Chapter 25

Chaos: Complete confusion and disorder, a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything, a state in which chance is supreme.

As Annie Walker ascended the flight of stairs to the Henninger Tower's seventh floor, navigating the now skeletal remains of the building, past columns wired with RDX explosives just biding their time, she reflected on the chaos of her own life, chaos that she had both unwillingly taken part in, as well as subjected herself to. And looking back now, on risk after risk, gamble after gamble, she couldn't help but wonder if the end of her own chaos would be here. Now.

Timing was everything. That's what Auggie had said to her all those months ago. She clung to it now, a lifeline, and when she closed her eyes she could see his face. She found herself desperately hoping he would forgive her.

Her feet stopped just at the edge of the open threshold to the stairwell where a door used to be, and her mouth went dry. Defenseless and without a weapon, she felt panic begin to crawl across her skin. Past the nonexistent door a room opened up into an empty expanse. In the distance across the gaping space were empty, yawning holes in the building exterior where windows used to be. The Frankfurt skyline glimmered in the dusk.

Slowly, heart pounding, she left the stairwell, and rounded the corner.

At first her eyes fought the shadows, dark figures that became apparitions for her adrenaline to latch onto, her feet falling steadily, ominous echoes reverberating through the thin air. Immediately the rational part of her brain wondered if this was a mistake, a trap, and she wrestled to tamp down the mounting flare of anxiety. It was too easy, too empty.

"Annie?"

Her head snapped in the direction of the muffled cry of her name, a sound of relieved disbelief, and her heart leapt out of her chest when she saw Danielle, alive and breathing - alive, beat up, but alive, as if her mind had doubted anything else, too afraid to hope for the best. Danielle was sitting with her hands tied against the far wall of the empty room, and Annie raced to her.

"I'm here." She closed the gap quickly. "I'm here." Falling to her knees at Danielle's side, she noted her sister's black eyes, lacerations across her cheeks from the accident, her arms. Danielle's right arm hung limply, dislocated or broken - and it set a fire in her, seeing her sister hurt, and caused her gut to churn with anger. But there was no time to linger on emotions, and time was of the essence. Annie quickly catalogued what information she could from observation, and then turned back to evaluate the room - she would only have one chance, if she got a chance at all…

Too easy, too empty.

Too predictable.

What was Tam waiting for? And where was Eyal?

Outside the building Annie could hear voices, the implosion crew calling orders to one another. Her thoughts turned into overdrive as she assessed the situation - they needed to get out, and they needed to get out fast.

"Can you walk?" Annie asked quickly, her hand tenderly tucking her sisters tangled hair back away from her face, her heart breaking at the terror-filled eyes that stared back at her.

"Annie-" Danielle lost her words, her voice falling away sharply when the sound of a struggle and scuffling feet pulled both her and Annie's attention to the two people who suddenly entered the room.

Annie immediately recognized Eyal's tall, lanky frame even in the growing darkness. His hands were bound as well, and there was no mistaking the glint of metal pressed to the back of his skull, or the woman whose hand held it there.

"Hello, Annie Walker." Sarah Tam smiled, a toothy, malicious upward lift of her lips, teeth barred defiantly in greeting.

"Sarah." Annie leveled the woman with her own steely stare of indifference, rising from Danielle's side despite her sisters muffled protests. She met Eyal's eyes briefly.

"Here we are, after everything." Tam shoved Eyal forward, and then with a quick, vicious and overly aggressive move she kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him to fall to the ground. Annie flinched for him, but the Mossad agent clenched his jaw, refusing to give Sarah the satisfaction of crying out.

"Why?" Annie's voice was flat, unyielding. "If it was me you wanted, why are you doing this? Eyal was never a part of this, my sister was never part of this." She tried to move closer, but Tam leveled the pistol in her hand and jabbed it pointedly at the back of Eyal's head where he knelt in front of her. Annie only hesitated for a moment though before she stepped forward again.

"Stay where you're at." Tam snarled, her dark hair long and wild against the equally inky black of her own outfit as she snatched Eyal's collar, gun still at his head, and pulled him back away from Annie and toward the gaping remains of the seventh floor windows.

"Why?" Annie repeated, the single word was sharp, cutting on the empty air between them. The violent volatility in her voice seemed to catch even Tam off guard, and Eyal - uncertain - stared up at Annie nervously. She was in no place to make demands, and yet she ignored Tam's, and continued to advance, jaw clenched, fists clenched tighter, until she was so close she could have reached out and tousled Eyal's hair.

"I said stay back." Tam's previous assertiveness seemed to have lost its edge as she realized Annie was not reacting as she had hoped, and her hand tightened on her weapon.

"Annie, please." Danielle, who remained in a frozen state of terror on the wall behind her, looked on helplessly as her sister stood - unarmed and defenseless - in front of the psychotic woman who had come to personify her nightmares over the past twenty four hours.

When Annie laughed, a listless, hollow sound, Tam stared back at her incredulously.

"Did you think you could break me, Sarah?" Annie smiled, cruel and fleeting, "Did you really think you could play me against my own emotions? That the CIA would give Oliver up and you'd get all the diamonds to yourself and live happily ever after? How quaint."

"If you think this is a game, Walker, you're wrong," Tam seethed, forced to a standstill, her back now to the windows - a cornered rat. "Would you like to see your friend's brain matter when I put a bullet through the back of his skull? What about your sister's?"

Eyal was staring directly at Annie now, trying to understand, but Annie had eyes only for Sarah Tam, almost as if she were staring straight through her.

"You're wrong." Annie snapped fiercely. "Don't you get it? It is a game, but, unfortunately for you, you won't be winning it, because your first mistake was thinking that you could break me - thinking that you could force my hand." Annie took another step forward. "News flash, Tam, I was already broken, and there's nothing you can take from me that I haven't already lost before."

This time Tam smiled, eyes dark.

Chaos: A state in which chance reigns supreme.

"Then maybe we'll find out just how much you're willing to lose."

When Tam's finger tightened around the trigger of the gun in her hand, Annie dove sideways.

A gunshot cracked through the air, and for a moment time stood still.

A red bloom appeared in the center of Tam's forehead, accompanied by a mist of crimson as the bullet from Liat Varga's sniper rifle passed through her skull, careening into the concrete on the far side of the room. Tam's gun fell out of her hand, and her body fell to the ground in a crumpled heap where a pool of blood quickly collected in a halo around her head.

Annie slowly rose to her feet, her pulse pounding in her head, ears ringing.

She wiped her face, Tam's blood vibrant against the pale of her fingers.

"Annie!" Eyal's voice drew her back, and the world rushed into focus, until she forced herself to move to him, untying the coiled rope from around his wrists where he still knelt on the ground. Her hands were shaking, unsteady, and she fought the nauseating dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. Once Eyal was free he rushed to Danielle, removing the rope from her wrists as well, and helping Annie's big sister to her feet.

Annie stared at the dead body, frozen. Her hands hung at her sides, and she felt a burning numbness. Eyal was calling her, telling her to hurry, but she couldn't force herself to move.

"We need to go, Annie." Eyal, holding Danielle, looked desperately at his friend, pleading. "Neshema, we need to go, now."

Annie finally turned, and steadily, deliberately walked toward Eyal and her sister, toward the stairwell, toward freedom - the end.

It was over.

She could feel tears, hot against her cheeks, stinging.

She let them fall.

"Auggie, I see them." Eric Barber was bowed over his laptop, voice excited. "I see them!"

"We heard you the first time." Oliver replied cattily.

"Hear that Calder?" Auggie spoke into the com device he now wore, ignoring Lee, communicating from the back of the SUV to where Calder and Vaughn now maneuvered down a side alley toward the Henninger building. Anxiety gnawed at him, fueled by the fact that he was stuck here to wait, but he didn't let it show.

"Loud and clear. What's happening?"

"Four heat signatures, one stationary on the east perimeter of the building three moving…"

"Tam's the fourth body." Calder surmised.

"Most likely." Auggie ran a hand across his face, biting the inside of his cheek. "Can you get inside, Calder?" He clenched and unclenched his jaw, haunted by the same feeling that always ate at him when he was reminded that there was nothing he could do in his immediate power to help Annie. He hated it.

"Negative. Too many eyes."

"Wait…" Barber muttered. "There's a fifth heat signature, the bank across the road, west side of the building-"

Over the com system the distinctive sound of a gunshot broke across the airwaves, loud like snapping bones, and Auggie's heart stopped.

He'd recognize that sound anywhere.

"What the fuck was that?"

"A sniper." Auggie sat back, almost reaching for his cane, but he hesitated, hitting the side of the SUV door with a closed fist. "Dammit - Calder you have to find them, now!"

"I'm trying, Anderson!" The sound of Calder and Vaughn moving in the alley reverberated over the coms, retreating back away from the building. "Who's the shooter – the fifth signature?"

"You're fixing to find out. Whoever it is, they're headed right toward you," Barber informed them, "And guys - I'm almost 100% someone is dead, because there's a body in the Henninger that's not moving."

"Shit." This time Auggie grabbed his cane without hesitation, pushing the laptop off of his lap before throwing open the SUV door. "Calder, I'm headed your way."

"Anderson that's-"

"Ill-advised? Reckless? Tell someone who cares."

Liat wasn't expecting the welcoming party waiting for her in the alley when she exited the bank through the side door she'd picked the lock to. Backpack secure, sniper rifle securely in place inside it, along with the shell casings erasing the evidence that she had ever shot it, she was greeted by two men in black, guns drawn.

"Well isn't this a heart-warming sight?" Sarcasm thick enough to choke on, Liat leaned against the door frame. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special, but last I checked Israel and the United States were still on good terms, no?"

The black man quirked an eye at that, his partner shifting uncomfortably at his side.

"You're Mossad?" He asked incredulously, "You're Eyal Levin's contact?"

"Don't act so surprised." Liat scoffed. "Why not a thank you instead? Mossad is always doing all the CIAs dirty work. Honestly a thank you is the least you could do. Or you could put the gun down. That would work too."

"Touché." The man smirked at that, nodding to his partner, and they both lowered their weapons. "And thanks."

"Liat! Calder!"

All three of them spun, peering into the now ink black night, eyes falling on the three figures approaching them. Eyal's voice was impossible not to recognize, and Liat sighed in relief when she could finally lay eyes on him again. It warmed her to see not only Annie at his side, but her sister as well, though Danielle Brooks was obviously the most shaken of the three. Annie, however, seemed to ghost down the alley as she approached - eyes empty.

"Calder." Eyal acknowledged the black man. "Nice of you to show up." He and Liat embraced briefly, silently, an unspoken message passing between them.

"I like to be fashionably late," Calder shrugged, glancing at Annie. "You OK, Walker?"

"I'm OK," she assured him.

Liat thought Annie's eyes said otherwise.

Annie stayed close beside her sister as Calder and Vaughn escorted them down the alley, away from the Hinnenger, Liat and Eyal falling into step behind her. She focused on moving forward, on breathing in and out, putting one foot in front of the other.

It was over.

She said the words over and over again inside her head.

It was over.

Or was it?

Annie watched Danielle out of the corner of her eye, wondering what kind of scars - physical or otherwise - this event would leave them with. Guilt swallowed her, knowing that they were never Danielle's scars to bear.

Yet Annie was further convinced that her sister was quite possibly one of the strongest, most resilient people she would ever know. Despite everything, Danielle - broken arm and all - walked steady and sure beside her, the spark in her eye still there, cracking jokes with Eyal, smiling.

It gave her hope.

"Annie?"

She looked up.

Auggie stood poised, just ahead, at the mouth of the alley.

When she finally reached him, and she could feel his arms around her waist, her arms around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder, something anchored her - grounded her back to earth.

She promised herself she would never let him go.

"Auggie?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go home."

"Ok. Let's go home."

A/N: The end. Thank you guys, for everything, this has been an incredible journey as a writer, and I have loved every moment of it. Ash, this never would've gotten finished without you. xxx