Note: Lance's greeting is borrowed from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., where Pete would always say, "Hello, Brisco" in a drawn-out, flourishy kind of way. I loved that show. I think I actually cried when they canceled it. Network idiots.
"Hello, Berto," Lance's voice drawled out behind him, accent working overtime.
Berto froze for a second, then turned around. He grabbed for Carlie's hand again, more to keep her from doing anything ill-advised than for comfort - although it was comforting. He was a terrible field agent; he had never managed to stop being nervous. Max and Kat jumped into crazy situations with glee, and he could get into it if he had to, but he was anticipating an ulcer any day now.
Especially when life handed him moments like this one.
"Surprised to see me, huh?" Lance said, before Berto could say anything. The outlaw was sitting casually at a table near the entrance,his back against the wall and his eyes on the entire dining area. "It's mutual. What the heck are you doing in Fayetteville?"
Lance had traded in the high-tech paramilitary uniform of their first meeting for a baseball hat, camouflage jacket, blue jeans, and hiking boots. A scruffy beard finished the ensemble. He looked exactly like half of the men in Fayetteville - completely average, and completely anonymous. If they lost him now, Berto feared, they'd lose him for good. He strengthened his resolve to finish this fast.
"Bridge Day," Berto said, because that was the truth and he felt that he should stick to it as much as possible. "What- what are you doing here?"
"Visiting family," Lance said, and tilted his head in Carlie's direction. "I don't believe we've met, ma'am."
"Carlie Hoffman," she said. Berto glanced at her; her hand was no less chill than it had been, and her pulse no slower, but she sounded calm and composed and even slightly friendly, as though she thought Lance was just someone Berto knew.
Lance narrowed his eyes slightly. "Here for Bridge Day too, Ms. Hoffman?"
She nodded. "Carlie, please. Although LA is looking better by the minute."
"I know what you mean," Lance said, flashing a smile that was all teeth. He pushed a chair in Berto's direction. "Have a seat, little buddy. You too, Carlie."
Carlie found a chair of her own and took a seat, looking as though she wanted to bolt. Berto sat, but not without checking the entrance to see whether or not Lance's friends were doubling back. "Visiting family?" he prompted, sounding more skeptical than was probably wise.
Lance didn't look offended. He leaned back, hands toying with the utensils on the table. The dishes hadn't been cleared away yet, although the only thing left on most was a balled-up cloth napkin and a few smears of gravy. Everything comes with gravy, Carlie had said. "It's the truth. Most of my kin hail from Texas, but I got a few cousins up here in the mountain state."
The way Lance was not-so-idly running a steak knife against the edge of a plate did nothing to make Berto feel better. "And they don't mind harboring a fugitive."
At that, Lance laughed. "Mind? They're moonshiners from way back - corn whisky, mostly. Heroes of the Prohibition. Freedom militia more recently. Ain't nothing wrong with breaking the law in this family."
"There's a shock," Berto muttered.
"Why, is that sarcasm I detect, Martinez?" Lance stopped playing with the knife and instead held the gleaming metal blade up to the light, examining the edge. "Dangerous stuff. Almost as dangerous as a prison."
Berto decided to keep his mouth shut.
"I just got out," Lance said to Carlie, who quickly pasted a sympathetic expression on her face. It was false and Berto suspected Lance knew it. "Trumped-up charges from the government."
She clearly cast around for something to say and came up with, "That's - that's very sad."
"It was. Lotta violent people in prison," Lance said, drawing the words out slowly. "They throw you in with killers, you know. I never was a killer, no matter what else I did." He flicked the knife out suddenly, in a quick, discreet move of his whole body that brought the tip of the blade to Berto's ribs. "But lucky me - I'm a fast learner. Get up."
Berto flinched away, but realized he had nowhere to go without blowing Lance's cover and exposing a lot more people to potential death. Carlie had gone completely still, barely even breathing; he met her eyes and gave the slightest negative shake of his head. He hoped she understood that this really was not the time for heroics.
Just this morning he'd chastised Josh and Kat for their lack of common sense, and complimented himself on his own caution and clear-headedness. But throw one chance to play hero in front of him and he'd run off blindly into danger in the same way that they always did.
Josh and Kat were never, never going to let him to live this one down.
If he lived at all.
"My apologies, Carlie," Lance said with an entirely unapologetic tone. "Berto knows why I'm doin' this. I hope you don't mind following along."
Carlie swallowed and shook her head, still looking breathless.
"Why?" Berto asked anyway, meeting Lance's eyes with what he thought was a fairly convincing display of fearlessness. In reality it was something closer to anger; anger at himself for falling so easily into the situation and for letting Carlie help, and anger at Lance for threatening her.
Lance leaned in, eyes narrowing to glittering slits of anger. In a low voice, designed not to carry, he answered, "Because one stint in Leavenworth was enough."
Lending emphasis to the words was a jab from the knife - not hard enough to break his skin, but hard enough to make Berto understand the importance of getting up. He got up, slowly, and Lance and Carlie rose in unison.
"We're gonna walk out calm," Lance said in that low voice, more to Carlie than to Berto. Berto, after all, he had under control. Another jab from the knife. This one did break the skin; Berto felt a warm trickle of blood sting his side. "No trouble from your friends or you're dead."
"Friends" meant Max and the two other N-Tek agents who'd helped bring Lance and his flying fortress, Javelin, down in the first place. Marshak was retired, Rachel had departed for a destination unknown, and Max was cruising down the New River. None of them were likely to come storming in to his rescue in the near future.
"My friends aren't here," Berto said, carefully navigating through the swinging double doors once again. Outside the restaurant, the crowds hadn't thinned, and the sun hadn't gone down, but a van and a large pickup truck with a shell over its bed had taken up residence at the curb. One of the men in the cab of the truck belonged to Lance's posse. Berto couldn't see the driver of the van but had the feeling they were also with Lance.
"Good," Lance said. "But I'm not of a mood to take chances."
Alarmed in general, but especially by that, Berto twisted around to see what Lance was about to do - but never got to see much of anything, because there was a sharp, burning stab to his neck, and then his vision began to blur at the edges. He put an unsteady hand up to see what had happened to his neck, but halfway there it dropped of its own volition and he couldn't raise it again.
Bad sign, a voice in his head warned. Very bad sign.
Carlie, not restrained by a knife at her side, was nonetheless standing motionless. Berto blinked and tried to focus on her long enough to convey the general idea of: run like the devil's after you.
" 'Night, Berto," Lance's voice said, oddly muffled and distant. The blurring became swirling blackness, shot through with sparks of rainbow color. A sedative, Berto realized. With some effort, he saw that Lance's hand - not the one with the knife, but the other one - had a syringe in it. The syringe was half-full of a pale red liquid. Lance tucked it away in his jacket just as Berto's knees buckled and only the arms of his attackers kept him from hitting the pavement. It was, he thought with the detached bemusement of the semiconscious, a very fast-acting sedative.
Through the blackness and the sparks, he saw Carlie at last take off running, fleeing along the sidewalk. One of Lance's crew chased after her, and they vanished behind the building where the deserted parking lot waited.
That's not it, he wanted to shout at her; run towards people. Run into the crowd, not away from it! But Carlie was gone and he couldn't really remember how to shout anyway.
The darkness swirled faster and heavier, swallowing the world. The last thing that went through Berto's mind before blacking out altogether had nothing to do with Carlie's safety, or the whereabouts of his teammates, or even his own fate.
No - a manager to the bitter end, his last thought was that he was going to completely miss that mandatory orientation meeting.