Author's note: for those waiting for me to update. "Caught. . ." I can only apologise and assure you that I have the next chapter nearly finished and will update in the next few days. I blame UK tv for showing more numb3rs, but no new NCIS at the moment. My muse clearly needs to be looking at the boys to get inspired.
Anyway thankyou for the wonderful reviews for my teaser. I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think. Thanks –J
Chapter 2 : Exponential growth
Don climbed from his car and headed for the building that housed his brother's office at a trot. He didn't have the energy for it, the constant adrenaline surges earlier in the day had left him feeling drained, washed out, and yet the churning sensation deep in his gut left him with no choice but to move with urgency, and so his long strides ate up the ground, and he somehow pulled on deep reserves to take the exterior steps two at a time. Vaguely he was aware that his focus had slipped, that his short-term memory was none existent. He had no recollection of the journey here, of his thoughts, his concerns, his worries. The only thing he could remember was Larry's phone call, the slight shakiness in the professor's voice, the. . . what was the emotion that he was trying to deny? Oh yes, the fear, fear that was underlying every hesitation, every word.
The fog that was stealing any memory of his thoughts beyond the here and now continued, and with no clear recollection of how he made it to that point Don stepped onto the corridor and froze, his breath coming in light pants.
About thirty feet away Larry Fleinhardt was pacing, four or five steps, an abrupt turn and back, rubbing his hands absently together and apparently talking to himself, although Don was too far away to distinguish words from the quiet mumbles. Larry did not look up, did not see him, and Don watched in quiet fascination for a few seconds before he acknowledged why he'd stopped, why his feet were not carrying him down the corridor to some resolution of the mystery of the summons, the reason for Larry's obvious agitation. What was wrong with his younger sibling?
He had stopped because now he was here it seemed that the ignorance might be preferable to the knowing, because as long as he didn't walk down the corridor as long as he didn't open that door and confirm his anxieties, there was a chance that his brother was fine, that Larry was overreacting to some merely imagined terror.
'Schrodinger's cat,' the stray name puzzled him for a moment and then the thoughts connected and he could hear his brother explaining it to him, could see his animated gestures as he elaborated on the theory.
"As long as you don't open the box then the cat is simultaneously in two states, both alive and dead, but by opening the box the observation takes away the uncertainty and freezes the cat in a single state."
That was what this was, his own personal version of the theory. If he didn't take another step forward then Charlie could be fine. He could be, couldn't he? But the second he moved forward, spoke to Larry, observed. . .somehow he knew, like the ill-fated cat, that the observation would only confirm the worst.
He pinched his nose in an effort to quell the rapidly forming headache, as the anxiety continued to make blood pound through his system.
'Schrodinger's cat?'
Damn, his younger brother was starting to rub off on him.
He rolled his shoulders; Don Eppes didn't deal with thought experiments or theories, except where they were useful tools. He dealt in cold harsh reality and the longer he drew this out the harder he was making it. He took a stride forward. "Larry?"
NUMB3RSNUMB3RS
Megan, Colby and David sat around the table in the conference room. "So did Don say where he was going? Colby asked.
Megan shook her head. "No, he just said he had something he needed to check on and that he'd be back," Megan stated, keeping her voice low against being overheard, "and then he left, but something seemed to have him rattled, and it was more than just what we saw today." She looked down at the desk, but neither of the other two noticed as their gaze dropped too, each reacting subconsciously to the memories of the gruesome sights, the pain and suffering, the innocent loss of life they had seen, as images replayed in reaction to the comment. There was a pause that none of them noticed, a shared moment of isolation as each internalised their own horror, their own grief, staring through a point in the table but seeing nothing.
Megan was the first to shake herself back to reality. "So I guess we're going to have to cover for him 'til he gets back and tells us what's going on."
"If he tells us what's going on?" David added as he looked up to meet first Megan's and then Colby's gaze. They both nodded. If it was to do with the case then Don would most certainly be telling them, but if it was more personal then the chances were they would never know.
Megan was facing the glass wall and doorway and stood as the two agents from Homeland security entered, David and Colby followed suit, retaking their seats at a gesture from Hamilton, the Lead agent from Homeland security. He reached the head of the table and stopped, making no attempt to take a seat himself, a subconscious signalling of authority. His colleague, Agent Klein took up a standing position slightly to his right and behind.
"Agent Grainger, Agent Colby, Agent Reeves," Hamilton acknowledged each one of them in turn. There was the briefest of pauses, "I assume Agent Eppes will be joining us?" he asked, letting the slight frustration that Don wasn't already there show in both his expression and tone.
It was Megan who replied, sitting slightly forward in her seat. "I'm afraid Agent Eppes had to step out of the office on an urgent matter," she stated, keeping her answer deliberately vague, "But I'm sure that we can help you with whatever you need.
Hamilton turned to exchange an exasperated glance with Klein, before continuing. "Very well, but I want to make it clear that for the foreseeable future your team has been seconded to me and my department, and until we have some answers on exactly what happened today, so that we can prevent it from happening again, this work will take priority over all of your other cases. Is that clear?"
All three agents nodded and mumbled affirmative replies, that much had been obvious to all of them from the moment they heard the first calls about the incident coming in, but Don's absence belied that impression.
"OK, lets get started then. So far we've managed to recover footage from 4 out of five of the mall cameras that cover the central square. We'd like you to review what we have in the time immediately prior to the explosion, run facial recognition on any images that are clear enough, so that we can identify who was there. Study them in detail, use your local knowledge to see what you can figure out." Hamilton looked at his watch. "We'll debrief at eight. Any questions?"
The three agents again replied with a headshake, and began to gather up their files from the table.
"And if Agent Eppes finds the time to deign us with his presence," Hamilton stated with barely concealed sarcasm, "perhaps you could ask him to come and see me as soon as he gets back."
"Don't worry," David said, placatingly as he stood, "Don will be back soon and we'll let him know."
"Thank you, gentleman, Agent Reeves," and with that he swept from the room Agent Klein in tow.
"Short and to the point," David said looking across at Megan.
"Comes from being ex- military," Megan stated, "No offence Colby."
Colby shook his head. "None taken, believe me I've served under plenty of men like him. Looks like the next few days are gonna be fun."
The three agents had moved out into the bullpen heading for their desks.
"Yeah he makes Don look like a pussycat by comparison." David added.
NUMB3RSNUMB3RS
"Don," Larry looked up and stopped his absent-minded pacing; switching gears as he moved forward rapidly, "Thank goodness you're here. I've been debating what to do, where to look, but Charles. . ."
Don watched as the professor approached, he had the same expression of washed out shock that Don had seen reflected on the faces of others throughout the day, but there was more here, even without the rapid movement, or the obvious agitation demonstrated by the rapid almost babbled speech, Don could see the fear in Larry's eyes, the uncertainty. He raised one hand to stop the rapid verbal flow as the professor reached him. "Whoa there, slow it down for me. Why don't you explain. . ."
But Don got no further as Larry grabbed his arm. "Come into Charles' office, you have to see. . ."
Don allowed himself to be pulled forward against the sense of dread about what he would find, unable to shake the image of opening the box to find a dead. . .No! He shook himself, this was ridiculous, he was overreacting, after a day like today everyone was over-emotional, or in shock, it was natural to. . .He took a deep breath as Larry pushed open the door and ushered him inside.
Don wasn't sure what he had expected to find, what state he expected to find Charlie in, but the one thing he hadn't expected was an empty office, anxiety switched rapidly to something bordering on anger. Why had Larry dragged him down here? If it wasn't to see Charlie, if there wasn't anything wrong. . . . He took a few paces forward and scanned just to make sure that he hadn't missed anything, on the floor, behind the desks, but, apart from it's normal fixtures and fittings and randomly spread scattering of open books and papers, the room was empty. He turned on the professor. "Larry, just what have you got me down here for? Where's Charlie? Why. . .?"
"Look there," Larry stated, pointing at the chalkboard nearest to Don.
Don turned and looked at the random trail of white symbols that he was accustomed to seeing and not understanding on boards of all descriptions whenever his brother was around. He turned back to Larry, frustrated, "You know I don't understand. ."
But Larry had moved forward to join him, his own attention now on the board, this was clearly what had him so agitated, but why?"
"These equations," Larry stated, running his hand along in a hovering line about six inches from the board, "don't relate to anything that Charles has been working on, not even your cases, in fact they're more physics than math."
Don looked at the board again despite the knowledge that he still wouldn't understand. "What are they?"
"They relate to momentum and trajectory of objects in an explosion. A detailed analysis of the fragmentation, the blast pattern."
"Of the bomb this afternoon?" Don asked softly.
"I'm afraid so," Larry stated his expression rueful as he studied the board once more.
Don considered for a moment. So, his brother had turned the events of the afternoon into a math problem, there was nothing unusual about that, in fact any other reaction would have been atypical and consequently worrying. So what was it that had Larry so agitated, so concerned about Charlie that he barely seemed to be holding it together.
There was a tiny part of him that knew already, his gut, his instinct, whatever euphemism you cared to use to describe his innate ability to decipher the truth from evidence that was far too slim to draw any conclusions, but he denied it, pushed the idea down as too horrible to contemplate. So instead he looked to Larry once again. "I still don't understand. . ."
"There's a mistake, here," he picked up a piece of chalk and circled it, "and here," his arm moved across the board, "and here, and here," another flourishing circle, then another. He looked back at Don. "Your brother doesn't make mistakes. For him this is simple math and he shouldn't. . ." He looked back at the board, there was a long pause, "and he's filled in the parameters too accurately. He has information here that he couldn't possibly have known unless he was. . ."
He stopped one word short of confirming Don's worst fear, and for a moment Don thought it was because he didn't want to verbalise it, in the same way that he was denying it, but he realised from the direction of the older man's stare that he had been distracted by something else. He was staring at the piece of chalk in his hand, at the yellow plastic handle, and at the unmistakeable red smears on it.
"Oh my," Larry offered feebly as Don reached forward and grabbed the chalk from his hand. He stared down at it, and that was when something else caught his eye, and he dropped down to one knee. The smears on the chalk were unmistakeably blood, as were the mixture of smears and splashed droplets that ran along the floor in a line in front of the board.
Larry stared. "Oh my," the exclamation slipped subconsciously from his lips.
NUMB3RSNUMB3RS
Megan, Colby and David each sat at their desks reviewing the CCTV footage frame by frame, zooming in on each person as they entered the central square of the mall, one at a time, watching for anything. It was slow and tedious work and each of them was beyond tired, emotionally drained from the day's events, but they knew that they could not stop, knew that what they were doing was important. So they rubbed tired eyes, shifted occasionally as they stretched aching, tensed muscles, but kept their focus and concentration on their task.
"Hey guys," David called across the room, "I think I got something here."
Both Megan and Colby stood and moved to stand behind him.
"Ok, so this is our guy here." He pointed at a black clad figure in the centre of the screen, "And he appears to be waiting for something, some sort of signal from someone here." He pointed to the far side of the screen. "Whoever it is is just out of shot on this camera, but you can see his shadow. As soon as he arrives our guy gives a slight nod and then triggers the bomb." He pressed a few keys, rewinding the shot of the seconds before the explosion and zooming in on the face of the bomber. There was the unmistakeable expression of recognition, of acknowledgement and then. . .David hit the pause so that they didn't have to watch the rest of the explosion and the carnage it created. "So we need to figure out which camera was trained on this section here. . ." He rewound the images again pointing to the area of the shadow.
"That would be camera L3, the one I'm working on," Colby stated, "but I haven't got that far yet."
David tapped his keyboard again, accessing the relevant file. "OK well lets see who gave our bomber his signal." He started the playback from camera L3 a few seconds before the section he wanted, and they all watched as a curly haired figure walked into shot. There was a collective gasp. David shook his head. "It can't be. . ." He hit the keys again zooming in on the face that they all recognised, the face of the person whose arrival had apparently triggered the suicide bomber to detonate his bomb. A clearer image formed on the screen, and Megan automatically pulled out her cell and hit the speed dial for Don's number, because staring back at them from the screen was the unmistakeable countenance of Doctor Charles Eppes.
TO BE CONTINUED. . . .
Author's note 2:- I appreciate that I have paraphrased the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, but then Charlie is always doing that when explaining things to his big brother, so I think I have license. If you want the whole theory you can find it on Wikipedia.