(Disclaimers go to Prologue, please.)

Chapter 8:

Missing Person's Office:

"Cell phone records on Sayers show him making phone calls from a variety of places in the city. They don't narrow down our search. Also, his credit card has no activity in the last three months and he took a sizeable withdrawal from his bank account at the same time his credit card went off line."

"How sizeable?"

"Hmm -- how about $20,000." Vivian looked at Jack as he whistled appraisingly at the figure.

"That will keep him in hotel rooms and rental cars for awhile."

"And impossible to trace, I'm going to check with Sam and make sure all the law enforcement agencies have his picture."

"Great. How's Elena doing on James' information?"

"You can ask her yourself, she's headed this way." Vivian stepped back from Jack's office door to allow Elena to enter.

"Jack, NYPD just contacted me. They found Antwon James. He's dead, one bullet to the head. His body was left in a car outside of Martin's apartment building."

"He's playing with us. He knows we're on to him and he's playing with us. Elena, contact Danny on the secure line. Make sure he knows about James and that he doesn't let Martin out of his sight."

"All right." Elena turned and left the office leaving Vivian staring at Jack who shook his head in frustration.

"He's like a ghost, Viv. He comes and goes at will, but he makes damn sure his messages get through."

"Yeah, and he wants us to know it's him."

Jack just nodded and went back to looking at the files on his desk. He had several files open, one was Martin's service file, one was the homicide investigation into his parents' deaths and others scattered around were the various reports and updates on Noah Shook, Antwon James, Brian Schuford, Thomas and Julia Sayers and Allen Sayers. What disturbed Jack deeply was that all but two of the files were about people who were dead. The remaining two files contained information on the individual responsible for most of the deaths and the other file was the killer's final target. Jack was damn certain Allen Sayers wasn't going to be responsible Martin's death. He just wasn't sure how.

FBI Safehouse:

Danny returned downstairs after a steaming hot shower and a change of clothes. Dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirt he felt comfortable and warm after his icy morning swim. The comforting weight of his service pistol at his waist was a constant reminder that despite the casualness of his attire, he was on the job.

Entering the main room he saw Martin sitting in a recliner chair holding a mug of coffee in one hand and a pack of ice over his chest with the other. Smelling the wonderful aroma of fresh coffee he retreated to the kitchen, poured himself a mug and then returned to the main room and grabbed a seat on the couch.

"Does the ice help any?"

"A little. I took a couple aspirin back at my apartment. They're helping as well."

Danny just nodded allowing silence to settle over them again.

"The doctor prescribed something a bit stronger."

Danny only nodded watching Martin carefully. Martin's eyes focused in on his and he grinned wryly.

"I gave the prescription to Sam to get rid of it."

Danny gave a small grin and nodded back at Martin. Both men remained silent again each quietly assessing their thoughts.

"I'm not embarrassed that he found out I'm in therapy, not the way I thought I would be."

Danny looked over at Martin who was staring unseeingly as he spoke. "I think I gave up a long time ago trying to please my father. Amazing how someone that frustrates you and hurts you can make you doubt yourself. With my father it wasn't so much that things had to be done his way, it was more that he let you know you were inept or incapable if you did things in a way that was different from what he approved of. I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying."

Danny paused for a minute as he gathered his thoughts. He'd let go of his misperceptions of Martin's charmed upbringing years ago and come to realized that families that broke apart of families that stayed together each carried their own painful burdens and he shouldn't judge another's burdens against his own.

"I think I understand though. To this day all I can think about is that Poppy shouldn't have had to die the way he did. I stopped blaming myself for it at some point, not even sure when that was, but all the guilt I carried for so long has colored the way I remember him. If he were to walk through the door right now, I'm not sure I could even be angry for the pain he caused Rafie and ultimately me."

"Yeah, it's strange. I grew up with a father who was home, not all the time, his work took him away for many days at a time, but he always came home. I have no reason to believe he was every unfaithful to my mother, he provided a nice living, paid for my education, never hit me yet, for all that I've been pretty angry for a number of years because I'm a product of who he made me.

I once told Sam that my parents saw the world in a particular way, if I was interested in something that was outside of that vision, my father made sure I knew that it was frivolous, or stupid, or somehow made me less in his eyes because that's what interested me. I got so good at hiding what I liked or disliked from him. It got so that when we talked we were great as long as he had something to say because I became very good at expressing interest in whatever he was interested in. In those times we were fine, but it was so shallow."

"I thought things were beginning to get a little better after you got shot. Your father was really on a tear that day."

"Yeah, I know, and for a short time it almost seemed like some of the barriers were going to come down, but you know what," Danny tilted his head slightly as encouragement to Martin to keep going and, after a short pause, Martin continued, "I began to pull back. I got so angry at him for waiting 35 years plus before he decides to have a fatherly relationship with me. I got so angry that if he had just been a little bit more like an interested father instead of a tyrant that perhaps I wouldn't have so many barriers inside of me. For a while it was just too easy and too much fun to blame him."

"You said 'for a while' what changed?"

"NA changed, you and Sam stepping in and pummeling me over the head and not taking no for an answer. My sponsor changed things by showing me how I could open up. That night at NA when I shared my story changed. All those pieces came together and I realized that I could continue to be angry with him and thus remain hollow inside, or I could decide that the past was the past and that it no longer matters what my father thought or did or anything and I could be me and go forward. Maybe that means that I am slow to trust and share, maybe that's how it's always going to be, well, so what.

I also decided that I would try to make the best relationship with my father possible that I was comfortable with. He was never going to be the doting father, that's not who he was and, if I was honest with myself, I didn't want or need that anymore that time was long gone. But we could be civil and even genuinely interested in what the other was doing and we had begun to reach that point. Of course, that's when the photos got sent to him of me attending NA and everything fell apart."

"Do you think it was Sayers who took the pictures?"

"It could have been him, more than likely it was just someone he gave some bucks to to follow me and snap the photos. He knew enough to know that sending those to my father would burn any bridges we had built and then he could start his little game."

"You said Allen Sayers and his father were real close?" Danny broached this subject gently. Despite Martin's statements that he had accepted that he and his father were never going to be close he knew that it had to be a sensitive topic. He knew it was within himself.

"Yeah. Interesting how this whole game of Allen's has been unfolding. He's deliberately acting out his little play almost in parallels…each action is mirrored by another action earlier." Martin stopped and looked at Danny who was nodding at him it.

"You're right, they aren't mirror images exactly but they do reflect some past action even if in a distorted way."

"Exactly. His parents killed themselves to avoid humiliation. He kills my parents. Similar reflections but distorted."

"And his parents were dishonest while yours weren't. Martin, that's why the photos, he was close to his parents while you weren't. He was embarrassed to discover their dishonesty so he decided…"

"To display mine. Even though my parents and I weren't close, he wanted…no, I think he needed to display my faults to them in order to satisfy his own humiliation. The difference is I'm not ashamed, not anymore. It's a part of me and I draw strength from it."

Both men stopped talking as Danny's cell phone started ringing. Martin watched as Danny checked the ID and then greeted Elena. Martin listened intently as Danny locked eyes with him and responded in short clipped words before disconnecting the call.

"Let me guess…they found Antwon James."

"That's right. He's eliminated all his partners. You know what I don't get, Martin?"

Martin looked over at Danny as he spoke. "Sayers is pretty smart and seems to have this all worked out, so he would have to know that once he sent the flowers, whether we knew it was him or not, you'd be put into protective custody."

"I know that's what I've been thinking about as well. He had to have known that after this morning we'd be able to put the pieces together and figure out it was him."

"He really wasn't hiding it. After all, each of the people he used to perpetrate this plan had ties back to his father and mother and you. You were the only person who tipped off the corrections authorities to the illegal prisoner transfer that ultimately led to his parents' death. Everything he did was a signal, even how he killed his so-called partners."

"Yeah, which means he would have had a plan for this as well. We're not going to be able to find him. He's managed to move about at will, follow me, set us up to be witnesses and even participants in the murder of one of his helpers, Brian Schuford, while he takes a shot at me. Everything is planned."

Danny leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his forehead wrinkled slightly with concentration. "He's planned for everything, even you going into protective custody. We don't need to find him; we only have to go to where he's going to be, but where is that?"

"I think I know where he's planning for it to be."

"Where?" Danny couldn't keep the note of shock out of his voice.

"Washington, D.C. The Bureau has a special meeting planned in two days in honor of my father's memory. They're going to be honoring him posthumously for his years of service. I'm expected to be there to accept on his behalf and to speak briefly. That's where Allen Sayers is going to finish what he started. We don't need to look for him now. He's not here anymore. He'll meet us in Washington."

Danny stared at Martin and turned over his partner's words in his head, sifting and sorting through them. After more than five minutes of rearranging the pieces, Danny gave up Martin was right. They needed to go to DC.

TBC…