I do not own the Numb3rs Characters
A/N: Thank you for the Great Reviews. Thanks Maurbill for your excellent review. Made my day.
Chapter 29
Where had this information come from? Has he had this information in his possession since last Thursday? Nothing else made sense. If he had not been injured he would have found the disk after his running class ended when he changed into his jeans. He could have prevented these deaths.
The hit list was a long one. Further down there was an even larger list of names. This seemed to be a list of people involved in a conspiracy. He recognized some names. A frightening amount of people on the list were very powerful. He recognized the mayor of Boston but as his eyes followed the list down he found that it went as high as the Vice President of the United States. A lot of the names were NSA agents. One was Jeff Pitts, Charlie's own team member. Then there were names that he was not at all familiar with. Politician, heads of large Corporations, Government officials.
Still further down was a list of targets. Nearly all of them Government targets. Federal Buildings leaded the list. There was Court houses, an embassy, military bases and even some of the country's largest bridges.
He had to contact Bob. He could still be at the NSA; Charlie knew he often kept late hours. The NSA involvement meant that Bob's phone could be bugged. The Director could be killed at anytime and someone was probably watching his house. Work would be the safest place to reach him if he was still there.
Could Charlie's phone be safe? With his connections within the NSA there was no way he could be too careful. A gun, he should probably not go alone unarmed. Don was not likely to just hand his over but Charlie knew that it was in his suitcase in the closet. He tucked the loaded gun into his waist and pulled his shirt down over top. Charlie put his laptop and disk into the sports bag and left the house.
He went out into the living room to look for his sneakers. Alan asked "What's going on Charlie?"
"I can't explain. Something's happened and I have to run. Dad, could I borrow your cell phone. Mine's dead. I'll bring it back in a little while."
"It's charging on the kitchen counter."
"Thanks. Where's Don?"
"Derek said that he would pick him up and as far as I know they were on the way to the FBI building to work the new murder case. If you hurry you can probably catch him waiting downstairs."
Catching him downstairs was not what Charlie was hoping for and when he stepped off the elevator he saw his brother walking toward an SUV that was pulled up to the curb.
Charlie knew that he just could not be too careful. He needed to assume that everything was suspicious. The local FBI could have a hand in this. How to get Bob to meet him somewhere without letting him give away the meeting place over the phone? He doubted that his own car was bugged. He didn't dare to take a chance though.
He needed to call Bob. A call that would not tip off a listener. A call where he would not give Bob enough time to give any information over his own phone.
He formed a quick plan and dialed. "Bob, hey it's Charlie. Look, I'm in a real jam with my family and really need to talk to you about it."
"I'm just getting in the car to go home Charlie; tell me where are you and I'll come there."
"Uh oh the battery is almost dead on this phone. Can you meet me at the last place you and I had lunch?" Charlie hung up the phone.
He raced to get to the restaurant. When he pulled up into the lot Bob was standing outside the door of the Italian restaurant. He pulled up to him and opened the door for Bob. Bob got in and Charlie drove off.
"Hey Bob Thanks for showing up without notice like this." Charlie showed him a note he had just hastily written while driving. 'Careful, car may be bugged.'
Bob's eyebrows rose and a question was on his face, but he covered it well in his voice. "No problem. I had to stay late today or else you would have missed me. Glad I could help. How are you feeling?"
"Better today. It was only rough the first day but I feel pretty good now. First day off crutches went well."
"That's good news Charlie."
They continued to make small talk and Charlie kept an untrained eye to the traffic behind him for anyone that would be following. He was aware of some of the tactics used. But he did not consider himself confident enough to trust what he could see. By the time he made several unplanned turns in residential areas and exited the area onto other main roads from where they were, he was pretty sure they were alone. He backtracked to where he was since getting lost would hardly help the situation.
Charlie pulled off the main road near Hell's Corner and sat where he could watch for any followers. He double backed near the road to be sure that no one followed. After waiting ten minutes and still making small talk with Bob, Charlie drove back to the open barren land. He stopped the car that was concealed as much as possible behind some trees and grabbed the sports bag.
He said. "Bob, I want to show you some land that I'm considering buying. It'll just take a few minutes. Hey can I borrow your cell phone for a minute. Mine's dead." Charlie placed a call to his home in LA. He left a message on the answering machine for an Aunt Sophia that he did not have and said that he would try back later. He put the phone down on the seat and they got out.
Charlie and Bob got out of the car and walked toward a group of rocks. "I was probably being over cautious. There really isn't any reason for my car to be bugged but we can't afford to take chances. There is a real chance that your phone is tapped though."
"What's this all about Charlie? Do we need reinforcements?"
"I would say that's a real possibility. It's going to be hard to know who to trust though. First I need to tell you what I found out. Bob, this is big, massive even compared to anything I've seen nationally before. The deaths of the Senator and the Judge are related."
"I think that's a little obvious."
"Yeah, but that's just where the story starts. Someone slipped a disk into my sports bag at the NSA last week; a disk that I only found a little while ago. Get ready for a big shock. The first thing on the disk is a rather long list of names. The first name is Douglas Atwood; the second name is William Jenkins. There are more than forty names on that list Bob."
The Director's face registered shock. "And you've had that disk in your possession since last week? Prior to the murders? Is the FBI aware of the list?
"They are not aware and we can't tell them. I must have had this disk since my bag left the building last week when my dad picked it up just before he came to the hospital. The list is geared toward very powerful people. The fallout of the deaths could have devastating effects."
"Who else is on this list? Who's next?"
"Director Robert Thompkins, NSA."
"What?" The shock registered on Bob's face. Charlie reached out to steady him since he looked to have just received a blow to his body.
"Yours is the next name on the list. We need to get to a safer location so I can show you this disk. It isn't just a hit list, there looks to be names of the people involved. It's a conspiracy, a big one Bob. There are NSA agents on the list; there are politicians all over the country listed. The vice president is even on the list. You can't afford to take any chances with who you would normally trust until you see the list."
"The last list is of potential targets. Most are Government targets starting with Federal buildings."
"Charlie, I need to get my wife to safety and then I'll show you a secure place near here. Beth has a sister that I'll ask to help." He told Charlie as he punched in the phone number. "Gwen, Hi its Bob. She's fine but she's stranded and there could be trouble. Could you and Jay drive over to Patty's and pick her up and take her back to your house. That's great. I appreciate it. Gwen, please make sure that Beth leaves her cell phone behind. Yeah, it's important. I'll be by later to see her but ask her not to call me. She needs to keep her location quiet so ask her that until she talks to me she not call anyone at all. Thanks.
When Bob finished the call he told Charlie, "Beth is staying with some friends at their vacation home, but anyone monitoring my calls may know that. Gwen and her husband are aware that sometimes I need Beth out of the way and she knows how to help keep her safe. I've never had a contract on me before but I have had instances where she could be used to get to me. Now to get us somewhere safer. There's an old cabin that the NSA used to use but it's been abandoned for years now and I'm sure it's secure. It's well hidden and protected. When we get back in the car Charlie, I'm going to have to ditch that phone. Whether you call on it or not it can be used as a tracking devise for anyone with the government intelligence to know how."
While Charlie was driving using the pointing directions Bob removed the cover from the phone, there jammed up against the sim card was a small plastic devise that monitors calls. It did not look like there was a tracking devise but it was possible to be embedded into the devise itself. He asked that Charlie stop the car and Bob put the devise on the ground and piled dirt over it. Destroying it could alert someone that it had been found. They drove a few more miles and Bob threw the phone itself into a pile of brush where it fell through and sunk to the ground.
Before they were to the secure location, Charlie really wished he had bought an SUV. If the car got stuck they would be in trouble. Luckily they had been without rain for a while.
Bob told him they were almost there. Charlie didn't see anything but a bunch of boulders and trees. Then out of nowhere he found the cabin. It was built into the side of the rock and if you weren't looking for it, you would never find it.