Chapter Eleven

Shelly Arbary, the librarian that used to work at Quantico when Jon was a trainee sat in the back seat of hisLexus with a firm grip on the garrote around Charlie's neck. Her blonde hair was pulled up to the back of her head in a tight bun so that no stray strands would fall and leave behind a DNA trace. She wore a long sleeved black cotton turtleneck shirt, and rubber gloves, leaving no fingerprints on any surface but still allowing her to essentially feel with her fingers almost normally. She was a very attractive woman except for her cruel cold blue eyes that seemed to bore a hole through the back of Jon's head. Her smile was nothing short of pure evil and it was astonishing how the twisted hatred that seemed to emanate from her completely changed her features turning her into a mask of ugliness.

Jon couldn't believe that Shelly was sitting in his car holding him hostage with Charlie's life in the balance. He had realized that she was somewhat unstable after their one and only rather disastrous date when he was a young trainee at Quantico but he never would have thought her capable of the atrocities that had been committed to his fellow agents. Jon weighed the options available to him in his head. He knew he couldn't get to his gun before she killed Charlie. Perhaps if he could distract her enough he could get his phone and speed dial Don.

"Why are you doing this Shelly? Why did you murder all of those men? What did they ever do to you? What did I do to you?"

Shelly's features contorted into an even more gruesome mask of loathing as she hissed her reply. "I gave you my heart and you stomped all over it. You used me for your pleasure and when you were done you just threw me out like so much garbage!"

Jon's mind was reeling with this accusation. She had aggressively pursued him. When they had gone out the night ended in her apartment with an utterly vicious encounter that left Jon wishing for nothing more than to get out and away from her. At first he was intrigued and excited by her forceful love making but she turned sadistic which scared him. He knew that some people were into that sort of thing but that was definitely not his style and her insistence that he was enjoying being dominated turned what was an enthralling evening into a nightmare.

He decided to try and sooth her so that he could get his hand to his cell phone without her noticing. "Shelly, I didn't know how to handle a woman like you. I was young and inexperienced."

He slipped his hand smoothly into his jacket pocket.
"It was so long ago, why now? Why hold this grudge for so long."

He carefully opened the phone as he withdrew his hand making sure to keep it under the lapel of his coat.
"You could have tried to talk to me about how you felt..."

Her harsh laughter sent icy chills through him. "You were plenty experienced my sweet. As to why I hold a grudge? Haven't you heard 'Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned'? You avoided me like the plague after our encounter so I couldn't talk to you even if I wanted to." He voice became cold and sharp. "Now hand over that cell phone that you have so expertly taken from your pocket."

'Shit!' Jon glanced at Charlie. He had small trickles of blood that had dripped down his neck from the garrote but it was also clear that he was still breathing. She had been careful to garrote him below his Adams apple. Jon carefully reached back with his right hand holding the cell phone hoping that the movement would mask his left hand carefully reaching for his side arm.

As Shelly took the phone from his hand she smiled evilly. "I'll take that gun in your left hand as well."

'Shit, Shit!' Jon hesitated. His hand was on the gun and he mentally tried to envision how quickly he could withdraw the weapon and get a shot off before she could sever Charlie's throat.

Shelly seemed to know exactly what he was thinking and tightened the noose around Charlie's neck causing his head to snap up against the head rest. He began to make a gargling sound as the flow of oxygen was cut off. Jon's hopes for a quick resolution to the situation were dashed as he saw fresh blood spilling down Charlie's neck and staining the front of his shirt.

"All right!" He carefully removed his gun and handed it, butt end first, to the woman in the back seat.

Once she had the gun and his cell she released some of the tension on the garrote and Charlie's head fell forward as he unconsciously gulped lungfuls of air. The blood flow from the steel wire around his neck increased slightly with the release of pressure and Jon was starting to get concerned about how deeply she had cut his throat with the wire. There seemed to be an awful lot of blood now and Charlie's skin looked paler than it had before.

Jon knew that he could never talk her out of trying to kill him but he had to attempt to save Charlie. He was charged with the younger Eppes' safety and he was determined to try. "Look, let him go. He has nothing to do with this. He doesn't even know you, Shelly."

Another sharp bark of laughter escaped her lips. "Nothing to do with this? He has everything to do with this. The clues I left were for Agent Eppes, the star student to figure out! But instead of rising to the challenge he opted to cheat and used his little genius brother to do his work for him. When I saw the two of you coming out of that elevator I was so pleased because I was given the opportunity to solve two problems at once."

Jon was unwilling to give up so easily. "Shelly, I know Don Eppes. He will pull Charlie off the case immediately after this. Please, Charlie doesn't know what your clues mean. I have worked with him all day and he is no closer to an answer than he was when Don first asked for his help. Let him go. You have me, my cell and my gun. That is all you really need. You don't need Charlie!"

Shelly seemed to ponder this offer for a moment. "Hmmm. I don't think so dearest. Young professor Eppes needs to learn what it means to play with the big boys, and Agent Eppes needs to learn what the consequences are when he allows his little brother to play at being an agent. Now start the car and drive west toward downtown."

Jon hesitated again and she tightened the noose until he complied. As they drove through the darkened streets turning where Shelly instructed Jon considered wrenching the car to throw her off balance, but quickly discarded that idea. He had made a tight left hand turn which caused the garrote to tighten and audibly choke the young professor even more. Within fifteen minutes of leaving the campus, Shelly instructed Jon to pull into the back of a large dark building. The sign out front said 'Bell Publications'.

"What are we doing here?"

"Paedar O'Donnell was a major radical figure in the history of twentieth century Ireland. darling. He was a socialist, a Republican and a writer who saw his pen as a weapon in the revolutionary process. He moved from being a trade union organizer to a senior in the ranks of the IRA during the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He was also a key figure in the Republican-Communist nexus of the late twenties and early thirties. Your namesake, dear Jon, was the instigator of a mass campaign against the payment of land annuities to Britain, and he was the editor of the legendary 'Bell Magazine' of which this publications firm is named for. It is therefore fitting for you to die here, don't you think?"

Before Jon could respond he felt a sharp prick in his neck. Shelly had shot him with a tranquilizer dart and he too fell immediately into a drugged slumber next to Charlie.

Shelly released her hold on the garrote and Charlie slumped forward in his seat, cracking his forehead on the dash board. Shelly meanwhile took a large black plastic hooded poncho out of a small fanny pack and put it on before stepping out of the car. She left the two men there and went to a large brown van parked at the far back corner of the rear lot behind the building and backed it up to the loading dock. After positioning the truck she got out and lowered a flatbed hydraulic lift containing a wheelchair and a large dolly with two sets of saw horses and four six foot long boards.

It only took her ten minutes to wheel the dolly with her equipment into the rear of the building that she had managed to get the keys to and to set up two makeshift tables with the saw horses and boards. By the time she got back out to the car Charlie was beginning to show some signs that he would wake up soon. He groaned softly when she opened the passenger door and hauled him out of the car and into the wheelchair.

She knew that she was running out of time and had to move quickly now. She wheeled him up the loading dock ramp and into the building steering him down a long corridor to the printing room. It was a fairly large area that was almost adequate. She had arranged the boards across the saw horses to form two narrow tables that had crossbars near one end of each board. The planks had been rabbeted so that they fit together smoothly forming a cross. The tables were close enough together that the cross bars to each table almost touched each other but gave Shelly a nearly five foot space between the tables to move.

She wheeled Charlie over to the closest of these tables and taking a hold of the waist of his jeans hauled him up onto the plank. He groaned loudly as he hit the hard wood and she quickly tied a blindfold over his eyes. Then she laid his arms out on the cross boards and began to securely duct tape him to the table around his wrists and elbows, abdomen, hips, thighs, knees, shins and ankles. She wound the tape in an X from the armpit of one shoulder across his neck and over the top of his other shoulder. By doing this on both sides she had effectively pinned his upper torso to the plank but left his chest free of the tape. This entire process took close to ten minutes and by the time she had finished Charlie was moving his head from side to side trying to wake from the drug induced sleep he had been under since she had tranquilized him.

She examined her handiwork and determined that it was plenty secure then left Charlie to his thoughts as she made her way back out of the building with the wheelchair to collect Jon.


Don and David arrived at Cal Sci nearly forty-five minutes after Jon's call. The fire department had extinguished the blaze and the arson investigator was on scene and kneeling down next to the charred trash can examining a small blackened device.

Don walked right up to him and showed his badge. "Is that what caused the fire?" he asked pointing to the device that the investigator was holding.

"No. The fire was caused by a type of pipe bomb." He indicated a shredded length of aluminum piping that sat smoldering a foot away from the mouth of the can. "This is a radio receiver and I believe it was attached to the bomb. This fire was set off from a distance with some sort of remote transmitter. I will need to have the bomb squad take the receiver apart to tell you more about the kind of remote used."

David knelt down next to the arson investigator and asked if he could see the device. Don looked around the east quad. A few students who were here late had gathered beyond the police tape to watch as the fire was put out and the investigators arrived to do their jobs. Campus security was interviewing those gathered to see if anyone knew anything about the explosion or who might have set it off.

David was also looking at the area. "Don this happened late, after almost everyone had left campus. If the bomb was set off remotely then the bomber was watching. Didn't O'Donnell say that the bomb didn't go off until he and Charlie were almost at the car? That trash can wasat least ten yards away from the parking lot."

Don had a terrible sinking sensation fill his body as he realized what had happened here tonight. "Yeah, yeah that's right. Jon used his remote to unlock the car doors and a second later the bomb exploded. Damn it! It was a diversion! The explosion would have drawn their attention away from the car and onto the walkway behind them." He pulled his phone from his waist and dialed Jon's cell only to have it immediately jump to voicemail. "Damn it!"

He tried Charlie's cell next and was surprised to hear it ringing. He motioned to David to start a trace from his phone. After four rings the phone picked up but there was no voice on the other end. "Charlie? Charlie can you hear me?"

Don could hear something in the background like rustling and then a voice answered him, only it wasn't Charlie's voice.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take you to call, Agent Eppes."

The voice was unidentifiable. The person on the other end was using a device to mechanically change their voice so that it sounded like an old style computer. If the call were being recorded then a voice analyzer might have been able to sift through the distortions and give a clearer sound to the voice but standing in the east quad parking lot of the Cal Sci campus, there was no way to record the call.

"Who is this, where is Charlie? Where is my Agent?"

"Agent O'Donnell was the next name on the list, but you should have known that. The clue was left with Agent Bliss."

Don felt his stomach do a flip flop. "What about Charlie? You have no beef with him; he isn't a part of this."

"You made him a part of this, Agent Eppes. That was a mistake, and now your precious little brother is going to pay the price for your mistake."

"Please don't hurt him." Don hated the pleading tone in his voice but he couldn't help it. His brother was in the hands of this brutal killer and it was all his fault.

"The trace should be nearly complete so our time is up. I'll give Charlie your love."

Then the line went dead. "No wait!" but it was too late. Don's phone dropped from his slack hand and he dropped to his knees. "Oh God, what have I done?"

A/N – The next chapter is going to be tricky to write and will take a great deal of finesse. I will warn everyone now that chapter twelve will be brutally graphic and if that is not your cup of tea, I would recommend that you skip directly to chapter thirteen when it is posted. You will not loose the general gist of the story.