Traveler Season Two

by true-elven

Imagined as the second season of the ABC show Traveler, canceled after eight episodes summer 2007. Each chapter novelizes one episode, and each chapter has four parts told from four different character perspctives. Keep on travelin!

10. Chapter 10

Episode 10:

"Captivity"

Author's Note: Part 3 of this "episode" portrays a torture scene. In keeping with the spirit of the show, I have tried not to make the scene overly graphic, but be forewarned that it is more graphic than other "episodes."

Part 1

Will knew he shouldn't have been, but when Kate finally sent him an email describing her meet with Kensington, he was somewhat pleased to discover that he wasn't the only one who had been played for a fool. It seemed the Fourth Branch made a habit of training operatives for their own purposes, and then lying about what those purposes were.

Standing outside a record shop in Crystal City, Virginia, watching men and women in business attire hurry in and out of cafes and diners for lunch, Will reflected that perhaps he felt drawn to Kate because their backgrounds were so similar. Not that he'd known she was Branch, anymore than she had. But perhaps she had suspected it, as he had long ago begun to suspect that Hometown was not quite what it claimed to be, even though he would never in his wildest dreams have imagined it was Jack Freed's personal army. And perhaps that suspicion had made them kindred spirits even before she learned the truth.

He would ask her whether she'd harbored any doubts about her assignment, he decided, if they all made it out of this alive.

At the moment, Will was watching for the Branch representatives he, Jay and Tyler were meeting with to arrive at their pre-determined location: an empty office suite adjacent to a copy center and a laundromat in the busy Crystal City downtown. He was seeing to it that whichever two representatives the Branch sent, they followed the plan and didn't try to spring a trap.

Will had positioned Jay inside the laundromat and Tyler in their newly-stolen Honda in the alley behind the strip mall. Kate was in the trusty Ford Explorer on the upper deck of a parking garage across the street, from where, with a pair of high-powered binoculars that were also equipped with heat sensors and night-vision, she could keep an eye on things while the others were inside. It was good to be equipped by the CIA again, she had told Will happily, holding the binoculars up like a new toy.

Upon arriving at the seedy roadside motel just outside D.C. where the group had spent the night – by the time Kate contacted him, Will already had them near the city, having abandoned the Pennsylvania safehouse following his chat with Kensington – Kate had explained that the plan was quite simple. From his limo, Kensington had called several Branch members whom (he claimed) were as oblivious to the Morbus plot as he was and would definitely want it stopped. After taking advice from them, he had called Maxwell Abrams, the CEO of Fallbrook Dunn, and told him that Will, Jay and Tyler claimed to have evidence that could send Branch members, including Abrams, to death row, but they were willing to deal. Kensington hadn't mentioned that he whole-heartedly supported what Will was doing, naturally; whether he did or not, Will understood that Kensington was in a tight spot, playing both sides off one another to stay alive. It was a position Will could appreciate.

In short, the Branch had agreed to the meet, and Kate had arranged things to be as safe for their group as she possibly could. Will knew they were all thinking about the last time they had attempted a peaceful exchange with the Branch; they had no guarantees this encounter would not go the same way. But, seeing as how they had little choice, no one had suggested backing out at this point.

Kim had not liked being left behind at the motel, but for once, Jay had stood firm. "There's no reason for all of us to be there," he had insisted, with Will backing him up. "If something goes wrong and we get caught, somebody has to be left to keep trying to stop this biological attack, right?"

Unable to assail that logic, Kim had grudgingly agreed to stay behind. Liz, Will had noted, did not seem particularly eager to throw herself in harm's way again. He sensed that the budding romance between her and Tyler was pretty seriously on the rocks.

"Here we go," Will muttered, mostly to himself, as an approaching black sedan signaled his spy-senses that the enemy was nigh. Speaking quietly out of the corner of his mouth so as not to attract attention, he said just loudly enough for the others could hear him in their earpieces, "I've got a vehicle approaching…Okay, this is definitely it. Jay, can you see how many people are inside?"

Seated by the laundromat's front window with a red cap pulled low over his eyes, Jay was visible to Will from where he stood and also had a clear view of the street in front of their rendezvous point. "Looks like a driver up-front, but the windows are tinted too dark for me to see in the back," he admitted. "Wait, someone's getting out – it's Chambers and Abrams. You seeing this, Will?"

Will was. "Any movement back there, Tyler?" he inquired of his friend in the alley, watching Abrams and Chambers stand awkwardly in front of the empty office suite.

Let 'em sweat for a minute. Set the tone for who's in charge.

"All clear," Tyler replied.

"Kate?"

"I don't see anything suspicious from up here, but I'll keep my eyes peeled," she replied from her high-rise perch. "I'm scanning inside the office suite now…The heat sensors aren't picking anyone up…Nope, nobody in there. You guys are good to go."

So they went. Will started across the street, which was Jay's cue to slip out the side door of the laundromat, meet Tyler in the alley, and enter the office suite through the back.

Chambers spotted Will first and stiffened. "Hi, Max. Hi, Fred," Will greeted them cockily. He didn't actually feel very confident, but he knew appearances were everything in this sort of op: He who assumed control usually kept control. To Chambers, he added, "How's the arm?"

Chambers glared at him without responding. Will opened the front door, which was already unlocked, and motioned for the men to step inside.

Anticipating the change from the bright sunlight to the building's dim interior, Will had worn a pair of sunglasses so his eyes would have no trouble adjusting. Chambers and Abrams had not; they stood dazed for a moment, waiting for their vision to clear. That was enough time for Will to snatch the Colt .45 out of Chambers' hip holster. Abrams did not appear to be packing, although Will would not have bet his life on the man being unarmed.

"Hey," Chambers protested.

Will moved away from them in a wide curve, heading for the center of the large, empty room. Jay and Tyler had slipped quietly in the back and were standing there, eyeing their opponents warily.

"Just making sure things stay friendly, Fred," Will soothed the agent's ruffled feathers. He kept the gun on them, though, as he continued, "Now, let's talk about how much you two and all your friends don't want to go to federal prison."

Some tough talking ensued: Chambers insisted that the Branch could plausibly deny any evidence Will might have, which was of course a ploy to find out just what they did have. Understanding how the game was played, Will had Jay, who was carrying a backpack containing copies of some of their evidence, play recordings of phone conversations between Abrams, Buchanan, Drummond, Chambers, and other Branch members; meanwhile, Chambers and Abrams perused the photographs and electronic records Will's team had gathered over the past month, each piece of evidence adding up to a more damning whole. Still, Chambers said when they had seen all Will was willing to show them at the moment, they didn't have a single piece of evidence that couldn't have been doctored or forged.

Will loved having an ace in the hole. "That's true," he answered agreeably. "Except for one thing: We have a sample of Morbus."

Chambers and Abrams gaped at him like he had just sprouted wings. "You do not," Chambers finally offered weakly.

Will thought about saying, Do too, but that would just have been petty. "Actually, Fred, I do. Bluish-colored powder, looks a little bit like laundry detergent? That sound close? Comes in a neat little black case with 'Belenus Pharmaceuticals' printed on the side, too. Probably be a collector's item someday, you know, part of the biggest scandal of the twenty-first century."

His threat of exposure was well-placed. Chambers shifted uneasily. "Assuming that we were to make a deal with you," he said, "what assurances would we have that you would actually hand over all of this evidence? Or that you wouldn't have already sent a copy to the press?"

So now we're dealing.

Kate's voice in Will's ear gave him pause, however. "Something's not right, Will. I've counted four men watching your building from across the street, all of them trying to blend in. And now I've got a van approaching down the alley."

Will didn't hesitate: They couldn't risk being trapped. "I guess you won't be getting any assurances from me today, Fred, because it appears you two didn't keep your end of the deal," Will announced. Jay and Tyler, having heard Kate's report in their own comms, were on his heels as he started for the door. Normally one for quiet exits, Will wanted the busy street for protection in this instance, so he headed for the front rather than the back.

Will didn't make many mistakes. Unfortunately, going out the front proved to be one.Chambers and Abrams made no attempt to stop them – probably a smart move on their part, considering both Will and Jay now had guns trained on them. Will grasped the handle of the glass front door and started to shove outward; just as he did so, someone – someone who had most likely been waiting for that moment – pushed the door roughly toward him from the other side.

Will felt his nose crack as the door connected squarely with his face. Stumbling back into the room, he was momentarily blinded as his eyes watered with pain. In the span of seconds, the Fourth Branch gained the upper-hand: The four men Kate had spotted outside swarmed into the room from the front, while six more men poured in through the back door. Surrounded, Will, Jay and Tyler stood in a loose circle near the front door, Jay still pointing his gun at Chambers and Abrams.

"Give it up, Traveler. It's over."

Blinking to clear his vision and swiping blood away from his busted nose, Will already knew to whom that voice belonged: Tyrese Franklin. He had heard it several times over the phone in the past month.

"You!" Tyler cried, indignant. "You were supposed to be helping us!"

"I told you before, kid, it's nothing personal." Franklin aimed a .9 millimeter at Jay's head. "Put the gun on the floor, son, and kick it to me. Trust me, Traveler is not worth dying for."

"Screw you." Jay's gun-hand never wavered, nor did he take his eyes off Chambers and Abrams. "Go ahead and shoot me if you want, but I'm taking one of them down with me."

Will had to hand it to Jay, he had guts. "I don't think we're going to come quietly, Franklin," he commented to the man who had been responsible for his training. "And anyway, what good is it going to do you to kill us? You know we have other people working with us, people who can still bring all of our evidence to light. You might want to check in with your buddies over at Justice, actually. I think they've heard a pretty interesting story about you all lately."

Franklin smiled almost sympathetically at Will. "You mean Otis Whaley? He's dead. I took care of him myself, this morning. Harold Stone needs to learn the meaning of 'witness protection.'"

"Without Whaley alive, his testimony isn't going to carry much weight." Abrams spoke for the first time during the entire incident. "His story had a lot of holes in it – holes big enough to permit reasonable doubt, at the very least.

"And as for killing you," he went on, "don't be silly, Will. We're going to let you and your friends take responsibility for your terrorist actions. You're going to confess to creating the People's Militia and inaugurating your organization by blowing up the Drexler. And you're going to tell us where this evidence you say you have is hidden, so we can clear up that little problem well before your trials."

With ten armed men closing in on him, Will was finding it difficult to make witty banter, but he tried to sound calm for his friends' sakes. C'mon, Kate, he silently pleaded, knowing she could hear everything that was happening, get your ass in here already and save us!

Unless Kensington double-crossed her, and she's dead out there. Or maybe she double-crossed you, and she's laughing her head off right now at what a gullible idiot you are…

Ordering himself to focus, Will rejoined, "Sounds like you're expecting quite a few favors out of us, Max. How exactly do you plan on extracting those?"

"Piece by piece, if I have to." Abrams' voice was ice-cold: It had the desired effect on Jay and Tyler, who shivered, though Will was well-trained enough not to react. "You see, Will, I know you can withstand torture – I've seen your training videos, quite impressive. I suppose we'll torture you anyway, just because you've given us a lot of headaches over the past seven weeks, but we're going to start with your friends here and let you watch. Our psych profiles tell us that will be the most expedient way to secure your cooperation."

"How many people have to die before you realize that you can't fight us, Will?" Chambers was now playing good cop to Abrams' bad cop. "Just put the guns down and let's talk. Nobody has to be tortured – "

Whatever else Chambers was going to promise was interrupted by Kate's grand entrance: Saying, "Hold your breaths," into the boys' earpieces, she kicked open the back door and tossed in a smoke grenade.

All around them, agents dropped their weapons as their eyes watered and their lungs filled with smoke. Forewarned, Jay, Tyler and Will avoided drawing in a lung-full of the acrid fumes; this gave them a momentary advantage, and Will took it. Eyes burning from the thick fog gathering around them, he grasped Jay's and Tyler's elbows and steered them in what he hoped was the direction of the back door.

His chest burned with the need to draw breath by the time Will shoved them through the door into the fresh air of the alleyway. "Come on," he ordered, pushing his friends ahead of him toward the Explorer, which Kate had left running. She was sliding behind the wheel. "Go!"

The door behind them burst open and a spray of gunfire sent Will, Jay and Tyler scattering in all directions. Landing belly-down on the pavement hard enough to wind himself, Will rolled over and returned fire, unsurprised somehow to find that Tyrese Franklin was the shooter: Franklin was far too tough to be out-done by a smoke bomb.

"Go!" Will shouted at Jay and Tyler again, seeing them cowering at opposite ends of the Explorer. "Get in the goddamn car, now!"

Tyler obeyed instantly, running around to jump in the passenger's side, but Jay hesitated. Will knew what he was thinking, because Will was thinking it to: I'm pinned down. If I give up my position, they'll capture us all.

Still squeezing off rounds at the door to hold Franklin and his comrades at bay, Will called over his shoulder to Jay, "Think about Kim, Jay! You've got to get out of here. Just go, I'll be fine!"

He heard a car door slam. "Go," Kate was yelling at Jay as well. "We've got this, go!"

"Dammit, Kate, get back in the car," Will snarled as she crouched down beside him, firing at the back door while he reloaded.

"Shut-up and focus," Kate snapped back. "We have to get out of this alley before – "

Too late. Just as Jay and Tyler roared out of the alley into the heavy noontime traffic, causing an eruption of blaring horns and squealing tires, another white van came barreling down the alley from the other side. Agents began streaming out of the back doors of the laundromat and the copy center as well.

They were trapped.

Will glanced at Kate. The question in her eyes was unmistakable: Give up or fight back?

"Drop the gun now, Traveler, or I put a bullet in her head." Franklin had stepped into the alley and was pointing his pistol directly at Kate's forehead. When Will hesitated, he demanded, "You want to be responsible for two girlfriends' deaths?"

I'm going to kill you, all of you, I swear to God…

Burning with impotent rage, Will dropped his gun. Franklin immediately swung his pistol toward Will and told Kate, "Your turn, honey. Drop it or watch me blow that handsome face off."

Kate didn't hesitate: She dropped her weapon.

Agents descended on them, hauling them to their feet and cuffing their hands behind their backs. Will refused to let himself be frightened. They were captured; whatever happened now, happened. At least Jay and Tyler had gotten away. Hopefully, with Marlow and Stone and (if he hadn't been in on the double-cross) Kensington to help them, they would be able to stop the Morbus attack – somehow.

Chambers strode up to Will and smirked at him. "You know, Traveler, I've been wanting to do this for over a month now," he remarked. Before Will could ask what "this" was, Chambers raised his gun and slammed the handle of it into Will's temple.

The world went dark as Will fell sideways, hearing Kate call his name…

Sometime later, he woke with the odd sensation that he was floating. His head seemed to be disconnected from his body, except where a tendril of pain ran through his skull; his arms seemed to be gone, dead, no longer part of him. Will wondered for one panicky moment if he was already dead, but then his vision slowly cleared, and he saw that he was in fact still alive.

Though shortly, he suspected he would wish that he wasn't.

He couldn't feel his arms because they were tied above his head, Will realized, and had gone to sleep. Tipping his head back – a ribbon of pain unfurled behind his eyes when he moved his neck, causing him to gasp – he saw that his wrists were bound with what appeared to be twine to a long metal pipe running the length of a cavernous room. He assumed the Branch had taken him and Kate to some out-of-the-way location for interrogation, from the looks of the place probably a warehouse.

Somewhere no one would hear their screams.

Will quickly took stock of his situation. He had been stripped to the waist but, aside from a pounding headache, he seemed to be uninjured. Hanging like a slab of meat from a hook was going to get uncomfortable in a hurry, he noted, though he could handle discomfort. It was the mind-numbing pain he wasn't looking forward to.

You won't tell them anything.

Even if they torture Kate?

Well, he hadn't told her the truth about the painting's location when he'd thought she was having Maya tortured, so Will felt fairly confident that he could get through Kate's interrogation somehow without folding. If not…Well, the others would just have to find another way to stop the Branch. He could only do what he could do.

At that moment, a door opened somewhere behind him, and Will heard shuffling footsteps approaching: It sounded like someone was being drug into the room. He steeled himself for what was to come.

"Hello, Will."

Alex.

His heart sank into his shoes. Alex, whom he had shot and tortured several weeks ago. Alex, whose lover, Vi, he had killed. Alex, who had every reason to want to cause him as much pain as possible.

"Hi, Alex," he said back, managing to sound unconcerned. He watched as Alex and a nameless thug man-handled Kate (who looked unharmed, he was thankful to see) into a straight-backed chair a few feet in front of him. Kate's eyes held an unmistakable glint of fear as the man bound her ankles tightly with rope and Alex strapped her wrists to the chair arms with leather restraints.

Whatever they do to us, we'll be fine, Will tried to tell her with his eyes, even though he wasn't sure that was true.

Finishing with Kate, Alex stood and sauntered over to Will, stopping in front of him and walking her fingertips up his bare chest. He refused to flinch away. "Hey, baby," she purred. "Thought you'd killed me, didn't ya?"

"Don't leave me like this!" he heard Alex beg. And, because he hadn't wanted to hurt her, he had said simply, "You're not the one I want."

Alex seemed to read his thoughts. "Wishing you'd shot me in the face, aren't you?"

"I didn't want to shoot you at all, Alex," he reminded her. "You were going to throw a knife into my chest, remember?"

"Hey, sweetie, I've already forgiven you for what happened between us. It wasn't personal." Alex was wheeling a small metal table around in front of Will – a table stocked with cruel-looking, hooked and curved and sharp implements. Will ignored them: He knew torture tactics well enough to know that the first stage was anticipation, letting the victim see what could be used to hurt him.

"Now, Vi, though, that's a different story. That feels kind of personal." Alex was running her fingers over the shiny scalpels. Selecting a short one, she held it up as if considering what she could slice off of him with it.

"But none of this is personal, is it, Will? It's just our jobs." She placed the scalpel back on the tray and came to stand beside him, turning her eyes on Kate. "I hear this is your new girlfriend, Will. You sure do work fast. Is the other one even cold yet?"

Wishing he could get a hand free to punch her in the face, Will refused to take the bait. Alex might torture him, but she wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing him affected by whatever she said.

"Kate's my partner, Alex. I realize that means something different to you than it does to me, but for us, that doesn't involve screwing."

Alex laughed, a deep, throaty sound that frightened Will more than if she had shouted at him. "Oh, Will, I forgot how catty you are."

She directed her next words to Kate: "How about you, Beauty? How cold are you?" Reaching up, she grabbed a handful of Will's hair and jerked his head back roughly, causing pain to shoot through his temple again. "Can you watch me take him apart, one pretty little piece at a time? I know how much pain he can withstand. But how much can you watch?"

"You're wasting your time," Will told her hoarsely, his throat stretched so that it was difficult to speak. Alex let go of his hair, and his head fell forward. "She doesn't know where the evidence is. I'm the only who does."

"How interesting. Is that true, Beauty?"

Kate didn't answer. Her eyes were locked onto Will's, as if she were trying to silently warn him of what was getting ready to happen. He suddenly became acutely aware that the nameless thug was somewhere in the room, somewhere behind him where he couldn't see what he was doing.

Anticipation is the first step in torture. Don't let them get to you.

Will shut down the part of himself that could experience fear. He knew Kate saw his eyes lose their spark; he realized that was what she had intended, for she hadn't wanted him to be caught off-guard where he might give something away at the first shock of pain.

"Well, I guess we'll find out if you're telling the truth or not," Alex shrugged, when it became obvious that Kate didn't mean to answer her. To Will, she said, "You know, honey, I think she really might love you. What do you say we find out how much?"

He heard the tell-tale buzz of something electric starting up seconds before he felt the metal pipe above him begin to vibrate. His mind suddenly made the connection: metal pipe, wire twine on his wrists – he was hooked up to something with enough voltage to cause him a good deal of pain.

Will shut his eyes and tried not to scream as the current crashed into his body.

Part 2

Waiting for Tyler, Jay, Will and Kate to make it back from their meeting with the Fourth Branch, Liz thought – not for the first time – that she wasn't cut out for this sort of life. On the heels of that came a rather new but no less nagging thought:

And I don't want to be.

Liz missed her life. She knew all of them did. Kim frequently described to her all of the different things she saw that she would like to photograph, and Jay always seemed to be grabbing a newspaper to read about First Amendment rights or Supreme Court decisions, and Tyler could never quite pretend not to have one ear cocked whenever the Stock Market report came on. All of them missed the worlds they had struggled to make for themselves, Liz appreciated that. It was just, ever since Tyler had undergone his troubling metamorphosis from really sweet guy to really big jerk half the time, she couldn't stop thinking that she didn't belong here.

Not that the others did. But still, her situation was different; she was involved only by happenstance, not because she had been targeted, like Jay and Tyler, or because she had joined some clandestine operation, like Will and Kate, or because she had chosen to stand by her man, like Kim. She was with them because a one-night stand had mistakenly led the FBI to believe that she knew Tyler's whereabouts. Had they never been caught on camera, she would have gone on with her life with a thrilling anecdote to tell her friends about the night she unwittingly spent with "that bomber guy."

Knowing that her life had been turned upside-down for no reason made it increasingly difficult for Liz to stay committed to their cause, especially when Tyler was giving her very little encouragement to do so. She found herself wishing with growing frequency that she had taken Will up on his offer to send them into hiding if they wanted to go.

Nobody would call me "Sunny" now. More like Gloomy, or Grumpy…

Liz sat beside Kim on the cheap sofa in the sleazy motel room Will had rented for them the night before. Together, they stared out at the humid August day and willed the Fates to have mercy on their friends. If everything went well, perhaps by this afternoon they would have their lives back.

And maybe, once the stress of being on the run was removed from his shoulders, Tyler would be able to deal with his father's death properly. Maybe he would let her help, instead of pushing her away only to reel her back in whenever he needed someone to lean on, and they could work at getting things back to the way they had been before.

"They should be back by now," Kim fretted for the thirtieth time, as the clock ticked toward three in the afternoon.

Placing a sympathetic hand over her friend's, Liz scolded herself for being so self-pitying. She could only imagine how desperately Kim wanted her life back, for the sake of her unborn children as well as herself.

"They'll be okay, Kim. Will and Kate know what they're doing."

"Will and Kate are up against some pretty incredible odds," Kim reminded her, worrying a strand of hair between her fingers. "Maybe we should have just disappeared, gone into hiding like Will suggested…"

Before Liz could think of a way to respond, a key suddenly turned in the lock. Both girls immediately leapt to their feet, clasping one another's hands for strength.

Tyler's face as he stepped over the threshold told Liz everything she needed to know: The situation was not even close to fixed.

Heart plummeting into her shoes, Liz tried to focus on the positive, as was her nature. Tyler didn't appear to be hurt; he was sweaty and grimy, but she saw no blood or bruises. Jay rushed in behind him, looking equally disheveled but also unharmed.

No Will. No Kate. Oh no, please no…

Liz wasn't sure how much death and destruction she could stand. She put the hardest question to Tyler straight off: "Where are they?"

"I-I…" Tyler waved his hand helplessly, seemingly too overcome to speak. He turned to lean his forehead against the wall, which he punched once, though not hard enough to make noise that would attract attention from their neighbors.

Jay, who had gone directly to Kim and wrapped his arms around her, looked at Liz over the top of his wife's head. "They may be dead," he admitted. Kim began to cry. "I'm pretty sure they got captured, at least. It was a trap."

"Kensington set you up?" Liz felt dizzy and sank down onto the couch. She glanced at Tyler, wishing he would come put his arms around her like Jay had with Kim, but once again he seemed too caught up in his own emotions to notice hers. He had turned to face them yet didn't seem to be actually seeing anything.

He's had a terrible shock, give him a break – if there was a shoot-out, it had to remind him of losing his father.

Despite her compassion for Tyler, though, Liz had to admit that telling herself to be patient with him over and over again was wearing thin.

"I'm not sure. Franklin sure as hell was in on the double-cross." Jay sounded bitter, his voice brittle with rage. "I should have known better than to trust that guy. There was always something not quite right about him."

"What are we going to do?" Wiping tears from her eyes, Kim had once more assumed the stoicism Liz so admired in her. "Did Will have a back-up plan?"

"Probably dozens. But he didn't share any of them with us," Tyler muttered.

Jay shook his head. "That's not really true, Tyler. Will told me this morning something might go wrong, and if it did, he said for me and you to get out and come back here for the girls. He said to call Marlow and see what she knew on her end, and to work with her – and Kate, I don't think he planned on letting her be captured anymore than Tyler or me. He said they'd have some ideas, and to listen to them."

The way he stopped suddenly tipped Liz off that Will had said more than that. She wondered if anyone else picked up on it, but they didn't seem to.

"I'd better go make that call," Jay decided, squeezing Kim before releasing her. He headed toward the second bedroom (given the size of their group, Will had rented them what qualified as a "suite" in this dump) and shut the door behind him.

Kim was deathly pale. Liz stood up and led her over to the couch, chafing Kim's cold hands between hers. "You have to stay calm, Kim," she cautioned her friend. "For the babies."

Tyler walked over and dropped into a chair across from them. He looked miserable and frightened, like Liz felt. "I don't know what we're going to do now," he confessed. "Will's the only one of us who knows where all that evidence we worked so hard for even is. We never should have gone in there without making him tell us where he'd put it. I think we're totally screwed now."

Not the one who was generally quickest to defend Will, whom she still found a little unnerving with his chameleon-like personality, Liz was nevertheless irritated by Tyler's ingratitude. "Will was trying to protect us. It's safer if we don't know too much."

"Safer, yeah, but how does being safe help us get our lives back, or stop this attack the Branch is planning?" Tyler ran a hand through his hair, obviously frustrated. "I just wish Will would stop protecting us and let us help. You should have heard him, the minute bullets started flying: 'Go! Get yourselves out!' I mean, Jesus, we just…We just left them there…"

Liz suddenly understood what punching the wall had been all about: Tyler was furious with himself for not being able to save Will and Kate. She felt some of her annoyance with him slip away; she started to move over beside him, ready to pull him into a comforting embrace, but Tyler held up a hand to stave her off.

Wounded, Liz dropped back into her seat. She could not for the life of her understand what was going on with them. They still made love; Tyler was an expert lover, tender and passionate and considerate, and she couldn't deny that she looked forward to turning the lights out at night even when she was aggravated with him. But he no longer did the other little things she had so adored, like grabbing her hand for no reason, or out of the blue telling her she was gorgeous, or cuddling her close, like he couldn't stand to be even an inch from her, when they began to drift off to sleep. He was withdrawn and taciturn, closed off and determined to keep her at a distance.

At first, Liz had told herself it was nothing more than losing his father, and she had been more than willing to make plenty of allowances for Tyler's grief. When his treatment of her went from inconsiderate to downright hurtful, in moments like the brush-off he had just given her, she had told herself that the shine wore off of every relationship; infatuation became something more commonplace, couples stopped giggling and holding hands everywhere they went, people got comfortable snoring in front of each other and arguing with each other and even living their own lives without always including one another. But what was happening between her and Tyler, she had begun to realize, was more than that. Reality was bleeding across her fairytale romance, making her wonder if Tyler had ever felt anything real for her at all.

I know what I feel for him. But like the song says, sometimes love just ain't enough…

Jay chose that moment to emerge from the bedroom. "They're alive," he declared, and a collective sigh of relief sounded from their trio.

He took a seat on the other side of Kim, draping a protective arm around her shoulders. "Marlow spoke to Kensington. She doesn't think he was involved – she said he was royally pissed that Franklin had betrayed them, and he's already had him rounded up for interrogation. She said Kensington sounded pretty scared for himself because apparently he's thought Franklin was working for him for some time now, and he's shared a lot of secrets with the guy."

"So he can make Franklin tell us where Will and Kate are?" Kim looked hopeful.

Jay told her gently, "I'm not sure, baby. I hope so. But he's tough. If he doesn't want to tell, I don't know if Kensington can make him – at least not soon enough to do Will and Kate any good. And Marlow said Franklin wasn't being particularly cooperative."

"Is Whaley really dead?" Tyler asked. Seeing the girls' bewildered expressions, he explained, "Franklin told us he killed him."

"Why would they do that?" Liz was disgusted by all of the violence and mayhem the Branch dispensed seemingly without a single qualm. "He already told everything he knew, didn't he? What would be the point?"

To Tyler, Jay said, "Yeah, he's dead. Marlow said they killed one of Stone's old Marine buddies and a couple of NSA agents in the process of getting the job done."

Liz felt even sicker. So much death, so much loss, and for what? A little bit of power? A bigger slice of the American dream?

Turning to Liz, Jay tackled her question. "The Branch is trying to destroy our credibility," he explained. "Marlow told me Whaley's testimony was pretty damning stuff, but it was going to require a lot of follow-up – they'd already done two more interviews with him, and both had led to even more witnesses they needed to produce and more evidence, like murder weapons and wire transfers, they needed to locate.

"His deposition may be enough to get an arrest warrant for people like Fred Chambers, but without Whaley around to help with the investigation as more questions come up, or to stand in front of a judge and jury himself to tell what's really a crazy-sounding tale, she doesn't think they stand a chance of getting a conviction. Much as I hate to say it, I agree with her," Jay admitted. "In fact, I'd be surprised, with their star witness dead and so little to go on, if they could even get an arrest warrant. Search warrants would probably be out of the question."

"So what does Marlow suggest we do?" Tyler asked what Liz was preparing to. "How are we getting Kate and Will back?"

Jay looked carefully at each of his friends in turn. "You guys know that I love Will, right? And I appreciate everything Kate has done for us, and I wouldn't want her to be hurt?"

Oh my God, Liz realized, with dawning horror, we're not going after them.

"Don't say it." Tyler seemed to know what was coming, too. "Jay, you know what the Branch will do to them. We can't – "

"We can't let the Branch unleash a biological attack on the American people and then blame us for it, either, Tyler," Jay cut him off.

He looked angry that he was being asked to make such a decision, and Liz sympathized. Jay was a good man, too good of a man to be put in such an awful position, choosing between the rescue of his friends and the safety of his country. "Will told me again this morning not to forget the mission. Our first priority has to be keeping the Branch from putting Morbus into play. Think of all the people who will die if that happens. This is bigger than us now, Tyler, bigger than any of us – including Will and Kate."

Kim spoke up tentatively, still pale but her voice strong. "Will wouldn't want you to worry about him right now, I know it. He would want you to work with Marlow to stop the Branch. If he wasn't willing to die for this, he wouldn't have gone into that meeting."

Liz could hear in her friend's voice how frightened she was for Will and thought again what a curious bond those two shared. She had suspected for a while that maybe they had feelings for one another – Will was cute, though not Liz's type – yet seeing Kim's adoration for Jay and Will's grief over Maya, that hadn't tracked. She thought now that Kim saw Will more as a brother, like she did Tyler, only her connection to Will was deeper because they seemed to understand one another in a way Tyler and Kim didn't.

The long and the short of it was, if Kim and Jay were both willing to sacrifice Will for the greater good, Liz had to believe it was the right thing to do. As she thought about the difficulties that lay ahead, however, she was overcome again by the desire to simply run away, to let other people sort out this mess.

"Fine," Tyler was agreeing, his voice clipped. "What does Marlow want to do?"

"She wants to go to Miami and blow up Buchanan's lab."

Kim gasped; Tyler choked; Liz sighed. Well, here we go on another Mission: Impossible.

Jay turned to Kim. "Will said something else this morning," he admitted quietly. Liz couldn't help being proud of herself for picking up on the fact that Jay was holding back earlier; maybe she had spy-skills after all. "He said if this didn't work, if the Branch wouldn't deal or they somehow double-crossed us, that you and Liz needed to leave. You needed to go into hiding."

"We've been in danger this whole time," Kim protested. "Why now?"

"Will said once the Branch knows the kind of evidence we have against them, they'll stop playing nice and do whatever it takes to silence all of us," Jay persisted. "I told him I couldn't believe what we've been through was 'playing nice,' but he swore that we haven't seen anywhere near the full power of this organization yet. He made me promise, Kim, that I wouldn't let anything happen to you or Liz."

"Well, Will should know me better than that. I'm not leaving you," Kim declared stubbornly.

Liz could feel Tyler's gaze on her and knew he was picking up on the fact that she wasn't pronouncing her determination to stay. Tears pricked her eyes, tears she refused to let fall. She hadn't decided yet what she would do, but the offer of an escape certainly sounded tempting.

"He said you'd argue with me. He said if you did, I was to tell you to remember why we're fighting." Jay shrugged, as if to say he had no idea what that meant. "He said you'd understand."

From the look on Kim's face, she did: Her protests seemed to die on her lips. Unconsciously placing a hand over her belly, she said slowly, "How…How did he intend for us to get away?"

"Thad." Jay cast a grateful smile in Tyler's direction. "Apparently, your brother was dead serious about offering any help we needed. Will said he spoke to him, and he has your family's private jet on standby to pick the girls up and take them to a secure location."

"If I go, you'll have to call me every chance you get," Kim instructed Jay shakily. He pulled her against his chest, rocking her gently back and forth. "You have to be careful, Jay. You have to swear you'll come back to us."

"I will, baby, I will."

Sensing that the newlyweds could use a little time alone, Liz and Tyler stood at the same moment. He inclined his head toward the bedroom; she nodded that she would follow. To Jay, Tyler said, "I'll make the call to Thad, get it all set up. Then we can meet up with Marlow and get underway."

In the bedroom with the door closed, Tyler walked over and sat on the bed. Liz sank down beside him, heart pounding and eyes stinging with unshed tears.

"You should go," he said firmly, looking at the floor. "You've been through enough."

"Will you be okay if I go?" Liz was honestly worried about that. Tyler had seemed so lost, so adrift, these past weeks; angry as she was with him, hurt as she was by his behavior, eager as she was to be out of constant danger and turmoil, she didn't want to leave if it would mean him falling apart at such a crucial time.

Tyler lifted his gaze to hers. She saw a spark of the man she had first met there – arrogant, self-assured, determined. "I'll be fine. I think Will's right, I think this is about to get even worse – if that's possible – and I think I'll be better if I know you're somewhere safe. Besides," he added, "Kim needs you. You've been a really good friend to her, and being separated from Jay is going to eat her up inside."

The fact that Tyler wanted her to go didn't surprise Liz. She knew he cared about her safety. Yet she also sensed a finality in this good-bye, a finality he seemed to feel as well.

How do you end a relationship with someone who may die trying to save the world?

It felt wrong, somehow, but Liz didn't think she could bear to go with things so unsettled between them. Taking a deep breath, she told him, as honestly as she could, "Tyler, I love you. I know we haven't known each other very long, but we've been together under some pretty intense circumstances, and I think that makes what we feel for each other stronger.

"But if I leave now, I…I'll really be leaving." She swallowed around a rock-sized lump in her throat. "Do you understand?"

Tyler seemed unable to speak, so he nodded. He reached out and gripped her hand, lifting her fingers to his lips. Liz's tears spilled over. As they did, he finally opened his arms to her and held her until she was quiet.

"You're the best thing to come out of this insanity, you know that?" he said into her hair. "I'll never regret meeting you, Liz. You've been incredible. You've saved my life, even if you don't know it."

Liz kissed him softly on the lips. "Maybe things will be different when all of this is over," she offered, though she sensed that something had been decided between them – something that couldn't be undone. "Whatever happens, though, Tyler, please be careful. I don't know if I could stand it if anything happened to you."

"Don't worry about me. If I survived helping you make a wedding dress overnight, I can blow up a secret government lab, no problem."

They laughed together, and Liz felt more at peace than she had in weeks. That alone told her that leaving now was the right decision, for her and for Tyler.

Part 3

After four interminable hours, during which Kate actually thought she might lose her mind, the woman Will had called Alex finally turned off her electro-shock machine, put away her scalpels, and had Will and Kate tossed unceremoniously into separate cells. It was not a huge improvement, to be sure; the cells contained only a cot, a sink and a toilet apiece, and both were beyond filthy. Kate nearly choked on the unmistakable stench of human blood and excrement.

But at least she wasn't being forced to watch as Will was tortured.

Their cells were separated by nothing but bars, which Kate, being slender, could easily reach both arms through up to the shoulders. Housed in a back corridor of the warehouse, their cells offered at least the illusion of privacy, since Alex did not leave any guards to watch over them as she closed the heavy outer door behind her.

Kate moved immediately to the bars between her cell and Will's. He was lying on his back fairly close to her, breathing slowly but steadily. She stretched her hand through the bars and caught his wrist, tugging him closer; he groaned as he inched her way. He had been shocked a half-dozen times. Kate could only imagine how badly his body was aching at the moment.

She took stock of his injuries: black eyes from a busted nose (that had happened before she tried to rescue them in Crystal City, she assumed), purple-green bruise on his temple from Chambers' pistol-handle, swollen cuts on his wrist where the twine had bitten into his skin. And, on the inside of his right arm, three letters carved into the tender flesh: O-L-I. Alex had promised they would finish spelling out the name "Olivia" soon.

At least I know what "Vi" was short for now…

Kate started with the cuts on Will's arm, because they were most likely to become infected in their disgusting surroundings. She wet a few papertowels at her sink and gently dabbed at the dried blood, noting with relief that although the cuts would certainly scar they were not deep enough to have done muscular or vascular damage.

"That sucked."

Will's comment made Kate want to laugh and cry at the same time. "Yes," she agreed, working to keep her voice steady – it would help neither of them for her to fall apart. "Yes, that did suck. How are you feeling?"

"Like a train hit me and then backed up." Will opened one bloodshot eye to see if he had made her smile; Kate hitched a grin into place for his benefit. "Really, I'm okay. She didn't have the charge set very high."

It had looked high enough from where Kate was sitting. If she had known the location of the evidence, she was certain she would have blurted it out at one of two points: when Alex had started carving up Will's arm while they took a "break" from electro-shock or when, on the last go-round with the electro-shock machine, Will's self-control had finally snapped and he had screamed for Alex to stop. She knew that anguished cry would haunt her to the end of her days.

"Do you think it was Kensington?" Will rolled onto his side so Kate, having done the best she could with his cuts, could clean the dried blood caked around his nose and mouth.

Kate wished she had a better answer than, "I just don't know," but Will seemed to understand. He briefly described what had happened inside the empty office suite while she tried to determine if his nose was broken – it didn't seem to be, though only an X-ray could show for certain – and offered his opinion that Franklin was probably acting alone.

"I don't know, Will," Kate cautioned. "I'm not sure I buy this whole 'internal war' crap Carlton Fog and Kensington both gave us. I think Carlton believed it, but…I just don't know."

"You think it's all been a set-up from the beginning." Will extended his wrists so she could take care of the deep gashes the twine had made in his skin. Looking down at her work, he commented, "It's going to hurt to be tied up like that again, isn't it?"

Kate swallowed hard. "Don't think about it. Why don't you try to sleep? We can't do anything productive right now anyway."

Will didn't need much convincing. Edging as close to the bars as he could, he stretched out with his sore wrists cradled on his bare chest. Kate lay down on her side with her head resting on her arm, ignoring the filth around her, and placed a comforting hand on his wrist through the bars.

Although Will fell asleep immediately – extreme fatigue was a side-effect of electro-shock, Kate knew, and tried not to wonder how much he could take before he suffered permanent brain damage – she lay awake for much longer, staring at him and trying to find a way out of their predicament. If Jay and Tyler didn't send help…But how could they? Who would have any idea where to find them? Even if Kensington hadn't double-crossed them, it would be risky for him to buck the rest of the Branch in order to rescue her and Will, or even to locate them for Marlow, Jay and Tyler.

We're on our own here. And it's not looking good for us.

Alex allowed them almost six hours of peace – just long enough, Kate noted, for her to begin to hope the woman wouldn't come back. Will was still sleeping soundly, and Kate had finally dozed off herself, when Alex woke them by singing out, "Good evening, lovebirds! Ready for another conversation?"

Will sat up and wiped sleep from his eyes. Kate offered him a shaky smile, trying to convey that she was prepared to do her part.

Alex unlocked his cell first and threw his shirt in at him. "Thought you might be cold, sweetie," she said. Will slipped the shirt on over his head. To Kate, she quipped, "Don't go anywhere, Beauty. I'll be right back."

Ten minutes later, Kate was tied to her chair again, but instead of being hung from the ceiling, Will was on his knees with his hands bound behind his back. Alex had placed a barrel of water in front of him, and Kate had a sick feeling she knew what was coming.

"You know, Will, I was always impressed by you during underwater ops," Alex said, shoving the barrel against his chest. Kate could see a thick scum and dead bugs floating on top of the water and felt sick at the thought of Will's head being plunged into the oily-looking substance. God only knew where it had come from – probably the sewer, from the smell it was giving off. "You could hold your breath for, I'm trying to remember, was it…?"

"Thirty seconds," Will offered.

Alex laughed. "Nice try, baby. I think it was more like a minute and thirty seconds. Let's start with that, shall we?"

She seized the back of Will's hair and shoved his face into the water, holding him there as the seconds ticked by, her eyes not on him but on Kate. If Kate could have scorched the other woman with her eyes, she would have done so gladly.

Before this is over, I'm going to kill you, you sadistic bitch.

Strengthened by her silent vow, Kate did not react when Will began to squirm in Alex's grasp. At last, Alex jerked his head up, allowing him to gasp a long breath. He coughed and gagged as the filthy water ran into his mouth.

"Where is the evidence you have against the Fourth Branch?" Alex demanded of Kate.

Her voice completely flat, emotionless, Kate replied, "I don't know."

For half an hour, Alex proceeded to dunk Will's head underwater, hold him there until Kate was certain he was drowning, and then let him up for air while she asked Kate to tell her the location of the evidence. Finally, having apparently gulped down a mouthful of the brackish water, Will turned his head and vomited all over the floor.

Alex let him fall onto his side, where he lay, panting. She looked from him to Kate, who, try as she might to remain expressionless, knew a spasm of pain had just crossed her face as she watched him gulp for air without knowing how long he would be allowed to breathe.

"I think we're getting somewhere," Alex commented smugly. "Ready for a break from underwater ops, Will? We've got your tattoo we can work on."

Will said nothing as two men, summoned by Alex, hefted him onto a gurney they had rolled into the room. Alex positioned Will so Kate would have a clear view of her scalpel-work. "Mmm, someone cleaned these up," she noted, surveying the damage she had already done. "Maybe I should go over them again, make sure they're deep enough to leave an impression?"

Kate couldn't stand it. "Please don't do this." She strained against her bonds, knowing it was futile – she was tied much too securely to break free. "Please, I swear to you, I do not know where the evidence is buried."

Alex considered her. "You know, Beauty, I think I believe you." With that, she lifted the scalpel, pressed it to Will's arm, and began carving out the next letter in Olivia's name.

She's going to hurt him no matter what I do. Oh, Will…Unable to watch him biting back a scream, Kate finally allowed herself to close her eyes. Alex didn't seem to care.

And so it continued for the next thirty-two hours. Dumped back in their cells, Kate would clean Will up as best she could, and they would stretch out alongside one another, holding hands through the bars, until Alex returned. She put Will through a tremendous amount of pain - he was shocked, beaten, and cut every six to seven hours, with a few hours off in between to recuperate. Kate knew the method, though it sickened her: Alex was not injuring Will badly enough to kill him, and by allowing him to recover in between sessions, she was ensuring that he stayed alert enough to experience every ounce of agony.

On the morning of their second day in captivity, however, it was not Alex who came for them but Maxwell Abrams. He had two guards half-carry Will (who, bloody and beaten and dehydrated, did not seem able to walk alone) into the warehouse, where he tied his wrists above his head with a thick rope while Kate was bound once more to her chair.

"This is your last chance, Ms. Westbrook," Abrams informed her. "And yours, Mr. Traveler. We are through wasting time on you. The day after tomorrow, we are moving forward with our plans to release Morbus. So you see? Your suffering is for nothing – you are not going to stop us. Did you really think you could make a difference against something as powerful as the Fourth Branch?"

"I did." Will was still himself enough to be cocky. "I'm an optimist, though. Ask Kate."

Abrams sighed. "I'm sorry to do things this way, Mr. Traveler, but you leave us no choice." To the guards, he instructed, "Beat him. Don't stop until one of them talks or I come get you."

The guards did not hold back. Kate knew Will could not take much of their abuse; he was too weak already. She begged them to stop, trying to get their attention on her by kicking against her bonds and thrashing about. It worked a little, she told herself. Still, by the time Abrams returned fifteen minutes later, Will looked half-dead, hanging from the metal pipe with bruises blooming all over his body and blood seeping out of dozens of cuts where punches had landed with enough force to split his skin open.

"Cut him down," Abrams instructed, "and put them both back in their cells. We'll deal with them later."

One of the guards untied Will's wrists. Immediately, Will collapsed; Kate shrieked as he crashed into the table of torture-implements Alex had left in the center of the room, sending scalpels and knives flying. Will landed in an unconscious heap amidst all of it.

"Jesus, is he dead?" Abrams sounded more disgusted than concerned.

"Knocked out," the guard grunted. He hefted Will over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried him back to his cell, throwing him roughly onto the floor so that Will's head smacked the concrete. Kate managed to get in a fierce kick to the guard's shin before his buddy flung her into her own cell with such force she crashed into the far wall.

"We'll be back for you," the guard she had kicked promised darkly, massaging his leg. Grinning at his partner, he added, "We'll have some fun with her before it's over. She's feisty."

The instant the outer door closed behind them, Kate was on her knees beside Will. To her surprise, he sat up straight away and smiled triumphantly.

"Never underestimate the power of playing possum," he declared, lifting a thin, shiny metal file that he had managed to grab during his "collapse."

Kate didn't know whether to hug him or slap him for scaring her so badly. With the bars between them, she had to settle for gripping his fingers tightly.

"Can you pick the locks on these cells with this?" Will asked, sliding the file through the bars to her.

Kate nodded. It would be simple. Rushing to work on her lock, she said over her shoulder, "I didn't see much when they brought us in, but I'm pretty sure there are some big trucks parked close by. If we can sneak through that room out there without being seen, I think we can steal one and get away."

"Good." Will coughed, holding his ribs, which were probably broken, as he did.

In seconds, Kate had opened the padlock on her cell and was prepared to start on Will's, crouched in front of his cell with her back to the outer door. But Will crawled over and placed his hands on top of hers, stilling them.

"The evidence is buried in a graveyard in Red Bud, Illinois," he declared. "It's in two metal canisters, the kind you put time capsules in, you know? The name on the grave is 'Nora O'Connor.' Third row from the main gate, sixth stone to the west."

Kate shook her head, bewildered. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I can't walk out of here, Kate." He smiled bravely. "Alex knows how to do her thing – I'm just going to slow you down if you try to take me with you. So you have to go."

When she started to protest, Will lifted his hand for silence. "I can take a lot more than what she's dished out so far, trust me. You go to Red Bud, get the evidence, and get it into the hands of someone who can stop these people before the day after tomorrow.

"We can't waste time anymore, Kate. You and I are now the only people who know where that evidence is. One of us has to get out of here, or a lot more people than you and I are going to suffer."

I cannot leave him here to be tortured. I cannot.

"I'll try not to tell them anything for another day at least," Will went on. "I'm sure they'll step up the interrogation techniques after they figure out you've escaped, so you need to get to the evidence before they make me talk. Okay?"

"Don't make me do this." Kate was trembling all over. She understood what Will was telling her; she knew in her gut it was the only option she had. But every cell in her body rebelled against it. "Please don't ask me to leave you here for them to…"

"Shh." Will touched her cheek gently. "It's just pain, Kate. It ends at some point."

A sound from the warehouse made her jump. Seeing that he was truly resigned to his fate and knowing she could risk waiting no longer, Kate grabbed Will's hand in hers, kissed his palm fiercely, and jumped to her feet.

"I promise I won't let them win," she said, looking hard into his face, trying to memorize him.

Leaning his head against the bars, Will smiled at her. "I know you won't. I trust you."

Kate switched off everything but the skills she needed to survive: She jerked open the outer door, roundhouse-kicked a guard who was moving her way, and sprinted the full length of the warehouse into the warm August sunshine, where, as she had recalled, a fleet of Mack trucks were parked. Selecting the closest one, Kate glanced around quickly for guards. Four of them were playing cards at a table across the truck-yard, but since none of them had noticed her, she opened the driver's side door and slipped inside.

"Keys, keys, keys," she whispered like a prayer, pulling down the sun visor. To her immense relief, keys toppled into her palm.

The moment she started the truck's giant engine, Kate knew her cover would be blown and the chase would ensue. She took a deep breath, inserted the key, and –

Froze, as a sudden flash of insight came over her.

"I can't walk out of here, Kate."

No, she thought, her heart coming back to life in her chest, but you can ride.

She didn't give her conscience a chance to talk her out of what was, honestly, a crazy, dangerous plan. Turning the key over in the ignition, Kate shifted the truck into gear, jammed her foot down on the accelerator, and barreled forward – straight through the wall of the warehouse.

Shouts sounded from behind her, swallowed by the roar of the engine. Kate stomped the pedal to the floor and tore through the warehouse, knocking over pallets of boxes and swerving to avoid concrete pillars. She slammed on the brakes as she neared the back room where Will was being kept but didn't stop entirely until the truck had punched through the wall.

She clambered across the seat and out the passenger's side, coughing amidst the dust created by the wall's collapse. Will was on his feet, holding himself up by clutching the bars. In no time flat, Kate had used the file she had stuffed into her pocket to pick the lock on his cell.

Stepping inside, she grabbed him around the waist and pushed him toward the truck. "Kate, this is nuts," Will protested, groaning as he hefted his bruised body into the cab.

"I know. I think it'll work, though." Kate raced back around the truck; she could hear footsteps pounding toward them from outside. Slamming her door shut, she put the Mack in reverse and floored it, roaring backwards through the warehouse.

Will was sprawled on the seat, barely able to sit upright. By the harsh light of day, she could see just how beaten and bloodied he really was. Determined that they would not be recaptured, Kate shifted into 'drive' and raced through what proved to be a large, maze-like compound.

People were running toward them with guns, but she was driving much too fast for anyone to take sufficient aim. Bullets bounced harmlessly off the outside of the truck.

"Do you know where you're going?" Will asked, warily eyeing the rising speedometer. "Do you even know how to drive one of these things?"
"No and yes." Kate was casting about desperately for an escape route. All at once, she spotted it – a tall, wrought-iron gate with a guard post beside it, and beyond that, the highway.

"Better move," she mumbled to the guards, aiming the truck in their direction.

"Kate." Will's voice was half-warning, half-pleading. "Kate, you do see that the gate is closed, right?"

"Put your head down and hold on."

As she spoke, Kate caught sight of a familiar figure running flat-out toward the guardhouse, lugging what appeared to be – Kate couldn't believe her eyes – a rocket-launcher.

Normally, Kate would have been terrified to be fighting people well-placed enough to possess a rocket-launcher. But rational thought was blotted out by rage, because the woman holding the powerful weapon was the woman who had spent the past two days torturing Will.

You are mine, bitch.

Will made a small, incoherent sound of protest at what she was about to do and gripped the dashboard with both hands. Without swerving or slowing, Kate headed directly for Alex. An inner calm that she associated with successful operations descended upon her; she knew, though she couldn't say how she did, that Alex would not have time to position her impressive weapon before the Mack truck was upon her.

Her instincts were not wrong. At the last possible second, the rocket-launcher loaded but not aimed, Alex looked up in shocked horror to see several tons of steel bearing down on her at sixty miles per hour.

The truck smashed into Alex's body a second before crashing through the gate. Kate did let up on the accelerator, not even as iron and bone crunched underneath the huge tires.

She did not stop. She did not look back.

Part 4

Stone had gotten the call about Whaley's murder at the "safehouse" (if the dive where he had been kept could be called such) the morning of Westbrook and Traveler's meeting with the Fourth Branch. Marlow had immediately contacted Kensington, who was in a towering temper after discovering that Tyrese Franklin had been working for Maxwell Abrams all along. According to Kensington, Franklin had apparently sworn undying loyalty to Oliver Drummond, whom he had served with in the First Recon, and Drummond had convinced him to earn Kensington's trust and spy on him. The war between the two factions of the Branch was heating up, it seemed, and Marlow had a bad feeling she and her friends were all going to be caught in the crossfire.

They'd had no time to warn Traveler or Westbrook that they were walking into a trap, but Kensington had relayed that Chambers and Abrams had not killed their captives. The damage was done, however: Without Will, they had no way of finding the evidence that was supposed to act as their leverage against the Branch; without Whaley, they had very little chance of arresting key players like Chambers before the Morbus attack could be carried out.

Marlow knew one thing – she was sick to death of being outdone at every turn by the Fourth Branch. So when she hung up the phone with Kensington, she turned to Stone, who was equally furious over the death of his friend, his agents and his witness, and asked, "How much operational discretion do you actually have with the NSA, Harold?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Blowing up Belenus Pharmaceuticals' Miami lab."

Stone didn't flinch, a testament to how angry he really was. "That'd be above my pay-grade, I'm afraid." He paused, considering, before continuing thoughtfully, "But I bet Kensington could get it done."

It had taken some convincing, that much was certain: Kensington was understandably reluctant to dig himself an even deeper hole with the powerful, dangerous members of the Branch who now knew he was officially their enemy, having tasked Kaitlyn Westbrook to spy on Jack Freed for the past ten years and having assigned to Franklin to protect Burchell and Fog, their number-one enemies (besides Traveler) after the Drexler bombing went south. Marlow had argued forcefully that destroying the Branch's stores of Morbus and their antidote for the disease before the attack could be carried out would not only save lives but would also make an undeniable statement about the reach of Kensington's own power.

"You can't lay low anymore," she had insisted, pacing the floor of Stone's apartment (where she was still crashing on the couch) with the phone glued to her ear. Stone stood by, watching and listening with bemusement to Marlow berate the Director of CIA Internal Affairs for lacking the chutzpah do what was necessary. "You either show these people how far you're willing to go to protect yourself and this country, or they probably will kill you, and they will certainly release this biological weapon on an unsuspecting public."

Kensington had wanted to know how she could be so certain that blowing up the Miami lab would stop the attack. Wasn't it likely, he had demanded, that the Branch would have such a valuable weapon stored in more than one place? And wasn't it even more likely that they wouldn't store the disease and its cure together, in case of just such a scenario as the one Marlow was proposing?

Marlow had a ready answer for that, as well. "Westbrook's contact inside Belenus Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Breanna Murden, was certain Morbus and its antidote were only being kept at the Miami location. She said it's a very difficult substance to keep stable, so storing it and transporting it are very dangerous. But even if we're wrong about that, we're probably going to at least delay their plans, buy ourselves more time to figure out how to stop them."

At last, Kensington had agreed to send one of his best people to her. "She's young," he had warned, "but don't let that fool you – she's as good as Traveler at what she does."

Marlow understood the comparison when, three hours after her conversation with Kensington, the girl she had known as Nell Graham, Tyler Fog's ex-girlfriend from New Haven, appeared on Stone's doorstep.

"You?" Marlow sputtered.

Nell flashed a sweet-as-sugar smile. "Me," she shrugged. "My name's Helen, by the way. Helen North. But you can call me Nell, I'm used to it."

"You're CIA?" Marlow wanted to know, showing the young woman into the kitchen. Standing at the sink, Stone did a double-take, either because of Nell's youth or beauty Marlow couldn't be sure, though she suspected the latter.

Typical man, always thinking about one thing…

"Yup." Nell introduced herself to Stone before turning back to Marlow. "Kensington recruited me when I was seventeen. Said he needed someone on the inside of this domestic espionage program called Hometown."

"Seventeen?" Marlow was disgusted. "You've been working for Kensington since you were seventeen?"

"Freed only recruited people who were really young into Hometown, so it fit. Anyway, it was there or prison." Nell bestowed another good-girl-gone-bad smile on them, which Marlow saw melt Stone in his tracks. "I was on trial for armed robbery. I had a difficult childhood."

Nell put off telling them her life story, however, since Jay and Tyler arrived just then. Marlow had never seen two people more surprised than those boys were when they found Nell seated in Stone's kitchen.

"You?" Tyler's reaction exactly mirrored Marlow's.

"Don't be mad," Nell pleaded, her doe-eyed gaze taking in both him and Jay. "I was never really helping Will. I was trying to protect you both. I didn't know what he was planning to frame you for until the bomb had gone off, or I would have stopped it."

Marlow sensed that the girl was telling the truth. Jay just shrugged, as if to say it no longer mattered; Marlow got the impression that he was starting to wonder if a single person in his life was really who he or she claimed to be. She felt for him.

Tyler took the revelation that his long-time girlfriend was actually a spy quite well, all things considered. "I should have known," he said simply. "Will introduced us, you helped him with the video blog thing, you stored all of his stuff at your place where it was so conveniently turned into evidence against us…It fits."

"You're not mad?" Nell looked hopeful.

"Hey, you kept us out of the FBI's clutches in New Haven, didn't you? Anyway, I let Will off the hook, so I'm going to take it on faith that you're really on our side."

Tyler stuck out his hand, and Nell shook it, grinning. "Now, did somebody say something about blowing a building up for real?"

By the early hours of the morning two days later – what would have been Westbrook and Traveler's second day of captivity, if by some miracle they were still alive – Marlow, Stone, Jay, Tyler and Nell were on the move. Kensington had arranged a CIA plane for them; they flew into Miami just as the sun came up. A half-dozen CIA operatives were waiting for them at the airstrip, as was an explosive device large enough to bring down the enormous Belenus Pharmaceuticals laboratory.

Dr. Breanna Murden was there as well, looking frightened but determined. Sometime in the past two days, she had been briefed about Westbrook's real identity and had been offered immunity for her work on Morbus as well as federal witness protection if she helped them stop the biological attack. Dr. Murden seemed rather relieved to be offered a way out of her current circumstances, actually; Marlow got the impression that here was a woman who had been pulled into the Branch's twisted dealings so gradually and subtly over the years that she hadn't even realized what she was into until she couldn't get out.

If the Branch was good at anything, Marlow reflected sourly, it was ruining innocent lives.

Armed with blueprints Nell had hacked into through the Miami city planner's office and provided with the location of the Morbus stores by Dr. Murden, their team was ready to roll out before mid-morning. Marlow, Stone, Tyler, Jay and Nell piled into the back of one non-descript van (Dr. Murden was remaining at the airstrip under a formidable guard), while the other operatives headed out in a second vehicle. The plan was to infiltrate the lab, arm the explosive, and evacuate the building before setting it off.

The aftermath would be Kensington's problem. Nell reported that he and the Branch members who were opposed to the Morbus attack were planning to blame the explosion on a gas leak underneath the facility. Kensington's operatives had secretly taken Vivian Buchanan and her husband Ted into custody at their New York home that morning; it seemed likely the cover story would be believed, since the company's owners would forced to espouse it if they didn't want to end up at the bottom of the Atlantic.

"Have you heard anything from Will?" Nell asked Marlow, helping Tyler strap his bullet-proof vest into place.

"No." Marlow was trying not to think about what might be happening to Westbrook and Traveler at that moment. "When we're finished here, assuming we succeed in stopping the attack, finding him will be our first priority."

"You shouldn't worry so much. Will can take care of himself." Nell patted Tyler's shoulder to let him know the vest was secure. "Need help, Jay?" she offered.

"I got it, thanks." Jay's ROTC training seemed to be coming in handy again, because he had handled the body armor as if he was quite accustomed to it.

Tyler cast a sidelong glance at Nell. "You and Will were never…you know…?"

She threw her head back and laughed, tossing her curtain of silky brown hair over her shoulder. Marlow saw Stone's mouth water and discreetly kicked him. She wasn't jealous – that part of their relationship was over – but the girl was twenty-three, twenty-four at the most.

"No, I assure you, Will and I have a strictly business relationship." Nell batted her eyelashes at Tyler. "But it's sweet that you're jealous."

Jay cleared his throat. "Tyler, have you heard from Thad? I'd like to know if Kim and Liz are doing okay."

Marlow thought the mention of Liz Schultz was a little pointed and wondered if Jay was trying to warn his friend away from resuming a relationship with Nell. She couldn't blame him if he was: Deep-cover operatives hardly made for good life-partners. Besides, from what Marlow had seen, Tyler Fog seemed to have a bad habit of ricocheting from one romantic interlude to another.

"Yeah, he said they arrived just fine and are under lock and key at my dad's apartment in Manhattan," Tyler assured his friend. Turning to Nell, he said, "Did you hear that Jay and Kim got married during all of this? Jay's going to be a father…"

Happy congratulations carried them the rest of the way to the lab. Once they arrived, Nell became all business; Marlow had a feeling the girl was about to demonstrate the impressive recommendation Kensington had given her.

"Agent Marlow, why don't you stick with me and we'll get the device in place," she said, her voice making clear that she was actually giving orders, not making suggestions. "Agent Stone, I'm putting you in charge of getting us in and out of here without being spotted, because if we're seen, the gas-leak story isn't going to hold water."

"What about us?" Tyler asked. "We're not sitting in the car, Nell. I want a piece of the action here – I think we've earned a little revenge."

"Absolutely. You're definitely coming with us."

"Wait." Jay looked as if a sudden troubling that had just occurred to him. "All of those people in there, most of them don't know they work for the Branch. How do we get them out?"

Nell shrugged, as if to say it was the simplest thing in the world: "The building is mostly storage space – not that many people are inside. We'll just pull the fire alarm, and they'll have time to get clear."

Recalling how Traveler had cleared the Drexler, Marlow couldn't suppress a smile. Either Hometown did an excellent job of making its operatives copies of one another, which was unlikely for even the best and most intensive programs, or Nell and Traveler really were fairly similar creatures.

I'm sure he had a difficult childhood, too, if we could ever figure out who Will Traveler really is…

At the moment, Marlow decided, she would settle for knowing that he – and Westbrook – were still alive.

The security around the lab was almost impossibly tight. Stone led their team in through a series of storm tunnels below the facility that proved to be heavily guarded. Nell used a small device that looked like a tube of lipstick to capture and loop the closed circuit feed at each turn, ensuring that the guards watching the monitors saw nothing out of the ordinary. By using silencers on their guns, they were able to take down the guards patrolling the tunnels without alerting anyone above to their presence. Marlow noted that Tyler stayed well in the back; though he was armed, he didn't fire his weapon, and didn't look eager too, despite what he had said about revenge. She was glad losing his father hadn't destroyed his affable nature.

Jay, on the other hand, took out as many guards as he could line a bead up on. Marlow understood that he was fighting for his new family; she also understood that Jay shared a bond with Traveler that Tyler didn't seem to, a bond that had made him so much more hurt and angry than Tyler had been over Traveler's betrayal. She clearly remembered the pained look on his face in that New York alleyway as he had held a gun on his friend, torn between trusting Marlow and the agency she represented and placing his life in the hands of the friend who turned out to be a stranger. Jay saw Traveler as a brother, she got that. And like a brother, he was stone-cold furious over Traveler's capture and, in all probability, slow, agonizing murder.

"We're here," Nell suddenly whispered from the head of the column. They had come to a stop in front of a staircase that led from the tunnels up to the basement of the lab, where they would rig the charge. "Marlow, I need you. Stone, make sure we're clear, okay?"

Marlow caught Stone's eye and mouthed, Be safe, as he motioned for two of the operatives to follow him up the stairs. The others hung back to guard against a surprise attack from behind.

Nell and Marlow ascended the stairs when Stone called down the all-clear. While the operatives fanned out to cover them in case the Branch had discovered them and sent guards down to stop them, Marlow helped Nell carefully remove the explosive from the backpack she had carried it in. Together, because the horseshoe-sized metal disk was actually quite heavy when strapped to C-4, they gingerly secured the explosive to the building's gas main, where it would not only help with the gas-leak cover story by showing that the explosion had originated there but would also be virtually guaranteed to bring the building crashing in on itself.

"I hope Murden's right about the Morbus being contained in a lead vault," Nell muttered, hooking two wires together. Marlow closed her eyes, afraid to watch – at least it would be a quick death if the girl made a mistake. "Otherwise, we may be releasing a biological weapon into Miami by blowing this place up."

Marlow's eyes flew open. Now, there was a wrinkle she hadn't considered, that Dr. Murden might lie about the bioweapon's location, that she might still be working for the Branch to ensure that Morbus was released, one way or another.

That scenario seemed unlikely to Marlow, though, since Dr. Murden knew they would also be blowing up the antidote: The Branch had been careful not to engage in germ warfare until they were assured of a way to control it – and to protect themselves, she had noticed. In any event, Marlow didn't see how they had much choice but to trust the doctor's word; they couldn't fight their way through all of the guards inside the facility who were protecting the weapon and its antidote, so destroying the building was the only way to destroy the weapon.

We have to take the chance.

"You ready?" Nell looked and sounded a tiny bit nervous. A fine sheen of sweat had appeared on her upper lip.

Trying not to think about everything that could go wrong, Marlow said firmly, "Do it."

Nell punched a button and the red digital numbers on the device's face sprang to life. They read 10:00 – enough time for Jay and Tyler to clear the building and their team to evacuate.

Calling for Stone and his men to move out, Nell quickly crossed the room and pulled the fire alarm by the stairs leading up the first floor. Immediately, a siren rang out through the building above them.

"Let's go," Marlow prompted the girl, who was removing two small packages from her backpack. "What are those?"

"Booby-traps." Nell placed one at the foot of the stairs, where it was hidden by the bottom step's shadow, and the other directly in front of the gas main, where she shoved it partially behind a black rubber mat. "In case somebody comes down here to see where the fire is and spots our little present, they step on one of these and it'ss boomlights out. We can't run the risk of anybody disabling the bomb, now can we?"

Marlow had to hand it to Kensington, he had been right about this girl – she was a step ahead at every turn, much like Traveler.

They were above ground and back at the vans (parked a safe distance from the lab) with five minutes to spare. Through high-powered binoculars, Marlow, Jay, Tyler, Stone and Nell took turns watching employees in suits and lab coats rush away from the building. The steadily trickle of people out the front doors had ended, indicating the building was clear, and the fire trucks were just pulling up (thankfully, no firefighters had yet headed inside) when the explosion went off.

Even as far away as they were, Marlow felt the ground shake with the force of the blast. A plume of smoke and dust that reminded her, with an unpleasant lurch in the vicinity of her heart, of the Twin Towers collapsing shot at least sixty feet into the air, nearly obscuring the bright blue Florida sky.

"Holy shit," Tyler breathed beside her. "That was…intense."

"Let's go." Nell was ushering them back into the vans. "We can't risk being seen. People are going to be suspicious enough as it is."

Once they were headed back toward the airstrip, Nell pulled out a cell phone and punched in Kensington's number. Marlow and the others sat in stunned silence while she spoke quietly into the receiver. It seemed none of them had truly been prepared for the destruction they were causing; Marlow couldn't stop thinking about the people who had been standing much closer than them, the people who might have been hit by debris or shrapnel…

"Good news," Nell announced, snapping the cell phone shut. "Initial reports say the building was a total loss, so that's mission accomplished. And," she added with a wide grin, "guess who just showed up at Kensington's house?"

Marlow took in the wide smiles on Jay and Tyler's faces and felt her own lips curving upward in spite of her horror at what they had just done.

They're alive. Traveler and Westbrook made it out.

"Are they okay?" Jay asked.

"I guess Will's banged up pretty good, but Kensington said he'll live," Nell replied. She tossed her hair over her shoulder again and offered them all a superior smile. "See? I told you not to worry. Will can take care of himself."

It certainly seemed that way, Marlow had to admit. In fact, she was rather proud of all of them – Kim, Liz, Westbrook, Jay, Tyler, Traveler, even Stone and herself. They had faced down the beast and had dealt it what she hoped would be a death-blow.

Beaming around at her companions, Marlow allowed herself to believe that things really just might work out for them in the end after all.