Author's Note:
I know it's been a while since my last posted story. The reason for that is that I've got about 8 stories going simultaneously now, and I can only write a little bit on each one every other day, due to real life keeping me busy as well. Hence, each of those stories is coming along at a snail's pace only. LOL
Anyway, this here is the first one finished from my current story roaster. I hope you like it. And if you do like it: Feedback is always appreciated.
This story is rather long. Oh, and…there's lots of serious Ethan whump in this one. But the rest of the team is in some serious trouble as well, particularly towards the end. Please be warned. :o)
Summary:
It was supposed to be a simple flight. But looking at the wreckage of their plane now, and seeing Ethan slowly bleeding to death before their eyes, Jane knew the mission was no longer important. Now the stakes were much higher: They had to survive.
Diamonds Are Colder Than Ice
When Jane woke up, the first thing she felt was…cold.
An arctic kind of cold.
When she opened her eyes, she realized why that was.
She was lying on a snow bank.
For a moment, she couldn't remember how she might have gotten there.
Then the memories hit her like an avalanche.
-o-
They had been on the way to their next mission. IMF had wanted to send them on a regular flight at first, but as luck would have it, a recently overhauled private jet had suddenly become available at the last minute, suiting their needs of transportation in a much better way.
Ethan, of course, had been ecstatic.
Brandt hadn't cared either way, but he had seen the silent joy on his team leader's face, and whatever was fine with Ethan was fine with him.
Benji's approach was more of an investigative one: his latest working theory was that Ethan might very well have bribed someone at ground control, so they could travel a little bit more 'in style'.
To which Jane had answered Benji that, no, Ethan wouldn't do that. And even if he had, they would never find any proof of it.
All of them had had a good laugh at that.
They had then boarded the jet and the flight had gotten underway.
Ethan had chatted with the pilots for a while, but since his role in the upcoming mission was gonna require him to keep awake for most of the next night, he eventually excused himself from the cockpit and went to the back of the plane to hit the hay for a couple of hours. When you survived as long as he had in this business, you quickly learnt to get your bunk-time wherever and whenever you could.
Brandt and Benji meanwhile kept going over some more details of what Brandt's role would be in the mission. Once again, there seemed some discrepancy between what Brandt thought he could do and what Benji told him he needed to do.
So, nothing new there, either.
Jane had eventually settled into her plane seat in a comfortable manner, letting herself be lulled into sleep by the soft sounds of the plane engines and the constant flow of bickering coming from the two men four rows behind her.
She didn't know how much time passed between her falling into a light slumber and her next moment of awareness.
But as she did come awake from one moment to the next, it was because of a sudden hard jolt of her seat, as the plane unexpectedly sagged several hundred feet.
Thinking they had hit an air hole, she assumed the sensation of weightlessness would stop any second now.
But then she realized the plane wasn't levelling out.
They kept on falling.
-o-
She knew things were serious as, only two seconds later, she saw Ethan bolting from where he had been sleeping at the back of the plane. With an unreadable expression he rushed past her as he ran straight towards the cockpit.
She then could hear the concerned voices of the two pilots, at times intertwined with Ethan's voice, which did sound a bit calmer in comparison – but even his voice had a noticeable strain in it. Whatever was going on in the cockpit, it was serious.
Brandt and Benji – who had been struggling to hold on to the partly dismembered electronics on the little table between – had by now also realized that something was definitely wrong. They were throwing her a look that seemed to be asking 'what is happening?', but she had no answer for them.
After what felt like an eternity, she could feel the plane stabilize, but the relief lasted only for a moment, before they began sinking again. Not as fast as the freefall earlier, but still sinking rapidly enough to know that this, too, was not an entirely voluntary descent.
Just then she saw Ethan stepping out of the cockpit again and there was something in his expression that actually scared Jane. It wasn't that he looked panicked or anything. In fact it was the opposite. He almost looked calm. But underneath it, there was something else, something uneasy. And indeed, Ethan obviously intended to get back into the cockpit as quickly as possible, having stepped out only to address them:
"There's some trouble with the hydraulics. We're trying to override it manually, but it's gonna be difficult." Ethan's voice was carefully controlled, but Jane had been working with him long enough by now to also hear what he wasn't saying.
Brandt apparently could read between the lines, too, because his eyes got just a little wider as he took in Ethan's words.
Only Benji seemed to be a little slow on the uptake.
It really wasn't his fault, though. Out of all of them, he'd spent the least time in planes so far, what with having only become a field agent recently. So, naturally, Benji wasn't as aware of the consequences of Ethan's words as the rest of them were.
At Benji's look, which was clearly asking 'so, what are you saying?', Ethan took another glance at Jane's and Brandt's already knowing faces, before he decided to spell it out for all of them:
"We're gonna have to get this plane down, with or without the hydraulics. I'm gonna help them up front, so maybe we can keep it in the air 'til we get to the next airport, but I want you to get buckled up and to get ready to keep your heads down if this goes south, is that understood?"
There was something in Ethan's eyes that made Jane wonder if he already knew what was going to happen. Brandt saw it, too, but he didn't dare ask Ethan about it, because he didn't want to force Ethan into admitting that this might be the one they didn't survive. Benji, for his part, simply forgot to react at all. He was still caught up on the 'get this plane down without hydraulics' part of Ethan's explanation.
No matter how little Benji knew about planes, he was pretty sure that the procedure outlined by Ethan was not exactly a safe way to land an airplane. But before Benji could find the courage to ask exactly how Ethan intended to do this 'landing without hydraulics', Ethan had already rushed back into the cockpit.
That was when they, too, set into motion. After hastily securing any loose gear within the cabin, they quickly strapped themselves into their respective seats. They couldn't see or hear much else of whatever was happening up ahead in the cockpit from that point on, but considering that the plane kept sinking and Ethan also did not return to his own seat, things clearly weren't going well.
They all knew that the plane had already lost a lot of altitude. But Jane was particularly worried about something that Ethan had mentioned earlier, namely what he had said about trying to make it to the nearest airport.
She had seen the maps before the mission.
And she knew that Ethan had to be aware that the nearest airport was at least another 100 miles away.
'He knows we're never gonna make it there …' Jane realized.
They were sinking way too fast.
In the pitch-dark outside her window, Jane had no way of telling how high they still were, but just as she began wondering how much further down they could go before they would hit something on the ground, she could suddenly hear the voices up front getting louder. And more distinct.
There were tense orders about hitting certain switches and trying to adjust the flaps once more. She could also hear curses now. And pained groans, right before one of the pilots let out a panicked call 'she's breaking my arms!". It was almost instantly overlapped by another voice, equally strained to the point of despair, 'I can't hold her…I can't… we gotta keep the nose up! WE GOTTA …"
The voices were so mixed up now, she couldn't tell for sure if that last one had been Ethan.
But then there was one more order, and this time Ethan's voice was clear beyond a doubt. It was a distinct yell.
And it was meant for all of them.
'GET DOWN!"
And then. Silence.
-o-
She was lying on the snow. From where Jane woke up, she could see the plane.
It was …almost beautiful in strange kind of way.
Like a picture postcard.
Snow falling softly. No sound. The plane lying on its side. Broken. The hull cracked in several place. One burning engine rotor still turning slowly, thus giving the night a flickering hue of golden light. Nothing else was moving.
It was almost serene.
But as she felt the pain in her body starting to pulse in time with the flickering light, she realized the postcard view was brutal reality. And she became aware of what must have happened.
'We crashed…and I was somehow flung outside.'
She couldn't see her seat anywhere.
'Wait…' something was tickling on the edge of her memory.
There had been other seats. Other seats…meant… other people.
With that realization, she suddenly remembered everything.
'Brandt? Benji? …Ethan?'
She called out for them.
She got no answers.
She called out again.
Again, noth-
Suddenly, a slow groan came from somewhere behind her.
As she painfully levered herself up to look in the direction over her shoulder, she spotted something moving. Something pushing itself out of a snowdrift.
It was Brandt.
"Brandt!" she called out again, this time directly towards him. He seemed to not hear her at first, but then she could see he was preoccupied with something else. As he stumbled off the snow drift, falling down again almost immediately, she saw that he was pulling his leg awkwardly…
Still feeling pretty weak herself, but concluding that she wasn't seriously injured beyond some very painful cuts and bruises - and a slight dizziness from having hit her head on something - she staggered to her feet and went over to help Brandt.
When Brandt saw her, there was enormous relief in his eyes. Relief that he was not the only one who had survived. She helped Brandt to his feet, taking care not to jostle his leg and his bruised ribs any more than was avoidable. But, as Brandt told her with a soft grimace, the break in his leg was a clean one. Jane didn't ask Brandt how he knew, deciding to simply take his word for any experience he might have in that area.
Obviously, they both had been lucky. That was the good news.
Now they had to find the others.
-o-
Together they went down to the plane.
As they reached the rubble, they found Benji first. Somehow, he had managed to be still strapped in his seat.
For a moment that concept made Jane blink in surprise.
'Right. The one who is most afraid of crashing doesn't even get hitched out of his seat. Go figure…'
Then she saw why.
Benji had strapped not one, but TWO seatbelts to himself. The regular one, with the latches secured, and a second one, knotted together hastily by hand at the last minute.
Obviously, it had worked. Only the sudden impact on the ground had apparently come a moment too soon for Benji. Double-strapped in as he was, he hadn't gotten thrown around or out of his seat – but he hadn't been fast enough to get his hands untangled from the knotted straps in time. His lower left arm looked like it shouldn't be bending in the way it was. But aside from the arm Benji looked alright.
Well, they had enough straps nearby to fix the arm once they got him untangled from the seat.
She could already spot one relatively long seatbelt strap hanging just off her left side on a seat nearby. They could use that to-
Then she realized what she was looking at.
The seatbelt she had mentally selected for fixing Benji's arm… was the unused belt of Ethan's empty seat.
That was when another memory hit her. She recalled in painful detail how Ethan had left his seat to remain in the cockpit so he could help the pilots.
Instantly her gaze flickered towards the front of the plane.
Or what was left of it…
-o-
It was a mess.
The whole structure had buckled.
Whoever had his hands on the steering the last minute had succeeded in keeping the plane's nose up as much as possible, but the front of the plane still had born the brunt of the impact.
It would be a miracle if anyone was still alive there.
But she had to check. Had to check to know.
While Brandt stayed with the unconscious Benji, getting started on loosening the mess of seatbelts and fixing Benji's arm, Jane stumbled outside again and towards the front of the plane. There was a large crack alongside the entire hull, culminating at the front, where the windows had broken out, leaving a sizeable gap through which she could see inside.
The amount of blood in the cockpit was sickening.
She was an agent, so she had seen her share of dead bodies in her life – but the sight before her was enough to make her become pale, so much so that for a moment she felt her stomach was gonna turn.
One man on the left side of the cockpit had been instantly killed by a broken metal rod having run right through his chest. Another man seemed to have been sitting on an emergency seat right behind the co-pilot's chair. That man had been thrown forward on impact, over the co-pilot's chair, and directly into the broken glass of the window. Just by the paleness of the body, Jane could tell that some of the shards must have hit an artery. There was no life left in him.
And there, half underneath the lifeless body, and slumped in the co-pilot's chair, was Ethan.
His chest crushed against the instrument board. His left hand still near the thrust lever, but motionless now. And half of the upper control panels having collapsed on him from above.
She could not see if he was breathing.
-o-
"Brandt!"
Her yell was loud in the silence of the night, carrying far in the expanse of nothing but snow all around them.
"Brandt!"
She could hear him moving in the back of the plane now, and after a moment she could see him stumbling out of the rear towards her.
"I found Ethan!" Jane called out towards him before she concentrated on the sight in front of her once more. Her eyes came to rest again on the three bodies in the cockpit. Two of which were clearly dead. One she hoped was not.
If Ethan was still alive by some miracle, they needed to act quickly.
And she couldn't do it alone.
-o-
"Jane?" she could hear Brandt's voice suddenly right behind her.
It almost startled her. But when she saw the worried and questioning look in Brandt's eyes, she quickly got a hold of herself and moved aside a bit to let him see into the cockpit.
"I don't know if he's alive," Jane said with obvious worry in her voice, but she knew she had to keep it together. Brandt's face also paled at the sight before him, but like Jane, he knew that their first priority was clear: If Ethan was still alive, they had to do everything they could to keep him that way.
With an assessing look at the large break in the hull, Brandt tried to figure out how to best get in there – particularly with his bad leg.
"You think you could get in there?" Brandt eventually asked Jane, realizing that he would be more of a hindrance than a help in there.
Instead of answering, Jane was already moving. Grabbing a hold of the broken outer hull, she began squeezing past the ripped cables, panels and bent metal, making her way further into the cockpit. She only slowed down when she reached the part where the ceiling had caved in, not wanting to risk any more of it coming down on either Ethan or her.
Once she was close enough, she carefully moved aside the dead body of the co-pilot. Then, with one hand reaching towards Ethan's arm, she checked for a pulse in his wrist. For a moment, she felt her worst fears come true, when she couldn't feel anything…until a soft, very soft flutter of a pulse thudded under her fingertips.
"He's alive!"
But from her new vantage point, she could now also see even more of the damage the crash had caused. Half-turning her head back towards Brandt, she called out:
"He's got a pulse, but he's got to be loosing blood somewhere…I can't see where it's coming from, but there's a lot of fresh blood on his entire right side." She paused for a moment, considering what to do next. "He looks to be partially stuck to the panel at the front, but I think there is some leeway around his left side. If we can slide him out that way, we could get him free."
"Whoa, wait …wait a second…," Brandt cautioned her, "I think we should not get ahead of ourselves here…I distinctly remember my old first aid teacher drilling into me that with crushed ribs, it's better not to move someone, but to keep him as still as possible." Brandt interjected, not wanting to risk hurting Ethan any more than he already was.
Jane nodded gravely, hearing Brandt's concern as clearly as her own.
"I know. But whatever injury that blood is coming from, I can't get to it in here with him crushed against that panel. And if we don't stop that bleeding soon, the risk of moving him with broken ribs won't matter anymore, because he'll simply bleed to death," Jane reasoned with Brandt.
She was fully aware that she may very well be signing Ethan's death certificate with that decision. But she also knew that if they left Ethan in that seat, he would die for sure. If they got him out and managed to stop the bleeding, Ethan would at least have a chance. So Jane made a decision.
Her thoughts racing to put together a plan, she noticed a part of the door panel off to her right, which had fallen out of the door, but had otherwise remained relatively intact.
An idea formed in her head.
"Brandt, can you see if you can find some rope or something like that? If we can stabilize Ethan's back against something that won't budge, we can minimize the risk of moving him any more than is absolutely necessary. There is a metal plate in here that I could slide between his back and the back of his seat, but I'll need something to tie him to that plate before I can move him."
Brandt instantly understood what Jane had in mind, and he was already moving. Struggling past the rubble to where he had seen one of their bags lying on the ground earlier, he soon found some of their equipment, including a bag that had obviously been packed by Benji: In it were several long lines of computer cable. It wasn't as good as rope, but it would have to do.
Hurriedly, Brandt hobbled back to where Jane was already busy clearing a path inside the cockpit, so they would be able to manoeuvre Ethan out that way. When Brandt handed her the long cables, she immediately set to work, stabilizing Ethan's back by tying his upper body against the large plate she'd slid behind his back. Once that was done, she concentrated on cautiously separating Ethan from the instrument panel against which he was crushed.
As she carefully began to tug, trying to move him out between the crushed ceiling and the panel towards her side, she felt something give, and slowly but surely he was coming free. That was, until she encountered some unexpected resistance. Something seemed to be holding him back. As she immediately stopped pulling, she leaned over to see what it could be. And then she blanched.
She now saw what was causing the massive bleeding on his right side. A sharp metal piece had worked itself deeply into Ethan's right side, and the protruding end was now wedged between two other bend console parts on the panel before him. She could either use force to pull Ethan free off the piece completely – most likely damaging Ethan's insides beyond any chance of survival – or she could leave the metal in Ethan's side for now, and instead try and move him and the piece of metal past the narrow hindrance somehow.
She knew if Ethan were awake he would probably tell her to do what she felt was right. Even if she hurt him with it. And hurt him she would, if she had to change the angle at which she was pulling.
Thankfully, Ethan was not awake, and hopefully he wouldn't be feeling any of it.
Realizing there way only really choice she could make, she began moving again, this time aiming a little further to the right. She could see the piece of metal as it changed direction as well. It was still stuck in Ethan's side, but finally it moved past the obstruction that had kept Ethan from sliding free off the seat.
Now that Ethan was free, she had to proceed even more cautiously, so as not to accidentally lose her hold on him.
Moving him further towards the opening in the hull until Brandt could get a hold of Ethan's legs, Jane then quickly turned to take a hold of Ethan's shoulders and head. As they got him out half-way, she repositioned herself again by moving around to Ethan's other side, giving Brandt a hand as they lowered Ethan to the ground outside the broken plane.
They laid Ethan flat on the ground, and as Jane immediately went about uncovering the injury in Ethan's side for immediate treatment, she was shocked as she pulled aside Ethan's shirt.
The piece of metal was still embedded in his side. But the cut around it was much larger than she had first thought. And it was deep. Very deep. Alongside his ribs, she could see the white of bone.
As she looked up at Brandt, Jane could see that he was thinking the same thing:
How was anyone to survive an injury like this out here in the middle of nowhere?
-o-
When Benji came awake, it was to the sound of a heavy curse.
Wow.
That had sounded like Jane.
But Jane didn't normally curse.
Was he having a dream?
Opening his eyes to see what was going on, the first thing Benji saw was darkness. And beyond it lots of … darkness.
'I wonder who switched the lights out, while I was sleeping,' Benji pondered for a moment, before concluding, '.. well…maybe Jane thought we could all use a little nap-time before we landed at- '
And suddenly he remembered.
All of it.
The flight. The sinking of the plane.
The crash.
Oh no.
Instantly, Benji began focusing on his surroundings, needing to see where exactly he was, and if he was still alive.
As he looked down, he realized he was still in his seat.
Then he saw the buckles of the seatbelt with which he had strapped himself into his seat – all the straps were now open. And part of the straps had obviously been re-used to splint his lower arm.
Which he only now realized was hurting like only a broken bone could hurt.
But, other than that he felt…okay. Definitely 'alive'.
And that was more than he had hoped for.
Testing his legs, he got up from his seat, carefully making his way through the hole in the board wall, stepping outside…he slowly walked around the side of the plane, past the cockpit that also lay in the dark, towards the only source of light he could see in the area: a flashlight lying on the ground just beyond the cockpit.
And there were Brandt and Jane, kneeling around someone on the ground. There were also some ripped open bags on the ground around them, and some spilt spare clothes lying next to the open bags…some of them right where Jane was kneeling, others already discarded behind her.
"Damn it, it's not stopping!"
Once again, a curse echoed distinctly through the night air, this time having come from Brandt, and to Benji it sounded even more frantic than the one he had heard earlier.
They clearly hadn't noticed him yet. Both of them were too concentrated on what they were doing for whoever was laying there on the ground between them.
Benji wondered who the poor devil was who was losing all that blood he could see spreading in the snow beneath Jane and Brandt. Whoever it was, he sure was spilling more of the red stuff than could be healthy. Benji could also see a strangely shaped piece of metal lying a few feet behind Brandt. It looked rather bloody as well. Benji wondered where it might have come from.
As Benji came closer, he was about to ask Jane what had happened, and who she was helping, when he noticed two things almost simultaneously.
The discarded clothes around Jane were all stained with blood. Blood they had been trying to stop from leaking out of the man on the ground by pushing down on the wound with whatever pieces of fabric they had been able to find.
And the man whose life they were trying to save…
…that man was Ethan.
-o-
It was Brandt who noticed Benji first. And as soon as he did, he made use of the extra pair of hands. Or hand, as it happened to be.
"Benji! Grab another shirt, and help us put pressure on that wound!"
It wasn't that Benji was particularly good at knowing what to do in a medical emergency. He was, however, very good at following precise orders, especially when they were as urgent as the one Brandt had just given him. So, without even thinking about what he was doing, he immediately grabbed the nearest piece of shirt he could see, and hurried over to help his team save Ethan.
It took several more shirts and also several more desperate curses from either of them, until eventually the bleeding seemed to finally slow down. Cautiously, after another minute, Jane checked the wound again. This time she was relieved to find that the bleeding had stopped almost entirely. But she knew that would not last. They had to close the cut, to really prevent the wound from breaking open again.
She could see from the look in Brandt's eyes that he had come to the same conclusion. He knew what needed to be done.
Jane then glanced at Benji, telling him that he could let go off the shirt for now.
"Alright, I think we'll need to get a fire started, I'm gonna need some hot water to clean the wound. I also wanna take a look at your leg, Brandt."
Brandt in turn nodded, accepting the fact that Jane had put herself in charge. It was a logical and responsible choice. What with him and his broken leg, and Benji only having one arm at his disposal, Jane was the only one who had gotten through this relatively unscathed. At least he hoped so. He could see her eyes becoming unfocused at times, but since she seemed to be coping with it, he trusted her to let them know if she, too, needed help.
While Benji collected some burnable material scattered around the plane to get a fire started in a convenient place, Brandt went back inside the cabin to hunt down a first aid kit. Getting lucky, he managed to find not only the one from the plane but also one of their own kits, which were much better equipped in some ways.
Taking both kits back to where Jane had stayed with Ethan, he handed her the IMF kit first. Out of that she grabbed a syringe marked 2A. It was a strong painkiller combined with a sedative, which she administered to Ethan. It would not only help keep his pain down, but it would hopefully also be enough to keep Ethan under. When they fixed that wound in his side, there was no way any of them wanted him to suddenly come to in the middle of what they were about to do.
By the time Benji brought the water over, Jane had taken out the sterilized needle and thread from the kit, and she was getting ready to use it. Benji suddenly saw what she was holding in her hands.
It was at that moment that both Brandt and Jane realized how Benji had obviously only just now figured out exactly how they intended to close the wound in Ethan's side. As Benji set the water down next to Brandt – who got ready to assist Jane – they both noticed the sudden paleness in Benji's cheeks. Jane could see it. Brandt could see it, too. They exchanged a quick look.
And getting a nod from Jane, Brandt agreed that Benji would not need to watch this. So Brandt quickly decided to give Benji a task that would be better suited to his skills.
"Benji?" Brandt asked, forcing Benji's attention away from the blood and the yet unused needle, "Can you try and see if you can salvage anything from the wreck that we can use to get a signal out, anything we can use to call for help?"
It took Benji a second to redirect his thoughts, but when he saw that Brandt was looking at him patiently, Benji quickly pulled himself together. He was glad for the alternate task. More glad than he thought he had any right to be, but he could see that there was no blame in either Brandt's or Jane's eyes. Not everybody was cut out for field medicine. There were other things Benji was good at.
Following Brandt's nod, Benji excused himself and immediately went to search for whatever electronic material he was able to find. His laptop was a hopeless case, having cracked on impact. Their cellphones were equally useless out here – the nearest reception tower was simply too far away for a phone to work. That left some of his more specialised equipment.
Most of it was designed for other purposes, but he was pretty sure that he could take apart whatever elements he needed to rig up some kind of high-power signal emitter. He didn't know yet what it would look like, but he knew he would make it work. With his teeth and a piece of duct tape if necessary. He owed it to his team.
With a determined expression, Benji began to work.
-o-
When Brandt eventually came to join him, Benji was surprised to see how much time had passed.
He could see that Brandt's leg was now sporting a splint much similar to the one on his own arm, only bigger. Benji immediately wanted to ask how things were going outside, with Ethan, but Brandt beat him to it with a careful sigh as he lowered himself down on one of the seats across from Benji, taking care to not bang his leg on anything as he sat down.
"Jane is staying with Ethan, to make sure the bleeding doesn't start again. She doesn't think it's likely he'll wake up anytime soon, but we all know how Ethan likes to beat the odds, so she figured it's better to have someone with him at all times to keep him calm if he does come around."
Benji exhaled with cautious relief, taking this to mean that at least for the moment, things were relatively under control.
"So," Brandt caught Benji's attention again, "how are things going in here? Do we have anything we can use to send out a call for help?"
Brandt glanced at the collection of tiny electronic parts lying on an overturned lunch box before Benji. In the middle of it all, Brandt could see an impressive cluster of parts connected by wires and chips that Benji had obviously salvaged from his laptop and from some other parts of their equipment.
To Brandt it looked … well, messy was one word for it.
But Brandt was willing to take Benji's 'messy' over everybody else's 'perfectly clean' any day of the week. So Brandt listened attentively to Benji's explanation:
"Well…I was able to rig up an emitter that should theoretically be strong enough to send a signal far enough to reach someone."
"Why do I sense there is a 'but' coming?" Brandt asked after a moment.
Benji looked up from the construction with a tentative look.
"The 'but' is that we have no way of knowing whether our signal will actually be going out."
"How is that?"
"I had enough parts to rig up the emitter, but there was nothing I could use in terms of signal feedback. Therefore, we can 'send' something and it might get out the way it's supposed to…"
"Or the signal might get stuck right here, and not even make it past these walls." Brandt concluded the thought with a sigh.
"Unfortunately, yes." Benji hesitated for a moment, before he looked at Brandt with newfound confidence. "But I think it will work. There is no reason why it shouldn't. The batteries are strong enough. The wires have no breaks, I checked them four times, and I got the keyboard of my laptop hooked up to the emitter. We can't use the individual keys per se, but we can hit one key repeatedly to generate a Morse code. It should work. I think it will work."
Brandt didn't say anything for a moment. Then he slowly nodded. He trusted Benji. And if Benji said it would work, that thing would work.
"Alright, then we're sending out two messages. Get out an 'SOS' with our coordinates on the general emergency frequency. And then send out a 'Code 8' on the IMF frequency. They might be faster."
When Benji heard the second part of Brandt's order, he looked up at Brandt with an expression of surprise. And concern.
"Code 8." Brandt repeated with a nod, knowing that Benji would want confirmation on that order.
It was at that moment that Benji knew Brandt had come to a decision. One that might not be healthy for his career, or Benji's for that matter, but it was a decision that might just be enough to help save the life of Ethan Hunt.
The general public had its own emergency system. If you called 911, you would eventually get help from either the police or an emergency department. If you sent an SOS out in the middle of nowhere, you would also get help eventually, probably from a rescue helicopter of the Navy or the local Coast Guard.
But a Code 8 was special.
If their signal did indeed make it to the IMF, they had just set one hell of a machinery into motion.
Code 8 was an order normally reserved for the Secretary.
It was basically an all out call for help, to all agents in striking radius, no matter what priority assignment they might be on at the time. It was a 'drop everything else, no matter who or where you are' order.
A Code 8 had one purpose and one purpose only: To respond to the call of distress with whatever resources necessary, air, sea or land, at any and all costs.
It was an order agents were only allowed to issue when they were protecting an 'asset of diamond priority', and with diamond, the rule book meant 'as in the Secretary, the President or anyone identified as such by either of the two'.
No matter how much of an asset Ethan Hunt was to the IMF, both Brandt and Benji knew that issuing a Code 8 for him would have consequences.
But right at this moment, neither of them cared.
They were not leaving Ethan to die.
-o-
It had been hours. Benji was still monitoring their self-made Morse radio, just in case anybody somehow managed to send a response. You never knew with the IMF. This agency did the impossible for a living.
Brandt was alternating between resting his leg keeping Benji company, and staying outside with Jane to monitor how Ethan was holding up.
Initially, they had considered bringing Ethan inside the cabin, but they had eventually decided against it. First of all, it wasn't much warmer in there, anyway, so the heat factor was not much of an argument. But most of all, the warped and twisted remains of the floor inside the cabin left no place to put Ethan flat on the ground comfortably. There was simply no gain that was worthy of risking moving Ethan from where he was now.
So they had instead brought their remaining travel bags outside, spreading whatever warm clothes they had found in there out on the ground right next to Ethan, carefully moving him onto that, before they bundled him up in some extra blankets they had found in the cabin.
That had been hours ago.
As Brandt looked up at the night sky once more, he saw that it was slowly getting lighter. Dawn had to be near.
And with it, hopefully, a rescue.
The last painkillers they had given Ethan had to have worn off by now, as had the last sedatives. If Ethan had been able to, he would have woken up by now.
So far he hadn't.
But considering that Ethan was, in fact, still breathing – albeit very shallow – Brandt was not willing to give up hope yet. Not on Ethan. And not on any of them.
Just as Brandt was about to move back inside to talk to Benji once more, he suddenly thought he saw something on the edge of the horizon.
At first he almost dismissed it as pure imagination. But when he saw Jane glance up as well, he knew she sensed it too.
There was something in the distance. Up on the air. Black against the dark-grey night.
It was a helicopter. Coming closer. Fast.
As it passed over them in a steep arc, they saw that it had no markings on the black doors, nor on the underside of the dark cabin.
'IMF' Brandt immediately realized, 'Our boys in black'
Jane looked over to Brandt with relief, as she, too, realized that it was their own people who had found them. She didn't know how that had come about, but she figured the IMF must have been monitoring the general emergency frequencies and had probably picked up that SOS distress call that Benji had sent out.
Brandt was equally relieved that their call had been answered. Unlike Jane, however, he knew that it was most likely not the standard SOS call that had brought that helicopter here.
But Brandt decided not to tell Jane about the Code 8. When this was over, it would give her deniability, and she might even be able to keep her career. It was enough if his and Benji's lives would change.
As they watched the helicopter touch down a safe distance from the wreckage, they could see a second black chopper coming from the same direction, quickly landing equally smoothly on the other side of the wreckage. From the first copter, a ready response team was already sprinting towards them with emergency equipment on their backs and in their hands.
Brandt hoped it would be enough to save Ethan. He didn't like the way Ethan's colour had gotten even more translucent over the past hour, and he knew that there wasn't much time left. Ethan needed surgery. The kind you could only get at a real hospital. And they needed to get him there ASAP.
The response team didn't ask any question beyond medical ones. It was standard protocol for a Code 8. They were here to provide help, and that was all they would be doing, to the very best of their ability. But Brandt knew the hard questions would come later, once they were all back at the IMF.
Getting into the first copter together with Jane, Benji and Ethan – the latter being safely secured on a stretcher – Brandt saw the second helicopter team go through the rubble of the plane, collecting anything that might be a traceable to the IMF or contain any mission-related material. The men were thorough. Even as the first helicopter took of, taking its precious 'Code 8' cargo to the nearest IMF station, the second copter crew was methodically securing the crash site.
Brandt knew they would also handle the Coast Guard, should anyone eventually respond to the general SOS that had been sent out. There would be a smooth cover story that would leave no trace of any IMF operatives having ever been involved in the crash. By the time the IMF was done with this incident, nobody without clearance would even hear about it.
-o-
When they were unloaded at the nearest hospital, things got a bit chaotic. Ethan was instantly whisked away to surgery. The rest of them were also checked out by doctors, which is why they lost sight of each other for a while. Eventually, however, Benji was let go, and steered towards the waiting area outside the room in which Ethan was undergoing surgery. After a while, Jane met up with him, also having gotten released by her doctor.
"Any word yet?" Jane asked as she approached Benji.
"I don't know, they're not telling me anything."
"Have you seen Brandt?" Jane wondered. She had seen Brandt's doctor leave earlier, so Brandt had to have been released by now.
"Uhm…no, haven't seen him." Benji replied hesitantly.
"That's strange…I thought he would be here…where else would he go?"
"Well, he did what he could, …" Benji said cautiously.
There was something in Benji's statement that wasn't said out loud.
Jane picked up on it after a moment.
"What do you mean?"
Benji realized he had probably already said too much. But seeing how Jane was now looking at him in that way, he knew he would have to spill the truth entirely, if he knew what was good for him.
"He gave out a Code 8…" Benji muttered softly.
"He did what?" Jane thought she hadn't heard correctly.
"He…he called the Code…" Benji said once more, this time a little louder than the initial whisper, and he could see that Jane understood what he was saying.
'Yeah, and Brandt's probably over at the Secretary's office right as we speak, being ordered to hand in his badge for what he did', Benji thought silently.
Benji remained silent for another moment, as he thought about the fact that he himself would have to be doing the same soon.
Benji's silence lasted long enough for Jane to realize that Brandt apparently wasn't the only one in trouble.
"What else happened that I don't know about…?"
But even as Jane asked the question, she saw the answer.
"And it was you who sent that Code, wasn't it?"
Benji merely nodded. There was no use in denying his role in this.
If Benji were anybody else, someone only intent on saving his own career, he might have said that he was only following Brandt's order. It wouldn't get him out of this mess, but it would perhaps soften the blow the IMF would be dealing him soon. But Benji was not 'anybody'. He was a member of this team. And he intended to stand up for what he had done, just like Brandt – because in his eyes, it had been the only way to get Ethan the necessary help in time to hopefully save his life.
"I'll be going to the Secretary myself as soon as I know how Ethan is doing. They can have my resignation, too, if they want it." Benji eventually admitted.
As Jane saw the resignation on Benji's face, she actually had to sit down for a moment.
This was not what she had expected.
Ethan fighting for his life in that operating room was one thing. But losing Brandt and Benji because of an illegal Code 8 order on top of that…Jane was almost glad that Ethan was not aware of any of this at the moment.
Had Ethan known, he would most likely be going head to head with the Secretary right this minute – dosed up on painkillers if necessary - to save his team. And then he would probably knock Brandt's and Benji's heads against each other for risking their own careers to save his life, an act that was - in Ethan's eyes - more than stupid.
That was Ethan for you. Never wanting his team to risk anything for him, but going to bat for them when the chips were down.
But since Ethan wasn't available at the moment, Jane realized it was probably up to her to deal with this problem.
Starting with Benji.
But just then Benji's phone rang.
Almost glad to be escaping Jane's immediate response, Benji answered the phone.
He then listened to it for a long moment, before shutting it with a formal "Understood, Sir."
Jane could see from Benji's serious expression that things were apparently happening faster than Benji had thought.
"Was that who I think it was?" Jane asked carefully.
"Yes. And he wants me in his office immediately. Brandt is already there."
Jane didn't know what to say. But she feared she was watching the dismemberment of one of the best teams the IMF ever had.
Seeing that Benji was torn between the wish to stay and the direct order to get going, Jane waited for him to come to a decision. In the end, however, there was no real choice. He had to leave.
"Can you do me a favour?" Benji asked with a final sigh, as he got up from the waiting chair he had been sitting on.
Jane nodded.
"Whatever you need."
"Please call me when he wakes up. I just want to know that he's alright, even if they don't let me come back here."
And with that, Benji took one more glance at the closed OR doors, silently saying goodbye to Ethan, wishing him the best for the future.
As Jane watched Benji leave the waiting room, she couldn't help thinking that she was watching something come apart. Something more important than any of them.
And as her gaze wandered over to the closed OR doors, just like Benji's gaze had done before, she realized what it was.
It wasn't just that Ethan was in risk of losing his life.
Piece by piece, he was also losing his team.
-o-
"I think you both know why you are here, don't you?" the dark voice of the Secretary was not loud, but it was definitely intimidating.
"Yes, Sir." Benji, fueled by fear, replied just a bit faster than Brandt.
"Of course, Sir." Brandt followed up, a little more confident, because this wasn't the first time he'd gone head to head with this Secretary. While the former Secretary was a good man, this new one was a rather unforgiving character, strictly by the book and ingenuity be damned. Brandt didn't like the man very much. And the feeling was apparently mutual.
"Then I guess I don't have to explain to you that you acted far outside of your authority, when you issued," he looked at Brandt, "and then repeatedly Morsed out," his gaze wandered to Benji, "an order that you had no authority to give in the first place."
"That is correct, Sir." Brandt stated calmly.
Benji didn't know where Brandt was getting that calmness, but he would have gladly borrowed some of it. Benji was feeling decidedly small where he stood.
There was nothing like being cited into the Secretary's office.
Especially when you knew you were being cited there for your impeding resignation.
The Secretary was now looking both of them right in the eye, but neither Brandt nor Benji looked away. Not letting them see what he thought about that, the Secretary then turned to his desk, where two sets of papers were spread out.
Benji had a course in 'reading upside down' once. He hadn't excelled in it, but he remembered enough of the lessons to be able to make out what the papers were saying.
The documents on the desk were resignation forms.
Signed on the dotted line by the Secretary. Only their own signatures were still missing.
Okay. This was it. They were really being kicked out.
'I hope they're letting us see Ethan one more time before they send us off to some remote location for the rest of our lives,' Benji thought.
He saw the Secretary pick up the two sets of papers, holding them both up in his right hand.
"Do you know what these are?"
Brandt nodded. So did Benji.
Words were not necessary anymore.
"Then I guess you also know what these will mean for you."
But before either Brandt or Benji could speak up again, the Secretary suddenly held up his other hand, silencing them instantly, as he went right on speaking.
"These mean, that I would like nothing more than to personally ship your asses to a place so far away you will never find it on any map between here and nowhere!"
'Okay. Now the shouting has started.' Benji thought glumly.
Brandt's thoughts were equally dark, although for another reason.
'Just give us those damn papers, and be done with it.' Brandt silently glared at the man before him, yet he somehow managed to not let the glare show on his face.
They both silently waited as the Secretary went on.
"As you can see, these things have already been signed by me, and all that is missing is your signature. When I had your team folder sent up here an hour ago, I was almost tempted to just have your names copied onto these papers, and be done with the two of you."
The Secretary then pulled his gaze away from them to look at a statue on his desk.
"Unfortunately, that team folder of yours produced a rather delicate detail that kept me from sending you straight to nowhere. In fact, it will probably also mean I can't do what I would like to do right now – which is to bust you down so far you will never see the light of day again."
Both Brandt and Benji felt a frown appear on their foreheads. They didn't understand what the Secretary was saying. But they were listening more closely now.
The secretary looked at both of them for a moment, before he walked back to his desk, putting down the two resignation forms, before he grabbed a third document. It looked like a page out of a team folder. Their team folder. As Brandt looked closer, he saw that the single page was in fact Ethan's security clearance sheet.
And that was when Brandt blanched.
"Yeah, that's what I did, too, when I saw it," the Secretary muttered darkly.
Benji was now looking back and forth between Brandt and the Secretary, but he couldn't see yet what Brandt had apparently seen.
The Secretary then took pity on the clueless agent, but not without adding a suspicious glare at both Brandt and Benji.
"Did any of you know that the former Secretary had Ethan Hunt's clearance upgraded to diamond status just shortly before that mission to Russia last year?"
By the shocked expression on Benji's face and the slight shake of head on Brandt's part, the Secretary could tell that they truly hadn't known.
That meant they had indeed been willing to break the rules. Never mind that in this case, the rules happened to not have been broken after all.
"Gentlemen, I hope you realize that you almost got yourself a lifetime of misery courtesy of the IMF. I strongly suggest that from now on, you two will be on your best behaviour, and if I ever have to invite you into my office again, it better not be because of something that will make me pull these," and he pointed behind him towards the resignation papers, "from the top drawer of my desk again. Because I can assure you, that's where these things will remain for the time being. Consider yourself warned."
Brandt and Benji didn't know what to say.
So the Secretary did it for them.
"Now I want you two out of my office. And you better follow your own orders."
At Brandt's confused look, the Secretary spelled it out for them:
"As far as I see it, you two are still under Code 8, so get your asses back to that hospital and make sure Ethan Hunt gets back on his feet. I don't want to have to explain to the President that I lost a 'diamond priority asset'. I assume you don't want that, either."
"No, Sir."
"Absolutely not, Sir.
Before they knew it, they were dismissed.
And they immediately headed back to the hospital.
-o-
When Jane saw the two of them step out of the elevator, she felt a moment's relief. At least the IMF had allowed them to come back to stay here until after the surgery.
But what would come after that, she didn't know.
Judging by the unreadable faces of Benji and Brandt, it couldn't be good.
But as Brandt approached her, about to ask her if there had been any word yet, there was a sudden noise from the other end of the room, as the OR doors opened and a gurney was rolled out of the room.
A doctor was following on the heels of the gurney, but when he saw them, he gave his medical team a nod to go on without him and take care of the patient, while he went to talk with the three people in the waiting room.
It wasn't much that he told them.
The most important detail, however, was that Ethan had made it through the surgery and that, baring any relapses, he should survive the injury. It was a close call, though. As the doctor explained to them, they had gotten the patient to the operating room just in time. Had medical help taken any longer to be administered, they would not be having this talk now. They would be preparing a funeral.
"Your friend should be alright. If all goes well, he'll be back on his feet in three to four weeks," the doctor told them.
He then then excused himself, letting them know that they were welcome to go down to the patient's room in about an hour or so, once the nurses would give them the green light.
"Thank God." Benji felt a huge weight falling off his chest as he realized that Ethan would be fine.
Jane was equally relived, as was Brandt.
"I guess this really was what they call a 'close call', in more ways than one," Brandt muttered under his breath.
At Jane's questioning look, and the sudden smile on Benji's face, Brandt felt the enormity of what they had gotten through finally hit him. He actually had to sit down in order not to sink down with relief.
It took a moment, before he realized that Jane was still looking at him. When he became aware of it, Brandt slowly raised his gaze to meet her eyes.
Then, softly, he spoke.
"Ethan still has a team."
It was only five simple words. But to the three people standing in that waiting room, these five words were more precious than anyone else would ever know.
-o-
The doctor had estimated three to four weeks of recovery.
After two weeks and one day, however, the morning nurse unexpectedly found herself looking at an empty bed, freshly made and with not a patient in sight.
At first she thought she had entered the wrong room.
But when she checked the patients roaster back at the nurses station, and she pulled out the patient's folder, she saw that the room number had indeed been correct. As she further checked the patient's folder, she then found that, somehow, the patient's treatment documents had been replaced by a single-page release form stating that an 'Earl Hunter' had been picked up by his relatives late last night, and that all follow-up tests would be handled by a private medical facility in another state.
Aside from that one page of the release form, the patient's folder was inexplicably empty. The nurse was not entirely sure where the rest of the patient's file had gone, but she assumed that a doctor had perhaps taken it with him for the morning rounds. It would probably turn up again eventually.
And if it didn't – well, whoever that Earl Hunter was, if he ever came back this way, he would just have to fill out a new file.
THE END
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