Title: Soriteses

Author: Fishgirl

Description: When one of the Eppes brothers is arrested, will the other be able to solve the puzzle on his own? What if the puzzle is really his brother?

Warnings: I do not own the television program numbers or any of its characters.

Chapter 7:

"Come on Charlie, I know my mind doesn't work like yours but give me a hint here… 5 letters… 5 letters… who do you know with five letters in their name?"

Terry slid onto the bench across from Don in the small booth. "What are you working on?"

"I'm trying to crack one of Charlie's codes."

"That sounds like a hopeless challenge." Terry said motioning to the waitress for a cup of coffee.

Don smiled glancing up from the screen. "It would be except they are all names. They have all been mathematician's names, Charlie's heroes, and this one should have 5 letters. It's the last one and if I can just get though it…"

"Wait, how can you be sure it's a mathematician?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said they were all Charlie's heroes right? Can't Charlie have a hero that's not a mathematician?"

Don crinkled up his forehead in confusion, he had been working on this pattern for 2 hours and now it seemed there might be a flaw in it…

Terry smiled, "Why don't you try D-O-N-N-Y?"

Don opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind and typed in the 5 letters. Sure enough the last of the password screens came down and he at last had access to Charlie's files.

Don felt a slight flush to his cheeks and didn't allow himself to look up from the screen. Terry thanked the waitress as she set the steaming mug in front of her. "Not that it will do any good, but you really should get something more than coffee and you could use some sleep."

"Not right now… I just got into the system. Now if I can just figure out what Charlie was working on."

"Even if you do find something on his computer it will be encrypted. It might be better to hand that computer over to the experts."

"They already have the one from home, this was the one he usually kept at work I doubt they even know about it. I'd like to keep it that way for now…"

"How long have you been up? Wait don't answer that… too long is the answer, can I have a look please? Fresh eyes and all that.. You can order us all breakfast." She finished as she saw Larry open the diner's door for Amita.

Larry and Amita slid into the booth filling up the too small vinyl benches.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice guys." Don started, "did you pick up anything from Charlie's office that he might have been working on?"

Amita glanced down at the pattern on the table top, "That gets tricky, see Charlie didn't exactly tell me what he was working on. Sometimes when he is doing consulting he can't share the information. He didn't really tell me anything and I haven't even seen him in three days."

Don looked over at Larry desperately. "Unfortunately I have nearly the same information to report, I have spoken to Charlie recently but he seemed quite reticent about sharing his recent project with anyone."

"What was the last thing you talked about from his work….think hard ANYTHING is better than nothing."

Larry tilted his head back running through their latest conversations, "The last time he mentioned anything was about work was about three weeks ago, he told me he had heard from a man overseas about some information you needed for one of your cases."

Don stared across the table at Terry… he was trying to remember any information that he would have requested. "I didn't send Charlie for any information. Did he give you a name? Anything?"

"No, but I doubt this was connected Don, he didn't seem worried about it at all. In fact he seemed quite pleased to be assisting you. It was only a few days later that I noticed any change in him, and even then I just assumed he was deep into something."

"The trouble is he wasn't working on ANYTHING for me three weeks ago or even four. I don't know what information he received but it wasn't for me… or if it was I never got it."

A silent moment covered them all as they thought over all the things they must have missed about Charlie's behavior, mood swings, secrets Charlie had never kept before… even conversations that ended for no apparent reason.. Charlie hadn't been himself in quite awhile and no one had noticed, not even his closest friends… not even his brother.

"This isn't getting us anywhere…" Terry stated breaking into their thoughts, "We can't help Charlie by feeling bad about not helping him before now. We need to start helping him NOW!"

Don shook himself, "She's right, I just made it through Charlie's password codes but I don't really know where to go from there. He may have done all the communicating from home, but Amita, maybe you could look through his files and see if anything seems unusual."

Terry continued as if completing Don's sentence, "If Charlie really did think he was getting information for you he may have been contacted by someone he knew, or at least someone within the bureau. We have to be careful, there is no telling who was leaking the information to Charlie."

Larry raised his hand to his shoulder as if waiting to be called on. "Have any of you considered that perhaps there is no leak at all? I know we don't want to consider it but what if Charlie himself is the leak? He could have hacked into FBI files and found the information for himself."

Don cut him off, "At this point we have no information at all, I don't want to go making guesses especially ones that won't help Charlie." He aimed a careful glare at Larry. "Now let's all get to work." Don grabbed his suit coat and left the table nearly slamming the diner door on his way out.

"Was it something I said?" Larry asked carefully.

Terry half smiled, she finally realized why Charlie and Larry were such good friends they had an equal grasp on the understanding of the emotions of normal people. "It needed to be said, but I don't think he is in any mood to hear it. He is right though we don't know anything, so we better start finding out."