Chapter Nine "Just Another Mission"
As Jesse rounded the corner to see Elias slip into a taxi and speed away, he also noticed Michael and Sam coming from around the motel. They both looked like they had been running at full speed, just as Jesse was. It was all for nothing though. Elias was long gone.
The three of them grouped together on the sidewalk, and for a moment no one said anything. Then Michael put on his operative voice and got that cold, dead look in his eyes.
"Did you get a good look at him?" he asked Jesse.
"Not really," Jesse replied. "He's tall. Older than you'd think for how fast he was. I think I saw gray in his hair."
"It's something," Sam said with a shrug.
"Yeah, not much," Michael said.
Jesse looked from Sam to Michael. "So what do we do now?"
"Jesse, get back to Carrillo and let him know Elias is on the run," Michael said. "Sam, start calling in all your favors. We need to find this guy."
"But Mike, I'm just about out of favors."
"You, Sam? Never."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. I'll get right on it."
Michael touched Sam's shoulder for a split second. "Thanks." He smiled. It might have been genuine.
The three of them headed back to Pearce's office first where they dropped off Michael, and then Sam and Jesse took off across town to see Carrillo. Michael thought that it seemed a bit like how they used to operate, him reporting to the CIA while his friends worked behind the scenes. As he walked through the hallways, he couldn't shake the sense of growing despair that had been coming on ever since he squeezed the trigger and watched Tom Card's body slump to the floor. He knew even then that he would never be able to get his life back, that elusive goal he couldn't even see anymore. It wasn't in the cards for Michael to be happy. He had always known that, but he also knew his tendency to fight destiny or fate or the random chance that made his life one long string of loss and disappointment.
Michael couldn't afford to dwell on these things. He had a job to do, a purpose, though not the one he would have chosen. He couldn't take back that bullet any more than he could bring his brother back to life. And it had always been difficult for Michael to accept the things he couldn't change.
When he arrived in Pearce's office, she was on the phone, so he waited in the doorway while she spoke to whomever was on the other end. She sounded frustrated, and she paced the length of her desk, dragging the phone cord with her.
Michael came to the obvious conclusion: there was no progress on finding Riley. He was surprised at how much that fact was grating on Pearce. She had no reason to care about the outcome of this case beyond the fact that it was just another job. He should have realized that nothing was just another job for her when it came to him, but he didn't. He couldn't.
"Tell me something good," Dani said as she hung up the phone.
"We tracked Harry Elias to a motel," Michael said. "But he got away before we could catch him."
"That's not good." Dani sunk into her chair. "All I'm getting about Riley is that there's no sign of her. It's like she just disappeared. You really think this Elias can lead you to her?"
"Yes."
"Then find him. I can take care of things here, tell the Agency what they want to hear, whatever you need."
Michael was surprised for a moment. "Thanks," he said. "You know you don't owe me anything, Dani."
She looked up into his eyes for a moment. She couldn't remember him ever using her first name before. "Yes I do," she said. "Maybe you don't see it, but I do."
Michael nodded, not in agreement, but acknowledgment of her gratitude for whatever it was he did, getting her back to Miami, helping her with Jay's killer. It didn't seem like enough, but maybe she saw something he just didn't.
He left the office and got a cab back to his mom's house. He felt like he had been awake for days, and maybe he was getting too old for these all nighters. Or maybe it was time he stopped treating this like any other mission and admitted how hard the whole thing was for him.
* * * Burn Notice * * *
Detective Carrillo was back on the case, officially or not. He had spent the morning going over every known associate of Ruth Westen's after a late night of investigating this mysterious Elias. When Sam and Jesse arrived at his desk, he was hoping for good news.
"So you just let him get away?" Carrillo demanded.
Jesse gave him that wide eyed, raised eyebrow look that said you've gotta be kidding me. "He was in a cab. I was on foot. Can you run 35 miles an hour? Didn't think so."
Carrillo put up his hand. "All right, I get it. How are we supposed to find him now?"
"You're the detective," Sam said. "Don't you have the kind of resources that could lead us to him?"
"If I get caught digging too deep into this, I could get fired. I think someone around here must be on the take. There's no other way to explain my case getting handed over to no one."
"Great," Jesse said. "Just what we need. A dirty cop."
Sam looked thoughtful. "If Riley's really involved in all this, what kind of connections must she have?"
Carrillo looked from Sam to Jesse and back again. "I think I need to know more about this Riley character if I'm going to be able to help you guys."
Jesse shrugged. "Oh, she's just a former CIA investigator who tried to have us all killed by a drug cartel."
"That all?" Carrillo raised his eyebrows. "What are you getting me into?"
"We don't know if she's connected," Sam said. "But Ruth getting killed right after Riley escaped seems too much of a coincidence. And Mike seems to think this Elias character is the one who bankrolled her escape."
"Of which we have absolutely no evidence." Carrillo crossed his arms. "You know, I can keep steering you guys in the right direction, but if you want charges to stick—"
"Charges are not important," Jesse said. "Anyone helping Riley is going to be facing the wrath of the CIA, and Michael Westen—and me, come to think of it."
"If this is some kind of revenge mission for you people, I'm out."
Sam gave Jesse a somewhat exasperated look. "These are dangerous people. We just want them off the streets. Right?"
"Yeah," Jesse replied. "Off the streets."
Carrillo looked at both of them suspiciously. "Fine. I'll call you when I get anything on Elias. And you'll keep me in the loop about this Riley?"
"Of course," Sam said with a forced smile. After what Jesse had said he couldn't wait to get out of there.
They got back to the car and Jesse drove toward Carlito's. It was time for something to eat. And a drink, in Sam's opinion. This day just kept getting more interesting, and not in a good way.
"What was that all about?" Sam asked when they had been on the road for a while.
"What?" Jesse asked, feigning innocence.
"The whole charges don't matter/wrath speech."
"What about it?"
"You think it's a good idea to say stuff like that to a detective? Also, on a related topic, what did you mean exactly? What do you have against Riley that the rest of us don't?"
"Nothing."
"You know, I know I fake it pretty well, but I'm not exactly stupid. Did she do something to you while you were in custody that time?"
"Sam, why don't we just focus on finding the bitch and leave the therapy session for later."
"Because I don't want to be working with a loose cannon. No offense, but I've been shot plenty of times for one lifetime. I don't want any repeats."
Jesse sighed. "Fine—fine. She tried to get me to flip on you guys by saying she had information on the guy who killed my mom."
"Jeez, that sucks."
"Yeah, well, I didn't take it, and when Mike and Fi came to get me out, I found out it was just a file of blank pages."
"Ouch. Okay, so you hate her."
"There were some things she said—it doesn't matter. I just want her out of our lives for good this time."
"You and me both."
* * * Burn Notice * * *
When Michael got back to his mom's house, everyone was at the table having lunch. Charlie was silently munching on a peanut butter sandwich while Madeline and Fiona were talking quietly. They stopped when Michael came in.
"You want something to eat?" Madeline asked, getting up from the table.
"No, Mom, that's fine," Michael replied. He didn't know what else he was going to say, so he sat down in the empty chair at the end of the table.
"You look tired," Fiona said, surprising him.
He looked up and met her eyes. She might have had the slightest hint of worry in her expression. "I am," Michael said. "I don't think I'll be sleeping much until this is over."
He didn't know why he said that. It was never over. Nothing about his life made it easy to sleep at night, and he no longer held to the delusion that his actions helped others in that regard.
"You should rest." Fiona began picking up plates and not looking at Michael. "You know how paranoid you get when you don't sleep."
Michael didn't know what to say. Fiona was talking to him like nothing was wrong between them, like this was just a normal day, a normal mission.
"He should eat first," Madeline said. "I think I have some yogurt." She went into the kitchen with Fiona, and Michael watched them, wondering what had just happened.
Across the table, Charlie sat, now picking at the crust of his sandwich. He hadn't even looked at Michael since he came in, and his silence was unsettling. Michael couldn't think of anything to say to him. That seemed to be a recurring problem of his.
Finally, Charlie abandoned the dismembered PB&J and looked up at his uncle. "Did you catch the bad guy yet?" he asked.
Michael let out the long breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Not yet." He shook his head. "But we will."
Charlie only nodded and got down from the table, disappearing into the bathroom to wash his hands.
Michael rested his elbows on the table and stared straight ahead without seeing. How had this become of his family? What had he done so wrong that they all had to suffer like this. It wasn't fair to them. Michael would gladly have taken all that pain on himself. He knew he could handle it. What he couldn't handle was watching everyone else turn into ghosts of the ones he loved. That was the real reason he had to leave, the reason this mission couldn't have happened at a worse time. It was cowardly, but Michael just wanted to escape. He didn't want to stay here and watch it all fall apart just like he hadn't when he was 17. Only that time, he managed to get away.
At some point, his mom came back into the dining room and left a cup of blueberry yogurt and a spoon on the table. At some point, Michael ate it. And then he went into his room and fell into a fitful sleep for a few blissful hours.
* * * Burn Notice * * *
After a quick lunch, Sam and Jesse headed over to Jesse's place to try to do some more digging about Elias and for Sam to have a quiet place to call in those favors he promised Michael. When they reached the third floor hallway, Jesse knew something was wrong. There was nothing out of place, but he could just feel it. When they reached his door, Jesse stretched out his arm to stop Sam from getting any closer.
"Lock's been busted," he said.
Sam followed Jesse's gaze and saw the broken mechanism. He instinctively reached for his gun. After a quick glance between the two of them, Sam kicked the door the rest of the way in, and Jesse entered the apartment, his gun also drawn.
It only took a moment to look around and see that no one was there, but the place had been ransacked, and there was a "delivery" on the dining room table atop the scattered magazines and newspapers. It was a brown folder with a picture pinned to the outside.
Jesse stared as he got closer to the foreign paperwork. He had seen that face every day of his life, in his dreams, in the photograph he always kept with him. It was his mother, and Jesse's mind immediately went to Riley's interrogation technique. He couldn't dare think this was real, that he had a chance to find his mom's killer. He had been cheated of that too many times.
"Jesse?" Sam's voice cut through the thick silence.
"Yeah?" Jesse replied, still staring.
"Are you going to see what's inside it?"
Jesse watched the folder as if it would sprout legs and run off. He still had his gun in his hand, his senses on high alert. It couldn't be the answers he so desperately wanted, and yet a part of him believed it was. Part of him still hoped he would find out what really happened and be able to get some closure. This was the nightmare that had never allowed him to live a normal life, to wake up and not feel the intense regret and anger that had been his constant companion, more of a friend to him than Sam or Michael or Fiona had ever been.
Part of him couldn't touch that file for fear that it didn't hold the answers he needed, and for fear that it did.
"You do it," he finally said.
"What?" Sam acted like he didn't hear Jesse.
"I can't, Sam. You do it."
"Okay," Sam said, and he reached out for the folder.
Jesse's hand tightened around the grip of his gun, and he waited for the news that it was a stack of blank paper, that it was everything he had ever wanted.