The Damage We Do
After making their way through security and into Langley, Carrie and Quinn were greeted by two overly muscled mountains of men who proceeded to escort them, not to Dar Adal's office, but to one of the large conference rooms on the fourth floor. Carrie threw Quinn a concerned glance and he shrugged confidently but as they followed, his hand was never far away from the Glock that bulged at his waist.
The two security men ushered them into the long, brightly lit room, at the far end of which Dar Adal sat, watching them intently. He chuckled humourlessly as the door was closed behind them. "Finally, Mathison and Quinn, the most ridiculous relationship I have ever seen in the CIA, and believe me I've seen a few that were doomed from the get go. I've been waiting for you to manage to put the pieces together. What took you so long Crazy Carrie and Quivering Quinn?" he purred smugly.
"Get Saul in here right now!" Carrie spat, the emotion evident in her voice as she surged forward angrily.
"That's not possible." Adal sighed, unconcerned and dismissive. "Quite frankly Saul has more important things on his mind. A new age has dawned. He is back in charge but he is not the same man as last time. He left his spineless, indulgent side in the sweat and dirt and pain of Islamabad. You helped create the new stronger Saul, Carrie, you should be very proud. And now we have all moved on; what once was significant and relationships that mattered are no longer important. To put it as succinctly as I can; Saul is done with you. He has had enough of your delusional hunches, your uninhibited fucking of our assets and your uncontrollable mental illness - a man can only take so much. So, he's cutting you adrift rather like I am doing to Peter. All former alliances are off. There's no safety, no security anywhere now. The two of you are on your own - Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle fucking Dumber and we are moving into the endgame." Dar Adal's eyes were inscrutable as they bore into her.
Carrie hesitated, momentarily flummoxed by both the chilling intensity of the tirade and the message it delivered. Sensing her indecision, Quinn stepped forward, the Glock springing to his hand effortlessly as if gravitating to its natural place in the world. "We want answers," he demanded but his voice sounded uncharacteristically lacking in conviction as he asked, "What the fuck is going on?"
Dar Adal threw a scornfully savage glare at him and then completely ignored him as he continued to focus his penetrating attack pointedly towards Carrie. "This is all your fault, Carrie, of course. I recruited him, I brought him on. You ruined him. Oh, he always had his demons, but I humoured him, I nurtured him, allowed him the weakness because I knew he would never find the courage to get out, not really; he would always come back to me. He was mine. And then you came along. He was one of the best, never fucked up one mission not until you, now everything he touches is fucked." He shook his head sadly. "A good leader has to know when to cut his losses and make the difficult decisions. Peter is a wreck, damaged beyond repair, the proverbial train crash, good for nothing, like those other two idiots Delyth and Henshaw. Their only remaining value is to die and in doing so unite the rest of my team behind a common enemy - the Russian spy who killed them. What are three insignificant lives against the greater good?"
"You make it sound like a fucking team building exercise. How dare you throw the lives of brave men away!" Carrie tried to fight back as she sensed Quinn wavering unsteadily beside her.
"You really don't get it, do you, Carrie." Adal continued brandishing his words with the confidence of a skilled swordsman preparing for the killing stroke, his eyes flashing with vicious delight. "That is what the CIA has always done. That is what America has always done. It is the wisdom and benefit of old men like me that we wield the power to send young men to die for us. In order to keep the rest of us safe!"
Carrie's attention was suddenly drawn from Adal's hated face back to Quinn as, out of the corner of her eye, she became aware that the gun in his hand was shaking erratically. She glanced at him and a rush of horror clutched at her, causing her bowels to freeze. She could not look away as she noted the changes that had come over him in the few moments since their entry into the room. Not only was Quinn's hand shuddering shakily but his skin had lost all colour, fading to grey and resembling old, decaying parchment except around his cheekbones were a florid flush of fever burned, there was a sheen of sweat sparkling across his brow and his newly bloodshot eyes appeared to have sunken deep into his skull. Those eyes flared across at her, full of shocked confusion and fear and pain. She watched in horror as he lost his fight to keep hold of the gun, dropped it with a clatter, staggered forward, raising his hand to his mouth weakly as he coughed up a violent stream of scarlet blood and then fell to the floor with a pitiable groan.
"Quinn!" she screamed and was beside his spasming body as he gasped for air. His frantic eyes looked up at her, pleading silently, as she took hold of him.
Adal' s voice came closer as he moved around the table. "You really should not trust KGB agents, Carrie, have you learnt nothing? Of course there is a virus in Peter's bloodstream. No, it wasn't on the Russian bullet; such advancement in technology is unfortunately still too much for us. It was in the last injection the nurses gave him; not anti-viral drugs at all but something a whole lot more interesting and sinister. When was your last shot, Peter? Because I am reliably informed by Professor Addison, who developed this particular strain, has an incubation period of a little less than four hours before it begins to shut down all of the body's major organs." He shook his head with feigned sadness. "And I think you are out of time!"
While Carrie's attention had been on Quinn, a gun had appeared in Adal's hand and he waved it nonchalantly at her. "Move away from him," he ordered.
Ignoring his demand, Carrie looked Adal straight in the eye and with a voice bordering on the edge of panic, she asked. "What do you want?"
Adal rolled his eyes. "I want you to move away from him."
"I won't leave him. I won't let him die!"
Adal snorted. "This time it's a little too late for your misguided histrionics."
Quinn's eyes were now tightly shut, a dribble of blood was running down the side of his mouth, and he fought to take rasping, pain-filled breaths as his body convulsed. Carrie couldn't tell if he was even aware of what was happening but she really did not want to let him go; it felt like such a defeat; so final. Reluctantly she gave him one last reassuring squeeze, with extreme gentleness lay him down on the floor and moved away to stand in front of Adal and his triumphant smile.
"It was always going to end this way," Adal boasted exultantly. "As soon as you told me you knew about Haqqani and the arrangement I made in Islamabad, this was the only conclusion. You must understand that I can't let you live. Then the issue becomes how I can make as much use of you as possible before I finish you because, regardless of what you may feel at this moment, I do not dispose of resources until I absolutely have no other alternative. I must admit, after you disclosed your intel to me, I thought you would have done more to protect yourself but of course you were more concerned about dear Peter and saving that which could never be saved. It's a pattern you seem to repeat endlessly Carrie. Doesn't it get tedious, making the same mistakes over and over?"
She drew in a shuddering breath, forcing back the panic, the fear, trying to think her way out of this predicament as Adal continued, "Still, it will be over soon enough. Two birds with one stone, not bad, even for me. In one day I have gotten rid of Konarski and you; takes some doing, even for a skilled operator. You see why I needed you, of course; to draw him out. I knew he would take you as the bait, he never could resist a pretty blonde agent and you, with your weak yet touching concern and need to heal Quinn, guided me straight to him."
She felt it then, the same terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach as she had felt in Islamabad, the heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, crushing knowledge that all was lost. But this time it was worse, at least there she had salvaged something, this time it felt so irrevocable. She clenched her fists in frustration, longing to be able to smash that conceited, victorious grin off Adal's face, but his gun was between them and she knew she would never get to him.
"You bastard!" she spat, resorting to the only weapon she had left - words. "We are supposed to be on the same side."
"Only for as long as I need you," Adal chuckled. "Now, shall I tell you how it ends? This is the last time you will ever interfere with my plans. Crazy Carrie, the media's favourite fucked up CIA story, is about to run amok. She's going to shoot her colleague Peter Quinn and maybe another couple of operatives along the way. She is only going to be stopped by a bullet from quick-thinking, heroic Dar Adal, although I am going to keep my name out of the papers of course. Publicity is so not a good thing for the Head of Black Ops, obviously!"
He raised his gun. Carrie stood, trembling, her breath coming in soft hiccups, she channelled all of the impotent hate and frustrated anger that was rushing through her to eloquently glare at him. "You are a fucking self-serving, egotistical traitor!" she hissed.
"You surprise me, Carrie Mathison, I did not have you down as being so fucking naive," Dar said almost wistfully. "It is the way of the world; one man can determine the fate of nations but that power will never be in the hands of the dashing young assassin with a sniper rifle, it will always be with the grizzled, old veteran with a mobile phone and a huge bank account who manipulates and controls the youngster."
The gun shot rang out and Carrie jumped despite herself but there was no resulting pain, no blackness... no change at all. It took her a couple of seconds to open her eyes. When she did so, time seemed to have slowed down and the scene had grown distant from her, crystallising into greyness; all the colour had leeched away from the room except for the huge and growing crimson stain flowering on the chest of Dar Adal's pristine white shirt. His dark eyes, full of shock and surprise, looked down at it, back at her, and then began to glaze over.
"Not this fucking time, asshole!" The voice, through gritted teeth, drained and desperate but so brave, came from behind her and she turned to see Quinn had somehow retrieved his gun, pulled himself to his knees and taken the shot, even though his hands were shaking impossibly wildly. As she watched he groaned in agony, dropped the gun, crumpled in on himself and slowly fell forward at exactly the same time as Dar Adal's lifeless form hit the floor.
"Quinn!" Carrie shrieked.
The conference room door burst open and as the two burly guards entered, time rushed back to normal speed and colour returned. Carrie threw herself to Quinn's side, gathering him up in her arms, heedless of the danger the unknown virus may present to her. The heat that was radiating off him was immense and his damp, slippery body shivered so ferociously she had great difficulty in holding him. His eyes were tight shut, his face contorted in pain and as she held him, he retched up massive clots of blood.
"Medic!" she screamed as sheer terror took her. "Somebody get me a fucking medic!"
