Disclaimer: Sorry. Don't own the show. Don't own the characters. I wonder what I would do if I did?
Hmm… two o' clock in the morning and still writing… I think I'm getting attached to this story. Oh well, if it keeps all my readers happy, I'm happy. Please enjoy Chapter eight!
Don woke up to the wonderful smell of breakfast- eggs and toast. He had almost forgotten coming home the night before. Stretching, he found himself in his own bed, covered with a blanket. He got up slowly and glanced at the clock- it was half past six, time to get up and get to work. His stomach grumbling insistently, Don slid off the bed and basked in the smell of food for a moment. Charlie could do with some of that food... I hope he slept well, though I hardly think that's likely.
He was glad that he managed to call many of the other bureau offices before he fell asleep the night before. Don knew that they needed all the consultants they could get to fly down to LA as soon as possible, and help Charlie determine where the kidnappers were hiding. He wondered if any other offices worked like he and his brother did, mixing mathematics with profiling and detective work in order to solve crimes. He didn't specify exactly what kind of consultants that they required in LA, but Don hinted that they might need 'some form of mathematical expertise'.
It was before he was about to change his clothes that Don realized that the photograph he was looking at the night before was still in his hand, a little crumpled from being held the whole night. His heart clenched suddenly as he looked at his and Terry's beaming faces. We were so happy… And they were even happy being partners. But he knew that they were both missing something from their lives. After Terry's short-lived marriage and his own transient engagement, both of them seemed to have given up on romance altogether. And their jobs… as much as he loved what he did, Don knew that doing his job properly meant that all the time that most people used for dating and socializing he spent sitting at a computer, running fingerprints through AFIS. He knew he had to be realistic, but still there was this annoying, nagging part of his memory that kept on showing him pictures of what it still meant to be in love. And Don missed her. He needed Terry to be beside him. In a funny way, she made him tick. She was a part of him, and without her, life just didn't seem complete.
Don got dressed quickly and wandered down to the kitchen, where he saw Charlie eating a piece of toast absentmindedly. His father could be heard frying eggs in the kitchen, but emerged a minute later carrying a plate laden with eggs and toast for his elder son. Don felt his stomach tighten at the smell of food. When was the last time I ate anything anyway?
"Good morning, son." Alan handed him the plate and took a seat at the table, "I was just about to wake you. David called the house just a few minutes ago saying that a few people from New York have just arrived at your office and are looking over Charlie's equations. He'd probably want you both there soon."
"That's good…" Don took a huge bite of his toast and swallowed it quickly. His father's home cooked meals were always the best medicine for an exhausting case. "This is excellent, dad… Thanks."
"No problem. Every now and then I like to feed my boys." Alan stabbed at his own plate and looked over cautiously at his other son, wondering what had happened to make them both so quiet the night before. Something must have happened to Charlie, and after all, Don knew that the best place for him to rest would be under his own roof. "How did you sleep, Charlie? I hope it wasn't too cold in your room. I've felt a draught somewhere and I've been meaning to fix it."
"It wasn't too cold." Charlie said suddenly, his voice sounding hollow. Don glanced at him worriedly, feeling protective over his little brother once again. Charlie sighed and stuffed a piece of egg into his mouth. "I slept alright, dad. I woke up about half an hour ago, and not from the best dream… but I slept through the night. And that's at least refreshed my brain enough for me to get to work today."
"Have you sorted it all out with your lectures and stuff?" Don asked carefully, not wanting to stress his brother further. Charlie didn't need to juggle two responsibilities at the same time, especially when it was Don's case that he was working on in the middle of the semester. Don didn't want Charlie to feel as though he was neglecting his students.
"Yes, I've called in and made sure that my lectures are covered for the next two days. In fact, I've called Amita and asked her to come in and give me a hand. She's been asking about Larry a lot, and somehow I feel like she should know what's really going on, especially with Terry…"
Charlie stopped, and there was a sudden silence. Don reached over and touched his arm gently, "We're going to find her, buddy. We're going to dig up everything we know about Chambers and his men, and then you can use that to find their location. Terry's going to be fine."
Don seemed to be reassuring himself a bit more than he realized, and Charlie noticed that. He gave his brother a small smile and took another stab at breakfast. Alan looked on quietly, feeling a sense of gladness that his sons were able to work so closely together and still be friends.
&&&&
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Don called out over the din, as soon as all the agents on the floor had gathered around his desk. Charlie was standing beside him, a little disheveled certainly, but the determined look on his face garnered him votes of confidence from the FBI agents scrutinizing him. "Some of you might not have heard the true account of last night's events, and we can't have that if we're going to work together as a team to locate Agent Lake and her kidnappers."
Some people nodded; crossing or uncrossing their arms as they waited to hear Don's side of the story. It was seven o' clock in the morning, and as most of them had gone home or to their hotels to get some well-deserved sleep, the atmosphere was a lot lighter and less tense than the day before. David was standing near the front of the group, biting a corner of his lip as he studied Don and Charlie's faces. The night before, when he had heard Don's weary voice outside the meeting room, he had been filled with fear at the thought of Terry being hurt. David knew that Charlie had been on the phone with Chambers when she was being beaten, and he felt sorry for the young man. Poor Charlie… I feel like I shouldn't even have involved him in all this! But he's not delicate, and we couldn't have kept this case away from him anyway, what with Terry being his friend, too.
"Last night we received news that Robert Lee, a man who knew the fifth pass number to access MINOTAUR, died from a heart attack resulting from a long term condition. Less than five minutes after the FBI learnt this information, Chambers called my cell phone claiming that he knew one of the members of Delta Blue had 'died without warning' and that even if we gave them the other three names, they would be unable to access the mainframe."
Don paused and cast a fleeting glance at Charlie. He had his hands his pockets, and was staring at the ground. When Don suddenly stopped talking, Charlie looked up quickly, only to meet his brother's eyes. He knew that Don was still worried about his reaction to what had happened the night before, but it had to be said. Charlie nodded and shifted his eyes to the agents who were watching them restlessly.
"For all of you who might not have been formally introduced, this is my brother, Professor Charles Eppes." Thirty or so pairs of eyes shifted from one Eppes face to the other as he gave them all a small nod. Don continued, "He has worked with both the NSA and the FBI, and has helped us many times to solve crimes that initially we thought were unsolvable using his expertise. Professor Eppes specializes in advanced mathematics and physics, and has been working on finding the location where Chambers and his men are holding Agent Lake."
There were a few skeptical glances at Charlie from the sea of eyes in front of them, but Don knew that their cynicism wouldn't last for long. Sure, sometimes Charlie didn't look old enough to vote, but that didn't distract anyone from the fact that he was very, very smart.
"Last night, Chambers asked to speak to Professor Eppes and he demanded for him to use equations to determine the four remaining pass numbers. When Chambers was told that it was an impossible task he…" Don paused and took a deep breath, trying to find his words. "He ordered his men to attack Agent Lake and she was hurt." There, that's it. Now everyone knows, and we can start work on finding her….
But that was harder than I thought.
Charlie saw that his brother was faltering and quickly spoke up, "I know it is impossible for us to determine the pass numbers to access this program through equations, and therefore we won't waste our time with that. My coworker Larry Fleindhart, who is also a member of Delta Blue, informed me that each password contains a different number of digits, and one or more of these passwords contains letters. Therefore we will keep our focus on using all known information about these men to finding out the most probable place for them to be hiding. Now…" he looked at the FBI agents with their furrowed brows and asked gingerly, "Can we get to work?"
&&&&
"Charlie!" A familiar voice interrupted Charlie's thoughts as he was leafing through a stack of papers that Don had given to him. He turned around quickly, wondering if there had been any breakthroughs. To his surprise, he saw Amita walking towards him with a very worried expression on her face. Don was by her side, and judging by the expression on his face, he had given her a quick summary of what had happened over the last three days. But he was glad to see her anyway- Charlie knew that he had been giving everyone the cold shoulder ever since Terry was kidnapped and he felt glad that he could make up for that with Amita.
"Hey Amita…" Charlie smiled and put down the sheet that he was reading to receive a friendly hug from his student. He wasn't sure what he should say to her. Don still had that look on his face; the look that he had that morning when he told everyone that Terry had been attacked. Amita would obviously notice - Charlie had realized that women (or perhaps just Terry and Amita) were experts at 'figuring out what Don and I are not saying by the looks on our faces'. Don appeared weary, and when he excused himself to speak to David, both Charlie and Amita had worried expressions in their eyes.
"We've all missed you, Charlie. All your students have been wondering where you've been, but I think the dean's made up something about you being ill. Anyway, Larry's at home now… he hasn't left the house for three days. I think he's getting a little bored." Amita spoke slowly, wringing her fingers as she did, "Look, Charlie… I heard about what happened to Terry and I just wanted to say that it's not your fault that they did what they did. You shouldn't feel guilty."
"Don feels guilty, doesn't he?" Charlie looked back at the paper, skimming over the words. Chambers, Mark… Chambers, Martin…Chambers, Matthew… there so many people named Chambers! I wonder how the FBI means to narrow down their search. He could be using an alias anyway…
"Yes." Amita answered without hesitation, trying to meet Charlie's eyes as she spoke, "He feels guilty about almost everything that has happened. Don was telling me about how Terry was kidnapped, and about the letter she got from them that he didn't know about until the morning after. Every time he mentioned her name, he just had this really sad look in his eyes… and I felt so sorry for him. He hasn't talked to anyone, I presume. Could you maybe talk to him… and try get him to say something?"
"I wouldn't know what to say." Charlie replied honestly, finally looking up from the endless list of names that he was reading. "You and I both know Don's practically married to his work… but I think that's partly because his job's the only thing that keeps him tied to Terry. He's very attached to her, if you understand what I mean. I don't know when I first realized it, but I think you'll agree with me when I say that Don's been in love with her since they met at the Academy. And when you love someone a lot, you end up feeling guilty for everything bad that happens to them."
Amita chewed on her bottom lip, feeling incredibly sorry for Don's suffering. Of course she had known that he loved Terry, but she had doubts about those feelings being merely one sided. She had seen the way the two acted around each other. And Charlie's uncommonly sensitive talk proved that he too, felt guilty over what had happened to the blonde, petite FBI agent. "Anyway, I'm here to help." She changed the subject quickly. Don appeared to be heading their way with some files and an FBI agent from Washington. They were talking very rapidly, a sign that maybe something was up. "Could you maybe bring me up to speed on what you've found out so far?"
"Yeah, sure…" Charlie put down the paper and led Amita to the whiteboard. On it was a map of LA and its neighboring cities. "So far all we have tried to determine what type of building they are most likely to hide in. And according to our estimations of how many men there are, the type of equipment they would have, as well as the vehicle they would have had to use for murder and kidnapping, we figured that either a warehouse or a large shop would be the most probable place. Now, we've managed to eliminate every warehouse within a radius of eight miles from the FBI building. I know that doesn't really help much… but it's a start."
Amita grinned and surveyed how Charlie's fingers were jumping over the map, showing her the warehouses that they had highlighted, "Okay, what else?"
"Well, we know that they can't have taken Terry very far, because they called us about eight hours after kidnapping her and were already using their scrambling equipment. There's a very high probability that wherever their equipment is, they're hiding there. Moving around with bulky equipment would be too risky. We've checked all the flights in this area, both commercial and private, and so far we're fairly certain that they haven't left the country. Other than that…" Charlie sighed and ran a hand through his hair restlessly, "We've got nothing."
"Hey Charlie, Amita… I'm sorry to interrupt, but this might be important." Don walked up quickly to the two of them facing the map and introduced the brown haired man standing next to him, "This is Agent Stan Ford from Washington DC. He thinks that he may have information on Chambers from a previous case, and whatever it is it might help to narrow down the places he might be staying."
Agent Ford nodded and shook their hands quickly, "Hi there. If both of you would please, come with me… I have something to show you." He led them around a few desks and chairs to Lydia, the technician, who was sitting in front of a computer and typing like there was no tomorrow. A picture was on the screen, a blurry image of a black van parked in front of a lamp post. "Before I show you what we have on Chambers, we thought you should see this. Security cameras outside the building next to Agent Lake's apartment block took this footage, although it's not very clear because we had to zoom in a great deal. Anyway, a van that looks similar in color, make and model was also captured on film parked in the alley beside Jacob Street Café, a shop that is very close to the firm where James Well, Henry Clear and Andrew Sienna worked. It might be a coincidence, but then again it might not."
Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie saw Don fidget in excitement. Lydia cocked her head slightly and frowned at what the FBI agent from Washington said. "I think I can focus the image better," she clicked on the blurry image taken from outside Terry's apartment and enlarged it. "You see, this one had a number plate on it, but we can't see the digits properly. There's a program that I can run to isolate the darker colours from the lighter ones so that we can a license plate number. That would help you, wouldn't it?"
"Could you do that, Lydia? Thank you." Don was almost hopping. Lydia nodded and got to work immediately. Agent Ford took Charlie and Amita to another desk where a stack of files was sitting. Don followed them hurriedly, not wanting to miss any more news. Things were finally going their way. Thoughts of Terry continued to plague him, and he had to keep pushing them out of his mind in order to concentrate. Just hold on, Terry… I'm coming.
"About three years ago, in Washington DC," Agent Ford handed Charlie a file which read 'Adler Case, 2002', "A man named Joseph Adler was murdered in his home. There was no sign of forced entry, and the cause of death was a single bullet wound to his right temple. There was a long list of suspects because Mr. Adler was a drug smuggler who appareantly had a lot of enemies. Even after almost six months working on the case, investigators found nothing that could nail a single suspect, and the murder could not be solved."
Charlie handed the file to his brother, who flicked through the report restlessly. Ford continued, "What we learnt very recently was that Adler had been running out of funds for his latest deal, and he was looking for a way to scrounge money from… well, just about anyone who had it. According to our sources, he was in talks with a man named Michael Chambers who apparently promised that he would be able to access infinite amounts of money if Adler funded his operation. In Adler's house and office we found no trace of information on Delta Blue or MINOTAUR, but we did find some papers on James Well." Ford took out a few pieces of paper and showed them to Charlie. The sheets were about Well's work outside of his law firm, such as his interest in computing and his friendship with a group of people who worked in scientific and mechanical fields. Although there was no mention of MINOTAUR, a highlighted paragraph in a page read about a computer program that Well was rumored to be hiding that 'would change the networking world forever with its incredible ability to access any form of information'.
"We think that Chambers killed Adler after he received his payment and additional information on James Well. He's disappeared from Washington, and we've got no records to show that he even lived there. No rent payments, no hotel billing… it was as if he never was there. But Adler was killed with the same MO as your four victims, and because of the circumstantial evidence we have reason to believe that the man who kidnapped Agent Lake is Michael Chambers."
"Hello, over there!" Lydia's voice called to them excitedly. Don, Charlie and Amita practically ran to her side as she continued typing at a furious pace, "I've got a plate number, and I'm running it on the system…" she paused as digits ran down the page for about fifteen seconds before stopping. A window popped up, and Lydia enlarged it quickly. "Your black van belongs to a Jeremy Davis. Registered in Washington DC… He has a record for theft, possession of a concealed weapon, drug use and….well, what do we have here?"
She double-clicked on a link that read 'Family members', and a new window opened. Charlie blinked several times in surprise, and pointed swiftly at one of the names on the list, "Look here! Under 'stepbrother'… the name is Michael B. Chambers."
&&&&
"Authorities in a small town about forty miles from here have surveillance tapes showing a black SUV with the number plate we're looking for stopping for gas as 6:23 AM yesterday. They can't be far from there." Don rushed over to his brother, handing him pictures taken of the van by security cameras in the petrol station. "If they called us at eight in the morning precisely, they can't have been traveling for more than an hour and half after that."
Charlie headed to the map at top speed, pushing the photos into Amita's hands as he studied the area around the small town. "Here. This has to be it," Don looked to where Charlie's finger pointed. It was a small warehouse belonging to Krueger Shipping Ltd. "There's no other warehouse or shop nearby, and if they traveled for about one hour at 55 mph after stopping for petrol, this is where they should have ended up."
"Are you sure, Charlie?" Don's fingers were trembling as he studied the map. Just hold on a minute longer, Terry… "It'll take too long to send teams by road to that area, so we'll have to send in choppers there. You know choppers make a lot of noise… and if these hear us getting to the wrong place, they'll take everything and leave, and we'll never be able to catch them again."
Charlie looked back at the map, biting his lip. He hadn't hesitated for a second when he told Don which warehouse they would have to be hiding. They have to be there… it's the most probable location. He had noticed the stress that Don placed on the last eight words. But he understood why his brother was double checking with him. It's not because he doesn't trust me. If they disappear, they're not going to take Terry with them. If I'm wrong about this, she'll be dead by the time the FBI finds her. Charlie let out a deep breath and turned his head to face his brother.
He nodded. "I'm sure, Don. This is the place. Send in the helicopters."
TBC
Sorry to stop here… is that too mean? Oh well… please review, and I hope that everyone enjoyed this chapter. Ah, the suspense… But don't worry; the next chapter will be up soon.