I do not own any of the characters and am just taking them out to play.

Chapter 6

A few hours later, Dom, Archangel, and Marella showed up at Cait's condominium. Hawke let them in shortly after they knocked.

"How's Cait doing?" Marella asked as soon as she got inside.

Hawke looked over to where Cait was sitting and said, "Not the greatest, but she's got things under control now."

"Good."

Archangel went over to where Cait was sitting and told her, "We're here to figure out how to get Nicky back without him getting hurt."

Cait looked up at him and said, "Thank you."

"Let's get started," Archangel said as everyone came over and sat around the dining room table.

"Cait, has anyone gotten in touch with you since the first message?" Archangel asked.

Cait just shook her head and responded, "No. Not since I went to pick him up at the day care center yesterday. What are they waiting for?" she asked desperately.

"I think they'll get in touch with you tonight. They had to figure in time for Hawke to get here from Van Nuys, so my guess is they'll call tonight," Archangel offered.

Cait nodded, "I hope so because this waiting is killing me."

Hawke moved over to stand behind Caitlin offering her his support.

"Michael, what do you have for us to use to track Nicky?" Hawke questioned as he turned to face Archangel.

Michael nodded to Marella to take over the conversation. "We've got two small tracking devices which can be used to send us a location as soon as you find Nicky. You can put one on him and keep one yourself. That'll help us to locate both of you and go in for a rescue attempt. Even if they check you for tracking devices when you land in Airwolf, they won't be able to find these devices until they are activated. Then we can go in and get you both out."

"All right. Show me how to activate the devices so we'll be ready when they call," Hawke answered her.

Marella reached into her pocket and pulled out two very small devices which she held in her hand. Hawke moved over beside her so he could see what she had pulled out. Holding one of the devices in her hand, she showed him how to activate it.

"Make sure once you activate it, that you put it somewhere near where Nicky will be. It is close to being indestructible. You can put it in water, under a brick, etc. and it should still send out a strong signal," Marella explained to Hawke. "If worse comes to worse, you can even feed it to Nicky so that it stays right with him. Just make sure that you activate it first."

Hawke took both devices and examined them closely. Finally satisfied that they'd perform as Marella had described, he put them in his pocket.

"Any questions?"

Hawke shook his head and felt for the devices in his pocket. He wanted to make sure that he didn't lose them because both Nicky's life and his life depended on them being used.

Just then the phone rang startling everyone. Archangel motioned for Cait to answer the phone. Hawke moved over beside her to offer support as she answered the phone, "Hello."

"Just listen. I'm assuming that Hawke has been in touch with you, so I will go on the premise that he's there. Tell him to get Airwolf and to fly to Scottie's Castle in the next three hours. When he gets there, he's to wait for further instructions. He is not to be in touch with anyone and he is to be in Airwolf alone or the kid dies. You got that?"

Cait had tears running down her face as she answered, "Yes. How do I know that he's all right?" she asked desperately.

The man at the other end of the phone line just laughed and said, "You're going to have to take my word on that."

Hawke took the phone from Cait and told the man, "As soon as I get to wherever you're holding Nicky, I want to be able to call Cait and tell her that he's all right. You either agree to that or it's no deal!"

Cait tried to grab the phone back from him, but he held it out of her reach.

Laughing, the man said, "You can call her when you get here—just get here!" and he hung up the phone.

Cait looked at Hawke like she wanted to hit him again. He calmly said trying to reassure her, "I want you to know that he's all right. I don't want you sitting around here worrying. This way you'll have my assurance that he's okay," he said as he held her gaze.

This seemed to calm her down somewhat.

AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAW

Everyone except for Cait had moved outside to stand by the car and discuss any last minute details.

Hawke glanced back at the condo and then said, "I'll be back in a minute. I left something inside." With that he moved back towards the condo.

Going inside, he found Cait in the kitchen crying. Slowly he moved over to her and took her in his arms. "Everything is going to be okay, Cait. I will bring Nicky back to you," Hawke said as he held her.

Cait looked up at Hawke and said, "How do you know that you can do that?"

Hawke put his finger under Cait's chin and moved her face so that she was looking directly at him, "I promise you that I will bring Nicky home to you! I'll make them let me call you every day and we can set up a code word that will let you know that everything is all right."

Cait nodded.

"If everything is going okay, I'll just say that he's fine. If I need you to be patient for a couple of days, I'll tell you to be patient. When I'm going to get things moving, I'll change what I say."

Cait said again, "But how do I know that you can do that?"

"Have I ever broken a promise that I made to you?"

After a few minutes, Cait said, "No."

"Then you can count on it," he said bringing a small smile to Cait's face. Hawke bent down quickly and kissed Cait before he turned and left the condo.

AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAW

"You all set to go?" Dom asked Hawke when he came back out.

"Yeah. You going to stay here with Cait?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, let's go get Nicky and bring him back," he said as he took a quick glance back at the condo.