Jack glanced out the front window of the safe house, and sure enough, he noticed at least two cars parked nearby that were likely watching the building, as well as a man standing on the pavement pretending to casually smoke a fag even while remaining ramrod straight with eyes roaming everywhere and the clear sign of a holstered gun at his hip.
So they were definitely guarded, which meant almost no chance for escape. Jack turned in frustration back toward the others. "Any ideas yet?" he asked, even though it had hardly been twenty minutes since they'd been detained. Tosh and Williamson just shook their heads, but Fiona spoke up.
"They didn't see me, which means they didn't see my mobile." She glanced at Tosh, having obviously figured out that the Torchwood woman was the tech genius. "It's an older model, but maybe you could use it somehow?"
Tosh's face lit up, and Jack grinned. "Brilliant," he said, stepping forward. "But I want to call the Hub first. I want to make sure it's just us they're sitting on and not Gwen and Owen as well."
Fiona handed him the mobile with a shy smile, and Jack could have hugged and kissed her if he didn't think she would be even more scared of him. He went back to the kitchen and dialed the Hub, but there was no answer. It was late, so he wasn't quite worried. Yet when he dialed Gwen's mobile, then Owen's, then both their flats and still got no answer, he started to worry. His gut told him something was wrong.
Turning to Tosh, he tossed her the phone. "Here, see what you can do. I'm not getting any answer from Gwen or Owen. First thing I want you to do is check the Hub servers, see if they're out on a call, then run through Cardiff CCTV, police reports, all of it. I have a bad feeling about this."
"Jack, I don't even know if I can access—" she started, and Jack waved her off.
"Do your best. And then start looking for Ianto."
"I couldn't get into UNIT with my laptop, Jack," she protested. "There's no way I'm getting in with a mobile."
"I doubt he's there anymore," said Nigel Williamson, joining them in the kitchen. Jack turned to him with a frown.
"Why?"
"Why else would they keep us here? If he were still at UNIT, they could wave us away, dismiss us, ignore us. He's gone, and they don't want us looking for him."
Jack looked away, because it made a terrible sort of sense. And it was quite possible that whomever was behind everything that had happened in London had also compromised Gwen and Owen in Cardiff to keep them from helping.
Tosh was looking down at the mobile with a look of worry and fear on her face. Jack moved over to her and pressed a kiss to her temple. "He'll be all right, we've just got to find him," he said softly.
"So I should try to get into the London CCTV as well," she said, and Jack nodded.
"Whatever you have to do. Doctor, you seem somewhat experienced at this. Where do you think they might have gone?"
"That depends on the endgame, Captain," said Williamson. He sat down at the kitchen table and folded his hands in front of them. "Jordan Ford was asked to assist Ewan MacDaniel with a case involving the suspicious deaths of the remaining personnel from Torchwood One. She consulted with me on it a bit, though I wasn't directly involved until Mr. Jones was shot yesterday." He paused and took a breath. "The unanswered question has always been why are these people being killed? Revenge? Mercy? Information?" He paused. "Obliteration?"
Jack shook his head. "Wait, what? What do you mean, obliteration?"
"Could someone simply be finishing what happened at Canary Wharf last year?" the doctor asked bluntly. "The complete destruction of Torchwood One? If not the entire Torchwood organization?"
Jack just stared at him. "But why? Those people are innocent victims, they don't deserve to die. And neither does the rest of Torchwood. We protect this planet from more threats than anyone in UNIT could possible know or understand. We protect this planet with our lives—"
"I know that, Captain," said the doctor, holding up a hand. "Though I probably shouldn't. I'm merely putting it out there. Do you have any enemies?"
Jack snorted. "I've got enemies across the entire—" He'd been about to say 'galaxy' but stopped himself just in time. "Yes, I've got a lot of enemies, but this isn't about me."
"Not this time," murmured Tosh from where she was bending over the mobile.
"Hey," said Jack. "I can't help it if I'm popular."
"My point, Captain Harkness, is that to try and find Mr. Jones—and likely, Commander Collins we well—then we need to ascertain the motive of our killer."
"But we still don't know who's doing this, for all that's happened," said Jack, frustrated. "It's the biggest mystery of all. Why?"
Fiona Stewart stepped into the kitchen then, arms wrapped around herself in the sweater that was too large, braid draped loosely over her scarred neck. "It's everything he said," she said softly, sitting down next to the doctor. "Everything he said, but it's not Commander Collins."
"What do you mean, everything?" asked Jack. Dr. Williamson gave him a sharp look, as if to back off, then patted Fiona's hand. Jack was reminded almost painfully of Ianto giving him a similar look when Jack had gone out to find the woman.
"Do you have any idea who is really behind this?" the doctor asked her gently.
Fiona shook her head and sighed. "No, I don't. They were forcing Commander Collins to help, though. He never said, but it was obvious, especially once he gave me the badge and said it would protect me."
"So you don't know who, but you said it's about everything—revenge, mercy, information, obliteration."
Fiona looked down and nodded glumly. "Whoever it is—someone at UNIT—lost everything at Canary Wharf." She gave a bitter laugh, the first Jack had heard from her since they'd met. "We all did, really. But she must have lost her mind because of it. She wants revenge, and she wants to put us all out of our misery, especially because she thinks we all know something that could destroy the world."
"Who?" asked Jack even as Tosh looked up and asked "What?"
Fiona shook her head. "I don't know, he just said 'she' when he mentioned it, the day he gave me the badge. And he said she won't stop until everyone is dead and gone, because she said that's the only way the world will truly be safe again."
"Everyone?" murmured Jack. "Including Torchwood Three?" Fiona shook her head helplessly, so Jack took to pacing the kitchen.
"All right, if the endgame is to take out everything, then I think we need to assume that with the plan revealed, our killer is going to move up her timeline." He paused. "I'd guess they've got Gwen and Owen locked up in Cardiff, while we're stuck here. They've taken Ianto and Collins somewhere to finish them off, which means we need to figure out where and get there in time to stop them."
"It could be anywhere, Jack," said Tosh, straightening up from hunching over the mobile and rolling her shoulders. "I'm in the Hub servers, but I haven't seen anything that would help us with Gwen and Owen. No rift alerts, nothing."
"Get on London CCTV. We need to get to Ianto first," said Jack. He hated making that decision, but as a Canary Wharf survivor, Ianto was at more risk.
"Jack, I don't even know what I'm looking for!" she exclaimed. "It's not like they're going to walk him around bound and blindfolded to I can pick him out of a crowd easier."
"Check Canary Wharf," said the doctor suddenly. "My guess would be that if this woman has both Mr. Jones and Commander Collins, she might appreciate the irony of taking them back to Canary Wharf to finish her game with them."
"She didn't do that with the others," Tosh said, and Jack nodded in agreement.
"Why them?" he asked. "And why there? It seems too obvious."
"Because they're the flaw in the plan now. They've messed it up. They deserve it." The doctor shrugged. "It's just a theory. Maybe she wants to be found, or maybe she's not thinking straight. Mad people don't tend to think in the most logical of ways at times. I'm just speculating here."
Jack nodded slowly. "You're rather good at criminal psychology, doctor."
Nigel Williamson winked. "I've been with MI5 for years, Captain. Not only do I enjoy reading a good mystery, but I've played out quite a few myself."
"It's as good a theory as any," agreed Jack. "Poetic irony and all that. Which means I need to get out of here and get to Canary Wharf."
The doctor raised his eyebrow. "And how do you intend to do that, Captain?"
Jack turned to Fiona. "Can I borrow your badge too?" he asked.
Ianto was dragged out of the back of the van by forceful hands. It was dark, and he guessed it was quite late at night as the area they were in was rather quiet for London. Michael Collins stood next to him, his face a mass of black and blue bruises; he had obviously taken a good beating for some reason. Jordan Ford was brought out no less gently, and growled at their captors for their rough handling. The fourth person in the back of the van with them was carried out and dumped on the ground, still unconscious.
Anastasia Morgan.
Ianto blinked a few times to clear his head of the confusion he felt so keenly. Anastasia had been the one to arrest him, to throw him into the cell at UNIT headquarters that morning. He had assumed she was the one, only now she was lying unconscious on the ground, her hands behind her back just like the rest of them. Which meant she was either playing a hell of a game, or she wasn't really in on it either. Ianto had already suspected Michael Collins was being used, but Morgan too?
There were seven suits surrounding them, including the man Ianto had shot the previous day when he and Jack had been assaulted. The man looked stiff and in pain, but also grim and determined, and he watched Ianto with an almost feral grin, as if he was glad to see Ianto and couldn't wait to pay him back for ruining the attack yesterday.
He glanced around, trying to get his bearings. Behind him he saw the familiar tall buildings of Canary Wharf; before him he heard the unmistakable sound of the Thames. So he was somewhere on the South Docks, then. Somewhere dark, out of the way, unseen, and next to the river. Perfect place for a body drop.
And to top it off, he still had no idea who was behind it all. He glanced at Michael Collins, his head hanging down, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Looking to his left, Ianto nodded at Jordan Ford, who seemed to be thinking as hard as he was about a way to escape. But with their hands clasped firmly behind them, it would be virtually impossible; his best hope was to talk his way out, only he didn't know who he'd be talking to.
He closed his eyes and thought through it, how to play it out, but it all went to hell when he heard someone step forward, and opened his eyes to see the brilliant green eyes of Katherine Young standing before him, staring thoughtfully into his face.
'Her?' his frazzled brain thought as it tried to keep up. It was clear she was in charge: the suits deferred to her when she waved them back. She nodded to Ianto and smiled almost pleasantly, blond hair gone more grey than he remembered from her tenure at Torchwood One, and she was not that much older than him. Then again, it had changed them all, why not her? What he could not comprehend was this mild mannered research scientist running a special ops unit for murder.
"Good evening, Mr. Jones," she said, and her voice was not as oily, cruel, or deranged as he would have expected; in fact, it was exactly as he remembered from the few times he had spoken with her at Torchwood One. They had been in the same department, though she was much higher up than him. "I'm sorry you had to join us tonight. I would have liked to have spared you a bit longer."
"A bit longer?" Ianto replied. Young circled him and to his surprise removed his handcuffs, stopping to whisper in his ear.
"With that shoulder and a bum leg, I'm sure you won't be trying anything funny, right, Mr. Jones?"
He didn't answer, just stared at her blankly as he rubbed at sore wrists. He fingered the cufflinks there and tried to think of a way to use them. If only Tosh had give him exploding cufflinks…
"Who the hell are you and what's going on?" demanded Jordan Ford, struggling against her own bindings. "Let me go!" Katherine shook her head.
"Yours stay on. I heard you were a hard capture, Ms. Ford, so I'm not taking my chances."
"But you will with me?" asked Ianto, not sure whether he should be relieved that he had some opportunity to maneuver or insulted that she didn't seem to think he was a threat.
"You were injured and drugged, Ianto. And you're an archivist, a researcher." She sighed. "I was too, once. So yes, I trust you won't go and do anything stupid and heroic."
'Then you don't really know me', Ianto thought to himself, but did not say it out loud, especially since he still didn't have any ideas of what he could do now that he was free. He merely inclined his head and decided the best way to proceed was to flatter her. He remembered her as vain and confident from Torchwood One, remembered the stories people would tell about her and Yvonne Hartmann, two bitches licking at one bone…
Ah. Motivation.
Katherine Young, Senior Researcher. She had been one of the leads on the Void ship, working closely with Dr. Rajesh Singh to study the sphere that apparently did not exist—the sphere that had brought down hell upon them all, allowing both the Cybermen and the Daleks to come through and destroy Torchwood One. From reading her file earlier, Ianto knew she had been recruited as an engineering genius straight out of Oxford a year early; she had moved up quickly within Torchwood due in part to her brilliant mind and strong personality. Katherine Young at thirty had done more than most people had achieved at fifty.
Including almost getting the world annihilated.
Ianto shook his head. He couldn't blame her, it wasn't her fault. She hadn't brought the ship through, hadn't even found it, she'd merely been working on it with Singh. Some said there was more going on between them, but then Ianto remembered all the gossip (even among 800 personnel, the gossip had been strong and vicious) about Hartmann and Singh and wondered if he hadn't stumbled onto a twisted domestic that had somehow enveloped the remains of Torchwood. He hoped not.
Katherine led him slightly away from the rest of them and offered him a questioning look. "So have you figured it out yet?" she asked, almost as if she was hoping that he had. Once again, he decided to flatter her and try to play the same game he'd been trying with Collins. Taking a deep breath, he began.
"I'm guessing you were using Anastasia to get what you needed from Requisitions, only she filed it under Commander Collins name. When he found out, you forced him to cooperate…" He trailed off, narrowing his eyes as he tried to think of what she could have held over the man. "You threatened Fiona Stewart," he finally replied. "His son's girlfriend. You threatened her life if Collins didn't stay quiet while you carefully and quietly hunted down and killed the last of the remaining Torchwood survivors."
Katherine clapped her hands in front of her. "Oh, very good, Mr. Jones! I had heard you'd turned out to be strong asset at Three, and you've done exceptionally well so far. Torchwood One was obviously not using you to your full potential."
"Obviously," Ianto murmured, thinking of what he did then and what he did now.
"You're right, of course," she said, linking an arm in his. "And you understand why, don't you?"
He gave her a curious look. "Not exactly. You don't seem insane, so I'm not sure what you could possibly hope to accomplish by killing the rest of us."
"That's just it, Ianto," she whispered close to his ear. "I am quite mad. And yet quite sane as well, else how else could I work my way into UNIT and form my own special little team." She gestured at the suits around them. "They're good, too. They would have got to you eventually, I was just waiting to clean up London before moving on to Cardiff." She sighed dramatically. "And now you've gone and ruined it all."
"My apologies," murmured Ianto, and she laughed, the sound just barely sane. He took the plunge. "But if you were watching my meeting with Commander Collins this morning, as I suspect you were, you'll know that I didn't come to UNIT to unmask him. I offered him my services."
She nodded slowly, eyeing him curiously.
"What do you mean by services, exactly?"
"You know what I do at Torchwood Three, right?" Ianto asked, his voice deliberately pitched low. He hoped she didn't say anything about coffee and tea, because frankly he knew he was much more than that and found it annoying when UNIT assumed he was less.
"I know you cover for Harkness far too often," Young replied, her voice equally low. "So I'm guessing you're running it as much as he does, given how much better relations have been between UNIT and Cardiff for the last year, how much more organized everything is."
Ianto bowed his head. "I do. General support, meaning I take care of just about everything. Including all of our missing persons cases, body dumps, and Retcon needs."
Katherine clapped her hands again and laughed. "You're the clean up man then. Brilliant. Are you offering to clean up after me? Because I don't need anyone to clean up after me, you know. Everyone will be dead."
"Including you?" Ianto asked, and she simply smiled enigmatically.
"Perhaps. I'm not going to reveal all my secrets."
Ianto nodded as he thought through the other plan of action he'd offered to Collins, however subtly. "Then I can help," he said simply. "Make it cleaner, neater, easier."
This time she just raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What makes you think I need help?"
"You're about to kill the two people you've used to accomplish your goals," Ianto pointed out. "How will you get into Requisitions now? And I'm assuming Commander Collins authorized your special ops team. Will they remain loyal to you once you've killed him?"
And that must have been where he slipped up, because she ran a nail down his cheek, a bit too roughly, and he couldn't help but turn his cheek away. "Oh, Mr. Jones. You think you're so clever, but you missed the mark on that one. Yes, losing Morgan might make it hard to get what I need, but Collins didn't give me those men. I bought them."
Without batting an eye, Ianto offered his appreciation. "Impressive. It must have cost a lot of money then. I can do money—find it, move it, cover it up."
"I'm doing just fine on my own, Jones!" she snapped, her eyes wild enough for just a moment that Ianto thought that perhaps she hadn't been joking when she had told him she was insane.
"MI5 is involved," Ianto replied. "They won't give up on one of their agents. They'll trace the money back to you eventually. I can stop that."
She was breathing heavily, as if seriously considering his offer. Somehow, Ianto knew it was the only way he'd get out of this alive, if she believed him. Otherwise he'd end up at the bottom of the Thames, and Torchwood would seek to exist all due to the whims of a madwoman.
He couldn't let that happen.
He stepped closer to her, leaned in, let his breath ghost against her ear. "I lost my girlfriend at Canary Wharf. She was converted. I blame Hartmann and I know you do too."
Blue eyes flickered to his with a subtle intake of breath. "She did it," Katherine whispered. "She brought them here, with her stupid ghost shifts and that stupid sphere. So many died, all because of her."
"There were times I wanted to die," Ianto replied just as softly. "Times I still wish I could forget it all, end it all."
"Me too," she said, stepping closer to him still, as if mesmerized by his speech. It was too easy, really: he was seducing her with lies. "So much pain. They all deserve to die, to leave it behind. They're better off."
"I'll help you," he whispered, and she finally nodded.
"I think you could," she agreed, then shook herself as if coming out of a spell. "Do you have any loyalty to Cardiff? To Jack Harkness?"
Ianto tried very hard to keep his face straight when he answered. "No. They ignore me, because they never understood Canary Wharf, they weren't there. I do it because I'm good at it and it pays well, not because I believe in it." God, it ripped his heart out to lie like that; he hoped he was convincing enough to win her trust.
"You could be good here, at UNIT," she said, and she turned him around to join the others. "With Torchwood destroyed, only UNIT would stand between us."
"Between us and what?" asked Ianto, his blood running cold at the tone of her voice.
She gave him a grim smile. "The end of life as we know it." She ran her hand along his cheek, cupped it for a kiss that he had no choice but to accept. "Welcome to the real Doomsday, Ianto Jones. Because once Torchwood is gone, we'll destroy UNIT, and then nothing will stand between us and the rest of the universe. The earth will cease to exist. No more pain."
Author's Note:
That took me a while to work out, but I think it's starting to come together. The story just kind of went directions I wasn't fully prepared to follow. Wayward child and all that. But hopefully we're almost there. Long chapter fics are hard for me, I want to move on, and so does Ianto. Thanks so much for reading, and thank you to Cerih and darcy58 for the help and encouragement!