by Abigail Roux
Nikolaus.
“Niko was telling us about jail?” Carl teased inquiringly as he looked up at
Remy and smiled a little.
“Mmm. Indecent exposure and public lewdness, I think. Something like that,
I wasn’t really paying attention,” Remy said in an off-handed manner as he tossed his head back and took a long gulp of beer. “We spent the night safe and sound in a jail cell and then we were on our way.”
“You didn’t try to escape?” Shawn asked, sounding to Brandt as if were
afraid of speaking to Remy but wanted to all the same.
“The whole point was to be in jail,” Remy told him with a sneer. Shawn
tensed and Brandt bit his lip. Remy and Nikolaus had gotten arrested intentionally in order to get away from whoever had been after them at the time. It was a slightly scary scenario.
“Were they that close on your tail?” Thiago asked curiously.
Remy nodded his head and swallowed the sip of beer he had just taken. “Got
into our room.”
“How many?” Shawn inquired.
“Three that we saw.”
“Just three?” Shawn asked dubiously. “And you had to resort to jail time to
get away?”
“We had some rum flow trouble,” Remy said enigmatically. Nikolaus
snorted and covered his mouth.
“How’d you get arrested?” Carl asked with a smile.
“In Georgia they don’t take kindly to, well, much of anything, I guess.”
“They don’t take kindly to blowjobs being given in hallways,” Nikolaus
muttered.
Remy smiled around his beer bottle and tipped it back, and Brandt’s eyes
slid down to look at Shawn fearfully. There was no visible reaction. So he already knew Nikolaus and Remy had been fucking. Now his mood made perfect sense. Guilt
plus the pain of betrayal plus the added guilt felt for the hypocrisy from being hurt by
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the betrayal. Yeah. That would do you a number over.
“Cops got a call from a concerned father of 2.5 children and that was it,”
Remy answered. “They didn’t find the bodies ’til we were long gone.”
The others chuckled as they imagined what the arrest must have entailed, but
Brandt was still more concerned with Shawn than anything. Shawn listened with a sad smile, and Brandt wondered what he was thinking of. Five years of such adventures, if Brandt had to guess.
“So, the message?” Remy said finally to Nikolaus, changing the subject and
steering the conversation back on track.
“We got it,” Nikolaus said as he continued to snicker.
“What about the other message?”
“We haven’t gotten to it yet.”
“Well, let’s get to it then,” Remy said bluntly. “The Archer sent Kincaid here
on purpose. He wanted us to crack these. There’s something in these messages he
wants us to know.”
“Christ, lad, are you still on about that?” Shawn said testily.
“Go to hell, Shawn,” Remy responded in a calm, flat voice. He never even
looked up at Shawn as he spoke, and Brandt closed his eyes in frustration. These two had to get back on track, and soon, if they were going to have a chance at successfully executing any plan they might be able to cook up. “Where’s the other message?”
Remy asked as he leant over the couch between Nikolaus and Thiago.
Brandt and Shawn sat in silence as they watched the other four work through
the messages.
“Lemme see,” Remy ordered, and Nikolaus passed the little pad and his red
pen over. “We’ve got the blocks at least,” Remy murmured as he apparently tried to draw out a Sudoku square. The pad was floppy, though, and he was struggling to do it, even resting it on top of Nikolaus’s head to steady it at one point. “Fuck it, I can’t do this. Here, Thi,” he said finally.
Thiago placed the pad back on the table and began to finish the square.
“What are you doing?” Remy asked in a near panic.
“What?” Thiago asked, lifting his pen and looking back at Remy in alarm.
“The pen’s blue!”
“What? So?”
“The pen’s a different color! Oh, my God, you’re killing me!” Remy said in
distress as Thiago rolled his eyes and continued to write with the blue pen. “It’s different,” Remy groaned, and he let his head fall onto Thiago’s shoulder as his entire body draped limply over the back of the couch.
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Brandt grinned as he watched the drama. Everything Remy did had Brandt
liking him more and more, no matter how hard he tried not to. For some reason he felt like they were supposed to be rivals or antagonists or something. But Brandt just couldn’t find it within himself to dislike the younger man, and Remy was trying his best to act normally around him. That had to mean something. He glanced over at
Shawn to see the older man smiling sadly.
“Obsessive compulsive,” Nikolaus mumbled in amusement.
“I would rather eat a grenade than make a line with two different colors!”
Remy responded in a pained voice as he pointed at the pad of paper. Thiago snickered gleefully and continued to torment the Cajun with his blue pen.
Speaking of grenades, though… Brandt had a timing device around here
somewhere. What had he done with it?
They continued discussing the message and deciphered four hits before they
grew weary. By that time, Remy had whimpered to the point that Thiago had growled in frustration and yanked the red pen from Remy’s hand.
“Not in the middle of a fucking word! You insensitive bastard!” Remy
keened pathetically as Thiago switched out the pens and began writing in red.
“Te voy a romper el orto!” Thiago shouted.
“No! My ass!” Remy wailed dramatically, and he turned and fled into the
kitchen for more beer, leaving the other men in the main room laughing raucously.
Brandt wondered if Remy’s ass really did hurt or if he was just trying to be funny. If it were the former, then Brandt was considering apologizing.
Did you apologize to someone for fucking him through the wall after he had
asked you to do it, though? Brandt wasn’t sure. Was there etiquette involved with something like that?
Perhaps it was better just not knowing.
XIV.
AS the afternoon drew on, Remy and Thiago helped Nikolaus ferret out other
messages, and they were able to match each of them up with a corresponding
suspected hit, save for the one. The second message they had found didn’t seem to correspond to anything, and Remy was beginning to suspect that the orders weren’t for a hit at all, but for something else entirely.
“Check the original location again, Niko,” Remy ordered softly as he
puzzled over the message in his hand. “Something’s not hitting me right about it.”
“I don’t want pizza, dammit!” Shawn yelled from the kitchen. Remy raised
his head and looked in the direction the others had migrated after they had given up on the messages. He cocked an eyebrow at Thiago, who looked at him and shrugged
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wordlessly.
“If you don’t decide on something, and I mean right fucking now, I’m using
the microwave,” Brandt threatened. “And you remember what happened to the
microwave in St. Louis.”
“Jesus Christ!” Shawn growled in alarm and frustration.
“Seems the love birds are having a tiff,” Remy muttered around the tip of his
pen. Nikolaus and Thiago sniggered quietly, and
Remy suddenly felt like a ten-year-old who had had a fight with his best friend and was now talking about him behind his back to make himself feel better. It was embarrassing to be taking pleasure in Shawn’s obvious annoyance, but he was doing it all the same.
He needed to shoot something. Get it out if his system.
“Take a look,” Nikolaus said as he leaned back and made way for Remy to
peer over his shoulder. Thiago came over, too, as did Carl, who was apparently tired of trying to play peacemaker in the kitchen.
“What’s the original date again?” Remy asked absently as he looked at their
scribbling.
“Uhh… wait a minute… it looks… oh, fick mich!” Nikolaus exclaimed
suddenly.
“What? What is it?” Remy asked excitedly, recognizing one of Nikolaus’s
revelations and knowing that it could be significant.
“The entry’s backdated,” Nikolaus said as he began typing furiously. “We
thought it was over four months old, but Christ, it was sent out only a couple days after we all separated!”
“We’ve been looking for the wrong group of hits then?” Thiago asked
vaguely. He didn’t sound as if he grasped the significance, and from the look on
Carl’s face, he didn’t either. Remy knew it was significant, he just didn’t know why.
“There have been no hits since we formed,” Nikolaus said hesitantly. “So
this message wasn’t a hit. You were right, Remy, it’s something else.”
“Something else?” Shawn asked as he walked slowly towards them. “Like
what? A donation to a charity, perhaps? Notes on holiday bonuses for all the traitors in the ranks?”
Brandt walked up behind the older man and smacked him in the back of the
head in passing, dancing away gleefully before Shawn could retaliate. Remy glared at Shawn for a brief moment before the melancholy replaced the anger once more and
he looked away quickly. Shawn had hurt him badly, but he couldn’t let Shawn or any of the others know that. He wouldn’t. They had enough to worry about without him
acting like a broken-hearted pain in the ass.
“Well, we know the hints. We just have to… hmm,” Carl mumbled as he
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looked at Remy’s notes.
“Hmm?” Remy repeated inquiringly.
“This one doesn’t follow the same pattern, right? It’s not a hit. None of the
words make sense even with a complex cipher filling them in.”
“So?” Brandt asked curiously as he hovered on the edge of Remy’s vision.
“But if you move these block over one,” Carl told them as he drew on the
sheet of paper to illustrate what he was doing. He took the numbers from the blocks directly left of the original ones and he substituted them in. “It makes actual words,”
he said as he held it up and showed them the translated message.
‘Anchor point has changed,’ it read. ‘Archer is bare shaft. Take down bow
3.’
“How did you know to do that?” Thiago asked, his tone a mixture of
curiosity and suspicion.
“Accident. I’m seriously dyslexic, I get my numbers mixed all the time,”
Carl answered with a dismissive swipe of his hand. He turned to Brandt as Remy and Thiago looked at one another blankly.
“So what the hell does that mean?” Nikolaus asked as he pointed at what
Carl had written.
“These are archery terms,” Carl explained as he pointed at the first line. “An
anchor point is the reference point an archer uses when he fires an arrow.” He put the pad down and held his hands out, mimicking as if he were holding a bow. “When you pull back, your thumb should hit the same point before you release. It’s the same every time, whether it’s your mouth or your ear or your eyes or whatever. It’s always the same or you can’t judge range.”
They all stared at him as if he were speaking Greek. Carl looked around and
rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m a weapons specialist, okay?” he huffed defensively. “If you’re changing an anchor point, it means something has
seriously gone wrong with your aim, know what I mean?”
“And the bare shaft thing?” Remy asked in interest. “I assume that’s lingo as
well and not just the Archer saying he liked to bareback.”
Carl snorted at him. “Yeah, it is. A bare shaft is what they call an arrow
without any fletching or nocks or paint or… you get the idea.”
“What’s the point?” Shawn asked dubiously.
“So, what if this isn’t orders, but a… an employee bulletin, like you said.”
“I was taking the piss, Carl,” Shawn responded bemusedly.
“I don’t mean literally. I mean, what if he’s telling someone that his plans
have changed and he’s working without any backup? Or working on a new plan. Or
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something,” Carl proposed.
“I think you’re onto something there,” Thiago said appraisingly. “Yeah.
Yeah, I like that. He’s saying he’s had to change his plans around and he’s working without a net?”
“I dunno. Seems logical to me, but then I’m not exactly the brains of this
operation,” Carl replied candidly.
Remy was impressed. Even if they weren’t right on with the meanings, Carl
had probably hit the nail on the head with his ‘company memo’ theory.
“So what about the last line?” Nikolaus asked. “Is it an order to take down
someone?”
“I don’t think so,” Carl answered with a shake of his head as he turned the
pad around and looked at the message he had written. “A take down bow is actually a portable bow, it can be separated into two or three pieces.”
“The numbers are significant,” Remy said with certainty upon hearing this.
“Three. But three what? Days? Hours? Weeks?”
“Months?” Thiago suggested quietly. “Pairs?”
“You can’t think he… you think he knew our plans?” Remy asked in
disbelief.
“You’ve said yourself that you think he’s watching us,” Thiago responded
regretfully.
“But….”
“I don’t think it’s a time period,” Brandt said suddenly as he walked around
the room opening and closing drawers and looking into empty cabinets and
cupboards. “The fact that he added a number to something that already contained
numbers is probably significant, too. Maybe the three and the two are both
significant,” he finished as he knelt to look in the bottom drawer of the armoire where the television was.
“What are you looking for?” Carl asked him distractedly.
“It’s not ticking is it?” Shawn groaned from the armchair he had flopped
himself into. Remy took the opportunity to turn and look at the man. A wave of
sadness washed over him and he felt his breath catch. He knew this would be their last mission together even if Shawn didn’t retire and they both lived through it. No matter what happened, Remy had been replaced.
“No, it’s not ticking. At least it shouldn’t be,” Brandt mumbled, bringing
Remy out of his morose thoughts and making him snap to attention.
“You’re not about to blow us all up, are you?” he asked wryly, only
somewhat serious. Brandt turned to look at him, and they made eye contact for the first time since Shawn had returned from the errand he and Thiago had gone on.
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“Not intentionally,” Brandt said in a hurt voic
e.
“Have you really lost a bomb?” Carl asked in horror. “I thought you were
kidding!”
“I haven’t lost it!” Brandt said defensively as he prowled across the room
and toward the bedrooms. “I just can’t remember where I put it!” he shouted as he disappeared down the hall.
Remy turned wide eyes on Shawn, who was sitting with his head in his
hands and shaking slightly.
“Shawn?” Remy ventured uncertainly.
“This is how I lost my pants,” Shawn said regretfully, his accent heavy with
agitation. “And how he blew up the petrol station in the desert. Only one for miles.”
“Is he serious?” Thiago asked in alarm, as if he had just tuned in to the
conversation.
“Ha!” Brandt called triumphantly from the back rooms. “Found it!”
“Oh, my God,” Thiago breathed in disbelief.
“Fuck, Shawn. No wonder you’ve gone crazy,” Remy said as Shawn sat
back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling.
“I learned that he only sets things on fire when he thinks there’s a problem,”
Shawn mumbled. “I’ll have a talk with him tonight. Until then, watch your pants, all of you.”
“What do you mean, when he thinks there’s a problem?” Thiago asked
cautiously.
Shawn made a vague twirling motion with his hand, and Remy looked at
Thiago pointedly. Thiago’s eyes widened as he looked at Remy and he mouthed a
‘sorry.’ At least someone had remained oblivious to the tension between Shawn and Remy.
“Uhh…,” Nikolaus said by way of getting everyone’s attention.
They all turned to look at Nikolaus as he bent over the table and examined
the notes.
“Problem?” Remy asked distractedly.
Nikolaus looked up at Remy, and his gray eyes fairly glowed with the light
of discovery.
“I don’t think these are hits, Remy,” Nikolaus said excitedly.
“What?”
“Look. It’s that Washburn kid,” Nikolaus said as he pointed at the list. Remy
scrambled to get to Nikolaus’s side, and he looked down at the list of agents they had