TO STOP A CLEANER
Jake and Alex returned to the nest and were stunned to see Pax walking around a free woman. When they left, Pax was cuffed to a chair. They were also a little surprised to see Remy sitting in the same room as Donovan and Pax, but she wasn't very close to either of them. For a moment, both thought they had stepped into some weird, parallel universe. When Donovan noticed the two agents, he called them over to the conference table. They watched as Pax joined them as if she were a part of the team. Jake found his eyes on the crazy bitch again, and when she felt his gaze on her, she looked over at him. She hated this gruff little man. She saw that he was looking her up and down again with apparent distaste. Pax flipped him off coolly, casually, as if she were doing nothing more than waving at him. He continued his eyeing game. When would the little fuck stop looking at her? She crossed her arms and continued to play with him.
"Woof," Pax said suddenly, startling all around the table. Even Remy looked up. "Unless you plan to jump me, you saucy little prick, I'd suggest you take your eyes off me before I make you eat them."
Before Jake could reply, Donovan spat, "Cut the shit, Jonella. You're being counterproductive." Much to his surprise, she sat back and tore her eyes off Jake. "Sit down, Jake," he said. "We don't have time to screw around."
Jake seated himself as far from Pax as he could get. "Why no cuffs, Boss?" He didn't understand how Donovan could trust this woman. He made it a point to keep his eyes averted. He had no desire to get into a fistfight with the bitch.
Donovan cut his eyes at Jake. "I don't have time to go into that. All I can say is that she's going to help, and I don't want to argue with any of you about this."
* * *
Trusting Pax was a difficult feat at best, but Donovan had no choice. She had told him where they would likely encounter Weizmulder. Ironically enough, she had taken them to the ritzy hotel where she and Weizmulder had rooms. Donovan's instincts told him this couldn't be the right setup. There were too many people. Then again, an assassin didn't necessarily shy away from crowds. With their high power equipment, any location would be suitable. Pax had told Donovan that Weiz would come for her first before taking after Remy. Uncharacteristically for Pax, she quietly led Donovan, Monica, Cody, and Remy up to her room. Jake and Alex remained on the fringe outside. They were basically the lookouts. Of course, trying to find a CIA assassin was harder than finding a white dot on a piece of typing paper.
Donovan killed the lights in the hotel room as soon as they entered. They would need to keep the room as dark as possible. He noticed [with a pang] that the room was still roughed up from his last encounter with Pax. He found it odd that it hadn't been cleaned or straightened up. Then again, Pax had probably left instructions not to disturb her. From experience, he had learned she wasn't a morning person at all. If a hapless chambermaid entered Pax's room when she wasn't ready to rise, she would have a black eye and a story to tell. As Cody set up his portable 'office,' Donovan found himself glancing out of the window. Where would he hide if he were in Weiz's place? The roof on an adjacent building? Obvious, but definitely doable. It wasn't yet dark and they had a couple of hours with which to play. It would take that long for Cody to finish setting up his gear. He didn't think Weizmulder would try to hit Pax during the day. However, anything was possible. He moved back from the window for a moment, taking measures to keep out of the line of potential fire. He glanced at Remy. He had asked her to remain as far back from the window as possible. If Weiz were tailing them [which he probably was], he would know Remy had accompanied the group to the hotel. He could see that she felt sorely and awkwardly out of place in this room. It was as if she knew what had happened here. It was not a situation ideal for her, but he couldn't leave her behind, couldn't imagine allowing her to get hurt. He wanted to say and do so much. However, it was no use.
After tearing his eyes off his ex-wife, Donovan focused them on Pax. He watched, curiously, as she slipped into the bedroom. He wanted to follow her, as he didn't quite trust her yet, but at the same time, he couldn't move. If he went with her, God only knew how it would affect Remy. He wished one of them could go safely to another location, but it wasn't possible. He felt Remy's eyes on him, studying him as he looked after Pax. Of course, she didn't quite understand what he was doing, why he had to watch her. He would give her three minutes, and if she didn't return, he would have no choice but to go after her. Right before her three minutes had expired, Pax returned from the depths of the dark bedroom carrying a small black leather case. He was familiar with those cases; he had seen his fair share of them. She had brought in her weapon and apparently intended to use it. Was she a nut?
Without a word, he stalked toward her and tried to snatch away the case, but she held fast. "I don't want you arming yourself," he stated stiffly.
She planted one hand firmly on her hip and tightened her grip on the case with the other. "Frankie? What the fuck? You told me I could help; I think I need to be armed to do it."
"The hell you do. Remember our bargain, Pax? You agreed to follow orders, and I'm ordering you to fucking give over the case and back off." He stood back and challenged her with his dark, dark eyes. Sighing and uttering 'bastard' under her breath, she handed the case over. He took it and tossed it toward Cody. "Guard that with your life, Cody. Don't let her touch it."
On the far side of the room, Remy sat back and watched the dynamics between Donovan and Pax. It hurt a little. The sexual tension between the two was more than obvious. She didn't know from one minute to the next if he intended to attack her or take her to bed. She wanted to be anywhere but here and couldn't watch this much longer. As if sensing Remy's inner drama, Donovan finally backed away from Pax and busied himself with barking orders at Cody. It seemed as if Pax had taken the same cue. She suddenly became quiet and sedate. She moved over to the high-rise window and began gazing out of it, wishing Weizmulder would shoot her and get it over with it. Maybe then, Frankie could go back to his wife and have a halfway normal life. Frankie had been right about one thing. His life had been rocked from its foundation because of her. Sure, Weizmulder had perpetrated the phone calls, had set up the catalyst that led to the divorce, but it had been her moves that truly ended it. Hadn't it? Oh yes. It had. She wanted to talk to the princess, to tell her to wake up. He was there, he was ready for her, and all he needed was a nudge from her. Pax glanced at Remy for a moment. The other woman held her head in her hands. Get up and go to his ass, you fucking dolt. Get up and bridge the gap. He's receptive. He's ready. Move your stupid ass. She turned and focused her eyes on the window again. She prayed for a bullet, prayed for it as if she were praying for a miracle. She wondered how easy it would be to escape. She could go to Weizmulder and let him take her out. Perhaps she could exchange her life for that of the princess. Weiz wouldn't go for that. If he did, his name would appear at the top of the cleaning list. Goddamn.
Pax was still standing at the window when the sun began to set. She noticed that the sky had begun to grow overcast. If it rained, their task would prove more difficult. Of course, it would rain. Every time Weiz did a job, it always seemed to rain. She had asked him once if he were part Native-American. It had to be the only way it could rain every time when he did a hit. Her best work began at dusk, his when it rained. It provided him with the best cover. Weiz didn't waiver or falter. Tonight, someone would die and she intended to be that someone. She stood in a daze. It was a daze that sometimes overtook her right when she was ready to make her own hit. In that state, she neither heard nor saw anyone or anything around her. She supposed it was some type of weird catatonia, but she didn't give a ripe fuck. The feeling had begun to overtake her. Lost. Lost in a maze. Nothing to see. Nowhere to go. Down, down, into a large black void. Untouchable. Unfeeling. Uncaring.
A hand shot out and grabbed her arm. It was the only outside stimulus that brought her around. Otherwise, she would have kept spiraling down, spiraling to nowhere. She came out of her daze slowly, as if awakening from a deep sleep. It was Frankie. His insistent voice came from far, far away. At first, she couldn't hear the sound; she could only see his lips moving. When she didn't immediately respond to him, he began shaking her gently but with enough force to bring her around. When his hand came up to cup her chin, her ears finally began to work. He was saying something like 'get away from the window.' Oh. Yes. The window was a bad place to be. Bad, bad girl. She was a moving target. Finally, she came out of her daze, and realized what he was trying to do. She jerked her arm out of his grasp and slapped his hand away from her chin.
"Fucking let go," she spat viciously. "I'm out of the window."
Donovan backed off and stared at her. He recognized the symptoms. She had gone into some type of 'detach' mode, as if she were readying herself for a hit. In that state, she moved on automatic. If her gun case had been within reach, she would have prepared her weapon and shot someone. He watched her closely as she moved away from the window. At that moment, his trust had dropped to nil. "Jonella, are you okay," he asked.
She fixed a stony gaze on him and nodded. "I'm fine." Weizmulder was close. He was moving in. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did. If she had stayed where she was, she would've taken the bullet meant for her. It would have happened within moments. She was almost certain of that. "Watch your princess, Spankie. Watch her carefully. He's out there. I can feel it." Without another word, she slipped away to stand toward the back of the room. She stood close to the princess, not because it was the safest area in the world, but she felt obligated to make the hit as hard as possible for her determined lead op.
If Donovan mistrusted Pax a little, Remy mistrusted her tremendously. The moment Pax approached her, she seemed to shrink against the chair. Part of her wanted to fly at the other woman and beat her senseless for daring to touch Donovan. Another part of her wanted to crawl under the table and hide. She acted on neither of those impulses. Instead, she sat calmly, fixing Pax with a murderous gaze.
For a moment, Pax watched Frankie. He had given her direct orders not to speak to Remy. However, as soon as his attention was drawn away, she intended to tell the princess to get a head about her. Donovan finally focused his attention elsewhere. The moment he approached Cody and Monica, who were monitoring the outside situation with Jake and Alex, Pax kneeled down. She leaned her back against the wall and gave herself a moment before she burst forward.
"You can listen to me or you can ignore me," Pax said quietly. She noticed that the princess hadn't flinched, but she knew she was listening. Remy's stiffness had increased tenfold. "Whatever you choose to do, it doesn't matter one fuck to me. I fucked him twice, I won't lie about that, but you shouldn't let that interfere with what you have. I can almost guarantee you that he only did it because of what you did to him. He is hung up on you so damn much, you don't even know. Stop acting so whacked, and fucking go to him. You've got a good man, and darlin,' those are fucking hard to find these days. Drop the front and go to him. If you don't, someone else could waltz in at any time and snatch him right out from under your perky princess nose. Don't be stupid."
Remy glanced up at Donovan. He was in full 'boss mode' now and barked orders at his team. He wasn't paying attention to the little scene unfolding between her and the assassin. She couldn't believe that the woman sent to kill her was preaching at her on how to reconcile with her ex-husband. "Why are you doing this," she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on Donovan. She didn't want him to see her talking to Pax. "You wanted me dead."
"Wrong again," Pax said. She was also watching Frankie. If he made one move, she would dummy up. "The rogues want you dead. I don't. If I wanted you to die, I could have taken you out in a heartbeat, but I couldn't do it to Frankie. I couldn't do it to your kid. I don't help people, it's not in my fucking nature, but I'm trying to convince you to get off your ass and talk to him before it's too late for you. By the time this is over, you could be back home with him. Do you understand?"
"You love him, don't you," Remy asked suddenly.
"This isn't about me, princess. This is about you and him. You're smart, I know this. Do the smart thing, the right thing. If you don't take my advice, my opinion of you will change immediately. Don't prove me wrong, princess. I don't like being wrong." She said nothing more to her. She brought her body out of its crouching position and moved away a few inches. You love him, don't you? Yuck, yuck, yuck. Oh goddamn gross. Stubbornly, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against a corner. Love? What the fuck is love?
* * *
It had begun to rain and Weizmulder smiled. He loved it when it rained. It normally meant that his job would get done and get done well. As he suspected, Donovan had led his team, the target, and the op right into his little trap. They had housed themselves in Pax's hotel room. From his vantage point, with his night vision goggles, he could clearly see inside the room. They had left the drapes wide open. Of course, he wasn't falling for it. They thought they could set him up, but it would be difficult tracking him down once he squeezed off his rounds. Both Pax and Ellis would be dead before Donovan made it downstairs. At his angle, he saw his targets in the clear. He had made it a point to give Pax this particular room. There was basically nowhere to hide. It would prove to be awkward, of course, but he didn't think either woman would suffer long. The beautiful part of it all was that he wasn't that far from the room and no one inside had the slightest idea. Or so he thought.
* * *
Pax knew where the fucker was hiding. She wasn't as stupid as Weizmulder would have liked to think. When he gave her this particular assignment, she wasn't naïve enough to believe he had given her this room that faced three different buildings at all angles as a coincidence. She had been in the game long enough to know a target area when she saw one. Perhaps she had inherently known all along that Weizmulder was setting her up. Perhaps she had intentionally walked right into his trap. After all, she was ready to retire, wasn't she? The window provided the opening for the hit, but if she could place her body strategically in the line of fire, she might end this once and for all. The moment she realized that it was raining, she moved away from her corner and walked around to the front of the table. She couldn't see Weiz, of course, but she knew where the shot would come from. She knew it and had known it from the moment they stepped inside and she began staring out the window. The shot wouldn't be clean or straight. It would come from an odd angle, likely from the side of the window, speeding down, hitting the target where death would come on swift heels. This move had been done too death. It was an old trick of Bobby Weizmulder. It was what he lived for. Pax moved carefully, stepping up to Remy.
Donovan turned then, turned and watched in amazement as Pax seemingly floated toward the table where Remy had stationed herself. A thought entered his mind: what is she doing? He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to protest, but he didn't have time to speak one word. The oddest thing happened. A sound reverberated in the room, a soft plink. From out of nowhere, a tiny hole appeared in the window. At the next moment, Donovan watched in horror as Pax fell face first onto the table as Remy stood and screamed at the top of her lungs. All this had taken no more than a few seconds, but to Donovan it had taken years, a long dry age. As if in slow motion, he barked commands to Alex and Jake outside as he made his way toward the window. Taking cover, he drew his weapon, his arm seemingly mired in thick, sticky ooze. Blindly, he began to squeeze shots toward the direction where he assumed Weizmulder had ducked. Several plinks sounded off as the custom made weapon peppered the room with its bizarre pointed bullets. Donovan wasn't sure where the bullets were landing, but he felt nothing. With the same weird feeling of slow motion, Donovan loaded clip after clip, squeezing off each round crazily. After several long moments, the plinks ceased. Voices around him and from the earpiece were shouting at him, telling him something he didn't want to hear. Weizmulder had gotten away. Somehow, the sneaky fuck had slipped past them and their gunfire. At that point, he holstered his weapon and suddenly remembered Pax and Remy. Real time began again.
Donovan turned toward the table in the corner and he saw that both women were down on the floor. Not sure which was hit, he darted toward them. He noticed Remy kneeling beside Pax's prone body. He dragged Remy away from Pax for a moment and searched her body frantically for wounds. "Remy? Are you hit? Are you…" His voice died out immediately when he realized that Remy, physically, was perfect. However, he couldn't say the same for Pax. A small pool of blood had begun to form beneath her. "Shit," he spat.
Remy sat back on her legs and shook her head incredulously. "She…she took it, Frank. She took…took it for me. She knew and she took it."
He tore his eyes off Pax's ashen face and settled them on Remy. "Call for help." Once Remy had moved away, Donovan's attention was drawn back to Pax. "Goddamn you, Jonella. Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me? Don't you die, you bitch, don't you fucking dare die." He wanted to touch her, to smack her cheek, but he hesitated. He didn't want to worsen her condition. For now, she was breathing, but he wasn't sure for how long.
* * *
Donovan sent Remy back to the nest with the team. With Weizmulder still on the loose, it wasn't safe for her to go home, at least not yet. Of course, with every law enforcement agency in the state aware of the hit, it would prove difficult for him to finish his dirty deed. He accompanied Pax to the hospital and waited impatiently in the ER while every available surgeon worked on her. Updates were sparse. During the wait, he had heard from Remy, who told him their daughter was fine. With that particular worry off his mind, he continued to wait and demanded information at regular intervals. While he paced and worried, he cursed Pax, cursed her for coming back into his life, and for putting herself into the line of fire.
After a few hours, he had to sit down. He was emotionally and physically drained. His hyped up adrenaline released its hold, and he had no choice but to listen to his internal cues. You stupid fuck. Rest, goddamn you. Despite fighting his exhaustion, he began to doze against his will. An equally exhausted surgeon awakened him three hours later. Quietly, sedately, Donovan followed the surgeon down a long corridor where he was led into a small room. There were three or four beds inside, but only one was occupied.
"I can only give you two minutes," the surgeon said sternly.
Donovan nodded absently. If it took two minutes, he would be surprised. As soon as she realized who it was, she would cast him away. He stepped up to the bed and reached out to lay his hand over hers. "Jonella?"
She managed to open her eyes just a tiny bit. She was zoned out of her mind on painkillers and was still fighting against the effects of the anesthesia, but she had no trouble recognizing the fucking bastard looming over her, touching her hand. "You…you fuck," she managed weakly. "I was close, goddamn you," she croaked, "close to retirement, and…and…and you fucked it up."
A slight grin touched his lips. "You can't ever retire, Pax. Whenever you try, I'll just kick you back in."
"Fuck you, too, Spankie."