Chapter Nine

6:07 pm

Charlie leaned heavily against the metal framing. He was in the south wing, the part of the building that was being renovated. Long sheets of plastic hung from the ceiling, dust barriers designed to keep the rest of the building clean. His one good eye had adjusted to the dark enough that he could make out the shapes of saws and equipment ahead.

In his gut, Charlie knew that he was going to have to do this alone. No one was coming to his rescue; there was no way anyone could get there in time. There would be no Don to rout the neighborhood bullies or schoolyard thugs this time. He was on his own with only his extremely fuzzy mind and a broken body to use against a madman who would not relent until one of them was dead. In the long walk down the hallway Charlie had already decided it would not be him.

A long flash of lightning illuminated the room clearly and, in that instant, Charlie saw his opportunity. It wouldn't be easy in the very few minutes he had, but the alternative was unacceptable. He only hoped that the diversion he'd created fooled Carlson long enough for him to put his plan into action.

Charlie moved away from the supporting beam, clamping his jaw shut to stifle the outcry of pain that bubbled up in his throat as the ends of his broken bones ground together. Stumbling more and more often as he walked, he made it to the corner of the room. He measured two long lengths of telephone cable off a long roll and cut them using wire cutters that had been carelessly left behind. Maneuvering the cutters one-handed was almost impossible and he lost precious seconds trying to force his uncooperative fingers to work.

Once the lines were cut, he tied the ends off through a hole in one of the metal struts that framed what looked like a large closet. He then tied a small chunk of scrap two-by-four to the other end of each wire. Squinting, desperate to make this work on as few tries as possible, Charlie threw the lines one at a time; the first over the heavier overhead beam fifteen feet ahead. The second he tossed across the beam closest to the wall. Luck was with him; it took only one try for the first, and three tries for the second. By then Charlie was breathing hard and sweating. Still, he didn't dare rest. Time was running out and his hardest task was yet to come.

6:08 pm

Don careened into the Cal Sci faculty lot and slammed the car into park. Barely taking time to turn off the engine, he rushed into the knot of police officers and agents that were waiting at the entrance. David was right behind him. Keith saw them coming and, tossing aside the ice pack he'd been holding to his head, he left the paramedic next to him and came forward.

"You okay?" Don asked in genuine concern.

"He got me from behind. I never heard him coming. Don, I'm sorry …"

"Don't be, it's not your fault. What's the situation now?" Don nodded his thanks to the uniformed officer next to him and grabbed the offered flashlight. He headed into the dark building at just under a run, with Keith and David at his side.

"Hey!" the paramedic called. "I'm not done with you …"

His protests fell on deaf ears as Keith filled Don in on the happenings of the last few minutes. "LAPD is in the building along with some of our guys. They just got to Charlie's office. There are signs that some kind of fight definitely took place but there's no sign of Charlie or Carlson."

They passed the electrical room and Don saw two or three DWP people working by flashlight. "Power?"

"Not sure when," Keith informed him. "Carlson sabotaged the main breakers. They're trying to see if they can reroute."

"Any ideas where they've gone?" David asked.

"Cops inside say they have an idea but it didn't pan out. They waited to pursue it further when they heard you'd arrived."

Don stopped just short of the turn to Charlie's office. "Alright, Keith, listen. I want you to coordinate efforts outside. I want this campus completely shut off; no one in, no one out, got it? Anything even twitches, I want to know about it. David, you're with me."

"Right." Keith took the flashlight David had grabbed and headed back the way they came.

Don took a second to steel himself against the panic that was boiling in his gut and then turned the corner. LAPD had set up some battery-operated lights. They shone inside Charlie's office and illuminated the hallway for fifty feet in either direction.

A uniformed officer stepped forward when he saw the two men approach. "Ted Daniels, LAPD," he announced.

"Eppes and Sinclair, FBI."

Daniels frowned. "Eppes?" He glanced at the nameplate by the door.

"My brother," was all Don needed to say.

The officer nodded in understanding. "Lemme show you what I got. We can see that something definitely took place here in the office. You can see stuff scattered all over. We also found pieces of what looks like an alarm clock on the floor. There are traces of blood on the sharp edges but we don't know whose. There's also blood on the edge and top of the desk. Quite a bit of it. Then we found this." He led them back into the hallway and pointed to a spot on the wall across from the door. A large bloody smear marred the white tile. Next to it was a bloody handprint.

Don stared at the image and forced himself not to react. He would not allow himself to dwell on the fact that this was most likely Charlie's blood he was seeing. He would not allow himself to dwell on the fact that his little brother was seriously hurt and alone somewhere in this building. He needed to concentrate on what needed to be done. He needed to concentrate on finding Carlson. He needed to concentrate on finding Charlie.

"These handprints," Daniels was telling them, "continue at intervals down the hall and into the adjoining corridor. We followed them but then they stop and there's no sign that anyone is in there. We've been searching for the past few minutes but have come up with nothing."

"Show me," Don ordered, his voice hard and brittle.

Daniels led them on a long march past gleaming walls that were intermittently smeared with crimson stains.

He rested there. Don's analytical mind was going over every new detail as it came along. And there. The handprints were getting closer together, it was becoming harder for Charlie to keep moving.

At a T-intersection of hallways, Daniels turned right. Ahead was a glass-enclosed passageway that joined the math wing with the engineering wing. Don could see flashlights bobbing in the different classrooms ahead.

But instead of following Daniels, Don stopped. Something was wrong here. He could feel it.

"Don?" David asked, turning towards him. He recognized the look on his team leaders' face. "You got something?"

Don didn't answer right away. Instead he went back around the corner and studied the grisly marks again. "This doesn't make sense." He gestured to the wall. "You see here, Charlie's resting more and more often. He doesn't have the strength to manage this whole corridor without stopping. He wouldn't have been able to make the distance without leaving another mark."

Don shone his flashlight around the area. There was the one clear handprint in the right hand turn and then nothing. Trying another tactic, Don turned his beam to the floor. Again, there was nothing.

"Charlie didn't go this way," he announced with absolute certainty. "It's a ruse. The handprints are a ruse."

He turned to the left and focused the light in that direction. The walls were clean of any marks. He tried the floor again and slowly moved forward. Small spatters of blood marred the floor parallel to the wall. Don had found Charlie's trail.

6:10 pm

Jack Carlson could not wipe the smug grin off his face. If that stupid college professor had thought to outwit him he had thought wrong. A child could have figured out the false trail Eppes had left and he was no child. I will have you, Dr. Eppes, Carlson gloated in his mind as he hobbled down the hallway. You will die as all your Omega Tau buddies died and then I will leave California. And one day, when all thought of me has faded, I'll come back and get the others. And no one will be able to stop me. Not you; not your piss-ant, holier than thou brother; not even the fucking FBI.

A laugh bubbled up in Carlson's throat and he clapped a hand over his mouth. No use in giving himself away. He was close. Very, very close. A long curtain of heavy, clear rubber strips appeared out of the darkness ahead. He scanned the strips with his penlight and sneered. One of them had a dark smear across it, right about head level for Eppes. Carlson pushed through the barrier and pulled his gun. It wasn't his standard MO, he knew, but he wasn't about to let Eppes get away again. If he had to revise his method, he would. He was flexible. He was diverse. And so long as Eppes was dead in the end, he would forgo the bone deep satisfaction he felt when watching the intelligence drain from the eyes of his victims while he crushed their tracheas.

Charlie tied off the last of the telephone cables and straightened up. His task had made him dizzy and blood pounded in his ears. He wanted to reach up and wipe the sweat off his forehead but he knew that would only reopen the slowly congealing head wound. Unable to hold himself upright, Charlie turned around and leaned his back against the wall. A light flashed in his eyes and the shadow of a man emerged from the darkness. He's here… was all Charlie's mind could register. Before he could finish the thought there was a crash of thunder and a spike of white-hot agony blossomed in his chest. Charlie couldn't help himself, he screamed as his body convulsed with the impact.

"Hello, Dr. Eppes," Carlson said cheerfully. "As you can see, I've found you."

Charlie felt himself slide downward as his already unsteady legs gave out beneath him.

Carlson watched him fall and holstered his gun, finally allowing himself to laugh. "Why, Dr. Eppes, you've gotten yourself trapped in a corner. How convenient." He looked around at the half-built room Charlie had hidden in. There was only one way to reach the professor, only one way in or out. "You've certainly made it much easier for me."

"If you take … one more step," Charlie rasped out hoarsely, barely able to speak through his swelling throat and the crippling pain in his chest, "I'll kill you."

Whatever Carlson had expected Charlie to say, it certainly wasn't that. "You're joking. I mean, honestly, Dr. Eppes, what are you going to do? Bleed on me?"

Charlie's dark eyes never left Carlson's icy ones. "I mean it."

Carlson smiled then, an ugly smile full of hate and the promise of pain. He began to walk forward, anticipating this one last death. "Okay, smart boy, do your worst."

Charlie's right hand reached up and he grabbed one of the wires. "I'm sorry," he gasped painfully. "I warned you." With that, Charlie pulled.

For a split second, Carlson's instincts managed to override his madness. He realized in that instant that he had walked into a perfectly executed trap and there was no escape. The heavy cinderblock was falling from the steel framed ceiling in a delicate arc. Time slowed down. His brain registered that it did not spin, but that one solid side was hurtling forward on a collision course with his head.

Charlie couldn't look away. He had to be sure he hit the mark. If he missed, he wanted to face death head-on, for he knew that if his plan failed, he would die. He watched as Carlson realized too late that he was in danger. He watched as the stone block fell from its anchoring point. He watched as it hit Carlson point blank, heard the dull thwack as it connected with his skull. He watched as the man who'd murdered some of the brightest men of a generation fell gracelessly to the floor, his face a bloody mass of shattered bone.

Only when it was clear that Carlson wouldn't move again, did Charlie close his eyes.

6:09

With David on his right, and a small phalanx of officers behind him, Don started stealthily down the left hand corridor. Charlie was somewhere ahead, he knew it. He could feel it in his gut. And then, in a spine-tingling second of absolute clarity that he would review again and again when it was over, Don heard Charlie's voice in his head. He's here. Thunder crashed above them and the sound was deafening. As it faded, Charlie's scream echoed down the hall.

6:10

Jack Carlson could feel the blood that leaked from his ear. It tickled as it ran down his neck. The feel of it brought him out of his contemplation of the sparkling white shafts of light that pulsated around him. He knew, in the recesses of his dimming memory, that he should be dead. The stone block should have killed him instantly, or rendered him unconscious at the very least. But it had not been so. Instead, he was lying on the floor experiencing a sensation so intense it could not begin to be classified simply as pain.

As the seconds ticked by, he became aware of the fact that he was fading. His brain processed the fact that he could not move the left side of his body, that his skull was shattered, that blood was rapidly filling his mouth and bubbling back into his sinuses, and that he was helpless do anything but lie here and wait for death.

It wasn't fair! Charlie Eppes was nothing compared to him! It was Jack Carlson's genius that had outsmarted all the law enforcement in the state. It was his genius that had left no trail, no evidence. It was his genius that had tracked down and shown those high and mighty brainiacs that he was superior, that he was stronger, that he was smarter. To end like this wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It wasn't his idea of justice. Without consciously intending to do so, he moved his right hand. He experimented with the fingers and the arm and discovered that he still had control of this one limb and it occurred to him that this one limb could be his salvation. It would give him one last chance to show that he was smarter than the Charlie Eppes' and William David Michaels' of the world.

Jack laughed but choked on blood. There was no time to lose. He needed to make his statement now, before he lost any more of his waning strength. With a great effort, he reached down to his hip and grabbed the handle of his gun. He would not end his life with his task unfinished. He would eliminate the genius that had driven him to madness. With that, Carlson carefully aimed and as the white sparkling light returned to dance around him, he pulled the trigger.

6:11

Don's group surged forward at a run, propelled by Charlie's scream. Their flashlights bobbed up and down as they raced down the last long corridor to the renovation site. As they had reached the construction barrier, another crash of thunder sounded, one that rattled the windows nearby. Two of the flanking cops held back the rubber strips while Don and David each took a side, covered from behind by two more officers. They held position for second, trying to hear anything. In an explosion of light, the electricity came back on, blinding them all for a moment. The room remained silent.

"Charlie!" Don called. "Answer me, Charlie!"

Carefully, he inched ahead. Something moved to his left, he saw it out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, gun up and ready. A cinderblock hung from the ceiling about fifty feet away, swinging slightly. It was blatantly out of place and Don moved forward cautiously. As he got nearer, he noticed that the side of the block was discolored. In the same moment that he realized he was looking at blood, he noticed Carlson lying on the floor. Don's eyes moved ahead and it was then that he saw Charlie.

"No," he whispered. Then he screamed. "No! Charlie!" He ran forward, oblivious to everything but the bloody form of his little brother.

David Sinclair was right behind him, yelling into his walkie-talkie. "In the south wing! The renovation zone! I need two paramedic teams in here stat! I want an ambulance at the construction entrance on the end of the building!"

"Charlie. Shit. Charlie." Don's hands hovered over the slumped form of his brother, not wanting to touch him but needing to know if he was alive. He pressed shaking fingers against Charlie's neck and felt the life beating there, weak and unsteady, but present just the same.

Charlie lay on his left side and Don could see the deep cut across his forehead, still oozing, and the swollen, bruised flesh around his eye.

"Charlie, wake up buddy. You need to wake up for me."

"Don." David's voice was quiet with urgency. He pointed to the growing pool of blood forming under Charlie and Don knew that time was running out.

"David, we need to roll him over. I need to…"

"Got it, Don. Let's do it."

With extreme care, they eased Charlie away from the wall and laid him flat on the concrete sub floor. Don ripped apart the front of Charlie's shirt, sending buttons flying in all directions. His stomach dropped as his worst fear was realized. A bullet hole in the upper left quadrant of Charlie's chest was draining his brother's life's blood at a furious rate. Unthinking, Don pulled the Bureau sport shirt he was wearing over his head and wadded it into a tight ball. Knowing that if anything was going to bring Charlie around it would be the agony of having pressure put on the wound, Don laid the makeshift bandage over the wound and pressed down as hard as he dared.

Charlie was catapulted out of the comforting darkness he'd found as his chest once again exploded in agony. A hoarse cry was forced from his throat and he struggled against the hands that held him.

"Charlie! Easy, Charlie, it's me. It's only me."

Don watched as his brother blinked at the harsh white work lights and desperately tried to focus with one eye. Finally, Charlie found Don's face and his mouth worked as if he wanted to say something. It was then that Don noticed the deep red marks around Charlie's throat where Carlson's fingers had tried to squeeze away his breath. Fury like he'd never known before ripped through his soul and he clenched his fists. "David, what's the ETA on those paramedics?" he ground out through teeth that were clamped together so tight his jaw ached from the strain.

"Two minutes."

Don focused his eyes on his brother and made himself appear relaxed. His anger would do Charlie no good right now and he didn't want to frighten him with blatant worry showing on his features. Charlie's mouth was still trying to form words and Don could tell that he was getting frustrated. "It's alright, Charlie," he said in a soothing tone. "I've got you. You're gonna be fine. Take it easy."

"Don." Charlie's voice was a hoarse croak.

"I'm here, Charlie. I need you to stay awake for me, buddy. Can you do that?" Don continued to put pressure on the wound.

"Hurts," Charlie told him, his eye beginning to slide shut again.

"I know, Charlie, I know it hurts, but you can't sleep right now. You had a good sleep last night, remember? Now you need to stay awake."

"Car…"

Charlie couldn't get the whole name out but Don knew what he meant. "Don't worry about him," he ordered. "You worry about you."

"Co …"

"What is it Charlie?"

"Cold."

David, who'd been holding Charlie's hand, swore under his breath as the fingers began to tremble. "He's going into shock," he announced quietly as he pulled off his jacket and lay it over as much of Charlie as it would reach. He let go of the cold hand and pulled over a large toolbox, gently setting Charlie's feet on top. Charlie groaned as the movement jostled his tortured body and his eye slid shut again.

"No, no Charlie, you gotta stay with me!" Don's voice was commanding and harsh with tension. "Look at me, Charlie. Now."

Charlie's eyelid fluttered and opened halfway.

"That's good, Charlie. That's good. Now, listen to me. I want you to tell me the numbers in the … what the hell is it? … the Fibonacci sequence. Can you do that? It's very important I have those numbers, understand?"

"Fib … nac … ci?"

"Yes, Charlie. I need the Fibonacci sequence. It's very important."

"'kay," Charlie rasped. Even in the state he was in, it registered that it was an odd request. Still, if Don said it was important, it must be. His brother wouldn't lie. "One."

Behind him, Don could hear the paramedics approaching, but he stayed where he was, keeping pressure on the bullet hole while they set up, and answering their questions as he kept Charlie focused.

"One … two … three …"

"Keep going, buddy, you're doing fine. He's got a bullet wound to the upper left quadrant of the chest. He started exhibiting symptoms of shock about two minutes ago."

"… five … eight …"

"He was unconscious when we arrived, but revived when I put pressure on the wound. Keep going, Charlie."

"… thirteen … twenty one … thirty four …"

"He's twenty-eight. Blood type is AB positive… yes, I'm sure, I'm his brother. What comes after thirty four, Charlie?"

"Fifty five … eighty nine …"

"It's the Fibonacci number sequence. He's been fighting off sleep since he regained … He's a math professor. I gave him something to do that would keep him awake."

At last the paramedics were ready to take over. With a quick movement, another set of hands replaced Don's and he scrambled to move out of their way. While he did not want to leave Charlie's side, he knew that there was nothing he could do for him right now. He stood there for a moment, watching them hook Charlie up to an IV. Then someone was pulling on his arm. He looked up at David Sinclair who was holding out a dark blue tee shirt. Don looked at it quizzically. David pointed to on the of the LAPD officers who was rebuttoning his uniform shirt. Don nodded in thanks and pulled the tee over his head. "Is Terry here yet?" he wanted to know.

"I don't think so."

"Call her and tell her to go my Dad's, okay? Fill her in on what happened and have her bring him to the hospital. I'm going in with Charlie."

"Will do."

"I'm sorry, Agent Eppes, but we need you over here a minute." Officer Daniels motioned them over to where Jack Carlson lay. "You need to see this."

Don looked down at the man who had tried to kill his brother. One whole side of his face was completely collapsed. The cheekbone was obviously broken as was the jaw. What had been Carlson's nose was pushed completely to the side and was now unrecognizable.

On the intact side of Carlson's face, Don could see the long cuts that must have been made by the alarm clock as it smashed into his head. Then he noticed something that made him blink a couple of times.

"I don't know how he managed it," one of the other officers was saying.

Don stared at the gun that lay in Carlson's hand. His finger was still wrapped around the trigger. He looked at David, wanting to be sure he was seeing what he was seeing. "Charlie didn't kill him." He needed to say it out loud. He needed to hear the words.

Daniels shook his head. "No, Agent Eppes, he didn't. The son of a bitch killed himself."

Technical note: What Charlie did was tie two cables around the block. One cable was thrown over a front beam, then, pulling it up from the top, he raised the block vertically to a height comparable to Carlson's head and tied it off. The second cable he threw over a beam farther back. By allowing that cable to pull on the back of the block, he was able to draw it back horizontally, thus creating a pendulum effect of sorts.