15.
I really do need to get back to Baby Daddy sometime don't I? It's sort or hard to do two at once when a mystery is involved. I don't want the bad guys to show up in the wrong stories!
"Booth." He answered picking up his cell. "No, I'm on a case, I haven't been in the office, what do you mean Dr. Sweets hasn't been in? Well no, I don't know why he's not answering his cell but I'm going to find out."
"Booth, what's wrong?" Brennan asked concerned at what she had heard.
"Sweets, he hasn't been in the office much, which okay if he's on a case but he's apparently not answering his cell either." Booth explained irritated with masked concern.
"What should we do, should we go back?" Brennan asked surprised even at herself how concerned she was.
"I'm calling Cam first." Booth said. "There must be a reasonable explanation."
Brennan's eyebrow raised, sounded like something she would have said. "I'm calling Angela."
The group was looking over the similarities between Mahaffey and Bamsatt, confirming the two were one in the same when Cam's phone rang shortly before Angela's. The pair picked them up.
"Hi Booth." Cam said while Angela greeted Brennan.
"No, no, Sweets is here with us." Cam said.
"Oh, good, he's not answering his phone, his boss called me." Booth explained. Brennan could hear the conversation over Booth's phone.
"Oh yes, well we have been very busy with this case." Cam explained and thought of handing her phone to Sweets but she knew what a bad liar he was, particularly to Booth under pressure. "I believe Sweets lost it, we were searching a place." Cam realized she was sounding like a bad liar herself.
"Well, is it going okay? I mean, can Sweets handle this case if he lost his phone?" Booth asked loud enough that Sweets could hear the question. Cam could see the slump of disappointment in Sweets shoulders.
"Yes, Dr. Sweets is doing an excellent job at the case and at keeping the team safe." Cam wanted to add that she was still concerned about the pale and thin looking Sweets standing before her whose last meal was popcorn and mints but that wasn't going to calm Booth any.
"Yeah Brennan, everything is good." Angela chimed in. "We trust Sweets."
Sweets stood taller knowing the confidence that was seen in him.
"Okay, sounds like things are okay." Booth said. "We should be back soon if you need us."
"We're doing just fine." Cam said as she and Angela said goodbye and hung up.
Cam smiled at Sweets who smiled back. "Okay, so what's next?" He asked.
"Well I don't think we can solve the patient MP WB, there's no way we can get into Davenport." Cam said.
"The other clues are almost solved except for Mahaffey." Angela said. "I'm going to dig and see if I can't find more on who he was and why he would have changed his name from Bamsatt."
"We need to know what his connection to MIT was." Sweets said looking at the clues. "If the unknown man was a theorist and Mahaffey was connected to MIT, we might be able to find out if the unknown man was a professor there, something."
"Hodgins, how are you coming on that computer chip?" Cam asked.
"So far it's encrypted." Hodgins said hitting various keys. The group surrounded him. "I've tried a dozen different words and hacks and just about everything I can think of."
"Try Taman Shud." Sweets suggested. Hodgins typed it in and the computer screen filled with images in boxes. The images were drawings of equations on paper.
"Looks like you were right about using the sketch pad to do his equations." Cam said noticing the paper matched the small rectangular size of the blank pages they had with them.
"Yeah but what are these?" Hodgins asked looking at the multiple pages of images. "I mean, this is some really advanced equations."
"If the unknown man was this good at his field, like Einstein I his time, he would have been very sought out by various governments." Sweets thought aloud.
"Which would explain why he would avoid detection at every clue, the lack of id, the clothing without tags - he didn't want to be found." Cam concluded.
"Well we know the why but we still need the how and the why." Hodgins said tapping away. "Do we have a professor we could see that can tell us what some of these are?"
Sweets stood up from looking over Hodgins shoulder and smiled at Cam. "I think we need a road trip to MIT, find out who Bamsatt was to MIT and see if anyone else there can help us."
"One condition." Cam said. "You change clothes. No professor is going to take you seriously in that."
While on their way Angela made arrangements for them to meet with the dean of the school. Cam smiled at how increasingly confident Sweets looked having stopped at his place for a change into a suit after a shower.
"Thank you for seeing us." Cam said shaking Dean Burkhead's hand followed by Sweets. "We got here as fast as we could though we know it's almost the end of the day."
"Of course, your friend mentioned it was very important, national security I believe she said." Dean Burkhead said sitting at his desk across from them.
"Yes, we would like to know if you are familiar with either of these men." Cam said handing him photos of Commander Mahaffey present day, Sgt Bamsatt and the unknown man.
Sweets watched closely as Dean Burkhead blinked at the sight of the photos. He knows them Sweets thought to himself.
"I have no idea who these men are." Dean Burkhead said handing the photos back to Cam.
Terrible liar Sweets said to himself.
"Are you sure, Dean Burkhead?" Sweets asked. "Perhaps you'd like to look at them a little longer?"
"No son, I'm sure." Sweets noted how Burkhead tried to diminish Sweets by pointing out his age.
"Perhaps it would help to know these two men are the same person." Sweets said holding up the photos of Mahaffey. "A fact I'm surprised you didn't detect for someone so versed in scientific observation.
Cam wanted to blush at Sweets' blatant insult. Burkhead blinked and tried to hold back a discerning smirk.
"Of course, but I assumed you knew that." Burkhead said.
Sweets eyes narrowed, it wasn't a convincing response. "We know they all had a connection to MIT. How long have you been dean here?" Sweets asked.
"Thirty years." The dean responded, knowing they could easily look the answer up which irritated him.
"Well, this unknown man is forty, leaving him to have part of his career here, most likely a professor. Your secretary was just telling us while we were waiting that you pride yourself on knowing all of your staff. So did you forget you knew him or was that all crap about being intimate with your staff?" Sweets asked with a smile. Cam's eyes widened at the Sweets she was witnessing, he was brash.
The dean was less amused. "If he was here I'm sure I met him but apparently he left little impression on me to remember him."
"Ah, I could see that." Sweets agreed. "The only thing is, so far we've seen that the equations he was working on were beyond stellar. Do you think maybe he left MIT for another school because you found him forgettable?"
Again Cam felt her cheeks warm at Sweets brash demeanor but she had to admit it was working, the dean was far less cordial now than when they first arrived.
"It depends on who deems it as stellar." The dean responded.
"Well, while we were waiting on you we visited with one of your professors." Cam said. Sweets had suspected they were kept waiting while Dean Burkhead made a call to people to find out what he was supposed to say to the pair of investigators.
"Dr. Sweets, what was his name again, the professor we visited with?" Cam asked Sweets.
Sweets shrugged his shoulders. "I don't recall Dr. Soroyan, the people they have here are not very memorable."
Wow Sweets is a smart ass today Cam said to herself trying to keep her composure. Cam looked at the print outs from Hodgins microchip they had shared with the professor. "Well he explained to us these are advanced equations for not only the unified field theory but a step further, Einstein's theory of matter and energy."
"Yes, if Einstein found the ability of gravity to bend light, he had the existence of rest energy and therefore the basis of nuclear energy." Sweets explained further.
"Nuclear energy is not anything new." Dean Burkhead pointed out.
"Yeah but if this unknown man reconciled the gap between bending light around an object by way of refraction to make it invisible and resulting in nuclear energy - that would sure be something pretty interesting I would think." Sweets suggested.
"Yes, I don't think I would forget that guy at all." Cam agreed and both stared at Burkhead.
"There is no proof that any of these things exist." Dean Burkhead said setting back in his chair. "If this man did find the correct answer to those equations - I would know about it. Now if you will excuse me, I have more important things to do."
Cam looked to Sweets who tilted his head in thought for a moment and then stood up with a big smile.
"Thank you Dean Burkhead. I truly appreciate your time and assistance." Sweets said back to his charm he exuded when they came in. Cam followed his head and abruptly exit.
Once they were a distance from the campus in the car Cam busted out a few questions. "Okay so what was that in there? Bad cop?"
"What I just had a few questions." Sweets said shrugging his shoulders. "Not my fault he caught the jagged end of being shot and locked away in an asylum in the past 24 hours."
"You may get a little leeway from us on that but I'm not so sure about him." Cam said. "How come you didn't pressure him on Mahaffey?"
"He's not going to say anything. If anything I was more interested in the unknown man. He was here alright and he knew him." Sweets said as they continued their drive back to DC.
"We punched the lion in the mouth." Cam reminded Sweets. "His eyes lit up when he saw we had the equations from the unknown man."
"Yes, but he called our bluff when he knew we didn't have the result of the equation." Sweets said recalling the conversation.
"He's going to tell Mahaffey and Wittner that we have the equations." Cam realized feeling in danger.
"I think they already had those." Sweets said calming her nerves. "That's what they are blindly working with. What they need is the result of the equations."
"How do we know the unknown man had them?" Cam asked.
"That's what Lumiere wanted to badly to know. He must have had them, or had reason to believe he did which is why he killed him. He just didn't get the results." Sweets suggested giving him an idea.
Sweets had been driving this time, he had enough of Cam's white knuckle driving experiences. Cam called Hodgins at Sweets' request.
"I miss my phone." He lamented while she dialed.
"Well it's either in the waters of the shipyards or somewhere at Davenport. Want to go and check?" Cam asked sarcastically.
Sweets touched his still sore side from the gun shot. "No thanks."
"Hodgins, yeah it's us. Sweets asks that you check the other cufflink." Cam said while they drove. They waited in silence for a moment. "Yes, he said there's another chip." Cam explained.
Sweets drove this time so Cam could talk to Hodgins. "He's hit another passcode. He says it's not Taman Shud or anything else so far." Cam told Sweets.
"Tell him to try Genevieve." Sweets suggested and Cam nodded when it worked.
"His daughter, of course." Cam said waiting to see what Hodgins found. "He says there is just one page on this one."
"I'm guessing that's the answers to the puzzle." Sweets suggested.
"Did we just solve the issue behind invisibility?" Cam asked stunned.
"Well I think the unknown man did most of the work." Sweets reminded her. "We just figured out where he hid one of his many clues."
"Hodgins you need to keep quiet about this, if anyone finds out we have it we will be targets." Cam reminded him.
"Too late." Hodgins said looking up. "Genevieve is here with a gun. Guess it was a bad idea to work late."
Sweets heard what Hodgins had said and pushed on the accelerator.
The line had gone dead and while Sweets and Cam had little hope that Hodgins was still there when they got back they raced inside to find their only clue.
As they stepped inside they noticed the Jeffersonian seems rather abandoned, too quiet but they drew guns anyway and looked around the silent lab. They heard a noise but stopped when they saw it was Angela walking in the door with Michael Vincent.
"Okay, what's going on?" Angela asked as Sweets put his gun away. Something on the table where Hodgins was working caught his attention and he went to it while Cam explained the problem to the increasingly nervous Angela.
Sweets picked up the note that sat on the counter in the familiar handwriting of notes he had seen from Genevieve. 'They made me do it. I'm sorry' it read. Sweets looked to see the clues were still there, she must not have known what was on them - it appeared only the chips, the printouts from the chips, Arastoo & Hodgins were missing.
Sweets heard a curious sound and slowly approached the area where Hodgins had staged one of his latest bug experiments he had done. The taste of chips came to Sweets mouth but he ignored it as he stepped in the area separated by glass panes where Hodgins bugs sat in containers. He noted however that the bugs were all dead, something Hodgins would have been upset about. Curiously he brushed the bugs aside to reveal a timer down to four seconds.
"Get out!" Sweets shouted and ran towards the women and toddler at the door. Sweets backed up from the timer which he saw had wires running from it around the room. As four seconds winded down the room lit with a series of explosions, none large enough to bring down the building but enough to shatter the glass in every wall and room and make a huge mess of everything around them. The explosions went off in a circular pattern in the room, each one closer to them.
Cam pushed Angela out the door and out of harm's way then turned back to see Sweets clutching at his face crouched at the floor as slivers of glass rained down around him. Cam didn't want to walk into the rain of glass and shouted to Sweets who looked up to follow the sound and Cam knew he couldn't see. He stepped forward but was about to trip on a debris that had blown in the way. Cam knew there was no way he could navigate his own way out. Cam shouted for him to stop and ran to him as two more explosions at the back of the lab went off sending the sprinklers off to pour down around them. Cam finally reached Sweets as another timed explosion went off near them. Sweets went to grab Sweets hand which had splinters of glass in the and looked to his face where blood began to trip like tears from his eyes. She grabbed his wrist and maneuvered him to the door where the last explosion was the largest at their heels, leaving the lab incased in smoke and fire.
Cam drew in a sharp breath at her destroyed lab but felt the wrist in her hand tremble as she pulled Sweets farther from the room and out the front door where Angela and Michael Vincent sat nervously. Cam planted Sweets on the front step and leaned him against a large planter that was there. She then ran to the car they left near the door when they hastily arrived.
"Oh my God Sweets." Angela said approaching seeing his cut hands and face, his bleeding eyes.
"Angela?" Sweets asked holding out a hand to guess where she was. Angela gently took it and pulled out a glass shaving when Cam approached with a make do first aid kit.
Sweets suit had shielded his body from the glass cutting the rest of him, the exposed hands and face were to bear the brunt. Angela continued to pick out glass while Cam put a hand on Sweets forehead and concentrated with plastic tweezers to remove a piece of glass from the corner of Sweets eye.
"Please, do not move, Sweets." Cam said as she concentrated very hard around such a delicate body part as the eyes. She did not want to cut it further.
Sweets remained as still as he could and felt relief as she removed the two pieces that had become embedded in the corners of his eyes just after he had closed them instinctively at the explosion.
"Thank you." Sweets said relaxing. He looked at Michael Vincent who looked scared. "It's okay Michael, that was just a game we are playing."
"Where's my daddy?" The child asked. "Mommy said we were coming back to bring him dinner."
The sound of approaching sirens filled the air.
"We need to get out of here." Sweets said standing up.
"You need actual medic care this time sweets." Angela reminded him. "And we could use some back up here, we almost got blown up."
"If it was Mahaffey and Wittner they only blew it up because they thought no one was there." Sweets said. "And if those cops get here they may not be the real cops but the ones that work for whoever is hiring them. They either keep us and question us for hours or they find out that I'm the escapee from Davenport and we're not going to get to Arastoo and Hodgins anytime soon."
Cam nodded. "He's right." She turned to Angela. "You take Michael Vincent home."
"What about…" Angela asked nervously but still had faith in the two opposite her.
"I have an idea where they are, let Sweets and I check it out." Cam said as the sirens came even closer so Angela hastily agreed and got in her car to leave.
Cam and Sweets climbed in the car with Cam driving.
"I don't want to hear anything about my driving." Cam said putting the car in reverse.
Sweets wiped the blood from his eyes. "I'm going on a damn vacation when this is over."