Hey folks. Hope I haven't kept you all waiting too long.
As always, enjoy.
"Hey!"
Kane wasn't so confident that the man scrambling down the halls would oblige her exclamation, but he certainly wasn't going to stop running anytime soon. For a seemingly ungainly man, he was still managing to outpace Kane's best efforts to catch up with him.
And "he" was Savior. Right?
As she turned the corner, she spotted the man hastily attempting to yank open a locked maintenance closet. Kane quickly unholstered her handgun and aimed it.
"Stop! Hands up!" she barked.
The man fell back away from the door and let out a scared, high-pitched grunt as noticed Kane.
"Woah!" he extended his arms in front of himself. "What are you doing?!"
"I'm asking you the same thing!" she said, pistol still trained.
"There could be people left down here, I'm trying to evacuate!"
"This is just the lab section – the whole crew's been gone for over an hour!" she shot back.
He backed up a step. "Look, I…I'm just trying-"
"Tell me your name and what you're doing down here." She took a step forward to even the distance. "Now."
"Mahdi Mussian. I work here! I'm a surgeon, for God's sake! Put down your gun, please!" He leaned his head over to wipe a considerable amount of sweat on his shoulder.
"Hands behind your head!" Kane barked again. She had no clue what to make of Mahdi – or whatever his name was – but this wasn't going to work until they got out of the basement.
"I don't have time for this…" he muttered.
"I won't ask again," she said, this time a bit calmer.
"If you don't let me in this door soon, a lot of people will die!" Mahdi shouted, his arms still outstretched.
"What do you mean?"
"Everyone in this building will die if I can't get in there, okay! Please, you need to let me in there! My card doesn't work!
"Did you just set off that explosive?"
"I'm not doing this of my own free will! He's making me! He'll kill everyone!"
"Savior?!"
"What…no…no…fucking shit! Did…did he get to you too?"
"Oh, come on…" Kane lowered her gun and holstered it. Mahdi breathed an audible sigh of relief as he leaned over and brought his hands to his hips.
"Thank God…" Mahdi let out. "I think your keycard will get me in this door. I need to get in there."
"And I still need to know what's going on in here!" replied Kane. "Was it you who planted that bomb?"
"…I didn't build it; I didn't set it off. I only snuck it in here and planted it," said Mahdi, averting his eyes from Kane.
Kane muttered a curse.
"He has my family, please!" Mahdi resumed yanking on the door handle.
"But why do you need to get in there?!"
"Just let me show you…" Mahdi quickly unzipped the front of his scrubs to reveal an oversized Kevlar vest with a series of varyingly sized pockets sewn into it. Kane took a few steps forward to get a better look.
"All of these are empty now, except one. They all had these small…tiny little devices in them. Not even the size of a golf ball."
"And you planted them?" asked Kane.
"I had to. He gave me specific locations, room numbers. Three in total. I just rolled them under the door and left. He told me he would set them off himself."
"You chose the lives of your family over the thousands of people in this building!?" Kane almost placed a finger to her ear, but quickly decided against it.
"No! You don't understand, the bombs, they are…localized! Small blast zone. He said few people would die. Important people, but not many. They number less than my family that he can hurt. You have to trust…I did not make this decision…lightly."
Kane bit her lip. If what he said was true, he really didn't have other choice.
"I was planning on blowing the whole place to hell if he spoke to anyone…but I suppose I'll make an exception for you, Miss Kane."
That was not the voice Kane expected to hear in her earpiece after accepting a call.
"You…" She couldn't form a coherent thought.
"Trust me, everything will be a lot easier if you help Dr. Mussian with his assignment. What's done is done, and I'd rather not have to harm you or Paszek," said Savior, his distorted voice entirely stagnant throughout.
"So, you do need us alive?" replied Kane.
"Need is too strong a word. I would very much prefer the both of you to be alive. Does that satisfy?"
"We stopped your bombs at the CDC. We can do it again."
"I confess that I didn't anticipate you to find my warhead, let alone deactivate it. But the fault would be on me if I placed all my faith in but a handful of…bodies. I have contingencies. You're staring at one right now."
"You can't get what you want if you set this one off. Paszek's still in here."
"For now."
"They've kept you under wraps for now, but the whole WA will be on your ass if you blow the Pentagon. There's nowhere you can hide."
"I've got a good hiding place…and all the time I'll ever need. Once more…I have to implore you to help my friend Mahdi get that door open…assuming you want to live long enough to find me. And don't think of calling one of your friends now. I'll notice. Trust me."
Click.
"He has your number, too?" Mahdi breathed out.
Kane ignored him. "Let me see the big one."
"You're, um…Captain Paszek, right?"
Paszek's response of a confused and stern stare didn't seem to faze the unfamiliar young woman who stood in front of the table he sat at.
"…Yes. And you would be…?"
The woman let out an incredibly faint gasp. "Winslow, sir. Noncommissioned Officer."
Paszek perked up a little. "You were with Officer Kane in the field today?"
"That's correct, sir."
"No need for formalities. You two are friends?"
Winslow started wringing her hands. "Well, we, uh…just met this morning, so…"
"She seems to like you."
"I was, well, just following her orders, you know?" She diverted her eyes.
"You seem nervous. Everything okay?" He narrowed his eyes.
"I…well…" She diverted her gaze downwards. "Everything's just a bit…tense around here, you know?"
"Oh, I know."
Winslow didn't respond.
"Tell me, Winslow…when the Coalescence documents leaked…did you read them? Or did you read the article in the Times about it? Or, God forbid…did you just let it pass right through you?" Paszek stared at her, trying his best to appear genuinely intent.
Winslow gulped. "I…read every word of it…Paszek. I read it all twice."
He leaned back in his seat a bit. "And yet, you stayed."
"So…well…so did you, right?"
"I guess I did."
Winslow harshly grabbed the chair opposite to Paszek, placed herself in it, and leaned in.
"Alright," she whisper-barked. "You mind telling me what exactly you think you're doing here, mister?"
Paszek leaned in as well. "You're worming your way into my life today, Winslow. And given the current circumstances I find myself in…I think I've got a right to be a bit suspicious about that."
"Well, sir…regardless of how just grumpy you are today, I personally do not appreciate being hounded in such a manner."
Paszek slouched back once again. "Let me cut to the chase. Your being assigned today was not a coincidence. I've read the emails. You cashed in quite a few favors to make sure you were always on call whenever Officer Kane was in the States. Whatever your interest is in her…and is in me…you clearly know a lot information that you're not supposed to."
Winslow took in a large breath. "What do you want from me?" she hissed.
"The truth. What you know, how you know it, and why you're involved yourself with Kane. All of it." Paszek regained his stern look.
"You're in for a long story."
He crossed his arms. "And I've got the time. Let's hear it. I've knocked out every bug within a hundred feet, it's just you and me."
Winslow narrowed her eyes, continuing to speak in a whisper. "I've been working for the CIA for almost seven years now. I've completed every assignment thrown my way well before I needed to. You wanna know how far that's gotten me so far? Security clearance level 2. I've gained a single level in seven years."
"What does this have to do with anything?" bemused Paszek.
Winslow leaned in a bit more "Most people don't go out looking for a job here. I did, and for two reasons. First, I wanna know things. I wanna know what's happening in the world. And for second, the newspapers sure as hell aren't paying enough."
She bit her tongue. "So…I did what a girl does when she wants to know some more things. I dug. And after digging for a long, long time…I found something. There's a person…in this building right now, actually…that's written code for a rather useful program."
"You're being awfully vague."
"With damn good reason," she quipped back. "It's the kind of program that can bust the whole system. Compromise everything."
"Like I said, no bugs here." He was starting to grow antsy. Was she stalling for something?
"Prove it to me. The things I've read make me think you're a bit more in bed with all this Coalescence BS than you're letting on."
Paszek pivoted in his seat, so that he was now facing the north end of the food court. He turned only his neck back to look eyes once again with Winslow.
"You see that exit sign?" he pointed.
Winslow nodded.
"Watch it."
He closed his eyes as the sign flickered off, then quickly shone twice bright as normal, flickered off once more, then returned to normal.
"You've made your point," said Winslow and Paszek turned back around.
"And just so we're clear…" Paszek trailed off. "I don't have any love for the CIA. I just know what they're capable of. And what they're not capable of."
"Is that why you stayed? Just about everyone else who learned about the Singapore…thing before it got leaked went AWOL."
"We're both looking for answers." Paszek shot back. "Maybe not the same ones, though."
Winslow looked down.
"So, what exactly is this program, then?" asked Paszek.
"The Freedom of Information Act's revised doctrine states that any and all official action documents created by a federal agency can be requested for viewing by any citizen of the United States." Winslow started. "An agency reserves the right to redact classified information for an indefinite period of time…but must include a time and date stamp at the very least."
Paszek nodded.
"I…well…I, myself have a standing order for every single document that I can acquire from the CIA. But I'm working with a low, low clearance level, Paszek…so I see a lotta digital black highlighter on my screen."
She paused.
"Now what if I could download a zip file, type a couple of numbers…and get rid of that highlighter?"
"What?" he involuntarily flinched. "You can…un-redact files?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who else knows about this?" he asked sternly.
Winslow changed her tone back to a hush. "Caitlin Hernandez. She wrote the program."
"And?" he questioned.
"And no one else. I haven't shared it with anyone, neither has she."
"Well, 'cept me," Winslow added.
"You have some kind of dirt on her?" asked Paszek.
"Gosh, no. We're just friends."
"The kinds of friends who…what?" Paszek chuckled. "Grab a coffee, share an illegal intelligence-gathering program, that sort of stuff?"
Winslow was unfazed. "You've talked to her before, right? I love her to death, but she's a wreck, just…totally crushed with guilt. Thinks this program's supposed to be her penance or something."
Paszek moved on. "You still haven't gotten to the part where you tell me why you wanted to be assigned to Kane."
"I did say it was a long story."
Paszek grimaced. Fair enough.
"The first thing I learned after un-redacting the CIAs documents is that for every real mission report, there's twenty more that are totally phony. Just a string of words and paragraphs, probably just auto-generated from something else. Seems like they don't want people to use those date and time stamps against them somehow."
"Makes sense," he replied.
"Anyways," Winslow continued, "after I weeded through all of the fakes, I found some curious files relating to some of your old buddies…John Taylor, Sarah Hall, Sebastian Diaz, Peter Maretti, Jacob Hendricks…"
Paszek's neutral expression shifted to a scowl.
"Everyone who learned the information they learned firsthand went AWOL at some point or another. Except for you and her." Winslow stated. "Don't tell me that wouldn't at least make you a little intrigued?"
"If you'd read all of the files, you'd already know the answer to that question," shot back Paszek.
"I combed through every page of those, and no. I don't have that answer."
"Corvus," Paszek started. "Do you know about Corvus?"
"It was the Special Project set up by the CIA and Coalescence in Singapore, the precursor to DNI trials." Winslow matter-of-factly said.
"And?" Paszek positioned.
"And what? Human test subjects, bad ethics, and a cloud of Nova Six. What else is there to know?"
She didn't know about the real Corvus. The one sitting inside of his head.
It was going to stay that way.
"A virus. You saw that in the mission reports, right?" asked Paszek.
"It was…poorly explained. Not explained at all, really. They said that Taylor and his team were infected by it, but they didn't say where it came from, or what it did, or what it even was, really," responded Winslow.
"That's because they didn't know. Sarah Hall told me that something had infected their DNI, corrupted their minds, but that was all the information we had to go on," said Paszek. "Whatever it was, it died with them."
"Died with Hendricks, you mean," Winslow shot back. "Clearly something made him decide to raze Zurich."
"He wasn't exactly the most stable to begin with," he started. "Do you know what it's like to have to kill your own friends? He snapped. And I can't blame him for it."
"You didn't follow?" she asked. "You weren't angry, too?"
"I wasn't crazy. Coalescence deserved to answer for their crimes, but I would have never done what Hendricks did," he replied.
"Well, there's your answer, Paszek. You wanna know why I'm interested in you and Kane? Because you saw the same shit that turned other people into a bunch of terrorists, and now you're both still here, normal as ever."
"At least," she stumbled. "It sure seems that way."
Paszek considered saying something, but Winslow jumped right back in before he could.
"Either you're one of the most morally-principled men I've ever met, or there's something goin' on that I'm not able to see," she started. "You can tell me which one it is…or not. I'll figure it out either way."
"I think this conversation is over," said Paszek as he stood up.
A crash. Faint, but not nearly enough to be immediately deemed innocent.
And….
Another one.
"Did you just feel that, too?" Winslow asked.
Before Paszek could answer, alarms deafened the room, and those in the food court began a panicked scramble for the exits. Forgoing any kind of response to Winslow entirely, he swiveled his head around towards the elevators that led to the lower levels of the complex, starting off towards them as soon as he locked his target.
"Hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?!" Winslow shouted.
"Evacuating!" he barked.
"You don't know what's down there!" she shouted back.
"Savior has nuclear weapons; you think he wouldn't use another one?!" said Paszek.
This was not worth it. He needed to get down there now. He started running once again before Winslow could speak again.
The staircase wasn't far.
He just needed to wait for the others to file out first.
There was no use.
Kane didn't have the means even identify what kind of explosive this massive device even was, let alone how to disarm it. Outside of her standard uniform and sidearm, she was essentially empty-handed in terms of equipment.
"So, he wants you to lock yourself in that room, and…do what, exactly?"
"Wait. Just wait. I assume he wants the authorities to find me in the same room as the bomb," replied Mahdi, who had calmed down considerably in the past few minutes.
"Or set it off and turn this place into rubble," Kane chimed.
"He chose this room, this specific room, for some reason, though. 000-1826-E. Does that mean something? Is there something special about this?"
"Well," Kane started. "This whole wing of the building is high clearance."
"I should know," Mahdi interrupted. "This is my wing! My office is down the fucking hall!"
Kane took a deep breath in. Had his man operated on Hall? Had he…cut her open? Fed tubes through her body? Even for someone like her – someone who had seen every kind of combat – it was revolting to think about.
Combat training taught her that certain things were considered okay. Killing was okay. Witnessing death was okay. Even dying, in most circumstances, was okay, so long as you fought until your expiration. That's not to say that everyone believed it. But it was taught.
Where in medical school did they teach you that clandestine government brain autopsies were okay? Kane hadn't gone herself, so maybe she would never know for sure, but she was quite certain that such things were not taught.
Kane was never the sort of person who fancied herself having the most stringent set of principles, nor would she argue the contrary to anyone who challenged her. Doing the things that her job required of her meant that no such set of principles could ever be established in the first place, unless you were willing to break them on any given day. And at that point, were they ever there to begin with?
However, she would always maintain that she did have some sort of moral code. Some basic boundaries. Certain things that she would never do. Psychological torture. Unnecessarily cruel methods of violence. Warfare based in prejudice.
Experiments on unwilling people – living or dead – was on that short list as well.
Maybe her priorities were misplaced. Maybe she should have had more of a problem with killing. But was that done already. This was right in front of her.
Why was this his job?
"I asked nicely once. I'll be a bit more forward this time," Savior boomed into her ear. "There are two charges inside that device. One of them will knock out much of the floor you two are on right now. The other will level the building. If Dr. Mussian and the device are not in that room in 90 seconds, we'll go with the latter option."
"Oh, God…" Mahdi croaked. "So, I…I have to stay, while the bomb…" he drifted off.
"I'm sorry. I really am," said Kane. "But we can't waste any time."
"I…I understand," he coldly replied.
Kane quickly moved to the door and swiped her card, with an affirmative beep coming out in response. She pushed open the door.
It was a fucking broom closet. This was sick. Perverted.
Mahdi shuffled up from his position on the floor, carefully scooping up the device with both hands before hobbling into the room.
"Just get out as quickly as you can!" he barked at her, placing the device back on the ground. He must have at least somewhat accepted his fate.
Kane mouthed a thank you before darting off back around towards where she entered.
As if that was enough.
"Hold up! I'm comin' with!" shouted Winslow, with Paszek darting his head around to see her scrambling towards the half-open stairwell door.
Once again, Paszek chose not to consider her and continued his dash down into the lower levels, but he was forced to turn around a second time when he heard her crashing down the first two sets of stairs.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" she protested as Paszek helped her up.
"This is not safe, get back up and assist with the evacuation!" he barked at her.
"Fat chance!" she barked back. "It's hysterics out there. And if I learned one thing from those reports, it's that your stupid and impulsive decisions usually work out!"
Paszek grunted. "Don't slow me down!" he said before resuming his descent.
Of course, soon enough it would become clear that Winslow would not slow Paszek down, if only because he made no attempt to travel at a pace reasonable enough for any normal human being to follow.
Paszek silently cursed as he ripped open the door at the bottom of the stairwell. This wasn't even close to the basement – it was still two floors above the war room, which in it of itself was still at least seven floors above the basement, maybe even more, if his estimations were off…
As he walked inside the office area on this floor, he noticed a handful of business casuals making a run for the stairwell. He stood firm in the doorway, so they'd be forced to address him.
"Any of you seen an LNO Kane!?" he barked.
"No! Just let us the fuck out of here!" one of them barked back.
Paszek moved to the side. "Get topside and go out the main entrance!"
"Thanks," muttered another office drone as they filed past.
Paszek looked back as he heard Winslow frantically running down the stairs behind him. She shoved past the three men and ran through the doorway, double-taking at Paszek before stopping to catch her breath.
"…keep…going?" she panted, pointing downwards.
"I said not to slow me down. Wherever Kane is, that's where I'm going. She must be looking for the source this thing, too," said Paszek.
"Fuck," he breathed. Why wasn't she answering him? She always answered.
"Give me some kind of sign if you're under duress. Heading down to war room." The first text message he'd sent to her in a long time.
Moments later, he and Winslow found themselves at the series of checkpoints to the war room, and there were clear signs of panic – disheveled signs and bowled-over chairs. Clearly the three men they'd encountered upstairs were some of the last to evacuate this way.
"I don't have the clearance to go this far!" shouted Winslow, startling Paszek.
"And it'll stay that way," he coldly responded. "Get back up and assist the first responders!"
"I ain't so sure there are any to begin with! What the hell is even happening down there?" she replied.
"Figure it out! Topside!" was Paszek's response, barked as he opened the heavy doors to the war room foyer.
With a dash of energy Paszek would not have thought possible based on her movement down the stairs, Winslow leaped by, setting off the alarms and slipping through the door before it closed.
"Can't lose me that easily," she snarked.
"I do not trust you!" he shouted. "Need me to be that blunt?!"
"Take my gun! Whatever you want! I need to see what's down there!" she shouted back, handing him her firearm handle-first. He quickly took it and emptied its clip on the floor, tossing aside the rest nonchalantly.
"Turn around and get back up there, now!"
She winced at him. "Fine! But don't try and take the elevator – your clearance is way too low! Take the stairs, the ones at the end of the general's hallway! At the bottom of the stairwell, go into the second utility door on the right, it's locked, but not too tight."
"On second thought," Paszek started. "Come with me."
He hardly had the time to second guess his decision, but he would anyways, of course. Not now, though. Now was when focus happened. Focus and nothing else.
"Call Kane!" he barked as they descended to the war room floor. "She's not answering me, something's all wrong here!"
"I already did, no answer here, either!" Winslow shouted back.
The war room was empty. Unnaturally so. Hundreds of millions in technology and intelligence lying around unused – scattered, even. Gone was the clean efficiency of the CIA.
He unconsciously peered his head up to the right as the dashed through. The balcony had been partially collapsed.
What? How did that happen? They weren't remodeling – it had been intact when he walked in earlier in the afternoon. It couldn't have been damaged in the stampede, could it?
No. It couldn't have been that structurally unsound. It had been sabotaged.
Blown away? Blown away! Paszek was certain of such a reality the instant that the balcony just above his head ruptured and swung down. He was already in the process of boosting himself forward with his thrusters when Winslow dived forward to shove him out of harm's way.
Her admittedly selfless gesture was a bit spoiled by the extra force propelling Paszek face-first into the adjacent elevator door, denting it significantly. He groaned as he traced a pale bruise underneath his eye.
"You good?!" Winslow bellowed from the other side of the wreckage.
"Ugh…thanks for the assist," he mumbled back, though he was not exactly thankful for it.
"I think there's too much debris! Can't crawl through! Can you give me a boost?" she shouted.
"No time for that! Get back up and get in contact with Director Teele!" He wasn't lying, he had no way of knowing how long he had until something catastrophic happened, or even what this catastrophic event would or could be. Every second was precious.
"Remember what I said about the elevators!" Paszek faintly heard her say as he ran down towards the stairs. He was growing less and less certain about the intentions of her so-called help, though based on what he could access about the Pentagon, she was entirely right about the elevator.
His schematics for the Pentagon didn't extend past the war room floor – just parallel to his level of clearance. He was going to be winging it.
Winging it, additionally, in the sense that Paszek was not even certain of what exactly he was looking for, or rather, what he was expecting to find. There was the matter of Kane, of course, she was the reason he ran down there in the first place. But was he looking for her or for a bomb? Or for something else entirely? Another person?
It had been long enough since Winslow's departure that he felt confident she had gotten outside.
"Winslow, have you found Teele yet?"
"Nobody has!" she bellowed into his ear. "He's MIA right now, they're scrambling trying to find him."
"What about Jaime Curran? Have you talked to hm?!" he replied.
"Same thing! Nobody's seen him! They're saying you ought to come back up, Captain. They seem to think that if this Savior guy was aiming to blow something up, he'd be on the TV."
"Listen to me, Winslow," said Paszek, having earlier learned how easily flustered she became. "Find Hernandez, assuming she's not missing too. Tell her that Kane and I are both underground, and don't let anyone else know we're down here. Just…make something up."
"This whole thing smells fishy to me, sir, I'm sorry," she responded. "The longer y'all are down there, the worse I think this is going to get."
"Talk to Hernandez and keep looking for Teele!" yelled Paszek, ignoring her last statement entirely and hanging up the call. He was pretty sure that Winslow wouldn't be able to find Teele.
So Paszek would have to find the director himself.
Official emergency protocols dictate that all evacuations should occur via the stairs.
Kane knew that those protocols did not keep in mind the prospect of a nuclear warhead, so she figured the elevator would do just fine. Though she also knew that if this device was, in fact, nuclear, there would be no way she, or anyone else in the building, could get far enough away in time.
She checked her watch. Paszek had called her nine times in the past five minutes, and Winslow another four times. No chances taken. She had no reason to assume Savior wasn't going to keep his word.
And right on cue…
"Well done, Officer. I know you're probably concerned about Dr. Mussian. Rest assured; he will not die today. You did follow my instructions exactly, so my end of the deal holds up. Don't go making any phone calls yet, though. You've got exactly five minutes until I call in the all clear. And the clearance restrictions won't apply to the paramedics and Homeland Security officers, I'm afraid. So if there's any secrets you want to keep for yourself down there, I'd suggest you secure them quickly."
Secrets…did he know? Know about Hall? What did he know and what did he not know?
Oh, God. What about Corvus? Kane hadn't even thought to consider that Paszek was definitely telling the truth about that, too. Not that she didn't believe before, but…
Well, actually, yes. Yes, that she didn't really believe him. She had always believed he was telling what he thought was the truth. But was it the truth? Kane supposed she knew now. And that was an entirely different can of worms.
Worms that were hardly important considering the information Savior had just relayed to her. She quickly lunged for the elevator button and cancelled her top floor selection, swiping her card to confirm going back to the bottom floor. Hell, assuming there wasn't another secret floor they never told her about.
What could she do in five minutes? Hall was the priority, obviously, but Kane knew that the FBI, or whoever it was that would show up would not show either of them any sympathy.
FBI…medics?
She could be a medic.
What the fuck was he doing?
No, really, exactly what the fuck was Paszek hoping to accomplish by running aimlessly through the bottom floor of the Pentagon?
He was trying to find Kane. But he apparently had no way of contacting her, nor tracking her position, nor even knowing the layout of this part of the building anyways.
How long did he even have? A half-hour? Minutes? Seconds?
Wait.
Was Hall down here too?
"People are starting to get worried about where you are, Captain."
And now there was this fucking guy.
"What do you want from me?"
"Cutting to the chase? I'm a little surprised, to be honest. In any case, I imagine you're looking for Kane…"
"Don't you even think-" Paszek started.
"Ah, ah, let me finish. I don't have her. She's perfectly fine, for now."
"Just tell me what you fucking want!" he shouted.
"Walk into Director Teele's office in exactly two minutes. It's all the way in the northwest corner of the floor. Shut the door as soon as you enter and wait."
"Where's the bomb?"
"You're getting better at this. You didn't even stop to ask what my contingency was. Yes, there's a bomb. Bigger than the last one. Eight thousand will be caught in the blast, and that's on the lower end of my estimates. Enter the office and it stays dormant. And your girlfriend is free to go, of course."
"I know that you need me alive," he responded. He wasn't going to be played this easily.
"As I told Officer Kane just a few minutes ago…that's not exactly true. Things will certainly be a bit easier if you comply…but there's ways around everything. You're not necessary, just…useful."
"You expect me to believe that?" he challenged. "You manipulated that poor sap, Stephen Johnson into doing your work already. Must've gotten at least another two people for your little stunt today. That's a lot of resources."
"A few drops out of the barrel." Savior replied calmly. "By all means, Paszek, you can walk right out if you believe I won't stick to my word. Have I lied to you yet?"
It's like Savior was reading his mind. He had thought the same thing countless times in the past two days. Savior talked in riddles; nothing was ever concrete. Was he lying? Exaggerating? Stretching the truth?
Was there any truth in his words to begin with?
Paszek shimmied his way around the blasted-open doors leading to the bottom level. He had no idea who or what had done that, but since it gave him easy access, he wasn't going to think about it too intensely.
Less easy to disregard was the eerily pristine corridor, and the damning realization that Sarah Hall was probably behind one of doors lying in it. It wasn't supposed to happen like this…he was supposed to have more time to get her out. Get her out with a carefully executed plan. He wasn't even sure if he had the time to look for her, let alone find an escape route. Was Paszek leaving her to die? Again?
Was he even going to get out of this building alive? Savior probably wasn't going to kill him if he showed up, but what would he do? Framing him was a possibility.
It wasn't like it mattered, anyways. Paszek was in no position to call out Savior's bluff, given how much he had to lose if he was wrong. Some people might have made that call, but he was not some people.
Teele's office was now ten yards in front of him. Each step felt artificially heavier than the last. His hands felt slippery, covered in sweat, even though he had no way of producing it.
"Open the door, Captain."
Paszek didn't respond. He knew he had to do it. But he had no way of knowing just how precious his remaining seconds were. So, he had to assume that they were infinitely precious, infinitely valuable moments.
He hoped with every fiber of his being that Kane was out of this damned building and that Hall was safe. That was all he had left to care about.
As soon as he begun turning the handle, Paszek immediately wretched internally at the unmistakable smell of a rotting corpse. Once the door was open, the sight of Robert Teele's yellowish face splayed over his desk greeted him.
Well, that certainly extinguished the theory that he was Savior.
His head involuntarily shifted as his eyes met a small cardboard box placed on the desk, just a few inches from Teele's limp hand.
"I'd say I'm sorry for killing your director, but I'm not. He had it coming."
"You killed him with a neurotoxin," Paszek plainly replied. He could see the signs.
"Observant. You'll get a better look at it later."
"I did what you asked, alright?"
"That you did. All I need for you to do is open my little package for you, and the bomb will be deactivated."
Paszek took a deep breath and walked over the desk. He lifted the box up, testing to see whether it was attached to anything. It wasn't. Still unsure of its content, he refrained from shaking it like a Christmas present.
He placed the box back down and placed a hand on the two flaps on either side. Taking yet another deep, deep breath, he slowly opened the flaps and locked his eyes on the object inside.
A small black oblong device, no more than three inches across, sat adjacent to a few packing peanuts. Still cautious, Paszek didn't chance touching or even reaching the device, slowly lifting his hands back up towards his body.
When the saturated, ultra-bright pink light flashed for a split-second into his face, Paszek didn't have time to think a single thought before he was on the floor.
And before he could think about why he was on the floor, he stopped thinking.
A test.
A test of life of death is precisely what Kane was steadying her hand to do, the test to see if one Sarah Hall could continue to live without one of the many machines that laid wire into her body.
In what, at the time, felt like the greatest shortcoming of her life, Kane was far from an expert on medical equipment, or medical treatment, or the human body, or…
She was fairly certain that one of them was a heartbeat monitor – one of the screens affixed to the wall seemed to indicate that. But what if it wasn't? What if it was not only keeping track of her heart, but forcing it to beat in the first place?
The tubes entering Hall's nose…oxygen, right? Were they constantly supplying it, or were they there just in case? That was say nothing of the wires stuck into both of her ears, or the IV in her arm…
Kane placed two fingers on Hall's neck, instinctively pulling back after feeling the unexpected warmth of her skin.
Hall was not dead. She was not dead. She was alive. Alive, alive, not dead…
Slowly placing her hand back on Hall's throat, Kane gently probed around for a short moment before finding the pulse. She glanced over at the monitor, noticing that the electronic display seemed to preempt the physical heartbeat. This was…promising? She didn't really know.
Kane took a lateral step towards the door and placed her hands on Hall's chest.
Static. No movement. Yes, she was alive, but…without functioning lungs? Hall wouldn't last a few minutes without constant oxygen.
There was no way Kane could get her out alone. But she needed to put that thought away for now, move on, move on…
Moving to Hall's left side, Kane examined the clumping of wires entering her ears. Following the strands carefully, she traced them back to a monitor on the desk in the corner. She shoved the chair aside and bent over to place her hands on the keyboard.
Looking at the screen, she could see what Teele had described. There were a dozen charts lined up in a grid, but all of them showed no change or at no data in them at all. Empty.
Her DNI was keeping its metadata to itself. It knew. It must have known where it was, what was happening…
Could it hear her? Could it hear Teele, and the doctors? For the entire time? Months on end?
No. Forget it. That didn't matter. Not now. Not…yet?
Not yet. Because she was going to get out of here. She was.
Kane closed the tab on the computer and moved over to the IV bag. Quickly realizing that she hardly knew enough to determine the contents of it, she stepped back over to Hall's head and checked her pulse again. Still there.
Whatever was being fed through the bag, she reasoned, could be held off for at least a few hours, right? Maybe a day? A person could go for a week without eating. How different could a DNI coma patient be?
How different? How different?! Entirely different! How the hell was she supposed to know?!
No, no, no, no, no. This couldn't happen now. She couldn't freak out now.
What changed? Why was she doing this so often? It never used to be like this. She used to be cool. Level-headed. Something happened. Something…broke? Something went away and hasn't come back. Or maybe something new is taking up space?
No! Focus! Hall is right in front of her. The gurney can carry both her and the oxygen…but not up the stairs. And there's no way the elevators will be running.
The suits are going to think she had something to do with this. With the bombs. They already know she's down there, at least if Winslow is to be believed…and maybe she's not.
There were scrubs hanging on the wall. She could take them…but what about when she got outside? She would need a jacket. Maybe a badge, too. And there certainly weren't spares lying around…
Kane ran over and crudely zipped the scrubs over her clothing, then heading to the computer monitor and flipping it around so that she could see it from across the room. Carefully taking the bundle of wires sticking into Hall's left nostril, she gave it the gentlest tug. No tension. They weren't plugged in. Must have been contact strips on the other end.
With the evenest possible distribution of speed and caution she could muster, Kane pulled the wires out, stopping every few moments to glance over at the monitor. Some of the graphs appeared to lose their data entirely, but the others seemed unaffected. Hopefully, this meant no damage was being done. Hopefully…
She repeated this process with the other nostril…still no changes. That would have to be enough. Moving over to the left side of Hall's head, Kane readied herself to begin the test once more with the wires inside of Hall's ears, only to find that they had retracted themselves, and were now lying haphazardly on her earlobes. Had Kane caused that? The wires had the same contact strips on the end…perhaps a reaction of Hall's DNI? Or a failsafe in the monitoring system Teele had set up? It didn't really matter.
After ripping off the rubber EKG strips speckled across Hall's chest, she was, for the first time in many, many months, fully untethered from the walls of the Pentagon.
And after spending the last few minutes doing everything as quickly as she possibly could, Kane now needed to wait.
"Please, please, you have to help me!" Kane pleaded, practically tearing at the jacket of the FBI agent who'd just entered the room. She was never the acting type, but the look on the agent's face seemed to indicate that Kane had done a good enough job.
She had internally breathed a sigh of relief when the shouts of "FBI!" began to echo from within the cabinet she had hid herself then. That meant she had a chance – the CIA would detain her immediately and indefinitely – the FBI, however, she could fool.
Because they didn't know her.
"Ma'am, I need you to calm down!" the agent replied, grabbing both of her hands with one of his. Kane started him in the face, worried sweat streaking down her face – a fair substitute for tears, she thought.
"Please, my patient!" Kane cried back. "She's in critical condition, I need to ger her to a hospital! I know I was supposed to evacuate, but I couldn't leave her!" Kane was hardly lying.
"Did you see anyone else come down here?" barked the agent. He stared back coldly. Was he convinced?
"I…" Kane trailed off as she averted the agent's gaze. "There was a woman…tall, long black hair…I saw her running down the hallway, so I hid. I don't think she worked here."
The agent released the grip on her wrists. "How long ago was this?"
"I don't know…ten minutes? Maybe longer. I'm sorry, I'm still very on edge, I just…"
Kane expelled a few loud breaths and backed away from the agent as he pressed a finger to his ear. Something about calling in more backup. But she had his attention now. That's all she needed.
"Please, sir, can you help me move her? The elevator's aren't working, and we'll have to take her up the stairs. I don't know how long we have."
"Why is this patient down here?" the agent queried. He was persistent.
"I'm not proud of everything that's done down here," she replied. Another truth. "I'm just here to take care of my patients, sir."
"It's Jacobs," the man replied. "Just call me that. What's your name?" Kane jumped a little bit as Jacobs walked over to the other side of Hall and checked her pulse. This guy was all business.
"I'm Dr. Wright." And her first name was Valerie, she decided. Kane looked down at Hall. "She's former special forces…DNI malfunction. Went into shock as soon as the evacuation started…I don't have the medication needed here to stabilize her!"
"Does she need the oxygen?" he asked, pulling away from Hall's neck. Kane nodded in response. Jacobs picked up the canister and crudely balanced it on Hall's chest, moving her arms to cradle the oblong can loosely. Stable enough, Kane supposed.
Kane leaned down to unlock the wheels of the gurney. They were poorly greased – Hall clearly hadn't been moved for a long time.
"You push!" shouted Jacobs as he turned the gurney, re-orienting it to lie parallel to the exit door. Kane remained silent and followed his instructions, arching her back to get a good angle on gripping the two sides of the cart.
Moving faster that she had anticipated, Jacobs backpedaled out of the door with his own grip on the gurney as Kane followed behind.
"Take the east stairway!" she shouted. "It'll bring us closest to the loading zone outside!"
Peering behind his shoulder, Jacobs appeared to listen to Kane's suggestion and turned a sharp left corner. It wasn't too long before they'd reached the stairwell. Jacobs kicked open the door as Kane pushed the rest of the gurney into the stairwell, where there was just enough room for the entire thing to fit with the door closed.
"Ditch the cart," said Jacobs. "You take the can and I'll carry her."
Shit. That wasn't an option. She needed the gurney to transport Hall once she got outside. Unless this Jacobs character was willing to let her take Hall into the car she was planning on stealing…
"No!" she shouted back. Jacobs paused in the middle of lifting Hall's shoulders to glare at her. "She needs to be lying down, otherwise the oxygen won't flow properly." Now that was an unadulterated lie. The oxygen delivery system was capable of working if Hall was standing on her head.
Jacobs seemed to buy it, gently letting Hall back down on the gurney and bending down to grab the underside of it. "Lift on three!"
Getting up the first set of a dozen stairs was tough enough. The reality that they had at least 20 more to go very quickly set in.
She was off by a little.
Twenty-seven flights later, an incredibly winded Kane arrived near the top of the stairwell, with just a single flight to go. At her urging, Jacobs had called his superiors and re-directed the flow of other agents into the other stairwells, leaving their path unobstructed.
But not out of the clear yet. She was sore as hell and still needed Jacobs out of the picture.
Think, Kane. Think.
"Does she look pale to you, too?" she asked, lowered her eyebrows in concern.
'What?" Jacobs responded. He averted his eyes down towards Hall. "Maybe a little. Something wrong?'
Kane rushed to Hall's side and place two fingers on her neck.
"I can't find her pulse!" she yelped. She moved her hand over to Hall's wrist. "No, no, no!" Kane then ripped open the top of Hall's gown, exposing the top of her sternum.
"The ambulance is already outside!" said Jacobs, re-establishing his grip on the gurney and starting to pull back.
"No!" Kane roared, yanking the gurney back. "We have a minute at most!"
Jacobs gritted his teeth and released the cart. "What can we do?"
"Do you carry a taser?" she fired.
"What?"
"I said, do you have a taser?!"
Jacobs reached down and nervously scoffed. "The voltage from a taser won't restart her heart, that's not what it's meant to do!"
"If I can apply it directly to her heart, it might! Remove the barbs, quick!" she shouted.
Jacobs fumbled for his taser and did as she asked, tossing the barbs on the floor and handing it to her.
"Hold her legs down!" shouted Kane. She and Jacobs traded sides, with Jacobs' back facing the stairs now.
Kane held the taser down towards Hall's chest and mentally prepared herself.
"God, this isn't going to work, is it…" Jacobs muttered worriedly.
"No…" started Kane. "It won't."
In a flash, Kane shoved the cart sideways and pounced, landing the taser directly on Jacobs' exposed neck as he grunted in pain. Feeling Jacobs' hand clutching at her other arm, Kane struck him again with the device, this time on his throat, silencing his cries as he gasped for air.
Finally releasing the flow of electricity to his body, Kane kicked Jacobs over, causing him to fall back-first on the stairs and awkwardly slide down, each step another impact on his rear.
Thankful that she never heard Jacobs' head crack on the floor, she started at his motionless body.
One, two, three, four, five.
He was out. Kane rushed down the stairs and quickly snatched Jacobs' badge before stripping him of his jacket. She tore off her scrubs and placed the jacket on. A little baggy, but good enough.
Seeing Hall's gurney teeter ever so concerningly towards the stairs, Kane once again to overcome her severe soreness to rush back up, just in time to stop the entire cart from careening down.
She let out one of the larger breaths she'd ever taken in her life and grabbed hold of the gurney railing.
And now, to get that car.
Kane was grateful that she'd had this plan in her back pocket for some time now.
But maybe it was a greater indication of her character, or perhaps the direction she thought her life was heading, that she'd thought of the plan in the first place.
The Pentagon's carpark had many hundreds of vehicles ready to go at a moment's notice. Agents of a certain clearance level could take these cars as they pleased. Everything was carefully logged – automatically, via one's ID.
Unfortunately – or rather, fortunately, from Kane's position – her ID was lying on the floor of the stairwell. It was not hidden. The powers that be would easily find it, and easily make their swift and most likely correct assumptions about what happened.
There were plenty of people and plenty of ambulances on the way to the carpark, all eager and willing to help transport an injured woman. But Kane was not transporting an injured woman. And she was not Kane.
Kane was a woman in an FBI jacket, wearing thickly framed sunglasses, who wore her hair down at shoulder-length. Rachel Kane did none of those things. Who's to say who she was? The CIA wouldn't recognize her, and the FBI wouldn't pay her any mind.
Sarah Hall, on the other hand, was still Sarah Hall. However, she was not a comatose oxygen patient, but merely a faceless corpse, features obscured by a matte black bodybag. Only the most discerning of eyes would notice the half-inch hole poked near the torso that would allow the oxygen tube to fit snug. No eye at all would notice the oxygen tank itself, which sat on the top shelf underneath the gurney, easily covered by the tarp Hall laid on.
Sooner or later, they'd figure it out. Maybe a few hours from now, maybe tomorrow morning. And they'd come for her. Mark her for death or interrogation. Ruin her career, at the very least.
But Sarah Hall deserved to be let out of that test tube of a floor. Whatever the costs. The things Kane had done…this was the least of her penance. Perhaps only the start of it. But it needed to be done. Paszek would serve to suffer the consequences as well, possibly not as badly as her…or possibly even worse.
Though, if there was anything Kane could be certain of, it's that Paszek would have done the same thing. They were in this together. She'd talk to him later, of course. After she'd gotten out of DC.
Where was she going? Kane wasn't entirely sure. West was the general direction. Not too far North – the cramped metropolitan cities weren't ideal. Not too far South – FEMA stations at every exit would be a pain. Certainly not all the way West, either – same problem.
No, no, no…those decisions could come later. West was enough for now.
The carpark was abandoned. It wasn't a necessary piece of her plan, but it definitely didn't hurt, either.
Kane trotted along with her gurney to the lowest level of the structure, eternally thankful that she could finally use a damn elevator. This level was reserved for the lesser-used vehicles: the riot tanks, the motorcycles, and a few other oddities.
But it also had the pickup trucks.
The ever-ubiquitous SUV had long been the trademark ride of the acronymic agencies, which left its backwater cousin collecting dust in the cellar of the CIA carpark.
So much dust being collected, in fact, that no one had bothered to update the license plate information on that black Dodge in the corner. And that no one had bothered to check if both sets of keys were in the box.
So now, that black Dodge was hers. And once she was out of Pentagon earshot, the plates would be swapped.
And the pair of Kane and Hall would be ghosts.
"Igg? It's me." Kane spoke into her microphone. "As soon as you see hear this message, you need to call me. She's safe. Please, please call me back."
The manager at the auto-shop asked few questions to her request to refill an oxygen tank, as well as buy a few spares. This boded well for Kane. But Paszek's continued radio silence overshadowed any optimism she may have held. She'd ignored his messages while on the lower floors of the Pentagon, but that was for good reason.
One more hour, she decided. One more hour of silence before she'd consider him missing.
Sweat was the first thing Paszek noticed. The taste of stale sweat in his mouth that came from the crudely bunched cloth that held his mouth gagged. Next came the discomfort from the zip ties – carbon fiber (he could tell from experience).
No sweat on his person, though. He'd been stripped of his clothes and fitted with plain black garb, just a loose t-shirt and a pair of cloth shorts. The room was cold, and not from air conditioning.
He was somewhere cold. Colder than DC. Somewhere far, far away from DC.
I know what you're thinking – is this loser going to update chapters more frequently than, say, every 14 months? I fucking hope so. Until then, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter.
Please leave a review or send a message if you liked it, or if you have any criticism, comments, or questions! Every bit of engagement gives just that much more motivation to keep doing this.