"What the hell?" Startled, Birkhoff stared in confusion at his monitor. One minute, he was tracking Alex's location; the next, his monitor was completely blank. It was almost as though Alex had disappeared into thin air. Birkhoff couldn't make sense of it. There was nothing wrong with his system. And it wasn't like Alex to pull a Nikita and suddenly go rogue. There must've been some type of interference. Maybe the cops had a signal jammer or something. Though, that was probably a stretch.
Michael returned to Ops believing that all the shocks and surprises for that day were over. Stefan was safe with Krieg. Nikita and Alex were on their way home. And Owen had been dealt with. There was a chance that Michael's anger had controlled his actions. Yet he stood by his decision. Once Nikita, Alex, and Stefan were in the clear, Michael grabbed Owen from Medical and threw him in lockup. The former Cleaner wouldn't have another chance to act without thinking, nor would he have the chance to hurt others. He was stuck in Division- at least until he could figure out what was going on inside his head.
With Owen facing the consequences of his brash and violent actions, and with his wife safe from harm and on her way back to him, Michael re-entered Ops in high spirits. However, that soon vanished when he spotted Birkhoff's confusion and heard his curse. Something was wrong. Birkhoff didn't look at his computer like that in any normal circumstances. Hell, even in disastrous situations, the hacker never looked at his screen bewildered. The team was about to be thrown through the ringer again. Michael knew it as soon as he asked, "What? What is it?"
"I had Alex, then I lost her," Not looking away from his monitor, Birkhoff replied. There had to be a way he could get Alex's tracker back online. It couldn't have just disappeared. There was no jammer that could keep him out for long. Especially since he and Sonya had spent so much time updating Division's coms and trackers when the rogues had taken over. Interference wasn't supposed to keep Ops completely separated from their agents in the field. Even if that interference was caused by an agent (mostly, Nikita). However, nothing the hacker did then worked. Alex remained lost.
"What do you mean you lost her?" Michael couldn't help but snap. Alex was supposed to be on her way to the local police station. An agent getting arrested wasn't ideal. However, it had saved her from Amanda's henchman; it had also helped take heat off Stefan and Krieg. Alex could escape from custody fairly easily, especially with Nikita's help. The team was experienced in saving each other from the authorities, after all. The cops getting involved was shitty, yet it wasn't dangerous. It shouldn't have been dangerous. So why, all of a sudden, was Alex gone.
"I mean, her tracker's gone offline, and I can't turn it back on," Birkhoff refused to admit defeat. Of all the systems he had hacked and of all the hackers he had beaten, a stupid tracker could not be his limit. There was a chance that Alex was underground or in some kind of tunnel system. Despite Birkhoff's and Sonya's numerous updates, the coms' and trackers' weakness was anything underground. Alex could simply be stuck in a tunnel, and Birkhoff simply had to wait for her to re-emerge to track her. Though, there were no tunnels on her route. And her last known location was an open stretch of highway.
"Alex. Alex, can you hear me? Alex!" With rising anxiety, Michael attempted to reach Alex through the com. If she was still with the cops, then she'd probably need a moment to reply so it didn't look like she was talking to herself. But multiple moments passed without her saying a word. There wasn't even static on the other end of the com. All Michael heard was silence. That wasn't good; that so wasn't good. But maybe it wasn't the worst thing ever. There could've been a reasonable explanation. If there was, then hopefully the other agent in the field would be aware of it, "Nikita, do you have eyes on Alex?"
Although she had begun to drive to Alex's location, Nikita hadn't left Stefan and Krieg yet. She wanted to ensure they were good to go, ready to start their new lives, before she went and rescued Alex. She had assumed that she'd be alright with the police anyway. Nikita had time before things became dire. What she thought would've been about an hour, however, was tragically only a few minutes. Michael's frantic urgency left Nikita panicked. What had happened. Why was the planning suddenly changing, "I'm still with Krieg and Stefan. I thought I was meeting her at the station?"
While Birkhoff worked on Alex's tracker and com, Sonya hacked into the local police station Alex was being transported to. She wouldn't speculate on why Ops couldn't communicate with her- that was an avenue of anxiety Sonya couldn't afford to go down. Yet she could see if Alex had been booked and processed yet. By that point, she should've at least made it to the station. Unfortunately, when Sonya gained access to the polices' system, there was no sign of the young woman. She really had completely vanished, "There's no report of a woman matching her description entering the station."
"Michael…" Nikita began. Stefan was safe with Krieg and the two were making plans to run and hide. Amanda was defeated, injured, and in the wind. Division had won. Nikita and Alex were in the clear and could return home with a sense of victory and a peace of mind. There was absolutely no way trouble had found them again. Weren't they allowed a break between earth shattering missions and death defying feats. How could something have gone wrong, anyway. All the threats had been neutralized. There couldn't be any more danger.
Building on Sonya's idea, Birkhoff focused his hack more on the police than on Alex. If he had answers for what was occurring, then he could direct his hack and could possibly have better success with the tracker. The answer he received, however, didn't ease the confusion. More questions and concerns arose after hearing the recent news on the blotter. Although it didn't necessarily have to do with Alex, Division didn't have the luck to say otherwise, "Shit. We've got a dead officer and a stolen police cruiser."
"Tell me her last known location, now!" Nikita demanded. She barely made certain that Krieg and Stefan would be okay without her (they would be). She just dropped them off at a safehouse and sped to Alex's last known location. The lights on the ambulance let her cut through traffic; though, that wasn't really her concern. A missing Alex and a dead cop had to have been connected. Nothing related to Division or their missions was ever a coincidence. Something had happened to that cop, which meant something had happened to Alex. One could only pray that she had managed to survive it.
Walking into Ops, Sean and Ryan stopped short. They had expected to walk in on chaos. When they had reported that they were on their way back to Division, Michael let them know that Nikita and Alex were fighting to save Stefan. However, the chaos the two men stumbled into seemed different than the operations behind a tense mission. Something worse was going on- something that caused hackers to hover their fingers anxiously over keyboards and that caused Michael to clench and unclench his prosthetic. Ryan and Sean didn't hesitate to jump right into the fray and demand answers, "What's going on?"
"Did you find Stefan?" Ryan piled onto Sean's question. He honestly doubted Stefan was the source of the current stressful state of Ops. Except, he still had to ask. Hiding the teenage boy from Amanda's wrath was the main reason Nikita and Alex were raising hell in Switzerland. They had to succeed, so whatever Amanda was planning could never come to fruition. All of Division would feel less anxious when the bitch was taken down. Though, she had been brought down, and things went to shit anyway, then that would explain the current state of Ops.
"Stefan and Krieg are on their way out of Geneva now. They're safe. That's not what the problem is," Michael responded with nearly enough information. Both Sean and Ryan had to know exactly what was going on, and Sean had to know that his girlfriend was possibly in danger. But since it was only a possibility, Michael refrained from saying everything just yet. There was no need to freak Sean out if it turned out to be nothing. That excuse wasn't going to hold long, though. The situation had already surpassed nothing.
"Where's Owen?" Glancing around Ops, Ryan asked. He had agreed with Michael's decision that it was too risky for Owen to go out into the field. Though, that didn't mean he should've been excluded from Ops. He still should've helped run the mission. So where was he. Owen's former Cleaner and Guardian skills could've been useful then. He could've had ideas the others hadn't thought of. He might've also noticed things no one else saw. The stress levels in Division called for all hands on deck. Whatever was going on needed everyone involved. They couldn't keep letting disasters happen.
"That's another problem," Michael sighed. What Owen had done definitely could've waited to be shared. His lack of patience, inability to take orders, and assault of Ari actually didn't matter then. He was locked up; he could do no further harm. The only issue was Alex and the dead cop. The longer Ops went without answers, the worse things seemed to become. If an agent had been silent or had been missing for that long, well, Division would cut their losses. Yet they couldn't do that to their own anymore. They also couldn't automatically assume death. That just might kill them all.
"Where's Alex?" Glancing at Birkhoff's screen, Sean wondered. He couldn't see any tracker information on the hacker's monitor. That was the standard whenever agents were out in the field. Division had to know where they were at all times incase something happened. And Sean had the intense feeling that something had happened. Saving Stefan had come with a price. Of course Amanda wouldn't let Division stay ahead in that war. She had to forcibly take what she believed she deserved, and hurt everyone who tried to stop her.
No one could confirm or deny if Amanda was involved in what had happened to Alex. They all wanted to believe that she hadn't been. After Krieg had captured her, she had dropped off Division's radar. There was a chance that she wanted to stay off it and wanted to recover from her injuries. With Nikita finally arriving at Alex's last known location, real answers could start replacing their questions. If only there weren't more roadblocks in their way, "Shit! The site's already crawling with cops, and I have the stolen ambulance… Wait. Wasn't that the other…"
"The other what?" Michael knew Nikita had seen something. Her sudden silence meant that she had a million thoughts pinging in her head and that she was struggling to grab hold of just one of them. But, even if they didn't make sense, even if they were half-formed and wild, he needed her to share those thoughts aloud. She was the only one who could see the scene. If something was going on with Alex, all of Ops had to know about it. The young heiress's silence and a dead cop didn't bode well. The sooner they figured out what was going on, the better. There was a chance it could be less detrimental.
"Nerd! Can you get access to the police radio?" Nikita requested. She was aware that she had to share her thoughts with the team- as wild and as hurried as they were. But she couldn't put words to them yet. At least, she didn't want to put words to them yet. She didn't want to accept the fact that she recognized the abandoned ambulance at the scene of the murder as the other truck that had been at the scene of the fire. She didn't want to entertain the possibility that Amanda had also stolen the vehicle. And she didn't want to think about what would've happened if the bitch had found Alex.
"Already have it," Sonya answered almost immediately. As soon as Nikita reported that the scene was full of cops, Sonya patched Division into their radio frequency. The connection wasn't the best since she had to rely on satellites an ocean away and since there was so much chatter to comb through. But Division could still hear the police investigation into the dead officer and the missing squad car. There had to be some clue they could pick up on that'd tell them what happened to Alex. Even if the police didn't know what it meant, the agents could. They just needed one thing to run off of.
Most of what the police were discussing was the coincidence of a stolen ambulance arriving at the scene of another crime; they considered if the fire in that old building had any ties to the shooting. Despite the questions thrown at her, Nikita didn't clarify what the cops were talking about. She simply tried to sneak onto the scene and poke around. When it was clear where Alex was, then she'd tell them about the fire she set. Until then, the team had to remain as confused as Ryan, "Two stolen ambulances? What has been going on?"
"What kind of trouble have you girls gotten into?" Sean attempted a light tone. It fell completely flat. He couldn't convince himself that something detrimental wasn't happening. Alex was gone. She was all alone. She was possibly hurt. And no one had any idea where she could've disappeared to. Alex was smart and capable. There was a chance that she had escaped the danger and was trying to find her way back to Division. Yet if that was truly the case, she would've found a way to contact Ops or Nikita. Trying to have hope otherwise was useless. The worst had happened to Alex.
Nikita couldn't respond to Sean even if she wanted to. She managed to find a shell casing the police hadn't. She recognized the shell instantly. It belonged to one of the specialized bullets Division ordered. It couldn't have originated from Alex's gun. She had dumped it when she had been arrested. And it obviously hadn't come from Nikita. That only left one person who could've possibly had a gun with those bullets. Freezing in her spot, Nikita's voice shook as she finally shared her thoughts aloud, "Amanda has Alex…"