CHAPTER THREE

Don walked into the house and irritably dumped his bag on the nearest chair. Alan came hustling out the kitchen door. "Don!" he said in surprise. "You're home early."

"Yeah," Don muttered moodily. "Thanks to Charlie."

"What happened?" Alan asked with a concerned frown.

"I've been put on leave because Charlie is a prime suspect in a case. So have Lauren, Colby and David."

"Charlie's a suspect in a case?" Alan repeated in surprise. "What case?"

"The one that's been on the news for months now," Don said. "Stupid case and stupid Charlie for not cooperating."

"Why is he not cooperating?" Alan asked.

"Because he's stubborn. And because he wouldn't tell them where he was at the time."

"This happened when he was away," Alan said, turning abruptly and walking back in the kitchen. Don heard the clanging of pots and pans. He shook his head and took a moment before following his father. The feud between Charlie and Alan had been getting on Don's nerves and he found it high time it ended. At least Don had a reason to be angry with Charlie; he knew what Charlie had done. Alan didn't have that excuse.

"Look, Dad, you need to give it a rest with that already," he said, watching his father rummaging through the fridge. Don sat down at the table. "Charlie can't tell you where he was."

"He told you," Alan said evenly.

"Some," Don admitted. "He traveled a lot. People were after him, that's all you need to know."

Alan looked at him with narrowed eyes. "That's not all I need to know, thank you."

"Colby and David and Marjolie are joining us for dinner, if that's alright," Don said, changing the subject for now.

"Marjolie is coming over?" Alan asked, brightening immediately. "That's wonderful. We'll have to make sure she and Charlie sit next to each other."

Don bit back a laugh. "Charlie's in Prague with Anna," he said. "Didn't you know that?"

"No, I didn't," Alan said, closing the fridge. "He doesn't tell me anything. Of course that woman is with him. She's the cause of all this."

Don rolled his eyes at that. Alan had been determined to blame the rift between him and Charlie on Anna, despite the fact that Anna had been nothing but kind and pleasant since she had come. Alan was determined to get Charlie back with Marjolie, who he considered to be a far better choice.

"Marjolie is with Colby," Don reminded his father.

"Right, of course," Alan agreed. He sighed and sat down at the table. "I have been hard on him, haven't I?"

"A bit," Don agreed.

"Why is he in Prague?"

"UN conference." Don shrugged.

"Does he know he is a suspect?" Alan asked.

"Yeah. He was pretty much tipped off when I called him and asked him to come in for some questions."

"And?"

"And he was furious. He yelled at the Director of the CIA. And you know how he feels about Paulson."

Alan nodded. "When is he coming back?"

"I'm not sure. Never? He was pretty mad."

"I don't know what we're doing anymore," Alan said with a sigh. "I don't know why I'm having such a hard time accepting Charlie since he's come back. And I know I've been less than fair with Anna. I just don't understand either one of them."

Don fidgeted with his hands a little and debated telling his father the whole story. He felt that the main reason Alan and Charlie had been at odds was that Charlie was refusing to tell his father where he had been when he had disappeared for eight months. If he would just come clean, like he had with Don, it might go a long way towards healing their relationship. Then again, Alan didn't need to know all of the truth, because Don didn't want him having to deal with what Don himself was dealing with: the knowledge that Charlie was very guilty.

"Dad," Don said seriously. "When Charlie disappeared, it was because some terrorist organization had put a price on his head. People wanted him dead."

Alan looked over at him with a frown. "They wanted him dead?"

"Yes. Because he had helped the NSA or whoever catch some of the members of the organization." Don frowned slightly trying to keep the names out of the story. "Charlie went to Spain for a bit with some team members."

"Team members?"

"Yes, he works with some people on a fairly regular basis on decoding and things like that. They went to Spain and then to Italy, and finally to South Africa. He was on the run, that's all Dad. He didn't contact us because he didn't want us to become targets, and he couldn't come back until he could be sure it was safe."

Alan nodded and stood again to rummage through some cupboards. "I assumed it was something like that," he said. "I'm not surprised. But I have been going through scenarios. He's come back fairly unharmed, and seems perfectly fine, but I'm angry with him. Because I was so worried, and that doesn't seem to bother him."

Don nodded and couldn't argue in Charlie's defense. They had been over this exact conversation a dozen times or more since Charlie's return, and still they didn't seem able to get past the rift. It was easy to blame it all on Charlie, but Don was beginning to see that it was not all Charlie's fault, that he and his father were nearly as much to blame for it all.

"So, David, any plans for our unexpected vacation?" Colby asked later that night as they sat around the dinner table.

David shrugged and shook his head. "Nope. You?"

"Nope," Colby said in reply, serving himself another plate full of pasta. "A road trip maybe."

Marjolie looked over at him with a frown. "Seriously?"

Colby shrugged and grinned. "Why not? It could be nice."

Marjolie looked at him dubiously, then shrugged. "I suppose."

"I can't believe they insisted I leave my laptop behind," Lauren groused.

Don couldn't help but laugh and shake his head.

"Yeah, you're laughing now," Lauren said, pointing her fork at him. "Just wait until they take a look at them and discover your little spyware."

Don looked confused for a moment. "Spyware?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Lauren said, taking a bite of the garlic bread.

"But the rest of us don't," Colby said eagerly.

"Don put a tracker on Charlie's cell and car," Lauren said, ignoring Don's deadly glare. "He's been stalking his own brother."

"Have not!" Don exclaimed. "I was just being cautious."

"And, is he really in Prague?" Alan asked.

"I don't know, I never got a chance to check," Don muttered. "Anyway, he's better off in Prague for now. Better than here, where the Feds could swoop in and arrest him any minute."

That earned a snort of laughter from both Colby and David. "You know we're the Feds, right?" David said. "We're the ones doing the swooping."

Don shrugged. "I suppose."

"It's not really us," Lauren objected. "It's the CIA, and Director Paulson. That man has had it in for Charlie the entire year he's been in our office. And it wasn't warranted in any way. Charlie was perfectly polite to him when they met and when he first started helping out on the fraud case."

"Polite or condescending?" Don asked. "He does both really well."

Lauren rolled her eyes at him. "He was being polite, until Paulson was rude to him. Then he became condescending pretty fast. And yes, he does do that very well."

Everyone laughed at that.

"Maybe I should call him," Don said thoughtfully. "Tell him to stay in Prague."

"Won't that make him look guilty?" Alan asked doubtfully. "Wouldn't it be better if he just came in and answered their questions? They can't have any hard evidence against him, can they?"

"I really don't know what they have," Don said. "But it must be something, or we wouldn't all have been put on leave. They wouldn't just do that for nothing."

"But Charlie's innocent," Marjolie said. "What could they possibly have if he's innocent?"

Don's reply was cut short by the shattering of their front window, and a hail of bullets cutting through the room. He dove for cover under the table, pulling his father down with him.