Force CHAPTER 3
Author's Notes: Okay, so, chapter three! SO excited about my first full- length fic! Here comes a bit of Mike/Connie romance, nothing obvious, just regrets and angst (yes, Sadie, I said angst!) Enjoy, and feed Wendell, please! He's only got 2 teeth for god's sake! He needs the squishiness that comes from fluff reviews to eat his food!
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The first call Mike made was to Anita van Buren. She would need to rally the troops and send CSU to collect evidence. She had, of course, been asleep, and listened to Mike's story while yawning into the phone. When he got to the part about Connie being kidnapped, he heard bedsprings creak as Anita sat up in bed.
"Call McCoy," she ordered. "I'll get Bernard and Lupo out of bed."
Mike's boss answered his home telephone on the first ring. "McCoy."
Jesus, does the man ever sleep? Mike asked himselfbefore launching into his story about Connie and the phone call he'd received.
"Alright, get into the office right away; I'll have the phone company wire all of your home calls to your Blackberry. I'll meet you there."
Mike hung up and threw a pair of jeans and a bomber sweater over his t shirt and boxers. Grabbing his phone, keys and jacket, he dashed out of his apartment and hailed a cab.
The streets were quiet and deserted, and he made good time getting to 100 Centre Street. Jack was just dismounting form his motorcycle as Mike was paying the cabbie.
"Jack!" Mike yelled, jogging up to his boss. "Any word from van Buren?"
"Yeah, I called her before I left. She said Bernard and Lupo were going directly to our parking garage and then coming to my office to take your statement."
Mike nodded, letting out a long sigh. "Okay. Okay." They climbed the concrete steps into the building and entered the gilded elevator. They emerged a few minutes later into the deserted office.
"You'd better have one of these." Jack poured his employee a snifter of scotch. Mike had collapsed in one of the chairs facing Jack's desk. He nodded his thanks, taking a healthy gulp. Nothing he did could erase the feeling he had right now. His chest turned cold when he heard Connie's voice, and he had yet to recover. Flashes of the Assassins 'initiation rituals' were flashing before his eyes, and Jose Yolande's final words to him were ringing in his ears. "We want Hector back, Senor, or Consuela will be having fun with us. Bring him to the Brooklyn Bridge by sunrise."
Bernard and Lupo entered about half an hour into their stony silence. It was now 3:00 AM. The detectives were rumpled and haggard; five o'clock shadows and trench coats. They sat on the sofa in McCoy's office and asked the usual questions, the ones they'd asked a thousand times.
"When did you last see Connie?" Lupo asked.
"Last night, at 10:45." Mike replied, rubbing one hand over his eyes. "She walked me to my car and then I saw her unlocking her own. I should have stayed. She's—he stopped and looked at Jack with imploring eyes. "I can't have her end up like Alex Borgia."
"We'll find her," Cyrus said resolutely, clapping the ADA on the shoulder. "Now, where did this kid tell you to meet him?"
"The Brooklyn Bridge. At sunrise." Mike sighed, looking at his Blackberry yet again. "The weather network says the sun it supposed to rise at 5:05."
"That leaves us about two hours. And he said he called you from Connie's cell?"
"Yeah. Well, no; he said he found my number on her cell phone."
"Safe bet he'd be using hers," Lupo nodded. "I'll have the techies trace Connie's cell and I'll check if there are any phones registered to Jose Yolande." He heaved himself up and exited the office, cell phone already pressed to his ear.
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Connie was shivering more violently than before, although the narrow windows along the top of the warehouse showed that the sun was threatening to rise. The coffee one of the men had brought was still filling the room with its heady scent, and Connie was willing her stomach not to growl. She hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon with Mike.
Mike. She wished she could have said something more productive to him on the phone, but she'd been so fuzzy, trying to recover from her unconscious spell. While on the phone with Mike, one of Jose's friends had ripped her blouse, revealing the upper part of one of her breasts. Goose bumps bigger than she'd ever seen covered her from the chest down. Jose had taken her shoes, and her toes skimmed the freezing ground, making her body shake uncontrollably.
"You have seventy- five minutes, Chica." Jose taunted from across the room. Connie kept her eyes on the ground, willing Bernard and Lupo to hurry. She knew that Mike would have called Anita van Buren and her detectives, as well as Jack McCoy. They would be working as fast as they could to find her, she was sure of it. "Let's give Cutter a call."
He flipped open her phone and hit the contacts button, selecting Mike. He leaned over her shoulder and held the phone out in front of them, pressing the button to put the call on speakerphone.
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The sound of Mike's Blackberry made all four men turn. Lupo was immediately on his phone, telling the computer techs to start a trace. Mike's heart was in his throat as he walked over to the table. The detective nodded. Taking a deep breath, he answered it on speaker.
"Cutter." He said, his voice sounding choked.
"How are we doing with our plan, Senor Cutter?" Jose lilted into the phone. "My boys are getting impatient with such a pretty lady around."
The men heard several voices cackling in the background. Mike coughed painfully, gripping his phone tightly. Jack picked up a piece of paper and scribbled on it, showing it to Mike. "Let me talk to Connie." He demanded, reading Jack's directions. "I want to talk to her now."
"Certainly."
"I'm here, Mike." Connie said, sounding much more alert than before. "Don't give them Phillipe, I'll be fine."
"Connie, no, we'll find another way, just hold on. I won't have you become a victim."
"Connie, where are you?" Jack asked, making himself known for the first time.
"I don't know. It's a warehouse, and its cold...there are windows all along the top---"
"That's enough secret- sharing for now," Jose said. "You know our demand. Give us what we want and your special girl will be returned to you. Seventy minutes."
The call ended.
"Wait, they want us to take him to the Brooklyn Bridge, right?" Bernard asked. "Why would they want to take him farther away from dry land? There's nowhere to go."
"Okay, so maybe that means they're meeting us halfway. Did you get anything?" asked Lupo into his phone. He listened for a moment. "Okay. Great. Thanks." He covered the phone with his hand. "He said it traced back to Brooklyn, in the projects. But the call wasn't long enough to track any further."
"Damn." Mike asked. "How many warehouses are in that area?"
"Hold on." Lupo repeated the question to the tech, and then waited while he pulled up the information. "He says there's a dozen in the south end."
"We can't search all of those." Anita observed, entering the office unannounced. "We have to narrow it down more."
"Did you hear that?" he asked into the phone. "Did you track the perp's cell phone as well? Okay, how about pulling up his address." They waited with baited breath. "Okay." The detective hung up. "Let's go." Lupo, Bernard, and van Buren left the office at a run.
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Jose Yolande's apartment was a two- room place in a high- rise building in the projects. It had posters all over the walls; Scarface, various rappers, and the movie poster for 'The Fast and the Furious'. The two detectives and the lieutenant searched through the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom diligently, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
"This isn't going to get us anywhere," Bernard sighed, leaning against the 'Fast and Furious' poster. Almost immediately, a loud rip came from the poster. Bernard pulled away from the wall to look at the wall.
"Geez Bernard, you heavy enough to go through drywall now?" Lupo joked, tearing the poster away from the wall. "What the hell?"
Behind the wall was a whole where a bulletin board was affixed to the studs in the wall. Attached to it was a wealth of information about Connie, Mike, Jack, and a warehouse on the river.
"This is where they have her. Here's the receipt for the rental of a temporary storage house." Van Buren tugged the address off the board and called Jack. "McCoy, its Anita. We have an address. You and Mike want to meet us there? Okay." She gave him the address and ended the call, turning to her detectives. "They're meeting us at the warehouse; call the ambulance on the way."
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