AN: Music for this chapter (on repeat): This is another chapter that absolutely you want to listen to the music as you read! Action packed craziness!
Thunderstruck by ACDC, Absurd (Whitewash edit)by Fluke, Bring Me To Life (Kevin Roen Mix) Evanesence and Paul Van Dyk, 'The End' and 'Born In Darkness' are by Hans Zimmer from The Dark Knight Rises Soundtrack
FORTY-SEVEN
o
"Thank you." Irina gave Jack a small smile, taking her sniper rifle back from him as she had finished putting her Kevlar on over their black BDUs now that night had fallen once more.
"Of course."He smiled in return, leaning over to place a soft kiss on her lips.
"Is everyone ready?" He looked around at their team and everyone nodded with a nervous adrenaline.
"Ok, let's go!" Irina gave a small smiled and jumped into the jeep and Sydney followed behind her.
They drove through the darkness, over the dunes for another 10 miles until they reached a sharp ridge, just before the oasis that had sharp and flat rocks pocking out beneath the sand. Irina shut down the jeep just behind the giant dune after looking at her GPS coordinates and Sydney followed suit.
"This is it." Irina touched her neck, speaking softly into her Com to the other jeep as she nodded at Jack, Sark and Weiss to exit. Irina went around back and handed ammo belts to all of them from a wooden box in the back, crossing one over her body as well. "Ok, here's how it's going to go." Irina sighed, loading more Uzi clips onto her belt. "There is going to be a roaming patrol coming around here in," She looked at her watch, "Five minutes…the first of four. We take them out…steal their jeep. I will take out the three snipers on this side and then split into 4 teams of two. Jack and Sark," She looked at them, pairing them up, "Weiss and Dixon, Sydney and Vaughn and Marshall…you're with me." She looked at the very nervous young man. "You and I will go in on foot from this side, towards the compound taking out the ground troops and getting you to that keypad before the sequence code changes again."
Marshall nodded nervously, looking as though he might throw up. Irina had duel intentions taking him as her partner, first, she needed to get him to that keypad and second, she wanted to keep him by her side, as he was certainly not experienced in combat.
"The rest of you will take their jeep, and proceed around the compound, when you encounter another roaming patrol, take them out and steal that and the snipers on that side of the compound. Remember there are three roaming patrols. So you'll have to take out two." She looked at all of them and they nodded. "With their jeeps it will be easier for you to approach the compound, meet Marshall and I at the door on the Southwest side in fifteen minutes and we all go in together, understood?"
"Yes." Sydney answered and they all nodded.
"Alright." She looked at her watch again. "They should be coming by here any minute. Let's go. "
They spread out in two groups of four and crept up the embankment of the back of the dune and when they reached the top, took in the massive structure before them.
"Holy shit!" Weiss gasped. "It's like a fortress!" The three-story building was a sight to behold on the valley floor of the desert and small green lights lit the corners way off in the distance. "It's like…more then a mile away and it still looks enormous."
"Goggles on, here they come." Irina spoke softly into the darkness, seeing the approaching jeep in the distance sinking behind one dune to rise again soon. "Mountaineer, you take the two in the back, I'll take the two in the front." She pressed her fingers into her neck, as Marshall lay right next to her, instructing Sydney who was further down the embankment.
"Roger Siberian Tiger." Sydney couldn't help but smile saying that name into her Com and she looked over to Weiss, Dixon and Vaughn…all smiles.
The jeep appeared over the next crest and Irina finished screwing on her silencer as she lay on her stomach, arms propped up. The men in the jeep could be heard speaking rapidly and laughing having no idea what was about to hit them when Irina aimed and fired at the driver. The bullet hitting him directly between the eyes, before she rapidly fired at the passenger who only had time to look in her direction before he slumped instantly. Sydney taking care of the other two in the jeep simultaneously with Irina. The jeep drove in an erratic pattern for a few meters before coming to a stand still before them.
"Ok go!" Irina pinched her neck Com softly motioning with her head to get up and cross over the dune. She lifted her goggles and plopped down onto her stomach once more, pulling the sniper rifle around from her back and setting it up on the hard surface beneath her. Her eye looking through the night scope acquiring her first target as Weiss, Dixon, Vaughn and Sydney pulled the bodies of the Libyan guards out of the jeep and rolled them over the dune.
"Tiger, we're almost a mile and a half away!" Jack whispered across Marshall, both looking through their binoculars at her target and watching her set her sight in stun as everyone else watched with rapt fascination as well, not believing she could possibly hit anyone from this distance and at night.
"Your point?" Irina squinted, finding her first target and lining his head up with her focal point. She squeezed the trigger and the man pacing on the rooftop's forehead exploded and he fell backwards, out of sight.
"Direct hit!" Marshall gasped in disbelief as Irina lined up her next target and squeezed, "Another direct hit!" Marshall turned white looking at the fierce some woman beside him and gulping, watching her slow and graceful moves as she executed the third unsuspecting sniper.
"That's impressive." Jack looked over at her with a stunned expression as Irina quickly moved to stand.
"They didn't just give me those medals," She looked at him with a deviant eyebrow, "I earned them."
"You were a sniper." Jack breathed out in realization and utter fascination. She was one continuous surprise after another.
"Among other things." Irina smiled mischievously at him, slinging her rifle over her back and removing her handguns with silencers. "Alright…move out…be safe." She looked him directly in the eyes as he and Sark climbed into the back of the jeep.
"You too." Jack returned the sentiment, with unsettling fears.
"Let's go." She flipped down her goggles again and she and Marshall trudged down the dune at a rapid pace.
"Seriously…that is one woman, I would not fuck with!" Weiss commented softly, watching as Irina and Marshall disappeared into the darkness.
"Ok, another target coming up on us at 10 o'clock." Vaughn whispered through their Coms. "I'll take the driver." He exhaled, spinning his silencer into place.
"I've got the passenger." Sydney whispered back, holding her gun, behind the door until they were closer.
"I'll take back left." Sark aligned himself with his target.
"Then I've got back right." Jack positioned himself behind Sydney's left shoulder as she drove. "On the count of three. One…two…three!"
Four silent shots rang out simultaneously and the four Libyan guards died instantly. Their jeep sliding down the dune a bit as Jack and Sark jumped out.
"We'll take care of this side…get the last patrol."
"On it!" Sydney, nodded watching as her father and Sark grabbed the bodies of the men out of the jeep and tossed them into the sand before climbing in and driving off towards the compound. She, Vaughn, Weiss and Dixon continued on to find the next patrol on the other side of the compound in a quick pace, knowing time was of the essence.
"Oh God!" Marshall stopped frozen as Irina, drew her arm across his chest signaling she spotted someone near the base of the compound, patrolling the entrance and they ducked behind a large rock jutting out of the sand.
The guard was talking into a Com of his own, on his shoulder as he paced and Irina looked down the wall about 200 feet to see another man speaking into his Com. They were chatting with one another.
She would have to take them out simultaneously so they could not warn anyone else. Slowly, she raised her guns and focused on both men and fired at both of their heads whipping them back at sick angles as their bodies spun to the ground. She waved her hand for them to continue and Marshall stuck like glue to her side, his goggled eyes scanning their horizon for other guards that wouldn't hesitate to kill them.
Sark took aim at the last of the two snipers on their side of the roof a few hundred meters away and fired, sending the victim face first off the structure into the sand.
"Nice shot." Jack praised him quietly at the young man's ability to shoot on the move.
"I learned from the best." Sark added dryly and then cracked a small smile with Jack thinking about Irina.
"Yes, she's quite the teacher." Jack shook his head with a small smile tearing over the last sand dune and parking it into the shadow. He and Sark quietly exited the jeep and looked around, waiting a moment before dashing into the shadow of the building and slamming themselves up against its side.
Irina scanned their surroundings, the complex less then 50 feet in front of them now and grabbed Marshall's vest by the shoulder, pulling him rapidly across the open distance into the shadow along the length of the compounds wall, shimming in the darkness to the opening cove of cover where the steal security door was waiting. She pushed him into the darkness of the building as she kept her eyes on their surroundings.
"Ok…send Base our GPS coordinates." Irina spoke back to Marshall and he pulled out his own GPS guidance system, punching in their location and waiting for Ops to task a satellite into their position.
Weiss and Dixon were creeping in the shadows of the far wall towards the Southwest side when they heard a noise behind them and drew their arms, ready to shoot.
"Shit!" Weiss breathed rapidly, lowering his side arm when they realized the night crawlers were Vaughn and Sydney. "We almost shot you!"
"Base Ops this is Siberian Tiger do you read me?" Irina held her fingers into her neck, speaking softly picking up their feed.
"Yes, Tiger we read you…satellite tasked and moving." Kendall shot back from Los Angeles watching the monitors as the young technician in front of him picked up Marshall's coordinates and mapped them to the satellite.
Irina glanced down at her own GPS, waiting for the compound, or more importantly, the bodies inside and outside to appear on the In-fared image.
"Got it." She confirmed when she saw the many red bodies and their blue bodies on the screen. According to her readings, four members of her team were coming up on them from one side and two from the other. She glanced at her watch, 'right on time.' "Go ahead with keypad." Irina nodded reassuringly at Marshall who swallowed hard and she kept surveying the desert darkness in front of her.
"Routing the transmission now." Marshall exhaled crossing wires and clipping onto various sources inside the keypad and watching as his palm computer ran the number sequences. "Shit!" He exclaimed hissing in a breath as the second to last number kept rolling without locking onto a number.
"What's wrong?" Irina narrowed her eyebrows.
"Their mainframe hasn't finished uploading the new code and the last two digits are spinning in cyber space…if it doesn't lock on in the next 20 seconds it will trip the alarm." He spat rapidly as his heart pounded inside his chest. The green numbers continuing to scroll, "Come on, come on!" He chanted as Weiss, Dixon, Sydney and Vaughn, edged into the black cove.
"What's wrong?" Sydney asked immediately seeing the looks on her mother's and Marshall's faces.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Marshall's voice commanded, "Yes!" He sighed as the number locked onto a '7' and the last digit searched for its new number. "Got it!"
Irina glanced down at her GPS and saw Jack and Sark rapidly coming up on the side.
Marshall was rapidly entering the long sequence of numbers into the keypad.
"Ready?" She asked quietly when Jack and Sark rounded the corner, they all nodded, changing weapons and adjusting their GPS thermal screens. Irina shoved her pistols into their holsters and grabbed the Uzi's strapped to her legs. "Stay behind me!" She flipped up her goggles and looked sternly at Marshall and he nodded terrified when the door slid open. "Let's go!"
*Thunderstruck*
Their jet-black clothing contrasted sharply with the white interior walls as they crept quickly forward.
"Get ready!" Irina whispered, knowing that hell was about to be upon them the moment she shot out the first security camera. She aimed and fired.
"What the?" The Libyan guard in the security control room watched as one of the screens suddenly went fuzzy. His partner leaned forward searching the screens as his friend pounded rapidly at the keyboard trying to bring the video feed back up.
A guard dressed in black with a red and white headdress rounded the corner, surprised to find the eight black invaders and started firing in their direction, trying to dive out of the way but was hit with a mass of bullets as Irina squeezed her triggers simultaneously and blood began to pour out of the mans head and chest.
"Sonofabitch!" The control room guard screamed seeing the dark figures creeping up the hall way and firing at the camera, causing another screen to go black. He sounded the alarm and instantly, the bright red lights on the walls began to flash throughout the compound as a low to high pitched siren sounded.
"Go go go!" Irina waved the teams on as they came to a three way split in the hallway with a fourth exit leading up a staircase.
From every direction a hailstorm of fire came upon them from the ends of the halls and they all dove back and retreated to covering of the hall split, seeking shelter behind the walls as the bullets whizzed by them.
Irina waited for a break in fire and launched herself around the corner, returning fire and gunning down the four men at the end of the hall before pulling back behind the corner.
"We've got to move!" She looked back to Jack, seeking shelter at the same time as Sydney leaned around the corner and blasted a group of guards approaching. Knowing they couldn't stay there any longer and needed to move or be pinned down they nodded in understanding the split up down the hallways, charging with guns a blaze at the enemy fire.
Sydney's gun ran out of bullets with two men left at the end of the hallway and rolled towards them to get out of the way and knocked the first shooters legs out from under him, clearing the way for Vaughn to take out the second shooter. The tall man Sydney grounded recovered quickly and Vaughn swept his gun to the side and shot the man in the neck, knocking him off balance before he could fire a shot into Sydney's head. Syd leaped up and kicked the man in his face, knocking his head back and breaking his neck as the blood gushed from the severed jugular vein.
"Vaughn!" She screamed seeing the shooter behind them and pushed him to the floor as a bullet ripped past them, exploding the wall behind them.
"How many are down there?" Jack asked and Sark bobbed his head around another corner, looking as they reloaded.
"Nine." Sark snapped back and waited for Jack before they both launched into the hall way, running and shooting,
"Ahh!" Sark shouted as a bullet ripped into his upper arm, and another hit him square in the chest and his gun went flying out of his hand.
Jack saw the shot and jumped in front of Sark as he flew to the wall taking out the shooter and firing rapidly, his face contorted as he became more pissed off. Jack grabbed Sark by the vest and pulled him up quickly scanning the damage. "Are you alright?" Concern flooded his eyes as his fingers quickly accessed the damage to his chest and upper arm.
"What's happening?" Kendall and the rest of the Ops floor listened to not stop gunfire and then Jack's question to someone if they were all right, obviously taking a hit.
"Yes. It hit the vest." Sark winced and took a staggering breath getting it back after the hit to the chest.
"Blue Eyes took a hit. He's all right."Jack leaned over quickly and grabbed his gun giving it back to Sark just as another hailstorm of fire came from around the corner.
Kendall inhaled and held his breath watching the dance of the few blue dots taking on the mass of red ones on the screen.
Irina landed a solid right kick to the man's jaw and sent him stumbling back wards and into the others as she flipped around in the air, firing as she turned and leveling the seven men in front of her with her Uzi's.
Marshall was beginning to hyperventilate around the corner where Irina stashed him and ducked nervously as the bullets came tearing through the wall corner just missing his head. He counted to ten like Irina had commanded him to do, waited for the break in fire and then rapidly ran in her direction jumping the bloody dead bodies into the next doorway of safety as she took on another group of guards moving up the hallway.
"Irina…" Sloane hissed as his eyes watched her spinning, kicking and shooting her way up the hallway on the monitor as everyone around him went into emergency mode.
"Now Mr. Sloane!" A guard grabbed him as the others corralled around him, ushering him out of his office as the siren blared on, trying to get him to safety.
"Cover me!" Weiss shouted behind him to Dixon, ducking into a doorway and dropping his magazines, reloading.
"Alright!" Dixon ducked back and Weiss ran forward, waiting for Dixon to reload.
"Jeezus they just keep coming!" Weiss looked down at his GPS seeing another round of guards coming their way. They pressed on up another hallway, stepping over the piling dead they were leaving in their wake.
"On the count of three!" Vaughn screamed into his Com, hiding in a doorway as the bullets ripped down the hallway and Sydney hid in a door just behind him on the other side, waiting for a break. "One…two…three!" He propelled himself into the path of the oncoming fire at the same time Sydney did, firing rapidly at the men before them. Their flesh ripping open and spraying fire everywhere as they went down, taking out some of their own.
The blood was running down Sark's arm, soaking his black fatigues and making his arm almost impossible to shoot accurately with and yet he kept firing despite the pain. His color was fading with blood loss and Jack knew he had to get them to an area where he could tie-it off.
"We have to get you inside that control room!" Irina spoke rapidly to Marshall, reloading her Uzi's behind the doorway as a stream of bullets ripped off the corner near her head and arm. "Follow me!"She turned the corner rapidly and fired relentlessly running up the hallway with Marshall behind her, taking three hits to the chest and one across her forearm, before slamming Marshall into the next doorway.
"You're hit! You're hit! Are you ok?" He asked rapidly seeing her wince inspecting her chest, where the bullets hit and the blood coming from her arm.
"Yes. Thank God for Kevlar." She breathed rapidly, getting ready to fire again. "We have to lock down the compound so that Sloane can't get out!" She looked him in the eye, seeing the terror there and suddenly they became determined, he had a purpose.
"Alright!"He nodded pursing his lips into a thin line, and gripping the unused guns in his hands tightly. He waited for Irina to jump out into the hallway again and followed, firing for the first time from behind her in the general direction she was shooting, having no idea if he was hitting the oncoming men or not but they were falling, either from her or from him. His adrenaline surged as they jumped the bloody mess of tangled bodies and limbs, heading up the industrial staircase.
Sydney and Vaughn reached the story about the same time that Irina and Marshall did, backs to each other and firing off rounds as a rush of guards came forth once more. Sydney felt a bullet whip through her hair and turned to see the man with the raised gun she fired furiously in his direction making the man's body jump backwards with the amount of ammo she pumped into his chest until he dropped back dead, chest exploded into a bloody mess.
*Absurd*
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the shooters approaching from both sides of the hallway and rapidly spread his arms firing at both, turning his head rapidly from side to side as he mowed them down. Sark was in front of him and suddenly raised a gun, pointing it directly at Jack whose eyes went wide when he fired and the bullet whizzed past his ear and into the man behind him. Jack turned rapidly stunned that Sark had just saved his life and Sark nodded at him, with pale and clammy skin, his bloody hand clutching his gun tightly.
"We've got to stop the bleeding!" Jack pushed Sark into a room that looked to be a guard's bedroom and grabbed a pillow, ripping off the pillow case and tearing it rapidly into strips, wrapping them tightly around Sark's upper arm. He was more concerned then he'd let on for the young man, the amount of blood suggested the bullet had hit a major vein. "Can't have you die. She'll never forgive herself." Jack sighed shaking his head tying the last knot thinking of Irina and cracking a smile out of Sark.
"Thank you." Sark nodded, feeling a surge of 'family' pride and grabbed his gun again, charging out into the hallway. He was going to prove himself worth the effort and make her proud.
They ran down the hallway and made their way up the stairs were they could hear the firestorm above. Weiss and Dixon caught fire on the stairs on the way up and were trapped as the shooters came from above and below.
"Mountaineer, Boy Scout…we're trapped in the North stairwell and taking heavy fire! We need some help here!" Weiss shouted into his Com, firing down at the guards and then flattening against the wall as Dixon fired up.
Kendall held his breath listening to his agents plea for help hearing the heavy fire and narrowed his eyebrows watching their trapped position on the monitors in front of him.
The two of them were up against twelve guard members. Five from the bottom and seven from above, closing in quickly.
"On our way!" Sydney crashed her elbow into a guard's temple spinning into a flip kick off the wall and taking out another one in hand to hand combat with them now at the close proximity.
"They've got the North, South, East stairwells blocked off! Our only option is the West!" The guard pulled hard on Sloane's arm dragging him and the German doctor down the hallway.
"What about Jasmina?!" Sloane's heart was beating rapidly as they dodged carefully in and out of hallways avoiding the sounds of instant gunfire.
"They haven't breached into the other side of the compound. They're safe for now." Sloane's lead bodyguard pushed him along. "If we can get to the lower level we'll use the tunnels."
Irina hit a guard with the butt of her gun across the face, sweeping his knee to the side and blowing it with a sickening pop. His friend instantly spun and kicked her in the gut knocking her backwards and then landing another kick to the side of her face, spinning her to the ground as the explosion rocked the side of her face.
That only incensed her anger and she flipped back onto her feet without the use of her hands as they gripped her Uzi's and fired relentlessly into the man ripping open his gut at the close range exposing his entrails in a horrid fashion as his eyes bulged for a second before death came to him.
"Irina!" Marshall screamed from behind watching on his GPS as a three-pack of guards about to surprise her from behind the corner and one fired hitting Irina in the back and dropping her forward. He fired and hit one in the shoulder causing the man to spin in rage and return fire.
The bullets hit with lightening force knocking Marshall backwards and Irina saw him falling in her peripheral vision as she shot the legs out from under the shooter, decapitating him at the knees as the man screamed out in pain.
She spun up to her feet and landed a solid kick to the third man's side, pushing him back into the wall and fired at Marshall's shooter again, taking out his shooting arm before a punishing blow hit her from behind sending her flying into the wall face first.
"Sonofabitch!" Weiss screamed in pain as a bullet tore through his shoulder from above, violently throwing him into the corner of the stairwell.
Sydney and Vaughn attacked from above and the body the guard who'd shot him fell towards them from the sky and landed grotesquely on the railings in front of him. The man's eyes wide open, blood pouring out of his mouth and skewered on his own, bayoneted AK-47.
Temporarily disorientated Irina tasted the blood and felt the presences of the man walking up behind her to finish her off and she kicked back hard, landing her foot to his groin, she spun her body, kicking her legs in a cross pattern and flipping him onto the ground. She lunged at him having dropped her guns and threw her elbow into his face, breaking his nose she swiftly pulled her knife from her side and slit the man's throat in a fluid motion as Jack and Sark rounded the corner.
Her arm and head whipping simultaneously to them, almost throwing the deadly piece of steel into Jack's heart when she stopped, seeing who it was.
Jack's heart and breath felt like they had stopped, seeing the blood pouring out of her nose, her split cheek and running down her arm.
*Bring Me To Life*
Irina took a few deep rapid breaths and leaped off the dead man whose blood was pooling at her feet and was relieved to see Jack fairly unscathed, though Julian had clearly been hit. There was no time for words to be exchanged when another round of guards came from the side and Irina rolled across the floor as Jack and Sark fired until she could get to her guns. Grabbing the hot metal in her hands she kept rolling until she was by Marshall's side.
"Marshall!" She called out seeing his hands were pressing his side just above his hip and blood was oozing out between his fingers.
"I'm hit! I'm hit!" His eyes stung with tears as Irina tried to pull his hands away under the firestorm of bullets surrounding her to access the damage.
Gently she rolled him to the side and realized the bullet had gone straight through, close to the edge. She pressed with her fingers making Marshall gasp in pain.
"I'm sorry but I have to find out if your bowels have been ruptured." She stuck her fingers into the wound and felt around knowing that it wasn't exactly sanitary but if they were indeed torn, he would die certainly with the toxins invading his system.
Kendall and the rest of Ops cringed hearing her words and Marshall's groans of pain coming through both of their Coms as they listened to her inspecting his wound.
"Nothing's ruptured, Marshall, it went clean through." Irina tried to give him a small smile, pressing hard on the wound with her hand, "Thank you." She realized he had taken a hit saving her life.
"Any…time." He gasped out in pain trying to smile at the beautiful woman with blood running out of her nose and lip.
"Marshall, we've got to get you in that control room. All right? Can you do it?" She helped him sit up, noting he took six hits to the chest with the flattened bullets in his Kevlar.
"Yeah." He groaned out and she wrapped his arm around her neck pulling them both up.
"Hold pressure tightly to your side!" She commanded, releasing his side and she guided them carefully and swiftly down the hall as Jack and Sark covered them. "Stay here!" She pushed him up against a wall and turned rapidly, firing through the glass windows of the control room killing the two guards inside before they knew she was there.
Marshall couldn't stand, on his own legs and began to slide down the wall, leaving his own bloody trail mark in his wake when Irina caught him.
"Come on, Marshall, stay with me! You're going to be ok!" She pulled him up again and thrust them through the doors. She pushed him into the chair in front of the controls and looked around for anything to keep pressure on his wound.
Looking down she saw the dead mens' bodies on the floor and whipped out her knife, cutting down the back of the jacket on one man and tearing the cloth from his body and his belt.
"Start typing, Marshall!" She commanded again, trying to keep him alert as she bunched up the material of the dead man's jacket and pressed it into his wound, wrapping the belt around the fabric and Marshall, pulling hard and latching it tightly. "That will slow the bleeding." She looked at him with serious eyes, trying to keep the man's fears at bay. Out or the corner of her eyes she saw Sloane's retreating form with his guards headed for the open stairwell. "Marshall, lock those doors!" She flashed her eyes to his before shooting out the glass in front of her, jumping over the slanted paneled desk and sliding to the other side, not having time to go through the doors again.
Jack saw the flash of black, whiz past him and realized it was Irina.
"Sloane's going for the open stairwell." She breathed rapidly into her Com and Jack and Sark realized she was going after him.
Jack felt torn, he was busy fighting off the guards in front of him but didn't want her after Sloane alone. His one moment of lack of concentration and he was hit across the face with the sole of a guards boot, breaking his nose and whipping his head back.
"Fuck!" He hissed out as the blood began to surge forth from his nose and he ducked another punishing blow, landing his own instead across the man's back, taking his gun from him and bouncing him of the wall.
The guard bounced back and into his own weapon in Jack's hand, lodging the steal blade up under his sternum leaving the guard gasping for breath as he slowly bled to death dropping to his knees clutching his chest and pulled the gun out of him and dropped it before his body joined it on the floor.
Sydney and Vaughn eliminated the guards above one by one and slowly made their way down to Dixon and Weiss.
"Are you ok?" Sydney's face was of panic seeing Weiss covered in blood as he pressed his hand against his wound.
"Yeah…yeah, yeah." He winced when they pulled him up,
"Just burns like a bitch!" He picked up his gun as Dixon reloaded while Vaughn held the other guards off in the bottom of the stairwell.
The last guard poked his head around believing they were reloading and his face exploded as Dixon's bullet met the last of the resistance.
"Syd, you're bleeding!" Vaughn's eyes darted to his fiancées thigh noticing the big gash going across the front.
"Bayonet." She pulled back the material over her ripped pants slowly to reveal a nasty wound. "It's ok." She looked up at him, knowing that it would need stitches but it wasn't pressing at this time.
Irina fired at the backs of Sloane's men, taking one down and his guards turned on her rapidly sending a hailstorm of fire in her direction. Seeing and open hallway to her right she continued to fire her Uzi's and rolled to the side into the protective alcove, knowing a moving firing target was certainly harder to hit.
"Who is that?" The doctor gasped from behind their temporary shelter having only seen the flying ball of firing black as they dove for cover.
"The mother. Irina." Sloane replied vehemently with a scorned tone and the doctor's eyes went wide, remembering removing her eggs in Morocco. "She's trying to stop the Prophecy!" He shouted as his guards continued to battle with her, playing hide and shoot, "We must get to Jasmina and get her out of here! Irina will kill our child!" The German man looked at him horrified. "Send a guard in to collect the other embryos and eggs just in case!"
"Jack, I'm almost out of ammo!" Irina thundered into her Com from behind her refuge, securing her last clips into her Uzi's.
"Shit!" Jack hissed out pulling his knife from another man's heart, "I'm coming, Tiger!"
"Mountaineer, check the control room," Irina spoke rapidly returning fire on Sloane's thugs temporarily cutting out, "Marshall's been hit and we need those exterior doors closed!"
"Roger, we're on it!" Sydney flew up the steps two at a time as the red crimson continued to flow from her leg, matting her pants to her leg.
"Go!" Sloane's bodyguard pushed him and the doctor down the stairwell when Irina had to take cover as the other guards returned her fire.
She flew around the corner just in time to see them darting for the stairwell.
"Damn it!" She seethed with anger and spat the blood running down her throat and into her mouth from her nose. She flew after them down the hall, knowing she had to make her shots count and saw the glass windows surrounding the laboratory. She was at a crossroad, chase Sloane and take the chance of him escaping or take the chance of the guard escaping with her eggs and possible embryos. "Jack, I'm going after Sloane…the lab is right in front of me…there's a guard in there now! You've got to stop him from leaving with anything!"
"Tiger, your ammo!" Jack's heart lurched as he shot an oncoming guard thundering down the hall as he saw Irina jump over the stair railing to the next level.
"Great! Just fucking great!" Kendall hissed quietly, "She's going after him without ammo!" He had a bad feeling about this.
"No time! Jack, get the guard! Stop him!" Irina was getting frustrated and firing down the stairwell and heard the scream of pain as she hit one of the guards in the back.
Jack saw the man she was talking about rapidly flying about the lab removing test tubes from cold storage units against the walls.
"Oh, no you're not, you sonofabitch!" Jack fired and hit the man in the back of the shoulder, spinning him around but the man persisted, firing at Jack in return and grazing his hip with a bullet and knocking him to the ground.
"Marshall!" Sydney flew to his side seeing him on the verge of passing out and the makeshift bandage her mother put in place soaked through with blood.
"I did it…" He said barely above a whisper, "Doors are locked." Marshall's body swayed in the chair and Vaughn and Dixon caught him.
"Go help, Irina!" Vaughn pulled Marshall from the chair commanding Dixon to go after Sloane.
"We've got him." Dixon saw that Marshall was in good hands and flew down the hallway, past the mounds of the dead bodies and rivers of blood in Irina's wake down the stairwell.
Jack crawled across the floor of the lab, unsure of where the shooter had gone to and rolled just as the guard lunged over the silver table and fired into the spot where his head had been. The large guard landed with a thud and quickly rolled over on top of Jack, pressing his rifle with both hands against his throat, pinning him down and choking him as Jack struggled to push the man off. His entire oxygen supply had been cut off and was starting to black out.
Sloane, the doctor and one body guard were all the that remained when they hit the landing, Irina had picked off 'eight' of them in the stairwell in only two floors.
"Quickly!" Sloane's bodyguard ushered them into the tunnel door at the bottom of the stairs. He pulled the door closed just behind him and locked it from inside as Irina hit the ground floor.
She yanked hard on the door and cursed loudly, pulling and realizing they'd locked it.
"Syd, go help your mom!" Vaughn waved her on as he and Weiss tended to Marshall. "Go get Sloane!"
Sydney jumped up immediately and flew down the hallway.
The large guard's body fell forward onto Jack and warm blood covered him as his vision slowly returned, coughing and gasping for air. Sark reached forward and pulled the dead man's weight from Jack and offered him his hand. Still coughing and somewhat dizzy, Jack accepted the hand and Sark pulled him to his feet.
"Thanks." Jack coughed.
"She'd never forgive herself if you died." Sark repeated Jack's earlier words with a small smile as Jack rubbed his throat.
Jack smiled shaking his head, he walked towards the test tubes the guard had been frantically trying to carry away with him. The name on the stickers clearing reading 'Derevko, Irina- Unfertilized Eggs,' 'Sloane, Arvin –Chrom. X Sperm.'
"Good God…" Jack gasped looking at least 22 tubes that read, 'Embryo #1-#24.'"Wait." Jack read the labels over again.
"What, what is it?" Sark asked searching the room.
"There are two missing." Jack gawked, "Numbers 4 and 7. Go figure."
"I think I may now why." Sark's eyes went wide as he pulled the black and white sonogram photo from the board in front of the doctors' desk.
"What is that?" Jack flew to his side, "Oh dear God." He gasped as his breath was stolen looking at the perfectly formed baby on the image. "He's already done it!"
Sydney had flown down the steps to find her mother and Dixon setting an explosive charge against the tunnel door. Irina had blood all over her face, neck, chest and arm from her various wounds and looked quite terrifying upon first sight.
"Back up, Sydney!" Irina held her arm back as she shot the putty and the door blew open with an explosive force. Irina took off running down the dark tunnel at a furious pace that Sydney nor Dixon could keep up with as she tore through the corridors.
"Tiger!" Jack took the photo from Sark, stuffing it into his vest and scooped all the test tubes off the shelves into the metal trash basket, the tiny glass breaking as it crashed to the surface, "Tiger!" He pressed on his Com trying to get Irina. "Damn it! I can't get her!" He saw the blue dots on his GPS and knew she hadn't been hit as he saw all three on the move."Base Ops, I can't get through to the Siberian Tiger, what wrong with Coms?" Jack asked furious that he was out of contact with Irina. He found a bottle of alcohol and matches in one of the doctor's cabinets and dumped it over the shattered glass and cells, backing up as he dropped the match into the can and it exploded into flames burning any future possibilities of the Prophecy child.
"We can't reach her either. She must be in a tunnel or something. What's wrong?" Kendall pulled his jacket back, resting his hands on his hips, he heard it in Jack's voice.
"He's already done it. Sloane's already created the child. Some woman is 12 weeks pregnant with the Prophecy Child." Jack hissed, grabbing his gun and flying out of the lab with Sark hot on his heels.
"Shit." Kendall's face went white, "How do you know?"
"Because I'm standing here holding the goddamn sonogram photo of the baby and two fertilized embryos are missing out of the series!" His heart pounded in his ears, the child in this photo may bring utter desolation to the world if born but it was also a part of Irina and now seeing it, not just some group of cells but a tiny living human, Jack didn't know what this was going to do to her when she found out.
Irina tore out of the tunnel a good distance ahead of Sydney and Dixon and felt the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she was suddenly surrounded by sand, tall grass, and palm trees. The oasis.
"Shit!" She hissed, having no idea where to go until she saw Sloane's head across the atrium and fired several shots.
"Ahh!" He screamed in pain as the bullet tore into his thigh and the bodyguard dropped dead beside him, blood draining from the sizable hole in the back of the man's head.
A young dark haired girl appeared a few feet before Sloane with terror and horror on her face at the scene before her.
"Get inside!" Sloane screamed at her and Irina's eyes flew wide in shock noticing the girl as she ran towards them, "Get inside, Jasmina!" Sloane was panicked and drug his leg with the help of the doctor towards her.
The girl seemed momentarily frozen and Irina fired at the doctor as she ran across the large atrium surrounding the entire oasis. The only light guiding her was the moon. The doctor gasped in pain as the bullet tore through his lungs and he clutched his chest in pain, grasping at Sloane to help him and fell to the ground wheezing as Sloane pushed him away.
"Inside Jasmina!" Sloane yelled again to the girl as he continued to drag himself towards her. She seemed to snap out of it and ran to his side, supporting him with one arm into the thick doors of the living area.
Irina fired another shot before he closed the door and hit him in the other leg, making him practically dead weight. The door closed and he was out of sight. Irina ran as fast as she could through the sand; her guns out of ammo, she tossed them aside and used her arms to pump faster, wielding her knives from her forearm straps into her hands instead.
Sydney and Dixon could see Irina just ahead of them as they tore through the oasis and watched her disappear behind the doors on the far side, worry over taking Sydney when they ran by her mother's empty guns lying in the sand.
*The End*
Irina stepped inside what was clearly Sloane's residence. Her eyes shifted down to the blood staining the white carpet as he drug his bleeding legs through his home and she crept like a cat through the house. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she ducked and turned just before a guard shot her in the head. She lunged at him and knocked his weapon from his hands, stabbing one knife into his head at the base of his skull and the other into his heart as his mouth opened gasping and the blood poured out onto her hands and he dropped to the ground in front of her, silently.
Violently, she ripped her knives away and stepped over his body continuing to follow Sloane's blood trail. She watched it turn into a massive room with the lights off and slid inside against the wall, armed and ready for an attack.
Instead the lights flipped on and classical music faintly played as she was assaulted with what lay before was standing in a nursery, like Lena's…with a white crib and rocking chair, a toy chest and rocking horse, a little dresser and walls painted with beautiful murals. The framed image on the dresser directly in front of her had her frozen, two tiny feet of an unborn child…with her feet.
"I see you recognize your features in our child, Irina." Sloane smiled from across the room, sweating and leaning heavily against the doorframe, still standing with the aid of the young dark haired girl. "She is her mother's daughter. That was taken last week. Technology is wonderful these days isn't it?"
Irina couldn't breath, as she looked at the photo in front of her…her baby, her daughter. 'No.' She tried to shake her head of the thought but couldn't.
"You've already implanted an embryo?" Irina picked up the frame with one hand and looked back at him with fire in her eyes as Sydney and Dixon reached the doorway, halting as suddenly as Irina did when her eyes fell upon the room and then to the photo in Irina's hand.
"Yes, Irina. It's begun." He smiled smugly, reaching out to place his palm over the young girl's abdomen, showing the distended bump beneath her dress. "Our child is no longer an embryo, she is beautiful and perfect. Just the way I knew she would be."
Irina wanted to vomit hearing him say 'our child,' and had to swallow the taste of bile rising in her throat as she looked at him, holding his hand over the young girls belly.
"She's just a child, Arvin. You've impregnated a child!" Irina spat at him disgusted when she looked at the girl before her, a girl whose dark eyes were wide and terrified as she shook staring at the woman before her, covered in blood and holding knives.
"My God," Sydney gasped realizing that the young girl beside Sloane was pregnant with her mother's child, the Prophecy child.
"Jasmina is not a child, Irina. She is sixteen and in perfect health, young, and vibrant. The way God intended…perfect for carrying and birthing our child."
"Stop saying that!" Irina glared at him deadly, "We do not have a child! We will never have a child!"
"We already have one, Irina. You're holding the proof in your hands. Her perfect little feet. Her mother's perfect feet." He smiled and Irina's eyes flashed back to the photo and then to the room around her…so much like Lena's.
"You can't kill your own child, Irina. She is a part of you."
"Stop it!" Irina spat, shaking her head as Sydney's eyes filled with tears. "We're not having a child!"
"We are having a child, Irina; you are too late." His tone was soft and he smiled, his face growing pale.
"No, we aren't, Arvin. I cannot allow that to happen." She stood transfixed looking at the photo.
"I want to name her after her grandmother, I was thinking Anastasia or maybe Anya? Maybe even Irina after her mother." Sloane was pushing all the right buttons and enjoying the reaction he was getting out of Irina.
Jack and Sark arrived shortly after and joined Sydney at the back of the room, Irina in the middle and Sloane and the young girl on the far side, the girl, Jack and Sark realized was carrying the Prophecy child.
Irina remained deadly still in the middle of the let the photo drop and the frame crashed to the floor making the girl jump as tears began forming in her eyes, having no idea what was going on.
"I will never allow this child to be born." Irina turned her deadly glare to Sloane's.
"She is my daughter, Irina. Your daughter and as her parents we are bound to protect her." Sloane caressed the girl's abdomen with a smile.
"You're sick and twisted, you evil bastard." She seethed her hate with every word.
"No Irina, you're the sick and twisted one. You're the evil bitch." Sloane sneered, "You're the one who's killed your children. All those precious babies in Kashmir. That's right, I know about your dark little secrets." He taunted and Irina's eyes flew wide and began filling with unshed tears and Jack's anger skyrocketed to rage.
"What was it? Let's see your child with Jack. That was the first one of course, you selfishly couldn't bring your American bastard home to Russia so you disposed of him. Does Jack know about that? How you killed his baby?" Sloane's eyes went from hers' to Jack's and back again, "And then, how many were there? At least six others according to Gerard. You whored yourself out to him and all of the other guards and officers and got pregnant several times. Then in your shame of not knowing who was the father, threw yourself down the stairs to kill your unborn children and now you want to do the same to your daughter? Add her to the list of your own children you murdered?"
Jack had enough and fired, hitting Sloane in the shoulder and spraying blood against the wall behind him. The girl screamed and began crying backing away from Sloane and out the other door watching the insanity before her. This crazy woman was apparently the egg donor and biological mother of the child she carried inside her and this same woman had killed at least 'seven' other of her own babies and now wanted to kill the one inside her.
"Dear God," Sark gasped quietly as did Dixon having never heard this before; this must have been the 'magnified by a thousand' part 'off screen' that Agent Weiss had told him about that day in the bathroom on what happened to Irina in Kashmir.
Kendall and the team at Ops were standing slack jawed listening in on the Coms horrified at what had happened to Irina off screen of the film in Kashmir and appalled the way Sloane had just thrown in back in her face.
Irina snapped and lunged at Sloane, burying her knife into his chest directly into his heart, pulling him to the ground with her. He gasped in pain and shock as she pinned his body beneath hers, sitting on his chest.
"I. Was. Raped." She said so low it was barely above a whisper in a deadly tone with cold eyes staring into his, she twisted the knife slowly with black eyes held to his in rage. Blood gurgling forth from his mouth in a grisly fashion.
The rushing sound of her lost baby's heartbeat, the sound of Cuvee's laughter as they beat her baby out of her and the prisoners cheering, her screams against the rape and Sloane's gasps now. She heard nothing but silence as her rage took over. With left hand still twisting the knife in his heart, she quickly reached over with her right hand and slashed his neck, slitting his throat so deeply she nearly decapitated him with the force. His blood spraying all over her from the force. She remained silent sitting upon him, covered in his blood, as she watched the last signs of life drain from his eyes. No one dared move in the room seeing she had checked out and gone somewhere else in her mind. After several minutes, Sydney braved moving first.
"Mom?" she called out softly walking slowly towards, with tears streaming down her cheeks, scared by the look on Irina's face the complete emotionless expression as her eyes turned black. "Mom." Sydney called again but Irina's silence remained as she studied the dead man's face beneath her. "Mom." Sydney called out softly, squatting down next to her mother, mindful of the disgusting mess before her, she touched Irina's shoulder and finally her mother blinked, looking slowly up at her daughter.
Her rage had gone and she felt nothing. Sydney stood slowly and Irina did the same, looking down over Sloane's nearly decapitated form; the white carpet blood red beneath her feet.
"Irina?" Jack called out softly to her as her eyes fixated on the photo of the baby's feet on the floor, her haunting eyes looked up at his and she turned away, stepping over Sloane's body and into the darkened room behind her.
She hit the light switch to Sloane's bedroom and sought out his bathroom, moving methodically without any thought she turned on the water and washed the man's blood from her hands, watching as the swirling red water disappeared down the drain. Her eyes looked up and caught sight of her own appearance, the drying blood on her face running from her nose she grabbed the hand towel and ran it under the water before wiping the blood off.
Jack and Sydney stood cautiously in the other room watching her behavior and deeply concerned for her.
Irina sighed, drying her hands with blood still under her fingernails and her own arm still bleeding she set the towel down on the sinks edge, staring at her own cold eyes in the mirror as she removed the two syringes from her pocket.
"Oh God." Sydney gasped, turning into her father.
*Born In Darkness*
"Irina, I'll do it." Jack looked at her, speaking with a soft tone knowing how difficult this was going to be, especially after what Sloane had accused her of.
She looked at her husband and daughter for a moment.
"Stay." She said barely above a whisper and then turned to search out the young woman. The closed door on the far side of the bedroom was the most logical choice.
Jack and Sydney, Sark and Dixon watched as Irina moved slowly away from them and into the far bedroom, hitting the lights and they heard the young girls chants of, 'No, no, no,' as Irina approached her.
"I don't want to hurt you." Irina spoke softly in Arabic to the young frightened girl, backing into the corner of her room. "I cannot allow you to have this baby."
The girl cried out begging Irina to stop and it tore at Irina though she kept her emotions in check and locked away, knowing what she had to do.
"This baby will bring evil to the world." She searched the young girls eyes and reached out, grabbing her forearm and the girl struggled with Irina, to get free from her grasp as she started sobbing in terror. Irina twisted the girl around and into her embrace from behind, holding her arms tightly to the girl's chest and keeping them from striking out. "It will be okay." Irina spoke softly into her ear as she slid the first needle into the girls arm and the girl sobbed loudly, giving up and leaning her body weight into Irina as her legs began to give out and Irina slid with her down the wall and to the floor, holding her to her chest. She reached for the second syringe as the girl wailed and Irina slid it under her skin, pressing the plunger giving the heavy dose of the drug that would throw the girl into a hard fast labor, forcing a miscarriage.
Irina tossed the syringe aside and leaned her head against the girl's, wrapping her other arm around her and whispering over and over into her ear in her motherly tone,
"It will be ok." Trying to convince the girl and herself that it would.
The girl sobbed in Irina's arms as the cramping began, pulling her knees up to stop the pain as her body began to abort the fetus.
"It's okay." Irina tried to sooth her pain and felt the tears begin to sting her eyes as the first signs of the bleeding began.
Jack and Sydney approached the room, unable to stay away with the wails and sobbing, and their hearts broke with the image before them.
Irina cradling the girl in her arms, with tears in her own eyes, holding onto her tightly as the girl miscarried Irina's own child.
"Go." She spoke softly looking him in the eye, not wanting him or Sydney to witness this.
The pleading look in her eyes and voice crippling Jack and he grasped Sydney's arm, pulling her away from the doorway.
"So?" Dixon asked quietly, meeting them with Sark in the hallway.
"She doesn't want us in there." Jack sighed and pulled Sydney into his arms, holding her tightly and kissing her head as she cried.
"Jack, what's happening?" Kendall asked softly, hearing Sydney's crying in the background and Irina's chants in Arabic of soothing words on her Com. He thought he had some idea.
"She's aborting the fetus." He answered softly and Kendall closed his eyes with a big sigh, washing his hand over his face at the tragedy of this situation. "And Sloane's dead." Jack added a few moments later thinking about the man's body in the other room. A man he used to call his best friend, a man who had turned his life into hell and was now gone.
"We'll go help Vaughn." Dixon looked softly into Jack's eyes, nodding and motioning Sark to follow him, knowing that they needed some space right now.