A year and a half ago, Maxie Jones had been part of a task force hunting down a serial killer in the El Paso area who preyed on prostitutes. She had spent three months working undercover in the seediest sections of town, flaunting her sexuality to trap a killer. The case had been full of those mind numbingly ugly details that she shared with Mac late at night but which they both agreed never to tell her mother about. The experience had taught her what she had not quite picked up in four years of high school and four years of college- how to flirt with a man.

It was a skill that came in handy as she smiled at the middle aged gentlemen on the other side of reception desk from her.

She let her gaze fall over the man in a look that was both provocative and shy, deliberately running her tongue lightly over her lower lip, and inwardly smiled as she saw him move to loosen his tie. She was just thankful that this attendant was not the same one she had faced yesterday.

“It would mean a lot to me,” she drawled in a seductive voice, “I don’t know anything about anything mechanical and my husband will just about kill me if I have to call him at work again. I’m sure that all it needs is a strong and intelligent man like yourself to look at it. I would be so grateful,” she traced her fingers lightly on his chest as she leaned over the counter, giving him a good look at her cleavage. “I’d be willing to do just about anything to thank you.”

The man leered, something Maxie never realized that men really did outside of badly written romance novels, and his voice dropped an octave into a tone she supposed he figured was sexy but in reality just made shivers run down her spine. “I could get into a lot of trouble for leaving my post.”

“It wouldn’t take long and I promise I’d make it worth your effort.”

Maxie willed herself not to flinch when when he ran his hand up her arm and she could smell his awful breath, instead she smiled adoringly.

“Where’s your car, little lady?” He asked and Maxie almost grinned in triumph.

“It’s in the alley behind this building,” Maxie simpered. “I guess we’ll have to walk around the building.”

“Nah..” The man said boastfully. “There’s a back door to the alley.”

“I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Not a problem.” He leered at her again. “There’s no cameras on the back door. No one ever has to know we opened it.”

He stepped from behind the counter and his hand snaked around her wrist. Maxie masked her shiver and moved closer as he led the way through leading away from his station/office to the back door. Maxie cast a glance behind her and saw Emily and Lucky emerge from the street into the lobby.

She batted her eyelashes when the guard opened the door and led her into the back alley. Without him noticing, Maxie dropped her purse so that it blocked the door and stopped it from closing all the way.

Looking up at the guard, Maxie started to think of some way of explaining why there was no car in the lobby when she could tell by the look in his eye that he didn’t care. He had her pinned against the side of the building before she could say a word and began to nuzzle the side of her neck. Maxie started to struggle, sidetracking the guard did not include allowing him to maul her in her book.

His breath was hot and stinky and his eyes glazed as he looked at her. “What’s the matter babe? The alley a little too public for you. I got keys to almost every apartment in the building if you want to f.......”

The guard never finished the sentence as the butt end of a pistol came down hard and heavy on the side of his head.

Jason looked at the crumpled form in front of him with disgust. He turned to his two men. “Put him in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage. If he comes to, you have my permission to kill the bastard. Stay here and watch the car. We’ll need to move fast when we finish.”

His men nodded and Jason turned to Maxie, his eyes narrowing as he took in her disheveled clothing. He should have killed the bastard.

“You okay?” He asked softly.

Maxie nodded. “Next time a security guard needs distracting I hope to hell the guy is gay and then you can do it,” she grumbled as she turned and picked up the set of keys the guard had dropped.

Jason considered her words. “And if the security guard is a she?”

Maxie’s green eyes blazed. “Then I get the pleasure of hitting her in the head with a pistol.”

Jason laughed as he handed her purse to his men and opened the door.

He sobered as he realized the seriousness of what they were about to do. “Maxie I want you to know...”

She stopped him as she slipped past him and down the hallway. “Just promise me one thing.” She threw the words back over her shoulder.

“Anything.”

“Never ever leer at me.”

The Security Guard’s office

Lucky winced as he watched his almost five months old wife pick up the assault rifle she had set down and check to make sure it was loaded. Someday he vowed they and their entire family were going to live in a world where guns, violence, and bitches with the last name of Cassadine did not exist.

He didn’t voice his thoughts, but rather slipped on the headset that would keep him in constant communication with the Maxie, Jason, and Emily as well as Jason’s men who were stationed around the perimeter. He looked at the guard’s computer terminal and swore softly. This was going to be tricky, taking this one terminal off line long enough to allow him to slip into the system and gain control of the labyrinth of cameras and sensors that riddled the building without making any of the men still on guard in Helena’s apartment aware that he had done so.

Tricky, but not impossible and within three minutes Lucky has transferred control of all of the building’s security systems into this one terminal. All that they have to worry about are the five fully armed and professional guards in the penthouse.

He swings the chair around and turns to his wife, pleased to see that she has at least put on the bullet proof vest that Frisco had sent over. He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“I know.” Emily smiled. “And I love you for it. But we both know that of the four of us, you are the most suited to handle the computers and stuff. Jason and Maxie get to handle the frontal assault. That leaves me to retrieve Jonathan.”

“One of Jason’s men.....”

“Would be lost in a minute and you know it. I love Jason and I know he means well, but let’s face it his men are trained to obey commands and not think on their feet. Don’t worry. You said yourself that everything was planned. Nothing can go wrong.”

“Didn’t they say that about the Titanic?”

Emily was saved from having to placate her husband further by Jason and Maxi’s entrance into the control room.

Lucky punched up the blue print to Helena’s penthouse, which occupied the top two floors of the penthouse. The first floor was mostly office space with living quarters on the second floor, both floors were heavily fortified and the guards would be extremely well armed. While Lucky could control the cameras and the communication systems, he wouldn’t be able to unlock doors or anything else.

“The cameras show one of Helena’s goons on the first floor and the rest spread around the second floor. Jax was right about Helena keeping her legitimate workers home, probably doesn’t want them around in case they encounter Jonathan. The first floor is empty except for the guard. ” Lucky offered punching up camera after camera for a view of the inside of Helena’s penthouse.

“All right,” Jason looked at the diagram. “One last review. Maxie and I will enter the first floor from the front. That should be enough of a distraction for Emily to make her way along the back stairs directly to the living quarters, blow the back security door (he handed Emily a small container of plastique), get Jonathan and get out. We’ll do the same. No matter what happens, we are all agreed that we clear the building in 30 minutes. No matter what. V and Jax should be able to keep Helena occupied long enough that we can be in the air and headed back for Port Charles before she realizes Jonathan is gone.”

“And what then? She won’t stop,” Emily said edgily.

Lucky smiled at his wife. “I have a plan to take care of Helena but first let’s get Jonathan out of there.”

Emily nodded as Jason and Maxie headed to the elevator. She checked the pistol in her shoulder holster and the knife around her calf. She pulled the dark cap over her hair and picked up the automatic rifle. She managed to grin at Lucky. “How do I look?”

Lucky grins as he pretends to consider his response. “Maybe you should go back into modeling. You’d make a great cover of Soldier of Fortune.”

“Funny Spencer. Very Funny.” Emily says dryly. “Just remind me to get even with you when this is all over.” For a moment she looks up at him and her courage slips before she gathers it back and nods at him, before disappearing down the hallway to the back stairs.

“Just be here when this is all over Em. Please.” Lucky watches her go for just a second before grabbing his headset and turning his attention back to the monitors.

Jason looks at Maxie as the elevator climbs to the penthouse.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Come on Jason, this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. I spent four years on the force in Texas, not to mention a few months training with the WSB before I decided that I wasn’t going to follow that closely in my father’s footsteps. Don’t worry.” She clicked the safety off the weapon she was holding. “I’ll watch your back.”

“I know.” Jason muttered. “But who’s going to watch yours?”

The settling of the elevator distracted both of them.

“Lucky we need the camera in the hallway turned away from the elevator.” Jason used the watch communicators the WSB had loaned them.

Jason had just gotten Lucky’s confirmation that the cameras were taken care of over the comlink when he heard Maxie’s laughter.

“What?”

“I just never thought of you as the Dick Tracy type.” Maxie smirked.

Jason scowled at Maxie before heading down the corridor.

They paused just to the side of Helena’s door. Jason prepared to shoot the door in when Maxie stopped him.

Lowering her gun so that it could not be seen, she knocked on the door.

A minute later she heard a voice asking who it was.

“Pizza.” She yelled in her best New York accent.

“I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Somebody did. I’ve got two Sicilian pizza’s right here and their damned hot and if you think I’m going back to my boss with these pizza’s undelivered then you are sadly mistaken bozzo.”

Maxie finished yelling and there was silence. Then the door opened.

“Where are the pizzas?” A man dressed in black and heavily armed asked.

“Here.” Jason came out from the side of the door and without saying another word shot the man with a silencer pistol in a clean shot between the eyes.

Maxie looked at the dead man and then back at Jason.

“Come on,” Jason said quietly, refusing to acknowledge that look on her face or the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “My guess is company will be coming soon.”

Emily made her way quietly and efficiently up the back stairs on the other end of the building. She had two close encounters with some of the building’s residents, but they either had to be long term New Yorkers who didn’t blink their eyes at anything or they were used to strange comings and goings living in a building owned by Helena Cassadine. Or maybe something in between Emily figured when neither of them seemed the slightest bit phased by either the gun she was holding or the vest she was wearing, although one had asked her politely when she was due. Emily shrugged. Every time she thought Port Charles was strange, some other place proved itself to be stranger.

Once at the top of the stairs, she carefully opened the door and peeked down the hallway. Two cameras, a couple of motion detectors lasers criss crossing the hall way..

“Lucky,” she whispered into her comm link..

“I’m on it,” Lucky whispered as he furiously entered code after code. “All right. I’ve got the cameras. Damn. I can’t turn off those sensors. I can stop them from sending a system wide alert but there’s probably a local alarm.” Lucky’s voice was frantic. “Give me a few minutes to try to crack the code.”

“There isn’t time,” Emily reached into her pocket and withdrew a small compact. . “Vanity, thy name is fortune.” Emily whispered as she popped out the small mirror and used her knife to carefully score the mirrored glass and break it into two sections.

“Emily what are you up to?” Lucky fought the need to turn the cameras back onto his wife, knowing that what he could see anyone at the terminals in Helena’s penthouse could see also. “Dammit, Emily. Answer me?”

“Just a little lesson I learned from high school science,” Emily whispered, turning off the comlink, as she drew near the first beam. “Lasers are basically concentrated light and mirrors reflect light so if I time this just right.....” She carefully lowered the pieces of mirror so that they dangled just above the beam. Gritting her teeth, she lowered the mirrors in tandem, aware that even the slightest delay between the two would trigger the alarm. She did it, the mirrored pieces reflect the beam back to itself. As far as the sensor was concerned, it was receiving one uninterrupted beam and Emily was able to carefully move herself through the criss crossed beams, silently and slowly.

Breathing heavily, she collapsed to the ground when she crossed the last beam. She flipped the comlink back on.

“Lucky?”

“Emily! Thank God.” The relief in Lucky’s voice was obvious and Emily felt a twinge of guilt when she realized he had probably imagined the worst for the last few minutes. And knowing Lucky and the Spencer mind, the worst could be pretty bad indeed.

“I’m fine. I made it through the laser beams.

“What? How?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later. I’m right outside the back door and I need to know what or who is on the other side before I blow it.”

“Hang on.” A moment of silence. “All right. Jason’s distraction seems to be working. Three of the remaining guards are headed down to the office area. There’s one guard outside Jonathan’s door.”

“All right. I’m going to blow the door.”

“Be careful.”

“Always. I’ll check in after I have Jonathan.” Emily replied before shutting of the comlink to keep her location secure.

Emily looked at the case of plastique in her hand. She knew that Jason intended her to blow the door, but the last thing she needed was for an armed guard to come running when he heard the door.

The door was deadbolted. Picking the lock would be impossible and take too long.

She turned on the comlink again.

“Lucky I need a noise or the guard outside Jonathan’s door is going to hear this door blow and that would not be nice.”

“Yeah, I see your point. Hold on. Cool. Just as I thought. Helena’s entertainment system is hooked up to the central computer taking care of the environmental controls for the penthouse. Air conditioning codes. Heating. Lights. Bingo. Stereo. “ A minute later, Emily can hear the extremely loud blasting of the stereo system even through the thick walls.

“I love you.” Emily whispered through the comlink as she begin to apply small parts of plastique to the lock and the door. She stopped a moment. “Any chance you can turn the lights off?”

“No problem. You prefer to work in the dark.”

“Something like that,” Emily said. “Remember those six months we spent on that boat and you taught Jonathan to read Morse code.....”

“Got it.” Lucky grinned. “You’ve been a Spencer too long Em, you’re getting good at this.” Lucky punched in the codes so that the lights in the room Jonathan was in would start to blink in a pattern.

Emily headed to the stairwell to barricade herself behind the stairwell door when the main door blew. “I’ll have you know that outmaneuvering the enemy is a Quartermaine trait.”

She put her hands over her ears and waited for the countdown. 5..4..3..2..1...

A second later the door to Helena’s penthouse was blown off its hinges and Emily carefully stepped around it to enter the kitchen, her weapon raised and ready.

Jonathan sat up when the stereo system started blasting, he had never been fond of classical music and hearing it played at such a loud volume didn’t do anything to endear him to it further. At least the noise was muffled by the doors and the walls.

He was just about to leave the room and offer to help the enemy turn off that stereo system when he noticed the lights. He watched them for a moment and then a moment more. It had to be an illusion or a trick. But no. There it was. There was a pattern. Quickly he grabbed his notebook and started jotting down what he saw. A long dash. a short dash. He knew that pattern. Morse code. Lucky had made him spend hours memorizing it when they lived on that boat. God, let him remember it now he prayed as he began to translate the series of dashes and dots into a message.

Just as the music stopped and the lights stopped flicking, Jonathan sat back and looked at the message he had written out.

RESCUE COMING BE READY

Jonathan stared at the message puzzled. He had no problems being rescued as long as his mother was all right. But who was going to rescue him? And how had they known that he was there? Jonathan shrugged. He had been a Spencer long enough to know that sometimes you didn’t sweat the details too much.

Lucky sat back at the control station. He had done what he could. He had stopped the music and the lights because he didn’t want to rouse suspicion. Hopefully Helena’s goon think the environmental systems had simply malfunctioned temporarily.

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes. They didn’t have much time. The question was did they have enough time?

V looked at the marble clock sitting on the mantelpiece and smiled cheerfully at Helena Cassadine as she offered her a plate of appetizers. She and Jax had planned for Jax to be unavoidably late for his meeting, detained on a business call that he couldn’t avoid. If the clock was right, V figured Jax would be entering the formal parlor in just a minute or so.

It couldn’t be soon enough for V. How do you make small talk with a woman you know tried to kill a good friend repeatedly? The women on whose orders her best friend’s daughter had been shot and nearly killed? There were few people in Port Charles who V still kept in touch with and still considered treasured friends. Mac and Felicia were two of the most important. After that whole debacle with Simon and the deep hurt the actions of Ned, Alexis, Chloe, and Jax had dealt her, when she had run as far away from Port Charles as she could it had been Felicia and Mac who had helped her the most. Felicia by suggesting she visit the ranch in Texas and Mac by helping her get into the WSB. It had been the latter that had propelled her, some seven years after she had last seen or talked to Jax, back into his orbit. The rest had been history so to speak and now here they were. Best friends. Married. Supportive of each other in the way she had once dreamed they could be.

Still however much she loved him if he wasn’t back in two minutes she was going to kill him.

She was saved from that move by his entrance into the room.

“Helena,” Jax greeted her with European coolness and somehow managed, without flinching one bit, to kiss her weathered and wrinkled cheek. V swallowed. Maybe she should write a part in for Jax in her next off-Broadway play. “I’m sorry for my rudeness in being late. I was on the phone with my Chief Financial Officer discussing my current financial situation.”

Helena Cassadine smiled. “So the rumors floating around Wall Street are true. Your company is about to go under.”

The smile on Jax’s face tightens. “Let’s just say that we are facing some difficult decisions.”

“Bankruptcy or Bankruptcy?” V grimaced as she actually heard Helena cackle.

Enough was enough. “I am sure that whatever the current difficulty Jax and his company will come out on top.” V broke in like the loyal wife she was and finished by turning to the old bat and smiling. “With your help of course.”

“Of course,” Helena smiled. “Such a sweet and charming wife you have my dear boy. So pleasant to see you married to someone far more suitable than my husband’s bastard daughter.”

“While I appreciate your support and my .love for my wife knows no bounds, we are here to discuss business.” Jax looked over at his silently seething wife and smiled, hoping to calm her down before she forgot the plan and dumped the pitcher of tea over Helena’s head.

“Ahh yes, your business. It must have been a devastating loss for you to lose young Spencer so soon after his return. I know that his contributions to your company in the past were invaluable.”

The bitch was cold. Stone cold. Jax nodded. “Of course my main concern is for his wife and family who were devastated by the loss, especially Emily. But I understand that your grandson has been wonderfully supportive of Emily. And poor Jonathan, to lose the man who raised him and molded him. Of course he still has his grandfather Luke and I’m sure Luke will play a very important part in the raising of Lucky’s son. Your great grandson I believe.”

Helena smiled tightly and V almost grinned. Score one for her husband.

“As you said we are here to discuss business. I am. of course, very interested in the purchase of your company as we discussed on the phone.” Helena opened up her briefcase. “As you can see I have taken the liberty of having my agent draw up a preliminary bill of sale that allows me to purchase your company outright for what I feel is a very fair and reasonable price, considering the current financial situation facing your company. I doubt if anyone else would make you such a fine offer and I really only do so because we were once family and I value family connections above all.”

“Alexis always talked about the strong feelings the two of you had for each other,” Jax said smoothly. “And of course the loss of her brother was as devastating for her as it must have been for you to lose a son.”

Helena’s face was bland. “Of course. Children are the most important thing in your life. I trust you will discover that for yourself someday.”

“I trust I will.” Jax picked up the bill of sale papers and looked them over. “These look fair and equitable enough, but I will of course have to run them by my lawyer and the rest of the board before I make any decisions. I should be able to have an answer for you in twenty four hours.”

“Of course, take your time.” Helena made a move to get ready to leave and V and Jax looked at each other. It was too soon. If Helena left now, it could be disastrous.

“Mrs. Cassadine,” V turned to Helena and tried her best to sound like the simpering idiot Jax had once briefly mistaken her for when they first met. “I was hoping you would allow me to give you a tour of our penthouse. Jax’s mother sent me some antiques from Europe and I was hoping you would give me some ideas on how to display them. I have heard stories about how beautifully stunning your own home is and I remember Wyndemere from my few visits so I’m sure your suggestions would be just what I need.”

Helena smiled graciously, pleased by the opportunity to play “grand dame” for one of the most sought after hostesses in New York society. “Of course I would be pleased to offer my assistance.”

V faked a smile, glared at her husband over Helena’s shoulder, and prepared to offer Helena Cassadine a grand tour of her home.

Jax watched them go, followed by Helena’s body guards, entourage, assistants, or as Lucky referred to them- her goons.

Once he was sure they were safely out of ear shot, Jax made three phone calls. One to the cell phone number Lucky had given them to fill him in on what they had done. The second was to Tiffany’s to order V a present for service above and beyond the call of duty even for an ex-WSB agent. The third and final call was to a pest control company to arrange to have the apartment fumigated while he took his wife on vacation. The gesture was more symbolic than anything, but after enduring the presence of Helena Cassadine in his home, it made him feel better to have the place sprayed.