"Hello?" Brian clicked his cell on as he tried to open the car door.

"Hey Frick its me."

"Hey Nick. What's up?"

"I may be a little late."

"I could be too at this rate. What's going on?"

"David wanted to see me for a few minutes this morning. Just to go over what happened when I went back to see Lou. Guess he thinks I know something that could be helpful." Nick paused as the traffic moved ahead a little and he inched the Durango forward. "Anyway tell Kev not to freak out I'll get there when I get there."

"All right will do. I'll leave my cell on in case you need to get ahold of me. When you seeing David?"

"In about fifteen minutes but the way traffic's moving I'll be lucky to make it there in an hour."

*****

Standing in the lobby of the building AJ leaned against the pillar as he kept his eyes focused on the large glass doors. So far he and D were the only two there and that was highly unusual. "The others are gonna show right?" AJ asked apprehensively.

He nodded, "Yeah they will. You heard the traffic report on the way over here, the three of them could be stuck in one of the traffic jams."

"Figured we should of car pooled."

D cracked a smile, "Yeah well..."

Brian walked through the doors, giving a wave as he headed over. "You two the only ones here?"

"Looks that way. Haven't seen Kev yet or Nick."

"Nick's probably going to be late."

"Why's that?" Kevin asked as he made his way over.

Brian turned, "Said David wanted to see him for a few minutes, he was caught in traffic when he called me so it could be awhile before he shows."

"We're early anyway." AJ stated, looking at D's watch. "We could grab coffee and come back." he suggested.

"Yeah that sounds good, I don't wanna be here longer then we have to," Brian said as they made their way back towards the doors.

*****

David walked around the room. "So you went back there..."

"Do we need to go over this again?" Nick complained.

He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. "Didn't touch him man."

"Look Lou's death doesn't add up...not to me...and sure as hell not to them. Think Nick, you had to have seen something...heard something...noticed anything that didn't seem right."

Nick groaned, "The place was deserted, he was sitting there typing away on his computer."

"See what?"

"Nope."

"He wasn't on the phone?"

"No!!" Nick squeezed his eyes shut. "He was drinking."

"Drinking?"

"Yeah some wine or something."

"They didn't find a bottle."

"So what? I stole his wine?"

"No but that might be something..."

"What are you saying? He had alcohol poisoning? Trust me I'm sure Lou could handle his alcohol."

"Maybe he did..." David said thoughtfully.

"Come on..."

"What if something was poisoned? It would make sense wouldn't it?"

"I guess." Nick checked his watch, "Are we done here? I gotta get across town..."

"Yeah go ahead. Don't give the agent there as hard a time as you gave me okay Carter?"

"Right."

*****

"Man this is weird..."

"How so?" Kevin asked, playing with his spoon.

"This waiting game now...I mean in less then an hour we'll know hopefully a lot more then we do now..."

"Lets just hope its something we want to know." Brian commented softly.

Howie nodded his agreement, "That's the truth. But the strangest thing is knowing that after today this could be over..."

Kev nodded, "Then what?"

"I have no clue..."

"Me either." Brian said, leaning on the table. "Maybe we should just take some time for ourselves...no rush to make any decisions right? I mean we're free..."

Kev patted his back, "I'm sure that contract is void..."

"You've got someone checking it right?"

"Yeah."

"So don't worry about it till you hear something. I bet you're worrying about nothing."

*****

"Agent Walker will be here momentarily." the woman said as she led the four men down the hallway. "You can wait in here if you like."

"Thank you." Kevin said as he waved the rest of them into the small waiting room. She nodded, closing the door behind her leaving them alone.

AJ took a seat, "I could use a smoke right now."

"You can have one as soon as we're through here." Howie reassured him, walking around the room. He paused in front of the small window and stared down at the parking lot in thought. "Wonder if we can see Nick show up from here."

"Probably." Bri said standing beside him. "Should I give him a call?"

"He'll get here when he gets here."

"I don't think we should go into that meeting without him." Kevin stated.

"I agree, they can wait till the five of us are here."

*****

"I think I see him." AJ said leaning against the window.

"Yeah?"

Nick pulled the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the vehicle, looking up at the building in front of him. Taking a deep breath he almost shut the door when he realized he dropped the keys on the seat. Laughing to himself he grabbed them and slammed the door.

"About time you showed." Brian joked as Nick walked into the waiting room.

"Funny Rok." Nick stated, rolling his eyes. "Traffic's still a pain..."

"How'd the meeting with David go?" Kevin asked as Nick took a seat.

He let out a deep breath, "Well if being interrogated is your thing, then it went great. Other then that, I couldn't wait to get out of there."

"Excuse me gentlemen, Agent Walker's arrived if you'd like to go down to the conference room he'll meet you there shortly."

"I really don't like being here." Howie commented as they sat down.

"Me either." Kev added, looking around the large conference room.

"So why are we here?" Brian asked, chewing his gum nervously.

The door opened and the head agent, Agent Walker made his way in. "I think I can answer most of your questions."

"Good because we have a lot of them." AJ stated, leaning forward on his elbows.

"I imagine you do." he set his folder on the table. "I'll tell you what I know and you can ask any question you wish. Fair?"

"Very."

"I'll start at the beginning. Lou came into our investigation midway. We sort of stumbled across him...originally our investigation centered on Paul and his associates, " he cast a glance at Howie.

"We weren't so sure about you Mr. Dorough. It was hard to tell what you knew about Paul and what you didn't. We couldn't exactly risk interviewing you at the time in case you let him know what was going on."

Howie sat there in open disbelief. "I had no idea about his connections. He worked for me for a few years before I promoted him..."

"Its understandable." the agent said sympathetically. "We didn't know if the money he was bringing into your business was legit or not." Howie took a deep breath. "It was." he assured him.

"Uh back to Lou..." Nick interrupted.

"As I said we weren't aware of Mr. Hardy's dealings with Lou until midway through. Paul's very good at evading things. Once we became aware of the business relationship we immediately delved into Lou's business records. You can imagine our reaction to find out that not only was Paul a silent partner and investor in TransCon but that Lou was recording double the losses and taking the money for himself..."

"Sounds like the Lou we knew..." Kev muttered. "Why didn't you go after Lou?"

"We though he'd be of some use on our side...so we cut a deal...first though we had an agent infiltrate TransCon to get a feel for what was going on."

"Who was..."

"Kendal, Lou's secretary."

"Never saw that one coming."

"No one did." he explained. "About six months before Lou approached the five of you we had our first meeting. Gave him an offer he couldn't really refuse. We wouldn't go after him if he helped us get Paul."

"So you knew what he was going to do to us." It was more of a statement then a question from Brian.

Slowly he nodded. "Yes, in fact we even gave him some of the information he had on Howie."

"Look the five of you in the equation were disposable. You can regain everything once it was cleared up. In fact we never expected the situation to go the way it had."

"You expected us to jump when Lou threatened us?"

"Maybe we did."

"Why didn't anyone contact us?"

"Once you all decided to fight Lou we couldn't let anything change...if you agreed to work with us it might have alerted Paul and his associates that something was up."

"Do they know?"

"Not that we're aware of."

"So Lou's death..."

"Rather unfortunate but Lou knew the dangers the last several weeks. In fact he even made a video for the five of you."

"I don't believe this." Brian said getting to his feet and moving around the room. "So our lives were dispensable to you? Our wives and families meant nothing."

"In the big picture no."

"Well I've got a few questions. Why us? And if Lou was so important to you why'd you let him die or did he fulfil your needs and wasn't needed anymore?" Nick asked.

"One of Paul's associates recommended you. As we said when Lou first accepted the money into TransCon he didn't question it. Paul made several friends quickly within the TransCon family and its associates. One of them he remained fairly close to...as did Lou during the whole situation. In fact she may have more to do with this then we think."

"Who?"

"Donna Wright."

"Oh my god." AJ mumbled, fumbling for a much needed cigarette.

"That greedy..." Kevin started, trailing off as Brian put his hand on his cousin's arm.

"Calm down Kev..."

"Lou believed her suggestion of going after you was truly revenge based."

"Definitely would of been."

"Onto your second question...Lou's death was an unfortunate incident. We know in recent weeks Lou had been getting several threatening phone calls and was followed on a number of occasions."

"Unfortunate?"

"It was something we hadn't really anticipated. However, we've made a few discoveries that had we known may have been able to prevent it."

Kendal walked into the meeting, "Sorry to interrupt."

"That's all right." Agent Walker said looking at her intently.

"Just thought you'd want to know Paul's making his reappearance. He just faxed Lou's attorney a copy of a new will dated a few days before Lou's death. Guess who's the primary beneficiary?"

"Let me guess, Paul?" Howie interjected.

"Right on the money. Apparently he's on his way to Orlando, his flight lands in a few hours."

"Well lets make sure we've got a welcoming committee there to greet him," Agent Walker stated.

"Will do." she excused herself and left quickly.

"So what does this will thing mean?" AJ asked, playing with the unlit cigarette in his hand.

"My guess is Paul had Lou sign a will, leaving him in control of TransCon and all its holdings. With that he inherited Lou's ownership...and whatever rights go along with it..." Agent Walker stated, going through the papers he'd brought in. Producing a video tape he set it on the table. "Feel free to watch this, its a tape Lou made for you shortly before his...his death. I'll be back in a few minutes. Can I send some coffee in?" he asked as he reached the door.

"I think we're all right thanks." Bri said, not taking his eyes off the videocassette box on the table.

"All right then. Television and VCR are in the cabinet across the table," and with that said he quickly disappeared from the room.

*****

The five men sat in the dark conference room, eyes glued to the television. "Are we sure we..."

Howie nodded and pressed play on the remote the agent had given him. The screen went snowy for a moment before Lou appeared on the screen. "Hello boys. If you're watching this then there's a mighty high chance I'm no longer around." he paused. "Enough cheering fellas, I know how much you've come to hate me over the course of time since I reappeared in your lives with those envelopes. For the pain I've caused the five of you and your wives I sincerely apologize."

"Unbelievable, f'ing unbelievable." Nick muttered.

"Now as you may or may not know by now I was blackmailed by Paul Hardy himself. Which is the reason why I in turn did what I did to you. TransCon was losing more than a fair amount of money and they wanted it back with interest. Paul saw the amazing success you all were having and devised a scheme to get you all back in the TransCon family. I went along with it because I had no other choice gentlemen. Like you I did what I had to do."

Brian paused the tape. "This is..."

"Shocking?" Kevin asked.

"Horrifying."

Nick reached over. "And I'd like to hear the rest." he said, hitting play.

"Now," Lou continued. "The FBI approached me several months before the envelopes were delivered to you. They'd found out about my involvement with Hardy and his associates and after doing a little investigating found out about my little side project."

"Skimming is his side project?" Brian asked, reaching for his water glass.

"Was his side project." J corrected him.

Agent Walker stepped inside the room, "We'd like for you to remain here while we go apprehend Paul and Donna..."

"Why's that?" Kevin asked confused. He figured once they knew what was really going on they'd be done.

"Just a safety measure. Once we have them we'll call here and you're free to go. Shouldn't take longer then an hour or so."

"Guess we don't really have a choice do we?" Howie questioned.

"Not really."

*****

Shan practically pounced on the phone as it rang, "Brian??"

He chuckled, "You're psychic." he said, walking to the corner of the room so he could hear her better.

She sighed, "Don't be funny."

"All right."

"What's going on?"

"Well we're stuck here for awhile..."

"For what?"

"Our safety apparently."

"Explain." she said tiredly, rubbing her forehead as she looked around the table at all the wives staring at her expectantly.

"Paul's coming back into town and they're going to meet him. They want us to stay put until they have him. So we're here till then. Shouldn't be longer than an hour or so they said."

"Okay. I'll relay that to the others."

He smiled, "Relax, its over..."

"It is??"

Kendal swung the door open and walked in with a tray of sandwiches. "Figured you'd probably be hungry."

"Getting there. Thanks."

"No problem. So I thought you probably have some more questions...especially you Nick."

"Me?" he asked nervously.

"I was on the phone with David earlier..."

"Oh..." he picked at the plastic around the sandwich. "I just know I had nothing to do with Lou's death..."

"We don't think you did either. It appears that he was given some sort of fast acting poison...probably administered by Paul. I know he came by to see Lou that day and he had a box with him...whatever was in there probably was what got him."

"Lou was drinking wine..."

She raised an eyebrow. "He was? We didn't know that..."

Nick nodded, "Yeah he had a glass beside him on the desk."

"I don't think we even found a glass when we went through his office after..." she made a few notes on the notepad beside her.

"Do you know exactly what poisoned Lou?"

"Not entirely. We're still waiting for a few results to come back." She glanced around the table. "You do realize that what you've heard can't get out..."

"Course." Kevin stated, "But our wives..."

"Seeing as how big a part of this they were by all means..."

"Well other then the wives, David and Esh are the only other two who really knew what was happening."

"We just don't want the press getting a hold of this..."

"Neither do we." Howie said looking around the table.

"Good. So on a lighter note, what are your plans? Reforming the group?"

The men all looked at one another, AJ cleared his throat, "I think right now all we want is one long vacation without having to see each other."

*****

Walking out of the terminal he stopped searching for his ride, seeing her standing near the windows he waved and headed over. "Welcome back!" she greeted with a smile.

"Thank you, although I think it should be welcome home." he said with a sly smile.

"Well then let me correct myself, welcome home Paul."

"Shall we get going?"

"Course. Car's waiting. Did you..." she trailed off as she saw a man starting to approach them.

"Excuse me, Paul Hardy?" A man asked walking towards him.

Paul let go of Donna's hand. "Yes..." he answered cautiously.

"Agent Dylan, FBI. You'll have to come with me."

"Why?"

"Really doubt you'd want to get into that in such a public area would you Paul? Ms. Wright you'll have to come with as well."

"Me???"

"Yes. We've got a van waiting outside."

Donna let out a deep breath, "What do we do?" she whispered.

"I think we need to go..." he replied seeing a few more men coming towards them dressed similarly to Agent Dylan. "All right, lead the way."