A/N: Thanks for the reviews, gang, it's good to be back.

See Disclaimer, Chapter 1

Bird Flu - Chapter 29

"Hey, look who's here!" Agent Pete Nieman looked up, sympathy on his face, as Allison Cook came through the door. It was just before six a.m., and he was clustered around the conference room table with Colby, Megan, David, and Jill Cash, sharing coffee. Allison shuffled in with her own mug and sank into a chair. Her shoulder length dark hair stood out in contrast to her face, which was pale, except for the ugly knot, already dark, on the right side of her forehead, near her hairline. Pete frowned. "Should you be in here?"

She nodded. "I was released last night. They watched me for a couple of hours and let me go." At his skeptical expression, she made a face. "My dad's a doctor, don't forget. I'm okay."

SAC John McKelvey strode into the room, followed by Agent Jay Rome, and an older, graying, lean man in a Denver PD uniform. "I told her to take the day off," said McKelvey. "She insisted on coming in."

He indicated the man in uniform, introducing him to the L.A. agents. "This is Lieutenant Dave Riley from Denver PD. I've asked him to sit in on our meetings." Riley nodded at agents, and murmured greetings were exchanged. McKelvey looked at Allison. "I wasn't kidding about the day off. You don't need to be here."

She smiled ruefully. "It isn't exactly relaxing to sit in your apartment with a guard outside the door. I'd rather be here, trying to figure out who it was."

Colby spoke. "Did you get a look at him?"

"Just a glimpse," she said. "Long dark hair, dark eyes, and a mustache and a small beard, like a goatee. He was tall, built." Her eyes narrowed a bit, thoughtfully. "He seemed familiar somehow, but I couldn't place him – although I really didn't get a good look."

David eyed her sympathetically. "Someone you put away, maybe?"

She shook her head, frowning. "I don't know, but I don't think so. I can't think of anyone I busted who looks like that."

Megan took a sip of her coffee, well aware that Agent Rome was eyeing her appreciatively, and ignoring him, despite his dark good looks. Not her type, she thought to herself with small smile, thinking of Larry. "It's not likely it was a random mugging or assault, on this property," she said. "The guy would have to know it's the FBI headquarters."

"Maybe he's our guy." Jill Cash spoke from the corner. Her words were quiet, but she might as well have set off a bomb in the room. The others turned to stare at her.

"His clue indicated a blonde," David reminded her. "Agent Cook is a brunette."

"And we already know he's abandoned his plans once and gone after another victim when the protection made his target impossible to get to," countered Jill. "Allison is associated with the SAC."

"Actually, she may be right," said McKelvey solemnly. "We have cameras set up in the parking garage at the exit point for each level. I had an agent go through them this morning, and had him look for someone who was exiting around that time who matched Allison's description." He tossed some eight by ten photos on the table. "These are prints from the video. Check out what he's driving."

"A panel van," said Pete, as a look of comprehension crossed his face. "It's blue, but otherwise it fits the vehicle description."

Colby peered at the photos. The camera was mounted slightly higher than the vehicle, and looked down into the windshield. It would ordinarily provide a decent view of the occupant, but the visor was pulled down, obscuring the man's face from the nose up. "He pulled the visor down."

McKelvey nodded. "He was obviously aware of the cameras. He'd likely been here before, because he had the visor down when he came in, too, which according to the surveillance video was around 10:40 p.m."

Allison frowned. "That wasn't too long before I got there. If he were targeting me specifically, how would he have known I'd be coming in that time of night? He couldn't have – he had to have picked me at random."

"That doesn't rule out the fact that he might be our man – he might have been trying for any female victim from this building, in the hopes he'd hit someone with an association with Agent McKelvey," said Pete.

"On the other hand, the van might just be coincidence," conceded McKelvey.

Colby continued to study the pictures. "There's a car behind him in this one, and you can see the plate number. Maybe that guy saw something."

McKelvey nodded. "We already checked out the plate, and called him. He's a clerk in the law offices. He didn't see anything – said the van came down just before he pulled out, and he pulled in behind him. He didn't notice anything in particular, other than the guy seemed to be in a hurry. We talked to the attendant managing the exit booth, too. He really couldn't give us any better description than Allison did. We've got a plate though, and an APB out for the van." He glanced at his watch, and shot a look back out into the bullpen. "Where's Eppes?"

"I tried calling him," said David. "Both his cell phone and his room. He didn't answer." He pulled out his phone. "I'll try him again."

McKelvey held up a hand. "He looked like he'd been run over by a truck when he left last night. Let him rest – it looked like he needed it. Wright's in some phone meetings this morning; he said to go ahead." He looked at Jay Rome. "Okay, Jay, you got the reports from all the surveillance groups. Why don't you go through them?"

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Don felt movement, and opened his eyes, jerking awake. Charlie was slipping, and Don grabbed him more tightly, and propped him back into position. He blinked; he felt weak and fuzzyheaded, and his legs felt as though they were going numb from the weight of Charlie's body, as light as it was. The room looked different, and he realized that the sun was up and light was streaming through the vent hole, in addition to the work light. He should turn the light off, he thought, to conserve it. He had to get up anyway; he hated to move Charlie any more than he had to, but he had to relieve himself, and he couldn't hold off much longer. It was cool in the room; Charlie had stopped shivering, but as Don eased out from under him, laying him gently on the floor, he started again.

His one eye was still open, and Don, still sitting, peered into his face. "Charlie. Charlie, can you hear me? Look at me." There was no response; Charlie continued to stare at something beyond the confines of the room. His breathing was short and shallow, and there was tension in his body; it wasn't limp. He wasn't blinking normally, either, Don noted – instead, his eyes would close slowly periodically; then open, in a controlled movement. A sick feeling was growing in Don's stomach; was this strange behavior the result of a head injury? The words 'brain damage,' ran through his mind, and he ran a hand over Charlie's head, fingers gently exploring his scalp, feeling for an injury. There was a small bump on the left, behind Charlie's ear, and that was it – nothing to indicate serious head trauma. Don felt his heart sink. What in the hell was going on here? "Charlie, Buddy," he pleaded. "Say something. Blink at me if you can hear me."

There was no response, and Don dejectedly shifted his gaze to Charlie's torso. The towel on his stomach was half-drenched with blood, but some of it had dried, and Don lifted it and examined the wound hopefully. It did appear that the blood flow was lessening, although as Don looked, he saw a sizable puddle on the floor. His left arm was drenched and sticky with his own blood, and he realized from the position of the puddle it had come from him, primarily. For the first time, he inspected his own wound. It was an ugly gash, still seeping blood, and he looked at the table to see what had caused it. A rusting metal bracket protruded from the table leg, it had undoubtedly torn his arm open when he was pushed against it. He picked up a smaller towel from the pile, and awkwardly tied it around his arm. Not tight enough, but it would have to do.

Charlie's shivering was increasing again, and Don realized he needed to take care of business so he could hold him again. He struggled to his feet, and the room pitched and whirled around him for a moment. He put a hand on the wall to steady himself, and then staggered across the floor to a rusting floor drain, kicking the top of it off. After he finished, he turned carefully back and shuffled toward Charlie, stopping to turn off the work light to conserve the bulb. The room, now lit only by the sunlight seeping in through the vent hole, reeled around him. Couldn't afford to pass out – Charlie needed him.

He made it back to the wall and eased himself down, gingerly. He felt much steadier in a sitting position, and he glanced quickly at his watch before he reached for Charlie. Seven-thirty a.m. His team would be up by now, at the office; they should notice he wasn't there. He grabbed Charlie under the shoulders and pulled him back on his lap, trying to ignore the sharp stab in his shoulder. His head spun, and the room darkened for a moment. He could feel a cold sweat on his forehead, but he took a deep breath and pulled Charlie the rest of the way up, leaning his body against him, rearranging the towels. Charlie's wound had apparently begun to knit, barely, but the movement broke it open again, and blood streamed out, not in rivulets, but in a solid sheet, down one side. Don swore softly and grabbed a towel, reaching around Charlie's torso, applying pressure, trying to push the edges together. Charlie's cheek was right next to his, and Don turned his head, craning his neck to look at him as Charlie's good eye finally fluttered shut. He felt his brother's body go limp, the tension finally leaving it along with consciousness, and he swallowed hard, trying to control his growing fear.

"Come on, guys," he whispered. "We need you."

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Colby glanced at his watch, as Megan walked back into the conference room. "Almost nine-thirty. You hear from David?"

She shook her head, her forehead furrowed with worry. "We should have heard from Don by now, and I'm sure David would have called us from the hotel if he'd found him."

Lieutenant Dave Riley leafed through the file in front of him, and spoke, his eyes still on the contents. "I remember this case. I had just made detective. There was bunch of gutted animals left at a butcher shop out near Idledale. We never did find who did it, but I always thought the guy was still out there. From time to time, someone would find a gutted animal in a landfill, off to the side of the road, maybe in a vacant lot. They were flayed, and laid out, a lot like this guy's victims."

McKelvey looked at Jill and Megan. "What do you think? You think there's a connection there?"

"Could be," replied Jill, her green eyes thoughtful. "It would fit the profile. Animal abuse as a child is a classic marker for an adult serial killer. He might have started with that when he was younger, and something made him snap, turn to human victims."

"If it was the same person we're looking for, it would mean he was from this area, then," said Megan. "Maybe we can look for something that happened in Denver just before the murders started."

"Like what?" asked Pete Nieman.

"Anything," said Megan. "Arrests, accidents, divorces, layoffs, deaths – maybe a family member died, maybe the guy was involved in some kind of altercation. Of course, it could be something for which there is no legal record – maybe the guy got fired, or his significant other dumped him."

"Sounds like a long shot," said Riley.

"Unfortunately, long shots are about all we have here," Wright spoke dryly from the corner. He indicated the pile of files in front of Riley. "Aren't those the files Eppes was going through?"

McKelvey nodded. "Yeah. He must have some of them with him – the pile was bigger than that. Come to think of it, he was carrying a bunch of them when he left last night."

"Maybe he just went somewhere quiet to go through them," said Jay Rome.

Megan shook her head. "You don't know Don. He'd want to be where the action is. And it's not like him to miss a meeting." She looked up as David appeared in the bullpen, striding toward them. "There's David."

David pulled up in the doorway, a bit breathlessly. "I don't have anything. He's not at the hotel – I had the management open his room. His bed hadn't been slept in, and the rental SUV is not in the parking lot. I think we need to try to get a GPS trace on his phone."

Real alarm was now on Colby's and Megan's faces, as Pete Nieman rose. "I'll get someone right on it. Do you have his number?"

Megan jotted it down for him, quickly. "We have phones with the new type of GPS chip," she said. "The user doesn't have to make a call for them to trace it – the phone just has to be on." Pete grabbed the number and pulled out his own cell phone, stepping into the corner of the room to make the call.

"What time did he leave last night?" asked Jill.

McKelvey frowned. "It was around eleven or so – shortly before Allison got here." He glanced at her. "You didn't see him on the way in?"

She shook her head. "No."

"We'd assumed he'd already left for the night," said McKelvey slowly, "before the assault happened. We'd figured if he'd have been there, he'd have come to Agent Cook's aid."

Allison's brows knitted. "Maybe not. The two guys who helped me got there fast. If Eppes saw that I was okay, and thought he could apprehend the perp…"

"We need to get a look at the rest of that garage surveillance tape," said Wright sharply.

McKelvey swung the computer monitor on the table around, and pulled the keyboard toward him. "I've got it downloaded into the file. I can bring it up here." He pulled up the video, opened it, and fast-forwarded. "The guy who ran this for me didn't know what Eppes looked like. Even if he saw him in the video, he wouldn't have known…there. This is the garage exit. We can start here and work backwards if we need to."

"There's the van," said Jill, her eyes on the monitor, which showed the blue van pulling into view of the exit camera. They watched the suspect pay the lot attendant.

"And there's the clerk," added Colby, his voice rising with excitement, "and there's another vehicle behind him – it's Don – that's the rental SUV!"

They watched, dumbfounded, as the SUV turned right, the same direction as the van. "If he was in pursuit, why wouldn't he call in?" asked Jay.

"Probably because he couldn't," said David, urgency in his voice. "He didn't have a radio in that vehicle, and his cell phone was acting up yesterday – it might not have been working. In fact, when I tried to reach him on it just a little while ago, I kept getting a message that said, 'This cell phone user is not currently available.' I couldn't even get his voice mail."

Pete snapped his phone shut, and stepped from the corner. "Yeah, that's a problem. According to the phone company, it went dead four hours ago. The best they could do was to give us the last location transmitted."

"Which is where?" Wright demanded. The agents were rising to their feet, before Pete could answer.

"You'll never guess," Pete said, his face set grimly. "About two miles outside Idledale."

"Holy crap!" exclaimed Lieutenant Riley. "That old butcher shop. Ho-lee crap!"

Wright turned to McKelvey and Riley. "Get your teams together, pronto." He looked at Megan, David, and Colby who all looked as though they were ready to bolt for their vehicles. "No cowboys here – you go in as a team. McKelvey's calling the shots. Let's do this the right way."

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Don glanced worriedly at his watch. Ten-thirty. He watched as Charlie's eyes fluttered open again – eyes plural this time, just barely. The inflammation seemed to be receding in the one that had been swollen shut, and it opened just a crack. "Charlie?"

No response again. Charlie stared straight forward, off into some nether region. His body tensed again; Don could feel rigidness returning to the limbs, and his breathing went from slow-and-relaxed to short-and-fast, at a mechanical tempo. No blinks, just the steady, controlled closing of the eyes. "Controlled," was the operative word here, everything was controlled, even the reflexive functions, like blinking and breathing. His lips were moving, and Don craned his neck to watch them, trying to figure out what his brother was mouthing. "Say it louder, Charlie, I can't hear you."

For just a moment or two, Charlie breathed life into the words, raising his voice to a whisper, but it seemed as though he wasn't doing it in response to Don's request so much as trying to drown him out. Don caught some unintelligible pieces of letters, words and numbers – some type of equation, he realized. Hearing it didn't make him feel any better. It smacked of insanity, or at least some kind of mental break; it reminded Don of Charlie's retreat into his analysis of P vs. NP, only worse. He could see signs of the physical ordeal his brother had suffered, but the emotional trauma that had caused this had to have been worse, at least from Charlie's viewpoint. Don hated to think what it must have entailed, who knew what Charlie had gone through at that maniac's hands?

"Charlie," he said softly. "I know it was hard, what you went through. You have to know though, it's okay now. He's gone." He paused, and leaned his head against his brother's curls. "He's gone now." His voice cracked a little, and dropped to a whisper, as tears welled in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Charlie – I should have thought – God, I'm sorry. I won't let him get to you again, I promise. Just – come back, okay?" He felt the body slump in his arms and lifted his head to see Charlie's eyes fluttering closed again. "Charlie? Charlie, stay with me – Charlie –," He freed one of his hands from the towels and shakily lifted it up to check for a pulse, but it froze in midair. Over the hum of the generator, he could clearly hear the sound of tires, crunching on gravel.

He fumbled for his service revolver, trying to fish it back out of his shoulder holster, worming his hand under Charlie's body. He'd just gotten a grip on it when a sharp 'thunk' sounded at the door, the unmistakable sound of a crowbar hitting a lock. The door flew inward, and the resulting opening framed Colby, whose eyes widened. He raised his hands, startled, as David appeared in the doorway behind him. "Don't shoot, Don – it's us."

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End Chapter 29