CHAPTER TWO

"The apartment's clean. No chip."

Angus Kirk's statement was an unwelcome one.

It was the end of a long day. The unintended stay in the North Sea put Seto behind schedule, and he was already moving things forward to compensate for losing another week at the upcoming Tokyo tournament. He'd worked hard to be one of the American finalists going to the international tournament. The game and the competitions had kept him sane when his parents had died. They were the victims of a drunk driver when he was only twenty-two. He'd had to drop out of grad school to take over his father's company, and care for his younger brother, a mere infant. His mother called Mokuba her 'miracle'. She'd been told that she'd never have another child after Seto, but in her early forties along came Mokuba. She'd been so happy to be a mother again, but she'd only enjoyed it for a few months when the accident happened.

With all the responsibilities heaped on him, both business and family responsibilities, Seto had needed an outlet, something just for him to get his mind off everything. That was the lure of the game. You had to be totally focused when playing, running strategies, thinking ahead six or seven moves in advance if you wanted to survive. Nothing else could intrude, so nothing did. Seto could play for hours against a worthy opponent and not even notice the passage of time.

Joey Wheeler had been such an opponent. They weren't friends, though they had spoken on occasion at tournaments while waiting for matches to begin. In their thirties, they were in a select age bracket of competitors, who started to play while in college and kept it up in the years following. Most of the players these days were young, lightweights to players of Seto's ability level. He'd miss Joey, but as the saying went, accidents happened. He turned his attention to Angus.

"Where else might the Wheeler girl have it? You've checked to see if she has a safety deposit box?"

"Yes, I checked. The lass has nothing like that, and she hasn't been back to the box that was in her and her brother's name since the day he died."

"Hmmm." They'd had to search long and hard for Wheeler's box at First National. He was canny for a mere architect, hiding the box's payments in a maze of accounts, and sending the bank's box rental bills to a post office box rented under an assumed name. If they hadn't searched Wheeler's Los Angeles lawyer's office, they'd never have found the paper trail that led to the box. "Her office?"

"Searched her desk area after hours. Nothing. The only thing we haven't searched is her purse. She keeps it with her whenever she leaves the office, and it's locked in her desk when she is."

"And you haven't searched her desk because…?" Seto was intrigued. Angus did not mind bending the law in order to get Seto what he wanted. Breaking and entering were things his team – all ex-special forces or espionage experts – did as effortlessly as breathing. Industrial espionage was almost as vicious and cut throat as anything political entities dealt with, and the team Seto and Angus had assembled was one of the best in the business. Which begged the question, how had the woman's purse escaped scrutiny?

"She doesna' have an office with walls. She's in one of those cubicles with the half walls." Angus explained in disgust, his accent thickening with emotion. "Her employer" he imbued the word with contempt, "appears ta think his employees will na slack off if he can see them, so the cubicles are open. There's no way ta break into her desk withoot bein' seen." Angus' Scottish accent thickened, a clear indication of his frustration.

"If the office is out, we'll have to be more direct."

"The lass doesna' go aboot without her bag."

Seto glanced at his desk calendar. There wasn't much time until the Tokyo tournament, and he wanted the issue resolved. Tired of the delay, he pushed his chair back from the desk. "Fine, then we go to her and get it. Call the limo. I assume you have a man on her apartment?"

Angus nodded. "Ye're not thinking of going along?"

"I am." said Seto in a tone that brooked no argument. Angus looked unhappy, but took out his cellphone and called down to the building's garage. The limo was out front waiting by the time the elevator reached the lobby of Kaiba International's headquarters.

On the way to the apartment where Joey's sister lived, they got caught in one of New York's interminable traffic snarls, and it was well past the dinner hour when they arrived on the side street where Serenity Wheeler's apartment building was located. Angus got out after the limo parked a short distance past the building, and walked quickly across the street to talk to a man sitting on the stoop of a cheap hotel across from the apartment. When he came back to the limo, he reported to Seto that his man in the building across the way could see Serenity's purse through the window. It was on the sofa of the living room. The bathroom window just started to steam up so she must have just stepped into the shower.

"It's in the purse. We've checked everywhere else. I'll go in, check it, and be out before she needs her towel." Angus volunteered.

"Do it."

Waiting in the limo, Seto stared across at the building Angus disappeared into. It wasn't exactly a ghetto, but it was definitely on the lower side of lower middle class. The chauffeur was wise to park away from the door. They stood out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood. Seto wasn't worried about Angus getting caught. If the man said he could get in and out before the women stepped out of the shower, he would.

His cell phone rang.

"Kaiba." Seto answered.

He listened in silence, then cursed briefly when the call ended. Another ancient game chip had been stolen from a museum, this one in Sydney, Australia. Seto's agents, the same ones who negotiated his purchases of ancient game chips, were also his intelligence gatherers. There had been a rash of robberies lately.

"Fools" thought Seto contemptuously. How clumsy to steal the chips, when all you really had to do if the museum wouldn't sell was break in, photograph the markings, and be gone with no one the wiser. He had photographs of nearly every type of ancient game chip ever discovered, and he hadn't tipped his hand to do it. Still, the news was troubling. The Tokyo tournament began in less than two weeks time, and it seemed someone else was getting close to the truth about the Minoan game.

Angus appeared, slipped into the car, and said, sourly, "It's no' in the purse. There's an end to it unless you want me ta go back and see if she took it into the bath with her." Angus gestured to a lighted window on the 4rth floor.

"Time's getting short. I need that chip." Seto looked up at the apartment. The light went off in the bathroom. It next came on strong in the window beside it, probably the living room, and then the light went out. "Where is she now?"

"The bedroom I expect," said Angus. It's off the living room."

Seto stared up at the apartment. He'd wasted more time than he had just trying to ascertain if she even had the gamechip. If someone else were desperate enough to be stealing chips, he'd need to get hers before they did. He came to a decision.

"I'm going up."

"What?"

"This is getting us nowhere. I'll ask her point blank if she's got it, and if she does, I'll buy it off her."

"And if she doesna' want ta sell?" asked Angus.

"She'll sell." Seto was now determined to get his way. "And if she doesn't, I'll simply take it and deposit the money directly into her account. Who'll believe her? Besides, how will she know who I am? I'm not planning to give her my name." Seto reached for the door handle.

"Let me go," objected Angus. "Ye're too well known."

Amused, Seto reminded Angus that he hadn't been pictured in the newspapers or magazines in years, not even for tournaments. Angus seemed to think that CEOs were like movie stars, that everyone knew them.

"What are the chances she'd recognize me? From what we were able to determine, she's never been to a tournament outside the country, and rarely even went to her brother's matches even when he was competing in America."

Angus sighed, reflecting again that for an arrogant man, Seto was remarkably unaware of how striking his physical appearance was. Perhaps it had to do with his steering clear of long-term relationships, and taking women's compliments as just one more lie. He didn't trust women, not after the ever so motherly and helpful-appearing secretary of his father had stabbed him in the back by helping some board members try to take over his company.

"Take one of the men as backup, you never know, she could be armed."

Seto nodded, bowing to Angus' security concerns. "Agreed, so long as he stays down the hall and out of sight. I don't want to scare her, and two visitors are more intimidating than one."

Seto got out of the car, jogged across the street to the apartment building, picked the lock on the main door, and entered, a security man named Fergus on his heels.

o-o-o

Up in her apartment, Serenity finished brushing out her hastily blow-dried hair, and looked in the bathroom's tiny mirror. The girl who looked back at her was tired, paler than usual, with slight traces of dark circles under her amber brown eyes. She gave a last brush to her straight, shoulder length brown hair, put on a long sleeved navy blue sleep T-shirt, and prepared to get into bed. It was only 9:00, but she was wiped out. She picked up the gamechip from her bedside table. She'd taken it out of her purse and into the bathroom with her. It was never far from her side. It reminded her of her brother. Joey had been gone for weeks now.

It was small; it fit into the palm of her hand, flat, rectangular, with those odd markings carved into the surface of the blotchy, tarnished silver. She continued to clutch it, as she climbed into bed, put it under her pillow, and turned off the light. Silently, she renewed her promise to Joey, to keep it away from Kaiba.

The memory of the misplaced items in her apartment came to her, causing her a shiver of uneasiness, but she shrugged it off and turned off the light. Just as the room went dark, she heard her doorbell chime. She turned the light back on, got out of bed, took a quick look to be sure the pillow still covered the game chip, then went to the door.

"Who's there?" she called, looking through the peephole and seeing only the dark hair of a man who'd leaned in, presumably to ring the bell again.

"My name wouldn't mean anything to you Miss Wheeler, I'm here on behalf of a party interested in purchasing an item from your brother's estate. May I come in and speak with you?"

As he spoke, he stepped back. She couldn't help exclaiming, "Kaiba!" in a tone of horror. She'd researched the man her brother had died escaping from, and had found a very old photo of him from a rare gaming magazine interview, and recognized him at once.

Through the peephole, she saw his eyes narrow.

"Then, if you know my name, you know what I want." His voice was quiet, conversational even, but it sent such a chill through her that she started backing away. "Open the door, Miss Wheeler, I won't ask again."

With a shock of horror, she heard the rasp of metal on metal and saw the lock on her door start to jiggle. He was picking the lock! She turned and ran to the bedroom and shut and locked the door. She had only seconds. She heard her apartment's outer door open, and Kaiba's quick footsteps moving swiftly to her bedroom door, so she snatched up the chip. It was too big to swallow, and the room offered nowhere brilliant to hide it. She went to put it down her shirt, but realized it would have fallen straight through to the floor, so she hiked up the back of her nightshirt, and stuck it in the back waistband of her pink cotton underwear, and dropped the nightshirt just as the door to her bedroom burst open, the pathetic little latch style lock giving way to Kaiba's shoulder.

She backed up as he came forward, his eyes intensely blue and determined, and saw another man over his shoulder, also entering the apartment, closing the outer door behind him. It was two against one. Her heart sank.

"I'll have the chip now, Miss Wheeler," Kaiba said and put his hand out, staring her down, as if determined to make her give it up by sheer force of will.

Serenity realized that her back was now quite literally against the wall. This was it. She raised her chin, and met his gaze "Never. I'll never give it to you, you murderer!" A quiver of emotion glanced over his face for an instant, and he dropped his hand.

"Fergus! Search the room."

The second man entered the tiny bedroom and methodically went through the drawers of her bureau, checked behind the pictures on the wall, under the bed, and around the bedside table.

"Maybe if they don't find it they'll just go" thought Serenity, shrinking back against the wall, and feeling the cold lump of metal at her back, as the man, Fergus, dropped to his knees beside her to search the second bedside table, and under the pillows and mattress by her side of the bed.

Fergus rose to his feet, and shook his head at Kaiba, who stood with arms crossed, his gaze never leaving Serenity. She'd felt it, even as she watched the man going through her things. Kaiba motioned to Fergus to go stand in the doorway.

"There's only one place left to look."

Frightened by the words, Serenity's eyes shifted to Kaiba, who'd dropped his arms so that they rested at his sides. He had the look of a man balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, poised to spring.

"You could make it a lot easier on yourself if you just handed it over."

Unable to speak, Serenity simply shook her head, and tried to push her back further into the wall. In a second, he was on her, his left hand covering her mouth even as she was drawing in a breath to scream, his right hand matter-of-factly skimming over her T shirt clad body, searching for the tell tale lump of metal. When he didn't find it, he made a humming noise in the back of his throat, looked briefly into her eyes, then in a lightning fast move, pulled her from the wall by balling the front of her nightshirt in his right hand, swinging her around shoving her face first down on the bed so that she went sprawling, arms outstretched and stomach down on the mattress, knees on the floor.

It knocked the breath out of her for a moment. Just as she was getting her hands under her to push herself up, his left hand landed on the middle of her back, pushing her down into the mattress as his right hand hiked up her nightshirt. She felt his fingers on her skin as he saw the gamechip, and grabbed it out of the elastic waistband. "No! Stop it!" There was nothing she could do, sprawled flat as she was. The utter helplessness of her position made her sick with panic.

The moment Kaiba had the chip, the weight of his hand left her back, and she sank to her haunches by the bed.

"Give it back!" Tears were streaking down her face. When had she started crying? Kaiba didn't bother to look at her as he brushed past her. She had to stop him. She stumbled getting to her feet. He heard her but barely paused as he made it to her bedroom doorway.

"I'll tell!" She sounded like a child. She had to come up with something better. "Besides, it's useless without the…" Appalled, she stopped herself before she could complete the sentence, but the words already had their intended affect.

Kaiba stopped dead, wheeled around in the door way and said very quietly, "without the what?"

Serenity found herself backing away from him, as a mouse might from the cat stalking it, for stalking her he most definitely was, moving lightly towards her, the gamechip clutched in his hand.

"I'll never tell you, never!" She said, and tried to roll away from him across the bed, but once again he was too fast for her, and somehow she was pinned against the bed, her wrists caught up in his large, capable hands, her legs pinned by his knee. His face was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her cheek. And there were those incredibly scary, clear blue eyes glaring down at her, and again the feeling of being utterly vulnerable, but she couldn't let herself give up. Not to him, not to Joey's killer. Why else would Joey have made her promise to keep the gamechip away from Kaiba, if he wasn't the one Joey suspected of causing the accident that took his life? Kaiba collected antique gamechips; it was common knowledge, though most of the gamechips she'd been able to discover that he owned had been bought from the museums, which purchased them from the Minoan excavation.

"Without the what?" Kaiba repeated.

Serenity swallowed "I'd die before I told you." She might not be able to move, but she could glare back at him, and did.

"Your brother was a gifted mathematician. If we were at war, he'd have been an excellent code breaker. I always wondered what he discovered during the games. What did he tell you at the hospital? You were seen talking to him before he died."

Serenity's eyes widened. How could he have known that? He must have been investigating her, or rather Joey. While she was looking up old articles at the library, and pouring through internet sources there on her lunch break so as not to use her work computer for personal business, he'd been finding out about her. The items which seemed slightly out of place in her apartment? She hadn't imagined that. It had been him, searching for the gamechip. Serenity kept her mouth firmly shut. She wasn't about to give him any more information.

Kaiba glared coldly at her another minute or two then said to the other man, waiting patiently in the doorway, "bind her, and bring her."

Serenity panicked. If they took her, who knew what Kaiba would do to get her to talk? She had no illusions about her ability to withstand torture. She opened her mouth to scream, only to have Kaiba anticipate that move again, and found his hand over her mouth. She continued to struggle as the other man, Fergus, found black electrical tape from her kitchen, and placed it over her mouth, and around her wrists and ankles.

"What now?" he asked his boss.

Kaiba stood. "Get her suitcase, pack some things, enough to look like she's gone on a trip. We probably have enough voice samples from the tap on her phone to generate a phone message to leave on her boss's answering machine saying she's been called away on family business. Wheeler had a place and an uncle in L.A., we'll say it's related to that."

Fergus nodded. "How are we going to get her out of here?" Kaiba glanced out the bedroom door and gestured toward the floor. "We'll take a page out of Cleopatra's book, and roll her up in that rug."

Serenity began to make keening noises. Joey had given her that rug. It was a real Afghan, aged to a dull rainbow of jewel toned reds, blues, and greens on a cream background, his housewarming gift when she'd found the apartment and started moving in.

Fergus raised an eyebrow, "She'll be a noisy rug."

Kaiba took a cell phone out of his pocket, dialed, and told someone on the other end. "We're taking her with us. I'll need some sort of sedative." He listened for a moment, said, "Not optional." listened again, said "good." and hung up. "Get the suitcase going," he ordered, and left the bedroom.

In absolute misery, Serenity watched Fergus take her suitcase out of the closet and begin stuffing it with clothes. She tried to move her wrists apart, but couldn't. She could hear Kaiba moving her furniture around to get the rug out from under the sofa and coffee table.

Soon another man entered her bedroom. He was tall and solid looking. Pale skin, also blue eyed, but his eye color was more of a subdued grey blue than Kaiba's startlingly blue eyes. His hair was sandy red, streaked with grey, and he carried a small briefcase. He sat on the bed, opened it, and took out a syringe and a bottle. Using the syringe, he drew some liquid out of the small bottle.

The spell of horrified fascination holding Serenity in thrall broke, and she began squirming frantically away from the new man. Unimpressed, he squirted a few drops of the liquid out of the syringe, careful that they fell into the briefcase. He reached over with one hand and pulled her toward him by her bound wrists.

The man called Fergus had left the bedroom, presumably to get toiletries from the bathroom, so it was Kaiba who came by the bed, grabbed her by the shoulders, and held her still as the red headed man shoved up her sleeve, found a vein and emptied as much of the syringe into it as he could with Serenity still trying to squirm away.

The last thing she remembered was looking up to see Kaiba's face, watching the needle in her arm. He was so dispassionate. It was like looking at Joey while he was playing in a tournament; "putting on his game face" he called it. He told her you had to hide your emotions while playing, just like you did in poker.

She hadn't liked it in Joey; it made him look like a stranger, which was why she hadn't gone to very many of the tournaments, though she knew he loved them.

Then the room went dark, and she was gone.

Note to Reviewers:

Thanks to Sakurelle and Sueb262 for the encouragement. Sue, I'll definitely call on you for bike-y questions!