"Dammit, Hardison. Focus."
He reached into the rucksack and pulled out a small silver disc that looked like a very expensive hockey puck. He mounted the devise on the wall of the stairwell and made his way up and into the kitchen.
He cleared the second aisle of ovens when, out of nowhere, a kick to the stomach sent him reeling backwards a couple of steps. He recovered quickly and squared up to face his attacker. The menacing hiss of a quickly wielded blade made Alec rethink his advance. His attacker was several inches shorter but he was stocky and he whipped his weapon about like someone well versed in street fighting. Alec crouched low and moved to his left. "What would Eliot do?" he asked himself but he didn't have time to resurrect any of the moves the hitter had taught him. The attacker lunged and nearly connected with Alec's chest. He kept moving to his left, keeping the attacker moving with him but he ran out of room as he was backed against the line of ovens. Alec had to stop moving and the man attacked, twisting and turning the blade, hoping to land something solid. He caught Alec's arm and he smiled grimly as Alec recoiled. The knife tore straight through the plush leather of his jacket and left a shallow slice from his elbow to middle of his left arm.
Alec pulled back for a brief moment in reaction before he regained his footing.
He was bleeding and the encounter was getting noisy. He couldn't afford noisy.
"Enough," he thought as he rammed the man head on, blocking and shielding the knife contact until he got close enough to grab the man's arms and deliver a bone-crunching head-butt with his helmet. The man dropped the knife to grab his face as he stumbled backward but Alec didn't give him a chance to recover. He delivered a succession of thumping blows to the man's chest, stomach and then face with machine gun precision. The final head turning delivery knocked the man off his feet and to the floor with a sickening thud. And Alec, without missing a beat ducked out of the kitchen worried that his cover had been blown.
He scanned the lobby for signs that an assault team had been notified but he exhaled a reassured breath when he didn't see anyone or hear any alerts sounding on the comms.
He caught the time on the visor- 12:27.
"Dammit."
He knew he was supposed to be further along. He should have been making his way out of the building by that time.
He ran back through the kitchen and into the service stairwell leaving another silver disc on the wall between the first and second floors before he was standing at last behind the access door to the second floor.
He touched the door and remembered the last time he stood in that archway he was running for his life and collected two bullets in his side for his trouble. He blinked the memory away and pulled out the pen device and scanned the access pad to gain his entry. The door opened with a beep that was a little too loud for his liking and he stuck his head into the hallway.
He was almost there.
He entered the hallways and wound his way down the hallway to the third office on the right. The sign on the door read ACQUISITIONS and Alec knew that's where he needed to go. He scanned the door's access pad with his trusted pen device and slipped in effortlessly. He secured the lock of the room and turned to survey the file cabinets, computers and other carelessly arranged artifacts assembled in the neglected room before he settled on the object that had lured him back.
Alec passed the computers and the cabinets without so much as a sidelong glance. He walked directly toward the wall at the far end of the office and the golden-framed, 8x10 photograph that hung there. The photo was of six men dressed in army fatigues, armed to the teeth, dirty and smiling as they posed casually atop a mound of dirt.
Alec recognized one of the men immediately as Henry Hastings in his younger days as an Army Ranger but the other men in the photograph were the ones who caught his attention. One of the men was Randolph Lamb. A young Lieutenant at the time the photo was taken Lamb had since risen to the ranks as one of the most ruthless and most well-known arms' dealers in the world. The other man Alec recognized was Richard Andrew Sinclaire, then, a Lance Corporal in the service but he since hung up his fatigues for designer suits. Sinclaire was being fast tracked to be the next President of the United States.
On their first jaunt into Hastings institute the team was supposed to secure a file which listed the payments Hastings made to several drug cartels but while the file was uploading the golden framed photo caught Alec's attention. There was something very familiar about the image of the smiling soldiers but in the urgency of the job he didn't have the time to figure it out. He didn't put the pieces into place until much later- after it was already too late. He realized then that they couldn't have gone after a man like Henry Hastings head on; Hastings and men like him could only be taken down by the same system they manipulated into protecting them.
Alec reached for his rucksack but a slight movement in the corner of his eye made him freeze.
"I knew you'd come back, Alec."
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his stomach knotted immediately. He knew that voice. He turned slowly to face the shadowed figure in the corner of the room.
"Hello."
He stood in quiet disbelief as his mind raced back to three years ago and through everything he thought he knew then and now.
"How could it be?" He questioned himself. "Sylvia?"
His comfort volunteer; his friend; the woman who reminded him of his Nana was standing before him with a coldly satisfied look on her face.
But he didn't have time to process the why's and how's.
The door to the office opened and what he saw made the muscles in Alec's chest clench.
There, bathed in backlight streaming into the office from the hallway, stood a figure he would recognize anywhere, one he hadn't seen in three years, one he knew he'd never see again.
The alarm on his visor sounded as the time registered and began flashing red- 00:00.
The blue lights of the wall sensors began spinning all around them but he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
"Parker," he said her name out loud. He was staring at the same hazel eyes that once haunted his dreams but they looked back at him with icy intensity, as though he were a stranger.