Author's note: chapters are about to get longer and longer and probably should be split I to more chapters, but I'll spare you the cliffhangers. Thank you for reading! Comments appreciated, even if you just want to tell me I'm an asshole, that's welcome too. 3Bunn
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Chapter 4
The fleshy sound of knuckles hitting Jack's bare chest could still be heard over his gasps for air. When the barrage of punches stopped, Jack drooped his head down as if to watch his own chest struggle to rise and fall, panting and trying to catch his breath.
"Stay down Jack!" Riley pleaded to the video feed as if he could actually hear her.
Jack expelled a deep wet cough before continuing breathlessly, "if I knew (gasp) you were gonna try (gasp) to get to second base (gasp) I'dve made you buy me a drink first." He raised his head and laughed at the sheer anger conveyed in the masked man's eyes. The laugh triggered a coughing fit punctuated by even harder laughter. "We got the bottle, you got the cup, come on everybody let's get…brass monkey, that funky monkey." Jack shimmied his hips with his own beat and a spiteful smirk, continuing his song. "Brass monkey junkie, that funky monkey." He braced himself for the punch he saw coming, gripping the ground as best he could with his toes, and locking his shoulders, but the force of the blow to his nose whipped his neck back and knocked him out. His chin fell to his chest, head lolling slightly side to side as blood poured from his nose straight down to the ground.
Riley screamed at the horrific violence of the direct hit to his face. Her eyes watered partially in sympathy pain but also grief for having watched it happen to someone she loved. Her stomach turned at the sight of the blood pooling on the floor by his feet that were no longer steadying him as his suspended body swayed slightly.
"A-a-a monkey tattoo." Mac, also silenced by the brutality he just witnessed, stammered to make use of the information Jack paid so heavily for.
Riley averted her eyes and went back to narrowing down the search. Seconds later, it paid off. She slapped the side of the laptop in celebration, "Bingo!" She sent the search result to the bottom right corner of the wall screen for the rest of the team to see. "Enrique Velasquez, 29 years old, one of El Noche's heavily used cronies, last known location was Las Cruces, New Mexico."
Matty pulled out her phone and walked toward the door, "I'll start a team that way. Meanwhile, find all the properties abandoned or owned by the cartel's various shell corporations."
Bozer chimed in, "but it looks like he doesn't stay anywhere for very long. He's been arrested in LA, Austin, Atlanta, and another half a dozen cities. I doubt he actually stayed in Las Cruces very long."
"I'd appreciate it if the newest spy school graduate would not undermine my decisions so quickly. This is the only lead we've got. And I'll have you know based on observation, that this thug has a tattoo of a little girl on his neck and a monkey on the other side. It's probably his daughter, and while he doesn't mind dishing out a beating or murder every once in a while, he's probably somewhat attached to his child and wouldn't be as likely to leave her behind anymore. So until something BETTER shows up, we are acting on what we have."
Bozer knew she was on edge due to one of her best agents and close friend being in danger, but he still shrunk into the couch, trying to become invisible after being snapped at so harshly despite his good intentions. Matty walked through the door and slammed it behind her, getting balls rolling on her way to her office. Tears slipping from her eyes when she finally reached her desk as her phone call ended.
"Boze," Mac tried to comfort him, seeing now that he had to stay strong for the others. Jack was doing everything he could to keep them from worrying, but Mac knew better. He could see through Jack's tough guy act and knew it wouldn't hold up forever. Mac approached his roommate from behind as he touched Bozer's shoulder, "Matty's just snippy. You were right to question it, and any other time it would have been constructive input. Unfortunately, we don't know how long Jack's been missing, the mode of travel, or even how they got him. We're basically grasping at straws right now and we'll take any lead we can get."
Matty returned to the war room completely put together with fresh determination, "Riley, have you narrowed down the search any more?"
"I've found a few buildings." She pointed toward the top of the big screen, diverting her eyes from Jack as much as possible. "See up at the top? if we...hold on a sec." She tapped a few buttons and had the top left corner of the screen zoomed in to cover a third of wall, and replayed the feed in that box from the beginning in 16x speed. "You can see the lighting change just the slightest bit over time, that's the cloud cover moving so there are windows. We're looking for a warehouse type building or garage with high up very small windows. So we're down to 4 sites within a 50 mile proximity of Las Cruces."
"Good eye, Riley!" Mac congratulated her as she shrunk the zoomed window back down and replaced it with a map with circled locations.
"Excellent work. I'll send these to the inbound team to check." Matty explained as she disseminated the information from her tablet.
The map window was shrunk and Jack's feed took up the majority of the wall again. The room was uncomfortably silent for several moments. You wouldn't know the picture was a video if not for the blood dripping, thankfully much more slowly, collecting on the tip of Jack's nose until heavy enough to fall to the gruesome puddle on the floor.
Sancola stalked slowly back toward his captive with the cattle prod again. He pressed it to Jack's belly on top of red welt left from the last shock. Jack wasn't as animated waking up this time. He clenched his teeth and tried to suppress a pained groan, but when the shock didn't let up he raised his head with an angry roar. It was downright frightening coupled with the blood dripping down his face from his nose and mouth.
Jack steadied himself with the ground, narrowly avoiding the puddle at his feet. He looked directly at El Noche with a snarl and spat in his face. If it were anyone else and not his leverage to obtain his actual desired mark, El Noche would have shot him in the face without hesitation, but since this was Jack, he had to keep him alive a little longer as bait.
"Jack, no! Stop provoking him!" Riley choked back sobs and turned her head as Sancola slowly wiped the blood off his own face with his hand. They couldn't see his expression, but they were sure it was terrifying because of the way Jack laughed at him, Mac had learned over the years that that particular laugh was Jack's tell, but he never let on to Jack that he was aware of it. Jack was convinced he was about to die.
"You look like a cute little turtle when you're angry." Jack provoked until he was prodded in the belly with electricity again, prepared this time because he tensed up but did not scream no matter how long the shock lasted. Frustrated, Sancola threw the cattle prod behind him and kicked jack square in the stomach and walked away. Jack swung backward from the chain, losing the little support he had from his feet. His wrists were jerked down into the shackles with his loss of balance, and he felt his bones shift and crack uncomfortably, followed by a trickle of blood sliding down from where the raw skin on his hands finally broke. He scrambled, trying to get his feet to stop him from swinging, but they were now slick from the blood on the floor. He grabbed the chain to pull up on and take some of the pressure off his wrists, but couldn't hold it for very long. The blow to his belly quickly took its toll and he vomited a significant mix of bile and blood onto the ground in front of him.
He spit a few more times to attempt to get the sour taste out of his mouth, but it didn't make a difference. His swinging finally slowed to where he could support his weight more with his feet and take a load off of his wrists. He knew he was looking really rough and needed to overcompensate to reassure his Phoenix family that he was fine. "Clean up on aisle 5!"
Jack chuckled at his own joke, "you better bring the kitty litter for this one, it's pretty messy. Mop and bucket ain't gonna cut it." He stood there quietly for a moment, not sure what to do with the silence while he knew he was on camera being watched.
His family wasn't sure what to do either. They didn't want to watch, but needed to. They needed the reassurance that Jack was ok and needed to wait for more clues just in case. Riley felt ill and was quietly crying on and off. Mac was trying to decipher what Jack was trying to tell him with the "aisle 5" or if it was just him trying to cut the uncomfortable silence. Frustrated with his lack of progress, Mac walked out of the room and slammed the door.
Mac avoided his own reflection in the mirror at the sink. He cupped his hands and caught water to splash on his face. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and wiped slowly down his face with a frustrated sigh. Mac blinked slowly, examining the puffy redness around his eyes and the crystal blue brightness of his irises, evidence of tears shed. He couldn't let his team see him crack. They needed Mac's reassurance that Jack was gonna be fine. He knew that best as his partner; he knew what kind of beating Jack could take and knew his limits better than Jack himself did. Mac couldn't shake the thought that this was his fault and could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. Why was Sancola free? Why was he alive? Until the cartel had Mac in custody, his whole family was in danger. They hadn't yet told Mac where to turn himself in, maybe that's why they hadn't done too much to Jack yet. The worst pain inflicted so far were a direct result of Jack mouthing off to his captors. Mac knew that once they gave a meet location, the clock was starting there was no turning back, Jack was as good as lost. Even if he did turn himself in, they never said they wouldn't kill Jack anyway, but at least he wouldn't die alone.
He hopped up onto the bathroom counter, knowing that no one would disturb him in there while he worked out his plan. Using all resources available to him on his phone while inside the Phoenix, Mac deduced a likely location to find someone who he could surrender to before anyone knew he was even gone.
Bozer was waiting outside the heavy wooden restroom door when Mac emerged. "We were worried about you roommie, you were in there for a long time." Mac shook his head and looked down at the floor, having no answer or explanation for his absence, his opportunity to leave the building lost. "This is tough on all of us, Mac, but I know it's especially hard for you." Bozer pulled Mac in for a hug and wrapped his arms tightly around Mac's back, who returned the hug weakly. Bozer gave a few heavy handed pats before releasing and guiding his friend back to the war room. "You need another minute?" he asked before grabbing the door handle. Mac shook his head weakly and averted his eyes from the screen as they entered.