Chapter 18: Guess Who?

Don stopped cold when he heard Jason's words. "What?" he gasped, clutching the cell phone so hard it almost shattered in his hand. "What do you mean, one of my people is a traitor? There's no way."

"You think Fenton doesn't own someone everywhere?" Jason demanded. "Why do you think Frank was so scared to talk? He didn't know who he could trust."

"Wait, how the hell do you know all this?" Don demanded, trying to stall. He looked at Megan to see what she thought. She'd been listening over the speakerphone.

"I have my sources. Fenton, mainly. I told him he was stupid, Eppes, kidnapping your family."

"And yet you still helped to hold them hostage," Don spat. "Let me talk to Frank."

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Frank took the phone from Jason, hands shaking as Don's voice projected over the speaker. "Frank? Frank! Frank Hardy!"

"I'm okay," Frank finally whispered obediently, still staring up at Jason.

Don huffed out a breath in relief. "Hang in there, Frank. Has he hurt you?"

Before Frank could respond, Jason ripped the cell back out of his hands. "He's fine, Eppes. What do you say to my deal? You guarantee me safe passage -- you get Frank and you find out who's a traitor."

Don remembered the classes he had taken in hostage negotiation at Quantico, and he had seen the techniques work in the field. There was a reason it was called "negotiation". He prepared a counter-offer. Give a little, get a little. "Let me work on that," he answered. "I'll start by clearing the house. All police personnel will leave. Just you and me. But you have to give me something…we both need to show some 'good faith', here. You give me Frank. Let Frank go."

Jason crouched back down next to Frank, and ran a possessive hand over his arm. Frank shivered and tried to draw away even further. "Don't think I'm quite ready to part with him yet," Jason grinned. He winked at Frank, who squeezed his eyes shut in horror, and his voice took on a disdainful tone. "Come on, Eppes. You know you care more about the rat anyway. Hardy planted him in your organization two years ago. Recruited him right out of Quantico. He went in dirty, and he's stayed dirty. You guys are all idiots!"

Don couldn't help himself. "Give him up!", he hissed. "Who is it?"

Jason took on a teasing tone. "I bet he's up there now, picking you guys off one-by-one. Wouldn't be the first time. There were so many bullets up flyin' up there, Eppsie…I don't suppose there were any 'friendly fire' incidents?"

Quantico classes and negotiations were out the window as Don's memory filled with the sight of his brother lying in his own blood. Jason could hear him roaring even without the telephone. "WHO THE HELL SHOT MY BROTHER, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Jason laughed. "You want me to do everything for you, don't you, Eppes? How many graduates you got from the class of '04 up there, anyway?"

Then he flipped the phone shut, killing the connection, and turned his attention back to Frank.

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Don glared at the telephone in disgust. Jason had just hung up on him, but that wasn't the reason he was angry. He whirled around until his eyes fell on David Sinclair. "Class of '04?", he hissed. "Granger came up in '04!"

David held up both his hands. "Whoa, whoa, Don. This is crazy." He looked over Don's shoulder at Megan, frantically. "Why would he shoot Charlie and then point out that it was friendly fire, and try to save his life?"

Don, breathing hard and trapped in indecision, brought his hand up toward his service weapon in a reflex. Megan surged forward and physically restrained his arm, planting herself between her two partners.

"Don! Think! Maxwell, on Anderson's team. You know he and Colby graduated from Quantico at the same time, and Anderson's team is here!"

Don opened his mouth to say something, but David's aberrant "Shit!" shocked both him and Megan. She turned to look at Sinclair, clearing his line of sight so that Don could gape at him too.

David was already starting for the stairs. "Maxwell is guarding Hardy!"

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Joe pointed at the house. "Wow, look at all the cop cars," he said as they pulled up. "Hey, look, I think that's even a SWAT van!"

"Never seen so many in my life, if you don't count LAPD or the FBI office," Oswald agreed.

Joe shrugged. "It was a common occurrence at our house. Anytime me or Frank went missing there were dozens there."

Oswald turned to him, his mouth agape. "You mean.. how many times was he missing?"

Joe sighed and glanced at the ground. "Dad always said it came with the territory, because he was so well-known. But since Frank told me that this last couple of times was Dad's organization, I'm beginning to wonder if he was really behind everything, all along." He looked up at Oswald, his gaze a mixture of heartbreak and fear. "Oswald, what are we going to do now?"

"Get in the house and rescue your brother," Oswald said.

Joe regarded the dozens of policemen milling around the area. Oswald had been forced to park almost a block away, but as the two drew nearer to the house, they could see yellow "crime scene" tape blocking off the curious. "And how are we gonna do that?", he asked. "Maybe they got him out by now?"

Oswald grinned at him. "Stick with me, kid," he said cockily, marching right up to the tape barrier.

A young LAPD policeman on the other side crossed his arms over his chest. With just two weeks on the job, this was the most exciting thing he'd done yet, and he puffed up with self-importance. "Going to have to ask you to step back, boys. This is a hostage situation."

Oswald brought his hand out from behind him with a flourish, and shoved his FBI visitor's pass under the cop's nose. On the way up the sidewalk, he had carefully positioned his fingers to cover most of the "Visitor" and expose most of the "FBI", and his photo, "I've been called to the scene," he bluffed. "Consultant, for Agent Eppes. He requested that I bring the hostage's brother." Sensing the rookie's hesitation, he roughened his voice and frowned. "You don't want to cross Eppes, let me tell you! Haven't you heard about him?"

The cop glanced nervously around, hoping to find a senior officer to make the decision. He may have only been two weeks on the job, but he had seen this FBI Eppes in action all day, and he had no trouble believing he could be dangerous to a man's career.

As he hesitated, Oswald reached for the phone on his belt. "Okay, I'll call him. It's your funeral, dude."

The rookie paled and hastily lifted the tape barrier. "No! I mean, listen…tell him I was helpful, okay? Patrolman Davis."

Oswald grabbed Joe's elbow and dragged him under the yellow tape. "Sure thing, patrolman." Joe was practically choking by now, and Oswald dragged him several feet beyond Davis. "Calm down!", he ordered, shaking Joe's elbow.

Joe looked up at him, a gleam in his eye. "Frank will love this," he said. "This is something he would have tried to do…before…"

Oswald could see Joe slipping back into his fear and he spoke lowly to him with a confidence he did not truly feel. "Yeah. Well, we'll give him the play-by-play when we get him out." He glanced toward the door. "I don't think we can try to bluff any of these other guys. Gotta avoid normal entrance points. Let's scoot behind the dead bushes and scoot around the back. Mabe we can get in through a basement window."

Joe nodded and silently followed Oswald's lead. Now that someone official had let them across the barrier, no-one else seemed too concerned about their presence on the lawn, and the two boys were soon clinging to the side of the house, edging their way to the back. Each time they encountered a basement window, Oswald would check to see if it was unlocked. It was beginning to look like he was going to have to kick through a pane. Near the back door, there were two windows barely a foot apart. Oswald leaned and checked one, and then the other. He was so startled to discover the second one unlocked, he almost missed it. When he turned to nudge Joe and share his discovery, he found his young friend kneeling on the ground, rubbing at the dirt on the first window and peering through it. "Joe!", he hissed.

Without looking up at him, Joe snaked up a hand and tugged hard on Oswald's jeans. Oswald dropped beside him in the dust. "What?", he whispered.

Joe sat back from the window a little and pointed at it. Oswald was dismayed to see that he was crying. "Frank's in there," he answered miserably.

Stunned, Oswald shoved his own face at the window. Sure enough, he could see Frank lying on the floor at the bottom of a staircase. His face was toward the window, but Oswald couldn't tell if he could see them or not. Standing over him was a guy at least as big as Colby Granger, and he was kicking at Frank. Joe lowered his face back to the window, and the two silently watched as the man leaned over and backhanded Frank across the face. Joe made a sound of distress, and Oswald quickly clapped his hand over the boy's mouth. "Quiet," he instructed, so livid it was difficult to keep his voice down. "This other window is unlocked. We're going in."