Chapter Seven ~ Where Do You Go?
Loki had always been a distraction. Since they first met in that cell in Murmansk. But the two months they spent together in Montana was agonizing.
When she accepted the contract, they stipulated she build a relationship with him and see if she could gather any intel on his military career – by any means possible. She upped the price on the contract, and they gladly paid it.
So Eliot and Loki spent two months building a pretend relationship. It was difficult to spend so much time with her pretending they were together. Sometimes he forgot it wasn't real.
They had come close to making the relationship real several times, but one of them always backed out at the last moment. She said emotions would jeopardize their objectivity and put them both in danger – more danger than what already existed. He said he didn't know who she really was and for some reason that bothered him.
He'd had plenty of one-night stands and never felt compelled to know anything about the woman du jour. But that wasn't enough for him when it came to her.
He'd given up on every emotion except anger when he signed on with the Special Forces team. But it was like Loki opened him up and pulled them all back out. In fact, just thinking about her brought all the feelings back. And reliving Montana left him analyzing his affection for a woman he couldn't really know.
"Eliot!" Parker snapped, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Huh…?" He struggled out of his emotional quick sand and focused on Parker. "What?"
"What happened then?" she prodded.
He hesitated, trying to remember where he had left off. "Uh… we killed Calvin Miller and split the money."
Parker wrinkled her face up. "Who's Calvin Miller?"
"Me, Parker!" Eliot said through gritted teeth. "I was Calvin Miller."
"That was your given name?" Hardison asked.
Eliot shook his head. "The special forces unit I was in was so secret it basically didn't exist. All of our identities were changed so there were no ties back to family and friends. We didn't even know each other's real names. The only record of me on government computers was Calvin Miller."
"How did you do it?" Parker asked.
"Do what?" Eliot asked, finding it difficult to follow her, as usual.
"How did you guys kill Cal Miller?"
"Explosion."
"What is it with this chick and explosives?" Hardison asked.
Eliot smiled slightly. "It's like a hobby for her, I guess. Plus it makes it difficult to identify the body."
"Did you ever find out who wanted you dead?" Hardison asked.
He nodded. "Loki was working her back channels the whole two months. She found out for me."
"And…?" Hardison prodded.
"And unlike Cal Miller, he's dead now."
=-=-=
Loki sat stiffly in the dining chair, dressed in an emerald v-neck sweater and jeans that Parker had rescued for her. She looked good. Only Eliot knew the injuries hidden by the clothes. Eliot sat on her right, Sophie on her left. Nate was directly across from her with Parker and Hardison flanking him.
Hardison had his laptop open in the middle of the table and was flipping through surveillance photos Loki had taken.
"Mickey O'Mara," Hardison narrated, "38 years old. His mother is American; his father was Irish giving our boy Mickey dual citizenship. He grew up near Galway, Ireland and moved to Chicago about 5 years ago and established O'Mara Enterprises."
"Which according to information you gathered," Nate directed at Loki, "has ties to a known terrorist organization." Nate studied her for a few moments. "Why haven't you turned him over to the FBI?"
She wrapped both hands around the coffee cup in front of her and pulled it closer. "Because I'm an idiot," she muttered. Nate waited patiently, his blue eyes watching her every move. She finally made eye contact with him. "I didn't want him to go to jail, necessarily… I just wanted him to leave me alone."
"Ha!" Parker gave a sharp laugh and everybody moved their eyes to her. "Leave you alone? It seems to me that you're planning to marry the guy."
"Parker!" Sophie gasped.
"Well it's true," Parker replied. "There were all kinds of pictures of him and her at her house and she's got a really nice diamond ring…"
Loki glanced at Eliot; he couldn't meet her eyes.
"I was going to marry him," Loki said, turning back to Parker. "And yeah, it was a really nice ring. Wish I'd been smart enough to sell it when I had the chance."
Eliot couldn't have been more uncomfortable at that point. It felt like his stomach had suddenly turned to stone. He looked up and saw that Parker, Nate, and Hardison were all looking at him instead of Loki.
"What?" he snapped defensively.
Nate turned his eyes back to Loki. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."
Loki exhaled and looked at Eliot. Eliot met her pleading gaze with a rigid nod of his head. "Oh yeah, you're talking."
"But…!"
"No buts. This is the deal," Eliot said firmly.
She gave him a meaningful glare and then turned back to face Nate. "I don't know how much Eliot's told you about me…"
"We're somewhat familiar with your past work," Nate replied.
"Well, I retired from that work about two years ago and moved to Chicago. Now I work at an independent bookstore on Publisher's Row and teach Tae Kwon Do three nights a week."
She exhaled. "I met Mickey at the dojang about a year ago. He was training for his black belt and was always around. He didn't seem interested in me at all, so I was surprised when he invited me to dinner one night. I turned him down. And continued to turn him down for probably two more months.
"I finally gave in, and… and…" she glanced at Eliot. Her eyes were full of emotion. When she continued, her voice was barely a whisper, "He was very good to me. He made me happy…" She turned away from Eliot, looked at Nate and then finally rested her eyes on Parker. "I thought I loved him… It all felt so normal. I thought I'd found it… For the first time, I saw myself with a future."
Eliot gritted his teeth against the burning pain rolling through his abdomen and climbing into his chest. He studied her as she spoke, wondering if it was an act.
"After awhile, he started inviting me on business trips with him. Ireland, Great Britain, India... He said he was an art and antiquities dealer. Said he was known for 'special requests' from wealthy clients. Said he liked to broker difficult deals that others couldn't…"
"And that didn't raise any red flags for you?" Eliot snapped.
She jerked her head towards him, her eyes full of fire and her voice angry. "I wasn't in that world any more. I tried to leave that distrusting, constant paranoia bullshit behind me."
"And look where it got you," he bit off.
"Eliot!" Sophie scolded.
"I'm sorry, but this was your idea!" Loki snapped, pointing a shaking finger at him. "If it were up to me, I'd already be gone!"
"I don't think that's what Eliot meant," Sophie said.
"He's jealous," Parker said with a matter-of-fact-nod.
"Shut up, Parker!" Eliot said, banging his fist on the table. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about!"
"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Nate yelled and everybody else became silent. Nate looked at Eliot. "Can we just get the facts for now?"
Eliot moved his frown from Loki to Nate and waved his arm in Loki's direction.
"Please continue," Nate said to Loki.
Loki was staring angrily at Eliot. Eliot folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
She exhaled sharply and turned to Nate. "On a trip to Turkey, Mickey walked me into what he called a client meeting. It ended up being a blood bath over some high tech weaponry. We barely made it out alive… in fact Mickey lost two guys."
"Mercenaries?" Eliot said.
Loki nodded. "He asked me to join up."
"He was recruiting at the dojang, wasn't he?" Eliot asked.
She met his stare. "Yes."
"Wait," Parker said, "So he was just recruiting you?"
Loki turned to her. "That was exactly what I asked him. And he said no. Claimed he fell in love with me first and then decided to bring me into the business."
"He loves you and yet he's willing to put your life in danger on a regular basis?" Hardison asked. "I don't get that."
Loki shifted uncomfortably in her seat, turned and looked at Eliot briefly. "It… uh… has an effect on the relationship that's hard to explain…"
"Really…?" Hardison prodded.
"Some people find it… the sharing danger… the thrill… it's an adrenaline rush…" Loki struggled to explain.
Hardison jerked his head to look at Eliot. Eliot exhaled. "Remember when you hacked into the airplane's control system…?"
Hardison smiled wistfully. "How could I forget?"
"Remember what you said about a female geek…" Eliot said. Hardison nodded. "It's kinda like that except more physical than mental."
A look of understanding appeared on Hardison's face, and it gradually turned into a frown. "You mean when you two are out there busting heads together? That gets you all…"
Eliot cut him off, "Some people."
"Sometimes," Loki added.
Hardison swung an accusatory finger between them, "I'm not sure that's healthy."
Nate gave a frustrated exhalation. "So he asked you to join up…?" he said, trying to coax Loki back on topic.
"And of course you agreed," Eliot snapped.
"No," she said, matching Eliot's angry tone, "I didn't. I was pissed that he'd drug me into a gunfight without a word of warning. I told him he could go to hell."
"But obviously that didn't work," Nate said.
She shook her head. "That was when I got the first glance at Mickey's dark side. It was obvious he wasn't going to just let me go."
"And you didn't think you could take him?" Eliot asked skeptically.
She turned her emerald eyes on him, "It wasn't just a matter of beating him in a fight. I would have to kill him."
"One of those guys," Parker said knowingly.
"So you couldn't kill him?" Eliot needled.
"Eliot, enough!" Nate barked.
But Loki ignored Nate. "Just like I couldn't kill you!" she retorted. "And you and I shared a lot less than Mickey and I."
He felt like she had punched him in the face. Nate jerked his head from Eliot to Loki and back again, his eyes wide in surprise.
There was a long, tense silence as Eliot tried to come up with a retort. But all he could do was look into her beautiful, angry face and think about how she had just compared him to O'Mara and declared him the runner up.
It was Sophie who finally tried to bring the conversation back, "So that's when you started collecting information on Mickey?"
Loki held her glare on Eliot a moment more before turning to Sophie. "Pretty much. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but… well, it's what I was trained to do."
"Where did the marriage proposal come in?" Sophie asked.
"He proposed to me in Paris after the first job I worked with him," she replied.
Sophie frowned. "And he was sincere?"
"Yeah," Loki replied.
Parker stepped in, "He's one of those guys. They call it love… hell, they think it's love, but it's not. It's more about possession and control."
"Yes, exactly," Loki said with a nod.
"So you agree to marry him," Eliot said.
She looked at him. "I didn't have much of a choice…"
"Oh, you had a choice," Eliot said, "You just didn't want to make it."
"I had nothing on him yet!" she snapped. "And you're right, I still wasn't to the point where I thought he needed to be dead."
"What about after the warehouse?" Eliot continued his needling.
"Yeah, that did it," she replied.
"So, the warehouse…" Nate said, pulling Loki's attention away from Eliot, "Mickey found out you were collecting intel on him?"
She shook her head. "I still don't think he knows what I've got on him."
Nate looked confused. "Then why…?"
She exhaled slowly. "Last week I told Mickey I didn't want to marry him. I told him I wasn't going to be part of his mercenary organization any longer."
"You didn't threaten him with this stuff?" Nate asked, motioning toward the computer.
"No."
Eliot's stomach churned. He looked at her. "You're kidding me."
She looked at him, all the anger gone, and shook her head.
"So the warehouse was about trying to... uh... convince you to stay?" Nate asked.
"Yes," she said softly, keeping her eyes on Eliot.
Eliot looked at Nate, "We've got no choice but to take him out."
"No, that shouldn't be necessary" Sophie interrupted, turning to Loki. "We can help you disappear."
Loki leaned back into her chair and Eliot was able to make eye contact with Sophie. "He'll find her."
"We'll make sure he can't find her," Hardison said.
Eliot turned his attention to the man across the table. "You don't understand. He's probably got three guys just like you on his staff."
Loki nodded. "He wouldn't stop until he found me."
"We could do a Calvin Miller," Parker said.
"A what?" Nate asked.
"She's saying we could fake Loki's death," Eliot said. Nate gave him a questioning look. "I'll explain later."
"I want to thank you all for your help," Loki said, "But I don't want to endanger you any more than I already have. I'll take care of this on my own."
"Let me guess," Hardison said, "You're going to blow him up?"
Nate got up, took a few steps away from the dining table, and looked out the windows.
Loki nodded at Hardison. "Him and his house and his office and that God-forsaken warehouse."
"I'm not going to let you take him on alone," Eliot said quietly. She turned to look in his eyes. He felt himself getting lost in the emerald depths.
Sophie spoke, "What are you thinking, Nate?"
Nate turned around. "I'm thinking that unleashing these two…" he motioned toward Loki and Eliot, "on Chicagoland with a bunch of C-4 puts us all at risk."
"So, what's the plan?" Parker asked.
=-=-=
Where do you go and what do you do?
When all you have has been taken from you?
Where do you go and what do you do?
When you lose everything you ever knew?
Where Do You Go? by Sister Hazel
