Trust

by RapiDe

Jason Bourne and Sydney Bristow, an Assassin and a Spy, old and young. They have nothing in common, or do they? A Crossover What if?

14. Chapter 14

For all disclaimers: see earlier parts.

All Reviews welcomed.

The Last Day

Los Angeles, three days ago

Sydney got back to her apartment quickly after her bizarre, frightening if she was being honest, encounter with the woman who called herself Monica Messolina. She wasn't scared, or even really shaken, she'd been through and witnessed far worse than even triple murder being committed right in front of her by a stranger in her time with SD-6, but she couldn't force the memory of what had happened out of her head. Why was very simple, one word: efficiency.

She'd been around a lot of killers in her time, of every description, everywhere she could think of she'd ever been, but... Most of them had been blood, guts and chaos at best. Very few had had the real skill necessary to commit the kill quick, clean and quiet, a short list Julian Lazarey, who she preferred as Sark, was on. An even shorter list, which Anna Espinosa was on, could commit a Murder so flawlessly that you'd have trouble finding the signs of unnatural death if you didn't know what to look for.

This, though? This...

The only comparison she could reasonably think of was Jason Bourne himself, if he really was everything they said he was. The woman had killed two men, right in front of her, without her even realising that either was dead, then displayed the morality of a sociopath in reaction to what she'd done. That, or she was a truly cold-blooded killer... Great, the woman of her dreams, literally in this case, was off of any chart where comparison was concerned. All their first meeting had taught her was that she knew less than nothing about whoever the woman really was, let alone what she did.

That needed to change, urgently. Thankfully, her temporary removal from active duty didn't mean she'd lost access to APO's network and resources, so she pulled out her Laptop and booted it up-then paused. A moment later, she logged out of APO's network and shifted to a general Search. She couldn't easily have answered why, but it felt right. There was something in the back of her head telling her that she should keep this to herself. It was the same kind of something which had allowed her to recognise Cole when she'd first laid eyes on him, the same kind of something which had dragged that scene from a fire fight in a bank somewhere out of her hidden, lost memory to bring to her another figure, an individual, a woman she still didn't know-or was it remember? It was a "something" she was starting to realise she needed to listen to, just like she trusted her instincts, so she would.

She set up on the living room table, seating herself on the sofa comfortably, poured herself a glass of water, sipped it and got started. Where to begin was easy, it was where whatever she found out led her that concerned her...

The most surprising thing, Sydney almost immediately discovered, was that the woman had given her a real name. Why? That was anyone's guess.

The search on her Laptop produced an unexpected first result. Giancarlo Messolina, forty-year Lawyer with his own Websites, personal and business related. Personal details were blocked by Firewalls, but different contact addresses were given on each site. A professional brief made it clear that the man had the morals of an alley cat and was as slippery as a wet Eel in his craft, with an ice-cold ruthless disregard for anything inconvenient in his Cases, such as the truth, when it might get in his way. Previous clients of every kind were listed to show Giancarlo wasn't picky as long as you could pay-but Sydney recognised some of the names.

Over the years, Giancarlo had represented everyone from innocent men on the street whose only income had been from donations, men who had been set up or just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, to professional criminals who had spent sixty years making life a living Hell for any number of people as hardened Mafia soldiers and "personnel". Professional killers, madmen, savage thugs who would do anything to anyone for enough money, corrupt Politicians who had used Blackmail and Murder to reach the heights of power, professional fraudsters, corrupt public servants of any description, accountants who had creamed off a Retirement fund from their clients investments and ruined hundreds of lives...the list went on and on. The most obvious point was that he had never, not once in his life, lost a Case.

A quote from a disgusted Italian Magistrate suggested he believed Giancarlo Messolina could and would have represented the Devil himself before God on Judgement Day for enough money-and probably won the Case. This...was not a good sign. The personal details made clear that Giancarlo was a very successful high-stakes Gambler, which only made sense, a fabulously wealthy man with an insatiable taste for rich food, fine wine and utterly uninhibited beautiful women who didn't mind being paid for spending the night, he appeared to live in a palatial villa on the outskirts of Rome.

Sydney looked around for anything useful to do with Monica herself-and discovered her name listed under "Partners" on Giancarlo's professional Website. A bullet-point list of important details, such as contact number, age and Cases, was listed clearly. She'd started practising as a professional Lawyer in 1993 at the age of 23 and, after fourteen years on the job, was her fathers only Partner in his business. Her list of Cases was far less extensive than her fathers, but every one of them was a win for her...

She went back out and looked up Monica more directly. Oddly enough, there was a Website focusing on her that wasn't evidently maintained by her or her father which appeared to give an accurate Biography as well as a personal and professional history. It was maintained by someone only identified as "Talia", which seemed an odd name to choose...

Mothers name was Sandrine Juilleriat, of Swiss extraction, now a high-order investigator for the UN concerning War Crimes, political interference, Cover-Ups, mass fraud, any form of corruption that came under the UN Charter-obviously, she was one of the organisations "Go-To" people when things got "sticky". When she'd met Giancarlo in 1969 she'd just been an honest young woman earning a living out of being an investigator for Swiss banks concerning fraud, theft, financial irregularities-and, quietly, bank accounts dating back to World War II. The banks could only close the accounts if no living relative existed to claim the funds, unless the relatives could be bought off or "persuaded" otherwise. Sandrine Juilleriat, it was obvious, had been very talented with the last issues in particular, which had made her particularly popular and effective with the banks.

Young and a little naïve despite this, apparently, Sandrine had evidently fallen head over heels for the silver-tongued, rich and handsome young Lawyer Giancarlo Messolina in 1969 after being sweet-talked into his bed-then, apparently, into giving up her secrets, given an evident public bust-up the details of which were sketchy even now. He'd soothed her wounded ego and professional pride by Marrying her-his second Wife, after his Arranged first Marriage ended in 1965 when he was just twenty-five. She'd become Pregnant and delivered their only child in 1970-Monica herself-in Naples. However, unable to stand Giancarlo's dishonesty, public promiscuity, disloyalty and total lack of either evident care or attention towards her, only the fact they'd both been and clearly were exceptionally stubborn kept their sham of a Marriage going until 1975, when they Divorced and saw each other for the last time.

Monica had been left with her father as a result of his Lawyer skills, but he was at best an absent father and she lived off of his riches, doing whatever she liked while he lived entirely apart from her. Her youthful exploits, if true, made her early life worthy of a TV. Series titled "How to have your cake and eat it" as she seduced, manipulated, abused, out-thought, out-fought and out-sexed every single one of the many, many people she met, used , broke and abandoned until she was 18. She'd left a devastating trail of broken hearts, ruined minds and destroyed lives behind her like so much flotsam as she went and evidently never looked back-worse, she'd had no reason too. She didn't make mistakes of that nature, quite clearly.

At 18 she'd gone to the University of Rome but left within a year, describing it as "boring". Instead, she'd gone to Yale in the USA-where she'd graduated with a First Class Law Degree along with every Honour and Commendation there was. A Scanned Yearbook entry listed her as "One most likely to change the world", which was a somewhat unusual comment to make. She'd then gone back to Italy to work with her father, ignoring headhunting attempts from most of the big firms on the planet, where, on qualifying for practising at the Italian Bar, she'd been made a Partner in her fathers business as an evident reward for her loyalty.

That was really it as regards useful personal information, her Case list and a surprisingly detailed travel itinerary were all that was left. That just made it worse, however, because a link from her Case list led to a list of Clients. The list read like a "Who's Who" of international and domestic figures ranging from North America to Europe to Asia, on down into South America and Africa with only a brief mention of Australia and New Zealand. Monica Messolina, just to begin with, had links to President Bush from her first try at aiding and assisting in a Political campaign as a Legal consultant-she'd been on his legal team in the 98' Campaign which had seen the man into office in the first place.

The woman had links with more Government Agencies and even Heads of State than most Ambassadors did, inside and outside the USA. On top of which she had links and connections with organisations like the UN, the Red Cross, various Human Rights groups all over the world, private Political bodies of all descriptions. Numerous commendations were available for viewing, from people who were not the type to give their praise and commendation lightly. One commendation was signed by a former President of the USA, another by the current one...

A cold-blooded killer with links up to the Gods, who had people with unimpeachable reputations across the entire world almost certainly willing and able to stand up in Court and say that she was not capable of Murder. If she took another look at that kind of background and list of what amounted to Contacts, Sydney almost felt that she might as well give up in despair. She'd need proof that would have been enough to convince a Jury an admitted Communist in the early 50's wasn't and was, in fact, a truly dedicated patriot who'd been depressed on the day he'd been questioned, in front of the HUAC and McCarthy himself, to nail Monica Messolina. Probably even with APO's resources invested in digging up her every dirty secret.

Making a mental note to keep looking regardless, not to forget, Sydney backed out of her search and began a new one. She tried it on Google first, simply entering The Prometheus Descent to see what came back, expecting bad old films or something equally ridiculous. Most of what she got related to the Gods of the ancient Greeks and Roman Empire, but there were two exceptions.

The first was an article, published by "Anonymous" in 2002, concerning a suspected massive underground complex concealed somewhere in the Middle East or Africa which had been running for decades. It had supposedly been supplying an entire continents worth of weaponry and explosives which kept all of the rebels, freedom fighters, terrorists, Dictatorships and authoritarian groups both armed and in power, for the right price. The creator/founder and possibly current leader of the organisation was an unknown individual who answered to the name of "Prometheus" but was rumoured to be a veteran of WWII, possibly a Russian who had escaped Stalin's Gulags. Never seen and otherwise unknown, he was as close to a complete enigma as anyone knew-supposedly.

The second find was...odd. She wasn't even sure what it was.

It was a picture of some sort, four women standing around what appeared to be a cave entrance, one leading deep underground somewhere. Given the arid surroundings, excess sand and baked landscape, she'd have guessed that the picture had been taken somewhere far south of the Equator, deep inside Africa most likely. Oddly, apart from the yellow sand, bright blue cloudless sky and grey stone interior of the cave, leading on into a deeper darkness, the picture was out of focus regarding each of the individuals in it. Only posture and evident body language, along with long hair in three cases, let her identify the individuals in question as even human and of a specific gender. She had enough experience with photography to be sure that the photo was recent given the colours and sharpness evident-but by who? When, precisely?

Her Laptop had a basic image enhancement function, so she ran it to sharpen up what she could of the fuzzy images on the photograph. The tallest woman was African-American or mixed race at least, with coloured skin and very dark hair. Another was shorter, slimmer-and appeared to be wearing some kind of jewellery around her neck that was shining in the sun, something partially obscured by a stretch of dark material lying partially atop it. Shorter hair, less muscular, but with a physique that was designed for violence in development and strength. The third was a woman with luxuriously long, dark hair, a remarkable physique-and a very particular way of standing that rang bells with Sydney. The last was a blonde woman, young and athletic, dark-dressed, closest to the camera-the image enhancement program cleared up the woman's face just as she looked at the image.

The shock would have put her on her knees if she hadn't already been sitting down. As it was, it was like a baseball bat to the stomach. She almost retched as her eyes took in something her mind didn't want to know, sharp pain stabbing into her mind behind her eyes as she almost felt something shift...

Her. It was her in that photograph, along with three other women the program was still cleaning up. Maybe two years younger, long blonde hair, a vicious snarl on her face, an unhealthy glint in her eyes. She was wearing black full Tactical gear, carrying dual pistols and a variety of other hardware, explosives, climbing gear...

...She felt the desert sun on her skin, searing heat from an early-morning sun scalding already against lightly tanned skin. Her hair sat still and straight in the utter stillness of desert warmth and silence, no movement at all about excepting the four of them. She felt sweat trickling down her skin, drawn out of every pore by a thick, heavy humidity that almost forced her down on hands and knees in a desperate effort to find the slightest trace of cool air and shade, or anything cold at all.

It was supposed to be cool and even airy down there, there was going to be plenty of shade and shadow, even Air Conditioning inside the buildings. If gaining that atmosphere and escaping this Hellish heat meant some killing, even a lot of killing, then she was all for it. After all, she couldn't help but think, a bitter smile twisting her lips even as the thought crossed her mind, wasn't that what, even who she, Julia Thorne, was..?

...Sydney blinked, swayed for a moment, then straightened-only to discover that she'd lost time with a glance at her watch, three minutes had passed. Worse, she had no recollection of her actions, yet she was logged into the CIA system through APO and had run a search through ARCHIVES. The result was the last thing she'd wanted to see. SEARCHING: The Prometheus Descent...

MATCH FOUND

TPD 04/05

DISPLAY Y/N? Her hands were almost trembling as she pressed "Yes". The result was even worse than she'd ! EYES ONLY TOP SECRET

LEVEL 12 CLEARANCE REQUIRED

DIRECTOR-ONLY ACCESS: PROCEED?

Without conscious thought, her hands went into motion and she typed something in. She wasn't even sure what, couldn't honestly have said for certain if it had been life or death, but it worked. The screen cleared, then flashed up Access Granted before moving on to grant her Level 12 access.

She'd picked up plenty in the way of computer skills from Marshall over the years, added to which she'd been no distracted geek when she'd still been in University, let alone later, when she'd developed significant Hacking skills just to be able to do her job. She'd never get close to the super-genius Marshall in his area of expertise, she had no doubt of that fact, but she was more than capable. This, though, this? Breaking into the mainframe of Langley, gaining Director-level access? This was insane. How the Hell was she doing this?

The Mission breakdown and objectives came up quickly and clearly in front of her. She read it through, but didn't need to read it twice. There was nothing of personal interest to her in it, bar one fact. The group of operatives involved, a group Sloane had mentioned but she had failed to ask him to elaborate on.

The Styx Sisters. The CIA had hired what had to be a group of professional Assassins to carry out a VERY off-the-books Assassination of a figure the Company couldn't even admit existed, privately or publicly. Sisters...could it be?

NO. She didn't want it to be, she couldn't let it be. Even if that photograph was of...them, she didn't want to know more. Or at least, not yet. She knew she could trust Marshall, with her life as well as anything else, he'd have jumped off a bridge if she'd promised he'd survive without hesitation, so she could trust him with this. She'd call him and ask him to put a package together, quietly, with nobody the wiser, for her to go through personally and alone. She wanted all of the facts, possibilities and, most importantly, information concerning the Styx Sisters ready for her and absorbed before she made any decisions, particularly any rash one's she'd sometimes been known to be guilty of in the past.

She could feel something skittering around her mind at the edge of her awareness, a fact or something even more important she desperately needed or wanted to remember, but couldn't quite pin down yet. Something dark and deep-hidden, rotting away but still alive somehow, shoved away in the back of her mind to be forgotten and ignored coming back to haunt her from times she couldn't even remember.

Worse, it was becoming increasingly obvious there were HUGE gaps in her knowledge of what she seemed to have done back then as opposed to what she knew she'd done. She desperately needed to know just why she'd had the Mindwipe which had erased her memories done, more to the point she needed to know just what had been done, the rest would come from there. She'd been willing to accept she'd never really know more than what she'd learnt from Kendall's debriefing and the scattered bits and pieces she'd picked up since, Simon Walkers sort-of statements about her missing past included, but she could no longer live with that.

She could see more than enough to know what was coming, with increasing speed, towards her like a runaway juggernaut that would smash her flat if she couldn't dodge or deflect it in time. This was her past catching up with her, a past she couldn't remember she was fast running out of time to accept and make her peace with so she could deal with what came next. There had to be something she could do?!

She stopped reading, not wanting to see any more because of an increasing feeling of disquiet that was churning her insides. She was missing something here, but what? She tried Links-and then she knew.

The Cairo "event", the extensive commentary, analysis and photographic as well as film visual aid breakdown... Her hands really were shaking after she read through it. The sums of money and final count of dead and wounded involved? The chaos and destruction caused? Just what actually happened, even given the fact that she was sure what she could access still wasn't the full truth since it was almost certain even the CIA didn't know everything? The involvement of the Styx Sisters and Simon Walkers team? If the CIA was possibly looking at her for this, only deflected by the fact her Amnesia concerning those two missing years was total? She could conceivably be charged with Treason...

Worse, a File simply titled Paradox where even the File itself was Encrypted to such a high level that merely attempting to crack the Encryption without the right Code Key would send a Flash Traffic Alert to Langley. The kind that made a Tactical Team kick down the front door, shoot first and ask questions later. She didn't need to even try, though, she could access the creation and closure dates of the File without running anything more than a basic check. The dates matched the times of her "Disappearance" and "Reappearance" almost exactly...

She logged out without reading any more. She couldn't read any more, she wanted to throw her Laptop out of the window...

Later, she didn't want to remember staggering to her feet, just making it to the sink before she threw up, her stomach and mind in turmoil. She didn't want to remember grabbing the bottle of wine she and Nadia kept for special occasions from out of the cupboard, still almost two-thirds full, almost breaking the top off as she wrenched the plastic cork out before putting it to her lips and drinking straight from the bottle. She drank so much so fast that it spilled out of her mouth, down over her neck and soaked her blouse, soaking through the material onto her underwear and lying against her skin. It was stupid, pathetic, a child's response in an attempt to block out an adults unpleasant reality, but at that moment in time she didn't care.

She'd drained half the bottle before she managed to consider what it meant, feeling utterly sick even as she did. Lauren Reed had asked her, just before Vaughn had killed the bitch, if she really believed that the CIA couldn't find her in those nine months she was gone before she escaped by herself and made contact. The man, Samael, had asked her if she'd ever made the effort to discover the truth about why her father had been imprisoned in 2003. She'd had her memory wiped for a reason...

She was meeting people she didn't remember who were risking life and limb to keep her safe and alive, professional killers all, each of them so skilful and ruthlessly proficient, not to mention brutally efficient, that every time one of them appeared the threat she'd been facing imply ceased to exist when they were done. She didn't need to be a genius, which she was, to put together the facts and realise that she'd been sleeping with the one she would so far judge the most dangerous, another woman.

What could have been so bad that she'd go that far in an effort to...what? Shield herself from something or someone? Gain an ally? Separate Julia Anne Thorne from Sydney Catherine Bristow as totally as possible to enable her to do what she had to do and not go insane in the progress? She was tough, as resilient as anyone she knew when it came right down to it, but everyone, everyone, had limits they would eventually reach, lines they couldn't cross without changing everything. Just what had she done, really, while she'd been "away" for those two missing years...?

None of that mattered now, though, she had far more pressing concerns and one overriding one. She'd been literally handed the identity of a CIA mission on a plate by someone who was a Lawyer, "apparently", then she'd found a photograph of herself and three women she recognised, only one of which she knew, linking directly to it? Well, she'd always excelled at solving puzzles and seeing the truth of pictures, large or small or both, a skill which, added to what she knew now, told her one thing she could not stand, couldn't stomach.

This information as good as spelled out the fact that the CIA had not only known she was alive from the moment she'd disappeared, they'd been keeping a far closer eye on her than she'd imagined. They'd let her rot in that place, only to use her when she'd finally dragged herself out to find out more about their new enemy, utterly uncaring about her health or welfare as a human being. Director Kendall of Project: Black Hole, the Director of the CIA Task Force she was attached to when she'd disappeared and "died", had told her since they'd gotten to know each other well in that time. Which meant he'd kept an eye on her as far as he was able, she knew without his stating it. She'd believed him, he wasn't a good enough liar to fool her face to face, but he was just one man.

It all fitted together so perfectly. The CIA left her under Covenant control for months, well aware that her Project: Christmas programming and training would prevent the reprogramming from ever working. They knew her skills, experience and natural intelligence would let her effect her own Extraction eventually, if she survived, so they waited for her to escape and make contact, then told her what they wanted to do through Kendall.

When she insisted on seeing Vaughn, it would have been the simplest thing in the world for Kendall to pick up a phone and call Langley, tell them what was required. Enter Lauren Reed at just the right time and place, with her father, Jack Bristow, Deep Cover and unavailable at the time. She'd have said yes to going back to the Covenant as Julia just to escape the heartbreak of Vaughn's betrayal, no matter how irrational the thoughts and feelings she was suffering. After a while, it would have become obvious just how important what she was doing really was to her and, as a good patriot and Agent, she'd have done her job without complaint, just as they asked for-or was it required?

How far would she have gone to get the job done in such an impossible situation, "dead", cut off totally from everyone, everything she knew, even denied her own identity? As far as she had to, that was just how she worked, something her father had taught her. Had Jack found out the truth and tried to put a stop to it? Sending him to jail to shut him up made far too much sense. Worse, he wouldn't have told her all of this in an attempt to protect her from such awful truths and possibilities, her father was many things but "coward" wasn't one of them. She knew him better than that, despite everything. If she was right...

She really needed to just get drunk, preferably dead drunk. She needed far more alcohol to do that, though. She lurched for her car keys, paused, then grabbed her purse and decided to just walk to the nearest store. This HAD to be wrong, a corruption of the mind created by a paranoid mindset caused by the insanity of the world she lived in, her whole profession, playing with her head once too often...

Virginia, USA

Loss rules the mind.

-Selene

Gibbs had explained the reasoning behind the visit to Conklin before they'd even set out, to Kate alone since she and he were on the same level of Clearance and his team weren't. She knew everything he did about Project: Treadstone, it turned out, but he knew of survivors from the old days, people linked to or connected with either the Project or people who had worked on it, which meant he knew far more about "Jason Bourne" than she did as an individual and Agent. Of course, that was only true in the sense that people who had known him before he'd gone rogue had talked to Gibbs about him. Since then?

Well, she herself was one of the few who had any idea what the man was really like now. Talia, of course, was another matter altogether, nobody understood him like she did, or could-but Talia had informed her that was between the two of them alone, or she'd kill Selene, no questions asked. Just because they enjoyed each others company didn't mean either of them was incapable of slaughtering a friend, even a close friend. Of course she was, bar Julia, the closest friend and ally Talia had, but that just meant it would be quick. If someone she didn't like had stumbled across the truth of that relationship? Talia would have just begun by crippling and blinding them.

She agreed with the rest of the logic, though. Conklin had known the original Bourne, worked on both Projects, was the closest associate of the Psychologist who had created the systems used to Program, Reprogram and Control Treadstone Agents the second time around and had links with every intelligence Agency. He had so much experience, so much knowledge of the dark and dirty underside of the world of espionage he unquestionably thrived in, that he was the one person everyone knew could and would have an answer when all else had failed. He was still on an unofficial CIA payroll and likely would be for the remainder of his life, or at least as long as his mind stayed sharp. If he couldn't, at the very least, set them on the right track to finding Bourne? Nobody could.

The fact that he liked playing mind games, could play the most skilled interrogators like Violin strings in the hands of a master and never, ever told the complete truth was something they would have to work around. A man she rather admired had once said "Three quarters of everything I have ever said was a lie". It described her perfectly was a good part of the reason why. The rest was because she always knew fact from fiction. Conklin wouldn't tell them the direct truth, certainly, but with her and Gibbs double-teaming him, backed up by Katherine's skills, they'd get what they needed sooner rather than later. She was almost looking forwards to the challenge.

At the main entrance they were met, to her slight surprise, met by a bald old man who walked with a pronounced limp. He leant heavily on his left side where he was supported by a tall, thick, dark wooden cane and held his right arm to his chest in such a way it was quite obvious he had no use of the withered limb, musculature on the arm being almost non-existent. Dressed in pale clothes with blue eyes almost gleaming in a worn and wrinkled face, despite his advanced years there was still no mistaking the man's immediately penetrating intelligence. She didn't doubt it wasn't Conklin for a second, which meant that it could only be Morris Panov, the Psychologist.

She almost sighed, Conklin had to have sent such a physically feeble but intellectually brilliant man to get a read on his visitors before they all actually met, typical old intelligence hands trick before making first contact. His physical infirmity would have most people think little or nothing of him, but she knew better-and so did Gibbs, she didn't doubt. If they didn't impress this man they'd get nothing from Conklin, so it started here.

"Harmon Gibbs. I don't stand on titles which have no meaning unless I want something. I'm here to receive something I asked for, so Alex had better be ready" said Gibbs, arms folded across his chest, without preamble. Well, that was one way to start a conversation, she supposed...

Panov didn't say anything, he simply looked at Katherine next. His eyes were like a diamond drill, cutting through every shadow and shredding every defence like nothing, Kate could sense as much as see that. To her credit, Katherine didn't flinch, even though she did look decidedly uncomfortable.

"Katherine Larien. I have questions and he has answers which can help me. As a Profiler, you understand?" said Katherine, almost standing at attention. It was a good answer, but Panov's gaze slid across her in a way which spoke of disinterest, came to Kate-and stopped. His eyes narrowed, his lips curled, could he sense the deception in her? No, she was sure of that, but he could sense something of just how different she was from anyone else he'd ever meet.

"Katya Antonius Aquila, Kate Aquila to my friends. I'm sort of here on loan to knock heads together until the truth falls out. Somehow, I'm sure you understand what I mean" said Kate, meeting Panov's eyes steadily and directly. He just nodded once, slowly, before breathing in deeply and sighing aloud.

"Come on in, he's expecting you. Please don't get him started on anything which isn't critical to your investigation, though, when you've lived as long as he and I have there's so much to talk about you don't stop once you've started unless you have no choice. A word of advice? He can talk about the Project all day, so be specific unless you want to know every last detail" said Panov, stepping aside and gesturing them in. They filed in, he shut the door and led them to the main room on the ground floor at a slow but steady walk rather than a stride.

Panov had never been a heavily physical man, his body language told her that, but he didn't let his evident disability damage him any more than physically, which was impressive for a man her research had had full use of his body for his whole life until he'd suffered near-fatal injuries after being shot in the field in 1990. Evidently, he'd just made adjustments and moved on, which was an admirable response to such awful physical damage.

Conklin was sitting at a sofa in the main living room, a large room with three armchairs, two fat sofas, a wide screen TV. and the kind of remarkably sophisticated sound system she had no doubt would let him pick up any transmissions he wanted to in reality, regardless of how well cloaked or scrambled they were. The cream-coloured walls and mahogany-brown wooden ceiling dominated the room, but light flooded the whole area through broad and tall clear glass windows, swamping the luxuriously dark red carpet and finely carved oak table that was surrounded by all of the chairs.

Conklin was facing the windows directly, the unconscious habit of any intelligence Agent who'd been on enough Field Ops to know that, the vast majority of the time, any opponent would rather shoot you in the back. They all sat down in the surrounding chairs, Conklin not looking directly at even one of them, including Gibbs, the brown eyes that concealed so much of the Saints truly remarkable mind and intelligence seemingly studying the carvings in the table. It was only when they all started to feel half-annoyed half-puzzled, as though he could so accurately sense the mood after a few minutes, that he looked up at them and spoke.

She got the oddest feeling even as he did so, though, feeling her hackles rise as though she'd sensed, seen or smelt something and not realised what it was, only the fact that it was dangerous, dangerous enough to worry her. The thought by itself was disturbing, she didn't shake facing torture, mutilation or even death, but she was already on edge here and the old man seemed to be the reason... Was he the reason, or were her instincts trying to warn her about something she hadn't consciously realised or understood yet? That had happened before...

"Alex, you know why were here, even if you don't know everyone here, so lets cut the Spec Ops bull for a change and cut to the chase. Were looking for Jason Bourne, the new one, I think you either know where he is or can make a damn good guess. Even if you don't know, you can point us in the right direction to find out where he's going next and allow us reach it first. If there's anything useful you have to say, now is the time" said Gibbs, going straight at the old man as directly as she'd come to expect from him, even given their brief time together. Gibbs was the kind of man who kept at a problem until he either solved it or got killed by it, he didn't know the meaning of the words "half measure". He always took the most direct approach possible, too, which evidently got results.

She wondered just how well he knew Conklin, though, to think that his verbal assault would work on a man who'd put decades into dealing with professional liars, killers and much worse. Maybe this was just how he started everything? She almost ignored a sudden thump from the main window-almost, but not quite, since she couldn't see any impact trace beyond an oddly shaped smear. It was as though something had been thrown against the window, rather than the mark being the result of a bird impact?

"Harmon, I still personally thank every Director of the CIA since you joined up with the Marines in 1970 for not trying to recruit you, did you know that? You do not use a blunt instrument to deal with a situation like Bourne, particularly when he's all sharp edges and jagged parts. Instead, you use it to squash a problem that you need dealt with regardless of consequences. How many times have I told you that, again?" replied Conklin, a smile on his wrinkled face.

"Too many, again, Alex. Do you still answer questions or do I need to send for thumbscrews, again?" replied Gibbs. She could tell that he was trying to make a joke of it, but she could also see that it bothered him more than a little. Old argument Gibbs knew he wasn't going to win in the end, she had no doubt-that noise again?

"Oh, I always have answers, Harm, sometimes to even more than you've asked. For example, would you like to know where Bourne's going next?" asked Conklin, an answer which made Gibbs sit up straight abruptly as Katherine's eyes widened. Kate didn't react on the outside, she'd heard plays like this too many times. Of course, it was Conklin this time, so it was quite possible there was more to it. After all, he wouldn't want any MIA former Treadstone Agent running around free slaughtering anyone and everyone he chose to, not after being involved in the reactivation of the Project himself, along with Panov. That noise again? Twice? That settled it, there was something badly wrong here...

"Go on" said Gibbs, quietly. She understood his hesitation, this could hand them Bourne if they played their cards right and Conklin knew what he was talking about-which he almost certainly did.

Conklin would have, too, but he was prevented from doing so by three things. Three very final things.

The first was a nearly silent "thup" of impact as something cracked right through the glass and hit Conklin in the throat. Conklin half-rose, arms flailing, frantically trying to speak and failing in the seconds before blood began to pour from his mouth and throat over desperately grasping hands. He stayed upright somehow, half-risen, but was as good as dead on his feet.

The second was a dull but powerful explosion centred on the main window, so focused Kate suspected it had been a targeted device. The glass instantly shattered, cracking in all directions like a Spiders Web before sheer kinetic force threw it into the room where it rained down on the five people there like Hail straight from Hell.

Panov, the oldest there apart from Conklin, was too slow raising his hands and arms to shield his face. A shard slashed open his left cheek, a larger piece pierced his upper chest under the left armpit while a spinning sliver cut into an eye socket-she couldn't tell which one-causing a sudden eruption of blood. His sudden howls of pain set every nerve jangling even as she started to move, even as shards and slivers fell everywhere, cutting hands and arms, getting caught in hair and clothes.

The third was the final shock, most likely to be the one to kill them all. Sharp ears caught the sound, the distinctive "pop-thump" that said it all to anyone who'd been under fire in a modern battle field situation, which she had oddly enough. RPG, Rocket Propelled Grenade, someone was throwing high explosives at them. She heard the second thump that signified the grenade landing, inside the room...

Time abruptly caught up with them even as she lunged to her feet, throwing herself at Conklin and taking him from his feet with a full-body tackle even as she tried to stop or slow the flood of blood coming from his throat with her bare hands until she could get something better. Any other circumstances she'd have been out of the room and down the passageway by now, but Conklin couldn't die just yet.

Katherine was still too stunned to move, looking around blankly and clearly trying to think what to do. Gibbs, though, old soldier that he was, didn't even hesitate.

"GRENADE! COVER! EVERYBODY DOWN!" bellowed Gibbs, crash-tackling the screaming Panov to the floor even as Katherine started to move at last-the grenade went off.

It blew with a white-hot flare of incendiary heat that hit the room like a small Nuke going off and set fire to everything within twenty foot, from clothes and skin to floor, walls and ceiling, even brick and stone. Lying down as flat as possible on the edge of the danger zone made them far from safe given the nature of the Incendiary, but they had nowhere else to go and no way to put the fire out once it caught. She felt the skin of her right arm sear right through her clothes, knew her hair was smoking...

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" bellowed Gibbs abruptly, the danger of the explosion having passed as quickly as it had come. She sat up fast, tore off the sleeve of her jacket and used it as an improvised bandage on Conklin's throat to slow the bleeding down. He was visibly going into Shock even as she did it, though, face pale, trembling from head to foot, eyes wild and bloodshot-she slapped him, hard, to get his attention focused on her and away from the shock and pain of his injury, instantly getting his attention.

She jumped to her feet and drew both handguns fast, clicking off both safeties even as she ran for the door. A glance around showed an apparently unconscious Katherine lying beneath the upturned chair she'd been sitting in, exposed right hand cooked black by the blast. She didn't have time for this-!

A blast of automatic rifle fire shattered the doors centre, immediately after which three men stepped into the room in full black tactical gear carrying enough weaponry to take on a Special Forces unit. She was closest but fired first, a snapped shot slashing through the throat of the nearest as blood sprayed from a severed artery. He went down convulsing, but the second got a three-round burst off, a single round of which clipped her left side as she dived out of the way, biting into her flesh but missing bones and organs. Gibbs shot him in the head with a perfect double-tap, the bullets smashing through the visor protecting his face to destroy his brain. The last man opened fire fast and wide on full auto, spraying the room, but Kate was on the floor when he started shooting and rolled to her feet inside his guard, pulling the trigger with her gun point-blank under the attackers chin. Only his helmet stopped the top of his head from coming off.

She heard a grunt and turned, only to discover Gibbs clutching a bloody shoulder. He shook his head, not serious, but it was going to slow him down. Wonderful, four wounded, one Critically, within a minutes combat. Only she was really left standing and able, just what she'd always wanted.

"...Alpha Team, report. Confirm executions and Extraction, over..."

She blinked, then realised that she'd heard a radio transmission from a transmitter on one of the dead soldiers. Useful? If she could work out some way to turn it her advantage, maybe. She pulled the headset off of one of them and put it on herself. Every little helped.

"Katherine! KATHERINE!" snapped Gibbs, shoving the unconscious woman none too gently with his foot as he tried to stay out of sight of the main window. It was odd that the Sniper hadn't taken a second shot, in fact?

Katherine stirred slowly, whimpering in pain even as Gibbs hand clamped down, literally, on Panov's screams. The old man was in such pain he couldn't stop screaming. Poor bastard, Kate couldn't help but think...

Cautiously, she stepped out into the hallway, checking left and right quick and clean. Nobody, nothing. Up? Down? No sound to judge by, no signs of movement. But, there was no way any professional company of Mercs, which she was sure this was, would send only one team in to make sure of target elimination. They were here-

A man stepped into sight on the banisters carrying a handgun and fired at the same time she did. The man was a much better shot, the bullet hit her in the chest over the breastbone and she felt the bone crack-or snap, there was no way to be certain. But if it had broken, just movement could kill her if the jagged edge of bone stabbed her in the heart or lungs. Her shot was, of course, flawless, hitting him precisely in the join between visor and face and ripping through the sinuses on into his brain. His shot slammed her backwards into the wall, hers threw him over the far banister, after which he landed with a terrible crack twenty feet below. That hurt, in more than ways than one...

She straightened up, forcing back the pain with a will that was so used to overriding physical injury and its effects she didn't consciously register it any more, advanced again, heading for the stairs. Conklin's house was three storeys tall and had so many rooms she didn't want to guess at a number, they just had to get out of here. Worse, they couldn't use their car, the Mercs would have it tagged by Snipers at best, so they had to find Conklin's transport, if there was anything available in this huge place without going outside. Conklin couldn't tell them anything now, though, she just

hoped that Panov could and would once he snapped out of it.

"...Alpha team, REPORT!..."

Well, there went another possible advantage. Whoever was shooting at them had realised that they'd lost their advance team. Her reaction in a similar situation would have been to blanket the target area in heavy fire before sending in troops front and back to eliminate survivors and annihilate any traces of survival. Given what they were up against? Conklin was probably already dead, they all were, but surrender was not in her vocabulary, let alone her nature.

Gibbs staggered out of the ruined room doors, good arm supporting the wounded Conklin, blood streaming down his injured side. The wound in his shoulder wasn't serious by itself, but the blood loss would be if he kept bleeding like that. Katherine was right behind him, gun in her good hand, Panov and she almost supporting each other, the wounded old man biting down hard on a thick piece of wood he'd found somewhere, tears streaming down his face from obvious extreme agony. At his age, given his physical infirmity? He could have a Heart Attack and drop dead on them at any moment.

Katherine was no better off, her cooked hand was clearly useless and she looked dazed, almost stunned. If it hadn't been for Panov's presence Kate suspected she'd have fallen over. She was in Shock at best, too, crippled with her ruined hand. This was just getting better and better. Gibbs was the only one left on his feet who might even possibly be able to watch her back, assuming he didn't pass out from loss of blood first...

"You're hit" Gibbs said, unnecessarily, given the fact she was feeling a cold shock of sharp pain every time she breathed, let alone moved. Blood was running steadily from the wound, but while deep it wasn't massive and she knew she had hours before it knocked her out.

"In the chest, yes. Panov, we have to get out of here right now, but we can't go outside to do it. Men like Conklin in places like this always have a multi-car garage, which I really do hope is accessible from the inside. I need you to lead us there, right now, you understand? Just nod" said Kate, to a weak nod from Panov. He'd covered the wounded eye, his right, with one hand, but given the amount of gore and blood she could see Kate was quite sure that he was going to loose the eye if he hadn't already. Tough, really, if he'd survived loosing the use of half of his limbs he could survive this. Regardless, it was Conklin she was interested in, who mattered here.

Panov pointed down a corridor, then made a series of quick gestures to indicate left and right turns at specific points. She watched closely to make sure she had it right, then glanced at Gibbs.

"I'll take point and clear the way, double back to help out and lift as necessary. You watch our backs, follow the same route I do and I'll mark it a way you won't miss. Your rearguard, keep him safe. Agreed?" she asked, looking him the eyes to make sure he knew she was really serious about her plan.

Gibbs answering smile was totally devoid of humour and warmth. "I'm a Vietnam vet, I know all about not leaving a man behind. We'll be on your six, just don't miss" he replied, his tone grim, face and eyes hard. He'd automatically slipped into old military jargon in the middle of a firefight, she noted. A very old soldier. She just nodded, then moved off.

Glass crashed behind them as a second team broke into the room they'd just left. Gibbs pulled out what looked like a Flashbang he had to have lifted from one of the dead Mercs, primed it and threw it into the room, just as a gunshot cracked but hit nothing from the inside. It went off with a flash of light brilliant enough to burn retinas in the early morning sunshine, leading to shrieks of pain from inside as the Mercs were caught off-guard. "GO!" snapped Gibbs, raising his gun and almost dragging the near-comatose Conklin along fast as he headed the way indicated, leaving a thin trail of red blood behind him-his and Conklin's. Again, it couldn't be helped.

She went, moving off at a fast stride, the best speed she could easily manage, both 9MM pistols held high, armour-piercing rounds ready to go. After all, a girl could never be too careful.

"...Attention all units, Bravo team reports Alpha team DOWN, repeat DOWN. Possible communication compromise, all units reset to alternate frequency. Immediate..." came the hissing radio voice over her headphones again, before the transmission obviously shifted to a different channel as the contact dissolved into blank static. She tried moving from channel to channel, flicking through searching for anything, a hint, a whisper. What she got wasn't what she'd expected.

A creak of a floorboard as she walked down a dark pinewood corridor with a thick carpet alerted her, momentarily distracting her from the radio. Her weapons came up, ready, she stepped up to the door the sound had come from behind without a sound or a trace of movement-a snapped kick almost tore the door the door right off of its hinges as she lunged forwards and leapt inside. The would-be ambusher fired a shotgun into the roof he was so startled, his trap reversed, allowing her to shoot him twice in the neck before he could even begin to actually react. At point-blank range she almost decapitated him, an explosion of blood coating the wall behind him even as he staggered under the bullets impacts and collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

Checking him, deciding against the heavy body armour for mobility's sake, she lifted a 45. Glock with two spare clips and one loaded she slotted into the belt at her back, a HALO combat knife she strapped to her left forearm-she was ambidextrous, she just preferred the left-and the shotgun, fully loaded bar one shell with ten shells as reloads she slipped into a pocket. She didn't like loud and noisy weapons as a rule, not least because they always drew the wrong kind of attention and were almost impossible to disguise, but also because she regarded them as suspect in shape given the phallic design. War was men's game, they designed their tools to show that. Blades were her preferred means of operation. The Merc had a Flashbang, too, which she took as well.

A sudden belch of sound and impact shifted the entire house, a screeching crack of something no smaller than a medium-range Howitzer shell striking the house directly if she was any judge. Bits and pieces of the ceiling fell on her and she smelt smoke, suggesting that the house was on fire. Abruptly, her attention was wrenched back to the radio as something barked forth from it in a new voice.

"...Target Conklin and Panov ONLY, full automag shoot to kill. Associates and companions are to be dealt with as necessary to achieve objective. Purge Squad formation and disciplines, free-fire on Medusa targets..." said a new voice, what sounded like woman's although it was evidently electronically muffled, which made it difficult to tell. Thankfully, she had very good ears.

This was crazy, a second force was hitting Conklin's estate immediately after the first force assault, using the opportunity to ambush the first force and wipe it out? With all of them after Conklin, Panov and anyone with them in that order?!

Gunfire sounded not far behind her, what had to be Gibbs and his group defending themselves against attackers. She wanted to double back, but if she didn't clear the way first they could end up being ambushed from both directions. Tactical rule of thumb number one was if your enemy has an elevated position on you and superior firepower, you are dead. They were outnumbered, outgunned and outflanked with enemies on all sides trapped in an indefensible structure their attackers were already inside, a more hopeless tactical situation was hard to easily conceive of. Their only remaining advantage was that they were not currently under attack, which left them a slim possibility of evasion and escape. She intended to take full advantage of it.

She moved forwards quickly and smoothly, watching all the angles, edging around every corner, almost drifting in silence around the house and along its corridors. At one point she heard running footsteps on the next floor, but they couldn't possibly hear her so she filed them away and kept moving. Gunfire occasionally cracked, some not far away, but it wasn't on her path so she put it to the edge of her consciousness and kept moving. The increasing pain from her chest she could deal with, even with the evidently cracked bones, pain was an intimate old friend of hers. What she needed to worry about were other human beings or Booby Traps, so she focused herself completely on surveying her surroundings to ensure that she wasn't caught off-guard.

Surprisingly enough, she wasn't, not until she ran into trouble just outside the main garage. Right outside the entrance two men in dark body armour armed with SA-80's stood guard, the door shut tight. The corridor which led to them was ten feet long, five wide and had three doors leading, presumerably, to three different rooms she had to consider. The whole set-up had "Ambush" written all over it, but she didn't have a choice, she didn't have time to find another way around.

Slinging her shotgun across her back, she drew both of her pistols-and burst out from around the corner of the corridor, snapping off double shots fast and low. Both men screamed and collapsed even as they tried to level their weapons, both knees ruined, one managing to fire a burst into a wall before he collapsed with a wail. Without stopping, she shoulder charged the nearest door and tore the door completely clear of the frame, landing atop it-and atop a startled woman Merc on the other side whose right leg snapped with an awful crack as Kate's full weight slammed down on it, hard. She yelped, for the one second she lived before Kate drove her nose up into her brain with a perfectly angled gun butt strike.

Doors opened behind her even as she rolled off the door and to her feet, spinning around fast. The first man through the door got six armour piercing rounds in the chest fast, just in case, a fulisade of impacts which catapulted him backwards.

Bizarrely, she couldn't help recalling her old tutors advice about ignoring what most people would tell you to do in a gunfight if you wanted to live. Head shot, quick and clean and dead, right? Wrong. Heads are relatively small parts of the body, always moving and only have weak points around the eyes and mouth, the skull might repel or deflect small calibre weapons. The chest, though, is a massive target packed full of vital organs shielded only by ribs and sternum, between which there are large amounts of space to shoot. Nobody walks around with a bullet in the Kidney, for example, whereas being half blind means the target can still see to shoot you with the other eye if you miss the brain. How many times had that advice saved her life? Too many, she'd never know in reality.

The last man came close to the door but not within her line of sight, clearly intending to throw a grenade in. She holstered her left-side pistol and drew her HALO knife, then stepped outside as though she was taking the air. The man was too shocked to move as she suddenly appeared, for the breath of time before she slashed out in a spinning cut that left her standing at the end of the corridor, opening his throat from chin to spine in a deep whip slash of blood that coated the hall, leaving him dead on his feet before he even registered the attack. Her right-hand pistol spoke twice, the wounded men's bodies jerking as both took point-blank shots in the head to make sure before she cleaned her HALO knife on their clothes, sheathed it and reached out to open the door, carefully standing to one side just in case-

The crack of gunfire from the other side of the door saved her life, but even she wasn't that quick. She dived backwards and to her right, but of the two shots which exploded through the door and wall one hit her in the left shoulder, somehow missing the bone, while the other hit her high in the left chest, snapping a rib and plunging deep. Her planned graceful landing and roll turned to a painful crash-landing as she was hit by a wave of agony from her new injuries which tried to stop her heart, waves of bloody red pain flooding into her mind and trying to swamp her consciousness.

...Selene...

She could feel blood, her own blood, pooling underneath her from all of her wounds. It felt like acid had been poured down her throat, she could taste blood and pain, blood was trickling out of her mouth...

...Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn...

The door was opening behind her, she could just make out a woman's voice issuing sharp orders. She couldn't move-!

Assassin of the Old Ones. The Chaos Soldier.

A bullet was chambered behind her. This was it...

Something deep inside her mind cut pain out of the information chain and forced her battered body to respond to the commands of her mind, sheer force of will overriding the almost crippling injuries she'd suffered as feeling and strength rushed back into her, every one of her nerves on fire, screaming in agony. She felt like she was fighting through treacle for a moment-

She rolled aside just as the man fired, rolling onto her back as the bullet slashed into the carpet and ground where her head had been. She snapshot her return fire and caught him in the join between chest and neck, snapping his collarbone and severing an artery. He screamed, dropped his gun and grabbed at his neck, trying insanely to stop the spurting blood with his bare hands. Shouting erupted behind him as others tried to push past, but the agonised man wasn't moving, howling like a wounded animal-until someone shot him through the heart from behind, catapulting him from his feet.

Selene sat up and simply started shooting, aiming for throats, faces and hearts. Four more men and the woman officer were inside the garage, she killed the first two men and winged the officer in the left arm before they fell back out of sight, moving to concealed positions behind the cars and other vehicles. Unsteadily she stood up and followed, her blouse drenched in her own blood, her left arm barely functional, the three bullets in her burning in the wounds. She felt a sheen of sweat coat her body as she went from hot to cold and back again in seconds, her seriously injured body trying to cope with the increasingly extreme physical demands she was asking of it. Even she was hitting her physical limits, fast, this couldn't go on much longer.

"Tekeli-li!" she shouted, then she ran into the garage doubled over before diving full length on the floor, so much momentum behind her she slid for several metres in a controlled skid, leaving a long smear of blood. Shots ran out in all directions but none came anywhere near her.

She shot to her feet like a jack-in-the-box and killed a Merc with a single clean head shot before the last standing soldier, bar the officer, came at her from the right with his SA-80 held like a baseball bat. He slashed at her legs, presumerably thinking that, like 90% of people so seriously injured, she wouldn't be able to react fast enough to avoid the attack with the pain and injury slowing her down. She proved him wrong with a kick which took the rifle out of his hands, breaking several fingers in the process, before she grabbed him by both wrists and delivered a brutal head butt that fractured his helmet faceplate and almost cracked her skull. To finish, she grabbed the stunned man in a headlock with both arms and twisted sharply with vicious strength. His neck snapped audibly and he flopped to the floor, dead, with a boneless thump.

The officer came out of nowhere and with a pistol held in her good arms hand-but Selene met her with the Glock 45. face to face. Selene knew precisely two people faster than her on the trigger, she also knew what it took to pull the trigger under these circumstances, a willingness to be dead if you didn't succeed. Life and death meant nothing to her, she wondered whether the officer realised that...

The officer shifted her grip on her weapon so she was holding the butt with only two fingers abruptly, then she dropped it to the floor like it was nothing. Intrigued, Selene watched as the woman reached up and slowly, carefully, removed her helmet. She was young, thirty or just over, with long curly brown hair tied up about her head to let her use the helmet, doe-soft light brown eyes, a smoothly beautiful face, slim but compact, almost thin body...

Selene's eyes widened. It couldn't be...?

"Hello, Selene. It's been a long time" said the woman, her accent almost impossible to place-but Selene had good ears. There was a strong trace of America in there if you knew what to listen for. Texas, even?

Selene was almost rooted to the spot by something close to shock. Of everything she hadn't expected...

"Kelly?!"

"No need to shout, its me, I'm right here. We really have to stop meeting like this though, you know?" replied Kelly, a smile on her face. Selene's aim didn't waver for a moment, she knew exactly what the younger woman was capable of given the chance.

"Kelly bloody Peyton, as I live and breathe... Idiot woman, what the Hell do you think your doing taking arms against me? I've slaughtered enough people over the years making a point to people who come after me that I would have though my star pupil, of everyone, would know better. Do you actually think that I won't kill you just because I enjoy your company? I should cripple and blind you just for being in the area" said Selene, resisting the urge to shake her head before she continued.

"Et tu, Kelly? I used to think the people I trained generally came with some intelligence. Prove me wrong now and I will hurt you. Bad" she snapped out, a snarl on her face.

"Your not wrong, I am smart, Selene. Here's what you don't know: it was me who shot you through the door, I can see I hit you both times. The bullets were coated in Potassium Cyanide, by now it's in your bloodstream and on its way to your heart at the very least. Your already dead, you just didn't know it" replied Kelly, the smile on her face not wavering for a moment.

Selene stared at her. Then, despite the hideous nature of the threat she was facing, despite all of her awful injuries, the blood rimming her mouth and lips as a trace hung from her mouth like a rope of crimson drool, she actually threw her head back and laughed. Kelly's smile fell off of her face in a way which suggested she'd just discovered she'd already dug her own grave, exactly where she was standing.

"Imaginative, nice touch, but not good enough. People die from poisons, but nothing short of or other than violence will take me from this world. You never did understand just what I am. Take more than you to kill the beast, Kelly. See you in the funny pages" replied Selene, still chuckling.

She snapped a sudden savage right cross to Kelly's jaw with her pistol still in hand, without warning, cracking the other woman's jaw and staggering her badly, before following through with a savage clubbing strike to the back of the head which dropped the woman to the floor in an unmoving heap. She wasn't honestly worried if she'd crippled or even killed Kelly in reality. If the woman was strong, she'd survive and live to fight another day intact. If not? Oh well...

She scanned the garage quickly, noting that Conklin's choice of vehicle focused on the solid and reliable rather than the flashy and fast. Every vehicle in there, from small car to small truck, was the kind of vehicle one could drive through a Swamp and it would still keep going until the gas ran out. Some of them even looked like armoured car variations on regular designs, to her skilled eyes, but she wanted something special for this... Oh, yes. That would do very nicely indeed.

Less than a minute later Gibbs and his charges caught up, even as she opened the doors and checked the vehicle she'd chosen for Booby Traps and sabotage. There was none, sloppy work on Kelly's part, but she likely hadn't had time.

"...Kings Knight, reply. Repeat, Kings Knight, respond with location and status report..."

More radio chatter came into her ears through her stolen headphones and communication rig. The attackers had already noticed the loss of contact with Kelly, that really was not good.

"Kate? Are you-Jesus Christ..." said Gibbs even as she turned to meet him and he got a good look at her. She looked like she'd gone twelve rounds with a machine gun being fired at her while being lashed with a flail, she had no doubt. She could feel her own blood drenching her clothes, making her hands slippery, sense an increasing shortness of breath-punctured lung, almost certainly-and knew that her constant swallowing of the blood that was building up in her mouth, not always completely successfully, was making her teeth turn a deep, dark red, but she wasn't going to die of any of that just yet. Blood loss notwithstanding, even with the poison in her system she likely had hours to go before her injuries were honestly life threatening, the internal bleeding just made things more complicated. She could manage.

"Kate, how the Hell are you even still alive?" asked Katherine, coming in behind Gibbs and still supporting the wounded Panov. Evidently she'd recovered from the shock of the earlier attack and her injuries, which was finally an advantage on their side. Of course, she still had no use of her ruined hand, but that couldn't be helped.

"Deaths boring, why would I want to experience that when there's so much of life left to explore? Anyway, its just pain, an old friend of mine who reminds me I'm alive every now and then. Are you going to get in? We really should go before reinforcements get in here" replied Selene.

"Your completely crazy, but your now officially the hardest bitch I've ever met. Lead on" said Katherine, shaking her head. Gibbs appeared to appalled at her injuries to say anything, so she ignored him and got into the drivers seat.

The vehicle she'd chosen was a Humvee, Military grade and design, with bullet proof windows, an armoured chassis and special kind of jelly-filled tires which couldn't be blown or flattened by anything, the only way to stop a vehicle with them was to blow the wheels clean off of it. Dark grey in colour, it had a sealed turret hatch which looked as though it was designed for a rotating machine gun mount atop it, a mount which had been removed.

Humvee's were all-terrain vehicles, the kind that got shot full of holes, set on fire and torn apart yet kept going because that was what they were designed to do, to get the passengers where they were going no matter what. She wondered how Conklin had got hold of one, but didn't care right now. What mattered was that she now had the escape vehicle of her dreams, unless the old man was hiding a tank somewhere. The Humvee also had a full tank of gas, she was very glad to discover. Hopefully, it had been well maintained as well.

The others all got in, Gibbs manhandling the unconscious Conklin into the backseat across Panov and Katherine, who both did their best to support the old man and keep the primitive bandage on his neck no matter what. He was pale as a white sheet and starting to shake uncontrollably, signs of extreme blood loss and deep shock. Even young, once you were that bad you didn't have long. At Conklin's age? He probably had minutes if they were lucky.

Gibbs joined her in the front, riding shotgun, but she got a good look at him and didn't like what she saw. He was pale and sweaty himself, his hands were still steady but he was starting to look damp and clammy, his eyes bloodshot. He'd lost too much blood, tough as he was at his age, but she couldn't loose him just yet. There was nobody else left who could actually help her out with this.

Of course, that didn't take away from the fact she was definitely not feeling superb herself. The bleeding she could handle, the pain she could ignore, but she was starting to feel cramps and pains in her chest which had nothing to do with her injuries, on top of which she needed a drink so badly that she was starting to feel dehydrated. Functioning at these levels with her injuries was dragging down her physical and mental resources fast, resources she had no easy way to replenish.

The poison was starting to bite, even though she hadn't been exaggerating when she told Kelly that it wouldn't kill her for a fact. She had her ways of dealing with that kind of assault, but that didn't mean it wouldn't, at the very least, severely inconvenience her before she was able to deal with it.

"Stay with me, Harmon, because if you pass out on me now you'll wake up dead. That, I promise you" said Selene, staring hard at him. Gibbs stared straight back at her without flinching, his expression as much as his eyes making it clear that his resolve was as malleable as a block of concrete was for a light breeze.

"I promise you this: I've never backed out or down from a fight in my life and there's no way in Hell I'm starting now. Get us out of here and I'll be with you all the way" replied Gibbs, his voice all Military discipline and rock-solid self control that never let him quit before the mission was complete, the job done. She smiled, that was the right answer.

"Buckle up, stay down, lock the doors and shut the windows tight. This is going to hurt" said Selene, before starting the Humvee's engine, which turned over with a deep, throaty roar of contained power even as all of the doors were slammed shut and locked, every window shut and checked. There were three small vehicles between them and the garage doors, wood and steel combined effort doors designed to be opened electronically. Doing that would be like waving a flag saying "Shoot me!" to anyone waiting for them outside, so she'd gone with Plan B. The Humvee was a big, solid moving object which could build up plenty of momentum in a short time, so the plan was simple. She was going to open the door in a way the designers had never planned for.

"Wagons roll!" she shouted, even as she aimed the Humvee directly at the garage doors and stamped on the accelerator so hard the wheels span, shrieking on the concrete surface before the rubber bit and propelled it forwards as though it had been fired from a launch pad atop a Space Shuttle launch.

Gibbs stared at her in bewilderment as they moved, but she just shrugged and winked. "Always wanted to say that in America" she said, with a wide, mad grin as they raced towards the door as though they were trying to outrun all of the hordes of Hell. They hit the door maybe five seconds later.

The impact shook every bone in her body and made the vehicle almost come to a dead stop with a shriek of bending and shredding steel, snapping wood spinning away, a shard of steel being torn clear with such force that it cracked the windscreen on impact before skittering away in a shower of sparks as it glanced off of the armoured side. It didn't change the fact that she could abruptly see daylight, that she kept her foot all the way down on the accelerator even as an awful screech sounded from somewhere-then they were outside, tires screaming as they shot up the exit and entrance ramp at the rear of the building, Selene fighting the wheel all the way as the drag from the shattered garage door and the bumpy ride tried to finish the escape before it had even started.

Bright early morning sun shone overhead, slight white clouds drifting across a clear blue sky casting shadows down on green grass and dark brown trees. That was the good news.

The bad news was, as they came out onto the main road leading around Conklin's estate, pyres of smoke and even flames were rising from every building, including the one they'd just left. Small craters were everywhere, in a pattern which suggested either artillery fire or the use of multiple high explosives. Buildings were pockmarked with bullet damage everywhere she looked, windows were shattered by explosives or cracked in a dozen places by bullet impacts everywhere. Automatic weapons fire belched and roared across the estate as small teams of three or four men fought each other, leapfrogging from cover to cover, using guns, grenades and even their bare hands in battles to the death near anything solid enough to hide a human being. A big gun mounted on the back of a large trailer truck sat at the open entrance gates, blocking them off completely. An actual Howitzer, one team had actually brought artillery... Well, they weren't going out that way.

The fighting between rival groups almost ended abruptly as the Humvee roared into sight, then everyone who could draw a direct line of fire turned and opened fire on them. Selene snapped the wheel left, veering sharply off of the road towards the perimeter fence, skidded right in a fast swerve around a burning storehouse even as sparks flew from bullet impacts which crashed against the Humvee's armour like hot metal hailstones, fought to compensate as the grass and soil tried to deny her traction, then gunned the engine and braced herself as they headed straight for the eight-foot wire mesh fence, which she really hoped wasn't still electrified. With a resounding crack, followed by the kind of wet snapping echo she normally associated with multiple broken bones, they tore right through the fence and raced on into the nearby forest.

She didn't even consider trying to slow down as she span the wheel like a lunatic, spinning the Humvee around trees and stumps like a professional Stunt driver in a life or death race. She had no doubt at all that the remains of the two teams were running for their vehicles right at that moment, whether or not they were still trying to kill each other on the way, the only reason she and the others had even made it out of the garage at all.

With Conklin's estate turned into a War Zone she'd have put money on everyone who lived within five miles having called the Police to report either a Terrorist attack or possible invasion, which meant police SWAT teams were already on their way at the very least. Once the reports got high enough up the information chain that the fact Conklin was involved got the right peoples attention she wouldn't have been too surprised to see everyone from the National Guard on down showing up guns blazing asking questions later, but they weren't here now so she'd just have to manage. Hopefully the Mercs didn't have a helicopter, anything else she could manage but that could kill them. After all, you couldn't loose a helicopter from the ground in a vehicle as big as a Humvee...

"Hey! HEY! Where the Hell are we GOING?!" shouted Gibbs suddenly, dragging her attention back to him briefly.

"No IDEA! Whip out a map and find me a road, then we'll know!" she snapped back, preoccupied at the very least. Her own blood was making her hands grip on the wheel so slick that her hands were going numb she was gripping it so tightly to compensate, her clothes and seat were getting increasingly drenched and she was suffering black spots in her vision she had to keep blinking away, on top of which she was suffering increasing bouts of sharp pains which she knew had nothing to do with her injuries. She was breathing blood, while broken and cracked bones had set her entire chest on fire on the inside, made worse by internal bleeding.

She hadn't been this badly torn up since she'd been captured and tortured in China in 99', when their utter failure to make her talk no matter what drugs or coercion had been used had driven her torturers to extreme methods. She still hadn't talked after they were done, so they'd left her for dead in a concrete cell for three days in a pool of blood, terrible injuries open to infection, starving and delirious from dehydration and her injuries. She hadn't died then, she wasn't going to die now.

"Got it! Woodland road a mile ahead and left now, turn right onto it and we hit a main road that takes us to town" shouted Gibbs, straining to be heard over the roar of the Humvee's engine as he wrenched open a map he'd found in a lockbox by his side.

"Groovy!" shouted back Selene, slashing the wheel left before straightening up and gunning the engine again. The sudden, abrupt manoeuvre saved their lives.

A missile shot past on their right and slammed into the soil, a second before it burst into a red-white ball of flame that vaporised at least a six foot area of greenery and set fire to everything around it. Selene swore a blue streak. Hellfire missile, designed specifically to take out armoured vehicles just like theirs, had to be. Worse, it had to be mounted on a helicopter to have come at them like that given their lead, so why hadn't she heard it?

Stealth chopper? Just who the Hell was actually after them, or rather Conklin? You didn't send assets like that after anyone willy-nilly.

"Gibbs! DRIVE!" she barked, grabbing his good arm and wrenching him near her as they hit a temporary clear area. A professional, he was used to taking Orders and grabbed the wheel without question, allowing her to slide under him as he rolled over her, although she had to bite down on her lip hard to avoid an involuntary yelp of pain. Even just moving was beginning to do much worse than simply "hurt".

"What the Hell are you DOING?!" shouted Gibbs, as she reached up and slammed the hatch above their heads as hard as she could with both hands. It hadn't been welded, thankfully, just locked shut, so she felt a slight give when she hit it. She hit it again, twice, harder each time-and it sprang open suddenly, a gale blasting inside. She tried to stand up, almost failed as her legs didn't want to cooperate and her chest felt like it had been cracked open, but, as she always did, she forced aside the pain and weakness with an awful effort of will and stood up straight, half out of the turret as she stood in the central area directly beneath it. Even as she rose to her feet, standing up straight, she drew both guns and grinned at Gibbs, well aware that she looked as though she'd died once already the state she was in.

"LIVING!" she bellowed back, well aware that what she was attempting was almost certainly a suicide mission, not least because she didn't even know for certain where the helicopter was, what to look for, even whether there were any tree branches that could kill her or simply knock her out of the vehicle even as it simply drove on along its nightmare drive. None of that mattered, if she failed they were all dead anyway. If the helicopter could draw a good bead on them they'd be incinerated before they knew it, in Hell before they realised they were dead-well, not her, but that was complicated. It was time to do or die, that moment in time she always enjoyed, the second between life and death...

She swung around slowly and steadily on the balls of her feet, not allowing her growing feeling of physical weakness to even register. She didn't have time for that right now.

There. A shift of movement just above the trees not far away, something artificial since the sun didn't glint off of leaves or wood unless it had been raining. Whoever was flying the chopper was going to extraordinary lengths to avoid being spotted, but why? If their mission was to take out the Humvee, they had to show themselves just to succeed. If they succeeded, nobody alive would know they'd been there. If they failed... Well, any sensible Merc team would have made sure all forms of identification would have been removed, regardless. Was the pilot nervous?

The helicopter suddenly reared up and out of the tree line and hurtled towards them so fast she almost fell over as she turned sharply to bring her guns to bear. Sleek, thin and long, jet black, tail rotor contained in a housing inside the tail section itself, one-way cockpit glass, missile bundles mounted underneath, what looked like a heavy gun mounted inside the nose area she guessed could be locked away by retractable panel. Really fast and, even coming straight at her, she could barely hear the engine, despite the fact she could see the main rotors spinning in a nightmare blur.

The main gun opened fire first as the pilot had obviously seen her sticking out of the top of the Humvee, shattering tree trunks, shredding leaves, chewing up grass and soil, raining down on the armoured Humvee's side with a series of crashes and loud cracks which let her know the high-velocity rounds were going to break right through the armour with only maybe a couple more attempts. She returned fire seconds after it started shooting but, not at all to her surprise, the downdraft from the rotors and the buffeting from just her ride, let alone the wind and the choppers own movement, made sure that emptying her pistols at it scored her at best three hits, hits which did no apparent damage at all.

She didn't deserve the freak luck which stopped any of the rain of steel death from hitting her, although she was glad because a high velocity round would have torn right through her and left bits of her insides strewn twenty metres back. Sometimes she needed to be reminded that even though her aim was flawless, she couldn't just disregard the laws of Physics when they became inconvenient. She was going to need something special to handle this.

The chopper had disappeared behind the tree line again, but she estimated thirty seconds until it came back and finished the job. She ducked back inside to reload, slung her shotgun over her shoulder rather than across her back, shoved her Flash Grenade into a pocket and stood up again, ready as she could be. Even for her, this was going to be a stunt. The helicopter quickly swung back into view, gun ready, the pilot evidently sure he could finish the job without missiles if necessary. She thought he was right, which meant there was no more room for failure. This had to be perfect, no second chances.

...Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn...

She opened fire first this time, aiming at the rotors, the cockpit, anything which looked important it was possible for her to hit. In reality, all the pistol fire was intended to do was distract the pilot, as well as anyone else in the chopper, the plan was something more drastic.

The helicopters gun opened up again, a high-pitched screaming whine of hot metal rage being spat out at them, lashing anything and everything that got in the way to pieces or simply blowing it apart. It was getting closer and closer-a shell just missed her chest, slashing through her left arm and lacerating the flesh. The muscle somehow remained intact, so she held onto the gun, but she almost bit right through the inside of her cheek holding in a terrible scream of pain and rage. Closer...

Now. She pulled the grenades pin, counted it off and hurled it before covering her eyes and looking away. The Flash grenade detonated against the windscreen of the helicopter, blinding the pilot instantly, evidenced by the fact that it started to wheel and lurch about drunkenly in the air, the gun continuing to fire. Low as it was, there was still a chance it could pull out before it crashed. She couldn't let that happen, so she holstered her pistols and raised the shotgun. Firing at point blank was the only way such a limited weapon would have ever proved useful against a chopper, so her only chance was to fire now, as it swung wildly back and forth almost directly overhead-

She targeted what she thought were the fuel intakes and pulled the trigger just as the helicopter suddenly banked sharply and dragged its nose around, right towards her and the Humvee. Her shot connected dead on, punching through the intake cover and rupturing something that immediately began to spew black smoke, followed by fire. The choppers engine noise was suddenly very audible as the engine ran haywire, the revs racing at a higher and higher speed until a small explosion echoed as the overloaded safeties blew, which made the engine immediately cut out. The chopper fell out of the sky ahead and to the right of them as though it was being pulled down by Death itself, its rotors still slowly turning...

She only barely registered this, though, because the choppers last turn had aimed its gun right at her centre of mass. Worse, she'd been too slow trying to duck back inside the Humvee and the shell had hit her hard, cutting right through the lower right chest, through what had to have been her intestines and on out of her back. She'd suffered rather than seen the terrible eruption of thick blood and gore torn right out of her and collapsed instantly, rolling helplessly to the right a dead weight as she fell right out of the Humvee to her death, branches slashing open her exposed face, throat, hands and arms-only a hand had caught her ankle.

Another hand grabbed her loose-swinging other ankle and taut grips dragged her backwards, up, towards the hatch again. Things were starting to get a little fuzzy as this happened so she wasn't quite sure, but she thought that the Humvee had burst out of the woods onto a road even as she hung upside down like a side of meat by her feet. The Humvee was still racing along, that she was sure of. Could she hear voices, people shouting?

"...Pull her in!…"

Yes, she could. That was Gibbs voice, she'd heard it enough over the last hour to be sure of him.

"...Trying!..."

That was Katherine's voice. She muzzily made a note to buy the other woman a drink if she lived through this, even dinner if she was willing. They could compare notes on suffering, she suspected that they'd have plenty to talk about now. It was strange what passed through the mind at times of near death experiences, she couldn't help but think. On some level. Things were definitely getting further away, not a good sign.

Through what was left of her flickering, failing eyesight, she dimly registered that they'd succeeded as she suddenly found herself back inside the Humvee, as alert and mobile as a sack of potatoes. She could feel the mortal agony of every single one of her injuries abruptly, all of them, in every fatal detail.

"...DRIVE!..."

That was...Katherine's voice. She was telling Gibbs to put his foot down, no doubt. Didn't matter, Selene was pretty sure it was already too late. Still, she appreciated the thought.

The darkness was coming up to meet her fast even as she got a last glimpse of what seemed to be flickering lights, caught the slightest hint of sound which suggested...sirens? The Police? Ambulances, maybe? Good for them. There were people here who needed help, even if she was no longer one of them.

...Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin...

/End of Chapter 13. All Reviews welcomed./