-24-
"I thought we input all the correct codes." Jack growled at her, moving round the desk.
"Obviously not." She muttered, placing her hand on the papers and using them to vault herself over the desk. She grabbed the sheets of code as she landed on the other side of the table, taking Jack's lead and following him to the door they'd come in by.
When he reached it ahead of her, he was able to pull it open, and held it for her. They could remember the entrance points to each room they'd come in by, and ran along the corridors until they noticed a flash light making it's way towards them. Jack pressed frantically at every door along their path, praying one of them would open before the security guard shone his light door the corridor.
He was too late, he was blinded by torch light just as he found a loose door, and tugged Nina inside just in time to hear the guards call to each other "Por Aqui! Estan aqui!"
"Board the door!" He ordered her as he pressed his back against the door, holding the inside handle up. Nina reached around in the dark, on either side of the door, and felt a waist high dresser. She pushed it along the wall, it was heavy, and she let out several loud groans, but she managed to force the dresser far enough over for Jack to help her, and it forced the handle up, stopping it from turning.
The guards reached the door about the same time as Nina let go of the dresser, reaching for her flashlight. They pushed at the door, yelling words she couldn't be bothered to make out, muffled by the door and the wall cavity, and she shone the torchlight along the dresser, at Jack. The light hit his bad hand first, he'd taken quite a layer of skin off, his hand was dripping blood on the wooden dresser.
He noticed her pause and took point, grabbing his own torch out of his pocket and shining it around the room, it was an office, spacious, but it was an office. There was a large carved wooden table in the middle of the room, and behind it the wall was covered in blinds. He gave one more look at the door and rushed over to the blinds. A pull on the cord revealed a window that looked out onto the side of the Malero building, forty foot of garden, and then the golf course of the Marbella Sheraton. He yanked the chain to the side, keeping the blind at its current level, and grabbed the chair, he threw it at the window, but it rebounded.
"Damn it!" He exclaimed, wrenching a hand across his chin. He took a deep breath and turned, looking around the room. The security guards behind the door were begining to push the dresser enough to cause him some concern.
Nina grabbed the two guest chairs and propped them at an angle against the dresser, hoping they'd hold the dresser in place a little longer, and then made her way over to Jack. He was fixing something to the window. "What's that?" she asked him.
"C4." He muttered, and then keyed a button on the small digital display he'd fixed to it. A countdown of fifteen seconds began.
"Where the hell did you..."
"I went out after breakfast." He explained, placing a guiding hand around her waist and pulling her over to the corner of the room. He pushed her in the gap between a filing cabinet and leant over her.
The blast blew out the window, as he'd hoped, and deposted the desk in front of the door, giving them extra time. He rushed over, keeping to the stable parts of the room that hadn't collapsed into the floor below, and pulled out a rapelling hook. Across on the other side of the hole, Nina quickly did the same, and he waited for her to rapel off the edge of the floor before he did. They slid down the building, four floors below them was the floor, and they each dropped as quickly as they could.
When Jack reached the ground Nina was still a floor above him, having taken a moment to kick out two security cameras on her way down. "You know we can't get hold of a gun..." She muttered as he undid the clasps around her legs, holding her half her height above the ground.
She dropped to the floor, sliding down his body, but having no time to revel in the contact this time. "...But we can get hold of a high class explosive." She finished, brushing herself down and patting the hard drive before they sprinted into the tree line.
There was a security camera on a pole above the wire fence to the golf course. Nina started into the clearing before Jack pulled her back, tugging her into his lap in favour of having her land on the floor. He leant over her shoulder, pointing at the camera through the bush she'd just been about to hop over.
She slid off his lap, squatting down just in front of him. She glanced over at the fence. "Do you have any wire cutters? Or are we climbing the fence?"
"I don't like my chances on climbing it before the camera turns again." Jack placed his hands on Nina's back to hold himself up, to avoid falling backwards onto the grass.
"Do you hear that?" Nina muttered.
Jack squinted, focusing his ears on the sounds of the ciccadas in the trees, and the waves crashing against the rock face, nearly a kilometre away, he couldn't hear anything to cause him concern. "No."
"Ssh."
Jack heard a distant dog yelp, and then another, slightly louder, slightly closer. He licked his lips. "Shield yourself from the camera, let's go."
The camera, luckily, didn't have a motion sensor, and rotated away from them just as they sprinted across the green to the fence. Jack cupped his hands large enough for Nina to get a foot in, and when she placed her foot in his hands he lifted her up.
Nina grabbed the top of the fence, and using her twenty-five-push-ups-a-day honed strength lifted herself up and slid a leg over the metal bar, settling on the bar, one leg on either side of the bar. She reached a hand down to Jack, and he gribbed her hand with both of his and jumped up, sliding his feet up the metal wire, trying desperately to find purchase on the fence. Nina continued to pull, and it wasn't long before he had his torso over on one side and his legs on the other.
The camera was rapidly turning to face them, and so Jack pushed himself over, rolling so he landed on his shoulder and back, as he'd been taught to when getting off a helicopter or airplane. Nina's landing was a little easier, and they were back on their feet, running across the grass towards the hotel and the parking lot.
Nina turned as she ran and noticed the dogs, three of them, and two guards, making their way across the green towards them at various speeds. "Jack they're still behind us." She called to him, he grabbed her flailing arm and tugged her into the foliage, giving him a minute to stop and see the dogs. They looked like rotweillers, although he couldn't make them out clearly at this distance, and he was getting panicked. Nothing like special ops to give you sinophobia. He doubted the dogs were trained to apprehend them, more likely to rip them apart.
They took off again, running further into the foliage, and headed directly for the large pool right next to hole 6. Jack showed no sign of slowing down, and when they got close to the edge of the water he called out to Nina, "Jump!"
They dived in the water, keeping one hand linked. Jack opened his eyes underwater and looked around him, the water was thick and dark, but the surface looked yellow from the floodlights far over, closer to the hotel. Jack looked at Nina, she had opened her eyes, but she kept shutting them, her eyes unable to cope with the acidity of the stagnant water.
Jack noticed a shadow on the floor of the pond, and swam towards it, pulling Nina along, she didn't seem to be dragging him towards the surface, so he doubted she was getting hypoxic, but he wasn't sure if she was as accomplished a swimmer as he was, and didn't want to keep her under for too long.
When he reached the surface above the shadow, it was just as he'd expected, a bridge over the water, he reached a hand up to grip the cement at the bottom of the bridge and tugged Nina out of the water pressing her hand against the cement and hoping she'd grip it too.
She took a deep breath when she reached the surface, no coughing, she obviously hadn't started to run out of air, and began treading water. The sound of barking got closer, and in the dark shelter of the bridge they could freely watch the dogs lead the security guards at the edge of the water. One guard took a dog around the edge of the water, hoping that they would pick up the scent again, whilst a second took out a flashlight, and shone it across the water. Jack grabbed Nina and pulled her under, watching as the flashlight moved around the pool. He held her under, keeping her closer to him, rationalising it by saying it was to stop her from drifting away, wrapping an arm around her waist.
He looked down at her, with him there holding her, she didn't need to open her own eyes, and had instead shut them and bowed her head, letting her hands lightly grip Jack's elbows, maintaining the contact. He satisfied himself she was okay by pressing a hand to her neck. She looked up at him, and then lowered her head again. She opened her eyes and gave him a soft smile before lowering her head for the second time.
Jack kept them under until Nina began to get agitated, she raised her head after a few minutes and pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to point out that she was running out of air. He quickly looked over the pond, he couldn't see the flash light, and so he swam to the surface, guiding her up with his hands.
They trod water to hold themselves at water level whilst they took a few deep breaths. "Looks clear." He whispered to her, when she'd finished sputtering, and he swam to the waters edge and pulled himself out, reaching a hand down to Nina as he looked back over at the Malero building.
The sounds of dogs were gone, as were the guards. He tugged Nina out of the water, letting her collapse onto the grass next to him for a few seconds whilst she shivered and got a few deep breaths. The golf course water hadn't been cold, but as it evaporated of their skin, in the cold easterly wind, it seemed almost artic.
Jack knelt down behind Nina and pressed the release straps on her backpack, taking the computer drive off of her to carry himself. "You okay?" He asked her as she wiped her mouth, brushing as much of the dirt off of her lips as possible.
"Yeah." She replied, leaning forward on her knees and taking a quick breath as she rose to her feet. "Come on." She muttered, reaching a hand down to Jack to pull him up.
He fixed the back pack to the extra strap on his own and stood, ignoring her offered hand and leading the way to their car, which they'd parked in the hotel parking lot. Their clothes were soaked now, and their shoes made slapping sounds along the wet grass.
When they reached the edge of the parking lot Nina grabbed his hand and pulled him down behind a car, he did as she requested, hiding himself, ducking his head under the window. He heard a car moving around in the parking lot, and looked under the car body, watching as a security car, like those he'd seen in the parking lot of the Malero building, parked in front of the entrance to the hotel.
He watched a brief exchange with the hotel concierge, and then as the man allowed them to walk around the hotel parking lot, checking with flash lights for people sneaking around cars, just as they were doing.
Nina had crouched in a position that afforded her a view of the hotel entrance as well. "What do you want to do, Jack?" She asked. She wasn't a field agent, she didn't know what to do, didn't have a plan forming in her head.
Jack pointed to a car closer to theirs, closer to the exit and she ran over to it, crouching near the back end of the vehicle. He joined her a few seconds later. "I doubt we'll be able to make it very far." He muttered, and they managed to their car in the same fashion, pausing every few cars and rolling underneath them to avoid the passing cars.
He pulled the car keys out of his leg pocket as he laid underneath a car a few metres from their own, gripping it tightly in his hand to avoid any sound. As though the car wouldn't make enough sound when they started it.
Nina rolled out from under the car and watched the security guard car patrolling the other end of the car park. "You think we can make it out without them noticing us?" She whispered to Jack as he pulled himself up beside her.
Jack rubbed his damaged hand across his mouth and wiped the mud away from his mouth. "I think we can make it to the car, but not out of the lot in it. You want to get a hotel room?"
"Here?" She asked, hoping that Jack realised how impossible a plan that would be.
"No, a motel, up the road." Jack clarified.
Nina glanced out at the exit to the hotel parking lot. She didn't like the idea of running up the road to a hotel. It was dark and they were soaking. She wasn't sure if there would be security staff patrolling the road, or if they'd ask the hotel if anyone had checked in soaking wet in the last few minutes. Jack had evidently decided that they were taking the risk. He opened the boot to their car and held the lid low whilst he tugged the black carryall out of the boot. It held a change of clothes and a few things to brush up with, money and their false passports, travel documentation, just in case it all went horribly wrong and they had to leave.
Jack pushed the car boot shut and locked it again, placing the bag between the two of them as he scanned a possible exit to the parking lot. He tugged her towards a gap in a row of cars, sliding between two as the security car drove past the end of the row.
"I thought we input all the correct codes." Jack growled at her, moving round the desk.
"Obviously not." She muttered, placing her hand on the papers and using them to vault herself over the desk. She grabbed the sheets of code as she landed on the other side of the table, taking Jack's lead and following him to the door they'd come in by.
When he reached it ahead of her, he was able to pull it open, and held it for her. They could remember the entrance points to each room they'd come in by, and ran along the corridors until they noticed a flash light making it's way towards them. Jack pressed frantically at every door along their path, praying one of them would open before the security guard shone his light door the corridor.
He was too late, he was blinded by torch light just as he found a loose door, and tugged Nina inside just in time to hear the guards call to each other "Por Aqui! Estan aqui!"
"Board the door!" He ordered her as he pressed his back against the door, holding the inside handle up. Nina reached around in the dark, on either side of the door, and felt a waist high dresser. She pushed it along the wall, it was heavy, and she let out several loud groans, but she managed to force the dresser far enough over for Jack to help her, and it forced the handle up, stopping it from turning.
The guards reached the door about the same time as Nina let go of the dresser, reaching for her flashlight. They pushed at the door, yelling words she couldn't be bothered to make out, muffled by the door and the wall cavity, and she shone the torchlight along the dresser, at Jack. The light hit his bad hand first, he'd taken quite a layer of skin off, his hand was dripping blood on the wooden dresser.
He noticed her pause and took point, grabbing his own torch out of his pocket and shining it around the room, it was an office, spacious, but it was an office. There was a large carved wooden table in the middle of the room, and behind it the wall was covered in blinds. He gave one more look at the door and rushed over to the blinds. A pull on the cord revealed a window that looked out onto the side of the Malero building, forty foot of garden, and then the golf course of the Marbella Sheraton. He yanked the chain to the side, keeping the blind at its current level, and grabbed the chair, he threw it at the window, but it rebounded.
"Damn it!" He exclaimed, wrenching a hand across his chin. He took a deep breath and turned, looking around the room. The security guards behind the door were begining to push the dresser enough to cause him some concern.
Nina grabbed the two guest chairs and propped them at an angle against the dresser, hoping they'd hold the dresser in place a little longer, and then made her way over to Jack. He was fixing something to the window. "What's that?" she asked him.
"C4." He muttered, and then keyed a button on the small digital display he'd fixed to it. A countdown of fifteen seconds began.
"Where the hell did you..."
"I went out after breakfast." He explained, placing a guiding hand around her waist and pulling her over to the corner of the room. He pushed her in the gap between a filing cabinet and leant over her.
The blast blew out the window, as he'd hoped, and deposted the desk in front of the door, giving them extra time. He rushed over, keeping to the stable parts of the room that hadn't collapsed into the floor below, and pulled out a rapelling hook. Across on the other side of the hole, Nina quickly did the same, and he waited for her to rapel off the edge of the floor before he did. They slid down the building, four floors below them was the floor, and they each dropped as quickly as they could.
When Jack reached the ground Nina was still a floor above him, having taken a moment to kick out two security cameras on her way down. "You know we can't get hold of a gun..." She muttered as he undid the clasps around her legs, holding her half her height above the ground.
She dropped to the floor, sliding down his body, but having no time to revel in the contact this time. "...But we can get hold of a high class explosive." She finished, brushing herself down and patting the hard drive before they sprinted into the tree line.
There was a security camera on a pole above the wire fence to the golf course. Nina started into the clearing before Jack pulled her back, tugging her into his lap in favour of having her land on the floor. He leant over her shoulder, pointing at the camera through the bush she'd just been about to hop over.
She slid off his lap, squatting down just in front of him. She glanced over at the fence. "Do you have any wire cutters? Or are we climbing the fence?"
"I don't like my chances on climbing it before the camera turns again." Jack placed his hands on Nina's back to hold himself up, to avoid falling backwards onto the grass.
"Do you hear that?" Nina muttered.
Jack squinted, focusing his ears on the sounds of the ciccadas in the trees, and the waves crashing against the rock face, nearly a kilometre away, he couldn't hear anything to cause him concern. "No."
"Ssh."
Jack heard a distant dog yelp, and then another, slightly louder, slightly closer. He licked his lips. "Shield yourself from the camera, let's go."
The camera, luckily, didn't have a motion sensor, and rotated away from them just as they sprinted across the green to the fence. Jack cupped his hands large enough for Nina to get a foot in, and when she placed her foot in his hands he lifted her up.
Nina grabbed the top of the fence, and using her twenty-five-push-ups-a-day honed strength lifted herself up and slid a leg over the metal bar, settling on the bar, one leg on either side of the bar. She reached a hand down to Jack, and he gribbed her hand with both of his and jumped up, sliding his feet up the metal wire, trying desperately to find purchase on the fence. Nina continued to pull, and it wasn't long before he had his torso over on one side and his legs on the other.
The camera was rapidly turning to face them, and so Jack pushed himself over, rolling so he landed on his shoulder and back, as he'd been taught to when getting off a helicopter or airplane. Nina's landing was a little easier, and they were back on their feet, running across the grass towards the hotel and the parking lot.
Nina turned as she ran and noticed the dogs, three of them, and two guards, making their way across the green towards them at various speeds. "Jack they're still behind us." She called to him, he grabbed her flailing arm and tugged her into the foliage, giving him a minute to stop and see the dogs. They looked like rotweillers, although he couldn't make them out clearly at this distance, and he was getting panicked. Nothing like special ops to give you sinophobia. He doubted the dogs were trained to apprehend them, more likely to rip them apart.
They took off again, running further into the foliage, and headed directly for the large pool right next to hole 6. Jack showed no sign of slowing down, and when they got close to the edge of the water he called out to Nina, "Jump!"
They dived in the water, keeping one hand linked. Jack opened his eyes underwater and looked around him, the water was thick and dark, but the surface looked yellow from the floodlights far over, closer to the hotel. Jack looked at Nina, she had opened her eyes, but she kept shutting them, her eyes unable to cope with the acidity of the stagnant water.
Jack noticed a shadow on the floor of the pond, and swam towards it, pulling Nina along, she didn't seem to be dragging him towards the surface, so he doubted she was getting hypoxic, but he wasn't sure if she was as accomplished a swimmer as he was, and didn't want to keep her under for too long.
When he reached the surface above the shadow, it was just as he'd expected, a bridge over the water, he reached a hand up to grip the cement at the bottom of the bridge and tugged Nina out of the water pressing her hand against the cement and hoping she'd grip it too.
She took a deep breath when she reached the surface, no coughing, she obviously hadn't started to run out of air, and began treading water. The sound of barking got closer, and in the dark shelter of the bridge they could freely watch the dogs lead the security guards at the edge of the water. One guard took a dog around the edge of the water, hoping that they would pick up the scent again, whilst a second took out a flashlight, and shone it across the water. Jack grabbed Nina and pulled her under, watching as the flashlight moved around the pool. He held her under, keeping her closer to him, rationalising it by saying it was to stop her from drifting away, wrapping an arm around her waist.
He looked down at her, with him there holding her, she didn't need to open her own eyes, and had instead shut them and bowed her head, letting her hands lightly grip Jack's elbows, maintaining the contact. He satisfied himself she was okay by pressing a hand to her neck. She looked up at him, and then lowered her head again. She opened her eyes and gave him a soft smile before lowering her head for the second time.
Jack kept them under until Nina began to get agitated, she raised her head after a few minutes and pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to point out that she was running out of air. He quickly looked over the pond, he couldn't see the flash light, and so he swam to the surface, guiding her up with his hands.
They trod water to hold themselves at water level whilst they took a few deep breaths. "Looks clear." He whispered to her, when she'd finished sputtering, and he swam to the waters edge and pulled himself out, reaching a hand down to Nina as he looked back over at the Malero building.
The sounds of dogs were gone, as were the guards. He tugged Nina out of the water, letting her collapse onto the grass next to him for a few seconds whilst she shivered and got a few deep breaths. The golf course water hadn't been cold, but as it evaporated of their skin, in the cold easterly wind, it seemed almost artic.
Jack knelt down behind Nina and pressed the release straps on her backpack, taking the computer drive off of her to carry himself. "You okay?" He asked her as she wiped her mouth, brushing as much of the dirt off of her lips as possible.
"Yeah." She replied, leaning forward on her knees and taking a quick breath as she rose to her feet. "Come on." She muttered, reaching a hand down to Jack to pull him up.
He fixed the back pack to the extra strap on his own and stood, ignoring her offered hand and leading the way to their car, which they'd parked in the hotel parking lot. Their clothes were soaked now, and their shoes made slapping sounds along the wet grass.
When they reached the edge of the parking lot Nina grabbed his hand and pulled him down behind a car, he did as she requested, hiding himself, ducking his head under the window. He heard a car moving around in the parking lot, and looked under the car body, watching as a security car, like those he'd seen in the parking lot of the Malero building, parked in front of the entrance to the hotel.
He watched a brief exchange with the hotel concierge, and then as the man allowed them to walk around the hotel parking lot, checking with flash lights for people sneaking around cars, just as they were doing.
Nina had crouched in a position that afforded her a view of the hotel entrance as well. "What do you want to do, Jack?" She asked. She wasn't a field agent, she didn't know what to do, didn't have a plan forming in her head.
Jack pointed to a car closer to theirs, closer to the exit and she ran over to it, crouching near the back end of the vehicle. He joined her a few seconds later. "I doubt we'll be able to make it very far." He muttered, and they managed to their car in the same fashion, pausing every few cars and rolling underneath them to avoid the passing cars.
He pulled the car keys out of his leg pocket as he laid underneath a car a few metres from their own, gripping it tightly in his hand to avoid any sound. As though the car wouldn't make enough sound when they started it.
Nina rolled out from under the car and watched the security guard car patrolling the other end of the car park. "You think we can make it out without them noticing us?" She whispered to Jack as he pulled himself up beside her.
Jack rubbed his damaged hand across his mouth and wiped the mud away from his mouth. "I think we can make it to the car, but not out of the lot in it. You want to get a hotel room?"
"Here?" She asked, hoping that Jack realised how impossible a plan that would be.
"No, a motel, up the road." Jack clarified.
Nina glanced out at the exit to the hotel parking lot. She didn't like the idea of running up the road to a hotel. It was dark and they were soaking. She wasn't sure if there would be security staff patrolling the road, or if they'd ask the hotel if anyone had checked in soaking wet in the last few minutes. Jack had evidently decided that they were taking the risk. He opened the boot to their car and held the lid low whilst he tugged the black carryall out of the boot. It held a change of clothes and a few things to brush up with, money and their false passports, travel documentation, just in case it all went horribly wrong and they had to leave.
Jack pushed the car boot shut and locked it again, placing the bag between the two of them as he scanned a possible exit to the parking lot. He tugged her towards a gap in a row of cars, sliding between two as the security car drove past the end of the row.