It was very quiet and somber in the solemn confines of Natalie's hospital room. Mostly because Natalie remained in a coma and couldn't talk with her boos, who sat drearily on a chair at the foot of the bed, staring at the floor. Behind him, Fraser patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "It wasn't your fault, Adrian, you have to realize that," the Mountie tried to reassure him.
"I should have known better," Adrian said dismally, "It was an obvious trap and I fell for it. It's almost like a pattern; everyone around me gets hurt or leaves."
"Now you now that's now true at all, Adrian."
"Is it!?" Adrian's voice uncharacteristically rose, "Just look at everything, Constable: my dad leaves me, my mom dies, Trudy dies, Natalie's probably going to die, Sharona leaves, and now she and Benjy are going to die! And on top of that, I shove away my brother for seven years because I think he was insensitive to me. The fact is, I'm cursed, it's as simple as that!" And for only the second time in his life, he burst into uncontrollable tears, "Oh God, I'm so cursed!" he sobbed, "Why couldn't I just be normal, like everyone else on this planet?"
"Adrian," Trudy had materialized next to him again, "Adrian, please don't say that. I like you just the way you are. You are not responsible for me being dead, you understand that?"
"The fact is, Trudy, I still feel responsible," he told her, taking her by her vaporous hand, "You have no idea how much I'd just want to jump out that window there and be with you forever."
"Killing yourself won't solve anything, Detective Monk," Fraser Senior had also arrived now, "One of the saddest cases I ever investigated was that of a bright young man who drowned himself in Hudson Bay after failing to past muster for R.C.M.P. basic training. He was too disgraced to realize he could have taken the exam again, which is a complete shame because I would have liked working with him."
"Uh, Dad, I don't really think that's an entirely relevant example for this situation," his son told him.
"Adrian, he's right that you can't kill yourself," Trudy told him firmly but kindly, "I'm not ready to have you forever yet. There's still so much for you to do here in your world."
"Yeah, things for me to screw up," Adrian muttered sadly. He got up and folded Natalie's left arm across her chest so it would be perfectly symmetrical with her right one.
"Adrian, you are not a screw-up," Trudy continued to try and get him to stop being pessimistic, "Think of it; for every time you've screwed up, you've succeeded at least seven times over. Please, don't give up now, for me. I know in my heart you can solve this."
"You do?" Adrian stared at her.
"We all do, Adrian," Fraser added, "You are the best detective in the country—and quite possibly North America. I know this for a fact even though we've known each other only a couple of days."
Adrian looked Natalie over. His esteem and resolve slowly returned. "Right," he said, "Well, if we're going to do it, we'd better do it fast, before I have to go to the airport."
But just then Huey stuck his head in the door. "Time to go, Detective Monk," he told him, "Your flight leaves in an hour."
"Are you sure I can't have another fifteen minutes?" Adrian pleaded.
"I'm sorry, but we have to go," Huey gestured for them to leave. Adrian sighed and put his tuxedo back on. "Listen," he told Trudy, "Stay with Natalie. If she tries to cross over, push her back. She deserves to live."
"I'll do what I can," Trudy gave him a parting smile as she took hold of one of Natalie's hands (all the while still keeping it perfectly symmetrical as per her husband's preferences), "And you go do what you can. That's all we can ask for, isn't it?"
"I suppose so," Adrian waved goodbye. At least he could rest easier knowing Natalie was in good hands.
"All right, we know Frank Zuko carried out the kidnapping," the detective said out loud as he went through the metal detectors at Midway, which had the first available flight back to San Francisco, "He switched places with Bob Anderson to throw himself off suspicion, then kidnapped Sharona and Benjy. The question is, how did he do it after he got on the plane? And who is he taking orders from? What is it we're missing with this?"
"One thing is your passport," Huey handed it to him, "You put it in with the five dozen or so metal items you had in the dish, and if you can't get on that plane, I'll get in trouble with the feds."
"Rest assured, Detective, I would vouch for you in front of Agents Ford and Deeter if the situation arose," Fraser assured him. Turning to Adrian, the Mountie said, "Why don't we think this over from a different direction, Adrian. Who would stand the most benefit if Sharona were to vanish or die?"
"That's what I don't know!" Adrian shook his head wildly, "Why is it I can never solve any of the cases that hit closest to home for me? If only there was a new way for me to look at this, but they don't just drop out of the sky, unfortunately."
"Here's your flight, ready to take you home," Huey said, gesturing him down the gangway. Immediately, Adrian noticed the flight's identification number next to the boarding area. "Delta Flight 893?" he realized, "This is the flight Frank Zuko said he took to Florida. What do you think the odds of this being the plane are?"
"Probably close to the vicinity of 10,237,543.3954 to 1," Fraser summarized, looking equally thrilled at getting this freak breath of fresh air, "Detective Huey, you wouldn't mind if I got on board the plane as well?"
"Sure, why don't you do what the feds said and go with him, Fraser?" Huey inquired sarcastically, "You'll make things a lot less hectic with…"
"Hold it right there!" came the voice of the stewardess by the door to the plane. Adrian immediately recognized her as the embittered flight attendant he'd driven to drink when he and Sharona had flown to New Jersey a few years ago. "Hello," he waved at her.
"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded, "You not getting on this plane! I am not going through a repeat of last time!"
"Detective Huey, Chicago P.D., Violent Crimes," Huey flashed his badge to her, "This man is under federal orders to get on your plane, Miss, and you're obliged to let him on."
"Can I see your paperwork?" she asked him.
"Here you are," Huey handed her the federal order to put Adrian on the plane…which she immediately tore up into little pieces. "There. Now he has no right at all to get on board," she told Huey smugly, "So get him away from my plane, A.S.A.P."
"Miss, you don't appreciate my situation," Huey said pleadingly, "If I don't put him on your plane, I'll be in big trouble."
"That's your problem," the stewardess told him, "I can call the air marshals and have them put you and him into custody if you don't leave."
Huey sighed. "I really don't want to do this," he muttered as he drew his gun and fired three warning shots into the ceiling of the gangway. "Don't make me aim them somewhere else," he told the stewardess.
"Please," she snorted, drawing a gun of her own and emptying two warning shots of her own into the floor. "I picked it up in case I ever met him again," she pointed to Adrian, "And I am not afraid to use it..."
"Excuse me, could you shoot the floor one more time?" Adrian asked her, "He shot three times, and you only shot two."
"What!?" she stared at him incredulously.
"If you could, could you shoot it here?" the detective pointed at a specific spot on the floor, "Then you'd have nice even geometric triangle with the bullet holes."
"Get out of here!" she bellowed, waving her gun around wildly.
"I can't get him out of here; I have my orders!" a frustrated Huey shouted at the stewardess, "I'm sick of this whole affair with him as well, but if you don't listen…!"
"Excuse me, Detective Huey," Adrian's face had lit up again, "Say what you just said again, please?"
"What did I say?" Huey looked puzzled.
"That last sentence you said while arguing with her."
"I said I'm sick of this whole affair with you, and if she doesn't…"
"That's it!" Adrian looked like he'd won the Super Bowl, "This whole affair. This…whole…affair." Without warning, he dashed onto the plane. The stewardess jumped into the middle of the aisle and raised her gun high. "Get off this plane, or you're dead meat!" she shouted into coach at him. What followed was a mass panic as everyone in coach, apparently thinking she was yelling at one of them, jumped up and ran for the exit. "Not you, not you, please return to your seats!" she cried out to them as they accidentally knocked her to the ground. In the process, her gun accidentally discharged out the window, where the bullet hit the outboard starboard engine. Immediately, smoke and flames rose up from it. "Oh great!" she roared at the sight of it, "He's ruined another flight before it's even left the ground.
"Adrian, have you figured something out?" Fraser stepped onto the plane and glanced around for the detective, who'd disappeared from sight.
"Yes," Adrian ran back up to him from coach, clutching a camera in his hand. "We'll have to return this to a Mrs. Betty Hibbard of Sacramento once we're done," he told the Mountie.
"Stealing cameras is a felony!" the stewardess shouted at him as she picked herself up, "I'm calling the marshals, Mr. Monk! As you can see, the engine's busted on that side, and it's because of you ignoring my warnings!"
"It's great, isn't it?" Adrian told her in an unnaturally happy voice, "Now we can keep this plane on the ground, it's evidence in a federal kidnapping case." Turning to Fraser he said, "I solved the case. I know how Zuko did it, and I know who he's taking orders from. We've got to get to the drop site."
"You can't, you have to stay on this plane!" Huey thundered.
"Detective Huey, are you so bound to federal orders that you'd be willing to risk the safety of an innocent child?" Fraser asked him.
"I don't have a choice, Fraser!" Huey told him.
"Yes you do, we all have choices in life," the Mountie said.
"Listen to him and get him off!" the stewardess yelled at Huey.
"You're seriously ticking me off, lady!" Huey yelled back, "Threatening an officer of the law with a gun is classified as assault; I hope you'd like Joliet, because that's where you're going if you don't agree to my demands!"
"It'll be worth it to get rid of him!" she told him curtly.
"I think you're seriously…!" it was then that Huey heard the sound of the airplane door clicking shut and locking. The Chicago cop ran to the door and pounded on it. "Open this door, Fraser!" he yelled to his associate, who'd sneaked off the plane with Adrian while he'd been shouting at the stewardess.
"I'm terribly sorry, Detective Huey, but you'll thank me later," Fraser called to him as he retracted the gangway from the plane, leaving Huey and the stewardess high and dry.
"You're to going to leave them like that?" Adrian asked as they strode back into the terminal, "The other passengers too, I mean. It's pretty claustrophobic in there..."
"We can inform the airport authorities of the matter, and they can take the necessary steps to assist in the passengers' needs," Fraser told him, "The important thing is that, as you said, the plane can't leave. So, what has this been all about? You'd said you'd figured it out."
"I can't tell you out loud, they might have followed us," Adrian said. He leaned close and instead whispered his theory in Fraser's ear. Fraser nodded emphatically. "Yes, of course, now that I think of it, that makes perfect sense," he said, "Of course, we're going to have to get positive proof of it." He noticed a bank of phones on their right. "You wouldn't happen to have a quarter on you, Adrian?"
"Give me a minute here," Adrian dug out his wallet and extracted from it a plastic bag of perfectly lined up quarters. "I bag and separate all my change," he informed the Mountie, "Makes it easier to find them when I need to."
"That makes sense," Fraser nodded. He took the quarter Adrian gave him and dialed the precinct. "Ray, it's me," he told his friend, "We know who did it. Meet us here at the airport; we need warrants to get the evidence. Yes, I know it'll be hard at this juncture, but the lives of everyone who's going to that drop site tonight are in terrible danger. Yes, I mean it. Do your best, Ray, I'll pay you back for it at a later time. Yes, thank you kindly."
He hung up and sprinted for the escalators to the lower levels, Adrian hot on his heels. "And I just realized, Adrian," the Mountie continued, "When he called this morning, your commissioner said something to the extent of, 'It's nine thirty right now, I want you on the plane home by two.' Meaning he was operating on Central Time, not Pacific, as one would assume, indicating that he's not in San Francisco but here in Chicago and involved in the plot. But why would he be, I'm still wondering?"
"It was something Detective Vecchio said yesterday," Adrian told him, "He said that Frank Zuko's family had been investigated by the federal government, but that the case was called off at the last minute. I remembered that before he came to San Francisco, Commissioner Brooks was a federal investigator for the Midwest region at the time Detective Vecchio mentioned, and that he had experience working with the mob. I'm guessing Zuko's father bribed him off the case twenty years ago, and that Frank called him up and threatened to go public with the information that he took a dive unless the commissioner helped in the kidnapping. The information on Natalie's social security card was sent to him, and all Commissioner Brooks had to do was hire thugs off the street and have them pick up Julie using the address given to him—after he swore them to silence to protect himself, of course. As commissioner, he had the master keys to all our facilities, so it was very easy for him to pick up all the explosives that were stolen, and unless we can intercede, the rest of the explosives that haven't been detonated already will explode at the ransom drop tonight."
"One thing I don't understand is why your commissioner would risk coming out here for the transaction," Fraser admitted, "He's only further risking exposure by doing so."
"Zuko told him he would get a share of the billion dollar ransom demand for his efforts in eliminating me," Adrian told him, "but neither he nor Zuko apparently suspect they're about to be double-crossed."
They'd reached the curb and sat back to wait for Vecchio. It was about ten minutes later when the familiar green Riviera pulled into view. "What've you got for me, Benny?" the Chicago cop asked as he jumped out of the car.
"We've got concrete evidence of how Zuko was able to do it, Ray," Fraser said. He waited until after his friend had let out an ecstatic shriek of delight before continuing, "Did you have any success with the search warrant?"
"I'm working on it, but it's going to take some time," Vecchio informed them.
"Time we don't have," Adrian realized, "We've got to get it now if we want to stop them."
"Indeed; Ray, keys," Fraser extended his hand.
"What, you think I'm going to…?" Vecchio tired to protest, but then Diefenbaker leaned his head out of the window and snatched the keys out of Vecchio's hands. The wolf dropped them to the ground at his master's feet. "Thank you kindly, Diefenbaker," Fraser patted his pet on the head, "Stay here, Ray; if Detective Huey comes here looking for us in an enraged mood, see if you can send him on a false trail, for the moment. Dief, stay with Ray and keep him company. This may take a while."
"Normally, I'd be happy to…hey Fraser!" Vecchio's protests went unheard as Fraser and Adrian jumped into his car and drove off. He glanced down at Diefenbaker, who'd been let out by the Mountie. "Well, looks like it's you and me again," he told the wolf with weary resignation, "Let's hope they know what they're doing, because if I find one scratch on that car, they AND you are going to fix it up."