Disclaimer: Not mine.
A few weeks later….
The Commissioner had started to speak. Alex leaned back in his chair and lazily returned Ben's grin. Turning, he focused his attention on the speaker, almost immediately his attention began to waver.
Next to the podium was a elegantly decorated table. Alex didn't recognize many of the faces but stopped however when his gaze reached somebody familiar.
It was Michael Hart, assistant director of the CIA. Their eyes met for a second and Alex narrowed his eyes and looked away. He wasn't sure if he should trust Hart, based on what he knew of the assistant director.
It was uncomfortably hot in the room and Alex felt a drop of sweat slide down his cheek. He ground his teeth together and rubbed his jaw.
Suddenly he was very conscious of everything. The sound of the Commissioner's voice had faded into the background.
The back of his neck prickled, his sixth sense was spiking, something was wrong. He frowned and sat up straighter in his chair ignoring the twinge of pain in his shoulder.
Observing the room carefully, he scanned the faces around the room.
The Commissioner make a joke and the room laughed. His frowned deepened and he reached down and gripped his gun. It was a reassuring movement and Alex took a deep breath.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ben exchanging a glance with Wolf before looking at him concernedly.
A muscle in his cheek twitched and he strained his ears to hear to slightest suspicious sound. There it was, a sound in the distance.
Alex stood up, balancing his weight on his good ankle, and glanced around. He caught Hart's gaze and nodded to the wide windows to the right.
Ben was rising from his chair as the windows suddenly shattered inwards. Black clad men streamed through the windows, suspended on cords.
They all wore masks and carried lethal looking weapons. Something clattered into the middle of the room, Alex identified it, it was a smoke bomb.
White smoke filled the air, thick and dense. Alex flattened himself on the floor as the crack of bullets filled the air. His body screamed in protest.
His eyes burned from the smoke and tears ran down his cheeks. Raising his hand he breathed through his sleeve and peeked up over the table.
All around them men were coughing and gasping for breath, clutching at their throats and eyes. Alex began to take deep, calming, desperate breaths. Wiping his eyes on the tablecloth he reached for his crutches.
He peered intently through the smoke. Black-clad men spread out across the room guns raised their faces concealed by ugly gas masks.
Ripping a strip of fabric from the table cloth he tied it around his mouth and nose. He crept along the floor, his ears were ringing and the sound of stifled coughing could be heard in the distance.
It was an awkward crawl since he had to drag his crutches behind him. Stealthily making his way through the smoke he couldn't see much but could make out vague shapes scattered about the room.
"Stop!" shouted a voice from in front of him, a figure nearing. "Nobody move!"
Alex played unconscious as the man neared closer and waited until the right moment to act.
Shooting his arm out and he grabbed the man's ankle, and yanked him down to the floor. The man hadn't been expecting it and tumbled to the floor, his gun flying a small distance away.
Alex was on him in an instant and silenced him with several hard punches to the face. Grabbing the gun he knelt and disarmed the man and tossed another gun to Ben who had showed up behind him.
Grimly he thought about his crutches and how he couldn't walk without them.
Well, he could put them to good use. Supporting himself awkwardly he fired rapidly at figures that were quickly becoming more visibly as the smoke dissipated.
The smoke must have had something in it as he felt his head swim and the room shake.
Shaking his head to clear it he quickly took care of more men moving before forwards. He was slammed into the ground as one of the attackers tackled him from behind the gun falling from his hands as he lost his balance.
Using his crutch he swung backwards and felt it connect with his attacker's body. Twisting around, his shoulder screaming he scrambled up and barely had time to think as he was attacked from the front. Hopping on one foot he fought hand to hand defending his opponent having the upper hand. He began to see double and his shoulder and ankle were throbbing painfully.
After being pushed to the ground Alex grabbed his crutches and kicked forwards, using the crutches as supports and swinging his legs forwards.
Then, using a crutch as a club he parried and drove the tip of it into his attacker's stomach. He reeled as a fist caught him in the face out of nowhere and he felt his nose crack as blood started to flow freely from it.
Through the cloth and the blood now clotting it oxygen was being precariously hard to breath in and he gasped for breath. The feeling was similar to being drunk as the room swayed from side to side.
Like a boxer in the ring he fought to get up but when he did he retaliated with a barrage of punches and kicks.
Performing a judo trick he twisted around the man and locked him in a headlock, shutting off his oxygen. As the man fell unconscious Alex searched the ground desperately for a gun.
Black spots clouded his vision and he tore off the cloth covering his face. Shaking his head again to clear it from the fading effects of the drugs he spotted a gun discarded on the floor.
Praying desperately that it was loaded he dove for it just as bullets whizzed through the space where his body had just been.
Lying on his back he rounded off a few shots in the right direction and ignored the aching of his body. He had probably already torn his stitches he thought to himself and almost smiled at the irony of it. Shifting along the floor, his ankle now dragging completely useless behind and his left arm cradled against his chest.
He wondered how many of them were left and how many people had been knocked out. He worried about the head of CIA and Hart.
Branden and the guys were able to take care of themselves but what about the drugs that had been released?
Shots echoed as bullets embedded themselves in the table directly in front of Alex and he stopped and peeked over the table. Ducking down as bullets whipped over his head he thought frantically of a solution.
There had been about four men standing and this table didn't provide that much cover.
Steeling himself he stood up, dragging his one remaining crutch along with him and fired quickly taking aim and shooting fast and efficiently.
Shots echoed in the space and seemed like rockets in his head. The world seemed to slow down.
After just barely escaping alive from that prison, the danger had seemed to follow him here and he had literally just managed to escape from the hospital.
It was hard to think with all the numbness. He leaned heavily on his crutch and limped forwards.
He wasn't sure how many times he had been shot, to be honest to himself he didn't feel anything. It was the adrenaline but he could feel extreme tiredness creeping upon him.
He saw Michael Hart flat on the floor in between the men and the director unconscious next to him.
His head pounded and his vision wavered. Alex nodded reassuringly as Hart looked up and met his eyes.
The assistant director got up cautiously and looked pale and shaken as he glanced around the room. Alex closed his eyes briefly letting his fatigue and pain wash over him slowly.
"I'm okay." he answered Hart's question before it was asked.
He heard scuffling behind him and saw Hart's eyes widening in fear. He whipped around and found himself face to face with one of the black-clad men.
They were barrel to barrel, gun to gun, facing each other off. Alex was gripping the gun with one hand, the other holding his remaining crutch in a sweaty, bloody hand.
He searched for the eyes behind the goggles but couldn't see anything.
"Finch sent you right?" said Alex wearily in the silence.
Hart was frozen behind him and the occupants of the rest of the room were slowly coming to consciousness.
He gripped his gun tighter, feeling the familiar feel of a Glock pistol. He focused on the danger in front of him, the rest of the world blurring out in a wave of fatigue and tiredness.
The man slowly let go of the gun with one hand and slowly reached up and pulled his mask off. Emmett saw the familiar face of Evgeny Markovich, the assassin that had it in for both him and Ben. The assassin threw his mask to side and a sneer came over harsh Ukrainian/Russian features.
"I will finish you." seethed the Ukrainian through blood-stained teeth.
Alex noticed the slight hunch in the man's body and assumed he had been shot in the abdomen somewhere.
His own pain was becoming more and more striking and he fought the unconsciousness that threatened to consume him.
His hand shook and wavered. Sweat dripped down his face and his formal black dress uniform was tight and stifling. His mouth tasted like blood from the mess that had become of his nose.
The tension in the air was palpable.
To be continued….