Note: I hate that I haven't updated. I'm so sorry to all of you who have been so faithful to this story. I will finish it, but I can't promise a time frame. Hopefully, in the next month or so. There's only a couple of chapters left.

2:30 a.m., 2 hours missing

As Elena crumpled to the floor, Vivian knelt down and gently put her hand on Elena's shoulder as she took the cell phone from Elena's hand. After handing the telephone to Jack, Vivian did her best to comfort the inconsolable woman.

Jack took the cell phone as he immediately dialed the tech room. "Hey, I need a trace on this number: 555-3241. The call just ended. We need to know where it came from ASAP." Hanging up his phone, Jack looked up at Sam who was standing there, still stunned, as she watched Viv trying to calm Elena.

"Sam...Sam," Jack called out.

Finally meeting his eyes, she responded, "Yeah."

"Put out stop notices at every airport and immigration checkpoint. If he's calling Elena, Carlos may still be in the country. We have to try to get to him before he disappears again."

Nodding, Sam finally seemed to engage. "I'll do it right now," she said as she gave Elena one more glance before putting her phone to her ear as she walked out the door.

As he watched Sam walk out, Jack moved around to the front of the desk. "Elena, Elena....look at me. We're going to find him, but we have to get to work. Martin is on the trail of the van. We think the Sergeis somehow disabled Danny and got him down to a parking garage. A white van was spotted leaving the garage. Martin's tracking it. But they haven't killed him. If they had, they would have dumped his body before taking off. We will find him," Jack pleaded, trying to convince Elena and also needing to convince himself as well.

Looking up at him with tears streaming down her face, Elena finally spoke, "He may be alive now, but they'll kill him as soon as they realize he doesn't have the money. They'll kill him, Jack!"

As calmly as possible, Viv interjected, "That's why we have to get to work. Danny's smart and he knows we're looking for him. . He'll know to string the Sergeis along to give us enough time to find him. Come on, Elena. Let's get up and take the next step. Danny is counting on us."

After hear Viv's words, Elena nodded as she wiped her eyes. "You're right. You're both right," she agreed as she and Vivian both stood up. "What's next? What should I do?"

Jack sighed heavily as he looked at Vivian. "I need you to find everything there is on the Sergeis. Everything," Jack ordered.

"Will do," Viv replied as she squeezed Elena's shoulder in support and then left the office.

"I'm going to call Martin to tell him what just happened," Jack said as he picked up the phone.

"What' about me, Jack? What can I do?" Elena asked. "I could catch up with Martin in the field and--"

"No way," Jack interrupted. "You need to stay here with Sophie--"

"Jack! Come on!"

"Elena, you're in danger. Carlos told Danny that you and Sophie are in danger. That's why Danny went to bring him in. You have to stay here, but you can call every contact you have that may know where Carlos would go. Anyone...even Detective Kwon. Call him. Tell him what happened. Hopefully, he'll finally believe that Carlos set this whole thing up. When Kwon gets here, let me know. You and I will talk to him together."

Elena's instinct was to fight Jack, but she knew she didn't have a choice and she'd just be wasting more time that they need to find Danny.

"Okay," she said as she started to walk out. As she opened the door, she turned back to face him. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that all of this has happened."

"We will find him, Elena. We will."

As Jack watched Elena turn and leave his office, he dialed Martin's number.

"Fitzgerald," Martin answered.

"Hey, we just heard from Carlos," Jack responded, cutting to the chase. "This was a set-up from the word go. Not only do the Sergeis have Danny, but Carlos has lead them to believe that Danny was involved with laundering and stealing the money."

"Christ!" Martin muttered. "That's not good."

"No, it's not. Do you have anything new?" Jack asked.

"We found the van. They must have switched cars. CSU is going through it now, but there is blood and we found Danny's ID, phone and gun. We have tech working on seeing if satellite or traffic cams can pick up the trail, but so far, nothing.

Jack sighed heavily. "All right, uh, stay on that. We're going to find out everything we can about the Sergeis."

"What about Carlos?" Martin asked, his voice full of disdain.

"If he tries to leave the country, we'll stop him but right now, he's not our priority. Danny's our priority."

"Yeah, I'll stay on it."

After ending the call with Martin, Jack walked quickly to the bullpen. "Sam," he called out. "What do you have?"

"Carlos used a burner phone. There's no trace. His mug shot has been faxed and e-mailed to every port and airport along the Eastern seaboard. So far, there's no sign of him."

"Doesn't surprise me. It seems like he's got all of this planned to the letter."

Samantha nodded. "Maybe, maybe we shouldn't have let him go in...or at least not go in alone," she remarked sadly, clearly thinking of Danny.

Taking a moment, Jack rubbed his eyes. "We thought we had him covered. And Danny was set on finishing this thing with Carlos. We just have to focus on finding him now."

"Do you want me to stay on Carlos?"

Jack shook his head. "No, we'll let the locals and border control handle Carlos. Call Martin. He may need you to coordinate some satellite tracking with Tech. They ditched the van and changed cars."

"Any sign of Danny in the car?" Viv asked as she walked into the bullpen carrying a stack of file folders.

Turning to Vivian, he watched her sit down at the center table and open one of the folders. "They left his gun and ID behind. Looks like they wanted to rub our noses in it. They have to know we're onto them, especially since the shooter saw us there. What do you have?" Jack inquired as he motioned to the folders in front of her.

"Danny actually did most of the research on the Sergeis while he was looking for Carlos," she responded as her eyes quickly scanned the first few pages. "Oh my God," she whispered as her eyes trained in on a transcript of a witness's deposition.

"What is it?" Jack asked as he pulled a chair out and sat down next to her.

Sam also stopped in her tracks to give Viv her full attention.

"A DEA informant gave a deposition two years ago. He, uh, he gave an account of...of..." Viv trailed off, not able to finish speaking as she tried to stop her eyes from tearing up.

Reaching out, Jack gently took the file from her. After quickly reading the statement, he glanced up at Samantha. Judging by the look on her face, he wasn't sure she really wanted to know what it said. "Torture," Jack whispered. "The informant gave testimony on watching a traitor in the Sergei organization being tortured. The victim had to be identified by dental records when his body was finally found. They burned him."

Sam's hand covered her mouth, almost as though she were trying to stop herself from being sick. "Why...why weren't they prosecuted? Why--"

"The informant disappeared a few days after giving the deposition," Viv answered, finally regaining her composure. "The U.S. Attorney hasn't brought the case to trial. They're in the process of working with the DEA to build a stronger case."

"Jack, we have to--"

"We will, Sam. Just call Martin. See what you can do to help him," Jack interrupted gently as he tried to sound as encouraging as possible.

Sam nodded as she turned to return to her desk.

"As hard as it is, I need you to keep reviewing those. Focus on finding places...places they own or places that someone they deal with owns. They would have had to have taken Danny somewhere--"

"Kwon is on his way in," Elena interrupted as she walked up to the table.

As soon as Jack heard her voice, he quickly closed the file and slid it back to Vivian.

Vivian glanced up at Elena, but then quickly looked away, remembering that there had been tears in her eyes.

"What is it? What's wrong, Viv?" Elena asked, her voice concerned as her eyes drifted over to the files in front of Vivian.

"Nothing," Viv responded quickly as she wiped her eyes once more. "I'm just...I'm fine. Are you and Jack going to talk to Kwon?"

"Yeah," Jack said as he stood up and addressed Elena. "Come on, we should discuss how we'll interview Kwon when he gets here. He could have valuable information on the Sergei's without even realizing it."

Still distracted by Vivian's obvious emotion, Elena just nodded as she slowly turned to follow Jack out of the bullpen.

7:30 a.m. 7 hours missing

Wearily rubbing his eyes, Martin held the elevator door as he let Samantha off the elevator first. They'd basically been up for 24 hours, spending the last five hours combing every inch of every piece of property that the Sergei's owned. Satellite tracking had helped in the beginning, giving them a basic direction to go in, but it hadn't given them enough information. Samantha had joined him in the field and they both went from building to building, but they couldn't find anything. With each passing hour, they became more and more frustrated and more and more scared.

As they passed one of the conference rooms, they stopped when they saw Elena sitting at a table with Sophie. Sophie was eating breakfast, while watching some cartoon on the television. Elena appeared as though she was putting on a brave face in front of the child, but then she looked up and locked eyes with Martin. As soon as she did, she stood up quickly. Leaning down, she gave Sophie a quick kiss on her forehead and then said something to her.

"I'll go update Jack and Viv," Sam said sadly, as she lightly patted Martin's arm. "If you want, you can bring Elena in to Jack's office. We can update them together. It might be easier--"

Shaking his head, Martin replied, "I'll talk to her. I'll try to be as optimistic as I can. You should probably give Jack the full scoop, which means telling him we're no closer to finding Danny than we were five hours ago."

"Yeah," Sam whispered as she turned away towards Jack's office.

"Martin, tell me," Elena said as she walked out of the conference room and quickly shut the door so Sophie wouldn't hear.

"I'll fill you in. Let's go get some coffee, though. I'm running on empty," he said as he put his hand on her back to lead her to the break room. "How's Sophie? Does she have any idea?"

"No. She just woke up. I don't know what to tell her. Please tell me you found something..."

Martin stopped in front of the coffee pot and took a paper cup from the stack. Letting out a small sigh, he responded as he filled the cup with coffee. "We haven't found anything. Wherever they took Danny, it's not affiliated with any building they own or any of their cohorts own. Sam and I came back here to regroup, but we'll head back out in a few minutes. NYPD is still searching, though. They couldn't have gotten very far."

"It's been almost eight hours, Martin. They could be anywhere."

Shaking his head, Martin turned to her as a took a sip of the hot coffee. "No way. They want their money or they want to find Carlos. I'm thinking Danny has to know that by now."

"But Carlos said that when they're done with him, we'll never find him," Elena cried in a panicked-strickened voice. "I mean--"

Putting down his coffee, Martin put his hands on her shoulders. "Elena, listen to me. We're going to find him. Danny's smart. He's a survivor. We will find him."

Gaining strength from Martin's tone and resolve, Elena nodded as she wiped a couple of tears from her eyes. "You're right. I know you're right."

As Elena regained her composure, Martin let go of her and picked up his coffee. "How did the interview with Kwon go?" he asked as he took at seat at the table.

Sitting down across from him, Elena shrugged. "Well, he believes us now...he knows that Carlos set this whole thing up, but he didn't know anything about Carlos's ties to the Sergei's. He said that he'd look into it, go over some of their old files and see if he can find anything to help us."

"That's good. Any little bit will help," Martin responded as he took another drink of coffee.

"You know when I was talking to Kwon earlier, I couldn't help but think about yesterday. I feel so awful that I actually thought Danny was capable--"

"Danny understood. Don't beat yourself up about it. He was being evasive. It was hard not to think the worst."

As soon as the words came of his mouth and he saw the questioning look in Elena's eyes, Martin regretted saying it. But it was too late.

"You know, don't you? You know what Danny was hiding? Yes?" she asked, leaning forward with a pleading look.

"It doesn't matter now. Now that we know Carlos was behind everything, it doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. Danny was going to tell me. He was going to come clean, but then you found the new lead on Carlos. I need to know, Martin."

Sighly heavily, Martin leaned forward slightly as he looked around to make sure no one was around. "He was trying to figure out a way to keep you and Sophie safe. After Carlos confronted him at his apartment, he felt desperate. After you left him that night, Danny went to see his brother."

"Rafi?" she asked, completely confused.

Martin nodded. "All Danny wanted was for Carlos to go away...to leave you alone...and to keep Rafi safe. So Danny thought Rafi could give him a name--"

"Oh my God," Elena said as she covered her mouth. "No--"

"But Rafi set Danny straight, Elena. He didn't even give Danny a chance to ask the question. All Danny needed was someone to give him direction, to get him back on track, and that's what Rafi did. So Danny left there not thinking about doing anything to Carlos. He was just going to focus on helping you any way he could."

"But then why did Danny seem..." Elena paused, searching for the right words.

"Guilty?" Martin asked. "Because it's Danny. He felt bad about just having the thought. But he'd never go through with something like that. It's not in him, Elena."

"I know," she agreed as she let out a gentle sob. "God, Martin, what have I let happen to him? This is all my fault."

8:00 a.m., 8 hours missing

"We need more man power!" Jack barked into the phone. "He's been missing eight hours and God knows what's happening to him right now. I need to know that I have your full support here."

Jack sighed heavily as he listened to SAC Olcyk on the other end of the line. Hearing a knock on his door, he looked up and waved Martin in to his office.

"Yeah, thanks. Just let me know if they can spare anyone," Jack said, before putting the phone back on the receiver. "Beaurocratic B.S. We have an agent missing, for chrissakes!"

"I'm about to head back out. Sam, Viv and I are going to lead three different teams. Viv found a few more possible locations."

"She told me," Jack responded. "Hopefully, something will break this morning. How's Elena? Sam said you were going to talk to her."

"She's in with Sophie right now. Then she's going to get back on the phones to try to track down a lead. She's hanging in there, but she thinks this is all her fault."

Jack grunted as he shook his head. "This is the work of one man, and right now if I saw him? I swear I'd blow his head off. And don't think I'm not kicking myself now for stopping Danny from taking Carlos out. This is...this is all unbelievable. If anything happens to him--" before he could finish the statement, his cell phone rang.

Picking up the phone from his desk, he pressed talk. "Malone."

"Jack...Jack..." a voice responded weakly.

"Danny?" Jack asked, immediately looking at Martin with panicked, but hopeful eyes. "Danny, is that you?"