Disclaimer: By now you know what to expect but I have to do this anyway because I've grown sort of attached to my few pitiful belongings. I don't own any part of Numb3rs or any of the Numb3rs characters. OC's in the story are mine. Here's no. 9.
David checked his watch. Eleven-thirty p.m. After the day I've had, why am I not in bed? he asked himself. Because now you need to get to the truth as much as Colby does, his self shot back. Because you know you were right when you told Granger there was too much smoke for there not to be a fire close enough to spit on around here somewhere. Because you're too much of an FBI agent to let all the questions running around inside your head go unanswered. Pick one. Whatever the reason, it was answer time. He knocked on the door in front of him. He could hear movement inside the hotel room. Holding up his ID so his badge was visible, he waited. After an interval of about thirty seconds, the door swung open and Sinclair stood face to face with Dr. Conrad Gerrard. Five ten, one fifty, brown hair, black horned rimmed glasses. Mr. Average.
"Dr. Conrad Gerrard? I'm special agent David Sinclair, FBI. May I come in?"
"FBI? What does the FBI want with me?" he blocked the entrance, not allowing Sinclair inside. Though Gerrard tried to hide it, David could tell he was far from happy about a visit from the FBI.
"May I come in?" Sinclair repeated politely. Using a trick picked up over the years, he leaned forward as if he were about to take a step. Automatically, the other man moved back, and, unthinkingly, stepped aside, allowing David to enter the room.
"What, what does the, I mean, I don't understand why you're here?"
"I'm here because you're here, doctor. I'm kinda curious about something. A few days ago you were in the hospital, right?" Gerrard nodded. "How are you feeling? Everything come out fine?" Sinclair waited.
"I don't see how my health could possibly be of any concern to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Is it a crime now to be admitted to the hospital?"
"No" Sinclair responded, "No, being in the hospital's still perfectly legal. But, uh, you didn't answer my question."
Gerrard seemed to be getting agitated. "I don't have to. My medical condition is my own business. Now, I insist you tell me the real reason you're here. I have a very important speech to make tomorrow. I need my rest. I can't be needlessly upset this way!"
" I apologize, Doctor. It's not my intention to upset you. One of our agents was hospitalized at the same time you were. He says he witnessed somebody trying to kidnap you right out of your hospital bed." The extremely interesting reaction laid to rest any lingering question about the veracity of Colby's claims. If the doc was any jumpier, David thought, the man would be chasing his own skin down the plush hotel corridor.
"That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Obviously, I've not been kidnapped! What kind of people is the FBI hiring these days?! I don't know what this man imagines he saw, but I assure you, there was no kidnap attempt that night! I'm perfectly fine. Now, I wish you to leave. As I said before, I have an important speech to make tomorrow, and I need my rest! Please go!" Gerrard's voice and hands both shook. He refused to look David in the eye, preferring to focus anywhere but on the agent.
"Doctor…" Sinclair began, but got no further.
"I said I want you to leave! Right this minute! I insist on it! I haven't done anything wrong. I demand you leave me in peace! I have nothing else to say to you!" He clasped his hands together in an effort to control his tremors, still unable to meet David's gaze.
"Doctor Gerrard" David tried again, "if you're in some kind of trouble, we can help. But you have to trust us. You have to let us help you."
"I told you, I'm fine. Nothing is wrong! I don't need any help from the FBI or anyone else! I just want to be left alone! Now get out of my hotel room! Either you leave right this moment or I'll find out the name of your supervisor and have your badge!"
"Calm down doctor. I'm going. But, um, let me leave you my card, alright?" Sinclair reached into his pocket for one of his embossed cards. "If you change your mind about that help…"
"I've already told you, I don't need any help! Now get out!" Gerrard was vibrating with anxiety as he jerked the door open.
Ten seconds later, Sinclair was staring at the opposite side of that door as it closed behind him with an audible click. Well, for certain something was up with the doc. David hadn't mentioned the time of the attempted abduction. Gerrard had slipped just a bit. Once outside, he claimed his car from the hotel's valet service, finally heading for home. He was so beat he never noticed the two men in the sedan keeping a set distance behind.
1234567890098765432112345678900987654321123456789009876543211
Kerri rested inside the cocoon of Colby's arms in the peaceful nighttime of his bedroom, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. She hadn't understood how much she'd missed him during the two weeks she and Robin Brooks were in Denver until their carefully passionate reunion tonight. Feeling his body spooned around her did a lot to settle her jangled nerves after her run-in with Jack Lucern.
She turned her head slightly staring into the darkness, but seeing the malignancy on Lucern's face as she drove away. Jack's ugly threat festered in the back of her mind. He intended to blackmail her into sleeping with him. Never. The thought made her physically ill. And just how are you going to stop him? What are you going to do about it? She lay there, unable to sleep, mind churning. There had to be a way out. Try as she might, she could only think of one. Only one way to keep Jack from blowing her life right out of the water. From ruining her career, the life she had built for herself here in L. A. and most important of all, her relationship with Colby. It was a horrible risk, and just might cost everything she sought to protect. But there was no choice. Kerri turned in bed, laying her head, body and arm across Colby's chest as he shifted position on to his back. The move awakened him, and he raised himself up on one elbow, looking down at her, voice filled with concern.
"Baby, tell me what's bothering you. I know something is. Let me help. There's nothing you can't tell me, honey. You gotta know that by now." He'd known something was off the moment she arrived that night. He could see the shadow behind her beautiful jade eyes, though she tried hard to conceal it. Rather than coax it out of her, Colby wanted to let Kerri work up to telling him about it in her own time and way. She had him worried. Something was hurting her. That infuriated him, Made him want to find whatever it was and crush it barehanded. He hadn't told her yet, but Colby knew he was in love with this woman. There was nothing he would not do to protect her, but he couldn't unless he knew what he was fighting.
"I'm okay. Really. Don't worry. It's just...it was a really…rough day at work. I had…it was just a really rough day, that's all. Being here with you, it's what I needed." She nestled against him again, resting her head in the hollow of his shoulder. She couldn't. Not yet.
Colby felt some of the tenseness fade as she relaxed, finally nodding off. His last thought before sleep claimed him once more was that he would do anything to make her feel safe. He had to find a way to convince her of that.
1234567890098765432112345678900987654321123456789009876543211
David clung tenaciously to the boom end of the huge hammerhead crane, arms and legs fiercely entwined in the metal latticework. Do not look down, do not look down, DO NOT LOOK DOWN! He repeated the mantra over and over. The gigantic apparatus vibrated with the swirling breezes.
"David, we're on the way!" Don's voice sounded breathlessly in his ear. "Don't go anywhere!"
"Believe me Don, I got nothing better to do at the moment! I'll just hang around until you get here!"
"Not funny, Sinclair! Leave the one-liners to Granger! We're almost to you! I'm bringing somebody who knows how to operate that thing. We're going to have to swing it around, and, uh, lower the boom!"
"Oh, come on Don! That's not fair! You tell me to lay off the one-liners and then shoot that past me!"
"Yeah, well, I'd tell you to get a grip, but I'm a better man than that!"
David's pained groan came thru loud and very clear thru Don's Bluetooth earpiece.
"How did I get myself into this mess?" he wondered aloud. Granger was the guy always making like a stunt double. He, David, recently promoted relief supervisor that he was, was supposed to be the sober, rational, by the book half of the two. "Man, Colby is never going to let me live this one down."
He heard Don speaking again. "We're here David! It's gonna start moving back towards the building now! Grab on to that thing like you plan to propose! Here goes!"
With a huge creaking sound, the mechanics of the massive machine began to grind and move, changing angle and direction, with David Sinclair helplessly along for the ride. In the distance, a hovering black dot drew closer.
TWELVE HOURS EARLIER
If he'd known he was going to end up hugging the end of a construction crane seventy feet above the ground the next day, Sinclair would have paid more attention to the traffic behind him as he left Gerrard's hotel. Instead, he paid enough attention not to leave tire treads up some pedestrian's backside for as long as it took to get home and pour himself into bed. Calling Colby tomorrow so they could bring each other up to speed was the last thing that ran thru his head.
Downstairs in the parking lot of David's building, his two watchers saw the light go out.
"Sinclair's back at his place" one of the men informed their employer. "But he definitely spoke to Dr. Gerrard."
"You have the disc of the conversation?" came the clipped demand.
"Of course" equally clipped response.
"Stay where you are for the time being. Someone is being sent to relieve you." Lessons had been learned from the disastrous series of events involving the late, ill-starred Keith. "Once they are onsite, bring the disc to me."
"Yes." The man tried to say more but found there was no longer anyone on the other end.
"Great" Barney Craig said acidly to his brother Bob, the other man in the car. "First the hospital job almost turns into a big steaming pile, now we gotta dodge the Bureau. Watch, anything goes wrong, it'll be our fault, I just know it."
"Stop whining. We did nearly blow it at the hospital. I tried to tell you we shoulda did it different, but you wanted to go all black bag commando on me. Now here we are. So let's get the job done right and maybe we can get out from under babysitting duty." Nothing was going to happen tonight anyway. The dude was in bed sleeping. Like I should be, Bob reflected sourly. He sulked, indulging in a healthy dose of self pity. Working with his brother, sometimes it was all Bob could do not to shoot him.
Slumping down in the passenger seat he groused, " wake me up when they get here" then closed his eyes and corked off.
1234567890098765432112345678900987654321123456789009876543211
Unlike both David Sinclair and his crabby, unknown escort, Dr. Conrad Gerrard was one hundred percent wide awake. The expensive maroon, blue and turquoise pattern of the carpeting ebbed and flowed under his feet as he paced the floor of his hotel suite, the "very important" speech he was scheduled to present at the conference the next morning totally forgotten. Gerrard's mind was on his son, and the possible consequences that interference from the FBI might have on the boy's welfare. Under no illusions, he was certain his wife, Alison and her sometime lover and full time controller, Amir Sahar already knew of the agent's visit. Conrad had phoned her, desperate to convince Alison that he'd done nothing to prompt the FBI's coming to speak with him. Her frigid attitude following his explanations filled him with fear for Christopher.
"We'll see." Alison Lucern Gerrard told her husband. "We'll listen to your little 'audience' with the agent, then decide. I'm sure you love your son far too much to be so foolish, but we'll see."
Head in hands, Conrad Gerrard sank down on to the sofa, racked with anxiety. Over the last two years, he'd complied with every demand made of him by Alison and Sahar, however distasteful. But what now? If what the two heard did not satisfy them, would they make Christopher suffer for it? Already taken away from him to a location unknown to Conrad, would they withhold the precious periodic injections required to keep his son from succumbing to the poison the child had been given to ensure his father's cooperation. The antidote only Amir Sahar could supply? Please let them be convinced, he prayed. Gerrard knew his only child's life lay on the line.
1234567890098765432112345678900987654321123456789009876543211