36 hours earlier . . . Tuesday 9:50 pm

Warehouse District

Beckett and Castle ducked under the yellow tape and started down the alley. Work lights had been set up, casting a glare over the pitted pavement and grimy brick wall. Castle spied Esposito and Ryan talking to some uniforms near a tall cyclone fence. "There are the boys." He pointed for Beckett.

Esposito shot back "Not boys, Castle. Men." He looked at Ryan, who was jacketless and wearing a sweater vest. "Well, at least one man."

Ryan smiled, nonplussed. "Hey! In case you've forgotten, I'm the one with the kid." Ryan's smile widened, impossibly. "Actually, it's one point three kids now."

Beckett practically squeeled, "Really, Kevin? That's wonderful!" She gave him a heartfelt hug. "So that's where you disappeared to today. I'm sure little Sarah Grace will be thrilled with a baby sister. Brother. Whichever."

Esposito smirked. "I'm betting on a 'whichever'."

Castle followed up Beckett's hug with a back slap and a handshake. "That's terrific, Ryan. You know, they've discovered what causes kids now."

"Yeah, Castle, we kind of figured that out on our own." He looked over Beckett, in her Derek Jeter jersey, and Castle in a Yankees golf shirt. "Date night?"

"We were taking my Dad to the game tonight." She frowned at Esposito. "Don't ask! Dad decided to stay, even though the Orioles were up by 3 after 4." She stared down to the activity in the middle of the alley. "What have we got?"

Esposito answered. "Another Beckett special. What a surprise! Dispatcher got a ton of calls about ten past 8 tonight reporting loud explosions in this area." Esposito handed Beckett and Castle each a pair of latex gloves, and they started walking towards the lights. "A patrol car found the vic at 8:24. No ID, no clothes, no obvious cause of death. We have uniforms checking local dumpsters for clothes or IDs."

"Explosions? Plural?" Beckett looked around, then through the cyclone fence at the construction site on the side of the alley. "What blew up?"

At Esposito's shrug, she took two steps and squatted down next to the body. A man, fit and trim and around thirty years old, was lying on his back in the middle of the alley wearing only a pair of briefs and a pair of work shoes. His one leg was twisted at an impossible angle. A trickle of dried blood could be seen coming from his ears, nose, and mouth. His eyes bugged out strangely. Long individual scratch marks covered his torso and legs. "Dr Perlmutter. Good evening. Do we have a preliminary COD?"

Perlmutter looked up from the corpse. "Ahhh. Our quick Detective Beckett. And her thick batboy Mister Castle."

Castle smiled. "Perlmutter, have you ever wondered why your patients refuse to speak to you?" Beckett gave him a quelling look.

"Castle, I revel in their silence. Actually, this one IS speaking to me. Unfortunately, he's not making much sense. Preliminary cause of death is blunt force trauma. Sometime in the last two hours."

"What was he hit with?" Beckett asked.

"Nothing." At Beckett's puzzled look, he explained "or I could say the whole world. His injuries are consistent with a fall from a great height. Fractured skull in multiple places, broken neck, broken vertebrae, broken ribs, broken femur. Death would have been instantaneous. I'll know more when I get him on the table."

Beckett looked up at the warehouse roof three stories above her. "A fall of 30 feet?"

"Oh, no, Detective. It would had to have been at least 3 times that to cause these injuries."

"These cuts, Doctor. Boxcutter? Postmortem? They cut his clothes off?"

"That would be my best estimate at this stage."

"Thank you, Doctor." Esposito motioned her to follow him. She looked at Castle as they stepped around the body. "Any reason someone would move a jumper?"

"My initial guess would be the fashion police. Tidy whities? Really?"

They followed Esposito halfway down the alley, where he shined his light on to the brick wall at waist level. It looks like it had been smeared with soot. Beckett swiped it with her gloved finger and sniffed. "Smells like chemical explosive. C4 maybe."

Esposito pointed with his flashlight 30 feet further down the wall. "There's a bigger one down there." They moved down to the blast mark. Pock marks dotted to wall. "That's gotta be shrapnel." Esposito flicked open his knife, and dug out a long slender piece of metal from one of the holes. "Wow. Look at that." He held it up in the light. "That's from an ATW."

Beckett sounded skeptical. "An anti-tank weapon? Can't be. There'd be a big hole in a wall, or the charred remains of a vehicle."

Esposito looked equally perplexed. "Or at least a disabled tank."

Castle broke into a grin. "That's it! It hit a tank." He grabbed Beckett's flashlight and shined it straight up, then shined it through the cyclone fence. "There. Come on." Castle started walking quickly out of the alley and up the sidewalk, all the while aiming the flashlight beam up above the cyclone fence. "It's up here."

Beckett and Esposito followed, shouting warnings. "Castle, if this is about UFO's, Inter-dimensional Armies, or Ghost Legions, I'm going to kneecap you!" "I'll hold him down for you." They rounded the top of the block, and came to a break in the fence.

Castle shined his light down on the ground. Deep tire tracks came out of the dirt and marked the pavement most of the way down the block. Castle spun on his two trailing detectives. "They disabled a tank!"

"I hate to tell you bro, but those aren't tank tracks. There are no Abrams in New York City. Gun control."

Castle was smug. "No Abrams, no Shermans, but lots of armor. You pass them every day."

The light went off for Beckett. She gave a dazzling smile. "It was an armored car! Which is why they removed the guy's uniform. They needed to delay identification as long as possible. Okay. They disabled it and trucked it out of here. But how did they get it over here?"

Castle pointed his light straight up. It caught the boom of a large construction crane directly overhead.

"I don't know, Castle. Can those things lift an armored car?"

Castle shrugged. "I don't see why not. The air conditioning unit on top of my building weighs more than an armored car would."

"So, why steal the whole truck?"

Esposito chimed in. "Maybe the thing they were stealing was really big. Or they couldn't open the back. Have you seen the inside of those things? The newer ones have huge armored safes built right into the chassis."

Beckett got concerned. "Okay. We need to move on this. There may be more guards at risk."

Castle disagreed. "Most armored car robberies are inside jobs."

Beckett shook her head vigorously. "We can't take that chance. Esposito, I need you and Ryan to ride herd out here for a while. Get every CSU body you can find out here. Get 'em out of bed if you have to. We need this entire construction area processed, especially that big crane. We need to ID those explosives. The ATF is going to go apeshit if they hear about this, so we'll try to keep it quiet as long as possible. I need uniforms to canvas up and down this street to find that truck. Every home, every business. I need all street video pulled within a half mile area. Castle and I will try to find the security company and ID that guard. Send Ryan back as soon as you can, we need to get moving on the video. I'll update Gates. Questions?"

"Nope. Got it. Good luck." Esposito turned and trotted back the way they came, already calling on his cell. Beckett retrieved her flashlight from Castle and started following the dirty tire prints down the street. They faded out after passing through the intersection. The two of them then turned and ran for the car.