Disclaimer – I don't own them, I just borrowed them. Numb3rs and its characters are the property of those that created them. No copyright infringement intended. All real organisations are used in a fictional sense. Original characters and the storyline are mine however.

A/N: Here it is, the final installment in this short tale.

CHAPTER FOUR

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Don lay on the deck face down and automatically started counting the sharp reports that he identified as rifle fire. He reached five before there was silence again. He raised his head and looked around, seeing Tom and Spinks lying on the deck nearby. They both appeared to still be alive. Even closer was a discarded gun. Don scrabbled for it, wrapping his bound hands around the butt as he rolled onto his back. He lifted his upper body, aiming towards the shadows under the stern ladder where he'd last seen Cam.

Don found his target. Cam was standing in a classic shooter's stance, weapon punched forwards, knees bent and braced a shoulder width apart. A Mexican standoff with only three yards separating them. Neither of them could miss at this range. Suddenly Cam's aim jerked to one side as he fired. Don heard a second shot at the same time, followed by a dull thud. He glanced behind him to see Spinks drop back dead to the deck. His gun hand outstretched towards Don. The agent realised that Spinks had been about to shoot him and that Cam had fired to prevent that. The second shot must have come from the Coast Guard crew. He now saw two crewmen, M16s held ready, appear from cover.

Don snapped his head back towards Cam. First things first. "Drop your weapon!"

"Steady, Agent." Cam said. He lifted his arms away from his body allowing the pistol to swing around in his hand until it was hanging by the trigger guard from a finger. Cam dropped to his knees. "DEA."

What? Now it all started to make sense. However, until the man was disarmed and identities could be confirmed he was still to be treated as a bad guy. "Toss the gun." Don ordered.

Cam obeyed the instruction then lowered himself until he was laying face down, hands clasped behind his head. Don awkwardly climbed to his feet and limped quickly over to the prone man, dropping down with a knee landing hard on Cam's back eliciting a grunt. He pressed his borrowed gun hard into the back of Cam's neck.

"DEA!" Cam protested.

"Not until I see ID." Don replied. He looked back up and watched as the two crewmen armed with M16s secured Spinks and Tom. The two crewman who'd been near the zodiac were approaching rapidly and were now carrying 9mm pistols. They relieved Don of Cam, flex-cuffing his wrists together behind his back.

Don moved out of the way as they lifted Cam to his feet. One crewman reached out a hand and Don surrendered his borrowed gun.

"Agent?" Lieutenant Dylan called. She appeared in front of him, holding up a pocket knife, blade extended.

Don held out his bound wrists allowing her to cut through the cord, releasing him and revealing angry red welts. Don started to rub his wrists but stopped as the movement was too painful. "Thanks."

He remembered the other boat and looked astern to see only fading foam where it had been. It was gone and the Seahawk was not giving chase.

It was ten minutes later and the Seahawk was back underway, heading for shore. The body of Spinks had been wrapped and secured in the zodiac, with the stern section lowered back into place this was the safest area to keep the body. Tom had been roughly patched up, flex-cuffed and was being held below in a cabin under guard by two armed crewmen. Cam was seated at a mess table under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Dylan and another crewman. A second crewman with an M16 stood guard at rear of the mess deck. Every member of the Coast Guard crew that Don had seen over the last ten minutes had been armed. Dylan was now no exception, her 9mm in a holster at her side.

The students were taking seats on the opposite side of the mess deck, watching with wide open eyes everything that was going on. This was turning out to be some day trip for them. Charlie and the students had been hidden in the chartroom whilst the action had taken place and had only just been let out. Don was resting with a hot cup of tea at the next table over from Cam when his younger brother first saw him.

"Don!"

"Hey, buddy. You all right?"

Charlie's hands fluttered, wanting to touch his brother's injuries but not daring. The medic had just minutes earlier turned his attention to Don so now he sported a gauze pad on his temple to offset the developing black eye. The blood had been wiped from his face but dried blood remained on his jeans and right sleeve. There wasn't anything the medic could do about the welts on Don's wrists so they were fully visible to the younger man. Charlie was incredulous at his brother's question. "Me? What about you, are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"But-" Charlie started, still hovering.

"Charlie, sit." Don reached out a hand and pulled him down onto the seat next to him but on the opposite side away from Cam. "Shush." He wanted to hear what was happening at the next table.

"You're DEA?'' Dylan started.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You have any ID?"

"Not hardly." Cam leant forward carefully, flex-cuffed hands still locked behind him. "Look, ring my handler, he'll confirm everything."

"Whatever number you give me will probably just be more friends of yours, willing to say anything to get you off the hook." Dylan stated, not yet willing to believe him.

Don for his part however, did. It made sense, Cam arguing against the foolish attempt to hijack the Seahawk, suggesting a more reasonable and less hostile course of action. The man had stopped Spinks from getting carried away and beating him to a pulp. Cam had tried to convince Tom to spare his life if he was taken onto Carlos' boat. Cam, who had shot Spinks to save his life. The way he had taken cover under the bridge overhang, the way he held his weapon smacked of law enforcement training. Yeah, Don could believe that the man was DEA.

"I'll have my people check him out." Don offered.

"My cover name is Cam Dixon. My real name is Cameron Andrew Gideon, date of birth May 9th, 1979." Cam stated. "My handler is Denis Crispin."

Dylan scribbled the information down on a pad and handed it to Don. The FBI agent rose and made his slow, limping way up to the sat-phone on the bridge, his thigh badly corked. Charlie stayed in close attendance, helping him up the companion-way. Once he'd made the first call it took a little while for the confirmation to came back. Cam was who he said he was. The face that printed out on the Seahawk's satellite fax machine confirmed it. Don and Charlie returned to the mess deck to see that nothing had changed.

Don thrust the piece of paper into Dylan's hands. "He's DEA."

Dylan looked at the photo and the details printed underneath it. She nodded at her crewman. "Get the cuffs off him."

The crewman produced a pair of snips and cut the flex-cuffs.

"Thanks." Cam said as he rubbed his wrists, the flex-cuffs had been applied a little tightly. "Sorry Agent Eppes, I couldn't break cover sooner."

"I know." Don said. Thinking back he saw that there had been no time when Cam would have been able to pull them both out with any real chance of success.

"And the gun thing, I-"

"Don't worry about it. I understand." He didn't like it but at least now he could be 100 sure that the safety had been on when Cam had put the gun to his head and cocked it.

"I'll be letting your people know what you were willing to do."

Don glanced at his brother who had been listening closely. "Don't mention it." He didn't want Charlie to know would have unresistingly gone to the drug runner's boat, despite the certainty of death waiting. He would have done anything to avoid another hostage being taken, possibly even his brother.

"What were you going to do, Don?" Charlie had caught the glance.

"It doesn't matter Charlie."

"Yes it does. What were you going to do?"

"It never happened. It doesn't matter. Just leave it."

Cam opened his mouth but changed his mind at the FBI agent's glare. There was a subtext here he didn't quite get. He hadn't made the connection between the college professor and the agent.

"How long were you in?" Don asked to change the subject.

"Eight months."

"Who were you working on?"

"Torrenz."

"Oh." Don knew that name. Torrenz was believed to be the biggest importer of drugs for California, possibly the biggest for the entire western seaboard. This was a major operation that had now been blown.

"Don't sweat it. I couldn't, ah-" Cam stopped looking at the professor then back to the former hostage. "You know."

"Yeah. I owe you one." Now he knew why Cam had hung back under the bridge overhang and tried to take shelter in the shadows, he had been about to try to take down Tom and Spinks himself.

It was two hours later when they finally reached the marina and tied up amongst a sea of flashing red and blue lights. Don had reported the whole incident to his office when he'd done his checks on Cam. The FBI had decided to leave the Coast Guard to run the show, it had happened on their boat at sea after all. Don's role now was that of a witness so he stood back and kept out of the way as Tom was escorted off the cutter by the crew and placed into an ambulance under LAPD guard. He was on his way to surgery to remove a couple of bullets, the injuries non life-threatening.

Don was next, Dylan and Charlie both insisting that he be checked over by the second set of waiting EMTs. Their diagnosis was the same as his, painful bruising but nothing broken. As usual they tried to make him go to hospital to be checked by a doctor. Don figured that EMTs must get a prize if they hit some magic quota of patients delivered to hospital for the shift. He stubbornly refused to accede to their demands. They settled for gently applying some cream to the welts on his wrists, and reapplied some gauze over the gash to his forehead. As to the rest of his injuries there was nothing else to do but let them all heal up naturally. Don added some fingermark bruises on his upper right arm to his catalogue of injuries.

His left eye hadn't quite closed up but he was too stiff and sore to drive safely so Don handed his SUV keys to Charlie when Dylan told them they could go. The students had already been released. They would all have to return in the morning to give their statements, but for now it was well and truly time to go home and rest.

"Remind me never to play poker with you." Don told the Coast Guard officer as they started to leave. He had been so sure that there was no last minute rescue plan based on her lack of expression. "You have the best poker face I've seen in a long time!"

"That sounds like a challenge, Agent Eppes."

"Call me Don, please."

"Then it's Sarah. And it still sounds like a challenge."

"We'll take you up on that." Charlie piped up. His older brother was currently between girlfriends at the moment and Charlie was sure that the Coast Guard officer was the right sort for him. He'd seen the looks Don had been casting her way all day.

"Charlie!" Don protested, seeing right through his brother's manoeuvring.

"Dinner, tomorrow night." Charlie insisted. He scrawled his address on the back of his business card and handed it over.

"It's a date."

-1-1100-1-1110-

Alan woke up as he heard Don's SUV pull up in the driveway. He tossed the newspaper aside as he stood and stretched to work the kinks out. Sleeping in the chair was not so good on his old bones. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, Millie had gone and he'd settled to read the paper for a few minutes before heading up to bed. He knew the boys were going to be late after Charlie had called and wasn't worried. He checked the clock, it was just after one in the morning. He went to the door and opened it but left the porch light off as he didn't want to disturb the neighbours.

"So you boys finally made it. Did you have a nice day?" Alan stopped and stared as he watched Charlie climb out of the driver's side of the large black SUV. That was wrong, Don never let Charlie drive his FBI suburban.

"Hey, Dad." Don said sounding tired, limping his way around the front of the SUV from the passenger side, backpack slung over his shoulder.

Alan flipped on the porch light, neighbours be damned, and saw the bruises and the gauze pad on his eldest son's face, the stiff way that he moved, the limp. The dark brown blotches on his sleeve and jeans. "Oh, my god!"

"I'm okay." Don insisted.

His eldest didn't look okay, leaning on Charlie to make it up the stairs to the porch. Alan ushered them both inside before closing the door. He helped Charlie get Don to the couch and settled. Charlie sat beside his older brother as Alan remained standing. Another thing caught his eye, were they rope burns on Donny's wrists?

"You were on a Coast Guard boat for God's sake! What could possibly have happened to you?"

END

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A/N: It may be a while before my next story, I have a mental block at the moment and visitors at home cutting into available time. I will be back. This is a lot of fun. Once again, thanks for all the reviews.