Shakedown, Breakdown, Takedown
by Martha
marthalgm@yahoo.com


--- The Breakdown ---

Jimmy Bond's apartment
3:46pm

The voice of the late Madeline Kahn singing "Ah, Sweet Mystery 
of Life" filled the apartment, followed by the lush 
orchestration and the rolling of the credits from the film, 
"Young Frankenstein".  Brian was chuckling to himself, lying on 
the futon spread out on the floor.  He reached for the VCR 
remote to rewind the tape and nearly ended up spilling one of 
the bowls of buttered popcorn.  

Beside him in the Barco-lounger, Jimmy was nodding and grinning 
in his approval of the choice of video.  "Damn, that was funny.  
I get a kick out of those old musicals.  What's next?"  

Brian had begun to realize about halfway through the film that 
Jimmy was not one of the brightest bulbs on the planet with 
some of the questions that he had asked - not understanding the 
joke about Igor's hump, wondering why the horses kept neighing 
at the mention of Frau Blucher's name, and why the make-up 
people messed up with the singing lady's hair towards the end 
of the movie.  This was apparently what Langly had been trying 
to tell him when he said that Jimmy was more the jock-type than 
a conversationalist.  He just thought it meant that Jimmy 
grunted and crushed beer cans with his forehead.  "The next one 
is `Monty Python's Life With Brian'."

"Cool.  They made a movie about you.  I can get into that."

Brian paused in his popcorn munching.  `And he's supposed to 
*protect* me?' he thought.  Out loud, he played along and 
responded, "No, it's about another Brian.  You'll see."  He got 
up to switch tapes but nearly dropped the cassette when the 
phone began ringing.  He saw Jimmy make an attempt to get up 
out of the recliner.  "Don't answer that," Brian warned.

Jimmy just shrugged his shoulders.  "It's just the guys 
checking up on us.  Don't worry."  He walked over to the phone, 
waited for the fourth ring, and picked it up.  "Hello?"
  
Brian watched Jimmy's befuddled statement as he appeared to be 
straining to hear the person on the other end.  When no attempt 
at a conversation was made, Brian bolted for the phone, taking 
it out of Jimmy's hand, and listened intently.  There was a 
faint noise coming through the receiver.  It was a song, a song 
that Brian would later recognize as Rockwell's "Somebody's 
Watching Me".

      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~
    
Lone Gunmen Headquarters
3:59 pm

The steel staircase shook and squeaked as Langly rapidly 
descended from the overhead storage area.  Grabbing his jacket 
from the table where it had been discarded earlier, he yelled 
across the room to the others.  "Gotta run.  Jimmy just paged 
us.  They're in trouble."

"Are you sure it's Jimmy?" Frohike called out.

"It's his code plus 911 added to the end.  It better be him."

"Okay, wait up.  I'm riding shotgun.  I want to see if there's 
anyone hanging around the place before we pick them up."  
Frohike pulled the front door closed behind him.  "I just hope 
that Jimmy remembers the escape route."

      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
4:32pm

Byers peeked around the storage shelving upon hearing the front 
door close and watched as his two partners made their way 
through the maze to the main work tables.  He noticed that no 
one was following them.  "Where's Jimmy and Brian?"

Frohike made a gesture to the other side of the building. 
"They're taking the back way in."

Byers' eyes widen.  "The fire escape?"

"Roedecker is not walking in through our front door again.  If 
he wants to come to us for protection, then he's going to work 
for it and not make us the target."

"What happened at Jimmy's?" Byers beseeched Langly.

"Not sure."  Langly shrugged his shoulders.  "Brian was either 
screaming or muttering to himself all the way back.  He is 
*seriously* spooked by this."

From the other side of the room and somewhere on the overhead 
loft, a cascade of voices and heavy footsteps began to snowball 
towards the Gunmen.  Brian finally appeared, out of breath, and 
stopped to grab the iron railing for support.  "I can't believe 
that you guys would do this to me," he called down to them, 
nearly in tears.  "I got people wanting to kill me, and I'm 
having to go through Survivor challenges just to be able to 
stay alive.  What is *with* you guys?  You're supposed to be my 
friends."

"Well," Byers began apologizing, "I will admit that the fire 
escape is not one of the most convenient ways to access the 
warehouse . . ."

"Not the most convenient?"  Brian had awkwardly descended to 
the bottom of the staircase.  "Try damn near impossible.  I 
nearly fell twice."

"Hey, I caught you that last time."  Jimmy did not lose his 
patience with people as a rule, but he did not understand 
Brian's reluctance at a little workout.

Frohike dismissed their visitor's complaints.  "If you're gonna 
hang with the professionals, Roedecker, you better get in 
shape."  

"And I could have done without the deep chill treatment by my 
bodyguard, Mr. Freeze," Brian spat out.  

The Gunmen first looked at each other, then at Brian, before 
focusing their attention on Jimmy, who shrugged his shoulders 
in ignorance.  "What did he do?" Langly asked of Brian.

"After we left the apartment and got around the corner to that 
Chinese take-out place, he drags me back into the kitchen.  
Then this hulk pushes me into the walk-in freezer.  Won't let 
me out.  Says it's for my own good."

Byers was unsure as to who to believe.  "Jimmy?"

Jimmy was quite animated in his explanation.  "Well, I figured 
that if someone was trying to kill him, I could, you know, 
throw myself in front of any bullets, but then I saw that big 
shiny silver room and thought, `I bet that thing could deflect 
bullets'.  So I pushed Brian in and guarded the door until you 
guys showed up with the van."  Jimmy was certain that he had 
done the right thing - had done what he had been told to do - 
and desperately wanted confirmation.

Frohike obliged and patted him on the back.  "Nice going, 
Jimmy."

"Yeah," Langly added, "good job, man."

"Now all we got to do is figure out how they found Brian at my 
place."  Jimmy, now feeling more a part of the action, wanted 
to contribute more.  "I swear, guys, we never used the phone.  
We were too busy watching videos."

Something about that last statement clicked with Byers.  
"Videos?  Wait a minute.  I knew that there was something I 
wanted to ask."  The pile of receipts, in date and vendor 
order, were still before him.  "Here they are.  Brian, you 
watched an awful lot of videos while you were making your way 
back East."

"Not videos.  DVDs."  He was still pissed at the lot of them 
but at least his voice was now registering at his usual octave.  
"But you took my laptop and Jimmy doesn't have a player, so I 
had to settle for videos when we got to V-Mart."

"You what?  You went where?"  Frohike was beginning to think 
that he would have to take back what he just said about Jimmy 
doing a good job.  "Jimmy, is this true?  Did you guys make a 
run to V-Mart?"

"Well, yeah."  Jimmy was hesitating, thinking that perhaps 
mentioning the videos part was a bad idea.  "Brian went in to 
get some videos, and I went to the sub shop next door to pick 
up lunch.  Honest, guys, I don't think that we were followed."  

"You wouldn't need to be followed," Frohike groaned in 
frustration.

Byers, uncustomarily flustered, slapped his hand on the table. 
"That's got to be it.  Brian, V-Mart is a membership-only 
rental place.  They would have run your card through the system 
prior to paying for the order."

"That can't be it," Brian stammered. 

"You've been using that card across the country, renting DVDs 
all along the way and it doesn't cross your mind that this just 
might be how this guy is finding you?"

"I've got a dozen of those membership cards, all under 
different names.  I got into their system last year and cranked 
out a bunch so I can rent . . ."

"Yeah, rent the triple X stuff without it tracing back to your 
name," Frohike wisecracked.

"So?  There's no harm in that.  No one needs to know how many 
times I rented `Biker Babes and the Detroit Midget Riders'."  
Brian conceded to himself that he just had a too-much-
information moment but plowed ahead.  "Besides, I've used 
nearly all of them.  I've been destroying them; I haven't used 
the same one more than twice in a row since I left Seattle.  
That can't be it.  He can't know whose accounts I duplicated 
months ago."

"There has to be some connection.  You hit town and as soon as 
you rent videos, you're tagged."  Frohike got in his face.  
"Are you watching the same ones over and over again?  Are you 
using any kind of credit card with the membership cards?"

"No, I'm getting them for free."  Brian rummaged through his 
backpack and pulled out a handful of plastic cards wrapped in 
with a rubberband.  "See.  I got a bunch of prepaid rental 
cards a while back - I won a trivia contest that V-Mart 
sponsored when the Planet of the Apes series was re-released 
and that was the prize.  They've come in handy since most of my 
cash has been going to moving from place to place."

Frohike took the cards out of Brian's hands and handed them off 
to Byers, who began examining the cards.  "These cards have a 
upc code on the back.  I'll bet even money that when Brian won 
these prepaid cards, they were logged into V-Mart's system with 
his name attached.  All this person would need to know is that 
he frequents that chain and monitor the card usage and wait for 
Brian to show up."

"How does this explain how he finds him so quickly?"  Frohike 
picked up one of the cards, holding it up to the light.  "They 
couldn't have picked up the videos more than five hours ago."

"Oh, crap."

"What is it now, Roedecker?"

"I just remembered."  Brian was looking down at the floor, 
unable to meet their eyes.  "If you use a membership card with 
an out-of-town mailing address, you have to give a local phone 
number as a contact."

The Gunmen stood stunned.  "You didn't?"  Frohike turned to 
Jimmy and pleaded, "Tell me you didn't."

"No, he didn't."  Brian came to Jimmy's defense.  "But I said 
that I was with Jimmy, and he's also got a membership account 
there.  The clerk said that he knew him and must have plugged 
in his phone number as the contact."   

"That does it - I'm never using V-Mart again.  I don't care how 
much of a variety they've got in their back room, it's not 
worth it."

Byers began picking up the receipts that he had spent so much 
of the day scrutinizing and moved over to his regular work 
station.  "And just so we explored all the bases, you didn't 
rent any DVDs while you were in Alabama, right?"  Upon Brian's 
affirmative confirmation, he continued, "So we now have a 
pretty good idea of *how* this guy finds you, we just have to 
figure out now *who* this guy is."

Jimmy was again eager to make a contribution.  "I say, we use 
one of Brian's cards and then jump the guy when he shows up to 
kill him."  

"All in good time, Jimmy," Byers reassured him, motioning for 
Frohike and Langly to join him at the computers.  "First, we 
need to do a little research on our V-Mart hacker."

      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      ~      

Lone Gunmen Headquarters
7:09pm

Langly gathered up the spare discs and finished labeling the 
ones that now carried the downloaded information from the last 
couple of hours' work.  "You know, V-Mart was way too easy a 
crack."

"I am definitely never renting stuff from those guys again."  
Frohike had been somewhat mortified when Langly had pulled up 
his rentals for the past six months.  The others already knew 
of his tendencies towards flics that had little need of costume 
designers, but Langly was never going to let him live down the 
periodic rentals of "Love Story".

"The thing is, now that we found out what we need to know, how 
do we handle this guy?"

"You mean, what do we do with him?"  Frohike pulled up the 
individual's personnel file from his folder of saved 
information.  "I say we do nothing.  Let Roedecker handle him."
He continued to scrutinize the data.  "I don't get it.  What 
would this character want with Roedecker, anyway?"

"You know, this guy could be useful.  We could get some 
information from him if we squeezed him enough."  Langly paused 
behind Frohike to read more of the file.  "I mean, he's been 
using his work computers and equipment and stuff to go after 
Brian.  He's a civil servant - the feds kind of frown on that 
sort of thing."

"With the exception of the IRS and the FBI and the CIA . . ."

Byers, who had been busy pulling up maps on his workstation, 
joined in the conversation.  "What would you guys say to a 
little reverse game theory here?"

"What do you have in mind?" Langly asked.

"Pay him a visit.  Surprise him.  In exchange for us not 
blowing the whistle on him to his superiors, we get him to give 
us a tour with some `appropriate' souvenirs.  It would make a 
great story."

"And how are we going to surprise him?  Walk through the main 
gate and knock on his office door?"  Frohike was shaking his 
head at the absurdity of the notion.  "Remember the last time 
we were out there?  We'll be arrested before we get within 
three miles of the place, and no one is going to pay any 
attention to what we have to say at that point."

"We have contacts we could try," Langly offered.

Byers quietly countered, "We know someone who has *better* 
contacts."

Frohike skeptically looked at the other two.  "Uh, uh.  Yves 
wouldn't go for it."

"I think that she will."

"On what planet?"

"For a chance to get inside Area 51, I think she'd do it."  
Byers turned to leave and make a few phone calls. 

Frohike continued to shake his head, contemplating the 
foolishness that was about to befall the individual still 
pictured on his screen.  "Morris Fletcher, you sorry son of a 
bitch.  You have no idea what you are in for now."  

end part 2