(Disclaimers go to the prologue, please.)

CHAPTER 6:

"Thanks for the ride home, Sam."

"No problem. Come on, let's get you inside."

"I think I can take it from here."

"Yeah, well, Jack said I was to see that you got home safely. I'm following orders. I'm going to make sure you get inside safely. Now, let's go."

Smiling Martin exited the car and headed inside Sam right beside him.

As Martin unlocked his apartment and stepped inside he turned to Sam. "Safe and sound. See. You've done your job."

"Yep, I missed lunch, too. You got anything to eat?"

"Probably. Check the 'fridge. You know your way around."

The words were out before he even thought them through. Their eyes met briefly emotions glimmering then the moment passed both breaking contact at the same time. Sam headed for the kitchen and before long she managed a couple of sandwiches for both of them.

Sitting down at the table Martin slid a piece of paper towards Sam. "Do me a favor will you? Get rid of that, okay?"

She opened the slip of paper. It was a prescription for some painkillers for his ribs. Sam looked at Martin but he was chewing his sandwich and staring into nothing. She slipped the prescription into her pocket. They ate in silence each lost in their own thoughts. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence and both appreciated the fact that they had repaired their friendship to such a strong level that even in emotional moments they could take comfort from each other's silence rather than feeling strained. Sam noticed Martin's attention was frequently drawn to a box full of papers sitting on the floor next to his desk.

After finishing the sandwiches, Martin rose automatically and gathered the plates and headed into the kitchen. While he was rinsing them and stacking them in the sink for washing later, Sam wandered into the main room and stood staring down at the box that had been capturing Martin's attention. Knowing that Martin would deny her nothing in his apartment she crouched down next to the box and lifted a few sheets. Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized that it contained sympathy cards, letters and emails.

She figured he was saving them so he could respond to them. Looking down she realized there were dozens and dozens of cards and innumerable sheets of paper, probably emails from colleagues and people far away who had only just heard and wanted to respond. She couldn't imagine how it had felt to open and read each one. She knew it was going to be very hard for him to respond to them.

Suddenly Sam felt suffocated and wanted to flee and in the next instant she was ashamed. Martin was her friend. He was more than a colleague and former lover, he was her friend. She had promised to be there until she knew he was all right and suddenly she was struck with the knowledge that that really meant she was always going to be there for Martin because at any given time he could not be all right. That's the way life worked. That was the nature of friendship. She realized that friendship went far beyond an occasional dinner and remembering a birthday.

Fortunately, in that moment the storybook 'saved by the bell' event occurred literally as the doorbell to Martin's apartment rang. Startled she almost dropped the sheets of paper that she had been holding. She heard Martin's footsteps behind her as he came from the kitchen to answer the door. He glanced at her holding the pages from the box and smiled sadly but without censor that she might have been snooping as he answered the door.

Sam absently began to turn the handful of papers over and line them up so they all faced the same direction. She always found that organizing objects was soothing when her emotions were anything but. One of the pages caught her eye and before she could stop herself she read the short note written in block letters in black ink. Stunned she stepped back a bit and looked up sharply as she heard Martin's puzzled voice responding to the delivery person.

"Someone sent me flowers?"

"That's right, pal, says so on the order. Deliver immediately to one Martin Fitzgerald. It's all paid for and everything even included a tip for the delivery."

"Thanks." Martin said absently as he took the tissue wrapped arrangement and stepped back into his apartment and closed the door.

"Guess I shoulda left out the part about the tip already being covered." The delivery person grumbled to himself as he headed down the hall. "Coulda got me another couple of bucks."

Back inside the apartment Sam watched Martin as he walked to the coffee table and set the arrangement down. "Martin?"

"Hang on, Sam, might as well see who this is from." Martin pulled the envelope off the side of the tissue paper and opened the card. Sam watched as the remaining color in his face drained away and she stepped forward to offer him a supporting hand.

"I told Jack it was stupid to think…it makes no sense…but…"

"Martin, you're scaring me. Sit down. What is it?"

She took the card from his unresisting fingers and helped him sit down on the couch. Taking the card from his hands she sat next to him on the couch. Flashing another concerned look Martin's way she looked down at the card in her hand and read:

Guess you won't be running for a few days. Shouldn't worry about the bullet, since you have no heart, it wouldn't have hit anything important anyway. This was just my way of letting you know, I'm still coming.

For a moment Sam just stared at the card refusing to accept the implications. Slowly she looked from the card to the note in her hand and finally let her eyes rest on Martin. He was sitting next to her, staring at nothing while he absently rubbed his chest where the bullet had impacted with his Kevlar vest. He turned and met her eyes, his own unreadable. Wordlessly Sam held out the paper she had found in the box in his apartment. Curious he took it and read the words. Sam watched and waited. She realized he hadn't seen the note before as his eyes widened and realization struck him.

"Sam, there's another note…I have it…it's in my briefcase. I found it this morning taped to my door. I was going to see Meredith when I got in the office to tell her I think someone has been following me when I run. Then, leaving for work this morning there was a note – very much like this one – taped to my door. I put it in an evidence bag and…it's in my car. Jack called. I went to the docks. Someone drove my car to the office. My briefcase with the letter is still there…wait a…where did you find this?"

"It was in the box with all the cards and notes for…your parents."

"Couple of days ago something was on my door but I was running late and didn't look…"

"I'm calling Jack."

Sam pulled out her phone and hit her speed dial calling up Jack's number.

"Malone."

"Jack, it's Sam. You're right, Martin is in danger."

"I know. I was just about to call you. Vivian and Elena are on their way to pick you up. I'm changing your detail. We're getting Martin to a safe house. I'll explain when I meet you there. Don't answer the door for anyone but Viv and Elena."

"Got it. We'll be ready to move. Bye."

Martin had been watching her intently and pounced the second she disconnected the call.

"Move where? Where are we going?"

"I don't know. All Jack said was that Viv and Elena are on their way. We're to wait for them and then we all go to a safe house."

"What did you mean when you said to Jack that he was right? I talked to him before we left. We agreed I wasn't a target."

"Yeah, well, prior to that we arranged that you were not to be left alone and or unguarded. I was to bring you home and leave you with strict instructions not to leave and Jack was detailing some agents to guard you."

"It would have been nice to have been included in this plan."

"And if you were included, would you have gone along with it?"

Martin's lack of response was all the answer Sam needed. She raised her eyebrows knowingly at him and he grinned slightly as he realized they were right not to tell him at least until solid proof had been established. He didn't know whether he should be relieved that such proof had been established or what he should feel at that moment. So, instead of dealing with that issue he switched gears.

"So, where are we going?"

"Some safe house that Jack has arranged; I suggest you pack a bag. Once we get you there, we're not likely to let you go."

Two hours later the MPU team gathered in a one of the FBI's locations to keep and protect special witnesses. While Martin didn't qualify as a special witness, Van Doren had authorized the use and the release of Malone and his team to protect Martin and use their skills at piecing together puzzles to find out who was targeting Martin and why.

"After you left I had Vivian dig a little deeper into Schuford's past. He seemed pretty clean on the first pass but something had to have set him off. Also, a lot of the hostages had mentioned that he kept saying "This isn't supposed to happen like this. He said it would be easy," over and over again while he was inside the warehouse. I wanted to know who "he" was and what was supposed to be easy." Jack paused and glanced at Vivian who picked up the narration.

"I had some deep background information on its way in when we got the call this morning. I decided to review it when we got back to the office. Turns out Schuford had a record that had been sealed. He and two codefendants were involved in an armed robbery of a convenience store that ended with the store owner getting killed. Because Schuford was only 15 at the time and he wasn't involved with the gun and cooperated in giving up the guy who did have the gun, he was tried as a minor and sentenced to time in a juvenile detention center. He's kept clean ever since without so much as a parking ticket."

"All right, so he has a history with the law when he was a minor, how does that equate to Martin being in danger?" Danny spoke up as confused as Martin and Sam were at this point.

"Here's where it gets interesting," Elena took up the thread from Vivian. "I contacted the court where he was sentenced on the juvenile offense and managed to fast track a subpoena to see inside the file; his codefendant turns out to be a man who has a long history with the criminal justice system and the Department of Corrections. His name is Antwon Poulos. He was the one who actually fired the gun, killing the store owner. He was 17 at the time and was given a youthful adjudication sentence for manslaughter. He served his sentence and was released on parole. Since then he's been in and out of the prison system mostly with assaults and weapons charges."

"Okay. So far none of these names ring a bell to me. Why were you so concerned when you didn't know about the notes until Sam and I turned them over to you?" Martin couldn't help some of the frustration creeping into his voice. He was tired, frustrated and hated the idea that he was moved out of his own apartment into some house where he could be monitored 24/7. It was his job to protect people, not sit back and let others protect him.

"It begins to come together when we get to Noah Shook." Jack watched as Martin's attention sharply focused on him. He hated to reopen barely healed, cancel that, completely unhealed wounds, but he needed to lay out what he knew to Martin. It was only fair.

"Right after you left I called upstairs to find out if there had been any further news out of Virginia. I hoped there had been a development and there had. Virginia PD found Noah Shook. They had a Be On Look Out for his car ever since reopening your parent's case. About mid-morning today the BOLO turned up his car. He had been staying at a motel just outside of Richmond. Hotel clerk said he had checked in a couple days prior waving around a wad of cash and paying for a week in advance; clerk hadn't seen him since.

Upon entering his room they found him. He'd been dead for a couple of days. The AC was on and turned down keeping the temperature of the room fairly cold, it was about 50 degrees in there. Still the decomp was pretty gross but there weren't too many guests at the hotel and the clerk hadn't bothered the guy since he had paid in advance and this isn't the kind of motel with room service or even daily housekeeping.

Shook had been killed by someone who used a wire and strangled him. The wire left impressions similar to what happened to you. I figure the person who killed him probably tried to kill you. Forensics is all over the room but so far there are no fingerprints, no hairs, no nothing."

Jack paused and watched as Martin digested the news

"So, Noah Shook was killed in the same manner that I was attacked. It's a thin link but a link. This happens within a few days at the most of the Virginia State Police and the FBI reopening my parents' accident and labeling it as a homicide.

Today we find out that our missing person, who's killed while threatening to blow up himself, at least 20 hostages, and a section of a warehouse, has a prior juvenile history linked to an Antwon Poulos who has a lengthy criminal history.

While we're at that location I'm shot with a sniper's bullet and then once home, flowers arrive with a strange note that I now know links back to two prior notes I received, one two days ago and one just this morning which, by the way, I was to Meredith when I got called to go to the warehouse instead.

We're still missing something, Jack. Obviously there's a threat against me. Also fairly obvious my parents were murdered. Where's the connection. Shook's cause of death and my attack appear connected but where's the real proof?"

Jack had held his last card letting Martin sift through the details and slowly become accustomed to the knowledge that his parents' murder and his attacks were related. Now he was going to show his last card and see if Martin could finish the puzzle because while Jack had the information he lacked was an understanding of how it fit together.

"We found out something else about Noah Shook. Apparently his squeaky clean record isn't as squeaky clean as first thought. He too had a brush in his past with the criminal justice system.

Remember I said there were two codefendants in the case involving Brian Schuford, one was Antwon Poulos? The other was Noah Shook. Shook, like Schuford, cooperated in fingering Poulos for the manslaughter; also, like Schuford he was 15 and thus tried as a minor. His record was sealed, and he's kept himself clean with the law ever since.

Once I had the connection between Shook, Schuford, and Poulos, I decided to look into Poulos more closely since his two codefendants were now dead. Poulos was released from Shawangunk prison six months ago. He'd been serving another felony weapons charge. Poulos' has an alias which he used during two of his three prior state bids, James Poulos and he served sentences at Collins, Fishkill and most recently Shawangunk Correctional Facility. He got parole but absconded and ---"

"Wait a minute. Did you say Collins Correctional Facility?"

Jack stopped talking at Martin's sharp interruption. All his team members focused on Martin's face that was now very alert and intense as he awaited Jack's response.

"That's right. He was released from Collins Correctional Facility six months ago on merit, presumptive release from the Department of Corrections. He has postrelease supervision but dropped out of sight almost immediately. Why? What does that mean to you?"

"James Poulos, Antwon Poulos, did he also have an alias of Antwon James?"

Jack nodded silently. He didn't know what picture was about to be created, but he knew he had been right. Somehow, if given the pieces, Martin would be able to create the picture.

"Oh, God. I know who killed my parents. I know why he did it. He did it because of me."

TBC…