Manipulation Part 8

By Ecri

Don had left the office for CalSci's campus earlier than he'd intended, but he couldn't wait to speak to Larry. He had too many questions, and he was sure Larry and Amita could provide some insight into Charlie's mind–and equations–that he would have missed on his own.

Larry's door was open, so Don knocked on the frame. Larry looked up immediately, and stood, ushering Don into the office and closing the door behind him. "I'm glad you're here, Don."

"Why? Do you have something?" Don was stunned. He hadn't even asked his questions yet.

Larry was nodding. "I think I do. We assumed that the equations Charles was working on were focused on finding the killer, and, indeed, the initial ones do deal with that. But, Amita and I were rechecking some notes that Charles sent us"

"Wait a minute." Don interrupted carefully. "He sent them to you?"

Larry nodded. "Therein lies a tale. In a fit of paranoia and a too intimate perusal of Edgar Alan Poe's Purloined Letter, he left these notes for me to find. I took copies to him. We talked briefly, and then, a few days later, I received a letter from him in a purely mathematical form. Amita and I worked it out. He is now working on more than one equation. He believes there is a message hidden in the crimes, but he also believes that there was something else."

"What?"

"He saw that the crimes had stopped and now seemed to hinge on the necessity of having Charles take the blame. He's the fall guy, if you will."

Don nodded. "And?"

"Andaccording to the equations that Charles has authored, there's a likelihood that the perpetrator is orchestrating much more than we think. Charles thinks the person, or people, behind this is aware of his expertise and reputation in the mathematics community. He's aware of Charles' approach. That makes him someone who is familiar with or who knows someone who is familiar with higher mathematics"

Don waved a hand to stall Larry's enthusiasm. "You keep saying perpetratornot killer?"

Larry nodded. "The man behind all of this–orchestrating all of this–is unlikely to have been what people in your line of work would call the 'trigger man'"

Don smiled. "Well, we wouldn't, but go on."

"The perpetrator framed Charles for a reason, and not the usual one. Charles believes he has deduced the motive."

Don waited for Larry to say it; blackmail. It meant that Charlie knew he was being manipulated into giving up secrets

"Vengeance."

Don blinked. "What did you say?"

"Vengeance. Revenge. Vendetta." He held up a sheet of paper with various scrawls across it. One was Charlie's, one had to be Larry's, and, Don assumed the third was Amita's. "Charles believes the motive is revenge. Everything else isextraneous. This case, is, apparently, replete with red herrings and MacGuffins."

Don's questions had been forgotten. This, as his brother would say, was a whole new data set. This put a different spin on everything. He had to get this information to Terry. If that were indeed Buchmann's motive, then maybe she could develop a more accurate profile.

"Thank, Larry." Don said and raced for the door. Larry stared after him, surprised by his abrupt departure. "Don't you want the equations?"

Amita stared at the letter from the Dean. It wasn't really from the Dean, of course. She doubted he'd done more than glance at it, if he'd even done that much. It was a form letter. Dr. Martin Williams will now be your thesis advisor. On one hand, she had expected it to happen. On the other, she didn't want it to happen and she couldn't help but balk at the very idea. Couldn't she visit Charlie in prison and have him look over her work there? Couldn't they see that Charlie couldn't be guilty, and so she didn't really need a new thesis advisor? Couldn't they see that it really didn't matter anyway?

With Charlie in jail, she hadn't been able to work on her thesis at all. Her concentration was gone. How was she supposed to get used to taking another man's opinion on something like thison something that she had worked on so closely with him? She knocked on the door to Larry's office. She'd made an appointment, and, while she would have felt at ease just walking in on Charlie, she couldn't do that with anyone else.

"Come in!" Larry's voice, slightly muffled, came to her through the closed door.

She entered and waited for acknowledgement, but, like Charlie, Dr. Fleinhardt was deeply engrossed in whatever he was working on. She cleared her throat twice before he looked up.

"Amita! That's right. We have an appointment, don't we? How can I help you?"

"Well, it's aboutmy new"

"Thesis advisor?" He waved a hand. "I know. I've told the Dean that Charles will not be pleased at being replaced like this" He frowned at the strange look in her eye. "Are you alright?"

She ignored he question. "Soyou believe he'll be coming back? That they'll find him innocent?"

He smiled. "Of course, I do. Following Charles's lead on things of this nature, and believe me, I know that, compared to Charles, my own math is somewhat sketchy, still, I had to trynow the results were less than encouraging at first."

"Hang on." Amita interrupted, trying to sort through his words and meaning. "Are you saying that statistics prove that Charlie will be acquitted?"

"No. It showed me statistically that Charlie would be convicted."

She stared at him in disbelief as he smiled at her. "I don't see what there is to smile about."

"Oh, well, it turned out that the theorem could only be proved with the addition of data that I'd completely ignored when I'd computed the variables."

"What data is that?"

"That statistically, most convicted serial killers don't have a brother and several close friends working on the FBI." He rose and moved to her side. "Charles is in good hands. Don will get him out."

She smiled at his faith. "I didn't think physicists had blind faith."

"We do, but only when we can back it up with some sort of evidence."

"How did you do that?" She couldn't understand what he was getting at.

"Do you remember high school geometry? The way you'd prove something was so by manipulating your statements so that you said the exact opposite of what you were trying to prove so you could negate the statement, thereby proving your original statementthat's what I did."

She stared at him for a moment, but before long, she was smiling. Whether in relief that he was here to tell her such nonsense in order to lift her spirits, or because he had convinced her that Don Eppes would never let his brother rot in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

Terry tried every combination and spelling of Buchmann's name but she could find nothing. The man appeared to be an upstanding businessman, and her profile was incomplete, even useless for her purposes.

She's already searched for more information based on Don's description, but that had yielded too many possibilities and no way for her to narrow them down. She had a few photos for Don to peruse when he got back, but she wanted more. She wanted to be able to hand him a solid lead on the man's identity.

Frustrated, she tossed her pen down on the desk. That was when David approached her.

"Terry," he called her name, and, she almost frowned at the tone of his voice. More than a hint of trepidation colored his simple salutation. She looked up at him, and saw that he held himself stiffly, almost as though ready to spring away from her desk if she gave the slightest indication that she couldn't be disturbed. He hadn't looked like this, acted like this, since his first week on the job.

She smiled, hoping that would ease his mind. "Did you need something, David?"

David almost shrugged, but halted the movement midway through. Terry hid a smile, and waited for him to speak.

"I've" he glanced around and lowered his voice before locking his eyes on hers and continuing. "I've been doing some digging"

By the way he was speaking, she could guess what he'd been digging into. "Did you find something?"

He dropped a file on her desk. "It's Pierce."

"You've been digging into an Agent's background?"

"Yeah, well, he's the arresting officer"

"I know who he is." She opened the folder and began to page through it. She read a few lines, and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "He lost his partner."

"Yeah, not too long ago, either. His arrest record went south after that. He started making mistakes that were costing him convictions as well as arrests. He wasn't solving the cases. Lately, he's been moving in, making arrests after someone else does the legwork."

She paged through the file and shook her head. "Who? There's no indication that he's on a team, or that anyone is working closely with him on a regular basis."

David nodded. "Except"

"Except what?"

"In each case, the work was given to him directly by Jeff Mason."

Terry's eyes widened and her voice dropped to a whisper. "The Director? Kraft's supervisor?"

David nodded.

Terry made an immediate decision. She didn't want to involve David, so she'd have to brush him off and do it on her own. Her instincts told her that he wouldn't drop it. If he'd done this much digging on his own, she couldn't dissuade him from continuing with a few curt words and a gruff demeanor. She wouldn't bring him in on this without say so from Don or Kraft.

"Thanks, David. I'll mention this to Don. See what he wants to do about it." She saw the disbelief in his eyes, but he was gracious enough not to push. When he returned to his desk, she grabbed her jacket and left the office. She had a lot of questions to ask a lot of people, and putting together a profile on your boss' boss was going to be a delicate operation.

Alan looked at his son through the partition, and listened to the words he'd left unsaid through the telephone. "You're not sleeping, Charlie."

To his surprise, instead of arguing, Charlie hung his head. Alan tried to think of something that would help. "Do you need anything? Maybe the infirmary can give you a sleeping pill."

Charlie shook his head and looked at his father. "No, that's okay. I don't want to take anything."

Alan nodded, but before he could say anything else, Charlie asked him a question. "Shouldn't you be home resting? Does Donny know you're here?"

Alan smiled. "He's a detective. He'll figure it out."

Charlie couldn't help but laugh, and Alan's grin widened at the sight.

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Alan was trying to sound happy, but in his mind he wondered at his son's choice of words. Charlie probably didn't realize it, but he had been calling his brother 'Donny' through the entire visit. In more normal circumstances, he only did that rarely. It was a name Charlie used in extreme moments. Extreme anxiety, extreme affection, extreme joy, extreme fear

"You're sure you're okay?" Charlie asked.

"I'm in better shape than you are!" Alan waved a hand at Charlie's cast and various contusions. The smile faded. "I worry about you."

"I worry about you, too."

"Me? This robbery waswhat do you call it? An anomaly." He smiled, hoping his son would, too.

Charlie shook his head, trying desperately not to tell his father what he knew about the attack. Knowing what he did, he couldn't think of it as a robbery. He cleared his throat and pursed his lips for a moment against the words he didn't want to say. Finally, he found something innocuous enough to say out loud. "You think so?"

"Don't you?"

Charlie didn't answer. His eyes drifted down to the tabletop and glazed over as numbers pounded on his brain demanding to be let out. He held them back with effort. He knew his father could read him. Maybe he didn't always know exactly what was going on in his mind like Mom had seemed to, but he was an expert in his own way. Charlie's eyes shifted slowly upward until he looked his father in the eye.

"No. I think" He stopped himself again and changed direction. "What would you say if I told you there was no such thing as coincidence?"

Alan tried to laugh, but his son's serious attitude shook him. "You're always going on about random this and random that"

"Those are two different things. Random events and coincidence, while there may be a correlation" Charlie sighed. He was starting to speak faster, going into a lecture mode. Rambling, his brother called it. "I'm sorry, Dad. I'mnot sleeping." It was hard to admit that to his father, but it was easier than confessing that he'd been the cause of those injuries.

Alan leaned closer. "I know. It will be all right. I'm trying to reach someone who might help us"

"No. Dad, don't. This is my fight."

Alan didn't know how to respond. They were a family. They were in this together. Why would Charlie suddenly want to do this alone? "Don't be silly, Charlie"

"I'm NOT silly!" Charlie's face twisted in sudden rage. "I'm" That quickly, his rage evaporated. He just didn't have the energy for it, and those numbers were knocking at his brain again.

"No, of course, you're not, Charlie. I didn't mean it that way." Alan stared at his son, his concern apparent. Charlie was on the verge of something here, and Alan had no clue what it could be. When Charlie flew from sudden rage to deep despair, when his words came faster than Alan could follow and then stopped in mid-thought, Charlie was struggling with something serious. Alan knew his son. Charlie would need to work this out before he could speak of it. The trouble with that was obvious. In the past, if Charlie needed to work something out or think something through, Alan was always nearby no matter what time of the day or night his youngest son decided it was time to unburden himself. Now, Charlie was in jail. There was too much to deal with and not enough time to spend working through any of it. Instinctively, Alan moved his hand, thinking his son needed some human contact, but the partition, of course, wouldn't allow that. Unwilling to withdraw his hand, and hoping Charlie understood the sentiment, he swallowed his own feelings, and tried to reach his son in any way he could. "Charlie, it's all right. Don and I aren't going to let you down."

Charlie half-smiled and half-sobbed as his own hand reached up and pressed against the glass opposite his father's. "No, you never do."

Alan watched as the guards led his boy away. It was time he talked to Don.

Terry glanced around Don's apartment. Not much had changed here. A creature of habit, Don hadn't bothered to alter anything in the apartment for all the years he'd rented it. Of course, being a workaholic in a demanding job, he didn't do much beside sleep here. There was little reason to worry about decorating.

She knew Don was nervous. She could see it. She knew him better than anyone here, perhaps better than he knew himself, and she saw the signs. Tense shoulders, frown, and he kept looking at his watch.

"Don?"

It took him a moment, but finally he responded. "Yeah?"

"I think maybe you better sit down. You won't get that call any quicker just because you're on your feet." She never mentioned Buchmann's name just in case. She didn't want to be the one to tip Buchmann that Don had not kept this all to himself.

She'd given him a new profile based on Charlie's vengeance theory, but they still didn't know precisely who Buchmann was as far as any connection to Don or his family.

"What if he doesn't call at all?"

"It's been days since he last called. He'll call." She wanted to elaborate. She wanted to explain that Don still had what Buchmann wanted, but she held her tongue. He looked at her just then, and read it all in her eyes anyway.

He nodded, and she knew he wouldn't say anymore. This case was making them all paranoid.

Her eyes wandered around the room again wishing for something to talk to him about, something to distract him from the relentless anxiety over his brother's safety, over his father's safety. His apartment, she realized, did reflect some of his personality. The framed photos of his family, and even, she was surprised to note, one picture of Don and herself, laughing uproariously at some now-forgotten witticism, graced the walls and the table tops. Furniture, large and mostly dark colors, stood out in stark contrast to the pale walls. He'd done what he could to make it comfortable, but that was all. It wasn't a home. It was a place to get ready for work, to knock back a beer at the end of a long week, to sleep.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Don, in a sudden and almost violent burst of energy, moved to the stereo and flipped it on, leaving the volume much louder than he usually did. She knew what he was doing. He had to talk, but didn't want to be overheard. This would confuse any devices in or around the apartment.

He sat beside her. "Terry, it's been days since I've heard from this guy. What if he's gotten all he wanted and he's"

"No!" The vehemence of her denial caught them both by surprise, but as he had been about to say those words, Terry, knowing the kind of grief that would follow if they were true, had to stop him. "I mean, he couldn't yet. He's only asked for minor things. He didn't go through all this trouble and kill 9 people–with the potential for many more–just to get a few snippets of information. He has to be after something big"

The phone rang, cutting her off.

Don let it ring twice more, then he yanked it off the table in his rush to answer. Terry picked up the extension and started the trace. "Hello."

A familiar voice laughed. "I see you've been expecting my call."

"I was pretty sure you wanted something else from me."

"Oh, I do."

"I want something first."

"You're in no position"

"I want you to have Charlie released. He's been in there long enough."

"No."

"I've done everything you've asked. I want him out before I give you anything else."

There was silence on the line, and, for the most horrific of moments, Don was certain he'd overplayed his hand. He waited for the click that would end the call, and, possibly, signal the end of his brother's life.

When Buchmann spoke, his tone was cold. "I am in charge here, Agent. You do not decide when your brother has been in there long enough. I do. You've extended his stay. I was planning on having him released after a few more drops, but now, well, I'm just going to have to wait a week or two before I make contact with you again. Whatever happens in the meantime, just remember it was your request that brought it down on him."

Don held the phone to his ear a moment after Buchmann hung up. Anger and frustration welled up inside of him, and he wanted to scream. He felt the phone tugged from his hand, and, before he could understand what was happening, he was holding Terry close and burying his face in her shoulder.

To Be Continued