Bomb + Doctor + Mattress + Doors
Chapter 4
"When you invited me to a picnic under the stars, I just figured we'd go out on your deck," Riley said, watching him fondly.
Mac pointed up at the gigantic telescope above them. "Mount Graham is the second-largest optical telescope in continental North America. I would have taken you to Keck in Hawaii, but we have to be back at work tomorrow…."
She smiled, running a hand idly through his hair. "I'm sure you have plenty of dorky details to share about this one, too."
"Indeed I do," he replied with a serious tone. "So many that I'm going to sweep you off your feet, Miss Davis."
"How did you get permission for us to eat in here?"
"The director owed me a favor."
"What did you do?"
Mac grinned. "I work at a Think Tank. I let him borrow my brain."
She laughed. "We should have done this a long time ago."
He smiled wanly at her. "My fault for not seeing it sooner."
"I'm not sure how you keep dragging me on these science club field trips that you call vacations."
He leaned in for a kiss. "Well, you keep saying yes to them—"
A blast of cold water striking his face jolted Mac awake. He coughed from inhaling some of it. Riley's deep brown eyes were replaced by the Doctor's icy blue.
"What were you dreaming about?" he asked, glancing down at Mac's somewhat embarrassing physical reaction to the dream. "It seemed…pleasant."
Mac was still trying to get his bearings, glancing around the room in confusion. It seemed so real. "Where…?"
"Nowhere as nice, I'm afraid," the Doctor replied easily. He watched Mac for a few moments. "Do you like games, Angus?"
MacGyver squeezed his eyes shut, desperately clinging to the fragments of the blissful dream before the reality of the hellish room he was in crashed back. "Somehow…I don't think I'd enjoy playing a game with you."
"This is an easy game. It's called The Truth. For the next five minutes, we both speak only the truth. We can ask each other anything we want. If you can do that, I'll give you a short break. You can go back to sleep, return to that nice dream you were having. Doesn't that sound like a good deal?"
Mac shook his head slowly. He didn't want to believe a word the man said. The Doctor seemed to read his expression.
"I won't ask you about who their leak is, and I won't ask you who you work for, I promise. Soldier's honor."
Scoffing at that, Mac watched him. The Doctor's expression was so disarming, so…friendly. It was hard to believe that a short time before he was making Mac writhe in agony.
Still, Mac was exhausted. Against his better judgement, he nodded. The appeal of sleep was too tempting, he couldn't say no.
The Doctor appeared pleased as he set the timer on his phone. "I'll go first. I didn't want to admit this, but hopefully this will prove to you that I'm playing fair. I've actually been a fan of your work for a long time. I didn't know who you really were, of course, but you're a legend in the underworld. Their boogeyman. The man who can build anything out of nothing, and always comes out on top. They don't even know your name, but they know about you."
"I, I guess it's good to be famous," Mac allowed.
"It is!" The Doctor replied. "In that respect, you and I are somewhat alike."
Mac scowled. "I'm nothing like you."
The Doctor held up his hands in supplication, then gestured around the room. "Don't take this personally. I've been hired by a lot of people to find out a lot of things. I didn't know who they were calling me in to question. I would much rather be sitting across a chessboard or a debate table with you, man."
"What's your name?" Mac asked. One of the lessons from spy school: turn the tables on your captor. If he could keep him talking, maybe he could get an advantage.
Surprisingly, the Doctor didn't hesitate. "Ian."
"Why were you discharged?" Mac wondered if he would get the truth for that.
Ian looked mildly surprised at the question. "In 2011, my unit was transferred to Kandahar. Things were bad there, if you remember."
Mac nodded. He and Jack had ended up there eventually, near the end of his tour.
"My best friend was part of a fireteam that got ambushed. He was taken hostage. Command wrote him off. Said the risk of a rescue mission outweighed the benefits. Can you believe that? Said it was 'unlikely that the hostiles would keep him alive.' The guys in his team didn't buy it and neither did I. We went out on our own, found one of the guys who set up the ambush and we questioned him in this abandoned house near the outskirts of town. He wouldn't talk. So, the guys left him with me. I'm really well versed in anatomy. Six hours later, he told us everything."
Horrified at the implication, Mac stared at Ian for a moment. "You tortured him."
"I got what we needed," Ian corrected. "And we got Adam back in one piece. I was court-martialed for 'war crimes' when it all came out. By then, it was an election year back home, and the Army made sure none of it made the news. I was tossed out in the cold for saving my best friend's life."
"You were tossed out in the cold for torturing a prisoner!" Mac shouted angrily.
"Adam wouldn't agree with your righteous indignation. One man's villain…" he checked his phone. "Minute and a half left, Angus. You, uh, were dreaming about your friend weren't you? The woman."
Mac glared at him, but didn't dare speak or even move. He didn't want to give him anything he could use. Not that it seemed to matter. Ian was incredibly perceptive.
"I'm guessing it's unrequited?" he pressed.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Ian's eyes lit up. "Ah! The feelings are shared, but she doesn't want to pursue it."
"Shut up," Mac growled. It was aggravating that he could be read so easily.
"Hey, I know where you're coming from. Having feelings for a co-worker can be tough. What's her name?"
"Go to hell," Mac said quietly, cold fury winding through his chest. "I'm done playing with you."
He didn't have time to brace for the vicious backhand Ian landed. Mac's head snapped to the left, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
"Mm. Twelve seconds to go. You lose, Angus. I guess there's no rest for the weary after all."
Any other circumstances, Mac might have been amazed at how quickly the man's demeanor had changed. Mac had gone from being Ian's respected fellow soldier to being less than, a prisoner, all in the proverbial blink of an eye.
Ian picked up the electric probes again. "Tell me who you work for, Angus."
He stepped over and carefully opened Mac's coveralls a bit wider, holding the humming devices mere inches above the sweat-soaked skin of his abdomen. He fixed Mac with his steely blue gaze. "Answer me."
Mac stiffened, tugging on the restraints in vain. There was nowhere to go.
MAC MAC MAC
Riley steeled herself. A lot of her plan depended on how the guard—or guards, God forbid—outside reacted to what she did, but she was ready to try.
The lights in the hallway were dimming again, and she heard Mac cry out. Each time was worse than the last, and each one dug into her heart a little more. This had to work. Angus MacGyver had saved her life so many times—they'd sometimes saved each other's—and now it was her turn once again.
Her plan was split into two parts. The first was actually the harder of the two in her estimation. By far it was the riskier of them. But, Mac's anguished cries actually buoyed her confidence. It had to work. So, it would.
She moved to the heavy door and started punching and banging on it as hard as she could. "Hey! HEY! You bastards! Let him go! Do you hear me! HEY!"
Making as riotous a noise as possible, Riley wailed on the closed door.
Finally, her efforts were rewarded. She heard the lock turning, and backed off long enough for the door to swing open. Ugly Mustache Guy appeared, and she charged him. Grabbing his AK to prevent him from bringing it to bear, she half-shoved, half-tackled the larger man, aggressively forcing him back through the doorway.
They moved far enough into the hallway for her to take a quick look. He was the only guard present.
Her attack wasn't enough to overpower him. He was stronger and had more leverage, and he quickly reversed the situation, forcing her back into the cell. They grappled violently for a few seconds, before he angrily shoved her away. She landed on her back near the ripped up mattress.
He loomed over her, panting more from the surprise than from any real exertion, pointing his rifle at her threateningly. "You're fortunate, woman. The Doctor instructed me to leave you alone. Next time you try to escape, I will ignore his orders!"
With that, he slammed the door, leaving her alone once more. From the shadows she could see moving under the door, he didn't go far. Good.
Riley looked herself over. She was a little ruffled, but unharmed. Opening her hand, she examined the object she had palmed off Ugly Mustache Guy's belt and smiled to herself. The first part had been successful.
Another scream from outside punctuated her minor victory. Riley bit her lip. "Hang on, Mac."
MAC MAC MAC
"Okay, we've eliminated all but three of the trucks that left the warehouse, and we have their destinations," Matty said.
"Finally! Where did they go?" Desi asked, relieved to be making progress at last.
"Two drove south about four hours to a small town called Sidi Aïch, the other headed East to Monastir, on the coast," Bozer cut in. "But, we have no satellite footage of Mac and Riley at either site. If they are there, we can't verify it."
"We'll just have to go and have a look for ourselves," Russ said.
"But which site?" Desi asked, feeling frustrated again. "If we check one and they aren't there—"
"Then, we will have narrowed our options down to one," Russ interrupted calmly. "Besides, I have a strong feeling that Monastir isn't it."
"What makes you say that?"
"Too populated. Not the type of place you would want to be seen unloading foreign hostages."
Accepting that logic, Desi nodded. "Okay, that leaves Sidi Aïch."
"A lot smaller. From what we could see, the trucks stopped at an old bunker, probably something leftover from World War II," Matty added. "A much better place to keep prisoners."
"Right then!" Russ signaled the TAC team leader to prepare to move out. "Let's go save our friends, shall we?"
MAC MAC MAC
MacGyver looked around from his place on the steel table. Ian was gone. He was alone. There was no pain, but he was tired, so tired.
His eyes drifted around the room lethargically until they settled on a figure over in the corner that hadn't been there before. Mac's eyes widened. "Jack?"
"Hey there, amigo," Jack Dalton's Texas drawl called back.
"Wh-what are you doing here? You're—" Mac stopped. Even after so many months, he couldn't bring himself to say the words.
Jack shrugged. "Hell if I know, man. It's your brain. You tell me why I'm here."
Mac deflated. "I'm dreaming again."
"Nah," Jack shook his head, moving away from the wall and making his way over to the table. "This can't be a dream. Where are the race cars? The jet skis? The party? Don't tell me you summoned up old Jack Dalton and didn't plan a party, Mac!"
A solitary tear ran down from Mac's bruised and swollen left eye. "No party."
"Well then let's make it one! We can invite those two waitresses from Chattanooga. You remember the ones we danced with? Mine had the one leg shorter than the other so she could only dance in a circle."
Mac shook his head, huffing a weak laugh. "Are you trying to cheer me up?"
"Is it working?"
Grief bubbled to the surface. "Miss you Jack. I think about you a lot."
Jack was sympathetic. "Yeah, I know. But, I'm never far away, mi compadre."
Mac simply nodded. The light was glaring in his eyes, making it hard to see his old friend.
"Well, I hate to be the one to break up the reunion, you know that, but you've got incoming, buddy. Hold tight—"
The warning didn't help. He jolted awake as ice cold water splashed against his face. He coughed as some of it forced its way into his air passages.
"Where were you this time?" Ian asked. His tone wasn't unkind, just curious.
"I didn't go anywhere," Mac replied miserably.
Ian watched him with something akin to pity on his face. "You must be exhausted."
Mac didn't answer. He didn't want to give Ian the satisfaction, or any ammunition to use against him. It was a small gesture, but it was all he had.
"Do you know how long you've been in here?"
Mac blinked slowly. In where exactly? This room? This prison? In country? His brain rolled over the potential meanings of the question on its own, apparently deciding that academic exercises in syntax were a more enjoyable topic to explore than whatever his body was enduring in the real world.
Ian impatiently snapping his fingers in front of Mac's face brought him back to reality. "Here. In here. In this room."
Shrugging wasn't really possible the way he was restrained, so MacGyver just shook his head sluggishly. "I don't know…three, four days?"
His answer amused his captor. "Nine hours. Nine hours without a break, aside from five minutes here and there. You've set a new record for me, Angus. I've never had a patient like you."
The words were somewhere between sincere and mocking, and Mac frankly didn't care. His attention drifted, cataloging different details of the room through heavy eyelids, but mainly just floating on a sea of persistent pain and random muscle spasms.
Ian took him by the chin and turned his head back so they were facing each other again. "Yeah, you've checked out. Tell you what, I'm going to send you back to your cell."
Releasing him, Ian stepped away. He banged his fist twice on the thick door. Moments later the ugly guard with the mustache entered. Mac frowned at them, unclear what was happening.
"No games," Ian said. He walked over and unlocked Mac's shackles. "He'll take you back to the cell. Get some sleep. We'll continue our conversation in the morning."
Mac's idling brain tripped over the word "conversation." What a banal word for what the Doctor had put him through.
Ian reached out and helped Mac into a sitting position. He was surprisingly gentle about it. Mac looked at him, then at the guard, and then back. They seemed genuine. But…it felt wrong.
They pulled him to his feet, and the guard guided him slowly toward the open door. He could barely move, and each step sent a new jolt of pain through his body. Mac had to admit, the idea of some sleep, even on that awful mattress, was seductive. As he reached the doorway, Ian called to the guard.
"When he's settled, bring Miss Davis to me."
Mac froze. He looked over his shoulder, frowning at the Doctor. "Wh-what?"
Ian gave him an innocent look. "I'm still on the clock, Angus. I'll just have to talk to Riley while you recover."
"H-how do you know her name?" Mac asked, his muddled mind not able to keep up.
Chuckling incredulously, Ian shook his head as if Mac was making a poor attempt at humor. "You told me her name, Angus. Hours ago."
Searching his memory, Mac tried to verify that, but he couldn't. He shook his head. Ian was lying.
"Yes, Angus," Ian said patiently. "You told me about Riley, and Jack, and Desi. You were barely conscious at the time, so you may not remember. That's common." To the guard he added. "Go on, take him back. Bring me the woman."
Ugly Mustache Guy took him by the arms, but Mac shrugged him off with strength he didn't know he had left. Eyeing Ian contemptuously, he shook his head and shuffled unsteadily back to the table.
Ian tilted his head inquisitively. "Does this mean you want to continue our conversation?"
Mac hated him. He wanted to go for Ian's throat and strangle him, even though logically he knew he didn't have the energy for such an action. He glanced tiredly back at the guard, who was aiming his rifle at Mac's back. Even if he was capable of making a move, he'd be dead before he took one step.
The thought of Riley in this room, on this table, sickened him. He couldn't allow them to interrogate her, even if it killed him. Looking back at Ian, he nodded once.
Ian gave him a sympathetic smile, then patted the table, indicating that MacGyver should lay down once more.
TBC