Author's Note: Sorry about the delay with this one! I got sidetracked with other fics (see my profile for details!), and then my ME kicked in. But here we go!
Reade and Caruso had only been back for a couple of minutes when someone killed the lights.
As red backup lighting flickered on, everyone stared at each other for a frozen instant, unable to process what was happening. Then Winter caught a glimpse of the security monitor, which had also flickered back to life with the emergency power.
"Oh, my God—it looks like Call of Duty down there!"
An alarming number of heavily armed people in dark clothing were about to infiltrate the building. Obviously, the safehouse wasn't living up to its name.
Jane frowned over at Reade. "I thought you guys said you'd slipped your tail?"
"This isn't the same people," Nas said. "The Bulgarian forces carry AK-47s. These are HK-416s."
"So who, then? You-Know-Who?" Reade asked, with an apologetic glance at Jane.
"What, Voldemort?" Winter asked, looking as though he wouldn't be surprised if the fictional villain strode into the hallway.
Kurt stepped between Jane and the monitor, gently manoeuvring her backward. "Maybe. Just in case… Jane, I need you to guard Winter while we take care of this."
Incredulous, she stared at him. "You have to be kidding me. You need all the help you can get with them, Kurt."
"Just be our last line of defence. Please. If this is related to what we talked about before, you already promised to trust me, remember?"
Hiding out with the suspect felt cowardly, especially knowing the others were going to be putting their lives on the line. But she swallowed her pride and nodded slowly. "Fine."
"It's for the best, Jane." Nas reached out and flicked off the security monitor. "Trust us."
"No peeking," Reade added, with a nod at the dark screen.
Kurt was the last of the agents to leave the room. "We'll handle it, and then we can go home and talk about it, okay?"
She nodded and leaned into his brief embrace. "Be careful."
"Always am." With a quick, grim smile, he drew his weapon and was gone.
Winter was pacing back and forth in front of the powered down security monitor. "I don't even know what I did to deserve this. I know why they want me so bad, but why did someone decide to frame me so that they would want me that bad?"
"You were probably convenient." It took all of Jane's willpower to turn away from the monitor instead of flicking it back on to check on the team's safety. Only her promise to Kurt kept her from doing it, and the gravitas in his words.
If you only do one thing that I ask ever again, make it this.
He wouldn't have said that lightly. She had to trust him. Right?
Downstairs, the first gunshots rang out, and Jane lost part of the battle with herself. "I'll be right outside the door. Stay here, okay?"
Then, trying not to feel like a wartime wife waiting for her loved one to return, she headed to the apartment's entrance, hoping she could hear some indication of how the gunfight was going without actually being there.
The number of shots seemed endless, but she heard all of her team calling to each other, coordinating and covering each other.
"There are too many of them!" Nas called. "Weller? Plan B!"
Whatever plan B was, they communicated it silently to avoid letting their enemies in on it. A few gunshots later, Kurt called, "Caruso, you and I'll hold 'em off. Reade, Nas, get going."
As footsteps came back up the stairs, glass crashed inside the apartment, and Jane darted back inside with a curse. Winter tore down the inner hallway like a cartoon mouse fleeing a cat, his eyes comically wide. "Someone's coming in through the window! We're so screwed!"
"Calm down and get behind me," Jane ordered, double-checking the safety on her handgun.
Two of the mercenaries —because they had to be hired guns; they just didn't have that law enforcement feel to them—took up positions on either side of the doorframe to the room Winter had been in. Jane found cover in one of the doorways farther down the hall, yanking Winter in with her, and crouched to subvert their expectations of where she'd reappear.
The first one fell with hardly any effort from her, but she winged the second guy, and he screamed out, retreating into deeper cover. After a few seconds, Nas and Reade returned to the apartment, and Jane used the merc's distraction with his new targets to take a headshot.
"Nice shooting," Nas said, cautiously joining her. "Any more?"
"I think it was just the two of them, but there could be more at any moment," Jane said, standing from her crouch. "What's the plan?"
"We get Winter down the back stairs and into the van before they realise we're moving him," Reade said.
"You don't think they have the back stairs covered?" Jane asked, confused.
"Unless they have more guys I didn't see, we took care of it already."
"Reinforcements could be here any second. We should get going." Nas held out her hand to Winter, who was cowering against the wall. "Stay close to me."
"That was seriously the best opportunity to use 'come with me if you want to live' that I've ever seen, and you blew it," Winter told her, taking her hand.
Nas rolled her eyes and pulled him after her down the hall.
"But, you know, I'm just grateful you're here and everything… I'll shut up and let you do your job now."
"Back Nas up," Jane said to Reade. "I'll cover our rear."
"Jane, I think you should stick with Winter. Weller will skin me alive if you—"
A barrage of gunshots from below interrupted them, and Jane thought she recognised a cry of agony as Caruso's voice. Jane and Reade exchanged an alarmed look and headed for the door as one.
"Nas? Reade?" Kurt's voice was ragged with stress.
As they followed Nas and Winter down the back stairwell, Jane longed to call out to him, but she bit her tongue, knowing he'd only worry if he heard her voice. Whatever it was about this mission that he was keeping her out of, it was important enough to him that his distraction might cost him his life.
"You guys good?" Reade called.
"Caruso's down. Doesn't look good."
"I'll go," Nas said, and handed Winter off to them. "Get him to the van. Be careful. I think reinforcements might have got here sooner than we thought."
She took the remaining few stairs quickly but silently, rounded the corner and was gone.
Jane and Reade herded Winter in the opposite direction when they reached the bottom, down a short hallway to the back door. Jane moved to take point, but Reade grabbed her arm.
"Nuh-uh. I'm on point."
Jane bit back a groan and stepped back. This sudden protectiveness the team was displaying was getting old very fast.
Reade leaned out into the alley and withdrew immediately, cursing.
"How many?" Jane asked softly.
"Three. Maybe four."
Maybe? Jane tried not to grind her teeth as he took a few careful shots. Reade was a great agent, but 'maybe' could get them all killed. If she'd been the one scoping things out…
She killed the frustrated thought, knowing she was being unfair, and motioned Winter closer to the door.
Reade took a breather to reload. "Okay, two left. Both farther down from the van. I'll hold them off. You can use it as cover and get inside with Winter."
There was no way in hell she was cowering in a van with Winter, but she nodded as Reade headed out to crouch behind an abandoned freezer.
"Stay there," she told Winter. "Let me get the door open, and when I tell you it's time, run straight to the back of the van and get in, okay?"
Winter nodded, pale-faced.
Jane used a break in the gunfire to dart across to the back of the van. The alley ended in a chainlink fence covered with plywood on one side, so she didn't have to worry about being shot from behind as she opened one of the van's back doors.
After that, it was all timing. Winter tripped on his shoelace as he crossed from the apartment doorway to the back of the van, but Jane caught him as he pitched forward and yanked him the rest of the way. Once they were both inside, she pulled the door almost all the way shut before she gave him a quick visual sweep for injuries. He'd come out of this miraculously unscathed so far—one less thing to worry about.
Now she could check on Reade.
"Stay down," she ordered. "They can still shoot you if they see you through the front windshield."
Winter curled into the back corner of the van as Jane opened the door again. She was about to call out to see if Reade needed a hand when she caught sight of someone moving into the apartment block's back hall. It definitely wasn't Reade—he was still drawing fire from the last stubborn holdout down the alley.
Jane went after the newcomer, knowing she didn't have a choice. Kurt might not like it that she was going into the fray, but while he trusted that she and Reade had the back entrance covered, this guy could sneak up on him.
She reached the stairs in time to see that the guy had a weapon drawn—a handgun, not a rifle—and he was going…up? Did he think Winter was still in the safehouse apartment?
There was something familiar about the way he moved. The knowledge itched at the back of her brain as she followed him, trying to be as stealthy as possible, hoping she could choke him out quietly, in case there was anyone else who'd gone up while she was in the van.
It dawned on her that this was probably the person Reade had referred to as 'You-Know-Who'—the person Kurt was trying to keep her from seeing—but it was too late now. There was nothing to stop him from doubling back and shooting Kurt and Nas, if that was what he wanted. She was committed to this course of action if she wanted to protect her team.
The guy above her reached the landing and must have seen the open safehouse door. He muttered a curse—quietly, but in a voice she would never, ever forget.
He was here.
Keaton, the deputy director of the CIA.
Jake, the man who'd sadistically tortured her for three hopeless months.
I'm not going back. I can't go back. I will die first.
Jane lost all grip on reason. Her skin prickled and her senses went into overdrive. She forgot about her team, about the mission, about the other assailants below. The only thought in her head was that she had to neutralise this threat, before it neutralised her.
She had a loaded gun in her hand, but she wasn't thinking clearly. Stopping, lining up a good shot and pulling the trigger felt like it would take time she didn't have. Her muscles were coiled—she needed to move.
Taking the last few steps swiftly, she raised her gun in preparation to pistol-whip him around the back of the head. A creaking floorboard gave her away, and Keaton began to turn, throwing off the accuracy of her strike. It only stunned him instead of knocking him out, and that terrified her even more. A new shot of adrenaline gave her a surge of strength, and her instincts took over.
She dragged him into the apartment, slammed the door and engaged the bolt while Keaton was still reeling. As he began to recover, she kicked his gun out of his hand, then slammed her knee into his diaphragm, winding him.
By the time he could have retaliated, she had him cuffed to the first sturdy metal construct she could find—the pipe connecting the hallway radiator to the apartment's hot water supply. He was still coughing and dazed, bleeding freely from a head wound that probably wasn't as bad as it looked—not that she gave a damn—which gave her time to grab the box of cable ties stashed in the supplies Caruso had brought up to the safehouse. She had his legs tied together before he could start kicking, and after a quick body search to ensure she'd gotten all of his weapons, she was finally sure he was secure.
That was when her stomach rebelled, and she stumbled into the bathroom to vomit.