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Chapter Fourteen
The funny thing –
No. Not the funny thing.
The awful, disturbing, terrifying thing was that the sight of the gun aiming directly at her heart didn't scare her almost as much as the expression on his face, which was tight and controlled with just the slightest curl of the lip and sheen of sweat at his hairline that suggested he was very much on edge and not nearly as calm as he appeared to be. There was also a steely determination there, and that, at least, was something that they had in common.
The shock of the gun and the look of intent on Andreou Flack's face froze Elizabeth to the spot for several seconds – seconds that she could not afford, because they gave him the time to close the gap between them and by the time her brain had kicked back in and she had opened her mouth to yell for help, he was directly in front of her and he lifted the hand that didn't hold the gun to press a finger to his lips, telling her without words to be quiet.
Still stunned from how quickly events had turned on her and afraid that he had the upper hand and her reason temporarily abandoning her to leave her with only instinct, Elizabeth found herself complying. She bit at the inside of her lip.
Andreou Flack nodded as if to commend her and then dropped his hand to rest it on her shoulder.
She flinched but held her ground. He appeared to be testing the waters and she gave him room to do so, needing more information about how he was planning to operate before doing anything to react against him. Better to bide her time than take a risk so early on.
"What gave me away?" he asked casually, drawing his gun up so he could use the barrel to brush her hair back over her shoulder.
Elizabeth suppressed the shudder at his touch but could do nothing about the hot fear at the feel of the gun against her collarbone. She swallowed. "You gave yourself away when you walked into this room and shut the door behind you," she said. It was the truth: she had genuinely been uncertain who was to blame for leaking her schedule until he blew his own cover.
He quirked an eyebrow like he was interested in further explanation but made no further moves.
"But the protests were what tipped me off to a mole in the embassy, if that's what you're asking. With the benefit of hindsight it turns out they were a little bit too convenient." Judging the Regional Security Officer unlikely to shoot her any time soon, Elizabeth took a step back.
He let her go willingly, and it was only when her back hit the wall that she understood why. Flack simply followed her, closing the gap between them again and smiling as she realised she had nowhere else to go.
Crap.
"I'm going to make a deal with you," he said, the hand that held the gun coming up to rest on the wall next to her head. The tone of his voice was light and reasonable. "See, I don't want to shoot you."
Her voice was hard and pissed off. "See, I think it's more that youcan't shoot me, because if you did everyone would know it was you."
He smiled at her. "So you get it. No one, Madam Secretary, is going to know that it was me, do you understand? We're going to go back to work and you're going to forget about this. It wasn't me, are we clear?"
"I'm clear about what you want. But I'm sorry, Mr Flack, I can't agree to your terms. I wouldn't be doing my job if I did." The Secretary of State was not about give in to a traitor, and Elizabeth McCord was not about to let a bastard have his way. Even if he did have a gun.
Flack's eyes flickered and darkened and she knew it had been a risk, albeit one she had to take. She steeled herself for his reaction and the violence she suspected to be coming her way. He brought his free arm up and she wasn't sure whether he was intending to hit her or box her in but she wasn't about to wait and find out, her own hand snapping up reflexively to grab his wrist in a tight grip, the slap of her skin against his echoing around the room. "Don't," she snapped.
And that was when Henry materialised in her vision just behind Flack's shoulder. His face was murderous and he didn't hesitate as he wrapped one arm across the man's chest and with his other hand instilled a steely grip on the wrist of the hand that held the gun. He twisted Flack's wrist hard, making the man cry out in pain and surprise. Flack tried to pull his hand away from Henry's grip, his hold on the gun loosening until the weapon slid from his fingers and hit the floor at Elizabeth's feet with a thud. Henry hauled Flack away from her, shoving him backwards and then putting himself between Elizabeth and Flack. "Get away from my wife."
His voice was a snarl.
A grin spread slowly across Flack's face as though he was thrilled at the prospect of facing down Henry McCord in full blown protective fight mode. He opened his mouth to speak.
Elizabeth cut him off. "I want answers, Mr Flack." She stepped forward and stood next to Henry, feeling her confidence return along with her husband's presence. She touched one hand lightly to Henry's back, a silent gesture of thanks, seeking strength in the feel of him.
Andreou Flack chuckled. "I'm sure you do."
"And yet none are forthcoming."
Flack was breathing hard. He turned away and scrubbed his hands through his hair.
Elizabeth noticed it the moment that he did. Henry, too.
The door to the room was stood open, no doubt from when Henry had come back through it from checking out the situation outside. That was good. She wanted the door open. Flack, for obvious reasons, had other ideas. He stepped back.
Henry followed, reaching out to grab the other man but Flack was faster, stretching out one arm to catch the door and push it closed just as Henry got hold of his shoulder. Flack pushed back, making Henry stumble as the RSO put his shoulder to his chest and shoved as hard as he could while Henry grappled for purchase, trying to keep hold of him.
"Henry!" Elizabeth couldn't stop the cry from leaving her throat as she watched her husband stumble back and heard him chuff out a breath at the force of the impact of Flack's shoulder against his sternum. She darted forward but Henry's urgent response stopped her in her tracks.
"Elizabeth, stay back." He righted his balance just as Flack managed to use the couple of seconds he had bought himself to turn the lock on the door, trapping them all in the communications suite.
The soundproof communications suite. Shit.
The two men stared each other down. Elizabeth watched the play of muscles beneath Henry's shirt as he stood tense and ready for attack – ready to attack. She watched Flack do the same. The younger man had both youth and size on his side, but Henry had the experience – and the back-up.
The gun.
Elizabeth shifted her weight and glanced down at where the gun had fallen, only a couple of steps away. Keeping her eyes on Flack, she slowly took a half-step to her left, towards the gun, careful not to make any sudden movements.
Flack's eyes flicked away from Henry and landed on her. She stilled, her breath caught in her throat and her heart pounding like mad in her chest, practically in time with the fast beat of the helicopter overhead.
"Tell me why you did it, Andreou." One more try.
The man shook his head as though he thought she was stupid. Then he looked down at the gun just behind her, calculating. He lunged towards it. He was caught by Henry's arms around his middle and Elizabeth was just reaching to grab the gun when Flack managed to get his arms free from Henry's grip and he shoved her husband back, forcing him away and following it up with a swift, quick punch that obviously caught Henry unaware. It wasn't a hard hit, mostly glancing off his cheekbone, but Elizabeth could see the surprise on his face. He hadn't seen it coming, and it gave Flack the time he needed to follow it up a split second later with a vicious fist to Henry's gut that made him shout out and drop to the floor, curling in on himself as his face contorted with pain.
"Henry!" The gun forgotten at the sight of her husband collapsing to the ground, Elizabeth felt both the worry and the rage spilling out of her and she didn't stop to think as she dashed the few steps over to Henry's side, feeling panic building up inside her the longer he failed to move. She was just reaching down to him, sliding one hand onto his shoulder, when Flack grabbed her from behind.
It hurt to breathe. That was what he was aware of. It hurt to breathe, he was severely winded, the blood was rushing in his head and he really, really needed to move. He was aware of Elizabeth's hand touching his shoulder and of her presence next to him, but it was when Flack grabbed her and she let out a noise of panicked distress that Henry's desperation really kicked in.
He could hear Elizabeth struggling against Flack's grip and he needed to get up, needed to help her, but his limbs wouldn't cooperate with him. He groaned in pain as moving his arm out from beneath his body caused a hot stabbing sensation in his joints and his gut. He couldn't get off the floor and it took all his energy and coordination to roll onto his side so he could see what was going on.
A couple of metres away, Elizabeth struggled hard against Flack's arms wrapped tight around her torso before she suddenly stilled and then jerked down with everything she had, dislodging his grip enough that she was able to shove his arms off her and stumble a couple of steps away. She looked furious.
Yeah, that was the woman Henry married. She knew how to take care of herself.
But that didn't stop him from wanting to protect his wife. He just needed to get himself up off the damn floor.
"Are you looking to add assault to your charges of aiding and abetting the enemy?" Elizabeth asked Flack. "Because if you are you're making a great case against yourself."
She sounded so calm, so collected and in control. It was only through decades of knowing her and being married to her that Henry was able to detect the slightest bit of insecurity in her tone. Yet it was her body language that really gave her away. She held her hands out like she was expecting an attack – not an unreasonable assumption, in the circumstances - her nerves obvious. But still she held her ground, maintaining eye contact with Flack as he took a step towards her.
"All you have to do is agree, Madam Secretary."
Henry frowned, unsure what Elizabeth was supposed to be agreeing to, wondering what Flack had said to her before he had come back into the room to find the other man with his wife backed up into the wall and the gun in his hand aiming lazily at her head. Like it was no big deal. Henry was planning to make him pay for that.
"I can't do that," Elizabeth said determinedly.
Flack stepped towards her. She hesitated.
Henry needed to move, needed to help her. He willed his body to cooperate. It refused. He felt a lick of panic darting up his spine. Mind into matter, he thought. Move.
Nothing happened. Henry's hand clenched involuntarily into a fist. He felt the dampness of his own palm closing in on itself; the fear he felt manifesting itself in the form of sweat on his skin and an inability to catch his breath, although the punch to his gut hadn't exactly helped with that. An emotion triggered in his mind turning itself, quite literally, into matter.
His fear made physical.
Wait, no. Not quite. It was more than that as he watched Andreou Flack march forward and back Elizabeth into the wall and she stumbled, held up only by the press of the other man's body and his hands on the wall either side of her head.
It wasn't just fear Henry felt as he lay on the floor of the communications suite unable to persuade his body to find the coordination to get up, unable to put himself in between Elizabeth and Flack as he so wished to do and then to put his fist hard and swift and deadly into the other man's face. No, not just fear: it was terror.
Flack was smiling and swaying towards Elizabeth as he braced his palms against the wall. She looked down and across at Henry, catching his gaze. He saw the fear in her and the worry, but he also saw something in her eyes that suggested she'd had an idea. From the way she sought out his gaze, he guessed that the idea may be a risky one.
The terror he felt put itself on pause, still present, still filling him up and threatening to overwhelm him, but suspended temporarily as he waited to see how that look in Elizabeth's eye played out.
She looked away from him then, looked back at Flack as he boxed her in against the wall. She smiled softly at him, which made Flack's own smile falter slightly and his body back away the smallest fraction from hers as he tipped back his head to get a better look at her face. That small fraction of space was all she needed.
Elizabeth's smile widened into a grin as she lifted her hands to Flack's shoulders to steady herself, placing her palms deliberately against him, the same way she might hold onto Henry to retain her balance when she stretched up to kiss him. She leaned in close to Flack's face.
Then she shifted her stance and unceremoniously rammed her knee into the man's groin.
