Chapter 4

Darien opened the bathroom door just a crack and peered out sheepishly, half expecting his Keeper to still be hovering somewhere close by like some over-protective mother hen. But his room was empty.

The shower had gone some way to re-energizing him both physically and mentally, though he hated to admit that his insistence on doing it all by himself had taken its toll. Even so, he'd shampooed his hair and ran some gel through the short strands, giving it the unkempt tousled style he preferred, he had also managed a quick shave, after which he'd dressed in a pair of light blue pajama bottoms - his standard garb these days - teamed with one of his favorite form fitting vintage tee-shirts.

He owed Claire an apology for his churlish behavior earlier on. Apart from Bobby she was closer to him than any other person, and often bore the brunt when the fears and frustration caused by his mystery illness got too much for him. Fears Darien refused to discuss even with her, no matter how hard she tried to get him to open up. So, Bobby provided his usual unwavering support and the much-needed light relief, leaving Claire as the fall guy…or girl. Darien seemed to spend a lot of time these days saying sorry to her.

She'd be back soon enough and there'd be plenty of time to make amends, but for now all that his exhausted body craved was sleep and Darien was maneuvering himself carefully back towards his bed when the door slid open behind him. He glanced over his shoulder fully expecting to see Claire or one of the medical team, instead Wesley Carter stepped into the room and behind him a blonde female nurse pushing a wheelchair.

At first, Carter seemed a little shocked to see Darien on his feet, but he quickly masked this with a smile supposedly to set the younger man at ease.

"Hey Wes. I thought you had a couple days off."

Darien gripped the edge of the bed for support, his legs threatening to buckle beneath him at any minute as he struggled to keep himself upright now. Carter gestured with a quick jerk of his head for the nurse to move forward with the wheelchair, and then he was at Darien's side gently but firmly easing him down into it.

"Ah…yes…I did. But I had to drop by to collect something ." As he was speaking he pulled a sweater from the small locker and handed it to the nurse, who in turn helped a bewildered looking Darien pull it on over his tee shirt..

"We going somewhere?" he asked, feeling a mounting sense of unease for no accountable reason. Carter tried another smile, and this time Darien thought he caught a hint of a nervous tic at the corner of the man's thin mouth.

"Don't you remember Darien. You're due back at Fort Leavitt today for another CAT scan. Dr. Keeply is waiting outside for you in the ambulance."

Darien stared blankly back at the man, running a hand through his hair. "Uh, no…not really. Claire didn't mention it." He glanced forlornly at the door, hoping that at any moment his Keeper would step through it and reassure him.

"Well, she obviously just forgot with everything else going on," Carter bluffed quickly.

Darien nodded his head in shame, convinced then that Claire must have confided in her medical colleague and told him that her Kept had been more difficult that usual this morning. That probably also explained why she'd sent Carter to collect him rather than subject herself to more of his 'bad tempered nonsense' as she so often referred to his bouts of petulance.

Then he was being wheeled quickly out into the corridor, with Carter keeping pace at the side of the wheelchair. Darien looked around. Something definitely wasn't right. It was too quiet for one thing, and where were Tweedledum and Tweedledee, his ever present security clones? The Official would never let him leave the building without them.

A male orderly, this one a solidly built black man who looked like he could easily have gone a few successful rounds with Mike Tyson in his time, was holding open the door of the elevator for them, and as he was wheeled on board Darien glimpsed the unmistakable bulge of a handgun tucked into the waistband of the man's uniform pants.

The elevator door closed behind them and somewhere off in the distance of the basement a phone started to ring.


By the time the elevator doors slid open at ground level to reveal the long stretch of corridor leading to the main exit, Darien was seriously freaked and it didn't help that he was feeling so crappy. He knew that he had to find some reserve of strength that he possibly didn't have to fight it, cause he sensed that if he left the building with Wesley Carter et al that something real bad was probably going to happen…to him.

They were roughly half way along the corridor when an obviously flustered Eberts emerged from one of the offices, the shocked expression on his face transforming to one of relief as he spotted them, but that lasted only the few seconds it took for the black orderly to mutter a curse as he yanked the handgun from his waistband.

"I thought you said you'd dealt with all of the Agency personnel!" the nurse hissed at Carter, and something in that vaguely familiar husky voice had the hairs on Darien's neck standing on end..

"But I activated the gas on every floor." Carter whined, pointing an accusing finger in Eberts' direction. "Why aren't you unconscious?"

Seemingly routed to the spot, the younger man gulped audibly. "Oh my…I…uh…arrived late for work this morning… dentist's appointment. You drugged everyone? Oh my…." he repeated, his anxious gaze meeting Darien's.

"We don't have time for this," the woman snarled impatiently. She turned her attention from Carter to the orderly. "Deal with the geek."

As the gun was leveled in Eberts' direction, a mix of fear and rage gave Darien the energy surge he needed to launch himself sideways out of the wheelchair, grabbing the orderly's muscled arm an instant before the gun blast resounded down the hallway. The bullet slammed harmlessly into a wall, missing a visibly shocked Eberts by a wide margin.

Caught off balance and off guard, the big orderly toppled over taking Darien and the wheelchair with him.

"Ebes…run!" was all Darien managed to gasp out before a solid elbow connected painfully with his stomach, but this was more than enough to jolt the young clerk from his temporary stupor and send him diving through the open doorway of an office, scuttling to slam and lock the door behind him.

The guilt of leaving Darien alone and at the mercy of those intruders was overwhelming, but deep down he knew he really didn't have a choice - it was a plain and simple no win situation with him unarmed and defenseless, and Darien had seen that and acted for him…saved him. He sat with his back to the wall breathing hard, ashamed of his fear and wondering if they would even bother with him when it was evident that they had exactly what they'd come for.

That question was answered a second or two later when the door was pounded from the other side, stopping abruptly as someone – the woman again – urged them to get a move on. Then a loud commotion as they hoisted an obviously struggling Darien up and back into the wheelchair, followed by a harsh slap and a groan.

As the sound of the racing footsteps trailed away, Eberts risked unlocking the door and poked his head out into the corridor just in time to see the group burst through the main exit doors of the Harding Building onto the street. He followed cautiously, reaching the entrance just in time to see Darien being hauled unceremoniously from the wheelchair and into the back of a private ambulance, its engines already revving in preparation for a hasty getaway.

The black orderly was the last on board, closing the doors behind him as the ambulance pulled out fast with a squeal of rubber into the morning traffic. A moment later Eberts' shattered nerves were given another jolt as his cell phone suddenly began to vibrate in his pocket, forcing him to take a few deep breathes before he could recover enough to answer it.

"Eberts, is that you?" Hobbes' voice shouted out immediately. "Where the friggin' hell is everyone? Eberts, are you there?"

"Y…yes Robert."

"Well, what took ya so long?" the voice asked sharply from the other end. "You need to listen carefully. Wesley Carter was in on Craven's escape. My gut instinct is that they're gonna make a try for Fawkes."

Any sense of relief he'd felt on hearing Hobbes' voice quickly dissolved when he realized he would have to relay the terrible news, struggling now to compose himself and recall the correct security alert. Detailed explanations could wait until the inevitable debriefing.

"It's too late Robert. We…we have a Code 6 situation here."

A brief stunned silence was followed by a muttered choked something from Hobbes before Monroe grabbed the cell away from him, her usually 'cool-under-pressure' tone wavering as she fought with her own shocked emotions. "We're on our way back."


Despite his condition, Darien still managed to put up a spirited struggle in the corridor as they'd hauled him up and off the man who'd tried to put a hole in Eberts, earning himself a powerful stinging backhand from the nurse and a bloodied lip for his effort. His energy level had plummeted dramatically after that, so by the time Wesley Carter and his merry band of kidnappers had him seated once again in the wheelchair and racing for the exit, he was absolutely convinced that he had nothing left to fight with. But that changed the minute he was being forced down onto a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, and confronting one of his worst possible nightmares.

Carter and the orderly wasted no time in fastening the leather restraints - one across his chest the others around his ankles and wrists - but for some reason Darien ignored them, compelled instead to keep his attention focused on the nurse. She stood towards the rear doors, one hand braced again the side of the vehicle to steady herself as it swerved in and out of traffic. Her eyes never leaving Darien as her free hand removed the blond wig and then snaked beneath the collar of her high-necked tunic to snag what looked at first glance like a fold of loose skin. With a great deal of relish, Ella Craven slowly peeled away the rubber mask from her face in long pliable strips. From the amused smile curving her lips Darien knew that his shock was all too evident.

"Hello baby,." she purred, wiping a hand over her face to clear the remains of the sticky rubber residue.

The unsettling feeling those words gave him was actually all the incentive he needed to dig back into that energy reserve for one last valiant act of defiance, figuring he really had nothing to lose. She'd made a vow that the next time she saw him he was a dead man - and he'd believed her.

The opportunity came as the ambulance jolted sharply and Carter, who had yet to buckle the last restraint around Darien's wrist, was thrown off balance. Suddenly free from the bony grip, Darien managed to shove his hand into the doctor's face hard enough to push the startled man backwards. Not that this small bit of resistance did him much good, because now that the hand was free there really wasn't much else to do with it, other than to vainly lash out at anything within reach. This continued for all of the few seconds it took the orderly to grab his wrist and twist it back at an angle, eliciting a sharp hiss of pain from Darien before it too was secured firmly with the heavy strap.

The ambulance siren suddenly blared into life, cutting them an easy path through the heavy traffic.

Carter was back on his feet now and advancing with something that looked like an oxygen mask.

"Get the hell away from me, Judas," Darien spat acidly pulling vainly against the restraints. Even if he'd been at peak fitness it wouldn't have made much of a difference; the leather straps had been reinforced with a Quicksilver resistant metal.

Ella was also looming over Darien now and he visibly shuddered as her fingers started to trace a trail delicately along his temple and then down across his cheek. She pouted mischievously. "Can't we keep him awake for a little bit Wesley, it'll make the journey so much more amusing?"

Darien tried to turn his face away to escape from both the horror of her unwelcome touch and from the mask now being forced down over his nose and mouth..

"My orders were to sedate him immediately. Wecan't take any chances." The doctor smiled down kindly at Darien whose desperate eyes had started to droop, just catching the muffled…"Aw crap. Not again"… before he finally succumbed to the full effects of the sleeping agent and drifted into deep oblivious unconsciousness.

A moment later Carter took up position at Darien's side to keep a close watchful check on his vitals signs.. The worst thing that could happen at this stage would be that Fawkes would have an adverse reaction to the sedative. If anything disastrous were to happen to this valuable merchandise in transit then Carter knew full well that his own outcome would be grim.


Lindergh Field Airport

Because of the serious condition of the patient the ambulance was permitted to drive right out on the tarmac to the waiting private jet.

The two customs officials who climbed on board for a cursory check of passports and to ensure that the necessary paperwork was in place before the flight could be authorized for departure, noted that the patient – Adrian Franks – was traveling with his wife, personal physician and a male nurse for private treatment abroad. His documents said he was only 32 years old, but it was hard to tell as much with the plastic oxygen mask covering half of his face, plus the IV drip and assortment of wires and electrodes hooking him to various pieces of lifesaving machinery on board the specially equipped aircraft.

They exchanged brief sympathetic words with the stunningly beautiful Mrs. Eva Franks, who nodded her gratitude and then turned to stare down intently at her critically sick husband, gripping his hand as if afraid to let go.

15 minutes after the customs officers had disembarked the plane was cleared for take off.

TBC