Close Encounters 19

Castle checked the message from Kate and winced; she had let Ethan head upstairs alone without any kind of guidance. He was going to get caught. And when he did...

Actually.

There was an idea.

Better idea than he'd had lately. Castle was down here running around in circles searching for Threkeld. He'd found a couple of unlocked doors but it was clearly the security offices' storage rooms and the like. He'd found some riot gear and a janitor's closet, but he hadn't found anything like holding rooms or even an infirmary.

But getting caught - getting caught was an idea. If he got caught they'd have to take him straight to Threkeld. And since the plan had been for Castle to go in alone, Beckett had insisted on the GPS tracker under his skin. So he was tagged.

All he had to do was get caught.

He had run across a few groups of security guards; once an entire squad of MPs had marched right past the room of riot gear. It was obvious something was going on down here. Kate had been right about the activity, but Castle had managed to hide himself before anyone had come upon him.

But if he got captured, they'd figure out he was one of the guests upstairs. They wouldn't know what to do with him, so they'd bring him to their superiors - and straight to wherever they were holding Threkeld.

And with the GPS, Esposito could come right to him. He hoped.

Castle scanned the hallway and headed back for the janitor's closet, regrouping as he thought through his new plan. The door opened easily and he shut it behind him, sank against the wall of the little closet.

Get caught. He'd done it before. As a ploy, it was difficult to pull off alone, though he'd done that too. But knowing Esposito was right outside, that the GPS would lead him straight to a rescue, that made it easier.

He called Kate.

"No!" she shouted in the phone.

Too loud.

Kate ducked and hurried to the far end of the auction room, her cheeks flaming as people turned their heads. She had to leave the room entirely, push past the party-goers to find the front doors and cooler air.

The night was dark, and the doors were attended, so Kate walked halfway down the white carpet to avoid them.

"Castle, no," she whispered urgently.

"We're running out of time. The auction ends in five minutes and then the party degenerates after that. We need to move now."

"We're supposed to be doing this quietly," she said.

"It's still quiet. I get caught, they take me straight to Threkeld, and then Espo comes to me."

"What if Espo can't get in?" she growled. The baby was fluttering soft and sweet and she was having a hard time hanging on to the panic when it felt like this. "No. Castle, no, we're not doing this."

"I can't find him, Kate. I wish I could, but every door is locked."

"Then I'll smuggle you in some lock picking tools."

"Computer panel with a key code."

"Shit."

"If they catch me, they'll see I'm a guest. I'll make noises about being a guest, unhand me you swine-"

"You're not funny."

"I am a little," he murmured quietly. "You're smiling. I can hear it."

She wasn't. "Castle."

"I get caught; they take me to their chief of security. A person who is presumably overseeing whatever interrogation techniques they're doing on Threkeld. It at least gets me behind those locked doors."

She made an awful noise she couldn't seem to hold back.

"Kate."

"And how does Espo get past those locked doors?"

"Espo is bringing firepower in with him. I don't have any of that."

"Castle, please don't."

"If I don't, I'll never find him. And we're dead, Kate. We're dead."

Bubbles under her skin.

The moment Esposito breached the underground entrance, Castle and Threkeld were certain to be moved, hustled out of there. It would have to be simultaneous - the breach and their rescue.

"I can probably get us both out, Kate. On my own. They won't know who I am, what I can do."

"Castle," she tried again, "this isn't a good idea."

"It's the only one we got."

She had nothing left, no more arguments, no way to make him. He was doing this for them, and she knew he had to.

"I can feel him," she said suddenly, closing her eyes.

"What?"

"James. I can feel him."

"You can?" Castle gasped. "What - what does it feel like?"

She pressed her hand to her stomach and dipped low to the place where James seemed to be. "Um. Soft."

"Soft?" His voice was deep, rich; he sounded like he was standing right beside her.

"Soft and... tickling. Inside."

"Yeah?"

"Champagne bubbles popping, one at a time. I don't know, that's not quite it. It's - unlike anything I know."

"Kate."

She could feel the baby now, even now, her heart racing - and maybe that was why. She was getting his little heart rate up too.

"There's nothing else I can do, Kate."

"I know," she sighed.

But if anything happened, she'd be coming in there after him.

She and James both.

He had a knee in his back, his neck contorted, his cheek and chin pressed hard into the tile floor. Castle kicked out and got one of the guards in the groin, received a blow to the back of his head for it.

There was a starburst of darkness but he breathed through it and was hauled to his feet by three men, shoved forward.

He kept track of the doors and the hallways, counted in his head. He got a punch to the kidney for no reason he could fathom, and then he was pushed to his knees before a door that looked like any other.

The guard at his right entered the code - 460-33-1418 - and then the lock sounded and released. The guard at his left pushed it open and Castle was yanked to his feet once more.

"Guys, really," he said. "I got lost. Looking for the bathroom. I'm supposed to be claiming some art-"

"Shut up."

"This is all a misunderstanding-"

The smash of a fist into the side of his head made him shut up. His jaw ached enough but he let himself stumble to one knee, feigning more hurt than he felt. They weren't messing around here - kidney punches, blows to the head, these weren't techniques to subdue a guest.

"Mr. Wilson?" a guard called out.

Castle was being shoved down a dim corridor with windows set into the wall like viewing portals. The glass was warped - some kind of specialty construction - and Castle realized that each window looked on to a holding cell.

And there was Threkeld, behind glass, handcuffed to a chair and bleeding. His glasses were crooked on his face, one lens was spider-webbed with cracks, and his head was bowed forward.

Castle's attention was pulled from the doctor by the man who came out from behind a bank of computers. He was imposing, dressed impeccably, his fingers on on his left hand rubbing against his thumb in a movement that seemed self-soothing.

"Mr Wilson, we found a guest roaming the back hall."

"Ah."

Well, fuck. Mr Wilson had gone to the same school of inscrutable sounds as Castle and his own father. Kate would laugh. If she were here, if he got out of this to tell her.

Actually, Kate might not laugh at all.

"Did you get lost?" Mr Wilson said, tilting his head to look at him. He snapped his fingers at one of the guards and was presented immediately with some kind of tablet.

"I was looking for a bathroom?" Castle answered, letting his eyes dart around like a scared civilian. He used that quick scan to quickly catalogue the place where they were being held.

Matte black halls, dark carpeting to suppress sounds, a kind of central hub where Mr Wilson presumably kept track of what happened in the holding cells. The door they'd come through was off a hallway that spoked back to this command center, and there was another hall opposite that led to another door that Castle couldn't see.

"Looking for a bathroom, Mr..."

He hesitated.

Mr Wilson's eyes snapped up to his, narrowing in thoughtfulness.

"What are you going to do to me?" Castle asked instead, delaying for time. He'd told Esposito to give him ten minutes to get a handle on this, ten minutes to be caught and find Threkeld, but he suddenly wasn't sure he'd get ten minutes. Wilson looked entirely too ready to get rid of obstacles.

"Who said we were going to do anything?"

"I'm not stupid," he answered, letting his eyes wander the place again. For effect, but also to take another inventory of the command center. "You've got people locked up in here. This is the Austrian Embassy, not even American soil."

"You're American then."

He flinched like the man was too good for him and caught the time on his watch. He had six minutes to kill. To not be killed.

"Turn out his pockets," Wilson snapped.

Only one guard holstered his weapon, which was a bad sign for Castle, but the man moved in and started patting him down. The guard was too close, Castle could take him out; it'd be four against one then, better odds. Plus Castle didn't think Wilson would punish him for taking his chances.

So he did.

The guard leaned in and found the phone in his jacket pocket, and Castle jerked his knee up into the guard's vulnerable neck. The man gave a wheezing, choked noise and dropped to Castle's feet, clawing for breath, face already turning purple. He wouldn't get it. His trachea would swell up and close off his airway if he didn't receive treatment. Castle lunged like he was going for the others, like he was just a scared civilian doing something stupid, but of the course the four guards subdued him.

Wilson ignored the man slowly dying on the floor, and he regarded Castle thoughtfully.

The three guards remaining were hesitating, giving each other looks, giving Wilson looks, and finally one broke configuration to bend down over the man on the floor.

"Stand up," Wilson snapped. "Leave him. His own fault."

Castle could tell that didn't sit well with any of the men, and he realized that Wilson wasn't their boss, or at least not usually. They weren't used to following his directives, and they weren't comfortable with his treatment of the men under him. Dissent sizzled in their ranks, but they were too fearful to do anything about it.

Which meant that Wilson wasn't Embassy security. Wilson was in the Collective.

When Esposito called, Kate jerked out of the atrium once more and answered, dread pooling low in her guts.

"You got his signal in there?"

"Espo," she groaned.

"Just tell me you have a read on his GPS, Beckett."

She pressed her lips together and lowered the phone, switched apps to look at the GPS.

Oh, God.

"No," she croaked. "It's gone. Espo-"

"I think wherever they took him, it's got shielding of some kind. Makes sense if they hold prisoners-"

"Esposito, how do we fix this?" she said tersely, cutting him off. "Tell me how we get my husband out of there."

"I - don't know. I have him up to a point, but then he disappeared."

She sucked in a tight breath, pressed her hand to her belly where James had to be doing somersaults. What in the world?

"Espo."

"I don't know, Beckett. I don't - I have no idea. I could blow the exit doors right now and just take the place but Castle was running in circles down there, and I don't know where in the hell I'm going."

"No, no," she croaked. "Won't - won't do us any good."

The bubbles shimmied in her guts, tickling her insides, and she closed her eyes. I'm trying, I'm trying.

"Can you come meet me out front?" she asked. "Can you bring me our supplies?"

"What?"

"I know they checked the limo when we came on the grounds, but you brought things through, Espo, I know you did. Just in case."

"I did," he growled. "But what are you saying?"

She didn't know what she was saying. "Will the security outside let you meet me in the driveway?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, but-"

"I'm heading your way now." She ended the call before he could try to talk her out of it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Esposito growled.

She held out her hand, wordless.

"Beckett. You are not going in there."

"Give it to me. Whatever you have."

"All I have for you is a damn knife," he muttered, but he handed it over. "You got no place to put the guns."

More than one? Esposito had smuggled more than one gun into the Austrian Embassy property? They were going to have to go over this later, because if he could do it, so could someone else - and she was thinking more about the American embassies on supposedly friendly soil.

"I can hide it in here - I have this," she said, opening the silk clutch. Her phone was inside, but she was already tucking the knife into the bodice of her dress. "I need a gun, Espo."

"You're not going in there."

"I'm already in there. I'm the only one in there."

"You and the baby," he hissed.

She set her jaw. "So it's a family affair. Give me the gun."

Esposito growled and rubbed his hand over his head. "Beckett, don't make me do this."

"Whose side are you on? Mine or theirs?"

"I'm on yours, but you go in there and you're just as dead as him."

"He's not dead," she rasped. "And if he is, then so am I, so is James. It's not about biological weapons, Javi, and you know it. It's about him. About what they can do with him."

Esposito grunted and pulled something from his jacket, angling behind her body to keep him out of sight of the guards at the entrance. "It's got five bullets. It'll fit in that damn purse thing. The other one won't."

"Thank you," she breathed. She hadn't been at all sure that Esposito would help her.

"Damn it, Beckett. At least take Hunt with you. Bring him so that Castle doesn't totally rip me a new one."

Bring... Hunt?

Kate grinned, reached out to grip Espo by the lapels of his driver's jacket. "You are brilliant, Javi." She kissed him hard on the mouth and spun around, heading back for the party inside.

"What?" he called after her.

She ignored him and kept going; she had to see a man about an unwanted guest prowling upstairs.

"Excuse me," she said icily. "You have a problem."

The man she'd chosen had needed to be low enough on the totem pole to be snowed by her, but high enough to get her access. She'd picked this one - burly with the confidence of his build to make him arrogant, but with the earpiece dangling out of his ear, also not willing to be led by others' reports, wanting fresh eyes.

"I have a problem," he echoed, frowning at her.

"Yes." She tucked her purse under one arm and glanced towards the stairs just before the atrium. "You have an unwelcome guest."

"Oh, really," he said drily.

"Open your eyes. Eighty percent of the people here are drunk. The showrunners are busy in the auction room. And where is the guard you posted on the stairs?"

The guard had actually been there, but she and Castle had noticed he had a regular route that took him away from time to time.

The burly guy before her gave a flickering look to the staircase, narrowed his eyes.

"I've been given information from an associate that you have a man - shall we call him in the business? - upstairs snooping around."

The guard frowned fiercely at her, but he kept looking towards the stairs. "And who are you? I don't know you or your associate."

"I think you do," she said calmly. The fluttering started up under her skin again. "You might call me... independent security."

A muscle worked in the man's jaw and he shifted to one side. She was banking on the security detail having been overrun by the Collective people who were holding Threkeld.

She smiled but it was more like a grimace. "So I'm going to need you to come with me. We'll take this man into custody and then bring him to my boss."

At that, the guard stiffened. The skin under his eyes was blanching, as if he was deathly afraid.

Beckett didn't think that was good for Castle. That was really really bad, actually. It meant the Collective men here in the embassy were rather high up. And rather ruthless.

"All right. Fine. Where upstairs?"

Beckett gave him a look. "Isn't that your job?" she said.

The guard sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat, but he headed for the stairs.

With James stirring inside her, Kate followed the security guard.

She hoped he wasn't too hard on Hunt.

Castle caught a blow to the mouth, but he moved his head back just enough to avoid the worst of it, pushing his tongue around his teeth and spitting blood to the floor.

Wilson stood immobile for a moment longer, and after Castle was sufficiently roughed up - another punch to the face that caught his cheekbone - he gave the signal and the guards fell back, both of them panting for breath and overworked.

Embassy security didn't often get the chance to get their hands dirty.

"You're a guest," Wilson said softly. His fingers were rubbing against his thumb again, that gesture that seemed so out of place on a man of his importance. He held the tablet in one hand, was reading from it. "Rick Rodgers, I see."

"Yes," he said, spitting blood. He hoped he'd gotten it on Wilson's shiny shoes. He hoped his face wasn't healing too quickly either, but he could already feel the heat in his cheek and inside his mouth, that heat of clotting blood.

He'd done a few experimental tests on himself at Stone Farm, allowed Boyd to see just how fast his blood worked to heal his body. They hadn't gotten too far with it - he did still feel the pain of it, and Beckett would sure as hell not approve - but he knew enough to recognize the signs.

"Richard Rodgers," Wilson said, rolling the name around in his mouth. "Where have I heard that name?"

He kept silent, kept his eyes on the man from the Collective. Wilson was taunting him, of course; he knew perfectly well. He had most likely spent the time Castle was getting a beatdown searching for background on Richard Rodgers on that stupid tablet.

Castle wasn't worried; his cover was airtight. What troubled him was the idea of Wilson sending his guys out to the party and collecting his wife. But he didn't know how to play this until the man tipped his hand.

Wilson smiled. "Ah, your lovely wife."

He would never again say ah in response to his lovely wife. He swore. Never.

"She was on the hook for shooting a US senator. How interesting. Do the two of you frequently stick your noses where they don't belong?"

"Just me," he scraped out. It took effort to make his voice sound pitted, thick with the beating he'd taken. Already his gums had stopped bleeding, his cheek tingling with the effort of healing. The beatdown should have crippled a man, but Castle was only feeling a little hazy. And that was slowly dissipating as well.

"Your wife is a cop-"

"Was. She had to quit," he said congenially. "Can't exactly do undercover work when your face has been all over New York."

It was past the planned six minutes. Espo would be coming any second now. Wilson would get the call from his security team, a panic button or alarm, and Castle would use the momentary distraction to get the gun off the security agent standing guard over him.

The other two were still shaking out their fists and undoing their jacket buttons, and it would be two quick shots to take them down. Castle would run for the room just a hundred paces from here, shoot the key pad entry, grab Threkeld and be out the door before Wilson could scramble another team.

"Moved to DC last month. You have a cozy condo in Alexandria as well as the place in New York. I'm assuming you got a settlement from the government."

"Perhaps." In a manner of speaking.

"Started a non-profit looking to expose the evils of Capitol Hill. How quaint. You're both still acting the cop, aren't you?"

"I was just looking for the bathroom. I'm curious. I go where I shouldn't," he tried.

"You are curious. I bet that's how you two met. She was undercover and you went where you shouldn't have. Did she arrest you? Love at first sight?"

He didn't like where this was headed.

"Perhaps we should invite your wife to this... curiosity."

Any time now, Esposito.

"What the hell?"

The hulking guard had accosted Hunt in the hallway.

Beckett widened her eyes and Hunt flared his nostrils but he shut up. Just beside her, the Hulk got a solid punch to Hunt's gut and the British Inspector went down to one knee, wheezing.

"Take him," Beckett said calmly, frowning down at Hunt. Honestly she had thought he'd be much harder to take down.

"Yes, ma'am," the Hulk said. He zip-tied Hunt's hands aggressively and hauled the man up. "On your feet, asshole."

Beckett crossed her arms over her chest, grateful that the baby wasn't quite big enough to make that move awkward. He was still fluttering around down there, or maybe that was her own anxious energy urging her towards movement. She had to push it out of her mind.

Hulk marched Hunt down the hallway, away from the stairs they'd come up, and Kate followed, pretending she knew where they were going. She'd been angling to get them past that door, but if Hulk didn't want to disrupt the party with a still-protesting Hunt, then she didn't know what else to do but follow.

Hulk led them to a locked door that opened to a staircase leading down. Rather than the expensive wood paneling and chrome detailing of the hall offices, these stairs were bare concrete. She quickly went over the mental blueprint and gauged that these stairs headed just alongside the atrium wall - and right past that door.

She hoped.

Hunt swiveled his head to look at her and she made a gesture to keep him silent; he was furious with her, she could tell, but she had no room for remorse. Go with it, she ordered him silently. Just let this happen.

The stairs echoed with their footsteps and Hunt had finally shut his mouth, fuming, ticked, while the Hulk shoved on him, keeping him just enough off balance that he couldn't strike back.

Hulk was smarter than she'd given him credit. This might get tricky.

At the base of the stairs, the Hulk glanced back at her and she nodded; he moved Hunt forward into a brightly-lit hallway, searingly white. The overhead lights had a faintly blue cast to them, and the Hulk was shoving on Hunt, pushing the man ahead of them.

Kate slipped her fingers to the tight bodice of her strapless dress, palmed the knife. It was a four-inch, the handle lightweight, and Kate kept her hand down at her side as they walked, getting used to the balance of the blade.

The Hulk glanced back at her. "Ma'am, does Mr Wilson want him inside with the other?"

"Yes," she said icily. "Of course." Mr Wilson, huh?

Hulk nodded and took the next turn, started down a long hallway. Kate opened her clutch as the Hulk gripped Hunt by the back of the neck like a truant schoolboy. She pulled out her phone, quietly unlocked the screen, and hovered her thumb over the send button.

Any second now. It had to be simultaneous.

The Hulk glanced back at her again and she gave him a cool eyebrow.

"Uh, ma'am?"

"What's the problem?" she said, her impatience unfeigned.

"I just - Mr Wilson did say that no one was to go inside."

"And I'm saying we have a security problem that Mr Wilson is going to want to handle himself. Wouldn't you agree?"

The Hulk winced. "Yes, ma'am."

"So. Let's go," she said, making a hurry up motion. She didn't have time for this. Castle didn't have time for this.

Hulk turned back around and pushed Hunt down the hall again, but Hunt was shooting her daggers.

Keep your mouth shut, she mouthed.

It was a long walk down the hall before the Hulk stopped in front of a nondescript door; he pressed the first key of the sequence into the keypad, and Kate stepped to one side of him.

She juggled the blade in her right hand and watched the Hulk's hand as he depressed the second number. She didn't know how long the code would be, but the moment between the last number and the door opening, she had to bring him down.

Hunt shot her a quick look and she ignored him. He was on his own.

Five numbers now. Her palms were damp; she gripped the handle of the knife.

Seven. Eight. And now the Hulk was withdrawing his finger and Kate heard the whine of the door. She hit send on her phone, made sure it went, and then got ready.

Hulk pushed open the door.

Kate lunged forward, stabbed the blade just under the man's ear to the hilt, jerked it forward and across his throat. Hulk gargled, voice stolen by the blood spewing and soaking Kate's hand, slippery on the knife. He staggered and she fell hard into the door, her shoulder shoving it all the way open - open on chaos.

Chaos. Gunfire, dark hallway, glass shattering, shouting - Castle.

In her distraction, the Hulk got a hand up at her, his fingers circling her throat in a dead man's grip, his eyes terrified and furious on hers. She couldn't hang on to the knife, and he reached up and yanked it out, but the blood gushed now, and she torqued away, choking as his fingers dug into her trachea.

But Hulk brought up the knife, eyes burning on hers, and she was trapped between him and the door.