(After 'The Beginning in the End')

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While Sweets played video games with Parker in the man cave, Booth, Brennan and their guests met in the living room. Hank had decided at the last minute to join them, but sat in the corner of the room out of the way. Something odd was going on, and he wanted to know what it was.

Booth glanced at Brennan then faced their friends. "Okay, I know this seems mysterious, but we had a reason to ask you to get here before the other guests show up . . . Bones and I have come across some information that could affect us all." He noticed that everyone leaned forward while Max folded his arms against his chest and leaned back against his chair. Interesting.

Now that he had their attention, Booth started to explain. "My former CO, Colonel Pelant approached me a few weeks ago and tried to get me to sign up for something in Afghanistan. If I had agreed to do it, I would have been away from the FBI for one year."

Surprised, Cam glanced around the room and saw the same looks of surprise. "But you just had brain surgery a year ago. Technically you're still recovering from that surgery. You have a weak spot in your skull and it takes at least a year if not more for the bone to regrow and repair itself. I'd think that should have been a concern don't you think?"

That had been his first thought when Pelant had approached him and he was glad that Cam saw the same problem he did. "Yeah, Rangers have to be one hundred percent fit. If you're having health issues you can jeopardize your team. Now, I think I'm pretty healthy and most of my issues are gone, but being in a war zone and not being one hundred percent could cause some dangerous situations to crop up. Add to the fact, I didn't want to be away from Bones and my son for one year and I turned him down. The Colonel didn't like it and he didn't want to take no for an answer."

"I received a letter from Dr. Dean Fonte. He wanted me to join a dig in the Malukus." Brennan noted the same look of surprise on the faces surrounding her. "It is supposed to be a very important dig, but I turned it down because I didn't want to be away from Booth for a year."

"A year?" Max was quick to notice the same time frame. "That's quite a coincidence."

Glad that he wasn't the only one that saw a problem, Booth nodded his head. "Bones and I talked about this and we both agreed that something seemed fishy, so I contacted a friend at the CIA." He noticed the smirk on Max's face and ignored it. "This is going to get complicated, so try to let me say everything I have to say before you interrupt me."

"So, I was right that something was going on." Max had known that Booth was hiding something.

Waving his hand, Booth stopped Max. "My friend, Danny found out that someone at Homeland Security was behind the invitations. He doesn't know why the offers were made, but Danny and his boss started to look into the situation for me and they've found out some interesting stuff . . . First, the guy at HLS has been under the eye of a government agency for several months now. A federal employee was murdered four months ago and he had left a letter behind explaining that if anything happened to him then they needed to look at this guy at HLS. He also had some evidence he wanted to pass along, but after he was murdered his office was ransacked . . . You also need to know that Congressman Abbot may be involved. He's trying to shut down the partnership the FBI has with the Jeffersonian . . . I don't know if you know it, but Congressman Abbot was an Assistant SAC at the FBI and a friend of Deputy Director Kirby. He retired last year, ran for office and somehow won his seat even though he had no support from any of the other congressmen in his state or his party. He ran as an outsider."

"Kirby?" Max interrupted Booth. "Why isn't Abbot in prison?" This sounded very bad to Max.

Booth shrugged his shoulders. "Abbot was never connected to Kirby's criminal organization. His record was clean at the FBI and you can't arrest people just because their friends are scum . . . Danny and his boss are spooked about Abbot and they're trying to see why the man wants to sever ties between the FBI and the Jeffersonian . . . Danny thinks that's why Bones and I were approached with an offer that would have got us out of the way for a year. Bones is the best forensic anthropologist in the country . . ."

"The world." Brennan wanted what was due her. She had worked hard to get where she was.

"World." Booth almost laughed, but decided that Brennan might misunderstand. "Anyway, without her, our solve rate would probably decrease and that would be a way to close the partnership down. Now I don't know why Abbot wants our partnership to be shut down, but Danny says it looks like he's connected to our person of interest at HLS . . . Danny thinks that whatever is going on is very serious and he's trying like hell to find out what's going on, but his hands are tied because he can't operate in this country. He has a friend looking into it for him. I'm out of the loop on this, so I've told you everything I know. We need to keep quiet about this and make sure to only talk about it to just the people in this room . . . By the way, someone tried to kidnap Parker and that is why Rebecca took him out of the country. I didn't know that or I would have asked her to keep him in England. She thinks it's connected to a case she was working on, but Bones and I don't think so. It looks like someone named Bud Carson is involved in this. I was going to track him down, but Danny wants me to back off for the moment. Since we don't know if Carson is connected to Congressman Abbot or Rebecca's case he doesn't want me to draw attention to Carson. Danny says he'd going to ask a friend of his at Homeland Security to check into Carson and see if he can figure out if Carson is the one that tried to kidnap Parker or not. I don't like it and I made it clear that I'm not going to wait around forever, so Danny knows his friend better get the job done or I will."

Shocked, Angela placed her hand against her throat. "Oh my God, Booth. Parker is just a little boy."

Aware that the world was a cruel place, Hodgins leaned over and gripped her knee. "We don't know what's going on, but if it's bad enough to get the CIA's attention then killing a child wouldn't matter to whoever is behind this mess."

"Who Danny works for is not to be discussed with anyone else. You could be endangering his life as well as his boss." Booth was very annoyed and very worried. "Don't start throwing out conspiracy theories to anyone, Bug Boy. This is damned serious."

His hand over his mouth to hide his smile, Hodgins tried to hide the fact that he was amused. This whole thing was bizarre and it was a shame that Booth didn't see the irony of the situation. "Don't worry about it, I won't talk about this to anyone. If the CIA is involved in investigating someone at HLS then this is very serious and we can all be in danger, not just Booth and Brennan." He lowered his hand. "For years, you've all thought I was a little psycho when I talked about what is going on around us. You didn't want to listen. Maybe you will now."

Cam sighed. "I can see why you don't want Daisy, Wendell and Clark to know about this, but I think you should let Harris know what's going on. He's trustworthy and he can help you keep an eye open at the FBI. Does Sweets know?"

"Yeah." Booth nodded his head. "Danny didn't want anyone else to know, but the list keeps getting longer." Booth was starting to regret this meeting. "Look, the more people that know about this the more people's lives are in danger . . . This is serious. Someone tried to kidnap my son and his mother took it seriously enough to leave the country . . . Bones and I are going to go on vacation at that cabin that Bill owns to make this summer at least a little happy one for my boy, but I think I'm going to send him back home earlier than we planned on . . . Max, I'd like you to stay with us while Parker is with us. I trust you with my boy's life. I need you to watch over him when we're at work. When we go up to the cabin you can go with us. I'll pay all your expenses while you're with us."

"Pft." Max waved his hand sideways. "I'll do it for free. I'm the boy's grandfather now and I protect my family. I'll go home tonight and pack a couple of bags and I'll be back before midnight. I can sleep downstairs. That mattress in the guest bedroom is very comfortable, more comfortable than the one I own. I'm going to have to look into buying one of those."

"I may buy one for you for your birthday." Brennan didn't want to be completely beholden to her father. She still had moments in her life when she wasn't sure she completely trusted him, but he was loyal to his family. "Also, I'd like you to escort Parker to England when he goes home. I'll pay for the flights and if you wish to vacation in London then I will pay for that as well."

Amused, Max chuckled. "I have lots of money, Tempe. More than I'll ever use in my lifetime. You can pay for the plane tickets, but I'll pay for my own vacation."

Booth didn't care who paid for what, he just wanted Max to protect his boy. "Thanks Max."

"You're welcome." Max stood up and stretched. "Your other guests will be here soon. Let's start the grill and get the meat cooking."

It seemed that the meeting was over. "If anyone notices anything odd . . . like being followed around or someone asking personal questions or if you're feeling threatened at any time you let me know. This isn't a game. We all need to keep our heads low and not draw attention to ourselves. Danny and his boss are keeping an eye on things and they'll keep me up to date. If things change I'll let you know. Don't trust anyone outside of this circle. Don't volunteer information. Make note of anyone whose being nosy about your private life or your business. Don't trust anyone. Your safety may count on it."

Feeling a cold wave move down her back, Angela shivered. "Believe me, I'm taking this very seriously."

Brennan stood up and walked over to where Angela was sitting. She leaned over and hugged her. "I'm sorry you're involved Angela. We thought long and hard about who we should tell about this and Booth and I decided that you all needed to be warned since you work with us. If you're afraid you can always leave and move to Paris. We'll understand."

Angela stood up and gave Brennan a return hug. "If this is that bad, moving might not help anything besides you need Hodgins and me. We'll figure this out. Whatever is going on can't be completely hidden from public view. There has to be some patterns pointing to what is going on. I just need to write an algorithm that could point to what it is. I think I'll use Kirby as the focal point. He's responsible for some very terrible things and if Abbot is part of it, I may be able to prove it. I wish I knew the name of the HLS person of interest. Using Pelant, and Fonte as well as Abbot might be a good idea . . . I'll start working on it tomorrow."

"Thanks Angela." Booth knew that Angela was afraid and he admired the fact that she was willing to work with them. "Just be careful. If HLS is involved in anyway then they may be monitoring what you're doing on your computers . . . I mean it when I say don't trust anyone. Not even your computers."

"Got it." Angela felt like she had a handle on the situation. "Thank you for bringing us in on this. We may have been in danger for months and we just didn't know it. There's too many unknowns."

Hodgins stood up and moved closer to Angela. "I'm going to upgrade our alarm system at home. If anyone needs any help with that, you let me know. I'm pretty good with security systems. Cam, I'll come over to your apartment tonight and see how we can set up a system for you."

Grateful, Cam smiled. "Thank you."

Hank stood up and clapped his hands together. "Okay, Max is right. We need to start up the grill and start cooking. Your other guests will here soon and it'll look funny if we don't have any food."

He had forgot about his grandfather while they were meeting and he worried that the old man might be in danger too. "Pops would you like to move in with us? We don't know what's going on and if you'd like to move in that's fine. Max will be here in case you need something."

He was so proud of his boy. His grandson was a generous soul and he would always be grateful that Seeley had turned out the way he had. "No thank you. My retirement home has security twenty-fours a day and we're locked down at night. I'm pretty safe living there, so don't worry about me . . . I just want you to be careful. You may find out that this is just some political thing and it isn't as serious as you think. Rebecca is sure that case she was working on triggered someone going after Parker. I'm not saying blow this thing off, but it may not be as serious as you think. Congressman Abbot promised to cut down on government spending and maybe he thinks he's doing the right thing."

"I don't think this is nothing, Pops." Booth was certain he had a reason to be worried. "If the CIA is looking into this then it's pretty serious."

"Alright." Hank wished politicians would stay out of places they didn't belong. "You do what you have to do. I'll keep quiet."

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