NINE

"Look these over very carefully, Trevor," Fraser said, handing him a book full of mug shots of various members of Frank Zuko's gang, "Tell us if you think any of these men could have been the kidnappers."

"Hmm," Trevor examined the pictures one by one, "Several of them could have been. These two look about the right height. But like I said, it happened really fast."

He abruptly sneezed and snorted loudly. Nearby, Adrian took three giant steps backward. "Sorry," Trevor apologized to him, "I may be coming down with a cold; had a sore throat since yesterday morning."

"I see," Adrian said nervously. The detective dug out rubber gloves and quickly put them on. "Don't want to touch anything," he told all the incredulous onlookers, "Most colds come through touching diseased objects."

"I checked with the airport," Disher walked over, "They confirmed Frank Zuko definitely got on the flights he described. The Grand Floridian also confirmed he stayed there. They said he did spend a lot of time inside his motel room. He apparently came down stomachaches; room service brought him a load of medicine during his time there. What can I say, it looks like he checks out."

"Yeah, well the one thing I know with Frank Zuko, he's never said an honest thing in his whole life," Vecchio snorted, "Somehow we've got to prove his connection enough so that any court in America can convict. His whole family should have been busted years ago. The feds were on to his father Carl for tax evasion and extortion twenty years ago, when all of a sudden the charges were all dropped. We've suspected he bribed out the top investigators, but we never could prove it. So we've got to make this count for all the past failures."

"A dummy," Disher suddenly blurted out, "He stuck a robotic dummy in the hotel room, climbed out the window, went to the airport, flew to another city, hitchhiked into Chicago, and carried out the kidnapping."

"A dummy?" Stottlemeyer raised his eyebrows, "Do you honestly think he could fool Disney employees with a fake stomachache for two weeks with a dummy without anyone noticing?"

"Well maybe he bribed the hotel off?" Disher suggested.

"Then how come he's in half a dozen pictures at the rest of the resort during several days of the trip?" Stottlemeyer showed him the photos in question, "Forget it Randy, we can definitely rule out a dummy."

"Right," Disher nodded. Then he mused, "Maybe he cloned himself."

Everyone groaned. "What?" Disher asked, "He's got the funds; he could do it."

"The big question here is, who's he taking his orders from?" Adrian posed, deliberately looking the other way so Trevor, who'd just sneezed again, couldn't breathe any germs toward him, "And what's Amanda Graystone's ultimate connection with this whole affair?"

"I called the motor pool," Stottlemeyer told him, "She never reported her car stolen, so I guess she unknowingly loaned it to the mob or whoever the big man is."

"That makes sense," Adrian nodded.

"Well, in one positive way, at least we now know that Mrs. Fleming and her son are likely being held in a large enclosed area, anywhere big enough to contain an elephant without exposing it to prying eyes," Fraser said, "Assuming that they're within Chicago limits, that narrows down the field of possible locations to about thirty-one facilities."

"That's always a plus when…OH MY GOD!" Adrian screamed abruptly. He pointed in horror at the desk he'd put his salad bowl on. The salad bowl that Diefenbaker was now almost finished eating. "How…How could you?" Adrian cried at the wolf. Diefenbaker turned toward him and burped.

"Diefenbaker," Fraser strode over and looked his pet sternly in the eyes, "We had an agreement that you would respect Detective Monk's personal habits during the time he's here with us, and this constitutes a gross repudiation of your part of the agreement. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Diefenbaker yawned, apparently disinterested, and skittered off toward the bathrooms. "My deepest apologies," Fraser told Adrian, "There are times when I have difficulty controlling him, and it looks as if this is one of these times."

"Thank you, thanks," Adrian said, picking up the remains of his snack in his gloved hands and dumped it in the nearest trash can, "That's why I don't have pets, you know."

Lieutenant Welsh stuck his head out of his office door. "Fleming, the feds want a word with you," he called to Trevor.

"Right," Trevor blew his nose and walked toward the office. Everyone crowded around the door. "Mr. Fleming, we're going to try and outfox the kidnappers," Agent Ford told him as he sat down, "Since they're asking so little for your son, we'll try and get him out of their clutches. We're sending word to all of the television and radio stations in the Tri-State region that we'll pay his ransom ahead of time tonight at eight."

"Here's the money," Deeter opened the briefcase he was holding to show what on the surface at least looked like a thousand dollars, "Or at least what they'll think is money. As you can see, they're fake on one side. There's also a chemical substance here that'll mark the bills if they try and take them out. And a radio transmitter hidden in the back here," he opened two false backs on the suitcase to reveal the transmitter.

"Actually, Mr. Deeter, I'd rather we just give them the real money," Trevor told him, "If they realize we faked them, they could hurt Sharona in retribution."

"But if they don't know, we'll have half the job done," Ford countered, "Now we'll tell them we want it done at Marshall Fields ground floor. We'll have agents stationed outside ready to take down whoever grabs the briefcase."

"Please if we're going to do this, no agents," Trevor protested, "If they realize you're there, they could take Benjy out while he's fleeing."

"Mr. Fleming, you can trust us," Ford goaded him, "We're skilled professionals."

"Yeah, professionals at blowing stuff up and almost killing the hostages," Vecchio stepped into the office, "Don't listen to anything these clowns tell you, Trev; they're as incompetent as they come."

"You are not part of this conversation, Vecchio!" Ford shouted, "Lieutenant, order him out."

"Lieutenant, you've heard the sheer brilliance of their proposal," Vecchio told his boss, "If we give Captain Moron and the Idiotic Kid here any say in this matter, we'll have Mrs. Fleming and her son lying dead in the street—as well as a dozen innocent bystanders."

"At least we're actually doing work on the matter, Vecchio," Deeter derided him, "You've been nonexistent in this whole case."

"On the contrary, Agent Deeter, Detective Vecchio, in conjunction with Detective Monk and my associates, have made several significant strides in the case," Stottlemeyer interceded, "We have reason to believe that Frank Zuko is involved with the kidnapping in a significant way."

"That's impossible," Ford scoffed, "We've been watching Zuko ourselves for months; he was in Orlando at the time of the kidnapping."

"It's not impossible," Fraser spoke up, "There is reasonable enough doubt that Mr. Zuko may have somehow faked that trip to throw us all off."

"And where's your proof, Constable?" Ford asked him roughly.

"Well, we're still working on getting it together, so we're…"

"So in other words you can't prove it?" the FBI man told him, "I find it very interesting that none of you brought this to us."

"With all due respect, Agent Ford, we have reason to believe that there's a leak in the law enforcement personnel on the case," Fraser told him, "Amanda Graystone said just before she died that the kidnappers have a link to law enforcement officials. Would either you or Agent Deeter be selling us out?"

Ford advanced menacingly toward the Mountie. "How dare you have the gall to accuse us of cooperating with criminal scum," he said darkly, "The day we make agreements with crooks is the day Hell freezes over. And I think you're guilty of withholding evidence, Constable."

"Well we couldn't tell you; the kidnappers have Miss Teeger's daughter in their custody, and we can't in good faith risk that a child will be killed," Fraser gestured toward Natalie. "Please, can you send a man or two out west to look into it?" she pleaded the FBI men, "My daughter is everything to me, and…"

"Yeah sure, fine, once we get this over and done with, we'll look into your abduction claims," Deeter told her dismissively.

"My claims?" Natalie looked offended, "Mr. Deeter, this is not a claim, I saw the tape of her kidnapped with my own eyes! Now I would expect you to show some human decency with me here!"

"Well unfortunately you'll never get any of that from these bozos," Vecchio told her, "The only human emotion they'll ever show is egotism."

"You are seriously ticking me off here, Vecchio!" Ford thundered at him.

"And you've got me ticked off since we met again, pal!" Vecchio yelled back. A general argument broke out between the federal agents and the local police. Only Adrian wasn't arguing. He stood in the corner, nervous with the large crowd in the office and the fact that, due to Trevor's developing cold, the room was now infested with germs. "This is just perfect," he lamented to himself, trying to hold his breath to avoid airborne germs.

Finally, Welsh thumped his fist on his desk. "Enough!" he bellowed, causing the bickering to come to a stop. "Now," the lieutenant said firmly, "I know you all want to be in charge of this situation, but may I first get you back on track to the fact we're discussing a possible ransom transaction here, and secondly, the decision to go ahead with this is ultimately Mr. Fleming's. What do you think, Trevor?"

Trevor thought it over for a minute. "Well do it, but do the whole ransom drop, and do it with real money, and no cops near Marshall Fields," he said out loud.

"Well, we won't be able to pull the full five hundred million just yet, but we'll have a thousand in real money for your son," Ford told him, "We'll have as much real money as we can print up in the next couple of hours."

"That's good," Trevor sneezed again. Adrian ran out of the office, covering his face. "Yeah, you're really holding up quite well," Huey snorted sarcastically from his desk, having taken notice of the sneezing.

"You, you wouldn't happen to have disinfectant with you?" Adrian asked him, "I may have to do Lieutenant Welsh's whole office afterwards."

Huey shook his head sardonically. It was at that moment his phone rang. "Chicago police, Detective Huey speaking," he said into it. His eyes shot up to Adrian. "Yes, he's here, may I ask who's calling?" he said, "Oh, well in that case, here he is." He held the phone up to the former detective. "For you," he told him, "Some guy, says he's got something important to tell you."

"Thank you," Adrian dug out another wipe and cleaned down the receiver before putting it to his ear, "I'm Adrian Monk, what have you got?" he asked.

"Adrian Monk?" said a low, raspy voice that sounded nervous, "I may have information about the disappearance of your assistant. Meet me at the Comlex Warehouse in an hour."

"Can't you tell me here and now?" Adrian inquired.

"I can't," the informant said, "He's onto me."

"Who's he?"

"The six-fingered man."

Adrian's heart leaped. "Really?" he said excitedly, "Where is he? What's his connection to the…"

But suddenly the line went dead. "Hello?" Adrian asked, but there was no response. He slowly put the receiver down. It had been a long time since he'd felt the way he did now.

"I don't see any cars around here," Natalie told her boss as they pulled into the Comlex Warehouse parking lot, "Maybe he pulled a fast one on you."

'Well, it's not exactly an hour later; he could still come up," Adrian glanced out the window at the abandoned building looming before them. It looked completely deserted.

"I thought you were insensitive the other day, but these guys from the FBI outdo you at least ten to one," Natalie groused, "I spent five minutes asking them to look into Julie's disappearance after you walked out, and they completely shoved me off. I hate to speak ill of people, but Detective Vecchio was right about them; they are only in it for personal glory."

"I could tell," Adrian said, wiping away a smudge on the windshield.

"Tell me something, and I want you to be honest," Natalie looked him right in the eye, "If we find Sharona, are you going to try and rehire her? I'd just like to know ahead of time, so if you do, I can set my affairs in order."

"Will I rehire her?" Adrian stared back, "You want the truth? This truth is, I don't know. I just don't know."

"Well it's no secret that you have something special for her," Natalie commented, "There's no way I could forget how highly you'd speak of her when I first met you—over and over again, I might add. You really didn't want to see her leave, did you?"

"Well, um, the thing is, the thing about her leaving that really got me was the suddenness of it," Adrian admitted, "I mean, there was no advance warning whatsoever. One minute she's happily in my employment, and the next I'm scrambling to find a new assistant. I think if she'd given me a little heads-up, I'd've taken it a lot better. It's always been harder for me to say goodbye to people—since I've never had many real friends, I like to hold on to the people who are nice to me."

"Well then let me ask this; if you do rehire her, are you going to hold on to me?" Natalie had to know.

"I'd like to," Adrian cracked a very small smile, "I want to be able to hold on to you, Natalie. I may not want to, but I'd like to try."

Something caught his attention in the warehouse. "I think someone's up there," he pointed to the window in question, "Let's go see what he wants."

"Okay, but I still think something's not right here," Natalie told him as they climbed out of the car.

They entered the warehouse. "Anyone here?" Adrian called out to the seemingly deserted building, "Mr. Informant? Are you here? Is the six-fingered man here?"

"Doesn't look like it, but something smells terrible," Natalie cringed, pointing to the area the stench was coming from.

Adrian walked toward it, but stopped a good distance from the source, repulsed by what it was. "Elephant droppings," he commented, "They had Sharona here before."

"Well I don't think she's here now," Natalie walked in the opposite direction of the droppings, "If you see anything let me know, I'll go look in the back there."

"I'll, I'll go clean up a little," Adrian headed for the nearest stack of old boxes and started rearranging them in a pyramid, stopping several times to make them perfectly geometric. Then another anomaly caught his attention; an old book on a shelf next to the wall hanging out of place (the others were all neatly lined up). Adrian walked over and pulled up the book, intending to straighten it out…

And it was too late that he saw the wire attached to the back of the book. And the myriad beeping of armed explosives that clicked on all over the warehouse. He had just enough time, upon realizing what was about to happen, to scream toward Natalie, "RUN!" and taking a spectacular dive toward safety before the entire world burst into flames.

"Did you hear that, Ray?" Fraser held up his hand inside the Riviera.

"Sound like an explosion," Vecchio said. His face grew concerned. "And it sounds like it's from…"

"The Comlex Warehouse," Fraser knew immediately what had happened, "Drive, Ray."

"I told him it was probably a trap, but like he cared," Vecchio muttered as he accelerated as fast as he could toward the warehouse, "Most obvious trick in the book, and he fell for it."

"Well there was no way of knowing that it wasn't a legitimate call, Ray; for all we know, this six-fingered man of his could very well be behind…oh dear."

"They'd reached the warehouse…or what was left of it. It was now a sea of flames and thick smoke. Without a second thought, Fraser burst from the car and charged toward the burning building. "Benny, don't; there's no way they survived this!" Vecchio protested,but Fraser wasn't paying attention. He ran into the building, hunching low to get the remaining oxygen from the floor. "Adrian?" he cried out into the inferno, "Natalie?" Adrian?" He ducked a collapsing timber and forced his way into the center of the warehouse. The sight that met him there stunned him to the point where he could only say, "Oh dear."