Chapter 10

When the elevator doors slid open as it reached the floor Castle's room was on Kate Beckett was shocked by what she saw. Instead of the two uniformed police officers that had been guarding the floor all week she saw a single man in a suit of medium height and build facing the elevator and he was reaching for a gun that was on his belt. Beckett's mind quickly raced through all the possible explanations of who this man could be and why he was on this floor along with what had happened to the two officers and the worst one was also the most likely, the explosion had been a diversion to get the cops paying attention to the street instead of the hospital, This was one of the "Dragon's" men come to kill Castle and her. He had a gun and Beckett didn't so she had to act fast if she was going to stop him.

Beckett quickly stepped out of the elevator, the man was about two feet in front of her and reaching for his gun on his left side with his right hand. This meant that he was not completely focused on Beckett at that moment and she used this to her advantage. Beckett closed the distance between them and brought her right leg up into a high kick aimed at the man's left wrist, she used the kick to knock his hand away from the gun. This stopped him from getting to the gun for a second but when Beckett's foot came down to the floor she was slightly off center. She moved fast to correct this, she took a half step to her right so she was facing the man again but he was stepping back and reaching for his gun with his right hand and was now in a defensive posture. Beckett kicked her leg out straight ahead of her and the heel of her right boot connected sharply with the man's left knee. He let out a short sharp cry of pain and staggered backwards but by this time he had pulled out his gun, he aimed it at Beckett. This was a fight Beckett could not give up or lose so she did the only thing she could think of, she went for the man's right wrist with both of he hands and began twisting. This may not have been the best move when he was pointing the gun at her but she was too full of fear and adrenaline to think clearly, she was in a life or death struggle to protect the man she loved and she didn't really care at that moment if she took a bullet. Still luck seemed to be on her side since she was able to twist the pistol up and to the left so it was pointing away from her. It seemed that he had been expecting the fight to be over once he had gotten to his gun and Beckett had caught him off guard by continuing to fight. Still even as Beckett tried to twist the gun from his hand he seemed to collect himself and started to fight back. His left hand balled into a fist and Beckett was so focused on the gun that she didn't see it coming. The fist connected sharply with her left cheek and sent her flying down and to the right. Still she refused to let go of his wrist putting her full force and body weight into her grip, that was now the only thing holding her up. That was when she heard a snap and the man bellowed in pain and dropped the gun on the floor. Beckett must have broken his wrist. She dove to the floor and before he could react she picked up the gun, leaped into a standing position, and backed up a few feet pointing the gun at him.

"Don't move!" She warned harshly as she caught her breath.

The man was on the floor still pulling himself together while cradling his hurt wrist. Beckett was so focused on him she didn't notice another man in a suit jogging down the hall toward her but she did hear his voice which was full of confusion and surprise and what was more she was sure she knew the voice.

"What the hell is going on, Kate?!" The other man said letting out a gasp.

Beckett looked up and when she did it was her turn to be confused. "Will?" She asked and then glanced back down at the injured man on the floor who had by this point collected himself and was standing up. Beckett looked back at the other man to be sure she had seen what she thought she saw and a second glance confirmed that she was not crazy, just unlucky. He was one of the last people on earth she wanted to deal with at the moment. Her old boyfriend, FBI special agent Will Sorrenson.

"Kate would you mind giving Agent Peterson his gun back?" Sorrenson asked taking a couple of steps closer to her.

"She broke my wrist!" The agent complained.

"Sorry." Was all Beckett could find it in herself to say as she handed the gun back to Peterson and he grabbed it with his left hand and he returned it to it's holster.

"It's okay Agent, I will handle it from here. You go downstairs and have that taken care of." Sorrenson ordered as he waved the agent off.

"Yes sir." The agent replied and she shot Beckett an unfriendly look as he entered the elevator.

Sorrenson then turned his attention back to Beckett. "Kate I am glad you are here, maybe you can talk some sense into your writer." He said sounding exasperated.

Beckett finally found her voice and spoke forcefully. "First tell me what is going and what happened to the officers guarding Castle and what you are doing here."

"The FBI is taking over protection for you and Mister Castle. Since there had been no other attempts in the past week we thought you were safe but the events of this morning prove otherwise so we took over." He explained in a business like manor.

"That still doesn't explain what you are doing here." Beckett stated as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I am here because the FBI wanted someone in charge of the protection detail who you two knew and trusted." He explained easily.

"And you think that is you?" Beckett asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Kate." He said and his voice softened and a hurt look passed over his face. "I know things didn't end well between us and we had our problems on the last case we worked together."

"Problems?!" Beckett interrupted with a laugh. "You cared more about one upping Castle and trying to get me back into bed then you did about finding a missing child!"

"Kate! You know that is not true." He said placing a hand on her shoulder and speaking as if he was explaining something to a child. "I'll admit I didn't want to take chances by including a playboy on the case but we solved the case in the end. I should have trusted you when you said that he could help but you need to look at the big picture. Just because we disagreed on our last case doesn't mean that I don't still care about you and I will not do everything in my power to protect you."

Beckett winced and pulled away, she would not be treated like this. "Don't talk to me like I am stupid!" She shot back. "We both know the real reason you took this job and it has nothing to do with caring about me or Castle, it has everything to do with politics. This is a high profile case and if you can take credit for saving the famous writer Richard Castle from a plot that seems to involve organized crime then your star will rise and you will be on the fast track to promotion. This is about the only thing you have ever cared about, your job! If this was not a high profile case you would not be here."

Sorrenson bristled at this and took a step back, he took a second to regain his composure before he spoke again. "I am sorry you feel that way." He said with a sigh. "Still even if you do believe that you should still listen to me since I only get those points with the FBI if you and the writer come out of this alive. It's in my best interest to protect you so you should talk some sense into that playboy."

"Maybe I will talk to him, if someone will tell me what is going on." Beckett said softening a little. There wasn't much point in bringing up the past. Yes she didn't like Sorrenson much any more but she had no reason to believe he would be petty enough to put Castle in danger and he did have a good point, he had every reason to want Castle to come out of this alive. Still she would not take anything he said at face value.

"I can't tell you that, do you have any idea how many rules I would be breaking?!" Sorrenson objected.

"Well I may know a thing or two you don't about this case so here is the deal. I will brief you on what I know and then you will brief Castle and I alone on what you know and then if I think whatever it is you want him to do is warranted I will get him to do it. No one else will know and you will get your points and maybe some new info on the case. Win Win." Beckett stated firmly.

"Okay, fine." Sorrenson said with a huff. "But you have got to talk that writer into going to an FBI safe house."

"You tell me what is going on on and I will see what I can do." Beckett replied and then they turned and made their way into Castle's hospital room. There were four FBI agents in the room as well as Martha and Alexis.

"Give us a few minutes we need to talk privately." Sorrenson said signaling to his men and a moment later they exited the room. Castle did not look happy to see Sorrenson again, in fact he seemed almost livid, but he relaxed somewhat when he saw Beckett enter a moment later.

"Would you two please leave, I need to talk to Mister Castle and Detective Beckett alone." Sorrenson explained gently and Beckett had to admit for all his other faults he did know how to keep civilians calm, at least in most cases. Martha and Alexis looked like they were going to argue but Castle saw that Beckett seemed to agree with Sorrenson so he spoke up first.

"It's okay, I'll be fine." He said looking over at his mother and daughter. After hugging him goodbye they left the room quietly.

"Okay now will you two tell me what is so important that my family had to leave?" Castle asked tersely. He had clearly had enough of Sorrenson to last a life time and didn't have any desire to extend his time with the agent one second longer then he had to.

Sorrenson seemed to feel the same way because he skipped all pleasantries and got straight down to business. "We all need to be brought up to speed on what we know about this case, maybe then you will see why I am right and you will listen for a change." Sorrenson said coldly.

"Fat chance." Castle scoffed.

"Oh will you two knock it off!" Beckett spit out, she had had enough of their bickering and wanted to get this over with as much as Castle did. Still she could put her personal feelings aside if it would bring her closer to solving the case so that is what she did. "Castle do you want to know what happened outside or not?"

"Yeah of course." Castle said looking back at Beckett and he seemed to calm down or at least decide not to let his emotions rule his actions for the moment.

"Good here is what happened." Beckett said and she began to explain everything that had happened on the street just as if she was making a report to her captain or the DA, it was the best way she knew to get through the story without getting her emotions involved. When she finally stopped everyone was quiet for a few minutes but she could tell Castle was thinking.

"So we are dealing with someone very rich and with a lot of political power. Enough power to get people out of China." Castle observed gloomily. "Still we must know something that puts whoever it is in danger or they would not have taken a shot at you." He added on a slightly brighter note as he looked up at Beckett.

"Yes but what do we know, nothing about this makes sense!" Beckett replied and she began pacing back and forth across the room to vent her frustration.

"I don't know but it must be something we don't know that we know." Castle stated thoughtfully.

"Will, how did the FBI get involved and how did they know about Roy?" Beckett asked turning to her former boyfriend. "Maybe that will give us a clue."

"That is the strange part." Sorrenson began to explain. "The day you were shot." He looked over at Castle and then continued. "The FBI got a call with an anonymous tip. We tried to trace the call but it came from a payphone in New York and all the security cameras on the street corner it was on just happened to go offline for five minutes during which the call was made."

"What did the call say exactly?" Castle asked and he was starting to get excited, for the first time since he had woken up he had something productive to do and it was a good story straight out of one of his own books.

"It said that Captain Montgomery had been killed because he was involved in a kidnapping operation that resulted in the death of an FBI agent. It then gave us the numbers of several bank accounts. Now normally we wouldn't pay this type of tip much attention but the fact that bank accounts were listed and an agent had been murdered meant that we had to at least look into it." Sorrenson explained.

Beckett turned to face Sorrenson and there was anger written all over her face. "So that is why the FBI is going so far to drag Montgomery's name through the mud. You don't really care about the case, all you care about is that one of your people was killed!"

"You're Damn right that makes this important to us and don't pretend you would react any differently if it was a member of your team who was killed!" Sorrenson shot back.

"Roy Montgomery was a good man who gave his life to save mine!" Beckett retorted, barely keeping her emotions in check.

"Sorry I know he was important to you but that doesn't change the fact that he helped kill an agent and we owe it to that man's family to find the truth. You have spent over ten years looking for the truth about your mother's murder. The family of that agent is no different then you, they went through the same hell you have been through and they deserve better then a lie!" Sorrenson said forcefully.

Beckett didn't have an answer for this so she just turned away, refusing to break down but unable to calm herself completely down either. Castle decided it was time for him to step in and change the focus.

"We can't change what has happened, we have to deal with the problem we have. Sorrenson what did the FBI do with this information?" Castle asked trying to return the room to some sort of order.

"We checked out the bank accounts and sure enough they had been opened by Montgomery and other cops he had worked with under aliases." Sorrenson explained.

Beckett had regained control of herself enough to get back to business, without saying anything she turned around and rejoined the conversation. "Montgomery said they had given all their dirty money to the person behind this so why weren't you able to follow the money to him?" She asked.

"It's changed banks and been cleaned many many times. We know where the money started and that it was dirty but half the time when we try to track it we find that records have been destroyed or lost and the people we talk to seem to either not have the full picture or are more scared of him then they are of us. We hope the money will lead us to him at some point but right now we have not found a way in. If there is just one person behind this all he has layers of people between him and the people who run the day to day of his operation and he keeps himself well protected." Sorrenson explained with an exasperated sigh.

"So there is no hope, they are going to get me at some point." Beckett observed grimly.

"No, There has to be away to get to them through Montgomery or they wouldn't have tried to kill you." Castle said, he was determined not to let her give up. "The only way this story makes sense is if they are afraid of us, we just have to figure out why."

"You know how much I hate to say this but he is right, we will get this bastard. We just have to keep you safe until we can." Sorrenson said stepping closer to Beckett and for the first time since he had shown up he seemed almost kind. "Still I will not lie to you, this is a big organization and we need to keep both of you at a safe house until we bring them down." He added a little more forcefully.

"I can't go into hiding for the rest of my life. It has taken more then ten years to get this far, who knows how long it will take to bring these people down." Castle objected.

"This is my mother's case, do you really think I can sit on the sideline Will?" Beckett added.

"Look Kate, I know this hard for you but if you touch this case now it will get thrown out of court. Do you really want these guys to get away with it? This is asking a lot I know but please step back so we can nail these guys and all the people who died didn't do it for nothing." Sorrenson was almost pleading with her. He then turned to Castle. "As for how long this will take, we have good leads and we have some idea of what we are looking for, so unless you have a way to close this case quicker a safe house is the best that we can do for you."

"Okay" Castle said and he paused to think for a minute. "Do you have any idea who called in the tip?" He asked a moment later.

"We think it must be some member of the organization who grew a conscience. It wouldn't be the first time this sort of thing has happened and it would explain how they know so much. Still that isn't a workable lead at the moment." Sorrenson said with a shake of his head.

"That doesn't explain the bomb being moved or Chang being knocked out." Castle said thoughtfully. "Those things were done with style and with the intent of sending a message. I think we are dealing with some third party who has a grudge."

"I think maybe you have been reading too many of your own books, things like that don't happen in real life." Sorrenson scoffed.

"No, Castle's right. It's the only thing that makes sense." Beckett pointed out.

"Okay so even if that is true that doesn't help us all that much. I mean this guy has broken laws to help us so he is not about to come out of the shadows and answer our questions. It's still not a lead." Sorrenson replied.

"Maybe he can't come out directly and give us a lead but maybe he left something this last time that can help us. Like when he gave the FBI the bank accounts." Castle said rubbing his chin.

"The only thing he left for us was Chang and I don't think he will be of much help." Sorrenson said doubtfully.

"Wait." Beckett said with a snap of her fingers and she turned to face Castle. "Chang said that there was a go between for whoever is behind this and the Tongs."

"That go between would have to know who he was working for in order to offer things like money and getting people out of China." Castle added completing the thought and for the first time in a long time Beckett felt like a complete person, she was building theories with her partner once again. Yes they were in big trouble but they now had a chance because they were back in sync. As if to confirm this they both seemed to have the exact same thought and blurted it out at the exact same time.

"We need to talk to the Tongs!" They said.

Sorry this took so long but I am not good with action scenes so that bit took me a whole day to write. Also sorry that this chapter was nothing but plot exposition, it was needed to move the story forward but it made for a boring chapter. Really sorry about that. I tired to add Sorrenson in to make it at least a little interesting but I don't think it worked. Over all I am not very happy with this chapter but it was the best I could do.

Any way thanks for sticking with this story and I promise the next chapter will be more interesting.

Once again many thanks to Caskettfan 5 for Beta help with this chapter.