If I Ever

by SE Jakes

  This guy probably wouldn’t make it that long or that far. Mal could usually sense the ones who could and right now, he wasn’t sensing anything impressive.

  “Anyway, all they want is some intel. Any intel,” Agent Warren continued earnestly, which was step one in the CIA interrogation’s handbook: make friends with the captive. “So even a little bit would go a long way.”

  Mal stared at him until Warren squirmed. Then he smiled and Warren backed up a little, because Mal’s smiles were probably more terrifying than his deadpan stare.

  It was an art form. So was lying. But man, this guy wasn’t even good practice. Target practice maybe.

  Fuck it.

  Fine. I’ll give you some intel, he signed. When Warren frowned, he mouthed, I have intel, and Warren’s face brightened. Especially when Mal shook his leg up and down, which Warren would chalk up to nervousness or impatience, the first sign of weakness Mal had given them. And he was certain Warren would take the gift without seeing the Trojan horse he’d wrapped it up in.

  Agent Paul was a different story, but Mal had bigger plans for him.

  “Can you tell me what, exactly what you’ve got intel about?” Warren asked.

  Upcoming assassination attempt, Mal mouthed.

  “Okay, this is good, Mal. Really good. Great. I’ll go let Agent Paul know. And thank you for your cooperation.”

  I’m going to strangle you on my way out, Mal signed. Agent Warren tilted his head at him uncertainly and Mal knew then and there the kid could read sign language.

  Hell, maybe Agent Warren had a chance at life after all.

  After another three hours, the door opened and Agent Paul strode in. He was a big motherfucker, thin though, and he was also a stuck-up prick who appeared all world-weary and exhausted in his three-piece suit.

  “What is it now, Malcolm?” He slammed the door behind him.

  Mal’d bided his time, watched Prophet get sprung, and stayed jailed up until the agreed-upon time limit. Now, it was time to get the fuck out.

  He was told to do it any way he could, because he wasn’t getting let out like the others, escorted to a waiting car and driven safely back. No, he’d have to beat his way out, a true escape, because that was the only way for this to work. The agents would never believe Mal. Prophet was only let out because the CIA still thought he was their bitch.

  They were going to be so disappointed.

  I’ve got intel, Mal signed, then shook his head and motioned for a pen. Instead, the bastard called for chalk and a board.

  Mal could kill him with chalk just as easily as a pen. Chalk and tracheas were pretty much the same size. Round peg, round hole . . .

  Paul interrupted his pleasant thoughts. “So, what did you feel the need to share today, Mal?”

  Assassination going down tomorrow, he wrote carefully. Even included a smiley face, which made Paul frown.

  Could he frown with chalk in his trachea? Probably until he lost consciousness.

  “Mal, elaborate.” Paul snapped his fingers and yeah, time was up. Both their time.

  Maybe your obituary can read “death by another man’s underwear,” Mal signed.

  Paul looked at him, tilted his head because he no doubt recognized some of the signs, and hell, if Mal had a prisoner who only knew a certain language he’d be damned sure he learned it pronto because if you wanted something done . . .

  You’ve got to do it your damned self, he signed. In seconds, he was up, cuffs dangling off one wrist uselessly, his own shirt off over his head and wrapped around Paul’s, cutting off his airway by tightening the fabric around his trachea.

  He’d have to try the chalk another time. He held on to Paul as the man tried to struggle, pull away, create some kind of ruckus, and Mal knew the cameras for the cell wouldn’t be on now. Paul hated being watched and judged, especially when dealing with someone he thought could get the better of him.

  Stupid, stupid man.

  After Paul slumped, Mal checked his pulse and cracked his neck, just to be sure dead was dead. He sat him in the chair, back to the camera and re-dressed them both in each other’s clothing. Now he had Paul’s BDUs, cap, credentials, and gun as he took to the hallways.

  On the way out, he passed Warren, who paused. And stared. And then signed to him, You owe Agent Rylan one, but I owe you one for Paul. Even.

  Fuck. He’d let the kid live this time. Couldn’t have just let me out earlier?

  More fun to watch you in action. I need to learn shit, right?

  Huh. Maybe all this kid needed was a little seasoning. Your math’s a little off. I owe Rylan and you owe me. And I need to collect on my favor now. I need your clothes . . . and you need mine.

  Warren frowned, but complied. And then Mal explained exactly what the favor was.

  “After this shit, we’ll definitely be even,” Warren told him.

  See you on the other side, War, Mal signed. It was time to get off this fucker, even if he had to swim to shore.

  Which he did, at least part of the way. A fishing boat picked him up—just in time since they were chumming the water for sharks. Mal liked swimming as much as the next SEAL but hell, he was all for no blood in the water while he was doing it.

  “You runnin’ from something?” the captain asked once Mal had boarded and gotten checked out by the crew.

  Mal had asked for a pen and paper—or a phone—and now he typed in the guy’s notes, Aren’t we all? quickly followed by, A thousand bucks in exchange for your phone.

  He got full agreement on both items, plus a quick trip to the dock and dry clothes. Score. Borrowed a car to put a few towns in between him and the black site, found some new IDs and made his way to the next stop on the Prophet Does Death World Tour.

  It was going to be a good day.

  After several hours of driving, they were back over Eritrea’s border, in the slightly more industrial area, if you could call it that. It was dark as hell, except for a few lights around the building, and Prophet saw movement, which no doubt meant John had a couple of guards placed strategically out front.

  “We’re here, Prophet.” John got out and came around and opened his door. When Prophet got out, John instructed him to turn around, and tied his hands behind his back, a little harder than necessary. “Too tight?”

  “Just perfect.” Because Prophet wouldn’t show him any weakness. He squinted as he surveyed the building on the way inside. “Love the no one gets out alive theme.”

  “You’d expect nothing less than wired to blow.” John kept a steady hand on the small of his back as he led Prophet up the concrete steps and through a metal door. The room opened up—a large space with a bed, a fighting ring, and computers.

  Every teenage boy’s wet dream and hell, at least he had the sense to not say that out loud.

  John sat him down and roped him into a chair. His eyesight hadn’t cleared much, but he’d been automatically scanning the area anyway. He tried to soak in as much as he could, because he didn’t know when the blurring would intensify again and he needed something—anything—he could use for a weapon, besides the obvious. He’d be looking for weapons and exits until he was an old man—if he made it that long.

  You have to . . . for Remy.

  He finally understood why being a parent was the hardest job imaginable. You didn’t think for yourself anymore—every single decision was meant to put you in a position to continue caring for the person who depended on you. It made you raw and vulnerable.

  Tommy made him that way too, but he’d trained him to take care of himself.

  “Here are your friends, Prophet, in case you’re interested.” John pointed to a spot on the computer. “That’s King, I believe. And here’s Ren—he can’t keep still but the movement is within a cage. And this, way over here? Mal.”

  Prophet kept his voice indifferent. “Glad you’re so scared of them that you had to get them locked up. Not scared of me? I’m upset I didn’t get the same treatment.”

  He was pretty s
ure John frowned at that. He sat there and watched John rifle through his bag, pulling out the money before moving closer, telling him, “Hey, I found these drops in your bag. Need me to put them in?”

  The drops were supposed to help with the blurring and hell, he could use all the help he could get, but why the hell would John want to help him now? Definitely a trap. “I’m good.”

  John grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. He tried to throw himself—the chair—off-balance and struggle to get away, but John still managed to get a drop into each eye . . . and if Prophet was a betting man? His eyes would be blurrier than they’d been soon enough. He pushed away from John and blinked. “What are we going to do now? Play cards? Watch people die?”

  “Funny. First, we’re going to get out our aggression.”

  “In the ring?”

  “Can you think of a better place?”

  “Yes. Many of them.” He thought about the last time he’d seen a ring like this one . . . Tom, almost killing a man. About Chris too, and John hadn’t brought that up at all.

  Prophet wouldn’t either. Not yet.

  John was over by the computers, angling a camera and then hitting a few keys. “When Tom gets this email and he opens the link, he’ll be able to see and hear everything in this room.”

  Shit. “Seems unnecessary. This is between us.”

  “I know you’re trying to keep Tom away from big, bad me but I think he won’t be able to resist coming to your rescue.”

  “Why not invite Mal here instead?” He shrugged. “He’d kill to see you.”

  “Still a funny guy.”

  “I wasn’t laughing when you took off. I wasn’t laughing when I looked for you for two years, almost killing myself in the process.”

  “See? I can hear the anger in your voice. You’ll welcome the opportunity to beat me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll keep it a fair fight, won’t you?”

  “You never had faith in me.” John’s voice was cold, ice, like the night before Hal’s mission. He kicked his shoes off and Prophet did the same, readying himself for when John untied him.

  “I did—for too long.” Prophet tensed as John walked around him . . . and untied him from the chair. He kept his wrists bound though, and he pushed him into the ring.

  Prophet ducked as he turned, and caught the tail end of a blow to the jaw. “They want you dead, John.”

  “Someone always wants me dead. Then they decide I’m too good to kill off.” John shook his head. “Still a company man? Deep down inside, where it counts?”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Prophet spat blood on the ground between their feet. “None of this is worth it.”

  “The money is.”

  “How’re you ever going to use it? That’s been the holdup, or you wouldn’t’ve been working for ten years killing people.”

  “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “I know you better than I know myself,” Prophet hissed. “Let me go. Take the money I’ve got in my bag and get the fuck out of here. Get plastic surgery. Go off the radar.”

  “You’re here to get me out of hell, not let me go. I take the money, you shoot me in the back.”

  “I’d never take the easy way out.”

  “Then why offer?”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t take it.” Prophet stared at him.

  John smiled. “After this, the CIA won’t know what the fuck is going on. But I will. I’ll fuck them all over, the way they’ve all fucked me in the past.”

  “Fucked you?” Prophet asked. “Well then, at least they used lube, because for me and the rest of the team, it was raw.”

  “I thought you didn’t mind that.”

  “And you fucked us all over just so you could play hero?” Prophet asked and at that moment he finally realized what this was all about. For him, anyway.

  Punishment. For him. For getting close to the team. For getting close to anyone but John, and for pulling away toward the end. “You’re still a jealous bastard.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t take the job to punish your friends. That was just an added benefit,” John confirmed. “They never believed in me. No one did, not even you.”

  “You’re wrong,” Prophet told him, aware of how dead his voice sounded. At least he knew the majority of the plan—it was very close to what he and Mal had surmised. There was a plan already in place to stop him, but that depended on what happened now, in this room. “How’s Judie looking these days?”

  John shrugged. “Same. She doesn’t age. Must be the meds.”

  “Still out of it then?” Prophet asked and John nodded.

  “Your family was always as fucked as mine,” John told him. “Like Christopher.”

  “Tell me that was a mistake.”

  John’s head snapped like Prophet had slapped him. “Of course it was.”

  Prophet was long done believing him. “John, Agent Paul said he had Christopher killed. Did you know that? Or is that what you told him to say?”

  “Don’t, Proph,” John warned, but Prophet was through with being careful. He might not be able to see but goddammit, he could hear the tension in John’s voice . . . and the lie.

  “You had your own brother killed,” Prophet spat and John lunged and tackled him. Prophet swung and heard a crack, knew he’d broken John’s nose, would like nothing better than to shove it up into his skull . . .

  John slammed him onto his back and got up, bouncing on the balls of his feet. The John he once knew? Gone. Prophet had mourned Christopher, and now he said a prayer to him—for him—and rolled to his own feet.

  “You look serious, Proph. Thinking about your boyfriend?” John laughed. “He know all your secrets? You finally let him in? Hell, I thought for sure it’d be Mal you ended up fucking, but hey, to each his own.”

  “Leave Tom out of this.”

  “You’re not in charge here. And you’re the one who brought him into it.”

  “You have me. You don’t need anyone else.”

  “Hal started this—I didn’t. If he didn’t keep secrets, I wouldn’t need to either. You would’ve been cut free of all of this years ago, but you just had to try to protect the asset’s interests.”

  “It’s called being human.”

  “Right.” John sighed. “Anyway, none of us are getting out alive.”

  “Then what’s the point of bringing Tom here?” Prophet asked calmly, trying to tamp down his panic.

  “Because it’ll kill you,” John said simply. “He can see this, by the way. Watching everything. He’s almost as worried about you as you are of him. But once he sees me hurting you, he’ll do what he needs to.”

  “Why, John? What the fuck happened to you?”

  “You happened. You and your fucking team, always trying to make a fool of me.”

  “Mal was always the best at exposing you.”

  “The trouble started when you began to believe him.”

  “It started when I realized it was the truth. Your dad was a psychopath, but I didn’t realize it was passed down.”

  “You’re one to talk mental illness.”

  “Fuck, I used to love you, John.”

  “But you don’t recognize me?” John mimicked.

  “I do. You were always the same. I guess I changed.”

  “Touché, Prophet, if that makes you feel better . . . but no one changes that much.”

  After that, Prophet stopped talking . . . and began to fight for his life.

  “Hey, Dean? There’s someone here who says she needs to see you.” Nico’s voice sounded . . . odd at best. Dean tensed but then Nico added, “She looks like she’s in trouble.”

  “Bring her in the back room,” Dean called and double-timed it to meet Nico and Trouble.

  “She’s not armed,” was the first thing Nico said. Dean felt the air redistribute as two bodies came into his space. Nico was standing next to the woman and Dean put his hand out.

  The woman grasped his. Her ski
n was cool, not clammy, but her breathing was slightly hitched. Nerves. “Nico, get her something to calm her down. Ma’am, have a seat.”

  Dean heard Nico shove a chair in her direction and he continued holding her hand until he felt her sit. He smelled the bourbon Nico poured, heard her noisy gulp . . . and for several seconds, he let the silence hang between all of them until he asked, “What’s your name?”

  She cleared her throat. “I’ve gone by so many now, I’m not sure it matters. But my real name? Karen.”

  Dean frowned as the voice cut through him, deep into the muscle of a memory he didn’t want accessed. But the wound had been reopened. His head began to pound and he leaned in, putting his hands on either arm of her chair, locking her in place. He couldn’t see her, but the tension flared between them. “Did you come back to try to finish the job?”

  A couple of hours later, Cillian and Tom got a Skype call from King and Ren.

  “You guys all right?” Tom asked. Both men looked suspiciously unharmed.

  “We’re fine, Tom. Hook’s here with us too,” Ren assured him. “We got away, no problem.”

  “Really?”

  “Ren was showing the NSA men how to do the hustle when I got there,” King informed them.

  “Wait—seriously?”

  “Would I lie about shit like that?” King grumbled. He was sitting on a chair slightly behind Ren, who was at the table behind the computer.

  “And you were worried about me.” Ren turned and knocked King on the shoulder. “I was halfway out of there.”

  “You were hanging out to finish the dance.”

  “Can’t leave on the good part of the song, man,” Ren told him solemnly. “Any word from Mal?”

  “None,” Tom admitted.

  “Doesn’t mean he’s not out.” King peeled an apple with a KA-BAR. “Just means he’s staying away so comms don’t pick him up.”

  “So how do we know?” Tom asked.

  “We have faith.” King offered Ren a piece of the apple. “If Mal is still at the black site, that just means he knows it’s where he needs to be.”