A/N – This chapter is kind of short because I am in a quandary that you the reader might be able to help me with. Charlie did what he did to try and get the contract lifted from his head and Don's. Here is my problem:
1. Charlie didn't know that the FBI was going to raid Saborgia's place because Pretoria had been spotted.
2. The FBI didn't know that Charlie had traded information about Saborgia's embezzlement with DiBenedetto to get the contract rescinded.

The FBI teams essentially walked into a Mob civil war set into motion by Charlie and the end result was the death of an Agent that Charlie cared about.
I do not know if Charlie can be held legally liable in that agent's death. If he could be it would be thin but how is Charlie going to react to this? I want to keep him in character as well as Don, Megan, David etc. I am torn on what direction I should take the characters now. I have essentially written myself into a corner with this plot twist and Dan's death.

- Charlie will be devastated; that makes sense and fits with his character but it what he does about it has me befuddled.
- Megan is torn up about loosing an agent and a friend under her command. How will she react to Charlie that would be "in character" for her?
- How will Don respond when he finds out that not only did Charlie do something incredibly dangerous but the result of that action was the death of one of his team?

The most important thing here is to keep the characters 'in character' even if that means a not so happy ending. If there is no way to accomplish this adequately then I will go back and change the last chapter so that no one on the FBI team dies. I don't really want to do that because with the type of firefight that happened it would be highly unlikely that no agents were killed.

Any feedback concerning this would be greatly appreciated. I seriously appreciate your sticking with me through this unbelievably LONG story. It is incredibly complex and that is one of the reasons it has taken so darned long to finish. Well that and the fact that my muse has gone completely overboard with this tale. :-)

Chapter Forty-Seven

Ever since Agent Parker had left to go get Charlie Don had anxiously waited by the phone. He had stopped thinking about the operation at Saborgia's because all of his thoughts were focused on Charlie.

'Why did he leave the safe house? Charlie never does anything without a reason. He's been working on helping to pinpoint the informant within the FBI by examining Saborgia's finances. Did he come across some other information in his research; something that would make him leave the safe house without telling anyone? How'd he get all the way across town without a car? Parker said that he wasn't far from here. What were you doing Charlie?'

Don couldn't stand just sitting there with no answers so he decided that it was time to get some on his own. He wheeled himself up to the desk in front of the phone staring at it. He wanted answers about what Charlie was doing but he was unsure at the moment how to proceed. His head was pounding and he was still feeling dizzy and had some difficulty focusing.

A young nurse stepped up to him and said, "Agent Eppes, you should be resting now."

"I couldn't rest right now if my life depended on it. Thank you for your concern but I need answers, not sleep."

Don gave her what he hoped was a charming smile hoping that she would not try to pull rank and order him to bed. It seemed to work because she turned and went back to her charts. Don sat there looking at the phone trying to decide who he should call to get the most information about Charlie. His father obviously had no idea that Charlie was up to something and even if he knew something he was on his way to the hospital. No he needed to speak to someone who understood how Charlie's mind worked. Someone who knew him well enough to be able to interpret his actions and put them into a coherent picture. Someone Charlie may have confided in…

"Larry!"

"Excuse me?"

Don hadn't realized that he had said Larry's name out loud until the young nurse spoke in confusion. Don was internally chiding himself for not having thought of it sooner.

"I need to call Larry. Do you have a phone book, Miss?"

The nurse looked curiously at her patient before pulling open the large bottom drawer near the middle of the unit desk. She pulled out a large set of white pages and put them on the desk in front of Don. He opened the book and began trying to find Larry's name but his eyes were still slightly blurry and he was having difficulty tracking the small print on the pages.

"What is the last name? I'll find it for you."

Don smiled gratefully up at her. "Fleinhardt, Larry… um... Lawrence Fleinhardt."

It took her a moment flipping through the pages to find Larry's number then she dialed it for him. As soon as the phone started ringing she handed the receiver to Don.

"Hello?"

"Um… Hi, Larry. It's Don Eppes."

Don heard Larry exclaim "Oh my God!" as the phone seemed to drop and hit the floor or the table. Don had to pull the handset away from his ear until the loud clattering on the other end stopped.

"Larry!"

After a moment the physicist's voice came back on the line sounding slightly shaky.

"D…Don? I thought… I mean we were told… Is that really you, Don? You're supposed to be dead!"

Don had forgotten that outside of a few agents and now the staff in the isolation ward everyone else thought that he had been killed over a week ago.

"Larry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Let's just say that the reports of my death have been somewhat exaggerated."

"Exaggerated! Don, my God… Does Charlie know? Are you… are you all right?"

"I was pretty banged up in that explosion, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Explosion? What are you talking about? Are you referring to the terrorist attack at County General?"

"It's a long story. Listen Larry, I'm calling about Charlie. He left the safe house tonight. He snuck out so that no one would know where he went. I need to know what he has been doing. Look Larry, you are his best friend and I'm hoping that he told you something."

There was a pause before Larry began stammering.

"I… Don, I haven't spoken… Charles left? Oh my, oh dear… This most disadvantageous."

"Larry! Look, this is important. I need to know what you know or even what you suspect."

Larry sighed heavily before speaking again.

"The last time I spoke to Charles he and your father had just been taken to that safe house. This was the same day that I saw the news broadcast stating that the FBI Killer had claimed her last victim. You supposedly died of complications from the injury that she inflicted. Charles was devastated, Don; I have only ever heard him cry once before that day. I just don't know how much I should say. I promised Charles that I would stay out of this."

"Larry, I know that he asked you not to say anything but I have to know."

"He asked me to purchase a particular software package and e-mail the program to his laptop in a zip file."

"A program? What kind of program?"

"Its called 'Evidence Eliminator'. It's a data scrubbing program that is designed to wipe a hard drive clean so that even using the most sophisticated forensic analysis equipment no information that has passed through the internet to the computer or had previously been stored on the device can be recovered after the program had been run on the system."

"I'm familiar with it. He wants to hide what he has been doing. Why? He was working openly with David and Megan. They know that he was investigating Saborgia's finances to find the mole."

Don thought for a moment. Charlie had asked Larry to get this software before he started working with David and Megan so it wasn't about that.

"Larry, I need you to tell me everything that Charlie said to you when you spoke to him."

"He sent me an e-mail with the website address to buy this software. He told me to not say anything to anyone about this not even Amita. He wanted me to use a computer in the student union but I decided to take this off campus. I opened an account under an alias to transfer the money to purchase the program and bought it then e-mailed it from a cyber café down the street from Cal Sci."

Don raised his eyebrows at Larry's tactics. He was thinking like an agent… or a criminal; depending on your point of view.

"Larry what else did he say. I can't imagine that you would do this kind of thing without asking why."

"He said that he couldn't tell me what this was about and he begged me not to ask. He said it was something that he had to do for himself and for you. What bothered me was what he said after that. He wanted me to tell Amita that he loved her. He hasn't even had a successful date with her yet but now he wanted to make sure that she knew his feelings for her. The nature of this admission unnerved me quite a bit."

"Did you tell her?"

"I thought that he should tell her that himself. Don, please tell me he is all right."

It was Don's turn to be silent. If Charlie had told Larry to tell Amita he loved her then he was worried that he might not be around to tell her himself. He wanted a data scrubber to erase what he has been doing. He told Larry that he needed to do what ever he was doing for Don and for himself. What could Charlie do that would resolve the situation? What could a math genius do to get rid of a mob contract on their lives? Even with the concussion and pounding in his head Don felt his blood run cold as all of the pieces started falling into place.

"Don? Has something happened to Charles?"

"I don't know the answer to that yet, Larry. He was using a cell phone that had a locator chip in it. He didn't know about that chip. The agent who was here with me has gone to get him. I'll know more later. Look, Larry I promise I'll call you as soon as I know what's going on. I have an idea what Charlie might have been doing but until he gets here I won't know for sure. Until this is resolved you can't tell anyone that we spoke, not even Amita all right?"

"I understand, but call me as soon as you can. It has been such a weight off of my heart to learn that you are alive and well. I would dearly love to give that same gift of relief to Amita. She is as distraught over this as I have been."

Don was taken back by these words.

"You and Amita were… It was me; not Charlie…"

"Don, you and your father are as dear to both of us as Charles is. How could you not know that?"

"I… I just thought that… You are Charlie's friends…
...You know what Larry, I'm sorry. You're right of course. I guess I just never thought about it like that."

"That's quite all right, Don. Just call me as soon as you can. It doesn't matter what time it is."

"I will, Larry and thanks."

When Don hung up the phone he felt a little choked up. The fact that Larry and Amita had mourned his death both disturbed and touched him. It had really never occurred to him that they would take his death so hard. If it had been Charlie he would have expected nothing less, but he hadn't realized how close he was to the various people in his life. The emotional detachment that was a necessary survival tactic in his line of work had clouded his realization that he had touched so many lives so deeply and vice versa. If anything had ever happened to either Larry or Amita he would be heart broken by their loss not only for Charlie's sake but for himself as well.


Alan and Agent Warner arrived at Huntington's Emergency room shortly after the ambulance carrying Charlie. Trip met them at the door and guided Alan over to the intake desk so that he could sign Charlie officially into the ER. Alan desperately wanted to go and see his son but he understood that he needed to fill out this paperwork while the doctors examined Charlie.

"Agent Niagara, please tell me the truth; how badly was Charlie hurt?"

"Alan, I'm not a doctor…"

Alan gave him a look that clearly said 'Don't evade my question or there will be hell to pay'.

"…but he was pretty banged up. He has been beaten badly and is unconscious. It looks like his arms were held behind his back because there were no obvious injury to them. His face was too swollen to see much. The EMT's mentioned broken ribs and he is heavily bruised around his chest and belly."

Alan stood steady as he listened even though his knees felt like buckling. He turned back to the forms and began filling them out as a silent tear dropped down his cheek. Trip put a gentle hand on the older man's shoulder for support. Once Alan had finished he asked if he could go back and see his son. The ER receptionist told him to take a seat in the waiting room and she would find out when he could go back.

Jess asked if he should go back up to the isolation ward to speak to Charlie's brother but Trip told him to stay here with Mr. Eppes. He would go up and speak to the agent. He asked Healy to text Bob Paxton with an update on the situation and to call as soon as they were done with their joint operation with the FBI Tac teams. Once all of the situational arrangements had been made Trip walked over to the elevators to go and give the news of his brother to Agent Eppes.