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A/N: Well, we're at Chapter 3. I still don't own Glee, but I can watch it on Hulu. For that matter, I can watch season 1 on Netflix. Acafellas is worth watching on repeat for shirtless sweaty Puck. Lord. Anyway, this chapter will earn the M rating, though not for smut. Minor character death, torture. Fairly graphic. The views of the characters are not representative of those of the author.

Chapter 3: The Game's Afoot

PuckPOV

I had the advantage on Kurt Hummel at the moment, in that I was seated behind a desk. He couldn't see me tenting the front of my pants. My other advantage over him was a relatively dark complexion, whereas he had skin like a porcelain doll. Naturally, when I told him about his big problem he turned a delightful shade of rose.

My line of work didn't leave me a lot of time for relationships and the like. It would be problematic to have a wife and kids, or a partner worrying about where you were, whether or not you'd be coming back home, dreading that phone call telling them that you'd been killed, wounded or captured. So for the time being my love life was a series of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.

That wasn't a problem for me. It wasn't a problem for them either, I think. Mutual expectations aligning and all that jazz. Men, and women, of course.

My sexuality was rather fluid. It came from having a worldview where I could see God in every person I was involved with. I had been raised a fairly non-observant Jew, so I tended towards a more spiritual view of God, rather than a religious one.

I actually did have a daughter. When I was younger and slightly less intelligent than I am now, I fooled around with a girl in high school. She was on the pill, but had been taking antibiotics for strep, and that interacted with the pill and she got pregnant. She didn't want anything to do with me because I was, and always would be a Lincoln loser. She had the baby, I got to see her one time before she gave her up for adoption.

The Lincoln Loser straightened up, got decent enough grades and a good enough ACT score to get some money to go to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Got a degree in Political Science with a minor in History then went to Law School at the same, and got my JD. On a lark, I applied to the CIA as a field agent, and they called me. My position at the State Department was what we would call a cover. I could be in a foreign country and operate out of our offices here without too much risk of being exposed.

Here I was, a person who 10 years ago, couldn't be considered a good candidate for taking responsibility for one life, being trusted to potentially guard thousands of them. Not too shabby for a Lincoln loser.

Kurt had managed to get control of himself, and I gestured for him to have a seat. He sat down.

"So, Kurt, what do you have for me?"

"Well, Puck, I'm a junior designer for Marc Jacobs and we're here for the opening of Paris Fashion Week. While the crew and I were working on getting the stage and lighting set up I overhead a couple of the stagehands speaking in Arabic. What they were discussing was that they had a bomb in a duffel bag that they needed to plant. I took a picture of them with my iPhone and I know where they set the bag at."

"Alright. Mind if I see your iPhone, actually, just log into your email and send the picture to " I figured that it would be a bit early to give him my CIA email.

A moment later, the picture came through in an email file. I opened it up, and imported the image into the terror suspect database that was on my computer. It used facial recognition software to id people.

"So, where'd you learn to speak Arabic, Kurt?"

"I had learned Spanish and French in high school, and I thought it might be a useful language to learn, so I took a year of it when I went to college."

"Where was that at?"

"I went to the New School in New York. Where'd you go to college at?"

"Good school, from what I've heard. I went to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for my undergrad, and my JD. Though I didn't learn Arabic until I started here, figured it'd go along with my Hebrew."

"You don't look like the lawyering type."

"Stereotyping based on appearance?"

"Acknowledged. I'm sorry."

"Actually, I'm not a lawyer, as I haven't taken the bar. I just have the degree."

The program pinged, bringing up matches for both of the men pictured.

"I'll be damned. What's he doing here? Mahktif, I could understand, but Basalov I don't."

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Khalid Mahktif is your average run of the mill Islamist terrorist. Has some connections to Hezbollah, and from there probably has some contacts inside Iran, since they support Hezbollah. Dzhokar Basalov , on the other hand, is a Chechen. Chechnya is an area that has had some problems with staying a part of Russia. Their resistance movement is believed to have some tentative connection to Al-Qaeda. Just wondering what would bring them here to target this particular venue."

"Well, you could arrest them and find that out."

"Yeah, Kurt, we could do that. There are a couple of problems with that. The first is that if we bring the Paris police in on this, we probably won't get access to them. Thus, our ability to get information from them would be limited."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to call the head of our division and see what they think."

"Time's a wasting."

It would be about 8:30 at the CIA HQ in Langley. Early, but Assistant Director Emma Pillsbury would already have been there for two hours, reading briefings and preparing the daily intelligence briefing for the director, and the President. I emailed her the attachment that I had received off Kurt's iPhone, and I dialed the number for her office.

"Pillsbury."

"This is Noah Puckerman out of Paris. I've emailed you a file showing a couple of known terrorists that are going to be staging an attack here tonight. Should we bring the Paris police in on this?"

"Absolutely not. We bring them in, we won't get them back. Mordechai's there isn't he?"

"Mordechai?"

"He's probably going by Mark."

"Oh?"

"So, he is there. He's not under us, but he'll work with you on this. Just tell him that Emma requested him."

"I have something else that I want to run by you, but I can do that after this is taken care of."

"If it can wait, it should."

"Alright, I'll talk to you later."

"Happy hunting."

The line went dead. I figured that she'd respond the way she did. It was a chance to get potential intelligence, which was useful. It could establish connections, and possibly uncover current sponsors of terrorists that had hitherto escaped our detection.

"Kurt, we're going to take them into custody. You'll take us over to the venue and show us where the suspects are at, and we'll take them in. Hopefully we can do that without disruption."

"You're not going to get the police involved?"

"They would compromise our ability to get information from the suspects."

"You mean torture?"

"In a word: yes."

"And you're alright with that?"

"No. I'm also not alright with there being other explosive devices that they may have hidden in the venue, or car bombs outside of the venue exploding and killing innocent people. I'm not alright with their sponsors being able to do this shit indiscriminately either."

Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Jesus. I hadn't thought about there being other bombs."

"Yeah, it's entirely possible. There aren't any good choices here, I know that. You know that too. For that matter, I'm not alright with a philosophical system who's underpinnings condemn me to death for being Jewish and having relations with men, but that's a personal reason."

"Do you have anything to drink? I need something to wash the taste out of my mouth."

I opened up my bottom drawer and pulled out a flask of whiskey. "Purely medicinal."

He took a fairly impressive knock off the flask and swallowed. Kurt didn't cough, and handed the flask back to me. I finished it off, and coughed a little.

"You must do this often, you didn't cough."

"Buy me a drink after this is done, and I'll tell you about it."

"Sure thing."

We exchanged numbers, and left my office. I swiped my key card to activate the elevator, and we went down to the lobby. I went over to Mark's window, and talked in a quiet voice.

"Emma Pillsbury told me about you, and said you'd be able to work with me to apprehend the suspects that Kurt told me about."

"Yeah, we go way back."

"How far?"

"A gentleman never tells. Also, that would be dating her. We're old enough to be your parents is as specific as I think I could be."

"Scared of her?"

"Obviously."

"You in?"

"Of course."

"Kurt, wait here for a moment, we're going to go get some equipment."

"Sure."

We went back to the elevator, and took it down to the basement. I swiped my keycard through a reader on a metal door and walked inside a weapons locker. I grabbed two tasers, two pairs of cuffs, and exited the room, shutting the door behind me. I handed one of each to Mordechai, and we went back upstairs.

"So, when did Mr. Hummel turn into Kurt?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"It is if it interferes with your ability to do the job."

"It won't."

We exited out into the lobby where Kurt was waiting.

"Kurt, we'll take a car there. I know it's only a few blocks, but it's for the best."

"Gotta keep those Saudis flush with oil money so they can keep sponsoring terrorism to keep you in business right?"

"Hahaha! I like him Puck."

"Me too, Mark, me too."

We left the building and went to the parking lot and got into an SUV. We drove over there, and dropped Kurt off front.

"We'll pull around the back entrance and come in through there. Do you think you can get them to come back there?"

"Yeah, I'll pick up the bag that they set down and carry it back there. That should get them to follow me."

"Alright, be careful with handling it, obviously. Don't jostle the bag, or run with it."

"Thanks."

Kurt stepped out of the SUV and walked inside.

I took the SUV around back, and parked it. We got out and Mark broke the lock on the backdoor and we walked in.

We walked toward the front where there was the noise of people getting things set up for the opening of the show tonight. There was a room off to the side of one of the doors leading out to the main area. I opened the door, and it was a large supply closet. I texted Kurt, indicating that we were in the supply closet near the right side of the stage. He replied that he was "omw".

Kurt came in a couple of minutes later. He set the bag down on a shelf. As he was doing that, the door opened, and our suspects entered. They were unpleasantly surprised to see us there, to say the least. We aimed our tasers at them, and fired, the prongs striking both of them. We cuffed them, and with a quick blow to the back of the head, we knocked both of them out.

I walked over to the bag and opened it up. Looking inside, I saw a fairly simple picric acid bomb. How a picric acid bomb works is there's the acid on one side of the container, separated by a copper disk of varying width. On the other side, there's a compound that reacts with the acid to create a fire. The acid eats through the copper seal at a constant rate to create the effect of a timed fire bomb. Tossing it into the river would solve the problem. However, that did confirm that they probably had another bomb planted outside the venue.

I explained all of this to Kurt, who took it rather stoically. I gave him my card, insisting that he call me if he still wanted to get that drink.

"I'll think about it. I'm in town for a few days though, so we'll see."

We managed to get out back without any disruption, and placed our suspects in the back. We drove by the river and Mordechai tossed the firebomb in there. I drove us to the service entrance of the embassy, where I used my card to access the elevator going to the basement. From there, we went through a door leading down another flight of stairs into a subbasement.

After the end of World War II, we rebuilt our embassy in Paris. We felt it necessary to prepare a place that could theoretically serve as a command hub for operations were a war to break out in Europe. Our front lines were in Germany, but if a first strike were to occur, command centers there would probably be targeted, or go offline. So, our embassy here became a hub. It also became a center for our spying and counterintelligence operations. One of the rooms that it had was a soundproofed interrogation room. That's where we went.

"This place takes me back."

"When were you here?"

"During the Cold War."

"You don't look that old."

"Clean living, and my hair comes from a bottle."

The room was austere, and sterile. That image was only reinforced by the tile floors and fluorescent lighting that crackled to life as I flipped the switches on the wall. A metal chair was bolted to the floor, and it had straps that dangled from it like tongues from serpent. The room also had a storage locker, sink, and table that was also bolted into the floor.

"Mordechai, how do you think we should proceed?"

"I'll strap Basalov into the chair, and you can cuff Mahktif to one of the table legs. Tape his eyelids open too, he needs to be able to see what we'll be doing. Basalov probably won't talk, but Mahktif probably will to avoid what we're going to have to do."

"Shouldn't we do it the other way then?"

"We want Mahktif to be able to talk clearly."

He said all of this while fishing through the storage locker like a kid in a candy store. He pulled out some old school dental equipment.

"Wonder if this still works?" Mordechai said as he turned on a dental drill. As it whirred to life, he let out a deep sigh. "Yessss."

I wondered, as I look over at him, whether I would be like him in 5 or 10 years. The thought was disturbing. I clenched my jaw to keep the bile down that threatened to erupt from my jaw. We hadn't even started the interrogation process yet and I was going to be sick.

"Puck, you should fill that bucket up with cold water. We need to wake them up."

I grabbed the bucket from him and went over to the sink. I cupped my hands over the faucet and drank a little bit of water before filling the bucket up. I went back over, and dumped it on Mahktif to wake him up first. I refilled the bucket and gave Basalov the same treatment.

They both slowly came around. I made sure they were aware of their surroundings before warning them.

"We found the bomb that you two hid in the Fashion Venue. We know it's a firebomb, and we know that there's another bomb. So, you can tell us where it is the easy way, or we'll find out the hard way. . . . Nothing huh? Alright."

The sound of glass shattering on the floor got my attention. I saw Mordechai picking up a large shard of the glass, and he walked over.

"Hold his jaw."

I went behind the chair and grabbed Basalov's jaw in my hands. He shook his head back and forth and strained against my grip. I held firm as Mordechai shoved the shard in his mouth. He got out a pair of gloves and put them on. He cocked his fist and delivered a left hook to Basalov. His head knocked back, hitting the chair. The glass also broke inside his mouth, puncturing his cheeks and gums. Blood flowed out between his lips and down his chin, staining my hands in the process. My mind recoiled, but I held firm. Mordechai swung with his right, making contact and causing some more damage to his mouth.

Mordechai curled his fingers, testing his range of motion. I gathered that he was probably dealing with early stage arthritis, based on that reaction. I let go of Basalov's jaw.

"Ready to talk yet? There's plenty of glass on the floor here."

Basalov gurgled, and spat a mixture of blood, saliva, and some glass onto my shoes. "Fuck you." He rasped.

Mordechai picked up another shard of glass off the floor and we repeated the process. This time, Mordechai used his right hand first, to get some glass to damage the other side of his face, and then followed up with his left.

"You ready yet?"

"Never!"

"I'm going to get the drill ready."

I released his jaw, and went to fill the bucket partially up again. I went back over, grabbing his jaw, and pouring water in. He tried to spit, but I forced him to swallow taking some of the glass into his body. He groaned as it began to damage the tissues in his throat. I poured more water in, but this time let him spit some of it out.

Mordechai came over, with the drill whirring in his hand.

"You'll need to hold his jaw open again."

As the drill descended, Mahktif snapped under the pressure of seeing Basalov being tortured. "I'll talk!" he hoarsely yelled.

Mordechai turned the drill off. Basalov renewed his struggle against me, trying to say something through his ruined mouth. My grip held firm, as Mordechai walked over to where Mahktif was.

"Start talking."

"There's a white Peugeot parked out front of the venue. The license plate is RD745L. The bomb is inside the trunk. Detach the green wires and the bomb will be deactivated."

"Who sent you?"

"I was hired by a man working for the Karofsky association in Moscow."

"Why would Karofsky be targeting a fashion show in Paris?"

"How do you think I should know?"

"Alright. Let's go Mordechai."

"Not so fast. We have to take care of the situation down here."

"What do you mean?"

"We can't turn them over, and it'd be rather difficult to get them out of the country. I don't think I need to draw you a map here."

"Goddamnit."

"How did you think this was going to end? Us turning them over, looking like victims straight from the interrogation room? You're real fucking naïve if you think that's gonna work out."

I let go of Basalov's jaw. His wordless croaks and gurgles said that he knew that this was the end result too, which was why he hadn't talked. Mordechai knew as well. Mahktif and I were both clueless. Luckily, my cluelessness wasn't going to get me killed. I glanced over at Makhtif, who's eyes were closed and his head was bowed. He was whispering his absolution to his God.

"Got a gun handy, Mordechai?"

He pulled up his right pant leg, revealing an ankle holster which held a glock 27 in it. He pulled it out and handed it to me.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Basalov spit at me one last time as I aimed down the sight and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched into his forehead, exiting and embedding itself into the tile behind us. I pivoted, and let Mahktif finish his prayer before putting a bullet in his temple. Mordechai fished through their pockets, finding the keys to the Peugeot that the bomb was planted in.

"I'll go take care of this. You can call a cleaner to take of those." He said, gesturing toward their bodies.

I wordlessly handed him his gun, and went over to the sink to wash my hands. I used some paper towels to clean off the stuff on my shoes as well.

We walked out of the room, and went back upstairs.

"You did good tonight Puck."

"I wouldn't call what we did 'good'."

"The end result is."

"In this instance."

He walked out of the embassy building. I pulled out my phone and called Pillsbury.

"How's Mordechai doing?"

"He's good. Enjoys his work a little much. Situation's taken care of, but we need a cleaner."

"I'll call someone in Paris who we can trust."

"Will they contact me, or do they have clearance to get inside the embassy?"

"They'll have clearance. You can go. Take the day off tomorrow if you need to."

"Thanks."

The line went dead. I went to my car, and got inside. I rested my head against the steering wheel for a moment, before I put the key in the ignition and turned it over. I exhaled a deep breath and drove to the apartment that the agency was renting out for me while on assignment here.

I took off my clothes when I got safely inside the apartment. Going into the bathroom, I turned on the water for the shower. I needed to get myself clean. I scrubbed myself with soap and shampoo, letting the hot water cascade down my form. I felt my muscles begin to relax under the ministrations of the water, and I felt a little cleaner. Getting out of the shower, I toweled off, and put some boxers and an undershirt on.

I turned on the TV, prepared to zone out to some mindless programming. My apartment was well stocked with liquor, so I raided the cabinet, making a scotch and soda. I drained it off, and made another. Taking my time with this one, I savored the burn of the scotch as it went down. I got my phone and texted Kurt, signifying that I wasn't going to be able to meet him tonight, and I might be free later in the week. He texted back that they were going to be busy with a party after the opening night show, and to get a hold of him later in the week, if I was so inclined.

I let myself drift off into a nap with the TV playing softly in the background.