David Golemon - Primeval

"Brave little Sarah, you could have been shot." He stepped down and made the man closest to him lower his weapon. He gestured with his right hand for the others to do the same. "I see you are no better at following orders than you were before."

"Please, Henri, I need to explain why we're here."

"I want no reasoning from you or Colonel Collins. You are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I have too many valuable items in that room to lose to your Group, or the authorities. I'm sorry. I have other places I need to be at the moment."

Sarah watched as Farbeaux turned his back and started back toward the stairs.

"You know we wouldn't ask for your help if it was for any of us. We need that diary or anything else that may lead to Sagli and Deonovich, we don't care about that damn room or what's in it."

Farbeaux turned and tilted his head in Sarah's direction. He remained silent and she decided he would hear her out.

"It's Jack's sister, his little sister. She's been kidnapped by those two maniacs, for what reason, we don't know."

"I would suspect that Colonel Collins's personality may run in the family and that has led to this young lady's downfall."

Whatever the Frenchman had been going through since she last saw him, Sarah could see that his eyes were still distant, meaning to her that the death of his wife down in the Amazon basin was still not far from the surface.

"We are tracking them and this may be our only shot, Henri. You wouldn't want a young woman to get brutalized by these bastards by withholding something that may help her."

"I noticed you have the head of the Montreal division of CSIS with you. Why is he here?"

"He was with Jack's sister when she was taken." Sarah thought something through very quickly. "How did you know Mr. Alexander was Canadian, and the head of his intelligence division?"

Farbeaux didn't comment, he just started to turn toward the steps again.

"They cut off her finger just to prove to her employers what they are capable of."

"Who is her employer?" he asked without turning back.

"She's agency."

Farbeaux started to laugh, but there was a serious lack of real humor coming from the eerie sound. Even his three men looked at each other with smiles. Henri started up the stairs.

"Place young Sarah back with her friends until I decide how to dispense with this problem." He started up the stairs. "You have been a most helpful friend, Sarah."

"What if it was Danielle that was taken and you needed Jack to help find her?" she blurted out as one of the three men took her by the arm.

Farbeaux only hesitated briefly on the stairs leading up into the house, then he continued on. "Follow my orders and place her in the storage room."

My God, Sarah thought, he's really going to kill us all.

The wall was opened only partially and Sarah was thrown back into the storage room. She fell to the floor and Jack, Everett, and Alexander were there to help her up.

"You go ahead and try something like that again, Lieutenant, and I'll have your ass!" Collins hissed.

"That was very stupid, young lady," Punchy said as he swatted some of the dirt from Sarah.

Everett walked toward the back of the room when he heard Ryan and Mendenhall coming back toward the front.

"Well?" Carl asked, when he saw their darkened outlines.

"Nothing. A solid wall of concrete — it would take dynamite to get through it, and then about three days of digging," Ryan answered.

"How's Sarah?" Mendenhall asked.

"I guess Farbeaux wasn't in the negotiating mood."

Up toward the large sliding wall, Jack took Sarah by the arm and steered her away from the others.

"Well?"

"He's not listening, Jack. He hasn't changed his attitude toward us. He still blames us for Danielle's death."

"You mean me."

"It really doesn't matter; all of us are his problem at the moment."

Collins squeezed her arm and then pulled her to him and looked at her in the darkness. "Thanks for trying anyway, Short Stuff."

"So what are we going to use to defend ourselves when that door opens and those Froggies open fire on us with those automatic weapons?" Mendenhall asked from the rear of the storage room.

"Well, we have a whole bunch of books to throw at them," Everett said.

"Great," Ryan and Will offered at the same time.

Ten minutes later, the wall fronting the storage room separated. It only traveled four feet before it stopped.

"Colonel Collins, and only Colonel Collins, step through the opening please," Henri said from outside in the basement.

Sarah pulled on Jack's arm and he could see her now that a dim light filtered into the room as she shook her head.

"No, make him come in and get us all, you stay put, Jack," she said, the pleading evident in her words and Collins could tell she was close to crying.

"Listen," he said in a low voice, "Farbeaux's a lot of things, Short Stuff, but I don't think he's capable of cold-blooded murder." He smiled. "At least not here, and not now."

Sarah still tried to pull Jack back as he stepped through the opening.

Jack saw the lighted room beyond and the only man standing there was Henri Farbeaux. Collins stood and watched the Frenchman. His men were nowhere to be seen. Henri just stood in the center of the room waiting with his right hand in his pants pocket.

"Young Sarah should be a defense lawyer, she has quite a talent for lost causes." Farbeaux took a few steps toward Collins. "For whatever good it may do you, Colonel, I will assist in your endeavor to recover your sister. I make no promises, the task will be arduous and difficult, but between myself and a mutual friend of ours, I think I know where it is your Russian friends are going.

"You may tell the others they may come out now, if you accept my offer of help."

In answer, Jack turned and stuck his head through the opening and told them all to come out of the storage room.

Farbeaux smiled and looked at each face in turn and then faced Collins once again.

"So, Colonel, our destinies have been placed on hold once more. You can be certain that it was only my friend Sarah and that horrible rebuke I saw in her wonderful eyes that made me change that destiny for you tonight. As for us, we must leave this place; I have transport waiting outside, the local police will be sending their relief very soon."

"Colonel Farbeaux, I've studied you more than any adversary I've come up against, and I can't figure out why are you doing this? It's not for Sarah, and it surely isn't to help me find my sister."

"Ah, you do know me, Jack. I do have one demand — I want the Twins of Peter the Great, when this little expedition is over of course."

"Oh, of course, even though earlier you said they didn't exist."

Henri walked forward and stepped into the storage room and went to one of the first bookshelves and retrieved a small leather-bound book. He blew some dust off of it and then went back to face Collins. Farbeaux only hunched his shoulders, but kept the smile.

"The Petrov Journal and the Lattimer Papers, Colonel," he said as he held the items and then gave them to the American.

"They weren't destroyed — Chavez actually gave his life to protect them?" Jack asked as he took the journal.

"He took a chance that the men who killed him would have more mercy on him than—"

"You?" Jack said, finishing Farbeaux's sentence.

"Exactly," Henri said, smiling.

"Okay, Henri, but after I get my sister back, and you have these diamonds that don't exist, we do have unfinished business."

"Agreed, Colonel," Farbeaux said as he stared right back at Jack.

"Now, you mentioned someone else who knew the destination of the Russians?"

"Ah, yes. Turn to the back page of the journal, next to the map; there is a name there I think you and your friends might be familiar with. He was the man responsible for delivering the journal and notes to Lattimer's family back in 1968. He was a student then, but he was there when Lattimer found what he was looking for. I had planned on asking him myself for his assistance in the near future, but maybe now would be a good time since he knows exactly where to look, and as you say, time is of the upmost importance."