(Thank you for continuing to read. I will continue to put out chapters as they are written and I can proof them. They may not always be steady due to work load and content. Some are quick like this one, some may be longer. Thank you again to those that have taken an interest in this story :) Love you all. )
Chapter 11
Darkness had settled in early as the storm moved on, leaving behind overcast skies that drizzled rain in short bursts. The windshield wipers on Lex's truck squeaked as they intermittently cleared off the spray from the other vehicles on the road and what fell from the sky. The glares of headlights from oncoming traffic reflected off the wet road surface as Red drove north. She had been driving for almost an hour and she needed to stop for fuel and to make a phone call.
As she strained her eyes against bright reflective glare, she remembered why she liked flying so much better than driving, especially in weather like this. Finally, the lights of a BP station signaled some relief for her and she pulled off the Interstate and into a fuel lane. The wind coming in off the ocean was cool, chilling her since her clothes were still damp from being drenched earlier.
Her shoulders felt tense as she stood there by the truck, waiting for the gas tank to fill. No one was there with crosshairs between her shoulder blades, but it felt as though every eye was watching her. Every person here could now be a potential enemy. She had to keep reminding herself to breath normal, relax and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She was driving north to see her friend Mac, hang out for an evening and then head home in the morning. That was all. Nothing more. She hoped.
Once the tank was full, she made her way inside and bought a bottle of water and a granola bar, getting quarters in return for her change. After climbing back into the truck, she pulled around to the back of the station where a payphone hung off a post that had seen better days. Graffiti littered the entire box, and she cringed to have to touch the thing at all but she didn't have much of a choice. Putting in several quarters, she dialed Mac's office. She knew it was late but she always checked there first to see if he was working later hours due to some project. It rang four times before the answering machine picked up. Leaving a quick message that she was looking to see if he was around for the evening, she hung up. Feeding the payphone several more quarters, she tried his home number.
"Hello?" came an enthusiastic voice.
"Hey Mac!" she responded in kind. She did her best to relax her voice while her whole body felt like a bow string.
"Red! Been a few weeks. And to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Well, I had to head up your way to pick up some pieces for that old PR-809 camera mount of ours. The ball bearings are going on it again. Since I was so close to your doorstep, I figured I'd call to see if you'd make me some of your Eggplant Parmesan. You game?"
Without missing a beat, MacGyver made a thoughtful noise. "I suppose I could. I'll have to go out and get a few things before you get here. How far out are you?"
"About another hour if the rain is done and people don't drive like idiots," she responded, her hands trembling as she tried to force a smile on her lips so that it carried over the phone.
"Sounds good. I'll go down to the corner market and get what I need and get us set up with some supper. Drive safely and I'll see you in an hour," he said seeming to respond in such a casual manner as if this was something they did all the time.
"Oh, and Mac?" she called out before he could hang up.
"Yeah?"
"I need my change of clothes. I got caught in the rain and I'm still soaked to the skin." She chattered her teeth together to emphasis the chill she was feeling.
"I could say something about you not being smart enough to come in out of the rain but that would be too easy. See you in an hour." The line went dead after that and she hung up the handset before climbing back into the truck and merging back into traffic.
Mac had gotten her message. The camera mount was a ruse, a quiet message that she needed to talk to him alone and without the possibility of anyone else listening in on their conversation. In the time it took her to get there, he'd have his place swept for bugs and a scrambler set up for added protection. The Eggplant Parmesan and dry clothes was just an extra bonus to make sure anyone else listening in or watching his place see nothing out of the ordinary when she arrived.
As she drove north, she wondered for the thousandth time when she had become so paranoid?
When Mac greeted her at his door, she definitely had the chills. The heater in Lex's truck did nothing to fend off that dreaded sense of cold that felt like it was creeping into her bones and settling there. She must have looked miserable when he got a good look at her because he seemed about ready to say something, but instead handed her a glass of something green, sighed, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her inside.
"Drink that. It'll help keep you from getting sick." He paused as he helped her out of her windbreaker. "What in the world were you thinking?" he asked quietly.
Familiar with Mac's health remedies, she sniffed at the concoction in the glass, made a face and then quickly tried to chug it down while he worked to get the damp jacket off one arm, then the other. When she was finished, she made a horrible face, shuddered and handed the glass back. "I don't know how you can stomach those."
"What? They taste fine to me."
She made another face then turned it into a tired smile. "It tastes like mulched up grass clippings Mac. However, I did as I was told and drank the gunk." She pulled her boots off at the door now and batted her eyelashes at him, "I'd love you forever if I could get a hot shower and my dry clothes."
He put his hand on his heart and feigned hurt. "I thought you liked my grass clipping drinks and didn't you already tell me last month you loved me." He sighed dramatically. "But love's such a fleeting, fickle thing." He paused for a moment as he hung her jacket up and put the empty glass in the sink. Smiling quietly back at her, he nodded. "Sure. Supper isn't ready yet so get yourself warmed up and I'll get things finished up in the kitchen."
After dragging herself down the hallway towards the bathroom, she turned on the light to reveal he'd already anticipated what she would need. Her clothes were set out, including one of his flannel shirts since all she had left with him was a t-shirt. A towel and washrag sat on the edge of the tub waiting for her to use them.
Twenty minutes later she felt a little warmer and much dryer as she came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair, dressed in her dry clothes with thick socks covering her feet. "At least I don't feel like a drowned rat," she said as she leaned against the kitchen island.
Mac chuckled as he pulled food from the oven and put it on the counter. "I figured we could be rather informal tonight since you're probably wanting to wrap up in a blanket more than sit in a chair."
Red made a noise of pure bliss at that and sighed happily. "You read my mind."
"No, I just know you better than you think I do. By the way, Sam said to say hello and he'll be home in a day or two. The Phoenix Foundation has him on assignment in Tamil Nadu, India, trying to document some of the lingering effects from the 2004 Tsunami. We're trying to make sure that the aid that is still going there is getting to the right places and not into the pockets of people who don't need it."
Nodding, she took a plate, let Mac dish out dinner for her then went over to sit on the sofa, wrapping a blanket around her legs and feet. Once she was situated, she placed both of her hands on the bottom of the plate to warm them with the hot food from on top. Mac served himself and then came to sit down next to her.
"So tell me," he started as he held the plate up close to his face to inhale the steam coming off the food, "what is so important that I find you drenched on my doorstep at nine in the evening?"
Shifting so she was looking right at him, her hands still holding onto the plate as if holding onto a piece of reality for fear she might be going mad, she whispered, "I found her."
Mac looked up at her slowly, "Found…who?" he asked quietly.
Red swallowed. She hadn't said the name out loud for months, afraid of jinxing herself. "Airwolf. I saw her tonight. I touched her."
Picking up his fork, Mac was quiet as he took the first bite of food, chewing it thoughtfully. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were suffering from a fever, but how did you track it down?"
Taking her cue from him, she finally picked up her fork and though her hands shook slightly she began to eat. In between bites, she began to tell him about her encounter with Hank, his request and where it led her. When Mac managed not to choke on his food from inhaling at the wrong moment, she continued.
"Mac, you've read String's journals. I've told you about my special dinner date at the air show a few months ago. Even you can figure out what's at stake here. I can't just leave her sitting there like that now that I've found her." Red chewed on her bottom lip in a nervous gesture.
Mac leaned over a little and set his empty plate on the end table and looked at her steadily for a few moments. Finally he clasped his hands in front of him, "If you take that thing out of storage, you'll be entering a deadly game of cat and mouse with people who aren't afraid, still to this day, to kill to get their hands on it. I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on a high tech piece of military grade equipment. You probably can't claim finders-keepers with it."
Red set her plate aside and rubbed her face. "But I can't just leave something like that sit there and rust away. It's not in my nature Mac. Besides, I owe those bastards for what they did to me."
He sighed softly, "Red, this isn't about getting revenge. It should never be about getting revenge. I know it's not your nature to leave things alone, especially something as important as it is. I'm just trying to make you aware that if you leave it where it is, you won't have to ever deal with the kind of things your father did. But if you take it out of storage, there will always be someone at your back, trying to manipulate you into doing something you don't want, just like they did with Stringfellow Hawke."
Quietly, she sat and stared down at her hands. She could still see The Lady in that trailer, hunched up, caged, as if she were waiting to be released. Her hands shook while holding the doors apart, the flashlight beam wobbling in the dark recesses of the trailer. The urge to slam the doors shut and run had been so great, yet something had drawn her in, pulling her towards the front of the trailer. She'd shined the flashlight in through the windows to look at what had once been advanced systems twenty years ago, but couldn't bring herself to attempt to open the cockpit doors even the few feet that was allowed inside the metal box The Lady was stored in.
Shivers had run up and down her spine, from fear and excitement while her mind ran in circles, trying to figure out what to do next. Should she try to get the truck running and take it with her and hide it, or perhaps leave it and find a way to come back later after making arrangements for a place to put it where it would be protected? She had obviously made up her mind by then that leaving it in the storage unit to gather more dust was not an option.
Looking up at MacGyver she shook her head, "I can't. I can't promise I won't find a way to exact revenge somehow on those that tried to have me killed." She reached for his hands then, grabbing them in a firm grip. "Think about it MacGyver. There's so much potential in her. There's so much that can be done to help people, just like Dom and String used to. They didn't just let themselves be told what they could and could not do. They did what they thought was right and tried to make a difference. Sometimes it came to violence but with upgrades of equipment and software, think about her potential and what she might be capable of today, compared to twenty some years ago."
Mac rolled his head forward as if bowing to the inevitable and groaned, "I knew you were going to be like this if you ever found it. I just knew it." He sighed, pulled his hands free so he could grab her shoulders, "But if I help you with this, you have to promise not to take stupid chance and get yourself or Sam killed. I couldn't handle it if something happened to either of you. Got it?"
Red sobered, looking at him with piercing gray-blue eyes. "I can't promise anything Mac. You know life's too fragile, that any of us can die for the stupidest mistakes or accidents but I can promise I'll to be careful. You'll have to get Sam to promise for himself."
With a nod, Mac stood up and gathered the plates, "So what do you need me to do?"
A slow smile crept across her face as a plan began to form that might allow them to get a head start before anyone had a clue The Lady was once again on the radar.
