7.
It's okay. Sweets tender mind reassured itself. Dr. Brennan said it was going to be okay, but where is she? Where is Booth? Why do these gates look so familiar?
"Welcome home." Richards said from the front seat of the van. "Now back to work."
"This is not acceptable!" Booth shouted without any reservations on who heard him. They were standing over Sweets empty hospital bed, a fact that was the while elephant in the room.
"I know Booth but my hands are tied here. I would have though in no way would Sweets have been allowed to leave here but this Richards guy knows someone big." Caroline said defending herself.
"Why is there blood on the floor?" Angela asked breaking the conversation.
Cam came closer to examine and looked at the end of the IV.
"It looks like they very poorly removed Sweets IV." Cam thought moment more and saw the drops of blood leading out the door. "If they didn't properly address the cut, which by the way that place does anything, they didn't, then Sweets is slowly bleeding out."
"There, isn't that something?!" Booth shouted at Caroline again.
"I've got every judge I know on the phone trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I can add endangerment to the list of charges but the problem is cherie that he's been carted off to another institution. They will argue they can care for him. They also presented papers to the judge that Sweets committed himself."
"That's crap." Booth said pacing the floor.
"Oh I know it is honey but the judge has what he needs. This guy knows how to work the system. You find me a way around him and I'll bulldoze that place." Caroline promised.
"What judge did Richards take this injunction and this reclaiming thing to, is it the same one?" Hodgins asked as Caroline looked thru the papers.
Booth was anxious, he wanted to go and get Sweets NOW, he didn't want to talk. He knew how he found Sweets last time, he worried what they were doing to him this time.
"No they are different judges." Caroline said looking at the papers.
"Okay, so he doesn't have the judge in his pocket." Angela surmised.
"Well, not necessarily. He's got something going that goes pretty deep." Caroline said.
"What about the mayor, or commissioners?" Hodgins suggested.
"You might be on to something there." Wendell said coming into the room with arms full of paper work. He sat them down on the empty bed. "After you guys came back here I kept digging."
He handed out a few of the papers he had. "In 1971 the place was almost shut down when one Archibald Richards turned it from a state institution to a private institution. He had been running it for the thirty years before then, which is where most of the horror stories of the place came from. So in '71 the state and federal shut down its funding and like I said it became private. Archibald would then in ten years pass the business so to speak to his son, Devlin."
"And he continued to run it like daddy ran it." Hodgins said.
"Yes, only the money kept running low and the place kept getting worse. But it would seem that Archibald Richards found one sure way to keep the place afloat - undesirables."
"What do you mean by that?" Brennan asked.
"Richards found a way to take on people the state didn't want to care for, and namely commissioners who didn't want to deal with them in their districts. Those were namely older people who social security checks could be traded in and the other are criminals. There were several judges that didn't want certain people placed on the street so they would arrange to have them sent to Danvers." Wendell explained.
"Now whether or not that's completely illegal is apparently a gray area." Wendell said. "However, what would be prosecutable is that when these questionable practices arose, they were never followed thru on. And someone is definitely trying to keep that covered up by covering the situation with Dr. Sweets."
"Those judges are signing those injunctions to keep us out." Booth understood.
"Yes because it could implicate them as well, open a huge can of worms." Wendell explained.
Caroline was immediately on her phone with the papers in hand.
"What now?" Hodgins asked.
"Caroline works some magic." Booth explained appearing calm though his heart was about to beat out of his chest.
Why they had to restrain Sweets back to the hard and damp bed he wasn't sure. He wasn't able to move a muscle after his "welcome home" round of electro shock he was treated to. His all too familiar room danced around him. Denny adjusted the restraint from the tightest that Richards instructed to one less. Denny didn't see it as necessary and was feeling bad for this young guy, criminal or not.
Sweets was left in the dark and empty room alone with his thoughts. It was the most damaging aspect of them all. More than his cut wrist with it's slow drip under the restraint and more than the heavy wheezing chest. He was starting a thick and deep cough that the damp room did little to help.
He wondered if that trip with Booth was a dream, it felt real but it also felt real when his foster father was there too. He didn't know what was really real and what was not. It was a painful reminder that his grip on his own mind was slipping away.
One thing he knew for sure, he was still here. He couldn't get himself out and apparently no one else could either. So why should he care, if no one else did either. They must have a new lead anyway. Sweets thought as he loosened his grip on his mind.
"Go." Caroline said stepping back in the room.
"What?" Booth said having instantly received her attention.
"You heard me. Your squints got enough to get you in past the door. The damn governor is on your side now. All the city commissioners are being looked at and until then that place is under the control of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with orders to go thru Agent Seeley Booth."
Booth got up and kissed Caroline on the cheek.
"Let's go Bones." Booth said as they left the room.
"Now you four." Caroline said to Cam, Wendell, Angela and Hodgins. "This is a huge case to bring these people down. I'm confident Booth will get everything he needs once he gets in there but just in case I want you to go over all this with me, all over again."
Meanwhile Booth was heading down the hall calling in a SWAT team, as many people as possible.
"You two!" Richards shouted heading towards Denny and Stevens. He did not have his usual composure.
"Yes sir?" They asked.
"Take that damn brat and stuff him to the east wing."
"But nothing's over there sir. It's abandoned." Stevens said.
"Yes, I need him out of here." Richards said quickly losing his cool. "That damn F.B.I. agent is heading over here. I just got a tip off and we can't keep him out this time. He finds him we're sunk so get him out, now! Then get back here, we've got other things to deal with."
Richards left with a can of gasoline and headed for the file cabinets.
Sweets head swirled as the metal door clanked open. Soon he was strapped to a similar gurney and was being pushed down the halls. The lights went from on to not at all on and the rooms got colder the farther they went. They also got damper and the smell of mold increased.
"Where?" Stevens asked.
"Over there. Push him in the back." Denny said in a hurried tone.
Stevens pushed the gurney in among a stock of beds and unused medical equipment dating back over a half a century. Empty glass IV bottles tapped each other sounding like wind chimes over Sweets' head. The tubes dripped from them giving Sweets a headache as they glistened in the moonlight from the large windows lining the exterior.
"Come on let's go." They said as Sweets was alone again.
"Listen up people!" Booth shouted to the large group around him. "We are dividing and conquering. Riley and Wilson are leading groups B and C to secure and account for patients at Danvers. Group A is with me and our objective is Dr. Lance Sweets. I believe man of you know Sweets. I'd like to find him." Booth said and they all knew how personal this was for Booth. "Seize and capture of Devlin Richards is the objective of all the groups. Alive. That bastard is going to rot in his own damn institution if I have a say in it."
The vans arrived at Danvers and went past the empty guard shack. Booth snickered as the high and mighty guard must have fled.
"Where will you go?" Brennan asked Booth as they followed up the path in his SUV. "Same place as last time to start, the electro shock room."
Brennan felt her body tense for a second as she thought of what Sweets must have endured there.
"I'll call you in, as soon as it's secure." Booth promised.
Moments later they all saw a small fire erupt from above.
"Get the fire department on it." Booth ordered.
The agents on Booth's team who were comprised of many agents who had worked with Sweets were more than ready to go in. Booth led the charge as they finally entered the building.
They headed for the electroshock room as other agents headed to the second floor. Booth listened over his ear piece to hear they had successfully put out the fire that had been apparently set to several file cabinets.
Booth knew that was an issue but he had other sweeter things on his mind at the moment. He quickly located the therapy room and saw a man he recalled knocking out the night before, Stevens. He was trying to wipe off prints from the tables.
"Freeze!" Booth shouted. The other agents moved to arrest him.
"Where is he?" Booth asked knowing the man knew who he meant. Denny entered the room then and froze in his tracks as well. They had been busy destroying evidence.
"Who? The murder? Stevens asked.
"No, Dr. Lance Sweets." Booth said thinking perhaps he didn't know.
The two men looked at each other confused and Booth caught on.
"Richards told you he was a murder?" Booth asked.
"Don't you tell them a thing!" Richards shouted coming in the room.
Another agent apprehended Richards and not with a tender touch. Stevens closed his mouth and prepared to be arrested. Booth looked at Denny who had a softer look on his face. The agent was putting the cuffs on him and as he was leaving the room turned back.
"East wing." Denny said and Richards shouted wildly.
Booth took off with a number of agents towards the east wing, which when they approached was a large section. The agents took the enormous antiquated structure floor by floor though they were finding nothing.
Sweets had no idea if things were real or not. All he knew the last few days was hunger, deep pain and intense loneliness. And then all of those were heightened with a sense of craziness. He would have sworn he heard voices but his exhausted body pointed towards the window and only the moon to look back at him. Every movement was restrained, every movement echoed in pain. His mind and the life from his body were both slipping away.
"Clear." Voices shouted as he heard doors slam. They started to get closer.
"Clear." They said again moments later. Sweets started to summon the idea the voices were getting closer.
"Clear." They shouted again and Sweets wondered if they were real.
"Keep looking!" A voice that Sweets knew was Booth's shouted.
"Yes sir!" The response came.
Sweets wondered if it were a dream or a reality. There was one thing he knew for sure, this was his last shot. His head was heavy, his body in responsive, but a thread of hope persisted.
"Clear." The voice said followed by Booth's, "dig deep gentlemen."
Sweets knew they were coming, the door opened and flash lights scanned the room. He moved his lips but the dehydration and the deep pain in his chest kept Sweets from making an audible sound.
"Just equipment sir." One voice said.
"Let's be sure." Booth's voice said but Sweets knew they must be searching dozens of rooms, they could easily miss him. He looked around for a way to alert them.
"Clear sir." The voice said and Sweets felt near panic.
"Are you sure?" Booth's voice asked.
Sweets looked to the vintage IV stands overhead and the glass bottles hung from them. Each had the old tubes dangling from them. They were within his finger's grasp. Without having to move his restrained wrists far he wrapped the tube around his fingers. The pain began as his wrists were squeezed against the restraints but he pushed past the pain and lured the line in closer.
"Okay, next one then." Booth said with defeat in his voice. He was the last to leave the room when a crash sounded out of glass hitting the floor.
"There!" Booth shouted and ran towards the noise. Booth was ahead of the agents and was the first to reach Sweets. With the white sheet and the white scrubs Booth hardly saw the young man by moonlight for he was so pale it made Booth sick to his stomach. Sweets remained too calm and unresponsive for Booth to celebrate.
"Okay Sweets, we are getting you out of here." Booth said as the other agents arrived by him and began to broadcast it on the radios.
"Get Dr. Brennan here." Booth instructed not wanting to stop and take time away to call her. He was busy trying to undo the restraints, again.
"I need some light, dammit this is tight." Booth hissed as he struggled to unbuckle the belt.
Sweets legs were free and his second hand was coming loose when Brennan came in.
"Oh God." Booth said at the sight of the blood as he let loose of the last wrist restraint. Brennan immediately stepped forward and put pressure on the cut caused by the poorly removed IV.
Sweets drew back at the pressure.
"Sweets, it's okay." Brennan tried to calm him but from Sweets perspective he wasn't entirely sure these were friends or foes. His vision was still blurred and his mind all but lost. He continued to try and struggle away from them.
"Sweets, hey, stop." Booth said afraid he was going to fall off the table. By continuing to try and stop him from moving, Sweets interpreted that Booth was trying to restrain him, as he had in his drug induced trips. Brennan quickly caught on.
"Sweets, it's okay, we're friends, we care about you, we want to take you out of here." Brennan tried to reason with him. Sweets eyes searched hers with a confusion, he thought maybe they had done that before but yet he was still in this place. He was confused and then began coughing. It was deep and thick.
"What's wrong?" Booth asked more in regards to the latest ailment than the overall issue.
"I'm presume based on the damp and cold nature of this place, combined with the poor medical condition that Sweets is in he may be suffering from pneumonia."
"Great, just what the kid needs on top of this." Booth sighed.
Sweets coughing resumed causing great pains in his chest but also tremendous headaches.
"Okay, we're getting him out of here." Booth said looking around. "Let's leave him on this, we can get him out of here quicker. You guys, come help." Booth said motioning to two other agents.
"Don't hold him down, but just keep him from falling off okay?" Booth said and they nodded. Other agents announced they were leaving so that the ambulance would be ready to receive them.
Brennan wrapped her hand around Sweets wrist to hold back the bleeding as well as hold his hand so he would perhaps know it was not a malicious hold on him. Booth stood on the opposite side with agents behind them as they headed to the door.
Booth left another agent in charge of the scene which was being wrapped up for the most part. Now they would follow up and find the patients proper care but tonight Booth wanted to get Sweets to the hospital, and make sure he stayed there. Even if he had to barricade the doors with a sub machine gun, no one was taking his friend this time.