Chapter 4

At Booth's explicit orders, the car had already been searched by the time he arrived, to ensure there was absolutely no sign of Bones in it. That search revealed that Tolka had been transporting a large quantity of illegal drugs, confirming Naji's theory regarding exactly what benefit the Albanian henchmen had found in sparing his rotten life. But there was no sign of Bones. No blood anywhere in the vehicle either, to Booth's unending relief.

Other than searching the car, Booth's orders had been that if they valued their life, nobody would even look at Edon other than to handcuff and secure him before he could get there. He was going to have first crack at him.

The time it took for Booth to arrive on scene where Edon Tolka was angrily cooling his heels in the back of a patrol car had just given him more time to work up a good head of steam – along with a healthy understanding of just how much he had riding on his ability to keep his more murderous impulses in check.

Tolka had been found in possession of Bones' car, Booth sternly reminded himself, which meant he had at the very least crossed paths with her. At best, he had merely taken her and stashed her somewhere long enough to make the drug run his backers expected of him so that he could take his time on his revenge when he was done. It was a plausible theory: giving her time to sweat it out like that would have only enhanced the experience for the asshole; and one thing about sadistic sociopathic psychos was that they liked to take their time.

If Tolka did have her, such a scenario was the best Booth could hope for, meaning Tolka was still his best chance to find her. The torture/murder kit he'd found, despite the fact that he didn't really need to be thinking about that with Edon in arm's reach, had not been used yet and that was reassuring.

He didn't want to talk to him in a police station or even an FBI interrogation room. It had to be on-scene. With a myriad of police and FBI milling around the arrest scene, Tolka had a far better chance there of surviving the interrogation long enough to give Booth something useful. But mostly he wanted him right there where he had been arrested, to throw him off balance with the cold hard evidence of Bones' drug-filled stolen car right there undeniably in his face. He wanted the fact cemented for Tolka that if they didn't find her alive and well he was going down not just for drug trafficking but murder as well.

Not that the bastard would be living long enough to see the inside of an American courtroom or relatively comfy jail cell if anything happened to Bones, but Tolka didn't have to know that.

It still didn't take nearly as long as it should have for Booth's control to snap and for him to have Tolka's back pinned hard against the outside of the patrol car, the prisoner's cuffed hands trapped uncomfortably between his body and the vehicle. Booth's knuckles were white as he gripped him by the shirt to keep him there. His already strained temper was quickly being pushed to the breaking point by the pushy arresting officer, who seemed a lot more concerned with the absolutely obscene amount of illegal drugs than he did about the missing woman, no matter how obsessed the overbearing FBI agent seemed with finding her.

Booth could understand why this cop didn't want the focus taken off of the huge drug bust he'd just singlehandedly secured, not wanting to give up his collar to another agency. He just didn't fucking care. He didn't exactly have time for jurisdictional pissing contests that were wasting him precious seconds, especially when they could get Bones killed.

It all got the better of him, and he snapped so fast he never saw it coming. One second he was listening to empty denials from Tolka, who still thought he had a chance in hell of talking his way out of Booth's steely grip. The next second his fingers were around Tolka's throat, thumbs gouging, doing everything in his power to squeeze the life right out of him.

He didn't know all of the details until far later, but he knew it had taken at least four of the biggest FBI agents on scene plus the arresting officer to pull him off – and that all five of them would be going home black and blue that night.

Tolka had chosen that moment, as he continued to gasp for air and Booth continued struggling to break free, to take whatever revenge left available to him, his last remaining chance to psychologically torture Booth:

"You'll never find her...not this time," he had rasped through his tortured throat.

It was enough to eradicate any doubts anyone might have still had that he was responsible for her disappearance. It was also enough for Booth to break free and get hold of him again.

… ooo … ooo …

When all was said and done, Tolka had been checked out by paramedics and quickly shuttled off to the Hoover Building with the four burly agents who all swore on their lives that his scrapes, bruises, bloody nose and severely swollen eye had all been sustained while resisting arrest…after all, look at how badly he'd banged all of them up in the process. As for all those marks around his neck, who could say? He must've pissed off the wrong guy somehow that day; drugs were a nasty business. Agent Booth had been a model of professionalism under difficult conditions, their reports all noted.

When all was said and done, Booth had been sympathetically clapped on the back so many times, been on the receiving end of so many apologetically pitying handshakes, that he was ready to hit something all over again. Even the arresting officer had a tightlipped look of silent empathy once he figured out that the woman in question was far more than just an unsolved case to the FBI agent he suddenly felt a little sorry for.

And when all was said and done, Booth's phone had been shattered when the other agents had finally wrestled him to the ground the second time he'd gone after Tolka. That bothered him probably as much as anything else, because now Bones had no way to call him if she was somehow able to. Somebody was in the process of requisitioning a new one for him as quickly as possible, but he wanted that link to her back in his pocket immediately.

He was pretty damn lucky, all things considered, that Cullen even let him watch the rest of the interrogation through the one-way mirror.

Lucky, because it wasn't like Cullen had entirely bought the bullshit story regarding Tolka's injuries that he'd heard from the four well-muscled agents he'd specifically assigned to protect Booth from doing anything stupid. He'd not bought a single word of it, actually, whether he had signed off on their little work of fiction or not.

It was even more surprising that Cullen was the one sitting across the interrogation table from Tolka, with Sweets by his side, trying a far different tactic than the one Booth would have favored. He had to admit they were doing a more convincing job than he'd have been capable of at the moment, as they sat there becoming Tolka's goddamn new best friends. The two of them had him convinced that he was the criminal mastermind of the universe, that his fascinating psyche held the keys to every mystery in the criminal textbook if he could just explain how he did it, and the little bastard was eating it up. Necessary, but enough to make Booth wish his gun wasn't sitting locked in Cullen's office at the moment.

Still more amazing was the fact that before entering that interrogation room, Cullen had offered to wear an earpiece, with Booth's voice transmitted to him if – and only if – he had something of substance to add. The warning look Booth received through the glass a couple times told him that some of his more verbose strings of expletive-laced opinions questioning Tolka's parental legitimacy, worthiness to continue receiving oxygen, and proposed eternal destination were not necessarily substantive.

But then the call came in that questioning needed to stop immediately, because Tolka was soon to be picked up by a representative of his government, invoking his diplomatic immunity and taking him home.

That was when every single one of those earlier surprises paled in comparison to the utterly mindboggling fact that it was Cullen himself who immediately jerked Edon out of his chair and put him into the wall.

Booth's initial impulse had been to get into that room just as quickly as possible. If anybody was going to beat the shit out of Edon, it was going to be him. But he had not exactly been surprised to discover that Cullen had locked him securely into the observation room, probably for just such an occasion. So he had ended up instead with his nose pressed up against the glass, slightly awed eyes focused intently on the way his boss quickly, skillfully and rather painfully extracted the truth out of Tolka in a way that wasn't going to leave any more messy marks to produce further paperwork.

It also shocked the hell out of him that Sweets sat with his back turned rather calmly perusing the file in front of him throughout the duration of that particular spectacle, too. If he'd taken time to reflect on it, he'd have entertained little doubt that Sweets' willingness to turn a blind eye had far more to do with Bones than it did with Cullen being the boss. He knew as well as anyone just what a soft spot the young psychologist had for Booth's brilliantly tough and yet vulnerable partner.

… ooo … ooo …

Deep down, Tolka had wanted everybody to know just exactly how smart he thought he was. So it didn't take long for the entire story to come spilling out once he was given no other choice than to start talking. In fact, he rapidly answered every question Booth had aside from the only one he actually cared about: where was Bones now?

Edon admitted coming to D.C. with every intention of seeking his revenge on the man who'd pummeled him and left him to die at the hands of the bookies.

Officially, he was there in his capacity as a NATO-affiliated archaeologist in the employ of Kreshnik Benjamin, to whom he had volunteered himself to accompany two sets of remains slated to be put on display in a local museum.

He'd taken it upon himself to also smuggle in a third set of ancient remains he had access to because he was the one who'd discovered them. That one had been the bait: the skeleton he'd set up for Brennan to find in that secluded clearing in Northwell Park.

He'd had help. When Booth had left him in Albania, and he'd been dragged into that warehouse, his bookies had been in the middle of a meeting with their own supervisors: the crime bosses at the top of the food chain. Those were the men ultimately in charge of not only the bookies, but also the trafficking operations he'd sold girls to before.

So he'd seen an opportunity and started making offers. His contacts and diplomatic travel status with NATO meant he had to answer almost no questions and was subjected to less than zero examination of his cargo when traveling, so he was in a position to make them a lot of money. In fact, he'd just provided them a way of expanding their operation internationally. They'd therefore agreed not only to spare his life, but after he'd had time to recover from the injuries Booth had inflicted on him, they would give him the forged records and tools to get his job back with a believable story. Not that they hadn't inflicted a few injuries of their own. Not surprising to anybody who knew him. The only utterly mindblowing thing about it was that apparently Edon thought he was deserving of sympathy for what they had done to him.

Once he had excelled at a few small jobs and was a trusted asset, that was when Tolka had started to set up his revenge. Being sent to D.C. was perfect. His bosses didn't really care what he did with his spare time in D.C. so long as he did the job they'd sent him to do and delivered their drugs to the highest paying buyer they'd found yet. But even better, he'd even managed to talk them into helping him secure his revenge.

It wasn't that they cared a bit about him. It was just that their interests had been somewhat aligned when Tolka cleverly pointed out that the man he sought revenge against was the same man who'd almost singlehandedly brought down their largest sex trafficking operation almost a year ago, the man who had continued since that time to blast his way through their various warehousing operations bringing them down one at a time, and therefore the man that represented the hugest known threat to their entire enterprise.

It was at that point that Booth got a little lost. The way Tolka was telling it, it sounded like Booth was being blamed for a whole lot more than what he and Naji had done during their short time in Albania. It almost sounded like somebody had continued taking potshots at the whole organization, focused on bringing down the entire sex trade. Was it just the self-aggrandizing ramblings of a psychopath, blowing the importance of his enemy wildly out of proportion?

Or had Naji left out a few pieces of the story about exactly what kind of "mission" he'd been on when he'd been captured and tortured? That one didn't take too much thought; if there was anything the ostentatious bastard had always loved, it was a good cause that also allowed him to blow shit up. Deciding to take it 100 steps further after saving Bones and instead trying to save every single woman in Albania on his own dime without any backup would just be classic Naji. Which meant Booth had damn well better find a way to get in contact with him again, because he and Bones might not be the only ones in trouble. Hopefully Naji had Irene and mini-Naji...mini-Naji, seriously?...stashed somewhere safe.

Wheels still turning, Booth returned his focus to Tolka's story.

In return for his promise to kill Booth – something he'd agreed to with no intention of carrying out, because killing Brennan would be so much more effective if Booth lived a long miserable life afterward – Tolka's bosses had used their technology to make that FBI-routed call and subsequent text/virus to lure Brennan to his mock crime-scene and disable her phone, as well as the text from Booth to Cam. Of course, they'd been thinking all along that Brennan was simply the bait to secure Booth rather than the primary target.

Edon had played everybody, which was why he was so gleeful about telling the story.

And it'd worked perfectly up to that point, separating Brennan from Booth.

His plan from there had been pretty much what Booth had pieced together in his own head: lure her there with the skeleton, then leave her there while he made his scheduled drug drop. Meanwhile, her partner/bodyguard and the rest of her colleagues (along with the majority of D.C. law enforcement) were busy cleaning up the rather impressive mess he'd made in South Amville Park with the other crime scene.

That victim had been the first person he'd happened to run across when he was done setting up his trap for Brennan. She'd simply been convenient, out running in the park far too close to his perfect fake crime scene when he was looking for a suitable victim for his real one anyway. The fact that she just so happened to resemble Brennan physically had been sheer coincidence, though he'd relished the additional psychological torment it would cause Booth. That resemblance might have also resulted in the excessive brutality he'd demonstrated; he'd seen it as a practice run.

When that grisly scene had been set, he'd finally been ready. He'd already taken care of the text to Dr. Brennan's employer; so he just waited until the South Amville Park body had been discovered before having the call and text put through to Brennan sending her to Northwell.

Booth's blood had run cold to hear that Tolka had been hiding near that secluded clearing, watching Brennan when she arrived, cattle prod in hand. His proximity to both her and the tools of torture he'd intended to use on her was something that was going to give Booth fresh nightmares for a while.

Tolka had planned to start on her then. But somehow it'd taken longer than he had expected for the South Amville body to be discovered – longer for Brennan to find her way to the clearing in Northwell, too.

That would have put him starting on Brennan less than an hour before the drug drop he had no choice but to perform for his coercive employers. Not nearly enough time, as far as he was concerned. Not to mention the fact that early on her guard was up, and she was holding on to a gun. So Tolka had decided not to touch her at all until afterwards, needing uninterrupted time with her to carry out the elaborate and painful execution he had planned for her. And maybe her guard would be down by then and he'd have less chance of accidentally being shot.

The reference to that gun was the first thing the bastard had said that gave Booth some hope. It cemented an earlier decision for him, too. He was making it very damn plain the next time he talked to Bones that she didn't have to hide her gun from him or anybody else anymore; the little cowardly bastard hadn't exactly said so, but Booth had read between the lines enough to figure out that that gun had likely been the reason Tolka just slipped off and left her unsecured rather than attempting to immobilize her with the restraints he'd had on him in that bag. No way his plan hadn't included leaving her there to sweat it out knowing what was going to happen to her. And he'd have had the perfect opportunity to sneak up on her and knock her out while she was constructing that tent.

But fear of that gun had changed Tolka's plans. So if Bones wanted a second one for her other hand, Seeley Booth would gladly be the one to take her shopping for it and he wouldn't have one damn word to say about it.

Cullen was asking about Brennan's car, and the huge grin on Tolka's face as he got into the next part of the story made Booth fantasize about getting his fingers around his throat again. The bastard had watched her for a while, sneaking around to the other side of the clearing where she had dropped all of her belongings at the entrance. It'd been a simple matter to swipe her car key from her key ring and return the rest of her keys, while her back was turned and her focus was fixed on erecting her makeshift tent over the body.

And so he'd left her there, unaware of his existence, fully expecting her to be there when he returned. He'd stolen her car, returned to his hotel and loaded what he needed to carry out his mandatory drug drop. The timing of that scheduled drop was inconvenient, but he was impressed with his own cleverness in working around it.

In fact, Tolka had planned to be back in that clearing torturing and murdering Brennan long before he was pulled over and arrested.

There was just one thing he hadn't counted on: D.C. traffic.

The irony was almost frightening in its simplicity. One of the things Booth hated most had quite likely saved Bones' life. If Tolka was telling the truth.

Cullen believed him. Sweets believed him.

That part left Booth with a relief so profound it nearly dropped him.

But none of it explained where Bones was now - why she hadn't yet surfaced - which was why Booth knew he couldn't let Tolka leave the country, diplomatic immunity notwithstanding. What if he was lying? What if he did have her stashed somewhere, immobilized, with no access to food or water? What if, God forbid, the unused torture kit was just a prop to throw them off, and Bones was facing a real one just as soon as they let her captor go? The thought of letting Tolka go, when he might not have told them everything, shook him from the inside out. Bones' trail had ended by the side of the road…whose car had she gotten into? Could some of Tolka's help be in-country with him?

So to put it mildly, Booth lost it when Cullen announced that they were going to have to let Tolka go. Yelled, cajoled, threatened, and made a scene the water cooler crowd wasn't likely to forget any time soon.

That wasn't even the worst of it.

Cullen had made sure Tolka was safely out of the building with the representative from his government before he ever let Booth out of the observation room and returned his gun. Booth was not to go near him, and that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

What he wanted to hear even less was that he was being sent home. Escorted home, actually, by two imposing agents who were not going to leave until his door closed behind him.

That had led to a scene in Cullen's office that probably should have got him fired. He'd yelled until his voice was hoarse as he made his case that Bones was still out there and so he needed to be out there too, leading the search for her. He was fairly certain he remembered slamming his already sore fist into a wall and sweeping everything off of a table in Cullen's office onto the floor, but it just didn't matter.

Cullen had assured him that every available man he had would be out looking for her, but that as of that moment Booth was officially off the case. If he wanted the lead role back first thing in the morning, he could have it: just so long as he left quietly at that exact moment, went home to get some sleep, and came back through that door in control of himself

Cullen had him. If the search did have to continue into the next day, then it was absolutely imperative that he be the one in charge of it. So Booth had accepted his gun, gritted his teeth, and gone quietly.

He hadn't said a word as the two agents followed him straight to his door, standing outside for a few minutes after he stepped in and shut the door behind him. He went no farther in to his apartment; he stood with his head pressed against the cool door, waiting. The very moment that the two agents were satisfied he was staying put and they walked away, he had every intention of going straight back out that door.

Tolka might have told Cullen the truth, or he might not. But Booth was pretty certain he could get the entirety of it from him, once and for all. What the evil bastard had planned for Bones wasn't the tip of the iceberg to what Booth had planned for him.

He was so intently focused on watching for the guards to leave, on planning every millisecond of what he was going to do to Edon Tolka when he found him, that he never heard the quiet footsteps entering the room behind him from the direction of his bedroom.

… ooo … ooo …

By the time Brennan finally made her way back to Booth's apartment, she was utterly exhausted.

After discovering that her car had been stolen, the first order of business had been finding something to drink. She'd been parched from her long hours in the sun watching over the crime scene, long before she'd spent an hour finding her way back to that empty parking lot. Eventually, after she perused the park map and discovered which trail would bring her back to the central area of the park where she could find a phone and call the police, she'd found a water fountain along one of those trails.

That taken care of, she'd next attempted to call for help from a security phone placed in the middle of the longest trail. She'd groaned in frustration to find it broken.

It had taken forever to find her way out of what was essentially a huge wilderness preserve. She had no way of knowing that mere minutes after she had finally found the main area, the searchers had discovered the crime scene she'd just vacated an hour earlier. No way of knowing that Booth was getting the call at that exact moment, fearing the absolute worst.

Park security was nowhere to be found when she finally reached the main area, and she was tired. She needed to report both her stolen car and the stolen ancient remains – not necessarily in that order – but the sight of a taxi cab dropping off a young couple at the main road was too tempting to pass up. Again, she had no way of knowing that Booth would in the very near future be following a search dog down the path she had just taken. She was just utterly focused on catching that cab.

She'd run as fast as her tired legs would carry her, flagged down the cabbie and requested to be taken to Booth's apartment. Somewhere along the way, she'd realized she had no way to pay the driver – she had her key ring, but had carried out little else from the clearing - and so had instead diverted him to stop first at her apartment so she could run inside to grab some cash.

She'd temporarily considered staying there to make her calls, but the cabbie was waiting for her so she had to go back out anyway. It was beginning to get late, and it had just occurred to her that after being unable to reach her all day thanks to her malfunctioning phone, Booth was certain to be concerned.

She was actually somewhat surprised to see that he wasn't home yet, as she had been more than eager to hear his version of events that would surely explain how no one other than her had ever arrived at the crime scene. She quickly found his note, imploring her to call him. So his cell number was the very first that she tried. It surprised her when she went straight to voicemail. Assuming that perhaps he was trying to call her at that very moment, she quickly left a message before disconnecting and waiting a few moments.

She was a little surprised again when he didn't call her back immediately. Reasoning that it might be best to hear Booth's version of events so she would be fully informed when she made her reports on the events of the day, and not wanting to miss his almost certainly impending call by starting another, she decided to wait just a few more moments before making the other calls she desperately needed to make. Once Booth did start calling, he was unlikely to stop until he reached her; that would make focusing on giving an effective report to either the FBI, police or Cam problematic.

She also was in desperate need of a shower, so she took the phone into the bathroom with her to wait for Booth's call.

Again, she was surprised that the phone stayed stubbornly silent throughout her entire shower.

So the last thing she expected to find, as she emerged from the shower back into the living room ready to start making calls and filing reports, was Booth standing with his back to her and his forehead pressed against the front door.

"Booth?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

(This story will be moved to the M section with the next installment; please look for it there, as you will no longer be able to find it on the front page without applying your filter to search for M stories. It's far from over. :)