Chapter 8

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Lionel Fusco had only spent the better part of 45 minutes in the presence of Wonder Boy's latest charity case, but he already understood why Reese had ordered him not to let the old geezer out of his sight. He couldn't pin-point exactly what had made him suspicious of the man, but Lionel had been a cop long enough, and been surrounded by all kinds of men who were up to no good, to have developed some kind of instinct on that matter. And Louis Candrall - or whatever the guy's name was - made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Lionel had tried engaging Louis in conversation when he first picked him up, but soon gave up on trying to tease some info out of the man. Granted, the tight-lipped and gruff responses could easily be attributed to the fact that someone had quite obviously tried to kill the man not that long ago. Hell, Lionel would have found it equally unsettling if that wouldn't have fazed the guy. Although he wasn't at all sure if it wasn't just an act to get him to leave his passenger alone.

And then there were also the looks.

The way Louis's eyes had shot daggers at the cop from the backseat when he thought Lionel wasn't looking had set off an entire glockenspiel of alarm bells in Fusco's mind. Just where do they always find these guys? Lionel asked himself. He clamped his mouth shut and drove the rest of the way to the safe-house in silence.

They reached their destination without any major hitches and the detective dutifully escorted his charge to the inconspicuous door and knocked. A slightly harried-looking Harold Finch opened the door after a few uncomfortable seconds of silence.

"Mr. Candrall ... I'm sorry, Mr. Mitchell. Welcome. Please, come inside."

"Candrall is fine," Louis said gruffly as Finch stepped aside to let the two men enter. "I haven't used my real name in so long, it sounds strange now."

"As you wish." Finch inclined his head in acquiescence, and securely locked the door behind them. Fusco moved to the side to greet a happily tail-whacking Bear - at least someone seemed to appreciated his presence - and to have a better angle from which to watch Mr. Gruffy interact with the Professor. Candrall was scanning the apartment, and Lionel doubted that those sharp grey eyes beneath the white, bushy brows missed anything before they eventually landed on Finch. "So, you're The Partner?"

Harold nodded, but made no move to offer the man a hand in greeting. "Yes. My name is Harold. I'm sorry that we have to meet under these circumstances."

"Uh-huh..." The grey eyes drew into narrow slits. "Who the hell are you guys? And what's gonna happen next?"

Good questions, Lionel thought, shifting his attention to the Professor. The man's expression was as unreadable as ever.

"I'm sure that you have a lot of questions, Mr. Candrall. I'll try to answer them as best as I can. However there's an urgent matter I will have to attend to first. Please, make yourself comfortable. There's food in the kitchen," Finch said politely, indicating the kitchenette with a wave of his hand. "I'm sorry, but I will have to excuse myself now."

Turning around stiffly the hacker left the detective and Candrall behind, disappearing into the adjacent room without a further word. With eyebrows raised Lionel started to follow Finch, ordering Louis to stay put. He knew that he was technically letting the man out of his sight, but he had confidence in Bear to alert them if the man only so much as looked in the wrong direction.

He found the Professor sitting at a giant conference table where he'd set up his workstation, already engrossed in the monitor in front of him, while his fingers were flying over the laptop's keyboard. Finch only barely looked up from his screen as Fusco entered the room and closed the separating sliding door behind him.

"Thank you for your services tonight, Detective," Finch said into the monitor. "That will be all."

"Well, not according to Wonder Boy," Lionel groused. He ignored Finch's raised eyebrow, and asked a question of his own instead. "What's going on? Reese is in trouble, isn't he?"

The hacker directed a slightly annoyed look at the detective, then returned his gaze to the monitor. "I'm not entirely certain yet, but I lost contact with Mr. Reese approximately 25 minutes ago."

"That doesn't sound good," Fusco said, and walked around the table to see what the Professor was looking at. "What happened?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have said I'm not entirely certain yet."

If the snappishness was any indication to go by then it seemed like Finch was indeed very worried about his muscle. But then again, knowing the kind of trouble those two seemed to attract on a daily basis, Lionel figured the older man had all the right reasons in the world to be worried.

In one window on Finch's laptop feeds of traffic surveillance cameras were flicking across the screen. On a second window lines of code were multiplying in sync with the man's rapid typing.

"I've been monitoring the police radio," Harold explained. "It seems there was an accident reported corresponding to John's last known position. Detective Carter is already en-route to the scene."

"Okay. And what are you doing?" Fusco asked, pointing a finger at the screen. "You aren't trying to hack the police traffic surveillance system, are you?"

"No," Harold said matter-of-factly, "I already have hacked the system. I'm currently adapting the algorithm of the facial and license plate recognition program in order to track the two SUV's that had been in pursuit of Mr. Reese. I managed to follow their movements for a few blocks, but it seems that I have lost them."

Finch's cell phone vibrated, generating a deep hum as it skipped across the table's wooden surface. Its display announced the awaited call from Detective Carter. He picked up the phone and looked at Fusco. "Let's hope your partner has better news," he said, before accepting the call. "Detective?"

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To be continued...