As they made their way through the Naval training base, Mac seriously started reconsidering how heavy he made the locator device. Of course, he was working with old parts, and old often meant heavy. That was normally fine, but when his body felt like it had the structural integrity of mashed potatoes, heavy now only equaled one thing - excruciating.

"What can you tell us about the prisoner you were transporting?" Jack asked, continuing the conversation so they could tell if they were going in the right direction or not.

So far so good, with only a few minor course corrections, of course.

"We weren't given a name, only a picture, and a location." Wheeler told them. He sounded wiped out and honestly none of them could blame him. "They only told us she was dangerous."

"Who is she?" Cage asked, stepping over a collapsed section of the wall.

"I don't know, but she dropped three of my men before the plane went down." Wheeler said. "Didn't break a sweat or anything. I've never seen anything like it."

Mac led them down a rusted, metal staircase. As soon as he turned left, the signal washed over with static, so they went right, up another staircase. The blood soaking his side had slowed, but as it cooled from his internal body temperature, Mac couldn't stop shivering.

"Do you think she would have been able to booby trap the plane and drag you guys around the island."

"Definitely." Wheeler said. There was the sound of shifting, then a solid crash, followed by a grunt.

"You okay in there?" Jack asked. Wheeler chuckled over the radio.

"Doin' just peachy," he said. "Tried to knock down some of the wall but it's a dead end on the other side. There's nowhere to go."

"Just sit tight, okay?" Jack told him, clicking his flickering flashlight against his thigh until the beam of light strengthened again.

"Will do," Wheeler said. "Did you say she booby trapped the plane?"

"Yeah," Jack said, frowning at their close call. "Rigged the damn thing to explode. It nearly went up with two of my agents inside."

"Would one of them happen to be your partner?" Wheeler asked, his amusement clear even over the radio.

"Oh yeah," Jack groused. "He's limping and pale as hell but I'll give you three guesses as to what he's been telling me."

"Bet I can get it in one," Wheeler said. "He's fine?"

"Yup, just fine." Jack said. Mac couldn't help but throw a half-hearted glare over his shoulder. He knew what Jack was doing but he refused to worry his partner any more than he already had. And either way, Mac knew that as soon as he slowed down, and the adrenaline faded, he was going to be useless to anyone and didn't want that to happen until everyone was safe. There was a time and a place, and that certainly wasn't it.

"Well, I appreciate you guys coming to find us." Wheeler's gratitude was evident. This wasn't the way anyone wanted a mission to end. It was inevitable in their line of work, but there were some days when it really felt like they weren't gonna make it back home. Those were the absolute worst, and if there was anything Mac could do to stop that from happening to Wheeler and his team, then he was going to do it. A little pain and blood loss be damned.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about your prisoner?" Cage redirected the conversation back to their main threat. If they lost contact with Wheeler, they were going to need all the information they could get. If she could take down a fully trained CIA tac team, they needed to know absolutely everything about her.

"Five nine, dark hair, ice water for blood." Wheeler listed.

Jack chuckled, "anything else?"

"She had more training than my whole team put together." Mac could hear the pain in Wheeler's voice. The attack must have been really bad, then. Hopefully the rest of his crew was still alive. "I've never seen anyone like her, and I gotta be honest, I hope I never see anyone like her again."

Who the hell were they dealing with? The more Mac heard, the more he wanted to put whoever she was back behind bars. If she was that dangerous, they needed to stop her.

Mac quickened his pace when the signal became crystal clear, not an ounce of static left on the radio. They were in the old barracks, the beds still crisp even under the layer of grime they had collected over the decades. It was the strangest juxtaposition between abandoned and ready for use.

"Almost there," Mac announced to Jack and Cage. As soon as they turned another corner, Mac stopped short. Jack bumped into him from behind and Mac hissed when his injuries were jostled.

"What is it, hoss?" Jack asked, leaning around Mac to see. "Oh."

That wasn't good at all.

In the middle of the floor, on a white sheet, were two walkie talkies taped together with no Commander Wheeler, on anyone else on his team, in sight.

"That's what we've been tracking this whole time?" Cage asked.

"Yeah," Mac hated to have to admit it but they'd been duped. "She's good."

"Maybe better than good," Jack said, moving forward to pick up the walkie-talkies. "She's been two steps ahead of us this whole time."

"Then we've got to be extra caref-" Before Mac could finish the warning, Jack made one step too far and the white sheet disappeared beneath his feet. As Jack disappeared with a shout into the ten-foot hole in the floor, his arm flailed out, catching on the antenna attached to Mac's back. The force of the pull threw Mac completely off balance and he fell forward, too.

Mac yelped, twisting his body so he wouldn't fall head first into the hole. His hands slid across the floor as he was pulled down. He heard Jack land with a solid, breathless thud, before hands grabbed onto the device on his back and kept him from falling any more. With half of his body hanging in the hole, and his upper half grasping desperately for purchase, he couldn't help but kick his legs out. The cord of the antenna snapped, the metal crashing next to Jack's prone form. Mac looked up as Cage grunted in the effort to keep him from falling.

"The pack's too heavy," she yelled. "Give me your hand!"

Mac gasped, adrenaline keeping him from feeling the hell his body was going through, and reached up with his free hand. Mac knew what she had to do and he wasn't looking forward to it. She couldn't let go of the pack without him falling so she had to let go of it completely before grabbing his hand. It didn't matter, either she caught him and then they could check on Jack, or he would fall and it would become that much easier to check on his partner.

"Mac!" Cage cried out as she slid, her fingers losing strength.

"Do it," Mac yelled. The tension on the pack lessened when Cage let go. He felt himself falling for less than half a second before two strong hands wrapped around his wrist. The bones ground together, crunching under her hands, but as the pack fell away, luckily landing a few feet from Jack, some of the strain on her face smoothed away. A bead of sweat dripped down Mac's face. He swung his other hand up and grabbed onto the edge of the floor, pulling himself up as much as he could on the smooth surface.

When he got up high enough, Cage grabbed under his arms and pulled. He threw his leg up and used all the strength left in his body to push himself higher. Soon, more of his body than not was on safe ground and he was able to pull himself the rest of the way out of the hole. He only had a few seconds to breathe before he remembered that Jack hadn't been as lucky as him.

He pulled himself, shakily, to the edge. Peering down, he could see Jack shifting.

"Jack, you okay?" He called down, desperately hoping Jack wasn't hurt too badly. "Jack!"

Jack groaned as he rolled onto his side. He pushed himself up to his knees and coughed a few times. He turned bleary eyes up and groaned again.

"I just fell like a thousand feet." He complained loudly. Mac chuckled, sucking in a breath when his ribs and side screamed. He didn't even want to think about his head. He wasn't going to be able to think straight for a week. But, luckily Jack seemed to be in one piece, if not a little rattled - and pissed.

"Give or take 980, but yeah." Mac said, watching Jack crawl to his fallen flashlight. He clicked it back on, illuminating a small portion of the room he had fallen into.

"I think I'm in a storage room." Jack told them as he looked around. Mac could just make out the shadow of a bunch of grappling dummies. "I don't see a door."

"Can you find another way out?" Cage asked. "Is there a ladder?"

"No ladder." Jack said. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. "And nothing I trust to support my weight. It's kind of cold in here, though, man."

"Wait, are those concrete floors?" Mac asked. Jack nodded in confirmation. "I bet Commander Wheeler's down there somewhere, too."

"So, I'm not coming up, then." Jack said. Mac shook his head, nearly tipping back into the hole when the whole world faded around him.

"No," Mac ground out, blinking away the flashing lights in the corner of his vision. "We're coming down to you. Is my antenna down there?"

Jack kneeled down, the remains of the antenna falling to bits as soon as he picked it up. Suddenly, Mac realized he might finally get his chance to sneak away and patch himself up. Jack just really wasn't going to like it. The only good thing was there wasn't much his partner could do about it while stuck in the basement.

"Sorry, man, it's in about a million little pieces." Jack grimaced, standing once again, and dusting his hands off. "I think I might've pulled it down when I fell."

"No worries," Mac said. "I just need to figure out another way to track Wheeler."

"How do you plan on doing that, homie?" Jack asked. "It's not like we have a lot to work with."

"I know." Mac grimaced, knowing he was about to uncover the part of his plan Jack was really going to hate. "I have to go back to the radio tower for supplies."

"Cage, you go with him." Jack ordered immediately, knowing exactly what kind of stunt Mac was going to try to pull. "I don't want either of you on your own out there."

"No," Mac said, snapping a little more than he intended. His fingers pressed against his side were wet with the fresh blood. He was feeling lightheaded, and definitely didn't want to be out there on his own, but he needed to take a moment to patch himself up before he became totally useless - a liability. He could still help, so that was exactly what he was going to do. "Look, you're a sitting duck down there with no way out if you get cornered. You're gonna need Cage here to watch your back. Plus, I'll be able to move a lot faster if I'm on my own."

"Mac's right, Jack." Cage said. "Mac will be right back with the stuff he needs and then we can figure out how to get down to you. In the meantime, I'll be here to make sure you're not sitting down there waiting to get shot like a fish in a barrel."

"Alright," Jack begrudgingly agreed, taping his flashlight against his hand when the light started to flicker again. "Just be careful, okay?"

"My middle name is careful." Mac smirked to hide the wince as he forced himself to his feet. "I'm Mr. Careful."

"Alright Mr. Angus Careful Careful," Jack chuckled, an abandoned house in Afghanistan, an ill-placed pressure plate, and a stubborn blond kid who refused to leave well enough alone flashing through his memory. "Get going, then."

With one last flash of boyish grin, Mac disappeared back the way they came.

To Be Continued.