The safehouse was a dingy little apartment in the 'bad' section of Westchester, equipped with a bed, an array of video surveillance cameras and a satellite radio rig. Jubilee went and sat in the exact center of the bed, shaking and white. Raven calmly turned on the cameras and watched the monitors flicker to life. Logan kicked a board that was lying in the corner against the wall, hard. "Stop it," said Raven. "She's fine."
"How do you know that? You don't know anything!" Logan looked ready to rip Mystique's head off.
"I know that Number 2 wants to toy with you. He has nothing if not a sick sense of humor. You little Jean isn't dead yet. He'll torment you first."
"Gee, thanks a heap," said Logan. Raven smiled briefly and fakely.
"You're very welcome." She tested the radio, which screeched and then buzzed with the static of a linkup. "You're going to leave Number 2 to me." Logan stopped his hyped-up pacing.
"Like hell." Mystique turned what he thought of as her evil eye on him.
"Number 2 killed Kurt, Logan. I have a vested interest in this as well."
"Since when did you ever care about Kurt?" Logan demanded. "This…thing took Jean, killed three of my best friends and he wants me dead! I'm the one who's taking him on, sweetheart!" Raven carefully crossed her arms over her chest and faced Wolverine.
"You'll be needed to extract Jean safely, and make sure she gets away. I will be the one to terminate Number 2." Logan opened his mouth to shout her down again, then closed it and looked at her with crafty eyes.
"Terminate, eh?" he said. Mystique nodded.
"With extreme prejudice."
"Raven, darlin'," said Logan, a dangerous look in his eye as well. "All this sympathy with your boy, this big desire to be the one that takes out Number 2…that wouldn't come from tryin' to get on the Department's good side, would it?" Raven opened her mouth, eyes widening, then shut it again and composed herself.
"Of course not. Why on earth would you think that?"
"No reason," said Logan. "'Cept I heard from the educated circles you got into a little hot water with the Mossad. Had to leave the West Bank pretty quickly, right?" Logan hadn't actually heard that Mystique had doubled crossed the Israeli Secret Service, her last employer, but it was an educated gamble that paid off.
"How…" started Mystique, and then clamped her lips together.
"I'd say the next stop on your list would be Department H, or whatever they call themselves now. So, when they got wind of the breakout they called you up to do a little trial run. Take out Number 2 and join the club." He stepped closer to Raven, inside her personal circle. "Am I right, darlin'?" Mystique's eyes narrowed as she gauged Logan. She didn't like what she saw. He was keeping his anger below the surface, but it was the dangerous, bone-crunching kind of anger.
"What tipped you off?" she said finally.
"The mission-speak, termination and such, and the phony sympathy over Jean. You bein' back in Washington in the first place. And of course your little actin' job over Kurt."
"That wasn't acting," said Mystique wearily. "My god, do you think I'm completely emotionless?" Logan shrugged one shoulder.
"Pretty much, 'least the face you've shown to me is."
"Look, I'm sorry I wasn't always straight with you, but it was a bad time!" Raven shouted. "My god, you lost your memory, I lost my son—"
"I thought you gave him up," said Jubilee from the bed. Raven turned on her, furious and then sagged.
"Yes. I gave him up for adoption. I made sure he got a good home even though he looked like he did. Give me that much credit." She smoothed her hands over her dress in a nervous gesture. Logan came around to her front.
"I don't like you, Raven. I don't trust you and I never did. If you want to help me get Jean back and take down Number 2, fine. But this is my game, sister, and we're playing by my rules." Mystique's lips tightened as she saw her chances with Department H slipping away, and then nodded.
"Fine."
Jean came to tied to a post, sounds of water dripping and flowing all around her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she took in cement walls and nondescript brown piles of junk on the floor around her. She was tied to a rotting wooden support pole. A basement. "Help!" Jean tried to scream. There was a cloth strip bound tightly over her jaw, compressing her tongue and making her entire face ache. She fought down the reflex to gag.
"Enjoying yourself, I see." He stepped from the shadows, and Jean heard a door close. The exit. Jean yanked against her bond, with no effect. Her hands were tied with plastic disposable handcuffs, at least three sets, and they tightened a notch when she yanked. Her feet and shins were padlocked in a thin, biting chain, and another one was around her waist. She felt the rasp of a collar around her neck. Genoshan slave model. She had a dull, persistent headache to prove that her telepathy and psionic abilities were dampened. "Now," said Logan's clone. He was wearing black cotton semi-dress pants and a black T-shirt, and he'd clipped his sideburns and hair and shaved. He still looked enough like Logan to fool almost anyone, though. He stepped up to her, and Jean pressed her head back against the pole as far as it would go. "Don't be frightened, Jeannie," he snickered. "You're not going to get the treatment just yet. I'll take the gag off, screaming won't help you anyway." He extended the index claw on one hand and sliced through the gag. Jean felt some hair and skin go with it, and blood trickled down her neck. The false Logan leaned in close and sniffed the blood almost critically. "Heh. You're very pretty bait, if I may compliment you?"
"Go to hell," spat Jean. 'Logan' stepped back from her.
"My dear Jean, I have been in hell. Hell and purgatory, for the last twenty years. And now, it's time for my brother to share some of the suffering." He blotted the blood sharply. "One last thing, Ms. Grey."
"Doctor," Jean snapped, irrationally trying to irritate him again.
"Oh, drop the pretension," said the clone. "You've worked so hard to become the ideal female—The lady and the doctor, the vixen and the lamb, all rolled into one. It's become so muddled in your head you don't know who you are anymore." He patted her cheek like an old uncle. "Now, as I was saying, there is one rule here in my little universe. You try to escape before my job is done and I will kill you. You have nearly as much shock value dead as alive. Clear?"
"Go to hell," said Jean again, locking his eyes with hers. They were blue, like Logan's, but this blue was spiky and tumultuous. They weren't dead, flat eyes like Jean had seen on so many killers. She could see the fire of insanity burning underneath the sky shade.
"Please, my dear, I think we've established that's unlikely," he said, smiling. "And stop trying to psych me out with your little telepath stares." He turned away from her and went back into the shadows, drawing out his cell phone as he went. He speed-dialed and listened to the ring. "Hello, Logan. Guess who's here with me?"