Numb3rs: Family Ties
Between a Kidnapper and his Captive
Disclaimer: I don't have anything to do with the creation or use of the wonderful TV show called Numb3rs.
A/N: This is my first Numb3rs story and I'd love any feedback I can get. All kinds of criticisms are welcome. Also, I'd like to thank everyone for all their wonderful reviews; they really made me feel happy.
Summary: The Eppes brothers have been through thick and thin, but when the stakes change, will they be able to pull through for each other?
When Charlie woke up late the next day, he was cold, wet, had a horrible headache and for a second, thought he had actually gotten drunk the night before and was just now suffering the consequences. Then, when he tried to get up and tripped over the strong steel chain that was attached to his ankle, the horrible events of last night came back to him…
As Charlie's attacker had been dragging him away, Charlie had caught sight of a second man with another gun sneaking up behind Don who was glaring at the two of them anxiously. Charlie's breath caught in his throat and he tried to shout for Don to watch out, struggling in his captor's immobile arms.
For all his troubles, he had been clipped on the head with the handgun and while he was still seeing stars, he was unceremoniously hoisted up and tossed into the back of a nearby van. As the van revved up, Charlie had scrabbled towards the nearest door and fumbled with the lock before the other man pointed his gun at him and forced him to back away from the doors. Helplessly, Charlie had watched from the window as the man stole up behind Don and hit him across the head with the butt of his gun. Charlie cried out in dismay and clenched his fists angrily.
Turning to the man, he whispered crossly, "No one's going to capture you now. I'm a math professor; I can't do anything, so why don't you just let me go to my brother and make a clean get-"
Charlie was suddenly thrown back in his seat as the car squealed forward and stopped by the overturned SUV. Charlie got a spilt second glimpse of his brother's still form, before he was pushed backwards by the other man who was clambering into the seat and pressing him against the opposite door. Charlie groaned in sudden pain and then ferociously threw himself at the stronger man.
Tackling him to the seat, Charlie punched him awkwardly and tried to reach around him and unlock the door, but then the man flipped him over and sent him crashing to the floor, his body contorting uncomfortably in the small space. Surging upwards, he was stopped short by a gun resting against his chest.
"Slowly. Get up slowly." the brown-eyed man snarled, twisted around in his seat, eyes glinting dangerously.
Slowly, Charlie raised himself up onto his elbows when he was picked up and flung into the seat and hit hard in the stomach. Charlie choked out half a breath before he was punched repeatedly. He curled into himself, protectively covering himself with his arms.
"Matt, stop that!"
The man in front reached between them and forcibly separated the two. "We've got to get out of here before the Fed wakes up." he said, putting the car back in gear.
Matt was still holding Charlie up by his torn Oxfords. "The boy"-Charlie bristled-"hit me, Ron!" he growled.
"Get over it." Ron snapped, "We're not allowed to rough him up, remember."
Charlie's eyes darted between the two talking men. This looked worse with every passing minute. The fact that he knew what both of them looked like was one thing, knowing their names was even worse. The chances of making it out of this alive were growing slimmer with every new detail the kidnappers revealed about themselves. Statistically, the chances of talking the kidnappers into letting him go were worse than the chances of him winning the Lottery, but Charlie could at least try.
"You don't need me." he said shakily, "In fact, taking me will only lower the probability of your success. The situation will only get increasingly drastic if you take me along. You've already tried to…"-Charlie's voice broke-"kill my brother who's a FBI agent. They won't take that lightly. The FBI will come after you with everything they have. I'll just slow you down to the point of capture."
Ron smirked. "I bet you could even graph that out for us, pretty boy."
Charlie glared. "I wouldn't lie about this. The rate of success is directly proportionally to-"
"Completing our objective, which we have." Ron said, speeding out of the lot and onto the highway.
"Your objective?" Charlie said fearfully.
"You." Matt sneered, while dousing a cloth with liquid from an opened unlabeled brown bottle.
Charlie slapped the sodden cloth away from his mouth. "And Don?" he whispered, struggling with Matt to keep the cloth away from his face.
Matt hit him again, making Charlie cry out, and forced him down on the seat, clamping the cloth over his mouth and nose.
Ron turned and looked at him as Charlie's muscles went limp and his world, fuzzy. "Just an extraneous part of the equation." he repeated.
Now done relieving the horrors of the day before, Charlie looked around his miniature prison. It was a dank dark little room with only one window that was boarded up. Looking about, he couldn't help reflecting on his captors' love for old disused rooms. Then Charlie saw a door on the right and walked towards it, jerking to a stop three paces later when the chain let him go no further. He was so close, but he couldn't reach the knob. Panicking slightly, Charlie flexed his fingers; he really needed to do some math. He needed to put chalk to blackboard and relieve some tension. Trying to relax and stay calm, Charlie muttered under his breath and stared at the place where the chain connected to the wall. Next to it, a small dribbling stream of water flowed down to the ground, creating a puddle.
Kneeling next to it, Charlie quickly calculated the effect of erosion on the concrete wall. It would take thirty years for the water to erode the concrete enough to create a small hole. He wasn't going to get any help from there. Charlie stood up, brushing water from his pants and walked over to the threadbare bed. It had a steel frame with intertwining bars as a headboard. True to form, it even had a lumpy mattress, which Charlie could attest to having spent the night on it. Finally, Charlie started examining each link on the chain that kept him prisoner. A couple looked brittle, but they were still too strong to break with just his fingers; he needed some kind of leverage.
Sighing, Charlie slumped back onto the bed, listening to it creaking as it adjusted to his weight. Creaking…Charlie shot off the bed. If it was creaking then something, a bolt or a nut, must be loose. If Charlie could dismantle the bed, then he could use one of the metal bars as a lever to pry open one of the links. Then he'd be free.
Slipping to the floor, Charlie scooted under the bed and quickly located the loose bolt. He tried unscrewing it with his bare fingers, but ended up cutting himself several times. Softly cursing, Charlie slid out from under the bed coughing at the dust and felt his way to the dripping pipe. Letting the water run soothingly over bleeding fingers, Charlie bit his lip and thought. The only experience he had with tools was through his father's furnace. What he really needed was a wrench.
Looking around him, Charlie's eyes lit upon the links in his chain. They looked wide enough to fit onto the nut and if he twisted properly, maybe he could use the links as a makeshift wrench and unscrew the bolt. He looked the links and finding the perfect one, he slid back under the bed and fit the link on the screw. Twisting furiously, the screw gave a tremendous creak before loosening. Quickly Charlie dissembled the rest of it and in no time had a metal pole as long as his arm.
Charlie placed the rod on the ground and stepped on one end of it to make the round opening close to a point. Now he had a lever. Charlie sorted through the links on his chain, searching for the weakest one. Finding it, he quickly estimated the pressure he needed and popped the link open. Shaking his leg free of the chain, he let it trail behind him as he walked, free, to the door.
Turning the knob, Charlie realized that the door was locked. Checking it closely, Charlie found that it had neither hinges nor a keyhole. Turning, Charlie looked at the boarded up window. Walking over to it, Charlie pried opened one board, letting a stream of light into the room. Peering through the small opening, Charlie realized that he was on the top floor, maybe even in an attic.
He was high above some of the trees and looking down he saw part of a street sign reading, Wister's…the rest was cut off by bushy trees.
Suddenly, Charlie jerked away from the window; he could hear voices.
"He better pay us good for this Ron. He had better pay us good. Not only do we have to keep the kid in this place, but now we have to feed him to? And this crap, look at it, we absolutely had to make the kid his favorite food and make sure he eats it too, because apparently, when he's stressed or worried, he forgets to eat."
Charlie moved closer to the door and caught the end of Ron's reply.
"…We're being paid well. Don't hurt the kid and we'll be a hundred grand richer. Remember the deal."
Charlie looked at the metal bar in his hands at then back at the door. Shaking, he walked next to the door and waited, whispering equations under his breath to calm himself down.
"Wait a second Ron, let me get this blasted phone. Someone's calling."
"It's probably the Boss. Hold your tongue, Matt." Ron warned.
"Hello? Yes, he's fine…what do you mean we should have locked him up better? What's the kid going to do, Boss? Come at me with his hidden taser? We took away anything that could use, even those house keys in his back pocket you told us about …yeah, I know he's smart…I know you know him best,"-Charlie tightened his sweaty grip on the bar-"right down to his favorite color of socks, I know. But he's still just a kid…"-Charlie tensed, raised the bar over his head and began calculating speed, weight and pressure quickly-"Wait, just hold on a minute. Let me give him this food…yes, we made what you told us-"
He was too early.
He couldn't have messed up his calculations; he never did, but he hadn't taken his humanness into account. In his hurry and fear, he had forgotten everything he had learned in the sniper case. He must have overlooked something: adrenaline, fear, tremors, it didn't matter now; but instead of cracking the metal bar on top of his captor's head, Charlie smashed into the tray he was carrying instead. Both he and his kidnapper screamed as hot soup splashed over them both, but as Matt stumbled backwards, Charlie darted forwards.
He dashed through the house hearing agonized shouting behind him. Wincing at noise, Charlie skidded around a corner and fled down the hall, stopping only to pick himself up when he crashed into a side table. Shaking himself, Charlie rose to his knees, only to be thrown to the ground again as he was tackled from behind, his knee twisting painfully. Charlie screamed and slumped under the man's weight. Above him, he could faintly hear his assailant talking.
"Don't worry, we've got him boss. The noise…he's not hurt, seriously, it's probably just a little sprain…yeah, yeah, we'll take care of it…chalk? Listen boss, this isn't what we signed up for; you said the kid would be-…alright, alright, we'll get the camera and take the picture. I'm on it." Still sitting on him, Ron flipped the phone closed and hauled Charlie up.
"Camera?" Charlie murmured almost out of it.
"Yeah," Ron smirked, "You might want to pretty yourself up; we'll be taking some pictures to make sure that Donnie doesn't worry."
Charlie muttered something incomprehensible, but then he groaned as his leg buckled under him and Ron had to compensate and half-carry him back to his locked room, dumping him on the floor near the trickling water and grabbing a coil of rope.
"That was a stupid stunt you pulled back there." Ron commented, handcuffing his hands together and roughly tying his legs together with tough rope, "If you do it-"
"I'LL KILL HIM!" Matt roared, running back into the room with a wet cloth over the left side of his face.
"Matt," Ron said cheerfully, "I was just telling Charlie here that if he tried that again, I'd cut off his foot, so I'm sure we won't have any more problems."
At Charlie's horrified blanch, Matt's anger subsided and he sneered at him, before turning to Ron. "I'll take apart the bed."
"Good idea, but leave the mattress; we don't want the Boss to get upset with us for maltreating him. Gag him until we're done, and remember to board the window up again." Matt said, turning to leave.
"Where are you going?" Matt snapped, leaning down to look at the bed.
"I need to get some things. Just make sure he doesn't go anywhere alright?"
"Yeah, no problem." Matt muttered.
Two hours later, the room was completely bare except for the mattress and Charlie who had fallen into a painful doze, leaning against the wall. He was awoken with a sharp kick and yelped loudly as food was placed in front of him.
"Tomato…my favorite soup?" Charlie asked curiously.
Ron shrugged. "Boss knew it was and asked us to prepare it."
Charlie looked down at his bowl. "My mother used to make it for me." Charlie's stomach clenched and he slowly put the bowl to the side as Ron handed something else to him, "Chalk…another gift from your boss?" he questioned.
"He said you might like to have some; something about how it'll make you feel better. I'm not sure what comfort chalk can give you, but the Boss knows best." Matt bent and rechecked the handcuffs, but loosened the ropes on his legs, "I'll be back in a half an hour to take your picture; if you're anywhere near the door at that time, I'll knock you unconscious, shoot you and let your brother see you like that, covered with blood and dying."
As Matt and Ron locked the door shut, Charlie stood. He had no intention of going anywhere the door. He looked at the chalk clutched in his hand and then at the wonderfully blank walls before him. Finally, finally, he was back to doing things that he knew about. He wasn't a hero or an adventurer; he was a math professor, and now he was going to be able to do what he did best: Math.
Grinning, for the first time in what felt like forever, Charlie stood carefully, favoring his right leg. He had work to do.
To Be Continued…