Disclaimer and beta thanks in Chapter 1.

It might be a few days until the next chapter is posted, as I'm going to be busy with the Numb3rs-dot-org-in-LA weekend. But in the meantime, I appreciate your reviews…

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Chapter 11
Saturday, November 26, 2005
9:45 P.M.
Eppes house

"Well, that's the last of them." Don paused on the second step and purposefully brushed his hands together.

"You didn't have to haul all those boxes up to the attic," Alan said, looking up from his crossword puzzle. "Charlie could have taken care of it. Or I could have, you know."

"Yeah, well, considering it was the FBI who disrupted your business this week and carted off all of your files about the hydrology of Pasadena as evidence, I thought the FBI should put everything back. And Charlie's a little ticked off that we still have his laptop."

Alan looked at him over the top of his glasses, noticing the circles under his older son's eyes. "You're still getting evidence off of it?"

Don said down on the steps. "More like the computer techs haven't gotten around to looking at it yet. We had a big fraud case come in last week, and they're still mopping that up. Besides, since we don't think any of the information got out to our suspects, it's not as high a priority as it might otherwise be."

"But you're still missing those two suspects?"

Don nodded wearily. "Ferza finally broke down and identified them as Ryan Mott and Zeke Andina, but their histories only seem to go back ten years or so. We don't know where they're originally from or how long they've been here, but we are confident that they were waiting for a call from somebody."

He lowered the folded newspaper in his hand. "They've just been waiting here for years, pretending to be part of our society?"

"Yeah, delivering pizza, if you can believe that."

"And what about my clients? Are they being charged with anything?"

Don shifted in his seat. "I really shouldn't say anything more about an open case."

"I know that, but this isn't just any case. These people hired me, as it turns out, to do something that they were going to turn over to a couple of terrorists." That had kept him up the past few nights, pacing the floor and trying not to think about what might have happened. If anything had gone wrong…Suffice to say, he would never give Ron Northrop a hard time again about keeping sensitive information confidential.

"Well, Tim's pretty much off the hook, since it became clear that he really didn't know anything. And Ellen cooperated completely, so we're working out the details of a minor conspiracy charge with her lawyer. She's still in custody, but depending on the judge, she could be out on bail in a few days." He stood up and slowly stretched, wincing as a vertebrate popped. "Hey, I brought a six-pack over – can I get you one?"

"It's getting late for me," he replied. "But you go ahead."

Don checked his watch and blinked. "Wow, I didn't realize it was almost ten. I guess maybe I'd better get going instead."

"You look like you could use some sleep." He shook the folded newspaper in Don's direction. "Except for a few hours here for Thanksgiving dinner, you haven't been doing anything else but this case all week, have you?"

"Well, no, but it's a pretty important case."

Alan was about to reply that it was always an important case when the phone rang. He leaned over the table and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Is this the residence of Alan Eppes?"

"Yes, it is," he answered warily. It was kind of late for the call to be a telemarketer, but he had read recently that they had started calling well after the dinner hour so as to get a more civil response from their potential customers. "Who is this?"

"This is Officer Pat Tomlinson from the Pasadena Police Department. I hate to have to tell you this, but it looks like there's been a break-in at your company's office."

"What?" Alan sat straight up. Across the living room, he saw Don's head snap up at the tone of his voice. "What happened?"

"Well, we're still trying to figure that out. Someone called and said they saw flashlights moving around on the second story, but by the time I got here, there was no one here. Clear signs of forced entry, though."

"Is anything missing?"

"Looks like someone went through the file cabinets, but as far as anything being missing, that's what we'd like you to come down here and tell us. Do you need someone to pick you up?"

"No, no, I can drive," he said, rising to his feet and waving a placating hand at Don, who had come to stand in front of him with a worried look on his face. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"All right, Mr. Eppes."

He hung up and turned to Don. "Can you believe it? Someone broke into my office! We're in business for one month, and we get a break-in. Unbelievable!" He took off his glasses and patted his jeans pocket to make sure his car keys were there. "Maybe Stan was right: we shouldn't have gone for a building right on Colorado. Too visible. Oh, Stan – I wonder if the cops called him, too."

"Hold on a minute, Dad." Don's tone had an authoritative ring to it, and it stopped him in his tracks. "What did the cop say was missing?"

"He didn't know. What could be missing, anyway? He said someone had gone through the file cabinets, but that doesn't make any sense. It's not like we keep any money in there. Why would someone want a collection of file folders and data…" he trailed off, feeling the gears in his mind click into place as he came to the conclusion that Don must have already reached. He raised his eyes to meet his son's. "Like the files that you just brought back from the FBI office," he said quietly.

Don nodded grimly. He reached back and drew his gun from its holster. "We have to assume that if they knew to look in your office, they know how to find where you live, and where Stan lives. Call him and tell him to get out of his house and get to the nearest police station."

"Sure." Alan's mouth was dry as he picked up the phone again.

"I'm going to go check the back door, and then we're going to get out of here, okay?" Don gave him a reassuring nod. "It'll be fine, Dad." Then he moved off towards the kitchen, gun still drawn but down by his side.

The phone rang four, then five times with no answer. Alan sighed in exasperation as he remembered that his friend and business partner still didn't have a home answering machine. It might be a good sign that Stan wasn't in – maybe the police had already got a hold of him, and he was on his way to their office. He forced back the thought that maybe someone else had gotten a hold of him instead.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Alan paused and furrowed his brow. It was awfully late at night for someone to be calling. But if there were terrorists out there looking for his hydrology data, they wouldn't politely ring the doorbell, would they? Maybe it was the police coming to check on him, someone who hadn't gotten the word from Officer Tomlinson that he was on his way. Maybe Charlie had left his keys at his office again. It would only be the third time this month.

"Dad, let me get that." Don's voice came from the kitchen.

He looked through the peephole when he got up to the door. A man stood there in a dark suit, waiting patiently for the door to open. He didn't recognize the man, but his close-cropped hair and straight posture spoke of an FBI agent's demeanor, as did the folded leather wallet he carried in one hand, ready to flip open and show his badge. The faint line of a scar down his left cheek reminded him of the one on his son's face.

"It's okay, Don," he called out as he put his hand on the doorknob. "He's one of yours." Probably a fellow agent looking for Don and unable to find him at his apartment. The boy certainly spent more time here than he did at his own place. Not that Alan minded seeing his son so frequently, but it sometimes made him wonder.

"Dad..." came the warning tone, but Alan had already opened the door. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, I hope so. I'm sorry to bother you at this late hour, but I'm looking for an Alan Eppes?"

He had been so prepared to say, "Yes, he's here," in response to the expected question about Don that he paused with his mouth open. Recovering quickly, he said, "Yes, that would be me."

The man gave a short nod and quickly flashed a badge at him before tucking it back in his suit jacket. "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me, Mr. Eppes. We need to ask you a few follow-up questions about your consulting work with Tim and Ellen Basso."

Alan paused. Don would have said something if there were follow-up questions to be asked, or at least an agent would have called Don with the questions rather than showing up in person, knowing his personal connection to the case. "And what was your name again?"

The man reached into his coat with his right hand, and Alan suddenly had a very bad feeling. He stepped back and grasped the edge of the door, wondering how rude it would be to shut it in this man's face if he turned out to really be one of Don's colleagues.

But the man stepped forward so that he was blocking the doorway, and when his hand came out of his jacket, Alan knew he should have listened to his instincts, no matter how silly they seemed. Because now the man was holding a gun, and it was aimed right at him.

He swallowed and froze, suddenly unable to look anywhere but at the short black barrel leveled at his chest. "Who are you?" he repeated quietly.

"Is there anyone else here?" the man asked. His voice was just as quiet, but it had a menacing tone to it that it hadn't a few minutes ago.

Alan grimaced. He knew Don's Suburban was visible in the driveway, but he didn't know if this man knew that it wasn't his. "Listen, whatever you want from me, you can leave anyone else out of it."

The man's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he took a step forward. "Who else is here?"

"Put it down."

He had never been so relieved to hear someone in his life. Don had spoken from the doorway behind him, his voice cold and commanding. Alan took a slow step backward and half-turned to see his son standing there, arms extended and aiming his weapon at the man in the doorway. "Now, Mott."

The man actually chuckled, and Alan felt his blood run cold. "I think it's a little late for that, Agent Eppes."

Don shifted his stance slightly. "Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head," he growled.

Then Alan saw a flicker of movement from back in the kitchen. He opened his mouth to warn Don, but it was too late. A second man had appeared, dressed in a suit like the first. He raised his arm behind Don's back, and though Alan couldn't see it, he knew he was holding a gun as well. "You'll be the one dropping it, Agent."

He saw the expression on Don's face change from angry to grim, although there still wasn't a trace of fear in his features as his eyes flickered back and forth between Alan and the man in the doorway, sizing up the situation. Then the man behind him took a step forward and jabbed something in his back. Don tensed and finally said, "All right," slowly raising his hands in the air.

His eyes stayed on Alan's, who was amazed at the confidence his son was able to project even while he was being disarmed. The second man took a step back and tucked the FBI agent's weapon into his waistband, his own gun almost casually pointed at Don's back.

'How many times has this happened to him,' he suddenly thought. 'How many times has my son gotten out of a situation where he's been at gunpoint that he can be so calm right now?'

"What do you want?" he asked suddenly, turning back to the man standing in the doorway.

The man took a step inside and shut the door before replying. The light from the living room lamp slanted across his face, reflecting off his dark eyes and highlighting the scar on his cheek. "You prepared a report on groundwater contamination for Tim and Ellen Basso," he replied. "We want it."

Alan's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The scarred man jabbed the gun into his side, and Alan went quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Don take a step in his direction before being jerked to a halt by a hand grabbing his bicep.

The man next to him spoke again. "The story was in the papers this morning. Environmentalists arrested for possible terrorist connections, aided by a consultant in Pasadena. It's amazing how much detailed information City Hall will give to a reporter trying to track down that consultant. It's also quite convenient that the last name happens to match the FBI agent handling the case. Looks like we're getting two birds with one stone here."

Although Don had brought back all of the files from the city archives, the printouts that Charlie had made for Alan's clients as a summary of the data they contained were still at the office. "I don't have the report anymore," he said firmly. "The FBI took it as evidence."

"Then you can reconstruct it."

He took a long, slow breath, unsure how to respond. "It took weeks to produce it in the first place," he finally said. "If you want the raw data that went into it—"

"Zeke."

The man across the room deliberately raised his weapon and placed the end of the barrel against Don's temple.

Alan swallowed, and he felt his hands start to tremble. Ryan Mott said, "As valuable as an FBI agent might be to us, we've had to assume that our colleagues have already told him what they know. What we really need is from you, Mr. Eppes. With that in mind, your son becomes expendable."

He found it nearly impossible to look at his son when there was a gun pointed at his head, but he had to. "Dad, you can't," Don was saying urgently. "These are the guys we've been looking for. You know why they want that information. They're going to use it not just to make a political point like Ellen, but to do serious harm to thousands of innocent people. You can't give it to them."

Unspoken, but glimpsed in his eyes, was a deeper truth. Their odds of being let go at the end of the night were about as low as the chance that if Alan said no, the two men would simply shrug, lower their guns, and go away. He was sure Don meant it as justification for agreeing with their captors, that he was expendable, and that the lives of potentially millions of people rested on the documents upstairs not falling into the hands of these two men. Don Eppes the FBI agent was telling him that his own life didn't matter if it meant keeping other people safe, which meant that Alan had to refuse their captors' demands.

So he closed his eyes and gave a short nod. "All right. Let him go, and I'll take you to where the files are." He didn't really expect them to agree, but as long as he could stall them, he and Don had a chance at escape or rescue. If he continued to say no, and they shot Don, they would probably still have some means of getting him to do what they wanted. The longer he could keep both of them alive, the higher the chances that they would eventually get away.

"Dad—" Don started in a warning tone, but Alan shot him the look that had always gotten him to fall quiet, ever since childhood. He felt a little of the tension leave his shoulders when the man next to Don took a step back and lowered his gun. But his nerves were still hyper-alert; he could hear the quiet swish of the sprinkler outside, and smell the tang of the lemon-scented detergent in the dishwasher all the way from the kitchen. 'This must be what an adrenaline rush is like,' he thought, realizing again that Don would be used to this sort of thing.

So far, all it was doing for him was making him jumpy.

"Are the files here?" Mott asked abruptly.

He nodded. "There's twelve boxes upstairs."

Don gave him a sharp look, but said nothing. There had been several stacks of white banker's boxes upstairs, and he hoped Don had put the eight boxes of hydrology files next to them. They could stall for longer if they had to carry half again as many boxes as there really were down the stairs. Maybe long enough for the police to wonder why he hadn't shown up at his office.

'Or long enough for some kind of miracle to occur,' he thought as he watched Zeke Andina prod Don up the stairs. Right now, that was all he could count on. That, and his son.