Chapter 20

I am very sorry for the long delay. In addition to my "real job" I also run a small online jewelry business, which recently got some significant exposure and sales. As dearly as I missed writing, customers asking "Where's my order?" are not typically amused by the reply "Oh - sorry, I was busy with fanfic. Next week good for you?"

Things are quieter now, and I get to play again ;) I kept on writing snippets where I could, and the good news is the story is virtually finished. The rest of it simply needs a good proofreading and final edit.

Another delay was thanks to a slight change of story. I wrote the Girsh interrogation scene initially as just a straight procedural, "get this boring stuff over with so we can get back to the characters" sort of interlude, but it made me want to fall asleep every time I read it. So, along came a long head-scratching re-write while I found some way to make it interesting and character-development-y.

CAL-SCI, CHARLIE'S OFFICE, 35 DAYS AFTER THE ARREST

"Charlie? How you coming on that presentation?"

"Amita's just finishing up," said Charlie, tucking his phone between his shoulder and ear as he slung his laptop bag over the other shoulder. "I need to stop by the dean's office, and then I'll be on my way. She'll meet me at the FBI."

"Well, don't let the dean occupy too much of your time," said David. "Nychev and his men just left to pick up Rob Girsh, I thought you might want to be here when they bring him in."

"I just forgot about the meeting," said Charlie. He covered the phone with his hand and shouted to Amita on his way out the door. "See you at the FBI!"

"Oh, good," said Amita. "I get my very own absent-minded professor."

OBSERVATION BOOTH, FBI OFFICE, TWO HOURS LATER

Charlie looked curiously through the window. Girsh didn't look like the slick mastermind he'd somehow imagined as being behind this. He was in his early forties, with wavy blonde hair and a face that looked permanently confused in a pleasant sort of way. He tugged against the handcuffs holding him to the table, examining them as though more curious than trying to struggle.

The expression he gave Nychev when the agent entered was almost plaintive, and it tugged at Charlie's sense of sympathy. Nychev set down a small first aid kit and carefully applied antiseptic to a scrape on Girsh's cheek. Charlie shot a questioning glance at Nychev's agent in the room, who rolled his eyes in amusement. "Our bad guy barricaded himself behind a solid cherry door by wedging a ten-thousand-dollar desk against it and pushing as hard as he could."

Nychev released Girsh and handed him a bottle of water and some ibuprofen. Girsh gulped it before speaking. "So - what do I do when my lawyer fires me? Do I just look another one up in the phone book?"

The other agent in the booth whispered, "The lawyer was with him. He was not at all happy about the whole barricaded in the room thing."

Nychev raised his eyebrows. "Well, to start with, you don't ask your arresting agent for legal advice. But you don't want a corporate tax lawyer, you want a criminal one, and preferably you agree not to hold him against his will. They like little concessions like that."

"Look - " Girsh sighed. "I panicked."

"No shit."

"You should," said David. "You know who we've got in the next room over? Lisa Savarkar."

Girsh bit his lower lip. "It's not illegal to hire a math consultant. You guys practically have one in residence."

Nychev sat on the edge of the table and gave Girsh a curious look. "Now how would you know that?"

"Uh - I -"

"Needed a way to take him out of the game?" David suggested. "Tie him up in knots trying to get his brother out of jail so that he wouldn't have time for a side project like fixing some broken software? It didn't work, he already figured it out."

Girsh shot up from his chair, and was so preoccupied that he barely noticed when Nychev took him by the shoulders and shoved him unceremoniously back down in it. "Tell him not to release it! Please. I'll - we'll pay him and his friend for an exclusive license, they'll never have to work again."

"Now there's an idea," said Nychev. "Mind telling me exactly why you didn't take that approach in the first place?"

"The jerkoff that invented it wouldn't do it! He kept turning me down, some socialist nonsense about intellectual property and open source codes. But maybe we didn't offer him enough, maybe if Dr. Eppes helps sway him…."

"Oh. Yes." David's voice was dripping with bitter sarcasm. "Charlie's going to help you." Girsh gave him a pleading, still-hopeful look, and David rolled his eyes. "You're talking about a math professor who once insisted on playing decoy and faced down a cold-blooded killer in a dark courtyard. Know why? He wanted to personally nail the guy who stabbed his brother. While we're giving out useful advice? Don't mess with people's families."

"Look - let me at least try. My whole family owns stock in this company, and so do all of my employees. Please."

Nychev shrugged. "Okay. Works for me."

David looked up at the one-way panel and gave Charlie a slight nod. Charlie entered the interview room, stopping when the door shut behind him. Being in the room with the man was decidedly different than watching and listening from just a few feet away, and he found himself acutely aware of his own heartbeat. His own anger. His own nervousness, almost akin to stage fright.

No, not anger. Rage.

Watching from the impartial little room next door, he'd almost felt sympathy for Girsh. Now, facing the man who had done this to them and seeing the confused absence of remorse in his expression, Charlie was developing an acute desire to walk across the room and punch him. To beat him viciously until the look on his face matched the horror and pain Charlie felt at seeing Don behind that table in the detention center.

David broke Charlie's trance. "Professor, you can go ahead and set up your laptop on the table here if you'd like."

He fixed Charlie with a direct and very firm gaze that belied the exaggerated respect of his words. The message was plain: Knock it off. Be a professional, remember?

David looked back at Girsh. "I don't think I need to introduce you to Doctor Eppes, and I know he'd rather skip the small talk with the man who framed his brother. So why don't you just listen."

Charlie set up his laptop with the screen facing Girsh, avoiding eye contact and trying to steady his pulse. "Your distraction didn't work. I fixed the algorithms that were affecting the database searches." He scrolled through several pages, demonstrating his point.

Girsh had his face buried in his hands. "Please don't release this software. I don't even care about me, there are too many futures at stake here -when the stock market crashed, our people were left with nothing but their stock in our company, and we were going down in flames. Now there's hope, you know. Being the only ones with access to this - saber-metric-whatever - it means our movies are killing at the box office. Our stock price has tripled. If the playing field gets leveled...."

"It's not mine to distribute," said Charlie. "It was developed by a colleague of mine, the man you initially stole it from. As soon as I corrected the flaws, he uploaded it to the internet. By now, every first-year film student from here to Bangladesh has the torrent on their hard drive."

Charlie didn't apologize, even though it occurred to him that he normally would out of simple civility. He was starting to understand far more of Don's seemingly unpredictable swings between coldness and empathy in dealing with suspects, not to mention gaining a profound respect for the self-control of the agents who did this.

Girsh looked genuinely crushed, and the sound he let out was nothing short of a whimper. This time Charlie did want to say something to comfort him, but the words weren't coming. 'I don't forgive you and things aren't going to be all right, but please don't look so sad'? What was he supposed to say?

"You know how you can help the people you care about now?" asked David. "Do the right thing. Help us sort this out, and get an innocent man out of jail. Prove to them your heart was in the right place even though you made some mistakes."

Girsh shook his head. "I didn't say I had anything to do with this. You don't have that on me."

"Actually, we do," said Charlie. He pulled the statistics up on the screen. "I can prove, in court, based on your casting, production, and development choices as well as the box office performance, that your company has been using a working copy of this software for one year and two weeks. You were using this system and you were profiting from it. That's motive, and it also ties you very closely to me, as the only person who threatened your monopoly on this."

Girsh stared at the figures, staggered. Nychev filled in the silence. "Lisa told us she was hired to develop the software. About how you panicked when Charlie was given a copy to troubleshoot. This was your baby, and you said you would do literally anything it took to keep your company afloat. She also mentioned the time you asked how, if you were to make a movie about framing someone for fraud, would a character be able to cover up taking a couple million from the company accounts."

Nychev slammed a file down in front of Girsh, and Charlie flinched, instantly transported back to the day he had watched the agent do that to Don. "Take a look. Your studio owns the recording equipment used to create the sound recording that framed agent Eppes."

"I didn't -"

Nychev cut Girsh off with another file, opening it and pointing to the top page. "That's your handwriting. 'Final edit, Eppes project.' Wanna try and wiggle some more?"

Girsh was pale, and he licked his lips, looking down in defeat. "I knew you'd catch me eventually," he said in a subdued voice. "I just never thought it would be this quick. I thought we would have a few years to get back up on our feet." His hands were shaking. "God, I'm not ready for this. I'm just not."

"Don wasn't ready to be arrested for something he didn't do," said Charlie. "He wasn't ready to be hauled off in handcuffs and locked up alone in a metal cell with no idea what his future was about to turn into, he wasn't ready to be beaten just bec-" David took Charlie's hand and squeezed hard enough to hurt, breaking Charlie's focus enough for him to shoot the agent a questioning look.

David's silent answer was unmistakable. Shut up. He pulled a chair back from the table, and Charlie sat. There were dots swimming in front of his eyes, and he tried to focus on Girsh through them. Girsh was silent, his face pale and scared. Charlie stopped breathing when he realized his mistake.

He was going to confess, and I scared him out of it.

I just jeopardized Don's future for a fit of self-indulgent bullying.

He slowly became aware that David was still holding his hand, reassuring him with a calm glance. He squeezed the agent's hand in a silent thank-you.

Nychev brought over another chair and sat down by Girsh. "Nobody is ever ready to face the consequences of what they've done. But I can tell you this, the tension of living your life waiting for that knock on the door and the fear you feel when you know you're going to jail are a lot worse then it actually happening. Our imaginations make these things a lot more horrifying than reality."

Girsh gulped and looked at the agent with that same sort of plaintive trust Charlie had seen through the window. "Really?"

Nychev nodded. "You might as well get it over with and get on with your life."

Girsh explored the faces of the three men in the room, seeking understanding. There was something frustrated in the man's expression when he saw little. "Look - it wasn't like I set him up for murder or anything. He wouldn't have done that much time, these white collar guys get away with everything. I didn't want to hurt him. It was just a means to an end."

David shook his head in disbelief. "You probably won't serve much time yourself, but I doubt you're looking forward to it."

Charlie couldn't contain himself. "You studied my family for the express purpose of devastating me. That's -"

"Scientific?" suggested Girsh. "Mathematical precision? I'd think you would have a certain empathy with that."

Charlie's eyes snapped into focused anger. "Science and math are devoted to the pursuit of fact and reality for the overall betterment of mankind. You manipulated both to destroy a family so you could profit."

Girsh shrugged. "I'm sorry, okay? I don't have anything against the guy, I've never even met him. It was just business, I would've made sure he had enough around when he got out that he wouldn't ever have to find a job again."

"You ever meet someone who makes you want to bang your own head against a wall? That'd be me looking at you," said David. "I know you felt you were looking out for the people who were important to you, and I get wanting to take care of your friends. I just want you to actually understand what you did to my friend."

Girsh frowned. "I guess I don't. I - I talked to some people, scary ones. They were talking kidnapping, murder, setting the professor up for a death penalty charge, that sort of thing. I didn't want to hurt someone, you know? I spent a lot of money hiring consultants and having private investigators look into the Eppes' so I could do this without any real harm. I just don't see how some white collar charge is that big a deal."

"He's not Martha fucking Stewart!" David took a deep breath and brought his voice back down to normal. "He's one of our most capable agents, which means when you framed him he not only didn't get bail, he's been in solitary confinement this whole time so the serial killers, gangsters, mob enforcers, and rapists he's arrested couldn't murder him."

David stood and paced around the room. "That's twenty-three hours a day locked up in a concrete box knowing the career you dedicated your life to is over, and that you have a good chance of dying horribly at the hands of the scariest people in this country."

He put his fists on the table and closed his eyes. Nychev took over for him, his voice holding a gentler tone. "Not only that, with his training and experience, they have to classify him as a high security risk, and that's not fun. Everything we're talking about here, it's because Eppes is an agent who's very good at what he does. It's not going to go that way for you, okay? You are this mythical white criminal you built up in your head, he's not. But you have to understand, you did hurt him, and you hurt the people who respected him and had to do this to him."

Girsh sighed and looked down at the table. "When you put it that way….I honestly didn't know it would be like that, okay. I am sorry. I'll cooperate with whatever you need me to sign or - whatever. I don't really know how confessing to a crime works, but I'll do it."

David sat down again. "Okay." He closed his eyes momentarily before addressing Girsh again. "Thank you."

Charlie couldn't look at any of them. The anger was drained out of him, and its absence left him feeling as crushed as Girsh, perhaps even more so. He couldn't tell what he was feeling, or what he was supposed to feel, so finally he forced himself to ask what seemed like a logical question. "What do we have to do to get Don out?"

FEDERAL PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

"Robin? Whose strings can you pull to get an innocent FBI agent released from the detention center on a Saturday afternoon?"

Anyone watching through the window at Robin's office would have seen little indication that anything had happened. An overworked federal prosecutor closed her eyes and almost let the phone slip a fraction in her hand. The file she'd been holding was placed neatly on the desk, and she stood.

"Strings? I'll knock down doors. Doors belonging to federal judges, if I have to."

FBI OFFICE, BULL PEN

"Dad?" Charlie collapsed into a chair at David's desk, clutching his phone like a lifeline. He was still shaken, and Alan's steady voice was like a balm. "It's over. Girsh confessed - they've got a lot of red tape, but I think you can set up a party tonight."

There was an extended silence, and a sigh of deep relief. "When we pick him up, you let me drive, all right?"

"Okay," said Charlie. The idea of not getting behind the wheel of a car any time soon sounded welcome. The silence continued, both of them a little too exhausted and on the brink of feeling a little too deeply to think of anything to say.

"Has anyone called Robin?" asked Alan.

"Yes," said Charlie. "David's talking to her right now, and I've arranged for her and our lawyer to meet at the prosecutor's office."

"Well, I'm coming over to the FBI," said Alan.

"Thanks, Dad," said Charlie, hanging up and closing his eyes. He hadn't known until this moment how utterly drained he was.

David hung up the phone, stood and wrapped an arm around Charlie's shoulders. When Charlie looked up, he saw a similar reflection of deep exhaustion and relief in the agent's eyes. "How do you do it?" asked Charlie.

David gave Charlie's back a final pat and sat down again. "It's not usually this personal."

"I never knew how intense it is, running an interrogation. I thought the suspect was supposed to be the one scared to death, not me."

David nodded slowly. "Well, your suspect has his own future to be concerned about. When you're worried about someone else's future, it's a lot of pressure. Someone's life could rest on what sort of rapport you develop with a stranger who usually hates you or is afraid of you by default."

The look he gave Charlie held no veneer of reserve or toughness. "When it's someone you care about - that's almost unbearable. That's when the best of people can lose their mind."

Charlie gulped. "You saw I wanted to hurt him, didn't you." David nodded, his eyes sad.

"It feels so horrible now." A thought hit him, and he closed his eyes. "Don. Oh - Don." He drew a deep breath, getting his emotions together. "You guys have the hardest job in the world."

David and Charlie looked up at the sound of footsteps. "May I?" Nychev gestured at one of the empty chairs by David's desk, clearly hesitant about the reception he might get.

When David nodded, Nychev sat heavily and cradled his forehead in his palm. "Oh, God."

He forced himself to face them. "Guys - I'm so sorry." The agent did look genuinely devastated. "What I've put him through-"

"It's not your fault," said David. "You were just doing your job."

Nychev shook his head. "I know. But - Sinclair - that guy's one of my heroes. It hurt bad enough putting the case together and arresting him, now I find out he was innocent? And I did this to him?"

David sighed and leaned back in his chain. "Look. I don't know many agents who would have the confidence and humanity to give us the leeway, let alone the cooperation you did to let us destroy your case. Don was incredibly lucky to have someone with your kind of integrity running this."

Nychev glanced over at Charlie. "I'm well aware of what I put your family through. I'm sorry."

Charlie looked at the agent. "I have nightmares. About you - interrogating Don that night, about you showing up at our house and taking Dad -"

"I saw you flinch in there today," said Nychev. "My stunt with the file?" Charlie nodded, and Nychev rubbed his eyes with a sigh.

"Thanks for letting me be there," said Charlie. "As hard as this was, I think it would have killed me not to be involved."

Nychev nodded. "Okay." He found a faint smile somewhere within himself. "I'm gonna go back downstairs to my office and write up the tattered remains of my career and dignity."

"Vic." David's voice stopped the agent as he was walking away. "You won't be catching any heat from our end. You ran a hard case, and you ran it well."