By the time Zack got to the hospital, he knew to go directly to the security room. Cameron had calmed down and filled Liz in on some of the details while they drove. It was a little eerie for Brandt when Liz was repeating some of her discussions with Cameron. He had never seen her use her connection with her brother so extensively and precisely before. She had known when he was upset, but they were rarely in range to have sustained conversations like this. But when they got to the hospital, they knew that Jhondie was heading there and that Alicia was reviewing tapes to see where Heather was.

The security guard's nose had stopped bleeding by the time that Zack got to where his wife was watching Heather's departure from the hospital. The guard had almost called the cops when the little she-devil had smacked him to the floor when he tried to stop her from looking at the tapes. One of the nurses had shown up and kept him from getting more security involved. The guard realized that these people were not only related somehow to the chief of staff, but he had let a seriously injured patient leave the hospital unchecked. Better to keep his mouth shut and save his job then call attention to a blunder.

Alicia had watched the scene twice when Zack came up behind her. She hit the playback again and both of them watched as Heather slipped through the lobby. Alicia changed cameras and Heather crawled into the taxi. There was a pause for a moment and then it took off. Just before it got out of range, the license plate was visible.

"She knew I was there," Alicia said softly. "Took stuff from my bag. I'm the only one who would have that. And she still left."

Zack put his hands on her shoulders. "She's too much like us," he said. "She had a mission to complete. And nothing was going to stand in her way."

Alicia froze the tape on the taxi as it drove away. The license plate was visible. "I have no idea what was so important to her," she said softly, "but I bet that driver would remember where he dropped her off at."

"Jhondie's ready to pull the tube out of Cole," Xander announced, poking his head into the room.

Alicia quickly wrote down the name of the cab company and the license plate. She handed it to Xander on the way out. "I want to know where the driver of this cab is," she stated, the order obvious. He glanced at it, memorizing the contents in a second. The cab driver better not be part of this, Xander thought as he called a few people on the way downstairs. Between his connections and Lon's, it would be like the guy never existed at all.

They went down to the ICU. Jhondie was actually letting them in the room as long as nobody disturbed any of the other patients. Cole was awake, still not looking well, but better than before. He seemed more alert at least. Jhondie had taken note of all of his vitals, wanting to be able to hear what he had to say, but she wasn't about to endanger her patient for any reason.

"Cole," she said, moving so that he could see her. "I'm going to count to three and then pull the tube out. I want you to breathe out as I pull, okay?" He nodded slightly. "You're going to want to cough when it comes out. That's perfectly natural, but I want you to try not to. If you do, try to do it as gently as possible. There's a lot of stitches holding you together right now and I don't want to have to cut you back open to fix a few."

She motioned to the others to give her some room and then detached the ventilator tube from the machines. His oxygen levels still looked good. There was still a kit there just in case though. "One," she said, taking hold of the plastic mouthpiece. "Two, three, breathe out," she ordered as she pulled the long tube out of his throat.

Try not to cough, Cole thought as the tube came out. Yeah, right. Try having someone sandblast the inside of your throat and see if you can keep from coughing. He gasped, trying to cough in dry, heaving breaths rather than choking. One real cough got through, setting off a web of pain that radiated throughout his whole body. He felt something touch his lips and realized that Jhondie was offering him a straw. He took in a mouthful of water, letting it rehydrate his mouth before swallowing. That helped soothe the irritation, somewhat, but his throat still felt like someone had lit a blowtorch and aimed it down his throat.

After a minute, he relaxed back into his bed. He hurt. Sleep sounded so good. But if they were all there, then... "Heather?" he croaked out. "Is she..."

"She wasn't seriously injured," Jhondie said quickly. "We're expecting..."

Alicia cut her off neatly with a quick move. She grabbed the chair that had been beside the bed, whipping it around so that she was sitting backwards and leaning so that her and Cole were at eye level. "Situation," she said sharply. "Heather's non-critical, left alone for a few minutes and gets up and leaves without briefing anyone. Lon's been to the motel where you were staying and the bus station locker. I'm assuming she left because of what you two were setting up in that motel. Where did she go?"

Jhondie would have thrown Alicia out but Cole seemed to respond to her attitude. "Rendezvous with Ty." Lon smirked at Xander behind Alicia's back. He told Xander that Ty was involved somehow. The money that would exchange hands later was just a way to drive the point home.

"Where?"

"She was on the phone with Ty getting the coordinates when Victoria..." his words trailed off and he glanced over at the calm features of his wife. They had already been the motel and the locker which meant...was it possible to be too good? "It was a set-up," he said more to Janice than anyone. "We had to make it look good or else."

"I know," Janice said softly. "I know you better than that."

That could have gone much worse, Cole knew. And God only knew what Zack was going to do to him if he heard the whole story. Oh well. He wanted to laugh. Heather had left to meet with Ty anyways. He had thought that the only person he knew with a bigger set than Heather was Alicia. Now he was starting to wonder if the kid had finally managed to outrank her infamous mother.

"Victoria was the key to getting into a protected area," he said. "Nobody can know we got in and switched the target. Her brother's in charge and it's a voice recognition system. Best I've seen. We managed to get it changed though to Heather's voice." He had to stop. It was amazing how even this much effort was exhausting. Even breathing seemed to wear him out.

Xander's phone rang. He grabbed it stepped out of the cubicle for s second. "Cole," Alicia pressed, "What were you two doing working together? What was involved?"

Xander stepped back in before Cole could respond. "Got a home address on the cab driver."

Jhondie glanced at Zack, motioned to Cole with her eyes and shook her head. He got the message. Cole needed to rest and not be interrogated. He grabbed Alicia's arm. "Lon's got a badge, he can make it look official when we question the driver."

Alicia glanced down at her brother. Yeah, he was tired. Well, so was she, it was her kid that was missing and she had no idea what was going on. He did. Zack's grip tightened. "All that matters is locating Heather," he said sharply. She had to give in to that. The interests of national security could go to Hell. Their daughter was going to come first.

Xander stayed at the hospital to coordinate the communications. Janice stayed with Cole and the twins were near the ICU as well. Cole and Heather had obviously been playing with some nasty stuff and if someone had sent Victoria to kill them, then they might try again. Together, the twins were much stronger than as two individuals. Nobody was getting through to Cole without them sliding into their minds and finding out every intention. Xander wanted to question Cole more, but Jhondie had told him under no uncertain terms that if he tried before morning, she would bend him like a pretzel and shove him down the laundry shoot. He believed it.

Lon had thought it would be best for him to go alone to the cab driver's house, but he didn't want to get killed by both Alicia and Zack for even suggesting such a thing. Jhondie had loaned Alicia a jacket though to cover her sweats. On Alicia it hung much further down, but at least she had the semi-appearance of respectability. Lon just hoped Zack would keep her under control long enough to find out where the guy had taken Heather. But if the guy decided to jerk them around, then God help him, because he couldn't imagine someone surviving both Alicia and Zack when one of their children was concerned.

At that hour, traffic was rather light for New York. They managed to make it to the Brooklyn address in half an hour. Not much was said, though Lon managed to convince them that since he was the one with the FBI identification, he needed to be the one to talk. That was fine. Though they agreed to easily. Lon had a bad feeling this guy was very close to hurt no matter if he was just an innocent bystander.

They got to the apartment building. It wasn't a bad area really, not high income by any means, but certainly not a slum. Lon knocked on the door with an official cop-knock. It had taken years of practice to perfect pounding on the door with enough force to be authoritative, but not enough to sound like a psycho was beating down your door. He pounded three times, paused for a few seconds, and then slammed the door again.

A minute passed and all three of them could hear stumbling from inside. The door flung open and a grizzled man in a faded plaid robe stood in the door. His robe was lazily tied, exposing a yellowed undershirt and the hint of blue boxer shorts. A woman was behind him, standing back near the entrance to a hallway, her hair wound up in pink spongy curlers, a yellow robe wrapped tightly around her body.

"Whaddya want?" he demanded angrily, eying the strange trio blearily.

Lon ignored the aggressive stance of the man in front of him. He was a veteran of these kinds of challenges. "George Bateman?" he asked.

"Yeah, so?" He glanced back. "Call the cops."

Lon's hand was up, the letters FBI glaring off of his credentials. "Special Agent Lon Bryant, FBI," he stated arrogantly.

The woman inside paused. Bateman looked confused. "Who are they?" he demanded, trying to cover up the instant stab of fear. "I haven't done nothing."

Lon leaned forward conspiratorially. "You don't want to know who they're with," he said in a very low voice, the tone implying more of a warning than the words alone. Bateman looked at the other man and woman in the hall. She was a little thing, not much of a worry, but she wasn't even looking at him. Her attention was focused down the hall and towards the elevator. Lookout, he thought. The other man hadn't said a word, but he was staring directly at him, not even blinking. Bateman had served some time in the Army. He knew that look. It was the bleak wintry expression of a man that was about to take a life, not because he had to, but because he chose to.

"You picked up a fare at St. Luke's earlier," Lon said briskly. "A young woman. Red hair, blue eyes. Where did you take her?"

"I...I picked up a lot of people today," Bateman blustered. "I don't know where they all went."

"We're not concerned with all of your fares today," Lon added, sounding just shy of friendly. "But this person is of...special concern to us. How many young women have you picked up from the hospital today, very late? Probably your last fare of the night. I could get a warrant for obstruction of justice if you don't want to talk, but you could just tell us and save a lot of trouble."

"Agent Bryant," Alicia finally said, very calmly, "I don't think he's willing to cooperate. Your instructions were clear. If he's obviously hiding something, then you are to leave and we will handle the situation."

She might have been small, but her voice was scary as hell, Bateman thought. There was nothing there. No inflection, just matter of fact absolute coldness. "No!" he said quickly. "Yeah, I remember her. Broken arm. That's what she said. But she didn't have me drop her off at an address, just a street corner. Went down an alley." He was starting to sweat. The woman still wasn't looking at him and he wondered if he would have time to scream before the other man disabled him. He cursed himself for being so tempted by that hundred-dollar bill the girl had slid through the wire mesh.

"I really hope you remember the street you took her to," Lon said, trying not to smile. Alicia had picked up on the game so easily. Hell, she had been the one to invent it. They had interrogated someone just like that a dozen times or more when they were kids. It was a variation of good-cop, bad-cop, but it worked. And fear was an amazing stimulus when it came to getting someone to remember something.

Bateman thanked God that he knew. He had a head for streets, had to being a cabbie in this city. He remembered places easily. He told the agent everything he knew and then waited. The guy didn't write it down and that made him sweat even more.

Lon gave him a clipped smile. "Thank you for your cooperation," he said. "I hope we won't be bothering you again. He turned and left, Alicia and Zack following. They managed to make it out of the building before Lon burst into laughter. Alicia and Zack weren't amused, but he couldn't help it.

"Sorry," he snickered as they got into the car. "But I haven't seen anyone that rattled since that time you, me and Xander questioned Ambassador Al-Jafad."

A tiny smile touched the edges of Alicia's mouth. "Xander was so pissed."

"Pissed on, not off."

Alicia couldn't help the laugh. She hated Lon for doing this to her, but he was always good at being able to bring down the tension level so that it was easier to focus. She glanced at Zack. "We were questioning the guy and he was so scared, he wet himself. Xander was right there and ended up, well, getting it on him."

Zack could only shake his head, somewhat amused at the little glimpses into Alicia's early life, but still not able to let himself relax at all. Until they had Heather back safe and sound, there wasn't going to be room for relaxing.