Justice by InSilva
Disclaimer: owning nothing of an Ocean's nature.
A/N: Thirty chapters? That can't be right. This was only ever supposed to be seven chapters long.
Chapter Thirty: Break
Danny rubbed his hand over his face and pushed the tiredness away. Time to sleep later. Time to rest later. He shook himself and splashed water on his cheeks and stared in the mirror and cursed the useless, helpless man staring back at him.
It was early morning. About six hours since Vincente had tried to kill Rusty. Six hours since, with trembling fingers, he'd sent the text message to his old phone and waited and waited and wondered and prayed and there'd been the period of uncertainty when they hadn't known but they'd hoped.
It was two hours since they'd heard the sound of someone throwing up and then a terse "Thanks" which he knew was from Rusty and ridiculous relief had flooded through all of them.
"He's alive!" Turk had punched Linus's arm and Linus grinned at him even as he rubbed his shoulder.
Saul had sat back in his chair and met Danny's gaze and the pair of them waited: then they'd heard Vincente and Saul had winced and Danny had closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. They'd listened to faint little moans as Rusty had passed in and out of consciousness and Danny had buried his chin in his hand and stifled the fear that was eating him alive.
True to his word, Livingston had diligently run the recording of Rusty's encounter with Vincente through the sound filters and separated the layers and played them individually. They could hear the bar and the people: they could pick up the footsteps falling on the pavement outside the bar: they could listen to Rusty's forced breaths as he'd tried to get away from Vincente: they could identify the ocean roaring to shore: they could imagine the journey from the water to the villa. All of it in crystal clear sound. None of it helped. There were no names mentioned. There was nothing to distinguish the bar or the route or the beach. And the sense of futility both in L.A. and Rio was tangible.
They were back to waiting. Waiting to be furnished with some clue. In the meantime, Santos had been busy with the map marking up likely locations for the villa. Pitiful, Saul's eyes told Danny and Danny agreed whole-heartedly.
Danny continued to stare at his reflection. He'd saved Rusty from drowning for what? Because he knew Vincente's next step would be to try and find out who had sent that message. And Danny just knew he wasn't going to be asking politely.
Useless and helpless. And he didn't want to add hopeless to the list.
There was a knock on the bathroom door and he took a breath, curbed the emotion that was close to surfacing and opened it. It was Saul.
"Santos and I are going to get breakfast in for everyone."
Breakfast. Danny tried to imagine doing something as normal as eating breakfast when somewhere Rusty was seconds, minutes, hours away from dying.
"Come with us, Danny."
He opened his mouth to object but Saul went on, "You haven't slept and you need a break. Someone will phone you if they get anything. You know they will."
No one had slept, he wanted to argue. The others had dozed a little but no one had slept. And he could picture the scene in L.A. where everyone was clustered around Livingston waiting for him to weave some magic. It really was unfair how desperately they were depending on Livingston. Unfair but inevitable. Because Livingston was all they had. And part of Danny wanted to commiserate with Livingston and still a part of him wanted to shake him hard until he found Rusty.
"Daniel." Saul was waiting.
He sighed and nodded. He'd go.
Outside, it was shaping up to be a bright Rio morning. People in the street were either on their way to work for the day or on their way back home from the night.
Danny didn't see anyone he walked by. He moved through the crowded pavement on autopilot, swerving his body effortlessly. Saul and Santos were slightly ahead of him and his eyes never left Saul's shoulder as he followed, his mind occupied with the image of Rusty, fading in and out. And what was Vincente doing all the while? Sitting and watching and planning how best to break him, no doubt. And no doubt Vincente had some effective ideas on that score.
He became dimly aware of someone calling behind him and then a hand was laid on his sleeve and he turned to see the Smile, beaming brightly as ever. The Smile spoke less English than the Moustache but he spoke enough. And Danny reached out and clutched his arms then turned and shouted after Saul and Santos.
Linus was hungry. Rusty was missing but his stomach didn't seem to care. He'd volunteered to go with Saul and Santos to find breakfast but Saul had shaken his head at him.
"It'll do Danny good to get out of here for a bit," he'd said and Linus supposed he was right. Rusty was Rusty and sitting and waiting and listening was bad enough for any of them but for Danny it had to be just the worst.
Still, he was hungry. And he found himself looking at the door and guiltily hoping that the others would return soon with something delicious and hot. Then he could forget about the hunger and focus on the worry.
"I'm starving," Turk announced and Linus didn't feel so bad.
"It feels wrong," Turk went on.
"It does," Linus agreed with a sigh then he rooted through the cupboards and found a bag of tortilla chips. They sat on the couch, sharing them.
"Do you think we're going to…" Turk broke off and then shook his head.
"If we don't…" Linus put the tortilla chip down.
"Saul says we have to."
"Saul's about right."
Turk pushed the tortilla chips away. Neither of them found themselves that hungry after all.
The door opened sooner than Linus thought it would and Santos stood there. With the Smile. Linus blinked a little. In spite of Danny's explanation, the Smile was still disconcerting. The pair of them edged into the room, Saul and Danny behind them.
"Linus, your friend here has some important information regarding Rusty," Santos announced.
"He does?" Linus exclaimed.
"Yeah," Santos nodded solemnly. "But you're gonna have to sleep with him."
Linus's eyes shot wide open and he looked at Santos and then Danny in horror.
Santos roared with laughter. "You're right," he said to Danny. "That was funny."
Danny was smiling for the first time in the longest time. "His sister works in a bar – the bar – and she recognised Rusty's description."
"C'mon!" Turk grabbed his coat and pushed Linus's into his hand. "You told Livingston, right?"
"We most certainly have," Saul nodded.
Livingston had done something Linus had labelled "Livingstony". Each of them only needed the one phone to talk to LA and to listen at the same time to whatever was going on with Rusty and Vincente. As they walked through the streets of Rio, always Danny and always Saul and sometimes Linus and sometimes Turk and never Santos or the Smile had their phone clamped to their ear.
The Smile's sister was not up. With reluctance, she opened the door to her flat, a bathrobe wrapped round her, her hair all over the place, no make-up, and found herself confronted by her brother and five men. She swore violently and gesticulated at the Smile who made calming gestures and muttered at her. Her eyes ran over Santos, Saul, Turk, Linus and Danny and stayed on Danny. A smile wrapped itself around her face and she turned from tigress to kitten in seconds.
Santos asked a question and she answered, eyes on Danny, her voice full of flirt.
"An Americano with bleached blond hair and a mess of a beard has been hitting the bar where she works for the last week," Santos translated. "He was in last night."
He checked something with her and then went on, "He left in the company of another Americano. One she's seen in there a couple of times before. One who has grey eyes that are cold as a barrel full of ice."
That was enough for Danny.
"The bar, Santos. Where is the bar?"
They left the Smile at his sister's and made the bar in record time. Danny stared at the shuttered front and then spun on his heel. His eyes roamed over the street and he thought about the sequence that was firm in his head. Vincente and Rusty had come out of noise of the bar and had walked but a little way before they'd met company. There was a corner where a few men in brightly coloured clothes were clustered. Well, that looked promising. He walked straight forward and paused, ignoring the wolf-whistles.
"What's he doing?" Santos asked curiously as Linus edged closer to Turk.
"Living it," Saul said.
Vincente had said something about a short cut. And they'd been confronted by two men who'd lain in wait…that suggested some place dark and secretive and out of the way… Danny saw the alleyway and moved.
As the others followed, Livingston's voice flared up in Danny's ear.
"Danny, you need to listen…"
"Alright, Mr Ryan. I really, really don't have time for fun and games."
Vincente's voice. And then Rusty's. And Danny stopped and leant a hand up against the alley wall and closed his eyes as he heard their conversation. He couldn't listen to Rusty suffering at Vincente's hands again. He couldn't.
You're going to have to. And you're going to need to make sure you stop it.
He hurried down the alleyway, not even bothering to check that the others were following, not even stopping when he passed the bodies.
Santos was on the phone to Miguel to report the deaths.
"And you need to meet us with some men, Miguel. Looks like we're headed towards the new run of villas we nearly invested in. Yeah, those. OK."
Danny was still in front, moving swiftly ahead of them. Santos turned to Saul, panting alongside to keep up.
"You OK?"
"I'll manage. You make sure you keep Danny in your sights. All of you. He's liable to do something stupid otherwise."
"You sure, Saul?" Linus asked.
"I'm positive," Saul said, answering the wrong question. "Get after him."
Danny emerged from the alley as Rusty attempted to run and he paused for a heart-in-the-mouth moment to listen as Vincente stopped him and put him under.
"Ten minutes," he said tersely to Turk who was the first to appear at his shoulder. "We've got ten minutes."
"I think I know the stretch of villas he is hiding in," Santos said, arriving in time to hear Danny's last sentence and adding apologetically, "they're just over twenty minutes from here."
Two cars had squealed to a halt in front of them as they ran across the promenade and Miguel emerged from one of them. Danny looked like he wasn't going to stop but Turk who was nearest caught his arm and muttered, "We need these guys".
"What's happening?" Miguel asked Santos.
"We got a lead. Looks like the-"
"- yeah, you said." Miguel looked at the strain on Danny's face. "What else?"
"Our friend has woken up," Saul said, arriving, breathing heavily. "And that isn't good."
"We have to move," Danny said and the plea was overt. In his ear, he could hear "It's not an option, Mr Ryan" and a sharp gasp of pain from Rusty and running water. God, running water. Eddie Lavelle flashed through his mind and he grimaced.
"OK. We need to go on foot from here anyway." Miguel gestured and his men emerged from the two cars.
"This way."
By the time they'd reached the first villa, Danny was dying inside. He'd heard the struggles that he knew Rusty was never going to win; he'd heard Rusty as defiant and stubborn as ever; he'd heard Vincente say "This would be easier, you know, if I pulled out your front two teeth"; he'd heard Rusty throwing up; he'd heard flesh being punched and he had an image in his head that he really didn't want to be there.
"Danny…?"
It was Livingston. Danny had almost forgotten the others in L.A.. He pictured each of them, each of their faces, sitting and listening…he swallowed.
"Yeah, Livingston."
"Their phones are still on," Livingston said with a note of triumph and anticipation. "You get close enough and I can pinpoint them."
Before Danny could say anything, Vincente was speaking again.
"One of my most effective methods, Mr Ryan. Slow suffocation. Controlled death, if you will."
Danny said nothing for a moment as the conflicting joy and terror ran through his bones. Then he frowned. Something had happened…
"Danny! Danny, the sound's gone!"
"What?"
Livingston sounded wildly worried. "The phone's still switched on but the sound's dropped out!"
"Get them back, Livingston!"
There was a pause and then Livingston sighed.
"I think the phones are in Vincente's jacket and he's taken it off. Bundled it up somewhere. It's too far away from both of them to pick them up."
Danny couldn't stop the groan. If it was agony listening to the torture, it was worse not being able to listen to it.
"You're very near," Livingston said and the nerves and anxiety were gone and all there was was the technical and the knowledge and the application.
Danny ran.