Role Reversal

Chapter 5: The Pack

Chapter 5: The Pack

Castle sits in the War Room, eyes watching the screens showing the Hoboken area. It is nearly six in the morning and the green areas within the red circle are slowly growing as FBI and NYPD scour the district and clear zones.

He doesn't focus too much on the procedure; he knows it's a waste of time. Tyson will have either moved himself and Beckett from the hot zone if he was there in the first place or he'll have a plan to pass under the radar.

He stands up, looks at Agent Avery, in charge of the War Room whilst Jordan Shaw is leading the Tyson hunt and says "I'm off home for a shower and a couple of hours sleep. Call me if anything comes up?"

"I'll get one of our people to escort you home Mr Castle".

"No need Agent, he'll be busy trying to elude you people. I'll be perfectly safe"

Avery shrugs reluctantly, he has had no specific orders on the matter and the writer seems to have an unusual amount of leeway around his boss and the precinct's Captain ... who was he to argue.

Castle heads for the lift, glancing at the almost deserted bullpen as he walks past. Crimes are still being committed, and a handful of Detectives are having to handle the on-going cases. Ryan and Esposito had long disappeared, heading out with the other cops to scour the Hoboken area for Tyson ... and more importantly, Beckett.

He gets a cab home, waves tiredly to Eduardo in reception and takes the lift up to the loft. He pushes open the door and closes it behind him. The lights are out, the dawn sky trying to push its way into the loft through the windows, outlining shapes in tones of grey, merging surfaces and details into uniformly blurred anonymity. A shape sitting in one of the armchairs stirs, the angle of the head turning, the features indistinguishable against the pale outline of the window.

Castle moves forward, throws his coat over the arm of the couch and sits down with a sigh.

"Tough day huh?"

Castle nods, runs his hands through his hair. "I need a few hours' sleep, then we can talk. Mind holding the fort?"

"No, go ahead. Leave your phones here; I'll call you if anything breaks"

"Thanks" With a sigh he stands up, rests his hands on the man's shoulder a moment and heads through the study into his bedroom. He kicks off his shoes and collapses onto the bed, pulling her pillow down and holding tightly on to it as he breathes her scent in. Minutes later he is asleep.

Whilst Castle sleeps the sleep of the dead, the City slowly comes to life. Traffic begins to build, businesses slide their shutters open, turn on lights and place merchandise out for clients to browse through and hopefully purchase. Offices begin to suck in their daily quota of staff, unkind light discovering sleep worn faces, painting them a weary pasty grey as tired eyes adjust to another day's existence.

In the Hoboken district, weary officers of the law gather round coffee mugs at strategic points within the ever expanding radius of the search. A number of interesting discoveries have been made ... and put on hold until the present situation is brought to a close. Fresh shifts appear, drafted in from Training Academies and other precincts. A shake of a hand here, a pat of the shoulder there, a muted word of comfort exchanged.

Agent Shaw sits in the back of her command vehicle, fingers trying unsuccessfully to rub the gritty feel out of her eyes. It only makes it worse. The coffees are barely having any effect now, and time is running out. Soon the city will be up and running at full capacity, the moving traffic, both human and motorised making their search an impossible task, the likelihood of their target exfiltrating the area more likely every minute that passes. The road blocks placed on all access points to the area cannot be maintained once the city has come to life; the resulting tailbacks will cause too much chaos. The waterways can still be patrolled, but the number of private as well as commercial boating moving around makes it too easy to slip past.

To the east the teams have reached the water, are searching Pier Park, Sinatra Park, Castle Point lookout (she smiles warily at the name) and the areas in between. The Marine Services Bureau is patrolling the waterways, checking any boats or harbour craft on the move, offering backup to the men on foot.

Northwards the search is approaching 9th Street and westwards they are clearing Monroe. Soon the teams from the east water side will be able to join the ones north and west to speed up the search in those areas.

Southwards the teams are nearly at the railway lines. They'll get slowed down here, the need to search trains, goods carriages, building and station. She rubs her face, yawns and thinks about calling her kids to wake them up for their school morning. She decides against it. Too many things to deal with, once again she'll have to leave it to her husband to get them up and to school.

The sun begins to climb higher into the sky, the bustle of the wakening city growing in crescendo, the daily commutes, the mass movement of goods, the rush of workers from the outlying suburbs clashing with the outgoing night shifts and partygoers; the search grinds slower and slower as officers have to double-back to check on something they had not noticed before or which had appeared moments earlier.

By midday, uniforms who had already spent the night searching the area and had returned home for a few hours' sleep are already back on the search parties.

Agent Shaw had finally grabbed a few hours' sleep stretched out in the back of the command vehicle. She gets woken up by a shake to her shoulder. She rubs her eyes, tries to get her bearings. Agent Mathews hands her a cup of coffee, waits for her to sit up, get her shoes on and straighten her hair a bit. This is not the first time they have been on an all-night, all-day search. They both have a good working relationship. Mathews waits until his boss has downed her coffee, has pushed the cobwebs of sleep away and her tired eyes have regained some of their light.

"We may have found something, down near the scrap yard by the Liberty Harbour Marina".

Agent Shaw stands up, runs her hands down her skirt in a vain attempt to iron the wrinkles out of it. Slinging on her jacket and grabbing her weapon and badge she steps out the back of the vehicle, moves round to the passenger seat and tells the driver to get going.