Chapter three!

My thoughts on the season finale are at the end of the chapter :)

I don't own the characters, except Anja. She's mine, and I love her.

"Riley, I need a location," Jack said as he sped through traffic, chasing after the van that had taken off with MacGyver in it.

"Take your next left," came the young woman's reply. Jack jerked the steering wheel hard, causing several cars to honk at him as he cut across traffic.

"Just keep going straight," Riley instructed once he took the turn. Jack didn't respond, but he followed the directions.

"They stopped moving," Riley suddenly informed Jack.

"What? Where?"

"Three miles ahead of you."

Jack floored the gas pedal, glad that traffic was lighter in this part of town. He was about to ask Riley where the van was, but he suddenly saw it parked on the side of the road. He threw his own car into park and opened the door to get out, but before he could even set a foot on the ground, the van across from him exploded, throwing bits of van shrapnel everywhere and forcing Jack to duck back into his car to avoid being impaled. Jack stared at the van in disbelief.

"...ton? Dalton? Jack!" Matty's voice suddenly cut through Jack's hearing again.

"I'm goin' in," Jack said, stripping off his coat and opening his door again.

"Hold on, Jack!" Matty said exasperatedly. "Mac's not in there!"

"You don't know that!" Jack shot back, making his way towards the burning van, covering his lower face with his jacket.

"Yes, I do. Apparently this was more of a trap for the Borcheks than anything. Scorpion told Anja that there's a wealthy third party who wants Vadim Borchek, and somehow I don't think torching their target will get them paid," Matty explained. "Riley also found a security camera nearby, and we watched as two people got out of the van, then loaded Mac into the back of a truck. He's not in there, Dalton."

The fact that Riley had found visual proof that Mac wasn't there made Jack feel better, but he still stood there staring at the burning vehicle.

"Jack." Matty's voice was firm, but surprisingly not as harsh as Jack was expecting. "I promise you. He's not in there. If you run in now, you're only going to get yourself hurt."

Jack had stopped moving, and he finally muttered, "Yeah...yeah, okay." He didn't move until Matty spoke again though.

"We'll find him, Dalton. For now though, I need you to get back to the embassy, get Anja out, and get back to Phoenix so we can figure out who wants Vadim. That's an order, Jack."

Jack stared at the van a moment longer before he turned and got back into his SUV. It killed him to do so, but he finally left the burning hunk of metal and made his way back towards the embassy.

He parked his car out front and noticed a figure slowly making her way out of the building.

"Anja!" he called out, worry in his voice as he noticed how slow and jerky the woman's movements were. Anja made her way over to Jack, and he caught her as she stumbled. "Woah," he said. "What'd they get you with?" he muttered as he looked the woman over. "Come on," he said, helping her move slowly over to their car.

"MacGyver?" Anja asked, looking around for their friend, not wanting to believe that Scorpion had gotten the better of them.

"He's gone," Jack replied. "Don't worry though. We're going to get him back."

0-0-0

"Did you know he had a partner?" Matty asked Riley. The young hacker bristled.

"Don't you think I would have mentioned that if I knew?"

It was clear tensions were high, and Jack wanted nothing more than to place blame on someone, but he knew that wouldn't help them get Mac back.

Jack and Anja had come back to the Phoenix, and after the young Russian woman got checked out by the medical staff, they met up with the rest of the team in the war room. Riley was running a search for it on any traffic cams she could, and she was also running the plates that she'd had managed to snag, though the camera had only caught a partial, which took more time to run down, as Riley had to keep reminding Jack every time he asked her if something had popped up.

"Hey!" he said loudly, drowning out Riley and Matty before they could get into an argument. "We aren't the ones we need to be upset at or questioning at the moment," he reminded them. "It's the Borcheks we need to be going after."

"They're being brought up right now," Matty replied. "Don't worry," she said, making sure everyone had solid eye contact with her, especially Anja. "We're going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to get Mac back." Everyone nodded, and after Matty shot a knowing glance at Riley, Bozer, and Jack, the three of them took the hint and not-so-casually made their way out of the room, leaving Anja and Matty alone.

"This isn't your fault," Matty stated. Anja didn't reply, but Matty could tell that the Russian didn't believe her. "You're not a trained field agent," Matty continued. "You had one job: get the codes back." The head of Phoenix held up the USB drive. "You did that. Mac's a big boy. He can handle himself until we can get to him."

Anja still didn't look like she believed Matty, or at least it seemed that Matty's words did little to make Anja feel better, but at that moment, Jack poked his head back into the war room. "They're here."

0-0-0

The first thing that came to Mac's attention as he started coming around was a slow, sluggish feeling in his head. It took him a minute to remember what happened, but when he finally did, his eyes shot open. He tried to move, but had forgotten briefly about the bindings around his wrists and ankles. There was also a piece of duct tape placed across Mac's mouth, preventing him from yelling anything legible.

The next thing the blond realized was that he was in a different setting than he had been at first, if he was remembering things correctly. He was still in a moving vehicle, but it felt more enclosed than the back of the van he'd been in. He looked up and around, but everything was pitch black. Deciding his head had had enough bouncing up and down on the floor, Mac tried to sit up. He only got about halfway there when his head hit something hard. Squinting his eyes to try and block out the pain, Mac realized that he was in the bed of a truck, and that the open space had been covered with one of those hard plastic covers.

It was pitch black, and Mac couldn't see anything, but that didn't stop the agent from trying to figure out a way to get out. He began rolling around on his back, trying to make as little noise as possible, even though he didn't think the people who'd kidnapped him could actually hear anything. Mac ignored the pain in his fingers when he rolled over them, and he felt around himself to see if there was anything he could use to cut the ties around his wrists.

His hands fumbled over a small wrench, and though he couldn't use it to cut himself loose, he figured once he was loose it would be a good thing to have on hand. For the moment, he had to leave it where he found it, but he told himself he'd go back for it before he continued on with his search.

He had to scoot around the back of the truck in order to search the entire bed, but he finally managed to find some extra rope, not that it was going to do him much good if he couldn't get himself untied.

Suddenly, his fingers registered what material the bed of the truck was lined with. It was a hard plastic. Even though it was still dark, Mac managed to find his way over to where one of the tires was, and felt the plastic rise in a bulge where the wheel well was sitting. Rotating himself around on his back and once again ignoring the pain coming from his crushed fingers, Mac finally positioned himself in the best position he could. He then brought his bound legs up before slamming them down onto the wheel cover. The first kick did nothing. Neither did the second, third, fourth, or fifth. By the sixth kick, Mac's legs were stinging from the impact, but Mac finally thought he felt the plastic give a little. Ignoring the aches and pains coming from his legs, he kicked the plastic once more and felt something cave in.

Breathing heavily through his nose, Mac once again shifted himself around until his hands stumbled over pieces of the plastic that had broken off. He found what he figured was the biggest piece and turned it around in his hands and began sawing away at the tape around his wrists. He jabbed himself in the arm a few times with the pointy end of the plastic shard, but he didn't draw blood, for which he was grateful.

After a few minutes of sawing away, Mac finally felt the tape snap enough that he could pull his wrists apart. As soon as his hands were loose, Mac reached up and pulled the tape away from his mouth, wincing slightly as it pulled away. After he could start breathing normally again, he used the same piece of plastic and sawed through the tape around his ankles.

After he was free of the sticky tape, Mac made his way back over to where he'd left the wrench and rope. It was still too dark to see anything, but Mac could feel that the wrench wasn't big enough to be a very effective weapon. Instead, the blond scooted over to the edge of the truck bed again and began feeling along the edge of the cover, looking for any sort of space that he could use the wrench. He tried jamming the wrench anywhere he could to see if he could pry the top off, but the wrench was too small to do any real damage.

Sitting on his knees like he was was giving Mac a bad crick in his neck, so he went back to laying on his back for a moment while he thought. The wind coming in from the hole in the wheel well cover felt nice, but it was suddenly a lot nicer as Mac got an idea. He smacked himself in the forehead for not thinking of it sooner, but he made his way back to where he'd kicked the hole in the wheel well cover, grabbing the rope as he passed it. He brought the wrench as well, needing something to weigh the rope down with.

His fingers knew the knot he needed to tie by muscle memory, so he didn't have to have any sort of light in order to tie the knot off. However, with no light, it did make his next order of business a little more tricky. He scooted himself over to the wheel well cover and looked down. He could see lines passing underneath the wheel on the road, but that was all. He couldn't see the tire itself. Trusting physics, Mac began lowering the wrench-laden rope through the hole until he felt it hit the top of the tire.

He let the wrench find it's way down the front of the tire, and then when he felt it start resisting his hold slightly as it got caught between the tire and the road, Mac gave it some slack. There was always a chance that the tire would just run over the wrench and leave it on the side of the road, but thankfully the truck had enough traction that it did what MacGyver wanted and picked up the wrench as it went around, and the rope began unwinding.

The moment the rope began slipping through his fingers, Mac was still holding onto it fairly tight, and he hissed as the rope dragged across his skin, leaving what he was sure was an angry red streak. He kept hold of the rope thankfully, though he did loosen his grip slightly to allow it to pass through his hands easier. As more and more of the rope wound itself around the tire, the jerkier the movements of the truck felt to Mac. Finally, just as he was literally reaching the end of his rope, he felt the truck slow down and pull off the side of the road.

A muffled voice came from outside the bed of the truck. "What is going on?"

"Is it a flat?"

"I dunno. Check on Borchek."

It was exactly what Mac had wanted to have happen. He put himself as close to the gate as he could and listened to the footsteps getting closer and closer.

A shrill, metallic shriek split the night as the gate was lowered, but it was drowned out by the surprised shout of the same woman who had gotten Mac in the van in the first place as Mac pushed himself out of the back of the truck.

Both of them fell to the ground, but a well placed punch from MacGyver kept the woman there, dazed, while he got up and turned to fight Scorpion.

"Clever," Scorpion admitted. "Vasiliev didn't mention how smart you were."

The sentence didn't make sense to MacGyver, but he figured that Vasiliev was the reason he-the reason Vadim Borchek had been captured. Mac decided to keep his mouth shut, unsure if he could keep a Russian accent while fighting. Besides, there wasn't supposed to be talking during a fight.

Mac ducked as Scorpion swung a fist at his face. Scorpion's face was in the perfect position, and Mac immediately turned and threw his elbow into the man's face. Scorpion reeled back with a curse, holding his nose, but Mac wasn't able to revel in that success for very long, because at that moment, a sharp jab to his kidneys brough him to his knees. He'd dismissed the woman too early. Despite the pain, Mac tried to turn around and fight the waitress, but she jabbed something into his side before he could, and the unfortunately-familiar feeling of electric currents from a taser made their way through his system, and he collapsed to the ground, unable to prevent that bodily response.

"What were you thinking?" Scorpion shouted at his companion as he stood over Mac.

"You said check on him!" the woman shouted back. "How was I supposed to know that he'd gotten himself loose?"

"You think the rope just wound itself around the tire on it's own, Sylvia?"

"I dunno Tristan. All you said was check on him."

"Context, Syl. Context."

"Hey, at least I didn't get my nose bashed in. That's the second time I've caught him tonight, no thanks to you!"

"I swear Syl, if this payday gets screwed up because of you…"

Mac tried to move while the couple was arguing, but the two of them noticed his movements and stopped bickering long enough for Scorpion to grab him by his lapels and haul him upright. He glared at MacGyver, and without taking his eyes off his prisoner, he asked Syl,

"We got any of the stuff left?"

Syl nodded. "I think we've still got some of what you dosed the girl with."

Mac's blood ran cold as he thought about Anja. Tristan gave Mac a disgusted look and dropped him to the ground before walking around the passenger side of the truck. A few moments later, he came back with a syringe in his hand. He knelt down next to MacGyver, who tried rolling away, but Tristan grabbed his hair and twisted his head so that Mac's neck was exposed, then inserted the needle into the neck.

Mac grunted as he tried to fight off the man holding his hair, but it didn't work, and pretty soon, the blond felt his limbs get heavier. He heard the ripping of duct tape, and soon the sticky stuff was wound around Mac's hands again, though this time it was in front of him. Mac tried once again to kick out at whoever was in front of him, but by the time his legs listened to his brain's command, the woman had already stepped out of the way, and Mac's legs hardly lifted off the ground at all.

"It's a good thing we're close," Sylvia muttered as Tristan hoised Mac back up. "He'll be out of our hair soon, and we can get outta here."

"Syl, get the bag," Tristan ordered, not responding to her griping. He bent down and hoisted Mac back up to his feet and started dragging the agent around the side of the truck. For the first time, Mac noticed that it was a four-door truck, with a large backseat. Syl came back with a black hood, which she proceeded to put over Mac's head, effectively blinding the agent. A door was opened, and Mac felt himself being hoisted into the backseat of the truck. He wanted to move, to fight back, but whatever they'd drugged him, and apparently Anja with was powerful, and fast working. He had basically no control over his limbs anymore, but as he listened to Tristan and Syl struggling to get him into the truck, he felt a bit of validation knowing that he was making things as difficult as he could.

Finally, he was loaded into the backseat, left lying on his back with his hands tied in front of him, making him look almost like he was praying. The back door was slammed shut, and then Mac heard the two front doors open and close as Tristan and Syl got in.

"You listen here, Borchek," Tristan growled. Mac pictured him turning around in the seat to threaten his prisoner. "You're worth a lot of money alive, so we won't kill you, but they didn't say anything about delivering you completely undamaged, so if you know what's good for you, don't make any more trouble, and we won't have to hurt you."

Mac didn't answer, but he didn't think Tristan was expecting one. The truck's engine roared back to life, and Mac rolled a little as the vehicle began moving. As they drove away, Mac could only hope that the drug would wear off before they got to their final destination.

So not as much action in this chapter, sorry about that...

Anyway. That finale, huh? I...I'm a little conflicted about it tbh. I liked it, but at the same time, I didn't. Except for the last few minutes (those of you who have seen it know what I'm talking about), it didn't really have the feel of a season finale for me? Not enough action, in my opinion. And the bad guy? He wasn't very smart about the whole situation, leaving the two MacGyvers alone, in a room full of electronics and chemicals.

Like I said, I feel like I wanted a bit more action, so I'm writing a fic now where it's a continuation of that episode, and there will be more action and whump.

Anyway...What did you guys think of the chapter? Thank you all so much for the reviews, follows, and favs, btw! They mean so much to me :)

Lemme know what you think!