Chapter 5

Stepping into FBI Headquarters, a couple of agents immediately came towards them to escort the prisoner.

"Take him to medical and then right to the interrogation room", order Jack to one of them.

"No, we don't have time for that, take him straight to the interrogation room – retorted Renee with confidence – He'll get what he needs once in there."

"Ok", replied the agent while taking Tony for the arm and leading him to another door. Jack stood still, watching Renee signing a module handled her from the other agent.

"Renee, can we have a word?", Jack asked with a hostile tone.

"All right", she replied, stepping aside from the other man, who then began to walk away.

"What the hell is going on with you today?", Jack said, trying to keep his voice low. Renee immediately started replying a little annoyed:

"You perfectly know that we have to take advantage of any weakness of prisoners in order to make them more collaborative. Plus, we really don't have time to take Tony to– "

"I'm not talking about that – interrupted Jack more upset – I'm talking about what happened before in the van."

"Nothing happened in the van – cut off Renee – He's fine."

"Damn it, Renee, you lost control of your emotions! You could've killed him!", he replied furious. Then, after pausing a moment, with a calmer tone, he added: "I could've killed you."

Renee looked away from him and sighed. She knew she'd screwed up before, but she had to show that she could still keep going without compromising the mission.

"I know", she said with a reflective tone. "It won't happen again."

"You bet it won't, because you'll get nowhere near to him today. I'll handle the interrogation."

"No, Jack, you won't", she stated with sureness. "I'm in charge here and the last time you led his interrogation, you ended up breaking him out of our building, so no, we won't go down that road again."

Jack looked at her with scorn. How could she have brought this up now? She perfectly knew that, at the time, he believed that Tony was undercover or he would've never helped him in the first place.

"You know that it was completely different. Without that, we would've never recovered the CIP module and stopped Dubaku in time and thousands of innocent people could have died in those attacks."

"You don't know that – she replied without giving in – Maybe if you hadn't helped him escape, we would've still found a way to stop those attacks and, with Tony still in custody, some of the terrible things that he did wouldn't have happened."

"I can't believe you're putting this on me now", said Jack, giving her a resentful look.

"I'm not putting in on you, Jack. I know that Tony betrayed you more than anyone, but, still, I can't let you question him, I have orders on it."

"You know that I can make him break faster, I have history with him and I can use it against him", he tried to make her reasoning.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but I don't have time to discuss this with you now. I've gotta go."

Then, she started walking in the direction of the holding room, leaving Jack both disappointed and concerned about the whole situation.

A few minutes later, everything was ready for the interrogation. Tony was waiting in the holding room, sitting at the table with his hands cuffed behind his back. On the other side of the wall, Renee was staring at him through the mirror, collecting her thoughts. Next to her, a little behind, stood Jack who'd been granted at least the right to assist from outside.

One of the agents seen before in the lobby, entered the room with a tray with some food and water. Renee glanced at him to followed her in the holding cell and used her keycard to open the door. Before entering the room, she gave a last look at Jack, who was still too focus on Tony to notice it.

Inside the interrogation room, Renee waited for the agent to put the tray on the table.

"Thank you", she told him. "You can go."

The agent nodded and then left the room, closing the electronically controlled door behind him.

Tony looked for a moment at the unreachable tray due to his uncuffed hands. Having led many interrogations himself, he knew perfectly well that they would've never given him anything he wanted until they hadn't got what they needed from him and that leaving that food just before his eyes was just another ploy to make him more vulnerable and collaborative. Pushing that image away from his eyes and mind, he decided to focus on what could still be in his control and started speaking to Renee:

"So, what's going on? Who were the people who kept me?"

"If you don't mind, I'll make the questions here", she shut him up abruptly.

"A'right", he said under his breath.

Renee came closer to him and, taking a picture from a folder she had in her hands, she slowly made it slide towards him.

"Do you remember this man, Tony?"

Tony kept his eyes up, avoiding looking at the picture.

"I said remember because we know for sure that you'd met him before", she added in order to prevent him to start the conversation with a useless lie. Seeing no reaction, she kept going:

"His name is Scott Burwell and he's been one of Emerson's contacts for many years. We think he helped you a lot as a weapon supplier and tipped you about worth-taking jobs. Maybe he also told you about the CIP Module, I don't know."

Tony glanced briefly at the picture in silence.

"Anyway, a few days ago he was spot by a security camera at the dock, talking with this other man – saying so, she slid another picture on the table – Gheorge Vasilij, connected to the Russian mob. Vasilij was later found dead in a dump with high levels of uranium 235 in his body and the tests revealed that the radiation poisoning was at its beginning stage, meaning that the contamination must have happened here in the US. We believed that Vasilij sold Burwell some sort of radioactive weapon and that Burwell is now planning to use it in an attack or to sell it to another terrorist group."

Renee stopped briefly to see if this caused any reaction in Tony. No, he was still impenetrable.

"What we want you to do – she continued – is to reestablish your cover in order to contact Burwell and introduce Jack to him as a potential buyer of the weapon. This will allow us to locate it and, possibly, secure it before it can be used to harm people."

Tony smirked.

"I'm done with undercover work", he stated.

"You'll just have to vouch for Jack with Burwell and set up a meeting for him. Then you'll be done and Jack will handle the rest", she explained.

"And what do I get in return?", he asked slightly more interested.

"I guess preventing a nuclear attack and potentially saving thousands of lives are not some things that matter for you anymore", she said with disappointment. Tony stayed quiet, waiting for a better answer.

"We can spare you the death penalty that otherwise it'll become final for you next month. Besides having already saved you from the people who kept you captive and tortured you for days."

"Not enough", he said with confidence.

Renee started to feel a little annoyed.

"You won't get the immunity from the President if that is what you're thinking. You've done too much to have it." Then she came closer to him and, lowing her voice, she added:

"And, trust me, I will never allow the person who murdered Larry to walk free."

Tony felt a little sorry for her. If the President had really decided to give him immunity, she wouldn't have had much to argue about it.

"I wanna talk to Jack.", he said firmly.

"No, you're talking with me. You won't get another chance to manipulate him or convinced him to make you escape", she replied with the same determination.

"Then you'll get nothing from me", he cut it off. Even if he was still overwhelmed by exhaustion, he couldn't afford to give up so easily. Then, provocatively, he added: "Are you really going to blow up the opportunity to stop a nuclear attack over your pride?"

Renee sighed, staring at him. She knew that a potential attack could have happened any minute until that nuclear material hadn't been recovered and that they would have to try anything to prevent it, especially if it was something so simple like letting Jack talk to him. Without saying a word, she picked up the photos from the table, walked to the door, slid her keycard over the electronic opening mechanism and got out.

On the other side of the room, Jack was watching everything from the mirror.

"You won, you can go in", Renee told him, feeling a little disappointed in herself.

Jack looked at her with sadness. He never meant it to be some kind of competition between them, he just wanted to do what was best at the moment.

"All right", he whispered as he started reaching for the door.

Back on the other side, the door opened again and Jack got in and glared at Tony.

"You wanted to talk to me – Jack said – I'm here. What do you want to help us?"

"Not so fast, Jack."

"Tony, I warn you. Don't push my patience."

"Who were the men who got me?"

Jack paused a second unsure if this was just genuine curiosity or an attempt to stalling. He decided that he needed to build a trust in order to get something from him.

"After Starkwood was dismantled one year ago after the attacks, its private army split up in many independent groups, which became involved in all kinds of businesses, from private security to much less legal stuffs like smuggling or retaliation. The people who got you belonged to one of these groups. We managed to find them through the corrupted guard that they bribed to break you out of prison. We're still not sure what they tried to accomplish with you. Maybe they planned to use you for some criminal activity or maybe it was just a punitive mission on commission, but we still have no evidence on the instigator. You pissed off a lot of people with your last deeds, you know."

Tony took a moment to process the whole story.

"They never really told me what they wanted from me, except that it was for justice, so, yeah, I can buy the punitive mission", he said. "What I don't get is why they didn't kill me."

"Maybe they were killing you", pointed out Jack. "Just not the usual way."

Tony thought about the whole thing one more time. Maybe Jack was right and they just wanted to have the longest and most painful revenge. Not so far from what he wanted for Wilson.

"Can we move on to Burwell now?", asked Jack with impatience.

Tony nodded.

"Renee already described you the situation. We can easily restore your cover thanks to your breaking out of prison story and the grudge you still have towards the government. Plus, Burwell knows you, so it wouldn't be unlikely for you to come to him once free", started explaining Jack. "Of course, if during your time in prison you'd developed any kind of regret for what you'd done, you'd be the one begging us to let you help somehow and do something good in your life again, but I understand that this is not the case and you want something in return."

Tony stood quiet, a little annoyed by his attitude, even if he couldn't blame Jack for thinking that.

"I'm talking straight to you – Jack continued – Due to the terroristic nature of your acts, it's unlikely that the President will grant you a full immunity, even if we can try. What we could get for you is an extradition to another country where you'll be free with the clause of never coming back to the US again. In any case, any help you will give us today, will count on court to shorten your sentence."

"I don't care about my sentence, Jack", whispered Tony honestly.

Jack sighed and looked at him with sadness.

"Then, what do you care about?", he asked.

Tony glanced at the security camera which was recording the whole interrogation. Jack turned his head in the same direction for a second.

"All right", he said after cursing under his breath. Then, he headed straight to door and got out of the room.

"Turn off the security camera and cut off the audio from the interrogation room", he ordered once in the adjacent room.

"Jack, we can't let you do something stupid in there", Renee said concerned.

"I won't do anything stupid. We just need to talk off the record", exclaimed Jack irritated.

"Jack – "

"Just do it, ok?", he insisted.

Renee sighed with anger, finding it difficult to trust him right now.

"I hope you know what're doing", she said with a bit of resignation. Then, she turned off the camera and shut down the audio from the room.

"Thank you", replied Jack, before going back in.

Back on the other side, Jack closed the door and came closer to Tony.

"Camera is off, we're alone now. Don't let me waste another minute and tell me what you want."

"You know what I want, Jack. The only thing I've ever wanted since Michelle died."

"Damn it, Tony, I can't let you murder Wilson! ", exclaimed Jack quite upset. Then, in a calmer voice, he added:

"Trust me, we tried to bring him to justice. Renee almost lost her badge after trying to break him the hard way, but everything we had against him wasn't enough to incriminate him."

"WASN'T ENOUGH? – yelled Tony furious – He was responsible for the murder of my wife and David Palmer, he took part in the organization of terrorist attacks using the sentox gas and the prion virus, HOW COULD THIS NOT BE ENOUGH, JACK?"

"Unfortunately, we had no solid proof about it, just a couple of confessions made under duress and you know they're worth nothing in court", explained Jack in a sad tone.

"I've worked for four years undercover to finally get to him and, believe me, I'm certain he's behind all of that, I've heard it from his own voice more than a time and I've met many of the small fishes he used to have his work done, so if you haven't found enough proof to put him in jail forever is just because the corruption in this government is so deep that powerful people like him have become untouchable – retorted Tony with disappointment – But we can't give up, Jack. Do you think it's fair that people like him who destroyed our lives can walk free in their million-dollar mansions while I rot in prison waiting for death penalty?"

"Of course, it's not fair. But life isn't always fair, Tony. Sometimes you just need to accept it.", said Jack with resignation.

Tony looked at him, shaking his head. How could he have just become like this? The Jack he knew would have never surrendered before such an injustice. Trying to provoke him, he asked:

"Just like you accepted it when you murdered Nina Myers, I guess? Oh no, that was personal defense, right?"

"No, it wasn't", confessed Jack with complete honesty, sitting in a chair next to the table. Tony found those words totally unexpected. It was the first time that Jack admitted it in front of him.

"When I shot her, she was already on the ground, unarmed, and If I had wanted to prevent her from reaching for her gun next to her, I could've just hit her in the hand – continued Jack softly – But the truth is, in that moment, I thought about all the harm she had done to Teri and my daughter and how much she could've still done to other innocent people and I lost it."

"So, if you murdered the woman who killed your wife, why can't I do the same with Wilson?"

"Because I was wrong, Tony. I know that right now you think that killing him will bring some justice to Michelle and you'll feel better after, but you won't. After I killed Nina, I felt nothing and this whole sense of emptiness that I felt since Teri died just became much deeper because I knew that Teri would've never wanted me to revenge her death that way. And Michelle neither."

Tony moved his eyes away from him for a moment.

"I'm way past what Michelle would've wanted me to do, Jack – opened up Tony – But if I don't finish this, everything would be for nothing. I can't accept that. And I can't accept that this son of a bitch won't pay for the harm he had caused. And, knowing how you cared for Palmer and Michelle, I think that, deep down, you can't accept it too, no matter what you're saying to yourself."

Jack sighed. He sure wanted to make that bastard pay for what he had done to two of his closest friends, but he wished he didn't have to be that kind of person anymore. Anyway, if he wanted Tony to collaborate, he had to push in that direction.

"All right, this is what we're gonna do – started explaining Jack – Officially, we will ask President Taylor to grant you a partial pardon for your crimes in exchange of your full and trustful collaboration to help us stopping the attack. Besides that, we'll have a deal ourselves. After everything is finished and the nuclear weapon is secured, I'll help you to get to Wilson and we'll try again to find something about his group. After that, I will step aside and let you do what you think it's right."

Tony glared at him, not sure he heard the last part well.

"Are you kidding me?", he asked.

"I've never been so serious", Jack answered in a whisper.

Tony thought about it a second more.

"You're gonna get in trouble, Jack."

"I will find a way out, don't worry. What is certain is that, if you decide to go through this till the end, once you have killed him, your pardon will be void and you'll find yourself here again waiting for another death sentence, but it seems to me that you don't care about that, right?"

"No", replied Tony with indifference.

"All right – said Jack a little sorry to see him so careless about his life – So, do we have a deal?"

"Yeah, I'll do what you ask me to", confirmed Tony.

"Ok. Of course, I don't need to tell you that the second I see something I don't like and I have even the slightest suspect that you're playing us again, I swear, I'll kill you myself." said Jack, knowing that Tony was well aware of what he could be capable of.

"The same is for me if I realize that you're not going to honor your part", stated Tony with the same confidence.

"Fine. I'll go outside telling that we've reached an agreement, then I'll come back and brief you about the details of our cover story."

Tony nodded. Jack stood up and started walking towards the door. While passing in front of Tony, he glanced at the food tray and stopped. Turning around the table, he reached Tony's hands and broke the right free, cuffing the left on the metal handle in the middle of the table. Then, he pushed the tray towards him.

"Thanks" whispered Tony.

Jack nodded and then went for the door, while Tony took the bottle in his hand.

"Jack"

Jack stopped, without turning around.

"I know it means nothing now, but… I'm sorry for how I treated you last year. You didn't deserve it", admitted Tony.

Jack sighed and turned towards him.

"You're right. It means nothing, just the facts do – said Jack, not able to forgive him yet – But I still appreciate you saying it."

Tony made a half-smile.

"I hope I can trust you this time", added Jack, whishing he could change his mind again about him.

"I hope I can trust you too", replied Tony.

"Yeah."

Then, Jack opened the door and got out.