Cabe sat drinking his coffee inside of the Garage. Things had mostly gone back to normal for the gang. Well, as normal as it could be after a year of no word from Walter. After almost three months of exhausting every possible avenue of pursuit to find him they all resigned themselves to the fact that Walter would most likely never be found. Just after the first month Paige sat down with the rest of team Centipede and they all agreed to continue moving forward as Scorpion.
They gave up their nice offices and moved everything into the Garage to conserve money within the first week. They'd done fairly well on their own but there were many key jobs they were denied because Walter wasn't among them. The Homeland jobs had been a major source of their income. Paige and Cabe kept the books together ensuring all things were kept as legal as possible. And Paige had found that Walter had given her far more control over Scorpion than she had known. As Sylvester went through company filings Paige had been listed as Scorpion's COO. She had the authority to act in any instance, if Walter was incapacitated or otherwise unavailable.
Fortunately the contract Scorpion had with Homeland hadn't specified who was on the team or how many. They just had to perform and while they had a lot more bumps and bruises than with Walter, they had pulled it off. Most of Toby's work had been in helping the group's mental wellbeing. During the year, helping everyone as well as dealing with his own feelings, it had gotten so bad for him that he had started seeing a private psychologist friend of Dr Rizzuto to talk over everything to help him with his share of the stress. He really came to understand himself a lot more and realized just how much of what happened was also his fault.
Ralph had been a sore spot for Paige. She cried so often seeing how closed off he was becoming. The only one he seemed to open up with was Cabe, and Paige had hurt so badly over it. Not that it took much, but she had persuaded Cabe to take him for at least an hour after school so he'd talk with Cabe. Most troubling had been when he gave up signing backup for any course work at Caltech. Everyone including his professors all tried to talk with him, even Richard Elia tried but nothing any of them said or did could ever get through to him. Since it was mandatory by law, he continued in regular school and once his regular school work was done each day, every time Paige checked on him, he was sitting in front of his laptop in his room. He sat there staring at the secure channel he'd set up with Walter but the screen never changed.
Cabe kept his confidences and only reported that when they were out on their own, Ralph did act a little more like normal. Paige even tried having Patty come around to see him but Ralph had no interest. Sometimes when Cabe was gone for the night and Ralph really needed to talk to someone he'd contact his friend Daniel over the internet unless they spent the night at the Garage and then he'd go see Florence if Sylvester wasn't with her.
While Happy didn't really care that Sylvester and Florence were dating she was pissed as hell at Sylvester. She'd corner him periodically when he'd come in and Florence wasn't around and go off on him. The language she used always caused everyone to blanch. She was Happy Quinn, and they were used to her more colorful language but to hear her drop the F-bombs on Sylvester in multiple attacks really shocked them each time it happened. Happy also did bits of remodeling in the Loft whenever she wasn't busy or needed a break. It made sense to her since Paige and Ralph were living at the Garage about seventy percent of the time.
Cabe had just taken a sip from his coffee when his cell phone rang. He casually sat the cup down and dug his phone out of his jacket pocket and looked at the screen and smiled as he hit the icon to answer. "Jack Webber, man I thought Homeland must have shipped you off to the arctic. How are you?"
Jack grinned from the other end on his phone. "Cabe you old warhorse, I couldn't believe it when I heard you were still alive."
Cabe laughed. "Funny, the same thought occurred to me. What is going on, what does Homeland have you doing?"
Jack continued to smile as he shook his head. "Actually I retired from Homeland a few years back. I had enough time and an old buddy of mine made me an offer for a job in security here in New Jersey I couldn't pass up. How are things with you?"
Cabe nodded. "Glad to hear it. Things are going okay, I'm still in California. Got me a new girl, been dating for a couple of years, mostly living together."
Jack nodded. "That's great, next time I get time off I am going to have to come out there. Hey, I wish this was purely social but I've got a bit of a puzzle here I am hoping you can help me with."
Cabe smiled. "Well I'm liaison to a group of geniuses so if I can't maybe they can. What's up?"
Jack exhaled. "Well ordinarily I don't get involved at this level but man, this case. It is really laying on my heart for some reason. It isn't anything special but since we were the closest facility, the cops brought in a druggie. No ID. Not in the system, no fingerprints, no facial recognition. Even Homeland struck out on his fingerprints but the other day, I swear you are going to think me crazy for calling you on this. But Cabe, I could have sworn on one of the tapes before they knocked him out, he said 'Cabe, I'm sorry, please forgive me I need your help.' Now I know there could be any number of men named Cabe but, something just screamed you to me."
"Walter?" Cabe said softly as tears welled up in his eyes.
Paige looked up sharply from her desk. "Cabe?"
"Dark hair, curly, kind of olive skin, about mid thirties, has a small scar on his chin?" Cabe rattled off Walter's description.
"Wholly crap, you mean you actually know this guy Cabe?" Jack said, completely astonished.
Cabe nodded. "I think so, can you send me a picture real quick?"
Paige had gotten up and moved over as he hadn't answered her.
"Yea, sure, give me a second, dang new phones, too many options and techniques for an old fart like me." Jack said as he began messing with his phone and Cabe chuckled.
"Cabe?" Paige asked again as she touched his shoulder.
Cabe looked up. "An old buddy of mine in New Jersey, he might know where Walter is." Cabe put his phone on speaker.
Paige's hand came up to her mouth even as she gasped and tears immediately ran down her face. Sylvester stood up immediately hearing the sound.
"Ah, there it is, okay, it is sending now." Jack finally told him.
Cabe brought the phone down so Paige was able to see at the same time. Suddenly the phone dinged and he pulled up the message and they both gasped seeing Walter's haggard face. "Walter!" Paige cried out.
Happy and Toby's heads turned at her exclamation even as Happy's weight shifted instantly before she began running over. Sylvester moved over as well and Toby and Florence brought up the rear.
Jack was shocked. He was positive this was just a wild goose chase. "Are you kidding me? You know this guy?"
"Hell yes!" Cabe yelled. "Where exactly is he?"
Jack quickly rattled off the information even as everyone was looking at the picture and couldn't believe it was really him. Paige had run back to her desk as soon as she saw the picture and grabbed her phone.
"Yes, let me speak with Richard, this is Paige Dineen." Paige said into the phone. "It IS an emergency! Tell him it's about Walter damn it."
Everyone turned to look at her standing there at her desk.
"Well I have to warn you Cabe, they are looking to transfer him to the state facility. Without insurance and money they won't keep him here much longer." Jack warned.
Cabe nodded. "You tell those bunch of pencil neck geeks they have a Homeland asset in their hands and they better damn well keep him there and safe until I get there with a Dr. We'll take charge of him and bring him back home."
Jack nodded. "For you brother, you got it. Just get here as quick as you can. I don't want to have to pull my gun to stop them if I don't have to."
Cabe grinned. "Thanks Jack, we'll be there as fast as a jet can get us there."
"Richard. We've located Walter, but he's in bad shape and in New Jersey, we need to borrow your plane." Paige started.
"Say no more. Get to my private strip and my pilot will be waiting to get you there and back. Tell Walter I'm going to give him an ass chewing for this." Richard told her before they said goodbye.
Paige looked up as she grabbed her purse. "Let's go Cabe. We got to get to Richard's airfield."
"I'm coming with you." Happy said as she had already grabbed Cabe's keys and was running for the door.
Paige, Cabe and Toby ran behind her when Paige stopped and looked at Florence and Sylvester. "Please watch Ralph for me when he gets here guys. Let him know we'll be back in, hopefully in about six to seven hours."
Florence gave her a slight smile as she nodded.
Everyone had thought Happy was a maniac driver before, their opinions completely changed during the trip. She took corners so hard the SUV came up off of two wheels. She wouldn't listen to their shouts of alarm and so they began leaning heavily in the opposite direction after the second corner trying to keep the SUV on the road. Luckily Richard had called the gate and the guards had been expecting someone but to see the big, black SUV with lights and sirens blaring as it barreled towards them was still a shock. They quickly got the gate opened and watched as it flew through at just over seventy miles an hour.
Paige couldn't believe how long it was taking even though she knew Richard's pilots were flying as fast as the plane could safely travel. Happy stayed right on top of them the entire time so she was confident in that. She'd paced the entire way. She'd taken Ralph's frantic call as soon as he had gotten to the Garage and found out. She'd wanted to get him but she didn't want to cause any delay in getting to Walter. He'd looked so horrible.
At her request Cabe forwarded the picture to Florence so Ralph would understand better why they didn't take time to get him. She told Sylvester and Florence to sit with him so they could try and comfort him as he saw the picture. It had only taken the slightest glance for Ralph to completely understand and he apologized for being upset. He'd spent most of the rest of the evening staring at the image as he mentally counted the minutes until they'd arrive back home.
Cabe had called Katherine and she had a car waiting for them when they arrived at a private airfield and they forced Happy to take a backseat this time as they let the driver drive them. At Katherine's order he ran with lights and siren the entire way. They'd also found out she sent local teams out to the facility to ensure Walter's safety and that he wasn't discharged to some other place.
Paige and Happy were running for the door far ahead of everyone else and it barely opened in time and they ran on through. They flew past the reception people without slowing. Six agents were there, five of them standing by doors opening them so they didn't have to slow down while showing them where to go. Then they flew into the ward room. They came to a complete stop as they saw the last agent standing next to a bed and another man about Cabe's age in a nice business suit standing with him. "Walter!" They both said even as they moved on over.
Paige sat down on his left side of the bed as Happy sat on the right. Paige grabbed his left hand even as her right went up and raked through his over eight inches of hair. Happy had pulled his right hand up. Her eyes looked down and saw all the bruising and track marks. "Walter, what have you done?"
Paige looked over at her words and saw Happy run her fingers up his arm and saw all the bruises and marks and Happy's lower lip trembled even as tears ran down her face.
Paige looked down and saw his left arm had them too. Cabe came running through the door with Toby. Cabe's friend moved up to talk to him even as Toby grabbed the small chart off the bed and moved up reading the information.
"Cabe, I can't believe this worked out. But I knew, when there were no records of this guy and I could hear him say clear as day Cabe. That it had to be you." Jack told him.
Cabe nodded even as he looked at Walter as Toby tried to conduct a bit of an exam. "I can't begin to thank you Jack. He's been like my son for over fifteen years. He's been missing for a little over a year now."
Jack nodded. "I understand Cabe. What our kids put us through with their drug use."
Cabe shook his head even as his face flashed anger. "Walter would never use drugs, Jack. He's a genius, an honest to goodness 197 IQ genius. He won't even drink alcohol, nothing that can mess with his mind."
Jack shrugged. "I get you Cabe, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. But I'll let you visit for a bit."
Cabe nodded with a word of thanks before moving over to the end of the bed. "Toby?"
Toby looked back and shook his head. "Things don't look too good, Cabe. Positive but it will be a long road of recovery. But it is too early to tell for sure. I want to order a few more tests that these guys didn't do."
Cabe nodded. "His skin's a bit yellow, liver damage?"
Toby nodded. "Not really bad according to these numbers. He's going to have a hell of a time to recover from the amount of damage noted. I'd estimate he's been using almost this entire time."
Paige glared at him. "There is no way Walter would be willing to do drugs. Something else is going on Toby."
Cabe placed his hand on her shoulder. "I don't believe it either kid, but we got to accept it as a possibility."
Paige's left hand touched Walter's left side and they saw a flash of pain in his facial muscles. She frowned and pulled the gown up from his side and found he had severe bruising around his ribs and a strange burn mark on his sternum. "Oh my God, Cabe, look at this. Someone was torturing him." Paige gasped.
Paige's hand moved across the spots tracing the outlines. "Why didn't they treat this burn? It looks fairly recent." Paige grew upset as she looked at Toby.
Toby shook his head as he looked at the write up. "They mention the bruises but no one charted any burn."
"Could he have gotten it in here?" Cabe demanded.
Toby looked at Cabe. "Unlikely." His eyes looked down to confirm what was written on the chart was what was present on his body. His eyes went wide seeing the burn mark. "Umm, I want to see if I can't talk to whoever the Dr is on duty right now."
Cabe nodded as he just stared down at Walter. "Who would do something like this?"
Greetings! I hope this finds you well! Well, this was unexpected...
Marti - hehe Yep, Paige still had deep feelings for him. And now we know something about Walter...
Railman - hehe Must have just been him in this story. Definitely would have surprised me if you had figured out where this was going...lol
Susan - Yes, it is...it was one of those stories I really struggled with deciding if I would post it for everyone to read. Here is to hoping it gets better! Okay, here is your hint...he's in New Jersey! hehe
JerBr23 - Yep, she has seen it! And she wasn't worried as much about getting paid, Cabe was being a stickler about it because he wanted them to be able to take care of their lives at the same time. So she was just trying to honor his wish over it. But yes, ultimately they would have had to have gotten paid...a year is a long time to go without an income! Definitely seems a lot darker now...
To the Adventure! -Tim
