A/N: Thanks for the reviews...

Chapter 13

A little before noon, Don watched the last of the crime techs make their way out of Charlie's kitchen, and looked at Colby. "See, I told you the hiding place wasn't obvious."

Colby shook his head remorsefully. "I shoulda moved the boxes and looked."

Don snorted. "Based on that logic, you would have had to have torn half the house apart every time you went through it. I didn't think about it either. Don't worry about it."

Colby sighed. "Maybe. Well, I'm heading back in to the office – I might stop and pick up lunch first. You said you were gonna stay, right?"

Don rolled up his sleeves. "Yeah. Now that the lab guys are done, I'm going to put the basement back together. I think it kinda freaked Charlie out to find that – I want it to look a little more normal when he gets home." He debated briefly; then decided to remove his gun and shoulder holster while he worked; it would be more comfortable. Colby watched as he slid it off and laid it on the counter.

"He gets in tonight, huh?"

"Yeah, he called a little while ago – he thinks it'll be around six-thirty."

Colby nodded. "Okay – we got that meeting at 1:30 – are you gonna be back by then?"

"Yeah," Don tossed over his shoulder, as he headed for the basement door. "This'll only take fifteen or twenty minutes – I'll be back by one, easy."

"Right. Later," said Colby, as he let himself out the kitchen door.

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Dillon Moran stepped out from the indoor tennis court into the hallway as his phone rang, still clutching his racket. He'd played a round of doubles, and was waiting with his partner for a court. He stepped down the hallway toward a quiet spot as he answered. "Moran."

"He's alone, still at his brother's house. The last of them just left. You want us to take him here?"

"Yeah," said Moran. "Do it."

He disconnected, and typed in a text message. "Jason. It's going down - now." He pocketed the phone, and then stopped at the drinking fountain before heading back in to the court.

Back at the hotel, Jason Walsh stepped aside from the poker game set up in his buddy's hotel room, and glanced at his message. He shoved the phone in his pocket, and returned to the table, grinning. "Someone needs to deal me some aces."

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Charlie made his way stiffly from the kitchen of the safe house to the ground floor room that had been set up as an office, carefully bearing a cup of hot tea. It was close to 3:00 p.m. EST, and the algorithm was still running. He was packed and ready to go; he and Wilhelm had already agreed he should depart a little after 5:00 p.m., when the jet became available. He'd already called Don and told him that he would be in at around six-thirty p.m., LA time. In the meantime, they were waiting for the program to complete its analysis. The events of the past two days had driven the situation with Amita out of his mind, or at least submerged it. Now that he had time to think, the situation had resurfaced, and the resulting pain added to the throbbing of his injuries.

It was the worst argument they'd ever had. They'd had spats before, but always managed to work through them, and at first he'd thought that this would be no different – it was painful, but they'd find a way through it somehow. After days of continued silence on her part however, he was beginning to fear it was something more, something much worse. What if they couldn't work their way out of this one? She knew how much it meant for him to work for Don – if she really cared about him, how could she ask him to give it up? If he followed the logic, the answer to that question would tell him that perhaps she really didn't care enough to make it work. Maybe this was just an excuse on her part to end it; maybe she really wanted out, maybe…

He groaned, and ran a hand down his face, wincing as he hit his cheekbone. He had to stop stewing over this, he told himself. He couldn't do anything about it here – he had to put it aside and deal with it when he got back. He forced his mind back to the algorithm. He had hoped the program would spit out its results before now, but so far it was still chugging along. Willy had been glued to the screen since early that morning, and the agents were pacing restlessly. They were having a hard time understanding why it was taking so long; they hadn't grasped the concept that the program would accomplish in a matter of hours what would have taken weeks without it – weeks and an untold amount of errors.

As Charlie passed a mirror in the hall, he glanced at his face. On his left cheekbone and right jawbone were two dark purple, swollen bruises, and his torso was much worse. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move. It was going to be a long trip home. He paused in the doorway, and took a sip of tea as he regarded the back of Willy's head, which partially obscured the computer screen. The scrolling line of white figures on black suddenly ground to a halt, and Willy sat up straight in his chair. "I think it's done!"

Charlie shuffled forward as quickly as he could, pain almost forgotten, and the group clustered around Willy and the monitor.

"It worked!" Willy crowed. "There's search variable one – it shows SSN# 197- 56-4239."

"Dillon Moran," said Charlie.

"Variable two is 146-73-4990."

"Conaghan," replied Charlie, and the agents looked at him. Charlie shrugged a little. "I had those two memorized. We'll have to look up the third one."

Willy scanned the screen. "Okay, three is 247-13-5582." He flipped to another screen, access to a federal database, and searched for the number, following the line across to the name. "That corresponds to a guy named Jason Walsh." He turned and looked at the three agents and Charlie, who were staring at the screen with a stunned expression. "Who is Jason Walsh?"

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Don pushed the last of the boxes into place, and dusted his hands. He glanced at the small safe, which sat off to the side. Better leave that out where Charlie could get to it, he thought to himself. His brother had put some papers, and at Don's recommendation, his new pistol, in it before he left. He glanced around, making sure he'd gotten all of the trash, as he picked up the plastic garbage bag. Sean had pilfered an old ratty blanket to lie on, and the crime techs had taken that, and some of the empty cracker packages and water bottles. Don had scooped up the rest, and told the techs to stash the blanket in evidence when they were done, with a tag to dispose after the trial, if there ever was one. He imagined that no amount of washing would ever make Charlie want that blanket back.

He trudged up the basement stairs, holding the garbage bag. He'd dump it in the trash, wash his hands, lock up and head back to the office.

His mind was already on the 1:30 meeting as he reached the top of the stairs. A flash of movement to his left caught his eye just as he came through the doorway, and his head jerked sideways. He thought later that had it been almost anywhere other than Charlie's house, the place he'd called home for so long, he would have already been responding with a defensive measure, even as he turned his head. This time though, he looked first – he wasn't entirely conscious of why – perhaps something made him think it might be his father, home early. In the end, he wasn't sure if that split second of delay would have made a difference – there were four of them, after all.

As his eyes connected with the unknown figure, who had a blackjack raised over his head, he finally did respond, not bothering to raise a hand to ward off the blow – he just charged the man, and shoved the half-full plastic garbage bag right in his face as he did, obstructing his attacker's view. As a result, the baton missed Don's head as it came down, and connected instead, painfully, with his shoulder. He ignored it; his hand found the man's head through the plastic, and he rapped it sharply against the wall, just as another pair of hands grabbed his arms from behind and pulled him away.

He resisted, twisting, trying to pull away to get to his piece on the counter, but the second attacker had a firm grip. Don changed tactics suddenly, and threw his weight into the man, and both of them careened into the kitchen table, which crashed against the wall. Off-balance, they went down hard on a chair, smashing it, and the man yelled as the sharp end of a broken chair leg found his upper arm. Don was rolling now, trying to regain his feet as the man released his grip, but the rest of them were on him. He twisted violently in their grip, but in spite of his struggles, they held him still enough for a syringe to find its mark in his upper arm. Still, he fought them, even as his limbs began to weaken and his head began to swim, until the vertigo took him under, into blackness.

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Colby closed the file on his desk and glanced at his watch, frowning, just as Megan approached his desk. "Colby, it's 1:20. Didn't Don say he was going to be here for the meeting?"

Colby nodded, his brow furrowed. They were meeting with A.D. Wright to go over the Marciano case at 1:30; it was an important meeting, and one that Don wouldn't miss. "He told me that he thought he would be here by 1:00," he said, as he fished out his cell phone. "I'll call him and see where he is." He flipped his cell phone open as Megan nodded and headed for her desk, to collect the case summary. The phone rang four times; then went to voice mail. "Don, it's Colby. Just a reminder, we have that 1:30 with Wright. Call me back."

He flipped the phone shut, and shook his head bemusedly. It wasn't like Don to be late for a meeting like this, he thought to himself, as he collected his files. Hopefully, he was on his way up.

Ten minutes into the meeting, that hope was long gone. Megan was doing a nice job with the case summary, but Wright had an irritated set to his mouth that didn't bode well for Don. Colby and David exchanged a slightly worried glance, which morphed into a look of relief and expectation, when Colby's cell phone rang. He pulled it out, expecting to see Don's number displayed, but his brow furrowed as he caught sight of the unfamiliar digits. He flipped it open to answer, rising and muttering an 'excuse me' to Wright as he did. The resulting voice made him freeze mid-turn.

"He's not coming."

"What?" The word spilled out unintentionally, but Colby had the presence of mind to hit the speaker button, and the others fell silent, staring at him.

The voice drifted, tinny, into the room. "Don Eppes won't make your meeting. He's been detained." The last word was spoken with mock aplomb, a sneer in the tone.

"Who is this?" demanded Colby, but there was no response, and as he looked at the screen, it displayed 'Call Ended.' "He hung up." He looked at the others, as if expecting some answer for the ominous call. "That voice – it sounded familiar."

"It sounded like Sean Moran," said Megan, her voice resonating with disbelief. "But it couldn't be; he's still in the state hospital."

Wright was frowning as he headed for the door. "Check the number – I'm going to call the hospital director."

Colby nodded and punched in a number on the conference room phone. "Hey, Harry, check out a number for me, will you?" He rattled off the phone number from his cell phone display, and glanced out the door, watching Wright, also with a phone receiver to his ear. Colby looked back at Megan and David, catching their tense expressions, and spoke again. "Yeah, Harry." He frowned. "Okay. Thanks."

He hung up, and looked at Megan and David. "It's a disposable cell."

Wright was coming through the door, his face stern and filled with worry. "I just got the hospital director. Sean Moran escaped this morning, around ten a.m. They reported it out to LAPD – I'd like to know why LAPD didn't call us." He looked at Colby. "You said the last place you saw Don was at his brother's house?" Colby nodded; his face pale. "We need to get over there. And we need someone to pay a visit to Dillon Moran."

He turned without waiting for a response. "I have to make a phone call – I'll catch up with you."

Megan and David were on his heels as Wright passed through the doorway, and Colby was behind them. "Shit," he breathed softly to himself. He could see fear in Megan's and David's faces – the same fear that was undoubtedly reflected in his own.

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At 4:45, Charlie stood on the tarmac of the small Jersey airport, next to the hangar to get out of the biting wind. The Bureau jet was getting fueled and Charlie's bags were being loaded; in a moment he and Agent Decker would board. He eyed the short flight of steps leading into the plane with misgiving – steps meant pain. Movement of any kind meant pain, which he rediscovered as he reached for his cell phone.

He winced as he pulled it from his pocket, flipped it open and hit speed dial. He might as well call Don and let him know that they were planning to take off on schedule. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face as the phone rang, and then went to voice mail. It wasn't unusual for Don not to answer right away; the circumstances of his job didn't always permit it. For some reason, however, Charlie felt an inexplicable twinge of misgiving, of worry; the sense that something bad was about to happen.

He looked up to see Decker walking toward him, waving for him to approach the plane. He put the phone in his pocket, and made his way painfully across the tarmac, trying to shrug off the feeling of impending doom.

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End Chapter 13