Title: Repercussions 4
Author: FraidyCat
Disclaimer: Don't blame it on me.
NOTE -- because everyone who asks in anonymous, so I can't reply to you: Recall that in Ch. 1 Tompkins referred to an arranged, planned, fake escape. That is how Colby could manage to break away: He was set free, essentially. That is also why all other agencies (including FBI) have been kept in the dark, so far, regarding the escape. The whole NSA point was for Colby to end up in a French-speaking province, not get nabbed at an airport first...
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Don drained the beer and waited for Charlie to storm back into the kitchen ready to get into it with him. He still had a couple of insults saved up, because what he had really wanted all day long, was a fight. A no-holds-barred, say-things-you-don't-mean, come-as-close-as-you-can-to-going-over-the-line FIGHT. It was unfair to pick on Charlie as his unwilling sparring partner -- but that was kind-of the entire point, wasn't it? Don had a visceral need to be unfair, and he had more practice fighting down-and-dirty with Charlie than anybody else. It was a plus that their Dad was not here to break it up before it started. Most importantly, he was counting on his little brother's ridiculous, gigantic heart. Charlie would forgive him for not fighting fair, Charlie would understand where his frustration was coming from, and Charlie would somehow make him feel better.
The pizza, which had arrived cold in the first place, congealed on his plate and the beer stood empty, and Don began to question a few of his assumptions. Son of a bitch. He hadn't meant to do any permanent damage, He was just getting started! He felt a little guilty, remembering Charlie's words: "I'm part of this too"; Obviously, he had been too wrapped up in his own anger and pain to notice that Charlie had been upset on a deep, "P vs. NP" level. Now he had to go track the kid down and make it right, somehow. He sighed and stood heavily. He never even got his damn fight. He pushed halfway through the swinging door and paused. "Charlie?" The entire first floor was dark, and he started to back up and go out to the garage. Charlie must have stormed through the front door of the house and walked all the way around, just to avoid him.
At the same time that he noticed a faint glow floating down the stairs from the second floor, the hairs on Don's arm stood up and saluted. Definite hinky alarm. Maybe Charlie was sulking up in his room? Don took another step forward and began to grope for the light switch on the wall as soon as he was clear of the door. A hand clamped around his wrist, and he jerked back, instantly fighting for his life. That was not his brother's touch.
He fought blind, and he fought hard. At one point, his fist connected solidly with someone's face, and he felt the skin split between his knuckles. He heard an oddly famliar grunt, and launched his body into the air, willing it to follow his fist and take the other man down. The two hit the dining room floor in a tangle of twisted limbs and one of the straight-back chairs. Wood groaned and then splintered beneath them, and Don felt a sudden, sharp pain when something impaled itself in his side.
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Charlie lifted his head, which seemed a lot heavier than it should, and turned it slightly toward the sounds he could hear. It was dark, but he could make out the blurred form of a man holding a penlight between his teeth, bent over someone else on the floor. His head ached, his jaw throbbed, and he clenched his eyes closed again and moaned into the gag. He registered a scrambling noise, and then felt hot breath on his face.
"Charlie," hissed Colby. "I've got to get you outta here. You with me?"
Charlie's head jerked up fast, setting off a new round of fireworks that swayed him back as far as the handcuffs around the table leg would let him go. His eyes opened wide in unbelief and fear. Colby?
The former agent grinned at him tensely. "Atta boy, Whiz Kid. Pull it together."
Colby Granger?
Where was Don?
Charlie groaned into the gag again, and let his eyes travel back in the other direction. It was impossible to tell in the dark, but that lump on the floor couldn't be a good thing.
Colby followed his eyes and frowned briefly. "That was an accident. The chair splintered, and part of the wood..."
As Charlie's eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, he could just barely make out something protruding from the still figure, and his eyes grew rounder and more panicked. He ignored his pounding head and jerked his cuffed hands against the table leg. "Ahhhhhhhhh", he ground into the gag. It was as close to "Don" as he could get.
Colby laid a hand on his shoulder and Charlie shrank back. Granger looked at him sadly. "I'll call somebody, when...I don't know. Later. Maybe your Dad will come home and find him?"
Charlie shook his head, immediately regretting it and nearly throwing up into the gag. Colby's grip on his shoulder tightened, and he spoke lowly, and urgently. "Charlie, you've got to listen. Tompkins is bad. Maybe the whole friggin' NSA is infected, by now, I'm not sure. But I know about Tompkins. The hospital attempt on Ashby? They were really going after you. You're not safe."
Charlie breathed hard behind the gag, looking back at Colby as if he was crazy, and the former agent rattled on almost defensively. "Look, I can prove that he's bad. You think this is the first time he's strayed from protocol?" He snickered. "Come on, Whiz Kid, you know me better than that. I'm always going to have my own back. I've got numbers, recordings." His voice took on a pleading tone. "I just have to get you somewhere safe, where we can lay low for a few days." Colby's back was turned to Don, and he had posiioned his body in such a way that Charlie couldn't see his brother, anymore. Terrified, distrusting eyes were glued on his former friend. Neither man saw the slight movement of Don's hand and ankle meeting as the agent went for his back-up piece, struggling not to cry out in agony with every tiny movement.
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He had waited, crouched behind the couch in the living room, throughout the entire fight between Granger and the FBI agent.
He had been startled at first, not knowing what was going on. He at first assumed that the Director had sent two operatives out on this job, determined not to fail again. He had been about to steal up the stairs when the melee broke out, and he dropped where he stood instead. He had not been briefed that another operative would be here, so chances were that the other guy hadn't, either. If he was discovered, he was as good as dead.
About the same time he began wondering why the other operative did not wear night vision goggles, the snarling duo wrestled into a spot that revealed the other operative to be Colby Granger. He made a soft, undetected noise of surprise and sat back on his heels. Granger was supposed to be in Leavenworth. There had not been so much as a whisper of any escape, and the knowledge made him nervous.
So nervous, that he maintained his position in the living room for a while after the fight abruptly ended, and allowed Granger to approach the target, who was already secured, unconcious, to the dining room table. Granger had obviously been here a while. As he crept silently forward and listened, he found himself confronted with a decision. If Granger was telling the truth, Tompkins was as twisted and dangerous as he had always suspected, and it was a good thing he had some insurance of his own stashed away. On the other hand, no more powerful man existed than Bob Tompkins. If he presented him with the original target, plus Granger and his "proof", he should be able to write his own ticket. It turned out that it wasn't really that difficult of a decision.
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Don huffed out short, pained breaths through his nose and almost squeezed one off into Granger's back.
At the last second, he hesitated, unsure where Charlie was behind the shadow. His hand began to shake as Colby's words floated and bounced off the walls of the dining room. Don tried to hang onto consciousness and make sense out of them, but it was a diffult task. He sensed movement as Granger suddenly turned, one hand awkwardly trailing behind him, his body firmly and completely shielding Charlie. "You don't want to do this," Colby growled in a low voice, pressing a handcuff key into the confused mathematician's hand.
At first Don assumed Colby was addressing him. He tried to lift his own hand and weapon again, and put some fire into his voice, but before he gathered enough breath to speak, all hell broke loose.
It all seemed to happen at the same time. A high-caliber, silenced semi-automatic crept around the wall that separated the dining room and the living room, also trained on Granger. A panicked, "Don!", alterted him to the slight, scrambling form of what had to be his brother. Granger, in an off-balance squat to begin with, was thrust into a fall by a suddenly-freed Charlie. Crawling for Don, the professor didn't make it to his feet before the semi-auto discharged with a ping. In the tiny explosion of light that followed, Don clearly recognized Charlie's expression of pure shock as the bullet tore into his flesh and lifted him off the floor, slamming him into the back wall of the dining room.