Chapter 21

A hand covered Amita's mouth as she tried to warn Terry about the man in the ski mask sneaking up on her. She watched in horror as Terry was stuck by the butt of the gun, and then fell limply to the floor. She struggled against the man but as soon as she felt the cold metal of the man's gun pressed against the nape of her neck, she stopped. The man roughly pushed her towards the rest of the hostages and waved his gun at her, signaling to sit with them. The two men walked to the side of the third man who was standing behind the counter.

"Joe, what do you want me to do with this one?" The man wearing the red shirt posed to Joe while gesturing to Terry

"Get her wallet, find out who she is. There must be a legit reason why she had a gun" The man in the red shirt walked over to the unconscious Terry and patted her down. He quickly found her wallet and his eyes widened when he found her FBI ID.

"JOE!" The man in the red shirt called

"What do you want Doug?"

"Joe, she's a fed" He responded attempting to throw the ID to Joe but hit his other accomplice "Sorry Jack" Jack just rolled his eyes, took a quick look at the ID then handed it to Joe

"This…this is better then I could have even planned" Joe said his eyes lighting up. Amita looked up and was curious at why her ID could have caused him joy instead of the expected fear of realizing that you're holding captive a FBI agent

"What do you mean?" Jack asked. He was getting a little nervous. He hated the idea of the robbery, and then holding people hostage? He had no clue how he got involved with this. He was just a computer geek, not one to get involved with the human aspect of this operation

"I knew that at least one fed was going to walk into the café. Its unavoidable, we're in a two-minute walking distance of their headquarters. I know her. We were friends when we were younger. We left for separate colleges, a few years later I heard though my mother talking to her mother that she now worked in the FBI. Another few years later I heard she was dating a guy named Don Eppes. A little hacking into the system told me that they're partners now and assigned to our case"

Amita's nervousness increased at how much this man seemed to know. She didn't know much about law enforcement and hostage situations but she knew that the captors having this information and Terry to boot was definitely not a good thing.

"Do we know who that is?" Doug gestured to Amita. Amita felt her pulse quicken

"I don't know. She came in with the fed" Jack answered

"You" Joe said pointing to her "Come over here nice and slow" Amita stood and walked over slowly, keeping a watchful eye on Terry. She hadn't even made a move since he hit her and she didn't like that

"Yes?" Amita said addressing Joe as bravely as she could

"What's your name?"

"Amita Ramanujan" She answered trying to stare him down

"How do you know her?" He asked, showing Amita that her efforts were in vain

Amita hesitated. She didn't know whether or not to tell the truth. She figured that lying would make it worse were they to find out but she would tell as little truth, without lying, as possible "I'm a friend of hers. I'm a professor at college. We hadn't seen each other in awhile and I have a project to work on, so I went into her office" Not lying but not the full truth

"She could be helpful too" Joe said smiling (who he was talking to neither Jack or Doug knew)

"Let me help her" Amita said bravely gesturing to Terry

"Why should I?" Joe's eyes suddenly clouded over with an emotion that Amita couldn't quite place but she knew she didn't like it

"You said you knew her partner dated her while they were at the academy. Well I'm also a friend of her partner's. I know that he still loves her. I also know that he will not take kindly to the fact that she got injured, especially if I can't get her to wake up"

Joe's faced contorted with thought. He knew that Amita had a point. He may be dealing with feds he knew something about (i.e. their feelings being more then just protectiveness over their partner), but that didn't change the fact that he was dealing with feds. On the other hand he didn't like the way that woman was making him look. So he came to what he thought was a reasonable solution- he backhanded Amita so that she fell next to Terry

"Don't be getting cocky. Remember we're the ones that have the guns" He spat at her

Amita just looked stunned, raising her hand to her check, feeling the sting of his hand. She recovered quickly though to check on Terry. She had a nasty cut of the back of her head from where the gun had collided with it, it was bleeding badly but then most head wounds do. She made an effort to note how much blood was flowing so she would notice if it slowed or not. Terry's pulse was a little slow, as well as her breathing but that was to be expected, she would only have to worry if both got much slower. Amita had just gotten a napkin off the table to place under Terry's head when her phone rang. If it hadn't been so loud the men wouldn't have heard it but it was and Joe snapped his fingers and Amita knew to bring him the phone. She unfortunately only heard Joe's side of the conversation

"Ah finally someone calls for the missing agent…That's not important. What is important is that I have your partner's life in my hands and I need something from you...Tisk tisk, agent-...Well agent, I would not go around making threats or doing anything that would anger me, considering I hold your dear Terry's life in my hands...Uh oh, did I hit a nerve? I'm sorry agent I forgot that you were involved at one point...Not important. What is important is that you stop trying to find me. I didn't kill anyone, dear agent, just took a few dollars from a few accounts-...As I said agent, I never killed anyone…well yet that is...You don't listen very well when you're angry do you? I told you I want to be left alone. You stop investigating and I'll disappear. I'll leave LA, California even. I won't be your problem anymore...Then I can't let her go" And he hung before, presumably cutting Don off

"Why did you do that? She's a major dealing chip" Doug asked. Hearing that Amita had to restrain herself from running across and punching him. As she restrained herself though, a thought (rather a person) crossed her mind - Charlie. He must have been wondering where she was, and odds are he figured she was with Terry. She figured it was Don that had called, and she knew that Charlie had to have been next to him

"What's with her?" Jack asked gesturing to Amita

Amita snapped back to reality and answered "Nothing. Just worried about Terry"

"You're lying" Joe stated in a cool tone. He wasn't accusing her, he was stating a fact "I saw the look on your face when you saw she was still out. That look was different"

"I'm not allowed to go into a daze? This doesn't happen to me very often and I was merely processing everything"

"Not the whole truth" Joe said again "It had something to do with this phone call" Amita didn't answer and she knew that she had just inadvertently given them something she didn't want them to know- there was someone out there she was worried about "Uh oh, do you have a secret?"

"No. I'm just worried about how all of this is going to go down"

"Ok. Sure, Amita, was it?"

Amita just gave a curt nod and turned her focus back to Terry. Her bleeding had slowed down to the extent that in another moment or two it would stop completely. She checked her pulse and then her breathing and found that they had both returned too normal. She smiled, feeling that Terry was going to be ok. Her joy however was interrupted when her phone rang.