Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.
-M-
"Alpha, this is Bravo, in position."
Samantha readied her weapon; she'd traded up to an M4 at Jack's insistence and the assault rifle felt foreign and heavy in her hands. Across the doorway from her, Jack Dalton, clad in the same night vision tech and holding the same rifle, readied his weapon as well, then gave her a nod. The hand supporting the barrel of the rifle held up three fingers, and silently counted down.
When his fist closed, the power to the block blinked out. Cage reached out and turned the doorknob – she'd picked the lock moments before – and he dashed into the darkened opening. At the same time, in her ear came a quiet, urgent whisper.
"Breach!"
Jack took the left side, and Cage moved to the right, across a narrow hallway. The house was a sleepy little two-story in a largely Hispanic suburb of Phoenix, of all places. The décor and furniture was what she'd expect, and there was no sign of anyone in the small living room. There was a closed door, to the right, and Samantha was about to check it when there was a single pistol shot, almost smothered by a much softer burst of fire.
A three burst round fired from a suppressed M4.
"One down." It was Jack. His voice was clipped and clinical.
"One down, copy," came the reply, and Samantha sharpened her attention, and tried the door.
It opened into the breakfast nook of the kitchen, and Cage stuck her head in just enough to see that Bravo team had breached the back and were in the process of clearing the kitchen. They acknowledged each other, and she withdrew, closing the door softly behind her and falling back to the main hallway.
There was motion on the stairs – Jack, moving ahead without her. Cage clamped down on any verbal protest, she just followed him as he snaked his way around the landing and up the second half-flight. He saw her as he made his turn, then jerked his chin towards his left, and Samantha silently did as he directed, and scanned the two closed doors on that side of the hall.
One was much narrower than the other – possibly an attic or closet. The other was almost certainly a bedroom.
She edged closer to the larger door, listening intently. No sound from inside. She carefully tried the knob – not locked. Cage waited a beat, then threw the door open and put her back to the wall.
No sound. No one fired a shot.
Samantha kept her back to the wall, easing around the doorframe, and found herself in a modest bedroom. There was a duffel on the bed, half packed, and the desk under the window had at least four different sniper rifles, in various stages of disassembly. There was also what looked like a small stack of passports and a couple neat piles of cash, US denomination, and she cleared the room, ripping open the closet door.
No one. It was empty.
She turned back to the passports, making sure that she was getting everything on the body cam, and across the hallway, there was a single gunshot.
"Alpha, come in!"
Cage was back across the hallway in a flash. Two doors were open, and she was about to enter the first one when her earbud popped.
"Two down." Jack might as well have been reporting the weather. "Bring up the lights. Everyone, kill your NVDs."
After a brief moment, power was restored to the house with an audible clunk, and Cage flipped up the visor on her night vision goggles. The hallway light wasn't on, but the second bedroom light was, and she almost ran into Jack as he was exiting. His arm was resting lightly on his rifle, and there was fine blood spatter on his face and tac vest.
"Jack-"
"Not mine," he said curtly, slipping past her without another word, and Cage stared after him a moment before she glanced into the room.
The male suspect was sprawled in the far corner beside a chest of drawers, mouth agape and at an angle that indicated his jaw was broken. Blood poured in a thin, uninterrupted string over his bottom lip. The spatter pattern on the wall finished painting the picture, and Cage examined the angle of the pistol in the dead man's hand for a long moment.
"All teams, report in."
"Bravo team, standing down."
"Charlie team, standing down."
Cage waited a beat, then raised her own voice. "Alpha team, standing down." She turned and made her way back down the stairwell. Most of the lights on the first floor were on, the rest of the tac teams doing a quick visual sweep for anything else out of the ordinary, and Samantha strode back down the hallway, ducking into the first room Jack had cleared.
At first she didn't see anything, just a formal sitting room of sorts with an incredibly tacky couch making an L in the middle of the room. Behind it, she found the female suspect. She'd been wearing a vest, and taken two hits just above it, at her collarbone. She was also very clearly dead.
And what Cage was seeing, the rest of Ops was seeing.
"What the hell just happened?" Matty demanded in her ear, and Samantha sighed silently, moving back into the main hallway where Dalton was giving orders to half of Charlie team.
The agent – not one that Samantha recognized – turned away and headed out the front door, and Jack moved to follow before Cage caught him by the shoulder. She was taken off guard by the tension in his frame, and he turned on her with a glare.
"What happened?" She intentionally kept a neutral tone.
Everything about Jack's expression was cold. His eyes, the set of his mouth, half-hidden by a week's worth of scruff. Even the way his fingers tightened on the rifle, just slightly. He was clearly bracing for a fight.
"They were waitin' for us. She had decent cover and a vest and I didn't feel like wasting time. Her partner musta realized he was screwed. He ate a bullet before I could secure him."
"Jack, which part of 'we need one of them alive' wasn't clear to you?" Matty's voice snapped into both their coms. Samantha had a feeling it was just them, because one of the agents passing by didn't so much as break stride. "They were just the hired guns. Without one of them to roll over on who contracted them-"
"What do you want, an apology?" It was almost a growl. "Hold your breath."
Jack ripped out his com, letting it dangle by the neck of his vest, and marched out of the house without another word.
Cage remained facing him, keeping him on her cam. "Director-"
She heard an angry sigh. "Let him go."
Samantha obeyed the order, glancing at the coffee table in the sitting room. She strode back over and picked up a smartphone in her gloved hand, clicking the power button, but the phone was locked. On a whim, she started to carry it around to the back of the sofa.
"Don't." Matty's voice was sharp. "Leave it for forensics. She was wearing a vest, and he was packing up. They knew we were coming. We don't know what safeguards they may have already set up."
Cage was pretty sure a fingerprint swipe wouldn't trigger a phone wipe. "How far out's the team?"
"Four minutes. We had them just down the block." It was Riley this time. It was hard to tell on coms how she was feeling about what they'd just witnessed.
And what had they just witnessed?
"Samantha, what's your assessment?"
Of course Matilda was thinking along the same lines. "About the male suspect shooting himself?" They'd seen exactly what she'd seen. "I suppose it's possible. If he broke his own jaw putting his gun into his mouth. What did Jack's camera show?"
"Nothing. It must have gotten knocked to the side in the struggle, because all we saw was the wall." She could almost hear the air quotes. They both knew his camera hadn't gotten knocked aside – at least not by the suspect.
Even knowing it would make finding the person or persons ultimately responsible for MacGyver's death more difficult, it certainly appeared that Jack had intentionally killed both the assassins.
And it also appeared that killing Mac's murderers hadn't been the cathartic release Jack had hoped for. Not if his current emotional state was any indication.
"Cage, go catch up with Dalton. I want you both back in California ASAP."
-M-
Riley didn't let herself hesitate for even a moment, banging authoritatively on the door.
It was around noon, the Tuesday after the op in Arizona that had gone pear-shaped. Riley knew he was home; his phone was there and when she'd remotely activated the cameras she'd caught sight of a shadow moving past. Near as she could tell, he hadn't used it since Matty had suspended him - he wasn't responding to texts or calls.
But at least he was keeping it charged. Keeping it an option, when he was ready to use it.
There was no sound from inside, and Riley banged on the door again. "I can do this all day, old man," she called, just in case he was afraid she was Matty or Cage come to check on him.
He should know better than to expect Bozer. Wilt was squirreled away in a safehouse that even she didn't have the address to. Riley was half convinced Matty was keeping him locked up in her own basement for safekeeping.
Riley pounded on the door again, lending credence to her threat, and sure enough, she heard a quiet shuffling sound, and then a solid thud on the other side of the door. It didn't open.
Riley gave the peephole a strange look, then peered through it, trying to make out whether there was even a shadow on the other side. She couldn't see crap, and nothing else happened. Riley frowned. "Or I can just break in through the balcony door," she offered.
There was a soft scrabbling sound, and then she heard the deadbolt draw back. The door opened just a hair, and Riley shoved a foot against it so he couldn't close it. Then she saw that it was probably unnecessary.
"Jesus, Jack," she breathed.
He was leaning forehead first against the wall beside the door, eyes half closed. Jack was wearing pants, thank god, but no shirt, and she could smell him from the hallway. His bare feet were spread wide, clearly trying to keep his balance, and his eyes, crusted and bloodshot, shifted to her without blinking.
"Jack," she tried again, when he didn't say anything, and she pushed on the door. He still tried to keep it closed with his left hand, and she actually shoved him fully back onto his feet before he stumbled backwards a little, and she managed to squeeze in.
He took a few more steps back, reeling, and then sighed through his nose. "Get outta here. I ain' got time f'this." His voice was slurred and hoarse.
"Yeah, I can see that." There were at least half a dozen liquor bottles, most in various states of just about empty, scattered throughout the room. The TV was on, a young Bruce Willis was cajoling an angry blonde, but it was muted. The carcass of a pizza box was on the counter, next to three bottles of wine that she figured were also probably dry, and a glance at his bedroom showed an empty beer bottle laying forgotten in the doorway.
All he was missing was the fucking ashtray, and it was like she'd just walked in off the bus to find that Elwood had crawled back home.
Jack shambled past her, heading in a kind of diagonal shuffle for the much closer brown leather recliner rather than the barber's chair, and he half sat, half collapsed. It didn't look comfortable, but he didn't seem bothered. He was facing the TV but didn't seem to really see it.
Riley just shook her head, and started collecting the empties. It was not the first time she'd had to sober a person up. Just the first time that person was Jack Dalton.
He didn't respond, or try to stop her until she went to grab the half-empty bottle of Jameson by his chair. His hand shot out and caught her wrist with the speed of a snake striking, and Riley actually yelped in surprise.
"Jack – ow, dude, let go-"
She gave her wrist a sharp tug that got her nowhere, and his eyes shifted up to her again, almost as if seeing her for the first time. They were glassy, under the crust of too many tears and not enough sleep, and frighteningly empty.
". . . I ain' done wi'that."
"Yeah?" She braced her feet properly and gave her wrist another good yank, breaking his grip where it was weakest, near his thumb. She got free, spilling a little of the whiskey on her jeans in the process.
Awesome.
"Well, I think it's had enough of you," she continued, stalking across the apartment for the kitchen. "Is this what you've been doing all weekend? Crawling inside a bottle?"
She could tell that he was watching her, but he didn't respond, and she upended the bottles in the sink, including the Jameson. Once he sobered up there was nothing stopping him going back out to the liquor store, but at least she could get him clear headed enough to make the decision consciously.
His fridge was thankfully mostly empty of beer, but it was also empty of most everything else, and she eventually tracked down a couple eggs that were only expired a week. His freezer was in slightly better shape, and she pulled out a frozen loaf of bread. Protein and carbs. A drunk's best friend.
She put both her discoveries on the kitchen counter, grabbing the fridge door to close it, and couldn't help a startled jump when she realized Jack was standing literally right there.
"What're y'doin'." His voice was flat and his breath sour, and for the first time she could remember, he wasn't wearing his saint medallion.
Riley stared up at him, not unaware that he weighed twice what she did and if he fell, getting him off the floor was going to be next to impossible. "I'm making you breakfast, old man."
He placed a hand, very deliberately, flat against the freezer door. "I ain' hungry."
"Yeah?" She turned her back on him – and hated that it felt a little like a very stupid thing to do – and went in search of a pan. "How's that liquid diet working out for you?"
"You need t'leave."
Single minded drunk. She'd dealt with those before too. "I will, Jack, just as soon as you eat something and we get you to bed."
She found a small omelet pan in the cabinet above the stove, and set it down on a burner, and that was as far as she got. Jack swiped it off the stove, making the pan fly across the counter to slam into the clear acrylic cannister in which he kept his coffee. The plastic resin cracked into a hundred pieces, spilling coffee grounds everywhere, and Riley found herself on the other side of the kitchen, staring at him incredulously.
He studied the mess a moment, almost like he couldn't figure out how it had happened, and then he raised a shaking hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose. When he spoke again, his voice was just as hoarse as it had been before. ". . . y'need t'leave, Riley."
" . . . Jack?" He'd come within a hair's breadth of actually hitting her.
"I ain' fit company righ' now." He left his hand on his face, covering his eyes, and she just stared at him.
Elwood was the violent drunk. Not Jack. She'd seen him wasted and still be gentle as a kitten. He'd never raised a hand to Diane even accidentally, even when she'd wake him up in the middle of the night. He always had control. Always.
"Jack," and she swallowed her voice steady, "you need to eat something, and you need to go to bed. Okay?"
He took an unsteady breath. " . . . ged'outta here, Riley. I can't do this righ' now."
She bit her lip, and held out a hand. "Hey, it's okay, here, just -"
"GET OUT!" he roared, his arm slicing the air in front of him, and she flinched back into the counter. His hand was no longer covering his face, and –
And it was unrecognizable.
He sucked in a breath, his chest heaving, and he grabbed the edge of the stove so forcefully he actually shifted the appliance several inches. She would have backed away more if she could, but he'd penned her in the U-shaped space, and Riley briefly considered vaulting the passthrough to get out of range.
Jack took another deep breath, and then another, and then collapsed heavily against the counter. ". . . sorry . . .'m sorry . . ."
Riley didn't say anything.
He looked up at her, his expression now one of devastation, and he backed up further, into the side of the fridge, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest. Trapping them, she realized with a start.
Making himself safe for her to walk by.
"Please, please, 'm sorry-" He kept repeating it, eyes squeezed shut, and Riley couldn't get anything past the lump in her throat. She pushed herself away from the counter, hurrying past him out of the kitchen, and she didn't let her face crumple until her back was to him. She held her breath to keep from making a sound, but water caught in her eyelash, and she swiped it away angrily before anyone could see.
She tried to blink her sight clear, and her eyes fell on the reason he'd sat so awkwardly in his chair.
There was a nine mil tucked into the worn leather cushion.
She sucked in a quiet breath and grabbed it, too intent on getting out of the apartment to even think about why it was there, or the fact that he had half a dozen others just like it. She shoved the gun into the back of her jeans and groped almost blindly for the door, pulling it gently shut behind her. She could still hear his apology ringing in her ears as she tripped down the flight of stairs, desperate to get to her car.
She fumbled with the key, almost breaking it off in the lock, and then she was safe inside, and pulled the door shut. Riley was suddenly twelve years old again, huddled on her bed, terrified, listening to the yelling, the slamming, wishing they would just stop fighting –
It took her forever to catch her breath, and she ran her thumb over the steering wheel, trying to make her hand stop shaking. She raised her eyes through the windshield to Jack's balcony, half afraid she'd see him there, but there was no movement behind the glass. Riley fished her phone out of her jacket pocket, hesitating for a long moment before she pulled up an app, and accessed his phone's cameras.
The phone was wherever it had been before, the ceilings in his apartment all looked the same. He wasn't in the frame, but the microphone was able to pick up sound.
He was still apologizing.
-M-
The phone buzzed.
It hadn't been doing that much, anymore. And he had actually requested something, was actually expecting a response.
Well, not expecting one. Not a response. Or at least not a response that he actually wanted.
It was probably Jill telling him that she couldn't tell him anything. He wondered if she'd tattle to Riles. How she'd feel about being bypassed.
Jack was not looking forward to facing her.
The phone stopped buzzing. There was no follow-up. No voicemail message.
Jack took a sip of the lukewarm beer, and watched Bruce picking glass out of the bottom of his feet.
I know how you feel, man. I really do.
Behind him, two measured knocks rang out.
Jack didn't react. Wasn't Riley. Matty was more a three knock kinda gal. Bozer wouldn't forgive him for what he'd done to Riles, it'd be a lot more aggressive. And if it was Jill, she could just shove the papers under the door.
He took another sip of the beer, hearing every line Bruce was saying even though the TV was muted.
Maybe he'd finally watched them all too many times, worn the magic off. Even Bruce Willis couldn't save him from this.
If the volume had been on, he might not have heard the metallic rustling, like a mouse in tiny elven chain mail was scurrying along the wall by the door. He didn't catch the doorknob turning, but the faint sucking sound as the weatherstripping along the bottom of the door scraped the threshold was unmistakable.
Jack rose and turned in one smooth movement, and the trigger was quarter-pulled before it occurred to him that he didn't have the first clue who the fuck was standing in his doorway.
From about twenty feet away on a foggy night, she could have been Sarah. Slightly wavy, auburn brown hair, about the right length. Light laughing eyes. Her jeans were painted on, and the tan jacket had a silk scarf wound carelessly beneath the collar. She didn't even look at the gun. Instead, she gave the place a once over. A precisely penciled eyebrow arched when she took in the wooden picnic table, and she entered the apartment, using a slim boot to nudge the door closed.
"Well, this explains a few things," she murmured, almost to herself, and then gave him the same assessment she'd given his place. "Come on, Jack. You wouldn't shoot an unarmed woman . . . would you?"
Unlike the guy behind him, who would use this opportunity to escalate the threat by cocking the gun, Jack lived in the real world, where raised guns were already primed, and the only further warning she was going to get was an actual bullet. "You got five seconds."
She smiled at him, with the same warmth and humor Sarah would when she was trying to charm a mark. "Oh? You have somewhere to be? Looks like Firebird's giving you the cold shoulder, Mr. Dalton."
He almost put one in her arm, just for the hell of it.
"Now you got two."
She tilted her head a little, with the same winsome smile. "Didn't peg you for someone who would sit at home like a good little dog while your old team hangs you out to dry. Heard anything from that pretty little analyst?"
He crossed the distance between them in two strides, and her eyes flashed as he pinned her none too gently against the door with his left forearm. He dug the gun into her side, giving her a second to think about how painful gut wounds could be, but it wasn't fear that crossed her sharp features.
"Now you got zero."
She took a deep breath, her chest expanding against his arm, and he felt the corner of something firm and sharp brush his bare stomach. He didn't look to see what it was; too warm and flexible to be a knife, and it didn't matter anyway. He could still take her before she did more than break the skin.
"We both know the Phoenix is done with you. And you're not going to get very far tracking the people who killed your widdle partner on your own. When you tire of waiting for table scraps, give me a call." She dragged the firm, pointy something gently across his skin – business card, he guessed. He pressed the gun harder into her lower ribs in reply, and she gave a musical little laugh.
"This is going to be fun, Jack."
He considering pistol whipping that assured little smirk right off her face. Instead, he changed his hold, grabbing her by the collar of her jacket and hauling her off the door. She didn't resist as he planted her firmly on the wall beside it, and he pulled open the door just enough to ensure the hallway outside was clear. Then he gestured sharply with the pistol. "Don't come back."
Her smile settled into something a little more considering, and she held up a slick white rectangle of cardboard – definitely a business card – between two of her slender fingers. She tossed it with a well-practiced flick of her wrist; it landed smoothly on the wooden picnic table. Her now-empty fingers waved in a farewell gesture, and she glided out the door.
Jack let the door slam, keeping an eye on her progress until she eased herself into a rental Lexus and pulled into traffic. Only then did he tuck the gun into the back of his jeans, and he swiped his phone off the side table, unlocking it.
One missed call, from a blocked number. Probably her.
Jill hadn't responded to his text.
Jack stared at the phone a moment, considering his options. His thumb hovered over the text box. He could request a trace, track her back to wherever the fuck she came from, find out exactly how she knew what she knew. He might be on administrative leave, and totally in the dark on the investigation, but he was still an agent, and still had physical access to the building.
Still had access to Mac.
For now.
Jack felt his teeth start to grind, and he dropped the phone back onto the table and went to find another beer.
-M-
There was a firm knocking sound on the other side of the room.
Riley recognized it; it was one of the default texting sounds of an Android phone, and she raised an eyebrow at the analyst on the couch across from her. Jill, for her part, glanced at the phone, then up at her, as if just realizing the noise was audible to the rest of them.
Riley indicated the device with her chin. "You factory reset your phone?"
Jill shook her head. "No, it's . . . for my mom. She thinks it's hilarious, and it kinda freaks out dad's Pomeranian." Riley tried to picture a world where someone as smart as Jill's parents must be thought two year old texting defaults were funny, and owned a wind-up dog.
"Don't ask," Jill added, swiping the notification off the screen, and they both turned back to the front of the room to see that Matty hadn't even noticed the exchange. She was still studying the map. It showed the outline of every continent and country represented as smooth blue lines on a black background, upon which hundreds of thousands of little green dots were appearing and launching themselves over the oceans in an overwhelmingly chaotic 3D version of Missile Command.
Several dozen of the signals were yellow, and even fewer orange.
They were waiting for a red one. Red meant the packet had enough of the markers to most likely be a communication from the broker who had engaged and arranged the payment for the assassins. Once they traced back the packets, they could get a physical location, and pay the guy a little visit.
And hopefully get some answers. Like who had paid for the hit, and why.
And then maybe – maybe – they could finally do right by Mac. Get him out of that freezer and . . . well, she honestly didn't know. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who wanted to be embalmed and laid out for everyone to see. He'd probably wanted to donate his organs, but she was pretty sure that wasn't possible anymore. Maybe cremated, and put in an urn beside his mother's grave? Donated to science? Laid out at the Body Farm? Just planted somewhere under a tree sapling?
Mac probably had a will, but the farce at the hospital had been moved to a private clinic, and they were still pretending he was alive, so it wasn't like she even knew who the executor was.
Probably Bozer.
Riley kept her eyes glued to her screen. Bozer replied to maybe one out of every three texts she sent him. Matty was tight-lipped about his location, and she was tempted to just trace his phone, but there was no way to do that without tipping off Jill.
Near as Riley could tell, Jill hadn't wised up yet. She still thought Mac was alive, being kept in a medically induced coma. When she finally found out – when all of them found out – it was going to be like losing him all over again.
It was hard enough trying to keep tabs on Jack without the other analyst picking up on it. She figured she'd managed to keep most of those alerts on the down low, but trying to track someone like Bozer would send up all kinds of red flags. There were still almost a dozen Phoenix employees and contractors on Matty's list, and if any one of them tried to find Bozer, well –
Then they'd know that whoever had put the hit out on Mac had inside help.
But she knew the isolation had to be killing him. Wherever Bozer was, with nothing but time to think, and no closure –
None for any of them.
None for Jack.
As if the raging asshole could actually hear her thoughts, a small red alert popped up near her system tray.
Alert: [847] US Immigration LAX – 357951258; Dalton Jack Wyatt
Riley glanced at it, then closed it, and casually windowed over to the map where she was tracking Jack's phone.
It was still in his apartment.
Which begged the question, why did his passport just get scanned at LAX?
Across from her, Jill's phone knocked three times.
The other analyst ignored it, frowning a little at her screen, and then, almost like she sensed it, she glanced back up, catching Riley's gaze. She looked apologetic.
"Sorry, I'll –" She scooped up the phone, probably to mute the noise, and Riley very carefully did not chew her bottom lip.
Matty wasn't going to be very happy that it looked like Jack was sneaking off. Then again, if he'd really wanted to sneak, he wouldn't have used his own passport. Was this a breadcrumb? Did he just not give a shit if they knew he was skipping town? It wasn't like he was under house arrest, but –
But she was amazed he would leave, when they hadn't gotten a chance to even schedule Mac's funeral.
In fact, there was really only one reason he would.
"Matty." Riley pushed the alert onto the main screen. "Looks like Jack's headed out of town. He tell you where he was going?"
Her diminutive boss cocked her head to the side, in a way that let Riley know that no, he hadn't, and yes, she also found it peculiar.
"No, he didn't. He doesn't take my calls." She exhaled sharply. "Where's he headed? Someplace nice, I hope?"
"Uh . . ." Riley spent a few seconds looking up flight manifests. Then she felt her eyebrows shoot upwards. "Looks like El Salvador."
Both Matty and Jill stared at her, and Riley shrugged. "Don't look at me. I haven't talked to him in days."
"What's in El Salvador?"
"Besides volcanoes, surfing, and coffee farms?" Jill was typing. "Not much. It's seen an uptick in drug trafficking in the last few years, but we haven't picked up any recent chatter indicating anything major's on the horizon."
Riley did a quick reference, to see if Jack or Mac had ever been there on a mission, and came up with nothing.
"Do we know where he plans to stay?"
Riley did a little more checking. ". . . we do not," she finally answered. "His name isn't coming up at any of the major hotel chains or resorts, and he didn't book any lodging with the flight."
Matty glanced back at the map – this time at Central America. "Keep an eye on him, as much as you're able."
"You think he knows something we don't?" Jill glanced between them. "Nothing in our investigation had pointed anywhere near South or Central America."
"Well, I doubt he's there to catch some waves." Matty's tone was dry. "Get me a list of everything interesting going on there between now and the next three days."
-M-
There was a quiet knock on the door.
Jack scowled at the mirror. It wasn't the tux's fault – it was silk, lighter weight to accommodate the tropical climate, and someone had though to put a concealed pocket in the low-cut waistcoat. It had give in all the right places, even across his back and broad shoulders, and the cufflinks were fairly tasteful. Actually, the damn thing fit him like a glove.
Which was not awesome, since it wasn't his tux. It had been waiting for him in the closet, freshly pressed by the Sheraton Presidente San Salvador hotel. Along with a pair of highly polished oxford shoes, also in his size, with some extra cushioning and deep treads.
He heard the lock on the suite door click, and Jack tucked the XDM compact into his waistband, smoothing down the dinner jacket.
Flying commercial meant flying without a weapon, and the small, powerful pistol had also been waiting for him, just like the tux. It only gave him eleven plus one rounds, not counting the spare mag, but then again, if they had to shoot their way out, clearly they weren't doing it right.
"You ready, sweetie?"
A royal blue dress, in the same color as El Salvador's flag, glided into view behind him. It was clear they were meant to share the suite, but she hadn't been there when he'd arrived, and her hair and makeup were too perfect to have been outside in the humidity and the heat. Which meant she had her own hidey hole.
Jack tucked that detail away and rubbed his freshly shaved cheek as the woman he'd decided to call Not Sarah opened eyed him from head to toe. He turned and gave her the same treatment.
Stilettos, probably reinforced and the shoes were open topped so she could kick them off easily if she needed to. Thigh holster, but not a gun – maybe a knife? The sapphire bracelet had just enough extra gold around the setting to make him think it might be hinged.
Poison and blades. Definitely not Sarah's style.
Well, knives were her style. Poison, not so much.
"Aren't I a lucky girl."
Other than her offensive capabilities, the dress itself was a stretchy satin-like fabric, no corset and too fitted to conceal armor – or much of anything, really. Her hair was gathered into large, artful waves on the top of her head, so he could assume there were a few tools up there. He had a spare set of lock picks in his jacket pocket, just in case, and they both were carrying military grade flash drives. He didn't need to ask where she'd squirreled those away.
She tucked a small lock of hair behind a delicate ear, giving him a coy smile. "Are we leaving, or would you prefer to keep staring?"
Jack arranged what he hoped was a politely pleasant expression on his face, and gestured towards the door. "Ladies first."
She gave a little sigh, her brown eyes sparkling, and pivoted on those impossibly thin heels. Her movements were balanced and light, and she scooped up a matching clasp purse from the foyer table, as well as his room keycard.
"I presume you've read the packet?"
Jack let her approach, and she ran her fingers gently down his lapels, slipping the keycard into the interior pocket. He made a mental note to check himself for the bug he was quite certain had just slipped in there with it.
"I did," he confirmed, grudgingly lowering his voice. "Though I gotta say, not sure I look like an Arthur."
He wasn't going to complain, Arthur Grimwald, private investor and entrepreneur, was a hell of lot less embarrassing than some of the covers the Phoenix had given him over the years. He just couldn't shake the feeling he was going to be spending the rest of the evening trapped on her arm, responding to 'Artie.'
She smoothed his lapel back down, giving him an impish smile. "No. You're definitely an Art."
She was his wife, Catherine. They'd been married three years. They met in El Salvador, both expats, so they'd frequented the same area of the city and had the same coffee habits. No kids, high end apartment in the city.
Their presence at the Qatar Embassy was mostly business. The festivities were mainly held on the first floor, and the intelligence was on the third. He'd memorized the schematics, but it felt damn weird walking into enemy territory without coms.
Not Sarah – Catherine, he corrected himself – released him, and he stepped in behind her, getting the door. The suite was one of only a few on the hall, with a semi-private elevator that took them straight to the lobby. The Grimwalds came from old money, and the sedan waiting for them was refined and elegant, but not overly ostentatious.
Their driver – Jack silently christened him Jeeves – took the most commonly used route to the embassy, giving them a view of San Salvador, including a big-ass pillar atop which Jesus balanced like a circus acrobat on a beach ball of the planet. Mac would probably tell him-
Jack kept his eyes on the road after that.
If Catherine sensed his discomfort, she didn't say anything, and once they arrived, embassy staff got Catherine's door. He looped the car in time to offer his wife his arm, which she took with a warm, grateful smile, and they proceeded through the main doors.
He wasn't exactly clear on how the hell he was supposed to get the gun past security, but that little mystery cleared itself up as they were ushered past two uniformed technicians working feverishly on the metal detector. Very serious, swarthy men in suits much less fine than his were wanding the guests instead, and after Catherine passed through with flying colors – so the knife on her thigh was ceramic – she reached up to tuck that one errant strand of hair behind her ear again, touching her sapphire earing.
The wand passed over the small of his back without a squawk, and Jack inclined his head to the security guard and reclaimed his wife.
Once inside, the evening's schedule included mingling and heavy hors d'oeuvres followed by an address from two of the Council's ministers. They were seeking funding for infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and Central America took their football – which was fucking soccer, not red-blooded football like in a normal country – quite seriously.
Apparently while the ministers were here, they were also setting up the trade routes by which vast quantities of illicit drugs would also be making their way to the World Cup, as well as the two and a half million expats currently living there with nothing to do besides look at sand.
Details on the routes, participating cartels, and product were the target. In fact, if Jack didn't think too hard about it, there was nothing different about this op than any one of a hundred he'd done for the Phoenix over the years.
Except, of course, that he was pretty sure the end game was extortion and blackmail, rather than arrest and drug impounding.
And instead of getting a tiny little paycheck and a shitty 401k match, he was supposed to walk away with actionable intel on who ordered the hit on Mac.
So Jack wove Catherine through the crowds, greeting old friends, having polite pissing contests with other investors. She was always in his ear, identifying the players, and Jack let her run the room how she saw fit, keeping tabs on security instead, learning their patterns.
She wasn't Sarah, not by a mile. But she was good.
After an hour or so of carrying the same glass of champagne and pretending to appreciate art, he watched two of the Council's security guards withdraw, meaning they were clearing the route from the ministers' room to the party for the address. He'd watched them walk the route three times, so he knew which doors the ministers would enter. Jack wandered in the opposite direction, Catherine light on his arm, and once they cleared the main room she leaned fondly into him.
"Where the fuck are you going?"
He was headed to the very worst possible stairwell in the building. It was narrow, servant only, and led out to the loading docks, which meant it had been specifically designed to prevent unauthorized access to the upper floors. Every door in that stairwell could be locked down with a single alarm, as opposed to the more open staircases in the middle of the building.
"Unless you'd like to stay for the afterparty, honey, this is the way," he murmured back. Security on the ministers was simply too good, and he wasn't about to play Marco Polo without eyes and coms.
One of the serving staff came by with an empty tray, and Jack flagged him down and gratefully dropped off his half-empty champagne flute. He then collided with the poor kid when his wife caught a heel on the edge of one of the thick Turkish rugs, but he was successful in catching her. She apologized profusely to the young man, who had somehow managed not to drop the champagne flute, and then took a tentative step before wincing.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie, I think I may have hurt my ankle –"
Jack helped her to an ornate chair he hoped wasn't technically a piece of the art, and he dutifully knelt and inspected her ankle as the servant headed back to the party.
He handed her the guy's security badge, and she flashed him a look that clearly said they would be talking about this decision later. She flounced to her feet, and they proceeded into the back hallway of the embassy, linking the kitchens and staff areas to the entertaining portion of the building.
Getting into the stairwell wasn't terribly difficult, and it was exactly what it had looked like on the diagram. Narrow. He listened carefully, and hearing nothing, he went first, taking the stairs two at a time. If they encountered any traffic at all, that traffic was going to have a very unpleasant evening.
Catherine came up behind him with the badge, arching an eyebrow. "And the odds that the hired help has access to the administrative floors-"
"That guy was full time," Jack cut her off. And the lock flashed green and clicked.
Catherine stared at him a moment. "How did you know?"
Jack smirked and cracked the door. It opened up into the service hallway, and it was empty.
"After you."
There was very little activity on the floor, most of the staff were attending the ministers' address. Security was still around, but they were smoking, thus easy enough to avoid. Catherine moved with a surety that he followed without question into a corner office, and then she slipped behind the secretary's desk, rather than the officiate's, and Jack sharpened his attention.
She noticed his look, and gave him a sweet smile. "A girl's gotta keep a few secrets." She pulled one of the flash drives from her bra, letting it do its thing, and he kept an eye on the hall, getting a feel for the timing of security's laps around the floor.
That she'd lied about the target didn't surprise him. She didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, and the feeling was mutual. He was just as likely to collect a bullet to the head at the end of this as he was a real lead on Mac's murderer.
"So uptight," she murmured, plucking the flash drive loose and promptly replacing it with another. "Relax, Art. This isn't for a grade."
He grunted, noting where the first USB drive ended up. "Isn't it?"
She made a show of considering it. "This deal was for a single transaction, but if you're interested . . ."
He studied her for a long moment, then crossed the room, silent on the thick carpeting, and she never took her eyes off him. For the first time that evening, he felt a real smile tugging at his lips, and she reciprocated it as he put a hand on the desk, and bent close enough to kiss her.
"Oh, I'm interested."
Her eyes flickered between his, and he smiled more broadly, and retrieved the first of the flash drives. She took a quick breath, arching into his touch, and he discovered there was a second thumb drive, which he also claimed.
That brought the count up to three. At least.
"I'm interested in finishing this gig and gettin' paid."
She caught his wrist as he started to extract the drives, and he let her, confident he had both the position and leverage to handle her. She didn't even try to take them back; instead, she placed a fingertip on one of his pulse points, and he took a second to wonder if she'd somehow gotten into that bracelet and he hadn't noticed.
"Not gonna buy me dinner first, cowboy?"
The computer monitor blinked, no longer showing that it was copying files, and Jack extricated his wrist and collected the final flash drive as well, straightening. The three drives went into the pocket in his waistcoat, which would be a little harder for her to pick. She never lost her smile, gracefully retaking her feet.
"So uptight," she repeated, almost to herself, and then gave a little sigh. "Shall we, sweetie?"
They used the same path to exit as they had to enter, though this time they had to retreat back up half a flight as someone scurried from the first floor to the second. The staff were trying to re-stage the refreshments, but a brief lull got them back onto the main floor without needing to ruin anyone else's night. Jack wiped and dropped the server's badge just inside the door as they exited the back stairwell, and they mingled back into the main room seamlessly.
They clapped politely with everyone else as the ministers finished their pitch, and Jack scooped a decadent chocolate something off a passing tray, presenting it to Catherine.
Her smile lit the room. "Why thank you, sweetheart."
Jack counted the minutes as they eased their way closer and closer to the embassy entrance. They hadn't tripped any alarms yet, and there were three other women wearing a dress the same color as Catherine's, but hanging around after the heist was never his style. It always went sideways, always. He had the intel, which meant she couldn't throw him to the wolves just yet, but she had to have made contingency plans of her own.
However, Catherine surprised him by staying on his arm, reminding him that they had that call with Singapore in forty minutes, and sure enough, the staff summoned Jeeves to the drive and even helped his wife into the sedan.
Even after the embassy gates were in the rear view mirror, Jack kept one eye on the traffic, and one on Not Sarah. She never went for whatever was in the bracelet, and aside from giving him amused looks now and again, she too kept an eye on the scenery.
He helped her from the sedan when they reached the hotel, and she waved her clutch at the semi-private elevator, using her room key to activate it. Once the doors closed he thought she'd make a move, but she didn't, and Jack blinked in surprise as he realized the elevator was really, actually playing a samba version of The Girl From Ipanema.
He almost laughed. Mac'd appreciate that-
It was a sobering thought, and it must have flashed across his eyes, because Not Sarah gave him a mildly inquiring look that he chose to ignore.
"Do you miss the boy scout?"
He refused the bait, watching the floors counting up.
She tilted her head, trying to catch his eye. "Oh, I don't mean it like that. I'm sure he was a very nice young man. Strong moral compass, right? Never even carried a gun, according to the file."
The elevator dinged, and at his gesture she stepped out of the elevator, heading towards the suite. Jack had no illusions the exchange would happen there; whoever she'd collected the data for, that would happen in her other room, if it happened in the hotel at all.
Belatedly it occurred to him that he might have actually already collected his payment. The extra flash drive.
She waved her clutch at the room, activating the lock, and let herself in. And still didn't make a move. She tossed the clutch on the foyer table, walking into the main room with her hands in her hair. She withdrew what looked like a chopstick and the whole pile came down, and Jack stayed near the door, keeping some distance.
She sighed, then rolled her neck gently. "So, what about that dinner you owe me?"
"You'll have to take a rain check," he replied, giving the rest of the suite a once-over. There'd been no one in the hallway, but given the small number of suites on the floor, that wasn't necessarily a red flag. "Where's the drop?"
"Here," she replied immediately. "My employer will meet us downstairs. Art always orders a drambuie as a nightcap."
"Does he."
She turned to him, her brown hair falling in soft waves to frame her face, and stepped out of her heels. "Relax, Jack. The boy scout is gone. It's just us adults."
She approached him with a suggestive swish of her hips, and he undid the button on the dinner jacket, giving himself a little more room to maneuver. "Pass."
The same musical laugh. "I'll buy you dinner."
"Not hungry."
"Jack, Jack, Jack." She came to stand in front of him, but the most threatening thing she did was just extend a slender hand, palm up. "No one's listening. There's no eye in the sky. No more protocols. No more action reports. You do the job, and you get paid. That's it."
He looked down at her hand, and then back up to her face. "I'll just hold onto them a little while longer."
She gave a little sigh, and made to brush his lapel. He caught her wrist, and was completely unprepared for a no holds barred headbutt then sent him staggering back. Even without the heels she was only a few inches shorter than he was, and he found himself warding off impressively powerful blows. She grabbed him by the lapels – the goddamn dinner jacket – and Jack twisted to avoid what promised to be a punishing blow to his little boys.
He bent at the waist and slipped out of the bottom of the jacket, yanking the fabric in an attempt to pull her off balance, but she simply let it go. She knew the drives weren't in it. He threw it at her face, using it to mask his movement, and grabbed the pistol from the back of his waistband. She'd anticipated, and a spinning kick knocked the gun aside, leaving his right wrist suddenly numb and tingling.
Rather than try to recover it, he moved in, landing a backhand that almost sent her to the floor. She came back up with a small black knife, and he evaded the quick jab. She slashed at his face, and he blocked her return strike with his still-tingling right wrist, grabbing her right elbow and spinning her.
He pinned her to his chest, her own knife at her throat, and she drove them back into the wall. He grunted but didn't let her go, and a hanging picture whacked him in the head as it tumbled off the wall. She started to go for his instep and he angled the knife warningly. His wrist was pins and needles, but it held, and they both took a second to catch their breath.
"Have to say . . . they train you Delta boys up right," she murmured, and he didn't loosen his hold for a second.
"What do you want, huh?" When she gave a breathy laugh, he gave her a firm shake. "A trained monkey coulda done that job. You came to me –"
"Oh, don't sell yourself short, Jack. You know how small the world is." She relaxed a little in his arms. He didn't reciprocate. "Men like you, your background . . . you gave everything to your country, and when you needed them, what happened?"
He growled, low in his throat. "You think I'll turn, you didn't do your homework-"
"Turn on who?" Her voice was a little sharper. "Turn on your country? Screw those politicians, they used you. Turn on DXS? There's nothing to turn. You're damaged goods, you went off the reservation when -"
Jack tightened his hold on the knife in silent warning, and oddly, she started to laugh.
"Boy scout's gone, Dalton. You don't owe anyone anything. It's time to think about what's best for you."
Her left hand, which was hanging onto his right arm in an attempt to control the knife, slipped to his wrist, and it went completely numb. He shoved her away from him to avoid being gutted, and she spun gracefully. He heard a thud as something settled into the plaster beside his right ear.
He knew she'd put it exactly where she meant to, but it was still a stupid move.
Jack didn't immediately go for it, which she seemed to have expected. If he had, his left arm would have been crossed over his chest, and she would have been successful at pinning him against the wall. Instead he turned the tables, rolling them both away from the knife, and she found herself in the hold she'd tried to put him in.
Their faces were nearly touching, and he didn't miss the look of pleasure that flashed across her eyes, the quick breath. She'd somehow managed to get a knee between his, but she didn't take advantage. Nor did she go after his right wrist. That hand was still obeying him, he could see his fingers wound tight in her hair, but he couldn't feel a damn thing.
"You need to start thinking about life after revenge, Jack," she advised him breathlessly, and then she nipped his jaw, hard enough to draw blood.
He shoved her harder into the wall; he could have broken her neck, he had the angle, and her eyes grew darker. That knee between his slid up, applying almost too much pressure, and he glared at her, breathing hard. That little smile, a tiny bit of blood on her lips –
It's not Sarah. She's not Sarah.
She shifted against him, in just the right way, and control, worn paper thin by the last couple weeks, finally snapped.
He was not gentle.
-M-
See Author's Notes in the final chapter.