The Mettle of a Man
Summary – How far would Castle go to protect his friends at the 12th and at what personal cost to himself and his relationship to the team? This takes place between "The Belly of the Beast" and "Veritas". Does not include any spoilers for "Veritas".
Author's notes – Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favs. They really do make my day.
Disclaimer – Don't own Castle; Marlowe, ABC, and Disney do. Just writing for fun and because I have these weird plot bunnies that pop into my head.
Rated strong T for language and innuendo.
Chapter 2 – If You Say It Often Enough, Sometimes You'll Be Right
"The serving bowls are in the cabinet over there," said Castle, pointing towards one of the kitchen cabinets.
Lanie nodded as she opened the cabinet. "One or two?"
"Two," replied Castle. "One for chips and one for popcorn. Or we could just mix them," he added as an afterthought.
"Two bowls it is," Lanie said as she got out the bowls. "How was the book tour?"
"9 cities in 5 days – or was it 10 cities?" said Castle as he picked a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon out of the wine cellar to decant and then paused. "And I think I mixed up Scranton, Ohio with Scranton, Pennsylvania when I was on their morning show."
"Ohio or Pennsylvania?" Lanie asked.
Castle shook his head. "I'm still not sure. It wasn't pretty though."
"Well, the team really missed you," Lanie said as she poured chips into one bowl and popcorn into another. "This case has them stymied."
"So how's that going?" Castle asked as he uncorked the wine. "Kate and I mainly played telephone tag this week."
Lanie thought a moment. "You would think it was a typical alley mugging, but the victim has no fingerprints and isn't in any database. And it was too dark for the witness and the policemen to see the suspect, so they are both 'John Does' at this point. I've got the autopsy on a flash drive to give to Perlmutter on the way home to see if he can find something that I've missed."
Castle frowned. "Isn't he on vacation, like for a month?"
"Supposed to be," shrugged Lanie. "The thing that makes this really strange is that the victim had a briefcase chained to his wrist and the suspect tried to cut the man's hand off to get it."
"Ah," said Castle, smiling knowingly, as he started pouring the wine into the decanter. "A covert CIA operation gone wrong. The victim was meeting another agent and going to pass along secret documents, perhaps nuclear launch codes, but a rival agent took him out first."
"Only if that document was a will – and it's a fake one done by a fake law firm," said Lanie.
"A will?" Castle asked quietly, staring at her.
"Yeah and, boy, is it a strange one. The man left his oldest son a tire store in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; his youngest son a bait shop in Hanford, Washington; and his daughter—"
"A bikini shop in Santa Fe," Castle stated as the wine reached the top of the decanter and then cascaded onto the counter. He dropped the bottle of wine, not caring where it went, and lunged for his phone lying on the counter.
"Lanie, what's your number?" he demanded as he thumbed it on.
"212-555-7843," she answered, frowning at him.
Castle quickly dialed the number and put the phone on speaker as it rang. "Answer it," he said.
Puzzled, Lanie quickly answered her phone. "Hello?" she asked, her eyes not leaving Castle's.
"The will is in play," Castle said tersely and then hung up.
"Castle, what the hell – what's this all about?" she demanded.
Castle ran a hand through his hair. "I was right – this was a CIA operation gone wrong," he said simply. "And if I'm right, Kate and the boys are in serious trouble."
"Castle, are you telling me you work for the CIA?" asked Lanie.
"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "But when I was researching Derek Storm and shadowing some CIA agents, we did a couple of drop scenarios. One of the scenarios was doing the same thing the Allies did in WWII to sneak false intel into the German military, specifically how to create cold fusion.
"They created 4 wills and a cipher that when put together contained a formula for cold fusion. They then planted the wills in occupied countries and sent a coded message about the wills that they knew Germany would decipher."
"But wouldn't that have given them the advantage?" asked Lanie.
"No, the formula didn't work but you wouldn't know it until you got to the final step. By then, it would have been too late because everyone in the area would have been exposed to high levels of radiation. So not only did you give them false intel, you also killed the scientists working on the project."
"Wow," said Lanie. "And you're sure this is one of those wills?"
"Yes," Castle said, nodding. "I've read all of them."
"Then we've got to call someone," Lanie said quickly.
"We just did," responded Castle.
"Really?" Lanie asked, looking at him in disbelief. "You called me."
"Yeah, and the CIA monitors my phone," Castle said simply. "It was part of the release I signed."
Lanie opened her mouth and then closed it as a knock resounded on the front door of the loft.
Castle quickly walked over and opened the door.
"You ordered pizza?" said the man in a baseball cap and jacket, carrying a pizza bag.
"Yes, I did," Castle said. "Please come in."
The man stepped inside and removed his baseball hat.
"Mr. Castle, I'm Agent Martinez," the man said. "You sent a message?"
"Yes – one of the Teller wills – it's at the 12th precinct," Castle replied. "It was found in a briefcase chained to a murder victim's wrist earlier this week."
"Are you sure?" Martinez asked.
Castle nodded and looked at Lanie. "Agent Martinez, this is Dr. Lanie Parrish, the medical examiner on the case. She said the will said that he left his oldest son a tire store in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; his youngest son a bait shop in Hanford, Washington; and his daughter a bikini shop in Santa Fe."
Martinez nodded. "Sounds like one of them. Where is it now?"
"I think the lab is still examining it to see if they can trace its origin," Lanie said.
"We need to get a team over there immediately to take the document into custody," Martinez said, pulling out his phone. "Is there anyone else who knows about this will?"
"The team working the case," said Castle.
Martinez nodded and paused. "We'll need to check on them also."
"I can do that now," said Castle, thumbing his phone back on. He speed-dialed Beckett's number and put the phone on speaker, and then waited.
# # # # # # # # # #
After Beckett laid her gun down on the desk, one of the intruders shoved her into her chair, keeping a gun trained on her at all times.
There were now three of them, the two she saw originally and another one who had been in the break room, refilling the snack machine.
Gates, Espo, and Ryan sat in chairs, their hands zip-tied behind their backs and duct tape placed over their mouths.
"Your cell phone," said the man holding a gun on her.
Beckett nodded and pulled the cell phone out of her pocket, putting it on the desk in front of her.
Another man, slightly older and wearing glasses, stood in front of the murder board, studying it. Finally he turned to Beckett. "There was a will in the briefcase found with the body. Where is it?"
"It's in the lab. They're still examining it," Beckett replied.
"Call them and have them bring it to you. Tell them that the elevator is out of order and you'll meet them at the stairwell door." The man frowned as Beckett hesitated. "Don't be a hero. We get what we want and we'll leave. No harm – no foul."
"All right," said Beckett, nodding. She quickly picked up the phone and dialed the lab.
"Lab – this is Trent," said the man who answered the phone.
"Hey, Trent – this is Detective Beckett," she said. "Listen, the Joe Doe who was brought in earlier this week – he had a briefcase on him that had a will in it. We'd like to see that now."
There was a momentary pause. "That's checked out to Brandy and she just went to dinner. Can I have her call you when she gets back?"
"Sure," said Beckett. "Do you know how long that is going to be?"
"About an hour, maybe 2. I think she said something about a shoe sale."
"Thanks," said Beckett. "Just let her know that I'm looking for it."
"Will do," said Trent as he hung up the phone.
Beckett sat back in her chair as she hung up the phone, assessing the situation, trying to decide if she could make a move. Espo caught her eyes and gave a subtle head shake to try to stop her.
"2 hours?" hissed one of the other men. "We didn't plan for that. In and out, that's what you said."
The first man looked back at him. "Patience – all things are rewarded in time." He nodded his head towards Beckett. "Make sure she's secured."
The man turned back to the murder board as one of the other men zip-tied Beckett's hands behind her back. "Poor Howard – he never knew what hit him. Such a shame to waste a good resource."
"Then why did you?" asked Beckett.
"There's the old saying – there's no honor among thieves. Well, there really isn't," the man responded. "He thought he could take everything and leave us with nothing."
"What was he going to take?" Beckett questioned.
The man studied her for a moment and then smiled slightly. "It's best that you not know that, detective."
They stared at each other for a few minutes until Beckett's phone rang, Castle's picture appearing on the screen.
"That's my fiancé," she said. "If I don't answer it, he'll think something's wrong."
The bespectacled man nodded curtly. "Don't say anything to alert him, otherwise…" he brushed the gun by her temple and then swiped his finger across the screen to answer the call.
"Hi, babe," Beckett said.
"Hey, kitten, just got back and wanted to check in," Castle said, shaking his head at the agent. Something was definitely wrong. If there wasn't, Beckett would have jumped down his throat for calling her 'kitten'. "I really missed you."
Beckett let out a breath. She didn't know how he knew, but Castle knew something was wrong. "I missed you too," she said.
"So what are you doing?" Castle asked. "Anything I can help with?"
"Just paperwork," replied Beckett. "And we know how you hate paperwork."
Castle laughed. "I've got plenty of my own after that trip," he said. "About dinner—"
"Yeah, about that – something's come up and we're going to have to work late," Beckett answered.
"Then I'll order something for later tonight – Italian, sushi?" Castle prompted.
"Cheeseburgers," Beckett responded after a moment.
"Oh, yeah, cheeseburgers," said Castle as he wrote 'danger' on a pad of paper. "You want fries with that? Smothered?"
"How about plain?" answered Beckett.
"Okay," said Castle as he wrote 'not wearing masks' on the paper. "2 or 3?" he asked.
Beckett paused for a moment. "3 – that way Alexis can have 1 when she gets home from class."
"Got it," said Castle as he wrote '3 people' on the paper. "And your usual strawberry shake?"
"Sounds perfect," said Beckett.
The man next to her made a slashing move across his throat.
"Hey, babe, I got to go. I miss you."
"I miss you too. See you soon," said Castle and then hung up the phone and turned to Martinez.
Looking grim, the agent quickly dialed a number. "Alpha Tango six niner heavy – Fat Man and Little Boy are in play," he said at the click. "We've got a hostage situation at the 12th precinct." He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Mr. Castle, are you okay with the command center being here?"
"Sure – whatever I can do to help," said Castle.
# # # # # # # #
Lanie and Castle stood in the kitchen, trying to stay out of the way and watching in nervous fascination as FBI and CIA agents quickly sat up a mobile command center.
"Uh, Castle," Lanie finally said quietly. "Does Kate know that the CIA monitors your phone calls?"
"Not even my own mother knows that," Castle responded.
"And you call each other every night when you're out of town?" she asked. "Even when you're in town but busy?"
"Well, yeah," said Castle.
"Do you ever 'talk'?" Lanie asked.
"Well, yeah," Castle said again.
"Adult talk?" Lanie asked pointedly.
Castle thought for a moment. "Oh, that – I always use a burner phone." He chortled slightly. "That would be awkward."
"And what phone does Kate call?" Lanie commented.
Castle opened his mouth and then thought for another moment and closed his mouth. "Point taken. I'll get her a burner phone tomorrow."
Martinez walked over to them. "We've got everything set up. We're putting SWAT into place so that we can get eyes inside the bullpen."
"What about Looking Glass?" asked Castle.
Martinez raised an eyebrow at the question. "Well, to do that, we'll need to get permission from the proper city authorities and we've only got 1-1/2 hours."
There was another knock on Castle's door.
"Then it's a good thing they are coming to a poker game tonight," said Castle.
"Hey, Ricky," said the mayor, walking into the loft. "What's going on?"
"Is your mother putting on a production of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold?" asked the police commissioner as he looked at the equipment.
# # # # # # # #