Chapter Four

Steve paced anxiously outside the tiny NSB holding cell. He'd come dangerously close to manhandling the woman who was – for now – their only link to Jaime, and had reluctantly agreed to let Oscar and Hansen take it from there. Still, he couldn't stay away. Was the woman lying? She had to be! His mind couldn't wrap around the very real possibility that Jaime had been taken from him...for the last time. He had never felt so helpless...or so totally bereft.

Inside the cell, Jaime's double sat in stony silence on the tiny metal wall bench while her two interrogators towered over her. She had not uttered a single sound since coldly informing them that Jaime was dead.

"Who sent you here?" Hansen persisted. Frustrated by the woman's lack of response, he leaned down to within inches of her face. "This is about to get very unpleasant," he threatened, "but it doesn't have to be. Now....where is Jaime Sommers?"

Steve heard the SLAP! from out in the hallway, and then....nothing.

- - -

The hours stretched by interminably, past dinnertime, bedtime and breakfast – but in the basement of NSB Headquarters, no one ate or slept. When Jack grew tired or hoarse, Oscar took over – and vice versa – hammering unrelentingly at their captive beyond anyone's endurance. When the door finally opened, Steve was instantly alert....and hopeful. Oscar and Jack re-locked the cell and motioned him into the conference room at the foot of the stairs, shaking their heads in disbelief. Steve's already-broken heart sank.

"Anything....?" He had to ask.

"Her name is Lisa Galloway," Oscar told him. "But that's all we could get."

Steve closed his eyes. "And....Jaime?"

Oscar shook his head. "I'm sorry, Pal." Russ joined them, answering the silent signal from the datacom and Oscar turned to him immediately with instructions. "Run 'Lisa Galloway' through our system – forward, backward and sideways. I need every detail you can come up with: where she's from, education, any occupations she's had....hell, find out what she ate for dinner on her third birthday! We need everything you can gather – and we need it yesterday."

"I'm on it," Russ promised, hurrying away.

"We'll do everything we can," Oscar promised, a consoling hand on Steve's shoulder. "We will find her; no matter what."

As Steve watched his boss leave the room, the truth hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Oscar thinks she's dead....

- - -

"She's clean, Oscar," Russ said solemnly, placing the yellow file into Oscar's hands. "Not even a traffic ticket. Must've had a damn good plastic surgeon; her picture's inside. I'm not sure if any of this stuff will help, but here you go."

Oscar opened the file. The stack of papers inside, full of mostly trivial information, would take hours (if not days) to sort through. Quickly, he divided the papers four ways and handed a stack each to Steve, Russ and Rudy. "Somewhere in here, there has to be a clue. Let's find it."

Silently, intently, the four men settled in to read. Hunger, exhaustion and time had no meaning. All that mattered was finding Jaime. Hours passed unnoticed as the quartet, fueled by an ocean of coffee, scoured every word, every sentence, in what they knew was quite possibly a battle already lost. When it happened, the passing time they'd refused to acknowledge suddenly stood still.

"My God....this is it!" Rudy stood and waved the paper excitedly in the air before presenting it to Oscar. "Six months ago, Lisa started undergoing hypnosis to try and quit smoking!"

"And....?" Steve asked impatiently.

"She was treated at the Courtney Clinic!"

Russ didn't have to be told; he was already on the phone and arranging their transport. Oscar gathered all the papers back into the file and turned to the others. "Gentlemen, it looks like we're going to Washington."

- - -

Steve leaned back onto the headrest and looked out the window, but the clouds they were speeding over did nothing to soothe him. If their theory was correct, Jaime had been taken almost immediately after her post-mission exam with Rudy. That meant she'd now been missing for five days. Oscar had told him that the one thing Lisa did say (insisted, really) several times was that Jaime was dead. Hansen had kept up the interrogation while they'd been pouring through the files, and still that was all she said: "You're too late....she's dead."

The OSI's fastest plane wasn't quick enough for Steve, and the length of the flight was sheer torture. Could it really be true? Was he clinging to a false hope, he wondered, while the others were expecting to recover.....a body?

- - - - -