Chapter 19 - Half
Never wanted to be here now
One foot in the grave, other on the ground
I can't process what I'm feeling now
This skin I can do without
"Half" by Pvris
Undisclosed Location
Mac groaned, trying to shift in the crappy little metal bed crammed into a corner of the office she was held hostage in. Her left wrist was painfully bound to the frame of the bed with a thick tie wrap, not that she had anywhere to go. She tried to take a breath and instantly winced from the pain which radiated from her ribs throughout her whole body. They were probably broken, she figured but the fact that she could still breathe meant that, at the very least, they hadn't punctured a lung. Sadik had stayed away from her face, choosing her torso as his canvas for the torture he would administer.
She didn't know exactly where he had taken her only that they were likely somewhere within the Washington DC, Virginia area. Mac hadn't been bait as Webb had originally suggested. There was no scouring Washington for the terrorist, no investigation and absolutely no stake out. She was sacrificed, offered up to Sadk Fadh like a lamb to the slaughter.
And she was doing this for Harm to keep him away from this kind of suspended reality, a life of unbearable pain. This was the moment Mac had trained and fought for, the seconds and minutes, a lifetime of anguish just to keep Harm from suffering the same. She actually laughed when Sadik drew first blood, stringing her up from the rafters in some abandoned warehouse that reeked of mold and something chemical.
He'd hit her, fist crushing into her torso repeatedly until her laughter became muffled groans. She wouldn't cry, wouldn't beg no matter what he did to her. Mac would take it, using her mantra to shift her mind into a darkness where pain was manageable. The headaches began as well as the nose bleed when each punch resonated deep inside until she heard more than felt a crack. It brought her out of the programming and the pain that followed forced a sob that Mac couldn't stop.
"She feels." Sadik said and gently brought her down from her bindings, carrying Mac to the bed she was tied to now. "Sarah, I don't want to hurt you but, it's the only way." He was actually kind to her then, raising her shirt to slather some sort of mentholated ointment on her bruised skin. He had fed her, helped her drink water to wash down the meager meal and then, he was gone leaving the promise to return.
One thing was for certain, Mac knew she would break. It may not take an hour, a week or a year but, with time Sadik would have his way, stripping all the good in her until there was nothing left. She now knew without reservation why the man sought her out so desperately, the great plan Sadik designed with Mac in mind. He didn't need Clay or Harm, they were only to be used as bait to force her compliance if need be.
Sadik needed her - Being a strong woman meant that others would listen and follow specifically the children: little boys and girls of Islamic faith that needed guidance. A woman like her would be revered like one of the men and she was to be like a mother for those who would listen.
The boys would eventually join a terrorist camp once her motherly brainwashing against the infidels was all they would live for. The girls would breed more hatred or be used in suicide bombings, he didn't care which so long as the message was clear. And Mac would be the tie that bound them with the fierce tenacity that surely would always be part of her.
Maybe then he would take her as a wife, use her in other ways to ease the primal urges Mac knew he held at bay for her. It was evident in how he looked at her, leering and disgusting although that was not his primary initiative.
None of that agency programming seemed vilified now when its sole purpose was to help her battle Sadik without the emotional baggage Mac always carried. And she did expect a fight; fist to fist, body to body, crushing his bones until there was nothing left of the bastard. She never got the damned chance.
She hadn't been able to crack that imminent mission he had in place when he'd told her that innocents would die that night and more would follow the next evening. If only she had the chance to talk to him but, conversation seemed to be limited to just his verbal insults followed by a slew of apologies. He said he didn't want to hurt her but that it would aide in a rebirth until jihad was the only thing Mac thought about with the purity of a good Islamic woman.
Christ, he was going to break her if the agency couldn't find her and didn't intervene.
When he did Harm would truly never love her again.
That thought weighed over her heart so heavily that it physically hurt. He would be disgusted the moment she turned, hate her for all time, she knew and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do to stop it. Mac would hold off as long as she could, allow the programming to work in her favor. She would pray and hope that it wasn't so easy to get her out of the country but, Mac heard the phone call to an associate when he believed she was unconscious.
After whatever havoc the man sought to disperse, the pair would be on a cargo plane en route to Cairo in two days time. Once that happened, Mac knew she would be gone for good. It gave her little consolation to know that Harm would be safe - that mission would be completed.
'Harm." Mac didn't want to think about him too much out of fear that, somehow, their connection would bring him to her. She didn't want him to save her, didn't need him to be put into the hands of a madman and still, her mind couldn't help but drift to him. The tears came, washing over in a flood of catharsis as she thought back to their last hours together and that week in their private paradise. It forged a belief that they would never be apart and now, she knew it was just a goodbye of sorts, a memory she hoped would never be forgotten even when Sadik's plan for her came to fruition. "Please, please, forgive me."
'There will never be an us.'
"I failed her." Harm was pacing, wearing down the carpet beneath his feet as he moved across the small waiting area outside of Webb's office. "I told her, I would keep her safe and I… Fuck. I failed her."
Chegwidden grabbed his arm and pulled the officer to a stop. "No, you didn't. This was planned. Don't ask me how I know but, it's a gut feeling I have."
"How'd you find her?"
"Meeting with Director Laughery and the SECNAV. Political bullshit." AJ spotted Mac walking down the hall, leaving Webb's office only the woman that walked past him wasn't her. It looked like her but her eyes were dark, devoid of any emotion which made a chill run down his spine. Even when he called her name, she ignored him and didn't even flinch or recognize that he'd once been her Commanding Officer. He thought it was ruse of sorts but, when he searched for that recognition in her eyes there was nothing there… but hate. "She was almost… robotic. I can't explain it."
Harm could because he knew some of what they'd done to her although Mac couldn't quite explain the process herself. There were words, a catchphrase that identified what they had turned her into using his failure at knowing how to love her against them. 'There will neve be an us.' He'd broken through some of that; it just wasn't enough to keep her safe. "They took her from me. I woke up alone and with a terrible headache." And when he searched the apartment thoroughly there were the footprints of heavy boots at the doorway and down the hall. "I failed her."
"You didn't fail her, Harm. They did." He motioned towards Clayton Webb who sauntered into the room with a cellphone pressed to his ear.
Clay waved for them to follow them into the sanctum of his office and closed the door behind. What he didn't expect was Harm's fist to connect so sharply with his jaw knocking him to the ground. "God damnit, Rabb! AJ! Get him off of me."
The Naval Officer saw red, a kind of blind hatred that had him striking the former field agent again and again each blow with a satisfied crunch. He'd broken Clay's nose for sure and possibly shattered a part of the orbital bone until Chegwidden finally tore him off. "Let me go Admiral!"
"Killing him with your bare hands won't help us find her, Harm. Stand down."
Harm shook from the rage that he was forced to temper because Chegwidden had been correct. Without Webb, they didn't know where Mac was, try as he might, no supernatural act had helped him find her. "Sir?" Security had raced into the office, guns drawn and ready to apprehend the two Naval Officers until Webb waved them off. "But, sir."
"Get out." He came to his feet, retrieved a handkerchief which he pressed onto his bleeding nose and winced in pain. "Beating the shit out of me isn't going to help you… Mac's on assignment, none of which is any of your business."
"If it involved Sadik it sure as hell is my business." At Webb's knowing glance Harm nodded. "Yeah, I know that's why she's stayed in this long. What I can't understand is why you had to take her."
"I didn't…"
"Oh cut the shit, Webb. I know and I'm not going to stop until I find her."
Webb produced a bottle of whiskey from a drawer filing a snifter full and downing half of the amber liquid. He plopped on his chair with a sigh and continued to dab the cloth over his battered face. "Sadik has her, Rabb… He has her and I gave her up to him."
It was Chegwidden's strong hold that kept Harm from hurling over the desk and slamming his fist back into Webb's body. "You what? Gave her up? Why?"
"Sadik had information on the three of us. He knew where you were down to your billet in London. He was after the three of us, Mac wanted to keep you safe." Webb finished the other half of his drink and dropped his gaze to the blotter. He needed to be truthful, to divulge the one little spec of truth in his whole plan to end Sadik Fahd. "I can't...I couldn't do it myself." He admitted. "I don't sleep well. It's been two years and I just can't sleep well… I see him everywhere I turn...I'm broken."
"I know that makes me a coward sending a woman to do my job but, I can't do it myself, Harm." He slammed his fist into the desk, the sound resonating against the walls of his office. "You don't know what it's like to be electrocuted. The pain of it hitting your skin is not that bad, it burns but… I swear to God what you feel it in your veins...I shit myself, peed on myself. The only reason I didn't tell Sadik a damned thing was because of Sarah… And then I did."
It shamed Clay to admit that he'd been broken, it was how Sadik finally knew Mac's real name, that Jane Williams was neither real or pregnant. He spilled any information he could, real or fictitious in order to live. "I thought he'd been caught. He hadn't and when I found out Sadik was still alive, I needed to use Mac to find him...I'm sorry."
"Where is she?" Harm asked between gritted teeth. It wouldn't matter the amount of paint anyone would have submitted him to, he would have never reveal anything about her. Would have died to save Mac and keep her safe. "Help me find her."
"There's a transmitter in her boot…"
"And? Where is she?"
Clay sighed, there was no easy way to explain what had happened or how. "We lost signal when Sadik took her yesterday just North of Union Station. We don't know where Mac is."
Mac sat at a small foldable table eyeing the food which Sadik had placed before her. It was still in a carton, the type used for Chinese take out and for the life of her, she couldn't stomach the idea of food. "Eat. You need to keep your strength up, Sarah."
"For what? So you could beat me again, or worse?" She shoved the carton at him, having it slide across the plastic table and onto the floor the contents of rice and what appeared to be chicken spilling on the ground. Mac won a hard slap for her insolence, the force of it making her teeth sink into her cheek and she could taste the blood.
"Why do you continue to displease me, Sarah? I don't want to hurt you." He went to a small refrigerator, retrieved an icepack and pressed it against her cheek. It seemed to bother Sadik that Mac flinched at his touch even though it was tender. "You mustn't do that, Sarah...Your face is much too beautiful to tarnish."
The way the man looked at her was almost as if he were in love and surely infatuated. His eyes that were tinted blue by contacts caressed her skin and for a moment, the stoic terrorist became nothing more than a man with wants and needs. Mac noticed how he couldn't help but gaze at her body, her breasts and downwards. She was disgusted by it but managed to hold back her disdain knowing this could be the way to freedom. "You find me attractive?"
"Yes. But, beauty fades, it's your mind, your fearlessness that I want… need, Sarah."
She cringed then, unable to hide how revolting she found her name on his lips as he changed the pronunciation, rolling the 'R' in the oddest of ways that made her skin crawl. "No one calls me that."
"When we are home, no one shall call you that name ever again. You need a good Muslim name, it will help your transition, Sarah."
"What transition? To be your slave or another wife for you to abuse?"
"I do not abuse women, Sarah. You will be taught that." Sadik raised a brow and kept the ice pack pressed to her cheek. His unoccupied hand began to move over Mac's arm in a slow, methodical pattern. He needed to touch her, to feel the softness of a woman's skin that he'd denied himself in order to remain pure to his mission. His hand wrapped around her arm and moved downward until his fingers pressed into the delicate skin of her inner wrist hovering over her pulsepoint. "Your pulse is racing…Does your lover touch you like this, Sarah?"
She didn't speak or react, just kept that impassive look that Mac perfected in the last two years. Her breathing slowed and with it her pulse did as well so that when Sadik's fingers dug in deeper, he only felt a slow, steady beat. Mac wasn't sure just how much he knew about her involvement with Harm although it troubled her greatly to even think that they could have been watched at their most intimate of times. And Harm had touched her like that, with an impossibly controlled gentleness that she was trying to forget. "Which one touched you like this? The spy or the Naval officer?"
When she didn't answer, Sadik's fingers dug in even deeper, hurting her so that the pain registered on Mac's face. "Maybe both? Who did you spread your legs for? Which one made you their whore?"
At that, Mac pulled away forcefully, able to remove her arm from his grasp. "I'm not a whore, you son of a bitch." The movement caught Sadik by surprise and forced the man to dip forward so that she was able to slam her forehead into his. It gave her time to run.
Mac raced out of the office, hurrying across the rickety catwalk with Sadik hot on her heels. She would have made it out and at the very least Mac hoped that the transmitter in the boot would give the CIA some sort of signal as to her whereabouts.
The rusted catwalk snapped in one corner just enough for the toe of her boot to catch and send Mac hurdling to the ground. The fall on her already broken ribs winded her and it was only the pure adrenaline that had one hand finishing through her boot to produce a small knife buried in a hidden compartment. She fished it out, rolled onto her back and once Sadik pounced she slammed the blade into his torso.
"You bitch!" He cried and then slammed a fist into Mac's delicate ribs which prevented her from twisting and pulling the blade to cause more damage. "You will pay for that." Both of his hands wrapped around her neck, squeezing her throat. He pressed his weight into her so that Mac could not fight against his hold. "I will remember this moment, Sarah."
Mac's vision began to tunnel and soon, she passed out.
A glass of amber liquid rested before him on the bar and Harm stared at the Scotch as if it held all the answers. Their meeting with Webb had been futile, the man claimed they'd lost Mac and he just didn't understand how that could happen with all of the sophisticated equipment the CIA boasted. He threw back the drink, sighing as it burned down his throat and down to his stomach. The want to down a whole bottle made his body shake but, he wouldn't, he couldn't. He needed to keep his mind sharp, he needed to find her. Harm knew he was the only one that could.
Before him stretched out a map of Washington displaying oddly designed roads that made up the heart of the city. She was there somewhere, his gut told him so only Harm wasn't sure where to look. Didn't he tell her once that he always knew where to find her? Then why in the hell wasn't that working now? "Where are you, Mac? Give me a sign, something."
He pressed a hand against the page, his eyes reading street names and numbers, passing past the White House and just North. For some reason, his pulse quickened as the barkeep refilled his glass with more spirit. "Need help finding something?"
Harm shook his head. "Someone." He took the glass, drank the rest of the liquid and when he placed it down he spotted something off. The bottom magnified a spot just north of his apartment and when he moved the glass Harm was able to see. His mind shut down, drifting him back to that nightmare he had, the one where he'd raised his hand and shot at Mac. This time, his visions pulled him out of the old warehouse almost as if he were standing outside of the building that was so familiar because it was only two blocks away from the loft.
For some reason, he suddenly couldn't breathe, feeling as if someone was trying to squeeze his throat. He fought the sensation which ceased once he came out of the vision. "Hey buddy, you okay?"
"I will be." He nodded, tossed two twenties on the bar and hurried out into the night. "Webb. I know where she is." Harm barked into his cellphone as he slipped behind the wheel of the Lexus heading just North of Union Station. He gave the directions to the warehouse and sped off. "Hang on, Mac. I'm coming."
