Reading Time: 147 Minutes

Title: To Fix What’s Broken One Last Time
Author: ImaliFegen89
Fandom: Burn Notice
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Crime Drama, Episode Related, Het, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Relationship(s): Michael Westen/Fiona Glenanne
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Canon-level/graphic violence, canon-level mental/physical torture, mild suicidal thoughts, non-consensual drugging, non-explicit sexual content, canon-level discussions/hallucinations of child abuse, DIscussion-domestic violence , death-minor characters, canonical deaths, kidnapping, explicit language, canon-level alcoholism, use of bio-weapons.
Beta: Rangersyl, Taiamu
Alpha: Aethir
Word Count: 187,781
Summary: After killing his mentor, Tom Card, Michael decided to surrender instead of running away. He thought that was the best way to keep his friends and what was left of his family safe. Little did he know that fate had other plans.
Artist: AngelicInsanity

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Part Five – To be Dragged Back into the Fold

Chapter 13

The Federal Aviation Administration Centre
58th Street
Miami-Dade County

Agent Dani Pearce sat on the passenger side of the black, unmarked SUV, staring out at the blurring scenery through the tinted window. She was tired, worn out to the bone, and severely jet lagged.

The call had arrived just after eight. She had returned home a little after seven, just as she had been doing for the past two years at the end of yet another exciting day at the office staring at mountains of reports on all kinds of Mumbai’s lucrative businesses. For all intents and purposes, she was there as a business consultant, which she actually was, from time to time, when she wasn’t wading through the exhaustive muck looking for counterfeiting needles hidden in massive haystacks of their imports and exports.

The phone had started ringing just as she was curling around herself on her comfy sofa with her dinner.

“You’re being recalled,” said the voice on the other end of the call. The ‘703’ prefix left a little doubt of its origin, “There’s a new assignment.”

That was all it took to rearrange her life yet again.

She had been with Langley under contract for sixteen years. She was used to it. But the speed with which things actually moved after the initial call even took her by surprise. She hadn’t seen that kind of urgency attached to a recall since…well, the 9/11 incident.

The twenty two hours that followed were a blur. Her itinerary that had arrived in an email required her to make it to the airport, which was located about twenty miles from where she lived, in less than half the time it would usually have required. The urgency had forced her to break a number of traffic laws, and dig out the reflexes from her army days to drive. But she had made it on time to make it to the private jet the agency had diverted to bring her back home.

After nineteen hours in the air, she had finally landed at a private airfield at Fort Lauderdale, where she had been swiftly collected by a company driver to bring her to the field office in Miami-Dade county.

She found it peculiar that they brought her to Miami, instead of Virginia or DC. If the location itself was a clue, she could only think of one person who had the tenacity to get the lumbering bureaucratic wheels of Langley to spin breaking records at NASCAR.

She didn’t even want to imagine what Michael Westen had done this time for the agency to pull her out like that with no warning, from what had essentially been a post of reprimand.

“Ma’am,” said the driver, breaking her out from her thoughts, “We’re here.”

That was when she realised that they were parked at the entrance of the local FAA.

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” She flashed a weary smile at the driver before getting out of the vehicle. The SUV took off without further delay, along with the rest of her baggage except for the small backpack of essentials she kept with her. That was how it always worked. She would reunite with the rest of her belongings at some point, wherever she ended up next with this ‘new assignment.’

Another surprise greeted her when she found the assistant director, Reginald Meyers, waiting for her in the office that used to be hers when she was last there. The tall, dark skinned man in his early sixties was a living legend at the HQ. With a highly distinguished career spanning over four decades behind him, he was the head of Clandestine Services. It was also a well-known fact that he only left his comfortable corner office at Langley to travel when his presence was an absolute requirement to deal with a brewing disaster.

He was standing behind the desk, gazing pensively over the expanding view of Southeastern Miami the 12th floor of the FAA building offered.

At her knock, he turned and nodded at her to enter.

“Take a seat, Pearce.” he said once she locked the door behind her.

“Thank you, sir.” She said, doing as instructed, and glanced at the three thick folders that were on his side of the table.

Meyers walked over and pushed the files towards her. She noticed that all three of them had the ‘classified’ seal on top with the familiar name at the bottom.

“I guess you don’t need an introduction on this man.”

“Sir,” she said noncommittally, and opened the first file.

Her introduction to Michael Westen four years ago had been an interesting one. At the beginning, she had tentatively trusted him, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt. Despite what his atrocious, allegedly-altered file told her, she had recruited him to help on Max Newman’s murder investigation. Then she had lost all that faith when she had discovered how Westen had been deceiving her the entire time, keeping the fact that he had been at the crime scene from the start, and that all evidence pointed towards him being the killer. Then, everything had turned upside down again when Westen and his merry band of vigilantes managed to trap the actual killer and coax out a confession.

It had taken time to build up that broken trust. It had required patience and a few missions where she had witnessed firsthand how he truly operated. Those had been fascinating experiences, to say the least, and she had been reluctantly impressed. He possessed an incredibly agile mind to adapt to unpredictable changes to missions on the spot, and had an uncanny ability to salvage operations that seemed utterly unsalvageable. She had gotten to know the man beneath the operative – his uncompromising values, and the depths of his loyalty to the ones who had earned it, especially when he had gone all in with her to take down the man who had killed her fiancé all those years ago.

It had taken time and trials, but Dani had finally come to believe that there may have been some truth to Westen’s claims that his record had been altered by a shadowy organisation, in order to have him burned.

It had been his crusade to unearth the hidden illegal network that had gotten her transferred to India, since she had skirted the rules to get him some of the answers he needed. Although she had hated the blow to her career, Dani had never regretted the decisions she had made. Because by then, she had come to trust him and his friends implicitly.

Then again, she knew that people changed. It had been two years without any contact and she didn’t even know where Michael’s quest for answers and justice had led him in the end. The implications of having three classified files and an assistant director with a grave expression in front of her, hinted that things may have gone down a dangerous path.

The first file she opened was a murder investigation of a senior agent named Tom Card.

“A little over a year ago, Michael Westen killed Senior Agent Tom Card at the Intercontinental, Miami – shot him point blank in cold blood–”

Dani opened the file and started to skim the reports, partially to see the evidence herself and partially to hide her reaction to the blunt proclamation by the director. There were autopsy reports of Tom Card and an ex-marine named Tyler Gray, whom Dani assumed was the sniper that shot Anson and Michael’s brother. Then there was a detailed incident report from another agent named Olivia Riley, the agent who had been in charge of securing the scene and subsequently arresting Michael.

“… he surrendered to the agent in charge at the scene,” director Meyers continued, looking down at Dani from across the table. “He was then transferred to Guantanamo Bay for detention indefinitely–”

Dani looked up from her reading at that.

“Wasn’t there a trial, sir? According to Riley, he confessed,” she asked, doing her best not to let her emotions bleed into her indifferent tone.

A transfer to a blacksite meant Michael was off the books, which in turn meant he lost all his rights – not only as an ex-asset, or even an American citizen, but as a human being – the moment he was carted off to Cuba. It took immense effort on her part not to react to the way Meyers went on, as if it was all a perfect punishment for a perfect crime. It felt wrong to her, somehow, especially since she had already noted the inconsistencies in the file in her hand: such as the missing copy of Michael’s formal debrief after his arrest.

“Was the transfer off the books or was there some kind of a deal?” She added innocently.

“A deal? For a murderer?” Meyers, Dani noted, had a hard time keeping his own emotions in check. He glared at the file in her hand contemptuously. “You and I both know after a colourful career like his, all a trial would have done is get him to spend the rest of his life in a nice, little secure facility here at home. Westen didn’t deserve that after everything he’d done. It would have been a waste of an asset, even a dangerous, out of control one like he is. He had other uses–”

Dani didn’t do anything outwardly other than nodding passively to let her superior know she understood. In the mental list she was compiling, tracking down the post-arrest interview had just made the top spot, or finding out if there even was one.

One thing she knew about Michael Westen, was that he didn’t kill, not when it wasn’t extremely necessary. For him to have gunned down an agent of Tom Card’s calibre – short of a mental breakdown – there must have been a glaring necessity. Dani knew she had to find out exactly what that was.

Closing the file to thoroughly review it later, she moved onto the next.

“There was an incident in Cuba two weeks ago–” Meyers said as the images of a burning wreckage of a Globemaster on what looked to be a small airfield greeted Dani when she opened the file. There were police reports in Spanish along with English translations.

“Westen was being returned to camp when a group of mercenaries attacked the military cargo plane on the runway upon landing. They killed two military personnel, along with three agents. They took Westen. It’s still unclear whether it was a kidnapping or a prearranged jailbreak–”

Dani saw the crime scene photos of the said agents and soldiers. They weren’t a pretty sight. A supervisory agent called Andrew Strong seemed to be the only one who had been recovered from the scene alive. Then he succumbed to his injuries and died in the hospital two days later.

“There’s a team on site still investigating,” Meyers continued, his tone implying heavily that somehow Michael had arranged for all those people to be killed so he could get out. Exactly how he could have managed all that from inside of a cell in Guantanamo Bay, Dani had no clue. Or why he would go through all that to break out of a jail he had willingly walked into. Not to mention the fact that the director’s favoured theory didn’t align with Michael’s character or the way he operated in the slightest.

To her, it was starting to look like the director and his team of investigators were intent on pinning the responsibility of the assault and the deaths on Michael’s shoulders. And, just like the first file, she could already see that, either by coincidence or deliberate act, there was plenty of information missing.

She looked up with a frown she hoped conveyed curiosity, not anger. “Why was he out of prison?”

“Agent Strong,” said Meyers, shrugging in a way to suggest that it was just an insignificant detail that had no impact on the grand scheme of things, “He was in charge of a top-secret mission to apprehend a highly-dangerous terrorist, Randall Burke, a former associate of Westen’s. He needed Westen’s involvement in certain areas of the operation–”

Dani flipped a few more pages, and her eyes went wide when she saw where the operation had taken place. “Here in Miami?”

She had an uneasy inkling about the scenario she was being fed and the crucial information that was being kept from her, or being brushed aside as unimportant. If there was one thing that could drive Michael Westen off the rails, that would be a threat against his friends and family.

“Yes,” Meyers nodded. “The details of the operations are there, in the next file, along with everything Strong had on Randall Burke. Everything you need to know, it’s all there.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it,” Dani smiled, closing the file.

She had a feeling the next file was also the same, with all the reports and details the director thought were necessary, not everything, despite his claim. She would have to go through all of them slowly and carefully, before figuring out exactly what story was being orchestrated and what really took place.

“If I may ask, what precisely is my involvement at this stage of the operation?”

“Roughly forty eight hours ago, Westen surrendered to the US embassy in Havana,” Meyers revealed. “He was handed over to the investigation team already there. He refused to debrief. He initially requested Strong, and when he was informed of the agent’s death, well… he requested you.”

Dani stared at him, this time not bothering to hide her shock. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” Meyers said, finally dropping onto his seat in frustration. “Like I said, he’s not feeling talkative. The team’s been trying to get him to crack for two days, no luck.”

I hope they haven’t resorted to breaking out the electrodes, she thought to herself glumly. While it had all the facilities to securely hold a few international criminals until their logistics were sorted, an embassy wasn’t necessarily a place where the said criminals could be thoroughly interrogated. That was the reason they had blacksites. By surrendering on the embassy grounds, Michael had brought himself some time. For what, Dani didn’t know yet.

“What do you want me to do, sir?”

“Get over to Cuba and handle his debrief,” said Meyers. “Find out everything he knows and what he’s been up to for the last ten days since his escape. And once that’s done, I want you to take over Agent Strong’s operation to take Burke down.”

“How about the investigation on the assault?” Dani inquired, knowing that it was going to be an integral part of Strong’s op.

“You’ll meet the team handling it at the embassy, they’ll report to you,” Meyers replied. “But, your main focus should be on finding and apprehending Randall Burke. I want you to squeeze Westen out of every bit of intel he has on the terrorist and figure out a plan of attack.”

“I need full control of the operation, sir,” Dani informed her boss pleasantly. “I need freedom to pursue all avenues I believe are relevant, including resources, support and assets.”

“You’ll have whatever you need,” Meyers said, pinning her with a narrow-eyed gaze. “Provided that you manage to make Westen talk, of course.”

Michael had requested her. She had no doubts that he would talk to her. She had a feeling he was running out of people to trust, and calling out to her had been somewhat of a desperate act. That was more than enough reason for her to take complete control of this operation, just as Westen had meant to happen by stubbornly holding onto whatever information he had. That way, she would be able to get to the bottom of whatever he had gotten himself tangled in this time around.

“I’ll do my best.” She said simply, not letting any of her thoughts show up on her carefully blank expression.

“I’m leaving now,” Meyers said, glancing at his watch, “I expect updates as soon as possible once you’ve made contact. Your flight leaves for Cuba in an hour.”

Dani decided to give the director a quick preview on exactly how she wished to run her operation. “No, it won’t, sir.”

Meyers’ eyes went wide in surprise. “Pardon me?”

“You just handed me the reins, sir,” Dani replied calmly. “To get Westen to talk, and to make sure he leaves nothing out, I’m going to need to know all about the operation Agent Strong handled here in Miami first–”

The director’s irritated gaze turned into one of calculation, as if he was trying to parse out if she had ulterior motives, such as prioritising helping an old friend out over the mission. Michael was the one who held the cards, and Dani was the one he had picked to share. Since the mission to capture Randall Burke seemed to be one with very high priority, that gave Dani a lot more leverage while in charge of that mission.

“Westen has vulnerabilities that I can exploit,” she said, not letting the revulsion she felt uttering those words play on her expression. “To do that, I need to learn everything that happened leading to his current situation. Trust me, sir. I won’t waste time chasing unnecessary avenues.”

“Fine,” Meyers nodded, reluctantly mollified. “But I expect you in Cuba to interrogate him no later than twenty four hours,” he ordered, leaving no room for debate. “Whatever you need to do, get it done before that, Agent Pearce, understood?”

Twenty four hours was still better than just one. She could get a much better understanding of exactly what was going on during that time period. Dani smiled and nodded. “Crystal, sir.”

Carlito’s Restaurant
Miami

Agents were trained to read Intelligence files, and it was a skill that took time to master. Most of the time, raw intelligence was presented as stacks of unrelated documents, reports, receipts, transcripts and such. You had to go through all of them carefully, sticking with them long enough to sort them according to relevance and emerging patterns. The other thing you had to keep in mind, was that not all the information given to you was reliable, or relevant. Which was why it was a good practice to check the source once you were done with the file. Your workload doubled in the rare case that you couldn’t really trust the source that provided you with the file. That was when you had to pursue the things that were not in the file to begin with.

The files were incomplete, just as Dani had feared. Everything that was in them led to the neat little analysis that had been attached to Strong’s case file at the end: Michael Westen was somehow in league with the most wanted terrorist, Randall Burke, and they both needed to be apprehended, at any cost.

Randall Burke had a connection to Michael, which was true. They had both been involved in a mission in Afghanistan several years before Burke had gone rogue. But there was nothing else connecting them until the terrorist surfaced in Miami out of nowhere, looking for Michael, who had been locked up at Guantanamo Bay for over fourteen months by then.

The only reason Dani could figure out for Burke to appear in Miami was to contact Michael’s family. Since being transferred to the black site usually meant disappearing off the surface of the planet, Burke would have figured the next best thing was to see if his friends and family knew his whereabouts.

There were no details, records or after-action reports on the mission Strong conducted in Miami with Michael in tow. The only things that were on the file were the prisoner transfer logs for Michael, the usual logistics, equipment, weapons and staff requests, a rap sheet of a person of interest under the name of ‘Dexter Gamble’, some surveillance photos of that person making contact with Michael’s friends and nothing much else.

After four coffees and three hours spent on reading and rereading the three heavily doctored files, Dani was more than convinced that what she needed was the other side of the story.

Which was how she found herself sitting at a corner table of Calito’s, with her fifth coffee since arriving at the field office, waiting for one of the four people who could actually give her exactly that.

“Agent Dani Pearce.”

Dani turned around at the sound of the jovial greeting, and stood up with a smile to return the enthusiastic embrace the ex-CIFA agent, Jesse Porter, offered. She took him in when they parted, noting the weariness in his gaze even though his joy at seeing her seemed genuine. It was yet another indicator that a lot had happened since her transfer, and she needed to catch up as quickly as possible.

“Looks like Mumbai’s been good for you.” He said as he took the seat across from her.

“Jesse Porter,” Dani shook her head. “Still need some work on that poker face of yours.”

“Hey! I can’t just come out and say you look like shit, now can I?” Jesse grinned mischievously. “That’s a nasty way to greet an old friend. So, what’s up?”

Dani decided to play her cards straight. She was on a deadline as it was and she had a feeling Michael needed her presence at the embassy sooner than later.

“I got recalled,” she revealed. “I have a new case. One that involves a terrorist named Randall Burke and our mutual trouble magnet.”

Jesse’s entire demeanour changed at her words so quickly and completely that for a moment, it looked like a stranger had replaced him – a highly suspicious, wary stranger that started eyeing her as if she was the enemy.

“You found him,” he demanded in a low, impatient tone, “Tell me you found him.”

Feeling rather taken aback by his sudden change, Dani stared at him, confused and uncertain.

“Pearce, I need to know,” Jesse repeated. “Please.”

It was the heartfelt plea that did it. There was a story there that she really needed to learn as quickly as possible.

“I met with AD Meyers only four hours before I called you,” she said softly. “That’s the reason why I was pulled from my station to get here. He told me that Michael’s at our embassy in Havana–”

“Is he in one piece?”

“I wasn’t given any reason to believe otherwise,” Dani said, beginning to feel as agitated as Jesse seemed. “What the hell’s going on, Porter?”

Jesse took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, visibly trying to calm himself down. “There’s one thing you need to understand right now, Dani,” he said, his voice still low. “As things stand, the others and I have no reason to trust anyone from the Company when it comes to Michael, none at all. I’ll tell you what we know, after you tell me what you know, and what you’ve been told.”

She found it curious that he phrased his request like that, as if he already knew that she had been told a version of things by her superiors that didn’t quite align with the truth. It also didn’t help that he seemed to have erected an invisible barrier between them, as if that they were on two sides as things stood, and that she needed to gain his trust again in order to be accepted.

“He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” She sighed. It wasn’t even a question at that point. The real question was what kind of trouble and how deep he was in it.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Jesse said. “And it’s not really his fault this time, if you can believe it. Langley was responsible for what happened to him.”

The way he said it let her know that he was quite convinced of the fact too. Which meant she had to share what she knew in order to learn what wasn’t in the files.

“Fine,” she said, deciding to take the leap of faith first. “Here’s what I know…”

She filled him in on everything she had learned from the files she had been given by the director. She revealed what she knew about Michael’s involvement in Tom Card’s murder, his arrest and his subsequent transfer to the black site.

“Did the reports say why he killed him?” Jesse asked with a knowing gleam in his narrow-eyed gaze.

“No,” Dani admitted. “There was no copy of his interview or the final crime scene report. All it had were some photos and Riley’s final account on what happened.”

“Alright then,” Jesse nodded, as if it was exactly what he had been expecting. “So they’re feeding you the bits and pieces to fit the narrative they’ve already decided. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Are you saying Michael didn’t shoot Card?” Dani inquired, starting to feel extremely uneasy by each passing second.

“Oh no, he did,” Jesse said. “What’s missing in your file is the reason why he did it. We were there at the hotel to get the bastard to confess. We had Tyler Gray, the sniper who shot Anson, working with us–”

Dani stared at Jesse, wide eyed. Did she hear that right?

“You got Michael to work together with the guy who shot his brother?” She blurted incredulously.

“Well, long story short, we tracked Gray to Panama,” Jesse explained. “The asshole tried to get us killed. Didn’t work. We caught him, and he dropped the bomb that Card was behind it all, that he was working under Card’s orders. We didn’t believe that story at first, until the bastard called up an F-18 air strike on us. Card tried to wipe us all out in one fell swoop, but we got away. Another CIA agent died during that screw up. Then Mike and Gray got caught by a gang of drug traffickers. They worked something out and managed to get out. We stole a plane, again, and on the way back Mike talked Gray into switching sides, and working with us to bring Card down.”

Dani blinked, trying to put all of that together. There was a lot Jesse wasn’t saying, that much was obvious. But the gist of it was that somehow Michael had joined forces with the same man he hunted in order to bring the puppet master down.

“Michael working with his brother’s killer, Card wouldn’t have seen that coming.” she muttered almost to herself, realising the reason Michael would have gone to such extreme lengths.

“That was exactly the plan,” Jesse nodded, continuing. “But the meeting didn’t go down the way we wanted. Card had smelled a rat and he came prepared. When his own teams started surrounding the hotel, Michael went in to get Gray out. Card killed Gray and Michael killed Card. What your people are hiding here is the reason.”

“Which is?”

“Card was Anson’s inside man,” Jesse said, surprising her in the worst way yet again. She knew all about Anson Fullerton, or at least, what the agency had on him and what they learned during that investigation. Learning that Fullerton’s plan to revive the rogue cabal within their own ranks hadn’t died with him as it should have was a revelation that sent a chill down her spine.

“Michael said Card tried to talk him into working with him to continue the work of that damned Organisation again,” Jesse went on as she continued to stay silent, trying to absorb what he was saying. “Now, we weren’t there, and we still don’t know what exactly Card said to Michael. But for some reason, our man decided killing him was the best option available. After that, he made sure we got out of there before surrendering himself to Agent Riley.”

“If that little fact had made it into records,” said Dani, piecing things together, “Even the slightest thing connecting Card to Fullerton, Langley would have had to launch an investigation into Card’s career, if only to tie up loose ends, at least–”

“It’s just the word of a disgraced, burned spy against the reputation of a highly respected senior agent who got killed in cold blood.” Jesse added in a bitingly sarcastic tone, “Why open up a can of worms when you could easily make sure those flimsy accusations never saw the light of the day, yeah?”

“Instead, they carted Michael off to Cuba without a trial for indefinite detention.” Dani finished his line of thought out loud, finding herself agreeing with what Jesse was rather scathingly implying.

“Why muddy the waters when you can bury the murderer in some hellhole to use him when you see fit, right? What’s the harm in that? He deserves it, right?”

“Jesse–”

“On top of it, they slapped a classified seal on his file and made everything around that clusterfuck radioactive,” Jesse continued right over her, still very much furious. “None of us had any idea what happened until this scumbag, Dexter Gamble, started sniffing around us looking for him.”

Dani understood how he felt and sympathised. All of them, including Sam Axe and Fiona Glenanne, had contacts they could have used to find out about Michael. By classifying his status, the agency had made sure that Michael was cut off from his previous life completely, leaving everyone in his life in the dark about his situation. A year of fruitless searching would have left them extremely worried about Michael and righteously pissed off at the agency.

“Dexter Gamble has a rap sheet a mile long and he’s a person of interest on almost every continent,” Dani said, recalling what she had read. “But what I don’t know is why he was here, sniffing around you guys, looking for Michael.”

“He was hired by Burke,” said Jesse, “He tried to stab Sam, hacked my servers and when all that failed, kidnapped Fiona to bargain her in exchange for Mike.”

Dani cursed, and then winced.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Also what’s not in your file is that your Agent Strong’s plan was to use Mike for bait. He tagged him like a dog and brought him here thinking he could throw him at Burke and see if he’d bite, only the mission didn’t go as planned.”

“It wasn’t even a deal, was it?” Dani said, feeling disgusted at the whole thing. Strong had been pushing limits and crossing all kinds of lines. No wonder there were no records on the highly illegal and unethical operation he had conducted, on home soil, no less. “Strong pointed out that you guys were in danger and Michael had no other option but to go along with it.”

“Now you get it,” Jesse agreed. “Gamble made his play, saying he would kill Fiona if we couldn’t find Michael for him. What we didn’t know was that Strong and his team were shadowing us the entire time. Then out of nowhere, Michael showed up for the exchange.”

“By himself?” Dani raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“We learned from Michael later on that Strong initially agreed to help save Fi,” Jesse said. “But he diverted his team enroute when they suddenly got a lead about Burke showing up at an airfield in Lauderdale. So Michael decided to take things into his own hands and split from Strong. When he came back to haul Mike out, we learned that the lead turned out to be a hoax.”

“The rescue went well, I hope?” Dani asked softly, dreading the answer. If that operation had gotten Fiona hurt, Michael definitely wouldn’t be the same person she would be meeting in twenty hours.

“It got a little hairy,” Jesse said, shrugging. “We got Fiona out, unharmed, but Gamble didn’t make it.”

He didn’t sound very torn up about it, Dani noted. And she didn’t blame him. She was, however, relieved to find out that Fiona had made it out unscathed. “What happened after that?”

“Now that we knew where he was, I spoke to a contact of mine in Cuba,” said Jesse, “That’s how I learned the next day about the attack on the CIA transport back to the camp. Sam talked to a buddy of his who told us about the deaths and Strong’s critical condition.”

“He didn’t make it.” Dani added.

“Yeah, we heard,” he nodded. “Anyway, we knew Burke got to Mike. To this day, we don’t know why. We weren’t even sure if Mike was alive at this point until you showed up with the good news.”

“I don’t know how good the news is, Jesse, to be honest,” Dani sighed wearily, feeling her mind spinning in a hundred directions at once. “I don’t even know how much of this is being kept under wraps. The investigation on that attack is already being steered towards making it look like Michael arranged the whole thing to escape–”

“He didn’t,” Jesse protested vehemently. “It doesn’t even make sense. The entire reason that man was hellbent on staying put in that hole without doing a thing to defend himself was to keep the rest of us and what’s left of his family safe. He would never do that!”

“I understand, Jesse, I do,” Dani said quietly, “In fact, I’m beginning to think that’s the reason he requested me, specifically, for his debrief. Meyers told me they handed him over to the team on site, but our man isn’t talking.”

“He could use a friend. He doesn’t have any left in the agency, and he’s probably counting on you not to pull a stunt like Strong when you learn whatever he’s got to say…”

“Jesse, I’d never!”

“I know,” Jesse said, averting his eyes to look over the ocean in the distance. “But you might have to.”

“What?!”

Jesse took a deep breath and let it out slowly before turning back to her. “I’m guessing your boss wants you to debrief Mike and take over Strong’s investigation, right? Because Mike isn’t willing to deal with anyone else.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“If he killed Burke and escaped, then that’d be the end of that mission. Then your people can haul him back to the camp until the next round.”

“Shit,” Dani shook her head, grimacing at the prospect. Michael was a friend, and she was having a hard time reconciling with what he had been through during the time she hadn’t been around. “I’d hope not.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jesse said. “But, if he had managed to get intel on this guy and his work, you’d need him to be involved as much as possible, wouldn’t you? Because, he’d be your way in.”

“Well, yeah,” Dani frowned. “Where are you going with this?”

“Dani, Mike’s changed,” he said slowly. “Nate’s death hit him in a way none of us saw coming. Whatever information he has for you, the chances are, he’d share it with you and walk away.”

“What?”

“That’s why Sam, Fi and I started digging around the moment we learned about what happened,” Jesse said. “We were trying to figure out where Burke took him. Sam and Fi went to Cuba just last week to backtrack a few leads. They’re at Baracoa beach right now.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll be relieved to find out that Michael is alive and at the embassy–”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Jesse said, and a faint trace of a smile appeared when Dani did a double take. “I mean, they’re gonna be happy he’s in one piece, but not so much about the fact that he once again handed himself over to the authorities. The preferred option here would have been recovering Mike and disappearing with him where your people couldn’t find him.”

“After what I learned today, I’d even look away if it comes to that,” Dani said, shaking her head. She wasn’t even joking. “But, I’ll do my best to get him a better option than that.”

“That’s better than nothing.”

“Anyway, why’d you get left behind?”

“Someone had to keep an eye on Maddie and Charlie,” Jesse shrugged. “I drew the short straw.”

“Charlie? That’s Michael’s brother’s son, right?”

“Yeah,” said Jesse, “Mike’s mom is in the process of getting his custody. Mommy dearest fell off the wagon and started using all kinds of drugs a few months back. It’s a shit show.”

Dani nodded, and stayed quiet, unsure how to respond. It seemed that the fallout from Anson’s death was still haunting the entire Westen family.

“When he talks to you, Mike’s going to ask you to keep him out of it, whatever it is, as long as he feels like he could endanger any of us by getting involved,” Jesse spoke up again after a moment. “I think that’s why he asked for you. He trusts you. So, if it looks like your operation is going to need him, reach out to us first. We’ll help with anything you need to keep him out of Gitmo. Who knows, if all of us start nagging at him from all corners we might just be able to get him to cave, you know what I mean?”

She knew exactly what he was implying. Blackmailing Michael with the well-being of his friends and family was one thing she’d never do, even if she was ordered to. But, if those said friends were willing to get involved on their own volition, there really wasn’t much Michael could do to stop them, other than agreeing to get involved himself. If only to make sure his people stayed safe.

“I do,” Dani said, returning his smile.

“If it turns out to be a dead end, promise me one thing?” Jesse pinned her with a serious look.

“What is it?”

“That you’ll at least make sure the Company isn’t going to make a scapegoat out of him just because it’s the convenient thing to do?” he asked sincerely. “He’s given up and there’s no one fighting in his corner–”

Dani understood his concern. Michael had been thrown under the bus one too many times, since the moment his burn notice went up. He never really got the chance to clear his name, and lost too much in his fight to get back in. Now, he was once again caught in the middle of another dangerous web he hadn’t even wanted to get tangled in the first place, and his friends had gotten caught in the crossfire right along with him.

She needed to make sure that he didn’t end up shouldering the brunt of the aftermath, not if it was undeserved. That was what Jesse was asking her to do, to give the man a fair chance.

“Thank you for being frank with me,” she said, feeling as if she had a goal and a direction for the first time since the call she had answered from the other side of the hemisphere. “I’m glad I got to talk to you. As for this mission, well…they gave it to the pitbull. You know me. I don’t let go of anything until I get to the bitter end. I can promise you that I’ll get to the bottom of this mess, wherever it actually leads me. Not where the Company would like me to take it.”

Jesse stood up with her and shook her hand with a solemn nod. “I’ll take it.”

Chapter 14

Interrogation Room – Security Wing
US Diplomatic Mission
Calzada
Havana
Cuba

As a spy, finding yourself caught in the wrong side of the fight was always a possibility, although only a rare twist of fate could turn your own side to the wrong side. It was not a pleasant place to be either way, and that was why the spies got trained on how to deal with all types of interrogation.

While his ordeal at Oksana Zhirkova’s hands had been relatively short, it had been a brutal and excruciatingly painful week of physical torture. Still, it was the expected outcome, since Micahel had been responsible for the total dismantling of her operations, turning her into his sworn enemy. Torturing an enemy for information, revenge or propaganda was par for the course, an understandable course of action, even if knowing that hadn’t made enduring it any easier.

However, things tended to be quite different, complicated and not quite black-and-white when you found yourself the enemy number one on your own side, which was what Michael became the moment he stepped inside the embassy grounds.

Even though he had expected it all, the constant, almost tangible contempt that was directed at him on all sides was still a difficult thing to deal with, as was the complete isolation. The only time when he knew that he wasn’t actually forgotten by everyone was when he was led out of his cell to meet the lead agent of the investigation team they already had in the country – the man whose single bullheaded determination was to get Michael to talk before Pearce arrived.

There were times when Michael had to wonder which form of torture he actually preferred: the electrocution and waterboarding by an enemy or being contained and treated like a level-4 biohazard by his own people.

During his time under Zhirkova’s mercy, Mcihael had at least known where he stood, and exactly what his future held. That knowledge had provided the determination and strength he had needed to make his escape. Now, a prisoner of what used to be his own agency for the second time, he had no such clear distinctions. He had shown up and thrown his chips up in the air without the slightest clue as to where they might fall.

Despite all the training, it was that uncertainty that crept in to whittle away at the little hope he had left, the endless questions about what the future would hold for him, or if there’d be a future of any kind left for him at all.

The interrogation room was located at the opposite end of the hallway of the same wing. It was designed more-or-less to the same specifications they used to design the ones at a police precinct or any law enforcement agency. It was a generic 8’ x 10’ room with grey, well-insulated walls and ceilings, along with the single entry/exit point barred by a steel door that had a biometric lock.

It was the third time Michael found himself in it since his arrival at the embassy. A cursory once-over revealed that some things remained the same as his previous visits, while the others were a little different.

For instance, the bolted down, stainless-steel table and the two chairs were the same, and Michael’s hands were cuffed to the back legs of the same chair he had occupied the last two times.

Then there was agent Gareth Winters, a giant of a man of about 6’5” in height and 250 lbs in weight, in a rumpled suit and tie. The way he glared down at Michael from the front left corner of the room was also a familiar sight.

However, the popping vein on his forehead, sweat-sodden face and the twitching muscle in his clenched jaw, were what marked the difference of his demeanour compared to their last two chats. The man had been rather civil those times, not quite friendly, but to the point and brisk. Not barely holding back a raging fury like he did now.

The surveillance camera affixed to the wall above Winters’ head was pointed at Michael, as it should have been according to the specifications of a regular interrogation room. Only the red light that should have been blinking next to the lens was suspiciously dark, signalling that it had taken over interior decoration duties instead of monitoring the proceedings.

SOP required his two military minders to be in the adjacent observation room, watching through the two-way mirror that was to Michael’s right, and intervene in case something went wrong. The absence of electronic surveillance, however, made Michael think that those two also may have been ordered to take a long, leisurely coffee break.

What it all amounted to was that Winters had finally run out of patience. He had decided to try his hand at a more serious interrogation session to get Michael to cooperate before the case slipped through his fingers to Michael’s handler of choice.

“Michael Westen,” said Winters in his gruff, southern drawl, “You know, all the stories I’ve heard about you paint you as a smart man, some would even say a genius. From where I’m standing, I can’t see it, I just can’t.”

Michael flashed him a sideways grin. “You know what they say about believing everything you hear.”

“I don’t think you understand just how much trouble you’re in,” Winters pushed off of the wall he was leaning against and walked over to the opposite side of the table, which put the steel door at his back. “How long do you think it’ll take me to haul your ass back to Gitmo and start this conversation on a different foot, huh?”

Michael looked up, silently studying the massive man hovering over him. It was obvious to him that the agent was not handling Michael’s resistance to questioning in a logical, objective manner. He was letting his own intense emotions and personal feelings get in the way of clear and rational thinking, therefore becoming an obstacle to his own goals.

Agent Winters’ visible display of anger meant he had a personal stake in the investigation of the armed assault that took place at the airstrip next to Guantanamo Bay. Michael assumed that he was connected to one of the agents who died during that attack. He had a feeling that Winters’ assignment to the case was on purpose. It was easy to emotionally compromise a man and manipulate him towards a certain direction when he was so personally invested.

“I think you’d have done it already if you didn’t have orders stating otherwise,” Michael said calmly. “I also think you’re just wasting your time, standing there, barking at me.”

Winters leaned forward and flipped open the folder he had placed on the table earlier.

The first page contained the crime scene photos of the Globemaster that had been set on fire after Michael had been extracted. There were shots of the interior of the cargo bay with seats, panels and bulkheads burnt and charred. The mercenaries seemed to have doused the cargo bay with an accelerant before setting the explosives.

The next page was an image of a dead body – a barely identifiable one with just enough camouflage material stuck to the body to reveal that it used to be military personnel.

“Major Timothy Brown, age 30, married with two kids. Staff Sergeant Flint McCarthy, married, three kids,” Winters snarled as he flipped to the next page to show him the burnt remains of the second soldier. “Both shot in the back of their heads. They were dead well before the fire burnt their bodies. Guess who’s gonna have to have a closed casket for their funerals? Their families, the two widows and five fatherless kids, that’s who.”

Michael stared at the photos, taking a moment to let the wave of grief he felt for those unexpected and unnecessary deaths recede. When he looked up again, Winters was leaning close enough to his face that Michael could see the burst blood vessels in the whites of his eyes. The agent was teetering on a fine edge between controlling his anger and letting loose.

“There were ten of them,” Michael said quietly, just as he had done the two previous times. “All dressed in BDUs and face covers. Spoke in Spanish. Two went inside the cockpit the moment they breached. The pilot and the chief died first.”

It only served to anger Winters even further. More images were ripped out of the folder and slammed on the shining surface of the table with a bang, forcing Michael to look at more dead bodies.

“Agent Jerome Walker, he was engaged just last year. Dr. Kripke is no longer planning a wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Walker no longer have a son, Adrian Walker no longer has an older brother,” Winters’ voice gradually rose from frustrated muttering to full blown yelling as he continued to recite the lives of the dead agents, “This is agent Drake Sullivan, married with two kids, another widow and kids. For what? Just so a fucking criminal could escape his fucking prison sentence!”

Michael turned away from the photos and the sweat-drenched face of the angry agent to stare at the two-way mirror. Winters was slowly reaching his boiling point, and Michael had a feeling there was no one to come crashing in when the agent eventually tipped over the edge to do something reckless and stupid.

“Look at them!” Winters roared, banging both his palms flat on the table.

“I had nothing to do with this, Winters.” Michael sighed.

“These are the people who died because of you, Westen,” Winters continued, ignoring him. “You destroyed their families. You’re responsible for this.”

“A terrorist named Randall Burke is responsible for all of this.”

“Why would he do that? Huh?” Winters countered, starting to pace around the small room like a caged animal. “According to all records, apart from one mission years ago, you had no other connection to the bastard. So, why the hell would he go to all this trouble out of nowhere just to break you out?”

Michael knew why he did it. But Winters was not the man who was going to learn about it. So far Michael hadn’t witnessed anything that suggested Winters was a calm, intelligent or level-headed investigator.

“Agent Andrew Strong – he was my friend,” he said in a low voice from behind Michael, forcing him to crane his neck back to see the agent glaring at a spot on his skull. “I served with him in Iraq. Two tours. He was the best damned commanding officer I ever had. Saved my life not once but twice–”

There was a layer of grief underlying his words, not just outrage. Bonds forged in the battlefield ran deeper than familial bonds at times, and Michael now understood why the man was so riled up about his silence. He was a man with a grudge and Michael was his target.

“If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was hunting and taking down scumbags like Burke,” Winters snarled in his ear. Michael tried not to wince at the way the man’s hand clamped around his shoulder like a vise. “His family, ex-wife and three kids, all on the other side of the hemisphere because they couldn’t compete with his single minded focus. His only goal ever was to take this bastard out. You were supposed to help him achieve that. Instead, what did you do? You got them all killed!”

“Look, I get it,’ Michael murmured when Winters let go of him and started to pace again. “You lost a friend. People died. Blame it on the terrorist who arranged all that, Randall Burke. I’m telling you, I had nothing to do with it. The reason I was out of prison in the first place was because it was Strong’s idea, not mine. Burke outsmarted him, that’s not on me.”

“But you can still tell me where that bastard is!” Winters yelled, and his closed fist found a barely acceptable substitute to what Michael assumed was his own face on the surface of the steel table, which slightly dented at the impact. “I could bring him in and make him pay for his crimes–”

Michael held Winters’ infuriated gaze with a calm, uncompromising one of his own. They were both fighting for what they believed: Winters for the burning need to bring justice for his dead friend and Michael…against an entire agency full of people he couldn’t trust for the safety of his friends and family.

For Michael, it was not an option to give up what little leverage he had so the mission would end up in the hands of the likes of Winters, ones who wouldn’t give a damn about anything else other than righteous revenge.

“You’re not the one that gets to debrief me on that subject, Agent Winters.” He said, ending their staring contest.

“Why?” Winters rounded on him, his gnashing teeth barely an inch away from Michael’s face.

The moment his hands tightened around his shirt collar, Michael knew Winters was past his self-restraint. With each question, his voice steadily rose to thundering levels, heralding the imminent violence.

“So you can talk to your friends and make a deal? Is that what this is about? You want to shield a terrorist for your own gain? You piece of shit.”

When the punch came, there really wasn’t much Michael could do in his thoroughly restrained state other than to turn his head to the side just as the flying fist connected with his jaw. Some of the impact dispersed with his move, while the rest of it painfully rearranged the entire left side of his face.

“Calling me names won’t get you anywhere.” Michael groaned, spitting out the blood from his split lip. He gingerly moved his lower jaw from side to side, and was relieved to find out that it hadn’t been dislocated, despite how it felt.

“Oh, believe me, that’s not all I’m gonna do.” Winters got in his face again, specks of spit landing all over Michael’s face as his large right hand went to wrap around his neck. “How long are you willing to keep this up, Westen? Let me tell you right now, boy, you’re sitting on the wrong side of the table–”

Winters shook him hard, applying pressure to the grip he had on Michael’s throat, starting to cut off his air supply. Blind fury and desire for revenge were powerful motivators, and it felt like Winters was convinced he could pry the answers out of Michael’s lifeless body if needed.

“Winters–” was all he had the chance to say before the grip tightened even more.

No amount of struggling or thrashing loosened the meaty fingers intent on crushing Michael’s windpipe. Winters’ face gradually turned into a rapidly blurring sight of flashing eyes, flaring nostrils and a twisted mouth baring too white teeth. He seemed beyond reason when he glared down at Michael, who was having a hard time breathing.

“Where. The fuck. Is. Randall. Burke?!” Winters screamed, and Michael couldn’t have answered even if he wanted to. The only sounds he could make were choking coughs, weak gasps and frantic rattles of the short chains of his cuffs. His heart was beating wildly inside his ribcage, desperately searching for oxygen his starved lungs couldn’t find.

“Damn it! Answer me!”

Michael knew Winters was still screaming. But the sounds were starting to fluctuate as his ears started buzzing with a wave of static. Black spots started to appear in his vision, distorting the already macabre sight of the enraged agent hellbent on killing him.

Strangely enough, it was the analytical part of his brain that stayed around to fight against the rapidly approaching darkness, not the part with all the fight or flight instincts, or the one that carried his memories and emotions. It calmly analysed that he had seconds before losing consciousness, and that if Winters continued choking him, there would be nothing to stop him from slipping into his death.

The last practical thought that floated in his mind before winking out was that the probability of Pearce showing up in time to prevent that particular outcome was most likely, next to nothing.

Security Headquarters
US Diplomatic Mission
Calzada
Havana
Cuba

Meanwhile…

The embassy complex had three buildings:

The main one with three wings, which was located in the front and centre, held the offices of the diplomatic mission, consular services, administration and public relations. The separate one at the back shielded by the main building was the private residence of the ambassador and his family. The building next to the apartment complex was where the security headquarters of the embassy and its platoon of Marines were based.

Upon arrival at the embassy, Dani went through the regular, brisk and efficient ID verification and security checks before being permitted inside. Her credentials allowed her to drive in through the private entrance and veer around the back to reach the entrance of the security HQ without any delays or questions.

She was met by two Marines as she climbed out of the SUV into the direct heat of the Cuban sun in the mid-afternoon. One politely offered to park the vehicle in the underground parking lot while the other led her to the office of the head of security, which was located at the end of the left hallway from the entrance.

Unless agent Gareth Winters had gone through a rapid height, weight and hair loss, the man she found sitting behind a desk, nervously wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, was not the agent she was supposed to meet.

“Agent Pearce,” he said, standing up quickly when she entered the office and offered a clammy hand. “Harry Ferguson, the acting head of security. Welcome to Cuba.”

“Thanks,” she said, returning the handshake and carefully keeping her face blank. A sliver of unease started to creep up in her mind and she chose to keep standing, which forced Ferguson to do the same. “I was informed my point of contact would be agent Gareth Winters. Is he here?”

Gareth Winters was the leader of the team that was handling the investigation on the assault near Guantanamo Bay. He was supposed to meet her and bring her up to date on his progress before she debriefed Westen. Or at least, that was what she had been told to expect when she got to the embassy.

“Ah, yes, yes,” Ferguson replied with an agitated stutter, and started to look around, avoiding eye contact with her. “He arrived a few hours ago.”

“Where can I find him then?” Dani asked, flashing him a sharp smile.

“Uh, let me find out.” Ferguson took his phone out and made a call. A few seconds passed as he kept tapping his fingers on the wooden surface of the table, and the call went unanswered.

“He’s, uh, probably on another call,” he said apologetically before turning to the silent Marine standing behind Dani. “Um, corporal–”

“Summers, sir.”

“Summers, yes,” Ferguson nodded before turning to Dani with a chuckle that didn’t really do a good job hiding his visible nerves. “She can show you where you’re staying, Agent Pearce. I’m sure you’d like to settle in and get some rest? Probably have a good lunch too before, um, all the work starts?”

Dani didn’t like where things were going. “Not, really no,” she said. “If Winters is busy, I’ll go see the detainee, Michael Westen. I’m sure he’s definitely not busy.”

“Uh, no, I suppose not,” Ferguson muttered, before frowning. “Are you sure you want to see him right now?”

“Very much so.” Dani said, and walked out of the office before the acting head of security could come up with any more excuses to keep delaying her.

There was an elevator right there, across the hallway, and Ferguson stumbled out of the office to join her just as the car arrived. The short trip down to the basement level was spent in tense silence, occasionally broken by Ferguson’s heavy breathing and audible swallowing.

“Holding cells are this way.” the Marine Corporal said and took the lead.

They walked past two empty ones before coming to a stop in front of the third one that was located at the far end of the dimly lit hallway. The signs were there that the cell was occupied, but the occupant was nowhere to be found.

Dani turned around to face her two companions. “Don’t tell me he broke out already.”

She found it interesting that the Marine was the one who looked surprised, although she did an admirable job covering it with a blank expression before pulling out her radio. Dani had a feeling she was trying to raise the two equally absent Marines who should have been on guard duty.

Ferguson, however, looked extremely uneasy, as if he knew exactly what was going on with both the missing agent and prisoner.

“Sir, ma’am,” said Summers, drawing their attention. “The prisoner was escorted to the interview room thirty five minutes ago.”

“Agent Winters was ordered to stand down from his attempts to debrief until my arrival,” Dani snapped, her own apprehension turning into full blown worry at what they were playing at. “Ferguson, you were copied on the same orders!”

“Ah,” Ferguson visibly gulped and fidgeted. “Uh, you see–”

Dani didn’t have the patience to let him scramble around for yet another excuse.

“Interview room?” She rounded on the Marine and barked, “Now! Corporal.”

“This way, ma’am.”

The interview rooms were on the opposite end of the same hallway as the holding cells. The three of them arrived at the observation room to find it completely dark and empty, which was again, against regulations when the interview room was being used. A quick visual sweep revealed that the blinds for the two-way mirror were closed, and the monitors that should have been recording the session were conveniently switched off.

Dani went straight for the closed door and unlocked it, not bothering to waste time searching for missing Marines or berating Ferguson about misconduct and negligence. She had more immediate matters to worry about, such as what exactly Winters was doing with Westen, with zero oversight.

The sight that was revealed to her the moment she burst through the door confirmed her worst fears.

Winters was a large man, six feet five inches of well-trained muscles weighing over two-hundred pounds, and Dani knew right away she was not going to be able to pry him off of Michael in time to stop him from killing the man, even with the help of the Marine.

So she went for the next best option.

Dani drew her gun, aimed it at the out-of-control agent and barked at him with her best drill-sergeant voice from her days back in the army. “Agent Winters. Let go of him, right now!”

Corporal Summers followed her lead and brought her Carbine to bear on the agent. Winters paid no attention to Dani, and kept strangling Michael who was hardly even struggling by then.

“I said, release him right the fuck now!” Dani yelled, and took a few more steps forward, making sure Winters could see the gun she was pointing at him. The loud click of the safety going off on the Marine’s rifle was what got through to Winters, which made him finally let go of Michael and take a step back.

“You wanna shoot me over a fucking traitor?” He snarled, his furious gaze glancing back and forth between Dani and the marine corporal.

“I’m gonna shoot you to stop you from killing a restrained, unarmed man,” Dani snapped. “Now, keep your hands where I can see them and back the fuck off.”

While Summers kept Winters covered against the wall, Dani moved closer to Michael. He was slumped in on himself, not moving.

“Westen?” She called out, checking his pulse, which was still there to her immense relief, albeit a little rapid and irregular. “Michael, hey, wake up.” she tapped him on the cheek softly.

His face gradually twisted into a pained grimace as she watched. He coughed, trying to drag in a few shallow, panicked breaths all too quickly, only to dissolve into coughing again.

“You with us?” Dani asked, squeezing his shoulder once reassuringly, “Take it easy.”

Michael couldn’t really answer in the middle of his coughing bout, but managed to nod twice to let her know that he understood. Two more Marines – the ones who should have been on guard duty, Dani assumed – hurried into the interview room then, presumably answering a hail from Summers.

“Please escort Agent Winters out of this building,” Dani ordered the Marines, straightening up and stepping back to let Michael get himself under control. “He can wait in the admin wing in the main. As of now, neither Agent Winters, members of his team, nor agent Ferguson are allowed to have any contact with the detainee here, understood?”

“Ma’am.” One of the Marines, the one who was even bulkier than Winters, snapped and clamped a hand around Winters’ shoulder, ready to drag him out. The other two had their weapons trained on the agent, unwilling to take any chances.

“Pearce,” Winters growled in protest. “You have no right to cut me off from this. Strong was my friend!”

“That’s a great reason for me to do exactly that,” Dani countered. “You just proved you’re in no shape to keep your head on the level in this case. You almost killed the only guy with the leads.”

Winters bared his teeth, and tried to take a step forward, only to be held firmly back by the marine who had him. “That scumbag–”

“That’s enough,” Dani snapped, raising a hand to cut him off mid rant and turned her attention back to the Corporal. “Take him out. And send your medic in here. Westen needs medical attention.”

Once they were all out of her sight, she turned around to find Micheal studying her with his head tilted to the side. His breathing was still visibly laboured, but he was out of immediate danger for the moment. It was the first time she had the chance to take a good look at him, and her heart sank at the sight.

He hadn’t had the best time as a prisoner, or wherever he had been during the period between his abduction and his arrival at the embassy, that much was obvious.

She was used to seeing him in his tailored suits, or the BDUs that actually fit him, not in nondescript black scrubs that hung on a far leaner, almost malnourished frame. The patchy beard that covered the lower half of his face was not enough to hide the split lip, or the rapidly swelling bruising around his neck. There was also a small cut near his left eye, which made her realise that Winters may have clocked him before ending up strangling him.

All in all, he looked like he had been through hell, and the look in his eyes was what bore the most damning evidence to the fact. Instead of the sharp gleam she was used to seeing in his gaze, the one that hid his quick wit and uncanny intelligence behind a deceptively blasé facade, all Dani could now see was a weary, dull resignation.

It was more than enough for her to realise that everything Jesse had told her was the truth.

“Michael–”

“Still alive,” he murmured softly, trying not to put too much strain on his abused larynx. His lips, however, curled to the side in a tired grin, which Dani knew was his way of assuring her that he was fine. “Great timing.”

Dani shook her head, smiling, relieved to find out that at least Winters hadn’t caused any permanent physical damage. “You look like shit.”

That remark earned her a peculiar squint, his expression warping in a way that managed to convey both pain and amusement in equal measures. “Right back at you.”

“I was in the air for twenty hours,” Dani accused, putting her hands on hips and aiming a mock glare at him, “Not to mention all the driving around and the heaps of files that landed on my lap to read and catch up on. If I look like shit, that’s your fault, Westen.” She let her glare dissolve into a smile at the end of her tirade, letting him know she wasn’t really angry.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said in a hoarse whisper, ducking his head. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course, Michael,” Dani said, turning serious. “You asked for me. I’m here now. Do you need anything at all before we start debriefing?”

Michael looked up and blinked, considering the offer. “Honestly, I won’t say no to a decent shower and a chance to shave before we do,” he looked down at himself with a grimace. “Think you can arrange that?”

Chapter 15

The Conference Room – Main Building
US Diplomatic Mission
Calzada
Havana
Cuba

A few hours later.

In the world of intelligence, taking down an entire covert network was the ultimate challenge, the holy grail every operative worth their salt aspired to achieve. It wasn’t something a lone spy could do, no matter how good one was.

A task that monumental generally required the resources of an entire intelligence agency, along with solid intelligence that pointed you in the right direction – something that provided you with a starting point by handing you a few significant threads to pull until the web they wove fell apart.

When your target was an entire network, you weren’t after an individual person, you were after dozens of people. Chances were, either they would all be very motivated to stay hidden, and almost all of them would have the resources and skills to do exactly that. Or they would be out in the open, fighting you all the way by any means necessary.

Either way, it was a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of information that required months of research and analysis where one target led to the next.

For example, you would be after a seemingly random courier picking up and dropping stuff off on a suburban street, who could actually lead you to a spy hiding out as a diplomat in a foreign embassy. That spy would be your next clue that would then lead you to a hardened group of armed assassins in another place entirely. Sometimes, you would arrange a surgical operation to be conducted by a discreet black-ops team to take down one target. Other times, you would find yourself on the front lines, fighting an all out war.

There were no certainties in the hunt, and you had to be prepared to face them all to see the job to its conclusion. Because, with each piece of the puzzle, you came closer to understanding your enemy more clearly. With each target taken down, you penetrated the layers of secrecy that shielded the people behind the scenes, the people pulling the strings at the top of the network hierarchy. You kept fighting, trying to put that last piece of the puzzle in place, trying to find that last person who had the answers you were looking for, and you kept the pressure going without letting up until you reached that point.

Until there was nothing left and the network was burnt to the ground.

Michael knew all about that. He had already dismantled one illegal, quasi-governmental agency that had black operatives embedded everywhere in law enforcement, all military branches and intelligence agencies. It had taken four years of hard work, a team that had his back at every turn, a determination bordering on obsession and finally the grudging involvement of the CIA to pull that off.

Then there was the attempt to revive the said dissolved organisation, because the zealots were everywhere and they just didn’t know when to accept defeat and give up. It had been Michael’s own inability to let go of the completed mission that had led to agent Max Newman’s unfortunate death. That was the beginning of a chain of events that had led them to one of the creators of the rogue network, Anson Fullerton. He had almost succeeded in fulfilling his goal of seeing his network rising from the ashes before Michael and his team had put a stop to that, too.

Then, like a hydra sprouting a new head to replace the one that had been cut off, Senior Agent Tom Card, Michael’s mentor, had risen up to replace Fullerton. It had been only at the very end that Michael had realised his former handler possessed the same damned goals, only with different damned methods to achieve those.

Michael had seen to his end too, although it hadn’t done anything to dull the pain, grief and guilt of losing his own damned brother for the damnable cause that didn’t seem to have an end. Nor had it done anything to lessen his mother’s hatred towards him.

And now, there he was, caught in the web of yet another terrorist network by the most coincidental twist of fate.

His current situation placed him balancing on the fine edge of a precipice. He had two choices: On the one hand, he was in possession of information his old agency desperately needed from him. He had the choice to walk away after letting them have it. On the other hand, the experience he survived left him with a perfect opening to worm his way inside the said network, and try his hand at unravelling it from within like a virus.

There was a time he would have jumped at the chance, and pressured the CIA into giving him back all the things he had been fighting for years in return. He could have easily made a deal to clear his name and earn his freedom.

What stopped him was the price he wasn’t willing to pay this time around.

Burke knew everything that was important enough to know about him, and that meant that the entire terrorist network the man used to be a part of knew everything about Michael. If he willingly walked into that organisation, that ultimately meant he would be playing Russian Roulette with not only his own life, but the lives of his friends and family.

And that wasn’t something Michael ever wanted to do again.

That was why he wanted Dani Pearce for his debrief. He knew she was an exceptional investigator. His intel would point her in the right direction, and she could take all the time in the world to bring down Burke’s organisation. Michael had complete faith that she could do it without his further involvement.

“Hey!”

Michael snapped out of his self-reflection and resumed eating his yoghurt when Pearce finally entered the conference room. He was seated at a dark, wooden table that was large enough to easily accommodate ten people. The chair was quite comfy for a change, and didn’t have built-in restraints, or was bolted to the ground. The room was air-conditioned and pleasantly bright with natural light streaming through the surrounding windows that offered stunning views of the Havana coastline. All in all, the venue Pearce had chosen for his debrief was a massive improvement from his previous hot, humid and dimly lit holding cell and the interview room.

She took the seat directly in front of him across the table and studied him with a critical gaze. “How are we feeling?”

“Almost as good as new,” Michael replied truthfully. “They even gave me dessert.”

The long hot shower had been wonderful, and he had finally gotten rid of all the layers of sweat, blood and grime he had on his skin from all over Cuba after all those days. He was also free of the irritating beard that had made his face itch something fierce, which was another immense relief. He had a fresh bandage over the bullet wound on his thigh and two stitches on the cut near his eye. The medic had even supplied antiseptic ointment and more bandages for his wrists, for the scrapes and abrasions he had gotten from the handcuffs. He also had an ice pack for the bruising around his neck, which he had abandoned on the table in favour of finishing the lunch they brought for him along with the yoghurt.

“You sure we can do this with…that?” Pearce made a face and pointed at the direction of his neck. “You still sound a little raspy.”

“I know,” Michael shrugged, eating some more of his yoghurt. The cool sensation of the smooth dairy product sliding down his throat actually helped with the dull ache. “But it’s fine. It’s better we do this now before I lose my voice altogether. The medic said it’s a possibility if the swelling doesn’t go down.”

“We don’t have to do this now, Michael,” Pearce said, pinning him with an earnest expression. “I only came in because you insisted. This can wait till tomorrow.”

Michael finished his dessert, moved the empty container aside and picked up the ice pack to hold against his neck. “The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can go back to my good old cell,” he said lightly, “I kinda miss it.”

Pearce’s face twisted into a pained expression. “Micheal–”

“It’s not up for discussion, Pearce,” Michael said, cutting her off. He understood her reservations and concerns. But he really didn’t want to deal with his old agency for a moment longer than necessary, even though it was a friend who was there before him. “Shall we begin?”

Pearce let out a sigh and nodded. Michael watched her as she set up the recorder and a notepad for herself. She also had a laptop with her through which she could access the agency’s server if and when she needed to pull files and records pertaining to the case Michael was about to hand over to her.

After vocalising the preliminaries such as the date, time, location and her own credentials, she turned to him.

“State your name for the record.”

“Micheal Allen Westen.”

“We’ll start with the incident that happened on September 10th,” she said, pulling an investigation file from inside the briefcase she had brought along with her. Michael recognized the thick folder. It was the same one Winters had shoved in his face earlier. “At approximately 1730 hrs, the transport you were in, along with agents Strong, Walker, Sullivan, Air Force major Brown and staff sergeant McCarthy, was attacked by an unknown group on the runway of Dela Garcia airfield. What can you tell me about it?”

“We landed on schedule,” Michael said, thinking back to the last conversation he’d had with Agent Strong. “I was seated in the cargo bay, along with Agents Strong, Walker and Sullivan. The pilot and his second in command were in the cockpit. While cruising on the runway, the plane had to suddenly veer off course due to an obstacle in its path. We couldn’t see what was going on from where we were, but according to Major Brown, the section we were heading to was closed for maintenance and the tower never told him about it.”

Pearce flipped through the file and found the transcript of the conversation between the pilot and the flight controller, and nodded for him to continue.

“That was when we were ambushed,” Michael said. “There were three Humvees and sixteen mercenaries in total. They matched speed and flanked us on the runway. Then they tore the cargo bay door off the back with mag hooks while the plane was still moving. When it came to a stop, six stayed in the vehicles while ten of them boarded. Major Brown and staff sergeant McCarthy were the first to die–”

“Is there anything you can tell me about the attacking force?”

“They were professionals, a private hit squad of ex-Special Forces,” Michael said, recalling the co-ordinated, disciplined unit cohesion they had displayed during the assault. “My guess would be a mix of Americans, Brits and probably a few French. Never saw any of their faces, so don’t expect me to pick them out of a line up. They had a mix of weapons, AK 47s, Uzis, Glocks, Berettas and a few ka-bars–”

“How did you guess the nationalities, then?” Pearce interrupted, frowning.

“The way they moved reminded me of a joint training exercise I took part in back in the day,” Michael shrugged. “And the way they spoke among themselves. They stuck to Spanish. I heard three of them speak, and all three had different accents.”

That earned him another sceptical look from Pearce. She knew Spanish wasn’t one of the languages in his arsenal.

“I had enough of everyone making fun of me,” Michael grinned. “So I put my time in Gitmo to good use and learned it.”

“Go on, then.”

“They ordered us all on the ground,” Michael said, picking up from where he left off. “One of them, I’m pretty sure he was an American, checked me against a reference photo he had on his phone to confirm I was their target. Agent Walker tried to reach for his gun at that point, and was shot in the head by another attacker.”

Michael saw her making a few notes next to gent John Walker’s bio before asking him to continue.

“Then what happened?

“Both Agent Strong and I tried to intervene,” Michael said. “He got hit in the back of the head with a rifle butt. I got injected with a sedative. I don’t know what happened to agent Sullivan. I blacked out.”

He had only learned that they had blown up the plane much later after his extraction, when Burke had made a passing comment.

He opened one of the water bottles they had brought along with the lunch and took a few sips before continuing. “When I woke up, it was the next afternoon. I’d been out for about eighteen hours by then. Randall Burke was there. He told me that he had removed all the trackers I had on me–”

“Where did he take you?” Pearce asked, looking a little uncomfortable. Michael wondered how much she knew about Strong’s black operation.

“Somewhere within a three mile radius of a very isolated industrial area near Baracoa beach,” Michael replied. “I only found out later when we showed up for the exchange. If you can find me a map, I’ll mark it for you.”

Pearce opened her briefcase and pulled out a well-detailed regional map of Cuba. Michael wasn’t the least surprised that she had come prepared.

“Here,” she said, unfolding the map over the entire table surface.

Michael took the marker she offered and circled the area where he suspected Randall Burke held him. He wasn’t sure how much Pearce would be able to uncover if she managed to pinpoint the exact location, since Burke was dead and his hired hit squad betrayed him.

“Did he tell you why he kidnapped you?” She asked once he was done.

“Yeah,” said Michael. “He wanted to use me as a bargaining chip for a prisoner exchange.”

Pearce wasn’t expecting that, Michael could tell from the way her eyes widened in alarm. “A prisoner exchange?”

“For an associate of his who was a captive of a certain GRU operative,” Michael murmured. “Colonel Oksana Zhirkova.”

Pearce motioned him to stop and started to type rapidly on her laptop, searching for the files they had on Oksana Zhirkova. Michael knew exactly what was in those files and what wasn’t. He had been the one to supply all that information to the CIA, after all.

“She was a Major when I stumbled into her operations,” Michael went on while Pearce skimmed the bio she pulled up. “Dagestan, 1997 and then Kiev in 1998–”

“Michael,” she said, looking up with a frown. “You weren’t in Eastern Europe in the late 90s.”

Michael flashed her a resigned smile. “That’s because you’re looking at my doctored file,” he said quietly. “The one you’re looking at right now actually belongs to another black operative, Simon Escher. My real record, the one that disappeared before my burn notice went up, I’m telling you that’s far more interesting than that psychotic butcher’s file.”

Pearce stared at her screen for a long moment before turning her gaze to Michael. She looked confused and conflicted. A lot had happened with the Organisation and their operatives before she had come into the picture, and Michael knew she was going to have her hands full taking a deep dive into all of it before she even started her current mission. It was just how she preferred to run her investigations.

“Tell me about Zhirkova, then,” she said, making more rapid notes on her notepad, presumably about looking into Simon and Michael’s claims. “And what you did to get on her radar.”

“I dismantled her operation in Kiev,” Michael said simply. “She was tasked with stealing a warhead. I sabotaged the deal, neutralised her Spetsnaz teams, uprooted her logistics and supply chain for operations, stole the warhead myself and sent it to one of our own bases back in Belarus for safekeeping.”

“Huh,” Pearce let out an involuntary chuckle. “That would put you in her most wanted list.”

“Yeah,” said Michael, flashing back to those rather eventful days when the entire Russian Intelligence branch had let loose its bloodhounds to hunt for him all over eastern Europe. “She placed me on the kill-on-sight list of all agencies in the entire region when she realised it was me. Those were rather interesting times…”

“Then what happened?” Pearce asked faintly, barely lifting her head from her rapid note taking.

“As you can probably imagine, my history with her was more than enough for the GRU to open up a line of communication with Burke, which they did within three hours after Burke made the offer–”

“How did he do that?”

“He used a middleman, Raphael Serrano. I don’t know who that is or his connection to Burke. I never saw him.”

“Tell me about how the deal went down.”

“The exchange was set to go down the next morning. We showed up right about here–” Michael said, marking up the place on the map where he had been taken. “Zhirkova showed up with her prisoner on time, as agreed.”

“This prisoner – did you find out anything about him?”

“Well, her name’s Sonya Lebedenko,” said Michael. “Blond hair, blue eyes, five eleven, about hundred and thrity pounds, Spetsnaz-trained, ex-GRU, speaks flawless English with a bit of a southern accent…”

Michael had to smile at the way Pearce stared at him in disbelief. “We shared a very unpleasant week as Zhirkova’s prisoners, Pearce,” he said quietly, “You could say we kind of had a connection…”

“We have next to nothing on this woman in our database,” Parce announced frustratedly after staring at her laptop screen for several minutes. “Just some speculation about a deep cover Russian mole with the first name ‘Sonya’ working around Arlington, NSA. She’s the star suspect for a long list of crimes – espionage, sabotage, assassinations…nothing solid or proven.”

“Sounds like her.” Michael admitted.

Pearce muttered a few inaudible curses before raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say the exchange didn’t go as Burke planned, then?”

“Nope,” said Michael, and proceeded to describe how Zhirkova had gotten the GRU to make contact with the private hit squad’s parent company.

“She mentioned three names, Travis, Howard and Ackerman.” Michael recalled. “That, along with the rest of the information I gave you, should narrow your search down for that private security company to manageable levels. You might even find a money trail leading back to Burke and his resources.”

“No kidding,” Pearce said, taking down more notes. Then she looked up and pinned him with an incredulous look. “Jesus, Michael! You didn’t have to wait until Winters tried to kill you to give up these names!”

“I couldn’t trust him.”

Pearce averted her gaze and rubbed her forehead tiredly. “What happened to Burke?”

“He died. One of his own snipers shot him in between his eyes. Zhirkova took both me and Sonya back to her base of operations. It was a warehouse somewhere here,” Michael circled another area of the map, “It was about thirty miles due east from the meeting point. We arrived there around three in the afternoon.”

Michael finished the rest of the water and adjusted the ice pack around his neck. His entire neck was beginning to hurt in earnest.

“Do you need a break?” Pearce asked, clearly having seen the grimace Micheal thought he’d managed to hide.

“Nah, I’m good,” he said with a grin he knew fooled no one and continued to talk. “There were fourteen special forces soldiers under her command, including her second in command, Vladimir Duboff.”

“Fucking hell, Michael,” Pearce cursed again, going a little pale at what she could see in the files they had on Duboff on the CIA server. “What the hell did you walk into?”

“Duboff has a fun file too, doesn’t he?” Michael asked lightly.

“Almost as bad as Zhirkova’s.” Pearce shook her head before jotting down some more notes. When she looked up again, she had an uneasy expression darkening her face. “So, for the next seven days, you were held captive…”

“Yeah.” He said, running a hand through his hair. He didn’t want to talk about the torture he had endured just as much as Pearce didn’t seem to want to ask. But it was part of the debrief and they had to get through it.

“Michael–”

“You want an itemised list of everything they did, don’t you?” He sighed, burying his head in his hands. “Fine. Duboff was really into brass knuckles, knives, and fists. He was dedicatedly training the kids he had under his command on how to beat up a man without outright killing or permanently damaging him. Oh, he also had a great fondness for cattle prods. Zhirkova… Well, she was partial to waterboarding. Crude, messy and not even remotely fun for the guy being continuously drowned–”

“What were they after?” Pearce asked after a few long seconds, when it was obvious that he wasn’t going to elaborate any more than that. “Was it just a revenge thing or were they after something specific?”

Michael hesitated. He needed a moment to think about whether he wanted to share what he had on Zhirkova just yet.

“Nothing specific, no,” he said, after deciding that he didn’t. “They were just really enjoying the fact that they finally had the ‘Boogeyman’ under their mercy.”

If Pearce had noticed his hesitation, she didn’t show it. “Do you know why Lebedenko was there?” She asked instead.

“Yeah,” Michael replied. “She turned traitor and betrayed her own people. Her exact words were, ‘I found a better purpose, a meaningful way of life, a true vision to follow and dedicate my life to.’ I think she was a double agent in their own ranks until she got outed.”

“Jesus!” Pearce threw her pen away and cursed. “You know what this means, right?”

“Yeah,” Michael nodded. “Randall Burke was a hell of a lot more than a rogue turned terrorist. He was a part of a network, I’d say an extremist group of very scary people who could completely indoctrinate well-trained, very-intelligent operatives into very-dangerous, brainwashed extremists, and zealots–”

“And Burke and Lebedenko are just a couple of tips of a very nasty iceberg,” Pearce finished off his thought.

“Pretty much.”

“How did you escape?”

“Sonya and I made a deal to work together the moment an opportunity presented itself,” Michael revealed. “Which happened on the eighth day. Both Zhirkova and Duboff had to leave the base, probably to welcome the reinforcements. Sonya created a distraction and managed to get one of the soldiers to let me out of my cell. We worked together to neutralise the thirteen soldiers and get out of there.”

“Is that when you got shot in the leg?”

“Caught a ricochet just as we ducked out of the main entrance,” Michael said. “Zhirkova had the local police and military under her command within the first two hours of our breakout and started hunting for us in earnest. Roadblocks and patrols started popping out everywhere. Sonya and I had to separate when we were cornered by a couple of police patrol cars–”

“Michael–”

“We didn’t kill any Cuban officers,” Michael assured her quickly. “At least, not when we were still together. I don’t know what Sonya did after we went our separate ways…”

Pearce didn’t let his hesitation pass without a comment this time. “Did you cross paths with her again?” She asked softly.

“I – yeah,” Michael admitted, trying not to dwell too much in that memory, “It kinda caught me by surprise too. She found me passed out in an abandoned shop, and patched me up…saved my life.”

He could see a thousand questions warring with each other on Pearce’s expression.

“Why?” She blurted, and then winced. “I’m sorry–”

“I don’t know,” Michael shook his head, cutting off her apology for being callous. “She never really told me. She vanished for good the next day. I got on the road soon after that and spent the next forty eight hours dodging the police and Russian commandos to get to the embassy.”

“Russian commandos?” Pearce frowned. “Zhirkova got another team into the country that fast?”

“The reinforcements Zhirkova and Duboff went to welcome was a Project 641,” Michael replied.

Then it was his turn to wince when Pearce visibly blanched. “Are you telling me that there’s a Russian nuclear submarine docked in a port of Cuba?” Michael could see she was struggling to avoid yelling.

“Somewhere in the eastern coastline near Baracoa, yeah,” he added, “Sonya overheard some of their conversation when they were talking about it. Apparently, Zhirkova wanted to take the two of us back to Russia. It was confirmed when I saw the Special Forces soldiers start showing up at the roadblocks.”

Pearce took a deep breath and let it out slowly before aiming a narrow-eyed glare at him. “Are there any more bombs you have left to drop on my head, Westen?” She asked with false calm.

Michael smiled. He had to admire her restraint. He had been sitting on vital intelligence for days after all. He could understand her frustration and dread, since she was the one who now sat with an entirely new mission with previously unknown dimensions. He had a feeling his entire debrief and the information it contained would have the same effect back at Langley, as if someone had dropped a hornet’s nest in their midst.

Andrew Strong had spent eight years chasing Randall Burke, thinking he was one lone terrorist. The CIA deemed that no cost was too high to bring him down due to all the havoc he wrecked around the world. The knowledge that he was just a part of an entire hidden network with so many more terrorists just like him would definitely set more than a few heads on metaphorical fire.

Michael didn’t know how long it would take Pearce to hunt them down, whether it would be eight months or eight more years. It didn’t really matter. If the CIA did the smart thing and kept her as the mission lead, he knew she wouldn’t give up until she got to the bitter end of it. He had shared almost everything he had learned, and now it was up to her.

He had a hell of a lot more faith in Dani Pearce than he ever had in Andrew Strong.

“Nope, that’s it,” Michael said cheerfully. “Then I showed up here three days ago and handed myself in. I wanted to talk to Strong first. When they told me he didn’t make it, I thought of you…”

Recidencia Santa Villanueva
Holiday Resort
Havana
Cuba

Dani pulled in at the entrance of Recidencia Santa Villanueva, a resort located only three blocks away from the embassy, and got out when a smartly dressed valet came scurrying over to greet her. She climbed out with her briefcase and let the valet park the SUV at the back.

Jesse’s text had arrived only a couple of hours after she had wrapped up Michael’s debrief. It said that the whole team was there in room 302 and that she should head over if she wanted to hear what they had learned.

She wanted to find out what they knew. More than that, she needed their help to convince Michael to step into the arena one more time and do what he always did best. She now understood exactly what Jesse had warned her about before she left Miami to fly to Cuba, and she hoped he would keep his word.

After finishing the mind-blowing debrief, she had contacted Langley with the update. What had started as a quick call to AD Meyers had turned into a four hour video conference call with three directors and representatives from NSA and Homeland Security. Michael’s new-found intel had the explosive impact she expected, and left everyone reeling.

At the end of the virtual meeting, there was one thing all her superiors agreed on: Westen could have a slice of the moon if he wanted, just as long as he accepted the new assignment to infiltrate the terrorist organisation and take it down.

Michael Westen, however, didn’t have the slightest interest in owning real estate on the moon. Even more alarmingly, the man had no interest in his freedom and the clean slate he was offered in return. She had filled Michael in on the outcome of her virtual meeting as soon as it ended, thinking it was great news. Instead of the positive reaction she had expected, all he had done was to smile and shake his head in firm refusal, shocking Dani to the core.

She had absolutely no desire to go down the same path agent Andrew Strong had taken, which would only serve to break the trust Michael had in her. She desperately needed his help, and the only other way to get it was through three of the most important people in his life: his friends.

Fiona Glenanne opened the door when she knocked, and subjected her to an unimpressed glare from head to toe before stepping aside to let Dani enter the two bed-roomed suite they had booked for themselves.

Sam Axe stood by the massive dining table they had dragged into the middle of the lounge, drinking a beer. Jesse sat on the armrest of a couch that was otherwise covered with open files. There was a half assembled SVD Dragunov sniper rifle on the other sofa, which Dani assumed belonged to Glenanne.

They weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were actually planning an armed assault on their own goddamned embassy. Dani didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or burst into tears.

“Where’s Michael?” Fiona’s sharp tone broke her out of a momentary stupor.

“Alive, well and still at the embassy,” Dani said, walking over to the dining table. Sam had the blueprints of the entire embassy ground complex spread over the table surface. “He’s in one of the guest suites in the visitor’s wing. In this one.” Dani plucked the marker out of his hand and marked the spot with an ‘x’ herself.

“Huh,” Sam said, leaning over the blueprint with half a smile. “That would actually make the breach a lot easier.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you got your hands on that,” Dani said, dropping heavily on the nearest chair. She had long ago learned to turn a blind eye on certain things when it came to how Michael’s team operated. “While I admire your loyalty to your friend, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need that,” she opened up her briefcase and took out three folders which she placed on top of the blueprint. “Sign these and I’ll take you to him. Through the main gate even. Not the roof.”

“What’s this?” Fiona took the top file and sat on the edge of the table.

“Your contracts as CIA assets for the duration of my newest operation,” Dani replied before turning her attention to Jesse. He abandoned the file he was reading to take the file Sam gave him from the pile. “You were right, Porter. Michael doesn’t want anything to do with the hornets’ nest he has once again stirred up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Michael came back with intel we didn’t have the slightest clue we needed,” she said. “We need his help. He’s not budging.”

“And you’re surprised?” Fiona asked in a scathing tone, “Why would he risk his life again for the same agency that turned its back on him at every turn?”

Dani understood her anger on behalf of the man she cared very much about. It wasn’t even all about the mission at that point. While the CIA had labelled the mission to take down Burke’s network top priority, Dani couldn’t help but view it as the best opportunity to get Michael out of Guantanamo Bay for good, and restore his original record.

“Langley is more than willing to wipe his slate clean, let him out of detention and give him back his freedom,” Dani said, watching their reactions, “Security clearances, the whole nine yards–”

The three of them shared a knowing glance, and an entire conversation happened in total silence.

“Did you tell him that?” Sam asked on behalf of everyone. “Were there any conditions attached to that very generous offer? You know, the devil in the small print?”

“There were no hidden traps, Sam,” Dani sighed. “He’s off the books. It’s not like there are legalities attached to his detention. Letting him out of the camp is the easiest thing the agency can do if he wants. They’re willing to offer much more than that and all Michael has to do is accept the assignment.”

“And yet, he said no?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then,” Sam said after another round of silent glances, raised eyebrows and shrugs, “Let’s hear it. What exactly did Michael find out for the CIA to bend over backwards for him like that?”

“Sign those,” Dani countered with a smile, nodding at the files in their hands. “And I’ll fill you in on everything.”

The trio took their time reading through the confidentiality agreement, showing Dani yet again how much things had changed during the period of time she hadn’t been around. When they did finally put down their signatures, Dani felt like they were only doing it because they still had some faith left in her when it came to helping Michael, not because they gave a damn about the CIA or some obscure terrorist organisation.

She kept her word and told them everything she had learned from Michael, about Burke’s death, the GRU’s involvement and Burke’s associate, Sonya Lebedenko.

None of them spoke for a long time after Dani was done.

“Damn,” Jesse was the first to break the heavy silence with a curse. “Only Michael Westen–”

“Boy, I’m glad he’s still alive,” Sam said, slumping heavily on a chair. “Zhirkova is terrible news. That woman really wanted to see Mike dead.”

“How do you know about her?” Dani asked curiously.

“My team was operating in the same theatre at the time,” Sam shrugged, sipping his beer. “Besides, who do you think took that warhead to Belarus?”

Dani shook her head, smiling. “You knew Michael back then?”

“Even before that.” Sam replied. “We go back a long way.”

“You know, I’ve only ever heard rumours about this Sonya character,” Jesse said, glancing at them all. “They said she ran circles around NSA for a good long while before they caught onto the fact that they had a mole. She’s got a reputation in our intelligence circles.”

“We have nothing in our database about her,” Dani added. “And now we learn that she’s betrayed her own country to work for a group of extremists we never even knew existed.”

“What exactly do you want Michael to do here?” Fiona got straight to the only point that actually mattered to the three of them, “Are you planning on sending him undercover to this network?”

“Taking this network down is a top priority mission,” Dani said. “Langley wants it done one way or another as soon as possible. As things stand, Michael has the best way in. He already has the perfect cover. He was rotting in a hellhole for over a year when the company betrayed him again by trying to throw him out in the open as bait. Although he wouldn’t have any love left for Burke over the fact, he would hate the CIA more for it. And then there’s the fact that he has a connection to one of their active operatives…”

“Did you ask him why he wouldn’t do it?”

“He wasn’t very forthcoming about it,” Dani said, looking at Fiona, “But I have an idea why.”

“It’s very easy,” said Sam. “Burke, and therefore the network he works for, knows all about us, our lives, where we live… everything. Michael knows that if he walks in, we would become the insurance that he stayed in line.”

“The CIA and I could take the responsibility of your safety,” Dani said, feeling the same desperation she had felt while talking to Michael creeping back in. “You already signed up as assets, so you’re covered. I could have teams watching over Michael’s mom and nephew round the clock–”

“The trust he had in his old company is all but gone after everything that’s happened, Agent Pearce, you understand?” Sam interjected.

“I do. I may not know the whole story, but I’ve seen enough to understand why he and all of you would feel that way,” Dani said sincerely. “Anyway, now you all know where we stand. I was hoping we could figure out a way to move forward, despite your valid disdain towards the Company. I’m not your enemy on this one, or Michael’s… I haven’t changed.” She ended her pitch with the simplest truth.

“Glad to hear that,” Jesse said, exchanging another glance with Sam and Fiona, “We’d like Michael out in the open too, not rotting in your black site.”

“You know, none of this would have been necessary if he hadn’t gone and surrendered to the embassy,” Fiona turned on her perch so she was directly facing Sam. “We were already in Baracoa beach when he made his escape. We could have probably picked him right off the street if you hadn’t been scouring bars–”

“Hey, excuse me!” Sam glared back at her, defending himself instantly, “I was intelligence gathering.”

“In daiquiris and half naked women–” Fiona threw her arms up in the air and rolled her eyes.

“I’ll have you know daiquiris and half naked women have the best information at the best of times–”

“Guys, guys,” Jesse cut in loudly before the argument between Sam and Fiona got more heated, “Hello…focus.”

“Anyway, what I’m saying is, we can still do this,” Fiona said, stabbing a finger at the blueprint. Dani could have been just another chair for all the attention she paid to her. “I say we break in, break him out and knock this ‘surrendering’ nonsense right out his thick skull–”

“I don’t know, Fi,” Jesse intervened with a calm, reasonable tone, “Becoming fugitives would be bad enough, but to do that with a network of extremists that might just be interested in Michael? On top of his old pals in the CIA hunting us at every turn? Don’t you think that’d be a bit too much?”

Fiona’s huff conveyed that she didn’t really care, and all she wanted was to grab their man and disappear.

“This network is bad news,” Dani interjected before they could resume planning the prison break, “I have a group of analysts running through the leads and names, and they’re already coming up with hundreds of bombings, massacres, and all out wars these people may have had a hand in. Until now, they’ve been operating in the shadows under all our noses. We need his help and yours on this…Please.”

Fiona made a face, but Dani saw her jerk her head at Sam who exchanged a relieved sort of glance with Jesse. Then he walked over to the mini bar and pulled out four beers, which he then proceeded to pass around before taking his seat again.

“When you put it like that,” he said, opening up his fresh drink, “Guess you might be happy to learn we have some information about this Raphael Serrano. That’s the lead we’ve been tracking on our end.”

“I know that he’s an arms dealer, human trafficker and a broker,” Dani said, recalling what she had read earlier, “According to our intel, he was last sighted in Syria, two months ago.”

“Oh, no, he was here alright,” Sam said, “We heard some chatter about a broker and a deal gone wrong here in Cuba. We figured it was worth checking out, since it’s Mike we’re talking about. We managed to track down Serrano’s transport guy, and found out he flew the man here from Ecuador almost a month back.”

“Do you know where he is now?” Dani wanted to know.

“In the morgue.” Fiona said with an unconcerned shrug and started sipping her beer.

“We saw his body, it wasn’t pretty,” Sam elaborated when Fiona didn’t. “He went through some bad times before whoever tortured him put him out of his misery.”

“Randall Burke?”

“Or his men, not sure,” said Sam, “Anyhow, Serrano managed to send an SOS before his capture, a hard drive, to one of his associates. He was probably counting on his pal to use it as insurance to make a deal to free him. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”

Dani took the hard drive he offered, wondering if she even wanted to find out how it came into their possession.

“Now, I’m thinking Burke may have had him tortured because he learned that it was Serrano who sicced the Russians on this Sonya woman,” Sam said to Jesse.

“How’d you figure that?” Dani asked, glancing between them.

“The drive had a lot of encrypted information,” Jesse said, picking up a file from the pile on the couch and handing it over to Dani. “That’s everything on the drive. There’s some chatter between Serrano and a Colombian cartel about delivering a package to Russia–”

“Burke used Serrano to arrange the second deal because he already had an in with the GRU,” Dani said, flipping through the file. “But I’m guessing he never received the information about how Serrano learned about Sonya in the first place.”

“Not unless he talked,” Sam said. “That part we don’t know. What we do know is that Serrano bought the information on Sonya off an online auction handled by a hacker group called the ‘Collective.” Now, I’m thinking, if this hacker group managed to unearth files of an ex-GRU operative, what else might they have?”

Dani looked up, unable to hold back a smile as she caught on to exactly what Sam was saying. Any information they could get on Sonya Lebedenko and her fellow operatives would get them another step closer to the hidden network and its activities. And, if the ‘Collective’ had anything to offer in that regard, infiltrating their group would be their next best move.

“Oh, and the best part,” Jesse said, flashing her a sideways grin as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, “They are based in Miami.”

“So if we can worm our way in and go digging around their servers,” Sam added, “We could probably find a lead or two about this fancy network.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Dani said excitedly. It was the best piece of news she’d heard after Michael’s rather alarming refusal to get involved. “Chances are the network is already probably looking for these guys, and they are definitely pissed. If we can get to these hackers before the network can–”

“We’ll have some leverage over them when they come knocking.” Sam finished her thought and tipped his bottle up to finish his beer.

Part Six – The perfect Bait

Chapter 16

The Visitor’s Wing – Main Building
US Diplomatic Mission
Calzada
Havana
Cuba

Late Evening

Conducting an intelligence operation to its conclusion was not the action-filled, high-octane thriller, filled with sampling expensive drinks and charming femme fatales while artfully dodging bad guys every step of the way, the Hollywood depictions had you convinced. Unfortunately, the reality was usually filled with a lot more mundanity that never would have made any entertainment worth watching.

As a spy, you found your target by going through a lot of diligent paperwork, such as news reports, money trails, human intel and intelligence analysis reports. If you were lucky, you got to skip that first excruciatingly time-consuming step, and pick up the file from your handler. If you were not, you had to park your ass in a field office and to do it all by yourself.

Even after finding a target, you couldn’t just walk in to take them down. There were a lot of steps you had to complete to get to that point, such as surveilling your subject, studying your material, learning the lifestyle and habits of the said subject until you had your orders on how to make your final move.

Basically, what it amounted to were many weeks of dull, repetitive tasks and an unholy amount of preparation to conclude an operation, with possibly a few minutes of extreme terror, excitement and an adrenaline rush for all involved parties.

So, as a spy, you learned ways to keep yourself sane during that long, mind numbingly boring initial stage: sometimes you exercised, found a place to do some target shooting or picked up a hobby you could do while sitting around.

Another skill a spy usually developed during such times was the art of sleeping. You couldn’t stick to a schedule when you had to be constantly focused on someone or something else. So you had to learn to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and snap yourself awake to full alertness at a moment’s notice, because you never knew when things went to hell and bullets started flying.

Maybe it was hyper awareness – a sense of threat born out of knowledge that he wasn’t one hundred percent safe where he was even though he was among his own people – something jerked Michael awake from the light nap before the knock even sounded on the door.

He knew there were two Marines on guard duty outside his room round the clock, and whoever was at the door knocked out of politeness, not necessity.

“Michael.”

He was relieved to hear Pearce’s soft voice through the thick wooden door. He let out a long exhale, straightening up to sit on the edge of the bed, and rubbed a hand roughly across his face to chase away the remnants of sleep.

“Yeah.” He called out, knowing a Marine would open the door to let her in.

The visitor’s suite with the separate bedroom, lounge, small kitchenette and the attached bathroom, was a huge improvement from his previous holding cell. The CIA desperately needed him in the game one more time, and they were willing to offer a lot in return. But, until he had accepted those conditions, there were no doubts about the fact that he was still a prisoner.

Michael had no intention of accepting anything his old agency had to offer.

“Brought you a surprise.” She announced with a bright smile from the lounge when he looked up.

The last three people he expected to see right then walked into his field of vision to stand behind Pearce, looking for all the world like they were there for the most normal and happy reunion ever.

Michael stood up from his perch on the bed and stepped into the living room without consciously realising that he had moved.

“Wh–what are you guys doing here?”

“Mikey,” Sam engulfed him in a bear hug he returned in reflex. “Good to see you, brother.”

“Same, Sam,” he started as his best friend let go of him, still very much caught off guard, “What–”

“Man you look worse every time we see you,” Jesse interrupted with a huge grin as he stepped in to shake his hand and pull him into another half hug.

“Tell me something I don’t know, Jesse,” Michael replied, standing there feeling incredulous and awkward. “What the hell is going on here?

“Just so you know, I voted for plan number one,” Fiona said in a thin, shaky tone that usually meant she was barely holding herself together. Michael didn’t know who she was angry at, him or the others. It was even more upsetting to realise that he didn’t even know how to greet her. Last time he had seen her, it had been obvious she’d moved on.

“Look at him,” she turned to glare at Sam and Jesse as if he wasn’t right there standing before her. “It’s still not too late.”

Sam put up his hands in a placating way and Jesse took a step to the left, not so subtly trying to put Pearce in front of him like a shield.

“Fi–”

“They were planning on breaching the embassy grounds to break you out and then smuggle you to Aruba,” Pearce revealed as if that was the most reasonable thing she had heard all day.

“Hah!” Sam whirled around to face Pearce with a triumphant grin. “That’s what we wanted you to think, Agent Pearce,” he then turned to Michael and winked. “We weren’t going to take you to Aruba.”

For the first time in a long time, Michael was at a complete loss about what to say or how to react. So he glared at the closest person, which turned out to be Fiona.

“Hey, don’t give me that look,” she snapped. “I’ve already blown up one consulate. What’s one more?”

“I don’t know if they’re joking or not.” Michael mumbled, glancing at Pearce pleadingly.

“Pearce was going to give us the patrol schedule, and create the distraction while we breached,” Jesse added from behind Pearce’s left shoulder. “Weren’t you?”

“You all made a compelling argument,” she shrugged, looking rather serious.

“Then we came to our senses and realised, hey, we don’t have to do all that and become your cell mates back in Gitmo because there’s a much better way of doing things,” Sam said finally, pinning him with a look Michael knew all too well. “Like, you know, asking you nicely to take the deal the CIA is all but falling on its knees trying to give you?”

Michael walked around them to where the fridge was, without saying a word. He grabbed a bottle of cold water and dropped heavily onto the nearest couch with a long, deflating sigh. The others followed suit and made themselves comfortable on the chairs around him, surrounding him with bright, expectant stares.

“You know,” Michael said quietly, ignoring the others to focus on Pearce, “I was counting on you not to pull this crap on me.”

“Hey, man, it’s not on her,” Jesse intervened when Pearce’s expression visibly crumbled. “I met her before she even got here to debrief you.”

“So what is this?” Michael asked, letting his gaze sweep over all of them, “An intervention?”

“Well, yes,” Fiona spoke for all of them, her voice just sharp enough to hide the slight wobble Michael could clearly hear anyway, “You need it, so you’re getting it. There’s no point arguing, Michael. You’re gonna sit there and listen to what we have to say.”

Micheal leaned against the backrest of the couch. “Fine,” he murmured, and drank some water, projecting the perfect picture of calm even as his insides twisted in cold dread. “Get to it, then.”

“Mike,” Sam said, taking the lead in their apparent mission to talk sense into him, “We signed up as assets for this op already. Pearce told us everything. We want to help you take these people down, brother, so you can get your damned life back.”

“Did it occur to you that I might not want it back? That I’m done with it?” Michael asked quietly, “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with us?” Fiona snapped when Sam was shocked into silence, clearly not having expected Michael’s answer, “What’s wrong with you? You can get out of that hellhole if you do this!”

“And die trying to doublecross these terrorists?”

“Oh, like they haven’t been trying to kill you back in the camp?” Sam countered in frustration, “We saw your old injuries, Mike, remember?”

Michael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wanted to yell at them all until they got it into their thick skulls that he was tired of seeing them getting hurt and worse while his disaster of a life bulldozed right over them.

Instead, with great effort, he kept his voice low, level, and reasonable when he spoke, “Don’t you understand? These people – they know everything about me, you, my mom… everyone. The moment I walk in, you all are coming with whether you and I want it or not. Honestly, I’m sick of people using all of you to keep me in line.”

“We know what we signed up for, man,” it was Jesse’s turn to throw his two cents in, “This is nothing we haven’t done before. We can do this, and you can walk out a free man after this.”

“What about my mom, and Nate’s kid?” He asked, “They didn’t sign up for this, did they? What about the danger to their lives?”

“Micheal, I can arrange for them to be watched 24/7,” Pearce interjected. “It’s even plausible since your cover essentially would be an escaped prisoner if you do this.”

“You’re no good to anyone rotting in a dark hole, man,” Jesse added, “This is the kind of thing you’re born to do.”

Michael stared at his earnest expression for a long moment, idly marvelling at how far the ex-CIFA agent had come from basically hating him enough to wanting to kill him to a loyal friend who was willing to put his own life on hold indefinitely for a chance to help him.

Then there was Sam, the man he had known and ducked bullets together for almost fifteen years. Theirs was a bond forged in countless shared battlefields and bloodshed, and he knew it would last as long as they both lived. Michael didn’t even know why he was surprised that Sam would be where he was now, sitting on a couch in front of him with a pleading look in his eyes, urging Michael to grab the hand he was extending and hold on.

And, then there was Fiona, the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. It didn’t matter when he had to leave her or when she had to leave him – those endless circles they went through time and time again, wanting each other and wanting to kill each other – the love he had for her was always the same, unwavering force that had no limits and bowed to no rule in existence. He could easily read the anger flashing in her eyes, just as well as the genuine worry and care buried underneath. He didn’t even know if she was still with the man he had seen weeks ago or not, and had no idea what her life was like right then. But none of that mattered because she was there… because she felt he needed her. That was all the reason either of them had ever needed to be there for each other.

These were the only people Michael had left in his life who still gave a damn, and he didn’t want to see them get hurt – or worse – because he wandered off once again to fix what was wrong with the world.

“How many times did you have to duck bullets for the past fourteen months until Gamble showed up?” He murmured finally when they started exchanging worried glances at his continued silence.

Worried glances turned into guilty looks that studiously avoided his gaze.

“That’s what I thought,” Michael sighed. “Don’t you all want to move on with your lives without having to dodge my crap every step of the way?”

“You’d do the same for any of us, Mike,” Sam muttered quietly. “What we’re trying to do is not that different.”

‘Hear us out, will you?” Jesse jumped in when Michael stayed silent. “We already have a lead. A hacker syndicate that calls themselves ‘The Collective’ sold Sonya out. We could start there. Find our way inside this little nest of internet thieves and dig out more info on this woman and her merry band.”

Michael ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. “I don’t think I wanna even know how you found that out,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.

“Fine, we won’t tell you then,” Fiona said, “But you can come with us to Miami, shake this group up and see what falls out, can’t you?”

That little detail shocked Michael into opening his eyes again. “Miami?! They are based in Miami?”

“Yeah. Your Sonya will be heading there anyway when she learns about who betrayed her,” Sam said, completely missing the death glare Fiona aimed at his skull for his choice of words. “Don’t you think we should get to them first?”

“You have it all figured out, haven’t you?” Michael remarked wearily.

“Mike, come on, this can be the last time,” Sam urged, sensing an opening in Michael’s demeanour to get his point across. “Then you get to walk away for good if that’s what you want. We can all move on with our lives, like you said, you included.”

“I’m tired, Sam.”

The quiet, broken words left him before he could stop them. Michael buried his head in his hands, not wanting to see their worried gazes bearing down on him through the heavy silence. He hadn’t meant to reveal exactly how worn out he was, both physically and mentally, and he didn’t even know if he had any strength left to see it through if he ever decided to take on the assignment.

If he was back in prison, Michael could at least hope that Sonya and her network would forget about him and his family, since he wouldn’t be a threat to them. If he walked into this with less than his one hundred percent, he ran the risk of messing up and exposing everyone to the wrath of a dangerous group of extremists. Even at his best, the risk he would take for himself and everyone he cared about was still very much real.

Even contemplating the possibility frightened him to the core.

What frightened him even more was the idea of letting the team go in by themselves while he watched from the sidelines. Judging by the way they acted, and the contracts they had already signed, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop them from forging right ahead with the infiltration mission. That simply wasn’t something he could do, and they knew that.

“Fine,” he said, finally lifting his head back up again. “I’ll do this. We’ll deal with the Collective,” then he turned to Pearce. “You can use whatever we find there the way you see fit, and I’m going back to prison.”

“Michael–”

“I’m not taking the deal, Pearce,” he said resolutely, “This is all I’m willing to do.”

Then he put it all out of his mind and focused on what he had just agreed to do.

“If our findings, whatever they may be, are going to be used to track down Sonya’s network, the op needs to go down in a certain way…” he said in general, not giving anyone else a chance to protest his decision. “There can’t be any law enforcement or CIA involvement, not in ways that can be tracked later.”

“An infamous ‘Michael Westen’ special then,” Jesse remarked, figuring it was the best they were going to get. “We go in, hit them and get out before they realise they’ve even been hit.”

“Something like that,” Michael nodded.

“But Michael, if this doesn’t pan out–”

“Not my problem, Pearce,” he said, cutting her off mid-protest. “I agreed to tag along to make sure no one dies when this goes down. One thing I know about Sonya is that she’s not a very forgiving person, and if she shows up in the middle of the op, she won’t leave anything to chance. She’ll want everything the hackers know about them, and then she’ll want them destroyed. That’s the only reason I’m going and that’s all there is to it. Then I’m done.”

The Next Evening

The movement of the massive ship was barely felt inside the container.

If you didn’t mind the dim light, somewhat cloying scent of human sweat combined with gun oil and cordite, not so comfy crates for chairs and sitting inside a completely closed off box with three other people without feeling claustrophobic, an illegal arms shipment inside a lumbering cargo ship was the best way to travel from Cuba to Miami undetected. It was fairly safe, unless you started hyperventilating, which would lead to hallucinating and consequently harming yourself with the product being transported. It also left no paper trails or records of your travels. Unless your contact decided to develop a guilty conscience and started speaking to authorities about the things inside the containers, you basically got into the country with no one being any the wiser.

The entrepreneurs in the business hardly ever developed those kinds of morals since the day job paid pretty well for them to talk all about their constant high stress levels to a therapist later.

The lumbering cargo ship took its sweet time wading through the ocean, increasing the two hour travel time of a speed boat making the same trip at least by twice. That gave them plenty of time to read up on everything they had on the hackers and come up with an attack plan.

Fiona sat cross legged on a stack of wooden crates which had a fairly comfortable flat lid. Nestled cosily inside the steel cases within those was the latest batch of stun grenades. She knew because she had gone through all the crates inside the container within the first two hours – a task that had sent the avid weapons connoisseur in her into an awe-induced headspin.

Michael and Sam had commandeered the other, slightly lower stack of crates as their planning post, and had all the files and information they now had on the Collective spread over the surface. Jesse was curled up on a bunched up tarp that had previously been used to cover up the crates, and was fast asleep against the row of wooden pallets behind Micheal and Sam.

Fiona studied Michael while he leaned over their temporary desk to study the files. She decided that she liked his current length of hair, which stood out in all directions with a defiant air whenever Michael ran a hand through it in frustration or exhaustion. The beard that hid most of his face was gone, which was another plus, since she had decided she didn’t like it after all. He wore a pair of jeans, military-issue boots and a dark grey t-shirt that actually fit him, and a black jacket that didn’t quite. It was okay, she supposed, since she could see that it wasn’t because he had been badly starved. If the corded muscles and the new definition to his arms, abs and thighs were any indication, he had been putting all his time in Gitmo towards moulding himself into an even finer weapon.

There was a half eaten yoghurt balancing precariously on the edge of the crate, and the ass end of a plastic spoon sticking out at the side of Michael’s mouth, both completely forgotten, as he read over a file with the aid of the flashlight on Sam’s phone. Sam had a can of Cristal in his hand and five more in a small cooler next to his feet. Fiona had no idea when the man had found the time to raid the embassy’s food stores for beer and dairy products. There had been nothing but water in the fridge in Michael’s room when she had checked.

What captured her attention most was the sharp gleam in Michael’s eyes as he skimmed over the pages: it was a familiar look she knew very well – one that never bode well for the subject he was reading up on. She could almost see the wheels turning as he absorbed the information, arranging and rearranging it all in that steel trap of a mind in ways the Collective would never really see him coming. It was rather an appealing sight that never failed to draw her in like a moth to a dangerous flame.

“Fi,” Sam said, waving his can around to break her concentration. “If you’re fantasising about pocketing a few of these shiny new gadgets, I strongly advise that you don’t.”

She turned her head to the side slowly, and narrowed her eyes. The washed up SEAL had yet to learn that coming between her and her possible acquisitions was a terrible idea.

“This really isn’t a shipment for one of your buddies,” he continued to yap, side-eyeing Michael, who paid no attention to him. “Even though it does look illegal–”

“Oh, Sam,” she replied in a sweet tone and with an even sweeter smile, “Have you forgotten we’re walking into the lair of a bunch of dangerous people? It’s good sense to be prepared for an all-out shootout in these situations. Besides, Michael’s pals at the CIA seem to have developed a fantastic taste in state-of-the-art assault weapons.”

“Bunch of dangerous people in front of computers hooked up to a lot of bandwidth,” Sam said, as if he was imparting some rare wisdom, “Not gun-toting mercenaries. No kicking down doors and bursting in with guns blazing on this one.”

“A girl can dream, can’t she?” she huffed and rolled her eyes, just to keep screwing with him. “You never know when a simple infiltration turns into an all-out war.”

“Sam,” Michael said before Sam could spew out more buzzkill energy, showing absolutely no sign he had heard their bickering. “I need a place to stay.”

They’d had to burn Michael’s loft down in order to keep the facade going that they had died in Panama and Gray had succeeded in burning all that was left to the ground. He didn’t have a home anymore, Fiona remembered, not one he felt like he was allowed.

“Stay with me.” she said, catching Michael, Sam and herself off guard with the offer.

Michael took the spoon out of his mouth before looking up to stare at her. As Fiona watched, a dark cloud of weariness crept in to dull the gleam that had entranced her earlier. She didn’t like the strange, yet almost tangible distance Michael seemed hellbent on maintaining. She had seen the same thing when they had surprised him at the embassy too, when he had just stood there awkwardly, unsure how to even greet her. She didn’t know if that disconnect between them was intentional or not, but she knew she disliked it very much. All she knew for sure was that they were soon going to have a conversation about it.

“Can’t,” Michael blinked and snapped himself out of whatever thoughts that had crossed his mind by shaking his head. “Nothing connected to any of you or me, since those places would be watched. I’m a hunted fugitive, remember?”

“I could look around for something.” Sam offered.

“Someplace near Coral Gables,” Michael elaborated, “While I want to stay off the radar, I do need to leave some traces for someone looking hard enough to find. Think you can do that?”

“I’ll make some calls.”

Michael dived back into the files, satisfied with Sam’s answer. Jesse continued to snore, perfectly happy in his slumber. Sam opened up another beer and went back to sit on the floor next to Jesse, looking for all the world as if he was about to catch some shut eye after finishing his drink as well.

Fiona occupied herself with compiling a mental list of exactly what she was going to take from the veritable treasure trove they were literally sitting on. With both Sam and Jesse out for the count, Michael was the only one she had to watch out for, and he was already miles away, hopelessly lost in the mind-numbing details of the world of hackers.

It would be her consolation prize for enduring this less than ideal trip back to Miami, she told herself, and she would make sure nobody got to find out about her negligible liberation of a few new toys.

Besides, no one could complain about things they never knew in the first place, could they?

14-3
13th Street
Little Gables
Miami

The two-bedroom foreclosure Sam found him was far from the best, but it wasn’t the worst either.

It was located on 13th street, Little Gables – a small town stuck between the two cities, pitifully unable to live up to the real estate dreams of its community. There were only a few houses in the entire area and all of them were either sitting despondently behind weed-covered ‘for sale’ signs or abandoned altogether to the small thicket that was rapidly growing into an invading jungle.

There was only little traffic on the pothole-ridden roads and sidewalks, mostly squatters, beggars and an occasional dealer or two who did their business at the corner where the major traffic turned off into the desolation of Little Gables.

Compared to the loft Michael had lived in for five years, above a nightclub of all things, even the illusionary sense of peace, calm, and quiet this temporary home offered felt like a major improvement. Instead of burnt, blackened walls and melted furniture the old loft was currently reduced to, the new place had sturdy brick walls and a decent sized dining table along with a few chairs the previous tenants had left behind. Sam had worked his charm to make sure the unit had running water and electricity for the duration of their operation. Along with the mini fridge he had donated to the cause, Fiona’s coffee maker, and the air mattress Jesse had contributed, it just about had all the comforts of home.

It was the third day since they had arrived at the port of Miami, and they had almost all the pieces in place before they finally moved to make contact.

“Yeah, that’s our man,” Sam announced from behind the blinds he was peeking through to watch the street. “Right on time, too.”

Michael heard the engine of the Porsche growl as Jesse took his car around the back to park it away from the prying eyes. Soon the back door opened, revealing a heavily tanned Jesse Porter who had just arrived in the country after the fun adventure of hunting down Oswald Patterson.

“Alright,” he said, sitting down on the nearest chair with a loud huff, “So the little weasel made me run circles around all over Jamaica before finally dead dropping this nasty thing.”

Oswald Patterson was a hacker they had hunted for Anson, who had been hiding in a heavily guarded compound in Puerto Rico. Anson had wanted Michael to acquire the unique malware program the man had designed, a virus that could scrub all traces of a person off a computer system, in order wipe his existence from the CIA databases. During the course of that mission, they had managed to help Oswald escape a dangerous drug kingpin who had been determined to kill him, and managed to arrange safe passage for him out of the country. As a result, he remained a reluctant associate.

One of the first things Michael had done since arriving in Miami, was contact the hacker, and request a very specific software they would need once they had access to the servers of the ‘Collective.”

That was what was on the thumb drive Jesse held in his hand for all of them to see with a triumphant grin.

“Is it what we asked for?” Michael asked.

“Oh, yeah, I checked,” Jesse nodded. “This bad boy will send us everything they have on their servers before wiping everything clean. Once it’s in, it’s unstoppable.”

“While you were busy hunting down rodents in Jamaica, we did our own digging into our soon-to-be friends.” Sam said as he came to join the rest of them around the round dining table. “According to Barry, they like to go sniffing around money trails. They find hidden offshore bank accounts and raid them.”

“They came across Sonya’s operational funds,” Fiona added, “That’s how they exposed her. If we can find those, we might have a chance to trace those funds to see where they are coming from.”

“The hackers work out of this building on Biscayne Boulevard,” Michael said, nodding at the regional map and the building’s blueprints that were already spread across the table surface. “We need to get into their mainframe and plant the virus.”

“Do we have a plan?” Jesse asked, studying the layout of their target.

“Sam got covers for Fi and I,” Michael said, filling Jesse in. “We’ll make our approach to this guy, Cody Ward.” He pointed to the black and white photo clipped to the folder that was next to Sam’s elbow. “He’s in charge of finding new talent for the syndicate.”

“Barry came through with the software these two need to bluff their way in,” Sam added, “He also did his magic and conjured up a few paper trails to look like some accounts got hacked. Should give them enough credentials to announce loud and clear these two are up to no good.”

“Nice,” Jesse looked up with a grin, “So, have we picked up a target that’ll look impressive enough for our new buddies? Sam and I’ll have to do the hard work and make you two look like geniuses while you do your little typie-type on the keyboard–”

“Yeah,” said Michael, returning his grin with one of his own, “We’ve been brainstorming a few ideas…

Vortex
Coral Gables
Miami

Later that Evening

The nightclub, Vortex, offered the exact same things just like any other of its ilk – loud cacophony that barely passed for music, headache-inducing flashes of light that did its best to synchronise with the said music and cheap drinks served around by half naked women with long, toned legs. Michael and Fiona managed to wade through the rambunctious drunks and the gyrating crowd on the dance floor to the relatively private area they had reserved for themselves in advance.

“So,” Fiona said, taking a sip of the whiskey they were both served after taking a seat on the tacky red velvet couch, “I’m Priscilla, a systems expert trained at Caltech and you’re Mark Fincher, a code breaker out of San Francisco.”

“Uh, huh,” said Micheal, scanning the dimly lit crowds for their target. “Supposedly a ‘neurotic bastard prone to explosive temper tantrums’. Sam’s words.”

“Michael–”

Her tone had a seriousness that drew Michael’s attention from their surroundings to focus fully on her. “Hmm?”

“How are you?”

She wasn’t just asking him about his health in general, he could see that in her concerned gaze. The honest answer was that he didn’t know. There was a lot going on in his mind that he hadn’t had time to dwell on, to figure out where he was at. But that wasn’t something he was willing to discuss with her where they had to scream at each other to be heard over the thundering music.

“I’m alright, Fi,” he said, deciding to stick to half of the truth, “I can do this.”

“I know you can,” she said, “That wasn’t what I was asking. I just–”

Michael had to cut her off then. “Another time, Fi,” he said, picking up his drink. “Our guy is here. Three o’clock.”

“Hey!” Cody Ward sauntered in with a brilliant grin and offered enthusiastic handshakes before settling in the seat across from them. “So are you guys, like, a couple?”

“Us? No!” Fiona threw her head back to show off the graceful curve of her neck and let out a soft chuckle, “Strictly professional. I handle web defence protocol, and Mark’s a genius at decryption.”

“Central Bank of Belize, First National Bank of St. Lucia… five mil in a weekend,” Michael bragged and slurped his drink. “Pretty sweet.”

Then he had to watch Ward shamelessly order the most expensive glass of bourbon the club had to offer on their tab before turning back to them with another sleazy grin. “Tell me, if you’re so good, why are you looking for a job?”

“A job?” Michael rolled his eyes while Fiona shook her head. “I had three patents by the time I was thirty. I don’t need a job. I need protection.”

“We had a close call in San Francisco,” Fiona said, and Michael pointed in the direction of his own neck, where the bruises from Winters’ meaty paws were still glaringly visible. “We’re not taking any chances. From what we hear, your security is top-notch.”

“It is.” Ward said with a sympathetic wince. “The thing is, we got a full roster of hackers. We’re not hiring.”

“You say you have hackers? You don’t know what the word means.” Michael huffed and pulled out his laptop, nodding at Fiona to do the same. “You know, while we’re booting up, I want you to pick a target. Anything at all.”

“A target?” Ward frowned, taken aback at the fact that he was about to receive a live demonstration. “What, like, a bank?”

“A bank? Please. Give me something hard,” Michael said with a disdainful chuckle, and ploughed right ahead before the confused man could actually do it. “Okay, I’ll pick. How about the power company? Right here, right now.”

Ward laughed and sipped his bourbon. “Power grid’s protected by Homeland Security. Sounds like you guys are wasting my time.”

“Hey, you’re having a great time on our dime,” Fiona said in a sultry tone and batted her eyelashes at him. “Just give us a chance.”

Michael could almost see the hamster running in his wheel, thinking about the possibilities of having someone like Fiona around instead of the skills they offered.

“Okay, kids.” Ward said leaning back in his seat, glass in hand and his gaze on Fiona. “Power grid it is. Impress me.”

Michael and Fiona opened up their dummy websites and started running the high-end network software to make it look like they were actually hacking into the grid. Faking the hack wasn’t the hard part. That actually fell to Sam and Jesse who were already set up near the local relaying station to make the real magic happen.

“I’m passing the IPsec,” Fiona announced after several seconds, which was the signal that she had sent a message to Jesse to do their thing from their end. “Sending you the I.P. address now.”

The Local Power Substation
Coral Gables
Miami

Meanwhile…

“This is exactly how I like spending my Saturday evenings,” Jesse said, crouched in the shadows behind the wall of the power relaying station. He and Sam were both dressed in black, like burglars, and were waiting for the signal to break in and start throwing switches. “Just like old times. I’ve kinda missed it.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and pulled out a bottle of tequila from the duffel he carried. “I even brought this to keep us company.”

Jesse eyed the bottle with some concern. It only had half of its contents left. “What happened to it?”

“It became dinner.” Sam shrugged innocently and slid the bottle back inside.

Before Jesse could comment further, his phone beeped, announcing that he had received the pre-arranged signal.

“Okay, that’s Fi,” he said, urging Sam to go ahead and break the lock on the door. “It’s time. Let’s do this.”

The alarms started blaring the moment the automated security system picked up the breach, just as expected. They had exactly three minutes and thirty seconds until the cops showed up to investigate.

Jesse hurried in and pulled out his flashlight, going straight for the printed schematics of the grid on the wall. Inside the ten by ten hut, there were about thirty circuit boards with about that many levers to pull.

“Which one is it?” Sam asked, glaring at all the blinking lights and complex circuits.

“Give me a second.” Jesse snapped. He had to focus fully on the grid charts to find out which ones they needed.

“Uh, huh.” Sam’s heavy breathing tickled his ear as he peered over his shoulder. “Come on, brother, tick tock. Hurry it up. The cops will be here any second.”

He finally found the block they needed to black out, and the corresponding circuits to break. “Pull up A1, D8, and D9.”

Sam moved at a speed a man with half a bottle of tequila sloshing in his gut had no right to move and pulled the levers. “Done.”

The Club Vortex

Their computers beeped in unity while Michael and Fiona worked. Ward abandoned his seat to walk around the table so he could stare at their screens over their shoulders.

“What are you running there, John the Ripper?” he murmured, sticking his neck between their heads.

Michael made a shushing sound and flapped a hand, catching Ward with a backhanded slap in the face. “Not while I’m working.” he growled for good measure.

He didn’t want the man noticing the fact that their fancy software was running by itself while they typed meaningless nonsense.

“Looks to me like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew,” Ward sneered when the lights continued to shine, and the club-goers continued to party.

“Yeah, that’s because your liver’s busy chewing on all the ethanol you’ve been chugging down,” Michael muttered, keeping his gaze fixed on his screen, “And you’ve never seen anyone beat a SCADA firewall before.”

Just as Ward took a step back, the programme cleared from his screen to make space for a command prompt. Michael made sure to let Ward see him hit enter.

Sam and Jesse delivered their end of the bargain right on time

The lights went out the exact moment he hit the key, plunging the club in total darkness, followed by sudden, shocked silence.

Power Substation

“Oh, boy.” Sam said in a tone that never announced good news.

“What is it?”

“I can hear the sirens,” He was crouched by the door that didn’t have a functional lock anymore. “Cops are on the move earlier than we expected.”

That was indeed bad news. It wasn’t like they could bail before they received the next message to reset the power outage.

“Start praying Mike and Fi move this along faster, then,” Jess said.

Sam dragged his bottle out and tipped it into his mouth.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“What?” Sam shrugged after a few rapid swallows like it was perfectly normal behaviour. “This is how I pray.”

Jesse raised an eyebrow, “I thought that was your dinner?”

“It’s anything and everything I want it to be.”

The Club, Vortex

The silence didn’t last long as the party goers started booing and howling at the ceiling.

“Everything in this world connected to a computer belongs to us,” Michael declared with appropriately smug confidence, “We want to share, but we need a safe place to work.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ward said, glancing between him and Fiona with a look of pure awe. “You two are the real thing. It’s too bad you killed the party, though.”

“Oh, we can fix that.” Fiona said with a smile that managed to visibly melt Ward even more. “Mark, let there be light.”

Power Substation

The wailing of sirens drew uncomfortably closer as they waited inside what was going to soon turn into a trap with no way out. Just as the first rays of blinking red and blue rounded the corner, Jesse’s phone beeped again.

“Okay, that’s Fi.” he said, pocketing the phone and the flashlight. “Throw the switches.”

“Done,” Sam announced and grabbed his own bag, making for the door. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

The Club, Vortex

The Vortex returned to its previous clamorous state just as Michael finished typing some more nonsense. People started clapping and whistling before resuming the dancing and drinking.

“Congratulations.” Ward said with a big grin. “You just got yourself a job. Welcome to the team.”

Chapter 17

The Collective Headquarters
No 8
Biscayne Boulevard,
Coral Gables
Miami

The next day, they received the invitation to visit the office where they did business. Ward welcomed them at the entrance flanked by two security guards carrying Mac-10s and escorted them up to the ninth floor by elevator.

They walked past the workstations to the corner office with the city view at the end of the hallway. Michael noticed that there were more guards with assault rifles stationed strategically throughout the area.

“Mark, Priscilla,” Ward said, introducing them to the man who stood up from his chair behind the imposing work desk to greet them. “Meet Jack Frakes.”

“Cody tells me you’re good.” Frakes said, scanning both Fiona and Michael with a shrewd gaze.

“Whatever he said, we’re better.” Michael asserted in an insolent tone.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” Frakes’ thin smile said he wasn’t easily convinced. “It’s his job to find the talent. It’s my job to check it out. Have a seat.”

Once they all did as they were told, Frakes leaned in and placed his elbows on his desk.

“So I’ve been doing a little research. Tell me, if you two are such pros, why is it nobody’s ever heard of you? There’s nothing on the hacker boards. In fact, I can’t find a single record to confirm either of you even exist.”

“Hello, we exist.” Michael waved his hands in the air, grinning. “Besides, Cody was at the club last night when we blacked it out.”

“It’s true,” Ward nodded eagerly. “It was like, ‘boom!’”

“Boom,” Michael repeated, “So what else do you need?”

“Well, nobody’s questioning your ability,” Frakes flashed a smile that wasn’t really friendly. “But you’re hiding something.”

Fiona let out a long suffering sigh and rearranged her expression into a mix of frustration and fear. “Look, we ran into some issues on our last job. We were hired to hit a network. Turns out it belonged to the mob. Our employer, the moron that he was, didn’t secure his ISDN.”

“What happened?”

“We got back from lunch, everyone was dead,” Michael picked up with a story made up on the spot. “They cut off their hands, laid them on the keyboard to send a message.”

“The moron who wasn’t there when his people died, did that to him,” Fiona added, nodding at the fading bruises around Michael’s neck. “He blamed it on us. After that, we thought it wise to make ourselves hard to find.”

“I see.” Frakes nodded noncommittally.

“Which brings us back to why we’re here,” Michael said, spreading his arms. “Now, I don’t want to walk into a room full of dead people again.”

“Don’t worry. Nobody can touch my security,” Frakes said smugly. “When there’s a problem, we’re not the ones who end up dead.”

Michael shook his head in a great show of disagreement. They needed more intel on their security, to appeal to Frakes’ vanity and make him show them around by appearing less than impressed.

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” Michael said thinly, “The private hit squad is very impressive, but I’m gonna need to see your setup.”

Frakes glared at him for a full minute before acquiescing with a sharp nod. Micheal and Fiona followed him and Ward as they took them on a tour inside the facility. “As you can see, every entry point is monitored around the clock.” Frakes said as they walked past more and more armed guards. “This place is airtight.”

“And if someone tries to come in without an invitation?”

Michael’s inquiry made Frakes grin. “That’s what the hardware’s for.”

“Oh, look, Mark,” Fiona gushed. “They all have machine guns, you think they are just carrying them for decoration? We’re totally safe. No one can break in.”

“That doesn’t mean the network can’t be hacked.” Michael said, looking around sceptically.

“Our server’s protected by a firewall even the NSA couldn’t crack.” Ward bragged.

“What about someone from the inside? Where do all their data lines go?”

“To our secure server room downstairs,” Frakes said and led them down the elevator to the floor below so they could see for themselves. “There. The door’s reinforced steel with a seven-digit key code. Nobody’s getting in. You’ll be safe as long as you deliver.”

Michael exchanged a glance with Fiona. Even as they were both smiling like the pair of well satisfied hackers they were pretending to be, inside they were both thinking the same thing: You had to accept that no matter how hard you probed for weaknesses in a set up, sometimes there just weren’t any.

“Now if we’re done here–”

“One more thing,” Michael said, deciding to show off his less than appealing personality traits which would become useful later on once they started working, “What about my chair?” he asked with all the importance in the world.

Frakes frowned. “Your what?

“Mark does his best work in an Aeron chair,” Fiona replied with a head shake and an eyeroll that managed to convey exasperation and fondness equally.

“And I’m gonna need plenty of yoghurt in the fridge,” Michael added, figuring why not. “Blueberry. Lots of it.”

Michael’s Temporary Lodging
Little Gables

Later that Afternoon

“That sounds bad,” Sam said after listening to their findings during the tour. They were all at Michael’s place again to discuss the next step. “Are we sure there’s no way in?”

“Every inch of the place is covered,” Fiona said with a shrug. “There’s cameras everywhere. No blind spots. All entrances and exits are covered by armed guards round the clock. The server room is also uncrackable.”

“Then how do you figure we do this, Mike?”

“I can see only one way in,” Michael said, using a marker to point out the relevant areas, “Their camera cables run through an outside wall into their security room here. If we access those cables, we might be able to hijack the system.”

“But it’s on the eighth floor next to the server room,” Sam followed the line he made on the blueprint and raised an eyebrow. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“We have to come down from the roof.” Michael confirmed.

“I can see that,” Sam hummed, “A couple of harnesses and climbing gear, anchored here behind the wall, you two can scale down without being seen by anyone coming through the roof exit.”

“Yeah.” said Michael. “And if we can get our hands on a high-bandwidth video transmitter to override their signal, we’ll have control of their feeds.”

“I should be able to get my hands on something,” Jesse spoke up. “But, it’s gonna be a costly purchase–”

“You can charge it to the CIA later,” Michael reminded him. “They’ll pay. You have a contract saying so and everything.”

The Collective Headquarters

The Next day

Usually the best way to access a restricted area while under round the clock surveillance was the direct approach. Trying to sneak around when you were already being watched only served to arouse suspicion. To pull that kind of a brazen stunt, what you required was a lot of self-confidence to act like you did nothing wrong when you were inevitably confronted.

Which was exactly what Michael and Fiona did when Ward cut off their stroll towards the roof access point.

“Hey.” he said, standing in their path with his hands held up in the air.

“Hey, hey.” Michael nodded and tried to walk past him, only to be blocked by Ward again.

“Guys, where’re you going?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Michael said impatiently, starting to fidget anxiously. “It’s flat, sunny, and on top of the building.”

“No way, dude,” Ward declared. “Roof’s off-limits.”

“We’re just going for a smoke break.” Fiona added with a charming smile.

“I’m sorry. No one’s allowed up there.” Ward shook his head, unwilling to budge on their rules. “Besides, why are you guys taking breaks when you have accounts to work on?”

“I have a password cracker attacking the Cayman Islands World Bank as we speak,” Michael snapped, letting a bit more agitation leak into his tone. “It’s either gonna take two minutes or two hours. Either way, it’s not gonna go any faster with me staring at it. I’ll put it simply. I need to go through those doors and upstairs to the roof, so I can have a smoke break.” he ended his rant by throwing his hands in the air and starting to pace in tight circles around Fiona.

Ward took a step back and frowned at his tantrum, “So maybe try the patch?”

“I need a smoke,” Michael started to mutter to himself as he kept circling Fiona like he was in the middle of a mental breakdown, “I need to go outside. I need to go out that door and up the stairs – I need to go out now…”

“Mark, Mark,” Fiona caught him by the elbow when he made his fourth pass and turned him around to face her. “Mark, Mark–” she shook him, as if trying to snap him out of his spiral.

“I can’t work like this,” he let his voice climb to a higher, shriller pitch and shook his head, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

“Listen, Cody,” Fiona pinned Ward with a pleading gaze. “Security can’t escort us down nine floors every time he needs a cigarette. And you don’t want to see him in withdrawal. Cody, come on. please?”

Ward stood no chance against the full force of Fiona’s helpless expression. “Okay,” he relented finally with great reluctance. “But make it quick. You have work to do.”

“Tell me about it,” Fiona rolled her eyes before flashing Ward another one of her winning smiles and proceeded to drag Michael up the short stairs by his elbow.

***

Their climbing gear was inside Fiona’s handbag. It didn’t take long for either of them to secure their anchor points and gear up with the harnesses, pulleys and ropes. Within two minutes, they were both off the ledge, and rappelling down along the wall.

“Okay, stop there,” Sam’s voice said over the earpiece after a few seconds. He was watching their progress with Jesse from a van parked down below, “Fi, the wire should be about a foot to your left.”

That was their cue to halt their descent, lock their positions and start drilling. Michael unclipped the drill he had attached to his thigh and started drilling. It was a modified equipment with a special set of gear boxes that moved at low speeds and a modified drill bit, which made it suitable for covert drilling. The only downside to it was that it took much longer than a faster and louder drill to get the job done.

“Okay,” Fiona announced for Sam and Jesse’s benefit as she started on the next step, “We’re hooking up your little device now.” It was a small, rectangular device that had extensions ready to clip onto the cables directly. Once it was plugged into the line, it emitted a low beep, and started blinking.

“Jesse, you getting anything?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. Got it. We’re good. Now hurry up and get back inside.”

Halfway up the ascent, a sudden, ominous metal scraping sound echoed loudly around them, causing them both to halt their climb and freeze.

“What was that?” Fiona’s line jerked just as the words left her, and her expression morphed into one of abject terror when they both realised what the sound was.

“Aah!” Fiona let out a shrill scream when her rope gave out and she started falling, “Michael!”

The lightning fast reflexes honed throughout the years of the dangerous, unpredictable life he led came to her rescue as Michael managed to grab onto the arm she threw up in panic just as she zipped past him.

“Fi!” he yelled as his entire left arm extended painfully to bear her full weight when her fall was halted abruptly. Fiona managed to grab his hand with both of hers and looked up at him with pale-faced fear.

“Mike, Fi?” Sam’s agitated voice came through the comms, “What the hell was that?”

“My anchor point gave out.” Fiona panted, trying not to look down at the ground too far below.

“We’ll do this together.” Michael grunted as he focused his entire concentration on pulling her up enough for her to grab onto his upper arm, so that she could pull herself onto his back. “I got you.”

During the few long, terrifying seconds it took Fiona to carefully climb onto his back and wrap her arms around his neck, all Michael could think about were the countless times he had come so close to losing her. I can’t lose you, his own horrified voice reverberated inside his skull over and over as the whirlwind of those memories continued to batter at him.

“Michael–” her voice barely reached him through his panic, but he felt her grip tighten around him in a reassuring way that meant she was holding on.

“Hang on.” he said, and started to climb up slowly. The shock of seeing her fall had injected enough adrenaline into his system, and he hardly even felt the extra hundred and thirty pounds on his back or the strain the added weight was putting on his arms and legs.

They were both panting by the time Michael hauled himself over the edge to the flat top. He fell to his knees in relief and exhaustion, and Fiona stayed where she was, still halfway draped over his back, seemingly unable to let go. It was the first time in more than a year that he had been that close to her – close enough that he could smell her hair, feel the warmth of her body and feel her heart beating rapidly against his shoulder. He didn’t know whether to wrench himself away from all the memories those sensations mercilessly dragged back to the surface or turn around and hug her even closer, and not let her go again forever.

“Thanks,” her breath brushed against his ear just before their cheeks touched.

It took monumental effort from his part to pull himself together and focus on the operation they were in the middle of running.

“Don’t mention it.” He said gruffly before getting back to his feet.

“That was close.” Jesse exclaimed, relieved.

“Get moving before your minders send an army looking for you.” Sam’s wise words in their ears urged them both to move without wasting any more time.

They didn’t talk as they hurriedly packed the climbing gear back inside Fiona’s handbag. They didn’t say anything to each other when they climbed down the stairs like a pair of hackers who had happily had their nicotine fix, either or when they settled at their stations to continue the facade.

But, it did feel like there was one less layer of separation between them, and Michael hadn’t even realised it was there until it was gone. He didn’t know whether it had been him or her who had created that distance, the one that now felt a little less after Fiona’s close call with certain death.

What bothered him was that he had no idea whether that somewhat bridged gap was a good thing or not.

Outside the Collective HQ
Coral Gables

“Alright people,” Jesse said, pointing at the feeds he had been monitoring from the day before. “So, we have the password to the server room and the log-in to their network. I can override the cameras to cover your path down the back staircase and into this hall here–”

“I sense a ‘but’ in there.” Michael raised an inquiring eyebrow.

They were all in the van Sam and Jesse used as their mobile command centre, which was parked discreetly behind an alleyway a block away from the office building of the Collective.

“Yeah, a butthole, if you will,” Jesse said, and manipulated the video feed until they were staring at the area where all the hackers worked in their stations. “Cody never stops moving. He buzzes around looking over everybody’s shoulder to check their progress. It’ll take you twenty minutes to plant the virus in the server room. The longest I’ve seen him leave anybody alone is six minutes. We have to get rid of him.”

Michael felt Fiona leaning over his shoulder to study the screen.

“I’ll take care of it.” She straightened back up and announced with a casual toss of her hair. “He hits on me every time he sees me. I’ll work my charm and entice him out of the office.”

“And just to be sure, you’re supposed to keep him out of the office for twenty minutes,” Sam said seriously, pointing the tip of his beer bottle at her. “Nothing drastic like out of life permanently.”

“Not even a little?” Fiona pouted, looking equally serious.

Michael shared a glance with Jesse. Sometimes it was really hard to tell whether the two were messing around or not.

“Nope.” Same glared.

“Always a buzzkill.” Fiona huffed.

Inside the Collective HQ

“Yo,” Ward walked over to where Michael and Fiona were seated with a bright grin on his face and a spring in his steps. “You two make me rich yet?”

“Working on it.” Fiona declared with a put upon sigh, and started twirling a strand of her hair. “I am glad you’re here. He’s driving me crazy. I just smashed a hole in this bank’s security system a mile wide, and all he can do is bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch–”

Micheal saw the stink eye she gave him from the corner of his eye and continued to pretend like he was glued to his own screen, completely oblivious to their presence.

“I need a drink.” Fiona shook her head and flashed a smile at Ward, “You thirsty?”

“I’d love to, but you two got a lot of work to do,” Ward chuckled, sounding a little torn, “I’m still waiting for you to start laying those golden eggs.”

“Aw, come on,” Fiona stood up from her chair, wrapped her hand around Ward’s elbow and sidled against his hip like a clingy, sexy limpet. “Don’t you want to help me blow off a little steam?”

“Priscilla,” Ward mumbled a weak protest, “Darling–”

“Let’s go have some fun.”

Michael heard a low growl in her throat that sounded like a fun invitation for a casual observer. But in reality, it was the same noise she liked to make when she was triggering a detonator. Whatever reservations Ward had about leaving his post visibly crumbled against the force of nature that bore down on him with a sensual smile and dangerously glinting eyes.

Sam’s earlier comment floated in his mind as Michael watched her practically dragging the unsuspecting Ward towards the elevator. He hoped sincerely that she would restrain herself enough to stick to the script. Leaving a dead body hidden in a bar down the road would attract way too much attention, more than Michael wanted for this particular mission.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a beep on his phone announcing an incoming call. He put his earpiece on and hit the answer button.

“Fiona and Cody are on their way out,” Jesse said, “Staircase and hallway downstairs are clear. I’m taking control of their cameras now.”

That was his cue. Michael got up from the chair and stretched, yawning loudly. It was now his turn to run the gauntlet.

Surveillance Van
Biscayne Boulevard

On the black and white screen split into four sub screens, Jesse saw Michael flattening himself against a wall next to a hallway on the window on the top left corner.

“Putting cameras seven, eight, nine, and ten on loop,” he murmured while hitting the buttons. “You’re clear to go to the server room.”

Michael approached the reinforced door. “What’s the password?”

“7654852.”

“Log-ins.”

“User I.D, EXECUTIVE1, all caps, no spaces,” he instructed while watching Michael work. Sam sat quietly next to him, adding an extra pair of eyes to keep a lookout.

“Password?”

“Lowercase “x,” upper “J,” upper “E,” asterisk, 9, 8, lower “u,” 5, ampersand.”

“What now?”

“Okay, now you go to the system settings, click the pull-down menu for the root menu.”

“Root menu.” Michael repeated, working fast. “Then what?”

“Jesse,” Sam intervened. “Bottom right corner.”

What Sam had seen was not good. Frakes was out of the security room, heading towards the hallway that led to the server room. “Uh oh.”

“What is it?”

“Mike,” Jesse snapped, “You need to get out now.”

On the feed, Michael quickly shut down the windows on the screen he was working on and looked up at the camera. “What’s going on?”

“Frakes is suspicious, and heading your way with two guards,” Jesse said, “You have to move.”

“Fine. Give me ten seconds, and then turn the feeds back on.” Michael said, and walked to the door. Jesse saw him take out the earpiece and slip it inside his pocket. The call was still on, so he could still hear everything.

They watched Michael walking out of the door and rounding the corner, bumping headfirst into Frakes. Then Jesse had to relinquish the feeds back to the main server as Michael instructed, so that when they inevitably ran a diagnostic programme, their interference wouldn’t be picked up.

“Hey. What are you doing down here?” Frakes’ demanding voice filtered through the phone’s speaker.

“I was taking a leak,” Michael snapped back, sounding equally irritated. “Is that allowed? Are we done?”

“Nah, we’re not done.” Frakes said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t like it.”

Sam looked up at him worriedly. Jesse knew what he was thinking. It wasn’t going well.

“Last I checked, I was the best hacker you had,” Michael kept up the facade of the tantrum-prone, eccentric hacker. “So what I was up to was making you a lot of money. May I go back to my work now?”

“That’s a great idea.” Frakes said. He wasn’t budging. “In fact, I’ll join you. I’d like to see this work you’re doing. If it’s as good as you say, we won’t have a problem. But if it isn’t, well, then we’re gonna have a very big problem. Let’s go.”

“We have to go in now.” Sam declared, and pulled out one of Fiona’s shotguns from a duffel they had under a seat. “If I can take out the guard by the front door quietly, there’s a chance we could make our way to where they’re keeping Michael and get to the server room.”

“Wait a minute!” Jesse said, putting his hands up in a bid to calm the agitated ex-SEAL. “What do you think happens to him if we just go busting in there? A suicide mission’s not gonna save Mike.”

“I’m not just gonna sit back and watch him die,” Sam opened the chamber, slid the rounds in and racked the shotgun, looking determined to storm the castle. “So unless you have a better idea…”

“Hold on.” Jesse said, wracking his mind furiously for a solution that didn’t involve him and Sam trying to reenact the battle of the Alamo in reverse. A kernel of an idea started to emerge, something he never would have been able to think up back in his CIFA days. Being around Sam, Michael and Fiona for a few years had done some major rearrangements to his rational thinking and mission planning.

“Think faster, Jesse.” Sam warned.

“Alright, alright,” Jesse said, standing up. It wasn’t a conventional plan, and they were going to have to sell it like they hadn’t sold anything before because Michael’s life depended on it. But, if they could make it work, it would be the best play they could make to get him out in one piece. “I’m gonna pull up all the footage we have of Ward in their office. Every last frame. I have a play, Sam, but we’re gonna need some police badges.”

“Okay,” Sam said, and to his utter amazement, pulled out two Miami PD badges from a side pocket of the backpack that was next to the gun duffel. “What’s the play?

“You just had it in there?” Jesse blurted incredulously.

“I never leave home without it,” Sam said. “So what the play, Jesse?”

Jesse took a badge and opened the back door. “Bigass hail Mary.”

The Collective HQ

“I am telling you, there is something wrong with your system!” Michael yelled and glared at the screen of his computer. He was running out of time and the two Mac-10s aimed in the direction of his head weren’t making things any easier.

An inherent risk when it came to using a cover with a skillset you didn’t have was that at some point someone demanded results. When failure was inevitable, all you could do was lie, deny, and put the blame on others.

“You know what I think is the problem?” Frakes said, radiating calm. “I think you were trying to rip me off.”

“Are you even listening to me?” Michael growled in frustration. “There’s something blocking the data packets. You know, the little numbers that travel from one computer to the next?”

“No.” Frakes flashed an unpleasant smile. “I’ll give you five minutes. After that–” he pulled his own handgun from his hip holster and took the safety off with a click, “You’re fired.”

The door behind them opened with a bang and Fiona stormed in with perfect timing. She ignored the security and got right up in Frakes’ face, completely ignoring the gun in his hand, as if it was an insignificant toy she couldn’t give two shits about.

“What’s going on?” she demanded with her hands on her hips.

“Well, I was just talking to your boyfriend about my concerns with your work output.” Frakes grabbed her by the elbow and pushed her towards Michael. “Over there with him. Now.”

Michael caught her before she could bang her face on the table and helped her regain her balance.

“You’re worried about him busting into some bank account in the Caymans?” Fiona pulled herself free from Michael’s grip and turned around to face Frakes with fire in her eyes. “Do you have any idea what Cody is up to?”

“What are you talking about?” Frakes frowned.

“I was just in a bar with him. He told me to leave,” Fiona snarled. “He was meeting some cops. He’s a goddamn snitch.”

So that was their play, Michael thought. If Jesse and Sam could somehow convince Ward to do the work for them, then they had a chance to turn the enterprising duo against each other.

“Ah, nice try,” Frakes chuckled. “See, Cody knows the cops could never touch us. He’s got no reason to work with them, you lying bitch!”

Michael had to work hard to hide his wince at that. If they weren’t undercover and still in the middle of salvaging a botched op, Frakes would have lost his lower jaw at that moment. The Glock and the two Mac-10s wouldn’t have done a thing to save him.

Instead, Fiona kept her violent tendencies firmly in check and let out a disdainful laugh. “If I’m a lying bitch, where the hell is Cody? He’s not with me. He’s not with the hackers on the floor. So where is he? Huh?”

The clear confidence in her tone got Frakes to reconsider. “Anybody have eyes on Cody?” he asked over his handheld radio.

“Yeah, he’s in the server room.” The reply came after a burst of static.

“The server room? What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. He’s been in there for a half an hour. He said you okayed it.”

Michael and Fiona both glared at Frakes, wearing their best ‘told you so’ expressions.

“Bring ’em. We’re gonna settle this right now.” He said, and stood up from the chair. “Let’s go.”

***

When they entered the server room, Ward was already there, busily typing away at the mainframe computer.

“What are you doing?” Frakes demanded.

“Just updating personnel records,” Ward replied shakily, but kept on doing their work for them. “The files are locked on the server, so…”

“The hell you are,” Fiona scoffed. “You’re working with the cops. I saw you.”

“You’re out of your mind, you dumb skank.” Ward finished what he was doing and turned around from the keyboard to sneer at Fiona.

Frakes glanced between the two of them suspiciously before turning to Ward again. “Cody, look me in the eyes! Why would this chick make that up?”

“Maybe because I wouldn’t bang her in the bathroom at the bar. Did she tell you that part?” Ward huffed, letting out an unconvincing laugh. “Come on. How long have you and I known each other? You’re gonna take her word over mine?”

The computer beeped behind him. Michael knew it was the signal that the virus had launched.

“Excuse me,” he said loudly, pointing at the screen behind Ward. “But since when do personnel updates send files to a remote server and delete them all?”

“What?!” Frakes turned around in shock.

“How much do you want to bet that server leads straight to the cops?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Ward threw his hands up in the air.

“No wonder I couldn’t hack your system,” Michael said, adding more fuel to the fire he could see that was already starting to burn. “The cops were already there. This guy’s your problem. This guy right here. It’s nuking our server.”

Frakes lost it. He grabbed Ward by the collar and slammed him against the nearest wall. “You son of a bitch. What did you do?

“All right. All right. All right,” Ward started rambling. “Listen. I had no choice. All right? The cops had us cold.”

“There we go!’ Fiona laughed triumphantly.

“Would you ask your friends to lower their guns?” Michael added, seeing that it was their chance to bail. “We are leaving.”

They only got a distracted nod from Frakes, which was more than enough for the two of them to leave the server room in a hurry before he changed his mind. The sounds of Ward’s pleading faded into the distance and was soon silenced by a reverberating gunshot just as they got into the nearest elevator.

Chapter 18

14-3
13th Street
Little Gables
Miami

Michael sat at the dining table, his fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. It’d been raining the entire afternoon in Little Gables, and there was a chill in the air the warmth seeping from the ceramic mug could hardly deter.

A packed duffle bag sat next to his feet, and in it were the few clothing items he had, along with everything else others had left behind during their visits. Jesse’s air mattress was also packed and ready to go, along with Fiona’s unplugged and cleaned coffee maker. The mini fridge was also empty of all the food, beer and yoghurt, so that Sam could retrieve it whenever he wanted.

The mission was done, which meant his brief period of freedom was also at an end.

They had reviewed all the data they had received from the Collective’s mainframe well into the late hours the day before, looking for anything connected to Sonya Lebedenko and her network. The information about her operational funds was still there, which meant traceable money trails. They even had the account details of Barry’s clients, along with the intel where the hackers had stashed the stolen money. Sam had the task of handing over that bit of information to Barry at a later stage as a thank you for all the assistance he provided.

All in all, it was a successful mission. They had everything they went after, and in a few hours, when Pearce showed up to collect him, she would have all of it too. Michael had no doubt that she could use an army of CIA analysts to comb over every bit of information the hackers had and chase down every lead they unearthed.

It will be good for her, he thought, smiling to himself a little, much better than sniffing out counterfeit money in some obscure country so far from where she belonged.

Michael sipped the strong, bitter brew and simply breathed, savouring the rich smell of the Columbian blend Sam had brought, courtesy of his billionaire girlfriend. It was a nice gesture, not quite a last meal or something drastic like that, but a thoughtful farewell gift even though Sam hadn’t said that outright. Michael was under no illusions that he was going to have any such luxuries for a long time, if ever.

On the one hand, he was glad that he had a few hours to himself, to just sit quietly and enjoy the sense of peace and calm the sound of the rain and the scent of petrichor brought along. He didn’t want to spend the last bit of his temporary freedom arguing again over something he had already made up his mind on. On the other hand, he felt a little guilty over not telling any of his friends that Pearce was picking him up in a few hours, not the next morning as he had led them to believe.

It was for the best, he sighed. Goodbyes were never easy. It had been painful the first time when he’d had to do it over the phone over fourteen months ago, and there was no reason to believe it would be any easier and less painful this time. There was no point putting everyone through that unpleasantness again when he could just leave with Pearce before anyone found out. Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission, was how the saying went, not that he had any intention of doing either.

The sound of squealing tires broke him out of his reverie, sending a spark of confusion and concern down his spine. He stepped next to the closed blinds over the window and peeked outside to make sure it was Fiona and not an unwelcome surprise. The familiar red Hyundai took the curve around his house with way too much torque than was required, confirming that it was, in fact, her.

He returned to his chair by the table with another long exhale. He had a feeling why she was here. He knew she wanted to have a long conversation before he left, although he was torn about it. He saw no point discussing anything about their past, present or future just before he had to return to spending the rest of his remaining years in a prison. It seemed that Fiona had decided it didn’t matter that he was going away forever, and that she was going to have what she wanted regardless of what Michael felt about it.

Lost in his musings about her, Michael was shocked to the core when the back door to the house opened to reveal not Fiona, but his mother standing there.

“Michael.” she said softly after what felt like an eternity, breaking him out of his frozen trance.

“Ma.” His voice sounded wooden, like a stranger’s, even to his own ears.

“I–I wanted to see you.” she said, making no move to enter, as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed.

It wasn’t like her – the hesitation. Even in his thoroughly dazed state, Michael noticed that instantly. He stood up from the chair and waved a hand awkwardly, “Ma, come inside.”

She did so slowly, letting her gaze wander around the empty place and his packed bags, drawing all the right conclusions, if the way her shoulders sagged in defeat was any indication. She took the chair facing him from across the table and dropped her handbag on the one next to her. The ever constant spy in him noticed a nicotine patch on the inside of her right elbow, hastily brushed hair, non-existent make up and the extra worry lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes.

The last time he had seen her, mere moments before he had confronted Card and ended more than one life, she had been angry, dismissive and uncompromising. The look in her eyes had told him only one thing – that she held him responsible, and as such, he was beyond her forgiveness.

He had seen it, understood it and agreed with it, even as it had broken something in him beyond repair, worsening the raw wound Nate’s death had left in his soul into something even deeper and darker.

Which was why Michael, her oldest son, could only see that angry, embittered version of her superimposed over her present image, unable to reconcile the mix of terrible regret, heart-breaking grief and reluctant hope in her expression over the blame and hatred he had seen there before.

“Where’s Fiona?” It was the spy that wanted to know, the part of him that was constantly vigilant and concerned over practical things such as the whereabouts of his friends and their safety.

“In the car,” his mother said, “She thought it best that we had the chance to talk.”

Michael nodded, still reeling from shock and at a complete loss on how to pull himself together.

“How have you been, Michael?”

“Alright,” his answer was automatic and without inflection.

His mother raised an eyebrow in that very familiar way when she called out his bullshit. “Really?”

Michael shrugged and looked away, unable and unwilling to hold her gaze for too long.

“You were in prison, Michael,” she said, her voice wavering a little. “Not even in the country, but in some lawless hellhole in Cuba. That’s what your friends found out.”

“I killed a man, Ma.” he murmured, his gaze fixed on the jagged cut roughly the shape of an inverted ‘L’ on the wooden surface. Every time he noticed it, he wondered how it had come to be on the otherwise undamaged, and pristine table.

“He deserved it, Michael.” his mother said.

“Yeah, he did.” He agreed.

“Michael,” she said quietly, in a tone that had him reluctantly looking up to meet her gaze. The sadness that welled up in her eyes was almost too much to bear. “Why did you give up?”

“I didn’t.” He lied, and looked away again.

“You surrendered. You never even defended yourself…”

Michael sighed, suddenly feeling very tired. He didn’t want to keep having this same argument. But it was his mother, and if anyone had the right to demand answers from him, it was her. “I did what I said I would do, Ma,” he said, thinking back to the last conversation he’d had with her. “I ended it all. It was the only way I knew how to put a stop to all the destruction that came attached to what I am.”

“Michael–”

“I’m sorry it took me that long to do what I should have done in the beginning,” he said, spilling out a truth he had never voiced before. It had taken a long, solitary existence away from everyone for him to realise that simple fact. He could have avoided a lot of mistakes and regrets if he had. Hindsight really was a bitch sometimes.

“Michael, please,” she said earnestly, “It wasn’t your fault – not all of it, at least.”

Michael looked up and met her look of torment with a broken, resigned smile. “But enough that it cost too much to all of us.”

It was her turn to look away, then. Michael didn’t blame her. It was a fact. They wouldn’t have been where they were now if he hadn’t come crashing back into the life he left behind. It was the burden he had to live with.

Time felt like it had slowed and stretched. An eternity passed in heavy, stifling silence, both of them lost in their own private hells of memories, thoughts and emotions. Michael didn’t know what to say to break it, whether he was even allowed or welcomed to do so. He had never felt like that before, lost in a moment where he didn’t know how to approach his own mother. The small dining table could have been a gaping chasm for all the distance that existed between them.

When she finally turned back to him, it was with a nostalgic smile. “Do you know Charlie lives with me now?”

“Yeah, I saw,” Michael said. “I was in Miami a few weeks ago on a mission.” He didn’t elaborate that he had been brought along to play bait.

“I heard,” she said, and to his astonishment, there wasn’t any accusation or blame in her simple admission. He had a feeling Sam, Jesse or Fiona may have filled her in on what happened at some point. She, however, didn’t seem interested in dwelling on it. Instead, she spoke to him about his nephew. “Charlie loves strawberry ice cream. Could live off of it alone if I left him. Doesn’t that remind you of someone?”

“Nate. It was his favourite.” Michael said, feeling his own lips quirking to the side in a small smile at the few nicer childhood memories that surfaced at her comment.

Then the young Nate’s face changed into that of a grown up and the harmless pink smudges of ice cream mutated into a much darker shade. The memory of his own hands covered in Nate’s blood filled his vision, despite Michael’s attempts to blink it away.

I’m scared, the last words of his brother echoed in his mind, wilting his smile and tightening his throat.

“Charlie takes after his father,” his mother’s smile widened, either unaware or deliberately misunderstanding the expression written all over his face. “He also asks me everyday about his uncle Michael, when he’s coming home… just like Nate used to do when you left to join the army.”

“He’ll grow out of it, just like Nate did then,” Michael swallowed thickly, already knowing where she was going and determined to stick to the simple truth. “I’m not coming back, Ma.”

“Is that what you want me to tell your nephew, Michael?” She demanded. Michael could clearly hear the desperation and something dangerously close to worry in her wavering voice. Those weren’t the emotions Michael had expected her to feel towards him after everything he had done. “That boy loves you and misses you very much.”

“Don’t you think it’s better for him to grow up without the presence of the man responsible for his father’s death?” Michael asked, trying not to let his voice break with what he was feeling right then.

It wasn’t that he was trying to be unkind, but he genuinely didn’t know how to even face the child with the mountain of guilt he carried. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to look that kid in the eye and admit to the death he had unintentionally caused. Even just the thought of it felt like a dagger twisting deep in his heart.

His mother, however, had a different view altogether. “What he needs is to grow up around a man who can teach him about the real world out there, Michael,” she said sincerely, “Someone who could love him, protect him and show him how to survive.”

“I learned most of it from you before the army and the CIA ever came into picture,” Michael said, hiding the wounds he was inflicting on himself inside with a thin smile, “He’s in good hands.”

She saw right through his words into what he was feeling, “Michael, please–” her voice broke at the end.

“What do you want from me, Ma?” When he spoke, he wasn’t much better at holding it together either, “I can’t – I can’t do this again. I can’t keep losing people I love and care about.”

A tear finally escaped and ran down his mother’s cheek. “And I can’t lose you.” she said through clenched teeth.

“I’m still here,” he said weakly.

“For how long? Until tomorrow?” she didn’t seem to realise that she was yelling, and crying. “Will they even tell us if you die in that prison?”

Michael honestly didn’t know. He didn’t think they would. So he kept silent, feeling helpless at the sight of her anguish.

“When Nate died, I was angry, Michael,” she said in a quieter voice. She seemed to have instinctively realised that she wasn’t the only one teetering on the edge of a breaking point, “I was heartbroken. I had to bury my son next to my husband, both I lost to the same damn organisation that made my other son into the man that he is, the one I’m so proud of. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

“I’m sorry, Ma…” Michael murmured, feeling like those were the most inadequate words he had to offer in lieu of what he actually felt.

“What I’m trying to say is that I was wrong to blame it all on you. There was enough of it to go around. In my grief, I was holding onto the only thing that gave me strength to get through it, and I never realised I was losing my remaining son in the process. For that, I’m the one who needs to apologise, Michael. I’m so sorry for driving you away.”

Michael didn’t know how to feel. Maybe it would have made a difference had she spoken to him openly before his confrontation with Tom Card. Maybe not. He didn’t know. He sure as hell had no idea what to do with it now. The death grip he had on his almost empty coffee mug was hardly enough to keep himself from falling into pieces.

“What do you want me to do, Ma?”

He flinched when her hand closed around his left wrist. Her grip was soft and almost hesitant, but determined. Her skin felt warm compared to the chill that had wrapped around him from inside out.

“I want you to come home.”

He looked up and was confronted with a look of half plea and half demand.

“Fiona tells me you have a chance at freedom,” she said, and her grip around his wrist tightened a little, not trying to hurt, but trying to urge. “Do what it takes and come back home, Michael.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said, figuring that if there ever were a time he had to be completely honest with her, this was it. “These people the CIA want me to take down– they are bad, Ma. The moment I walk in, they’re going to become part of your life, and the moment something goes wrong, you’re the one they’re going to take out first.”

“That’s nothing I haven’t lived through before, Michael.” She said, which was the sad truth.

“What about Charlie? He’s only three, Ma,” he asked, wanting to make sure she knew exactly what she was asking from him…what she was asking him to put on the line again. “Do you really want to put that kid through something like that? Hasn’t he been through enough?”

“Like you said, he has me,” she let go of his wrist to pat his forearm, “And all of you– you’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that. Then you’ll come back home to that kid who never forgets to ask when you’re coming home every damn day.”

Michael stared at her, amazed at where she had found all that faith in him after he had shattered it all to nothing with Nate’s death. She seemed to have found strength to trust in him again when he was having a hard time doing it himself.

“I know you did what you did because you thought it was the right thing, Michael,’ she continued softly. “You always did, no matter the cost to you. What you didn’t realise was that life without you wasn’t really a life for any of us. Why do you think Sam, Jesse and Fiona – all of them just dropped everything and ran after you the moment you surfaced? How did you even think that we all moved on? Nothing has changed, Michael. We were all stuck in a limbo, and we all started moving only when you did.”

That wasn’t what he had expected her to say. She was saying things he had never even imagined. He hadn’t meant to ruin lives even more when he had made the decision to surrender himself. It was already too late to fix all the mistakes he had made by then, and he had only meant to do the one thing he could to avoid making more.

“I–I don’t know what to say.” Michael stuttered, feeling wrung out.

“Yes,” said his mother, “You do, Michael.”

She was looking at him the same way she used to before the day he had walked into her kitchen to tell her that her other son was dead. Her gaze was absent of the revulsion, hate and blame he had become used to seeing there since that fateful day. Instead, what it reminded him of was the expression she had on her face when he had finally come home all those years ago.

Theirs had never been a model family of love, devotion and joy. They had their ups and downs, mostly downs. Happiness had been a rare thing growing up, but there still were moments that were worth keeping in his memory forever. The point was, he and his mother were the only ones left, and they were all Charlie Westen had.

And, for the Westens, family came before everything else. His mother was there to remind him of the fact. Only, instead of fading away from them forever, what she needed from him was to fight one more time, for himself and the rest of his family and friends.

Michael stayed silent, but gave her a sharp nod to let her know that he understood.

“I have to go now,” she patted him on the arm again before standing up from her chair. Michael followed suit. “Charlie is with Mrs Lauren and I promised him I’m going to be back soon.”

“Yeah, Ma,” Micheal murmured, and stayed where he was.

“Before I go, can I ask you something?”

Michael looked up, nodding.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen my son,” she said, and stepped around the table to stand before him, “Can I at least hold him?”

She didn’t really wait around for him to squeeze an answer out of an uncooperating throat. She just closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him, muffling what sounded a lot like a sob against his chest. He bent down instinctively and returned her embrace with everything he had, not sure whether it was her shaking in his arms or the other way around.

He didn’t quite know for how long they held each other. But when she finally withdrew from him, he felt warmer in a way he hadn’t been able to really feel in a long time. He had almost forgotten how good of a feeling that was.

“Stay safe, Michael,” she said, her eyes still shining as she cupped his jaw tenderly, “Do what it takes to stay alive and come back to us. I’m done burying my family. Don’t make me do that again.”

Michael covered her hand with his own. “I’ll do my best, Ma,” he promised.

“I love you, honey.” She said, and it was an all-encompassing feeling to realise that she meant it.

Michael smiled. “Love you too.”

***

Rain continued to patter down the windshield of Jesse’s Porsche, distorting the view of the rundown house, overgrown lawn and the ramshackle hut that doubled as a garage.

“Nice place.” Dani said, not quite eager to get out of the pleasant warmth of the car and into the pouring rain.

“Sam’s procurement skills at their finest,” Jesse said. He had finished his visual recon around the house, and was now staring at the familiar red car parked under the hut, which implied Fiona and Sam were already there. “Now, will you tell me why I had to play chauffeur?”

“I was supposed to show up to this meeting by myself, actually. Michael called and told me to hitch a ride with you,” Dani said, keeping her gaze fixed forward.

“Wait! What?” Jesse turned in his seat and she felt his gaze boring a hole on the side of her skull, “By yourself? Don’t tell me–”

“Yeah,” Dani sighed. “I was supposed to take him in now. He wasn’t going to have an audience. Looks like he changed his mind after all.”

“Jesus! So this is – what? The goodbye party?” Jesse cursed, shaking his head. “You know, it would have been easier to bleed a stone than get this guy to change his fucking mind.”

Dani understood his frustration and agreed with it completely. “You’re telling me,” she said, “I have directors of not one but three agencies breathing down my neck to sign him in.”

Jesse turned to her again with a frown. “Three?”

“CIA, NSA and CSS,” Dani said, thinking back to the neverending calls she’d received from Langley since her arrival at the Miami field office. “They all want to see this network go down.”

“Yeah, no wonder,” Jesse said, his hand going to the door handle. “Ah, well… it’s not over until it’s over. It’s still not too late to enact plan ‘A’”

“As in kidnapping and smuggling?”

“Such ugly words, Agent Pearce,” Jesse flashed an impudent grin. “We call it ‘creative interventions and forced vacations in non-extradition countries.’ It has a much nicer ring to it, don’t you think?”

Dani got out of the car, laughing, and ran across the short lawn in the rain behind Jesse to get under the awning of the small patio. Sam opened the door to greet them with a smirk on his face and a beer in his hand.

“We were starting to wonder if we should send a search party,” he said, stepping aside to let them in.

“Hey,” Jesse said, jerking his head at Dani, “I had to make a detour to pick up the extra guest.”

Following Jesse in, Dani saw that Fiona was also there, sitting to Michael’s immediate right clutching a steaming mug in her hands. The place was already empty, and judging by the packed belongings, it looked like Michael was ready to leave.

“Ohh, that stuff smells great,” Jesse announced, inhaling deeply with a blissed out expression on his face. Dai had to agree with him. The smell of coffee in the air was simply amazing. He wandered over to the pot and started opening cupboards, looking for mugs. “Dani, you want some of this, or a beer?”

“A coffee, please,” she said and found a seat across from Michael while Sam went back to sit in his chair on Michael’s left. Jesse came and settled next to her, with two mugs of steaming coffee.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks, Jesse,” she took hers with a smile.

“So, Mike,” said Sam, nudging his friend with an elbow, “Now that the whole orchestra is here, are we gonna compose a symphony or what?”

Michael looked up from his yoghurt and side eyed Sam in a way that said he had no idea what the man was talking about. Sam shrugged and drank some of his beer. Michael pushed the laptop that was resting next to his elbow towards Dani.

“The hacker syndicate, Collective, in a nutshell,” he said, tapping it with the butt of his plastic spoon. “Or a laptop in this case, and the mission report–”

“And today’s newspaper,” Sam said, placing the folded paper on top of the laptop. He had circled an article at the bottom right corner. It said that a telemarketing firm up in Coral Gables, Biscayne Boulevard had been closed down due to an internal dispute. The hiring manager Cody Ward was found dead inside the office, and the firm manager, Jack Frakes, who seemed to have disappeared, was wanted for questioning.

“No more internet thieves,” Sam said while she quickly skimmed the article, “You see how it pays to let us do the work our way?”

“There never was any doubt, Sam,” Dani said, looking up. “Well done, all of you. Is there anything I can use here?” she asked, pulling the laptop towards her.

“Sonya’s funds,” Jesse said, “I’m sure your guys are going to be able to trace the money trails with far better luck than any of us can.”

“That’s more than I was expecting,” Dani admitted, feeling relieved. “I’m glad they didnt get rid of the files after selling them out.”

“Nope,” said Jesse, “They kept copies as insurance. It’s all there.”

The silence that fell around the table after that was filled with unease. Sam and Jesse exchanged furtive glances while Fiona continued to stay silent, all her attention focused on the coffee she was savouring. Michael calmly ate his yoghurt as if he wasn’t about to walk back into prison in a few hours.

“If there’s anything else–”

“Nope.” Michael looked up, cutting Dani off with a small smile. “That’s it.”

“Mike, honestly,” Sam interrupted before he could go any further, “Can we talk about this a little more?”

“There’s no need, Sam.”

His quiet words were met with protests from all around as Fiona, Sam and Jesse all started to speak at once.

“Michael–”

“Mike–”

“Come on, man.”

“Guys, guys, listen,” Michael had to raise his voice a little to get them to calm down. “There’s no need to keep arguing about this because I’ve changed my mind, alright?”

Dani was shocked into silence just like the rest of them. Before she could even begin to hope that he was saying what she thought he was saying, Sam pinned him with a suspicious look.

“Changed your mind about?” he demanded.

Michael shrugged. “Going back to prison.”

“Wait!” Sam sounded like he couldn’t believe what he just heard, neither could Dani. “Does that mean you’re in?”

“Yeah, Sam.”

The quiet admission was drowned out by the sounds of relieved laughter, hugging, back slapping and shrill whistles. Dani watched the celebration with a shocked grin, still unable to believe what she just heard.

“You guys realise this isn’t me agreeing to go on a vacation with you to Ibiza, right?” Michael pointed out, bringing all the noise down again. “We can all very well get killed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jesse pointed a finger at him with a beaming grin and turned to Dani. “They’re never gonna see what hit them.”

“I’m hoping you still have my contract with you.”

“Yeah, I do, Michael,” Dani said, pulling the folder out from her bag, figuring it was her best chance to get him signed in before his mind changed again. “It hasn’t left my side since you gave it back to me at the embassy.”

Michael took the folder and gave all the pages a cursory scan before placing his signature at the end. Dani felt a huge burden ease off her back when he handed it back to her with a knowing grin.

“I’ve gotta admit this wasn’t how I saw this meeting going,” she said, smiling. “But I’m very glad at this new turn of events. What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Her question earned him a round of inquisitive stares from both Sam and Jesse. Michael, however, turned his head at Fiona and narrowed his eyes. Fiona countered with a sweet smile and ruffled his hair.

When Michael spoke again, his voice was rather quiet. “I talked to my mother.”

There was another set of knowing glances that bounced around between them all, a silent conversation and context Dani wasn’t privy to. But the atmosphere in the room settled and relaxed in a way that suggested Michael talking to his mother had great significance and that it had been a good thing.

Making a mental note to ask him further about it later, she decided to bring up their next move in the operation. “Now that we have all this, do you have a plan moving forward?”

“I do,” Michael replied, nodding at the laptop. “I want to use that as a payback of a sort, in a favour for a favour kind of way.”

“To Sonya?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you helped each other to get out of that GRU women’s clutches?” Fiona frowned.

“We did,” said Michael, his tone quiet. “But then she came back for me, kind of helped me out of a rough patch. I’ll make it sound like I want to do something for her.”

While Sam and Jesse seemed to accept his reasoning without further explanation, Fiona didn’t look satisfied with his evasive answer, that much was obvious to Dani. It meant that Michael hadn’t really shared any details with his friends other than what Dani had told them. She didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Do we have any idea where she might be?” He asked.

“As far as we can figure, she’s still in Cuba,” Dani said, and pulled out all the files she had with her on the investigation and spread them over the table.

“Oh boy, that’s a lot of dead people,” Sam said after a few minutes of reading the same file Michael had in his hand over his shoulder. “Three police officers, eight military, seven civilians….”

“Wow! She’s a suspect in all of it?” Jesse whistled, forgetting the file he picked from the pile, “The lady’s sure been on a revenge rampage.”

“No,” said Michael, “It’s a systematic clean up. She’s taking out everyone who would have caught a whiff of her presence there.”

“We have no way of tracking her,” Dani admitted, “After the nuclear submarine fiasco, our relations are very shaky with the government. Only good news is that it’s worse with the Russians.”

Michael raised an inquiring eyebrow. “GRU no longer has operational authority over their law enforcement?”

“Well, that’s what their international relations update said,” Dani said. “But you know how it is.”

When the support and authorisation from a government was publicly withdrawn, the intelligence agencies didn’t pack their bags and leave with an apologetic wave. What they actually did was go to ground, and started carrying out their ongoing operations a little more covertly and with a little less assistance.

“Unfortunately, until the heat of this dies down, we can’t have any boots on the ground to investigate these murders officially,” Dani continued. “They handle them all inhouse. We’re glad they let us have the names, at least.”

“How about the investigation on the plane attack?”

“Found the mercenary group, Halcion Security Services,” she said, nodding at the file Fiona was flipping through. “The parent company is called Galinski Associates, based in Poland. Burke must have relied on the rather cold state of relations between their governments to keep his hit squad loyal. Unfortunately for him, the GRU got to Galinski.”

“Looks like they are all dead too,” Fiona said with an unconcerned shrug before looking up at Dani. “Sonya or Oksana?”

“We don’t know yet for sure.”

“Any idea how to lure the serial killer lady out in the open, Mike?” Sam nudged Michael with his bottle of beer.

Michael opened the folder with his contract again, and clicked the pen. After a long moment of silent deliberation, he finally wrote down a number on the bottom of the last page, just below his signature.

“Oh, a bank account number,” Sam said jovially, drinking some of his beer. “You’re gonna name your price for this, huh, buddy? Nice! You’re going to retire rich.”

“No, Sam,” Michael snorted. “It’s a virtual dead drop.”

“A bank account?” Fiona frowned confusedly.

“Yeah,” said Michael, “It’s a rudimentary message system with certain amounts pertaining to certain words and meanings.”

Jesse jerked forward in his chair as if he had been zapped.

“No, no, no way,” he muttered, turning the file from under Michael’s hand to take a better look. “This was one of the codes that surfaced in the Eastern Bloc back in the 90s.” Then he looked up and pinned Michael with an incredulous look. “The entire system went away after an incident in Kazakhstan, before we ever got the chance to crack it.”

Both Sam and Michael had furtive expressions on their faces, confirming that Jesse had stumbled onto something.

“Michael,” Dani said levelly, “What aren’t you saying?”

Michael exchanged another secretive glance with Sam before facing her. “That Sonya knows way too much about me, more than she should,” he said, his tone low. Dani noticed that his admission immediately put Fiona on her guard by the way she leaned in with a narrow-eyed look.

“The Kazakhstan Incident was me,” he said to Jesse, earning a chuckle full of disbelief from the ex-CIFA agent. “I flooded their entire network with a message of my own. I made several deposits in some of their untouchable, untraceable accounts that weren’t supposed to exist. I made them think that we cracked it. They dropped it like it was on fire.”

“Why the hell don’t we have the decrypt code then, man?” Jesse demanded.

“Because it never made it into my report.”

“Michael–”

“It still won’t, I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Dani with the stubborn look she knew very well by now. “It’s not part of the deal. Lives of a lot of innocent people depend on the fact that this line of comms stays dead and buried. You got to trust me on this.”

“Fair enough.” Dani said, thinking how many other bombs he was going to be dropping on her head with no warning before all was said and done.

“Jesus, man,” Jesse cursed, shaking his head. “You’re crazy. I can’t believe you sat on this for all those years–”

“You weren’t going to give this up before turning yourself in, were you?” Dani added, frustrated all over again to realise that he had been sitting on a direct line of communication with the terrorists with absolutely no plans to share and make her life a little easier.

“I’m sorry, Dani, it was nothing against you,” Michael said sincerely, “I have to protect it because it has connections to operations other than this– things that aren’t in records. So it’s not going to go further than me. Besides, even without this, I’m sure you’d have caught up to her eventually. This just makes things move a little faster–”

“I like faster,” Dani said, accepting it was all she was going to get from him on that end. “So, what’s the next move?”

“I’m going to make a deposit,” Michael explained, letting his glance sweep over all of them, “Sonya will trace it when she sees it, and she’ll know I’m reaching out. The meeting, if she decides to make it happen, will happen on her terms.”

“What will you say if she does make contact?” Sam asked.

“That I need her help one more time,” Michael replied.

“With what?”

“To find a purpose worth living for.”

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