11.
Carter's got Sweets cell phone but he doesn't mention that to Booth. The boss refuses to sign off on the case being closed. Sweets does some digging, finds out Tallie Roberts caught a ride home with Carl Sager when he ended up dead and realizes she's not only missing but possibly involved. Carter calls and Sweets tells him the case is open but he's got a fall guy for it. Carter likes the idea and Booth walks in to find out Sweets has gotten calls, on his cell, from Carter but hasn't said anything to anyone.
"I'm hoping it's just your memory that got knocked out of you yesterday." Booth said trying to calm his anger.
"I was going to say something." Sweets said rubbing his headache.
"And thus your memory loss." Booth added.
"Next time he calls, you'll know." Sweets said.
"Yeah see, I'm having a hard time with the trust at the moment Sweets." Booth said sitting on the edge of his desk. "So guess what, now you have a shadow!"
Sweets gave Booth a sarcastic look that illustrated his lack of appreciation of the idea.
"You're welcome." Booth added. "Now let's get Angela to track this."
"And that's why I didn't tell you." Sweets said causing Booth to stop texting Angela.
"Look Booth if I told you he called you would want to track him, he'll get alerted and I'll get the raw end of the deal - or worse- one of the people we care the most about."
Booth took into consideration Sweets thoughts for the first time considering this.
"Secondly it's probably a burner cell. He probably won't even use it again today."
"You expect him to call back today?" Booth asked.
"I expect him to hound me about as much as you do." Sweets said half sarcastically.
Booth rolled his eyes. "So who are you going to pin this on?"
"Oh that." Sweets said.
"I didn't realize you knew so many drug addicts."
Oh if only you knew my job Sweets said to himself. "I do but I didn't intent to actually implicate an innocent person. I wanted it to buy us some time. Carter's not going to leave this case in the open status."
Booth decided to trust Sweets instinctive qualities and his own horrid relationship with Carter to know the psycho best.
"Now, let me bring you up to speed on Tallie Roberts, she might be the key to this whole thing." Sweets said and explained everything he had learned about Tallie.
"So Carter takes Tallie but kills Sager." Booth said thinking aloud but his stomach growled to fill in the gaps. "Man this is too much to think about on an empty stomach. Let's go get lunch."
Booth headed to the door but Sweets stayed at his desk.
"Come on Sweets you've gotta eat." Booth encouraged him.
"Sure, uh, let's order in." Sweets suggested.
"Nah, I don't like being in doors too much, I'm a field kind of guy." Booth urged him by walking back to his desk but Sweets stayed firmly in his chair.
"But it's nice at the office, and it's uh, secure."
"Oh." Booth said getting why Sweets was so reluctant. "You know there's nothing to worry about Sweets - Carter thinks you're on the level with him and you've got me. So see, nothing to worry about."
Sweets go up and followed Booth to the door but he was far from buying into the notion that there was 'nothing to worry about'.
"Ah, good I'm starving." Booth announced as the waitress brought two plates of food. Sweets mused how if Brennan were here she would say would redefine Booth's comment about starving.
"More coffee sir?" The waitress asked Sweets.
"Yes please." Sweets said holding his cup out.
"Better watch it Sweets, you've had like ten cups." Booth said.
"Just consider me from Finland."
Booth looked confused.
"People from Finland drink more coffee per person per day than anyone else in the world. A fact I just learned the other day." Sweets said happy for a diversion away from the case.
"What is with you and Bones? You always have some random fact."
"Well the world is an interesting place Booth, always something to learn." Sweets said with a growing interest towards his plate of food. Booth was glad to see the psychologist digging in, he had been worried Sweets was looking a bit too frail and not just from the recent physical altercations.
"Yeah I guess." Booth said eating away. He kept his eye on Sweets noticing that even with lunch Sweets was sucking down coffee, he must be exhausted. Dammit that Carter pisses me off. At least he's eating, geez, is this what Sweets does all the time? Analyze people and what they do?
"So is there a hockey game or championship or something coming up?" Sweets asked filling in the silence with something that would interest Booth. Sweets could feel Booth analyzing him. Geez is this what it feels like when I do this to other people? We can't discuss the case, who knows who is listening.
"Honey you sure you don't want something besides coffee?" The waitress asked hovering over Sweets once again empty cup before Booth could begin to answer.
"No that's fine." Sweets said watching her fill the cup. As the dark liquid filled the heavy diner porcelain mug Sweets thought of Tallie Roberts, working as a waitress at a truck stop. Sweets looked around the restaurant.
Booth noticed Sweets wasn't listening to his sports laced answer but based on the young man's expression he didn't care - the look Sweets had was his fancy brain wheels turning and he was far more interested in what Sweets was thinking - or learning for today.
"Whatcha thinking about Sweets?" Booth asked drawing the young man's attention back to him.
Sweets turned around and looked back at Booth but knew someone could be listening, one of Carter's men. Sweets wasn't about to take any changes if Carter decided to go after Angela or Cam.
"Sweets?" Booth asked again and then considered the reason why Sweets was being so quiet. "Oh, uh, are you done with lunch?"
"Miss?" Sweets said stopping the waitress. The younger waitress stopped and smiled at Sweets who was so deep in thought he hadn't noticed. "This may be impertinent, but can I ask you a question - how did you get into waitressing?"
"Oh, well, I needed job, they didn't require a lot of experience and the cash isn't bad." She answered.
"Right." Sweets said thinking. "Do you have a lot of family in the area?"
The waitress got shy at the question. "I'm sorry to intrude, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"Oh, that's okay, but no, I don't have a lot of family." The girl looked sort of sad when she said it.
"Me either." Sweets said in honesty but to make her feel better. She was called to another table and their conversation was over.
"So what was you picking up a girl?" Booth asked curiously.
"Don't we have that meeting in a few minutes?" Sweets asked drinking the last of his coffee.
"Meeting?" Booth asked. "Oh yes, that meeting." He said getting up as the pair walked out.
Once in the safe confines of the mammoth SUV, the conversation continued.
"So that was about…." Booth said leading Sweets into the conversation.
"Tallie Roberts." Sweets answered.
"Well I sort of assumed that."
"Tallie Roberts ran away from home, unknown to anyone where she was. Carl Sager had no family. Ross McLaughlin, total loaner. No one would have noticed these people were gone had we not found those two men's bodies and Tallie Roberts only because of McLaughlin."
"Right….so…."
"Carter is targeting people that no one will miss." Sweets said.
"You think there are more?" Booth asked, depressed at the thought.
"He said that he's got a network, so yeah, there's plenty more."
"So we're looking for bodies?"
"There's no money in bodies unless he were selling body parts and McLaughlin and Sager had theirs. He has some other plan." Sweets said. "Sager and McLaughlin somehow got in the way and that's why they were eliminated. We only found them because his other people screwed up on the body dump."
"So what are we dealing with here?"
"I don't know." Sweets said still grasping at the concept. "But we need to figure out a way to find out how many people - and who - went missing along the road. We already know that they probably pulled over for Carter thinking it was a routine infraction. He probably dragged them back to his car, subdued them and had someone else come back for their car - send it to chop shop or dump it."
"So we're going to find all of this out without tipping off Carter of course."
"Of course." Sweets said adamantly.
"I have an idea." Booth said turning the car around to a new direction.
Sweets didn't want to say it out loud but he was glad to be back at FBI Headquarters despite the fact they were still in the car.
Booth turned to Sweets to explain. "We go inside and I head up to my office - there was a case on my desk for some narc operation. You've already tipped off Carter that we're trying to peg this thing on an addict so if Carter gets wind of anything we're doing it goes under the guise of that investigation."
"Okay, so what are we doing exactly then?"
"Carter gave you 24 hours right?" Booth asked though Sweets needed little reminder of the time line. "We need answers and fast and we can't look up who Carter is pulling over or who his people are without tipping him off. So we need to find out for ourselves. You said he's only pulling over people without a family. We get a profile made on a female agent - young and without a family and have her drive down one of Carter's roads he patrols. We'll see what happens when he pulls her over."
"I don't know Booth."
"She'll be an agent, plenty able to take care of herself. We'll get her car bugged, Carter tries kidnap her we'll follow him to the location and see if we can find Tallie Roberts. He tries anything else and she can shoot to kill. We'll warn her about the Taser and she'll be all over it."
Sweets didn't want to undermine any agent's ability but he had a bad feeling.
"Okay, how about this, we stuff another agent in the back seat out of sight." Booth offered.
"Two is better than one." Sweets said. "But how are we going to do this without the boss asking?"
"We're working the narc case." Booth explained and Sweets liked how it looked from the bosses' side and from Carter's side.
"Okay, let's do it." Sweets said feeling all their bases were covered, the clock was ticking and options were few.
Choosing not to speak out loud about any of their decisions Sweets and Booth appeared to work the narc case and when Skinner asked why they weren't working the murder case they explained it appeared tied to the narcotics case. Pleased they could knock out two cases in one, Skinner stuck his nose back in his reports and disappeared.
"Agent Booth?" Agent Patterson asked as she approached. Booth and Sweets shook her hand and nodded their heads at each other - she was young and appeared to be very confident and strong - everything they were looking for. "You have a case you need me for?"
"Yes Agent Patterson." Booth said inviting her to sit down in the conference room where Booth & Sweets had been working with the door shut.
"We are working on a narcotics case. We think someone is running drugs along the highway." Booth explained, keeping the agent in the dark.
"I don't understand, I thought you worked much more complicated cases, if you don't mind my bluntness." Agent Patterson asked.
"Yes, we do." Sweets assured her. "And that is why we need your discretion on this case." Agent Patterson seemed intrigued. "See we suspect a state trooper is the one instituting these drug runs. If that is the case, we don't know what level of law enforcement could be in on it."
"I see." She said with great interest.
Booth explained. "So we need you to be driving along the road, we have a new identity set up for you. If you get pulled over we need for you to see what happens - most likely he is going to try and abduct you by tasing you - so you will need to be ready. If he does make a move, we can arrest him. Not to worry, we'll have an agent hidden in a special hiding place under of the back seat."
"I understand." Agent Patterson said quickly.
"They should have everything ready for you. We'll head out in the evening." Booth said and the agent quickly left to get her assigned outfit and car.
"Booth if anything happens to her…" Sweets said still full of concern.
"It's not going to Sweets." He assured him. "Because I'm going to be that agent in the back seat."
"Booth, I don't know about this."
"I do. Carter tries something I'm an excellent shot. You're not bad kid, but let me take this one, I've got some experience at it."
Sweets couldn't disagree with Booth's sniper past. "Well I can't just hang out here."
"I'd be safer, but I don't expect you to. I want you in my SUV along with Bones."
Sweets wasn't sure of this plan.
"I don't want you in the SUV alone, Bones is a good shot and she's people we can trust." Booth said and Sweets couldn't disagree with that.
The afternoon flew by as plans were made and evidence was planted. Brennan arrived at the FBI office.
"Booth, Sweets we did find some information." Brennan reported but the two were hardly listening they were so busy with last minute plans.
"Yeah that's great Bones." Booth said while testing some equipment.
"It's fibers from the truck and also those cigarettes from McLaughlin's car." She began to pull out files but Booth was too busy.
"Yeah, look I think we're going to nail this guy tonight so keep that so Caroline can really put the nails in the coffin okay Bones?" Brennan could tell Booth wasn't going to listen so she put the files on his desk for later.
"Okay so what are we doing?" Brennan asked having only a general idea of the plan.
"You and Sweets are getting some disguises on so when you pull out of here no one has reason to follow you." Booth said as Sweets walked up with a cap and mustache. Brennan couldn't help but giggle.
"You and Sweets will be in the vicinity so in case the car and Carter go separate ways you can follow the car to see where it goes." Booth explained. "Everything has a tracker on it. I've got to head down to auto, they've got a special compartment built for me in the back seat."
"Okay, be careful." Brennan said.
"Of course. What could go wrong?"
"What time is it?" Brennan asked rubbing her eyes.
"10:30." Sweets said from the driver's seat as they sat bored and parked on the side of the road for the last five hours. "This doesn't seem to be working." Sweets knew the 24 hour deadline to give Carter some results was close to coming.
"What about the car?" Brennan asked.
"Still on the radar." Sweets said watching it go by. "Booth must be pissed to be under the seat of a 94 Honda Civic for this long."
"Maybe not." Brennan said. "The car just stopped."
Sweets sat up in his chair as they watched the tracker on the car and those inside it come to a stop.
"It's not far from here." Brennan announced.
They sat watching the unmoving dot on the screen. The car was filled with silence, accentuated under the darkness of the night. The silence was shattered as Sweets cell phone rang. An unknown call was on the other line and Sweets answered it.
"Agent Sweets." Carter's voice came over the phone. "It's nearly 24 hours, do you have good news for me?"
"Yes, I think we are closing in on the case." Sweets said. "I have an addict, I'm just setting him up for the fall."
"That's good, now I'm sorry Agent Sweets but I have to go. You see I've just pulled over a 1994 white Honda Civic, but then again, I'm sure you know the one I'm referring to."
The phone line went dead and Sweets wasted no time starting the SUV, putting it in drive and flying down the road. Brennan asked twice what was going on but she soon put the elements together herself.
Moments later they arrived at the scene, Carter waiting for them of course as Sweets pulled up. He stood outside the car with a gun to Agent Patterson's head. Booth wasn't in sight, Sweets had hope Booth was waiting for just the right moment. Sweets and Brennan exited the car but kept a distance as a crying Agent Patterson was in Carter's grip.
"Do I need to tell you my disappointment?" Carter said coldly to Sweets.
"No, I can pretty much see it." Sweets said cautiously. "What now Carter?"
"We're not all leaving here alive." Carter said. "I'll let you pick which one of these girls gets to live and go with me and which one dies here."
"No deal." Sweets said.
"Okay, then I'll shoot them both and fire a few shots into the back seat of this car." Carter said. "I'll bet I'll hit something."
Sweets heart raced at the thought of Booth under the seat. Why hasn't he jumped out yet? Then it occurred to Sweets.
"How did you know someone was under the seat?" Sweets asked.
Carter rolled his eyes. "Dammit we spoiled that one didn't we honey?" Carter said to Patterson. As quick as Patterson's fake tears stopped she pulled her own gun out and fired a shot at Brennan while Carter fired a shot at Sweets. Sweets was faster on the draw and fired a shot of his own that took out Patterson but Sweets felt sick for a moment. He reached to his side and felt a warm liquid there. Feeling unsure of this footing Sweets took a step back but fell to the ground. Brennan rushed over behind him.
"Carter…" Sweets said as Brennan took the gun from Sweets but it was too late, Carter hit Brennan on the back of the head and turned to fire his gun at her. Sweets' adrenaline surged as he jumped to his feet and knocked Carter to the ground. Sirens approached in the distance, they were finally responding to his and Brennan's call and Sweets felt relieved until he realized it wasn't relief, it was a loss of consciousness. No, no, hang on Lance.
"Ha ha, perfect." Carter said as Sweets felt his body being lifted and dragged quickly towards the state trooper car. Carter didn't have time to finish anything else as he headed threw Sweets in the trunk and sped away from the scene.
Brennan sat up as she heard the car leave. She tried to get up and get into the car but her vision was blurred and after two attempts she failed to get the door open. She heard a noise at the Honda Civic and remembered Booth. Her heart skipped as she remembered Booth was in the car. She opened the door in time for the seat to come up and a disoriented Booth to emerge.
"Booth!" Brennan shouted rushing towards him as he held his head. "What happened?"
"I don't know, I passed out, some sort of gas…"
Booth saw Patterson lying on the ground. "Oh no!" He said going towards her.
"Booth, she was working with Carter!"
Booth looked around. "Where's Sweets?"
Brennan's eyes nearly filled with tears. "Carter."
Booth felt sick with broken promises. "No…."
Well that may have been a bit of a mess. I might make some coffee now. ;) Reviews welcome.