J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read! Thank you especially to MargaretA66, max2013, Candylou, and ErinJordan for your reviews on the previous chapter! Enjoy and God bless!

Chapter XXII

"I'm starting to think this isn't such a good idea," Callie confessed as Joe stopped the car at the appointed meeting spot.

They had driven about fifteen miles out into the desert on Angelo's instructions. The last five had been on a dirt road. The car had kicked up such a cloud of dust that Joe had been forced to drive at a crawling pace since he could barely see. There had been no houses or other signs of civilization all that time. Now they were on the edge of a narrow gorge which Angelo had instructed them to climb down. If they wound up needing help, it couldn't get to them very quickly. It would have been a lovely, if desolate place, in the early morning light, but neither Joe nor Callie was interested in aesthetics at the moment.

"Maybe we should have told Frank what we were doing," Callie said. "Or at least Phil."

"Phil, maybe, but Frank would have messed this up," Joe insisted.

"Could I text him now?" Callie asked. "It's not like he can stop us now, but he'll start out here immediately, and he might be able to help."

Pride tried to keep Joe from agreeing, but finally common sense won out. "Okay. Go ahead. Then we'd better moving. We can't be late."

Callie quickly tapped out a message, along with the coordinates of their location. While he waited, Joe got out of the car and felt the gun that he had under his jacket. It felt strange having it with him, but he wasn't going to let anything happen to Callie. Then Callie got out of the car. The wind was dry and somehow neither cool nor hot. It was stale, if wind could be stale. The day felt like it was going to be hot.

It took them a few minutes to find a way to climb down the edge of the gorge. It was about forty or fifty feet deep and the sides were practically cliffs, but there was one steep path that they managed to climb down. Then they stopped at the bottom, waiting. Angelo had said he would meet them here.

Joe checked his watch. "If he doesn't turn up in a minute and a half, he's going to be late."

"No need to worry about that. I've been here longer than you." The voice came from behind, causing both Hardys to start. They found Angelo leaning against the trunk of a scraggly tree. "I had a shorter trip out here."

"How did you get here?" Joe asked. "I didn't see any other cars."

"That's not important. The important thing is whether you brought the picture. Where is it?"

"Not so fast," Joe said. "Where's Tony? We don't do any business until we know he's safe."

"You don't expect me to have brought him along with me, do you?" Angelo snorted as if that was a ridiculous expectation. "He's alive. Hand over that picture, and I'll release him."

Joe folded his arms. "No offense, but I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. I want to see Tony before I give you anything."

"And what if I brought Tony here, and you didn't give me anything? I have to take precautions."

"Angelo, please," Callie pleaded. "Don't you have one shred of decency left in you? Even if you just told us where Tony is, it would be better than nothing."

For a second or two, Angelo merely regarded her with an expression of annoyance. "All right, then, if that's the only way you'll do business. You can go get Tony. You can walk from here. Meanwhile, I'm going to be sitting here with Joe. You let me know when you have Tony, and then Joe can hand over the picture. Does that sound fair to everyone?"

Joe and Callie both slowly nodded. They couldn't see any immediate way for Angelo to trick them this way. He could, of course, use the opportunity to take Joe as a prisoner, but if he had wanted to do that, he had already had two chances. It didn't seem likely that he would go through such an elaborate plan just to accomplish something he could have done at the very beginning.

"Which way do I go?" Callie asked.

Angelo pointed to his left. "Straight down the gorge that way. Keep to the bottom. In about a quarter of a mile, you'll see the opening to a cavern. It's really the back of an old mine shaft. You can get through, but watch your head. Even you're too tall to get all the way through without ducking in places. There's only one shaft, so just follow it until you find Tony. If you keep following it after that, you'll get to the other entrance, which is up by the road. That will probably be easier for you. I'll give Joe instructions to meet you, but, of course, only if he gives me the picture."

"Hold on," Joe protested. "I don't like this about a mine shaft."

Angelo shrugged. "If you want to find your buddy, you'll have to deal with it, because that's where he is. If you want to leave him to rot there, that's fine with me, too."

"I'll be okay, Joe," Callie said. "I'll watch for any danger. Besides, he knows that if he tries to trick us, he won't get his picture."

Some instinct of Joe's was still telling him that Angelo had a trick up his sleeve, but he nodded for Callie to go ahead. She started walking in the direction Angelo had indicated, glancing back once or twice before she was out of sight.

"I guess now we wait," Joe said.

"You can wait all you want. I'm going to take that picture and get out of here." Angelo took a gun out of his pocket. "Hand it over."

Joe felt his pulse increase, but he managed to keep his cool. He thought of the gun that he had under his jacket. If he could get to it, he could put a stop to this right now. The problem was that if he reached under his jacket, Angelo would stop him before he could get to his weapon. "You don't need to do that, you know. I would have given it to you as soon as I knew you weren't trying to play a trick on us."

"Yeah, well, I don't want to wait that long. It could take Callie close to an hour to find your buddy, and frankly, I don't trust you not to have called in the cops, so I'll take that picture now and get out of here."

"How do I know you gave Callie accurate directions?"

"Because why would I bother sending her on a wild-goose chase when I could have just asked for you to come and I could have taken the picture the instant you arrived?"

Joe still didn't fully trust Angelo, but he realized he didn't have a choice. The envelope was in an inner pocket in the jacket, near the holster. This could be his chance. His fingers closed around the handle of the gun, but then loosened again. What if pulling out his gun only escalated the situation? What if it forced Angelo's hand? In spite of everything, Joe didn't really believe he was a cold-blooded killer. If Joe just cooperated, Angelo might do as he had promised. Yet it would be a great thing to capture Angelo. He could give information about Black Rose and maybe finally put a stop to the entire organization. Still, if Joe did take his gun out, it would only be a bluff. The image of Angelo lying dead on the bottom of that gorge presented itself before Joe's mind's-eye. He couldn't do it. He didn't have to. Not yet. Joe's fingers unwrapped themselves from the gun and went to the inner pocket instead. He took out an envelope and handed it to Angelo. Angelo tore it open and examined the photograph inside while still keeping an eye on Joe.

"So that's what he looks like," he commented. "Ordinary-looking enough. That's how he keeps such a low profile, I suppose. In any case, I won't be forgetting this face in a hurry."

"You also said you'd tell us about the assassin or assassins that Black Rose sent after us," Joe reminded him. He put his hand near the opening of his jacket again, feeling that the gesture was completely unnatural.

Angelo looked up from the picture. "So I did, in the first bargain. You broke that one and at least one more. I don't think I'm obligated to hold up my end of that one, so I don't think I'll be telling you anything. After all, this is all I needed from you. It doesn't matter much to me whether you live or die."

"Then why not tell me about the assassin? A name, at least. Something."

"Sorry." Angelo put the photo in the same hand as his gun and then fished in his pocket for something. A moment later, he drew out a lighter, which he then used to set the photo on fire.

"What are you doing?" Joe stared in confusion. "All this, just so you could destroy a copy of that photo? It's just a copy, you know. I can get another one."

"Don't be ridiculous. I've memorized it, now I need to get rid of it. Do you know what would happen if I was caught with this picture in my possession? Just a hint: it's exactly the same as what would happen if they learned that I told you anything about the assassins, so I won't risk telling you about that."

Joe shook his head as he finally put everything together in a way that was coherent. "Angelo, I think you're in way over your head. You don't know what you're doing. I see how it is now: you couldn't figure out a plan for getting that picture and dealing with us and stick to it for more than ten minutes. You left loose ends all over the place: Darcy, the mess you made trying to get us to cooperate for this hand-off, so now you're changing your mind about the terms of our agreement. If that's all the better you can do, you're never going to get close to this Black Rose head honcho guy. Just give yourself up before you get yourself killed for nothing."

"You don't get it." Angelo spoke each word with emphasis. "You can't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. I've spent years getting to this point, and I've already thought it was all ruined once. I'm not giving up. You can say whatever you want. It won't make any difference."

"Okay. I don't understand. Show me. Why are you doing this? Is it just because your parents were killed?"

"'Just because my parents were killed,'" Angelo repeated. "You make it sound like that's no big deal. What would you know about it? I was eight years old at the time. I had to grow up with my stuffy, old uncle who only ever said we had to forgive the people who did it. How do you forgive a thing like that?"

"That doesn't change the fact that if this is an example of your planning capabilities, you're not going to succeed," Joe insisted. "If you can't stop Black Rose either way, wouldn't you rather be alive?"

"No. Besides, if I get caught now, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in jail. That's not really living, is it? Anyway, don't worry about me. Now that I've got this picture and I've gotten the better of you Hardys, I've got some people who are going to help me. They just wanted to see what I could accomplish on my own. There's been some hitches, sure, but I accomplished what they asked, and they'll be making the plans from now on."

"Great," Joe muttered under his breath. The last thing he wanted in this whole convoluted mess was some new mysterious players, especially the sort who were obviously not on Black Rose's side and just as obviously not really on the side of law and order.

Angelo stamped out the last sparks from the photo once it had finished burning. "When you see him, tell my brother to stop wasting time, chasing me around and trying to save me from myself or whatever." With that, he turned and started walking in the opposite direction that Callie had taken.

His back was to Joe and that was a temptation too strong to resist. Joe could have pulled out his weapon and forced Angelo to drop his now without much danger, but that wasn't his first impulse. Without taking the time to think about all the ways that such a move could go drastically wrong, he took a couple running steps and slammed into Angelo from behind, knocking them both to the ground. Angelo lost hold of his gun in the initial attack, and Joe made sure he was too busy trying to defend his face and head to try to retrieve it. At the same time, that meant that Joe couldn't spare a hand to reach for it either, to make sure Angelo didn't get it back.

After the first shock, Angelo started defending himself effectively. He was brawny, and Joe quickly found out that he was a match for him in a fair fight. For several seconds, they wrestled together, each getting in a blow here and there and Angelo trying to get to the gun whenever he seemed to have a moment's chance. Then Angelo's hand struck the gun underneath Joe's jacket and a bewildered look came over his face. It was then that Joe realized he didn't have a choice. The second Angelo realized there was a second gun within reach, he would grab it.

Joe got in another punch that bought him enough time to take a step back and draw the gun. His heart was pounding and he felt like he couldn't do this, but he tried to keep all emotion out of his face. For a second or two, Angelo froze with a concerned expression. Then he relaxed and began to laugh.

"I don't see how you have anything to laugh about," Joe replied through gritted teeth.

"You're not going to shoot me in any case," Angelo said. "The incident at that jewelry store in Bayport and your reasons for leaving the detective business are well-known to Black Rose. You're not going to pull that trigger. You might as well be threatening me with a toy gun."

"I might," Joe said.

Angelo took a step closer. "I doubt that."

"Don't press your luck," Joe warned him. He tightened his grip on the gun's handle. His hands were getting sweaty and that caused it to slip slightly.

The warning made no impression on Angelo, who continued to come closer. He was reaching out for the gun now. "You're not going to do it," he repeated.

Joe wasn't sure what Angelo would do if he got the gun away from Joe. He might kill him, or he might not. The only certain thing was that if Angelo was permitted to continue the way he was, he would use that gun to kill someone else eventually, unless he got himself killed first. Joe couldn't let him take it, but at the same time…Angelo was right. Joe wasn't going to pull the trigger. Usually, that wasn't necessary to stop someone, since most criminals would cooperate rather than get shot. But now, with a criminal who knew Joe's history, who knew that Joe didn't intend to shoot, bluffing wasn't going to be enough. The only way to stop him, the only way to keep him from hurting and killed others, all for the sake of getting his revenge, was to shoot.

But he couldn't. Standing there, looking Angelo in the eye, Joe couldn't shoot him. He couldn't forever snuff out any chance of Angelo changing, however small those chances might be. His hands were shaking by now. Even if he could get up the nerve to try to shoot, he wasn't sure he could get his fingers to cooperate.

Then, suddenly, there was the deafening pop of a handgun being fired. Joe jumped, stunned that his shaking finger had evidently accidentally pulled the trigger. The aim was way off, and the bullet thudded harmlessly into the ground several yards behind and to the right of Angelo.

The unexpected shot had shocked Angelo far less than it had Joe. It only took him a moment to realize what must have happened. Then he leaped forward and grabbed the weapon out of Joe's hands. That was enough to wake Joe up, but it was too late. The gun had already changed hands.

Angelo had grabbed the gun by its barrel. In the split second it took Joe to understand what was happening, Angelo cracked the handle across the back of Joe's head. Instantly, Joe's vision fogged and he sagged to the ground.