Key Biscayne
Miami
23:03 Hours
It was an hour before midnight when they arrived at a largely isolated, private marina that was about a mile away from the town. Sonya jumped out to tie the ropes to the dock while Michael brought the boat to a gentle stop against the wooden pier.
Sonya jumped back inside in a hurry when she saw him almost going down on a knee when he bent down to drag their duffel bags out from under the seat.
"Michael–"
"I'm fine," he grunted, his hand flat on the deck to brace himself, and blinked rapidly to chase away the black spots converging in on his vision, "Just a head rush."
"Is it your wound?" She asked worriedly, kneeling next to him, "Is it bleeding again? Did you tear your stitches?"
While he could understand her uncharacteristically overprotective attitude, especially after what had just happened, he wished she hadn't brought up the gunshot wound. Just hearing the mention of it was enough to send white-hot currents of agony all across his back.
"Not sure." He muttered, breathing through the pain.
"Let me check–"
"Sonya–"
"The servers won't go anywhere, Michael," she countered his protest sternly, her hand wrapped around his uninjured shoulder, "We can spend a few minutes to make sure you won't pass out on the way."
He settled on the nearest seat as she grabbed the bag with a first aid kit in it, and opened up the buttons of his shirt so she could peel it back to see how bad it was. The way she grimaced in his periphery told him it wasn't good.
"I'm sorry," she murmured quietly while she slowly took off the bandage with a gloved hand, which he saw was wet with blood.
"For?"
"Two broken stitches," she said, and he did his best to hold back a grunt when even the slightest of touches near it reminded him how fresh the wound was. "This was probably because of me."
"It's fine," Michael sighed, and let his lips curl to the side in a faint smile, "I won't hold it against you… this time."
She cleaned and re-stitched the wound with quick, sure touches, reminding him of the first time she had taken care of him back in Cuba. It was an uneasy feeling to realise that nothing had changed regarding how she felt about him since then, while he was a completely different person at present, with an entirely different and hidden agenda that she didn't suspect in the slightest.
"We're done," she announced softly before he could spiral further down into the grief he was feeling about the change of circumstances.
If Pearce was doing her job - and Michael knew she was - there was a good chance that she and her team were on their way to the island, or were already there. He just had to keep it together for a little while yet, until he had his hands on the evidence.
Then, it would be the end of the operation, and hopefully, the beginning of his freedom.
"Thanks." he said, and took the hand she extended to haul himself upright.
"Let's go."
The Chronicle Building
Key Biscayne
Miami
Their destination was at a walking distance, and they reached it within fifteen minutes. The road was mostly empty at that time of the night, with minimal traffic, and they had no trouble staying out of sight. Michael recognised the dimly lit, three-story building that spanned about hundred yards and let out a soft chuckle.
"This is the old Miami Chronicle building, isn't it?" he asked, tilting his head at her, "Why this particular old mouldy place though?"
"They condemned it after the last hurricane," Sonya replied, "The building had all the tech already– satellite hookups, microwave dish array, all of it. We bought it from the demolition team. All Lyster had to do was configure everything to fit our specifications and just hook us up into what was there."
"Must admit it's a clever set up," Michael said, "Near a main road, no one would notice anyone going in or out. Perfectly hidden in plain sight."
"Yeah, pretty much."
"How many people are there?" Michael asked as he followed her towards the entrance. He could see that the interior of the building wasn't entirely dark due to a few lights flickering here and there, but couldn't see clearly through the frosted texture of the glass doors. "How many guards?"
"It's unmanned." She said, entering an eight-digit code to unlock the reinforced, double doors at the main entrance that led to the lobby.
Michael thought that was the best news he had heard all day. If it was unmanned and they were going to be the only two souls inside, then Pearce's job would be that much easier when they finally made their move.
He had to change his mind instantly when Sonya led him inside the building however, because the moment they stepped inside, it became evident why there was no need for additional security.
"Whoa!"
He let out a whistle, swivelling his head around the empty abandoned lobby. The signs of the hurricane that had rendered the entire building unstable were still visible everywhere he looked. There were ominous cracks and fissures on most of the walls that had gone grey due to the salt water and mould. The tiled floor wasn't much better, since most of the tiles were either completely uprooted or severely cracked in most places. There were mounds of debris, piles of broken glass, dry leaves, twigs and branches from surrounding trees, discarded office supplies and all kinds of months-old trash were everywhere, littering most of the available space.
His keen eyes also caught the surveillance cameras mounted on the corners of the walls in the hallways, stairs, and above the elevator. The ones near them had blinking lights while the others seemed dormant, which told him that they were motion-activated cameras.
What made the building entirely dangerous was not any of that, but the strategically placed booby traps that covered the entire length across the building from left to right. All the windows, entrances, exits and support pillars were rigged with claymores facing outside, primed to blow the moment an unsuspecting soul stumbled into one of the tripwires.
He also noticed that the set up was rigged in a way to start a chain reaction the moment any single one of them was tripped, causing all of them to blow altogether in a massive explosion that would flatten the entire, already unstable building to the ground in a matter of minutes.
"Now I see why the place doesn't need any guards," he commented as he followed her up the powered down escalator to the floor above, hoping Pearce's team would have the foresight to do a thorough recon before breaching the building.
"Once we retrieve the backups, we'll blow it up on our way back," she said, sounding quite elated at the prospect, "This was supposed to be demolished years ago anyway–"
The server room was located on the third floor at the left end of the narrow hallway, which had a line of locked doors bracketing it from either side. It was also completely dark with no working lights, and they had to use their flash lights to navigate the cluttered corridor. Once they reached the end of it, Michael noticed that the steel, reinforced door also had a biometric lock and a keypad that required a sixteen-digit alphanumeric code to open.
The signal Michael was waiting for came in the sound of a muted crash of something heavy against glass from the floor below, at the same time the door before them opened with a pneumatic hiss.
They both froze at the sudden sound, for entirely different reasons.
"I thought there was nobody here!" Michael hissed before Sonya could say anything.
"There shouldn't be," she whispered back, frowning thoughtfully for a few seconds. "I'll go in here and start collecting the drives. There's a security room in the third office to the left on the opposite wing. You go in there and get the surveillance feed up and running. Get us eyes on what's going on downstairs."
"Do I need any passwords?"
"Type Admin and AV178#L, all letters uppercase. That should let you into the system." Before he could leave, she dug out a couple of radios and earpieces from her duffel and handed him a set. "Here. Channel two. Keep in contact."
"Got it."
Michael did a passable job hiding his relieved grin at the task he was given. He jogged to the other side of the building without further delay, knowing that was the best place for him to be. He would be able to see how the team entered, and let them continue forward while keeping Sonya out of their way for as long as possible.
Getting to the security office and getting the feed up and running only took a couple of minutes. There were sixteen sub windows split between the two desktop monitors, covering feeds from the three levels of the building. Michael only caught glimpses of the breaching team as they moved across the empty lobby towards the stairs and the escalators. The feeds started going dark one by one as the team disabled the cameras on the move.
"A fully armed breaching team is in the lobby, eight by my count," Michael murmured the lie over the comms, "They're clearing the floor pretty quickly. Looks like they're leaving a few behind to deal with the claymores. You need to hurry up."
"Almost there," Sonya's reply was soft over the sounds of rapid typing, "How the fuck did they find us so fast?"
"They knew exactly where to hit when they sent that airstrike," Michael pointed out, silently glad that Simon's interrogation had solidified his cover. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken long for Sonya to figure out that it had been him all along, "They could have had a real-time overhead view of the estate, and if they did, they'd have seen our boat taking off–"
Sounds of typing were drowned for a few seconds under the string of choice Russian expletives that followed.
"What's our exit?" He asked when she trailed off.
"There's a roof access staircase two doors down from where you are."
"The roof?" Michael repeated sceptically, "You're not planning to parasail down, are you?"
"Michael, we don't need to parasail when we can just jump in the water while this place blows up with those fuckers still inside." She laughed softly.
"They are almost done with the second floor, Sonya," Michael reported, mostly sticking to the truth. He had to get her to where he was before the team confronted her. She had the detonator to the rigged explosives and he didn't want to take the chance of her running into CIA troops which could only end up in a deadly standoff. "Move your ass."
"On my way."
Michael took a step back when she came jogging into the room. She already had the detonator clutched in her left hand, and the duffel hanging by her right shoulder. Her gun was stuck in the band of her jeans at her back.
"What do we have?" She asked, placing the detonator on the desk, and leaning over to take a closer look at the monitors.
"They're making their way up."
Michael watched the feed over her right shoulder, his own gun in his hand, but pointed down for the moment.
When you worked in the perpetually grey world of intelligence and clandestine operations, the worst feeling in the world was finding out that what you believed was not the reality; not realising until the very last moment that you were caught up in a trap that was closing fast around you.
Because it never was the enemy you saw that got you, it was the one you didn't. And what you usually failed to notice was the betrayal of someone you thought was a friend, someone you trusted at your unguarded back.
Michael saw the exact moment Sonya caught up with reality.
Over her shoulder, Michael saw one of the muted feeds catch Sam and Jesse following in behind a pair of Special Forces soldiers, with their guns at the ready. On the feed next to it, Pearce stood by the empty, unmanned reception of the lobby, using hand gestures to direct the teams while talking to them over the comms.
At first, it was confusion that hit her. It was obvious to Michael in the way she cocked her head to the side, and leaned forward even further. The comprehension took its time creeping in and he saw it in the way her shoulders gradually stiffened when it finally did.
He had an inkling as to what an emotional rollercoaster she was going through right then, the utterly unexpected shock she must have felt when the final wall she had to lean on crumbled before her eyes for the blatant lie it was. How the last trusted operative of her destroyed network, the one she considered her friend, was not what he was at all.
Michael saw it all in the minute changes; the way her arms twitched, the way her left arm moved infinitesimally as her hand crawled towards the detonator that rested on the wooden surface of the table mere inches from her, the way her ribs expanded and contracted as the slow, simmering fury coursed through her, and the shivers that started to wrack her body as her entire being raged against the betrayal.
Michael was quietly stuck in a strange, timeless moment when he observed it all.
When you worked as a covert operative, there was no line between who you were and what you did. You became who you needed to be for the operation, which was what made you effective. It kept things simple. But when you spent so much time living as someone else, the line between who you were and who you pretended to be inevitably started to blur.
That was why Michael found himself hesitating. It was only for a fraction of a second, not nearly enough to make any difference to the inescapable conclusion, but he was torn. Even though he had known since the moment he had agreed to take on the mission that he would find himself on the opposite side of the rest of them as their enemy, he hadn't quite expected it to hit him so viscerally as it did right then.
On the one hand, there he stood, poised to completely destroy the remnants of Sonya's world, everything she had dedicated her entire life to. She had already lost so much and he was the reason for it all; the end they never saw coming.
On the other hand, she had a detonator that could bring the entire building around them crumbling down on their heads, not too dissimilar to what she witnessed James and the rest of her friends suffer.
If he were in her shoes, Michael knew he would have taken utmost satisfaction, and felt justified even, for taking all his enemies down with him as his revenge.
"Michael–" It was barely a whisper, a small cry of hope against hope, a plea for what was unravelling before her to be a lie.
Michael knew he had the advantage, and so did Sonya, since she was the one who had her back to him, the enemy in the shadows. While Michael couldn't deny that he felt for her, it was nowhere near enough for him to let his feelings take priority over what had to be done.
There were eighteen reasons inside the building for him to finish the job he started before she could: three of them more important than others.
Then he saw Fiona staring up at them from another feed on the top right corner of the left side monitor, her gaze locked on the camera as if she was searching for him. For Michael, that was the most important reason of all, for there was absolutely nothing he refused to do to keep her from getting harmed.
In the end, it wasn't even a decision he had to make consciously. His training took over and his body did what needed to be done without much input from his fractured mind.
Michael and Sonya moved at the same time: him bringing his gun around in a vicious, lightning fast swing while she lunged for the detonator. Michael ended up being a fraction quicker than Sonya, and that was all he needed.
The butt of his gun impacted with the back of Sonya's skull with enough force to knock her out instantly, and he caught her crumpling body before she hit the ground face-first. The ground team found him just as he finished restraining her wrists behind her back with a pair of zip ties he found in a pocket of her duffel.
"Hands where I can see them." A voice growled at his back from the doorway, and Michael slowly raised his hands as he got to his feet.
"Turn around, slowly."
Michael complied with the order and came face to face with two fully geared, masked men with AR-15s pointed at his face. He was fairly sure they knew who he was, but they were following the protocol of securing an enemy building without taking any chances. Besides, Michael could sympathise. They had seen enough contradicting things happening around him to be entirely certain of his loyalties.
"Kick the guns over."
There were two on the ground, his and hers. Michael did as he was told, and nodded at the detonator that was now harmlessly sitting on the ground next to the table leg. "That is the detonator to the fire show downstairs. You guys might wanna secure that too."
"Michael!"
"Pearce." Said Michael, "Great timing, as always."
"Stand down," she barked from behind them, holstering her own gun, "He's a friendly."
"Might wanna secure her before she wakes up," Michael said, jerking his head at the unconscious body lying on the floor, and stepped over to the side to make space for the two soldiers. "I only took the gun, but I'm sure she's got a few more surprises hidden all over her body."
"Goddamn it," Pearce muttered with a tired smile as he joined her in the hallway, "Tell me this is over."
Michael leaned against the wall with a sigh, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion catching up to him with a vengeance, "I wish I could–"
Before she could demand what he was talking about, he saw Fiona jogging down the hallway towards them.
"Michael!" She paid no attention to Pearce or the small audience of Special Forces soldiers converging around them as she crashed into him, her arms going around him in a tight embrace.
He returned the hug just as tightly, studiously ignoring the fire that flared in his shoulder at the movement, and pulled her to him with his own arms around her waist, "Hey, Fi."
"Mike–" Jesse joined them a few seconds later, followed by a gasping Sam.
"I hate stairs," Sam complained before breaking out in a grin, "Good to see you got the crazy witch before she could get you."
"It was a close thing," Michael admitted with a grin.
"You wanna tell us why we followed you into this death trap?"
"Yeah," Michael said, jerking his head to indicate the security room, "You see the black bag on the floor inside? There are hard drives containing all sorts of encrypted communications data from all over the Caribbean. I figured you'd need some solid evidence to wrap this up nicely. Sonya is the only top operative left, and I don't think she'll be in the mood to talk for a long time."
Pearce stepped inside to grab the bag, and took a quick look inside once she was out on the hallway again, "Oh, Michael," She looked up with a huge grin, "I'd say you just won us the jackpot."
"Fucking hell, man," Jesse sighed wearily and leaned against the wall on the opposite side, "I've been ready for this shit to be over since… well, since it started–"
"Almost, Jesse," Michael murmured, drawing more than one curious glance, "Almost–"
Before he could continue, the two soldiers chose that moment to escort an awake and aware Sonya out of the room. She was unsteady in her feet and stumbled along with the two of them as they held her between them by her arms.
She started screaming when her glassy gaze landed on Michael just as they turned into the hallway.
"You!" She snarled in Russian, struggling viciously against the hold the soldiers had on her, "How could you! I know it wasn't all a lie, Michael–"
It was the sad truth, he admitted to himself while Fiona took a stand in front of him facing Sonya like a physical barrier. It never really was all a lie when it came to deep cover missions, especially when they began nothing like a mission.
"Or maybe I was just that good." He murmured back softly in Russian as they wrangled her down the corridor.
"Michael?" Fiona turned around with a concerned frown, and he smiled back at her quietly to let her know that he was fine. He took a few seconds to soak in the feeling of being himself again, and the relief of being back with his friends, where he belonged.
He couldn't take longer than that for himself, however, since the mission was far from over.
"James is dead," he said, focusing on Pearce. "I'm sure you saw the fireworks."
"We all did."
"Well, add Simon Escher to the list of fatalities," he said, as they all froze as one around him, "I'm pretty sure he's the one who had the implant the missiles were tracking."
"Simon?!" Sam was the first to let out a disbelieving growl, "What was that psychopath doing there?"
"He's the one who shot me," Michael said, "He's also the one who killed Jason Bly."
"But how?" Pearce demanded.
"That's a great question, Pearce," Michael replied, feeling his own anger grow at the traitor they had in the midst of their own, "We need to have a long hard talk about our boss, AD Meyers."
Underground Parking Lot
Central Intelligence Agency HQ
Langley
McLean
Virginia US
A week later
Michael sat on the backseat of the brilliantly restored 1970 Ford Mustang, and admired the way the cream leather upholstery felt on his back. It was a beautiful car, he admitted to himself in the privacy of his mind, one that had put up quite the challenge for Michael to unlock without causing any unnecessary damage to the paint job or the original locking mechanism.
No matter what other shortcomings the owner of the muscle car had, he definitely knew his cars, and went to great lengths to maintain them the way they deserved.
The man of Michael's musings stepped out of the elevator in the far left corner, and the tall, dark skinned man in his early sixties continued towards his car with a leisurely gait. Despite the fact that he had been working for the man for the past few months, it was the first time Michael actually saw assistant director Reginald Meyers, the head of Clandestine services, in the flesh. Michael watched him silently, shrouded in the dark at the back of Meyers' car, mentally reviewing what he had learned over the past few days, and composing his thoughts in preparation for the fast-approaching confrontation.
Meyers opened the door to the driver's side and threw his briefcase on the passenger side before sliding in. Michael waited for a few seconds to see if the man would switch on the interior lights, or notice him sitting directly behind.
He didn't.
"Was it nice and shiny?" Michael asked without preamble just as the director finished buckling up the seat belt, causing the man to let out a high-pitched, undignified shriek. He flailed around for a good half a minute, simultaneously gasping and yelling before his mind came online to scream at him to get out.
Michael took the safety off the Sig-Sauer P226, and aimed it at the back of Meyers' head from the left, making sure he could see the threat for what it was.
"Don't," he barked, and Meyers went instantly still on his seat, "You're going to stay inside and we're going to have a chat."
At his silent nod, Michael continued with a much nicer tone, "Now, I was just asking about your new commendation. Was it nice and shiny?"
Having regained much of his composure, and therefore his furious disbelief, the first thing Meyers did was glare at him through the rear-view mirror and swear. "Jesus fucking Christ!"
"Nah, just me, Michael Westen," Michael said with a sideways grin, "You seem surprised to see me."
After Sonya's apprehension, Pearce had agreed to keep his existence under wraps for a while yet. Her after action reports had claimed that they had followed Sonya, and her alone, for the severs, insinuating that Michael hadn't survived the air strike.
Michael had wanted the director feeling confident about his own success, just so he had the chance to shred that sense of triumph himself with evidence.
"You just don't know when to fucking give up and die, do you?" Meyers spat angrily through clenched teeth. Even in the dim light that filtered through from the overhead lights outside, Michael could clearly see a vein popping on his forehead.
"Must have missed that training at the camp," he replied cheerfully, "Or maybe Card did a shit job on that particular course."
"You're a dead man walking, Westen. You just haven't realised it yet."
"Hey, now," Michael said, dropping the grin, "I'm pretty sure the contract I signed promised a clean slate and freedom, not a coffin."
"As if a contract signed by a convicted murderer has any value," Meyers scoffed, "You won't be enjoying your freedom for long, Westen."
It didn't escape Michael's notice how sure Meyers sounded, and how he didn't seem to give a damn about being overheard or getting caught. It was interesting, because it spoke to the fact of how certain he was about his own position.
"Enough about me," Michael said, waving his free hand in a dismissive gesture, "What about you? It's one long list of crimes you racked up during this mission, you know? Deaths of Jason Bly, Simon Escher, James Kendrick, Hector Suarez, Vincent Suarez and almost all their armies… that's not adding fraud to the list, if the contracts you issued weren't legit–"
Meyers broke into a cocksure grin, "I'd like to see you prove this nonsense of yours."
"Wouldn't you just?" Michael smiled, "You knew Bly was onto you. You were the one pulling Card's strings, after all, weren't you? Clever getting Simon to carry out the hits. I mean, he was a nutcase. Who'd have believed anything he said? He was just a rabid dog you let out when it suited you, wasn't he?"
"Still waiting for good parts, Westen." Meyers sneered.
"Good," Michael nodded sagely, "Patience is good for you, considering you're going to have a lot of free time rotting in a cell." Then he took the file that was on the seat next to him and threw it casually over to the front. "There. Proof."
The tense silence was occasionally broken by the sound of pages flipping while Meyers read the reports that sealed his fate. Michael recalled the expression of pure shock he had seen on Pearce's face when he had poked his head inside her office with that discovery.
"What is that?" Pearce asked him with a frown when he placed the stack of files on her desk.
"The final nail in Meyers' coffin."
That got her attention. She took the top one and started to read quickly, her eyes widening as she realised what she held in her hands. "Oh my God," she murmured, "These are Bly's investigation files. How'd you get these?"
"They were at my mom's," Michael said, "She gave me a call and I got her to send them to me. While we were all running around in Mexico, Barry rocked up at her house, carrying all these, complaining about why everyone kept sending him files that could get him killed–"
Michael held back a grin when her face twisted in confusion, "Barry as in Barry Burkowski?" She frowned, "The money launderer?"
"He prefers the term, independent financier," Michael corrected her with a slight smile, "Makes him sound more sophisticated."
"But why on earth would Bly send him these?"
"Because he knew he was being targeted," Michael shrugged, "And didn't know who he could trust."
"And he chose to trust the money launderer?" Pearce demanded, incredulously.
"Well," Michael let the grin on his face widen, enjoying the way her confusion seemed to grow at each passing second, "Considering it was Barry who sent Jason Bly down that path…"
Pearce pinned him with a narrow-eyed glare. "Michael Westen, sit your ass down, and tell me everything, from the goddamned beginning…"
That was what he had done for the next thirty minutes that day before they had started planning their next move.
"H-how–" Meyers stuttered, unable to look away from the damning evidence. It was all there; financial records, offshore accounts, communication transcripts - months of Jason Bly's hard work - everything that they needed to prosecute Reginald Meyers for the treasonous traitor he was, was all there in those files.
"You see," Michael said, his voice soft, "Bly was paranoid. He knew he was in the crosshairs of someone who had way more power. So he decided to trust someone way outside the circle–"
"Who?"
"The same guy I trusted to keep the files of Fullerton and his rot - the same thing that led to Card's untimely end," Michael replied, "And now yours."
"Tell me who it was, damn it?!" Meyers demanded.
"That's for me to know and for you to wonder about for the rest of your miserable life." Michael said evenly, and nodded at his windshield, where a team of agents could be seen stepping out of the elevator, led by Pearce herself. "Oh, look, that's your new replacement. The arrest and prosecution of a traitor's gonna look great on her file, much shinier than your commendation, at any rate."
"Westen–"
Meyers yelled, protested and pleaded, but Michael pushed the passenger seat forward and got out without waiting to hear the rest of his ramblings. Within minutes, the former director was arrested and escorted back into the building where Michael knew he would be subjected to a number of interrogations, followed by a thorough investigation. He had high hopes that the case wouldn't get closed or swept under a rug, since a death of a senior agent was involved and the panel of investigation consisted of agents from three different intelligence agencies.
"Tell me now that it's done, Westen." Leaning against the side of the Mustang next to him, Dani Pearce sighed.
Michael smiled.