A/N: Thank you Dinogal95, max2013, Penny Blossom73, and SiouxAnne3 for your wonderful reviews and comments; they are truly appreciated!
This is one of my favorite chapters; I hope you all like it as much as I do.
"U" is for Urgency
Don half-paid attention to ADIC Phillip Wright's mostly one-sided phone conversation to the deputy warden of Seymour Federal Correctional Institution. The urgency that had greeted him when he walked into the field office at 5:30 this morning—only to find the floor full of agents in protective gear joined by FBI SWAT and US Marshal SOG teams—had settled in his bones like an itch he couldn't scratch. It was pissing him off. It was driving him crazy.
He checked his watch, made himself note the time. The urgency permeating the building was starting to permeate his very cells, his temperature rising the deeper it settled. That's it. Don was waiting another five minutes and then he was walking out that door, to hell with orders. And God help them all if they tried to stop him or his team from being where they needed to be.
The ADIC's voice dropped in register, voicing threats Don'd have to make good on. But making good on them wouldn't be a problem. Oh no. The problems would come once the need for threats had passed and Colby wasn't there or in no shape to reassure David if it got that far. Then…. Don shook his head; he didn't want to even contemplate that scenario.
He glanced at deputy US Marshal Clint Chavez beside him, the younger man's posture screaming Army, so reminiscent of Colby's it hurt his heart and he had to look away before he lost it. Chavez remained stony-faced and Don couldn't help but wonder how the Army trained that into their personnel, retaining it even after they'd been discharged. He knew he had a good poker face but come on. This guy was nearly as closed off as Colby and son of a bitch if Don was going down that road right now.
He checked his watch again. Two minutes down.
He hoped Megan and David were staying put. He hadn't had a chance to speak with them or find out what was going on before he'd been escorted to the ADIC's office. A man Don didn't know chatted casually with Wright's personal assistant and nodded briefly at Eppes as his escort held the door for him to the inner sanctum.
That had been a lifetime ago, separated by the briefing from both Wright and Chavez and Don was having a really hard time keeping his emotions controlled, from grabbing that phone and throwing it into the wall, from defying every known law to man and reaching through that receiver and wrapping his hands around the deputy warden's throat for not knowing, around the warden's because he did.
The son of a bitch knew.
One minute left, and he shifted, ready to make a break for it in fifty-eight seconds and counting when he froze, the ADIC slamming the receiver down and Don realized he'd missed the entire end of the conversation and had no idea what had been said or decided.
The phone rang, Wright scooping it up and barking "Go," then listening for twenty seconds before dropping the receiver back in the cradle, all while Don edged toward the door, counting down.
The ADIC's eyes shifted to Don, holding him in place, before settling on the deputy Marshal.
"Chavez, you're with alpha team breaching alpha site.
"Eppes … your only priority is Granger. You have a go on lethal force. Bring him home."
Don nodded sharply, clenching his jaw, wishing he had gum. He'd need to grab a pack before he shattered his teeth. He headed for the door.
"Car's out front, waiting for you," the ADIC went on. "Eppes," he rapped as Don's hand went for the knob. He halted, not turning around, counting Mississippi's in his head. "Try not to let Sinclair kill too many. An agent shooting team will still be looking into this."
Don nodded again, hit five Mississippi and walked out the door.
"Ms. McHugh, we're going on a little field trip this morning," he vaguely heard Wright say somewhere behind him.
But Don plowed on, hitting the stairwell door at a near run. He paused briefly, a quick call to his dad promising a longer one later when they had Colby.
They had Colby.
Or soon enough.
He couldn't allow himself to think about it too much, not yet, not with that urgency burrowing into his marrow, not with what Chavez had said, with what had been left unsaid, and it was that fear that drove him on, that unknown that kindled the urgency now.
Slamming through the door to the sixth floor, with no recollection of the walk down there, brought little comfort or relief.
Forty-one days.
Six weeks.
In Seymour FCI.
He was going to be sick, and he pushed it down, trying to school his expression as he neared David and Colby's cubicle. Colby didn't have time for this. Urgency crackled through him, reacting to the urgency of the floor, and Don just wanted to be gone. Not even in the car, but at Seymour, getting his agent out.
They were right where he'd left them, huddled around Colby's desk, a quiet oasis in the controlled chaos surrounding them, agents—not just FBI, not just here—preparing for coordinated raids on multiple locations and Don was more than happy not to be going on any of them.
One priority, one mission, one goal. Only thing that mattered.
Bring. Him. Home.
Megan and David looked at him expectantly, questions clear in their faces, emotions ready to bubble up, and Don didn't know if he'd turn down the flame or excite it when he said,
"Gear up. We roll in five."
"Don, what—?"
Megan was overridden by David. "What the hell, Don?"
He exploded from his chair, the ambient urgency inciting fury, and his hand dropped dangerously close to his gun. There was desperation in the action, a kind of hurt betrayal in his eyes.
Don practiced the patience he'd learned over the last five weeks, since they'd confirmed Colby wasn't on vacation but had vanished, let David's emotions roll off him.
It was self-preservation.
It was to save David's career.
It was for Colby.
If Don reacted in kind, if he matched David, it'd be throwing an accelerant into flames: none of them would survive. Not with Colby gone, with David in full-on big brother mode, with David thinking they'd landed a new case, moved on from Colby.
Don understood. He couldn't say he'd be any better, do anything different if it'd been Charlie who'd been taken, if it was his brother who'd been missing for six weeks, his brother out there somewhere. As he'd intimated to Dr. Bradshaw, he could crawl around in a perp's head; as it turned out, he could do the same for a victim's friends and family so he could too easily imagine the hell David was in, the hell he'd be in himself if it'd been Charlie. All he could do was get Colby out of there; pray he'd never endure it himself. It was bad enough with Colby; if it'd been Charlie….
So, he cut David slack, gave David the benefit of the doubt, didn't take it personally, ran interference for David whenever he had to, didn't complain (at least not to David).
Taking a deep breath, he gave Sinclair what he needed. "It's Colby. We know where he is."
Tension bled from David's face, smoothing it into something akin to shock or disbelief.
Don told him what he'd already told his dad. "ADIC's sending us to retrieve him." Saying it aloud again brought the truth of it out.
They were bringing Colby home.
David let out a shuddering breath, eyes shining, the most radiant expression Don had ever seen overtaking his face. The questions and fears would come later, the demands and fury. Don held only small hope they'd be at Seymour by then with Colby (hopefully) in their arms allaying the worst of it, so he was content not to give away anything else.
Megan dashed tears from her cheeks. "He's alive?"
"Should be."
"What…? Where…? How…?" Megan's own emotions tripped her tongue.
"I'll explain in the car. It's waiting out front."
That was all David needed to hear to beat both Don and Megan to the elevator, fully outfitted for trouble Don prayed they wouldn't find.
The doors slid open, and Johnson stepped out, shoving a duffle bag at Don, handing over a set of keys. Colby's. Who's to say what they'd done to the clothes of an illegally detained and incarcerated man, but the ADIC wasn't taking any chances.
"Good luck," Johnson said and damned if his eyes weren't over-bright too. "Bring him home."
"Count on it."
Liz was waiting for them in one of the Bureau's biggest SUV's. No fighting over who got to ride with Colby on the way back, no one separating his team again.
"You know where we're going?" Don asked gruffly, masking his surprise it'd be her.
He shouldn't've been, though. The team wouldn't trust Colby with just anyone, not now, not for a long while, but Liz was one of them.
"Yeah."
She barely waited for them to shut the doors before gearing into drive, the urgency behind the action confirming it all. After forty-one days (because today counted, even if it'd just fully dawned), they were bringing Colby home.
The silence in the SUV lasted one minute and thirty-seven seconds before the questions started, before stupefaction gave way to thinking, ramping up the urgency, Megan and David talking over each other until Don snapped, "Alright, alright," and they fell silent.
He couldn't blame them. It'd been forty-one days of hell.
And forty-one different kinds of hell for Colby, Don thought darkly, remembering what Chavez had said—and not said—and it was the latter galvanizing the urgency cavorting through his system now and he had to stop thinking about it before it consumed him, so he focused on how the hell he was supposed to explain something so incomprehensible. Especially with David on the brink.
"You said should be," Megan reminded him, reminding him doubly he ought to try to take control of this conversation.
"He was day before yesterday. No reported deaths meanwhile. Listen, guys," Don said. He sat behind Megan, David behind Liz and he waited until they all met his eyes before continuing. "I'll tell you the why and where and then the how. I don't know everything, alright? We'll find out, though. One way or another."
He met Liz's eyes again briefly in the rearview mirror. She knew at least as much as he did. Or, he amended, thinking of the urgency the call to Seymour had left in him, almost as much.
"It's like you told me, Megan, a couple years ago." Don could tell by their expressions that none of them expected this track. "After the shooting in the office. When Colby was sidelined for McCall's death."
Of course Don remembered the suspect's name. It'd been a shitty piece of luck, a deflection off bone of the man Colby had shot, a terrible accident and not negligence or incompetence or intentional. At the time, Don had been more focused on the case and on Charlie—he'd been in the office too, a bullet hitting the whiteboard only a couple of feet from his head—but that didn't mean he hadn't been aware of what'd gone on with Colby, at least as far as the agent shooting team went.
"What David said," Don added.
Liz's mien reminded him she hadn't been here for that and there wouldn't've been any reason for anyone to tell her about it, so Don clarified. "David said Colby got more done at his desk than the entire FBI."
Smiles from all of them. It wouldn't've happened yesterday.
"It wasn't an exaggeration. It wasn't the only time."
Don shifted in his seat, blew out a breath.
"While he was"—he paused; spying had too many negative connotations and that wasn't fair to Colby, so he substituted a perhaps more accurate word, knowing full well they'd know what he'd been about to say—"undercover at the office, he found something on somebody. Wright never gave me her name." (And Don suddenly wondered why that was. He knew it was neither of the women in the SUV; every other woman in that office was a suspect and considered guilty until Don knew who the bitch was that started all this.) "Colby traced money from the FBI—from her—to the BOP, the US Marshals, and DHS."
David shook his head, a look of awe and pride on his face.
"It wasn't relevant to China, so Kirkland pulled him off it before he finished mapping it out. Colby shipped it off to him, including instructions on where to look next and what to do with it."
Megan smiled, that sweet big sister smile Don hadn't seen in six weeks. She adjusted her shoulder strap, twisted around in her seat to more fully face him.
"Counterintel's been going through Kirkland's things, and somebody finally got those files to White Collar Crimes. They want Colby too, by the way. Not sure there's anyone in DC who doesn't."
"They can't have him," Liz said from the driver's seat as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, eyes alighting briefly on Don's.
"He's ours," Megan said fiercely, swiping strands of hair from her face that had escaped her ponytail.
David didn't say anything. His expression said it all.
"Yeah, well, you can bet I made that very clear to them." Don jutted his chin out. "Anyway, Colby cracked a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scheme that'd been going on for years and crossing multiple federal agencies; CIA, ATF, NSA, hell even LAPD in addition to what he'd already found. No one suspected a thing." He checked his watch again, thought of his dad and smiled as he added, "At least not until our Colby Granger got involved."
David wore the biggest grin Don had seen in months. "That's my boy," he murmured, pride evident to anyone with ears. Tears welled up in his eyes.
"White Collar finished what he started, finally straightened the whole mess out, named all the players from each agency. They planned simultaneous arrests, so no one got away or were able to warn any of the others but since most of the suspects have training in firearms and self-defense, they needed help. That's what we saw at the office."
Don glanced out the rear window, rubbed his mouth. The urgency, which had calmed at recounting what his agent had done, clamored for attention as the rest of the story was about to unfold.
"That … and day before yesterday, deputy US Marshal Clint Chavez accompanied his partner Bill Russell to interrogate a prisoner at Seymour. Chavez recognized him immediately. It was Colby."
Stunned silence met his statement. Whatever they had expected to hear, wherever Colby had been, this wasn't it. Liz's mouth hardened, flicking a glance at Don through the mirror; yeah, she liked it as much as he did, even already knowing what was coming. When David and Megan continued staring at him as if he'd sprouted a second head and named himself king of Neptune, Don continued.
"Zach Franklin's the warden of Seymour. He's also her partner in the BOP."
"He's certain it was Colby?" Megan finally found her voice, asking the most obvious question: was it really Colby—their Colby—in prison and how the hell did they not know it? "So the media blitz finally paid off?" she demanded.
"Nope, never saw it. Knew him from the Army. In Afghanistan. Never officially met Granger over there, but his company pointed him out. Often. The guy was a little awestruck. Called Colby … called him the hero of ranger company." Don jutted his chin at David, snapping his gum. "I thought his college degree kept him off the front lines?"
"Doesn't mean he didn't see combat, Don."
David ran a hand over his head, looking less and less discombobulated by the moment. Which was both good and bad; sure, he'd focus now and think, but that meant anger was just around the corner.
To stave it off as long as possible, Don said, "You didn't know?"
"No. He hates talking about his Army days. Unless he's run out of road and is desperate, he keeps it inside." He sounded vaguely frustrated, as if he had personal experience trying to draw the younger man out. He met Don's eyes. "He deals with it. Doesn't let it eat him up."
Don held up a hand. "I know. Don't worry about it."
"He ever tell you?" Megan asked, and Don suddenly felt excluded, that this conversation was between Megan and David and no one else existed. He met Liz's eyes again and found no enlightenment there either.
David harrumphed. "With some help of the alcoholic variety. After the Shane case was wrapped up. Deflected every attempt before then." He shook his head, sadness coming into his eyes. "I can't imagine seeing what he's seen and keeping all that pain inside. I wish he'd talk about it."
"He opened up to you, doesn't matter how much. It's a start," Megan said encouragingly, touching David's knee.
David looked glum, and Don knew he'd missed something—maybe even something vital—during the Shane investigation. He'd been preoccupied with Charlie and too focused on solving the case with an agent down since Granger wasn't allowed in the field to notice Colby'd been struggling. He remembered the junior agent had been upset with how long he'd be out of the field and that he himself had been abstractedly troubled by Colby's reactions to the incident with McCall. He'd never followed up on it then and didn't feel he deserved to be told the details now so didn't press his teammates. That was on him. It didn't feel good knowing he'd let his junior agent down even back then.
"How—" David paused, cleared his throat. "How was he, when Chavez saw him?"
Shit. Don so didn't want to get into this in a moving vehicle and carefully replied, "He wouldn't meet anybody's eyes, didn't even look at the Marshals."
And there was more he could say, and speculate based on what Chavez didn't say, but there was no way in hell Don would say it now. Not trapped in the confines of the SUV, no matter how spacious it was, not with David anxious and guilt-ridden and still afraid for his brother, with something shifting in his eyes, ready to go straight to homicidal the longer he stared at Don, trying to ascertain just how much Don really knew.
"Not much different than he was at the office," Don elaborated under those eyes. "He's lost weight, didn't speak at all."
He caught a glimpse of what he'd seen at the koi pond and when David narrowed his eyes at Liz, as if wondering what'd it take to get behind the wheel and make that engine scream, Don went with distraction, playing with fire, adding, "Chavez had to pull Russell off him. Said it was obvious he was used to abusing Colby; that it was allowed, even expected."
And waited for either David to go nuclear or fall into FBI agent mode.
It was a tense few moments, but FBI won, and Don breathed easier when David said, "Russell's one of hers, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Liz supplied. "Her contact in the Marshals."
"So why'd he bring Chavez with him?" Megan said. "He had to know how easily that could bite him in the ass."
The fact they were all participating in the conversation seemed to defuse the urgency and, more importantly, David's temper and Don relaxed minutely. Maybe it was the disclosures or that they were getting Colby back or just that David had too much information to process before arriving at the FCI to maintain that anger … Don didn't know. He was only grateful for whatever the reason.
"They grew up across the street from each other, wanted nothing more than to be deputy Marshals. Clint just entered by way of the Army," Liz explained. She met Don's eyes in the rearview mirror, and he smiled slightly, so she continued. "There are two working theories." Liz flicked a look at Megan, flicked the turn signal, and switched lanes, passing a slower vehicle. "First is they're partners and long-time friends, so Russell figured Chavez would back him whatever he did. Or at least ignore it, because of their history. Other is that he was actively recruiting someone to join the operation."
"That's odd they'd want to share the wealth. The fewer who know about it, the safer for them. The longer they can keep doing it."
"White Collar found an application from Russell to DEA. Looks like they're looking to expand but didn't want to lose the Marshals."
"Why the hell didn't Chavez come forward yesterday?" David demanded, striking the door. "Better yet, the day before?"
"He did, though, didn't he?" Megan answered, understanding coloring her voice. "The Marshal I saw with Wright … that was Chavez."
David looked only slightly mollified, and Don knew he had to tread lightly. David was unpredictable at best, even now (especially now) because in theory they had Colby, but empirically they had nothing. It was Schrödinger's cat: Colby was alive and dead, and they had no observable evidence to tell them his actual state. Yes, they had a Marshal who claimed to have seen him alive two days ago, but they also had hundreds of hours of investigation that told them they had nothing. They were relying on a stranger when what they really needed was to see Colby for themselves, to be there with him protecting him, getting him out of there, keeping him safe. Until that happened, David would remain in a constant state of volatility.
Depending on what they found at Seymour, things could get so much worse for everyone in David's range.
Don understood … he understood only too well. God, if it'd been Charlie…. Don didn't honestly know if he would've handled the situation better or worse than David had, but to have come this far, to have searched for this long, now that there was a (possible) resolution in sight—of course David was mercurial and short tempered. He would both dread arriving at Seymour and want to get there as fast as possible. How could anyone expect him to be reasonable when faced with such a dichotomy of emotions?
As hard as this was on Don, as hard as it hit him, he knew it had hit David that much harder and all he could do was offer understanding and support and pray the other man accepted. And pray Colby could calm him down.
And what he needed at this moment (other than Colby, but that was impossible) was reassurance that Clint Chavez was as honest, dedicated, and committed to Colby as they were. Don could (cautiously) give him that.
"He didn't know who he could trust, knew he couldn't go it alone," he said, watching David while talking to all of them. "He obviously couldn't trust his partner and he didn't want to believe anyone else in the Marshals was aware of what was going on, but he wouldn't take that chance with Colby's life. He called up some people from his Army days, including from the JFTB and National Guard, men who knew or would've heard of the hero of ranger company. So they knew what was going on, a contingency plan in case things went south when he reported what he saw. To make sure Colby got out of there, no matter what happened to him."
Chavez's fierce loyalty to Granger was in stark contrast to the team's when the Janus List had tested it, and Don suspected only the urgency this morning kept him from raking Don and Wright and the entire FBI LA office over the coals for believing Colby Granger could ever betray the United States of America. Don pushed the guilt down.
"He just didn't approach his district's Marshal; he talked to the other three as well, before contacting his AD and Director. They contacted Merrick, who contacted Wright and White Collar. They moved up the raids so we could get Colby now."
David's features softened somewhat, so Don added, "C'mon, David. You know all that talking took a lot of time and a lot of scrambling to re-coordinate everything.
"That's a lot of agencies we're working with. And I wouldn't be surprised if some Army guys or the National Guard showed up too."
Megan turned back around, raised an inquiring eyebrow at Don.
"He called a lot of people. Wanted to make sure Colby got out."
Megan smiled before facing front again. The tires hummed down the highway, the urgency to get to their destination humming along with them, the only noise in the vehicle.
Don chomped a wad of gum between his teeth. He didn't want to add this next part—it hurt too much. But better they know everything now, before making entrance.
"So, this woman—" And suddenly Don was pissed, cutting himself off. It would've been nice had he been told everything. "Goddammit," he grumbled. "Did Wright tell you who she was?" he demanded of Liz.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. "No."
Don viciously chewed his gum. What did it mean, Wright not giving them a name? Was he protecting her? He had to know who she was…. They damn well better get some answers when they got back to the office with Colby.
It struck him suddenly, again, as if he'd just heard it for the first time. They were bringing Granger home. Six long weeks, where all their efforts had yielded nothing, they were still solving the case. Don wondered if the average citizen realized how many cases—not just cold cases—were solved not by investigation but by sheer dumb luck—a witness finally comes forward, a friend of a friend decides to do the right thing, being at the right place at the right time, a piece of forensic evidence, a CI.
He sighed. He was delaying the inevitable and knew it. "She probably never thought anything of Colby's arrest. Not until—until we cleared him of treason and made it known he'd been spying on the office."
Quiet as David's voice was, the emotions twisting through it shouted it into the SUV. "We gave him to her."
"No," Don said forcefully. "Listen, David. That's not on us. That's not on Colby. We did not give him up (even though it felt like it, he couldn't help tacking on in the privacy of his own thoughts, even though we gave up on him as soon as Ashby read his name in that goddamn voicemail). They took him. Alright?"
David obviously wasn't convinced. Hell, Don wasn't convinced.
"So, whoever she is, whatever her position, she knew what sort of reception Colby was getting. How we were treating him." There was something in Megan's voice that made Don want to pull her into his arms to comfort her, and something underlying that that made him want to get as far away from her as possible. The contradiction made his head spin.
"He's alive," Liz said, reminding them all of the most salient fact. "Theory is she wanted to know what he found out, what he reported to Kirkland. Needed to know if her cash cow had died and if she needed to flee the country," Liz added darkly, switching lanes.
Don took up the explanation. "She and her partners took Colby, bought themselves time with the fake vacation request."
"It's safe to assume she's the inside help Stewart had," Megan said bitterly.
"And then killed after he served his purpose."
"Colby won't give them anything," David said suddenly.
"I know," Don said. And he did. But the urgency that'd settled in his gut like a hot weight made him add, "They've had him for forty-one days."
The disquietude in the SUV was a nearly palpable presence.
Megan turned, looking at all of them. "The prison's a perfect cover." There was a thread of urgency in her voice, something undefinable in her eyes. "They can question him whenever they want, and they have access to him through their jobs. Nothing for suspicious neighbors to report or traffic cameras to catch. They can hide him from the other inmates … or not," she added, horrified, the professional demeanor slipping.
Judging by David's expression, his had slipped and shattered. He wasn't an FBI agent right now; he was a terrified man who needed nothing more than to get to his little brother and protect him from the monsters of the world … monsters he'd been locked up with for the past six weeks.
With that in mind, Don cautiously said, "Deputy warden couldn't find him in the system this morning." He held up both hands at the looks flung at him and put every confidence and authority into his voice, trying to reassure David. "ADIC put the fear of God in him. Colby will be waiting for us when we get there. And if not? We tear that prison apart if we have to. We're not leaving without him."
They drove another fifteen minutes in silence, Don exchanging one wad of gum for another, fearing he'd run out before they even reached Seymour and the possibility of gunplay came up, when Megan abruptly said, "You know what this means, right?"
She sounded self-satisfied, completely unlike the last time she spoke, and the smile she bestowed on all of them, turning fully in her seat to share with David and Don, was nothing short of brilliant.
Don glanced at the others, raised an eyebrow at her, and shook his head.
David was more to the point. "Please tell us," he said, "so I can be that happy too."
Because she was, Don realized. Unadulterated, unashamedly happy.
"When Colby comes back," she all but purred, "he only has to work our cases. No spying, no additional reports, no meetings with Kirkland or Carter or their associates. No more tracking down a mole. No more isolation. No more wondering if he's blown his cover. No secrets. Can you imagine what he'll do with just a single job?"
Huh. Don hadn't thought of it that way before, but Megan was right. Colby's entire career with the FBI, he'd been working three jobs. Each with a tremendous amount of inherent stress. And he'd done all of them well.
"We'll have to put him on Ritalin or Adderall," Liz quipped, smiling to herself. "And make coffee illegal within a five-mile radius of the office, unless it's decaf."
They all chuckled, even David, allowing themselves to relax; after forty-one days, it was almost over.
Megan beamed at all of them. "No. He'll have Wright's job by the time he's thirty-five and Merrick's before he's forty. And he wants to give all that potential to us." She leaned back in her seat with a contented sigh. "I've never been so excited, so honored to be an FBI agent. I needed this. And thanks to Colby…." Her voice cracked and trailed off.
And suddenly Don could see it too and pride swelled in his chest as if he'd just watched his guy sworn into the big office upstairs … until a small voice wondered if Colby still wanted to give it all to them, after how they'd been treating him. He wouldn't know how they'd turned it around after he disappeared. Only that he'd been in prison.
Again.
Goddammit. Don had never bothered to find out how Colby was dealing after the first time he was in prison, back when he knew why, when he knew Kirkland was out there keeping tabs on Carter, planning a way out.
Now?
I don't matter snuck into Don's head, and he thought he'd break down and cry. Did Colby even trust his team to get him out?
Liz must've felt the urgency tearing at him for the big SUV accelerated, closing the distance between them and Colby, heedless of anything so trivial as speed limits.
/1234567890/
Seymour FCI was on lockdown. No one said anything about their guns, only taking the team immediately to where deputy warden Patrick Fulton and an IT guy worked at a computer; two open laptops were running next to the monitor, reminding David of Charlie and Amita on countless past cases.
But Colby wasn't there.
After forty-one days, after nearly seven weeks of fear and frustration and wondering; after a morning of revelations and terror and hope, and he wasn't there.
Don had to physically restrain David as he raged at them, overwhelming their attempts to explain. Even when David calmed down, Don made no apologies, only demanding, "Where the hell is he?"
"We think we found him," Fulton said placatingly, hands outstretched, eyeing the guns and the hard eyes of the agents equally warily.
David had no sympathy for him. "You think you found him?"
And he would've gone off on him again—gone off on the IT guy too (he'd been hastily introduced as George or Paul or John and David didn't remember which, so he went with Ringo in his head)—if it hadn't been for Liz, taking charge and staying calm but directed and forceful.
Fulton elucidated, nervously telling them they didn't have a "Colby Granger" in their system but based on the conversation with the A-Dic earlier that morning and the fact no prisoners had died or escaped or been transported out since July thirty-first, he'd been able—with Ringo's help—to guess that Granger was in fact the inmate "Bright Eyes."
At their stunned silence (Bright Eyes?! David was howling in his head but couldn't get his tongue to form the syllables, which was probably a good thing for everyone involved, as he really wanted to use his hands, especially the one holding his gun, to do the talking), the deputy warden rushed on, telling them he didn't know where this particular inmate was housed (one of the things Ringo was trying to determine) but had sent the guard who'd retrieved him for his last interrogation to get him now since he seemed to know where to find him. As the CCTV cameras were unfortunately malfunctioning in certain corridors (something else Ringo was trying to get to the bottom of)—which they quickly deduced meant the ones Bright Eyes and the correctional officer would eventually use—they couldn't even get a glimpse of him. And because they didn't truly know if Bright Eyes was Colby Granger and there were no records or photos of him in their system (yet another thing for Ringo to figure out), they couldn't process the prisoner for release until a positive identification could be made, meaning the FBI had to meet him in one of the interview rooms instead of in the administration section of the prison.
David stared at Fulton, still incapable of speech, trying his damnedest to talk himself out of drawing his gun and shooting the deputy warden, the computer guru, and the correctional officer who'd escorted them, emptying his clip into all of them for the unpardonable sin of losing Colby. Megan and Liz exchanged dumbfounded glances. Don was doing that thing again, breathing deeply to expel his fury, but it did nothing to disguise the vein bulging in his forehead, showing everyone what he really felt. He was the first, however, to break the brittle silence.
"I want the names of every person who's ever come to visit or interrogate this prisoner," he said harshly. "I want to know the name of every guard who knows his location and every other inmate who's ever come into contact with him. I want to know how the hell you didn't know he was here."
The computer tech studiously bent over his keyboard and if Fulton had any objections, he kept them to himself.
"Find out if the surveillance cameras are down during his interrogations and whenever he's moved as well," Megan added. At Ringo's inquiring look, she went on, "We've had our share of convenient camera glitches ourselves."
She probably said it more to remind David that Colby hadn't been much safer in a federal building as he was in a federal penitentiary and yeah, alright, David could concede that point, no matter how much he didn't like it. But he also didn't try to pull his gun.
Ringo looked thoughtful as he tapped away on his keyboard.
Fulton assured them he was already looking into it (which was part of the reason Ringo was there) and had been since the morning's conversation with the A-Dic and that he wanted answers as much as the FBI did. He had the grace to look embarrassed at Liz's raised eyebrow.
In the interview room where the guard T. Jackson had left them, with the parting words he didn't know Granger or Bright Eyes and wished them luck, the urgency hounding David since last night when they decided to search Wright's office (was that only last night?) grew into something nearly tangible. It had to be Colby. The conversation with Fulton seemed to confirm it. It had to be. Because David didn't know what he'd do if it wasn't.