"What am I missing?" Kermit was pacing the interrogation room like a caged animal. "There is something there, I just can't grab onto it. Who the hell is this guy?"
"Guy?" Strenlich questioned. "How do you know it's a man? The voice was masked and the clothing was too loose to tell anything."
"Adam's apple, Frank," Kermit growled, annoyed that his chief had missed something so obvious. Looking around the room at the others and finding only expressions of surprise, he finally vented his frustration. "Damn it, how the hell are we going to find this wacko if you guys can't even figure out something that simple."
"You must calm down, my son. Free your mind and the answers will come."
Matthew placed a gentle, but demanding, hand on his son's shoulder and guided him to sit down next to Kwai Chang. He rested his other hand on his older son's back, offering the only comfort he could. He could feel the tension and anger burning in both men but could not bring himself to attempt to quell it. In truth, he shared their rage. The site of his grandson being tortured, combined with a feeling of utter helplessness, had elicited emotions in him that were decidedly "un-Shaolin". Memory flashed and he suddenly found himself reliving the day that Ping Hai had told him that his son and grandson were dead. Regret, anger, and guilt had plagued his nightmares for weeks after the heartbreaking discovery.
Shaking himself back to the present, Matthew pulled another chair up in front of Kermit, lowered himself into it, and looked directly through his son's green-tinted shades and into his eyes.
"You must clear your mind of rage. Allow the answers to flow into you."
Kermit sighed, but did as instructed. As he closed his eyes, images of his nephew's tortured body slammed home without mercy. Suddenly, his mind registered recognition of the blanket wrapped around Peter's waist. "Covert ops. Damn. That's one of ours."
Determined to find the truth, he turned his concentration to the figure in the foreground. Now that he knew where he was supposed to know the man from, he just had to narrow down the possibilities. In his mind, he watched the man walk away from the camera and toward Peter. 'That's it. The limp, it's gotta be.' Snapping his eyes open, he twisted around to face his captain.
"I know who it is."
******
The room was once again dark and silent when he woke up and took stock of his situation. The man had left the blanket around Peter's waist when he had last disappeared, but the scratchy wool proved to be more of an irritant than a comfort. Whatever drug he had been injected with was still present in his system, leaving him groggy and nauseous, and the pain, which was spread almost evenly throughout his body, had subsided from unbearable to slightly less than intolerable. He focused on ignoring the pain and concentrating on his father.
*Dad, please, help me*
*Peter?*
Surprise laced with concern colored the voice in his head. Just hearing the soft, familiar timbre gave him some measure of comfort.
*Please*
His concentration wavered.
*Peter, stay with me, my son*
*Can't. I'm tired, Dad, I just want to let go*
*No! Don't even think about it, kid*
This new voice in his head was unexpected. Peter could sense the weak link being supported by two others. 'Dad and Grandfather.'
*Kermit*
*Peter, I know who is doing this. I just need you to hold on a little bit longer while I track the son-of-a-bitch down. Comprende, partner?*
Peter accepted the renewal of hope with a sigh. Allowing a weak grin to color his tone, he replied.
*Okay. But hurry up already, would ya'*
******
Kermit fell out of the link with an almost audible thud and stared at Matthew in amazement. Just seconds after Kwai Chang had stiffened, Matthew had grabbed his hand and place it in his brother's, physically linking the three Caine men. His confusion had been immediately replaced by surprise as he'd listened to Peter's voice echoing in his head, pleading with his father. From the sound of it, the kid had been ready to give up. Having no intention of letting that happen, he had thrown himself into the metaphysical conversation without a second thought.
"What the hell was that all about?" Karen questioned.
Kermit shook his head, unable to verbalize what he had just experienced.
"I was communicating with my son. He is very weak and in much pain. He was about ready to let his despair consume him when Kermit stepping in," he turned his gaze on the younger man. "You have given him hope. In doing so, I believe you have also given him the strength to endure for a while longer. Thank you, brother."
Kermit nodded briefly before getting down to the task at hand. "We are definitely going to have to have a long discussion regarding these unique lines of family communication, but it'll have to wait until later. Right now, we have to find Peter."
"You said you knew who took him. So, who was it? And how do you know?" Mary Margaret pressed.
"The blanket Peter had wrapped around his waist on the video tape had a patch on the lower corner, a patch that could only have come from one place. It's a long story, and we don't have time to get into the details, but a few years back I was hired to train a group of men and lead them in a highly classified, highly dangerous covert operation. The patch on the blanket is the patch we wore to identify the group."
"So your saying that this man is one of the men you trained for this 'secret mission'? That's pretty thin, Kermit. The guy could have found that patch anywhere," Strenlich pointed out.
"Maybe," Kermit shook his head, "if it were the patch alone that tipped me off. But the guy said he was gonna take something from me because I took something from him. There were these two men in the group, twin brothers. During the operation, one of them went with me while the other led a smaller party to provide a distraction. Kyle, the man with me, was killed. There was no way to retrieve his body without killing the rest of the group, so we had to leave him behind. We had no choice. His brother never got over that and he never forgave me for his twin's death." It was obvious to the two priests that Kermit had never really forgiven himself, either, but that was a discussion for later.
"So you think it is this man who has taken my son?"
"I'm sure of it. Richard, that's the guy's name, hurt his leg on the mission. Not badly, but enough to cause a slight limp. The man in the video had a slight limp, barely noticeable unless you were specifically looking for it. It's too much to be coincidence."
"Agreed," Karen stood up and walked over to open the door. "What was this SOB's name, Kermit?
"Mariston. Richard Mariston."
She walked out into the bullpen, followed closely by Chief Strenlich.
"Put an APB out on a Richard Mariston, STAT. I want every shred of information you can find on him. Kermit, see if you can't use your unending supply of sources to get a picture of this bastard, the more recent the better."
Kermit was already past her and halfway to his office. As he watched the picture of Richard Mariston scroll onto his screen, he could not suppress his anger. 'Kill my nephew, you bastard, and there will be no place on this earth for you to hide. I will hunt you down and make you beg for death. No organization, no government, will ever be able to protect you.'
As he printed the image and passed it off to Strenlich, the 101st precinct sprang into action.
End Part 9
