I want you guys to know I've read every single one of your comments. I'm actually very happy you're enjoying this story - it sounds like you like reading it as much as I've enjoy writing it.

Onwards: we pick up where the trail of carnage left off...

Chapter 6: Squall Line

There was nothing easy about this name.

He didn't come up in their system. It took two searches and a call to the Department of Homeland Security to find any kind of information, which given his record ad history surprised Kate when she got that information back.

He was a known arms dealer and mercenary, suspected but never convicted of being involved with a lot of very bad things. He wasn't hard to find and bring in, and he didn't put up much of a fight, but after depositing him in the interrogation room, Ryan and Esposito looked a little freaked out.

The name Hal Lockwood had left her, the one she'd asked him for every week since they'd put him behind bars had been Oleksandr Nevorov.

She stood with Castle on the other side of the glass, watching him carefully, planning her strategy…and letting him stew. Ryan and Esposito were there, next to them. The captain walked in last.

"You good for this, Beckett?"

She wasn't sure she should respond affirmatively to that, but she nodded anyway. "Yes sir."

The man had hardly blinked for ten minutes. He was built on a large, burly frame not so different from Ruben Salazar's bodyguard, except where the man they'd met before had reminded Beckett of a real-life Lennie Small, this man definitely looked like he had complete control of his facilities . He was covered in tattoos – the white wifebeater he was wearing did a wonderful job of showing off his prison-style body graffiti well. It bothered her, though, that they all looked like he had picked them up in the Gulag.

She started for the door, Castle on her heels. When they'd left the others behind, she turned around and put her hand up.

"Castle, I want you to stay outside for this one."

He looked surprised, maybe hurt for a moment, but he recovered with a look of stubborn determination. "Not on your life," he replied. "I want to see what this son of a bitch has to say for himself."

"You can see that from out here. Castle…" She stopped, then sighed as se reconsidered her words.

"Rick…this guy is dangerous. I don't want him in a position…" she trailed off again and looked away for a moment. She'd met his type before, done a touch of undercover work with the kind. If he decided to strike for whatever reason, she would have a hard time defending herself, let alone the man standing before her.

She didn't want Nevorov in a position to go after him, not when she couldn't be completely sure she could stop it.

"I'll keep my distance, Kate. I can scurry away very well."

His remark made her smile a little. Against her better judgment, she nodded, then led the way in.

"We have signed testimony that says you hired Hal Lockwood to kill John Raglan." She started talking immediately after entering the room, giving no introduction. She crossed purposefully to take the seat across from Nevorov. Castle stood back on this one, taking position in the corner by the mirrored window. "That's a lock for conspiracy to commit murder, and guaranteed time in prison."

Nevorov smiled a thin, gruesome smile. "I've been in the Gulag. Your American prisons do not scare me."

Beckett narrowed her eyes. "Who said anything about an American prison, Bratchnie?"

She'd never been more thankful for her semester in Kiev, although some part of her wondered if the captain would approve of calling a suspect a bastard to his face. She'd at least gotten surprise out of the man, though, and that was her plan. She needed to katch him off guard. She needed to knock him off balance.

Since she suspected the man of being part of the Russian mob, that wasn't going to be easy.

"You speak Russian?"

She nodded. "Da."

"Vy dejstvitel'no govorite russkogo, ili vy kak raz rvete menja vokrug?"

She smiled. Oh, I'm definitely jerking you around, asshat.

"Ja opredelenno rvu vas vokrug."

The amused smile he produced looked unnatural on his face. "I would not mind that, Detective."

"Look…I can talk the state department into keeping you in a nice, cushy American prison if you just tell us who contracted Lockwood?"

He leaned forward, the smile still on his face. "What makes you think I don't pull his strings?"

"You'd better check your puppet, Gepetto. He's dead." She paused, considering her next move.

"And you might be next on that hit list if you don't start coming clean now."

Her strategy focused around guesswork rather than fact, but none of the facts they had would be enough to break this man. People like him only cooperated when their own lives were in danger. She had to hope that her dragon really was as fearsome as McCallister had made him out to be, and that Nevorov knew it.

She watched the man's face set back into a scowl, but his pupils had dilated just a bit. Fear.

Desperately, she exploited that crack in his armor.

"All we need is a name, and we can stop that from happening."

The man's impassive, intimidating mask reappeared on his face, and for a long moment she thought her gambit had failed. Maybe he knew Lockwood's death was a suicide…or maybe it was a murder, and Nevorov was a red herring.

She was considering a new strategy when the man grunted.

"I do not know his name, only his cash" he supplied. "But I can set up meeting. Tomorrow."

She was suddenly reminded of Rathborne and Dick Coonan, of the setup gone wrong.

"If you're playing me, Nevorov…"

"I would not play you, Detective," he replied. "I do not want to be involved in this. But if I do this, I will not go to prison."

She frowned for a moment to follow his logic.

"Immunity," she said slowly. "You're asking for immunity."

His response was silence. She took that as a yes.

She risked her first glance at Castle. He was white as a sheet, but had been blessedly silent.

And she weighed her options.

"You'll have to talk about a lot more than this case for an immunity deal to stick. We'd need everything."

The Russian lifted an eyebrow. "Da."

She wanted another option. She needed another option. If they asked for immunity, it would piss off every federal investigative unit out there.

But convicting him got them nowhere if he was just a middleman. All of those agencies need his little black book. She just needed one freaking name.

"Fine." She replied. "I'll ask."

A few minutes later, she and Castle emerged from the interrogation room. She was met by Captain Montgomery and the rest of her team.

"Do you trust him?" the captain asked. "Do you really think he'll hold his end of the bargain?"

Kate looked back to the man that two uniforms were escorting to booking. "No," she replied, "but I don't think he's anything more than an agent hocking talent to the highest bidder. We need his customer."

"Or his boss."

Beckett turned to Castle, who had just uttered his first word in over ten minutes. Is that a new record?

"He has a middle management vibe about him, you know? He's maybe capable of performing a professional hit, but he's just another merc. I'm not sure he does anything other than coordinate the jobs."

She shook her head. "I'm not sure I buy your logic on this one, Castle…but let's assume you're right for a second. Where does that leave us?"

He shrugged, looking back toward the interrogation room. "Right where we are, I guess. If he can set up the meeting like he says he can, it doesn't matter. But instead of finding another ledge to rest on, we might have just found a bigger handhold. We could be climbing a deceptively tall wall here."

"It doesn't matter." Montgomery shook his head. "I'll get the details worked out. In the meantime, you people keep digging. I don't want to give this guy a get out of jail free card if we don't need to."

Montgomery walked toward his office, leaving the four of them alone.

Castle's silence in the interrogation room, and the sort of rambling theory made Beckett a little uneasy. She was so used to his jokes and antics that their absence made her day a little worse. But while she missed his humor, she appreciated his dedication and focus –Castle had only been so serious a handful of times in the years she'd known him, and each of those times had involved the most sensitive case she had ever worked.

She made a mental note to thank him for that later.

"What now, Boss?"

She wanted coffee. Or a nap. Or a long, hot bath.

She wanted this to be over.

"We should keep looking at SecuriTrust. Make sure all the money has a trail. No holes, no strange write-offs."

"We're on it," Esposito said. A moment later, he and Ryan were off to bug another department.

It left her alone with Castle.

"Maybe we should go grab some lunch," he suggested. "You didn't eat the bearclaw this morning."

Her stomach growled on cue. She looked at her watch: it was almost 2.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Mortello's?"

Pizza. Pasta. Cardboard. Rubber. She didn't care. "Yeah, sounds good. I'll get the coats."

They hung off their normal seats at her desk. Coats in hand, she answered her phone without looking when it rang a few seconds later. "Beckett."

She heard noises, a crackling that sounded light it might have been a bad connection, except that it sounded like shouting.

"Hello?"

There was some shuffling, but no answer. Just more shouting. Frowning, she looked at the call display.

Her Blackberry, in calming and artfully-designed blue letters, displayed Jordan Shaw.

A darkness began to settle into her mind. She didn't have to be told something was wrong.

"Beckett! Detective, are you there?"

"Agent Shaw?"

"Kate…" The FBI agent's voice was roug and cracking, and got distant for a moment as she shouted orders, but Beckett could make them out this time. She was giving emergency services directions.

"Kate, listen to me…Joe Pulgatti's apartment had been bugged…it had also been rigged with explosives."

"Explosives? What happened?"

"We got him back, did a sweep…we found the bugs first, and the bomb second, but we didn't find it in time to stop it. One of my agents got caught in the blast…I don't think he's going to pull through."

Her heart was racing. Her hands were trembling. Her voice was cracked. "What about Joe, Jordan?"

The agent on the other end of the phone line sighed heavily. "He pushed one of my agents out of the apartment first, and got caught in the blast.

"I'm so sorry, Kate. He's dead."

Food and thought, for the rest of the afternoon, had been forgotten. They'd gone to the demolished apartment to speak to Jordan. She was banged up, but okay, but she'd been right about her man. He didn't make it to the hospital..

There was nothing to be found in the wreckage but a heavy heart. In Joe's memories, she'd found another link to her mother. In his death, that link had been severed like all the others.

But now there were FBI agents involved. If there was any kind of positive outcome, it was the involvement of federal agencies. They'd gotten permission to pursue a deal with Nevorov. It was the only silver lining of one of the worst days she'd ever experienced on the job.

Night fell over the city. Though she was exhausted, there was no rest to be had. She didn't feel like moving or eating or thinking. Instead, she'd followed her feet out the door of her apartment and into the soaked streets.

She didn't remember making the decision to go to his apartment. It didn't dawn on her where she was until she was knocking on his door.

"I was just thinking about you," he says by way of greeting. She doesn't respond, simply walks in when he opens the door wider for her. He frowns as she crosses the threshold. "You're soaked."

She hadn't even noticed. "Oh…yeah. It's raining."

"Here…" he trailed off as he moved to the laundry room, returning a short while later with a pair of smaller sweatpants and a Harvard t-shirt. "Um…it belongs to Alexis, but I think it'll fit. We'll let all that dry."

Without a word, Kate accepted the clothing. "I'm sorry to show up unannounced like this," she said. "I just…I couldn't wind down, and I thought.."

"Oh, hey…don't worry about it. I was…ah…being unproductive myself. Rough day."

She nodded. "Rough day," she repeated wearily.

"Let me get you something while you change. Wine, maybe?"

A small smile appeared on her face. "Yeah. That would be nice. Thank you."

A few minutes later, she was dressed in decidedly warmer clothing. He was on the sofa, two poured wine glasses and the rest of the bottle on the table. She came up next to him, curling gratefully into the comfortable cushions. They enjoy a comfortable silence for a while…she didn't really have much to say, and he seemed to instinctively understand that. For her, in that moment, his proximity was comfort enough.

But after a glass of Merlot, their last two days started to close back in on her. There was so much going on – so much destruction, so much death.

So much she should be saying. So much more she was scared to say.

It was all just too much.

He moved closer, letting his proximity comfort her the way it had the day before. Her eyes slipped closed.

"I didn't thank you for yesterday."

He looked over at her. "For dinner? Think nothing of it."

She shook her head. "No. For being there for me in the conference room. As soon as I'd connected the dots, I went numb. Cold. It was…" She looked down. She trusted him enough to let him this far in, but she still hated feeling so vulnerable. "It was a little like being in that freezer again."

His face showed everything. He wouldn't ever develop the kind of mask she wore. She kept her true self hidden on purpose, for her own protection. That mask was there to keep the world out. Castle had no use for masks: he was completely comfortable being himself.

She'd come to love how easy it was for him to just be, even if it was occasionally one of those things that drove her crazy.

They'd never really spoken at length about their near-death experiences. They'd discussed the bomb to an extent, but not the freezer. Not the radiation tent. Nothing but the last of several certain death moments in less than two days, and then only to their friends over beers and laughs.

They didn't talk about feelings much at all. That was dangerous. It was a walk on thin ice in the center of a frozen lake– it was a foregone conclusion they would fall in and never get back out.

She was shocked to realize, though, that she wanted to dive in. She wanted him to come with her. And maybe she'd known that for a while.

"You stood by me. It was the only thing I could feel for a while."

He looked very happy…and very worried.

"What Barnett said yesterday, about the cases blurring together…it affected you, didn't it?"

She looked back down at her hands. "It was like hearing Detective Raglan tell us he'd closed the case all over again. I got into this business because I thought the cop that worked my mom's murder wasn't doing his job right. I found out yesterday that even the District Attorney might have written it off. This case has been such a huge part of my life, Castle…to know this might have been resolved by so many different people so long ago hurts in ways I just can't describe."

He reached for her chin, forcing her gaze back up. She found herself snared by the expression he wore, by the depth of emotion in his blue eyes. She felt their point of contact: her skin was on fire where his fingertips held her face.

She didn't stop him as he leaned in. His lips met hers in a tentative, gentle kiss, but the sensation was overwhelming. Her eyes slipped closed as, like a drug, the warmth spread everywhere. She was the one that deepened the kiss, turning it from simple act of comfort into the promise of something deeper, something more. His response was equal.

Like the land after a long winter storm, she welcomed the light as it broke back into her soul.

She became aware of her dizziness a few moments later and drew back. Apparently, he needed air as well.

"Castle," she gasped, panting slightly for breath. She wanted nothing more than to jump right back into the fire, but she was rapidly becoming aware of just how exhausted she was.

"Kate…it's okay. Just sit here. You're exhausted…you've hardly slept in the last two days. We have a lot to talk about…but it can wait a while. You need rest."

She didn't want to sleep. She just wanted to feel that warmth again. But he was right: they needed to have a long talk, and they needed to do this the right way or they would both end up hurt.

She wasn't sure she could bear that.

"Just sleep. It'll all be here when you wake up in the morning." He moved a lock of hair away from her eyes. "Including me."

Her eyes were too heavy and her brain was too foggy to argue. Her leaden head dropped onto his shoulder. She felt his arm come around her a moment later, wrapping her up in his warmth. She'd forgotten how wonderful that felt.

This form of his warmth would have to do, for now.

"Thank you," she whispered, already giving herself over to sleep.

The last thing she heard that night was his voice…but she was too tired to hear what he said.

When she woke up, they were stretched out on the sofa. It was 6:15.

She left him sleeping peacefully. After a quick change back into her clothes, she left for the precinct – they had a shower there, and she had a gym bag. By 7:30, she was refreshed and re-dressed. At 8, she told the boys they'd be looking at everything one more time: Coonan, Lockwood, Murphy, Nevorov…all of them were getting fresh glances. Everything was new again.

At about 9:30, she was in front of the murder board again. The thing that often held so many answers reflected the same bleak clues it had the day before, and the day before that, but that nagging feeling that she was missing something huge was back. It was right there, like a gossamer veil, except that every time she reached out to move it, the veil moved further back.

The middle of Landau's murder board shared something with her mother's case: those files, the common thread, the reason that Landau went to Murphy and Pulgatti and Scagliotti.

"Hmm."

The only common thread they hadn't taken a serious look at was the DA's office, and the ADA that had prosecuted all the cases.

She glanced over at the elevator doors, then down at her watch. It was 9:45.

Where the hell is Castle?

"Beckett." She turned when she heard her captain's voice. "A word?"

She turned to take one last look at the murder board, making a mental note to revisit the cases with the DA's office before walking into Montgomery's office.

/chapter 6

Notes: One of my favorites, You Won't Be Mine by Matchbox 20, is this chapter's audio companion.

The Russian in this chapter is probably not correct. I know enough Spanish to be conversational, but i had to translate English to Russian, then try to convert Cyrillic to Latin characters. The result was probably horribly butchered, but you don't miss anything in translation. I tried to describe the things that were being said.

Again, I promise I'll try to get Chapter 7 out as fast as possible.