Twenty-One
Between the ticking of the clock, which in the silent room was deafening, and Robert's glare, Noah was becoming increasingly nervous. He tried to focus on stitching up the gash above Robert's left eye.
"Tell me again why you're here, Drake," Robert drawled. "You are still a neurosurgeon? It's not your cover as a spy, right? Because I don't remember ever seeing you at our union meetings."
Noah laughed softly. "No, not a spy."
"Huh." Robert set his jaw. "So why are you here?"
Noah took a moment to look at his work, then continued with the stitches. "Patrick has been frantic with worry for Robin. Helping Anna and Aidan in the investigation has been a godsend for him. I'm here to support my son."
"Great, so Drake, Jr. is wandering around here somewhere, too?"
"He was in charge of getting Robin out safely."
"What!" Robert pulled his head back, causing Noah to nearly put a stitch in his eye.
"You need to stay still, Robert."
"Has Anna completely lost her mind? She left our little girl's well being to a womanizing, self-centered doctor with no training or experience in espionage?"
"Hey!" Noah finished the stitching and yanked on the end to make a knot.
"Ow! Dammit, Drake, what are you doing?"
"My son is partly responsible for getting us this far. And Anna's obviously doing something right since Patrick and Brenda have already escorted Robin out of here."
Robert grunted. "She's losing it. Allowing civilians on a mission-"
"Listen." Noah pointed a finger at the aging spy. "Anna is amazing. She's held it together while her only daughter was missing and it looks like she's saved your ass too."
"My wife-"
"Ex-wife," Noah interrupted.
Robert stopped and stared at Noah. "Oh, bloody hell."
Noah's eyes darted around the room, at everything but Robert, as he walked across the room to the supply cabinet. He was not going to get involved in this conversation with Robert Scorpio. He kept his back to Robert, concentrating on pulling together more medicine and supplies for their escape.
"You and Anna?" Robert grabbed for his gun, pointed it in Noah's direction and fired off three rounds in quick succession.
Astor Kargle didn't notice the tiny red light trained on his heart until it was too late. Seconds before a bullet entered his chest he looked up to see the beautiful dark haired woman with her gun pointed at him. His last thought was how stunning she was and how it was a shame she would die here tonight.
"That was for my daughter," Anna whispered as she stepped over his body. Mantz had "volunteered" Kargle's location, telling Alex that he was the lead scientist in charge of this lab facility. It had been Anna's pleasure to finally meet him and take him out. She walked to the computer terminal Kargle had been working on and threw Aidan a flash drive. "The mainframe, Aidan. Can you download to the WSB terminal and make us a copy? Just in case we need it later." There was no way she was going to trust the WSB with all of this information without having a copy for herself.
"I'm on it."
Sean flew through the door, earning him two cocked guns trained on his chest.
"Jesus, Sean!" Aidan lowered his arm. "You nearly got yourself shot."
Sean, who had lifted his arms in the air as a reflex slowly lowered them. "You're supposed to be on security detail."
Aidan glanced up briefly from his work on the mainframe. "Done. We took out a half dozen or so, but everyone else in the building seems to have disappeared."
Anna pulled her gun down and placed it back in the waistband of her black Prada leather pants. "We heard Kargle hang up the phone right after we got here, and he looked to be in a hurry to pack up. I think he must have sounded the alarm to defect."
"Soviets always were pretty good at defecting," Sean said.
"How is Robert?" Anna asked as she continued to download information from Kargle's terminal.
"He's a little worse for wear, but he's going to be fine."
Anna tried to look nonchalant. "And Noah? Is he okay?"
Sean smirked. "Your doctor friend is fine. He's a pretty good shot."
Anna looked up in surprise.
Sean laughed. "He's got his hands full right now working to put Robert back together again. You know what a great patient Scorpio makes." Sean glanced around the room. "How are we doing in here?"
"Everything's under control mate." Aidan held up the memory stick. "Looks like we've finally caught a break."
Patrick cupped her shoulders. "I love you, Robin." She gasped and he buried his face in her hair and wrapped himself around her. "I love you."
"Oh my God!" Brenda screeched. "That is just the most romantic thing I've ever seen!"
Robin could feel Patrick start to laugh as she looked over his shoulder at her best friend. Brenda's eyes were shining and she had wrapped her arms around herself. She smiled at Robin and then clapped excitedly.
"Brenda…" Robin chastised her friend.
Patrick kissed Robin's head and lifted his eyes to look at Brenda. "Do you mind? I'm trying to have a moment."
"Oh, yeah, of course." Brenda turned around to face the front of the van. "Pretend like I'm not even here."
"Yeah, that'll be no problem." Patrick rolled his eyes and then looked down at Robin, stroking her cheek. "You okay? I still think you should let me do a quick physical."
"I'm fine, Patrick," Robin smiled. "Let's save that physical until we're somewhere alone." She looked down, uncomfortable. "You know, I'm not going to hold you to anything that you say here. I know it's an emotional time and-"
Music blared from the front seat. "Ooops. Sorry." Brenda lowered the volume and searched for an English speaking channel. She stopped suddenly and squealed.
Jessie is a friend…
"Oh I love this song!" Brenda turned around in her seat. "Hey Drake, has anyone ever told you your dad looks like Rick Springfield?"
"Brenda!" Robin gave her a look.
"Sorry, sorry." Brenda faced forward again. "Go on. Pretend like I'm not even here."
Robin smiled at Patrick shyly. "You know, this song always reminds me of-"
"The Kells?" Patrick finished. "Yeah, me too." He sighed. "I think that's the night I knew I was in love with you. Really pissed me off."
She looked up into his smiling face. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Those non-existent strings we both insisted that we wanted? I was completely tangled up in them."
"Good. Because I love you too."
"Yeah?" Patrick smiled down at her and leaned in for a kiss.
"Yup. Only I'm pretty sure I knew before then."
"This is not a contest, Scorpio. It doesn't matter who knew they were in love first." Patrick put his hand on her cheek and pulled her in for a slow kiss.
"Where can I find a woman like that?" Brenda belted out from the front seat.
Robin laughed into Patrick's kiss and they pulled apart, staring at the front seat, watching Brenda perform her greatest air guitar moves in the driver's side seat.
Robin shifted slightly and stared out the blackened window, her face becoming serious. "They're okay, right? You think they're okay?"
"Hey." Patrick gently placed his hand under her chin and turned her to face him. "Your mom and cousin are super spies. They're going to get your dad out of there. And my dad? Well, it's a little disconcerting how good he's been at this spy stuff. Remind me to tell you about his acting skills later."
"Acting skills?"
"Yeah. My dad, the Australian rock star, and your mom and aunt as his devoted groupies."
He laughed at Robin's quizzical look. "Trust me, we're going to need to open a nice bottle of wine before I tell you some of these stories."
"ROBIN!"
Patrick and Robin swiveled to stare at Brenda, shrieking from the front seat.
"Okay, I know I'm new to this spy stuff, but aren't we trying to be inconspicuous here?" Patrick glared in Brenda's direction.
"ROBIN! We've got trouble!"
"Do I have to remind you, Barrett that we are undercover?" Patrick leaned forward, whispering. "Screaming 'Robin' so that the entire block can hear you is hardly subtle."
Brenda grabbed his shirt and pulled him towards her, grabbing his face and turning it to the radio. "I think we've got more pressing concerns."
The radio crackled. "Again, authorities are reporting a bomb threat at Centraal Station. Chechen rebels have claimed to have planted a nuclear bomb on one of the platforms. Police have reportedly begun evacuations of the train station and a 10 block radius surrounding the area."
"Is that-"
"The train station we just ran out of?" Brenda snarked. "Yes, Einstein, it is."
Robin climbed over Patrick and into the front passenger side seat, twisting her head so she could see the commuters and tourists flee from the building. "Oh God."
The popping sound from the gun caused Noah to curl in on himself. In the silence following, he straightened up and looked back at Robert. He could actually see the smoke still billowing from the barrel of the gun. "The bastard shot me," Noah thought. He looked down and felt for the bullet holes. Finding none he looked at Robert, and then in the direction that Robert was staring.
"DVX," Robert said calmly as he nodded towards the dead body on the floor, inches from Noah. "Lucky for you my cat-like reflexes are still intact."
"I didn't even hear him coming."
"Yet another reason why my Anna-"
"Your ex-Anna," Noah said firmly.
Robert ignored his declaration. "-should never have allowed you to come on this assignment. You have no skills for this world."
"He's doing better than you did in the Siberian missile case in '82," Anna said as she strode in the room, Sean and Aidan following her.
"You would bring that up," Robert chided.
Anna walked over to Noah. "How is he? Can he make it out of here?"
"We're going to need to help him, but moving him isn't going to hurt him…unfortunately," he added under his breath. Noah looked at her, his eyes softening. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." She smiled. "Patrick and Robin…they're safe."
"I know." He returned her smile.
Sean cleared his throat. "We might want to think about getting out of here now. You remember? DVX trolling the perimeter. Looking for us. Likely wanting to kill us."
"Right." Anna straightened her shoulders. "Aidan, you and Dr. Drake get on either side of Robert and help him out. I'll take the forward position and Sean you take the rear."
Sean nodded. "Let's go." His ear piece beeped. "Hang on." He put out his hand, urging them to wait and pressed his hand to his ear bud. "Yeah, go on." Sean listened intently to the communicae on the other side of the earpiece, his head lowering. "Dammit. Okay, we're on it."
"What?" Anna tried to look in Sean's eyes. Finally he met hers.
"Slight problem."
"How slight?" Noah asked.
"Someone's called in a bomb threat to the train station. Said they were Chechen rebels, but I'll give you two guesses who it must be."
"You think there's really a bomb?"
"Well according to Patrick, Alex is reporting that the local news is showing a silver briefcase, sitting alone on platform 3."
"We've got to get out of here now," Robert said as he slowly tried to pull himself off the examining table.
"You're right, with observations like that I can see why you are more qualified for this job than I am," Noah shot back.
"Listen hotshot-"
"Lads, we can measure who's is bigger when we get home," Aidan yelled. "We need to focus right now."
Noah and Robert continued to glare at each other. "Rock star doctor needs a haircut," Robert muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?" Noah stepped forward menacingly.
"Enough!" Anna stepped between them. "Robert, just shut up."
"He started it!"
"Focus! We need to get out of here and disarm some sort of explosive so we don't blow up half of Amsterdam and ourselves." Anna's glare finally shut Robert up.
"I can diffuse the bomb," Aidan said. He cut off Anna before she could protest. "I'm the natural choice. I've got experience in bomb diffusion from my time with British Intelligence. I can handle it."
At the determined look in her nephew's eye, Anna nodded. "Let's go."
"Patrick, Sky News is reporting that a silver briefcase has been spotted on platform 3," Alex glanced at her captive. Mantz was watching the breaking news reports, smiling.
"You're too late," he laughed. "They've begun the defection procedure. It's only a matter of minutes before the nuke goes off. There'll be nothing left. No evidence. This will make Chernobyl look like a sewage spill."
Alex glared at Mantz. "Tell them to hurry, Patrick." She took the bud out of her ear and threw it on the table. This was Anna's world, not hers. She wanted to go back to her boring, safe life with her husband. She missed Dimitri terribly.
"I almost feel sorry for you," Mantz leered. "Did you really think there was no backup plan? This won't stop us. We'll just start over. We'll-" Mantz stopped suddenly, struggling to catch his breath. He started to spasm, his body jerking wildly in the chair he was chained to.
Alex rushed over. He was having a reaction to the medication. Seizures were a side effect, and they had pumped him so full of her compound she shouldn't be surprised that this was happening, but it was damn inconvenient. She really didn't care if he lived or died, but they needed him to stay alive right now to answer more questions. She approached him, reaching to hold back his head when Mantz leaned over, violently head-butting her. Alex sprawled on the floor, unconscious.
Laughing, Mantz hopped in his chair, tipping it over so he was prostrate next to her. He grabbed the key hanging around her neck with his teeth and skillfully pulled the string from around her neck. He had a job to finish.
Anna didn't know how they'd managed to get everyone out of the lab and back into the train station. Noah had practically carried Robert the entire way, which she was sure had thrilled Robert to no end, but as a testament to how bad off Robert was, he allowed it. Robert was now physically spent, and barely hanging onto consciousness. They needed to get him out of there fast. She looked over at Sean. His wound had reopened, and had bled through his shirt. He was favoring his right side and sweating profusely, his face pale.
"Noah, you need to take Robert and Sean to the drop-off," Anna said. "I'll go with Aidan and provide a look out."
"Anna, he can't manage both of them," Aidan looked at her and smiled. "You need to go with them. I'll be okay."
"Aidan-"
"We don't have time for this, Aunt. Go." Aidan turned and ran off to platform 3 before anyone could get a word in.
"Right," Anna said, giving Sean her shoulder to lean on. "Let's go."
"Why haven't we heard anything yet?" Robin was frantic. Damn this van. She need to pace.
Patrick reached for her hand. "Hey. They'll be here."
The side door of the van suddenly slid open.
"Daddy!" Robin helped her father into the van as Patrick removed his jacket and balled it up for the spy to lay his head on.
"Hi, Luv. Fancy seeing you here."
Robin laughed through her tears. "You're going to be okay." She gently pushed the hair off of his forehead. Looking up, she noticed the other old friend. "Uncle Sean?"
"Hi sweetheart." He pulled her into a hug. "You don't know how happy I am to see you."
Brenda watched from the front seat, noting Patrick enveloping Noah in a hug and Anna hanging onto her daughter for dear life. "Where's Aidan?"
Anna pulled away from her daughter and looked at Noah. "He's diffusing the bomb."
"Alone?" Brenda leaned over the front seat. "You left him alone?" Brenda yanked the driver's side door open and scrambled out, slamming it shut.
"Brenda!" Robin ran out of the van after her best friend.
"Dammit!" Patrick scrambled out of the van after Robin. Noah grabbed his arm. "Dad, I've got to get her. I'm not losing her now."
Aidan wiped the sweat from his brow. He hadn't lied to his aunt per se; he had worked on bomb diffusing details while in the British Intelligence Agency. He'd just never been the lead. Or actually diffused the bomb. But he'd seen plenty of procedures. And he'd watched an awful lot of James Bond movies.
He had the large steel case open, and was staring intently at the two large tubes filled with liquid. On the left was a giant vial filled with a fluorescent green liquid, and on the right a vial filled with an orange concoction. The green tube had a blue wire leading out of it, and the orange tube had a red wire. A larger empty tube lay beneath the others, a black casing hid the inner workings, making it appear that the tubes were floating in the case. There were 3 minutes left on the digital clock attached at the base of the empty tube. "Cut the blue or the red?" Wasn't this in a Lethal Weapon movie? Aidan found himself wondering what Mel Gibson would do.
"Aidan!"
Aidan shook his head. Surely he was hearing things. Surely that wasn't….He looked up and groaned. "Brenda? What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm your look-out. I wasn't going to just leave you out here alone."
"There is no way you should be anywhere near this building," Aidan shouted. "I've got it under control."
"Oh, is that why I can hear you chanting, 'red or blue,' 'red or blue'?" Brenda slowly approached him, walking past a large pillar. "I'm not leaving you."
A hand reached out and grabbed her around her waist, pulling her tight. Mantz shook his greasy hair out of his eyes and put a gun to her temple. "Well, isn't that sweet."
"Mantz, let her go." Aidan slowly got to his feet, trying to ignore the beeping coming from the bomb at his feet as each second ticked by.
"Oh I don't think so." Mantz held Brenda tighter as she continued to struggle. "Give me the bomb."
Aidan sneered. "There is no way I'm giving this to you."
Mantz cocked the gun. "Fine. I'll kill her. Then I'll kill you. Then I'll take the bomb."
"No!" Aidan tried to come up with a plan. He kicked the case over halfway to Mantz.
Mantz bent down with Brenda and looked at the case with glee. "Oh what fun! Shall we cut the blue or the red Miss Brenda?" Brenda struggled to keep from shaking. "No preference? Okay, how about the red?" With a flourish, Mantz lowered the gun and grabbed a knife from his pocket, slicing the red wire. Slowly the empty tube began filling with the orange liquid. "Ooops. I don't think that was the right wire. How about the blue?" With another grand flourish he cut the blue wire, causing the green liquid to add to the orange. Brenda screamed in terror.
"That's not a bomb, is it?" Aidan said evenly.
"You're pretty smart. Unfortunately, not quick enough." Mantz cackled. "You're looking at distorted fear. Still untested on humans, granted, but the mice had quite the reaction to it. Your Dr. Scorpio is quite brilliant."
"You are a sick bastard," Brenda tried to turn in his arms, spitting in his face. Mantz just smiled.
"What are you going to do with it?" Aidan's mind reeled, trying desperately to come up with a plan. 'Just keep him talking,' he thought.
"Well if you had let the bomb squad come by and blow it up, we would have had a room full of test subjects, but this is actually so much better. All I need is a water supply." Mantz's eyes lit up. "And I believe we happen to be near a rather large waterway. Soon we'll have a whole city of "willing" test subjects, and if all goes well, future agents." He pushed Brenda into Aidan's arms violently. "Unfortunately, you'll have to be eliminated." He lifted his arm, took aim and readied his shot.
A loud growl came from Mantz's left side as Patrick flung his body onto the agent, knocking his gun free as the shot rang out. Aidan screamed and went down.
"Aidan!" Brenda fell next to him.
Robin ran out from behind the pillar and grabbed the gun, trying to get a clear shot at Mantz, but unable to find one with Patrick and the DVX spy rolling on the ground. Patrick felt around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Feeling the handle of the suitcase, he grabbed it and dragged it across the concrete with all his might, at Mantz's head. The blow startled him for a second, but it was all Patrick needed to roll away from him, and that was all Robin needed to get her shot.
Mantz lay still, a bullet in his chest. Patrick slowly got up and stumbled to Robin, pulling her close. Robin shook in his arms, tears flowing. "Shhh. It's over. You're okay." Patrick tried to soothe her, kissing the top of her head. "We're all okay."
He glanced over at Aidan and Brenda, who had pulled her sweater off and made a tourniquet for Aidan's leg. It looked like Mantz's bullet had hit him in the thigh. Patrick grabbed Robin's hand and led her to the Brit. "You all right, Mate?"
Aidan grimaced. "Oh I'm great. Just a flesh wound."
Brenda held onto Aidan's hand and grabbed Robin's left hand. "Let's get the hell out of here." Together they helped Aidan up, Brenda on one side, Patrick on the other, Robin holding onto Patrick for dear life with her left hand, her right hand carrying the suitcase with her deadly research. They made quite a group. A ragtag team, bloodied, beaten and weary, walking thought the red light district to a beat up blue van in an alleyway.
