AN: Thoughts on 3.08, Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome, at the end of this ep, complete with spoilers.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…I really do hope they're paying you the big bucks, Lil' Doc…'
Jack, who was lying on his stomach, since his butt was covered in small cuts (it was a long story, safe to say, the mission hadn't gone to plan and poor Beth had had to carefully remove thirty-nine glass fragments from Jack's rear), made a face as his partner (who'd been poisoned with black widow venom – the mission had gone really wrong) vomited into a sick bag held by the young doctor.
(He couldn't hold it himself, as his hands were temporarily paralyzed.)
Jack's face became even more disgusted as the smell wafted over to him.
'Seriously, brother, what did you eat for breakfast? That stinks!'
Mac, over the bottle of water Beth was holding up to his mouth so he could rinse out the taste, shot Jack a look. He drank some of the water, swished it around a bit in his mouth, and spat it out into the sick bag, before taking another mouthful and swallowing. Then, he spoke.
'Having to spend half an hour staring closely at your backside is what warrants hazard pay here, Jack.'
Beth shook her head, a fondly exasperated smile on her face.
'I keep telling you two, I've seen far more backsides than either of you, and there is really nothing traumatizing about anyone's.'
Jack pointed at his partner as if to say, see, man?
Mac rolled his eyes. Then, he made another retching sound and Beth held a fresh sick bag up for him.
'Diane doesn't have any complaints about my backside….'
Riley, who'd just stuck her head in to Mac and Jack's 'room' in the infirmary the moment Jack spoke and Mac threw up again, made a face.
(She'd taken out the baddie this time, as Mac and Jack had been indisposed.)
'I did not want to hear that!' Mac made a particularly awful retching noise. That was followed by a particularly unpleasant smell. Riley's disgusted face grew more disgusted. 'Or that.'
Beth just shrugged as she grabbed the bottle of water again.
'I'm also quite immune to bodily fluids.'
SAME PLACE
TWO DAYS LATER
'…You're headed to LA Air Force Base, where thirty minutes ago, they found a bomb.'
Bozer looked very confused, as Matty briefed him, Jack, Mac and Riley in the war room.
'How the hell did anyone get a bomb onto an Air Force base? Aren't those things super-secure?'
Mac picked up a paperclip from the bowl.
'They're supposed to be, Boze.' He gestured at the screen, which showed a picture of said Air Force base. 'Which means that whoever did this…'
'Is a serious pro.' Jack crossed his arms, glancing at his partner. 'You getting the bad feeling I'm getting?'
Mac dropped a ghost-shaped paperclip on the coffee table in response, and Matty nodded.
'EOD techs on-site have determined that the explosive is cg-N.' Cubic gauche nitrogen. The new explosive that The Ghost has used in an attempt to blow up Mac, half his neighbourhood and half of downtown LA last year. 'They also found a hidden camera.' The Ghost's M.O. 'The Ghost is the prime suspect, so they called us in. Mac, Jack, you're heading over to the base. Charlie will meet you there, he's just hitched a ride on an Air Force T-38.'
EXPLOSIVES STORAGE FACILITY
LA AIR FORCE BASE
LA
Mac sighed wearily as he examined the third cluster of explosives that were not supposed to be there.
Four clusters of cg-N, each larger than the ones that'd been inside his house. The three he'd inspected closely were connected by wireless receivers so that disarmament of one would trigger the detonation of the others, and he would bet his bottom dollar that the fourth was connected too.
The bombs were placed so that they'd inflict maximum damage by triggering the detonation of every other explosive in the facility.
(Which was a lot.)
(LA Air Force Base would be a crater in the ground – as would a decent portion of the surrounds – if the bombs went off.)
He'd also found five hidden cameras.
Every sign pointed to The Ghost.
'Hoo, boy…and I thought last time was bad.'
He managed a smile, and got up and greeted Charlie as the other EOD tech came up to him and they shook hands.
'Yeah, me too.'
'We gotta catch up some time when there isn't a risk of getting blown up, Mac.'
The blonde nodded in agreement.
'Yeah, it's overrated as a bonding experience.'
Charlie nodded with a dark-humoured smile, before growing serious and gesturing around them.
'How bad is it?'
'Four bombs, similar size to the one you disarmed last year. They're placed strategically to detonate all other explosives in here, and connected by wireless receivers.'
'So we gotta disconnect them before we can disarm them.'
Mac nodded.
'They're placed with no line of sight between them, too.'
'You gonna rig up another set of those light-activated wire cutters?'
Mac nodded.
'At the moment, that's the plan.'
'We should try and get these extra explosives out of here.' Mac nodded in agreement. 'Any idea if we can move them without setting off the bombs?'
'Nope, that was what I was going to get on to next…'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…Seven hours before the discovery of the bomb, there was a base-wide evac due to the discovery of an explosive device on the other side of the base. It was a sizeable, but simple C4 device hidden in a food delivery van and reasonably easy to disarm. The base went into lockdown, which was only lifted just before they found the bomb.'
Jill rattled off facts as she typed. Riley, sitting beside her, was also typing frantically, trying to trace the wireless signal from the hidden cameras.
(If this was indeed The Ghost, he'd learned from New York. The signal was being bounced all over the place, making it very hard to trace.)
Matty nodded seriously.
'Hiding one bomb with another is The Ghost's M.O. It has to be him.'
Bozer paced along the war room's edge.
'But how did he get the bomb in? Sneaking a literal tonne of explosives into an evac'ed Air Force base while it's on lockdown and then assembling the device without getting caught has got to be impossible!'
Jack's voice echoed through the room, the former CIA agent's head appearing on the big screen.
'I think I got an answer for that, Boze…'
LA AIR FORCE BASE
LA
Jack, who was running a systematic sweep of the base with base security, looking for any signs of The Ghost, held up an explosive residue test strip from the latest place they were searching: underneath a building not too far from the explosives storage facility, which was used by EOD techs for training and the storage of their equipment.
'…he already had it in here, and I reckon he probably had it half-built, too.'
It was a very clever place to hide explosives. After all, explosive residue was to be expected, so its detection wouldn't raise any suspicions.
On his phone screen, Matty nodded.
'Which means that today wasn't his first time on base. Jill?'
'Already screening security footage from the last week, focusing on that van.'
Several of the base's EOD technicians carefully loaded a stack of C4 onto a trolley to move it out of the explosives storage facility, to a safe distance.
They'd determined that there were no pressure plates or wires or wireless receivers connecting the explosives that were meant to be there to the bombs, so it was safe to remove them.
Mac, who was watching one of The Ghost's bombs, suddenly flung out a hand, shouting.
'Stop!' The EOD techs froze just as they were about to wheel the stack of C4 away. 'Turn off the lights.'
A somewhat-confused member of base security flicked the light switches, plunging the room into darkness…and revealing tiny beams of white light being given off by each bomb, headed for the other bombs, only to be blocked by the stacks of explosives.
Charlie sucked in a breath.
'That's why there are no sight lines…'
He and Mac hadn't understood why the bombmaker had done that. He had to know that they knew that you couldn't use four techs to cut the wires simultaneously anyway, due to differences in reaction times.
(After all, they were still alive.)
(They'd have been vaporized if they hadn't realized that.)
Now it made sense.
Remove the explosives, and detonation would be triggered as the light beams from one bomb hit receivers on another.
They hadn't recognized the tiny lights and receivers for what they were due to the sheer complexity of the bombs.
At least, not until Mac's big brain had finally processed every little observation, every little piece of stimulus, it'd picked up when he was studying the bombs, consciously or not.
The EOD techs backed off slowly, and they all exchanged a glance.
That'd been close.
Far too close.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…He hijacked an authorized food delivery van a month ago.'
'He then impersonated the van's original driver, who is probably dead, to the company…'
'…but told the base workers he was the new guy. He used the van to smuggle in the bombs, bit by bit.'
Jill and Bozer reeled off the facts that they'd discovered by searching old security footage and digging through the food delivery company's servers, as Riley kept chasing the wireless signal.
Matty nodded seriously.
'He wanted to give everyone on base a chance to get used to him, so he'd fade into the background.'
Bozer nodded.
'This guy is really, really smart…and really, really good at being bad.'
Jill pursed her lips grimly.
'And he must have been planning this for a very long time.'
Matty nodded again.
'Jill, what's that delivery guy's address? We need to take a look.'
An address appeared on the screen just as Matty finished speaking. Jill looked up from her laptop a second later, brow furrowing.
'That's it, but I didn't…'
Riley spoke up, joining the dots quickly.
'That's the address I traced the wireless signal to.'
Matty pulled out her phone and dialled.
'Gonzales, I need you and your team at this address ASAP.'
DEAD DELIVERY GUY'S APARTMENT
LA
Gonzales counted to three on his fingers silently, and then one of his men kicked in the door, and he led his team into the tiny studio apartment in a really grotty building in a pretty dodgy part of town.
It was covered in junk and there was a really unpleasant smell in the air, like old takeout and stinky gym socks.
It was also unoccupied and there were no signs of explosives, according to one of his men, who used to be an Army demo-man.
'Clear!'
Riley and Bozer made their way up the stairs of the apartment building, trying not to touch the railing, after Gonzales' team had called the all-clear.
Gonzales himself greeted them at the door and gestured to a laptop on a filthy table.
Bozer and Riley stepped forward to take a closer look, and exchanged a glance.
The laptop showed a live feed of Mac and Charlie attempting to disarm the bombs.
Bozer nudged the hacker, and pointed at something (or rather, somethings) hidden in the detritus on the table. He snapped on a glove and picked up two small, rubbery pieces.
A prosthetic nose and chin.
(There went some of the silver lining they were hoping for. They were hopeful on getting an ID on The Ghost – or at least a decent physical description – based on what the soldiers on base had seen.)
Riley pulled out her phone and dialled Matty, expression grim and frustrated.
'It's a taunt.'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Riley and Bozer hauled two large boxes of evidence into Jill's lab, followed by several members of Gonzales' team, similarly burdened.
The tac-team put down the boxes and left, heading back to the garage, most likely (they were on high alert and had to be ready to head out at any moment), while Bozer and Riley stayed to help Jill out.
There was a lot of evidence to work through.
Jill made a face as she opened the first evidence bag, releasing that awful stench of gym socks and rotting takeout.
Bozer made a sympathetic face as he pulled on a pair of gloves.
'Yeah…I think the delivery guy didn't get out much. Or, you know, do spring cleaning.'
'Yeah, or any cleaning, ever.'
Riley, who'd just opened another evidence bag with gloved hands, quickly held it away from her. This one was particularly stinky
Bozer nodded.
'He was too busy watching YouTube videos and playing video games…and not even the social ones.'
It wasn't terribly surprising that no-one had reported him missing.
Jill nodded as she looked up from examining a sample under her microscope.
'So The Ghost picked his target well.'
LA AIR FORCE BASE
LA
'We're clear in Sector 4D.'
'Clear in 4E.'
'Clear in 4F.'
Jack sighed, glancing at the Major in charge of base security, who nodded grimly and responded.
'Move on to the next square, boys.' The Major looked back at Jack. 'You good to take 8G, Dalton?'
Jack nodded.
He'd feel better if he was actually out there doing something, even if this grid search had turned up nothing so far.
Jack Dalton was a man of action, after all.
'Could you get us a large notebook, a pencil, a ruler, some mirrors, some prisms, duct-tape, a protractor and a tape measure?'
Charlie spoke to one of the younger EODs as Mac muttered and paced around the explosives storage facility, doing calculations in his head.
The young man looked very confused.
'Uh…how many mirrors and prisms? How much duct-tape?'
Charlie called out to his old EOD partner.
'Mac, how many mirrors and prisms do you need? And how much duct-tape?'
Mac ignored him for a moment, most likely trying to get to a point in his calculations where he could pause and talk to Charlie for a second, before replying.
'As many and as much as I can get!'
That wasn't much of an answer, but he'd already gone back to his pacing and muttering as soon as he'd finished speaking. Charlie was reasonably accustomed to the younger man's eccentricities, so just shrugged. The young base EOD looked even more confused and a little sceptical (his superiors had heard of these guys, and they were very well-regarded, but in his eyes, the blonde one, MacGyver, was just plain crazy), but noted down the list of items anyway.
Charlie just smiled wryly.
(He got it. Mac's methods were unusual, to say the least. And he was definitely weird and particularly nerdy, even among 'bomb nerds'.)
'Mac's definitely crazy, and he's got crazy ways of doing things, but trust me, there's nobody else you want doing this. He's one of the best in the business.'
'…Clear.'
The last sector had turned up nothing.
The Major turned to Jack.
'This guy really does live up to his name, doesn't he?'
Jack just nodded, then snorted, a dark-humoured sound.
(Looking for light in the darkness was key to getting through what they had in the past and what they'd face in the future. The Major, like any experienced soldier, knew that.)
'Oh, you have no idea, man. No idea…'
In the dark, Charlie carefully attached the mirror to the wall of the room, then called out to Mac, who was supervising.
All EOD techs had to be pretty smart guys, with good grasps of science, in particular electrical engineering and certain fields of chemistry, but Mac could blow them all out of the water.
What they were rigging up was so complicated and so massive (it made the rig he'd made at his house last year look like child's play – a major reason for that was the need to avoid accidentally detonating a bomb by reflecting light into one of those receivers) that he was probably the only one who could keep track of it all.
(He was being a very hands-on supervisor, of course. Mac got twitchy when he had nothing to do with his hands for longer than fifteen minutes, unless he was asleep or unconscious.)
'Sixty feet for the next one, on an angle of 137 degrees, right, Mac?'
The blonde finished straightening a prism on a stack of C4, then pulled out the plan he'd drawn up and stashed in his pocket, glancing at it, before shooting Charlie a thumbs-up.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'Tell me you have something.'
Matty strode into the lab, where Riley, Jill and Bozer were hard at work. The three of them exchanged a glance, and she knew, instantly, sighing internally as Bozer spoke.
(Forensics hadn't turned up anything last Christmas at Mac's house either. Charlie's very thorough inspection of the bombs had come up blank, too.)
'Uh…we don't have something.' He paused and parsed what he said. 'Anything.'
Jill gestured at the computer to which the mass spec was connected, the screen identifying the latest sample as a common glue used on TV dinner packaging.
'He really lives up to his name.'
LA AIR FORCE BASE
LA
'Alright, on three, two, one…'
Mac turned on the laser pointer he was holding (at a very specific angle, pointed at a very specific spot), and watched as the light bounced off a series of mirrors, was refracted through various prisms and hit four photocells at the exact same time.
He gave a sigh of relief as the wireless receivers shut down, as did Charlie and the two best EODs on base.
One of them, a man twelve years Mac's senior who reminded him a little of Al (or, at least, the man Al should be now – happily married, with two kids under ten), gave a grin, and spoke, voice full of the dark humour that anyone who spent their days working with things likely to blow you up would develop.
(It was the only way to get through it, sometimes.)
'Well, now onto the easy part, fellas…'
He gestured to the absolutely huge and incredibly complicated bomb in front of him. They all chuckled and got to work.
FIVE HOURS LATER
Mac, Charlie and the two EODs all sank to the ground, utterly exhausted and spent. Then, they all turned to each other, bursting into laughter (the laughter of those who'd looked death in the face and survived), as the EOD that reminded Mac of Al let out a triumphant whoop.
They'd done it.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
As Mac, Charlie and the EODs gave the all-clear, Riley's laptop chimed.
An email.
From an email address she didn't recognize.
With a sinking feeling, a very bad feeling, in her stomach, she opened it.
(Her custom-made anti-virus software would have caught any viruses…but that didn't mean the email was free from harm.)
There was an AVI file attached.
A video.
On the big screen, Alfred Pena walked into that building in Afghanistan.
He stepped on that fateful pressure plate and…
As the footage finished playing, Bozer and Jill stared in shock, while Riley frantically started typing, trying to trace the email, and Matty pulled out her phone, dialling Mac's number.
LA AIR FORCE BASE
LA
Mac slowly lowered his phone from his ear, hoping against all hope (utterly, totally irrationally) that he'd gone mad and was hearing things.
No, no, no, no!
Jack and Charlie, who were laughing about something or the other, swapping stories with the other soldiers as the neutralized bombs were taken away, stopped and looked at him, sharing a concerned glance.
Mac looked paler than usual.
And he had that look in his eyes.
Focused. Worried. Scared. Angry and trying to control it and mostly succeeding. A touch desperate. More than a touch guilty.
And more than a touch obsessed.
He gestured to the half-cleared explosives.
'This was a diversion.'
And then, he ran out of the explosives storage facility.
'Brother!
'Mac!'
With another glance at one another, Jack and Charlie took off after him.
Mac just called out as he kept running through the base, towards the EODs' equipment storage area.
'He's going after the Penas!'
BORROWED VAN
(LEGIT BORROWED)
(FOR ONCE)
ON-ROUTE TO THE PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE
LA
'…Come on, come on…'
Mac rang Rachel Pena's number, hoping that he was wrong and that she'd pick up and ask him why he was calling…
(He had a very good idea as to why The Ghost needed to keep him and Charlie and the team behind them occupied for as long as possible with those bombs.)
(And he really, really didn't like that logical conclusion.)
No answer.
He hung up as it went to voicemail, shaking his head at Jack, who was driving.
The former CIA agent simply stepped harder on the gas.
PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE
LA
They came to a screeching halt outside Rachel and Annabelle's home, and Jack, Mac and Charlie all got out of the car as fast as possible.
Mac stayed Jack, however, when he went to run up the path and the front steps to the closed front door. The blonde gestured to Charlie.
'We need to do a sweep first.'
Charlie was already getting a bomb disposal robot they'd borrowed from the EODs on base out of the back.
Trust me, I want to storm through that front door, guns blazing – metaphorically – too.
But this is The Ghost we're dealing with.
We have to check for traps.
Even if that uses up precious time.
As Charlie carefully steered the bomb disposal robot around the outside of the Pena home, Jack paced along the road.
He was a man of action.
The distinct lack of action was really bothering him.
Especially when innocent lives were at stake.
Mac securely duct-taped some kind of sensor-like thing (Jack had seen him use something like this before, that time when Murdoc's little assassin club had turned on him – it was something like a mobile gas chromophore? Chromatograph? The name didn't matter; he just remembered that it 'sniffed out' explosives.) to what seemed to be three brooms taped to one another (he'd 'borrowed' those from the neighbours) to form a very long stick.
He then handed the completed device to Jack.
'Run that over as much of the yard and the house as you can reach.' He paused and gestured down to their feet. 'Don't let your feet leave the sidewalk.'
Jack grinned as he took the electronic-bomb-sniffer-thing-on-a-stick, glad to have something to do, and also trying to find a little light in the darkness for his partner.
'Like that don't-touch-the-lava game, got it, brother!'
That got a tiny little smile out of the blonde, who gave a little nod in thanks, before heading over to talk to Charlie.
With Charlie and Mac confident that there were no traps in the yard and that the windows and doors were clear, the pair of them and Jack stood on the front steps. Mac picked the lock, and opened it very carefully, Jack holding his gun at the ready.
Nothing happened.
Mac stuck his head in the door and called out.
'Rachel? Annabelle?'
No answer.
His face grew more set, that look from earlier (focus and anger and guilt and worry and fear and desperation and obsession) reappearing.
Mac stepped out of the way and Charlie steered the bomb disposal robot into the house.
Jack glanced at his partner, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled.
'Matty, Ri, Boze, Jill…you guys got anything?'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Bozer paced as Riley typed frantically (the email was looking like a dead end, but she had one last trick up her sleeve that she had to try) and Jill tracked Rachel and Annabelle Pena's movements using ATM cameras, traffic cameras, CCTV and social media, with Matty acting as a second pair of eyes.
'…why would he do this? Who'd put out a hit on an Army widow who works as a nurse and her eight-year-old daughter?'
Matty turned and glanced at Bozer.
'This isn't a hit, Bozer.' She paused, looking back at the screen as Jill made a noise of frustration. The Penas had gotten safely home last night, and then…nothing. She'd lost them. 'It's personal, just like last Christmas.' She looked back at Bozer again. 'The Ghost is going after them to hurt Mac.'
Bozer sighed.
He'd thought as much, but hoped against hope.
Another villain with a crazy, creepy and deadly obsession with his BFF.
And more people he cared about (civilians, innocents, a child) used to get to Mac.
All the hot chocolate and pastrami and mac'n'cheese and eight-layered chocolate cake and waffles (with bacon and fried chicken and hot sauce) in the world couldn't fix this.
Riley made a noise of frustration as that last trick failed. She let out a breath, took another deep one in, and then resumed her typing with renewed vehemence, helping Jill in her search for the Penas.
They'd gone home last night.
They really didn't seem to be there now, and Jill could find no sign of them leaving, so The Ghost, most likely, had taken them from their home…
PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE
LA
'Clear.'
Charlie's voice was flat and worried as he and Mac finished searching the Pena family home.
No explosive devices, no explosive residue, absolutely nothing.
Nothing seemed to be out of place, either.
Then again, Mac was very familiar with how diabolically clever and talented The Ghost was.
(He'd even found Mac's secret escape hatch, after all.)
Matty's voice sounded out from Jack's phone.
'CSIs are on their way. Riley, Jill and Bozer are searching for the Penas.' She paused, voice somehow gentling and growing stronger at the same time. 'We'll find them, Mac.'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
With no other options available to them, Riley, Jill and Bozer were systematically tracking every vehicle that'd entered and then left the Penas' neighbourhood between the time they'd gotten home and the time Mac, Jack and Charlie had arrived at their house.
It was slow.
Very, very slow.
The three of them all looked up from their respective laptops, made eye contact for a beat, and then returned to typing with renewed speed and vigour.
'Got it!' Riley looked up from her laptop as an image of a warehouse on the outskirts of LA appeared, and Matty held out her phone so that the hacker could talk to the team out in the field. 'Mac, Jack, Charlie, I'm texting you the address now.'
WAREHOUSE
(SERIOUSLY, WHY IS IT ALWAYS WAREHOUSES?)
LA
Jack parked the car a good distance from the warehouse, and all three of them had to restrain the urge to run towards the closed doors and break them open by any means possible, immediately, when they got out.
Instead, Jack checked his weapon, while Charlie got the bomb disposal robot out from the back of the van and Mac pulled out his phone and called Riley.
'Riley, we don't want to go in blind so-'
'One step ahead of you, Mac.' He managed a little smile at that. 'Jill and I are already trying to get into The Ghost's feeds; I'll link you in as soon as we're in.'
'Thanks, Riley.'
We have so many people behind us.
Really, really good people, too.
He took a deep breath, staring at the warehouse as Charlie started driving the robot towards it.
That's just going to have to be enough.
Mac cut the duct-tape off the three brooms that were taped together, then grabbed the remainder of the roll he'd taken with him from the Air Force base. He took a piece of thin plastic pipe that he'd 'borrowed' from another nearby warehouse, and held the end of that to one of the brooms, leaving a few inches of overlap, before using the duct-tape to attach them together.
He continued until he'd made a very, very long stick, nearly three stories high. It was tricky to balance and hold still, but it was at least long and reasonably stable.
He taped his phone to the end of it (Jack was talking to Riley and Matty on his and Charlie was still checking all the windows and doors – they were wired just like the ones in Mac's house had been, but perhaps there was a weakness they could exploit…though they both doubted it, it never hurt to check), then ran over to the warehouse and raised his phone on the very long stick to the roof slowly.
'Riley, are you guys getting that?'
It was Bozer's voice that replied.
'Yeah, bro, your giant selfie-stick's doing its job. We've got a decent view of the roof.'
Riley's voice chimed in.
'We're sending the feed to Charlie's phone now. Jill and I are still trying to get through The Ghost's encryption…'
Jill spoke up.
'He has to have hired an expert to do it, this is far more complex than what he's previously done…'
Mac, Jack and Charlie exchanged grim looks, before Jack forced a grin of sorts to his face and rubbed his hands together.
'Alright, fellas, what's the plan?'
'We can't get in through any of the windows and doors…'
'…and we can't see inside, because the windows are all blacked out.'
They'd been coated with black paint, so they couldn't even verify that Annabelle and Rachel were in there, or that there was a bomb, or how big that bomb was.
(Still, based on the wiring that was showing on the outside – and the fact that they were dealing with The Ghost – Mac and Charlie were as sure as they could be that there was an explosive in there.)
Mac pointed at Charlie's phone screen, which seemed to show that the roof was clear of any wiring or anything else that looked suspicious.
'We can't tunnel in, so we only have one possible approach: from the roof.' He pointed at something that looked like a ceiling vent of some kind. 'We might be able to get in through that.'
Jack looked up at the three-stories-high warehouse, with smooth sides. Not many handholds and footholds, to say the least.
'How are we gonna get up there, brother?'
Mac had already turned away and was looking at their surroundings. Junk and stuff from the other warehouses, the van and its contents, a couple of trees on the other side of the fence that separated the industrial park from the freeway…
'We're going to become Spider-Men.'
Without further explanation, he ran off to do his thing.
Jack looked confused.
'Look, I wouldn't be surprised if you've got some radioactive spiders lying around, man, but do we really have time to do the whole get-bitten-by-one-and-develop-mutant-powers thing? 'Cause I reckon those aren't the sort of thing you can develop overnight, I reckon it'd take a while…'
Charlie just snorted and shook his head.
Mac and Jack were really something to behold.
Mac, with Jack and Charlie acting as counter-weights on the ground, hauled himself onto the roof. He unwound the coil of rope that was wrapped around his torso, and started tying it securely to a pole that protruded from the warehouse's roof. He pulled hard on it a couple of times to test the knot, before tossing the end down to Jack.
Not long later, Mac, Jack and Charlie were on the roof, crouching around the vent that Mac had seen on Charlie's phone earlier.
It seemed to be free from wiring. The gas chromatograph hadn't detected any explosive residue in the vicinity either.
Then, Jack's phone rang. He picked up, to find Riley's face on screen.
She looked triumphant, tired and relieved.
'We got in.'
The image switched to a feed inside the warehouse, showing Rachel and Annabelle, chained to a large bomb. It was about half the size of the ones that'd been at the base.
But it's still more than big enough to get the job done.
Rachel, who looked terrified herself, but was trying very hard not to show it, was trying to soothe and comfort her daughter, who had tear-tracks down her face.
Jack looked over at his partner.
'We gotta get them out of there pronto, brother.'
Mac nodded, rather curtly, that look on his face again.
'I know.' At least there didn't seem to be any sort of timer on the bomb, or a receiver that'd grant it remote detonation capabilities. It was simply wired to be detonated if one of the windows or doors was opened or if what looked like pressure plates on the floor were triggered (he could just about make out the outlines of one or two when he peered through the ceiling vent using the magnifying glass of his Swiss Army knife, which suggested to him that the whole floor was covered with them, since this was The Ghost). So, it wasn't actually that simple. With a last glance at Charlie, who nodded, Mac started unscrewing the ceiling vent. The other two men helped him lift it out of the way, and then he stuck his head in. 'Rachel, Annabelle!'
After a moment of confusion, they both looked up at him. Neither Jack nor Charlie missed the spark of hope that ignited in Rachel's eyes. Jack smiled to himself, despite the situation.
(That was what their boy did – he could bring hope to hopeless situations.)
'Mac!'
'Hang in there, we're going to get you out.'
'How? There's pressure plates all over the floor!'
Mac and Charlie exchanged a glance as their suspicions confirmed. Mac swallowed, and stuck his head back into the vent opening.
'I'll think of something, I promise.'
Then, he pulled his head back out and started looking around the roof, muttering to himself, occasionally sticking his head back into the warehouse and looking around.
After a couple of minutes, Mac then hurried over to the edge of the roof and started on his way down again.
'Be back in a minute!'
Jack and Charlie just exchanged a glance and very exasperated (though affectionate) head-shakes.
'You'd think I'd be used to that by now…'
'Yeah, me too.'
A minute later, Mac, with a satchel thrown over his shoulder holding various bits and bobs, came back onto the roof. He pulled out a heap of rope, and started knotting lengths together in a web-like pattern, demonstrating the knot to Charlie and Jack.
'Got it?' Charlie and Jack nodded. 'Keep going with that.'
Mac then put together something that looked an awful lot like a mini-flamethrower. Jack happened to look up from his knots as Mac tested it and nodded in satisfaction.
'Brother, is that-'
'No, it is not a flamethrower, Jack. It's a cutting torch.'
As Jack's face fell, Mac proceeded to cut a hole in the roof, using a piece of duct-tape rolled into a tape 'donut' to ensure that the metal he cut out didn't drop into the warehouse.
As he cut, he explained what they were doing.
'We're going to make a rope system that can support our weight and Rachel and Annabelle's, so that we can rappel in there, get them free, and then climb back up without putting any weight on the warehouse floor.' He paused, and gave a very small smile. 'Like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.'
Jack crossed his arms.
'We've talked about this, man! Die Hard is-'
Mac rolled his eyes.
'-a far-superior movie franchise, as you've told me twenty-three times!'
Once inside the warehouse, Mac, Jack and Charlie half-climbed and half-swung their way along the rope web on the ceiling while wearing the improvised harnesses Mac had put together, until they were directly above Annabelle and Rachel.
Then, Mac and Charlie lowered themselves down carefully so that they could get a better look at the bomb.
Mac even managed a little smile and wave for Annabelle when he got down to roughly eye-level, curling up somewhat to prevent his legs from touching the ground.
'We're going to get you out of here soon. You've been really brave, Annabelle.'
The little girl managed a smile back, dimples showing in her tear-stained cheeks.
'Just like my daddy!'
Mac swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.
'Yeah, just like your dad.' He tried to swallow the persistent lump again. 'He'd be really proud of you.'
Rachel smiled at him too, before Charlie beckoned him over. Mac shifted his weight so that he leaned closer to the other EOD tech, who did the same.
The older EOD gestured at the restraints that secured Rachel and Annabelle to the bomb. The cuffs around their wrists were welded to the chains that ran all around and into the middle of the pile of explosive.
And the locks of the cuffs were wired. Mac studied them for a minute, and found that, just as he expected (and just as he was sure Charlie was about to tell him), the bomb would detonate if the lock on the cuffs was opened.
Charlie spoke very quietly into Mac's ears.
'It'd take us, what, two, three hours to disconnect those cuffs…'
Mac nodded in grim agreement. He thought for a moment (there had to be another way, there always was - he ignored the voice in his head that mentioned that there hadn't been another way for Zoe, he couldn't think like that right now…), until a spark of an idea hit him.
They couldn't unlock the cuffs.
(He and Charlie simply couldn't disconnect the cuffs from the bomb while dangling from the ceiling in such a precarious, risky position. Mac already knew that just about every muscle in his body would ache later, from the strain of climbing along the ceiling then holding this odd, acrobatic position, as fit as he was. Charlie would be feeling the same. They couldn't hold this for the two or three hours needed; they'd wind up so sore and fatigued that they'd overbalance or put a foot down on the floor or they'd make a mistake, and it'd be all over.)
They couldn't break through the cuffs manually, either.
(They'd give at the weakest point, the opening, which would trigger detonation.)
Mac whispered back into Charlie's ear.
'We're going to have to cut through them.'
Charlie leaned back a little, shot him a look.
'You want to bring a powerful ignition source within inches of two hundred pounds of the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man?'
Mac gave a very, very small, sardonic smile.
'Well, I don't want to, but we don't have any other options.'
After a moment, Charlie nodded in agreement, and Mac started climbing back up towards the ceiling as Charlie checked for a pressure plate underneath the chairs the Penas were sitting on.
Mac very carefully cut through the cuffs on Annabelle's wrists, then Rachel's, doing his best to keep the flame away from them, as well as the explosives.
Charlie, just as carefully, held several small pieces of metal in place to act as shields.
Collectively, they all held their breaths.
When their wrists were free and they were still there, the unexploded bomb before them, they all let out a small breath of relief.
A couple of minutes later, Annabelle was on Charlie's back, secured with a makeshift harness.
'Keep your eyes closed, and hold on tight…' Mac smiled at her as best as he could, remembering the animal documentary that Annabelle had insisted on watching with him last time he'd visited. '…like a baby spider monkey.'
That made the little girl smile, and then, she nodded solemnly, holding on tightly to Charlie's neck with her arms and his waist with her legs, then screwing her eyes shut.
Charlie then made the slow ascent back up to the web of ropes on the ceiling.
Rachel watched as her daughter slowly made her way closer to safety, as Mac started to work on a harness for Rachel, winding rope through Jack's harness, giving his partner orders as he did so.
'Once you get them to a safe distance, give me a call, and I'll start disarming this thing-'
Jack made a noise of protest.
'Brother-'
'I have the most expertise disarming The Ghost's handiwork. I know how he builds his bombs. I'm the best person for the job.'
Jack sighed internally.
Arguing with Mac was useless when he was in this mood.
(And his partner was right. Mac had the most experience, as far as they knew, of anyone alive in dealing with The Ghost's handiwork, followed closely by Charlie.)
He was the best man for the job…but still…
'I'm not leaving you all alone with a big boom-boom in a warehouse booby-trapped six ways to Sunday, son.'
Mac gestured to Rachel (who was pointedly ignoring their conversation, remarkably calm, as she had been through this whole ordeal – Jack supposed that since you needed nerves of vibranium to be an EOD tech, you'd need at least nerves of steel to be married to one) with his head.
'I need you and Charlie to get Rachel and Annabelle to a safe distance, and keep them safe in case The Ghost tries something else.'
Like taking a pot-shot at them, for example. Or lobbing a grenade at them.
(Both entirely possible, Mac thought.)
Jack swallowed.
He hated leaving his partner alone in dangerous situations, let alone in a situation like this, which was a whole new level of danger.
But Mac was right.
He needed to get Rachel out of there, help Charlie keep them safe.
And with that unmistakeable plea in Mac's voice…
How could he do anything but what the younger man asked of him?
Jack nodded and clasped the blonde's shoulder briefly.
'Will do, son.'
Mac watched as first Charlie and Annabelle, then Jack and Rachel, disappeared through the former ceiling vent.
Then, he turned his attention to the bomb, trying to relax his muscles as much as possible without touching the floor, resting his weight on the two chairs where the cut-through handcuffs rested, examining the explosive very carefully.
After fifteen minutes that felt like an eternity, he got a phone call from Jack.
'We're at a safe distance.' His partner paused. 'Good luck, son.'
Mac gave a little smile, a cleansing wave of relief washing through him.
'Thanks, Jack.'
Then, he took three deep breaths, blocked everything out or boxed it up for later, and turned his full concentration to the bomb.
THREE HOURS LATER
A physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted Mac trudged out of the warehouse, the bomb neutralized, to find a local bomb squad and Jack waiting for him.
He gave a quick briefing to the leader of the local bomb squad, and then, as he and his men entered the building to deal with the cg-N, headed over to his partner, who was leaning on a Phoenix car.
Jack smiled at him, wide and proud and relieved, clapping Mac on the shoulder.
'Good work, brother.' They got into the car, Jack updating him as they did so. 'Rachel and Annabelle are with Gonzales' team; Anita's giving 'em a check-up, but I reckon they're gonna be okay…' He didn't just mean physically, either. Mother and daughter were clearly resilient and tough cookies. 'Riley and Jill are tracing the signal from The Ghost's spy-cams, but they ain't got nothing yet…' Jack tossed Mac a pair of sandwich bags. 'And your girl sent a whole stack of these with Gonzales.' Jack gestured to the bags with a wry grin. 'Seemed pretty clear that these two were for you, so…'
Both sandwich bags had eat me, or else written on them in Beth's handwriting, underlined twice. One contained a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, the other a turkey, cucumber and mayonnaise one.
Obediently, Mac bit into the ham sandwich as Jack started the engine.
(He had no desire to wind up on Beth's bad side.)
(Quite the opposite, in fact.)
(He had a sneaking suspicion that she somehow already knew that he hadn't eaten in sixteen hours, despite doing arduous – mentally and physically – work. If he let that count stretch out even longer, even though their mission wasn't over yet, he would be in trouble.)
(And not just due to the crashing of his blood glucose levels.)
Rachel Pena, wrapped in a shock blanket, with Annabelle (lightly sedated) lying down at her side, curled into her mom and covered with another shock blanket, shook her head.
'I didn't get a good look at him, I'm sorry. He always covered his face…'
Mac sighed and nodded, expecting as much.
'Again, I'm so, so sorry, Rachel…'
She shook her head firmly.
'It's not your fault, Mac. It's this psychopath's fault.' There was something fierce in her eyes when she said that, as if she'd like to punch The Ghost a few times in the face herself. Jack was all for giving her first dibs, all things considered. 'Stop apologizing.'
(He'd apologized three times now.)
Mac swallowed, seemingly not quite convinced, eyes lingering on Annabelle for a moment, but eventually nodded anyway, looking a touch sheepish when he did.
Then, his phone (none the worse for the wear, despite having been taped to what Bozer had called a giant selfie-stick) rang.
'Riley?'
'I traced the signal. I found him, Mac.'
A DODGY PART OF TOWN
LA
Mac, Jack and Charlie, eyes and ears peeled, strode through the neighbourhood.
Riley had pinned the location down to this couple of blocks, as The Ghost was still moving.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mac caught a glimpse of a figure in black, a baseball cap pulled low over his face.
As discreetly as possible, he gestured towards the man.
'There. That's got to be him.'
A second later, the figure took off running.
They'd been made.
Mac took off at top speed after him, ignoring the protests of his sore and exhausted body, like he always did on missions.
Jack and Charlie followed at his heels.
The three of them chased The Ghost into a very rundown house with graffiti on all the walls and an overgrown yard, the fence half falling down.
It was there that they lost him.
Mac flung doors open, almost frantic.
'He can't disappear, he must be…'
Then, suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air. It was a distinct smell, one he knew well, which had been masked by the foul odour of the rundown house…
Mac's eyes widened the instant that Charlie's did, at the exact same moment that Jack flung open a closet door, revealing a bomb.
A PETN bomb, judging by the smell.
And there were fifteen seconds left on the timer.
'Run!'
Running for their lives, Mac, Jack and Charlie tore out of the house, flinging themselves down to the ground as they reached the road.
As they did so, they heard a blast behind them, felt the heat of the explosion wash over them, as the force threw them even harder to the asphalt.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Mac, ears ringing, head ringing even more and very, very sore, rolled over as best as he could, and tried to sit up.
As he did, he caught a brief flash of a man at the edge of his field of vision, Caucasian with greying hair, smiling darkly at him.
The Ghost.
Mac tried to get up and pursue him, but he couldn't even tell which way was up or down…
The man disappeared.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Charlie and Jack exchanged a worried glance as they and Mac strode into the Phoenix.
The entire way back (in a van driven by Gonzales), Mac had been silent, lost in his rabbit warren/labyrinth of a mind, re-shaping paperclips that he'd had stashed in his pockets.
As Jack sighed internally, Charlie gave a helpless little shrug, before wincing as his body reminded him that he'd badly jarred his shoulder when they'd half-been-thrown and half-thrown-themselves to the asphalt.
(They were also all covered in scratches, scrapes and bruises from that, and still had a bit of ringing in their ears.)
They walked past the war room, where Matty was standing, talking seriously to Bozer, Riley and Jill. Charlie's brow furrowed in confusion.
'We're not going for debrief?'
Mac finally spoke for the first time in about half an hour as he led them into an elevator.
'Infirmary first.'
Charlie blinked twice, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Jack hid a grin as the older EOD tech spoke.
'Who are you, and what have you done with the real Angus MacGyver?'
Jack couldn't hide his grin any longer, and leaned over conspiratorially to Charlie.
'He's a changed man!' Charlie looked very sceptical, at least until Jack continued. 'You know what a good woman can do…'
Mac shook his head, managing an eye roll.
Bozer cheers people up through food and silly jokes and bold declarations.
Beth likes to use a mixture of food and kind but logical words.
Riley dishes out tough love and blatant truths with a touch – or more - of heartfelt tenderness. So does Matty.
As for Jack…his methods are annoying, but highly effective.
Mac and Jack obediently sat down on two of the infirmary beds that Beth was standing expectantly next to, as the young doctor turned to Charlie, holding out a hand for him to shake with his uninjured side, a smile on her face.
(Though, he absolutely did not miss the deep concern and worry that flickered across her face as the three of them walked into the infirmary, quickly replaced by a professional but nonetheless warm and caring expression.)
'Hi, you must be Charlie. I'm Dr Beth Taylor, please call me Beth, and it's lovely to meet you, aside from the circumstances.'
Charlie shook her hand in return, and let her herd him over to a third bed. Before he knew it, he was sitting down, the curtain drawn for privacy, with his shirt half-off, and she was examining his shoulder carefully.
No wonder Mac was a good patient for her.
He didn't have much of a choice.
(The pretty, petite brunette had an awful lot more fierceness and strength of will in her than it looked.)
When they'd all been checked over, their scrapes cleaned and Charlie's arm placed into a sling, Beth handed each of them a packet of Epsom salts.
'Take a hot bath as soon as possible.' Apparently, she was determined to save them from muscle soreness too. She turned to Mac in particular. 'Yes, you can use your kiddie-pool-vacuum-cleaner hot-tub.' She narrowed her eyes at him, jabbing at the air in front of his chest. 'But only if you check all the electrical thoroughly beforehand, and preferably when I'm on hand to treat you for any accidental electrocution.'
Charlie and Jack just exchanged knowing looks and grins as Mac agreed to the terms.
What?
They're entirely reasonable. And of course I was going to check the electrical before use.
I don't have a death wish.
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
Later that evening, they all sat around the fire-pit, eating s'mores.
Bozer, Jack and Charlie exchanged embarrassing and amusing stories about Mac, which Riley listened to eagerly, a mischievous little grin on her face.
Meanwhile, Mac taught Cassian how to roast a marshmallow perfectly, while Diane told Matty and Beth about Cassian's recent parent-teacher conferences.
(The incredibly resilient boy was doing very well.)
There was a knock on the door, loud and clear.
Mac got up and answered it, revealing his father on the other side.
He looked very, very serious.
Grim.
Mac had a very, very bad feeling, a strong suspicion before his father even spoke, after walking out onto the back deck with Mac at his side.
'Murdoc's escaped.'
AN: *dun, dun, dun* You guys probably hate me for leaving it there, but…come on! What else was I going to do? And yeah, I know, there was a lot of drama in this episode. Also, I swear that I never attempted to synch the content of my eps with the real ones – I planned this out to be episode 20 last May! It's just a coincidence – statistically inevitable, as Mac says! I hope you guys liked this – Mac clearly has two enemies that are obsessed with him, The Ghost and Murdoc. I think we (and the show) sometimes might forget that The Ghost is also obsessed with Mac (at least until now), because he's a far more mysterious and less fleshed-out figure than Murdoc. (Also, David Dastmalchian is pretty damn incredible. The Ghost is - or was, until now – faceless.) Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the ride!
There will not be an episode tag for Detours for this ep, but here's the press release for the next one:
3.21, Mac to Murdoc. Murdoc kidnaps a certain doctor, bringing the MacGyvers into conflict (yet again) and bringing out a side of Mac he really wishes he didn't have. Meanwhile, Riley and Jill find new information on Cassian's mother, Nadia.
And I have more bad news for you – I'm going on holiday to Fiji for the next week, and will not be at home on Sunday (which is when I usually post). This means that I, like the show, will be going on a one-week hiatus…so you're going to have to wait a fortnight for this ep!
*runs off to a tropical island to escape your wrath*
Thoughts on 3.08, Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome: I liked this episode a lot more at the end than I did at the beginning, if that makes sense. I did really like the start with Charlie and Mac in Afghanistan, and the addition of the charity ball for veterans (in memory of Alfred Pena was a great touch!), as well as Mac and Riley's little chat (I knew he was going to break up with Nasha…but I'm still sad). I got a bit annoyed when Eileen was introduced, I was really thinking 'are we seriously getting another love interest for Mac now?' and that she sounded like Cage 2.0. Charlie coming back was great (I really like him, and honestly, I think if they're going to add someone else to the core cast – which they might need to do, given how small the cast is – I vote for either Charlie or Matty's husband, or both, I think they'd be great and interesting additions), and I liked the various flashbacks. I found Eileen became a more interesting character after her extreme interrogation technique moment, and I really did like the twists at the end. I think they did a very good job illustrating the dichotomy between her and Mac (from the start of their obsession with The Ghost, to how far they're willing to go to get him, to whether they bring 'insurance' with them to pull them back from the abyss or not, and of course, that end when she leaves and he stays). I also liked Matty's chat with him at the end. I really did miss Jack in this ep (far more than in Guts + Fuel + Hope), but to the show's credit, it was a really, really nice touch at the end with Matty's fond eye-roll and Jack's phone call and her perfect little line, 'if anyone can cheer you up, it's Jack'. I also think having Charlie there made a big difference in filling that hole, and also, to be fair to them, I'm not sure how I'd re-write most of the key scenes to include Jack, since pretty much all of them were either Mac and Charlie in Afghanistan, or between The Ghost, Mac and Eileen – Jack can't be in the first lot, and the second lot probably wouldn't have been added to by the presence of Jack. Honestly, I missed him because we didn't get to see him helping Mac deal with all the stuff that happened - I just really, really wished they'd added a scene with Jack at the end or the beginning, just talking to Mac about all of the drama that happened to the poor guy…and hence, I wrote an episode tag for that! It's called The Weight of the World, please do check it out!