Tough Love

The shooter trained his rifle downrange at the speaker at the platform, the cross-hairs of his scope trained center mass on the young looking woman in NYPD dress blues at the podium. He had made full use of his disguise as a groundskeeper (currently sleeping off a mild sedative in the back of his own van) to plant a bug so he could listen in.

"Roy Montgomery taught me what it meant to be a cop." The woman said with a tightness in her throat that he could understand, he was aware of the history of the man in the flag draped coffin. He'd insisted that Senator Bracken provide him with a full dossier on his target and anyone peripherally involved.

"He taught me that we are bound by our choices, but we are more than our mistakes. Captain Montgomery once said to me that for us, there is no victory. There are only battles."

He watched as Detective Beckett went on, it was clear that she relaxed more as she went on, a subtle shift in her mannerisms a trained operator like himself could read plainly. He could tell when her eulogy began to stray from being strictly about her dead captain, by the way her eyes strayed from the assembled mourners to Richard Castle off to her right.

He'd done his own recon on the target, and had delivered his assessment to the senator. Though she was currently dating a trauma surgeon at Presbyterian Hospital, it was readily apparent that she was in love with the writer. If he shot her and only wounded her, putting her out of action for months while she recovered, she would come back to work and never back off, especially if she perceived that only her own life was at stake.

If he killed her outright, Bracken would inherit an entirely different set of problems, namely Richard Castle. Though Bracken discounted the writer out of hand, he pointed out that the man had discovered evidence Bracken thought long buried within weeks of first meeting the detective that eventually led Beckett to Dick Coonan. He'd recently even taken down Bracken's previous wet-work man Lockwood with his bare hands. His celebrity status made him virtually untouchable, and his connections would almost guarantee Bracken a very short lived political career. It took very little persuasion after that before the senator finally saw the virtue of doing things his way.

"And in the end, the best you can hope for is to find a place to make your stand. And if you're very lucky, you find someone to stand with you." Kate continued.

It became more clear exactly whom she was actually speaking about when the detective cast her glance more meaningfully in Mr. Castle's direction. He let the two of them have her moment and then trained his rifle on his target and began to breathe slowly in and out, preparing to fire.

"Our Captain would want us to carry on the fight. And even if there is …"

He released his breath and slowly squeezed the trigger.

Castle caught the glint in the distance just a half second too late to react, he would later recall never hearing the shot as it struck him near his shoulder. The report of the rifle coming at nearly the same instant the bullet struck him.

"Castle!" Kate cried out as he spun around and toppled over like a marionette with its strings cut. She was on him almost instantly, dragging him behind the podium.

Alexis was screaming, struggling in Ryan's grip, but the Irish cop's wiry strength held her fast, keeping her in his tight grip as Lanie and Esposito crawled out toward Castle and Beckett, the Latino detective shielding Lanie with his own body using the grave markers to cover their movements.

"Castle!" Kate cried out again, leaning over him using the podium as cover. "Please... don't go... please don't leave me."

"Kate... I love you...I love you Kate..." he told her in a harsh whisper before the darkness claimed him and Esposito dragged her away so Lanie could work on him until the ambulance could arrive.

The shooter, known to Senator Bracken only as Anderson Cross, assassin for hire lowered his rifle after examining his handiwork. Guilt fell across him like a heavy blanket as he wiped the rifle clean with rubbing alcohol, then planting the DNA of another assassin, Cole Maddox on the stock to throw suspicion off. Maddox's wasn't in the system either, but the man had definite ties to Bracken.

Shooting his own son was not something he had ever thought he'd have to do, even though he knew the shot was a clean through and through. If it kept them both alive until their business with the corrupt senator was finished, so be it. Right now, the CIA needed him in their pocket and he'd had a job to do.

He'd send the photos of Martha and Alexis at the funeral to the detective to "persuade" her it was in everyone's best interests to let sleeping dogs lie. He certainly hoped that would be enough, at least in the short term. If Bracken ever hired him, or someone else, to follow through on that threat, however, it would be his last act among the living. He'd do the job himself, up close and personal.

Until then, it was time to use one of his newer identities to board a flight to DC and report in to the Senator.

Jackson Hunt had a certain ring to it.

**Author's Note** This story jammed its way into my brain and wouldn't let go. Please don't hate me.