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Oh Rats
Chapter 21
G started back toward the stairs.
"Wait, we're not finished."
He stopped and faced Sam. "What now?"
"Anything you remember besides what happened to you?"
G rested against the cement block wall with his hands behind his back.
"Can't think of anything."
"You said you left something here."
"Yeah, me."
"Ah, missed that subtle communication."
G left the torture chamber and hesitated by one room to his left. He stared into the darkened space.
"Missing something in there?" Sam observed his partner's body and eyes.
"Maybe."
G disliked his partner's scrutiny of his every action and reaction. It must've been Hetty's orders. Any more diligence from him and he'd be their lab rat. He glanced sideways at Sam and stepped into one of the three partitioned off cubbyholes, his flashlight flooding the darker corners of it. For some reason, he couldn't remember why the lights failed to work in this room. There was a specific reason. He backed out of the one cubbyhole and entered the next one which was twice the size.
A single wooden table, the size of a student's desk, stood near the back of it.
G focused his flashlight's beam on the table's surface. He gasped and stepped backward right into Sam.
"See a ghost?"
"Something like that."
Sam stayed put and brought the beam of his flashlight down on the table's surface.
G sidestepped his partner's body and backed out of the room into the hallway, his flashlight still pointed at the table. He shivered and tried to remain calm. His right arm trembled causing the flashlight's beam to bounce up and down along the back wall of the cubbyhole.
Sam faced his partner. "You're remembering something?"
"Yeah. I wish I forgot about this, but seeing the inside of it and the table… did it to me."
"Need a man hug?"
"Earlier I would've gladly accepted, but now I just need to get out of here."
G started for the stairs again. Instead of going up them, he veered right down another hallway.
"I'm remembering something all together different."
He paused at the end of it outside a closed and locked steel door.
"Got to be a way to get in here."
"Step aside," Sam said, his gun drawn.
"Besides shoot 'em up." G smiled.
"Think this is funny?"
"Nope." He paused for emphasis of the disliked word. "It's just that you usually go for the most boisterous version of entering a room."
"See a key?"
G couldn't resist the temptation. "Nope."
"Guess I had that coming again."
G moved away from the door.
"We don't know what's in here. What if you firing upon the door sets off an explosion?"
"Or something worse?"
"Yeah."
"Step aside."
G backed up the way he came until he was at the end of the hallway before it turned toward the stairs.
"Nervous much?" Sam laughed and stepped backward, halfway down the hallway.
"Tell me you're not moving away from that door before you—"
Sam fired two shots at the padlock. The steel door blasted open, ripping it off its hinges, tearing it to shreds, and slamming Sam down on the concrete floor.
G edged forward and checked out his partner, offering him a hand. "You okay?"
Sam took it and climbed to his feet. "I am now." He brushed the cement dust off his black clothes and cautiously moved toward the open door.
"See, what did I tell you? Always going beyond what is needed in every situation." G smirked.
"Glad you're back to razzing me."
"You took the edge off everything with your door-blasting routine."
G climbed around the twisted and broken metal pieces which once was a heavy steel door. "This gives new definition to the term blast door." G laughed. He hedged around the corner and peered into the room. But it wasn't a room like the last one with the cubbyholes. "Must've been rigged with explosives." Rather it was a tunnel which continued on into the darkness.
"Yeah. Let me go first," Sam said.
"Oh, that's right, you've got to protect your 'ops.'"
"That's gonna cost you." He edged out in front of his partner.
G followed close behind Sam's footsteps. "You think this comes out near the outbuildings?"
"Nope."
"Back to that again?"
"Nope." Sam hushed his partner with a wave of his hand.
G came along side Sam in the middle the long underground tunnel which steadily and slowly climbed upward. "I doubt if the cellphones work in here."
"Quiet."
G snickered and whispered, "Hear something?"
"Maybe it was just rats."
"Oh rats…"
G sniffed the air. He covered his nose, trying to breathe in fresher air. It wasn't working. "Smells like rotting meat down here."
Sam and G edged forward, both of them stopping at the same time every couple of feet. They moved in the exact way they were tuned into each other on an ops, in sync. One hundred feet down the tunnel lined with stainless steel, they abruptly halted and stared at the source of the noise.
G covered his mouth, flipped on his heels, and was about to run the other direction.
Sam grabbed his partner by the back of his shirt and held him in place.
"I'm going to be sick."
"You're not leaving the tunnel."
"I won't, no, can't go past that…"
A man's partially decomposed body had been consumed by rats. The rats scurried away into the darkness.
"I need you to stay right here," Sam said, keeping his voice low.
"Can't stomach the stench."
"Then come with me." Sam released G's shirt.
He faced Sam and spied over his shoulder at the gruesome scene beyond him.
"I don't know if pinching my nose is going to help."
Sam took out his gun and eyed it. "I suggest you do the same."
"After I pass by the… it… I'll take out my weapon."
Sam glanced sideways at his partner. "What happened in that other room?"
"When we get through this I'll think about telling you," G moved forward, "the operative word is think." He pinched his nostrils shut and sidestepped past the half-eaten man.
"I wonder…"
"I know what you're going to say." G hurried along the corridor, creating distance between him and the stench. He released his nose and attempted to breath in fresher air. The fetid odor was stronger in this end of the corridor. "You wonder why that triggered me. Right? I'll tell you later."
"You've got a lot to tell me later."
They continued down the tunnel side by side, keeping silent.
About a hundred feet in the distance a single light hung from the domed ceiling.
G inched closer to the curved wall and drew his weapon.
"Something tells me you've been down this way before."
This time G pressed a single finger to his lips and pointed to the wall opposite him.
Sam hugged it.
Twenty feet from the light, G paused and shot out the bulb.
"Now why in the—"
Gun fire erupted beyond the light bulb.
"Let's go back the way—"
"No!" G rushed forward, firing his weapon and not thinking about the consequences.
In the distance a man yelped. Another man screamed, "Stop."
"Turn the lights on and put your hands in the air," G said, approaching the area where the voices had come from.
In a clearing about twice the size of the room divided into three cubbyholes, two men stood with their hands in the air. Blood dripped from the side of one man's forehead. The tallest man's shoulder bled and his jaw dropped open.
"You again!" he said, edging forward and readying himself to pounce on G. He backed away when he saw the weapon in his hand.
"Different circumstances." G eyed his partner.
Sam performed the dirty work, zip tying the men's wrists.
"What happened to your guy?" G motioned with his head over his shoulder.
"Oh him? He doubled crossed us." The tall man kept speaking.
"Well, that's par for the course these days, especially with your faction." G laughed at his own bad joke. Someone needed a sense of humor in all of this.
"He was an infiltrator like you," the same man said with a snarl.
G ignored the look and kept questioning him. "From?"
"FBI? CIA? Or maybe from your faction, NCIS?"
Sam interrupted the tall guy's conversation with his partner. "You gonna be okay here with them?"
"Don't tell me you're going to take pictures of that…" He couldn't bring himself to say the words. "Go." He nodded in the opposite direction.
"Need an ID." He hurried back down the way they had come.
Less than five minutes later Sam returned.
"Well, does he belong to us?"
"Nope."
G shot Sam a look for using that word.
"He's NSA."
"You know him?" G asked.
"Hell no, I recognize him though from a missing agent in action alert."
G sighed. "Move it." He signaled with his weapon for the two men to continue toward the end of the corridor.
Sam came along side his partner, matching his pace and training his gun on the two suspects. He whispered to him, "You know these two guys?"
"Yeah," G said, refusing to keep his voice lowered. "They kidnapped me."
"The plot thickens."
"Seriously, Sam?"
"Would you rather have me say that's par for the course?"
"Nope." G kept a straight face.
Sam shook his head.
"Tit for tat."
The men reached the end of the tunnel.
"Push on it."
"Hell no, there's agents out there," the taller man said.
"Good." G shoved his gun into the tall guy's back. "Do it now!"
Both of the men pushed their bodies sideways into the steel door, opening it up to a clearing near the outbuildings.
"There they are!" One of the FBI agents aimed his gun at the two men.
Nine more agents swarmed the clearing with high-powered weapons drawn. They took the two men into custody, adding handcuffs to their wrists in addition to the zip ties.
Hetty came into view a few minutes later. "Gentlemen." She eyed her two agents. "You okay, Mr. Callen?"
"On one account."
She glanced at him sideways.
"I no longer have to smell that rotting man in the tunnel."
"Seriously, G, is that all you're good on?"
"Okay, there's more, those two guys kidnapped me."
"The rotting body is an NSA agent who was undercover with this faction," Sam said.
"Had to be after me because he doesn't look familiar." G smirked.
"Seriously, again? He doesn't look familiar? He's got no face."
"He had a face, Sam, it was covered with rats."
"You've lost it."
"Nope."
Sam shook his head. "That too?"
"Yeah, that too." G found a bench under a shade tree near the outbuildings. "I could use a cold beer right about now."
Sam sat next to him. "And one huge debriefing."
"That can wait. I need something to drink."
Hetty brought the two of them bottles of water.
G looked at the container. "Man, this beer is kind of pale. Must be bleached by sitting in the sun too long." He unscrewed the lid and drank about half of it.
"You mean like your brain?"
"Come on Sam, you need to relax and have some fun."
"Really?"
"Yeah, seriously." He finished off the water bottle. "I still need that beer. Besides I've been underground with my kidnappers, a rat-faced man, and two torture chambers. I doubt if I've been in the sun too long."
"Need your walker?" Sam asked deadpan.
"Nope." G stood and trudged toward their SUV. "I see a vehicle with my name on it."
"Are you gonna just let him sidestep all of this, Hetty?"
"You heard him," she said, "it's time for a beer."
G stopped, flipped on his heels, and looked at the two of them. "I promise you, Sam, that you can pick my brain—well, maybe not quite the right words considering what I just saw down there—after I've had a couple of beers." He sighed. "I need a break after going through all that. Remembered too much and saw too much."