Ch3 – Flatline

The second shot grazed the Judge's security detail on the shoulder but missed his Honor, who was scuttled back to the inside of the building by the cops who had swarmed the place.

James hissed in his comm unit: "Abort, abort! Damn it! The Judge was not on the target list!"

Lawrence's cold voice came on: " It was on the revised plan. As you didn't take the shot when both targets were in the side room with only one other person, I am now forced to play catch up!"

James was mad at Finch for making such crucial decisions on the fly, but as there was nothing else, he could do in the situation, he quickly disassembled his sniper and put it back in its box. Then he headed down towards the exit taking the steps two and three at a time.

He had not taken the shot with Teresa in close proximity to both Hickson and the Judge. He wasn't prepared to rationalize the events now, but he knew he had taken the shot with Kim being in even closer proximity to Hickson. Was he such a hardened criminal that he had not felt anything?

He slid in the shade of the building as his mind kept screaming at him that his aim was the best and that he had never really put Kim's life in danger. Besides, what the hell had she been doing with this aspiring narco Hickson? She had been against his own narco life, and they had parted because she had been terrified that he wouldn't come back home one night…and look where she was now! Yes, she hadn't moved very far! Then she must have accepted the risky reality of having a narc for a boyfriend!

That's when James realized that the perimeter had been cut off by cops and sheriff deputies and that the path to his parked vehicle was no more! He was about to contact Lawrence as a bullet whizzed by his ear and he instinctively ducked behind a tree, then rolled to the left several times, losing the sniper box but being able to take out his handgun.

One more shot came his way and then all he heard were shots being exchanged further down the street by the hotel entrance and knew that the Op had for sure gone south. Finch would be thrilled!

James looked in all directions trying to formulate an escape plan. Going in the other direction meant going up the little alley and behind the condo building and it looked like the only possible exit. He contemplated whether to leave the sniper in its box, but he knew the police would have a field day trying to identify its origin. So, he ended up grabbing the box and making a sharp turn up the alley, hoping that none of the men on the ground had spotted his moving shadow. It seemed they had moved to the other condo building where shots were coming from. Most likely Lawrence had not been able to clear the perimeter and had been engaged. What an idiot!


Oksana's security had taken her out before the reception had disintegrated into a shootout and Teresa realized that as Pote had dragged Kelly Anne successfully out in the direction of their parked Escalade, she was only followed by Javier and George.

Pote circled back to meet them after having shoved Kelly Anne in the bullet proof vehicle and as Teresa kept running in his direction, her eyes widened as she saw him take out his gun and shoot at something to her right. The shot was immediately returned and Pote ducked out of sight while Javier pulled her behind the closest tree.

A few more shots were exchanged until she saw a dark figure peel off the side of the building and slide down the street elevation onto the pavement.

"Get out, you mother fucker!" George's voice boomed behind the huge wastebin to the left as the man turned slowly, keeping his hands with his gun visible.

His figure and posture looked so familiar that Teresa's breath stopped as she freed herself from Javier's grip and shouted to George not to shoot.

She hurried on the dark uneven path, mouthing 'please let it be him', hoping it was him, all of this against Javier's protests to stay hidden. Then she thought she was crazy for thinking that every man in black could be James!

However, as the man turned slowly to face George, the weak light of the street post was enough for her to recognize the face she had missed so much over the past months that she almost lost her balance and tripped, if it wasn't for Pote's strong hands that caught her in the last second.

"No mames! Cabron! What are you doing here?" Pote's voice was full of angry emotion as his eyes met James's, who lowered his weapon.

"Wow!" George had a stupefied look on his face and just stood there shaking his head.

"Put your weapons down!" Teresa said and briskly turned her head to Javier, who only grumbled and slightly lowered his gun. The constant toothpick was again jutting out of his mouth. At least it was not a cigarette! Teresa thought. The man was a good soldier but the crass coming out of him overwhelmed her sometimes. He kept gnawing on the toothpick as he said: " James…what a surprise! Have you ever been on a high horse, Cabron?"

James seemed to take a moment and then raised his gun in a flash saying: "You ever been on life support?"

"Stop it, both of you!" Teresa's hand went over Javier's weapon, pushing it down, which made him holster it, albeit unwillingly. As Pote and George had put away their guns already, James finally did too.


Teresa's eyes met James's for a long second and as his were totally unreadable, she finally said: "What did you do? Did you kill Hickson?"

"It was my mission!" His voice sounded hollow.

Pote couldn't hold himself, so he gestured angrily at James: "You could have shot Teresa by mistake, Cabron…She was still quite close!"

James shook his head: "I don't make such mistakes!"

"Yeah…you're a good guy, doing bad things!" George tried to interrupt but Teresa flashed him a look and he shut up right away, almost taking a step back.

"Who sent you?" Teresa's mind was spinning.

"I can't tell you." James wanted to tell her so much more than that… but the more she knew, the greater uncertainty she'd face with Finch, whose endgame James still had not quite figured out.

"You shot the man standing right next to your ex….Did you not recognize her?" Teresa wasn't sure why she cared, but a shade of amusement seemed to pass over James's face for a second as he said: "Of course I did...and she is unharmed, isn't she?"

"Who are you? What happened to you?" Teresa took a step towards him as a bullet whizzed past her and she felt someone tackle her on the ground. She heard Javier shout to George to get in the car, as Pote started pulling her up to her feet.

That's when she saw him. James had fallen on his back, a large pool of blood sipping from the left side. His face was frozen pale, and his eyes were closed. He had tried to turn to pull his holstered gun to return the fire, but the shot had hit him in the back, right under where the bulletproof vest didn't protect him.

Her heart stopped and her mind slowed everything down as she saw herself fighting Pote's grip, getting free and jumping over to James who lay unresponsive as she shook his chest and then cradled his head in her arms. The blood was all over her hands and white clothes and she knew she was shivering. She tried to put her hands on top of the wound to stop the bleeding, but somehow it just wouldn't.

At some point she saw Pote run in the direction of the cops, the direction where James had come from. Then she saw Kelly Anne hover over her, but she didn't hear a word of what the other woman was saying.

A few minutes later George came followed by two first responders carrying a stretcher. Someone pulled her up as they put James on the stretcher, worked on stopping the bleeding, and carried him towards the alley and onto the street where three ambulances were parked assisting other people.

She half-walked half-ran in a trance after the stretcher, until they stopped at the back of an ambulance. The paramedics rattled details of the victim and his wound to someone as they loaded him up and hooked him to a machine which showed a pulse and a curled line moving up and down.

Teresa wasn't sure how she had gotten in the ambulance, but when she looked, it was Pote sitting next to her, and then the driver hit the siren and then hit the gas. The other paramedic put an IV into James's arm and continued talking to someone at the hospital over his comm unit.

Teresa caught herself making a useless effort to stop her teeth from chattering, as Pote kept squeezing her hand.

All she could see was James being shot in her arms in the dense Bolivian Jungle, his body slumping on the ground, his eyes going lifeless in seconds.

She kept shivering even as they ran after the stretcher being wheeled into the hospital entrance and to an OR, as they were pushed out but remained glued to the glass window.

Her mind kept refusing to acknowledge what was happening and what it would mean for her life, for her heart and for her business.

Then she saw the indicator on the monitor flatline and heard a long uninterrupted beep that cut through her heart like a knife. She saw the medical staff cut James's shirt to shock wave his limb body; she watched them count and hit him with volts of electricity again and again, but it seemed like his heart just had had enough!


Teresa was jarred back out of her medication induced sleep by the persistent high pitched tone of an alarm and when she opened her eyes, she realized she needed to fill her lungs with air.

Her ears kept ringing with the flatline on the monitor James had been hooked up to in her dream as she slowly breathed in and out a few times.

Her heart slowed down as she tried to process the realization that she had dreamt of seeing James die. Then the reality of having seen Tony disappear in the flames of her bombed SUV hit her in the pit of her stomach. The relief that one had been only a nasty dream was overtaken by the other, which she knew had happened and the anger filled her heart.

"We will kill them all!" she heard herself say as her mind showed her images of Elias and his men, the ones she believed had ordered her death.

Life is lived in the grays! She had never doubted that, ever since the time she had gone to bed hungry and since the day a narco had picked her up from the street.

The person she had become terrified her, but it was a moment of weakness, and the anger didn't take its time filling her heart again. She had fought this way of Life, she had tried to change it. But she was exploited and wounded at every corner and the only reasonable choice was to stand her ground. To change. To survive.

Could she have fallen so low, could she have become worse than her teacher? Was that a bad thing in this Life?

It's one thing to get to the top, a very different one to stay there...and a third one to want to stay there! Did she want to stay there?

These were the thoughts that rambled through her mind. She couldn't say if she expected to find an answer or what she hoped this answer to be, but she was certain it had a specific feeling to it. A feeling of calmness because it imparted that a course of action had been chosen!

That's when Pote, who was standing with his back to her, turned around and realized she was awake.