Chapter Nineteen
Pandora's Box Part Two

"You have about ten seconds before I demonstrate the phrase 'sanction with extreme prejudice'." Castle growled into the phone.

"Hello Rick," Sophia Turner said calmly into the line, "nice to see that retirement hasn't dulled your combat skills."

"Sophia?" Castle asked, "what the hell?"

The call had lasted less than a minute before Castle tossed the phone back to the man. Only enough words had been spoken between him and Sophia to confirm her identity, ensure to his satisfaction that the retrieval op was legit and his cooperation would be appreciated before she hung up

The as-yet unnamed younger agent held out a black bag to slip over his head, which Castle declined. It was clear that Sophia's clearance had not been upgraded sufficiently over the years to be read in on his "upgrades" or she would have either altered her tactics, or sent a larger tac team. So Castle knew he had the upper hand in these "negotiations".

"Sir, it's procedure," the man urged, feeling more than a little exposed.

"Son," Castle replied, with more than a little contempt, "I can assure you that if you work for Agent Turner, my security clearance more than exceeds yours, hers too for that matter. Since your mission orders were clearly retrieval, not sanction, I'm well aware your passenger windows are likely blacked out. To be honest, I really thought Sophia was above all this sophomoric cloak and dagger crap."

When the agent didn't back down, Castle produced his own secure phone, his eyes boring into the young man.

"If you prefer," Castle stated, his tone cold as ice, "I could call my handler and let her rip your boss a new asshole for you, I'm sure Agent Turner would love that. Antarctica Station is lovely this time of year, so I'm told."

The young agent - clearly on his first field assignment - weighed his life choices. Though blinded by the black bag, it was clear that Kate was gathering herself to spring into action now that the barrel of a gun was not pressed to her head.

"The way I see it son, with your tactical team down for the count, without my cooperation your options are rather limited here, I'd hate to be forced to rough you up now that I know we play for the same team."

He'd said that last part for Kate's benefit so she'd know to stand down. With the danger was past, for now, he didn't see the need for her to kick the wrong guy's ass even if he had gotten the drop on her and she was embarrassed. If things went well, he would see if a sparring session was in the cards.

Watching Kate kick this young upstart's ass would be welcome entertainment, not to mention a boost for her ego. She'd been beaten down by circumstance once too often lately, and she could use the lift. But if he and Kate were going to apprehend Gage and get him to talk, in the here and now, he was going to need Kate to play nice.

Wisely the young operative recognized his severely weakened bargaining position. Tactical team down, the man who put them down staring him in the face, a lot more capable than his boss had lead him to believe, leaving him feeling like a sacrificial lamb offered up for slaughter.

In the end the young operative nodded his assent before calling for extraction.

Castle did his best to keep Kate calm as they rode in the back of the blacked out SUV, the fingers of his organic hand stroking hers folded on her lap. He wasn't entirely certain if she were shaking with nerves, or with rage at being taken out of play so easily. Possibly a little of both, knowing her. Castle thought to himself.

He knew Kate was the more vulnerable of the two of them in this situation. With his high security clearance - and Gina to intercede on his behalf - Sophia didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of detaining him for long, Kate, however, was in a much more precarious position than she was immediately aware.

Though there was only a finite period of time that Sophia could reasonably detain an NYPD detective incommunicado on US soil without incident, she could hold Kate long enough to clean house, then stonewall her investigation almost indefinitely after her release, making it nearly impossible to either take Gage down for murder, or get to the bottom of what was really going on. Not to mention what Sophia could do to Kate's career if she felt like it.

He was well aware that Kate had done quite a few suspect things during her career in her drive to get justice for her mother's murder before he met her. Montgomery had shielded her as best he could from the consequences of most of them before he was killed, but Gates would certainly not be quite so willing to let Kate slide if some of her past indiscretions were presented to her the wrong way on top of a complaint from a federal agent.

Rick had seen Gina do a hell of a lot worse, just for the hell of it.

Castle knew that he would need to have a few minutes alone with Sophia to discuss the rules of engagement before things escalated. Unlike the situation with Victoria Gates, this conversation would require a much more subtle touch than he knew Gina was capable of. He would hate to have to retaliate against Sophia should she decide to get heavy handed, but he would do it without remorse if she forced the issue. If Sophia thought their past relationship would make him go easy on her if she messed with Kate, she had another thing coming.

"Kate, we've pulled into the building and the engine stopped," He whispered in Kate's ear, "we'll sort this out soon."

When Kate nodded slowly, Castle ran his thumb soothingly over her knuckles one more time before the door opened on his side. He sprang out the door fast enough for the older of the two to reach for a sidearm, but they relaxed when he circled the suburban in time to intercept Agent Corrigan as he reached for her arm. From his his body language it was clear he wasn't going to be gentle in an effort to establish dominance.

A glower from Castle was all it took for the man to back off and let him help her from the back seat. The fact that he wasn't blindfolded and was at her back was the only thing keeping her grounded as it was. The sooner they got her into the elevator and the black bag off her head, the better Castle would feel about it.

He'd be keeping an eye on Corrigan from now on.

**Author's note** Here it is, the next installment as promised. I'm still committed to moving this story forward, though I might skip ahead a bit further into Pandora/Linchpin as a lot of this would not be substantially different from canon and I want to tell my own story.