A/N - Thank you for all of the reviews. I guess the effect I was looking for in chapter 12 worked judging from what many of you said. This chapter is a little long and very angsty for Don. Please enjoy and feel free to voice your opinions. Some of you may not be too pleased with how I wrote Alan in this chapter but after considerable thought it seemed quite plausible to me.
Enjoy,
Alice
Chapter Thirteen
Alan had long since finished dinner and had set aside four plates of food for Charlie, Don, David and Agent O'Donnell. Don had called him earlier and told him that he had assigned an agent to stay with Charlie which made Alan breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed lately, that the family home had become a bit a of second Bureau office since this FBI Killer had appeared in LA and started killing agents.
Alan didn't mind all of the activity. He made it his business to keep a pot of hot coffee and lots of left-overs available for who ever showed up. This way he felt like he was doing his small part to help the investigation. It also kept his mind less occupied with the fear for his eldest that needled him nearly constantly since all of this had begun.
He and his friend Stan had put a lot of work into their consulting business but Stan had taken over the bulk of the work over the last couple of weeks as Alan felt more and more of a need to be home and available to his sons. Alan had confided in Stan about his concerns not only for Don but how worried he had become over Charlie's reaction to the case. Stan understood clearly how his new partner was feeling and had assured him that he should be there for his family and not to worry about any of the client meetings that had been arranged for the month.
It was getting late and Charlie had not come home yet. Alan thought about going down to the university and trying to drag him away from his work but decided that the agent assigned to him probably had orders from Don to do just exactly that after a certain hour.
Don usually pushed Charlie harder for an answer when he was consulting on a case that had no discernable results so Alan was somewhat stunned to learn that Don had actually considered pulling Charlie from this case because of his anxiety attacks. Alan had tried to convince Charlie to step away from this case without success and David told him that he had also spoken with Charlie about backing out but his youngest had a powerful stubborn streak.
As much as Alan hated what was happening, Charlie had made a valid point. Don needed him and he knew it. If anyone could decipher the code left by this killer it was Charlie.
After cleaning the kitchen, washing up all of the dishes and making a fresh pot of coffee Alan went into the living room and flipped on the eleven o'clock news. It bothered him that he had not heard from either of his sons yet this evening and he was hoping to distract himself from the gnawing worry that had started up yet again.
He had picked up the newspaper and planned on doing the crossword puzzle while he listened to the news but the lead story made him sit bolt upright in his chair.
"An explosion at a local university sent the Pasadena fire department on high alert this evening. There was apparently a pipe bomb explosion at Cal Sci which has drawn the attention of not only the arson investigators but the FBI as well."
The camera zoomed in on Don and David standing next to the smoldering ruin of what looked like one of those wire mesh trash cans that are placed all around the walkways. Don was talking on his cell phone and the look on his face drew Alan right out of his chair. His son looked stricken and the news woman reporting the explosion also seemed to see this as her report went on.
"Could this have something to do with the FBI Killer? The agent in charge, Don Eppes, looks as though something far more serious than a pipe bomb explosion may have occurred here this evening…"
Alan watched the face of his son and felt his stomach drop out when Don dropped his phone and fell to his knees. Alan was out the door before the reporter had finished her next sentence.
The ride to Cal Sci took all of five minutes. Alan brought his car to a screeching halt at the far end of the east quad parking lot. The rest of the lot had been roped off by the police and fire department. Alan got out of his car and started for the quad when he was intercepted by a police officer.
"I'm sorry sir, you can't go over there."
"That's my son over there!" Alan said frantically pointed toward Don who was huddled around at least a half dozen agents.
The officer wasn't convinced and still refused Alan to go past. "Don!"
Don looked up at the sound of hid father's voice and felt his heart jump into his throat. "Oh my God, what is he doing here?"
David patted Don on the shoulder before walking quickly over to where Alan was still trying to get past the police officer. As he approached he pulled his ID out and addressed the officer. "Its ok officer, he's with us."
The policeman looked curiously at David. It was quite obvious that Alan was a civilian and did not belong behind the lines of a crime scene, but the FBI had higher authority here than his department. He shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside and Alan practically charged past the man.
"David, I saw you and Don on the news. What happened? Where's Charlie? David, I have to know."
They both walked quickly back toward the scene and Don met them halfway. He had regained his professional decorum quickly after his initial shock. One of the Pasadena police officers had seen the TV crew filming Don as he spoke on his cell phone and stepped up in front of the camera blocking the view. The camera man tried to get a shot of Don as David helped him to his feet while the reporter complained about first amendment rights. The officer simply stated that this was an ongoing investigation and the press was not welcome to interfere. This elicited an argument from the reporter that the officer knew he would loose but he had accomplished what he had set out to do. Don had recovered from his shock and had moved off with David out of the line of sight of the cameras.
As Don approached his father his stomach clenched. 'How do I tell him that Charlie has been taken by this mad man?' Alan stared right into Don's eyes and felt his heart sink.
"What happened, Donnie? Its Charlie isn't it? Tell me the truth, son."
Don glanced up to make sure that the cameras couldn't intrude on this moment and placed a hand on his father's shoulder steering him around the back of the fire truck away from the camera and the assembled agents.
"Dad, another agent has been abducted."
"And Charlie? Where is Charlie, Donnie?"
Don placed both hands on his father's shoulders before answering. "Charlie was with him and was also taken."
Alan knew what Don was going to say before he said it but that didn't lessen the impact of hearing the fact that his youngest son was now in the hands of a deranged killer. "Why Donnie? Why did he take Charlie? He's not an FBI agent! Damn it Don! Why did he take my boy?"
Don had no answer for his father. He couldn't bring himself to repeat what had been said to him by this killer about Charlie paying the price for his mistake. "I shouldn't have let him stay on this case, Dad. This is all my fault."
Alan sat down hard on the bumper of the fire truck. "Charlie was taken because he was working on this case; because he was working with you?" Alan felt a palpable fear well up inside of him. That fear turned quickly to anger and he lashed out at Don. "I've told you before that this is not the life that Charlie chose for himself and I've asked you not to choose it for him! This should never have happened. Your brother is a teacher. He doesn't belong in your world!" Alan's voice rose as fear took hold of his heart. "How is he going to live through this, when none of the trained agents who have encountered this maniac have?"
Don stepped back stunned by his father's words. He had voiced the deepest fear in Don's own heart. There is no way that Charlie would not survive if they didn't find him before this killer…
Don couldn't even finish the thought. The sense of guilt that he had been feeling came crushing down like an anvil had been dropped on him. Alan got up and pushed past his oldest. He regretted what he had said but there was so much fear and anger rolling through him at that moment that he couldn't take it back no matter how much the rational side of him wanted to.
Don reached out to his father. "Dad…"
Alan turned and looked at Don. His face was a mask of pure fury mixed with fear as silent tears rolled down his cheeks. "You go find your brother. Find him before its too late!" With that, Alan turned and walked away without looking back.
Don didn't blame his father for what he had said to him. He was absolutely right. His father's last words echoed over and over in Don's head. 'You go find your brother. Find him before its too late!'
Don rejoined the group of agents who were pointedly avoiding his direct gaze. Alan's angry words had been heard by all of them and they each harbored their own thoughts about how right or fair they thought the encounter was. Don took a moment to look over the agents who had come directly to the Cal Sci campus. He waited until he had everyone's eyes on him.
"All right people, you heard my father. We need to find them before we loose another agent or our consultant. Forty-five minutes passed from the time Jon called in the bombing and I spoke with the killer. I am assuming that by that time they had already arrived at their destination and both Jon and Charlie had already been subdued. Let's figure at least ten to fifteen minutes to knock out both of them and secure them. That would have given them a drive time of somewhere between fifteen and thirty minutes."
Don laid out a map of Pasadena and the surrounding territory on the hood of his SUV.
"That is going to give us an approximately fifty mile square territory to cover since we do not know what direction traveled when they left."
"What about the PEMS system that Charlie showed us? Cant the traffic cams at least give us a direction to start in?" Megan asked looking carefully at the map.
"I have called Merrick and he has gone into the office to coordinate communications. He will be logging into the PEMS system and has also put out a high alert APB on Jon's car. LAPD have been authorized to use two of their aerial units to help us locate the vehicle. As soon as we have a direction we can narrow the search, but until then I want everyone to take a grid."
Don pulled a marker out of his jacket pocket and drew a large grid like a tic tac toe board across the map.
"We are separating from our pairs so that we can cover a larger area more quickly. The killer is occupied so there is no chance of anyone else being abducted right now. Megan you take this section between Pemberton moving south down to Lexington and as far west as Berkshire. Colby you have Berkshire from Lexington east to Hillshire and north up to Jackson. Bryan you take the next section that runs parallel to Colby from Hillshire down to the ten…"
By the time everyone had their grid assignments it was eleven thirty. "Remember people, this killer is not going to choose a crowded place like a mall or establishment that is open. Concentrate on places that are closed for the weekend. Let's move. Call anything that you find into Merrick immediately. He will coordinate us with LAPD, so take your ques from him."
Don and David were going to drive together because there simply wasn't time to go and get David's car. As they got in and drove out of the parking lot toward their search area David turned to Don. "If we believe that the killer was outside Charlie's house the other night then how is it that Jon was the next intended victim? What was the killer doing there if not scoping out your movements or mine?"
"Charlie. He was looking at Charlie, not you or me. If Jon was the next target then the only thing that makes sense is that assigning Jon to Charlie was a pure stroke of luck to our killer. He said that Charlie was going to pay the price for my mistake. Getting him involved with this case made Charlie a target."
They drove in silence for a time before Don started speaking in a voice that sounded strained and hopeless. "David, I should have listened to you. I should have pulled Charlie from this case as soon as you told me what was happening with him."
"Don, you can't blame yourself for what happened. Charlie wouldn't hear of backing away from this. I tried and so did your father. Charlie can be kind of stubborn you know."
"Dad" Don said it quietly his voice full of pain. "God, David if anything happens to Charlie…
He'll never forgive me. I won't be able to forgive myself."
All the time that Don was speaking he was scanning the streets and back alleys for Jon's car. David was also scanning his side of the road.
"Don, you're father was upset and scared. I really don't think he meant to sound so harsh."
"Harsh or not, he was right. Charlie is a mathematics professor, not an FBI agent. Dad's right he doesn't belong in my world, David and I keep dragging him in. He should never have been brought in on this case. I've come to rely on him too much and it has to stop."
'I just pray that I still have a choice to pull the plug on the consulting.'
The only sighting that was reliable on the PEMS system showed Jon's car leaving the campus and turning west. The agents were informed of this and two had been reassigned to different search grids but it was still a huge territory to cover. It was past midnight and Jon's black Lexus was not going to be easy to spot in the dark. Don had tried Charlie's cell again only to have it switch immediately to voice mail. The killer had obviously turned the phone off after his first call.
The night passed by slowly with no results and Don was becoming more and more agitated. The strain was really beginning to show when Don had started to loose focus and nearly drove into a parked car but he refused to stop until they found Charlie and Jon. At that point however David took over the driving.
Horrific images kept invading Don's thoughts which kept enough adrenaline pumping through him that he couldn't have slept if he wanted to. Don thought of his father and the look of anger and fear in his eyes several times throughout the night. If he didn't find Charlie soon enough he knew that he would never be able to look his father in the face again. There wouldn't be anyone left for him; his whole life would be meaningless.
'You go find your brother. Find him before its too late!'
By five thirty Don and David had finished their search grid and found nothing. Don had called Merrick to check on the progress of the others only to find that everyone else had come up empty as well and Don slammed his fist against the dash. David turned the SUV around and started to head toward downtown LA.
At quarter to six the sun was coming up and Don's cell rang shrilly. "Eppes! Where? We can be there in ten minutes, have LAPD secure the scene."
David was looking expectantly at Don.
"LAPD found Jon's car in the back parking lot of Bell Publications on New High Street near North Main and West Arcadia. Step on it David! Colby will probably get there first he's at Broadway and Temple. Megan's at Grand and Sunset. They will move in as soon as they arrive."
'Please, God don't let us be too late.'
David punched the accelerator and traveled south on Pasadena Ave down to North Broadway doing nearly seventy miles an hour. They arrived at the location within seven minutes and found Megan and Colby just climbing up onto the loading dock at the rear of the building.
Don jumped out before David had even stopped the SUV and ran full tilt over to Megan and Colby. An LAPD officer was waiting for the agents by the rear door of the building. The lock had been broken off. Colby pointed up to the corner of the building.
"Surveillance camera; if this is where he went in we may have just caught a break."
The LAPD officer stepped forward. "I'm officer Mick O'Hare. The lock was obviously broken. I went in but didn't hear anything. There is a long corridor that leads to the main printing room on the other side of the building. There are two bodies back there strapped with what looks like duct tape to a couple of make shift tables. I didn't get any closer to the bodies because I was told to only secure the scene. There was no evidence of movement anywhere in the print room or any of the offices along the corridor so I came back out here to wait for you guys."
Don had stopped hearing anything that officer O'Hare said after 'There are two bodies back there'. The stricken look on his face registered on all present including the LAPD officer.
Megan placed a hand on Don's arm and felt his body shaking. "Don, maybe we should go in first."
Don didn't respond in anyway to Megan. He pulled open the door and drew his weapon. Megan, Colby and David followed closely behind him. Don checked all the corners as he proceeded forward down the corridor. His stomach had turned to ice and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
'There are two bodies back there.'
'You go find your brother. Find him before its too late!'
'There are two bodies back there.'
'I'm so sorry Dad.'
When Don turned the corner into the large print room of the publisher he saw two tables made of crossed wooden planks screwed to saw horses. On each of these plank tables were the forms of Agent Jon O'Donnell, with his chest cut open and his heart removed, and his little brother Charlie.
Charlie was closest to him. He was blind folded and covered in blood. Something was on his bared chest. It looked like a piece of paper and as Don drew closer he could see that a sheet of thick paper like from a sketch pad had literally been stapled to his brother's chest. 'Oh God, Charlie!' There was something written on the paper in black marker.
'Vado tergum ut vestri ordo cella magister'
Don lowered his weapon and by force of habit holstered it. He moved slowly over to Charlie as tears stung his eyes. He was too late. He had lost his little brother. Charlie had a deep laceration around his neck that had obviously bled quite a bit but as Don looked more closely he realized that a lot of the blood covering his brother's face and neck was not his. He looked over at Jon and that is when he noticed that Charlie's fingers were touching the agent's fingers. It looked as though they were trying to reach for each other.
Colby and Megan had come up beside Don quietly looking over the horrific scene. While David moved carefully around the tall stacks of paper to make sure the area was secure and that the killer was not still in the room.
"What is that? It looks like Latin." Colby said as he stared down at the paper that had two industrial sized staples through it affixing it to the young man's breast bone. Blood stained the top third of the page but the black marker was easy to read through the stain.
Megan was studying the words and a distinct note of hope entered her voice. "It is Latin Granger. It says 'Go back to your class room professor'."
Don shot a quick look at her then back to his brother. He put a shaky hand on Charlie's neck and nearly fell to his knees as relief washed over him like a tidal wave. There was a pulse, strong and steady.
"He's alive! Call an ambulance!" Don turned his face skyward. 'Thank you God.'
