10:28 P.M. Wednesday
"Nobody leaves!" Derek yelled over the sounds of violence, ducking from an incoming attack.
Code Black was on the outskirts of the city of Los Angeles in a labyrinthine art gallery complex in the business district, having just hit the city perhaps fifteen minutes before. Maybe six minutes before they had approached this gallery building, a primary target because it was long suspected of being a haven for Code Fives. It had been one of the buildings on Michael's very short target list before he had left, and he had been right to put it there, because now it was a battleground.
The flashlight had once again been the telltale sign, awakening five of them from sleep to paranoid fear. Unfortunately for the squad, it had been done accidentally and they had been forced to fight before they were prepared. Now they spaced out on the gallery's top floor, trying to keep between their targets and the exits, lest one get away and alert any other cell that their network had been discovered, deep-sixing all we had worked for.
Growling with irritation, Derek shoved his target backward, then fired the fatal round. The subsequent explosion shook paintings from the walls, causing them to crash and shatter in an outward spiral of glass and wood. Turning to avoid the debris, he scoped the situation out further. Still anyone's fight.
If we had this night together
If we had a moment to ourselves
If we had this night together
Then we'd be unstoppable
Jason was in a brawl with another target, trying to handle him with a tazer long enough to actually kill the leech. They were going back and forth, back and forth, trading blows. Neither was giving an inch on position, and they had been at this for several minutes now. Jason just couldn't find his opening but he was more than willing to wait for for it. He held firm with the tenacity no one else could duplicate.
Finally, he flared up the tazer, getting off a short blast right in his target's arm. The man cried out in pain, then struck out blindly. Jason went backward, still holding on, and the two of them tumbled down the flight of stairs leading to the gallery door, striking with the audible sounds of wood against flesh and bone. Jason scrambled for the tazer, holding the trigger down and not caring where he landed a charge anymore as the two of them went down, fighting for control.
His
head stinging from contact with the stairs, it hit the glass entry door as they
finally could fall no further. Jason gave one last blast with the tazer, the
Code Five staying down on top of him. He relented, then reached for his gun and
fired a shot into the back of the man's head. The explosion fractured the
safety glass above Jason's head, but he dusted the ashes off of himself and
steadily climbed to his feet, with still more work left undone.
Do you think that this is right or is it really wrong
I know that this is what we've been wanting
And all this burning in my soul, it fills up to my throat
It fills up till my heart is breaking
Lan and Chloe were dealing with two other – and hopefully final – adversaries. Unfortunately, their combat had disintegrated to the point where you use anything you can get your hands on as a weapon. Lan ducked a thrown vase and heard it shatter behind her, then hit her attacker in the face with the staff she was carrying. He stumbled backward into a desk, and she followed him down, her hand around his throat as she fired. The explosion blitzed the computer in the corner, thankfully not starting a fire but leaving some impressive scorch marks. She pulled her hand from the ashes.
Chloe yelled for help as her target got away from her. Whether he was desperate, stupid, crazy or all three was impossible to say, but he bolted from her range, and anyone else's range. He went to the window, through the window, glass shattering as he jumped and headed straight for the ground two stories below.
Derek,
closest to the window, holstered his weapon and ran to the window. Clearing
some remaining glass out of the way, before anyone could tell him not to, he
followed the Code Five down, leaving his teammates to only watch as he
disappeared from view, potentially falling to his own injury, but it didn't
matter anymore.
If we had this night together
If we had a moment to ourselves
If we had this night together
Then we'd be unstoppable
Having shifted into appropriate position, Derek hit the asphalt outside the gallery on his feet. It took him a moment to collect himself, but he turned in pursuit of his target, drawing the Ehrlich he was carrying and clicking back the safety with a determination I would have been proud of if I had been present.
The Code Five was leaving blood on the pavement as he desperately tried to escape, having no idea that he was even being pursued or perhaps not caring. Before he could get to the mouth of the alley, Derek fired and hit him twice in the back with a pair of accurately placed carbon-tipped rounds. He stood firm in the face of the explosion, which hit him like a windstorm as the target turned to ashes.
As he stood there, Jason, Lan and Chloe emerged in a panic from the gallery's entry door. The tremor began to die down, and with it still present in the night, he turned to face all three of them with a determined set of his jaw. "Is everyone okay?" he asked, without a moment's hesitation or disturbance. They nodded, silently affirming that they had won this fight, no matter how violent, to secure this safe house.
Now we can both learn
Somehow you'll see it's all we have
Love, it keeps us together
And I need love
Feeling like the survivor that he was, Derek followed his teammates back into the building, to pick up the pieces of what remained. There would be more in the future but right now all that was left here was ashes and the shattered remains of what had once been a simple coexistant peace, replaced by the turbulent unrest of modern life.
I returned to CTU and to my operations team, looking pissed off and restless. Or so Matt said when he laid eyes on me as I put my gun back in the drawer. I closed the drawer, hung up my jacket, and asked what was going on, but nobody answered me. They were all looking at me. They've known me for years, and they reacted accordingly.
"What happened?" Mark asked, looking appalled.
"The raid was botched by the INS," I explained. "We got him but nothing substantial. He's more terrified than cooperative, since INS beat the crap out of him."
"What?" Lex chimed in.
"We found him and turned him over to INS for a few minutes while they cleared some interrogation space for me. The agent that had him in custody took that as license to beat him up pretty good. He's coughing up blood in the infirmary and they've got the guy on aggravated assault charges. Jack is furious."
"He should be," Kevin insisted, and I nodded.
Matt had dropped his paperwork and was looking at the main floor with amazement in his eyes. "What the hell is going on out there?"
I reached for my bottle of water on my desk. "When you find out, let me know."
