A/N: Sorry there was no post yesterday - the site wouldn't let me log in! Thanks for the reviews.

Chapter 9

Mike LaBonte chafed in the driver's seat, and drummed his fingers on the unfamiliar steering wheel. He was parked, the engine idling, on the street outside the FBI offices in a rental; his own car was in its usual spot in the parking garage. It was going to be tough enough not to get made while he shadowed Decker and Zuckerman, and he sure as hell didn't want them to recognize his car. So after coming into the office early that morning, he'd slipped out, saying to the others in the office that he was going down to the shelter to question possible witnesses to a drive-by shooting case he was working. Instead, he hailed a cab, went to the nearest car rental, and rented an SUV. He'd then driven it back and parked it on the street, putting a permit in the window that said it was a federal vehicle so he wouldn't have to feed the meter, and then headed for his own car.

He'd gone down to the shelter and questioned witnesses as he'd promised; and made it back in to the office before Decker and Zuckerman had even showed up. When they came in, they were accompanied by SAC Wilhelm, and LaBonte got the impression that they were all returning from the same place. He had no doubt that it was where the consultant was situated; he'd found out that the man was most definitely not anywhere in the FBI building.

The day had passed by with maddening slowness; Zuckerman and Decker showed no signs of going anywhere. Finally, late that afternoon, LaBonte saw Wilhelm pull Decker aside and speak to him quietly, and then Decker headed for Zuckerman's desk. LaBonte was immediately on his feet with his coffee cup, and he passed them just in time to hear Decker murmur something about 'checking their progress.'

He'd stopped in the break room to rinse out his cup, and immediately had left the office, ahead of the two agents. Now he was sitting in the black SUV, impatience exacerbating his already jangled nerves. This was risky, but he had no doubt that there was no other way to do it. He had to succeed; his contact, O'Brien, had made it clear the night before that the stakes had risen, and that a second consultant may have been called in. He'd given LaBonte the professor's picture, and made it clear that if LaBonte didn't find out the whereabouts and identities of the consultants, the deal was off. No more money – and he was still a long way off from covering his debt.

His head came up as Decker's car emerged from the parking garage. He threw the rental into gear, pulled the ball cap he'd donned a little lower, and pulled out smoothly behind them, two cars back.

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Jason Walsh sat, facing Dillon across a utilitarian wooden table in the warehouse. If he'd had any doubts as to the level of Maxwell's suspicions, he'd found out that afternoon. Upon landing in LAX, he'd immediately acquired a tail; two agents, a man and a woman. They'd posed as husband and wife, and had shadowed him through the airport. Upon exiting the terminal, he'd picked up another – a black sedan containing two male agents that trailed his rental car all the way to the hotel. There, he'd parked the rental and checked in, then promptly caught a cab for the shopping district in downtown Burbank. It was a tail's nightmare – thirty-four blocks of shops, restaurants and offices, some them interconnected. Jason had worked his way up through the ranks, and knew a thing or two about surveillance. Just for grins, he'd given them a hard time, ducking into and out of shops, buying a polo shirt at one for golfing, before he finally ended up at his destination promptly at 2:00 p.m. By pre-arrangement, he'd entered a café, walked straight through the back of it to a fenced-in patio, walked out through the patio entrance, and climbed in a waiting van on the other side of the fence. By the time the agents managed to make their way to the patio, he was gone, and on his way to the warehouse on the northeast side of L.A.

The warehouse, tucked away in a remote industrial park, wasn't Dillon's, but he knew of its existence from a business associate, and had taken the liberty of 'borrowing' it for a few days. According to a sign on the door, it was only operational on select mornings, and was closed starting Thursday at noon through the weekend. Two of Dillon's men drifted around the perimeter, keeping watch from the windows.

Dillon pushed a set of keys across the table. "These are for another rental, a silver G6 that we have left in a parking garage two blocks from your hotel. If we need to meet again while you're here, you can use that. They won't be looking for it."

Jason nodded. He was well aware that they were in a dire situation; their continued freedom hinged on whether or not LaBonte could find the consultant, and quickly. It was good to be prepared for any eventuality. "Any word from your man?"

"Not yet," admitted Dillon. Walsh could see the strain in the other man's face; it had been two years since they'd seen each other face-to-face, but Moran looked like he'd aged five. Walsh was certain he hadn't fared much better – both of them were feeling the effects of the crushing stress. Dillon continued. "I told him to tell LaBonte today was his last chance. If he didn't find them, we were cutting him off." He looked up at Jason. "I've got a private plane arranged if we need to leave the country in a hurry. You're welcome to join me."

Walsh's mouth twisted. "I'm still hoping it won't come to that."

Dillon nodded. "Me too. I'd hate to leave with Sean in that hellhole. Part of me wants to try to spring him, but after what happened with Tommy…"

He trailed off; and Walsh studied him. "So how hard would it be? To get him out of there?"

Dillon shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe not too bad, if you worked it right. You'd have to do it while they were outside – there's no way you'd be able to get anyone out of the building itself. They let 'em out sometimes, in a big yard about the size of a football field. It's got high barbed wire fence around it, and they have to wear a tracking bracelet when they're out there." He broke off and shook his head ruefully. "Hell, I don't know why I'm even talkin' about it. We're in enough trouble without taking that on." He changed the subject. "When do your golfing buddies get in?"

"Tonight. We're supposed to play Lakeside tomorrow, San Gabriel Saturday, and drive up to Pebble Beach Sunday, and play up there for three days. If I need to, I can come down with the flu or something, get out of some of it." He paused, as Dillon's phone rang.

Dillon flipped it open and listened intently, shooting a meaningful glance at Walsh. "It's Jack O'Brien," he said to Jason. "Yeah, Jackie, what do you have?"

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Mike LaBonte had finally struck pay dirt. He'd played the tail cautiously – Decker and Zuckerman were good agents, and from their maneuvering, he could tell they were watching for vehicles behind them. At one point, they stopped for food – takeout Philly steak sandwiches, and he was forced to drive past and pull over until they were on the road again. He trailed them all the way to a section on the edge of downtown, and it was there that he lost them. For a moment, he was devastated, but then he realized where he was. The Bureau had a front down in this area, he remembered, that they used from time to time – it was in the back of a travel agency. He was only two blocks from there, and he pulled the SUV around and headed for it. The agency sat in the middle of a row of smaller businesses on the city block; parking for them was behind the row of buildings, in the back.

He made for the corner and drove slowly down the block, and as the parking lots came into view, he scanned across them to the one behind the travel agency. Sure enough, Decker and Zuckerman were making their way from their vehicle to the back of the building, carrying the sack of sandwiches.

"Bingo," breathed LaBonte, and he felt a little flutter of excitement in his gut. He wondered what this would be worth to whoever it was who was fronting the money – maybe he'd get paid off in full tonight. He pulled the SUV around to the side street that ran behind the parking lots, pulled in two lots over behind a dry cleaner, and parked the SUV next to a truck, watching the door, which had now closed behind the agents. He slouched low in the seat, and examined the door. It was metal, and hard to tell from that distance, but it looked like it had a peephole. No windows on the back of the building, just aging brick, dark red and streaked with black. There was no good way to see inside.

It seemed like an eternity, but it was only about a half hour when the door opened again, and Decker and Zuckerman reappeared. They stopped in the doorway and turned, holding it open, and through the half-open door, LaBonte got a glimpse of a slight figure with dark curly hair in the opening. LaBonte could tell the man was speaking, and as the two agents listened for a moment, he checked the photograph. It had to be Eppes – there couldn't be two of them with hair like that. He looked up again as Decker stepped aside, and the outside light hit the smaller man's face, giving him a better view of it. Definitely Eppes. As Decker and Zuckerman stepped away, the professor retreated into the hallway, and a big cop reached out to pull the door shut, with a quick glance around the lot. LaBonte recognized him, too – a veteran Philly PD officer named Andy Goerke.

He waited until Decker and Zuckerman pulled out of the lot before he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Jack O'Brien. It was payday.

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Later that evening, LaBonte's elation had turned to fear and frustration. It was dark, around eight o'clock, and he was again at the lot with a bunch of thugs that O'Brien had called in. He'd met with O'Brien earlier that evening at his request, expecting to be paid off, to be done with this business. Instead, he'd found himself in deeper than he'd ever intended to be. A simple handoff of information had turned into a kidnapping, and possibly murder; and O'Brien had demanded that he participate. It grated against the principles that had made him choose law enforcement as a career, against his very soul, but he had no choice. Not only would he not receive the bulk of his money until after the job, but O'Brien had threatened to expose his gambling habit and tie-in to the mob if he didn't cooperate.

They needed him to gain access to the building. The travel agency was closed for the night, so they had to go through the back, and they wanted to take down the protection. The plan was for Mike to appear at the door, show his badge, and tell the cops he was there to escort the consultants home. If they bought it, he would simply load the professors into the SUV, and drive them to a holding location where they would be dealt with. If the cops balked for some reason, O'Brien's thugs would be waiting, and they would muscle their way in. In that case, they would have to shoot the officers and take the consultants by force. Either way, LaBonte was the man they were counting on to get the cops to open the door.

The lot was empty – the last of the businesses in the strip building closed at six. He waited until O'Brien's men took their positions, some along the wall behind the door, some behind a dumpster, took a deep breath, and walked toward the door. It was official – he was going to hell.

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Charlie stared at Willy's computer screen, tapping a pencil absently on the table in front of him as he leaned over Willy's shoulder. They'd made good progress that day; his search algorithm had already uncovered Moran's front businesses and the man who ran them, Patrick Conaghan – the Philadelphia equivalent of Lenny Angelo, Moran's man who ran the dirty side of his businesses. 'Willy's algorithm,' he corrected himself mentally. After he'd shown Professor Koslowski what to do, Willy had constructed the algorithm and applied it successfully. Like Angelo, Conaghan ran a string of businesses and owned a number of suburban residences, where they would undoubtedly find meth houses. Again, the money was laundered through a local community center, a charitable organization. Although there were many more records associated with these businesses because they'd been in operation longer, the connection still wasn't difficult to find, knowing how the scheme had worked in L.A. No, the hard part was determining where the money went afterward.

The online tax records showed three accounts, but Moran had evidently already had someone get into the system and make alterations – all three accounts now showed up under Conaghan's name. Charlie wondered whether Patrick Conaghan knew he was being set up to take the fall – had he been threatened, like Angelo, or was he as yet unaware that he was now listed, at least in the tax documents, as the sole owner of the overseas accounts?

Charlie knew better; he and Willy had the original hard copy records, which showed the three accounts as offshore entries under three separate owners, which the offshore banks, protected by international law, refused to disclose. One of them had to be Conaghan, and one Moran, Charlie was sure. The question for which Dave Maxwell wanted an answer was; who was the third? Charlie knew he suspected one of his own people – how he'd come to that conclusion, he refused to say. Maxwell also refused to give them the name of who he suspected – he wanted independent corroboration, he said. Irrefutable proof, unbiased by preconception. It was their job to find that proof, that connection.

To that end, Charlie had guided Willy in the construction of another algorithm, one that would search withdrawals from the accounts, and try to match them with expenditures or deposits in the Philly area, and then in the continental U.S. So far, the algorithm had come up with a large group of possibilities, but none of them fit the spending-withdrawal profile 100 percent. Charlie leaned back and sighed, and looked at Willy, who was hovering anxiously over the keyboard after typing in a change to the programming.

"Okay, what did I just do?" Willy asked.

"You just modified the algorithm to look worldwide," Charlie said. "Obviously, some of the spending has occurred outside U.S. borders."

Willy frowned. "Won't that give us too large a list of possibilities?"

Charlie shook his head. "Not necessarily. Remember, we need a perfect match, or close to it. There should only be one of them out there for each account."

Willy frowned. "Then why didn't we run this first?"

"It's a lot of data, and it will take a lot longer to run. I was hoping we'd get a hit sooner with the smaller search area. Unfortunately, it looks like we have to run the full data model."

Willy regarded him with awe. "You seem to have a lot of experience with this."

"I've done it a few times," Charlie admitted.

A voice from the doorway interrupted them. "Okay, boys." Andy's Goerke's gravelly, good-natured voice filled the small room. "Wilhelm just called. His agents are on their way to pick you up for the night. Better close up shop." He turned away, back down the hallway.

Willy regarded the screen. "Shouldn't we let this run?"

Charlie shook his head. "We can't leave it here tonight – they won't have a guard once we're gone. We'll fire it up first thing in the morning. Or if you want, you can try to run it at your place tonight. You know how to dial into the secure connection."

He turned away and began to pack away his own laptop, and Willy followed suit, closing his laptop down and zipping it into his case. As Charlie grabbed his case and turned, Willy spoke, almost shyly. "I have to say, Professor Eppes, it has been a remarkable day, and such an honor for me to work with you." He was beaming, his magnified eyes crinkling behind the thick lenses.

Charlie colored a bit. "Please, Willy, call me Charlie. You actually had a lot of good work done before I showed up. There's no doubt in my mind you would have arrived at the same solution." He could hear voices down the hall. "Come on, I think they're here." He smiled, holding out an arm to usher Willy through the door first, when a loud thump and a curse, followed by grunting, made him freeze. He grabbed a startled Willy by the shirtsleeve and pulling Koslowski behind him, crept out the door, and peered down the darkened hallway toward the back exit, his heart suddenly pounding.

The sounds of the scuffle were louder now, and as they reached the corner, a shot rang out, ear-punishing in the small space. Someone had hit the lights and the hallway was dark, but Charlie saw a large figure that looked like Andy go down in the doorway. Halfway down the hall, their other bodyguard, another Philly cop named Jerry, was assuming a firing stance, swearing, and squeezing off a round over Andy's body at a figure partially hidden by the open rear door. Charlie paused for a split second in shock, then grabbed Willy's arm and dragged him across the opening to a doorway on the other side that led to the front office, where the travel agency was located.

They could hear more shots behind them, and they burst through the door, Charlie still dragging a stumbling Willy through the front office. "Come on, Willy, we've got to get out of here!"

"Why, what's happening?" Willy half-sobbed, breathlessly. "I don't understand!"

They'd reached the glass front door, and Charlie fumbled with the deadbolt, shooting a panicked glance through the glass, and then behind him. "I don't either, but I know we've got to go!" The bolt clicked and he shoved the door open hard, which triggered an alarm, but he ignored it, taking off at a run down the sidewalk, Willy beside him, both them lugging their computer cases. That section of town was relatively deserted at night, but a car was approaching, and Charlie ran out into the street, one arm up, trying to flag it down. The driver, apparently alarmed, hit the gas and sped off, and Charlie hesitated just a moment in dismay, but the sound of more shots galvanized him into action again. "Come on," he yelled to Willy, and they charged across the street for the cover of an alley.

As they reached it, they heard the distant sound of sirens, and then closer, shouts. Charlie flung a quick look over his shoulder and his heart leapt into his throat as he saw men pour out of the entrance to the travel agency. "Run!" he gasped as they tore into the alley, a totally unnecessary command; Willy's feet were churning, and they pounded down it as fast as they could. Still, they were encumbered by their computer cases, their pursuers were gaining. Charlie hoped that the approaching sirens were for their benefit, but he also knew that the men behind them would reach them in seconds, well before any help could arrive. Another alley crossed theirs perpendicularly dead ahead, and as they reached it, Charlie turned left into it. Just around the corner he stopped, and grabbed Willy's arm, gasping, indicating a dark recessed doorway.

"You hide in there, and I'll draw them down the alley. When they're past you, sneak out and head the other way. You can't let them get that computer." Willy started to protest, but Charlie pushed him toward the doorway and took off, heading down an even darker stretch of alley. He could hear a shout behind him as his pursuers turned the corner, and he shot another glance over his shoulder, noting with mingled relief and terror that all of them were following – none had turned down the other branches, so Willy would have three clear options for escape. He turned his head around, just in time to stumble to a halt in dismay. In front of him was a section of chain link fence, eight feet high, spanning the alley.

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End Chapter 9