Run the Numbers: Numb3rs Fic

[Alice I]

This is a fan fiction based on an American television program called Numb3rs.
The main characters are:
Don Eppes - an FBI agent;
Charlie Eppes - Don's younger brother who is a mathematical genius; Alan Eppes Don and Charlie's father;
Terry Lake - Don Eppes' partner;
David Sinclair another agent with Don's team;
Larry Fleinhardt - A professor of Physics at Cal Sci and Charlie's mentor and best friend;
Assistant Director Walt Merrick - Don's boss

Title: Run the Numbers
Author: Alice I
Rating: PG13 I think. (No s*x, No Profanity but there is Violence)
Summary: Charlie is kidnapped by two ruthless men who force him to decode encrypted data that was stolen from a Biogenetics laboratory.


Chapter One
Don Eppes sat in Assistant Director Walt Merrick's office with two nervous looking men; one of whom was wearing a white lab coat over an untidy shirt and wrinkled slacks. There was a company name embroidered on the breast pocket of the lab coat that read Bio-Genesis Technologies Inc. and he kept running his hand through his unkempt hair making it stand up in odd directions. The other man was dressed smartly in a three piece suit with neatly combed hair yet a bead of perspiration ran down his slightly receding hair line belaying the confidence that his attire attempted to portray.

Walt Merrick sat down at his desk and turned to Don. "This is Doctor Martin Shaw, the leading genetic engineer in the biological research department of Bio-Genesis Technologies Inc." he said indicating that the highly agitated man in the lab coat should take a seat. Before he could say anything else the man in the suit sat forward and said "My name is Robert Slocum; Director of R&D at Bio-Gen. We have come to the FBI because of a theft in our bio-research division."

Don sat up a little straighter in his chair. If this company had come to the FBI the theft was serious and his first thought was that a dangerous substance may be loose in Los Angles. Mr. Slocum placed a picture of a man with dark hair in his mid thirties on the desk.
"This is Dr. Trevor Baker. He was an R&D researcher for Bio-Gen, until he was terminated two months ago." Then he placed another photo on the desk of a slender black man with short cropped hair and glasses. "This is Michael Reed. He is one of our systems analysts and is responsible for computer systems security in the R&D laboratories."

Then he placed a still image taken from a surveillance video that showed both Dr. Baker and Michael Reed as well as a third man that was dressed in a janitors outfit. He had dark curly long hair pulled back in a ponytail but his face was obscured by the bill of a baseball cap. His right forearm was visible and had a large tattoo of a green and red dragon-like serpent snaking up his arm and disappearing under the sleeve of his shirt.

"We do not know who the other man is but on the day that this surveillance video was taken the three of them gained access to our top security laboratory and Mr. Reed hacked into the system, and shut down the alarms and blinded the surveillance cameras leading into the lab. Mr. Reed then defeated the extra security firewalls that had been added to the labs computer system and downloaded the development research of a biological compound that Dr. Shaw has been working on to a palm pilot and they disappeared before we were even aware that the break-in had occurred. Fortunately the information that they downloaded had been encrypted with an extremely complex algorithm as an added security measure only days before the break in."

Don looked at both men then said "So they can't read the stolen information?" Doctor Shaw sat forward in his seat and said "Not immediately. They would need to decode the encrypted material first. Reed may be an excellent computer systems analyst and hacker but you would need to have tremendously advanced mathematical knowledge to decipher the encryption on the data. It would be very difficult, but not impossible. The problem is, we don't know who this other man in the photograph is. If they are able to break the encryption…" Mr. Slocum shot a look at Dr. Shaw and interrupted him saying "The point is we need to have these men apprehended as quickly as possible. That data could be sold, and Dr. Baker would have the contacts to accomplish that."

Don knew that Mr. Slocum was hiding the nature of the data stolen but he was certain that Dr. Shaw would spill the beans. He fixed the scientist with a piercing stare and said "What kind of data did they steal?" Dr. Shaw ran his hand through his hair again and Mr. Slocum spoke up "It was bio-genetic research. I'm afraid that the information itself is top secret. The point is to catch these men."

Don turned quickly on Mr. Slocum and said "I will not get my people into a situation without all of the facts. You are both too nervous about this. The nature of the data will be the key to finding these men. Who would they sell it to? What is on that palm pilot Doctor?"

Dr. Shaw glanced quickly at Mr. Slocum but turned back to Don. "It is a bio-chemical/bio-genetic compound that chemically binds to its host at a molecular level. The compound will then begin to genetically alter the host's DNA. These alterations happen at a molecular level and can not be stopped once the process has begun. This is the beginning research on a catalyst designed to alter genetic defects but it is years from completion. If this compound were to come in contact with living tissue the genetic mutations that would occur would be unpredictable and devastating to the host. As the formula stands now this compound could be used as a bio-weapon in the wrong hands. That's why we had such high security on it."

Chapter Two
Charlie Eppes was standing in front of the blackboard in his office working and didn't hear Dr. Larry Fleinhardt enter because he had his headphones on. Larry smiled at his colleague and stepped over to tap him on the shoulder and get his attention. Charlie turned and seemed to take a moment to register that someone was interrupting his train of thought before smiling and taking off his headphones.

Larry looked very smug and said "I have a surprise for you." He set a box on Charlie's desk. Charlie looked intrigued and opened the box, pulling out a small satellite dish. The dish itself was only 24 inches in diameter but with the stand and aerial it sat in a 40 inch square box. Charlie raised his eyebrows and said "You are giving me direct TV? Larry I don't watch TV."

Larry, looking even more smug, sat down and said "My department did a bit of unofficial work for the Simtech Research Labs so they have allowed us some minimal band width on their satellite as a form of unofficial payment. With that dish my friend, you can uplink directly to the school's mainframe."

Charlie's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Mind you Charles, we are only being given a limited bandwidth on the Simtech satellite but after hours when there is less company usage you should be able to have a clear connection from home instead of camping out in the computer lab when you are working on some particularly vexing calculation."

Charlie immediately pulled out the installation instructions and began scanning through them. Larry looked at his watch and said "I've got a class. I'll drop this by the house tonight for you." Charlie looked up quickly and said "I'm done with classes for the day. I'm going to go install this beauty right now!" Larry pointed to the blackboard and said "What about that?" Charlie waved the previously engrossing equations away saying "Oh that can wait."

"Charles, how are you going to get this box home on your bicycle?" Charlie stopped for a moment and picked up the box seeing how difficult it would be to carry then looked down at his satchel full of papers, books and all his personal belongings. He looked back at the satellite dish then up at Larry and said "Your right, this would be too unwieldy to manage so…" and he bent down and picked up his satchel and handed it over to Larry "Would you mind dropping this by the house tonight?"

Larry chuckled and shook his head as he watched Charlie carefully repack the box. "Charlie are you serious?" Charlie looked up at Larry completely nonplussed and said "You can't possibly dangle connectivity to the main frame in front of me and then say I can't have it until later." Charlie having packed the dish safely back in the box made for the door. Larry leaned over and picked up Charlie's bicycle helmet and said "You might want this." and he handed the helmet to him. "Oh yeah, thanks Larry."

"Charlie, be careful OK. Keep your mind on the road not on that dish!" Charlie looking perfectly innocent said "I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about Larry."
"Charles…" Larry replied with an accusatory tone. Charlie smirked and said "Don't worry, I will get home in one piece! I promise." He strapped on the helmet and picked up the box. "See you tonight then?" Larry picked up Charlie's satchel and followed him out of his office scratching his head and smirking as Charlie took the stairs two at a time. "Just like a kid in a candy store."

Charlie arrived at the house and left his bicycle propped against the tree out front then headed immediately for the garage. He pulled out a ladder and set it up against the side of the house. Then he got an electric scr*w driver and took a moment to figure out a way to carry it up the ladder without having to hold it and decided to tuck it in his jeans. Then he took the dish out of the box and climbed the ladder to the roof.

He looked around for a moment then carefully stepped up onto the roof. It wasn't very steep but he wanted to be careful for he didn't want to risk dropping the dish. It took him only a few moments to reach the peak with the dish and the drill. He sat the peak of the roof and looked down toward the edge. Until that moment it hadn't occurred to him how high his house actually was.

He took a moment to admire the view from this vantage point. It was quite peaceful up here. He could hear the wind rustling in the trees, the crack of a bat hitting a baseball as a neighbor down the street played with his son, the songs of various birds and the barking of a dog off in the distance.

After carefully placing the dish just to the side of the peak of the roof he took the first scr*w out of his breast pocket and the drill from his waist and began drilling the dish to the roof. Once he had finished he held the drill up and blew lightly on the tip like a gun slinger in an old western smiling broadly to himself. He adjusted the dish's position slightly while in the distance another crack of a baseball bat rung out. Seconds later Charlie felt a blinding pain erupt in his head as the baseball hit him over his left eye.

The initial impact blinded him momentarily and he felt rather than saw himself drop backward off the peak and down the side of the roof. Then he felt nothing except the tingling sensation of falling. Before he could clear his mind and see properly he hit the cement of the walk next to the house with a monstrous crash. His head exploded in pain and saw flashes of brilliant light as his skull cracked open and he was barely aware of the second impact as his head bounced off the cement only to hit again splitting his scalp even further.

The next thing Charlie became aware of was something wet and slightly warm on his face. His head was pounding and his ears were ringing badly. He slowly opened his eyes but couldn't register what he was seeing. Something white and furry was directly in front of his face. A moment of panic flooded through him and he rolled away from the thing that seemed to be right on top of him. He instinctively brought his right hand up to the back of his head. It was still pounding and he felt a sticky wetness in his hair.

The dog that had been licking his face started to bark but the sound was oddly distorted in Charlie's ringing ears and he couldn't see properly. Everything swam in and out of focus. He got shakily to his feet and tried to move away from the sound of the barking dog. He was incredibly dizzy and wavered on his feet. He reached out his right hand as he began to tip sideways and it hit the glass of the window to the dining room steadying him.

That distorted noise was getting louder and all he could think was to get away from it as he staggered forward out to the street. Everything was out of focus and the dizziness was making him nauseous. The sound that he was fleeing from was becoming dimmer so he kept moving. He looked around trying to focus on anything. He had no idea where he was and nothing around him looked familiar. He had wandered into a small park near his home and fell over a park bench that he hadn't seen as he staggered along and everything went black and quiet.


Don and Walt Merrick just stared at these men for a moment. Dr. Shaw said "We were trying to develop the means to change the lives of the genetically deformed. Image what it would be like if we could cure Down Syndrome or Spina Bifida or any other genetically devastating condition. We are not in the business of creating weapons; we are trying to save lives."

Merrick sat back in his chair and said "We must notify the NSA. This is clearly a condition of National Security." He looked at the photos and said "You said that Reed had disabled all of the surveillance cameras leading to the lab so how did you get this image?" Dr. Shaw said "I have been concerned about the security of my research since Baker left so I had a private contractor that was known only to myself and Mr. Slocum put in a separate surveillance system that was not linked to the Bio-Gen mainframe." Merrick turned to Mr. Slocum and said "We will need complete footage from that surveillance system. Don, get your team up to speed on the situation." Then he looked directly at Mr. Slocum and said "I am certain that you will be hearing from the Congressional Hearing Committee. I don't care whether you call it humane or life saving research, you have essentially created a devastating bio-weapon and now the formula to create that weapon is out there for sale to the highest bidder."

Don got up to leave the office but turned back to Dr. Shaw "Why take the data related to this compound? Why wouldn't they take the compound itself?" Dr. Shaw said "Because there isn't any to steal. Once I observed the initial test results on living tissue I destroyed the samples and was taking the compound back to formula. The genetic mutations were too unpredictable. It needed more research, more work before it would be ready for initial testing again. That is why Dr. Baker was fired. He didn't want the samples destroyed. He snuck into the lab to try and steal a sample of the compound but I suspected what he was going to try to do and he never got close to the samples."
Don regarded this scientist for a moment. The fact that this man had taken responsibility for his research and destroyed the actual samples of this compound gave Don a respect for him that he had not previously felt.

[Alice I]

Chapter ThreeDevlin Jacobs sat at a desk in the bedroom of an old Victorian house on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The palm pilot with the stolen data sat on the desk connected to a lap top. On the dresser in the corner there was a small square mirror with a small pile of white powder and a razor blade. Devlin sat typing furiously at the computer scanning the complex algebraic equations on the screen. After a few minutes he pounded both fists on the desk and shouted in frustration clenching his fists rhythmically making the snake tattoo on his forearm ripple.

He stood up abruptly and moved over to the dresser picking up the razor blade and with slightly shaking hands cut into the pile of powder forming it into two thick lines. He picked up a small plastic straw and snorted each line in quick succession then stood up with his eyes closed for a moment. When he opened his eyes he had a manic look and he shook his head as if to clear it.

Out side the window next to the dresser his attention was drawn to an argument between Trevor Baker and Michael Reed. Michael slapped his hand on the top of a black SUV parked in the dirt driveway leading up to an old garage on the property. "Devlin has been working on that encryption for three days and has made no progress in decoding it!" Trevor put a hand on Michael's shoulder to calm him and said "Well unless you can break the code we have to give him time." Michael looked up at the window of the bedroom where Devlin sat working and said "He's nothing more than a coke head! We need to find another mathematician."

"Where would you suggest we look?! The buyers will be here on Friday and they do not take no or sorry for an answer!" Trevor who was normally calm and collected started to feel almost as frustrated about this situation as Michael. He took a deep breath to bring his emotions under control then said "Devlin has been at it all day, lets go see how he is doing. If he hasn't made any further progress we will give him better motivation." Michael looked slightly perplexed by this statement. "Everyone can be motivated to as long as you know the key to what drives them." Michael was sure that Trevor was planning on depriving Devlin of his vice but he wasn't sure that this was such a good idea. If he went into withdrawal then he would be useless to them and as Trevor had pointed out, their buyers were unlikely to be sympathetic, especially with the amount of money that they were paying for this formula.

When Michael opened the door to the bedroom where Devlin was working it was to find him lying on the floor unconscious. "Trevor! Get in here!" Michael looked to the dresser and saw the mirror with traces of the cocaine still spread over it and the razor blade. "Damn it!" he knelt down to feel for a pulse and found one but it was week and fast. "Damn it, get him up. We need to get him to the hospital!" The two men lifted Devlin by the arms and dragged him out of the house to the car. They drove him to the California Medical Hospital off Interstate 110 while they decided on a plan to find a replacement if necessary. "The hospital is near Cal Sci. I could hack into the university computers and look for their top mathematic faculty."

Trevor pursed his lips thinking. "Abducting a professor will bring the FBI down on us. I don't know about that kind of heat. Let's see what happens at the hospital with Devlin. How is he doing?" Michael turned in his seat and felt for a pulse on the man's neck lying on the back seat of the car. "Still weak and thready. Look Trevor we have to crack that code before Friday. I say we dump this loser and get ourselves a clean geek from Cal Sci or Cal Tech."
"We may have no other choice but let's see how this plays out first."

A small child was standing over the limp form of Charlie Eppes looking at the man on the ground next to a bench in Grant Park. "Mommy, come here." The boy's mother, who was struggling with a precocious two year old trying to strap her into a stroller, took a few steps closer to the bench and saw the man lying on the ground. "Oh my God! Benjie come away from him!" The woman ran over to her four year old son and took him by the hand "Why's that man sleeping on the ground mommy?" The woman saw the blood covering the back of the prone man's shirt and the blood on his hand and reached for her cell phone to call the police.

Charlie roused slightly by the voices around him. Someone pulled open his left eye and a bright light shone into it making him wince. "His pupils are equal and reactive but he has a serious concussion and a fractured skull." Another voice said "No wallet, no ID. This fellow was probably mugged." He felt himself being lifted onto a stretcher and he slowly opened his eyes. A policeman was standing near the stretcher and leaned over to him. "What's your name son?" Charlie didn't seem to understand the question. The man's voice was muffled and his ears were ringing. "What happened to you? Were you attacked?"

A man in a white and red jacket with a stethoscope hanging around his neck said "This will have to wait. We are ready to transport him." This man looked down at Charlie and said "Hang in there friend, your going to be OK now." At this reassurance Charlie started to drift off again. The next thing that he was aware of, were lights on the ceiling as he was wheeled along a noisy corridor. "Put him in curtain 2." A doctor in a long white lab coat stepped into the cubicle that Charlie was in and started speaking very quickly to the man in the red and white jacket. He knew that they were talking about him but everything seemed so foggy. He had to get to the bottom of this and he mustered his strength and opened his eyes. "Where am I?" The doctor looked at him closely and said "You are at California Medical Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?" Charlie frowned in concentration for a moment. The policeman who had asked him his name stepped close to the bed with a pad in his hand and a pencil. "I don't know how I got here. I don't remember what happened."

The policeman looked disappointed and the doctor said "That is alright. You have a bad head injury. Can you tell me your name?" Charlie looked up at the doctor and a creeping fear came over his face. He didn't know how to answer this question. He knew he must have a name, but why couldn't he remember it? His head was pounding so fiercely that he was having trouble seeing and hearing. "I… I… …Why don't I know my name?" There was a distinct edge of panic in Charlie's voice and the doctor looked at him with concern. "Relax, I'm sure that you do know your name, but you have had a nasty bump on your head and things seem a little out of focus just at the moment. Let's get a few X-Rays and see how much swelling there is and I am sure that everything will clear up for you in a couple of hours."

The doctor turned to the nurse and said "Let's get a skull series and a head CT." The nurse took down the order and left for the front desk. The officer stepped aside and gave the doctor a card. "Call me as soon as he remembers anything. I'll be in the lounge filling out the paperwork on this case but the sooner we can get a description of his attacker the better chance we have of tracking him down." The doctor took the card and said "What makes you think that he was attacked?"

"Well he was found in a public park with his head bashed in and no wallet or identification. It looks to me like someone hit him on the head and stole his money so that is how I am writing it up." The doctor pocketed the card but said "I suppose that is a possibility but he wasn't just hit from behind. That welt over his left eye looks a lot like he was hit with something small and round. I have seen quite a few welts like that being so close to Dodger Stadium"
"Are you saying he was hit with a baseball doc?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders and said "That seems fairly likely but until our friend remembers what happened we won't know for sure."

The doctor turned his attention back to Charlie and examined him carefully then cleaned his wounds before stitching and bandaging his bleeding scalp. The process actually helped Charlie to feel a little more awake and alert because it was somewhat painful. The pressure bandage around his head was quite bulky and a little tight but it offered some support and that helped to calm the pounding that he had been experiencing since he woke up.

A few minutes after the doctor left a tall black orderly came into the cubicle that Charlie was in. "Hello, I'm Jerome and it's time for a ride to X-Ray." The orderly unlocked the bed which jerked uncomfortably making Charlie wince slightly. "Yo buddy, sorry 'bout that. I promise I won't bounce you into any walls on the way down to the elevator." Charlie smiled weakly at the man and tried to relax. His head was buzzing with questions that he had no answers for. What had happened to him? He had a vague memory of something wet and close to his face. That image made him feel uncomfortable and inexplicably nervous. Prior to that he didn't seem to have any memory at all of what had happened to him or indeed even who he was.


Chapter Four
As they came to the end of the hall leading out of the emergency department they had to stop and wait for an elevator to arrive to take them up to the first floor and the X-Ray department. Sitting nearby a rather distraught woman held a long piece of paper in her hands saying to a man sitting next to her "Emergency room visit $1,542; Ambulance $345; ALS $265; Supplies including all the drugs and IVs $836.45, $365.89, $630.75; Medical consultation $2,540… Do you have any idea what this is all going to add up to?"

"$6543.09" Jerome looked down at Charlie and said "What was that buddy?" Charlie said "$1,542; $345; $265; $836.45, $365.89, $630.75; $2540 adds up to $6543.09" Jerome shot a look back at the woman who had turned in their direction at Charlie words with a stunned look on her face, then back at Charlie. "You just added all that up in your head?!" Just then the elevator door opened and Jerome pushed the stretcher in still marveling at what Charlie had just done. Another orderly ran into the elevator just as the doors were closing and said "Hey ya J. What's shakin""
"Yo Jerry you got a calculator on ya?" Jerry patted his pockets down but came up empty and shrugged his shoulders "Sorry dude, whatch' want a calculator for?"

A man in a suit standing next to Charlie's stretcher pulled a small calculator out of his pocket "You can use mine if you'd like." Jerome took the calculator and said "OK my friend what is 436 X 789?" Charlie didn't even need to concentrate. The answer just materialized in his head and he replied "344,004" Jerome, Jerry and the man in the suit all looked at Charlie amazed. "OK, OK how about 1785 X 3924?" Once again the numbers seemed to just flow in his mind like water and he answered "7,004,340" The elevator doors opened and they all just stood there for a second. Jerome handed the man's calculator back to him and pushed Charlie out into the hallway.

"Rockin' dude, yer a regular genius!" Jerry said in complete awe. "I am?" said Charlie somewhat surprised by this young mans reaction to what seemed to him to be fairly elementary mathematics. Jerome began to move the stretcher down the hall to the X-Ray department with Jerry tagging along. After parking Charlie against the wall in what looked like a sort of stretcher waiting area Jerome moved off to turn in a paper to the woman at the window. "So who is this guy anyway?" Jerome glanced back at Charlie and said "No idea and he don't know either. Someone smashed his head in and he can't even remember his own name." Jerry looked back at Charlie then said "How can he dope out the numbers like that and not know his own name? Dude, I'll betcha he's some sort of rainman or something like that." Jerome scowled at his friend and said "Na, the Rainman was autistic. This guy's not retarded, he might be a teacher at some technical school though. Whoever he is, that was totally cool. I'll bet he'd do a righteous deal in Vegas."

Trevor Baker and Michael Reed stood waiting in the hallway of the busy emergency department while the doctors tried to revive Devlin who had stopped breathing just before they arrived at the hospital. Michael speaking in a low voice said "What if he dies Trevor?" Trevor tried to see through the glass of the treatment room that Devlin had been taken into. Suddenly an announcement came over the loud speaker "Code Blue in Treatment Room 4!" Nurses and doctors came running from several different directions toward them. Trevor and Michael moved back against the wall to allow them to pass and enter the room. Trevor could only see shadows but it was clear that there was a frenzy of activity happening behind that closed door. The police officer that had brought Charlie in stepped out of the lounge and both Trevor and Michael turned their backs to him and moved down the wall toward a counter where doctors were reading and writing in a stack of charts.

The door behind them opened and a couple of nurses stepped out. One of them said "It's a shame really. He was so young…" but they couldn't catch the rest of what was being said as the nurses passed out of earshot. "We need to get out of here Trevor." To leave they would have to walk right passed the cop who was standing directly in their path and Trevor was concerned that their faces might be in circulation after the theft from Bio-Gen. Trevor walked in the opposite direction and around the corner of the counter where the doctors were working on charts.

Trevor was looking around considering the best way for them to leave without attracting notice when an orderly walk right passed him and called out to one of the doctors at the desk. "Yo Doc Caster, you know your John Doe with the head injury?" One of the doctors looked up and the orderly continued "You should check with colleges and see if they have a Math professor missing." Trevor and Michael were just about to make for the rear of the department when they stopped in their tracks at these words.

The doctor came over to the orderly and said "What makes you say that?" Jerome said "Well he is some sort of Math genius. We were waitin' for the elevator up to X-Ray and this woman was sittin' there complainin' 'bout her bill and rattled off all these charges and he added them up in his head! Then I tested him with a calculator. He's like some kind of human computer this guy. I'll bet someone's lookin' for him." The doctor looked intrigued. "Where is he now?"
"He was done in X-Ray so I brought him back to curtain two." The doctor looked behind him and pulled out a chart and said "Thanks Jerome."

Trevor and Michael exchanged excited looks and Trevor scanned the wall for the location of curtain two. He knew that it would be one of the cubicles with nothing but a curtain to give privacy from the busy ER and he quickly found it. "Bring the car around to the loading dock behind the ambulance bay. There is a door leading out to that dock on the other side of the Emergency department." Michael glanced around the corner and saw that the cop had moved off and he turned back to Trevor "How are you going to get him out?" Trevor winked and said "Leave that to me." Michael turned and left directly for the front door to get the car.

Trevor walked purposefully toward the back of the Emergency room scanning the area for what looked like a lounge or changing room. He ended up walking almost all the way around to entire department and ended up near where the cop had been standing blocking their way but he did find the lounge. He stepped through the door as though he had every right to be exactly where he was and when he entered he found that the lounge was empty. He moved quickly looking in the lockers until he found one that had a set of scrubs. He pulled them on quickly over his clothes and grabbed a name tag from the same locker. He pinned it haphazardly to the scrub top so that the picture was turned around the wrong way.

Trevor grabbed a wheel chair from the hallway and made his way to curtain two only to find the doctor who spoke with the orderly talking in low tones with a young man whose head was covered in a bandage. "Sorry to interrupt Doctor Castor but they need him back in X-Ray. Apparently some of the films didn't come out and the Radiologist wants a few more pictures." The doctor saw that the orderly had brought a wheelchair and turned to Charlie and said "We'll talk when you get back from X-Ray. Are you up to a ride in a chair?" Charlie who was already sitting up on the stretcher nodded and swung his legs out over the side. He swayed slightly but waved off the doctor who wanted to get him to lie back down. "No please, I want to get up. This thing doesn't steer all that well and a chair ride will make me less dizzy, I think."

Charlie gingerly got down from the stretcher he had been laying in with the help of Doctor Castor and Trevor and into the wheelchair. "Come and find me as soon as you get back from X-Ray." Trevor smiled and said "Will do doc." and headed down the corridor toward the end of the Emergency Department. "So I hear that you are a bit of a math whiz." Charlie was feeling nauseous and dizzy. Moving to the chair had not been a very good idea after all and he had not really heard Trevor's question. Charlie leaned forward almost tipping out of the chair and Trevor quickly grabbed him around the chest to hold him back up in the chair. "Hey fella, you OK?" Charlie squeezed his eyes shut for a moment willing the dizziness to subside and after a moment he opened them and was somewhat startled by what he saw.

They were not in front of the elevators leading to the upper levels of the hospital as he had expected but just heading through two swinging doors that lead to a loading area of some kind. "Where are we going?" Charlie asked. Trevor looked out through the open door to the loading dock and saw Michael coming up the steps to the right of the dock. A man lay prone on the ground of the dock and Trevor looked quizzically at Michael. "He said that I couldn't park here and was going to call security." he said in explanation.

Charlie felt a deep fear grip his chest as he realized that the man on the floor was dead. There was a copious amount of blood around the man's head and his eyes were wide open in a look of surprise. Trevor and Michael took hold of Charlie under his arms and hauled him up out of the chair. He tried to resist but was far too weak and dizzy. They put him roughly into the back of a black SUV and then got in and sped away from the loading dock.

The false orderly was driving and the other man was rifling through a box on the floor of the front seat of the car. He pulled out what looked like a portable scanner. Charlie had fallen over to his side and was staring up out of the window of the car. The passing poles and trees were making him even more dizzy so he closed his eyes.

He opened them again when he felt the man in the passenger seat grab his hand and place it on the plate of the scanner. Charlie tried to pull away from him but the man had a strong grip and he said "Hold still if you know what's good for you." Charlie stopped struggling because this man had a deadly look in his eye and he had already shown no compunction about killing. "I'll hack into AFIS when we get back and find out who our friend is."

[Alice I]

Chapter Five
Don had finished the preliminary profiling on this case and was anxious to show the encrypting algorithm to Charlie to see how difficult it would be for the thieves to crack. He was just pulling up to the house as his father was trying to open the front door whilst holding three full bags of groceries. Don called out to his father "Hey Dad, I'll get the door." and he jogged over to the front door and opened it for him. "Donnie I wasn't expecting to see you tonight. I thought you had a date." Don stopped and turned back to his father slapping his hand to his forehead. "Damn, Julie, I forgot all about her. Something came up and I need to talk to Charlie about it." Alan Eppes walked to the kitchen and was setting the bags down on the counter "Well he must be around, his bicycle is out front." Don went over to the stairs leading to the second floor and called out to his brother but got no answer. "Maybe he's in the garage." Don muttered and started for the back door. As he passed by the window looking out over the side yard he saw a bloody hand print on the glass and a cold dread filled him like a bucket of ice had dropped into his stomach. "Oh my God!"

Alan, who was putting the groceries away, turned at the sound of his older son's voice. "What is it?" Don ran to the back door and yanked it open. He stepped out and scanned the area quickly with trained eyes and almost instantly found the puddle of blood covering a patch of the side walk that ran along side the house. Alan stepped out right behind Don and saw what he was looking at. "Oh God, Charlie! Charlie!" He was shouting and ran to the garage to try and find his youngest son.

Don took a breath and forced his training to overcome the panic that was rising like bile in his chest. There were bloody prints near the puddle. Some were clearly dog prints but there was also the outline of a sneaker. The electric drill was in the bushes next to the house which seemed odd and he looked up. All he could see was the edge of the roof so he backed up carefully so as not to disturb the scene until he was back far enough to see nearly to the peek of the roof. There was a dish up there that hadn't been there before.

Alan came out of the garage in a state of near panic and Don had to restrain him so that he wouldn't inadvertently walk over the area and destroy the traces that would allow Don to find out where Charlie had gone to. "Dad, did you have a direct TV dish installed?" The absurdity of the question in light of what they had found stopped Alan like a slap in the face. "What!?" Don pointed up to the roof and Alan followed his gaze. "I don't know what that is."

Larry was walking up the side yard to where Don and Alan stood looking up at the roof completely unaware of the situation. "That's the dish I gave Charlie this afternoon so that he could link to the universities mainframe at night. He couldn't wait to install it." Both Dan and Alan turned to Larry white faced and Larry's smile vanished "What's wrong?" he said looking at their faces. "He must have fallen off the roof." Alan said in a strained voice. Larry looked toward the house and saw the blood on the sidewalk and dropped the satchel he was holding "Oh my… Oh Charlie. Where is he?"

Don held out his hand to keep Larry from getting closer to the evidence. Don stepped over to the blood carefully looking over the scene. "He fell from the roof and landed here. But what made him fall? He would have been careful up there and it's not that steep."

Larry saw something over by the garage and went over to see what it was. "I'm afraid this might have something to do with it." He bent down and picked up a baseball and held it up for Don to see. "If he was hit with a baseball wouldn't it be closer to where he fell?" Larry looked up at the roof to where the dish was and then down to where Charlie had fallen. "Not really no, you see it's like billiards, this ball would have traveled in the opposite direction than what it hit." Don realized that Larry was right and he should have realized that immediately. His fear for Charlie was getting in the way of him thinking clearly and he chided himself "Of course,.. idiot!" under his breath. Larry didn't really hear Don and just kept talking "But if he fell off the roof then where is he? I mean is that …" Larry was looking truly horrified and pointing at the blood on the sidewalk "… if that's Charlie's… I mean there is an awful lot of it…" Larry was nervously scratching his head and looking up to the roof "Dear Lord this is all my fault."

Don looked down at the spot where Charlie had fallen and said "There are dog prints, so if a neighborhood dog came over it must have roused him. He got up probably dazed and confused and stumbled." Don pointed at the bloody hand print on the window. "These are his sneaker marks, he stepped in the blood and walked… no look at the gate, he was staggering out to the street." Don ran out to the front of the house and found droplets of blood and began following the blood trail with Alan and Larry following close behind.

He found another bloody hand print on a lamp post and knew he was moving in the right direction. Don was amazed that Charlie had managed to get nearly two blocks from the house with such a serious head wound. The blood trail led them to Grant Park close to their home where they came to the park bench that Charlie had fallen over. Don looked around and saw a discarded rubber glove and a plastic packet that would have held a gauze wrap and there were tire tracks close by from a heavy vehicle.

Don pulled out his cell phone and called Terry Lake. He explained what had happened and that Charlie must have been taken to a local hospital. The nearest one to their house was California Medical Hospital on Vermont. "Call the local police and see if there were any reports of injuries in Grant Park and meet me at the hospital." He looked at his father who was ashen and looked more frightened than he had ever seen him. "It'll be OK Dad, let's get to the hospital. I'm sure he's there."

Terry Lake, Don's partner arrived at California Medical Hospital just as Don and his father did. Larry followed a few minutes later. Terry stepped up to Don who was at the Emergency Department reception desk showing his FBI badge and demanding entrance to the ER. "Don, the LAPD was called this afternoon about a man found in Grant Park; the apparent victim of a mugging. It could be Charlie." Just as she was saying this, a doctor who was looking extremely stressed stepped out to the reception desk and escorted Don and the others back to the lounge.
"I'm Doctor Castor and I was treating a young man this afternoon who came in with a severe head injury. The police officer who came in with him thought that the man had been mugged because he had no wallet or identification on him." Don pulled out a photograph of Charlie and showed it to the doctor. "Yes that is the man." Larry stepped forward and said "He didn't have his wallet. I did." Don spun around and looked incredulously at Larry. "It was in his satchel which he asked me to bring by the house after classes. He wanted to take the satellite dish home and install it."

Doctor Castor said "Who is this man? He was unable to tell us what had happened or even his name." Don looked stricken for a moment but before he could say anything his father burst in "He has amnesia? How badly was he hurt doctor?" Don put a reassuring hand on his father's shoulder and said "His name is Charlie and he is my brother. Where is he doctor?"

Two police officers came into the lounge just then and said "Doctor can you work with our sketch artist to get a picture of the kidnapped patient and the man who took him?" Don knew instantly that they were talking about Charlie and said "Kidnapped? Are they talking about Charlie?" Alan nearly fainted and Terry helped him to a chair." One of the officers said "Excuse me sir but who are you and what interest do you have in our case?" Don was feeling very tense but kept his emotions in check. He pulled out his badge and showed it to the officers but looked at Doctor Castor for confirmation of his suspicions.

"An orderly came to take him to the X-Ray Department for some additional films. After an hour when they hadn't returned I called the Radiologist on duty who told me that he hadn't ordered any additional films. I called the police immediately but before they could get here a man was found murdered in the ER loading dock. It seems that your brother was kidnapped by this orderly. I thought that perhaps the police had been correct in the fact that he had been attacked and that his attacker had returned for him."

This wasn't adding up. "Doctor you say that like you did not believe that he had been attacked." Doctor Castor took a seat at the table and said "When I first examined your brother he had a serious head wound to the back of his skull but he also had a large welt over his left eye. This injury looked to me like someone who had been hit in the face with something small and round. It didn't feel like an attack to me, it seemed more like an accident of some kind but obviously I was wrong."

Don sat down as well and said "You were not wrong Doctor. Charlie was hit with a baseball and fell of the roof of his house. He somehow managed to get up and wandered obviously dazed into the park where he was found and brought here. The evidence of that is clear and unmistakable. What I can't understand is who and why would someone kidnap him. You said that he didn't even know his own name is that correct?"

"Yes that is true. He suffered a skull fracture and there was significant enough swelling to the occipital lobe that it is not at all surprising that he had a short term as well as long term memory instability. This will most likely been a temporary situation and his memory should return as the swelling subsides." Alan put his face in his hands and couldn't hold back the emotions he felt hearing of such a devastating injury to his youngest child. Don was also exceptionally upset hearing about Charlie's injuries but he remained focused and continued to question the doctor. "So you essentially knew nothing about him nor did anyone else. Is that correct?"

Doctor Castor said "Well not exactly. We were in the process of contacting local universities to see if they had a mathematics professor gone missing. You see when your brother initially went down to the X-Ray Department the orderly came and told me that your brother had over heard someone complaining about some charges on a bill and mentioned all of them. Your brother added them up in his head. The orderly who was with him couldn't believe it and tested him with a calculator and he was able to multiply huge numbers in his head faster than the calculator could."

Don had a deep tingling creep down his spine and he asked "Were you in a private area when this orderly told you about Charlie's abilities?" The doctor frowned and shook his head "No I was out at the sub acute desk. There were several people around. Why would that matter?" Don and Terry exchanged a look and she pulled out the photos of the men who had stolen the encrypted data from Bio-Gen. Don took them and handed them to the doctor and said "Do any of these men look familiar to you?" Doctor Castor looked over the photos and said "This is the man who took your brother." and he pointed to Dr. Trevor Baker. Terry and Don exchanged a look and Alan said "Who are these people Don? What do they want with Charlie?"

Don knew that his father was extremely distraught over all of this and he deserved an answer but he couldn't talk about this in front of all of these other people. "Dad, There is a case that I'm working on but I can't talk about it right now. I promise I'll tell you everything when I get back to the house." Don turned to Larry and said "Can you take my dad home?" Alan shook his head at this statement, he had tears in his eyes. "Don, what is going on? Who has Charlie?" Don put his hands on his father's shoulders and said "Look, there is nothing that you can do here. I'll find him Dad. I promise you I will find him." Alan didn't want to go, he wanted answers but he realized that there was no point in getting in Dons way. Don obviously knew who had taken his brother and why and Alan also knew that Don would not rest until he had found Charlie so reluctantly he left with Larry.

Once Larry and his father had left Don turned to Terry and said "So what were they doing here?" Terry asked Dr. Castor "Can we see a list of male patients that were brought in today? We think that this man…" and Terry pointed to the unidentified man in the still shot from Bio-Gen's surveillance camera "…may have been a patient here." Doctor Castor picked up the photograph and said "Well that tattoo would be easy enough to spot. Come with me and we'll ask the other attendings. If this fellow were in here someone would remember it." Dr. Castor led them out of the lounge and it only took a couple of minutes for a nurse to say "Yes this guy was brought in by a couple of other men. They said they found him on the street. The patient died of a drug overdose, cocaine I think. He is down in our morgue."

Don and Terry went down to the morgue and took finger prints of the man as well as photographs. The LA crime lab was to take the body and process any trace finding immediately and get them back to the FBI directly to Don's attention. As they left the hospital Don was talking on his cell saying "Background checks on Reed and Baker have turned up nothing useful so I want to know everything about this guy, where he lived, where he went to school, any relatives, what he had for breakfast and I want it before midnight."

He hung up the phone and Terry placed a hand on his arm "They won't hurt him, they need him to crack that code." They had reached the car and Don slammed his fist on the top of it "And as soon as he does they will kill him." Terry knew Don very well and could hear the stress in his voice. His fear that he would never see Charlie alive again showed clearly in his face. "We'll find him before that happens Don."

Chapter Six
Charlie had fallen into a semi conscious daze while lying in the back seat and he was a little difficult to rouse when they arrived at the old house. Trevor and Michael again had to practically carry Charlie into the house. They got him up to the bedroom where Devlin was working and laid him on the bed. Charlie opened his eyes and saw the room spinning. It was too much and he leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited before passing out.

Trevor wiped up the mess while Michael went back to the car to retrieve the scanner. He plunged the device into the lap top and began typing furiously. It only took five minutes for Michael to hack into AFIS and another five to come up with results on the scanned palm print from the scanner. "Jackpot!" he said as a page printed out. Michael did some further searching and found out that Charlie wasn't the only one from his family listed in the system. Trevor had just come back into the bedroom and upon hearing Michael's comment immediately pulled the sheet from the printer.

"Jackpot indeed! It looks like this guy is the real deal, a true bonafide genius." Michael said "Check out the second page just printing." Trevor then found the bio of Don Eppes and read it thoroughly. "This could work to our advantage." Michael looked up and said "Are you nuts! You said yourself that we don't need complications with the FBI and this guys brother…"
"Calm down, The FBI is already involved. We knew that Slocum would go to them but with the professor as a bargaining chip we have a better chance of getting out of a tight spot if they get too close. FBI or not, this Agent Eppes won't risk us killing his little brother." Trevor was more interested in Charlie's father and continued saying "Now it says here that our little genius lives with his father. We need to get daddy so that Professor Eppes here will cooperate."

Michael looked over at Charlie and said "What about him? Do you think he will be able to work all busted up like that?" Trevor looked at Charlie too and said "He'll be fine, and yes he'll be able to work because he won't have any choice. Now, can you get me into the FBI system so we can see if anyone has figured out that the professor is missing yet?"

It took considerably longer for Michael to hack into the FBI computers and Charlie woke up while he was working. The sun was setting and it took him a moment to clear his head and to process everything that had happened that day. He sat up slowly and looked around. Michael was working away at the laptop on a desk in the corner of the room seemingly oblivious to Charlie, and Trevor sat watching him from a chair by the door. "How are you feeling?" he asked Charlie.
Charlie turned toward the man who had spoken and asked "Where am I?" Trevor regarded him before answering "What is more important; where you are or who you are?" Charlie knew that he had had an accident and when he woke up in the hospital he hadn't remembered his name. The swelling in his brain from the injury had subsided somewhat and he had a clearer recollection of the day's events although everything was still pretty fuzzy. He did know that these two men had kidnapped him from the hospital and that they were dangerous so he had to be careful. "What do you want with me?"

Trevor got up and poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the dresser and handed it to Charlie. "Drink this, you're dehydrated." Charlie hesitated. "It's alright. It's just water." Charlie was very thirsty so he drank it but then repeated his question. "What do you want from me?"
"You are here because of your particular expertise, you see I have a job for you Professor Eppes." Charlie just looked at this man incredulously for a moment. The man sat down again in front of Charlie and said "You have had a rather difficult day professor. How's the head? Still a lot of pain?" Charlie didn't answer but handed the glass back for more water. This man was acting very oddly for a kidnapper but he was correct about Charlie being dehydrated. Trevor got up and poured some more water into the glass and gave it to back Charlie and said "How did you get injured anyway?" Michael stopped typing for a moment to hear what their captive's response would be to this question. Charlie didn't trust this man no matter how polite he was trying to be. "I don't remember." was all he said.

Trevor could tell that Charlie was lying but didn't press the issue. "Well that is really neither here nor there. There is data on this palm pilot..." he said picking up the device that was still connected to the laptop on the desk "…that has been encrypted with some kind of mathematical algorithm. You are going to decode the information for us." Charlie shook his head and said "No. I won't." Charlie expected this man to become angry by his refusal but instead the man smiled the kind of smile that sent chills down his spine. "Oh, but you will Professor Eppes."

Michael printed off some pages and took them before leaving the room without giving Charlie a second glance. Trevor opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a set of clean clothes and put them on the bed next to Charlie. "I imagine that you'd like to get out of that." he said indicating the hospital gown that Charlie still had on. "We'll come by later and bring you something to eat. In the meantime I suggest that you start working. Everything that you need to do your job is here in this room." With that Trevor left the room and Charlie heard the door being locked behind him.

After they had gone down to the first floor Michael handed his sheets to Trevor. "The FBI is looking for this guy. The LAPD was called to Grant Park because some woman and her kids found him all smashed up. It was being reported as a mugging." Trevor tutted and said "My goodness little Charlie is having a bad day isn't he." Michael shook his head and said "I'm not so sure that the initial report was correct though. I wanted to get the name of the officer who found him and when I hacked back into the LAPD computer the file was gone. If the LAPD was investigating a mugging the file wouldn't just disappear. There are only two reasons for it to be gone; 1. If the incident was discovered to not be a crime; or
2. If this guy is under some sort of government protection and they don't want a public record of him. The latter makes no sense because he is clearly listed as a consultant for the FBI and this guy teaches full time at Cal Sci."

Trevor began to pace the kitchen and said "Well let's assume that he had some sort of innocent accident and wound up in that Park. He didn't know his name because he was listed as a John Doe by the hospital but he was conscious enough to add up some numbers impressing the staff. So how did the police or the FBI for that matter know to change the police report? Unless…" Trevor picked up the bio sheet on Charlie and said "The police report said that he was found in Grant Park right, well he lives with his father about two blocks from there. This accident he had happened at home. When his father came home it would have been easy to track down what had happened to him especially with a brother working for the FBI."

Michael slapped his hand on the table and said "That damned tattoo of Devlin's!" Trevor frowned and said "So what." Michael was frustrated by Trevor's nonchalance and said "Devlin is lying in that hospital's morgue. That tattoo is very distinctive and would tie him to us. The fact that a mathematical genius was abducted from the same hospital puts that squarely on us! The FBI will know that we have him Trevor." Trevor started looking worried and said "But Devlin never worked for Bio-Gen, there isn't anyway to trace him to us."

Michael got up and started pacing "Look you said yourself that all kinds of added security was placed on the lab after you were fired. The whole reason that the formula was encrypted is because they thought that you were trying to steal the compound. I disabled the surveillance cameras when we hit the lab but what if they added a separate surveillance system that I didn't know about and couldn't block. Devlin's face was hidden but not that damn tattoo. If they have a video of us on that day they can tie Devlin to us."

Trevor took a deep breath and said "OK let's assume that you are right and they have tied both Devlin and Professor Eppes' kidnapping to us. They still have no idea how to find us and they don't have any clue as to how soon our buyers are coming." Michael was not happy about this. Their plan was falling apart. "That's right; Yokonovitch will be here the day after tomorrow. What if he can't crack this code before then?" This is where Trevor was less concerned "Oh this guy can crack the code and I know just how to motivate him. Never the less make sure that we are ready to leave quickly if we need to."

Trevor grabbed the sheet with Charlie's address on it and turned back to Michael "I know that you say your hacks are untraceable but with the heat on, no more hacks into the FBI database. We have all we need to go on. Keep an eye on our guest."
"Where are you going?" Trevor took the keys and said "To get some motivation for Professor Eppes."

[Alice I]

Chapter Seven
Terry, David Sinclair and Don arrived at Charlie's house at nearly nine o'clock that evening. Larry had left around eight and Alan had spent the last hour pacing the house. He had started to get out the supplies to clean up the blood on the side walk and window but broke down when he saw it and left the bucket and rags where he had set them down. As soon as his older son came in Alan went straight to him "Donnie, what is happening, who has Charlie? And don't give me any flack about it's top secret either. Charlie is my son and I want answers young man!"

Don looked very tired and the four of them sat down at the dining room table. "Dad there was a robbery at a genetic research company called Bio-Genesis Technologies Inc. Data to create a very dangerous genetic compound was stolen and can be used as a biological weapon. The data was encrypted with a complicated algorithm and the thieves had someone who was going to crack the encryption for them but he died today of a cocaine overdose. His name was Devlin Jacobs and he was a graduate of Cal Tech. When Jacobs' partners brought him into the hospital they must have overheard the staff talking about Charlie and his ability with numbers."

Don got up and started pacing, a habit he had when under stress and trying to think. "Taking Charlie was a rash move and awfully risky which means that they are getting desperate and they have shown that they are not afraid to kill anyone who gets in their way. The man they killed on that loading dock was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Terry said "They probably already have a buyer for the formula." Don turned around and looked at her and said "Yes someone dangerous who they don't dare cross. OK, we need to find out who Dr. Baker is planning on selling this information too. We need surveillance at every airport. I want immigration to have pictures of Baker and Reed and I want to be notified of any high risk entries immediately. Immigration is not to stop anyone suspicious but to notify us at once so that we can follow them. If we can't turn up anything more useful on Jacobs it may be the only way for us to find Charlie."

Don's father looked stricken by this news and it was clear that he was terrified that these men would kill Charlie if he couldn't break the encryption for them. Don could read this fear in his father's eyes and said "Dad they won't hurt Charlie, they need him. I need to get back and get the airport surveillance set up and coordinate with immigration but I don't want you to be here alone. These men are dangerous and I would feel more comfortable if you had someone with you." Terry stood up and said "I'll stay Don." Don pursed his lips and said "Alright, but I will send a relief agent as soon as I get to the office because I need you on this."

Trevor pulled up a few houses down from the Eppes' home and looked the situation over. There were two cars in the driveway and lights on in the house. He watched and waited to see what would happen. After almost an hour the front door opened and he saw Don Eppes and another man step out on to the front porch. The second man went to one of the cars in the driveway and got in the passenger side while Don exchanged words with an older man whom Trevor assumed to be Alan Eppes. After Don got in his car and left, Trevor waited ten more minutes before pulling up into the driveway. He looked around to make sure that the street was dark and when he got to the front porch he reached up and unscrewed the bulb in the light plunging the front steps into darkness then waited for a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the dark before ringing the bell.

Alan was in the kitchen making them tea when the bell rang and he stepped out to the dining room and said to Terry "It's probably Larry. He said that he would stop by later to see how I was doing." Terry opened the door but couldn't make out who was standing there because the light was out. She said "Yes?" and flipped the switch a couple of times. The next thing that she saw was a flash of light and felt a blinding pain in her head. Alan ran to the door "Oh my God, Terry!" just as he reached her a man stepped into the house with a gun pointed directly at him. "Alan Eppes?" Alan felt a deep fear flood through him for he recognized the man from the photographs that Don had shown him. Terry moaned slightly drawing Alan's attention. She had only been grazed by the bullet and was not dead and Alan sighed with relief. The man in the doorway said "If you want Charlie to live to tomorrow morning you will come out here right now and not make a sound."

Alan got up shakily and stepped out on to the porch and Trevor pressed the gun into his ribs. "Get into the car right now and say nothing." Trevor led Alan to the car and had him get in the passenger side. As Trevor speed away from the Eppes' home he drove one handed while pointing his revolver at Alan. "What does the FBI know?" Alan said "Where's Charlie? What have you done with my son?" Trevor turned a corner hard nearly running an oncoming vehicle off the road and Alan slid and hit the passenger window hard. Trevor slowed the vehicle down and said "Listen to me, I hold your son's life in my hands. Tell me what I want to know." Alan looked hard at this man and said "You need Charlie, you can't hurt him." Trevor said "Mr. Eppes you would be amazed at the amount of pain someone can endure before the mind stops functioning." Alan blanched at this statement and Trevor waited for that thought to sink in before continuing "So I will ask you once again, what does the FBI know?"

Alan took a moment to answer. "They know who you are, and why you took Charlie." Trevor shot a quick look at Alan and said "How does the FBI know that I have Charlie?"
"They have a picture of you and you're partners stealing that biological weapon from some genetic research company and you're Mathematical expert is in the hospital morgue. It wasn't hard for them to put two and two together." Trevor realized that if they looked hard enough they would eventually find the house that was deeded to Devlin. "How close are they to finding us? Be very careful Mr. Eppes, it would be an extremely bad idea to lie to me about this point." Trevor pulled the car to the side of the road in order to watch Alan's face as he answered. "If my son knew where you were we wouldn't be having this conversation. If there is anyway to find Charlie, Don will do it and that will be extremely dangerous for you and your partner." Trevor had a fleeting fear come into his eyes before pulling back onto the road.

As soon as Don and David reached the office Don asked an agent to go to Charlie's house and relieve Terry but before the agent could leave Don's cell phone rang and it was Larry sounding hysterical. "Larry clam down what is going on?" Don's face grew stony and he said "Call an ambulance we'll be right there." David said "What happened?" Don was already heading for the door "Terry's been shot and they have Dad!"

Terry was clearly distraught about what had happened. "About ten minutes after you left the door bell rang. I answered it but the porch light was out and I couldn't see the man standing there. The next thing I remember is a flash and then waking up with Larry kneeling over me." Terry hung her head and winced as the paramedic tried to apply a bandage to her temple. Don said "It's not your fault Terry." Larry stood up and said "You know I was nearly run off the road by a black SUV as I turned onto this street." Don turned quickly to Larry and said "What else do you remember about that vehicle? Did you catch any part of the license plate?" Larry was scratching his head and said "No it was moving too fast and it's dark out. It looked like it was at least a couple of years old and there were two people in the car. They were coming from this direction. Do you think that the kidnapper and Alan were in that car? If I had only gotten here a few minutes earlier…"
"Then you would have been shot as well Larry!" Don pulled out his phone and walked out to the kitchen speaking to the Police Department about an All Points Bulletin on every Black SUV they saw. "I don't care what kind of problems that causes if it's a Black or dark colored SUV I want it stopped and checked!" He felt a buzzing all through his body and he started to breath faster. Suddenly he let out a scream of frustration and pounded his fists on the table so hard that everything on it tipped over and broke. Terry got up quickly pushing the medic out of the way and she and David ran into the kitchen just in time to see Don walking out the back door slamming it behind him. David made to go after him but Terry put out a hand and said "Let him be alone for a few minutes." Before Terry and David had stepped out of the kitchen the back door flew open and Don charged in "We have a lead to go on. Jacobs inherited an old house out on the 90 and I'm betting that's where they have Dad and Charlie."

Chapter Eight
When they arrived at the old house Trevor bound Alan's hands behind his back with duct tape and brought him inside at gun point. "This place is not secure. We need to move now. You were right about a separate surveillance system on the lab. The FBI knows that we have the Eppes' and if they do a little digging they will probably find this place." Michael swore and started clearing up the pages he had printed out and closing up the computer he was working with. "Where are we going?" Michael asked. "There is a truck stop motel out on the 110. It's busy, noisy and they only take cash. The rooms are set back away from the road behind the weighing station and are frequented mostly by those not wanting to be found. It will be a good spot to lay low in until Friday afternoon." Trevor told Alan to sit down then turned to Michael and said
"Give me a minute with the professor then bring up his father." and handed the revolver to Michael.

When he entered the room where Charlie was being held Trevor started packing up the computer and saw that Charlie had looked at the encrypted data but had otherwise done nothing about it. "So you still won't help us is that right Professor?" Charlie glared at him but said nothing. "Well we have something that may change your mind. Get up, it's time to go." Charlie looked surprised but he didn't move. He was not going to cooperate with these people in any way and nothing would change his mind. The swelling from his head wound had subsided enough now that he had a fairly clear recollection of what had happened. He knew that Don would be looking for him and he was going to trust in his brother's abilities as an investigator and he knew that Don would find and rescue him. "You won't get away with this you know. My brother will come looking for me and when he finds you…" Trevor smiled at him "So you remember who you are now do you? Well that is good because you will recognize your motivation."

Just as he said this Charlie heard his father's voice demanding to know where his son was. Michael stepped into the room with Alan at gunpoint and as soon as he saw his son Alan ran over to him "Charlie! Oh my God, Charlie are you alright?" Charlie's eyes were wide with fear now "Dad!"
"Very nice family reunion but it is now time to go gentlemen. Lets move and if either of you try anything the other one will pay the price." Charlie and his father were led out to the car and forced into the back after Michael had bound Charlie's hands behind his back as well. Alan spoke quietly with Charlie in the back seat "You haven't tried to break that encryption for them have you?" Charlie shook his head and Alan said "It doesn't matter what they do to me Charlie, I am only one person but if you do this for them then thousands of people could die." Charlie looked frightened and asked "What is it that they have Dad?" Michael shot a look back at their captives and said "I don't have any problems with using this boys, so you had better behave." He was holding up a revolver so that both Charlie and Alan could see it. Alan lowered his voice even more and said "It is some kind of formula that they stole from a bio-genetics company. I don't really know what it is but it is definitely a biological weapon of some sort. Charlie, you know why they brought me here, but you can not decode that information. Charlie I love you and your brother more than anything in this world, you know that. Do not cooperate with these people no matter what they do to me. Do you understand?" Charlie looked at his father torn now by the position that they had both been forced into. He couldn't just let these men hurt or kill his father but he also couldn't give them access to a biological weapon.

The FBI surrounded the old Victorian style house and carefully approached. Don saw the tire tracks in the dirt driveway and his heart sank. He knew that they were too late but continued with the raid in any case. They broke down the front and back doors simultaneously and swarmed through the house calling out "FBI!"

They searched every room and found nothing. Don and David headed upstairs and checked each room up there. Don was the one who found the room that they were holding Charlie in and knew that they had been there because there was a hospital gown on the floor in the corner and a name band on the floor that read "John Doe". Don called out "In here!" David and two other agents ran to the room and saw the hospital gown that Don was holding. He threw it down on the floor and kicked the dresser "Damn it!" David stepped over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and said "They would have just left tonight, we probably just missed them. We'll get them Don you know we will." Don turned to the other FBI agents and said "I want this place swept for anything that can tell us where they went." The agents left to carry out Don's orders and he said under his breath "Hang on buddy, I'm coming." Then he left the room and headed down stairs for the vehicles.

Terry was still outside because even though she insisted on coming Don wouldn't let her go in. He wanted her to go to the hospital and get checked but she wasn't having any part of that. It was her fault that Don's father was now in jeopardy. It was her responsibility to protect him and she had not done that. She told Don that she was going to see this through whether he wanted her to or not. "They're gone." She said. It was a statement rather than a question. "We need to get back and organize the set up with immigration and LAX's surveillance. The NSA folks have brought in Homeland security so let's make sure that they are playing by our rules. I don't want anyone jumping the gun and getting my family killed." Don left David to take charge of the sweep of the house while he and Terry headed back to headquarters.

The black SUV entered the truck stop less than an hour later and Michael went into the office to pay for a room. Once they parked Trevor got out and opened the driver side back door and told Alan to turn around so that he could cut the tape off of his hands. Michael had taken a second revolver from the glove compartment and did the same thing with Charlie. There was a bar right next to the motel's strip of rooms and the music was extremely loud. Trevor glanced toward the bar and smiled. They quickly got the Eppes' into the room and after Michael had brought in the computer equipment Trevor turned to Charlie and said "If you want your father to live then you will get to work." Charlie looked stricken and turned to his father. "Charlie I absolutely forbid you to do this. I am your father and you will listen to me." Trevor pointed his gun at Alan and fired a round into his midsection. "Dad! No!" Charlie rushed over to his father and caught him as his knees buckled. Alan had a look of shock and fear on his face as he looked down at the blood seeping through the fingers of his hands that he had instinctively pressed to the wound.

Charlie was beside himself "Dad, Oh God." and he looked up at Trevor "Why?" Trevor said "I need that data, and your father needs medical attention. When I get what I need, your father will get what he needs. I suggest you get to work professor because at your father's age and the nature of that wound I'd say he has 30 hours at best." Charlie helped his father to the bed and said "He'll bleed to death in a couple of hours. We have to stop this bleeding." Trevor sat down in a chair by the door while Michael busied himself setting up the computer equipment. Charlie ran to the bathroom and grabbed a couple of hand towels off the rack behind the toilet. They were at least somewhat clean and he folded them up into squares and placed them against the bullet wound in his father's waist. He looked around frantically for something that he could use for a bandage to hold the towels in place then reached up and felt the pressure bandage on his head. He took his father's hands and said "Dad, hold this in place." as he place his fathers hands on the towels. Then he began to carefully unwrap the bandaging around his own head. There was a good amount of bandaging material and Charlie was sure there would be enough to go around his father's waist at least twice.

As he removed the pressure bandage from his head it started to throb but he hardly noticed. Once he had his head unwrapped he pulled the gauze squares from his own head wound and tossed them aside then helped his father to sit up. "Hang on Dad, I need to get this tied around you." Alan wanted to object but he was in too much pain to argue with Charlie. Once Charlie had wrapped the wound he laid his father down and said "Dad, please hold on. I'll get you out of this." Alan tried to sit up but couldn't move "No Charlie don't do it." Charlie had tears in his eyes now and he leaned close to his father and whispered "Dad, you have to trust me. Please hold on, I can't loose you too."

Alan knew that Charlie was referring to losing his mother only a year previously but he couldn't be a part of helping a deadly weapon make it's way into the hands of terrorists or anyone else. "Charlie I am only one person, do the math." That statement cut into Charlie's heart like a knife and it was clear in his eyes. "Dad please, you must trust me."

Trevor was starting to get impatient "Time is wasting professor." Charlie glared at Trevor for a moment then got up to go wash the blood from his hands. After he left the bathroom Trevor went in and checked the window, it was not much more than a vent and he was satisfied that Charlie couldn't escape that way. He figured that the motel owner may have designed it that way so when he showed up to collect unpaid rent the tenant couldn't slip out that way without paying.

There was no phone and only one window and one door and Charlie could see no way out with these two men sitting there guarding the only exit. Charlie sat down at the folding table where Trevor had set up the equipment and began to look over the encryption. "I will need paper, pencils, and markers." Michael took out a full notebook and a couple of pencils and threw them onto the table in front of Charlie, then he went out to the SUV and searched around until he came up with a couple of markers and tossed them on the table as well. Then he sat down on the second bed in the room and watched as Charlie began to furiously take notes occasionally glancing at his father lying on the far bed and wincing in pain. Charlie worked through the night while Trevor and Michael took turns sleeping.

By seven in the morning Charlie was exhausted and his head was pounding but he seemed to have made some progress. He had used the markers to write out the algorithms that he was going to use on the wall of the room. When Trevor asked him what he was doing Charlie shouted at him "This is how I work! If you'd like to do this yourself then let us go and have at it!" The shouting brought on a wave of dizziness and he had to sit down shakily for a few minutes to let the dizzy spell pass. Trevor shut his mouth and stopped questioning Charlie after that.

Charlie announced to Trevor that he needed a disk to put the data onto and when Trevor and Michael both asked why Charlie said "To decode this data it has to be run through a number sieve. I can create the algorithm on the lap top but then I need to move the data or download it from the palm pilot through the algorithm on the laptop to a disk. The algorithm that I will need to use will take up nearly all of the laptop's memory capacity and the data has to have a place to go to as it runs through the sieve. You will actually be able to see the data decoded as it passes through the algorithm and is transferred to the disk."

Trevor sent Michael out for the disk but as he was leaving he said quietly "Ditch the car. They might be looking for it, but make sure it is wiped down thoroughly first." Michael glanced back at Charlie and whispered under his breath "What about a ride, we will need something to get to the dock tomorrow." Trevor said "Be creative but low key OK?" Michael nodded and left the room.

[Alice I]

Chapter Nine
It had been a very long night for Don and he sat at his desk rubbing his face in his hands. David came rushing in and said "We got a hit from homeland security. One Dimetry Yokonovitch entered the country on a phony passport this morning. They were about to grab him for questioning but Jarvis and Terry were there and instructed immigration to let him pass and they are tailing him now along with a homeland security agent. Mark Reynolds from homeland security agent is on his way here and he is not happy."

"No he is not!" a tall man dressed in a suit said as he entered. David said "This is Sub Director Mark Reynolds; LA division Homeland security." Mr. Reynolds ignored David and walked directly up to Don and said "Homeland Security take precedence over all domestic concerns Agent and your people had no business interfering with my people detaining a known security risk entering this country. Dimetry Yokonovitch is high up in the Russian mafia and has strong affiliations that are known to Al Kida as allies. This data that you lost that is up for sale contains the formula to make a biological weapon does it not?" Don opened his mouth to answer but Reynolds cut him off "Which makes this a case of National and Homeland Security and that take jurisdiction over the FBI's concerns in this matter. Keeping that kind of volatile information out of the hands of known enemies of this country is paramount and any other consideration is secondary and inconsequential to the safety of the United States of America."

Don was clearly fighting to control his emotions and said in a forced calm voice "First of all Mr. Reynolds we did not loose anything. The data was stolen from Bio-Genetics Technologies Inc., who came to the FBI to recover the thieves and stolen data. Secondly there were two hostages taken by the thieves because the data was encrypted and they can't sell it until it has been decoded. We believe that Yokonovitch may be the buyer, but that is not certain yet. So far he is the only candidate that we have seen coming into the country. We were able to track the thieves to their hide out but they evacuated before we got there. Given the actions of the thieves we are certain that they are working against a timeline and that the exchange is going to happen very soon so we want to tail any potential buyer. The lives of the two hostages are not secondary or inconsequential. We want to recover those hostages as well as the stolen data and tailing the buyer may be out best chance to do that!" Don never raised his voice but by the time he finished speaking the anger that he felt at the lives of his family being described as inconsequential showed clearly in his voice and in the steely look in his eyes.

Mr. Reynolds was slightly taken aback by the response of this agent but before he could formulate a reply Don's boss stepped in and said "Director Reynolds, Agent Eppes could we continue this discussion in my office." Don turned his back on Reynolds and marched off without another word. Mr. Reynolds stared after Don wondering why this agent was so passionate about the hostages and followed Director Merrick to his office.

After closing the door to his office Assistant Director Merrick said "Don when was the last time you got some sleep?" Don felt more secure behind closed doors and spoke more freely "I'll sleep when we have Charlie, dad and that data back." Don saw the look on Reynolds face and said "My brother is an FBI and NSA consultant in applied mathematics with top secret clearance. He was abducted by the men who stole the Bio-Gen data because he has the ability to decode it. Charlie must have refused to aide them so they kidnapped my father to force him to work for them." Mr. Reynolds said "Your brother has Top Secret clearance? I know the names of everyone with that kind of clearance. Eppes, Eppes…" A memory seemed to click into place and he looked up at Don and said "Dr. Charles Eppes is your brother?"

Don had calmed down and said "You know my brother?"
"By reputation only, this changes things considerably. Dr. Eppes has knowledge of highly classified information. Troop placements and movements, defensive strategies... If Yokonovitch gets his hands on Dr. Eppes and finds out who he is, it would be disastrous." Reynolds looked at Don and realized why he was being so defensive. He could clearly see the strain of this situation in his face. "Look, I have a job to do that sometimes requires me to be dispassionate. It is difficult to put thoughts of individual lives in priority against the lives of thousands. I didn't mean to make it sound as though the lives of your brother and father were unimportant. Perhaps we can start over Agent Eppes."

Michael returned around noon with the disk that Charlie had requested and an old model Cadillac with darkened windows. When he entered the room Charlie was standing in front of the wall which was covered in complicated mathematical equations. He seemed oblivious to his captors as they discussed where Michael had gotten the car but when his father moaned and began to move his head from side to side Charlie dropped the marker he was holding and stepped over quickly to his father's side. "Dad?" He touched his father's forehead which was hot with fever. "Dad, hold on." Charlie looked over at the two men talking and said "He has a fever which means that the bullet wound is getting infected!" Charlie ran to the bathroom and grabbed the only other towel and wetted it down then went back to his father's bedside and used it to wipe his brow. "Dad can you hear me?" Alan opened his eyes and looked up at Charlie and smiled weakly. "I was just resting my eyes."

Charlie sighed with relief and stood up to get some more water but a wave of dizziness swept over him making him stagger and fall to his knees. "Charlie!" and Alan tried to get up but cried out in pain and fell back on the bed. "I'm alright dad, just tired. Don't try to get up, you need to rest. I'll get you some water" Trevor stepped over to the bed with a glass of water which Charlie took but glared hard at the man who had done this to his father. "He needs medical attention now!" Trevor didn't look as sure of himself as he did before but his reply was "Then you had better get back to work professor." Charlie checked the bandage that he had wrapped around his father's waist and saw that the wound had started to bleed again. "Dad, you need to lie still." Alan looked over and saw the marker on the wall and then at Charlie. "You have to let me go Charlie." he whispered. "You can not let this kind of information get into the hands of people like this." Charlie understood that his father meant to give up so that Charlie wouldn't be forced to complete this task and his face drained of color. "Dad, I know what I have to do. You have to trust me and hold on." Michael stood up and said "That's enough whispering over there. It's time to get back to work professor."

Charlie turned quickly on the men watching them and shouted "What do you think we are doing, planning a great escape? If you want your data you had better back off and give me some space!" Charlie was breathing hard with the venting of his emotions and his head was pounding so hard that he was finding it a little difficult to focus. Trevor checked his watch and said to Michael "He has a point." Then he turned to Charlie and said "Alright professor, we are going to go over to the truck stop and get some lunch. I'll move the car so you can get away in it and we will be able to see the door to this room at all times. We'll give you the space you want but when we come back you had better have made some progress!" Charlie stood up slowly from his father's bedside and said in a calmer voice "I already have. The algorithm should be complete by this evening. I will have to test it and you can verify that the decoded data is there."

Michael and Trevor exchanged a guarded look but said nothing. They picked up the keys to the car and the room and left locking the door behind them. Charlie turned back to his father and said "Dad, they will never see that data after the first time it runs through the decoding program. When they try to run the disk it will erase itself as the disk plays. You have to hold on Dad; if you don't then neither of us has a chance."

He still felt dizzy and nauseas so he sat down next to his father for a few minutes. "Don will find us Dad. He has been looking out for me since we were kids." Alan knew that Don was doing everything he could but he privately feared that he might not be able to get to them in time. "Charlie, take your time with this. Once they have that disk..." Charlie sighed and said "I know Dad, but try not to worry. I have a plan that will work if Don doesn't come charging to the rescue, but he will Dad. He always has." Charlie paused for a moment lost in thought. "Remember when Don got in trouble for burning down the old garage?" Alan turned his head to Charlie wondering why he was thinking about something that happened over twenty years ago. "He didn't do it, he was covering for me. I thought I had worked out how quickly the fire would spread and what direction it would burn but I was wrong. Don knew I'd get grounded for a month and he wanted me to be able to go to that camp so he told you that he started the fire." Alan smiled weakly and said "I know." Charlie opened his eyes wide and said "You knew!?"
"Well we figured it out a few weeks later when your mother found some notes in your room about the speed and nature of combustible out gassings or something to that effect." Charlie shook his head and said "You know what the worst part was? I felt so guilty that I was miserable the whole time I was at camp." Alan reached out and took Charlie's hand and said "That's why your mother and I never said anything to you boys about what we discovered. Both of you learned a valuable lesson about responsibility and accountability." Charlie looked at his father with an expression of deep respect then said "Try to get some rest pop." and he got up and went back to work on his calculations.

Charlie worked through the day to finish and by seven o'clock he felt that he had cracked the code effectively. The dizziness that had plagued him since he removed the pressure bandage from his head wound had grown steadily worse and he was a little unsteady on his feet. Alan dosed fitfully but as long as he stayed still and quiet the bleeding seemed to have stopped although the was a deep stain on the bed where he had lain. While their captors were gone, Charlie had gone into the bathroom and managed to detach one of the two towel bars on the wall. He hid the bar over by the folding table underneath several pages full of calculations.

When Michael and Trevor returned to the room at seven thirty they demanded to see what progress Charlie had made on the decryption. Charlie hooked the palm pilot up to the laptop and put the disk into the drive. As the first of the encrypted material began to pass from the palm pilot through the number sieve on the laptop and to the disk a read out displayed. What they saw was a screen full of undistinguishable numbers. As the program began to run the numbers slowly started changing. After several minutes of this Michael said "So what are we looking at professor?" Charlie put his head in his hands and sighed. "Patience is a virtue gentlemen. This is going to take some time. The encryption is unbelievably complex. Who did this encryption anyway?" Trevor frowned and said "Why? Does that matter?" Charlie still staring at the screen said "I would like to meet the mathematician who wrote the encryption, it's brilliant."

After half an hour Trevor looked at the display and saw what looked like the outline of a complex molecule although most of the image was still covered by the changing numbers. "This is it! The number sieve is working." Michael also stepped over to the screen and looked duly impressed. "How long will it take to decrypt all of the data?"

Charlie was over with his father applying a fresh towel to his forehead and said "At least 12 hours give or take. So now that you have what you want it is time to keep your end of the bargain." Trevor, who was bent over the computer screen watching the numbers changing quickly and one by one disappearing from the data image stood up and said "In 12 hours give or take, your father will get the medical attention he needs." There was a tone of finality in his words that sent a shiver down Charlie's spine and he knew that these men would never live up to their word.

Chapter Ten
Don had gone home to shower and get clean clothes on before he met Terry and David who both looked as tired as he felt. Don leaned on the passenger door and looked closely at Terry "You alright?" Terry smiled and said "Yea I'm fine. It was just a grazing wound and I got checked out at Mercy earlier." She turned around and pointed to the homeland security agent in the back seat and said "This is agent Armstrong from Homeland Security. Agent Armstrong this is Agent Eppes." The man in the back seat said "Pleasure to meet you sir. I have actually met your brother. I was one of the agents involved on a case that Dr. Eppes consulted on. Director Reynolds has instructed me to cooperate fully with you in getting Dr. Eppes and the data returned safely. Please understand that we have standing orders to apprehend all high risk entrants into this country. We were not trying to put your family at risk." Terry and David exchanged confused looks and Don said "Director Reynolds and I worked out the departmental friction that first occurred between our two agencies. It helped that Charlie has a head full of highly sensitive and classified information and when Homeland Security realized that he was one of the hostages they adjusted their method of approach. So tell me where we are and what is Yokonovitch doing right now?"

"We tailed him using seven unmarked vehicles. Agent Armstrong told us that Yokonovitch has a unique talent for spotting tails so we had to call in some extra man power on this. He went to Csadras and had a rather long conversation with three known members of the Russian mafia in LA. They had dinner and he left around midnight. From there he came here to the Hotel Casa Del Mar and checked in for the night." Don asked the man in the back seat "Agent Armstrong have there been any other 'High Risk' entrants into the LA area?" Agent Armstrong pulled out a cell phone that looked like a cross between a phone and a small computer and punched in some numbers. "So far only Dimetry. If you believe that this buy will happen soon I'd say that Yokonovitch is our man."

Don looked at the hotel across the plaza from them. "What room did he check into?" David answered "347. It's the fourth window from the corner. We have agents in the room just to the left and across the street in that office building. He is in there and has only made one call to room service." Right now he is lying in bed and watching TV." Don smiled at David and Terry "You guys have done good work. It is several hours until dawn, why don't you go get some rest." David said "What about you Don? You haven't slept in almost two days." Don knew that he looked tired but he felt much better after his discussions with Director Reynolds and having gone home and showered. "I'll be fine. I couldn't sleep right now unless you hit me over the head with a sludge hammer. Now follow orders and get going."

Agent Armstrong moved to the front passenger seat and Don got into the drivers seat after Terry and David had left. Agent Armstrong said "Agent Eppes, I am fresh and you were right to send your people home. If this thing happens tomorrow we will all need to be ready for anything especially with the lives of hostages at stake." Don looked over at this man and realized that he was trying to tactfully tell Don that he should go home as well. "I'm glad to hear that you are fresh." Don smirked and turned his attention back to the hotel across the street and after about half an hour he did dose off.

As the sun crested the horizon around five forty five Don sat up with a start. Agent Armstrong was sipping a coffee and handed a fresh cup to Don. "Agent Lake stopped by with these a few minutes ago. Yokonovitch hasn't stirred yet and so far no one else has entered the country that has flagged either HLS, Immigration or the FBI. Agents Lake and Sinclair have pulled around to the back of the Hotel to relieve the team there and cover a rear departure. We have a man working the reception desk and the valet service. Yokonovitch used the valet to have his vehicle parked last night. The car was searched thoroughly and the only thing that we turned up was a receipt for dinner at Csadras last night." This agent had really impressed Don with his professionalism and his blatant refusal to say anything about the fact that Don had gotten some sleep. He made sure that Don was fully briefed on the nights surveillance and continued to sip his coffee as though they had spent the entire time that Don slept discussing the case. Don took a sip of his coffee and said "It's Don, by the way." Agent Armstrong nodded slightly and said "I'm Jeff."

Charlie spent the night sitting on the floor next to his father holding his hand. As the first rays of sunlight shown through the thin curtains drawn across the window and began to brighten the room Charlie's hand fell from the bed jarring him awake. It took him a moment to clear his mind and recall where he was. He turned to his father and felt his brow only to find that his temperature had not come down but he was breathing evenly. Trevor was asleep in the other bed and Michael was not in the room at the moment. Charlie got stiffly to his feet and moved over to the laptop to check on the progress of the decryption. There were at least two hours left to go. He checked to make sure that the towel rod was still hidden then sat back to wait for his opportunity.

Michael returned to the room just after seven in the morning. He looked over at Charlie but said nothing to him. Trevor heard Michael come in and sat up rubbing his face. "How is it coming professor?" Charlie checked the laptop and said "Another hour yet." Trevor checked his watch and said "Excellent." and stood up to stretch. "You haven't had anything to eat, do you want some breakfast?"

Charlie looked at the man who had kidnapped him and ruthlessly shot his father and was now offering to get him breakfast like they were old friends as though he were insane. The thought of food right now turned his stomach and Charlie just shook his head. "Ok suit yourself." He glanced over at Alan and saw that his face was rather pale. The older man wouldn't live the rest of the day. "I'm going to get some coffee, keep an eye on things." Trevor stepped out of the room but before he had gotten a few feet from the door Michael stepped out to and they started talking. Charlie moved quickly to the door, which was not closed tightly and listened.

"Trev, I got a bad feeling about this. I don't trust that guy, he's smart." Trevor sighed and said "We don't have much choice. Yokonovitch will be at slip A500 by noon. Look once the data is safely on that disk we are golden. Marina Del Rae is only half an hour from here. We'll get there early, ditch the car and by twelve thirty we'll be on our way. By the time the police find the Eppes' we'll be safely out of the country. Just relax and keep it together for a couple more hours." Charlie went white at Trevor's comment about finding him and his father and backed away from the door. He went over to his father and sat down before Michael came back through the door.

After applying a fresh towel to his father's brow Charlie went back to the computer and sat at the folding table doodling on a piece of paper. Trevor cam back within an hour and while he and Michael spoke quietly in the corner Charlie folded up a small piece of paper and slipped it in the front of his jeans.

As soon as the decoding finished Charlie took the disk and put it in the drive and called the men over. The data will now transfer from the number sieve to the disk and he started the process. Trevor watched as the material flew across the screen and he knew that Charlie had done a complete job. Once the download was complete Charlie leaned over and grabbed the towel bar while Michael took the disk from the laptop drive. As Charlie sat up he gripped the bar firmly in one hand and picked up the palm pilot with the other and set it on top of the laptop. He stood up quickly and grabbed the towel bar with both hands and brought it down as hard as he could on top of the palm pilot and laptop. "What the hell…" Charlie smashed the computer again before Trevor had a chance to push him back away from the folding table. Charlie fell back hard into the wall and hit his head sending searing pain through his head and flashes of blinding light across his vision.

Trevor pulled out his gun and pointed it directly at Charlie's head and yelled "Bad move professor!" Alan, roused by the commotion saw what was happening and screamed "Charlie look out!" Charlie still had flashes in front of his eyes but ducked sideways under the folding table as Trevor fired. He heard his father's voice screaming "No!" and he hollered "It's locked! The disk is locked!" Trevor grabbed the folding table to push it aside when Michael grabbed his arm and said "Wait!" Trevor turned to Michael "If it's locked then we need him to tell us the password! I told you I didn't trust him!" Trevor stood back still holding the gun and said "You locked the disk with a password?" Charlie got up shaking from under the table trying to stand as steady as he could with his head spinning like a whirling dervish.

Trevor walked over to Alan who had managed to sit up and pressed the hot muzzle of the revolver to Alan's head. "Tell me the password or he dies right now!" Charlie said "You need the password; my father needs to be in a hospital! When he gets what he needs you get what you need!" Charlie felt a perverse pleasure in turning the tables so poetically on this man. "I will kill him, and you know it." But Trevor didn't sound as confident as he wanted to. "If my father dies you get nothing! The laptop and palm pilot are fried! That disk is all you have left and you know it!"

Charlie's heart was pounding madly in his chest and he wobbled and had to put a hand out to the wall to brace himself. For a fleeting moment he was certain that he had just signed his father's death warrant but Trevor realizing that Charlie had backed him into a corner lowered his gun. He looked at Michael and said "Load the car." Then he looked at Charlie "Well you seem to have out smarted us for the moment professor but mind you, passwords can be broken so don't push your advantage. We will call for an ambulance when we are ready to leave and then you will give me that password."

Charlie shook his head and said "No. I am going with you when you meet the people you are selling this information to because as soon as I give you the key to unlock that disk you will kill me and I am betting that you don't want to kill someone in front of your buyers." Alan moaned and fell back on the bed clutching his side. "Dad!" Charlie pushed past Trevor and helped his father get his legs back up on the bed. His wound had started bleeding again and Charlie grabbed the towel that he had been using to keep his fever down and pressed it to his wound. "Hold on Dad, help is coming." Michael came back into the room and Trevor spoke quietly to him explaining what Charlie was demanding. Charlie took the folded paper from his jeans and closed it in his father's hand and whispered "Get this to Don."

Michael and Trevor had finished and Trevor said "Time to go professor. Once we are away we will call for an ambulance." Charlie leaned over and kissed his father on the forehead and said "It'll be alright Dad." Alan tried to smile but it turned into a grimace of pain. Charlie stood up and followed the men out to the car but kept looking back at his father lying there in pain and bleeding to death." They got in the car and drove away from the truck stop motel. They had gotten almost two blocks away when Charlie said "Stop now, there is a pay phone over there…" he said pointing across the street "We call for an ambulance right now or I forget that password."

Trevor turned left into the lot of the convenience store with the pay phone. "Make the call Mike." Charlie said "No I will call, you can listen but I want to be sure that emergency services is actually contacted. Pardon me if I don't trust you." Michael pulled a pistol out of the glove compartment and got out of the car. He covered the pistol with his blazer and told Charlie to get out. Charlie stepped out of the car and walked to the phone with Michael right by his side. He dialed 911 and told the operator that there was a man with a serious gun shot wound in Room 39 at the Truck Stop Motel on route 110. The operator tried to take his name but he said "Please hurry, the man is bleeding to death. You must send advanced life support right away." Michael reached over and hung up the phone. "OK the ambulance is on its way, lets move." and he jabbed the revolver into Charlie's ribs.

[Alice I]

Chapter Eleven
It was now just past eight and Yokonovitch had gotten up and had ordered room service for breakfast. Don and Jeff Armstrong were talking quietly when Terry and David came up to the passenger side of the car. Terry leaned in and said "Don you need to come with me, David can take over for you here." Don looked immediately concerned "What is it?" David had stepped around to the drivers side of the car and opened the door "Your father has been found Don, he's wounded." Don got out of the car and David got in as Don went with Terry to another car. Once they were inside Terry said "A call to 911 came in stating that a man with a GSW was at the Truck Stop Motel out on the 110. When ALS arrived on the scene they found your father with a gun shot to his abdomen. He gave a note to the officer on scene and told them to make sure it got to you. He has been taken to Mercy Hospital and is undergoing emergency surgery." Don asked "What did the note say?" Terry shook her head "I don't know. We are going to the motel to look over the scene."

Don was torn between wanting to go to the scene and the hospital and Terry said "The note must be from Charlie which means he is still with them. Don, your dad is safe now and in good hands but not Charlie." Don took a deep breath and said "Right, I need to focus on Charlie now." He pulled his cell phone out and dialed. "Hello Larry?, It's Don Eppes. Look I need you to do me a favor, Dad has been taken to Mercy Hospital, he was shot by the men who kidnapped him. I need you to go to the hospital. I want someone there who knows him when he comes out of surgery." There was a pause and then Don said "I haven't found Charlie yet but he left a message with Dad. Larry if anything happens…" Don's voice cracked and he stopped talking for a moment. "No don't call my cell, call this number 555-0785 and they can get a message to me… and Larry… Thank you." Another pause followed and then Don hung up the phone.

Terry pulled into the parking lot of the Truck Stop Motel and they got out. The room was still swarming with police and Don saw all of the calculations on the wall. "Charlie was defiantly here." He said as he pointed at the markings and went directly to the officer in charge. He showed him his badge and said "Agent Eppes, FBI. You have a note for me?" The officer handed him the note and Don read it quickly.
The note read:

The data is safe
Marina del Ray
Slip A500 noon
may arrive early

Don pulled out his cell and called David immediately. "The meeting with the buyer is at Marina Del Ray slip A500 at noon. Charlie is with Baker and Reed and he says that they may arrive early. We need to get everyone there but we don't want to tip them off too soon or they could kill Charlie. Dad is in surgery and I asked Larry to go to the hospital. We will meet you at the public launch ramp near Fiji way in half an hour." There was a pause and then Don said "Keep a unit on Yokonovitch but everyone else goes to Marina Del Ray. Yokonovitch is probably the buyer but if he isn't I don't want to waist units on his tail since we know where the data and Charlie are going. I'll contact Sub Director Reynolds and inform him of the new development." Terry and Don left the motel and headed straight for the coast.

Don had the coast guard, harbor patrol, the Marina del Ray police department, homeland security and FBI teams all meet at the public launch ramp and with the assistance of the harbor patrol and local police got all the units positioned near the end of Basin A where the meeting was going to occur. The fact that the marina was very crowded worked both in their favor and against them. It was eleven thirty by the time that all of the units were in position and for the last fifteen minutes plain clothes police were quietly evacuating the immediate vicinity of the A basin. David had stayed on the tail of Yokonovitch with Agent Armstrong and radioed in to Don that he had left the Hotel and met with half a dozen Russians at Csadras. They had all gotten into a white cargo van and headed toward the Marina.

The Russians arrived at the back end of A basin by eleven forty five and Don radioed to all the teams to stand at the ready. "Remember people that there is a hostage who must be protected." Don looked at Terry with a worried expression then back to the dock at Slip A-500. The Russians were all carrying bags or satchels of some kind and when they arrived at the dock positioned themselves in a circle around the slip. Yokonovitch took a laptop computer out of his satchel and placed it on a bench next to the boat moored in the slip.

After a few minutes Trevor Baker, Charlie and Michael Reed came from the other direction around the end of the dock from a building with the sign Marina Fuels printed across the face. Baker was walking very close to Charlie and Don was certain that he had a gun trained on him. "Heads up, our sellers have arrived and they have their hostage with them." As Baker's group approached Yokonovitch he pulled out a disk and handed it over to Michael Reed who stepped up to the bench and put the disk in the drive and the screen came up with a request for the password. He looked up at Charlie and said "Professor?" Charlie said "NvsNP" and Michael smirked and shook his head "I should have known it would be something like that." Trevor said "What is NvsNP?" Michael punched in the code as he said "It is a famous unsolvable math equation. Just the sort of password our little genius would come up with." As soon as Michael hit enter the screen filled with a stream of data and Yokonovitch looked on not saying anything. He nodded to the men around him who lowered their guard slightly. Don said "Now move in Go Go Go." Agents from every direction moved in quickly as Don and Terry ran toward the group shouting "Freeze FBI! Put your weapons down!"

The Russians all pulled automatic weapons from their bags and started firing. Trevor grabbed Charlie around his chest and pulled him in front of him like a shield and returned fire as he ducked behind a 55 gallon barrel on the dock edge. Don was trying to keep his eyes on Charlie and get to him but the Russians were laying down heavy fire in all directions. Everyone dived for cover but three agents lay on the ground who were not so quick. One of the Russians was firing all around Terry who was about ten feet from Don and he raised up to get a clear shot. As Don did this Trevor pointed his gun at Don and whispered "Goodbye Agent Eppes" as he was about to fire. Charlie saw what was about to happen but Baker had such a tight hold of him he couldn't move very well so he did the only thing he could. He tucked his chin down to his chest then snapped his head back with all the force he could muster right into Trevor's face. Trevor's shot went high and hit the wall just above Don's head as Don fired and took down the Russian pinning Terry down.

Charlie turned and tried to grab the gun from Trevor and they ended up coming out from behind the barrel struggling with the gun between them. Don ran straight at them when the gun went off and the struggle ended. Charlie and Trevor fell to their knees facing each other and Don, his heart in his throat closed the distance between them in three great strides. Trevor fell sideways onto the dock with his eyes wide in an expression of shock. Don grabbed Charlie and was shouting "Charlie, are you hit, Charlie are you shot?" The rest of the Russians could not keep up against the superior size of small army of Law enforcement agencies and gave up after four of their number lay dead.

Charlie couldn't really hear Don for when he had hit Trevor in the face spoiling his shot at Don he had split his stitches open and had given himself another mild concussion. He was staring at Trevor lying on the dock and then looked down at his hands and saw blood on them. "What have I done?" The new concussion coupled with lack of sleep and food and the emotional trauma that he had undergone over the last two and a half days were throwing him into a state of shock. He looked at Don not really seeing him before he slumped forward into his arms. "Charlie!" Don saw blood covering the back of Charlie's collar and down the upper portion of his shirt and assumed that he had been shot in the crossfire. "Oh God! Charlie! I need a medic, he's been shot!! Get a medic!!" Terry ran over to Don and Charlie and looked him over quickly. "Don, he hasn't been shot! He's going into shock!" She quickly took off her coat and placed it over Charlie as Don laid him down on the dock.

Chapter Twelve
When Charlie opened his eyes he saw Don sitting next to his bed with his head down on the mattress next to him, holding his hand and Charlie gave it a squeeze. Don stirred and lifted his head. When he saw his little brother looking at him he smiled and said "Hey buddy, welcome back. How are you feeling?"

Charlie seemed to be trying to process everything that had happened and suddenly his eyes flew open wider. "Dad!" Don put a hand on Charlie's chest and said "Dad's OK Charlie. You saved him you know. The doctors said that if it had been even a few hours later then he wouldn't have made it." Charlie tried to sit up again and said "Really? He's OK?" Don smiled but wouldn't let Charlie get up. "Really. He's OK buddy."

Then Don looked at Charlie in a way that Charlie had never seen before. "I'm so proud of you Charlie. You saved Dad, you saved me and you kept that data out of the hands of the bad guys because whatever you did to that disk made it erased itself as it displayed the data. You really saved the day little brother." Charlie smiled weakly and closed his eyes. He loved hearing his older brother say he was proud of him but he couldn't really appreciate it because of the torment he was feeling over what he had done on that dock.

Charlie slept fitfully for the rest of that day with Don never leaving his side except when he went to see his father and by the end of the day Don had arranged to have both his father and his brother in the same room.

Charlie was ready to leave the hospital several days before Alan although their father was recovering at a good rate. Alan noticed a dullness in youngest son’s eyes that wasn't there before all of this had happened and that concerned him. While Charlie was down in the X-ray department getting one more CT before he was released, Alan spoke with Don about it. "Donnie, stay close to Charlie. He is going to need to talk to someone about this. Maybe you should stay at the house for a few days until I go home." Don had been in and out of the hospital and had not seen as much of his brother as his father had over the last three days but he too noticed Charlie's melancholy. "Dad he's been through an extremely traumatic experience. It is not unusual for him to be reacting this way, but I'll talk to him and check on him frequently but he might take offense if I try to baby sit him."

Don had gone by the house several times since Charlie had gotten home to check on him and the thing that bothered him was the conspicuous absence of any kind of mathematical work. There was always something that Charlie was working on but when Don wandered through the house and garage; every white board, every black board, every desk and tabletop was completely devoid of Charlie's work. He was beginning to wonder if he should have tried to stay at the house with his brother as his father had suggested.

Two days after Charlie had been released from the hospital he was due to return to teaching classes but didn't show up at school. Don held hope that getting back into teaching and his school routine would help to snap Charlie out of the depression that he seemed to have fallen into and was disturbed to find that Charlie was not at school when he came to his office to meet him for lunch.

Don went straight to Charlie's house and found him in the kitchen puttering around re-organizing the cupboards. "Charlie, what are you doing? I thought you were going back to school today." Charlie avoided looking at his older brother and said "Yeah, well I had a lot of things I needed to do around here. Dad is coming home tomorrow and I need to get this place ready." Don frowned and said "Get the place ready? Charlie, the house is fine. It's not like Dad is going to be an invalid you know. What is this really all about?" Charlie was nervously moving around the kitchen trying to avoid his brother's questions. Don knew what was happening and said "Look Charlie, you have been through hell and you need to talk to someone about this." Charlie stopped what he was doing but kept his back to Don "No I don't." he said quietly.

Denial was one of Don's personal specialties and he knew all too well that Charlie was avoiding dealing with the things that had happened to him. He also knew that if Charlie didn't talk about what he had experienced that it would eventually eat him alive and said "Charlie you were injured, kidnapped, you watched Dad get shot, were forced to do something against your will and then lived through an intense fire fight. There isn't a human being on this planet who wouldn't need to talk about that. Charlie, what you are feeling is normal."

Charlie started taking things out of the cupboard that he had just finished loading but didn't answer Don. "Charlie this isn't going to go away until you talk to someone!" Charlie stopped and put his hands on the counter to keep them from shaking. "I don't want to talk about this! I don't want to think about… " Charlie lost his voice for a second then finished in an almost throaty tone "...about what I did!" Don frowned in confusion and almost missed what his brother said just above a whisper
"… but it's all I can think about."

Don walked over to Charlie and took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face him. There were tears staining his face. "Charlie what are you talking about? What did you do?" Charlie couldn't seem to look Don in the eye so he looked down at his hands. They were trembling and he closed them into tight fits then said "I can still see the blood... his blood." Don still wasn't sure he understood what Charlie was on about and said “Whose blood Charlie?" Charlie seemed to deflate and whispered "The man I killed."

Don let go of his brother and said "Do you remember what I said to you when you woke up in the hospital?” Charlie didn’t answer. “I said that I was proud of you Charlie and I meant it. You acted as courageously as any agent I have every worked with and you don’t have any training in the sort of situation that you were in. Charlie you did what you had to do! That man that you are so concerned about killing shot and almost killed Dad. He tried to shoot me and he would have if you hadn't intervened, and he would have killed you too. Charlie you didn't do anything wrong!"

Charlie looked up at his older brother and couldn't stop the fresh tears that fell as he said "I know…" then he pointed to his head "… up here." Charlie stepped over to the kitchen window and once again turned away from his brother. "Don, I..." Charlie sighed heavily and continued "I put my hands on that gun and pulled the trigger and the direct result of that action was the death of another human being…” he paused and put his hand on the window looking up into the azure sky for an absolution that he was unwilling to give to himself. Then he continued “…and it doesn't matter who he was or what he did! I killed someone Don; and I feel wrong." Charlie's voice rose as he spoke and it took on an almost pleading tone. "I just can't reconcile the undeniable fact that a person, no matter how bad he was, is now dead and I am the reason he is!"

Don understood what Charlie was feeling. He remembered the first time he had shot and killed a man but unlike Charlie he was a trained FBI agent and that was part of the territory of his job. He also knew that his brother's mind worked differently than other people and that maybe talking about this would not really help Charlie. Don stepped over to the window and put his hand on Charlie's shoulder and said "How many times have you told me that numbers are everything, that every situation, every action can be turned into an equation? You need to turn what happened on that dock into an equation and run the numbers Charlie." Charlie turned and looked up at Don with a glint of hope in his face and said "Why?" Don touched Charlie's chest and said "So that you will know in here that you weren't wrong. When you fell off the roof and couldn’t remember your own name you still remembered the numbers Charlie. Numbers are who you are, it's what's in your heart, it's what's in your soul. Just run the numbers Charlie and you won't feel wrong anymore."

Don's words echoed in Charlie's head all evening and he fell asleep on the couch just before midnight. The same dream that had plagued him for the past week resurfaced in his mind as he relived the shootout on the dock. As Charlie lay in the darkness of the living room thrashing in his sleep he heard the sound of a gunshot and his eyes flew open. He sat up abruptly covered in sweat and breathing hard. His hands were shaking and he looked down at them. He knew that his mind was just playing tricks on him but they looked as though they were covered in blood.


Charlie got up and paced the room trying to calm himself down and began wandering through the house with the sounds of that day ringing in his head. Before he realized it, he found himself out in the garage looking at a blank blackboard and Don's voice floated to the surface of his mind 'Numbers are who you are, it's what's in your heart, it's what's in your soul. Just run the numbers Charlie and you won't feel wrong anymore.' Charlie reached his hand up and touched his chest where Don had placed his hand, then looked up at the blackboard again. He hesitated for a moment before picked up a piece of chalk and started writing.