I am so terribly sorry for the long wait, that you have endured. But with my boss on sick leave and, ho ho holy reindeer - Christmas, I just haven't had any time at all to write. But here is to you, happy Thanksgiving, merry Christmas and happy Channukah, happy Holidays and have a good New Years Eve, in a few days.

/K.

The dull pain form the headache was now pounding behind his eyes. Jamie leaned back on the edge of the table behind him when he suddenly felt dizzy. The big man had slumped to the ground, blood spilling out of his lower abdomen. For a second, Jamie had though he was the one who had been, hit because he felt so hollow. Still with the gun in his hand he looked at his hands, smeared in blood. Then he remembered what he had seen, when he opened the door. Rushing through the doorframe unsteadily, he almost threw himself to the ground next to Eddie, hoping for the best, unable to prepare himself for the worst. He tucked the gun into the small of his back.

"Eddie..." he whispered and immediately put a hand on the bullet wound in her shoulder, feeling relieved when he saw her eyes focus on him. Her face winched in pain and her eyes were all dazed.

"Rivers," she rasped and Jamie shot a look at the body to her side, out of her sight. A bullet had caught him square in the chest, the blood had stopped oozing, his face was pale and his eyes open, showing the last expression. Jamie shook his head and Eddie clenched her eyes shut for a second.

"Are you good to walk?" he asked her, reminding her they were still behind enemy lines. She nodded with a small smile on her face.

"I was shot in the shoulder, Reagan. I think, I can walk just fine," she sipped in a sharp breath when she tried to sit up. Her voice was shaky but it traced a small hint of her natural smile.

"Yeah, as if," Jamie remarked only to receive a deflated look from his partner. He found himself with a tiny smile on his lips, as he helped her up. The pain at the back of his head was returning, more insistent now.

"There should be more people here," Eddie stated vaguely as they walked into the room where she had been sitting earlier. The other door was still closed as they approached it and Jamie released his grip on Eddie when they reached the wall, so she could lean on it. Then he pulled the gun from the small of his back, checking the magazine for bullets. Four rounds, he counted, and one in the chamber. He and Eddie shared a look and she reached for the door handle while Jamie raised the gun. She pushed the door open and Jamie entered the empty warehouse hall.

"Clear," he called back per reflex and Eddie appeared behind him, looking puzzled.

"This doesn't feel right," she said and stepped forward. "Parson was here, just before," she wondered out loud.

"The only ones here are Rivers and the big guy," Jamie muttered, not to mention that they were both dead. They both turned their head towards the door on their left, when they heard voices outside. Quickly Jamie raised the gun and grabbed Eddie's good arm to pull her backwards through the door again. A code was entered on the outside key pad and soon after the door opened. Jamie and Eddie glanced at each other from behind the second door, both of them ready to fight. It wasn't the best hideout, but the considering the lack of time, it would have to do.

"We've got a man on the Detective," a voice said from outside the door. Eddie tensed up, recognizing Ray Parson and remembering what she had been told about Danny. About him and his brothers being reunited. She felt Jamie's breathed in sharp, she realized that he didn't know. They didn't hear a response, clearly the voice was talking to somebody on the phone. "He's solid. He told us about the undercover cop and he warned us in time about the warehouse," Ray continued, from outside the door. They could hear, he wasn't alone, at least two extra pairs of feet could be heard shuffling, not daring to enter the room before their boss. Jamie's head was aching already, this new information only making it worse. Would that mean, there was a mole in the DEA, he wondered and Rivers flickered into his mind. It didn't fit. A rouge agent fed them information from the core of the obvious investigation. That was how they managed to stay a step ahead, Jamie thought, gripping the gun by his side tighter.

"We're on our way to a more… suitable location. This was kind of impromptu, just temporary… no… yes, of course… alright… no, the docks," Ray wasn't a loud talker, but it was hearable. It was just as hearable as the sigh was, when he broke the connection. Jamie glanced at Eddie by his side, they were standing close behind the door, and she was going paler and her shirt was going redder. Not even ten feet away from them, just outside the door, was Ray Parson standing, unaware of them. Jamie recalled the number of bullets, four in the clip, one in the chamber. Essentially, it could be enough to for two double taps and a single shot. Both he and Eddie knew that when Rivers' body was discovered in the hallway at the other side of the room, time would be almost non-existent. Jamie wondered briefly who had been on the other line of the phone call. The way Ray talked to him, it could be his superior.

"Go get them ready for transport, have Knuckles give you a hand, but, please, don't let him rearrange their faces too much," Ray told the two goons when his own footsteps echoed out in the hall. It sounded like he was walking to the other end of the empty warehouse. They couldn't go anywhere for the moment. The outer door was locked with a code and they couldn't hide behind the door forever. Two men walked through the open door, not noticing Jamie and Eddie behind it. They headed straight to the hallway and stopped dead in their tracks. Shortly after, both of them trained their guns up high and walked down the hall, not wanting to alert their superior. The glance the two men they shot each other told Jamie, they were in big trouble.

"Boss!" they heard one of them call out. "You might want to see this," one of them called out, urgency in his brawny voice. They had probably found Knuckles too. Soon after, Ray walked through the door and headed for the hallway.

"What happened?" He barked with obvious anxiety in his voice when he, too, stopped in the hallway. "Knuckles?" he asked and a muffled voice answered.

"Move," Jamie whispered and had already grabbed Eddies arm and pulling her behind him around the door. They skirted across the floor in the warehouse, quick and silent, both of them stumbling to the door. Both of them knew the door with the key pad wasn't an option, as they needed the code. After a few seconds, they reached a door in the far end and Jamie pushed the door open. They tumbled inside and closed the door behind them, unable to suppress the shriek from the hinges. Jamie leaned on the door for a second and rested his head against it. Eddie was doubled over next to him, one hand on her bleeding shoulder, the other on her knee, panting from exhaustion and pain. "Are you all right?" Jamie asked, after squeezing his eyes shut for a couple of seconds. Eddie straightened up and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm good," she said doubtingly when she looked at the wound in her shoulder. That might scar, she thought, but didn't fully realize she had been shot until then. Jamie flinched at her and looked around. They were in some sort of office, a desk and open filing cabinets stood empty and scattered around the back wall. No doors, no windows big enough to fit through. Jamie set of to the desk and hauled it across the floor so it jammed the door. That might keep them safe for a little while.

When the crime scene unit arrived, Danny had already gone over most of the car, inventorying a couple of ski masks in the back, just like the ones carried on the video from the store. A couple of times he had caught himself glancing at the little puddle of blood, no bigger than a curled fist, on the floor. It could be nothing more than a simple nosebleed from a punch, or a nicked eyebrow for that matter. But knowing his brother Jamie would bleed a lot more from a nosebleed, it would look like a freaking trauma room, if that was the case. Baez walked to his side, looking at the blood too.

"We will find them, Danny," she said, hoping and praying for that to become true. She had a feeling, that Danny couldn't take the loss of his youngest brother, no matter the amount of bicker and banter between them. That would destroy him, she thought.

"Bet your ass, we will," he mumbled and turned to walk to their car. There was nothing particular in the dark blue van, except the front looking like a trash can. "See if you can find any CCTV nearby, maybe we'll get something, a face or a direction, at least. I have somewhere else to be," he said and drew his hand over his face, through the hair to his neck, rubbing the tense muscles.

"Sounds like a plan, I'll meet you back at the precinct," Baez replied and turned back to face the CSU guys. Danny drove off, driving less careless now, as he was speculating. Thirty minutes later, he found himself in front of his brother's and mother's grave. It hadn't been the place he aimed to be, but he had found himself driving on autopilot and somehow ended up at the cemetery. The headstones were still beautiful and unmarked by the weather. Someone had stopped be with flowers, recently, Danny noticed. It had only been a couple of months since the anniversary of Joe's death, but the flowers looked nice. He pondered for a little while, debating with himself whether to say something or not.

"I promise, I'll get him back safely," he murmured at the graves and turned to the car. "I promise," he whispered, this time to himself and as he drove off, back to the precinct, a ton of thoughts filled his head.

"Reagan, I found it," Baez said, when she hurried to her computer and plugged in a bus. "I expanded the search two blocks further and found this on an ATM camera," she started out, and let the pictures unfold on the screen as Danny leaned over her shoulder, a little curve in the corner of his mouth. He saw the same van from the security video that morning, heading towards the parking lot where it was dumped. It showed the front of the van and two clear faces, one of them grinning arrogantly to the driver.

"Any ID's yet?" he asked, impatiently and walked back to his desk, where he sat and grabbed the phone. Baez lightly shook her head.

"No, not yet, we are still canvassing the most eastern part. Every cop out there, has a screenshot of these two and are ordered to call if, they spot them in any other vehicle. If not, I think we can assume, they are still in the radius of the van," she said. She didn't bother to ask about Danny's whereabouts, though she had a feeling it was more personal, than work related.

"Salazar, it's Reagan… can you and your friends from the DEA come by the 5-4?.." he asked and looked from his desk to the air in front of him. "Yeah, we have a couple of faces for you to ID… great," he smiled and hung up the phone with a frown, not really pleased about having to ask them for help in the case. He didn't actually like the two guys from the DEA, the agent was too much of everything, too big, too loud, too talkative, swearing too much. The SAC, on the other hand, was silent, tanned, white-teethed, blonde, and seemed to inactive for his job. "This ought to be fun," he said, and laughed at his own words.

When the three men arrived, Danny showed it to them, looking at their faces for any signs. The giant agent, Gary O'Hara, clasped his teeth and curled his fist. The muscles in his neck were commandeered to relax and fall. He looked like he was holding back a lot of rather unpleasant words. The SAC, Dave Johnson, with the perfect everything, only squinted his eyes at the quality and moved closer to the screen.

"The one at the steering wheel, can you zoom in on him? I don't think he is in our files, but…" he trailed off, tilting his head a little bit as to look from a different angle.

"But what?" Danny encouraged, his brows raised in question. Salazar looked at the man, a quizzical look in his eyes. He looked like he was thinking hard.

"He is… I mean, he is not in the file, but we have heard of him before, right?" he asked the two men on his right. "I think this might be the 'Knuckles' Rivers was talking about," he said and switched his look to Danny. "A nasty piece of garbage, if you ask me," he confirmed.

"Who is he?" Baez asked from behind them.

"Nothing in the databases, no fingerprint, no facial-rec, we have nothing on this guy except that he might be the one to do the worst of the dirty work," Johnson cut in, not looking away from the monitor in the tech room. Salazar pulled his shoulder and had a 'meh-face'.

"That's one way to put it. Rivers says, he is Ray's right hand man, and the word on the streets..." he whistled, almost impressed. "Not a man you want to come across in an alleyway," he said and stood up straight again, Johnson followed suit. O'Hara was impatient and took a lot of space in the room, as he did not stand still. Danny looked at Baez with a look in his eyes, they both understood.

"I'll make some calls about him, maybe we can find something," O'Hara said en left the room in a hurry. Danny looked at his back for a second, until the door swung shut again.

Be sure to review and/or comment - let me know how I did :) Thanks for reading. See ya'.