As soon as they got out of the show rooms Jack shed his coat and passed it
to Nina. She accepted it, happily, and pulled it on, grasping his hand as
he led her through the crowds in the Malaga touristic beachfront. They
were too far from the hotel to walk back, especially if Batilla decided he
didn't take to his women being stolen from him, so they continued up the
road to where the strip joined the road, and Jack hailed a cab for them.
The cabs in the central areas were yellow here, much like New York cabs, and he held the door open for Nina, letting her get in whilst he kept vigilant for anyone watching them. Satisfied he dropped into the cab, pulling the door shut behind him. They sped off as soon as he shut the door; evidently, Nina had already given the driver instructions.
Jack glanced over at Nina, who was watching out the window at the drunken antics of the tourists. She was preoccupied and not paying any attention to the vista, but he glanced out anyway. A group of sun burnt twenty year old guys were doing the cancan arm in arm at the entrance to a bar, they all dropped their trousers and underwear as the taxi passed them, and Jack let out a solitary laugh. "Did you make the switch?"
She reached behind her back, under the blouse whilst he spoke, pulling out the small chunk of gold and handing it to him. Jack rotated Carlos Batilla's black onyx ring in his hand, before he slipped it into his coat pocket. He nodded, she was his agent, and of course she did her job. "You okay?" He asked, she still hadn't turned from the window, and the air in the cab was getting progressively colder with her mood.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Finally some eye contact, she wrapped the coat closer and smiled lightly. She looked down at her knees, thankful that the coat covered her that much and opened her mouth, laughing at herself. "That was a bit of a cliché in there." She muttered, clearly hoping for a comment from him.
"What do you mean?" He asked her, glad that it was feeling a little warmer.
"You're my wife, I love you? I leave you alone for five minutes?" She raised an eyebrow at him and he laughed.
"I thought 'Stella, Stella!' would have been a little too obvious." He joked. He lowered his head as he thought through the last hour. They'd certainly put on a show for Carlos Batilla. Especially the last part, whilst he was sure Nina was more concerned with the former, putting her body on display for a man she loathed, but he was dwelling on the latter.
The cheesy repartee between them had been comical in his mind, but that kiss had stunned him. Every time he rethought the moment it had been unnecessary to kiss him, so why did she do it. He was fairly sure that she had initiated the kiss, but then again, it could have gone either way. He was annoyed that he'd let it be so obvious he'd enjoyed the kiss. Regardless, Nina wasn't talking about it, so he wasn't going to bring it up until he felt on safer ground.
"You laid it on pretty thick in there." She said.
"My trowel may need cleaning," he continued his cliché. "To get all the bull shit off of it." He clarified, and leant back in his seat. He wondered if she was as freaked about tonight as she had been two days ago at the motel in Marbella. "Did Batilla...."
She cut him off, saving him from an embarrassing conversation. "I think we had him completely fooled. I can't say he was a perfect gentleman, but we made the switch, so..?"
Jack nodded, they were passing the end of the human traffic, making their way out into the darker suburban roads. He fixed his eyes on a point outside the car and watched it disappear beyond his view.
"Do you mind if I take a shower when we get in I..." Jack nodded, and she stopped talking. They both settled their vision outside the car whilst they searched for something else to say. It took three more silent minutes to get back to the hotel.
-24-
Kai's restaurant was a small corner place near the marina, which was odd, as it didn't serve any seafood at all, no fish, no crustaceans. They did serve tuna, but, obviously it wasn't locally caught - you didn't find dolphins this far into the med. Contrary to popular belief, there wasn't actually a 'Kai', the old man that many of the workers knew as the owner, whom they'd never spoke to, was actually an elderly man called David Hostin, born in Hawaii, who had moved to Spain as a young businessman, naming the restaurant 'Kai', the Swahili word for 'ocean' out of nostalgia.
Outside, on one of the white patio chairs, sat Jack Bauer, waiting for his partner to return from the bar. She'd gone in to place their order whilst he was sitting outside, turning up the volume on the microphone concealed in his ear that was letting him listen on the conversations of Carlos Batilla thanks to the transmitter concealed in the ring Nina had swapped last night.
They'd had to abandon the hotel when Batilla had moved out of range, he was currently on his boat out on the water, anchored several miles along the shore from Malaga, where their hotel was. Jack and Nina had decided to take a table at the restaurant and listen in on Batilla's conversation, taping all of it, just incase they got at all distracted.
Nina came back to the table with a bottle of Portuguese beer for him and a glass of Spanish wine for her. She'd placed their food orders, but it would be a few minutes before the waitress appeared with either their dishes or the salad starter that Kai's served you regardless of whether you ordered food. Jack passed her a small black transmitter that she put into her ear, tuning in just as Carlos invited his companion, Lieutenant Hant, who'd apparently been at the club the other day, to join him for a dip - it was, after all, the reason that he went out there.
"Do you want me to take over?" She asked Jack, during a momentary lull in Batilla's conversation. Carlos was quite boring to listen to for hours nonstop.
Jack shook his head, reaching forward and lifting his beer. Nina kept the earpiece in, not wanting Jack to have to suffer the boredom alone, and settled back in her chair, taking in the view as she sipped her wine. There was a gentle breeze coming in from across the water, and whilst you couldn't see it on the sails, it cooled the air so that you were just pleasantly warm in the Spanish summer sun.
Jack hadn't bothered with sun tan lotion, he was wearing a shirt and trousers, so the only skin that was exposed and burnable were his face and forearms, both hard areas of the body to burn. Nina, on the other hand, had spent a little while lathering it on before they left, she was wearing a short sleeved top and knee length skirt, meaning she'd had to pour the white cream over her legs and arms, a small section of her chest and back, hoping that she wouldn't end up with red patches on her body.
Sitting there in the sunlight with their sunglasses on, sipping their drinks, waiting for their food. It would have been easy to forget that they were here with a purpose. As if to remind them, Hant suddenly piped up. "Isn't that your phone, sir?" The young man asked his superior. The faint ringing sound was barely audible on the headphone, but it became progressively louder as Batilla approached it.
"Batilla." He answered. Jack and Nina glanced at each other, this could be revealing.
Nina mentally translated the conversation as Jack's laptop recorded every word he said, running it through voice recognition software and a grammar editor before it used its translation programme. "Juan, what do you mean someone broke in?" Batilla yelled into the phone. "The building is secure."
The waitress placed down a large bowl of olive salad, and Nina quickly thanked her, brushing off her offers of salad dressing, pepper and mozzarella. She pressed the earpiece closer when the woman left. "The code key is on the base." Batilla told the caller, who they presumed to be the elderly Juan Malero.
There was a moment's pause. "You expect me to give it to you, what - for safe keeping?" Batilla laughed. "Besides I have to go to Fuengirola in the morning - I wouldn't have enough time."
Nina and Jack strained, hoping to hear the other side of the conversation. "My fault - I told you I couldn't get the key until they redid inventory next month, it was your responsibility to keep the...How did the British even find out?"
Nina raised an eyebrow and Jack chuckled. People thought of spies and the first one was James Bond, not the Americans who tended to get into the wrong wars and the wrong fights. Martinis were better shaken and not stirred, and spies were better British with haughty accents, having read law at Oxford.
"Take care of him, the code key will be safe on the base." Batilla slammed his phone shut, with a loud thump, and there was a moment's silence when he headed out to speak with Hant.
"Who was that?" Lieutenant Hant asked.
"None of your business." Carlos snapped. There were several harsh air sounds, probably Carlos removing his clothing, and then a loud splash. Jack removed his earpiece to avoid the bulk of the sound - Carlos had dived into the sea.
-24-
Jack clipped the wire cutters through the last rung of fencing, having slit it from the floor to their height, whilst squatting. He dropped the cutters on the grass and grabbed one side of the fence, Nina grabbed the other, and with a strong pull they managed to part the hard wire fence around the cut.
Jack let her slip through the fence before him, and then he climbed through, pulling the two sides back together as best he could. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out his grappling hook, attaching the climbing wire to the multipronged piece of metal.
"The grass is wet." Nina muttered from where she sat, half on, half off the grass verge. Her hand was feeling the damp.
"Shit!" muttered Jack, reaching a hand up and feeling the grass next to Nina's hands. The grass blades were indeed wet to touch, probably having only been water this evening. This would make them easy to track, easier to trace. They were going to leave muddy footprints. "We're going in boots unless absolutely necessary." He told her.
Nina nodded and pulled her infrared goggles over her face, Jack's body becoming a blur of orange and red. She stood and reached a hand down to Jack.
Running across the damp grass, it wasn't long before they reached the granular tarmac that ran for fifty feet around the central intelligence headquarters.
They'd bypassed the cadet barracks, across the other side of the base, all locked in for the night. All they had to contend with tonight were the officers on duty. Unlike the Malero building, there were officers in the Intelligence offices all night, and the penalty for getting caught was something that their government would have to worry about.
They risked leaving prints on the tarmac, wet, muddy foot prints, but the granular tarmac had several sharp pieces on it, broken glass and pebbles, and Jack didn't want there to be blood around for them to see and potentially test as well.
Search lights swept the concrete from the look out points on the top of the towers and Jack watched the timing of the sweeps, presumably there were sentry officers on guard, sitting at the top of the building, weapons at the ready. Jack and Nina removed their infrared goggles almost as soon as they saw the lights, the goggles would have had a terrible time with the brightness, probably destroying their retinas in the process.
The sweeps seemed to be rolling around at a constant interval, Jack could only presume that they were automatically done, he scanned up and down the pavement for a length that was smaller, until Nina pointed out a sentry shed, probably used during maneuvers midway across the pavement, running back into the bushes, they sprinted along the side of the paving to a point opposite the bunker.
-24-
They climbed up the walls of the ancient military building with much ease. The officer's mess, now shut for the night. It closed at eleven, but this was typically a training base, and the officers who came here had to be up for classes starting at six. It had huge tall windows, each spanning the height of two floors,, the brickwork was ornamental, patterns of blocks that protruded from the walls, providing excellent purchase for climbing. They scaled the walls without worrying about being caught by the search lights, and pulled themselves up to peer over the top and check for guards.
It was important to be silent on the rooftop of the building. Whilst there was only one sentry station, a discovery they made when they reached the roof, it was manned by three men, who had to keep on constant watch of the floor below them. Luckily there were levels to the flat roof to hide behind, and they were able to reach the other side.
The intelligence building was directly on the other side of the mess, it was barely ten foot away, which was what the grappling hooks were for. Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere secluded enough for them to hang from, and they couldn't risk being caught by the watch officers. "Looks like we're gonna have to take them out." Jack said to Nina, squatting on the rooftop.
She nodded, and watched as he unclipped his pack in search of the tranquiliser darts. Nina found her tranquiliser gun in her pack, and hoped that the time on the FBI's shooting range had paid off. Jack retrieved his own, and held open the dart case, so Nina could load her weapon. When they were both ready he moved closer to the wall and shook two fingers at Nina in a complex pattern, pointing at his eyes, her, the search tower and either end of the building.
Nina scowled and crept over to him. "What?" She whispered to him.
Nina wasn't familiar with military movement commands, so Jack clarified. "You try for the one closest to you, I'll get the two that end, go round the front of the building and up the sentry stairway, I'll climb up the railing and the dish receiver."
Nina nodded, running in a crouched position along the roof to the other side of the building. Her shoes made little sound on the roof, the sole was lined with a pliable plastic gel that made a quiet slapping sound as it hit the walkway, but that was it. She rounded the front of the building and ran along to the sentry post. They had no idea when the guards changed, if someone took a step out of the sentry post, they were monumentally screwed.
She checked the gun, making sure it was properly loaded, she didn't want the feathers on the dart to get caught in the mechanism and keep the dart in the chamber. Satisfied it would fire correctly, she peered out into the sentry station. She was to fire first, she couldn't hold Jack up.
The guards were all having a casual conversation, the one nearest her, completely ignorant of the world around him. Nina stepped out into the stairway, and shot the guard, catching his shoulder, he pulled at the dart and yanked it out before he slumped over the railing and onto the next tier of the roof, unconscious. The guards managed to get two shots out before Jack fired the tranquiliser darts at them from his gun, hitting them in the shoulder blades. They fell quite quickly, from the adrenaline and the lack of ability to pull out the darts.
Jack leapt up onto the edge of the sentry platform just as Nina slid out from the wall she'd used as a shield from the guard's bullets. He surveyed the officers for a minute, and then took a gun from each officer, slipping one into his own pack and passing one to Nina. It was about time they had some firepower.
The cabs in the central areas were yellow here, much like New York cabs, and he held the door open for Nina, letting her get in whilst he kept vigilant for anyone watching them. Satisfied he dropped into the cab, pulling the door shut behind him. They sped off as soon as he shut the door; evidently, Nina had already given the driver instructions.
Jack glanced over at Nina, who was watching out the window at the drunken antics of the tourists. She was preoccupied and not paying any attention to the vista, but he glanced out anyway. A group of sun burnt twenty year old guys were doing the cancan arm in arm at the entrance to a bar, they all dropped their trousers and underwear as the taxi passed them, and Jack let out a solitary laugh. "Did you make the switch?"
She reached behind her back, under the blouse whilst he spoke, pulling out the small chunk of gold and handing it to him. Jack rotated Carlos Batilla's black onyx ring in his hand, before he slipped it into his coat pocket. He nodded, she was his agent, and of course she did her job. "You okay?" He asked, she still hadn't turned from the window, and the air in the cab was getting progressively colder with her mood.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Finally some eye contact, she wrapped the coat closer and smiled lightly. She looked down at her knees, thankful that the coat covered her that much and opened her mouth, laughing at herself. "That was a bit of a cliché in there." She muttered, clearly hoping for a comment from him.
"What do you mean?" He asked her, glad that it was feeling a little warmer.
"You're my wife, I love you? I leave you alone for five minutes?" She raised an eyebrow at him and he laughed.
"I thought 'Stella, Stella!' would have been a little too obvious." He joked. He lowered his head as he thought through the last hour. They'd certainly put on a show for Carlos Batilla. Especially the last part, whilst he was sure Nina was more concerned with the former, putting her body on display for a man she loathed, but he was dwelling on the latter.
The cheesy repartee between them had been comical in his mind, but that kiss had stunned him. Every time he rethought the moment it had been unnecessary to kiss him, so why did she do it. He was fairly sure that she had initiated the kiss, but then again, it could have gone either way. He was annoyed that he'd let it be so obvious he'd enjoyed the kiss. Regardless, Nina wasn't talking about it, so he wasn't going to bring it up until he felt on safer ground.
"You laid it on pretty thick in there." She said.
"My trowel may need cleaning," he continued his cliché. "To get all the bull shit off of it." He clarified, and leant back in his seat. He wondered if she was as freaked about tonight as she had been two days ago at the motel in Marbella. "Did Batilla...."
She cut him off, saving him from an embarrassing conversation. "I think we had him completely fooled. I can't say he was a perfect gentleman, but we made the switch, so..?"
Jack nodded, they were passing the end of the human traffic, making their way out into the darker suburban roads. He fixed his eyes on a point outside the car and watched it disappear beyond his view.
"Do you mind if I take a shower when we get in I..." Jack nodded, and she stopped talking. They both settled their vision outside the car whilst they searched for something else to say. It took three more silent minutes to get back to the hotel.
-24-
Kai's restaurant was a small corner place near the marina, which was odd, as it didn't serve any seafood at all, no fish, no crustaceans. They did serve tuna, but, obviously it wasn't locally caught - you didn't find dolphins this far into the med. Contrary to popular belief, there wasn't actually a 'Kai', the old man that many of the workers knew as the owner, whom they'd never spoke to, was actually an elderly man called David Hostin, born in Hawaii, who had moved to Spain as a young businessman, naming the restaurant 'Kai', the Swahili word for 'ocean' out of nostalgia.
Outside, on one of the white patio chairs, sat Jack Bauer, waiting for his partner to return from the bar. She'd gone in to place their order whilst he was sitting outside, turning up the volume on the microphone concealed in his ear that was letting him listen on the conversations of Carlos Batilla thanks to the transmitter concealed in the ring Nina had swapped last night.
They'd had to abandon the hotel when Batilla had moved out of range, he was currently on his boat out on the water, anchored several miles along the shore from Malaga, where their hotel was. Jack and Nina had decided to take a table at the restaurant and listen in on Batilla's conversation, taping all of it, just incase they got at all distracted.
Nina came back to the table with a bottle of Portuguese beer for him and a glass of Spanish wine for her. She'd placed their food orders, but it would be a few minutes before the waitress appeared with either their dishes or the salad starter that Kai's served you regardless of whether you ordered food. Jack passed her a small black transmitter that she put into her ear, tuning in just as Carlos invited his companion, Lieutenant Hant, who'd apparently been at the club the other day, to join him for a dip - it was, after all, the reason that he went out there.
"Do you want me to take over?" She asked Jack, during a momentary lull in Batilla's conversation. Carlos was quite boring to listen to for hours nonstop.
Jack shook his head, reaching forward and lifting his beer. Nina kept the earpiece in, not wanting Jack to have to suffer the boredom alone, and settled back in her chair, taking in the view as she sipped her wine. There was a gentle breeze coming in from across the water, and whilst you couldn't see it on the sails, it cooled the air so that you were just pleasantly warm in the Spanish summer sun.
Jack hadn't bothered with sun tan lotion, he was wearing a shirt and trousers, so the only skin that was exposed and burnable were his face and forearms, both hard areas of the body to burn. Nina, on the other hand, had spent a little while lathering it on before they left, she was wearing a short sleeved top and knee length skirt, meaning she'd had to pour the white cream over her legs and arms, a small section of her chest and back, hoping that she wouldn't end up with red patches on her body.
Sitting there in the sunlight with their sunglasses on, sipping their drinks, waiting for their food. It would have been easy to forget that they were here with a purpose. As if to remind them, Hant suddenly piped up. "Isn't that your phone, sir?" The young man asked his superior. The faint ringing sound was barely audible on the headphone, but it became progressively louder as Batilla approached it.
"Batilla." He answered. Jack and Nina glanced at each other, this could be revealing.
Nina mentally translated the conversation as Jack's laptop recorded every word he said, running it through voice recognition software and a grammar editor before it used its translation programme. "Juan, what do you mean someone broke in?" Batilla yelled into the phone. "The building is secure."
The waitress placed down a large bowl of olive salad, and Nina quickly thanked her, brushing off her offers of salad dressing, pepper and mozzarella. She pressed the earpiece closer when the woman left. "The code key is on the base." Batilla told the caller, who they presumed to be the elderly Juan Malero.
There was a moment's pause. "You expect me to give it to you, what - for safe keeping?" Batilla laughed. "Besides I have to go to Fuengirola in the morning - I wouldn't have enough time."
Nina and Jack strained, hoping to hear the other side of the conversation. "My fault - I told you I couldn't get the key until they redid inventory next month, it was your responsibility to keep the...How did the British even find out?"
Nina raised an eyebrow and Jack chuckled. People thought of spies and the first one was James Bond, not the Americans who tended to get into the wrong wars and the wrong fights. Martinis were better shaken and not stirred, and spies were better British with haughty accents, having read law at Oxford.
"Take care of him, the code key will be safe on the base." Batilla slammed his phone shut, with a loud thump, and there was a moment's silence when he headed out to speak with Hant.
"Who was that?" Lieutenant Hant asked.
"None of your business." Carlos snapped. There were several harsh air sounds, probably Carlos removing his clothing, and then a loud splash. Jack removed his earpiece to avoid the bulk of the sound - Carlos had dived into the sea.
-24-
Jack clipped the wire cutters through the last rung of fencing, having slit it from the floor to their height, whilst squatting. He dropped the cutters on the grass and grabbed one side of the fence, Nina grabbed the other, and with a strong pull they managed to part the hard wire fence around the cut.
Jack let her slip through the fence before him, and then he climbed through, pulling the two sides back together as best he could. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out his grappling hook, attaching the climbing wire to the multipronged piece of metal.
"The grass is wet." Nina muttered from where she sat, half on, half off the grass verge. Her hand was feeling the damp.
"Shit!" muttered Jack, reaching a hand up and feeling the grass next to Nina's hands. The grass blades were indeed wet to touch, probably having only been water this evening. This would make them easy to track, easier to trace. They were going to leave muddy footprints. "We're going in boots unless absolutely necessary." He told her.
Nina nodded and pulled her infrared goggles over her face, Jack's body becoming a blur of orange and red. She stood and reached a hand down to Jack.
Running across the damp grass, it wasn't long before they reached the granular tarmac that ran for fifty feet around the central intelligence headquarters.
They'd bypassed the cadet barracks, across the other side of the base, all locked in for the night. All they had to contend with tonight were the officers on duty. Unlike the Malero building, there were officers in the Intelligence offices all night, and the penalty for getting caught was something that their government would have to worry about.
They risked leaving prints on the tarmac, wet, muddy foot prints, but the granular tarmac had several sharp pieces on it, broken glass and pebbles, and Jack didn't want there to be blood around for them to see and potentially test as well.
Search lights swept the concrete from the look out points on the top of the towers and Jack watched the timing of the sweeps, presumably there were sentry officers on guard, sitting at the top of the building, weapons at the ready. Jack and Nina removed their infrared goggles almost as soon as they saw the lights, the goggles would have had a terrible time with the brightness, probably destroying their retinas in the process.
The sweeps seemed to be rolling around at a constant interval, Jack could only presume that they were automatically done, he scanned up and down the pavement for a length that was smaller, until Nina pointed out a sentry shed, probably used during maneuvers midway across the pavement, running back into the bushes, they sprinted along the side of the paving to a point opposite the bunker.
-24-
They climbed up the walls of the ancient military building with much ease. The officer's mess, now shut for the night. It closed at eleven, but this was typically a training base, and the officers who came here had to be up for classes starting at six. It had huge tall windows, each spanning the height of two floors,, the brickwork was ornamental, patterns of blocks that protruded from the walls, providing excellent purchase for climbing. They scaled the walls without worrying about being caught by the search lights, and pulled themselves up to peer over the top and check for guards.
It was important to be silent on the rooftop of the building. Whilst there was only one sentry station, a discovery they made when they reached the roof, it was manned by three men, who had to keep on constant watch of the floor below them. Luckily there were levels to the flat roof to hide behind, and they were able to reach the other side.
The intelligence building was directly on the other side of the mess, it was barely ten foot away, which was what the grappling hooks were for. Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere secluded enough for them to hang from, and they couldn't risk being caught by the watch officers. "Looks like we're gonna have to take them out." Jack said to Nina, squatting on the rooftop.
She nodded, and watched as he unclipped his pack in search of the tranquiliser darts. Nina found her tranquiliser gun in her pack, and hoped that the time on the FBI's shooting range had paid off. Jack retrieved his own, and held open the dart case, so Nina could load her weapon. When they were both ready he moved closer to the wall and shook two fingers at Nina in a complex pattern, pointing at his eyes, her, the search tower and either end of the building.
Nina scowled and crept over to him. "What?" She whispered to him.
Nina wasn't familiar with military movement commands, so Jack clarified. "You try for the one closest to you, I'll get the two that end, go round the front of the building and up the sentry stairway, I'll climb up the railing and the dish receiver."
Nina nodded, running in a crouched position along the roof to the other side of the building. Her shoes made little sound on the roof, the sole was lined with a pliable plastic gel that made a quiet slapping sound as it hit the walkway, but that was it. She rounded the front of the building and ran along to the sentry post. They had no idea when the guards changed, if someone took a step out of the sentry post, they were monumentally screwed.
She checked the gun, making sure it was properly loaded, she didn't want the feathers on the dart to get caught in the mechanism and keep the dart in the chamber. Satisfied it would fire correctly, she peered out into the sentry station. She was to fire first, she couldn't hold Jack up.
The guards were all having a casual conversation, the one nearest her, completely ignorant of the world around him. Nina stepped out into the stairway, and shot the guard, catching his shoulder, he pulled at the dart and yanked it out before he slumped over the railing and onto the next tier of the roof, unconscious. The guards managed to get two shots out before Jack fired the tranquiliser darts at them from his gun, hitting them in the shoulder blades. They fell quite quickly, from the adrenaline and the lack of ability to pull out the darts.
Jack leapt up onto the edge of the sentry platform just as Nina slid out from the wall she'd used as a shield from the guard's bullets. He surveyed the officers for a minute, and then took a gun from each officer, slipping one into his own pack and passing one to Nina. It was about time they had some firepower.