Captain: Man, work is kickin my butt, haha. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have work and not be sitting on my ass doing nothing, but I am *so* not cut out for these early morning shifts. Gimme those swing shifts any day! But hey, now that stuff is opening up again, I've got vacation coming up. Yay! And a tattoo appointment that I was supposed to have in March, double yay!
Anyway, thanks for the support from old fans and new readers! Love ya guys! We're getting closer to the big reveal ;) Strap in folks, it's all a rollercoaster from here! Mwahaha. Please drop a review and let me know if I missed any mistakes. Enjoy 'Enemy of My Enemy'! 3
A memory is what is left when something happens that does not completely unhappen. ~Edward de Bono
The first thing that bleached through Darcy's clouded mind was warmth; blessed, sweet warmth. It pierced through the cold still clinging to her skin and surrounded her on all sides, enveloping her in a way that sang of sleep. She wanted nothing more than to give in to the call, to let her mind drift off again. It wouldn't be difficult; the abyss was right there, open and waiting. All she had to do was give in. She would have had sound not returned to her then.
Muffled voices were talking in low tones, too quiet to make out, but she didn't recognize them or the loud engine rumbling in the background. Her body tensed, fingers clenching. Though her hand briefly lit up with pain, she was glad to feel the gun still firmly in her grip. It didn't matter if she was out of ammo; whoever had her didn't know that and very few would be foolish enough to try calling the bluff.
Her mind demanded immediate action, but she forced herself to stay still, to keep up the sleeping facade so that the rest of her body could wake fully. A thousand needles pricked her legs, her arms stiff and heavy under an unfamiliar weight. Raising a finger, she lightly brushed the thing overtop her; it was a blanket apparently.
As her senses slowly shook the fog, she turned her focus on the conversation going to her left. She could make out the words of the two males now, but strung together as they were, they made little sense. What did signals from a barricade and blowing it up have to do with anything? Her brows pinched slightly and she kept to the guise of sleeping.
"Prowl won't be happy about this," the younger voice sighed. What kind of name was a verb? Callsign for a ringleader maybe? Which meant she wasn't picked up by friendlies, even if they wanted her alive for now. Even a disgraced detective was solid leverage in a standoff.
"He's never happy," the older, much deeper voice rumbled. There was a mechanical ring to it, like it was coming through a phone. Good, that meant there was only one she had to deal with. "She's awake."
The shock of his words briefly stalled her, but the gig was up, no use pretending any longer. Flinging the blanket to the floor, she twisted to face the driver while raising her gun in one motion, pressing the barrel to his head before he even had the chance to look in her direction.
"Stop the car," she demanded, nudging the gun against his temple to emphasize its presence.
"Okay, just take it easy." His tone was low and soft as he raised one hand off the steering wheel in surrender. Darcy braced herself for him to slam on the brakes, but it never came. Instead he eased the vehicle to a stop, taking no advantage of the rather obvious opportunity to throw her off balance.
"Alright," he started once he'd thrown the truck in park, "you can put the gun down; we're not going to hurt you."
He had a handsome face, Darcy noted, all tan and smooth skin that fit seamlessly with the army fatigues. Too bad for him his words weren't not so well put together.
She stared at him, watching his micro expressions as she kept the gun firmly in place. "We?"
The expression flashed over his face for barely half a second. Had Darcy not seen it so many times before, she might have missed it. It was the brief grimace of one realizing too late a slip up.
"Myself and the people I work for," he recovered. "We want to help you."
He looked her straight in the eye, never once breaking the contact to look at the 9mm still leveled at his face.
"Help how?" she asked warily. It was just a little too convenient, her car being rendered useless just in time for this guy she'd never seen before to come swooping in for the rescue. After all, no one but Cade had known she was up there. She frowned at the thought, steadying her arm; perhaps this was Cade.
"I have access to more resources than you do. I want to help you stop the psychopaths that are murdering people up here," the man responded.
No, his voice was nothing like Cade's had been. Sure he could have used a voice modifying over the phone, but the tone was too different to be the same person. Still, how did he know about the case? The chief had done a remarkable job of keeping even the rumor of a mass murder discovery quiet from the public and media. The victims' families knew the gist, but not the extent, not the location of the dumping grounds.
"Who are you?' she demanded, casting a quick glance out the windshield. They were in some kind of large truck and almost to the base of the mountain. She'd been out for a decent amount of time, but thankfully not too long.
The beast of a truck's engine hitched, sputtering out a growl that was eerily similar to the Mustang's. The army man set his hand on the steering wheel but made no further move to put it back into gear. If anything, the gesture looked almost like a reassuring pat more than a random movement.
"Major William Lennox. I've worked with Agent Row for the last few years, he's the one who called me in."
Darcy stared hard at him, looking for any sign that he was lying. Row hadn't known where she was going, after all, but the only one who knew Row's name was the chief and he sure as hell wasn't calling in extra reinforcements. Maybe he really was military, maybe he wasn't, but she could find no tells of a lie.
Slowly, she lowered her gun. Either he was telling the truth or her enemies had really been doing their homework. Her arm had been about to start shaking from the effort of keeping the gun up though, her exhausted body betraying her, and she wasn't going to take the chance of showing that current weakness to this stranger. So she returned the gun to her lap before the tremors were noticeable.
"So what branch you in? And don't tell me Army, the FBI wouldn't be involved with them and Row doesn't exactly have the….demeanor for working with grunts." She honestly fought to keep her soured opinion of the agent out of the voice. It wouldn't help her chances if this was a potential ally to insult one of his friends and if it wasn't, well then it could be a test of how well the Major knew him.
He snorted, putting the truck back into gear and starting back down the road when she gave no protest. Tapping an unfamiliar patch on his shoulder, he told her, "NEST, we're a global military alliance focused on tracking and preventing terrorist attacks."
That name was familiar, why was it familiar? It tugged at her memory, just out of reach. Had she heard it somewhere, or read it? The failed recall was definitely going to nag at her.
Mentally shaking herself, she decided it wasn't critically important to figure that out right this second. Wherever she had heard or seen it before, the black patch was foreign. But the little red insignia below the NEST patch was something she had seen before. Even if the meaning behind it had eluded her, the tribal design was a logo she had memorized since the moment she first laid eyes on it. It was the department symbol Row had on his Charger.
"And this is for?" She gestured towards the robotic sigil. Admittedly, she'd never asked the agent, but he hadn't been too keen on answering any sort of question that didn't relate directly to the case. The soldier was already sharing, might as well push for all the answers she could get.
The beast of a truck rumbled as it lurched onto the paved roads and Lennox took the moment to delay answering.
Finally he either decided to tell her or had worked out how he wanted to answer without really answering. "It's for a side division of NEST, the big guns if you will."
Right, so talk for 'this is all super classified and this is the approved public comments I'm allowed to make'. It wasn't a victory of gleaning information, she was hearing exactly what he had probably practiced a thousand times. He wouldn't have made Major otherwise. That little sigil most likely actually stood for 'special clearance to know all the good stuff' and was used to know what could be said in front of who even on their own base.
Damn, that sounded ridiculous even in her own head. Yet she couldn't quite shake it as being too crazy to not be plausible. Supposedly this was a global military alliance.
"Row isn't FBI." It was not a question, not when his car clearing sported the insignia for the division of 'big guns'. Definitely explained that superiority complex and the high tech car, but that did beg a rather large question. Why in the heck had a global anti-terrorist military faction been interested in her case so much to send in said 'big gun' before the bodies had even been found?
She watched Lennox's expression as he stared out at the road ahead, lips pursed as he most likely tried to sort through his scripted responses. His pause was answer enough, but he did gain a few points for giving what actually rang as a half-truth. "No, he's not. We use the FBI as a cover when we need to get in somewhere quietly. Row has been after a...dirty cop who we know is part of a large terrorist cell located in the US. His leads led him here."
Well that was why her call to the bureau had been responded to so quickly, he'd needed a way in and she'd opened the door. The reasoning was sound and despite understanding the why, she still didn't like being lied to; nor was she about to forgive him for attempting to boot her off her own case with the excuse of her being 'emotionally compromised'.
"Would that corrupt cop happen to drive a Mustang and call himself Cade?"
The result was immediate even if fleeting as Lennox quickly schooled his face. He glanced at her for a moment that was borderline too long for someone who was driving, resignation finally settling in. Darcy figured she was already involved now, might as well jump in as far as she could now.
Lennox sighed, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. "Yeah that's him and he is extremely dangerous. You shouldn't face him on your own."
His voice was chiding but there was an underlying note to it that said Darcy should count herself extremely lucky to be alive. She shrugged, not allowing her mind to wander down that particular bunny trail for now. "I never saw him, just his car."
"He uses it as his weapon. He hit you with a minor EMP, which is why none of your electronics or car worked."
"What do they want, anyway?" And who even used an EMP as a first response weapon? Then again, this guy was either a corrupt cop or posing as a cop with a bulletproof car, who just so happened to be being hunted by a military group kept fairly hush-hush. At this point, she should just start expecting the unexpected.
Lennox shrugged, as if the plans of the terrorists weren't that special. "World domination mostly."
Okay, she wasn't expecting that unexpected. Darcy stared at him in disbelief. Sure a lot of groups had wacky plans, even tried to take over a country or two, maybe a continent throughout history, but the world? "Isn't that just some Hollywood cliche? Who honestly believes that would even be possible?"
People tended to not like foreign invaders overthrowing their governments and the world was a very big place. But the soldier did not laugh, did not change his expression except for the slight grimace that wordlessly stated that the possibility wasn't as far fetched as she might want to believe. Despite the constant temperature of the truck's cab, Darcy found herself fighting off a sharp chill.
"They have the numbers and the weapons. It's why NEST was started, to defend the planet against them."
It was almost too much like a corny alien movie to be true, all they were missing was the sexy damsel to worry for the main badass. She was so not filling that role.
Lennox was showing no tells of a lie though. Either he was killer at poker or it was the god's-honest truth. The Mustang had had more than just a few expensive upgrades and so did Row's Charger though, which lent credence to the latter.
Damn.
"So that's why Row's car is so high tech then, with the scanners and such." She was genuinely curious as much as she was digging using the good 'ole curious damsel routine. Hey, just because she refused to play the whole role didn't mean she was above taking inspiration from the part.
He looked startled for a flash, quickly followed with a bite of annoyance. "Uh, yeah. High tech to battle high tech; though those special features aren't supposed to be used in front of civilians."
For some reason he stared down at the steering wheel, as if he could somehow communicate with someone through it. Or to the truck itself. Honestly, at this point anything this NEST group did or had probably made little sense in the outside world. Her eyes flint quickly around the truck within her line of sight; perhaps this was one of those high tech cars too. Everything looked like a normal, new, diesel truck. Aside, she noted, from the tribal face impressed into the steering wheel. She mulled the possibilities over as silence stretched across the cab. Was the tech voice activated? No, Row hadn't been there when his car scanned her and John's Crown Vic. Remote then? That couldn't be it, Row hadn't even taken the keys out of the ignition, let alone had any device in his hands to control the car. He could have prevented her from taking it to begin with if he'd had a remote in his pocket. Was...was the car self-thinking? Robotics was getting closer to true artificial intelligence and Lennox had all but told her their technology was advanced beyond what the public knew was possible. She shifted uncomfortably. A self thinking car was...a disturbing notion. Sure there were cars that parked and unparked themselves, but to know when and what to scan or to eject an EMP burst? Unbidden, the film Christine started replaying in her mind.
No matter how much she wanted to know-or didn't, she hadn't quite decided yet-Darcy kept her theories and further questions to herself. Not that she thought she could actually get anything more if she wanted to, Lennox had clammed up after the stare down with the truck. She wasn't going to be able to get a thing more out of him, at least not now.
So she turned to stare out the windshield, surprised to see the turn for the precinct so soon. It hadn't felt like they were driving that fast and the snow at this lower elevation should have called for at least a little wariness. The one plow the town had certainly hadn't come through yet. Then again, that Mustang hadn't had a problem even when her SUV had been unable to move. High tech also meant super-traction evidently.
She blinked as they passed the precinct without slowing. "Where are we going?"
"Row is going to meet us somewhere a bit more private. Classified information and all." He flashed her what was probably supposed to be a comforting smile, his eyes flashing down to her lap.
"Uh huh…" Darcy sighed, flexing her stiff fingers. The rollercoaster had already started, there was no jumping ship now.
"You can holster your gun now. Unless you plan on pistol-whipping me at some point." The humorous note to his tone and the smirk pulling at his lip had her internally cursing. No wonder he'd barely reacted when she'd shoved it in his face; he knew the gun was empty.
"Would if I could," she replied with a half shrug, holding up the bloody hand that was all but glued to the grip. The miniscule shifting of her palm was enough to tear the weak clot, sending blood to dribble down her wrist.
"How did that happen?" he frowned.
"Apparently advanced cars have knives hiding in the hood." She hissed as the fresh air reached the wound and stung sharply. Some hot water would be welcomed right about now, even if just for the sake of getting the gun out of her hand.
Looking down at her lap forced her to finally take attention to the state of her clothes. Blood coated her sleeves and pants, her own mixed with that of Davis in a stained mass of red. All in all, she looked a mess and more than felt like one too.
The silence was semi-awkward and that bothered the detective more than the fact Lennox appeared to be driving straight for her house without any directions. If she couldn't get more information on her enemies, then maybe she could weasel something out about the man who had barged rather unceremoniously into her life just a few days ago. Damn, had it only been a few days? It felt like a lifetime.
"So what's Row's job in NEST? Other than pretending to be a federal agent." And being a pretentious bastard.
Lennox shifted, shooting her a look without turning his head away from the road. "We all have multiple duties, but he's pretty much our tactician and enforcer."
"Enforcer?" she echoed. A tactician made sense, it fit him and his stoic character. But an enforcer? Wasn't that more of a mafia position? Just what did he enforce?
"He's our one-man MP. When someone breaks the rules in our group, he's the judge and jury." Now that Darcy had no difficulty believing. That kind of power would agree with the man. Lennox gave a sympathetic wince as they pulled onto a familiar residential street. Unfortunately, you're about to get a firsthand experience of that side. He doesn't like when his orders are disobeyed."
Darcy rolled her eyes and slumped in the seat as the truck turned into her driveway. She didn't bother with wondering how he knew where she lived. There was a much more pressing matter in the form of the pacing man in front of the Charger parked neatly in her SUV's spot.
Row's face was twisted into the infamous Karl Urban scowl as he moved back and forth; looking up in her direction only after the truck had parked and shut off. The look made her want to sink back into the seat further, but damn it all, she didn't do anything wrong! If he hadn't tried to take her case from her then she wouldn't have had to go up alone. Besides, it's not like it was her fault there was a homicidal terrorist on the mountain. Nope, Row had no right to be pissed with her and she wanted to hear nothing from him unless he had good news on John.
"It's better to just get it over with as soon as possible. Trust me, he gets worse if you put it off," Lennox advised. The sympathy on his face told her he'd probably faced Row's anger himself at one point or two.
Darcy was still disinclined to believe him. Besides, he'd had to wait until she'd come off the mountain, what was one more minute? She turned to the soldier at the thought, "How did you know where I was?"
Lennox didn't look at her, watching Row with a slightly nervous shift. "That question would be better suited for Row, he's the one who told us where you were."
The detective turned to look at said man and winced. Row had stopped his pacing and stood in front of the truck's hood, blue-eyed glare locked right on her.
"Out of the frying pan…." she muttered as she forced her free hand to the door handle. The door swung open with almost suspicious ease. Advanced tech, she reminded herself. Actually climbing out of the truck proved infinitely more difficult. Though warmed by the heat of the cab, her body was stiff and heavy. Every movement was exhausting and slow and the freezing bite of the outside air did not help the lead in her bones or her mood.
Using the open door as a crutch, she managed to slide herself out and to the ground. The ground that turned out to be much further than she had originally estimated. If not for her somewhat steady hold on the door, she would have ended up on her face for sure. Her legs shook with the effort, the cold seeping alarmingly back into her skin. New plan then: boiling hot shower, then sleep, maybe deal with Row in the morning.
Shutting the truck's door, she inwardly cursed at finding the tactician most inconveniently between her and the front door. Bastard definitely did that on purpose.
Using the truck for support, she slowly made her way towards the man. Maybe, just maybe, he would take in her condition and leave the lecture for tomorrow.
No such luck.
Figures.
Scowl in place, arms crossed, back ramrod straight and stiff, he cut an imposing and intimidating figure. If her brain was not so frazzled, it might have actually worked.
"What were you doing up there after I made clear you were relieved of duty from the case?" his tone was clipped and sharp, definitely pissed. Darcy was half-tempted to tell him where to shove it as all of the roiling emotions of the last few days began to boil together and build into frustration and anger.
What the hell, he was an ass and she'd already started digging her own hole. "Sight-seeing."
Row was not amused, but she was fairly sure Lennox did not actually cough like that.
"What do you think? I was following a lead," she snapped when the faux-agent only continued to stare at her.
"And just what kind of lead would you have been able to find? That son of a…."Furthermore, going up there alone was ignorantly moronic. Any sort of lead you found should have been brought directly to me, especially given your status with the case."
Darcy matched his scowl. If her limbs had had the strength and the soldier had not been there, she might have hit him. Preferably hard enough to break his too-perfect nose. Fate, it seemed, had been against her from day one. Her body ached and protested every move while Lennox had only moved closer.
She settled for growling at him, "And I told you that you couldn't take me off. I invited you into this. So I still hold the authority over it, secret military organization or not. You have no power over me. Besides, I've met the corrupt cop, curtain's been lifted, cat's out of the bag."
Row narrowed his eyes at that, shooting a dark look to the truck and Lennox.
"You never did say how both of you ended up there at the same time," the Major stated as he stepped up next to Row.
Darcy bristled at the tag-team. She was cold and tired and sick of finding bodies.
"He dumped more bodies and killed Davis to do it. I made it up before he had time to leave." Davis! She mentally cursed. She'd forgotten to call the precinct to alert them to what she'd found after getting back into cell range. They wouldn't be able to get up there right now, but the department and his family deserved to know. Fumbling with her phone and otherwise ignoring whatever Row was starting to say, she swore again when still it refused to turn on. Her personal cell revealed itself to be in the same predicament.
"The EMP probably destroyed your phones," Lennox supplied as if it was a fairly common occurrence. Given what he did and who he was fighting, it just might be.
"The department needs to know about Davis and the other bodies."
"No need," Row cut in, "our own team will deal with it. Your CSI's would not be able to find anything useful. Now why did you go in the first place?"
There was no condescending or demeaning inflection to his voice, just calm and factual; which made it all the more insulting. Darcy would never later admit it, but she lost her grip on her spiking anger and growled at him.
"Listen Bucko," she leaned forward and jabbed him in the chest with her empty hand, "we may not have all the fancy tech you do, but we work with what we got and we do our job even when arrogant pricks try to screw us over."
Lennox quite suddenly was having trouble breathing properly while Row's scowl somehow managed to deepen even further. He opened his mouth but Darcy was done listening. She was cold, in pain, and her sanity had just reached its limits.
"If you want your own teams to handle the scene, fine, but you aren't getting rid of me until I know my people are safe." With that she pushed past him, or attempted to anyway. He was a solid wall and she stumbled into him more than anything. Refusing to let it affect her, she continued on to the door, shoving it open and throwing over her shoulder as she stepped inside, "Now bugger off until morning."
Captain: Yeah so, Lennox has made his grand entrance and Darcy has reached her 'not takin your shit anymore' limit. Oh honey, if only you knew what you were really dealing with, you'd be running for the hills! Alas she does not know...not yet. Next chapter 'Is My Friend' is completely from Prowl's POV, so I have a feeling ya'll will enjoy it, particularly the surprise ;)