Suffering the Consequences
Carrie took a deep breath and glanced at her watch. She had been sitting outside Saul's office for some time and it was getting late. It had taken her most of the afternoon and some very fast talking to even get Saul and Chankria together but now they were, they seemed determined to have their own conversation which did not include her and she was relegated to sitting outside, listening to the hum of their voices ebb and flow. Forced to wait as time ticked irreversibly away.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and looked at it. Maggie again. Carrie had three missed calls from her sister in the last few minutes. She knew she should call her back, but she didn't want to be on the phone when she finally got invited through to the meeting. What could possibly be wrong? Quinn should have delivered Franny by now. Carrie reasoned that Maggie would probably only want to check on what Franny should have to eat, so ignoring the nagging voice of her intuition, she put the phone back in her pocket, unanswered.
Just as she did so, Saul opened his office door and beckoned her forward. She moved into the office and felt the tension immediately. It was like walking from an air conditioned room into baking hot midday sunshine; Carrie sensed the sheer intensity of the previous conversation still resonating threateningly in the room in the sultry silence that hit her as she entered.
Suneeta Chankria sat on a comfy chair to her left, inspecting her nails and appearing supremely relaxed, only the slight, sweaty and unladylike sheen on her cheeks revealing her involvement in the previous exchange. Saul, on the other hand, looked like he had just completed a particularly debilitating boxing bout. He looked old and grey, and insignificant somehow, as if his pumped up presence had been deflated by Carrie's loss of faith in him. Pointedly he refused to meet her stare. The colossal gap between them was irrevocable and Carrie could find no sympathy in her heart even though it was obvious he had lost the preceding exchange. Instead she determined to take advantage of his weakened state to get what she wanted. So, ignoring the still rumbling aftershocks of the previous conflict, she sat on the chair indicated and placed her file of evidence on the desk.
Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it, wished she had switched the damn thing off.
"So, Carrie," Saul's tone was clipped with frigidity. "Would you like to explain what this is all about?"
"What do you know about Samir Bakri?" she asked. She knew she did not have time to start with the luxury of a deliberate and considered offensive strategy. Besides she knew her opponent so very well, consequently she went for a characteristic and concentrated brutal attack from the very beginning.
Saul drew in a long breath, still refusing to meet her challenging stare. "Why?" he asked.
"Why is he here?" Carrie pressed.
Saul shuffled guiltily on his chair. "I don't see..." he began.
"No that's the problem, Saul," Carrie snapped. "You don't see and in your position that's fucking lethal."
Saul looked at her. "Carrie, it's not what you think."
Carrie scoffed viciously. "You don't know what I think. You haven't known since Islamabad. You know, I really wish that Quinn hadn't stopped me. I really wish I had taken that shot, taken out Haqqani and you, when I had the chance...it may have destroyed me too but how much better would this world be without you in it?"
"We all have wished for a different ending, Carrie." Saul said looking stunned and incredibly uncomfortable and throwing a warning glance towards Chankria who was listening avidly.
"Don't mind me," she said smoothly. "This is absolutely fascinating!"
"But we all have to suffer the consequences," Saul continued ignoring her and looking at Carrie imploringly for the first time. "Do the best we can in the circumstances." He tried to distance himself from the force of Carrie's battering glare.
"Yes, we do," Carrie agreed, her eyes blazing relentlessly at her one-time mentor. "And that doesn't include making deals with terrorists and spitting on the graves of our countrymen!"
"Carrie, I have told you..."
"Yes, you have. It wasn't your plan, you said already numerous times, but you could have done something about it instead of using it to get your own unscrupulous hands back on the power."
Saul shook his head and let out an extremely tired sigh. "Carrie this isn't the time to debate this further. We have to move on." He was flailing desperately in the face of her sustained assault.
Carrie's phone buzzed again. She hesitated as the anger thrummed through her but she controlled it, ignored the phone, focused her fury and made her voice impassive as she returned to her earlier attack. "OK, let's move on then. Why is Bakri here?"
Saul hesitated, took off his glasses and raised his hands to his face wearily as if protecting himself from physical blows. He sat with his head in his hands for long seconds and then his voice was resigned as he finally looked up and said, "All right, cards on the table?"
"It would be fucking nice to think you would tell me the truth after everything I put myself through for you." Carrie was calm but uncompromising, landing her blows with controlled venom.
"I brought him here."
"Why?"
"Why do you think? To lure you back. Carrie, I have made no secret of the fact that I need you. I tried everything I could to get you back into action. Bakri was my latest play, the bait that I thought would tempt you."
Carrie shook her head. "You have fucking lost it, Saul," she said sadly. "Is it really so hard for you to believe that I have moved on? That I can't be manipulated by an arrogant motherfucker from my past? How fucking fickle do you think I am?"
"Carrie, I am desperate." He leaned forwards, eyes suddenly bright and beseeching as he rallied desperately. "I need you to work for me. I want us to be the team we once were. Remember when we were invincible. Remember what we achieved. We were so good and it can be that way again. Just the two of us, together."
Carrie glared at him as realisation sparked in her mind. "The fuck! You are jealous of Quinn!" Saul sagged back in his chair as she landed a killer punch, the accuracy of which surprised her as much as him. She let a humourless, slightly crazy giggle and then shook her head. "You are fucking unbelievable! You have no idea what you have done!"
Chankria cleared her throat. "Entertaining though this little scene is," she said. "Perhaps you would care to tell us exactly what you think he has done, Ms Mathison?"
Carrie nodded, opened her mouth to speak and her phone went again. Chankria let out an impatient snort. "Somebody obviously wants you pretty bad!" she scoffed, perfect eyebrows arched.
"Do you want to take that?" Saul added a relieved tone edging his voice as he saw a chance to suspend the questioning and allow himself time to recover, to plan his next move. He was staggering and on the ropes, it was true, but he was not finished yet.
Carrie glanced at her phone, thinking it would be Maggie again but the number that came up she recognised as Bakri's. Shit, she didn't need this. What the hell was he doing calling her now...unless he knew where she was and what she was about to do and he wanted to stop her. A cold hand of fear clutched at her innards as the quiet nagging voice of instinct finally made itself heard; Maggie knew she was at an important meeting, she had explained that when she rang to ask if Quinn could drop Franny off for the evening. Carrie realised that her sister would not have called unless something serious was wrong.
She nodded, muttered an abrupt apology and answered the phone as she moved to the back of the office. Chankria rolled her eyebrows once again and glanced at the clock before returning her attention to her nails. Saul found sudden interest in the papers on his desk but his hands were shaking as he moved the files around pointlessly. Neither acknowledged the other's existence.
"What the fuck do you want?" Carrie hissed into the phone.
"Is that any way to talk to an old friend?" Bakri chuckled down the line. "I'm just phoning to give you a little advice, Mathison, dear."
"Advice?"
"Yeah, just to say you're not the only one who can track phones, you know. I know where you are. So go ahead and have your little chat with Mr Berenson and Ms Chankria. Spill the beans if you wish but remember there is always a price to pay."
"What the fuck do you mean?"
"Sell me out and somebody very close to you will pay the price!"
The cold fear in her stomach slithered wildly as Carrie's heart beat quickened to a terrifying tattoo. "Who?"
Bakri chuckled. "Let's just say your black ops beau isn't as good as you think he is."
"Quinn?"
"I want twenty four hours to complete my business. After that you can tell anybody else you fucking want Mathison, but one second before that and I will put a bullet into your boyfriend's head and see if these black ops boys have a brain at all. Understand?" The line went dead.
"Wait!" Carrie screeched. She turned back to see both Saul and Chankria staring at her with wide questioning eyes. She pulled her glance away from them and it came to rest on the file she had left on the desk just minutes earlier.
She licked her lips as the maelstrom of confusion and indecision swirled in her mind. Her original plans blown to pieces.
Quinn awoke lying awkwardly on his back, shivering, with a cold sweat pooling in the pores of his skin. Everything felt wrong. He felt restrained and full enough to burst. Strange sensations ran along his nerves, contracting his muscles with intense pain and yet he felt vague and unfathomable. He tried to move his arms, his legs, his head, but nothing obeyed his command. His shoulders were straining and threatening to pop as his arms had been pulled back and tied behind his back which in turn made his current position even more uncomfortable.
His head hurt. In addition to his previous headache, now he had a vivid pain down the left side of his face where the skin felt strangely tight and sticky. He tried to open his eyes and while the right complied, the left remained swollen shut. On moving his attention to his mouth, he realised it was taped shut by a gag. His nose too felt wrong, out of place somehow, as the air rattled through it noisily. The memory of the pistol whipping that Bakri had given him once he was in the car; the swoosh of the gun passing his ear, the sharp agony as it hit and the welcoming blackness that engulfed him, fluttered vaguely into his mind and out again. He closed his eyes, pushed his head back to rest on the damp floor, swallowed back the nauseous feeling that inched up his throat and concentrating on simply breathing through his nose as his gag did not allow it through his mouth.
A few minutes later, and feeling slightly better, he tried opening his eyes again. His vision was slightly blurred and watery in his right and nonexistent in his left. He blinked trying to bring the watery scene before him into focus, his impaired vision not helped by the lack of light in the surroundings.
Slowly he inched his way to a sitting position, ignoring the hot rushes of pain that flashed through every muscle as he moved. Once sitting, he took deep breaths, waiting for the ache to recede a little and the nausea to fade. He gingerly moved his tied hands and noted with satisfaction that the binding was with old rope, not tight enough and he could move his hands within the bonds. His legs were not even tied at all. Fucking amateurs, he thought with a grimace. He began to twist his wrists together in order to loosen the rope still further.
At the same time, his eye adjusting to the dim light, he looked around. He appeared to be in some sort of wooden storeroom, dim and dusty and empty with a low ceiling that, along with the shadows that lingered malevolently in every corner, gave a sinister, claustrophobic feel. A glance from an untrained eye would believe it to be an ideal place to keep someone prisoner but Quinn, his relatively good eye squinting through the dull light to make a minute inspection of every little thing in the room, saw at least a handful of interesting possibilities that would aid him in his escape.
He tried to stand but a wave of dizziness washed through him. He sat down again, gulping in air, his head, suddenly feeling too heavy for his neck, slumped on to his left shoulder. He had to concede at this point, that this might be harder than he had thought. He had suffered concussion in the past and well recognised its symptoms now as he weakly lifted his head and retched feebly into his gag, the headache throbbing ominously behind his eyes.
He waited, trying to regain some strength, moving his head gingerly from his shoulder to rest on the clammy, cool wall, swallowing back the vile tasting stomach acid that had invaded his mouth as he gagged and inhaling as much air as he possibly could through his damaged nose. If he had felt bad before, now was much worse and his body craved the delicious numbness only painkilling drugs could deliver. As an overriding desire for sleep threatened to let the fingers of blackness, which lurked at the edge of his consciousness, engulf him entirely.
With a conscious effort, he pulled himself back to his predicament. He had a job to do. He had put himself here because this was where he needed to be. It was quite simple really. If he was here then the other people that he cared about were safe. He had put himself in harm's way to get into a position so he could ensure that the threat to them would be eliminated and they would be safe. He was not going to fail; it simply was not an option. He would suffer whatever it took, do whatever was needed and he would do so willingly because he was a soldier; it was what he did. And he needed to do it now regardless of the physical discomfort he felt.
He gulped and, deciding that walking was perhaps a little too ambitious at this point, he shuffled on his ass, very slowly across the filthy floor towards the door. During his earlier inspection, he had noted that one of the screws that held the door handle in place appeared to be loose. Once he arrived, and with great care, leaning heavily against the wall, he lifted himself to his feet. Turning his back to the door, his dexterous fingers made a thorough investigation of the screw and the area around it. Pursing his lips as he concentrated, he managed to loosen the screw further until it slipped out of the thread.
"Shit!" he swore inwardly as the screw slid through his suddenly clumsy fingers to be lost in the dark shades that lurked at ground level. He knelt, furtively running his bound hands along the floor, cursing that he had to do this behind his back, and finally found the touch of hard metal that marked where the screw had fallen. Grasping it firmly this time, he made his way on his ass once more back to the area he had woken up in. He lay down again, heat flushing through him as the dizziness and nausea returned and his breathing coming in shallow hoarse breaths. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax and regain his strength while his hands got to work using the sharp point of the screw to separate and pare away the rope fibres that bound them.
Some time later, the door opened and a solitary shaft of chromium light split the dullness, instantly making Quinn's eyes water and his head throb a little more intensely. More light rushed in as strong hands grabbed hold of his aching shoulders, lifting him roughly. He was pulled on to his knees, his head pushed down to the floor. He bit back the groan as the enforced movement sent shivers of fracturing pain through his battered body. Fingers in his hair roughly pulled his head up until he looked straight down the barrel of a gun.
"How does it feel, black ops boy?" Bakri hissed, pressing the cold barrel to Quinn's forehead. "To be on the wrong side of the gun?" Bakri kept his mouth set in an evil sneer.
Quinn drew in a brave but ragged breath. He was shivering and strung out, every fibre in his body screeching in painful protest but he ignored them, concentrating his remaining strength on holding the other man's stare with all the devastating confidence and calm he could muster.
He knelt in the dust, silent and strong, the gun pressed to his head
...and he waited.