SEGREGATION UNIT, US DOJ METROPOLITAIN DETENTION CENTER, ONE WEEK AFTER THE ARREST
Don stopped pacing the small cell and lay down, staring up at the wall. After seven days, it was time to realize this might not be over quickly or easily, and that thought shot the same deep fear through him that he'd felt when he was arrested.
He glanced around the cell. It wasn't a horrible place to be, on the face of it. The bed was comfortable enough. A small television set bolted to the wall and a few books helped the time pass, and the detention officers were being meticulous with his protection, even kind in their simple interactions. Or was this just his own version of Stockholm Syndrome, a strange human ability to manufacture compassion where little exited?
No, this fear was of being forgotten behind a blank metal door in a warehouse for human beings, of losing his team and the job he loved, of seeing Robin walk away again. Of being written off as what he'd spent his life fighting. Charlie and Alan wouldn't abandon him, but how could he ask them to remain close, suffering his sentence by proxy?
He traced his finger along the wall in a lazy circular pattern. Was he really this afraid of a system he'd been a part of his whole adult life? Of doing a few years in minimum security lockup somewhere? Of the violence and hatred that might await him in prison? His hand left the wall and found the still-tender scar on his chest, tracing his fingers down the evidence of near death. It was slowly becoming less real, the nightmares less frequent, less intense.
That had been fear. Sudden pain, and then sickening shock. Being unable to breathe, gagging, choking on his own blood as his body starved of oxygen. And yet – there'd been that clinical side of him that knew what was happening, and that the suffering would be short. It was something you thought about and mentally prepared for, even accepted, from the day you took the job.
You were reminded in every shootout, every high-risk entry, every time a bad guy got the upper hand for even a second. In your first weeks at Quantico, they taught you officer-involved shooting statistics, how to survive being taken hostage, what happens to the human body when a bullet enters it. You see the names on the wall, and hear the stories.
You accept violent death as a possible outcome of doing a job you love, and when you get shot at there's a thrill along with the fear. You're prepared for this, you've trained for it, and there's something amazing about being able to fight through and survive.
They don't teach you how to cope when you're framed and taken off in handcuffs. How to deal with that kind of hurt, or the fear. When instead of a madman with a gun keeping you tied up in a basement, it's your own guys, the people you've spent your career trusting your life to, who've put you in a concrete box behind a steel door. The ones you can't fight, because you love them. No, this was quite possibly the one horror he'd never braced himself against.
His hand strayed to the wall again, exploring the thick white paint, the bumpy surface of the concrete underneath. How many people had occupied this cell before him? What had they been thinking and feeling as they lay here? Anger, hatred? Fear, like his own? How many were innocent? Did I put them here? Was I sensitive to that fear, did I give them a reassuring glance or a gentle touch, or did I shove and yell and slam doors?
Did I meet their eyes and resist my innate desire to offer comfort, driving home this fear with harsh words, because I knew failure to might cost an innocent person their life?
Something was familiar in the faint pattern of depressions in the concrete that his fingers were unconsciously tracing over and over, and he let his head roll to the side, looking at the wall. He smiled as it came to him, and closed his eyes, pressing his palm softly against the cool surface.
Random coincidence, mathematical probability, or was this God, reaching out with a soft reminder to trust those people he so feared losing?
FBI WAR ROOM, 2200, ONE WEEK AFTER THE ARREST
"Charlie – you do realize at some point you're going to have to start sleeping more than a couple hours a night," said David, gently prying a marker out of Charlie's hand.
Colby snickered. "Sure, because you've been giving yourself ever so much more."
David bit his lip in silent acknowledgement. "Well, Charlie, let's hear the latest. In English, because I don't understand anything you just wrote."
Charlie looked at the board, scratched his forehead, and groaned. "To be quite honest, I'm having some trouble making it out myself," he said.
"Okay. In the simplest possible terms, my program has been indexing data on every case Don and I have worked on in the past, as well as every current case, appeal, threats, and so forth. Then we look for correlations with people whose backgrounds, social networks, and psychological pathologies indicate some elements of means, motive, or opportunity to commit this crime."
"Which is a really long way of saying you're looking for high-end criminals who have it out for you or Don," said Colby.
"More or less," said Charlie. "The problem is, there aren't any. Not that my program has been able to identify. It's – well, terrifying to see the number of people who would like to see one or both of us die horribly, but I'm coming up dry on talented criminal networks run by people who'd like to see Don serve a few years for fraud."
"You're always telling us more data yields better results, right?" asked David. "Maybe we widen the search. Throw in family members of all of our potential suspects."
"How about victim's family members?" suggested Colby. "Grief can make people a little crazy, maybe someone blames Don for not being there in time, or not catching a killer."
"Charlie, what about professional rivals of yours?" asked Liz.
Charlie frowned. "I have them. But it's all about the work, if they want to take me down they discredit my papers, or rip me apart in a lecture. They don't waste time and effort on something like framing my brother." He turned away from the board, and then back again. "I'll include them."
Liz handed Charlie a file, and something personally troubled in her expression made Charlie pause, questioning her silently. "It's a list of facilities Don might be sent to if he's convicted. Security levels, threat analysis, and which groups of inmates might have access to him."
She managed, just barely, to keep her voice level. "There's a batch of files in there on a disk for you to add to your analysis."
Charlie reached out and touched her hand, which was still clutching a clipboard with white knuckles. "Have you been to see him?"
Liz shook her head. "Even when we were dating, I never really knew Don. But he cared about me, and that – I don't think I can handle seeing him in detention."
Charlie looked away.