MURD 201: Final Exam

by Alyssa Blackbourn

Murdoc's class is back in session and ready for round four, and these lessons are brutal. The curve can't save them, and maybe Mac can't, either. The final exam has arrived, and with Mac and Jack on the outs, can they make it through? PLEASE read A/N; this is the 6th story in this series and the 5th story from me.

2. Review

"...are you playing Global Thermonuclear War?"

Mac was legitimately surprised to feel his lips quirk upward at that voice. Might've been his first real smile since—

That thought was enough to kill it in its infancy.

"As a matter of fact...no."

"Could have fooled me." The owner of the voice—and the footsteps that had signaled its arrival, plenty loud so as not to startle him—drew closer, wrinkling her nose to change the angle of the lenses perched on the bridge of it. "Pandemic, then?"

"Warmer." Mac reached over and slipped a couple fingers beneath the folder beside him, tipping the flat plane up ninety degrees, and Jill accepted his invitation and plucked it out of his hand.

"...the Nuvogenix project."

"The Nuvogenix project," he confirmed, triple-checking his numbers before kicking off the next iteration. The two of them watched silently as a small white blotch appeared in the Pacific ocean, latitude 38.0000, longitude -145.0000. But the blotch didn't stay there long. The model wasn't currently set to display wind and current information, so the bloom of white turned pinkish and spread in three tendrils, almost like a fractal, one for California's coast, one for Japan, and one up into the North Pacifc where it sort of loitered.

The other two didn't loiter. The bloom in the middle of the Pacific grew more and more red, as did the coasts of California and Japan, before the white-then-pink-then-red penetrated inland, spreading more and more rapidly. In the same timespan it had taken the blotch to reach the coasts, it had crossed the entire continental United States, along with Canada, Mexico, and was well on its way into South America. China, most of Russia, the Koreas, India, Thailand, even Australia had already fallen.

Mac tapped space bar, stopping the alarming progression, then checked the timestamp and made a note in a spreadsheet before picking up a Sharpie and putting the spreadsheet cell coordinates on a thin, rectangular, plain glass microscope slide.

The contents of said slide were not white, pink, or red. In fact, the bacteria trapped between the slide and the cover slip was completely invisible to the naked eye.

"So...that's what happens if it gets out into the wild?"

"Yep," Mac confirmed, carefully placing the marked slide into an all-glass carousel made specifically for this purpose.

"Well..." The woman adjusted her specs and compared the screen to what was in the file. "Looks like you slowed it down a little bit."

Mac huffed a scoff, slipping the next glass slide under the microscope and allowing the computer to analyze it. "Honestly, all I've done so far is follow Dr. Kinkade's recommendations on trying to rein it in, but the sucker's pretty aggressive."

"Which you'd think would be a positive when you're talking about a bacteria breaking down the world's plastic problem," Jill murmured, flipping the page. "Too bad it's not selective. And...uhm...no offense, but biochem isn't precisely your field of study..."

Mac chuckled despite himself. "No, it really isn't," he admitted, watching the program finishing the analysis of the next sample. "But Nuvogenix couldn't meet their contractual obligations and we're at least peripherally the reason why—"

"And we're a think tank, so it's perfect for our cover," Jill finished, but her voice was doubtful. "But, Mac, it's not like a Phoenix agent shot Dr. Kinkade, or forced Dr. Hart to commit treason."

Both valid points. "We are the people responsible for his arrest, though." And Agent Ramirez had been bouncing around like a five year old when they'd let him make that arrest—

Mac closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again and pushing the memories firmly aside. He's out of the coma. The doctors are optimistic. Besides, arresting Hart had been a high point. Too bad the agent hadn't gotten the opportunity to arrest Brandon Yates the same way.

"Either way, they lost their two head scientists on the project, and..." Mac leaned back and blew out a sigh. "At least if I'm doing this, I'm actually accomplishing something. Albeit slowly," he admitted, as the computer spat out the analysis. Not significantly different from the last one, nor the twenty-seven slides before it.

Jill made a noncommittal noise behind him, clearly too polite to say that she knew why he'd been banished to the lab. Why he was not permitted anywhere near the Murdoc evidence from the theater. Since that horrible movie trailer and Mac's contradiction of her orders Matty hadn't even spoken to him directly.

He knew she'd forgive him for that, eventually. Hell, he might even apologize. And while her instructions had been filtered through his tac team, he also understood, intellectually, why he was down here. To keep him out of trouble, and to give him a problem to focus on that he could actually hope to solve. Meaning that she now believed he was incapable of solving the Murdoc problem. Too emotionally compromised.

He was pretty sure she was right.

The bomb was Murdoc, and maybe his feelings about the bomb were going to get him killed—but this bomb definitely had feelings of its own. And either way Peña wasn't going to help him with this one. The detonation had already occurred, the chemical reaction already in motion. Irrevocably, like a nuclear blast.

Or a plastic-eating bacterium engineered to break down all petroleum it found, wherever it found it. Whether that be floating in the Great Pacific Garbage patch, or the plastic it found in landfills. Hospitals. Airplanes. Pacemakers.

"Well, in this case, slow is definitely better." Jill pitched her voice to be encouraging, and the end almost came out like a chirp. "Want some help?"

Biochem wasn't exactly her field either, and Mac was about to point that out when the results were finally displayed, and he keyed them into the real world simulation model.

This particular version of the bacteria followed the same pattern as the slides before it, and Mac tapped the space bar and noted that slightly more of Russia and Central America had been spared in the time allotted.

All he was doing was dragging out the inevitable.

He made his notes, rubbing his latex-clad thumb over the blister of air that was trapped at the tip of his index finger. The gloves were one hundred percent latex, no vinyl anywhere. The lab countertop was treated with a non-petroleum based sealant, and the labcoats he and Jill were wearing were one hundred percent cotton. The computers and monitors were protected behind glass barriers, only the keyboard was exposed, and it was also covered in a latex shell, protecting the plastic keys from any possible contamination.

Jill must have noticed him playing with his gloves. "Only if you want the company," she murmured, reminding him that she'd just offered to help.

And he did. Very much. With Bozer upstairs 'consulting' with the techs, Riley still ghosting him, and Jack—

"I don't know," he said instead, letting his voice reflect his reluctance. "I mean, you're not covered head to toe in Kevlar, with that five o'clock shadow the rest of the tac is rocking."

It was Jill's turn to chuckle. "You're saying you'd rather hang out in a lab with civilization-ending bacteria than our tactical teams?"

He knew she meant it as a joke, but she also wasn't wrong. He chose to play it off. "Dinner with Simmons' team makes you think civilization already ended."

Jill laughed, then pulled up a stool—covered in a rubber slip—and sat down beside him. "Besides," she said, her tone reasonable, "Kevlar definitely has a polyester component."

That was absolutely true, and he was about to theorize the glass fibers might still keep the Kevlar structurally intact when across the room, there was a loud buzz. A steady beat started up; brass, drums, and old-school bass guitar rocking out a very familiar tune. By the time the female chorus of "Batman!" had started, Mac had already crossed the lab and ripped off the latex gloves. He reached into the safe case and grabbed his phone, but he already knew what it was going to say.

The classic 1960's Batman theme was Jack's. Back when he'd set up their phone alerts, they'd all gotten to pick their emergency shit-has-hit-the-fan ringtone. Of course Jack had chosen Batman.

And if he was using it now, especially now—

As soon as Mac unlocked his phone, it brought up the app Riley had written for them, way back in the beginning, showing him real-time GPS information for Jack's phone. He was still in LA, the map superimposed on him put him not far from Phoenix.

"What—"

"Mac!"

He ignored Jill entirely, whipping around to look back at the bench, where Bozer had taken control of a couple of the lab monitors. He was in the War Room, and Matty was just hurrying in behind him. His best friend already had a tablet in hand, and as he flicked his wrist, another of the lab monitors flickered, and showed him the same screen he could see on his own phone.

"Jack sent up the Batsignal," Bozer announced unnecessarily, his voice not quite steady. "He's with his escort, they're near Fountain and Van."

"I'm coming up," Mac replied immediately, staring at his phone as he crossed the lab again, closer to the camera. He'd only started the work a few hours ago, the lab counter was a mess. "Sorry, Jill, can you—"

"Help, yeah, no problem," she confirmed immediately, and Mac felt a wave of gratitude for the analyst. She quickly began collecting the untested samples, carefully placing them back in their own glass carousel as Mac pocketed his phone, relying on the larger map Bozer had put on their monitors as he struggled to shove his suddenly sweating hands into a fresh pair of gloves.

Jack's dot wasn't moving.

"Car's stationary, it's either been disabled or blocked," Bozer growled, and Mac's stomach plummeted as another likely scenario crossed it.

Murdoc was an assassin, after all. He could have set up automated sniper rifles, harkening back to their first meeting in that junkyard. He wouldn't risk killing Jack, not until he had them right where he wanted them, but as for Jack's escort—

"Mac, I got this," Jill assured him, and Mac just shook his head, reaching beyond the neat row of glass vials for the keypad on the sample refrigeration unit. She wasn't on the project, he had to input his access code to—

In his pocket, his phone started vibrating again, and Mac's eyes shot up to the monitor to see Bozer was looking through the camera, right at him.

For the first time in two days.

"...you're gettin' a call." Wilt's voice was tight. "Blocked number."

"Liz is running a trace," Matty added, all business, and Mac's hands shook as he again peeled off one of the latex gloves he'd half-shoved his hand into, and picked up his phone.

It was voice only, no video, and Mac unwillingly answered it, putting it on speaker.

Murdoc didn't waste a moment. "Angus! It's been too long. How've you been?"

On the screen in front of him, Matty's eyes dropped to her own phone, and she started texting. Mac forced himself to breathe. "What, you don't know?" Somehow his voice was steady. "That paparazzi only sent the photo to me?"

On the phone, he heard the assassin tsk. "Now, Angus, let's not be petty. I'm going to chalk that up to nerves—after all, you've been waiting for this day a long time."

Rage began to take the place of fear. This was it. The final 'exam.'

"You know, you're right." Mac marveled that his voice could be so steady, even as the hand holding the phone continued to tremble. Jack's dot on the screen hadn't moved a millimeter. "It's past time I put you back in a box, and at this point I don't care if it's concrete or pine. If you hurt them—"

"Oh, Angus." It dripped false regret. "I like the attitude, but you really should save that energy. You're going to need it."

"Let them go," Mac growled, eyes fixed on the red blinking dot.

There was a sigh, but it wasn't as dramatic or deep as Mac had anticipated, and there was the faintest sound of motion on the other end of the phone. Murdoc was on the move. "Well, I guess that answers whether or not you've been studying," the assassin muttered, almost to himself. "What kind of message would I be sending if I 'let them go'?" It was apparently rhetorical, because Murdoc didn't let him answer. "Jackie-boy is going to do exactly what I've asked him to, and so are you, if you want me to spare dear Agent Navarro." A quiet snort—or maybe a caught breath. "After she spent all that time, watching over you and your bestie in the hospital, it would be a shame to repay her with a bullet."

"...you're actually there," Mac realized aloud, his gut starting to clench. Murdoc was actually on site. Less than twenty minutes from the Phoenix Foundation. On the screen, Bozer was frantically at work on his tablet, and Matty had her back to them, her phone up to her ear.

"Oh, I wouldn't outsource a single second of this." Murdoc's voice was like silk. "And with dear Miss Davis on the sidelines, it isn't as if I even need to hurry. How's she feeling, by the way? Exsanguination can really take it out of you!"

The phone cracked in Mac's hand, and he ground his teeth, watching for any hint of victory on Bozer's tightly drawn face. There wasn't any. Not yet. Beside him, even Jill had subsided, she was just watching him with wide eyes.

"...what do you want me to do?" His voice almost cracked like the case of the phone had.

There was a quiet sigh. "MacGyver, if you don't even know where to start, then...you're going to fail automatically. And I don't need to tell you what a failing grade means."

No, he didn't. Mac didn't dare look up at the camera, didn't look at the two people in the War Room that he knew were staring at him.

If Mac didn't show for the exam, Jack would pay the price. This was the limo and the glass of juice all over again. The illusion of choice.

"You may bring your trusty swiss army knife to the exam, and the clothes on your back, but nothing else. No bugs, no phones, no trackers, no tricks. Any attempt to circumvent these rules results in an automatic failure." In the background, there was the sound of a car door closing. "And you should know the examination has already started for my other student. Tick tock, Angus."

The call disconnected before he could respond.

Mac clenched his jaw and stared at his phone until the screen went to sleep. Then he slowly shoved it back into his pocket.

"...no joy on the trace." Bozer's voice was almost hesitant. "The analysts are trying to isolate the background noises—"

"I know exactly where he is." Matty hadn't taken her phone from her ear, but she did stride over and tap the tablet Bozer was holding. "One of these three buildings. He's already on the move. We've got satellite on the area, tracking every vehicle in a five block radius."

Her tap had translated as a circle appearing on the screen, and even though it was a bird's eye view of the city, the shadows visible told Mac everything he needed to know. She'd isolated the tallest building near Jack's unmoving coordinates.

With the threat to shoot Agent Navarro—one of the two agents sent to escort Jack—

"Who did he hit." Again, Mac's voice was inexplicably steady.

Matty didn't take her eyes off the tablet, but her lips thinned. It took her a moment to decide what to say to him, and the silence was more telling than the eventual words. "He wounded Agent Simmons. Navarro had to stay behind to administer first aid. She said Jack got into a vehicle, dark blue SUV. Got a partial plate, we're running it now."

Probably another one of Murdoc's unwilling Uber drivers. Mac hated to admit it, but he still hadn't figured out a way around that. Murdoc was choosing people who had family, further innocents to lose. Incapacitating the driver might save one life, but the odds were high—like with Nurse Annie—that Murdoc would execute the leverage out of spite.

"Don't even think about it, Mac," she ordered sternly, as if she could hear his thoughts. "We'll find and track the SUV and intercept. It's an LA county plate, so the driver's local. Tac's already on the move and we'll secure the driver's family before intercepting the vehicle."

Assuming the family of the driver was still at home. Or was in a place Phoenix could quickly locate them. That car was in LA, there were hundreds of parking garages, bridges, overpasses available to swap vehicles—

"I'm coming up," Mac repeated, then used his left hand—still gloved—to reach for the fridge's number pad. It was a six digit code, stupidly simple, but his hand was shaking too hard, and after the third failed attempt Mac watched in surprise as his left hand balled itself up into a fist and smashed into the number pad. He barely registered the pain.

"Mac—!"

The fridge banged against the backsplash of the lab counter and the shelving above, rattling everything around it, and the sound of breaking glass had him flinching back on instinct. He didn't realize he'd been cut, and what by, until Jill actually grabbed his wrist.

"Oh my God, Mac—"

He was wearing a long-sleeved lab coat, but the neck of one of the Erlenmeyer flasks had been broken by something falling off the shelving, and sliced a thirteen inch gash along the bottom of his left sleeve. Still a little stunned by what he'd done, Mac let Jill turn his wrist over, and there along the inside of his left forearm was a bright line of crimson.

Mac just blinked at it, his brain strangely stalled. It still didn't hurt, and he experimentally stretched out his left hand a couple times. The blue latex along his knuckles had split.

His eyes slid down to the 5000 mL flask, and the bottom of the vessel was still intact enough to show the markings on the glass.

Live sample.

"I have to decon," he heard his voice say, but everything still seemed detached.

Murdoc was dangerously close to getting his hands on Jack. And Jack wasn't going to go down without a fight. The second that innocent was out of harm's way, he was going to make a play for Murdoc. One Murdoc would be fully expecting. The longer he made Murdoc wait, the longer Murdoc was going to play with Jack.

If he flinched, it was Jack who was going to bleed.

Someone touched his elbow, and the world flooded back in. Matty was talking, he ignored her in lieu of automatically accepting the alcohol pad Jill was offering him, and when he brought it to the slice in his arm, his nerves remembered how to transmit signal. The sting shocked him more than a bucket of cold water would have.

Jill's eyes were huge behind her specs. "Mac's gotta get decontaminated, then go down to Medical—"

"No time," he interrupted her, though not forcefully, and he thoroughly cleaned the slice.

"You-you need stitches!" Her voice was rising in pitch. "And we have no idea what exposure to that bacteria could do!"

Mac tossed the bloodied alcohol wipe on the lab countertop and accepted the square of gauze she offered him next, putting pressure on the three inch slice. "There are no petroleum products in my blood. And it's not deep enough to need stitches," he added automatically.

"That's for Medical to decide." Matty's tone was steel. "Mac, do you know what he wants you to do?"

Mac took a deep breath, straightening the knuckles on his left hand to confirm that all he'd done was tear the latex. There was no blood, though two of them were a little skinned. "...I think he wants me to go back to the beginning," he admitted reluctantly. "Where it all started. The place Phoenix arrested him in the first place."

"...the junkyard." Mac glanced up in surprise at the voice, and Bozer glanced between Matty in the room, and him through the camera. "What, you think I forgot? That was a pretty memorable day, man."

Mac closed his eyes briefly and dipped his head. "It really was," he murmured. The day Bozer found out what he really did. The day that had tested their friendship like nothing ever had before.

Before this.

"That would line up with the concept of 'sending a message' to other law enforcement," Matty agreed, her dark eyes glancing at something on the War Room screen. "Liz, get me satellite on this address as well, and stage a couple tac teams about half a mile out."

Mac eased the gauze off the slice, glad to see it was only bleeding sluggishly, and he used his still-gloved right hand to rifle through the first aid kit that was still in Jill's hands. "He'll anticipate that, Matty. If we prevent him from getting to the site, he's going to take it out on Jack."

"He doesn't have Jack, at least not yet," she countered. "And he's not going to do anything serious to Dalton until he gets his hands on you."

"Yeah, just like nothing serious happened to Boze and Riley before I got there." It came out exactly as harshly as he meant it to. "He will torture Jack, Matty, and he may do enough damage that I—that—" He struggled to find the words. "I may need Jack to—to complete tasks, or at the very least capable of taking care of himself—"

"Because you two have been working so well together," she retorted, not much more kindly than he had. "Mac, Jack knows that Murdoc doesn't have you yet. He's not going to go down easy, and there is no point in handing yourself over to Murdoc if we can intercept Jack before Murdoc gets hold of him."

"And he also knows that we're fighting!" Mac finally found what he was looking for, and a handful of wrapped burn films spilled across the countertop. "He knows, Matty! Murdoc knows that—that Jack and I—" He cut himself off. "There is no Jack and I," he finished, somewhat more quietly. "I am the last person on Jack's mind right now, especially if Grant Simmons just got gunned down right in front of him."

They were old friends, Jack had recruited Simmons. Both Delta. And right after Grant would come justice for Riley.

Matty sent a narrow-eyed look at the camera. "You really have so little faith in him, Mac?"

MacGyver wordlessly growled, ripping open one of the burn films—pretty much the only waterproof wound cover in the entire kit that didn't have a petroleum product in it, just in case—and slapped it over the slice. "It has nothing to do with—how competent of an agent he is—"

"It has everything to do with his competence!" Matty sounded incredulous. "Mac, regardless of what's going on between you, he knows that we won't let you just turn yourself over to Murdoc!"

"At this point I don't think he cares," Mac growled, ripping open a second film. "Jack will push Murdoc too far, and he'll kill him. He'll kill Jack, Matty. And make me play to win his body, just like he almost did with Boze."

"So..." Again, it was Bozer, and just as hesitant. "What are you saying...?"

Mac took a deep breath, briefly resting both his hands on the lab counter. What was he saying? "I'm saying Jack's not going to be thinking strategically. That's why Murdoc did it this way. Jack's out for blood, and the longer I leave him out there alone with Murdoc, the worse it's going to be for him. I have to go, Matty."

Matty stared at the camera for a long moment. "Not until we're sure Murdoc even has him." It was said with the same finality as if she'd shouted it. "If you try to leave the campus before then, I'll authorize tac to use force."

Mac opened his mouth, but all the fight seemed to leave him, and his pent-up breath followed. He played with the second burn film for a second, then reluctantly slapped it over the first. "You know—" Mac cut himself off, then looked up at the camera, at both of them. "If I wait, it's gonna look—"

"Like you didn't want to go after him?" Webber's tone was still dry. "Mac, if the play here was to make everyone start doubting you, the desired result is getting you to work twice as hard to prove them wrong. Murdoc wants you to run blindly into this, and Jack isn't the only one not thinking strategically here." Her attention moved. "Jill, supervise MacGyver through the decontamination process and make sure you physically deposit him into the hands of his escort the second he's finished protocol."

Jill's eyes got wider, if that was possible, but she managed a constricted nod, and the monitors flickered, then went back to the doomsday map. Jill then carefully started collecting pieces of the first aid kit, not making eye contact. "You-you shouldn't have put the film on, if the wound is still contaminated—"

"The bacteria is less toxic than the decontamination wash." And it would sting a hell of a lot more than rubbing alcohol had. "I have to do a full body decon."

She just nodded, more stilted still, and Mac looked at the mess, then deflated. "Jill, she didn't—mean you literally could not take your eyes off me. The only way out of the decon room is into the locker room. Reeves and Dixon can wait for me in there."

That did indeed seem to be what was bugging her, and some of the awkwardness left her movements. Still, the moment he started helping her clean up the mess, she started.

"Mac, you—I can do this." Her eyes were soft and earnest behind her specs. "It's—it's a way I can actually help." One of her shoulders came up in a little shrug. "And I've barely seen you in months and even I can tell you're doing everything you can, everything anyone could so—you've got nothing to prove to someone like Murdoc. Or anyone else." It all came out in one rushed breath.

He didn't even consider brushing her off. Mac paused, then made sure to face her squarely and look her in the eye. "Thanks," he said, and this time his voice wasn't oh-so-steady. "I think I...I needed to hear that."

Her smile lit up the room. "You should come hang down in the lab causing containment failures more often."

That actually made him laugh. "Maybe something a little less drastic."

"Yeah, maybe." She looked away, seeming to be suddenly self-conscious, and Mac hesitated another moment, then regretfully abandoned the mess he'd made. It was going to take her hours to decontaminate the lab, and that was without cataloguing all the work he'd done before he decided to redecorate.

He wasn't lying about the decontamination showers; he was already far too familiar with the lab's facilities. Not one cell of that bacteria could be allowed to leave the lab area, and Mac dumped the torn lab coat and his other clothes regretfully in the stainless steel bin to be incinerated. His shoes he placed in the bin to be sanitized, along with the contents of his pockets, his 'new' watch, and his phone. The SAK was the only thing he took with him into the three-stall shower room, and he plucked up a small kidney effluence basin—ostensibly there in case there was puking to go with whatever exposure had occurred—and let it fill with the decontamination solution as he stood under the rain-style round shower head and pulled the large, triangle-shaped handle.

Protocol was to stand under it until the tank was empty. It took about four very chilly minutes. Plenty of time to fill the basin so the tool could have a good soak.

Once the chemical shower was complete, Mac stumbled across the tiled floor, eyes squeezed tightly shut against the burning solution, and found his way by feel to a shower stall. Right was cold and left was hot, and as soon as he was quite sure about that he turned both. By the time the warm water had gotten rid of the shivers his eyes were open again, and the timer on the wall in front of him was on six minutes, counting down from ten. He was careful with the body scrub to get every millimeter of skin around the burn film, but the tape-like substance did its job and kept the cut covered and dry.

When his ten minutes were up, Mac dumped the container of decon solution and thoroughly rinsed the multitool. Then he turned off the water, moved into the 'mud' room between the showers and the locker room, and helped himself to an autoclaved towel.

As soon as he hit the release button on the magnetic lock of the door, a very tall African-American man pulled it all the way open for him, with a smooth welcoming gesture that would make any maître d' proud.

"Your presence has been requested in the War Room," Agent Michael Reeves informed him, with a voice as deep as his own.

The blond agent didn't smile, didn't groan—didn't acknowledge him at all, and Reeves felt the touch of worry he'd already felt towards the man grow. MacGyver kept his head down, his distant blue eyes locked on the floor, trailing drops of water behind him. He turned down the correct aisle towards his locker, which was a good sign, but Reeves still only hung back about four paces, trying not to crowd him but certainly not dumb enough to let him out of his sight.

But Mac didn't try anything. He just stopped in front of his locker, faced it, and then sat heavily on the bench that split the aisle in half, the bright red swiss army knife held loosely in his right hand. Reeves parked himself at the end of the aisle, leaning against the locker on his right, and watched as Mac closed his eyes and let his head hang even lower.

"C'n you give me a minute?" he asked quietly, his voice slightly hoarse.

Reeves felt his expression shift to sympathy.

"Sorry, man," the tac agent denied, though he tried to keep his tone light. "Director's orders."

"It's not like I can really go anywhere," Mac pointed out, shifting his head in Michael's direction momentarily, while still not quite looking at him.

Reeves let out a slow breath. "Look, Mac, I feel for ya, man; I do," and he really did mean that, "but...I know exactly where my head would be at, if that psychopath had my partner—whether we were on the outs or not. If I thought I was the only one that could save him, and Webber wouldn't let me try...I know exactly what I'd be planning."

He'd be planning to go rip that asshole's head off. He'd be planning to make sure he never lived to hurt anyone else. He'd be planning to go take Aaron back, by any means necessary. And whatever he would be planning, he knew MacGyver could probably come up with something better.

"I'm not you." The blond agent's voice was small as he turned the knife over in his hands.

"True," Reeves allowed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You are in fact far and away better than me at most things. Which is why I, unfortunately, can't give you that minute. I couldn't get anything done in a minute, but you sure as shit could."

The tac agent decided only after he'd said it that it was meant to be both a compliment and a warning. He stayed quiet afterwards, just watching his colleague sit motionless until he slowly drew himself more upright, lifting his head until his eyes fell on his locker. The blond man reached out and grabbed the combination lock, quickly spinning the dial in practiced motions. He tugged on it, and it gave with a muffled metallic clunk. But before he opened the locker, he drew a breath and looked over at the tac agent.

"I—I'm sorry, I should have asked earlier—I heard about Simmons. Is he...is he going to pull through?"

Wait, what? Reeves heard his own brain ask, even as he tried to keep his mask of calm. Pull through? What the hell would Simmons have to pull through? Fuck—Grant and Jada were on Jack detail that day, weren't they? So they'd have been with Jack when—

Oh, fuck.

As Michael silently reeled, trying to fend off panic, MacGyver's eyes widened in realization, horror, and regret. He opened his mouth just slightly, then closed it as whatever he was going to say died on his lips. Instead, the blond man seemed to settle on a guilt-laden "...You didn't know."

Didn't know about what? Michael demanded silently, a thousand scenarios—and not a single one of them good—running through his head. Almost subconsciously, he pulled his phone free of his right thigh pocket, hesitantly dropping his head to look at the screen, forcing his fingers to move, to pull up his contacts, to text Matty.

What the hell happened to our team lead?

He was peripherally aware of the field agent pulling on a pair of boxers and starting to towel off his dripping hair, but his eyes were fixed on his screen.

The director's typing bubble appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

"Mike," it was Aaron's voice, his partner, who'd been standing near the main locker room entrance. "We good?"

No, Reeves denied internally, watching the bubble do one more vanishing act before the director finally seemed to decide on exactly how much to tell him.

He was shot. I don't know exactly how bad it is at the moment. We have paramedics at the scene already. Navarro is okay; her injury is minor.

Mike felt his stomach drop, and he heard his partner coming towards him. Seeing Mac stepping into his pants, Reeves decided to step just a bit to the side for a moment. Aaron joined him in just a few seconds, reading the text when Reeves held it out to him.

"Her injury? What the fuck does she mean, 'her injury'?" Dixon demanded as Reeves flipped the screen back towards himself and began asking exactly that. The director's response was quicker this time.

Her arm was grazed. Nothing serious.

"'Nothing serious' you have got to be kidding me," Aaron grumbled, but Michael's thumbs were already moving, even as he leaned back to look down the aisle and check that Mac was still at his locker. He was, and was in the middle of putting his shirt on, so Reeves put his eyes back on his phone.

And what about Simmons? What happened to him? Where was he hit?

The response time was longer again. Reeves forgot all about his charge, not even listening for him, as the anxiety of the situation slowly tightened a vice around his lungs. There was no typing bubble dance this time, but Webber was clearly working out how to phrase her response.

Neck. Left side. He was alive and awake when paramedics arrived; that's all I know.

Dixon had already pulled out his own phone, likely to text Jada, and he glanced up at his partner only to do a double take when he saw the look on Mike's face.

"Dude, what?" he asked quietly, almost sounding like he didn't want to know the answer. Reeves swallowed, then turned the screen back to his partner. Aaron paled slightly as he read the text, and rapidly returned his attention to his own phone, typing furiously.

"...You ever see someone survive a neck shot?" Reeves asked grimly. Without looking up, his partner reached out and punched him in the ribs, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to make him wince.

"Do not talk like that," Dixon growled. "Boss'll be fine."

Reeves wanted so badly to believe him. "You getting anything from Jada?"

"She says she's in the ambulance with Grant."

"How is he?"

"...not awesome, but alive."

Reeves nodded slightly, his jaw tightening as he thought. "Ask her what hospital they're going to. I'll ask Matty if we can duck out after we get Mac settled."

"On it," Dixon nodded, both of their heads down as they rapidly typed out their texts. But when Reeves went to send his, he was almost immediately met with an error. Unable to send.

"Sonofabitch..." he grumbled, trying again and again only to get the same error every time. "Anything from J?"

"I'm trying; I think I lost signal," Aaron frowned. Reeves froze.

The odds of them both losing signal at the exact same time...

It seemed his partner was thinking the same thing. "...No wifi, either."

"Matty." Reeves jumped on coms, but heard nothing in response. "Matty? Ops, do you copy?"

"That motherfucker—"

Reeves took a step back to look down the aisle where Mac's locker was, and sure enough, the blond agent was gone. Aaron was already running for the doors he'd been stationed by, and Reeves went for the other, but when he tried to push it open, it held fast. On the other side of the locker room, Michael heard his partner slam into the other doors, then start cursing.

"Goddammit! MacGyver!"

On the other side of the door, Angus MacGyver hesitated only long enough to make sure that both the plastic ziptie he'd secured around the two door handles and the doors themselves were indeed holding, and then he turned right back the way he came, walking casually despite the way his shoes were rubbing the damp skin around his naked ankles. He pushed open the door to Medical, giving the nurse at the station a rueful smile and holding up his left forearm.

"I'm expected," he admitted contritely, and then shoved his hands back in his pockets and continued down the hall. "Exam room three, I know the drill."

"Yes you do, MacGyver," Nurse Tasha called out, not even bothering to get up from the front desk. "I'm glad to see all our training hasn't gone to waste. One of the docs'll be with you in two shakes."

Mac didn't change his unhurried but lengthy strides, and as soon as he saw the staff break area was empty, he reached into the nearest jacket—a light blue windbreaker—and snagged a set of keys. The fob told him the general age of the vehicle, and Mac spun gracefully, continuing out of the break room's other door, across the hall, and straight through the double doors into the parking garage.

The car, an older but well-loved Honda, chirped obediently to let him know where it was, and Mac slipped into the driver's seat. He was out of the parking garage in less than twenty seconds, driving at a normal rate of speed, and pretended to be futzing with the visor as he approached the side gate. By the time the guard was able to recognize his face, and realize he was not, in fact, Selena Gonzales, Mac had floored the little Honda and bypassed the exit spikes. He fishtailed a little onto the main drag, then drove like a bat out of hell.

---

Jack had figured out their destination minutes before they arrived, and he mentally cursed. Biggest goddamn mall in Los Angeles County, late morning. It was already starting to get mobbed, and the parking structure gave LAX a run for its money in sheer square footage.

Phoenix would be able to pick him out—eventually. Just not fast enough.

It didn't help that Bun Boy—Jack had been mentally calling him that on account of his unfortunate hairstyle—seemed to be totally lost, winding up and down the aisles as his hands shook more and more. Despite the warning to "Let the man drive, Jack. Honestly, did you do this to poor Grant?" he was damn close to just asking which fucking parking spot the pyscho had told him to find when the young man released a shaky breath, accelerated a little quickly to about halfway down the row, and pulled in and through to the other side—

Where a limo was taking up both spaces across from them.

Bun Boy jerkily put the car into park, taking a quick breath as if he was about to speak, but then he held it. Jack figured he was listening for the whole sentence, and he was right.

"I-I want you arriving to the party in style, Jack," the driver stammered. "Leave your weapons, watch, and any trackers in the trash can to your left. I'm sure Ph-Phoenix will find them before a gangbanger does."

"That you in the limo?" It was possible that Murdoc could have beaten them there; Bun Boy hadn't been in a rush and Murdoc could easily have gotten through on side streets on a street bike. And there was no way in hell he was going to repeat MacGyver's mistake.

Bun Boy made a weird, strangled sound Jack interpreted as a shitty attempt to mimic a laugh. "Come find out."

"Oh I will," Jack growled, and Bun Boy actually flinched when he threw off his seatbelt. Knowing that Murdoc could hear it, Jack took the edge off his voice. "Hey, dude, just do what he says and you'll be alright."

Jack already had his door open when Bun Boy turned his head just a little, looking at Jack out of the corner of a terrified eye. "T-tell that to Annie."

Oh, that son of a bitch.

Jack slammed the door—not as hard as he wanted to, it wasn't Bun Boy's fault—and eyed the trash can that was bolted to one of the parking structure support beams. There was a camera over it, the dome kind just like most of the other cameras in the garage, but this one wasn't covered in a film of car exhaust and filth, and Jack glowered at it. There was a sharp rap on the window behind him; doubtlessly Bun Boy being told to hurry him along, and Jack clenched his jaw, then slowly did as he was told.

Bun Boy hadn't said who Murdoc had, didn't have so much as a picture on the dash, but there was a ring on his finger, and a sippy cup had rolled out from underneath the passenger seat when he'd taken a hard turn.

Besides, he didn't need a gun to kill Murdoc, or a knife. Wouldn't use 'em even if he had one.

No, he was going to crush that son of a bitch's throat with his bare hands.

His primary and backup went into the empty trashcan—which had a spotlessly white liner, all the better for Murdoc to see exactly what he was dumping—along with his boot knife and followed by his watch and wallet. Jack wasn't completely sure the wallet had a tracker in it, but it was a pretty good guess.

Matty wouldn't have put one anywhere else and not told him, not when there could be civilian lives on the line.

Jack glared up at the camera again, then stalked across the parking lot towards the limo. The back door clicked open invitingly when he was only two strides away, and the strands of a very familiar heavy rock ballad rang through the parking lot.

His eyes narrowed, and then Jack ripped the door open wide.

Two metallic golden balloons, translucent and filled with confetti, were sucked out by the pressure change and cheerfully floated up to the concrete ceiling.

The interior of the limo was dark, but there was light enough to see several more balloons still in the cabin, as well as a pair of very bare, very shapely, very mocha legs. They curled back alluringly into the darkness as Metallica started up the second verse of one of Jack's favorite songs.

For Whom the Bell Tolls.

He hesitated a long moment, glancing around the parking lot as an excuse to stall, but Bun Boy was still sitting there in his compact SUV, looking absolutely terrified, and Jack growled low in his throat, then bent down and stuck his head into the limo.

It was a party limo, stretched and with enough room for himself and ten of his closest friends. There was only one other person in the back, though, and she was very definitely not Murdoc. In fact, Jack had to blink twice before he was sure that he'd never seen her before.

The leggy young woman was wearing a satin red bra with a tasteful feather embellishment and a matching thong and thin red choker, that was obviously meant to insinuate some combination of an angel and a devil. Her black hair tumbled down from a hand-loosened updo in sleek waves, and her eyes were rimmed in smoky eyeliner. But her lips were merely glossed, partly slightly in a way that might have been sexy had she not looked like the spitting image of a terrified Riley Davis.

He froze on instinct, still trying to process what he was seeing, and the woman—girl—hell, she couldn't have been a day over eighteen—hooked a finger towards him. Her voice was pitched to be sultry, but there was a tightness to it that gave her away. "Don't keep me waiting, big guy. Let me pour you a drink."

God, she looked like Riley.

Jack hesitated for another long second, then valiantly did his best to shake off the shock. She was the distraction, obviously, so—

So the champagne she started to pour into a fluted glass, that was the main event.

Murdoc was going to repeat the limo scenario. Either he'd already been drugged somehow in Bun Boy's car, or this time, this time the drugs really were in the drink. And he was going to have to do what he'd screamed at Mac for doing, he was going to have to follow the rules and drug his own goddamned self, or something was going to happen to the innocent woman playing stand-in for Riley.

"I won't bite," she called over the chorus of the song. "Not unless you want me to."

Jesus.

"There will be no biting," he declared flatly, then forced himself to step into the car and close the door behind him. He took the seat in the back, as far from the girl and her glass of poison as he could. "And there will be no drinking," he added forcefully as she curled her legs forward to move towards him. His eyes roved the darkly upholstered interior for the cameras he knew had to be there. "I'm in the goddamn car, Murdoc. No weapons, no trackers. You've made your point. Let her go."

The young woman gave a little gasp of surprise, flinching as the limo pulled smoothly out of the space, and Jack watched her carefully as her wide eyes immediately narrowed back down to something that could never be seductive, not in this situation. She put on a little Mona Lisa smile.

"Welcome to the party, pal," she purred, and dammit if Murdoc was going to ruin Metallica and Die Hard for him. "If you knew this was the last night of your life, wouldn't you want to enjoy it to the fullest?"

"It's not," he told her shortly. "Honey, just gimme the earwig and I'll talk to the bastard myself."

The car bounced a little over the drain at the exit of the parking garage, and the young woman flinched again, almost sloshing the glass of champagne. She recovered it with a terrified look, then suddenly straightened her back, putting her cleavage on full display with another tight smile.

Like Murdoc could see her performance, and was coaching her.

"I was picked just for you," she murmured, voice tighter still. Now that there was more light coming in the heavily tinted windows, Jack could see the tears gathering in her eyes. "And if you keep turning me down," and her voice faltered just a little, "well...a girl could lose her h-head."

For a split second he wondered if Murdoc would instruct her to attack him, force him to restrain her, but she flinched again, her empty hand twitching towards her face before she stopped herself, and this time the limo hadn't hit a bump or taken a turn.

Something else was making her flinch.

Jack's eyes slid down her face to her throat, and the choker there.

This was about what he would do if he'd been in Mac's position. If Riley's life was being threatened. Riley had been done up like a damn stripper too, wearing an actual choker, and he watched the young woman swallow tightly against hers.

It didn't give.

Shit.

If he kept turning her down, she'd lose her head. Murdoc meant it literally. It was a garotte device, just like Riley's had been, just like Diane's had been. And he didn't have a swiss army knife or any kind of knife on him. A quick visual search of the cabin came up with nothing—the bottle of champagne, the glass itself—which was real glass—and the ice bucket. Hell, she wasn't even wearing stilettos. He had no way to cut or pry that thing off her neck.

"I just...gotta let you show me a good time?" Jack asked cautiously, and she struggled to keep her tears in her eyes. Maybe Murdoc had told her she wasn't allowed to cry.

"That's right, handsome. And you can't h-have a good time without a glass of bubbly!" She tried to sound chipper on the end. She failed.

It took all his remaining self-control to accept the champagne flute she held out to him. Unless the limo flipped there was no way the assassin would let him get away with 'accidentally' spilling it, and he was wearing a medium grey polo, which would make a spill obvious. But sure enough, after he'd taken it from her, she didn't flinch again. Murdoc didn't tighten the device.

God damn it.

Jack glared murder at the interior of the car, at all the nooks and crannies he'd have put a camera, if this had been his op. Then he slugged the contents like they were cheap whiskey.

Just like he'd taken those bites of burger, back at the studio. His one and only consolation was that it was highly unlikely he'd just consumed poison. If Murdoc went to all this trouble, Jack was at least going to start this last 'exam' alive.

Jack shoved the glass into a nearby upholstered cupholder with a sigh. "Awesome. Thanks for the drink, sweetheart, I'm good to go now."

But the woman didn't go anywhere; she slid from the seat across from him onto the carpeted floor of the limo, that tight smile still on her face as she tried a sexy crawl before slipping a lacquered hand between his knees. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to—to make you feel even better?"

His gut tightened, and Jack knew it had nothing to do with whatever the hell he'd just drank. Of course it wasn't going to be that simple. Murdoc was going to play with them every second between now and when whatever the hell he took kicked in. And since it was orally—if it really had been in the champagne at all—it would be a while. Twenty minutes at least.

Twenty minutes of Murdoc telling her what to do and Jack not being able to refuse.

...which wasn't all that different from an interrogation. Meaning the same tactics that would work in there should work in here.

Jack gave her a tight smile of his own. "You wanna make me feel better?"

Her lips trembled, but she nodded, and Jack leaned forward, not too quickly, not quickly enough to alarm her—and pulled off his shirt. The undershirt beneath almost came with it, but that he kept for himself, and once he had the grey fabric over his head he offered it to the terrified looking woman in front of him.

"I'd feel like a million bucks if you'd put this on," he told her sincerely. "Only if you want to. But you bein' more comfortable, that's what would make this the best night ever."

She froze, her hand still resting feather-light on his knee, before apparently getting 'permission' from the psycho in her ear, and though she tried to do it seductively, the relief in her watery brown eyes was clear as she quickly pulled the garment on. "You like—me in your shirt?"

"I like women who are empowered to wear and do what they want." If he had a say in what she did, then he was going to take it. "And I'd love it even more if I could see you doin' that from over there." He nodded his head to the opposite side of the car, where she'd originally been sitting.

She was swimming in his polo—so much like Riley in his Dallas Cowboys Snuggie that he almost couldn't bear to look at her—and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she listened to what Jack could only assume was contradictory instructions in her ear. He gave her a wide, toothy grin.

"I mean...if it's my last day on Earth, I get what I want, yeah? Whatever makes this party better?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

Jack thumbed over to the heavily tinted windows beside them. "Then you know what? We gotta crank up that Metallica and roll down the windows, just so they know how good a party we got goin' on in here! And hell, hand me that bottle of champagne while you're at it." The least he could do was try to take Murdoc's attention off her. And the loud music would make it harder for them to communicate, giving him the option to 'mishear' what Murdoc was instructing her to do to him.

To do to herself.

And for whatever reason, Murdoc let them do it. The music cranked up, whoever was driving permitted the windows to go down about a quarter of the way—not enough for a single camera to catch a glimpse of either of their faces—and Jack gave the young woman a big grin and waved the bottle of champagne at her.

"I'm still the karaoke champion in four states," he boasted at a yell, and from the confused expression on her face, he knew she either didn't hear him, or simply didn't understand why he'd tell her that.

So he showed her. He held up the mostly full bottle of champagne in front of him like a mic and started to belt out the next song Murdoc had queued up—

Sweet Child O'Mine. Guns'n'Roses. He forced himself to sing the lyrics without a care in the world, like he didn't know exactly what Murdoc was doing.

Now and then when I see her face she takes me away to that special place and if I stare too long, I'd probably break down and cry...

He didn't look at her, sitting on the edge of the seat across from him, fingers tangling in the hem of his shirt. Doing what he'd asked her to do. And Murdoc didn't interfere. Apparently as long as he was the one performing, she didn't have to.

Doing exactly what Murdoc wanted him to do. Play along and follow the goddamn rules.

The next song went by, Queen—Another One Bites the Dust, and Jack couldn't keep the edge off his tone even as he heard his voice begin to slur.

That goddamn paralytic.

But this felt—different. He didn't have a brick growing in the bottom of his lungs. It wasn't getting harder to breathe, just to handle himself. This felt more like the kind of sedative that was going to take him completely down, body and mind. And once he was down, once he couldn't carry on the show—

Then she'd have to. And he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Once the slurring started, the other symptoms hit him fast. The chorus seemed to go on for fuckin' ever—was the song always this long?—and he got tired after at least the twentieth repeat. He barely noticed when the microphone slithered out of his hand.

Riley offered it back to him, wide-eyed and young, and he was about to tell her that he didn't want any more to drink when he saw the look of absolute terror on her face. Even though he didn't understand why, he accepted what she was pressing so desperately into his hands. Another beer.

God, she must think he was just like Elwood. Getting drunk just to take it out on her mother. She was trying to get him over the hump so he'd just pass out. Fall asleep before he could even get up out of the recliner.

Riley was always so fuckin' smart.

But Jack was smarter, he took the bottle, and as soon as her back was turned he shoved it into the seat cushion, far as it would go. He wasn't drunk, just tired. She'd see.

She had the music cranked up way the fuck too loud, so when the gentle acoustic guitar of Pearl Jam washed over him, Jack felt his entire body slowly relax, his head falling back against headrest, eyelids slipping low. It was dark, well past bedtime, Riley should have been in bed a while ago. Diane was going to have his balls in a vice for letting her stay up so late—

A small hand on his leg. Then his chest.

Jack made a clumsy grab for it, giving his little girl a squeeze before slowly shaking his head. "No, s'time for bed," he managed. "We god'da turn it'all off."

Riley snatched her hand away, the movement violent enough that Jack's eyes slowly popped open of their own accord. She was shouting, but he could barely hear her over Vedder's crooning voice.

So much attitude. He'd never get used to teenage girls.

Her hands were at her throat, one of those chokers she always wore. It looked too tight, the chords on her neck were standing out as she tried to rip it off, and Jack realized with a sluggish jolt of adrenaline that she wasn't just shouting. She was in trouble.

Riley was choking.

Jack tried to reach out to her but his body was clumsy, heavy. He managed to fall out of the recliner onto the living room floor, but he couldn't seem to push himself up. Couldn't get to her. Riley had fallen back against the couch, out of reach, her bare feet scrabbling against the carpet as she tried to get purchase, get leverage.

Jack managed to pull his right arm out from under himself, reaching for her. "Rrr'ly...c'me' t'me—" He couldn't get any volume behind the slurred words. It was like his lungs and his tongue were made of water. The music, she couldn't hear him—

With a gargantuan effort, he managed to push himself a foot closer to her, he could almost reach her bare ankle, but she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were squeezed shut, mascara running down her cheeks. Mouth wide open as she tried to breathe. The fabric around her throat was blood red, there was red all over her, over her hands and his shirt that was so big on her—

He had to get it off her. Had to.

"Ba'by—Rrr'ly...pl'se—"

It wasn't more than a whisper. Riley's legs went limp, her slim ankle slid across the carpeting and bumped his hand, but he couldn't even close his fingers around it. She had shoved herself into the corner between the couch and the wall in her struggles, still sitting upright, and Jack watched her arms relax, too, slowly slipping down his shirt. Her hands left wide smears.

His vision went as watery as his body, so Eddie Vedder spoke for him.

Stay with me...Let's just breathe...

---

Mac knew he didn't have much time. The guard would have alerted Matty instantly, and even if he didn't, Dixon and Reeves would find a way out of that locker room before long. He needed to be out of reach by the time they did.

He knew what Matty was trying to do by sidelining him. He knew she truly believed she had a shot—however small—at stopping this before it started. He understood that, and appreciated that she wanted to protect them. Protect him.

But she was wrong. Mac meant what he said before; the only way out was through. Murdoc would never let Jack go now that he had him. He wouldn't even give Jack the chance to try and escape. And as long as he had whoever was driving that car under his thumb, Jack wouldn't be able to resist.

Even at his most reckless, Jack wouldn't let innocent civilians get hurt.

Mac was his partner's only shot. Whether Matty wanted to admit it or not.

Which was why he had lied to her. Murdoc wanted him to go back to the beginning, yes. But not as far back as the junkyard.

Just the beginning of his "class."

The blond man stuck to side streets, moving quickly and efficiently until he found a parking garage with very few cameras. Phoenix knew exactly what car he was driving; if they managed to track the car via cameras and figured out where he was going, he'd be cut off before he could get there, and Jack would be a goner. The agent parked on the second level of the garage, then paused a moment, gathering himself and realizing that he was shaking. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and turned in his seat, tugging off his shoes and pulling on his socks, which he'd shoved into his pocket. In his rush while making and placing the signal jammer in the locker room, he'd skipped putting them on, but his feet could no longer bear the boots rubbing against his bare skin.

As he worked his feet back into his boots, he couldn't help but think about exactly what he was doing. He had just busted out of protective custody and was now running into a psychopath's trap. A trap that would, in all likelihood, be even worse than the ones he'd faced previously. The last of which he and Riley barely got out of alive.

Objectively, this was absolutely insane.

But what choice do you have? He thought to himself, and he let out a sigh, tightening his laces and standing up. No time to waste.

He put the keys under the floor mat and left the parking garage via the side exit, and once he was back on the street, he kept his head down and moved quickly. Broad daylight would make this harder, but he'd have to make it work. He walked for three blocks, avoiding cameras whenever he possibly could and refusing to let it catch a full image of his face if he couldn't, until at last, he found a nice 2006 Accord on a nice, relatively-untravelled street. He took his swiss army knife out of his pocket as though it was his keys, head down as he walked.

It took him no time at all to get the door open, and even less time to get it started. His movements were automatic—he barely thought about them before he was doing them, and in seconds, he was back on the road. He put the visor down to help obscure the view from any cameras, and then he made a beeline for the lumber yard.

He couldn't help but be a bit shocked at how inexplicably calm he felt as he drove. Or maybe he was just so panicked that he was past the point of hysterics. After a certain level of terror and stress and anxiety and dread and panic, one can sometimes achieve something that at least somewhat resembles calm. Something where all but autopilot shuts down, and even though coherent thoughts are few and far between, what actions are taken are usually smooth, deliberate.

The downside was, it almost never lasted.

MacGyver let out his breath as he pulled into the gas station from which Simmons and Kyser had picked him up, all those months ago, after Murdoc had tortured Drew to death right in front of him. This was it. His last stop before he walked right into whatever trap Murdoc had waiting for him.

As a courtesy to whomever he'd borrowed the Accord from, he filled the tank, then pulled the car to the side of the building, out of sight of the road and away from any potential cameras.

He wasn't about to try and bring his phone—which he'd popped the battery out of before he even left the locker room—into the actual "exam," but he also wasn't about to leave Phoenix completely in the dark. He had little doubt that Murdoc would try to search the car he arrived in before he spirited the blond man away for whatever horrors he had planned, but if he could get a little creative...

Popping the plastic siding off of the inside driver's door was a lot easier to do than Mac had initially anticipated, and he quickly jammed the battery back into his phone. He didn't bother to turn it back on; the techs would do that for him once they realized they could. Without giving himself time to think, he placed his phone inside the hollow part of the driver's side door, then popped the panel back into place and got back behind the wheel. He took one last deep breath, then completed the drive to the lumber yard.

He definitely had the right place.

Turning into the dusty lot, he saw that one of the huge receiving doors was open, and a well-made wooden sign was directing him through it, cheerfully and colorfully telling him to enjoy his show in swoopy, elegant handwriting. Like a drive-in.

Mac had a very strong feeling that he was not going to be a fan of whatever Murdoc was showing.

The agent swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, then eased his borrowed car forward and to the left, inching into the building that played host to some of his worst nightmares.

Murdoc had certainly set the scene. The windows had been covered, making the room nearly pitch black, apart from what light was coming in from the door. A car was already there, parked just behind and to the left of a projector, which was casting an image onto the far wall.

The car was identical to the one Murdoc had left outside after he killed Drew and Elliot. The one Mac had warned tac to keep an eye out for. The one he'd been convinced was rigged to explode.

It had turned out he was right about that. Tac found the bomb right where Mac thought it might be. Trying to start it would have triggered a thirty-second timer. Evidently Murdoc had believed that if Mac really thought it would be remotely that easy, he wouldn't have even been worth this effort.

It was the last time he was right about anything for a long, long time.

The blond man shook his head and refocused. He could see the vague silhouette of Murdoc in the driver's seat, so no bomb this time. He put his attention on the far wall instead, at the chosen "movie." It took a second for Mac to realize what he was looking at, but when he did, his stomach dropped.

It was the footage from that night. The night this all kicked off. The night Murdoc had tortured Drew to death. The camera was mostly focused on Drew, but Mac could see himself off to the side, almost out of frame, lounging and relaxed as though he were on vacation.

Trapped in his body, unable to get away from the terrifying, sickening scene in front of him.

The blond man quickly pulled his eyes away from the horrors being projected. There was another parking spot marked on the floor, on the opposite side of the projector, and Mac maneuvered the car into it and put it in park, killing the engine. He took a moment to gather himself, still utterly refusing to watch the screen, then looked over into the car beside him. Murdoc appeared to be enjoying the movie, not even looking at him. It wasn't until he glanced at the tablet propped up on the dash over the center console that he seemed to even notice Mac's arrival. The psychopath grinned at him—forcing Mac to fight back a shudder—then gave a quick jerk of his head, inviting the agent into his car, and even reached over and opened the passenger door.

"Inviting" probably wasn't a strong enough word.

Mac hesitated for only a second or two before he unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. Before he knew it, before he could think any more about what he was doing, he'd climbed into Murdoc's car and closed the door.

The smell of popcorn hit him immediately. When he glanced over, he saw that the assassin had a fresh tub of it in his lap. The tub was identical to the one he'd placed in Mac's lap that night, and the agent carefully corralled his thoughts away from that.

"Glad you could make it, Angus," Murdoc said cheerfully. Mac found himself staring out the windshield into one of the darker corners of the warehouse, so he couldn't see the 'movie' and could only see Murdoc out of the corner of his eye. It seemed his captor was assessing him.

"You stopped for a shower?" Murdoc actually seemed surprised—even confused—as he noted the agent's still-damp hair.

Mac swallowed. "Decon," he corrected, proud of how steady he managed to make it. "I was in the lab when you called."

"Ah," Murdoc nodded in understanding, a smile on his face as he chuckled in amusement. "And here Jack thought you wouldn't be able to give your detail the slip."

Mac clamped down hard on a flinch at that, instead shaking his head.

"Whatever our issues, whatever he thinks of me, Jack would never say I couldn't do something like slip a detail," he scoffed, trying to sound confident in that. He wasn't sure he succeeded. "He's a lot of things, but he's not stupid."

Murdoc snickered. "You have a lot more faith in him than he does in you, then."

Mac didn't respond to that, just shaking his head and refusing to think on it. Murdoc huffed a laugh, but let it go.

"Well, unless you have any questions," the assassin said cheerfully, opening the center console and pulled out a syringe. "Where do you want it?"

"What?" Mac finally looked at him, blinking in confusion. Murdoc smiled.

"This is very likely to be our last face-to-face meeting, MacGyver," he pointed out. "One way or another. It's only polite I let you pick how we kick this off. So come on, Angus. Intravenous, or intramuscular? Neck, arm, bicep, or thigh? Your call."

It wasn't really a choice. It was like a parent giving their child the option of peas or carrots with their dinner—the child wanted neither, but was far more agreeable if they got to choose.

Except Mac was not a child, and he knew what would happen after he ate his veggies. It certainly wasn't as pleasant as growing up big and strong.

"I don't even know that you have Jack," he stated instead of answering, his voice quavering just a little bit at the end. He swallowed before he continued. "If he's already dead, I have no reason to do any of this."

Murdoc laughed again and lowered the syringe to the console, studying him thoughtfully. "A bold play, Angus, but I'll allow it."

The assassin picked up the tablet from its stand and tapped at it. "If it makes you feel better," he continued, apparently zooming in on something on the screen, "I think good ol' Jack has much more of an appreciation for your position at the start of the last exam. Even I thought he was a little harsh back at the hospital."

Mac didn't answer, his stomach tightening—it was oddly unsettling, hearing confirmation from Murdoc himself that he had indeed heard the huge fight between him and Jack. He already knew that, of course, but hearing it from the man himself made Mac uneasy.

Still, if Murdoc noticed, he didn't comment. Instead, he turned the screen to face him, and sure enough, Mac saw his partner, unconscious on the floor of what looked like a limo. It was a video, and Mac could clearly see that Jack was breathing.

He had no way of proving this was live, but the fact that Jack was unconscious and not dead told Mac that Murdoc was likely sticking to his plan to kill them in front of each other.

"So where do you want it?"

The blond agent slowly drew his eyes up to Murdoc's face and found the assassin studying him. Mac did his best not to squirm.

Intravenous was his best bet at not getting a stiff joint—either shoulder or hip—out of the deal, and he needed to be at his absolute best if he and Jack had even half a chance at getting out of this alive.

And since he was not at all at his absolute best, he needed every point in his favor that he could muster.

There was zero chance that he was ever going to voluntarily let Murdoc anywhere near his neck, and he had the feeling that he'd like it even less if he refused and Murdoc forced whatever was in that syringe into his system. Greater chance of injury. Injuries were decidedly not in his favor. And even if he somehow managed to get the upper hand, Murdoc had Jack. His partner was unconscious, unable to fight back. With all his talk of preparedness, Murdoc was unlikely to have left Jack completely alone; Mac was certain that he had some kind of backup plan, where if Murdoc didn't check in at a certain time or place, Jack was as good as dead. So, though it took nearly everything he had to force himself to do it, MacGyver reached over and rolled up the left sleeve of his button-up. Murdoc grinned widely at him, chuckling as he opened the console again and removed a thin strip of rubber and an alcohol swab.

"Good choice, Angus," he commended, reaching over and grabbing his wrist. "You're learning after all."

He turned Mac's arm over and went to tie the elastic band above his elbow when he noticed the cut on his forearm, covered in the burn film.

"Well what happened there?" he asked, a little too giddy to be concerned. Mac swallowed and shrugged.

"Why did you think I had to decon?" he asked in response. To this, Murdoc just chuckled, tying off the agent's arm and grinning when the agent jumped at his touch. Mac's body was wound like a spring, and when his captor plucked the cap off the syringe, he couldn't help it. He pulled his arm back, those gloved fingers tightening around his wrist—though there was no vice-like clamp. Murdoc looked up at him, his mouth a hard line.

"Angus, are we really going to do this?" he asked irritably, threateningly.

"Look, I—...You don't have to drug me," Mac found his mouth saying without any approval from his brain, his voice trembling just a bit, as was his hand, balled up in a fist. "I'll cooperate, okay? Just don't...just keep your needles to yourself."

He'd meant for the last bit to make the whole thing sound less desperate, less like begging, but he was pretty sure he didn't succeed. Murdoc stared at him, his expression impossible to read, and Mac swallowed, anger and fear at war in his head.

"Believe me, MacGyver, I know you'll cooperate," the assassin stated at last. He slowly, deliberately reached over and grabbed his victim's wrist, and though Mac resisted, pressed himself into the corner of his seat, tried to pull away, it was no use. Murdoc tightened his grip around Mac's wrist enough that he flinched, dismayed when he heard his rapid breaths trembling.

"Your cooperation is not the problem," he continued, tearing open the alcohol swab and swiping it over the crook of the blond man's elbow. Mac tried again to pull his arm back, but when his captor tightened his grip again, he couldn't suppress a grunt of pain. His balled fist actually made it easier for Murdoc to find a vein, and before Mac could fight anymore, he'd inserted the needle and injected the contents of the syringe into his bloodstream. Mac's heart sank as he pressed his lips together, a cold pit forming in his stomach.

"There are far more reasons to drug you than merely your cooperation. I've put a lot of time and effort—hell, money, too—into this exam. I'm quite proud of what I managed to pull together. The point is, Angus, if I were to just let you cooperate, if I were to not drug you...well, that would just ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?"

Mac could already feel his mind going foggy as Murdoc plucked the syringe from his arm and roughly pressed a cotton ball into the injection site as he removed the rubber tourniquet.

"I don't wanna be surprised," Mac mumbled, his words slurring as his eyelids grew heavy and his arm—still pinned in the assassin's tight grasp—started to go slack. Intravenous was the best way to ensure no lasting aches and pains, but it was also the method that would have the sedative hit him fastest.

Murdoc chuckled. "I suspect not. But I've been hard at work on this for months."

Mac let his head fall back against the cool window, fighting to keep his eyes open, not wanting to let Murdoc out of his sight, let him have free reign to do whatever he wanted with him, dress him up in whatever costume he desired. He was so sick of letting that bastard have that kind of control.

And yet, he'd basically handed it right to him.

"So be a dear and let me enjoy this, hmm?"

---

Aaron Dixon took the stairs two at a time, holding what he was pretty sure was a phone and a standard issue tactical radio wrapped together in a pair of earbuds clutched in his fist.

Sixty seconds. They'd taken their eyes off that little shit for sixty seconds.

The stairwell wrapped around the elevator shaft, popping him out almost directly across from the War Room, and Aaron didn't hesitate to badge himself in. The red light was flashing; Agent Reeves had already initiated a full perimeter lockdown.

One look at the director's face—and all the analysts nearby with their heads down in front of their laptops—told him the lockdown was not initiated fast enough.

Aaron held up his hand without being prompted, displaying the DIYed device. "MacGyver got into Dalton's locker, built a signal jammer. By the time we figured it out he'd locked us in."

"We'll worry about the locker room door you kicked down later," she snapped, gesturing towards him with a sharp jerk of her chin, and one of the analysts offered to take the device from him. Dixon was happy to hand it off—hell, he'd be happy to throw it across the room.

"Where is he now?"

"He took one of the nurse's cars and slipped out the side gate." It was Wilt Bozer who answered him, his voice much quieter than Webber's, and Dixon took a second to adjust his frustration levels before he said anything else.

Wilt Bozer, childhood friend, kickass costume and makeup guy, and complete and total badass to still be walking and talking after what Murdoc did to him. That he was functional at all after the movie trailer two days ago was nothing short of herculean.

"Let me guess. Older model, no GPS."

"Got it in one," Bozer joked weakly, a tablet clutched in his hands but his eyes on the big screen. "You know if he took his phone?"

That was a good question. "Didn't see it on the bench or in his locker." Didn't mean he'd taken it though. "Take it he's not picking up?"

The younger agent mutely shook his head.

There was a muffled beep at the door, then Reeves burst in, and from the look on his partner's face, Aaron knew that Michael knew MacGyver was in the wind. "Director, you want us mobile?"

Webber was standing in the center of the chaos, hands on her hips and withering glare now on the big screen, and didn't immediately answer him. Her entire focus was on the displays in front of them.

The map taking up the majority of the big screen's real estate was centered on Dalton's still-transmitting GPS coordinates—someone had already dispatched a cleanup crew to take possession of the vehicle—and expanding outward at a slow but steady pace, showing the furthest the SUV could have traveled in any direction given the fastest speed it could reasonably attain in current traffic conditions. There were far too many places with big, covered parking lots and wide overpasses just outside that circle. If the analysts couldn't find Jack in the next couple minutes, by the time they fished that SUV out of footage he'd be in the swapped car and gone.

"How hard is it to find one damn SUV?" she barked impatiently. "They're in downtown LA, people! We own the whole county! Get me a location on that vehicle!" Then she exhaled through her nose like she'd gotten a whiff of something rotten. "I should have had you subdue and sedate him," she muttered more quietly, as if to herself, and Aaron wasn't entirely sure if she was serious.

"He'd never forgive you if you had." Bozer's voice was no stronger than it had been before.

"Well, Bozer, now your bestie's in the wind with no way to communicate," she responded tersely. "Even if we manage to intercept Dalton we can't let Mac know until he's at the junkyard." She paused, then her head tilted slightly in a way that even Aaron recognized was not a good sign. "...which means he's not headed to the junkyard."

Reeves leaned close to Aaron. "What junkyard?" he asked sotto voice, and Aaron shrugged.

"...the place where it all 'started'." Wilt didn't mime the air quotes, but they were audible in his voice. "Mac figured that would be the place the Phoenix first caught him."

Made sense. Up until his fateful brush with the Phoenix Foundation, Murdoc had been a faceless suspect, and if the whole goddamn point was to get law enforcement off his back, that was a fair bet.

"But start could mean anything," Aaron murmured, catching on to what Webber had probably already figured out. "The site of the first 'exam', or the place he first tried to kill MacGyver...the first place they met..."

"Well, I can tell you they're not at the house." Bozer offered up his screen, showing several shots of what most of the agents could recognize as the MacGyver residence. "Riley's already confirmed the footage is live and not looped."

"Davis?"

"Yeah. She got the Bat-signal too." Aaron blinked at him, and Bozer shrugged. "Something Riley set up for us, a failsafe that we could hit a button on our phones and it would send out an emergency signal. She got it the same time we did, so..."

So she was aware that Dalton had been forced into another vehicle after that son of a bitch had shot their team leader.

"You know Mac asked us about Simmons. I think he did it on purpose, he knew we didn't know." To distract them just enough to get complacent about him standing in front of a locker, to take their eyes off him for sixty damn seconds. "You think the junkyard's a misdirect?"

"I do now," Webber growled, and Aaron made a mental note to speak more quietly. Her thumbs were flying over the surface of her phone, and on the big map, addresses started showing up. "Okay people, listen up. It's likely that Murdoc, Dalton, and MacGyver are all headed to one of these properties. I want surveillance focused on the quickest paths from here to there. Find me that SUV!"

Some of them were obvious. MacGyver's house. An upscale art gallery downtown. LA General Hospital. A warehouse on the pier. Each and every property or location that Phoenix, or specifically Mac, had ever encountered Murdoc within a three hundred mile radius of Los Angeles. Even the bend on the road where Murdoc had shot Kyser and abducted Matty was on the map.

"Mac'll ditch his wheels," Reeves warned, and Aaron just nodded.

"You'll have to go facial rec on the drivers, we'll be playing catch-up."

"I've got the family," a voice that was unmistakably Riley Davis declared from the ceiling. Several analysts actually looked up from their monitors like they expected to see her. Her voice was completely unlike Bozer's. Not quiet, not thin. "Cindy Wysecroft is at the YMCA Daycare off Hilton Square."

Aaron was already twitching for the door when he saw that there was already a mobile unit disengaging from the SUV canvassing, only a couple blocks away. They'd get there long before he and his partner could.

"Do you have the boy?" Webber asked, and a window popped up on the main screens. It was a security camera view of a lobby, with several people in frame, including a pair of women kneeling in front of a toddler. A woman with matching wavy brown hair smoothed the child's from his forehead in a gesture that was so clearly maternal there was no question.

"Wife and son of the driver of the SUV," Bozer filled them in.

"So the leverage," Aaron deduced, scanning the footage for any indication of someone who shouldn't be there. Someone Murdoc might have left to murder these two, just like he'd killed that nurse's family after he'd made her give Mac his 'grade'.

"Riley, do not let them leave the lobby until our agents have them in protective custody."

"Oh, they're not going anywhere," the voice from the ceiling muttered, almost to herself, and on the screen, they watched the uniformed guard at the reception station pick up his phone. "I can't get the driver's phone, though—won't respond to a remote wakeup. Either he pulled the battery or it's been destroyed."

Webber scowled and addressed her bank of analysts. "What about Agent MacGyver's?"

One of the analysts—Liz, Aaron thought her name was—immediately shook her head. "We're trying every three minutes, but no luck so far."

"So we have the leverage but we can't contact the driver," Reeves muttered. If they could intercept that SUV, there was still time to pull Jack out.

Aaron shook his head. "Look." The circle that indicated where the SUV could have gone after grabbing Jack now included two malls, a hospital, and one of the city's main MS4s. "If Murdoc's going to have Jack swap vehicles—and he is—he's gonna do it under covered parking." Then he paused. "And if the driver's phone is off, how is Murdoc talking to him?"

"We already thought of that." Bozer showed him the tablet again. "Murdoc must have actually made contact with the SUV's driver and given him a burner. We're trying to track where the SUV's been to see if we can figure out what Murdoc's driving, but..." He gave an aborted shrug. "Best we've found so far is the SUV about six blocks from where—where he picked up Jack."

Where Murdoc shot two of their agents. Aaron's gaze flicked back up to the map, seeing that four of their active agent dots were back to LA General, and he knew it wasn't because they were looking for Murdoc.

"I've...got Jack." Again, it was Riley Davis, but this time she didn't sound nearly as decisive. "Facial just picked him up in the Century City parking garage. Looking for the SUV now."

Matty didn't even look at her analysts; she simply snapped her fingers and two of their mobile units were tagged to the mall. Almost at the same time, a new set of videos appeared on the screens, overlaying the giant map of LA.

There were mall parking garage surveillance. And though he was relatively far from the nearest camera, the shape standing in front of a trash can was undoubtedly their missing agent. Jack was dropping objects into the trash can—the footage was too grainy to tell what but Dixon figured it was his weapons—then leaned up with look of disgust on his face, and turned towards what appeared to be a large black limo parked across from him.

He glanced up at something above the trash can, then stalked across the aisle of the parking garage to the limo. The back door opened before he could reach it, and Jack seemed to hesitate, then ripped the door wide open.

Everyone in the room flinched as something flew out to greet him, and for a second Dixon thought it might be beanbags fired at close range, but then the objects slowed down enough to become more clear, and floated jauntily to the ceiling.

Balloons. Party balloons.

"Riley, you have to do better. Can you give me the camera above the trash can, or any audio?"

"Audio's not an option. And yeah, I see that other camera, but it's either broken or powered off."

"Not the way Jack was glaring at it it's not," Reeves disagreed. "Murdoc's using it."

"I'm telling you he's not," Riley's voice snapped from the ceiling. "I'm trying to get into the limo."

On the screen, what looked like a pair of legs shifted out of the way, and Jack glanced around the garage, again directly into all the cameras he could see—including theirs—and then back the way he'd come. Even though they could only see the front fender from their view, Dixon was willing to bet that was their long-lost SUV. They couldn't see if he got any kind of command or signal, but then Jack stuck his head into the limo. He froze; probably had a gun in his face, belonging to whomever those legs did. There was some kind of negotiation, and they watched helplessly as Jack eventually got in.

"Don't lose the limo," Matty ordered. "How far out are my agents?"

"Four minutes," came the swift reply, from Liz. "There's an on-ramp directly onto the freeway from the mall—"

"Get it blocked off, local PD, anyone." With any luck Murdoc himself was in that limo, like he'd been with Mac.

"You want us out there?" Reeves repeated his question from earlier, and this time she answered him.

"No," she said curtly. "You're still on MacGyver. We've got a helo en route, as soon as it arrives we'll get you in the air."

Reeves dipped his head and then turned for the door, and Dixon was already on his heels. "We'll get suited up and meet it on the roof."

"I'm coming too," a voice announced from behind them, and Dixon turned to see Bozer was already following.

"No." It was said just as harshly as the previous order, and the director even turned to glare at him. "We've already got two of Murdoc's targets out in the field, I am not giving him a third."

"Matty, he's already done with me!" Wilt's voice was rising in pitch. "He's done what he's gonna do. Mac's not gonna believe that we've got Jack back, not if it's them tellin' him—no offense," he threw over his shoulder, but never took his eyes off their boss. "If we can get to Mac before Murdoc does—"

"Then they'll tase MacGyver if necessary and get him on that bird," Matty finished flatly. Her eyes cut back to Reeves and Dixon. "Bring him home. That's an order."

Though she didn't say it, the 'by any means necessary' was implicit in her expression, and Dixon found himself nodding before he even thought about it.

"I'm going with them," Bozer insisted firmly.

Reeves had already pulled open the door, and the African-American agent held up his hand towards Matty, palm out. "I got this," he told her, then hooked a finger at Wilt. Someone reluctantly, he followed them out into the hall. Michael waited for the door to close before he turned to the junior agent and laid a broad hand on his shoulder. "We're going to find him and bring him home. Both of them."

Wilt looked away, back towards the clouded glass, and sucked his lower lip between his teeth. "...not before it's too late." The defeat and worry in his voice made it almost inaudible.

"Hey, none of that. MacGyver got outta that locker room in two minutes flat, and I was standing less than fifteen feet away from him." Which might not have been the most inspiring fact to share with Bozer. "Even if we don't intercept him in time, even if he finds his way to Murdoc, he's got this."

Wilt twitched the hand off his shoulder, but he didn't walk away. "I told him I didn't want him around." This time Aaron had to cock his head to hear it. "I told him I didn't want an audience because I didn't want him to freak out because I was freakin' out...I told a guy that's been abandoned by everybody to get lost and if that's—if that's the last thing—"

The last thing he ever said to MacGyver. Dixon vehemently shook his head. "It won't be," he declared firmly. "He's not abandoned, Boze. Look around. We're not gonna stop until we get those two back and Murdoc's in a damn hole in the ground."

"And the best way for you to help him is to figure out where he's headed," Reeves continued. "The helo gives us speed, but that's not gonna do us any good if we don't have a destination. You know him better than anybody. Sounds like he tried to give us the run-around on the location, but he's not stupid. He's gonna leave us a trail, and nobody's more qualified to find it than you. Yeah?"

Dixon wasn't sure it was the right tact to take with Bozer; it put a lot of pressure on him to find MacGyver—who was a trained and capable agent, and if he wanted to hide from the Phoenix, he knew how to do it. More so because he was hiding from his own team. He knew their playbook. There wouldn't be a trail unless Mac wanted to leave one.

But surely he did. He might not know what he was walking into, but he wouldn't leave Dalton's life solely in Murdoc's hands. Even if he was willing to give up his own.

Mac might not let himself be taken off the board, but he'd do everything he could to make sure Jack was.

Whether Bozer agreed with them or not, he eventually deflated a little, then gave them an anemic nod. "...please don't hurt him...but don't let him give himself up." It was more of a plea than a statement.

"Listen, soon as we get to him, I'm gonna call you and hand him the phone," Dixon promised. "But we gotta get there first. I'll keep you in the loop, Bozer, I promise."

They left the other agent still standing outside the War Room door and hurried into a tac room that looked like a cyclone had ripped through. Five minutes later they were both on the roof, watching the approaching helicopter, and a quick glance at Dixon's phone revealed no new information. Nothing on a destination. Nothing on Simmons' condition.

"Anything from Jada?"

Reeves silently shook his head.

"...think we'll really get 'em back?"

"MacGyver and Dalton?"

Dixon gave his partner a 'duh' look and the much taller man grimaced.

"Dude, even if we get 'em back, I don't know that we'll really get 'em back."

That statement made a lot more sense than it should have.

The helo was on and off the pad in less than a minute, and as soon as Reeves got a headset on he turned to the pilot. "Head to Century City mall."

Dixon got the play instantly; tail the limo. Until they had another destination, it was the only useful thing to do.

Tac Ops kept them well informed. They hadn't even made the parking structure before the team on the ground confirmed the SUV was there, its driver alive and well and telling them everything they'd already expected; he was approached by a creepy guy dressed in all black with a photo of his wife dropping off their son at daycare and a promise that he'd never see either one of them again if he didn't do as he was told. He'd been given a burner phone that was being run back to Phoenix for analysis. Never seen the guy before in his life. The man he was forced to pick up didn't say much, and had gotten into a limo and been driven away.

Dixon held up his phone to his partner when one of the forensic techs sent an image of the balloons that had floated out of the limo when Dalton opened the door. They'd been filled with glitter and confetti; on the paper it said "Good luck on the final!"

Reeves scowled. "How the fuck can't we follow the money trail here? He's gotta have spent hundreds of thousands by now, and I know we've frozen a bunch of his accounts."

The pilot interrupted them. "We've got a request to tie into the main op chatter; head's up."

It was too loud in the cockpit to hear the tell-tale click of a secured line, but the voices were plenty audible.

"Reeves, Dixon, we've lost eyes on the limo. Last known position, Mulholland Drive and Longbow, just north of Bel Air."

Great. Off the main highway and in a ritzy area where there were bound to be more limos and less easily accessible CCTV cams. "Copy. When did we lose visual?"

"Forty seconds and counting."

The pilot banked them north while Dixon freed up some binocs. "Any idea where it's headed?"

"Negative," the same analyst responded. "But whoever it is, they definitely know their way around LA traffic." Which meant the driver of the limo probably wasn't Murdoc.

"Great," Reeves grumbled. "Any idea who the driver and leverage are?" Now they had yet another family to locate and secure.

"Not yet. Limo was rented and dropped off at the studio Murdoc used to torture Agent Bozer."

"How the hell didn't we catch that?" The voice was unmistakably their boss, and Dixon was wondering the same damn thing.

"Paid in cash," the analyst responded apologetically. "Only link to the studio is the address and the studio's name printed on the rental agreement."

"So we don't even know who picked it up," Dixon growled. "Windows will be too tinted to get facial rec."

They had no way to know who was driving that limo, and without identifying the driver, they couldn't get to the leverage.

"If we find this limo, we gotta take it fast," Reeves warned over the radio. "And a helicopter's a pretty obvious tail."

"Then don't be obvious."

Dixon glanced over at his partner and got a grim look in return. Then they both put their attention out the windows, scanning the traffic below.

"I-I've got Agent MacGyver!"

Dixon never took his eyes off the streets he was scanning. "Where?"

"One of his credit cards flagged at a gas station in Shandon."

Shandon was about forty-five minutes north of LA, he must have driven like a bat outta hell to get there—

And it was basically on top of one of the addresses Matty had had up on the screen. The lumber mill where Murdoc had 'saved' MacGyver from one of his own Collective assassins and tortured the man to death instead.

"I know where he's going," and this time the voice was Riley Davis.

"The lumber yard," Reeves agreed instantly, and patted the pilot on the shoulder to get his attention before passing him his phone—with the GPS coordinates already pulled up. "Permission to—"

"Granted," Webber interrupted. "Your priority is Agent MacGyver." They already had ground units in the Bel Air area, the limo couldn't outdistance Phoenix-equipped SUVs. But that lumber yard was a good forty minute drive in these conditions, and the helo was the only way they were going to get there in time to prevent Mac from handing himself over to Murdoc.

"What's he driving?"

Dixon tuned out, catching only the details. Mac had boosted another car, again older and without GPS. He'd driven straight to the Texaco, for some reason filling the tank before he pulled around the back of the gas station and out of camera range. Only a few minutes later, he'd gotten back on the road, and satellite of the lumber yard showed no sign of Mac's vehicle—or any other—parked in front of the lumber mill.

Infrared showed a couple heat signatures, probably human, near the center of the warehouse interior. Street traffic around the lumber yard was behaving normally.

It took them thirteen minutes to make the flight, and no time for Aaron to spot the warehouse in question. It was the largest structure around, and not ten seconds after they got eyes on light and smoke started pouring out of the closest end.

"TOC, this is Dixon, we got open flames."

The heat flare had probably shown on the satellite image at the same time, because he could hear orders being barked in his ear. Deployment of fire and first responders. More of the warehouse had gone up by the time the pilot found a safe place to land, and he and Reeves hadn't gotten ten steps off before there was a powerful explosion from inside the warehouse. Both men ducked for cover, letting the wash from the helicopter blades keep the smaller pieces of debris off them.

The interior of the warehouse was an inferno. There was no getting inside.

"Did we track any vehicles leaving?!" The heat bloom from the fire had probably blocked IR, and since there was at least some street traffic, it was possible that someone could have slipped away—

"No, eyes in the sky are blind," an analyst confirmed, and Dixon shielded his face from the heat, glancing up and down the road. All of the cars in view were driving irregularly, clearly watching the fire burning. All of them were easily large enough for two people.

"Put a tag on every vehicle in a one mile radius of that fire!"

Beside him, Reeves tapped him on the shoulder, then gestured back into the inferno, and Dixon followed his gaze, where what was obviously a car tire was burning brightly, about forty yards away.

"How much you wanna bet that's what Mac was driving?" He was shouting to be heard over the roaring flames, but he didn't have to say anything at all. Of course it belonged to what Mac was driving. He'd even filled up the gas tank, so—

...he'd filled up the gas tank.

"...you don't think...?" But Dixon couldn't finish that sentence.

MacGyver knew he only had a three mile drive left. No need to buy gas. And if he'd expected to meet Murdoc here in person, had—

Had he blown the vehicle intentionally?

Reeves' expression was grim as he reached for his com. "Webber, we're gonna need a forensic team and coroner on site, soon as you can get them here."

---

Whoo! Well that was fun, wasn't it? I'm almost sad that we're about to start the end. Mostly excited though; we've been plotting this for literal years at this point.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! Don't forget to leave a review, and we'll see you all next time!