They came for her.
The sliver of daylight under the door had dimmed to blackness hours ago, and Beckett was resting with her head against his shoulder, her hair a silk blanket between his fingers. She hadn't left his side since he'd told her about his father - the only moment she had slipped away was to search through the squeaky drawers for a towel, returning shortly with warm hands from the sink, a dripping cloth between them.
He'd blabbed to take his mind off the pain as she wiped him down – mostly making comic guesses about his father's identity and slanderous remarks about Sophia – but the reality of his father's criminal connections eventually drained the adrenaline and he slumped into silent angst. When he stated in all seriousness that they were as good as dead, she started unbuttoning his shirt. And when he whispered that a father wouldn't save a son that he'd never cared existed; she pressed her lips to his shoulder, looped her arms around his neck, and told him she loved him.
At that, he nearly broke down in tears. His emotions hung on a tenuous thread as he circled his arms around her in a needy embrace, surprised by the feel of smooth, bare skin against his arms.
She'd used her shirt to soak up his blood.
He wept then, held by her embrace as he cried softly for the hopes of a little boy who'd dreamed of a hero and woke to a villain.
She loved him. So perfectly. And now she was gone.
They'd come with guns and heavy strides; with snide remarks and reviling cat calls. She'd been snatched from his lap before he could scramble up to fight. She'd told him not to anyway, before; she'd dried his tears and made him promise - told him it was hostage protocol and their best chance. His protector, always.
The moment of moral conflict took too long; they were already handing her off through the doorway by the time he threw out a fist. The butt of a rifle landed on his chest; he gripped it and stared in anger at the hard black eyes of its owner, mere inches away.
"Is she strong?" The guard hissed.
Castle growled, trying to wrench the weapon away. It shoved into his chest again and he lost his grip, stumbling backwards. "Touch her and I'll shoot your balls off," he snapped.
The guard glanced over his shoulder at the boorish crowd, then turned back to Castle, a strange intensity on his face that Castle couldn't identify. "She'll survive," he said thickly, and backing out, slammed the bolts into place.
The dim lighting cast confusing shadows between the bodies crowding the room; Beckett caught a glimpse of a keg set on the bar between the kitchen and the living room, of rifles lining the wall by the fireplace, and a plain, long couch where several men languished, hooting in her direction and beckoning obscenely. Guards on either side of her clutched her upper arms in vise grips so that her feet barely touched the floor as she was dragged forward, and she could smell the faint spice of cigars laced into the headiness of alcohol and drugs that permeated the air. Hands were everywhere: she had limited protection with her cuffed hands before her and nothing to shield her from behind; so she writhed and kicked out in helpless indignation. It only fueled the jeering. She was theirs, and they intended to relish the opportunity.
The bodies suddenly shifted in the haze before her - she was jerked sideways as one of the guards stopped and the other didn't - and when they brought her back around, she stood chest to chest with an immaculately dressed Hispanic sporting a manicured goatee. His smooth face was expressionless, except for a tiny, sardonic lift at one corner of his mouth.
Beckett met his dark eyes, her lungs straining with tension as something triggered in her mind. She knew this man. She had stared into those dead eyes before; back in another world.
"I am ready to experience the full force of the NYPD, Detective Beckett," the man said, the words coating his tongue and rolling over his teeth. He leaned in suddenly, hot air on her ear. "In /my/ city," he cut sharply.
Beckett's blood iced. Cesar Vales. Slaughter's suspect in a series of murders. The Mexican gang leader she had warned out of her city. "I see you've left mine," she managed as steadily as possible, blood rushing in her ears. This was a bad man. A very, very bad man.
"Oh no, mi amor. I'm only visiting my boys out here; settling some affairs," he waved a hand dismissively, using the motion to caress the edges of her hair. "They know how I love a welcome." Opening his body away from her, he proffered a hand in the direction of the stairs and addressed the guard to her left. "Gallego, por favor, a mi oficina.
Gallego leered, reset his vise grip on her arm, and stepped forward. Beckett allowed herself to be taken, refusing to pleasure the crowd with a futile struggle. It was better to save her strength for the events to come.
The basement air rushed up to meet her on the stairs, a refreshing coolness to the smothering heat above. Just as her escort pulled her off the last step behind Vales and into a concrete room, a door on the opposite side opened and a gangly, pasty man wafted through. He took one look at Beckett and her tormentors and stopped short, door ajar.
"Vales," the pasty man purred with an edge. "What are you doing with my hostage?"
Vales startled when the man walked in; now his face clouded as he lowered his brow. "Why are you in my office, Ghost?" The Mexican boss moved forward, fingering his holster. "Get your little ass out of my business," he spat.
Ghost didn't move. "It's our business," he calmly corrected. "And that-" he tipped his head towards Beckett, "-is my business."
"Gallego, take her through." Vales commanded. He was standing in Ghost's personal space now, but the smaller man looked merely apathetic.
"If you take her in there, I will tell them how uncooperative you have been lately. I will also inform them that I suspect a mole amongst your members, and your organization is a potential threat to our security. And do you know what that would mean, Mr. Vales?"
Vales repetitively flicked the safely latch on his holster. "I think I'll kill you and frame the bitch cop."
Ghost suddenly showed some interest. "She's a cop. Interesting." He looked past Vales and addressed Beckett with snide curiosity. "So hired security has a same-bed policy these days for the affluent, is that it?"
Beckett chose silence in reply. Hope sputtered within the black pit inside her: she had found a weakness in the organization. Two bosses.
"Gallego!" Vales barked.
Gallego's fingers tightened around her arm, but he only shuffled forward slightly.
Ghost smiled thinly, white lips stretching whiter. "Even your men respect me. Because I speak for powers much, much bigger than you. You would do better to remember that." Ghost bumped past Vales, leaving him seething in the doorway. "Return her to the bathroom," he instructed Gallego. "No detours and no touching, or fingers will fall." He waggled his fingers in emphasis.
Vales turned, his pride repaired. "I know what this is," he said. "This isn't about cooperation, or a hostage, or my unwanted liaison with the organization. This is about your sister."
Ghost, for the first time, stiffened in alarm. "What do you know of my sister?"
"I'm not the only one who does their research, Ghost." Vales straightened the cuff of his jacket. "Word is you abducted her and, most likely, killed her. There are nice rewards for leading to your arrest."
"The record is wrong." Ghost was still facing Beckett, the alarm replaced by grey, icy death. "And someone will die when I find out where she is."
"Sex slave," sneered Vales. "She's a dirty whore."
Ghost was faster than Beckett would have judged; he whipped the back of his fist across Vales' face before the Mexican had taken more than a step away. An instant later, the two men stood rigidly apart, each with a pistol trained on the other.
"Gallego," Ghost calmly spoke, his eyes never leaving Vales stare. "Take her back."
As Beckett ascended the stairs, her last glance showed them still locked in a motionless, silent battle of wills.
Castle was wrapped around her the moment the door shut them in, hands on her face and too many words. She shook her head repeatedly until he ceased his interrogation and begged her to speak.
"Nothing happened, Castle, nothing happened; I'm fine," she murmured.
But she was trembling in his embrace, and he lowered them to the floor where she could curl up against him, face in his neck and arms tucked between her thighs and her chest, fingers tangling desperately into his shirt as he enveloped her.
Wednesday morning, following day. CIA Headquarters: McLean, VA
"Director." A young agent in a crisp suit with a clean face pressed open the office door with one hand, a small manila envelope swinging in the other. "You may want to take a look at this."
A potted tree decorated the corner of the large office; glass windows looked out on a spectacular cityscape. Behind a desk of polished cherry, an elder gentleman in a starched white shirt straightened from the files spread over his desk, his square frame too large for his creaking chair.
"Information from our Iranian asset?" the Director asked, clicking his pen repeatedly in unconscious rhythm, a habit built from long hours behind conference tables and countless debriefings.
"No. From our local Mexican runners." The young agent stepped in, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Drugs, guns, what's new?" muttered the Director rhetorically; hunching his shoulders back over his papers. "What I need is the Iranian intel. By yesterday."
"This isn't intel sir. It's a sort of ransom message. I would advise immediate review."
"Ransom? That's not my department." The director looked at his subordinate critically, and reading into his silence, reached for the envelope.
Inside was a cheap plastic DVD case containing a generic brand DVD with no instructions. Turning, he shoved it into his computer and drummed the desk as the computer responded with the appropriate program. No documents, folders, or images. Just one solitary video file, most likely from a hand-held camera or similar recording device.
The file opened, revealing a hooded victim lashed to a chair in front of an untraceable black back-drop. The director leaned back against his chair and resumed clicking his pen, watching the hostage shift uncomfortably as a computerized voice ran through a short list of demands. His thumb stopped abruptly, mid-click, when the list concluded and a string yanked the hood from the victim's head.
"What the hell?" The director ground out. "How the fuck did they know?"
The younger agent stepped in closer to the desk, his quiet eyes measuring the Director's face. "So it's true?" he asked cautiously.
The Director ejected the disc and returned it to its case before speaking. "How many girls did you screw before you put on the ring, Carson?" he asked nonchalantly.
"None, sir," Carson replied. "She was the one."
The Director guffawed and swiveled to face him. "Bullshit, Carson. This isn't Puritan New England."
Carson's eyes sharpened slightly. "Morality isn't relative, sir," he asserted.
Smiling patronizingly, the Director squinted and spun his pen across his fingers. "Sometimes I wonder how you've survived working with me all these years."
His office assistant shrugged. "I'm forgiving enough. Should I arrange a conference?" he asked, gesturing at the disc.
"Bring in everyone involved with the Vales deal. One hour. And get me the house hostage expert, too."
Carson nodded, turning away.
"And Carson?"
The young man turned back, a hand on the door.
"I ordered a paternity test over thirty years ago. It was stupid of me."
"That's why I stick to one woman, sir."
"Oh no; the sex was a fantastic decision. Ordering the test through the Feds was idiotic."
"I see." Carson pressed his lips into a thin line. "I'm sorry about your son."
The Director cracked his knuckles and threw his ankles up onto the desk. "Don't worry about it. It came back negative."
It was nearing afternoon, the hour in which the sun fit perfectly between two nearby buildings to strike through the conference room windows with surprising brightness. The Director powered up the smart screen, looking for Carson amongst the mingling team only to find his request preempted as his assistant drew the blinds.
In the dimming room, the team members found their seats and shuffled files until the Director tapped on the table's end with his pen and touched the screen with his free hand. A picture of Cesar Vales materialized beside a short profile.
"Here," the Director held up the ransom disc briefly, "we have a unique situation." He waved the disc towards Vales' picture. "As you know, the CIA has often courted a tenuous relationship with cartels and organized crime, as they tend to be reliable information brokers between us and our more direct enemies." Turning back to face the table, he continued. "The info deal we broke with this man a week ago led to not only the identification and capture of several terrorist cells in the southern United States, but also gave us inroads into an alliance between Vales' rivals and a terrorist smuggling network.
The Director flicked the screen, and a freighter appeared next to a log of detailed notes. "In exchange, we were to allow this freighter to clear customs as it entered the United States. At the time, we had strong intel suggesting this freighter may be smuggling several containers of contraband and black-listed items – various drugs, banned furs, etc. – but no weapons or explosives. Last Friday the ship arrived in port," the Director pointed to an entry on the log, "and threw up red flags in customs for a mistake in paperwork. Ironically, the ship was caught without our assistance."
"They'll blame us, though." A balding man with wire glasses and no neck remarked. "If we can't hold up our end it sends bad messages and breaks trust – good luck getting anyone else to hand you intel in advance."
"Apparently, Vales had an insurance plan." The Director slid the disc across the table. "This is a ransom video. On Monday, Vales seized two citizens of New York City to force our hand. We either clear the ship by early tomorrow morning or lose the innocents."
"Are these people of any importance?" asked a hawkish woman near the far end.
Carson glanced in her direction. "If their importance as humans doesn't matter, remember we are sworn to protect all citizens of the United States, regardless of social stature."
The woman flicked a glance down her narrow nose. "I'm merely weighing the impact on our national security."
The Director touched the screen again, and a press picture of Richard Castle appeared alongside a file photo of Detective Katherine Beckett. Carson's eyes flashed several times between the Director and Castle's photo, but any striking similarities were blurred by time and differences of occupation. He satisfied himself with noting the generics - full head of hair, stark blue eyes, line of the jaw - and pressed the issue to the back of his mind. The video's power of suggestion had tainted his observation skills.
"One hostage is a popular murder mystery writer, the other is a well-respected police detective from the Twelfth Precinct of Manhattan," the Director continued. "Both disappeared in a white van Tuesday morning from the writer's apartment."
A large-framed man whose white dress shirt barely concealed his musculature leaned forward. "Even if we clear the freighter, are we trusting these Mexicans to simply release the hostages?"
The Director held up his hand. "We have a man on the ground."
The room was silent in surprise.
"A member of Vales' organization defected years ago and has been feeding us sporadic but reliable intel for several years. We don't know if he is at the hostage site, but several months ago he was assigned to a location in upstate New York. Chances are, he's close." The Director popped his jaw and began seesawing the pen between two fingers as he spoke. "At the time of his relocation, he informed us that Vales may have been contacted by a loosely-defined paramilitary organization interested in his smuggling network. From what we know, this organization works through liaisons to cut deals with drug cartels and swap information, weapons, dirty money, drugs, you name it."
Setting the pen down, the Director leaned his palms onto the table and gazed steadily at his subordinates. "I have little hard evidence to support this, but my gut says this paramilitary organization has been involved with the Vales deal all along, and my guess would be that that ship-" he pointed back to the screen, "is carrying more than high-end drugs and smugglers' contraband. Until we figure out exactly what is in those containers, we cannot clear it based on old intel."
The muscled man sat up and opened his palms over the table. "And risk two lives? What is this organization? Where's their file?" He glanced down and shuffled through his papers dramatically.
The Director shrugged. "They don't have an identity, a governing body, or a visible structure. I generally refer to them as the Org for lack of a better name. We do know they are a vague coalition of assassins with a remarkably high success rate. Recently, we have acquired a few international incident files that may be attributed to their actions. Most of their operations are within the United States and falls outside of our jurisdiction."
"So we need the files from the FBI," the balding man stated. "If this is who we're really dealing with."
The rest of the table looked at him in condescension.
"So we don't like them," he defended. "But isn't that the new protocol? Mutual exchange of information?"
The Director pushed off the table and began sliding papers to each person. "I'll deal with the FBI. Carson has drafted a plan of action; here are your assignments. Get involved with port authority and figure out what is on the freighter. Run every possible contact Vales has dealt with over the last several months and come up with profiles of persons that have possible Org connections. And Dawson-" he slid the last sheet towards the muscled agent and pointed towards a quiet man with an oversized mustache, "-get with hostage-brain over there and put together a task force and an approach plan, and have it ready to execute when I say when and where."
"Yessir." Dawson replied, but the Director was already moving away.
Back at his desk, the Director picked up his handset, hesitated, and set it down. Excavating the Detective's file from his folder, he flipped haphazardly through it with no discernible pattern, his leg bouncing restlessly beneath his desk. Turning to his computer, he flew through electronic files in similar disarray; searching, grabbing, dragging, and saving; his eyes cutting out bits of information as his mind pasted the pieces into a convoluted puzzle.
Three murders in an alley. A dead police captain he recognized. Names he hadn't seen in years: Pulgatti, Armen, Raglan. Bodies everywhere.
The Director picked up the receiver. "Carson. Get the FBI director on the line."
Slamming the receiver down, he removed his front desk drawer and used a common key to unlock a small compartment on the underside of his desk, allowing a medium-sized flat box to drop into his open palm. Yellowed papers, old microfilms, and a few sound recorders rested beside several flash drives and a handful of fingerprints pulled from various locations; all meticulously dated and documented. He'd learned to collect security for himself over the years; dirty information, compromising photographs, incriminating sound bites and loose ends. Reaching into the box, he selected a worn, bloodstained paper listing three columns of names.
There. And there. Coonan. Lockwood. Both names were present.
Flicking his eyes back to the computer, he checked the spellings against the police reports. Same guys. Both dead. One by Detective Beckett. And...yes, the FBI had been notified of her disappearance.
Shit, she was in hot water.
His phone blinked and toned softly.
"Pearson?" the Director inquired, headset pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he stowed the paper, reset the box, and replaced the drawer.
"Director," Pearson greeted. "National emergency?"
"No. Internal affairs."
"Oh?"
"Yeah," the Director sighed, "concerning a pet project of the FBI that grew a little too big for its leash."
The voice on the other line chuckled. "Don't we all have those budget-sucking whores."
The Director smiled thinly, wrapping and unwrapping the phone cord about his wrist. "You know, I've never really taken to phones. We never see faces anymore." Clearing aside a stack of files, he glanced over his schedule. "How about dinner?"
"What, today?"
"I'll fly to you. You pick the grub."
"No good: I've got a date with the wife-"
"So clear it, Pearson. I've got issues with your agency's initiative and it's time-sensitive."
"Which initiative?"
"The initiative, Pearson. The cancer that you're too yellow-bellied to touch."
Prickly silence echoed across the line. "Hope you like Mediterranean," Pearson bristled. "I've got reservations for two and I've already paid."
A/N: Sorry that it took four chapters to get here, folks. I really should have taken three months to write and edit the whole story first. Guess that's what publishers are for - to make you do all the steps. Yep.
But - now that we are here, things are getting interesting, I hope! Let me know what you think - reviews make my world go round! :)