Summer 2007 Alphabet challenge at the Numb3rs Forum. Sequel to C is for Chinese Puzzle. AU, after Janus List. This is the 17th in what will be a series of 26. Q is for Quagmire is the 1st. There will be no further updates to this piece.
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Veritate et Caritate - Truth and Love
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"Sean, how are you?"
Sean turned with a smile, "Melanie Yang, I didn't expect to run into you here."
Melanie laughed softly, "You're not the only one who hits the bars after work." She looked curiously at him, "I'm surprised to see you alone though." The faint smile that crossed his lips made her even more curious.
"I'm glad to see you, Melanie; I was just getting ready to leave because I couldn't deal with being alone in a crowd."
"Join me for a drink?" Melanie decided to go for it. She'd thought him sinfully attractive even while he was recovering in the hospital, and he was even more so now, all vibrant and full of life. He'd been a little thin while he was in the hospital, but the short few weeks out of the hospital had done wonders. He'd filled out, those broad shoulders and muscular arms were to die for, and so were those narrow hips and the tight butt. She sighed to herself; Sean was definitely her idea of sexy.
"I have to leave early tomorrow morning for Washington, but I'd love to stay for a drink or two," Sean unleashed another charming smile on her.
Her heart fluttered and a thrill of excitement wound its way from her throat to the rest of her. She swallowed hard, completely taken by surprise at the sudden sexual arousal from just his smile. Hoping that he hadn't noticed her reaction, she asked casually, "So what caused the sadness in your eyes?"
Sean raised an ironic brow, "What could I possibly be sad about?"
"Isn't that sort of what I asked?" Melanie said dryly.
He grinned, "If I were, I'm not anymore, since you're here with me."
She shook her head with amusement. This was the Sean she remembered. "Alright, I'm butting out." Then she cautiously asked, uncertain if she wanted to know the answer, "So, where's Hannah?"
"Probably in Colby's arms," Sean wasn't quite successful in hiding his wistfulness.
"Oh, I wondered..." Melanie trailed off with a little frisson of excitement. "You always had this expression in your face when you looked at her, and I didn't want to, well, you know, intrude." She changed the subject hastily when he raised an eyebrow. "Well, that gives me a clear shot then." She grinned when his eyes gleamed with what she hoped was interest. Perhaps neither of them had to be alone that night. And perhaps she might even have a chance to find out just how muscular the rest of him was.
--
"Agent Eppes? I'm Paul Escalante. I believe Steele told you about me?" Paul spoke quietly from the conference room where Don was working with David and Megan.
"Yes, he did," Don looked at Paul with interest. Steele had mentioned that Paul was Che Lobo Santiago's younger brother; though the resemblance was slight, Don thought he would still have noticed it. Steele hadn't elaborated on the circumstances, but Don had guessed that Paul had joined DDFS under some shadowy circumstances. I wonder if there's anyone at DDFS that didn't join under shadowy circumstances? He shook his head slightly and brought his mind to the business at hand. "He mentioned that you were working the gang angle and might have some information for us."
Paul grinned, "I'm sure he's mentioned my brother."
David chuckled, "Yes, he has. And I've met him once."
"He mentioned it," Paul replied with a small smile. "I know you were the team that responded when Joe was kidnapped. He was particularly grateful to Colby for his part in it." He eyed them a little warily, unsure if Colby had mentioned Che Lobo's part in rescuing Luke and him from the antique store explosion.
"What do you have for us?" Megan asked quietly. She liked the looks of Paul Escalante, and from the tone of Steele's voice when he briefed them about Paul, she gathered that Paul had already earned Steele's respect.
"Some of us have been working gang related cases for several months. There had been rumblings we couldn't ignore about some massive turf wars that were apparently about to erupt. We actually managed to infiltrate one or two of the gangs. Not me," he added at the curious looks in the FBI agents' eyes. "But some of that intel did come through me." His lips curved in amusement when he saw that the agents understood how he'd got that intel. "Anyway, we were finally getting close when the attack on DDFS happened. There's someone pulling strings behind the scenes. And we are at a bit of a loss as to who that could be, since the gangs obviously don't work well together. We've been trying to make a connection to Spencer, as Steele has asked, but it's been slow going."
"Steele briefed us about all that before he left for Washington," Don looked curiously at Paul. "Why are you here today?"
Hesitantly, Paul replied, "We think the two men who shot at your father in the park were members of the 23rd Street Bangers." He added when Don's gaze narrowed on him, "We have 'informal' fingerprints on some of the gang members. Actually on all the members of the 18th Street Mexicali, 23rd Street Bangers, and Hoover Park, and just some from other gangs."
"I take it you've managed to infiltrate those three gangs and got fingerprints in passing from the other gangs," David said dryly.
Paul grinned, "Something like that." He continued when Don raised his eyebrows, "So when Steele mentioned that you got partials off the casings and were running a search through the national database, we logged in and ran those partials through our gang database. We got pretty good matches on those partials."
"But we can't get a search warrant on information based on that 'informal' database," Don said grimly.
"No, we can't," Paul conceded. "But what we can do is set up a trap for those men. Then all we have to do is either match the casings or the fingerprints, or both, and we'd have them." He smiled faintly when he saw the gleam in Don's eyes.
"What are we waiting for then? Let's plan the trap!"
--
Colby grinned when Sean came running up to the charter plane that would take the three of them to Washington DC. "Hot date?"
Sean laughed softly, "I never kiss and tell." He smirked at Steele's icy look and added, "It's not like we were trying to get there during business hours anyway, or we would have flown there overnight." He dropped into a comfortable sprawl in one of the seats and buckled in. Before long, they were on their way.
After take-off, Steele pulled out some paperwork and began to work steadily through it. Sean had his eyes closed, apparently asleep.
Colby remembered that the scene had been similar when he traveled with Steele and Luke to rescue Sean from the hunt club, Steele had worked while Luke slept. He wondered, for a fleeting moment, if Steele ever relaxed, then his thoughts turned to Sean.
Things had been slightly different when he and Luke returned from the dead, so to speak, though Colby hadn't quite been able to put his finger on exactly what it was. On the surface, Sean had seemed to be his usual relaxed self, except for the occasional glances at him that Colby hadn't yet been able to decipher. Then they had dinner at Luke's. There was a tension in Sean, and Colby thought he saw a yearning in Sean's eyes each time he looked at Hannah.
He hadn't quite decided what that was all about. Hannah had told him about being at the hospital to visit both Sean and Fiona, and about going to see Alan Eppes, but he hadn't detected anything unusual from her. Whatever it was, Colby thought Hannah was totally oblivious to it.
Colby hoped Sean hadn't suddenly discovered feelings for Hannah. He didn't want to deal with something like that. He knew Hannah wouldn't hide something like that from him, and he didn't think that Sean had done anything untoward, but his friend deserved better than that. Perhaps he was imagining things, and Sean really had been out late the previous night on a hot date. Taking a leaf from Sean's book, he leaned back and fell asleep before too long.
Sean, on the other hand, wasn't asleep. Afraid that even casual conversation would reveal his feelings about Hannah, he'd decided it was safest just to chalk it up to a late night and pretend to be asleep for most of the trip. He just wasn't ready for to cope with Colby finding out about his feelings for Hannah. Sean didn't think Colby would take it out on Hannah, but since he didn't want Hannah to know either, he thought it prudent to stay away from any situation that might reveal his feelings.
His thoughts turned back to the night before. Melanie had been a bossy nurse, but he had to admit she might have had just cause since he'd been a terrible patient. He knew it couldn't be easy for the nurses, to provide the care they did for the number of patients they had was phenomenal. And they had to be discreet as well, certainly in the case of the DDFS agents, the nurses couldn't divulge the kinds of injuries they had suffered. All the nurses had been gentle and caring, despite their sometimes sharp words.
But despite her bossiness, he hadn't been surprised that he'd enjoyed himself with Melanie, since he'd always liked her. But he'd found himself comparing various things about her to Hannah. Maybe someday I'll actually be able to enjoy a woman's company again without doing that, he thought wistfully. Still, the evening hadn't been a complete loss. A friend of Melanie's had showed up later, with interesting results.
The night before...
"Did you hear about Wendy Lee?" Jenny Chen, Melanie's friend said to her in excitement after she'd been introduced to Sean. She cast an apologetic look at Sean, "I'm sorry, but this news is just too big to hold back."
Sean grinned and shrugged, he was interested too, though neither woman knew that.
"What about Wendy?" Melanie asked curiously. "I've been working too many shifts at the hospital, and I haven't checked any of my mother's messages. Though I did think there'd been more messages than usual."
Jenny laughed, "That's right! Your mother plays mahjong with Mrs. Lee too, doesn't she?"
"Whenever there's a free moment, yes," Melanie heaved a long-suffering sigh.
"Wendy's been arrested by the FBI! She's apparently been selling secrets to the Chinese government, secrets from her job at the NSA." Jenny's brown eyes gleamed avidly at the news.
"There's no way, not Wendy," Melanie was adamant. "She's such a straight arrow, there has to be some mistake."
"Apparently they found incriminating papers in her apartment," Jenny seemed unwilling to give Wendy the benefit of the doubt.
Melanie changed the subject. Sean grinned slightly; he could tell that she was annoyed; she had the same expression on her face now as she had whenever he did something at the hospital she didn't like. Before long, Jenny drifted away. She seemed put out that Melanie hadn't wanted to discuss Wendy's problems like she wanted.
"Sorry about that," Melanie apologized, "Jenny's never liked Wendy, she's just gloating. Wendy's always been smarter than everyone, and since Jenny likes being the center of attention, it's always irked her that Wendy got a lot of attention growing up."
"Did you know this Wendy very well?" Sean asked casually.
"We knew each other in school. I was good in certain classes, but there were other classes that I needed a little help on, and she earned extra money tutoring. I wouldn't have made it through without her help," Melanie told him. "But we haven't connected much since we both went to college, really, because we pursued different careers. We only see each other at Chinese New Year's or whenever either of us happened to be visiting when our moms got together to play mahjong."
"Which is every free moment," Sean teased.
Melanie laughed, "It just seems that way. They have a regular schedule and they take turns going to each other's home. Do you know anything about mahjong?"
"Just that it takes four players and it's played with tiles," Sean looked interested. He thought a second and took the plunge. "Any chance of seeing it played?"
Looking amused, Melanie said, "I remember your deck of cards."
Sean laughed; there had been a mix of fascination and distaste from all the nurses in reaction to his deck of playboy bunny cards. "I'm interested in cultural differences, even in terms of gambling."
"Well, if you're really interested, I'm sure there's a game going on tonight."
There was a half smile on Melanie's face that intrigued Sean. "But the conversation will all be about Wendy?" He had been counting on that.
"Well, that too," mischief lit Melanie's eyes, "But my mother will be all excited because it'll be the first time I'll have brought a man home. You'll be getting the third degree, even if it's the first time we've even had a drink together."
Sean grinned wickedly, "I can't think of a better way to spend an evening than subjecting myself to a third degree from your mother."
Melanie burst into laughter, "We'll see how you feel after we get there."
The clatter of the tiles was the first thing he noticed when they arrived at her parents' home.
"So she is here," Melanie murmured, "I wondered if she would show."
"Who's here? Mrs. Lee?"
"Yeah, that's her car. It's a 'face' thing, you know what I mean?" Melanie tried to explain.
"Actually, I do. I had lot of Asian friends in school and college," Sean told her. "It's kind of difficult to explain, but it revolves around showing respect."
Melanie nodded, "Yeah, and she would be losing 'face' from what Wendy supposedly did. She must not think Wendy is guilty or she wouldn't be here."
"Would any mother think her child guilty?" Sean asked gently.
"You'd be surprised," Melanie said dryly, "I've seen a lot happen at the hospital."
Sean acknowledged that with a rueful nod, but didn't have a chance to say anything else when they stepped in and Melanie introduced him to the four ladies at the mahjong table.
"So how long have you known each other?"
Sean laughed softly; it hadn't taken Melanie's mother very long to get to the important questions.
"Mother!" Melanie protested.
"I was just asking," Mrs. Yang looked innocent.
"We've known each other almost a month, Mrs. Yang," Sean looked equally innocent. "I was in the hospital and completely at her mercy." He grinned at Melanie's scowl.
"Oh! I'm sorry. What were you in the hospital for?" Mrs. Yang continued her inquisition.
Sean put a hand over his heart and looked solemnly at her, "Nothing that's sexually transmitted, I promise you."
Melanie burst into laughter at the shocked looks on all four ladies' faces. "That should teach you to pry into something that's none of your business," she told her mother. "He just wants to find out about mahjong."
"That's what they all say," Mrs. Wong said with a wink.
Sean laughed. He'd discovered that Mrs. Wong was the bawdiest of the four. Mrs. Lee was the quietest, Mrs. Chen, Jenny's mother, seemed to complain the most. And Mrs. Yang was the friendliest, at least, when she wasn't giving him the third degree.
They continued to play, this time giving him a commentary while they played. It was similar to gin rummy, in that the sets of three could either be in running numbers, known as a 'pung', or the same number, a 'chi'. The 'pungs' could be turned into 'kongs' which were sets of four. One difference was that these sets had to be in the same suit. The suits were in Chinese and a little difficult to decipher, and there was a point system that confounded him, having to do with multiples of four that sometimes needed to rounded up to tens. But he'd finally got enough of a gist to try, much to their amusement.
Mrs. Wong gave him her seat, and offered advice with just enough innuendo to keep him laughing throughout the game.
He finally managed to play well enough to where the conversation moved away from his terrible moves to Wendy's predicament.
"What's going to happen to Wendy now?" Mrs. Chen asked Mrs. Lee, with just enough sharpness where both Mrs. Yang and Mrs. Wong both shot her warning glances.
Mrs. Lee's reply was serene, "We've hired an attorney. I'm sure there was some mistake." Still, Sean noticed the tension in her hands, and in the slight frown on her face.
"Are you sure this doesn't have anything to do with the trouble you and your husband had while you were visiting in China a few years back?"
Sean could see Mrs. Chen was maliciously enjoying the Lees' current misfortune.
"That's quite enough!" Mrs. Yang said sharply. She rattled something off in Chinese, while giving Sean a quick glance.
Sean was disappointed when the conversation moved to something else, but he knew that he couldn't really expect more. He was just a stranger, after all. But he had more than when he got there, he would definitely try to find out what happened when Mr. and Mrs. Lee went to China. He was sure that Melanie would be able to tell him exactly when they went.
The game finally broke up well past midnight. On his way to the door with Melanie, Mrs. Wong said sotto voce as he passed her, "If it doesn't work out with Melanie, I have a daughter her age." She winked as Sean burst into laughter.
"I'll keep that in mind, Mrs. Wong," he told her solemnly, giving her a hug and a kiss. "I can't think of a nicer person to have as a mother-in-law."
She laughed at that, "You're just a sweet talker, aren't you? Melanie's going to have to watch out for that." She waved him on as she continued to talk to Mrs. Lee.
He grinned wickedly, when Mrs. Yang pointedly called out to Melanie that she should stay the night. "I'll see you when I get back, Melanie," he told her when she rolled her eyes at her mother. His expression softened when she hugged him goodbye. "I promise I'll call."
"Promises, promises," Melanie said lightly. Then her lips parted in surprise when he kissed her goodbye.
Back to the present...
"That must have been quite a date," Colby said with a chuckle. "I've seen that smile of satisfaction before."
"Get your mind out of the gutter," Sean opened his eyes to give Colby a stern glance. But his wicked grin belied his stern words. "I spent the evening with Melanie Yang at her mother's. Wendy Lee's mother was also there."
Steele looked up with interest as well at that particular announcement, "Anything interesting from that?"
"Only one small piece of information, but I thought it was worth the time." Sean told them about Mrs. Chen's gloating over the Lees' misfortune and the mention of an incident in China.
"We'll check and see if the bug you planted on Wendy's contact has yielded anything. Are you going to see if you can pinpoint when the Lees' were in China?"
"Yes, I'll be seeing Melanie as soon as we get back," Sean told them. He ignored both their speculative looks. Perhaps that will throw them off, get them off-track about my feelings for Hannah. "Are we there yet?"
Steele shook his head, "Not much longer. You must have been a holy terror growing up."
"Not a holy one, I'm sure," Colby managed to slide in before Sean could say anything. He laughed at Sean's chagrin.
Sean pointedly ignored him, though his lips twitched with amusement, "So what's the plan? Will there be someone to let us into Barclay's apartment and office?"
"Yes, the doorman or the superintendent of the apartment building will let you in, and security will let you into the office. Kaplan's made arrangements at both places. You won't have any problems. Call me if you do run into any problems. I'll be with the President and Kaplan; we'll take care of it."
Both Colby and Sean nodded.
"I booked hotel rooms for us, so don't rush through the search." Steele didn't apologize for keeping them away from home overnight. It was part of the job.
--
Luke and Fiona had decided to fly overnight to Lexington, Kentucky. The charter plane they were on was comfortable enough for a decent few hours of sleep. Especially when Fiona's snuggled up in my arms, Luke thought with a lazy smile of satisfaction when he woke up just before they were about to land. "We're about to land," he murmured to wake her.
"Mmmm," she purred as she stretched.
"Naughty wench," he muttered in some chagrin. She'd aroused him with her sensuous stretch against him.
She chuckled as she scooted out of his arms and buckled herself into another seat.
"Just remember that payback's hell," he told her, amused at her self-satisfied smile.
"I'm counting on it," she said with a soft laugh. Then they were occupied with landing and getting to Senator Barclay's home.
"Must be nice," Fiona murmured as they both surveyed the size of the Barclay mansion.
"He comes from a rich family," Luke told her. He'd done some research into Barclay's finances while she'd tried to find the connection from Barclay to Spencer. "But I can't tell how much of it is family money and how much of it is from other sources."
"Senator Barclay," Fiona purred when he finally came down to meet them in the foyer. "I'm Désirée Morneau and this is Lucas Williams."
"Ms. Morneau, it's a pleasure. What can I do for you?"
Luke was not happy to see the gleam of interest in Barclay's eyes, but his impassive mask remained intact. He gained some measure of satisfaction at the annoyance in Barclay's face when Fiona pulled out the search warrant and waved it under his nose.
"We have a search warrant for your home, Senator."
Lips still pursed in annoyance, Barclay examined the search warrant. "Seems to be in order," he said stiffly, now eyeing them both with dislike.
"Lucas will start the search in your offices here," Fiona said lightly as Barclay showed them to his office at home. She flashed a brilliant smile at Barclay, preening a little with satisfaction when Barclay was riveted by it. Aware that Luke had stiffened slightly, she drew Barclay out of the office. "I'll be searching the rest of the house." She hoped that Luke wasn't going to be difficult about her doing her job.
--
Don smiled with grim satisfaction as Paul laid out his idea for a sting.
"They're always looking to score some drugs," Paul told them. "We're not sure what happened but the drug supply dried up a few weeks ago, just before the attack. We've managed to make contact with the 23rd Street Bangers about a supply of heroin. They've set up a buy tomorrow."
"What makes you think these two will be there?" Megan asked curiously.
Paul shrugged, "They're the muscle, they're usually there. Their fingerprints were the easiest to get. If you'll get this buy approved, we'll be able to nail them for your father's shooting."
"But just for the shooting," Don said thoughtfully.
Paul nodded, "Yes. Steele said that's what you wanted."
"Yes, it is," Don said softly, "But I also want to know why your agents were attacked. Is there anything we can do to find out both?"
"We might be able to," Paul said slowly. He looked at them. "If we take out the second-in-command, we'll get the gang leader at the buy. That would be the only way we'd find out anything, from the leader."
"Take out, how?" David demanded, not liking the implication. He didn't feel any better when Paul shrugged.
"Are you sanctioned to do that?" Don narrowed his eyes as he asked Paul.
"Yes," Paul said quietly.
"Do it," Don told him. "No questions asked," he added, holding up his hand to forestall the protests he saw in Megan's and David's faces.
"You got it," Paul replied with another small smile. "Get your team ready for the buy."
"I don't guess the FBI needs to provide the heroin," Don said dryly.
Paul only smiled as he left.
"You're sure about this?" Megan murmured to Don.
"I have to find out if someone's really planning to start an all out gang war," Don told her.
"And if they are?" David asked, pacing restlessly.
"We'll figure that out when we get there." That's the best I can do now," Don thought.
--
"Thank you for seeing me this evening, Mr. President," Steele greeted Warren and Kaplan when he was admitted to the Oval office.
As worn out as Steele himself was, the President looked worse. But he was warm and friendly as he returned Steele's greeting. "I'm sorry it has to be after hours, Steele," Warren shook his hand. "How is the search going on Barclay?"
"It's too early to say. I'm here about the case though. The complexity of the situation is alarming and I'm very much afraid of the possible ramifications. I wanted to discuss what you're willing to sanction," Steele watched the two men for their reactions. Kaplan seemed unaffected, but the President flinched.
Then sighing, Warren asked, "What kind of sanctions do you need?"
--
It didn't take long to search Barclay's Washington apartment. It was obvious he only slept there. Other than some clothing and toiletries, there were no personal things in it. No photographs, no decorations. Even the refrigerator was empty, save for some bottles of water. There were no papers of any kind, not even newspapers.
Sean and Colby went through it quickly, then went on to Barclay's office at the Capitol building. As promised, they hadn't encountered any difficulty getting into either the apartment or the office.
Colby sighed when he surveyed Barclay's office. "Figures he'd be an untidy person."
"That's probably better for us," Sean told him although he wasn't any happier about it. Warily, he circled the mound of paper on the desk. "He might have slipped up and left something easy to find."
"Alright, you take the desk, I'll take the filing cabinets and the credenza," Colby said with a shudder.
Sean rolled his eyes, "Gee, thanks."
"Anytime," Colby grinned.
They worked in companionable silence as they slowly sifted through each piece of paper. The good thing about having a search warrant was that they didn't have to remember to put things back exactly the way they found it. Although neither man thought that Barclay would really notice anything missing since it was such a mess in there.
"I'm pulling anything that has a reference to Spencer or Kannin," Sean told Colby.
"Okay," Colby mumbled a reply. He was lost in skimming the files. "Well, hello, what have we here?"
Sean looked over at him with interest. "Well, don't keep me in suspense! What do you have there?"
"A file on the Lees," Colby frowned. "There's too much in this file to read here. I'm confiscating the entire file. Steele's going to want to take a close look at it. But there's some info here about Mr. Lee's trip to China."
"Anything there to connect them to Spencer?" Sean asked curiously.
"Not on the parts I read. I hope so," Colby replied. But he had already moved on.
"Hannah's in this file," Sean said sharply.
Colby looked up quickly, "What is it?"
"Surveillance photos," Sean told him as he went through the file with a frown.
"From when?" The fear cut through Colby's heart. "With whom?"
"Dates on the photos are from before you got back together with her. They're with Mr. Lee, looks like they're haggling over jewelry in Mr. Lee's store." There was an anxious expression on Sean's face as he looked at Colby. Hesitantly, he said, "I should bag this for Steele."
Neither said anything as they stared at each other.
"Do it," Colby finally said. In that moment, he knew that Sean would do anything to protect Hannah, as he himself would. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but it was too late. "I'm sure there's a good explanation for it."
"I'm sure you're right." Aware from the look in Colby's eyes that he had revealed too much from that moment's hesitation, Sean went back to what he was doing, absurdly relieved that Colby hadn't pursued it.
They were done in a few hours, and met Steele in his hotel room to debrief.
Steele was already talking to Fiona and Luke on a scrambled line, but he took one look at their anxious faces and demanded, "What is it?"
Silently, Sean spread out the surveillance photos.
"Is there anything else in the file?"
Colby raised an eyebrow; Steele had actually relaxed when he saw those photos. "Who took those photos, Steele?"
"Don't use that tone with me." Steele recognized the Colby's soft tone as the threat it was. "Thad Biden took those while he was watching Hannah. This was before I could get Luke loose to take over that duty. What I want to know is how Barclay got his hands on them." Steele sighed to himself when he saw that both men were furious. "Is she in anything else?" He relaxed even further when both men shook their heads. "Hopefully, that means the photos were in Barclay's possession because Mr. Lee's in them. Grab those headsets," Steele pointed to the headsets on the table. "They'll make the call as secure as we can make it outside the office."
"There wasn't anything about Hannah in any of Barclay's papers here," Luke said over the line. He added softly, "I'll look into Biden."
"What else did you find, Luke?" Colby asked.
"A file on Kannin," Luke remained calm. "And surprisingly, a file on Corker."
"Corker?" Sean looked up with narrowed eyes. That was a name that brought back bad memories.
"You'd think he would know better than to keep those files where they could be found with a search warrant," Colby shook his head.
"These weren't. Fiona found his secret safe," Luke said dryly.
"Fiona did?" Steele sounded amused.
The husky laugh was unmistakably triumphant, "I was keeping Barclay away from Luke."
"Any particular reason?" Colby said with a grin.
"Never mind that," Luke told him, an edge in his tone.
Colby and Sean laughed, but the laughter faded when they looked at each other.
Steele watched them with interest but only said, "So how did Fiona find the safe?"
"Well, Barclay just kept looking at this one painting on the wall while we were still in the office. I wondered if there was any reason for that, and told Luke to focus on that painting."
"A safe behind the painting?"
"Not that easy," Luke sounded vexed. "Safe behind the wood paneling behind the painting. It took a good bit longer to get that paneling to slide open. Same construction as Miller's office. Since I didn't know what it was I did to get that panel open, I had to figure it out for this one."
"But you know now?"
"I know now." The peevish tone in Luke's voice came across the line loud and clear.
Steele wondered what had annoyed Luke but decided that would have to wait. "So we have a file on the Lees, Kannin, and Corker from the search warrants on Barclay. A productive day, I'd say. Anything we need to act on while we're in our respective cities?" When there was no reply in the affirmative, he said, "Alright, we'll go over the files in more detail and debrief in the office."
--
"You're sure you want to do this?" Steele asked Sean, later the next afternoon.
"Yes. I think she'll talk to me," Sean told him. "And Colby will be there." They had decided to talk to Wendy after reviewing the Lees' file. Sean had decided that Wendy would be most forthcoming with him and Colby.
"Wendy," Sean said gently as they walked.
"Sean? Why are you here?" Wendy looked alarmed, "They haven't arrested you, have they?"
"No, no, they haven't," Sean tried to sooth her, but she only frowned.
"What happened to your accent?" she asked sharply, backing away from him. Her eyes widened when she finally recognized Colby. "FBI?" she whispered.
"No, not FBI," the regret was written all over Sean but there was no help for it now. "But with the government, yes."
Wendy crumpled into her chair and dropped her face to her hands. "Is your girlfriend with the government too? Was she watching my father?"
"No," Colby told her gently. "Hannah's really a jeweler. Why do you think someone's watching your father?"
She sighed, a soft, sad sound that tugged at the heartstrings of both men. "A few years ago, my parents visited China. It seems to be a big thing with that generation, going back to the village," she said bitterly. "My father took some jade artifacts, apparently intending to smuggle them out of the country. I don't know what he was thinking; he still refuses to tell me much about it. Only that they were arrested, and coerced into cooperating with the Chinese government. They knew that I was a cryptographer with the NSA, and they wanted me to pass information on to them, or they would kill my parents. Something about losing a couple of double agents." Wendy eyed Colby, "Weren't you one of them?"
"Triple agent," Colby told her.
She looked at him for a moment, then sighed, "I wish I'd thought to do that, bring it to my boss and turn the tables on the Chinese. But I didn't. I panicked, because I didn't want my parents to get hurt. The more I passed to the Chinese, the more they wanted," she frowned slightly, "And they were sometimes very specific about what they wanted. Like someone was directing them somewhere."
"What kinds of things?" Sean exchanged a glance with Colby.
"The missile thing I was arrested for was one," Wendy said thoughtfully. "They seemed to be obsessed with missiles actually. They wanted to know about US missiles on the Russians as well. The strangest thing is that it almost always came across my desk within a day of two of their request."
"So someone was directing them to the information, and someone was directing the information to you," Colby murmured. "Probably all fake."
"Any way you can find out the source of the information you got?" Sean asked her.
"Not from here," Wendy told him dryly.
He grinned, cheered at the light that was back in her eyes. "We'll see what we can do." Sean hesitated for a moment before saying, "If it makes you feel any better, Melanie Yang doesn't think you did it."
"How do you know Melanie?" Wendy looked suspiciously at him. "What are you, some sort of trap for Chinese girls?"
Colby burst into laughter at the consternation on Sean's face. But he knew Sean would wiggle out of it, he had a way with the ladies.
"No, no, Melanie was the tyrant of a nurse that was in charge while I was in the hospital," Sean chided her, but he was smiling.
"He didn't believe you were a willing double agent, Wendy," Colby said quietly. "He dug into it on his own time."
"Thank you for that," Wendy gnawed at her lower lip for a moment. "In a way I'm glad it's all over with. It was driving me nuts betraying US secrets. The exact opposite of what I'd sworn to do when I took the job."
"Truth and love," Sean said softly. "It's hard to choose truth over love." He met her eyes with perfect understanding.
--
Spencer simmered with fury when the news reached him that Barclay had been indicted on several counts of conspiracy.
"Idiot! I told you to burn the papers!" Spencer shouted at Barclay's image on the news. The malevolence gleamed in his eyes. "But it's all in motion now. Nothing and no one can stop it."
--
After a long day of piecing together information they'd gathered from Barclay's office, plus assimilating the news about the planned sting on the 23rd Street Bangers, the weary agents left DDFS for what was left of the night.
"Colby," Sean said hesitantly as he paused by Colby's car. At Colby's raised eyebrow, he plunged in, "She doesn't know." Sean saw the comprehension in Colby's eyes, and rushed to add, "And I'd prefer to keep it that way."
"I'm sorry," Colby said softly.
Sean looked at Colby in surprise. That was the last thing he had expected Colby to say.
"I spent several months keeping away from her, I know how it feels," Colby told him. "I appreciate you protecting her, and I appreciate the fact that you didn't move in on her while everyone thought I was dead."
"She didn't believe you were dead," Sean pointed out, "And she'd never leave you, so you need to get that thought out of your head if you ever had it."
Colby smiled, Sean did know him.
The silence stretched.
"I'll get over it someday," Sean wasn't sure if he was reassuring himself or Colby. "I just didn't want to lose a good working relationship." Gratefully, he took the hand Colby reached out and shook it. More than a working relationship, Sean thought, After all we've been through, we're as close to brothers as we could possibly be. "Will you be alright in our get-togethers?" he asked warily.
"You still only get less than a second with her," Colby said mildly.
There was a split second of silence, then they both burst into laughter.
--
A/N: Search warrants and searches, I know they exist, but how it was executed in this story was all from my imagination and probably bears no resemblance whatsoever to fact. Forgive me on that and go with the flow of the story. That's all I can think of right now that might conflict with reality, but if you find anything else, well, please forgive the error.