Lovely Rita, Meter Maid
Summary: What if Rita isn't who she says she is? I told myself I wasn't going to write a season 8 story but this idea just popped in my head.
Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews, favs, and follows – all of you rock. Don't own Castle; just writing to mess with the characters. Okay, so I lied, there's one more chapter after this. And I'm really bummed after watching the 2nd sneak peek for Ep 5.
Chapter 6 Right Here in Front of You
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As soon as the meeting ended, Alexis, Jessup, and Tarrant headed back to the loft so that Jessup could install the lock again under Tarrant's supervision. After Jessup had finished, he texted several pictures of the re-installed lock, along with his smiling face, to Castle.
Castle and Beckett went to the property room at 1PP to retrieve Beckett's personal belongings so that she could change before leaving the building.
A town car with dark tinted windows waited for them at the back of 1PP, as they exited the service entrance in hopes of avoiding any reporters who might have camped out in front.
From the turns and speed, Beckett could tell that the car wasn't headed towards the loft and looked at Castle questioningly.
"At least they're not putting black bags over our heads this time," Castle replied to her look.
"Castle," Beckett said warningly.
"Kate, you asked me to trust you," Castle replied, suddenly serious. "Now you have to trust me."
Beckett nodded in reply. "Always," she said, using one of his favorite phrases.
The town car finally pulled into a garage and parked on the lowest level where Danberg was waiting for them.
"Mr. Castle, Captain Beckett, I'm glad to see everything worked out," he said as he escorted them to an elevator.
"So what are we doing here?" Beckett asked on the way down.
"We're hoping to clear up some things and need your assistance," Danberg replied. "In return, we can tell you what we know."
The fake Henry Jenkins was waiting for them in a conference room that had a smart board set up.
"Long time, no see," Castle said.
"It hasn't been that long," Jenkins said with a slight smile. He motioned to two chairs at the table. "Please, have a seat. This may take a while."
"Thanks," said Castle as he sat next to Beckett.
Danberg looked directly at Beckett. "You and Vikram Singh have spent the last several weeks trying to track down LOCKSAT after their failed assassination attempt."
"Yes, but how do you know that?" asked Beckett.
Danberg only smiled slightly. "And you have not been successful."
Beckett shook her head. "No. I thought we were getting close several times, but apparently we weren't."
"Ever wonder why?" Danberg asked.
"They knew what we were doing," Beckett responded. "Cross confirmed that yesterday."
Castle frowned. "You saw…Cross?"
Beckett nodded as she looked at Castle. "He was in town and stopped by to say hi."
"Yeah, I'm sure," said Jenkins. "What exactly did he tell you?"
"That he had been hunting LOCKSAT for years and didn't know the woman who said she was his wife," Beckett said. "The one who saved us from the first hit squad."
"Would this be that woman?" Danberg said as he pulled up a picture on the monitor.
Beckett nodded. "That's her. She said her name was Rita."
"Her name is actually Anita Carlson and she was a senior agent in the DEA. We picked her up at a private airport several hours ago after she was warned that you had been arrested," said Danberg looking at Castle.
"Is she LOCKSAT?" Beckett asked.
Danberg shrugged. "One of the top 5, 4 of whom are in custody now."
"How does this connect to my being arrested?" Castle asked, suddenly curious.
Jenkins nodded. "It's probably best to start at the beginning and that's last year when you went missing."
"You mean that fake story about Jafari?" scoffed Castle.
"No, that was actually real," replied Jenkins. "Only it didn't go quite as you remembered it. We had intel that Jafari wanted to come in, but the Russians also had the same intel. The first one who got to him won.
"But Jafari's contact was killed and he said he'd only come in with someone he trusted. Since you had gone to school together, your name popped up."
Jenkins took a breath. "We were going to approach you after the wedding, while you were in the Maldives, but the Russians beat us to it."
"The Russians – they ran me off the road?" asked Castle.
Jenkins nodded. "Yes, but fortunately, your father was tailing you and saw what happened. When they tried to put you in the SUV, he took them out. You arranged for your friend to crush the SUV so that they couldn't track you."
"But why didn't I go home – go to Kate?" Castle asked, shaking his head.
"Because a second team was waiting for you at your house in case the first team didn't intercept you," Danberg said simply. "You knew it wasn't safe and that you would have put your family in jeopardy if you did."
"Okay," said Castle, nodding. "Then what happened?"
"We were supposed to go to Thailand immediately, but they were having record flooding and we couldn't get into the area where Jafari was. So we waited in Canada until conditions improved," said Jenkins.
"That's where I made the tapes and the picture was taken," said Castle.
Jenkins nodded in confirmation. "We had to wait almost 2 weeks to leave. We were constantly on the move to avoid detection."
"And, once we got there, how long did that take?" asked Castle.
"A couple of days," replied Jenkins. "We flew to Thailand and picked up Jafari, but we were ambushed by Golovkin. You, Jafari, and Powers were in one truck and I was in another. I stayed behind to make sure you got out safely. The plans were for you to fly to a military base in California at that point."
"But then why did it take almost 2 months for me to come back? And why was I found in a boat at sea off the east coast?" asked Castle.
Danberg and Jenkins shared a look.
"That's where the story gets a little dicey," said Jenkins.
"Really," said Castle. "A little dicey?"
Jenkins nodded. "After you left, I was given another code black assignment. I didn't make it back to the States until several weeks later. When I learned that you were missing, I tracked Jafari down. He said that he was told you had become ill on the flight back and you had been quarantined. He assumed that you were still at the same military base where he had been taken."
"Only you weren't," said Danberg.
"You lost me?" Castle asked incredulously.
Jenkins nodded. "When you were found a week later, we were able to back track the location you had stolen the boat from to a trailer home in Massachusetts."
"You were taking out the garbage when Espo, Ryan, and I got there," said Beckett. She frowned. "And that wasn't garbage."
"No, it wasn't. Medical waste, to be precise – syringes, vials – and some DVDs," said Jenkins.
"What was in the vials?" asked Castle.
"A very potent combination of drugs," said Danberg. "And your DNA was on the syringes. But what we couldn't figure out was who had done this and why."
"We kept trying to jog your memory," said Jenkins, "but nothing worked until Golovkin showed up last spring. After the encounter in the alley, I kept wondering why he didn't kill Jafari when he had the chance, and then I realized that you were his target. Something must have happened on the flight back from Thailand. At that point, I did some digging into his background and found out that he ran an illegal drug operation in Russia. He must have known that there was a large shipment on the plane."
"It wasn't until the DEA seized an illegal shipment of drugs in LA last week that all the pieces finally came together," said Danberg. "Not only did they find your fingerprints several of the packages inside medical supply crates, they also found a bullet. That bullet was from Carlson's gun."
"So what we think happened is that you opened one of the crates to find a bandage for Jafari, but instead you found the shipment and she shot you," said Jenkins.
"She was on the flight?" asked Beckett.
"Yes, posing as medic," said Danberg. "When we questioned the people who had purchased the shipment, they said they bought it from this man, who was the pilot for your trip to Thailand."
He pulled up a picture.
Castle stared at it, stone-faced. "Everest Joe," he said.
"So you know him?" Jenkins asked.
"I had the unfortunate experience of flying with him before," Castle responded.
Jenkins nodded. "I wondered why you were slow getting on the plane when you knew someone was going to be shooting at you any minute."
"I tagged along on one of Sophia's fact-finding missions in South America," said Castle. "He was flying the plane." He looked at them. "You know why they call him 'Everest Joe'? It's because he was literally flying high most of the time. He brought a couple of bricks of cocaine back with him on the plane and offered me a snort. I told him what he was doing was illegal and he said not to worry, that he had a deal."
"Rick, you knew all along?" Beckett asked. She had deliberately kept him out of her search, thinking it was too dangerous, but that hadn't been the case. If she had only known what he had known, things could have worked out very differently. "Did you tell anyone?"
Castle nodded. "The next day when we got back, I talked with Bureau Chief Thompson. He said they knew about Joe's little side business and were monitoring it. Guess they monitored that illegal side business into an illegal lucrative business."
He was thoughtful. "So let me get this right – the Russians tried to kidnap me and I then went to Thailand to help bring back Jafari, but on the way back, LOCKSAT kidnapped me because of what I found on the plane and erased my memory."
Danberg nodded. "That would be the gist of it."
"But why didn't they just get rid of me and dump the shipment?" Castle asked.
"Joe said that Carlson wanted to, but their mole in the CIA told them who your father is," said Jenkins. "And Joe got greedy; he was supposed to dump the shipment but thought he could make a score on the side."
"If you knew all this and knew that I was searching for them, why didn't you stop me?" Beckett asked. So much heartache could have been avoided if they had only done that.
"LOCKSAT would have known that we were on to them if we had done that," Danberg said. "They've gone underground several times and this was our best lead."
"But as I said earlier," he continued, "we've got enough information now to cripple them now."
Beckett looked up, suddenly hopeful. "So it's over?" she asked.
Danberg nodded. "Yes, it is."
Castle looked at Beckett. "So now can you come home?"
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