Here's the next chapter, hope you like it.
They sat in the car in silence, heading towards Parker's address. Kate was again
sat in the back and this time she was thinking over what she was going to tell Martha and Alexis when she rang them, because she did have to ring them.
She was torn between ringing and telling them everything, and leaving them to panic and worry on their flight, or just telling them that Rick needed them and then telling them what had really happened when their flight landed. Kate was leaning towards the latter idea, she knew that they would worry about why Kate was summoning them to DC but they wouldn't know that Rick was hours away from dying.
Kate sat planning her words, she needed to be quick and she needed them to know that time was of the essence, but she didn't want to worry them too much, there was no point, their worry wouldn't help anyone.
Up front McCord and Henderson both remained deathly silent, knowing that Kate needed to think and that there would be nothing they could say that would help. Right now all they could do was get to Parker's address to get some answers and hopefully a lead to the antidote that Rick so desperately needed.
Henderson moved through the traffic with ease, knowing the best and quickest way to get from Bronson's apartment to Parker's address.
When they arrived everyone got out and headed up to the apartment that was in Parker's name. They grabbed the super on their way up so they didn't have to break down the door if Parker wasn't in.
They knocked and waited a few seconds for an answer. When there was no sign of anyone coming to the door Henderson put his head against it and listened for any sign of movement behind the door.
He obviously heard nothing because he turned to the super. "Open it," he instructed, moving aside to let the super at the lock.
The door was quickly unlocked and the super pushed to the side as the three agents entered, guns drawn, to check the flat one room at a time to see if Parker, or anyone else for that matter, was in there.
Eventually they'd cleared all the rooms except for the bed room. They all moved to cover the door then Henderson counted down before he pushed it opened. McCord was the first to entre, closely followed by Kate and then Henderson bringing up the rear.
There was no one in the room but they knew that they'd hit gold as soon as they looked around the walls.
"Well he's our guy," Kate stated. Henderson and McCord both nodded their heads in agreement.
The wall opposite Parker's bed was covered floor to ceiling with pictures, hand written notes and pieces written in what Kate was guessing was Pashto or Urdu, although she couldn't be sure since she didn't know either language, all she was totally sure of was that it wasn't English or Russian.
Rather than trying to work it out the three concentrating their attention on the pictures and hand written notes instead, all holstering their guns as they moved closer.
The pictures that covered the walls were of different people in all sorts of settings. There were some that had obviously been taken in active war zones while others had been taken much fancier events, probably back in the states. There was something that all of the pictures had in common through, they all contained one of three people.
One of the people was Bronson and most of the pictures he stared in were of him in combat gear although there were a few of him that looked like they'd been taken at his apartment or in parks etc. A lot of them looked like surveillance photos that Kate guessed Parker had taken.
"Beckett," McCord called to her, "Come and have a look at this."
Kate moved over to where McCord was looking at the wall. "Look," she instructed pointing at one of the photos.
Kate looked at the photo. "Castle," she muttered, "He was watching, waiting for Bronson to die and got a picture of it, probably to remember."
McCord nodded. The picture they were looking at featured Rick and Bronson, just after Bronson had died. Kate stared at the photo for a moment before she shook her head. "I'm going to search for the antidote," she muttered, "Maybe it's here."
McCord nodded. "I'll help you," she responded before she looked over to Henderson. "Keep looking at the photos," she instructed him, "See if you can find anything in case the antidote isn't here."
Henderson nodded and returned to his study of the wall.
Kate and McCord headed out of the room and into the sitting room. "You take the sitting room," McCord instructed, "I'll start in the kitchen."
Kate nodded before asking, "Do we know what we're looking for?"
McCord shook her head. "Hopefully it will be in something that either says it's the antidote or will be in something that makes it obvious that it shouldn't be here."
"Like a vial or something," Kate mussed.
McCord nodded and then two of them got to work.
Back in Bronson's apartment they had tried to leave the place as they'd found it but now that wasn't a priority. The priority here was to give everything a thorough looking through to see if the antidote was here. Because speed was of the essence that sitting room and kitchen soon looked like a bomb had hit them. It was organised chaos, Kate and McCord didn't want to mix up stuff that they hadn't searched yet with things that they had.
When they had both drawn a blank they moved on. McCord heading into the bathroom while Kate started on the cupboard by the door. When she opened the door she called for McCord, who quickly came to stand beside her.
The cupboard had been made into a lab. The small space was full of flasks, beakers and other types of equipment. There was a briefcase on the bench, sat in front of all the equipment and Kate quickly picked it up and moved over to kitchen counter to open it.
She cleared the counter with a sweep of her arm, sending all the stuff that McCord had pulled from the cupboards onto the floor, and carefully placed the suitcase in the space she had cleared.
"Do you think it's safe to open?" Kate asked McCord, looking between the agent and the case.
McCord shrugged. "Chances are that it's safe. I doubt that Parker would have wanted to run the risk of infecting himself with the toxin and wherever he stole it from would have made it safe for travel."
Kate nodded her head in agreement and then turned her full attention to the case. Carefully and slowly she opened it and then let the lid fall back against the wall. "It's empty," she whispered. She'd been hoping that the antidote would have been in there, or at least a sample of the toxin so that could work out how to counteract it.
"There's a chemical name there," McCord pointing out, pointing to the plaque set into the top of the case.
Kate looked at it. "That means nothing to me," she stated.
McCord sadly nodded her head in agreement. "If the toxins not here but the lab is," she began, "Than Parker might be out there right now after someone else, getting ready to poison them."
"Crap," Kate muttered, "And we have no idea who that is."
"I do," Henderson's voice came across the room. The two women turned to face him. "He's after Secretary Michael Reed," Henderson stated, "Going by the notes on the wall he's the one who ordered the strike that killed Parker's girlfriend."
"Right lets go then," McCord ordered. "We'll find out where he is when we're in the car and then get to him, hopefully before Parker does."
"We have to pick up Rick," Kate disagreed as they headed for the door, "His time is running out and if he's with us when we find the antidote then he can get it all that much faster."
They all got into the car as McCord replied, "We'll drop you off at the office and then you get Castle and follow us. It will also mean you can give the case to the scientists so they can work out what the hell the toxin is."
Kate nodded her head in agreement and then settled into her seat as Henderson tore his way through the streets. She then sighed and pulled out her phone, now was probably a good time to call Martha and Alexis.
There aren't many chapters left until the end of this story, maybe two or three, so I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed so far.