"Don’t move, don’t talk…" said the owner of the weapon. His voice was electronically altered and she wondered why? She lowered her head, breathing rapidly, afraid and her mind racing for Rollie’s safety. What had happened?
 
 

She could see Elena Serrano’s unconscious form about ten feet from her, near the front of the van. She could see the other dark figure with hood and mask watching carefully out the front windshield of the van and to the side windows almost mechanically. He wore an ear transmitter and seemed intent on ‘guarding’ the van as the man close to her sat down suddenly in her chair. With the nozzle of the automatic rifle still pointed at her, she tried to reason why she had not been harmed yet. They had made no demands…they seemed to be waiting.
 
 

When the burst of special ops forces into Stefano’s front and back, the systematic removal of Serrano’s agents had been done swiftly. Dingo had kicked Rollie in the shin under the table and given him the warning as both of them dove for cover under the table simultaneously. Lindquist’s bodyguard took the first hit of automatic weapon fire and fell to the floor close to Rollie’s head. Squirming in his seat, still in a state of shock, Lindquist was lifted out of his seat and almost off his feet by a pair of operatives that pulled him quickly through the rear of the restaurant. The nearly full restaurant was alive with screaming patrons and employees and it had happened so quickly that Rollie barely knew what had happened. He looked at his father who was smiling slightly and making a gesture with his mouth;
 
 

"Bloody near messed me kit, son," he said, "I thought they’d never get here in time."
 
 

"Who the hell, NO- I don’t believe it! How did they know? You were with me and Serrano all afternoon," Rollie said, wondering if the coast was clear but Dingo put his hand on his son’s shoulder as he crawled toward the edge of the table and stopped him.
 
 

"Stay put for a tic, best let them sift the crowd and get everyone, Rol. Serrano had quite a few of her agents in the restaurant…" Dingo warned him.
 
 

"No one will be harmed, will they?" Rollie asked, his eyes meeting the fiery look in his father's eyes.
 
 

"Resistance is futile, isn’t that a kick- saw that on Star Trek, you know…" chuckled Dingo.
 
 

Rollie looked at the man he thought was his father. Somehow, Dingo seemed so cold and almost too calm.
 
 

"The van! They better not hurt Angie!" Rollie said suddenly, struggling to get out from under the table.
 
 

"Whoa now! That’s been taken care of, my boy. She won’t be harmed. He wouldn’t let that happen, you know. Now, Serrano- well, I can’t guarantee she’ll be quite as lucky."
 
 

"What? Who?" Rollie jumped up from under the table as Dingo followed, stepping over the bodyguard’s still body.
 
 

People were running from the restaurant in droves as the sounds of sirens pierced the panic and chaos inside the restaurant. Dingo grabbed Rollie’s arm and together they headed to the back door of the restaurant;
 
 

"Come on, we’ll chat with a cuppa later," Dingo told him and they found themselves in the alley behind the restaurant running toward the side street where the van had been parked.
 
 

Reaching it, Rollie’s panic resurfaced as he saw the hooded figure at the windshield. He raced to the door, seeing the gunman raise his weapon but Rollie was beyond caring as Dingo grabbed at his jacket.
 
 

"Don’t spook him, Rol. He’s got a trigger finger with just a slight nervous condition!" he warned him as a second hooded man touched the first on the shoulder and he lowered his weapon. The door to the van opened and Rollie ran up the steps with Dingo close behind. Dingo nodded to the two men and Rollie, seeing Angie in the back lying on the floor rushed to her, almost tripping over Elena.
 
 

"She was noisy, we had to settle her down," said the electronically altered voice of the hooded man to Dingo who went over to the unconscious woman and pulled her up in his arms as he kneeled on the floor.
 
 

"Angie!"
 
 

Angie looked up, seeing that Rollie was okay and without a second thought, lunged forward and held onto him for dear life. She buried her face in his chest as he held onto her and frowned, looking back to Dingo and the two operatives at the front of his van.
 
 

"Someone tell me what the bloody hell is going on right now!" he demanded as he pulled Angie up and seated her, standing beside her.
 
 

Dingo looked down at Serrano’s face, and then to the two men up front. The operative that had been at the front of the van first, suddenly took to the driver’s seat and started the engine. As they pulled away and went directly out in front, away from the arriving police cars on the main street, the second operative walked back toward them.
 
 

"She’s coming around…you’d better be prepared. I suggest you tape her."
 
 

Dingo looked angry but did as he was told as a roll of duct tape was given to him and he quickly went to work, taping Elena’s legs at her ankles and knees together and then her hands behind her back. He finished with taping her mouth and a strip placed over her eyes as Angie winced for the feel of that tape when it came off of her later.
 
 

"Who are you? Where are you taking us?" Rollie asked again as Dingo moved toward his son and Angie looked at her father-in-law angrily, not understanding why he seemed to be playing along with these men.
 
 

"It’s best to understand that your father finished his obligation to us finally. He has delivered to us what we requested, although it took him over two years to do so…" the man with the electronic altered voice told him.
 
 

Dingo shook his head and sighed deeply. Rollie looked from him to the hooded man, not understanding and worse, his anger was exploding inside him, a culmination of Dingo’s shell game with him and with what had just happened at the restaurant.
 
 

He lunged forward, grabbing the jacket of the man, trying to pull the hood off him as the man defended himself and seized Rollie by the throat, almost crushing his windpipe. Angie screamed at him to stop, jumping up from her seat as Dingo grabbed at the operative’s arm.
 
 

"Stop it! I’ve done your job for you. I’ve brought her to you and Lindquist is delivered as well. Tell him what he wants to know!" Dingo yelled at the man who released Rollie then, as quickly as he had seized him.
 
 

Rollie clutched his throat, coughing and sputtering forward as Angie held onto him and helped him sit down.
 
 

"We’ve got company!" shouted the operative who was driving. The second man turned and walked back up toward the front of the van. A single police car was careening down the street, almost recklessly.
 
 

Rollie raced up to the front of the van along with Angie. The car was blowing its horn at the same time, almost as if flagging the van down, not trying to arrest the occupants.
 
 

Rollie’s cellular phone rang inside his jacket. He pulled it out as the operative gave him a warning;
 
 

"Careful! Don’t tell them a thing, whoever they are- that will be your final warning!"
 
 

Rollie answered quickly, breathlessly;
 
 

"Tyler here."
 
 

"Rollie! What the hell are you doing? Slow down! We’ve found them! The kids, Rollie- we know where they are!"
 
 

The voice was Mira’s and as Rollie looked over to the side window, he could see her waving from behind them.
 
 

"Stop the van! It’s Mira! They found them! They found Aidan!" Rollie shouted out as Angie cried out, suddenly sinking to her knees as the operatives found themselves in a situation not expected.
 
 

"Stop the van, you bastards. My boy’s son has been missing for almost three days! We can cover this, we can!" Dingo pleaded.
 
 

Quickly, the operative that was in command, told the driver to slow down.
 
 

"Get her out of sight!" he said, his electronic voice almost shrill as he pointed to the moaning and taped Serrano. Dingo quickly pulled Serrano’s bound body to the back and covered her with the army blankets that Rollie kept for camping out in the van on location.
 
 

"Uncover!" he yelled at the driver and both Angie and Rollie gasped in surprise and utter bewilderment as the man who was driving their van turned back toward them after pulling the van over to the side of the road and stopped. It was Rolph Mer!
 
 

Unable to speak, Rollie was pushed forward and put into the driver’s seat as Rolph walked over and sat down next to Angie. Dingo Tyler sat in the very back on the bench where he had rolled Elena’s blanketed body underneath.
 
 

Angie’s eyes widened in amazement as she looked at Rolph who smiled slightly at her. His commanding operative placed himself directly behind the Ambler unit, hiding in the only other spot available in the van.
 
 

Rollie opened the door to the van as Mira jumped up the steps, out of breath.
 
 

"What the hell are you doing, Tyler? You must have been doing 60 in a 35, here!"
 
 

"I… I heard the police band about the same time that you called me, Mira. I was going directly to Francis’s house!"
 
 

"You’re going the wrong way, Rollie. Besides, we need to get to St. Elmo’s, that’s past Francis’s house. The kids are there!" she said, confused and suddenly looked back to see Angie sitting with a man she recognized from when Rollie was trying to get his eyesight back. He had been a visitor from Germany..a doctoral student.
 
 

"Oh Mira!" Angie gasped and got up, running toward her, "Where’s Aidan? What’s the matter?"
 
 

Mira frowned, seeing Dingo wave from the back, looking like he had eaten a whole jar of cookies. She put her hands on her hips ready to say something when she got a ring from her cell phone.
 
 

"Don’t do anything yet…I’ve found the parents of Aidan Tyler- yeah, chance coincidence of seeing them driving down the street. We’ll be there in ten, yeah, tell them to wait, okay?" Mira was forceful and edgy on the phone and she snapped her phone shut and looked at Rollie and Angie, carefully calculating what she was about to say.
 
 

"Mira?"
 
 

"Yeah, Rollie…Angie" she began after Rollie prompted her, his face showing his eagerness and hope. Angie was holding his hand tightly and she took a deep breath;
 
 

"Ashley Gatti showed up by herself at about an hour ago at the Gatti home…all by herself. She was a bit messed up, dirty and scared and she told us that they had all been staying at that church in the demolition zone about two blocks away…St. Elmo’s…and well, before you ask, they were alone. No one took them and we don’t quite know why or what or how but that’s not important now. What is important…" and she paused, catching her breath as Angie leaned in with Rollie tightening his grip on her hand; "is that the church was demolished just over two hours ago…and Ashley Gatti made her way out of there. She doesn’t know what happened to her sisters or to…Aidan…"
 
 

Angie put her hand to her mouth, her fears all realized now as Rollie grimaced and grabbed Mira’s shoulders;
 
 

"What did they use? Dynamite or what?" Rollie asked, shaking her slightly.
 
 

"What we found out so far, is that it was a wrecking ball, Rollie, no explosive devices. There were two stories to that church and here’s the hope, Rol. There was a basement! Ashley is in a state of shock. She hasn’t been able to tell us much. Francis and Sarah are there, now. Come on, follow me and I’ll get you through, we need to hurry!"
 
 

"Thanks, Mira…we’re following, don’t worry!" Rollie told her and hugged her suddenly as she held him tightly. Angie couldn’t control her sudden well of tears that surfaced and with this new shock, she clung to Rollie as Mira left the van.
 
 

The commanding operative quickly pulled out from behind Ambler and Dingo rushed up to the front of the van.
 
 

"I’m going for my son, you’re not stopping me!" Rollie told him as he put his foot on the gas and pulled out, causing everyone inside the van to grab on to something as it lurched forward.
 
 

"This changes the plans a little…" the operative said, his voice strangely normal now…the electronic altering device removed.
 
 

Angie swung around and looked at the hooded man, the mask and frowned slightly. She couldn’t believe her ears but the voice was so familiar and yet…
 
 

She looked again at Rolph Mer through her tears, as he leaned his head back against the wall of the van and offered no words for her as to why he was here.
 
 

Dingo looked at the commanding operative almost pleadingly and finally the man nodded to him and Dingo closed his eyes and sat down.
 
 

The operative moved up to the passenger seat beside Rollie as Angie stood behind her husband’s seat, still staring at the operative’s mask and hood.
 
 

"Your son…he’s got to be, what? Almost one?" the man asked, softly, his head down slightly.
 
 

"He’s thirteen months old…" Rollie answered and then stared at the man with a look of sheer horror mixed with surprise.
 
 

"It can’t be!" Angie remarked but the operative in black mask and hood, suddenly pulled his hood off, revealing longish dark hair with graying temples. The mask came off and Angie swallowed hard as Rollie fought to keep control of the van; "But I saw you die!" Angie contested, shaking her head.
 
 

The man stared back at Angie and then at Rollie with an almost stoic resolve.
 
 

"What are we going to do now, Michael?" Rolph Mer asked.