A/N: Thanks to Trish for editing and Em for suggestions. Sorry for the delay with this chapter.

Mac was tired, and Winter looked like shit by the time we drew close to Rob's place. We were landing in daylight, but no one would care round here. There was no landing strip, so we had to put down in a field. If we could find one without cattle in it that is.

We must have been about five miles out according to Bones, when everything went to shit. There was a stream of swear words from the cockpit, and the plane started to shake violently. Great, just fucking great. After all this I'm about to die in a plane crash.

I steadied myself on a crate and lurched to the flight deck door way.

"Problems gentlemen?" I asked.

"Fucking engine number three again," Mac spat. "It's shutting down, hence the shaking. We're struggling to compensate."

"You can land with three engines?" I queried, as visions of burning fuselage filled my head.

"I can land with no engines Ric, but I'd rather land with four. I'll try to make the distance, but I'll put down if I have to. We're not far off now."

Winter looked round at me. "You might want to sit down, man."

"Yeah, and assume the crash position," Mac bitched as the plane dipped alarmingly. "We're losing fuel pressure and one's not looking so good either!" he exclaimed. Was that sweat on his brow?

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath.

Tank staggered into the cockpit. "It's like Burma all over again," he said with a wistful smile.

Like it helped that he reminded me of that cluster fuck. The visions of twisted metal appeared again and I sat down heavily in my seat. Not that sitting down would mean I was more likely to survive, but at least this way I didn't have to see how close the ground was if I didn't want to.

Mac swore again. "Ever crash landed one of these baby's?" he asked Winter.

"No, but I guess there's a first time for everything," he replied through gritted teeth.

Both men were struggling to hold the plane in the air. And I was struggling to hold onto my lunch. Shoot at me and I'm fine, but flying… It's not that I have a problem with it, more that it's not a way I ever want to die. Ever.

"How far are we out?" I asked Bones. I didn't know how much more of this I could take and right now all I wanted to do was to plant my feet firmly on solid ground.

He peered out of the window. "Just over the next hill is the start of the farm. I reckon the old barn is about two miles out from here."

"Good," Winter said. "Your family know that were about to land in their garden?"

"No," Bones said with a shake of his head.

"Shit, we should have called ahead, Ric. Rob's gonna come at us with a rocket launcher or something," Tank grumbled.

I did not want to risk broadcasting our destination to any unfriendlies out there. That was why, since we flew over the last airstrip we had dropped below radar level to make it look like we had landed there. Caution was my watchword now, or was it paranoia? Hell, how the fuck could I be paranoid when they really were out to get me?

"Shut it Tank," I replied. "You know as well as I do how important it is for us to stay offline right now."

He rubbed his hand over his bald head and shot me a dark look. "When we land you and I are going to have a chat, Ricardo."

I started to respond, and pull rank on him when the Hercules tilted alarmingly.

"Three down, one to go!" Mac yelled as he struggled to keep control of this flying dumpster. I presume he was talking about engines. The tension in the cockpit was heavy and thick. You could almost cut it with a knife. Mac was a good pilot and there was nothing I could do other than trust in his abilities to set this thing down in one piece.

"Half a mile!" Bones shouted as he shot out of his seat and pointed to an area of grass just to the west of us."

The plane groaned with the strain of flying with only one engine and the guys somehow managed to swing it round in the direction Bones had pointed in. I bit the bullet and peered out of the window. We must have been 200 feet up if that now. Well, at least it wasn't that far to the ground if we dropped out of the sky.

Mac and Winter exchanged dark looks. "Pull it now!" Mac commanded and Winter yanked hard on the fuel release mechanism, dumping the remaining aviation fuel we had onto some poor bastard's field. Well, if it was Rob's I'm sure he'd understand. We cleared the last fence by 50 feet and the ground shot up to meet us.

"Brace!" Winter demanded and we instantly assumed the crash position, as the heap of useless metal hit the ground with a thud and bounced alarmingly across the field. Mud flew up in the air and splattered the windows. Finally we slid to a halt. I counted to five, slowly, and when nothing exploded I let out a sigh of relief.

"Go," I told Bones. "I don't need us getting shot at. Everyone okay?"

The guys grumbled their assurances and I stood up on shaky legs to check on the rest of the team.

The cargo bay was a wreck, cases had slid across the hold and split open, scattering their contents and taking out the four bikes in the process. Bobby was being sick in a corner, Danny was crouched over Snake to shield him from the debris and to stop his I.V lines from ripping from his arm. Lester had practically dragged Lee onto his lap and was holding on to her so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Danny looked over at me and stood up gingerly. "Can you believe I gave up a week in the Bahamas for this?" he muttered.

Bobby finished being sick and pulled himself upright using the remnants of a crate. He looked like hell. "Next time I'm staying at home," he bitched.

"What? And miss out on all the fun?" Lester said, flashing his lopsided grin.

Lester's eyes told a different story to his smile. No matter how much he tried to hide it, he'd been just as scared as the rest of us. Lee was limp in his arms, blissfully out cold through the entire fuck up. Snake, unfortunately was conscious and shivering; he needed medical attention ASAP.

"Let's get everyone off this piece of shit," I said. I was really looking forward to stepping onto solid ground.

Mac and Winter, our walking wounded limped down the side steps and out onto the cut up field. Tank came next, followed by Bobby and Danny carrying Snake out on a stretcher and Lester still had Bailey cradled in his arms.

I surveyed the view from the top of the plane steps, using my hand to shield the early afternoon sun from my gaze. The farm hadn't changed that much since we were last here a couple of years ago, and for the first time in nearly a week it felt good to be somewhere I didn't need to watch my back. I just wished we could be here in better circumstances. We needed a medical facility ASAP, and I needed to start some covert ops on the enemy if any of us wanted to go home in the next week.

As I reached the foot of the steps I saw Vicky standing on the porch steps, wiping her hands on her apron. She seemed to be taking the whole dumping a very large plane in her front paddock thing pretty well so far. She slipped her house shoes off, jammed her feet into her work boots and marched across the field towards us.

As she reached the fence she looked us over and rolled her eyes. "You boy's been playing soldiers again?" she demanded.

I coughed. "Yes, ma'm." Why did she always make me feel like I was a twelve-year-old kid? She was worse than my mother; then again, my mother didn't give a damn so it was nice that Vicky cared.

She looked at Snake and then at Bailey and her eyes went wide. "What on earth have you boys been doing? And why in God's name are you dragging girls into your operations?"

Bobby stepped forward. "Ma'am, we really need to get to the hospital."

"Fine. Take the truck, you know where you are going, right enough. The keys are in it." The woman was un-phazed, like it was an everyday occurrence for a renegade black ops unit to crash land at her farm. Then again, she'd known us for a long, long time and knew to expect the unexpected when we rolled into town.

I looked over at the beat up pick up. Shit. It would have to do. It was 25 miles to the local medical centre and I didn't want to have to make more than one trip. I looked at Bobby. "Get Snake loaded up, Lee too. Mac, Winter, I'd feel better if we got you two checked out as well."

The guys went to get things sorted and I looked at Vicky again. "I'm sorry about this. We had nowhere else to go and some of my team need to get to the hospital. I'll leave Tank here. We need to stash the plane in the barn so when Bones… I mean Luke comes back they can sort out the logistics for that. Where is Luke by the way?"

"He's gone to get his uncle. Rob's down in the bottom field fixing the fences, so Luke took the quad bike. They should be back anytime now. What the hell is going on, Ricardo?"

I sighed and scrubbed my hands over my face. "Someone wanted me dead. We took out the immediate problem and now they think we are all dead. We need to lay low until we can find out what is going on and then we can pull a plan together."

Vicky looked a little pale. "Bad business?"

"Very."

"And your injured men?"

"They'll live."

She seemed happy with that response. "You know you are welcome here. I'll go and start fixing some dinner. I have no doubt that you boys will be hungry when you get back. I also assume that you won't be leaving any of them at the hospital."

"Correct."

"I'll sort out the guest rooms. How many are going to need bed rest?"

"Just Snake and Lee." I thought about telling her more, but changed my mind at the last minute. I'd fill her in on the full details later. I couldn't bring myself to do that right now. Thinking about what had happened to Lee still made me feel sick.

We swept into the small emergency department en-masse and were greeted by a familiar looking face. It seemed like nothing really changed around here.

"Oh my God! Bobby, is that you?" the charge nurse squealed.

Trixie St.John was still blonde, bubbly and perky. She was Bones' eldest cousin's, best mate's sister, and had been trying to get into my pants for as long as I could remember. She really wasn't my type; she was more up Lester's alley than mine.

I smiled at her and nodded briefly. Charming the nursing staff was not a high priority for me right now.

"Lester!" she cooed as he stepped through the doors. He gave her a curt nod and strode past her to the main desk. Playboy Lester was not in appearance today. The only woman he was concerned about was still unconscious in his arms. He hadn't let go of Lee since the plane lost its first engine.

Doc White bustled out of the back room and stopped when he saw us. He cocked his head to one side. "Problems?" he asked.

Ranger pushed past me and took over. "George," he said whilst shaking the doctors outstretched hand.

George White was ex military and how he'd ended up stuck in this backwater treating gravel rash and in-growing toenails always baffled me. His salt and pepper hair was still cut short and the man seemed as cool, calm and collected as ever.

"I take it you boys are a figment of my imagination," he said with a wry smile.

Ranger's smile matched his. "I'd appreciate that George. Can you take a look at my team? We'll need a gurney for Snake, he's still in the back of the pickup."

George coughed. "I'm sure I can lose the paperwork for this lot, and a nice anonymous donation towards our running costs would help once you've got your problems straightened out. Trixie, go get a gurney, I can't have injured men cluttering up the parking lot."

Trixie dashed off and Ranger nodded at me as he went to help with Snake. Looks like I'm back in charge again. Ranger always deferred anything medical to me. Ric was a very clever man, but his medical knowledge was limited. What made him clever was knowing when to delegate his responsibilities. Like now for instance.

"What we got, Bobby?" George asked.

"Snake took a rifle round to the shoulder. It's gone straight through, but it still needs cleaning up as he's now got a serious infection and nothing I've got can shift it. Plus an x-ray wouldn't hurt. Winter has a deep laceration to his thigh from a bullet, but there's not much left to stitch. Mac has a laceration to his thigh from a knife. I steri-stripped that, but it's pulled open a couple of times because of the placement of the wound. Bailey's got multiple lacerations to the chest and thighs. I've stitched them all up, but a couple don't look so healthy. She has a suspected fractured cheek bone, needs a load of blood work doing and also needs checking for internal injuries."

George nodded. "Okay, I'll treat the worst two first. You want to bring them through?"

"Come on Les," I said as I followed George. I looked back over my shoulder at Winter. "Get Ric to bring Snake through, will you?"

"Sure," he replied.

The treatment room was small and clean. George ran a tight ship here. He was a decent guy and if he said that our presence would go un-noticed, I believed him.

"Just put her down on that bed," he said to Lester.

Les looked down at Bailey and then at George and tightened his grip on her. Fucking hell, not here, not now. This was not the time for a melt down.

"Lester," I said. "We need to get her checked over and you holding on to her is gonna make that difficult. Just put her down, bro. We won't hurt her."

"I…. she….no," he mumbled.

I opened my mouth to try and talk some sense into him when Trixie, Danny and Ranger wheeled Snake into the room on a gurney.

"Thanks guys. Why don't you all wait outside while Bobby and I deal with this," George said. His comment was aimed at Lester more than anyone else.

Trixie fussed over Snake's I.V, Danny slipped out of the room and Ric and I tried to work out how to deal with Les. Ric looked at Lester and met my eyes, he knew we had a problem. One wrong move or word and Lester was gonna lose it. He was more hung up over Bailey than I'd thought.

Ric stayed on the other side of the room, trying not to crowd Lester. "Hey Cuz, lets go get some air," he said with slightly forced cheer.

"But…" Lester whispered.

"I'll be right here, bro. I won't let anything happen to her. You trust me." I stated.

He nodded and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

I held out my arms and slowly he passed Lee over to me. I shifted her slightly and Lester let out a hiss. "Watch it!" he growled.

"She's okay, man. I promise."

Ric stepped in swiftly and steered Lester out of the room. As soon as the doors swung shut behind them I set Bailey down.

George sighed. "I see that boy's still fucked up. This his woman?"

"He's the same and she's…" I shrugged.

"A close friend?" he suggested.

"Yeah, that'll do."

"So, what the hell happened to you guys?"

"Remember Phoenix?" I asked.

George swallowed audibly and nodded.

"Payback," I said.

"What happened to the girl?"

I took a deep breath. "Drugged, raped and cut up."

"I take it that things went FUBAR," he responded. I liked George, he was blunt and to the point.

"In a big way. We've been sold out by one of our own guys, Pete's little brother in fact. They set Ric up to go down and when we figured that out and put a new plan in place, they were already expecting us and knew exactly who we all were. Bailey was supposed to go in as a honey trap to get Intel because we didn't think they would know who she was. But…."

"They did," he finished for me."

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. I really needed a coffee to deal with all this. It was gonna take a lot to hold Lester together and God knows how things were gonna pan out once I brought Bailey round. I was scared, shit scared about the whole situation, as I didn't want Les to fall apart again. Bailey would need him and I couldn't have him freaking her out.

"Trixie, can you help me over here please?" George asked.

She finished up with what she was doing and came over to assist. They slowly pulled Lee's long sleeve t-shirt off and poor Trixie went white under her fake tan as she saw the mess the Russians had made of Lee.

"You want a rape kit doing?"

"No point."

"You took care of that then?"

"Yes." He knew I understood the double meaning to his question. He shot me a quick glance and nodded.

I continued, "If you could run bloods to check for anything nasty then that would be good, plus check for any internal damage. I don't think there is, but it's not something I know a lot about."

"Sure. Do you want to stay?"

"Yeah, I better. If I don't, then Les will be back in here getting in the way," I responded.

It was early evening when we made it back to the farm. Snake was doing well on the drugs Doc White had given him. It looked like we had caught the infection in time. Bailey was as good as she was going to get, and Bobby wanted to bring her round once he'd got her settled. Mac and Winter had matching limps. In other circumstances it would have been funny.

Tank was standing on the porch talking to Rob. I left Bobby to handle the wounded and went to catch up with Rob.

"Rob," I said, offering him my hand.

His grip was strong and firm and his expression troubled. "Sounds like you've had a rough time these last few days, boy."

I nodded. "Yes Sir, you could say that. I'm sorry about the plane."

Rob waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about that. It's in the barn out of sight. Took the tractor and combine harvester to shift the great lump, but we got it cleared up." He looked at Tank and then back to me. "I'll leave you boys to catch up, dinner won't be long."

I raised an eyebrow at Tank and he glared. I stared at him and finally he broke. "I need to call Lula," he growled.

"No."

"Ric, man… She's gonna freak if she thinks I'm dead. I need to let her know that I'm okay."

"No."

"For the love of God, Ric!" he hissed, "I have to get a message to her."

"For the third time Tank, no. We have no idea what the situation is in Trenton, and she doesn't have a secure phone. That one phone call could kill us all."

"What about Steph?"

I shrugged. "What about Steph?"

"You're not gonna contact her?"

"No."

"Damn it, she cares about you. How the hell do you think she's gonna react when someone tells her that you're dead," Tank spat.

"And how fucking obvious will it look if she doesn't react naturally to being told I'm dead if she knows that I'm alive? You're not thinking straight, Tank. It is vital right now that we stay off the grid and out of sight. When the news of our 'death' gets out, it is imperative that it is believed, for all of our sakes. Not just the team here, but also those back in Trenton too. Just think what they would do to Lula or Steph if they thought that they were hiding something."

Tank sighed. "I just wish…. It's gonna break her heart."

"And you can fix it again when we get this cluster fuck cleared up. I'm sure Lula would much rather have you back in a week or so, than permanently dead."

He looked me in the eyes. "I just wish I was a cold hearted bastard like you." He handed me a half empty bottle of cold Bud. "Here, drink this, it might help thaw out your soul."

He stomped inside and I sat down on the porch swing, left alone with my thoughts and the sound of the night closing in around me. What Tank didn't know was that I wanted to call Steph. I'd not called her today, so she'd know that something was wrong by now anyway.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she was down the office first thing tomorrow, demanding Intel from Junior. How would she take the news of my death? I knew that she cared, but if she thought I was dead… Fuck. Maybe I could get a message to Morelli through one of his Mob contacts. I doubted that those contacts were being monitored… Damn it, Manoso! Don't be so fucking stupid. Her reaction had to be believable or she'd end up dead herself. I couldn't allow her to get hurt just to spare her a little grief now. Hell, my sisters would be a wreck when they got the news, and so would my grandma. I guess it was the lesser of two evils in the long run, but I was still going to cause so much pain to those who cared about me and that was unforgivable.

I'd call Miami after dinner and get some surveillance set up, plus I'd try and reach my insider in the government. Trenton was proving a little more difficult. The men I trusted the most were stuck here with me. I'd trusted Junior and look where that had gotten me. I needed someone I'd known a long time…. Shit, when I thought about it, it was obvious and the last person anyone would think of. Ella.

That amazing woman had been running that building single-handed for years, and no one would think that I would use my housekeeper for Intel. She came and went wherever she pleased in the building, and wouldn't arouse suspicion. I could have done with some bugs planting, but I was betting that Lee could remote access the camera's to follow up on anything interesting Ella could find out. I needed my desk phone records as well, just in case Junior has been stupid enough to use my phone, plus his email account and cell phone data would be helpful too. I hoped that giving Lee something to do would keep her mind off other things.

So I had a plan and we were as safe as we were going to get until this mess was cleared up. I drained the Bud and as I stood up I felt movement behind me. I turned round and saw Vicky standing in the doorway.

"Dinner's ready," she said with a smile.

"Thanks, I'll be in in a second."

"Stop brooding in the dark, Ricardo and come and get something to eat. What's done is done and you can't change that, no matter how hard you try."

I sighed. Was I brooding? Yeah, I guess I was. I had let people down again, people who trusted me. People I cared about were hurt and more were about to get hurt too.

"Stop it!" Vicky said, smacking me on the arm. "You're alive and so is your team. Pierre filled me in on what was going on while you were at the clinic and you should be proud of yourself. You got the job done and so did your men. You can't tell me that they didn't know the risks involved in that mission from the start.

If I were you I would be thanking my lucky stars that I'd made it this far and that I knew what was going on. You will get this sorted and you will settle any debts you think are owing. Have some faith in yourself, Ricardo. Your men have faith in you, they believe in you. Don't you think it's about time you started believing in yourself?"

She turned away and went back inside. I looked up at the clear night sky and smiled as I saw a passing comet streak across the heavens. I would finish this, for my men and for myself, and I promised myself that I would never let my team down or hurt those I cared about ever again.