Disclaimer: see chapter 1

Chapter 8: Making an Effort

Charlie swallowed uneasily, trying to concentrate on the still thin network he was slowly creating on the whiteboard in front of him. The atmosphere had become very thick ever since Agent Granger had called and told them about the shooting. The news had come as a shock to all of them, and the fact that Agent Sinclair's fate was still undecided was making matters so much worse. And even though he hardly knew him, Charlie had to admit that he was rather affected by his situation. Sinclair seemed to be one of these calm, gentle types that never lost sight of what was right, and even though Charlie knew that nobody deserved what he had to be going through right now, it seemed even more unfair when fate decided to strike against a gentle soul like his.

The grim atmosphere was worsened by the devastating feeling of having failed. As Agent Granger's brief report had revealed, two of the four fugitives involved in the shooting shouldn't have been on the loose in the first place, Marcy Connaghan and Pete Blakely, for they had been arrested during the raid. The FBI had had their hands on them, they'd had them under lock and key, but when they hadn't been able to find anything on them, they'd let them go, and Charlie could tell how badly this decision was eating at his brother now. Yet, as far as he could appraise the situation, Don's decision had been reasonable at the time. It was just a fact that their time and resources were limited, so they needed to deploy them in the way that promised to yield the most results. Given that they'd had to go through so many suspects, it had made sense to concentrate on the more prominent figures within the group, and neither Pete nor Marcy had been that. So even if they were involved in terrorist activities, the FBI probably hadn't had the resources to go through their lives with the diligence needed to find anything tangible if the two of them had gone through any lengths of hiding their tracks. Still, the thought that maybe, the shooting could have been prevented if they just hadn't let the two of them go was hardly a pleasant one.

Another thing to bring them down was the fact that their four fugitives had disappeared. Even though Agent Granger had been able to give them a description of their vehicle and most of the license plate so that they now knew it belonged to Marcy Connaghan, they still hadn't been able to locate it, nor the fugitives themselves.

The door was suddenly pushed open then, and Charlie shuddered when he saw the grim look on Agent Granger's face. Likewise, the agent froze as soon as he set eyes on him.

"You," he hissed and, to Charlie's great astonishment and dismay, came charging right at him. A moment later, Granger had him by his collar and was pushing him backwards, against the wall. "What the hell were you thinking?!" he shouted, ignoring his colleagues' protests. "You still want us to believe that your little friends are nothing but eco freaks?"

Charlie, the shock making it impossible for him to move, let alone talk, was staring at him wide-eyed, at the grim features that were contorted into a mask of hatred. He couldn't have given him an answer even if he'd been able to think of one, for the agent was pressing his fist against his sternum so tightly that he was hardly getting in any air. He was about to panic when he realized that, but before he could, someone was pulling his attacker away, and he could breathe again.

"Stop it, I said!" he heard Don's angry voice, and for a moment, he was thrown back to the time when they'd been kids, when Don would protect him from all the older kids who bullied him, acts of heroism that had gotten him into trouble more than once. "Are you out of your mind?!"

As if he was trying to answer that question through his actions, Granger didn't show any intention of backing down. "He told them we were coming! He's the reason David got shot, why can't you see that?"

"You don't know that, now back off! Go outside and walk off your anger, do it now!"

While he was still trying to catch his breath, Charlie caught Granger's gaze that seemed so steely as though it was a deadly weapon trying to pierce through his skull. Charlie shuddered, but told himself that even though the attempt seemed currently very effective, looks couldn't actually kill. While Granger was still standing there, staring at Charlie, held in his place by both Megan and Harvey, Don turned around and towards him, concern showing on his face, and again, Charlie was reminded of those scenes from their childhood. It hit him that he'd never really understood Don then, and he had to admit that he still didn't. Most of the time, Don had seemed content enough with shunning his little nag of a brother, and often it had seemed that he evaded him partly to stop himself from punching the little nuisance. As soon as someone else had tried to do exactly that, however, it had seemed as though Don transformed into a whole different person, or at least his attitude towards Charlie was altered completely.

And as if nothing had changed over the past twenty years, that was what happened now. "You okay?" Don asked in a low voice, yet with an intense timbre in it.

Charlie, noticing that his legs were starting to tremble, nodded, but nonetheless accepted Don's help when he was guiding him towards a chair. He closed his eyes and tried taking some deep breaths, grimacing when that action made his throat protest with painful stabs. Still, he realized that the worst thing was the shock, the suddenness with which he'd been attacked, and so, despite everything, the arm that Don had laid around his back felt rather comforting.

"He must have tipped them off," Colby's voice then sounded again, much calmer than before, but still bespeaking an unmistakable amount of anger and hatred. "They knew that we were coming, they were prepared for war."

Don gave Colby a scrutinizing stare, then turned back around towards him, a serious expression on his face. "Did you?"

Charlie's eyes grew wide, and all of a sudden, the arm around his back had lost all its comfort.

"It's just a question, buddy, I'm not saying you meant any harm."

Charlie swallowed before he replied. The old nickname had tugged at something in his memory, reminding him once again of a time when they'd been closer, when life had been easier, and creating the kind of tension one experienced while looking at a disturbing piece of art, one that deliberately combined elements that had no logical connection whatsoever. "I haven't told anybody," he then said with as firm a voice as he managed.

"Of course he would say that," Granger protested, "but just because you believe him doesn't mean he is who you think he is! When will you see that you're not being objective about him?"

"Would you mind showing us your phone?" Megan asked before Don's reply could either make the argument more heated than it already was or make Charlie lose his trust in his brother for good.

Charlie looked up at her, slightly frowning. He'd thought she trusted him, and the worst part was that she still gave him that impression, so maybe –

"You know, 'trust, but verify'," she added, apparently reading his mind. "We'd just like to check."

Charlie swallowed again, but eventually pulled out his phone and unlocked it before handing it towards her. He watched her go through his most recent contacts, which, since last night, had only been two.

"Who are 'Larry' and 'Amita'?" she asked.

"They're not part of the network," Don answered for him. "They both work at the university. Larry's been his close friend for years, and Amita is his girlfriend. We can check them out, of course, but I doubt that either of them has any connection to the eco-terrorists, let alone to the people involved in the shootout today."

The slight frown was back on Charlie's forehead. Sure, he was rather pleased that Don had come to his rescue, but it still felt odd to hear him give those explanations. If Charlie wasn't mistaken, Don had never even seen Amita, and before his words, Charlie couldn't have said for sure whether or not he knew about her. Of course, their dad must have told Don about her, just like he kept Charlie up-to-date with regard to everything noteworthy that was happening in Don's life, but it still felt strange to hear Don talk about her. To tell the truth, even though Charlie had been aware that their dad had to be feeding Don with information about his life, he wouldn't have thought that Don would care enough to remember any of it.

"Maybe he didn't use his phone to contact them," Granger made another attempt, but the grumbling tone told Charlie that his conviction had suffered a solid blow.

"Stop making such allegations, we don't even know if they were tipped off at all," Don admonished him rather sternly, "Before you start pointing fingers, you should first give us a full report on what exactly happened back there. Any news on David since your last call?"

Colby shook his head. "I asked them to call me as soon as he wakes up, but they said they'll keep him sedated overnight. The bullet damaged his collarbone and nicked an artery. He's stable now, but he's lost a lot of blood, so we'll have to wait and see how he'll come through the night."

Don pressed his lips together as if to keep the moan of anguish inside that Colby's words were causing him and took a moment to digest the news. "So what happened?" he asked then.

Agent Granger, with a sour glance in Charlie's direction, gave them a more detailed report then that solidified their take on this case and seriously challenged Charlie's concept of the group. Judging from the people he'd met on the night of the raid, but also judging from the texts he'd decoded, he would have never believed them to even possess a weapon, let alone use it on federal agents. They'd simply seemed like your usual eco-acitivist, some of them with a focus on protecting wildlife, some of them branching out to fight for world peace as well, but none of the people Charlie had gotten to know had seemed prone to that kind of violence.

The events were a strong proof against his assessment, though, and Charlie just didn't know how to make sense of that. Had he been so wrong about these people? Or had Agent Granger misidentified them? On the other hand, while one of them remained unidentified, he seemed pretty sure about the identity of the other three. So the problem remained, for even though they still couldn't be sure whether the shooter, Lee Rivers, was a full member of the group, Marcy Connaghan and Pete Blakely, the one that Colby had apparently hit, definitely were.

"Where are they in your network analysis?" Don then interrupted his thoughts before he'd managed to make sense of it all.

Charlie shook his head. That was another point that didn't make any sense to him. "As of now? Somewhere in the middle. But I still have a lot of data to insert."

He bit down his lip as if the pain could help him deal with the feelings of helplessness and impotence that were assailing him, along with a feverish need to make some progress with his analysis. As little as he'd initially wanted to collaborate on this case, he couldn't help it, he felt responsible now to help bring this matter to a solution. He'd been in contact with that group, he should have known how dangerous they were, he should have seen the potential of destruction that went out from them. He hadn't, though, he'd been playing things down, and as a result, one of Don's co-workers could have lost his life today.

He shuddered. "I'll get back to that right away, and I'm going to focus on Marcy, Pete and Lee," he decided, thinking that he could still take care of his responsibilities for CalSci in the morning.

"Thanks," Don replied quietly, an earnest expression on his face.

Charlie swallowed thickly. "No problem," he said and couldn't help but shudder again when he looked into his brother's serious face. The tension and concern about their colleague was omnipresent in the room, as it had been ever since the news had reached them, and all the while, there had been one thought on Charlie's mind that he just hadn't been able to shake off: it could have been Don. If he'd decided to check out Rivers himself, it could have been him in the shoot-out with these four people that Charlie had believed to be completely harmless idealists, and it could have been him lying in the ICU now, fighting for his life.