Title: The Fury of the Wind
Author: Windimere Wellen
Part: 3 of ?
Disclaimer: Numb3rs doesn't belong to me…
Notes: Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed. You guys have been amazing and I'm posting again today thanks to your encouragement. I know I'm going to have to slow down this weekend because of work and family engagements, but I'll do my best to stay on track. Thanks again for reviewing! Let me know what you think!
Lady Winter
Don struggled to breathe. He felt like someone had punched him with a concrete brick right over his heart and his pectoral muscles ached underneath the kevlar vest that had just saved his life. That small fact didn't make it any easier to breathe.
His whole chest was just a mass of pain and his head hurt terribly, making it hard to think. Making it hard to listen to what the woman standing a few feet from him, his gun still in her hand, was saying. Making it hard to remind himself that he had to keep inhaling oxygen, but not too deeply or he simply couldn't breathe at all.
Come on Eppes, get it together, his brain screamed at him. Don blinked once or twice, and his eyes found Charlie's, locked on to him, like an anchor in an ocean. Come on Don. Be strong. Charlie needs you. Focus!
"Come on Charlie, its not that hard of a decision," the woman said, moving just a little closer to Charlie. Don forced himself to blink again and not think about the bullet that had been meant for his heart. Instead he focused on their captor. She'd obviously just given Charlie an ultimatum. Even though the blood rushing through his ears had blocked the sound, Don could guess what she had demanded of Charlie – what options she had given him.
Break the encryption code or watch his brother die. Don tugged uselessly at his cuffs as he tried to think, but it didn't help. They were so tight they were cutting off circulation, but that might have been a good thing considering how he'd lost his gun in the first place – a nasty boot stomped over his hand.
"Charlie," he said slowly, testing his voice, and finding it sounded stronger than he expected. "You can't help her." Don knew he was being a little hard – after all, he didn't actually know if he wanted to die to prevent money being stolen from people who would probably never even care if he lived or died, but it wasn't the situation itself – it was the concept.
The concept that they bad guy shouldn't win. The concept that he didn't want to be used as leverage – as a bargaining tool. Don didn't like not having control and he didn't like being weak. And here he felt like he was both.
There was also the simple reality that since their captors had made no attempt to hide their identities that they weren't likely to let any of them live anyway. If that was the case, Don didn't want to die having given these people what they wanted.
But the situation was unfair. His brother, his little brother Charlie, a sweet and gentle person, was being forced to do something that Don had nightmares about, but in those dreams, the roles were always opposite – Don was having to make a choice about Charlie's life. But now things were different. Now Charlie was the one who had to make the choice.
Charlie was staring at him, but Don could tell he wasn't looking at his face. Charlie's dark eyes were locked onto the depression in the flak jacket where the bullet had disappeared. The woman was talking again, demanding that Charlie make a decision.
When Charlie didn't respond, she turned back towards Don and Don fought back the urge to flinch as she approached, the gun still in her hand.
"It's like this Charlie. You break that encryption, I download the information, and then I walk out of here before your brother's FBI friends get here. This can all happen really quickly. You'll be left here, and you all walk away alive." When Charlie didn't respond, she knelt by Don's side and Don watched Charlie visibly tense. "Or we can do it this way. I'm pretty sure you're FBI agent brother here has some broken ribs." Unceremoniously, she reached out and pressed hard against Don's abs.
Don was unprepared and he had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out, and he tasted blood in his mouth. There was no hiding his wince of pain or how his breath hitched. There was no way to school his features and pretend like it didn't hurt, because it did.
"Stop!" Charlie cried and Don's heart felt like it had been ripped in half at the pain and fear in Charlie's voice. The woman smiled in satisfaction.
"Eventually, one of those broken bones might find their way through one of his lungs, and we all know what kind of damage that is. We can find out just how long it will take, can't we? You like experiments, don't you Dr. Eppes?" she asked suddenly, standing, emphasizing Charlie's title of doctor.
Charlie stared at her blankly and Don wondered if his brother had simply disappeared into his mathematical world. Wondered if he had withdrawn into P vs. NP. If he simply couldn't handle the stress of watching this woman try to damage his only brother.
The woman seemed to think he was still listening though, because she raised the gun again and pointed it at Don. Don stared at the barrel of his own pistol and thought absently that she was a pretty good shot. She had hit her target – himself – twice already, and Don figured she spent time at some sort of range. If he ever got out of here, he would look into that lead.
"Because we can do an experiment. We can see how many bullets in a flak jacket it takes to force a rib to penetrate a lung." Don could feel his eyes widen. Charlie's mirrored his, and Don knew in an instant that his brother was listening completely.
Don thought Charlie would snap then, and do whatever she asked, but still his brother stood motionless and Don would have given anything – including his life – to get Charlie out of this situation.
Tired of waiting, the woman eased her finger over the trigger and adjusted her aim a little.
"I'll do it," Charlie said suddenly. "Just leave Don alone. I'll do it."
"Charlie, you don't have to," Don said quickly, worried about his brother's sanity. He opened his mouth again, but suddenly the man with the duct tape was there, and he was practically shoving the sticky substance in his mouth in an attempt to shut him up. "Charlie…" Don struggled to speak, to move his head away, but his assailant slammed his head back against the pole hard, causing Don's vision to darken and light to explode behind his eyes and his stomach threatened to empty it's contents.
"Stop! I said I'd help! Stop hurting him!" Charlie was yelling, and Don relaxed a little when he heard the anger in Charlie's voice. At least Charlie hadn't withdrawn and become a meek subservient like he used to when he was a child. Like he used to do when Don lost his temper with his younger brother. Don forced the guilt back, unable to deal with it.
Don forced his eyes back open, fighting the feeling of panic that he felt. He felt utterly helpless and he had lost his last weapon – his voice.
"Ok, relax Charlie," the woman said soothingly. "Just work on the encryption and you're brother's going to be fine." Her voice offered a promise and Charlie seemed to latch on to it and suddenly his fingers were flying over the keyboard.
Don watched him, and Charlie kept looking up, and Don thought he was checking to make sure that Don wasn't too angry with him. Checking to see that Don was still there. Checking to see that Don was still alive.
Don was angry, but not at Charlie – at the woman who was probably scaring Charlie's soul for the rest of his life. This was something, that if they even survived, would haunt Charlie for the rest of his life. If Don took a moment to admit it, he knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life as well. So, with great effort, Don kept a vigil with Charlie, meeting his eyes as steadily and supportively as he could when his younger brother would look up.
Don wanted to keep Charlie as calm as possible, so he forced himself to regulate his breathing. It wasn't easy. His chest hurt so badly that he wanted to breathe as quickly and as shallowly as possible, but he knew that it would frighten Charlie to see him that way, so he forced himself to take even breathes and make them as deep as possible.
As the time slowly passed, Charlie started looking up less often and Don found he could instead look to Megan. Megan had been his partner since Terry had left and she was an amazing agent and a good profiler. Don knew that he had shut her out in this situation and slowly, he let himself slip away from being a brother and back into being an FBI agent. It would probably be the only thing that would save them, so he looked to Megan for help.
She'd been watching the entire situation and Don knew that by now she'd have made an assessment of all of the perpetrators. Slowly, so as not to draw any attention to himself, he moved his head ever so slightly to look at her.
Megan had been waiting for him apparently, because she smiled in understanding when they finally made eye contact. Slowly she guided him with her eyes, first to the two guards. The look in her eyes confirmed what Don thought – that they were simply the hired help. They didn't look as well put together as the other four. They were simply the brute force. They both lounged by the door of the bank where Don noted a 'CLOSED' sign had been hung in the main doors.
Megan next guided Don's eyes to the man standing next to her, the man in the suit that had been posing as the other customer with the woman. Megan's gaze flickered to the woman and Don gave her a slight nod. It was clear they were partners in crime, but the woman was clearly the leader.
Don didn't need Megan to tell him the Skellet was obviously the inside man. The only mystery was the man who had apparently been the bank agent. Don had decided from the way he moved around the bank that he too seemed fairly familiar and he wondered if there were two inside men.
Focusing back on Megan, he realized she was casually looking at where the woman had thrown their cell phones. Don knew what she was thinking. The FBI had gotten the emergency call and had tried both agent's phones. When neither Don nor Megan had answered they would have followed protocol and assumed that both agents were in trouble. Hopefully they would be mobilizing to figure out what had happened. Don's cell phone was shattered, but Megan's had landed in the decorative shrubs which meant the phone might still be intact. Which meant it might still be transmitting her GPS signal, which would mean that the FBI would know that she had not left the bank.
Don relished the idea of his team coming to their rescue, but at the same time, he dreaded a hostage situation. He dreaded Charlie being involved. He and Megan were trained for things like this, and although they weren't used to it, it was always a chance in their job. Now he had dragged Charlie into a horrible situation.
When Megan looked at him curiously, he knew she was wondering about his injuries, and Don blinked three times, hoping she would understand that he thought that there were at least three broken ribs. He hadn't wanted to think about what the woman had said about his lungs, but he could feel the broken bones pressing in uncomfortably and he knew the reason he's lost consciousness earlier was that the first bullet had struck right over a broken bone.
If the woman tested her 'experiment,' Don knew he was going to be in some trouble.
Don's thoughts and communication were interrupted by Charlie's cell phone ringing. Skellet had taken it, along with Charlie's wallet and ID when he had searched the professor for weapons. The woman, who had been watching Charlie, strode over and took it from Skellet.
"David?" she asked aloud, reading the caller ID on the front of the phone. Don fought back a smile. David was checking on Charlie. Trying to get as much information about the situation as he could. "Who's David?" she demanded of Charlie. Charlie had been startled out of his work by the phone and his eyes darted nervously to Don. The woman didn't miss the action and turned on Don.
"David? One of your FBI agents?" she demanded. Don didn't make any move to confirm or deny her hypothesis, but he knew that it wasn't hard to figure out, especially with Charlie being unable to mask his emotions.
She whirled back at Charlie. "Who is this Dr. Eppes?" she demanded. Charlie stuttered, saying something about maybe it was a student of his, but she didn't buy it. Don wouldn't have bought it either, considering the way Charlie refused to make eye contact with her. Charlie had never been much good at lying. Especially not when the stakes were so high.
She slammed the phone down on the ground, and it broke, though not as extensively as Don's. "I guess it's safe to say the FBI is on the way," she hissed. "How much do you have left to do?"
Charlie opened his mouth and closed it once before he managed to find any words. "It's… I'm having a hard time. I need more time," he managed to say and Don knew that his brother was telling the truth because of he slight quiver in his voice.
"You don't have much time Charlie," she said with a sneer.
"You can't just rush this," he said, snapping back at her with sudden irritation. "This is hard mathematical equations. It takes time."
"I don't have the time Dr. Eppes, so let me put it this way. For every five minutes that it takes you to complete breaking that encryption, I'm going to put one of these bullets in your brother. Whether they end up in the vest and puncture his lung, or end up in his limbs and he bleeds to death, I don't care. But you will hurry," she said, her voice so solid that it was hard to believe anyone could be so callous.
Charlie was staring at her and Megan was glaring, looking angrier that Don had ever seen her. Don was cold. His whole body felt numb. It wasn't a reaction of fear for himself. It was fear for Charlie. His mind also told him that it was shock. His body was going into shock.
"This could take all day!" Charlie practically wailed. "You'll kill him!"
"Then both of you had better hope that you're as smart as you seem to be."