"Clay what do you mean the one way to get to you?"
Casey asked as Clay stared at the glowing computer screen in front of her.
Clay ran his fingers through his hair.
"Traci has been my partner for the last 6 months Case, she knows the way I think, the way I operate...my guess is that Palmer is going to try and get Traci to join him."
"Join him? There is no way Traci would be fool enough to do that!"
Clay gave Casey a meaningful look.
"Traci and I are close, we're partners & good friends. It's just that I've always felt that Traci would have liked it to go further, and now that Palmer has that tape of us together on the bed...?"
"You think that Traci will turn to Palmer, to get back at you for being involved with me?"
Casey finished for him.
Clay nodded.
Kelly:
"I think you're wrong about Traci"
"I hope you're right Case."
Casey got up from the chair she was sitting on and looked out at Sydney's city lights spread out before her.
"Clay I never told you this, but Traci came to see me the night after I came to see you at your apartment."
Clay's head snapped around.
"What? Why didn't you tell me before?" He asked.
Casey smiled.
"She asked me not to. We had a long chat."
"What about?"
"A lot of things Clay, but mostly about you. She knew straight away that we had history together. She asked me if I still loved you..."
Clay moved over to where Casey was standing.
"And what did you say...?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
"I told her the truth." Casey said avoiding the question. "She wanted to know if I was planning to come back and take up as your partner again. I said I didn''t know."
"And what did she say?"
Casey turned and looked Clay dead in the eye
"She said she didn't care as long as you were happy, that's all that mattered."
Clay smiled, that was the Traci he knew.
"I don't think Traci would turn on you at all, and certainly not to Palmer unless?" "
Unless what?" Clay asked.
"Unless it was the only way to keep someone she cared for safe!" she finished understanding dawning in her eyes.
"Missy!"
Casey nodded.
"If she thought she could guarantee Missy's safety by joining Palmer she'd do it. Missy is like a sister to her too."
Clay turned away from Casey to look at the satellite recon photos again.
"So these are definitely fakes?" he asked.
"As far as the techie I spoke to could tell, they're superimposed images."
"But wouldn't he need a large land line set-up to do this?"
Casey nodded.
"He'd need at least 60-120 landlines to do it."
"Now we have a general geographic locality for Palmer and the fact that he has to have a large amount of landlines...what does that give us?"
Casey looked at him.
"A place to start!" she said smiling.
"Ok so where would he get access to 60-120 landlines with satellite capability structure?"
Casey sat back down at the computer and logged onto the CIA database research program.
A few seconds later she had entered the information and had a list of probable sites in the geographic area.
"2 Australian Military bases, an old IntelSat command and control base which is no longer manned and an outback telecommunications exchange."
"Wait...did you say an IntelSat command center?"
Casey nodded.
"Where is it?"
"Gilgandra, 57 km's north-northwest of Coonabarabran...." Casey smiled. "We got him, I'll get onto Langley to organize a satellite surveillance of the area using InmarSat...he won't have access codes for their satellites. Hopefully we can get some recon shots of the area and find out what kind of terrain we're dealing with...We're close Clay, we're gonna have Missy and Traci out of there soon!"
Clay returned the smile.
"I just hope that he hasn't hurt them, either of them."
Casey nodded and dialed Langley.
"This is Special Agent McDaniels...give me the Director."
Warrumbungle Mountain Range
600km North of Sydney
Australia
Traci stared at the photo's spread out on the table in the room Palmer used as his office.
They all had one common theme.
Webb.
Palmer had fallen for her 'Ihate Webb' speech, just as she thought he would.
Now all she had to do was figure out what he planned to do with Missy.
"Palmer at the risk of sounding like a broken record, you haven't told me what you're planning to do with Missy."
Palmer looked at Traci; she was calm and collected showing zero emotion.
"Why is it so important?" he asked, he wasn't fool enough to think that Traci would just join him without having some conscience issues to deal with.
"I just hate loose ends." She growled.
"I though you were quite fond of Missy?"
Traci gave him a sharp look.
"I was fond of Missy while there was some advantage to me....but seeing as Webb has made his choice, she's no longer of any use to me."
Palmer nodded; he obviously had underestimated Traci's depth of hatred for Webb.
"We'll get rid of our little 'loose end' tomorrow morning." He said stroking Traci's hair.
Traci moved closer to Palmer,(even though the thought of being anywhere near this animal made her ill, she had to make him believe that she had crossed the line) putting her arms around his neck and drew him close to her.
"I wanna watch her die...so I can tell Webb what she looked like at the very end. " she said with a smile.
Palmer smiled at her.
"My, my we are a blood thirsty little thing aren't we..."