Run the Numbers

Chapter Eight

When they arrived at the old house Trevor bound Alan's hands behind his back with duct tape and brought him inside at gunpoint.

"This place is not secure. We need to move now. You were right about a separate surveillance system on the lab. The FBI knows that we have the Eppes' and if they do a little digging they will probably find this place."

Michael swore and started clearing up the pages he had printed out and closing up the computer he was working with. "Where are we going?" Michael asked.

"There is a truck stop motel out on the 110. It's busy, noisy and they only take cash. The rooms are set back away from the road behind the weighing station and are frequented mostly by those not wanting to be found. It will be a good spot to lay low in until Friday afternoon."

Trevor told Alan to sit down then turned to Michael and said, "Give me a minute with the professor then bring up his father." and handed the revolver to his partner.

When he entered the room where Charlie was being held Trevor started packing up the computer and saw that Charlie had looked at the encrypted data but had otherwise done nothing about it.

"So you still won't help us is that right Professor?" Charlie glared at him but said nothing. "Well we have something that may change your mind. Get up, it's time to go."

Charlie looked surprised but he didn't move. He was not going to cooperate with these people in any way and nothing would change his mind. The swelling from his head wound had subsided enough now that he had a fairly clear recollection of what had happened. He knew that Don would be looking for him and he was going to trust in his brother's abilities as an investigator. He knew that Don would find and rescue him.

"You won't get away with this you know. My brother will come looking for me and when he finds you…"

Trevor smiled at him "So you remember who you are now do you? Well that is good because you will recognize your motivation."

Just as he said this Charlie heard his father's voice demanding to know where his son was. Michael stepped into the room with Alan at gunpoint and as soon as he saw his son Alan ran over to him.

"Charlie! Oh my God, Charlie are you alright?"

Charlie's eyes were wide with fear now "Dad!"

"Very nice family reunion but it is now time to go gentlemen. Lets move and if either of you try anything, the other one will pay the price."

Charlie and his father were led out to the car and forced into the back after Michael had bound Charlie's hands behind his back as well.

Alan spoke quietly with Charlie in the back seat.

"You haven't tried to break that encryption for them have you?" Charlie shook his head and Alan said, "It doesn't matter what they do to me Charlie, I am only one person but if you do this for them then thousands of people could die."

Charlie looked frightened and asked, "What is it that they have Dad?"

Michael shot a look back at their captives and said, "I don't have any problems with using this boys, so you had better behave." He was holding up a revolver so that both Charlie and Alan could see it.

Alan lowered his voice even more and said, "It is some kind of formula that they stole from a bio-genetics company. I don't really know what it is but it is definitely a biological weapon of some sort. Charlie, you know why they brought me here, but you can not decode that information."

Alan stared into his son's troubled eyes for a moment then said just above a whisper, "Charlie I love you and your brother more than anything in this world, you know that. Do not cooperate with these people no matter what they do to me. Do you understand?"

Charlie looked at his father, torn now by the position that they had both been forced into. He couldn't just let these men hurt or kill his father but he also couldn't give them access to a biological weapon.

The FBI surrounded the old Victorian style house and carefully approached. Don saw the tire tracks in the dirt driveway and his heart sank. He knew that they were too late but continued with the raid in any case. They broke down the front and back doors simultaneously and swarmed through the house calling out "FBI!"

They searched every room and found nothing. Don and David headed upstairs and checked each room up there. Don was the one who found the room that they were holding Charlie in and knew that they had been there because there was a hospital gown on the floor in the corner and a name band on the floor that read "John Doe".

Don called out "In here!" David and two other agents ran to the room and saw the hospital gown that Don was holding. He threw it down on the floor and kicked the dresser "Damn it!"

David stepped over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and said, "They would have just left tonight, we probably only missed them by minutes. We'll get them Don you know we will."

Don turned to the other FBI agents and said, "I want this place swept for anything that can tell us where they went."

The agents left to carry out Don's orders and he said under his breath, "Hang on buddy, I'm coming." Then he left the room and headed down stairs for the vehicles.

Terry was still outside because even though she insisted on coming Don wouldn't let her go in. He wanted her to go to the hospital and get checked but she wasn't having any part of that. It was her fault that Don's father was now in jeopardy. It was her responsibility to protect him and she had not done that. She told Don that she was going to see this through whether he wanted her to or not.

"They're gone." she said, as he stepped away from the house over to his vehicle.

It was a statement rather than a question.

"We need to get back and organize the set up with immigration and LAX's surveillance. The NSA folks have brought in Homeland security so let's make sure that they are playing by our rules. I don't want anyone jumping the gun and getting my family killed."

Don left David to take charge of the sweep of the house while he and Terry headed back to headquarters.


The black SUV entered the truck stop less than an hour later and Michael went into the office to pay for a room. Once they parked, Trevor got out and opened the driver side back door and told Alan to turn around so that he could cut the tape off of his hands.

Michael had taken a second revolver from the glove compartment and did the same thing with Charlie. There was a bar right next to the motel's strip of rooms and the music was extremely loud.

Trevor glanced toward the bar and smiled. They quickly got the Eppes' into the room and after Michael had brought in the computer equipment Trevor turned to Charlie and said, "If you want your father to live then you will get to work."

Charlie looked stricken and turned to his father.

"Charlie I absolutely forbid you to do this. I am your father and you will listen to me."

Trevor pointed his gun at Alan and fired a round into his midsection.

"Dad! No!" Charlie rushed over to his father and caught him as his knees buckled.

Alan had a look of shock and fear on his face as he looked down at the blood seeping through the fingers of his hands that he had instinctively pressed to the wound.

Charlie was beside himself. "Dad, Oh God." and he looked up at Trevor "Why?"

"I need that data, and your father needs medical attention. When I get what I need, your father will get what he needs. I suggest you get to work professor because at your father's age and the nature of that wound I'd say he has 30 hours at best."

Charlie helped his father to the bed and said, "He'll bleed to death in a couple of hours. We have to stop this bleeding."

Trevor sat down in a chair by the door while Michael busied himself setting up the computer equipment.

Charlie ran to the bathroom and grabbed a couple of hand towels off the rack behind the toilet. They were at least somewhat clean and he folded them up into squares and placed them against the bullet wound in his father's waist.

He looked around frantically for something that he could use for a bandage to hold the towels in place then reached up and felt the pressure bandage on his head. He took his father's hands and said, "Dad, hold this in place." as he place his fathers hands on the towels. Then he began to carefully unwrap the bandaging around his own head. There was a good amount of bandaging material and Charlie was sure there would be enough to go around his father's waist at least twice.

As he removed the pressure bandage from his head it started to throb but he hardly noticed. Once he had his head unwrapped he pulled the gauze squares from his own head wound and tossed them aside then helped his father to sit up.

"Hang on Dad, I need to get this tied around you."

Alan wanted to object but he was in too much pain to argue with Charlie. Once Charlie had wrapped the wound he laid his father down.

"Dad, please hold on. I'll get you out of this."

Alan tried to sit up but couldn't move.

"No Charlie don't do it."

Charlie had tears in his eyes now and he leaned close to his father and whispered, "Dad, you have to trust me. Please hold on, I can't loose you too."

Alan knew that Charlie was referring to losing his mother only a year previously but he couldn't be a part of helping a deadly weapon make it's way into the hands of terrorists or anyone else.

"Charlie I am only one person, do the math."

That statement cut into Charlie's heart like a knife and it was clear in his eyes. "Dad please, you must trust me."

Trevor was starting to get impatient

"Time is wasting professor."

Charlie glared at Trevor for a moment then got up to go wash the blood from his hands. After he left the bathroom Trevor went in and checked the window, it was not much more than a vent and he was satisfied that Charlie couldn't escape that way. He figured that the motel owner may have designed it that way so when he showed up to collect unpaid rent the tenant couldn't slip out that way without paying.

There was no phone and only one window and one door and Charlie could see no way out with these two men sitting there guarding the only exit.

Charlie sat down at the folding table where Trevor had set up the equipment and began to look over the encryption.

"I will need paper, pencils, and markers."

Michael took out a full notebook and a couple of pencils and threw them onto the table in front of Charlie, then he went out to the SUV and searched around until he came up with a couple of markers and tossed them on the table as well. Then he sat down on the second bed in the room and watched as Charlie began to furiously take notes occasionally glancing at his father lying on the far bed and wincing in pain. Charlie worked through the night while Trevor and Michael took turns sleeping.

By seven in the morning Charlie was exhausted and his head was pounding but he seemed to have made some progress. He had used the markers to write out the algorithms that he was going to use on the wall of the room. When Trevor asked him what he was doing Charlie shouted at him.

"This is how I work! If you'd like to do this yourself then let us go and have at it!"

The shouting brought on a wave of dizziness and he had to sit down shakily for a few minutes to let the dizzy spell pass. Trevor shut his mouth and stopped questioning Charlie after that.

Charlie announced to Trevor that he needed a disk to put the data onto and when Trevor and Michael both asked why Charlie elaborated in a calm tone as if he were teaching one of his freshmen classes.

"To decode this data it has to be run through a number sieve. I can create the algorithm on the laptop but then I need to move the data or download it from the palm pilot through the algorithm on the laptop to a disk. The algorithm that I will need to use will take up nearly all of the laptop's memory capacity and the data has to have a place to go to as it runs through the sieve. You will actually be able to see the data decoded as it passes through the algorithm and is transferred to the disk."

Trevor sent Michael out for the disk but as he was leaving he said quietly "Ditch the car. They might be looking for it, but make sure it is wiped down thoroughly first."

Michael glanced back at Charlie and whispered under his breath, "What about a ride, we will need something to get to the dock tomorrow."

"Be creative but low key OK?"

Michael nodded and left the room.