X is for Xiphoid Process

By Jelsemium

For the 2006 Alphabet Challenge at These characters are not mine and they're not being used to make a profit.

Author's Note: This story was written BEFORE season three.

Some days just start wrong. This one had been frustrating from the time I got up until now, in Charlie's office, when it became a lot worse than frustrating.

"I told you that I don't have any information about when Earl Jamison's shipment is due in," I said as calmly as I could with a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol shoved against my Adam's apple.

I was absurdly pleased that neither my voice, nor my hands (which were clasped behind my neck) were shaking.

"Oh, but your baby brother can find out, can't he?" sneered Special Agent Connell. "Isn't that why you're here?"

My hands shook a little at that point, not from fear, but from an urgent desire to throttle the turncoat. Connell had been working in my office for three months, ever since Granger had left, and I'd thought that he had been doing a good job.

Apparently he'd taken every opportunity he good to go through my desk and had decided, from the few notes I had on this case, that Jamison's arms shipment was his best bet for a big payoff. Possibly because so few people actually knew anything about the shipment. We had a mole to worry about, so everything had to be kept on a need to know basis.

"No, I told you, I was here for information regarding our office mole." That much was safe enough to tell him, since he already knew there was a mole.

Connell smirked. "Not doing a good job, are we? You've got a mole, and now your new right hand man has the drop on you."

My anger must have shown, because Connell pulled back a little as if he planned to pistol whip me.

He was distracted by a sudden rattle. The room darkened as the Venetian blinds cut off the sunlight. Charlie stepped away from the windows nervously, as if the danger was outside instead of inside.

"Not so loud, Professor," purred Alice Fox. "Wouldn't want any of your little students to see what's going on, would we?"

Charlie swallowed convulsively as the woman who'd been acting as the secretary of the math department prodded him in the sternum with MY .45 caliber Heckler & Koch USP.

"There'd better not be any students around, Allie!" growled Connell. "I told you to pick a time when nobody was around!"

"And I did!" she snarled. "Though I really wouldn't have minded an excuse to pop some of those little snots. Honestly, I don't see how anybody could work this job on a permanent basis. Two months was about to drive me nuts."

And I helped her get the job, dammit. Helping out the "sister" of a fellow agent had seemed like such a good idea at the time…

Charlie stepped closer to his desk and Allie casually hit him in the chest with the butt of my pistol. I jerked involuntarily but managed to keep from lunging at her. Charlie claimed later I was angrier at the abuse to my weapon than to him. (I never contradicted him, but, between you and me? He's wrong. Just don't tell him.)

"Don't move, Eppes," Connell snarled, prodding me in the jaw to make his point.

I forced myself to stand still as Charlie gasped and staggered backwards.

Charlie went even paler than he had when his office had been invaded. For a moment I was afraid that he was going to pass out. I needed him on his feet if we were going to pull this out of the fire.

I swore that if we got out of this alive, I was never involving him in another case.

We were in a dire situation, but I could see one thing going for us. Allie hadn't released the safety of my pistol. Good gun handling under normal circumstances, not so good when holding an FBI agent as a hostage.

Not that I planned to correct her.

"What?" Charlie managed to stay on his feet somehow and I felt proud of him.

"Don't try to get to a phone, dumbsnot," Allie sneered.

"What, you think he can punch in 911 without us noticing?" Connell snapped, echoing my own thoughts.

Before Allie could answer, Connell turned his full attention back to me and poked me in the neck again. Again, I managed not to lose it.

"I've seen this scenario often enough in the past couple of months, Eppes," he said. "You get your dear sweet little brother to whip up some formula to pinpoint the bad guys' location, or guess where he's going to hit next. Hacking into a computer should be child's play for him."

"Well, you missed the part where he said that he couldn't do it this time," I snapped. I had a faint idea of how to lure them into a trap, but only if I could communicate with my team. If I could persuade him to let me make a call…

"Well, that's too bad for you two, isn't it?" Connell tensed and stepped back a pace, obviously wanting to avoid being spattered with my blood.

I'd blown it. I tensed and made mental apologies to my family.

"Wait!" croaked Charlie. This brought their attention back to him and Connell relaxed a little.

He smirked. "Changed your mind, genius? I thought you told your brother that there wasn't any way to crack into Jamison's computer."

"I was talking about LEGAL ways," Charlie blurted. "Something that would stand up in court!" He shifted his weight from side to side and looked at our captors anxiously. Much as I hate for him to get involved, I have to admit that I was glad he prevented them from shooting me.

"Ah, of course," said Connell. He stepped back another pace and nodded. To me he added, "Don't you just hate how this bureaucratic BS stands in the way of getting the job done?"

I thought of several answers to that, any of which would have gotten me shot out of hand. So I said nothing.

"Go on, Professor," Connell said. "We're listening."

To emphasize her partner's point, Allie poked Charlie in the sternum. Again. "Yes, Professor, tell us how we're going to hack into Jamison's computer network and find out where his next load of weapons is going to land."

"It… it's called the Xiphoid Process," Charlie managed. "It's a way of cracking into anything other than a dedicated line."

"Go on," Allie encouraged with another poke.

"Well, you know that everything is digital now," Charlie continued. He made a gesture with his hands. Two guns swung around and he froze.

Before I could take advantage, Connell's gun was back on me.

"Um," Charlie stuttered.

I winced.

"Anyway, all computer communications are digital in nature, whether over the phone lines, DSL lines, cable or even wireless," Charlie steadied himself. He was keeping an eye on me, ready to pick up on any signals from me.

It's so nice that my brother and I are close enough to read each other nowadays. Charlie could tell that I had some sort of plan, and I had an idea where he was going with this. Short of a massive panic attack, I felt that Charlie could actually carry out my half formed plan.

Scared as he was right now, I could see Charlie was far from panicked. My little brother was growing up. I vowed to get sentimental about this at a more appropriate time.

"Yeah, so?"

"So, digital anything means all information is in binary…" Charlie was getting into his explanation now. "That means, everything is yes/no, or on/off, or zero/one…"

"I got it," snapped Connell. "I know what digital is."

"Good, good," Charlie was in full lecture mode now. No sarcasm was in his voice at all. It was as if he was pleased that Connell was following him. "Well, no information from a computer is ever completely lost, even when you delete it."

"Then why can't I get my solitaire came back?" Allie sulked.

Connell shushed her.

"The Xiphoid Process would probably be able to get your game back," Charlie said. "It's just a matter of doing a reverse pixilation on the data." He waved his hands and this time neither of our captors tried to stop him.

"It's like archeologists digging through one layer of a site to get to the artifacts below it," he said. "It has to be done carefully, of course, because it's the position as much as the artifacts themselves that tells the story."

"Wait, how does that get us into Jamison's computer?" demanded Connell.

Charlie took a deep breath, but managed not to sigh or faint or anything. "As I said, everything is digital now, the phone lines are basically computers themselves. All I need is Jamison's phone number and I can backtrack the layers of digital communications leading to it… including the one that has the password."

"You can do that?"

Charlie nodded. "Well, it may take a while to find the communication that has the actual password," he added, almost apologetically.

Connell pulled out a business card.

"Here," he said grimly. "But if this takes more than half an hour, I'm afraid your father is in for some heavy funeral expenses."

Charlie looked at me, swallowed and hesitated.

"You can put your hands down to take the card," Connell said ironically. "And to type," he added.

Charlie took the card, glanced it over; and then sat down at his desk and began to type. Allie moved over so she could look over his shoulder. I think she actually thought that she'd be able to keep up with all his ones and zeros and dots and dashes.

You can see how well that turned out.

It was less than fifteen minutes when Charlie announced that he had the location of the weapons drop. Allie grinned at the screen and managed to write the address down without dropping my pistol.

Of course, if the safety hadn't been on, she probably would have shot herself.

"Nice work, Professor," smirked Connell. "I knew I could count on you."

I tensed, if he decided to kill us now, I'd have to take my chances. However, Connell glared at me. "Don't get any bright ideas, Eppes," he said. "I'd rather not shoot a fellow agent, but don't think I won't if I have to."

I relaxed a little. As long as Connell thought of me as a "fellow agent" I calculated my odds were much better.

Connell nodded at Allie. "Take the boy genius out to the car. Eppes and I will follow." He glared at me again. "He won't try anything with his pwecious widdle brother's life at stake. Give me a ring on the professor's phone when you get to the car. You know the pattern."

Allie draped a jacket over her gun hand, as if that would look casual. Then she and Charlie walked out the door.

I thought it was ironic. Allie still had the safety on. Even non-combat trained Charlie could have taken her, if he had known she couldn't shoot him.

I'll have to teach him how to notice these things.

Seven very long minutes later, Charlie's desk phone rang twice. There was a pause. Then it rang once and paused again. Then it rang three times. Cute, 213 was the LA area code. I wondered how long it had taken them to come up with that one.

"After you, Boss," Connell smirked.

I really wanted to wipe that smirk off his face with my fist.

I was content, however, to see it drop off his face when he walked into my team's trap.

Megan slapped the cuffs on him and it was all over except the shouting.

Dad generously supplied the shouting.

Or should I say, he supplied a generous amount of it? At a very loud volume, too.

Meanwhile, my twig of a brother had managed expand enough to occupy the entire couch. He had his eyes closed, as if he were asleep. He had a Strohs clutched in his right hand a pressed against his right temple, as if he had a migraine.

I knew neither could be true, or Dad wouldn't be yelling. He had a sixth sense when it came to Charlie's migraines.

I had dragged in a chair from the dining room, so I could straddle it while I sipped my beer. I could leap into action more easily from this position. (I was guarding against an invasion of renegade rib-eyes.)

Dad crouched next to Charlie's head. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, Dad," Charlie said.

"I don't like this."

"I wasn't exactly happy about it, myself," Charlie said faintly.

"Maybe it's time you stopped consulting with me, Buddy," I said after a swallow of beer.

"Maybe you should get into a new line of work," Charlie said.

"I can take care of myself," I protested.

Charlie looked at me, but didn't make a comment about Connell getting the drop on me. Instead he asked. "Don, what are the odds of another one of your agents turning rogue, anyway?"

"Math is your department, Buddy," I said, smiling around the mouth of my beer.

Dad moved Charlie's beer aside and looked at the side of his head. "That bruise looks nasty. You sure you don't need a doctor?"

"I'm okay," Charlie insisted. "I just hit my head when David tackled me out of the way of that awful woman.

"I knew there was a reason to like Sinclair," I said.

Charlie shot me a dirty look. "For tackling me out of harm's way or smacking my head against the door?"

I just grinned.

Dad put his hands on his hips. "All right, one of you had better tell me how Donnie's team managed to show up on time or your old man is going to turn rogue on you!"

I couldn't blame Dad for being a bit testy.

"Um, I dialed into Jamison's computer like they wanted, and sent an SOS," Charlie explained.

"What? You dialed… Wait a minute; I thought Jamison was an arms dealer?" Dad looked at me accusingly, as if I'd left something out. Which I had, come to think of it.

Since the case was over, I could tell him, too. "Actually, 'Jamison' is Colby Granger, who was undercover as an arms dealer to run a sting."

I snorted and added with some bitterness. "Connell found out that there was a deal going down and that there was a mole we were concerned about. He jumped to the conclusion that the mole was spying ON the FBI not FOR the FBI."

Which was why I'd been so reluctant to tell him anything. I've got to protect my crew, right?

Dad caught on. "So Connell decided to grab the arms shipment and let the blame fall on this mysterious mole."

I shrugged. "I guess. His plans still aren't clear to me. I don't think that they were ever really clear to him."

"How did you send a message?" Dad asked Charlie.

It was Charlie's turn to shrug. "I sent out a lot of garbage, which Allie thought was some sort of binary code. She didn't realize that binary code wouldn't have dots and dashes in it."

"So that SOS was literal," Dad said. "Very clever."

Charlie smiled and ducked his head, obviously pleased at the compliment. He's modest that way… sometimes.

"Yeah," I replied. "He's just lucky that neither of those bozos knew what a Xiphoid Process was."

Dad gaped at me and Charlie looked abashed.

"It was the first thing I thought of," he said defensively, rubbing his sternum.

"The Xiphoid Process…?" Dad said. "You mean the bone at the tip of the sternum?"

"Actually, it's cartilage," Charlie corrected.

"It's ossified in adults, that means it's bone," Dad retorted.

"Anyway, that's the beauty of Chuck's rep," I added. "Nobody questions him on technical matters. No matter what nonsense he spouts… reverse pixilation? Backtracking digital communications? For someone who's such a lousy liar, you run a nasty bluff!"

Charlie grinned. "Anybody up for some poker?"

"No!" I said.

"How about dinner?" Dad added quickly.

"What have we got for dessert?" Charlie wanted to know. He scrambled off the couch and followed Dad to the kitchen.

"No dessert until you eat your dinner!" Dad barked.

I could feel the force of Charlie's puppy eyes as he worked on Dad's resolve.

I took advantage of the empty couch to make myself comfortable. I flicked on the TV to see if there was a game on and relaxed.

Some days just end right.