Abandoned Warehouse
Baracoa Beach
Cuba
Michael was again caught off guard by the brazen woman when she fully stepped out of her hiding place to shoot at a soldier she had just seen peeking out from behind the pillar to their left. Two machine guns spoke at the same time, obliterating the wall and the floor around the corridor Sonya stood on. Michael barely had time to aim and take out the one farthest from them with a round between his eyes. Sonya had dropped to the ground the moment they had started shooting, and Michael heaved a breath of relief when he saw her roll back to get behind the hole-ridden wall, unharmed.
"One down, two to go," she said calmly as she loaded a fresh clip.
"A little warning next time?"
That earned him another half-crazed smile. "Fine. I'm gonna run over to that corner," she said, pointing at another wall about five metres to their left, perpendicular to the exit. "Cover me."
While she took her chances in the open it fell to Michael to nail the remaining two Russians. "Got it."
Michael managed to kill another target as she took a mad dash towards her new cover. The remaining soldier ducked back behind the pillar before Michael could get him. He needn't have worried. From where she was, Sonya had a shot, which she took, driving the man out of his hiding place. That drove the Russian straight to Michael's crosshairs, who dropped him with a round to the back of his head.
"And that's the last, I think," said Michael, sweeping the area for any surprises. He had nine rounds left in his magazine until he could divest the three dead soldiers of their guns and ammunition.
"Let's get out of here," Sonya said, and took off running towards the exit. Michael followed close behind.
The final surprise came the moment Sonya unlocked the heavily reinforced steel door and started pulling it open. A soldier, a wounded one with his entire right side covered in blood, crashed through a side door to their left, firing his rifle on full auto.
"Get down!" Michael yelled, grabbing Sonya by her collar before crashing them both flat to the ground.
It was a short-lived surprise, but somewhat costly one. The combined fire from both Sonya and Michael took care of the swaying shooter, but not before one of the rounds ricocheted off a concrete floor to bury itself in the side of Michael's thigh.
"How bad?" Sonya snapped right after they had both crawled out of the warehouse and closed the door behind them. Michael put a round in the locking mechanism, making the process of unlocking that door a thoroughly messy and time-consuming job.
Michael sat against the wall outside and took a moment to let the Cuban sunshine on his face after what felt like a lifetime, enjoying the sense of warmth and freedom. The bullet hole bled profusely to soak the material of his worn jeans, and made a dark puddle on the pavement beneath his leg.
"Well, he missed any major arteries, but it's a bleeder," he muttered after a cursory glance at the mess on his leg, and pressed his hand as firmly as he could against the wound. "We need a vehicle, can you–"
"Of course! Stay here. I'll be right back." Sonya scoffed, as he had almost insulted her, before jogging off towards the alley that curved around the warehouse.
Michael held on to the gun with his free hand and breathed through the pain, mumbling to himself, "Not going anywhere."
-0-
True to her statement, Sonya found a car behind their prison, which she managed to hotwire in record time before bringing it around for him to get in. They drove for a couple of hours, alternating between small side roads and crowded streets, watching out for any kind of pursuit. Sonya was sure that they had killed the entire force Zhirkova had under her direct command, and that the GRU officer was going to have to depend on the local law authorities to provide assistance.
It meant that they didn't have any immediate pursuers, other than Zhirkova and Duboff, but they did have to stay out of sight for the most part, especially since Michael was bleeding quite spectacularly even through the makeshift bandage he had improvised from the shirt he had been wearing.
Staying in the car proved problematic when the police blockades started springing up. They managed to avoid going through two of them, thanks to the alleyways and side exits, but one misjudgement of a turn later, they found themselves stuck in a line that went through a roadblock that checked each and every vehicle.
"Listen, I have to get out of sight," Michael said as they moved together on a sidewalk of a street behind a line of stalls and apartments.
They were hugging the back alleyways as much as they could, but the residents who lived in the clustered apartment buildings were starting to peek from their windows, curiously watching the blond-haired woman and the limping man carrying the oddly shaped bundle of clothes. Michael was aware that a discarded rag he had found on the floor of the stolen vehicle was not a great way to conceal a semi-automatic, but he was reluctant to part with the weapon just yet.
"Yeah, you're drawing attention." Sonya agreed, forging a few yards ahead to scout their advance.
While most of the local population seemed quite focused on minding their own business, there was a great chance that one or two might always decide to speak to the police about the two strangers in their neighbourhood and their suspicious movement. The increased presence of the police meant that Zhirkova and Duboff weren't far behind either.
Things took a bad turn when a police car came to a stop about two hundred yards from where they were, blocking the main street and the exit. It turned worse when another police car rolled into the alleyway from a side street and started slowly towards the direction where the two of them were hiding behind a stack of wooden pallets.
"Guess someone decided to be a responsible citizen after all."
"We're being boxed in."
Sure enough, a marked van could be seen moving to block the street about four hundred yards behind them as well.
Michael took a moment to think logically. Between then, the sum total of their offensive power was restricted to a rifle with half a magazine and a Glock 17 with about ten rounds left. Out of the two of them, Lebedenko was the only one who had a decent chance at getting out of the trap that had begun to close around them.
"We need to split up," Michael said, making up his mind. It was for the better, he reasoned to himself. If he was the one providing cover fire, he could at least make sure there were no cops killed in the fast-approaching battle. "I'll cover you for as long as I can. Hug the wall and backtrack. I saw a fire escape ladder attached to a wall about two blocks back. If you get to high ground, you should be able to keep out of sight until you get in the clear."'
Sonya crouched down to bring her gaze level with his own. Michael could just about hear what was going through her mind, since he was thinking the same thing.
Exactly how far did that earlier truce between them go?
Michael knew he would have been taken aback by the offer had he been in her shoes. He was essentially risking recapture or death by offering to stay behind and take potshots at the cops. He honestly didn't know why he made the suggestion in the first place. Even though he was wounded, and had a hard time running with the hole in his leg, he really should have been concentrating on an escape for himself.
Maybe, in the middle of all their previous excitement, he had unintentionally slipped into the mindset of a soldier on the frontlines, where one never fought for themselves, but for the soldiers around them, for the ones who were in the trenches with them shoulder to shoulder.
Or maybe, it was due to a sense of loyalty and comradery invoked by the heat of the moment. It had been so long since he had actually fought alongside someone for the visceral goal of survival, and maybe it had an impact on him he hadn't thought possible.
For all he knew, it could have even been the blood loss making him feel loopy and insane.
Whatever the reason, the offer was genuine. Maybe he was just tired of running, and surviving. Maybe he just wanted to do one last thing for someone else before things ended for him for good.
A slow smile stretched on Sonya's lips as he watched, as if she had ridden a wave alongside his very thoughts.
"This is not the day you go down in a blaze of glory, Michael Westen," she said, standing up to her full height while Michael stayed low.
"Sonya–"
"I'm going to give you one chance. Use it wisely and try to stay alive."
"What are you–"
"I'll see you when I see you."
I'd rather not, Michael wanted to say, but he never got the chance.
Sonya leapt right into the middle of the alley, suddenly becoming visible to all three police cars that had them surrounded. As intended, her appearance caused all three vehicles to light up and blare their sirens. Calls went out on speakers demanding her immediate surrender as she took off at a dead run towards the van that was behind them, shooting over the shoulder at the car that sped up to chase her.
Cursing to himself, Michael moved as fast as he could while the police car in the alley was distracted by her stunt. He managed to get to the fire escape ladder he had told her about earlier and drag himself over to the roof of the two-story building. He crawled over to the edge of the roof just in time to see Sonya turn into the tiny space between two buildings only two blocks before the van that had her escape blocked. Michael took careful aim and shot the squealing tyre of the car chasing her just before the cops in it decided to turn the car chase into a foot chase. The speed of the car sent it into an uncontrolled tailspin when the tyre blew up, and it careened into the van, t-boning it before coming to a stop in a half-crumpled pile of metal.
For the moment, the cops from the other unharmed car and the van were preoccupied with dragging their fellow officers out of the crashed car into safety. But, Michael knew the rest of them were fast approaching the scene, most possibly followed by Zhirkova and Duboff.
Sonya was in the clear and out of sight, and now it was his turn to do the same before every cop in the area swarmed in to search.
-0-
He stuck to the high ground for as long as he could, until the spaces between the rooftops became too far apart to cross with his injured leg. He reluctantly had to leave the relative safety of the high ground after covering a distance of roughly half a mile. He kept pushing himself until he couldn't hear any more sirens, or see any marked cars. While a little over two miles wasn't a great distance between himself and his hunters, he had to find a temporary shelter to hunker down before his leg gave out on him and he lost all his mobility.
The place he found was an empty shop with all the counters, cupboards and shelves cleared out. It had a small bathroom upstairs, miraculously with still running water despite the building's clearly abandoned status. Michael took a moment to thank the previous owner who'd had the decency to settle their utility bills before leaving, the only reason he had access to clear, running water, which he needed badly at the moment.
After untying and discarding the blood-soaked shirt he had wrapped around his leg, he took off his t-shirt and soaked it with water to clean the wound as best as he could. A closer inspection revealed that he needed to pull the bullet out and stitch it closed. For that, he needed to raid a pharmacy after it was closed for the day, a task which required him to wait until well after midnight.
The window had burglar proofing in the form of welded iron bars from the outside. After rebandaging his leg with the wet t-shirt and drinking some water, Michael settled on the floor against the wall. From there he had the view of the streets below to a good five hundred yards both ways.
He decided it was the best he could do for the moment. He would keep watch until the night dawned to venture out to his next stop only three blocks from where he was. After that, he would make a plan to get to Havana without being caught by the local law enforcement authorities.
What he couldn't prevent, even if he tried, was the pure darkness of the unconsciousness that crept up on him a mere hour into his watch, when the exhaustion, blood loss and pain finally caught up to him in the wake of fading adrenaline.
-0-
Michael took his time swimming back to consciousness, wondering why it felt strange and surprising to be waking up at all.
When he finally managed to get his highly uncooperative eyelids to pry open, the first thing he noticed was that it was very dark, and the room he was in was only lit up by the faint yellow glow of a street lamp that was quite a distance away.
Then he turned his head slowly, towards the opposite side of the window where the stairs led up to the second floor, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Sonya was there, kneeling on the floor next to him, her face framed by her blonde hair, which she had let loose around her shoulders. She was staring intently at his leg, the sluggishly-bleeding bullet hole on the side of his right upper thigh to be specific, holding a wicked sharp knife in her hand with a blade that shined menacingly in the weak light.
The fact that he was completely naked registered a moment later, along with the cold, undeniable realisation that he was entirely under her mercy while she held a lethal weapon uncomfortably close to his very vulnerable parts.
The shock of it made Michael forget to breathe, and he froze under her intent gaze.
Sonya saw the rigid ripple in his muscles as he braced himself, and looked up to flash him a bright smile that looked slightly unhinged in the dim surroundings.
"You woke up," she hummed, "Too bad. I was gonna do this while you were still out."
Michael blinked, willing his foggy mind to clear up faster.
"Do what?" He mumbled hoarsely. For an insane moment, he thought she was talking about stabbing him, and ending his life. For reasons that he didn't even want to comprehend, all he felt was relief at that thought.
"Dig the bullet out, of course," Sonya's expression morphed into a confused frown as he watched. Then she leaned forward a little to place the back of her free hand against this forehead. "Do you have a fever?"
Michael closed his eyes, willing his pulse to slow down. He felt like he had been run down by a Mack truck, and the pain from the wound in his leg crested and ebbed along with the beats of his heart. Apart from the bone-weary exhaustion that wrapped around him like a dark heavy cloak, he didn't really feel like he had an infection to worry about on top of it all.
At least, not yet.
"Nope. Don't feel like it."
She took his word for it, removing her hand, and went back to staring at his wound. He saw a backpack resting on the floor next to her, and wondered what she had managed to scavenge on the run.
"You found a good place," she muttered, almost to herself.
"I did," Michael said, studying her curiously. "Why are you here?"
"Too many cops, too many roadblocks, too many gawkers," she murmured distractedly, "Take your pick."
Michael frowned. Those hardly sounded like valid reasons for an obviously highly trained operative like her to be unable to get the hell out of dodge. He had expected her to find a boat to stash herself and be smuggled out of the country by then, because that was what he would have done if he had managed to keep going. Instead, she was there with him, contemplating the bullet wound on his leg like it held answers to the meaning of life.
It just didn't seem right.
"How'd you find me?"
"You didn't leave much of a trail, if that's what you're worried about," she said, starting to pull stuff out of her backpack. Michael stared in wonder as various medical supplies, pills, and a small flashlight piled up on the floor next to him. "I figured you'd hole up for the night somewhere closer to medical supplies. I was right. Found you passed out against the wall."
"Sonya," Michael said, pitching his voice low, "You didn't have to come back."
She smiled. "I know."
Without further discussion, she opened a bottle of water and poured some of it over his wound, causing the dull ache surrounding it to flare anew. Michael barely had time to grit his teeth, swallow a scream and hiss in pain.
"I'm going to do this as quickly and cleanly as possible," Sonya warned, all business as she sanitised the knife with an alcohol solution and the flame of a lighter, "It'll help if you don't make any sudden moves."
True to her words, her movements were skilful and brisk. Still, it was a red hot knife digging into his naked flesh without the luxuries of a local or an anaesthetic. The leather belt between his teeth helped him not to bite his own tongue and muffled the groans he couldn't really hold back. He did his best not to jerk away in reflex, while his entire body rebelled against the agony being inflicted on his leg.
After what felt like a lifetime of clenching teeth, fisting and unfisting hands, straining muscles, choked-up screams and profuse sweating, the ordeal was done. Sonya removed the bullet, cleaned the wound, sewed it up and had it bandaged in only four minutes, and that was only because she had to be extra careful not to nick the artery the bullet was lodged against.
"Thanks," Michael panted, willing his body to stop trembling and the dark spots in his vision that had nothing to do with the night to fade.
"You're welcome," she said, still kneeling next to him even after she had packed her stuff back into the bag.
Michael really wasn't sure what happened next, or the reasoning behind the thought process that led to it.
It started with her hand that stayed firmly wrapped around his thigh just below the fresh bandage, the skin of her palm on his cold flesh a warm, distracting and bright spot of keen awareness in his otherwise scrambled, foggy mind.
When he opened his eyes (he didn't know when he had closed them) it was to find her face hovering above his own, her skin glowing a pale shade of gold and her blue eyes gleaming with a plethora of emotions he didn't quite want to witness right then.
He stayed still – couldn't move an inch even if he wanted to, caught as he was in the spell of that gaze. Most of him wanted to blink, to breathe, to do something to break the trance, unwilling to let himself drown in it any further. Yet, there was a part of him that was a fair amount intrigued by her, compelled to take the plunge and never look back.
"Sonya…" It was barely a breath, a question, a warning…a plea.
Her lips stretched slowly into a smile at the same time her hand on his leg started travelling up at almost the same pace, over his fresh bandage, across the skin of his bare hip and to a gentle stop covering his abdomen. The contact between them was almost non-existent, just the tips of her fingers dragging over his chilled, exposed skin. But, in the quiet of the night in a world where everything was narrowed down to just the two of them, the barely-there touch was monumental, all-encompassing and was more than enough to coax out goosebumps all over him.
The words got stuck somewhere in between his brain and throat, hardly formed and utterly lost. A tangle of frantic thoughts warred against each other in his mind, one part wanting what was blatantly being offered and the other vehemently protesting for all the reasons why he really shouldn't.
It didn't help his situation when Sonya closed the distance between them to kiss him, or when his own lips responded in kind before the rest of him agreed to it. Then there wasn't even enough air for him to breathe, let alone clear his mind into something capable of rational thought. His body eagerly revelled in the intimate contact, pulling her closer, his limbs wrapping around her of their own volition. The warm, alive body felt good in his arms, and the taste of her lips against his invoked sensations he hadn't even realised he had been missing terribly, to a point of almost having forgotten.
He gasped when she finally pulled away from him, torn between enjoying the sweet air his lungs had been craving and instantly wanting to drown back in her presence again.
"Michael." His name on her lips was a whisper, a command…a request.
Michael swallowed reflexively, unable to tear away from the demand written clearly in her gaze. "What are you doing?"
"Taking what I need."
There was no hesitation, shame or confusion in her statement, as if it was a simple truth laid bare for him to accept. She needs, he reflected, not wants. There was a difference, a distinction, an important one. It was not about just a transaction of pleasure between two human beings, he felt the more he considered, but something a little bit more visceral, primal than that. It was something vital that she needed to get past a certain point he couldn't really understand, but could provide for her nevertheless.
The expression she had on her face as she stared at him while those thoughts and realisations formed in his mind, gave him an odd sense that she was right there with him, resonating with him on a deeper level again.
She confirmed it when she leaned forward to resume kissing him. Michael closed his eyes, ignored the turmoil in his mind, and let go of himself, allowing her to take what she needed.
He couldn't really tell how long it lasted. There were an overwhelming number of sensations, always tangled in a heady mix of gratification layered with an undercurrent of pain. There were sounds of curses, pants and moans underlying the slaps of flesh against flesh. At one point, he tasted blood on her lips, and couldn't tell whether it was his or hers. Their touches oscillated from frantic, bruising and possessive to gentle, lingering and yearning, yet never quite in sync with each other as they continued to explore.
At the height of it, she threw her head back and screamed something he couldn't really comprehend through the buzzing in his ears. The way she tightened around him like a vice was more than enough to tip him over the edge right along with her, his entire body twitching as it fought against the conflicting waves of pure pleasure and white-hot agony. Both her hands were wrapped around his throat, squeezing hard in reflex until his vision started to blur.
When it ended, he didn't quite know whether he passed out underneath her due to the lack of oxygen running through to his brain or from the force of the orgasm he experienced.
-0-
Michael woke up the next day just before dawn to find her gone. He had a feeling it was for good this time. She even left him a few fresh bandages and a spare shirt, along with a piece of paper that contained an eight-digit number and a simple, 'Goodbye' in slanted Cyrillic.
After a short internal debate, he decided he would reach the American embassy in Havana. It was the only place he could realistically hope to find refuge against the team of Russian commandos Zhirkova would soon have under her command with the arrival of the submarine. Between becoming a prisoner on his own soil against being a captive again in the hands of the Russians, it wasn't even that hard of a choice.
From where he was to the capital of Cuba, the distance was roughly nine hundred fifty miles – a fifteen-hour drive if he were to stick to the highways and obey the traffic laws. Since he wasn't really a law-abiding citizen of the country, or even a bright-eyed tourist there to have a good time, his trip had to be a bit longer and filled with illegal activities.
Two days, five counts of B&Es, three stolen cars and one truck later, Michael stood in front of the tall, imposing wrought iron gate barring his entry to the US Diplomatic Mission in Clazada, Havana.
If you were a civilian in need of the consular services of your embassy, you followed a set of rules, which usually involved a lot of calls and emails, followed by a letter of appointment that granted you permission to enter the premises. Then you would show up on a specific day at a specific time to stand patiently in an allocated line until you were allowed inside and escorted into the specific section that handled your specific need.
When you were a burned spy who was supposed to be spending the rest of your life in prison, however, you couldn't really follow the procedure and hope for the best. You needed to change the rules in a drastic fashion to get the response you needed, without necessarily getting killed in the process.
That was why Michael walked right up to the gate of the embassy and stood there with his face almost touching the intricate design of the gate – an action that invited a squad of Marines to take firing positions from the other side.
He knew exactly how he appeared to the highly trained soldiers. With a face full of grimy, twelve-day beard, torn jeans, shirt a few sizes too large and dirty shoes, he looked like a hybrid between a homeless beggar and a suicide bomber. That was why he kept an easy smile on his lips and his hands up in the air in the universal sign of surrender, banking on the fact that the Marines would follow their training to do their utmost to avoid an international incident.
One Marine – the shift leader, Michael supposed – took a step forward, keeping her M4 Carbine pointed at a spot between the ground and his right kneecap.
"You can't stand there." She barked, eyeing him wearily.
"I know," Michael widened his smile, "I'd like to come in."
"You have an appointment?"
"No, but I do need to meet the head of security."
She gave him a look that conveyed she didn't give two shits about his needs, which she reinforced by lifting her gun up to his chest level. "You should leave."
"My name is Michael Westen." he said levelly, dropping the smile. "Make the call. I'm sure you'll have a ton of problems if you don't."
The squad behind her took half a step forward, and the safeties of their guns went off simultaneously.
"That a threat?"
"No. It's a fact." Michael replied. "I'm a person of interest in both countries. Believe me, you really need to make that call."
She did make the call, in the end, via the radio she had clipped to her tacvest. Another armed squad of Marines appeared, promptly followed by a tall, thin, bald guy in a suit and a tie. His face was a bright shade of red when he came to a stop a few feet behind the squad, and looked like he was about to have a brain aneurysm.
He was the spy Michael wanted to meet.
The arrest went about as expected. He placidly complied with the demands of the Marines as two of them cuffed his hands after a thorough pat down. He was escorted to the farthest building of the complex, where he was locked up inside a basement level holding room that had four grey walls, a cot, sink, toilet and nothing much else.
Two Marines glared at him from outside the steel bars of the cell door while he waited for the head of security to make his appearance. The man came down about three hours later, looking not much better.
The way he fidgeted, beads of sweat collecting on his forehead and darkening his shirt around his armpits, Michael concluded he didn't have much field training to speak of, despite his age which Michael placed somewhere between forty five and fifty.
He looked like he was about to disarm a live bomb for the first time, not speak to a man locked up inside a holding cell.
"I'm agent Harry Ferguson, acting head of security," the man stuttered, looking everywhere but at Michael.
That explains it, then, Michael thought, sighing. It was just his luck the embassy had a cubicle monkey minding a desk he had no business being anywhere near.
"I've been ordered to debrief you immediately on–"
"No, Ferguson," Michael said, cutting the agent off, which caused him to gulp visibly and take a step back. The Marines behind him twitched. Michael didn't want to get shot down before making the contact he needed. So he held his hands up again in an attempt to calm the nervous agent and show that he was not a threat.
"You don't get to debrief me on anything, because, frankly, I don't think you have the clearance," he said in a reasonable tone. "I need you to contact agent Andrew Strong. That's the guy who gets to hear what I have to share. He knows who I am."
Ferguson pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face. "Listen, Westen, it doesn't work like that."
"Yes, it does," Michael replied calmly. "The information I have is not something I'm willing to share with the guy they sent just a week ago so he can keep the seat warm for the guy taking a vacation back home."
Ferguson's eyes widened in alarm. "I–how?"
Michael did his best not to roll his eyes. It was just a random guess on his part. Ferguson wouldn't last a second in a street in South Beach after five in the evening, let alone in the field on a mission. He sighed again.
"Andrew Strong, Ferguson," he said instead, bringing the conversation back on track, "Make the call, ask for him. Don't bother coming down without him." With that he laid down on the cot, and turned his back to the sounds of Ferguson's heavy, anxious breathing, figuring he could grab a nap before Langley scrambled to find Strong.
Two hours later, Ferguson returned with news.
"You can't speak to him," he said, watching Michael wash his face by the sink.
"Why?"
Ferguson swallowed and looked away. "Agent Strong didn't make it," he said so softly Michael almost didn't hear him.
The declaration gave him pause. The bits and pieces he remembered of the assault on the cargo plane - which felt like a lifetime ago but only happened twelve days or so back - didn't include the fate of the agents after he was injected with the drug. Michael didn't know how to feel about the death of the agent, the man who had almost sacrificed Michael and his friends for his mission. Or what that meant for the information he had on Burke, Zhirkova and Lebedenko.
"A team of investigators are being dispatched as we speak," Ferguson continued hesitantly. "I was ordered to detain you until they arrive to handle your interrogation."
"No," Michael shook his head, thinking quickly.
The speed of the agency's response meant that the operation was still very much alive, despite Strong's demise. Michael was not in the mood to play the same game with a bunch of different agents. He had absolutely no desire to participate in the operation in any capacity, and was determined to avoid another blackmail scheme that would involve putting the lives of his family and friends on the line yet again. No. He needed to make sure that didn't happen, and the only way to do that was to control the leadership of the team. He was the one with the knowledge the company needed, and that put him in a position to dictate who got to learn it from him.
He needed someone he could trust in charge of this mission, and he knew just the agent for the task, someone he had come to consider a friend several years ago. Besides, this would be his chance to rectify what happened to her for being willing enough to wade into the complicated web of lies, deceit and betrayals woven around one Michael Westen.
"Fine," Michael said, taking in a deep breath and releasing it slowly, "Senior agent Dani Pearce, then. She was stationed in an anti-counterfeiting post in Mumbai, last I heard. She's my only other choice. Otherwise, tell the HQ back home to arrange my trip back to Gitmo. I have nothing else to say to anyone else."