Sitting in the rear of an ambulance, Jack watched how they passed the entrance gates to the pier. Teddy sat across him, watching him pick at the seam of the splint. He had to be nervous, she guessed, but fumbling around at his hands was the only thing that showed it a little.

The closer the got to their final destination, the quieter he got, too. He took off the white coat which she'd grabbed from Owen's locker to disguise him as medical personnel, and instead, he put on his black jacket again.

Teddy tried not to look at him and tried not to let any emotions show. She was afraid and nervous as well.

A heavily armed agent stepped out behind a few crates and told them to enter an old warehouse. In there, there were even more DoD members, waiting for the exchange to go down.

"That's their basis. You're gonna park here, wait here, don't leave the car and do what they tell you.", he silently said to her, while he was spying over the driver's shoulder, trying to get the picture. "You're safe here."

That wasn't her primary concern. She knew that she was safe, among half a battalion of DoD agents and soldiers.

Jack checked on both his guns again, but he was sure that Heller's men would take them away, in the moment they'd see them.

"Jack?", Teddy asked.

He looked up, hoping that she wouldn't get emotional on him now. That wouldn't help at all.
But instead, he found her calm, and she was holding a small syringe in her hand.

He wasn't sure what she was up to. "Are you trying to knock me out?"

She slightly shook her head. "You should let me give you that." She had had enough time in the past four hours, to get a grip of herself again and she wanted to help him in the only way she could, "you said that the next five hours will decide whether you can get off that ship or not and they will try to hurt you beyond imagination", she began, "this takes hold for about five hours."

Hesitatingly he slid a bit closer, bringing his right arm already into her reach "You know that I have a history with this", he breathed. It could only be morphine, what she was holding in her hands there. "Won't I get high? Tired?"

"This is a clinical drug, Jack", she took his arm and brushed the sleeve back, "You won't get a high and the effect sets in way slower when I give you this it subcutaneously." She didn't leave this up to debate and injected it into his arm. A few seconds later, she looked up, into his eyes. "See?"

He tried to judge if he felt something… actually, nothing yet.

"I'm a trauma surgeon, Jack, I know what I'm doing.", she said, placing another two injections into his hand. "If you can hide them somehow, take them with you. Metal detectors won't find them. You're gonna need them."

He had a look at the two small injections in his hand. While he had already put up with dying in Cheng's hands, she probably had been up all night, thinking about his chances to flee, trying to find ways how to increase them.

"This is the only way how I can help you", she silently said, looking into his eyes. "You have to go now."
No, she wouldn't let her emotions get the better of her. No.

He hid one of the syringes behind the waistband of his trousers, and the other one somewhere else.
Teddy hoped that he could use them. She had seen soldiers do unspeakable things, when they'd been on morphine, after getting hurt.

"We'll be waiting for your return.", she said, almost wanting to give him a little push towards the rear door.

He jumped out of the vehicle,
She wouldn't have been able to keep her cool for any longer.

Jack found himself standing in the middle of the warehouse. One by one, the soldiers around realized that not the doctor named Hunt, which they had on their access list, had stumbled out of that ambulance, but their primary target.

Teddy sank to the cold metal floor in the rear of the ambulance, leaning against the back door. She could hear clearly, what was going on out there. Slides of guns racking, probably because of being pointed at him, soldiers who were shouting at him to raise his hands behind his head and stay.

Something got dropped on the floor.
She was sure that it was his gun, which they'd just taken from him.

"I want to talk to Secretary Heller.", Jack spat at the man who took his hands, one by one, to cuff them behind his back.

"All in its proper time", the soldier hissed back at him, thrusting him rudely against the rear of the ambulance car, to let another one search him for weapons. They found the holster at his ankle and removed it.

As they were done and let him turn back around, Jack saw a black limousine come into the warehouse. Two soldiers were fixing his already cuffed arms, one at each side, ready to keep him in place, whatever he'd do.
Was that Cheng? Was this it, were they bringing Audrey? He dismissed the thought. No, Cheng would never come into here, letting them surround him at all sides.
The car stopped in front of them, the rear door opened.

It was Heller.

Jack felt a cold shiver as the old man stepped out and looked at him.
He hadn't seen him in 14 months.
He was the reason that Heller's daughter had fallen into enemy hands.

As the old man slowly started walking over to him, he knew that nothing good was about to come.

Heller stopped, a few feet away from Jack, looking coldly into his eyes.
After a while, he gave the secret service agent who was with him a signal.

The man went past him and punched Jack in his face. Right onto his nose and cheekbone that had just started to heal.

Jack bent over, spitting blood.

The agent stood there, awaiting new orders.

Heller just nodded and the agent struck him again, into his gut.

Letting out a scream of pain, Jack's knees gave in, letting him collapse into the hands of the two soldiers who still held him. The secret service man couldn't know that he'd hit his surgery wound. With full force.
He hung in the men's arms, wondering why he was still conscious. The morphine, maybe?

Heller stepped closer. Dismissively, he watched the man who had saved his life bleed in front of him. He couldn't forgive him for what had happened to Audrey. "Wipe the blood off his face and get him ready.", he ordered, leaning over to Jack for a last time, "I can't wait to see you rot in hell, Jack."

Teddy held her breath, listening what was going on, just behind her back. She'd felt the car shake when they'd thrown him against it. She knew Heller's face, from TV and from a speech that he'd held once. It was unbelievable that this man was just out there now.
She was trembling, and she didn't even realize.

His hands still cuffed behind his back, Jack was led through the building. Blood was still dripping from his nose, he felt it, and he could taste it.
A group of soldiers had gathered at one of the exits, he was given to them.

Finally, they led him out of the building.

The morning sun almost blinded him. Behind a row of containers, they were walking him down the pier. From time to time, between the containers, he could see the ship, already at the port. A gigantic heap of steel, orange, partly dirty and rusty, carrying twenty yards high Chinese symbols on its side.

Other than the soldiers, a man in a black suit was also with him. The negotiator. He seemed to be in command.

They stopped, pushing him against one of the freight containers.
Wipe that blood off and get him ready, Jack heard the negotiator say. And then the guy was already gone.
Rudely, one of the soldiers wiped the blood off his face, not caring about the fact that he was hurting him even more by doing so.
Jack tried to look around.
Snipers waited on the roof. He could see barrels of at least five rifles, all pointed at the ship which was behind him, behind this container. He was sure that they'd fire at him and Cheng's men, if the slightest thing was to go wrong. For sure, at least as many Chinese shooters were positioned somewhere on deck of the ship, also pointing their guns at him.

He closed his eyes, trying to listen. He heard nothing, except for water, washing around the ship and the pier and trucks on the other end of the pier, about a hundred yards away.
The negotiator was out of audible range.

That was it.
The thought of Cheng, over there, waiting for him, made him almost get sick. It hadn't felt that real in the night, that he'd have to go back. But it felt damn real now.
He ripped his eyes open again, agitated by a sudden fear.
The thought of being handed over all at once scared the living daylights out of him.

Suddenly, the negotiator was back, building himself up in front of him "'re you ready?"

Hell no, he wasn't.
His knees almost gave in, as the soldiers brought him around the corner, to face the Chinese. The negotiator stepped behind his back, grabbing his hands, to uncuff them. "You walk straight ahead. You meet the other person halfway, that's the edge of the pier, where the gangway begins. No talking, no looking back, you don't try anything or you're both dead." As he had taken the cuffs off, he also ripped the jacket off him to let the Chinese see that he was unarmed. "Hold your hands where we and they can see them.", he hissed at Jack, standing right behind him. "Now walk"

He got pushed out of the safe zone behind the containers, where all the soldiers and the negotiator took place.

Slowly he strode forward.

In front of him lay the pier, about twenty yards, and on the edge of the pier, a gangway, ten feet wide covered another twenty yards, ending in a giant cargo hatch.

Cheng's men pushed their prisoner also out of their cover.

There she was. He saw only a contour in the dark.
Jack made his first step towards the edge of the pier.
She did the same, after being yelled at, in Chinese.

When she stepped into the daylight, he saw her, for the first time in 14 months.
He whispered her name, as if to aver that this was really happening...
Audrey.

.

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J/A reunion... please R&R!