AN: For my friends who do care, slytheringirl123 and I did nearly 'flunk math on Monday'. Really, do we need such advanced math? I say we don't. But it's not like people listen to fifteen year old delinquents anymore. For all you other 'friends', I'm bringing the action home, ladies…

Chapter 4

Okay, so the meeting with McCreary was, not very successful. And yeah, he might have just blown his cover. But Joe Hardy told himself he was awesome. It took him all his will power not to turn back and look at Frank while Thomas had handcuffed and was leading him out. He hoped against hope that his brother hadn't recognized him, but that would be like praying for Clark Kent not to be Superman or Hannibal not to be a cannibal.

He was riding in the back of Noel's car, with Noel himself driving and Lt. Thomas in the passenger seat.

"Do you think your cover's blown?" asked Tania.

"Nah. They'll probably think McCreary called the Feds."

"How does that explain our dead cop?"

"Feds' problem."

"Yeah, about the Feds," continued Noel, "that guy said his partner's name was Hardy."

"Ah, dear ole Frank."

"Is he related to you?" asked Tania.

"Yeah. He's my brother," Joe.

"He's your- whoa. I didn't know your brother was an FBI Agent," said Noel.

"I didn't know you had a brother," said Tania.

In the next two minutes, Joe told him about him and Frank, how they used to help their dad, and about their own cases, and how they parted ways when he enlisted in the navy and Frank 'became a suit'. He tried to look at Tania through the rearview mirror. She looked, he thought, 'kind of impressed.'

"If you're dying to know whether I'm impressed, Hardy, let me tell you this- I'll be impressed when you successfully bring down this Belov guy. So do tell me, how are you going to 'escape' custody?" challenged Tania.

"My escort will be here soon enough. And Noel, buddy, sorry about the car. Ask Hansen to pay," said Joe coolly.

"Sorry why?" he was confused. "Pay for what?"

Tania was shaking her head and grinning, hands on her gun. In about thirty seconds, on the deserted road, a blue van pulled up behind the car and a volley of shots was fired. While Noel tried to steer the car properly and Tania shot at the van, Joe tried to look as prisoner-like as possible. The driver of the van nudged the speeding car from the back, and with a screeching noise, it hit a nearby lamppost and came to a jolting halt. Two men in ski masks got out of the van (which now had a much dented front bumper) and yanked open the back doors of Lt. Callahan's car. Pointing theirs sub machine guns at Tania and Noel, the slowly helped Joe out of the car and into the van.

Leaving Tania and Noel with a sad excuse for an automobile, they pulled off. Thus, Joseph Gordon had 'escaped' custody with the help of two accomplices, 'terrorizing' the agents who were supposed to bring him in.

Frank was staring at the huge screen in the movie theatre. He had gone back to headquarters after that unsuccessful interception of a possible deal between Joseph Gordon and James McCreary. There, he'd been told off by his superiors for acting too fast, an unprepared something something something. Frank didn't really listen. He was still reeling from the shock of seeing his brother.

By the end of that highly eventful day, Frank was, firstly, told that the death of his agent was a careless accident where the man was coincidentally caught in the crossfire between some Defense Intelligence agents and a Russian crime lord; secondly, asked to stay off and close the case; and thirdly, doubting everything he believed about his brother.

While Chet, Biff and Tony were enjoying the movie, Frank was deep in thought. Joe couldn't possibly be working for law enforcement or anything, otherwise he'd have told him. Frank remembered that one case, his and Joe's last one together.

Ed Tyler, the conman whom Frank and Joe had finally caught up to in Boston, realizing his that his game of lies and scams was coming to an end, pulled out his gun. Joe was somewhere in the next room, fighting off the conman's muscular bodyguard. Tyler pointed his gun, right at Frank and fired. Frank steeled himself for what was coming and closed his eyes. He heard the shot. When he opened his eyes, what hit him hurt more than the bullet.

Joe had somehow jumped in the way. As he fell backwards, almost in slow motion, Frank caught him.

The blood. The tears. The pain. The endless wait in the hospital. The weeks of recovery….

People called Joe a coward for leaving the business. Frank called him smart, smart enough to value his life. After that, Joe had made a full recovery. After finishing his studies, he had enlisted in the Navy. Since then, Frank had begun to see less and less of Joe, until at some point, the two of them had practically no contact with each other. Was this what Joe had taken to? Joe, who once swore that he would never have anything to do with 'all this crime-fighting jazz'…. Had he strayed off somewhere along the way, and turned into Joseph Gordon?

Breaking his chain of thoughts, Frank's phone buzzed.

"Yeah?" he whispered into it, seeing Morgan's name in the caller ID.

"I have news you might want to hear," said Morgan. Frank had asked him and Luiz to keep an eye on Joseph Gordon, completely off the record, of course. "A few hours ago, our guy Joe had a bunch of his goons shoot at those to lieutenants while being driven to their head office and escaped.

Frank sighed. "Anything else?" he whispered even softer as Tony signalled him to keep quiet.

"Yeah, two more guys who were known to have rivalries with David Belov have been found dead in the last one hour." Then, knowing his partner well, Morgan continued, "Look man, don't go looking for trouble. If he is your brother, and anything like how you describe him, he'll come to you…" Anything to stop Frank from going behind Gordon, because he knew it would only be trouble.

"He would have come to me by now if he wanted to come," said Frank as he got up to leave, halfway through the movie.

"Come on, man!" whispered Biff as Frank was leaving.

"Sorry," he mouthed at them.

"That bloody little rat has run away," said Belov, as if he was talking about his actual pet rat running away. "Run away, with my money and my bomb. Filthy terrorist scum. Thinks he can just get away from me. You can run, Sayeed, but you cannot hide from me."

Had the said 'Sayeed' been in the room, he would surely have broken a sweat.

"Armand is tracking him down," said Joe.

"He better. Why does he think I pay him?"

Joe chose not to answer that.

The money that the self-proclaimed terrorist had run off with was about a hundred thousand American dollars, which Belov could have replaced by merely snapping his fingers. The bomb, codenamed 'Nina' by Belov, however, was not so easy to reproduce. To put it nicely, it wasn't very big but went boom. To state facts, it could blow off one-third of a city.

After twenty minutes of expletives and swear words from Belov and impatient feet tapping from Joe, Armand came into the lavishly furnished room.

"Well?"

"I had put one of my own, hand-made trackers on Nina, which works by-"

"I do not need a description of your genius, Armand."

"Okay so basically I tracked him all the way to London. But there, I think he found the tracker and ripped it off," seeing Belov's facial expressions, Armand continued faster, "but, you see, we put a drop phone on Sayeed when he was having dinner with you, sir, which I'm still trying to find the location of. And also, as you know sir, Nina will not sing her song unless she is appreciated."

"You talk about it like it's a real person," mumbled Joe. He loathed the very thing, just the size of a large suitcase, capable of causing so much death and destruction.

"Shh, Joseph, let him sing his song," said Belov.

"The bomb is programmed to operate only if it activated with this, sir" he said, handing over a plastic card to Belov. Joe stared at it. Something that looked so innocent, like a credit card, just a little rectangle of plastic, which would be able to wipe off one third of a city.

"This stays with me, but still, Joseph, you will go with Viktor and Alexei to bring Nina back from wherever she is."

Joe nodded grimly. Just then Armand's phone beeped.

"Ah, we have a location on Sayeed," and he showed it to Belov and Joe, who got ready that night, to leave the very next day. He also had to inform Hansen, who would send lieutenants Thomas and Callahan.

That night, at Ops Control in 'Brent and Gardner', the law firm which wascovert operations division of the Defence Intelligence in New York, Lt. Thomas put up the co-ordinates sent from Joe on the computer screen.

12.9833° N, 77.5833° E

"Where is it?" asked a tired and sleep Noel Callahan.

"Bangalore, India"

AN: Do not make me coerce you to review. I assure you, I have my methods.