Janna was led out into the hall around and then finally up a set of stairs. That wasn't the way they had taken her into the room the first time. She cursed mentally. There was no way they would be able to get back there and get Emilie out in that tight of quarters. They were going to have to wait until Southwood moved out and then get her then. Yeah. That would work as well. And then it was direct to the USA, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

Where she was taken looked like a warehouse of sorts. If Janna had thought that Southwood was angry before, that was nothing compared to the way he looked just then. His teeth were so clinched in his cigar that she was sure he was about to bite all the way through it. This was not a good sign.

"You're 'employees' didn't make it to their train stop," he growled. His eyes had a deadly menace and Janna couldn't help a swallow. What the hell had happened to them?

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, not able to muster up the confidence Jaqui would be able to have. "Those two have made a career over not being seen when they don't want to be." She could feel sweat forming at her hairline. Something had to have happened to them. There was no way they would fail her. Unless someone had ambushed them.

Southwood stood and held out his hand to a minion. Minion immediately handed him a gun. He aimed it carefully at her head. "Very sure," he sneered. Janna tensed. If she had to go, it wouldn't be standing there looking dumb. She didn't really think she could take one with her, but she was going to give it her best shot.

The loud banging that began suddenly wasn't gunfire. Half a dozen men in the room began pulling guns out of jackets. There was a moment of silence and then three more bangs. Southwood was still for a moment and then gestured towards the front door with his gun. The man closest to the door went to it and carefully opened it.

Liz strolled through the door casually, Cam trailing behind her as if this was a perfectly normal way for them to spend their time. Janna gave a silent prayer of thanks. Mostly the thanks was because her knees didn't buckle in relief at the sight of them and she was able to stay on her feet. First, thank them profusely; second, kill them for pulling a disappearing act on Southwood's men.

Southwood looked at one of his men angrily. The man took a step back. "They weren't on the train!" he practically cried out, his accent declaring that he was American.

Cam laughed lightly, still keeping the German accent. "Were you the one that was trying to watch us?" He sighed. "Since you were being so obvious, we had to make alternate arrangements."

"It tends to draw suspicion when someone is staring at you the entire trip," Liz added, looking bored. She held up the bag and addressed Janna. "We have what your clients brought to us."

The poise that had momentarily deserted Janna returned in a flash. She gave them a wide smile. "I suppose your holiday bonus is going to have to be increased this year," she said teasingly.

"We already have the bill prepared," Cameron returned. His tone was sufficient to make the casual listener think that he was just hired help, a little annoyed at having to make this side trip. But on the inside, he was getting nervous. When Janna was being Jaqui, she tended to get closed off to their minds. But there was something stressing her, making her not want to leave. Cameron didn't care what was the matter, he was getting her out of there and they would figure out the rest later. He and Liz already knew they had to deal with their parents and that wasn't going to be pretty. The last thing he wanted was to have to deal with Aunt Max and Uncle Logan as well.

Liz was getting nervous as well. It had been easy enough to get away from Southwood's men at the train station. They had scouted the place well and hadn't been detected. When they saw through a window Janna getting dragged out from some other part of the building, they had hauled butt to get down there and make their entrance before anything happened to her. It should be a simple enough matter to make the trade and get the hell out of there.

But something was up with Janna and, more importantly, something was up with Southwood. His mind was too tight to read fully, but his men were more open. Liz was starting to get a nasty feeling that none of them were supposed to get out of this alive. All over a little statue? What the hell was so important over it? It was old, yes, and probably valuable in some way, but the necklace had to be worth a hell of a lot more.

"Take it out of the bag," Southwood ordered. "And you don't want to do anything stupid."

(stupid was taking the contract in the first place)

(no kidding...janna's worried about someone else here)

(she is? she is...this isn't going down right...something is very bad here)

(i know...go slow and be ready)

Liz carefully unzipped the bag. They had removed the statue from the sculpture that Janna had put it in for its trip across the ocean. She slowly removed the sculpture and held it up for Southwood to see. Southwood motioned to the man that had been next to Janna. The man's leer was enough to put both twins on edge right then and there. Cameron wished he had been the one holding the bag. He didn't want this guy anywhere near his sister. But to grab the statue from her now would be interpreted badly.

"If this is a fake..." Southwood growled.

"Then it was made a few centuries ago to screw with someone else," Cameron said, letting a slight annoyance creep through the boredom. "And that means you've wasted all of our time with a wild goose chase."

The minion took the statue from Liz, his finger sliding across hers. Only a lot of years of learning to conceal her abilities kept Liz from recoiling back. Physical touch heightened all sensations of the mind. Liz got a jolt of what was running through the man's head. It was like she had just gotten a load of slime thrown over her.

(oh god...bloody hell...sick...oh, he's sick)

(LIZ?)

(it was a decoy...oh...oh, he's sick...god...poor girl)

(you're turning pale...calm down before they notice!)

Get under control, Liz ordered herself. He's a sick freak, but you can snap him into little pieces if you had to. And now that she knew, if he laid a finger on Janna, he was going to pay dearly for it. Quickly, she let her twin see what she had seen in that freak's mind. The necklace was a decoy for this statue. There was a maid, some girl that was a maid in the house, she was supposed to take the statue and it would have been blamed on the thieves. A day or two after the thefts, Southwood's man had taken care of the girl. He had enjoyed the task. And he liked dark-haired girls and was enjoying reliving the moment with Janna's face and body overlaying the maid's in his mind.

Cameron was sickened but they had to play it cool. They were dealing with thieves and murderers and people that would kill just for the fun of it. No more touching any of them. That was going to have to be the ground rule. He didn't want to know what was going on in their more secret thoughts and Liz wouldn't be able to take it if she had to do that again. She was tough, but there was a limit to toughness.

Nobody really noticed Liz's moment. They were fascinated with Southwood and whatever he was doing. Janna was one of the few that actually looked like she knew what was going on. She had actually seen it done before at a seminar showing how fakes are detected. Southwood was running a light gun that was connected to a laptop over the statue. The light was showing micro fine cracks and imperfections in the statue and then comparing it to a known imprint that had been taken before, probably for an insurance company. Lines like that were almost impossible to duplicate. The computer beeped, and Southwood smiled. There seemed to be a feeling of relief that suddenly emanated from every man in the room.

"Let her go," Southwood ordered his minion holding Janna. "They decided to play smart and brought me the real thing."

Janna felt the man holding her shoulder release it, and gave thanks again that her cousins decided not to be cute and try and pull a fast one. This just needed to be over with. They would watch closely and get Emilie out as soon as possible and call it good. But that was for later. Now they just needed to walk out of there very, very fast. She smiled charmingly at Southwood.

"Monsieur, I would say that our business is now concluded," she declared. "Please do not take this the wrong way, but I do hope that we not see each other again." She turned towards her cousins and walked towards them confidently, not wanting any of the men to know how scared she still was. She had just reached them when Southwood called out her name.

Janna turned back towards him slowly. Both twins were on red alert all of a sudden. Janna had never believed she had ESP abilities like her cousins, but all of a sudden she just knew that the chance for the happy ending scenario had just ended. His smile said he had them right where he wanted them. This was so not going to be pretty.

"It was rather frustrating that your clients were out there in the world and they knew me but I did not know them. I thank you for rectifying that situation." His smile could have been used as a model for paintings of the devil. "Bodyguards and clients. I did not think it could be true at first. Well done." He made a casual hand gesture. "Kill them."

The twins had once heard their mother and Cole talking about the X-7's and how they were supposed to have been used at Manticore. Cole knew how he had used his abilities and that was with no training on them. Cam and Liz had talked it over and didn't think it was really all that viable. They couldn't do everything that Mom and Cole had been talking about. It just wasn't that strong. But they had never been put into a situation where their abilities were the only thing between living and dying.

There were eight or so men in the room besides Southwood and Bentley. None of them were shielding their thoughts in the slightest. Suddenly every detail was perfectly clear. The twins knew where they were going to aim, who was going to shoot which one, angles, distances, absolutely everything was right there. They had overheard their mother rhetorically ask how someone could fight a person that knew what you were going to do before you did it. Now they knew. You couldn't.

Gunfire erupted all around them, but no bullet managed to make its mark. Janna felt Cameron grab her and let him take her wherever he wanted. Since they seemed rather alive after the first volley, she figured that he had an idea of what he was doing. Chances were, him and Liz had already made a plan to get out of there and now it was just a matter of following them. Get out now, get Emilie later. When bullets started whizzing overhead that seemed like the best game plan possible.

Liz and Cam knew that out of the two of them, Cam was stronger and better able to lift Janna or make a power jump with her in arms. Liz was quicker and better suited to creating a diversion and getting the hell out of there. As they scattered, they knew the men were going to follow Janna first. Liz had to get their attention and then duck. They had done it to plenty of security guards. But this wasn't like when they were on a job. Right now everyone was shooting at them and they could only play dodge bullets for so long. Her and Cameron could do some high jumps and get to the upper windows and take off. But there was no way that they could do it with Janna. And the only way to the one door they knew led out was very much blocked.

(get her to the doors)

(liz...NO!)

Cameron didn't have time to stop his twin or keep her from jumping in and start physically attacking Southwood's men. It was too close of quarters to shoot at that point, but there was no way she could take out eight men without help. As much as he loved his cousin, he wasn't going to leave his other half out in the cold.

"Go!" he snapped to Janna, not even thinking that he had dropped the German accent and pushed her lightly towards the door before turning and moving in at blinding speed to help his sister.

Janna took half a step and then whipped around. The three of them got into messes together, they got out of them together. Case closed. She wasn't as fast or as strong, but the first man that grabbed her soon learned there wasn't much difference. A fast drop to the floor and a high heel to the crotch was pretty much debilitating no matter what kind of genetics the person delivering the blow had.

"KILL THEM YOU FOOLS!" Southwood shouted, but the twins were dancing around the other men easily, too fast to lay a punch on and if a shot was taken, chances were that it was one of their own men that was going to get hit. Southwood could only watch as two of his men were suddenly on the ground unconscious and that little French tart managed to have a third on the ground. The women Southwood knew were the screaming, hair-pulling sort when a fight broke out. He had badly underestimated these two. They weren't screeching and crying and flinging fists around. At some point in their lives they had obviously had some serious training in hand-to-hand combat. But his bag of tricks wasn't empty yet either.

Both twins felt it at once. The guy with the scar...the one that had freaked out Liz...he was suddenly gone from the fight and they both could feel his sense of triumph. He was coming back and had some heavy artillery this time. And that guy wasn't the type to worry about someone getting killed due to friendly fire.

(liz...statue...they won't destroy it)

Liz understood immediately. Cameron got two men distracted and Liz was able to toss the one on her. She moved fast towards Southwood, vaguely registering that Bentley had pulled out a gun. She dodged the bullets, for once not caring what her parents were going to do to them when they found out how showy the two of them had been in front of strangers. As a matter of fact, seeing the parents at any time in the near future would be a good thing no matter what they did to them.

Bentley jumped in front of his boss and assumed a Tae Kwon Do stance that Liz recognized. She would have laughed if there had been time. Bentley thought she was going after his boss. Nah. She wanted what the boss was willing to kill for. That was far more valuable. She sidestepped at the last moment and dodged a hard kick that would have snapped into the side of her head. She dropped low and then the statue was in her hand. She was on her feet in a second when the second blow caught her square in the back.

Liz was shoved into Southwood. With the fighting, his mental shields were down and the physical contact heightened her ability to read him tenfold. And she knew. In one searing flash she understood what was really going on and why. American, yes. Trouble with the Mafia in Las Vegas. Lost a shipment of theirs. Cops. He should have gotten arrested for it. They would have respected that but he ran instead. Now he owed them the money. He had until New Year's Day. Statue. A map. Hieroglyphs. Treasure beyond compare. Desperation. Yes. So much of that. Desperation. No money left for another ploy. No time. This or nothing. Desperation.

And that was all Liz needed to know what to do. Wouldn't get them out, but it would give them time. She shoved Southwood back, using the leverage to propel herself towards the table next to the wall. She jumped, landing on it easily and spun around, hefting the statue.

"SOUTHWOOD!" she yelled. Maybe it was her imagination, but timed seemed to slow and all eyes were on her. No time to back down now. And no time for a soul to stop her either.

She swung the statue hard, slamming it into the wall, shattering it irrevocably.

For a second, everyone in the room seemed to freeze, shocked at the sound of the stone shattering. Liz's mouth curled up in a little smile. "The hieroglyphs aren't gone," she almost purred and then tapped her temple. "And there's only one way to get them out of there. I say it's time for some contract renegotiation."