12th Precinct, Present Time

To Serve and Protect

Chapter 11 - Going To Ground

A new FBI squad had arrived on scene to relieve the 12th Precinct squad on their current surveillance watch.

"Anything to pass on from this watch", asked the relieving FBI lead agent.

"No", responds Det. Witaker, "Our suspect left his usual time for work and arrived about forty five minutes later as confirmed by the watch monitoring his workplace. You should get a notice from that same team when he departs work later at the end of his day. He normally will arrive about sixish, unless he goes for groceries."

"Okay then you guys stand relieved", says leading Agent Armas, the name on his ID badge.

Ninety minutes later no suspect has arrived, despite the call affirming that he had left his workplace. Twenty minutes more and their suspect had still not arrived.

Lead Agent Armas calls into their HQ back at the 12th, "Be advised still no contact from our suspect, can you guys check the subway cams and see if he arrived at his Subway station for his trip home?"

Ten minutes later they get a response, "That is an affirmative on the subway station arrival for his return to his apartment."

"How about the station close to his home, do cams show him departing for his apartment from there?"

Around several minutes another response, "That's an affirmative on him departing his home subway station for the apartment. If the suspect has still not arrived, he may have broken his usual routine."

Twenty minutes later and still no Fletcher at his apartment. The lead agent sends out an alert to monitor all bus, train, and airports for the suspect. Close to 9 PM the suspect is declared as officially flying the coup. An intense search is started to find him.

Gregg Fletcher had indeed departed his home station, but instead of going to his apartment, had gone grocery shopping. Then from there to a nearby alleyway which housed the entrance to the abandon train line of his secret sanctum. He had found the entrance from the inside of the tunnel, and then placed his own padlock to the entry way from the outside. The entry way had been sealed on the inside, but Fletcher was able to unseal it with a portable blow torch. He even posted a fake Transit Authority Notice on the outside entrance to the tunnel declaring the entry permanently closed.

Once at his secret rail car sanctum, Gregg opens the padlock to his rail car door, and enters his man cave. He turns on his LED lights to the place. Fletcher starts up his mini frig and places his fresh produce and drinks in it. His dry goods are placed in his pantry cabinet. He then goes to his desk and turns on his laptop that he had used to hack the NYPD computers. Fletcher views all the BOLO's (Be On Look Out} placed on him. He confirms that the NYPD had officially declared him going to ground. After some more computer browsing, Fetcher prepares dinner. He had $450 on him from his last withdrawal of his account. When that was gone he would do like other mole people did to subsist. Tomorrow he would begin his new hunt for his next vic. He had downloaded to a thumb drive his lastest billing files from his office. The game was now on.

Emergency Meeting Joint Task Group

After Fletcher had been officially declared missing from surveillance, an emergency meeting of the FBI-NYPD combined team was called. The op had now converted to an intensive search for a missing suspect.

"Does anyone know if our suspect owns a car?", asked Taskforce Leader Shaw.

"None that we know about", Lead Det. Javi Esposito replies.

"Then I want a BOLO posted at every bus station, every bus, every subway station and rail car, airport and boarding gate in the Metro area and I wanted it done two hours ago", barks out Shaw now taking a firm hand on directing the joint team.

"Include to that list every rental car agency and car service agency in the city", Shaw adds, "I want the net so tight that our suspect cannot escape it".

Turning to her tech people, she says, "Put on the screen all the locations of our vics", Jordan is rapid firing commands to her group, "now draw circles using each vic site as the center of the circle and draw the circle large enough to include the other sites inside that circle. Four sites, four circles. Where all circles converge in a common area is a possible point of origin for our suspect. We will start by searching every building in that common area. Other area's resulting from convergence with two and three circles are secondary search sites; first priority given to the area intersecting three circles and then two. Put in a call to the governor office to have our liaison to request to activate the National Guard for supplement search crews as needed. Get on this fast people, we need to find this guy before he strikes again."

"Ryan and Ellis, I understand you are Alpha's tech experts," Shaw says.

Both look at each other when told this but remain silent.

"Don't be humble here, I need your expertise. I want you to analyze Fletcher's credit card charges since the murders began", she tells them, and then continues, "Give me all the places where he charged for food, drinks, entertainment, internet, and the like. Sort those places by number of charges per location. The ones with the highest numbers of charges above a calculated average number of charges, those sites we post teams to watch if Fletcher returns there. The sites with numbers lower than the average we post BOLO's".

"Witaker and Espo, you got the heavy field work," she turns to them, "I need you two to re-interview our suspect's co-workers and neighbors. Get a feel for where Fletcher likes to hang out, what is movements are, what are his habits. Talk to people about Fletcher, let's get an idea what Fletcher's life is like. Check your data with that of Ryan and Ellis and see where there are intersections. Then work with them to check those out."

"Castles, you are with me. We get to sort thru all the data derived from these actions and see if we find dots that are connected. The more we get into the suspect's mind and how he thinks and reacts the better our chances of finding him. I will need not only your analytical skills, but your intuitive skills. Rick you are particularly good on the intuitive leads and when the two of you see the same things, we go with them first."

Jordan ends her guidance by saying, "So hop to it team, we have a killer to find!"

Castle Kids

Lily Castle is picked up from her private school kindergarten and driven back to the day care center where her twin brothers had spent their morning as Lily attended her half day class.

"Lily!", the boys say when they see her.

She hugs her brothers and then asks "What did you guys do today."

"Look I drew this picture. It's Lexy and me", says Jack.

Lily looks at the stick figures Jack had drawn.

"I drew a picture of mommy and daddy", says Reece showing his sister the picture.

"These are good drawings, show them to mommy and daddy. Come let's see if we can find puzzles to do", Lily tells her brothers.

They go to the toy box available for all the child care kids to find puzzles.

Mrs. Walsh, the senior child care attendant, smiles as she watches the Castle children interact. They are close and affectionate with one another and she smiles thinking about what a great family the Castles are. She had met the famous parents of the children and just knew that they were being brought up in a caring household. She had yet to met their prominent older sister, a Pulitzer winning journalist. The family was much distinguished and Mrs. Walsh quite expected the children would also grow up as accomplished as their parents and older sister. She had come to adore the Castle children.

It's late afternoon and Richard Castle walks into the Day Care Center to pick up his kids. He has taken off from the 12th leaving his wife and Jordan Shaw updating the electronic FBI murder board with all the latest data. Working with Shaw thrilled Ric because he got to see and use all the latest investigative toys the FBI brought to a case. That had happened during the first case they had with Shaw and even annoyed Kate at the time. She talked about how Ric and Shaw were interacting. Kate had accused Ric of acting like a puppy with the FBI agent, following her around, admiring her toys, and making case discussions with Shaw. Ric was secretly pleased to see her somewhat jealous reaction to Shaw. Back then they were still not yet a couple and Kate's comments was a tell to him that Kate did have feelings for him.

"Mr. Castle", Eleanor Walsh says on seeing him, "your kids are in the video room with the other children watching 'Paw Patrol' video's on the center TV".

"Thank you Mrs. Walsh."

"Daddy!", the kids all say together when they see him and run up to hug and greet their father.

Giving each of his kids a hug and kiss, he tells them, "Okay get your backpacks and coats so we can head home for dinner."

Late that evening Kate Castle arrives home. She is disappointed she did not have dinner with her children and even more sorry she did not get to put them to bed. She enters the Loft and sees Ric at the dinner table, comes up to him and kisses him on the lips.

"Rough late night babe, how went the update?", Ric says after her kiss.

"We got all the data on the board and then did an initial analysis. We could have used you then, but Jordan knew you had to get the kids".

"Thank God she understands."

"Yeah she does, she been there before. I'm going to check on the kids and then have dinner."

She goes to each of their rooms and sees them peacefully sleeping. Kate gives a sigh seeing Lily asleep. Lily, unlike her older sister, has light brown hair, almost golden, like Kate's. Lily is Kate's mini-me except for her deep blue eyes which she got from her father. Jim Beckett liked to say that his younger granddaughter resembled most the Beckett side of the family, except for those eyes. Lily got those deep blues from the best feature of the Castle side of her. Lily is growing up to be very attractive. Kate gives her daughter a gentle kiss so as not to wake her.

Kate then goes to the boys' room to check on them. Reece has managed to kick off all his covers as he normally does, but Jack is asleep warmly cocooned in his. Her twins are so alike and yet so different. Their dark brown reddish tinged hair they got from their Grandma Martha and their elder sister Alexis but again the deep blue eyes are from their father. Her boys often tended to be overly active, but enthusiastic like her husband. Raising twins is a new experience, even for Rick. Her boys were a handful especially when they were with their sister Lily and up to being so mischievous. She did not know who was the worse influence, Lily with the boys, or the boys with Lily. Kate kisses each of them and then heads for dinner where she joins Ric.

Her husband had not eaten dinner, but for a small snack, wanting to wait for his wife to have a full dinner with her. When Kate gets to the dinner table everything is set, food reheated, and their favorite wine already out, and poured into their glasses. They finish dinner talking briefly about their day and then retire to their bedroom close to the midnight hour. As she lay in bed with Rick, he is fast asleep. She stares at her husband for awhile taking in his features, and then committing them to memory again. She did this often so as not to forget his features. In him she saw the best parts of their children and knew that he and the kids were hers. Rick would forever be there for her and their kids. She falls asleep feeling so secure and loved.