The J. Edgar Hoover Building, where Special Agent Booth worked—the headquarters of the FBI—was conveniently located near Pennsylvania Avenue, where the White House stood, and not far from the Washington Monument and the Capitol. This meant that Booth, like Steve or Bob, could enter the White House before the attack or serve as a mobile reserve force, joining the National Guard to block the militants' escape routes after the attack began. The specifics would depend on Gianna's meeting with Booth in Washington.
Everyone was now in the supercomputer lab, reviewing the profiles of Booth and his partner, Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, who was also the mother of his child. When they discovered that Dr. Brennan, despite being a brilliant forensic anthropologist, had the emotional intelligence of a rock, they couldn't help but laugh.
For some reason, the U.S. seemed to produce an abundance of such high-IQ, low-EQ individuals. Among those present, the chubby kid and Ramzi had once been similar to Dr. Brennan. It was only in the past year, with Castle's strong support, that they had improved somewhat. However, their tendency to stay in the basement lab and spend all their time on the private supercomputer indicated that these highly intelligent hackers still had significant social deficiencies. These flaws were simply less noticeable due to Castle and the others deliberately overlooking them.
But Dr. Brennan was a true case of extreme low emotional intelligence. Even after years of working with Booth and having a child together, the highly intelligent Dr. Brennan still occasionally did things that left people speechless due to her personality quirks. If it weren't for her unparalleled expertise in forensic anthropology, the Jeffersonian Institute would never have kept her on.
Castle, however, genuinely liked Dr. Brennan, despite her low EQ. For some reason, it seemed to be a widely accepted truth in the U.S. that extremely high intelligence often came with extremely low emotional intelligence. This was thoroughly demonstrated in The Big Bang Theory and was also evident in Dr. Brennan.
Aside from Special Agent Seeley Booth, almost everyone around Dr. Brennan was a genius in their field but had glaring personality flaws.
If Castle hadn't been tied up with taking the chubby kid to Andrews Air Force Base, he would have loved to visit the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington to meet Dr. Brennan in person.
But now that he knew about the existence of this quirky character he had admired in his previous life, Castle felt it was a good opportunity. After the attack was thwarted, he could take his daughter to meet this accomplished modern woman and see if she could dissuade Alexis from her bizarre interest in forensic science.
Yes, Alexis, who was now preparing for college, was also giving Castle a headache. She had developed a strong interest in forensic pathology and criminology. Although Castle's interference had prevented her from getting involved with that Ash guy from the original plot, it hadn't changed her fascination with forensic science.
Worse, due to Castle's friendship with Henry Morgan, Henry had become Alexis's internship mentor instead of Renee. As the chief medical examiner of New York's forensic lab and a man who had lived for over two hundred years, Henry was far more authoritative in forensic science than Renee, making Alexis even more obsessed with the field. Now, the young girl was planning to apply to Johns Hopkins University to study medicine after high school or start at Columbia University in New York before pursuing a medical degree.
In the U.S., there were no medical schools that admitted high school students directly. One had to enter university first and then choose to study medicine or apply to medical school.
While Castle was thrilled that his daughter wanted to attend Columbia University, just across Central Park from their Manhattan apartment, he couldn't accept her desire to become a forensic pathologist. Renee and Henry's professions were no secret to Castle—he was a frequent visitor to both their labs—but the thought of his daughter spending her days dealing with corpses was something he absolutely couldn't stomach.
Incidentally, learning about Dr. Brennan in Washington reminded Castle that Lucas, Henry's assistant in the lab, had once been an intern at the Jeffersonian Institute under Dr. Brennan. Lucas was another highly intelligent but eccentric individual who had even spent time in a psychiatric hospital. The thought of his daughter being surrounded by people like Lucas, who performed intestinal obstruction surgery on lab rats, made Castle shudder.
He hoped that Dr. Brennan, with her terrifying laugh and brutally honest personality, could help dissuade Alexis from pursuing a career in forensic science.
Three days later, Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, having wrapped up his work and taken leave, was flown to New York on a private jet arranged by Castle. It wasn't until Big Ivan, sent by Castle to pick him up, brought Steve to the estate on Long Island that Steve learned why the writer had summoned him.
"What? In ten days, a group of militants plans to attack the White House, capture our President, force him to reveal the nuclear launch codes, and then publicly execute him on camera?
And you want me to enter the White House in advance as a bodyguard for the President's political advisor during the campaign, then help the Secret Service fend off the militants when they attack?
Rick, are you kidding me?" Steve was completely stunned. He hadn't expected that Castle's invitation to New York was for something so explosive. Moreover, if they already knew about the planned attack on the White House, why not report it directly to the FBI and Homeland Security? Why did he have to be the one to handle this?
So, Castle had to explain to Steve, who had no prior knowledge of the LockSat organization, why this was necessary. The LockSat organization had infiltrated many sectors of the government, and if Castle reported this to the federal government, the LockSat members would easily find out. If these scumbags abandoned the attack and went back into hiding because of the report, this cancer would continue to grow in the fertile ground of U.S. politics.
Although Jarvis had already identified many LockSat members in the government and military who had been exposed while preparing for the attack, neither Castle nor Benjamin had any reason to go after these scoundrels before the attack. The emphasis on "evidence" wasn't always a good thing. So, Benjamin had to take some risks to play out this scenario to firmly establish the evidence of the LockSat organization's involvement in the attack on the U.S. President and the White House.
Fortunately, Steve was not only an experienced warrior but had also led a law enforcement task force in Hawaii for a long time. After Castle showed him the intelligence on the LockSat organization, Amir Barkawi, and the Japanese intelligence agency's collusion, the Annapolis Naval Academy graduate, who had worked in Naval Intelligence for five years and served as a Navy SEAL commander on missions worldwide, ultimately agreed to Castle's plan.
Especially after learning that the President was also aware of the impending attack and had agreed to Castle's plan to "lure out the snake," Steve had no objections to entering the White House in advance and, along with Bob Lee Swagger, forming a defense line during the attack.
Speaking of Bob, Steve actually knew him. The Navy had once tried to recruit Bob from the Marine Corps to the SEALs, but unfortunately, the SEALs were part of the Navy, while Bob served in the Marine Corps, which was under the Department of the Navy. So, despite the SEALs' envy of Bob, the world's strongest sniper, they could only drool over him from afar…
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Mutter"]
[Every 100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]