Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the recognizable characters who appear in this story. Any other names, for characters or businesses, are fictional, uncompensated, or are in the public domain.
Note: Remember that Chapter 1 started with a preview of what happens on October 24th. You might want to take another look at as this chapter starts where that preview leaves off.
October 24
Agents Jeffers and Hansen arrived to a scene of chaos on the morning after Cole's escape. Mister Castle was out cold on the floor, bleeding copiously, while members of his team surrounded him.
"Have emergency services been called?" Jeffers asked as she approached the group. Getting a curt nod from Gates, she moved closer to inspect the damage.
"What's wrong with him?" Beckett asked as Jeffers crouched beside her. "Have you seen this before?"
Jeffers went through the motions of checking Castle, who'd been rolled onto his back. While Ryan kept a compress on his head, Jeffers raised Castle's eyelids to check his pupils. Only after finishing this and checking his pulse did she answer, though she'd recognized the situation immediately upon arrival.
"As long as the head wound doesn't prove problematic, he'll recover," she pronounced. "Eventually."
"Define 'eventually,'" Beckett growled.
"Cole has some degree of control over how forcefully he collects information. Usually, he's instructed to exercise a light touch and draw no attention, much as I suspect he did with your team yesterday. But, sometimes his work calls for more rapid or strenuous collection. This," she said while gesturing to Castle, "is one of the consequences of that approach."
Beckett paused to regain control of her emotions, which we calling to her to throttle the agent. After a slow three-count, she turned to the agent. "In your experience, how long until he comes back to himself?"
"At least a few hours, but probably not longer than a day. Two on the outside."
Any response from Beckett was curtailed by the arrival of the EMTs, who bustled over to Castle and carefully displaced the team members around him. After a few minutes where the only sounds came from the EMTs, Castle was atop the portable gurney, secured, and about to start the journey to the hospital.
As she moved to take a position at his side, Beckett felt a hand at her elbow pull her back. Turning and preparing to finally let loose on Jeffers, she was surprised to see that it was Gates who'd stopped her progress and pulled her aside.
"Detective Beckett," Gates said quietly, the tone of her voice making it clear that she wanted a private word. "I'd like you to stay and work with Agents Jeffers and Hansen. No one knows Mister Castle as well as you, so I'm hoping that you'll have some insight into how we might find his family before Mister Cole gets too much of a head start."
"But, sir…"
"Detective," Gates interrupted, again dropping her voice. "We both know you're the only one who can do this. And," she continued after a quick look around, "I have a medical appointment myself this morning. I'll relieve you as soon I've finished and you can check on your partner."
Beckett barely managed to limit her reaction to widened eyes. Clearly, her boss was taking Cole's parting comments about 'not being able to hear her' seriously. But even more shocking was the first reference Beckett could remember to Castle as her partner.
After she nodded her acquiescence, the group dispersed. In a matter of a few minutes the EMTs had departed, leaving only a strange silence and the concerned looks from the other denizens of the fourth floor who'd arrived during the commotion.
"Conference room," Beckett found herself saying again, just like yesterday, after the detectives and agents had spent time researching their respective avenues of investigation. And, just like yesterday, the lingering damage drew looks but no comments. After a few trips, the NYPD members had moved their computers into the room while the agents similarly set themselves up.
"Espo, why don't you start?" Beckett prompted as everyone was still sliding into place.
"Beckett was right," he said with no preamble. "Fitz is one of Castle's attorneys. He's got a team that deals with other stuff – like divorces, contracts, and licensing – but Fitz handles special projects."
"Like what?" Hansen asked, finally speaking in the presence of his superior.
"Confidential charitable donations, trusts, some immigration projects," Esposito rambled off while looking at his notes. "One of Castle's other attorneys said Fitz basically handles anything that catches Castle's attention or he wants kept quiet. There's been some irritation about Castle not telling his other attorneys what Fitz does for him, but he just laughs it off. Anyway," he segued at a raised eyebrow from Beckett, "Fitz is gone. He lives with his wife, but his doorman said they left for a vacation yesterday. Oddly enough, his kids also took their families on vacation, even though neither of them live in the city."
"Consistent with what you overheard about the Tyson protocols," Jeffers noted while looking at Beckett, who nodded in response.
"Ryan?" Beckett then prompted.
Ryan's investigation into Castle's family provided no more leads than the check into Fitz. Marlowe Academy had no indication of where Alexis went with Fitz or when she'd be back. Martha's studio only knew that she'd notified them of a 'family emergency,' a story verified by students she was tutoring. In desperation, Ryan had even reached out to the doormen in Castle's building, neither of whom had insights into where they might've gone.
The baton then passed to Beckett, who verified that Chief Brady had checked Castle's place in the Hamptons. It was vacant and a follow-up call to the local locksmith confirmed that he'd changed all the locks yesterday, just before the security company arrived to change the settings on the home surveillance system. It was such a familiar story by then that Beckett felt no need to share that she'd even checked in at the Haunt, where Brian the Bartender confirmed a visit from the security company yesterday afternoon.
"So, we've got no leads. Castle's credit cards haven't turned up, but I expect they've all been canceled as part of the protocols," Beckett summarized. "His phone's been inactive since the call with Cole and his editor hasn't hadn't heard a peep from him before she departed on her own impromptu vacation. At this point," she said while turning to Jeffers, "I think we're more likely to find Cole than we are to find what Castle's taken pains to hide. So, what can you tell us?"
A quick look at his colleague had Hansen reaching into a satchel to withdraw three folders, which he then distributed to the NYPD personnel.
"The files are confidential and won't leave this room, which is a short summary of the disclosure form that you'll sign before proceeding," Jeffers warned them while each of detectives opened the files and started to skim the few pages within after dashing off signatures.
"This says Cole's only worked for you for just more than four years. Where was he before then?" Beckett asked, cutting off whatever additional dire warnings Jeffers planned to use to ensure they'd keep the information confidential.
"Cole got rolled up in a surveillance project. We were running an operation to intercept financial transactions of a group of foreign nationals of interest to the Agency. Cole had his own operation in place, where he'd 'bump into' people leaving the bank and then use his skills to syphon money from their online accounts. He thought he was clever by just taking small amounts over time; that kept his victims from realizing what was happening, but it tripped our algorithms when we took a hard look at some accounts he'd tapped."
"So, what, a plea deal? He works for you in return for burying the theft and computer crime charges against him?" Esposito guessed.
"Plus everything he had on accounts of interest," Jeffers nodded. There was no shame in her reply, nor did there need to be. Turning perps into sources or assets was an expected part of law enforcement at both the NYPD and the NSA.
"And promises to cover up his latest homicidal rampage?" Ryan interjected.
Perhaps there was room for shame, though neither Jeffers nor Hansen flinched.
Beckett, though, looked increasingly dissatisfied with the thin file in front of her. Jeffers noticed and raised a brow to prompt clarification.
"This is crap," Beckett summarized crudely, closing her file and tossing it onto the table where it spun in place. "There's nothing in here that explains the escalation from a mildly effective computer fraud perp into a challenge-seeking murderer in the span of four years, all under your watch. Tell us what the hell is actually going on or get the hell out."
Jeffers eyed the detective dispassionately for several long moments. When no reaction ensued, she nodded once. "Let me make a call."
Captain Gates sat in her car while the engine popped a crackled, cooling down from its return journey from the hospital to the precinct. But she made no move to exit the vehicle. Instead, she stared at the cellphone clutched in her hand, alternately considering it a lifeline or a snake poised to strike.
After several long minutes, she took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, and then forcibly exhaled. Then, before she could change her mind, she raised the phone, unlocked it, and opened the phone app while pointedly ignoring the red circles that counted the tally of unaddressed texts and emails that'd arrived while she was away from the precinct, first attending to Mister Castle and then to her own needs.
She held the phone to her ear and sighed as the call finally connected. She'd landed in voicemail, a middling outcome – better than rejection but worse than an actual conversation. She quailed at the delayed communication, but still took some solace in the fact that the number hadn't changed.
"Hi, Liz? It's Victoria," she said, before pausing slightly. "I… I was hoping to talk to you. I've got news. Not good news. I know… It's been a long time since we've talked and I… I…," she trailed off, getting frustrated. Then, with another centering breath, she admitted defeat and bowed to the mood of the day. "I need my sister. Please call me?"
Gates stepped off the elevator and looked around for Beckett and her team. She frowned at seeing their empty desks. But before she could think about making calls to locate them, she noticed Agent Jeffers step out from a small room used for attorney-client discussions and walk into the conference room. Figuring that's where her wayward detectives must be, Gates followed and managed to catch the door just before it closed behind the agent.
"Captain Gates," Jeffers greeted her as she took her place at the table. "How is Mister Castle?"
"Stable," Gates replied, sharing the news she'd updated on her walk into the precinct. "But still unresponsive."
Jeffers nodded, seemingly unsurprised and unaffected by Beckett's concerned stare. "Unsurprising. We have at least an hour or two remaining before he should return to us. Detective Beckett," she said while turning, "it would be best if he saw a familiar face upon waking, but we have time an authorization to address your request before anyone needs to leave."
"Request?" Gates asked, trying to catch up on what she'd missed. Hansen, without speaking, passed her the same non-disclosure forms the other had signed in response.
Jeffers waited until Gates signed the document before addressing the group. "The information I'm authorized to provide will be oral only and you will not take notes," she said sternly. After making eye contact to drive the point home, she resumed the briefing.
"There are two salient points about Cole that may help us understand, and ultimately track, him. The first is pacing."
"Like with serial killers?" Ryan interjected in a flash of insight.
"Yes, but different. In serials, the pacing accelerates as the psychological return from the act lessens over time. With Cole, we have a different kind of pacing. As Detective Beckett noted, we picked up Cole less than five years ago, when he was thirty-nine. Evaluated on its own merits, his banking fraud scheme was clever enough and probably could've persisted for another year or two before he would've needed to shut down had we not tumbled onto him."
"So, what's the pacing issue?" Ryan asked, confused.
"Almost anyone could've set up the same scam as Cole did. Granted, they'd have to skim the access information electronically rather than touch people, but it really wasn't much different."
"But it should've been," Beckett finished, now understanding the point. "If he'd had access to these abilities all his life, he should've been much more sophisticated by then."
"Exactly," Jeffers agreed. "In the course of four years, he went from a simple banking scheme to significantly more advanced and elaborate operations. He could, hypothetically," the agent accented the word to make it clear that she wasn't specifically revealing Cole's actual history, "be inserted into an operation that involved accessing critical information, passwords, and even language and audio-visual recollections of targets, being able to pass them off as his own almost immediately."
"You must've trained him," Esposito interjected, remembering his own training in the military all too well.
"Of course," Jeffers acknowledged. "But, as good as we are, I don't think we can take much credit. Cole's abilities far outpaced any instruction received from us."
"Impressive," Gates accedes, "but ultimately terrifying, if it makes him more efficient in delivering the kind of carnage we've seen."
Hansen nodded but again it was Jeffers who answered. "That leads us to the other point for discussion." She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before pointing to Ryan's laptop.
"What happens when you've got too many files on that?"
Ryan looked nonplussed at the segue but answered promptly. "We can't really delete anything, in case we need it for trials later. So, I archive my files by case number and delete them from my machine once they're backed up. I think Tory runs a backup, too."
"We have a similar arrangement," Jeffers replied. "However, it seems that Cole does not. If his brain is the laptop, it's becoming apparent that he lacks the ability to discard information once it becomes obsolete. Instead, you could think about it as the new information overwriting the old. There had been recent concerns that Cole was sometimes… confused about what was old and what was new."
"He's breaking down?" Beckett asked incredulously. "And you left him in the field?"
"He was actually benched for his annual panel of psych evaluations when he slipped out of our facility and apparently ran into Mister Delbruck. Obviously, he'll be on lock-down once we find him again."
"So," Gates decided to summarize. "Cole's skills have been increasing at an alarming rate, but the more information he assimilates, the greater the risk of psychological breakdown? A breakdown that seems to have a distinctly psychopathic edge to it?"
"Yes," Jeffers answered somberly. "That seems to be the case."
"And he's fixated on Castle's family," Beckett added.
"Shit," Espo and Ryan replied in unison.
A/N: Happy New Year! Remember when this started as a Halloween story? Apologies for the delay. Those who've read my other stories and author's notes remember that my company had a big acquisition about 18 months ago. Well, you can guess what happened in the last few months. Now there are far fewer of us to do the work, so time is tight. I'm hoping the close of the calendar year allows me a little time to finish this story soon.
Also, a belated happy birthday to my friend Aalon!