. .oOo.

Chapter 16

Aban felt the slight vibrations, a concussion in the air, the evidence that all was not right. He had been safe here, had believed that and held on to that belief with all of his heart. After some food and rest, he had been feeling much better, but now the apprehension was back, squeezing his lungs so that he could not breathe.

People were running past the door of the room he was staying in. Aban peeked his head out, he was apprehensive, but finally he got up the courage to ask what was happening. The man who stopped looked at him thoughtfully.

"You should probably go to the comm room," he said. Aban nodded and followed him into the stair well. He noticed that this man, dressed in black like all the others, was heavily armed. Though he was wearing a jacket, Aban recognized the shape of a knife under his pants at his ankle, the bulge of a gun holster under his arm, and another gun tucked into his waistband. That he carried another gun in his hand, and a rifle slung over his shoulder meant that he was expecting trouble.

Aban was not sure he wanted to know what kind of trouble it was that had found them. His initial worry was that there were more terrorists out there trying to find him. And that would make this all his fault again.

That his only option for safety was to stay within the walls of this building, letting others protect him, made him suddenly feel like a coward. Maybe Mahir had been correct in his accusation that he was not strong enough to fight the real fight.

As they stepped onto the comm floor, Aban thought of his friend. Was he strong enough to survive? Did he actually still believe that the organization had any peaceful goals at all? Did that make a difference to Mahir? At one time he had thought that it did, but Mahir had changed so much since then. Still, it worried Aban that those same people that Mahir looked up to could take out their anger on him. After all, Aban had been his friend, if they thought that Mahir had any knowledge about where he would go to hide, Mahir could be in danger.

Now he had to push these thoughts away, the tension in the room was evident, and his worrying was not going to help anything. Aban listened carefully to what he could hear the men saying. There was indeed a huge amount of trouble that they were all worried about. Orders were shouted, men were moving quickly, and Stephanie was pacing back and forth in front of a wall of monitors. He headed over toward her. Maybe she could tell him more about what was happening. Maybe he could help.

As he neared, Stephanie looked up at him and gave him a preoccupied smile.

"Hi, Aban," she said. Indicating the chairs, she encouraged him to sit down. Aban did the same for her and that brought out a real smile on her face. Over the course of the next few minutes, talking to each other kept them both a lot more calm than they had been before. Even if they still did not have the answers that they would like, waiting became a bit more bearable.

Now they watched the action on the monitors, neither had words to speak as they watched the plumes of smoke, the sparks of gunshots, the men scrambling and keeping low to stay out of the line of fire. Every few minutes Stephanie blinked to keep the tears out of her eyes so that she could keep looking for Ranger. Still, she did not see him. Her heart was pounding, she hoped that he was safe, she hoped that he had received the information she had texted to him.

But most of all, she wished that he was here with her. The thought of throwing her arms around him and never letting go, was all that was keeping her going right now.

. .oOo.

Ranger had filed away all of the information that Stephanie texted him. It had been great. As soon as they had landed, the messages had started coming in, and he had been reading them during the drive in from the airport.

Inwardly he smiled, she always amazed him, her determination and tenacity showed how much she was willing to do anything that she could to protect him. He couldn't wait to see her and thank her personally, in private. He had to actually shake his head to get his mind to return to the task at hand.

But he could never get her far from his thoughts. Even now, he could hear her say, 'Knowledge is power Ranger'. Her big blue eyes had a sparkle in them when she would quote Rodriguez, adopting his motto and taking it very seriously. Especially, Ranger thought, when it came to him.

And now, she had given him another piece of the puzzle that could be instrumental in stopping Nick Ellis. So many times it came down to the smallest details. Stephanie excelled in digging up all kinds of minutiae. Not all of it was obviously helpful. But as her mantra stated, knowing was everything, you never could tell what was going to make the difference in the end.

Ironically the latest batch of facts, that she had discovered about Ellis, came from what happened on the assignment that had gone FUBAR for Nick and his team. Ranger remembered what he had found when they had been called in to get them out of there. Of the four guys on the team, three of them were injured badly enough that they wouldn't have been able to get out under their own steam. Ellis was one of them.

That they had been able to get themselves into hiding had been a miracle. As Ranger recalled, it had been Ellis that had performed some heroics to make that miracle happen. Ellis's mem had been eager to tell the guys on Ranger's team what he had done for them. Nick Ellis was somewhat of a paradox. One minute he was having anger management issues and the next he was being a hero.

And the hero, Ranger remembered, had been a huge mess. Slumped in a heap, he had been practically unconscious, blood seemed to be everywhere. Ranger had been the one to do some immediate first aid on him. It was hard to forget the gash on his neck, behind his right ear. Running from his ear down to his collar bone, it had looked ugly. They'd done what they could for him on site, but Ranger was pretty sure, at the time, that it was going to leave a scar.

Among other things, Stephanie was now telling him that it had left more than the scar that could be seen. His ear had been damaged, affecting his hearing, which was nearly nonexistent in his right ear. It would be impossible to know exactly how that bit of intel was going to come into play, but as Steph would say, he needed to be prepared by knowing everything that he could.

Getting home seemed to have been more complicated that any one had expected, and now that they were finally close enough to see the building, he almost started to relax. Moments later, however, Ranger's thought were interrupted when flames shot into the air at the entrance to the garage. It appeared that the small IEDs were not the only toys that Ellis had brought to play with tonight. When another explosion shook the van in front of them, he knew that Ellis meant business, and he was not willing to wait.

In her last message, Stephanie had mentioned that there had been something up on the roof of the building across from the garage. Now Ranger was going to use that detail to make his next move.

. .oOo.

The house was huge, and old, and loud. Zurie couldn't sleep that first night that he'd been here. There were too many noises that he could not identify. The moaning, and creaking, even scratching, kept him wandering around the place looking for the origin of each of the sounds that bothered him. All the while, he had been worried that he had been found, and that his end was at hand.

In the light of day, Zurie felt foolish about the fears of the night, but it did cause him to do some serious thinking. By the end of the day, sitting on the balcony with his glass of vodka, he came to the conclusion that left him speechless.

After all the planning, the sneaking, the plotting and the staging, his life was what he had always dreamed it could be. He lived in a paradise of his own choosing, but only after such a short time, he realized that it wasn't enough.

Zurie was lonely.

It had come somewhat as a shock to him. He had been surrounded by so many people for so many years, he thought that he wanted to be alone. But, as he now discovered, there was a huge difference in being alone, and in being lonely.

Over and over his thoughts had found their way back to Sarah. He wondered if she had taken his advice. There was a time when he had considered her to be shallow and greedy. Unlike the chef, she had not been forced into spying. No one was threatening her family in order to make her comply. In fact, now that he thought about it, he remembered that she had no family. Wasn't that one of the reasons that he had chosen to go after recruiting her? No emotional attachments to anyone, she could concentrate on her job without any interference.

It had never occurred to him that she had only chosen to do the job he'd asked of her because of him. At the time, he was all about pretend relationships with people. It was all that he had known, and he was so very good at his deceptions.

But now, now he was seeing that at some point he had stopped playacting with Sarah. There were times when being with her felt so real. And then there had been that kiss. That kiss, the soft tender touch of her lips, when he said goodbye, was still on his mind.

And that was when it hit him. Sarah meant something to him. He couldn't stop thinking about her. Wondering what it would be like if she was here with him. Wishing, Zurie actually found himself wishing that he could see her, talk to her, touch her again.

All of this thinking, introspection, was actually giving him a headache. Or did his head hurt from a lack of sleep, his thoughts were not exactly clear on that. It did not matter, he had seen the truth and for a time he'd had no idea what to do about it. He had made his plans, executed them perfectly. What could he do? Trying to find her could mean the end to all that he had worked for years to accomplish.

Unless he stayed missing and presumed dead, he could actually end up very dead. Was anything, was anyone, worth the risk? As much as he agonized over that question, his heart kept coming back to the one, the only thing that seemed to matter to him now.

He missed Sarah. Not having her in his life left him so empty. After days of torturing himself, Zurie came to a decision. And he started making new plans. It was simple, in the most complicated way possible. He would find her, and ask her if she felt the same way about him.

Simple.

. .oOo.

Vince got the call from Chet and rushed down the stairs to the garage. As soon as he pushed through the door, he saw Woody stumbling toward him. His friend was on fire and he rushed to help him smother the small flames. It sounded like a war zone, automatic weapons firing countless bullets in a crossfire pattern. He had never seen anything like it.

Pushing Woody into the elevator, he turned back to help Chet get to the vans. Both of them grabbed fire extinguishers and, keeping low, they made their way through the garage. They knew that they had to get the men into the building as quickly as possible. Under the cover of smoke, they moved as carefully as they could, stooped over so that they would not be seen, and to avoid the gunfire.

The rest of Woody's team was done with the clean up on the street and had almost reached RangeMan when they heard the explosions. They watched as Ranger jumped out of the van now heading away from the garage. He motioned to them to follow him. Silently they circled around the building across the street and found a way in, heading to the roof where Stephanie had spotted something unusual.

Hector had just confirmed that it did look like someone was up there. Three guesses who that might be, and the first two don't count, Ranger thought. He confirmed that thought when Hector let Ranger know that that someone looked armed. They could see him peeking over the edge, watching the action. Night had now enveloped them in darkness, making it impossible to get a good look at whoever was up there, but no one had any question about who it could be.

They could hear the small explosions continue as they made their way up to the roof access. All of their weapons came out as Ranger opened the door just a crack. He hesitated, trying to see in the dark. The security lights had been turned off up here, leaving only the moon to penetrate the shadows.

Looking carefully, he could see a figure crouched down near the edge of the roof overlooking the RangeMan garage. From the back, all he could make out was a man in a jacket with a hood. With that description, it could have been any body.

The show down there was apparently over now, leaving a quiet, eerie stillness. Smoke had drifted all the way up here and it added to the overall creepy effect. Muffled shouts could be heard from below as the men were still dealing with the aftermath in the garage. But for the most part Ranger realized that there was not enough noise anymore that could help to disguise their movements.

He backed up and motioned to the men, he wanted them to circle around to the left. From that angle they could sneak up on him, and practically be on top of him before he saw them. Of course, that plan would work best if there was some distraction. Ranger knew just what that needed to be.

Nodding their heads in agreement, the men moved according to their plan. As soon as they disappeared in the haze, Ranger made his move. One stealthy step at a time, he came up behind the figure. After only a few steps he froze, a gun pointed at his chest.

Shots rang out, accompanied by all kinds of shouting.

Chet and Vince were still in the garage down below, they heard the shots and stopped cold. So did Stephanie as she watched the movements of blurred figures on the screen. She froze too, unable to breathe.

Oh please don't let it be Ranger up there," she muttered. Her hands covered her mouth, as if to keep her from voicing any of her fears. Her wide eyes stared at the monitor.

Hearts were pounding. No one moved. No words were spoken. There were no answers. Only questions that no one wanted to ask.

. .oOo.