Triumphant: Chapter 12
DISCLAIMER: Most of these characters are not mine at all, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. The others? Yeah, they're mine
Wednesday - October 29, 2014, 8:52 p.m., at the 12th Precinct office of Captain Victoria Gates
All is mostly quiet outside Captain Gates' office, as the small night crew staff sits sprinkled across a few desks on the mostly empty precinct floor. Inside her office, a flurry of activity occurs between Gates and two of her detectives, pushing far beyond overtime for the day. With them, sits local news reporter Ramona Vasquez.
For the reporter, it has been a long and strenuous day even by her standards. A political luncheon to cover, which turned into a bombshell discovery . . . and then a literal bombshell of a blast. Amid the hustle and bustle of the day, adrenalin had taken over and the young reporter found the strength to push through, getting her report in, edited and broadcast for the early, pre-dinner news telecast.
Now, however, sitting in the precinct with her new colleagues-in-arms, so to speak, the full weight of how close she came to death weighs heavily on her. For their part, the detectives and their captain understand the emotional rollercoaster that threatens to derail the intrepid reporter, and they give her as much encouragement as they can.
"You going to be okay?" Detective Javier Esposito asks the young reporter. She has two shaky hands holding a cup of hot coffee that only occasionally makes its way to her lips. She nods her head, silently, as her eyes scan the video feed on the display in front of her.
She had already made this appointment with Captain Gates to review the footage from the lobby of downtown 1PP before the explosions that had rocked the police headquarters days ago during the all-to-brief visit from Richard Castle and his new wife. Today's events – another explosion – have lent a sense of urgency to tonight's proceedings, and everyone is now on edge.
For Esposito and Detective Kevin Ryan, a scenario where there is an explosion associated with ex-Senator William Bracken isn't all that surprising. That the politician was the target for the explosion? Yeah, that's surprising. And worrisome. No one likes assassination attempts. City officials get their dander up over assassination attempts, as their self-preservation tendencies kick in. And sure enough, the call from the mayor's office, demanding information and results, came in to the precinct faster than even Gates could have predicted.
It is taking all of their discipline to stay focused on the original plan – to scan the video in search of that one face that doesn't belong. The plan is to review the footage, eliminating those people – in the media for Ramona and in the police department for the three 12th Precinct officers who are familiar to the makeshift team.
"It's all interconnected somehow," Gates tells the group as they continue to stare at the feed from days ago. "Someone is playing an elaborate game. We stay with the original plan until we –"
"Right there," Ramona suddenly speaks up, pointing her finger at the screen. "Back up again, go back," she instructs Detective Ryan, who uses the mouse to slowly rewind the video being displayed.
"There!" she points again, her finger resting on a blonde-haired woman standing towards the back of the gathering of media types.
"I don't know her," Ramona states. "Never seen her before."
"Me neither," Ryan admits.
"Are you certain, Miss Vasquez?" Captain Gates asks, as she looks to Esposito who also shakes his head.
"I'm positive," Ramona confirms. "All of the people so far have been accounted for – either by your team here or by me," she continues. "But this is the first time I have seen this woman, and I don't know her."
"I agree," Esposito tells the group. "Maybe she was hanging out of range before . . ."
"Which means she knew where the cameras are and intentionally stayed out of view," Detective Ryan adds.
"But why move into range now, when –"
"Look at everyone," Gates calmly interrupts. "Everyone has looked toward their right, and the camera jostled just a bit," she tells them, moving her hand over Kevin Ryan's and rewinding the view just a bit again.
"See . . . right . . . here!" she tells them. Indeed the camera seems to shake a bit, and people's heads begin to turn.
"The explosion," Ramona whispers, as Gates nods her head.
"That's why she moved," Esposito concurs. "She has come forward just a bit, to see what the commotion is all about. That's what everyone is reacting to."
"Now look at her," Ryan adds. "She's leaving . . . and now she's out of the picture again."
"Can you give us the outside feed, just outside this door?" Ramona Vasquez asks, her adrenalin once again kicking in, giving her a shot of energy.
"Let's see," Detective Ryan replies, as his fingers whisk across the keyboard entering commands before a new view is pulled up.
"We need to go right to that moment, to that time-stamp," Gates begins, but Ryan interrupts her.
"I know, sir," he tells her. "I made note of it. Moving quickly to that point now."
It takes eight to ten seconds to find fast forward to roughly the same time-stamp. A few seconds later, the group is watching the feed from outside the front door of the 1PP lobby at the same time. A few more seconds pass when they see what – or rather, - who they are looking for.
"There she is again," Esposito mentions casually. They watch the woman with blonde hair walk out, toward the street . . . but then, inexplicably, she stops. While others are rushing out of the building and doing all they can to get clear, in case there are more explosions, the blonde-haired woman simply stands along the sidewalk."
"She's looking for someone," Captain Gates remarks, to nodding heads around the monitor.
"Maybe Castle and Beckett?" Ryan asks aloud.
"That's Castle and Castle, bro," Esposito remarks with a snicker.
"Kind of like a Hart to Hart episode," Ryan smiles in return.
"You're watching way too much TV Land, dude," Esposito returns with a soft punch on the arm to his best friend.
"Married life, man," Kevin Ryan replies. "You should try it."
"Not if it means a lifetime of 70's television," Javier retorts. It's all Gates can take.
"Gentlemen. Really?" she asks, her glare going back and forth between both men.
"Sorry, sir," Esposito tells her quickly.
"Still, it makes sense that she's looking for them, right?" Kevin chimes in, trying to pull the conversation back to the video feed as quickly as possible.
"And it looks like she's found them . . . or at least whomever she was looking for," Ramona interrupts. "Look!"
"Damn, look at the size of that blade!" Esposito marvels, while Ryan whistles. They watch the blonde offer a salute of sorts with the knife, which seems to appear out of nowhere.
"Where in the hell did she pull that from?" Esposito adds.
"From – her - chest" Ramona remarks, her voice taking on a comic, mimicking tone.
"Ah . . . A Grease fan," Esposito chuckles, becoming more impressed with the reporter with each passing minute, and earning a reciprocal arm punch from Ryan.
If any of this bothers the captain, she doesn't let on. She knows that her men are on edge. Hell, she's on edge. She allows them their means of blowing off steam.
"Let me in," she tells Kevin Ryan, as the detective slides his chair out of the way, allowing her to roll herself into position in front of the monitor from her own chair. She quickly performs a screen capture and saves the image, and – with deft fingers flying across the keyboard – sends the image, along with the URL link of the video feed, to her email account.
She then stands, and walks behind her desk, away from the conference table where they have congregated, and retrieves her cell phone. Accessing her email account, she pulls up the image, and saves it to her phone.
"Just a second," she tells the detectives and reporter with a quick glance. "This won't take long."
"Sending that to Beckett?" Ryan asks.
"I am, Detective," Gates replies without preamble or explanation. She pulls up Kate's contact information, and shares the image with her still-on-leave detective. She then forwards the URL link to Kate's email.
"Wait a minute," Ramona Vasquez announces, standing up quickly and looking from Gates, to Esposito, to Ryan and then back to the captain once more.
"You know how to reach Beckett?" she asks, incredulously with surprise. "You've been able to get in touch with them all this time? While the entire city has been looking for them?"
"Of course I can get in touch with her," Captain Gates smiles sternly, giving the reporter her first taste of the Gates glare. "She reports to me. She works for me. I can reach her any time I please."
"Then why haven't you?" a now-confused Vasquez asks. "You could have potentially headed off a lot of what has happened. Why didn't you –"
"Because no one asked me to, Miss Vasquez," Gates replies evenly but honestly. "I've been asked how to reach Mr. Castle, and I have honestly replied that I don't know," she lies. "Fortunately, no one asked about using my detective to reach him."
"But they're married and –"
"Until a few days ago, none of us were aware of their new marital status," Gates lies again. She doesn't enjoy doing this, but she has just met this woman. Moreover, under no circumstances was she prepared to give her friends up. It startles the captain when she suddenly realizes that she does – indeed – consider the Castles her 'friends'.
"If anyone had asked me to reach out to Detective Beckett to attempt to reach Castle, then I would have told them the truth."
"Which is?" Vasquez asks, undeterred.
"That those two spent more time here arguing and fussing – even as an engaged couple. Who would know what was going on with those two – especially after Mr. Castle disappeared?"
She's not satisfied completely with the answer, but all eyes shift to the captain when her phone dings, indicating an incoming text message.
"That Beckett?" Kevin Ryan asks, as Captain Gates nods her head in the affirmative.
The message on her phone is simple and to the point.
BECKETT: That's her.
Suddenly, all heads turn to Ramona Vasquez, whose attention has suddenly returned to the still image of the blonde woman holding a knife to her forehead in a salute, on the monitor.
"My God," the reporter whispers softly.
"What is it, Miss Vasquez?" Gates asks.
"What's wrong?" Esposito asks as well, moving to the woman and glancing down at the monitor. He glances back up at the reporter, and notices the fear all but dripping from her eyelids.
"I saw her!" Vasquez announces, still in a whisper. "She was there. Today. At the press conference. I saw her!"
Wednesday - October 29, 2014, 9:17 p.m., at an upscale hotel suite in Manhattan
Kate Beckett-Castle sits cross-legged on the large, expansive bed in the bedroom portion of the large suite overlooking the massive city. She has her tablet on her lap as her husband sits next to her, glancing over her shoulder. They have reviewed the image that Victoria Gates sent as a text to her cell phone, and her email chirps, indicating that she has an incoming email. She opens her in-box, and finds the email note from Gates. Seconds later, the couple wordlessly watch the video feed.
Castle can tell that his wife is studying the blonde woman. She uses her finger to pull back the video a few seconds, watching the scene again. And again. She is making note of her mannerisms, her face. He also notices the shiver she attempts – unsuccessfully – to suppress.
Alexis Castle sits at the foot of the bed, watching the couple as Kate tosses her phone to the young woman, allowing her to view the image as well.
"This is her?" Alexis asks, also noticing the discomfort suddenly enveloping her father's new bride. Kate merely nods her head.
"Are you okay, Kate?" Alexis asks.
"I'm good, Alexis," Kate tells her, clearing her throat, but it is clear to both father and daughter that she is nervous. And with good reason, Castle notes.
Without exception, it is the first time that Kate is preparing for a situation where she honestly, truly believes she may not survive.
Sure, it's always a possibility as a police officer. But you get used to the nerves, you channel them. They become a positive, eventually. But right now? She considers Elena Markov – a dark-haired version of the face that stares back at her. She considers the large knife in the woman's hand. She considers that night in the woods, just a couple of years ago, when she met the woman late at night, and witnessed – first-hand – what the exotic beauty could do with the weapon. She considers the fact that she never even heard the woman coming. Fortunately for Kate, neither did the man who was trying to kill her.
Yeah, she is worried about facing this woman. She is worried about surviving the encounter. And this worries her all the more. Even back a few years earlier, when she and Javier Esposito went temporarily rogue, going after Cole Maddox – even then, although it turned out to be a complete disaster – she still went into that fight thinking she would win. Knowing she would win. She went in thinking that it would all turn out all right.
Okay, yes, the fact that she ended up hanging by her fingernails from the ledge of a building, only seconds from a certain, flattening death, if not for an overtime rescue from Kevin Ryan had been unexpected. But going into that fight – it was one she was confident she would win.
But now? Tonight? She is nervous.
She and Castle and Alexis watched the early evening news and heard Bracken's bombshell. They both realize that Elena is simply trying to draw Castle's father back out into the open. They both consider it too much of a coincidence that the politician stood at the podium for over half an hour, yet the blast occurs less than a minute after he leaves the stage?
No, that is too tidy. Too pact. He was never the target – they are sure of this. But his words – his words indicate who the real target was – and is.
Jackson Hunt. Castle's father.
Now, watching the video from 1PP just shared with them by her captain, another thing is clear to Kate.
"She wasn't looking for you," she tells Castle. "Or me, for that matter."
"How do you know?"
"Because she never even looked at you or me," Kate tells him. "Look here," she continues, again using her finger to slide the video backwards a few seconds.
"See . . . right there," she says, pausing the video. "That's when she sees him. Your father."
She allows the video to play a few more seconds before pausing again.
"See . . . here again – she's pulled out the knife, but her eyes haven't changed, haven't moved. Now she salutes him."
"Brazen" Castle mutters, as Alexis scoots up the bed and settles in next to him, watching the video with the couple.
"That's one word for it," Kate muses aloud.
"Think back, babe," she continues. "Do you remember his face? Jackson's face? He was almost . . ."
"Afraid?" Castle finishes for her. "No, I don't think 'almost' is accurate. He was beyond 'almost' afraid. He was fully there."
She nods her head in agreement.
"He wanted to get out of there, pronto," she recalls, thinking about their hurried escape from 1PP after their quick conversation with the new DA. It was clear that Hunt was anxious to get away. Now, it is just as clear that he was not necessarily anxious for his son's sake . . . but rather, his own.
The knock at the front door of the hotel suite startles all three. They chuckle as the pent-up stress slowly releases from the room. Still, she immediately reaches for her gun as she and Castle both make their way to the front door.
"No, you stay here," Castle tells his daughter, ushering her back toward the bedroom before rejoining his wife at the door. She glances through the safety peephole, and gasps in surprise as she offers him a sideways look.
"What? What?" he asks, watching her warily as she opens the door.
Both of them stand with startled expressions as a face from their long distant past stares back at them, smiling. Castle's eyes invariably drop and stay at the plump red lips, and the tongue that teasingly wets them.
"Well, are we going to stand here and stare at each other, or are you going to ask me in, Mr. Castle?" Lady Irena smiles seductively, secretly pleased at where his eyes have landed, and remained glued.
Wednesday - October 29, 2014, 9:44 p.m., in another hotel room in Manhattan
Elena Markov lays in bed, her wet hair still bundled in a small, white hotel towel from her shower. A larger towel wraps around her otherwise naked body. It feels good to get out of the wig. She feels as though . . . it's almost as though she is a different person when she enters into her different personas.
She prefers her natural self.
She hears her phone chirp, and she smiles. She knows the tone, recognizing Boris Vasilyevs ring tone. Her smile broadens as she sees the text message and opens it. Inside is a photograph – an image of Jackson Hunt, in disguise of course.
In the photograph, he is walking through Penn Station in downtown New York City, after disembarking from an incoming train. The timestamp is 8:57 p.m. this evening.
He's in the city.
Her smile is pure menace as she nods her head subtly, knowing that the final piece has been moved into its proper place.
"Checkmate," she says aloud, typing the words in a return text to Vasilyev, knowing that they are finally approaching the endgame.
Thursday - October 30, 2014, Early morning at the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris, France
The autumn breeze has picked up outside, and Boris Vasilyev smiles at the view outside his penthouse suite at the luxury hotel along Avenue George V.
He gazes at the tall steeple of the large chapel just across streets from his window, and smiles at the response from Elena Markov on his phone. Indeed, the endgame is approaching.
After all, that is what this entire game has been about for Elena – that's been the big plan from Vasilyev all along – to identify the identity of this formidable opponent – this super-spy from the United States – who seemingly moves in the shadows with impunity. Attaching Elena to the up-and-coming Senator was only part of the plan. It was well known in the circles in Moscow that the Senator was being groomed by his party for the presidency at some point in the future. Inserting Elena into his sphere of influence, as a trusted confidante – well, that ensured that she was close and influential to the future president, when that occurred.
And therefore, by extension, Moscow.
Finding out that the spy-in-question was – in fact – Richard Castle's father? Finding out that the future potential president was also a murderer who had – by extension – taken the life of an attorney roughly two decades ago? And that the daughter of said attorney had become a detective in New York . . . and professionally and possibly personally attached to the one-and-same Richard Castle?
Well, sometimes things just work out.
Discovering that he was Richard Castle's father led Vasilyev to order the kidnapping of the man's granddaughter just a few years ago – as a way to draw him out into the open. It was a beautiful plan, one that was supposed to end with the death of Hunt. And it was successful in drawing him out – but a complete failure in all other ways as very few were left alive after the CIA man's rampage through the streets of Paris.
Having learned a valuable lesson, and vowing to never again underestimate his enemy, Vasilyev now uses a very different tactic – pulling his own ace spy into the game, hidden inside the political machinations of the deposed Senator who had attached to her in the first place.
Now Hunt, their dreaded enemy, is reacting – not planning. Bracken's speech 'called' him to New York, and the CIA man has come running. Running right into the web of Boris' best assassin.
"In another day or two, you will be dead, Mr. Hunt," Vasilyev muses aloud, smiling. "And our tool, Mr. Bracken will be governor of the most important state in America, and back on track to the presidency."
Yeah, sometimes things just work out.
