Chapter 7- As the chips fall.
Hey guys, thanks again for the reviews, as always. Here's another one. I hope you like.
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Ten days ago. (flash back.)
They say you can't protect your loved ones forever. Well, I say screw that. What else is family for?" (Ellen, 2x10 SPN)
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Having said goodbye to his comrades with the vow to avenge their deaths, Steve had swum out of the water, the tears he shed being washed away by the water. He got to the shore, the pouch containing that chip still strapped to his waist. This was now his evidence, the one thing he knew would bring down the people associated with this incident. This had to be some very damning evidence about something, reason why they wanted all the evidence removed, including them. His team.
He climbed back into the bush, dragging his busted leg, but he could not stop and think about that now. He had to survive, he had work to do. He went to a different spot than the one they had used to rest, sat down. Taking a breath, he looked at his leg now, and yeah, it was bad.
He did what he could with it, applied some herbs he could find in the jungle and rested for a while. He knew he was being followed, the Chinese should be closing in on him by now, but he had managed to evade them for now. Hoping his luck would hold out, he marked the place he was resting, took note of the coordinates, and dug a hole there quickly. He buried the pouch in the hole and covered the place with grass. If he got caught with this chip, somehow, he knew he would not live long enough to know what was going on here.
He got off the ground and made his way further into the jungle, he may have left a trail because of his leg or something, because before he knew it he was staring at the barrel of a gun. A Chinese solder was looking at him with a serious look on his face. He looked to be in no mood for jokes, well neither was Steve. Being taken alive was not an option, if he didn't want to survive so badly, he would have shot himself, but he couldn't, he had to live. He had work to do.
At this point he was surrounded. He didn't get a chance to argue his case or do anything for that matter before he felt a pain at the back of his head and the light went out on him.
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Present day-10 days.
"Where is it?" Someone said, it took him long to try and focus on the voice and his surroundings.
"Where is it?" The million-dollar question came again. If only his head could stop hurting enough for him to start to think.
'What the hell were they talking about?' His drugged disoriented mind tried to think. He had been tortured for days, and this was the first time they were asking him anything. He had survived on dried bread and water, then when he was done with his one meal a day, the torture would continue. He would pass out sometimes and wish to die. At that point he would wish to die, but death wouldn't come. He had forgotten why he was even here, how he got here and why he was being tortured. Thoughts of his previous missions where he had been captured and tortured merged into his current thoughts, thinking this was one of them. He forgot his resolve to survive. He only wished they would kill him.
However, they had not broken him yet, whatever it was they wanted from him, they would never get, because he knew he will never tell. The resolve to never talk was deeply ingrained in his mind more than the torture they were inflicting on him. He could never break. They might as well kill him for all the information they were going to get out of him, which was nothing. Their technic was really good, that's why torture at the hands of the Chinese was legendary. They had the best record of breaking a suspect and that's why it was never advisable to get caught by the Chinese intelligence, death was the better option. They tortured him without saying anything, not asking anything, so that finally when he got the chance to speak, he would say anything that came to his mind. Anything to appease them, anything to get them to stop. And each time he thought maybe this time they are going to ask me, maybe I will get the chance to say something, the torture only continued. There seemed to be no end to the darkness, the pain. Ten days seemed like ten years in hell. He wouldn't have got himself caught alive had he not had a more pressing reason to survive. He could not just die like that when his comrades had sacrificed for him to live. He remembered now. Avenge their deaths. He had to survive.
"Where is it?" The question came again
"What the hell are you talking about?!" He tried to yell but his throat was dry, all that came out was a croak.
The two goons just looked at each other and nodded, the torture started again, and he screamed, after a while the light went out on him again. He passed out.
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CSU had provided no evidence to support that this was nothing other than an accidental gas leak. Danny had nothing to go on except a hunch, his gut feeling that all was not as it seemed. The guy had died by suffocation, which was consistent with gas suffocation, gas inhalation. True, but then the CIA were nothing but thorough and he could not shake the feeling that this had them written all over it. If only he had more evidence.
Now he just stared at the photo of the dead guy on the computer screen and sighed. There was something here and he was not about to let it go.
"Danny, the blood results are back, and you need to see this." Tani said as she walked into the computer room, Junior behind her.
"It turns out, there was a trace of some drug found in the blood. Noelani said she didn't know yet what the drug was, it was sure rare, but it has some paralysis agent in it. She said…she said it was consistent with a neurotoxic venom of a snake. There was a trace of something else in his system too and Noelani is still looking into that. Do you think it's anything to go by?" Tani said.
"Anything to go by? Guys, you may have just got us our one lead so far." Danny said with renewed energy, accompanied with another douse of fear. At this rate, he was sure to develop an ulcer after all. If this had anything to do with Steve, then he was in a shit load of trouble. So, the guy had been drugged. This was his one lead, his one proof that he wasn't crazy. Now he just had to connect the dots to Steve, because they were connected alright.
"What else did you find on the guy? When did he get on the Island?" Lou asked
"Well, according to the passport we found, he flew in ten days ago. From DC. " Junior said
"Ha!" Jerry said and then cowered from the stares he got from that one comment. "I'm just saying, he flew from DC." He defended, like that explained everything.
Danny could be going crazy but, he had had the very same reaction to that piece of geographical information as Jerry, on the inside, of course.
"What, just because it's where the White House is doesn't mean..." Lou said.
"It doesn't mean anything. Yet." Danny said. "The guy was obviously drugged and whoever drugged him either followed him here or it was someone already waiting for him here. "
"My bet is he caught a tail, got himself some mental and muscle numbing juice, got killed a few days after spilling the beans of whatever he was being tailed for." Lou said, getting on board.
"So, you really think this is some kind of a CIA assassination plot?" Tani asked incredulously.
"I admit I was a bit skeptical when Danny first suggested it but now, it's looking more and more like it. I mean the guy is too clean, nobody is that clean." Lou said.
"Yeah well, except for the scars on his body." Danny deadpanned. Their vic was squeaky clean on paper, at least the papers presented to them. His body however, spoke a very different story. "Let's get the flight manifest on when he boarded the plane to Hawaii. His tail would most likely be on the same plane or the one that followed after. Look for any suspicious characters. Not too suspicious though. Look for the guy sitting next to him behind or in front of him on the plane closely. Someone who doesn't have much luggage, they won't be looking too suspicious so don't cross off anyone on the merits of them being too ordinary. Ordinary is what they aim for. I've sent the photo to Joe, if the guy was ever in the military Joe will get us his true identity. I've got to go follow up a lead." Danny said, walking out.
"Finally, a CIA conspiracy case, this can lead up to a number of things. Terrorists, assassination attempts." Jerry said excitedly, and then whispered conspiratorially, "Of the President of the United States."
"Jerry, get back to work," Lou admonished, "This would be right in your wheel house if only it were a conspiracy involving JF Kennedy. This isn't it. You have got to let that one go bro." Lou said. "This is a normal case, let's work it like a normal case."
"Well, what if it's not? What if Jerry is right? The way Danny is thinking… Do you really think it's safe to be pocking around CIA territory? We might all end up dead." Tani said
"Really? You too Tani? This is a normal case, besides, if it's a crime then it has to be solved, no matter who is involved. I keep forgetting you guys are still rookies, but the job can sometimes get very dirty and very dangerous. You have got to be all in." Lou said. Especially when it seemed Steve might be involved. He didn't say it, the team still didn't know because between him and Danny, they were not even that sure yet. Maybe Steve was alive, maybe he was dead, maybe he would walk into the room anytime from now, he didn't know. Only that he was in trouble, according to Danny's intuition. And now his own intuition was catching on too, especially with all this telltale evidence.
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Joe cursed out loud as he saw the photo he had received from Danny. He knew that guy. He went by Mayfield, and now he was dead. Shit!
Now he knew beyond any reasonable doubt that Steve was in trouble. Big trouble, if he wasn't already dead. If Mayfield was involved, which apparently, he was, then this was pretty bad.
Mayfield was one of the big guys, and he was Steve's Black Ops top guy. If an Op involved Mayfield, then it was likely to be fatally dangerous. And his Ops were not always the clean ones. If there was ever an honorable assassin, then Mayfield was it. His stance of honor and his deadliness had earned him a reputation. Not that he was widely known on a large scale, because he wouldn't be that good if he was that out in the open. No, only the elite had the privileged to know and work with Mayfield. He was the best at what he did, and those who knew him feared him. Now he was dead. This had just gone to hell in a hand basket.
Who could have killed him? Who was that good? Chances of finding a guy like that were next to zero. Not if Mayfield had been executed, which he clearly was. Joe snorted, 'Gas leak my foot'. If that was a gas leak accident, then he was the Queen of England.
He had to get to Hawaii pronto. This had become dangerous really fast. If Mayfield was executed in Hawaii it meant he was on the run, maybe wanted to out some's info to someone. To Steve? No, Steve was on his team, so he would not be running to him knowing very well that he had sent him on a dirty mission, the scumbag. Maybe he knew someone he could tell, someone who could do something about something. Who?
If Mayfield had sent his team on a mission, which was quickly looking like an unsanctioned mission, since no one knew anything about it; If they had known they would have told Joe, he was in the 'in circle' of the classifieds. Now Mayfield was dead, in Hawaii, that meant his secret Op had gone South and Steve had gone with it.
He had to get to Hawaii right away. Stop this whole thing before it became dangerous, at least stop Danny from poking around anymore. Their enemy was more real now than ever, and it was a dangerous enemy. Made more so because they didn't know who their enemy was, he was a shadow, but he knew them. Knew who they were, and they were exposing themselves further by asking questions. If this thing was so sensitive Mayfield had to go? Then anyone associated or found to be associating themselves with this would not be that difficult to get rid of. Accidents could get arranged pretty quickly and convincingly no one would ever have a clue what really happened. That's the way it was supposed to be, and Danny finding loopholes in Mayfield's accident will make him a target really fast. He and everyone associated with this case. He had to make him let it go. He had to let it go, for the sake of his family and his team.
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See you in a bit.