Forty-Seven: Chapter 15
DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – Now 9:32 p.m. – Still at Mr. Smith's Home
The video is hard to watch. There is no sound – thank God for small favors. It doesn't matter, though, as just the visuals are enough to turn even the most hardened stomachs.
But that's not the tough part.
For Detective Javier Esposito, it is watching a man who he remembers as a tough, fair and loyal fellow soldier - and the closest thing to a brother he ever had - that breaks him. Watching a man he thought he knew well dismantle an innocent human being is . . . well, it's just too much. A single tear streaks down his face, and all three of his partners – Kate, Kevin and Castle – find themselves wondering if they have ever seen the self-taught, tough man cry.
"Javi?" Kevin Ryan asks, turning in his chair and putting a protective hand on his friends arm. The teary, glazed look in Esposito's eyes tells Kevin that his friend is far, far away.
1994 in the High School parking lot
Fifteen year-old Javier Esposito is in a pickle this time. The high school freshman is always in and out of trouble – sometimes with the law, other times with older boys that are the law in this neighborhood – and this time he's bitten off far more than he can chew. He couldn't help it. When James had laughed and called him 'little boy with daddy issues', well . . . Javier just snapped. Being abandoned by his father ten years ago has left a chip on his shoulder that has grown into a small boulder. He's tough, but often his mouth writes checks that his ass can't cash. Like today.
After attacking James, and starting to get the better of him, James' buddy Walter jumped into the fray. That made it two on one. Difficult, but not impossible for someone with Javier's background. He has built a pretty significant juvenile record – all misdemeanors – but significant nonetheless. He knows how to fight. Boy, does he know how to fight. He's holding his own. Suddenly, two other boys who he has never seen join the festivities, and now he's in trouble. One on one has turned into two on one, which is now four on one. He tastes his own blood in his mouth, and suddenly he's having trouble seeing out of his left eye. It's swelling quickly.
And then, the fight is over. James is lying next to him, half-conscious. One of the new additions to the fight is on his knees retching, while Walter and the other unknown kid are fleeing.
"What the-" Javier thinks, when he sees a large hand reaching down for him. He lifts his eyes just a bit higher and sees the smirking form of Cedric, lifting him up to his feet.
"C-Mark?" he asks, then manages a smile.
Cedric Marks is fifteen also, and he and Javier have been best friends since 7th grade. Like Javier, Cedric is a good fighter. Unlike Javier, Cedric has walked the straight and narrow. His dad, Christian Marks, makes sure of that. It's what Javier misses. It's what he needs.
"Thanks C-Mark," he smiles through blood-stained teeth.
"You do the same for me," Cedric smiles, his piercing eyes laughing at his friend.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – 9:35 p.m. – Still at Mr. Smith's Home
"How well do you know him?" Kevin Ryan asks his friend, trying to bring him back to the present. Esposito blinks a couple of times, and now he is back in the moment with his friends, staring at the images on the screen.
"More important," Castle interjects, "how long have you known him?" Richard Castle understands a little something about boyhood friends, boyhood idols.
"Eighteen, nineteen years I'd say," Esposito answers softly. Kate Beckett considers her friend, and a myriad of questions assault her. Clearly this man who has brutally killed the Smiths is a friend of Esposito. From the looks of it, far more than just a friend. A best friend. Which makes the internal interrogation going on in her head all the more troubling – and potentially damaging to her team.
Yes, this man is a murderer. The video shows this clearly. But the thought going through her mind is far scarier. Is this the same man who broke into Evelyn's home? There are no coincidences. Someone broke into Evelyn's house looking for clues to who this 'Mr. Smith' actually was. And the intruder got the information he was looking for. Now, the next day, Smith and his wife are dead, and they have a video of the perpetrator. He has to be the same man . . . doesn't he? Dear God, she hopes not.
Because if this is the same man, and if Lanie's DNA testing is right, that means this is also the same man who shot her. This is the same man who almost killed her last summer. God, please don't let her almost-killer turn out to be some long-lost, close friend of Javier Esposito. How do they possibly deal with that? She glances at her friend, a man she considers to be a big brother; a man she trusts with her life. He is gazing at her now, and she knows – instinctively – that the same set of questions are now running through his mind. It's the confirmation she dreads, as she watches his eyes glaze over again.
1996 in front of the Corner Deli two blocks from the High School
Seventeen year-old Javier Esposito is in the second year of varsity baseball. The junior has used baseball to turn his life around. Well, baseball, and a certain baseball coach. Christian Marks, his best friend's father, is the varsity coach. Seeing the young boy who constantly got himself into trouble finally took its toll on the older man, and he had brought the naturally athletic Esposito into the baseball program last year.
It was a good match, as Esposito's distant but still-fond memories of going to baseball games with his own father – before his dad bolted – made the transition from erstwhile gang-member to varsity baseball player much easier. Playing shortstop alongside his best friend, Cedric, who played third base and pitched . . . well, this made high school years tolerable at first. Now, in his junior year, it is more than tolerable. It's enjoyable.
The two boys are walking home after baseball practice when a white car comes to a screeching halt alongside the street as they walk on the sidewalk. Suddenly, five or six boys pour out of the Taurus station wagon. They are from a rival school that Esposito and Marks have just played earlier this week. Unfortunately, that game erupted into a bench-clearing brawl after C-Mark has brushed back one of their players late in the game. The group of boys is on Cedric before he can react, and he's on the ground, trying to roll and kick his way free. A few grunts and screams later, he finds himself able to get up. Three of the boys are laid out, bloody alongside the station wagon, while a fourth is getting his face pounded by a merciless Esposito. The two remaining boys flee, jumping into the car and gunning it to life. Leaving their friends. Esposito spits a final warning in disgust at the retreating boys who would leave their friends like that.
He glances over at C-Mark, who is now on his feet and walking toward him.
"Thanks Javi," C-Mark smiles through blood-stained teeth.
"You do the same for me," Javier smiles, wiping the blood from his hands along his pants.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – Now 9:35 p.m. – Still at Mr. Smith's Home
"Cedric saved my ass more times than I can remember," Esposito tells the group, running his hands across his face in exasperation. "And I returned the favor just as often. But his dad . . . Mr. Marks . . . he took me in, under his wing. He got me off the streets and onto the ball field. He got me away from the city and into the Army. With C-Mark."
His words drift off, as he minds drifts away – again pulling up past memories.
2003, in Basra, Iraq during the initial days of the Invasion of Iraq
Sgt. Javier Esposito is roughly six years into his time with the U.S. Army. The Special Forces man has quickly put his natural fighting skills – together with the discipline he began to learn in baseball as part of team – to effective use for the Army. His friend, Cedric Marks, is Special Forces also, and the two are constantly in touch, and occasionally together.
Now, sitting two years after the 9/11 attacks in New York, both men have done tours in Afghanistan, and now are together as U.S. Special Forces works with the British troops and tanks that march along the famed Highway of Death in Iraq. Serving with the British, who are more adept at this tank war, they have found surprisingly strong initial resistance in these first couple of days in March of 2003. The invasion of Basra is considered strategically important.
The night air is still beyond hot as hell, and the large hole in Sgt. Cedric Marks' chest is bleeding profusely as Esposito drags him behind the FV4034 Challenger 2 battle tank, as it lumbers forward, spitting fiery death. Sgt. Jerry Richart has stepped on a mine, blowing himself apart. His last act on earth – sadly – has been an involuntary pull on the trigger resulting in the hole in C-Mark's chest, as the team continues to take fire. Ten minutes later, the medivac chopper whisks his best friend away, while a relatively uninjured Sgt. Esposito continues with the rest of the Americans northward, leaving the better-suited British to continue this phase of the initial attack.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – Now 9:40 p.m. – Still at Mr. Smith's Home
"And that was the last you saw of him?" Castle asks. Esposito has been recounting the horrors of the initial days of the Iraqi War to the group.
"No," Javier corrects him. "I saw him a couple of times stateside, but I went into law enforcement, while C-Mark found work with a couple of defense contractors. He was going to get married, I thought, but something happened. He never told me."
"He was your best friend, and he never told you?" Kate asks, incredulously.
"Yeah, Beckett," Esposito replies defensively. "He never told me."
Castle sees how the conversation is deteriorating, and intervenes quickly.
"Kevin," Castle begins, "get out of this feed, and pull up the folder for the front porch camera," Castle tells him. "Back out of there. Hopefully if he used straightforward naming conventions, we can see it easily enough."
Ryan does as he is asked, and a few seconds later, they are viewing the feed from the front porch. Recalling roughly how far back he had to rewind from the previous feed, the detective takes a swag and seconds later, the foursome see a Cedric Marks step up on the porch and knock on the door. They don't see the car at first, because the camera is positioned on the front porch, at the front door. Once Maddox walks up into view, only then does Castle put it together. He tells Ryan to back it up. In the distance, they see the Ford arrive and park, about two houses up the street.
"That might be it," Kate muses aloud. In response, Kevin Ryan rewinds the video more . . . a little more. And a little more.
"There," Ryan tells the watching team. They watch Cedric Marks get out of the car and walk across the street toward Smith's front door.
"Definitely our guy, definitely our car," Kate comments absently as she takes out a small notepad and jots down the license plate number. Pure providence that he parked exactly where he did, in easy line of sight for the hidden camera.
"Smith was thorough" she thinks to herself, and then nods, realizing that – yeah – if Smith did everything Castle has said, then thorough probably doesn't begin to describe the man.
"But not thorough enough," she muses sadly, recalling the gruesome scene in the kitchen.
"Wait a minute," Castle says suddenly, moving away from the computer monitor toward the door leading out of the den into the hallway.
"What is it, Castle?" she asks.
"That car," he tells them as he jogs down the hallway, his enthusiasm for the moment overtaking his common cautionary sense. "I saw that car as we drove up. He's still here!"
For a brief instant, there is silence in the den. For a one-count, a two-count . . .
"Castle!" Esposito screams suddenly, now brushing past Kate Beckett and running to the hallway. He zips down the corridor into the open foyer area in time to see Richard Castle open the door.
"I was right," Castle shouts, and is abruptly stunned into paralysis. He sees the gun nozzle pointing at him from his right side. The face of the man who they have just viewed ad nauseam in full motion, black and white video is staring at him, crouching, less than five feet away on the porch. Castle had missed the mercenary in the darkness, and immediately turns to his left, trying desperately to dive back into the safety of the home.
He is a second too late.
"Oh shit," Castle says as he hears the explosive gunshot from the car and feels a sudden tug on the back of his right arm, followed by a shot of searing pain. Try as he might, he cannot keep his balance and the force of the shot drives him sideways to his knees. Detective Javier Esposito reaches the door in time to try to catch – unsuccessfully – the falling novelist. Then – the worst part – he hears a familiar voice call out to him.
"Stay out of this, Javi," Cedrick Marks tells him, as he launches himself into a long, lunging kick that pops Esposito on the side of his cheek. The kick floors the stunned detective, who tries to blink away the unconsciousness that beckons him. Marks ends the effort with a hard blow to the head with the butt of his pistol.
"Don't make me hurt you," he tells his unconscious friend, while detaching a small grenade from his shoulder belt. He pulls the pen, and tosses the grenade past the living room, bouncing into the kitchen area.
"Grenade!" Castle manages to scream out, hoping that Kate and Kevin are not following in the hallway. He then watches – wide eyed and still on his knees at the front door – as Marks approaches him, pure menace in his eyes, still in combat mode.
Marks glances down at Castle, as if contemplating his next move. Making up his mind, he brushes past Castle with a quick blow to the side of Castle's head, stunning him face-first into the floor.
"Not bad," Marks says softly, loud enough for Castle to hear.
"I'll be back for you later," he offers with a smile, offering a quick kick to the side of his head, smirking as he watches Castle fall forward. He walks out the door, and slowly jogs to the tan Ford sedan across the street. He glances back, satisfied that no one inside is following, and then speeds away into the night.