Chapter Four
Liz's mouth had formed a small 'o' shape, and Colby was looking pained.
"Do you realise what you just did?" She asked, disbelievingly. "You just... Christ Nikki, he'll show no mercy!" Nikki rolled her eyes, still smiling. Liz flapped her arms, exhasperated, and with the distinct feeling that Nikki knew something that she didn't. "Why are you smiling?"
"The agent on the far side of the situation room with the laptop is surveilling you, to check that you don't do anything stupid or try to involve yourself in the investigation. I don't know about you, but I know that I want to be a part of this, and I want to know if there is anything that we can help with." David nodded, slowly.
"Okay, but how? Like you said, we're being surveilled." Nikki picked up a laptop bag and handed it to Liz.
"Work out how Colby and David get out of sight, Liz, you're their main focus at the moment." She remembered back to the reflection of Liz's work details in the glass walls of the situation room, right before she had punched Edgerton. Liz mouthed, but Colby answered.
"Then what?"
"Log into the mainframe with badge number 10762." Liz's eyebrows came down, and contracted in confusion.
"Your badge number is 19231." Nikki gave her a 'no shit Sherlock' glance, and she cottoned on. "Oh."
"The passcode is beta-alpha-delta-1-8-6-4. Security in the lobby has an eye out for you, so maybe it's best to stay in the building. I don't think they've hacked into our phones, but I think it's best to be careful. Now I'm going to see Larry with Eppes, to get us off of Edgerton's radar. Then, when you call us with anything you find useful, or anything that you don't, we'll check it out. The dead leads are usually the ones which actually lead us somewhere. Anything important that crops up or that you recognise as something more than a dead lead, forward it to Edgerton and give yourselves up." All three agents were looking at her warily; they weren't comfortable with breaking the law like this.
"Why is all of this necessary?" Liz asked, and Nikki sighed, shaking her head.
"I don't know, but protocol says that Eppes should be in the loop, whether he's trying to interfere or not. Edgerton says that he had his orders, but God knows what that meant. I'm going to find out who he's reporting to, and why we're in this corner. Things aren't right, guys, and it's not just because it's an FBI consultant in that van. There's something more going on here." While normally, David and Colby would have told her that her imagination was getting the better of her, they almost agreed with her. Something just didn't lay right with this case. With the abduction, the secrecy and the surveillance. They nodded, and David called one last thing to Nikki as she walked towards the kitchen area, where the Eppes were.
"What happens if the kidnappers call when Don's with you at the hospital?" He asked, and the others gazed at her curiously, wondering how she was going to work this one out.
"There isn't going to be a call, or a ransom demand. If this was about money, they wouldn't have chosen Charlie and Amita, they would have just left Amita too. They left Larry for a reason, and that's going to lead us to the kidnappers." Liz nodded. That made complete sense. "And if I'm wrong," Nikki continued, "There's this magical invention called a phone." Liz rolled her eyes, and turned back to Colby and David as Nikki walked away.
"She's right, boys. We have to do something more than just sitting here." Colby nodded.
"I find it hard to believe that anyone high up in the chain of command is that against protocol. Maybe it's Edgerton who's off." Liz shrugged.
"Nikki strikes me as someone who has contacts. She'll find that out, while we handle the case."
"What if Edgerton finds out, or if he's already logged in? Also, where will we go if we can't leave the building?" A small line appeared between Liz's eyebrows, one which always appeared when she was thinking hard about something.
"He won't be logged in. During our ops, when everything gets this messy, is Don ever logged in? The Agent in Charge always looks to the agents under his command for tech support and resources. There's usually no reason for Edgerton to be logged in, except if he's authorising something, which I he has to do every half hour, like Don has to during an op. So every half hour, you have to log out for ten minutes while he does his thing. Then, the updates will continue to come to his system. " Liz sighed. The FBI mainframe had strange technical properties.
"I don't like the close comparison between Don and Edgerton." David growled, staring at Edgerton through the glass like he would very much like to shoot him. Which, although being a very bad idea, he would enjoy a lot at this moment in time.
"None of us like it, but that's just the way it is. I'll make a distraction, and you guys get to the sixth floor archive offices, no one's going to be there this time of day. Hide in the back and leave a note on the desk saying reroute to a different office just in case anyone comes along for something. Don't take laptops from here, they might see you and suspect. Archives has laptops you can use. Phone the switchboard and protest family emergency, so Edgerton might think you're in the field. It's worth a try, anyway." Colby grinned.
"You remind me of my drill seargent when you get all riled up like this." David kicked him.
"Shut up Granger and listen to the lady speak." Liz smiled faintly, amused, though too stressed to let the smile truly reach her eyes. She knew that this was the boys' way of dealing; bad humor and sniping. Hey, if it worked for them.
"Are we good?"
"Yes sir." Liz frowned.
"Did you just salute me?" Colby looked slightly embarrassed.
"Sorry. Force of habit." Grinning, she backed away, as David sat down at his desk, waiting for the cue, and Colby headed inconspicuously to the mens' room. He smiled as he noticed the agent Nikki had mentioned staring at him. He was so not as subtle as he thought he was.
Liz immediately made her way to her boss' workstation, hurriedly, with a not completely fake expression of apprehension plastered over her face. Being as obvious as possible. Having known Don for an unknown and probably depressing totale of years, she took three guesses to hack into his account. She knew that he alternated passwords, and she'd seen him type three in before, over the course of the two years they had been working together. Don's unpredictable phrasing was ironically his only predictability.
About ten seconds after she had logged in under his name, the head of the agent watching Colby talking to another agent near the mens' room door snapped over; she could see him out of the corner of her eye. He turned to his boss, and beckoned Edgerton over to look at the computer screen. Then they both waited, staring at Liz to see what she would do. David slipped behind a larger agent and into the elevator, with the subtlety of a spy, and Colby departed with a smile from the unsuspecting agent, and darted through the doors to the stairwell.
Trying to maximise suspicion, hence keep eyes from searching for David or Colby for the longest amount of time possible, she brought up a search engine and typed in the licence plate that Nikki had given her earlier that night... actually, earlier that morning. Within moments, she noticed Edgerton barking orders to the surveillance agent, who in turn, talked to security. He led the two armed guards towards Liz, hands protectively on their firearms.
Gritting her teeth and knowing that this was it, possibly the end of her career at the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, she hoped that David and Colby were safely on the sixth floor by now. Soon they would sent security to look for them, once they realised that she was buying time. The clipping footsteps stopped behind her and she closed her eyes, knowing that her part had been played. She only hoped, though it sounded arrogant and presumptuous, that the team could find Charlie and Amita without her. She gave a short prayer to a God that she didn't believe in, before reopening her eyes.
"Agent Warner, could you please come with us?"
Nikki entered the kitchen area just before Liz sat down at her desk, making sure not to seem implicated. Her and Don needed to get out of there, fast, before Edgerton caught on to the scheme.
"Hey, Eppes, we're going for a ride." She barked, sitting down across from him. Alan gave her a stunned look, and Don raised his head off the table in order to shoot her an incredulous look.
"For a ride?" He asked, and she nodded, calmly.
"You heard me. We need to talk to Larry. Get his version of events." Don shook his head.
"No way... why's Liz at my station?" Nikki grabbed his jaw and centred his vision on her.
"Don't go there, Eppes. Now you need to come with me, so we can figure out why Edgerton's acting like this." Don snorted.
"He's an ass, what more do you need?" Nikki shook her head.
"He's not an ass, he follows orders, sometimes obsessively. Trust me Eppes, I know him and I can tell when he is following orders. Plus, if he wasn't, he would have arrested me for assault." She countered. Don frowned, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Why, what did you do?" He asked, and she looked guilty. He'd clearly missed their altercation, and Alan didn't seem to have the mental capacity to speak. Nikki shot him a reassuring smile, just in case it helped a little. "I need to stay in case there's a ransom demand." Nikki shook her head.
"This isn't about money, you've worked enough cases to know that no one targets the FBI for money. Especially a consultant... if anything, they would take an agent with rank or a politician. This is personal." It hurt her to say it; that his baby brother had been handcuffed and gagged because of him, and that he could possibly be dead just because someone was holding a grudge for a DUI. His expression said it all, and she had to look away.
"You mean that Charlie and Amita could be dead just because of me? Of where I work?" Nikki shrugged.
"That or a case that one of you worked on." Alan was watching, with tears in his eyes. "But Edgerton would have sent more agents out on leads if he thought that was what was going on. It's probably not a case pertaining to Charlie at all. And they'd still be alive, otherwise their bodies would have been left at the scene." God, what was wrong with her? She was talking about this as if it was any other case, when it clearly wasn't. She knew that he wanted her to leave it alone; he only kept her in the building in case she remembered anything more, and he wanted her without pain medication dulling her memory. Why did she have to say the word 'bodies'? Alan looked a pale shade of green.
"So it's because of Don?" Alan cut in, and it was impossible to gauge his emotion. Every feeling in the world looked like it had been shoved into a giant blender and force fed to the retired city planner. His son looked equally unfathomable, though the blender had failed to turn his guilt into mush, so Nikki saw giant chunks of it.
"I can't say for sure, but we should go see Larry. Something is going on here, which should not be going on. Edgerton has had plenty of good leads by now, lots of angry ex-cons. Now either he's holding out on us, which I very much doubt, or he's waiting for an order. You have to admit it Eppes, you've worked with Ian plenty of times... he doesn't act like this. He's uncomfortable with the chain of command, and that's not just because it's new to him. He's a good agent, which means he wouldn't have missed anything which he wasn't instructed not to investigate." Don's brow was furrowed, as he tried to make sense of everything.
"So you're saying he's being coerced." He asked, finally.
"I'm saying he might be. If we go talk to Larry, I can make a few calls on the way. We can make this all right, and we might be able to get into the investigation, and I garuntee you, you will be able to help. This is about you, Don, I know it." Nikki stared at her boss, eyes wide and hopeful. If he didn't say yes to this, Liz's arrest will have been in vain. Even if they found something in Edgerton's files, chances are that he would be ordered against acting upon them. She could see her partner's unquenchable curiousity battling with his emotion, until finally he nodded, mouth set in a grim line.
"Okay. Let's go." Alan stood up with them, and grabbed Don's arm as he pulled on his jacket. "Dad, we have to do this." Nikki waited by the door, not wanting to intrude upon their private moment. "I have to find Charlie, and if this is at all my fault..." Alan nodded gravely, understanding completely. Nikki signalled that she would be in the kit room, down the hall, and he understood her hand movement immediately.
"I know, Donnie, I know. Just be careful..." His voice broke slightly but he cleared his throat, trying to hide how vulnerable he felt. "I can't lose the both of you; you're all I have left." Don pulled his father into a strong embrace, automatically placing his head on his chest below his chin. No man ever hugs his father like an equal. He's always going to be the one who is taller, stronger and more experienced. No matter the physical appearance.
Quickly, as if trying to moderate his feelings, Don backed away and followed Nikki out. She was in the middle of the painful process of putting clothes from her locker on in the kit room, when Don entered, walking up behind her and stopping short. She felt the warmth of his body and started, not having heard him come in. She made sure not to turn around, because of her state of undress, as she tried to pull on her t-shirt.
Gently, and quietly, he took the material by the hem and pulled it down her arms, from it's stuck position at her elbows. He knew that movement hurt her, so he pulled the material away from the skin of her back, making sure that it didn't even touch the gauze on her back. She shivered at the heat of his hands, and slowly brought her arms down, groaning at the protest that her body put out. He did not relinquish his grasp on the bottom of her shirt, instead leaning in and dropping his head to her shoulder, careful not to touch her back in the process. Reaching back and grasping his wrists, she realised that he was shaking; his massive shoulders trembling with fear, anger and helplessness.
Nikki swivelled on the spot, and touched his sides comfortingly. They were shaking too. His whole body convulsed with sadness. First pausing, to see if he put up any objection, she encircled his waist with her arms and he leaned against her, his face buried in her neck and his hands grasping at the material of her shirt, as if this may give him peace of mind.
"Eppes, we have to go. Edgerton won't let us out of the building if we wait too long... he already knows that Liz, Colby and David are up to something and right now I'm not exactly in his good books." Nikki whispered, softly in his ear, and he muttered something back. She held him tighter, loving how his lips moved against the skin of her neck, but then let go, pushing him back. He still did not look her in the eye, instead helping her pull on a loose, XL FBI jacket. The contact with her made him stronger; his show of weakness had somehow invigorated him, and he rubbed his face angrily.
"Let's go then." He didn't say anything more about the tenderness with which they touched, and neither of them really knew what to think about it. This was another thing to talk about later, when Charlie and Amita were okay. Until then, they were content with not knowing and just feeling.