They waited for the car in almost absolute silence, which both aggravated and soothed Hawke's jangled nerves.
Marella's café au lait complexion had been stained red for a good five minutes after Hawke's words. He thought that it was mostly embarrassment, mixed with anger, but wasn't entirely sure of the proportion of each. The flare of anger was a nice counterpoint to the glacial look he received any time he happened to catch her eye.
Dom had once warned him that women invented the concept of scorched earth warfare. Right now, Hawke wouldn't leave his cabin, art collection, dog, or anything of personal value within a hundred miles of Marella Duval.
Briggs, on the other hand, had gone silent, like a submarine diving deep and listening. Even his gaze was remote. A silent Archangel was a plotting Archangel and Hawke knew no one with a more devious and calculating mind. He was fairly certain that whatever the other man was planning was only partially related to the 'prisoner exchange.'
Hawke had shepherded Briggs and Marella into the living room, taking the opportunity to grab her briefcase just before following them. He bit back a smile as Marella chose a seat as far from Briggs as possible, while still close enough to Hawke to make it impossible to cover both at the same time. A quick jerk of the gun directed her to the same couch as Briggs.
Hawke was a man of silence himself, but the tension between the three of them made this silence nearly excruciating and he was relieved when Briggs broke it.
"I will want that vest," he said, calmly, almost conversationally.
Marella turned her head, caught his eye and apparently read something there, nodded.
Briggs twisted the head of his cane as if wrestling with a decision. "And it will be necessary to go to Plan B, of course."
Hawke's eyes narrowed and he watched Marella for a reaction without any luck. "Cut the cryptic," he growled.
Briggs looked at him, and blinked as if surprised that Hawke was in the room. If Hawke hadn't known him better, he might have believed it.
"If Marella hasn't heard from me by 3:15PM, she is to change all access codes, passwords, and alert Donovan's team," he said, as if in explanation.
Hawke didn't buy it. Briggs only explained himself when it suited him and in full Archangel mode, his explanations were probably additional instructions to Marella.
"The Committee?" she asked quietly.
"Zeus is in Washington until midday tomorrow."
Hawke scowled with annoyance: that fact had been withheld and might have let him play this differently. On the other hand, he hadn't directly asked and he knew from past experience that Briggs rarely offered information unless directly asked, and then only when he chose. Not to mention that Zeus didn't need to physically be at Knightsbridge to scuttle Hawke's plans.
"You'll provide a status report to Marella?" Briggs said to Hawke, more command than question.
Hawke nodded.
"I'd hold off on notifying the Committee until you have something to tell them."
Marella nodded again, watching her boss, who gave her a slight smile of encouragement.
"It occurs to me that Neil Burnside in SIS once faced a situation with similarities to this one," Briggs said.
Marella stiffened, her eyes widened and then narrowed on her boss. "Absolutely not," she said firmly.
Hawke felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his aggravation with enigmatic Intelligence officers nearly as powerful as his curiosity.
"You want to clue me in?" he finally asked, letting curiosity win.
"That would require a level of trust not commensurate with certain behaviors already evidenced."
Which meant Briggs would tell Hawke, but only in trade for something Briggs wanted. Hawke wasn't sure he wanted to give up any of his few advantages for something that might well prove to be a red herring. He shook his head.
Briggs shrugged and turned back to Marella. "You'll arrange the vest?"
Hawke saw a light go on in her eyes and a corner of her mouth quirked up as she nodded.
Damn, not a red herring, he decided. There was a subtle shift in the emotional balance of the room, a slight decrease in tension, as if the two Firm agents had agreed upon a plan.
"I'll leave it at the hangar," she said.
Briggs and Marella remained silent until a chime near the front door alerted them that the car was approaching. Both stood: Marella quickly, Briggs more slowly, leaning heavily on his cane.
"Stay there," Hawke said to Briggs, eliciting a scowl from the other man.
"I'll need my briefcase," Marella said.
Hawke kept his eyes and his gun trained on them as he felt through the bag for her handgun. Removing it, he ejected the cartridge and then popped a shell out of the chamber. He dropped the empty gun back into the briefcase and gestured towards the door.
Briggs took one of Marella's hands, lifted it to his lips, and then smiled at her. "Don't cancel those dinner reservations just yet."
Hawke wasn't sure whether the act was for Marella or for him, or if indeed it was an act. He'd seen Briggs turn on the charm full force, had seen both women and men unknowingly yield to the dazzling smile, the Southern gentility, the graceful request. This smile was quieter, softer, and, Hawke finally realized, something not meant for him at all.
God help him, Briggs was going to cut his heart out and feed it to Tet.
Hawke heard the limo come to a stop outside the front door and cleared his throat, loudly. Backing slowly towards the front door to keep an eye on his two 'hostages,' he scooped up Briggs's gun from the hallway console, tucked it in his back waistband and waited for Marella.
She walked toward him, her gaze more aloof now than angry and he knew whatever had passed between Briggs and Marella had strengthened their hand, whatever it was.
She held out her hand for her briefcase, took it and went out the door without another word.
Hawke glanced over at Briggs, who'd watched the byplay with a small smile.
"Don't fuck with my plan, Michael," Hawke warned.
Briggs raised both eyebrows. "Your plan? A plan, if one could even give it that appellation, which lacks the most basic knowledge of the enemy or his true objectives? A plan that lacks any knowledge of the terrain? That's not a plan. It's a one-size-fits-all instinctive response. It's an autonomic nervous system and just as primitive."
Hawke scowled. "Yeah."
He leaned down and carefully placed Briggs's gun, the cartridge and shell from Marella's gun and then his own gun on the coffee table. In his peripheral vision, he could see Briggs watching him with open curiosity.
"Okay," Hawke said, standing up and walking within a few inches of Briggs. "Let's get this out of the way. You get one shot at me; get it out of your system. I don't need you taking a crack at me while we're in the air."
Briggs raised an eyebrow in surprise.
Hawke nodded, took a step back for better weight distribution and balance, and never saw the cane coming.
He woke, sometime later, and gingerly shifted his jaw. He opened his eyes gradually, closed them again as lamplight seared his optic nerves. Rolling on his side – and somehow, he wasn't on the floor, but on a couch – he tried opening his eyes again. Slowly. Very slowly.
Gradually, he could focus them on the coffee table, then the chair across the room, and then the slant of daylight coming through the window of Briggs's living room. He groaned internally, afraid that making any noise would exacerbate what he already knew would be a vicious headache.
Slowly swinging his legs to the floor, he propped his head against the back of the couch and listened.
The house was silent, which made absolutely no sense.
Briggs had clocked him, at his own invitation Hawke remembered with frustration. By all rights, the house should be crawling with Firm agents, all of whom would happily drop Hawke out of the nearest helicopter hovering at 500 feet or higher. Instead, there was an unsettling silence.
Not entirely, he realized as his heartbeat steadied and stopped drowning out his hearing.
"You'll want some ice for that jaw, I imagine."
Hawke glanced to his right, accepted the bag of ice from Briggs as gracefully as possible under the circumstances.
He closed his eyes, rested his head on the back of the couch, laid the ice on his aching left jaw and shifted his jaw around to verify that nothing was broken.
"That was a cheap shot, Michael," he complained.
"You're hardly in a position to cite Marquess of Queensbury rules," Briggs replied. "Aspirin?"
Hawke glanced at the coffee table to confirm what he'd seen when first waking; the guns were indeed all gone. He was well and truly screwed.
"Probably a good idea," he conceded. If he was going to have any chance at saving Dom, it would have to be with a clearer head than he currently possessed.
He heard Briggs limp towards the kitchen, the damned cane punctuating each step. Listened to the man rifle through a cabinet or two, pull open at least three drawers, swear softly, and then hum with satisfaction.
Briggs returned with a bottle of aspirin, an extra-large bottle Hawke noted with some amusement, and a glass of water, both of which he deposited on the coffee table.
"I removed the hardware," Briggs said.
Hawke leaned forward, regretted it immediately, but grabbed at the aspirin bottle, determined to hide his sudden bout of dizziness.
The aspirin tablets were bitter on his tongue and he gulped the water greedily, both to wash away the taste and to satisfy a sudden powerful thirst.
He sat back on the couch and studied Briggs, now seated opposite him in an armchair.
"Where're your attack dogs?"
Briggs nodded. "Hmm." His lips twisted slightly upward, a hint of a smile, not at all friendly. "This..." his left hand raised in a sweeping gesture encompassing Hawke, the living room, the situation, "provides me with a certain operational latitude."
Hawke started to laugh, immediately stopped as his aching jaw reminded him it was a bad idea. Readjusting the ice pack, Hawke watched Briggs, waited warily.
"You pull a gun on me again, Hawke and I'll use your guts to restring your cello." A single glittering blue eye dared Hawke to argue. "You even think of pointing a gun at Marella, or at any of my staff, and that cello will be firewood, along with several million dollars of irreplaceable artwork. I'll have the FAA pull your license, bury Santini Air under so much red tape, Dom won't get a bird in the sky for the remainder of his natural life and feed your dog to the damn eagle."
Hawke raised an eyebrow. Even that hurt, damn it. "You pull my ticket, who's gonna fly Airwolf for you?"
"I have half a dozen pilots qualified on Winchester's simulator."
Hawke kept his face rigidly still, knowing that his very lack of reaction was more than he wanted to give away, especially to a man who knew him as well as Briggs.
"You'll have to find her first," he replied coolly.
Briggs's smile didn't reach his eye and Hawke realized with a sickening lurch that the mystery of Airwolf's Lair was just another example of 'operational latitude.' He wondered if Briggs knew Airwolf's location already or just hadn't bothered to look yet; the latter, he thought. Easier for Briggs if he didn't have to lie if subpoenaed about Airwolf's whereabouts.
Head throbbing and stomach turning over at the sudden knowledge that his ace in the hole existed only at the pleasure of the man he'd just attempted to kidnap at gunpoint, Hawke held his hands up in the air, a classic 'I surrender' pose. "Got it."
Briggs nodded, still prickly. "Don't make me regret not having you arrested for that stunt you pulled earlier."
Hawke nodded his agreement, noticed with some surprise that sometime while he'd been out cold, Briggs had changed out of his suit and into more casual clothes.
Briggs noticed the appraisal. "As I'm not going to the office…"
"You gonna help me get Dom back?" Hawke asked cautiously.
Briggs rubbed his upper lip. "I should tell you to go to hell."
Hawke slowly let a breath escape, felt cautious optimism seep back into his battered body. "So, what now?"
"Now?" Briggs sighed as he pushed himself to his feet using his cane. "We check in with Marella. See what information we've obtained."
Hawke was reminded once again why he flew helicopters and didn't push a desk job like Briggs or Marella, both of whom would probably be highly indignant at his assessment. The endless parsing of a particular piece of information, who was known to be in the Western United States, which parties could not be located, the approximate meaning and associated risk of a sequence of events bored him after the first hour.
Daybreak had come and gone while he recovered from Briggs's sucker punch. The clock now inched toward 10:00AM and each tick of the second hand twisted the knot in his stomach.
He'd no idea how long Dominic had been held or what condition he was in. His own headache was held at abeyance by a combination of aspirin and the contents of most of fresh pot of coffee he'd brewed while Briggs reviewed the analysis of the INS reports and Watch List.
"Try Caitlin again," Briggs ordered distractedly with a wave in the general direction of the kitchen. "The house phone line is separate from this one."
Walking the short distance between Briggs's home office and kitchen for what seemed to be the twenty-fifth time in the last hour, Hawke wondered where the hell Caitlin was, felt a vague frisson of worry, worry that he should have felt after Dominic hadn't shown for their planned dinner.
Grimacing at the phone, Hawke punched in Santini Air's phone number again, listened with escalating impatience to the droning ring at the far end. Five rings. Ten.
"Santini Air," Caitlin answered breathlessly. She'd probably run for the phone.
"Cait," he said, letting relief wash through him and trying to squash the annoyance that rose to fill the gap left by his fear. She'd no idea he was looking for her or why.
"Hawke!" she cried. "Where are you? Where's Dom? I called earlier to tell you that my flight got in really, really late last night and I wouldn't be in but no one answered and so I thought I should come in anyway and when I got here and the place was all locked up…"
"Caitlin," he interrupted.
"…and I asked Bill Fairbanks if he'd seen either of you but …."
"Caitlin," he interrupted again, his voice firming just enough to catch her attention.
"Something's wrong, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Hawke suddenly felt unable to go through the explanation again. "I'm gonna need your help," he said gruffly.
"Okay," she said, her voice small and worried.
"Dom's in trouble. I'm at Michael's. I'm going to come pick you up in about an hour. I'll fill you in on the way."
"On the way where?"
Hawke almost smiled, knowing that no matter how worried she was, she'd be thrilled by his next comments. "You're going to fly the Lady, Cait."
It had taken nearly thirty minutes to get Briggs out of the house.
"We've by no means concluded our analysis of the situation," Briggs had said, gesturing at the piles of faxed reports cluttering his desk.
"It's not like you're doing the work," Hawke argued. "You can call them from the air, get updates. It's almost 10:30. Flight time from here to Van Nuys is 45 minutes. I'll need time to refuel, take Caitlin to get the Lady, and get back."
Briggs frowned, looked at his wristwatch.
"And before you ask, I'm not coming back here to pick you up. Round trip, that's 90 minutes that I just don't have, Michael."
Cutting off the man from his information must be like forcing a junkie to go cold turkey. Now in the co-pilot's seat, Briggs had his briefcase balanced on his right knee, scrambled satellite phone receiver tucked between his chin and left shoulder, fingers tapping on the laptop computer inside the briefcase.
Things had worked out unexpectedly well, Hawke concluded reluctantly, knowing that anything working well was sure to be followed by some unexpected disaster. There were consequences yet to come for drawing a gun on the Firm agents, he knew that Briggs's angry words earlier were simply an opening salvo in negotiations yet to begin. They'd attempt to set the terms, Hawke would refuse some outright, others he'd ignore. Eventually, Briggs and Marella would feel vindicated and Hawke would pay the price – whatever it was -- once Dominic was home, alive and well.
Now for the hard stuff: get Dominic back without giving up Archangel, and without getting either killed.
Briggs tucked the satellite phone back into its compartment and sighed, but remained silent. Hawke risked a glance; the other man was staring at the laptop screen but his gaze was unfocused. Hawke elected to remain quiet, let Briggs sort things out in his head.
He gave him ten minutes.
"You going to tell me why you're helping me rescue Dom?" he asked.
"What? Briggs hauled his attention back from wherever it had been. "Oh… The thought of Dominic in my debt does provide a significant amount of anticipatory pleasure."
That was probably part of the reason, but Hawke doubted it was anything near to Briggs's primary motivation.
"Uh-huh," he said.
That elicited a real smile.
"I may be a manipulative, cold-hearted bastard, Hawke, but I don't take any pleasure at the idea of leaving an old man with those who wish him harm. Even if it is Dominic."
Except that they didn't wish Dominic harm, he was only a tool.
"Or wish me harm," Briggs appended, smile fading.
"You're not feeling guilty?" Hawke asked, with a good deal of skepticism. Briggs was far too pragmatic, had a lifetime of brutal choices behind him that made guilt an unlikely motivator.
"Sorry, but no. I could spin you a line about how guilt is something I can't afford in my line of business – which would be true, but beside the point. You and Dominic have pulled me out of a bad situation. More than one, actually. This is simple payback."
And it probably was just that simple, thought Hawke. Briggs had a funny code of ethics, a clear sense of right and wrong that didn't correspond to any societal norm, but provided enough structure for him to be reliable to those who knew him.
"Even if it is 'reckless, imprudent, irresponsible and in direct conflict with the advice of more objective observers, not to mention a deliberate disregard for Firm policy.'"
"Marella's not too happy with you," Hawke concluded.
Briggs blew out a breath. "Something of an understatement, and she has good reason. Our analysis isn't by any means definitive, but the conclusions are that this isn't a hit, it's not personal and it's not a trade. This is a information purchase."
Hawke understood the need for allusion, but the sheer understatement of the phrase 'information purchase' caught him off guard. It didn't nearly begin to encompass the interrogation tactics required to extract that information from the man sitting next to him.
Won't happen, he reminded himself. It was his job to make sure that whomever had Dominic didn't take Michael.
Not just his job, he remembered suddenly.
"She going to try and stop you?" he asked, suddenly worried, wondering how much Briggs had relayed to his senior aide.
Hawke watched Briggs chew that question over in his mind.
"Only if she has to," he finally answered, quietly, in a tone that didn't leave room for argument.
Hawke suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Marella. He'd never entirely warmed to her, nor she to him, but he respected and trusted her, almost as much as he trusted Briggs – to the extent that he actually trusted Briggs – and more than anyone else in the Firm.
He gave Briggs a few more minutes of silence – he could afford only a few more, as they were almost entering Van Nuys airspace.
"You and Marella?" he asked, only partially a question, not expecting an answer.
Briggs shifted in his seat and stretched out his left leg, all very real side effects of sitting too long in cramped quarters with a surgically rebuilt leg, but also a common Briggs stalling technique. Hawke just waited him out.
"It was unnecessary to embarrass her, back at the house," Briggs finally said, staring straight ahead.
If Hawke had been a jaw-dropping man, he would have let his jaw drop. Instead, he blinked, once, and stifled a smile.
"How long?" he asked, trying for a casual tone.
"Why on earth do you care?"
Hawke considered that for a second. He'd rarely given thought to the personal lives or emotional states of Briggs or Marella. They were The Firm, a devil to be paid for the joy of flying Airwolf and the hope that someday his brother would be found and returned to him.
He'd spent considerable time with them, social occasions as often as mission planning or debriefing. He genuinely liked Briggs, if he thought about it. The man was charming and gregarious, had a wicked sense of humor and appreciated many of the things Hawke himself did: fine wine, beautiful women, good music and helicopters. Most importantly, Briggs possessed the rare ability to be companionably silent. By all definitions, Briggs might have qualified as a friend, a good friend, were it not for the manipulations, half-truths, and outright deceptions that Hawke had learned to expect.
"Because if you screw up this thing with Marella, whatever it is, I'm going to have to deal with the fallout."
Briggs nodded, tapping a finger against his briefcase. Hawke's answer seemed to satisfy him, even if it felt like a half-truth to Hawke himself: a convenient way to not deal with the emotional reality of a relationship between his two primary contacts at the Firm. And it didn't get him an answer to what exactly was going on.
"Do you love her?" he asked, gruffly, carefully not looking at Briggs.
"That's a private matter, Hawke."
Which was Briggs-speak for 'mind your own business.'
"Don't screw this up, Michael," Hawke warned, suddenly more interested than he would have ever thought in the personal lives of his two favorite – well, not favorite, but the least objectionable – intelligence agents. "God knows why, but I really do think she loves you."
He'd have to be satisfied with Briggs's nod, as answer to his questions and his warnings. It was all he was able to elicit through the remainder of their flight and subsequent landing in front of the hangar belonging to Santini Air.
Caitlin's face was scrunched up under the headset that always seemed too large for her. "I don't understand why you're calling it an information purchase. It's kidnapping, pure and simple. Trading one kidnap victim for another doesn't make it not kidnapping, you know."
Ah, for the clear-cut certainties of a police office, thought Hawke, long inured to vagaries and shifting alliances of Briggs's world. Your world too, he reminded himself, despite what he chose to pretend. He'd spent as much time flying Airwolf now as he had in Vietnam, each profoundly changing him: Vietnam for the worse, the jury was still out on Airwolf. The helicopter herself was pure joy, but the baggage that came with her was treacherous.
Briggs, in the back of the Jet Ranger now where he could stretch out a little more comfortably, had to lean forward. Even with the headsets on, it was sometimes impossible to carry on a conversation, between the cockpit and the passenger/cargo bay.
"It refers not to the transaction this afternoon, but the ultimate objective," he said. "Knowing your opponent's true objective is critical in determining the appropriate strategy to defeat him."
Caitlin shook her head, eyes large and doubtful. "This isn't a chess game, Michael. We're talking lives, yours and Dom's."
"And ours," she added after a moment of thought.
"Just higher stakes, Cait," Hawke said, anticipating Briggs's response. He looked back at Briggs, who shrugged his agreement.
Briggs usually called it The Business, capital letters clearly enunciated, but others called it The Game, Hawke knew. There were rules, there was strategy and there was an element of luck. Those who made it to Briggs's position knew how to play, knew how to make the Game work for them. Others played more cautiously, dropped out, or lost. Doctoral theses could be written on how the Intelligence Community used metaphor and allusion to maintain the emotional distance required to survive, assuming that graduate students could get anyone in the community to talk about it in something other than hypotheticals.
None of which was making Caitlin any happier with the situation.
"So where does the purchase part come in?" she persisted. "You're saying that some guy took Dominic to trade for you so that he can sell information that you know…." She trailed off. "God, I sound stupid, don't I?"
She'd learned fast but the sheer viciousness of the Game, or the Business, eluded her at time. It was her innate innocence that aroused Hawke's most protective instincts. The idea of Caitlin jaded and matter-of-fact with people's lives held absolutely no appeal.
Caitlin screwed up her face, this time with determination. "So how does knowing that this is an 'information purchase' help us?"
Hawke heard the shrill tones of Briggs's satellite phone and shot a quick look over his shoulder. Briggs removed part of his headset to take the call.
"For one thing," Hawke said, "we know that this guy needs Michael alive, preferably in good condition."
He saw Caitlin's contemplative nod.
"Since we know he's not going to take a shot at Michael…"
"Not with a bullet," she interjected.
Damn, she really did learn quickly. He shook off his surprise. "Yeah. But even if he uses a tranq, he's not going to risk really hurting Michael, which means our primary objective is to make sure Dom doesn't get hurt."
"So I come in as a shield and a getaway vehicle. What are you going to be doing and what stops this guy from shooting you?"
"Keeping my promise to Marella."
Caitlin nodded. She knew Marella, knew the woman's absolute loyalty to and protectiveness towards Briggs. Hawke wondered what else Caitlin might have picked up, whether there was some truth to the notion of women's intuition. Or maybe they just paid attention to things that others missed.
"Yeah, but what stops this guy, or his associates, from taking a shot at you?" she repeated.
Hawke shrugged. The answer was 'nothing.' He was just the conduit for the trade, completely expendable, but there was no way Caitlin would accept that answer.
"I'm allowed to shoot back," he said.
Hawke checked his position, grimaced. They were fifteen minutes out of Van Nuys airfield and it was time to change direction, to head toward the Lair.
"Michael. Blindfold. Now."
"Is that really necessary?" Caitlin looked behind her, shook her head at the request. "Okay, so we're pretty sure he's not risking his life to save Dom, but he's risking a lot, isn't he? I mean, if he's captured…"
"Now," Hawke said, jaw clenched. Whether Briggs knew the location of Airwolf's Lair or not wasn't the issue. If they were to keep playing by the same rules, he couldn't be the one to give it away.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Caitlin wave the black cloth at Briggs. Briggs ended his call and protested, naturally. He always did; it was part of the rules that neither acknowledged. Caitlin tried to look firm, ended up shooting a guilt-ridden glance at Hawke and then leaned behind her seat to tie the blindfold over Briggs's eyes.
Hawke made the turn gradually enough that the blindfolded pilot in the back seat would have a difficult time determining if the course were changed at all.
Hawke could make this flight every day and never tire of the scenery, the sharp contrasts between earth and sky, the giant shadows that haunted his path. He was content to be silent for this stage of the trip, even if he missed Dominic's chatter, the jokes he'd heard a thousand times, the stories that always began with "One time when me and your old man…." Or some other compatriot of Dominic's past. He'd always let Dominic do the talking when they flew to the Lair. Caitlin and Briggs either picked up on his mood or were preoccupied with their own thoughts.
Hawke landed the Jet Ranger right outside the entrance. No point in hiding it since he was going to be flying it back to the airfield before the engine finished cooling. Leaving Briggs in the helicopter, he followed Caitlin inside the Lair, turned his back like a gentleman when she changed into a flight suit, and wondered why they all felt it necessary to don Airwolf's uniform before flying her.
"If Michael's captured, they'll force him to talk, right?" Caitlin asked quietly, coming around the nose of the aircraft, still adjusting the collar of her flight suit.
"They can try," Hawke said and then looked away, regretting his flippancy. Caitlin deserved a serious answer; she'd seen Michael after they pulled him out of East Germany. "Some people will pay whatever it takes, do whatever needs doing to get at what he knows. He could always just tell them what they want to know…"
"He won't, though, will he," she said, her face bleak.
Hawke forced a smile. "Cait, Archangel's been doing this since you were in pigtails. You just get Dom out and let me worry about Archangel."
She nodded, turned away and started to walk back around Airwolf's nose, towards the co-pilot's position.
"Hey," Hawke called after her. "The other hatch."
She looked down, her face suffused with a red that washed out her freckles. "Yeah. I knew that."
Hawke grinned at her and stopped himself from offering to fly Airwolf out of the Lair, knew she'd interpret it as a lack of faith. The best vote of confidence he could give her was to walk away and fly the Jet Ranger back to Van Nuys without a second glance, but it took a will almost physical to walk away from Airwolf and fly another helicopter. Like riding a tricycle, or a bicycle with training wheels after spending years on a dirt bike, he thought, and then rejected the dirt bike as too common for comparison. He heard the whine of the engines as they turned over and kept on walking.
"Harry Jenks," Briggs announced with more than a hint of satisfaction.
"That supposed to mean something to me?" Hawke glanced over his shoulder, suppressed a smile. Even Briggs had difficulty looking triumphant while wearing a blindfold, though the black contrasted nicely with the white trousers and the off-white casual jacket.
"We've had some dealings with him in the past, used him ourselves a few times," Briggs said. "He's an Information Broker."
"And you think he's our guy?" Hawke asked, his attention on flying the Jet Ranger while keeping an eye out for Caitlin in Airwolf.
He'd waited to take off until after she'd cleared the top of the Lair, let loose a breath that he'd been holding, and then suppressed a surge of jealousy when she passed him effortlessly. That was more than twenty minutes ago and while they had agreed she'd stay off radar and out of visual range, it was starting to bug him that he didn't know her position, while she easily tracked him using Airwolf's scans.
"Something of a step up for Harry to traffic in kidnapping. When we used him, he was pretty much just data collection, but the Spanish authorities suspect him in the disappearance of one of their leading biochemists last year. He looks good for it, based on what we've learned."
Disappearance, my ass, Hawke thought, wondering for a second what had happened to the scientist afterwards, wondering what the authorities had told the scientist's family.
"If it's Jenks, he's got a client."
"He plans to sell you," Hawke said flatly.
"Or already has a contract," Briggs agreed. "He's not one for getting his own hands dirty."
Hawke digested that for a minute. If Jenks was the middleman, they could expect any interrogation of Briggs to be delayed until he was transported to the buyer, which gave them time to mount a rescue if necessary. It would help if they knew who and where the buyer was.
"What makes you think he's our guy?"
"He's avoided this area for the past five years, then suddenly appeared on our radar last week. He'd tried to do some data collection on a project I was running a few years ago," Briggs said, his voice now amused. "His approach is, or I should say, was, more social engineering than anything else. He tried it on one of my staff."
"Didn't work, huh?" Hawke said, trying to remember who was on Briggs's staff five years ago.
"They are hand-picked for a reason, Hawke."
Five years ago? Hawke thought. Five years ago, Briggs's top project was….
"Airwolf?"
"That shouldn't surprise you. He hot-tailed it out of the United States when he realized that she was on to him and feeding him disinformation. He's avoided us since and we cut all ties on any projects we'd had with him."
"And now he's back in California?"
"Confirmed sighting in Los Angeles last week," Briggs said. "A man matching his description chartered a Sikorsky out of Sacramento three days ago. Neither the pilot nor the Sikorsky returned."
"Sacramento," Hawke muttered.
"Those businessmen Dominic flew to Sacramento paid him with a stolen credit card." Briggs sounded grim. "Too much coincidence for my liking."
Hawke unconsciously clenched his jaw. "Can Jenks fly the Sikorsky?"
"Not when I knew him. Either he has someone who can or he still has the pilot," Briggs replied. "He used to work alone, but this type of work is not his specialty. He's either hired muscle or taken a partner."
Hawke nodded, relieved to hear that the pilot might still be alive. "Who's the buyer?"
"I'd be interested to learn that myself," Briggs said dryly. "We've got nothing. Can I take this damn thing off yet?"
"Nope. There's one sure way to find out."
"I'll pass, if you don't mind."
Twenty minutes out of Van Nuys, Briggs's phone rang again.
Briggs answered but Hawke had a difficult time making out his end of the conversation until there was an emphatic "Damn!" from Briggs.
It wasn't truly possible for a heart to jump into one's throat, or for a stomach to drop to one's feet, but the internal falling sensation Hawke felt still fit the bill. He stilled sudden shaking hands.
"Hawke, turn her around. Right now."
Hawke had a dozen questions, asked one. "Dominic?" Waited, reluctant to hear an answer but needing to hear an answer.
"This has nothing to do with Dominic. We're flying into a trap."
Hawke turned his head, gave Briggs a skeptical look. "This has everything to do with Dominic and we already know what they want: you."
Briggs yanked at the blindfold, let it fall around his neck and glared back. "Hawke, there is no 2:30 broadcast. There's no meet to do the exchange. They're waiting for us at the hangar."
Hawke swore, reached for the radio. Hand on the transmitter, he stilled. "You had someone watching the place?"
The rules had been clear: no Firm agents or Jenks would kill Dominic. Just as clearly, Briggs and Marella had ignored those rules. He really shouldn't be surprised, he thought, and then decided that he wasn't surprised at all. He was, however, pretty damn angry.
"Michael…" he growled.
"Two of my best, neither worked for me when Jenks was last in the area. One is applying for a job as a mechanic with Bill Fairbanks, the other working as a temporary receptionist at Bachman Cargo and Freight."
Briggs didn't sound the least bit repentant and Hawke let his anger dissipate this time. Briggs had a right to protect himself and it sounded as if Marella had taken care to hide their agents in clear sight by blending them into airfield operations.
Hawke grabbed the radio, called Caitlin, told her to pull back, and then stopped, having no idea what to say next, his plans all askew.
"Rendezvous at the following coordinates," Briggs ordered, anticipating Hawke's confusion, taking charge.
Hawke repeated the coordinates to Caitlin and then changed course, trying not to think of Dominic being held as a hostage in his own hangar. His thoughts jumped from trying to adapt his original plan to wondering how Briggs had come up coordinates that quickly. The meet point was uncannily close to their current position, he realized with a sudden unease. Hawke cast his thoughts back through the day, searching for a clue, worried at each detail like a terrier and then seized it: Briggs twisting the head of his cane just before he made a cryptic comment about Plan B.
"You've got some kind of homing beacon in that cane, don't you?"
It was overdue, in Hawke's opinion. The Firm could save a lot of man-hours and aggravation keeping track of one headstrong Deputy Director using some of the very technology that they nurtured and developed.
"Very good, Hawke."
Hawke scowled. Briggs sounded like a pleased parent after a child's performance. He might have to put up with that from Dominic occasionally, but Briggs was only a decade older and damn sure not a relative; he didn't get to use that tone.
"Surprised you didn't break it when you hit me."
Briggs laughed. "I was careful not to hit you with the transmitter for that very reason."
"You got a way to turn that thing on and off?" Hawke would bet his art collection that Briggs didn't want the Firm knowing where he was all the time.
"Of course."
"Turn it off," Hawke ordered.
"Sorry." Briggs didn't even try to sound apologetic. "It stays on until I get back to Knightsbridge."
Hawke wondered if it was part of Briggs's agreement with Marella, or maybe the man was just hedging his bets, giving his own people a way to track him if Hawke couldn't keep his promise.
"How does it work?" he asked, suspicions increasing.
"Proprietary technology, still under development. Marella has the only control module for this frequency. You can relax, Hawke, it doesn't record. No one tracked us to Airwolf."
"I'll bet."
He'd sooner invest his life savings in lottery tickets; they were more of a sure thing. Might be time to move Airwolf; find another hiding space.
Coming up on the coordinates Briggs had given, Hawke flew a careful 360-degree reconnaissance of the empty construction site. He scanned the site for workers, noted the padlocked chain fence around the exterior of the site.
"Builder filed for bankruptcy," Briggs said.
Typical that the Firm would have tabs on even that level of detail.
There was only one other helicopter in the vicinity and it wasn't white, but a dark blue Bell with streaks of gray and red. He approached slowly and then more confidently when he saw the pilot step out. Even with a baseball cap covering her distinctively curly hair, it was easy to recognize Marella's tall and willowy figure in a navy blue flight suit.
He landed nearby, kicking up enough dust to send Marella back into her helicopter. He heard rather than saw Airwolf coming in behind him.
Stepping around the nose of the Jet Ranger, he noticed that Marella was trying, and failing, to hide her relief at seeing Briggs, as if she hadn't been on the phone with him on and off over the past six hours.
"Sir." She stepped forward and began untying the blindfold now draped around Briggs's neck. "We have Dominic Santini, Harry Jenks and four other men inside the Santini Air hangar as of fifteen minutes ago."
"Dominic okay?" Hawke quickly interjected as Caitlin approached.
"From what we can see, he appears to be perfectly all right. One agent reported that he appeared to be angry or annoyed, but that agent's never met Mr. Santini," she said, pulling the blindfold free of Briggs's neck.
Hawke could have sworn she was hiding a smile.
"Inside," Briggs said, speculatively. "That eliminates our little surprise." He looked at Airwolf with regret. "And Mr. Jenks is forty minutes early, which is rather unsporting of him." He looked a question at Marella.
"We're in position but that won't help you if you're inside," she said.
"We go inside, it's way too easy for Jenks to shoot Dom and walk out with Michael," Hawke concluded. "We have to get him outside."
"Hmmm," Briggs rubbed his upper lip. "Tell me, how did our little gathering arrive? What's their means of transport?"
"In the Sikorsky. Parked about fifteen yards outside the main hangar doors." Marella stepped back and eyed him. "I can't believe you're even considering this, sir."
Hawke shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze shifting between Briggs and Marella. Something was up.
"Fifteen yards?" Briggs said thoughtfully, made a face. "Not a lot of territory in which to maneuver."
"Who's going to be maneuvering?" Hawke asked, curiosity giving way to suspicion.
"This is not a good idea," Marella said, folding her arms across her chest. "Did I mention the potential risks?"
Briggs nodded. "Several times, in fact. How do we get Jenks and company outside?"
Caitlin sidled up to Hawke. "What are they talking about?" she whispered.
Hawke shrugged. "Man's got a plan." To Briggs, he said, "Land outside, like we don't know they're in there. Sit in the bird, wait for the 2:30 contact. Either they come out or we tell them to come out to do the trade."
"Sir, our team is in position," Marella repeated.
"We go with Hawke's plan," Briggs said, his face set, decision made. "Caitlin brings Airwolf in between Jenks's people and Dominic and myself, Hawke provides covering fire."
"And?" Hawke asked, looking for the catch.
"Caitlin will need enough room to maneuver," Briggs said. His gaze slid from Hawke to Marella to Caitlin and back to Marella. "If for some reason, she can't get in there, we'll go to the contingency plan."
"Which is?" Hawke prompted.
Marella shook her head in disgust, walked back to her helicopter and reached into the back. Returning, she handed a package to Briggs, who smiled reassuringly at her and took the package.
"We make the exchange," Briggs said calmly.