As the monitors cut out Guerrero went for the door at the back of the van, only to find his exit blocked by Winston's considerable body mass.

"Get out of my way," Guerrero said, in a low, dangerous tone.

"For fucks sake, Guerrero, think! A grenade just went off in a stairwell full of armed military personnel! You can't just -"

"Chance was in that stairwell!"

"And what do you hope to achieve by charging in there waving a gun around? They've just been attacked by an unknown assailant, how do you think they're going to respond to you storming in there? This is the definition of a shoot now, ask questions later situation! Hell, at this point I'm not sure they'd even bother with asking questions at all. You go in there waving a gun around, and they will shoot to kill!"

Clinton cowered in the corner as the two men faced off, yelling in each other's faces. Guerrero held his gun, safety off with his finger poised on the trigger, and although it was not yet actually pointed at Winston, everything about his stance screamed that it would only take a heartbeat to remedy this. Winston stood his ground, determined to wear Guerrero down with his words until he saw the logic of what he was trying to tell him. Clinton just hoped that he got though to him before Guerrero shot him.

"I'm not just going to sit here and do nothing!" Guerrero snarled.

"If you go in there half-cocked, you are putting Chance in more danger than he already is! Right now they will see him as an injured civilian and they'll help him. But if you go in there armed and angry, there's every chance they'll see you as a potential threat and will take you both down just to err on the side of caution!"

Guerrero stared unflinchingly at the mountain of flesh and bone that was blocking his exit. There was a wildness in his eyes that had Winston silently praying that he could reach whatever rational part of his mind that was still functioning. Guerrero's jaw was clenched, and Winston could see the veins standing out on his neck, his whole body was rigid with tension. The hand holding the gun seemed to move by its own volition, and Winston's blood froze as it turned in his direction.

"Guerrero, I need you to back the fuck down! As much as you'd love to shoot me and charge on in there, it will only make matters worse! Chance needs our help! You gonna calm down and help him, or are you gonna go get him killed? Your choice!"

His words finally broke through, and Guerrero's focus seemed to snap back to the van and the fact that he was aiming a loaded weapon in Winston's face. He eased his finger away from the trigger and lowered his gun. Winston was acutely aware that Guerrero had been perfectly willing to shoot him to get to Chance. His brain shied away from thinking about just how close a call he'd just faced.

Guerrero sank back into his seat in front of the monitors and stared at them in a slightly unfocused way. Winston considered trying to persuade him to holster his gun, but decided that as long as it wasn't pointed in his face, it wasn't worth the time and effort it would take to achieve.

"Is there no way to get those security cameras back online?" Winston asked. He knew they were probably useless to them now, but he hoped the question might help get Guerrero's head back in the game.

Guerrero shook his head. "The blast knocked out the cameras in the stairwell and most likely Chance's comms too. We need another way to get eyes in that stairwell."

It wasn't much, but any verbal but Winston considered any verbal communication from him as progress at this point. Winston pulled out his cell phone and dialled Ames' number, putting the call on speaker phone.

"What the fuck just happened!" she hissed as she answered the call."It sounded like a bomb went off and the comms went dead! I think my ear is actually bleeding!"

"Grimes threw a grenade into the stairwell," Winston explained. "It's knocked out the surveillance cameras and Chance's earpiece."

"Oh fuck…"

"Ames, we need you to be our eyes here. You have to go to the stairwell and tell us what you see."

"Oh my god! It's going to be all blood and guts and body parts, isn't it? I don't think I -"

"Ames, get a grip!" Winston interrupted, glancing a Guerrero to see what effect her panicked babbling had on him. Thankfully, rather than provoking him into another rash reaction, it actually seemed to help him regain some level of focus on the job at hand.

"Can you smell burning?" Guerrero asked. "Is there any sign of a fire? Has the sprinkler system or firm alarm gone off?"

"No, nothing like that. There was just this huge bang and -"

Guerrero let out a slow, heavily breath. It wasn't quite a sigh of relief, but it was close. "It sounds like it might have been a concussion grenade, maybe even just a flash-bang. Ames, you need to check out that stairwell and tell us what you see!"

"No body parts splashed up the walls?"

"Not by the sound of it, no," Winston said, wincing at her total lack of tact. "But you need to be careful. There's a whole heap of armed men in there who are likely to be pissed and looking for someone to shoot at. We don't know where Grimes is either, so for the love of god, don't let anyone see you!"

"Okay. I'll take a look."

The tension in the surveillance van was palpable as they waited for Ames to report back to them. They heard a faint click as Ames opened the door to the stairwell, and then some muffled groaning.

"Ames! What do you see?" Guerrero asked.

They heard the door click shut, and then there were a few seconds silence.

"What the hell is going on, Ames?" Winston asked.

"Sorry, just wanted to put a bit of distance between them and me. Man, do they look pissed!"

"What the fuck did you see?" Guerrero demanded, rapidly losing what little patience he had. "Is Chance okay? Is he hurt?"

"I don't know! There just a heap of angry looking Navy guys shaking their heads and moaning. No one seems to be badly hurt or bleeding or anything, but I didn't see Chance!"

"What do you mean you didn't see Chance?" Winston asked as Guerrero cursed, getting up and kicking the side of the van in frustration.

"I mean, he wasn't there!"

"Are you sure?" Winston asked.

"Yes, I'm fucking sure. He's not there!"

"What about Grimes, you see any sign of him?"

"No."

"Do you have the discs?" Winston asked.

"Yes."

"Fuck the damn discs!" Guerrero snapped.

Winston made some vague calming gestures with his hands. "Let yourself into apartment 31 and wait for us to come to you," he said to Ames. "Do not open the door for anyone, you understand?"

"Yeah."

The first thing he was aware of was pain. Details like which way was up or down, whether it was day or night, and just where the hell he was, paled into mundane matters of geography compared to the all encompassing pain that demanded, and was getting, all of Chance's attention. He was dimly aware that his vision was obscured by something over his face, and that his limbs seemed to be restrained by… something, but the closer his mind swam to consciousness, the worse the pain was.

It started with the hot, searing pain in his head, which began as a localised throbbing to one side that suggested that at some point, he had been hurled against something solid and immovable. A wall? The ground? Even as he tried to dredge up a recent memory that might explain such an injury, other parts of his body seemed to check in with their own complaints, adding new notes of discomfort to the cacophony of pain. His jaw throbbed in a familiar sort of way that told him he'd been punched at least once, and the way his aching ribs protested with every breath argued that his assailant hadn't stopped at one blow. He couldn't come up with any explanation from the excruciating pain that was radiating out from his left shoulder though, and the more alert he was, the more persistent it grew. It felt strangely liquid in the way that it flowed down through his arm, constant and unrelenting, but it was bearable, just.

He heard an engine start up, and he had barely time to register the fact that he was tied up in the back of a vehicle of some sort, before the driver pulled away. Chance instinctively tried to brace himself to avoid being jostled around, but that proved to be a mistake. As soon as he tried to move his arms a bolt of sizzling agony ripped through his shoulder, knocking the breath from his body. The pitch black in front of his eyes was briefly lit up by dancing points of light before he slipped back into oblivion.