Supernatural/Numb3rs fic - Take a Long Line 3a/3
As is now obvious to everyone, I totally SUCK at updating WIPs in a timely manner. But yes, FINALLY, here is the third and final chapter. Thank you for your patience.
Title: Take a Long Line
Author: derry667
Genre: Crossover, drama, angst, mystery and finally an explanation (of sorts) - all totally "gen"
Fandoms: Numb3rs and Supernatural (Winchester "reality", Eppes POV)
Disclaimer: I am not a theoretical (or applied) mathematician. I am not a behavioural psychologist. And I am most certainly not any sort of federal law enforcement agent for the United States of America (I'm not even American). I am just making this up as I go along and I apologise for any glaring inaccuracies. Furthermore, I do not own any of the characters or institutions represented in this fic. Still no monetary profit involved nor harm intended.
Characters: The whole fic - Don, Megan, Dean, Charlie, Sam, Alan, David and Colby. This chapter is heavily centred on the Numb3rs characters, but to say that Dean and Sam exert their influence on it is something of an understatement. No romantic pairings
Spoilers: I've decided that this fic is set just prior to Supernatural's "Heart" and Numb3rs' "Democracy" episodes and so, for direct spoilers, everything up to those is fair game. There also may be small indirect references to episodes from the rest of season 2 of Supernatural and season 3 of Numb3rs.
Rating: PG for mildish language.
Status: Finally complete, dammit! Previous parts can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2
Words: 11000-ish for part three (22500-ish in total)
Other notes: Much, many and more thanks to rinkle and starrylizard for betaing this fic. But, of course, the mistakes it still contains remain very much my own. Title and lyrics are from "Take a Long Line" (Brewster-Neeson-Brewster). Feedback on the fic is very much appreciated.
--------
They put him aboard a well wound whirlwind
Pulled out his teeth and told him to grin
He gave them a smile, pulled out a bottle of wine
And said "I never existed, you've been wasting your time"
--------
"How ya doing, Mr Eppes?"
David Sinclair smiles as he approaches to escort Alan up to the office where his sons have sequestered themselves away for the past two days, but there's an element of relief in the greeting which makes the older man raise his eyebrows. Alan has always appreciated David's seemingly indomitable level headedness and good humour. The look of genuine relief in the young FBI agent's eyes confirms that Allen was right to come down here. His presence is obviously needed.
"Fine, David," he says automatically, but when David raises his own eyebrows, Alan tempers his response. "Maybe a little concerned." He offers a small smile of his own. "I mean, it's not really unusual for me to go for days without seeing any sign of Don, but I live with Charlie and even when he decides to do the hermit thing, obsessing over his work, I usually just have to go out and take a look in the garage."
David nods. "Yeah, I kinda see your point."
"And that's not even mentioning that two days ago Charlie was in the hospital for smoke inhalation. Some might say that he should be taking things a bit easy."
"Some might say," David agrees with a wistful sigh and Alan chuckles. It's not like he doesn't know the level of obsession that both his sons are capable of.
"So, is it because the problem itself is just far too engrossing for him to take it easy, or is it because he's taking it too personally?"
"Charlie's not the one taking it personally," David mutters under his breath, avoiding Alan's gaze, as he opens the door for him.
Alan sighs. That's more or less what he'd been expecting too.
As David leads him the rest of the way up to the office, there is a silence that is at least companionable, if not completely comfortable. Alan has been a visitor to Don's "war room" before. He knows that this case has involved several deaths and he knows that Charlie's life was apparently threatened. So he thinks that he can gauge the level of tension to expect, but he's taken aback at the intensity of the gazes that swing towards him as he enters the room.
Even though he knows that they had already been told he was arriving, everyone stops what they are doing to look at him and, since Charlie was apparently mid-explanation as he entered, that can definitely be called unusual. There is a second or two of silence before Don offers, "Hey, Dad. Welcome to the party," with some forced jocularity. Charlie, Megan and Colby say nothing, although Megan gives him a small nod of greeting.
Alan takes a quick look round the group and then acknowledges Don's greeting with a mumbled thanks that might not be exactly gracious, but reflects the contagious unease that he senses in the room. It's nearly nine pm on a Saturday and Don's team seem to be the only ones in the office at the moment, but somehow Alan feels a little crowded - which is ridiculous. He shakes off his hesitancy and strides over to join his sons who are both standing in front of a board covered in maps, crime scene photos and a couple of mug shots.
"So this is them?"
Don shrugs in acknowledgment. There's no need to actually voice an answer because the names "Dean Winchester" and "Sam Winchester" are very clearly written in felt tip underneath each mugshot. Alan has already heard the basic - sanitised - facts of the case from Don, two days ago while Charlie was in the hospital. Serial killers. Multiple murders across the country. Murders too gruesome to describe.
"God, they're kids!"
He feels slightly naïve, even as he says it and Don's response is weary and not a little irritated.
"Trust me, Dad. They're not kids"
But as Alan steps closer to study the defiantly lifted chin and the belligerence in the eyes of Dean Winchester, he can't help but remember another kid, fiercely declaring that he had no idea how the neighbour's window came to be broken and defying anyone to prove he had anything to do with it. A quick glance across to his eldest son shows him that same look of defiance again, echoes of the past in the present, but rather than confront it, Alan turns back to the other mugshot.
Sam, the younger brother if he remembers rightly, has a touch of sadness in his eyes and maybe the faintest hint of confusion, as if, at the time it was taken, he wasn't completely sure why he was there. It does make him look a little more youthful and vulnerable, but his jaw is still firmly set. Even if he doesn't know what's going on, there's going to be no surrender. Less antagonism perhaps, but equal determination and he can't be more than early twenties which makes him a kid in Alan's book.
"What are they then?" Alan turns around, addressing his question to the whole group and Megan's face slowly melts into a smile. His eyebrows go up, although he's not surprised to see that she has a theory. She always was an exceptionally bright young woman.
"Well, that really is the question, Mr Eppes."
"Oh, really?" The way Alan heard it two days ago, the judgement had already been handed down on these boys, or at least, the unofficial judgement from Don and his team. He's more than a little curious to learn what has transpired since then to bring such a forgone conclusion back into question now. "I thought you had a very comprehensive file on them." He says it challengingly and, without looking, can feel Don's gaze on him intensify.
"'Comprehensive' is the eye of the beholder," Charlie snorts and Alan turns to look at his youngest.
Alan asks, "What do you mean?" at the same time that Don says warningly, "Charlie..." and the family genius gives a very familiar small toss of his head as he determinedly focuses on his father, rather than his brother.
"Well, the file does contain a lot of data, but there are also a lot of inconsistencies in that data and there is a definite bias in the way those inconsistencies are being dealt with. It's as if the conclusion has already been decided and the data is being adapted to fit it, rather than using the data available to determine a logical conclusion."
"Oh, c'mon, Charlie," Don objects. "People have been working their asses off for months, putting together that file. You can't just wander in, take one look at it and make pronouncements like that. You gotta have proof."
"Proof?" There is a touch of incredulity in his voice, as Charlie turns to his brother. "You want proof that the people handling this case are just ditching the data that doesn't show what they want? Okay."
Charlie starts rifling through various folders that are spread over the desk in the centre of the room, talking as he goes.
"There are actually two ways to approach the analysis of this file, y'know? Firstly, you can use the file itself to analyse the actual events of the case and in that scenario, it makes sense to simply follow the chronological order in which the crimes were committed. You would have to assume that events occur sequentially, with each event building on the next, and so that would be a logical way to determine how the sequence of events unfolded. And it means that, if the Winchesters did commit all the crimes they are accused of, then there should be a logical progression of the events which then could be clearly demonstrated by some form of mathematical model but there isn't."
"He's right," Megan interrupts and when Alan looks at her, she looks down with a brief self-conscious chuckle before meeting his gaze. "I know we often just assume that goes without saying with Charlie, but it's not just the math that doesn't add up. The sequence of events doesn't show a logical progression from a psych profiling point of view either. If they were thrill killers, you'd expect a fairly consistent general pattern, with progressive escalation of the violence, but that's not what's seen. The 'murder sprees' occur irregularly with varying intervals in between, and more importantly, the intensity of the crimes fluctuates. There are batches of extremely gruesome crimes in one area - violent, bloody, torture of the victim before death and/or mutilation of the body after - and then when they move on, sometimes there is a series of comparatively less bloody crimes with simple clean kills or no deaths at all. There's no logical reason for a thrill killer to step down the violence of their attacks."
Alan casts a look at Don, who is doing his best to look inscrutable, before turning back to Charlie. "You said that there were two ways to look at it. So, what's the second?"
Charlie grins slightly. "To look at the way the file itself was put together. To analyse how each case was attributed to the Winchesters and why it was added to the file and that doesn't have to follow a straight chronological order. You remember that vector analysis I did to track the transmission of that influenza virus a few years back? Well, you can apply something similar here."
That's too much for Don to accept without challenge. "An FBI file is like a disease? C'mon Charlie, give me a break here!"
Charlie shrugs off the disdain. "It's a way of looking at it, yes. The spread of an opinion, like a conclusion of guilt, can be viewed like the spread of a disease. Only here, it's not really as if people are being infected by the contagion. It's more like, if an unsolved crime incident has a "point of contact" with the Winchesters, then it becomes infected and they are automatically assumed to be the perpetrators of that crime. And if you view the file in that way, then the St Louis murders are effectively "patient zero". That is the point at which Dean Winchester came to the attention of law enforcement at a federal level, but he was assumed to be dead at that time and so the 'disease' went into what might be considered the equivalent of an 'incubation period'. Other subsequent crimes and murders occurred and remained unsolved, like they were lying 'dormant', so when it was later discovered that Dean Winchester was actually still alive and the crimes could be attributed to him, then the file 'spread' to include them."
"Yeah, but I don't exactly see why that isn't logical, Charlie," Don interjects and Alan has to agree with him. "If it's discovered that he wasn't dead like he was supposed to be and he can be placed at the scene, it makes sense that he becomes a suspect where he wasn't before."
"Being in the area at the same time the crimes were committed isn't exactly incontrovertible proof of guilt to me. Where as more than 'same place, same time' is usually required to indicate guilt, the people putting together this file were already pre-primed to automatically attribute the crimes to the Winchesters, like the disease was lying dormant and only needed to be triggered. And anyway, the inclusion and exclusion of cases isn't consistent or logical. To give you an example, for a while there seems to have been a push to include what was known as 'The Bloody Mary deaths' in Toledo, Ohio. There were a couple of suspicious deaths, quite bizarre bleeding from the eyes apparently. The first man was thought to be a stroke, but then a young woman who was known to be a friend of the family also died in the same manner. Both of the deceased man's daughters gave positive IDs for Dean and Sam Winchester being present in the area after his death, although another witness that was questioned refused to confirm the details. Prints lifted from a vandalism and assault case at a Toledo antiques store were analysed in retrospect and came up with possible matches for both brothers' fingerprints. There were no further Bloody Mary deaths after the time of this break in. So, on the basis of the prints and witness IDs, the cases were initially included in the file, but then discarded when the second death directly overlapped with one of the St Louis killings."
"And this proves?" Don challenges Charlie, but it's Megan who answers.
"That the people putting the file together wanted Dean Winchester for the St Louis killings. The Toledo deaths, while gruesome, were never proven as murder, so they would be considered less of a 'prize' by someone trying to deliberately build up a serial killer profile. And since the incidents conflict with each other, they disregarded the one that didn't fit the picture they wanted."
"Exactly!" Charlie pounces, poking holes in the air with one upraised finger. "The evidence for the St Louis killings consists pretty much only of one witness statement which has since been retracted. And that same witness was the one who falsely identified the body as Dean Winchester, she apparently now says she was mistaken - and that would now seem obvious, I suppose, since he's turned up alive since then - but it really undermines the strength of the evidence. So, logically, the Toledo case should be weighed at least equally with the one from St Louis, but it wasn't." He waves his hands around in a gesture of frustration. "You can't just discard data because you don't like what it tells you."
"But don't you do that kinda thing all the time?" Colby asks, in all apparent innocence, but Charlie turns on him with a glare that would melt the polar ice caps.
"What?" he asks with the sort of quiet, measured pseudo-calm that could easily precede a homicide.
"Well," Colby fumbles slightly, but then shrugs a little. "You often come in on a case and say 'This fits the pattern, so this, this and this'. Then later, something else turns up and you say, 'No it's part of something else, so now it's that, that and that instead." He waves his hands a bit, as if to say "QED".
Charlie blinks slowly and Alan has to fight hard to hide his smile.
"No," Charlie draws the word out, as he shakes his head, apparently piecing together exactly what Colby is trying to say. "I mean, yes, I refine my data, but I don't just throw out data because I don't like what it implies. The idea is to find a pattern that best fits the data, not make the data fit your favoured pattern. All data points - all of the crime incidents - should be assessed under the same criteria. If two data points conflict, you can't just dump one because it interferes with how you'd prefer to view the case. You have to weigh each up without bias and see which evidence stands up better. If they are of equal weight then you can't just dismiss one arbitrarily. You must find another way to resolve the conflict."
Alan nods. "So what patterns are we talking about then, Charlie?"
Charlie takes a deep breath. This is obviously "The Big Sell" but it's also fairly obvious that Charlie is not really worried about selling it to his father. It actually seems more targeted towards the other member of his family, whose scepticism is beginning to seem a little forced to Alan's mind.
"Okay, so the pattern that the FBI has been trying to push so far is a "serial killer" psych profile and it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny any way you look at it. But if you map the Winchester brothers known movements over the past couple of years, then what they actually fit is a kind of hunting pattern. They've only sporadically left evidence for us to follow, but when they do, the pattern runs this way. There are a series of deaths, disappearances or just mysterious violent incidents. Then, at some point after the incidents have become public knowledge, the Winchesters or evidence that Winchesters have been there is found in the area. Not long after that, the incidents cease and the Winchesters disappear. And if you accept that they arrived around the time that actual evidence of their presence at the scene first appears, rather than dating it back to when the killings or whatever first started, then there isn't any of that overlap problem in the timing of cases. So, far be it from me to advocate jumping to conclusions without enough evidence, but tell me, Dad, in your unbiased opinion, what's your first thought about all that?"
Alan's eyebrows go up at Charlie's belligerence. It would seem that his theory has met with very strong resistance from his brother and Alan can't yet see why Don would be digging his heels in over this. But if he's going to find out what's going on in his eldest son's head, it's not going to be by directly asking. He still feels very out of the loop and he needs more information about the whole situation.
"Okay, Charlie, I get what you're saying." He glances towards Don, who has fixed an impassive stare on his younger brother. "But maybe there's more to it than that. Like why are you only looking at the past couple of years? Isn't there anything about them from before that?"
Again Megan pipes up and Alan begins to feel a bit like he's being tag-teamed. His peripheral vision catches Don putting a hand to his forehead and realises that, no, it's actually Don that's being tag-teamed - and by two of the people whose opinions he respects most. And yet he seems to be refusing to accept what either of them has to say. What the hell is going on?
"Not really," Megan is saying. "Dean has a juvenile record for a few incidents of vandalism, but nothing that screams 'future serial killer in the making'. And Sam seems to be completely squeaky clean until two years ago. In fact, he's a bit of a wunderkind. He got into Stanford University on full scholarship, supported himself through a Pre-Law course and ranked in the 99th percentile on his Law School Admission Test score. Had an interview for Law School at Stanford on the day his life went up in smoke - almost literally."
Alan's gaze swings back to the photo of the younger Winchester boy. The family genius. Interesting. He's vaguely aware of his own 'hmmm', as Megan elaborates.
"He had been sharing an apartment with his girlfriend, Jessica Moore. No apparent contact with his family for at least a couple of years, according to his friends at college. And he seems to have had a lot of friends at college. The boy was at least well-liked, if not one of the popular crowd. Then the girlfriend dies when their apartment burns down during the night. She had told friends the day before that Sam had gone off with his brother for a couple of days, but both the Winchesters were present on the night of the fire. Dean was the one that called 911, after apparently pulling Sam from the burning building. Their story was that Dean had dropped Sam home, but then gone back when he'd forgotten something, found the place on fire, dragged his brother out, but was too late to save the girl."
"And they mysteriously disappeared straight after that?"
"Not really. They stayed in town for around a week. Sam convincingly grief-stricken and trying to find out why the fire happened. His brother hanging around and, to all intents and purposes, being supportive. They left without incident after the funeral, saying that Sam needed to get away from the memories, and neither was suspected of anything. It was all just put down to a terrible tragedy that no one could have foreseen."
"Until the Winchester file was created," Charlie interjects. "Now it's considered suspected arson and guess who's prime suspect?"
Alan can see how the FBI might have built a case like that, but Charlie obviously has another working theory. "So, how do you see all this fitting into your pattern?"
"More or less, the same way I saw it when Sam himself told me that his girlfriend died in a fire." Alan's eyebrows go up at that, but he doesn't interrupt Charlie when he seems to be on a roll. "He's let his grief become an obsession. He couldn't save his girlfriend from whatever killed her and the guilt drives him to hunt for answers -" He drops his voice in a way that is obviously meant to convey significance. "- in all the wrong places".
"What do you -?" Alan begins to ask the invited question, before he remembers something else he was told the other day. "What about his brother? A couple of days ago, I thought that the theory was that the older brother was a psychokiller who dragged his younger brother around as an accomplice. When did that theory change?"
Megan seems to take this as a personal criticism. Possibly because as the psychologist on the team, she thinks that the responsibility falls to her. Her reply seems both defensive and apologetic.
"Well, when we started out, we only had the file information to go on. As Charlie said, that's been skewed in a certain direction. And we'd never actually seen either of the Winchesters in action, aside from a very small amount of news camera footage from the attempted bank robbery in Milwaukee. We hadn't even seen the actual footage of Dean Winchester's so-called confession in Baltimore, only read the transcript. I got to watch Dean's interview here and then review the tape several times. And okay, we went into the interview with the assumption that he was a psychopath, a thrill killer, because that was the basic profile that we'd already been given in the file. But he reacted with genuine emotion to the accusation that he didn't care about the lives that had been lost. One of the few times he reacted emotionally at all. That's not the reaction of a psychopath - which sort of pulls the foundations out from under our original profile. Dean clearly didn't think that he would be believed when he offered up his (admittedly bizarre) explanation for why he and Sam got involved with this case. He may very well be delusional and something of an anarchist, but he really doesn't seem to be a true sociopath. Instead, there was a certain righteous arrogance about him, like he believed that what he was doing was right, even if we didn't, and that was all that mattered to him - much like the Milton quote."
Alan isn't sure that he heard right. "The Milton quote?"
David reaches across and picks up a large, battered paperback from one of the desks and flips it open to show Alan. "It's Larry Fleinhart's copy of 'The Complete Prose Works of John Milton'. Sam Winchester lifted it from Charlie's office and they left it opened at this page, the beginning of something called 'An Apology For Smectymnuus' with Charlie's cell phone sitting on top, so we couldn't miss it."
Alan reads the yellow-highlighted passage aloud, "The best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words," and he can't help but be impressed by the style and audacity. "So you think they might be trying to tell you something?"
It's such an obviously rhetorical question that no one gives him a direct answer, but Charlie seems to feel the need to explain the circumstances.
"When Sam took Larry's book from my office, along with my cell phone, he seemed to make the decision on the fly, although the majority of what he did had to be meticulously planned."
"Yes!" Megan jumps in again. "They have a deadly combination of complex pre-planning skills with flashes of spontaneous innovation. It's unbelievable."
"And there's no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with a genius level of intelligence here. The arson analysis that Sam left in my office is simply brilliant. Although he's clearly using non-mathematical techniques and math would obviously have made his analysis much more effective, the analysis in that file accurately predicted a sequence of fires, to the point where they were apparently able to identify the arsonist and intercept the fourth fire, at the Chiyoda restaurant, and prevent the fatality."
"Or maybe it's more 'psychic' than 'genius'," Colby interjects and this time there is definite mischief in his eyes. "After all, they both said that Sam saw the fires in those visions he has."
"Visions?" Alan's eyebrows go up. Okay, that is definitely news to him. "Sam Winchester has visions of the future?"
"No, he does not!" Charlie, quite unsurprisingly, adamantly denies this - which is undoubtedly the reason that Colby and the others are so obviously amused by it. "It's got nothing to do with any so-called 'psychic powers'. They're simply putting a pattern together."
Even Megan can't fully repress a slight grin as she explains. "During Dean's interview, he said that the reason that he and Sam came to LA was because Sam had some kind of psychic premonition of the first fire. And Sam told Charlie that he knew about the Chiyoda Restaurant fire because he saw it in a vision. Also, from what Charlie described, Sam might have had one of his 'psychic migraines' while he was in Charlie's office."
"No, no, no!" Charlie has actually started waving his hands in the air. He stops when everyone turns to look at him and moderates his tone. "Well, he possibly had a migraine, yes. But, actually, that might be the reason he thinks he has visions."
Alan is more than used to dealing with his younger son's scepticism in this area. "Okay, how?"
"Migraines can be associated with hallucinations, especially in the prodromal phase when the migraine is just starting."
Megan snorts a little at that. "Yes, but Charlie, those are usually just simple sensory hallucinations - light distortions, weird sounds, odd smells - that sort of thing."
"I know, I know." Charlie holds up his hands again, but this time in partial surrender. "But, in rare cases, more complex hallucinations have been reported and, in Sam's case, I think his are being influenced by his conscious mind to a degree. He's obsessive and all the information and analysis that he's already been mapping out in his mind influence the form that the migraine hallucination takes. So, it feels like a visual premonition, but really it's just a combination of the pieces of the puzzle falling into place at the same time a migraine hits."
He casts a hopeful gaze around the group, seemingly to see if anyone is willing to say yay or nay to this. But everyone else is exchanging glances with each other, probably because none of them really wants to be the one to suggest that Charlie himself is falling into the "trap" of trying to make the data fit his own preferred pattern.
Alan steps in, partly to defuse the awkward silence and partly because something else has just occurred to him.
"Wait a minute! This is completely different from the story I heard two days ago. You're now saying that these boys didn't cause any of these fires and, furthermore, they actually told you who did? What makes you believe them now?"
Charlie shrugs a little sheepishly. "Well, I talked to Millie and I've looked more into Bronwyn Sequard's recent history."
"Your student, Bronwyn?" Alan asks, incredulously. He only met her once, but she seemed like a perfectly ordinary and stable girl. And she was the one fatality from the fire at CalSci, could only be identified from dental records. Blaming it all on someone who died seems a little convenient to Alan. "And what's Millie got to do with all this? I've left a dozen messages on her phone today. I'm beginning to get the feeling that she's avoiding me."
Megan's sigh draws his attention and when he looks over to her, she shrugs slightly. "To be honest, Mr Eppes, I think she might be avoiding you because she's feeling a bit guilty. She might be thinking that this is all her fault."
"That's totally ridiculous! How could she be to blame for any of this?"
Megan holds up her hands to forestall his anger. "She's not to blame. Not really. I just think she's blaming herself. I talked to her, after the fire at CalSci, and she mentioned that it was the second fire she'd nearly been caught in this week. So, she tells me how she was helped, virtually escorted, out of the Chiyoda restaurant by a very tall and personable young man named Sam and how he got her talking about her work and the people that she worked with, while they waited for the Fire Brigade..." Megan starts waving her hand in circles, indicating that how that conversation progressed should be obvious. But even though it is obvious, Alan doesn't want to interrupt her train of thought yet. "So, she said she mentioned Charlie and how he worked with his brother at the FBI quite often. She thought it was just a friendly chat. The come down from the adrenalin rush from escaping the fire probably contributed too. And from the way that Charlie describes Sam, I'm sure he was a very sympathetic listener and quite adept at coaxing the information he wanted out of her."
Alan blinks. "So you think that's where he and his brother got the idea for all this?" He waves his had around the office, not really apropos of anything, but they know what he means anyway.
Charlie shrugs. "It would appear so. Apparently, he started out asking Millie about Bronwyn and by the end, they were talking about me and Don and the FBI. Two days later, Dean Winchester walks into a Federal building, knowing full well that he'll be arrested and his brother turns up at my office less than two hours later. The way they timed it -" Charlie shakes his head, a mixture of disbelief and admiration.
Megan nods vigorously. "They anticipated our movements and reactions perfectly. The co-ordination, the timing, all spot on. We took Dean into custody and interviewed him almost immediately, showing him the hardcopy of the Winchester file when we did so. Then we raced off to the rescue when we perceived Sam to be a threat to Charlie. Gave him time to get back here, where we're holding his brother. We practically jumped to their command."
"But why?" Alan lets his frustration show. It's all very well knowing how the Winchester brothers accomplished this elaborate misdirection, but he still can't see what the point of it all was, especially with the amount of risk involved. "Why go to all this trouble? Surely, these two would be better off avoiding the FBI all together, right?"
Megan exhales slowly and looks up at the ceiling for a moment, before speaking. The rest of the group goes conspicuously quiet, as if they are hanging off her words as much as Alan is. This must be the part of the explanation that really is neck-deep in speculation.
"Okay, if I put together all the information that we've gathered about Dean and Sam Winchester's movements in LA over the past week - that's what the Winchesters themselves said, other eyewitness reports and the contents of the file Sam left in Charlie's office - the sequence of events goes something like this. They arrived in LA about eight days ago. Dean said that they came specifically to investigate the fires with the implication that they intended to put a stop to them. After analysing the first three, they intercepted the fourth and identified the culprit. As they don't have the authority to arrest anyone, God only knows what they intended to do about it. But they did encounter Millie French and from her, they learned about Don and Charlie. Obviously, they must have done some more research before coming up with their plan, but it would seem that they then decided to not only use us to stop these arson murders, but also seized the opportunity to break into their own FBI files."
Alan blinks. Several times. "They what?"
It's almost a surprise to hear Don contribute to the conversation, which is unnerving in itself. His son isn't just a team leader in name only. Don leads his team. To realise how much he has stepped back in this discussion feels so very wrong.
"It seems that one of the Winchesters has considerable computer hacking skills." The familiar dry tone still doesn't settle his father's unease. "We're assuming it's Sam."
"Yeah, because older brothers would obviously be far too cool for that geek stuff," Charlie says equally dryly, but with his chin lifted and shadows in his eyes.
Don doesn't look at his brother, as he flatly states, "And because we actually lifted Sam's prints from the keyboard. Dean's were found on a coffeepot in a nearby break room. Some of our top techs looked into the files that were accessed and probably the most galling thing they found was what information the Winchesters apparently didn't bother to access. They actually didn't go near their own profiles on the database, which the experts seem to think indicates that they've hacked into the database before. What they accessed on the computer was mainly various files from 1983. Just about every unsolved arson case, particularly fatalities. Several other unexplained deaths in 1983 and also every reported sudden death in the past two years of people born in 1983."
"What's the significance of 1983?"
Don shrugs, but not in a way that says that he doesn't know. More in a way that says he doesn't want to explain, so Megan steps in again.
"Sam was born in 1983 and their mother, Mary Winchester died in a house fire that same year."
"An unsolved arson case?"
"It was attributed to faulty wiring, but sometimes I think that's arson investigation speak for 'we don't really know'."
"So, are you saying that they broke into the building to hack into the FBI computer? But why go to all that trouble and take all those risks, if they had already managed to hack in before anyway?"
David steps in, in his turn. "The techs say that what they accessed here would be almost impossible to get from an external hack. Something about the complexity of the data search and the amount of information they accessed. They then sent it out to various IP servers in several countries; the ones we've been able to identify so far are in Singapore, Vancouver, Melbourne, Dubai and Prague.
"But those were obviously just to cover their tracks." Charlie jumps in again, to clarify. "The final destination for the information will be somewhere in the US."
"They also took the hard copy of their investigation file and that contains some documents that couldn't be accessed by an external computer hack," David adds and then smiles when Alan looks around at the various photos and documents taped to the boards and screens, not to mention those strewn across various desks. "Yeah, these are extra copies that we had to make. Our records show Charlie's pass being used, presumably by Sam Winchester, to enter the building, but there's no actual surveillance footage of either of them entering or leaving this building. Even the footage of Dean being brought in with us, at the time of his arrest, is gone. One tech from the 7th floor, where they hacked into the computer system, remembers briefly talking to Dean outside the breakroom on that floor. He told her that he'd just transferred in from the office in Kansas City. Less than ten minutes after she says that she spoke with him, there is a record of a car being signed out using Colby's ID."
Alan turns to look at Colby Granger, aware that everyone else in the room has also turned their gaze in that direction. Colby frowns slightly and sits a little straighter in his chair. Alan doesn't mean his stare to be accusing or critical in any way. He's just caught by surprise because he knows that Colby is an exceptional hand-to-hand fighter, even for an FBI field agent. But it seems everyone in the team is somewhat defensive today.
"Hey, I was getting him some water that he asked for and someone comes into the room behind me, calls out to him. I turn around and it's his brother, Sam. I'd seen his mugshot, but you don't expect the guy to just show up in the office like that. And then before I know it, Dean puts me in a choke hold from behind. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to anticipate that? He was supposed to be cuffed to the table!"
Alan blinks. Colby throws a pointed glance at one of the items on the table and David picks up the evidence bag in question and hands it to Alan. It takes Alan a second or two to recognise the small twisted piece of metal that it contains, and then another few seconds to process and accept what they are implying.
"He picked the lock with a paperclip?"
There is a sigh from Don and Alan turn to see him rubbing the bridge of his nose and then dropping his gaze to the floor as he mutters, "Looks like it."
"How'd he get hold of a paperclip, anyway?"
No one answers. Alan turns and looks around the group. They are all pointedly not looking at him or each other.
Don lifts his gaze from the floor. "Charlie, show him."
Charlie shoots him an apologetic look, but Don turns away. "I need some more coffee."
Charlie's sorrowful gaze follows his brother out of the office, before he turns to look at his father. He directs Alan's attention to a screen to his left and brings up what appears to be a freeze frame from a video recording of an interrogation. The subject is Dean Winchester and he is leaning forward, hand poised to take what looks like a photograph from his unseen interrogator's grasp. Charlie presses another button to zoom in on the edge of the photograph that the prisoner is about to grasp and there is very definitely a paper clip attached there. Alan can't help but be a little impressed. "And no one noticed that he'd swiped it?"
Charlie shrugs helplessly and throws his father that "lost little boy" look that rarely fails to get him what he wants. And when Alan looks up, the rest of them are also looking at him expectantly, as if he can fix everything. When exactly did he become father to Don's whole team? But there's no point in railing against it, not when he wants the same thing they want, after all.
"You know what?" he ventures, feigning contemplation. "I think I need some coffee too." Which earns him a warm squeeze on the arm and a grateful smile from Megan.
Okay, apparently this is too large to fit into one post...
So here's Part 3b
Title: Take a Long Line
Author: derry667
Genre: Crossover, drama, angst, mystery and finally an explanation (of sorts) - all totally "gen"
Fandoms: Numb3rs and Supernatural (Winchester "reality", Eppes POV)
Disclaimer: I am not a theoretical (or applied) mathematician. I am not a behavioural psychologist. And I am most certainly not any sort of federal law enforcement agent for the United States of America (I'm not even American). I am just making this up as I go along and I apologise for any glaring inaccuracies. Furthermore, I do not own any of the characters or institutions represented in this fic. Still no monetary profit involved nor harm intended.
Characters: The whole fic - Don, Megan, Dean, Charlie, Sam, Alan, David and Colby. This chapter is heavily centred on the Numb3rs characters, but to say that Dean and Sam exert their influence on it is something of an understatement. No romantic pairings
Spoilers: I've decided that this fic is set just prior to Supernatural's "Heart" and Numb3rs' "Democracy" episodes and so, for direct spoilers, everything up to those is fair game. There also may be small indirect references to episodes from the rest of season 2 of Supernatural and season 3 of Numb3rs.
Rating: PG for mildish language.
Status: Finally complete, dammit! Previous parts can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2
Words: 11000-ish for part three (22500-ish in total)
Other notes: Much, many and more thanks to rinkle and starrylizard for betaing this fic. But, of course, the mistakes it still contains remain very much my own. Title and lyrics are from "Take a Long Line" (Brewster-Neeson-Brewster). Feedback on the fic is very much appreciated.
--------
They put him aboard a well wound whirlwind
Pulled out his teeth and told him to grin
He gave them a smile, pulled out a bottle of wine
And said "I never existed, you've been wasting your time"
--------
"How ya doing, Mr Eppes?"
David Sinclair smiles as he approaches to escort Alan up to the office where his sons have sequestered themselves away for the past two days, but there's an element of relief in the greeting which makes the older man raise his eyebrows. Alan has always appreciated David's seemingly indomitable level headedness and good humour. The look of genuine relief in the young FBI agent's eyes confirms that Allen was right to come down here. His presence is obviously needed.
"Fine, David," he says automatically, but when David raises his own eyebrows, Alan tempers his response. "Maybe a little concerned." He offers a small smile of his own. "I mean, it's not really unusual for me to go for days without seeing any sign of Don, but I live with Charlie and even when he decides to do the hermit thing, obsessing over his work, I usually just have to go out and take a look in the garage."
David nods. "Yeah, I kinda see your point."
"And that's not even mentioning that two days ago Charlie was in the hospital for smoke inhalation. Some might say that he should be taking things a bit easy."
"Some might say," David agrees with a wistful sigh and Alan chuckles. It's not like he doesn't know the level of obsession that both his sons are capable of.
"So, is it because the problem itself is just far too engrossing for him to take it easy, or is it because he's taking it too personally?"
"Charlie's not the one taking it personally," David mutters under his breath, avoiding Alan's gaze, as he opens the door for him.
Alan sighs. That's more or less what he'd been expecting too.
As David leads him the rest of the way up to the office, there is a silence that is at least companionable, if not completely comfortable. Alan has been a visitor to Don's "war room" before. He knows that this case has involved several deaths and he knows that Charlie's life was apparently threatened. So he thinks that he can gauge the level of tension to expect, but he's taken aback at the intensity of the gazes that swing towards him as he enters the room.
Even though he knows that they had already been told he was arriving, everyone stops what they are doing to look at him and, since Charlie was apparently mid-explanation as he entered, that can definitely be called unusual. There is a second or two of silence before Don offers, "Hey, Dad. Welcome to the party," with some forced jocularity. Charlie, Megan and Colby say nothing, although Megan gives him a small nod of greeting.
Alan takes a quick look round the group and then acknowledges Don's greeting with a mumbled thanks that might not be exactly gracious, but reflects the contagious unease that he senses in the room. It's nearly nine pm on a Saturday and Don's team seem to be the only ones in the office at the moment, but somehow Alan feels a little crowded - which is ridiculous. He shakes off his hesitancy and strides over to join his sons who are both standing in front of a board covered in maps, crime scene photos and a couple of mug shots.
"So this is them?"
Don shrugs in acknowledgment. There's no need to actually voice an answer because the names "Dean Winchester" and "Sam Winchester" are very clearly written in felt tip underneath each mugshot. Alan has already heard the basic - sanitised - facts of the case from Don, two days ago while Charlie was in the hospital. Serial killers. Multiple murders across the country. Murders too gruesome to describe.
"God, they're kids!"
He feels slightly naïve, even as he says it and Don's response is weary and not a little irritated.
"Trust me, Dad. They're not kids"
But as Alan steps closer to study the defiantly lifted chin and the belligerence in the eyes of Dean Winchester, he can't help but remember another kid, fiercely declaring that he had no idea how the neighbour's window came to be broken and defying anyone to prove he had anything to do with it. A quick glance across to his eldest son shows him that same look of defiance again, echoes of the past in the present, but rather than confront it, Alan turns back to the other mugshot.
Sam, the younger brother if he remembers rightly, has a touch of sadness in his eyes and maybe the faintest hint of confusion, as if, at the time it was taken, he wasn't completely sure why he was there. It does make him look a little more youthful and vulnerable, but his jaw is still firmly set. Even if he doesn't know what's going on, there's going to be no surrender. Less antagonism perhaps, but equal determination and he can't be more than early twenties which makes him a kid in Alan's book.
"What are they then?" Alan turns around, addressing his question to the whole group and Megan's face slowly melts into a smile. His eyebrows go up, although he's not surprised to see that she has a theory. She always was an exceptionally bright young woman.
"Well, that really is the question, Mr Eppes."
"Oh, really?" The way Alan heard it two days ago, the judgement had already been handed down on these boys, or at least, the unofficial judgement from Don and his team. He's more than a little curious to learn what has transpired since then to bring such a forgone conclusion back into question now. "I thought you had a very comprehensive file on them." He says it challengingly and, without looking, can feel Don's gaze on him intensify.
"'Comprehensive' is the eye of the beholder," Charlie snorts and Alan turns to look at his youngest.
Alan asks, "What do you mean?" at the same time that Don says warningly, "Charlie..." and the family genius gives a very familiar small toss of his head as he determinedly focuses on his father, rather than his brother.
"Well, the file does contain a lot of data, but there are also a lot of inconsistencies in that data and there is a definite bias in the way those inconsistencies are being dealt with. It's as if the conclusion has already been decided and the data is being adapted to fit it, rather than using the data available to determine a logical conclusion."
"Oh, c'mon, Charlie," Don objects. "People have been working their asses off for months, putting together that file. You can't just wander in, take one look at it and make pronouncements like that. You gotta have proof."
"Proof?" There is a touch of incredulity in his voice, as Charlie turns to his brother. "You want proof that the people handling this case are just ditching the data that doesn't show what they want? Okay."
Charlie starts rifling through various folders that are spread over the desk in the centre of the room, talking as he goes.
"There are actually two ways to approach the analysis of this file, y'know? Firstly, you can use the file itself to analyse the actual events of the case and in that scenario, it makes sense to simply follow the chronological order in which the crimes were committed. You would have to assume that events occur sequentially, with each event building on the next, and so that would be a logical way to determine how the sequence of events unfolded. And it means that, if the Winchesters did commit all the crimes they are accused of, then there should be a logical progression of the events which then could be clearly demonstrated by some form of mathematical model but there isn't."
"He's right," Megan interrupts and when Alan looks at her, she looks down with a brief self-conscious chuckle before meeting his gaze. "I know we often just assume that goes without saying with Charlie, but it's not just the math that doesn't add up. The sequence of events doesn't show a logical progression from a psych profiling point of view either. If they were thrill killers, you'd expect a fairly consistent general pattern, with progressive escalation of the violence, but that's not what's seen. The 'murder sprees' occur irregularly with varying intervals in between, and more importantly, the intensity of the crimes fluctuates. There are batches of extremely gruesome crimes in one area - violent, bloody, torture of the victim before death and/or mutilation of the body after - and then when they move on, sometimes there is a series of comparatively less bloody crimes with simple clean kills or no deaths at all. There's no logical reason for a thrill killer to step down the violence of their attacks."
Alan casts a look at Don, who is doing his best to look inscrutable, before turning back to Charlie. "You said that there were two ways to look at it. So, what's the second?"
Charlie grins slightly. "To look at the way the file itself was put together. To analyse how each case was attributed to the Winchesters and why it was added to the file and that doesn't have to follow a straight chronological order. You remember that vector analysis I did to track the transmission of that influenza virus a few years back? Well, you can apply something similar here."
That's too much for Don to accept without challenge. "An FBI file is like a disease? C'mon Charlie, give me a break here!"
Charlie shrugs off the disdain. "It's a way of looking at it, yes. The spread of an opinion, like a conclusion of guilt, can be viewed like the spread of a disease. Only here, it's not really as if people are being infected by the contagion. It's more like, if an unsolved crime incident has a "point of contact" with the Winchesters, then it becomes infected and they are automatically assumed to be the perpetrators of that crime. And if you view the file in that way, then the St Louis murders are effectively "patient zero". That is the point at which Dean Winchester came to the attention of law enforcement at a federal level, but he was assumed to be dead at that time and so the 'disease' went into what might be considered the equivalent of an 'incubation period'. Other subsequent crimes and murders occurred and remained unsolved, like they were lying 'dormant', so when it was later discovered that Dean Winchester was actually still alive and the crimes could be attributed to him, then the file 'spread' to include them."
"Yeah, but I don't exactly see why that isn't logical, Charlie," Don interjects and Alan has to agree with him. "If it's discovered that he wasn't dead like he was supposed to be and he can be placed at the scene, it makes sense that he becomes a suspect where he wasn't before."
"Being in the area at the same time the crimes were committed isn't exactly incontrovertible proof of guilt to me. Where as more than 'same place, same time' is usually required to indicate guilt, the people putting together this file were already pre-primed to automatically attribute the crimes to the Winchesters, like the disease was lying dormant and only needed to be triggered. And anyway, the inclusion and exclusion of cases isn't consistent or logical. To give you an example, for a while there seems to have been a push to include what was known as 'The Bloody Mary deaths' in Toledo, Ohio. There were a couple of suspicious deaths, quite bizarre bleeding from the eyes apparently. The first man was thought to be a stroke, but then a young woman who was known to be a friend of the family also died in the same manner. Both of the deceased man's daughters gave positive IDs for Dean and Sam Winchester being present in the area after his death, although another witness that was questioned refused to confirm the details. Prints lifted from a vandalism and assault case at a Toledo antiques store were analysed in retrospect and came up with possible matches for both brothers' fingerprints. There were no further Bloody Mary deaths after the time of this break in. So, on the basis of the prints and witness IDs, the cases were initially included in the file, but then discarded when the second death directly overlapped with one of the St Louis killings."
"And this proves?" Don challenges Charlie, but it's Megan who answers.
"That the people putting the file together wanted Dean Winchester for the St Louis killings. The Toledo deaths, while gruesome, were never proven as murder, so they would be considered less of a 'prize' by someone trying to deliberately build up a serial killer profile. And since the incidents conflict with each other, they disregarded the one that didn't fit the picture they wanted."
"Exactly!" Charlie pounces, poking holes in the air with one upraised finger. "The evidence for the St Louis killings consists pretty much only of one witness statement which has since been retracted. And that same witness was the one who falsely identified the body as Dean Winchester, she apparently now says she was mistaken - and that would now seem obvious, I suppose, since he's turned up alive since then - but it really undermines the strength of the evidence. So, logically, the Toledo case should be weighed at least equally with the one from St Louis, but it wasn't." He waves his hands around in a gesture of frustration. "You can't just discard data because you don't like what it tells you."
"But don't you do that kinda thing all the time?" Colby asks, in all apparent innocence, but Charlie turns on him with a glare that would melt the polar ice caps.
"What?" he asks with the sort of quiet, measured pseudo-calm that could easily precede a homicide.
"Well," Colby fumbles slightly, but then shrugs a little. "You often come in on a case and say 'This fits the pattern, so this, this and this'. Then later, something else turns up and you say, 'No it's part of something else, so now it's that, that and that instead." He waves his hands a bit, as if to say "QED".
Charlie blinks slowly and Alan has to fight hard to hide his smile.
"No," Charlie draws the word out, as he shakes his head, apparently piecing together exactly what Colby is trying to say. "I mean, yes, I refine my data, but I don't just throw out data because I don't like what it implies. The idea is to find a pattern that best fits the data, not make the data fit your favoured pattern. All data points - all of the crime incidents - should be assessed under the same criteria. If two data points conflict, you can't just dump one because it interferes with how you'd prefer to view the case. You have to weigh each up without bias and see which evidence stands up better. If they are of equal weight then you can't just dismiss one arbitrarily. You must find another way to resolve the conflict."
Alan nods. "So what patterns are we talking about then, Charlie?"
Charlie takes a deep breath. This is obviously "The Big Sell" but it's also fairly obvious that Charlie is not really worried about selling it to his father. It actually seems more targeted towards the other member of his family, whose scepticism is beginning to seem a little forced to Alan's mind.
"Okay, so the pattern that the FBI has been trying to push so far is a "serial killer" psych profile and it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny any way you look at it. But if you map the Winchester brothers known movements over the past couple of years, then what they actually fit is a kind of hunting pattern. They've only sporadically left evidence for us to follow, but when they do, the pattern runs this way. There are a series of deaths, disappearances or just mysterious violent incidents. Then, at some point after the incidents have become public knowledge, the Winchesters or evidence that Winchesters have been there is found in the area. Not long after that, the incidents cease and the Winchesters disappear. And if you accept that they arrived around the time that actual evidence of their presence at the scene first appears, rather than dating it back to when the killings or whatever first started, then there isn't any of that overlap problem in the timing of cases. So, far be it from me to advocate jumping to conclusions without enough evidence, but tell me, Dad, in your unbiased opinion, what's your first thought about all that?"
Alan's eyebrows go up at Charlie's belligerence. It would seem that his theory has met with very strong resistance from his brother and Alan can't yet see why Don would be digging his heels in over this. But if he's going to find out what's going on in his eldest son's head, it's not going to be by directly asking. He still feels very out of the loop and he needs more information about the whole situation.
"Okay, Charlie, I get what you're saying." He glances towards Don, who has fixed an impassive stare on his younger brother. "But maybe there's more to it than that. Like why are you only looking at the past couple of years? Isn't there anything about them from before that?"
Again Megan pipes up and Alan begins to feel a bit like he's being tag-teamed. His peripheral vision catches Don putting a hand to his forehead and realises that, no, it's actually Don that's being tag-teamed - and by two of the people whose opinions he respects most. And yet he seems to be refusing to accept what either of them has to say. What the hell is going on?
"Not really," Megan is saying. "Dean has a juvenile record for a few incidents of vandalism, but nothing that screams 'future serial killer in the making'. And Sam seems to be completely squeaky clean until two years ago. In fact, he's a bit of a wunderkind. He got into Stanford University on full scholarship, supported himself through a Pre-Law course and ranked in the 99th percentile on his Law School Admission Test score. Had an interview for Law School at Stanford on the day his life went up in smoke - almost literally."
Alan's gaze swings back to the photo of the younger Winchester boy. The family genius. Interesting. He's vaguely aware of his own 'hmmm', as Megan elaborates.
"He had been sharing an apartment with his girlfriend, Jessica Moore. No apparent contact with his family for at least a couple of years, according to his friends at college. And he seems to have had a lot of friends at college. The boy was at least well-liked, if not one of the popular crowd. Then the girlfriend dies when their apartment burns down during the night. She had told friends the day before that Sam had gone off with his brother for a couple of days, but both the Winchesters were present on the night of the fire. Dean was the one that called 911, after apparently pulling Sam from the burning building. Their story was that Dean had dropped Sam home, but then gone back when he'd forgotten something, found the place on fire, dragged his brother out, but was too late to save the girl."
"And they mysteriously disappeared straight after that?"
"Not really. They stayed in town for around a week. Sam convincingly grief-stricken and trying to find out why the fire happened. His brother hanging around and, to all intents and purposes, being supportive. They left without incident after the funeral, saying that Sam needed to get away from the memories, and neither was suspected of anything. It was all just put down to a terrible tragedy that no one could have foreseen."
"Until the Winchester file was created," Charlie interjects. "Now it's considered suspected arson and guess who's prime suspect?"
Alan can see how the FBI might have built a case like that, but Charlie obviously has another working theory. "So, how do you see all this fitting into your pattern?"
"More or less, the same way I saw it when Sam himself told me that his girlfriend died in a fire." Alan's eyebrows go up at that, but he doesn't interrupt Charlie when he seems to be on a roll. "He's let his grief become an obsession. He couldn't save his girlfriend from whatever killed her and the guilt drives him to hunt for answers -" He drops his voice in a way that is obviously meant to convey significance. "- in all the wrong places".
"What do you -?" Alan begins to ask the invited question, before he remembers something else he was told the other day. "What about his brother? A couple of days ago, I thought that the theory was that the older brother was a psychokiller who dragged his younger brother around as an accomplice. When did that theory change?"
Megan seems to take this as a personal criticism. Possibly because as the psychologist on the team, she thinks that the responsibility falls to her. Her reply seems both defensive and apologetic.
"Well, when we started out, we only had the file information to go on. As Charlie said, that's been skewed in a certain direction. And we'd never actually seen either of the Winchesters in action, aside from a very small amount of news camera footage from the attempted bank robbery in Milwaukee. We hadn't even seen the actual footage of Dean Winchester's so-called confession in Baltimore, only read the transcript. I got to watch Dean's interview here and then review the tape several times. And okay, we went into the interview with the assumption that he was a psychopath, a thrill killer, because that was the basic profile that we'd already been given in the file. But he reacted with genuine emotion to the accusation that he didn't care about the lives that had been lost. One of the few times he reacted emotionally at all. That's not the reaction of a psychopath - which sort of pulls the foundations out from under our original profile. Dean clearly didn't think that he would be believed when he offered up his (admittedly bizarre) explanation for why he and Sam got involved with this case. He may very well be delusional and something of an anarchist, but he really doesn't seem to be a true sociopath. Instead, there was a certain righteous arrogance about him, like he believed that what he was doing was right, even if we didn't, and that was all that mattered to him - much like the Milton quote."
Alan isn't sure that he heard right. "The Milton quote?"
David reaches across and picks up a large, battered paperback from one of the desks and flips it open to show Alan. "It's Larry Fleinhart's copy of 'The Complete Prose Works of John Milton'. Sam Winchester lifted it from Charlie's office and they left it opened at this page, the beginning of something called 'An Apology For Smectymnuus' with Charlie's cell phone sitting on top, so we couldn't miss it."
Alan reads the yellow-highlighted passage aloud, "The best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words," and he can't help but be impressed by the style and audacity. "So you think they might be trying to tell you something?"
It's such an obviously rhetorical question that no one gives him a direct answer, but Charlie seems to feel the need to explain the circumstances.
"When Sam took Larry's book from my office, along with my cell phone, he seemed to make the decision on the fly, although the majority of what he did had to be meticulously planned."
"Yes!" Megan jumps in again. "They have a deadly combination of complex pre-planning skills with flashes of spontaneous innovation. It's unbelievable."
"And there's no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with a genius level of intelligence here. The arson analysis that Sam left in my office is simply brilliant. Although he's clearly using non-mathematical techniques and math would obviously have made his analysis much more effective, the analysis in that file accurately predicted a sequence of fires, to the point where they were apparently able to identify the arsonist and intercept the fourth fire, at the Chiyoda restaurant, and prevent the fatality."
"Or maybe it's more 'psychic' than 'genius'," Colby interjects and this time there is definite mischief in his eyes. "After all, they both said that Sam saw the fires in those visions he has."
"Visions?" Alan's eyebrows go up. Okay, that is definitely news to him. "Sam Winchester has visions of the future?"
"No, he does not!" Charlie, quite unsurprisingly, adamantly denies this - which is undoubtedly the reason that Colby and the others are so obviously amused by it. "It's got nothing to do with any so-called 'psychic powers'. They're simply putting a pattern together."
Even Megan can't fully repress a slight grin as she explains. "During Dean's interview, he said that the reason that he and Sam came to LA was because Sam had some kind of psychic premonition of the first fire. And Sam told Charlie that he knew about the Chiyoda Restaurant fire because he saw it in a vision. Also, from what Charlie described, Sam might have had one of his 'psychic migraines' while he was in Charlie's office."
"No, no, no!" Charlie has actually started waving his hands in the air. He stops when everyone turns to look at him and moderates his tone. "Well, he possibly had a migraine, yes. But, actually, that might be the reason he thinks he has visions."
Alan is more than used to dealing with his younger son's scepticism in this area. "Okay, how?"
"Migraines can be associated with hallucinations, especially in the prodromal phase when the migraine is just starting."
Megan snorts a little at that. "Yes, but Charlie, those are usually just simple sensory hallucinations - light distortions, weird sounds, odd smells - that sort of thing."
"I know, I know." Charlie holds up his hands again, but this time in partial surrender. "But, in rare cases, more complex hallucinations have been reported and, in Sam's case, I think his are being influenced by his conscious mind to a degree. He's obsessive and all the information and analysis that he's already been mapping out in his mind influence the form that the migraine hallucination takes. So, it feels like a visual premonition, but really it's just a combination of the pieces of the puzzle falling into place at the same time a migraine hits."
He casts a hopeful gaze around the group, seemingly to see if anyone is willing to say yay or nay to this. But everyone else is exchanging glances with each other, probably because none of them really wants to be the one to suggest that Charlie himself is falling into the "trap" of trying to make the data fit his own preferred pattern.
Alan steps in, partly to defuse the awkward silence and partly because something else has just occurred to him.
"Wait a minute! This is completely different from the story I heard two days ago. You're now saying that these boys didn't cause any of these fires and, furthermore, they actually told you who did? What makes you believe them now?"
Charlie shrugs a little sheepishly. "Well, I talked to Millie and I've looked more into Bronwyn Sequard's recent history."
"Your student, Bronwyn?" Alan asks, incredulously. He only met her once, but she seemed like a perfectly ordinary and stable girl. And she was the one fatality from the fire at CalSci, could only be identified from dental records. Blaming it all on someone who died seems a little convenient to Alan. "And what's Millie got to do with all this? I've left a dozen messages on her phone today. I'm beginning to get the feeling that she's avoiding me."
Megan's sigh draws his attention and when he looks over to her, she shrugs slightly. "To be honest, Mr Eppes, I think she might be avoiding you because she's feeling a bit guilty. She might be thinking that this is all her fault."
"That's totally ridiculous! How could she be to blame for any of this?"
Megan holds up her hands to forestall his anger. "She's not to blame. Not really. I just think she's blaming herself. I talked to her, after the fire at CalSci, and she mentioned that it was the second fire she'd nearly been caught in this week. So, she tells me how she was helped, virtually escorted, out of the Chiyoda restaurant by a very tall and personable young man named Sam and how he got her talking about her work and the people that she worked with, while they waited for the Fire Brigade..." Megan starts waving her hand in circles, indicating that how that conversation progressed should be obvious. But even though it is obvious, Alan doesn't want to interrupt her train of thought yet. "So, she said she mentioned Charlie and how he worked with his brother at the FBI quite often. She thought it was just a friendly chat. The come down from the adrenalin rush from escaping the fire probably contributed too. And from the way that Charlie describes Sam, I'm sure he was a very sympathetic listener and quite adept at coaxing the information he wanted out of her."
Alan blinks. "So you think that's where he and his brother got the idea for all this?" He waves his had around the office, not really apropos of anything, but they know what he means anyway.
Charlie shrugs. "It would appear so. Apparently, he started out asking Millie about Bronwyn and by the end, they were talking about me and Don and the FBI. Two days later, Dean Winchester walks into a Federal building, knowing full well that he'll be arrested and his brother turns up at my office less than two hours later. The way they timed it -" Charlie shakes his head, a mixture of disbelief and admiration.
Megan nods vigorously. "They anticipated our movements and reactions perfectly. The co-ordination, the timing, all spot on. We took Dean into custody and interviewed him almost immediately, showing him the hardcopy of the Winchester file when we did so. Then we raced off to the rescue when we perceived Sam to be a threat to Charlie. Gave him time to get back here, where we're holding his brother. We practically jumped to their command."
"But why?" Alan lets his frustration show. It's all very well knowing how the Winchester brothers accomplished this elaborate misdirection, but he still can't see what the point of it all was, especially with the amount of risk involved. "Why go to all this trouble? Surely, these two would be better off avoiding the FBI all together, right?"
Megan exhales slowly and looks up at the ceiling for a moment, before speaking. The rest of the group goes conspicuously quiet, as if they are hanging off her words as much as Alan is. This must be the part of the explanation that really is neck-deep in speculation.
"Okay, if I put together all the information that we've gathered about Dean and Sam Winchester's movements in LA over the past week - that's what the Winchesters themselves said, other eyewitness reports and the contents of the file Sam left in Charlie's office - the sequence of events goes something like this. They arrived in LA about eight days ago. Dean said that they came specifically to investigate the fires with the implication that they intended to put a stop to them. After analysing the first three, they intercepted the fourth and identified the culprit. As they don't have the authority to arrest anyone, God only knows what they intended to do about it. But they did encounter Millie French and from her, they learned about Don and Charlie. Obviously, they must have done some more research before coming up with their plan, but it would seem that they then decided to not only use us to stop these arson murders, but also seized the opportunity to break into their own FBI files."
Alan blinks. Several times. "They what?"
It's almost a surprise to hear Don contribute to the conversation, which is unnerving in itself. His son isn't just a team leader in name only. Don leads his team. To realise how much he has stepped back in this discussion feels so very wrong.
"It seems that one of the Winchesters has considerable computer hacking skills." The familiar dry tone still doesn't settle his father's unease. "We're assuming it's Sam."
"Yeah, because older brothers would obviously be far too cool for that geek stuff," Charlie says equally dryly, but with his chin lifted and shadows in his eyes.
Don doesn't look at his brother, as he flatly states, "And because we actually lifted Sam's prints from the keyboard. Dean's were found on a coffeepot in a nearby break room. Some of our top techs looked into the files that were accessed and probably the most galling thing they found was what information the Winchesters apparently didn't bother to access. They actually didn't go near their own profiles on the database, which the experts seem to think indicates that they've hacked into the database before. What they accessed on the computer was mainly various files from 1983. Just about every unsolved arson case, particularly fatalities. Several other unexplained deaths in 1983 and also every reported sudden death in the past two years of people born in 1983."
"What's the significance of 1983?"
Don shrugs, but not in a way that says that he doesn't know. More in a way that says he doesn't want to explain, so Megan steps in again.
"Sam was born in 1983 and their mother, Mary Winchester died in a house fire that same year."
"An unsolved arson case?"
"It was attributed to faulty wiring, but sometimes I think that's arson investigation speak for 'we don't really know'."
"So, are you saying that they broke into the building to hack into the FBI computer? But why go to all that trouble and take all those risks, if they had already managed to hack in before anyway?"
David steps in, in his turn. "The techs say that what they accessed here would be almost impossible to get from an external hack. Something about the complexity of the data search and the amount of information they accessed. They then sent it out to various IP servers in several countries; the ones we've been able to identify so far are in Singapore, Vancouver, Melbourne, Dubai and Prague.
"But those were obviously just to cover their tracks." Charlie jumps in again, to clarify. "The final destination for the information will be somewhere in the US."
"They also took the hard copy of their investigation file and that contains some documents that couldn't be accessed by an external computer hack," David adds and then smiles when Alan looks around at the various photos and documents taped to the boards and screens, not to mention those strewn across various desks. "Yeah, these are extra copies that we had to make. Our records show Charlie's pass being used, presumably by Sam Winchester, to enter the building, but there's no actual surveillance footage of either of them entering or leaving this building. Even the footage of Dean being brought in with us, at the time of his arrest, is gone. One tech from the 7th floor, where they hacked into the computer system, remembers briefly talking to Dean outside the breakroom on that floor. He told her that he'd just transferred in from the office in Kansas City. Less than ten minutes after she says that she spoke with him, there is a record of a car being signed out using Colby's ID."
Alan turns to look at Colby Granger, aware that everyone else in the room has also turned their gaze in that direction. Colby frowns slightly and sits a little straighter in his chair. Alan doesn't mean his stare to be accusing or critical in any way. He's just caught by surprise because he knows that Colby is an exceptional hand-to-hand fighter, even for an FBI field agent. But it seems everyone in the team is somewhat defensive today.
"Hey, I was getting him some water that he asked for and someone comes into the room behind me, calls out to him. I turn around and it's his brother, Sam. I'd seen his mugshot, but you don't expect the guy to just show up in the office like that. And then before I know it, Dean puts me in a choke hold from behind. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to anticipate that? He was supposed to be cuffed to the table!"
Alan blinks. Colby throws a pointed glance at one of the items on the table and David picks up the evidence bag in question and hands it to Alan. It takes Alan a second or two to recognise the small twisted piece of metal that it contains, and then another few seconds to process and accept what they are implying.
"He picked the lock with a paperclip?"
There is a sigh from Don and Alan turn to see him rubbing the bridge of his nose and then dropping his gaze to the floor as he mutters, "Looks like it."
"How'd he get hold of a paperclip, anyway?"
No one answers. Alan turns and looks around the group. They are all pointedly not looking at him or each other.
Don lifts his gaze from the floor. "Charlie, show him."
Charlie shoots him an apologetic look, but Don turns away. "I need some more coffee."
Charlie's sorrowful gaze follows his brother out of the office, before he turns to look at his father. He directs Alan's attention to a screen to his left and brings up what appears to be a freeze frame from a video recording of an interrogation. The subject is Dean Winchester and he is leaning forward, hand poised to take what looks like a photograph from his unseen interrogator's grasp. Charlie presses another button to zoom in on the edge of the photograph that the prisoner is about to grasp and there is very definitely a paper clip attached there. Alan can't help but be a little impressed. "And no one noticed that he'd swiped it?"
Charlie shrugs helplessly and throws his father that "lost little boy" look that rarely fails to get him what he wants. And when Alan looks up, the rest of them are also looking at him expectantly, as if he can fix everything. When exactly did he become father to Don's whole team? But there's no point in railing against it, not when he wants the same thing they want, after all.
"You know what?" he ventures, feigning contemplation. "I think I need some coffee too." Which earns him a warm squeeze on the arm and a grateful smile from Megan.
Okay, apparently this is too large to fit into one post...
So here's Part 3b