When he opens his eyes he sees that they are no longer in New York. He knows Kate has a very extensive travel history when she 'blinks'. But for the life of him, he cannot figure out where they are. It's then that he hears her voice.
"London. We're in London. I needed to get you away from there. This is one of my go-to places when I need to just stop and think."
"Kate, you need to be more careful with how you blink out of a location. I know that you're upset with what I have seen in my vision but you can't just take off without looking around and checking your surroundings before you blink. I'm not sure but I think I heard footsteps coming from around the corner as we left the 12th." Rick tells her.
Kate never thought to look around when they were at the 12th. All she wanted to do was take Rick away and talk to him in a private setting and this was the best way she knew how to do that.
"Rick, I might have acted a bit rash but I need to know what you saw when you touched Jordan's hand. I could tell that you saw something because even though you tried to hide it by disconnecting with her so quickly I could see it in your face. So tell me what happens?" She pressed.
"Kate, it's not pretty. Both you and Jordan are in jeopardy of losing your lives. The vision I saw when I was shaking Jordan's hand was confusing at best. There were two figures that I could see. The first was a man who was about forty to forty-five years old. He was bald but he had a goatee. His name begin with a P, but after that, I had to disengage from Jordan because she would have gotten suspicious if I kept holding onto her hand. The second figure that I could not see but hear was speaking a foreign language. I don't know which one it was but it is not something I understood. I could not see him but he might have been talking on the phone to the bald man."
"And that's all you remember? There's nothing else you can tell me?"
"Kate, it's bad. You and Jordan don't make it out of the trap that he has set for you. The guy on the phone is setting up the trap from what I can tell. What I saw is that you and Jordan are sitting in chairs bolted to the floor back to back on top of two pounds of C-4. You're both strapped to the chairs you're sitting in with zip ties and duct tape. You're gagged and blindfolded too. I don't want to touch you again because if I do the vision will change. And I don't know if it would be for the better."
Just then they heard Big Ben counting off two chimes. They needed to get back to New York and quickly.
"Rick if what you said was true then we have to warn Jordan. She's going to think we're both nuts. But what else can we do?"
"Kate, I'm not sure that telling her is such a good idea. How would we explain how we know what's going to happen? If you think she's suspicious now just wait till we get back and tell her what we think we know."
"We need to figure out a way to break it to her that doesn't reveal what we can do," Kate suggests.
"Let me think about what to tell her. When we get back make sure that no one sees us blinking back into the 12th Precinct. Can you blink us back to the records room downstairs? At this time of night, I don't think anyone would be down there. Then we can just hop on the elevator and go up to the fourth floor no one will be the wiser."
"Okay, babe. That sounds like a good plan. Let's just hope that no one's down there when we get back."
Kate takes ahold of Rick's hand and within a second they're standing behind the elevator shaft facing the files in the precinct. There was no one around so they dodged a bullet… this time. Kate let go of Rick's hand and they both head around the elevator shaft to the front where the doors are. She stabs the call button and the elevator opens instantly. This puts Rick on edge instantly because no one should be down here and they don't see anybody. Unless somebody was playing with the call buttons, the car should be upstairs and not in the basement.
They both step on the elevator and thirty seconds later they're deposited onto the fourth floor. Scanning the floor for people, they see Hannah and Jordan in the war room talking about something. Kate nods her head towards the war room and Rick takes the hint. They both walk towards the war room and enter. They catch the last part of the conversation that Jordan was having with Hannah.
"Hannah, if you are positive that you can track that specific signal then I will give you all the help you need to find it. What we will do is dedicate two of our servers to finding all of theirs."
"Jordan now that I know what to look for, it should be a walk in the park. No pun intended." Hannah smiles at Jordan and Jordan returns the smile with one of her own. They both look at the door to the war room and see Rick and Kate standing there watching their every move.
"Well, well, well! Look who decided to join us." Jordan says sarcastically.
"We needed to get away," Rick admitted. It was then when he felt the jab to his ribs and he knew that this was the wrong thing to say.
"What my partner means is that we needed a little downtime. We had to talk over some things before we moved on with the case."
Jordan eyes the both of them suspiciously but she simply nodded her head. She would question them later… intensely, but right now they had positive leads to run down and she needed a seasoned detective to look into them.
"Kate it seems that Hannah might have found a very good location on where these people could possibly be. There are somewhere south of Central Park. We lost their signal just south of 79th Street, But it could go as far down as 41st Street. There are also two other possibilities in Brooklyn and the Bronx. What we need you to do is take Rick and go down to the three addresses we have on this paper. They could be dead ends or they could be the location that breaks this case wide open."
Xx
They have been sitting in front of an abandoned building for what seems to be all of ten minutes. This is the first address in Brooklyn that Jordan gave them comes up as just they figured, an abandoned building. No one coming and no one going and all the lights are out. There is no activity whatsoever.
The second address is in the Bronx so Kate and Rick head to that location to check it out. Upon arrival, it's pretty much the same scenario as the first address. But this one is worse. There are comings and goings but it's not who they think it is. It seems that the homeless people who are trying to survive the cold have camped out here. Most of them are sleeping inside the building and they know it is not a building where a bad element would work out of. So they scratch the second one off their list. The drive back to Manhattan is quick and the third address has possibilities. First, it's lit up like a Christmas tree. There are security measures in place that do not match the other buildings that are in this neighborhood. There are reinforced entry doors that are made of solid steel, windows that have high-tech alarms and bars across them, and they have one man walking around the building every fifteen minutes. This could be the location that they're looking for. They only spend thirty-five minutes here so they are not noticed. They head back to the 12th Precinct and report directly to Jordan to tell her what they have found.
Xx
The more he looks at the intrusions into their system the more he is sure of what he thinks. He knows it's her or either someone she has trained. His mind automatically flashes back to MIT.
He has been sitting alongside her for the past semester And he still hasn't manned up to ask her out on a date. Maybe that will never happen because in his eyes she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
But where they are academically is on an equal playing field. Although he thinks that she might be just a touch smarter than he is, they have a friendly bet to see who knows more by the end of the semester. He thinks that she will leave him in the dust. Her mind works on a higher level than his does and he knows that to start with. But he will give it the old college try.
The competition that they are in together is grueling. It should be because the award they will receive is becoming the student director of the entire science department. This last test that they are taking today will determine who is awarded the position. So far they have been neck-and-neck but he thinks that she has the edge. Time will tell.
In the end, it was very close but as he suspected she edged him out only by a half of a point and she was awarded the position of student director. But he knows that his abilities will keep him in demand. Now being in charge of the science department on the student side she asks him to become a member of her team. They will add two more people to the team to make it four. Then they will get to work.
During the last semester before they graduated their skill set has been in high demand. Along with running the computer systems for MIT ensuring that no one could access their servers, businesses would come to them to set up fail-safes in order to stop intrusions into their systems. Once their work became known the government stepped in and offered them a hefty government contract to do the same. Now they were on a national stage. Their work had gone global and they were in high demand for their services. Then the wheels fell off.
Rodolfo knew that he could become a top earner in his field if he went to the dark side, it would be like taking candy from a baby. And that's exactly what he did. Hannah on the other hand stayed on the side of law and order. She was one who was never tempted by the lure of easy money.
It wasn't long after they had entered the private sector that people were knocking down her door with job offers. She had fielded a lot of them and the one that stuck out was the NYPD. She thought about it a lot but two other companies were going to pay more than what the NYPD was going to pay. After weighing the benefits the decision had been made. When they told her she would be carrying a gun that was the icing on the cake.
He could tell that this had her signature written all over it. She was too cautious and he always picked up on that when she was running a system check when they were contracted to do a job.
Now he had an even bigger problem. With the MTA now being disabled, he has to watch what he does. Because if he doesn't she will find out who is trying to take down the city.
Xx
Hannah knows systems. She also knows the certain quirks to look for when she is trying to track down somebody who is doing bad things to other systems. Ever since the hospital attack, she has been concentrating on this one odd sock. At first, she didn't think it was anything to be worried about but now after finding the quirk, she needs to look deeper into who this could be. She has thought of who it could be but she needs facts to back it up. She leaves the war room and heads to Jordan to talk to her.
"Jordan, I think I might have possible identification about who might be hacking into these systems. I need to pull a file of who this could be that I have at my apartment. It's something only I can look for when they hack another server again and I'll be back in less than thirty minutes."
Jordan accepts her theory and waves at her to go get what she needs.
No sooner did she leave, the mayor is calling the captain of the 12th.
"Captain Rhodes. This is Mayor Weldon. I need to know what's being done about the MTA being held hostage? Right now I have a two-hour window remaining to scrape together five million dollars. Getting the money is not an issue but the time constraint is. I need to know if we are going to have to pay this or will we be able to find out who these people are before the deadline?"
"Mayor Weldon, I have my best people on it right now as we speak."
Ben furiously waves his hand towards Jordan to catch her attention. He needs her in his office so he can get a quick update on the status of this case.
Jordan sees the captain in his office waving like he is going to go into convulsions. Seeing that he is on the phone she knows that this is likely not the case and that he wants some information so she quickly rushes to his office.
Ben asks Jordan for an update while his hand covers the receiver on the phone and she writes something on a pad on his desk and hands it to him. He then starts to tell the mayor what's written on the pad.
Ben looks over what she has written and looks at her with an are you kidding me look on his face. She then motions him to read what she has written on the pad.
"Mayor the FBI team has detective Beckett and Mr. Castle running down leads. They left a while ago and should be back any minute. When they brief us I will call you back with an update."
"I'll be waiting!" Then the line goes dead.
Just as Jordan is walking out of the captain's office her cell phone buzzes in her pocket. She pulls it out and is stunned at what she sees in the text message.
She walks back to the war room and on the way she stopped by Kate's desk. She sees that she has left something on her desk that looks out of place for a police precinct. It was a soda bottle. That in itself is not why she thinks it is out of place. Why she thinks is out of place is that this particular brand of soda is not produced or even sold in the United States. She picks up the bottle that is half full and reads the label on the side.
Produced in the UK by Purity Soft Drinks Ltd.
She knew that the bottle looked familiar because when she was at a seminar in London she liked the taste of the all-natural drink and bought more than her share of this particular flavor of the Firefly drink. She had something now so she places the bottle right where she picked it up from on the desk and continues on to the war room.
The elevator chimed its arrival and it deposited the two people she wanted to talk to the most. Without wasting any time she walks up to them and says,
"I need to speak to you two in the war room ASAP. We have a situation."
Not knowing what she is referring to they reluctantly follow her. Once inside the war room, the door shuts and Jordan tells them to sit down.
When they do sit she starts talking.
"We have a problem. A new problem I should say there has been another attack. But this one is major it goes beyond the limits of what we thought they were capable of. And now they're going to destroy the financial infrastructure of this country.
"What's going on Jordan? What do you know?" Rick asks.
"It seems that the group that was responsible for shutting down the MTA has now moved on to bigger and better targets. They have decided to shut down the New York Stock Exchange and all the indexes associated with it. NASDAQ, S&P 500, and it even goes as far as the Commodities markets. If we don't find them in time the country will go into a freefall. It will be fifty times worse than the '29 crash."
"Have we found out who they are?" Kate asks.
"No, we haven't." Jordan scans the homicide floor looking for Hannah but realizes that she is not back yet.
"Hannah might have a line on who this could be. She went back to her apartment to pick up a file. When she gets back she might be able to match the intrusion signal with whoever is hacking the NYSE. Hang on a sec, I need to tell the cyber team to record the signal the hackers are using. I have a feeling that Hannah will need it." Jordan jumps up from her chair to talk to the techs.
"Rick did you notice?" Kate asks.
"Notice what?"
"It seemed to me that Jordan was hiding something. Not necessarily hiding something, but she knows something she's not telling us. So you're feeling about someone walking up when we left for London might be true.
"Kate let's see where this goes. I don't want to say something that can't be unsaid or explained away. But I think it goes further than that. I can see the gears in her mind spinning."
Knowing that the quick meeting with Jordan is over they head back out.
"Alright. I am going to go back to my desk and write up the report for the accidental death at the hospital. If we find out who is doing this we can amend the charges and then charge them with the murder of doctor Garcia's patient."
Thirty minutes later…
Kate finished writing the report for the accidental death at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She files it in her pending box for future reference in case they can catch these people. Deciding to check on the progress for the MTA hostage situation and the NYSE they walk into the war room but finding no one there they turn around and leave.
They both walk out of the war room and as they do Kate is almost knocked over by Hannah. They both are stopped from falling to the floor by Rick who catches both of them around the waist and stands them upright.
"Kate, I am so sorry! Have you seen Jordan anywhere?" Hannah asks in a rushed tone.
Kate simply points to her and Hannah is running towards her. Kate gives Rick a look and they follow.
"Agent Shaw, I think I have narrowed down the list of suspects that could have pulled this off. And by narrowed down, I mean to just one. I just have to compare the signal with what I have on my file. My cyberteam should have recorded their signal because if they didn't we're at another dead end."
"They did. I made sure of it because I knew you were retrieving your file."
Jordan turns her head and sees Rick and Kate standing right there. She needs to know what they found so they can update the mayor and possibly get a team together to serve a search warrant on the property that they think is a good match.
"Kate, I'm just wondering if the report done on the accidental death in the hospital is complete?" Jordan asks
"It is Jordan. I finished it about five minutes ago."
"Good. I need your intel on the addresses you checked out. I meant to ask you before but the newest attack took precedence."
"Let's head back to the war room because I think it'd be easier to explain to you there," Rick says.
Xx
"Jordan, what I think could be their hideout is highly guarded and while not impenetrable it is wired with security cameras and it has alarms on every entry and egress point," Kate tells her.
"Okay. Let's get a team together. Then we can all head over to this address. But for now, let's draw up a plan."
They spend the next half hour growing up a plan for serving the search warrant on the address in Manhattan. They have a hand-picked team of six NYPD SWAT team members, four FBI SWAT team members, Kate, Rick, and Jordan. All she has to do now is inform Captain Rhodes about what is going to go down within the next hour.
They go over their gear before they leave the precinct and Rick makes sure that Kate has her bulletproof vest on correctly and is secured properly. He looks at the blotter in the middle of her desk and he sees the Firefly drink that she picked up in London while they were 'escaping'. He picks it up to take a drink and when he does he becomes still. He gets the feeling he usually gets when he sees a vision but this one is different. He has never picked up an inanimate object before and saw a vision by just touching it. Now he knows from what he sees in his vision that Jordan knows what's going on with them or at least has an idea. They need to get ahead of this if they're going to keep their secrets.
"Babe, you ready to go?" Kate calls out while shaking Rick's arm.
He snaps out of his vision and looks her directly in the eyes.
"We have a problem."
Knowing that he won't tell her what he saw now they both walk towards the elevator. Jordan and her team are walking from the opposite direction towards the elevator. Jordan stops at the elevator when she sees Kate and Rick both walking towards her. As they get closer she raises her hand and waves her index finger back and forth giving them the No-No sign.
"Kate, I'm sorry but Rick is going to have to sit this one out. I don't want him in the line of fire. I know he's your partner and I know you've been through a lot together but this is my call."
"Jordan this is a joint FBI/NYPD raid. Rick can come! He is more than capable of taking care of himself and I don't want him to miss any of this. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't be where we are now."
"Kate, it's simple. He's not coming. End. Of. Discussion. I have had a conversation with Captain Rhodes and he is in agreement with me. There is just no way I'm going to put a civilian in harm's way. So are you still coming?"
At Rick's nod, Kate agrees with Jordan's terms.
"Rick, I need you to stay behind and work with Hannah because she is going to need some help. Don't worry we will keep you up-to-date on what happens out in the field." Jordan tells him.
Kate turns back to Jordan and she is still talking with her FBI SWAT team. When she turns back to Kate she tells her,
"We're going to meet SWAT at the address. It'll give us a head start to do some surveilling before we serve the search warrant."
Xx
The Germans who are fed up with the actions of one NYPD Detective just got off the phone with their man in New York City. They have concluded that the man they put in charge is not who they thought he was. Preparations have been made for him to be replaced… permanently. And soon.
Xx
He hangs up the phone and he has a really bad feeling about what's going to happen next. As he sits there at his desk he looks out onto the pit adjacent to his office. Everything is quiet for the time being but he is concerned about the midnight deadline. The five million he demanded from the city has not been acknowledged yet. They put their initial demands forth and since that time they have not been contacted by anyone in the city government.
Then he hears a knock on the door. It draws him out of his thoughts and he sees Rodolfo standing there.
"What do you want Rodolfo?" Piter asks.
"We might have a problem. You know that we have security cameras encompassing the entire building. The problem is that someone has been keeping tabs on us. At first, I was skeptical about the car we found. But then after monitoring it for 30 minutes it seems that they were trying to find a way into our building. They had binoculars and they were watching how many rounds the guard made around the building. The car comes back to being registered to the NYPD. It doesn't give a command that it's attached to but we do know it's it cop car."
"Who was driving?"
"Hard to tell. The camera is good but not that good to get a description of the person in the driver's seat. But we can tell that there were two people in the car."
"It seems that this situation is under control. The people running the show in Germany have considered this and are already on top of things. As a matter of fact, I think that we should hear something very soon concerning whoever is watching our building. As of this minute, this building is following Romeo protocol. Everything is locked down, nothing in or out and there will be limited communication with the outside."
Xx
On the rooftop across from the 12th precinct, two men stand watch. They both have high-powered binoculars and are watching everyone leaving the precinct. As they do they see two females walking down the stairs. They are wearing tactical gear and they know that these two are their targets. The first man puts down his binoculars and picks up a walkie-talkie. The man in the car on the street listens to what is being said.
Within thirty seconds the two men in the car pull up and park fifteen yards past the entrance to the 12th precinct. They quickly exit the car and in no time are behind the two unsuspecting women. The timing for this has to be perfect and it is. A man riding a bike suddenly comes to a stop in front of the women and apologizes for almost hitting them. As he gets off his bike to walk past them and as they are occupied by trying to get around the man and his bike, two men from behind cover their faces with fluothane soaked pads and the fight leaves their bodies within five seconds. The man on the bike who has since left his bike leaning up against the wall of the building is now throwing one of the unconscious women's arms over his shoulder. The man that came up from behind them does the same with the other woman. The third man quickly gets into the van that is sitting parked in the alley. The two men drag them ten feet to the alleyway to the left and throw them roughly into the van that is idling in the alley. Once they are secure, and zip ties are applied tightly, the second man gets into the back of the van to make sure they stay put. He closes the doors and the man who was on the bike slaps the back window. The van speeds away down the alley making a right onto Houston Street and is never seen again. The second he no longer sees the van he retrieves his bicycle and pedals down the bike lane without a care in the world. The NYPD and the FBI will quickly learn that there will be no security camera coverage covering the street in front of the 12th Precinct because he knows that the cameras have been disabled before the abduction.
Xx
The NYPD arrived at the address first. The FBI is following close behind. The eight men and two women dispersed from their vehicles that brought them to the scene. They are quickly checking their weapons to make sure they are ready in case they need them. They also do the same with their handguns strapped to their hips.
Josiah Kennai is one step below agent Shaw in command. He has been her right-hand man for the past five years. He knows every move she takes before she even takes it, but now that he is standing here exposed in front of a building they want to search he has a feeling that something isn't right. They said they were coming here to do some preliminary reconnaissance and he doesn't see them anywhere. That was an entire fifteen minutes ago. Too much can happen in fifteen minutes. He'll wait another two minutes and then he's going to decide on what to do.
Xx
Captain Rhodes has too much to handle. He thought taking this vacation relief slot was going to be a piece of cake. Now with everything that's going on, he second-guesses his decision. Just then the phone rings and he is quick to answer it thinking it might be the mayor again.
"Captain Rhodes speaking."
"Captain Rhodes, this is Lieutenant Kennai. I need to know if you have a location on special agent Shaw and detective Beckett?"
"Stand by one and I'll check with Lieutenant Baker." Captain Rhodes puts the call on hold and runs into the war room. He sees Hannah and Rick going over something. They both have headphones on and are listening intently to something over and over again. Not wanting to scare her, he tapped her on the shoulder. She looks up at him. Seeing who it is she removes her headphones and stops the recording that they're listening to.
"Hannah, have you seen detective Beckett or special agent Shaw?"
"Then they left about thirty minutes ago. They should be at the address with the SWAT teams by now," She replies.
Rick springs up from his chair and almost comes face-to-face with Captain Rhodes.
"Captain, you do realize that something has gone terribly wrong don't you?"
The captain turns and runs out of the war room and back into his office without saying another word. He picks up the phone and starts talking with lieutenant Kennai.
"Lieutenant, it seems that agent Shaw and detective Beckett left for the address you are at thirty minutes ago. And if what you're telling me is true, that they never arrived, then something has gone wrong. For now, return to the 12th precinct. We will formulate a new plan."
Rick watches as Captain Rhodes leaves the war room and runs back to his office to pick up the phone. When he does he is practically screaming into it and Rick is now officially panicking. He leaves the war room after he hangs up his headphones and moves over to Kate's desk. He sits down in her chair and just thinks. As he's looking around her desk he sees all the small trinkets she has. Leave it to Kate to have a troll eraser on top of a pencil sticking in the pen and pencil holder looking out at him. She also has other mementos that remind her of her parents that she lost.
Sad about what could happen to her he rises from her chair and slides the chair back under her desk. Before he can let go of the chair he goes still once again. It seems that once she changed into her bulletproof vest and NYPD windbreaker, she left her leather jacket on the back of her chair. And just like before when we touched the soda bottle the second he touched her jacket he saw something.
It's as if he's looking through Kate's eyes. He sees where she wants him to come with her to serve the warrant and then tries to convince Jordan he's an asset to their team and then he sees her nodding to him saying that it will be alright if he does stay. They both get on the elevator. He watches as they pass the desk sergeant and then finally through the doors out onto the stairway. He's got to give Kate credit because she is very aware of her surroundings but she just didn't find anything amiss when she left the 12th. By the time they hit the last step, they are turning left towards Jordan's Suburban. They never make it. Rick can see the man on the bicycle and he automatically knows that this is a setup from the start. The man narrowly misses Jordan and Kate pulls her out of the way from being hit. The man stops, gets off his bike, and apologizes for almost running them over and that's when Rick loses the vision. The last thing he sees is Kate's eyelids closing but he can't figure out why.
Now he doesn't know what to do. He knows exactly what happened to Kate and Jordan but if he goes to tell Captain Rhodes what he knows, he will reveal his secret. But he has another idea and takes off for the Captain's office.
Rick impatiently knocks on the door seeing that the captain is on the phone. When the captain sees Rick he quickly hangs up a phone and tells him to enter his office.
"Rick, what's going on?
"Ben, I think I have an idea of how we can find Kate and Jordan. I know it's probably something you already thought of but humor me."
"I'm listening."
"The 12th has security cameras out in front of the building correct?"
Before Rick could even finish his thought Ben is picking up the phone to call the other cyber team.
"Sergeant Ellis I need you to scrub the footage in front of our building. Look specifically for detective Beckett and Agent Shaw. We have a basic time frame to look in and that would be from 11 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. Let me know what you find."
"Yes sir." Is the answer Tori gives the captain. Then she hangs up the phone, sets aside what she was working on, and accesses the archived recordings from a half an hour ago.
"Rick, Tori is good. If there's anything to find she will find it. Just give her about ten minutes and I guarantee you that she'll be calling me back." Ben says trying to put Rick at ease.
All Rick can do is slump into the chair he's sitting in hoping that they will find something. As Ben predicted ten minutes later Tori walks into his office with her laptop.
"Captain Rhodes, I scrubbed the footage from in front of our building and two things struck me as odd. The first was for a split second there was a loss of power until the secondary power unit kicked in and took over. So that tells me that whoever did take detective Beckett and agent Shaw had prepared for this. But the second thing is the actual recording."
Tori takes her laptop and places it in front of Captain Rhodes. Rick gets up from the chair he's sitting in and comes around the other side of the captain's desk to watch the video as well. Tori hits enter on her keyboard and the video starts playing. There's no audio it's only video so there is nothing to hear.
Both Rick and Ben watch as the bicyclist narrowly misses Jordan. Then they see another man walking up fast behind both women as they are being apologized to by the guy on the bike. Whatever the man has on the pads it works quickly because both women practically fall to the ground less than five seconds after it is placed over their mouth and nose.
What they see next confirms what they both fear. Both Kate and Jordan are dragged down the sidewalk to a black van parked in the alley. They were lucky to get the second camera capture because the one camera only captures everything directly in front of the building on the sidewalk. It's the second camera that's across the street at just the right angle that catches the van that they are watching now.
Jordan and Kate are thrown violently into the back of the van. Then their ankles are zip-tied and their hands are given the same treatment behind their backs. The second man jumps into the van and the bicyclist who started this whole mess slams both doors shut and smacks the back door telling the driver it is okay to leave. They see as far as the van can go before it disappears then almost as if nothing happened the man on the bike turns back of the alley makes a right onto the sidewalk retrieves his bike that's leaning up against the building and rides away like nothing ever happened.
The coverage ends and the Captain automatically picked up the phone.
"Lieutenant Kennai What is your ETA back to the 12th Precinct?" He asks once the call connects.
"Eight minutes give or take. Traffic is a bit heavy right now."
"I have a quick question for you and I need to know if you can answer it. When you were at the scene did you see any type of black van in the area?"
"No, we didn't. They were not many vehicles parked on the street due to road construction. But what was parked there were mostly sedans and SUVs. But that doesn't mean that this van you're looking for it was parked on the street. It could have been parked in an underground parking lot."
"Understood. Return as soon as possible." The Captain hangs up the phone and rubs the stubble that has now grown since he last shaved. As he turns to Rick asking him what he thinks they should do next he's talking to an empty room.
Xx
Now he knows that he has made a very bad life decision. What he signed up for was to be running a simple extortion of money from large corporations that had enough to spare as well as city governments that could survive the hit and still be productive. Now, this has escalated to kidnapping. He doesn't want any part of what's going on now. But he can't get out because if he tries his life as he knew it would end. Violently.
He knows that the Germans have a fixer. Someone who would take out annoying problems that he won't or can't deal with. He just knows that this fixer will most likely be taking care of him one day. But for the time being, he knows that whoever this fixer is he or she is now in possession of the two women who would be giving them the most problem. Not both mind you but the detective first and foremost. She was the one who had coordinated the rescue efforts to remove all the people off of the subway cars with the aid of the FDNY. It seems that she was put in charge of assisting them because her specialty is solving the hard problems. With her in the mix, it just made the German's decision that much easier.
He knows the Germans will stop at nothing in order to get what they want. And just then his phone starts ringing in his pocket.
Xx
Piter this is Wilhelm. I need you to listen and I need you to listen very closely. You have been a disappointment from the first extortion plot and I am not happy. When this phone call is finished I need you to send a ransom demand to the United States federal government for one billion dollars. Once they receive it they know that we will mean business from this point forward."
"Wilhelm, I need to know what is going to be done about a possible infiltration of our building here in New York? We have information that tells us that the FBI in a joint venture with the NYPD will be serving a search warrant to search everything in this building."
"Piter, I am disappointed in your incompetence but we will address that issue later. Have you implemented the Romeo protocol?"
"I have. But still, I am a little leery about what could happen. If they get into this building everyone here will be put in prison for the rest of their lives."
"Piter, you are simply a pawn. You do as we command because nothing less will be accepted. If the FBI is coming to visit you then you must deal with it. Do whatever is necessary to prevent them from entering that building."
"What is going on with the detective who was snooping around earlier?" Piter asks.
"That issue is none of your concern. Be advised that we are going to take over the current negotiations or should I say lack of what you have with the city of New York concerning their Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As for the detective and the bonus of the special agent, we now have neither are your concern. We will take care of the money issues from this point forward and if they don't pay they going to lose something a lot more than their precious Transit System."
Xx
Wilhelm knows what needs to be done next is to make demands that the city will have no option other than to pay what he requests. He has assets in play that at a moment's notice will take out whoever he wants whenever he wants. He is not playing a game here. If they don't pay, people will die. It's a simple as that. He looks down at the screen that is projecting the image in the building right below Piter. On the screen, he sees two women who are slumped over in those chairs. They are secured to the chairs and cannot escape. When they wake up they will wish they hadn't.
A/N: 10 virtual points and a smiley face to whoever finds the easter egg.
A/N: Swordwriter, this one is for you!
A/N: This chapter would not be possible without the help of DKfan, so thank you!