Close Encounters 16
McCord's face was white as she flew out of the federal building and met him on the sidewalk. "What-"
"She's gone," Castle said tightly. "I need all the footage from the last hour - round up every angle, the-"
"No, there's not - we turned off all the cameras."
"What?" he harshed, twisting back to her.
"For the protection of the grand jury," she said slowly. Her eyes closed. "We turned everything off."
Castle spun on the sidewalk, the block a riot of police and FBI, his CIA colleagues like ghosts around the fringes. He spotted a drug store across the street and pointed with his walkie talkie. "That. They'll have surveillance-"
"We turned everything off," McCord repeated. "I'm sorry. Beckett thought of everything."
Castle growled and scraped his hand down his face; the walkie chattered and he lifted it to his ear.
"Walker's on his way to you." It was Mitchell, no call sign, no warning, and no good-bye. Castle stood his ground and gestured for Esposito.
"Talk to Rachel, get a statement, and you two figure out the Task Force. You'll need to coordinate these assholes at the NYPD and liaise with the FBI. Espo-"
"I got this," Esposito cut in. "Ryan's with Walker - headed this way."
"Mitch radioed me," he acknowledged. Agent McCord brought Esposito over towards her clump of Secret Service and Attorney General guys, and Castle turned around at the call of his name.
Ryan was hustling the analyst towards him; Walker looked electric with triumph, and while normally Castle would give it to him, this was his fucking wife.
"Walker. I need every bit of intel you scraped together on the Westies."
"The Westies?" Ryan clipped.
"I think so too. Definitely," Walker said in a rush. "Had to be them. This way it looks like an old vendetta against a cop and not Bracken - the one who had a Westies member killed."
"Walker. Tell me."
"Right, right," Walker said. Castle was already yanking him towards his Land Rover, dragging both guys with him. Walker tripped on the curb and Castle hauled him upright, still moving.
"Talk to me, Walker. I need everything you know. They have no reason to keep Beckett alive. Do you understand me?"
"Shit," Ryan swore.
"But they do," Walker said, shaking his head. "They do actually. Malone was carrying half of the solid evidence in that case, and they took it."
"It's not even - it was a fucking print-out. It's not like it was something that can't be replaced."
"I know that, you know that, but it's a diplomatic case. It's sealed and locked. And there's no way to get into it without the combination. Short of like, dynamite or something."
"Isn't that what Bracken wants?" Ryan interrupted. "Destroy evidence?"
"Bracken, yes," Walker nodded, jumping into the backseat and grabbing his seat belt. Castle got behind the wheel and barely waited for Ryan to hop in with him. Walker was still talking fast. "Bracken doesn't care what we know; he wants the evidence destroyed. But the Westies - they'll have their own agenda. Remember, Agent Castle? The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The enemy of my-
"That's us. Beckett. The common enemy."
"Also - the friend. Beckett could be a friend," Walker said, raising his voice to be heard. All of his slickness and charm had gone in the face of a good puzzle, a solid bit of deductive reasoning, and Castle somehow liked him better. And not just because Walker had given them hope.
"Walker. You're telling me they'd let her live so they could get into the case? Get the evidence and use it against Bracken?"
"Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I think they're itching for the opportunity to get out from under Bracken. Finn Rourke takes orders from no man."
Castle gripped the steering wheel harder as they navigated out of the crush of official vehicles. "Walker. Please tell me you have a photographic memory and you know the locations of every single warehouse and stomping ground of the Westies."
"No, sir, I do not have a photographic memory. But I did take the liberty of doing something treasonous."
"What's that?"
"I took a picture of that information on my phone."
"Walker," Castle said tightly. "You're fucking absolved. Immunity. Now tell me where to go. Most likely place."
"New Jersey. Take the Lincoln Tunnel. I'll MapQuest it."
"MapQuest?" Ryan snorted. "Walker, we're the CIA. We have better tools than that."
Castle felt the absurdity of all of it cracking open his chest, and he had to fight down the urge for hysterical laughter.
"Walker," Castle started, pushing it down. "I don't even remember your first name."
"Kenneth. Kenny. It's Ken, sir. I'm sorry, I'm just an analyst. I don't go out in the field."
"Ken, you help me find my wife, you help me with this, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Retirement at twenty-five. I'll take care of it."
"Sir, I - no. I don't want - I'd rather just keep doing my job."
"Fine, that's fine," Castle said. The car went dark as they entered the Tunnel. "Then you get my office, Ken. And you get to stay in the car when Ryan and I go in."
"Oh."
Beside him, Ryan clicked off his seatbelt and climbed into the back, started opening up the cache of weapons Castle always kept stored under the seat.
"Ryan," Castle said shortly. "Call Espo. Tell him and Mitch where to meet us. No one else. No on else can know."
The bounce of tires over something in the road jolted Beckett awake, her cheek smashing against the inside of the trunk. Felt like a damn speed bump and the car doing fifty miles per hour over it.
Her mouth was watering. Blood crusted in her eye from the head wound. She couldn't see, but the trunk was close and dark and it might just be that.
She felt like throwing up, saliva filling her throat, and she swallowed it down, leaned carefully onto her stomach and breathed into the synthetic fibers of the carpet. Oil and bleach.
Oil.
And bleach.
Oh, God.
They'd had to bleach the trunk.
Kate pressed her forehead into the carpet, growling low in her throat to keep it together. Her hands were bound behind her back, her feet trussed, and her knees were half pulled up under her. She rolled to her side, wincing as her shoulder throbbed with pain, but that was the old injury from Tunisia; that she could deal with. A red light filled the trunk and she could sense the car slowing as it made a turn, but her scrambled brain couldn't keep track of the direction.
Not good.
She rotated her ankles, flexed her feet. Duct tape and it was tight, but the good thing about duct tape was once she got it started, it'd be easy to enough to tear. She cautiously lifted her upper body until she hit the underside of the trunk lid, estimated the size of the space.
It had to be the cop car. The fake cop car. The other two vehicles in the ambush had been SUVs. No one was going to stop an NYPD cruiser.
Her arms were beginning to throb in this position, but it afforded her the best opportunity for escape. If she could get her feet free, she could kick out at whoever opened the trunk.
Kate arched her back and slowly brought her heels to her ass until the tips of her fingers brushed her pants. She felt along the material until she could get a sense of where she was, and then she started picking at the tape.
Castle breached the door and stormed inside, shouting FBI and making noise, his automatic shotgun ready to fire.
The warehouse was empty save for a range of high-end automobiles halfway disassembled for parts.
Castle couldn't believe it. Ryan came up at his back with a grunt. "Nothing."
"Fuck." Castle slammed his fist into the metal support beam, felt the crack of knuckles and bone, kicked his foot into it once more to make the pain flood his synapses. "Fucking hell. Fuck." He stalked off, heading back for the door as his chest tightened.
"It's only the first place on the list," Ryan called out, trotting at his side. "There are five more."
"We don't have the fucking time. She doesn't have time." He smacked his hand against the top of the door frame as he passed under it, felt the rattle of pain dance down his arm and up his shoulder.
Walker was out of the car, standing uncertainly halfway to the warehouse. "Is she-?"
Ryan shook his head. "Chop shop." He turned back to Castle and held up a cautioning palm. "Castle. We have five more."
You need to hold it together.
"Okay, okay," Castle said, trying to stay calm. "No one's here, Walker. Where to next?" Walker hadn't been able to give Castle any kind of 'best shot' estimate, but he had plotted all the points on the map and they'd simply driven to the closest one that felt right.
"Next is the Animal Hospital."
"Animal Hospital?" he said, heading for the car. The warehouse district in New Jersey was right off the Tunnel, and it had looked the part, it had felt so right, so right for this, but what if they were totally wrong?
"Animal Hospital," Walker confirmed. "Seacaucus Animal Hospital. Rourke's brother-in-law owns the land that the Animal Hospital uses to rehab their patients. Dense, wooded area. Lots of places to go missing."
"Animal Hospital it is," Castle growled. He slid behind the wheel and started the ignition, carefully laid his automatic shotgun between the seats. Ryan, in his vest and looking like a combat officer, put on his seatbelt.
Castle pulled out of the back loading dock and onto the road. "Walker. Navigate."
"Turn left at the light."
Animal Hospital. Fucking hell.
They had to make it in time. He had to make it in time.
Before she could get the tape peeled away from her ankles, the trunk popped open and five guns were pointed down at her.
Beckett froze.
One reached inside and hauled her out by one of her arms and by the twisted duct tape around her ankles, her ass hitting the lip of the trunk and her head hitting the top. She groaned and swallowed it down, curled inward as she was tossed carelessly to the ground.
Her elbows hit the earth, and she looked up, saw the trees, the sky, felt the cold wash of clouds and smog that covered the sun.
It had started to mist, and the water collected in her hair and snaked down her forehead, made her fingers start to go numb. Five men stood around her in a loose ring, the open trunk and the car only ten feet away. The two SUVs were parked up higher, on something that looked like a service road, while she and the men were in a more wooded area.
Five men. Five guns. Four trained on her, one pointed carefully at the ground. She studied the men as they studied her, and then the one holstered his weapon and threw something in front of her face.
The satchel. Stained with blood. Malone was dead; they had shot Malone for this.
"Open it."
"No."
She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to find her feet, tried to stand, but the one came in close and shoved her roughly back down. She couldn't brace herself; her hands were tied behind her still. Her face hit the satchel, bouncing off the metal case inside, and she ducked her head, tried to pull her knees up again.
"Open it."
She grit her teeth and lifted her head. "I can't open shit with my hands tied behind my back."
Four of them looked as stupid as dirt, but that one. He held up a staying hand when one of the apes moved to untie her; he shook his head and studied her intently.
"No." His gun came back out, but he didn't point it at her. "Open it."
"Fuck you."
He didn't react, but the other four shifted, got nervous. Black leather jackets, tattoos, the reek of beer on the guy closest to her, a familiarity she tried to place. Thugs. They looked like low-level thugs.
Except this one.
"Open it, girlie, or I will make you fucking hurt." He scuffed the dirt with his toe and she saw he was wearing black combat boots - probably steel-toed.
Oh, fuck.
No. He absolutely could not kick her.
Girlie. Who used to say that? Something, someone, somewhere. Memory prodded at her. "Wait, you're Westies. Why the hell are you here for him?"
The leader stepped back, glanced to his comrades. "Think about it. Now open the fucking case."
The case. They wanted this? Some fucking print-outs? Against Bracken. "Why? What does that help you at all? Let us prosecute the bastard, and you do whatever the hell you want - take over his fucking territory."
"Bastard?" a voice rang out. "Well, well. Not very civil of you, Agent Beckett."
Kate lifted her head and saw him coming through the trees, black trench coat, black suit, hands in his pockets.
William Bracken.
She opened her mouth to retort, anger shimmering through her, but stopped. Held her tongue. Waited.
"I need to know what you know," Bracken said as he drew near. His hands came out of the pockets of his trench coat and she saw he wore brown leather gloves. He cracked his knuckles - one at a time - and nodded at the man in charge of the Westies.
She didn't even see it coming. His booted foot tucked into her ribs, kicking with enough force to propel her up and flip her onto her back, agony ricocheting through her body.
She gasped through it, sucking in air, whistling through pain, staring up at the trees, her fingers crunched underneath her. A duller pain, sharp but not sharp enough to really register, pushed against her hands twisted under her back. And then she realized the pain was a thing, and she found it was a rock.
An arrowhead of a rock.
She shifted to arch her back just slightly, gasped when it reverberated in her ribs. But she got the pointed rock against the tape and started digging.
Bracken came over and filled her field of vision, looming above her and blocking out the scrap of sky.
"I need," Bracken started slowly, "to know. What. You. Know."
Her head was swimming, her ribs shifting with pain; she turned her head and vomited on his shoes, felt a hundred times worse.
"Nice," Bracken said acidly. "Open the case, Agent Beckett. I need to know what I have to fight against."
If she did, they'd shoot her the moment it was open. If she didn't...
Her guts clenched.
"No," she whispered, still sawing away at the duct tape. The boot caught her hip this time and made her yelp, but she held on to the rock, held on, held on, her body in a rictus of pain, rolling in the dirt.
"This can go on for a number of hours," Bracken said. "But I fear my hours in this city are drawing to a close. Eddie. Kill her."
No.
No, no, no. This was not how Castle was going to find out. He was not going to get the news from a fucking autopsy report.
She refused to let that moment get stolen from him, from her. She was not dying today.
And then the duct tape broke.
Bracken was already walking away.
Ryan punched the phone on speaker and held it up. Esposito's voice came through clearly as Castle sped down I-95.
"We know how they did it. Barricaded the cross streets for the whole block with NYPD cruisers, came in with two SUVs and took Beckett cleanly. One of those - an Officer Barry Kovakevic - radioed in when dispatch did roll call, but a witness statement IDs him as being in the area. A woman was running towards the officer, and Kovak body slammed her onto his car."
Kate.
"Where's this fucking asshole right now?" Castle gritted out.
"We've GPS tracked his cruiser and he's in Seacaucus, New Jersey, off I-95."
"Any chance that's adjacent to an Animal Hospital?" Ryan put in.
"Let me zoom in," Espo said on the other end.
Castle's heart was frantic in his chest; he nudged up their speed.
"Be on the lookout for the exit," Walker said from the back seat. "It's coming up."
"Yeah, think so," Esposito said. "Yeah, here it is on the map. Seacaucus Animal Hospital. Sitting just off the property. Or well, could be their property still."
Adrenaline surged in Castle's bloodstream and he prayed to God that the regimen made him damn near invincible. He gripped the steering wheel and caught the sign with his eyes, took the exit ramp at a hundred miles an hour, barely slowed to make the turn onto the country highway.
"Whoa," Ryan said.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," he answered Espo. "I need you here ASAP."
"We're about ten minutes out."
"We don't have five minutes," Castle barked. "I need you here right now. Ryan and I are going in alone."
"Fuck."
"Wait!"
Bracken paused.
"Wait, I'll - tell you. I'll tell you," she croaked. Buying time. Just some time. Her hands were free; she needed a plan.
Bracken turned around and his chin nodded towards her.
Eddie, the leader, dragged her upright and on her knees; she shook and slumped backwards, feigning a dizziness she actually did feel, and the man yanked her up again.
"So tell," Bracken said, coming back to her and flexing his fingers in his brown leather gloves.
"The case," she started, letting her head tilt to one side like it was too heavy to keep up. It hurt to breathe. "Case against you. It's airtight."
A plan, a plan. She needed to do this. Had to do this. Castle had no way of knowing where she'd been taken, and this was happening now - the end was now.
"Airtight."
She needed something, something good, attention; she needed to keep his attention. "We have people on tape."
"People?" That had done it. He was interested.
"Key people. Witnesses. On the record. Giving grand jury testimony."
"Grand jury," Eddie hissed. His eyes narrowed at Bracken and Beckett realized they'd been left in the dark. It gave her a way in, gave her confidence.
"Where'd you think I was this afternoon, boys? Overseeing the case in front of the grand jury. That was a federal building, you know. It's rife with surveillance cameras - they got your faces on video. They'll come for you. I'm a federal agent."
"Fucking hell," one of the apes shouted.
"Shut up, Frank," Eddie spat back at him. "The cameras were all turned off."
Who the fuck had told them that?
"And you," Eddie said, rounding on Bracken. "You're up before a grand jury?"
"I did not know this infor-"
"Crew!" Eddie snapped and the apes jerked their weapons towards Bracken.
Kate sank down on her heels and started sawing on the tape at her feet, trying not to attract their attention.
"Can we finish this first?" Bracken sneered. His bravado was so well-done that it actually came across as command. Eddie glanced to his Westies crew and they eased up on the triggers, but at least half the weapons were still pointed at Bracken.
And not at Kate.
"We get what she knows first," Bracken went on, "and then you get what you want."
The one closest to her, the ape who had been about to untie her, was one of the idiots not pointing a weapon her direction.
"Or maybe," Eddie said with a sneer, "maybe, I take what I want."
She felt the tape giving way around her ankles. She sucked in a slow - slow, agonizing - breath, trying to steady herself. Her body ached so badly she had trouble keeping it in, but she lifted carefully back to her knees and shifted to get half her foot against the ground.
Crouched.
"The Westies are a two-bit organization. Even if you took control, Eddie Rourke, you'd still have control of nothing."
It wasn't Finn; it was Eddie who had made a deal with Bracken.
Kate calculated her odds. Six men, five carrying, one a maybe. Four weapons out right now, and two of them were on Bracken.
But two were on her.
"Who gave testimony against me?" Bracken said, turning back to her. "Tell me or I'll shoot you. Make it slow."
Where? Where would he shoot her? Arm? Knee? She could survive; they'd survive that for a while.
"Agent Beckett. I am not playing around. Tell me who so I can deal with them. And I'll make yours merciful."
"The list is endless," she lied. "It goes on and on. Everyone is jumping at the chance to turn against you. Right, Eddie?"
Eddie's gaze snapped back to her so quickly, she knew she'd made a mistake. She shouldn't have drawn his attention. Now he knew she was planning.
He narrowed his eyes. "Frank. Check her wrists and ankles. Here." He tossed the roll of duct tape towards the ape closest to her, and this was it.
This was the only chance she'd get.
Make her move now, or die.