Around the same time Lizzie and Michaela ate breakfast, Justin Knight awoke and sat up in bed. Tired of being wired like a computer, he pulled the tape off his skin and pulled the IV needle out of his arm. After the initial pain, a wave of relief poured over him. He examined his chest, which felt quite sore and showed signs of turning black and blue, then shrugged. It certainly beat the alternative!

After a trip to the bathroom, he felt more human again. He rubbed his face and realized that he didn't have a razor at hand, but that could wait. Finding his clothing in a small closet, he changed out of the johnny they had put him in. Before he put on his shirt, he noticed the body armor that saved his life the night before hanging up in the closet, still in good condition. Although not the most comfortable item he had ever worn, he had no doubt it saved his life. Reluctantly, he decided to put it back on, followed by his shirt and pants. After he sat down and finished dressing, he got up again from the bed and walked over to the small mirror above the sink in the bathroom and gazed into it.

All-in-all, I look pretty good considering what I went through last night. His head hurt in back–probably where it made contact with the pavement after the bullet knocked him over–but overall he felt pretty good.

No doubt the police, the FBI, and the hospital staff did all they could for his benefit, but he had needs more pressing than any of them seemed to appreciate. His daughter and her tutor had been kidnapped (again), and he keenly felt the need to take action to get them back as soon as possible.

After taking a quick glance around the room to see if he'd left anything behind, he walked to the door and opened it, surprising the two officers on duty outside.

“Hold it, Mr. Knight,” said one he recognized as Roberts. “We have orders not to let anyone see you without authorization.”

“That does not mean you have to keep me from leaving the room, only that others cannot enter it. Now stand aside; I have business to attend,” Justin replied as he turned to walk past Roberts down the hall. The other officer stepped in front of him.

“Please, sir, you must not leave until we get authorization,” he said.

“Do you intend to hold me against my will? Am I under arrest?” Justin asked him.

The two officers checked with each other uncertainly, then Roberts said, “No, sir, of course not. Just let us call in to get authorization first.”

Justin felt temporarily stymied, but his patrician blood rose up in him this morning.

“Do it quickly!”

Roberts made a call on the spot after examining the business card Special Agent Regan gave him last night.

“Special Agent Regan? Officer Brian Roberts here. Mr. Knight wants to leave his room, and you said to permit no one to see him unless we contacted you first...Yes ma'am, hold on.”

He held the cell phone to Justin: “She wants to talk to you.”

Justin took the phone. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Mr. Knight,” said Regan. “You sound well this morning. Officer Roberts tells me you want to leave. We will make arrangements to have you released from the hospital and transferred to FBI headquarters for your protection. Also, I have some good news for you, which I plan to give you when I see you in person. Please don't try to leave on your own. We have reason to believe that if you try, you could endanger your life once again,” she added.

“What news? When?”

“When what?”

“When can I leave!” Justin practically shouted into the phone.

“A hospital doctor will drop by your room within the next 10-15 minutes to check you over. I will also arrange for a team to give you a full police escort out of the hospital. They should arrive within the next half hour,” she said, before disconnecting.

Time dragged to a crawl while he waited for the doctor, who arrived 20 minutes after the phone call. He examined Justin quickly, quizzed him for a few minutes as to how he felt, and told him that the bruise on his chest would probably turn completely black-and-blue by the end of the day, but not to worry. X-rays showed no fractures in his chest at all. He called the nurse's duty station from the room's phone and asked them to contact the FBI to let them know that the hospital could discharge Mr. Knight immediately.

Within minutes after the doctor called, Justin received a phone call, again from Regan.

“Looks like we can get you out of there now. An escort team should arrive within another five minutes or so. Can you remain patient that long?” she asked.

Justin said he could...barely...then disconnected again.

In the lobby, the young man with the game pad received a phone call. He nodded and whispered the information to the young woman.

“They will probably send someone very soon,” he said a little more loudly, and she nodded. About 10 minutes later, the young couple watched as members of the NYPD marched into the emergency wing and headed straight for Justin's room. They both stood up and walked outside to look around, as if stretching.

They saw a few squad cars and an unmarked van. They both continued to scan the surrounding area.

After a moment the girl said quietly, “Over there, in the parking lot. Two o'clock.”

He turned and saw it too. An ambulance pulled up and stopped, and a group of three men climbed out. They stood staring toward the door, muttering among themselves, and separated, two going off to the right and one going to the left. They moved very quickly.

The young man sauntered over to one of the squad cars where an officer sat behind the steering wheel, apparently waiting for his colleagues inside. He knocked on the window. The officer lowered the window.

“Excuse me, officer, but I just want to alert you to something. See that ambulance over there?” He pointed at it, and the officer gazed in that direction.

“I just saw three people get out of that ambulance and spread out toward either side of this entrance. I have reason to believe they could be attempting to interfere with what your associates plan to do inside the hospital.”

The officer considered him with a squint and said, “Who are you?”

“A friend,” the young man said before walking away. “Just keep your eyes open.”

He walked across the street and headed toward the ambulance, his young female friend joining him. The officer watched them, got on the radio and told his fellow officers to take care when they exited the building.

The young couple slowly approached the ambulance. They looked inside but saw no one in the front seat, with no window allowing them to see in the back. The young man walked around to the far side where the officer couldn't see him.

He looked at the young woman who nodded and said, “Go ahead, he's not looking this way right now.”

He pulled something small out of his pocket, reached under the rear fender, and placed it there. She heard a small clank as it came in contact with the metal of the car's chassis. The magnet on the back of it should hold it steadily in place. They then walked calmly away in opposite directions: he to where the two men had gone, and she toward the lone man. Soon they disappeared from the view of the officer in the squad car.

Haven Donahue and Ward Porter made their way along the side of the hospital building among the parked cars, trying to stay low and out of sight. They reached the corner of the building, beyond which they would have a clear view of the triage area. They took up positions concealing them from the view of anyone except someone immediately behind them, and waited.

Meanwhile, the third man worked his way from the opposite side until he could see the same triage area from the opposite corner of the building. He looked across the way and saw his two compatriots already in position. All three could see the officer still sitting in his car. Just then, they saw the doors opening and a small group of officers surrounding Justin Knight emerged from the lobby. Each of the three men pulled out a large gun with a silencer attached.

Suddenly the young man with the game pad shouted appeared behind the two men shouting, “They've got guns!” before ducking behind a parked car.

On cue, his female associate shouted, “He's got a gun!” from her position behind the lone gunman on the other side and ducked away.

The disruption worked. Two of the officers with Justin went into emergency mode and rushed him to the police van, while their partners pulled their weapons and fanned out, advancing carefully in the direction of the voices. The three men hesitated and all turned to run, stuffing their weapons inside their jackets. None of them ran toward the ambulance, however. Instead, they ran in opposite directions down the street, quickly reaching vehicles that they climbed into, started, and drove off.

The young man and the young woman came out of their respective hiding places and pointed the direction the culprits went to the officers, who took off on foot in pursuit, only to have the waiting cars outpace them. After playing their roles, the young couple walked quickly in a different direction to their own car waiting for them on the street and drove off.

“Hey, you!” one of the officers called after them, but too late. The AU operatives moved very quickly.

The officers needed to keep their team together, so they returned to their squad cars and formed an escort line, with Justin's van in the middle. One squad car remained behind by agreement. Within a minute, the rest left the grounds of the hospital as two remaining officers carefully approached the ambulance across the street where it sat abandoned.