Chapter 23

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A short while later, the team was in place at the Garden Court Motel with Jack, Sam, Viv and Danny positioned outside the door. Victor had wanted to join them but Jack insisted that he remain in the car because if Jake saw him it might set him off. Victor reluctantly agreed and sat in the passenger seat looking frustrated and anxious. Sam could appreciate the way he must feel because if the situation were reversed it would be extraordinarily hard for her to stay behind.

From inside the room they could hear that the TV was on as the ubiquitous tune from iJeopardy/i filtered through the thin motel door. Jack glanced at each of them before signaling for them to move in. He gave Danny a nod who responded by kicking open the door.

"FBI!"

"FBI freeze!"

"Where is he?"

Jake Miller jumped off the bed and bumped himself against the wall. He raised his arms in the air and shouted, "He's not here!"

"Turn around and put your hands on the wall." Danny ordered as Viv and Sam kept their guns trained on Jake. Once he was handcuffed, Danny flipped him around, slammed him against the wall and angrily asked, "Where is Martin?"

"I told you, he's not here." Jake replied, sounding scared. His face was bruised and he had a large black eye that was swollen shut. Sam hoped that Martin was the one who did it.

Jack holstered his weapon, walked up to the Jake and in a fierce voice asked, "Then where is he?"

"I don't know." Jake was still wearing the pants and shirt from his doorman's uniform. He looked stunned but not entirely surprised to have four armed agents storming his hotel room.

Sam and Viv made their way to the bathroom and found it empty. Viv gave Sam a sad look and put her weapon away as she studied the scene before them. Sam tried to contain her disappointment in Martin not being here and went back to the bedroom to find Jack interrogating Jake.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Jack asked as he leaned into Jake's space. Jack's face was hard and menacing.

"He took him." Jake replied, his eyes darting to each agent.

"Who took him?" Sam asked shakily.

Jake sighed heavily and said, "Harry Davidge."

Danny pressed hard on Jake's shoulders and had him sit down on the bed with the garish green and orange bedspread. "Start talking."

Jake looked at the agents and said, "I never meant it to happen this way. I just wanted to scare them. It would have been fine if Martin hadn't woken up."

"Who's Harry Davidge?" Jack asked. Sam knew that no one in the room was interested in hearing Jake's sob story.

Jake's eyes were lowered as he began, "I hired Harry to help me. He was supposed to just be the muscle, that's it."

"What happened?" Jack pressed.

Jake looked up and said, "Everything changed after Harry got into a fight with Martin."

Harry snapped his fingers in front of Martin's slumbering face. "Man, he is really out. How long does this drug work?"

"I don't know exactly but at least four or five hours." Jake said as he stood near the sofa where Martin slept. He looked down at Martin and a flicker of regret crossed his face before he squared his shoulders and turned away to move to the computer.

He sat down at the desk and still wearing his white doorman gloves he inserted a DVR into the hard drive and began typing away.

Harry wandered around the apartment, picking up random items to inspect before setting them back down. "This guy's got some money. This is a pretty sweet apartment." He stood in front of Martin's flat screen TV before crouching down to look at the stereo equipment.

"Yeah, I guess." Jake replied suddenly feeling very uneasy. Once the email was completed he stood up and nodded towards the bedroom. "I'll go grab the cords from his bag and then we can move him down to the car."

Harry stood up and said, "I'll go with you."

The two men moved down the hall and entered Martin's walk-in closet. As Jake opened the bag and started looking for the cords he saw Harry opening some drawers and pulling things out.

"What are you doing?"

"He has some nice watches and cufflinks." He pulled out a black leather box and showed Jake a set of gold cufflinks with the initials 'M' and 'F' engraved. "You know these are worth a pretty penny."

"Put them back. We aren't here to rob him." Jake ordered as he stood up holding several cords in this hand.

"Excuse me? You are here to kidnap the guy and you are getting on my case about taking a few trinkets." Harry grabbed some other items and put them in his jacket pockets. "Screw you, I'm taking them."

Harry walked back into the bedroom and looked around. Jake followed him out and decided to just keep him occupied by saying, "I need your help tying him up." Harry stopped his inventory check and turned around to look at Jake. "That's why you are here, remember?"

In a deeply sarcastic tone Harry replied, "Yeah, I remember."

The two men's eyes met questioningly before Jake turned and moved down the hall with Harry trailing behind him. Jake stopped short when he reached the hallway and Martin was no longer on the sofa.

"Where is he?" Harry asked looking around the empty living room. Suddenly they heard a cabinet door open and close in the kitchen followed by some coughing. Harry turned to Jake and whispered, "You ready for this?"

Jake shook his head and quietly replied, "No, you get out of here and I'll put a tablet in his glass of water." He pointed to the glass on the table. "We'll come back up in a few hours when he's asleep again."

"How do you know he'll even drink from that glass?" Harry asked pointedly.

"Joseph?" Martin was standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

Jake smiled and said, "Um, Mr. Fitzgerald, I thought I'd stop by to check up on you…" He noticed that Martin was eyeing Harry warily. "Oh, this is my friend….." He would have continued except the look on Martin's face left no doubt that he didn't believe a word he was saying. Jake's face hardened and he stepped forward towards Martin who reacted by backing quickly into the kitchen.

"Shit." Jake mumbled as both he and Harry hurried into the kitchen to find Martin reaching for the cordless phone.

Martin looked sluggish and was swaying as his eyes tried to focus. In a slurred voice he asked, "Joseph, why are you doing this?"

Jake narrowed his eyes at Martin and replied, "Your father needs to know, to understand the consequences of his actions."

Martin looked at him in disbelief as Harry raised his arms and slowly approached saying, "Come on buddy. Don't make this any harder."

Martin stilled himself before turning around to grab a knife from the cutlery block and held it out in front of him. He would have looked really menacing if he wasn't continuously blinking as he tried to focus.

"Stay back. I am a federal agent." Martin tightened his grip on the knife and held it in front of him as if he were preparing to attack.

"You don't want to do that." Harry warned as he crept closer to Martin.

They were staring at each other when Martin started coughing giving Harry an opportunity to make a move for the knife. Harry rushed Martin and was able to put his hands over Martin's. The two men were struggling when Jake saw Harry's face grimace as he pulled back holding the knife but there was blood on his shirt. Harry looked at his wound before looking back at Martin who was panting and looking confused. Harry got a furious look on his face and suddenly reached out and slashed Martin in the side.

Martin screamed out and managed to shove Harry so hard he dropped the knife. Harry responded by reaching over and putting his hands around Martin's neck, strangling him. Jake tried to intervene but by the time he pulled Harry off, Martin dropped to his knees and then the floor completely unconscious. Jake checked his pulse and was relieved to find that he was still alive.

"What the fuck? I thought you said he was going to be out of it for a long time." Harry argued as he pulled up his shirt to examine his wound. There was a large gash and it was bleeding profusely. "Shit." He walked to the sink to get the dish towel to try and stop the bleeding.

Jake watched him a moment before moving to inspect Martin's wound. He pulled up his t-shirt and saw a long slash along his side but it didn't look like it was too deep. The blood was pooling so he grabbed some napkins from off of the counter and pressed them to him. He looked up at Harry and said, "We have to get out of here."

"No shit." Harry replied. "Where did you drop those cords?"

"What do you mean? We can't take him now, he's injured."

"So am I!" Harry pulled the towel away and was relieved to see that the blood was slowing down. He pressed it again and said, "We are going to take him and we are going to get this daddy you keep talking about to pay us a lot of money."

"No." Jake replied. "This isn't about money. I'm going to go see if he has any First-Aid supplies in the bathroom, I'll do what I can and then we'll go."

Jake hurried out of the kitchen to head for the bathroom. He could hear Harry move behind him but refused to look back. In the bathroom he found a small bag of bandages and other medical supplies under the sink. He picked it up and headed back to the living room.

"Change of plans, old man." Harry announced as he raised a gun towards Jake. "Look what I found in the hall closet. Now we are going to do it just like I say."

"He took the First-Aid kit and ordered me to tie up Martin. After that we tried to take Martin down the stairwell but he was too heavy for me and with Harry injured he wasn't much help. So we exited on the 14th floor and took the freight elevator down to the loading dock where we put Martin in the trunk of his car."

"We looked at the surveillance tapes and we didn't see anything, why not?" Danny questioned.

"I never turned on the VCR that night. I just relabeled an old tape." Jake said in a low sorrowful voice.

"Where can we find Harry?" Jack asked gruffly.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Sam asked growing increasingly frustrated.

"My plan was to take Martin to a warehouse in Queens. Harry knew this but when we were driving he said that he had a better place to put him. We got into an argument about his plans to ask for ransom so he pulled over on the side of highway and we got out of the car to fight about it some more. That's when he did this." Jake pointed to his eye. "He got back in the car and drove off without me. That's how I ended up here."

"Where's Martin?" Everyone in the room turned around to find Victor Fitzgerald walking into the room straight towards Jake Miller. Jake stood up and Danny grabbed him by the arms as Jack moved to intercept Victor. "I asked you a question: where is my son!"