Chapter 9

House shrugged when Chase reported what had happened in Charlie's room. "I'll talk to Cuddy about this. It won't the first time the feds have strong armed their way around here, so don't expect anything to happen. Wouldn't want to risk losing those tax dollars."

Chase snorted. "I wonder if I could bring assault charges against the bugger."

"Good luck with that. How's the patient, by the way?"

"His temp is up. Still in pain, but he says it's not bad. Blood work shows no change. But there was nothing there to begin with."

"Still nothing. That's good. His temp should on the way down. You still weren't able to get him to tell you where he really was last week?"

Chase shook his head. "No."

"Never send a boy to do a man's job," House said, limping from the room.

A little after midnight, Don and Alan walked into Charlie's room. Amita and Larry stood up as they entered, but Alan ignored them and went straight to his son's side. Touching Charlie's cheek gently, Alan said, "He's burning up."

Charlie's eyes fluttered open, and he looked confused for a moment. "Dad? Is it really you?"

"Yes, Son, it's me. Don's here too."

Charlie's eyes sought out Don, and he smiled weakly, "Hey, Bro."

"Buddy," Don said, "you look like crap."

Charlie chuckled and grimaced. "Don't make me laugh." He took a deep breath and continued, "I'm the patient. I'm supposed to look like crap. You, on the other hand, have no excuse." He coughed, and pressed a hand to his midsection. "Water?" He whispered.

Amita poured some fresh ice water into the cup and handed it to Alan. "The doctors said it's okay for him to drink this."

Alan nodded and held the straw to his son's lips. Charlie drank thirstily. "Thanks," he murmured when he had finished.

Alan put the cup down and gave Amita a hug, "How are you holding up?" He asked.

Amita blinked tears away and said, "As well as can be expected."

Don asked, "Do they have any idea what's wrong yet?"

Larry said, "They believe he may have ingested anthrax. They're treating him with antibiotics, but I haven't noticed much of a change..."

"Anthrax?" Don looked around the room and finally noticed Agent Reid. He walked across to the man and said, "Don Eppes, FBI. You Agent O'Connell?"

"No, I'm Frank Reid. Mike is taking a break. He said he talked to you. Nice to meet you."

"We'll see how nice it is," Don growled. "How did Charlie end up eating anthrax? What was he working on last week?"

"You know I can't tell you that, Agent Eppes. All you need to know is that he was in Washington doing some mathematical consulting. No field work."

"All I need to know is..." Don's voice started to get louder.

"Don," Alan said. "Not now. Not here."

Don turned his back on Reid and went back to Charlie's side. "Sorry." Don touched Charlie's cheek. "Hey, Buddy," he said softly.

Charlie's eyes opened and he smiled. "I'm glad you guys are here." His eyes closed again and he sighed.

Don said, "Dad, should we find this Dr. House and see what he has to say?"

"Ahh," Amita said, "you might not want to do that. Maybe we'll get lucky and one of the other doctors will show up. It's actually possible to talk to them."

"So what do we do?" Alan asked.

"Pull up a chair and wait," Larry said. "The doctors pop in here with some regularity."

"Wait?" Don was incredulous. "We flew all this way to wait for..."

"Is this my cue?" House said from the doorway.

"Dr. House," Amita said dully. "This is Charlie's father, Alan and his brother, Don."

"Damn. The only thing worse than patients is patients' families." He hobbled into the room, nudged Charlie from his sleep and said, "If you want to get better you're going to have to start telling us the truth."

Charlie stared groggily at the man and muttered, "What?"

"Unless you stop lying to me, I am going to send you packing." He laid his cane on the bed, pulled back the covers and began to use his fingers to probe Charlie's belly. He pressed down and released, and Charlie arched his back and cried out in pain.

Don jumped from his chair, grabbed House with one hand and the cane with the other and dragged the doctor from the room. When they were out of sight of the stunned people in Charlie's room, he pushed House against the wall. "I will not let you torture my brother. If you need information in order to help him, I will get that information for you. Charlie signed some sort of idiotic agreement with the NSA, and he can't help you, especially with an NSA agent sitting in the room with him. I'm an FBI agent. And Larry, Amita and my dad and I will do anything we can to help Charlie. You tell me what it is you need, and we will get it for you."

House pulled away from Don's grip. "Thank God! Finally someone with some balls. Your brother has been telling us he was in Washington last week and didn't leave the country. He has all the symptoms of gastrointestinal anthrax, but contracting that in this country is virtually impossible. He is not telling us the truth about where he was and what he was doing. And that misplaced desire to honor the terms of some goddamn contract may kill him. You find out where he was last week, and what he was doing, and we might just stand a chance of saving his life."

"I'll do that. No more torture."

"Torture? That," House waved toward Charlie's room, "that is called rebound tenderness. It means the infection, or whatever it is, has moved from his intestines into the lining of his abdominal cavity. It means the treatments for anthrax are not working. It means your brother is getting worse. It means we don't have much more time."

"How will you treat it?"

"More antibiotics. Maybe surgery. Leave that to me. You get me what I need to save his life." House grabbed his cane from Don's hand, turned and limped away.

Don returned to Charlie's room. "Amita, why don't you show me where we'll be staying?"

Amita looked at Charlie. "But, Don..."

"Larry and Dad can stay with him 'til we get back. We won't be gone that long."

"Okay," Amita said.

"And bring your computer along, too, why don't you? I'd like to check my email."

Amita looked at Charlie's computer. "But..."

"It's gonna be okay, Amita," Don said firmly. "Come with me. We could both use some fresh air. Come on."

When they were out of the room, Don said, "House needs to know where Charlie was and what he was doing. Otherwise Charlie won't make it. Amita, I know that's Charlie's computer. He had it with him last week, so there must be something on it that will give us a clue."

"But he encrypts all his stuff."

"I know. That's why I needed you to come with me. I need you to break into his computer. I also want to have a look at his room. See if there's anything useful there. I'm sorry I couldn't explain this to you in there. I just didn't want the NSA to know what we're up to."