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Chapter 9

Booth paced frantically around the hotel room, replaying the conversation he'd had twenty-six hours before.

"Agent Booth?" The voice was so scared that Booth couldn't identify the gender of the caller at first.

Something had happened to her. "Who is this?"

"J—J—John Scryer, Tem— " deep breath, "Temperance Brennan's new publicist. She gave me this number and asked me to call you if anything happened to her."

"Where is she? What happened?"

"I'm not… I don't know. I got a call an hour ago, the driver who was supposed to pick her up said she wasn't at her hotel room. I went up to check, and—I'm sorry, I'm not good at this." Another deep breath. "I went up to her hotel room, the hotel security was there already. They said that someone broke in, something about a shot having been heard by someone in the room below or something, I couldn't—,"

"Listen to me, Scryer. I need you to sit down and focus. Do they know where she was taken?"

"I don't think so; they said they were calling the local police, and they were sending samples to Interpol."

"Samples of what?"

"I'm not sure. I think blood, Agent Booth."

He had called every single person he had known in his military or law enforcement life that might have been able to tell him something – anything. Only thing he was able to find out was that Interpol had been called in because of Brennan's association with so many high-profile international organizations that any attempt on her life on foreign soil, was cause for the International Police Organization to get involved. He'd briefly wondered just how many times the Interpol had had to intervene on Bones' behalf – there was just so much about her past that he did not know.

The phone rang but Booth resisted the temptation of lunging for it, waiting until Ulrich at the door to his room confirmed that he was indeed the intended recipient of the call.

"Hello," he said as he picked up the phone. It felt unreal to answer the phone without stating his name, but although Ulrich promised him that the line was secure, he was currently inclined to find out who was on the other end before identifying himself.

"Oh my god, Booth! Are you okay?"

"Angela!" Booth said, never having felt so relieved to hear the woman's voice. "Did you find anything?" He asked anxiously, even though he knew it had only been a few hours since he'd had Ulrich fax all of Brennan's information on the arsons and victims to the Jeffersonian.

"Hold on, let me put you on speaker," something clicked and the background noise became foreground noise. "Ok, we contacted Interpol and they were as uncooperative as the FBI would be. But I was able to get out of them that the blood found in the scene was AB, which means it wasn't Bren's. They are waiting on DNA testing to run it through their database, but soon after they told me that, they clamped up again."

Not her blood, not her blood. He sighed with relief. "What else?"

"We've analyzed the samples you sent," Hodgins informed him. "The fires were started with nitrogen and chlorine trifluoride, as well as an isotope of—"

"Hodgins! Don't tell me how you got to your conclusion; just tell me what the conclusion is. I trust you guys, and I don't have time to get you guys to explain things twice for my sake."

"We found out where Hannah Oloff was held and killed. The particulates suggest Drave River, and the chemical components of the fuel, accelerant and oxidizing agents are commonly used by a chemical plant outside of Lienz, Austria, that was officially shut down in '93. They are owned by Oinlew Enterprises," Hodgins said with the same emphasis he would've used to name JFK's true assassin.

"Who?" Booth asked, pulling out his short list of probable suspects.

"I had to dig quite deep to find the ties, but Oinlew is a subsidiary of the Drau Group – the company with the highest gross profit of Liechtenstein. These guys are present in every industry you can think of: pharmaceutics, technology, media. Oinlew was their mercenary company; the Kenyan government has been trying to cite them for the drug trials in Africa that killed fifteen thousand but they haven't been able to. The new tax laws wouldn't just affect how much money would be given to the government, but it would also allow them to open formal inquiry task force on Drau and others."

"Seems like we have our motive," Booth sighed. "Now tell me where this chemical plant is."

Booth wrote down the coordinates that Hodgins gave him. Hannah chose that moment to start crying, probably sensing his tension, and he reached for her while cradling the phone on his shoulder.

"Is that her?" Angela asked softly.

"Yeah," Booth admitted, still feeling paranoid. "I have to go, guys, I'll call you when I find her, okay?"

"Good luck," the three squints got out before the call was disconnected.

Booth patted Hannah's back, thinking of the other Hannah who'd practically given her life to save this child's, and whole death had also given them the answers they needed to try to save Bones.

xxxx

Booth checked the two 9mm Glocks that Ulrich had arranged for him; sixty rounds between the four magazines. A pessimistic voice in his head wondered if it was going to be enough; wondered how many people he would have to shoot and kill in order to save Temperance.

He placed the guns in the double-shouldered holster, then the extra magazines. Last but not least, he glanced at Hannah, who had stopped crying but was now staring at him with wide eyes. He briefly tried to remember just how many days the infant had spent with Bones, because the glare she was giving him was a lot like the ones he would get after a particularly irrational conjecture.

He heard a knock on the door and turned expecting to find Ulrich, but who he saw there surprised him.

Actually, that was an understatement; had the Pope himself shown up, Booth wouldn't have been more surprised.

"Max!?"

"Hi there," Max Keenan's smile was broad, even though his eyes betrayed his concern.

Behind the older man, Booth recognized someone else. "Russ?"

"Hey, man," Russ waved.

"What are you guys doing here?"

Max ignored his question, moving towards Hannah. "Is this her? She's gorgeous," he started to reach for the infant but something in Booth's eyes must've told him something, because he stopped, as if asking for permission.

Booth didn't realize how possessive he'd been feeling towards Hannah, and he was too surprised about the impromptu family reunion to deny Max anything. The older man reached for the baby with the familiarity of a family man.

Russ smirked at Booth, "Good thing you were here, man."

Booth shrugged. "How did you guys find us?"

"Ulrich contacted me after you called him for the adoption papers; recognized Tempe's name… he helped us all those years ago, you know? He was living in Chicago back then, gave us our new names. He liked Joy—Temperance so much; she reminded him of his own daughter who died in Stalingrad - before it became Volgograd or whatever the hell it's called these days. He moved to Lugano after the wall fell, but we stayed in touch, mostly out of necessity." Max added sheepishly. "When we heard about Tempe, we figured you'd need some backup."

Booth felt his mind begin a terrible battle; he was relieved. Max was an outlaw, but he was also a loving father. He knew the ins and outs of staying under the radar, and he would have no problem with getting things done in order to save his daughter.

"Someone needs to stay here and guard Hannah," Booth said as a manner of acceptance of Max's offer of help.

"I'll do it," Russ volunteered.

Booth clamped his open hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Thank you." Then to Max, he added, "I know where she is. It's about three-hundred miles away from here; should take us about five hours in Max's car," Booth estimated. He missed his FBI-issued SUV.

Damn Europeans and their small environmentally-conscientious cars.