Third Chapter up. Enjoy!

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The first month working for the FBI was as one would expect, busy and tiring, and Colby definitely was.

There was a case of a Jewellery owner, who's family was kidnapped and held for ransom, a kindergarten teacher killed trying to help out, and then finding out in the end, that the jewellery owner was so much in debts, had his own family kidnapped to pay the money back. Who would purposely place their family in harm's way anyway? That's not right. Glad the wife slapped and left him. The daughter deserves better than a father who places her in danger, and also the wife – ex-wife now – deserves better than a husband that does that.

Then there was a big case with a Celebrity being stalked, and during that case he did a little bit of golfing to hopefully get some information from one of their suspects, and also his (memorable) first time coming over to Charlie's house, full of blackboards and papers everywhere.

The garage was so full of papers, chalkboards and, well, mess, that at first Colby didn't know where to go or where to look. He shook Charlie's hand and also properly met Alan Eppes for the first time, and shook his hand as well. He was there to check on the handwriting analysis that Charlie had going on the stalker notes. Like how some letters are written differently depending on where it is in a word, and what letter came before it in that word. It was really rather fascinating to learn about, even if it was tiring at times listening to Charlie.

And then there was the 'Love Letter' that Charlie had from CalSci, from his own admirer, and had already, apparently, compared it to Amita's handwriting, only it wasn't her. And of course it was just funny to watch Charlie all flustered and almost blush in front of his father, that Colby couldn't help but be amused and laugh a little at it.

Even though Charlie had not been happy with the FISH System, it did manage to kick out a name for us, only to find out he wasn't the stalker for the past 3 months as he was in jail. And then Charlie turns around and says, "The same person did not write all of these letters." Great.

Apparently there was a copycat stalker on the loose. And the sudden change of writing coincides with the escalation to the threats to the Celebrity; Skylar Wyatt, according to both Charlie and Megan. Orville turned out to be the stalker, but not the killer. That was Skylar Wyatt herself that killed the photographer. That was a little bit of a shock for everyone.

Then there was a murder of a 'Whistle Blower' by the name of Lucinda Shay, who worked as a chief financial officer at Syntel Corporation, the energy company with the big stock fraud case and bankruptcy. And her testimony was supposed to sink the other executives. We also found out that her son was in the house when she was killed, and in the end, identified the car he saw the killer use. The kid, Daniel, stayed in Charlie's house, mostly with Alan of course.

This just so happened to be the time where Charlie had heard him call him the "Whiz Kid", but, thankfully Charlie had taken it as a complement. No good insulting or making fun of the person you have a crush on Granger.

Then they also found out that Charlie knew Lucinda, and had helped her out when the scandal first broke at the SEC and Charlie was asked to examine the accounting related to Syntel's offshore partnerships, and Lucinda was very helpful to Charlie, even if she didn't at first know what Syntel was really doing, but she figured it out, and this, blew the whistle. Then he and David had to go through thousands of death threats and mail that was sent to her, to try and find out which ones sounded like they were mad enough to kill Lucinda. There were a lot of people.

And this case was the first time that Colby ever visited CalSci, and Charlie's office. Looking around, Charlie was at his chalkboard, showing his cute ass towards Colby, his desk full of clutter, even a sand-hourglass, a lot of things that looked like toys for kids, even though they looked really hard and to solve, and another desk with even more clutter on it, and a jar full of gumballs, and another blackboard – Wait, gumballs?

Colby looked at the multicolour jar of gumballs, smiled, looked back at Charlie working on his chalkboard, turn and look at a note pad on his desk, then turned back to work on his board, all without seeing Colby standing there, inside in office. Colby didn't mind, he got to see Charlie's cute ass again. Colby gave a fond sigh with a smile, knocked on the door and walked in, announcing his presence, so as not to startle him.

"Charlie," was Colby's greeting. "Don sent me down to check and see what you've got from the supercomputer." Charlie had already turned to watch him walk closer to his second desk, the one with the gumballs.

"He must not have gotten my message." Charlie responded, still watching Colby.

"I guess not. Oh, can I take one of these?" Standing right next to the jar of gumballs, already halfway to reaching a gumball before getting permission from Charlie. Well, Charlie opened his arms as if to indicate, 'Yeah sure, go ahead', so Colby did. "Which message?" Colby then asked Charlie, taking a gumball out of the jar.

"There was a glitch in the data run. Uh, can you just tell me which one you're taking?" Charlie asked, indicating the gumball in Colby's hand, as he moved towards his desk to, presumably, write down the colour.

Colby looked a little confused for a second, looked down at his gumball and showed it up for Charlie to see, holding it between his first two fingers. "This red one." Colby had replied.

"That's very interesting." Charlie answered directly to Colby, writing it down. What was interesting about a red gumball being chosen? Oh God, he has an experiment on what the most popular colour of gumball is, doesn't he? Well, anything to help science, even if it is weird, and also a little amusing to be a part of.

"Ok." Colby replied, shrugging his shoulders. As long as I get to eat the gumball, it's all good. "So how little is this glitch?" Colby asked, getting Charlie back on track with the case, and the reason for why Colby was there. Even if I really wanted to see him, and his cute ass, and of course, finally see his office. What of it? "Because Megan profiled seven ex-employees, all who have the potential to be the killer. And anything you have might help us take this guy down before he has a chance to shoot another Syntel exec." Colby explained, moving towards Charlie and passing him the file he was holding.

Charlie looked quickly at the file and gave his findings, "I think I have one of these names on my list, actually." Charlie said, then turned to his blackboard, and proceeded to flip it over to the other side, where quite a few names were on the board. "Yeah, Morton Standbury." Charlie says, pointing to his name. "But the probability of Morton's guilt is less than 10 percent. Uh, I mean, that's hardly conclusive." Charlie went on to explain, but at this point Colby had already taken out his phone and was about to call David.

"Awesome. Thanks." Colby replied, giving Charlie a 'thumbs up' and tuned to walk away, the phone to his ear. "David, hey, it's me. Listen, Megan was right on her hunch. The Standbury guy's a match." Colby told David, then he turned in the door way, waved his hand towards Charlie, still holding the red gumball, between his fingers, and walked out.

Once the found where Standbury was, he was holding a bag full of newspaper clips, and the wall of the room he was renting was full of the same thing. Colby had to chase after him, telling the others that he saw Standbury with a gun. Colby even had to show him his badge, just for him to calm down enough to talk to us.

Turns out that Lucinda Shay was killed to stop a $312 million cheat in what they were doing in making money from Trading Energy Futures. Something about 'Nobody's perfect' and that a trading group inside the company that was perfect and was never wrong, ever, about what they were betting on. And according to Charlie, Lucinda Shay could have very well have found it, or very nearly had found it, which is why she was killed. This also meant that we were looking at the wrong group of suspects who had the motive to kill Lucinda Shay.

Then we find out that the traders didn't exist. Charlie pointed out that the suspect must come from Syntel's trading business, and then Don had a call from his dad, saying that the kid, Daniel, was missing.

Don later found him in his own house, as he had remembered the car that the killer drove away in. And by the end it turned out that the CEO of the company, Galway, that is was his son, Malcolm, that had killed Lucinda, as he was the one behind the fraud and moving the $312 million as a scam, this leading to the fall of Syntel. Colby was the one to handcuff and lead him away. By the end, the kid, Daniel, went to live with his grandmother, and Don, oddly enough, was a slightly better boss after the case was done. Maybe kids were a good influence on him.

Then our next big, long and a slightly exiting case was of an Assassination. They stared the case with finding a man named Henry Korfelt, who the FBI believed to be making fake passports, but finding out he actually made fake passports, drivers licences, car registrations, gun permits and quite a few more identity fraud, in his mother's 'Assisting Living' home. He ended up trying to burn his work, and making a run for it when Don came knocking on his mother's front door.

Colby and David went running after him towards his car, and Colby, being the man he is, stood in front of the car, speeding towards him, and got off 3 shots into the front windscreen of the car, making Korfelt stop a few inches away from Colby's legs. Don and David then got him out of the car, and away in handcuffs.

Colby continued to stand still for a few more seconds, still with his gun out, pointed at Korfelt. Colby didn't want to admit that he was a little shaken, the car had come really close to running him over. But that's what soldiers do, stare in the face of danger, and not flinch.

And then we find a note book. The note book was one of the items that Korfelt had tried to burn, and it was full of letters, only written in groups of 3 of 4. It was code for something, and who do we know who's good at breaking code? Charlie.

Once Don had taken it to Charlie, we found out that a 'Transposition Cipher' was being used, and that it, apparently, had nothing to do with passports. Apparently Charlie had seen these same groupings of letters before for one of his work's with the NSA. What we had found, was a plan for an Assassination.

Charlie explained it as 'Pattern Recognition', and that everyone does it, all the time, and Charlie's example was Scrabble – which Colby found out later after asking about playing the game, that Charlie couldn't spell well at all, which kinda made sense to Colby. If Charlie's brain was hardwired to learning and understanding numbers, of course he was going to have difficulties with words and letters – where our minds know language, and it automatically searches for groupings of letters that make sense to us, that then makes a word. And Charlie then saying that his mind knows codes and ciphers, and that he couldn't help but recognise them as patterns.

Charlie then went on to explain that the groupings in the book were abbreviations, and that they were not encrypted. Colby then asked what the abbreviations were for, and Charlie straight away said – "Types of killings." He went up to the screen with the groupings on and proceeded to point out what some of the groupings meant.

OPN = Open,

SCRT = Secret,

LST = Lost,

SFE = Safe,

The team then talked about Korfelt's involvement suggests that the assassin isn't local, which is why he needed a passport, this meaning that the killer needed to get into the country, and then Colby said, unless he's already here, which made everyone panic a little, thinking then now have an assassin in their country, right in their back yards. And there was a moment when Colby looked around, where Charlie looked at him, with a look that almost seemed to say, 'Why didn't I think of that?' and also 'Oh God, we have an assassin here?!'

When it came time to question Korfelt, Colby was given the honour. Colby started with circuling around the table and Korfelt, who was sitting in the chair. Maybe I can get him to talk if there were very serious charges against him. Even though fraud is still a serious charge.

"You assaulted a federal officer with a deadly weapon." Colby started, hoping that that might just scare him enough to talk. Good-cop, Bad-cop routine. Works most of the time. So I'm bad-cop, Don's gonna be the good-cop. I can play this bit.

"It was a Volkswagen." Was Korfelt's reply, with a slight twitch to his mouth, almost a smile, almost as if he believed that the charge wouldn't really count.

"You think it's funny?" Colby accused, then talked a bit more, hoping to scare him more into talking.

Just as Don came walking into the Interrogation room, Korfelt said, "I don't know anything about a murder." And Don's reply, after he sat down, came so smoothly, "It's not gonna fly." And was that a slight hint of fear in Korfelt's face? He looked a little rattled.

Don then went on to say, "We cracked your code." Pointing to the pictures of the book on the table in between them. "We know you provided documents and vehicles and weapons to an assassin."

Colby then immediately picked it up, "We don't need to talk to him anymore. We should talk to his mother." Colby said, getting an immediate reaction from Korfelt. "It's her apartment, right?"

"You can't do that. My mother has a heart condition." Korfelt said, shaking his head, but not taking his eyes off of Colby.

"Then start telling us what we wanna know or think about a defibrillator for 'Mommy'." Colby replied back, knowing it was a little hard, maybe, even for playing 'Bad-cop', but it got the result they wanted. Korfelt now looked scared, and worried.

"He'll kill me. Don't you understand?" He tried to reason, and yeah, he did sound quite scared this time. He couldn't even look at Colby or Don anymore. Colby and Don shared a quick look between them.

"Look, Henry." Don said, getting Korfelt's attention, and by using his name, gave a more 'friendlier' feel to the 'Good-cop' play, "I'm all you got." Don said this in a voice that was soft and gently, and it did the trick.

"I don't know names." Korfelt said, now looking more nervous than scared, but he was stilled worried, that was for sure. "Only a code reference. Condor." He supplied, which is what the assassin is called.

"And who's the target?" Don asked, now asking normally, like an FBI Agent.

"He's a Colombian. A kid, I think. His father was an activist who got killed down there." Was what Korfelt gave them, which was a start. Don nodded and gave an agreeable sound, looking at Colby, who also gave a nod. This is a start.

From everything that Korfelt gave them, as little as it was, was enough to find a name to the target, a Gabriel Ruiz. Turns out the reason for why anyone would want to kill him, was to make sure that Gabriel Ruiz didn't go into politics like his father to give hope to others. This, his death would have to look like an accident, which of course, helped Charlie to find out how the assassin intended to kill Ruiz.

But when Korfelt was being moved by the US Marshalls, just as he walked through the gate towards the car, he was shot and killed by a sniper shot, damaging one of our advantages in stopping the assassination from happening.

Back in the bullpen, Colby and David were looking through Korfelt's history, trying to find anything that could possibly help them, only to find out that he had been 'laying-low' for 3 weeks, with nothing happening on his credit cards, or bank statements.

Then David started talking, "Rumour has it you got an eyeful in Afghanistan."

"It wasn't so bad, you know. College degree kept me off the front and all." But even with that, it didn't stop everything from the war getting to me, Colby thought, but didn't want to explain that to David.

"That's why you joined the bureau? Wanted to get some action?" David sais jokingly. If only you know how bad war can be buddy, you'd know working for the bureau was almost like child's play some days. Much less messy and bloody.

"What else was I gonna do with 3 years of interrogation techniques?" Colby said instead. Make it sound like I haven't ever used them. I really don't want to talk or remember about the things I've seen, heard or done, even if they weren't all that bad, they were still bad enough. Colby realised early on starting here, that it was probably best not to tell anyone a lot of things about himself, it was just better that way.

"Wait a minute. Korfelt's mom. We ran her credit cards, right?" David asked, and just with that question, the previous line of questioning was finished (thankfully) and a new lead was found in the case. Bingo, as what David said.

Charlie ended up going to Ruiz's place to assess the possible ways Ruiz may be assassinated – which Colby most definitely are not happy with – but it did help, for a little while. And then David found Ruiz almost drowned in the river by his house.

Then we were told by Charlie, that the person, who David saw with Ruiz trying to 'help' David bring him to shore, was in fact the assassin, by giving a simple assassination 'rule', "Basic protocol of a secret assassination, be the first respondent" and for a good few seconds, everyone was shocked and speechless, looking at one another in the room. David was just stood face-to-face, talking with the Condor, the assassin.

Later, when Colby and David went to see a potential suspect connected to the Condor, it lead them to a computer shop in West L.A, they were meat in the front by a shade looking man, who eagerly wanted to run, so Colby had to jump over the front counter, and manhandle him a little to make sure he didn't try and run from them, and David already had his gun out pointed at him.

Colby then made his way to the back room, and was immediately faced with a gun in their suspect's hands, and Colby quickly drew out his own weapon to point at the suspect. Colby and the suspect were at a slight stand-off, and then David came through the door, with his gun pointed straight at the suspect, standing right behind Colby.

But then David came up right behind Colby, on his left side, and the gun was positioned right next to Colby's face. Colby couldn't help but look at the gun from the corner of his eye, remembering a time when another gun was very close to his head, and not held by a friend either. Focus Granger, eyes back on the suspect!

The suspect finally put the gun down, and Colby went to cuff him, turning to David a little annoyed, and possibly due to adrenaline pumping through his veins as well, let it out a little. "If you fired, you'd have blinded me." Colby accused a little harder than he had meant.

David gave a little shrug of his shoulders as an apology of sort, "Should've closed your eyes." Was his smart retort, and playing it off a little like a joke. And then they hit the 'jackpot'. Guns, lots of guns.

They then managed to set a trap to hopefully capture Condor, Colby and David taking Ruiz to a safe house, and Condor walked right into the trap, but it ended in a gunfight, and was killed by Don. The Condor turned out to basically be a ghost, and at last, that difficult and tiring case was over, and Ruiz ended up going back to Columbia. Colby could really do without assassinations for another good long while. He was just glad that it was over and finished.

Colby then managed to overhear later that Charlie had tried to go out on another date with Amita, to a concert – White Stripes – but it didn't work out, and Colby was secretly happy that it didn't, and gave a little smile to himself. Charlie deserves better than her anyway. But then realising how selfish and a little possessive that sounded, Colby gave a firm shake of his head to get some sense into himself for thinking that. As long as he is happy Granger, just be happy for him, even if it is with Amita, and not you.

With a big sigh, Colby finished his report, picked up his stuff, walked out of the FBI building and towards home, thinking again about Charlie with a (reluctantly admitting) beautiful Indian woman by his side, and not Colby himself.

There'll be someone Granger, just wait. But even though Colby was thinking these words, he knew that there wasn't going to be anyone else like Charlie for him. Move on Granger. Move on.

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