Chapter 2:
Diggle watched her from above, he stalked her every move. If there was one thing he was sure of it was that Ruve Adams was the key to getting access to Damien Darhk. Twice he had seen Damien break his calm exterior when Ruve had been targeted, first at his home and then again during the campaign. He knew that rage well, the rage of a man who cared for his family. That compassion would be his undoing Diggle decided. Damien Darhk may have super powers that thwarted all of their efforts to subdue him, but Ruve Adams was as flesh and blood as you and I. She could be gotten to, she could be kidnapped, she could be killed. He noted her regular meetings and he had Felicity hack her phone so they could keep tabs on her. They knew every meeting and every rendezvous that she had on the books for the next two weeks and where she would be vulnerable. Ruve never travelled with more than six men and her faith in her husband's blackmail threats meant that she was overconfident in her level of safety. Diggle had come up with a plan, but he was going to need some help. Watching Ruve's men guarding the car outside the Mayor's office, Diggle called the only number he could think of, it would be dangerous but he knew she was going to want to help and he was certain he could keep her safe. Dialling Felicity's number, John checked his watch, Ruve's meeting was scheduled to last another 45mins. It was going to be tight but it just might work.
"I don't know anything!" The guard cried out as a second arrow hit him in the shoulder, the first still embedded in his bone as the blood trickled down his chest. Oliver had decided to go back to basics, find he target and interrogate him until he talks. In this case the targets were the guards from Iron Heights who had helped Darhk to escape in the first place. If he could find out how he escaped, hen just maybe he could learn where he escaped too.
"You were in charge of security in his cell." Oliver reminded him, "He had to have had helped planning his escape and you're going to tell me who it was." The Arrow threatened him.
"You think it was me, but it wasn't you have to believe me." The guard pleaded, "I had no idea." But Oliver sensed his hesitation and took hold of the arrow, causing the flesh to tear and the guard to almost pass out from the pain. "All right, all right. I'll give you a name." The guard cried as Oliver pulled the arrow out and then jammed it back in again, "It was Hendrix. He made me do it."
"Do what?" Oliver yelled impatiently, reaching for another arrow.
"He made me make sure the other guards were preoccupied so they could make their move." The guard cried remorsefully, "They threatened my family, my little girl. She's only 6 years old."
"Where can I find him?" Oliver stepped back, the torture over for now.
"He hangs out at a bar on 5th street." The guard offered up, almost faint from the blood loss, "Are you going to kill me?" He trembled.
"That depends?" Oliver warned him,
"On what?"
"On whether or not you are telling me the truth." He said as he raced away into the night to follow his lead, leaving the guard, still tied to the railing and bleeding out, but not before calling for help.
"Are you sure about this?" Felicity asked as she sat behind the wheel of the SUV, her hands gripping the steering wheel as she played through what was about to happen in her mind. She knew that Diggle was positioned behind a nearby building close by and that she wasn't alone, but she also wished that Oliver was there to make her feel a little bit safer.
"I've got this I promise." He told her through the earpiece, cocking his gun and making sure the safety was off. "Do you trust me?" he asked, watching her through his sites.
"Always." She said, taking a deep breath and pulling down her ski mask. She sat opposite the traffic lights, a clear line of sight between her and Ruve's car. She could see he men keeping guard and the entrance to the Mayor's office. It was a quiet night and there was very little traffic on the road she thought to herself, at least they had some luck on their side.
"Ok. Stand by." He said as he watched Ruve ushered into her waiting town car by her body guards.
"I see them" Felicity confirmed as she watched one of the guards sit in the front by the driver, another two in the rear of the car with Ruve and two more traveling in the car behind her. "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this." She reminded herself as he hit the accelerator and pointed her car in the right direction.
As Ruve's car pulled out from the curb it travelled unknowingly towards the red traffic light just 30 feet ahead. Stopping to wait its change to green, they never saw the SUV coming racing upon them from the left, driving full speed into the side of their vehicle. The driver, passenger and two guards were knocked out cold buy the impact which sent Ruve's car flying into the glass shop front window beside them. The other two guards got out of their follow car and started to advance on their position.
As Felicity sat behind the wheel of the SUV, which now lay embedded in the side of Ruve's car, she put the car into reverse for a moment and then waited, so they could make a quick escape, in the middle of the road as Diggle took out Ruve guards. As she watched Diggle taking aim, Felicity was caught off guard by the sound of the shattering glass of her passenger window, followed almost immediately by a second hissing sound as another bullet lodged itself in the headrest behind her. Her instinct duck forward when she squealed had saved her life by mere inches. As she looked ot of the window, she saw he face of the man who had fired the shot, his gun raised as her began to pull the trigger a third time. Felicity panicked as her life flashed before her eyes just as Diggle managed to come up from behind the shooter and take him out with a kill shot to the back of his chest. Felicity breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh my god." She whispered to herself as John reached in and dragged Ruve's body from the car. Wasting no more time, Diggle threw Ruve in the back of the SUV, Felicity placed the car into reverse and speed away from the scene.
"Is she alive? Felicity asked, praying it was not for nothing. As Digs took a moment to catch his breath.
"Just unconscious." He assured her as she followed Digs directions to his hideout.
"Thank god." Felicity breathed a sigh of relief. Even though they were in a stolen car, she still felt her heart race at the thought of committing vehicular homicide, her adrenalin was pumping so hard right now.
"Look Felicity. I can do this on my own if you want?" He gave her an out, still replaying the image of the bullet shattering the window and the look on her face when she saw the next bullet aimed dead on target. "You almost got hurt tonight, it was too close." He apologised.
"No. No." She insisted strongly, "I'm in, it's just going to take a bit of getting used to." She said, "Do you think orange is my colour? Cause I've never really been an autumn person." She mumbled nervously.
"You're not going to prison Felicity." Digs laughed at her. "Not if I can help it."
"I wonder who my cell mate would be." She thought aloud. "Do you think I'd still get IT privileges?"
"Felicity." Diggle smirked. "What would we do without you?"
Watching the alleyway for the right time to make his move, Oliver harnessed the rage inside of him. If this target knew where to find Darhk he would make him talk if it was the last thing he did. "HENDRIX?" Oliver startled the 6ft 4" brunette with athletic physique as he snuck into the ally way to relieve himself, "Where is Damien Darhk?" He yelled as he jumped of the rooftop and landed in front of him, arrow drawn.
"Who the hell are you?" Hendrix asked, unaware of the danger he was in, especially with four beers under his belt already.
"Answer the question." Oliver asked again with conviction.
"I know you. You're that hood guy. The Green Arrow." He laughed at him, "What are you going to do? Ask me nicely?"
"No!" Oliver replied angrily shooting an arrow through his right arm as Hendrix imitated shooting Oliver with an imaginary gun.
"What the hell did you do that for?" He screamed holding his arm as the pain seared through the alcohol stupor he was in.
"Damien Darhk. Where is he?" He asked again, aiming another arrow.
"No idea." He said, still a little humorous, "He's like the wind dude, he's gone."
"This next one is aimed at something far more important than your hand." Oliver warned him. Lowering the angle of his bow.
"Go ahead. I don't think you'll do it." Hendrix taunted him, "We all know about your whole no killing pact."
"You'd lose that bet." He said releasing the arrow as it flew dead straight into his upper thigh.
"You missed." Hendrix cried in pain.
"No I didn't." he replied as Hendrix's artery began to bleed. "You have about 3 minutes before you bleed out."
"All right, all right." Hendrix confessed, "All I know is he had a contingency. Kept talking about some hidden paradise where he would be reborn."
"Where is it?" He pressed him, the next arrow already leaving its mark on his forehead.
"Somewhere in the Glades." Hendrix passed out as another patron came out to share an intimate moment with his companion before finding him unconscious. Oliver watched from above to make sure Hendrix was alive before heading back to the bunker to regroup. He had a location now at least, it was more than he had before, but he was still a long way from his target.
Back at the bunker, Oliver couldn't help but feel defeated. He had almost taken two lives tonight and he was barely any closer to the truth than he was before. Sitting at the computer, watching over a schematic of the Glades and trying to pinpoint Darhk's most likely hideout, Oliver barely noticed the image on the screen behind him.
"Oh my god." Thea announced as she watched the screen in confusion. The banner across the bottom of the news cast read Mayor Ruve Adams kidnapped. "That looks likeā¦." Thea thought aloud.
"It is." Oliver felt the frenzy growing inside of him as his fists clenched and his jaw tightened, the image was grainy and you couldn't make out there faces but he knew exactly who they were. His body shuttered as he watched the CCTV footage of the SUV impacting with the sedan. As the driver was thrown back and then forth in the collision, but what truly got his blood boiling was the two bullet holes in the passenger window.
"How could they be so reckless?" He shouted at Thea as he tried to decide whether to call Felicity or Diggle. "They could have been killed, or worse." He ranted at her, like she had condoned it.
"But they weren't." Thea reminded him, pointlessly. Oliver paced back and forth as Felicity's phone went unanswered, a thousand thoughts running through his mind. "What are you going to do?" Thea asked as Oliver grabbed his jacket and his keys and headed for the door with a full head of steam.
"Lock them up and throw away the key." He warned her, "For their own good."
"You can't be serious." Thea hoped.
"Watch me." He warned her, "It's better than watching them get themselves killed."
"Olli!" Thea called out, but he was already gone. She decided not to go after him, it wouldn't serve anything. Instead she tried to ring John to give him a heads up, but like Felicity he wasn't answering his phone.
"What are we going to do? It's all over the news." Felicity panicked as Diggle tightened the cuffs on Ruve who was lying unconscious on an old mattress on the floor, chained to the wall in the smaller room of the bunker.
"We knew this would happen." He reminded her, "Just try to stay calm."
"Oliver is going to be sooo pissed." She said, picturing the anger in his eyes and his disapproving stare of his when he finally found out what they were doing.
"He had his chance to help." Diggle snapped at her, "He made his choice."
"He doesn't always make the best choices." She recalled, "Maybe he'll change his mind?" She thought aloud hopefully.
"Oliver's a soldier. He'll understand that we did what we had to do." Diggle said, half trying to convince himself, "You should go home, get some ice on that neck of yours." He said noting her rubbing her neck from the whiplash, he also didn't want her around when he started to interrogate Ruve Adams for her husband's whereabouts.
"I'm fine." She insisted, trying to ignore the crick in her neck.
"Go." He asserted more authority, "I've got his."
"OK." She submitted knowing when Dig wanted to be alone it was best to let him be, "I've run a sweep for any transmitter signals and I can't find anything on her so she should be clean." Felicity said, staring at her the woman she had just helped kidnapped, "I'll be back in an hour or two. I'll bring you something to eat."
"You don't need to do that." He said, already setting up his computer to go on with his own research while he waited for Ruve to come tu.
"What are friends for?" She smiled at him as she rested a hand on his arm a moment to let him know he wasn't alone, before grabbing her bag and heading out to her car, leaving Diggle alone to ponder his next move.
