Here we go. Seat of the pants time.
Note: In Chapter 1 I messed up. Tompkins is an Assistant Director, not a Deputy Director. From here on out it'll be fixed, and Curtis will also be an Assistant Director.
All disclaimers still in place.
E is for Enemy, Part 2
Don Eppes grabbed for his cell phone, already knowing who was calling before he looked at the display. In the week since Colby's arrest, Charlie had taken to phoning Don each day just before lunch. According to Charlie, calling at that particular time maximized the probability that Don would answer. Don wasn't quite sure how Charlie had figured that, but he went along with it.
Don didn't tell Charlie that he could call any time he wanted, and not just because Don hadn't been home since the night of the arrest and felt guilty. No, it had more to do with the fact that he hadn't been so miserable at work since the week
before he left Albuquerque to return to L.A. Without Kim. Charlie's calls were little spots of brightness in his day, a hint of an outside world that still rattled on, oblivious to the turmoil that had overtaken his life. He hoarded them jealously.
He was glad that he'd kept Charlie out of the mess to the extent that he'd been able. In fact, after Charlie had given his statement that first horrible day, Don had banished his brother from the office, telling Charlie in no uncertain terms not to return until Don gave the all-clear.
Charlie had acquiesced with little fuss; Don suspected he was too upset by what had happened to deal with Megan and David's pain as well. But now, whether driven by guilt or simple loneliness, Charlie was calling Don every day at precisely 11:58 AM, just to shoot the breeze with his big brother.
"Hey, Charlie."
"Don. How's it going?"
Don shrugged. "Same old, same old. How about on your end of things?"
"Good." Quiet sigh. "Boring. Larry came to visit. He even mentioned that he's starting to think about revising his zero-point energy paper."
"That's great." Don grinned. "Say hi for me, will you?"
"Sure. He, ah, he hasn't seen Megan yet. He seems okay with that, to tell you the truth, but I know he's working his way up to--to calling her, so you might pass that along."
No, I am not going to pass that along. Don glanced around, catching sight of a grim-faced Megan sitting at her desk, her shoulders hunched up around her ears. Larry had better hurry up, he thought sadly, or pretty soon we're all going to lose Megan.
"So." Charlie cleared his throat. "Weekend's coming up and Dad finally picked out a new grill. Any chance of you stopping by to help us baptize it?"
Don shook off an image of billowing steam as a hot grill was dunked in water. "Can't promise anything, Charlie."
"Oh." Very soft. "You should--you should probably at least try to call Dad--"
"I know. I will."
"What are you doing?" The words burst out of Charlie in a flood of anger and frustration, and Don sighed, realizing he'd just hit the limit of his brother's patience.
"Charlie, you know I'm not here by choice," he said, keeping his voice quiet.
"But what are you doing? And how can I not be able to help? I'm--I'm ready to come back now--"
"That's not it." Don rubbed his forehead. As much as he looked forward to these calls, for the last week he had still somehow ended up with a headache for lunch. "I know you want to help and believe me, I wish you could. But all we're doing is going back through two years of cases and pulling the ones that involved information Colby might have wanted to--sell." He dropped his voice on the last word, but he still heard David slam a stapler with far too much force. Charlie, he thought, you really don't want to be here.
"There can't be that many cases, can there? The Chinese wouldn't be interested in gangs and drugs and pedophiles--"
"And vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that look like UFOs and our response to the threat of Sarin in the water system and a computer program that can hide planes from air traffic control. And so on, and so on."
"Oh."
That one small, forlorn word jabbed at Don. He dredged up a smile and hoped his brother could hear it in his voice. "And you, Charlie."
"What?"
"I'm sure Colby told the Chinese about you. I've been thinking that maybe I should put a man on you, make sure they don't steal away our secret weapon." He looked up at a hint of movement; Megan was eyeing him and the tight lines around her mouth had softened just a touch. He grinned at her. "Does CalSci have any Conversational Mandarin classes? Maybe you should sign up."
Dead silence, then a deep breath, and Don had to resist the urge to put Charlie on speaker. "Don, don't be ridiculous. There are some excellent mathematicians in China... Do you really think--"
"No, Charlie. I don't really think. Though they'd be smart if they did." Megan almost smiled before she turned back to her computer monitor.
"I know a few words of Mandarin," Charlie offered. "From that conference I went to in Beijing five years ago." Don had still been in Albuquerque. Now that Charlie mentioned it, Don had seen him in an "I Survived the Great Wall" t-shirt. He didn't bring me one. "Ni hao ma, zai jian, qing, xie xie."
"What did you just say?"
"Hello, good-bye, please, thank you. And wo bu dong. I said that a lot."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
Don snorted. "Well, if you don't know, why'd you say it?"
Charlie snorted back. "No, Don, it literally means 'I don't know.'"
"Oh." Don chuckled. "And who's on first."
"Yeah." They shared a few moments of companionable silence. Then, "Come home tomorrow."
"I'll try, Charlie, I'll try. But we have less than two weeks to compile a list of these cases. A week from Wednesday we submit it to the DOJ and see which ones we get to take a crack at Colby on. And it's not just our cases we're working here--the IT department's dug up two years worth of data base archives to see if there are any queries by Colby into other cases."
"So--you're going to see him again?" Charlie's tone was undecipherable, and once again Don was glad he'd banished his brother. Too bad he couldn't banish what was left of his team as well; Megan's brief smile was completely gone and David's back drew one rigid line.
"Yeah." And how did Don feel? Don was talking to Charlie. During Don's talks with Charlie thoughts on such depressing subjects weren't allowed. After Charlie hung up, well, Don would figure out another reason why thoughts on such depressing subjects weren't allowed. "Two weeks from today. Nine AM sharp. I probably won't be able to talk to you at lunch."
"Maybe I'll--"
"Don't even say it," Don warned. Damn. Now Charlie had two weeks' warning to try to weasel himself an invitation to Colby's questioning.
"I could probably--"
"Charlie."
"If I can prove to you--"
"Charlie."
Hurt silence. Then, "He was my friend too."
"Charlie," said Don, very softly, "Charlie, we don't know what he was. Or what he is now." He pinched the bridge of his nose. Definitely--headache for lunch. "Look, we'll talk about this later, okay?"
"Whatever."
Don winced. "Look--can you postpone the baptism? I'm sure by next weekend I'll be able to get away for a bit."
Another sigh. "Call Dad, then."
A click, and Don snapped his phone shut with a muffled curse.
"Charlie okay?" asked David, and Don thought that maybe he should put all of Charlie's calls on speaker. The distraction would do everyone good, pull them all out of their own heads for a time. Give them someone else to worry about.
"I don't know," he replied. "I was so concerned with making sure I didn't drag him into the mud with me that I didn't think he might need us to help him--process."
David scratched his beard thoughtfully. "He's got Amita and your dad."
Don nodded, but from what he'd heard in Charlie's voice, Amita and his father weren't cutting it.
"Besides," said Megan, without looking around, "it's not like the rest of us are getting an opportunity to process anything either."
Don swallowed at the bitterness in her voice. He exchanged a worried glance with David, then turned back to his desk. The afternoon and evening stretched before him until even the chance to escape to his cold, empty apartment seemed an eternity away.
2.718281828459 2.718281828459 2.718281828459 2.718281828459 2.718281828459
Soon, too soon. The moments until Eppes would be delivered to him were ticking away, and Iago wasn't ready.
"Sir?"
Iago flipped through the file documenting all of Eppes' recent kills and nodded. Definitely material to work with here. The agent had been a busy man since he'd come to L.A. Damn. He'd even killed Gates, Iago's last weapon.
"Sir?"
Next file on the stack was a set of case notes for Eppes' therapy sessions with someone named Bradford. Man seemed thorough, Iago had to give him that. Too bad he wasn't as thorough when it came to his office's security. The notes revealed more fodder for the coming ordeal: trust issues, commitment issues, self-esteem issues, abandonment issues. The stuff about his brother the NSA consultant looked interesting--
"Sir!"
Iago looked up. Staring down at him was a junior agent, one of Raymond's people. An unreasoning jolt of fear shot through him--he hated being looked at, he never wanted to be looked at, to catch anyone's attention was bad--but he forced the fear down, counted his breaths until his heartbeat acquiesced, and set the folder aside. "What is it?"
"I thought you might like to review our preparations, sir."
Iago nodded and rose. He almost stumbled with his first step, but consciously forced himself to take long strides and swing his arms at his sides, now that the shackles were gone.
He thought back to the previous day. Not long after he'd claimed his name, most of the suits had risen and filed out, leaving only Curtis, Raymond, Iago, and Iago's Army handler standing behind him. The first thing Iago had demanded was the removal of the shackles, a shower, a shave, and a set of street clothes. His handler had protested vociferously.
"Look. I have to be an authority figure. Eppes has to believe that with one word, I can change his fate--mold it to whatever I want. He won't believe it if I don't believe it."
"We have plenty of highly-skilled interrogators on call, Sir," Marshall, the handler, had pointed out. "Why not call one of them in?"
Curtis had merely smiled. "Because our friend Iago here is already tainted. Aren't you, Iago?"
Iago had stared down at the table, hands clenched around the chains of his shackles, and nodded. Tainted.
In the end, Iago had gotten everything he wanted. Marshall was gone, and Raymond was assigned to watch him. He was to be treated politely, if not with actual respect. Curtis had games of his own. Iago tried to tell himself that all he had to do was play within the boundaries of Curtis' game, and maybe he could make up a few of his own rules.
He followed the junior agent around the section of warehouse that had been modified for his use. With the constraints he'd been given, there wasn't much he was going to be able to do. A water hose, shackles set at the proper height for stress positioning, lights, a white noise generator... The retrieval team already had the hood, goggles, and earmuffs. The requirements for Eppes to have no marks and seemingly be functional were a pain in the ass. He was going to have to rely on accumulated sleep deprivation, sensory assaults, drugs, and the insights he was gaining from Eppes' records.
Raymond would probably call it a "challenge."
Iago nodded his approval of the setup and returned to his stack of folders. He reached for Eppes' case notes again and--
On the top of the stack lay a book. It hadn't been there when he'd left. The title was obscured by a note that read in spidery handwriting, "Thought you could use this--Curtis." Cautiously, Iago picked it up and read the spine.
New Methods in Operant Conditioning and Its Impact on Neuroanatomy, by Stanford Davis.
His second kill.
Iago's hands began to shake. He dropped the book back onto the stack of folders and shoved clenched fists into his pockets.
He'd never actually done this. After his brother Porter had told him what had happened, he'd studied it, watched videos, conducted interviews with victims, but he'd never actually done it himself. With his weapons, all he'd had to do was remind them what had already been done to them, supply them with drugs and guns, and send them off to do what came naturally. He'd point, they'd shoot.
Iago had never actually tortured anyone before.
"They're about to pick him up. Are you ready?"
Iago spun around. Raymond watched him--not unsympathetically, he thought. "Tell me again what I get if I do this?"
"It's what you won't get if you do this, Iago. You know that."
Iago closed his eyes and nodded. He had to do this. But he had to do this his own way, because he wanted more than for faceless people to stop hurting him.
Too bad he didn't believe in God anymore, because mercy sounded really nice right now.
"I'm ready," he said.