Chronic Vertigo
Chapter 7: Vinculum [Part B]
Author: Kira [kira at sd-1 dot com]
Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own Alias, so please don't sue me. I'm already in debt. And even if you did sue me, it would come off my credit card and I'd still be in debt. So, right. You're better off leaving me be.
Author's Note: Feedback = updates. I swear, that's a real math equation. As always, thanks to Carmen_Sandiego and Jen for their awesome beta'ing.
First thing he noticed was the water running down the walls. The moisture had carved rivers into the stone walls, rivulets running the paths of harder rains down to a sloping floor. Mold had taken up residence in the room, the putrid odor assaulting his nostrils as soon as he allowed himself a moment of regulated breathing. Vaughn took a step, his footfalls silent; he knew that wouldn't last for long, as water had pooled where the floor sloped lower. His eyes, however, were soon drawn to the table in the center of the room.
He'd noticed it, the card table propped up on rusted legs, standing in the center of the small room. His flashlight, hastily pulled from his pocket as soon as he'd entered the room, provided the only lighting. The room was small, a closet, maybe a bit larger; certainly not the storage place for a piece of electronic equipment. Instead, settled on the top of the table was - what was there?
Michael Vaughn was careful as he moved towards the table, all too aware of the men outside the door, in the hallway beyond, who would be inside in an instant upon hearing his feet plopping through the water. If he stepped slowly and carefully, he could minimize sound - the room seemed all too eager to give into echoes.
Painfully slow, he finally came face to face with the table's contents, his previous exclamation found to not have been a waste of breath.
Set there, spread out atop the table, were pictures. Several were of a Russian man brutally murdered, his face somewhat familiar to the agent. He pocketed one for analysis back home. It was when he lifted a picture he saw that underneath, his hand stopping mid-air.
It was the dead man standing with Jack Bristow.
His source.
Now sure of the man's identity, he finished tucking the photo away, grabbing the one of the dead man meeting with his girlfriend's father in the pocket along with the first. The implications of these photos here, in this place, planted only after Mitchell had been picked up ran through Vaughn's head. Mitchell wasn't as clean as he'd seemed - he was involved some way. But how? And through who?
His eyes swept over the rest of the pictures, highlighted at a time as his flashlight's beam swung over the table. A few came into view. His heard stopped in his chest.
Sydney. In Russia.
That had to be less that 10 hours ago, which meant this was all planted in this room recently. Very recently.
They knew he would be here.
"Vaughn!"
The shout in his earpiece jolted him harshly back to reality, causing him to wince in the lost silence. He put a hand up to his ear in pain and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. What came out was a strangled cough, his vocal cords burning as he strained them in order to reduce the echo bouncing around the room.
"Jesus, Mike, what the hell is going on down there?" Weiss' voice came though, softer now, laced with worry. Vaughn scooped the rest of the pictures off the table and tucked them into his pocket, dust falling from the edges of the table into the water below. He cursed silently to himself, his mind racing with possibilities, wondering if Sydney had made it home all right, if she was captured somewhere, if he was about to be captured.
With loud coughing already blowing his cover, he stormed through the water, splashes hitting his legs as he hurried for the door, wishing there was some way to talk to Weiss without Apple listening in. If he could get back to the van with the pictures, without Weiss coming down to meet him, and convince Apple that the computer had been moved without giving away his troubled alliance with the Chinese intelligence officer, it would work - would be perfect.
He was inches from the door.
Weiss' rushed breathing pounded in perfect time with his own pulse in his ears, apprehension gripping his heart like a vise. His partner was on his way down, ready to execute their parallel plan and blow any chance of getting out of here clean.
His hand reached for the doorknob.
There was no time! No other way! Vaughn let his hand fly up to his ear, finger pushing the com device implanted there back in all the way, praying there had been some modification made to allow the pair of CIA agents to communicate without anyone listening in. The surface, he discovered to his dismay, was smooth.
"I'm almost there, Mike," Weiss said. His heart sunk. He could see Apple, in his mind, jumping out of the van, a weapon out, ready to hunt them down. The slim chance that she was an ally never played in Vaughn's mind. A coldness descended upon him. Dread.
"Damnit, Weiss," he swore, his voice strained from the coughing. He cleared his throat, forcing his tone to be stronger. "It's a set-up."
The drumming of Weiss' footfalls stopped, his breathing slowing.
Vaughn turned the knob of the door.
Sunlight filtered into the dark room, causing him to blink a few times as his pupils retracted enough to allow him to see.
"Tsk, tsk, Michael," Apple's sultry and smooth English came to him, her slim figure slowly coming into focus. "You haven't learned a thing since we last saw each other, have you?"
"I've learned a bit," he replied, taking a step out of the room. "Have you?"
Apple smiled, her eyes darting from side to side. Vaughn took that moment to look around him in the hallway, coming face to face with four armed guards, the door to the room down the hall wide open.
"Apparently," he quipped, "you have."
//
Weiss had a gym membership; Vaughn convinced him to go in and get one with him, hoping there was some kind of referral deal they could get in on as a way to soften the blow. The Agency gym, while a promising prospect, was a double-edged sword - on one side, it was there, convenient, ready whenever they had the sudden impulse to work out, the other, the humiliation result of coworkers seeing just how out of shape you were. Vaughn was ambitious, his position as a desk jockey unable to dash his dreams of one day becoming a field agent. The gym membership and the bills that accompanied it were a method of motivation he used to keep in shape lest he be noticed and promoted.
His best friend had paid for a month; made sure his partner got his 30% off, and promptly lost his membership card. He was content with his position behind a desk, electing to use his intellect instead of his brawn. Plus, he loved sweets too much.
The discarded gym membership was the first thing that came to mind when he rushed down the back service hallway, knowing he could move faster than he currently was if only he'd gone. When he clambered down the stairs into the dim hallway, he swore he'd start going if only he got out of there alive.
Gun. Find your gun.
Vaughn, cornered, had no chance if he pulled his sidearm out now; 4 men plus Apple holding weapons on him cemented this. But Weiss was free - he could leave at any time. He had a clear shot. His hand itched, slowly moving to his side.
"Don't, Eric," Apple warned, her eyes sweeping over to him. The guards foolishly followed her movement, human curiosity rearing its ugly head over orders or programming.
"Don't what?" he asked, smiling. The moment those words flew out of his mouth, Vaughn took advantage of the guards poor move, his gun flying out from its position hidden at his side, flying into the air with the grace of a turtle, the only fuel behind it his will to see another day. Apple turned, horrified, only to see Vaughn gun down one of the men, the bullet passing through his side and sending him to the ground.
She cried out, angered by her lack of control, heading for the CIA agent as he stood just outside the door to the previously locked room. Weiss, with the attention split between himself and his partner, grabbed his gun from where he had been reaching for it and fired, another man stumbling as he was hit in the shoulder. The third charged up the stairs at him; Weiss' eyes widen as he turned and ran up the stairs into the dim back hallway.
Vaughn backed into the room, his feet sending water up into the air as Apple chased after him, one of her men following her. Running backwards, he bumped into the table, cursing as he did so, only narrowing escaping Apple's attempted right hook. The henchman clambered in, the door shutting behind him.
The room was sent into darkness.
..
Weiss wasn't a fighting man. At least when it came to hand to hand combat. The last time he'd gotten into some kind of altercation involved a large amount of alcohol and a beautiful dancer name Miffy.
Needless to say, even then, he had lost.
So as he ran down the darkened hallway, the sounds of men yelling and rushing out the front doors of the establishment, he had no doubts in his mind that if it came to fighting without weapons, he was done for.
The man continued to peruse him, bullets ricocheting off the walls all around him, flecks of drywall dotting Weiss' hair. He turned, letting a few shots go, none of them meeting their mark.
Weiss cursed and kept running, the back door in sight.
..
Even Apple and her remaining henchman failed to stay silent in the dark room. They swept around the table, guns held in front of them, looking for their target. Vaughn climbed into the card table and held a hand over his mouth, his breathing silent.
The table wasn't that strong.
He could hear the metal legs squeaking, aching under his weight, praying in his mind that they would hold long enough for Apple to make a mistake of some kind in order to give him the upper hand. Eyes open, only able to make out dim shapes moving around in the darkness, he waited, heart pounding in his ears.
The henchman bumped into the table clumsily, the legs finally collapsing. With a surprised cry, it fell out from under him, his hands making the move to grab onto the pipes above him before he even gave it a thought.
He hung in the air, knowing they'd find him any second.
..
Weiss burst out the back door into the alleyway beyond, the van yards down the narrow street to his left. The back door remained open, left in that state by Apple as she rushed out of it and into the club. Weiss turned a head over his shoulder, the man chasing him shielding his eyes from the light. Left. Go left!
Using all his strength, Weiss ran for the van and the hope of getting a call of some kind out to the CIA. His feet pound against the poorly paved road, his heart straining to keep him at a constant speed. He turned to look over his shoulder again, alerted to the man's entrance into the ally by his loud manner and the shower of bullets that raced at him.
He turned a moment too late, and had forgotten about the third man.
The man stood in front of the van and slammed the door, and essentially Weiss' hope for assistance, shut, a large smile on his scared face. A gun in his hand, he went for the kill shot.
..
"Come, now, Michael," Apple said, her voice attempting to sound smooth through her overwhelming anger. "How long do you really think you can hold on?"
She's right , he observed wryly, his arms shaking under the unexpected strain. How long could he hold on before dropping to the ground and two armed enemies? There was more splashing in the water, large, sloppy steps that could only belong to Apple's support.
Something grabbed his leg.
"And how long can you hold on," Apple almost laughed, "when you're being pulled down?"
She did have a point there.
..
Weiss ducked and took a shot, hoping it would hit his attacker. With his head to the ground, he heard the man cry out and fall against the utility van, the sound of hit metal something he remembered from his earlier years full of car accidents and bumps. He stood only to be hit from behind by the second man, who had quickly closed the distance between them in the time Weiss had used to shoot his other attacker.
He reeled, falling back a few steps into the side of another building, his gun slipping from his hand as the man coming in for another shot at him. Weiss' eyes widened, searching the alleyway for the gun. He saw it, the gun having traveled to the down man, inches from his fingertips. The man, half-lying on the ground reached out for it, getting closer with every second that elapsed.
..
A final yank down on his legs had almost pulled his arms out of their sockets, and probably would have if he hadn't let go. Vaughn fell to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs, his already injured ankle crunching under the fall. Fire spread up through it, a pain he pushed desperately to the back of his mind, wrapping it up in a ball to be dealt with later. In order to feel the pain, he had to make sure there was a later.
It caused him to go down to one knee, water soaking his pants as Apple stood over him, the sound of a hammer being pulled filling his ears. She was above him, a smug smile on her face. The man with her stood on the other side of him.
Mustering everything, he swung up with his downed leg, hitting the man square in the stomach. Surprised, he doubled over, giving Vaughn the window of opportunity to slam his elbow on the base of the man's neck. He fell to the water below, Vaughn now spinning around to grab Apple's gun and shoot the man, turning to point the gun on Apple.
His heavy breathing filled the room. Until she laughed.
"Really, Michael, you've learned some new tricks," she said, her laughter filling the room. The gun shook in his hands, his leg threatening to collapse underneath him, the pain in his ankle overwhelming. There was no way he could run out of her; he had to take her down before leaving, hoping Weiss had gotten away in one piece.
"You're not with Chinese intelligence," he said, the thoughts rolling around in his head for the past day finally facing the accused. Apple smirked and shifted, a hand resting on a jutted out hip. She looked as if she owned the room, owned the situation, and even though it was Vaughn with the gun in his hand and finger on the trigger.
The man on the ground stirred a bit. Vaughn reflexively kicked back with his foot, hitting the man in the head and pushing him back to the water. He winced as he brought his foot back to his side, letting it hover just above the water.
"No," Apple replied, her eyes drifting to the injured ankle, "I am."
"And what, you've decided to take a side job? Pay me back for all that trouble I caused you?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"You know as well as I do the world runs on money."
"I can't let you out of here," he told her. She grinned, the irony of the situation hitting her; her odd, morbid sense of humor breaking free.
"Last time, I was the one who said that," she retorted through strained laughter. He smirked.
"And look how effective it was."
"A mistake I was hoping to correct this time around. But it seems as though you now have the upper hand."
"Astute," he growled in her general direction. The darkness was almost suffocating in it tangibility, and he wasn't sure he could hit her even if he came to the point where conversation was trite and action was required.
The man behind him rose.
