Isolated

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Jackson's reaction reminded me of this morning and his outburst. Only this time, shockingly, I got him to at least understand. I didn't expect I would be able to but I made a good lawyer. I stressed that it was only an idea that could be replaced if a better one came up. My argument though made Jackson realize that there might not be any other option.

Despite it being a crazy idea, I couldn't think of any other way to go in and not have people suspicious of us. There were cameras and surveillance up the ass there; they were careful so we needed to be even more careful. I also couldn't think of any other way to kidnap the guy that didn't include drawing attention and probably getting killed. It's not like we can wait for him to go home when the guy lives there. And a little reminder, this place was responsible in trying to find me. That was overwhelming and scary, yes, but it meant we needed to be cautious. We couldn't just go in shooting. We needed to go in and get out with no issue. Otherwise, there would be an army on us.

Downfalls did exist. The biggest one that Jackson pointed out after I explained all this was obvious: I would be walking into the eye of the storm. I knew that after he settled down, listened, and stopped freaking out that that would still be a huge red flag for him. So I made my plan more reasonable when I mentioned that he could go in with me if he wanted.

With all that, Jackson wasn't exactly mad. He knew where I was coming from. It didn't mean he was comfortable with it but he didn't flat shoot it down. His conclusion was that 'we'll think about it' and see what else comes up. We still had more thinking to do, more questions to ask Carter, and more opportunities for better ideas. However, different options didn't come.

After we filled up at the gas station, we knew we needed to talk and figure out what needed to be done. We drove around aimlessly until we pulled into an empty and small parking lot behind a church. It was out of the way, nobody was around, and the church blocked us perfectly from the road. The brush from crowded nature bordered the church too. It gave us enough confidence after Jackson pulled up along the back of the building and parked. We got out of the truck and enjoyed the sunny day from the bed of the truck. If only our objective was more innocent. It's kind of twisted we were discussing such things at a church.

We pulled down the tailgate, hopped in the bed of the truck, and sat down. It was amusing how we all sat facing each other, our backs against the truck walls. It did make it easier as we talked and passed around a map of the area that Carter drew for us. We were trying to come up with different strategies, different ways of getting in and doing this. All the while, Jackson and I didn't say a word about my idea. We both wanted to find a way that didn't involve me playing a prostitute.

Hours were spent in hard thought, pushing ourselves to come up with ideas. There were some good thoughts we all contributed but many of them had too many risks involved. Either that or too many variables that could fail us. One thing did start to become consistent and that was the idea of having the FBI involved.

"Why can't we call the FBI and have them take care of this? Wouldn't they welcome coming in and doing this on their own? We wouldn't need to be involved or in danger."

"They might," Jackson said from where he was sitting with his legs outstretched beside me. He was sitting against the left truck wall of the bed, facing Luke who was opposite of him. "Even though they screwed us over and lied, they are still interested in Reid. However, if they go in and do this, we wouldn't be able to kidnap this boss. They would have him and I doubt they would disclose information to us if they learned anything."

I raised an eyebrow from where I sat against the back window with my legs crossed. I knew that was a valid reason to not get the FBI involved. We wanted to kidnap the guy because we wanted to get answers. That's the whole point. But there was something I didn't understand. "I thought the FBI wasn't going to help us with this stuff but they at least supported us. They are behind us, cleaning up our mess, right?"