Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.
-M-
Burning like he had never felt stabbed through his belly, and Jack Dalton couldn't help his choked gasp. He almost sucked sodden cotton straight down his throat.
Mercifully, a diesel engine rumbled to life about the same time, and he clamped his jaw around the handkerchief and tried to ride it out.
Shit. Shit. He'd lost time. Not much, though, not if the pain was any indication.
Jack did everything he could to remain still. He was sucking air through his nose like a drowning man, it was painfully loud to his ears but there was nothing he could do about it. It was too soon to check the damage, and frankly he didn't want to know. Kicking the living shit out of his sweat box had bought him a little bit of vertical space, but obviously not enough.
Obviously.
Something strong was assaulting his nose, and it took him too long to recognize the combination of blood and gasoline.
This day gets better and better.
Shot up and doused in gas. These guys were definitely off the Christmas list.
There were footsteps, indistinct under the growl of the diesel engine, and there was something else, something pesky on the edge of his hearing. Jack couldn't help a whimper as a slightly deeper breath told him just how bad off he was.
So much for avoiding the rounds.
It was the only plan he could come up with. There wasn't enough space to kick the top of the box totally off, and the soldier wasn't dilly-dallying. He bought himself maybe two inches vertically, which had been just enough to get him onto his left hip. The hotbox was too fucking short, so he'd stuck his left leg across the space and shoved himself as hard against the right wall as he could. He'd wedged his head up against the top of the box, face up, staring at the slats until the shadow was just above him, and then he'd sucked it in as best he could and prayed.
Well. A Jack Dalton prayer. Hell, it had worked in the Bermuda triangle.
Then again, it had worked after he'd been shot off a cliff.
Also, it had been Mac that had saved his ass that time.
Not that you didn't try, buddy. He'd heard the kid loud and clear, and it made him feel just a tiny bit better. Mac hadn't been sitting in a hot box with the rest of them. There was a good chance he was still alive.
The footsteps were receding, and Jack dared to shift his head from where it was wedged against the top of the sweat box, peering just over the lip of the wood. Something on his throat pulled and stung but it was nothing compared to his gut, he ignored it for the time being as he made out a covered truck, about ten yards away.
With his head raised, he also identified that nagging rumble as the sound of a chopper in pre-flight.
Mac.
The jackass he could thank for his new belly button had walked to the opposite end of the row of crates, tossing a regulation gas can into the back of a jeep, and Jack slithered back into his box when the soldier started to turn. The wood wall angled his head up, and Jack finally got a look at himself.
Then he started swearing into his gag.
He'd been laying on his left side when that bullet had hit. At least one of the holes in his shirt was on the right side, and given the way that stain was spreading, the slug had gone straight across. He couldn't make out an exit hole from his angle, but he knew it was there.
Goddamned thing had slit him open like a roast pig on the fourth of July.
Shifting brought his attention to his left leg, which he had to assume was hit. His black tactical pants were as soaked through as his shirt, and gave him no indication of how bad. He could wiggle his foot and raise it a little, so wherever the bullet was, it wasn't going to kill him immediately.
Nope, being set on fire with his guts hanging out of his belly was what was going to kill him.
Jack felt his face split itself into a painful grin, but he didn't dare laugh. Getting up with a huge slice in his abdominal wall was going to be a hell of a trick. It didn't help matters that his hands were still behind his back, and he had no way of knowing if the leg would hold.
But hey, at least they'd disinfected it for him.
Two gunshots rang out, in rapid succession, about fifty yards away. Jack froze, then raised his head up and risked another glance over the crate.
The soldier at the end of the row had drawn a weapon, and his left hand was at his comms. He was looking in the direction of the chopper.
Aw crap.
After a few moments, the soldier holstered his sidearm, and a few seconds after that, the covered truck clunked into gear and started to pull away.
Dammit, Mac, you better still be alive, or so help me God I will throttle you myself.
Only one way to find out.
He sucked a couple deep breaths – okay, well, deeper anyway – through his nose, and listened for the soft, low pitched roar that would mean the gasoline had been ignited. It came faster than he was expecting, and Jack gave it a two count before he used his head to lever himself up onto his left shoulder. It gave him just enough play in his wrists to throw his right elbow over the edge of the crate, which he followed with his right leg, and then he braced himself and heaved.
It wasn't bad.
It was way the hell worse than bad.
Jack shouted through the gag, trying to remain curled over as tightly as he could as he rolled down the open lid and away from the crate, using his forehead and knees to keep his stomach off the ground. He made two revolutions and landed again on his left side, and he blinked hard against the black that rushed over him. He couldn't get enough air.
Jack, you handsome devil, you pass out now you're as good as dead.
There was a roaring in his ears, which he assumed was fire, and his stomach burned like it'd been lit up, but a few breaths later he started seeing around the spots, and saw that he'd gotten enough distance.
Just enough to not get flambéed, but not so far that Aydin's goon could see him over the flames.
He scrabbled around with his hands, easing himself over as he searched for a rock, a nail, freakin' anything to get those ties off, and he realized just how numb they'd gotten. His left arm was starting to ache like crazy, and Jack rolled further onto his back and picked up his head incredulously to glare at the bloodstain on his lower left bicep.
Picking up his head pulled at something on his throat, just under his chin.
Are you fucking kidding me? Every goddamn bullet hit?! I have four fucking holes in me right now?!
He swallowed experimentally, thinking he must have already done that, and nothing felt out of place. Just a nick, then.
Still. It was the principle of the thing.
Jack rolled himself onto his right arm, which seemed fine, and put his back to the fire, stretching out his hands and trying to get some circulation back into them. Pins and needles quickly gave way to dexterity, and after a little more searching he found a believably rough piece of gravel and went to work.
He never actually heard the helo take off, couldn't hear anything over the fire, but he did see it dimly through the smoke. A huey, standard issue for the Turkish army. No registration number. He was a bright red target on a patch of gravel and grass, but as the aircraft cleared the line of pines it blew the smoke right over him, bringing with it confirmation that at least one of those hotboxes had still been occupied when they'd been torched.
Then the huey was gone.
Jack closed his eyes and swore again. Nothing to be done about it now.
It took longer than he would have liked to saw through the ties, and he only bothered to cut one side. He eased himself onto his back, glaring at the ugly-ass green bracelet on his right wrist for a second before pulling off the gag.
Black spots were starting to crowd out his peripheral vision.
Jack relaxed for a moment, covering his eyes with his right arm just to get the goddamn sun out of his face, and he felt a completely inappropriate urge to laugh.
Don't do it, Dalton. Pull your shit together man.
After all, he might not be the only one lying on the ground bleeding out right now.
The mental image of Mac mirroring his pose was enough to snap his eyes open, and Jack set to work untying the knot on his gag.
Hang in there, buddy. I'm comin'.
The wound to his left arm was just a bad graze. It burned like a two dollar pistol but it hadn't hit anything major, and the gag was just enough material to bind it. Jack totally ignored his gut – pulling the tee shirt out of that gash was beyond what he could endure and he knew it. It was damn serious but only bleeding sluggishly, and there was nothing dry enough or big enough to wrap it.
The bullet in his left leg was a problem. It was in his thigh, just above his knee. He'd already used his belt getting to know a few of Aydin's men, and they hadn't been polite enough to give it back. He didn't have the strength to rip his pants, so he tore off his left sleeve instead, braced himself, and painfully pulled his left leg up until he could grab his tac pants with his right hand. Then he took a few shallow breaths.
"C'mon, Jack, you got this. You got this." His voice sounded weak even to him. Jack swallowed around a sandpaper tongue, then let his head drop back to the ground with a groan. "Oh, this is gonna hurt like hell, Mac, you know how much this is gonna hurt?"
Mac didn't answer.
Jack moaned again, then he picked up his head, pulled the pants material taut, and shoved the wadded, thoroughly soaked cotton as far into the wound as he could.
He woke up what he hoped was only a couple minutes later. He could taste acrid smoke and feel some serious heat on the left side of his face. Jack stifled a cough, curling onto his right side with a groan.
Well, I was right.
Gingerly, he wrapped his left arm around his gut, laying his forearm as gently as he could across the gash. A few careful breaths and he rolled onto his knees. From there, it was just a simple matter of actually standing up.
If you could call it that.
His left leg held. He wasn't sure how the hell it was doing that, but he knew if he hit the ground he was never going to get back up. The movement in his gut was just wrong, he could feel the lip of the wound shifting where things weren't supposed to shift. The burn of the gasoline was starting to wear off – which he knew damn well wasn't good – and it was being replaced by a sharp gnawing sensation.
He headed for the closest trees, not stopping until he was several yards into the woods. They were pine trees, so not the most comfortable, but they were bare trunks stretching forty feet into the air, with wide, high branches that created a cool shade, and more importantly, cover. He hadn't heard the chopper since it had left, and he raised fuzzy eyes back to the clearing, where the crates and their contents were still burning.
His eyes strayed to the box next to his, and he stared at it until it got too blurry. Then he zeroed in on the direction the huey had taken off and started walking.
"Come on, Jack, you've . . . been through worse than this. Remember . . . Bangkok." He chuckled soundlessly, wincing as his diaphragm pulled at his abdominal muscles. He stumbled hard into a tree, catching himself on his right shoulder and leaning there for a moment.
"Shit, don't laugh, don't laugh. Mac, I swear to you, if I walk . . . all the way over there . . . to find your skinny ass dead . . . I will . . . I'll . . . oh hell, Mac. Don't be . . . dead brother."
His eyesight was more than half gone by the time he pinballed his way to the clearing, and he stumbled up to a nearby tree and wrapped his right arm around it, hugging it for dear life. A few breaths did nothing to clear his head, and he blinked owlishly at the bright sunlight, and the golden, flattened grasses.
Mac wasn't there.
No one was.
Yellows were starting to get too bright, contrast was going out the window, but all Jack felt was bone-deep relief.
Mac wasn't there.
Which meant Mac was on the chopper.
Which meant Mac was still alive. It didn't mean he was okay, but it meant he was alive.
Jack whooped, digging his forehead into the trunk of the tree. "Whew, brother, you scared me for a minute." He stayed like that, him and the tree, balanced perfectly together, and then his hip popped, and he slithered down the trunk to land softly on the ground. It jarred his gut, but not as much as he thought it would, and he relaxed, letting the pain slowly ebb.
He figured bark had scraped up his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care. It smelled like pine, now, instead of death, and the shade was cool.
Damn, but he was thirsty.
He thought about it a minute, and no one was more surprised than he was when he opened his eyes again, and found it was still light outside. It was darker, the sun was probably an hour from going down.
Or his eyesight was just that bad.
Come on, Jack. You're buzzard bait out here.
He let his head roll along the trunk of the tree, looking around. He figured they had to be in that giant ass national park between Istanbul and Kirklareli, which put him about sixty clicks southeast of the Bulgarian border. There was nothing but heavily forested area between him and that border. No major towns unless he headed north towards the Black Sea.
No infrastructure. No power. No phones.
Way more ground than he could cover.
Jack let his head roll up, pulling on the cut on his throat, but the wind had been moving east, and he didn't see any smoke. Once the crates went up, there shouldn't have been much else to burn. The fires should have gone out long ago.
If someone was going to check out the smoke, they'd already done it and gone.
Still, it wasn't like gravel just happened. The camp was legit a campsite. There had to be a road out, the one the truck and jeep took.
Jack glanced down, where his left arm was still cradling his stomach, and he considered whether it was worth the effort.
Phoenix would have been looking for them. They were half a day late for exfil. If Riley was on the satellites – and he knew his girl was – they'd at least have tried to track the vehicles that had taken them and the package. Phoenix should have been able to locate the camp. If they had –
Boy, you're forgetting a little detail there, ain't ya?
If they had, they'd seen him shot dead. And set on fire. The smoke might have covered up the angle, they might not have seen him crawl away.
Phoenix might be after Mac, but the best he could hope for was a secondary team to recover his body. They'd be flying in from the US, that was a thirteen hour nonstop flight, not counting the time it would take to get a car and drive back from Istanbul.
Jack looked at his gut again, wincing as he tried to roll his arm away. Clotted blood pulled and he stopped immediately, barely suppressing a retch. He breathed through his nose until the worst of it passed.
Nope. He was not going to make thirteen hours out here. He'd be dead before morning, shock and exposure would get him faster than a prairie fire with a tail wind.
Jack, buddy, the only one gonna save you is you.
"You up for this?" he asked no one in particular. The tree behind him didn't reply, but it did provide him a very solid bracing point, and Jack groaned and slowly gathered his legs under him.
-M-
"I'm sorry, we must have a bad connection. I thought I heard you say 'no'?"
The blonde woman on the monitor managed to look cross and apologetic all at the same time. "Matilda, you're well aware of the political climate. We're already looking at a serious diplomatic issue with assets tasked in the region –"
Matty Webber put her hands on her hips, her cream-colored suit still remarkably unwrinkled. "Yes, that's why you tasked mine."
Riley tried to ignore the power play, rubbing her dry eyes and trying to shake off the cobwebs. It was almost 4:30 in the morning. Another all nighter; ops on the other side of the world didn't care what time it was in LA.
And Matty was starting to get just a little crabby.
"That's true. We tasked them with getting Chevalier out, not captured by forces loyal to the Gulan."
Motion to her right caught her eye, and Riley glanced up to see Bozer easing through the door bearing two Styrofoam cups and an oh shit expression.
She thinned her lips and raised an eyebrow at him. Oh yeah. That happened.
"That's because someone withheld that Colonel Aydin was former Special Warfare Department and had a team of Bordo Berelilier at his beck and call. Hmm, I wonder who would have done something like that?" Matty's tone made it clear that no, she didn't wonder, and her opponent at the State Department drew herself up stiffly in her chair.
"We passed all relevant information –"
"A Maroon Beret strike team is relevant –"
"That information was not in my possession at the time," Director Bosch tried, and Riley wondered if Matty was finally going to have that aneurysm.
Bozer quickly padded across the back of the office, his socked feet making not a whisper on the grey tile or rug, and Riley gratefully accepted the coffee he handed her, wrapping her fingers around the warmth. She knew she probably looked like a hobo, curled up on the couch under a fleece throw, but neither Matty nor Director Bosch had said anything to her, and she decided she didn't really give a shit.
"So," Boze staged whispered, taking the cushion beside her, "I take it there's still no backup?"
She mutely shook her head. Jack and Mac had been in that camp now for over five hours. She had it up on one of the monitors of the massive screen in Director Webber's office, but she preferred to watch it on her laptop. It was pretty clear they were packing up shop. If one of their allies in Turkey or neighboring Bulgaria didn't get their asses over there right now, things were about to get a lot more complicated.
"C'mon, Mac," she muttered, staring at the pixelated green camouflaged tent.
As if he'd heard her, three shapes emerged from the tent, and Riley passed her coffee to Bozer without even looking, trying to sharpen the image. They only had this satellite for another ten minutes, and then there'd be a forty second blackout before the next one was in position. They were already right on the edge of range.
She got a small resolution boost, and highlighted the grid containing the people as they came to a stop. Nothing happened for a moment, then there was a brief struggle. The image froze a moment while all the data compiled, and then the box she'd highlighted rendered, and she was looking at MacGyver's face.
He was staring right at her, grimacing like he could actually see her, and after a second, the man in front of him followed his gaze.
Riley blinked, glancing up at the big monitor, and the man – her facial recognition software got a positive ID on Aydin, Batuhan – waved at her. They had good enough resolution to make out that he said –
"Hello Americans," Matilda growled. "I guess it's safe to say he knows we've located him."
The colonel released MacGyver with a rough shake, and they pushed him out of frame.
Riley backed the grid out, waiting impatiently as it rendered the next area. The view looked like they were about twenty feet above the men, now, and the colonel passed something over to the soldier holding Mac.
She hit a hotkey and snapped a picture, then minimized it to another corner while the men approached the sweatboxes. Riley had superimposed names over the boxes when they'd started being occupied, and she tried hard to ignore that one of them bore Dalton, Jack in thin red text.
Her picture rendered – the colonel had handed over a Samsung Galaxy S5.
"Good choice, dirtbag," she muttered, bringing up another window and re-initializing her connection to the cellular grid in the area. Samsung's IMEIs for phones in Turkey typically started with M, so she started scrolling down the list of connected devices.
Beside her, Bozer gasped, and she focused back on the main screen in time to see an armed soldier walk up to the crate marked Chevalier, Anton and fire into it.
Matty didn't react. Director Bosch had covered her mouth with her hand, and her image flinched when the soldier strode over to the crate marked Chevalier, Olivia.
MacGyver was struggling with the colonel, and then puffs of dust pattered across the lid of the crate.
Beside her, Bozer had slowly climbed to his feet, but Riley couldn't take her eyes off the screen, even when the red letters that spelled Jack were superimposed on the soldier.
"No," she said calmly, a flat denial. That was not going to happen, because Mac was-
Dust flew up in a line, straight down the middle like the others.
Riley stared at the monitor another second. That couldn't possibly have been what it looked like. They had no intel that the colonel would go to all the trouble to kidnap the Chevaliers only to kill them.
He knew they were watching via satellite.
It had to be some kind of trick.
Bozer stumbled a few steps away, but Riley ignored him, isolating the grid as the guard fumbled with the lid of the crate. The software froze as the image compiled, and then the image rendered.
Riley stared at it, frowning, and someone – Bozer - finally said something.
". . . Jack -"
She shook her head, softly at first, then more vehemently. "No. It's a trick. They must have had some kind of blood packs, they rigged little explosives on the lids of the crates – you do it all the time, Boze. It's just special effects."
The rendering was pixelating a little, but it was still in real time, and she watched the fake blood pool in the hollow of Jack's throat.
It couldn't be real.
"Why – why would he do that now?" She left the window on the main screen but toggled back to the cellular grid. Maybe she could get audio, hear what they were saying-
"I . . . I'm sorry, Matilda. I need to brief the Secretary."
The State Department's screen went dark, but Riley didn't pay any attention. The image was getting too pixelated, she had maybe two minutes left. She backed it out to a fifty foot view, not missing that the other people, in the other crates, had gotten a similar treatment.
It was smart. Depending on how close Mac was, it might have fooled him too.
"Riley-"
"I can't get the phone," she cut the director off. "Cellular signal is disabled. There's not enough Bluetooth infrastructure there to get a connection-"
"Riley."
She glanced at the feed, it looked like Mac was getting dragged away towards the chopper. Of course. They pack him off so he doesn't realize they're still alive.
"I . . . am not falling for it," she muttered, taking a snap as the image pixelated further. A solider had started to approach the crates again, and it was too hard to see what he was doing, but the screencap rendered, and –
And that was a can of gasoline.
Riley paused, watching in disbelief as the soldier walked along the row of crates. It could be water, in the gas can, just to sell it to Mac –
She lost resolution, and no amount of coaxing would get the image back up. They were out of range.
"Forty seconds till we're back on," she said, surprised that her voice sounded so tight. There was nothing to worry about. Well, Jack and Mac were still in enemy hands, and now Mac thought Jack was dead, so –
Riley looked up and almost jumped out of her skin. Matty was standing literally right in front of her. The lines around the director's mouth were soft.
"Riley," she said.
Riley just stared at her for a few beats. Nothing else happened. "That's my name," she confirmed.
A flash of something crossed Matilda's face, and she placed a well manicured hand on the monitor of the laptop. "Why don't you go take a minute."
Riley shook her head with a half-smile. "I don't need a minute. I only need about thirty more seconds –"
". . . hey . . ." Bozer sank onto the couch beside her, and she gave him a flat stare of disbelief, smile still on her face.
"Oh, come on, you don't really think –" She glanced between the two of them. "No one believes that was real? The colonel literally waved at us. That was all a show, for us, to get us off his back."
Matty gave her one of her understanding nods, the kind she would give Bozer or Jack when they were being slow, and Riley felt the smile drain off her face. They really thought –
"Look, I'll show you." Seven seconds left on the counter, and she typed the GPS coordinates from the last screenshot into the satellite. She didn't look at either of them as the large window popped up, black as the satellite came into range, in three, two, one –
The top edge of the picture began to render, the same treeline, though from a slightly different angle. A weird black blob started to take shape, but it all compiled pretty quickly, and then they were staring at churning black smoke where the crates had been.
The covered truck was nowhere to be seen, and the jeep was just about to hit the treeline.
Riley blinked, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. It was –
No. They'd had a forty second blackout. They could have grabbed everyone and put them in the trucks, the Turkish military knew how satellites worked as well as the next government –
But then how did they get the crates to go up so fast, if it was water and not gas.
Matty slipped the laptop right out of her hands, and she just sat there, frozen, staring at the main screen. There was a lot of smoke, she could make out the flames below but nothing else, and then Matty panned out, bringing them to a four hundred foot view, and the cloud of black smoke turned tiny.
"Bozer."
Someone put a hand on her shoulder, which she ignored, still staring at the monitor. That couldn't be real.
Motion near the south-west corner of the grid caught her eye, and she realized it was the helicopter. It too had a tiny little trail of black clouds behind it, and before Matty could input the right commands, it seemed to disappear into the green.
Riley stood, snatching the laptop back and zooming in on the grid. It took a few moments, and even when it rendered all they saw was foliage, with telltale grey-ish smoke filtering up through the canopy.
"Did . . . did the helicopter just crash?" Bozer's voice was very small.
-M-
Here I thought I was doing a good job, then I realized that I just left you with another cliffie. Well, I guess it's the same cliffie, different POV. Maybe I should stop giving authors crap for that, because it's a lot harder than I thought to wrap something up without one.
Thanks for the comments! Nothing like getting real time feedback for your NaNoWriMo. Keep 'em coming, and please let me know if you catch any mistakes.