Hey guys! Sorry this one is a little shorter than usual. Also, thanks again for seeing this (messy, ridiculous) fic to the end! Your continued readership honestly makes me so happy.

Also, to clear a few things up: can you tell I'm a writer and forget to do basic math and lose track of continuity sometimes? So: Casper is 20. Logan is 16. And I am a dumbass thot.

Please review! Your reviews are my motivational donuts. Please keep the motivational donuts coming.

Enjoy!

Chapter 11

Advance

Ethan woke as he usually did– with a jolt and a spike of adrenaline. Several things registered at once: the smell of something burned, a dull ache in his shoulder, and a gentle, warm pressure against his back. He shifted up and looked around.

Tepid dawn-light was creeping through the covered-up window. Casper was asleep on the floor, and Benji was sitting awake in a chair with his back to the fire, which had burned down to cold char. The pressure on his back was Brandt, who had curled up into a tight ball and somehow wedged his upper shoulders and head against Ethan. Ethan couldn't help it– he snorted at the sight.

The sound drew Benji's attention. "Oh, good, you're up, Ethan. I didn't want to wake you."

"What time is it?" asked Ethan, sitting up and rubbing a hand over his face. His injuries felt better than before Brandt had treated them, but they still throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

"Around seven," Benji replied.

"You didn't wake me for watch," Ethan accused.

"No, we didn't." There was absolutely no contrition in Benji's voice. Clearly Brandt had been rubbing off on him. Ethan sighed and decided he had too little energy to argue.

"Any disturbances?"

"Nothing," Benji said. "Except Brandt snoring."

Speaking of. Ethan twisted and poked Brandt on the shoulder. "Time to go, Madonna," he said loudly.

Whether it was the poking or the use of his nickname– a gleeful byproduct of his shower-singing habit that he was still in denial about the rest of the team knowing– Brandt sat up with a snarl. Ethan smirked. "We're going to battle. Care to join us?"

They packed up in less than a minute and crept out through the empty house with guns drawn. Just because they hadn't had any trouble through the night didn't mean their enemies had not caught up to them and were lying in wait. The wind gusting through the open front door was violently cold.

But the passage was empty, and they reached the SUV without being seen. Ethan gave the engine– and his teammates– a few minutes to warm up. The hot blast of the heater revived his tired mind better than caffeine. He started to think.

He knew this was a trap. Taking Jane and Benji's uncle was pretty blatant. He knew he was being toyed with, moved around on a chessboard by someone who had more information than they did. He had been in this position before, most memorably in '96. Only then he knew within the first ten minutes of seeing Jim alive that he was the traitor. But he still hated feeling used.

This was even worse. It wasn't just him this time, running rogue with the only objective to clear his name and come home. Back then, he had little to come home to. This time the lives of his team hung in the balance. He wouldn't be able to handle losing them.

The risk unsettled him. This wasn't just another mission. They were always in danger, yes, but this time it was because of him. Someone had come after him, and now they were all in the crosshairs, and few things were more effective at making Ethan feel out of control.

"We can't just go barging in there," Brandt said from the passenger's seat, as if he had heard Ethan's ruminations.

"No, we can't."

"So what's the play?" Brandt scratched behind his ear, an agitated tic that Ethan knew even field training hadn't broken of him.

Ethan let out a breath. "What can you tell us about where we're going, Casper?"

Casper met his eyes in the rearview. "They covered my head when we left," he replied. "They brought in your team from London. I saw them take Benji, Jane and Walter away, but they brought me with Brandt. Jurich left from there and didn't stop until we got to this house. Like I said, he covered my head when we left, but I think we drove for a couple hours. I don't know what direction though, I'm sorry."

"I know where we're going," Ethan said. "They left a navigation line on their GPS in this thing."

"Then it's definitely a trap," Brandt deadpanned.

"I know it's a trap, which is why I need more information," Ethan said, a little testily. "Casper?"

Casper gnawed his lip. "I haven't seen it from the outside," he started. "But I think it's underground. It's like these long brick tunnels. It smells damp."

"Catacombs," Benji and Ethan said in unison.

"The Catacombs of London," Benji continued. "People used them as shelters during the Blitz. There's miles and miles of them."

"What else do you remember?" Ethan prompted.

Casper was looking increasingly nervous, but he said, "It's a series of rooms, off one central tunnel. I think the way in is through a basement in a church, because they would cover my face whenever we went in or out but sometimes I could hear a choir singing."

"There's some Deep Web conspiracy theories that a church in central London uses the catacombs for human trafficking," Benji piped up. "Altar boys and such."

"There anything to it?" asked Brandt.

"Well, it's mostly rubbish, but there was an expose done around five years ago, I think? Apparently there was a priest who had kidnapped a couple children and hid them under his church." Benji grimaced. "He'd, um…use the singing during mass to cover the screaming when he…well. One of the poor kids escaped, turned him in. Bastard's in jail until Judgment Day. But of course that's where the theories started."

"It would make sense," Casper said. "The rooms where the kept us weren't real cells or anything. Just brick rooms with big heavy doors and guards. Maybe the priest put them there."

"So we need to sneak into a church," Brandt summed up, "and then find some way into the secret entrance under it, without being noticed by the guards that are definitely waiting for us." Brandt rubbed a hand over his crew cut and scratched behind his ear again. "Awesome."

"Or we just find another way in," Ethan said. He yanked the parking break off and started guiding the SUV back to the road.

"Like what?" asked Brandt.

Ethan raised an eyebrow pointedly.

From the backseat, Benji groaned. "Oh, come– no, not this again!"

"What?" asked Brandt and Casper in unison.

Ethan just rolled his eyes and cursed his luck. He'd never hear the end of this one.

()()()

"Gotta say," Brandt gagged, "I'm an IMF agent, yes. This is in my job description, yes." Through the flashlight beam, he fixed Ethan with a frosty glare. "But I really hate you right now, Ethan."

"Oh, piss off, Brandt," Benji grumbled. "You should've been there when we broke him out of prison. Russian sewage smells even worse than English, and that's quite a feat."

"You weren't even in the sewer that time, Benji," Ethan protested, as he picked his way around an island of questionable origin, leaning on the brick ribs of the sewage tunnel for balance. He shone the flashlight beam further down the sewer. By his calculations– and considerable guesswork– they should be getting close.

"No, but I could smell it on you and Jane for hours afterward," Benji said.

"You were in prison?" Casper asked him. "What'd you do?"

"Long story for a later time." The last thing he wanted to get into right now was Cobalt, or the events that led up to that whole disaster. He thought suddenly of Julia. He'd managed to conclude (after several minutes of silent but frantic calculating) that whoever had Jane and Walter couldn't know about her. Only two people left on Earth knew that she was still alive, and he'd personally made sure that her tracks were so well covered and her new identity so thorough that even the most dedicated stalker, hacker, or hunter would be thrown off the scent. Despite Casper's warning, he had to believe that she was safe and sound and far away from all of this. He would lose his mind otherwise.

He had more than enough to worry about right here and now.

The beam of his light ghosted over a break in the wall of the sewer, where the color and pattern of the bricks changed for about a twenty-foot-square gap. Bingo.

"This is it," Ethan said. They gathered around the gap. "Everyone solid on the plan from here?"

"You mean the crippling lack thereof?" asked Brandt. "Yeah, feel good in that regard." Ethan glared at him, and Brandt cleared his throat awkwardly. "We're ready, Ethan."

Ethan nodded. He set his shoulders a little tighter. "I just want you all to remember: we're on our own. Anything that happens from now on will, most likely, never reach the official echelons of IMF, and if it does, it won't stay long. Therefore, you may use any means necessary, sanctioned or otherwise, to accomplish this objective. We're going to get Jane, Walter, and Casper's brother out of here, and figure out who these people are and why they're after us. We will neutralize the threat and go the hell home. Clear?"

A series of solemn nods. Benji muttered something under his breath.

"What was that, Benji?" Ethan asked. "I didn't catch it."

"Oh, it's just–" Benji blushed. "Sedona. It's something Walter told me, that his team leader used to carry a picture of her daughter, Sedona, for hope and luck on missions." He blushed deeper. "Just thought it would help."

Ethan grinned softly. "We'll take whatever you got, Benji."

Then he lifted the sledgehammer and started attacking the wall.

The hammer was brand new (they'd bought it in a hardware store in London right before ditching the SUV and crawling into the sewer), and of good make, and the brick started to crumble quickly.

Well, if they didn't know we were here already, they do now, Ethan thought. Nothing for it. He swung until his damaged shoulder started screaming in protest, then handed it over to Brandt. Little by little, the bricks grew more and more unstable. Chinks of light started to appear.

Finally a huge chunk went. Then another, and another. The bricks fell away to reveal an empty space, illuminated harshly by industrial white light. Brandt paused and listened, but they heard nothing. He widened the hole more until it was large enough to admit each of them. Then he stepped back.

Ethan nodded. He drew his gun and ducked into the opening.

He emerged into a long, foul-smelling hallway. It was entirely empty. He waited for the others to come through. When they all joined him, Casper gestured in one direction, and they started moving forward silently.

They rounded the first bend in the hall.

And stopped dead.