They headed back to Carson's lab, knowing that what Mac needed to pull off a convincing cannister would be there. Mac didn't even pause by the door to the lab before heading in and getting started. He knew right where to go to get what he needed. Most labs were arranged very similarly and the small variations in this one didn't even slow him down.

Cage thought that, despite the fact that he clearly wasn't happy with Matty, the plan, or how things were shaking out, he looked like a kid who'd been given a particularly intriguing toy when he beamed, "Homemade tear gas!"

He missed the slight sarcasm in her, "Ah, perfect."

He just replied with another grin as he got to work, "Yeah. Should work great."

She glanced at Jack who just gave her a crooked smile and shrugged his shoulders, heading off to make a phone call to follow up on something he'd set in motion right before they almost ran her over. Jack had learned a long time ago that this was Mac's element and he did better, was happier, when he was just allowed to do his Mac thing and … MacGyver it. Cage had no earthly idea what he was doing until he started wiring up a remote charge on the cannister.

"What're you doing Mac?" Cage asked, hoping she was catching on to what he was up to.

"So, when you get the real VX, signal me, and I'll trigger the tear gas. And then Jack and I will swoop in with the cavalry."

Cage was constantly impressed by these two, even with everything she'd been told about them. She smiled at his confidence that this was all handled. "Oh, there's gonna be cavalry?"

Mac grinned with a little shrug. "Yes, there is." He paused. "Well, if Jack can convince the local SWAT team to give us a hand, then yes."

Cage's smile at his confidence faltered. Mac saw the change in her expression, picked up on the fact that she was almost holding her breath for a minute. She was the agent on the spot here. One false move and she was going to wind up either shot or exposed to a nerve gas she was enough afraid of to have shared a personal story about it with the team.

Mac gave her a sympathetic look. "Um, all jokes aside … This is going to work." He nodded his head to reinforce his reassurance. She still looked like her brain was telling her that as far away as she could get from this plan was the direction to run in. Then he said the thing that it always helped him to hear from Jack. "I've got your back."

And she really believed that was true.

0-0-0

Jack was getting edgy. The closer they got to actually trying to pull this off, the chattier he got. Unfortunately for Mac it was one of those chatty times where he man just kept repeating himself. It reminded Mac of Riley's first solo mission and Jack's repeated, increasingly adamant, "I don't like this, man," monologue. It was making Mac short tempered.

"She's literally standing on the coordinates the mercs sent," he ground out, trying not to be snappish, trying just to focus, but he was edgy too. On Mac edgy was even quieter than normal. He was also upset because when it came down to it, Matty authorized them to just bust these mercs if the exchange went south because letting the VX out of the country was just too dangerous, according to Oversight. He was on the verge of saying "I told you so," but good sense stopped him. Seconds later, Jack tapped him on the shoulder to cue him into the approaching van and they followed quickly behind it as soon as it pulled away with Cage.

It was after dawn when the van cross the bridge by the New York County Water Treatment Plant. It was nerve wracking to have a teammate in peril like this without even the minimal assurance the comms offered. Since Cage had already managed to snow these guys once, the agents tried to console themselves with the half-hearted thought that she was probably fine.

The guys were grateful that when the mercs started marching Cage inside for the exchange, Riley got ahold of them and told then she had Cage's phone mic up and running so they could have ears inside. She shared it to their phones, too. Then the local SWAT team arrived, giving all of them further confidence they could take these guys down.

Jack was ready to head in guns a blazin' from the get go, but Mac slowed him down. "Nobody moves until we get confirmation from Cage that she's got the real gas."

When the mercs' plan became clear, Mac was furious; with the terrorists for what they had planned, and at himself for not seeing it coming miles away in the distance. "It's water soluble."

Jack's eyes widened for a second, but he pieced it together almost instantly. "So, they're gonna deploy that nerve gas, right here right now?"

Mac nodded, already trying to revise the plan to compensate. Jack started moving the SWAT guys around to try to give them the best possible advantage in a lousy situation. "Hey, be ready boys. We're about to jump."

Despite a lack of firepower, Mac got himself ready for this, too, listening intently for the code work. The second he heard 'Albatross' he started to move, knowing Jack and their stand in tactical unit would follow. As they moved out, Mac triggered the charge on the fake cannister, know tear gas would already be pouring out of the fake cannister, at least temporarily incapacitating the mercs.

In the seconds that ticked past between when they deployed the tear gas and when they got inside, Cage had already started to fight. Jack joined with his gun and his fists. Mac just squinted through the cloud of lingering gas until his eyes rested on the cannister.

He took off at a sprint to scoop the gas up off the floor, but one of the mercs nearly beat him to it. He knocked his opponent down with a solid punch and then kicked him down the stairs to buy himself a minute or two to run with the gas.

He heard the 'tink' of the cannister being breached by a bullet and for a split second he froze with the closes thing to panic he had felt since the first time he'd diffused a live bomb. Even chained to a chair in Murdoc's Basement of Death hadn't made him quite that afraid. But he knew he didn't – and certainly the rest of his team and everyone in New York didn't) have the luxury of time. He looked around frantically for a solution to the problem of the leaking cannister.

Jack saw the look on the kid's face from across the room. So did Cage. The way they both were looking at him, he knew he had one choice to save, not just New York's water supply and the millions of people it delivered to, but his partner and teammate. When they started to run toward him, hoping to help, Mac sprinted for the nearest door, skidded inside and locked the door.

Jack was banging on the glass mere seconds later. "Mac! What the hell are you doin'?"

"It's leaking!" he barked over what felt like already shortening breath. That's psychosomatic, he insisted to himself.

"Well, then get outta there!"

Jack didn't miss the fear in his friend's eyes when he responded.

"It's too late! I'm already exposed."