"So, this's the place?"
Agent Zimmer lowered his binoculars to shoot a quelling glance at Hobbes. "For the fifth time, yes," he murmured from the passenger's seat.
"Let's go over the plan one more time. I wanna be absolutely sure we all know what's going down."
Zimmer's glare softened when he noted the shorter man's steely expression. "We're waiting for Anderson to finish his recon, and then we move in in two man teams. Everyone's equipped with headsets and mics, and Servez will coordinate." He indicated the man sitting at the communications console in the rear of Golda with a brief waveof his hand.
"And when's Anderson due to give his sit-rep?" Hobbes looked over his shoulder at Servez.
The swarthy agent replied with a slight Hispanic accent. "Another two minutes, Agent Hobbes."
Hobbes returned his attention to the restored movie theatre a half a block down. "Damn, we were supposed to catch that flick tomorrow night," he murmured to himself as he caught sight of the name of one of the movies being featured.
The despondent tone in his voice indicated to Zimmer that Hobbes was referring to Darien, and the younger man remained silent for a moment.
Servez spoke up then. "Hobbes, Anderson's out. He'll be here in a minute to give his sit-rep."
"Hobbes," Zimmer spoke quietly so that the other Agent couldn't hear him. "This'll work out. No one's going to fuck this up. Fawkes is family, just like you."
Hobbes' eyes fluttered shut as he fought back the swell of gratitude that sprang up at those heartfelt words. His heart pounded in his throat for a few seconds before he found the strength to speak. "Thanks man," he murmured. "That means a lot." He pressed the palms of his hands against his aching eyes before checking to make sure he had plenty of ammo in his pockets.
Zimmer noticed a glimmer of movement in the side mirror, right before Anderson quietly knocked on the sliding door.
Servez spun around and slid the van door open after receiving an approving nod from Zimmer. Anderson stepped in and sat cross-legged on the floor while the two men in the front of the van turned to hear his report.
"Looks like we're dealing with six guards: four around the front and two in the back," he began. "I believe it's a set-up to lure intruders through the rear entrance, 'cause there're six more of the mooks just hanging around in the backstage area."
"How would ya know that?" Hobbes queried with an upward tilt of his eyebrow.
"'Cause the guys up front weren't even watching the door very well," Anderson replied evenly. "I was able to gas one of 'em and slip inside while the others were playin' dice. I did a quick recon and snuck back out before he woke up."
Hobbes shook his head. "Risky, man. How d'ya know they weren't expecting you to pull something like that? For all we know, you just alerted 'em to our presence here!"
"So we wait for a while, and see if they change their M.O. at all," Servez suggested. "If nothing changes, then we go in and nail the bastards."
Hobbes shook his head, but Zimmer was the one who answered. "That's a good idea, but we don't have the time to wait. Fawkes is on borrowed time here, and the longer we wait, the less chance he has of coming out of this alive." He shot a sympathetic glance over at Hobbes, whose knuckles had turned white on the door's armrest.
"I'm sick'a waiting," the senior agent muttered. "We go in two minutes."
Zimmer nodded and motioned to Servez. "Notify the others. We're going in in two minutes."
The others acknowledged the orders with a silent check of their equipment, and Hobbes smiled grimly. He was finally gonna kick that son of a bitch's ass.
Two Agency men stealthily approached the rear of the movie theatre, while Hobbes strode down the front sidewalk as if he were just on an afternoon stroll.
The agents quietly disabled the two guards on the outside of the back service doors, and oh-so-carefully made their way inside.
Hobbes kept up his brisk pace as he passed the front of the theater, noting the sign at the ticket office that stated it was temporarily closed to repair damages. Just wait an' see what kinda damage I'm really gonna do in there. Hobbes had to stifle a grin at that feral thought, and continued as he was until he'd passed the building on the other side.
His earpiece crackled to life with the muffled shouts of his two men in the back along with the chattering of gunfire.
He ducked into the side walkway between two buildings and freed his gun. "Showtime," he murmured into the mic on his collar.
Twelve agents and plainclothes police officers appeared as if from out of nowhere, and converged on the front of the theatre. The four mercenaries guarding it had snapped to attention when they overheard the firefight ensuing at the back of the building, so they weren't paying attention to the street behind them when Hobbes, Zimmer and three others clubbed them on the backs of their heads.
Hobbes cautiously led the way into the front of the theater, leaving two of his men behind to secure and guard over their prisoners. He wasn't about to let some punk-ass schmucks fuck this one up for him. Not this time. Not today. Too much was at stake.
He raised a hand, and his men froze in place. Hobbes scanned the lobby for traps and snipers, and noticed two men positioned on the upstairs balcony. He raised two fingers behind his back, and then jerked his pointer finger from side to side, indicating the positions of the perps.
Zimmer nodded at two of the men, and they melted into the shadows.
Moments later, two muffled thuds echoed in stereo, and Zimmer's guys silently gave Hobbes the all clear from the balcony. He nodded and dashed across the lobby to the snack bar. He crept through the doorway into the kitchen-like cubby area as Zimmer positioned the rest of the agents.
Zimmer watched as four more of his men disappeared to assist the two agents in the rear of the theatre, and turned to see what was keeping Hobbes. But the older agent popped his head through the doorway with a steely glint in his eye.
Zimmer knew that look. It was the determined air of a man on The Hunt. Yeah, The Official had given orders for him yesterday to make sure de Fœhn was returned alive, but Zimmer knew better than to get in Bobby Hobbes' way when he had that look on his face. The only other time Zimmer saw it, he'd been lucky to get away with just a few broken ribs for his interference. Hobbes on the warpath was one of the most deadly men the younger agent had ever met in his years of service.
And having worked with some of the best-trained killers the CIA could produce, that was saying something.
"Found it?" Zimmer murmured.
Hobbes merely grinned. "I can hear his breathing," he returned just as quietly. "Back way out's covered?"
The younger man nodded. "Flush him out?"
Hobbes shook his head. "I'm goin' down."
Zimmer debated arguing for a mere fraction of a second, and instead replied, "Got your back." He motioned to the agents stationed in the lobby, and four of them peeled away to line up behind him. He nodded again at Hobbes, who winked.
"Let's get that muthafucker."
"Wake me up
Wake me up inside
I can't wake up
Wake me up inside
Save me!
Call my name and save me from the dark
Wake me up
Bid my blood to run
I can't wake up
Before I come undone
Save me!
Save me from the nothing I've become!
Bring me to life…
I've been livin' a lie; I am nothing inside…
Bring me to life!"
Evanessence "Bring Me To Life"
She was standing on top of a hill, gazing down at the beautiful countryside blooming in front of her. She sighed contentedly, and knelt down to pluck some flowering heather to add to her bouquet of wildflowers. A light spring breeze ruffled her blond hair, teasing strands of it from the ponytail at the nape of her neck. She idly tucked the stray locks behind her ears as she lifted the tiny purple blossoms to her nose. The flowers had no actual scent, but she still delighted in sniffing them anyway. Other people may not think that heather flowers had any odor, but she was always able to detect the barest essence of…
Blood?
She looked down at the flowers in her hand, and her stomach sank when she saw that they were gone… replaced with this… this… thing pulsing in her hands.
Covered in crimson blood. Blood everywhere.
Claire gasped and jerked awake. A dream. It was only a dream. Her sleep-fogged mind tried to make sense between the shadow world and the real one, and she shook her head in confusion.
Darien.
The last remnants of her dream were ripped away as she returned to full consciousness, and she looked down at her watch.
"Four bloody hours!" That's it? Nowhere near as much rest as she needed in order to properly take care of her Kept, but with the way her heart was pounding in her chest, she was certain she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again for quite a while.
Might as well go check on Darien.
She flipped the warm blanket from where it had tangled in her long legs, and rose from the cot with a stifled hiss. Too much stress and too little rest was showing in how cramped her muscles were, and Claire took a few moments to try to stretch out a little.
She was just bending down to touch her toes, when from behind her the door to the room banged against the wall. Claire gawked at one of the older agents as the, to her, upside down man skidded to a halt just inside the door and gaped right back at her. His head tilted to the side as he was presented with the very unladylike view of Claire's posterior and her face peeking out from between her legs at him.
He shook off the moment and practically shouted as he remembered why he was there in the first place. "Doctor, Agent Miller needs you immediately!"
"Why? What?" She never got to finish her thought before the agent grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room.
"Agent Fawkes…" he barked breathlessly as he pulled her down the hall to Lab 3. "Seizures!"
Claire got her feet under her and began to run, pulling her arm out of the agents' hand in her haste. She skidded past the two other agents, through the open door to the lab, and yanked a clean lab coat from the hook by the inner door. "Status, Jacob!" she barked.
The nurse didn't even glance up as he vainly tried to keep Darien still enough to not rip out the IV and monitoring lines. "Grand mal seizures began two minutes ago, and don't seem like they're gonna stop!"
"Damn it!" she spat, and slipped her hands to the back of Darien's neck to support his head so he didn't bang the lesion on the back of his skull. "Did you give him Phenobarbital?"
"Two doses, but it doesn't seem to be helping!" Miller held Darien's arms to the bed as he desperately tried to keep all of the IV lines secure.
Blood rapidly seeped between her fingers as the lanky man's violent jerking reopened the wound. "Don't worry about the lines, Jacob, go get another bag of blood, one of lactated ringers and Dilantin! He can't afford to lose any more fluids!"
"Got it!" he shouted over the shrieking of the monitors, and he bolted to the storage room beside the main lab.
Time slowed as Claire was forced to helplessly watch Darien convulse. Blood oozed from the back of his head. Too slowly for her liking, Darien's tortured body began to relax as the seizures lessened. Finally, with one giant arch of his back, his entire form gave an immense shudder before collapsing onto the bed.
Jacob rushed back into the room, dragging one of the agents in with him to assist in setting up the transfusion. Claire first had him aid her in rolling their patient over on his side so she could assess the additional damage. She carefully peeled away the bandage from the back of his head, and saw that the stitches had ripped away from over halfway around the opening, but closer examination proved inconclusive as to whether or not there was any further damage to the exposed brain tissues underneath.
"We need to increase his O2 levels, and give him some more epinephrine and dopamine. As soon as we have him stabilized, I want to run multiple scans on his brain," she ordered as she pulled the flesh and bit of loose bone aside to carefully cauterize the few blood vessels endlessly seeping blood into the open wound to Darien's brain. She checked the one major vessel that Arnaud had carelessly nicked during the extraction. It didn't seem to have split the tiny stitches holding it shut, and she heaved a great sigh of relief. Had those torn open as well, Darien would have bled out in a matter of minutes.
"Ee-dee-ote!" Arnaud hissed in frustration. He backhanded his lab assistant across the cheek, and the man fell to the ground with a whimper. Shattered test tube glass and a tiny pool of amber liquid were all that was left of the injection Arnaud had prepared for the gland. "That took days to manufacture!"
The sounds of shouting and gunfire that had begun moments before increased in volume as the battle came closer to the rear entrance to the basement.
The clumsy assistant grunted as Arnaud kicked him viciously. "Now," kick, "I have to," kick, "Start from," kick, "Scratch!" Kick, kick, kick.
Arnaud whirled around, apparently satisfied with the other man's chastisement. He paced to the main table where the gland and its storage receptacle rested and contemplated his next move.
"Well, it seems that we shall have to finish our revisions at the lab overseas," he murmured. He pursed his lips thoughtfully before smoothly pulling his gun from the holster under his jacket with his uninjured hand, spinning on his heel, and shooting his assistant in the heart.
"Pack up the lab," he ordered the impassive guards at the back door of the basement room as he re-holstered his weapon. "We're leaving immediately."
The men nodded and moved towards a stack of partially packed boxes.
"Don't think so, de Freak," a low voice murmured from behind Arnaud.
The mercenary whirled around to see his other guards thump to the bottom of the front stairs. Hobbes was crouched at the bottom step and already had Arnaud squarely in his guns' sight.
"Ah, ah, ahhhh…" the stocky agent grinned savagely. "Keep yer hands where I can see em, you cocksucker."
Arnaud smiled condescendingly as he kept his hands in sight. "But of course, Agent Hobbes. I was wondering when you were going to arrive."
"Just in time to fuck up your plans again," Hobbes spat back, and pulled the trigger just as Zimmer appeared on the steps behind him.
Arnaud's eyes widened in surprise as Hobbes' bullet tore through his left knee. Zimmer fired his gun four times, and the two other guards fell on the other side of the room before they even had a chance to pull out their weapons.
Arnaud plunged to the ground, clutching at his wounded leg with a strangled shout. Zimmer bounded across the room and glanced up the rear stairwell to see if there were any more of Arnaud's hired goons waiting there. As Hobbes stalked towards his prey, Zimmer calmly commented, "Rear stairwell's secure, Hobbes."
"Good. Less chance of interruption," the senior agent grinned. But there was no trace of humor in his voice: only his eyes gave away the fact that Arnaud's death was imminent.
Before Hobbes was able to take another step, Arnaud twisted around to his right and tightly grabbed the leg of the wheeled table that the gland and its holding receptacle were sitting on with his injured hand.
"I would tread very carefully if I were you, Agent Hobbes," he murmured huskily through the pain blazing through his knee and hand. "Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to the gland now, would we?"
Hobbes' eyes narrowed slightly, and his arm suddenly blurred as he raised his gun and fired.
Arnaud screamed as the bullet ripped through bone, muscle and ligament to ricochet off of the table leg, taking two of his fingers with it.
Hobbes replied over the harsh breathing of his enemy. "You're right. And nothing bad will happen, will it?" He nodded at Zimmer, who quickly strode across the room and carefully picked up the container with its precious cargo.
"Secure the package and make sure no one comes down here for a few minutes."
Zimmer glanced up from the padded case he had gingerly placed the gland container in. "Hobbes…" he began.
The shorter agent pinned him with eyes burning like banked coals. "That's an order, Agent," he growled icily.
But Zimmer didn't back down this time. "I'm not saying you can't do this, but…"
"Good. So, vamoose."
The younger man shook his head. "We need to get it back to the doc ASAP," he persisted as he indicated the case holding the gland.
"So take it to her. Leave the men with me to clean up, and we'll meet you back at base."
Under Arnaud's disbelieving pain-blurred gaze, Zimmer merely nodded, snapped shut and locked the case, and crossed the room to the front staircase. He paused and whispered in Hobbes' ear, but then continued his way up the stairs.
Hobbes' words drifted up to him as he reached the top step.
"This is for Eberts, you piece of shit."
Arnaud's tortured screams echoed in Zimmer's ears as he left the theater.