Chapter Five: This can't be good.

Something thunked.

Charlie sat up in bed and stared at the clock. The bright red digital numbers gave the room a surreal glow. It was only two am.

Straining his ears for any unnatural sounds; Charlie sat up in bed and put his feet on the floor. He sat there and clearly identified four sources of noise. The air conditioner; the fan in the computer, which he forgot to turn off; the water dripping from his bathroom faucet, he'd forgotten to call a plumber too; and of course, the normal sounds of the house settling.

He almost laughed at himself. He was wide awake now, and there was no hope of getting back to sleep. Charlie slowly got to his feet and crept out his bedroom door. Through the closed door at the end of the hall, he could hear his father snoring. Grinning, Charlie tiptoed past the solid oak door and headed down the stairs. He paused at the bottom step. It was barely audible, but his father was still snoring steadily. After almost thirty years of moving stealthily up and down these old wooden stairs, he hadn't made a sound.

He reached for the light switch. A resounding thump from the kitchen stopped him in his tracks. Charlie stood frozen as a dim light suddenly illuminated the dark kitchen. He could see a shifting shadow cast in the small beam. The light went out as he heard what sounded like the refrigerator door closing, followed by……the unmistakable sound of a beer being twisted open.

Charlie smiled to himself, almost laughing out loud and continued to move clandestinely toward the kitchen door.

"You do realize its two am."

Don quickly jerked his head toward the voice, his right hand moving automatically to the holster at his hip. He shook his head at Charlie. "Haven't you learned by now not to sneak up on me like that?"

"Haven't you learned by now not to sneak into this house in the middle of the night?"

Don laughed.

"No."

"Nah, me neither."

Don took a swig of his beer.

"What are you doing up?"

Charlie leaned up against the kitchen table.

"Well, I heard someone crashing around my house in the middle of the night and I thought I should make sure it wasn't some maniac with a gun drinking all my beer."

Smiling, Don walked around to the table and pulled out a chair.

"Sorry, I was trying to be quite."

"S'Okay. I couldn't sleep anyway. I was just heading out to the garage."

"Still working on that emergence thingy?"

"Cognitive Emergence Theory….no. I have a few equations I was working on for Larry."

"The gravity thing."

"Yeah, the gravity thing."

Don gave him a tired smile.

"Hey, you're lucky I remember that much."

Charlie looked serious for a minute.

"Did they find them?"

Don shook his head.

"No. Detective Moore has some mug shots lined up that match the descriptions of the other five boys. He wanted you to come by in the morning and try to pick them out."

Don leaned back in his chair.

"I've been kinda busy most of the night. Sorry, I didn't have a chance to call you, but I told him that was fine. I figured it would be easier for me to crash here and then I can just take you by in the morning on your way to class."

Charlie opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.

"Why didn't he call me? "

"Would you have called you after what happened this afternoon?"

"I guess not."

He paused and turned to Don.

"I've got to be at the office before nine. I've got a class."

Don nodded and finished off his beer.

"I'm gonna take a quick shower and crash. Wake me up about six if you're still up. We mortals need our sleep."

Charlie saluted his older brother and grinning from ear to ear, headed out the backdoor. The moon was bright and reflected off the koi pond, illuminating most of the backyard. He opened the door to his proverbial sanctuary and walked across the room without turning on the light. Sidestepping the small end-table that he knew was there, he moved around to the floor lamp behind the couch.

A familiar voice stopped his hand inches from the switch.

"Well, Math Man. I figured you for a night owl. Looks like I was right."

Charlie turned toward the voice, trying to make out any shapes in the darkness. "Marcus?"

He reached out again for the light.

"Leave it off….."

This voice was unfamiliar. There was a disturbing tone in the new voice that Charlie couldn't quite discern.

"Marcus? What are you guys doing in my garage?"

Marcus didn't reply. Instead a third voice from the other side of the room laughed.

"Waitin' for you."

The other, deeper voice spoke again.

"He's here 'cause I wanna talk to you."

"How did you….."

"We seen you at the morgue with the suit. He a cop?"

"Um….Something like that…."

"Marcus said he knew you….gave us your name. You were easy to find."

Charlie turned to the last place he had heard Marcus's voice.

"Marcus, the cops want to talk to you."

The deep voice interceded.

"How much you tell 'em?"

Charlie, although frustrated by the proposed interrogation, answered without hesitation.

"Well, I had to explain how my backpack ended up in a west side ghetto with a bunch of bullet riddled corpses."

From out of the darkness someone grabbed Charlie under the chin and slammed into his chest propelling him backwards against the wall.

When the deep voice spoke again, he was in Charlie's face.

"That was my house…my brother, my sisters. Use respect when you speak of the dead."

Charlie tried to utter an apology, but the hand on his throat made it nearly impossible to breathe, much less speak. He heard Marcus pleading with the older man.

"Roberto, don't. Jose liked this guy. He wasn't an asshole to us, man."

The grip around his neck was released, allowing him to breathe freely. But the arm across his chest, holding him off the floor and against the wall remained in place.

"The cops came 'round. They knew stuff….stuff they didn't know before. Wha'd you tell 'em?"

Before Charlie could answer, the door from the backyard suddenly swung open and a tall figure filled the entryway.

"Hey, genius? What the hell are you doing sitting out here in the dark?"

Without waiting for an answer, Don flipped the wall switch, flooding the garage with florescent light.

Realization was instantaneous for Don when he saw his brother being help up off the floor by a large Hispanic man. His trained eyes took in the other five men scattered around the room and the younger teenager who stood almost right next to Charlie. He met his brother's frightened eyes. He had never seen Charlie look so utterly petrified.

Everything happened so quickly that Charlie barely had time to register everyone's reaction. Don spotted the automatic weapon in the older man's hand just as he, in turn, spotted the badge and gun that still hung from Don's belt. Don's hand moved instinctively to his holster and in a split second, the man holding Charlie stepped backwards and twisted himself around pulling Charlie up in front of him. The five other men in the room moved for their guns and the teenage boy backed himself into the corner next to Charlie. He looked almost as terrified as Charlie did.

When he felt the barrel of Roberto's gun poke into the side of his head, Charlie squeezed his eyes shut.

Don's hand froze over his holster, his weapon un-drawn.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa……"

Don brought his left hand up.

"Everybody just settle down."

For a few moments, no one spoke or moved as their eyes adjusted to the light. Don shifted his attention back to his brother. Charlie had opened his eyes again and was staring at him, trying to give a detailed explanation without words, but all Don could read was fear. Charlie's eyes were wide and startled, but much to Don's surprise, he spoke to the younger man who had an arm wrapped around his neck.

"Roberto, please."

His voice was shaking so hard he could barely continue speaking.

"Don't do anything stupid. This guy is …."

The man, Roberto, tightened his hold around Charlie's neck, cutting him off.

"I see the badge. This guy's a freaking FED. Why are the freaking FED's staking out your house? Unless…."

He paused and after a moment's contemplation, he cocked his head at Don.

"They knew we'd come here."

He turned his head to look at the young man next to Charlie.

"You turn rat on us, Marcus?"

"No, no way, man. I wouldn't. He must have followed us here."

Don was running through negotiation techniques and he had almost missed it. Charlie had given him this guy's name. Roberto…he must be Jose's brother. He felt the cold concrete beneath his bare feet and hoped to God they didn't notice his lack of walking apparel.

"You don't exactly try to travel incognito, Mr. Menendez."

He almost stuttered. What if he didn't have the same last name as Jose?

But the young man responded to the fact that he knew his name.

"So the FED's have a line on the 18th, huh? That's too bad."

Don kept his left hand up, chest level, without changing his position or removing his right hand from the butt of his .40 caliber handgun.

"Everything is cool, Roberto. You just let that man go and we'll talk about this."

"Ok, talk."

"Put the gun down. Let him walk out of here."

"Not a chance G-man. We know how this works. How many are outside?"

"It's just me, Roberto. Just me. Let him go."

"YOU'RE LYING!"

The grip around Charlie's throat tightened again and he had to gasp for his next breath. Through watering eyes, he watched Don attempt to subdue his reaction to his distress.

Don maintained his defensive position and fought to maintain his professional persona. He remembered his training and tried to distance himself from his emotions.

"Roberto, hurting this man isn't going to help you."

"SHUT UP. SHUT THE HELL UP."

Roberto was getting nervous. Very nervous. For the guy with the gun to his head, that seldom turned out well. Don tossed the rule book out the window. He relinquished his stance and changed position, putting both his hands in the air. Time to try something new. He had to get Charlie away from this guy. He hoped they would continue their assumption that the building was surrounded and not fill them both full of holes.

"Ok, fella. Just take it easy. If you need a hostage, take me. Just let him go."

Charlie started to shake his head, but Roberto's grip around his neck prevented him from objecting to Don's suggestion. Roberto motioned for his posse to follow him toward the door.

"No way. We're walking outta here right now, and this guy's comin' with us. You back up outta here and tell your men to back off!"

For the first time that he could remember, Don couldn't think of a single tactical maneuver to get out of this one. He had no back-up, and his mild-mannered, math professor brother had a gun to his head. Charlie wasn't going to try anything that would give him an opening and he wouldn't have asked him to.

He nodded to Roberto.

"Ok, I'm backing up…just take it easy."

He slowly backed up out the door and into the yard. Five gang members filed out, covering Roberto as he pulled Charlie around toward the front of the house. Charlie had started to panic and was struggling hard. It was slowing the procession down and Don could see Roberto tighten his arm around Charlie's throat. As they made their way across the yard, Don considered his options. He ran through every possible scenario and every one of them ended with a dead Charlie.

Any hope of coming up with a non-violent way to end this was cut short when the porch light flipped on. He could read his brother's expression and it was easy to determine who was standing at the back door. As the screen door swung open, Don evaluated the six well armed strangers in the backyard and he knew what would happen next. Don locked eyes with Charlie and in a millisecond a thousand words were exchanged.

Without hesitation, Don moved quickly to his left and dove for his father, who was still standing, flabbergasted, in the open doorway. Before he could bring them both to the ground, the sound of a dozen semi-automatic weapons being fired in succession filled the moon lit night.

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Authors Notes: Well, not where I was going, but now we head in this direction. It just sort of happened. I'll see where it takes us and let you know tomorrow.

Funny how things just sort of end up writing themselves sometimes. I hope it works for you! Let me know what you're thinking! (As if I have to say that every time….but I do anyway.)

Chapter 6: I'd rather be fishing