Chapter Twenty-Four

The Next Day…

Don's hospital room…

Don was, mostly, lucid enough for his family to see him, albeit for a short amount of time, but they were just grateful that he and everyone else was okay.

Millie was finally released two hours after doctors were confident that she needed to take it easy, which she wholeheartedly agreed to do.

"Well, I don't really plan on doing anything anyway, as I still feel really tired and I feel like I could sleep for a month." Millie said, though she was really annoyed that she still felt that way and the doctor told her that she could still feel that way for a couple more days.

As for Colby and David, they were doing better than her, much to Millie's annoyance, and they would be able to return to field work in a couple weeks, at the latest. Colby was annoyed that he couldn't get back into the field sooner, much to everyone's amusement, and David's irritation.

Don would have to remain in the hospital for a couple more days and would have to be on desk duty until then, which didn't bother him too much, as he doesn't work in the field as much as he used to. Alan knew that Robin and the rest of the family would help take care of him and make sure that he and the others would be okay in the end.

'I just can't believe that Penfield and Thompkins would do any of this, first taking money in exchange for giving hostile people intel, killing two agents and a forensics expert, and kidnapping me and Don.' Alan thought to himself, 'I just hope that Charlie will be able to make sense of all this when this is all over.'

Half Hour later...

Interrogation…

Penfield…

Marshall Penfield just couldn't believe his luck with this whole thing, as he realized that someone ratted them out to their location and he felt he had some idea.

'Must be that guy Thompkins was talking to when he got those files, that little…' He started thinking before he was interrupted by an interrogator, followed by a rather angry, but quiet, Charlie Eppes following behind him.

"Professor Penfield, are you aware of your right to a lawyer?" The interrogator asked Penfield.

"Yes, I do but I don't need one as I can defend myself just fine, thank you." Penfield said, which irritated and angered Charlie.

"All right, so the question I would like to ask is, why? Why would you team up with Thompkins to do this? Was it the money?" The interrogator asked

"No, I just wanted to get back at Epsie for humiliating me for when he questioned a piece of my work, which destroyed my reputation." Penfield said, which finally prompted Charlie to speak.

"That was because you fudged up some equations to better fit your research, I just noticed the mistakes, and the rest of what happened followed." Charlie said

"Hey, I was pressed for time, I tried to get an extension, but they wouldn't allow it, so I figured I would just put in a couple fake ones and that no one would notice." Penfield said, before adding, "Except for you."

"Well, you could've filed a complaint but you went to the unnecessary extreme of trying to take my brother and father away from me." Charlie said angrily.

"Hey, I thought Thompkins was only going to scare them there, I wasn't aware that he was going to have either of them killed." Penfield said, hoping that they would believe the lie, but to no avail when he noticed a folder the interrogator put out.

"According to the file, you have been in contact with Thompkins for a while now and it seems it was more your idea to eliminate them, while Thompkins merely wanted to just make more money to retire." The interrogator said.

Penfield froze at that and knew the jig was up and decided to just confess everything, and hope that things will go easier on him.

Unknown location…

Brian was relieved when he was able to retrieve his sister, brother, and his son from the people he was forced to help out with and now was the time for them to go into hiding, as he has no intention of going to prison and they would try to live a quiet life and not bother anyone.

'I just hope the information I gave those two was worth the trouble I have been through, I do not want to face them.'

He proceeded to take his family to a road that led to the border and into a new life for themselves, and were never seen again.