Judge Travis stared at the leader of his best team as if the man had just grown another head. Although the fact was, that would have been less surprising to him that what Larabee had just proposed.

"I'm sorry. Did you just calmly and in what I assume you think was a rational moment tell me that I should even consider letting you and your team take over the interrogation of the man that shot Standish? More precisely, you want me to let you and Wilmington go into the room with him, alone?"

"Yes." Chris gave what he hoped was a sincere smile.

"At what point did you come to the conclusion that I was as insane as the rest of you obviously are?"

"Judge, you know we aren't going to hurt the man."

"I do?"

Chris was glad the others weren't here. He could imagine the smartass answers that would have come from the team.

When he got no response, Travis sighed quietly before proceeding.

"Nothing has come back on his prints, although I have trouble believing he's not in the system somewhere. Wish we could get results as fast in real life as they do on those damned TV show. The other man you arrested is Roger Tamblyn. He's got a long list of arrests, mostly robbery and B&E stuff, with a decided tendency toward violence. This will undoubtedly put him away for life. Dead guy was his partner in a lot of those."

"He won't know anything about the guy in charge. That's not the way this would work."

"He barely knows anything about any of this. He's practically begging to cut a deal, but he's got nothing to give us. Even he only knows this guy as 'John'."

None of that was surprising. It certainly matched what they knew about prior jobs.

"Which is why I need to talk to this 'John' directly. All we want are a few simple answers."

"Ones that will be admissible in court?"

"If need be, then yes, they would stand up in court. But I expect that our mystery man in there will end up confessing and saving us that trouble."

That wasn't exactly the comforting response the judge had hoped for. He didn't expect it, but he had hoped for it. "Do I want to know why he would confess?"

"Logic. We've got him dead to rights, with a ton of witnesses, including cops. There isn't a chance of anything but a guilty verdict on the attempted murder charge, not to mention the rest."

"Don't you mean murder?"

Chris went pale at Travis's words. "Murder. Shit – have you heard from the hospital?"

"No, Chris. Not Ezra. Sorry. I meant on the previous robberies."

It took a moment for his heartrate to slow to a more reasonable rate. "Jesus, Oren, don't do that to me."

"I take it you've had no updates from Jackson?"

Taking another minute to make sure he sounded under control, Chris turned away slightly, hoping the judge wouldn't be able to see the stress, not that he wouldn't know it was there. "He called when he got to the hospital. The bullet ripped into Ezra's lung, nicking an artery in the process. He was bleeding into the lung the whole time, so he's basically been drowning in his own blood." He paused, fighting the nausea that threatened to shatter the illusion of control. "Nathan called it Pulmonary Edema. They have to suction out the blood, then try to repair the damage."

Travis fought his own reaction as well, knowing it wouldn't help matters. "He's a tenacious little bastard Chris. Standish fights with all he has, and if anyone can cheat death, it will be him."

"How many times do you think he can do that? Bad enough he puts himself on the line every damn day, now he can't even walk into a bank without ending up with a bullet in him."

"According to Sanchez, he traded places with someone else. Took the risk on himself."

"Hardly fits with the selfish SOB he presents himself to be, does it?"

Travis's grin was genuine. "Think that fella is long since history. IF he ever really existed in the first place." The smile faded. "Look, Chris. Go to the hospital. You should be with your men right now. It sounds like you're going to need each other."

"What they need is some answers. We can't do Ezra any good sitting around some waiting room, but it might just help him if we can let him know we figured out who is behind all of this. He's the one who figured out there is someone on the outside, and we owe it to him to have the answers when he wakes up to hear them."

"What makes you think you can get any information out of this 'John' character? You sure as hell can't be offering him any deals. And I doubt you can play him."

"There is one deal we could put on the table. He'll be up for the death penalty for at least two of the other robberies, and if – if Ezra dies, he'll be on death row before he knows what happened."

"And you'd be ok with trading that away? All of you would?"

"This guy isn't the brains behind the operation. I don't much care if he rots in a 6 by 8 cell in solitary for the rest of his life if we can lock his boss away in the one next to him."

It was a safe bet that one way or the other, Larabee was going to find a way to talk to this guy and get his answers. At least if it was done through proper channels, there was a better chance no one would be losing their job over the techniques applied.

"OK – I'll arrange to have him transferred here from city lock-up."

Chris's head snapped around. "City? What the hell is he doing there? Morton said he'd be brought here."

"Your detective friend was overruled by the DA. The little weasel probably wanted the media attention. Never could stand him even back when he was in my court. I already put in the call to the State Attorney. I'll expedite things. In the mean time, you need to go calm down." He softened his tone as he added, "and get yourself cleaned up."

Chris looked down, following Travis's gaze. Small streaks of blood stained the blue denim shirt he'd been wearing. He didn't remember getting the blood on him, and seeing it now caught him off guard. He took in a slow deep breath, focusing his attention on remaining upright.

"Sorry, I didn't even – "

"Don't apologize, just go get yourself together. I'll buzz your office when the prisoner is delivered."

Chris made his way back to the team's bullpen. He wasn't surprised to hear the subdued sounds coming from within. JD would have come back, knowing he was more comfortable settled in at his own computer as he set about finding every shred of information possible about their newest target. The creaking of a chair meant Vin was at his computer as well, probably reviewing any video he was able to get of the scene and comparing it to what they already knew in the hopes that a lead would appear. The only voice he could hear was from Buck as he was turning the charm on full force trying, from the sound of things, to get information on some kind of communications device. There was little doubt that he was sweet talking someone into opening up records without having to go to the inconvenience of getting a warrant.

He walked in, not stopping to say anything in his desire to get into his own office to try to clean up before making an appearance. A glance at his phone showed no messages, not that he'd expected anything. If there had been news, the others would have known and shared it the second he was in sight. The small closet space was used more as an armory than a wardrobe, but somewhere behind the guns and ammo was a small travel bag, ready and waiting for the inevitable emergency. Sadly, this qualified.

The outer room was quiet again, meaning Buck was off the phone. Walking out, he saw three tired and dejected men staring without really seeing anything. Maybe Travis was right. They certainly weren't doing much good here, and at least at the hospital they didn't have to pretend to be focused on anything else.

"OK, before we head out, let's hear what you've got so far."

"That won't take long." Buck answered for the others. "JD is cursing at his screen, Vin is mumbling under his breath, and I have got absolutely nowhere on finding out anything about that damn video watch. You can buy them just about anywhere, and there was nothing special to make this one stand out."

Vin nodded his confirmation. "I'd say we ain't got shit on this, but that really is about all we do have. You got any good news?"

"Nothing from Nathan – yet. But Travis has agreed to let me talk to our suspect."

Buck was on his feet and halfway to the door. "Hot damn, now we're talking!"

"Whoa there Buck. In the first place, I said me. You are not getting into that room."

"I won't hurt him bad."

"You won't hurt him at all. Travis is doing this as a favour, and I would rather not have him regretting it."

There was a low growl from under the moustache, but Buck reluctantly headed back to his seat. "Ain't fair."

"None of this is." Chris looked to the other two for comments. Vin merely shrugged, knowing anything else would be a waste of breath. JD hadn't looked up from his screen throughout the entire discussion. "You got something JD?"

The others looked over anxiously. "Don't know. There is something familiar about the tracking patterns here, but I can't figure it out. I keep thinking I should know this."

"You're not trying to say this is internal?" Chris stomach dropped at the thought there could be an inside source behind all of this.

"No, not familiar like that. It's not ours – or any agency. I just feel like I've looked at this before but can't figure out where."

Vin stood and moved to stand behind the young man. "Can you do some kind of matching scan or whatever voodoo it is you do with this thing?"

That was enough to pull JD's gaze away from the screen as he looked up in disbelief. "Voodoo? Seriously?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. I can try something, but I doubt it will give us much. Like I said, it feels familiar, but I think I'd know it if it was an exact match. I suppose I could set up a program with an algorithm that could search variables –"

"Less talk, more action." Chris didn't need to know the specifics, just the results. JD took the command to heart and focused in on the task. He looked up when he noticed all conversation and movement in the room had stopped. "Uh, guys. This is going to take more than a few seconds, so…"

"Right. OK. Vin, what did you find from SWAT?"

"Nothing that helps. The forensics team is still at the bank, but it's too early to know if any of that is going to help. And since we can't use the actual electronics as trail to follow, we've got nothing."

Chris reached his hands up behind his neck, locking his fingers together before slowly arching his back slightly to stretch out the tension that was building in him. Nothing. They had nothing, and he had the feeling that wasn't going to change anytime soon. Given how cautious these bastards had been on previous jobs, he doubted the witnesses were going to be able to fill in any blanks, even with Josiah's skilled questioning techniques. Ezra was their best bet for leads from the actual event, and as much as he hated to accept it, his gut was telling him that was an interview that wasn't going to happen.

Only the tapping on the keyboard and the ticking of the clock could be heard for several minutes. Buck's patience proved to be on the shortest fuse.

"This is nuts. These guys didn't just appear out of nowhere. There has to be some kind of lead, somewhere. I'm gonna get the files on past cases sent here."

"Sounds like as a good a place as any to start. And you're right, they didn't just appear. I'll check traffic cameras and anything else I can find in the area. Maybe we can get lucky and find a car somewhere. Chris, why don't you head over –"

Vin's suggestion was interrupted by a tap at the door as it opened. A grim face Judge Travis walked in, and all movement stopped. Chris's first thought was that Nathan would have called him before calling the Judge, so this couldn't be about Ezra. He prayed quickly that that wasn't just wishful thinking.

"No, I haven't heard from the hospital." Travis knew those needed to the first words he spoke, or nothing else would register with the team. Seeing how the tension in the men dropped, at least a little, confirmed that. "But what I have to tell you isn't much better. There was an altercation at city jail. A couple of prisoners got into a fight – allegedly race based – in the dining hall. All hell broke loose."

"Son of a bitch. Don't tell me our guy escaped?" Chris was ready lead the search team himself, and Vin was barely a step behind.

"No, there was no escape. 'John' was stabbed to death."

"Shit."

"Yes, Wilmington, I'd say that rather sums it up."

M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7-M7

tbc