Treasure Hunter


Chapter 2


Location: JFK International Airport


The terminal was busy. She weaved her way with ease through the other harried and flustered passengers. Her return flight from Athens had just touch down twenty minutes ago and she couldn't waste any time. She needed to get right on this case as if it was any other case she worked. Except this time she was investigating the murder of her friend and mentor instead of tracking down some rare and lost artifact.

Hiking the strap of her trusty messenger bag up more securely on her shoulder, she picked up the pace. Unlike her fellow passengers, she didn't need to wait at baggage claim. Her trip overseas had been a simple one, with one objective—to say goodbye to Mike Royce. Her grief spent, it was time for action.

Kate Beckett needed answers. And she needed them now. But she couldn't just march in and demand to see all the evidence. No. That would not get her anywhere. She needed a subtler approach. Fortunately for her, she'd made several contacts within the NYPD during the course of her career as a retrieval specialist—she despised the moniker of 'treasure hunter'. She didn't hunt for treasure. She searched for artifacts of value and significance not for fame or glory but for the preservation of history and human knowledge. The few instances in which Kate worked for private collectors, she did so only if those individuals were the rightful owners or intended to loan out the artifact for display in a museum, where it could be seen and enjoyed by everyone.

At present, however, she had no client, save for herself. Kate was on a mission to discover what it was that was of such importance that it got her former mentor killed, and who it was that had done the terrible deed. With that in mind, Kate was determined to seek out the help of some friends in the New York Police Department's 12th Precinct.

During her plane flight back to the States, Kate had read through the autopsy report. She had called in a favor from a friend in the medical examiner's office to get a copy of the report emailed to her. Kate had managed to nearly memorize the report's findings by the time the flight had landed at JFK International Airport.

It had been a difficult task, but a necessary one.

Mike Royce had been far more than a mentor to her. He was the only one who had truly understood what drove her. He'd never condescended her with pity, always treating her like he would anyone else, first as a pupil and then as an equal. She had looked up to him, admired him. And… she had been in love with him. It had been a youthful, naïve kind of love, nothing like what she knew her parents had shared, but it had been love nonetheless. And those sort of feelings hardly ever leave, they may fade over time, but they always remained. Which was what made reviewing the autopsy report so difficult for her. It pained her that he had to die in such a manner, all alone, with just her confused voice on the other end of the phone. She wished…

Well, she wished things had been different.

But she couldn't change the past. She could only affect the future. And that's what she planned on doing.

She held up a hand to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sunlight as she stepped out of the airport. Ducking her head down, Kate dashed across to the line of taxis waiting at the curb. She climbed into the backseat and gave the driver the address for the 12th Precinct. Leaning back against the seat, she raised a hand over her mouth to suppress a yawn. Glancing at her wristwatch—clunky and male, her father's—Kate sighed in frustration. The boys would just be clocking out by the time she arrived. After a brief internal argument, she leaned forward and gave the cabbie a change in destination.

Kate wanted to jump right into investigating, but she had to be realistic. She had just returned from a long flight from Europe, which she got little to no sleep on. And she was exhausted. She needed to eat and rest before diving into the case. Royce wouldn't want her running herself ragged. Hell, he'd probably disapprove of what she was planning, but she couldn't just sit around and do nothing.

Besides… everything would still be there in the morning.


Location: First Press Offices, New York City


"What are you still doing here? I thought you hated this office."

Castle glanced up to see the slim silhouette of his ex-wife in the doorway to his office. She was dressed in a sparkly golden white cocktail dressed that hugged her figure to perfection. He sat back in his chair, and stared back at her with a somewhat annoyed expression.

"Hot date?" he questioned, making an exaggerated gesture to indicate her fancy wear.

"Jealous?"
"Me, jealous!? Ha!" he laughed, dramatically placing a hand on his chest and tilting his head. "Double 'Ha'!"

Gina scrunched up her face in irritation, knowing him well enough to know he was just making fun of her. Whatever romantic feelings they'd once shared had long since been dead. Their last coupling had purely been the fulfillment of physical needs, for both of them. Though, truth be told, sex with Gina had never been completely satisfying, at least emotionally. A lot of that simply had to do with the fact neither of them really truly ever loved one another. Both had been looking for something different in their relationship, which had eventually led to several fights. And then after a year and a half of marriage, they filed for divorce, which, ironically, had been one of the few things about their marriage they had actually agreed on.

"Shouldn't you be off in some seedy pub or lost in the some dark jungle pursuing a new story?" Gina asked, crossing her arms and giving him one of her bossy stares. "It's strange enough having you in the same city, let alone the same office building."

The feeling was mutual. Despite the occasional no-strings hook up, there was a reason they never got back together. Castle slowly stood up from his chair, trailing his fingers along the edge of his desk as he walked around it to join her at the doorway, dragging out the silence just to mess with her. "What if I told you I've already got a story," he said, and then added, "and it's a good one."

Gina harrumphed and rolled her eyes. "Are you still on about this female Indiana Jones?"

He nodded.

Gina laughed lightly. He gave her a confused look, and she raised a hand in apology and shook her head. "Oh, I'm sorry," she smirked, amused. "When you came to me with the idea on Monday I thought you were joking."

"No, no joke," Castle asserted, stepping back to his desk and picking up a printout of the article with Kate Beckett's picture. He handed it to Gina, who skimmed through the NYU student article. "She's very much real. And when she's not globetrotting in search of ancient artifacts, she lives right here in New York."

"And I'm supposed to assume you didn't notice how attractive this… Kate Beckett is?" Gina inquired with a dry look.

He grinned mischievously. "Just a bonus for me, I guess."

"Fine." Gina slapped the printout against his chest. "Whatever floats your boat, Richard," she huffed. "She better be worth it. Just don't sleep with her until you've got a story." With that, she turned and made her leave, sauntering towards the elevator, adding a little extra sway to her hips.

Who's the jealous one now, he thought with a grin.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Castle called after her, before ducking back inside his office.

He walked back around his desk, reaching down to leaf through the papers he'd printed out, still trying to discover the best way to make the lovely treasure hunter's acquaintance. He was just about to pick up his cell to ring an old friend within the DMV when the device buzzed in his hand.

"Go for Castle," he answered with a smirk. "Ah… Detective Ryan, thanks for returning my call. Are you just getting off work?" He listened to the man's reply as he packed up his laptop and notebook. "Could I persuade you into a round at the Old Haunt? I've got an idea for a new story, and I could use your help tracking down a source."


Location: Dig Site in Iceland


It was cold. Damn cold.

He had to bundle up in several layers just to make the trek across the basecamp to the dig site and the caves. He followed the two graduate students the professor had sent for him. He listened to them jabber away in German, falsely believing he was an arrogant American that expected everyone to speak English. Even if he didn't speak their language, their excitement was quite evident. Whatever Professor Jaeger had found, it was huge… big enough for the man to have him send two of his students to wake up his benefactor's representative in the middle of the night.

The terrain around the mountainside was barren. Patches of snow blanketed the hard ground. Earlier in the week, the workers had set up a series of canvas tents around the dig sites, hoping to preserve the Viking relics being uncovered in the hard earth. He followed the graduate students down a plank into a trench dug by the excavators early into the dig. They took several turns until they reached the central dig tent. One of the students held the flap open for him, and he ducked his head, entering the dimly lit interior. Battery powered lanterns hung above them, swaying slightly from the wind outside buffering against the side of the tent.

However, the canvas material did little to keep out the chill.

Professor Jaeger was hunched over a table full of tools, quickly packing them into a backpack. He turned his head when he heard the tent flap slap shut. "Ah, Herr Lockwood," he smiled through his German accent. "Good for you to join me."

"This better be important, Professor," Lockwood grumbled, irritably. "It's the middle of the night. And it's as cold as hell!"

The professor laughed at that. "I never understood that phrase," he guffawed, continuing his packing. "Hell is supposed to be hot, not cold. Ja?"

"Professor," Lockwood scowled.

"Yes, yes," Professor Jaeger bobbed his head. "We found something. Come, I must show you." He gestured towards a stack of flashlights. "Grab a torch, we're heading into the caves."

Lockwood grumbled, but grabbed one of the offered flashlights as the professor shouldered his backpack and pulled the hood of his orange parka up over his head. The two graduate students stayed behind as the professor led the way out of the tent. They hiked through the snow covered mountain slope until they reached the giant maw of a large cave. The ice had frozen over the top ceiling of the cavern, making it glister like crystal when Lockwood shined the flashlight upwards.

"This way," Professor Jaeger waved him forward, and together the two of them entered the dark.

They went deep into the mountain, following mostly a straight path. Lockwood paid special attention, not wanting to get lost in case he needed to find his way back out by himself. Jaeger was humming to himself, clearly eager to return to the site that had him so excited so late at night.

Finally, after another twenty minutes, they arrived at a seemingly dead end. Professor Jaeger had remained chipper the whole way, which annoyed Lockwood to no end. He was grateful they'd finally arrived at the location of this supposedly huge discovered.

"So, what is it?" Lockwood questioned, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

"This, Herr Lockwood," Professor Jaeger enthused, shining his flashlight up into the ice covered rock wall.

Lockwood squinted his eyes, trying to see what it was that the professor was pointing at. He could barely make out the Nordic runes through the wall of ice, but there was clearly some ancient stone tablet embedded in the wall.

"I don't get it," he huffed. "It's just some old piece of stone covered in ice."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Herr Lockwood," Jaeger assured him. "Come here, see…," he pointed a gloved hand towards the top of the obscured object. "It's an eels head?"

"So?"

"A colleague of mine in South America found a similar stone tablet amongst the ruins of Tikal," he said. "But instead of Nordic runes, it was covered in Mayan pictograms."

"And… you believe they are connected?" Lockwood asked, somewhat skeptical.

"Ja… yes, I do believe so," nodded the professor. "Furthermore, your employer should be most pleased. This tablet is just the sort of thing he would be interested in."

"How's that?"

"Atlantis, Herr Lockwood," Jaeger said with a wide smile. "The mythical city mentioned by Plato in his works Timaeus and Critias."

Lockwood smirked. "Thank you, Professor," he said in a cold voice, his breath misting in front of him. "That's all I needed to know."

"Uh?" Professor Jaeger glanced back towards him just in time to see him remove a pistol with a silencer attached to the barrel from a hidden pocket within his parka. "Wha—?"

Lockwood pulled the trigger before the man could finish his question. He double tapped the academic in the chest, and stood back as he fell to the rough cold ground dead. When the deed was done, Lockwood stuffed the pistol back inside his parka, and knelt beside the body. After resting the flashlight along the side of the wall, giving the space some minor illumination, he unzipped the professor's backpack. He removed the icepick and chisel.

Standing back up, he glared at the eel headed artifact buried beneath several feet of ice, and sighed. This would take some work. Perhaps he should have dispatched with Professor Jaeger after that archaeologist had freed the relic. He gave a shrug. It was a moot point at this juncture, so he might as well get started. And once he retrieved the ancient tablet, he could finally leave this place for good.

It was about time, too. He was tired of all the cold.