"Jay, you were NYPD. How do you think we should play this?" Edie turned to face where the other agent was sitting in the back seat looking at tablet he had been using to gather information on the situation they were going into on the way there.
"I can get us in, no problem." Jay said as Zara pulled into a parking place. "We might be needing to pick up more than one person, though. Looks like they caught Sheridan, that guy that Kay's brother was chasing's girlfriend and brought her in. Doesn't seem like a good idea to just leave her here with that weasel on the loose."
"So we're picking up two people." Edie said.
"Girlfriend actually shouldn't be too hard. She's in interrogation room five. Flash the badge and make up some story and pulling her out shouldn't be a problem. Marshal Walsh, though, the twins say she's in the building some place but that's still a lot of territory to cover, and I still haven't thought up a good story yet to get her to come with us without making a fuss. I mean, we could go for the truth but…."
"Or we could go for a sedative." Zara offered. "We need to get both of them out of there fast without that weasel catching on that something's up if he's in there." She dug through her bag for a moment to confirm that she had the meds on hand that she thought she did. "Would six or seven minutes work? I have something that should be safe for a human."
Sedative. Jay wasn't sure how Kay's brother would feel about that, but thinking about it more, knocked out might be the safest way to pull the marshal out of there. "Let's get the lay of the land first. Hopefully we can come up with something so we won't need it. You're sure it's safe for a human, though, if we do end up needing it?"
"It's safe enough for Arquillians and you know how small they are." Zara said as they got out of the car and headed for the door. "Nothing in it that I can see hurting a human."
"Good. Just keep it handy and the two of you follow my lead, okay?" Jay said right before they entered the building. Things were crazy, he could tell, with people from every agency he could think of there. That would provide good cover for them. "Find Marshal Walsh first, and then we can figure out how to get out."
"That weasel's sticking to her like glue." Edie said as she rejoined the others in the office that they had found empty and had turned into an impromptu staging location after finding Catherine following a thirty minute search of the building.
"If he thinks he can use her to get Kay's brother and his nephew, it's no wonder." Jay nodded. "Either of you got an idea for how to detach the weasel? Edie, do you think there's a chance he might recognize you if he saw you or Zara again?" At least having a beruga on him would have made id-ing him from the nursing home difficult.
"Zara definitely with how she was glaring at him." Edie said. "Me maybe. The height kind of makes it more likely. What about staking out the ladies' room? Surely she'll wander in there sooner or later and would he be weaselly enough to try to follow?"
"Or…." Zara said. "Did I tell you how Zealtor's brother visited my hospital and took out the power on a floor for three days? I'd never seen so many broken bones and concussions from people trying to walk down a hall in my life. Think something like that might distract humans too?"
"Can you do that?" Jay asked.
"Can I knock out power for three days that resists every attempt to turn it back on? No. Can I knock it out for at least a few hours? Yes. I watched enough of their attempts to restore our power to know how to do that." Zara told them as she dug in her bag and pulled out a vial with a clear liquid in it. "And this fluoresces in the dark. Mark Marshal Walsh with it and finding her once the light goes out should be a snap."
It could work. Jay nodded as he ran through the plan. It could definitely work. "Okay, Edie, you get to the interview room, flash the badge or the neutralizer if you have to, get the girlfriend and head for the stairs. Zara, give me that sedative. If we're going to have to kill the lights, knocking her out's probably the best way to go. How long do you think it will take you to take the lights out?"
"It took Zealtor's brother fifteen seconds, but I'm sane so give me five minutes, maybe. Would that work?" Zara asked.
"I can work with it." Jay said. "Edie, go now, try to get the girlfriend and get to the stairs by the time the lights go out. I'll get Marshal Walsh marked and get into position to grab her."
Catherine stood in the midst of the chaos, debating what her next move should be. Sam was out there somewhere, and if Royce was right about what had happened to Noah, she didn't want to imagine what place he was in mentally. Noah. Was Royce right about Noah, though? What had actually happened at that nursing home was anything but clear, with someone from the fire department or the health department or some department that she wasn't sure of except that it was division six closing the building down and ordering an evacuation due to some sort of leak. And the few officers that had made their way in had eventually returned with nothing to report but a leak problem that this division six had under control. They were certainly reporting no dead bodies or gun battles. But why would Royce have made such a crazy story up, and if he was making it up, where in the world were Sam and his team? Every instinct she had said that she needed to find them now, but she had no idea where to start looking and it seemed like despite the number of officers and agents who were involved, no one else did either.
She started to turn to question Royce about exactly what he was saying happened for what felt like the millionth time, when without warning, the room was suddenly plunged into darkness, a darkness filled with sounds of crashes from the suddenly blinded officers. And then there was a sting at her neck, and she was falling, a darkness even deeper rushing up to meet her even as a pair of arms caught her and scooped her up.
Jay had just picked up the unconscious marshal when he felt a hand on his arm.
"This way." Zara hissed as she nudged him in the direction of the stairway, although honestly with all of the crashing noise, she probably could have shouted. But then when they were no more than halfway there, there was another sound behind them. "Jay, move now!"
"Jay, Zara?" Edie called from the darkness, keeping the girlfriend, Marie, behind her to be safe as she heard the sound of the stairway door opening.
"Zara, what was that?" Jay demanded as he heard her fumbling and slamming something into the door handle just it started to rattle.
"The weasel. He was right behind us. He shouldn't have been able to follow right behind us like that." Zara told him. "How long will it take him to find another set of stairs?"
"Not long enough." Jay said. How had that guy been right behind them? His first thought was night vision goggles but he wouldn't have had time to get to them. Worry about that later, though. "Down to the LTD isn't going to work."
"Up. The roof. Follow me." Zara fumbled with the keychain for a minute, pushing something before starting up the steps as fast as she could go. "Hurry!"
"Hope there wasn't a news crew down there that spotted that coming up the building." Jay said as the stumbled onto the roof just as the LTD flew over the edge and came to a stop right in front of them."
"How did that….." Marie stopped for a moment, staring in shock at the car that was where her brain said a car couldn't be, and that had apparently driven itself there.
"In here, and I will have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this that you might even remember later." Jay said as Edie opened the back door of the car and motioned for them to get in before jumping in the front with Zara.
"Zara, please tell me you know how to drive something like this!" Jay dove in with Catherine and slammed the door, jerking his seatbelt on and securing the still unconscious marshal, hoping the other woman was doing the same thing. He could hear a crashing noise further away on the roof. Not good. Definitely not good.
"We have anti-gravity vehicles back home. This is fine. Buckle in." The weasel. It was the weasel, with some sort of weapon aimed at them. And it didn't look like a human weapon either. "Hang on!" Zara called as she hit the little red button, sending the car shooting for the edge of the building.
The deeper blackness was gone as suddenly as it hit her, and Catherine's eyes came flying open just as the car plunged over the edge. She couldn't help it. She screamed.
"Hey, it's okay. It's okay." Jay called, although he knew from experience how alarming your first time with driving like this could be. At least Marie seemed to be taking it a tiny bit better, although maybe not waking up abruptly to a swan dive off a building was helping. "On the ground in just a second. This is fine. Zara?"
"He shouldn't have been able to follow us like that." Zara said as they hit the street. "Stay fastened down. I'm going to see about taking a few detours in case."
Gun. Why hadn't she had her gun with her? That was Catherine's first thought, along with how Sam would never let her hear the end of it, getting kidnapped and being unarmed, if she somehow managed to get out of this. She lashed out, shoving the man she assumed had grabbed her, although the seatbelts kept her from pushing him as far away as she wanted. She fumbled, trying to release the belt that was holding her, needing more room to maneuver.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Zara called, looking back in the mirror as she swerved the car into an alley and then up onto the wall of the alley to get over a fence.
"Definitely wouldn't do that. I did once. Not fun." Jay told her. "I know you think that you've been kidnapped or something, but it isn't what you think! Marshal Gerard sent us to get you!"
"Sam?" Catherine stilled at the mention of the missing marshal. "Where is he?!"
"He's back with my partner and they can explain all of this, I promise." Jay said. "So if you could just stay fastened in for a little bit longer?"
Despite what he said, Catherine was still counting this as a kidnapping, although it was apparently a Sam sanctioned kidnapping. What in the world was he up to? Well, she had wanted to find him. She forced herself to relax back against the seat and motioned to the man that she was going to cooperate for the time being as the car speed down, and in several alarming turns, literally up the street. What had Sam gotten himself into now and why was she suddenly thinking she should have packed that chicken suit?