Tikatu, Darkhelmet and Opal Girl, as ever, thanks. Your good opinion is valued, and sought after.
32
World Unity Complex: Office 137-
Normally, Virgil Tracy was a 'safety first' kind of guy, but the noises around him (deep, slow groans and long creaks emanating from stressed rock), convinced the young man to hurry. Cutting corners, he also cut through the blockage, making it clear to the other side several minutes ahead of schedule. He burned himself a few times, pushing too soon past griddle-hot surfaces, and his blue uniform was a sweaty ruin, but he got there.
In the gloomy office complex, someone had half a can of flat Pepsi they'd been sharing around, which put him to mind of Horse, the twins, and better times. Virgil gave them a water bottle, then began organizing the evacuation. Only nine people here...
He struggled against the notion that he'd been diverted from a larger group for purely personal reasons. Though, surely... these people mattered, too?
"Okay, folks," he told the dusty, frightened faces gathering round the glow of his flashlight, "We're going straight out the tunnel, strongest first. I'll stay back, to help with the injured and stragglers. There's two escape holes to the surface, from office level four, so..., if we're separated..., that's the rendezvous site. Any questions? Okay, start on through, then, and watch yourselves in there; edges aren't all they way cooled, yet."
Those who spoke English translated for those who did not, and in this way, his instructions were passed along.
Virgil glanced around Penny's shattered office, currently done up in 'early, neo-classical destruction'; chintz, velvet and rubble. Meanwhile, grateful people murmured their thanks in several languages, touching his shoulder or hand, then ducking through the tunnel to safety. Watching them go, Virgil realized that you couldn't 'weigh' lives; how were nine people, here, worth less than twenty further on, when each of them was the most important person in the world, to someone else? It was far too big a problem for Virgil Tracy. All he could do was his best. Give him a hole to dig, a plane to fly, or a rope to cast, and he did all right. Save the questions for John, or Scott.
He spied a young woman, then, with long, dark hair and thickly-lashed eyes. She was clutching a laptop to her chest, and looked a little ill. Recalling the other half of his mission, Virgil strode over.
With a shy sort of smile, the brown-haired young man pulled out the bag of crackers.
"Miss Concepcion?" He asked her.
She nodded, biting at her full lower lip.
"Si, Senor," her voice was velvet-soft, and musically accented, but her English flawless. "It is I."
"You'd be the one I'm looking for, then. Ran into your boss, outside. She told me where you were holed up, and gave me these."
The crackers were handed over, but delicacy prevented him from mentioning the young secretary's condition, which wasn't yet obvious.
"She'd have come in, herself," he added, "but the authorities 've got the place locked down pretty tight."
Concepcion nodded.
"I understand, Senor, and I thank you."
"No problem, Miss."
He left her innocently eating a cracker. As soon as Virgil turned his back, though, something else small and flat, and not at all crumbly, was removed from a second, inner bag. A very special terabyte capacity computer disk. She inserted it quickly in the laptop's main disk drive. And, seconds later, a soft beep announced that Lady Creighton-Ward's valuable surveillance data had been safely transferred.
Relieved, Concepcion Marques retrieved the disk, wrapped it well, then placed it in a secure, zippered suit pocket. After that, a couple of hasty keystrokes wiped the laptop, and her job was done. Nothing left but to nibble saltines, quell the nausea, and wait her turn to leave. Virgil never noticed a thing. He had other worries, soon enough, though.
A further corridor-
During the cave-in, surrounded by dust and noise and crashing rock, Gordon hadn't recognized her. Now, very simply, he did, and something clenched hard and cold within him.
Her golden eyes never left his face, but the muzzle of her big assault rifle pointed unwaveringly past him, at the knot of terrified refugees.
Scout growled at his feet like a small buzz saw, pitch rising and falling as the dog placed itself between Gordon and Tania. She hardly seemed to notice.
Jerking her head to one side, she ordered the crowded folk,
"You lot, over there..., spread out where I can see you all. You..." Her attention returned to Gordon, "...against the wall. Just like old times, eh, Pet?"
And then, without a twitch or sideways glance,
"By all means, Rent-a-Cop, draw that sidearm. I'll machine-gun your legs off, at the knee."
In the cowering line, a white-haired office security guard went suddenly very still. Tania smiled slightly, calm and assured as a lioness with a pinned antelope. She started to speak again, but Gordon's wrist comm went off, stopping her short.
Shifting the muzzle of her rifle, which she held with careless, one-handed strength, Tania aimed for a shrinking young woman. The wrist comm beeped insistently on, mingled with the dog's growling and the mountain's ominous sounds.
"Answer it, like a good boy," the assassin purred, "Keep it short, and reassuring, or they begin to die, starting with her."
Slowly, Gordon brought his comm hand up and around. His sidearm was holstered, the plasma cutter gone, abandoned in his mad dash through the rock fall. She held a dozen hostages, a powerful weapon, and all the damn cards.
At a button press, the little screen lit up, revealing Scott's puzzled face.
"Gordon, everything okay? You've stopped moving."
Terribly aware of cold steel and colder eyes, the young aquanaut replied, almost casually,
"Right as rain, Scott. All quiet on the western front. Just clearin' away some debris."
To his credit, Scott never even blinked.
"All quiet, gotcha. Don't strain yourself lifting anything heavy, Gordon, but get those people out as soon as possible. The tunnel complex is going to collapse. I want you topside in thirty minutes, max."
"FAB, Scott. Not much longer."
The look that passed across the airwaves, from smoky, chaotic nerve center, to dim, rumbling corridor, was a promise. From blue eyes to hazel, from older brother to younger, it said,
'Hang on, we're coming.'
The link faded suddenly, and Scott hit another channel. To his own surprise, his voice was perfectly level.
"Code three emergency, Virgil," he said to his third brother's battered image. "Drop what you're doing, arm yourself, and head for Gordon."
Virgil's face had gone still, and he stopped walking.
"What's the situation, Scott?"
The field commander shook his head.
"Don't know, but it's gone bad, and he's not in a position to talk. I'm en route, Virge. Hurry."
Alan was nowhere to be found, so Scott gave Island Base a hasty explanation, shut down Mobile Command and left, borrowing Estevez' hover cycle.
However, the stalker, too, was being stalked, though she didn't know it... and help was far closer than anyone realized.
Below ground-
He tried to think, but each word she said, each step closer, pushed him further into ragged nightmare. All he saw was red, all he heard was a man's voice, gentle, almost sympathetic, saying,
'I can make it stop, Gordon. All you have to do is talk to me.'
The security guard, a man of no particular distinction beyond seven grandchildren and an upcoming retirement party, did the bravest thing of his life. Hands shaking, he unhooked the ring of keys from his belt, then let them fall to the broken floor with a sharp, jangling clatter.
For the briefest instant, Tania was distracted. The terrier set up a wild, shrill barking, and Gordon lunged. He struck the assault rifle out of her hand with a savage, downward smash. Bullets sprayed the rocky floor, a few burning right past him like wasps. He knocked her into the far wall, then followed up on the re-bound with an upper-cut to her stomach.
A blow aimed at his jaw didn't quite connect, but left her wide open to a crushing right hook. Gordon never hit women. He'd been raised better. But, he wasn't really seeing Tania.
Recovering like a cat, she lashed out with a serrated knife, drawing a line of crimson along his chest, and hissing,
"Message for you: It isn't over, Pet. It will never be over!"
Seizing her wrist, he smashed her hand against the stone wall, forcing her to drop the knife. She head-butted, stunning him briefly, but earning a jaw-cracking backhand in return. Lunging forward, Tania attempted to knee him in the groin, but he twisted away, landing a roundhouse punch to the side of her head that would have put most men to sleep, for hours.
As government workers scattered like minnows, Parker raced up. A moment later, so did the old security guard.
"Parate, Nino!" The guard shouted, putting a thin hand to the boy's shoulder. She was down, but he hadn't seemed able to stop striking her. "Deja la quieta."
Gordon had spent more than enough time in Madrid to understand 'Stop it!' in Spanish.
Coming back to his senses, he let the semi-conscious woman drop to the ground in a tumbled heap. As Parker kept her covered with his favorite machine pistol, Gordon rubbed absently at split, bloodied knuckles, and stared at the floor. Parker nodded down-corridor.
"Oi 'll see t' this baggage, and call in, Mate," the driver told him. "Th' pair of you'd best be after them courageous ministry sorts, meanwhile. They'll 'ave got themselves too lost t' collect, soon, and we 'aven't much time."
Pulse still thudding in his ears, Gordon nodded. He was ashamed of himself. Scooping up the dog (who'd had his right shoulder clipped by a bullet as he'd buried his teeth in the assassin's leg), Gordon thanked Parker, and the guard.
Together, communicating in jumbled English and Spanish, the teenaged boy and old man went after the panicked refugees, encountering first Alan, then Virgil on the way.
Alan came around a corner at a dead run, weapon in hand. He was dirty and badly scraped, having ducked rocks, hurtled crevices and wormed through foot-wide cracks in a desperate, gasping effort to reach his brother. Then, of course, he had to play it off, holstering the pistol and laughing as though he did this sort of thing twice a day, for fun.
"Hey, Bro," he panted, accepting Gordon's water bottle, and an introduction to dog and officer.
"Hey, yourself," the redhead replied. For some reason, he felt better. "Out f'r a jog?"
"Eh," the younger boy shrugged negligently, shortly before Virgil plowed into them from another direction, "You know; got bored combing the chest-hair, and figured I'd, like, check things out with the smooth and simple-
minded. Whoa...! Virge, what's up?"
Scott arrived moments later, as out of breath and worried as the other two had been. Together, after the briefest possible explanation and introductions, the five men got back to work, aided by a sharp-nosed little terrier.
...And that left Parker, alone, to deal with Tania.
The driver brought his full attention back to the woman, just in time to see her draw a slim pistol from her torn vest.
"You, again!" she snarled, spitting blood and fury.
"No, Luv," Parker replied, bringing his own weapon around, "Me, for the last time."