This story takes place in the early part of season 4 after the team has started to trust Colby again. I hope you enjoy the story.

[1 Mall 3 Floors 1 Collapse 250 Trapped]

Prologue

Don walked through the bullpen on the seventh floor of the FBI building. He walked past all the cubicles and entered the largest conference room in the office. Charlie was working on one of three white boards, working on a complex math problem for the recent murder of a lawyer.

Charlie was busy writing and didn't notice Don enter the room.

Don smiled "Hey Chuck how's the algorithm coming along?"

Charlie Jumped and replied "Don't call me Chuck, the equation is going well, I will be finished soon Donald."

Charlie turned around and faced his brother smiling

"How much longer?" Don asked stepping up to the white board to see what Charlie was working on.

"About an hour or two." Charlie answered turning back to writing more equations on the board.

"That's great Charlie."

Don turned to leave when he remembered "Oh I almost forgot don't take too long everyone is going to be at your house later tonight for a party."

"I won't" Charlie said concentrating on his math.

Don laughed and left the room and re-entered the bullpen he was walking to his desk when he noticed that Colby was still working on the murdered lawyer case. He was working hard to win back the trust of the team so he started to work even longer hours than he usually would have.

Don sighed and walked over to Colby's desk.

"Hey Colby how are you?"

"Fine." Colby said looking up at Don.

"That's good" Don said "Are you joining everyone at Charlie's tonight?"

"I don't know Don, I'm kind of busy."

"You're coming and that's an order." Don said determined to rebuild his friendship with Colby.

"Ok, I will then." Colby chuckled

"Alright, I'll see you there." Don said "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Ya, sure" Colby said slightly nervous

"It's nothing bad Colby." Don said to reassure his agent

"Ok, what is it?" Colby asked getting a little irritated

"In an hour I want you to pull Charlie way from those boards in the conference room and bring him to the house, whether or not he is finished working."

"Ok boss but that won't be easy." Colby replied

"Good, I'm heading out now so I will see you at the house in about an hour and a half."

"yes." Colby replied

Don turned and left the desk and headed towards the elevators to head home to get everything ready for the party expecting Colby and Charlie to be there soon.


An hour later Colby finished the angle he was working on for the case and put the information on Don's desk before he walked into the conference room where Charlie was working.

Charlie was now sitting at one of the tables scribbling down the equations from the board onto sheets of paper.

"Hey whiz kid what you working on?"

"I'm working on a decision tree algorithm that will determine the reasons the killer had to kill the lawyer." Charlie said as he went on to describe the lengthy math equation that he was using to find the killer.

"Ok, That's great." Colby said totally confused

"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" Charlie asked

"No sorry Charlie I don't."

"That's fine I am almost done anyways." Charlie stated as he finished copying everything onto the papers."

"Good, Don asked me to give you a lift to your house when you are done."

"Ok sure just give me a minute to put the pages on Don's desk then we can go." Charlie got up to leave the conference room.

Colby followed Charlie out of the room and over to Don's desk. Charlie put the papers on the desk and they headed over to the elevators.

When they got to the elevators Charlie pushed the button for the elevators.

"How are you?" Colby asked

"Good, You?" Charlie replied

"Fine" Colby replied

"Don was sure I was going to have to tear you away from the math you were working on." Colby said

"I was finished, it was quite easy actually to determine the decisions the killer made with…"

"I'm sure it did." Colby laughed interrupting Charlie's rambling

"Well anyway it will help so that you can solve the case tomorrow." Charlie said slightly irritated

"I'm glad you are helping Charlie." Colby replied with sincerity "You should be here tomorrow to tell everyone about the big break through you made in the case."

"I Can't." Charlie replied

"Why not?"

"I have a class tomorrow morning that I can't miss."

"That's great."

"It is a great class I'm lecturing on the importance of fluid dynamics on…" Charlie started into another one of his ramblings.

Luckily for Colby the elevator arrived before Charlie got too far into his ramblings.

They both stepped into the elevators and Colby pressed the button for the main floor lobby.

"Oh by the way is it ok that we stop at a food store before we go to your house for the party." Colby asked remembering that he hadn't been shopping in quite a while.

"Ya sure, which one?" Charlie asked

"It's inside the mall on Maple Street." Colby replied remembering the grocery store that was on the way to Charlie and Don's house.

"Oh ya I've heard of that one, it's called the Funky Food Store right?" Charlie said remembering the store.

"Ya, that's the one and despite the name it's actually a pretty good store." Colby replied

The elevator reached the main floor and the doors opened allowing Colby and Charlie to walk out and head out of the building towards the parking lot. They then drove about ten minutes away to the Maple Street mall.

Colby and Charlie arrived at the mall and Colby parked his car in the south parking lot.


The mall was three stories high and was made of brick. It looked quite old and worn down, the mall had obviously been built a long time ago and was showing its age.

Colby and Charlie walked into the front entrance of the mall, took the hall way that ran from the front of the mall to the North West part of the building. They took the staircase that was at the back of the building and went up to the second floor where the Funky Food store was located.

The food store was packed with everything from Fresh vegetables to dried goods and everything in between.

Charlie and Colby entered the store and quickly shopped making sure to get everything on Colby's list of groceries.

After about twenty minutes of browsing they were ready to go.

They walked up to the cashier and laid everything on the conveyor belt. On the belt there was six bottles of water, two candy bars, one box of cereal, two bags of chips, five apples, a bunch of bananas and a dozen protein bars.

The cashier rang everything through and put the groceries into five different grocery bags. The cashier told Colby the price of all of the groceries and he paid for them.

Colby handed two of the bags to Charlie and they left with the groceries, heading for the party at Charlie's that had probably started by now.

They left the store and passed through the food court towards the staircase on the North West side of the building.

They took the stairs to the first floor,

Charlie and Colby were chatting as they descended the stairs towards the first floor.

They got to the bottom of the stairs and were starting to walk into the hallway when the world around them started to shake.

The walls the floor the ceiling everything was shaking.

"Oh, no" Colby and Charlie both yelled as they started to run towards the entrance to the mall.

They got no more than five feet when Colby noticed that the ceiling was starting to cave in.

Colby grabbed Charlie and pulled him down to the ground.

"Wh…." Charlie said as the wind was knocked out of him.

Colby toppled on top of Charlie protecting him from the falling concrete.

There was screaming and shouting coming from all over as people tried to get out of the building.

Suddenly as the shaking started it stopped with the whole building collapsed, trapping Charlie and Colby and everyone else who was inside the building.

I Hope you enjoyed the story. Please review, Constructive criticism is helpful but flaming is not, please don't flame.