The Unquantifiable Variable
The Eppes family and the characters and situations from the TV show “NUMB3RS” are the property of Tony & Ridley Scott and the creation of Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci. No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made. This story was written during Season 1, so it has Terry and not Megan or Colby. Larry doesn’t appear simply because I didn’t want to shoehorn him in when there really wasn’t anything for him to do. I hope you enjoy it anyway. With grateful thanks to all of the creative minds behind the show, as well as to “M” for her beta and Mac for the math that is the underpinning of the story. He took my initial idea and explained and expanded until the story took wing.
Charlie Eppes was surprised to discover that he was happy.
It wasn’t that this was a new or particularly unusual feeling for him. The sheer pleasure of creating a new equation was glorious, and making and having dinner with his father satisfied something deep inside. And when he finished a project with his big brother and Don grabbed him at the neck and squeezed gently, the world was darn near perfect. This, though, was different.
What was so odd about it was that he – the math prodigy of CalSci, a full tenured professor for over three years (even though he hadn’t yet reached thirty), a man courted by the NSA, the CDC, the FBI, and several other alphabetical organizations for help with their most difficult problems – he, for the first time in his life, was having a wonderful time simply browsing in a store.
It wasn’t that he never went shopping, but that was usually an exercise in efficiency. He’d discover that he needed something, figure out which store to go to, head for the right aisle, pick out the right item in the right size, make the purchase, and get on with his day. He had loved shopping for clothes with his mother – she knew places where clothes were simply and comfortably cut, but were made from fabrics woven with the most interesting patterns. Then there were the few stores where he’d get lost – in his head, that is – and not come out for hours. Those tended to be places that were full of intricate gadgets. He could remember being caught by surprise by a frantic roar from his father on a shopping trip when he was eight. He’d known where he was, in front of what he’d later learned was called a “Newton’s Cradle” – a 5-ball pendulum-type setup that demonstrated the conservation of momentum – and hadn’t understood what the fuss was about.
Neither had Don, as he recalled with a grin. There were days back then when Don would have been happy to permanently lose his little brother. Sixteen-year-olds simply were not equipped to handle a brother half their age who could do their high-school homework with ease. While Charlie’s particular expertise was mathematics, he generally aced his other courses as well since his parents wouldn’t allow him to work extracurricular math projects until his homework was done, and would cut him off completely if he brought home less than a B. Not that his brother was exempt from the requirement for good grades, either. They knew he had his share of intelligence as well, and they’d cut him off from his beloved baseball for a C.
Charlie wandered down another aisle and stopped in front of a display. So many choices . . . would his father like this color? Or maybe that one? Technically, it didn’t matter. It was his life, his money and – even his brother agreed – his decision. But if you could drag Charlie’s attention away from whatever problem he was working on long enough for him to notice the world around him, he simply couldn’t make a decision that would upset his father. Not when he could avoid it. There had been too many times he’d hurt his family over things he couldn’t control.
He held two of the pieces of thin card stock up to the light. The store had big plate-glass windows along the front, and someone had placed all the merchandise that needed a bright, clear light nearby. He cocked his head to one side and squinted at them, trying to decide if there really was a color difference, or if it was simply the material they were made of that made them look so different.
“Havin’ a little trouble there, Charlie?”
“These are the same?” he asked.
The store’s owner and manager, Benito Mendez, peered at the two slips of colored paper and stroked his luxurious white moustache. “Depends. Same color, but different finish. Which one you want depends on what you’re gonna do. If you’re gonna paint a bedroom wall, you want this one. Gonna do furniture or some surface you gotta wash all the time, like a bathroom or kitchen, you might want the other.” He raised an eyebrow at his young friend. “You ain’t gonna paint the outside of that house of yours, are you?”
“Stain rather than paint – Pasadena Heritage wouldn’t let me do anything else. But, no, I’m not ready to take on that project. One step at a time, just like you said. Though I’ll have to do something soon. Dad said it’s been about ten years.”
Benito chuckled. “Handy, havin’ the previous owner around to tell you when and what things was done.”
Charlie grinned. “Dad didn’t realize what he started that first time he sent me to the basement to work on the heater.”
“Bet you didn’t either.”
Charlie ran his eyes over the neat rows of paint samples. Their order appealed to him. They were all neatly stowed in their slots, arranged from left to right by hue, top to bottom by intensity. “No . . . no, I didn’t.” On impulse, he added, “Don and my dad are always telling me I need to get out into the world more, get my head out of the classroom, away from the chalkboard and computer.”
“That’s mostly good advice.” The old man paused while he took off his glasses and held them up to the light. He pulled an embroidered linen handkerchief from his pocket and used it to rub the lenses clean. Only after he’d finished his routine did he turn back to his customer. “You’re a bright young fella; what’s been keeping you from following it?”
“Well, I only have so much time.” Charlie suddenly realized how that sounded. “No, not that! It’s just that mathematicians do their best work when they’re young. I’ve learned everything I can as fast as I can, because I know it won’t be too long before I won’t be able to see things as clearly, won’t be able to make the connections, find the answers.”
He pressed his fingers against his temple as if the pressure would help him put his thoughts into words. “Not that it’s always easy now, but my mind – it’s sharp. It’s ready. Sometimes it’s so full of thinking that I feel like I’m riding on the top of a speeding train, seeing and understanding and absorbing everything that goes by. I know I’ll lose that someday.” He stopped suddenly and shrugged as if it wasn’t important.
Benito wasn’t fooled. He saw all kinds of people – Pasadena had a large number of early 20th century Craftsman-style houses, along with their owners who tended to get involved in projects that required hardware stores. While this mop-headed young man was surely the most brilliant of his customers, he wasn’t the most obsessed. He’d seen the same fear in other eyes, and less warranted. “Y’know, son, we all slow down as we get older, but most of us don’t notice until we get up out of bed one day and find out the bones are gettin’ a mite creaky. It’s just that, when you got work as delicate as you do, you see it sooner.”
Charlie felt the sharp edges of crumpled pasteboard against his palm. He hadn’t realized he’d crushed the sample cards and tried to flatten them back into their original shape. “I don’t want to do anything else,” he muttered. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else.” He looked up, and he felt the fire of his passion for mathematics rise up inside. “It’s me. It’s who I am, who I’ve always been.”
Benito slapped him on the back. “Change comes to all of us, but it don’t have to come to you yet, an’ when it does, it don’t have to be a bad thing. You got a choice – you can take it on or you can mope about it, but it’s gonna happen either way. Think about it, though. Would it really be so bad to find a nice young lady someday, settle down to raise a few curly-headed math geniuses – or maybe a doctor or a piano player, or who knows what?”
Something inside Charlie relaxed, and a grin teased at the corner of his mouth. “No, that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“So go look at the new wrenches,” he laughed, “and don’t worry about tomorrow until it comes.”
Charlie nodded and tucked the two color samples in his pocket. He headed back to aisle 23, his thoughts turning over what the wise old man had said, balancing the present against the future. No, he mused with a slow smile, that might not be so bad at all.
**********
Don Eppes eased his aching body into his chair at the FBI’s Los Angeles office, grateful he was wearing his jeans and a comfortable pullover, and could slouch without worrying about wrinkling his clothes. His partner, Terry Lake, leaned against her desk, facing him, still dressed in one of the casual long-sleeved knit tops and the flared-leg jeans she preferred for after-hours work. He rubbed his eyes with a futile hope that she wouldn’t continue her argument.
Their argument.
No; hers. He was too tired after an all-night stakeout to argue.
How had he ended up posing as the wine-soaked bum crashed in a stupor against that torture rack of a dumpster, while young, strong, flexible David was in the comfortable air-conditioned van with all the listening equipment? He knew the answer – he’d been the one who set it up that way. He preferred calling the shots, but this job had been pretty straightforward, and he’d figured David needed the experience behind the scenes. He’d kept override privileges via the headset hidden under the smelly flap-eared hat he’d worn, but otherwise had let David run the show. The operation had gone off without a hitch, reaffirming his confidence in the young agent, but it had taught him something, too – it wouldn’t be all that many more years before he’d be too old for the stakeout business.
When, after a few moments, Terry still hadn’t spoken, he looked up. She merely raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed in exasperation. “Look, I know you’re right, I’m just too whacked right now to want you to be right.”
A pixie gleam lit her dark chocolate eyes. “So if I let you get a ten-minute nap, you’ll take care of it?”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
“I’ll take it.” He sank down farther in his chair and closed his eyes. He heard her talking in a low voice to someone, then what seemed just a moment later, smelled something wonderful under his nose.
“Coffee,” he mumbled.
“Fresh from Bianca’s Bakery,” he heard David say.
His eyes wouldn’t open. “It hasn’t been fifteen minutes yet.”
“Actually,” the younger agent said, “Terry said it’s been twenty.”
He sighed and gave up. He straightened in the chair, looked blearily around until he located the bright red cardboard cup that David had been waving in front of him, and welcomed its warmth to his hands. A single sip of the steaming hot brew brought his mind back into focus. The extra five minutes had been just what he needed.
David smiled sympathetically and leaned against the opposite desk. He was back in a suit, and his sleepless night didn’t show at all. Somehow, Don pondered, he never looked rumpled. It was a good trait in an FBI agent, to always look cool, collected and in control, even if you weren’t, but Don wondered sometimes how the younger man did it.
“Where’s Terry?” he asked, taking a second sip.
David gestured at the two cups on the desk behind him. They stood next to a pile of the fresh fruit filled pastries David had introduced to the team, to their communal delight. “After I got back with the coffee, she headed for the interrogation room to see what Joe was able to get out of our new friend, Martin. Left me on guard duty.”
“Guarding me?” Don huffed.
“She said the pastries, but I got the message. We all had time to rest yesterday before the stakeout while you were still working with Charlie. No one came by that had anything that couldn’t wait. I would’ve woken you up if they did.”
Don selected one of the pastries that had thinly sliced fresh peaches layered on top. “Mmm,” he mumbled and chased it with a larger swallow of coffee. “Sure wish Bianca would open a bakery out my way. Or even near Dad’s, like at that little shopping center around the corner.”
“Arroyo Plaza?” Now it was David’s turn at the pastry tray. His hand hovered between the blueberry and the cherry. “The one with the hardware store, next to Arroyo Savings and Loan?”
Don laughed. “Even you know about Benito’s?”
David looked skyward. “They not only have tools and hardware, they have paint and grass seed and lawn furniture and—”
Terry strode in and slipped a hand under David’s, snatching the blueberry pastry.
“Hey!” he protested.
“Plenty more,” she mumbled around a mouthful. She unremorsefully swiped a crumb from her lips and waved him away from her desk.
He shook his head at her and took the strawberry pastry, but didn’t move.
Don noticed that he didn’t look too put out. He grinned. “Gotta be fast around her, David. Gotta be smart.” He turned to his partner. “So, what’ve we got?”
“Well, Martin says he’s got kind of a silent partner. Doesn’t know who he is – gets instructions via email, payments at different drops. Fred from the lab is taking a team over to his apartment to confiscate his laptop, but if this partner is as smart as we think he is, we’ll be lucky to get anything off it.”
“Email from one of the major free services, sent from public locations,” David guessed. “Nothing to tie him to the mob.”
She nodded. “He probably sends them from libraries, coffee shops, the mall – any place he can find a wireless hot spot. The emails tell Martin what to do next. One email, one step. Anything goes wrong, he doesn’t know any future plans.”
Don scrubbed at his face. “There should be information in the email headers that’ll tell us which ISPs they were sent through, then we’ll have to get a warrant to get those companies to release the data on the sources.”
Terry nodded. “We can do it while you get some sleep, Don. I’ll call you when we have something for you to look at.”
“Something for Charlie to look at, you mean.” He yawned.
“Mmm. Do you know his schedule today?”
He stood up and stretched, his body telling him it had been too long from the sack. “Free this morning, a couple of classes midday, then office hours later this afternoon for students he’s advising. He doesn’t like to cancel those, but he can.”
David figured the timing and said, “Probably won’t need him until this evening or tomorrow anyway. By the time we figure out which ISPs we need to talk to, get a judge to issue the warrant and then get the data from them, I’m sure he’ll be finished with his students.”
Terry wadded up her napkin and threw it in the garbage can. “Then the best use of your time, Don, is to get some sleep while you can. Let Charlie know we’ll need him, and then check back in when you wake up.”
“I’ll go crash at the house – be easier to bring him in with me.”
David studied him with a slight scowl. “You okay to drive?”
“Hey, I just had a twenty minute nap and some of the best food on the planet. I’ll be fine.” He slipped a couple of bills from his wallet and laid them on Terry’s desk. “And whether or not you were right about whose turn it was to pay for Bianca’s, thanks for the nap.”
An impish smile lit her face. “You’re welcome,” she said as he walked to the elevator.
“So,” said David, “whose turn was it really?”
She just waggled her eyebrows at him.
And at the Arroyo Savings & Loan, a teller stepped on her silent alarm button.
**********
Charlie had worked his way over to the PVC department, slipping past a tall, well-built man with the tan and bleached blond hair of a surfer, but rough hands that made construction a more likely profession. The physical contrast between the two of them was almost trite – the power of the body versus the power of the mind – but the man nodded to him in passing, kindred souls in search of just the right pipe. Charlie nodded back, feeling the unexpected warmth of belonging to a world he had never really acknowledged, even if he’d known it had to exist.
He didn’t need to replace any piping at this point – at least he hoped he didn’t – but even so, the myriad pieces pulled at him with some strange fascination. Elbow fittings in perfect 45 and 90 degree angles; three-way connectors, four-way, five-way and cross connectors; pipe snaps, pipe caps and slip T fittings. The half inch pipes that filled the bin in front of him had an outside diameter of 0.840 inches, he read off the label, yet the next sign over said the diameter of the one inch size was 1.315. Why was the one inch pipe .0125 inches thinner than the half inch? He picked up one of each and examined them. They looked the same to him, but then he didn’t have a measuring tool with him. Of course he could find one here in the store, but instead he cast around and picked up a one-and-a-half inch pipe that said its outside diameter was 1.900 inches. Well, at least that made sense – the thickness of the bigger pipe was .05 inches more than the half-inch. More fluid going through, more pressure, thicker pipe walls?
He knew he could find out, but maybe Larry knew. His friend had said often enough that restoring his beloved nineteenth-century Victorian home was a welcome break from the intensity of thought needed for his ground-breaking physics projects. Something about the soothing repetitive movements of sanding floors or the mindless labor of painting scrollwork.
He picked up one of the elbow joints and slid the right sized pipe into it. It fit perfectly. Everything here would fit together perfectly to make – what? At this point, he didn’t know and didn’t really care; it was the simple fact of unending possibilities that fascinated him. There were bins of the shiny white piping stacked in perfect pyramids, rows of joints lined up side by side with their open ends looking like a series of zeros that tried to measure infinity, shelves of trays marked on the outside with mysterious drawings and “1/4 inch” and “5/8 inch” and even “2 mm.” What could you build with all of this? What couldn’t you build?
“Piping, Charlie?” came a voice from behind him. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
He turned to see Solana Mendez, Benito’s daughter, grinning at him.
“Nope. I know when I’m out of my league. I just couldn’t resist wandering around.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Want a cup of coffee while you look? I just put on a fresh pot.”
That personal touch was what he really loved about this place, even more than all the marvelous secrets on the shelves. The Mendezes knew everything about every piece of merchandise in their store, but more than that, they shared their knowledge, their love of building things, and they shared themselves with every person who walked through the doors. It also didn’t hurt that they were an easy bicycle ride from his house.
His house. No longer his father’s that he lived in. He hadn’t been able to bear it when his father had started talking about selling it. He knew they all needed to move on after his mother’s death, but even if his father and brother were ready, he’d discovered he wasn’t. Just the thought of losing the house had shaken his whole world.
So he’d bought it. After getting over the surprise, his father had laughed in delight at Charlie’s logic. He would continue to live there, rent-free as Charlie had for his whole life. They both knew, though, that there was more to it than a financial exchange. Accepting the deal had been a tacit acceptance by Alan Eppes that his youngest son was still grieving, but he’d used the occasion to encourage him to move on by telling him he was looking forward to having children underfoot again. Charlie had simply grinned and kept his thoughts to himself.
So now he was contemplating having to replace the plumbing someday. He decided that when that day came he’d make sure he was able to do it, but for now, coffee with Solana sounded good. He glanced at his watch – he had almost an hour before his first class, his only undergraduates. It was a subject he knew intimately and one he was good at teaching, so he knew he could skate in at the last minute if need be.
He suddenly realized she was still waiting for an answer. “I’d love a cup. That’s really why I come in here, you know.”
She laughed and led the way to the front of the store where a restaurant-grade machine sat in front of one of the two registers. Styrofoam cups were tucked between boxes of school supplies and a hanging display of micro-flashlights. He eyed them as he poured himself a cup of coffee. They were on keychains, and could be adjusted from a wide circle of light to a fine beam.
“I could use one of these . . . .” he murmured. “Then when I’m in the back of the classroom working with a student, I could talk about specific points in my equations up on the blackboard.”
“Just don’t shine it in someone’s eyes, especially on tight beam. They’re bright enough to do some damage.”
Charlie twisted the end, and the beam grew wide. “Huh. If I’m riding my bike home after dark and drop something, I’d have it right there to help me find it.”
“That’s what we’re all about,” said Solana. “Solutions to problems you didn’t know you had.”
“I like that.” Then he raised an eyebrow and quirked a grin. “Now if you could just show me the aisle that has the solution to P versus NP . . . .”
She slapped him lightly on the arm. “Hardware solutions, Charlie. Hardware.” She looked up to see an older black woman with steel-grey hair dragging a little girl by the hand to the register, the other arm carrying a plastic shopping basket. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
He watched the little girl for a few moments, noting her fascination with the cash register. He smiled, sensing a kindred spirit. Maybe his own children would be as cute? He laughed at himself – he really preferred to get married before having any children, and he was a long way from being able to make that happen. Once Amita finished her doctorate, maybe he could start exploring that intriguing relationship . . . .
His eyes dropped to the flashlight in his hand, and he started experimenting with the tiny pointer light. He tested it by shining it on the floor and the ceiling, with the narrow beam and the wide, then checked all the different colors of cases. He had just decided on green when a woman’s scream ripped through the store.
**********
Don steered the quarter-ton black Suburban through the L.A. traffic with the ease of long practice. His mind drifted to the first time Terry and David had ridden in it together. It was an expensive vehicle, but he figured it more than paid its way by being able to haul some of the heaviest equipment the FBI needed for field work. Terry’d had a field day watching David play with all the manufacturer’s gee-whiz gizmos. She thought it was funny that he was more intrigued by the Chevy gadgets than any FBI gear they had access to. Don was simply glad that she’d decided not to share her psychological analysis of David’s preferences beyond a muttered boys and their toys.
He was brought abruptly back to the present by a siren behind him. Heart thumping, he checked his location: about a mile from his father’s – no, now it was Charlie’s – house. He pulled to the side, shaking his head at the small sports car ahead of him that had decided to try for its turn before the official vehicle caught up with it. The police car passed him then slowed, hampered by the obnoxious driver, and accelerated quickly once there was even minimal space. As people do, he wondered idly if the policemen were headed toward his own destination and felt a small jolt of relief when he saw the patrol car pull into the parking lot of the small shopping center. Probably something going on at Varieties, Don thought. The bar had been open for about an hour; it wouldn’t be unheard of for someone to get one drink too many under their belt, even this early.
The honk of a horn from behind brought his attention back to the road, and he realized that the light in front of him had turned green. He swore softly at himself – he was tired. That was the second time in ten minutes his mind had drifted. He checked the time on the dashboard: 11:08. Charlie had mentioned a noon class, so he might even catch him at home; let him know they’d be needing him later.
As he drove past the stores, although his thoughts were already on the bed in his old room, he automatically cataloged the location the police were interested in. Benito’s Hardware. He hoped everything was okay, that it was nothing more than a shoplifter. The Mendezes had run the hardware store since he was a kid. Walking through the aisles still brought back memories of shopping trips with his father.
He forgot the policemen as he parked on the street in front of the family house and walked across the grass to the front door. His father’s car was in the driveway, but he could see into the open garage that his brother’s usual parking place for his bike was empty. Oh, well. Charlie must have gone to the university a bit early. He’d catch up with him later.
“Hey, Dad?” he called out as he came through the door.
“Donnie?” his father answered. “I’m in the kitchen.” He turned from rinsing lettuce in the sink when Don entered. “Want some lunch? I’m making a sandwich for your brother – not that he’ll remember to eat it.”
Don rummaged around in the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda. “Yeah, I could use something to eat. We were up all night, just finished up about an hour ago.”
“So I see,” Alan said, gesturing with a table knife at his son’s rumpled clothes before dipping it into a jar of mayonnaise. A few quick swipes and the sandwich was ready. He slid it onto a plate and handed it to Don.
“I thought this was for Charlie?” Not that he was going to turn it down. The smell of the bread alone reminded him of how hungry he was.
“You’re here, he’s not. I’m sure I’ll have time to make another one before he turns up.” Don was, in fact, already settled in his chair and taking his first bite. “At the rate he’s going, he’ll have to ask you for a ride so he isn’t late.”
Don took another swig of soda, washing down the first delicious mouthful. “Where’d he go?”
Alan cut two more slices off a tomato and placed them on the lettuce leaves. “Said he wanted to pick a couple things up before class, something about flexible whiteboards.” He shook his head. “Not enough we have blackboards all over the house, now he wants to glue whiteboards around corners. I wish Benito would sell shares...” He stopped suddenly, staring at his son. “What? Something’s wrong with the sandwich?” He sniffed at the jar of mayo.
Don’s sandwich had fallen to pieces on his plate. “Benito’s Hardware?”
“Of course; your brother won’t go anywhere else if he can help it. Donnie, what’s wrong?”
Don reached for his cell phone, just as it rang.
“Eppes,” he answered, his voice clipped.
“It’s Terry,” his partner answered.
“What’s up?”
“L.A. police called in on a robbery in your area. I wanted to let you know, so you can tell your family to keep clear.”
“Where is it?”
“They hit the savings and loan at Arroyo Plaza…”
“The savings and loan?” he interrupted, relief flooding his body.
Alan had set the sandwich makings aside and was listening carefully. “Robbery?” he mouthed at Don, who nodded back.
“More than that,” Terry continued. “The gunmen have holed up in the hardware store. The police say they have hostages.”
“Oh, my God,” Don moaned.
“Don?” Terry’s voice was strained.
“Charlie...” he choked. “Charlie went to the hardware store. He’s late getting back.” He felt the weight of his father’s eyes. He nodded slowly, saw the same fear he felt growing on his father’s face. “I can be there in four minutes. Tell them to expect me.”
“Don, you’re off the clock, and we already have a team on the way.”
“But I’m closer. You tell them.”
He didn’t hear her answer because his phone was already back on his belt and he was on his way out the door.
Alan followed him, grabbing at his arm. “What about Charlie? Don, tell me about Charlie!”
“Dad, I don’t know. I gotta go find out. Wait here in case he comes back. If he isn’t here in five minutes, call Amita, let her know he won’t be making his class, then get her to come over.”
They were nearly at Don’s car. “No. I’m coming with you.”
Don turned back and put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “You can’t, Dad. This is official business now. You know I’ll do everything I can.”
“Yes, yes, I know you will, but I’m not sitting here at home—”
“Then get Amita to bring you over.” He climbed up into the Suburban. “I hope Charlie’s already on his way home, but if he’s not, I don’t want you alone.”
Don turned the engine on and his scanner immediately crackled. Out of all the formal, stilted words, both heard “. . . shots fired . . .”
Alan swallowed, his grip on the door turning his knuckles white. “If he’d been on his way home, you would’ve seen him, wouldn’t you?”
Don stared at his father for a brief moment, then whispered, “Yeah.” He shifted into gear and burned rubber down the street.
**********
When the woman screamed, Charlie dropped everything he was holding and whipped around to find out where she was. He saw a flash of movement at the front doors, then two men came barreling through the double entrance, one holding a bag, the other hauling the little girl Charlie had just seen at the checkout.
The man with the bag was looking behind him and ran straight into Charlie, knocking them both sprawling into a display of power tools. Charlie scrambled to cover his head with his arms, but was too slow to block a router from striking his forehead, dazing him and leaving a nasty gash. His left leg exploded with pain when a circular saw landed on his knee. He bit back a cry of pain and simply endured until everything had finished falling.
“Rick!” he heard. “We gotta get outa here!”
Someone nearby moaned.
Charlie lifted his head carefully and looked around. The man who was yelling still had the little girl tight against his side with one arm, a pistol waving through the air in the opposite hand. The man apparently called Rick was crumpled on the floor under a pile of bags of concrete mix, and a bag of cash had split open, bills scattered across the floor. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that two bank robbers had just chosen the wrong escape route.
The old woman fought to get back in the front door. “Leeda!” she cried – a long wail of anguish – and the man holding the girl spun and fired at the doors, shattering a pane of glass in one door and drilling a hole in another.
“Grammy!” screamed the girl as she fought furiously to get free.
Charlie sat up and tried to gather his scattered wits, just as the construction worker he’d met in the PVC aisle bulled through the mess.
“Leave the girl alone!” the man yelled.
The gunman whirled and fired again. Charlie ducked instinctively, but the girl’s would-be savior wasn’t so lucky. He landed in a heap right next to Charlie.
Charlie looked around at the wreckage. He’d just been looking at flashlights, sipping his coffee, and now there was chaos everywhere – injured people moaning, a little girl sobbing in terror. He looked down at his own leg, saw the rip in his jeans, the blood welling from a deep cut just above his knee.
“Get up,” the gunman ordered, his voice raspy and harsh.
Charlie blinked at him. “What?”
“Up,” the man repeated, pointing with his gun.
He climbed to his feet and stood shakily amid the wreckage, weight on his right leg. He looked around, took in the sobbing child, the ominously silent construction worker, the moaning robber who was still buried under the display wall and the shocked faces of Benito and Solana as they held each other. The gunman stood before him, his face distorted by a nylon mask, chest heaving as he breathed heavily.
“What . . . ?” Charlie asked, his thoughts still scattered. “Why . . . why would you . . . ?” He pressed hard against his temples, trying to try to bring his mind back into order. He looked up at the gunman and saw the wavering pistol. Could the man be as terrified as he was? This wasn’t good.
Charlie consciously lowered his voice, trying to calm them both. “This isn’t going to get you anywhere. Your friend is hurt, and so is this man. We have to check them, see if they need help.”
“No.” The gunman waved the pistol at Charlie again. “Get a sack for the money first.”
Charlie raised his hands in front of him, showing that he wasn’t any threat. “Solana can do that while you look after your partner. If you give me the girl, then you still have one hand free to help him.”
The man glanced over at Solana. “Do it,” he ordered.
The girl, perhaps feeling that this gentle stranger was safer than the man who’d taken her from her grandmother, leaned towards Charlie, her arms outstretched. Tears still tracked down her dark cheeks, but her sobs had settled to hiccups.
Charlie wanted to reach for her, but realized he had to go slowly. “You can’t hold the gun, the girl, check on your partner and take the money,” he said in what he hoped came out as a reasonable tone. He could hear Solana behind him, dropping wads of cash into a shopping bag, but he kept his focus on the gunman. “We aren’t going anywhere – I can barely walk, anyway.” He hobbled forward a step, locking his left knee in a slight bend that minimized the pain as much as possible.
The gunman slowly loosened his hold, and the child wriggled free. Charlie knelt as best he could, and in two jumps, she was in his arms. “It’s all right,” Charlie soothed. He tucked the girl’s face against his shoulder and stroked the back of her head. The soft black curls were soft against his fingers. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
He wished he knew how he could possibly keep his promise.
**********
Don flashed his badge at the policeman guarding the yellow tape at the scene, and searched for the center of activity. He automatically noted that both an outer and inner perimeter had been established, as well as the beginnings of what looked like a command post. A frantic gray-haired black woman was being gently but forcibly held by another police officer safely behind a van while a female officer tried to question her. An older black man in a silvery-gray suit stood off to the side. Don kept his badge in hand as he approached. “Special Agent Don Eppes, FBI,” he said softly. “My office said you called for us?”
“Detective Tom Nolan, LAPD.” He led Don a few steps away, still keeping the van between them and the scene. “Two men robbed the savings and loan, then ran into the hardware store.” He tilted his head in that direction. “Her granddaughter is still in there. They grabbed the girl on the way in, shoved the woman out the door. Two shots have been fired, but we don’t know if anyone inside is hurt.”
Don grimaced. “Do you know how many hostages?”
“Can’t get anything out of her.” He shook his head. “Not that I don’t sympathize – I’ve got a granddaughter myself. It doesn’t help us, though.” He looked around, searching the lot. “You’re the only one? I thought you Feds sent teams out.”
“I was just around the corner – the rest are on the way.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked over at the woman. “Let me try?”
Nolan raised an eyebrow. “As long as my people hear it, too.”
“No problem,” Don said. “What’s her name?”
“Alana Gibson. The girl’s name is Leeda.”
“Thanks.”
He studied the woman as he approached, noting she was still trying to get loose from the policeman. She was all of five feet tall and maybe fifty years old, but she fought him like a tiger.
He held out his badge. “Mrs. Gibson? Don Eppes, FBI.”
She turned her head slightly toward him. “FBI?” she asked bitterly. “And what are you going to do? Tell me, like them, to just sit here and do nothing while my Leeda is inside?”
She reminded him forcibly of his father – hadn’t he just had a similar conversation with him? “No, ma’am, I’m not. I know you’re worried about her. I’m going to ask you to give me as much information as you can, so we can get Leeda out. I need you to tell me just exactly what happened.”
“I told these folks a man ran in and grabbed my granddaughter and then shot at me.”
She tugged again, trying to get her arm loose, but at least she was talking to him.
“How many shots, Mrs. Gibson?”
“How many...?” She stopped pulling and finally gave him her full attention. “It was . . . it was one. Just one.”
“How many men?”
“Two. The tall one shot at me. He...he shot at me.” Her eyes opened wide and she suddenly swayed.
Don caught her around the waist and nodded at the two officers, who moved back to talk with Nolan. She looked like she didn’t have the strength to take a single step. He guided her to the open side of the van and eased her down to sit on the step to the van. “Mrs. Gibson,” he said, trying to get her attention. He crouched squarely in front of her. “Mrs. Gibson, tell me about Leeda.”
“She’s seven. Just seven years old.” She raised her eyes to his. “She’s my son’s daughter.”
“Okay. I want you to know that we’re going to do everything we can to get her back to you safely.”
She looked at him, lost. “I just wanted to get some new knobs for my dresser. I was taking Leeda back to her mother and I was only going to take a minute.” She grabbed his arm, hard. “Why would they take her from me? Why?”
“Mrs. Gibson, I don’t have an answer for that yet.” He suspected the robbers had acted on impulse, knowing that all law enforcement officers would think twice about firing a weapon when there was a child nearby. “I know this is hard, but I need you to help me. I need you to tell me what happened; I need you to tell me what you saw.”
Her breath hitched, but she regained control. “Yes. Yes, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Good,” he encouraged. “Anything you can tell me might help get Leeda and the other people back. Tell me what you saw.”
“The other...? Oh.” Her focus suddenly shifted and she frowned. “Yes, there would be others. There was the cashier, a sweet girl. I think she’s related somehow to the manager. They look a lot alike. He was there, too. I remember seeing him coming out of his office.” She glanced up.
“And?” he asked. “Who else did you see?”
She nodded. “There were two young men, one tall and blonde, looked very strong with big muscles. He looked like he was in his twenties. I saw him over in the piping section, over on the left side of the store. The other man is shorter. Thin. He has curly black hair and the sweetest smile. He was up front by the cash registers.”
Don felt his heart sink. “Did you hear any names, ma’am?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t in there very long.”
“Do you know if they left before you?”
She shook her head, watching him carefully. “I don’t know about the taller man, but the young one – he was still deciding on a flashlight while I paid.” She paused and leveled a keen gaze on him. “You’re going to get them out, aren’t you.” It wasn’t so much a question as a statement.
Her utter faith in his abilities shook him. “Mrs. Gibson, the only promise I can make is that I will do everything I can to get Leeda back to you.”
Her eyes filled, but she blinked them back. “I’m not asking you for a miracle. I’ll be saying my prayers for that. But you seem to me to be a strong, resourceful sort of person. I think you’ll do as well as anyone could.”
He took her hand and squeezed it once, gently, then stood. Eye to eye, they made their promises. He, to do everything possible; she, to have faith in him.
“Detective Nolan,” he called.
The LAPD officer broke off from his discussion with his team and waved him over. “What did she say?”
“At least five hostages. The owner, Benito Mendez, Hispanic, about fifty-five with white hair and a white moustache; his daughter, Solana, who’s twenty-five years old, five foot seven or so, hair just below her shoulders; two men, Caucasian – one big, tall, blonde, maybe twenty-five; the other not that much taller than Solana,” he held out a hand at about his eye level, “twenty-nine with longish, curly black hair and dark brown eyes – and the little girl, seven years old.”
Nolan whistled. “I’m impressed. She told you all that?”
Don shook his head. “She told me who was in there. I know the Mendezes. I grew up a few blocks away, and he’s had the store a long time. My family still lives here – that’s how I got here so fast. Do you have a description of the suspects?”
“Not much. We have the film coming from the savings and loan, but in the meantime, the teller said they were wearing nylon masks, so all she could guess was black hair for both of them. One was tall and thin, but looked strong; the other was short and compact. The short one told her he had a gun in his pocket, but what scared her was what she thought were wires under the taller guy’s jacket.”
“Wires? Explosives?”
Nolan hooked his thumbs in his pockets and sighed. “She’s not sure – just going by what she’s seen in movies. She’s knows it might not have been real, but didn’t want to take chances.”
“Smart,” Don nodded.
“I’ve got men checking every car in the vicinity. They’re running the plates on them, checking them with DMV. As soon as we get some names, we’ll pass them on to your people.”
“Good – we’ll see if we can come up with anyone who has a record with us.” Don looked around and saw that his team had finally arrived, though as unobtrusively as possible so as not to alarm the gunmen. They hadn’t used sirens and had parked out of sight, but they were here, flak jackets and all. Terry had an extra in her hand – his.
“Terry, David, this is LAPD Detective Tom Nolan. Detective, Agent Lake and Agent Sinclair.”
“The rest of the team is on their way,” Terry said. “There’s an incident at LAX, so we’re drawing people and equipment in from all over the city.” She angled away from them, drawing Don with her body language. “Fill me in?” she suggested.
David took the hint and drew Nolan back to his men, asking about the layout of the stores so they could position their snipers in the best possible locations. Terry and Don walked over behind his car to speak in private.
“Charlie?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s inside.”
“Oh, Don! Do you know if he’s okay?” She glanced at the storefront. “Does your dad know?”
“He’s on his way over. I made him wait at the house to make sure Charlie didn’t turn up, and Amita’s gonna bring him. We don’t know if the hostages are okay; there were two shots fired. One took out one of the front windows, but we don’t know where the other one went. They haven’t tried to contact us so far, and LAPD doesn’t have a command post yet, so we haven’t been able to figure out what’s going on in there.”
“Well, we can take care of that as soon as our CP gets here,” she answered.
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “First things first, get more information. And we try to set up communications with them, get them talking to us.” He paused. “And Nolan—”
“Let me guess. He doesn’t know one of the hostages is your brother?”
“No.”
“We have to tell him. We have to use every bit of information we have, and Charlie’s a big variable.”
Don ran his hand through his hair. “I know. But I don’t want him yanking the operation out from under us just because my brother is in there.”
She stepped in front of him and grabbed both of his arms and stared him straight in the eye. “Don, I have to ask – are you okay with this?”
“No,” he said, leaning wearily against the car. “I’m not. That’s my brother in there, someone who shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of thing, someone I’m supposed to be protecting so he can scrawl stuff I’ll never understand on his blackboards and teach kids to solve problems that’ll make the world a better place. Maybe even a place where people like us aren’t needed so much. Damn it, Charlie belongs inside those ivy-covered walls, in those weird buildings, in an ivory tower where everything can be measured and evaluated and fit into its own little corner – not out here in the real world, this filthy place where people can get killed...” He cut himself off and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I’m sorry.”
“You needed to say it, to get it out. No need to be sorry.” She handed him the vest. “Now you can concentrate on your job. Right?”
He heaved a sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, now I can get on with it.” He slipped into the vest and set his mind on the job to be done. “C’mon. Let’s get the command post set up.”
***********
Charlie sat on the floor near the construction worker, who still hadn’t moved. The gunman had tossed him a chamois from a nearby rack, and he’d tied it around his leg to try to stop the bleeding. He thought it was working, because the red-brown had stopped leeching through the tan material.
The little girl sat in his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck. He’d tried getting her interested in drawing on one of the many pads of paper that were strewn on the floor, but while she watched his scribblings, she wouldn’t let go of him long enough to pick up a pen herself. He’d gotten her name out of her, but nothing else. He found himself doodling random formulas that none of his undergraduate students would have understood, but whenever he put down a plus or minus sign, she nodded at them.
The gunman had slowly cleared the bags from his partner using only his left hand, keeping the pistol steady on the hostages. When Charlie had first reached for one of the pads of paper that were strewn all over the floor, the gun had swung his way. His soft response, “Drawing paper for her,” had apparently been innocent enough, and the gun had lowered.
Leeda had refused the pen, though. Without a word, she shook her head and buried her face in Charlie’s neck again. With nothing else to do, Charlie started doodling.
The gunman watched him for a while and finally demanded to know what he was doing.
“Equations,” Charlie answered.
The tall man loomed over the two of them where they sat on the floor and stared down at the paper, gun resting casually against Leeda’s back and pointed at Charlie’s shoulder. “Why?”
Charlie did his best to ignore the gun, but its proximity was making his stomach clench. “Some . . . um, some people pace,” he explained. “Some people doodle pictures. I’m a, uh . . . I’m a mathematician, so I doodle equations.”
The gunman stared hard at him, then spun and walked away. Charlie breathed a deep sigh of relief, and went back to his writing.
Solana and Benito sat next to each other on the opposite side of the aisle, their backs leaning against a register stall, his arm around her. Solana looked scared, but it was Benito that Charlie was beginning to worry about. Something about him didn’t look right.
The gunman paced in between quick views out the windows and nudging his partner with his toe, who still hadn’t moved. Everything seemed to be at a standstill, though Charlie knew there was a lot going on outside. The police would have called in the FBI because the savings and loan was federally insured, and they’d all be trying to gather information on the situation. How many hostages were there, had anyone been injured when the shots were fired, where were the hostages located in the building, how crazy were the robbers. All of the information would be distilled down into something that the agent in charge could turn into a plan.
He wondered if Don would be called to the scene. His brother was already on a hot case – one he figured he’d get called back in on soon, if he got out of this alive – so the odds weren’t exactly in favor of him turning up. Especially if anyone figured out who was being held hostage. He didn’t really believe the FBI would allow one of their agents to be in charge of rescuing his own brother. Just the same, if he could get word out somehow, maybe they’d bring him in as a consultant. It wasn’t that Charlie didn’t trust the other agents; rather that he trusted his brother more. And it wasn’t because of their relationship, either. He’d seen Don in action, both working a problem and on a scene. Put simply, the genius in Charlie recognized expertise when he saw it, regardless of how much he knew about the actual subject, and Special Agent Don Eppes was an expert.
Charlie’s mind began to wander, automatically figuring the probabilities of each of them surviving the next few hours. So many factors – it actually made a pretty interesting equation. He started fiddling with numbers, drawing graphs. A small part of him knew what he was doing, keeping his mind busy to keep it from dwelling on the harsh realities, but he shoved those thoughts aside and concentrated on the problem.
An equation . . . no, an expression . . . if Don was out there . . . .
He started scribbling in earnest while the little girl watched carefully.
The gunman broke the silence. “You. Old man.” He waved his pistol at Benito. “There’s other doors, right?”
Benito nodded. “Yes, there’s two doors in the back. The big one isn’t open – I only open it up when there’s a big truck – but the regular door isn’t locked.”
“Okay. You’re gonna go back there and lock it. And while you’re at it, you’re gonna look outside and see where the police are, and you’re gonna come back and tell me. And if you don’t come back, I’m gonna shoot this pretty little gal you got your arm around.”
“I . . . I . . . .” Benito gasped. His brown skin was taking on an unhealthy gray tinge.
“Papa?” Solana pulled away from her father and studied his face, her eyebrows creased together with worry. She turned to the gunman. “His heart – he needs his medicine.”
“No – he’s faking it. He’s gotta check the back door before anyone does anything.”
While the gunman’s attention was on Benito and Solana, Charlie surreptitiously tore off the top piece of paper from the pad, folded it several times, and tucked it in his shirt pocket. Then he said, “He isn’t faking it. He had a heart attack a few months ago. Just got back to work fulltime. Let me check the door, then get his medicine.”
The man looked closer at Benito, then turned the gun on Charlie. “Okay. But leave the girl here. You run out the back and I’ll kill her. You got that?”
“Yeah.” He rose slowly, holding Leeda close, then limped over to Solana and started to untangle the little girl from his neck. “Go to Solana, honey. She’ll give you a good hug, and I’ll be back in just a minute to do more numbers. Okay?”
The little girl gradually gave up her death grip and allowed herself to be transferred.
“This won’t take long,” he reassured Solana, “and then I’ll get your father’s medicine for him, okay?”
Solana nodded, her arms surrounding Leeda. “It’s a prescription bottle in his desk drawer, top right.”
“Got it.” He hobbled carefully around the gunman, acutely aware of the pistol that was pointed at his back all during the long trip to the rear of the store. He grabbed onto any merchandise or shelving on the way, trying to ease the screaming pain in his leg and finally reached the door, which was at the end of the aisle and in full view of the gunman. Hoping there weren’t any trigger-happy cops outside, he opened it slowly and stuck his hand out first, then leaned out into the fresh air. It was another beautiful Southern California day. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed before.
He counted two policemen out back – one to the right behind the dumpster, one to the left at the corner of the building. Charlie very carefully removed the paper from his pocket and dropped it on the ground. Then he waggled his hand in front of the deadbolt lock, hoping they’d get the idea, and without a word, backed into the store again and pulled the door shut. He flipped the deadbolt lock once loudly, then as he turned away, eased it off again quietly.
It was the best he could do. For now.
**********
Nolan was holding his earpiece close to his head when Don and Terry got back to him. He held his hand up, and they waited. A grin broke his face. “Someone just dropped something out the back door. I’m sending a man to pick it up.”
“What kind of something?” Terry asked.
“My man said it looked like a folded up piece of paper. Maybe our first communication with the hostage-takers.”
“What did the person look like that dropped it?” Don asked.
Nolan spoke into his mike. A few seconds of silence, then, “Wearing a white t-shirt with some kind of design on the front, with a button-down blue shirt hanging open over it, jeans, walking boots. One of the hostages, if they haven’t switched clothes.” He listened again. “Yeah, I think it’s one of the hostages. The curly-headed man.”
Terry looked at Don, and he knew she was judging his state of mind. She’d let him run with this as long as she could, but he knew she’d stop him cold if she thought his judgment was being affected.
“Is he okay? I mean, is he injured at all?”
Nolan lifted his mike again. After a moment, he replied, “Seemed in good shape, though he’s got some blood on his forehead and a bloodstained rag around his left leg, just above the knee. My man said he was alert, looked like he had his wits about him.”
Don blinked back the moisture that had suddenly gathered in his eyes. So if it was Charlie, he wasn’t exactly unharmed, but he was okay. “Nolan,” he started, “there’s something I have to tell you.” He was interrupted, though, by a young patrolman who ran up with something in his hand.
“Here it is, sir,” he said, and gave it to the detective. “I think he left the door unlocked, too. It looked like he was checking out where we were, then he shot the deadbolt, but my partner thinks he drew it back again.”
“I wonder if we can sneak in that way,” mused Nolan.
Don considered it. “I don’t think we’d better try a stealth entry from there. You can see that door from the front of the store if you’re positioned right, and we don’t know where they are in the building.” He looked around. “Do we have a heat-seeker yet?”
“It’s on the way,” said Terry. “One of the teams at LAX just finished up with theirs, and they’re sending it over.”
“Equipment shortages,” Nolan muttered. “I wouldn’t think you guys would have to deal with them, too.”
“Yeah,” said Don. His hands were itching to take the paper from the detective. “So what does it say?”
Nolan unfolded it carefully and turned it. Then turned it again. He frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“What is it?” Terry asked. She twisted her head around so she could see the page, too. Her eyebrows shot up.
He shook his head. “A bunch of math, I guess. Formulas. Equations. That much I get. I’ve got a nephew who’s getting his bachelor’s in this stuff. Looks like his homework. No note, though.” He looked up, confusion plain on his face.
Don rubbed at his forehead. “Mind if I look at it?”
“Be my guest.” He handed it to Don.
An older man in a dark suit with white air and an atmosphere of preternatural calm approached, and Terry distracted Nolan by introducing him to the Bureau’s senior negotiator, Peter Jacobsen.
As soon as Don got a good look at the page, his heart dropped. Just what he’d been afraid of. Charlie’s scribble. He handled it carefully, as much because it had just come from his brother as for purposes of maintaining any evidence such as fingerprints. “It’s him,” he whispered, and his hand dropped to his side, the paper brushing against his holster.
Jacobsen, who despite his age was built like a Navy Seal and had psychology degrees from two of the top universities in the nation, caught the change from his normal tone of voice. “Don. You know this guy?”
Don swallowed, but couldn’t answer around the lump in his throat. He’d hoped, oh, he’d hoped he was wrong. “Yeah, Pete.”
Terry took the paper from Don’s hand and studied it. “You know we use math consultants sometimes.”
Nolan nodded.
“We recognize the handwriting. Or whatever you call it. Even when it’s equations, these guys have distinctive patterns to their writing.”
“You think one of your consultants is inside?” Don could see Nolan running the implications. “He have any training in negotiation?”
“No,” Don said. “No more than any genius can figure out on his own.”
Jacobsen reached out to take the paper. He glanced at it, then looked again, harder. “Do you understand any of this?”
Terry laughed once. “Oh, no. No way. We’re going to have to find someone to translate it for us.” She turned to Don. “Didn’t you say Amita—?”
Nolan broke in. “CalSci’s right next door. They’ve got an incredible mathematician over there. Charles something-or-other. My nephew’s in his class right now, in fact.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll just call him—”
Don shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
Nolan kept dialing. “Look, I know you guys have your own experts, but from what my nephew says, this guy can figure out anything.”
“Yeah, he could,” Don sighed, “except he’s the one who wrote the message. And it’s Dr. Charles Eppes.”
“My nephew’s math teacher is your consultant?” Then the name sank in and Nolan’s eyebrow slowly raised. “Eppes. As in . . . ?”
Don nodded. “My brother.”
“Don . . .” Jacobsen warned.
The detective very deliberately put his phone away. “And you were going to tell me this . . . when?”
“Actually, that’s what I started to say when I walked over here.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Look, I know what both of you are thinking. In your position, I’d think the same. But setting aside the actual negotiations,” he nodded at Jacobsen, “I’m the most experienced agent we’ve got right now to run this, and I’ve got something the rest of you don’t. I know Charlie. Inside and out. I won’t say I always understand him—” he nodded at the paper Terry still held “—but I’ve got the best chance of figuring out what he’s going to do next. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize this operation.”
Jacobsen sighed. “I’ll bet he’s not one of those hostages who’ll just sit there and wait for us to do our job?”
“I don’t think so,” said Terry. She waved the paper. “Witness this. He’s already made a successful effort to get information to us. Don wasn’t kidding when he called him a genius. Charlie is probably the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, and he’s a master in a world that most of us can’t even begin to comprehend. He appears extraordinarily intuitive, but most of the time that’s simply because he’s thinking so much faster than the rest of us, weighing and processing in seconds more data than we can hold in our heads. Every conclusion he comes to can be documented down to several decimal points.”
“She’s our profiler,” Don inserted. “And she’s worked with Charlie enough to have him pretty well figured out.”
“It’ll be a long time yet before anyone really figures out that brother of yours,” Terry said, then turned back to Nolan and Jacobsen. “He thinks in a different way than what you’d expect. I’d call it thinking sideways, but when he explains it to you, you realize that it’s very straightforward, very logical. Physically, though, he’s not intimidating in any way. Has that sad-eyed puppy look.”
Don jerked back and stared at her. “Puppy?”
She raised her eyebrows in apology. “He might be about to hit 30, but he still looks like an undergraduate.” She paused and qualified, “A smart undergraduate.”
“So the hostage-takers are unlikely to view him as a threat?” Jacobsen asked.
“Unless they try to outthink him,” said Don. “He can get kind of obnoxious if he thinks you’re ignoring his conclusions.”
“My nephew says he’s a great teacher,” said Nolan. “His favorite professor.”
Don nodded. “He’ll spend hours with someone who’s really interested, even if they don’t know plus from minus.”
Terry nodded. “I’ve watched him brief people who have a solid grounding in math. You should see the jaws drop when they get what he’s talking about. Suddenly there isn’t a word in three that you understand, but they’re all nodding and grinning like they’ve just been given the key to the universe.”
“Entertaining as hell, if you aren’t trying to get them to figure something out on a deadline,” said Don.
Terry scowled at him. “But what’s more relevant to our situation,” she continued, “is that he’s also obsessively oriented to problem-solving.”
Don rolled his eyes at the word “obsessive.”
Nolan picked up on his reaction. “You mean he won’t be able to resist working the situation.”
“No way,” said Don. “That’s one reason you need me – to give us a chance to figure out what he might do.” He dropped his gaze to the ground for a minute, then looked up them, decisions made. “Tell you what. I’ll run the CP, coordinate the intel; Nolan, you and Pete here work directly together, and when and if the time comes, you take the number three slot on entry and clearing.”
Terry shot him an approving look. Heck, he knew better than to lead a team into a situation where he might find his brother dead. For extra reassurance, he said, “Terry’ll be with me all the way, and if she sees anything out of order, she’ll kick me out.”
“All right,” said Nolan, “but I reserve the right to kick you out myself, if I see you doing anything stupid.”
“Double-check is always good,” Don agreed. “Now all we have to do is figure out what the heck Charlie’s trying to tell us.”
Terry nudged him. “Your dad’s here.”
“Oh, boy,” Don swore.
“Amita’s with him – I’ll take the paper to her; you take your father.”
“We don’t need more family involved in this,” said Nolan, his voice and body rigid. He glanced at the black-haired beauty who was walking next to an older man. “Who’s this Amita? Your sister?”
“Charlie’s her thesis advisor,” said Don. “She works with him all the time; probably has the best chance of anyone to translate this page. She actually understands all this stuff. Give me a sec to talk to my father – you’ll brief Pete on anything else?”
“We’ll need you in the CP in about two minutes,” Nolan warned.
“I’ll be there.” Don angled to intercept his father. “Dad! Over here!”
Alan Eppes broke away and barreled up to his son. “Is Charlie all right? Where is he? I want to have a talk with that boy—”
Don put what he hoped would be a calming hand on his father’s shoulder and gave it to him straight. “He’s okay, Dad, but he’s one of the hostages. A policeman saw him and said he’s okay. He’s already sent out a message – Terry’s giving it to Amita to try to figure out.”
Alan seemed to shrink, right in front of him. “You know that Charlie’s not so good at this kind of thing. If it was you in there, I wouldn’t be half so crazy with worry.”
He took that as the compliment it was intended to be. “I know, Dad.”
Amita walked over, gazing at the paper with the same abstracted expression on her face that was all too familiar to Charlie’s family. She tapped it with a long fingernail. “He’s upset, Mr. Eppes, he’s working equations like mad, but he’s also thinking clearly.”
Don grimaced. “You mean he’s back to working out insoluble math problems because he can’t deal?”
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” she answered. She gave him a glance of apology. “The figures aren’t small and all crammed together like that time before your mother died, but he only doodles equations when he’s either bored or trying not to be upset.”
“Of course he’s upset!” Alan threw his hands up in the air. “How could he be not upset? There’s a man keeping him in that store at gunpoint!”
“Dad,” Don warned, “I only have a minute. Amita, are you telling me he risked his life to drop a paper full of doodles?”
She shook her head and flattened the paper on the hood of a nearby car. “No, there’s something else here. Most of these equations deal with probability.”
He nodded – that was the job he’d wanted Charlie for later in the day. Now, if he could just get his brother out of this, he was thinking more along the lines of taking him out for a beer. After he gave him hell for scaring them all half to death.
“But see this one here,” she said, “it doesn’t fit. In fact, it makes no sense at all.” She pointed to a single line that didn’t look any worse to Don than the rest of the page:
±3 : 5[{βμM55(0)}+{ςμF21(+3)}+{M35(-2)}+{χεM29(+1)}+{λγF7(+3)}]
2[{M26(+3)}+{ρικM23(-2)}]
“Why?” he asked. “What’s different about it?”
“First thing, he’s mixed Greek symbols from several disciplines. Along with straight mathematics and number theory, there are also symbols that are used for wavelength, electricity, photons, radiation, friction, electromagnetism . . . .” She shook her head. “Larry could tell you more, that all falls into his expertise, but I really don’t think it’s relevant to what’s going on here. It’s like this: If you were a German and reading an English newspaper, and all of a sudden you hit a paragraph written in pig Latin, it’d jump out at you, wouldn’t it? And even if you weren’t completely fluent in English, you’d know something was wrong with it.”
Terry glared over her shoulder at the store, as if she could will Charlie to come out and explain himself. “It’s that blatant?”
“To you and the robbers, no. To a mathematician, yes. It’s set up almost like a legitimate expression, but it makes no mathematical sense at all.”
“But Charlie doesn’t do things for no reason,” said Alan. “Sometimes we don’t understand them, but the reasons are always there.”
Don resettled his flak vest more comfortably. “I’ve seen him use equations to describe something. Is that what he’s doing?”
Amita shook her head. “It’s not an equation at all; it’s nowhere near that cohesive. Whatever he’s saying, he didn’t use any mathematical system I’ve ever seen.”
“We have to remember that he was doing it under the noses of the hostage-takers,” said Terry. “If they thought he was writing a message, they never would have let him continue. Whatever information he’s trying to get