Over an hour passed with no news or ability to pick up any signal from the tech Mac always carried with him. The Phoenix team was in San Bernardino doing a door to door, but that area was fairly populated and had a large number of businesses and office buildings, as well. Riley had just wondered aloud where they could have been headed when a call came in from one of the other team members on the wider search. A small plane without proper clearance or flight plan had been discovered at the Ontario International Airport not far away going through pre-flight behind one of the larger hangars. The two crew members were being brought in for interrogation as quickly as possible. At least they knew this had probably been one of the capture and deliver jobs they had on their radar and not an assassination attempt. It didn't make them feel much better, but it did remove some of the strain from their faces.
Then, a call came in from the mobile lab team processing the van. The smoke and the fire that caused it were from the cigarette lighter having dropped under the driver's seat. There was what appeared to be a shoe print on the handle. Jack actually smiled at that. Tie Mac up and throw him on the floor of a van, and count him out, go ahead; that boy was always gonna find a way to make trouble. Jack's smile faded when the field tech confirmed the blood type from the puddle of it in the van as O negative, which he knew to be Mac's as they had both been, on one or two occasions, emergency donors for each other. No one spoke for a moment. Mel put her hand on Jack's arm, steely resolve in her grey eyes. "It's a common type. That's not DNA. It doesn't have to be his. And even if he's hurt, he's Mac. He'll be fine." Jack nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. Mel nudged him with her elbow, and teased, "And if he's not, we can make you our victim … I mean donor, and sort him out."
Her voice was tense, and it was obviously an effort to even try to speak lightly, but she'd picked up on the fact that joking under stress was often what he and Mac did. Oddly, that helped. Jack gave a little nod and a half smile. "Yes, ma'am. Drain me dry if you need to." Jack was only sort of kidding. There was a beat of silence, then Jack asked, "I know you're not the only one looking, Ri, but you see anything on the sat feed?"
Riley was staring intensely at her computer, occasionally talking to someone on her headset that they weren't patched in to. She glanced up. "Nothing."
Her voice was almost cold. She was deep in thought, contemplating her options, their next steps. Jack approved. Riley had come a long way, not just since he'd known her as a scrappy kid who gave him an endless hard time, but since joining Phoenix. She was no longer a girl taking a deal; she was an agent, and growing in those abilities and talents every day. Now if they should just track down the other talented young person on their ops team, they'd be all set. Riley was frowning, like she almost had an idea, but couldn't quite articulate it yet, like having the word on the tip of your tongue, when Jack's phone buzzed with an unknown number.
Almost expecting a ransom call at this point, or some Organization tool-bag to call up just to taunt Phoenix, Jack gave Riley a nod to tap in. When she had, Jack answered on speaker. "Dalton."
"Jack …" There was an almost audible collective sigh of relief from everyone in the van.
"Mac, where are you, what's going on?" Jack asked all in one breath.
"Um … I," Mac answered slowly. Then after a second or two. "Abandoned gas station … White and red sign with a dinosaur on it … That's funny."
Mac's voice had a slightly sleepy dreamy quality to it.
"Buddy, where are the bad guys? Are you hurt?"
Snort of laughter, then a clatter of things falling, a moment of silence in which Jack was about to absolutely yell into the phone, then, "No worries. I got 'em all tied up."
More silence. Jack looked at Riley, who frowned in return. She couldn't get a signal from wherever Mac was calling from.
"That's good, brother. I asked if you're hurt."
There was a long pause, like maybe he was thinking about it.
"Nah. Well … maybe, but I don't think so, not bad anyway. They shot me up with something after I lit the van on fire though."
Jack's eyes widened; he was even more glad than usual that they had the team medic, correction – medics - on board. Steve entered the conversation with a concerned, "Do you have any idea what they dosed you with?"
"Uh uh; stung like hell though. And I feel about half in the bag … Make that three-and-a-quarter-quarters."
"Can you look around a little more, Mac? Give us something other than the sign to help find ya? We can't trace your call."
"Sure," he said, agreeable, and now that he was listening for it, Jack could hear what sounded an awful lot like intoxication in his partner's voice. There was some more crashing in the background.
"Mac! … Mac!"
"Sorry, Jack. I fell over. Now I'm on the floor." His tone was entirely apologetic. "The gas station is dirty, if that helps. And silver. It's dirty and silver with a dinosaur sign." Another snort of laugher. "Like Toy Story."
"That all ya got for me, bud?"
"Tell Ri, tell her, I'm … I'm wearing the thing …"
"She already thought of that, but I think they musta taken your watch, kiddo."
"No, not that, the cool thing we made." He was beginning to slur his words now.
"Mac, you're gonna need to …"
"Not now, Jack. I need to close my eyes for a minute. Just a minute though."
"Mac!" Jack called loudly. "Angus MacGyver!"
This time Jack was only answered by a soft snore, but at least the call stayed active so he could hear what was going on where his partner was, which wasn't, apparently, anything.
"Goddamn it!" He looked at Riley. "Any idea what the hell Mac was talking about?" Jack snapped, his concern making him gruff.
The cool operator that he'd seen a glimpse of was gone, and he saw the 'Riley didn't do her homework' face that he knew from her as a young teen. "No … I … we've been doing a bunch of stuff in the lab and with tech … and …" Her expression lit back up. "Holy shit, he must've finished them."
"Ri ..?"
She held up her hand and whipped out her phone. "Did Mac finish the coating for the tracking chips that you were helping him out with?" A smile split her face. "Can you activate them? I think he might have one or more on him and we need to … Okay, that's amazing." She dropped her phone onto the bench and her fingers flashed over the keys. She pulled up a satellite street view image of an abandoned gas station, mostly silver with red trim, and some daring soul had climbed up and painted the sign to look like the one from toy story. "I've got it."
She gave the address to Todd and Jack radioed the rest of the team as their van sped to the location. Steve was already on the phone with Medical, and Matty had dispatched a helicopter to land in the nearby parking lot so they could have their agent back at Phoenix in the shortest possible amount of time. In route, Jack looked at her with a silent question. She shrugged. "Mac and I were talking about this whole capture and deliver thing one day, and I said it was too bad we couldn't just LoJack him like a car in case they got the drop on us. He said that tech existed, for like dementia patients and kids who wander, but most of it's kinda big and then even if you could hide it, any scan for radio or wi-fi frequencies would give you away. We've been working on miniaturizing it, or really Mac has, I've just been the tech consult. And he and Beth were working on some sort of polymer coating that would allow it to transmit but not be easily scanned for. And they did it. I bet he was wearing it home so we could test it out while we were off under lock and key with our secret security detail."
Jack grinned. "You guys actually LoJacked Mac."
"We sort of did, yeah. And really, it was kinda his idea."
Jack chuckled a little in spite of himself. "I've been wantin' a way to keep tabs on that reckless little shit since he was twenty. This is going to revolutionize my job in security."
0-0-0
When they got to the gas station, about a quarter of an hour later, they found Mac passed out in what had been at one time, the store front for a little gas and service station, that had been out of business for a while. He looked a little beat up, and his respiration and pulse were, as Steve put it, a little wonky, but he seemed mostly okay. Clearly the blood in the van belonged to someone else. They'd just have to get him back to Phoenix and make sure he hadn't been given anything dangerous. Jack and Todd found the guys who had kidnapped him behind the counter, unconscious and bloodied, tied up with some vehicle belts that had obviously been lying around the defunct shop. Only one of them was even semi-conscious before the guys muscled them into the van, and that guy had a badly broken nose and a partial boot print on his face, which probably explained the blood in the van. They couldn't bring Mac around either, other than some sleepy mumbling as they eased him onto a stretcher and moved him to the helicopter. Jack went along with them, but buckled himself into a seat so he'd be out of the medics' way.
A little way into the short flight, Mac opened his eyes a little, trying very hard to focus on what was going on around him. He immediately saw Mel kneeling down next to him where he was … on the floor, on a stretcher. Now why didn't he remember getting there? Oh, yeah, drugs, he thought, more amused than anything else as the aircraft seemed to be spinning wildly, because he knew it was just whatever chemical they'd given him, since no one else seemed to notice. "Hey, Melody. Whatchu doing?" he asked, feeling his eyes want to close again.
"Hey, Mac," she said quietly. Or did she? Helicopters were pretty loud, he thought disjointedly. She might have been shouting. Everything sounded weird. "I'm just getting blood so the lab can figure out what has you all loopy just as soon as we land, okay?"
Like any self-respecting nurse, she didn't wait for him to respond, just snugged the tourniquet around his arm. Instead of any grumbling or protest, he just mumbled, "'Kay."
She smiled, already changing out vials. He was a much better bleeder when he wasn't all tense and rigid. "You're usually a lot grumpier when somebody wants to stab you with pointy things," she observed.
"I'm not grumpy with you. Right now anyway. I was with the bad guys for doing it though," he said softly, almost dozing again.
"You sure as hell were," she grinned. "One guy was still out cold when they loaded them up."
When Jack saw Mac talking, he unbuckled and moved down to the floor. "I wish you'd left some ass kickin' for me, kid. You know how I get when I'm all stressed out and I don't get to dish out some damage."
Mac's eyes had closed again, but he heard Jack and forced them back open. "Sorry 'bout that, big guy. I hit 'em with a piece of exhaust pipe or something. And they kept being more than one of themselves, so I maybe swung a little wild … Then there was all the butterflies with the fire breath …" He trailed off dreamily again.
Steve was crouching down to let Mel in on the plan once they landed, which was happening shortly and Jack started to ask a wide-eyed question. Steve just shrugged. "Some sort of hypnotic hallucinogenic for sure. Can't really say what until we get the labs back. I've got them ready to put a serious rush on it the minute we touch down." He paused, collecting the samples from Mel. "You get him settled, monitor him for any changes, and I'll work with the lab so we know if we need to worry."
She nodded, and finished taping down the IV line she'd started for fluids. She glanced at Jack and then back at Steve who was already standing up again, getting back on the radio. "We'll make sure he's comfortable until you get back to us."
Jack noticed that Mel had managed to start the IV in a much less irritating spot than the back of his partner's hand and he gave her an approving nod. "That's some skill, Nurse Sullivan."
She winked. "Oh, I'm good." They began their decent and the helicopter jerked unpleasantly. Mel caught herself on the edge of the stretcher. Mac had one eye half open. She gave him her most reassuring smile. "Hey, almost home, Mac. We're landing now. That's why the ride's a little rough."
She was met with a slightly dopey smile in return. "You're kind a cute when you're not being all bossy and mean," he murmured.
She grinned, and glanced at Jack, who she was sure noticed a hint of color come into her cheeks. "And you're pretty cute when you're not arguing with me and making me be all bossy and mean."
Mac had already closed his eyes again, despite the thud of touchdown. Jack was grinning from ear to ear and gave her a double raise of his eyebrows. "Who we kiddin'? You think he's damned cute all the time."
Mel just got to her feet, preparing to move. "Shut up, Jackass."
