Kate and Beth had been immediately distracted by the dual attacks, and the possibility that their father could be targeted for the next round; but neither of them had forgotten where they had left off the conversation that had been sidetracked by those attacks.

There were now, by Kate's count, seventeen heavily armed men in and around Jacob Kane's home, as well as his person; and more were arriving at irregular intervals. It was getting harder to have a private conversation with her sister and still keep her father within eye shot, a requirement that neither Kate nor Beth were willing to waive at the moment, even for a short time.

Both women were making regular checks on their friends. Babs was at the hospital with the detective whose life she had saved, though she was a bit sketchy on how it happened that they were together outside Meg's apartment, as Babs called it, when the attack occurred. It was just a precaution, one that had been ordered by the third victim of an attack.

Second victim, Beth thought, third target. Kristen Wolf have been the first target, but had been nowhere near the attack when it occurred.

I guess that makes Trish the first victim, Beth thought. But Trish was fine, as was Barbara and, apparently, the detective. Commissioner Gordon was under the protection of trusted men, as was State's Attorney Wolf. John Dorazio was shunning all offers of assistance, not knowing who to trust. They were going to have to do something about that, or the next attempt on his life would succeed, a point that James Gordon had agreed with wholeheartedly; but he didn't know who to trust either.

Beth's phone vibrated in her hand, and the feeling of relief when she saw the name on the lock screen was almost orgasmic.

Jules

"Thank fucking God! What took you so long?"

"They just got here. Something about not wanting to draw any attention. Everything's fine. We'll be at his house in an hour."

"Might take a bit longer," she could hear Bruce's voice say from Julia's phone, "just to be sure we're not followed."

"We'll be careful," Alfred Pennyworth's voice added, "tell her you'll call her when we get home."

"I heard them," Beth said without waiting for Julia to speak. "As soon as you get there, right?"

"Right. Don't worry, what could possibly happen to me if I'm with them?" Julia asked sarcastically.

"Christ," Beth said as the euphoria of knowing her best friend was still safe began to wear off a little, "I love you. Don't make me fucking regret it."

"I love you too," Julia replied in a voice that promised an abundance of tears once she had the luxury.

Beth took a deep breath after the call ended and let it out slowly.

"Fuck."

"They tried to kill the two cops, but they only tried to snatch the State's Attorney. Who knows what they had planned for you," Laurel said to James Gordon.

"We don't know what they had planned for your boss either," he replied, "but whatever it was, it wasn't good."

"We found some stuff in their van that was seriously fucked up. A blowtorch, razors, pliers, zip ties, duct tape, and contractor size garbage bags. You can see it for yourself in a while, once we decide where our Council of Elrond is going to be held. Trish is driving them and their van somewhere nobody's gonna look for them."

James was still aware that someone might be listening in, which was why he sent one of his trusted men out to buy a few burner phones. Laurel was having a little trouble hearing him over the noise of the bathroom fan and the radio he was using to mask the call from prying ears, but she was managing.

"Don't tell me where. Not yet. We need secure comms for everyone involved before we get into specifics. I don't want their friends busting them out or killing them so they can't talk. But it sounds to me like you found our guys. These must be the guys that tortured those three men before killing them."

Laurel had reached the same conclusion, and the thought of what Kristen narrowly avoided was making her sick. "In that case, we saved Kristen from some pretty serious shit."

"Yeah. Tell her I said you should get a raise."

"I'll do that. Meanwhile, you need to get some bodies on John Dorazio, and you need to order him to take them."

"I'd love to, but I don't have any bodies I can trust."

"About that..."

"You want protection for who?" Renee asked as she rubbed some life back into her sore hand, not entirely sure she had heard Laurel correctly.

"A Captain with the Chicago Police Department," Laurel said slowly and clearly, "now that I think about it, you probably know him."

"What's his name?"

"John Dorazio. Captain John Dorazio."

Renee Montoya, formerly Detective Renee Montoya of the CPD, did indeed know John Dorazio.

"Big Giovanni needs protection? From what? And why isn't the CPD protecting one of its most decorated officers?"

"Because it's the CPD that's trying to kill him."

Renee Montoya, no stranger to corruption in that department, stopped what she was doing as those words were spoken. Her brain seemed to go into hyperfocus in that instant while the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. She sat down in the chair that she was still in the process of reupholstering before she spoke again.

"OK, you've got my attention."

"Fuck if I know what she's doing or how she's doing it," Jessica said as Misty drove to the second location that had some of their balloons tied to it, "but she's finding us new places to check."

"And she knows Beth how?" Trish asked.

"She says she doesn't, that they have a mutual friend. Whoever she is, she's covering a lot of ground. I don't want to know how she landed, grabber the balloons from DGN2's work and took off again. I mean, I do want to know, but..."

"I get it. Gift horses, and all that. How's Misty holding up?"

"Misty's sick of this fucking car!" Trish heard loud and clear.

"It's your car, you crybaby," Jess added, only to receive a curt fuck you in payment.

"How are you? You sure you're OK?" Jessica asked Trish.

"Why wouldn't I be? The only way he was going to hurt me was if he fell on me. Which he didn't," Trish replied. The man in question had regained consciousness, and was attempting what Trish assumed was a sharp retort to her comment about him, but two layers of his own duct tape were preventing the sound from traveling.

"So you're really going to drive him someplace and then beat the truth out of him?"Jess asked loudly now that she knew the man could hear her.

"Maybe. He's got quite the assortment of tools in here, be a waste not to use them."

Jess's mood was improving at the thought of the bound man hearing everything that was said. She looked at Misty and smiled as she replied. "Well, pick someplace with concrete floor, in case he shits himself, and someplace secluded in case he's a screamer."

"You know, I have done this before, right? I don't need your sage counsel."

"Fine. Be that way. Fuck you too."

"Right back at you, sweetie. Later."

Jessica ended the call just as the sound escaped her lips. It was the first time she truly laughed in two days.

Meg was still sitting on the gurney behind the curtain in the emergency room at Rush University Medical Center. She could hear Captain Dorazio's voice clearly, and she guessed that everyone in a one block radius could as well as he protested that he was fine, this wasn't the first time he'd been shot at, his ass hurt because he had landed on a piece of gravel, but other than that he was the picture of health. She couldn't hear the other side of the phone conversation, but it didn't sound like he was happy about what was said.

"You'll take the fucking protection and like it. That's an order, Captain. Understand? Otherwise, some asshole trying to kill you will be the least of your fucking problems," James Gordon said in no uncertain terms.

Meg had now way of knowing what was said, and the Captain's gruff yes, sir was masked as Barbara sneaked around the curtain, wrapped her arms around Meg and planted a moist and very sensuous kiss on her lips.

"Baby, that was too close," Barbara said warmly.

"Hey, if this is the payoff, bring it on. I could do this all day."

"Captain America you're not. Neither am I. Things just got serious. Like, life and death serious."

"I know," Meg said as her mind rewound and replayed bits of the last couple of hours. She had discovered early in the meeting that Commissioner Gordon's consultant also happened to be his daughter. Meg's thought that Daddy gave his little girl a cushy job had evaporated almost as soon as Barbara had opened her mouth. Then in the street, when she thought she was going to die, only to be saved at the last minute by a pair of very strong arms, by a woman that did not seem the least bit phased by the up close and personal violent brush with death, Meg began to wonder just what kind of consultant Barbara Gordon was. But she had very little time to consider the question as the sound of an angry police Captain approaching them gave the two women barely two seconds to put some distance between the them.

"Off your ass, Detective," the uniformed Goliath said as the curtain was pulled back, "we're both still breathing, so let's get to work."

Meg hopped down from the bed. "Yes sir."

John Dorazio stuck out his massive paw to Barbara. "Thanks for having her back out there. I owe you one."

Barbara shook the large hand as she answered. "Brothers and sisters don't talk about debts. This is what families are for."

A smile and slight nod was all the answer he gave, but both women could see that what she said had touched a part of him.

"I guess I'm driving?" John asked as he dug his keys out of his pocket, scattering more bits of safety glass onto the emergency room floor.

It was the fifth marked location, the third on on the west side of State Route 35, and it was just at the edge of the one mile boundary that they had selected. It had been an industrial site when it had still been alive; light industry, not the heavy stuff that required foundries, and worked with red hot metal. This one still had the word Textile visible on the side, thought the word before that was illegible. What was clearly noticeable was the three Mylar balloons that read happy birthday! or some other message that Jessica couldn't care less about.

There were two more after this that Kara had marked. She had called after the last one to say that these seven were all the ones in the area to be searched and she was going to find a place to wait, just in case they wanted to expand the area.

"Just the one door," Misty said after they had made a quick survey of the outside. Just the one door big enough to admit an aged SUV.

"Makes it easier," Jess answered. A couple of the other buildings had been tattooed with entry point large enough to allow vehicles to drive in, and neither woman wanted to just barge into a structure that might be home to canisters containing a deadly virus, and it had taken what seemed like forever to survey the inside of the building while remaining outside. But while some of those earlier possibilities had indeed contained vehicles, (some had held fork lifts or equipment that resembled trucks when scanned from one thousand feet) none of them had belonged to Landon what's-his-face.

The roll up door in this building sat beneath a long row of tall windows that must have dated back to when the building was built, and a time in the past when most light, as well as ventilation, came through those openings. Between the windows and the roll up door was a corrugated metal overhang that would allow Jessica to jump up and get a view of the interior, assuming that she didn't immediately come crashing back down again, bringing the ancient awning with her.

"You up for this?" Misty asked her. All their other entries had been from ground level.

"Faint heart never won...whatever it is that a not faint heart wins," Jessica said before bending her knees and leaping upward. She had picked the very end of the overhang as her target, where the side support was located, and still seemed to be intact. The entire structure began to creak in protest as her full 130 pounds came to rest, but it took the weight like a slightly past its prime champ. The bottom sash of the window in front of her was made from twenty small squares of clouded glass. It took Jess barely three seconds, aided by the small pry bar that was sticking out of her waistband, to pop the window open.

There below her, sitting like a sleeping something-or-other, was a white Land Rover.

"C90-ELE!" Jess shouted to Misty where she stood about twelve feel below.

Misty's face shone with joy at the thought that they could finally be done with this fucking search. "This plan wasn't as batshit crazy as I thought! What now!"

Jess surveyed the interior of the building. It looked like someone had simply driven in and parked. The rear door was open, but there was nothing in the immediate vicinity of the truck except for the fine dust and debris on the floor that displayed tire tracks and footprints that reminded Jessica of pictures from the lunar surface. She put her monocular telescope to her eye and looked at the vehicle as well as the surrounding floor. It was on her second pass that she noticed a detail that sent a chill up her spine.

"There's a body in the driver's seat!"

Laurel walked through the glass door at 55 Jackson Blvd and spotted the two women immediately. In Helena's case it was no effort at all, the dark haired woman appeared tall even when sitting down. Sandra only appeared short because of her proximity to the woman who was three inches taller. They were at a table for three, but both of them were facing the door, an old habit that even Laurel had not given up.

"Strange times we live in," Sandra Wu-San remarked as Laurel sat down and shifted her chair so at least part of the front door was in view, "protecting the CPD. Who'd he piss off? Steal from the wrong cookie jar? Steal too much? Fuck some mobster's wife?"

"Fuck some mobster's husband?" Helena Bertinelli added playfully as she sipped her cup of strong coffee.

"None of the above," Laurel answered, knowing full well that both women would have already been briefed by Renee. She knew they were just having a bit of fun. Both of them had taken their fair amount of shit about working both sides of what was considered legal, and they (as well as everyone who worked for Renee Montoya) took every opportunity to give it back to the men and women that were supposed to uphold the law and very often did quite the opposite.

"I guess we should feel honored," Helena said, "the only honest cop in the city, and we get to keep him alive while you find out who's behind this and put them in the ground."

"Two honest cops," Laurel answered, "his lead detective was also targeted. Shit. I just realized, no one's watching her."

"Stable's empty, friend. Unless you want to take that job yourself."

"I have a thing of my own. Trish and I have the two guys that attacked us. We're going to have a nice long talk."

"Who the fuck is Trish?"

"It's a long story. Someday maybe I can tell you all about it. For now, pick him up outside the Kane Building in The Gold Coast. He'll be waiting there for you."

Laurel gave them a photo of the large police captain as well as a description of his truck. If they had been working as a team they would have matching encrypted phones and a list of codes, but in this case Laurel was...not the client...more like the client's go between, and as such she would remain completely in the dark on any details involving the protectee.

Laurel Lance ordered a cup of coffee and sat for a few minutes in the silence of the shop. She considered what to do about protection for the lead detective. She would have been happy to learn that someone had already taken care of that detail.

John Dorazio had dropped them off near Barbara's Jeep before heading to his rendezvous point and his stupid fucking protection detail as he referred to it more than once. Meg Chander's stupid fucking protection detail was in the process of unlocking the Jeep's doors while explaining that there was no way in Hell she was leaving Meg's side until the assholes behind this shit storm were dead and buried.

"You mean that in the figurative sense, right?" Meg asked, already suspecting that Barbara's use of that phrase was not entirely metaphorical.

"If you say so," Barbara answered with a disarming smile. "Hop in."

"Fine," Meg said as she opened the passenger side door, "where are we going?"

"To your place."

""We returning to the scene of the crime?"

"Only long enough for you to pack a bag. Unless you want to wear those clothes for the duration."

Meg looked down at the dark green pajama bottoms underneath the royal blue sweatshirt with the logo of the Chicago Cubs on the front. She hadn't bothered to take her badge or gun, thinking it would be a quick trip and back again after dropping Barbara off at the vehicle they were sitting in. Now, after the attack outside her apartment, which she'd survived by the skin of her teeth, she felt like she had a bullseye on her back, and the men who had tried to kill her obviously knew where she lived. Under the circumstances, Barbara's suggestion seemed like a good idea. Only one more detail remained.

"And after that? Am I checking into a hotel?"

Barbara smiled. "Where would the fun in that be?"