24 – CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – 1,142^24

Charlie was lying curled up. It had bothered him for only a short time that he wasn't able to stretch himself at length. By now, this option seemed so absurd to him anyway, that he preferred not even thinking about it.

His knee prickled and ached uncomfortably. With every further minute of pain the suspicion that he'd broken his kneecap grew stronger. Though after a tentative, but nevertheless painful attempt, he had stopped examining it.

He was cold. The stony floor wasn't only cool, but also humid and Charlie's clothes were already partly soaked. They stuck to his damp skin and his goose-pimples.

His teeth chattered. The sound echoed around the space, but it didn't really disturb him since it banished the roaring silence. A little while ago he had tried to keep himself warm by moving, but had abandoned this attempt very soon. The drug seemed to be still in his body and made him feel as miserable as he'd never felt before. Besides, he would waste energy through moving. And it would be better if he didn't ask himself when they would next give him nourishment.

He felt wretched. He had still a terrible head-ache, he was feeling sick, he was cold; his wrists and forearms were burning from the string and from rubbing them against the rough stone. And he was filled with fear. Naked, un-heroic fear.

And then the darkness! It was going to drive him mad! He might as well be blind, he wouldn't even notice. The darkness was so omnipresent and there was no way to escape it.

Time passed in a very queer way. It was crawling along so impossibly slowly that Charlie wondered if it was standing still, if maybe space had finally contracted and thus the past was catching up with the future right now. Or vice versa?

And yet, despite this apparent standstill, he was losing time. It disappeared, escaped through some holes that were hidden from him to the outside, and suddenly wasn't there anymore. He couldn't remember having experienced anything during these periods of time, let alone be able to tell what he had done in such passed minutes. Maybe slept? Impossible.

Possible, for it would explain why the water startled him so much. The fact that he hadn't noticed straight away was startling enough in itself though.

At first he became aware of the splashing. Then the fine spray on his skin and the roaring of the sea. It was louder than when they had thrown him down here. The sea had come nearer; it was high tide.

It took a while for Charlie to realize the truth. Now he understood where the spray on his skin was coming from: from above. Through the skylight. The water was obviously sweeping over it and some of it was getting through the chinks down to him.

All of a sudden Charlie was wide awake. That was why everything in here was so humid! It had to be the water that regularly swept down here. The question was only: how much water?

0 – 0 – 0

The next morning, Don sat motionlessly in his office. He had ordered that all calls, both the ones to the Craftsman and in his apartment, were redirected here. He had ordered a trace on Charlie's mobile by its GPS signal, but it had been of no use. Charlie's mobile was turned off.

He heard a bizarrely, strangely familiar sound and lifted his head. Megan. Megan had just arrived, just like before. However, the visitor's pass around her neck gave her a strangely strong resemblance to Charlie, at least in Don's blurry thoughts.

She stood for a moment in front of him, scrutinizing his appearance before she dared speaking, "Have you slept since we last saw each other?"

He ran his hands over his face and that might have been enough of an answer for Megan. How could she have asked anyway? As if he had been able to sleep. And besides, there had been more important things to do, even if they hadn't made any progress even after Megan had left them at half past four in the morning. They first had gone through the branch-mafia's members they knew of. They'd tried to localize them, had checked alibis... They'd found nothing, though. Of course it was theoretically possible that the big mafia was behind it, but the branch-mafia was more likely. After all they'd already had Charlie terrorized.

He knew that Megan's next question would be one about his father and he knew as well that at that moment he couldn't stand such a terrible interrogation by her. So he went for a counter attack. "Where's Larry?"

"Talking with Amita."

Don nodded. He had postponed as far as he could before informing Amita, hoping that the subject would have sorted itself out. And surprisingly, it had. He just wasn't sure if Larry was such a good choice for carrying out this task. For of course it hadn't escaped him how shocked his brother's friend for many years had been in the past night.

"They're at the CalSci?" He was completely calm. An idea had just occurred to him, but he wasn't sure himself what he should make of it.

"Yes," Megan answered, "why do you ask?"

Don didn't respond at once. He first let the idea go through his mind once more. Charlie had constructed a network for them, showing the organization's structure and the aims or the plans of the different people, right? So couldn't they...

"Don?"

He looked into Megan's worried features with its slightly raised eyebrows. "I just thought that the two of them could maybe find out something for us. Charlie," – he stopped briefly; it hurt him to pronounce his brother's name – "Charlie created a network of the two mafia groups for us. He found out their aims and everything... And maybe we could get from that who's kidnapped him."

Megan looked at him earnestly. "Yes, that's a possibility," she answered, but all of a sudden the tone of her voice was much cooler. When Don didn't respond to her provocative tone, she went on, "But has it already occurred to you that may place the two of them in danger?"

Don looked at the floor, embarrassed. He didn't answer. He didn't believe that Megan would be very delighted if she had heard that the idea had indeed already occurred to him.

She didn't need to hear it, though. "I can ask them," she offered, her voice already a bit warmer. After all she knew that Don was only thinking about getting his brother back safe and sound. "But I'd suggest that you provide surveillance for them –" Don laughed briefly and she corrected her proposal, "They can work in here."

Don nodded, not even noticing her saying good-bye as she left for CalSci. Yeah... the two of them could work here. Charlie could also have worked here. They could have connected some additional computers, maybe even given him his own room... they would have managed somehow. And if Charlie had been working here – under Don's and numerous other agents' eyes – then all that would probably never have happened...

"Don?"

Don jerked up at the sound of Colby's voice, immediately alert.

"What?"

"We've got a witness, a student. Seems as if he can describe the culprits. He'll come here at once so we can draw up a composite sketch."

Don once more inhaled deeply. Seemed as if they were finally making some progress.

0 – 0 – 0

Along with the water in his little cell, Charlie's panic was rising. He had no watch down here and his sense of time had been messed up considerably, but even without it he knew that he didn't like the speed with which the water was rising. He was already standing ankle-deep in the salt water, although not more than half an hour could have passed since the first drop. Assuming this had been 30 minutes, he calculated a filling velocity of roughly eight and a half liters per minute. And since he had to assume that the velocity was rising due to the mounting flood it would probably take much less than five hours until the water would literally come up to his neck. He could only hope that the flood had reached its limit and that therefore the water was already retreating again.

At least the water had to have a possibility to run off from here, probably through little cracks in the stone, for at his arrival here the place had been dry. And that meant that the water had to run off relatively quickly and that moreover Charlie's chances of being at the edge of a flooding area were quite good since high and low tide happened every six hours. More time than that had had to have passed since the water had come.

Right?

Charlie shuddered and not only because of the cold water and his wet clothing. It was simply impossible to analyze his chances exactly. He became aware – and unconsciously he had known it the whole time – that this whole rubbish with the filling velocity didn't help him at all. He could very well misjudge the time by one or two hours. And he didn't even know how long the flood would last. He had no data; he was, in the proper sense of the word, in the dark. He was defenseless and at fate's mercy. And if fate decided to make him drown slowly, he wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it.

And he wouldn't even know. He would never be able to analyze his situation in exact mathematical terms. That was the worst; that mathematics couldn't help him this time. And he knew it. Even if it might protect him from blind panic – he was aware that this time, it wouldn't be able to help him out of this place.

0 – 0 – 0

A quarter of an hour after Colby's revelation, the doors of the lift in the FBI headquarters glided apart. Hesitantly, a nervously looking young, blonde man stepped out. He looked around for a moment, helplessly, before addressing an agent. She pointed in Don's direction and the young man strode quickly towards the office cell, letting his gaze wander in all directions.

"Hello," he began nervously, and Don looked up from the file filled with Charlie's handwriting. "I'm Jake Thornpike. I called earlier. I was supposed to come because –"

"I know." Don had already stood up and now led the student into an interrogation room.

He sat, heavily, and Thornpike followed his example. "Before you get started on the composite sketch with our sketch artist, we want to ask you some questions." If the student had known him, he would have noticed how tired and heavy the agent's voice sounded. "What exactly happened?"

However, Thornpike didn't respond. "Say... is it really true?" he instead asked his first counter question. "Did they really kill Professor Eppes?"

Don, who had been staring dully on the desk in front of him, jerked up his head. "Who says that?" he demanded to know.

The student hesitantly shrugged his shoulders. "The others. Is... is it true?"

Don stared into his eyes, eyes that were wide open with fear, and in that moment he realized something. He wasn't the only one that was worried about Charlie. Even the mathematician's students were preoccupied for their professor. He didn't have to fight on his own. He had fellow fighters standing by his side.

He shook his head. "No. He hasn't been killed." Hopefully... hopefully!, he added in his mind. "He has been kidnapped. And now we're trying to found out by whom. So?"

The student swallowed. "Okay. Uh..." He tried to compose his thoughts. The fact that Dr. Eppes wasn't dead seemed to have calmed him down a bit. "Okay. The man, yes. Well... yesterday, in the afternoon, there I was at the university and I was just on my way back to the library from the message board when... when this man was suddenly standing before me."

"What did he want?"

"He asked me about Dr. Eppes' office. And I told him – I don't know if you know, Dr. Eppes isn't lecturing at the-"

"I know," Don cut him off. "So?"

Thornpike seemed to become slightly unsure. Yeah, he'd been told that a certain Agent Eppes was leading the investigation, and he suspected this agent to be his professor's brother– the FBI stories circulated widely around the campus – but since the agent hadn't introduced himself, he still wasn't sure if the brother was sitting in front of him or not. However, he thought he recognized the resemblance, but maybe he was just another FBI-agent. But now, considering his behavior, Jake was very much inclined to suspect that he was sitting opposite his professor's brother.

"Then I told the guy to try Professor Fleinhardt's office. He and Professor Eppes, they –"

"Yes. So?" Don again interrupted.

"Uh... Yeah. I told him how to get there and so he went. And I returned to the library."

"You weren't suspicious? Or is it normal for people to stroll about in a university?" The fact that he asked the question showed that Don wasn't really firing on all cylinders. After all he himself and his team visited Charlie often enough at his workplace.

"Uh, n-no. He... he looked just like one of us. Like a student."

"Describe him."

"Well... blonde hair, rather short... white. And... well, normal."

"How tall?"

"Maybe as tall as you. Perhaps a little taller."

"Okay." Don ran his fingers over tired eyes and stood. "I'll take you to our sketch artist."

Don threw a last short glance at Thornpike when he took a seat in front of the computer in order to make a composite sketch together with the clerk. Although they had already found out less from witnesses on quite a lot of occasions, he had hoped to learn more from the student. But maybe the composite sketch would help them.

He hoped so. For if not, they would again be at a loss without any clues.