Flame Vs Flame
Chapter 7 – Play The Game
Having checked out of the hospital this morning, as according to Mustang's plan, I met up with him and Jean in one of the less populated areas of East City. Stepping inside an empty building, I found Jean and Mustang sitting uncomfortably as if they had been waiting for a while. When I moved closer, Jean stood up removing the cigarette and offering me a smile. Mustang gave me a suspicious look, before standing as well and leaving the room.
"Are you sure about this, Jen?" Jean asked me again, his eyes sparkling with worry. I could guess how he felt; just got back a long lost member of the family, and now they were knowingly walking into an extremely dangerous situation.
"Yes, Jean, I'm sure about this. Why do you keep asking, wasn't this your idea in the first place?"
"Yeah, but-" He seemed to hesitate for the right words, but before he could find them Mustang called out from the other room.
"Havoc, we need to get a move on!" I placed my hand on Jean's shoulder, and smiled.
"I'll be fine, Jean, I swear. You just go do your thing, and I'll do mine." Jean nodded his head, and we left the room. In the other room Mustang and Alphonse were waiting for us, as soon as Jean entered Mustang gestured for him to follow and they left to organise their side of the plan.
"It's nice to see you again, Jennifer. Your burns are not causing you too much pain, are they?" One of my eyebrows moved out slightly as I forgot for a moment the serious burns I'd had taken to my right side only yesterday. Pulling up the sleeve on my right arm, I revealed the tender pink flesh of recently healed burns.
"One of the many things I don't understand or can't explain. I think it's some kind of side-effect, like what happened to the wound your brother gave me the other day. But that's a story for another day, you ready to go?" Alphonse nodded and we set off too, taking up where we had taken off before the military had stepped in the other day.
It was a simple matter now, to track Jen and Al's movements across the city; Jen had given Mustang the location of the next note, so getting the one after that was as easy as having eyes in the area. Which was Hawkeye's part in this; she had eyes on the location of the current note, and would pass this one to those on the ground via Mustang. Mustang and Havoc were at a nearby phone, Mustang on the phone while Havoc stood watch. When they got word of Jen's movements, Havoc was to relay it to Breda and Falman, before moving out.
Hours later Jen and Alphonse stood outside of a large warehouse, possibly the drop location, it was rundown and had a number of signs put up warning of its condemned status making it the ideal place for them to use. Jen glanced around worriedly, checking that her ignition devices were still attached firmly to her wrists. This was the dangerous part of the plan, the part that should things go wrong they will go wrong in a very bad way. Being unable to see the military team that should have been following her, Jen turned back to Alphonse and told him that this was the extremely dangerous part, and that he may not be able to come back from this. Alphonse nodded and said that he understood; that he wasn't going to leave her now.
She seriously wished that Alphonse didn't have to be a part of this, he was a nice kid, about the same age as she was when they had kidnapped her, it wasn't fair to put him through this. Wishing never helped though, Jen knew that too well from her years spent with them. Resigning to the facts at hand, Jen headed into the warehouse Alphonse close behind her.
Inside the warehouse was empty, excluding a handful of abandoned heavy machinery possibly to bulky to have been taken with everything else. This had to been the drop location, but there was nobody else here – had they missed their chance? If so then the plan was over, there was nothing else to do but wait, wait for them to hire a hit-man to take Jen out and then spend someone else after Alphonse. Just to be sure, Jen checked the rooms at the back of the warehouse, but they were empty too.
Something wasn't right here, there was no way that they had simply missed whoever it was that they were meant to be meeting here. Sure it was possible for it to happen, but it wasn't likely after so few days had passed, and it was even less likely with no signs of somebody waiting here for several days. There should have been a sign, something to say that there had been somebody waiting here; cigarette butts, empty alcohol bottles, scraps of food packaging, but there was nothing at all!
Alphonse was waiting out in the main area when he heard footsteps, but when he turned around there was nobody to be seen. Maybe it was just his imagination, Jen had not come back yet from searching the other rooms, which was making him nervous – surely she should have been back by now. That was unless we found someone, but then they both should have come back out; it was part of the plan to use whoever was at the drop point to track down the organization behind this. Could their plan be already caught on to, had the organization already known of Jen's betrayal and sent somebody to finish her off?
No, that couldn't be right; if somebody had attacked Jen since they got here he would have heard something. Surely the fight would have spilled out into the main room too. Then there was the other option, the one that Alphonse did not think of; Jen could have been playing them the whole time so that she could get her hands on Alphonse again. Of course that option brought up the question, how long had she been playing them for? Since the military first showed up, or after that when she was in the alleyway suffering from serious burns?
Jen came back out into the main room then, stating that she hadn't found any signs of somebody being here. Before anything else could be said between the two, a number of figures stepped out of the shadows, surrounding Alphonse and Jen. All of the figures wore nondescript clothing, each with something covering their face, armed with an assortment of weapons. They blocked all possible escape routes, the only way out now, was through them.
Weighing up their options, Jen muttered one thing to Alphonse before the strangers completely closed in on them. 'Play the game'.
