Author's note: This story picks up after the end of Vamanos, then goes slightly AU, exploring how things might have gone a little differently. I plan to have two chapters, plus a short epilogue.
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Every federal agent has a moment of truth, in which he, or in this case she, knows whether she is cut out for the job.
Felicia Lang understood that this old chestnut held a kernel of truth, but that it radically oversimplified matters. There is no one moment that sets the question to rest. She had experienced several such trials, and had always acquitted herself admirably. She knew that she could do what needed to be done, regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes that meant staring down a cold-blooded killer to keep innocents out of harm's way; sometimes it meant blackmailing a mother with the prospect of losing her child to foster care. They might call her a heartless bitch behind her back, but Lang was quite sure nobody had ever called her a pushover.
Right now, however, sitting on the edge of a tub in a Panamanian hotel bathroom at three-thirty in the morning, with her former boss slumped against the wall next to the toilet, she felt far less decisive than she was accustomed to feeling.
The vomiting had started around midnight, Alex lurching into the bathroom just in time to avoid making an unpleasant mess. At first, Lang kept her distance. Agent Mahone was a proud man, and, despite the fact that he liked to get in people's faces, Lang suspected that he was something of an introvert. At least a modicum of privacy would be important to him. That consideration ended when his cuffed hand slipped off the edge of the sink as he tried to lever himself up to his feet, his shoulder banging against the side of the counter as his knees hit the floor. Lang came into the bathroom to make sure he wasn't injured. Despite Sullins' orders, she uncuffed him and then helped him out of his stained dress shirt.
Since then, every twenty minutes or so Alex would be hunched over the bowl retching, shoulder blades convulsing sharply beneath his sweat-soaked white T-shirt. He'd long since stopped having anything to bring up. Lang guessed that the intervals between these bouts were becoming longer, which was good, but his mental state during said intervals was deteriorating.
At first, she'd been able to converse with him pretty normally, moving her eyes back and forth in time with his manic pacing:
"Alex, you're in withdrawal. You need medical attention."
"No – No! I'm sick means I can't testify," he spat, "which means I'm shipped right back to Sona, where you can be damn sure I won't get anything like medical attention."
"The Bureau is committed to . . ."
"I don't know what you are committed to" – blue eyes drilling into her brown ones, breaking off as he continued to pace – "but Sullins would dearly love to hang me out to dry."
The first time he'd wiped his hand across his mouth after vomiting and came away with a streak of blood, he'd dismissed her concerns. Throwing up repeatedly can burst small blood vessels in one's stomach lining. If the blood is bright red and the quantity is small, it's nothing to worry about. As usual, he gave the impression of a man who knew what he was talking about and was mildly impatient with those who knew less than he did.
The second time it happened, he stared transfixed at the blood on his hand, ignoring all of Lang's attempts to get his attention, until finally she took a wet washcloth and wiped it off for him. Then he looked at her as if he were just waking up and didn't quite remember where he was.
After that he was only intermittently coherent. Shuddering uncontrollably, he muttered apologies and pleas to people only he could see. Talking to him didn't seem to help, Lang's voice drowned out by so many others from within. Physically touching him usually got a reaction, but not a positive one. He flinched away violently, disoriented and agitated. Sometimes when the initial panic subsided he would tune in to her for a few minutes; other times he stared at her with an expression of horror that made her skin crawl.
So, here she sat, unwilling to leave him alone, yet unable to be of any real assistance.
Lang was startled out of her thoughts by a soft sound – a cross between a whimper and a growl – from the other side of the bathroom. Alex had drawn his knees up close to his chest. His left arm was wrapped partially around them, while his right was raised in a defensive pose. He muttered unintelligibly as his eyes darted around to several points a few feet away from him, fixating briefly on nothing and then moving on. Watching with morbid fascination, Lang saw that the points he gazed at were getting closer and closer to him, and that his distress was increasing rapidly.
His vocalizations became clearer: "No . . . I didn't want to . . . I'm sorry . . . don't . . . please . . . no . . ." Back pressed to the wall, Alex thrashed, desperately trying to avoid the touches of invisible assailants. His eyes were squeezed shut, head shaking in jerky motions as if emphatically denying a reality he couldn't cope with.
Lang couldn't take it any more; she had to intervene (it was because she was afraid he would hyperventilate, she told herself). Pushing off from the tub, she sat down on the floor facing the former Agent and put her hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly as he tried to pull away.
"Alex," she shouted, "Alex!"
He didn't respond, so she shook him firmly. His eyes snapped open, but he looked through her rather than at her, still caught up in his waking nightmare. When he started struggling again, she loosened her grip, letting her hands slide off his shoulders to his upper arms. "It's me, Alex," she said, trying to project calm clarity, "It's Lang. It's Felicia."
Finally, recognition dawned. "Felicia," he echoed.
"Uh huh," she nodded encouragingly.
Alex shot a furtive glance to the side and jumped, apparently startled at whatever it was that he saw. Closing his eyes as the tremors that ripped through his body intensified, he folded his arms across the tops of his knees and buried his face in them.
"Make it stop," he whispered brokenly, "Please . . ."
"It's OK, it's OK, you're going to be alright," Lang soothed.
Listening to his ragged breathing, holding his arms as his shoulders shook spasmodically, she was seized by a strong desire to make everything better. Yet she had no idea how. There were medications, of course, that could ease his symptoms. But how could they get them? Mahone's point earlier was valid – the diversion of taking him to a doctor or a clinic might sour the deal with the Panamanians. Were they in the States, Lang had no doubt she could use her FBI credentials and contacts to obtain some kind of sedative with no questions asked. Here, that would prove more difficult. Obtaining street drugs, even if she were inclined to do so, would also be problematic in a strange country in the middle of the night.
Then there was the matter of Sullins. Perhaps he could be persuaded that keeping Alex reasonably sane was a necessary condition of their succeeding in their mission. Sullins was, after all, a professional. But he also harbored quite a bit of animosity toward Mahone. Would his desire to see his old enemy suffer win out over his desire to get the job done? Did he have any other ulterior motives?
No, confiding in him would be too risky. Which meant that any move she made would have to be without her superior's knowledge. She was free to go back to her room or even to leave the hotel if she wished, but Alex needed to be under observation, and if she passed off the job to somebody else, word of his condition would get out. And, no, leaving him unsupervised was not an option.
Alex was looking at her again, or, at least, looking in her general direction. "I've done some very bad things," he murmured hoarsely. The statement might have sounded child-like, if not for the hollowness in his voice and the washed-out deadness in his eyes.
"I know," Lang replied, her tone gentle. She had the decency not to say 'It's OK.'
"I need . . . something . . . to help me get it together," he said, eyes downcast, face turned away, "And I hate it and I'm sorry to put you in this position but I can't be like this tomorrow and I . . . I'm sorry . . ."
When he'd trailed off, Lang explained, "I want to help you, Alex, really I do. And maybe in the morning, depending on the timing of the hearing, there might be a chance I can get you something. But right this minute it's impossible to do so without jeopardizing your chances of even having a hearing."
"I need . . ." he protested, then broke off, shoulders slumping in resignation, and mumbled, "I can't do it."
"Yes, you can," she replied firmly, "You don't have to appear healthy tomorrow, just lucid and honest."
"Yeah, well, seeing as I'm seeing dead people, I kind of doubt I'll pass the lucidity test," he shot back. Lang detected a shadow of his old dry humor in the statement. When he glanced over her shoulder, presumably to check whether any of his "friends" were still there, she scolded him playfully, "Stop that!" and a corner of his mouth quirked up just a bit.
"You seem pretty sane right now. We're just going to have to hold onto that for a few hours."
Lang hoped her companion would find the plural pronoun reassuring, but his face was a study in defeat. "Alex?" she prompted.
After a long moment he sighed, "I'm tired."
"Why don't you try to rest and –"
Shaking his head, he insisted, "No. Can't. Can't sleep. If I relax for even a second it . . . it gets worse. Not just seeing them, they're . . . they're inside my head and . . . I have to concentrate, to hold on to . . . me . . . because they're always there, always waiting for me to slip up, to lose control . . ."
Lang nodded sympathetically. Alex rubbed his eyes, leaving his hand covering them, and continued in a raw, strained voice, "They're relentless and I just want it to stop, just for a little while. Maybe I could . . . regroup. But it won't, it just never stops . . ."
He was trembling with exhaustion, and Felicia found herself unconsciously stroking his biceps with her thumbs. Suddenly, she was struck with an idea. A brilliant idea or an awful idea, it was hard to tell, but definitely an against-protocol idea. Sullins would most certainly not approve. It might not work at all, and it might actually make matters worse – though it was hard to imagine how things could get much worse than they were now.
Coming to a decision, she let go of Alex's arms and began rising to her feet. His hand fell away from his eyes and, for a fleeting moment, he stared up at her completely unguarded, fragile, a drowning man who just had the life preserver yanked from his grasp. Then he looked away, shame at his own weakness flickering across his features. Responding to his unspoken plea, she assured him, "I'm not going far. I'm just making a phone call. I'll be back in a minute."
She took one of the large hotel towels from the rack and wrapped it around him to help with the shivering, then exited the bathroom and pulled out her cell phone. As she looked up the number, she recalled a conversation she'd had just prior to leaving for this mission:
"Pamela Mahone on line two," came the request-slash-order. Wheeler, you prick, Lang thought, sticking me with this. Then again, for Agent Mahone's sake, it might be better that she take this call rather than letting an agent less charitably inclined toward their recently departed boss do it.
"Good morning Mrs. Mahone, I'm Special Agent Felicia Lang. I've worked with your husband."
The woman on the other end, who had probably been bounced around the bureau's bureaucracy for a bit already, cut right to the chase, "What can you tell me about Alex?"
"You understand, of course, that information about federal agents is classified, and since you are no longer married to him . . ."
"He's in serious trouble, isn't he?" Pam queried. When Lang didn't reply immediately, she followed up with, "We were married for twelve years. He's the father of my child. I think I have a right to know."
Mahone had never discussed his ex-wife with her, but Lang had surmised that the woman would either be weak, overwhelmed by her husband's dynamic personality, or that she would be a force to be reckoned with. Lang just couldn't picture him with anyone in between. And given how this conversation was going, she was strongly leaning toward the latter alternative.
"Yes, he's in trouble," Lang confirmed.
"But you can't tell me any specifics, right?" Pam said, exasperation in her voice evident, but controlled. "OK, fine, I'll tell you what I know: he called me last Thursday. He didn't tell me where he was, but the call was from Panama, a pay phone. The number is listed under the criminal justice system."
Lang noted that this call was more recent than any of the Bureau's contacts with Alex. "What, exactly, did he tell you when he called?"
"He said . . . he said to forget he ever existed. He . . . he was crying," Pam stammered, sounding like she was too, "I need to know what's going on."
"Alex is currently in Panama. He is incarcerated," Lang replied carefully. The last bit would be a matter of public record by now, anyway.
"What? For what? Was he down there working on a case? Isn't Panama outside of your jurisdiction?"
"He hasn't had a trial yet."
"That's not really answering my questions, is it? What aren't you telling me?"
"Quite a bit, I'm afraid," Lang shot back, then softened her tone, "I'm sorry, but I'm not authorized to share the information you want."
"Are you his friend?"
"I don't see –"
"I don't recall him mentioning an Agent Lang, but we've been out of touch for a while. Surely that information isn't classified?"
"I've only worked with Agent Mahone for a short time – he's my direct supervisor. So, no, I wouldn't exactly say that we're friends. But I like him and I want this situation to work out as well as possible for him."
"Then you should know that unless you give me a very good reason not to, my next step is to get on a plane to Panama and find out what I can for myself."
Just what they needed: a civilian poking around a delicate diplomatic situation, perhaps putting herself in danger. And Lang could tell that the woman wasn't bluffing. Both irritated and impressed at being backed into a corner, she began, "Here's your good reason: we're working on a plan to bring Alex back to the States . . ."
Back in Panama, Lang dialed the number. Hearing the other end pick up, she said, "Pam, I need your help."
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To be continued. Please let me know what you think.
