"Lee? Lee, wake up, please wake up."
He could hear the fear in her voice and struggled to open his eyes.
"Amanda?"
"Oh thank goodness!" she gasped. "You've been out for so long, I thought…" He could hear the squeak of imminent tears in her voice - a sound he hated and even more, hated being the cause.
"Don't cry." He tried to get up but couldn't seem to get his body to respond. "I'm fine. I just… okay, I can't move, why the hell can't I move?" He forced his eyes open and squinted at her, the light hurting his eyes. "Are you wearing..?"
"A straitjacket? Yes," sighed Amanda. "And so are you."
"Why?" It seemed important to know that, as if it would help – although at least it did explain why he was having trouble moving. He gave a heave to sit up, blinking to try and ease the dizziness and looked down at his bizarre attire, then around the squalid office. Amanda was sitting opposite him, leaning forward studying him worriedly. "And where the hell are we?"
"In a bar. Well, not in a bar. In the back room of a bar," she started to ramble. "And I have no idea why Mr. Price put us in these." She made a motion that suggested she was trying to shrug inside the jacket. "You'd think ropes would be simpler."
"We find the jackets leave less marks than ropes do when we need to be, shall we say, convincing," said a new voice.
Lee and Amanda turned to stare at the man in the doorway. Price had the same look as his henchmen, but his suit was slightly better quality. The two goons they'd seen in the locker room moved into the room and ranged themselves against the wall.
"And what exactly would we need convincing of, Mr. Price?" asked Lee, standing up to get between them and Amanda.
"Well in this case, fortunately, it's not you that needs convincing," answered the man suavely, as he walked toward them. "It's our mutual friend, Mr. Pravik."
"And what does he need convincing of?" pressed Lee. "We already have Laszlo in custody – so whatever you have planned for Liechtenstein isn't going to happen now."
"Liechtenstein?" repeated their captor. "Is he that Jewish kid who plays offense for the Giants?"
"No – it's a country." Lee looked around and realized for the first time that Bela was nowhere to be seen. "What have you done with Pravik?"
"He's been returned to training camp, of course," said Price with a surprised look. "He's no use to me if he's not in tomorrow's game, after all."
"Why?" asked Amanda. "Hic!" Lee turned around to glare at her as she shrugged helplessly – too much of the goon's cologne in a small room had begun its work again.
"Because I need him to follow up on our little agreement that he not complete any kicks," answered Price. "I have a certain amount of money that is, shall we say, invested in the Patriots not winning that game."
Lee stared at him, nonplussed. "Wait a minute – you're just a bookie?"
"Actually we don't really like that word," Price said with a pained look. "I prefer to be called a businessman."
"Uh huh," answered Lee sarcastically. "And your business is fixing games?"
"I don't fix games," smiled Price. "I simply arrange for some people to be aware that it would be in everyone's best interest if the results happen to be ones I like."
"So why are we still here?" asked Amanda. "If Bela is going to – hic! - throw the game for you, why do you still need us?"
"Because he likes you," explained Price, spreading his hands as if that explained everything. "He was overheard asking you out and if he was willing to sneak away from camp last night to go out with you, then obviously he likes you enough to want you to stay safe until the game is over."
"But we weren't going on a date!" said Amanda. "We were going to-"
"The cops," Lee interrupted her. "They were heading to the police to tell them everything about what you've been doing. So how long do you figure Pravik will keep quiet if he thinks you're going to hurt us? Or him? Huh? They're probably surrounding this place, right now!"
Price glared at them, then looked over at his goons. "Go check outside and make sure it's clear. If it is, we're going to need to go keep an eye on our investment."
"What about us?" asked Amanda. "You can't keep us here until tomorrow – hic! - and Lee's right, Bela has probably already told someone we're here."
"You're probably right," said Price with a leer. "So I guess I shouldn't bother keeping you around?" He pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket and aimed it at her.
"No!" Lee yelled, shouldering her aside and blocking her with his body.
"Now, now, calm down," said Price with a sarcastic smile. "I would never harm a lady – it's bad for business." He flipped the gun so that Lee could see it. "See? It's not even loaded." He smirked at Amanda as she peered fearfully around Lee. "But I bet that stopped your hiccups." He jerked his head toward the sofa as he put his gun away. "Pravik saw the gun too, so I'm pretty certain he's not going to do anything that might get you in trouble. But just in case, you two can stay here until we're sure Pravik does as he's told."
The goons came toward them menacingly but Lee and Amanda backed up obediently and sat down on the sofa before they could get close.
"Very smart," smiled Price. "Now you two just relax. We'll be back before you know it."
The three men left the office, pulling the door closed behind them. The moment they were out of earshot, Lee was on his feet, striding around to look for an escape route.
"Well, he was right about the hiccups cure," commented Amanda, now also on her feet. "What about the phone?"
Lee knocked the receiver off the cradle and lowered his head to the desk. "Dead," he announced. "They must have unplugged it when they left to take Bela back to camp."
"Or Mr. Price just doesn't pay his bills," Amanda remarked. "He seems like a guy who's always a little short of money."
"Could be that too," agreed Lee, shooting her a quick grin. "So what do you think? Will Bela have tried to tell someone we're here?"
"He was pretty frightened when they took him away," replied Amanda thoughtfully. "And if he still thinks Price is part of Laszlo's plan, he might be too scared to do anything except what they tell him."
"Great," answered Lee as he peered out the window, huffing with frustration at the sight of the iron bars on them and the deserted parking lot beyond.
"On the other hand, he knows you're an agent and he was pretty excited about being in a big American spy story, so he might try to be heroic," she added.
"That's true," Lee nodded. "In the movies, the plucky sidekick would probably do something to save the day. He might go for that."
Amanda gave a laugh and Lee glanced over to see what had amused her.
"Sorry," she apologized. "It's just that I'm usually the plucky sidekick, so if Bela is doing that, what am I now?"
"The smart but sexy Bond girl?" chuckled Lee.
"Oh sure – if I got a boob job," snorted Amanda. "Maybe I'm the comic relief."
"Nah – you're too pretty for that," said Lee, as he lay on the floor and attempted to grip the door handle with his feet. "You'll have to be the unlikely mismatched partner who keeps the hero out of trouble."
"Well, I'm not your partner and I'm usually the one getting you into trouble, not out of it," sighed Amanda.
"No, not usually," said Lee. "I think we're about even on that front."
"Really, Butch?" Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Because here we are with you flat on the floor again."
"True," he said, growling with annoyance as his foot slipped off the shiny knob again. "But think of all the times I've dragged you into something instead of the other way around."
"So we're not really mismatched at all?" dimpled Amanda.
"I guess not," Lee agreed with a grin. "Maybe we're just the troublesome duo who drive their boss crazy with their antics. You know Billy would agree with that." He gave a grunt and twisted his feet again. "Ah ha! Got it!" he crowed in triumph as the door opened.
He rolled and scrambled back to his feet, grinning with pleasure at his success.
"Are you going to have to do that at every door?" Amanda asked. "This could take forever."
"No, because there has to be a fire exit somewhere that we can just push open," Lee replied. "Now, come-" He stopped dead and whirled around, forcing Amanda back into the room as he looked around desperately.
"What are you doing?"
"Get in the closet. Now" Lee hissed the order, giving her a little shove with his shoulder as he did so.
"What? Why?" asked Amanda in confusion, even as she obeyed. "I thought we were trying to get out of here!"
"We are – but Price's goons are back! And if they've decided to come back for us – it'll be better if they think we're already gone."
"Oh!" she squeaked as she made room for him to step into the closet after her. He snagged the door with his foot and drew it almost closed. He couldn't shut it because then they'd be trapped, but he had to hope the men didn't notice the hiding spot in their inevitable fury at finding them gone.
"Quiet," he whispered. "We need them to think we've escaped."
Amanda nodded, shrinking back against the wall as if she was trying to be invisible. Lee strained to listen, hearing the men enter the room, then the furious cry as their absence was discovered.
"Well they can't have gotten far," one of them was saying. "They're wearing straitjackets, for crying out loud."
"Unless someone found them – they could be halfway to the cops by now."
"Or the cops could be halfway here, like they said."
"In which case, we need to get out of here."
"Yeah, but we gotta grab the books first – if the cops come through here and find Price's books, he's going to have a much bigger problem than the cops."
"Yeah."
There was the sudden scrambling sound as the two men began throwing incriminating paperwork into boxes in preparation for running. Lee breathed a sigh of relief – they weren't going to be looking for them if they were worried about getting caught themselves.
It was an instant later that he realized the fatal error he'd made in choosing their hiding spot – not that he'd really had any choice in the matter.
"Hic!"
Seriously? Again?
He turned his head to meet Amanda's eyes. She was already holding her breath, trying to calm them but as the look of panic started over her face, he realized they were in a closet – a closet which was full of jackets saturated with that cheap cologne that made stopping her attack of hiccups an impossibility.
She'd finally had to release her breath and they stared at each other in the dim light. Now it was Lee holding his breath to see if they'd been heard or if she'd been able to get them under control.
"Hic!"
"Did you hear something?"
Oh no…
"What kind of something?"
"I don't know – just a noise."
"Maybe those two are still here somewhere."
Lee's heart plummeted. They were going to come looking.
"What direction did it come from?"
"I don't know, just somewhere."
"Hic!"
"Yeah, now I hear it – what was that?"
Amanda was pushing against the back wall of the closet as if she could hide behind the hanging coats – which would have been a great idea if it wasn't the coats that were causing their current predicament.
Lee could hear the men heading out the office door and prayed that they'd be back out of earshot before the next hiccup hit. But then he heard it, the telltale intake of breath that signalled the next one – the one that would expose them. With no thought but to silence her, Lee did the only thing he could think of. Stepping further into the closet, he crowded Amanda hard against the wall and covered her mouth with his own.
He wasn't sure her surprised squeak was any quieter than the hiccup would have been. "Don't move," he breathed out against her lips, and while she didn't relax exactly, she did stop struggling. He lifted his head and turned it slightly, to try and listen to what was going on outside. He felt her brace herself and turned back quickly to silence the next hiccup.
This time there was no surprised squeak, or struggle, Amanda simply leaned back against the wall, letting him muffle her badly behaved diaphragm. He could feel her heart thudding though, and pressed a bit closer as if he could calm her with a straitjacketed facsimile of a hug and softened his mouth to try and encourage her to breathe. There was a pause and then she relaxed and it was something in that trust, something in the way his own heart sped up to match hers… something in the way she breathed out a quiet sigh and leaned into him… he just couldn't help it, what had started as simply a way to silence her hiccups turned into a kiss. He was kissing Amanda… and that should have been a really terrible idea except… she was kissing him back. He lifted his hands to cup her face, groaning in frustration when he remembered he was in a damn straitjacket.
Amanda knew this was crazy, knew it was probably just the adrenaline talking in both of them, but she was also a woman, and it wasn't like she hadn't noticed from day one that Lee was an almost impossibly attractive man. She'd been happy with their friendship, been happy to be someone he could depend on, knowing that was a two-way street. But she'd also be lying if she didn't admit that it had crossed her mind to wonder what this would be like – and now that she was in the middle of it, the answer was… overwhelming. She reached to bring him closer... ugh! Stupid straitjacket!
Lee gave off a noise of frustration that echoed her own, then tugged gently at her lower lip, encouraging her to open her lips and she complied with a happy hum, feeling him smile against her mouth and found herself wishing she could see the dimples she knew must be showing, but knowing that she'd have to stop kissing him to do that and right now… that seemed like a really terrible idea.
Lost in their kiss, they were jerked back to reality by the sound of the office door slamming behind the two men as they left. Lee pulled his head back from hers but only by a fraction as they both strained to listen for any other sounds of life. When all they could hear was the fading footsteps of the pair heading down the hall, Amanda fully expected Lee to move backward immediately, but he didn't. Instead she lifted her eyes to see him gazing at her with a slightly stunned expression. Her breath caught and she swallowed, uncertain what he was thinking. Slowly, oh so slowly, Lee started to smile as he looked down at her, eyes bright and oh yes… those dimples creasing his cheeks. His head tilted down again and as her eyes closed, she felt his lips trace along her cheek and then press a kiss against the corner of her mouth.
"Well," he said at last, warm breath caressing her cheek. "So that was a surprise."
"Mmm," she replied, not opening her eyes, just enjoying the warm tone she could hear in his voice and the weight of his body pressing her against the wall.
"Bet that stopped your hiccups," he murmured.
At that, her eyes did fly open to meet his, sparkling down at her. "Lee!" she couldn't help the peal of laughter that set him off as well, the two of them leaning together, her face buried in his chest, his in her hair.
When they finally caught their breath, the sound hit them at the same moment – the sound of running footsteps and loud voices close by, too close by for it to be a coincidence. Lee pushed himself straighter and shouldered open the door. "Hey Kid! I think the cavalry's coming!"
Seconds later, a group of agents led by Francine burst in the door, all of them bursting out into laughter at the sight of Lee and Amanda's predicament.
"I always knew you'd end up in a padded cell, Scarecrow," Francine guffawed. "But I thought Amanda would slow down the process, not end up there with you!"
"Yeah, yeah, it's hilarious," groused Lee good-naturedly. "Now can you get us loose please?"
"Only if I get to hear exactly how this happened," answered Francine, starting to work the buckles on Amanda's straitjacket. "We've been looking for you since last night when none of you showed up to identify Laszlo like you were supposed to."
"Well, first off, you gotta get somebody after the guys who put us in these in the first place."
"The two guys in the cheap jackets and the cheaper cologne?" asked Francine. "Yeah, Bela told us about them – that's how we finally found you – once we narrowed down which bar with a busted sign he meant."
Amanda and Lee exchanged a grin. "Hooray for the plucky sidekick," murmured Amanda.
"Anyway, we just picked them up in the parking lot, along with Price. What a bunch of idiots – it's like they don't even know there's nothing more suspicious than guys who drop everything and start to run the minute you show up with a badge."
"Well, they're just small-time crooks. It turns out that Price kidnapping Bela doesn't have anything to do with the coup – it was just a simple betting fix," explained Lee. "But Bela thought all their threats to throw the game were something to do with Laszlo and he was too frightened to tell us."
"Well now that we have Laszlo in custody as well as those guys outside, Bela is safe," Francine answered. "So your dreams of a glorious football career can fade away into the sunset again."
She finished freeing Amanda who stretched with a sigh of relief and began rubbing her arms trying to get the circulation back. As Francine began to get Lee loose, Amanda gave a small frown.
"But if we've caught the assassin and Price isn't involved in all that, then why was Mr. Crandall still insisting that Bela had to be there today?"
"Probably just to show off – the Prime Minister from Liechtenstein is a special guest at the practice today – and there's no point in him coming if Bela isn't there. Crandall still has a lot of money tied up there no matter who's in charge of the government – he'll be playing both sides of the fence," answered Francine.
"Wait – is that the VIP Leopold mentioned?" asked Lee, mind racing.
"Yes," she replied. "There you go," she added as she got the last buckle undone on Lee's straitjacket.
"Thanks," he said absently as he started to rub his arms to try and restore feeling to them. "I thought the Prime Minister wasn't coming until Tuesday?"
"Well, officially he's not. He'll do the whole red carpet thing with the president on Tuesday but unofficially, he came a few days early with his kids to see the sights – including seeing Bela play."
"Bela play…" repeated Lee. His eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "The play! That's what was bugging me! In that play, it leaves the kicker open to being tackled!"
"Why would you do that?" asked Amanda. "Once he's kicked the ball away, he's done."
"Not if he kept the ball to pass it for a time-maker," answered Lee, thinking hard.
"Oh right – like that guy in the Super Bowl a few years ago," agreed Amanda. "But why would they still do that play? We caught the assassin guy right? Why hurt Bela now?"
"It'd be a hell of a distraction if the star player of the day got badly hurt…" Francine reasoned out loud. "You could do a lot of things while everyone's looking a different direction."
There was a long silence while they all considered that.
"Like kill a Prime Minister," said Lee.
"We have to call Billy," said Francine, grabbing a phone and then tapping the plunger repeatedly. "Why is there no dial tone?" she complained.
Lee and Amanda exchanged another look.
"C'mon Kid, we have to get to the stadium – now," said Lee, heading for the door.