As usual, Don elected to take the stairs when climbing up to Charlie's hole in the wall office, David trailing in his wake. It was faster, and, given the age and condition of the elevator, safer. They passed several students in the hall, one or two giving them a look—little old to be taking classes, aren't you?—but nothing out of the ordinary. The building was old by California standards, built almost eighty years ago, and the cinder block walls had been painted and repainted so many times that the paint was likely thicker than the blocks.
Still, it was Charlie's home away from home. Don's feet knew the way by heart, and he let them lead him to his brother's office, pushing the door open and letting himself in, ready to excuse himself if his brother was entertaining a needy student. He briefly held back at the sound of voices, but went forward when he recognized one of those voices as Amita's. Her presence wouldn't stop him; more fool Charlie who couldn't see how much she cared for him. I should talk; me and my great love life.
"I'm sure Dr. Eppes just got caught up in something," Amita was saying. Don caught sight of another dark head, one attached to a tall and dark and well-developed body with a grungy beard. Better watch out there, brother, if you don't want to get left in the dust. "I'll let him know that you were here. Does that problem make more sense now? You understand how to apply the significance testing?"
"I do now." That white-toothed smile was fit for a toothpaste commercial and full of an unvoiced invitation. But Amita dismissed the student, and turned her own smile onto Don and David. "Hi, guys. Come on in. Have you seen Charlie?"
"Uh, no." Don's own welcoming smile frayed around the edges. "We were looking for him. You haven't seen him?"
"He missed three appointments this morning, and I'm scrounging to cover his afternoon class," Amita said. She frowned, the exasperation not quite covered up. "He's not answering his cell."
"And he's not at home," Don added. "I know Charlie can get caught up in things, but this is going a little far even for him. Have you tried Larry?"
"First thing this morning, when Charlie's first appointment turned up," Amita told him. The exasperation melted as the implications sank in. "Don, I'm getting worried. His car's not in the parking lot."
"Which means that he's not here," Don said, thinking. Where could his brother have gone to?
"Should I start panicking?" Amita asked, ready to begin on the spot if Don gave the word.
"Not yet," Don hastened to say. "He could be anywhere. David, get on the horn. Touch base with LAPD, see if there were any accidents with John Does. I'll try the hospitals in the area."
"Charlie carried ID," Amita objected. "They would have called your father."
"Let's just start there, shall we?" Don didn't want to tell her that she was right. Don himself was listed as next of kin, and with his FBI background would have gotten a call if anything had happened to his brother. An unpleasant thought crept into his head: Charlie had NSA clearance, and that particular agency would not be best pleased to hear that one of its sometime consultants had gone missing. Don never knew when Charlie was working on something with national security significance, and there might be something worrisome going on that Don hadn't been told of, something that some enemy power might find intriguing. The NSA might even be displeased enough at Charlie's disappearance to send a squad of highly motivated agents to help Don track his brother down, leaving chaos and terror in their wake. A glance at David told him that the other man had just realized the same thing.
On the other hand, alerting the airports to keep foreign agents from removing one highly respected mathematician from his country of origin might be a very sensible precaution.
Now who was letting things getting out of hand? There was a reason that a Missing Persons report wasn't filed for twenty-four hours. People showed up in that time period with perfectly rational explanations for their disappearance. And, let's face it: Charlie was one of the flakier types around. He was perfectly capable of getting so distracted by a math problem that the rest of the world could be hit by a meteor and he wouldn't notice. Charlie could have gone off on some consulting project for some global business and forgotten to notify his father and brother. He could be sitting on a park bench somewhere with a pad of paper, calculating the number of stars in the sky. Don even remembered finding Charlie doing that one night, on the beach, when the kid was only fourteen. Hah, Don hadn't thought of that beach house for years. Rental place, probably torn down by now to make way for a multi-million dollar celebrity hide-out. Charlie couldn't possibly be there. Not even Charlie could be that out of touch. I hope.
"Okay, let's do a rational search," he compromised. "Amita, your job is CalSci. You know where Charlie might hide out: in the library, in the computer room. Talk to people there, see if anyone's seen him in the past twenty four hours. Try to get into his email and see if anyone's invited him anywhere recently. Hopefully he doesn't have it locked under a password, but if anyone can crack his code it would be you, Amita. You have my cell; call in every two hours. David, yours is LAPD, and I'll tackle the hospitals. Amita, David and I will head back to headquarters, and I'll get a team started on this."
"You do think something's happened to him."
"Let's just say that I need to be a little extra cautious with a man of his background," Don temporized. That's it, Don. Take refuge in your professional background. Stay calm and collected. That's how you can find your brother. "Can you do your part?"
Amita nodded. "I'll get Larry to help."
Don agreed. "That would be good." A full professor was likely to run into fewer road blocks than a graduate student. Obstacles, they didn't need. They had enough without creating more.
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The car stopped. It was a blessing; Charlie already felt as though he was one massive bruise.
The trunk opening up was less of a blessing. Light pierced inside and through Charlie's head like a number ten iron spike; the groan that emerged was entirely warranted, despite the light being meager moonlight. Where ever they were, it was night.
Randall was the one who had opened the trunk. Flexing those pecs that Megan had once admired, he lifted Charlie around so that he could face him. Ralph was close behind.
Was this it? Deserted area—Charlie could see nothing but rocks and the occasional cactus behind his kidnapper. This would be the perfect place to dispose of a body. Good bye, Dad. Hello, Mom. Didn't think I'd be seeing you this soon.
That wasn't Randall's intention. He ripped the sleeve off of Charlie's arm, exposing a vein. A long needle glinted in the moonlight, a droplet of fluid leaking from the sharp end.
"If you're smart," Randall said grimly, "you'll tell them that you never saw who it was. It shouldn't be hard. This stuff," and he nodded at the syringe in his hand, "will help. You'll be seeing polka-dotted elephants before too long. Even if you try to tell that brother of yours who did it, he'll never believe you. Consider yourself lucky. And warned. Don't mess with either one of us." He jammed the needle into Charlie's arm. The yelp got smothered by the gag, and then The Great Vervette slammed the trunk closed on him.
Darkness once again.
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Colby leaned back in his chair, eager for action, wanting a lead. "Vanished. What the hell happened to him?"
Megan bit her lip. "We can't let this go on much longer, Don. We have to call the NSA; let them know that Charlie's missing."
"Yeah." Don pushed back the feeling of despair. He was an FBI agent, wasn't he? This was his business, finding lost people. How could this have happened to his brother, of all people? Where the hell was he? Don glanced at his watch, as if it would tell him something. "One more hour, then I'll kick it up to them. That'll be twenty-four hours.
"Let's run through the timeline," he continued. "Larry Fleinhardt was the last to see him, yesterday afternoon. They talked about the Splatter Effect, or something like that, in connection with the closed kidnapping case that Charlie was so hot over. Larry tells him about some reviewer, some guy who disagreed with Charlie over some theory. Charlie wrote a nasty response, according to Larry. We know that he finished it, because Larry called the publisher of the journal and verified that they received it, spelling errors and all."
"That brings us to seven PM, Pacific Time, last evening," David said. "That's when the email containing the response was sent, and that works in with how long it would take Charlie to write the response, according to Larry and Amita."
"Then he disappears." Colby leaned forward. "He gets into his car, and poof! He vanishes. Where did he go?"
"Nobody hears from him," Megan mused. "No response to cell phones, there's no accidents involving him or his car. Not even any speeding tickets."
"Which is the most likely way we'd catch up with him." Don needed to grumble, needed to grouch. Anything else would have emerged as a wail, and that wouldn't help.
Colby summed it up: "Where the hell is he?"
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It wasn't polka-dotted elephants, but coyotes with iridescent butterfly wings did visit him. They nipped him all over, sending Charlie writhing in the trunk with imaginary pain. Maybe not so imaginary—every time he rolled over, something else hurt. And his head was still killing him. The only good thing was that some time during his frenzied travels, the gag had worked itself loose and hung like a cheap necklace around his neck, soaking up the sweat.
Words floated out of his mouth, and his drug-induced haze gave them substance even in the dark interior of the trunk of the car. Verbs tended to look green, and nouns were red. Adverbs were the best: beige with dark speckles. Good thing he didn't have the latest codes for the NSA, 'cause he was spouting out everything in his brain. Ralphie baby and Ken-doll were in there, too. He made astounding breakthroughs with the Cognitive Emergence stuff he was working on, frustrated because in the next moment he couldn't remember what he'd said, only that it had been brilliant.
Somewhere, in the rational back part of his brain, he realized that what Ken had told him was correct. That even if Charlie told Don what had happened, they'd never believe him. They'd think it was just more drug-induced hallucinations, fueled by Charlie's own distaste for the psychic.
Damn. Maybe it really was an hallucination. Maybe Ralph and Ken had nothing to do with anything. That's what the crowbar underneath him kept saying as it stabbed him in the ribs.
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Time's up. The seconds ticking away on the clock on the wall were no one's friends. It was time to pick up the phone, to call his Area Director, to notify the NSA. It was time to watch it all hit the fan, watch everyone descend on his team and blame them for everything from Charlie's disappearance to the elevated pollution index this morning in the L.A. basin. Don held his head in his hands, wanting to bang it against the wall. It would hurt less.
His team was there, supporting him. Every one of them had called in all the favors they had, searching for his brother, running down leads so far-fetched as to be laughable. Nothing had panned out. Charlie was gone.
It was time. With a deep sigh, Don reached for the phone.
"Knock, knock. Excuse me, Mr. Eppes?"
It was the last person Don wanted to see: The Great Vervette. Finding kids was all very good, but when it came right down to it, there must have been something that they'd overlooked. Charlie knew that, had tried to tell him. Don hadn't listened. He'd known it, deep in his bones, but he hadn't listened to Charlie. He'd allowed the opportunity to needle Charlie override his good sense. If psychics were for real, then the Bureau would have recommended hiring a few on a permanent basis.
"Not a good time, Ralph," Don tried to say.
The Great Vervette interrupted him. "I'm sure it isn't, Mr. Eppes. But I'm getting this overwhelming sense that someone is missing. Someone very close to you. Isn't that right?"
You could say that. "Ralph—"
"Let me help," The Great Vervette offered. Sincerity oozed from him. He looked around the office, noting who was there—and who wasn't. His eyes widened. "It's your brother, isn't it? The non-believer."
"Ralph—"
"This is amazing!" he breathed. "Your brother has almost no aura whatsoever, and yet, I know where he is! Yes, exactly where he is!"
"What?"
The Great Vervette had been amusing during the kidnapping cases, embarrassing to Charlie, and supportive to terrified parents. He was none of those things now. He was hope. Don fastened onto his words. Ralph can't possibly be for real. But what if he is? What if he can find Charlie?
"I know where he is," Ralph Maurer enunciated clearly. He leaned forward. "He is in great danger. There is no time to lose."
Crap. This wasn't a lead, it was a false hope, but Don didn't dare turn anything down. Orders came out: "Megan, you notify the Area Director. Have him call the NSA, in case this doesn't work out. David, Colby, you're with me. We'll take the Suburban." Everyone would fit in that vehicle, and the portable siren was already inside. And there was a substantial first aid kit, as well, just in case. "Let's go."
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More babbling came out, this time directed at gila monster lizard wearing a blue sunbonnet with a daisy on the brim. Charlie's brain kept insisting that it was The Great Vervette in disguise, and that the cartoon Roadrunner beside it was Ken Randall. The Roadrunner held a note pad in its foot and a pencil in its mouth, balancing on the remaining foot.
"It's getting hot," Charlie's ears said, ignoring the fact that speech wasn't part of their job. His mouth didn't mind; it was on vacation with his great toe.
"That's right," the gila monster told him. "It's getting hard to breathe, too."
"Beep," the roadrunner agreed.
"It's not just the drugs," the gila monster added. "Bet you're getting dehydrated. Thirsty?"
All of Charlie agreed to that statement and said so, despite the fact that elbows and knees generally kept silent. In fact, his bellybutton was downright vociferous.
"Tough," the gila monster said. "Bet you're gonna die in this car trunk. Nobody realized that it would get so hot in here. You're going to die of thirst and dehydration. Then won't Don be sorry that he didn't listen to you?"
"Beep."
"Actually, on second thought, he won't," the gila monster mused. "He stills thinks that I'm for real. Stupid agent. Just as stupid as you, math man. You tried to play FBI agent."
"I didn't," Charlie cried out, knowing that his statement was false. What else could it have been? Don had told him to drop the case. Don had been right, which was why it was Charlie in this mess and not Don. He blinked away another bead of sweat, wishing he could cool off. That one of his hallucinations would turn into a tall glass of cool water, with ice. Even one of those iced coffee drinks with whipped cream would do. Anything, as long as it was cold.
"Yes, you did. Yes, you did," the gila monster chanted. "Yes, you did."
"Beep," the roadrunner sneered.
The pair of them drifted off into darkness. Charlie couldn't figure out if it was more hallucinations or because he was fading back into unconsciousness or because the drug was digging deeper but in the end it didn't matter. What did matter was that he didn't have to talk to The Great Vervette any more.
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Pushing the speedometer past one hundred usually gave Don Eppes an adrenaline thrill. This time he felt nothing but fear, fear that he'd never find his brother, or fear that he'd find him too late.
He multi-tasked, thinking over the equipment that he had stashed in the back end: rope, a high-powered sniper's rifle, water, ration bars—the good tasting ones, not the junk the Bureau handed out—blankets, a knife. A first aid kit, heavy duty with splints and bandages and even some left over burn ointment from that time that he'd burned his hand. That stuff wouldn't go bad, and would do more good in his kit than at home where he never was.
David too leaned forward, one hand on the dash to stabilize himself. Despite the heat of the early autumn sun, he'd donned a flak jacket, anticipating the worst, as had Colby in the back. Don hadn't yet put his own on, but that was only because he couldn't maneuver the truck at one hundred miles per hour and shove his arms into the thing at the same time.
There was no jacket for The Great Vervette, the man quivering in terror in the back seat at the speed they were making. Little whimpers emanated from him every time they hit a rut in the road, and there were a lot of ruts. Don didn't care. What he cared about was making good time, the siren on the roof pushing the majority of the traffic off to the side and the size of the Suburban convincing the rest of traffic to behave.
"Left! Go left!" Ralph shrilled. Don wrenched the Suburban to the left, both wheels on that side leaving the tarmac. They settled back on the road with a thump from the wheels and a screech from Ralph.
"How much farther?" Don grated out.
"Not far." Ralph clutched the back of the seat in terror, adding under his breath, "please let it be not much farther!"
Colby spared him a look, trying to hide his disgust. The Great Vervette had oh-so-accidentally bounced into him on more than one occasion until Colby had had the sense to lock him into the seat belt. That spared them both the casual contact.
But—
"There!" The Great Vervette called out. "There! Turn right! I feel it! Turn right! Not so fast," he begged. "Slow down."
"Where is he?"
"Out. I need to get out."
We need to go faster, and we can do that in the truck, Don thought. There's nothing here.
But there was. The Great Vervette hopped out of the Suburban, fell to his knees to kiss the ground in fervent relief, then staggered back to his feet.
"Where is he?" Don growled. He didn't have time for The Great Vervette's antics. There was no one here to impress, not even Ralph's newspaper buddy. Don and his team only wanted to get to Charlie. Did this bozo know where he was, or not?
"The aura grows weaker," The Great Vervette moaned. "I fear I may have difficulty finding him."
Don bit his tongue. Sarcasm would only hinder this guy. Charlie had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Don bit his tongue once more, watching The Great Vervette sniff the air, as if that was where this 'aura' of his was. Had Don dragged them all out here on a wild goose chase? Charlie would have said so, would have laughed this guy out of his office.
But Don didn't have a better option. All the good options had gone bust. The only thing left—besides Ralph—was for the NSA to dig into which foreign power had decided that an American mathematician was necessary for their future success on the world stage. Don couldn't do that part of the job. He could only watch in frustration as the NSA agents kept him out of the loop and into the looney bin. All Don had was Ralph.
This too was frustrating, watching Ralph skitter here and there, waving his arms around like a bad imitation of Houdini and Carnac the Magnificent.
David dug his fingers into Don's shoulder. "Keep it cool. Let him rant."
"Stay back!" The Great Vervette intoned. "I must feel the aura!"
"I can't take much more of this," Don gritted out between his teeth. "Get him to hurry up!"
The fingers dug in a little harder. "Now you know how those parents felt when their kids were missing."
"I don't need the lecture, David."
"You do need to pull back."
"I need my damn brother to turn up alive and well!"
"Then give Ralph space. Better yet, search where he isn't. Cover more ground."
Don started to glare at him, then closed his eyes. "Sorry, David. You didn't deserve that."
"It's what I'm here for," David murmured, releasing Don's shoulder. "You try over there. Colby's already got the northern end. I'll keep an eye on The Great Dingbat over there."
That almost turned up a smile. "You sound like Charlie. I thought you believed in Ralph."
"Let's just say I'm hedging my bets." David showed a flash of white teeth. "If you'd really listened to Charlie, you'd have heard him say that while Ralph was most likely a fraud, there was always the possibility that he was for real. I'm just surprised that he hasn't put numbers to that possibility."
"Guess I missed that part," Don replied, but he moved off in the direction that David had indicated. Guess I missed a lot of things, including Charlie himself.
Don kept his ears open, grinding his teeth every time he heard "the aura! I feel the aura!", but continued to search for anything that might lead him to his brother. There was nothing here but rocks and cacti, with the occasional lizard scurrying away from him. How could Ralph have thought that Charlie was here? What was he doing here? There wasn't a white board in sight, and Charlie would rarely spend time away from any place where he couldn't jot his numbers down. Don ought to be back in town, chasing down fruitless lead after fruitless lead. This was a wild goose chase—
"Don! Tire tracks!"
It was Colby's yell. Don jerked his head up; The Great Vervette had drifted into the area where Colby was searching, David in his wake, his arms upraised as though 'gathering in' Charlie's aura.
But there was nothing 'psychic' about the tire tracks. They were real, and they were fresh, and they were leading toward—
Damn, it was Charlie's car behind that sand drift! What the hell was it doing here, in the middle of nowhere? Don broke into a run, the others close behind. Ralph chose to move at a more sedate pace.
The car was empty, Don could see that at a glance. And it appeared unharmed. The windows were intact, the transmission was in park, and the keys were even in the ignition. But no one was inside.
"Charlie!" Don yelled, unable to believe that he'd found the car and not the man. It just wasn't fair! "Charlie!" He dropped to his knees to check underneath: nothing but sand.
"The trunk," Colby gasped, out of breath from trying to keep up.
Don grabbed the crowbar that David had dropped back to fetch, ramming the edge into the slender opening and popping it open. The lock flew out of its bolt hole, the metal ruined beyond repair. Don didn't care. He needed the trunk open now. He shoved his fingers onto the edge and heaved.
Charlie was there.
He was there, bound hand and foot, his dark curls plastered against his face with sweat and not moving. Eyes closed. Not responding. Don held his breath until he saw his brother take his own small breath—yes! He's alive!
"Charlie!" Don breathed, reaching in. "Charlie! Wake up!"
His brother groaned at him. "Dangling participles," he murmured, "with aspirations of asparagus."
"What?" Don couldn't believe that he'd heard correctly. "Charlie?" He slashed through the ropes binding his wrists together. "Charlie, who did this to you?"
Charlie hissed as the blood flood back into his wrists, trying to curl into a limp ball.
"Charlie," Don said urgently, "Charlie, stay with me, buddy. Who did this to you?" He looked over his shoulder; Colby was there. "Get me some water. He's badly dehydrated. Hurry."
"On it." Colby dashed back to the Suburban.
His brother looked bad, eyes sunken into deep hollows with a nasty looking lump that reached into his hairline. "Don?"
"I've got you, buddy. Who did this?"
"The Ken and Barbie dolls."
"What?"
"Barbie with the velvet dress."
"Dammit." His brother was out of his head. It could be the lump on his head—evidence of trauma—or the dehydration, or any combination of the two. Or—"dammit," Don snarled again, spotting the bruise on the inner part of Charlie's elbow. "They drugged him. Colby!" he yelled. "Where's that water?"
"Right here, boss." Colby materialized at his side, the water jug in one hand and a cup in the other, splashing some in. Charlie clutched at the cup like a drowning man reaching for a life saver, his hands shaking so badly that the water slopped over the sides of the cup. Colby steadied it for him, Don holding his brother tight and upright in the trunk of the car so that he could drink.
"David's calling for a med-evac," Colby added. He cast an eye up at the cloudless sky. "Shouldn't take 'em long." He felt along Charlie's neck, wincing at the touch. "Don, he's toasted from being inside that trunk. We need to get him cooled off. Let's get him into your truck and turn up the A.C."
Colby was right. Ralph watched, his eyes wide, as the pair of FBI men pulled the mathematician from the trunk of his own car, draping his arms over their necks and dragging him to Don's Suburban. Ralph bit his lip nervously. "Is he going to be all right?"
David splashed some water onto a stray cloth and handed it to Don inside the truck. "I hope so. He looks pretty far gone. Another twenty minutes…" he let his voice trail off. Don let the cool water dribble onto the heated skin, letting evaporation perform its magic.
"His breathing's getting easier," Don reported after a few minutes, "and his skin is getting cooler. David, go up front and turn down the A.C. Don't want him getting pneumonia on top of all this. How long before the chopper gets here?" Charlie's eyes had closed, and Don didn't like it, didn't like the limp way that Charlie lay in his arms.
Ralph watched as David went to the cab and turned the knob to low. The Suburban's engine was working hard in the desert heat, keeping the interior of the vehicle cool, the engine's thermometer rising under the onslaught. Barely seen inside was Don Eppes, trying to push more liquids down his brother's throat, holding Charlie upright so that he could swallow without choking. This is real, Ralph thought. That Eppes person almost died. That wasn't supposed to happen. We didn't know that the trunk would get so hot. Would it have made a difference to Ken if we had known?
Don looked up as if he felt Ralph's eyes upon him. He steadied the cup to Charlie's lips, helping him to sip. Charlie's movements were less frantic, less frenzied now that he was restoring the water levels inside. Don caught Ralph's eye. "Thank you," he said fervently. The hell with Charlie's theories. The Great Vervette is the real thing. "You pulled it off again. I owe you a big one."
Ralph flushed, but it could have been from the heat of the sun beating down on his head. He turned away, bumping into David coming back around to the rear of the Suburban where the action was.
"We all owe you, Ralph," David told him. He took hold of Ralph's shoulder, squeezing just hard enough to emphasize how deeply they all felt. "Charlie's one of us."
Ralph looked away, looked out across the barren sand. He bit his lip. "He almost died," he murmured. "He almost died."
