Another Chance
Chapter 40
As Castle stares at Alicia through the glass, Kate lays a hand on his arm. "Maybe it would be better if you weren't in on this one. You do have a psychological attachment to her."
"All the more reason why I want to be in on it. I need to know how she could be with Alexis and me- and now you - all these years and then do something like this. There has to be a story that will make it all make sense."
"All right, Castle, but if you start to lose it in there, you're going to have to leave Alicia to me."
He nods grudgingly. "Fine."
The Alicia Castle sees across the table from him is not the Alicia Castle thought that he knew. Her eyes are harder, defiant. While she had always had a slump to her shoulders, she's sitting up straight now, clearly unashamed of anything except perhaps her failure to kill him and Kate. "Alicia, why? All right, I admit, I've occasionally left a mess in the bathroom, but have I ever mistreated you or disrespected you? Was I underpaying you?"
Castle is taken aback at her laughter. "Underpaying me, no. You're the fool who pays better than anyone in the neighborhood, and that doesn't include the bonuses for Christmas and what you thought was my birthday."
"What? I got your birthday wrong? You wanted to barbecue me for that?"
"You got everything wrong, Castle. You've still got everything wrong. But it doesn't matter. For a big ship, big waters."
"I don't understand."
Alicia's eyes light with satisfaction. "You will."
Kate nudges Castle and silently leads him from the room. "Castle, what she said, it's a Russian proverb, 'Bol'shómu korablyú - bol'shóe plávaniye.' Literally, it's 'For a big ship, a big voyage.' She was telling us that she's not acting alone."
"She may also be telling us that she's Russian," Castle realizes. "That fits with what we know about the murder of Kenny Barton. Wow! I wonder if she was tied to Sophia Turner and just how many agents like her the Soviets planted. It's a great jumping off point for a Derrick Storm, but I hate the way we got it. And it's evidence that there is more danger to Bracken's run for the presidency than just putting an amoral, murderous sonofabitch in the Whitehouse. That's what my father meant about a pawn. The Russians could be running Bracken's whole show, and who knows how long they've been doing it."
"Castle, that's quite a leap, but if you're right, we have a much better trail now than we did just trying to track down some anonymous Russian hitman as Barton's killer. If Alicia has been a Russian operative hiding in plain sight all this time, there must have been communications or instructions that would tie her to the rest of the organization. We check everything wherever she lives, her banking records, her phone, her internet, the stores she patronizes. Somewhere, we'll uncover a link."
"And we find the Emperor Palpatine holding Vader's leash - but these Sith lords are strictly dark side. Kate, now that we have Alicia, whoever sent her after us will have to know that we're even closer to finding him. That will make him even more desperate to take us out. I won't risk you or the baby. We need a safe place."
"Castle, I don't think there is one. We don't know who we can trust outside of immediate family."
"Meaning actual family and the boys, and I think after what Thera did for us, Micah is in there somewhere too. The toymaker facilitates the defeat of the puppet master. I like it."
Kate rolls her eyes and grabs a handful of Castle's butt. "Yeah. I think Alexis' fiancé has earned some kudos. But really, Castle, everything, everyone else, is suspect. If we gather any information using the resources of the N.Y.P.D., we're going to have to assume that someone else is seeing it."
"Then at the least, we'll need a secret headquarters with a computer system of our own."
"And where would we find one of those, Castle?"
"I have an idea."
Kilimnik reads through the report from Donovan that Victor has just handed to him. "This is not good, not good at all. This means that Beckett and Castle know that they're not just fighting Bracken, and worse that Bracken may not be at the top of the chain. We will need to start shutting down channels and isolating our operation. You take my immediate meaning?"
"Da," Victor nods "The man is a slug anyway. It is time he ended up on the bottom of a boot."
"Do it yourself, Victor. We can't afford to leave any more breadcrumbs for Detective Beckett."
"I believe I will enjoy it."
Hunt is kicking himself. He had no idea that a sleeper was embedded with his family. But then he had no idea about Sophia Turner and her cell either until she tried to upset the world order and kill Richard. The company may have some great doodads, but its skill at intelligence gathering could use a boost. Aw hell! If they'd been more accurate, the country could have avoided a disastrous war, despite the politicos seeking to fill their own pockets by promoting it. There's nothing he can do about his son's near conflagration now, except to try to make sure no one else has anyone he cares about in their sights.
He has his team on Richard, Kate, and Alexis, 24/7. Someone is watching out for Martha too, although she doesn't appear to be a target. What he needs to do is go after Kilimnik. If he can get rid of him, that will pull one of Vlad's bigger claws. God, he'd love to take out Vlad - treaties forbidding the assassination of heads of state be damned. But it's impossible. The man has a security force the Secret Service could take lessons from. He's also under constant surveillance by both drone and satellite. There are radiation detectors and chemical sniffers everywhere the man goes. Even for Hunt, he's an unreachable target. But the day may come. Sooner or later, they all slip, and the more arrogant the man, the bigger the slip. It's just a matter of time.
Kate looks around what could only be described as a bunker. There is dust everywhere as if no one had been there in years, but the lights work, and as Castle demonstrated by flushing the toilet, the facilities do too. "Castle, how did you ever find out about this place?"
"When I was working with Sophia, one of the things we did was gather intel on foreign diplomats, especially those that spent significant periods of time in the U.S. This hidey-hole was built by one of the more paranoid and engineering savvy ones. It's off the grid. The electricity is generated by a tide powered turbine, that's why it's so close to the ocean. Potable water is condensed out of the air, and the drains are hooked to a reclamation system. There's no direct internet connection, but we can use an encrypted hotspot and firewall like crazy. No one knows this is here. The man who built it was called back to his own country and his plane crashed, supposedly due to pilot error. I doubt Sophia turned in her report on this place. There would have been no point. And even if she did, it was 12 years ago; the file would be buried deep in an archive somewhere. You can't see this retreat from a satellite. Ground imaging radar might work, but someone would have to know where to look. And if I'm not mistaken, there's a pretty decent, if slightly outdated, kitchen in here, along with, luxurious for the times, sleeping facilities. This can be our HQ from where we will take the bad guys down. What do you say?"
"I say, fine, Castle, as long as you don't expect us to spend our honeymoon here."
Castle pulls her to him for a kiss. "Deal."