Role Reversal

Chapter 4: Scent

Chapter 4: Scent

It's gone midnight but the precinct is at full capacity, the illumination from ceiling lights and desk lamps bounces off surfaces that refract their glare around the bullpen. Men and women, some in uniform some is street clothes are manning phones and sitting in groups, quietly talking, glances going every now and again to the conference room where the FBI have set up their War Room.

Castle sits in a corner of the War Room, quietly watching Agent Shaw's personnel and advanced tech equipment gather, filter and correlate the information in an almost detached manner. He is aware of all that is going on, is watchful of the screens showing the gathered information appearing, there is just a chance that something may pop. But he doesn't really think they'll be in time.

Jordan Shaw can't help looking back at Castle every now and again. She doesn't like how quiet he is. This isn't the touchy-feely, teenager Castle of their last encounter. She's a profiler; it's her job to understand people, their motives, their fears, their psyche .... and right now Castle is not what she expected, what she believed he would be.

Castle appreciates the effort the FBI and the guys at the precinct are putting in ... the latter especially touching. But he knows Tyson ... he knew he wasn't dead at the bridge, though Kate had tried to convince him otherwise. He knew he would die at Tyson's hands, directly or indirectly, when he was being held in custody .... and he knows that whatever Tyson comes up with is a trap .... but he has beaten a freezer, a nuclear bomb, drowning in the Hudson, a tiger, shootings and kidnappers .... each time with the help of others, but he has done it and he is just going to have to do it one more time.

His phone, the burner one, goes off in his pocket. He pulls it out, looks at the number ... unknown ... and leaves the War Room. He makes it as far as Beckett's desk and sits in his usual chair. Not because it feels right, but because his back is to the War Room and to most of the pen.

Shaw watches him through the window. She sees the slight relaxing of the shoulders, the head lifting slightly. She doesn't like it. Castle is running to his own agenda. He stands up, puts the phone away and walks off to the break room. He pauses by their desk, talks a moment with them before continuing to the break room. A few minutes later, Detective Esposito stands up, grabs his cup and joins Castle. Detective Ryan seems to be busy with his computer. He looks up over the screen, sees Agent Shaw's eyes on him, ducks his head back down. She turns to one of the technicians; gives him a few muttered instructions.

Caste is busy with the coffee machine, his glance occasionally bouncing round the bullpen outside. He hears, Esposito enter behind him, doesn't look up. As the coffee begins to splutter into the cup, he turns, looks a moment at the Detective "I'm not even going to ask you if you're with us .."

He gets a hard stare from Esposito before the Detective turns to the sink to rinse his cup. "What do you need?"

"The ... treatment you gave Beckett for her PTSD .... the piece of metal ... would it be available? Would you?"

The Detective pauses a moment in drying the cup, then continues, a look of unwarranted concentration on his face. "You have a plan? You know where he's going to strike?"

Castle shrugs, looks at him ... "You know me Javi, if I was writing the book ..."

He gets a look from Esposito, up from under his brow, a considering look which in the early days would have had him worried. Not any more, not with Javi.

"I'll need time; right now you couldn't get a toothpick out of here without someone noticing."

Castle nods, "I reckon we have twenty, maybe twenty-four hours. He'll want to play with the FBI, with us. And he'll want darkness, he doesn't want to suicide; he'll need the dark to disappear into ..."