Part 2

By Mardel and her friends

Teaser

Previously, on The Invisible Man:

In my old line of work, I used to think the excitement, the thrill, was the best part of stealing. Yeah, I made some decent money when I could find an honest fence, but like it sounds, that's an oxymoron, and honest fences are about as easy to find as honest politicians.

These days, I sometimes actually catch myself wishing for that easy adrenaline rush. Back then, the worst that could happen to me was a stint in prison for larceny. Not that jail time is easy.

But nowadays, the adrenaline is real. And so is the danger. Now the worst-case scenario is that I -- or the people I work with -- will end up dead. Usually in a spectacularly messy way.

Terrorists have kinda become a fact of everyday life in the US, post 9/11, even if the biggest concession to their shadowy threat most people see is the security at airports. But for people like me'n Hobbes'n Monroe, our line of work brings us into a whole different proximity to terrorists. They aren't hypothetical, they aren't figments of someone's imagination. They're real.

Malcolm Andrews, a local tough guy, and his imported mentor in all things terrorist, a scary dude by the name of Hajiri, had come up on the radar more or less accidentally, when the Treasury Department started looking into a sudden influx of small denomination counterfeit bills that started turning up all over the city.

When they roped Monroe and me into helping out, we found out there was a whole lot more going on than just funny money. A whole lot.

And on the flip side, there was Hobbes, who was stuck doing his civic duty, and finding out that that 'honest politician' thing might extend to judges, too....

Bobby takes his job seriously, whether it's secret agent stuff, or beating me at video games. He's also one of the most ethical people I know, so when he started suspecting something was rotten in the state of San Diego's Superior Court, he wasn't about to let it slide. He took a page from Martin Luther King, Jr., who put it like this: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

So instead of just sitting by and doing nothing, he'd had both me and Eberts checking out the judge presiding over what sounded like it should have been an open-and-shut case. By the time the end of his first week of jury duty rolled around, it was pretty clear that this case had turned into anything BUT open-and-shut.

Even though we hadn't found anything solid enough to raise the red flag over, there was enough that didn't add up to make anyone with Hobbes' well-honed sense of paranoia a little squirrelly.

Between the two cases, my partner and I had our work cut out for us the coming weekend, that's for damned sure: we had terrorists and a renegade judge to stop, and, as it turned out, not much time to do either before people started getting hurt....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Act 1

Saturday October 28^th

Now this was how it was supposed to be.  Top of the line equipment in a brand-spanking-new vehicle with all the bells and whistles, and seats with cushions.  No more having to deal with an aching butt after sitting on damn near bare springs for hours at a time.   And they had Agent Nietsson to thank for it.  With Homeland Security taking a sudden implied interest in the case, Harrison had coughed up the high-end goodies for their use.  No cheesy turtle hat for Fawkes this time, just a high tech and small, shockingly small, wireless digital video camera that had been pinned to the lapel of his jacket.  It looked like a button and yet had a crystal clear color video feed.  Well, color so long as he wasn't see-through.

Hobbes wasn't sure what excuse they were gonna come up with for the video when it went grayscale, but it wasn't gonna be that phony ALS -- though that had been damn quick thinking by Monroe -- since the camera wasn't from the Agency.  Fawkes had made it very clear in a rushed sotto voce conversation that he wanted no part of Homeland Security, even just a language geek, knowing about his special 'talent.'  His concern that he might just find himself appropriated wasn't as crazy an idea as one might think.  Hobbes could easily come up with a dozen uses for an invisible man by DHS with 'assassin' at the top of the list.  What better way to prevent terrorist attacks than to simply eliminate the potential terrorists before they had a chance to do anything? And after all, it did run in the family.

The luxurious accommodations, from here on out to be known as 'the van,' was parked around the corner and a half a block away from the target house.  Fawkes had taken off, intending to cut through backyards to get there relatively unseen.  They didn't want anyone remembering a tall, lanky white boy in the area; it might very well set off alarm bells with Andrews and his crew.  Fawkes, even with his tan, stood out like a sore thumb in this particular neighborhood.

So far he'd encountered nothing worse than a couple of kids, playing in a makeshift fort in one corner of a formerly privacy-fenced backyard, who hadn't even glanced up from the Game Boys they'd been staring blindly at.  There were gaping holes in the fence large enough to drive a Yugo through, which was more than enough space for one skinny as a rail ex-con.  There'd been no dogs, thankfully, but there had been a coop full of chickens that clucked noisily when Darien had slunk by.

"You almost there, Fawkes?"

"Yep.  Just one more fence to hop over."  With those words, the camera went from color to a funked up black and white.

"What happened to the picture?" Agent Nietsson asked, turning to eye Hobbes warily.

"Uh... Fawkes has...," Hobbes began only to be cut off by Alex's quick, "It's classified."

"What's classified?" The inquiry was far more a demand than a request, but it didn't faze Alex in the least.

"Now if I told you, it wouldn't be classified any more, would it?" she gave him a guileless smirk and then refocused her attention on the computer screen where Darien was a approaching the back of the target house.  He was heading for the basement entrance he had used the last time.  He glanced around the yard, making sure the way was clear, and then traipsed over to the steps that led to the basement.

This time the door was open slightly, as if the last person through hadn't swung it quite hard it enough to close tightly.  Darien went down the stairs and swung the door wide, the interior dim compared to the sunshiny day even with the help of the Quicksilver.  There were all the usual bit and pieces one would expect in a basement, tools, old cracked flowerpots, grass seed, you name it they were there.

So, Bobby was surprised when Alex muttered, "Where are they?"

"Where are what?" Hobbes didn't see anything unusual, unless they were planning on braining people with the collection of two by fours stacked off to the left.

"Houston we have a problem," Darien's voice was thick with concern.

"I see it, Fawkes.  Keep looking, they may have just moved them."  Alex frowned deeply in concern and played with the controls in an attempt to cover it.

"What's up, Monroe?"  Hobbes might still be playing catch up on this case, but that wouldn't stop him from pestering her with questions if that's what it took to get the answers he needed.

"Weren't paying attention at the briefing were you?" she snarked, pissing him off mostly because he had been paying attention.

"I was listening just fine, even though that Harrison idiot was doin' all the talking." That garnered a snicker from her.  "I'm just not seeing the problem...." He trailed off, thinking.  Fawkes had found.... "The pipes he spotted are gone. And the fertilizer."

"Got it in one," Alex agreed.  "I'm hoping they just moved them upstairs, 'cuz if they didn't...."

"We're in deep kimchee," Hobbes summed up.

"Hope you guys have really loooooong straws, 'cause we're in way over our heads," Darien informed them at his sarcastic best.

"What now, Fawkes."  Alex said, as the screen went momentarily snowy then returned to full color.

Darien paced around the room he'd entered, dodging the cheesy third-hand -- or worse -- furniture in it.  "Last time there was a big ol' printing press churning out $10 bills by the dozen right where that piece o'crap love seat is."

"Well, crap," Hobbes muttered.  "They've cleared out."

"Looks that way," Darien agreed.  He wandered from the living room and down the hallway towards what was most likely the bedrooms.  There were three doors, one bathroom, one bedroom with a full-size bed with a decided sag in the middle and a single scratched and battered bureau. The final door was opened onto what was originally a second, smaller bedroom, but had been turned into a makeshift office.  A card table top was set atop piled cinderblocks and a bookcase that matched the bureau, right down to the six-inch-long gouges dug into it, were all that was left.  There wasn't so much as a scrap of paper to be found.

"Fawkes, pull out, the place is a bust," Alex ordered, disgust in her voice.  Disgust at the situation, not at Darien's performance, Hobbes was certain, since he was feeling pretty much the same way.

"In a sec.  I wanna check something."

"Fawkes," Hobbes grumbled, wanting his partner out of there.  Who knew when the bad guys would return to their hideaway?

"Hobbes, trust me, there's something...."  Darien ended up back in the kitchen and began to root around the cabinets looking for whatever it was he was looking for.  He even opened up the oven and stuck his head inside.  He came out far faster than he went in.  "Crap."

"Fawkes, now would be a good time to clue us in," Alex demanded.

"I think they were making homemade plastique," he responded as he perused the empty garbage can.

"And why is that?" Hobbes asked the question currently on everyone's mind.

"Uh, it has a rather distinctive odor?"

"I don't want to know how you know that, do I?"  Alex sounded exasperated, but a smile was cracking her face.

"My checkered past was a learning experience, if you must know."  Darien had gone back down to the basement and around the side of the house where two city-issued garbage cans sat.  For the second time in as many days he did the suburban version of dumpster diving, only this time he turned up a jackpot.  "We officially have trouble in River City, my friends."

Not only were there tattered bags of fertilizer, but several economy-sized bleach bottles, all empty.

"Call Harrison and get a team over here ASAP," Agent Nietsson said with a quiet surety that got Hobbes' attention.  The guy was definitely way more than just a 'language geek.'  "And get your man back here."

"Fawkes," Hobbes said.

"I heard.  I'm on my way."

As usual, things had just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.  The question was who was going to get burned this time?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was fingerprint powder everywhere, enough to make Hobbes' nose itch and force him to fight the urge to sneeze.  And the place stank.  It wasn't just the smell of disuse, or even the half-expected stench of crack-house or meth-lab, but an unfamiliar acrid scent that Darien insisted was the signature of plastique made from bleach.  Hobbes kept having flashbacks to the Schwarzenegger movie The Terminator where the guy sent back from the future went shopping for Karo syrup and mothballs.  He knew that anyone could make bombs with common household items, but it wasn't often that he ran into it.  Guess it was a good thing they'd chosen bleach and not the aspirin version, which Darien had mentioned was highly toxic.  They'd've been walking round in here in HAZMAT suits and forced to evacuate the entire neighborhood while the mess was cleaned up.  Any chance of finding anything useful would have been nonexistent.

So, he gladly dealt with the smell and the cranky sinuses in the hopes of actually finding something of value.  So far, they had bottles of bleach, bags of fertilizer, gazillions of prints, and one ancient computer found stuffed into the closet of the makeshift office.  The prints would probably tell them little more than they already knew -- the various players in the game -- so they were hoping the computer held the clues they needed to get a step ahead.

After Darien had moved the garbage cans onto the right of way, allowing them to "legally" search them, Agent Nietsson had made a call that got the ball rolling over to Treasury.  Harrison had swung a warrant to search the place, and sent over a forensics team to go over the house with a fine-tooth comb.  There just wasn't a whole hell of a lot to find.  These guys were good, damn good and catching them was not going to be easy or simple from the looks of things.

Darien was leaning against a wall while the dozens of agents crawled all over the place, trying to stay out of the way, but not willing to sit it out in the van even though he looked like crap.  Alex had forced him to drink one of Claire's concoctions before handing over a couple super-sized Snicker's Bars to recharge his batteries.  Hobbes wanted to worry, but found himself too caught up in the investigation to spare the time.  He tossed a smile at his partner, who tipped an invisible hat back, as he rushed by, headed for the office where Alex waited for him.

"Find anything?"

"Not much," Alex answered, waving at the Treasury geek seated before the ancient HP computer.

"Does that thing even work?" Hobbes asked with a frown.  "Looks like it'd be more useful as a doorstop."

"So they thought, until I turned it on," Alex said sardonically.  "Turns out they retrofit the machine.  The outside is crap, but the inside is as top of the line you can get.  Rigged for a T-1 line and everything."

"This place has a T-1 line?"  Hobbes sounded as shocked as he felt.

"Yes; we think it's buried.  They found the incoming line in the basement." Alex shook her head.  "These guys have some serious funding."

"Which means they have some serious plans." Hobbes was liking this little counterfeit ring less and less with every passing moment.  And if it wasn't for the fact that he knew Darien and Alex could handle this on their own, he'd start blaming himself for not being there to help the last week, worried that by being out of the picture that they'd missed something that could have resolved this sooner.  Sometimes you just had to trust, and this was one of those times.  Of course, that didn't mean they couldn't benefit from his experience now.  "What did you find?" he asked of the Treasury geek.

"Nothing.  Just the operating system and some basic programs.  Looks like they wiped the rest," he responded in a snotty voice, as if he thought he was better than the Agency people.  Not frickin' likely, based on the horror stories Darien had been sharing all week.  "We'll be taking it back to the office and see if we can retrieve the erased data there."

"Looks can be deceiving, my friend.  Any browsers on that thing?"  Hobbes pointed at the screen, so the guy wouldn't mistake his meaning.  Might as well assume they were all as stupid as they appeared.  It was just safer.

"Mozilla, why?"

"Start her up and let's see where they've been surfing to."  Hobbes rubbed his hands.  He knew this was a long shot, but any chance was better than none.

The guy twisted in his seat.  "Would you care to do my job for me?" the guy snarked, just daring Hobbes to say yes.

So, of course, he did.  "Yeah.  Move it, junior."  He hooked a thumb over his shoulder to encourage the geek to vacate the banged-up folding chair.  The agent did so with a glare then stormed from the room.

Alex chuckled.  "Now, maybe we'll get something done.  How do they get away with calling themselves agents?"

Hobbes maneuvered the mouse and double clicked the little dinosaur head on the desktop.  "Got me, sister.  They're making me appreciate Jones, though, which isn't something I ever thought possible."

Both of Alex's perfectly plucked eyebrows rose upwards.  "That's just scary."

"Tell me about it," Hobbes agreed, as the browser's home page appeared.  It was nothing more than the Google search page.

Darien strolled into the room then.  "Jeeze, Hobbes, what'd you do to the geek?  He just tried to ream me out for whatever it was."

"Sorry, Fawkesy.  Didn't mean for you to get caught in the crossfire.  He was moving at the speed of snail in here, so I booted him out."  Hobbes moved the cursor, eyes flicking from the screen to Darien.  "You look like crap, my friend."

Darien scrubbed his hands over his face.  "Tired, is all."

"You still hungry?" Alex asked with real concern in her voice.

"No... well, yes, but it can wait.  I need real food, not a sugar high."  Darien settled against the desk, not quite sitting on it.

"You'll get it, within the hour if at all possible.  You're no good to me looking like something from Night of the Living Dead." Alex looked like she wanted to say something else, but Hobbes' grunt shifted her focus from mother-henning Darien and back to the task at hand.

"Please tell me you have something."

"Yeah, but I ain't quite sure what it means.  Found this in the browser cache."  He pointed to the screen, which showed a schedule.

"High school football games?" Darien said in confusion.  "What do terrorists want with high school football games?"

"No clue." Alex muttered.  "Those aren't public schools.  Those are all private academies.  Maybe they're targeting the wealthy?"

"Too small.  These places won't bring crowds in big enough numbers," Hobbes muttered checking some of the other cached items.  There were some directions from Mapquest, but they were for spots all over the county.

"Whose targets?" Darien questioned, causing both Alex and Hobbes to look up at him.  "We've got two very different groups here, right?"

"Yeah," Hobbes agreed, wondering where Fawkes was going with this particular train of thought.

"So, would high schools, private or not, be something gang-bangers or terrorists would hit?"  Hobbes wanted to argue that neither made any sense, but Darien shook his head and cut him off.  "Don't think about reasons.  We won't understand that part... ever.  Just, if you had to pick, which of the two would be more likely to go after high schools," he leaned down and eyed the computer screen, "populated by upper crust white kids?"

"Andrews.... but why?  It doesn't fit his profile?" Alex pointed out. 

"Neither does him having a warehouse full of designer knock-offs, printing Monopoly money, or working with this Hajiri dude," Darien countered.  "Since when does this crap need to make sense?"

Hobbes shook his head.  "It doesn't, and never will to normal people."

This made Alex actually snort in amusement.  "And we're normal?"

"Compared to them?" Darien argued and Alex conceded the point with a nod of her head.

"So now what?"  Hobbes knew there was something here, something of great import, but he wasn't quite seeing it yet.  It was a puzzle and too many of the pieces were still missing.

"Now we let them take the computer and see if they can get anything else from it," Alex stated.

"And us?" Darien asked.

"You are going home to get some food and rest.  I'm going to see if I can track down any of our players."  Alex made it clear with her voice that dissent was not an option.

Darien tried anyway.  "But... I wanna play too."

"And you will, but I need you at your best, and it may be hours before we have a clue where to go next."  Alex didn't sound angry at his challenge, but clearly planned to out-stubborn him.

"She's right, Fawkes.  We need you at the top of your game," Hobbes added, knowing that ganging up on Fawkes this time around was necessary.  It was becoming obvious that whatever had caused his improvement the last few months was coming to an end.

"But...."

"And to make sure you do as you're told, I'm taking you home now," Bobby added.

Money magically appeared in Alex's hand.  "For dinner.  I'll call you when we have something."

Darien eyed the bills as they changed hands.  "But I'm starved."  He tossed in the whipped puppy look to boot, and Hobbes was forced to hide a snicker.  He was playing the pitiful card for all it was worth.

Alex pulled out another $10 bill.  "Fine, but you better get a real meal and not fast food crap.  Agreed?"  She sounded angry, but there was obvious amusement in her eyes.

"Yes, mom," Darien said with an ear to ear grin.  "I'll even eat all my vegetables."

"See that you do," Alex said archly, the corners of her lips twitching upwards.  "Now, get out of here."

Neither of them waited another second and headed for the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday October 28^th

"So are you going?" Darien asked for what had to be the eighth time as they left the ramshackle suspect house that afternoon and headed street-ward to retrieve the van.

"Fawkes, she's serving on the same trial I am. We're not supposed to be socializing," he reminded his partner, exasperated.

"Uh-huh. So that's why you took her out to lunch pretty much every day this week? And why she left two voicemail messages for you this afternoon asking you over for dinner tonight? At her house?" The suggestive eyebrow-waggle gave Darien an impish look that Bobby wanted to smack off his face. Only he was too busy trying not to laugh - or blush.

"Anyone ever tell you you've got a filthy mind?" he grumped instead.

"Since when is dinner filthy?" Darien grinned. "Unless, of course, you like it that way," he added, teasingly.

"Fawkes -" Hobbes warned.

"Hobbes," Darien responded, with exactly the same inflection, mocking his reprimand.

"Would you just drop it?" Hobbes pleaded.

Darien grinned. "Only if you call her back and say 'yes.'"

"Fawkes. You're a pain in the butt," Hobbes observed sarcastically.

"So my partner tells me," the taller man grinned down at him.

"Look, Monroe told me to make sure you got fed. REAL food."

"I'm a big boy, Hobbes. I know how to call for take out. And last I checked, Chinese was 'real' food."

"Fawkes, I don't think take out was what Monroe had in mind," Bobby wavered.

"It'll do, Hobbes. And it means you can go have dinner with your lady." Darien let a moment of silence fall between them, then started up again. "You know if you don't call her, I'm gonna make you go to the arcade with me, tonight," he threatened.

Bobby threw up his hands in exasperation. "Fine! Fine! I'll call her! Geeze, Fawkes. You're friggin' relentless!" he unlocked Golda and climbed in, reaching across the cab to unlock the passenger side door.

"That's me, the irresistible force," Fawkes laughed as he let himself in.

"'Irresistible' this, smartass," Hobbes muttered under his breath and peeled out, roaring into afternoon traffic like a NASCAR driver, slamming Darien into the door, then the dash. Or he would have, if his partner hadn't been wearing his seatbelt.

To his annoyance, Fawkes only continued to laugh.

Twenty minutes later, he'd finally dropped Darien off at his place -- though it wasn't until he'd called Terri back that he could persuade Fawkes to get out of the van. It was embarrassing to be making a date in front of his partner, but Darien clearly figured Hobbes'd chicken out if he didn't have supervision.

So it was that Bobby found himself with a real-life date on a Saturday night for the first time in he couldn't say how long. Oh, sure, he hung out at his favorite local bar pretty regularly in his guise as a textile exec, but that was a whole lot different than a real date with a woman he was beginning to care about.

He hustled through a second shave and a quick shower, then stood in the middle of his bedroom in his boxers and undershirt trying to decide what the hell to wear. Finally he settled on a pair of soft chino trousers and his red polo shirt, knowing the splash of color looked good on him. He finished off the ensemble with his black leather jacket, liking the dash of tough-guy it added, and ran a hand over his hair one last time.

A few moments later, he was on his way to Terri's house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dorothy Hernandez was taken aback when Richard Schwartz was shown into her study at 7:00 p.m. Saturday evening, intruding on her pre-dinner cocktail. The fact that Schwartz was clearly rattled was an even bigger surprise. She hastened to offer him a drink.

"Scotch. Neat. A double," he responded brusquely, sitting down in one of her matched pair of leather wingbacks and reaching for the remote on the table between them to turn off the TV droning in the corner.

She handed him his requested beverage without a word, taking the other chair and waiting as he swallowed off half the drink in one gulp.

"We may have a rather serious situation, Doro," he said at last, setting his glass on the small table.

"Such as?" she prompted when he didn't continue right away.

"The tip you got from your bailiff panned out. In a big way, I'm afraid," he said, picking up his crystal highball glass to stare into it, turning it randomly between his fingers, apparently to admire the sparkle of the lead crystal.

It was Hernandez's turn to set down her glass, the dark garnet of the Cabernet sloshing up the sides of the goblet as she did. She tightened her hand around the armrest to keep from further betraying the sudden tremor in her fingers. "How so?" she asked, voice admirably calm.

"Juror seven, one Robert A. Hobbes, is in fact sitting down right this moment to a very nicely prepared Italian meal at the home of the first alternate, a miss Terri Breckmen."

Hernandez exhaled, relaxing subtly. "A little romantic interlude? Richard, I'm surprised at all the drama. It's not like you at all to get worked into a tizzy when a pair of lovelorn jurors find each other. It has happened before, you know," she pointed out dryly.

"Believe me, Dorothy, usually I would be the first to congratulate the happy couple, since it would ordinarily mean that they would be too busy concentrating on each other to care what's going on under their noses in your courtroom," Schwartz snapped sharply. "There's just one problem."

"And that is?" she retrieved her wineglass and took another sip, torn between amusement at the histrionics and the niggling worry that they were merited.

"Mr. Hobbes is not, in fact, an executive for Danbury Textiles. As it happens, there IS no Danbury Textiles. The phone numbers and addresses in his records are dummies."

"What?" she set down her glass again, the crystal clanking on the wooden table.

"Dummies, Doro. Established to provide verisimilitude for a cover identity. Mr. Hobbes, it seems, is a federal agent."

Hernandez swore under her breath. "You're sure?"

Schwartz nodded once. "Yes. And it gets better. It seems he works for an Agency currently under the auspices of Fish and Game."

"What?" This time her exclamation was consternated. "What do you mean, 'under the auspices'?'"

"The Agency is an anachronism. There's no rational reason for its continued existence in this day and age, frankly. But there it is, wasting taxpayer dollars on a slew of questionable programs. Whatever their current raison d'être is, Charlie Borden, the man in charge, has been careful to keep it out of any records submitted to the GAO when he submits his annual budget requests. However, what really concerns me is that this down-at-the-heels excuse for a government entity is currently working hand in hand with the Treasury Department. On a case that's brushed up against our own agenda."

Hernandez shook her head, confused. "Wait. You're telling me that one of my jurors is in actuality a federal agent. An agent currently WORKING on something with the Treasury Department? Richard, you must be mistaken. The man has been in my courtroom all week. I'd certainly have noticed if he'd excused himself to use the restroom and not returned, or otherwise disappeared after the day got underway."

"He was followed this morning to the Treasury building. And from there, to a location up in Escondido, where he and two of his fellow agents, along with four or five Treasury agents, spent the day staking out Malcolm Andrews' last safe house."

"They've located him?" Hernandez grinned wolfishly. "That's excellent news. How long has it been since he eluded the team you had watching him? Weeks? A month?"

"Six weeks. Stop gloating, Dorothy. Yes, they've done us a favor, but there's a complication. Your Mr. Chan's black market designer knock-offs are sitting in Andrews' warehouse near National City."

"Excuse me?"

"Apparently, Malcolm and his crew are not above taking advantage of Chan's misfortune to make off with a sizable chunk of the goods he was trying to foist off on the victim as legitimate merchandise. Andrews and his people are now hawking them at flea markets all over town. And not coincidentally, passing off a lot of small denomination forged currency at the same time. Hence the Treasury Department's interest in him."

Hernandez considered this for a moment. "Be that as it may, Richard, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill, in this case. Not only has this 'Agency' found your missing target, but may very well end up getting enough on him to get him and some of his neo-Islamics locked up for a long, long time. At least if they end up in MY courtroom," she smirked slightly.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Schwartz said tightly, taking another sip from his glass. "The problem is, Mr. Hobbes is also the one doing the snooping into your judicial record, or rather, having his Agency do it. If we can't divert them, you may very well not HAVE a courtroom much longer."

The judge drew back at the grim emphasis in her visitor's voice. "Was that a threat?" she asked carefully.

"Not from me, Dorothy. Not from me. That doesn't make it any less real a danger, though. At all costs, we have to conclude this trial and get a not guilty verdict. Our plans call for a free and mobile Chan to help us cope with the loose canons like Andrews. That won't happen if this meddling Fed finds enough to raise doubts about your... behavior on the bench. A mistrial does us no good whatsoever. The case couldn't go back up before you, and we'd have to take our chances with the outcome."

Hernandez could feel the color drain out of her face. "You can't possibly mean what I think you mean," she whispered, outraged.

"I suppose that depends on what you think I plan to do about this mess," Schwartz replied, sipping his drink again.

"You're going to kill a federal agent?" she squeaked.

Schwartz snorted with laughter. "My, my. You've been watching too many bad Hollywood suspense thrillers," he scoffed. "Kill him? No. But incapacitate him? And his little friend, juror number 13? That may well be necessary to keep this situation on track. The remaining alternate can take his place."

"Attacking two of the jurors on that case hardly seems like the most sensible thing to do," she protested. "You're still risking a potential mistrial."

"Hardly, as long as you're the presiding judge," he pointed out sarcastically. "All I can say is, it's a good thing they didn't end up in a ménage a trois. Because then we really would have a problem."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday Evening, October 28^th

Bobby leaned back in his chair, stretching, and massaging his full belly. "Man, I'm stuffed," he sighed contentedly.

"I'm glad you liked it," Terri smiled as she picked up his plate. "I guess I'd better not ask you if you saved room for dessert, huh?"

Bobby groaned. "Oh, brother. No, now would not be a good time to ask," he admitted. "Ate too many pieces of garlic bread. How the heck did you get it so crispy, anyway?"

"I just bake it. I think the olive oil must have something to do with it," Terri explained, heading to the kitchen with the dinner plates. "How about some coffee?" she suggested.

"Now that would hit the spot," Hobbes agreed happily. It had been a long time since he'd sat down to a homemade meal that he hadn't fixed himself. Or Fawkes hadn't. Neither he nor his partner were enthusiastic cooks, though they both knew their way around a kitchen well enough not to starve. He listened to the comfortably domestic sounds of Terri putting the coffeemaker to work and setting the dishes in the sink.

"You want any help in there?" he asked when she didn't return right away.

"That's alright, I was just getting out a few treats," Terri said and returned to the dining room with a bottle of brandy and a small plate of biscotti in one hand and a pair of snifters in the other.

"Whoa, here, let me take something," Hobbes jumped to his feet, taking the bottle from her grip and then relieving her of the plate of cookies.

"I thought we could take this conversation to the living room. It's a little more comfortable," she invited.

"Sounds good," Bobby smiled back at her, and followed her on through to the spacious room with its view of her small but neat back yard.

Together, they set their burdens on the coffee table, and Terri went to turn on the gas fireplace. Hobbes used an elegant lighter to ignite the trio of candles on the table, then leaned back in the couch. It was really nice to feel so comfortable with someone again, he mused as he watched his hostess adjust a couple of the lava stones in the fireplace, then turn towards him. "You know, you have a really nice place, Terri," he complimented her. "You do all the decorating?"

She nodded a 'yes' as she settled down beside him on the sofa, and leaned into his side. "My sister calls me mini-Martha," she smiled.

Bobby shifted so he could put an arm around her, doing his best to stifle his sudden attack of bashfulness. It was always the way. Cruising the bars, he had no trouble flirting or spending time with women, and feeling confident in his appeal. But as soon as he got emotionally attached to someone, he fell apart. Started second-guessing everything he did, and feeling like he was back in high school again.

But Terri... she had an effortless way of making him feel comfortable, even though he was finding himself more and more attracted to her. She poured each of them a brandy and snuggled up against him unselfconsciously.

"So what do you think is really going on in Hernandez's court?" she asked curiously, cupping her brandy glass between her palms.

"I thought we said we weren't gonna talk about the case tonight?" he reminded her.

"Alright, then let's talk about your day today," she grinned.

"It was work. A stakeout that didn't exactly get us where we wanted to go," he shrugged and picked up his own glass to warm the liquor with his hand. "And I can't really talk about that, either," he apologized.

"Well, how about in general? What's involved in a stakeout?"

"It's pretty much the most boring thing you've ever done, times 10. You know, like when you're waiting in line at the bank, only it goes on and on and on... until something finally happens, and then it's this wild adrenaline rush as you collar your bad guys or whatever." He paused, glancing at her. "You really want to hear about my work?"

She nodded, smiling. "At least the parts of it that aren't top secret," she teased.

"I can't go into a lotta detail," he warned.

"Because then you'd have to kill me," she grinned, and took a sip from her glass.

Bobby couldn't help the surprised laugh that bubbled up. "Yeah, something like that. You know, you're the first person who's asked me about my job in..." Since his divorce, actually. But he didn't think saying so was terribly wise. "A long time."

Terri shrugged. "It's not so much the job, Bobby, it's the fact that you're the one doing it that interests me."

Hobbes blinked. She was flirting with him. "So, say, if the guy next door was the agent, you'd give it the old ho-hum?" he asked, smiling hesitantly.

"The guy next door is gay, and an interior designer. He let me use his trade connections so I could get the discount when I decorated my place," she grinned. "If he told me he was an agent, I think you'd be able to hear my jaw hitting the concrete walkway 10 miles away."

"So it's not just me, then," he said, oddly disappointed.

"Oh, it's just you, alright," she contradicted as she leaned over to kiss him lightly on the mouth.

Startled, Bobby kissed her back, tasting the brandy on her lips. To his delight, they parted, inviting greater intimacy, and he took her up on it, deepening the kiss.

Only to jump clear when his cell phone went off in vibrate mode in his pocket. "Damn," he swore under his breath as he broke off the embrace to retrieve the phone.

"Don't answer it," Terri suggested wistfully.

"Sorry, honey, in my line of work, that isn't an option..." he apologized as he flipped it open to see who it was. Naturally, the incoming call was from Fawkes. "Crap," he sighed and answered. "Hobbes."

"Sorry, man, I just got a call from Harrison. Looks like there's some action at the warehouse. He wants all hands on deck ASAP."

"You know, your timing totally sucks, partner," he sighed, setting his brandy glass on the coffee table.

"Yeah. I figured there wouldn't be any good time for this kind of call. Hopefully I caught you before things started heating up," Darien apologized, though Hobbes thought he heard a note of prurient interest in the tone his partner used.

"Let's just say you interrupted dessert," Bobby sighed.

"Well, crap." There was a pause, then Fawkes went on. "You know what they say, Hobbesy; don't shoot the messenger."

"Don't worry, partner, I'll find some other way of taking it out of your hide. What's the address?" Bobby didn't bother to write it down. He'd been doing this way too long to need to resort to such plebian recall techniques. "I'll see you there in under an hour, Fawkes," he finished the conversation and disconnected without bothering to wait for Darien's response.

Regretfully, he turned to Terri. "I have to go," he said unhappily.

"Do you want to?" she asked equally sadly.

"No."

"Well, then, come back. OK? We can try this again, maybe when you aren't working overtime?" her expression was equal parts hopeful and resigned. It broke Bobby's heart.

"You betcha," he smiled warmly, touched that she would extend the invitation in the face of his erratic schedule. "Just try and keep me away."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Act 2

Late Saturday, October 28^th

"Well, well, well, Suzy.  Hot date?"  Alex was sitting in the driver's seat of her 'Vette, wearing black from head to toe.  Skintight, curve-hugging black clothing, over which was a midnight black, form-fitting leather jacket.  The outfit screamed 'thief' to Darien's senses.  "You planning on robbing a bank or something?"

She smirked.  "Or something.  Did you call Hobbes?"

"Yep, and let me tell you he was not too thrilled," Darien said as he slid over the door and into the passenger seat, much to Alex's dismay.

"And why is that?"  She put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, her tires spinning and leaving a smear of rubber on the surface before speeding away.

"Because he did have a hot date and was just starting to enjoy dessert when I called," Darien sounded quite amused by the whole thing.

"So he and Claire really are dating?" Alex hadn't decided if she approved or not, what with the whole company pier issue, but she knew that the two cared for each other well beyond co-workers or friendship.

"Nope.  He had dinner with someone he met at the trial.  One of the other jurors."  Darien flipped down the visor and checked his hair.

"One of the jurors?  That's a no-no, you know."  Not that Alex particularly cared, but she'd hate to see Hobbes' cover compromised because he couldn't keep it in his pants until after the trial was over.

Darien shrugged.  "He's getting a life.  Outside of the Agency." He glanced over at Alex.  "Just like you.  How is Mike, anyway?"

Alex ground her teeth silently; it wasn't as if she could argue with the logic, after all.  "He's just fine, if you must know.  He'll be back next week."  She pulled onto the I-5 heading south towards National City and Andrews' warehouse.

"Sounds like someone needs a nap.  You didn't spend all day playing with the Treasury boys, did you?"

Alex sighed.  "As a matter of fact I did.  Why?"

"Jeeze, Alex, just 'cause Mike's not here don't mean you have to work 24/7.  Hit a movie, go to the beach, hell veg in front of the TV at that condo of yours." Darien twisted in his seat, and Alex took a second to catch the earnest expression on his face.  He actually meant what he was saying.

"Fawkes, I happen to like my job, unlike you...."

"Hey, I like my job... most days," Darien argued, sounding put-upon.

"Besides, it's not like I have anything to go home to."

"Alex...."

"Fawkes, we've had this discussion. And while debating the merits of the quality of my life with you is just so much fun, now is not the time." She whipped her head about, a glare aimed at him.  "Got it?"

He saluted crisply.  "Ma'am, yes, ma'am.  Want me to drop and give you 20?"

Alex couldn't help it; she burst out in laughter.  "You are nothing but trouble."

"Got that right.  And you wouldn't want it any other way."  Darien grinned, knowing exactly how true it was.

Alex rolled down the exit ramp and zipped down the side streets to the industrial park filled with warehouses.  She bumped over the train tracks, wincing as the underside of her car bottomed out on the down slope with a raw scraping sound.

Darien groaned in sympathy.  "Might want to consider a car with actual road clearance if this is gonna be a habit."

"You might just be right."  She switched off the headlights and drove slowly between the buildings towards where she knew the Treasury van was hiding in plain sight.  She parked alongside a building out of view of the target and turned off the engine.  She picked up the Nextel phone that had been lying on the console and said, "Harrison."

It wasn't Harrison who answered.  "What took you so long, Monroe?  Your fancy car break down on the way over?"

"Hobbes.  Thought you were in a... compromising position when Fawkes called?"  Alex raised an eyebrow at Darien who shrugged.

"Someone should learn to keep his trap shut," Hobbes groused.  "Our friends left 15 minutes ago after dropping off a passel of goodies."

Alex and Darien got out of the low-slung car and went to great pains to shut the doors as quietly as possible.  No point in taking any chances.  Just because someone had left didn't mean everyone had. They moved at a fast walk, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, and were standing at the open door within a couple of minutes.  Golda was nowhere to be seen.   Alex snapped the phone shut and stuffed it into the pocket of her jacket. "Any luck on the warrant?"

"Yes and no," Harrison informed her.  "We're still running the prints from the house.  If we can get a solid hit on Andrews or one of his boys, the warrant to search this place will be on its way pronto, but until then we sit and wait."

"Oh, fun," Darien snarked.  "Did you get anything of value at the house?"

Harrison looked grim.  "You were right about the bleach.  They tested the residue found in the oven and it's positive for potassium chlorate.  They also found wax on the kitchen table."

"Wax?" Hobbes asked.

"It's used to seal the plastique, make it waterproof and... safer to handle," Darien answered with a look that said he that he wished he'd been wrong on the whole bomb-making hunch.

"Sometimes you scare me, my friend," Hobbes said, shaking his head.

Darien snorted.  "Only sometimes?" he feigned being hurt.

Alex had been pondering their current situation and eyed Harrison with a sly look.  "What if we find something here that makes the connection back to the house?  Would that get us the warrant sooner?"

Harrison considered the idea seriously. "It might. What do you have in mind?"

Alex tipped her head at Darien.  "He is our B&E expert."

"And 'he's' gotten in and out before," Darien reminded them.

"We didn't plan for this," Harrison commented.

"You plan?" Hobbes sniped, earning a black look from Harrison.

Alex wanted to tell Hobbes to shut up before he blew what little cooperation remained between Treasury and the Agency.  As it stood, the next time the Official tried to shuffle her off to them she was going to do what those anti-drug commercial suggested and 'just say no.'  "If you don't, I will.  Those pipe bombs might very well be inside that warehouse.  Do you really want to give them a chance to use them?"

The big vein by Harrison's left temple throbbed noticeably, but he managed a nod.  "Yeah, send him in.  But he's to touch nothing.  Just look the place over and report back.  I do not want your expert screwing up my operation."

"Hey, I'm standing right here," Darien said with more than a touch of ire in his voice, "and I do know how to do my job."  He stalked off, heading towards the warehouse, not bothering to wait for the usual accoutrements.

"Hobbes."  Alex knew Bobby could handle his ruffle-feathered partner.  She was going to have to remind Harrison that without the Agency's, and more specifically Darien's assistance, they would still be digging in that dump in Escondido looking for clues as to who was printing the funny money.

"On it," Hobbes took off after Fawkes, while Alex rounded on Harrison.

"Oh, don't bother with the lecture.  You and I both know the Agency just wants credit to up its fiscal standing.  Your posturing won't change that fact."  Harrison had perfected the condescending tone and had turned it on full force.

"Funny, I could have sworn stopping some terrorists from killing innocents was the whole point.  My mistake.  I'll be sure your director knows you want the brownie points all for yourself."  With each word, Alex moved inch by inch closer to the man, a deadly cold look plastered to her features.  "You have a problem with how my man gets the job done you talk to me.  If I see there is a problem, I will correct it, but since he has managed to get twice as much information as your entire team I'd suggest you shut up and let him do what he does best without interference or belittling him.  Got it?"

Harrison's mouth opened and closed without a word escaping, making him look even less intelligent than he'd shown himself to be.

"Got it?" she repeated, poking him in the sternum.

"I'll have you reprimanded for this."

"Try.  I'll be sure to tell them exactly how your men nearly got mine killed by failing to follow the targets.  Or did you think I'd forget all about the events of Tuesday?"  Alex smirked.  She could see in his eyes that she'd won this round.

"Fine.  You want to run this your way, go right ahead, but I'll take no responsibility when you screw it up."

"Perfect.  I'm sure the Official will be happy to take all the credit," Alex stated, throwing Harrison's own words right back in his face. As he gathered his wits to protest, she went on. "Uh, uh.  We take the responsibility, we get the credit." She shrugged.  "Only seems fair."

Hobbes returned then, interrupting any potential tirade from Harrison.  "He's all wired and ready to go."

"Video?" Alex asked, ignoring Harrison completely.

"Yeah, rigged with ALS this time," Hobbes said with a wink.

Alex smiled.  "Perfect."  She climbed into the van with Hobbes right beside her and they both put headsets on.  "Fawkes, what's your sit-rep?"

"I'm trying to pick a lock, if you must know." Darien whispered irritably.  "Think we could not be shouting in my ear every 30 seconds this time?"

Alex tapped some keys on the computer and after a moment, the video image appeared on the screen.  It was an extreme close up of a door and Darien's arms.  There was a click and the door swung open as he stood.  He stepped to the left and checked the security system, which, strangely, was turned off.  "Fawkes, make this quick, they may not be planning to be gone long."

"Or there's someone still here," he pointed out.

"All the more reason to be extra careful," Hobbes warned.

"I'm a big boy, Hobbes.  I think I can figure out what to do." The irritation was even more pronounced now.

Alex covered her mike.  "Let him be, Hobbes."

He nodded, getting that, thanks to Harrison's comments, Darien felt he had something to prove.

The camera showed Darien making his way through the maze of stacked boxes, finding pretty much the same things he had before, only more of them.  Choosing boxes at random, he opened them and perused the contents. Gucci, Prada, St. Laurent, Chanel, Hilfiger, Polo, Joe Boxer, you name it they found it.  All of it appearing to be the real thing, but in reality all fakes, knock-offs made for a tenth the cost in some impoverished third-world sweat shop and sold for top dollar to unsuspecting tourists in the U. S. of A.

Hobbes muttered something.

"What?" Alex asked, covering the mike with one hand so Darien wouldn't get pissed off.

"Nah.  It'd be too much of a coincidence."  He shook his head.

"Tell me anyway," Alex insisted.  Hobbes might be crazy, but his hunches were far more often right than wrong.

"That trial I'm on the jury for.  The defendant is known for pushing knock-offs on the local shops.  Knock-offs just like those sitting in that warehouse," Hobbes explained, not looking very comfortable with the intuitive leap he'd suddenly made.

"You're kidding, right?"  Alex had to agree: it was way too much of a coincidence to be real.

 Hobbes shrugged.  "Probably just seeing things that ain't there."

That got a snort of amusement from Darien.  "Like that's anything new."

It was clear even to Alex that Darien was referring to himself and not one of those random paranoid-induced conspiracies that Hobbes occasionally pulled out of thin air.   "Besides you, smartass."

"Whoa.  You guys seeing what I'm seeing?"  Darien had made it to a huge open area in the center of the warehouse, and sitting smack dab in the middle of it was the printing press.

"Yeah, we're seeing it."  Alex turned to look at Harrison who did not look the least bit happy.  "I think you've got enough for now.  Come on back."

"But what about the bombs?"

"All right, but make it quick," Alex conceded, deciding it was better not to discourage him when he really wanted to work.  Plus, if there were the slightest chance the bombs were in there it would be worth knowing about it.

"Quick as I can," Darien agreed, then took off at a light jog, wending his way through the crates towards the offices.  He went around a corner and skidded to a halt as two familiar figures appeared. Malcolm and Hajiri. He let escape a soft, "Crap," that must have been a touch too loud, as Hajiri's head snapped around to stare right at the camera.

"Fawkes, just hold still.  He can't see you, remember?"  Hobbes' reminder actually seemed necessary as even Alex had the feeling the invisible agent was about to bolt.

"What it is?" Andrews asked, following Hajiri's gaze. The words muffled, but still discernable through the Quicksilver.

"I thought I heard something."

"Well, there's nothing there.  J-bird won't be back for a while." Andrews began to move away, but Hajiri stayed put, still eyeing the spot where Darien stood frozen and barely breathing, suspiciously. "C'mon, man, we got work to do."

Unsatisfied, but clearly unable to say why, Hajiri turned away. "You are correct, we have much work to do."

As soon as they were out of sight Darien audibly released the breath he'd been holding.  "Looks like we're not alone," he said in a bare whisper.

"Darien...."

"No worries, Alex, I'm on my way out."  Darien reversed course, heading back towards his point of entry quickly and quietly.

Alex removed her headset, knowing Hobbes would keep Darien calm until he got back to the van. "Think your team can make sure they spot 'J-bird' when he heads back in?" she asked of Harrison, doing her damnedest to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

She must have done pretty well, because Harrison nodded.  "Yeah, and I'll see if that vid will encourage that warrant to get signed any faster."

"Good plan." She turned to Hobbes.  "Where's your van parked?"

"Nearby, why?"

"I'm betting Darien is going to need some fuel after that little heart-stopper," Alex explained, concern creeping into her voice.  She was pretty sure Hobbes had no clue how much Darien had deteriorated in the last few days, and was still hoping Fawkes would 'fess up before she had to go tattle to teacher.

"Got that right, sweetheart," Darien said as he appeared in the doorway.  "Woulda been nice to know they were in there before I stuck my neck out."  He gave Harrison a look that would have melted steel, but he was created of far sterner stuff and didn't even blink.

"Would have told you if we knew.  They must have been there before we saw Jamal arrive." Harrison shrugged, but refused to even appear apologetic.  "So we aren't as perfect as the Agency. Sue me."

Darien rolled his eyes and walked away.  He, at least, wasn't going to play this particular game.  "Let me know when there's something to do that doesn't include having me walk into a trap," he called back.

Hobbes rubbed the top of his head.  "I'll just go keep him out of trouble."

Through grit teeth Harrison said, "You do that."

Alex sighed.  It was going to be a long night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Early Sunday, October 29^th

"Are we there yet?" Darien whined around a yawn.  He was inelegantly sprawled in the passenger's seat of Golda, about as bored as it was humanly possible to be.  Hobbes had determined that the best way to keep from being discovered by Andrews and his friends was to keep Darien away from Harrison before the shouting got so loud it gave away their position, and no one had been able to disagree with that logic.

Alex was the only one who could tolerate Harrison for more than a few seconds, so she got tagged with playing middle-man between them and the Treasury agents.

Since Darien had gone in and scoped the place out six hours earlier, not much had happened.  Jamal had yet to return, and the two known to be inside hadn't left.  It had been a night of hurry up and wait for the warrant to come through.

"Nope, not yet," Hobbes responded automatically, eyes glued to the binoculars trained on the warehouse loading dock.

Darien sighed.  "I could be home, curled up in my bed...."

"Snoring loud enough to wake the dead," Hobbes interjected.

"Look who's talking there, pal.  Wasn't my sinuses that did a fair imitation of a Wendigo mating call at that Indian reservation."  Darien slid his foot off the dashboard and dropped it back to the floorboard with a thunk. 

Hobbes snorted.  "Well, you did get yourself a date out of it.  You can thank me later."

"Cute, Hobbesy, real cute."  The night had dragged on interminably and they'd worn out just about every discussion topic imaginable; the latest movie releases, the weather, the current detours due to road construction and the best routes to avoid them, the Padres and their once again less than stellar season, the trial Hobbes was serving on, and his interrupted dessert.  It was obvious to Darien that his friend really liked Terri and he hoped that things would work out for the couple.  Bobby deserved some happiness in his life that didn't revolve around the Agency.

Hell, they all deserved a life outside of work.

"So, you like this Terri chick?"

Hobbes lowered the binoculars and turned to face his partner.  "Yeah, Fawkes, I do.  You wanna make something of it?"

Darien shook his head.  "Nope.  Just... what about Claire?"

Hobbes blinked.  "What about her?"

"Oh, come on, Hobbesy, you tryin' to tell me you ain't in love with her no more?"  Darien tried not to smirk as he stomped all over what was normally a very touchy subject.  After several not-dates between the couple Darien had been near-certain they were getting set to, well.... couple.

Hobbes frowned.  "How many times do I hafta tell ya? I don't fish off the company pier - ever."

"And that, my friend, does not answer the question," Darien observed astutely.  "You've been crazy about her for years. You just can't turn it on and off like a switch."

"Fawkes," Hobbes growled in exasperation.

"Hobbesy, buddy, screw the company pier and go for it.  You know you want to." Darien wished he could get it through his friend's thick skull that even if it didn't work out it would be more than worth it to try.

"What I want don't matter," Hobbes stated.  "Now shut up about it."

Darien opened his mouth for some witty repartee, but Hobbes held up a warning finger.

"Don't even think about it."

Darien closed his mouth and grinned.  "My, my, my.  Touchy are we?"

"Don't make me do something we'll both regret," Hobbes snapped, a hint of amusement lighting up his eyes.

"Like what, stick a gland in my brain and make me an indentured servant to some nameless government agency?"  Darien held up a finger and paused for dramatic effect.  "Oh, wait...."

"Fawkes, you...." Hobbes stopped as headlights appeared around the corner of Andrews' warehouse.  "We got company."

Darien sat up straight; the night suddenly becoming interesting again.

Hobbes picked up the Nextel phone.  "Monroe, you got incoming."

The phone made its distinctive beep and Alex's voice came back with, "We see them."

The SUV pulled to a stop by the loading docks and three men exited.  Darien immediately recognized Jamal and one of the others from the house in Escondido.  "That's our guys," he said softly.  One unlocked and slid up the huge bay door while the others, including Jamal, went to the rear of the vehicle, and opened it.  They began unloading boxes and carrying them inside.  "Want I should check it out?"

Hobbes shook his head, eyes once again glued to the binoculars.  "Not yet. It just looks like more clothes.  Monroe."

"Hobbes."

"Any word on that warrant?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Lucky for us, Judge Zellar is a light sleeper. They rousted him out of bed for a signature.  They found Jamal and Andrews' prints all over the house, including the bleach bottles and on the misprinted money from our first visit.  But the capper was the printing ink found in the carpet under that piece-o-crap love seat in the living room."  Alex's glee was audible even through the wireless connection.  "Thanks to Fawkes' little excursion and the video of the printing press in the warehouse we got the warrant."

"Hallelujah," Darien praised, lifting his hands and eyes skyward.  "Can we get this party started?"

Hobbes grinned. "We're on our way, Monroe."

The false dawn was giving away to sunrise as they made their way from Golda to the Treasury van where Harrison and Alex were discussing their next move.  If the term 'discussing' was used loosely, that is.  Alex looked pissed, which was never a good thing.

"We doing this or not?" Hobbes asked, cutting off Harrison's acerbic response.

"Not till the warrant actually shows up," Alex snarled, glaring at Harrison.  "It should be here in 10 minutes, tops."

"Crap.  We gotta wait some more?" Darien complained, immensely tired of sitting around and doing nothing.

Harrison leveled a dangerous glare at Darien.  "Yes, you have to wait.  You have a problem with that?"

"If I do?" Darien replied belligerently.

Alex placed a hand on his chest, stopping his forward momentum.  "Fawkes, cool it.  We need the arrest to be above board to find out where the bombs are.  Got it?"

Darien backed off, not the least bit happy, but knowing she was right.  "Got it."  He was seriously concerned that every moment they waited was one less they had to stop whatever it was that was going down.

"Fawkesy, I know it's tough, but sometimes you got to play by the rules."  Hobbes was conciliatory, but also adamant.

Darien sighed.  "Now you want to follow the rules.  Sheesh.  Make up your stinkin' minds, would ya?"

Harrison turned beet red, but Alex chuckled, catching on that Darien was doing his damnedest to get Harrison's goat.  Darien was just surprised it was so easy to do.

Alex motioned for Hobbes and Darien to back away from the van and spoke quietly.  "When we go in, I want you two after Andrews and Hajiri. We can't afford to let them get away."

Hobbes nodded in agreement.  "They won't be easy to break," he pointed out.

"If we get them, we won't need to.  Their followers will be more likely to spill if we get their leaders.  Show them they aren't infallible."  Alex looked grim.

"Cut off the head and the limbs will wither and die," Darien stated.  It wasn't a quote, though it sounded like one, but was an accurate metaphor.

"Exactly, " Alex agreed.  "They're fanatics, but we can use that to our benefit if we play this right."

"Do we know which way this Hajiri, swings?  Is he one of bin Laden's disciples?"  It was very astute question from Hobbes, and an important one.  If he and his people truly believed they were doing God's work, and that they would be rewarded should they die while doing said work, then there would be little that would persuade them to talk.  Zealots and fanatics, though related, were two entirely different animals.

Alex shook her head.  "No, we don't.  Prior to their entry to the US, they were off the radar and we're having very little success tracking their past movements.  Once this is resolved, we'll probably need to go to Homeland Security with what we have.  It's likely this is not the only cell in the area."

"So we play it by ear." Hobbes removed his gun from the holster and checked the action.  "Once we have them in custody we'll get the info we need."  You just had to love the certainty Bobby Hobbes exuded when in his element.

The radio in the van crackled to life.  "Harrison, Nichols is here with the warrant."

"And the assault team?" Harrison asked, glancing over at the Agency people.

"Neitsson brought six from Homeland Security." Thomas informed them.

Darien's eyebrows rose on that one.  Looked like someone besides the Agency was taking this situation seriously. "Neitsson, huh?"

"Playing with the big boys now, Fawkes.  Better be on your toes."  Hobbes was very serious, every paranoid bone in his body suddenly on high alert.

"Always, my friend," Darien assured him as the air about them became charged in anticipation.

"As soon as they're in position, we'll go," Harrison told them, taking control of the operation for the time being.  While Darien would have preferred Alex or Hobbes running the show, anyone would do at this point so long as it got done.  "Agent Neitsson's team will go in first and secure the building.  Your team will go in only after he calls an all-clear."

Alex frowned.  "My guys...."

"Aren't wearing body-armor," Harrison pointed out.

Alex sighed.  "Right." She turned to the partners.  "Okay, guys, new game plan."

"I sneak in and make sure the big cheeses don't get away," Darien suggested, nearly certain that was going to be her idea, but she surprised him by shaking her head.

"No.  We wait."  Darien started to protest but she added, "Fawkes, I won't to lose you to friendly fire."

"She's got a point, my friend.  The good guys won't able to see you any more than the bad guys," Hobbes said, taking her side on this occasion.

"But..."

"No buts, Fawkes.  We play it safe this time around."  Alex got that stubborn look on her face that Darien had come to know very well, and he knew there would be no convincing her.  Not that he wanted to rush in and get his ass shot at by both sides, mind you. But still. He was enough of an agent by now to chafe under the delay.

"They're gonna screw it up," Darien grumbled.

"If they do, we'll fall back and punt," Hobbes stated as if it were the most brilliant response ever.

"Huh?"  Alex gave him the 'are you nuts?' look.  "What is that supposed to mean?"

Darien snickered and glanced at Hobbes.  "Girls just don't get sports metaphors."

Alex glared.

"It means, Miss Five Star-A, that we do what we do best," Darien explained.

"'What we do best?'  We tend to screw up more often than.... Oh." Alex dropped her head, shaking it in disbelief.

"Exactly.  Who better than us to save a fubared situation?" Hobbes said with a grim smile.

"Yeah.  You could say we're experts at it," Darien added.  It was a harsh truth, but the truth nonetheless.

Alex's brow knit, causing dainty wrinkles to form.  "Who knew being underfunded could be so useful."

Darien wanted to make some comment about how using ingenuity would always be his choice over relying on technology, but shouts of "Freeze" and "Federal Agents" interrupted his train of thought.  There was a staccato bark of gunfire, but it didn't last for very long, and within a few short minutes, the "all-clear" came across the radio.

That was the cue for the Treasury and Agency personnel to head in.  There were a total of six people in custody, three of whom Darien recognized from his first foray into the house, but none were the supposed ring leaders.

"Where's Andrews and Hajiri?" Alex demanded. 

Harrison blinked.  "I don't know.  They should be here."

"Unless your team missed them, again," Darien snarked, reminding the man of the previous fiasco at the warehouse.

"Not a chance.  I made sure that wouldn't happen again."  Based on the look on his face, Darien believed him.  Heads would roll if Andrews and Hajiri had slipped past the Treasury mooks again.

"Then they're inside," Hobbes said.  "Fawkes."

"Yeah. Let's find 'em."  There was no hesitation in Darien; if anything there was excitement at the potential danger to come.  It was just one more confirmation that he'd traded the adrenaline high of thieving for that of a spy.  And if he stopped to think about it too long, it was too weird for words.

He led the way into the building, being the only one of them to have been inside before, past the group of men sitting handcuffed by the loading dock, through the stacks of bogus consumer goods and towards the offices where he'd seen the pair go earlier.  The first two rooms were completely empty; the third had tables set up and scraps of wire and electronic bits scattered about.

"The bombs?" Darien guessed, picking up a small piece of wire.  Yeah, it was evidence, but it was so thin that there was little chance it would have retained enough of a print to matter.

"Fair bet," Alex answered.

"Cells or talkies?" Hobbes mused aloud.

"Cells."  Alex sounded far too confident for Darien's liking.  "They removed the GPS chips."  She waved at the tiny bits of circuit boards lying about.

"That's a lot of phone calls to make."  Darien noted there were a half-dozen of the discarded chips on the table.

"Not if they reprogrammed them.  One call and...."

"Boom," Darien said, finishing Hobbes' thought.

"Don't freak out yet.  We don't even know if there's more than one target."  Alex headed to the door since there were still more rooms to double-check.

Hobbes had a thoughtful look on his face.

"What're you thinking?" Darien asked.

Hobbes shook his head.  "Not sure.  The pieces are here, I know it.  I just can't quite put them together."

"You will, " Darien assured him and having every confidence in his partner.

The next room was empty save for some build-it-yourself metal shelving that hid a second door, all but invisible until the light was turned on.   "Why do I have the feeling they missed it?"  Darien's question was purely rhetorical.

Alex responded anyway.  "Because you have good instincts."  She directed Hobbes to cover her.  Darien, being unarmed as usual, moved out of any possible line of fire.  He hoped.

From the offside, Alex yanked open the door, while Hobbes aimed his Colt at the space revealed, prepared to fire should it be necessary.

It was a closet.  An empty closet.

So the sudden loud report that sounded in the distance startled Darien so badly that the Quicksilver flowed and he vanished from the waist down.

The three of them rushed form the room, chasing down the shouts and curses that were coming from the far left side of the building.  They arrived just in time to see a dark-colored pick-up truck smash its way through one of the unopened roll up doors and race away.

"Well that can't be good," Darien muttered.

"Uh, Fawkes," Alex choked, yanking him behind a pile of boxes.

"What?"

"You might want to take a moment to find yourself."  She directed his attention to his lack of visible lower appendages.

"Oh."  He took a deep, calming breath and the Quicksilver cascaded off his body in a glitter-like shower.

Hobbes had kept going, bellowing at the top of his lungs. "What the hell happened here?"

"They...." Harrison began.

"You said it was clear," Hobbes shouted over him.  "Who was in the truck?"  He spun away from Harrison, clearly not about to listen to a word the man said. 

One of the Homeland Security agents with Lyman stenciled over his left breast pocket stepped forward.  "Andrews and Hajiri.  We missed them during our sweep."  He had the good graces to sound contrite.  "They may have been up in the catwalk when we made our initial recon."

"Which would be why you missed them."  Hobbes sounded unhappy, but no longer furious.  Not even Darien had noticed the series of catwalks overhead.  He'd only looked for security cameras his first time in and they typically wouldn't be mounted 20 feet up amongst the I-beams and catwalks.  There just hadn't been any real reason to examine the ceiling on his previous forays.

Alex and Darien joined the crowd on the loading dock while the DHS agents swept the building again.

"So who did we get?" Alex queried as she checked out the handcuffed men.  Darien recognized Sekkim, Massoud and Jamal -- AKA J-Bird -- from the house, but the other two, both painfully young black kids, one barely 16 years old, were unfamiliar to him.  They all wore identical blank looks that did not bode well for getting anything of value out of them.

Hobbes had wandered over to the pile of boxes they'd been unloading when the raid had taken place.  He opened one, then another, then several more almost frantically.  "Monroe, Fawkes, get over here."

Hobbes held a sweatshirt against his chest.  It was a garish combination of violet and canary yellow that made even Darien cringe.  It read, 'St. Andrews Christian Academy.'

"It's ugly," Alex observed.

"Can't argue with that, sister," Darien agreed.  He dug into another box and came up with a far more sensible color scheme of navy blue and white that had 'Mission Hills Preparatory' on it.  "Why does this sound familiar?"

" 'Cause both of these were on that schedule we found in the computer," Hobbes told them, his look dark.

"Oh, that is so not good." Darien dropped the sweatshirt as if it were on fire.  "How many schools?"

"At least a dozen." Alex pulled the shirts out of the boxes. "Harrison," she shouted.

The man in question twisted about.  "What?"

"Did they stop the truck?"

He shook his head.  "No.  They tried to follow but took several rounds. Why?"

Alex swore softly.  "Of course they got away.  Can't have anything go right, now can we?"

Darien and Hobbes exchanged a look that clearly said the current situation was par for the course.

"Monroe...." Hobbes called to get her back on track.

"I'll get the schedule from the hard drive and compare it to the names on the clothes.  You," she pointed at Hobbes, "find out what they're planning."

"And when," Darien added.

"That schedule was for Sunday... Today." Hobbes rubbed his face in his hands.  "Find out where the games are.  We'll find the bombs and disarm them."

"Hobbes, they'll be all over the county."  Darien swallowed past the horrid sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Then we'd better get moving."  Hobbes stalked over to the men sitting on the hard concrete floor.  They had shifted into two distinct groups, the neo-Islamics studiously ignoring the two middle-easteners, proving there was no love lost between the two groups even though they were ostensibly working together towards a common goal.

Hobbes grabbed Jamal by his shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. "How many?"

"Screw you," was the growled response, but Hobbes had a full mad on and wasn't the least bit impressed by the wiry black man.  Jamal was nearly Darien's height and about 50 pounds heavier -- all of it muscle.  The guy was all bad-ass and could probably have flattened Hobbes in a fair fight.  The fight, however, was going to be anything but fair.  Hobbes gave Jamal one mighty shove that sent him stumbling backwards.  With his hands cuffed behind his back he was unable to keep his balance and crashed into a pile of neatly stacked boxes, spilling faux designer jeans across the floor.  Hobbes pursued in a far more controlled manner and planted his knee in the fallen man's thigh, making him screech in pain.

"How many?"

"Go to hell!"

"Agent Hobbes...." Harrison's intrusion was neither wanted nor needed.

"Back off, " Alex intervened, getting all five foot three inches right into Harrison's face and preventing him from stopping Hobbes.  What Darien found really interesting was that the DHS agents did nothing. Just held their weapons over-compensation and watched.

"Hobbes, shift to your left. Maybe it'll encourage him to use the head with the brain," Darien suggested, wondering how much they'd be allowed to get away with in the name of the greater good.

Hobbes began to do exactly that when the youngest kid squalled, "Seven. We made seven bombs."

Hobbes' head swiveled to focus on the kid, who was visibly shaken.  "Where are they?"

"Don't you say a word, Toby, or I'll cut your tongue out."  J-bird's threat was no joke, based on the way the kid paled under his dark skin.

"If you don't, you'll go down for murder," Alex said coldly.  "Having your tongue cut out will seem pleasant compared to what will happen to you in prison."

The poor kid looked like he was going to faint.  "Under the bleachers," he stuttered.  "Signal's s'posed to be sent at 1:30."

Hobbes clambered off Jamal, dragged him to his feet, and handed him off to Lyman, who made no attempt to assist the limping man other than to keep him upright.

"You are useless fools," Sekkim shouted.  "It is no wonder you live in such filth and squalor.  It is all your kind deserves."  The man looked ready to explode, spittle foaming in the corners of his mouth, eyes wild.

His buddy barked something in Farsi, which did nothing to cool his temper.  He just stopped yelling in English.  It was clear to Darien that the partnership between the two groups had just come to a screeching halt.

Every time Sekkim paused for breath, Massoud would speak quietly and calmly, seemingly unperturbed by the vitriol being spewed by his friend.  Eventually, his tactic worked; Sekkim's temper cooled and the words came at a more normal pitch.

Darien was kind of surprised the DHS agents had allowed the chatter to go on for so long until he noticed Agent Neitsson watching the pair with a look of concentration.  He'd stayed in the background once the men had been rounded up, which was probably a smart move as it wasn't likely the Arabs would have spoken so freely if they suspected there was someone around who might understand them.

The conversation finally trailed off, Sekkim bowing his head down in apparent submission though his body still trembled with suppressed anger.

Neitsson moved to one side, waving for the Agency people to join him.  Harrison and Nichols saw the party forming and swiftly moved to join it.

"We may have a problem," Neitsson said once all were gathered together.

"What kind of problem?" Harrison asked.

Neitsson ignored him and faced Alex.  "Were any of the schools Jewish?"

Alex looked down at her cell phone screen.  "One. Beth-El. Why?"

"They mentioned a 'temple' and that we'd never make the connection to the games," Neitsson explained.

"The kid did say seven bombs," Darien reminded them.  "How many teams?"

"Twelve, " Alex informed him.

"One under the bleachers at each, plus an extra." Hobbes did the math.  "Crap."

A half-dozen people all looked at their watches.  "Just after nine," Darien got out first.  "We've got four hours to find and disarm seven bombs."

"I'll get directions to all the games, "Alex said, dialing her cell phone.  Harrison, can you get us the manpower?"

Neitsson was the one who answered.  "You'll have it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Act 3

Sunday mid-afternoon, October 29^th

Families and players milled about in confusion at the far end of the parking lot, held in place by a swarm of the San Diego Police Department's finest men and women in blue.  Darien was sitting on the grass, his head between his knees, his skin an unpleasant shade of nausea green.  He'd been the one to discover the tightly packed explosives at the bottom of an innocuous-looking box filled with bottles of Gatorade.  People had already arrived to stake out the best spots so he'd done the only thing he could and Quicksilvered his hands, hoping like hell the frosting effect would disable the device until the bomb squad arrived and could disarm or destroy the thing.

With so many bombs in so many places, assistance had been called in from everywhere, including the local military bases.  There was currently a squad of Marines poring over every square inch of Temple Beth-El to find the bomb they believed to be planted there.

Alex appeared with a scum shake in one hand and a candy bar in the other and handed both to Darien.  The stress of the whole bomb in his hands thing coupled with Quicksilver use and exhaustion had done him in.

"Monroe, what's the word?" Hobbes asked, watching an officer wearing full bomb gear carry the disarmed bomb to the holding tank where it would be transported to a safe location and detonated.

"Good and bad, like always."  Even the indomitable Alex Monroe was starting to feel the stress.  "They found all six of the bombs planted at the games and disarmed them."

"But?" Darien supplied around a mouthful of Snickers.

"But they haven't found anything at Beth-El.  Their team was playing an away game, so, except for some clerical staff and the Rabbi, the place was deserted," Alex explained.

"That kid wasn't lying," Darien argued, running a hand through his unkempt hair.  It was drooping noticeably by that point.

"Too scared to be lying," Hobbes agreed. "Monroe there was a bunch of directions on that computer.  Have all of them been identified?"  He had the sinking feeling that they'd missed something of great import.

"Let's find out."  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed.  While waiting for it to connect, she waved over Agent Neitsson, who had rejoined them after his team had successfully disarmed the bomb at Trinity Prep.  "Cirocco, Monroe here.  I need you to crosscheck those maps with the game locales."  There was silence, Alex tapping her foot on the short grass in impatience.  "Yes.  Where?  Send it to my cell.  Thanks."  She did something with her phone and the tiny LCD screen lit up with a map.  "Cirocco said there was one address that didn't match."

"Lemme guess; to another Synagogue."  Hobbes wasn't the least bit surprised.

"Yes.  The Etz-Chaim Synagogue in Chula Vista." She glanced at her watch.  "It's noon and we're in Poway.  We've got a decision to make here...."

"No we don't. The bomb's at Etz Chaim," Neitsson interrupted, his face grim.

"And how can you be sure of that?" Hobbes scoffed.  It wasn't that he disliked the man, the guy had played it straight from the get go, but he just wanted to be certain they weren't heading out on a snipe hunt.

"Because Rabbi Silverstein's son's bar mitzvah is today," Neitsson explained, but it meant nothing to Hobbes.  Why was some kid's coming of age ceremony of interest to a bunch of terrorists?

Darien groaned.  "The one that Afghan holy man is attending?  Abdul-Raafi' Bhutti?"

Both Hobbes and Monroe stared at Darien.

"What?  It was in the paper.  He's big on tolerance and peace and stuff."  Darien slowly got to his feet, towering over all of them.

"He and the Rabbi attended the same college and are very good friends.  His attendance at the bar mitzvah is of the utmost importance to his goals.  It would be proof that peace is possible."  Neitsson was obviously anything but thrilled at the prospect of the event going up in a fireball -- either figurative or literal.

"Which is just what Hajiri and his buddies don't want," Hobbes sagely stated.

"Plus there are dozens of other VIPs attending, including Erik Dickerson."  Monroe rubbed the back of her neck, a gesture far more common to Fawkes.

"The philanthropist?"  Hobbes threw up his hands.  "Any chance the Pope is attending too?  Might as well make a clean sweep of things."

"No, but Senator Miriam Copper is."  Neitsson informed them, a frown on his face.

"Oh, that's just perfect."  Ms. Copper was a huge proponent of gay rights and a self-proclaimed bisexual.  Sounding as frustrated as he felt, Hobbes asked, "What would happen if these people die?"

Neitsson blanched. "Religious war.  Here.  On American soil."

"Crap," Fawkes muttered.  "Any chance there's security we can warn?"

"No." Neitsson pulled out his cell phone.

"It would contradict the whole point of the event if there was security or a massive media presence."  Monroe tucked a stray hair behind her ear.  "They've got it handled here.  We'll head to Etz-Chaim and see if we can find the bomb."

Fawkes rubbed his hands together.  "Goody, my first bar mitzvah." He turned to Hobbes.  "And what, exactly, is the best way to crash one a'these shindigs?"

"Like I'd know?" Hobbes snarked, not in the mood for games.

Fawkes raised an eyebrow.  "Well, I'm pretty sure you're the only one a'us who's been mitzvahed."

"Oh. Yeah."  Hobbes crossed his arms over his chest, thinking about the question seriously.  "We ain't got time for the formalities.  We do what we gotta do and apologize later."

"After we've disarmed the bomb," Monroe said, voice firm.

"And saved the day, of course," Fawkes said with a wry grin.

"Of course," Monroe acknowledged.  "We'll take your van." She told Hobbes, then smiled at Agent Neitsson.  "Care to join us?"

He nodded.  "I'll pull together what men I can, but with seven crime scenes, we're spread pretty thin already."

Together they made for Golda at a fast walk.  "Pull half the men off Beth-El and have them meet us at Etz-Chaim ASAP," Hobbes suggested.

"Half?" Fawkes sounded confused.

"Just in case the bomb is there," Monroe said as she slid open the side door of the van and gestured for Neitsson to precede her.

"Strap in," Hobbes ordered as he climbed into the driver's seat, pulled a red light from the glove box, set it on the dash, and turned it on.

Hobbes drove like a man possessed, weaving in and out of traffic, and yelling at other drivers when they didn't get out of the way fast enough.  His efforts, including some questionable shortcuts, got them to the synagogue in record time.

There were two parking lots, one in front, and another around back, marked specifically for deliveries, according to the sign posted along the driveway.  There were three buildings, the largest the temple itself, a grand edifice done in muted browns and yellows with a gold dome at the top.  Connected by enclosed corridors on either side were less elaborate buildings, one probably the reception hall based on the streamers and balloons decorating the main entrance, and the other perhaps a school, its windows dark.

They all boiled out of the van and stood there for a moment, just looking at the buildings.

"Now, if I were a bomb, where would I be?" Fawkes asked facetiously for so serious a question.

"Reception hall or temple?" Hobbes countered, giving the two most likely choices and knowing it could go either way.

Monroe said, "Temple," the same time Fawkes said "Reception hall."

Hobbes rolled his shoulders.  "What time was the bar mitzvah supposed to start?"

Neitsson looked at his watch.  "Now."

Hobbes made an arbitrary decision.  "You two take the temple, we'll take the reception hall."

"Works," Monroe agreed, then she and Neitsson trotted off to the main entrance.

"C'mon, Fawkes, let's see if they have any gefilte fish at the buffet."  Hobbes led the way to the double doors decorated with dark blue and white streamers and balloons.

Fawkes shuddered dramatically.  "I'll stick to food I can spell, thank you very much."

Hobbes flung open the doors and charged inside to find nothing but the usual accoutrements for a party.  Streamers and banners and balloons and tables and flowers and a million other places a bomb could be hidden.

"Where do we start?"  The concern in Fawkes' voice made Hobbes' heart tighten in sympathetic fear.

"By talking to them." Hobbes pointed at a pair of white jacketed waiters hovering over the buffet tables.  "Though I gotta say, x-ray vision would be handy about now."

"I'll mention it to the Keep, see what she can do," Fawkes quipped with tongue firmly in cheek.

"You do that."

A man wearing a black jacket that matched the other two hurriedly approached them, a deep frown etched into his features.  "Gentlemen, I'm afraid...."

Hobbes whipped out his badge.  "Federal Agents.  You in charge here?"

The man, momentarily taken aback at the badge, found his backbone and stood up straight.  He was maybe an inch shorter than Hobbes.  "Yes. Miles Davidson.  But it was made clear that there is to be no security...."

Hobbes cut him off.  "Who did the set-up? You?  Anyone new?"

"Yes and no?"

"What about deliveries.  Any unusually large or odd-looking ones?"  Fawkes questioned, getting that it was better not to come right out ask, 'was a bomb delivered?' to the guy, who'd probably freak out.

"No... Wait.  One of the floral displays was late."

"Late?  How late?"  Hobbes wanted to grab the man and shake the answers out of him, but knew they'd actually come no faster that way.

"Minutes ago, just before the ceremony began.  They said something about an accident delaying them."  Mr. Davidson was sweating now and beginning to looked seriously concerned.

"Where?"

Davidson stared at them blankly.

"Where are the flowers?"  Fawkes expanded, which was effective in snapping the guy out of his momentary stupor.

"In the Temple.  On the floor.  By the bimah."

The partners glanced at each other, mutual expressions of 'oh crap' on their faces.   As one, they bolted for the door.

"No, no," Davidson shouted, bringing them to a skidding halt on the tiled floor.  "This way."  At a run he led them to another door, one that opened on the corridor that connected the two buildings.  "They went through here."

"A shortcut.  Thanks," Fawkes said as he charged through the door.

"What should I do?" Davidson asked as Hobbes went past him.

"Pray," he suggested, then took off after Fawkes.

The windows lining the hall revealed a florist's truck sitting in the rear parking area, the door at the midpoint of the corridor still propped open.  Approaching them from the opposite direction were two men dressed in black slacks and vibrant yellow shirts with the florist's logo on the breast.

Fawkes twitched as if electro-shocked.  "That's them.  Hajiri and Andrews," he hissed.

Hobbes went instantly on alert and pulled his gun.  "Federal Agents.  Freeze."  He shifted to an all out run, hoping to intercept them before they made it to the open door.

Andrews froze for an instant while Hajiri broke into a sprint, heading for that doorway.  Andrews got his act together and followed a split second later.

Hobbes got there first, slowing to a walk and taking aim at Hajiri.  "Stop or I'll shoot."  He planned to disable, not kill.  Couldn't question a dead man, after all.

Both men stopped, watching Hobbes carefully. Hajiri's hand dove into his pocket, the boldness of the move expressive of his contempt.

"Hands where I can see 'em," Hobbes ordered, thumbing off his safety, and making sure the gun was aimed directly at Hajiri.  "Nice and slow, now."

Hajiri's hand came out, holding an active cell phone, finger resting atop the send button.  

Hobbes stopped, placing himself between the men and their escape.  "You make that call and you'll be killed too."

Hajiri tipped his head slightly to the side.  "I am prepared to die for my beliefs.  Are you?"

There was a time, not so long ago, that Hobbes would have given an unequivocal yes to that question.  That he would have sacrificed his life for God and country in a heartbeat. But now?  Now, he had a duty to protect Fawkes, a motivation that was turning out to be far stronger than his duty as an agent. 

"No need to get jumpy, my friend."  Hobbes carefully lowered the gun and slid it back into its holster.  He was hoping like hell to buy some time, not to mention options.  Too bad life wasn't more like Wheel of Fortune, where buying a vowel was easy as pie.

Hajiri's lips twisted into the parody of a smile but didn't put away the cell phone. The threat of immanent death by a shrapnel-laden fireball was still very much present.

Andrews tugged on his partner's sleeve.  "C'mon, man.  You may be willing to die over this, but I ain't."

"So little faith, my friend," Hajiri said in mock dismay.  "Don't worry, he will let us pass unharmed.  After all, why should he risk his life for these infidels?"

"And maybe I'm just waiting for my partner to make his move," Hobbes commented sardonically.  He'd felt the temperature drop behind him about the same time this stalemate had started, and done his best to keep their attention on him and give Fawkes a chance to get closer without giving himself away in the close confines of the corridor.

Malcolm's eyes narrowed.  "Where'd the other one go?"

"Right here," Fawkes' ghostly voice came from right beside Malcolm.  Both men jerked about to stare at the spot where Fawkes had spoken from, and Malcolm's head suddenly snapped back, his lip split open as an invisible fist struck home.

Hobbes, taking advantage of the distraction, rushed Hajiri, knocking him to the floor.  Hobbes got his hand on the wrist holding the phone and slammed it into the wall until it was released and tumbled away.  Hajiri shouted in pain and swung his free hand to connect with the side of Hobbes' head.

The world exploded into a billion bright stars, but he held on, not about to let Hajiri get away again.  They struggled for what seemed like an eternity, until there was a crash and the shattering of glass.  Seconds later strong hands grabbed the back of Hobbes jacket, yanked him off the other man, and threw him bodily into the far wall.  Blackness encroached, but he held on, forcing himself to remain conscious.  Through the ringing in his head, he heard voices.

"We gotta get outta here, man," Andrews barked.

That was followed by what Hobbes assumed was swearing in Farsi, then footsteps running away.

With a groan of pain, Hobbes levered himself up into a sitting position, needing the wall as support for the time being.  Standing was very much out of the question until the room stopped swaying about him.  He closed his eyes and took several slow, deep breaths, as the world ceased its rotation about him then opened his eyes.

"Fawkes?" he croaked.  Squinting in an attempt to focus, he let his eyes wander over the corridor looking for his partner, who was nowhere to be seen.  A rush of fear-induced adrenaline sent him surging to his feet.  "Fawkes?" he shouted.

"Here," Darien mumbled, appearing in the busted out window.  He had a fair-sized goose-egg over his left eye, was bleeding from several small cuts on his face, and his jacket had a new set of ragged tears, but otherwise he appeared to be unhurt.

"Tossed through the window?" Hobbes asked, though it was pretty obvious that was what had happened.

"Looks that way."  Fawkes gingerly touched his cheek, then examined his bloody fingertips.  "He clipped me a good one on the chin and after that things get fuzzy around the edges."

Hobbes looked out the window at the parking lot. The florist truck was gone.  "They got away.  We gotta find that bomb."

Fawkes cautiously leaned into the corridor, mindful of the glass still in the frame.  "Phone."

Hobbes patted his pockets, searching for his cell phone.

"Not that one," Fawkes pointed at the floor. "That one."

Hobbes bent down and picked it up; not quite believing what he was seeing.  "He hit send."

"Nuh-uh."

"See for yourself, hotshot."  Hobbes held the phone so his partner could see the display.  It claimed to be connected to 'home.'

"Then why are we still alive?"  The confusion in Fawkes' voice was clear and justified.

Hobbes felt the blood drain from his face as understanding dawned.  If the phone wasn't the trigger for the bomb, then...  "Fawkes, get yer ass in here.  We gotta find that bomb pronto."

Fawkes shook his head, but stopped quickly as he turned a lovely shade of nausea green.  "Uh, what's the prob?  There was no boom, right?"

"Who says this called our bomb?" Hobbes explained, and watched the understanding dawn on his friend's eyes.

"He bluffed," Fawkes groused as he vanished from the window and reappeared in the doorway.  Seconds later, they were running down the corridor for the temple proper.

"And we fell for it," Hobbes panted, his aching body rebelling against the hurried movement.

Fawkes slowed just enough to yank open the door.  "Well, it was a good bluff."

"Yeah, it was," Hobbes agreed, head pounding in time to his heartbeat.

They found themselves in a small room used as little more than a baffle to keep sounds from the corridor from penetrating into the main gallery. A voice speaking Hebrew echoed off the walls of the vaulted room.  Poking their heads out, they spotted Neitsson and Monroe talking to someone off to the far right.

"Hobbes," Fawkes gestured with his chin, "any bet those are the flowers?"

In the center of the room was the raised bimah. The Rabbi and a young boy, presumably his son, were standing before the lectern, on which lay the unrolled Torah.  On the floor were three massive floral arrangements in decorative white baskets.

Their eyes met.  "Go," Hobbes ordered and Fawkes shot forward, disappearing within two long strides.  Hobbes stepped out into the open, wishing he had a yarmulke handy, but he was pretty certain he'd be forgiven for this transgression.  He did his best to remain unobtrusive while trying to catch Monroe's eye.  It didn't take long for her to notice and she left Neitsson to meet Hobbes by the vestibule.

"Tell me you have good news." She didn't appear as if she was really expecting any.

"Can we clear the building?"  Hobbes made sure she knew he was deadly serious.

She thought about it for a moment, her look dour.  "If necessary, yes," she decided.

"You might want to consider it...." Hobbes trailed off, eyes going wide as the flowers began spontaneously jumping from the baskets to land haphazardly on the floor.

Monroe spun about to follow his gaze.  "The bomb is in the flowers?" she growled softly.

"Yep," Hobbes confirmed.  "Think we should assist?"

"Oh, yeah."  Monroe strode boldly down the center aisle, with Hobbes right behind her.  They ignored the people who turned their heads, ignored the whispers and nudges as word swiftly spread from person to person.

By this point, all three baskets were denuded of their floral contents, the green floral foam exposed, and revealing LED timers counting down.  There were only 09:30 minutes remaining.

"Fawkes...."

"I think I can freeze 'em, but you might want to get the bomb squad here quick." Fawkes' voice was oddly steady for someone sitting in front of three bombs.  As they watched, frost began to form on the bomb directly in front of them.  The timer continued to count down for several more seconds, then stopped.

Hobbes breathed a sigh of relief and watched as he did the other two at the same time with equal success.

The kid on the bimah had leaned forward and was staring at them open-mouthed.

Monroe whistled for Neitsson, who swiftly joined them.  The man with him, introduced only as Muhammad, was the security chief for Mr. Bhutti and the only obvious protection that had been allowed onsite.

"Is there a problem?" Muhammad asked.

"We need to clear this building now." Hobbes directed his attention to the three ice-covered timers.

"Do it," Neitsson ordered.  "I thought there was only supposed to be one?" he asked sotto voce.

"They lied," Hobbes sniped.  "They're the bad guys; they get to do that."

Monroe ignored them and held her badge up for all to see.  "My apologies, but we have a situation and need you to exit the building in an orderly fashion."

People began to mutter and turn to each other in confusion, but no one moved.

Neitsson held up his badge.  "Homeland Security.  You need to leave.  Now."

Muhammad added his voice to the to the choir.  "You heard the man."

Within mere minutes the room was empty, except for the foursome.

Fawkes had taken advantage of the organized chaos to reappear.  Mostly.  The palms of his hands were still covered in Quicksilver as he alternated from one basket to another, keeping the timers frosty and in a state of suspended animation.

"Neitsson," Fawkes sounded extraordinarily tired.

"Bomb squad is 10 minutes out," he assured him.  "Dare I ask how you're doing that?"

"Just be glad he can," Hobbes intervened, hoping the man wouldn't push the matter.

"Don't worry, I am." Neitsson looked like he really meant it.  "How long can you do that?"

"With my ass on the line?  Long as you need," Fawkes answered, his voice betraying the exaggeration, at least to Hobbes, who knew him best, but there was nothing he could do about it right now.  Except maybe....

"So, Fawkes, how'd you like your first bar mitzvah?" he asked with casual irony.

"It was a real blast, Hobbes," Fawkes smiled fleetingly up at him. "You got any cookies and punch?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Terri finished grooming Jax, who was growing restless with the inactivity, then stood, brushing the ample dog hair off her jeans. "Ready for your walk, Jaxy?" she asked.

The dog responded as always to the word 'walk' and raced out into the hall to grab one end of his leash in strong white teeth, yanking it down off the coat tree. He returned with it to where she stood, pulling a sweatshirt with her company name on it over her head. He gave an enthusiastic 'woof' to get her attention.

"Good boy," she praised him, taking the leash and clipping the lead to his collar. This time of day on a Sunday afternoon, there should be a lot of other dogs out and about for him to play with. The off-lead area at the northern end of the park was likely to be packed.

She picked up her house keys, a credit card, her license and a twenty dollar bill, shoving them into a hip pocket, then snagged one of Jax's favorite toys, his Floppy Disk --a disk of fabric weighted along the outside edge and handed it to him. He snatched it out of her hands happily, grinning a wide doggy grin around his mouthful.

"OK, boy, ready to go?" she asked rhetorically. The frantic wagging of his tail was answer enough.

They joined the usual Sunday afternoon crowd at the fenced in greens, and Terri spent a solid 20 minutes throwing the disk for her dog. A born athlete, Jax unfailingly caught the toy out of the air in prodigious leaps, barking his happiness. Finally, with her throwing arm beginning to ache, and Jax panting hard enough that his whole body shook, she took him over to the specially designed dog-friendly water fountain for a drink.

One of Jax's favorite playmates, a two-year-old Alsatian, was already there, lapping away at the ground level water-bowl eagerly. Terri struck up a conversation with Royal's owner, an orthodontist who lived on the other side of the park from her. They exchanged small talk as their dogs greeted each other and roughhoused briefly.

"Where've you been, Terri? I haven't seen you out here all week," Peter asked, keeping half an eye on his big shepherd.

"I've had jury duty," she told him.

"God, talk about boring. I was wondering why I only saw Karen out with your client dogs this week. I guess that explains it, huh?" he grinned at her. "How much longer is it looking to be?"

"The closing arguments are supposed to get underway Monday," she said with a shrug. "Believe me, I'll be glad when I'm done. I'd rather be out here with the dogs," she added, grinning back at him. "They're way better behaved than the lawyers are, that's for sure!"

Peter laughed. "Just be glad Sarah Little and that sad excuse for a lap dog of hers aren't in earshot. You know how she feels about lawyer jokes."

Terri laughed with him. "Hey, if the shoe fits... her manners are way worse than most critters I know. Except maybe her own dog's."

"Mee-OW!" Peter mimed a hissing cat. "Your claws are sure showing, Ter."

"Yours would be too, Pete, after a week like the one I've had. I've lost all respect for the legal system. It makes me glad I'm a dog walker. Pack law is way more predictable than human law."

"Spoken like a true animal lover," he chuckled. "Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed that you get out of it sooner rather than later. Roy-Roy misses running the canine agility course with Jax every night."

"Don't worry, we'll be back as soon as I get finished down at the courthouse," she answered with a smile. "Have a good night, and say 'hi' to your wife," she added, then turned to call her dog, who was tussling playfully with Royal in the grass not far away.

"C'mon, Jax! Time for dinner," she called.

Obediently, the dog ran to her, allowing her to refasten the leash, and with a final wave at Pete and Royal, they headed for home.

October twilight was beginning to fall, the air a deepening blue by the time she exited the park. Ordinarily, she wasn't the nervous sort, but Jax's behavior since they'd left the off-leash area had been uncharacteristically skittish.

He'd refused to heel, instead tugging this way and that on the leash, lunging towards the denser stands of trees and the thickets of oleander and rhododendron that lined the main paths. At one point, he even began growling low in his throat, the hair along his spine rising in spiky tufts. He refused to greet several of their neighbors whom they encountered on the way, completely atypical behavior for him.

She knew better than to chastise him for alerting her to something he perceived as dangerous, but she was well and truly freaked out by the time she made it out onto the street.

She and her dog hurried across the crosswalk, heading towards home and safety, arriving at their front door with relief. Or at least Terri was relieved. "Come on, puppy, let's get some supper," she said as she opened the front door, Jax bounding in ahead of her.

The pre-Halloween boogey man had failed to leap out from behind a tree or parked car. Not really that much to her surprise.

Which was why she was taken totally off guard by Jax's ferocious barking, followed by a dull coughing sound and her dog's squeal and whimper of pain. "Jax!" she cried out, flipping on the foyer light and spotting her beloved pet sprawled on his side, bleeding from the shoulder, whining his pain. Standing over him was a man. A man with a gun.

At some level, she registered the danger, but her outrage had overwhelmed logic or common sense. She threw herself at him, shrieking at the top of her lungs. "You son of a bitch, you shot my dog!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Act 4

Sunday, late afternoon, October 29^th

Hobbes splashed water on his face a second time, wincing at the chill, then turned off the hose and shook his hands as dry as he could before wiping them on his grimy pants. "How ya doin' there, partner?" he asked Darien, who was still seated on the sidewalk as Monroe examined the bump on his head. Three empty bottles of Claire's super-shake and several candy wrappers, as well as an empty paper plate from the caterers littered the concrete around him.

"I've got a headache," Fawkes complained, then peered up at him. "How 'bout you?"

"Same here," he admitted, fingering the scrape on the top of his head. His fingers came away bloody, and he grimaced. "What kills me is, Hajiri and Andrews got away." He spared a glare across the street at the small cluster of Treasury agents milling around the black-and-white SDPD unit as one of the city's finest grilled one of the mitzvah guests.

"Yeah, well, at least no one really got killed," Darien grumped. "At least not this time."

Monroe rose gracefully and approached Hobbes with her mini-first aid kit. "No thanks to Harrison," Alex added bitterly, daubing antiseptic ointment on Bobby's scrape and topping it with a Band-Aid. "Remind me to give the Official a good swift kick the next time he tries to whore me out to the Treasury Department. I am so done with this kind of incompetence."

Darien got awkwardly to his feet and brushed off the seat of his cords fastidiously. Given their current condition, Bobby doubted it was going to make any difference in their cleanliness. "Makes you wish you hung around with your own home-grown incompetents more often, doesn't it?" Darien snarked.

Monroe eyed him. "I'll take playing with my home team over being the visitor any day, Fawkes."

"You sayin' we're the home team?" Fawkes asked with a cheerful grin.

"Since the first time we got James back," she confirmed with a sharp nod and tucked the kit into her purse. "So don't take this the wrong way, guys, but get lost. The two of you need showers, and probably a drink. Go. I'll file the paperwork on this one."

Both men stood there with eyebrows raised at this uncommon gesture from Monroe. "Fawkes? I think she just told us we stink," Bobby observed.

"I think you may just be right, there, my friend," Darien agreed with a double eyebrow lift. "Whaddaya say we get the heck outta here before something else happens?" he suggested.

"I say 'good idea,'" Hobbes concurred. "C'mon, Fawkes."

Together the partners shuffled wearily off in the direction of Golda, getting into the van that looked about as beat-up as they felt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Go after a man's weakness, and never, ever, threaten unless you're going to follow through, because if you don't, the next time you won't be taken seriously." A guy by the name of Roy M. Cohn said that, and scary as it sounds, the people behind Judge Hernandez definitely weren't the types to make idle threats. So when we caught a glimpse of some of them, we took it plenty seriously....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hobbes turned the corner onto Darien's street, one eye on his side view mirror. Fawkes was focused on his own side mirror. "See 'em?" Bobby asked tensely.

"Yep," Darien agreed unhappily. We've got company."

"Think it's Andrews and his boys? Hobbes speculated.

"Doesn't look like any of the cars I saw around his guys," Darien disagreed. "You tell me, Hobbesy; four-door black sedan, tinted windows, no front plates? Now who does that sound like to you?"

"Chrysalis?" Hobbes exclaimed in surprise.

Darien rolled his eyes. "OK, besides them," he said, exasperated.

Hobbes shot a glance at the mirror again. "Looks like one'a the Agency VIP cars," he said as he pulled up to the curb in front of Darien's building. The black sedan pulled over as well, a few doors down.

"Yup," Fawkes agreed. "But we don't have anything that nice."

"So what're you sayin', Fawkes? We got us some new player?"

"I'm sayin' maybe this isn't about my case, partner. Maybe this is about yours."

"Case? What ca --oh, crap. The trial. Terri! She could be in trouble, Fawkes!" There was panic in Bobby's voice as he yanked the wheel hard over and gunned the van away from the curb, screeching around to face the way they'd come in one hard turn that had Golda up on two wheels. They thumped back to the pavement and Bobby hit the gas, roaring past their tail, who had clearly been caught by surprise.

Hobbes had no interest in being followed again, so his driving was even more reckless than usual, weaving in and out of Sunday late afternoon traffic like a maniac as he headed for the nearest freeway onramp.

Darien spent most of the wild ride across town to Terri's place hanging onto the dash for dear life and keeping his eye plastered to the side mirror, on the lookout for any signs they were being tailed.

"We clear, Fawkes?" Hobbes asked grimly as he whipped Golda around a corner fast enough to catch air under two wheels.

"I think you lost them a few miles back, Hobbes," Darien replied as they came to earth with a thud for the second time in 15 minutes. "Don't waste any more time. If they've figured out the two of you've been seeing each other after hours, they know where she lives. Even if they lose us, they know where you're likely to go."

"Crap!" Bobby spared a split-second glance in Darien's direction. "You're right, dammit, you're right! When'd you get so damned smart?"

"Since I teamed up with you," Darien responded ironically.

"Fawkes. We don't have time for this. Yeah, OK, anyone looks smart next to me, I get it," Hobbes snapped, catching Darien off guard. "But right now, a woman's life may be in danger. So you with me on this or not?

"Whoa. Hobbesy. That's not what I meant. I got smart about this kinda stuff when you taught me the ropes, OK?" Darien eyed his partner worriedly.

"Sorry. Sorry, Fawkes. I'm-" the words were deeply chagrined as Bobby cast a mortified glance in Darien's direction.

"I know," Darien assured him. "Worried. Let's go check on your lady and make sure she's OK, OK? The rest of this conversation can wait."

Hobbes nodded sharply and turned onto the boulevard fronting the park Terri lived across from. Her townhouse was part of a newer complex, and there was no street parking to speak of, what with the residents in for the night. So Hobbes squeezed the van into an illegal space in front of a fire hydrant and in unison, the partners scrambled out. Bobby drew his sidearm, Fawkes on his heels as they jogged through the courtyard that led to Terri's building.

Hobbes pounded on her front door urgently. "Terri, honey, open up," he called out, rapping again. Silence met his efforts. Hobbes turned to Darien, real fear darkening his eyes. "Her dog isn't barking."

"Crap," Darien cursed. "Let me go in. Check it out. She have a back patio or anything?"

"Fawkes, she could be taking him for a walk," Hobbes warned.

Darien eyed his shorter partner. "That what your gut's telling you?" he asked with a hint of sarcasm. "I'm not thinkin' so. I'm going in." With that, Darien let the Quicksilver flow over his body and he let himself into Terri's pocket sized back yard through the side gate.

Back at the front door, Hobbes continued to knock, calling out Terri's name.

The rear of the townhouse had French doors that opened onto a small patio, invitingly decked out with wrought iron furniture. It looked like something out of a catalog, Darien noted almost in passing as he approached the doors and peered through the glass into a living room that could also have come straight from a designer showroom. The thief in him admired and evaluated the bits and pieces he could see, but the agent in him was busy looking for signs of life.

Nothing obvious met his eyes, but every instinct he had told him that if Hobbes was right, and someone had started feeling threatened by the two jurors, they could very well be using Terri as a lure to entrap Hobbes.

Darien didn't care for that idea in the slightest. While the coast looked clear, his gut told him that taking the obvious route into the house might end up getting him caught. Doors that opened by themselves tended to be noticed.

He stepped back silently, gazing up at the back façade of the place, quickly evaluating it for other ways into the home. A second story balcony overlooked the back yard, and conveniently, the walls on either side of the French doors were covered in trellises of climbing vines. A thief's delight if ever there was one.

It would have to be roses, Darien complained silently as he shimmied up the sturdy redwood slats. Thorns scratched his hands, catching in his grimy corduroy pants and clutching at his filthy t-shirt. It was a good thing he was as skinny as he was, he realized, as one rung of the trellis gave way underfoot, and he had an awful moment or two as he felt the whole structure shudder under him, wood creaking.

Moving as fast as he could, he scrambled up the last few feet of the trellis and hoisted himself onto the back balcony noiselessly. He crept to the sliding glass door and peered into what was clearly the master suite. The only illumination came from the bathroom light, but it was enough to reveal a pretty young woman in workout togs tied to a heavy leather club chair. Her captor, a featureless black shape against the illuminated doorway, faced her, a gun held casually in one hand.

So much for the 'walking the dog theory,' he thought, trying to decide what to do next. Clearly, walking straight into the bedroom wasn't the best option, either for him, for Terri. Much as he dreaded it, it looked like going down the way he'd come up and letting himself into the living room was going to be the best plan. At least that way, he could let Hobbes in on the way upstairs, and maybe together, they could come up with a way to disable the intruder before anyone got hurt.

He crossed the balcony, still invisible, and climbed rapidly down the other side, not trusting the first trellis to bear his weight again. In less than three minutes, he was on the ground and had jimmied open the doors, letting himself into the house and dropping the Quicksilver.

Darien headed straight towards the foyer, only to slip in something on the marble tile. He caught himself from falling by grabbing at the wall, and looked down to see what he'd stepped in, appalled when he saw the motionless dog on the cold floor and realized it was blood. He swore silently. Kneeling beside the animal, he was startled when the dog whimpered at his touch. He caressed the dog's head gently, hoping to comfort him. The dog licked his hand tiredly.

Rising, he made his way to the front door, unlocking and opening it. Bobby's fist was raised to knock again, and nearly smacked him on the chin as Hobbes was caught off guard by the suddenly open entrance. Hobbes started to push past him but Darien barricaded the way and bent to whisper in his partner's ear, giving him a terse sit-rep.

When he'd finished, Hobbes grabbed him by an ear and pulled his head down again so he could respond. "We go up. You go in first, saran wrapped, and I distract the perp while you check out Terri," he ordered in a whisper.

Darien shook his head. "Hobbes, we've gotta take down the bad guy before we worry about the civilians. You taught me that much," he reminded in the barest whisper.

Even in the dimness of the twilight outside the open front door Darien could see how little Bobby liked that reality check, but his bald head twitched in an affirmative nod.

"Good. I'll go in QSed, you distract him, and I'll take him down. Sound like a plan?"

Hobbes nodded again, this time more firmly, and together, the partners crept upstairs with silent speed.

Darien let invisibility cloak him again and entered the bedroom ahead of Bobby, quickly clearing the doorway so he wouldn't accidentally end up in the line of fire.

Behind him, he heard Hobbes thumb off the safety on his weapon. "Terri?"

The woman in the chair whimpered, the sound muffled, and Darien remembered she'd been gagged. The strangled scream she made confirmed it, her warning to Hobbes unintelligible, but unmistakably urgent.

The shadowy figure turned, and the light from the bathroom fell along an unremarkable profile blurred by a ski mask.

Fawkes moved around the perimeter of the room, staying as close to the walls and furniture as he could to steer clear of the potential gunfire.

Unfortunately, the gun-toting intruder stiffened as Hobbes' words betrayed his presence, his bearing tensing as the weapon came up, aiming straight at Bobby.

Panic surged through Darien and instinct kicked in. He hurled himself at the figure just as Terri gave a second muffled cry and rocked her chair over, the sound distracting the perpetrator from his target and focusing on her, instead.

Fawkes tackled the gunman as he pulled the trigger, and the silenced shot thwacked into the upholstery. Locked together, they crashed sideways onto the bed and rolled off onto the floor, still wrestling for the gun as Darien struggled to maintain enough concentration to hold the Quicksilver. Above the racket he and the intruder were making as they fought, he could hear his partner's shouted; "Fawkes! Get out of the way!"

With both hands wrapped around the intruder's gun hand, the last thing he wanted to do was let go and give the guy a chance to shoot at either Terri or Hobbes. Darien ignored the command, instead sinking his teeth into the bare flesh that showed between the attacker's long sleeved shirt and the leather gloves. He bit down hard, then let go, using the surprise his invisible attack generated to his advantage as he twisted the gun in the assailant's hands. It went off once more, this time with a sickening, wet 'thwack' of a bullet into flesh. Darien wrenched the gun away, and Hobbes was there, fury in his face like some Old Testament avenging Angel, dragging him forcefully away from Fawkes.

Bobby used his own pistol butt to clout the guy on the head. He went limp, as if he'd been pole-axed, and Hobbes slapped cuffs on him roughly. Turning to the capsized chair in which Terri was still imprisoned, tears running down her face, he crouched beside her and carefully removed the gag. "Terri. Ter, where're you hurt?" he asked, hands running lightly over her figure to check for injury.

Darien rolled out of her line of sight and let the Quicksilver go at last, a combination of adrenaline and exhaustion making him tremble.

"My leg. Oh, God, Bobby, he shot Jax," she said, voice broken and grieving. "He was trying to warn me and the bastard shot him."

"Shh, honey, shhhhh." Bobby took out his multi-tool and used the knife blade to slice through the ropes that bound her. With Darien's help, he righted the chair, lifting it upright with Terri still in it.

"Terri, I'm Bobby's partner," Fawkes introduced himself, leaning over the back of the chair to touch her on the shoulder in reassurance as Hobbes knelt in front of the chair to examine her injury. "Jax is still alive," he informed her as he pulled his cell phone out of a pocket and dialed 911. "Bobby'll make sure you get to the hospital. I'll take care of your dog," he promised. Hobbes rose and headed for the bathroom for a towel.

"There's an emergency vet on Arroyo Court about 15 minutes away," she told him tearily as Bobby returned, pressing the terrycloth against the wound in her thigh.

"I'll get him there," Darien promised again, taking the car keys Hobbes held up to him, and with a quick pat to his partner's back, he headed back downstairs just as sirens could be heard approaching in the distance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag

Monday the 30^th

Alex absently stirred her soup, figure-eights that varied in size, while she read the paper.  Though she had to wonder why she bothered, considering how little of the story they'd gotten right.  The attempted bombing of six private high school football games and the bar mitzvah of Rabbi Silverstein's son over the weekend was still making headlines. A quote from Harrison, taken completely out of context, made her shove the paper away in disgust.

Damn it, a day off shouldn't be so hard to deal with.  She was a trained agent, one of the best in the country, but here she was, bored and frustrated and mad at herself for feeling that way.

She had two things in her life right now: work and Mike.  Mike wasn't due back until late tomorrow and she was banished from work, ordered by the good Doctor Keeply to take a couple days off and recover from the whirlwind events of Sunday.

Claire was at the Agency, slaving away on her precious computer on some bit of research or other, most certainly.  Hobbes was probably visiting Miss Terri Breckmen, who was going to be just fine and would be released sometime today.  Alex had gotten a rushed version of the events of Sunday evening from Darien, and had been persuaded to call in a favor from Horace Norita to get Hernandez off the bench until her actions could be reviewed.

Maybe she should call Darien and see how that was going.  She reached for the cordless phone on the counter and picked it up just as the doorbell rang.

She set the phone back down with a grumble of irritation and went to the door.  A check out the peephole revealed the chest and neck of the man she'd been about to call.

She unlocked the door and swung it open.  Darien had plastered a smile on his face, his hair once again defying gravity.  In his hands was a fishbowl filled with water.  There was blue gravel on the bottom, a treasure chest, some live plants, and in a plastic bag also filled with water, was the ugliest fish she'd ever seen.

It was a sickening combination of mottled black and gold with patches of pinkish-white that looked remarkably like decaying flesh.

"Can I come in?" he requested, the bruise on his forehead a dark purple that looked horrid against his tan.

"Oh, sure." She waved him in and shut the door.  She followed him back to the kitchen where he'd set the bowl on the counter.  "What in heaven's name is that?"  She pointed at the bubble-eyed, ratty-finned monstrosity.

Darien ducked his head and met her eyes through those long lashes of his.  "Something to come home to."

"So? How'd it go?" Darien asked curiously, sliding over to the passenger seat as Bobby climbed into the van. He'd delivered Monroe's gift while Hobbes was reporting to the courthouse, and he'd been sitting in the van in front of the justice building for about 15 minutes, waiting for his partner to finish up inside.

"I was just gonna ask you the same thing. How'd Monroe like Igor?" Hobbes inquired as he fastened his seatbelt.

Darien grinned. "She thinks he's about the ugliest thing she's ever seen."

Hobbes snickered slightly. "She's right about that, anyway," he concurred. "Still, not every accessory in that place of hers has to look like it came from a museum. Do her good to have something that doesn't go with everything else."

"He's not an accessory, Hobbes. He's a pet. You know, like Darien-the-rat was. Pets don't have to match the drapes."

"It's a sure bet that fish won't match anything in her place," Bobby laughed a little.

"So what happened in court?" Darien changed the subject.

Hobbes sobered instantly. "The jurors are off the hook. They declared a mistrial and Chan stays in lockup until someone figures out what the hell is going on. Looks like Judge Hernandez has been suspended pending investigation, so at least she can't set any more low-life scum loose," he replied, starting the engine. "Whoever was behind Hernandez has done a vanishing act that makes one of David Copperfield's stunts look like amateur hour. Unless they can put some pressure on her Honor, we may never find out what the hell was going on with the Chan case."

Darien slouched in his seat. "What about the guy who was holding Terri hostage? She had to have been involved in that, somewhere."

"Some kinda hired gun, it looks like. Doesn't know anything. At least not that the DA was sharing," Bobby replied, his frustration more than evident.

"Huh," Darien grunted. "Well, I guess it could be worse. It could be some giant conspiracy instead of a judge who decided she didn't like the way the rules were supposed to be applied fairly to everyone."

Hobbes glared at him. "Were you not listening just now, Fawkes? It IS worse. It IS a giant conspiracy, or I'll pass on my next raise," he grumbled. "She's involved in something. Something bigger than just throwing a trial for a few extra bucks. I'd stake my career on it."

Darien shrugged, for the moment not especially interested in his partner's latest paranoid instinct. "Then they'll catch whoever it is."

Hobbes snorted derisively. "Yeah, like they've done such a good job up to now," he scoffed.

Darien grinned. "Yeah, well, up to now, they didn't have you and Eberts stirring things up, did they? And since they're finally paying attention, whaddaya want to bet they'll get to the bottom of whatever was going on without any more help from you? I'd be willing to bet Alex's friend Norita will make sure of it."

"They better," Bobby muttered darkly.

"Sounds like a win-win situation to me."

"Yeah. For everyone but Terri," Hobbes muttered unhappily.

"And Jax," Darien added. "But at least the vet says he's gonna be fine. I stayed Sunday night until the surgery was over. He's lucky it wasn't worse, but he's going to make a full recovery, according to the doc.

"Well, Ter will be glad to hear that," Bobby sighed.

"What's with the gloom, Hobbesy? I thought you said she was doing fine too," Darien queried.

"She is, Fawkes... that's not it. They only kept her yesterday for observation. She's due to get out today."

"Then what's the problem?" Darien knew he was testing Hobbes' patience, but he had a pretty good idea what the real issue was.

Hobbes remained silent, pulling into traffic in front the county court building like a man on autopilot.

"Well, if she's getting out today, shouldn't you go get her? Take her home? Tell her her dog is gonna be fine?" Darien pressed.

Hobbes still didn't respond.

"Bobby. It wasn't your fault she got hurt. If anything, it was mine."

Hobbes waved this off dismissively. "You were tryin' to neutralize the guy, Fawkes. Just like you were taught. OK, so maybe I didn't cover biting, but hell, whatever works."

"So... what's wrong?" Darien persisted.

There was a moment's silence, but Darien could see he was going to get an answer this time, and waited patiently as Bobby maneuvered through downtown traffic back towards the Agency.

"This business, it's hell on relationships, Fawkes," Hobbes said at last.

Darien couldn't help the snort of cynical laughter. "Tell me about it. You're talking to a guy who hasn't really had one in over three years," he reminded. "And Monroe is sort of the poster child for 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' these days.

Bobby's nod was half-sheepish, half-apologetic. "I haven't either. Not a real one."

"At this point, I'd settle for a one night stand or six," Darien confessed dryly.

This got a sympathetic glance from Bobby, whose attention was returned to the road when a car horn blared. "Yeah, well, they're not all they're cracked up to be, ace."

"Maybe not. But at this point, Hobbes, I'll take what I can get."

"See, Fawkes, that's just it. You gotta aim higher, my friend. Gotta decide what you want, then go for it."

Darien eyed his partner, appreciating the irony of having a romantically skittish Hobbes advising him on his love life. "I do, huh?"

"Yeah," Hobbes nodded emphatically.

"So if that's the rules, then how come you're sitting over there deciding you're not gonna go see Terri?"

Bobby's expression was priceless.

Darien laughed. "I haven't been your partner all this time for nothing," he pointed out. "You feel responsible for what happened to her. Am I right?"

Hobbes nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah. Well, I hate to break it to you, partner, but she's perfectly capable of getting into trouble without you there to stack the deck. Have you thought about what might have happened if you two hadn't been on the same jury? If she'd gone poking around in the Hernandez mess all by herself? She might have ended up dead, Bobby. Caught by whoever these people are, and just disappeared. She doesn't sound like a shrinking violet to me. She had the guts to go after you, didn't she? And to try and warn us when we went in to rescue her?

Hobbes nodded again. "Yeah, but Fawkes-"

"No buts, partner. She makes you happy. So stop worrying about all the things that could go wrong, and try enjoying the ones that go right, for a change. It's not like you're getting any younger, you know," Darien chided.

"Thanks for the reminder, there, junior," Hobbes snarked a bit.

"Seriously, Bobby. She knows you're an agent, now. She knows your job can be dangerous. Don't you think you should let her decide whether or not she'd like to see you again after all this?"

The silence from the driver's side of the Golda's bench seat was long but thoughtful. "You think so?"

Darien found the uncertainty in Hobbes' voice rather endearing. "Yeah, Hobbes, I do. So how's about dropping me off at the Agency and going and getting her out of the hospital?" he urged.

"Fat Man'll kill us if we don't file the paperwork on the whole Andrews thing," he hedged.

"It wasn't even your case," Darien pointed out. "Remember? You were on jury duty. Besides, Monroe already filed it. We're off the hook. And Homeland Security has flagged Andrews and Hajiri as high-risk, so you know it won't be long before they pick up their trail."

Hobbes frowned. "We haven't seen the last of those two, you know," he warned.

"Probably not," Darien agreed calmly. "But Neitsson and his guys have point on it now. So stop using it as an excuse to weasel out of talking to Terri."

"You tryin' to get rid of me or something?" he asked a bit defensively.

"Or something," Darien agreed. "C'mon, Bobby. Drop me off and go see Terri. You'll never know what could happen if you don't."

Hobbes cast him one last uncertain glance. "OK. But I hope you're right about this, Fawkes."

"Trust me, Hobbes. What do you have to lose?" Darien asked practically.

"You've got a point there, my friend. You've got a point." The little smile that flickered at the corner of Hobbes' mouth told Darien he'd won this particular argument.

He grinned. "Yeah, I do, Hobbesy."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A guy by the name of Andre Gide once said 'It is the special quality of love not to be able to remain stationary, to be obliged to increase under pain of diminishing.' And Bobby Hobbes may not love easily, but maybe it means he loves too well.

And I love Hobbes. I'd give anything to see him happy. I don't think I've ever seen him really happy in the 4 years I've known him. So much crap, in both our lives. No wonder we hit it off so well. But the time has come for both of us; we need to make some changes. So it's time. Time enough for love, as one of the classic sci fi authors once put it.

Me and Bobby? We need to connect back to the world. If we belong to the world, maybe we'll be better at trying to save it. Even if that makes us hostages to fate.

End