Chapter 14

Don had been calm when she got there, but, as Colby had predicted, had still not been in any condition to drive. She'd gotten the pair of them into the car and started towards LA. She and Colby made quiet small talk for awhile, ignoring the silence in the back seat. When they ran out of small talk, she turned the music on to a relatively inoffensive station.

That had been playing for a half hour when a voice spoke from the back seat. "Could you turn off the elevator music?" Don said.

"Sure," Megan replied, hitting the power button. "You back with us?"

"Yeah, I guess." He didn't say anything for a moment. "Where are we going?"

"I was going to take you to your dad," Megan said. "He's worried about you."

There was a deep sigh. "Yeah, I'd better look in on him."

"And we need to talk to Amita and Larry to get them to look at that stuff Charlie did," she added. "They're at the house, so we're killing two birds with one stone."

"Sorry I got all . . ."

"Don't mention it, Don," Colby said. "We all have our moments, trust me."

"Yeah."

None of them spoke for awhile, then, feeling the need to make some kind of conversational gambit, Megan asked a question that had been bugging her for awhile. "So, Don, what was that 'banana slug' thing?"

"Banana slug?" Colby repeated.

"Yeah, when the guy had hold of Charlie and I was pointing my gun at him, Don yelled 'banana slug' and Charlie dropped."

"Really?" Colby started to turn in his seat, then seemed to think better of it, relaxing with a grunt. "What does that mean, Don?"

She glanced at Don in the rearview and saw him shrug. "Just something Charlie and I worked out when we were in high school," he said.

"Oh yeah?"

"There were a lot of guys who seemed to think bullying the little kid was funny."

Colby raised his eyebrows. "So you told him to fall to the ground when bullies were after him?"

"When they grabbed him. One time some joker grabbed him and I was there, but Charlie froze and I couldn't figure out how to make him let go without hurting Charlie, too. After that, we practiced the banana slug thing. We never actually used it till the other night."

"Well, it's a good thing," Megan said. "We were stuck until he dropped like that."

Conversation faltered again until Don cleared his throat. "Okay, we go by the house and I'll check on Dad. Then we take Amita and Larry to the office –" He paused. "Unless that leaves Dad alone. I don't want –"

"Millie's there, and they've got a team keeping an eye on the phone."

"Good." He cleared his throat. "So, did you find anything of use at the scene?"

"It's hard to say," Megan said. "Evidence response took everything back to the office. The kidnappers didn't leave a lot behind apart from shell casings, and if they're operating true to form, those won't match any guns we have on file."

Don was silent a moment, and Megan glanced into the rearview. He looked different somehow, more positive. "What are Edgerton and Fogarty up to?"

"Checking on the vantage points for the sniper."

"David?"

"On his way back to the office." Megan wasn't sure she liked this new tone in Don's voice. He seemed . . . she wasn't sure. She'd have to keep an eye on him.

Don nodded. "Where's my phone?" Colby handed it to him wordlessly, and Don immediately made a call. "David. Yes, I'm fine. When you get to the office, see if you can pry those papers loose from evidence because we'll be bringing Amita and Larry in to take a look at them. Yeah, as soon as we can get to them. See you then." He hung up and sat back. "Can you get this thing to go any faster?"

When they reached Charlie's house, Don was all action. He hurried up the front steps and went inside before Megan had even finished turning the car off. She walked around and helped Colby get out of the passenger seat. "I'm fine, Megan, I can –"

"I know you can, but you don't have to," she said irritably.

They joined Don inside where they found him having an intent conversation with his father, reassuring him. Megan turned away. It was hard to watch. Instead, she walked over to Larry, who rose and gave her a hug that nearly undid her. She squeezed him back. "Did Alan tell you we needed to talk to you?"

Larry shook his head. "Alan has either been silent, or he's been reminiscing painfully."

"Oh dear," Megan said, glancing over at him. "Where's Amita?"

"Helping Millie make dinner," Larry said. "Since, evidently, Millie doesn't cook."

Megan's eyes widened. "I see. Well, we're going to need both of you. We have something Charlie was working on before . . ." Larry nodded, and Megan could see that he was holding onto his calm facade with the greatest of efforts. "Are you okay, Larry?"

"Charlie reminded me once, while you were missing, that one cannot achieve anything without maintaining a clear head. I am maintaining a clear head at the cost of some deterioration of my stomach lining."

"Oh," Megan said. "We are going to find him, you know."

Larry nodded. "I have every confidence you will find him. My concern is more what condition he'll be in when he's found. I recall a number of occasions when Charles annoyed older, larger students into rash actions that they later regretted. I doubt the kidnappers will regret anything, and they have already proven themselves inclined towards violence."

Megan sighed. "Yeah."

Amita exploded from the kitchen. "Don! Is there any news?"

"Not much," he said. "But we need your help. Charlie was working on something, and he didn't report his findings before the attack. We need you and Larry to go over what he left behind and tell us what you think."

"Of course!" Amita said instantly. "Where are they? Can we go now?"

"In just a minute." Don turned back to his father. "Are you okay, Dad?"

"Why are you here with me when you could be looking for your brother? Go!"

"Okay."

Amita gave Alan a tight hug, and hurried to grab her own laptop. Alan looked at his son. "See, I told you a daughter would fix it."

"Right," Don said distractedly. "Is everyone ready to go?"

"Yup," Colby said.

"No, you I want to stay here."

"What?" Colby protested. "I'm not that bad off!"

Don got closer and Megan drew near. "I want someone I know with my dad right now, and I think he needs someone familiar."

"Okay," Colby said reluctantly.

"Let's go."

At the office, they found David still in negotiations to get the papers. Don took the phone from him. "Hello, who is this?" He paused. "Well, Agent Henry, this is Agent Eppes. I want those papers over here pronto." Another pause. "That 'bunch of scribblings' could tell us a great deal about who kidnapped my brother, so if you don't send them over here right now, I'm going to come and get them." Another pause. "Very good. Thanks."

They all set to work, Larry and Amita just idling in the conference room until the pages got there. Megan grabbed them some coffee. Larry looked like he could use something to calm his nerves. Don came in as Larry was expressing his gratitude at some length.

"Here we go," he said, putting the stack of pages on the table flattened out.

Larry and Amita instantly walked over and started looking at them. "This looks like . . ." Amita trailed off and went to hang the first page up on the wall. Larry and she occupied themselves with that for several minutes. Amita stood back to look at them. "What's that on the edge of all the pages?" she asked, walking up and touching it. Her eyes widened, and she turned to Don, her expression and shoulders gone very tense. "It's not –"

"It is blood," Don said. "But it's not Charlie's blood." Amita relaxed a bit. "It's Tutwiler's blood," Don said. "He died on top of the laptop case Megan found this in."

Amita turned and looked at the blood with a firm jaw. "Bastards," she muttered. Then she began to trace the connections between the pages. Megan watched for awhile, but it was all too much for her to understand, and she had other work to do.

Don didn't have to do much to keep everyone working. They all seemed as determined as he was, and that suited him fine. He went in to see what Larry and Amita were doing. He watched them work for awhile, trying to see what the connections were. They seemed to be drawing some kind of a network with names or descriptions in the intersections. "Who are these guys?" he asked.

Amita walked over to him. Pointing to one of the names in the bottom layer of the diagram, she said, "This is the guy who worked on Mr. Olson's roof and then later died. Charlie was tracing his relationships, then tracing the relationships of the people he was connected to. I need to get some information from Colby, and can we have someone going out to ask questions? There are some preliminary conclusions here that we might be able to state, but I'd like some more certainty."

"What's the conclusion?" Don asked.

Amita bit her lip and clearly wasn't ready to answer. Larry, however, looked up from the lists he was reading through. "Charlie made a connection to someone in the FBI, he just didn't know who yet. We need to get someone to ask questions of . . ." He pulled out a list of names. "These people, and there will be more."

"In the FBI?" Don exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

"More to the point, Charlie was almost sure," Amita said, willing to talk now that the cat was out of the bag. "He was checking things through," she said, pointing to evidence of that on the pages that Don would have to take on faith. "I think he didn't want to say anything till he was certain of his calculations, but I've been through them, and I don't see any errors. I just . . ." She shrugged.

Don wondered who the hell it could possibly be. He turned around and glanced around the bullpen. Who was it that he couldn't trust? "We need to know who that is as quickly as possible, because we can't afford to have someone passing information about our investigation on to them now."

"Well, then, get someone in here so I can tell them what questions to ask," Larry said.

"Right," Don said. He called David in and put him in charge of that, since he'd already been working on it with Charlie.

He walked out of the conference room, but Amita followed him a second later. "Hey, wasn't there some kind of e-mail that wound up getting sent to you from like a hundred different people?"

Don nodded. "Yeah, but Agent Dubois looked into it and said she didn't see anything helpful there."

"She wasn't working on this relationship network," Amita said. "Those kinds of programs typically pull e-mail addresses out of contact lists, and if we're lucky, they'll be contact lists from people our sender knows."

Don's eyes widened. "Follow me."

Dubois was off duty at this hour. Don was surprised to realize that it was already two in the morning. There was someone in the office, however, and they got Amita the data she needed to set to work. She moved it into the conference room.

Don sighed and went to get more coffee.

Charlie awoke suddenly when hands grabbed him and leaned him forward. The hood was over his head before he knew what was happening. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"Hush, Dr. Eppes," Bill said. "We've arrived."

Charlie went very still. "Where?"

"Where you'll be staying for a time."

The impersonal hands maneuvered him onto his feet, ducking slightly, and helped him out of the back of the vehicle. Then they forced his arms behind his back and cuffed him. "What . . . why'd you do that?" he asked, his gut turning over. He felt like throwing up, but he didn't dare, not in this hood. He took several deep, cloth-smelling breaths, trying to control his stomach.

"Come along, Dr. Eppes," Bill said ahead of him, and the hands gave him no choice. One man on each side of him pulled him forward, and he walked between them, feeling dwarfed and terrified. If they'd arrived, the time was coming soon when they'd start making their demands and he'd start refusing. And they'd start the consequences for refusal.

There was a smell of old straw and dust, and Charlie wondered where they were. Asking seemed kind of pointless at the moment, though. He counted his steps. There were ten before they pulled him to a stop and one of them went in front of them. They guided him down stairs that felt wooden and uneven.

"What is this?" Charlie quavered. He tried to stop, but the man behind him pressed forward, forcing him to keep going or fall down the steps. There was no other response. They went down twenty short steps, and Charlie began to smell dirt and ancient onions. Underground. His breath started coming shorter. He was already feeling somewhat claustrophobic in the hood, and the fact that he was going underground only made it worse. His nausea, which had never truly gone away, increased to a painful degree. "Guys," he said, and his voice quavered. "I'm feeling sick."

They didn't speak, but their pace picked up some. Then they stopped altogether for a moment, and Charlie heard a door open. They moved forward again, and then stopped for another door. Charlie was feeling worse and worse the further they went. When they finally stopped, he gulped on bile. "I'm going to be sick."

One of them took the hood off him and pushed him into a small space that proved to be a bathroom. There was no proper lid to the toilet, just a seat, and Charlie didn't have time for niceties. There wasn't much. He hadn't eaten since lunch with his bodyguards, and it had been hours since then.

"Dr. Eppes?"

"What?" Charlie asked harshly, standing back from the toilet and leaning sideways against the cold concrete wall.

"Are you all right? They said you're ill."

"Stress can do that to a person," Charlie said heavily. He gulped against the feel of the bile in his throat. "I want to go home."

"I can arrange for some kind of antacid, would that help?"

"Going home would help."

"I'm afraid that's not an option, Dr. Eppes," Bill said patiently. "Come out, would you, so I can take the handcuffs off."

Charlie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he turned around and pulled the door open with his foot. He exited the room and found Bill, masked, standing outside. He turned his back and Bill unlocked the cuffs and took them away. Charlie brought his shaking hands around to rub his eyes. Then he walked into the bathroom and rinsed his mouth out in the sink. There was no mirror. There was, however, a bathtub.

Charlie made use of the facilities and then walked out to find that Bill was waiting for him. "What do you want now?" he asked wearily, glancing around the room. The only furniture in the tiny space was a mattress on the floor in one corner. It had bedding folded up on it, and what looked like a change of clothes. The light in the ceiling was behind a Plexiglas panel, flush to the surface. It was a dismally depressing space with hard concrete walls.

"I just wanted to assure you that no harm will come to you so long as you cooperate."

Charlie looked around the room again and shook his head. "I'm not going to cooperate."

Bill shrugged. "That is your choice, but we'll see how far a little boredom goes to persuade you." He walked to the door and rapped on it. Charlie noticed suddenly that there was no handle on the inside. The hinges, too, were not visible, and it opened outwards, so he had no possible way to block it shut. The door opened and Bill looked over at Charlie. "Sleep well, Dr. Eppes."

The door shut behind him and a moment later the lights went out. Charlie stood still in the middle of the room, trying to remember where everything was. He desperately wanted a bath, and he wondered just how he was supposed to make the bed in the dark.

He managed both feats, and finally lay flat on the mattress, staring blindly up at the ceiling. Boredom wasn't such a bad consequence. If only he could believe it would end there.

A/N: Thank you for your reviews. I post and then wait hopefully for my readers' feedback. It keeps me going.