Disclaimer: see chapter 1

Chapter 3: Daring Trust

"Are you okay?" Megan asked softly when she came up behind him in the break room.

Don didn't reply at once, but kept staring into his coffee, into the small pool of black, opaque liquid. It occurred to him that the coffee was not a lot different to his brother. They shared the darkness as a defining characteristic, and they were both things that were just there in your everyday life that you never thought about much, but that had the potency of hurting you badly when the dark contents were poured out.

"Yeah," he said and stopped himself before adding sugar to his coffee. Somehow, he felt like tasting its pure bitterness today, without any sugarcoating.

Megan didn't say anything, which was saying enough. And to tell the truth, Don couldn't hold himself back any longer anyway.

"He's my brother!" he exclaimed, thrusting the sugar dispenser on the counter with a solid clang. "How could I not have seen that my own brother is a terrorist?"

"We don't know that yet," Megan said, making Don huff. "Maybe he's telling the truth, maybe he actually doesn't realize what his analysis can be used for," she tried defending him, but Don shook his head.

"Trust me, he knows. He knows his math, because it's all he's ever cared about."

Megan was silent for a moment, but Don could sense that she wanted to say something else, so he waited, giving into his hope that maybe, she would find an explanation that might leave some chance of redemption for Charlie, despite everything.

Her words, however, took a different route. "From what I understand, the two of you have never gotten along very well. It makes sense that you wouldn't have noticed what he's become."

Don was shaking his head, feeling that Megan was wrong, knowing that it wouldn't make sense.

She seemed to feel his discontent. "What is it?"

"I still can't see it," Don admitted, and for the first time in his life, he felt assailed by the uncomfortable question of whether maybe, he'd chosen the wrong profession for himself. If he was so wrong about his own brother, how could he hope to be right about suspects who were total strangers to him?

And yet, the past had shown him that he usually was right about them. So either he was better with strangers than with his own flesh and blood, or, as inconceivable as it seemed, he'd been right all along about Charlie and there was something wrong with their take on this case.

"Charlie and I have always had our issues, that's true," he decided to confide in Megan, knowing that her opinion was likely to help him solve this puzzle. "And there were some things about which we could never see eye to eye. But… I don't know, I always felt that with all the important stuff, we could come to an understanding. After all, we'd been raised within the same family, we were always pretty much alike with regard to which ideals we wanted to uphold and everything, and I just can't see him do something like this. I mean, sure, I can see him criticize the government without a problem, and he's always had a tendency for a one-world-approach, but this is something different. If we hadn't intervened, people would have gotten hurt, and Charlie would have known that, and that's something I just can't see him do. He's never been a the-end-justifies-the-means kind of guy."

"That's why you were so reluctant to accept the document we found on his computer as proof?"

Don sighed, and closed his eyes. His mind took him back to the interrogation room, to Charlie's poor excuses – and to his admission of guilt. "He said it himself that it was him who sent that e-mail," he reminded her in a low voice, still having trouble believing that. After they'd learned about the document and its nature, that had been Don's last ray of hope, but it had been a strong one, for he'd been convinced that there was something wrong about this document, that the most likely explanation was that someone had planted it on his brother. That, however, was a theory that Charlie had discarded himself.

"Maybe you should try to talk to him once again?" Megan suggested.

Don had heard the doubt in her voice, and he had to admit, he agreed more with her tone than with her words. "I don't think he'd be particularly forthcoming right now," he said with a hint of bitterness and couldn't help but think back at the interrogation, or whatever that disaster should be called. He should have known that their plan of using him as a family member to convince Charlie to cooperate with them – a plan that usually worked rather well with terrorist suspects – had been doomed from the beginning, there was just too much history between them. Even if they'd had a chance to succeed, Don had blown it by whatever he'd thrown at his brother back there. He tried to recall what exactly he'd said to him, and it was another indication for how bad of an idea it had been that he couldn't even remember. All he remembered was the look in his big brown eyes, that mix of incredulity and hurt.

Don ran his hand over his face and would have liked to kick his own backside just to get a grip on himself. Not only had he behaved most stupidly during the interrogation, now, on top of everything else, he was feeling sorry for his brother. Yet, they knew that Charlie had been collaborating with terrorists, so why would he feel sorry for him, why couldn't he just be professional about this? It wasn't like he and Charlie were best buddies or anything, so why couldn't he just treat him like any other suspect?

"Come on, it can't hurt to try," Megan said, and Don sighed. For a moment, he pondered explaining to her that given his experience with interrogating his brother so far, there was most definitely a chance that another attempt would be hurtful, for both sides, but eventually, he resigned to his fate. They needed to learn more about this terrorist organization, and whether he liked it or not, Charlie was probably their best lead at this point.

The moment they stepped back into the interrogation room, Don could see that Charlie froze. He did, however, never lift his gaze from the table in front of him. Yet, from the way his fingers were cramping up around one another, he could tell that Charlie was agitated and apprehensive, and he felt inundated by a wave of pity for him. A second later, he told himself to stop it. He couldn't be Charlie's brother now, he needed to see him as what he was, a terrorist suspect. He had to stay in his role as an agent, he needed to remain professional about this. Human lives might be at stake.

"Alright then," he said in a low voice when he'd positioned himself in a corner of the room, his arms crossed before his chest to give him a false semblance of confidence. "Let's hear your side of the story."

He'd feared that Charlie would tell them to go to hell, but he didn't, at least not right away. Instead, he lifted his gaze, giving Megan hardly more than a quick glance and instead trying to study his brother. Don knew however, he could see, that the attempt wasn't very fruitful, and that was by design. He hadn't chosen the dark corner by accident, he knew that this way, he didn't have to check his reactions as meticulously as he normally would have. In contrast, Charlie's face was illuminated by the lamp, making it doubly easy for Don to figure out what was going on in his brother's head, or at least so he would have thought two days ago. Now, however, he felt riddled with doubt, thinking that maybe, despite what he'd kept thinking of his own abilities, he'd never truly been able to read his brother.

"I told your colleagues yesterday that I don't really know them. This was my first meeting with the group," Charlie said, and Don had to suppress an exasperated sigh. Yes, Charlie had told them that yesterday, but the repetition didn't make his statement any more credible.

On the other hand, Don realized that this was probably everything they could expect, a repetition of yesterday's short statement. True, Charlie's street wisdom might be deficient, but surely he was sensible enough not to say anything noteworthy about the charges without a lawyer present.

Still, they had to try. And if Don was being honest with himself, Charlie's unimaginative lie was making him irritated enough to continue the interrogation, or maybe rather call that 'argument'.

"You really expect us to believe that?" he asked. "You're not part of them, you know nothing about them, but you just happen to be there when we carry out the raid?"

Charlie lifted his head to look up at him, his gaze firm. "It's the truth," he said. His voice was slightly trembling, but from the set muscles around his jaw, Don could tell that it wasn't nervousness to put the tremble there, it was anger.

Or at least so he thought. It was true, Charlie had never been particularly good at lying, Don had always managed to see through him. So he could tell when Charlie was lying and when he was telling the truth, couldn't he? That couldn't have changed so drastically just because they hadn't been in contact much for a couple of years, right?

But then why did his statement not make any sense?

Don sighed, but managed to refrain from showing more signs of his distress. They could deal with the problem later, they could ask their other suspects whether they could corroborate Charlie's statement. So far, with the sheer amount of interrogations to be conducted, they hadn't had a chance to go into such detail with the rest of the group yet, but that was something they could easily rectify.

"Okay," Don went on, deciding to focus on a different aspect, "then tell me, first meeting or not, what makes a math professor join a terrorist organization?"

"I told you yesterday," Charlie repeated with forced calmness. "They're not a terrorist organization. Besides, I didn't join them, I was only there to give a talk. Some students asked me to do that, Andy Radcliffe and Javier Cavazos, they were with me when you arrested me. They're in a course of mine about optimization theory, and after a lecture in which I'd talked about a couple of real-life examples, they asked me if I could give a similar talk to their eco-activism group. It had been about the dependencies between economic growth and social and environmental sustainability, and how to determine the optimal balance between these three parameters. So I came to their meeting, I made some small talk with some of their members, and then I was introduced to Jim Fennigan, who seems to be one of the leaders, and that's when you stormed the place and arrested us."

Don was shaking his head, his eyes closed. Yes, he could see that happening, but he still didn't like where this was going. "So hang on, some students invite you to their eco camp and you just go there? Didn't it occur to you that they might not be who they seemed?"

"I looked the group up on the internet," Charlie defended himself. "But from what I found, there isn't anything to suggest that they're terrorists. They had some trouble because of breaking and entering, and they're suspected of vandalism, but that's it, they didn't seem worse than say Greenpeace."

Don raised an eye-brow, not sure what to think of that reasoning. "You do realize that Greenpeace, too, has been suspected of possible terrorist links, right?"

Charlie's eye-brows went up as well. "I didn't know that," he said after a second, and there was a strange tone in his voice. "But I'm beginning to wonder whether there's anyone you're not suspecting of being a terrorist."

"This isn't funny."

"I agree," Charlie said, and Don noticed that his voice had once again started its slight tremble. "There's nothing funny about restricting the freedom of innocent people without having any grounds."

Don's hand hit the table hard before he could stop himself. "We do have grounds!" he argued loudly. "And anyway, you are in no position to criticize our work!"

"That still doesn't explain though the document we found on the computer in your office," Megan said calmly, and Don took it as a hint and turned around, back to his dark corner. She had been right to intervene, he'd been starting to lose his calm again. Damn it, why couldn't he just do his job as usual in this case?!

"I told you before, that is a completely unrelated project I'm working on, it has nothing to do with this group," Charlie said, and Don had no trouble hearing that he was about to lose his temper, too. "It's a mathematical analysis about the use of fertilizer and biopharming agents. It's designed to be used in agriculture, not in warfare."

"Then how do you explain that our experts differ from this view?" Megan continued calmly, but with a strict tone in her voice.

"I don't know!" Charlie replied with a mixture of exhaustion and despair in his voice. "Why don't you let me talk to them, then we can get to the bottom of this once and for all!"

"That's not how things work here," Megan stated clearly.

"Well, then maybe you should think about changing that!" Charlie exclaimed. "You say that it's their analysis that makes you suspect me, yet you don't give me the opportunity to defend myself against their allegations!"

"So you can try to think of an explanation to wriggle your way out of this?" Don asked in a low voice, which, as he had to admit, almost sounded a little menacing.

Charlie's head turned towards him then, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. "I'm not lying to you!" he insisted. His eyes were searching Don's, but Don knew they couldn't find them in the darkness. "Don… do you really think that of me? That I would send instructions for weaponry to foreign terrorist cells?"

Don was looking back into those wide eyes, into that innocent stare that had always been a distinct characteristic of his brother, and he knew that the answer was 'no'. At the same time, he knew that he needed to stay objective about this. "Give me another explanation then."

"I have! Your experts are wrong! I don't know how they reached their conclusions, but that's why I'd like to talk to them so we can clear this matter up! Why aren't you interested in that as well, why is it more important to you to make me your scapegoat?"

"You know very well that we're trying to clear this matter up, we're not looking for any scapegoats here," Don retorted with some sharpness. "But you and your friends aren't making it easy for us to clear this matter up. You need to tell us the truth, and the full truth."

"But I have!" Charlie burst out, the despair now distinctly audible in his voice. "I don't know anything else, I don't know what else I can tell you! Why don't you believe me?"

Don felt his throat close up as he studied the pleading look on his brother's face, the deep emotion in his eyes, and he knew: Charlie had reached his breaking point. This was the goal they were pursuing with all their suspects who refused to talk, they now had Charlie exactly where they wanted him, but still, Don couldn't feel satisfaction over a job well done. All he could feel was his brother's pain and despair, fueled by the fear of the charges he was facing and by the ardent wish of finding someone to believe in him. And Don knew, he should be the one to do that, to believe in his brother. Yet, he also knew that he needed to be the one to continue down the path they'd been taking, to finish the interrogation with diligence and objectivity.

"Tell us about the group's plans," he said and was struggling to give his voice a steady tone.

Charlie shook his head, and for a moment, while he was looking up into the ceiling light, they could see a faint glimmer in his eyes. A second later, he was taking up his cuffed hands to cover his face with them, pressing the palms against his eyes and using them to support his heavy head. It took him a couple of seconds to calm down his breathing, and when he had, he said faintly, "I don't know the group's plans, not more than what's on their website."

Don bit his lip as he was studying the pitiful figure, but went on seemingly undeterred, "Who among the members has been in direct contact with foreign terrorists?"

Charlie shook his head again, but kept his face hidden. "I don't know," he said, his husky voice close to breaking.

"Who might be?"

Now, all that was left of Charlie's voice was a hoarse whisper. "I don't know."

"Alright," Don said with forced sobriety, "we're done here." Then, he turned around to Megan. "Leave us alone, please."

She hesitated for a second, but then nodded and left the room. Don waited until the door had shut behind her before he went to the camera that had been recording the entire interrogation and turned it off.

Charlie hadn't moved so far, he seemed still busy to calm down his breathing, and he wasn't reacting either when Don pulled back the chair opposite him and sat down.

"Charlie," he said quietly, waiting for his brother to look at him.

It took another couple of seconds, but eventually, the hands disappeared, revealing a face that, to Don's great relief, was still dry, even though the muscles around the jaw and eyes were twitching, bespeaking the emotions seething underneath. His eyes, too, were quivering, rendering Don's throat so tight that he had to swallow thickly before he could say what he knew he needed to say.

"I believe you," he stated quietly, never losing eye-contact with his brother. "I know you're not a terrorist."

Charlie's eyes, flickering under eye-brows that were drawn together in concentration, were searching his, or something in his. "But?" he asked, his voice still trembling.

Don bit his lower lip. Charlie still seemed to suspect some sort of trick, some hidden agenda in Don's words, and the realization hurt Don more than he would have expected. Yet, Charlie was right, there was a 'but'.

"I don't know what to do about this," Don admitted in a low voice. "When it became clear you were a suspect in this case, I argued that my knowing you would be an advantage, and that we'd still investigate you objectively. But now, I can't say that very well. I believe you, but I don't have any good, objective reason to do so. I'll probably have to step down from this case, at least as lead investigator, and I can't tell how my colleagues are going to deal with this matter."

Charlie cast down his eyes and it took him several seconds to find something to say. "I understand," he finally replied.

"Listen," Don tried again, "it's not like I don't want to help you –"

"No," Charlie interrupted him. "It's okay," he claimed. Don regarded him tensely, not sure whether Charlie was truly 'okay' with this turn of events. He felt there was something else he was about to say though, so he waited. Then, Charlie's head came up. "Thank you for believing me."

Don swallowed. He didn't know why, but the earnestness in Charlie's words, that serious gratitude, they were hitting him hard. All of a sudden, he felt all the worse for not having believed Charlie from the beginning, and at the same time, he felt a desperate need to sober up and leave the pain behind that this interrogation had brought about. He still had no idea what to do about the fact that his brother was facing terrorist charges, but right now, he didn't want to think about that, he only longed for the simpleness of life while growing up, and maybe that was what prompted his next words. "Don't thank me, I can't help it. You've always been a terrible liar."