Chapter Three: The Exchange
Lisa watched as the dark clouds seized the sky, and as their victory cry they poured rain onto the land below. It ran in rivulets down the windshield of her car. Vivian had fallen asleep in the backseat, her tiny head lolling to one side and little chubby hands resting on the small stuffed giraffe that Jackson had brought home one night. It had always been her favorite toy. Lisa didn't even know if Jackson remembered getting it for her. But if Lisa put her in her crib without that stupid giraffe she would cry to wake every neighbor. All for the giraffe her father gave to her one night, his hands still holding the red tint of blood.
She took her time in glancing over at him. The man who had threatened to kill her and her father, the man with whom she shared the love of the child asleep in the backseat. His cold, ice-blue eyes were fixed on the road ahead, his mind working ceaselessly behind the windows of his eyes. She fancied that she could almost see his very thoughts, every scenario played out full in his mind. She wanted to know what he hid behind those eyelids when he turned his back to her in the dark of night, what things lay hidden in his deepest, darkest layer. His eyes flicked to hers for only a moment, and she saw a glimpse, a flash, of something.
Something. Something dark and primal, long repressed and finally released.
He returned his eyes to the road. The windshield wipers flicked back and forth monotonously, keeping a steady, uninterrupted rhythm. Swish-swish, swish-swish as Lisa broke her gaze from Jackson's profile. The rain drummed-- no, purred-- on the roof.
"We can't stay in Florida," Jackson said, tearing the fragile beat of the wipers and rain with his low voice. Lisa looked up, nonplussed.
"Are they that dangerous that we have to leave the state?"
"They're probably following us right now," he answered, quick eyes darting to the rear-view mirror. "Five cars behind us. A green minivan. Out-of-state plates: I can't tell from here, but they might be Minnesota. It's followed us for two hours now." The rain was slowly pattering to a halt.
"We're heading north," Lisa answered, checking the glove-compartment atlas. "And I'm pretty sure that Minnesota is also north. Maybe," she added with a hint of exasperation, "they're just stuck on the same miserable stretch of freeway that we are."
"It's wonderful to see the display of confidence you show in my abilities, Leese," Jackson cracked, craning his neck to look at the minivan. "I've been working for the same man for fifteen years. I think I know his methods a little better than you do." Jackson merged onto the nearest exit ramp. Lisa watched for the green minivan. Sure enough, five cars later, said vehicle pulled onto the exit ramp after Jackson.
"Fifteen years?" Lisa asked, turning again to him. She had never pulled the answer out of him as to exactly how old he was-- always an enigma-- but he couldn't be over 30. "Jackson--"
"Shh," he hissed sharply. Then, in a minute voice: "Your car is bugged."
Lisa stared, wide-eyed, back at her daughter. Still sleeping, tiny chest rising and falling peacefully. She glared back at Jackson.
"Why?" she asked pitifully.
"Why is your car bugged?" He asked casually, his eyes resting calmly on hers. "Or something else? It's usually something else with you, Lisa."
"Why," she said again, nearly to the verge of tears. "'Why' everything, Jackson! Why did you pick me? Why did I sleep with you? Why did you come back? Why should I care? Why do I care!" She stopped herself, hands at her mouth, biting back anything else that wanted to escape her. She didn't know why the fact her car was bugged set her off. Something so nearly insignificant had snapped that vital string within her.
Jackson said nothing. He allowed her to have her silence. He pulled the car onto a nondescript back road, perhaps hoping to warn the minivan off. It persisted. Jackson gave a low huff, then spotted a small roadside stand selling oranges. He pulled over.
"Jackson," Lisa started, voice thin. He cut her off with a movement of his hand. The woman at the orange stand looked ecstatic and began to fuss with her hair. Jackson pulled Lisa's face close to his and whispered close into her ear.
"Fast and quiet as you can, get Vivian out of her seat. We're changing cars." He opened the car door and stepped into the sun. He shielded his eyes minutely, nodded urgently to Lisa, then approached the orange stand. Lisa's quick and tremulous hands began working at the catch on Vivian's baby seat.
The minivan was slowing.
"Good morning," Jackson prompted the woman at the orange stand. "How fresh are these?" He asked, gesturing toward the nearest box of oranges. The woman, far older than Jackson, grinned helplessly.
"Fresh picked this morning, handsome."
There was time for Lisa to see an almost unperceivable shudder in Jackson's movements. The minivan pulled up behind them just as Lisa pulled her sleeping baby from her seat. The toy giraffe plummeted to the floor. The girl's eyes, so much like her father's, shot open at the sudden vacancy of her arms. And she began to cry.
Jackson spun toward the minivan as the side doors flew open on the new vehicle. They were Minnesota plates. Lisa scrambled to fish Vivian's giraffe from the floor, fingers barely brushing its cloth hooves. Vivian wailed.
A quaint Minnesota family was quite the opposite of what barreled out of the green minivan. Five men and a woman, all with long semi-automatic guns climbed out of the car and began firing.
Jackson had been hoping to distract their fire. He hadn't. Bullets rained through Lisa's car like they might through butter. She screamed and pulled her child with her down to the floor, covering the girl's delicate head to protect her. The orange stand woman shrieked and dove behind her stand. Jackson, terror etched on his features, opened fire at once on the shooters. He was out of bullets before two had fallen.
Their gunfire was suddenly switched to Jackson's direction. He fell to the ground and quickly situated himself behind the orange stand, encountering the older woman as he quickly reloaded his gun.
"I'll be out of you hair in a second," he assured her. He popped his head above the orange stand and fired twice into the group of people. He was answered with a chorus of gunshots. He had narrowed the six down to four.
What he heard next was something he could never had expected.
The signature sound of Lisa's car door opening and closing.
Vivian was crying.
"LISA!" Jackson cried as he stood to his full height. He didn't have to worry about the shooters. Their focus was switched again to the running form of Lisa as she held her child close against her chest, running, running as fast as she could away from the scene. The four opened fire.
The last thing they expected was for Jackson to ram into them from behind, knocking three to the ground, followed by a deadly close-range bullet to the face for the those that lay at his feet. He wasn't quick enough to stop the butt of the remaining gunman's weapon from crashing against his temple. He lost his footing and tumbled to the ground. But one hand had latched around the gunman's collar and he was dragged down with him.
The orange stand woman cracked that last gunman, prostrate on the ground, with her largest orange crate. Blood spilled from the wound across her precious fresh oranges. She stood, tears in her eyes, staring at the half-conscious Jackson laying among the six dead gunmen.
Lisa had stopped running when the guns had ceased.
She approached the grisly scene slowly, the weeping baby clutching to her chest. The orange stand woman had resigned herself to crying openly behind her orange stand. Lisa held a hand to her mouth at the sight of the carnage, making sure that her daughter did not turn her head. Warily, Jackson pulled himself to his feet, staring uneasily at his surroundings. Then he saw Lisa before him. Emotions ran through his face as if on a roulette wheel.
"Lisa," he said quietly. Then the rage built on his face. "Lisa!" He grabbed her fiercely by the shoulders and shook her painfully. "Lisa! What the hell did you think you could accomplish! Why'd you leave the car! LISA!" He roared when she wouldn't answer. Silent tears were coursing down her face, but she wouldn't yield any sob to him as he shook her. He stared death with his bright, icy eyes.
He grabbed her in a violent, almost painful embrace.
"Don't-" was all he said, face against her hair, breathing irregular. Still Vivian bawled. Jackson retreated quickly from Lisa, eyes locked in a silent battle with hers. Almost reluctantly, he left her, stalked with long strides to the gun-shot vehicle and reached inside, fingers touching the blue-carpeted interior. His hand emerged clutching the stuffed giraffe.
"Don't lose it," he said and he pressed it into Lisa's free hand. "It's her favorite."
He approached the green minivan and leapt into the driver's seat. Lisa remained for a long moment, and handed the giraffe to Vivian. The child slowly ended her wailing as she recognized the toy in her hands. The choking sobs of the orange stand woman echoed in the empty street. Lisa slowly approached her.
"Thank you," she said to the woman, holding her baby close to her. The woman glanced up, slightly gray hair sticking from her head in every direction. She couldn't even form a response, staring at the ruined oranges and the six dead shooters before her stand.
"The tall one with the hat has the keys, Leese," Jackson said from the driver's seat of the minivan. Lisa bent down and rummaged through the dead man's pockets, holding the bile from rising up her throat. It took only seconds to hand the keys and the baby to Jackson while Lisa transferred the car seat to the shining green minivan.
Jackson set the child in the seat while Lisa mechanically strapped her in. The girl hugged the stuffed giraffe to her chest. Her father reached up to the ceiling, pressing his fingers against the foam insulation there. Having found what he was searching for, he reached into his blazer and pulled out a long knife. One short stab, and a small electrical wire had been severed.
"All right," he prompted, gesturing to the passenger seat. Lisa looked warily back at the dead gunmen before climbing into the seat and shutting the door against the world. "Don't worry about surveillance. I took out the microphone system back there above Vivi's seat. We'll change cars again sometime soon, but we'll take this one as far as it'll take us." He started the car, then practically did a double-take to stare at Lisa's melancholy features. "Leese?"
"Why do you suddenly care?" Lisa asked without looking up.
"It's not--" She didn't let him finish.
"An assassin doesn't get tied down, Jackson. He doesn't raise a family or feel compassion. You wouldn't have killed those men before the red eye. You would've killed me, killed Vivian-- you didn't know didn't care... Why do you suddenly care?" She looked up this time, eyes to melt the iron wills of men.
Jackson killed the engine.
"That red eye flight was my first screw-up, Leese. Fifteen years and I never saw one mistake or one foul-up. I get another mission-- high-level assassination of some government big-wig. What did I care? All I had to do was find out everything I could about you." He stared her down, the battle between their gazes sending sparks. "I followed you wherever you went. I learned your favorite drink, your favorite breakfast-- when you got up in the mornings, when you stayed up late at night to eat ice cream in your nightshirt to watch old scary movies. I learned about you by watching you and studying everything I thought there was to know about you. But I didn't know everything, Leese. Not by a long shot."
She waited for him to continue. He fired up the engine of the new green minivan with Minnesota plates.
"You were smarter than you let on-- clever smarts, not book smarts. You couldn't fight your way out of an algebra problem. But writing on the mirror, stabbing me with that pen..." He ran his hand almost unknowingly across the scar on his neck. "I knew that I had to learn more about you. I'd missed something in my first run-through. I'd missed the way you walk with that proud 'I'm-a-woman, get-used-to-it' look. I'd missed the way your lips turn up at the corners when you're trying to be cute." He was searching her now with his eyes. "I came back for more because you made me think, Lisa. And I hadn't thought in a long time."
He shifted the minivan into drive and pulled off of the back road and onto the freeway once again.
AN: Arr! Took me long enough. It took me a while to think of Jackson's monologue there at the end. I wanted it to sound plausible, like something he'd really take the time to say. And as for the stuffed giraffe... It kinda represents this toy puppy I have I still won't let go of. It represents all of the toys we all never wanna give up! Ahh, great stuff. Feedback is greatly appriciated. Oh, and as for those who remembered Jackson wasn't a ood shot- oops! I fixed it in this chapter (hopefully) so thanks for pointing it out! SHOUT-OUT TIME!
steph88NYC: Oh! I'm sorry you've been having such a terrible time of it, and I'm honoured that you say my fic saved your life. I am a miracle worker! Just kidding. Thanks mucho for the praise! Don't worry, I love you too. Also, on a totally urelated note, how was Harry Potter? I've got midnight tickets, but you're even luckier than I! Thanks much and have some e-chocolate frogs!
SpadesJade: I hope this action sequence was better planned out with the "Jackson's-a-bad-shot" thing. I hoped to pull it off for you. Please tell me anything else I need to fix, friend, for I know it can't all be good. I'm glad you take the time to give pointers as well as praise. Thanks much for your review, and you may have an e-chocolate frog if you wish!
Ashley: Bwahaha. You still do not know where they are going! Minnesota perhaps? Who knows? The Shadow Knows! ahem... anyway... Thanks for your awesome review! I look forward to them always -grin- I'm glad I'm able to make you crack up. I personally enjoy writing AwkwardDad!Jackson because it's just so adorable. The action was maybe too much in this chappie, but I hope it all works out in the end. Gracias, and have an e-chocolate frog-- you deserve it! PS- I'm TheShoelessOne because I never wear shoes in the summer (I'm a Hobbit!) and my friends gave me the nickename. PSS- Thanks for the Conditional stuff! I'm sure it'll be great!
Dai Katana: It's true. Brian Cox always plays one character- Brian Cox. But he's so awesome that we can overlook this little insight. And yes, indeed, Jackson is HOTT with two T's. You are very welcome for the shout-out and I only hope I can give more. Happy reading, and happy e-chocolate frog-ing!
Hmm... Shout-outs were smaller this time... But! To anyone who didn't get a shout-out- I still love you! I shower love upon each and every one of my reviewers! May your road be paved with sausages! Happy reading and many happy returns!