Okay, so this one is monstrous. I considered splitting it, but I never really could find a good place to break the chapter.
So, grab a drink and get comfy.
There is a lot going on as the last episode/chapter left a lot of loose ends to tie up. Hopefully, this one will give you the answers you want and more of the team that everyone was missing from the first episode of the finale/chapter. I even tied up Verina's story (Kind of wish we'd seen a little of that on the show).
Overall, I really liked the season finale (2nd half a lot more than the first). Fingers crossed for a renewal!
Also, there might be a little carrot for those of you following Call Me Joseph in here. If you're not following, give it a shot.
I hope you enjoy it!
"I won't say anything if you don't."
As soon as Patricia stepped into the bunker, you could feel the electricity crackling through the air.
Dalton already had an uneasy feeling from the moment he'd laid eyes on Hoffman, but now he knew this man had a plan. He wanted Patricia standing in front of him, and he had a sick feeling in his stomach that said they weren't seeing the whole picture.
He was already sure Hoffman had planned to cross paths with his team. If he'd wanted to escape them, he could have gone out the same way Verina had. Or, he could have forced his way out before Patricia had learned his identity.
Dalton knew that if he'd managed to stay hidden for nine years, the only way he gets found, even by a team as good as his was if he wanted to be found.
But to what end?
What was the plan?
Dalton was determined to find out.
"You're not going to ask me how I did it?" Hoffman asked.
"No," Patricia answered.
She had lost her patience with him already. There was a 16-year-old girl that was in danger and reliving the past wouldn't get them any closer to finding her.
"You're not the least bit curious?"
"No."
Dalton had a bad feeling that Hoffman and Patricia might be talking about two different things. She'd finally given him a sliver of their backstory ending with him getting into a car that she'd had rigged to blow.
It did.
He didn't.
But, Hoffman was almost shaking with anticipation. No, this wasn't just about how he "died," this was something else. This was a game he was still playing, and they needed to get on the board quickly.
As he listened to Patricia and Hoffman talking, it was clear that there was a lot more to their relationship than her just being his handler, though Hoffman had alluded to that earlier, seeing it was a different thing.
It also became pretty clear that Hoffman still very much held onto those feelings, what wasn't clear was whether he brought Patricia here in an attempt to rekindle something or whether those feelings were fueling something darker.
His gut said it was the latter.
Dalton had had enough of the dance Hoffman, and Patricia were doing. He needed to think.
For that he needed space, so he headed out to the courtyard and took a seat.
Of course, Preach knew him well enough to know he was getting into his own head. He was always there to pull his thoughts out into the open and whether he was willing to admit it or not, Preach always got him thinking on a more productive track.
"What's on your mind, top-shotter?" Preach said as he sat down beside him.
"Keep thinking about what Hoffman said here. How by capturing him, we somehow destroy Patricia."
"Hey, you know every word that man says seems to be poison."
"Yeah, but you know how this works, Preach. The guy wraps himself in a flag, he walks out the door, and he does things that jeopardize everything you and I fight for. Just like a rabid dog, with a guy like that, you do one thing, you put him down."
Dalton just had a feeling that he was going to have to make that decision. If Patricia couldn't do it, he would.
This man was a danger to his family, he was sure of it.
"I don't think she's here to put him down. I think she's gonna take him back, and so, liar or not, he's still right. She's gonna take the fall for everything that he's done. Now, does that seem right to you?" Dalton asked.
"No. It does not." Preach answered. "But we've been doing this long enough, Adam, to know that right doesn't always win."
Dalton felt like there was more to what Preach was saying, but Noah had interrupted on Comms, and he had to cut it short.
As if this day couldn't get any worse, that sub was headed for China, and they had about three hours to find the girl and get control of that sub before 151 lives were sacrificed to keep their technology from winding up in the hands of the Chinese.
Dalton had to loop Patricia in.
It took less than thirty seconds for Dalton to draw his gun on Hoffman. If he didn't need answers, he'd already have a bullet in his head.
And this time, he'd stay dead.
"Oh, she already tried that option, sport," Hoffman said with a smile on his face.
Sport? Who the fuck did this guy think he was talking to?
"Yeah, she's not me, sport."
"I see you've been listening. That's good, 'cause you're gonna have to do it, you know. Sooner or later."
Oh, Dalton was sure that's how this would end. His real concern at this point was finding the girl and keeping his team safe.
Hoffman agreed to set up a meeting with Victor, and they'd made the call, now it was just a waiting game. Patricia had walked away for a bit, clearly, she needed to process some things, so Dalton and Jaz were keeping an eye on Hoffman.
He wanted to keep her as far away from him as he could, but Jaz had a mind of her own, and Dalton was sure she was there to keep an eye on him as much as Hoffman.
"You know Dalton, you don't strike me as the kind of guy that breaks the rules, so this little firecracker must really be something in the sack," Hoffman said as he leered at Jaz.
Dalton looked like he was going to shoot him right then and there, mission be damned before Jaz stepped in front of him.
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind going a few rounds with her either," Hoffman said as he smirked at Dalton.
"He's just trying to get in your head," Jaz whispered. "Don't give him the satisfaction."
Alex watched the pair as he ran through things in his head, if he couldn't get at Dalton, maybe it was time to switch targets.
"So when was it, sweetheart? Was it after his friend died? I mean I did that to get at Patricia, but I'm sure it was tough on Dalton, too. Were you there to make him feel better?"
"What are you talking about?" Dalton asked.
"Her son. Your friend. Boom." Hoffman said.
"Adam, he could have heard about that, it doesn't mean he made it happen." She whispered.
Dalton knew she was right; he was probably just taking credit to get a rise out of them.
"Adam, huh? Alright, so maybe you took her to your bed to comfort her. You were close with Elijah weren't you sweetheart?" He said as he smiled at them.
Jaz turned, Hoffman was scratching at something, she knew he was manipulating her, but she had to know what he knew about Elijah. They knew he was in the blast radius, but they still didn't know why the bomb had gone off.
Elijah was too good at his job; if he'd thought he couldn't disarm it, he'd have told them to evacuate. He'd never said a word.
"Ah, so I've got your interest."
"You're right, he's just messing with us Jazzy," Dalton said as he kept a hand on her shoulder.
"Jazzy, that's adorable, and you're absolutely right. I am messing with you. I've been messing with all of you for a very long time," Hoffman said with a laugh. "Though I have to say, Elijah wasn't in my plans, that was pure improv."
"Seriously, what are you talking about?" Dalton asked as the rest of the team came in.
He'd had enough. He knew they shouldn't engage with him, but he just wanted him to get to the fucking point.
"He was collateral damage. He saw me before I was ready for my close up. So, I had to take him out. I was just keeping tabs on you; I was waiting for Jaz to take her shot and then I was going to point the authorities towards you in the hopes of taking a couple of players off the table." He said as Jaz stood in front of Dalton with tears welling up in her eyes. "I have to give you guys credit, you were harder to play than I thought you would be. You made me work for all of this. Hell, I'm still working."
Hoffman was enjoying this show, "I didn't take out the players I was hoping for, but I did help paint the streets with Elijah's blood."
"No." She said as shook off Dalton's hand.
"Actually, I couldn't have planned it better, it was quite fortunate really. I was going to have to shoot him, and you would have known that someone was out there working against you, but then he stumbled on that bomb, and I saw an opportunity. The bomb went boom, and I walked away without giving myself away. I didn't even have to hide my tracks; the bomb did all the work for me."
"He...he. You son of a bitch." Jaz spat as she charged towards him.
She got in one good swing before McG was pulling her back whispering in her ear, "Jazzy, he's going to get what's coming to him. I promise. But, we need to focus on that little girl, and you and I have a date."
"Don't go! I was just starting to have fun. Was it something I said?" Hoffman yelled as they rounded the corner.
Preach had already dragged Dalton from the room because he was looking for any reason to put a bullet in Hoffman's head.
McG led Jaz into the room she shared with Dalton, and she ran into his arms the second she saw him, "He killed him. He killed Elijah!" She cried. "If he...Patricia's son. Oh my god, would he kill her son?"
"I don't know, and we may never know how deep he's embedded himself to get here, but I promise you Jaz, he won't be breathing when he leaves here. Not if I have a say." Dalton said as she pressed her face into his chest.
Dalton rubbed at her knuckles, they were already starting to bruise, and there was blood that obviously wasn't hers. That made him smile.
"I'm still here. Why don't you tell me how brilliantly you've pulled our strings." Amir said.
Hoffman looked at him with trepidation as he tried to wipe the blood from his lip on his collar. He wanted that little firecracker to come back; she was fun to play with, and it got at Dalton, too. Win-win.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea. You and I are more alike than you think."
"Oh come on, you've been playing the long game. I know you must be dying to take credit for your work." Amir said calmly as he pulled a chair up and sat across from him.
"You're right, I have been playing the long game. You have no idea."
"Well, you've already claimed credit for two people we cared about. So, what's stopping you from laying claim to everything else? You and I both know you aren't walking out of here. Patricia might have plans to take you back, but Dalton isn't going to let that happen." Amir said as he stared Hoffman down.
"I personally didn't know Elijah, but I know that he mattered to these people, and they matter to me. As you said before, I've gotten my hands dirty, so if Dalton doesn't get you, I will. I'll gladly live with your blood on my hands."
Hoffman knew Amir wasn't the type of guy to make idle threats.
He really didn't like the eerie calm that Amir wore either; he knew this kid was lethal. You don't get a jacket like his without ice water in your veins. On the surface, he was a mild-mannered guy with a sense of humor, but he was quite possibly the most dangerous player on the board.
He knew Dalton wanted him dead, but he would probably shoot him while he looked him in the eye. Amir, he was more cerebral, he's the guy you never see coming.
"So, what...you started with Elijah? What else did you do? You have to be itching to take credit for all of it; you haven't had Patricia to stroke your ego for nine years." Amir said as casually as he might talk about the weather.
"Elijah was a lucky break, but I did orchestrate that meeting with Baghdadi. Oh and Booth, I might have had a hand in that. You should be happy about that one, Urzua's blood is on all your hands, but seems he earned it since he spilled the blood of that pretty analyst, McGuire's girl, no?"
Amir looked at him as he tried to mask his reaction. He'd had his suspicions, but how the hell did Hoffman know anything about it?
"He didn't tell you did he? That has to sting."
"Tell him what?" McG said as he strolled into the room wearing flannel, cheap cologne and ripped jeans.
"We were just talking about that pretty analyst, Hannah isn't it?"
McGuire went from his general easy demeanor to murderous in seconds.
"Don't even say her name!" McG growled as he grabbed Hoffman by the collar and shoved him so hard he up-ended the chair he was tied to.
Hoffman was laughing.
"McG, save it for the op!" Dalton barked as Jaz came around the corner dressed to entice an egocentric asshole with a hero complex.
Hoffman gave a whistle which had both Dalton and McG ready to just put a bullet in him and be done with it.
Jaz and McG headed out to find Victor a little while later as Amir and Preach kept Hoffman busy, Dalton and Patricia watched their camera feeds.
It made Dalton uneasy to have Jaz out there without him, but he trusted McG to have her back. Of course, it was a little harder to do that when McG's role was to play the king of the douchebags. But, if the shit hit the fan, there was no one better at switching gears than McGuire.
And Jaz was pretty dangerous on her own.
He loved listening to her speak in other languages or using different accents. It was kind of hot, but he'd have to shelve that thought for another time.
McG was getting his ass handed to him, and Dalton knew that had to piss him off because he'd smoke this guy if he hadn't been handcuffed by the mission.
But, Dalton still got a little chuckle out of it.
"I hope that was fun for you," McG said to Jaz as he passed.
"For the record, I could have kicked that guy's ass," McG said for the guys on the other side of his comms.
"Mmhmm, alright, put a Band-Aid on it, sugar."
There was no way Dalton was letting that one go without taking a little shot at McGuire.
Now they just had to wait for Jaz to finish the op. Noah and Hannah were happy to have a bit of good news when they'd been alerted that Victor had been ID'd.
A few minutes later, Jaz finished the job, and the pair were headed back to the bunker.
Although McG's face was a little less pretty, Victor had as it turned out been a relatively easy mark.
Dalton followed Jaz back to their room when they returned.
"You good?" He asked as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
She leaned into him and said, "No, but I will be once we get a location on the girl. Just promise me, if he goes anywhere, he goes there in a body bag."
"He's not going anywhere. I'll make sure of that." Dalton said as she turned in his arms and rubbed her cheek against his beard.
"He killed them didn't he?"
"I don't know. But if anyone can get into Hoffman's head it's Amir. He's been working him for the last hour."
The group got together to go over the plans for the compound where Verina was being held. They were out of earshot from Hoffman, but they still had eyes on him.
The team followed the signal from the tracker to a Junkyard.
Unfortunately, it really was a perfect base of operations, not a lot of ways in or out, it didn't rely on the power grid since there were generators and didn't require a ton of manpower to secure.
Noah chimed in on Comms looking for a shred of good news, the Wyoming was quickly approaching a pair of bad choices, either scuttle the sub with 151 souls onboard or cross into Chinese waters and get captured.
Neither of those were options they wanted to entertain, but without another solution, they were the only options the Wyoming had, and there was simply too much to lose if China got ahold of her.
"Well, we found where Victor and his guys are keeping Verina. Of course, she's locked up in a junkyard fortress." Dalton said.
Jaz piped in, "But you don't see antennae like that in many junkyards. IR sweeps and night vision-defeating strobes."
"Got a Vanguard 2K camera systems, probably thermal," Dalton said knowing this wasn't exactly the good news Noah had been looking for.
"Cut the power?" Jaz wondered aloud.
"All right, so the generator's right here in the back of the yard. It's shielded. We could use the Barrett to take it out, but then there goes surprise. Right now, surprise is pretty much all we got, and time is not on our side." Dalton added.
Once they'd thoroughly scouted the facility, they headed back to base to work out a plan that they could carry out at nightfall. It was going to have to be a clean op; they had no margin for error and no time to formulate a backup plan.
If anyone realized they were there before they got to Verina, she was likely dead, and 151 crew on the Wyoming would die with her.
McG went over the site plans with the team so they could figure out how they were going to breach the compound and how many men they were dealing with.
"What's the updated intel on the strength of their opposition?" Preach asked once they'd figure out their positions.
"We only saw two perimeter guards, one at the main building and one at the gate. You know, the numbers don't look bad." Jaz shared.
"No, the numbers won't be bad. Victor doesn't want a lot of eyeballs on what he's doing, not to mention he doesn't even need it.
He's got every square inch of this place covered with multiple redundant systems." Dalton added.
With all the tech they had, they didn't need a ton of men. Besides, in Victor's situation more men meant a lot of loose ends to clean up, chances were every man on that site was going to get a bullet to the head once the mission was done.
More money for Victor.
For sure the girl was dead as soon as China had their sub or it was resting at the bottom of the ocean.
"Noah, Hannah, you've got to do something," Patricia said to the analysts.
"Look, even if we shut down the power grid, they still have those backup generators Dalton's talking about, and we can't risk a drone strike because we have no idea where Verina is inside that compound. If she dies, so does the crew of the Wyoming." Noah said.
Everyone was feeling the frustration, they all knew that one wrong move meant a lot of people wouldn't be coming home.
Dalton didn't like it, but they were going to have to work with Hoffman. With his help, Preach was able to hijack their network with a little help from McG on-site.
If he could get a message to Verina, they might be able to disable the generators and figure out how many men Victor had inside.
Hopefully, they could draw as many of them away from her as possible. If Victor was all that remained, they had a much better chance at getting Verina and the crew of the Wyoming out alive.
Once contact was made, Preach with a little help from Verina went about shutting down the power and kicking off the generators giving the team a window to execute the mission.
The team split up and went about dismantling Victor's team one by one.
The first guy on the perimeter went down seconds later. Jaz and Dalton were squared up on the other guy at the entrance.
She had him lined up and got ready to take her shot, "I got him."
But she heard the muted pop of a shot on her right before she squeezed the trigger.
"Did you just take my shot?" Jaz asked as she glared at Dalton.
He just smirked and said, "Whoops."
Dalton knew he would pay for that one later, but he was sure that he'd enjoy whatever she had in mind.
"Commencing Breach," Dalton said over comms as the team closed in.
Jaz set trip wires for one unlucky man, as she anchored the second wire high she laughed, this guy was going to think he was so smart when he notices the first wire, but she knew he'd walk right into the second.
She didn't wait around to watch the show, but she knew she'd hear it when her little trap snared someone.
Jaz wasn't the only ninja, Amir crept right up on his man and popped off a shot with his muzzle an inch from the back of his head.
Jaz was rewarded seconds later as a loud boom sounded in the distance.
McG went old school as he choked the life out of a guy, once that was done, he strung him up and waited for his buddy to come to him. When he did, a knife to the jugular was just what the doctor ordered.
He'd had a little extra rage to burn off thanks to Hoffman; this seemed like a good way to use it. But, he was hoping he'd have another go at that prick later.
Dalton picked up the radio from one of Victor's men and said, "Hey Victor, we've got your security neutralized, and I've got Hoffman under wraps back at base. Now, this only ends one of two ways. You alive, or you dead. You really want to go down for this? You've got five seconds before we come in there."
Seconds later two shots rang out.
"No, no, no..." Dalton said as the team took the door down with a shot.
When the door swung in Victor yelled, "Don't shoot, I'm unarmed."
Fittingly, he went down like a coward McG thought.
Verina was hiding under the desk, but thankfully unharmed.
As Dalton zip tied Victor's hands, he glanced back and recognized Jaz, "Ah, You. You got to be kidding me."
Jaz just smirked at him as he glared at her. Of course, that meant he was too busy to realize he had a sucker punch coming his way.
"And me!" McG growled as he leveled him with every ounce of rage he'd had brewing over the last several hours. "Cheers, mate."
Dalton stood a little dumbfounded, "Feel better?"
"Yeah," McG said, he had to admit it felt real good to drop that asshole.
Unfortunately, there was a real big snag. Victor had shot up all the computers in the room. And Noah had just alerted them that they had five minutes to right the ship, or the sub as it were.
Fortunately, they weren't dealing with your average sixteen-year-old girl. Verina was going to talk Noah through the coding necessary to return control of the Wyoming to it's Captain.
Dalton set Verina up with a SAT phone and lined her up on his body cam, so she popped up on Noah's feed.
"How good are you with advanced coding in Ada?" She asked.
"Uh, not as good as you, but to be honest, we have a lot of computing power here, but we have tried every trick we can think of, and we have no idea how to get this sub back online," Noah said.
"Sometimes, to build a better mousetrap, you just need the right kind of cheese."
"Sounds good. What does that mean?" Noah asked.
"Uh, we're going to need to create a ToT botnet running Mirai 2.0 embedded in the sub's PLC override package. I-I can give you all the codes."
"Even if we could create that package, the sub is at depth and offline.
It's a closed loop."
"Uh, it's-it's not quite closed. Do you guys like TV and movies?" Verina asked.
"Yeah."
"And so do sailors on subs. They've wired LAN for MWR."
"What's MWR?" Noah asked Hannah.
"Of course, morale, welfare, and recreation. It's genius. They pipe in content via ELF antenna." Hannah answered.
"Yeah, so instead of uploading a movie, we're gonna upload the override codes so the Captain can take back control of his boat. Okay, um, grab a pencil. I'm gonna rattle off a lot of codes at you."
Dalton listened as the codes were conveyed and waited for the confirmation that the sub was out of danger.
This girl had watched her father die and been held by several men and forced to re-route a sub into foreign waters, most people would be a basket case, but Verina was one brave kid.
Dalton couldn't help thinking this girl had a future sitting right next to people like Noah and Hannah someday. Someone needed to make that happen.
Maybe Patricia once the dust settled on this one.
If the dust settled.
It would if he had any say in the matter.
Once they got confirmation, Dalton let everyone know they were on the move with Victor and Verina.
Preach was really happy to hear that Verina was okay. He couldn't help thinking about his daughters being in a situation like that. He hoped that never happened because they could barely work the microwave, but Verina, she kept it together and won the day for all of them.
Once the mission had been completed, Hoffman was running his mouth again. Preach didn't like it.
He knew he was running a game, and he couldn't help thinking they were still on the wrong side of it. For a guy that was facing a life sentence at best, he was way too calm.
And Preach couldn't help thinking Patricia's personal feelings were clouding her judgment. He just had a sick feeling in his gut. It had been with him since they'd first met Hoffman.
In Fact, he'd been so uneasy after Hoffman had mentioned his family that he'd asked Noah to get his family to a safe house. It was probably overkill, and his wife might kill him when all was said and done, but that was a risk he'd happily take to keep them safe.
Preach couldn't wait to get this piece of garbage out of there so he could call his wife and make sure everyone was alright.
He didn't care how it happened, whether he left on a plane or in a body bag. Preach just wanted him gone. Though truth be told, he suspected the safest place for a guy like him was in the ground, and he knew Top agreed with that.
Preach listened as Hoffman baited Patricia, none of it raised any alarms until he said, "And now you think you're going to do it again. I don't think so, P. I died last time. This time, it's your turn."
Preach had just enough time to drag Patricia to the ground, after that everything went dark.
The team was pulling into the main gate at the base when the blast went off. Dalton was out of the Humvee as soon as he had it in park, he screamed at the team to stay back and call it in as he headed straight for the bunker.
McG was hot on his heels; there was no way he was going to stay back when he could help. There was no telling what they were going to find once they got inside.
Dalton ran into the building without even thinking twice, and McG was only a few steps behind him. As Dalton carried Patricia out of the smoke-filled bunker, McG did his best to drag Preach a safe distance away without causing more harm.
Patricia was banged up, but she was stable. Dalton made sure he knew that so that he could focus on Preach whose circumstances appeared to be pretty dire.
Preach was struggling to pull air into his lungs, he knew his lungs had been affected, by the sounds of it, the right one was collapsed for sure, the left wasn't, but it wasn't functioning very well either.
McG had to intubate Preach and re-inflate his lung in the dirt outside the bunker; then he had to hope that he could keep him alive long enough for the ambulance to get there.
All while keeping his emotions in check.
That normally wasn't a problem, but this was Preach. The man who had been a father figure to all of them, and the only father figure McGuire had ever had. And he had a wife and three kids at home who were expecting their dad to come home in a few days.
When the ambulances arrived, they loaded Preach first, and McG insisted on riding along. He couldn't leave him in the hands of strangers.
Patricia was loaded onto the second one, and Dalton told Amir and Jaz to head to the hospital. He'd told Jaz that he wanted to take a look around the bunker, but he'd meet them there.
When they all arrived at the hospital, Jaz tried to pick him up on comms to let him know that Preach was in surgery and that Patricia was going to be fine, but he wasn't answering.
She didn't have time to think about it, as Amir suggested she needed to contact his wife.
She knew he was right, so she stepped out to get an update and then went to make the call. She had hoped that Dalton would have been there to do it, but his family needed to know now.
Amir sat with Preach as Jaz headed out to make the calls, and McGuire was sitting with Patricia. He wanted to know what happened, and Amir was really concerned for him.
McG was taking this really hard. He was closer to Preach than any of them. Amir knew that no matter how dire Preach's condition was to begin with if they lost him McGuire was going to blame himself.
Amir usually tried to stay out of everyone's personal business, especially when they weren't ready to share, but he was going to break that trend because McGuire needed him to.
"Hannah, can you go to a private line?" He said.
"Yeah, go Amir."
"Are you sending a plane for Preach's family?"
"Yes. Why?"
"You need to get on it."
"Okay?"
"He needs you here," Amir said as he cut off the comms link.
McG sat watching Patricia as she slept.
He needed her to wake up. He needed to know how this happened. All McG wanted to do at that moment was sit with Preach, but he had to know.
When she started to wake up, McG walked over to her bedside.
"Ma'am. What happened?"
"The phone. It was an impact bomb. Dalton didn't press an unlock code. He pressed an arming code."
"How's Preach?"
"Not so good."
"What? Who's with him? Dalton with him?"
"No. Honestly, I don't know where he is. He yanked his comms, left his phones. We haven't heard from him in hours. He went dark." McG told her.
Noah came on comms as they were discussing Dalton and told the team that Preach had asked him the day before to send a team to check on his family.
They'd been moved to a safe house that morning.
Preach had an uneasy feeling.
Noah knew the man well enough to know that if Preach thought something was wrong, it was worth taking a look.
When the team arrived, they did a sweep of the house. They'd alerted the bomb squad when they found a device under the house. They were able to disarm it, but it had a receiver that appeared to have been linked to another device and they'd found a number of other surveillance devices throughout the house.
It looked like either Hoffman could set a remote trigger, or it was designed to go off when the other device went off. The trigger was very similar to the device Patricia had described.
An analog phone that appeared innocuous, until it wasn't.
Dalton walked into a quiet apartment. He knew he'd only be waiting minutes if that, so he tried to think like a teenaged girl as he looked for the laptop Amir couldn't find earlier when it was teeming with police and Army CID.
He'd found it in the wall vent in her bathroom. So he took it and sat down at the dining room table. He'd have a clear view of the room, but anyone coming in would have no idea that he was there.
Now all he had to do was wait. Hoffman would come, he knew he would. This computer was probably worth too much for him to pass it up and he was going to need a lot of money to go back underground.
It was much harder to hide when people were looking for you. And Alex Hoffman had to know; this team would never stop looking for him, especially now that they knew about the blood he'd spilled. And god help him if Preach or Patricia are added to his list of fatalities.
He'd taken their family; Dalton planned to take his life.
This time, there would be no doubt.
All he had to do now was wait.
"Think you're probably looking for this," Dalton said after he'd watched Hoffman look around for a minute.
"Do you have any idea how much that laptop's worth?"
"I knew you did."
"May I?" Hoffman asked as he pointed to the chair across from him. "Well, I guess this means you're better than me."
"Nah, just that I'll live longer."
"Yeah? I suppose this is how it ends for guys like us. Not with some 21-gun salute and a field full of weeping loved ones."
"Yeah, just in a dark room with another quiet professional."
"You know, I grew up in California. You?"
"Pennsylvania," Dalton answered.
He didn't like the small talk. He knew Hoffman was buying time, he wasn't sure what he was buying time for, but he watched his hands carefully.
"I wanted to be an astronaut."
"Firefighter."
"Only child? No, that's right, you had three younger sisters. One of them died when you were 16, thanks to your dad, a drunk.
You think that's what makes men like us? Pain like that?"
That stung. Dalton had been taken from his home at fifteen not because of his father, but for his own mistakes and that had cost his sisters. He wasn't there to protect them, and they'd lived under his father's rule for a year before that accident ended his father's life and took one of his sisters.
His two youngest sisters had been placed in the system, and he'd lost track of them. One day, he'd find them, but so far he and Patricia hadn't even found a breadcrumb.
"I think it definitely fuels the fire. But I believe we are who we are."
"Nature over nurture."
"Mm-hmm."
"I'm inclined to agree," Hoffman said as he watched the man Patricia thought so highly of. "You know, it's funny. I'm looking around the room memorizing all the details. But you don't have memories when you're dead."
"You know, maybe hell is the perfect memory of everything that we've ever done."
"You better hope not, for both of our sakes."
"I think I'll take my chances."
"So? You're not gonna take me in, are you?" Hoffman asked.
"There's this quote that I love. It says that, uh, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
"That what this is? Violence on their behalf? Nice try, Adam. Nice spin." Hoffman said as he reached towards his pocket. "You know what you can call this. It doesn't matter how dangerous I am. This is simple. It's just murder. Basic murder."
Dalton caught the movement out of the corner of his eye as he stared down Hoffman and fired a shot that sent his weapon sailing out of his hand. Dalton waited for Hoffman to look at him, it hadn't been a kill shot just enough to disarm him.
Dalton wanted the man to look him in the eye.
"I won't say anything if you don't," Dalton said as he fired a fatal shot right to the head.
Not even a man like Hoffman would walk away from that.
Dalton cleaned up making sure that no one would be finding Hoffman. He would always have Hoffman's blood on his hands, but his team would never have to look over their shoulders wondering when he would turn up again.
Hoffman had shed blood in his house, among his team, his family and for that, he had to die. Period.
Once that was in order, he made his way back to the bunker. He wasn't ready to face the team just yet.
He didn't really know what he was looking for, maybe answers, but the only thing he found was that little trinket that Patricia always fidgeted with.
It was a necklace that her mother wore.
He knew it meant a lot to her; it was the only piece of her mother that she'd had left.
He decided he couldn't keep the team waiting any longer.
Dalton wanted to see Jaz, and he needed to know how Preach was, but first, he needed to return the necklace to Patricia.
He needed her to know it was finished.
It didn't take words. Just one look and she knew.
When Dalton left Patricia's room, he headed down the hall to check on Preach.
Jaz was still standing out in the hallway talking to Hannah about Preach's family when she saw him.
"Hannah, I have to go." She said as she put the phone down and ran towards Dalton.
"He had Preach's sidearm." She said as she ran her hands over his torso as if looking for injuries. When she didn't find any, she threw her arms around him and pressed her lips to his neck.
"I was so worried about you."
"I'm okay Jaz. We're okay." He said as he pressed his lips to her forehead. "How's Preach?"
She gave him the short version as they made their way into his room with McG and Amir.
He was so still.
If you took away all the machines, he looked like he was sleeping. Peaceful even.
But the machines were still there, and he wasn't asleep.
They all stood vigil at his bedside as they laughed about how he would have some long philosophical explanation for everything that had happened over the course of the last few days, and any one of them would have given just about anything to hear him say it.
For all the times they'd rolled their eyes or had a chuckle at his expense, right now they'd have given anything for him to break this silence.
Verina was being transported back to DC where her aunt would be waiting for her. They'd have to go into the DIA for a briefing, and certainly, the DIA would be keeping tabs on Verina.
Perhaps, they would groom her for a career in intelligence, she certainly had some useful skills, and she was only sixteen. In five or six years, she could be even more dangerous, but at least she'd be playing on the right side.
A little over 24 hours later, Jaz was standing in the hall with Dalton. She was concerned for McG, he hadn't left Preach's side since he came out of surgery, and nothing they said could convince him to leave.
He had barely slept or eaten for days unless you counted the horrible stuff they called coffee at the hospital and the scraps they'd all survived on during the mission which wasn't much.
She'd brought him food several times, but he'd told her he'd eat when Preach woke up. There was no telling how long that would be, or even if he would.
"We have to get him to get some sleep," Jaz said. "It's been like four days since he's had a good night of sleep. Since Verina went missing really. He can't keep this up."
Dalton smiled as he kissed her forehead which confused the shit out of Jaz.
"What the hell are you smiling for?" Jaz asked him.
"I think I have a solution to this problem," Dalton said as he turned her to face the hallway he'd been facing.
Preach's family was at the end of the hall with Patricia and Amir talking to the doctor, and Hannah was heading their way.
"Where is he?" she asked.
Before any of them had a chance to answer, McG was standing in the doorway.
He took the two steps to close the gap between them before anyone could say a word, and Jaz leaned into Dalton as she watched him finally break.
Hannah just wrapped her arms around him as he fell to his knees, she went right down with him and held on as tight as she could.
"I'm here. I'm right here." She hummed as she rocked back and forth with him rubbing her fingers through his hair.
So...firing squad this time? Public stoning? I don't have my running shoes on this morning.
All kidding aside, I'm pretty happy with this chapter. No, there isn't a lot of Jaz/Dalton time, but there's enough that hopefully, everyone will be happy. And no, I didn't answer the Preach question, but I will I'm not going to leave it hanging forever. Promise.
There might be a little more to the whole Alex narrative that didn't play out in this chapter, but it would mostly happen in conversations with the team...Alex is definitely DEAD.
