A Convergence of Storms
Summary – Someone from Castle's past is murdered and that gives Kate a look into his unconventional childhood and time spent shadowing the CIA, something that hasn't really been discussed on the show (yet). AU of course, with some grounding in canon.
Author's Notes – Sorry for the delay in updating. I thought I was going to be able to write last weekend, but it got crazy fairly quickly – a good kind of crazy, but still crazy.
Disclaimer – Don't own Castle – Marlowe, ABC, and Disney do. The OCs came out of my imagination.
Chapter 15 – For Your Eyes Only, Maybe Not…
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Castle walked resolutely towards the waiting car, dreading the meeting, but also anxious to finally have some of the pieces he so desperately needed to figure out this puzzle that threatened to overwhelm his life.
Althea had arranged for him to see the redacted reports that Turner had fed him and had some other 'interesting' information to share with him about the woman he once considered a friend.
And she had made it was clear that he should come alone. Beckett's security clearance had been revoked when she was fired from the AG office and the consensus was that it would take too long to reactivate.
Castle's curiosity was immediately piqued because, as far as he knew, he didn't have security clearance anymore and nothing had changed in Beckett's history that would warrant a new investigation – her marriage to O'Leary had been faked, so there was no ex-husband to interview.
Did the Company have an ulterior motive for the meeting or were they going to leave it up to him to tell Beckett what they discussed? After 'working' with his father, he wasn't so sure anymore.
The man in the suit standing next to the car opened the back door for him.
"What – no black bag over the head," Castle quipped as he slid into the back seat, smiling slightly at Althea.
"No, we're more civilized than that," said Althea, handing him a wrap-around visor. "I thought you'd be interested in testing one of our new toys."
Castle examined the visor and then put it on. "Wow," he said as it lit up, displaying a 3-d view of a city park in front of him that he felt he could almost touch if he just reached his hands out like so…
"It's connected to a robot in Central Park," Althea said. "You can control its movements using your eyes."
"This is so cool," Castle said, moving his eyes and watching how the robot responded. "I don't suppose they'll be selling these commercially?" he asked hopefully.
"No, but you can always book a play date if you get bored," said Althea, watching Castle with a smile as he ran the robot through its paces.
Whatever else Castle was, he was good at playing with toys, pushing the limits to see what they could do, much to the dismay of some of the Company engineers.
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The trip seemed to take no time at all for Castle, distracted as he was with moving the robot to and fro in the park and observing what happened. When Althea touched his arm, he reluctantly handed the visor back to her and then followed her to a waiting elevator.
Anders was waiting for them in a conference room. "So how did you like Robby the Robot?" he asked as Castle sat down in a chair.
"It's definitely going on my Christmas list," Castle said. He then swallowed thickly and frowned slightly, looking at the thin folder in front of Althea. "Can we just get this over with?"
Althea nodded, pushing the folder in front of Castle. "These are the reports that Turner flagged for you to read and redact."
Castle flipped the folder open and thumbed through pages and pages of mostly black marks. That was really helpful, he thought to himself.
"So why did she have me read them? Why didn't she just read them herself?" he asked finally.
"The reports had nothing to do with any of the cases she was working," Althea said. "Since they're carefully monitored, she would have called attention to herself if she had requested them."
Castle frowned again. "Then how did she get them to me?"
"Indirectly," said Anders. "My signature was forged on the requests, so the reports were added to the ones you were authorized to read. She never had physical possession of the reports."
"How do you know she did this? What if it was someone else?" Castle asked anxiously.
"After we found out about Turner, we managed to track down through certain channels who she was and where she had come from – Denisa Albescu from Romania. Her parents lived in Botosani, but passed away several years ago. Her father worked on a drilling rig in Siberia and her mother was a school teacher. They lost contact with her when she was 18 and moved to Moscow to attend college. There is no record of her coming to the United States," said Althea.
"And she wasn't a KGB agent," continued Anders. "They've never heard of her."
"Uh, you talk to them?" Castle asked incredulously. "Oh," he said as Althea quirked an eye brow at him. "Of course you don't talk to them directly." He paused for a moment. "So how did you not know that she was a fake – how did she get by security?"
Anders pursed his lips for a minute and then started. "Turner's American identity was carefully constructed. Her birth certificate was an excellent fake and the social security number had never been used. The parents listed on the birth certificate were anthropologists who traveled extensively. They died when she was 18, so she was never in the foster system. They were only children whose parents had already died, so there were no relatives to contact. The school records were from private schools that cater to students who aren't able to attend structured classes. From what we can tell, the real paper trail for Turner begins when she entered college – Harvard to be exact."
"That's a big chunk of change," said Castle, frowning slightly. "Have you been able to track who paid for that?"
Althea shook her head. "No. She received grants and scholarships that paid for her education. She even took the normal amount of time to pay off her student loans. We are looking into those repayments though for a paper trail."
Castle nodded. "If she wasn't KGB, who was she working for then?" He paused for a moment and then looked at Althea. "Were they the same people who tried to pull off Pandora?"
"No, we don't think so," said Althea, shaking her head.
She brought up a map of Central Europe on the computer screen. "We were able to ascertain that these reports pertained to research being done about the looting that the Russians did at the end of WWII, particularly in Romania, Hungary, and Serbia. About the time you started shadowing the Company, a couple of pieces from Romania were sold on the black market to a museum in Spain. The funds were deposited into an account that had been opened at the end of WWII at a private bank in Switzerland. We are going through channels to determine the owners of that account."
Castle took a breath. "So what do you think was in the reports?"
"The names of the people who owned the accounts and the number of a safety deposit box," Anders said simply.
Castle frowned again. "Don't you have to have the key to access a safety deposit box?"
"Yes," said Althea. She touched an icon on the computer screen and a video window popped up. "The bank was able to find this footage of a transaction made during the time you were missing in Argentina."
Castle leaned slightly forward as the video started. "Doesn't look like she had a sprained ankle after all," he commented drily.
The woman in the video was clearly Sophia Turner. She hadn't done much to disguise herself other than wear a big hat and sunglasses.
Castle watched her sign in and pull out a key with a sinking feeling. "I guess I told them what they needed to know," he said flatly. "So I'm not Jack Bauer after all." He shrugged and sat back in his chair, running a hand through his hair.
"Rick, they were professionals and I think you probably held out as long as you could. If it's any consolation, this was taken four days after you went missing," Althea soothed.
"Wait," Castle said suddenly, sitting up straighter. "If she had the key and could get into the safety deposit box, why did she come back? Why didn't she just take whatever was in there and disappear?"
"That's the interesting part," said Althea, fast forwarding the tape to several minutes later. "She goes in, is in there for a few minutes, and then comes out."
Castle leaned back slightly away from the screen as he watched Turner storm out of the safety deposit box area. "Oh, that is definitely not her happy face," he commented. He had been on the receiving end of that look on the trip they had taken to Argentina and had done his best to avoid it after that.
But the interesting thing was that she wasn't carrying anything else other than a small purse. "So whatever she was looking for wasn't in there," he said, somewhat confused.
Althea shook her head. "No, obviously it wasn't."
"So I gave them the information in the report, but whatever she was looking for it wasn't there." Castle sat back in his chair, brow furrowing in thought, before he looked up again. "Is that why they want me? They think I know something?"
Anders looked at Castle. "That's precisely what we intend to find out."
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It was nearly 5 the next morning before Castle drug himself back inside the loft, barely able to make it to the couch before collapsing on it, exhaustion hitting him full force. He was so tired he wasn't even hungry even though he hadn't eaten anything since the morning before.
When they hit the 6th hour of non-stop questioning, he had finally realized why they didn't want Beckett there. The sessions had been grueling and almost amounted to an interrogation that stopped short of violating the Geneva Convention in his opinion.
He had spent hours recounting over and over again in minute detail the time he had spent shadowing the CIA as they analyzed every aspect of it. Nothing was left out, much to his semi-embarrassment – his relationship with Turner, his visits to the office, the reports he had read, the two trips to Argentina, what he had said that morning to Adelmo before the man was killed, if he remembered anything after that…
It wasn't like he was trying to hide anything, but he just didn't know what they wanted and that frustrated him immensely. He could have the key to solving this whole thing, but he didn't know what it was.
Anders was hoping to shake something loose with all the questioning – light some spark of remembrance – but all that came of the meeting was a pounding headache that Castle developed around 1 am.
By 4 am, they were no closer to any answers than they had been when Castle had walked into the room the afternoon before and Althea finally called a halt to the sessions. She handed Castle a couple of aspirin and a bottle of water to wash them down with as he walked out of the room.
"Call us if you remember anything," she said, placing a gently hand on his arm.
He was so tired, he didn't even put on the visor when he entered the town car waiting to take him home and simply laid his head back against the head rest and closed his eyes. "If I see anything I shouldn't," he quipped to the driver, "just shoot me and dump my body on the side of the road."
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Beckett woke quickly at the sound of the front door opening and closing and walked out into the living room to find Castle sprawled on the couch already asleep, his cuffs unbuttoned and rolled up past his elbows like he had been hard at work. His coat lay in a heap by the front door where he had dropped it.
She frowned as she smoothed the hair back from his forehead. His face was drawn again, dark smudged under his eyes, and a 5 o-clock shadow on his chin.
She had gotten several texts from Althea during the evening that said everything was fine but it was taking longer than originally planned for them to review the reports and to not expect Castle until the next morning. They would be working through the night.
Beckett knelt beside him and gently removed his shoes before covering him with a throw.
"Save yourself, Kate. The spider has a marker," Castle murmured in his sleep before settling back down.
Beckett kissed him on the cheek and went to get ready for work.
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