Vengeance

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: For the last time! I do not own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.

"Captain, you've got a call on the local landline." Sergeant Thaife, the communications sergeant said.

"Who is it?"

"Don't know, sir. He wouldn't give his name."

Castle thought for a moment. There were all sorts of arms dealers, free lance intelligence operatives and mercenary recruiters that might want to contact him without giving away anything about themselves. On the other hand, his current mission would cause a lot of other people a lot of grief. It could be someone trying to warn him off, or even trying to blackmail him by threatening to release details of his job. He decided to be careful.

"I'll take it in my office. Trace the call, sergeant, and put it through."

After a moment, Castle picked up the phone. "Captain Richard Castle. To whom am I speaking?"

"My name is Vaughn, Captain, and I believe I can save you a lot of trouble."

"Trouble comes naturally in my business. I hope you're not one of those people who want me to give up my evil way and live the good life."

Vaughn laughed. "Not at all, Captain. Not at all."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want Kate Beckett. You have her."

"And why should I give one of my people to you?"

"Beckett is wanted on Earth for murder and other crimes. She's a fugitive."

"Mr. Vaughn, I don't think you'll find too many people this far from Earth who are at all impressed by some piece of paper from a court on Earth." There was silence on the other end of the line and Castle laughed. "From your silence, I'll bet you've found that out already."

"Beckett has offended a very powerful man, and he's determined to get her back to face justice one way or another. No matter what it takes. He's a very wealthy and powerful man and he gets what he wants."

"Let me tell you four things, if I may? One, taking a member of a battle-hardened mercenary company will neither be easy or cheap. Unless you've got a unit ready to hit me immediately, we won't be surprised. You'd need a pretty good unit to take us out. I'd guess it would cost your boss a good half a million US dollars. But let's leave that for a moment."

"Secondly, mercenaries stick together. If I just turned one of my people over to you, I wouldn't have a unit. I might even get a bullet in my head from my former comrades."

"Third, mercenaries are very familiar with death. We're very good at dealing it out and we're afraid of death, of course, but we willingly face it all the time."

"The fourth thing you should know is we do this for money. Money is what the mercenary life is all about. Now, killing me and my unit could cost your boss a lot of money. Do you think there's another option here?"

Vaughn laughed. "I think there is, Captain Castle. How about a hundred thousand US dollars?"

"To save your boss a half a million? Three hundred thousand. Take it or leave it."

"Done. Can you get Beckett to me by tonight?"

"Did you hear what I said about mercenaries sticking together? If I just knock her on the head and drag her over to you, my own men might kill me. I have to make it look like she deserted. I have an idea of how to do that. Do you know where William's Cross is?"

"I can find it."

"Good. Give me two days. We'll meet at the Cross on Fourday an hour after dawn. You come alone and bring the money. I'll come alone and bring the girl. We'll both leave happy."

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Captain." Vaughn hung up.

Castle walked out of his office. "Sergeant Thaife, did you trace that call?"

"Yes, sir. He was calling from the Grognard. No doubt about it."

"Okay, get Privates Beckett and Harper in here, Sergeant Martens, Sergeant Thull and Lance Corporal Drarn."

Kate and Alexis arrived only seconds before the other three soldiers. "What did you want?" Kate asked.

"Do you know a man named Vaughn?"

"No, Captain, I don't. Should I know him?"

"He just offered me three hundred thousand US dollars for you. He apparently works for this Senator Bracken who's chasing you."

Kate was unarmed and realized she was surrounded by armed men who were loyal to Castle. Why did I trust this man? She thought. "You intend to sell me to him?"

"No, I intend to kill him."

"You're going to give up three hundred thousand dollars for me?" Kate couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice.

"He has no intention of paying me anything. He agreed to pay the money I asked for without so much as a quibble. It's unlikely a hired gun this far from Earth has, or has access, to that kind of money. If he had it, he'd try to bargain. That way he'd have some left over for himself. More likely, he'd have to contact someone to get the money. There's no way he could do that by Fourday. No, he intends to kill me and take you. But I'm pretty sure I'm better at killing than he is."

"You have a plan?" Alexis asked.

"Oh, I have a plan." He turned to one of his NCOs, "Sergeant Martens, how would you like to go drinking tonight at the Grognard? On the company, of course."

A sort of a smile split Martens' damaged face. "I'd love to, sir."

"What's the Grognard?" Kate asked.

"It's French for groaner and an old French military slang term for an old soldier. It's the name of an inn just off the Transit Dirtside Spaceport. It's where Vaughn is."

It was well into the evening when Sergeant Martens walked into the Grognard. He took a table as far from the crowd as he could and growled an order for a bottle from the waitress.

"Want something more than a drink tonight, Colonel?" She whispered in his ear.

"Fuck off, bitch. "He snarled.

The waitress brought his bottle and left. She decided that anyone who's face was that badly shot up would probably want to take his anger out on anyone he could. Just as well that he'd said no, she decided.

Martens had actually had some restorative work done on his face. He'd never been a beauty to begin with, so he didn't really plan on getting much more work done. The best thing that he'd done was to get a new eye. He hadn't gotten one regrown and implanted, but he'd had a bio-mechanical eye put in. For a recon troop it was better than a biological eye. It had a night vision capability, he could detect heat signatures, it served as a telescope and it could record what he'd seen for later playback.

For tonight, he wore an overcoat that was two sizes too big for him to disguise the fact that he was wearing body armor and had a small submachine gun under his coat. Castle thought it was unlikely that anyone would make Martens, but he liked to be sure. To be extra sure, a squad of his soldiers was just down the street, passing a bottle around. Their weapons and armor were also well hidden.

Martens had no trouble finding Vaughn and his men. There were eight men at a large table. From the clothes, their accents, the way they threw money around and how loud they were, he knew they were from Earth. He could her them bragging to the whores with them about how tough they were and how they were going to make a big score in another two days. Martens smiled to himself and made sure he got a nice shot of each man's face for facial recognition purposes, in case they needed it later.

Vaughn wasn't with his men. He was in the dining room, which was only separated from the bar by a thin partition, and he was facing Martens. He couldn't hear what Vaughn was saying to the hooker with him, but he made sure he recorded it all. Their computer could lip read what he said later and transcribe it.

When Vaughn was done with his meal, he and his hooker went upstairs, soon followed by his men and their women. Martens waited until he'd finished his bottle and left, staggering a bit for effect.

Martens joined his comrades outside and briefed them on what he'd learned, all while passing a bottle around and laughing. When the bottle came to Martens, he was disgusted to find he was drinking cold tea.

As the troops staggered back to their base, one of their number quietly broke away from the group and disappeared into the shadows. Lance Corporal Drarn wasn't from the heavily forested county near the Golden Life plantations, but rather from the vast mountain ranges to the far south. He had been climbing since he was a little boy and that talent had attracted Castle's attention. He had found Drarn some inexpensive climbing gear which increased his abilities. Moving well into the dark of a small alley, he put on one of the few stealth suits the company had. Once switched on, the suit would blend into the background by transferring the background to the front of the suit and vice versa.

Drarn slipped down several alleyways until he reached the back of the Grognard. Quickly checking for any sign of life, he scampered up the side of the building to the second floor where the inn's bedrooms were. He crawled to the first window and attached a microscopic listening device to the window. He listened to it and cursed silently to himself. Three businessmen from Hansa were playing skat. He removed the bug.

He edged along the wall and placed a bug on the window. He had found Vaughn's room. The whore had been kind enough to call him Mr. Vaughn. After that there was only a lot of moaning and groaning. He left the bug in place and moved on. The next two rooms were filled with Vaughn's men. Bugs went on both windows. He listened for a while but heard only drunken mumbling. He climbed to the ground, took off the stealth suit and met with a fireteam from Castle's company who were seemingly just loafing around on a street corner.

Once Castle had been briefed, he and his officers got busy planning the ambush for Vaughn. As ambushes went, it was rather simple, but Castle wanted to make sure nothing went wrong.

After breakfast the next morning, Castle went into town to try to find something he needed for the ambush. He didn't find what he was looking for, but what he found was just what he needed.

After dinner, when it was dark, he called Kate Beckett over. "I have something to show you."

Castle pointed to some kind of a smallish, shaggy four-footed animal. Kate stared at it. "Okay. What is it?"

"A Przewalski's horse, sometimes known as a Mongolian Steppe Pony."

Kate stared at the horse. "And why do I need to see this?"

"It's part of my plan to ambush Vaughn."

"The horse is going to sneak up on him carrying a gun and kill him?"

"No, he's going to carry you. You're supposed to be knocked out when Vaughn and I meet. He'll be suspicious if you're walking beside me. I tried to find a small car, but there aren't many on Transit, at least not to rent for a night. However, I found Nikolai here and rented him."

"There are horses on Transit?"

TBC