The Story of Max Cale: Chapter 22

by pari

[see chapter one for disclaimers, etc.]

A/N: Yes, this fic is back from the presumed-dead. Let me know what you think about that.

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Peter Giordano was still a cop, a sergeant for the New York City Police Department, when Eyes Only made his first nation-wide hack. It was an otherwise uneventful November evening, and Peter had nothing better to do than watch television - the automobile "accident" he'd had only a couple of weeks before having put him off his feet. Eyes Only was after a crooked corporate defense attorney who'd disappeared and was rumored to be selling secrets about his former clients.

Peter knew well the danger of telling and keeping secrets. There was more going on behind the scenes in Peter's department, during that last year he walked a beat, than there had been in booking for as long as Peter could remember. And New York City never ran out of perps to book.

It wasn't any surprise to Peter that some smarmy lawyer guy had gone wrong, or that he'd been profiting from his alternative-to-work ethic. Or even that innocent people had died because of him. Innocent people were always dying because of a crooked lawyer, or a crooked doctor, or crooked cops. That didn't make everything alright, but Peter had his own wars to wage. His resistance to the ongoing trend towards "might makes right" within the police's ranks had nearly gotten him killed twice by that time, and Peter held no illusions about his being lucky enough to survive a third attempt.

If only Eyes Only had left out the names and faces of those innocent dead he was trying to avenge, Peter's life might have gone on in an entirely different direction.

But it's harder to stick to your own battles when you're staring at a tv screen with a picture of a family of five plastered across it, than it is when you think of the other people in the world who are suffering as a formless, faceless mass of nobodies.

Next thing Peter knew, he was standing outside the back of an apartment building in the middle of the night, a few states over from his own, his badge sitting on his captain's desk back in New York. He'd helped Eyes Only bring down the attorney he'd been after (and a few of his associates besides), had given Eyes Only the heads up on some of the shady deals going down in Peter's own department, and had somehow gotten himself a job as the bodyguard to a guy who would one day become the most wanted man in America.

He didn't realize at the time that the cocky young rich kid standing outside the back of that building with him was, in fact, that very same man - Eyes Only. Voice of the people, defender of the defenseless, et cetera, et cetera. Peter didn't go for long-winded descriptors, fancy titles and catchy headlines. He didn't care what the word on the street was concerning his new boss, the rumors surrounding the man and his capabilities. Peter was used to getting paid to protect. Whether he was protecting every good criticize and worthless piece of scum on a New York street block, equally, or just one man in the middle of Seattle's high-rise district, Peter didn't care. The point was: he was getting paid, he was protecting someone, and the person signing his paychecks wasn't as crooked as the people Peter had once believed cops like him were hired to put away.

Not that there weren't reservations to be had, regardless, once Peter realized that Logan Cale was that person.

Logan was everything shadowy, underground subverts shouldn't be. Charming, bold, attractive, and undeniably well off. Peter was no less loyal to Logan than he'd been to Eyes Only from the very start - if anything, he would become even more so. But he knew, the day he put two and two together and came up with Logan's face being the one hidden behind those trademark text feeds, that that loyalty was going to cause him trouble. Sooner or later.

Turned out, the trouble would start sooner. And never stop.

When Logan told Peter he would be going out of town to meet a contact, and that the contact would take off if Logan didn't show up alone as agreed, and insisted that he would show up alone, as agreed, Peter took his suggestion to use the time off as a vacation with a grain of salt, a scowl, and a four letter word to Logan's responding grin. He didn't even bother to leave his apartment or to turn off his pager. He knew Bling would be hanging around Fogle Towers to stay with Max, and that Bling would call Peter if there was any trouble.

Peter was therefore not surprised when Bling did, in fact, call him the very day after Logan left town.

Max was as well acquainted with trouble as her big brother Logan, and Peter well knew it.

Peter was in the middle of a ball game and a Heineken when the call came. He took one glance at the caller id, rolled his eyes, and picked up the phone without wasting time on any niceties.

"What's she done now?" he asked immediately.

It was Bling's terse voice on the other side of the line that made Peter drop his casual attitude and sit up straight in his chair. "Max is gone. Someone took her," Bling was saying at once, ignoring Peter's glib lack of a greeting.

"Are you sure? Maybe she just took off."

Peter could practically see the grim expression on Bling's face as he responded back. "I'm sure. Come to the penthouse. I'll tell you more here." Then Bling hung up.

Peter swore, hanging up his phone, grabbing his jacket and his piece.

Just as he was about to walk out the door, the phone rang again. Another glance at the caller id told him this call was from...a phone booth with a Wyoming area code?

"Giordano," he answered, a funny feeling in his gut about receiving such a strange call so soon after the one about Max. The voice that answered back surprised him so much he nearly dropped his keys.

"Peter."

"Logan?"

'What the hell?'

Logan's message was quick and...well. Very Logan.

"Peter, I'm in Wyoming. We've got a containment problem. I need you to find somebody in the Laramie police department who can tell you what they found at a trailer park about ten miles out of town last night. I may need you to run interference, also, if we get caught going back there. I'll let you know."

"Caught? Going back... Logan, who's we? What..."

"I'll explain later. This is urgent. I can't have those files falling into the wrong hands. And my caffeine addict assassin here hasn't shot anything in a while, so I'm a little wary of keeping her waiting."

From Logan's end of the line, Peter heard someone sputtering and coughing, then the thump of someone pounding on someone else's back, and - finally - the sound of someone getting his hand slapped.

"Ow!" Peter heard Logan exclaim, and pulled his receiver back from his ear a bit.

"Logan..."

"I don't have my cell with me. The Colonel threw it out the window this morning."

"Colonel..."

"I'll have to call you back. And Peter? Keep an eye on you know who. Don't let her in on this. I don't want her to worry."

Before Peter could say anything else, he was hung up on for the second time in fifteen minutes.

He stared at his phone receiver after he'd replaced it, watching it warily as though it would call for his attention again if he turned his back.

Then he finally got his head together and left the apartment.

Sometimes Peter really missed the Bronx.

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A/N: I know this is a short chapter. Just a teaser. Wanted to let y'all know I'm working on this fic again. Reviews would be much appreciated (especially if sent to pari106@hotmail.com . The reviews through FF.net take a while to get to me.)