A/N: The Parting Glass is an old Irish/Scottish song dating back to the 1600s. The version used in this chapter has the lyrics as sung by Ed Sheeran. If there is a copyright on this version of this ancient air, no infringement is intended.
Many thanks for all the reviews, favorites and alerts for this and all my other stories. And a special shout out to Jedi Skysinger for finding the time to Beta for me.
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BEHIND BLUE EYES
Part Six
The Parting Glass
"Hey, Fi..."
When Sam answered the call, he had been walking along the edge of a little used back road deep in the Everglades, which they were planning to divert their target onto, looking for the best spot to lay in wait with the spike strip they had brought with them to bring Mr. Satellite Guy's car to a stop.
"He's given me the slip,"
"What?" The ex-SEAL came to an abrupt halt. In his mind, he could visualize their nice and simple plan beginning to unravel. "How?"
"We were talking and then he was gone. He's gone over the fence. He's going after Lister on his own."
"Damn it, Fi, you had one job to do." He had been convinced that if anybody could keep his best friend in line, it was the tiny Irishwoman. But it seemed that he was wrong and now there was a rogue spy on the loose and, in Mike's current state of mind, there was no telling how bad things were going to get.
"Well, I messed it up. Are you happy now, Sam? Just get back here. I can't watch the whole perimeter by myself."
He winced at the anger Fiona managed to convey through the phone's earpiece. "Fi, Fiona! Damn it. Don't do anything stupid." But his words were wasted on fresh air as she'd already ended the call.
Looking along the road, the fomer naval commando could see Jesse up ahead, setting up a spot where he would be able to get a good shot at their target's vehicle if Max Lister would somehow manage to miss the spike strip.
"Jesse! Hey, Jess!" he called out, waving a hand above his head to attract the attention of the younger man. "We've gotta a problem!"
Minutes later, they were driving back towards Coral Gables with Jesse behind the wheel of the late model Chevy Tahoe they had acquired the night before from a downtown parking garage.
"You know she's not just gonna wait for us," the shaven headed man spoke without taking his eyes off the road. Driving the SUV close to a speed he normally reserved for when he was out playing in his Porsche, he needed to keep all his attention on the road ahead.
"I should have made you and Fi go after Lister. But after what happened on the bridge, I wasn't feeling up to going another round with Michael Westen. I thought she'd be able to handle him."
"No good beating yourself up about it now, dude. I mean, when hasn't Fi been able to keep Mike in line."
"Yeah, well, Mikey isn't exactly acting like himself lately. But I thought -" Sam let his words dry up as he began to think about what his best friend might be planning on his own.
The past SEAL and career military man could guess how his friend felt. He remembered his own anger and disbelief when he realized that a man he thought of as a brother was not only sympathizing with what amounted to a terrorist organization, but he had gone so far as to betray his country to aid the group he had been sent to destroy.
Mr. Axe blinked slowly as a rather unsettling thought entered his mind. A flash of putting themselves between a group of corrupt cops and a gang of ruthless Jamaicans was quickly followed by images of ducking behind a dumpster, caught between the meth makers and the guys robbing them...
"Jesse, drive faster." Sam felt sick. He had failed his best friend.
"I'm already pushing a hundred miles an hour. This old tank ain't made for street racing, bro."
"Just do it, will ya? I gotta call Fi... Stop her from making things any worse than they already are."
If Mikey really was on a kamikaze mission, the last thing they all needed was a tiny Irish menace added to the mix.
()()()()()
Fiona stared impotently at the ten foot high perimeter wall which the love of her life had just disappeared over with such ease. Frowning, the petite Irishwoman began to pace, her blood boiling as she worked on concealing her anxieties about what her unstable lover was about to do behind a show of frustration and anger.
She didn't worry; what she was feeling definitely was not concern. Pursing her lips, she eyed up the barrier which separated her from the infuriating man whose ass she wanted to kick clear across the whole State of Florida. No, she never worried, not about anything...
The buzz and vibration of the cell phone still held in her hand pulled the ex-terrorist's attention away from what she wanted to do to the runaway spy. Though seeing SAM flash up on the phone's display did nothing to improve her mood.
"This better be important, Sam."
"I'm just checking in. I wanted to make sure you're not about to do anything stupid, like go after Mike. Cuz you know that would just be plain crazy, right? All you'd end up doing is alerting Strong or Kendrick to where we are and what we're doing before we've got the goods to protect our asses."
Fiona sucked in a breath before replying. "Just get here, Sam – and stop bothering me."
"We're about about a half hour out and, once we hit the morning rush hour traffic, there's no telling how bad that's gonna be- Hey, just do me a favour, lady. Keep your head on straight and wait for back up."
Fiona glanced at her watch. There was no way she could hang around and do nothing, not for half an hour.
"You know how much I hate surveillance, Sam. Just get here as fast as you can. Who's driving?"
"Jesse and he's got his foot to the floor before you ask."
"Remind him how much I don't like being kept waiting. You should have stolen something with a fifth gear!"
"We're doin' our best..."
"Do better." She ended the call abruptly and pushed the phone down into her pocket.
She could drive the pick up straight through the front gate, take out the security guard on the way with her Walther and drive up to Max Lister's house. Michael would be furious, but she'd give him no choice but to do things her way. They could throw the satellite expert in the back of the truck and find somewhere quiet to question him.
She liked the idea. It was simple and direct. But as she began to add more details to her plot she realized it could possibly alert Kendrick to their presence. It was hard to believe that a man who was paranoid enough to put a twenty four hour guard on Madeline wouldn't also keep tabs on the man who knew some of his deepest secrets.
Sighing, she filed the desperate plan away in case she couldn't come up with something better. Michael alive and angry with her was better than Michael dead and gone because he was trying to sacrifice himself.
Standing next to the pick-up, she continued to try to come up with some way to stop the man she loved doing something so reckless it verged on suicidal. Why couldn't he see being forced to work without his team was what had gotten him into the situation he was in now?
If only she could have followed him over that wall.
Seconds later, she was at the back of the truck, crouching down by the rear bumper. All she really required was something to stand on, something tall enough to give her the boost she needed so she could pull herself over the security wall. She couldn't get the pick-up close enough without drawing attention to what she was doing, but then again she didn't need the whole truck. There was something else she could use.
It took her only a few seconds of digging around the seats to find the bar to lower the spare tire and only another few seconds to drop said tire to the ground. Dragging it out she took another look along the street to make sure she was still in the clear and then rolled the tire across to the spot by the wall.
Michael had a fifteen minute head start on her and she had yet to find the communication expert's house. But as she began her search in earnest, all she could think about was what Michael really had planned. Because now that she was thinking about it, his idea to buy their freedom by giving the CIA James' communications center would only work if Mr. Kendrick was out of the picture too.
()()()()()
"Fi said go faster." Sam relayed the Irishwoman's demand.
"Faster, you're kidding me, right?" Jesse sent his friend a wide eyed look. He had already had to slow down because as soon as they reached the Tamiami Trail, the traffic had started to get heavier. "I'm doing the best I can with this soccer mom special."
"Well, the little psycho, who let me remind you is all alone waiting for Mike to reappear, says do better." Sam put a hand out onto the dash board to brace himself as the SUV sped up and then made a sudden maneuver to get around a slower moving vehicle. "But do it without getting us killed, huh?"
"You want to do the driving, Sammy? Cuz I'll pull over if you think you can do better," the younger man answered the critique of his skills behind the wheel. "This isn't exactly my favorite tricked out ride, you know, guaranteed to navigate-"
"Quit whining and drive faster."
()()()()()
Michael Westen, the man, was gone, his soul locked away where it couldn't interfere with what needed to be done. All that was left was the spy, the soldier, the apprentice assassin that the army and the CIA had molded him into. Tom Card, Larry Sizemore, Simon Escher, Andrew Strong, they would all recognize and approve of the figure who had given up on waiting for his target to come to him and instead was now creeping silently through the five bedroom condo belonging to Max Lister.
At least this time he wasn't stalking a five year old child on behalf of a terrorist and with the tacit approval of the CIA
With his gun drawn, the spy cleared each room he came across with an efficiency which only came from specialized training and a whole lot of practice. In less than five minutes, he was at the door where he expected to find his target. Silently pushing open the door, he took a moment to take in the details of the semi-dark room. He could hear the sound of soft breathing and see a sleeping shape on the bed.
Feeding a round into the chamber of his semi-automatic, Michael took two swift strides and was at the bedside. With his gun pointed at his target, the spy picked up the reading lamp next to the bed. Holding it directly in front of the slumbering man, he flicked the switch and Max Lister was rudely awoken by a blinding light and the sensation of a gun barrel being thrust into his face.
"Don't bother," Michael warned grimly when the sleep befuddled man attempted to strike out at his assailant. "I turned off your alarm system and the cameras when I came inside. We're all alone."
"W-Who are you? W-what d-do you want? I have money," Lister frantically pointed to a piece of art hanging on the wall across the room. "Behind th-there... I'll give you the combination."
"Who I am is not important, Max." Michael used the man's name, to let him know this wasn't a random home invasion. "What I want from you is the location of the communications center you set up for a man called James Kendrick and everything else you have on the place... security, personnel, everything."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lister gulped.
"Oh, you do not want to lie to me, Max." He hadn't the time or inclination to play nice in the face of this man's false bravado. To make his point, the spy changed the angle of his gun barrel. "It could cost you a knee." Neither sympathy nor empathy had any place in this soulless version of Michael Westen.
"I- I really don't know." Max's voice was barely more than a whisper as he cowered back under the covers.
"Do you have any idea how painful it is to be shot in the knee?" Michael inquired softly. "Maybe you think you can take the mind numbing agony. How do you feel about walking with a limp for the rest of your life, Max? A limp would be the best case scenario, cuz there's always the chance I'll clip an artery and then you'll bleed out in your bed, ruining those fancy high thread count sheets you're lying on."
The satellite expert paled and swallowed thickly. "S-some guys came to me and gave me a bunch of money to do a job for them," he whined. "Afterwards they came back and said if I ever said anything, I was dead."
"I'd say you have a more immediate problem. Because if you don't tell me what I want to know, I will kill you. But not until after I've inflicted a certain amount of pain for wasting my time."
"It's in a building down town, the old Miami Chronicle building." He was no hero and Max knew it. James Kendrick had threatened to come back and kill him if he ever talked about what he'd done, but this man with the ice cold aura scared him far more than the softly spoken southern gentleman type with an army at his disposal.
Michael blinked and his finger slipped inside the trigger guard, his disbelief plainly visible on his grim features. Max could see it too and rushed on.
"Don't you see? The building had all the tech already in place. Satellite hook ups, the microwave dish array, all of it. This guy James, he bought it from the demolition team and I just hooked up to what was there."
"How many people are in there? How many guards?" the disgraced spy pushed for more details, wanting to be on his way as quickly as possible.
"It's unmanned. It's just a relay station. They pick up secure signals, they decrypt them and pass them on. To the world, it's just an old empty building boarded up until the owners can decide what to with it."
"Clever... So, no guards to look out for... How about – Are there any back-ups on the system?"
"A- a hard drive, it records everything in case the power goes out. Look, in the safe," he pointed with a shaking finger. "Over there, I kept a copy of the building blueprints... You know, just in case. You can have it all if you promise to let me live."
Michael barred his teeth in what was supposed to be a charming smile and gestured with his gun. "You want to get them for me?"
He stood back while the communications expert scrambled out of his bed and took down the painting from the wall. Within seconds, he was handing the gun toting stranger a folded up blueprint of the whole Miami Chronicle building and, as a bonus, a list of the door codes for the various offices inside.
"Good job, thank you. Max." The spy praised as he took the paperwork with one hand, while with the other he struck hard and fast, knocking his captive out with a glancing blow to the forehead with the grip of his gun.
Securing his prisoner with cable ties and a gag made from a roll of duct tape he had discovered when he first broke into the garage, Michael left the insensate man lying when he had fallen.
Pushing the paperwork into the pocket of his pants, the spy went over to Max's bedside night stand and picked up the cell phone laying on its surface. Carefully opening the back, he removed the battery and there, just as he suspected, was a little addition inside, no doubt placed there by one of James' techs.
His head jerked around at a slight noise coming from the downstairs and the smile fell from his lips.
She'd found him.
With one final look at the satellite expert to satisfy himself that the tech was still out cold, Michael opened the bedroom window, climbed out and then dropped almost silently to the ground.
"Michael!"
He heard the whispered shout but managed to ignore it. Without looking back, he ran off, all his focus on the next part of his mission.
()()()()()
Fiona leaned as far out of the window as she could, her right arm extended, her gun pointed at the fleeing spy's back. She would not have shot to kill, she told herself, just wound him sufficiently to slow him down.
Furious at how close she had come, but just not close enough, the auburn haired woman retreated back into the bedroom and for the first time turned her attention to the bound and unconscious man lying on the floor. Tearing the duct tape roughly from over his lips, the Irishwoman slapped the satellite expert's cheeks and tried to shake him awake. But the large bruise which was beginning to form on the side of the stubbornly senseless man's forehead told her that it was unlikely Max Lister was going to be up to answering questions any time soon.
Getting slowly to her feet, Fiona pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes, determined to stop the tears that threatened to fall. The fool was going to get himself killed, she was sure of it. She looked down at the unmoving body at her feet and delivered a swift hard kick to the man's side and, when she got no reaction from the limp form, she turned away in disgust.
And because some people couldn't take a blow to the head without passing out, there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening.
Noticing the open safe, she walked towards it. That was when she saw the neatly folded piece of paper by the window Michael had gone through just as she'd entered the room. Picking it up, the redhead carefully unfolded it. In her hand she held a long list of numbers, most likely codes of some sort as they were in groups of six.
Turning the sheet over, a triumphant smile broke out as she saw the letterhead intact. She had an address! Leaving the bedroom, she stopped in the living room only long enough to pick up the set of car keys she had seen by the door before helping herself to Mr. Lister's vehicle.
Driving sedately out through the security gate, smiling at the guard who raised the barriers for her to pass through, she just hoped she was going to the right place.
()()()()()
Sitting in the morning rush hour traffic in the pick-up truck Fiona had abandoned to chase him down, Michael fought to keep all his focus on the task ahead of him. In the back seat was the bag containing his former girlfriend's small arsenal of weapons and C-4. Next to him on the front seat was the folded up blueprints of the building he needed to breach and in his pocket was Max Lister's cell phone. When he placed James' bug back inside and connected it to the battery, it would alert James to his location and then, when he made a call on the phone, the charismatic leader of the rogue organization would know who it was breaking into his top secret installation. If everything went according to plan in the next couple hours, it would all be over. His friends would be free from the threat of prison or assassination and he would have the peace he so desperately sought.
What about us, Michael? Don't we have a say in this?
Wiping a hand roughly over his eyes, Michael tried to clear his vision and quieten the voice in his head. He could see her, the way she had approached him, outside the nightclub wearing her anger like a suit of armour.
"I can't owe you my freedom, I just can't."
But it wasn't just the beautiful Irishwoman who had stolen his heart in his head. He could hear the disgust in Sam's voice.
"You're not just helping them, you're one of them."
He remembered the wary look in Jesse's eyes every time he moved or spoke.
"Unca Mike, don' go, I be good. Don' go." His nephew pleading for him to stay, the toddler unaware of the enormity of what he was asking.
He had to stay strong and do what was necessary to keep his team, his family safe.
Shaking the images from his head and hardening his heart, the soulless spy took back control as Michael denied the images flittering through his mind. He had no more time for regrets. Ahead of him lay the turn in the road which would take him to the old Miami Chronicle building and his one chance for redemption.
()()()()()
"Let me get this straight. You've left a man who looks like he's been pistol whipped tied up on his bedroom floor and you're now chasing Mikey half way across Miami. Only you're not sure if you're on a wild goose chase, cuz your only piece of intel is a scrap of paper you found on the bedroom floor where you think Mike was standing before he skedaddled. Is that about right, sister?"
Sam peered out at the slow moving traffic at his side. They were only a few miles away from Coral Gables, but with the build-up of cars on the roads as they got nearer to the city they might as well been ten or even fifty miles away.
"I'm sure, as sure as I can be that I've got the right place," Fiona's voice sounded over the speakerphone. "Look, if I'm right, I'm less than ten minutes behind him. You two go see if you can wake up Max, that way if I'm wrong you'll be there to make him talk."
"No, Fi, we're better off sticking together. Remember what happened last time one of us tried to reason with Mike?"
"The mistake you made was trying to reason with him, Sam. I intend to shoot him in the leg. That way he can't run away while we knock some sense into his thick head."
The two men in the Tahoe exchanged glances. They both knew there was no way they could stop the Irishwoman from doing what she wanted, however foolish they thought it was.
"You do what you have to, Fi," Sam finally answered. "Just take care, okay, missy?"
"Hey, you spot Mike, you call us straight away, ya hear me, Fi?" Jesse added.
"I hear you, Jesse. Take care, boys." And she was gone.
"So we're stuck babysitting the satellite tech while Fiona tries to wrangle Mike," Jesse grumbled, a frown wrinkling his brow as they rolled to a stop at yet another set of lights.
Sam pursed his lips and rubbed a hand over his stubble covered jaw. The Miami Chronicle building, on the face of it, seemed like a ridiculous place to run a covert communications network through. It was in the middle of the city, surrounded by other buildings and people… lots and lots of people.
But the more he thought about it, the probable it became. Who would be interested in a boarded up derelict building? Who would question the occasional workman going inside? There was a satellite dish on top, he remembered seeing it…a great big hard to miss satellite dish.
"I think Fiona might be onto something with the Chronicle building." he spoke up. "Look, let me out here. I can cut across the park there." He pointed to the large patch of open space they were just passing. "I'll find another car and meet up with Fi. If she's right, she's gonna need help stopping whatever Mike is planning."
"Uh-huh, you're the one who said we should stick together and now you want to run off? So, no, we both go after Fi or we both go to Max's place, together. You choose."
Punching the door in frustration, the former SEAL glared at his partner in arms. "You're right, we stick together... Get this thing turned around. We're going to the Chronicle building."
()()()()()
Michael stared at the large sheet of paper he had unfolded and placed on the dashboard, his blue eyes were little more than slits, his mouth set in a thin hard line. He had the blue print, but the list with all the door codes was gone. Somewhere between Max's condo and the pick-up truck, he had lost the scrap of paper. This would have never happened if he hadn't been running on empty. He wasn't only worn out both physically and emotionally, but growing mentally fatigued as well. From now on, he was going to have to slow down and think more carefully about what he was doing.
He couldn't afford any more mistakes. Not when he was this close to finishing it all.
After studying the building layout, the spy carefully refolded the diagram and then leaned over to the back seat, dragging the bag of weapons to his side. It was time to go.
Going through the front doors had never been part of Michael's plan, even when he thought he had the codes. Instead he went around to the back of the building and found a small alcove where it was unlikely he would be spotted by any passers-by. A few minutes later, he had taped a length of detonator cord to the wall, following the lines of the brick work in order to affect an entry. Standing clear, he blew a hole in the structure and, with only a cursory glance behind him, he climbed through the hole and made his way inside.
As soon as he reached the lobby, he came to a stop at the sight of James' counter measures to deal with anybody foolish enough to try and get inside using more conventional methods to gain entry. The large main doors were rigged to blow with enough RDX to level the front of the building.
This would not do. For his plan to succeed, he needed everybody to make it safely inside. Luckily whoever had ever rigged the explosives for James had made it simple to disarm from the inside. With the clipping of a few wires, the devices were made inert.
Running up the broken escalators and along corridors, the lack of door codes only slowed him down by mere minutes, each one nothing more than those that could be found in any low security office building. That was until he reached the door leading to the room containing the satellite feed and the hard drive holding all James' organizations most recent communications.
The door was reinforced steel and the key lock was of a far superior standard than all the others he had bypassed. Running a hand over the edges of the door, he came to the conclusion he wouldn't bother with the lock. Instead he turned his attention to the walls.
People put a lot of faith in locks. Using the last of his supply of det cord, he fashioned another way into the room. Even former Green Berets who should know better.
Michael found the hard drive without a problem and set about downloading all the information it held. While it worked, he checked out the rest of the room and what he saw made him realize he had made yet another serious error.
High up on the wall, watching over the whole room was a discrete camera. The spy closed his eyes, his hands forming fists. How many more of the small surveillance devices had he missed, because he was too busy focusing on reaching his objective?
Taking a deep breath, he let it go slowly. This made no difference. It just meant he would have to accelerate his plans a bit, that was all. The download of the hard drive was complete and worrying about things he couldn't change was not part of his DNA.
Taking the thumb drive, Michael left the communications room and made his way out. From studying the blue prints earlier, he knew just where he wanted this final stand off to take place. As he ran along the corridors and back down the stairs, he was pleased to note that James had chosen only to use a camera to watch over that one room.
He came to a stop on the first floor. From there he had a good view of the ground floor and the only way up to him was the dual escalators or the bank of elevators which were out of order. Most of the area was open plan with just a few damaged office dividers, several old desks and chairs scattered about, none of which would offer any protection from automatic gun fire. Crossing the open space, he entered one of only three offices along the back wall and closed the thin, oak-veneer door behind him. As cover went, it wasn't much, but it would do.
Sitting down on the hard concrete floor, with his back against the wall and facing the door, Michael held Max Lister's cell phone in his hands. He had no time waste now that James knew he had found the heart of his operations. With the bug gone from the phone, hopefully Mr. Kendrick would remain unaware of the other guests who were going to be invited to the party.
"Agent Strong?" he spoke as soon as the call was answered. "It's me. We have to talk. I have something for you."
"Westen, whatever you're hoping to gain by -"
"Nothing," Michael interrupted. "I don't want a single thing for myself. All I want is a guarantee that my friends will be left alone. You do that for me and I'll give you the key to bring James Kendrick's whole organization down."
"I can't make that deal, thanks to you," Strong spat into the phone. "I'm out, remember? Because of you I have nothing," he added bitterly.
"Well, that makes two of us," the spy snapped back and then took a calming breath. "Look, I know you still have contacts. You weren't alone chasing down Burke and then James. You had your own team, so use them. I have valuable information in my hand right now if you want it. If you want your career back, you'll make the deal, and come and get me... Last chance, Strong... If you don't get to me first, James will win, because I'm too tired to run anymore." He waited as he heard his former handler breathe down the phone.
"Where are you?"
"We have a deal? I give you James and we're all free?"
"Yes, damn you."
"The old Chronicle building... Don't be late."
He knew Strong would never honor the deal. The man no longer had the authority to make promises to rogue spies and enemies of the state. It had come to him after his meeting with the Director of Clandestine Affairs that Senior Field Officer Andrew Strong wasn't the true blue, by the book agent he claimed to be. Eight futile years hunting down a ghost had left a black stain on the man's character.
Because if the Director's disgust at using a man such as a burned and disgraced spy was real, how would he have felt about the Agency using an even worse monster, such as Simon Escher? Which then had led to other interesting thoughts about exactly how much of Agent Strong's career making assignment that he had gotten roped into had actually been sanctioned by the CIA?
Michael slipped the bug back into the phone so James would have his exact location when the terrorist leader would come hunting for the traitor who had gotten his second in command captured and placed it on the ground next to him. This next bit was going to be the hardest part of all.
Because all he had to do now was sit and wait.
He wiped a hand over his eyes, as his mind betrayed him, sending him memories of better times, reminding him of what he had thrown away. Dimly right in the back of his mind he could hear an old tune, a haunting melody sung at the end of a long night in a back street Dublin bar.
Of all the money that e'er I had
I've spent it in good company
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
He had been in a bar in Kilkenny, establishing his cover with his first handler, Robin O'Dowd, the first time he'd heard it. The melody had stuck with him, but he hadn't made out the words then.
Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
He'd just wrapped up a long night of successfully recruiting Sean Glenanne as his new friend and asset when he'd heard it the second time. The words had made him shiver once he'd actually heard and understood them. It stayed with him every time thereafter he'd listened to the lyrics.
A man may drink and not be drunk
A man may fight and not be slain
A man may court a pretty girl
And perhaps be welcomed back again
But since it has so ought to be
By a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all
He was trying to block out the music playing in his mind as he remembered closing down the bar, being thrown out as a matter of fact, because he had danced the night away with a beautiful woman, a beautiful woman who had offered to shoot him before deciding to dance with him instead.
Then he was saved the trouble of trying to quiet the noise in his head, as the voice he was waiting for, the voice that had spent too much time occupying space in his mind, sounded outside the door.
"Knock, knock, Michael, I know you're here. Why don't ya just come out an' meet me like a man?"
The lonely, lost spy got to his feet, checked his gun and stepped towards the door. He hoped Strong had his act together. He prayed that somewhere out there, a CIA tactical team was waiting to strike.
Because all he had left was relying on one simple tactic that he had used many times before. If luck was on his side, then Strong, who had betrayed him and abused his loyalty, and James, who had corrupted his soul, would kill each other.
And if luck was against him... well, it really would be good night and joy be with you all.