Close Encounters 17

Castle stood as the Director entered the room, shook the man's hand. The Director had the firm grip of a long-time covert operative - intimidating Castle even as he was sizing him up.

"Thank you for seeing me," Castle said.

"If you've come for another favor," the Director boomed. "I'm fresh out."

Castle gritted his teeth and waited until the Director moved around his desk and sat down before Castle sat himself. "I need a favor," he said without remorse.

"Richard."

"I need access to Maine."

The Director frowned. "We still haven't found where the FBI is hiding him?"

"That's incorrect, sir - we've just found him. Finally. A farmhouse in North Carolina of all places. But it's heavily fortified, as you can imagine, and we're not looking for an incursion."

"Oh, hell, no, Richard. We are not. Let me make that absolutely clear. We cannot afford American lives to be lost-"

"No, sir. I know. Beckett would kick my ass out on the street. We're not going up against the FBI down there. But I need a face-to-face with Maine. He was getting fed information from inside the CIA, sir, and we have yet to discover the leak."

The Director leaned forward and scraped a hand down his face. "You're sure."

It wasn't a question, but Castle answered anyway. "Yes, sir. I'm sure. And they're still doing it - leaking stuff to the media. That footage from the security system inside the FBI? That's not a run of the mill source. The audio tapes from the NSA surveillance - we had that buttoned up. In fact, I thought we had that erased."

"Shit."

Castle crossed his leg over his knee and settled back into the chair, feigning a calm he didn't at all feel. Kate was nine weeks pregnant and still under house arrest, and now the fucking FBI wanted to mess around with the investigation, 'take it slow' so they had 'all their ducks in a row' and if Congress held an inquiry, it would never go away.

She'd be testifying before the Committee and everyone would know - everything - and then it would get back to his father about the pregnancy.

He had to find that damn leak.

"All right. I'll call the Attorney General and have him contact the FBI Chief."

Castle nodded; he knew the Director called the FBI Director 'Chief' in a derogatory manner since the position hadn't been labeled 'chief' since the 1920s. A direct meeting between the two would never get them what they needed.

"Richard," the Director said slowly, rubbing his thumb and forefinger from his nose and out along his eyebrows as if smoothing the unruly, white hairs. "Richard, about your father."

Castle's breath was suddenly too fast; he fiercely tamped down the reaction and regained control. "My father, sir."

"I - uh - I have an order on my desk requesting his termination at all costs."

"Yes, sir, I'd figured as much," he answered truthfully. He hadn't told Kate that, but he didn't want her adding one more thing to worry about. A Capture/Kill order meant they would like him alive, but they weren't going to be picky. It had been bound to happen after all of this.

"Then consider yourself warned of the CIA's - and the AG's - intentions in regards to John Black. Son, do you know of any aliases?"

"John Black is his alias," Castle grit out. "And no, I don't know his real name. Though one night - twenty years ago or more - when I was first... I found a stash of his old passports. Things he was supposed to have turned in for burning. All variations on John or Jack - and the last names were... oh, I remember thinking they were code words for ongoing projects."

"Projects?" the Director muttered. "Elaborate."

"Like the name he used - Black itself - there was a Black Arrow going on. Black Ranger, Black Forest - Black Bird was another mission. Fox Hunt, Magic Hunt, Fox Brook Run... you know what happens - all the names keep getting circled back around time after time. Like all these latest ones are Enduring Freedom and Free Bird and Long Deliverance. They sound like porn videos for the Army."

The Director actually snorted, lifted baleful but amused eyes to Castle.

It's possible Castle should have censored that last part.

The Director moved on without comment. "So you remember that the names on those passports were current operation codes at the time?" The Director steepled his fingers and narrowed his eyes. "Hunt. Fox. Black. Forest. All right. I can work with that, get a guy to circle names from that era and see what comes up."

"Yes, sir. You might find him. I will do whatever you need to help in that endeavor."

"You also understand - don't you, Richard? - that if he approaches you, you take the shot."

His mouth went dry. "Sir, I'd like nothing better, but I promised my wife..."

"Richard, you and I both know that he cannot be allowed out there with the secrets he knows. With what he has access to. How many moles in your outfit are there?"

He didn't know. He couldn't know how many people were still loyal to his father despite everything. It could be anyone, because Black had been in charge of the Eastern European sector for a long, long time. And before that... there'd been military projects, CIA black ops, Special Forces. Black had a thousand contacts and hundreds of resources spread over the globe.

The Director cleared his throat. "You understand me?"

"Yes, sir," he said finally. But the truth of it was, even when he'd made that promise to Kate, he'd thought he would kill the man next time. "Yes, sir. You put in writing that I and my wife have immunity for that act, and I will not disappoint you."

"Immunity."

Castle didn't move, didn't blink.

"All right." The Director chuckled and reached for his reading glasses, slid them on. "You'll have it. Now let me see about arranging a meeting with Maine."

Kate was in the middle of bitching to the dog again - just talking out loud - when her eyes caught the line on the internal audit report and her breath left her.

Mitchell had done what?

She startled the dog with her hasty jump off the couch, but Kate didn't spare Sasha a glance. The report shook as she frantically flipped pages, backtracking to be sure she wasn't reading it wrong. The files from the Congo - she had never thought they'd actually give her something that related to this. But the code name - the code name was the same.

Had Mitchell contacted the listening station in Tunisia?

No. No, that couldn't be what it meant. Mitchell had only been called Lighthouse on missions with Black in charge, and for Lighthouse to show up in the Congo files meant nothing in and of itself. It could just reference a time when having regular communication with Black was legal and right. Mitchell had told them he'd done things for Black he wasn't proud of, like sedating Castle at Ramstein when he'd tried to fly a plane back to Russia.

But the line items on the internal audit were right here in front of her, connection dates and times - nineteen of them as she counted rapidly, and five of those times were for over an hour long. Lighthouse. It wasn't his work station, and it wasn't his log in handle, but it was his encrypted mission ID embedded in the connection request. Just like she'd found her own encryption ID in the requests she'd sent to Tunisia as well.

She hadn't known then that there were so many layers of checks and balances to the system, but she hadn't been thinking clearly then, hadn't been - not really - trying to hide what she was doing. Not even Ryan had known this stuff until the auditor had gone through it with them.

Mitchell hadn't seen any of this yet; he was working on her case, trying to handle the FBI. He had no idea how deep the auditor had gone, but he'd asked her questions lately, asked if they were getting anywhere.

Lighthouse. Contacting Tunisia steadily, an hour, five minutes, twenty seconds. Back when Reynolds had been in charge, but also when Black had taken over.

"No," she said out loud, shaking her head. "No. It's not - this isn't right."

Kate gathered all of the connection traffic reports - and there were reams of them - and she laid everything out over every surface of their kitchen counters. One twelve-hour shift at a time. Methodically, she started going back through them, paying strict attention as she stood hunched over the counter, ignoring the ache that had started in her ribs at the position.

It couldn't be Mitchell.

Lighthouse wasn't him.

Castle nodded to Esposito who had taken guard duty on the elevators, and he strode down the hall to their door. It was locked, which was weird, but he unlocked it and came inside the apartment.

It was a really nice place, fitting for a wealthy accountant and his top-tier-payment detective wife. It wasn't the penthouse which he'd heard had once been home to some tv producer, but it wasn't a bad place to be under house arrest in.

Kate was standing at the kitchen counter, poring over reports, chewing on her bottom lip viciously. She looked amazing - stunning and tall and filled with light - and again his suspicions about those damn supplemental pills wriggled in his brain like a worm.

Castle sighed and tossed his accountant's briefcase over near the couch; it slid and hit the coffee table, but he didn't care. He was tired and he felt wrong about the meeting with the Director and his father coming into it, and then knowing that Beckett was carrying around some potentially dangerous DNA didn't make him feel better about any of it.

It was all a time bomb. Kate was carrying around a-

No, he didn't - it wasn't that. It was just - the unknown of it and how it might hurt Kate - he didn't want it to hurt Kate. He couldn't survive it if he'd been the cause.

Castle shrugged his shoulders out of his suit jacket, threw it over the couch, and came for her at the kitchen counter. She stiffened when he embraced her, like she hadn't even heard him, but she dropped the highlighter and cupped the side of his face, turning into him.

She hugged him harder, buried her face in his neck, breathing in shallowly like she'd gotten into the habit of doing. He felt better for it, stupid as it was to be swayed by a simple touch, but she was still stiff, tense.

"What's up?" he murmured.

"I just - I don't know. I might have something," she said.

"That's good," he insisted, letting go of her and glancing at the reports. Looked like connection traffic - good place to start. "Is this-"

"No," she said, snatching it out of his hands. "I don't know what it is yet. I'm still looking."

He stared at her and she blushed - she was always flushing pink these days, like the blood was close to the surface and ready to rise at a moment's notice. She ducked her head and her hair fell forward; he reached out and tucked the strand behind her ear, but it didn't want to stay.

"Kate."

"I haven't figured it out," she said. "I don't want to say until I have more."

"Okay," he chuckled. She was turning and gathering the pages all together in one pile, but he stayed her hands. "No, don't mess up all your hard work. I won't look and beat you to it."

"You wish," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. He grinned and pushed a kiss in against her cheek. She smelled like lemons and the dog and too much time indoors.

"It's pretty outside today," he murmured. "I think it's warm."

"You're never an accurate barometer. I'd probably need a coat," she growled, pushing him away.

"Wouldn't that be thermometer," he asked, only to get a withering glance - you know what I meant. Castle shrugged and let her push him to the living room. "I got the Director to set up a meeting with the FBI - go over their heads to get custody of Maine."

"Oh?" She was pulling a bottle of wine from the cooling fridge. He shook his head and she sighed at him, but it wasn't like he could drink for her - so he might as well abstain too.

"The Director asked me to kill him."

"Maine?" she hissed. And then she immediately realized. "Your dad."

"He's not my dad, Kate."

"Sorry, I - sorry," she murmured. "No. He's not."

"Your dad is more my dad than he ever-"

"I know, baby. I know. It's just habit because mine is, and I'm a little stir crazy. But the Director wants you to-"

"Well, not an active thing. It's not a mission, there's no task force. Not yet anyway."

"You said - I know you told me you would if he showed up again," she said quietly. "I don't think that's our best course of action, but Castle I... I don't know."

"That's pretty much the last thing we need to think about right now," he told her. She was pulling ingredients out of the fridge and arranging them on the dining room table. Apparently he was making them dinner - and she was keeping him out of the kitchen, away from her investigation.

"What did the Director say about Maine?"

"He'll get us custody."

"Okay, good," she said, handing him a package of ground turkey. "Good. We need that. We need him to talk. Did you ever find that guy who knew Maine in the service?"

"Yeah, Mitchell is talking to him."

She flinched and he lifted an eyebrow, ripping off the plastic on the meat. She turned away from him and put a pot on the stove top, flipped on the burner. When she came back to him for the meat, he shook his head and dropped the turkey into the pot himself.

"So what was that look for?" he said.

"I was thinking about our dinner. We've run out of spaghetti sauce." She went back to the stove and adjust the temperature, pulled a wooden spoon out of the drawer. "What else can we make?"

"I'll run down to the corner store and get some," he offered. "Not a problem."

She groaned and Castle turned back to look at her. "What?"

"I'm so sick of being stuck inside this place."

He winced and grabbed her by the wrist, drew her in against his chest. "I know. It sucks. But this will end; we're working on it and we'll get there. The Director will get us custody of Maine and then it's all easy after that."

She nodded, detached from him to open the pantry. "I'm fine. Just frustrated. Go, Castle. Get us a few jars, okay?"

He watched her for a moment more, and then he turned to head back out. He'd get her something extra - flowers or that sparkling water that was orange-flavored and reminded her of Italy. Something to make her smile.

Beckett smoothed her fingers along the edges of the laptop screen, tried to come up with some other conclusions than the one staring her in the face.

It was Mitchell.

It couldn't be Mitchell.

The door alarm on her phone buzzed to let her know Ryan had made it, so Beckett scrambled off the couch to get let him in before Castle could come out of the study. From behind her, she heard Sasha jump up and follow her, and she tucked the laptop under one arm to skim her free hand over the top of the dog's head.

"Good girl," she murmured. "But it's just Ryan."

She opened the front door and her old partner stood there with a paper box full of reports.

"Got the stuff you asked for. And Melanie wants to know if you found something," Ryan said, coming inside and taking the box to the dining room table.

"I don't know what I've found," she muttered. In a strange display of dog-like behavior, Sasha jumped up and put her paws on the dining room table, nudging in close to Kate, her nose searching.

Ryan laughed and set down the box. "That's weird. Never seen her act like a dog before."

"I'm ruining her," Kate smiled. "All this time cooped up with me."

Ryan petted Sasha between ears, and Kate watched the dog close her eyes and lean into it like a cat. She shook her head and opened up the paper box, sighed at the amount of work there was still to do.

"Seriously though, Beckett, you've been asking the auditors for some really specific stuff. You got a lead?"

She bit her lip and looked past Ryan to the study door. Castle had been on a conference call with a couple guys posted in Berlin, but he'd be through at any moment.

"I've found something," she said finally. "But I don't know what it is."

"Enough to ask. Enough to worry," Ryan insisted. "And not tell Castle."

"Enough to make me cautious," she said finally. "If I bring this to him now, without being as certain as I can, and I'm wrong?"

"Who is it?" Ryan said. "Just tell me and I'll keep an eye out. If it's that bad, Beckett, you've got to tell someone."

She pressed her hands to the table and Sasha nosed in under her wrist, sniffing at the paper box. She rubbed absently at Sasha's fur and tried to find a way to say it. But it just had to be said.

"Mitch," she said finally. "Things that I don't... just keep an eye on him, Ryan."

Her friend sank down to the dining room chair, stared at his hands. "Mitch is the one... he's - it can't be. We're sunk if it's him."

"Don't say anything," she warned. "Don't do anything. Just - someone on the outside should know and if I told Castle, I don't know what he'd do. He and Mitch are best friends."

"I know," Ryan said, bobbing his head. "Okay. I can - but you have to tell him soon. After what you did going after Black, this isn't the time for secrets."

She gave him a fierce look, struck to the core by how casual that accusation had come. But he was right. She had very little trust on reserve with Castle right now, and keeping secrets was a bad idea.

"I'm putting together everything I've got before I say something," she told him. "But either way - if I've proved him innocent or guilty, I'll take it to Castle by Friday. After the doctor's appointment."

Ryan didn't look happy, but neither was she.

It couldn't be Mitchell.

But no one else was Lighthouse.

"I don't know what's going on," he growled. Kate shot him a look and he tried to tone it down, but the Director was giving him the runaround. "This doesn't make any sense."

"I'm sure it's some political thing," Kate said finally. She was sitting at the dining room table with the dog under her chair. "It's taking more time than he thought."

Castle pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sank down into it, resting his elbows on the wood top. "You still have the sonogram she did?" he murmured.

Kate nodded, her fingers worrying at the edges of the stack of papers in front of her. "Hey, I need to talk to you about something."

"I thought Dr Dennison said everything is fine?"

"Not about that," she amended, laying her hand in the crook of his bent elbow. "I changed the subject on you. Wait. Let me get the picture she printed for us."

Kate stood and leaned in, kissing his forehead, and then she headed back for their bedroom. He knew she'd hidden it away somewhere, and he watched her move as he sat at the table, the long lines, the ease. Her ribs still hurt her, he knew, but the bruises had faded to mottled yellows and blacks and she was doing a pretty good job of ignoring it.

She'd only taken a grand total of three of those muscle relaxers, but at least she could sleep without waking every couple hours.

"Here it is," she said, coming back through the living room with the little square of paper in her hands. He pushed his chair out from under the table and took her by the wrist, drew her into his lap. Kate gave a surprised little laugh and leaned back against the edge of the table, pulling one knee up into his lap to side-saddle him.

He grinned back at her and wrapped his hand around hers, the ultrasound between them. "There he is," he said softly. Castle was determined not to let this day be marred by political maneuverings of the CIA and FBI; he wanted to remember this later as something happy, untainted. "Or she. Could still be girl."

"Not if he knows what's good for him," she laughed. Kate shifted in his lap and the photo rippled with her movement, almost like the baby was moving. He'd gotten to see the gray and black swirling around on the screen, this image one more to join the other still on the fridge at their house.

Kate came to lean in against him, her arm up at his chest to keep her ribs away, but she was smiling now. She hadn't been smiling all week until today. Castle kissed her softly and curled his fingers around the photo, brought it to his chest. "Can I keep it?"

"Yeah," she said, her fingers untangling from his. "Take it home. Where it'll be safe."

"I will," he nodded, swallowing thickly. "I'll do that." He rubbed her back with his free hand and glanced once more to the photo before sliding it into his breast pocket. "What'd you want to tell me about?"

She sat up straight and pressed her palm at his pocket, her face turning earnest and serious. "Castle, I think I've found something. And I need you to stay calm and walk through it with me, step by step, so we can be sure."

His heart dropped. "The leak?"

She nodded and stood up, reached for the sheaf of papers she'd collected in front of her earlier. He watched her lay one page after another in front of him and he scanned the reports to figure out what he was supposed to be seeing.

"You know who?" he asked, reading connection reports and alert edits and helicopter fuel requests. He had no idea what he was looking at.

"I have - there are suspicious things. I don't know what I know, Castle, honestly, and I've been looking at this stuff all week."

"All week?"

"I told Ryan," she said hurriedly. "And he's been keeping an eye on things out there, but I wanted to have something to bring you first."

He rubbed a hand down his face and let out a grunt. "If it's - if you've been sitting on this for a week, then it's bad. It's someone we're close to."

She nodded, that lower lip pulled into her teeth.

He laid his hands flat on the dining room table, remembered the photo in his pocket. Time to do this. "Okay. Lay it on me."

Her husband only stared.

She leaned forward and wrapped her hands around his knee, both of them hunched over the dining room table. The moment she touched him it was like a shock jolted through his body and he startled, his eyes flying up to hers.

"Mitchell," he breathed. The evidence wasn't even damning; that was the worst part about it, that the evidence was a thin daisy chain of one event after another, because that thinness made it more likely. Mitchell was good and so the evidence he left behind would be this slim, this tenuous.

"Castle," she said quietly. "It's not - this isn't proof of anything. Remember what you said to me? It's not the whole story."

"That was about you," he said harshly. "Of course they're wrong about you. This is..."

"Mitch," she said. "This is Mitch. And a few encrypted mission IDs don't make a case. Just suspicions."

"I'm gonna rip his-"

"Castle," she said sharply, tightening her fingers around his knee and cutting him off. "No, you're not. We'll present this to the team and we'll make a rational decision."

"He sold us out. He sold you out, Kate. These damn reports - he never even tried to look for you in Russia. Fuel requests are - that's something you don't think to alter, that's too detailed for a guy like Mitchell. This says there was one flight from that base and it was my fucking father on that chopper going out and coming back, and no more fuel requests."

"The base does have flight plans logged for the other helicopter," she reminded him. "That says Lighthouse went out four times, so Mitchell was looking for me."

"But no fuel requests. It doesn't match up," Castle argued. "Are you on his side? After everything you just told me - you can't possibly think it's not him."

She swallowed. "I don't want it to be him."

"But it is," Castle growled. He slammed his fist into the table and stood up, pacing clear of her. He was angry. She knew he'd be angry - shit, angry was an understatement - but she hadn't really expected wounded.

And why not? They were friends. Castle had been closer to Eastman through the years, but after Mark had been killed, Mitchell had fulfilled so much of that handler and friend role.

It wasn't a whole lot of evidence, just a few things here and there - breadcrumbs so faint that they weren't even breadcrumbs: the lack of fuel requests for the base in Turkey where Black had flown Castle out of Russia and supposedly gone back to look for her, an encrypted mission ID of Lighthouse attached to covert communications traffic between Tunisia and their Office, and finally, a secure call log erased during the very hour that the Director had called the FBI to warn them of the cuckoo Maine in their midst, that very hour Maine had taken her for a ride.

The secure call had originated - according to the report - from Malone's cell phone, but Malone was dead and there had been only one person in charge of the body.

Mitchell.

Lighthouse.

She didn't want it to be true. She'd started with Lighthouse and had ended up with that secure call log that not even Ryan had known was available on more than one channel. But she felt like she'd teased out all the other odd socks from the laundry of reports. She had gone into it thinking it was Mitchell, seeing Lighthouse blazoned across the reports, and she'd come away with a phone call that had been made from Malone's phone when Malone was dead.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't evidence. It was... it could be anything.

Castle was still and quiet, hunched over his knees with his head in his hands, breathing hard. She stroked her thumb along his thigh and lifted her other hand to her mouth, pressing back her own wounds.

They kept losing people. Too many lost.

Castle's phone rang and Kate stood and went to take it from his jacket pocket, answered it for him. It was McCord.

"Hey, Rachel."

"Kate?" the woman's voice clipped. She sounded pissed. "Kate. It's gone."

"What's gone?" Kate said, felt the panic bubble up under the surface.

"Everything. Oh my God, everything. It's all gone."

"What are you talking about?"

Castle's head came up and he mouthed what now? She shook her head and reached out to grip his shoulder, leaning her hip against him.

"Kate, I don't even... one of the Secret Service agents who was here guarding the evidence locker said there was all this official paperwork. He said he got a call from the AG's office."

"No," she moaned. "No, Rachel. Not-"

"Everything we had against Bracken is gone."

"No."

Castle gripped her. "Kate. What's wrong?"

"Rachel. What happened to the evidence?"

"These damn federal agents came and took it. NSA, it said, but why the AG's office - that's my office - would go above my head... It doesn't make any sense. They took everything, said it was above his fucking pay grade; they took everything. Even the damn furniture."

She couldn't breathe. Her ribs were tightening like a vise. "McCord says the evidence is gone," she told Castle.

"What?!" he roared, lunging to his feet.

Beckett swayed and held a hand out to stay him; he grabbed the phone from her and barked at McCord. Kate sank down on top of the dining room table and put her hands on her thighs, trying to keep upright, trying to breathe.

Everything was gone.

Lighthouse. Had Mitchell done this? How could he have... it couldn't be Mitchell.

"And where were the damn guards?" Castle growled.

She pressed her hand to her sternum and sucked in a breath, realized it was a panic attack only a second after it was already happening. "Rick."

"Why did my people let them inside in the first place? We had it fucking locked down."

"Rick," she gasped again. The black spots were crowding her vision; she didn't think she could stay upright. "Rick, I..."

He caught her a second before she crumpled, gathered her too hard against him, the phone dropped to the dining room table. "Kate."

"Panic attack," she muttered. Her knees didn't seem to want to hold her up.

"Sit down," he said, already taking her to the floor. She sank gratefully on her ass and tilted her head between her knees despite the ache in her chest. Immediately, the blood pounded through her and suffused her senses, brought her back to awareness.

"I'm okay," she mumbled. "Okay now."

He released her arm but stayed close, fished the phone off the table. "Agent McCord? Yeah, no, we're fine. I need you to run point on this - get together with my guys there and see who let them in and why."

"And the AG," Kate said, feeling both dizzy and hyper at the same time, like too much awareness. "Have her call the AG."

"Right. Kate's right. Call your office or go down there if you have to. We're dealing with the mole on our end. Thanks. Yeah, I'll tell her."

He ended the call and put the phone on top of the dining room table, came back to sit beside her. Less hovering and mother hen than she'd expected, and she was relieved for that. She leaned her head against the chair leg and gave him a weak smile.

"I'm okay."

"Rachel said they cleaned out the whole room, took everything. She's getting on top of it."

"I've got - some stuff on the laptop here," she said. The adrenaline rush was still buzzing in her, and it had made the closed-off sensation more intense than it usually was. "And you do too, right?"

"We also have that hard drive from Malone," he added with a shrug. "It's not a lot. But it's something."

"We'll have to be careful. Shit. We just got men-in-blacked," she said, rolling her eyes. "We are the men in black. I can't believe I didn't see that coming."

"Mitchell?" he said. "If he..."

"I don't know. We don't know," she rushed in. "Castle."

But before she could caution him, their phones went off at the same time - the security alert for elevator access. Kate got to hers first, sliding it out of her back pocket while Castle was still reaching up for his on top of the table. Kate checked the monitor feed showing the inside of the elevator car and her heart dropped.

Mitchell was on his way up.

Castle jumped up from the floor and raced for the front door.