Chapter 19 - Captive
"I love you. I love you, Harm… remember that."
Without opening his eyes Harm knew where he was. The cold, hard surface beneath him, that ever present smell of mold, chemicals and gasoline that wafted into his nostrils and the pain...there was always pain here. Sometimes the pain would force him to black out other times he was able to distract himself with thoughts of Mac - it numbed the pain, eased it.
Fuck, he knew exactly where he was and he just didn't want to open his eyes so he squeezed them shut even harder. The tears still slipped out rolling down his face and onto the ground with a soft splattering sound. "No." This couldn't be happening, it wasn't just a dream.
"I love you. I love you, Harm."
Mac's voice spoke in his head, her soft tones almost like the most wonderful of songs that he wanted to keep on replay. He knew not to open his eyes, the moment he did his vision would tunnel, the headache would start along with the coughing fit from inhaling so much gunk into his lungs. So he curled up into a ball huddled in a corner to shield himself from the reality that he was still in this godforsaken cell. Still a prisoner. Mac was a dream one that he prefered never to wake from.
And it all felt so real. She was real. Gracie was real. He could still feel Mac's skin on his, taste her on his lips, smell her on his clothes and he would give anything on Earth to live in that reality, imaginary or not. It was the only peace he had known. "God no… Mac."
This would be the end of him, he knew because he refused to continue living in the hell he was in. Harm sat up slowly strangely aware that the aches and pains, mostly the lacerations on his back didn't hurt, not like they had before. He had a headache, his eyes burned as did his lungs but that pain that manifested itself so hard in the past was no longer present. And then he heard it, the voice which echoed throughout the warehouse and forced his eyes to open.
He wasn't in his usual cell but an office of some sort which looked just as worse for wear. From the smell he could tell he was back at the warehouse, the lair that Palmer had found poorly maintained and abandoned somewhere outside of a small town in North Carolina. The voice echoed again, incoherent screams and the faint sounds of a female cursing. Harm brought his hands to his head, palm squeezing his temples in hopes to stop the intense headache.
"Leave him alone!"
This time when the female voice called out it was crystal clear that it wasn't just a hallucination, Mac was there. Frantically, he tried to stand but the headache sent him crashing down with a loud thud. He winced from the pain and doubled his efforts again with a similar result. "Mac?"
Harm used his elbows, bracing them against the wall until he was able to stand up. His legs weren't working correctly causing him to careen into a chair but he kept his forward momentum as much as possible until he reached the door. It was swung open suddenly and he stared into the eyes of his nemesis. "Hey there, Harm." And then his world went dark.
"You shouldn't be here, Mac!" Four days earlier the couple sat in Clayton Webb's office, the spy wearing a spot out on his rug as he paced frantically back and forth. "Do you know how hard it's been to make sure you're safe?"
"I didn't even know what you were up to, Webb. A heads up would have been nice given Harm's involvement is your fault."
He stopped his pacing suddenly, spinning around to face Mac with a finger pointed at his own chest. "My fault? My fault?! If the Navy's poster boy here didn't decide to go after Palmer when he worked for Bradenhurst he wouldn't have been on his radar!"
Mac stood up at his outburst. "What about when you played dead, Webb? You called Harm to help you, to rescue you from Palmer or did you forget that?"
"I...Well… No." He sighed, dropped into his seat and finally buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry either of you are involved. I'm sorry for what happened to you."
"What's past is prologue. I can't change things, none of us can. So let's figure out the now." Harm had discussed his options with Mac expecting a stern reaction that never came. He was to play bait, a lure to suck Palmer in and finally bring an end to this nightmare. They had agreed on one small detail, prison was not good enough a place to hold the man forever. Palmer's intelligence and general knowledge was far too vast that even the deepest sinkhole on Earth would be possible to escape. "He needs to die this time. We're not gonna catch him just to lock him up, I don't care what intel our government wants from him. I don't care what he knows. Palmer has to die."
Webb put his hands up. "Wait a minute, Rabb. We have reason to believe that Palmer has information vital to national security. Think of the millions we can save if he gives it up."
National Security. The words made Harm laugh, there was nothing more the CIA desired than to serve up one of INTERPOL's most wanted on a silver platter. "This isn't about national security, Webb. It's about besting another agency. I've nearly given my life for national security when I knew what I was giving it for. This… this is just a game of one upmanship and neither myself or my family will play. So we are doing things my way."
"Our way." Mac clarified reaching across to take his hand in hers.
Their way wasn't supposed to involve Mac only Harm. Gracie needed her mother, that stable family base and so Mac would be back up in case something went wrong. Harm opened his eyes and shut them again as that familiar searing pain at the back of his skull exploded.
He was no longer in that dank office or his cell. This time he was in the center of the warehouse amongst rotting, rusting machinery he had little clue what they were used for. It was raining almost as much inside as it was outside and it was cold.
His body shivered uncontrollably and when he forced his eyes open a foot slammed into his midsection knocking the wind right out of him.
"You're not worth anything… to anyone, you know? Completely fucking worthless." Palmer squatted next to him, grabbed Harm's hair and pulled so that the man would look at him. "No one wanted to buy you. Not even Iran with their bazillion utterly worthless F14s I'm sure you could have helped find parts for. I mean, a fighter pilot with your knowledge… Nope. No one would offer me a damned cent."
"Fuck you, Palmer! Kill me and get it over with."
"I had fun for a while with you and then you got boring. So utterly boring."
"I'm boring?" Harm snorted and couldn't help erupting in mirthless laughter. "Sorry to disappoint. Being locked up kinda hinders my chances at anything utterly exciting. Maybe if you took a gun and shot your brains off?"
Palmer let him go but continued his manic soliloquy. "It was easier to let you go. You were sick, I didn't have time for that shit. So I figured, cut your losses Clark, get him help. And then the chatter that you were dead - it made me sad, you know?"
"Yeah, I imagine you shed a tear."
"I've been at war with so many people in my life, Harm. Agencies including the CIA, MI6, FBI and you've managed to be the biggest pain in my ass." He laughed at and then grabbed Harm by the arm forcing him to stand. The gun nudged at his back prompted Harm to move forward whilst Palmer kept his incessant rambling. "I was gonna miss that, the fight between us. The games we played."
Palmer walked them through the warehouse turning only to head down a corridor which led to the former control room. "I had this nagging feeling though that, at some point, I needed to find your pretty Colonel."
"Mac has nothing to do with us." He opened a door and pushed Harm inside. The room was massive, the control panel seemingly the type that could power a reactor. Knobs and switches had been pulled also the monitors and computers that once were necessary to run the plant.
What struck Harm the most was that sick, uneasy feeling that choked him and once his eyes scanned the dimly lit room for the source he found her. Mac was sitting in a metal chair hands tied behind her back. Her head drooped down and he could see the faint trail of blood from her temple, it's droplets having left a stain on her shirt.
"You had to go to her didn't you? You had to fuck her again...and again and again and again and again! Her house, Washington...Christ Harm, you two go at it like rabbits. So whipped. She is rather good looking."
Harm's blood boiled, the fact that Palmer had possibly seen them made his stomach churn. He wanted nothing more than to rush the bastard, pummel him to a bloody pulp with his bare fists and then squeeze out whatever breath was left. "She has nothing to do with this. You said I was worthless."
"You yes. Colonel MacKenzie on the other hand." Palmer danced towards Mac producing a knife which was sheathed at the small of his back as he spun around her. He pulled Mac's head back and pressed his hand against her throat, fingers caressing the skin as if he were her lover.
"Don't touch her!"
The knife quickly went to Mac's throat pressing over the area just below the jugular as Harm tried to rush towards her. The act made him stop dead in his tracks, his eyes dropping down to the blood that Palmer deliberately drew to prove his point. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Now, now, Harmy take it easy. Sarah ain't good to me dead."
"Don't call her that." Harm said between gritted teeth.
"I prefer if she were awake. A woman's eyes are never so beautiful as when they are in pain." He pressed the blade a little deeper allowing for a rivulet of blood to run down Mac's neck. "Those eyes of hers must come alive when she cries."
"This is between you and me. Let her go."
"So I guess the two of you are a thing now huh? You know she's married right? Nah, that didn't stop you before. Let me guess, friends with benefits?"
"You don't need her, Palmer. She's a lawyer who has no good information to offer." Harm was buying time or at least trying to. Every second he kept Palmer talking was an extra second he was giving to the search party. As his mind cleared he remembered the tracker inside his boots and prayed to God that the signal would be strong enough.
"That's where you're wrong." Palmer straightened and sheathed the knife. He stared down at Mac frowning when he saw the blade had caused de
damage. Bending down, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe the blood off in the most meticulous fashion. He then dampened the unsoiled end with saliva and used it to wipe the dried blood from her temple. "She has access that I currently don't. Classified kinda access."
Harm was close enough to see Palmer touching her, especially the one hand that dropped the handkerchief and ran down her neck to her chest where he roughly grabbed one of her breasts. He was just too far to rush him and Harm couldn't risk hurting Mac. "Leave her alone."
Palmer pulled the gun from his waistband, training it at Harm. "Or what? What are you gonna do? You're nothing. I have the control here and everywhere. Do you know how easy it was to sneak out of Leavenworth? All you need is a little time and let military predictability do the rest."
From the corner of his eye he saw Mac move her hand. It was a subtle flick of her wrist and then another to get his attention. The ropes which once bound her hands were loose, she'd managed to slip her slender wrists with a few movements. Harm saw her fingers odd positions and noticed she was signing, using specific motions known in the field as tactical hand signals. "What information could she possibly have that could be of any use to you?"
He needed to keep Palmer talking and with a subtle move forward Harm kept the man's interest honed on him and less on the woman he was groping. Clark's talking became nothing more than idle background chatter as Harm's eyes focused in on Mac's hand that gave him the command to "crouch." She then began a countdown from five.
Every sinew in his body wanted to pounce and beat Palmer to death. The hand still on Mac moved down into her shirt as he kept talking. That had always been his downfall, the need to talk and explain things in nauseating details. He was like an actor that needed to put his talents on display, a complete narcissist.
Once Mac's countdown was complete she attacked. With as much force as possible her head snapped up and slammed into Palmer's face, the harsh movement breaking the man's nose. He'd had his finger on the trigger and squeezed off two rounds in Harm's general vicinity both missing.
The sounds from the gunshots and its proximity to her head were deafening. It rattled her already aching head, muffled her hearing and as Palmer stumbled back he blindly shot off a few more rounds.
"You broke my nose you fucking bitch!"
Mac was able to stand and with as much force as possible hurled her body into Palmer's. He managed another shot before he hit the ground striking his intended target which was moving quickly towards them. The bullet slammed into Harm's right shoulder, the searing pain making him scream.
When he reached Mac she was on the ground with Palmer straddling her. He'd lost the pistol the second she slammed into him, the weapon skipping several feet away and out of reach. Now he had his knife but every downward motion she thwarted. The tears in his eyes wouldn't let Palmer see clearly and so he blindly sliced unsure if he was hitting anything, praying that he would.
Harm's forearm snaked around Palmer's neck, a chokehold that could have worked if the man didn't slice his forearm forcing him to let go. They fell to the ground, a swirling mass of blood and limbs fighting for supremacy both gripping the handle of the knife.
Mac stood over them with Palmer's pistol in hand steadily holding it in desperate need to take an open shot. One blood curdling scream and then another until finally both men went limp. "Harm...Harm!"
"I'm okay." He said finally rolling off of Palmer who had the blade shoved deep into his gut. Harm's hand was still on the handle and with a final twist and pull he felt the blade catch and tear everything in its wake as he pulled it from Palmer's body.
The disgraced former DSD agent frantically pressed his hand to the wound but the blood kept bubbling up around his fingers. "Help...help me." He tried to reach for Harm and in that split second Mac fired off a round the bullet piercing his heart. He crumpled to the ground finally dead.
"That was for my family." Mac said, her arm still pointed at him out of concern the bastard would rise again. Seconds later the warehouse came alive, Webb's cavalry had arrived later than promised. The tracking device embedded in Harm's boot had lost signal and they had to double back to find them.