Chapter Twelve: You Think You Know Somebody.
Don stared at the yellow tape that crisscrossed the open doors to the courtroom. He was unsure as to why he had come up here. He really had intended to head back to the truck and drive like hell for the east side. The bastard who had made this thing happen, the one who was responsible for this was out there. And now, thanks to Marcus, Don knew where to look. He knew where to find him. And instead he was standing here in front of this room. The room where she had died. The room where Charlie…… No, he couldn't even bring himself to think that one. Don felt like he was being pulled by an unseen force as he ducked under the tape and entered the empty room. It had been well over three hours now since the incident began and this room was already a processed crime scene. He had to hand it to the FBI's CSI team. They were efficient. The coroner had come and gone and taken the bodies of the deceased with him. The jacket David had used to cover Robin's body was lying in a heap next to two large pools of blood. Their blood. The movement of the bodies and the efforts to stabilize Charlie before they had moved him had left bloody footprints all over the scene. And Don followed the trail with his eyes from one location to the next around the room. It was everywhere.
There was just so much blood.
The sound of shuffling feet tore his attention from the stained carpeting.
"They sent you, huh? I was betting on the psychologist."
David ducked under the yellow tape and stopped just inside the doorway. "No. She's too busy ripping Walker a new asshole for letting you talk to that kid. I'm afraid we're both AWOL right now."
He glanced up at the cameras.
"But they're bound to look at that wall of monitors eventually."
Silence filled the room as David searched for the words he needed to say. Don didn't let him get that far.
"You don't have to tell me that I need to pull myself together or that Robin wouldn't want me to go outside the law just to get this guy. I've been telling myself that all morning, David."
The younger agent nodded sympathetically.
"Don. When you where shot…..
He paused for a moment, cleared his throat and then continued.
"We wanted those bastards. We wanted them bad. They took off with Charlie and we knew…….man, we just knew what they'd do. We were ready to turn this city inside out to find him….to find the guys responsible for it."
He walked past Don and stood next to the witness stand.
"When Colby found out where that house was……he would have hit it…alone, no back-up, if it had meant saving Charlie's life. Or yours. We all would have."
Don turned his back to him, still David continued.
"I'm just saying they've made this personal for all of us, Don. And I know you want justice….."
Don turned quickly to face him, his eyes flashing. And David could see the rage building in his furrowed brow.
"Justice? Screw justice Justice died when she did, David!. I don't give a rat's ass about justice. I want vengeance. That's all I want. That is all I can focus on…….all I can think about. Text book retaliation."
David rubbed his hand over the top of his head.
"We want these guys too, Don. Every cop in this city, every agent in the bureau. They hit us all today."
Don nodded and took a step toward his friend.
"That's right, damn it! And I want to hit them back. Harder than they hit us. I want to retaliate with a force disproportionate to anything they could be capable of."
He stopped speaking suddenly and his eyes fixed on the large crimson stain that covered the carpet on the central walkway.
When he spoke again, Don's voice was smaller somehow……...
"But how, David? How do I do that? Nothing I can do to them………there's nothing I can do that will ever compare to this."
He gestured toward the blood on the floor.
"Look at what they took from me."
David had to bite back his own emotions when he walked up next to Don. They stood and started at the place where David had found Charlie, slowly bleeding to death. The place where Robin had lost her life.
"Don, we all want them to pay for this. But there is a right way to do things."
"I tried that………...I followed protocol. I followed the rule book. Just like I told Colby I would. We did everything right and….still. I should never have waited. The rules failed, David. And I did too."
He turned to face the younger man who had been a part of his team for nearly three years. By now he qualified as family.
"I want them dead, David. I want them all dead."
Don's voice was shaking with emotion and David could see that it pained him to verbalize the uncharacteristic hatred he was feeling. He put his hand on the older man's shoulder.
"This has gone way beyond personal for you, Don. And I feel that, man. I do. But I don't want to see you make a mistake that could get you killed. We've already started an investigation. Marcus was talking to Megan when I came up here and Colby was already setting up surveillance on the location the kid gave you. We're working on it. We don't want to sweep it until we get a handle on the place."
When there was no response, David continued his appeal.
"Let us do this, Don. Give us a chance to do this right."
Don felt a chill run through him as if his blood had turned to ice. David was right, but the idea of sitting helpless, waiting………..
"I'm not sure that I can. I have to do something."
"You did, Don. You convinced Marcus to do the right thing, no matter how scared he is. Now you have to convince yourself."
David took a deep breath before he culminated his argument.
"Don, I know that the man who loved Robin wants them dead. And I know that the brother who watched Charlie flatline wants them to suffer. And I'm not going to try to stop you. But we both know you're better than that. And right now, Don. Right now, you need to be there for the guy who is afraid he's losing both of his sons."
He waited until Don raised his head and met his eyes before he continued.
"You don't have to deal with this alone, Don. And neither should he."
Don watched as the younger agent, his friend, turned and walked from the room. David's words had hit him like a glass of cold water to the face. He'd left his father alone. Charlie was in surgery fighting for his life……..and he was here. What was he doing here? Don felt the relentless tendrils of guilt wrap around his already depleted soul and squeeze. Alan had endured so much this past year…and now this.
Don rounded up the rage, pain and sorrow that threatened to overcome his current state of rationality and shoved it as deep into the closet of his heart as he possibly could. There would be a time to face those demons. But not right now.
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When David opened the door, Megan was on the phone and Colby was gone. Lt. Walker stood behind Marcus, where he sat staring at the floor.
Megan put her hand over the phone's receiver.
"I've sent Colby upstairs to try for a couple of warrants. We're going to need some phone taps too. We're posting teams for surveillance around the clock. If he shows up, we'll know about it."
She went back to her conversation on the phone, approving agent assignments and details. Listening to report summaries that had been left for the SAC. Normally, that would have been Don.
Normally.
David sat down across from Marcus, silently acknowledging Lt. Walker.
"Hey, Marcus. I know you're freaked out, man. But the Lieutenant here, he's got a cop on your brother. We'll get you both someplace safe before we cut this thing loose."
Marcus straightened up in the chair in an attempt to make himself as tall as possible. And to look less frightened than he felt.
"Those guys. The ones upstairs today. The ones who killed Jose. They were just small potatoes, man. Nothing. This guy. He gets his orders from the guys who pull the strings. Everybody knows him in the hood, you know. East Side, West Side it don't matter. He's MS13, but we all know who he is."
He turned around to look at Lt. Walker and continued.
"And we all stay out of his way. Even his own gang. We call him Trip. I think he's third generation. But I don't know his real name. I told Agent Eppes that."
Walker put his hand on the kids shoulder.
"Come on. I'll take you home."
As Marcus stood to leave, he turned back to David.
"Our gangs, the little groups…the cliques….….we've always been rivals. They shoot us, we shoot them and once we bury our dead we do it again. And again. It's been going on forever and taking a few of us off the street isn't going to make it stop. This guy and the people he works for………they're bigger than that. They're bigger than us. You can't stop them."
David stood and followed them to the door.
"I think we can, Marcus. We're sure as hell gonna try."
Closing the door, he turned back to Megan.
"David?"
She snapped her cell phone shut.
"We ran some of the pictures from today through NCIC using facial recognition software and we got a few hits. ATF has at least a dozen of these guys on their list."
David raised his eyebrows and nodded, but before he could verbalize a response another voice spoke from the doorway.
"What about the guy from the elevator."
"Don."
Megan shifted her eyes to David and when he gave her a slight nod, she turned to her boss and cautiously continued.
"His name is Miguel Escalón. DHS has been watching him for a while. But up until today, they thought he had taken refuge in South America. According to their information he's been recruiting members and starting gangs in some of the smaller cities. They've been connected to drug and illegal arms trafficking and the guys at homeland security believe his organization is a viable threat."
Don made his way across the room and looked at the video picture of the suspect. He could feel his heart rate increasing and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly.
"We aren't going to have to spin it real hard to make this an act of terrorism."
David stood and walked around to where Don and Megan were standing in front of the control panel.
"That should make the warrants for the others easier to obtain."
Megan nodded.
"He's on the watch list. Homeland Security wants him so we've got probable cause to bring him in no matter what. And whoever is with him."
A security tech had captured still pictures from today's security videos and had them in a single folder on the main computer. Don began flipping through them, taking a close look at each face. Faces that he wanted to smash. Again he steadied his breathing.
"What are our chances of getting a general warrant that encompasses the whole gang?"
Leaning against the counter top, Megan rubbed her hands together.
"If the gang is a threat to homeland security, then I think our chances are pretty good."
"Let's get that surveillance set up and keep them covered. We need to be sure before we move on this. We don't want this guy to cross the border again, or we won't be able to touch him."
She nodded.
"Already done."
Don managed a bleak smile.
"Good. David, if you can get a DHS agent down here…..make sure we have all the information……and vice versa. See what they can do to make this move fast. And I mean fast."
David headed for door.
"I'm on it."
Turning to Megan, Don gave her a weak smile.
"Megan….if you have a minute….I could use a ride. I really have somewhere else I need to be right now."
David tossed the keys to the SUV across the room, and Megan caught them with one hand.
"All you had to do was ask."
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Authors Notes: Everybody deals with tragedy in a different way. I think Megan, looking at it from a woman's perspective would be more concerned about Don's emotional state. I also believe that Walker would be a good enough judge of character to know that Don needed some time to come to his senses and the best place to do that would be a controlled environment. And just as David does, Walker believes that when faced with the choice, Don would do the right thing. Even in the face of such an incident, he is far to solid of a man to lose it entirely without consciously choosing to do so and I think that deep down they all believed that.
(I tried to find a way to include that in the chapter somehow, but it just didn't work…and yet I was compulsively led to explain my reasoning.) But it's not over yet and Don still has choices to make.
Love your comments, please continue to leave them!
And now, back to Charlie…..
Chapter Thirteen: The Other Side of Death's Door