Chapter 20


It hurt going on but, Tony had to admit, the solution that the German medic was applying around his eyes was working. His vision was clearing up. The fuzzy shape that had just stopped in front of him started to take on more details until it formed into the image of a very angry looking new guy, boss man. Tony was starting to wonder if it was too late for the medic to give him something else to make things fuzzy again. He gulped and then said, "um, hi?"

Jake held his look of anger and made sure that Amy, who was sitting in the back hatch of the armored personnel carrier with Tony, got her share of it too. Then Jake told the medic to take a hike before asking, "so what did you two geniuses find out by blowing up an office building?"

Amy pointed back to the building, that had smoke coming out of it's top windows now, and meekly said, "that's not really our fault."

Calvin, who was standing next to Jake, was a bit more sympathetic, "you two ok?"

Tony nodded as he sniffled and kept from trying to rub his eyes. He had his own angry look when he finally managed to glance up at Jake again. Then he said, "look mister Deputy Marshal. No offense but we don't know you from Adam."

Calvin tried to intervene but Jake stopped him and said, "it's ok. He's right about that much." Then even the pretense of civility evaporated as Jake turned his attention back to Tony, "so that gives you the excuse to go off playing detective and not even bothering to tell anybody." Once more Jake commented back to Calvin, "I take back what I said earlier. What this department needs more than new gear is some," he raised his voice to a sharp rebuke and looked to Tony when he finished his statement with, "ADULTS."

Amy meekly raised a finger and volunteered in a very accompanying tone, "we know Danni's shooting and the bombing this morning are connected."

Jake now fixed his gaze on her and it caused Amy to retreat back in an invisible shell. She acted almost like he was going to hit her as he said, "and you found out that this Doctor Cashton was Danni's CI. That he and Sally, what's her name, helped this Tasha Kingsley woman kill her husband Roy. That they were the ones that brought in Danni and probably set her and Norm up too."

Tony was still trying very hard to keep his hands away form his eyes as he responded, "that sums it up pretty good."

Amy was still being very meek as she asked, "how did you guys figure that out?"

"Very carefully," Jake told her sternly. He also added, "that and a lot more and, oh, by the way, we didn't have to blow up an office building in the process."

"Really," Amy was almost pleading, "that wasn't our fault, well, not mostly." Then she spit out as rapidly as she could, "but we lost Shannon and I think she might have been kidnapped."

Cal's jaw dropped, "you had Shannon with you? In the middle of an office bombing?!"

"Actually," Tony closed his eyes and raised his hand, "it was a fire fight, not an office bombing. I called in the bomb threat."

Amy drew up and whispered, "yeah that part was kind of our fault."

Cal broke out into a very frantic panic, "Barbara is going to kill all of us!"

Jake had to wonder about that woman that he had even yet to meet. He summoned some calm and told Cal, "no, not everybody. I won't let her do that, just these two." Then he looked back at the two rouge agents and asked, "so do you have any idea where the kid is?" When neither answered he asked them, "did you do something as basic as try and call her? Maybe she's hiding out around here. First rule of a missing person's case is make sure the person is actually missing."

"Oh my god," Amy suddenly brightened up, "I put my phone on silent when we went in the building." She quickly grabbed her phone from her pocket and was astonished at what she saw.

Cal saw the look and suddenly felt some hope, "did she call you?"

"Um," Amy tried to look calm and collected, although, she was sure she was doing a bad job of it, "no she sent us a text."

Jake asked in a matter of fact tone, "what does it say?"

"Well," Amy licked her lips and forced a smile, "the good news is she wasn't kidnapped."

Calvin's eyes widened, "and the bad? There is a bad, right, Amy?"

Amy tilted her head back in forth in a perky manner before spitting it out, "she's hiding in the van with the people who just tried to kill us." Amy then shrugged as she looked up at Calvin and Jake, "so it's not really our fault, right? I did tell her to stay in the car."

As Calvin went back to panicking, Jake stayed cool and asked a more relevant question, "does she know where she's at?"

Amy got very defensive as she thrust the phone at Jake, "you read it! That's all she said, OK!"

"Fortunately for you Agent Hiller," Jake responded to the girl, "I got a pretty good idea of where they're going." He nodded to Calvin who then stopped his panicked frenzy and dialed up his own phone. He looked somewhat relieved when he finished the call and told Jake, "I think we got 'em this time."

"Tell Alvarez and Johnson," Jake commanded, "to watch for this van. If it shows up we'll be there in," Jake realized he had no idea how long it would take for them to get there, "however long it takes." As Calvin did just that Jake looked to his other two agents and told them, "and you two can go back to the station and wait for your spankings."

"No way," Tony said as he stood up. He forced his hands to stay by his side as he told the American, "this is our family, not yours. We're going too."

"Agent Tippet," Jake responded to that, "you just had a concussion grenade go off in your face. You're not going to be any use to anybody and probably a danger to us and yourself. You were certainly that even before the grenade."

"How are you going to stop me," Tony just shrugged, "I'm already in hot water. How much more trouble can I get in?"

Jake was satisfied with the answer he got so, "you two follow us and, this time, make sure the Germans aren't following you."

Amy was stunned as she watched Jake and Cal walk back to their car. She grabbed Tony's arm and asked, "how did he know that?"

"Lucky guess," was all Tony could figure. He tried to take a step but almost stumbled. Amy kept him from falling completely over. After she got him back up straight she made sure she gave him a kiss that left him a little stunned, "what was that for?"

Amy took a breath and could not look him in the face as she said, "saving my life back there."

Tony was not even sure he had done that. He let it go. He liked kissing this girl so he did it again.