AN: Thank you to jsq and threesquares for reading and providing feedback.

Part 4: Attempted Rescue

I slept in my office that night. Jack kept me company, which is a good thing, because otherwise I would've had a nervous breakdown. The dark, high-ceilinged lab felt kind of creepy overnight. And even though I had work to do, my concentration was easily broken. I was too furious at Pelant, and too worried about Christine.

My dad stayed with Michael, so we knew he was safe. Max had shown up earlier to drive Booth and Brennan home. From what little he said to me, his contacts hadn't been able to help find Pelant.

Now, after sleeping a few hours on the sofa, I planted myself in front of my extra-large computer screen.

Hodgins, bless his heart, served as my gofer and emotional support guy. He made a lot of calls to relay information; he brought me snacks, massaged some stress out of my neck, and tried to give pep talks when my energy sagged.

The first thing I'd done was analyze Pesovic's library record for patterns. I doubted Pelant would try the same trick twice—writing a virus into the books' bar codes—but I wasn't taking any chances. The Bureau techs and I made sure our computers were separate from the institutional networks, and that all our work was saved on external hard drives.

I talked regularly with Agent Blomquist, my contact in the FBI's cyber crime team. They were staying up all night too, working the email decryption. Though it wouldn't have taken very long to crack an ordinary account, Pelant must have fortified this one with more security.

"So far," I told Hodgins after a couple hours' work, "the library books look clean." He'd been watching over my shoulder and agreed with that assessment, so I turned my full attention to the email.

It looked like Pelant had stuck with asymmetric encryption. That was typical for this kind of application, but because we didn't have any starting data to break the cipher, we were trying a pure mathematical attack.

Dawn still hadn't broken over the city when Blomquist asked me to link up my machines, adding computational power to the search for a key. I did so, watching the screen with trepidation. If Pelant had planted malicious software, this was when we would find out.

Jack and I monitored the file sharing, then initiated the program. Data danced across the screen as my computer ran possible algorithms.

We held our breath, but there were no flashes, no blue screens of death. I gave a sigh of relief and managed to smile at Hodgins.

We could reconfigure and keep trying.

A few hours later, we found it.

Jack had been on the phone with Brennan and Booth. They came in about eight a.m., with Cam and Sweets not far behind.

I punched in one more set of commands, then let my computer do its thing. Someone put a cup of coffee in my hands. I brought it to my lips, almost burning my tongue with the bitter, invigorating taste.

Once I'd swallowed, I looked at the circle of people around me. Almost everyone wore rumpled clothes and squinted a little at the sunshine outside my window. I pushed some hair behind my ear, not caring how unkempt I was after the all-nighter.

Booth leaned on his crutches next to Brennan. He looked a bit better than yesterday. Maybe the drugs, and her care, were helping him rest. Brennan, though… she'd probably slept in her clothes—if she'd slept. I saw shadows under her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. The bones of her face looked somehow more defined, as if everything soft were being eaten away.

She'd given me a deep, measuring look when she first came in. You were here all night, Ange? her gaze seemed to say. Thank you.

I just hoped I was worthy of that thanks.

My computer made a chirping sound: a string of numbers and symbols had appeared. On speakerphone, Blomquist gave a little cheer.

"That's it," Hodgins said. "You found it!"

I called up the email files right away and plugged in the key. But as I watched data scroll across my screen, something niggled in the back of my mind.

"There," Cam was saying, leaning close to the screen. "They're definitely emails from Pelant to his accomplice! And the dates are all recent, within the last couple weeks. This is exactly what we need."

Sweets must have seen doubt in my expression, and called me on it. "Angela? This is great news, right? You don't look that happy."

Everyone turned to me.

"Guys," I said. "Wait. Something's not right here. You see this?" I pointed to the key we'd just discovered.

"That's the code." Hodgins was grinning, sleep-deprived and oblivious. "The thing that unlocks it."

"Yeah, but… it's not that large of a key. Kind of average."

"What does that mean?" Booth asked. He was staring at the screen, and me, with a look that would put a hawk to shame. A look that said he might shoot me if I'd gotten anything wrong.

"It means," I said, "that the code was only average strength. It took us hours to crack it, yeah. But it's taken me months to crack other codes sometimes."

Blomquist, still on the line, didn't seem worried. "Maybe Pelant was in a hurry, didn't have time to make a longer one. This cipher is still pretty strong. It's a good thing we had your computer, or we would've had to call a bunch of people in other offices and wake them up, to link with their machines. Anyway, the decryption's running now. We should have all the data in a few minutes."

I let him sign off, so his team could get some sleep. They would hand over the information to Booth's colleagues, who were reporting back for duty right now.

Everyone else, meanwhile, questioned me.

"What do you mean it's not that large of a key?" Cam began.

"Well, a larger key is harder to break. The bigger it is, the more complex your search has to be, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to crack the code directly."

Brennan had been studying the newly decrypted data, and pointed something out. "What about this? It looks like a record of the data usage."

"Yeah, I was just getting to that." I selected and enlarged that corner of my screen. "From these traces, it looks like the email account used to have a lot more messages. But they've been deleted, recently."

"Can you get them back?" Hodgins asked.

"I'm not sure…" I worked my control pad. "Damn it. No, I've seen this before. Pelant is too good at this."

"But he wasn't good at creating a really strong key?"

"That's just it. He has the ability; he could have made it nearly impossible to crack."

"So," Sweets said, "why didn't he?"

"He was just in a hurry, like Agent Blomquist said?" Hodgins didn't sound convinced.

"I don't know," I mused. "It doesn't seem like him."

"You mean…" Brennan glanced between me and Booth. "He wanted us to find this?"

We all looked at each other, then at Sweets. He was the psychology expert. But he looked sick, like he saw a road leading him somewhere he really didn't want to go.

"It's a little too convenient." Booth spoke for him. "I mean, look: we search this woman's library records; we find a bunch of emails all from the last two weeks, directly from Pelant, and not that strongly encrypted."

I heard Sweets take a breath. "Pelant could have made a mistake. Or, he could be playing us."

-.-.-

We finished decoding the messages and read them in record time. They showed Pelant giving specific instructions to Andrea Pesovic, and what's more, they included an address: where she should take Christine.

We discussed our misgivings with the FBI, but we all agreed: there was too much at stake not to act on this information.

The address belonged to an office building. Apparently it had been vacant for a few weeks, undergoing renovation.

Before I knew it, I had jumped in my car along with Hodgins, Booth and Brennan. Cam and Sweets came in another vehicle. We met a team at the Bureau and I followed them through the city.

They were going to storm the building. At least, that's how I thought of it. I didn't really know how this was going to work.

We talked about our suspicions on the way. I still didn't like this, and Booth agreed. On one hand, Christine could be rescued today. We could have her in our arms before lunch. On the other hand, we could be walking into a trap.

"Do you think," Hodgins asked, "that Pelant has a bomb or something?"

Booth said, "The team's going to be prepared for anything."

My hands shook as I drove, and it wasn't from too much caffeine. "But that's too messy for him, right? It's not his style." I preferred to think positively: Pelant couldn't cut it in the real world. He'd lost track of the variables; he'd goofed up, and we were going to catch him.

Still, when we got there, we decided to wait outside rather than rushing in with the team.

"I'll go," Cam volunteered. We all stood on a side street, surrounded by FBI agents and police cars. "If Christine's in there, she's going to need a friendly face among all these cops." Sweets insisted he would go, too. After all, he had a gun and knew how to use it. "But you," Cam told Brennan and Booth, "shouldn't risk yourselves."

They objected, though not that strongly. Pelant had picked them out, to make them suffer. If he had something else up his sleeve, we didn't need to deliver them into his hands.

We watched the team go in.

Our location was on the far edge of the city. We'd parked in the shadow of tall buildings, while on either side, mid-morning sunshine shone down bright and flat.

The leader gave an order and black-clad agents hustled away. They rounded the corner toward the office building, out of sight. Two guys had helmets and body armor; they'd check for bombs or booby traps. Everyone else bore vests and side arms. Another man wore an AV headset, so we could watch the action unfold.

We gathered around a laptop resting on the hood of a police car. I was trying to see over Brennan's head, so I couldn't make out anything for a while. Then the image resolved itself: a bobbing view of stairs, then a foyer and glass doors. The room past the doors seemed empty except for an old desk. We waited, for what seemed like a year, while the bomb techs scoured everything. No wires or cords, no strange bundles in the corner.

I realized I could hear Booth breathing. Like an athlete, deep and regular. But, I was sure, far from calm.

Finally, the team went in. Agents peeled off to every angle, checking.

Nothing.

Nothing but an object in the center of the desk. It looked like an iPad. I saw Cam go over and gingerly touch it. The screen turned from black to gray, and an image appeared.

Before I could see what it was, a loud buzzing came over the AV link. Agents spun around in alarm. The cops standing on the street started blurting questions into their microphones. All we could see on the screen were people milling about, then a close view of some wall-mounted control unit.

One of the agents reported in. "The building's security system was just activated. It looks like someone upgraded it recently—tampered with it, more like—because it's the most high-tech thing this old place has." His voice came from the laptop, tinny and disgusted. "The point is, we're locked in. It could take some time to undo."

The conversation went on, as rescue arrangements were made. But I'd stopped listening. Pelant wasn't here. Christine wasn't here.

Then I had to back up, to let Brennan move away from the parked car. She put one hand in the pocket of her jacket and took out her vibrating cell phone.

At the same time, Booth's phone rang. He put Cam on speaker. "I'm afraid you're gonna want to see this," she said. "Pelant left a message on this iPad."

"You don't need to show us." Brennan gripped her phone. "He just sent one to me." She was staring so hard at the screen, it was like she wanted to destroy it and dive into it at the same time.

Booth braced himself on one crutch and shoved his cell at me. When he grabbed Brennan's phone from her, I saw her look away, rather than watch his reaction.

Dimly I heard Cam and Sweets asking if we were okay.

Finally, Booth let me look. He handed over the phone and leaned against the car, shaking with helpless fury. Brennan stumbled forward and he put one arm around her, pulling her tight against him.

I looked down at the message from Pelant. It read, Took you a little longer than I thought. But you guessed wrong.

He'd sent a photo of himself next to Christine. It looked like he was sitting on the floor in a nondescript room, near a plastic child fence. Christine stood on the other side of it, her eyes wet and her mouth twisted in fear. Pelant bent close to her like some proud older brother, smiling an arrogant, perverse smile.

"Angela." I jumped at the way Booth said my name. "Get Blomquist and his computer geeks back on the job. Tell them to analyze every single pixel of that image, do you hear me?"

"Yeah. Absolutely." I fumbled with my phone and dialed the number. Booth, meanwhile, swore long and fluently at Pelant, telling Bren exactly what he would do to the man before he killed him. It was kind of scary, actually. I'd even say it was hot, except the situation was too miserable for me to appreciate it.

Booth dialed his own phone next, telling his Bureau colleagues how to continue the search for Christine.

Hodgins and I stood around the sidewalk feeling wretched. We did what we could: sending Pelant's photo to the cyber team, and texting Cam about the building's security system.

Brennan had wandered a little distance away. It seemed she was listening to the bunch of cops who were trying to sort things out. I knew she would feel better having some contribution to make, but as far as I could tell she hadn't said a word.

While Booth gave orders and Hodgins texted Sweets, I glanced up to see Brennan turn back toward us. Her eyes were blank and dazed. Her steps faltered, and she had to put a hand out, catching herself against a parked car.

Booth noticed instantly. "Bones, you okay?" She had her head down, leaning heavily on the car. I started over there, but Booth was faster, abandoning his crutches and hopping to her side. He touched her shoulder, ducking his head to see her face. "Jesus, you're white as a sheet."

"I'm okay. Just lightheaded."

He swore. "That's what happens when you don't eat or sleep for two days. Make that four days, since the car accident." He turned to me. "You have any food in your car?"

"Um, yeah. I always have snacks for Michael."

Hodgins guided Bren to the back seat of the car, while I found some granola bars and juice. Booth sat in the front so he could watch over her. I stood by the open doors holding more snacks, and Hodgins kept an eye on the monitor that still showed our team locked in the building.

"I shouldn't have named her that." Brennan's voice was so quiet, I wouldn't have heard it if I hadn't been right next to her.

"Bones?"

"This is all because of me, somehow. Pelant is targeting me. My family. But maybe I'm not meant to have a family. I gave her a name that was bad luck…"

"Bones, you're not making sense."

"We shouldn't have…" Bren looked like she'd had the wind knocked out of her and still couldn't get her breath. "We shouldn't have named her Christine, after my mother. Look what happened to her. It's bad luck."

I started to say, "Sweetie, you don't believe in luck," but Booth cut across my words.

"What are you talking about? I asked you not to say stuff like that! We're going to get her back, Bones. But you can't go thinking… It sounds like you're giving up on our daughter!"

That, finally, roused Brennan out of the trance she'd been in. "I would never give up on her. It sounds like you're the one who can't face reality!" Her voice was rising toward the hysterical. "Pelant has tricked us from the very beginning. He framed me for murder, he tried to kill you in that car... He's always one step ahead, and maybe I'm not good enough to—"

"No. Do not talk like that." Booth vaulted off the seat, taking his crutches under his arms like rifles. "I can't stay here and do nothing. I'll be at the Bureau, maybe the firing range. You wanna start acting like yourself again—the rational, stubborn squint who never gives up—then you let me know."

-.-.-

I drove the three of us back to the Jeffersonian. We didn't really know what we were going to do at the lab. We just needed a base camp to return to.

It was barely eleven a.m., but I'd been up for so long, I could hardly say what day it was.

I stopped at a red light. Cars and taxis roared past; pedestrians hurried through the crosswalk carrying briefcases and backpacks. How could they, I thought, go about their business like it was just another day?

Hodgins had given Brennan the front seat, and I saw her looking out at the city as if wondering the same thing.

I didn't realize I was crying until the road started to blur in front of me. And then there was no going back. I felt my eyes overflow and my throat close against the pressure of sobs. For a few seconds, I fought it. But Hodgins and Bren noticed, and their concern made it worse.

Blubbering and gasping, I found a place to pull over. I coasted to the end of a parking lot and stopped the car, bowing my head over the steering wheel. "I'm sorry," I choked out. "I didn't mean…"

"Hey, it's okay." Hodgins touched my shoulder from the back seat.

"Ange…" Brennan sounded shocked, but full of sympathy. Like she hadn't understood, until now, how hard this was on others.

I didn't want her to worry about me on top of everything. I tried to wave it away. "I'm fine, really." But my body wouldn't listen, and I just kept crying.

"Here." Brennan handed me something. One of Booth's handkerchiefs.

I accepted, wiping snot and tears all over it.

Bren reached out and smoothed some hair from my face. It surprised me into looking at her: shadowed eyes, sad mouth. Love for me, her friend.

And Booth had just accused her of losing hope.

I would not let the two of them split up over this. It had started to drive them apart, and I saw how it could go: things they said in the heat of the moment, his faith versus her pragmatism. If the search dragged on, if the pain kept accumulating…

No, I told myself. I won't let it happen.

"Angie?" Hodgins spoke very gently. "I'll drive the rest of the way, if you want."

Nodding and sniffing, I held the handkerchief tightly in my hand. Brennan tucked one more strand of hair behind my ear, like a sister, like a mother.

-.-.-

AN: Thanks to everyone who's reviewing or favoriting this story! But after this chapter, how much do you hate me or Pelant right now?