This story is based on two gay men. You must be above the legal age of 18 (or as stipulated by your country/state) to read this story. If this story is illegal in your area, PLEASE DO NOT READ IT. This story is a work of ficition. Any similarity of the characters to any person is clearly a coincidence. All other usual disclaimers apply.
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The Game
Chapter 7 - Escaping the Ravine
It was done; finally, after years of doing the silent drill, he was ready to dissappear again. With one phone call and one security code, all that Dan had set up for him years ago, that Harry had added to and refined, had swung into action.
The gear would be waiting for him at the prearranged places. The taped conversation proving Falcone's involvment in ordering the murder of U.S. Senator Bernard Colsten, an avid campainger for worldwide system allowing the tracing of arms asles, was where Falcone would never get it. Even if he died, copies of the tapes would go to the directors of the CIA and FBI, with the original landing straight on the presdient's office by way of MI5.
Everything was done except packing the few things he's need. 'And outrunning McCall', his rebellious mind whispered.
"Daddy! Come and see me!"
The one plea he could never resist. He moved to the door, looking out to where Danny held the football in both hands like a trophy, his dark intense little face alight with joy. "I catched it, Daddy! Brendan showed me how to catch it!"
McCall stood beside Danny, arms folded, those steaming hot eyes on his as always. He dragged in a breath and walked out to where Danny and McCall waited for him.
"Watch me, Daddy! Watch me!"
He felt the loving smile melting the habitual reserve on his face. His handsome, precious boy. "I'm watching, Danny Boy."
McCall turned his gaze on his for a long, nerve-racking moment; then he moved back with an easy grin for shy, insecure, easily terriozed Danny. "Here, pal!"
Danny tossed the ball to him, and he tossed it back overarm, gridiron stlye. Danny and Ethan both jumped high to catch it. Danny managed to grab the ball, than it slipped from his fingers as he toppled back to the lush, verdant grass, soft and spongy with the constant rain. Ethan ran after the ball and grabbed it.
Jake clapped and whistled, knowing the intense pride was glowing on his face. He knew it was foolish, exposing himself like Achilles' heel, to give so much away; but his love for Danny was as overwhelming as it was unconditional, and he couldn't hide it. "Go, Danny! That's wonderful, boy!"
An extremely wet, muddy Danny rolled over the grass, laughing. "I'm not s'posed to fall, Daddy. I did it wrong. And Ethan got the ball."
"Danny, old pal, what did I tell you? It's the catch that's vital here - that's what you need to learn. Falling is okay. You've got possesion for your team, even if you're tackled, and someone could score the touchdown. That's what counts. Yeah, running with the ball is best, but you'll get that later.
"Don't the other people take the ball off you?" Danny got to his feet, his dark eyes round and awed.
' His father's eyes.'
McCall laughed down at Danny. "Nah, pal - that's an Australian Rules football or Rugby Union. I know your country's world champions at Union when the Aussies aren't, but I've only ever watched that on TV, so gridiron - American football - is what you're getting. And it's learning to catch that you need, right? That's same in any code of football except soccer."
Danny bit his lip and frowned. "But none of the kids at school know how to play 'merican football, just our football."
McCall ruffled the boy's hair. "Then you and Ethan have something special to teach all the kids at school, haven't you? You've got talent they don't have."
Danny's eyes lit, his sweet, shy baby who never felt as if he had the advantage with any of the boys. He and Ethan breathed a "Wow!" at the same time, and high-fived each other with a big, cheecky grins on their faces.
'But he won't have the chance to do that before I have to take him away from here, thanks to you.'
No matter how nice he was to Danny, how damn-fool safe he felt while McCall watched his house, he couldn't trust him.
If he gave in to McCall, he could be dead tomorrow. And Danny's upbringing would be with a man who's teach him to hold an assault rifle instead of catch a football. His sweet boy would learn to order a hit on anyone who upset or bested him in business. He'd treat people as possesions rather than respecting them.
So many reasons to keep up the lie of being Jake Silver, and all of them boiled down to two chilling word's. 'Danny's father.'
If only he knew who McCall represented and why he'd come, then he'd know what to do...
As things were, he had no choice but to put his plan into action. He dragged in a quick breath, and plastered a bright smile on his face. "Hey, Danny, Mr. and Mrs. Richards have invited you to go camping with them this weekend, and I think you're big enough boy to go. What do you think?"
Ethan and Danny yelled, "Oh yeah!" together, ran and crashed into each other, performing wild war whoops of joy.
Seeing Danny's starry-eyed face, the 'I'm-in-Disneyland' smile that showed his missing front teeth, gave him a bitter-sweet sadness. Danny wouldn't know until it was too late that this would be his first and last camping trip with Ethan. He might hate him for it later - damn McCall for being right - but he'd be alive and free. He couldn't make himself care about anything alse.
He made himself speak briskly. "You're staying over tonight as well, beacuse they're leaving very early in the morning."
"Can I go now?" Danny asked eagerly, his eyes shining.
"After dinner. I have to pack your things, and I'd like to have one last dinner with you before you go."
Still laughing from watching Danny's intense happiness, McCall looked up at that moment, straight into his eyes. Seeing more than he wanted him to. He silently cursed his choice of words. McCall's warmth cooled and gelled to something dark and intense in a heartbeat. Oh, he had the picture. He knew his agenda.
He just wished he knew his in return. The unknown quantity with the power of life and death over both of them - with his arm around Danny's shoulders.
'Kep him happy.'
The decision made in that moment. "Would you like to stay for dinner, Mr. McCall?"
Wipeout. McCall's face blanked. So he'd shocked him?
He smiled. "To thank you." His gaze fell on Danny, flushed with happiness and achievement, than back up to McCall.
Slowly, he nodded. "I'd like that. What time - Jake?"
"Now." He paused, weighing his options, but he'd never been one to let a challenge lie. "Ex-Lieutenant McCall."
Rapier thrust met solar-pexus hit.
With a little, knowing grin, Ken Richards murmured, "We'll be back after dinner, Jake. And thanks for letting Danny come with us - Ethan's obviously thrilled." he added. laughing down at his still-capering son.
Jake smiled. "Thank you for inviting him. Go have a shower, Danny." He said when the Richards family had gone. "Maybe we can play a game of scrabble with Mr. McCall before you go."
Danny gave a little whoop when McCall smiled and nodded, and ran for the house; but McCall's smile faded as he looked back at him. "Thank you, Jake."
Tired of games, he just turned to the house, but McCall swung him back with the tinest touch on his arm, an overreaction he couldn't stop. "What?" Despite his resolve to hide everything from McCall, he almost snapped the word. Three days of his stiletto-edged dance was three too many.
It appeared McCall was tired, too. His gaze was flat, harsh in a strange, despairing way. "Who are you, Jacob Silver? Are you who you say you are?"
He didn't even hesitate. "Are you ex-Lieutnant McCall?" The name itself, the title, was almost an accusation.
"Please." The word was quiet, but the emotion no less real, the need no weaker. "Please trust me. I have to know."
"Why?" He kept his gaze limpid, his secrets hiding beneath. "If you've led these people to us, what will happen to you? Could your whole world - the only one you have - fall apart if I don't tell you my life story? Could you die - could your son loose his life or freedom?"
"Do you realize what you just gave away?" McCall asked softly.
He lifted an eyebrow to distract him, in case he noted his thudding pulse. "So this Falcone person you're after is the only dangerous, obsessed man in the world? The only one who'd kill to get his family back?"
McCall's hand fell from his arm. "I want to trust you with my secrets, Jake, but they're not mine alone, and lives other than mine involved. People could die if the information gets to the wrong people. Just one wong word and I could be responisble for the deaths of innocnet people. Good people who are just trying to make a difference in the world."
Oh, how he could relate to that. McCall's words rasped against his heart. He struggled to keep his conscience intact. "Remind me - your trust is important to me, because...?" He watched McCall, challenging him as he'd done to him. "What you're saying is, essentially that your nonexplanation should be enough. So you want me trust me? How nice of you. What a hero - your hidden reason for me to tell a total stranger all about my life is to save others, people I don't know, or even if they exist." he folded his arms, in the same stance as the one facing him. "You give me no proof, no evidence, just trust me. Yes, that makes sense. I'll hand our lives into your keeping, based on those few words."
McCall's eyes darkened with wariness. He didn't speak.
He gave a slow, challenging smile. "Feel like swapping confindences, ex-Lieutnant McCall?"
McCall shoved balled fists into his pockets, his gaze dark, brooding. On edge as much as he is, hiding the wildness, pushing it back inside him. "If you go first."
He made a considering face. "Tempting, but... no." He turned for the house. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I hope you like fresh fish."
"I love fish." His voice turned deep and soft, with rumpled sensuality. "You know, they say confession is cleansing for the soul, Jacob Silver."
He turned back one last time, looked right into McCall's eyes. "I have no soul. All I have is Danny."
'I have no soul.'
He shuddered even now, two hours later. Playing Scrabble with Danny and Jake in the beautiful old-fashioned dining room, with a gentle fire in the garte behind him, Jake's words hit him with freeze-blasting force. The look in his eyes as he said them. The memory froze him to the marrow. Incomparable in their loveliness, yet empty. Dead. No life, no heart, no fire.
Soulless.
Was that why he couldn't break through him? What had he sold inside to get away for Falcone that night?
Falcone's men were in New Zealand now. Jake's confession had to be soon, if it was going to come in time to save him.
Early this morning Anson sent him back stats on the photos he'd taken of Danny for the CIA and MI6 to compare with the few younger pictures of Robert Falcone. If Danny wasn't Falcone's son, he could almost be his twin. DNA results on the hairs he'd taken fron the studio floor would take longer. The lab would need to sort out whose hairs they were, but if Jake or Danny's were there, they'd soon know if they were related to Edurado de Souza. Because of the manner of the de Souza's death in a suspicious car crash, the CIA, and therefore the Nighthawks, had all the DNA samples they needed for comparison tests.
Damn it, none of this would work anyway. Anson was getting twitchy, wanting to take Jake into protective custody, but McCall knew he'd have the information they wanted in hiding somewhere, and no matter how long they held him, he wouldn't give it up as long as they kept him against his will. Jake had to give it of his own accord, because he trusted someone.
Trusted him.
If he told Jake who he was, and who he represnted - that he was a Nighthawk sent here to save him - maybe he's hand over the evidence he had on Falcone, and he could get him and Danny the hell out of here before Falcone's hit men got here. falcone wanted his son - and even thinking about the punishment the man would exact on his runaway partner made him shudder. Falcone's connection to the Nighthawks, whose identity they still hadn't cracked - damn it, was it Angel, Solomon or somone they didn't yet suspect? - would get Jake and Danny's whereabouts and pass the information on so that Falcone would get to them before McCall could get them to safety.
Yet Anson's orders were set in stone. 'Don't tell him anything until he confides in you. Get a positive ID first.'
Never risk the Nighthawks' security. Never compromise. Never give in. Anson's damn watchwords had for years been McCall's own private obesession. To break the rules risked instant, dishonourable dismissal. He'd get away with risking it to gain Jacob Falcone's signed affidavit.
But this wasn't just the job to him, or even international security. He wasn't fooling himself here. This was personal... personal right to his bones. He wanted this man to be Jacob de Souza. His Jake. No matter what the consequences were. But though his heart and body screamed that this was the man he'd craved for years, he had to face facts. Jake and his cousin, Marcus were so alike they could pass for each other, and the signs of the nerves the first day he'd come into Jake's studio could have come from his own imagination. Yeah, maybe he'd wanted him to be Jake de Souza so much he'd made up the signs in his mind.
There was no way to know who he was except through Jake's confirmation. Jake and Marcus de Souza were "double" cousins, sons of identical twin sisters who'd married twin brothers. According to experts, the boys' DNA might match almost perfectly, like identical twins - assuming they had anything to compare them to. All they could prove was a connection to the de Souza family at best, to Edurado de Souza, but it wouldn't be able to state whether Jake was son or niece or distant cousin. Fingerprints were unavailable. If either man had ever been printed, they'd disaapeared. The dead body in the ravine was charred beyond recognition and accurate dental graphics.
Not that they had any to compare. The only dentist who'd taken X rays of Jacob or Marcus' teeth had disaapeared with the files the day of the accident. He'd left Brazil and vanished into the mist, to another life.
"Brendan. What's a ravine?"
Without thinking, he answered Danny, "A deep sharp cliff where people get rid of evidence, or hide secrets."
A stifled gasp made him look up, but by the time his gaze cleared, Jake had himself under control. It was only Danny's curious, "What's the matter, Daddy?" that told him the sound hadn't been in his imagination.
With obvious difficulty, Jake looked up from the Scrabble board on the lovely, dark wood dining table and smiled at his son. "N-nothing. Do you want a hot chocolate before Mr. Richards comes for you? Um, Mr. McCall? W-would you like one?"
Without a word, he nodded.
Jake's fingers moved to push back his chair.
On the unwilling alert, McCall gazed at the board... and it was only then he realized what Jake had seen. What he'd done to him, by the grace of fate or his overburdened conscience.
Hiding = eleven points.
Evidence = fifteen points with double-letter score.
Death = nine points.
Tree = eight points with double-letter score.
Ravine = eighteen points with two double-letter scores.
For years he'd lied, played parts, fought and killed in darkness and silence, vanishing without a word. It hadn't bothered him once in fifteen years, either with the SEALs or the Nighthawks. His objective had always been higher than what he'd had to do, the target worthy of death or taking down. Those he'd lied to needed his anonymity as much as his protection.
Not this time. The steel inside him had been branded with a smelting furnace, his conscience burned with a searing iron. He couldn't lie to Jake; the secrets his long-buried conscience strained to tell him had finally come out in the last five words he'd put down.
He looked up at Jake, his dread acute. 'I don't mean it. I didn't want to terrify you. I don't want to hide the truth from you. Tell me what happened that night. Tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine. Let me help you. I can save you'
He all but held out his arms to Jake. 'Please let me help you. Please come to me, Jake. Please trust me.!'
There wasn't even a flicker of response. Jake barely glanced at him before he walked into the kitchen without looking back.