Chapter 5 – That's What Friends Are For

Chapter 5 – That's What Friends Are For

I've never been a man of many friends. Sure, I've had plenty of acquaintances and partners-in-crime, but real thick-and-thin types? Nah, not in my chosen profession. So imagine my surprise when the watchdog that damn Agency assigned to me turned out to be the best frickin' friend I'd ever had. Vice versa, too, I think. Of course, where there's friendship, there's danger. Or in the words of Mark Twain, whom my Swiss Miss mother of an enemy once quoted: "It takes your enemy and your friend working together to hurt you to the heart." But what happens when your enemy and your friend turn out to be one and the same?

Over the course of two years Darien and Claire had honed their Bonnie and Clyde routine to a science. The basics of the scam hadn't changed much since the first time they'd run it in Las Cruces. In order to avoid being seen together, they had arrived at their target separately. Claire had always gone first class, just like the high roller she was supposed to have been. Darien had taken the less conspicuous route, relegated to shabbier rooms and shoddier service. He'd hated having to pose as a second-class citizen when they'd been running the scam for the Agency. Somehow, knowing that he had been playing the part of his own free will had made the indignity much more palatable.

Though Claire had understood the reasoning behind their separate accommodations, she had been unhappy with the arrangement. If she could have had her way, they would never have spent a night apart. Darien, on the other hand, had come to relish his freedom, even from her. In the end, it had been his refusal to give up this bit of freedom that had saved them both.

They'd been making a killing in Monte Carlo – almost enough to worry him but they'd done this enough that he had developed an easy sense of confidence. His headache hadn't actually become a problem until well after midnight. He'd come from around the croupier's side of the roulette table to whisper in Claire's ear that it was time for his shot. Without waiting for her answer, he'd proceeded invisibly to the ladies' room, their normal rendezvous for his fix. She'd followed him in a minute later, checking under the stalls to make certain they had been alone.

"So you got the good stuff there, sweetheart?" He'd eyed her tiny evening bag suspiciously. "'Cuz I've got the mother of all headaches starting here."

"Darien," she'd begun, her lips pressed in a firm line, "it's too soon."

"Too soon? What's too soon? With the new recipe you've been using to cook up the juice lately, I haven't needed a shot in almost five weeks."

"Look, I've explained this before. Even though the new reagent we've refined is purer and it extends the life of the counteragent in your system, you can still build a resistance to it if we don't carefully monitor the intervals between dosages."

He'd watched her give her reply as if by rote, casually slapping one hand against the other to emphasize each point. He'd been wrong that night in her kitchen. She had been able to become both his Keeper and his wife … and right then he'd needed to get away from them both.

"Fine then," he'd said, his headache and anger flaring simultaneously. "I'll see you at the airport tomorrow afternoon. Two-thirty sharp." He'd turned and left, ignoring her protests, not even bothering to quicksilver despite the shocked gasps from the ladies entering the room as he'd exited.

He'd practiced his breathing meditation as he'd made his way from the swank casino to the seedier section of the hotel. Unlocking his door, he'd tossed his tuxedo jacket carelessly to the floor and angrily undid his tie. He'd almost managed to stop his hand from shaking as he'd poured some Jack Daniels into a glass and gulped it down. It hadn't carried the kick of counteragent, but it had helped dull the pain until he could manage to make Claire give him a real fix. She'd be at the door any moment with plenty of apologies and counteragent to go around, he'd thought. He'd poured another glass of JD, rolled his eyes and, with a jaded air, begun to count to ten.

The knock at the door, then, had come as no surprise. The sucker punch that caught him square in the jaw when he opened the door, however, did. He'd been knocked well and truly on his ass. The only reason he'd avoided serious harm was that the force of the blow had landed him front and center on his bed.

"Did you really think I wouldn't find you, Fawkes? Did you really think you could frickin' hide from Bobby Hobbes?" Hobbes glanced around the room, taking in the threadbare carpet and musty curtains, along with the half full bottle of JD on the bed stand. "This room fits you, Fawkes. Yeah, it's just the perfect cage for an overgrown lab rat like you. Now, where is she?"

Darien had started to stand, then sunk back to the bed as his worst nightmare had become reality. He'd been looking down the barrel of Hobbes' gun. "Hobbes, man, I know you're pissed. I would be too in your shoes but c'mon, put the gun away and let's talk this out…."

"There's nothing you got to say to me that I want to hear, my former friend. Nobody stabs Bobby Hobbes in the back and gets away with it, you hear me? I don't know what kind of crazy mind control you used on her, but you are not getting away with it. I'll ask you just once more, where is she?"

The desperation in Hobbes' voice had awoken the sleeping embers of QSM that Darien had so recently subdued. The flames had danced at Hobbes' pain and they had licked at Darien's veins wanting to inflict more. Instinctively Darien's eyes had narrowed as he'd mocked, "I didn't need any mind control, Bobby. I just gave her what she wanted – me. I married her, Hobbes. She's my wife."

Hobbes' face had contorted, though whether in pain or rage, Darien had never known. A soft hiss had filled the space before the Agency's self-appointed avenging angel could reply. Hobbes had pitched forward, jerking awkwardly and falling across Darien. Looking up in surprise, Darien had seen Claire standing in the doorway, a silencer muzzling her gun. "Jesus, Claire," was all he had been able to say as he'd stared down at the man he'd once called partner and friend and whose blood was now staining his hands.

She'd stepped into the room, calmly shut the door and pulled Hobbes off Darien. "Don't worry. He's alive," she'd stated, then gestured from Darien's bloody hands to the bathroom, "Throw me some towels. Then go clean up so we can get out of here."

Bobby had sunk to the floor, his eyes wide, staring at her in shock and accusation. "Why, Claire? Why?"

"Because I love him." Claire'd caught the bundle of towels Darien had thrown to her.

"But he doesn't love you. He never has."

Claire had bent down and pressed a wad of pristine white towels to his wound. Then she had leaned over, pressed a kiss on his cheek, and whispered, "I know."

She'd stood as Darien'd returned from the bathroom. Sliding his arm around her waist, he'd asked, "He'll be OK?"

"He'll be fine. It's a small wound, not life threatening, just enough to slow him down. Take his cell phone. We'll call 911 from the car -- that should give us enough of a head start."

Darien had grabbed a pillow from the bed and dropped it by Hobbes' head. "Take care, buddy," he'd said. "Believe me, I never wanted to hurt you, but I swear, if you come after us again, someone will get seriously damaged. Just let it go, Bobby." And then they'd left, eschewing their scheduled flight and hopping the train to Nice instead.

Shortly afterward, he'd noticed that Claire was focusing her research efforts more and more closely on enhancing and extending the efficacy of the counteragent. Sure, she'd still gone through the motions of looking for methods to remove the gland, but without any real enthusiasm. And he'd realized that he was suddenly farther away from that ultimate freedom than he ever had been at the Agency.

Claire was not a stupid woman, quite the contrary, which is why he'd needed her in the first place. After the first flush of romance had worn off, he'd seen her come to the realization that she wasn't the love of his life. He'd tried to not to let her know, had even tried to be faithful to her. When he couldn't, he'd been the very model of discretion. She'd never had to fear looking a rival in the face or a whisper of scandal behind her back.

He'd liked to think that over time, he had made his betrayal up to her somewhat. They had settled in the Cayman Islands, a little bit of paradise renown for its discreet banking laws and lack of extradition agreements, and he'd done his best to make her happy, fulfilling her wants and needs as completely as he could. He'd become a rich man and he'd spared her nothing. Beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry, a beautiful house on a lavish island complex, all these were hers. Of course, he'd supplied the finest equipment, along with a hand-picked roster of assistants, for her laboratory.

And he'd given her a daughter, his daughter, Nicole. She'd been a miniature replica of Claire but with his dark hair and eyes. He could still see her in his mind's eye, a precocious six-year-old with a disarming mix of her mother's brilliance and her father's charm. She'd almost reached her seventh birthday when some drunken fool had gotten behind a wheel and slammed into the BMW that had been driving her home from school. Darien couldn't help but blame himself. He should have known better than to name her after his mother.

In the end, Claire had known one thing. She'd known he'd needed her -- for the research, the counteragent, Nicole. But Nicole was gone and without the gland, Darien would no longer truly need her. And he'd known Claire would never stand for that, so he'd watched helplessly as that door shut forever.

Not that he hadn't gained some measure of freedom. Claire's counteragent innovations had been generally successful. Each new formulation had laid the groundwork for the next improved version. Hell, he wasn't even tied to a needle anymore. Now he had a small implant, not unlike those for the contraceptive Depo-Provera, inserted into his left shoulder. This device allowed a carefully modulated amount of a time-release version of the counteragent to enter his blood stream. Depending on his Quicksilver usage, he could go anywhere from four to six months before needing a new implant.

Of course, it had been a long time since invisibility had been essential to his survival. He was a legitimate businessman now. He'd taken the money they'd stolen from the casinos and with the help of some very good accountants and lawyers had begun buying and selling companies. Much to his own surprise, he'd actually had a knack for it. Perhaps it was the former con man in him, or his natural charisma, or maybe even the take-no-prisoners attitude he'd copped from Monroe, but he'd learned that he could out-talk and out-bluff even the most experienced business sharks. In fact, for him, the thrill of the corporate con almost rivaled the thrill of the illegal kind.

They'd stopped running the casino scams after their last run-in with Hobbes. They hadn't really needed to get money that way and besides, it had been much too close a call. Instead, they had gone to ground, changing their names and appearances once again. Darien had grown his mustache and goatee and subdued his hair. Claire had looked striking with grey eyes and jet black hair.

They had always been careful to buy the supplies necessary for the counteragent through an ever-changing stable of brokers and dummy corporations. Hobbes was too smart of a bloodhound to miss trying to follow that trail to them. Hobbes. He had remained a thorn in their sides. Darien had been forced to make Fawkes.net a reality just to keep tabs on his tenacious ex-partner. Like a dog with a bone, Hobbes had refused to stop gnawing on the search for the former Invisible Man and his one-time Keeper.

The intervening years, though, had not been kind to Hobbes. The Official had retired after a heart attack just seven months after Hobbes had failed to capture Darien and Claire in Monte Carlo. Eberts, perhaps not surprisingly, had been passed over and the new head of the Agency had not been so forgiving of Bobby in his personal quest for revenge. When Hobbes had stepped out of line once too often to follow up a private lead, the Agency had cut him loose. With no other agency willing to take a chance on someone with his mental history, Hobbes had gone into business for himself. Instead of giving his all for his country, he'd tracked down people's runaway kids or snapped pictures of unfaithful spouses. Not a great trade-off in the grand scheme of things, but the money had been decent and it had funded his unrelenting manhunt.

Without the resources of the Agency, though, that hunt had been slow and painstaking. After Monte Carlo, Hobbes had never managed to come close enough to really worry Darien. At least not until now. Maybe all Hobbes' years of doggedly tracking down every lead and hunting down every clue had finally paid off. Or maybe Darien had just grown tired of hiding. Perhaps they'd been heading towards this confrontation since the day they'd first met in the chaos of that Mexican market. In the end, it didn't really matter to Darien. He'd just wanted it finished. And so it would be -- tonight.