Tales of the Granger Brothers
Book Three: Cody William
By The Twisted Evilettes, AmyD and Suisan
"Hey, Granger ... did they get the right one?" Bill Faulkenbury snarled as Cody walked past the archival department on his way to Cryptography.
"What?" Cody Granger turned back to see Bill smirking and leaning on the doorframe of the portal that lead into the archives.
"You heard me, it's all over the news. Special Agent Colby Granger based at the L.A. Field Office was arrested this afternoon charged with being a spy for the Commies." An evil smile lurked on Bill's face.
Cody felt his heart drop into his feet like a frozen chunk of glacial ice. "That's a bald-faced lie, Faulkenbury, take it back."
"Why? It's true. I always figured there was something screwy about your family, now I know. Probably gonna come and talk to you next. Tell me, how much do they pay you to sell out your country?" Bill's face twisted into something truly ugly.
The chill in Cody's soul rapidly changed over to pure fiery fury and he clenched his hands into rock hard fists at his side as he reigned in his temper. "Shut your gawddamn pie-hole, Fuckingberry. Before you prove to yourself, and others, just how fucking stupid you really are." Bill might not be aware of the audience they were gathering, but Cody was and he vowed not to do anything too stupid, unless pushed.
"I'm not the one with the traitor in the family, am I?" Bill took a step closer to Cody and added, "Fucking traitor."
The move wasn't planned, wasn't even telegraphed and Bill never saw it coming. It was vicious, a rough upper cut to the jaw of the sneering agent that started somewhere around Cody's right thigh before it connected with a hard snapping crunch and sent Faulkenbury flying into the wall. "Shut your damn mouth!" He was standing over the fallen agent, hands clenched in rage. "No Granger would EVER betray this country. NEVER!"
Bill climbed to his feet, snarling at Cody "Your brother's a fucking traitor and so are you." He swung at Cody, catching him on the cheekbone.
Cody didn't stop to think, he just reacted as he'd been trained. He snapped out with a hard kick to the other man's thigh, connecting with the common peronnial nerve cluster, which dropped Bill to the floor once more. He was closing in for the 'kill' when a bear grabbed him from behind and physically stopped him with a crushing hug.
"Granger! Stop! He's not worth your career!"
Bill, lying on the floor wheezing in pain, managed to say, "I'm pressing charges."
"Miller! Let me go! He wants to press charges, I'll fucking GIVE him a reason to REMEMBER this beating!" Cody tried to wriggle free of Agent Doug Miller's clasp and came within a hair's breadth of using his skull to break the Art Crime Agent's nose before he started to feel faint from lack of air. Miller was actually crushing him into submission.
"No, damn it, Cody. Calm down!" Miller's voice cut through the fog in Cody's mind. "You two, get him out of here and over to medical." Cody wasn't sure whom Miller was talking to, but he was aware, however slightly, that Faulkenbury was being assisted back to his feet.
"Damn you, Bill . . . I hope you rot in hell." Cody managed to whisper at the departing Archivist.
"Kiss your career good-bye, Granger." Bill shot back at Cody.
"Faulkenbury, go, before I release him." Miller snapped at the other man. "George, Nick, take the long route, got it?"
George Staunton, another agent in the Art Crime Department nodded. With George on one side and Nick DelaCosta, from the Archival department they made a slightly odd parade down the hall.
Cody started to regain his breath and the spots stopped dancing before his eyes as Miller set him back down on his feet and slightly loosened his bear hug on him. "Doug. Let. Me. Go."
"Not unless you calm all the way down." Doug told him. He had never seen Granger as mad as this before.
"Not going to happen ... what the HELL was he prattling on about?" Cody had worked in the department until 4 in the morning, and it wasn't even 2 PM and he was back. He hadn't even had a chance to listen to news as he'd gotten ready for work - the yahoos at the street department had 'accidentally cut' a power line and that had been that.
Doug eyed Cody. "Then you really haven't seen the news?"
"No. Street department fuck ups killed the power on my block around noon." He felt Miller's grasp loosen a little further and took advantage of it and twisted out of the larger agent's hold to face the Art Crimes specialist. "Was what he said true?"
Doug scowled. "Come here." He turned and walked down the hallway to the Art Crimes Department, letting Cody go before him, he ushered him into the section, then pointed the other man at a TV set anchored high up on the wall. Across the bottom of the screen ran "Special Agent Colby Granger charged and arrested for spying for the Chinese." A picture of Colby flashed on the screen before a shot of the LA Federal Building replaced it.
Cody would've fallen if Miller hadn't shoved a chair under him as his knees gave way. "NO ... oh lord no. CeeJay ... what are you doing?"
"I don't know your brother at all but I do know you. There's more to this then we're being told." Doug squatted down next to Cody.
Cody looked back at Doug and tried to ignore the presence of Supervisory Special Agent Abigail Stroud who was standing in the doorway of her office. "Doug ... he if did, I know he didn't but if ... IA and Counter Intel will be after me next. I talked Colby into joining the Bureau."
Doug nodded.
"So, that was you wiping the floor with Faulkenbury?" Stroud asked and Cody only responded with a miserable nod. "I wondered. About time someone brought him down a peg or two."
Cody didn't smile, just nodded his head once more. "Sorry, Abby. I didn't mean to disrupt everyone's day." He moved to get up, only to realize his legs weren't ready to go anywhere. "I really should get someone in Crypto to cover my shift … I've got the feeling Internal Affairs is going to be looking for me."
"I can take care of that." Abby told him.
"Agent Granger?" A voice came from the hallway.
"Over here." Cody raised a bloodied hand, then rose to his feet and turned to face both Abby and the IA Agent. "Abby, thanks. Just let the crew do their job and sign off on the communiqués." Cody then turned his attention to the other Agent standing before him. "Agent ... Longhurst, right? I know why you're here." He moved, slowly and very carefully, and removed his sidearm, badge and ID and handed it over to the IA man.
"Thank you, Agent Granger." Longhurst replied as he secured the weapon before placing it in a pocket. "Do I need to do this formally or will you behave?"
"I'll behave ... unless I see Fuckingberry, then all bets are off. I also feel obligated to warn you that I don't respond like most people to tazers." Cody kept his hands in plain sight as he walked ahead of Agent Longhurst, out of Art Crimes and up two floors to Criminal Processing, where he was left to 'simmer' in an interrogation room.
Cody had paced, he'd sat silently, he'd even answered a few questions for Agent Longhurst and had been rewarded with the knowledge that he'd given Bill Faulkenbury one hell of a headache. He'd also had his hand seen by a DC paramedic, under the very watchful eyes of Mark Longhurst, and now sported a blindingly white wrap on his hand, which the paramedic had decided was sprained and lacerated but not broken. He'd asked about news on Colby, but even mentioning his brother's name had earned him hate-filled glares from the Agents in the Criminal Processing unit and he stopped further inquiries.
He heard the lock on the interrogation room's door snap open and, expecting to see an agent or two from Counter Intelligence, faltered to his feet when Director Joseph Atwater walked into the room. Alone.
"Sit down, Agent Granger." Director Atwater said, closing the door behind him.
Cody didn't immediately follow the man's orders, too surprised to see The FBI Director in the same room as the brother of a reported traitor.
"Agent Granger, sit down." Director Atwater repeated himself.
"Yes, sir." He fell back into the chair and tried to present himself as well as he could.
Director Atwater sat down across the table from him and folded his hands together. "Agent Faulkenbury has decided not to press charges."
"Sir? Why not?" Cody was confused and not thinking too clearly or he never would've blurted out, "Guess I didn't beat any sense into him after all."
A glimmer of a smile ghosted across the director's face. "Because he was convinced that doing so would not be in his best interests. That said, the two of you will be leaving and not coming back until, at least, tomorrow. Maybe longer. There will be letters of reprimand in your files and if the two of you ever decide to fight again, it will be your last day with this Bureau or any other law enforcement agency. Am I making myself clear?"
"Crystal, sir." Cody bit his lip and wondered if he dare ask the Boss the one question that had been nagging at his heart and mind since Faulkenbury had taunted him into a fight. "Sir? Is it true? About my brother?"
"There are things that I am not at liberty to discuss but things are not always what they seem, Agent Granger."
"But he HAS been arrested?" Director Atwater nodded. "Damn ... This is going to kill Mom and Dad."
"They probably already know. I would suggest that when you get home, you call them." Director Atwater told Cody, watching the younger man, as if trying to gauge his reaction.
"Yes, sir. I plan on that." He looked as his hands, clenched together on the tabletop before he looked back up at Director Atwater's very observant eyes. "Sir ... I know it won't mean much, coming from me, but I don't believe Colby would turn on his country. No, scratch that. I know he wouldn't. Its just not in him."
Director Atwater did not reply. He stood, opened the door and called out, "Agent Longhurst?"
Mark Longhurst stuck his head into the room. "Yes, sir?"
"Please bring Agent Granger his badge, ID and weapon."
Longhurst looked startled for a half second, then nodded and disappeared. When he came back, he handed the items over to Cody, who felt a little better once he got them back and in their 'proper' places. "Thanks, Longhurst."
"You are free to go, Agent Granger, but remember what I said." Director Atwater told him.
Cody nodded. "Yes, sir, I shall." He waited until the Director had left before leaving the interrogation room. Longhurst walked beside him to the elevators, which Cody questioned, until he spotted the glares aimed his way from other FBI Agents and FBI support personnel. He let out a sigh of frustration. "Guess 'Granger' is the new 'Mudd'."
Longhurst shrugged. "If you know the truth, what does it matter what other people think?" He pushed the 'down' call button for the elevator.
"Yeah, I know ... but in the meantime, until people realize I'm not Colby ... I get the glares and the knee-jerk reaction to my name." Cody stepped into the elevator, turned around and held a hand out to Longhurst. "Mark ... thanks for not assuming the worst."
Longhurst smiled and took Cody's hand. "You're welcome." He took a step closer spoke in a conspiratorial tone and pitch. "Thanks for knocking that asshole Faulkenbury to the ground. I've been dying to do that for months." He stepped back and let the elevator's doors close before Cody could respond.
When he arrived back at his home in Georgetown, Cody wasn't surprised to find he'd beaten his roommate there, especially since he was home a good four hours ahead of schedule. Striping out of his suit jacket, he tossed the garment over the back of the recliner and picked up the paisley covered address book he'd used for years to store important numbers and addresses. He'd been trying his parents' home phone for a couple of hours, since Longhurst and his fellow agents hadn't seen fit to take his cell phone from him, but he'd never got an answer and his cell had died a battery death a long while back.
He flopped onto the couch near the landline that Jackie had insisted they get in addition to their cell phones, picked up the handset and dialed the number to the house in Cascade, Idaho from memory. The line rang five, six times before Cody realized no one was going to answer and he disconnected the call. Flipping over to the 'G' section of his address book, he looked up his mother's cell phone number and dialed it.
"The number you are calling is not in service—"
Frustrated beyond his ability to think rationally, Cody disconnected the call and let out a primal growl even as his feet beat a hasty tattoo on the wooden floor in front of the couch. "One more number to try before calling Lars…" He looked up the final string of digits and punched in the number.
"Hello, Code. Wondered when we would get a call from you."
"Dad, how're you and Mom holding up?" He wasn't about to ask his father if what had happened in Los Angeles was true, he knew it was, he also knew there was more behind his baby brother's arrest than anyone in the know was going to let on.
"Not too well. Your mother found out about CeeJay's arrest before I could get home and, well, after everything was said and done—" Gareth stopped speaking for a second, then resumed in a quieter tone. "I can't blame her for exiling me."
"Exiling? Dad, what the hell is going on?" Cody had witnessed a couple of arguments between his folks while growing up, but those had never escalated to a point where one of them felt the need to leave the house for any length of time.
There was a long sigh of suffering discouragement before his father answered. "Might as well tell you now that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Cody, I knew something like this might happen nearly a month ago. Colby came into my office, in disguise no less, to give me a head's up and then, the little shit, had me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. Not even your mother."
"So he was, is undercover?" It wasn't 'official' until the FBI broke the news, but hearing it from his father was – in Cody's opinion – as good as gospel.
"I suspect so, yes. But, Code . . . I don't think his getting arrested was part of the plan."
Letting out a sigh of his own and nodding his head in agreement, even though his father couldn't see it, Cody felt a little better about Colby's perceived situation. "I dunno, Dad. I've not seen it personally, you understand, but I do know a few agents who worked undercover who also ended up in the hoosegow in the line of duty."
"Yeah, I know a few street cops who've done the same thing."
"Now what's this dog-doo about you being exiled?"
"Your mother's a little upset and, instead of letting her temper override her restraint, she banished me to the old school shed for not telling her what little I knew about Colby's predicament."
"That's a bit harsh, Dad."
"No, that was your mother's right. I have pretty much been lying to her for a month and she's pissed. It's not all that uncomfortable out here, not since we turned it into a little 'guest cottage slash writer's shack' a few years ago."
"You've done a lot of reorganization out there at the ol' homestead." Cody wistfully admitted as he realized just how long it had been since he'd last returned home just for a visit.
"I detect a whiff of homesickness." His father stated. "Maybe you should see what you can do to arrange a little trip back west, Code." He must have made a noise of disagreement or dismay for Gareth immediately clarified his invitation. "Oh, I'm not saying you need to drop everything right now and head out, but maybe after everything blows over? It'd do your mother a world of good to have her children around. Maybe later this summer, when the weather has decided winter's really over?"
Cody smiled. "I'd like that, Dad. Maybe a little white water kayaking down the Payette River is just what I need."
"Just call the week before you head out, so we can get your room ready and aired out."
"I'll do that, Dad." He looked at his watch and realized Jackie would be home soon and it might be a good idea for him to have dinner started, if not ready. "Dad, give my love to Mom, once she starts talking with you again, and I'll call you both later this week or early next."
"Will do, Cody. Thanks for touching base. Fare thee well."
"Fare thee well, Dad." Cody returned his father's rather archaic 'goodbye,' a hold over from their days as a family inside the Society for Creative Anachronism, and hung up the phone. He was still sitting there on the couch when his room mate came home and the flurry of usual after work activity ensued as the two of them worked to get dinner put together and he answered as many of Jackie's questions about Colby's arrest as he could.
Five Weeks Later…
*ring*
"Gads, don't answer it."
"I have to, I'm on call."
*ring*
"Damn it, just as things were—"
"Getting nice and frisky?"
*ring*
"Yeah . . . are you sure you can't just ignore it?"
"I could—" *ring* "—but then they'd just hit my cell."
"Fine. I'll get it and tell them you're indisposed." He rolled over, reluctantly, and answered the bedside phone. "Hello?"
"Cody? Oh good, you're home."
"Auntie Dee?" He sat up, there was no 'good' reason for his by-proxy aunt to be calling him and Cody was instantly on alert. "What's wrong?"
"It's not Gigi or Cat and I don't have all the information I probably should have before calling you but . . . Cody, your folks are being flown to LA by the FBI. Something about Colby being in Critical Condition."
"What!?" He reached out and grabbed onto one of Jackie's hands, needing an anchor to keep his balance. "How can that be possible? Colby's under arrest and in a holding facility."
"I'm telling you everything I was able to tell Lars. I was kinda hoping you'd be able to dig up more information and funnel it back out to the family?"
"Doris, I can't—" He looked down at Jackie, saw the concern in her beautiful face and realized there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for his loved ones. "Squirt's really in trouble?"
"So I gather, yes."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you, Cody. You have my cell number? I'm going to be leaving the station soon."
"Yeah, I got it. As soon as I find out something, I'll contact you or Lars."
"Good thinking. I'll contact you the minute I hear from Gigi or Cat, you'll return the favor, I hope?"
"You bet. Thanks for calling me, Aunt Doris." He replaced the handset on the phone's cradle even as Jackie sat up on the bed behind him and slowly wrapper her lithe and limber body around his.
"What's wrong, Babe?"
Cody didn't answer immediately, but reached over and grabbed the remote for the small television and turned it on and switched it over to the Fox News Network. "Something happened in LA, Colby's in a hospital in critical condition." He responded quietly before turning the volume up on the set. "This doesn't make sense, the last time I checked, Colby was still housed in a maximum security facility but now Doris Speeck is telling me he's ill or hurt."
Jackie came around to sit beside him on the edge of the bed, pulling her silk robe on and handed Cody his chenille one. "Maybe there was an incident and—" She stopped as she noticed the scrolling information bar at the bottom of the screen was mentioning something about Los Angeles.
Due to their respective jobs, both Cody Granger and Jaqueline Bolin had a unbreakable house rule – on days off there was to be no television, radio or anything else that could ruin the two agents' days. Their rare mutual days of down time were to be spent exclusively with each other, undivided attention given to the other and that meant no 'late-breaking' or 'this just in' news broadcasts in their Georgetown town home. If the news was something that could affect their day-off status, both were sure the FBI and US Secret Service would be the first ones to call, page or otherwise get in contact with them. Thus, they had totally missed the news out of Los Angeles earlier in the day about the 'fiery escape of two wanted felons from a military holding facility.' Now the news out of LA was about a 'massive off-shore operation by multiple agencies' with most of those agencies supposedly being involved in an intensive manhunt for the two escaped felons from earlier in the day.
Just as Cody was about to flip stations, in search of more coherent information, Fox News flashed two booking photos up on the screen, side by side. One Cody knew all too well, it was Colby's face staring at him from the television; the other . . . "So that's what Dwayne Carter looks like." He mused.
"You never met your brother's Army buddy?" Jackie asked.
"No. I just took Mom at her word, that he was bad news from the word 'go' – but he was also very supportive of CeeJay while they were both being treated at Brooks-Army Medical." He turned off the television as the news switched to something different. "If Mom and Dad are being flown to LA on the FBI's dime. . . "
"Then your brother must have been caught and possibly wounded." Jackie got up from the bed and walked over to the small desk where she had her secure laptop. "Unless you were right over a month ago, Cody." She sat down and booted up the portable computer.
"I'd stake my career on it, Jackie." He got up and stood behind her as she opened a secure web portal. "What are you up to, Agent Bolin?"
"It's simple enough, I'm getting you inside a information data miner site my agency uses. What you do once I leave the room—" She stopped when he reached over, grabbed the mouse and closed the portal she'd just opened. "What are you doing?"
"Jaqueline Samantha, I love you, you know that. But I cannot allow you to put your career in jeopardy over this, even though I thank you for being so willing to do so." He kissed the nape of her neck before leaving the bedroom and heading downstairs to access his own laptop and a few web portals of his own.
Cody was sitting with George Staunton in the cafeteria of the Hoover building later that evening, actually kind of surprised the Art Crimes 'rookie' was on duty, talking about nothing in particular as he waited for the agents at the tables closest to them to clear out.
"I really didn't expect to see you tonight, Granger. You get called in or something?"
"You could say that, George." He took a sip of the coffee in his personal mug. "Actually, I couldn't sleep and thought I'd do a drop in inspection on my swing shift crew."
"Man, I'm glad Abby doesn't pull that kind of shit too often."
"Maybe I should talk to her?"
"No! I mean, she drops in once in a while on the evening shift, but . . . just don't encourage her, okay?"
Cody let out a mild chuckle as the two agents at the nearby table finally left. "I won't say a thing to her, Scout's Honor." He waited until the other agents were out of easy earshot range before addressing Staunton again. "Hey, George, I need a favor."
"Sure, name it."
"Don't agree until I tell you what it is, George."
The agent looked startled and more than a little fearful. "Aww, man . . . Doug told me this might happen."
"What?"
"You're testing my ability to tell a fellow agent to go jump in a lake or to turn that agent in if said agent asks me to do something I know I shouldn't do."
Cody sat back, stunned. "And Miller told you this . . . when, Staunton?"
"Earlier today. I wasn't sure why, until now."
"Crap." If Doug Miller had put that sort of bug in George Staunton's young brain, there was no way he'd be able to utilize the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate's computer skills to ferret out the information he needed on his own brother. "Well, Doug was right, you passed the test, George."
Staunton visibly relaxed as he took a larger than average gulp of his soda. "Oh, good. I was getting more than a little paranoid about Doug's advice."
"Don't be. You're a good agent, George. And, from what Abby's been telling me, a damn good computer ferret."
"Yeah, well . . . have to make that MIT schooling pay off somehow, even if I didn't get an actual degree in computer sciences."
"Ever do any data mining programs from scratch?"
"Sure, all the time. How do you think Art Crime finds a lot of our targeted stolen art work?"
"Really?" Cody was playing the younger agent like a bass guitar, and not at all ashamed of it.
"Oh sure. Don't you all in Crypto do something similar?"
"Sorta, but mostly we just use the same old equations and logarithms and just plug in the new information. I doubt anyone in my division could actually build a data miner from scratch."
George shook his head in amusement. "Really? It's dead easy . . I could show you how to do it. Would take about five, maybe ten minutes."
"Could you show me now?"
"Yeah, here or your office?"
"My office." Cody led the way out of the cafeteria and down to his office in Cryptography and Secure Communications in the basement, not too far from the Art Crime Division where George worked. True to the younger agent's word, he had a working data miner up and running on his personal computer and looking for a few key names in the area hospitals around the Greater Los Angeles area in under twenty minutes.
The first name he'd run through the program had been his brother's. When that came up empty, he tried a few anagrams of his brother's name, both with and without the middle one tossed in for grins and giggles. When that kicked back absolutely nothing, Cody sat back and started to think of his family tree. Both sides. The Granger and Larsen sides and plugged in every male first name and last name he could recall, going back four generations.
He was more than a little surprised when the data miner kicked out no less than three possibilities: Jonas Larsen, Zack Doolittle and Grant Jagger. Jonas Larsen was listed as a patient at City of Angels Clinic, on an outpatient basis who was in for a cardio stress test. He was also in his late seventies. Not Colby.
Zack Doolittle was listed at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, was roughly the right age and was in an Intensive Care Unit. He called and asked for the man's room but when the patient answered, Cody hung up. Definitely not Colby's voice, unless there was an agent fielding the phone calls who sounded like an emphysema patient.
The last possibility, Grant Jagger, was also listed as a ICU patient, but he was at University of California, Los Angeles' Medical Center and no where in the data Cody was able to rip from the hospital's not-as-secure-as-they-wanted-to-believe servers was his diagnoses listed. Using a second computer, one he rarely used, he pulled up the hospital's main web page and saw that he could connect directly to the patient rooms by dialing a certain extension.
He made the call from his desk and was more than a little surprised when he connected – with someone claiming to be a nurse. "ICU, Nurse Daniels."
"Uh, Ms. Daniels, I was trying to call Grant Jagger?"
"One moment, sir." Before he could protest, he was placed on hold. Less than 30 seconds passed and the line was picked up again. By someone who wasn't Nurse Daniels.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but Mister Jagger isn't taking any calls. Unless they're cleared. Your name please, so I can check it against the log?" Cody was startled and gave the kindly toned male voice his name before he could even think of using an alias. "Thank you, sir. One moment please."
This time he was on hold for longer than a minute and he could have sworn that he'd heard noise on the line that sounded like his call was being switched through a number of stations. Or the lines at UCLA Medical Center were recorded on the sly. Either way, he was close to hanging up when the hold noise – not Muzak, just noise – stopped and yet another voice came over the line.
"Agent Granger, please come up to Director Atwater's office. Immediately." A dial tone issued forth from the handset in his hand and Cody knew his call to California had been terminated from within the Hoover Building.
Feeling very much like he used to when he'd have to explain to his father why he didn't complete one of his chores around the house, Cody Granger approached the office of the FBI Director with some trepidation. It was close to midnight and the man's secretary was still there, behind her desk and looking none too happy. She looked up, saw who had dared to enter her domain, frowned and pointed, rather harshly, at the door leading to the Director's inner sanctum. "He was expecting you over five minutes ago. Get in there."
He nodded curtly as he walked past the secretary's desk, placed his hand on the doorknob and, with a twist of the wrist, pushed the door open to reveal that the Director wasn't alone. "Ah, Agent Granger, come on in. Alex, have a safe flight."
The dark-haired woman wasn't much older than Cody, but the way Director Atwater was treating her, she had to be one of Washington's power movers and shakers. "I suspect the Air Force will get me where I'm going in one piece, Joe." She smiled at Cody as she walked past him on her way out, "Agent Granger." He couldn't help but notice that the smile was tinged with regret and there was a sadness in her eyes before she left.
He turned back to face the Director. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
Joseph Atwater's face had gone from a friendly expression while talking to the lady, to one of hard-won neutrality. "Yes, I did. Come in and close the door, Agent Granger." Cody did as he was ordered even as Atwater got on the intercom to his secretary. "Kendra, you can go ahead and head home. Thank you for staying and, please, feel free to take an extra day off next week."
"Thank you, Sir. Have a good weekend."
Atwater merely nodded as he shut down the line of communication and looked back up at Cody. "Agent Granger, what the hell were you thinking?"
"Sir?" He was more than a little puzzled by the Director's rather abrupt question.
"Calling around to hospitals in the LA area, asking for people who don't actually exist. Names that were, until now, perfect cover names for your brother?"
Cody stood there before the Director, stunned as the man's words washed over him, leaving behind a loud ringing in his ears. "'Cover names' – then he was working under cover?"
Atwater nodded. "He was." He came over to stand beside Cody and, with a guiding hand, moved him over to sit in a chair before the massive cherry wood desk. "As of a little over two hours ago, Colby is no longer undercover and, in fact, has been pulled from his assignment."
Cody barely heard the words, but he did. "Doris said, Mom and Dad, LA, FBI flight—"
"Yes, that's correct. We're flying your parents to LA to be with your brother . . . Cody, are you tracking this, son?" Atwater asked.
Cody finally shook his head, clearing it of the ringing noise and stared at his ultimate boss. "Colby got hurt, didn't he?"
Atwater nodded. "Yes, he did. I spoke with the doctors in charge of his treatment and they're guardedly optimistic about your brother's recovery."
"What happened, if you can tell me, sir?"
Cody William Granger came to regret that question as the Director quietly spoke of Colby's assignment, his involvement in the case from before he even left the FBI Academy at Quantico and how his friendship with Dwayne Carter had played into Agent Kirkland choosing Colby for the assignment it the first place. After about an hour of listening, having a few questions answered and basically being told he could not even speak of this with Agent Jaqueline Bolin – he never asked how Atwater even knew about Jackie, just accepted the man knew – Cody was sent home and told to be back in the Director's office no later than one o'clock the following afternoon.
The only thing that kept Cody from outright disobeying Director Atwater's directive not to speak of the situation involving Colby with Jaqueline was the fact that when he got home to their place, there was a note from her stating that she'd been called in to cover an agent's position on the advance team for the Vice President's touring Detail. By this time, it was approaching half-past two in the morning, Cody was just paranoid enough to wonder how in the hell Atwater had managed to get his buddies at the US Secret Service to get Jackie out of town on such short notice.
He had just set up his laptop on the desk in the living area, checked his emails and was just about to pick up the phone to call UCLA Medical Center – against the strict orders of the Director – when his cell phone practically vibrated off the desktop. Feeling more than a little paranoid he slipped the device out of its holster and, checking the caller I.D., felt a more than stupid. "Just because you were about to do something you know you shouldn't—" He muttered under his breath before answering the call.
"Hi, Mom . . . how's Squirt?"
"Someone told you, or you found out on your own." Catherine Granger was one of those people who were always – as Doris Speeck would put it – direct with a capital D. I. R. E. C. T.
"A little of both, actually. How is CeeJay?"
"The doctors assure me and your father that he will make a full recovery. Eventually." There was a hitch in her voice and he could hear what he thought was his father's voice in the background, but there were two of them. "I'm all right, I'm all right. You two are worse than old hovering aunts!" Now Cody was confused. Who, other than his father, could his mom be talking to? "Sorry, Cody. Your father and Mister Eppes are being a little too, protective of me at the moment."
"Mister Eppes? Would that be Eppes Senior, Agent or Doctor?" Cody hadn't met the Eppes family, but he'd heard a lot about the trio, both from Colby and from his father after the incident in which his little brother had damn near died due to a crazy old bat with an arsenic fetish.
"Alan. We're heading to his house after Colby and Colby's doctor practically kicked me out of his room."
"He's awake? Mom! What the hell happened to him, when can I talk with him?"
"Oh, hush! I know, Gareth. Cody . . . your father is reminding me that most of our information is still quite sketchy and that you will probably get more out of your computers or bosses sometime tomorrow. Or, rather, today since its after midnight there in DC."
"Yeah, I'm supposed to be back in to see the Director later."
"Cody, what did you do?"
"Did a little too much, and too good, digging once I knew Colby had been hospitalized."
"And you have to see the Director over that? Cody, are you still an FBI Agent?"
"For now. I'll know something more later."
"Cody… No, it was your decision, your choice. I won't lecture you about this."
"Thanks, Mom. I should probably let you go and try to get some sleep. Give Squirt a noogie from me, will ya?"
"Will do, sleep well, love ya."
She disconnected before Cody could hang up and he sat there, staring at the screen of his laptop and the informational web page for UCLA's hospital, debating the wisdom of trying to call and get through to Colby's room. In the long run, he closed down the laptop, climbed up the stairs and fell to sleep in his lonely bed. Missing Jackie's presence more than he ever did before when she'd go out of town on assignments with the Veep Detail.
Had the phone rang a moment later, Cody would have never heard it. As it was, he was halfway out the door, on his way back to the Federal Building and his appointment with Director Atwater. He knew that if he didn't leave right then, he would be late. Without hesitation, he turned and crossed the distance between the door and the phone in three strides, snatching up the receiver just before the call rolled over to voice mail.
"Hello?"
"Cody?" His mother's voice greeted him. "I wasn't sure if I'd find you at home still."
Unbidden, Cody's stomach clenched with a fear that made his mouth go dry. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing at all. Someone wants to talk to you."
Mystified, Cody listened to the muffled noises coming from the receiver. It sounded, almost, like a second conversation was going on. He stole a glance at his watch. He was definitely going to be late now. Not that it really mattered. He was going to be fired, he just knew it.
"Code?" The voice was thick with sleep and drugs and slurred on the last syllable of his name but was completely recognizable to his big brother.
"CeeJay?" Cody sat down on the edge of the nearest chair. "How you feeling, Squirt?"
"Like crap." Colby's word came out far slower than normal but he was talking and that was all that mattered.
"I bet. Mom's never letting you out of her sight ever again."
That got Cody a weak laugh and a yawn. Before he could say anything else, his mother voice came back on the line.
"He's gone back to sleep, Cody but he was thrilled to be able to talk to you."
"Me too. Thanks so much for calling." Cody glanced at his watch and winced. "I gotta go, Mom. I'm going to be REALLY late to work."
"Cody William Granger, don't you DARE get yourself fired!" His mother told him in a tone that brooked no nonsense.
"No, ma'am. Bye." Cody said. He hung up and was out the door moments later. His soul a thousand times lighter than it had been minutes before.
Through some sort of divine intervention, or mostly clean living, Cody wasn't late to his meeting with Director Atwater. In fact, he walked into the man's outer office with, according to his watch, thirty seconds to spare. He nodded a greeting toward Kendra Williams, the Director's secretary, and she motioned for him to head on into the inner office. Knocking before he opened the door, Cody walked into the room and was a little surprised to see that the Director wasn't alone.
The woman was on the short side, but not much below average, she was smartly dressed in dress suit and her strawberry blond hair was pulled back and swept up into a style Cody often saw Jaqueline wear. She and the Director were, obviously concluding their meeting.
"Director, I'll pass along your newest findings to Secretary Hamilton, I'm sure she'll want to use them to kick her counterpart in Beijing in the face."
"Thank you, Mrs. Miller . . . you planning on dropping in on your husband's office as long as you're here?" The Director didn't get a direct answer, just a sly smile from the woman as she walked out of the office with a huge smile on her face, even as Atwater was directing Cody to come further into his office. "You'll be happy to hear that your brother is expected to make a full recovery, Agent Granger."
Cody felt a little more tension leave his body as he acknowledged the information his Boss of Bosses had just relayed to him. "I appreciate you taking the time to tell me that, Director. I should probably also advise you that I received a call before coming here, from my mother – I was able to speak with Colby, but only for a few seconds."
Atwater nodded. "I suspected your mother would make that call, thank you for telling me." The Director motioned for Cody to join him at the conference table in one corner of his office and sat down as Cody pulled a chair out. "There are a few things I need to get through to you before I decide just how far to read you into the situation your younger brother managed to get himself invited into."
"Was he, sir? Invited or would it be more accurate to say he was probably coerced?" Cody had always known how his mother felt about the intelligence services, the way they required their operatives to operate covertly, and he knew that she was, barely, containing her horror that not one but two of her sons had entered into the FBI. He also knew that Colby knew this as much as he did and that the only way Squirt would've gotten involved…
"Coerced is such a nasty term—" Atwater started to explain, and then changed tactics when Cody just stared at him. "Your brother knew what he was getting into, the stakes involved and that, yes, it was unusual for our agency to use someone with his lack of civilian experience in such a manner. Colby went above and beyond the call of duty to help the United States take down a foreign spy ring working within our government."
"And it damn near got him killed, didn't it?" Cody immediately bit his tongue, wondering what had prompted him to speak like that to his boss. "Sir, I'm sorry—"
"Don't be. You're right. More right than I think you can even begin to guess." Atwater picked up a remote from the top of the conference table and, pointing it at a digital media center, turned on a LCD display screen. The media was frozen, not moving, but Cody recognized his brother on the screen, despite the attempted disguise and facial hair. "Before I play this for you, Agent Granger, you need to be informed of a few things." Cody just nodded, never taking his eyes off the still image of his brother. "First off, as of yesterday, you're on Administrative Leave – with pay – until further notice. Secondly, you are not to discuss anything that you see or hear in this office with anyone who doesn't have a security clearance as high, or higher, than yours. I've already informed your Section Supervisory Agent that you would be taking some emergency leave time and I fully expect to hear that you booked a flight to Idaho before the end of the day today. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Granger . . . Cody, look at me." Cody tore his attention from the screen to follow the softly spoken order. "What you are about to see isn't easy to watch, but I feel you must see it so you know what your brother went through and how to help him heal and get past what happened to him."
Taking a closer look at Director Atwater's face, Cody could see more lines in the man's face than had been there the night before. He looked, literally, like he'd aged a good ten to fifteen years in less than 24 hours. "Is it that bad, sir?"
"Worse." He put the remote in Cody's hand and walked out of his office.
Cody toyed with the palm-sized control for a full five minutes, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to see his little brother put through some sort of wringer. He mentally prepared himself, as much as anyone could, to see Colby beaten to a pulp, maybe even tortured with electricity. But he was not prepared for what was actually on the tape.
If he hadn't known, in advance, that Colby had been deep under cover, the first moments of the tape would've damned his brother in Cody's own eyes. His body language was loose, relaxed, confidant and his intonation of his greeting to whomever it was behind the camera . . . damn, Colby was a good actor. It pained him to watch as Colby nonchalantly permitted himself to be divested of his sidearm and cell phone. Then things got extremely difficult to watch.
The damn tape stopped, without warning, shortly after the boarding announcement came through the speaker system in the Director's office. After having seen how his brother had been systematically tortured, Cody understood why the FBI had decided to fly his folks to Los Angeles on a Bureau jet. That Colby was still alive was some sort of miracle, probably directly attributed to the sheer stubborn determination Cody knew his brother had massive reserves of. But it hadn't made watching the video tape any easier to watch and all Cody knew at the moment the tape had stopped, was a utterly frightening level of anger that was bubbling up from somewhere around his heart.
"Agent Granger?" Cody turned around, snarling, but then pulled himself up short when he recognized the man standing in the doorway of Director Atwater's office.
"Hoode?" Cody asked, more than a little startled to see his self-defense instructor from the Academy standing in there.
"Granger." The smaller man stalked deeper into the office, his eyes taking in everything. "I hear there might be a sparring partner up here, somewhere."
Cody scowled. "Director Atwater sent you up here."
"We talked, last night. We're old friends, but Joe most certainly did not 'send me' up here."
"Then why are you here?"
"I was looking for a sparring partner. If you're not that person, I'll head down to the gym and pray word of my presence hasn't spread and chased everyone off."
Cody looked back at the video screen and the image frozen on it. His brother, his baby brother slumped in the chair he'd been tied to. He swallowed. "Yeah, I could do with some sparring." He stalked from the room.
"Thought you might." Gabriel took another look at the large display screen, clearly the unconscious man slumped there was Agent Colby Granger. "Shit, I may just get my head handed to me." He spotted the remote and turned off the power before leaving the room, muttering, "Damn it, Joe. I'm going to need more than one drink after this beating."
Worn out, but mentally calmer, from his work out in the gymnasium with Agent Instructor Gabriel Hoode, Cody was able to drive himself home to pack for a trip back to his family home in Idaho. The only concession he gave to what to pack was a fast glance at The Weather Channel before he sprinted up the stairs to stuff clothes in a small suitcase. Once he was done with that, he hauled the case down the living area, found a note pad and left Jacqueline a very brief missive.
"Jackie – brother was undercover, can't go into details. Going home to Idaho to be with family. Will call as soon as I know something more. Hope your trip was a decent one.
Love, Code."
Placing the note where he was sure Jackie would see it upon entering the house, he grabbed up the suitcase once more and, making sure he double-locked the door behind him, headed out to return to the Hoover Building. One of the Agents from his unit had volunteered to take him to the airport, thus enabling him to leave his private vehicle in the FBI's secure parking garage, only the agent in question didn't know he'd volunteered. Yet.
Once he arrived at headquarters, and successfully volunteering the newest agent in his department for chauffeur duties, Cody quickly penned another note. This one he shoved into a mail slot in the mailroom on near the door into the Archive Department.
"Bill – you're an asshole. No one likes you. Why don't you put in for that transfer to somewhere really, really cold before I get back from seeing my HERO of a little brother and force you to choke down a hefty serving of crow?
Signed, Not From A Family Of Traitors.
BTW – FUCK YOU, Fuckingberry."
Swinging back by his own basement department, Cody picked up his suitcase once more and Agent Owens who was going to drive him to Reagan International, and started the long journey from Washington DC to Cascade, Idaho via Boise. He usually hated red-eye flights, but a phone call to Lars and Auntie Doris while he was packing ensured him a ride from Boise to Cascade. Lars would meet him.
Cody disembarked from the plane and into the Boise terminal, keeping one eye on the hippy-wanna-be dope smoking hygienically challenged individual that had been seated next to him on not only the Denver to Boise flight, but the DC to Denver flight as well. Cody spotted the dread locked gentleman making his way through the crowd on his way to baggage claim, before he ever spotted his eldest brother, Lars.
"Cody! Over here!" He looked around and spotted his brother waiting patiently outside the waiting lounge for arrivals. Hiking his carry-on higher up on his shoulder, Cody walked over to Lars and, in typical Granger style, soon found himself in a mutual bear hug of an embrace. "How was your flight?"
"Long." Cody groused. "And I was stuck next to something that – if we were still permitted to profile, would've gotten hauled off the plane in Denver and stripped searched. Just for grins and giggles." He made it a point to look in the direction of Mister Dreadlocks as he and Lars walked behind the man toward baggage claims.
"Uh-huh. That ratty looking white guy, right? The one who looks-" Lars wrinkled his nose, "-and smells like he's never used a bar of soap in his life?" Cody just nodded, confirming his brother's identification of the bane of his life for the last hours. "Hell, Cody, if that walked into my office in Billings, I'd be tempted to call the PD and have him hauled out and cavity searched for illicit pharmaceuticals."
Cody let out a snort. "You'd probably find them too. SoB kept making nearly hourly trips to the bathroom and coming back to his seat with a severe case of the sniffles."
"Coke?"
"Probably. Would be my guess, but I've never worked a single day on the streets." Cody slipped to the back of the crowd around the luggage carousel marked as the off-loading area for his flight, leaned up against the low wall that separated the claims area from the main debarkation concourse and finally asked the one question that had been burning in the back of his mind since leaving DC. "Lars, any word on Squirt?"
"A little. Mom said he was able to talk with you for a few minutes?"
"If you want to call it that."
Lars nodded. "Pop swears he's going to be all right. Worn out and worn thin, probably will take a while before he's cleared by medical to get back to work, which is why we're in charge of getting things ready."
He stared at his eldest brother. "Oh sheesh, that means Auntie Dee's really in charge." Cody kicked the low wall with his heel, "Great, there goes any idea of simply resting and relaxing while Squirt recuperated right out the friggin' window."
"Probably." Lars laughed, but immediately sobered up as a too-damn-obvious-to-miss bag came flying down the slide and onto the carousel. "Crap! Is that yours, Cody?"
He twisted his head to see what had caught Lars' attention and let out a groan of his own as he recognized, barely, his luggage. "Yeah. Shit, talk about advertising what bags to steal from." He let the bag make several trips around on the luggage round-a-bout, giving the rest of the passengers from his flight a chance to clear out, before claiming the bag. "Idiot rules."
"Our tax dollars at work, the Government is just there to protect you and I from law-abiding citizens."
Cody let out a derisive snort. "Nice to hear you're still a die-hard conservative." He walked with Lars toward and exit, but then veered off to a seating area before leaving the airport terminal. Cody started ripping the bright neon orange tape marked UNLOADED FIREARM from his suitcase, unlocked the zipper lock, and reached inside to pull out his Sig-Sauer. It only took him 60 seconds to reload the magazine with the loose cartridges he was carrying in his jacket pocket and another 90 seconds to slip it, and his holster, back onto his belt with his FBI badge in plain sight on the front side of the holster. Flipping his jacket back over the gun to conceal it from easy view, he nodded at Lars and the two of them left the warmth of the terminal for the slightly chilly parking area of the Boise Airport.
Lars pointed out a black Cadillac Escalade parked toward the back of the Arrivals Only parking lot and they took off at their usual walking pace, a fast clip, toward Lars' car. They chatted about inconsequential stuff, mostly east coast verses west coast football teams the two followed. Lars hit a remote button on his keyring that unlocked and lifted the back hatch of the Cady as he and Cody approached and Cody lifted his tape-sticky bag and backpack into the cargo area, just as a vehicle came around the far end of the lane behind them with a tire squealing squawk. A second one came around the closer lane end at a slightly less frantic speed and with an ear-splitting long squall of rubber on asphalt, both vehicles came to a halt right behind Cody.
"ON THE GROUND, BOTH OF YOU! RIGHT NOW! LEAVE YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"
Cody's mind flashed back to Quantico and the day his class spent learning how to perform felony stops and how, after a while, everyone had the 'opportunity' to play bad guy as well as good guys. However he wasted no time in following the orders and dropped to the ground and flung his hands out to his side with the palms up. He heard more than saw Lars getting down on the pavement as well on the other side of his Escalade.
Waiting until he heard someone walking up to him, Cody made a very calm announcement. "I'm a Federal Agent, my ID and Credentials are in my left jacket pocket, Officer." His words must have been understood, even if he had been speaking into the asphalt, for he felt very cautious hands first relieve him of his Sig, then dig into the pocket for the leather portfolio.
A clap of a friendly sort tapped him between the shoulder blades as the same voice that had ordered him to the ground earlier, now much softer and a whole lot more friendly, made it clear it was all right to get back up. "Sorry about that, Agent Granger. Let me help you up, sir."
Cody rolled onto his back and accepted the hand held out to him and got to his feet. "It's all right . . . Corporal." The officer had two stripes on his light blue sleeves and the patches of Boise Airport Police. "You were just doing your job, right?"
"Yes'ir. We'd gotten a report from a concerned citizen that there was a fella with a gun last seen heading into this parking lot and, well, you matched the description."
"I understand. I probably should've waited until we were in the car and headed out of here before strapping the ol' ten-shooter back on my hip."
"Yes'ir, you probably should've." The corporal waved the other officer off with a grin, "Excuse me a moment, Agent. Dispatch, everything Code 4, subject in question is Fed."
"10-4 unit 2, everything Code 4."
The corporal handed Cody's sidearm and ID back to him. "Sir, are you both FBI?" He nodded to indicate Lars and Cody just shook his head.
"Nope, my brother over there is the City Attorney for Billings over in Montana." He slipped his gun back into its holster and 'confided' in the officer. "Only attorney in a family of cops . . . we may never get over the shame."
"It's all right, sir, even the best families have a black sheep or two in their line ups. Ya'll have a good stay in Idaho." The corporal was snickering as he climbed back into his unit and pulled away to resume patrol.
The two brothers didn't say anything until they were on the road heading north from the airport. "If I'm the shame of the family, what's Cliff?" Lars asked, his curiosity written clearly on his face.
"The squid? In a family of Army Men? He's the abomination." Cody smiled like a loon to ease the sting of his words and soon, the Escalade was ringing with laughter.
On the way to the house in Cascade, Cody had answered a call on Lars' cell phone and the two of them had been able to talk to their parents about Colby and his projected recovery, something that gave both brothers a great deal of relief. Cody had then curled up for a nap in the all too comfortable passenger seat of the Escalade and didn't wake up again until he felt the road change under the Cadillac's tires from pavement to loose gravel. He was happy for the nap the minute he walked into the old homestead.
"Cody! Good, you're here!" He found himself engulfed in a womanly bear crusher of a hug and enveloped in the scent he would always equate with her.
"Aunt Dee… can't . . . breathe!" Cody was only halfway joking. For a woman of her advanced years, she was quickly approaching 80, Doris Speeck was and had been a constant force in the Cascade area and a stabilizing one in the lives of the Granger Family in particular. She was also their closest neighbor, distance wise, so it made sense that the spry lady had a key to the place.
"Sorry, sorry." She released him in a hurry. "At my age you tend to forget your own strength and, let's face it, that grandson of mine is just as large as a black bear and can handle my hugs." She made it a point to reach out and check his waistline – not for a weapon, that was a usual piece of Granger Wear – and tsk'ed at what she found. "You are getting too damn skinny, Cody William. Don't they feed you right back there in DC?"
"They feed me just fine, Dee." Cody wriggled out of her grasp before she could, and she would, start tickling him. "But my job is mostly behind a desk and I do not want to end up on the 'fatty list' at my next physical review for the Bureau so I'm very careful about what and how much I eat."
"Oh pish!" She waved her hand over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen, causing Cody to follow her but not before he heard Lars getting waylaid on the front porch by Jamie Speeck, Doris' grandson. "You're home and while we've had a good spate of real Idaho summer weather, you're going to need some extra fuel in that furnace of yours. We have a barn and house to get ready, not to mention all the planning and coordinating we're going to need from at least one member of this clan to make sure the youngest is welcomed home with all the pomp and circumstance he so richly deserves." She had been digging into the cupboards, cabinets and refrigerator as she talked and now Doris turned back to face Cody from the stove where she was now mixing up something to eat. "Even through we all know the last thing Colby will want is any sort of fuss and bother over what he did."
Cody nodded. "But if you're pushing for it, there's got to be a reason. Doris, just how bad was the fallout here? Mom and Dad refused to tell me jack about it."
Doris Speeck put aside the frying pan she'd started cooking bacon in and faced him. "It was bad, Cody. Sergeant Huston and I ended up pulling a few officers to keep the damn out of town newsies at bay and Sheriff Leon finally got so fed up with the media circus that he pretty much threatened every single one of them with bodily harm the next time just one of them tried to set foot on Granger Property without a proper invite." She let out a frustrated sigh. "But even that wasn't the worst of it. I and my counterpart in Leon's office fielded so damn many citizen's complaints about harassing phone calls, mostly by so-called journalists, from townsfolk that in the last five to six weeks everyone in or around Cascade and Valley county had gone to unlisted and unpublished phone numbers."
He let out a low whistle. The small town his folks had chosen to live in after Boise had always prided itself on neighbors knowing each other, helping each other and being as private or public as they wanted to be. That so many had suddenly switched from published telephone numbers to unlisted . . . "That bad, huh?"
"Worse. Even a family new to the area has had to fend off the damn vultures and they don't know your family like the rest of the town folk do." Doris turned back to the stove and the bacon, turning the heat back on under the cast iron pan. "Check and see if there's enough eggs in the 'fridge for you, me and your brother. If not, skip over to my place and raid the hen house."
Glancing in the cooler as requested, Cody realized that there were only four eggs left in the carton so he hightailed it out of the kitchen, across the backyard to the creek, then followed that down behind the barn toward Cascade Lake before cutting up a barely discernable trail to the Speeck residence. He used to come over to the old house when he was a teen, gathering up eggs, feeding the chickens and basically helping out around the place after Doris' husband passed away. Spotting the same old wicker basket on the shelf just outside the small hen house, Cody unhitched the gate to the chicken yard and, in a few minutes, was robbing the still pissy-as-ever hens of their ovoid treasures.
The few two days he was home in Cascade, Cody spent most of his time cleaning the house from top to bottom, then starting over because it didn't 'pass inspection' with Auntie Dee. He was ready to tackle the barn, something about tearing down cobwebs and stringing the Christmas lights – just the white or clear ones – up around the rafters in preparation for the homecoming celebration, when "aunt" Crystal showed up and requested Cody go into town and talk with Sam Neal at the newspaper office.
Snagging the keys to his mother's old Chevy Suburban Cody took the opportunity to get away from the frenzied cleaning and cooking and party planning. It wasn't until he was turning down Maple street that he realized he should have asked Lars to come along, if only to give his eldest brother a break from the Aunties and trying to organize things for Colby's return.
Parking in front of the Cascade Chronicler, Cody was able to slip into the office without too many folks stopping him and offering their well-wishes or congratulations for his youngest brother. Something that was all to frequent an occurrence since the news broke that Colby wasn't a traitor and, in fact, had been instrumental in bringing down a major spy ring inside the United States.
"Sam?"
"In the back!"
He followed the voice to the back of the printing shop where he found Sam Neal half buried inside one of the printing presses. "That's not exactly safe, Sam."
Sam wriggled back out of the machine; wiped greasy hands down the front of a grease and ink stained coverall, then carefully pulled an errant strand of long red hair out of a heart-shaped face. "Well, hell. You picked NOW to show up, Cody Granger." Samantha picked up a clean rag from her tool kit and, after wiping the worst of the greasy ink from her hands, walked over to Cody and held out a hand in greeting. "I would hug you, but you'd never get the ink out of that nice button down."
"We never let us hold us back before, Sam." He reached out and pulled his former best buddy in Cascade into an embrace. Once she responded as she used to – a hard pinch on his side – he released her and held her at arm's length. "Now, Crystal said you wanted to see me about something?"
"Let me show you." She pulled him to the back of the shop where a newer piece of equipment was busy humming away. She sat down at a monitor console and pulled up something and gestured to a nearby chair. "Pull up a chair and sit, I need to tweak the design – with your input – before I print the sign out on the biodegradable vinyl banner."
Curious, he did as Sam requested and was surprised to see a rather elaborate, and patriotic colored, design on the screen welcoming home his baby brother. "Wow … really?"
She nodded. "Yeah, the local Rotary club is footing the bill for the banner but I wanted to do it right before printing anything."
"Still a perfectionist, huh?" Cody teased her. Only to regret it the second her fist connected with the side of his thigh, right over the common peronnial nerve cluster. "Hey!" He nursed the frogged leg.
"Sorry, old habits die hard, Code. Now look at this and tell me if you think it's too much or not enough."
Doing as he was ordered, Cody looked closely at the design – rather tasteful in his opinion but he knew Colby wasn't going to like it, no matter what it looked like – and spent the next forty minutes helping her tweak the design, then rolling up the final product for delivery to the airport. Which Sam gladly volunteered him for.
After getting back in from the airport hours past the time he'd thought he'd be home, Cody scrounged around in the kitchen, found sandwich makings and, after eating, fairly crawled up to his old room – freshly aired out and cleaned by someone else other than him – and collapsed. It wasn't even nine PM, but that was well past midnight in Washington DC and, frankly, the way the honorary aunts and uncles had been keeping him and Lars running around, he was too pooped to pop.
Sleep came quickly enough, only mildly interrupted by what had to be a vivid dream; though why he'd be dreaming about someone playing a really annoying rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever had bothered him, for all of five seconds.
Loud noises and someone shouting roused him from a deep sleep and Cody's hand wrapped, instinctively and comfortably, around the butt of his service weapon even before his bare feet hit the wood floor and he flung the light quilt and sheets off his body. Glancing over at a digital clock, just as someone raised their voice in a rather forceful tone – something about using soap, Cody realized it was just a few minutes before four in the morning. "God Damn it!" He whipped open the door to his room and stomped out to see the tall, lanky form of Cliffton stumbling toward the bathroom and Lars just clearing the last of the steps coming up from below.
"Damn, Code! Put that away before you shoot a family member." His eldest brother snapped at him.
"It's 4 fucking o'clock in the morning!!! What is wrong with you?"
"Cliff's home. And if your nose worked, you'd know that." Lars pointed in the direction of the bathroom. "I'd better check on him in a few minutes. He's so damn tired he's likely to fall asleep standing up and drown in there."
"Fine, just don't wake the dead in the town cemetery while you're at it." Cody knew he was being a bastard, but he was tired, cranky and – despite hearing his little brother would be all right, worried sick that Colby wasn't as "okay" as his folks wanted to believe. He dropped back down on his bed, gently setting his Sig-Sauer on the bedside table and tried to get comfortable enough to fall back to sleep.
However, sleep didn't come immediately and Cody listened as his two brothers moved around the upstairs, quietly talking until he heard Cliff flop into his bed and Lars closed the door to his room a few minutes later. The house once again quiet, Cody was able to get back to sleep for an hour's nap before his usual sleeping pattern reared its ugly head and he found himself wide awake at 5:30 AM local time.
He understood, really he did, but after three days being in a new time zone, Cody wondered if Cliff was ever going to get over his time lag. Three nights in a row now he'd been startled awake by odd noises in the house, only to discover that Cliffton was wandering around the house in the middle of the night, unable to sleep as his internal clock was still 'set' to his ship's time in the Persian Gulf. Of course, it was somewhat understandable, since there was an eleven-hour time difference between Cascade and Dubai.
Cliff wasn't, due to the severe jet lag, fully able to assist with cleaning and clearing out the old barn for the welcome home party Auntie Doris was planning (with Gigi's and Cat's express approval, of course), but he was able to do stuff in the downstairs while Lars and Cody slept. Up to and including washing the tiny and all too fragile knick-knacks their mother had collected over the years that needed to be cleaned before too many folks came through the house to help welcome Colby home. Which was happening today.
Rousing Cliff enough to have him halfway coherent had taken no less than two full pots of extremely strong coffee, half a package of bacon and four eggs – about all Lars' could cook up with any degree of competency. The ride to and back from the airport, with a highly embarrassed Colby squished between Cody and Cliff, and the raucous greeting, which had welcomed Colby's return to the Granger Homestead, had done far more to waken the dead in the graveyard than it did Cliff. Much to Cody's surprise, Colby – and Cliff, managed to stay awake for a lot longer than he'd thought they would, considering just how worn out and thin Colby looked. Then the fun part came.
Cody, along with Lars, Cat, Gigi, Doris and her grandson Jamie and Sergeant Huston, had to keep an eye on the stairs leading up to the second floor and discourage the younger – some under 18 years old – ladies from trying to slip up to glimpse, or cuddle up to, a sleeping Colby or Cliffton Granger. The family wasn't too worried about Cliff's reactions, even though they knew he had more combat training than he would readily admit to, but Colby had come home with his firearms and Cody knew his brother's Army and FBI training would have him grabbing for the pistols before properly identifying any intruders. The last thing Chief Gareth Granger needed was for his youngest son to shoot a female admirer in his home.
After the last of the honorary Aunts and Uncles, as well as cousins, finished helping to clean up after the party and had departed, Cody and the remaining members of the clan went to bed. Noise, not unlike that made by trapped and worried wolves, startled Cody back awake in the middle of the night. He slipped his hand around his sidearm and noiselessly exited his bedroom at the top of the stairs, his hearing focused on locating the source of the sound. This time, it clearly wasn't Cliff's nocturnal meanderings that had awakened him, but tracking the noise to Colby's room… the hairs on his arms and back of his neck stood straight up as a terrified whimper issued forth behind the closed door.
Carefully and quietly, Cody pushed the door open and spotted his baby brother curled up on the bed in the pale light from a LED lit clock. He started to whisper as he approached the bed, "Colby? Hey, buddy, it's okay. You're safe, Squirt, you're home." Colby didn't respond, at least he didn't wake up, but the whimpering stopped and Cody's brother uncurled from the fetal position he'd been in and rolled over. Spotting an all too familiar box under the pillow once Colby turned over and Cody picked it up and placed it on the bedside table. After all, he knew his little brother all too well, Colby would be heart broken if his precious Aritza Farms green colored cookies were crushed.
He waited until he was sure Colby was resting peacefully again before Cody stepped out of the room, only to find his mother waiting for him. "Mom?"
"He's going to be all right, Cody." She looked into the room for a moment before pulling the door closed. "The nightmares started shortly after he woke up and realized he was in a hospital." Her hand was warm on Cody's arm. "At least his sensory issues have stopped, those were the hardest thing to handle. Even the lightest touch could send him over the edge for the first 24 to 36 hours after he was pulled off that damned freighter."
"Mom, you and dad haven't gotten much sleep yourself in a while, have you?" He didn't have to wait for an answer. "Go on back to bed, Mom. I'll keep an ear open for Squirt and, let's face it, I know how he was trained and the proper counter moves – just in case he wakes up meaner than a riled rattler."
"Thank you, Cody. I'll sleep better knowing you're watching out for him." Catherine Granger stood up on her toes, kissed him on his cheek and padded off to the master bedroom on bare feet, her favorite patchwork quilted robe wrapped around her tight.
He waited until she closed the door to her room, then slid down the wall and planted his butt on the floor next to the door to Colby's room. "No damned Chinese boogeyman is going to get my little brother."
~*~ END ~*~
~*~ Book Three ~*~
And this concludes the Tales of the Granger Brothers.