14.
Just love Sweets broken? Well a little more broken to come but not much torture since I think we covered just about every torture possible in "Misery in the Moment".
Sweets meets Julie, a young girl who is stuck in Carter's capture but has the freedom to walk about, not in the cells like the rest of them. She has yet to be shipped off with the others to labor or slave rings. Carter beats and tortures Sweets more but leaves when he gets the call that Sam Rogers is an issue and leaves.
"Should we round up these people?" Gillespie asked of the patrons fleeing the bar.
"No, they're not going to tell us anything." Booth said. "We can get more from this phone. We need to get back to the Jeffersonian."
"You go, I'll stay here and get this taken care of." Gillespie said pointing to the dead Sam Rogers on the ground.
"We've got this sir." Two men said arriving. Gillespie looked up to see two of his officers on the scene.
"Can we trust them?" Booth asked under his breath.
Gillespie eyed the two men and back at Rogers on the ground. "Well he's dead so what else can they do with him?" Gillespie said and decided he could do more with Booth anyway.
"This may not be exactly by the book." Gillespie reminded Booth as they left the crime scene.
"Right now I don't give a damn about books." Booth said glancing at Rogers one last time. If Carter wanted Rogers dead for almost spilling some beans, he didn't want to imagine what Sweets was going thru right now. We have to find him.
"Who is this tall drink of water?" Angela flirted with the older but handsome state trooper.
"Uh Ange, I'm right here." Hodgins reminded her.
"Oh Hodgins I'm not going to run away with…."
"John Gillespie." He said introducing himself as he blushed.
Booth cleared his throat.
"Did you find Sweets?" Brennan asked though she was sure she knew the answer.
"No, but we have something that might help." Booth said holding out the phone.
It was now in the early morning hours but no one showed signs of being too tired to go home, they had a team member to find.
"Whose is this?" Angela asked plugging in the phone to her computer. "If it's one of Carter's burner cells it won't get us far."
"No, it's one of his guys, Sam Rogers." Booth said eager to see if the phone produced results.
"Why didn't you just beat the answer out of the prick?" Hodgins asked with offense in voice.
"Someone shot him before we could." Gillespie answered for Booth. "Between the eyes."
"Oh." Hodgins answered gathering the seriousness of the answers to their questions being immediately buried with Sam Rogers.
"Well I see a lot of activity here." Angela said reading aloud. "Any direction to what I am looking for?"
"Anything." Booth said. "I think we all saw what Carter did to Sweets last time."
"Well I see the calls and can cross reference the towers they are at, but it's probably going to be a large area."
"Whatever the guy's doing he's kept it a secret for a while - I'm sure his hideout is the same." Cam suggested.
"Yeah but everyone slips up sometime." Booth said with no sense of giving up.
"We can't bait him into picking up someone else I'm guessing." Hodgins said. "Do you think the guy stopped doing whatever he's doing."
"He may lay low for a while." Booth guessed. "But he can't forever, but still we can't wait that long."
"What if we cross reference this information from Rogers cell with the missing people and with Carter's routes?" Gillespie suggested. "I can pull up all his routes and his records of who he picked up."
"But the people he's kidnapping won't be on the pickup list." Hodgins noted.
"No but we can look at the gaps between what he reported." Gillespie suggested.
"I like this plan." Angela said. "It's just going to be a lot of stuff to input."
"We have to start somewhere." Booth said looking at his watch at the sight of the sun rising. Carter had had too much time with Sweets already.
The lunch with Booth a couple of days ago was proving to not provide much fortitude for Sweets as he lay in the cell alone. He grabbed at his knee which was still sore but luckily not broken with shaking fingers. He was freezing on the concrete floor but there was little he could do about it.
He guessed it was morning as breakfast arrived but again he was passed over except for some water that was quickly passed to him staving off dehydration. He tried to bide his time that morning as he tracked the number of people who came and went. It seemed at the moment more were leaving than coming in and he suspected it was because Carter had to scale back his operation of picking up people with Booth and the rest onto his plan. Sweets had high confidence in his friends and highly intelligent coworkers that they would be able to find him. He also knew Carter had managed to elude any detection so far - and would have still - if it weren't for Rogers slip up. Sweets wondered if Booth would be able to find Rogers and Rogers could lead them there, Booth was very convincing Sweets knew.
The breakfast rounds were over and two men came into collect Sweets and return him to the office. He hoped to not be hung from the ceiling again. This time he was again placed in a chair, his arms tied behind him. Once the men left they pushed another chair next to him. Sweets looked over at the corpse with a bullet in his head, Sweets eyes widened at the sight. Carter sat working at his desk.
"I don't know if you two have met, Agent Sweets this is Sam Rogers, you may be familiar with him. He's the reason you are in this mess. You can thank him if you like, but I may have done that already for you." Carter pulled off some papers from a pad and handed them to the men waiting.
"Gillespie's onto you." One of them told Carter.
"I didn't like that job anyway." Carter said though it was obvious he didn't mean it. "I can operate from here. We need to step up our operations at the other locations."
"We won't be able to pick up trucks from the road for a while unless you want to go to using fake cars." The other told him.
"Yes, well that's why I have our friend here." Carter said glancing back at Sweets. "What will your people do now?"
Sweets lips broke to a small smile thru either amusement or pure delirium. "I'll tell you for that Danish on your desk."
Carter's eyes went to the Danish sitting on his desk and laughed. "Nah, you can tell me or my friend Louis here can get it out of you." Carter's eyes darted to the Louisville Slugger bat by his desk.
"That's not the best motivator." Sweets said uncomfortably confined to his seat.
"Oh I think it is." With a swift movement Carter jumped up and banged the handle end of the bat into Sweets stomach. "How does your stomach feel now? Hungry?" Carter laughed and sat back down.
"How's your knee?" Carter asked. "You've still got another one. Want to tell me about what your people will be up to?"
Sweets sucked in some air while he sat back up. He considered his answer.
"They will be tracking you down and when then do - not if, but when - they will lock all of you up for a very long time." Sweets looked at Carter's henchmen. "And in a place that's far worse that's this one."
The two men's eyes narrowed and looked back at Carter to get an indication of if Sweets was telling the truth or not.
Carter threw his head back and laughed. "You can't catch me. No one can. Especially not in the seat you are sitting in."
"I almost caught you, now you've got a whole team of pissed off people looking for you - the brightest in their field - they'll find you - all of you."
Carter's eyes narrowed and he turned to his men. "Bring me more. Lots more."
Sweets sat in his chair waiting for Carter to smack him around some more but to his surprise Carter only went to work and ignored Sweets. Despite his urge to stay awake and alert the psychologist found himself drifting off from exhaustion. His head jerked awake when the door flung open and Carter's "associates" arrived with a group of women.
"Line them up." Carter ordered. The men did as asked. "You found quite a group." Carter commented.
"Yeah, jackpot." The man answered. "That was a great lead."
"Of course, I know many places where there are lots of untapped resources." Carter said. "But too much more and we will be found out. I think we will need to be venturing into a new business soon."
"How's that boss?" The man asked as Carter noticed Sweets ears perk up.
"Children." Carter said and the single word made Sweets skin crawl. "Lots of money in adoption to people who can't adopt." Carter smiled at Sweets. "I know a few we could start with."
Sweets eyes narrowed and Carter knew Sweets was going to issue some sort of threat, which didn't seem all that scary coming from a scrawny and malnourished, beaten man tied to a chair.
"Now, onto our present business." Carter said motioning for one of the new victims to be brought forward. "Since Mr. Sweets here does not want to help us in the actions of his co-workers then he can help us here." Carter opened his log.
"What do you think Mr. Sweets, do you think she would be best served in the field of cleaning service or in the more personal services."
Sweets was stunned at the prospect of his new job, choosing what level of horrific slave trade these teenage girls would be forced into. Sweets shook his head to the negative, he was not willing to play a card in their fate. The sixteen year old was shaking as she looked to Sweets for help only to see the dead companion sitting next to him. Her heart rate increased as her panic grew.
"Fine, then ship her to Saline, he's particularly brutal but oh well." Carter waved the girl away who began to scream and Sweets tried to stand up in his chair only to find he could not be steady on his injured knee.
"Put him back up." Carter instructed his men in a calm voice while Carter denoted the transfer in his book.
One of the men pulled Sweets chair back up slamming it down and adding a punch to the face to accentuate the point.
"Who do we have next?" Carter said once Sweets was back in his confined seat.
"You're a monster." Sweets said as his head swam.
"I'm not the one making the decisions for these girls." Carter said pausing from his work. "You are."
"You know that is completely untrue." Sweets said thinking of how to diagnose Carter properly though a conductive thought process was hard to come by. "And you know it."
"All you have to do Mr. Sweets is be compliant." Carter said and Sweets knew that was a slippery slope to go down, once he did, in his present mental state it would not be easy to go back.
The next girl stepped forward pleading for Sweets to play along with whatever the game was.
"Fine. They all go into the maid service." Sweets said hoping that was the least dangerous fate.
"Oh, I forgot to mention, there's only so many slots for each." Carter explained. "They can't all go to once place. Yes, there are 12 girls, 3 slots for maid service, 3 for pleasantry service, 3 for companionship and the rest for, shall we say, a more commanding companionship."
Sweets considered the unfair job to he and the girls waiting.
"Each time you don't participate Mr. Sweets I'll have to stress to you how displeased I am." Carter said. Sweets was not only irritated at being called mister instead of all the work it was involved in earning a doctor title, but at the prospect of being beaten more and lessening his chances toward taking advantage of a chance to grab a weapon - anything.
"Maid service!" Carter shouted having waited too long on Sweets to make a decision. Carter nodded to one of the men who twisted Sweets pinky finger, breaking it.
Sweets wasn't prepared for the brutality and cried out at the pain and doubled over.
"You missed one opportunity for light duty Dr. Sweets. Looks like you'll have some harder decisions to make."
Sweets felt sick to his empty stomach as he looked at the lost girls.
"What do you mean you have nothing?" Booth asked Angela as he sipped coffee. It was nine in the morning and the coffee did little to quell his nerves. His gut told him things were bad with Sweets, hoping he was still alive - wondering if death would be better than anything Sweets may be facing. Don't think that, Sweets can overcome anything, he's been thru a lot. Yeah, but how much can any one person stand?
"I'm not a miracle worker Booth." Angela shouted back, the coffee making her aware but irritable as well. "I can narrow down that they are working in this twelve mile radius."
The team assembled when they heard the raised voices.
"What can we do to enhance the search." Cam asked. "Think people!" Apparently the nerves were at end on everyone.
"Whatever Carter is doing he's going to need resources." Hodgins said rubbing his eyes and thinking.
"Right a building, abandoned? A Front?" Cam said thinking.
"That's just about every building out there, we can't bang on them all." Booth said starting to feel defeated.
"Will the FBI give us more men to do that?" Gillespie asked. "I can't trust my men, Sam Rogers body is now missing."
"Skinner won't give me a thing." Booth said angry. "I don't know what he has against Sweets but he seems to have little interest in working to find him."
"Carter has to be hiding." Brennan deduced. "That means that wherever he is, no one has yet to suspect him. He wouldn't have utilities or anything else in his name. It's not so much that we need to find where he is, but what isn't in his name."
"So if he put it in his people's name then maybe we could find it." Angela said.
"Yeah, but we don't know all of who he has working for him." Hodgins reminded her.
"This isn't working!" Booth said angry and headed towards the door. He wasn't an inside sort of guy. "I need some fresh air." Though no one expected him to come back anytime soon - he would go door to door if he had to if it meant finding Sweets.
"What about more of his people, what about those two that were going to collect Sam Rogers body?" Cam asked.
"I've put an APB out on them too, but…"
"We need to find someone Carter has working for him and pressure them to tell us where he is." Angela said.
"That's great but the people we know of so far are dead." Cam reminded her.
"Agent Patterson." Angela said.
"Yes Ange, she's dead too." Hodgins reminded her.
Angela went back to typing. "No, I have an idea…."
Sweets collapsed back on the cold cement floor as the door and its creak swung shut. Sweets pulled his arm out from under him, sore from being tied in place and looked at his two broken fingers, thought of his sore body from the other assaults, wondered how much more he could physically and mentally take. The door creaked open again causing Sweets to try and back away though there were few places he could go. His vision was too poor to see who was entering. He felt someone touching his hand and soon realized no one was pulling him out. He felt something warm be slipped over it. He opened his eyes enough to see some warm knitted gloves, mostly missing fingers being slipped over his hands.
"It was all I could find, sorry we don't have any socks." Julie said and turned to leave. "I know you tried to help them. I'll try harder to find something warmer."
Sweets smiled a small smile to himself in the knowledge that there was at least one person here who cared, it almost made the single and silent tear that slipped from his eye seem less bitter.
Reviews welcome.