Disclaimer: Don't own the characters. Not making money off of them

Rating: K+ (Genfic, just a little of violence).

What is it about? A kid is missing, some strange things happened all around and the team have to find out what, why and who is behind all of the...'twisted facts' in the case.

Characters: All of them, well, lets think a little... Oh! I forgot somebody... well, guess you all know who...

Thanks Laurel for your beta work!

PART 6

At the warehouse…

While Jack and the team were narrowing the options of warehouses that needed to be checked out, Martin and Brian were marking another start of a day. Brian came out of the bathroom with his hair wet and face scrubbed clean again. Martin chuckled as he took in the little boy, eyes still showing signs of sleep. He went into the bathroom next, and keeping the door slightly ajar so he could keep track of Brian he took stock. As he cleaned up the best he could, wincing as bruises and cuts complained against too much movement and soap and water he wearily wondered what today would bring.

He applied some of the kid's toothbrush to his finger and rubbed it over his teeth, making a face at the awful taste. Well, at least Brian likes it, he thought.

Turning to head out of the little room he stopped at the door, both from dizziness that swept over him from almost two days of not eating and the brutal treatment at the hands of his kidnappers and from the sudden realization that despite their circumstances, he never felt clearer in life about his purpose.

If it wasn't for the continuous pounding in his head he might have shaken himself and chuckled. As it was, he opted to just let that thought simmer in his brain and see about breakfast.

The thought of breakfast no sooner entered his mind when the door opened. Brian froze in place sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. His eyes darted fearfully to Martin as he saw one of the men enter. Careful not to cause the man to think he was going to attack, Martin took two quick strides to Brian's side and picked the boy up. Brian instantly wrapped his arms and legs around Martin and buried his head in Martin's shoulder.

"Come here kid, you gotta do something for us."

Brian's only response was to cling tighter to Martin and whimper softly.

Martin glared at the man; it was the best he was able to offer with his injuries and lack of strength. "Why do you need him to leave?"

"It's time to call daddy."

"Then bring the phone in here. Let him stay here. It'll be easier for you." Martin knew that appealing to their concern for Brian was not going to help, so he appealed to their need to keep the job simple. It worked.

The man nodded once, withdrew the phone from his belt and pushed a button. Then he held the phone to Brian's face. From behind him Martin could see his partner covering the room to insure no escape would be tried.

Martin felt Brian relax a little and then he spoke.

"Daddy?...I'm okay…Martin is here, he plays with me."

The corner of Martin's mouth turned up at the innocence in Brian's voice. Then the man snatched the phone back and spoke one sentence.

"You know what to do." With that the call ended and he turned to leave the room.

"Wait, what about Brian's breakfast?"

"Yeah, yeah, cereal, milk, fruit, crayons, paper, anything else we can bring you, how about a massage!" The derisive tone was expected. What wasn't expected was that a tray appeared and on it was the food as requested, including some more bottles of water and a scrap of paper and two broken crayons.

Not much, Martin thought, but it was a start.

The day passed by as the one before it had. Brian ate his cereal and fruit and drank all the milk. Martin made do with a bottle of water. He knew he needed to keep his strength up, but the cereal was just enough for Brian and wouldn't do Martin any good, so might as well just suck it up and drink the damn water. At least he wouldn't be dehydrated.

While Martin tried to keep Brian amused by talking about camping with his aunt and uncle years back and singing songs his team spent the day frantically searching for him and trying to keep up the pretense of not making any progress. Truth was they were making a lot of progress.

"So, Martin knows the person inside this organization?"

"That's what Victor said. He wasn't willing to say the name on the phone, but he's sending me all his background information to that mail account we set specially for this case. It sounds like they were partners at Quantico. When the information gets here, I'm going to want you to go through all of it right away."

Vivian just nodded her thoughts on her missing teammate. Then a thought occurred to her.

"Is he a good agent?"

"Victor said the guy's record is clean but…sounds like there were some mistakes made and some strange cover-ups. Nothing firm, just whispers through the grapevine. Victor has a feeling."

Sam swung around from her desk as she finished her phone call, "We have all the buildings in the range of the cell phone. The latest call this morning was too short to pinpoint an exact location but it did narrow it down a little more." She paused a moment and then her professionalism kicked in again; "In the last phone call, Brian said he was with Martin, that Martin was taking care of him." She smiled a tight, thin smile and thought to herself; at least he's still alive.

"Okay, so Martin and the boy are together for sure." One side of Jack's mouth turned up wryly as he added, "as sure as we're going to be for now. Danny, let's see a list of the buildings in that area."

Danny showed a map for the area that he had completed after the latest phone call. "It's a crowded area, and I don't think these buildings are what we are looking for." He marked the indicated buildings with a black check mark and then focused onto four buildings with red X's on them. "I believe these buildings are our best options. They don't currently have any occupants; all have numerous openings to alleys and underground parking garages or recessed loading docks. Someone could come and go out of any one of these buildings without drawing attention to them."

Jack looked at the map as Danny relayed his information. Then, as three intense sets of eyes watched him he processed all the information, the orders from upstairs and then made a decision based upon his gut. This had gotten him into trouble before but his job was to save lives. His job was to find the missing person and bring them home. He was going to do his job and to hell with whatever happened from those that were upstairs. This was his job, this was the job.

"All right, go and check out all four sites. Keep it low profile. If Martin and Brian are in one of those places and someone sees you it may just prompt them to move them somewhere we'll never find them or worse. Victor's sources indicate the final deal is going down this evening or tomorrow. I don't like the openness of the time table. If Victor isn't able to pinpoint the details then there is something else going on that I don't even want to imagine."

As Jack's voice trailed off his three remaining team members rose to their feet, strapped on their guns, shut down their computers and prepared to head out to find their missing member.

"If you can get them out quietly, and take down the abductors do so quietly."

As the sunlight dipped low across the skyline Danny had to keep changing from his sunglasses to no glasses as the light played havoc with his eyes as it dodged in between the tall buildings.

He was worried. He and Sam had been checking out the various buildings since leaving the office. Vivian was going to come with them but just as they got to the main lobby of the federal building Jack called her to the office, the information from Victor had got into the mail account right at that moment. So, Vivian headed back upstairs to learn all about the agent that supposedly had gotten Martin involved in this mess.

He glanced over at Sam who appeared to be absently staring at the street signs as they headed for the last building on their itinerary. The first three had been a bust, all had either impenetrable chain link fences that showed no sign of being new, or tampered with or had so much debris and dust and dirt inside that anything, even rats, would leave evidence of passing. Actually, they had seen evidence of rats passing through, lots of them, but no sign of humans having been in the area.

So, with the sunlight fading, and hope dimming, he drove the car to the fourth location that he had pinpointed. Next to him Sam snapped to an alert position.

"Danny, stop the car, I want to get out." She vacated the car as soon as he pulled it over to the curb. Curious, he sat there and watched. Sam strolled over to a newsstand and stood glancing at the newspaper headlines. She selected one, paid for it, and nodded absently at the man she inadvertently bumped into on her way back to the car.

When she resumed her seat next to Danny he narrowed his eyes and waited for her explanation.

"See that guy over there?" She indicated the man she had 'accidentally' bumped into. Danny whispered, "Yes."

"Well, in those clear plastic bags he's carrying he has a six-pack of beer, a couple of sub sandwiches, and he bought a box of crayons and a coloring book at the newsstand. What seems out of place?"

"Damn, Sam, you've got good eyes." Danny grinned at her and flipped open his cell phone. They watched from a distance as the man crossed the street and then ducked into an alley next to the fourth and final building on their list.

"Jack, we've got a possible location." Danny just nodded and listened as Jack spoke on the other end, his heart racing at the thought that after two and a half days they might be about to get Martin back

He and Sam stepped from the vehicle and walked across the street after waiting about 20 minutes. They wanted to give the man enough time to get off the street. They turned down the alley he had taken and saw the door up ahead, about half way down that led into the building. They flanked the door and then as Danny looked at Sam they each drew their guns, removed their sunglasses and nodded. It was time to go…

The man who was the object of such intense scrutiny was blithely unaware of the reaction he caused in the two agents. He only wanted to get to his six-pack and the game on TV. He was getting tired and more than a little bored with this whole baby-sitting business, and, for the hundredth time, he wondered who the hell's idea it was to bring in an FBI agent? Not that he didn't enjoy knocking the guy around and he sure was enjoying watching him go hungry. Maybe after tonight he wouldn't allow the guy to have anymore water. Well, wait a minute, there was water hooked up in the bathroom, no matter, he thought, once the deal goes down, he gets to do what he wants. He wasn't into hurting kids, no he'd leave that to his partner, he had no morals, but the agent…he was going to have fun finishing him off, nice and slow.

So with those happy thoughts in his mind he set the food down next to his partner and watched him prepare the sandwich for the kid. Then he took it and some milk and the crayons and paper, hey why not, he liked kids, it was the FBI agent he couldn't stomach. But, he soothed his conscious (not that he really had one) by reminding himself that he would at least make the kid's last night somewhat normal. Who couldn't resist a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a coloring book? So, once he had set the food down inside the room and given the agent a good look, man, he looked pale and a little feverish. He closed the door and popped open a beer. His work was done, time to sit back, eat, drink and wait for the game to start.

Brian gulped down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich so fast that Martin was afraid he would throw it back up again. He couldn't blame the kid, not that they had gotten much in the way of exercise in the past two plus days, but still, the kid only got a bowl of cereal and fruit for breakfast and a sandwich for dinner. The Neanderthals outside didn't seem to think that lunch was an important meal. Brian finished his sandwich and then looked at Martin with a stricken face.

Martin distracted him from thinking he should have shared the meal by grabbing the box of crayons and a sheet of paper.

"OK Brian, now that dinner is finished, let's get to drawing that dragon and warrior that we talked about yesterday."

Brian's face cheered up quickly and he grabbed a crayon, prepared to color. Martin took a brown crayon and sketched a pretty respectable dragon, hey, having a nephew and niece made him a little good at this stuff. Then he drew a slight figure, with a huge sword standing at the ready to slay the fierce dragon. With his part finished he slid the picture over to Brian and leaned back to watch as Brian carefully colored in every spot on the dragon's body and even drew in orange, yellow and red flames coming from the mouth.

Brian was being very careful with the dragon but as he started coloring in the warrior his movements became sloppy and careless. Martin watched alertly wondering at the sudden change in his behavior.

"Brian, do you feel alright?"

"I'm kinda sleepy" answered the boy. "I want to sleep now."

Martin's heart lurched as Brian slumped against him. Then realization hit him. The food, they had drugged the food. He started to shake with anger that these 'men' would drug an innocent little boy.

Something inside Martin broke at that moment. All of the pain, exhaustion, and self-doubt overwhelmed him and he was no longer thinking rationally. He turned towards the door as he heard it open behind him and lunged at the man who came through the door. His move was unexpected, by now the kidnappers knew he was feverish and weak and they didn't perceive him to be much of a threat to them. They hadn't counted on his instinct to protect though.

Martin's rush brought him some satisfaction as he heard a grunt of pain and surprise as he drove his shoulder into the man's chest. Quickly he brought his fist up and snapped the guy's nose with a quick, although somewhat weak jab. Stunned, the first kidnapper fell back and out of the room. Martin saw the other man step up to the door and saw the man's hand rise. In the hand was a gun. He lunged forward quickly grasping for the gun. The kidnapper hadn't expected Martin to come at him and Martin was able to grab a hold of his gun hand and twist and he pulled the gunmen into him. Suddenly, the air was filled with the deafening sound of a gun being fired and both Martin and the man he was wrestling with fell to the floor at the same time…

TBC