![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
.fic: Every Distance: PG13/R D/M 6/9
Title: Every Distance
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous parts: 01; 02 ; 03; 04; 05
Caveat: Any technical information in here is the product of watching CSI, not like, actual education or research in forensic science or anything.
Notes: I wasn't planning on having this chapter done so soon, but I had some free time (!) and Martin would not be put off. Now that I'm pretty much a chapter ahead, I thought I'd try to see if I could get this finished before the S4 premiere. That would be nice, if I could manage it... Sort of a consolation for not being able to get my AU off the ground. *crosses fingers*
CHAPTER SIX
Martin winced, stepping back into the chaos and heat of the office, unsteady suddenly from adrenaline kept too tightly bottled. With an effort, he kept himself together, made his hands not shake as he straightened his coat again, small bit of reassuring fastidiousness that still made him feel unaccountably exposed, as though his father were watching, seeing weakness in so unnecessary a gesture.
Not that Victor was even looking at him; he was across the room, deep in conversation with Ramsay about something. The other agents were milling around, caught up in the case, but Martin ducked into an open office anyway, wanting the quiet for a moment to regroup. He stared at his father through the glass window, half-wanting him to look up and half-dreading it, because God... He’d given in. That stung, and part of him still couldn’t believe it.
That he had no choice – had been ordered to hide out while other people did what needed to be done – didn’t console him much. Neither did the small concession he’d managed to win for himself, though he knew that to be isolated, tied up, immobile probably would have about killed him, and his father’s agreement had saved him from that.
But the bastards who had taken him had kept him chained, helpless, and he wasn’t dead. Not yet. And there’d been a lot worse in his life, and he was still here.
He collapsed into the chair behind its empty desk and rested his elbows on the table, forehead cradled in his hands. God, please. Not again.
Not that he had any memory of what had happened after he’d been shot, only a series of impressions, some sharp and others blurred – he could remember replying to Danny’s announcement that Viv would be okay, then only a swift tumult of sounds, terrific pressure of bullets striking him, the g-force of the car skidding backwards, the terror that whited out everything else. Nothing after that, until he’d woken up in the hospital.
And everything had changed that night. If Martin were a fatalist, he would have said that he could see how their steps had led them to that place, inexorable as gravity, each word, each order, each decision leading inevitably to the next, to the rain on the car roof and gunshots and his blood on Danny’s hands. But he wasn’t one, and when Danny had announced some months later that he’d passed the bar and gotten an associate position at a law firm, he’d shaken Danny’s hand and congratulated him, pounded him on the back in true guy fashion, and not let him see how terribly that had hit him, hard and vicious as any bullet.
Not that he could blame Danny for wanting out. And if Martin had ever seen himself doing anything else – selling shoes, selling movie tickets, running the country – he probably would have gotten out, too. Quitting, though, would have been to admit to his father that the FBI wasn’t for him, and Martin would rather die in the field than make such an admission.
That he’d actually come close to doing so – to dying – had been, in its own way, his vindication. See, Dad? This is how dedicated I am, and the hell with what you think. He’d told his father as much not long after the shooting, when Victor had come to him full of concern and commands hidden under thin veils of suggestion and condescension.
“Martin, it would be safer for you to work out of the office. Surely you can see – ”
“Stay out of it, Dad.”
He’d told him as much again this time, and Victor hadn’t reacted as he always had – with silence and that Look that spoke volumes more than any tirade on Martin’s willfulness would have done.
“Do you believe me, when I say I only want you to be safe?”
Martin shook his head, denial of the silent question. He’d gone almost forty years in the world without his father admitting to such a thing. Mostly his sermons on avoiding drugs and risky behavior had more to do with what was and was not Proper, what would advance his career and what would hold it back, as though safety could be found in business school or a good marriage. In being Victor Fitzgerald’s Son, like the world wouldn’t dare touch someone with such a destiny. The only thing Martin had to do was not screw up.
This time, though... There had been a hesitation in his father’s voice, and something Martin couldn’t identify. He could remember seeing Jack look at his daughters like that, back when that Katan guy had stalked Marie and the girls, steely composure giving way just a bit – a chink right there, visible for an instant, watching the two of them sleeping on the couch in his office.
The memory blurred, shifted into that moment in the conference room, superimposed uncomfortably atop his father’s face, and he couldn’t ever remember seeing his father’s face like that before.
He took a breath to steady his thoughts, shakily tried to convince himself he was going insane with stress and lack of sleep. Had to laugh at that.
“What’s so funny?”
Martin looked up sharply, startled and annoyed at being so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard Danny come in. Danny was lounging in the doorway, shoulder pressed against the frame and arms crossed over his chest, slight smirk on his face.
“Nothing,” Martin said crossly. “What do you want?”
Danny rolled his eyes and pushed himself away from the doorframe. “To talk, maybe?”
“That’s all I’ve been doing, is talking.”
“It’s good for you, and you don’t do enough of it.” Danny pulled a chair around to the side of the desk and sat, drawing his legs up neatly, composed and graceful, and God just looking at him... “What?” Danny asked, smirk turning bemused, and Martin became aware that he was staring.
“Nothing.” Martin shifted and straightened, tried to pull himself together.
“That’s an awful lot of something, for nothing,” Danny observed. He leaned forward, arm sliding across the desktop, fingers twining through Martin’s. Martin started and glanced at the office beyond the window, and Danny huffed exasperatedly, kept holding on when Martin tried to draw back.
“Danny...” he said helplessly.
“Martin..”
“I... shit. I don’t know what to do.” And admitting that out loud, admitting it to Danny... wasn’t as terrible as it had seemed moments ago.
“About your dad.” Danny’s fingers were playing over his wrist now, the sensitive skin over tendon and bone, and Martin shivered. And how he’d known that – that it was Victor, not the case, not being abducted and almost killed and how to handle it – Martin had no idea.
“He says he wants to keep me safe.” Do you believe me? “I don’t know... I mean, he’s never said anything like that before. Mostly he didn’t want me fucking up, or doing something that would keep me out of the White House.” He paused. “I don’t know why. It always pissed me off, though, as far back as I can remember.”
“So you joined the FBI.”
“Pretty much.” The laughter in Danny’s voice was contagious, and Martin found himself grinning even as he spoke, despite everything. Danny’s hand tightened on his, and his smile was bright in the dark office, warming and encouraging, unreserved. Alive, and Martin wondered – briefly, bizarrely, ridiculously – how he’d lived without that.
“You know, when all this is done? You and me are going somewhere that is not my apartment.” Danny paused. “Or yours,” he added.
His father’s words came back – two weeks of Have you thought any more about taking leave? and poorly-veiled opinions of Martin’s refusal – and with them a rush of suspicion, obliterating the moment. Danny saw it and tensed, smile fading, but he didn’t let go of Martin’s hand.
“Don’t even start, Martin.” Low, intense, edge of threat in Danny’s voice, sharp with impatience. “And before you even ask, I’m not saying this because of your dad, okay? I’m saying this because you’re fucking killing yourself over this case – have been killing yourself for years, probably – and you can’t keep doing it.”
“But my dad talked to you about it.”
“Yeah, because if you’re not going to listen to him, someone has to.”
“So he’s just worried about me, huh?”
“Yes, Martin, he is. Christ.” Danny leaned forward even more, pressing the issue, pressing into Martin’s space, dark eyes drawing in his like magnets. “You know, there are other reasons for doing things – or not doing them, or whatever – besides your dad disapproving of it. Things like your sanity. My sanity, for fuck’s sake.”
And the hell of it was, Martin knew this. He knew this, because he was a rational human being and his father wasn’t God. But his father was still there at every turn, and necessity, and the terror of being found weak and wanting, mortal, like everyone else, kept Martin from seeing it.
“Promise me one thing, okay?” Danny’s voice was quiet again, not wheedling or convincing, but honest.
“Yeah.” Anything. God, Danny, anything I can give you.
“After this is done, you take a break. With me, without me, here, in Madagascar... Wherever.” Danny was almost half-out of his chair, presence palpable around Martin, breath warm on his face, both hands locked around his now. “But you need to rest, Martin. Just for a bit. You can’t keep doing this.”
Had to close his eyes now, because this was too much – Danny’s concern, Danny’s presence, Danny’s words, the truth of all these things. The truth of Danny watching him, grip warm and firm, unyielding.
“Okay,” he whispered, rough, hesitant, forcing it past the specter of Victor, his own fear. “I promise... But now... now I gotta work.” That steadied him a little, the promise of familiarity, even if only for a while.
“Your dad agreed to let you work the case in exchange for protective custody.” The inflection landed somewhere between question and statement, and Danny’s dark eyes were entirely too knowing for Martin’s liking, and whether he’d figured this out for himself or – what would be worse – Victor had told him, Martin didn’t know, and certainly wasn’t going to ask.
“Pretty much,” he agreed quietly, careful to keep the residual anger from his voice. “It’s better than nothing... And I have to do it, Danny. You know that.”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “Yeah, I do. For now.”
“For now,” Martin agreed.
* * *
He left Danny in the office, going over paperwork, and escaped to the office at large. Victor had vanished to parts unknown, and if the other agents were curious about what had passed between the two of them, they knew better than to ask. Martin found an empty desk and a pile of depositions taken from Silverman and his accomplices, tried to concentrate on them, to find the links and clues he knew were there.
Like staring at a complex puzzle, half-wishing it to unravel itself, as though by looking hard enough it would yield up its secrets. Futile, Martin knew, and the secret was to let the data flow, move over him like water, and the connections would come. Don’t stare at it, but look at it sideways, different angles, and they’d appear.
But if the data was a current he was fighting against it, words and facts coming in a tumble of confusion, and dragged down by his thoughts he couldn’t shake himself loose.
“And on October the fourteenth of last year you met with Robert Phillips for the first time, correct?”
“Yes.” And Martin had been there for that interrogation, sitting next to Matt and another agent.
Across from them Chris Silverman sat hunched in institutional orange, staring at his hands clasped on the tabletop, his attorney in her immaculate suit whispering commands into his ear.
Yes or no answers, don’t give them anything we haven’t talked about first. Martin wanted to grind his teeth. He forced himself back to the printouts and graphs, a recent set of wiretaps and phone records between suspected individuals, but the numbers and letters merged together into meaninglessness, and his thoughts darted away again.
“And the avowed purpose was to plan an attempt to divert Agent Fitzgerald from his investigation of potential corruption in the Bureau – corruption in which you were implicated,” the agent next to Martin said. Martin could hear Matt’s soft, derisive snort at that. ‘Divert,’ like changing a plane’s flight plan, or moving a river.
“Yes.”
“To that end you conspired with Robert Benson and Oliver Phillips to abduct and kill Agent Fitzgerald, correct?” Agent Leary – that had been his name. As anonymous as the interrogation room, nondescript brown suit, hair from the 1950s.
“Yes,” Silverman said, the single word a sigh, and he never once looked up. He had dark hair, thinning a little at the top.
“And these were the only individuals with whom you had conspired concerning Agent Fitzgerald?” Matt jumped in before Leary could ask the next question, and the older agent glared at him.
“Yes.” No change in Silverman’s expression, no looking up, only a slight tightening of the grip of one hand over another, skin going pale at the knuckles.
Matt had been vibrating with silent and frustrated fury by the end of the session, convinced that Silverman had known others had been involved, but was holding out – for leniency, he’d said scornfully. “We’ll find them anyway,” Matt had told him as they were heading back to the office, “whether he tells us or not.”
At the time he hadn’t shared Matt’s optimism, and he was pretty sure Matt didn’t believe himself either.
“Martin, there you are.” Nick Ramsay materialized at his side, folder and papers clutched in one hand. “Could I see you in my office?”
Obediently Martin stood and trailed behind Ramsay, suppressing the faint frission of anxiety. Like being called into the principal’s office, or any other encounter with authority – planning everything ahead of time, the denials, the polite face, the determination to do what he had to do anyway.
“I got the analysis from forensics on the bomb used on Whitney’s car,” Ramsay said as he guided Martin into his office and sat down behind his desk, gesturing for Martin to sit as he did so.
Martin remained standing. “And?”
“Pipe bomb,” Ramsay murmured. His office was silent, the door half-shut behind them, and the sound of the chaos beyond it was distant. “Technically fairly crude; whoever made it probably used what was at hand or otherwise easily available. Nothing traceable so far.”
“What were the components?” Pictures behind Ramsay’s desk – wife and kid. What were their names again?
“The accelerant was ammonium perchlorate, glass and metal shrapnel,” Ramsay said, glancing down briefly at the printout. Alice. Rob’s in college. Stay on track, Fitzgerald. “The casing was some kind of piping... Corroded in places – hard water deposits, some build-up on the inside. Hardly ideal material.” Ramsay’s tone was strongly suggestive of disappointment at such sub-standard work. “Obviously a last-minute job.”
“Wait... the pipes. You mean like for plumbing? Water pipes, that sort of thing?”
“It appears so; the caps were stainless steel, different from the pipe itself. Newer.” Ramsay was looking at him speculatively now, tapping a finger on the rim of his glasses. His chair creaked a bit as he sat back. “Martin?”
“I...” He fell into the chair across from Ramsay, reaching out with one hand to keep his balance. Dark, so dark, and the only solid things in the world were the damp cement floor beneath him and the cold steel length of pipe pressed along his spine, and when he’d exhausted himself screaming it had been the only thing to lean on.
“Martin? What’s wrong?” Ramsay’s voice sharpened in concern.
“Nothing.” Hoarse and unconvincing; he cleared his throat and tried again. “Where I was kept... They had me chained to a pipe.” Steady, steady and with a little more effort his voice was flawless, detached, reporting on what had happened to another person. “I remember that it was old – marked up, maybe rusted out a bit. If whoever made the bomb was working with whatever was there, they might have dismantled some of the plumbing. It was an old building.”
“Uninhabited?”
“I don’t know. There were other people there. I heard water, I think, somewhere else in the building.”
“You said in your statement that you thought there were maybe three or four people holding you,” Ramsay said thoughtfully. “We have two in custody; the other two may be responsible for the bombing. We’ve had agents canvassing the area, and they’ve come up with nothing, but it’s worth another look.”
Martin opened his mouth to say he’d check it out, because it would be the sensible thing to do, but the bargain with Victor came back in a bitter, wrenching jolt and he asked, “Who’s on the ground?”
“Bateman and his team,” Ramsay said, grinning a little, slightest tilt to his lips – he knew what Martin had been going to say, damn it. “If those guys are still in the area, we’ll find them.”
“Right,” Martin said hollowly, and tried to believe that. “I should get back to work.”
“Of course.”
Ramsay inclined his head in silent dismissal and Martin bolted from the office. Frustrated energy pulsed in him, a demand to be outside doing, not waiting, need for it vibrating along him like electricity, a restless current. His borrowed desk waited in its corner near the whiteboard, surrounded by agents going over their reports, but he turned away from it, and headed back down the hallway and to the office with its blinds still drawn.
-tbc-
Post-fic stuff:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nekosmuse, I will try to have something happy for you this weekend :)
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: Danny/Martin
Rating/Warnings: PG13/Rish; language, maybe some smut, violence, angst, etc.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and very likely many other people.
Advertisements: Sequel/companion to A Long Time Coming, set during and after the events of ALTC 10.
Previous parts: 01; 02 ; 03; 04; 05
Caveat: Any technical information in here is the product of watching CSI, not like, actual education or research in forensic science or anything.
Notes: I wasn't planning on having this chapter done so soon, but I had some free time (!) and Martin would not be put off. Now that I'm pretty much a chapter ahead, I thought I'd try to see if I could get this finished before the S4 premiere. That would be nice, if I could manage it... Sort of a consolation for not being able to get my AU off the ground. *crosses fingers*
CHAPTER SIX
Martin winced, stepping back into the chaos and heat of the office, unsteady suddenly from adrenaline kept too tightly bottled. With an effort, he kept himself together, made his hands not shake as he straightened his coat again, small bit of reassuring fastidiousness that still made him feel unaccountably exposed, as though his father were watching, seeing weakness in so unnecessary a gesture.
Not that Victor was even looking at him; he was across the room, deep in conversation with Ramsay about something. The other agents were milling around, caught up in the case, but Martin ducked into an open office anyway, wanting the quiet for a moment to regroup. He stared at his father through the glass window, half-wanting him to look up and half-dreading it, because God... He’d given in. That stung, and part of him still couldn’t believe it.
That he had no choice – had been ordered to hide out while other people did what needed to be done – didn’t console him much. Neither did the small concession he’d managed to win for himself, though he knew that to be isolated, tied up, immobile probably would have about killed him, and his father’s agreement had saved him from that.
But the bastards who had taken him had kept him chained, helpless, and he wasn’t dead. Not yet. And there’d been a lot worse in his life, and he was still here.
He collapsed into the chair behind its empty desk and rested his elbows on the table, forehead cradled in his hands. God, please. Not again.
Not that he had any memory of what had happened after he’d been shot, only a series of impressions, some sharp and others blurred – he could remember replying to Danny’s announcement that Viv would be okay, then only a swift tumult of sounds, terrific pressure of bullets striking him, the g-force of the car skidding backwards, the terror that whited out everything else. Nothing after that, until he’d woken up in the hospital.
And everything had changed that night. If Martin were a fatalist, he would have said that he could see how their steps had led them to that place, inexorable as gravity, each word, each order, each decision leading inevitably to the next, to the rain on the car roof and gunshots and his blood on Danny’s hands. But he wasn’t one, and when Danny had announced some months later that he’d passed the bar and gotten an associate position at a law firm, he’d shaken Danny’s hand and congratulated him, pounded him on the back in true guy fashion, and not let him see how terribly that had hit him, hard and vicious as any bullet.
Not that he could blame Danny for wanting out. And if Martin had ever seen himself doing anything else – selling shoes, selling movie tickets, running the country – he probably would have gotten out, too. Quitting, though, would have been to admit to his father that the FBI wasn’t for him, and Martin would rather die in the field than make such an admission.
That he’d actually come close to doing so – to dying – had been, in its own way, his vindication. See, Dad? This is how dedicated I am, and the hell with what you think. He’d told his father as much not long after the shooting, when Victor had come to him full of concern and commands hidden under thin veils of suggestion and condescension.
“Martin, it would be safer for you to work out of the office. Surely you can see – ”
“Stay out of it, Dad.”
He’d told him as much again this time, and Victor hadn’t reacted as he always had – with silence and that Look that spoke volumes more than any tirade on Martin’s willfulness would have done.
“Do you believe me, when I say I only want you to be safe?”
Martin shook his head, denial of the silent question. He’d gone almost forty years in the world without his father admitting to such a thing. Mostly his sermons on avoiding drugs and risky behavior had more to do with what was and was not Proper, what would advance his career and what would hold it back, as though safety could be found in business school or a good marriage. In being Victor Fitzgerald’s Son, like the world wouldn’t dare touch someone with such a destiny. The only thing Martin had to do was not screw up.
This time, though... There had been a hesitation in his father’s voice, and something Martin couldn’t identify. He could remember seeing Jack look at his daughters like that, back when that Katan guy had stalked Marie and the girls, steely composure giving way just a bit – a chink right there, visible for an instant, watching the two of them sleeping on the couch in his office.
The memory blurred, shifted into that moment in the conference room, superimposed uncomfortably atop his father’s face, and he couldn’t ever remember seeing his father’s face like that before.
He took a breath to steady his thoughts, shakily tried to convince himself he was going insane with stress and lack of sleep. Had to laugh at that.
“What’s so funny?”
Martin looked up sharply, startled and annoyed at being so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard Danny come in. Danny was lounging in the doorway, shoulder pressed against the frame and arms crossed over his chest, slight smirk on his face.
“Nothing,” Martin said crossly. “What do you want?”
Danny rolled his eyes and pushed himself away from the doorframe. “To talk, maybe?”
“That’s all I’ve been doing, is talking.”
“It’s good for you, and you don’t do enough of it.” Danny pulled a chair around to the side of the desk and sat, drawing his legs up neatly, composed and graceful, and God just looking at him... “What?” Danny asked, smirk turning bemused, and Martin became aware that he was staring.
“Nothing.” Martin shifted and straightened, tried to pull himself together.
“That’s an awful lot of something, for nothing,” Danny observed. He leaned forward, arm sliding across the desktop, fingers twining through Martin’s. Martin started and glanced at the office beyond the window, and Danny huffed exasperatedly, kept holding on when Martin tried to draw back.
“Danny...” he said helplessly.
“Martin..”
“I... shit. I don’t know what to do.” And admitting that out loud, admitting it to Danny... wasn’t as terrible as it had seemed moments ago.
“About your dad.” Danny’s fingers were playing over his wrist now, the sensitive skin over tendon and bone, and Martin shivered. And how he’d known that – that it was Victor, not the case, not being abducted and almost killed and how to handle it – Martin had no idea.
“He says he wants to keep me safe.” Do you believe me? “I don’t know... I mean, he’s never said anything like that before. Mostly he didn’t want me fucking up, or doing something that would keep me out of the White House.” He paused. “I don’t know why. It always pissed me off, though, as far back as I can remember.”
“So you joined the FBI.”
“Pretty much.” The laughter in Danny’s voice was contagious, and Martin found himself grinning even as he spoke, despite everything. Danny’s hand tightened on his, and his smile was bright in the dark office, warming and encouraging, unreserved. Alive, and Martin wondered – briefly, bizarrely, ridiculously – how he’d lived without that.
“You know, when all this is done? You and me are going somewhere that is not my apartment.” Danny paused. “Or yours,” he added.
His father’s words came back – two weeks of Have you thought any more about taking leave? and poorly-veiled opinions of Martin’s refusal – and with them a rush of suspicion, obliterating the moment. Danny saw it and tensed, smile fading, but he didn’t let go of Martin’s hand.
“Don’t even start, Martin.” Low, intense, edge of threat in Danny’s voice, sharp with impatience. “And before you even ask, I’m not saying this because of your dad, okay? I’m saying this because you’re fucking killing yourself over this case – have been killing yourself for years, probably – and you can’t keep doing it.”
“But my dad talked to you about it.”
“Yeah, because if you’re not going to listen to him, someone has to.”
“So he’s just worried about me, huh?”
“Yes, Martin, he is. Christ.” Danny leaned forward even more, pressing the issue, pressing into Martin’s space, dark eyes drawing in his like magnets. “You know, there are other reasons for doing things – or not doing them, or whatever – besides your dad disapproving of it. Things like your sanity. My sanity, for fuck’s sake.”
And the hell of it was, Martin knew this. He knew this, because he was a rational human being and his father wasn’t God. But his father was still there at every turn, and necessity, and the terror of being found weak and wanting, mortal, like everyone else, kept Martin from seeing it.
“Promise me one thing, okay?” Danny’s voice was quiet again, not wheedling or convincing, but honest.
“Yeah.” Anything. God, Danny, anything I can give you.
“After this is done, you take a break. With me, without me, here, in Madagascar... Wherever.” Danny was almost half-out of his chair, presence palpable around Martin, breath warm on his face, both hands locked around his now. “But you need to rest, Martin. Just for a bit. You can’t keep doing this.”
Had to close his eyes now, because this was too much – Danny’s concern, Danny’s presence, Danny’s words, the truth of all these things. The truth of Danny watching him, grip warm and firm, unyielding.
“Okay,” he whispered, rough, hesitant, forcing it past the specter of Victor, his own fear. “I promise... But now... now I gotta work.” That steadied him a little, the promise of familiarity, even if only for a while.
“Your dad agreed to let you work the case in exchange for protective custody.” The inflection landed somewhere between question and statement, and Danny’s dark eyes were entirely too knowing for Martin’s liking, and whether he’d figured this out for himself or – what would be worse – Victor had told him, Martin didn’t know, and certainly wasn’t going to ask.
“Pretty much,” he agreed quietly, careful to keep the residual anger from his voice. “It’s better than nothing... And I have to do it, Danny. You know that.”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “Yeah, I do. For now.”
“For now,” Martin agreed.
He left Danny in the office, going over paperwork, and escaped to the office at large. Victor had vanished to parts unknown, and if the other agents were curious about what had passed between the two of them, they knew better than to ask. Martin found an empty desk and a pile of depositions taken from Silverman and his accomplices, tried to concentrate on them, to find the links and clues he knew were there.
Like staring at a complex puzzle, half-wishing it to unravel itself, as though by looking hard enough it would yield up its secrets. Futile, Martin knew, and the secret was to let the data flow, move over him like water, and the connections would come. Don’t stare at it, but look at it sideways, different angles, and they’d appear.
But if the data was a current he was fighting against it, words and facts coming in a tumble of confusion, and dragged down by his thoughts he couldn’t shake himself loose.
“And on October the fourteenth of last year you met with Robert Phillips for the first time, correct?”
“Yes.” And Martin had been there for that interrogation, sitting next to Matt and another agent.
Across from them Chris Silverman sat hunched in institutional orange, staring at his hands clasped on the tabletop, his attorney in her immaculate suit whispering commands into his ear.
Yes or no answers, don’t give them anything we haven’t talked about first. Martin wanted to grind his teeth. He forced himself back to the printouts and graphs, a recent set of wiretaps and phone records between suspected individuals, but the numbers and letters merged together into meaninglessness, and his thoughts darted away again.
“And the avowed purpose was to plan an attempt to divert Agent Fitzgerald from his investigation of potential corruption in the Bureau – corruption in which you were implicated,” the agent next to Martin said. Martin could hear Matt’s soft, derisive snort at that. ‘Divert,’ like changing a plane’s flight plan, or moving a river.
“Yes.”
“To that end you conspired with Robert Benson and Oliver Phillips to abduct and kill Agent Fitzgerald, correct?” Agent Leary – that had been his name. As anonymous as the interrogation room, nondescript brown suit, hair from the 1950s.
“Yes,” Silverman said, the single word a sigh, and he never once looked up. He had dark hair, thinning a little at the top.
“And these were the only individuals with whom you had conspired concerning Agent Fitzgerald?” Matt jumped in before Leary could ask the next question, and the older agent glared at him.
“Yes.” No change in Silverman’s expression, no looking up, only a slight tightening of the grip of one hand over another, skin going pale at the knuckles.
Matt had been vibrating with silent and frustrated fury by the end of the session, convinced that Silverman had known others had been involved, but was holding out – for leniency, he’d said scornfully. “We’ll find them anyway,” Matt had told him as they were heading back to the office, “whether he tells us or not.”
At the time he hadn’t shared Matt’s optimism, and he was pretty sure Matt didn’t believe himself either.
“Martin, there you are.” Nick Ramsay materialized at his side, folder and papers clutched in one hand. “Could I see you in my office?”
Obediently Martin stood and trailed behind Ramsay, suppressing the faint frission of anxiety. Like being called into the principal’s office, or any other encounter with authority – planning everything ahead of time, the denials, the polite face, the determination to do what he had to do anyway.
“I got the analysis from forensics on the bomb used on Whitney’s car,” Ramsay said as he guided Martin into his office and sat down behind his desk, gesturing for Martin to sit as he did so.
Martin remained standing. “And?”
“Pipe bomb,” Ramsay murmured. His office was silent, the door half-shut behind them, and the sound of the chaos beyond it was distant. “Technically fairly crude; whoever made it probably used what was at hand or otherwise easily available. Nothing traceable so far.”
“What were the components?” Pictures behind Ramsay’s desk – wife and kid. What were their names again?
“The accelerant was ammonium perchlorate, glass and metal shrapnel,” Ramsay said, glancing down briefly at the printout. Alice. Rob’s in college. Stay on track, Fitzgerald. “The casing was some kind of piping... Corroded in places – hard water deposits, some build-up on the inside. Hardly ideal material.” Ramsay’s tone was strongly suggestive of disappointment at such sub-standard work. “Obviously a last-minute job.”
“Wait... the pipes. You mean like for plumbing? Water pipes, that sort of thing?”
“It appears so; the caps were stainless steel, different from the pipe itself. Newer.” Ramsay was looking at him speculatively now, tapping a finger on the rim of his glasses. His chair creaked a bit as he sat back. “Martin?”
“I...” He fell into the chair across from Ramsay, reaching out with one hand to keep his balance. Dark, so dark, and the only solid things in the world were the damp cement floor beneath him and the cold steel length of pipe pressed along his spine, and when he’d exhausted himself screaming it had been the only thing to lean on.
“Martin? What’s wrong?” Ramsay’s voice sharpened in concern.
“Nothing.” Hoarse and unconvincing; he cleared his throat and tried again. “Where I was kept... They had me chained to a pipe.” Steady, steady and with a little more effort his voice was flawless, detached, reporting on what had happened to another person. “I remember that it was old – marked up, maybe rusted out a bit. If whoever made the bomb was working with whatever was there, they might have dismantled some of the plumbing. It was an old building.”
“Uninhabited?”
“I don’t know. There were other people there. I heard water, I think, somewhere else in the building.”
“You said in your statement that you thought there were maybe three or four people holding you,” Ramsay said thoughtfully. “We have two in custody; the other two may be responsible for the bombing. We’ve had agents canvassing the area, and they’ve come up with nothing, but it’s worth another look.”
Martin opened his mouth to say he’d check it out, because it would be the sensible thing to do, but the bargain with Victor came back in a bitter, wrenching jolt and he asked, “Who’s on the ground?”
“Bateman and his team,” Ramsay said, grinning a little, slightest tilt to his lips – he knew what Martin had been going to say, damn it. “If those guys are still in the area, we’ll find them.”
“Right,” Martin said hollowly, and tried to believe that. “I should get back to work.”
“Of course.”
Ramsay inclined his head in silent dismissal and Martin bolted from the office. Frustrated energy pulsed in him, a demand to be outside doing, not waiting, need for it vibrating along him like electricity, a restless current. His borrowed desk waited in its corner near the whiteboard, surrounded by agents going over their reports, but he turned away from it, and headed back down the hallway and to the office with its blinds still drawn.
-tbc-
Post-fic stuff:
nekosmuse, I will try to have something happy for you this weekend :)