer where he'd been working.

Calling 911 was out of the question.

Gabriel licked his lips, tried to steady his breathing, and listened. It sounded like there were two big guys in there, Gabriel didn't want to risk getting his neck broken just so they could take off with his VCR. He carefully, quietly, locked his bedroom door and backed away. He glanced around, trying to find something he could use as a weapon. It didn't look good, pillows, blankets, a lava lamp, a 'The Who' poster, a bookshelf full of paperbacks, a dresser full of soft clothes; he didn't even have a closet in the room with wire hangers that could be bent into hooks or spikes or whatever. Gabriel suddenly deeply regretted not decorating his rooms with mediaeval weaponry as he had planed as a child.

He glanced at his window, it was three floors down to hard concrete. He really didn't want to jump.

Hoping that it was a silly, useless, precaution, Gabriel unplugged the lava lamp that sat on his dresser, the one he'd used as a nightlight since he was five. Careful not to touch the hot glass, he held it over his head, his back to the wall, ready to hit anyone who walked through that door.

He waited for three minutes, listening to the two pairs of footsteps as they clattered around his apartment. Then his arms got tired so he lowered the lamp. Two more minutes, more clatter, he started trading the lamp between his hands so he could stretch out one of his arms. He was beginning to get cold, he contemplated pulling a sweatshirt over the undershirt he slept in, or maybe putting some socks on, but decided that would take too much time and just might make too much noise. He put the lamp in his left hand and stretched out his right arm. At least he had worn sweat pants to bed instead of just his boxers, if he hadn't then he'd really be cold.

The doorknob rattled and Gabriel's heart stopped. He grabbed the lava lamp with both hands and hoisted it over his head again. He was anticipating a lock pick, for the door to swing gently open, and one of the two men to be hunched over and vulnerable in the doorframe. Instead the door was forced open by a violent kick that sent splinters of wood cascading into the room. The suddenness of the act took Gabriel off guard and he hesitated in crashing the lava lamp onto the intruders head. Instead, once the man (who was easily a half a foot taller than him) had entered the room and was looking at the empty bed, Gabe hit him with all his force, in the gut.

The man gasped and doubled over, as much from surprise as from the blow. But before Gabriel worked up the resolve to hit him again, this time on the head, he straightened and held a small spray tube right at Gabe's eye level. Gabriel only saw the intruder's face for a split second, he was handsome, about thirty with dirty blond hair and muddy green eyes. Something about him made Gabriel very, very afraid. The younger man raised his lava lamp again.

"You gonna hit me?" the intruder asked.

Gabe knew he should. He knew that if he really wanted to get out of this without being hurt himself and without his stuff being taken he'd have to hit the man. He also knew that no one would blame him for attacking two men who had broken into his apartment. But no matter how much he knew those things to be true, he hesitated. And in that hesitation Gabriel was lost.

The man took that split second of opportunity to attack. Before Gabriel realized what was happening his eyes were on fire. He reached up to stop the mace from reaching his face and dropped the lava lamp on his foot. Gabriel didn't even notice as half of the bones in his right foot snapped. All he could notice was how much his eyes hurt. His knees collapsed and he gasped for breath as he clawed at the fire around his eyes. He couldn't shut them tight enough. He tried to struggle when the intruder grabbed his hands and forced them behind his back, tying them with something that cut off the circulation. He was forced to his feet and dragged out of the apartment and then threw him into the back seat of a car. After they had been driving thirty minutes Gabriel was able to steel enough of himself to put aside the pain in his eyes and his hands and his foot and try to gain some understanding of what was going on. He didn't dare try to open his eyes, but somehow he managed to speak.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice was thin and trembled slightly.

"Aw shit," the man said.

Gabe felt a sharp sudden pain at the back of his skull, then bright lights and colors seemed to wash over his vision, and then there was nothing.



To Be Continued . . .

Note: Meghan wants you all to know that she had nothing to do with this cliffhanger, It's all me.