Disclaimer: I do not own Castle ABC does.

A/N: I'm trying to finish this story before ruins the unknown of the first episode. That being said HOLY CRAP 142 reviews is amazing thanks so much for each and everyone one of them! The idea for part of this chapter came from an episode of NCIS and my own personal research, but even though it was borrowed I think it fits in rather nicely with the story, especially with the background I established for Castle. So I said this would be a longer chapter, and it is even though it is not my longest. But I figured since I took the weekend off I should shoot something out to you guys quickly so you wouldn't all go into withdrawal. As always questions, comments, criticisms, or whatever include in a review and I'll get bacl to you if I can. Until then enjoy!

P.S. For those reading my BM/WW story I just got the next chapter back from my beta and am revising it so that should be in a couple of days hopefully.

Chapter 10: COD

"Castle?"

"Dr. Parish it's always a pleasure. How are you doing this fine morning?" Castle replied

Lanie was stunned. How in the hell was Castle talking to her? Here Lanie was sitting on a pre paid cell phone that had been left in her desk talking to Richard Castle ex-CIA and current man on the run. How was this happening?

"Lanie are you still there?" Castle questioned since he hadn't heard a word from her since she said his name.

"Castle… how the hell, no wait, why the hell are you calling me?" she exclaimed still trying to figure the entire situation out.

"Well I think I found something, and while breaking in and borrowing your x-rays is one thing, taking an entire cadaver is a little bit too difficult," Castle said with an edge of excitement and teasing in his voice.

Lanie was naturally inquisitive, which was what made her such a great Medical Examiner, so Castle saying he found something sparked her interest immediately… wait a minute.

"Castle YOU'RE the one who stole my x-rays!" she all but screamed into the phone finally able to express her outrage at the source or her frustrating morning. "What made you think that you could just waltz into my morgue and take my things and get away with it!"

Castle was cringing so hard at Lanie's tone on the other end that she could practically hear it. His next statement didn't help him either, "Well probably because I did get away with it."

"GET AWAY WITH IT! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD GET AWAY WITH IT!" Lanie had upgraded to full blown screaming into the phone at Castle. Castle was quickly learning how personal Lanie took someone taking anything from her morgue, especially x-ray film, without her permission.

"Lanie please I don't have time for you to chew my head off right now, how about we save it for when this is all over. I need you to look at something for me to see if my suspicion is correct, can you do that?" Castle asked while trying to put off the tongue lashing that he knew he was going to receive eventually.

"Fine, but we are not done with this conversation1" Lanie said giving a huff at being cut off before she really got a chance to lay into him.

"Thank you. Now I need you to look at the x-ray of the victim's right shoulder and tell me what you see," Castle said leaving Lanie slightly clueless as to what he was getting out.

Humoring Castle Lanie found the correct film and put it up on the light board to take another look at Ms. Monroe's right shoulder. Looking at it closely she saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Castle all I'm looking at is a perfectly fine shoulder with zero signs of trauma or fractures and no deformities of any kind. I shouldn't even be saying this to you, but other than the gunshot wound we have nothing to go on."

"I know that Lanie I've seen your write up. Now take a closer look near the shoulder blade and tell me what you see," Castle instructed brushing off her statement which surprised Lanie. What did he mean when he said he saw the write up, those files where up in homicide.

Now truly curious she inspected the area closer giving it a thorough scan before relaying her findings to Castle. "There is nothing there Castle, the most interesting thing is a slight imperfection in the film but that's about it."

"Lanie, that imperfection, it's on the one I'm looking at to," Castle said letting the statement sink it.

Realizing what he had just said it took her only about half a second before understanding. Imperfections in films occurred sometimes during x-rays, but for the exact same imperfection to be two different films meant that it wasn't an imprecation at all. Something was in the victim's shoulder.

Taking a closer look at the film Lanie became engrossed in that single small dot. Now that she was examining it she noticed that it was a perfect circle dimensionally. She had to cut it out and see what it was for herself.

Putting Castle on speaker phone she put him on the table next to Ms. Monroe's body. Examining the shoulder area she saw a tiny red dot that was in the same area as the dot in the film. Taking a scalpel and a pair of tweezers she carefully cut through the skin and slowly reached in and grabbed the object. Withdrawing it she saw that in her tweezers she held a tiny metal ball.

Pulling over the magnifier attached to the table she held it under to get a closer look. "What did you find," Castle asked, his voice reverberating off all the metal in the morgue.

Looking at it closely she took a second before answering. "It looks like a small metal bowling ball with a couple of holes in it. I've never seen anything like this."

Castle released a resigned sigh, as if the news just confirmed something he hoped against. "Thanks Lanie you've been a big help."

"Wait what the heck is this thing?" Lanie quickly asked. A dial tone coming from the cell phone was her only response.

Miffed that Castle had hung up on her so abruptly, and especially without giving her answers, Lanie gave a huff before taking the metal ball to her desk. First thing she had to do was test it and see what she could find, then she had to figure out what exactly it was. Maybe Perlmutter would have an idea of what she was looking at. Excited that she had something to finally do Lanie set to work.

(BREAK)

Beckett and the boys were at a dead end, again. Castle's little cache of money, guns, and ammo hadn't turned up a single clue. They had no idea what he had taken, other than it involved a weapon of some make and model. Seeing so much cash made her fairly certain that what they found was just the amount he left behind, so it looked like tracking his financial activity was out the window. Kate wasn't even going to comment on the C4 which frankly scared her to no end, especially after her last experience with a bomb and her apartment. The most revealing thing about the entire place was the phone call they had received.

Castle's call had only left Kate more confused and aggravated with the entire situation. From the very beginning of the call she had been off balance and because of that her anger got the best of her. Snapping at him closed the door on her convincing him that she really did think he was innocent from the moment she saw him. From that point on the conversation had just gotten worse with him even refusing to offer them even the slightest clue of how to help him. The only positive note of the entire conversation was that he had sounded fine and he had said he would keep in touch.

So that left her sitting in front of her murder board, which featured Castle way to much for her liking, trying to will answers out of it. Hearing the familiar click clack of Lanie's heels Kate just prayed that she had something. Turning she was surprised to see a clearly determined, agitated, and no nonsense Lanie approaching them at a pace that dared someone to get in her way and be run down.

Stepping next to Kate exclaimed in excitement, "I found cause of death."

Esposito, stepping up next to Lanie, said what they were all thinking, "Ya Lanie we know, a gun shot wound to the chest. You discovered COD hours after we found the Vic."

Without even looking at him Lanie backhanded him in the chest, finally making good on one of her threats to smack someone, before clarifying, "If you would stop being such a wise guy and let me finish what I mean is I found what was killing her, and not what killed her."

Seeing the confused looks on the three detectives, Lanie huffed as if she was dealing with children before elaborating. "The gunshot wound killed her, but what I just figured out was that she was dying before she was even shot. A couple of hours ago when I was talking to Castle…"

At this point her story was drowned out in the ensuing "What!" that the three detectives let out simultaneously. "You talked to Castle, today?" Kate questioned.

Nodding her head Lanie answered, "Ya a couple of hours ago on the cell phone he left in my desk, talk about creepy. Anyway he clued me in on something I overlooked in the x-rays of the victim."

Beckett raised a hand at this point cutting Lanie off. "Castle noticed something you overlooked on the x-rays? Lanie he was booked before you took those x-rays, he doesn't have access to them."

"I was getting to that, jeez girl let me finish. Apparently Castle swiped my original x-rays at some point and he noticed a dot on it that I thought was just an imperfection. Instead it turned out there was something lodged in her shoulder, and this something is a real doozy," Lanie explained.

Opening the folder in her hands Lanie took out a photo and pinned it to the murder board. Studying the picture Beckett saw a small metal ball. "What the heck is that?" Kate asked.

"That's what I asked when I found it but Castle hung up after I gave him a description of it and never answered. I still don't know what this thing is or where it came from, but I did some tests and inside I found traces of ricin. Ricin is a powerful toxin that can kill in extremely small amounts. This pellet probably contained more than the two milligrams needed to kill our victim, which is too small of an amount for the tox screen to flag," Lanie said

"Well then why shoot her after you poison her? That just doesn't make sense." Ryan asked.

"Well that's the thing about ricin it doesn't kill you right away. Injection of something this small would feel like a small pin prick, and you wouldn't even start to feel the symptoms for hours to a day afterwards. From that point on you have a few days to live before your organs start to shut down because they can no longer synthesize proteins," Lanie explained.

Nodding her head Kate turned to address Ryan and Esposito, "Find out how Castle got in and got his hands on those x-rays. We need to know exactly how much of our information he got his hands on, and how he got his hands on it. Then we need a lead on who makes these pellets and who uses them." With that they set to work trying desperately to find some answers.

(BREAK)

"What do you got?" Beckett asked about an hour later, hoping that her two detectives hadn't run into as many dead ends as she had trying to discover the origin of that pellet.

"Someone used Esposito's name and password in archives to print off everything we have about the case while we were searching Castles storage unit. I sent the keyboard and phone to forensics. The phone came up clean and with the amount of people who use the archives computer it doesn't look hopeful," Ryan said.

"I checked the security cameras in the morgue," Esposito started, "Got the image of the back of a janitor swiping the files from the room, but he never turned towards the camera. I found him on a couple of other cameras as well, but he never turns to face them directly keeping his head down. I checked and all the janitors who were on duty were accounted for by witnesses somewhere else. Sorry bro, but he was wearing gloves so if this is the same guy that keyboard is going to come up empty." Esposito addressed the last part towards Ryan.

"And I got nothing on the pellet Lanie pulled from the victim. How can so many things happen without any shred of useful evidence," Kate said letting out a groan and dropping her head into her hands.

Just as she was internally beating herself up Kate's phone rang. "Beckett," she answered.

"Kate, Perlmutter just came in and I showed him the pictures of our pellet hoping that he would know what it was. I have some good news and some bad news though," Lanie's voice chimed from the other end.

"Lanie anything you got good or bad is better than we got," Kate said perking up at the prospect of good news.

"Good news is that he knows what it is, but that's also the bad news."

"Lanie," Kate snapped her patience running thin.

Taking a breath Lanie finished, "Perlmutter says that the pellet is actually a small ball bearing and is used as a means of assassination, particularly by one organization."

"That gives me the what Lanie, I need the who," Beckett prompted.

Taking another deep breath Lanie said in a slightly shaky voice, "The organization that uses… Kate he said it's the KGB."

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