Dog Will Have His Day

Summary: Alec is trying to catch the man who made him hurt Max, but he has to save her first...

Sorry, y'all... the Sunday afternoon nap was calling to me and it takes a whole heck of a lot for me to give it up.

Now, Alec's got to get his hands on that file for Kincaid...

Chapter Nine


Alec spread the plans out on the floor of the stolen van taking them toward the Hollybush offices in D.C. Mole and Dix had come through with flying colors. They had the entire security layout. They had the building's blueprints from the heavily secured walking tunnels beneath the building that led to various surrounding offices and parking garages, all the way to the rooftop. They had the office assignments for every agent in the building, all the way down to which security guards were working this particular shift. With so little lead time, it would still be a seat-of-their-pants op, but at least they would have good intel to work with.

The van took a corner sharply and Alec had to brace against the side to keep from falling over. The added pressure on his abdomen stole his breath away. He'd tried to sleep again on the plane from Seattle, knowing there was nothing else he could do until they got the information that would allow them to make plans for the op, but he'd been too worried. He'd left Max alone again, and now that Sig had been publicly humiliated, Alec had no doubt he'd lash out if he thought he could get away with it. In addition to that, every time Alec closed his eyes, his Swiss cheese brain reminded him that the Psy-Ops people had been digging around in there only a few days before. He tried to sleep and all he could see was blood and death, failure and pain.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly passed over him. His whole body just hurt. He'd been ignoring it because he had no other choice, but eventually it was going to catch up with him. He would crash and he just prayed it would be after he got all of this fixed and not before. Max was too important. She was hurting. She was depending on him.

Alec ordered himself to focus on the plans in front of him despite how the drawing seemed to swim in his vision. He couldn't afford to mess this up.

Slick, who was beside him also studying the plans, glanced toward him. "You sure you're up for this?" he asked quietly. "You don't look so good."

"I'll make it," Alec said. He had to.

Slick didn't seem particularly impressed, but he returned to staring at the blueprints, committing it all to memory in case of disaster.

Mole had gone above and beyond on the intel, but they still didn't know what they were really looking for. Agent Clark didn't have anything particularly special about him, and either they hadn't hacked into the right systems to find the files they were looking for, or there was nothing to find. Alec could only hope Kincaid knew what he was talking about.

"30 seconds," one of the guys called from up front.

"Ready," Alec called back. He and Slick both moved toward the sliding door at the side. They were both in fed style suits, stolen just for the occasion.

The van stopped several blocks away from the building and Alec and Slick casually stepped out onto the sidewalk. Alec brushed his suit coat down smooth and then he and Slick headed for the Hollybush office building while the others remained in the van taking care of surveillance. They'd already hacked into the building's security cameras and would be feeding information to them through their ear pieces.

"Alec?" Slick said, barely audible over the noise of passing traffic.

"What?"

"You wanna do me a favor?"

Alec glanced toward the other man. He was younger than him and looked like a strong breeze might knock him over, but Alec knew he could get them through almost any locked door in record time. Time and time again, Slick had proven to be a loyal and very, very valuable addition to Alec's team. Beyond that, however, Slick had shown himself to be a good guy, steady and solid when Alec had a tendency toward the wild and impulsive. He'd become a friend.

That didn't mean Alec was really feeling in the mood for a heart to heart right now. "What do you want?" he bit out.

"Take it down a notch," Slick requested, although without sounding disrespectful. "We're supposed to be feds. Try not to look like you care so much. You're just going into your office like you do every boring day of the week."

Alec had to grit his teeth. He knew it wasn't good for the job, but all he could see was Max, standing in the middle of their apartment shaking like a leaf, exhausted and in agony. The image had taken over everything else, including his ability to zone out and just do the job.

"Right." Alec shrugged the tension from his shoulders and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"You're not the only one who's pissed, ya know," Slick said straightly. "We all like Max. Well, most of us anyway," he qualified. "Compared to Manticore, working for you two is like a dream job. We're gonna make this right."

He sounded so sure, that Alec almost believed him. He needed to believe him. "Ok," was all he said, but he forced himself to calm down for Max's sake. He'd been in the middle of crapstorms before. He'd been surrounded, bullets flying, fellow soldiers dying and he'd still done his job. Right now that was all that mattered. The job.

The Hollybush was an older government building that had seen better days. That wasn't saying much though. Since the Pulse, the entire country looked like it had seen better days. The office building was medium sized, not too large, but big enough that there would be constant traffic in and out, enough that the guards wouldn't necessarily remark on two new faces, even if one of them really looked like that guy who'd shown up on TV a couple of times.

They approached the main doors and walked inside like they did it every day. Two uniformed men armed with machine guns stood just inside. Beyond them were a walk-through metal detector station and another pair of armed guards. Alec and Slick both took out their stolen ID and pulled their guns from beneath their jackets following the lead of the people entering in front of them, setting the guns down on a table then passing through the metal detector to pick up their weapons on the other side after one of the guards gave their ID a cursory glance.

Once again, they followed the flow of traffic, this time toward the stairs. Apparently the elevators were too expensive to be maintained, the ones for the peons anyway. Alec was willing to bet the bigwigs had one. It was always that way.

Alec led the way to the third floor, his body protesting at climbing the stairs, but he ignored it as they neared their goal. There were far fewer people now that they were out of the flow of all the incoming workers which meant they were more noticeably not one of the usual employees, so he kept a sharp eye out.

"The office should be around the corner, three doors down on your right," Alec heard through his ear piece. "You've got two males headed toward you."

Alec and Slick came around the corner and saw the two men walking toward them. "So I told Simon," Alec bluffed, "there was no way that report was going to get done this week." He turned his head toward Slick so that he was facing away from the agents, since he was more recognizable from his TV appearances. "After the mess with Graham, there's no way it's gonna happen."

Slick picked up the improvised story. "If you can't get the guy to cough up the information, then it doesn't matter anyway."

"Tell me about it," Alec muttered, trying for the slouch of the typical beleaguered civil servant. He saw one of the men nod in sympathy and then they were past and around the corner.

Alec stopped outside the office door. Judging from the information they'd gathered, there were several agents sharing the office and Agent Clark, who was slightly senior, was in a smaller adjoining office beyond. Clark's office also had a door into another large room housing a second pool of agents and desks. If something went wrong they would at least have a couple of ways out that didn't require breaking out a window and jumping three stories. Doable, but not the most inconspicuous.

"Stop worrying," Slick whispered. "You look so bad, I barely recognize you."

"Thanks for that," Alec ground out. He opened the door and strode in like he owned the place. Several men looked up from their desks scattered around the room. "Agent Clark?"

The closest one pointed to the small office toward the far rear corner of the room that they'd already pinpointed on the blueprints, and the rest of the agents went back to their paperwork.

Alec and Slick threaded their way through the maze of desks, cataloguing the position of every person and every piece of furniture in case a quick exit became necessary. No matter how well planned this operation was, there was always the possibility of it going wrong.

Alec stepped inside the office first, followed by Slick who shut the door behind him. Agent Clark was a balding, middle-aged man although still trim and from the look in his eyes, Alec would say a lot sharper than the average person.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually." Alec smiled serenely, adding only a hint of understated menace. "You can give us the Stephens file."

The man frowned. He put the pen he'd been writing with down and sat back in his chair to give Alec his full attention. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Stephens file. We need it." There wasn't a lot of finesse involved in this part of the plan, but they were on the clock.

Clark's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"Someone who needs that file."

"Well, unless you have some sort of paperwork from the director, you can get out of my office," the man snapped. "No one sees that file 'til I'm done."

"I don't have time for this." Alec pulled his gun and aimed it at Clark's head. "I want that file."

The man's eyes widened. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Do I look like I'm having fun?" Alec growled.

Suddenly, the second door into the office opened and then closed just as quickly. Knowing Slick would have his back, Alec didn't take his eyes off Clark. He did, however, feel it when the man raised a gun and set it against his temple.

Slick already had his own handgun pointed at the newest arrival. "Don't move."

"Put the guns down," the man replied. "Both of you. Now. Or I'll kill you and figure everything else out later."


More soon...