III. HERE COMES THE FLOOD
Lord, here comes the flood
We will say goodbye to flesh and blood
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
"Nikita, what the hell! Are you trying to get us killed?"
"We need to talk."
Michael squinted, blinking the heavy rain from his eyes. "You nearly ran me off the road just so we can talk?"
Interpreting her stony silence as a "yes," he turned to enter back into his vehicle.
A slender arm shot through the dark, stopping him with a hand upon the car door. "We need to talk," she repeated firmly.
"It's late. We'll talk later.
Nikita slammed the door shut. "Now," she emphasized gravely, her normal purr rumbling into a growl.
He jammed his hands into his pockets, sullen. "This is about the mission, isn't it?" he guessed glumly.
"What happened tonight was unacceptable."
Michael ground his toe into the mud like a little boy made to receive a scolding. "You wouldn't be saying that if Tariq had been inside the building," he muttered sourly.
"Whether the man was inside or not doesn't justify what we did and you know it!"
"He was supposed to be there!" he said loudly, defensively. "We had independent confirmation that Kasim Tariq was there! This was our one chance to finally get the son of a bitch—he was supposed to be there!"
"Michael, I want Tariq dead just as much as you—"
"Nobody wants Tariq dead as much as I do—" he snarled.
"—but there is a line we have sworn never to cross, and we're about a mile past that line now!"
He slammed his fist onto the hood of his car, making her jump. "You just don't get it, do you? If someone took away the one thing you loved most in life, wouldn't you do everything in your power to bring them to justice?"
"What you're looking for isn't justice, Michael, it's revenge!"
"They're the same—"
Nikita's hand on his elbow whirled him around. "No, they're never the same! Revenge is about you making yourself feel better. Justice is about what's right!"
"Killing Kasim is what's right!"
"That's Division talking, not you."
Michael threw his hands resignedly in the air. "Here we go again—"
"I don't have a problem killing bad guys. If it's between them or me, I choose me. But it's not just the bad guys we're killing anymore, is it?"
"Nikita—"
"Look me in the eye and tell me you don't know that what Division has us doing is wrong!"
"What is it you want from me? Percy tasked us to set the charges, so we set the charges! I had my orders!"
"That's right, you're Percy's favorite little errand boy now, aren't you?"
He whirled around, towering over her. "When you joined Division, you knew the risks! You knew that sometimes we would have to make terrible, life-or-death decisions, but that we would be making them for the good of this country! So if getting our hands dirty is part of the job, so be it! If you're not comfortable with that, I suggest you rethink your career options!"
"Well then, congratulations, Michael. In the name of all things Division, we just murdered a man's wife and kids tonight. How's that for God and country?"
The seconds passed in silence—he didn't have a reply for that one.
"Michael, you didn't know…did you? Before we set the charges to the house, did you know that Tariq's family was inside?"
Michael stopped mid-pace. "What?"
"Did you know—"
"You think I intentionally had them killed?"
"I think you want to hurt Kasim Tariq just as much as he hurt you."
"And you think I'm capable of that?"
"I think you're capable of a lot of things as long as you're blinded by your rage."
"I'm not blinded by my rage!"
"You haven't answered my question."
"I don't accept the premise behind it!"
A third vehicle screeched off the side of the road and a middle-aged man leaped from the car. "I saw your emergency lights!" he shouted over the pounding of the storm. "Are you two all right?"
Incensed at the interruption, Michael withdrew his gun, pointed it at the man, and barked, "Point those eyes somewhere else!"
The man recoiled at once, scrambling back inside his vehicle. "Didn't see a thing!"
Normally, that might be the sort of stunt he and Nikita would laugh themselves to tears over. Or fight about, depending on the time or day. Clearly, this was neither the time nor day.
Nikita was quiet, her back turned. "Michael, I can't do this anymore."
"Do what?"
"This!" She gesture emphatically between them. "I can't do this anymore. I can't keep having this same argument with you over and over again!"
A sharp intake of breath, then a shaky release. "You're right," he conceded. "It's late. We should call it a night. There's an 8AM debriefing tomorrow, but after that—"
A strangled laugh of frustration? "No! Michael, you're not listening. I can't do this anymore. I won't do this anymore."
And then, a sudden dawn of realization.
The subtle change in phrasing made all the difference in the world.
"No," he breathed automatically, taking an involuntary step forward.
"The day I became an agent, you warned me about the darkness. You warned me the ways it can change people, and I swore to you I would stay this job as long as I never let that darkness reach me."
"Nikita, you can't leave Division. No agent's ever walked out before; it's unheard of!"
"I'll take my chances," she smiled grimly, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.
"And us?" he whispered, anguished. "You would walk away from us? Nikki, this thing with Tariq—I need you now more than ever!"
She lowered her eyes to the ground.
He stepped back, unsure of what to feel.
Shock.
Hurt.
Betrayal.
Anger.
A plethora of emotions.
It was slow at first: tearing at the pit of his stomach, then scorching the back of his throat, then spiraling out of his control until the fire spewed from his lips like a poison. "I see. You want to leave?" he spat. "All right. I won't stop you. I'll even give you a head start. But tell me this: when you were sleeping with me, were you doing it just to screw me or were you doing it to become an agent?"
Nikita appeared stunned, like he'd slapped her in the face, but she quickly recovered. "If that's what you think, then you don't know me at all," she said icily.
"But I do!" he taunted before he could stop himself, his hurt feeding his cruelty, making it strong. "I do know you, Nikita. I'm the one who found you before Division, remember?"
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't—"
"Remember where you were when I found you? On the streets! Selling your body for drug money near that dump you called a home! I'm the one who took you in, Nikita! Brought you to Division! Gave your life back! I gave you everything I had, taught you everything you know and this is what I get in return?"
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"
"There's no other response for such pathetic behavior!" he roared, mad with rage. "You know, I don't know why all this is such a surprise to me anymore! You're so used to whoring yourself around that it's the only thing you know how to do!"
Without warning, her fist strikes out at him with the force of a terrible thunder—
—but he is lightning, and light travels faster than sound—
He dodges her punch on instinct, but eight years of Division instinct also teaches him to strike back.
And his punch catches her directly in the face.
It is in the calm—when the lightning has subsided and the thunder has rolled away—that he even realizes what he's done.
Michael stumbled forward, horrified and ashamed. "I-I…"
"Don't."
"Nikita—"
But she held up a warning hand and he froze mid-step. She pressed the back of her fingers beneath her eye where a mottled, purplish bruise was already beginning to take form. "That," she bit coldly, "is the last time you'll ever touch me."
"Sir!" gasped Michael, stumbling haphazardly into the room. "Sir, we have a problem—" But he stopped short. Every monitor in the dim interior was lit with scowling pictures of Nikita's face.
Percy appeared wholly unsurprised to see him. "Michael," the man greeted with dull inflection. "Welcome back. Your time in captivity seems to have suited you well."
The words snapped him to attention in a most unexpected way. "My time in—? Sir, you know about Nikita?"
"Of course," drawled Percy with an oily smile. "We've been tracking her the moment she picked you up in Shanghai. Granted, now that she's let you go we've lost her again, but we'll pick up the trail, I assure you. And we owe it all to you, Michael," he added triumphantly. "We could never have found her without you."
Michael had to steady himself with one hand against the wall, consciously aware of an entire room of agents watching his every move. "You knew she would come after me," he breathed aloud in bewildered wonderment. "You wanted her to come for me in Shanghai."
The older man barked a short, barklike laugh. "She's pathetically predictable, I know. After all this time, her feelings for you are still the one thing we can count on."
"This operation was a trap," whispered Michael with horrified, sinking realization. "This whole operation was a test."
"And you passed," added Percy sternly, clapping him on the shoulder like a son. "It's not like I doubted your loyalty, Michael. The only time I ever even questioned it was during your relationship with Nikita. We all know she was sort of a favorite pet to you. But the moment she let you go, you came here straight away and that is what matters."
A strange lump formed in the back of his throat and he had to fight to maintain his composure. "What's going to happen to her?" he asked mournfully.
"She's quick, I'll give her that," acknowledged Percy resentfully. "Our girl sure knows how to cover her tracks. But she'll come to us and when she does, we'll be ready."
"She will come to us?"
"Oh, yes," smiled Percy grimly. "You see, there's no point chasing after her; that'll never work. She's too smart for that. Instead, we find her pressure points. Each person has their pressure points. You find something personally important to them and…you squeeze."
Michael followed his gaze to the main screen in the center of the room. Daniel Monroe. "Nikita's fiancé?" he croaked hoarsely.
"If someone took away the one thing you loved most, wouldn't you do everything you could to come back for revenge?"
He had to wince. That one hit a little too close to home. "She'll know," he pointed out. "Nikita will know he's the first person we come after next, and they'll disappear. They're probably halfway out the country by now."
"Or not." Percy surveyed him with a knowing look, a shrewd look. "Nikita's with a civilian now. Chances are, he won't be ready to leave the country so quick. Not without some time first. Question is, where would they run? If she needed a day to explain things over, where would she go? Where would she feel safe?"
No. At this he drew the line. Absolutely not. "I don't know, sir," lied Michael, careful to keep his face blank.
If Percy caught him at his deception, he didn't show it. "You!" he barked at a security officer by the door. "Get me that recruit. What's his name? Birch? Bricken?"
"Birkhoff, sir. Seymour Birkhoff."
"Bring him now."
A seize of panic stabbed him, and Michael feared he was going to be sick. Not Birkhoff. Anybody but Birkhoff.
Too late for him to regret his less-than-favorable treatment over his least favorite recruit. Too late for him to regret his jealousy over Birkhoff's unnervingly close friendship with Nikita. Too late for him to regret the many times he'd deliberately held the man back from reaching agent status purely out of spite, thereby making Birkhoff the oldest and longest-running recruit at Division.
And thereby giving Percy all the leverage that he'd ever need against Birkhoff. He might as well have presented Nikita's head on a silver platter for all the damage that he'd done.
The inevitable knock outside the room came sooner than expected. "Somebody asked to see me?" quaked an uncertain voice.
"Yes!" called Percy sharply, gesturing him over. "Just the man we need! Maybe you can help us with our Nikita situation."
At the mention of Nikita's name, Seymour Birkhoff looked hesitantly first to Michael, then to Percy. "Sir?"
"Nikita has become a danger and a threat. It is imperative that we find her before she exposes this organization and jeopardizes everything we've accomplished the past two years."
"What is it you want from me, sir?"
"You can tell me where she's going."
The younger recruit blanched, then quickly recovered. "All due respect…but how the hell would I know? I haven't talked to Nikki—to Nikita—since she left Division."
"The way I understand it, you know Nikita better than anyone here. Well," amended Percy with a meaningful, sideways glance, "almost better than anyone here—" Michael flinched at the effect that would have on the young recruit, "—not to mention we both know that you were responsible for her travel arrangements the first time she fled Division."
This time, both he and Birkhoff flinched. Neither one had been aware of just how much Percy knew.
"So where is she? Where did you send her last time?"
"I—I can't—I d-don't—"
"Listen, son," Percy interrupted, adopting an uncharacteristic fatherly tone. "It's Birkhoff, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"'Yeah?' Boy, you're speaking to your superior—"
"I mean, yes, sir."
"Birkhoff, then. You entered Division almost the same time as Nikita."
"Yes, sir."
"Nikita graduated from the training program almost five months ago."
"Yes, sir."
"And yet, you're still a recruit."
"Yes, sir, that's correct."
"Why?"
"Sir?"
"You've trained here longer than anyone. Why haven't you been promoted to an agent by now?"
Birkhoff's eyes darted imperceptibly to Michael, who didn't miss the bitter accusation behind them. "I…never passed the tests…sir."
"Interesting. How many times did you take the tests?"
"…enough," he answered stiffly, resentfully.
Percy laughed unexpectedly. "We ought to start limiting the number of times recruits can retake that test," he chuckled darkly, and Michael forced a strained sort of smile. "So, you really don't remember where you sent Nikita packing last time?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then. Perhaps I can jog your memory. What if I made you an agent right here, right now?"
"Sir?" said Birkhoff questioningly at the same time Michael blurted out, "What?"
Ignoring his outburst, Percy continued, "Because I'm thinking if you were an agent, Mr. Birkhoff, maybe then you could tell me where Nikita is headed."
Birkhoff paled. "I—"
"You do want to be an agent, don't you?"
"Yeah, but—"
"'Yeah?'"
"Yes, sir! But—"
"Because I got to tell you, Mr. Birkhoff, I can't allow you to stay in the training program any longer. What message on discipline would that send to the new recruits? No, we would have to fail you from the program, and we cannot tolerate failure within Division. You understand what that means, son?"
"Y—"
"So you have a choice: you can either fail the program and have security section deal with you, or you can finally be an agent."
Birkhoff sputtered. "Is this a joke?"
"Michael, fetch Owen Elliot. Tell him we have a situation we need him to contain."
"No!" rushed Birkhoff quickly. "Wait!"
"Consider this your test. Locate Nikita and you become an agent effective immediately. Fail to do so and I will have Mr. Elliot escort you from the building. Have you met Agent Elliot? "
"No, but—"
"He is a Cleaner. You are aware of what Cleaners do, aren't you?"
"Yeah! I mean yes!"
"So look me in the eye, Mr. Birkhoff, and tell me: do you still think this is a joke?"
"No! Sir!"
"Then what's it going to be, son?"
"I'm sorry."
Nikita tore her eyes away from the wreckage that was once her apartment, unsurprised to see Michael sitting quietly at the remains of her former dining table. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that before."
"I don't think I've ever meant it."
She kicked blandly at the broken lamps and overturned bookshelves. "Well, you followed protocol all right," she remarked bitterly. "Even the police will believe the place was looted."
"You know that's not what I meant."
She brushed a finger instinctively over her swollen cheek, remembering the incident well. "Division send you?"
"My official story is when I got to your apartment, I was minutes too late. You and Daniel were already gone. Here."
Nikita looked down. "What's this?"
"Your plane ticket. I've arranged a flight for Daniel as well."
"Anchorage?" she read out loud, peering at the itinerary.
"Birkhoff set it up. His cousin has a house out there. No one's using it and no one knows about it, so Division can't trace it to you. Stay there a day or two, figure out your next move. From Anchorage, you can go anywhere. You can disappear, start over, forget any of this ever happened. You'll be safe."
She leafed through the rest of the padded envelope. Fake passports, new identification papers, foreign currency—it was all there. "Birkhoff did all this?" she whispered, amazed.
Michael snorted. "His alias isn't 'Shadow Walker' for nothing."
"He risks too much."
"He loves you."
"I know."
"He's not the only one."
Nikita inhaled a sharp intake of breath, looking away. "Michael, this doesn't change anything."
"I shouldn't have said those things. Before, I mean. I shouldn't have…done that." He appeared to wince as his eyes flickered guiltily to the purplish bruise swelling beneath her eye.
"Well."
"Yeah."
Carefully avoiding his gaze, she strode across the room and pointedly opened the door.
Like a man on his way to the gallows, Michael obediently trudged his way across the broken debris lining her floor and made to exit the apartment.
As he passed her in the doorway, Nikita suddenly spoke. "You were more than just my teacher, Michael. You were my mentor, my best friend…the love of my life. You could take my breath away with one single glance. But there is one question I need to ask: when Kasim Tariq's family was killed…did you know? Before we set the charges on the house, did you know Tariq's wife and children were still inside?"
His expression was impossible to read. "Yes."
She slapped him across the face. Hard. Then, a second time. And he did not fight her this time, not even to defend himself.
"Your wife would be ashamed of you," she whispered before closing the door in his face.
Too often has she tried the front door only to find it unnervingly unlocked. Too often has she returned to her home only to find it in shambles.
Nikita stumbled into the apartment, dazed. In an all-too-familiar sight, the paintings were ripped from the walls; the television screen lay in pieces; vases were shattered on the ground; furniture was smashed; even the couches had been overturned.
The only difference? It wasn't just her home this time.
"Daniel?" she called frantically, running from room to room. "Daniel? Daniel!"
The sudden blaring of her cellular phone startled her so effectively that she nearly dropped the cursed thing on the floor. "Daniel?" she shouted into the phone before she realized she hadn't even pushed the "send" button yet. "Hello?" she tried again.
"Nikita?"
"Daniel!" she cried, nearly weeping from the sweet relief. "Where are you?"
"My plane touched down at O'Hare a few minutes ago," sang his familiar voice over the phone. "You wouldn't believe the storm on the way over! Anyway, my flight got delayed about thirty minutes or so, but I should be home in time for—"
"No," she interrupted hurriedly, "don't come home! Are there any flights out of O'Hare leaving in the next fifteen minutes?"
"…there's…a flight to Memphis boarding in eight?"
"That's perfect," she gasped, gripping the phone with trembling fingers. "Listen, they're already looking for you, so you need to get out of Chicago as fast as you can. It doesn't matter where for now; just anywhere other than here, do you understand?"
A bewildered laugh. "What? I don't get it; I just got in! Nikki, what's going on? Who's looking for me?"
"I'll explain everything later, but right now you need to trust me. Can you access an ATM? Do you have cash on you?"
"Sure, I—"
"Good. Don't use your cards. We can't leave a trail—"
"Hey, now," interrupted Daniel warily, sounding alarmed, "you're starting to scare me, hon. Tell me what's going on! Am I in danger?"
"Please, Daniel, just do what I say! Make sure you are on that next flight to Memphis! I'll meet you when I can."
"Where?"
Nikita racked her brain. Where could they go? Where could they stay temporarily before leaving the country? Where would they be safe? "Do you remember the place in Alaska?"
"The lake house in Anchorage?"
"Yes! Anchorage! I'll meet you there as soon as I can!"
"Hang on," he interjected suspiciously, "I remember that place…are you in some kind of trouble again?"
"Daniel, I need you to do this for me! I don't want to lose you, too."
"'Too?' Nikki, what—"
"Daniel, please, this is important!"
"Okay, okay, all right. I'll do it. I don't know what's going on, and maybe I don't want to know. But Nikita, listen to me: everything's going to be okay, you hear me? Everything is going to be fine. I'll take care of you, I promise. I would never let anything happen to you."
Song credit: Peter Gabriel, "Here Comes the Flood"
