The Mettle of a Man
Summary – How far would Castle go to protect his friends at the 12th and at what personal cost to himself and his relationship to the team? This takes place between "The Belly of the Beast" and "Veritas". Does not include any spoilers for "Veritas".
Author's notes – Sorry, keep getting errors when trying to post so I'm trying a workaround. Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favs. And yes, apparently if you have the "right" software unknowingly installed on your computer and have a webcam (like most laptops now have), someone can watch and listen to you from your computer – really disturbing and the webcam on my laptop now has a sticky note over it. And I'm making up stuff about how the 12th murder division floor is laid out. We know that you can't see the interrogation room from the bullpen (and vice versa), and I'm assuming there is the elevator in the middle and 2 stairwells, one on each end of the building.
Disclaimer – Don't own Castle; Marlowe, ABC, and Disney do. Just writing for fun and because I have these weird plot bunnies that pop into my head.
Chapter 3 – The Set Up
The mayor and commissioner quickly gave their approval for Looking Glass to be used to scope out the situation in the 12th bullpen.
While Martinez was bringing up the spy software on one of the laptops, Castle was sketching a layout of the bullpen on a large sheet of paper fastened next to a large screen set up against the wall so that they would know what they were working with.
The large screen flared to life, showing 4 different views of the homicide bullpen.
"The top left is the view from Detective Beckett's PC," Martinez said. They could see Beckett sitting stiffly in her chair, her hands behind her back, a man standing to her left, holding a gun on her.
"How the hell did they get guns past the metal detectors?" said a man by the front door.
At the sound of the voice, Castle glanced up from where he was working. Smiling slightly, he quickly walked over to greet the man.
"Coope, you're looking good as usual," he said as they shook hands and thumped each other on the back.
"You too," the man said.
Castle then nodded at the other man who had come in with Coope. "Sorenson."
"Castle," Sorenson nodded back.
Castle turned back to Coope. "Have you two met?"
"Unofficially in the elevator," said Cooper. "Cooper Peterson, CIA regional director," he said in a way of greeting and held out his hand to Sorenson.
"Will Sorenson, FBI," replied Sorenson as they shook hands. "I've been called in to head the FBI part of the task force."
"I look forward to working with you," said Peterson. He looked back at the screen. "What are the other views?"
"And the top right is the view from Detective Ryan's PC," Martinez continued. That view showed almost the same view as from Beckett's desk.
"The bottom left is the view from Detective Esposito's desk."
Everyone in the room paused as that view showed Esposito, Ryan, and Gates sitting in chairs, their mouths duct-taped, arms behind their backs, and two men standing behind them, guns pointed at them.
"And the bottom right view is from Captain Gate's desk," Martinez finished. The bullpen was eerily quiet.
Frowning, Peterson studied the screen. "No masks – that's not a good sign. So what are we looking at, Rick?"
"The team got a body drop on Tuesday – a 'John Doe' was murdered and had a briefcase containing the 4th Teller will. Those men must be looking for it." Castle studied the screen intently, his eyes narrowing. "I've seen the man standing behind Kate before."
"Have they made any demands?" asked Sorenson.
"No," Castle said, shaking his head. "They don't know that we know they're there. But Kate – Detective Beckett – knows that we know."
Peterson looked at Castle. "So how did you find out?"
"Lanie – Dr. Parish – told me about the will," Castle said, nodding at the medical examiner. "Then when I called Kate to check on her, I called her kitten and she didn't hang up on me. And then she asked for cheeseburgers for dinner, which means danger – you know, my mom is hosting a party here, Captain Gates is looking for you, a killer is holding you hostage…"
Lanie walked up to the men as Castle finished.
"Dr. Parish, this is Cooper Peterson. He was in the group I shadowed at the CIA," Castle said as a way of introduction. "You already know Sorenson."
Lanie shook hands with Peterson and nodded at Sorenson. "Will, it's been a while."
"Run facial recognition," Peterson said to Martinez. He turned back to Lanie. "Dr. Parish, have you been able to identify the victim?"
Lanie shook her head. "No, but I have the autopsy report with me. I was taking it to the other medical examiner for him to review."
Peterson nodded. "Good – show me."
Lanie pulled the flash drive out of her purse and gave it to another agent, who pulled up the file. "The victim has no fingerprints and isn't in any of the databases we can access."
Peterson frowned when he saw the man's picture. "Yes, he's definitely one of ours. 'Mr. Black' went off grid about 2 weeks ago and we haven't been able to trace him since then."
He looked back at the screen. "If they already had the will, they would have left by now. Dr. Parish, do you know where the will is?"
Lanie nodded. "It was in the lab the last I heard."
"Can you find out exactly where it is now?" said Peterson.
"Okay," said Lanie as she pulled out her phone and put it on speaker.
"Lab – this is Trent."
"Hi, Trent, this is Dr. Parish. You know that will that was brought in Tuesday on the 'John Doe' case?"
"Yeah, it's here. Brandy has it checked out."
"I need to see it," Lanie said. "Is it okay if I send someone to pick it up?"
"Well, you'll have to wait in line. Detective Beckett asked for it just a little while ago," Trent replied.
"Has she picked it up yet?" Lanie asked.
"No, Brandy is at dinner. I told her that I would have Brandy call her when she gets back."
"Do you know how soon Brandy is going to be back?"
"I think she went shoe shopping, so probably another 45 minutes," Trent said.
"Okay, thanks," said Lanie. "Would you have her call me before she calls Detective Beckett?"
"Sure," said Trent.
Lanie hung up the phone and turned to the men. "So they don't have the will yet. That's good, right?"
Peterson shook his head. "Not necessarily, but it does buy us some time."
Martinez looked up from his computer. "I've got a match on the men. The man standing behind Detective Beckett is Miles Weaver – he was a systems analyst in our Far East region before he retired 4 years ago. The man standing to the left of Detective Esposito is Ronald Giamundo, a small-time muscle man with a string of misdemeanors but no convictions. The man standing to the right of Captain Gates is Kangwon Yong , suspected for being a North Korean agent."
Castle snapped his fingers. "I know I knew Weaver from someplace. Specs – he was the one of the systems analysts on the drop scenarios that we ran."
"Agent Sorenson," said one of the FBI agents, "they found the truck for the elevator maintenance service in the alley behind the precinct – both of the repairmen are dead. There's also a service truck for vending machines and that man is dead. And it looks like the elevator is stopped manually on the 4th floor."
"That's not good," commented Peterson. He walked over to the layout Castle had drawn and studied it. "So what are our options, people? The clock is ticking."
"We could always call and negotiate," one agent said, "but then they would have the advantage of having hostages."
Peterson shook his head. "We don't negotiate."
"The stairwell doors are locked from the inside except for the first floor," another agent said. "We could have SWAT take out the door closest to the hostages and breech the area."
Castle's head snapped up. "They wouldn't be able to get to them soon enough. Someone could get killed."
"We could wait until they leave and then take them," Sorenson suggested. "But they aren't wearing masks, so either they don't care that they've been seen or they aren't planning on leaving any witnesses behind."
"How about gas in the ventilation system?" said another agent. "We could knock them out and then have SWAT breech the area."
The police commissioner shook his head. "There's a common ventilation system, so that wouldn't work without affecting the entire building."
"So that's not an option either," said Peterson. "Are all of them working the case?"
"Kate, Javi, and Kevin are," answered Lanie. "I'm not sure why Captain Gates is there."
"I can help with that one," said the commissioner. "She has a background in Internal Affairs, so I've asked her to look into why some high-profile cases are falling apart before they go to trial."
"So you think someone internal is fixing things?" asked Castle.
"That's a good possibility," the commissioner responded.
Castle stared at the layout before looking at Peterson. "Could we run a drop scenario? Get someone on the inside to diffuse the situation?"
"What are you thinking, Rick?" asked Peterson.
"Specs knows how these wills work. You put the set together and use a cypher to decrypt them to get the formula. When we ran the drop scenarios, we would call a number each time we found a will and give the person the date of the will and the city," Castle said. "That way, that person knew which cypher would decrypt the wills and then would bring it to a rendezvous location."
"So we get someone on the inside, the person has the cypher?" Sorenson asked. "How's that going to help? Won't that just give them another hostage?"
Castle shook his head. "Not if we do it right. We need a way to separate Beckett and the others from the men; otherwise, anything we do could result in one or more of them being hurt or killed," he explained. "And we can't gas the entire building, but what if we turned off the ventilation and then used something to knock the men out? Then SWAT could come in from both stairwells and take control of the situation."
Peterson nodded, rubbing his chin. "That has possibilities. We'd have to use someone who Weaver knows though to make it plausible though – someone who has knowledge about the wills and a reason why they would want to decipher them. And we'd need to get the cypher. What were the specifics of the will?"
"Teller left his oldest son a tire store in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; his youngest son a bait shop in Hanford, Washington; and his daughter a bikini shop in Santa Fe," Castle responded.
"New Mexico or Texas?" Peterson asked.
"Uh, New Mexico," said Lanie after a moment.
Peterson nodded again and brought up a browser on his phone. After a few moments, he said, "That would be the Teller wills Argonne version."
Castle and Lanie looked at each other.
"Do you think this will work?" she whispered.
Castle shook his head. "I don't know, but we have to do something."
Peterson looked at Castle. "Sorry, it's not going to work. The asset who created the cypher is currently on assignment and incommunicado."
Castle ran a hand through his hair. "What if we used another one?"
"No," said Peterson, shaking his head. "Dr. Jenkins had a unique way of creating cyphers; none of our standard ones will work and we don't have time to figure out the cypher she used."
"Dr. Jenkins?" Castle asked. "Libby Jenkins?"
"And why does it not surprise me that you know her?" said Peterson.
"She tutored Alexis in math for a couple of weeks," Castle responded. "And we dated for a while."
Peterson frowned at Castle. "Rick, what part of non-fraternization do you not understand? And really, Libby?"
"It happened several months after I had finished shadowing the CIA. And we were both consenting adults," said Castle. "But the point is that she showed me how she did these cyphers. I've got the notes here."
Castle rushed into his study and pulled out a box from the bottom of one of the shelves. He rummaged through it for a minute and then pulled out a spiral notebook.
"Here," he said, opening the notebook to a page to show Peterson. "Here's part of the will and here's her cypher. These cyphers look hard to decrypt but were made to be broken fairly easily because that was the whole point of the exercise – getting false intel into the hands of your enemy as a weapon of destruction."
Peterson frowned at Castle again. "And what part of not taking anything did you not understand?"
"I had permission," Castle replied.
"And who gave you that permission?"
"Sophia Turner," Castle said and then paused. "Which in retrospect was probably not the best idea." He looked at Peterson questioningly. "But these aren't real, right?"
Peterson shook his head in return and smiled. "No, of course not." He took the book and handed it to Martinez. "See what you can come up with. Now how is the rest of this plan of yours going to work?" he asked Castle.
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Beckett jumped slightly when her desk phone rang. The lab extension displayed on the LCD.
Weaver motioned with his gun and then picked up the receiver and held it to her ear.
"Detective Beckett," she said.
"Detective Beckett, this is Brandy in the lab. Trent said you needed the will from the John Doe case?"
"Yes," Beckett replied. "We'd like to get the names off of it so we can start tracking any relatives down. They might be able to identify the victim."
"Sure."
"Uh, Brandy, I'm right in the middle of something. Do you have time to bring it up?"
"No problem."
"Thanks. And the elevator is out so I'll meet you at the north stairwell."
"Okay. I'll be up in a few."
Weaver hung up the phone and motioned for Beckett to turn around. He quickly cut the zip ties holding her hands. "Don't think about trying anything, detective. Otherwise, your team dies."
Beckett nodded as she brought her arms forward to rub her wrists. "Understood."
He grabbed her arm and walked her to the door. They waited for the knock and then Weaver nodded to Beckett to open the door as he stepped out of view.
"Here you go, Detective Beckett," said the buxomly blonde, handing Beckett a plastic bag with the will inside. "Just be sure to wear gloves and return it when you're finished."
Beckett nodded. "Thanks. I will."
She shut the door and then frowned as there was a knock.
"Detective Beckett, it's me, Brandy. I forgot something," came the voice from the other side.
Weaver motioned Beckett forward again and she cracked the door open.
Brandy smiled at her, holding out a folded note. "Would you give this to Rick? I really appreciate all of his help on the book I'm writing. Especially that scene I just couldn't work out. He really has a way with words. Thanks."
Puzzled, Beckett frowned slightly and took the note. "Yeah, next time I see him, I'll give this to him."
"Thanks, Detective," Brandy said.
Beckett and Weaver had walked a few steps back towards the bullpen when a knock sounded on the door again.
"Now what?" muttered Weaver as he motioned for Beckett to open the door.
"What is it, Brandy?" Beckett said as she opened the door and then froze.
"Hey, kitten," said Castle, holding several bags from Remy's. "Since you couldn't come to dinner, I thought I'd bring dinner to you. What's wrong with the elevator?"
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