Act And Run
3 a.m. Time to go. Seven minutes and counting.
McCall nodded to Irish, Team two commander and Nightshift's doctor, called in from his honeymoon -- but his wife Songbird, not only understood, she was right beside him this moment. Heidi lay on the floor outside Jake's door in a flat sprawl, a broken blood capsule beneath her back, staining her clothes and skin and the carpet. She lifted an arm; Irish injected her with the serum. Her eyes closed in seconds. Her delicate frame stopped the rhythmic life and fall of breath, and he skin took on a sick pallor as her body, responding to the chemicals injected into her, cooled faster than a normal death.
"Go." Irish whispered, and disappeared into the shadows of an open door. "I'll be here for her."
McCall opened Jake's door, stepped in silence over Heidi's body and closed the door. He'd need a moment of privacy with Jake before he sent him into either operative mode or total shock.
The sight in front of his eyes almost made him hesitate. Two single beds, one with a sweet faced child cuddling the puppy against his face and a teddy bear clutched in his other hand, the other bed held the man of his dreams -- a decade's worth of dreams. In the soft, unfocused light of the half moon outside, Jake's sleeping face was perfection of face and form in shadow and marble, living and warm, cool and remote...
Six minutes, forty seconds.
He crossed to the bed and touched Jake's shoulder. "Jake."
It wasn't hard to inject the name with urgency -- Heidi's life depended on exact execution of this op. "Jake, wake up." Jake flipped his body toward him as by instinct, because it was obvious he still walked in the land between sleep and waking. "Hmmm... Brendan... my Brendan..."
McCall almost reeled at the tone, saturated with sensuality and something deeper and sweeter -- wild and wanton and longing, as if his eyes, his name was beautiful. If Jake had spoken his name like that two days ago... hell, if Jake had said his name at all...
Six minutes twenty seconds.
He tried to shake Jake, but his rebel hand drank in the sweet warmth of Jake's half-bar shoulder, and he caressed him instead. He swallowed a groan as the heated silk of Jake's skin shivered right into his needing body. "Yes. It's me." The dark huskiness of his voice, hot and urgent with sexuality, disgusted him. Be an operative. "Wake up, Jake." He growled.
"Mmmm." An arm hooked around his neck. "I was dreaming of you." Jake whispered in half-dreaming voice. "I dreamed of you touching me. You are always with me when I'm alone and afraid. You haunt me even when you're not there... you stalk my soul, you live and breathe inside me, and I can't forget you, can't leave you behind... never... You're with me... Touch me..."
The man heard the words, the operative understood what they meant for the mission -- but their power and beauty speared the heart of the child with too many unhealed wounds, lost and alone and needing. The dark hearted little boy who'd lost his mommy looked out that stark, lonely window into empty night, and saw him once more -- not his mom, but the face that haunted him, the hand that could dry ancient tears, his fears for him, walk through life holding him. "Jake..." His voice cracked.
Five minutes fifty seconds.
Just one kiss.
Just once. I'd batter my soul for this.
His mouth moved over Jake's with all the joy of a captive finding from dark chains. Jake's arms held him with such sweet ferocity... he responded to his kiss with sweet abandon, his mouth drinking him in, Jake's hands twining in his hair. Jake's lovely body, his nakedness sheathed only in a swathe of satin, lifting to touch his; his hands pulling him down, down until he fell to the bed, drowning in his moment. If he paid with a century of torture, it was worth the pain, having sweet, lovely Jake in his arms, being in his arms where he belonged.
Four minutes thirty-five seconds.
If Heidi stopped breathing for longer than seven minutes, brain damage can set in. Heidi's life is in your hands!
The jolt brought the operative back to the fore, even as he touched Jake, caressed him, kissed him, and his body moved with him in a rhythm that told him he could be inside Jake right this moment, finding release and long-overdue peace in Jake's welcoming body. And the torture kicked up a notch. It was physical agony, but he tore his mouth from Jake's. "Jake..."
"No." Jake pulled at him to bring him back to him. "Tomorrow will be the same as today -- it has to be, or you'll die. But they can't see me tonight and I can have what... I can have you..."
He kissed a searing path from the base of Jake's throat, and he groaned in intense satisfaction when he gasped and writhed beneath him. Jake's words mad e no sense but he didn't care right now. "Baby, you can have me whenever you want. That's a promise. But now..."
"Yes, now." He whispered into his mouth. "Now... always. I'll always want you."
Four minutes, ten seconds.
As the man drowned, the operative kept count -- and delivered the RKO to his needs. "Tonight, baby. I promise." He muttered, hoping to God it would come true. Battering his soul on that hope. "But now, we have to go. You and Danny are in danger."
The one word guaranteed to bring the father forth from the sensual siren beneath him. Jake's eyes snapped open. "What?"
He spoke rapidly, submerging his aching desire beneath cold hard lies. "The safety of this place has been compromised. One of the Nighthawks has compromised the operation. Someone's here and they are after you and Danny."
"How do you know?" Jake's voice was low, half-terrified as he jerked up in the bed, half lifting McCall off him with the force of his movement. He was with him already, but needed proof.
Three minutes forty-five seconds.
He vaulted over the bed and opened the door to reveal Heidi's sprawling body, the expert fake blood seeping from beneath her.
"Oh, dear God... no, not again. Not again..."
At the first sound of the cracked teary voice, McCall glanced at Jake and felt sucker-punched. Jake was a stark white as Heidi's chemically induced comatose body. Jake swayed as he sat, his face taking on a greenish hue. He clapped a hand over his mouth and ran the other through his hair.
So He had been right about Jake. No pro in the game could be so shocked at death or act this well, but justification had never come at so high a price. He couldn't even take the time to comfort Jake.
Three minutes ten seconds.
"Get your things, Jake. We have about ten minutes before they sweep the hall again. We have to be long gone by then. Two minutes to pack and run, Jake."
Did he sound urgent enough? For Heidi's sake... "Follow me out of here." He added in the imperative, authoritative tone that made people in war zones follow him in SAR ops. "I know the lay-out of the place. I helped plan the traps."
Jake nodded. "I'm sorry." He muttered his voice scratchy and aching. "I've made a mess..."
"Just get up, honey," he said quietly, aching to comfort Jake. "I'll get Danny and the puppy; you get a few things together. Go light. We have about ninety seconds to get out."
"But the poor woman... she must have been hurt trying to... to helps us..." Without waning Jake flew off the bed to Heidi, and felt frantically for a pulse. "We have to help her! We can't just leave her like this!"
Confirmed: Jake was no spy. Even Lucy Liu couldn't act like this -- and she wouldn't have cared enough about Heidi to start an imperfect round of CPR on her, as Jake was now. "She's gone, Jake. He has lost too much blood. We have to go -- now."
Two minutes fifty seconds.
He could almost feel Nightshift's fury, and Irish and Songbird's frantic need to take the six steps to Heidi and inject her with the adrenaline-based antidote. Damage can set in as quickly as seven minutes after the injection if the subject isn't fit, or has heart or lungs problems.
Heidi was a mountaineer and champion gymnast. She was also a former agent of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, ASIO. Surely, she could handle a few more minutes.
"We can't leave her!" it was as if Jake sensed his urgency for Heidi and relayed it back to him in a pulsing beat of guilt.
Two minutes forty seconds.
If he didn't get Jake out of here, Heidi wouldn't die -- Anson would see to that -- but they'd have to reveal the ruse to Jake's eyes, and then they'd never get the tapes or his trust. He had to go through with the whole charade, or lose everything.
Do something! He felt every operative in the hallway screaming silently for him to act.
"It's her or Danny." He uttered brutally. "A woman you barely know or your son. Sixty seconds. Take your pick."
Jake gasped and vaulted to his feet as he had done a minute ago, and ran to the backpack, leaving the suitcase behind. "This has all we need. Let's go."
With lethal efficiency, McCall bound electrical tape around the muzzle of Danny's pup. "We can't let him bark... and we can't let Danny cry out either." He put a gentle hand across Danny's mouth before he lifted the child, startled out of sleep. "It's Brendan, pal." He whispered in the boy's ear. "We are going on an adventure, me, you, your dad and Bark... but you have to be real quiet. Okay?"
Danny's eyes swiveled to Jake's and though he looked startled and still somewhat, Jake managed a smile and nod for his son. "You missed out on your fu with Ethan, so we're making it up to you."
One minute thirty seconds.
Danny struggled against McCall's hand until he was free; then he smiled up at McCall with the instant unquestioning love only a secure child can give. "Can we go camping? Can I see a kangaroo and a koala?"
"Sure pal, as soon as we can manage it." He made himself smile at the boy. "We're going to my place first -- but that's the countryside, so there are wild kangaroos and sometimes koalas. We'll have to go hunting at night for a koala, okay?"
Jake's face was rosy with the flush of sweet shyness. Yeah Jake was thinking about it, about being alone in McCall's place and his words a few minutes before -- and McCall's.
Tonight, I promise.
Long nights alone in his house, loving Jake's body, Jake loving his...
Fifty-five seconds.
He cocked his head. "Close your eyes pal." He whispered to Danny, and the ecstatic kid didn't even question the command. He stepped over Heidi's sprawled body. "Don't look, Jake. This way."
But he saw that Jake did look down at Heidi again, a quick helpless glance, longing to help. Jake shuddered as he stepped over the body. Guilt speared through McCall as he led the way through the labyrinth of security measures. No matter how he justified it, some things couldn't be justified. He was terrorizing an innocent man to prove his innocence when he had already been through the mill more than once and ranked right up there.
His life thus far may not have led to his being able to trust many people -- not even the woman who had just given him a precious piece of trust -- but the word lowlife resonated in his mind. A tired reproach for the man of phantoms lies and shadows... but tonight, it seemed to take on a whole new meaning.
"Hurry." He whispered, continually looking left and right to keep up the pretense of urgency. "I'm on official watch tonight but my relief will come any minute." They reached the side door that led to the hangar. "I've disabled the security system, but it has automatic reversion within ten minutes. We have to be on the plane within two minutes, Jake."
Jake nodded and increased his pace.
They made it halfway down the path to the hangar before Panther led the "attack" on them, swift and stealthy, a sneak attack worthy of his code name. With military precision, Panther hit the puppy with a...
Danny cried out "Bark!"
McCall dropped to the ground, put Danny and the unconscious pup down and got out his tranquilizer gun, checking that Jake too had dropped out of range. "Shh, pal. It's okay... it's just a sleeping shot. Bark will wake up in a few hours, good as new. These aren't bad guys... they don't want us to go is all. They'll try to put us to sleep and take us back to bed."
"How do you know what they are?" Jake whispered. Fiercely.
"These are specialist darts, used when our search teams need to immobilize witness without killing them." He gave Jake a savage grin. "I worked with put team doctor to create them. I was his star guinea pig."
Jake gasped, his lovely eyes running over him as if to check for damage. A warm shiver ran through him at the intimate look. Had anyone looked at him like that, with such caring?
Another shot came whizzing through the darkness. The operative responded by diving out of range, taking Jake down with him. "We have the advantage -- they don't want to hurt us." He whispered in Jake's ear. "Use your backpack as cover and run like hell, keeping low and your arms swinging. It's harder to hit a moving target and chances are they will hit the backpack. I'll keep Danny covered." When Jake nodded tensely he whispered. "Run."
The terrifying whiz of darts flying past chased them all the way into the hangar. McCall felt savage gratitude when some darts hit the backpacks. Jake was too smart -- and given their track record and Jake's obsessive self-reliance, Jake had been looking for holes in the plan before long. Any reason to run...
He swore with a viciousness that wasn't feigned when the hangar door was locked. "I opened this!" With another curse, he muttered. "Quick, Jake get my gun from my coat and shoot out the lock. Can you do that?" he dodged another dart that flew past his ear as he spoke. Oh yeah, he'd have words with Panther when they meet again. His sense of perfectionism had gone too far this time.
Jake didn't hesitate. Even dancing with the need to evade the darts, he grabbed the Glock, fixed the silencer and took out the lock with one clean shot. Do you want the big doors done while you put Danny in, do I cover you?"
"Cover, then shoot the doors and throw them out fast." He replied, treating Jake as an operative without even thinking about it. "Can you jump up into the plane while it's moving?"
"I can try. Go!" Jake cried turning to where Panther and two other operatives were still firing darts. They hit the door and wall beside Jake's crouched form with tiny, sickening thuds. McCall had to physically squelch the fierce desire to cover Jake with his body. Trusting Panther to follow procedure as he had always done, McCall tucked Danny into the back passenger seat of the Partenavia P68 Turbo, which could reach speeds of 322 kilometers an hour. Nothing else in this hangar would catch up fast. He threw himself into the cockpit.
"Jake!" he yelled. Jake heard the plane fire up, grabbed a massive toolbox and pushed it against the door. Jake then ran to the massive double doors and within seconds, shot the locks one after the other. Blast, blast, blast. No hesitation, no fear -- not one miss.
Pilot, speedboat racer, a shot to qualify for the Olympics, and even burdened with a small child, Jake had eluded capture from both the bad guys and the best of the best for years.
Even now, Jake threw the doors open, shooting with steady hand as he did so, not thrown back by the force of the shots, not fazed by the darts still coming at him thick and fast. Jake dodged them with the smoothness of a pro, sprinting for the plane like Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels. Using the handle of the open passenger door as ballast, Jake swung up and into the cockpit beside him with barely a hitch in his breathing.
Well damn, if he isn't someone's operative now, Anson will do his best to recruit him as soon as Jake's free.
Just as he would have done, if it were anyone nut the man he'd step in front of a bullet for. And every protective urge screamed at him to stop that happening.
Every selfish urge.
"Brendan!"
McCall looked at the closing doors and swore. Stupid jerk! Panther was losing it. Perfection in execution had limits and attacking them when they needed to get out fast was bordering on insane! With a muttered curse, McCall snapped. "Can you fly this?"
Jake ran his gaze over the console. "Doesn't look hard."
"Then get this out of the hangar and onto the runway any way you can. Don't run anyone down or shoot unless you have to."
He dived out of the cockpit and landed on Panther, more than ready to make this real.
The man in the ski mask and dark clothes wasn't Panther.
He'd sparred with panther enough in training sessions to know. The taut, lean fury that was Panther wasn't fighting him now -- this guy was a wall of muscle and he wasn't mock-fighting, he was trying to bloody kill him. Whoever he was, he was a street-fighting expert. Each punch and kick changed direction into a different method, from karate to kick boxing to drunken boxing and staring over -- all planned to get him off balance.
Too damn bad for him that he faced a former SEAL and street fighter. The rhythm was too familiar and McCall blocked each blow and kick with the ease of coming home.
The moving plane created a deeper shadow over their wrestling bodies as Ski Mask pinned him down.
Counting -- one, two, three... McCall used both feet to launch up, sending Ski Mask flying behind. The man grunted, collapsed for all of two seconds, and then came back for more.
Rough as diamond, smooth as silk. This guy was in the game, not just some hired mercenary. Not Falcone's man, then.
The Nighthawk rogue.
No one else could get through the military precision of the security arrangements...
Except that I turned them off.
Ten minutes. That was all. No way was it enough time to let an outsider in here, with fifty-acre shield all around. The satellite was still in full force, tracking every movement -- Wildman's team needed it to follow them. If this guy had come in from outside, he'd have been seen. Unless he'd been -- no, how could he have been here the whole time?
Either this man was one of the team, or he was someone he trained in breaking through a security system this complete. Someone who knew the way his mind worked, and waited for his chance. Sliding into McCall's plans, smooth as silk, to frustrate them.
Even as his mind worked through the possibilities, he kept fighting. It was second nature to him, the fight mode. He had been in his first fist fight at five with his goody goody cousin Stephen, who had started the thing, yet he, had not only been blamed but forced to apologise by his mother. She had stood grimly over him as he'd stuttered out the words to his smirking cousin, and his shocked, self-righteous aunt, who had sworn, "My Stephen would never stoop to fighting."
He had done it -- groveled for Mom's sake -- but Stephen hadn't smirked later. It took him three years, but he had made Stephen swallow that damn smirk -- and that time, he didn't back down.
That had been the final straw as far as Mom was concerned. Tired of a husband who did little but drink and fight, she had wanted better for herself... and her daughter. She had wanted no traces of Jack McCall in her life -- and that included his son.
A bitter life lesson he had never forgotten. He had never apologized since for self-defense, or even for attack. Never. The only apology he had ever made since he was five had gotten him nowhere.
I'm sorry I'm such a bad boy, Mommy. I'll be better. I won't fight again, I promise -- not with Stephen or anyone. Please take me with you! Don't leave me with Dad...
Even as he relived the humiliation, he fought his adversary with ruthless efficiency and no emotion. Slam. Cut. Block. Kick. Fall. Roll. Launch onto feet firmly planted to the ground.
And finally, the opening -- and an open-palmed hand pushed upward, under Ski Mask's chin. And since they needed this guy alive to trace him backward to his source, or identify him, and eliminate him from Nighthawk team, it was a hit with surgical precision aimed to disable not kill.
McCall heard Ski Mask's teeth crash together, saw his jaw displace -- yeah, he wouldn't be talking to his boss for a while -- then his eyes rolled back in his head and crumpled.
Using Nighthawks standard issue plastic cuffs, he put the guy's feet together -- panther could finish this job. He could take the mask off, identify this creep, and even take the kudos, for all he cared. Into the two-way he snapped.
"Panther, team attack, collect hostile witness inside hangar, stat!" And then he bolted from the hangar to catch up the plane, heading steadily toward the runway to catch the ugly melody of missed shots.
He had more important things on his mind right now than identifying this jerk. He had a groom to marry, a sweet and timid six year old son to reassure. Because if he could make Jake agree to his idea, that's what they would be from this day forward: his husband and his son. For the first time in his life, he could become part of a real family and it made his heart pound and sweat break from his body, far worse than any danger he had ever faced. What if he blew it? What did he know about making others happy? What if he went on a mission and didn't come back? Would he leave them to grieve or worse, would they feel relieved that someone like him wasn't in their lives anymore?
And then, what if he asked Jake and he laughed at his presumption? In his world of constant impossible situations, this was the biggest risk he had ever taken, because it had the potential to the biggest no-win of them all.