Reading Time: 92 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
Part Ten – When It all comes to an End
Chapter 28
Michael’s Temporary Lodgings
Little Gables
Miami
Just as her message had said, Sonya was right on time when she knocked on his door.
“Hey!” Michael said, opening the door to let her in. “How are you?”
“Great, and you?”
“Still alive,” Michael replied, smiling.
“I can see that.” Michael saw her curious gaze taking in the minimalistic nature of his temporary abode before she settled on a chair by his dining table.
“Want a coffee?” Michael asked, leaning against the kitchen counter to finish the yoghurt he had been eating, and added, “Or one of these?”
“No thanks,” Sonya declined. “I’ve gotta head back soon.”
“I wanted to thank you for what you did the other day,” he said, scooping out the last bit of his yoghurt, “The call came just in time to stop a bullet to my head.”
Her eyes narrowed at his admission, “You went in personally?” She demanded, “Can this man whose ass you saved be trusted to keep the fact that you’re alive to himself?”
“I believe so,” Michael said, knowing that she did have a valid reason to be instantly suspicious. They did go to extreme lengths to hide him from the rest of the world after all. “Not like he could go to any authorities without implicating himself anyway,” he shrugged, “Besides, I’d have done it anyway, Sonya, because I didn’t do it for him, I did it for Fiona.”
He knew that admitting as much was a risk, both to his place with the network, which was still fragile and under heavy scrutiny, and whatever Sonya regarded him as personally. But, he had a feeling both James and Sonya already knew exactly what kind of a person he was, the values he placed on the lives of everyone he cared about, and the lengths he would go for them. That knowledge made him feel safe in letting her know why exactly he had done what he did, and if it would serve to add some space between him and Sonya, all the more better.
She studied him with a pensive sort of gaze. “Sometimes the weight of a shared history can drag you down, can’t it?” She asked softly, her earlier irritation faded into something bordering on wistful.
“Yes,” Michael said, equally softly, “But most of the time, it could pull you out of the deep end too.”
She didn’t say anything to that, and continued to watch him silently, lost in thoughts Michael couldn’t quite read on her expression.
“Anyway, whatever you guys did worked,” he said after a while, drawing her attention back to him. “We got out, and Hialeah is down one drug dealer–”
“Not just Hialeah, but Venezuela too,” Sonya corrected, her smile sharp, “His boss is no longer around.”
“Really?”
“Let’s just say, they’ve outlived their usefulness, shall we?” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “We don’t deal with monsters, Michael, remember? We take them down. The world is a better and safer place for it. Besides, after what you did for us, it was the least we could do.”
“I understood why the job had to be done.” Michael murmured, averting his gaze.
“I know and you never complained,” she said, the look in her eyes softening, “But I saw how much it affected you, Michael, the pain you tried to hide… I know it wasn’t the easiest mission for you.”
Michael nodded wordlessly, secretly relieved that she had drawn all the conclusions he had meant for her to draw after the operation.
“So what brings you here?” he asked, not bothering to hide his attempt at deflection, making it clear that he wasn’t really in the mood to dive back into the memories of the mission. “You weren’t really forthcoming in your message.”
“These,” she said, and pulled out another passport from her backpack along with what looked like a personal file.
“Nice,” he said, walking over to the dining table to look at the documents she spread on it, “More passports and visas, and cover stories–”
“Better get to memorising,” she said with a crooked smile, “We’re leaving tomorrow. You and I are travelling abroad as a couple– Elliot and Tricia Bronson. We have been married for a while, so there is a lot for you to learn in a few hours.”
Micheal took the passport first, and saw that Elliot Bronson was a well-travelled businessman in import and export trade according to his bio page. There were several fake visas stamped on the rest of the pages. The air ticket that was inside told him that they would be flying to Mexico the next afternoon.
“That’s a lot of trouble for a single trip,” he commented idly, turning his attention to the file that contained Elliot Bronson’s backstory, “So, what happens in Veracruz?”
“It’s not just a trip, Michael. We’re joining James for a very important meeting.”
“And that meeting is?”
She flashed him an exasperated smile, “That’s for James to tell you.”
“Still don’t trust me enough?” Michael raised an eyebrow at her.
“I know you might feel like it, but you have to understand that it’s a process,” she said after a moment, relenting, “After this, your integration will be complete, and you’ll finally be able to start your life, the life you’re meant to be living.”
“What does that mean?” Michael frowned.
“It means, you can move out of this limbo you’re stuck in right now, Michael,” she said, glancing around pointedly, “You’re going to get assigned to your own area of operations, your own base and operational budgets. That means, you’ll be running missions instead of proving yourself.”
Michael let a slow, triumphant smile stretch on his lips, expertly masking the way his blood ran cold at the news. A new area of operations could be anywhere in the world, and that would mean going deeper into the cover with even less support. As things stood, he still had the home turf advantage, and the backup of his friends. A relocation would mean total isolation without any guarantees that he got more direct access to James.
“About time,” he said, letting his voice go lighter, “Can’t wait!”
“Yes,” Sonya said, matching his smile with a bright one of her own, “Do your homework and be ready tomorrow on time. I’ll see you then.”
CIA Field Office
The FAA Centre
Miami-Dade County
Michael walked into the CIA field office two hours after his meeting with Sonya, the feelings of quiet agitation her remarks had brought up still unsettled in the pit of his stomach. The place was in controlled chaos, as it always was, and the muted sounds of chatter, ringing phones and beeps and whirs of workstations greeted him like an old friend when he walked through the pit. A quick scan found Pearce leaning against the counter next to a coffee machine, hands on her hips. She was glaring at the thing as if she could make it pour out her caffeine fix faster by her will alone.
“Oh, oh,” she said when she saw him making his way towards her, “I don’t like that look on your face. What did she say?”
“Another job,” Michael sighed wearily, “The last one I get to do while I’m still here–”
Taking Pearce’s raised brow as permission to elaborate, he told her what Sonya had said about his upcoming promotion within the ranks of James’ organisation.
“Okay, that’s bad,” Pearce grunted, agreeing with his own assessment. “We need to wrap this up before that happens. Who knows where they’d bury you next!”
“Yeah,” Michael said, and accepted the mug she gave him with a nod of thanks. “That’s why I asked you to bring Steele in. He’s got his fingers on more than a few pulses in the region–”
He couldn’t quite conceal the grin that crept up to his lips when the mention of the freelance spy instantly darkened Pearce’s expression to a grimace. Roger Steele was a bit of an acquired taste, and had that effect on many agents when they came into contact with him for the first time.
“Michael!”
The man’s jovial voice greeted Michael as if the act of speaking his name had summoned him. He looked over his shoulder to see Steele sauntering towards him with a smile on his face and a disposable dixie cup in his hand.
“Tell you the truth, I’m not liking this life as a dead guy much, old boy.” Steele sidled up next to Michael with an arm casually thrown over his shoulder, and started complaining. The drink in his cup sloshed around ominously as he gestured at Pearce with it. The strong smell wafting from it told Michael that the coffee in it was drowning in bourbon. “I miss my life, you know–”
“Yeah, Roger,” Michael said, puffing out an irritated breath, “Join the fucking club.”
Steele swayed closer in his attempt to squint at the side of Michael’s head, using his hold on him to keep himself more or less steady, “I forgot for a bit there that you’re in the same boat as me,” he hiccuped, and chugged more of his drink, “Anyway, Dani says you could use my help. Well… here I am! Ask me anything. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Anything to expedite my exit out of here.”
Pearce jerked her head to the side, wordlessly signalling them to follow her to the command centre. Steele slinked along, letting Michael carry most of his weight like it was payment for all the trouble he had caused him. Or maybe it could have been that it wasn’t his first drink since his arrival at the field office, although Michael had no idea how he got Pearce to turn a blind eye to him bringing along his alcohol cabinet.
Might get along with Sam like a house on fire, Michael thought idly as Pearce led them to where her army of analysts determinedly searched for anything and everything regarding James and his network.
“Veracruz, Mexico,” Michael said, addressing Steele, but pitching his voice in a way so that everyone seated at the workstations could hear him, “What comes to mind in the line of cartels, street gangs, mafias, smugglers…. you know– any enterprises in that variety. Any budding organisation that would benefit from, say, making a deal with a very hush-hush global terrorist network?”
As he spoke, one of the techs pulled up a detailed map of southern Mexico on the main display screen on the impressive wall of monitors they had before them, highlighting the Veracruz region.
“Why the gangs?” Pearce inquired, frowning, “Why not a legitimate business?”
“Call it a hunch,” Michael shrugged, and put the coffee mug down to let his gaze run over the points of interest that popped up in the area. It took him a moment to realise both Pearce and Steele were aiming twin glares at his skull from either side.
“Remember the favour they did for me when I called regarding Nando?” At Pearce’s impatient nod, he elaborated. “They went straight to the guy at the top, Ricardo Lopez, and according to Sonya, he didn’t survive long after the encounter. I’m pretty sure they took over his operations in Bogata–”
The way Steele’s squint turned into grimace told him that he knew who Michael was talking about.
“I see where you’re going,” Pearce muttered, narrowing her gaze at the map.
The tech manipulated the display to highlight most of Venezuela in a different colour with the known distribution/supply routes and warehouses marked with pins, adding the information they had on that particular drug dealer and his operations to the map.
“When you add what they now control in the DR into the mix…”
Heeding Michael’s words, the tech did the same to the Dominican Republic, letting all the information they had about Marco Cabral’s intelligence network display as well.
“Wait!” Steele made a scandalised noise, staring up at the sinewy lines representing Cabral’s network that went up on the screen with wide eyes, “I know who runs the cartel in the DR. That’s Marco Cabral–” He cut himself off then and turned to Michael abruptly, blinking dazedly, “Cabral – I heard the sorry sod shied out of the deal he made with the MI6 recently–”
Michael spared him an unimpressed glance, wondering if maybe he wasn’t as drunk as he seemed, to be able to put it together that quickly.
“Sweet bleeding Jesus!” Steele laughed, thumping Michael on the back a few times hard enough to hurt, and stumbled over to sit on the edge of the nearest table, “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Told you Sonya works for some dangerous people, Steele,” Michael reminded him, his voice low, “And for the time being, so do I.”
“Los Bandoleros and Los Cazadores,” Steele blurted out at the end of another loud hiccup, “They’re both fighting over the port. If I had to put my money on one of them, I’d say Cazadores. The old man, Don Suarez, died a few months back and his two sons took over running things. Neither of them are anything like their old man–”
“Why?”
Instead of answering, Steele glared balefully at his empty cup for a long moment before noticing the mug Michael had placed on the same table, his coffee untouched. Steele grabbed it with a delighted grin and proceeded to spike it generously with the flask he pulled out of his jacket’s inner pocket.
“Steele–” Michael snapped.
The man hummed around a mouthful of coffee flavoured bourbon.
“The new leaders of the Hunters, what makes you so sure they’re the ones making a deal with someone like James?”
“Well, they don’t want to get stuck in Mexico for one thing,” Steele shrugged, swaying side to side on his perch, “And they’ve been asking around. I think they both want to get rid of the family business and get the hell out.”
“What about the Bandits?” Pearce asked.
“Family business down four generations,” Steele said, “Too proud, too hard-headed and too fucking patriotic to even think about selling out. They’d rather shoot you in the head if you went around asking.”
“That’s thin.” She said, sharing a frustrated glance with Michael.
Steele saw her doubtful expression and clicked his fingers, grinning brightly, “The bald bloke– what’s his name? Pendleton? He runs ops on your southern border. Contact him. He’ll tell you more.”
One of Pearce’s analysts started dialling a phone without waiting to be asked while another one occupied herself with searching the CIA servers for what they had on the two cartels. Within a few minutes, the accompanying screens to the left of the main screen had everything they had on them, confirming what Steele had enthusiastically shared.
“I can see why they’re excited about this one,” Pearce remarked several minutes later, breaking the silence, “If this deal works out tomorrow, whatever it is, James will basically have full control of the Caribbean sea–”
“That’s an entire region coming under one organisation’s control,” Michael agreed, his mind running in a hundred directions trying to figure out a way to corner the elusive leader when he made it to Mexico the next day, “That’s just way too much unchecked power…”
“Let’s get to work then, shall we?” Pearce said, grabbing a seat to settle by the nearest workstation.
Michael followed suit, and took the chair one of the techs wordlessly offered. For the next few hours, it was all about probing contacts, checking out locations and layouts, tracing back the money and paper trails they already had against the ones Steele had shared during his debrief. Even a few operatives joined via conference calls as the time passed, sharing what intel they had about the two cartels, confirming Steele’s assumption about where James might be making his move.
At the end of the long, exhausting day, they had a vague, almost skeletal frame of a plan. They had the make and models of the convoy that would be transporting James and his team on the ground, the possible location where the meeting might take place, a distraction in the shape of the arrival of the rival gang and an extraction plan.
“We’re going to have to track you live for this one, Michael,” Pearce declared wearily, rubbing a hand roughly across her face. By then, they had gone through every detail of the plan and contingencies not once, but twice.
“The flight lands at 12:40,” Michael said, recalling the information on the travel documents he had received, “Twenty minutes to clear the immigration, and around about two to three hours on the road when you make allowance for evasive manoeuvres. They usually run their checks just before James comes in. You’ll have to remotely activate it when you see the convoy move.”
It was a risk, one that could earn him a swift execution if he was discovered, both Michael and Pearce knew that. Yet, the plan required his location at all times, both due to the moving parts they had to adjust on the fly and his safety.
“Once we confirm you’re with them and on the move, we’ll move as planned,” Pearce said, nodding, “Try and keep your head down once the shooting starts. We won’t be the only ones with the guns.”
There were a lot of elements they weren’t going to control, such as the two organisations that were planning to make a deal and the one they were planning on introducing into the mix. They needed the presence of the rival gang in order to create a chaotic distraction, and throw the suspicion off of Michael when things inevitably went to hell.
“Yeah,” Michael said around a badly muffled yawn, “There’ll be a lot of angry gangsters in the streets. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“That’s why we’re going to move in and out quickly, before it turns into a shootout,” Pearce said confidently, “The Mexican government wants both the cartels out of the picture. As long as we get this done without any civilian casualties, they’re going to look the other way.”
Michael accepted that with a nod, and stretched, wincing at the pops and cracks that erupted along his spine at the move. Even though there were no windows to offer the view of the night time traffic, he knew it was late. Most of the workstations had different faces than the ones he had seen when he had arrived, due to the shift changes. Steele was soundly asleep draped over a sofa by the kitchen, having passed out in the middle of the planning session hours before.
“Alright then,” he said, and stood up. “I better get going.”
Pearce followed him out to the elevator wordlessly, and only stopped him when he was about to press the button to call one up.
“Michael–” she said, her voice quiet.
“What’s up?” Michael frowned, his guard going up instantly at her uncharacteristic hesitance.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before looking up at him. “It’s about Jason Bly,” she murmured, “He didn’t make it.”
Michael closed his eyes, stunned by the wave of grief that hit him at the news. CSS agent Jason Bly wasn’t a friend per se, but he could almost hear the man’s quiet words to Sam, when they had met. It was an unexpected realisation that there was some truth to them from his end too.
“He died in the operating theatre when they took him in for his second surgery,” Pearce continued in the same quiet voice when he stayed silent, “You were already out of the country when I got the call. Didn’t exactly have a good time to tell you afterwards. I’m sorry, Michael.”
“Shit.”
“This isn’t the best time for a news like this, it never is,” Pearce sighed, “But, on the practical side, we can’t forget that fact that we have another unknown sniper in the wind – a sniper who may or may not have seen you.”
“And we have no idea who they are working for.”
Pearce didn’t have to spell out the implications, since Michael knew them all too well. That was yet another unpredictable element they may or may not encounter during the already complicated take down they had planned.
“So don’t let your guard down, tomorrow,” she insisted, “Not even for a second.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
Mobile Command Post
Boca Del Rio
Veracruz,
Mexico
The Next Day
13.14 Hours
The two jeeps and the armoured transport continued on Highway 150 at a leisurely speed in a south-southwest direction, finally confirming the speculation of the previous evening, along with the attack plan that was in place. The tracker on Michael was a blinking dot on the monitor, serenely moving along with the convoy.
“Alpha Team, standby,” Dani called over the net, signalling the team to move to their positions and be ready for the extraction.
A chorus of affirmatives flowed over the comms, filling the interior of the surveillance van that was parked half a mile up from the location of the planned ambush, behind an alleyway out of sight.
“Approaching intersection five,” the tech monitoring the live feed muttered, tensing.
Come on, Dani urged silently, her gaze boring into the satellite imagery of the convoy. It was the moment of truth. The entire extraction plan depended on them taking the first left at the intersection, and turning onto the avenue that would lead them to the edge of the small city of Boca Del Rio, towards the port of Veracruz. Los Cazadores owned most of the establishments in the industrial area of the southwest corner of the town, including the massive warehouse complex near the port that served as their headquarters – the location where they had assumed the deal would go down.
“They’re turning.” The tech announced a few seconds later, relief palpable in his voice.
“Alpha Team,” Dani said, grinning wolfishly, “We’re a go. I say again, we’re a go.”
Kendrick’s Convoy
Michael was inside the armoured car with Sonya and James, silently observing the change of scenery through the tinted windows as it passed by rapidly. The traffic had dwindled to almost nothing as they took the left exit off of the intersection that led them further into the municipality of Boca del Rio. There were some shops, small groceries, auto shops and even a few restaurants and cafes here and there, most of them closed or with very few people milling about. Even most of the street vendor stands and carts seemed abandoned, despite it being the middle of the day.
“So, what is in here other than fresh seafood?” Michael asked softly, his gaze fixed on the abundance of colourful graffiti that seemingly hadn’t spared a single flat vertical surface on either side of the road. “Or is that classified?”
“What’s happening today has been years in the making.” James said in a low voice, his pride at the fact evident in the small smile he shared with Sonya, “Let’s just say our little organisation is about to make a giant leap forward.”
“Is it about expansion?” Michael asked, feigning innocence.
James pinned him with a narrow-eyed, speculative look before shaking his head, chuckling, “Let’s just say it’s about completing the final piece of the puzzle,” he said cryptically, “Once the deal today goes through, we’re going to be the untouchable power in this entire region, Michael.”
The Ambush Site
They were set up about eight hundred yards from the Los Cazadores’ headquarters, around a narrow corridor that extended for about another three hundred yards. According to intel, the complex extended throughout the span of half an acre with a few warehouses, admin buildings, a private hanger and an open yard that served as an outside training facility for the cartel. The entire facility was covered by a seven feet wall with four well-fortified guard towers, surveillance cameras at every corner and electric fences. The file they had on the cartel also went on to say that they had about one hundred trained mercenaries ready to roll out, armed to the teeth, at a short notice.
Sam wasn’t that worried about the homegrown army that might descend upon them in defence of James and his men. They were a team of seventeen, including himself, Fiona and Jesse, all strategically positioned around the ambush site. They already had their own armoured getaway cars parked on the opposite side of the narrow line of abandoned buildings and warehouses that made up the narrow entryway to the cartel HQ.
Besides, a quick look at the time told him that the first part of the plan should already be in motion. A few scattered teams of Special Forces soldiers were conducting coordinated attacks on several known factories, businesses and storage facilities throughout the rest of the city, in the guise of the rival cartel. It should be more than enough to keep the Suarez brothers confused and enraged, and to keep them from barging out to save their new friends.
“Primary target approaching,” a terse voice whispered through the comms network, dragging Sam out of his musings to the present, “ETA five minutes.”
That was the Special Forces operator stationed at a rooftop at the far end of the narrow alley, the one who had the first view of James’ convoy. It was just turning in.
Sam was perched on top of a building to the left alongside Jesse, out of immediate view of the convoy, since they were there as operational back up for the extraction team. Fiona was holed up inside the abandoned shop where the first spotter was stationed. She had the detonator for the explosive traps that were designed to isolate James’ armoured truck from his escorts.
“Glenanne, that’s your cue,” said the leader of the extraction team, “Get ready.”
“To blow things up,” her voice was a low, excited purr that made Sam exchange an exasperated glance with Jesse, “I was born ready, boys.”
“This is an extraction op. Shoot to disable unless you’re shooting in self defence. I’d rather have a low body count if we can,” Pearce ordered, “Michael’s to be treated as an enemy combatant until he is in our custody and on his way back to the states. Do you copy?”
A chorus of affirmatives confirmed that the instructions were received and understood.
“It’s go time, people.”
Sam relaxed his crouched stance as much as he could and adjusted his sniper rifle, “Time to end this.”
“Amen to that, brother.” Jesse said, taking the safety off of his rifle as well.
Over the comms, their spotter started a countdown to spring the trap and set off the ambush. “Target in sight. Contact in ten, nine, eight, seven…”
Kendrick’s Convoy
No matter how much you’d trained, no matter how much you’d planned, there was always anxiety in the moments before you surprised a target with an ambush. If you were with the said target, most things would simply be out of your control. Your operations team might be monitoring the situation, but they would usually be too far away to do much but watch. Your extraction team was there to do one job, and one job only: acquire the targets. That effectively left you alone to fend for yourself when the shooting started. At the end of the day, all you could do was smile, play along, and try not to get killed in the chaos.
Michael kept his expression pleasantly blank while he mentally prepared for the extraction. He knew the two old cars parked on either side of the street only a couple hundred yards away would explode the moment the lead vehicle and their own made it through, cutting off the support vehicle that was trailing them.
In the corner of his eye, he saw James stiffen as they made the turn, looking distinctly ill at ease.
“What is it?” He asked, hoping the man hadn’t caught a glimpse of the team somehow.
“It’s just a feeling,” James muttered, peering over the window on his side, “Tight space. Nobody on the street–”
“You sure?” Michael frowned, shrugging, “It felt like a ghost town since we turned off the highway to me.”
“Can’t put my finger on it,” James said, unconvinced, and he tapped on the glass partition that separated them from the front of the vehicle. “Owen, radio the others. Tell ’em to keep their eyes peeled.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Ambush Site
“… six, five, four, three, two, one…go, go, go!”
The explosion was spectacular, as was expected. The cars went airborne the moment the thundering boom split the air around them with a blazing fire. When they landed, they created a flaming obstacle between the last jeep and the armoured car that had James, Sonya and Michael.
The driver in the lead vehicle panicked. The jeep veered dangerously over to the sidewalk on the right before he wrenched back control and screeched to a stop in the middle of the street. The second explosion erupted in front of the jeep, another old truck that Fiona had rigged with explosives, successfully trapping the two vehicles between two improvised roadblocks.
“Alpha, Bravo move in,”
Sam watched as the ground team made their approach through the side alleyways between buildings, their guns at the ready.
“Alpha, Charlie, cover us.”
The strategically placed snipers on the rooftops started shooting at the vehicles and the ground near where James’ men had piled out of their vehicles, keeping them pinned and surrounded.
Michael, who had jumped out of the left side, was outside the armoured transport on the opposite side of Sonya and James. Sam could clearly read his stance through the scope: he was about to make a run towards the lead vehicle that had caught fire to its engine block due to a flaming piece of debris that had landed on it.
“Stay down brother, come on–” Jesse murmured, having seen the same thing Sam had, urging Michael to stay put where he was.
The driver of the jeep hauled himself out, firing blindly as he landed on the rough asphalt. The passenger seemed to be taking his time getting out, either stuck or injured. But he was also firing a Mac-10 through the busted window, and even managed to clip one of the Bravos on the shoulder, taking him down.
“Shit!” Sam cursed and released a volley of covering fire over the jeep to let one of the ground team members pull his injured teammate to safety.
***
Michael stayed low on the ground and took a quick look. The support vehicle was trapped behind a wall of fire, and the four men inside were already out, shooting all around them. The overwatch of the extraction team was doing a good job while the ground team moved in to surround them.
There was nothing they could do for each other, since they were separated by a veritable wall of flames.
“Michael–”
James called out when he saw him crouching by the front fender, his gaze fixed on the lead vehicle and its two occupants. The driver was on the ground, his shots going wild, but the man still inside the jeep was a problem.
“They are shooting around us,” Michael shouted back, ready to make the run, “They want to take us in, not dead.”
“In that case, here,” James said, and slid his Glock over to Michael. “Help Gerard while I give them something to worry about.”
Michael didn’t know what James meant by his ominous remark, and he didn’t have the time to wonder. He sprinted from his cover behind the SUV towards the jeep, and bodily hauled the man out of the passenger seat, cleverly blocking his line of sight for shooting under the guise of dragging him out to safety.
It all went according to plan. Almost.
They had James, Sonya and his four men all taking cover against the reinforced body of the SUV on the one side, and all the extraction team had to do was surround them from the two sides and take them down.
But that was before James half slithered inside to grope under the back seat before emerging outside with a terrible surprise of his own.
***
“Damn,” Sam reared back in surprise.“Is that a–”
“Shit,” Jesse cursed, and tapped the comms, “Alpha team, be advised. The target has a grenade launcher. I say again, the fucker just pulled out a grenade launcher. Find cover.”
***
James’ driver sprayed a volley of bullets at a soldier who had the misfortune to take a peek from behind a wall, and Michael heard a muted thud as he went down. Another soldier from up above shot him before he could spray a follow up volley, and Owens went down with a hole in his gut.
James let out an enraged scream as he aimed the grenade launcher at the rooftop before firing. The ball of fire blazed a trail of smoke as it soared towards its target. Michael had a moment to pray that the team had enough time to scramble to safety before the roof exploded.
“We’ve got to get the hell out before they back us up against a wall.” The driver of the jeep, whose name Michael didn’t know, yelled.
“He’s dead.” It was Sonya. She was kneeling by Owen’s body, looking oddly detached.
Michael aimed his gun and shot the asphalt near the feet of another soldier that tried to close in on them on their right, simultaneously halting his progress and getting in the way of James’ shooter, who was aiming at his head.
“Everyone get in,” James shouted, popping up from behind cover to aim his launcher over the hood of the SUV at the building on the opposite side. The shot was enough to reduce half the top floor of it to a smoking crate. “I’ll make a hole for us to get through.”
He turned the launcher around before the rubble had stopped raining all over the alleyway, and took aim at the single truck that barred their way from the front. One grenade at the rear bumper of the burning truck caused it to slide sideways with a deafening screech, clearing out a space big enough for them to slide through.
By then, everyone inside the support vehicle was out of the street, hauled away out of sight to be detained by the extraction team. Michael had a sinking feeling James and, by extension he, were going to get away in the chaos.
“Move, move!” Someone was shouting, “Everyone in.”
Having come to the same conclusion Michael had, the Alpha Team made one last effort to hinder their escape. The other driver caught a ricochet in his thigh and went down as he made a move to get inside the passenger seat.
“Michael–”
“Got him,” Michael yelled, backing up a step to haul the man to his feet and shove him inside while Sonya and Gerard kept shooting at the team.
Then they were all in, with Sonya piling up behind James with Michael to climb in after her. He took a quick look behind him, and saw a slow nod from the black masked figure, whom he had clocked as the leader of the Alpha Team. It was an acknowledgement that they were slipping out of the net, and Michael hoped Pearce and her support team would keep up the chase at a distance, with the tracker he still had on him.
Focused as he was on the extraction team and getting inside of the SUV before it careened out of the trap, Michael never saw the high calibre shot that came from nowhere to impact him in the back.
***
“What the fuck?”
Shocked as he was, it took Sam a moment to hear the growl that erupted over the comms.
“Who the fuck was that?”
“That wasn’t any of us,” Somebody called out in a panicked voice. “The trajectory was way off–”
“Alpha Team,” Pearce’s sharp bark cut off the chatter, “Sit rep.”
“We detained four, one KIA,” the team leader’s terse voice came through the net, “James and five others escaped in their transport. Two casualties. One of them caught a round in the leg and Westen caught one in the back. Looked like it went through his vest. It wasn’t us.”
“Fuck.” Next to him, a pale-faced Jesse, who had witnessed the same gruelling sight, cursed.
“Pearce,” That was Fiona. She sounded furious. “What the hell’s going on?”
“We have another shooter in the mix, people,” Pearce sounded rather subdued when she spoke up again, “Keep your heads down. We have an unknown sniper in the wind.”
Inside the Armoured SUV
Michael had no idea what was happening. He was sitting inside the SUV. It felt like it was flying off the ground. The sounds around him were garbled for some reason he couldn’t quite understand and someone’s grip on his right shoulder was the only thing that kept him from falling the rest of the way to the floor.
Michael tried to pull away from that painful grip, and felt a bolt of fear strike through him when he realised he was too weak to do it. The slight jostle also made something ignite on his back, somewhere on his left shoulder blade, near the spine, making him cry out.
“Don’t move.” Sonya snapped next to his right ear, making him realise it was her hand that was wrapped around his uninjured shoulder, holding him upright.
“Can’t much,” he slurred, and made the mistake of trying to turn his head to the left, which made the fire in his back infinitely worse.
“The round went through the vest,” that was James.
The adrenaline was dispersing quickly from his system, leaving Michael shaky and lightheaded. It took him longer than it should have to realise that he had been shot. The coherent thoughts dissolved in a haze of the sparkling white static of agony when something pushed against the wound, hard.
“Sorry, Michael,” he heard Sonya’s voice intermittently through the buzzing in his ear, her grip on him tightening. That was when he realised he was trying to get away from James’ prodding, which wasn’t helping. “We gotta keep pressure on it. Stop moving.”
“Hey, hey,” it was James again, tapping him on the cheek. Michael opened his eyes, blinking wearily, wondering when he had closed them. “Look at me. You’re not gonna die, not today. Stay awake.”
There was something in the look in the man’s eyes, a mix of glinting fury and determination, that made Michael instinctively trust what he was saying, and nod at him dazedly. That was the last thing he saw when he lost the battle with himself, and slumped against James, unconscious.
Inside the CIA Getaway Vehicle
“Got them on the feed,” Sam heard Pearce as he got in the car with Jesse and two other Alpha Team members. “They’re heading west.”
“How’d they get out?” Jesse inquired, frowning, “I thought this road ended at the Hunter’s HQ.”
“It does,” Pearce said, “They squeezed through an alleyway and drove out on a one way on the wrong side. Blew up the road behind them to block anyone from chasing after them.”
“Where are they going?”
“Not to a hospital,” Pearce replied, sounding speculative, “Not unless they want the entire Mexican police swarming in on them– “
“Are we in pursuit?” the soldier in the passenger seat broke in.
“Negative. Rendezvous at the command centre. Westen’s tracker is still good. We’ll know where they are going, and plan on an attack depending on where they end up.”
“What the hell happened back there, Pearce?” Sam demanded, “Who shot Mike?”
“Don’t know,” Pearce said, sounding just as frustrated as he felt, “But if I had to take a guess, I’d say it was the same guy that shot and killed your friend, Agent Jason Bly.”
Chapter 29
Temporary Command Centre
Navarro-Vazquez Airfield
Veracruz
Mexico
15.23 Hours
The command centre was a temporarily converted maintenance hangar at the Navarro-Vazquez private Airfield, which was located only twenty miles away from where they had set up the ambush in Boca del Rio. Everyone returned to base within half an hour of Pearce’s call, and they all had to wait around patiently until her mission control team took over tracking their target along the traffic-heavy highways of southern Mexico.
Finally, closer to an hour later, Pearce had enough information to conduct their post mission briefing and plan their next set of moves.
Sam made a quick stop by the fridge on his way to the briefing, and was elated to find out the agent hadn’t thrown away the case of beer he had snuck in there earlier. Grabbing a cold one to keep him company, he joined the loose half circle everyone made by standing around Pearce and her team in front of the veritable wall of active monitors.
“After James and his people slipped past our net, they continued further down south, and arrived at this destination forty minutes later–”
Pearce had a laser pointer highlighting a location somewhere in the city of Alvarado. One of her techs zoomed in on the image until they were all staring at a vast, strategically isolated mansion that was surrounded by an enormous estate spanning about five acres.
Even from the details they could see on the flat, two-dimensional image, it was glaringly obvious that the place was extremely well fortified. There was a seven-foot wall spread all around the perimeter with electrified fencing and surveillance cameras. Most of the estate was backed up against a lagoon, where they had the uninterrupted view of all the sea-going traffic in the lagoon and the small canal that led to the Mexican gulf. The single entry point from the land was guarded by a massive wrought iron gate and two looming towers on either side of it, manned by heavily armed soldiers.
“This is where they are,” she continued, “Michael’s GPS locator hasn’t moved for twenty minutes or so. I believe it’s fair to assume that this is James Kendrick’s base here in Mexico.”
“The place is registered to a shell company operating out of Aruba – a company we have already confirmed is a front for one of Ricardo Lopez’s export businesses–” another one of her techs, Sam thought her name was Price, spoke up at Pearce’s nod, “So this estate definitely belongs to Kendrick’s organisation.”
“It’s only seventy kilometres from here,” the Alpha Team leader, Lt. Carter – a towering man close to seven feet in height with a face full of fuzzy, red beard – noted in his gruff voice, “It would only take us about an hour to get there by land. Do we have a way to get around in water?”
For the next twenty minutes, they busied themselves with game planning possible infiltrations via land and water, weighing the pros and cons of each entry against the plausible methods of breach and timing. The lively discussion was suddenly interrupted by a call that came via a landline – a call that managed to turn the tech who answered it an alarming shade of pale as he answered it. It was a call from Langley, her boss demanding Pearce to take it in her office through her private line.
“Wonder what that’s about?” Jesse murmured, staring at the closed door to the small storage area that served as Pearce’s office.
“Probably the bosses at home are freaking out that James got away.” Sam guessed, and grimaced when he realised his beer was gone.
“Who gives a shit?” Next to him, Fiona seethed. “They got Michael! We need to get in there and finish this damn thing now before the bastard gets himself killed for real.”
Sam sighed. He had to agree that she had a point. Since the start of the goddamned mission, they had witnessed Michael dodging too many close calls. It made Sam wonder guiltily if they’d made a mistake in talking him into the mess in the first place.
Indefinite incarceration against a chance at freedom…
At the time, it had felt like it was a no-brainer. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Uh oh…That’s not a good look.”
Jesse’s exclamation snapped him out of his spiralling thoughts. Pearce stormed out of the storage room with a look of pure rage reddening her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“That was AD Meyers,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair in frustration, “He was unhappy with the latest update, to put it mildly.”
“What’s he saying?”
She let her gaze sweep over the three of them without answering Jesse straight away. Sam felt an uneasy feeling curl unpleasantly in his gut at the way her anger visibly drained into something apologetic.
“We’re on stand down. We’re not authorised to conduct further ground operations until further notice.” She said with a wince.
At first, Sam thought he’d heard that wrong. Jesse and Fiona went still in his periphery, as if they also couldn’t believe what they had just been told.
“What! Why?” Jesse was the first to snap out of the shock and yell, “Have they gone insane?”
“Jesse–”
“What if he gets away?” Sam demanded before she could say anything further, feeling his own anger rising to the surface, “Don’t the assholes back at Langley realise this is the best chance we’ve got to take down the slippery bastard? He’s going to move soon and we’re never going to get another chance like this!”
“Preaching to the choir here,” Pearce sighed, making no effort to contradict them or defend her superior’s decision, “I already pointed all of this out. But those are the orders I’ve got–”
“This is bullshit, Pearce,” Fiona growled, her eyes blazing with the familiar glint that usually made an appearance when she was on the verge of doing something glaringly reckless.
“I know, and I agree,” Pearce said, her own frustration evident in her sharp tone, “For now, all we can do is monitor and keep planning.”
“That’s not enough, Pearce!” Sam said through clenched teeth, struggling not to yell at her.
Pearce sighed and rubbed a hand roughly across her face. “I’ll make the call if Michael starts moving again.”
Alvarado Estate
Mexico
18:31 Hours
Consciousness was a wispy thing in Michael’s periphery, trying to tease him out of the pleasantly dark void he was in with abstract fragments of the world around him.
The first thing he felt was relief at the fact that he was no longer stuck inside a speeding SUV, something that had been quite painful for some reason. The soft, still surface he was lying on was a massive improvement.
“…Good work. Take him to the basement,” Someone’s stern voice floated towards him from somewhere to his left, “I’ll be down in a few…”
The voice was familiar, even though Michael couldn’t quite place their name just yet. Apart from those quietly muttered words, the place he was in seemed to be mostly quiet.
He drifted for a while again, too tired to stay aware of his surroundings, and was wrenched back to the surface when the same voice returned a lot closer than earlier.
“How is he?”
“Should be coming out of it in a few minutes,” another slightly accented voice replied, one that was decidedly unfamiliar, “Lucky he had a vest on. This could have done a lot of internal damage if it wasn’t slowed down by the kevlar–”
Michael heard a clinking sound, like something small and metal bumping against glass, and wondered how or where he had heard that particular sound before.
“Thanks, Doc.”
A briefcase closed shut with a click somewhere at the foot of the bed, followed by soft retreating footsteps on a carpeted floor. Sounds of a door closing quietly came soon after, telling Michael that the doctor had exited the room.
It was only then it occurred to him to wonder why there was a doctor in the same room in the first place, and whether his state of unconsciousness had anything to do with it. At the mere thought of it, a twinge bloomed at his back, just below the left shoulder blade, and started to gradually worsen with each breath.
“Michael–”
That was Sonya. The pain was rapidly clearing the fog clouding his mind. She was close enough to have heard the weak groan that came out of him.
“Hey,” her hand was on his shoulder again, shaking him rather gently, “Wake up.”
The knowledge that he was still with Sonya, and therefore James, was more than enough to deliver a shot of adrenaline to his system, instantly snapping him fully out of his fugue-like state. He opened his eyes to a dimly lit room, and blinked wearily. James was standing at the foot of his bed, arms folded against his chest, his head tilted to the side as he regarded him silently. Michael was pretty sure the dark, visible stains on James’ white shirt were not his own blood, but Michael’s.
“What happened?” He croaked, and winced at the dryness of his throat. Sonya, who was sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, handed him a glass of water with a straw, which he drained slowly after a grateful nod.
“You got shot,” James said, “And we have the man who did it. He has a rather interesting story… to say the least–”
Michael kept his expression blank as he slurped his water, and managed not to choke on it in shock. His mind, however, was reeling at the news, several worrying questions popping up at the same time:
How long had he been out?
Who was it?
Did the sniper know?
Did James know?
“So,” he asked softly after gulping down as much water as he could without feeling nauseous, “Who is it?”
When the answer came, he couldn’t contain his shock, and he almost dropped the glass before Sonya caught it as it slipped out of his numb grip.
“He says his name’s Simon,” James said, his narrow-eyed gaze never leaving Michael, “And that you know him very well.”
“That’s impossible!” Michael blurted, shaking himself out of his stunned silence.
“I don’t think so,” James said, taking his phone out. “Here, take a look.”
Sonya helped Michael sit up straight with a pillow at his back. The move jostled his freshly patched up bullet wound, and he had to grit his teeth against crying out at the agony that flared. On the phone, there was a live surveillance feed of a dark room with windowless walls. At the centre of it, there was a lone chair bolted to the floor. The single source of light in the room was a small light bulb that hung from the ceiling to hover a few feet above the chair, illuminating the occupant secured to its built-in restraints.
Michael felt what little blood he had drain from his face when he saw the man smiling placidly at the camera on the wall in front of him.
“That is him, isn’t it?” James said, studying Michael as he stared at the feed, “The look on your face says it all.”
“He’s an insane psychopath,” Michael said, his words catching in his gasping breaths, “He used to work for a cabal that operated right underneath the CIA – mostly made of burned spies…”
“Ah, the black organisation that burned you in the hopes of forcing you to work for them,” James stepped around to settle on the edge of the bed on his left. “So this is the infamous Simon Escher. The ‘Management’s Pet’ was how you phrased it, if I recall correctly.”
Michael nodded, returning the phone back to him. There was no point in trying to deny it since James Kendrick had full and complete knowledge of his entire career, every operation he had ever conducted before and after his burn notice.
“That’s him. They used the records of his black ops to alter mine. It was the NOC list he made that led to the downfall of the Organisation. Then we went after Anson Fullerton, the man who was behind it all. Tom Card was the one last loose end…”
“What happened to Simon?” Sonya prodded when he trailed off, his mind getting lost in between the memories that led to his incarceration, and the very real threat of Simon, who could bring his entire operation crashing around him with just a few convincing words.
“He was caught,” he replied, deciding to stick to as much of the truth as possible, “And by all rights, he should be rotting in some hellhole. Not running around killing on contracts.”
“Maybe his luck changed,” James said, gazing at him with an indecipherable look that set all Michael’s senses on edge, “Just like yours did.”
“I don’t know, James,” Michael grunted, letting his genuine disbelief, anger and confusion bleed through to his tone. “I have no idea.”
“I believe you, Michael,” he said, folding his arms across his chest again, “But now we have a problem. It’s clear that Simon was working independently from the assailants that ambushed us. That means someone wants to catch me and my people alive, while someone else wants you dead. Any idea why? Or who’s behind it all?”
“I don’t know who was behind the ambush. I still don’t know where we were going, or what your plans were,” Michael lied with a pained grimace, “As for Simon, there’s only one possibility and that would be the CIA. Although, I can’t believe they’d stoop so low to let that monster out in public again–” He ended with a frown, adding a layer of truth to his false admission.
“Have to agree with you there,” James sighed, and the look in his eyes softened, “I received an update from my men back in Miami while you were still out. Your mother was taken into custody a few hours ago, along with your nephew, Charlie,” he said, apologetically.
Michael didn’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified.
On the one hand, he was expecting it, since it was a precaution Pearce had put in place during the mission planning as a contingency in case things went wrong. The chances were, his mother and Charlie were hidden in a CIA safehouse out of Miami, and therefore out of James’ reach.
But the fact that someone in the same organisation wanted him dead counteracted that relief with cold dread. He had no idea why they wanted him dead now, when their timing couldn’t be any worse, unless it had something to do with Bly and his digging. It was also entirely possible that Michael’s cover was already blown, which meant a certain death for him anyway. Then there was the possibility that the unknown party knew about the CIA operation, and wanted James and his network as a consolation prize as well.
In his mind, that was the worst possibility, because that meant it wasn’t just him, but everyone involved in the op, his friends and even Pearce, was compromised by someone higher up in the chain of command.
“I think it’s safe to assume the CIA is back to hunting you,” James continued, unaware of Michael’s frantic thoughts, “Any idea how you may have popped up in their radar again, Michael? The reason we went to extreme lengths to fake your death was to avoid this exact situation.”
Michael could tell that he wasn’t happy with the situation. Sonya twitched next to him, staring down at him with an angry frown.
“Could it have been the man you volunteered to rescue recently?”
Michael knew she was referring to the debacle that involved Carlos Cruze and the drug dealer, Nando. “No, I don’t think so,” Michael murmured, shaking his head, “All he knew was that I wasn’t dead. He had no idea how or why. While he hates my guts because of what happened to Fiona, he despises the CIA even more. It wasn’t him.”
He decided not to offer the other explanation that involved their suspicions about Jason Bly’s death. He had no idea what Simon had been saying and needed to know more about it before figuring out a way to spin the narrative to keep his cover intact.
“Then how did they find out, Michael?”
Michael closed his eyes and let out a long, shaky exhale, “I don’t know.”
Temporary Command Centre
Navarro-Vazquez Airfield
Veracruz
Mexico
Meanwhile…
“This is bullshit,” Fiona spat, making no move to grab the bottle of beer Sam placed in front of her. They were seated around a small table in the designated breakroom, away from the techs glued to their screens. Pearce was restlessly pacing around the workstations while the fourteen soldiers occupied themselves with cleaning out their gear on the other side of the hangar.
“We don’t even know if Michael’s alive or not,” she went on, glaring daggers at the command centre in general, “We already know everything we need to know about James’ mansion. Instead of going there and taking them down, we’re just sitting here wasting our time–”
“I don’t like the timing of this order,” Jesse added, sipping his own beer thoughtfully, “It doesn’t make sense. They were falling over their own feet trying to rush us all here on a mission that was basically planned on guesses and prayers. Now, when we have more solid info, it’s suddenly ‘stand down’ time.”
“You got a point there, brother.” Sam said, nodding.
“Forget orders and forget the assholes in the CIA,” Fiona snapped, finally turning to pin the two of them with a narrow-eyed look, “We’ve done a lot worse with a lot less. I say we get out of here and deal with this on our own. I have a contact here who can supply us with some heavy artillery within a couple of hours–”
Sam couldn’t deny her suggestion had appeal. He gulped down some of his drink before raising an eyebrow at her. “How heavy are we talking?”
The smile that spread on her face at his question was positively feral, “Remember Dublin, 2002?”
Sam remembered the details of that debacle quite well. It was only months before Micheal had been forced out of Ireland due to his cover being almost blown, and Sam’s own involvement had been completely off the books. His eyes widened when he realised she was talking about an arms supply on a scale that involved Bazookas and M2 Brownings. If things went wrong, that would be reason enough to incite a war between the two countries.
“Hey, hey…You two – snap out of it,” Jesse waved a hand in front of Sam, breaking him out of his stunned silence. “I’m all for storming the castle. But we’re not exactly free to operate here on our own, are we? Remember that little file we put our signature down on the last page?”
“What’s the worst that’s gonna happen, Jesse?” Fiona’s blistering glare found a target on Jesse.
“Well, glad you asked,” Jesse sniped back, falling into his favourite defensive mode: sarcasm. “Let me spell it out. Either we’ll get Michael out and become his new neighbours at Gitmo, or we all die. Besides this is Mexico, not Miami. We don’t even have the home turf advantage–”
“Oh, like we need that.” She scoffed.
Jesse glanced at Sam in exasperation, “Back me up here, will you?”
Sam took his time finishing his beer, knowing he wasn’t going to make either of them happy with what he was about to say. A part of him idly wondered how Michael always seemed to wrangle their vastly different personalities and preferred ways of action so damned easily all the time.
He turned to Fiona first with the most reasonable expression he could muster, “Fi, we know where Mike is, and as far as we can tell, he’s alive. So let’s wait for now.” Then he turned to Jesse. “And if Pearce doesn’t come through when something does change, we’ll go looking for her arms dealer friend–”
“Or we won’t have to,” Fiona muttered, “Because by then, it’ll be too late!”
The Basement
Alvarado Estate
Mexico
19.30 Hours
“Simon Escher–” James said evenly as he entered the interrogation room.
The familiar, slightly unhinged grin spread on Simon’s face in greeting, and fell away promptly when his gaze found Michael following James in.
“Oh, come on!” He complained loudly, his features twisting in pure disgust, “Just how hard is it for you to stay dead, damn it? Worse than a fucking cockroach.”
James continued to the centre of the room and came to a stop in front of Simon. Michael chose to lean against the wall to Simon’s right, making it clear that James was in charge. It also helped him keep himself upright without falling flat on the ground. The fresh wound on his back did not appreciate him being vertical already, and made its displeasure known in a form of agony that flared every time he breathed. At least, the black, borrowed shirt he was wearing hid the bandages and possible stains, making him appear in much better condition than he actually was.
Michael casually hooked his right thumb in a belt loop and flashed Simon a grin. “Maybe you’re just a terrible hitman.”
“If I were you, I’d be more concerned about my own mortality right now, Simon.” James said softly, drawing Simon’s attention back to him. Despite the low tone, there was an easily decipherable warning underpinning his words. Judging by the way Simon subtly straightened in his chair, Michael was certain he had detected the threat as well.
“You tried to kill one of my valued employees,” James continued, “So naturally, I’m furious and maybe a little curious.”
“I can imagine,” Simon let his maniacal grin widen in his face, “You did pull a spectacular stunt to fake his death after all. Imagine my surprise when he drove right into my crosshairs back in Miami! The fucker almost fouled that contract too…”
James turned his head, silently questioning Michael with a pointedly raised eyebrow.
“Sam was meeting a CSS agent, Jason Bly,” Michael said, knowing that was all he had to say to convince James that he had a good reason to show his face in public as he had done, “Jesse and I were keeping watch out of sight. But when Bly went down with a gunshot wound, we intervened.”
“What happened to the agent?”
“He died at the hospital.”
“So that was how you found out about Michael, when you were carrying out a different hit,” James turned his attention back to Simon, “Then you decided to report the news to your employer–”
“Sure did.”
“Who is it?”
Simon stayed silent, studying James with his head cocked to the side with a calculating look. Neither he nor Michael were quite expecting the lightning fast punch that landed squarely on Simon’s jaw, snapping his head to the side viciously.
James’ voice was perfectly calm when he repeated himself, as if hadn’t just almost broken Simon’s face, “Who wants Michael Westen dead?”
“His old agency,” Simon gritted out with a wince, flexing his lower jaw a few times. “That’s who.”
“Why?” Michael asked, frowning.
“Because you’re a loose end,” said Simon, baring his bloodied teeth, “And the boss wants it wrapped up without the shit blowing back to him.”
Michael wanted to know who that was, but James had other priorities. “How did you find out his location?”
“You see, my boss, he’s a man with connections,” Simon started talking, “He knew about your little excursion already. The amigos you were coming to see today sold you out a long time ago. They caved in like a house of cards when the big bad CIA went knocking. When I reported Westen’s not-so-dead status, the boss man got to work fast. I don’t know how he found out that Michael’s working for you, but when he did, I guess you could say, he saw an opportunity to bag two cats with one shot.”
Michael stood where he was, grateful for the wall keeping him upright, his mind reeling at what Simon was spewing. Whoever it was, the man definitely did work fast – that much was obvious. Because Michael knew for a fact that the CIA had no idea about the deal James was about to make with the cartel until the day before.
It also confirmed that whoever it was, they were aware of the undercover operation. They had decided to leave Simon in the dark by feeding an entirely different spin on the story to him, possibly to keep Michael’s cover intact in case Simon landed in the exact same situation he was currently in.
It was as if witnessing his worst nightmare unveiling itself before his eyes. Someone way higher up in the command chain, either CSS, NSA or CIA – since it was entirely possible that they lied to Simon about their credentials – was pulling strings in some twisted game designed to cover their tracks, and earn a commendation by taking down James’ organisation.
Michael felt utterly hopeless, standing there in the dark room with two enemies on two completely different fronts, unable to reach out to his team, his friends, to tell them what was happening or call for support… to do anything.
All he could do was prepare himself to navigate the scenario Simon was weaving for them.
“You’re being awfully cooperative, Simon,” he remarked softly after a while, when James continued to stay silent with a speculative expression on his face. He hoped the minute tremors he could feel wracking his entire body would be taken to mean weakness due to his injury, not his agitation at what was being revealed by the madman in their midst.
“Michael, my good pal, glad you didn’t die,” Simon sneered, and grimaced when his jaw protested the movement, “It was just a job. You know how it is. Besides, the man who wants you dead is a right piece of work anyway. He sold me out too–”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Look man,” Simon turned his head, addressing James instead of Michael, “Your people are good, but not that good. Why do you think I practically handed myself to you? My job was simple. Use the ambush the Bandoleros sprung on you to take Westen out–”
Ambush by the Bandoleros? Michael frowned. The story Simon’s puppet master had fed him was getting more and more convoluted by the minute.
“So it was the Bandits that ambushed us?” Michael interjected, wanting to clarify, “Not the CIA?”
“Jesus, Michael!” Simon scoffed, shaking his head in irritation at the interruption, “Is it the blood loss? Keep up, buddy. You know how they don’t like getting their pretty little hands dirty–” he then turned back to James, rearranging his contemptuous expression to something a little bit more earnest, “The CIA played the two cartels against each other. The Bandits attacked a few establishments belonging to the Hunters all around the city a few hours ago as a distraction so they could take you out in the commotion. They’re not happy with some gringo taking over their port. While they’re at war with the Hunters, they’re still homegrown hombres…”
James turned around and nodded once at the camera mounted above the closed door, silently ordering Sonya, who was monitoring the interrogation in the adjacent room, to verify what Simon had just revealed.
“Anyway, I took the shot and hauled ass,” Simon continued, “Imagine my disappointment when I saw half the federal police waiting for me when I made it to my exfil point. That’s when I figured my best bet was with you.”
“That’s one clusterfuck if I ever heard one,” Michael muttered with feeling, wincing at the headache that was forming at the bridge of his nose, adding to his existing misery.
“It gets even better,” Simon chuckled, looking for all the world like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Your pals think you sabotaged the deal on purpose,” he said to James, grining, “They’re planning to come after you after they’ve dealt with the Bandits–”
“That’s okay. That saves me the trouble of hunting them down myself. I’m sure we’ll be able to clear up the misunderstanding with minimal bloodshed.” James murmured with a faint smile.
Even though his expression didn’t have the slightest hint of the madness Simon’s grin contained, there was a certain gleam in it that made him look far more dangerous than the actual psychopath restrained to the chair. It was one of those rare moments when the trained killer within James Kendrick surfaced.
“What I now want from you is the name of the man who’s behind all of it,” he continued, his voice sharpening with the demand, “Who’s your employer, Simon?”
“I’ll give it to you for something small in return,” Simon replied, jerking his head in Michael’s direction. “I want a deal, like the one he got.”
“You want to work for me?” James asked, staring at Simon with a faint look of disbelief, “After admitting to trying to kill one of my men?”
“Yeah, why not?” Simon shrugged, unconcerned and confident, “I’m off the books. They’d rather kill me or throw me back in the hole. I’d like some freedom too, and if you’ve seen my dossier, you’d know I’m a great addition. Much better than Westen, at any rate.”
“I have seen enough,” James said softly, regarding Simon with a look bordering on pity, “You’ve been working for the wrong people with the worst ideals for far too long, Simon Escher. I’m afraid that has done you some irreparable damage – created a mindless, remorseless husk of a man who relishes meaningless death and destruction…”
Michael felt a chill run down his spine at James’ tone. He had heard it only once – a mere moment before James killed one of his own men for breaking a promise.
Simon, however, didn’t know James the way Michael did. He stared at James with a wide eyed look before breaking into laughter.
“Wow!” he gasped in between chuckles, “He sounds just like you, Michael.”
James calmly drew the gun he had at his back just as Michael expected and aimed it squarely at Simon’s forehead.
“I have a counter offer for you,” he said, his expression pleasantly blank as he thumbed the safety off, “You give me the name, and I don’t end you where you sit.”
“James–” Michael tried to push off from the support of the wall, and found out that he couldn’t quite stand on his feet without swaying dangerously.
“This is what you need to understand about me, Simon,” James continued as if Michael wasn’t even in the room, protesting weakly…again, “While Michael does have a lot in common with me, I don’t share his aversion to killing when killing is sorely needed. I won’t even for a second entertain the idea of risking the lives of my people by trusting someone like you in our midst. Not even for the name of a corrupt CIA agent.”
Simon froze, his gaze locked on James and the rock-steady barrel of the gun only a few inches from his face. Michael saw the exact moment when the realisation dawned that he was going to die unless he gave James what he demanded.
“Okay, okay, wait!” Simon yelled when he instinctively understood that he had arrived at the end of the grace period he was given, “Meyers – His name’s Meyers. He’s not just an agent. He’s an assistant director of the CIA…”
Temporary Command Centre
Navarro-Vazquez Airfield
Veracruz
Mexico
Meanwhile…
Dani Pearce could feel three furious glares burning a hole on the back of her skull as she paced in front of the display screens, restless and utterly frustrated. She could understand their anger at being held back when they all knew where their friend was and that he was in dire need of help. She agreed with them completely. As Sam pointed out, the orders she received were confusing, contradicting and more than a little worrying.
There were no guarantees on how long James Kendrick would stay in his estate, and what he would do next. They already had all the intel they were ever going to get, and one of the best ground teams to conduct the breach. By all accounts, they should have been greenlit right away to make a move before Kendrick disappeared off the grid once again.
Meyers had mentioned vaguely about protests from the Mexican government on an attack in a civilian area as the reason for his stand down order, which had sounded thin and rather unbelievable to her. The estate Kendrick was holed up in was even more isolated than the industrial area in Boca del Rio, where they had planned the initial ambush.
She knew something wasn’t right, but couldn’t quite decipher what or where the issue was. Unfortunately, she was in the field, not back in Langley where she could have stood face to face with the unreasonable man to find out exactly what kind of a game he was playing.
She also hadn’t lied to Sam, and was fully prepared to make a different call herself the moment things started changing.
“Route change…transitioning to highway 180…”
Price’s quiet update brought Dani back from her thoughts to the present. “Are they going where we think they are going?”
“Seems so, Ma’am.”
Dani focused on the convoy made of four SUVs and a troop transport. They had seen the Hunters HQ turn into a hive of activity at the same time the trap for James had been sprung. The complex had received a lot of incoming traffic via the secondary entrance they had on the opposite side from where James and his people had been travelling. It had looked like a lot of their members had been recalled to base.
Now, on the real time satellite feed they had on their monitors, the reason for the massive gathering was beginning to take shape. The Hunters were on their way to Alvarado, where James was either waiting for them, or had no idea that they were coming.
“What’s going on?”
Dani turned around to see Jesse squinting at the feed. Sam and Fiona stayed where they were in the break area, staring at each other pensively.
“Los Cazadores are heading towards the estate with an impressive force.” She said, nodding at the convoy that was carrying a veritable army, “Whether they’re on their way to renegotiate the deal or confront James, we don’t know yet.”
“Think James’ set up can handle them?” Jesse asked worriedly.
Dani stared at the feed they had on the estate. There was no sign of the frantic activity they had witnessed back at the Hunters HQ. The minimal movements of his troops seemed well practised, unhurried and on schedule. Either they were very sure of themselves, or had no idea what was coming their way.
“I sure hope so.”
Alvarado Estate
Mexico
20:10 Hours
Michael grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge in the kitchen and washed three painkillers down with half of it, willing for them to kick in soon. All he wanted to do was get back in the bed and fall asleep, and possibly wake up a few days later when the Gordian knot they were all tangled in was miraculously solved.
Unfortunately, that was not an option. So he had to grit his teeth against the pain and do his best to stay awake, alert and ready to decide which way to move at a moment’s notice.
“Hey!”
Michael looked up from where he was perched on the marble kitchen counter to find Sonya leaning against the door frame with her arms folded against her chest, studying him,
“How’re you feeling?”
Michael flashed her a tired grin, and finished the rest of his water before answering, “Like this would have been much easier if I didn’t have a hole in my back.”
“Understandable.” She said, and made a beeline to the steaming pot that still had some coffee left.
“So, what’s the latest?”
“That man is right,” she said, her face twisting in a way that suggested even the memory of Simon was disgusting to her. Michael sympathised with the sentiment. After pouring herself a mug, she settled on a chair by the small dining table with a long sigh, “Los Cazadores are on the move. They are heading here. The Suarez brothers are bringing about fifty well-armed soldiers with them.”
“That doesn’t sound like they have very peaceful intentions, does it?” Michael grunted, his thoughts swirling about their own fortifications, weapons supply and number of available men for an adequate defence, “Can we handle that?”
“It doesn’t matter what their intentions are, Michael,” Sonya murmured, smiling, her eyes closed contentedly to let the steam of the coffee wash over her face, “What happens once they get here, is what James will want to happen. and of course, we’re well equipped to handle what’s on the way. We don’t go anywhere unprepared, Michael, you should know this by now–”
“Blame the blood loss,” he said, shrugging with his right shoulder. He admired the casual confidence she exuded, and was relieved to hear it confirmed that some Mexican mafia wouldn’t end up finishing what Simon had started.
“Ah, good, you’re both here,” James announced from the doorway before wandering in. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’ve already briefed the team leaders,” Sonya said, reverting back to English as he took the seat next to her, “They know what to do, James.”
“Of course, thank you dear,” He replied with another smile, “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You’ve done your part here. Now, it’s time for you to head back.”
The way Sonya’s head snapped back in disbelief told Michael that it wasn’t something she’d been expecting, and that she didn’t like the suggestion in the slightest. It made him straighten from his own slouch, and pay attention.
“What!?”
“My dear,” James said calmly, “You know that’s always been the next part of our plan. We need the hub moved as soon as possible, especially with the threat of the CIA being aware of our operations.”
“But James,” Sonya protested stubbornly, “We have an army incoming. I need to be here. This is my place–”
James flashed a fatherly smile at her. “The day I can’t take down a cartel run by two idiots is the day I should retire,” he chuckled, “I’ll have the control of the port before the day’s over. You need to go and take care of the moving of our communications servers.”
“Fine,” Sonya relented after a long moment of silence, clearly unhappy with the decision. “But I’m going by myself. You need all hands on deck here.”
James considered it for a few seconds before glancing at Michael. “How about taking Michael with you? He can call his friends if you need extra help, just in case. Things have been going off the rails for us recently, so better take extra precautions.” then he addressed Michael, “That is if only if you’re up for it.”
“I’m alright, James,” Michael said, making his decision quickly. “I’ll go.”
Pearce and the support team already knew where James was, and Michael knew they could make their move to take him down any time. The actual, traceable evidence on the network and all its operatives would be an immensely important piece of intel when James inevitably proved to be a hard customer to break under interrogation.
***
After a quick, simple dinner, Michael followed Sonya out the back of the mansion to a wide spread, well-kept courtyard that spanned for about two hundred yards. The seven foot tall wall had a small gate which opened to a wooden pier that extended for about ten metres into the lagoon. There was also a stone jetty erected around the structure to protect the small, well-lit harbour that was formed against the boundary of the property.
At the edge of the pier, swaying gently above the inky black waters, was a beautiful, and more importantly, a very powerful, superyacht.
“Well, hello, gorgeous,” Michael whistled softly, taking a moment to appreciate the modern engineering beauty named Constance, while Sonya stepped inside with her two duffels.
A 130-foot, twin engine boat with three gas turbines propelling three powerful waterjets, the superyacht had the ability to reach almost seventy knots at top speed. The sleek, all-aluminium hull was coated with a grey-blue colour scheme, making the yacht seamlessly blend in with its element, making it perfect for a covert ride.
Sonya extended a hand for his carry on and slid it under the nearest seat while Michael untangled the rope tying it to the pier.
“Isn’t she a work of art?” She said as they both fell into an easy rhythm getting the boat ready to sail. She let him do most of the work on the piloting system at the cockpit while she did the physical work, in deference to his impaired status. “If nothing else, Cabral’s got a fine taste when it comes to his transports.”
“This belongs to him?”
Sonya smiled, “Not anymore.”
“So, where are we going again?” Michael asked, nodding at the screen that waited patiently for him to feed it a plotted course.
“Port of Miami, Key Biscayne,” she replied. “We have a transmission hub there for our operatives in the Caribbean. We recruited one of the best satellite tech guys in the world a while back, and he’s got us tapped into a civilian station. It’s been serving as our main relay for closer to a year now.”
“Sounds like a perfect way to hide it right under everyone’s noses,” Michael said, wondering where they could have hid their relay station, “Why move it?”
“Because it’s always been a temporary solution,” Sonya shrugged, “James contracted Lyster, that’s his name by the way, to build a permanent station in the DR. It’s more isolated and we can access it frequently without drawing undue attention when our operations expand. We can’t do that back in Miami without getting noticed, and like James said, it’s too risky now that the CIA is onto us–”
“Fair enough,” Michael said, turning the key to start up the boat. The engines hummed to life with a low, satisfying growl, and a spray of white foam formed at their wake when the waterjets went to work, “What do we have to do when we get there?”
“We collect all the data drives,” Sonya said, as she stepped onto the bridge to stand next to him, “All communications get backed up into hard drives on a monthly schedule. We have to go there to take them out manually, and then move them to the new location at a later date.”
“Where do we go after we get the drives?” Michael wanted to know, “Will we come back here or…?”
“No, we’ll go to the DR,” she said, “James will contact us there.”
“Alright then, shall we?” Michael asked, his hand wrapped around the throttle lever.
“Have at it.”
Michael pushed the throttle to the maximum with a grin, momentarily forgetting all his aches and pains in the heady thrill of that much horsepower under his command. The highly responsive superyacht sped forward, gathering speed at an impressive rate, piercing the waves and parting the seas to take them to their destination.
Temporary Command Centre
Navarro-Vazquez Airfield
Veracruz
Mexico
“Westen’s on the move.” Matthews, the tech responsible for monitoring Michael’s tracker, snapped suddenly.
“Where?” Pearce demanded. “On the screen, Matthews.”
The tech tapped a few hasty commands to his keyboard and the main display split into two. On the right, they had the live feed of the convoy on its way to Alvarado estate, and on the left, the blinking dot representing Michael bobbed and wobbled.
“Can we get a closer look than that?”
“The feed is coming up now.”
A few seconds passed as the real-time image took its time to shed the pixelation and settle into a clearer version. Despite the time of the day, the night-vision capabilities of the lacrosse spy satellite and the illumination around the estate were more than enough for them to see what was happening.
“There.”
“Why is he on the water?” Sam frowned.
“What’s going on?” Fiona peered at the screens over his shoulder as Jesse came to a stop on his other side.
“Mike’s moving,” Sam said, “Looks like they’re getting into a boat.”
“Keep an eye on it, Matthews, and see if we can get its course.”
The tech went to work at Pearce’s command. It didn’t take long for him to find the make, model and specifications of the yacht, Constance, which conveniently allowed him to hack into its GPS and navigation system.
“That yacht is registered to a company called Peña Associates,” Price announced from the next station. While Matthews had been busy with the yacht’s destination, she had run a trace on its licence and registration. “Peña is a branch of its parent company, Diego Herrera & Co, located in the DR.”
“Wow!” Sam whistled, “This James guy is a piece of work, isn’t he?” He was unwittingly impressed at James’ harsh business ethics. It was no wonder that he was such a successful terrorist.
“He just sucks them dry and spits them out.” Fiona muttered.
“The guy’s your regular Robin Hood,” Jesse added, “Except he funds his own little terrorist network with what he takes over–”
“The Suarez brothers and their convoy just arrived at the estate–” another tech who had taken over monitoring the movement of the cartel announced, drawing their attention back to James’ mansion.
There was a tense silence in the command centre while all of them waited with bated breath to see if a war would break out then and there.
“Whoa!” Jesse was the first to break the stunned silence, relieved and more than a little confused at what they had all just witnessed, “Did they just let them in?”
The massive gate slid slowly back to seal the entrance once the entire convoy passed through into the driveway unhindered. All four SUVs and the transport continued to trundle towards the very entrance of the mansion itself.
“So far so good,” Pearce muttered, her gaze fixed intently on the overhead view of the estate, “No one’s whipped out their rifles to start shooting.”
“Small mercies.” Sam said, and blinked when something caused the view to disappear for a second.
“What the hell?” Jesse cursed, squinting at the monitor, “Did something just whizz by or was that a glitch?”
“That was a fighter jet,” Lt. Carter said grimly. Sam hadn’t even realised the leader of the Special Forces team was also a few steps behind them, quietly watching the rapidly unravelling disaster. “Most probably an F-18–”
“There!” The tech cried out just as a fighter jet made another tight turn, and Sam didn’t need a soldier to tell him that it was making the final approach of a bombing run.
Everything that happened in the next few seconds was way too fast for any of them to see in real time. All they could see were the telltale trails of smoke the missiles left behind as they flew towards their target, followed by a bellowing inferno when they reached it.
For a terrifying moment, Sam thought the jet would turn around to drop another of its missiles on the yacht Michael was in. Fiona’s tight grip on his elbow told him that she was helplessly bracing herself against the same outcome.
He only released the breath he was holding when the F-18 stayed gone for more than a full minute.
“Jesus!” Sam moaned, rubbing his chest as his heart raced. “I don’t think my blood pressure can take any more of this crap!”
The image before them took several seconds to clear out as the satellite recalibrated to the changes of the lighting. A surreal sight of complete and utter destruction bloomed before them in the aftermath of the wholly unexpected airstrike. There was nothing but huge plumes of smoke and intermittent flashes of flames on the right monitor.
On the left screen, the tracer on Micheal continued to skirt along the Alvarado lagoon towards the gulf of Mexico. Sam blinked a few times, desperately needing to make sure that it hadn’t disappeared along with James’ mansion.
“Mike just missed that rain of death by seconds!” Jesse’s exclamation came out in a hoarse whisper.
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Fiona sneered, her voice thin and shaky as her shock rapidly turned into pure, unbridled rage. “Remember Panama, anyone?”
“Pearce, that was the fucker back at Langely, wasn’t it?” Sam whirled around to bark at the frozen agent. “Guess we should be grateful he waited until Mike was out, huh?”
“Fucking hell, Pearce,” Jesse added his own curse, “that was too damned close–”
“It doesn’t make sense,” the pale-faced agent whispered, her gaze rapidly bouncing between the two screens.
“What doesn’t?”
“Langley doesn’t have mission specifics,” she said, finally wrenching her gaze from the monitor to focus on Sam, “They don’t have Michael’s tracker information because I haven’t released any of that yet. I’ve only been sending verbal mission updates for the last twenty four hours–”
“So, either whoever authorised that air strike didn’t know he left–” Jesse completed her sentence before she could.
“Or you have a mole.” Fiona swept everyone with a murderous glare.
“Not possible,” Pearce shook her head, “This is a sealed building, no cell signals in or out, and the only outgoing line is in that office. I’m the only one with access to that. No one here had that information until Michael landed in Veracruz a few hours back. No one here sent it to Langley, you can trust me on that.”
“So you’re telling me someone deliberately tried to kill him along with James and the cartel brothers?” Sam blurted in disbelief. “Again?”
“Yeah, Sam, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” she threw up her hands in frustration.
“We know where that boat’s heading,” Matthews’ words cut through the mounting tension, drawing their attention back to the screen on the left. While they were focused on the smoke cloud obscuring the burning estate, Matthews had managed to update his side of the map with all the sea-going traffic and their projected paths. In the tangled mess of curves and lines littering the entire Mexican Gulf, a white dotted line extending from Michael’s tracker stood apart from the rest.
“They’re going back home.” Jesse murmured, staring at the other end of the line that ended at Key Biscayne.
“Alright, people, listen up,” Pearce commanded, clapping her hands, her voice steady and just loud enough to capture everyone’s attention, “We know where our next destination is and that’s where we’re going. This ends today one way another. We’re wheels up in thirty. Get moving.”
Alvarado Lagoon
“Sonya…no–” Michael grunted, his arms wrapped around a hysterical Sonya as she lunged once again toward the control panel of the yacht, mindlessly trying to grab the throttle to pull back, “Stop!”
“Get off me, damn it,” she bit back with a growl, and thrashed against his restraining hold. Her frantic shock was pumping enough adrenaline into her system to make her far stronger than her lean, 120-pound form usually was, “We have to go back. Let go of me!”
“And do what?” Michael snapped back, desperately willing her to calm down. His own strength was rapidly fading against her vigorous struggles, and the wound on his back was screaming in agony as he strained to keep her from breaking out of his embrace, “You saw what hit them, Sonya. It’s over. They’re gone–”
“No!” The denial that wrenched out of her was more of a wail, and all the fight left her as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving her heaving body slumped against his chest. “But James – he was in there…”
“I’m so sorry, Sonya,” Michael murmured, his cheek pressed against her head as her entire body continued to shake in distress, “But it’s all gone. James is gone.”
“No.” She snapped, but didn’t move from where she was leaning against him. Her reddened gaze stayed fixed on the grey cloud of smoke on the land that was slowly gaining distance by the minute as the boat kept sailing.
“I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating softly, his lips brushing against her hair as she broke down in his arms, her breathing uneven, yet her crying silent. “It’s too late. There’s nothing we can do for them now, Sonya.”
Michael didn’t quite know how long it took for her shaking to subdue, or for the white hot agony in his back to fade into something tolerable. The sounds of the boat’s engines and the crashing waves were unnaturally loud in his ears in the oppressive silence that fell between them. Sonya was unnaturally still as she kept staring into the distance, long after the city of Alvarado and the smoking inferno of James’ estate were reduced to a faint smudge against the night sky in their view.
“That was a precision hit.” She murmured hoarsely, finally breaking out of her stupor.
“It was,” Michael agreed, his mind spinning fast to come up with a plausible explanation, “Was Simon checked for trackers? You know what they did to me when they used me as a bait to catch Burke–”
She grew quiet again without answering, making him wonder if James’ men had made the fatal error of missing an implant. It also led to the inevitable shred of relief that they hadn’t thought to scan him while he had been unconscious.
“Hey, listen to me,” he said quietly after a while, when she showed no signs of snapping out of the trance-like state she had slipped into in his arms. “I know it’s hard. But now is not the time to fall apart. We have a job to do.”
He knew his words got through to her when she let out a long, weary exhale before slowly straightening. When she turned around to face him, her face was entirely blank except for the infinite anguish darkening her eyes.
“Salvaging the network just became more important than ever,” Michael continued, his own determined gaze locked with hers, “We have to get our data before it falls into enemy hands, yeah? That’s the best way we can fight back. By continuing what James would have wanted us to do.”
She stared at him without even blinking for long enough he started to wonder if the destruction they had witnessed had caused a mental breakdown in her. Just as he was about to speak again, he saw her lips slowly stretch into a tired sort of smile that slowly managed to light something in her almost lifeless eyes.
“You’re right, Michael,” she said, her voice steady and composed for the first time since the airstrike, “That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Chapter 30
Key Biscayne
Miami
23:03 Hours
It was an hour before midnight when they arrived at a largely isolated, private marina that was about a mile away from the town. Sonya jumped out to tie the ropes to the dock while Michael brought the boat to a gentle stop against the wooden pier.
Sonya jumped back inside in a hurry when she saw him almost going down on a knee when he bent down to drag their duffel bags out from under the seat.
“Michael–”
“I’m fine,” he grunted, his hand flat on the deck to brace himself, and blinked rapidly to chase away the black spots converging in on his vision, “Just a head rush.”
“Is it your wound?” She asked worriedly, kneeling next to him, “Is it bleeding again? Did you tear your stitches?”
While he could understand her uncharacteristically overprotective attitude, especially after what had just happened, he wished she hadn’t brought up the gunshot wound. Just hearing the mention of it was enough to send white-hot currents of agony all across his back.
“Not sure.” He muttered, breathing through the pain.
“Let me check–”
“Sonya–”
“The servers won’t go anywhere, Michael,” she countered his protest sternly, her hand wrapped around his uninjured shoulder, “We can spend a few minutes to make sure you won’t pass out on the way.”
He settled on the nearest seat as she grabbed the bag with a first aid kit in it, and opened up the buttons of his shirt so she could peel it back to see how bad it was. The way she grimaced in his periphery told him it wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly while she slowly took off the bandage with a gloved hand, which he saw was wet with blood.
“For?”
“Two broken stitches,” she said, and he did his best to hold back a grunt when even the slightest of touches near it reminded him how fresh the wound was. “This was probably because of me.”
“It’s fine,” Michael sighed, and let his lips curl to the side in a faint smile, “I won’t hold it against you… this time.”
She cleaned and re-stitched the wound with quick, sure touches, reminding him of the first time she had taken care of him back in Cuba. It was an uneasy feeling to realise that nothing had changed regarding how she felt about him since then, while he was a completely different person at present, with an entirely different and hidden agenda that she didn’t suspect in the slightest.
“We’re done,” she announced softly before he could spiral further down into the grief he was feeling about the change of circumstances.
If Pearce was doing her job – and Michael knew she was – there was a good chance that she and her team were on their way to the island, or were already there. He just had to keep it together for a little while yet, until he had his hands on the evidence.
Then, it would be the end of the operation, and hopefully, the beginning of his freedom.
“Thanks.” he said, and took the hand she extended to haul himself upright.
“Let’s go.”
The Chronicle Building
Key Biscayne
Miami
Their destination was at a walking distance, and they reached it within fifteen minutes. The road was mostly empty at that time of the night, with minimal traffic, and they had no trouble staying out of sight. Micheal recognised the dimly lit, three-story building that spanned about hundred yards and let out a soft chuckle.
“This is the old Miami Chronicle building, isn’t it?” he asked, tilting his head at her, “Why this particular old mouldy place though?”
“They condemned it after the last hurricane,” Sonya replied, “The building had all the tech already– satellite hookups, microwave dish array, all of it. We bought it from the demolition team. All Lyster had to do was configure everything to fit our specifications and just hook us up into what was there.”
“Must admit it’s a clever set up,” Michael said, “Near a main road, no one would notice anyone going in or out. Perfectly hidden in plain sight.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“How many people are there?” Michael asked as he followed her towards the entrance. He could see that the interior of the building wasn’t entirely dark due to a few lights flickering here and there, but couldn’t see clearly through the frosted texture of the glass doors. “How many guards?”
“It’s unmanned.” She said, entering an eight-digit code to unlock the reinforced, double doors at the main entrance that led to the lobby.
Michael thought that was the best news he had heard all day. If it was unmanned and they were going to be the only two souls inside, then Pearce’s job would be that much easier when they finally made their move.
He had to change his mind instantly when Sonya led him inside the building however, because the moment they stepped inside, it became evident why there was no need for additional security.
“Whoa!”
He let out a whistle, swivelling his head around the empty abandoned lobby. The signs of the hurricane that had rendered the entire building unstable were still visible everywhere he looked. There were ominous cracks and fissures on most of the walls that had gone grey due to the salt water and mould. The tiled floor wasn’t much better, since most of the tiles were either completely uprooted or severely cracked in most places. There were mounds of debris, piles of broken glass, dry leaves, twigs and branches from surrounding trees, discarded office supplies and all kinds of months-old trash were everywhere, littering most of the available space.
His keen eyes also caught the surveillance cameras mounted on the corners of the walls in the hallways, stairs, and above the elevator. The ones near them had blinking lights while the others seemed dormant, which told him that they were motion-activated cameras.
What made the building entirely dangerous was not any of that, but the strategically placed booby traps that covered the entire length across the building from left to right. All the windows, entrances, exits and support pillars were rigged with claymores facing outside, primed to blow the moment an unsuspecting soul stumbled into one of the tripwires.
He also noticed that the set up was rigged in a way to start a chain reaction the moment any single one of them was tripped, causing all of them to blow altogether in a massive explosion that would flatten the entire, already unstable building to the ground in a matter of minutes.
“Now I see why the place doesn’t need any guards,” he commented as he followed her up the powered down escalator to the floor above, hoping Pearce’s team would have the foresight to do a thorough recon before breaching the building.
“Once we retrieve the backups, we’ll blow it up on our way back,” she said, sounding quite elated at the prospect, “This was supposed to be demolished years ago anyway–”
The server room was located on the third floor at the left end of the narrow hallway, which had a line of locked doors bracketing it from either side. It was also completely dark with no working lights, and they had to use their flash lights to navigate the cluttered corridor. Once they reached the end of it, Michael noticed that the steel, reinforced door also had a biometric lock and a keypad that required a sixteen-digit alphanumeric code to open.
The signal Michael was waiting for came in the sound of a muted crash of something heavy against glass from the floor below, at the same time the door before them opened with a pneumatic hiss.
They both froze at the sudden sound, for entirely different reasons.
“I thought there was nobody here!” Michael hissed before Sonya could say anything.
“There shouldn’t be,” she whispered back, frowning thoughtfully for a few seconds. “I’ll go in here and start collecting the drives. There’s a security room in the third office to the left on the opposite wing. You go in there and get the surveillance feed up and running. Get us eyes on what’s going on downstairs.”
“Do I need any passwords?”
“Type Admin and AV178#L, all letters uppercase. That should let you into the system.” Before he could leave, she dug out a couple of radios and earpieces from her duffel and handed him a set. “Here. Channel two. Keep in contact.”
“Got it.”
Michael did a passable job hiding his relieved grin at the task he was given. He jogged to the other side of the building without further delay, knowing that was the best place for him to be. He would be able to see how the team entered, and let them continue forward while keeping Sonya out of their way for as long as possible.
Getting to the security office and getting the feed up and running only took a couple of minutes. There were sixteen sub windows split between the two desktop monitors, covering feeds from the three levels of the building. Michael only caught glimpses of the breaching team as they moved across the empty lobby towards the stairs and the escalators. The feeds started going dark one by one as the team disabled the cameras on the move.
“A fully armed breaching team is in the lobby, eight by my count,” Michael murmured the lie over the comms, “They’re clearing the floor pretty quickly. Looks like they’re leaving a few behind to deal with the claymores. You need to hurry up.”
“Almost there,” Sonya’s reply was soft over the sounds of rapid typing, “How the fuck did they find us so fast?”
“They knew exactly where to hit when they sent that airstrike,” Michael pointed out, silently glad that Simon’s interrogation had solidified his cover. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken long for Sonya to figure out that it had been him all along, “They could have had a real-time overhead view of the estate, and if they did, they’d have seen our boat taking off–”
Sounds of typing were drowned for a few seconds under the string of choice Russian expletives that followed.
“What’s our exit?” He asked when she trailed off.
“There’s a roof access staircase two doors down from where you are.”
“The roof?” Michael repeated sceptically, “You’re not planning to parasail down, are you?”
“Michael, we don’t need to parasail when we can just jump in the water while this place blows up with those fuckers still inside.” She laughed softly.
“They are almost done with the second floor, Sonya,” Michael reported, mostly sticking to the truth. He had to get her to where he was before the team confronted her. She had the detonator to the rigged explosives and he didn’t want to take the chance of her running into CIA troops which could only end up in a deadly standoff. “Move your ass.”
“On my way.”
Michael took a step back when she came jogging into the room. She already had the detonator clutched in her left hand, and the duffel hanging by her right shoulder. Her gun was stuck in the band of her jeans at her back.
“What do we have?” She asked, placing the detonator on the desk, and leaning over to take a closer look at the monitors.
“They’re making their way up.”
Michael watched the feed over her right shoulder, his own gun in his hand, but pointed down for the moment.
When you worked in the perpetually grey world of intelligence and clandestine operations, the worst feeling in the world was finding out that what you believed was not the reality; not realising until the very last moment that you were caught up in a trap that was closing fast around you.
Because it never was the enemy you saw that got you, it was the one you didn’t. And what you usually failed to notice was the betrayal of someone you thought was a friend, someone you trusted at your unguarded back.
Michael saw the exact moment Sonya caught up with reality.
Over her shoulder, Michael saw one of the muted feeds catch Sam and Jesse following in behind a pair of Special Forces soldiers, with their guns at the ready. On the feed next to it, Pearce stood by the empty, unmanned reception of the lobby, using hand gestures to direct the teams while talking to them over the comms.
At first, it was confusion that hit her. It was obvious to Michael in the way she cocked her head to the side, and leaned forward even further. The comprehension took its time creeping in and he saw it in the way her shoulders gradually stiffened when it finally did.
He had an inkling as to what an emotional rollercoaster she was going through right then, the utterly unexpected shock she must have felt when the final wall she had to lean on crumbled before her eyes for the blatant lie it was. How the last trusted operative of her destroyed network, the one she considered her friend, was not what he was at all.
Michael saw it all in the minute changes; the way her arms twitched, the way her left arm moved infinitesimally as her hand crawled towards the detonator that rested on the wooden surface of the table mere inches from her, the way her ribs expanded and contracted as the slow, simmering fury coursed through her, and the shivers that started to wrack her body as her entire being raged against the betrayal.
Michael was quietly stuck in a strange, timeless moment when he observed it all.
When you worked as a covert operative, there was no line between who you were and what you did. You became who you needed to be for the operation, which was what made you effective. It kept things simple. But when you spent so much time living as someone else, the line between who you were and who you pretended to be inevitably started to blur.
That was why Michael found himself hesitating. It was only for a fraction of a second, not nearly enough to make any difference to the inescapable conclusion, but he was torn. Even though he had known since the moment he had agreed to take on the mission that he would find himself on the opposite side of the rest of them as their enemy, he hadn’t quite expected it to hit him so viscerally as it did right then.
On the one hand, there he stood, poised to completely destroy the remnants of Sonya’s world, everything she had dedicated her entire life to. She had already lost so much and he was the reason for it all; the end they never saw coming.
On the other hand, she had a detonator that could bring the entire building around them crumbling down on their heads, not too dissimilar to what she witnessed James and the rest of her friends suffer.
If he were in her shoes, Michael knew he would have taken utmost satisfaction, and felt justified even, for taking all his enemies down with him as his revenge.
“Michael–” It was barely a whisper, a small cry of hope against hope, a plea for what was unravelling before her to be a lie.
Michael knew he had the advantage, and so did Sonya, since she was the one who had her back to him, the enemy in the shadows. While Michael couldn’t deny that he felt for her, it was nowhere near enough for him to let his feelings take priority over what had to be done.
There were eighteen reasons inside the building for him to finish the job he started before she could: three of them more important than others.
Then he saw Fiona staring up at them from another feed on the top right corner of the left side monitor, her gaze locked on the camera as if she was searching for him. For Michael, that was the most important reason of all, for there was absolutely nothing he refused to do to keep her from getting harmed.
In the end, it wasn’t even a decision he had to make consciously. His training took over and his body did what needed to be done without much input from his fractured mind.
Michael and Sonya moved at the same time: him bringing his gun around in a vicious, lightning fast swing while she lunged for the detonator. Michael ended up being a fraction quicker than Sonya, and that was all he needed.
The butt of his gun impacted with the back of Sonya’s skull with enough force to knock her out instantly, and he caught her crumpling body before she hit the ground face-first. The ground team found him just as he finished restraining her wrists behind her back with a pair of zip ties he found in a pocket of her duffel.
“Hands where I can see them.” A voice growled at his back from the doorway, and Michael slowly raised his hands as he got to his feet.
“Turn around, slowly.”
Michael complied with the order and came face to face with two fully geared, masked men with AR-15s pointed at his face. He was fairly sure they knew who he was, but they were following the protocol of securing an enemy building without taking any chances. Besides, Michael could sympathise. They had seen enough contradicting things happening around him to be entirely certain of his loyalties.
“Kick the guns over.”
There were two on the ground, his and hers. Michael did as he was told, and nodded at the detonator that was now harmlessly sitting on the ground next to the table leg. “That is the detonator to the fireshow downstairs. You guys might wanna secure that too.”
“Michael!”
“Pearce.” Said Michael, “Great timing, as always.”
“Stand down,” she barked from behind them, holstering her own gun, “He’s a friendly.”
“Might wanna secure her before she wakes up,” Michael said, jerking his head at the unconscious body lying on the floor, and stepped over to the side to make space for the two soldiers. “I only took the gun, but I’m sure she’s got a few more surprises hidden all over her body.”
“Goddamn it,” Pearce muttered with a tired smile as he joined her in the hallway, “Tell me this is over.”
Michael leaned against the wall with a sigh, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion catching up to him with a vengeance, “I wish I could–”
Before she could demand what he was talking about, he saw Fiona jogging down the hallway towards them.
“Michael!” She paid no attention to Pearce or the small audience of Special Forces soldiers converging around them as she crashed into him, her arms going around him in a tight embrace.
He returned the hug just as tightly, studiously ignoring the fire that flared in his shoulder at the movement, and pulled her to him with his own arms around her waist, “Hey, Fi.”
“Mike–” Jesse joined them a few seconds later, followed by a gasping Sam.
“I hate stairs,” Sam complained before breaking out in a grin, “Good to see you got the crazy witch before she could get you.”
“It was a close thing,” Michael admitted with a grin.
“You wanna tell us why we followed you into this death trap?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, jerking his head to indicate the security room, “You see the black bag on the floor inside? There are hard drives containing all sorts of encrypted communications data from all over the Caribbean. I figured you’d need some solid evidence to wrap this up nicely. Sonya is the only top operative left, and I don’t think she’ll be in the mood to talk for a long time.”
Pearce stepped inside to grab the bag, and took a quick look inside once she was out on the hallway again, “Oh, Michael,” She looked up with a huge grin, “I’d say you just won us the jackpot.”
“Fucking hell, man,” Jesse sighed wearily and leaned against the wall on the opposite side, “I’ve been ready for this shit to be over since… well, since it started–”
“Almost, Jesse,” Michael murmured, drawing more than one curious glance, “Almost–”
Before he could continue, the two soldiers chose that moment to escort an awake and aware Sonya out of the room. She was unsteady in her feet and stumbled along with the two of them as they held her between them by her arms.
She started screaming when her glassy gaze landed on Michael just as they turned into the hallway.
“You!” She snarled in Russian, struggling viciously against the hold the soldiers had on her, “How could you! I know it wasn’t all a lie, Michael–”
It was the sad truth, he admitted to himself while Fiona took a stand in front of him facing Sonya like a physical barrier. It never really was all a lie when it came to deep cover missions, especially when they began nothing like a mission.
“Or maybe I was just that good.” He murmured back softly in Russian as they wrangled her down the corridor.
“Michael?” Fiona turned around with a concerned frown, and he smiled back at her quietly to let her know that he was fine. He took a few seconds to soak in the feeling of being himself again, and the relief of being back with his friends, where he belonged.
He couldn’t take longer than that for himself, however, since the mission was far from over.
“James is dead,” he said, focusing on Pearce. “I’m sure you saw the fireworks.”
“We all did.”
“Well, add Simon Escher to the list of fatalities,” he said, as they all froze as one around him, “I’m pretty sure he’s the one who had the implant the missiles were tracking.”
“Simon?!” Sam was the first to let out a disbelieving growl, “What was that psychopath doing there?”
“He’s the one who shot me,” Micheal said, “He’s also the one who killed Jason Bly.”
“But how?” Pearce demanded.
“That’s a great question, Pearce,” Michael replied, feeling his own anger grow at the traitor they had in the midst of their own, “We need to have a long hard talk about our boss, AD Meyers.”
Underground Parking Lot
Central Intelligence Agency HQ
Langley
McLean
Virginia US
A week later
Michael sat on the backseat of the brilliantly restored 1970 Ford Mustang, and admired the way the cream leather upholstery felt on his back. It was a beautiful car, he admitted to himself in the privacy of his mind, one that had put up quite the challenge for Michael to unlock without causing any unnecessary damage to the paint job or the original locking mechanism.
No matter what other shortcomings the owner of the muscle car had, he definitely knew his cars, and went to great lengths to maintain them the way they deserved.
The man of Michael’s musings stepped out of the elevator in the far left corner, and the tall, dark skinned man in his early sixties continued towards his car with a leisurely gait. Despite the fact that he had been working for the man for the past few months, it was the first time Michael actually saw assistant director Reginald Meyers, the head of Clandestine services, in the flesh. Michael watched him silently, shrouded in the dark at the back of Meyers’ car, mentally reviewing what he had learned over the past few days, and composing his thoughts in preparation for the fast-approaching confrontation.
Meyers opened the door to the driver’s side and threw his briefcase on the passenger side before sliding in. Michael waited for a few seconds to see if the man would switch on the interior lights, or notice him sitting directly behind.
He didn’t.
“Was it nice and shiny?” Michael asked without preamble just as the director finished buckling up the seat belt, causing the man to let out a high-pitched, undignified shriek. He flailed around for a good half a minute, simultaneously gasping and yelling before his mind came online to scream at him to get out.
Michael took the safety off the Sig-Sauer P226, and aimed it at the back of Meyers’ head from the left, making sure he could see the threat for what it was.
“Don’t,” he barked, and Meyers went instantly still on his seat, “You’re going to stay inside and we’re going to have a chat.”
At his silent nod, Michael continued with a much nicer tone, “Now, I was just asking about your new commendation. Was it nice and shiny?”
Having regained much of his composure, and therefore his furious disbelief, the first thing Meyers did was glare at him through the rear-view mirror and swear. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
“Nah, just me, Michael Westen,” Michael said with a sideways grin, “You seem surprised to see me.”
After Sonya’s apprehension, Pearce had agreed to keep his existence under wraps for a while yet. Her after action reports had claimed that they had followed Sonya, and her alone, for the severs, insinuating that Michael hadn’t survived the air strike.
Michael had wanted the director feeling confident about his own success, just so he had the chance to shred that sense of triumph himself with evidence.
“You just don’t know when to fucking give up and die, do you?” Meyers spat angrily through clenched teeth. Even in the dim light that filtered through from the overhead lights outside, Michael could clearly see a vein popping on his forehead.
“Must have missed that training at the camp,” he replied cheerfully, “Or maybe Card did a shit job on that particular course.”
“You’re a dead man walking, Westen. You just haven’t realised it yet.”
“Hey, now,” Michael said, dropping the grin, “I’m pretty sure the contract I signed promised a clean slate and freedom, not a coffin.”
“As if a contract signed by a convicted murderer has any value,” Meyers scoffed, “You won’t be enjoying your freedom for long, Westen.”
It didn’t escape Michael’s notice how sure Meyers sounded, and how he didn’t seem to give a damn about being overheard or getting caught. It was interesting, because it spoke to the fact of how certain he was about his own position.
“Enough about me,” Michael said, waving his free hand in a dismissive gesture, “What about you? It’s one long list of crimes you racked up during this mission, you know? Deaths of Jason Bly, Simon Escher, James Kendrick, Hector Suarez, Vincent Suarez and almost all their armies… that’s not adding fraud to the list, if the contracts you issued weren’t legit–”
Meyers broke into a cocksure grin, “I’d like to see you prove this nonsense of yours.”
“Wouldn’t you just?” Michael smiled, “You knew Bly was onto you. You were the one pulling Card’s strings, after all, weren’t you? Clever getting Simon to carry out the hits. I mean, he was a nutcase. Who’d have believed anything he said? He was just a rabid dog you let out when it suited you, wasn’t he?”
“Still waiting for good parts, Westen.” Meyers sneered.
“Good,” Michael nodded sagely, “Patience is good for you, considering you’re going to have a lot of free time rotting in a cell.” Then he took the file that was on the seat next to him and threw it casually over to the front. “There. Proof.”
The tense silence was occasionally broken by the sound of pages flipping while Meyers read the reports that sealed his fate. Michael recalled the expression of pure shock he had seen on Pearce’s face when he had poked his head inside her office with that discovery.
“What is that?” Pearce asked him with a frown when he placed the stack of files on her desk.
“The final nail in Meyers’ coffin.”
That got her attention. She took the top one and started to read quickly, her eyes widening as she realised what she held in her hands. “Oh my God,” she murmured, “These are Bly’s investigation files. How’d you get these?”
“They were at my mom’s,” Michael said, “She gave me a call and I got her to send them to me. While we were all running around in Mexico, Barry rocked up at her house, carrying all these, complaining about why everyone kept sending him files that could get him killed–”
Michael held back a grin when her face twisted in confusion, “Barry as in Barry Burkowski?” She frowned, “The money launderer?”
“He prefers the term, independent financier,” Michael corrected her with a slight smile, “Makes him sound more sophisticated.”
“But why on earth would Bly send him these?”
“Because he knew he was being targeted,” Michael shrugged, “And didn’t know who he could trust.”
“And he chose to trust the money launderer?” Pearce demanded, incredulously.
“Well,” Michael let the grin on his face widen, enjoying the way her confusion seemed to grow at each passing second, “Considering it was Barry who sent Jason Bly down that path…”
Pearce pinned him with a narrow-eyed glare. “Michael Westen, sit your ass down, and tell me everything, from the goddamned beginning…”
That was what he had done for the next thirty minutes that day before they had started planning their next move.
“H-how–” Meyers stuttered, unable to look away from the damning evidence. It was all there; financial records, offshore accounts, communication transcripts – months of Jason Bly’s hard work – everything that they needed to prosecute Reginald Meyers for the treasonous traitor he was, was all there in those files.
“You see,” Michael said, his voice soft, “Bly was paranoid. He knew he was in the crosshairs of someone who had way more power. So he decided to trust someone way outside the circle–”
“Who?”
“The same guy I trusted to keep the files of Fullerton and his rot – the same thing that led to Card’s untimely end,” Michael replied, “And now yours.”
“Tell me who it was, damn it?!” Meyers demanded.
“That’s for me to know and for you to wonder about for the rest of your miserable life.” Michael said evenly, and nodded at his windshield, where a team of agents could be seen stepping out of the elevator, led by Pearce herself. “Oh, look, that’s your new replacement. The arrest and prosecution of a traitor’s gonna look great on her file, much shinier than your commendation, at any rate.”
“Westen–”
Meyers yelled, protested and pleaded, but Michael pushed the passenger seat forward and got out without waiting to hear the rest of his ramblings. Within minutes, the former director was arrested and escorted back into the building where Michael knew he would be subjected to a number of interrogations, followed by a thorough investigation. He had high hopes that the case wouldn’t get closed or swept under a rug, since a death of a senior agent was involved and the panel of investigation consisted of agents from three different intelligence agencies.
“Tell me now that it’s done, Westen.” Leaning against the side of the Mustang next to him, Dani Pearce sighed.
Michael smiled.
Epilogue
Fiona Glenanne sat on the beach, enjoying the feeling of sand between her toes and the wind in her hair. With only the sound of the crashing waves to keep her company, it was a peaceful and quiet evening with no other souls in sight for miles.
She smiled to herself when she heard the faint sounds of the familiar Dodge Charger approaching, and kept listening until the throaty growls of its engine came to a stop a few yards away, by the sidewalk.
Michael got out of the car and did his usual visual sweep around the perimeter before closing the door and locking it. When his gaze finally landed on her, she saw him break into a grin, his entire demeanour relaxing.
She watched his leisurely approach with her chin resting on her folded forearms, more than a little amused that he actually wanted to meet here at the beach, of all places. While the rest of the world tended to enjoy the sights of the ocean and the smell of the clean, salty breeze, all Michael Westen ever saw on a beach was a vulnerable tactical position with no decent cover.
“Fi,” he said softly, and folded himself on the wet sand next to her with an effortless sort of grace, ignoring all the instructions and warnings she was quite certain were on the label of his designer suit.
“Did you just get back?”
It had been a little over two weeks since they had finally wrapped up the mission with Sonya Lebedenko in the custody of the CIA. Michael had gone with Pearce and her team, while Fiona had stayed behind with Sam and Jesse, their part of the mission having concluded back in Key Biscayne.
Although they had stayed in constant contact, this was the first time she’d gotten to see him in person.
“Yeah,” he said, squinting at the rippling waves that had acquired a golden hue, “Sam picked me up and I dropped him off at the resort on the way here.”
Fiona let her head fall against his shoulder, savouring how the world felt so calm, as if it had finally stopped falling apart around them while they scrambled to keep their heads above the tide and hold everything together.
“We were beginning to worry for a while there.”
It was the truth. While Michael had kept all of them in the loop with as much information as he could via calls and texts, they had all learned the hard way that his old agency wasn’t the most trustworthy of institutions.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Michael sighed, and let his cheek rest against the top of her head, “There were just too many post-op briefings on top of being called to testify against Meyers. It was a hectic few days.”
“What happened to that asshole, anyway?”
“The National Security Division of the DOJ is handling his prosecution. The case is under a lot of scrutiny right now, and I don’t see how he’s going to talk his way out of it. Even the CIA’s going to have some rough times ahead. A congressional oversight committee’s going to be hovering over their shoulders for a very long time.”
“About time,” she scoffed snidely, “The place’s been overrun by a bunch of nasty pieces of work.”
“Well,” Michael said, and she could almost feel his amusement at her contempt, “Not all of them.”
“Fine,” she sighed, relenting. “Most of them, then. What about Sonya? Did you see her again?”
“Yeah, once,” Michael murmured in a subdued voice, “She refused to talk to anyone but me.”
“How’d that go?”
“About as well as you could imagine,” Michael said slowly, “She was never going to give anything up on James or their organisation. I guess she just wanted to understand why I betrayed them. I think a small part of her held onto the hope that it was some kind of an elaborate game on my part to get back at my old nemesis. All that meeting did was crush that hope.”
Fiona stayed where she was, silently soaking up the pleasant warmth emanating from him. She was kind of surprised that he even shared that much. While a certain sense of grief layered his tone, underpinning the resignation, she was relieved to hear that he wasn’t too broken up about Sonya Lebedenko’s current situation.
“Sometimes you can’t save everyone, Michael,” she said quietly after a while, “They have to want to be saved.”
Michael grunted, but didn’t say anything else.
“What’s going to happen to her?” She asked. “Do you know?”
“She’s still pretty much one of the most wanted spies in Russia,” he said, “They’ll use her as a bargaining chip, for either an intel or prisoner exchange, that kinda thing.”
“Are you okay with that?”
He thought about it for a few seconds, his gaze fixed on the reflection of moonlight on the horizon, before letting out a long exhale, “Like you said, Fi,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “I can’t fix everything, no matter how much I want to.”
The silence that fell between them after that was easy and companionable. Fiona said nothing to break it, content to just let the moment stretch, enjoying the feeling of having him all to herself.
“On the bright side, it’s all over and behind us now,” Michael said, finally breaking the silence.
“Then we can move on with our lives, can’t we?”
“Sure can,” he said, smiling, “Got my passport, IDs and everything–”
Fiona frowned, and then moved back a little so she could look up at him, “What do you mean? Did they give you a new identity?”
“No, Fi, they finally released my own identity,” he said, his smile growing wider in genuine happiness, “My passport, ID, driver’s licence, my damned bank accounts and all the frozen assets… they finally released everything.”
“Michael,” she exclaimed, almost too scared to even ask, “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“I’m finally officially off the burned list, and reinstated with my original record intact.” Fiona felt a matching grin stretch on her lips at his infectious enthusiasm. Then her own elation dimmed a fraction at his next few words, “I can even return to work if I want to. Pearce made a very strong case why I should.”
“Do you wanna?” she asked, doing her best not to let her trepidation bleed into her tone.
Then, for the second time that evening, Michael surprised her.
“Fi,” he said, turning his head so he was looking directly into her eyes, “I’ve been running like a madman for the past six years. I think it’s about time I stopped for a while to take a break.”
It took her a moment to find words at his simple, honest admission, “Those are the words I never expected to hear from you, Michael.” She murmured, quietly stunned.
The look in his eyes softened, “I meant what I said back in Panama.”
She wrapped her hand around his arm to pull him closer so she could use his shoulder as a warm pillow again, “What have you got in mind?” she asked, smiling at the quiet night beach that suddenly seemed absolutely magical.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “How would you like to get out of here for a while?”
“Out of Miami? To where?”
“Well, you wanted to go back home once,” he said slowly, “Now that there’s no one waiting to kill you back there, it should be safe enough, don’t you think?”
Even the mention of home brought back a lot of memories, most of them focused around the time she had met a brazen man who had pretended to be a fellow soldier for the cause, the one who had later turned out to be so much more.
“You want to go back to Ireland with me?” She didn’t care how her voice shook with emotion.
“Yeah, why not?” he asked, equally softly, before letting his tone lighten with amusement, “We can even check on O’Brien. See how he’s been running my pub in my absence–”
“Your pub?”
“Remember the Rowdy Jewel?” Michael asked, and she could see he was fighting back a grin, “It’s mine. I kinda bought it the day after you danced with me.”
She laughed, feeling giddy, stunned and incredulous at the same time. The man was full of revelations that evening, and to her absolute amazement, they were all incredible.
“Give me a second to digest this,” she said after a long moment, gasping and wiping the tears off her face, “I can’t believe that old grumpy asshole just sold it to you!”
“You know me,” Michael flashed a smug grin, “I can be persuasive when I want to be.”
“Why?” She asked, still trying to come to terms with the fact that Michael owned the place where she had a lot of precious, treasured memories. She couldn’t quite figure out why he would make an impulsive decision like that.
“Because I wanted us to go there again one day,” he murmured, his gaze wistful, “And I don’t know, it felt like the right decision at the time… It still does.”
“You saw us going back to the very first place we began,” She shook her head in pure disbelief, “You’re such a romantic, Michael! How the hell didn’t I know this until now?!”
“Well,” he said, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her in for a half hug, “Because I can be pretty secretive when I want to be, too.”
Nothing was perfect in an imperfect world, Fiona knew that, especially when the one they lived in was filled with uncertainty and danger at every corner. Yet, what he had just laid before her was the beginning of something new, and exciting, something she had always wanted with him. It was an enticing glimpse of a future, a promise of something they could have together just for themselves, offered up to her in the quiet of the night wrapped up with a ray of cautious hope shining in his blue-green eyes.
This right here, she thought to herself, smiling, is pretty damned close.
There was only one more thing left to do to bridge that minuscule gap, she reflected, turning around to abandon her perch on the sand to climb onto his much more comfortable lap. His hands wrapped around her waist as she drew him in with her arms around his neck.
“Well, Michael,” she murmured, swaying in closer as he closed his eyes with a contented sigh, “I’m pretty damn good at a few things myself.”
It’d been too damn long since she’d kissed him – eighteen months, two weeks and a day, in fact, a subconscious part had been counting diligently – and she finally found what she had been missing terribly when their lips finally met after all that time. It was as if pieces finally fell where they belonged in her world, and encased in his loving embrace, she finally accepted what she had known all along about the two of them:
No matter what they did or where they lived, they only ever found home in each other’s arms.
The End.
That was epic! At first it was such a tough read because Michael was in terrible place (mentally and physically) but then he snapped back to himself with his found and biological family and you could feel the clouds parting for him. Thank you!
Thank you so much for writing and sharing. This was the first Burn Notice fic I’ve ever seen, let alone read, and it definitely went places I couldn’t anticipate, but it was satisfying and wonderful. Thank you.