Guardian Angel

Chapter 21

Groaning as his alarm goes off at 4 a.m., Castle pads barefoot into the kitchen to start coffee brewing. Alexis looks up from the kitchen counter where she's typing on her laptop. "Hi, Dad. What are you doing up this early?"

"I'm working on an undercover thing with Beckett. What are you doing, Pumpkin?"

"Art History. I have a Twitter friend in France who's at the Louvre right now. She's telling me about what she's seeing in real paintings I can only see in books or on the web— textures and brushstrokes. Then next time Mom decides she wants to take me shopping in Paris, I can see for myself."

Rick nods as he sets up his coffee maker to brew. "A worthy ambition, all except the part about your mother spending the alimony I pay her on Paris couture."

"If I take her to the museum with me, I can keep her from going too wild."

Rick presses a kiss to the top of his daughter's head. "If you can pull that off, you're even more of a genius than I thought."


As an orange glow streaks from the eastern horizon, Kate and Rick wait in the Survival Barn's parking lot for their instructor to show up. A man in hiking gear charges out of the door of a Black Ford 150 truck. "These are the rules," he announces in a higher-pitched voice than Castle would have expected from the man's heavily muscled 6 foot, 4-inch frame. You are here to learn. I'm your instructor, Clint Freeborn. You will address me as Mr. Freeborn or Sir. When I talk, you listen. When I tell you to move, you move. When I tell you to stay put, no one goes wandering off. Is that clear?"

A group "Yes, Sir!" loudly echoes off the asphalt.

"Outstanding. Now, you may have been expecting a trip into the woods, but that's for another session. Make no mistake, this city has as many or more threats to your existence, as the wilderness does. It also has resources you may not have considered. Today, I will make you aware of them, but it will be your responsibility to put what you've learned to use. Are you ready to move out?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Then we will proceed west for one klick. Let's go."


Freeborn raises his fist as he leads his class to an empty lot. "Halt!" He shakes his head as several members of the group stumble into each other. "Your most important lesson is this: be aware of everything around you at all times. If you'd observed my hand going up, you wouldn't have been taken by surprise. It only takes a split second to be ambushed by an unfriendly or set off an I.E.D.

"You might pass this lot without a second look, but it can be both a source of life and a source of death. I would hope that all of you would have at least a year's supplies on hand and better five years. However, foraging skills may still be the difference between survival and starvation. Many edible plants grow in this city, at least five of them in this lot. They also grow in many of the city's parks, but I would caution you against well-manicured landscapes. Chemicals used to kill what many erroneously regard as weeds will destroy or poison your food. Areas where greenery flourishes as nature intended, are your sources of nutrition. However, they also harbor your enemies. I will be showing you examples of mugwort, garlic mustard, cattails, wild blackberries, and wild ramps. I would hope that all of you would at least recognize a dandelion, but I will be pointing those out too. All of those plants are edible, and some you can also use for medicine. I will also be cautioning you about poison ivy, poison sumac, cow parsnip, wild parsnip, stinging nettle, and giant hogweed. All of them are native to New York. Take notes, take pictures, do whatever is necessary to make sure that when you're on your own, you recognize what I've shown you."

"Yes, Sir!"


Kate sinks down on the couch in her suite and yanks at the laces of her heavy boots. "I wasn't expecting a nature hike."

"Neither was I," Castle confesses." "I knew a lot of that stuff from helping Alexis earn scouting badges, but some of it was new. And it was cool when Freeborn finally took us back to the shooting range behind the Survival Barn. You're a great shot."

"You're not so bad yourself, Castle."

"I took the training I needed to write Storm accurately. And I was supposed to be convincing as a hunter."

"I don't think you had any trouble with that, Castle, except that you'd probably be too tenderhearted to shoot a real furry friend."

"I admit, I would try to avoid shooting Bambi's mother, but if it were a matter of feeding or protecting my family or anyone I care about, I'd pull the trigger in a New York second."

"Yeah, me too," Kate agrees. "I just wish that I could have been there when it counted."

"The Father forbid," Johanna exclaims, "you might have died with me."

"So," Castle continues, oblivious of Johanna's presence, "if we're going to get anything besides a lesson in herbology, and instructions on operating listening devices, we need to find a link between Clint Freeborn and our killer. From what he told us about serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has to be one. We can start the search on our phones or your laptop here, but it would be better if I use the resources I have at the loft."

"I could come with you," Kate suggests.

"The killer, or his boss, probably knows there's a connection between us, Kate. Remember what McCallister said about ears everywhere. It was one thing when you were undercover, but if you come to the loft, you'd be putting yourself out there."

"Or worse, leading a murderer to your family," Kate realizes. "All right, Castle, if we can't find what we need here, you should do the research there, but keep me in the loop."

"Consider yourself the target of my lasso."


Castle rubs a kink in his neck. It's been a frustrating night, trying to track down the history of Clint Freeborn. His black ops background is clear from the walls Castle hits, if from nothing else. He's probably telling the truth about serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if what he did there is obscure. So far, Castle's found nothing about Freeborn's life as a mercenary— if he even was one. Rick decides to take a different tack and start checking images. While he was snapping the pictures of plants that Freeborn encouraged the group to take, he managed a few of the man himself. He can try his image matching program. It's not as fast as the visual recognition system the N.Y.P.D. would typically use. He won't have access to as many databases either, but he needs to give it a shot. Rick sets his computer to let out a loud alert if it finds a match, and lies down to take a nap.

It's 2 a.m. when "By Jove, I've got it!" emanates from a speaker in Castle's office, rousing him from a fitful slumber. Rubbing his eyes, he muzzily traverses the few steps to his laptop. The screen displays an image of a group of men, including Clint Freeborn, in military gear. The caption on the photograph reads, "Comrades in Arms," and lists the names of the men in the picture. The program identifies the source as a brochure from an organization that contracted its services to the U.S. Department of Defense. Bingo!