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agent-kentauris · 7 years ago

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d194-199

some of these days are reposted but, um. im really tired RN and i also edited a bunch of these and they are allpart of the same thing (rome museum mission) so...sorry!

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Thursday, 3/20/2008, 16:50

Museum of Art

Rome

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Getting a hold of my new PDA took an hour; sweeping the museum took a couple more. Fast-talking my way past a guard, and then checking out the ‘off limits to the public’ areas took another few.

I was halfway through an archived collection of old, dark paintings when Mina called.

“I’m in the museum,” I reported.

She hesitated, then the PDA screen froze, and video feed of the safehouse appeared.

“Mike, I just picked up something on the cameras…”

Madison, standing in front of the window, cradling her phone to her ear. At the front door, two armed men in suits and black gloves carefully pushing the door open.

Move, I willed her, already a knot in my stomach telling me it was pointless.

“It’s Marburg’s men,” Mina narrated, also pointless. I had eyes. “They have Madison.”

One man swung his gun at her, shouted something. She gripped the phone harder, lips moving rapidly.

“How,” I asked.

Mina hesitated again, a small intake of breath while the gunmen in the safehouse fired a warning shot over Saint James’ head. She jerked back. Afraid.

“She was calling the cops. They traced it.” Mina explained.

Madison dropped the phone. They approached her carefully. The feed jumped to them strong arming her out of the door.

Mina’d done some editing.

“When?” I asked.

“An hour ago.”

“Where’d they take her?”

“I don’t know,” Mina said. “But, Mike, we need to-”

“The mission, I know.”

People you care about will start to die.

She’d be fine.

She would be fine.

I’d honestly believed she would make it out okay. Somehow.

“The cops?” I asked.

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks,” I said, and disconnected.

The rows of paintings never ended. The first time I found one of Marburg’s men standing at the end of an aisle, I thought things might be close to being over. Then I found another, and another, and I realized it was never going to end.

“Four hundred feet north,” Mina instructed. “No, Mike, other north.”

“Hard to tell in here.”

A yellowed light flickered overhead.

I ducked past another cross aisle, then doubled back. A few yards away, a wooden door was ajar, hard blue light showing through the cracks. A voice issued precise commands, faint at this distance, clearer and clearer as I got closer.

“And for all those who weren’t paying attention at the briefing,” the man said, “We have an insider man at the museum giving us access to the tunnel system that’s normally used for moving relics in the middle of the night.”

“Relics like your mom?” someone challenged, to light laughter.

“We show up,” the first man said impassively, “in the middle of the museum at Sigma point and move through at H hour plus two. Each team is responsible for keeping the museum crowd under control. Yeah, yeah, Jenkins, we know a night time mission would be easier, but the man upstairs wants broad daylight. So, he’ll get broad daylight. Again, do not, under any circumstance ditch your equipment thinking the blast will destroy the evidence. We’re counting on the authorities being able to analyze the slightest scrap of incinerated material, thus Vulture team placing the bodies. Stow your gear, and drop nothing.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Minimum safe distance, Jenny, is half a klick. I would suggest you get even farther away, as there’s going to be lots of stone thrown about the area, but you could use some stones, buddy.”

More laughter.

“Nice try,” said presumably Jenkins.

I went in shooting. If there was anyone in earshot, I hadn’t seen them. In the small space, with their weapons holstered, their guard down, laughter on their faces while they were talking about domestic terrorism? The four of them didn’t stand much of a chance. One got off a couple shots at me, but that was it.

“Where are the tunnels?” I asked Mina.

She searched while I picked my way over the bodies, towards the laptop hooked up to a projector.

“Working on it,” she said.

They’d left it logged in. Two clicks, and I had access to their email. Team movements, reports, encoded-

Madison.

Her name was in the middle of the email. I had to reread the first few sentences over and over before I could make myself understand anything.

From: Ops Team To: #JollyRoger Subject: Live Asset

Attn,

Slight change of plans. We have a live asset with us today, just in case our interloper shows up. Madison Saint James is to be taken to the evac point Phi and held until go code Orange. If she makes too much noise, she is to be sedated. Under no circumstance is she to be injured unless you hear a change of orders (and that comes from Marburg). If anyone tries any funny business with the live asset, they will be killed (Marburg’s words, not mine).

-Ops Team

The guilt ballooned up. If I’d let it, it would have taken over.

This was my fault.

She wasn’t to be injured.

She wasn’t.

“They’ve got Madison somewhere,” I reported. I pushed the guilt aside. Save it for later. Promise it that it could have me, later. Once I had her back.

I’d thought…well. They said she wasn’t to be harmed. I didn’t have time to do anything but believe it.

“Understood,” Mina said. “Sending the tunnel schematics to your phone. Get out of the archive, and go left.”

The stairs down to the tunnels were damp and empty, except for the corpse of a museum security guard, lying half on the stairs and half on the landing above me.

“Mina,” I asked. “Is there anyone still in the museum?”

“It’s normal hours,” she reminded, a note of curiosity in her voice. “A few tour groups…security guards. It’s a light day for tourists, but that’s still a lot of people if the bombs go off.”

“I won’t let it happen.”

It didn’t look like the security guard had gone peacefully. Two bullet wounds in the chest, one across the temple. Someone had been in a hurry.

And had gone upstairs.

So the team had split. Why?

Footsteps, from up the stairs. I took a few steps back, and hidbehind the door.

A low grunt, and the sound of a body being dragged.

“Fuck this,” someone grumbled, in a whisper.

I peeked out. One of Marburg’s men was staring directly at me. He blinked, looked down at the body, and when he looked back up he was facing the barrel of my assault rifle.

He spread his arms, dropping the body. Then he pointed upstairs.

“Rifles make a lot of noise,” he said casually, and shrugged. “Sure you wanna do this?”

“Where’s the bombs?” I asked.

“There’s an exhibit in the North Wing on the Jingkang incident. There might be a few fire lance replicas there,” he said innocently. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I-” he said.

Muffled sharp gunshots from far up the stairs.

He went for the pistol on his belt. I shot him twice.

“Mike,” Mina radioed, “you need to hurry.”

There were too many stairs to run up them all, but no time to walk.

“What’s going on?”

“It…sounds like Marburg’s men are attacking the security guards.” she said. “Security’s outnumbered, they’ll be slaughtered.”

The lobby was designed to be pretty – a massive marble hall with arched ceilings and heavy staircases and large expanses of intricate marble tilework marking off café sections and waiting sections and a place for tourists to wait in line. I don’t think the designer had accounted for pitched battle. With no cover, and with Marburg’s men coming down the staircases, and with the element of surprise, security hadn’t stood much of a chance. Five of them were already on the ground, only a couple breathing. One guard had taken cover behind an errant and empty display case. She was firing at a man on an upper balcony clear across the room. Another guard was crouched in the café behind an Ale Salute vending machine, ducking out with a shotgun every few seconds to fire uselessly at the two men proceeding down the central staircase. A third slammed into the wall next to me, wrestling desperately with the arms around his throat.

The guard saw me. Marburg’s man didn’t. I dashed forward and locked the VCI in a chokehold. He dropped the guard and started tearing at my forearm with his nails. I yanked him back a step, the guard reached out and stole the man’s pistol from his belt, and then put three rounds in his chest. I dropped the body and we both traded a silent thanks at one another.

Then the guard stiffened and pointed over my shoulder. We hit the ground beside the dead VCI, and I winced as several rifle rounds imploded the marble wall above my head.

The guy on balcony was fumbling with a reload. The guard beside me got back to his feet a split-second before me, but I was faster with aiming. Our shots hit at the same time. The man on the balcony slumped against the stone balustrades. His rifle fell over the edge and clattered on the ground.

“Grazie ancora,” I said, out loud this time. He nodded back, mouth set in a grim line.

The guard behind the display case, free from the danger of Balcony Man, pulled out her radio and shouted into it. She and the guard in the café advanced at the same time centering and firing at the men coming down the staircase in one smooth motion. They didn’t need my help.

The shooting was over, for the moment.

They all turned at looked at me.

“Uh…” I said. I didn’t look the least bit official. I’d come from the goddamn tunnels with a bright gold assault rifle and I was in civvies. They looked at me all the same.

“Evacuate the civilians,” I ordered quickly, in Italian. “About half a, uh…”

Fuck was the word for klick? Fuck was the conversion rate?

“Half a kilometer,” I said. “Got it?”

They nodded, and scattered.

“Stay together!” I yelled at their backs.

The main staircase ended in a split, the East Wing to the right, and the West Wing to the left.

“Mina,” I asked, “you have any-”

The PA system in the hallway let out a small, rattled electric shriek, then settled into a staticky transmission.

“Agent Thorton,” Marburg announced magnanimously. “You made it – good, that makes things interesting. We have Madison. She’s being held in the west wing of the museum. My men have orders to execute her.”

He paused. The urge to shoot out the PA system was growing.

“That where your bombs are, too?” I challenged.

“No,” he said, “the bombs are with me – at the Crusades exhibit. You won’t have time to reach both. Either way…”

He paused again, the smile aggravatingly audible. “Someone dies.”

“Your right about that, Marburg. Why don’t you stay put, I’ll be right there.”

“Left or right, Thorton – your choice. Madison – or coming after me and the bombs. There’s not time for both.”

The whining static cut out, immediately followed by the whining static of my earpiece.

“Mike,” Mina said. “Madison – she’s in the wing to your left…but the Crusades exhibit is in the wing to the right.”

“I know,” I said. “I get it.��

If he was telling the truth. If he had her.

I assumed he was trying to play me. Like everyone else had been, lately.

“Which was should I go?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Mike – you’ll have to make the call. But I don’t think Marburg is bluffing.”

I did.

Or maybe it’s just what I’d wanted to believe.

-----

The East Wing was full of old Italian art, renaissance, by the look of it. I didn’t have much time to check. I was too busy dodging bullets and in one case, a throwing knife with the VCI’s wing and stars laser-etched into the blade’s base.

Another one sliced through the air and embedded itself in an already tattered canvas. I put the last of my rifle rounds into its owner’s chest, and took the knife with me. The edge cut through the edge of a painted blue robe a figure playing a lute. The canvas made a small tearing noise as I tugged the knife free.

Mina hadn’t said a thing through the whole fight, and she didn’t now.

----

“I’m picking up some interference on the channel,” Mina reported, shouting to be heard over VCI machine pistol fire. “And judging from the frequencies…there’s some proximity mines near your location!”

“I’ll keep an eye out!” I shouted back, trying to watch both the blatantly obvious yellow blinking mine on the column above my head, and the VCI approaching behind it.

I had two seconds after jumping up and grabbing it to fling it towards the VCI, and dive away.

----

The smoking autoturret finally detonated, sending the throwing knife implanted in its guiding camera whizzing halfway across the room. The hilt was scorched, and the blade still radiated heat when I retrieved it.

-----

Security was dead. They’d clearly been left where they landed, falling down the marble stairs in the room. A few had made it to the centerpiece of the Crusades exhibit, a collection of massive brassy gold statues of elephants. There were bullet holes in the columns around the edges of the room. Indicators, maybe, of who they’d been fighting again.

The VCI were gone now. And when I approached the crates stashed in between the elephant statues, I could see why.

2:59:14.

The counter was decreasing rapidly. Another second ticked off.

The mess of wires the counter was nestled into was connected to a hell of a lot of crates.

Half a klick my ass.

“Three minutes,” I reported.

“Get ready for evac!” someone else shouted.

Too late, I realized several balconies were overlooking the center exhibit. And that’s where the VCI has decided to camp.

I fell, tucking myself behind the nearest crate of high explosives.

It didn’t help. They’d seen me.

Several bullets pinged sparks of the side of an elephant statue.

“Mike?” Mina asked.

“Working on it.”

I fired blind. No screams, still too many bullets coming for me. They fired, and I fired back. The timer counted down. We were going to die here. I didn’t know a thing about bomb defusal, not this kind, not – and Madison – and they kept shooting.

My rifle jammed with a sharp, harsh click I could feel in my bones.

Calm down.

“Mina,” I said, “Give me thirty second intervals – and in about a minute, I’m going to need you to talk me through defusing this.”

“Two minutes, thirty seconds,” she said. “Get me a picture of the detonator.”

“Copy.”

Clear the rifle. Hope it wasn’t serious. Tap the magazine back into place, rerack and fire over my head. It’s working, someone screams, dive roll out of cover while you still have a chance. Take cover again, this time behind the crates with the detonator. Fire. Stop, take the picture. Send it. Back to firing.

“Receiving,” Mina said.

Sneak a glance up. Nearly lose your head for it. Quick, think. There were two in front of you, for sure. But they’d be looking…

Turn around. He’s staring at through pistol sights. Hope his range is worse than yours. Swing around, fire at the same time. Are you dead? No? Good. Is he? Good.

“Two minutes,” Mina said.

“Two minutes, boys!” I shouted up at the last two. They might leave. They didn’t. Dedication, great.

Less shooting at me, though.

“Run while you still can!” I advised. “Half a klick! Think you can do that in two minutes?”

The shooting stopped slowly.

“Marburg will never know!” I said. “Unless you really think I can defuse these in, what? A minute thirty?”

“One forty-five, actually,” Mina pointed out.

They took off.

What were they thinking of me, right then?

“One thirty,” Mina said. “Are you ready?”

The first detonator was blinking, counting down quickly.

“Ready,” I said.

“We’re lucky. Do exactly what I say, quickly. We should have time.”

“Got it.”

“These are…” she said, then paused. “No, the design number don’t matter, just – okay. There should be four black buttons on the side. There should also be at least two wires on the left– three? Is it two, or three?”

“Mina?”

“Sorry, hang on.”

“Uh,” I said. “There are about a dozen wires.”

Silence, except for the detonator beeping. 59…58

“Mina?”

“Hang on.”

“We don’t really-”

“Okay,” she said calmly. “Forget the wires. There’s an override code that should reset the time. And another one to…I don’t know. Glitch the system, or something.”

“Should?”

“We can debate later; just do it. Leftmost button twice, third four times, second once, first twice-”

The beeping was almost drowning out her voice. “Slow down, Mina.”

“I can’t. Keep up.”

I tried, I really did. I got to the last one and was half sure the museum was going up then and there. It didn’t. The detonator skipped from 28 to 0, I had a miniature heart attack, and then the detonator switched off.

“Okay…” I said slowly, “I think-”

“There should be a second one in the opposite corner,” Mina informed me.

The heart attack was slightly less miniature, this time.

Running through the statues took three seconds; finding the seconds detonator another two. 23, 22-

“Hurry,” she said, repeating her instructions all over again and this time, I didn’t bother asking her to take it easy. I finished with all of one second to spare. It felt like an eternity. An empty one. No thinking, just sitting back against the dead crates, sliding to the ground, breathing. Not believing it was over. Who would I have to fight, to stop them from coming back? And just turning the things back on again? Fuck. They’d know by now, know the bombs hadn’t gone off, they’d be on their way back. Maybe I could organize security, or something, maybe – Madison had called the cops, though. They could-

Madison. Marburg had her. Marburg had her, fuck, fuck, where? Outside the museum, maybe? Anywhere in Rome. Anywhere in the world. I-

Footsteps. And her voice.

“Mike!” she shouted, talking fast, sounding stained. “Get out of here! Marburg is-”

Across the room and up the stairs, A VCI man in a suit caught up with Madison. He got her head in a lock and forced a hand over her mouth. Marburg strolled in behind them.

“It’s over!” I said. “Let her go!”

Madison mmphfd through the VCI’s hand. She struggled with him, even when he tightened her hold. She did. She tried.

Marburg gazed down at me. He took in the dead security guards, and the dead screen on the detonators, and the rifle strapped on my back.

He smiled.

“Do as he says,” he ordered, with a dismissive wave.

The VCI man pushed Madison away. She stumbled. She looked back over her shoulder at the lot of them, the VCI guard, and Marburg, and another one walking in. The two guards stared ahead impassively. Marburg kept his eyes on me.

Madison was looking at me, too. She was. How was I supposed to look away?

I nodded gently. She took a step, wrapping her arms around herself. She was wearing the same salmon colored blazer she’d been wearing the first day we met. She looked cold anyway.

I took a step towards her, and one of the guards pointed his shotgun at me. Madison shook her head. She looked backwards at Marburg again, then started down the stairs. She tried to smile at me. She didn’t have it in her; I didn’t either.

I was looking at her. I didn’t see it happening until it was too late.

“Deus Vult,” Marburg said quietly, the black and silver pistol in his hand.

He didn’t recoil with the shot. Neither did Madison. It seemed like just a noise, like we’d all agreed to pretend we heard a gunshot at the same time. The pistol shot sound happened, and Madison stopped walking. Her eyes widened. She looked down at the growing bloodstain showing through her jacket. She looked back up at me, with confusion, and questions, and uncertainty, and then her eyes went unfocused.

Her knees buckled, and she fell onto the stairs. Her body went limp, and slid a few steps more.

It only took me seconds to reach her. It didn’t matter. She was already dead.

Marburg sighed. “You brought it on her,” he said.

She lay facedown on the marble. I couldn’t bring myself to turn her head. Couldn’t touch her, couldn’t comfort her – not that she need me too – did she? Need me? Still?

I didn’t know if she believed in an afterlife. It hit hard. I didn’t even know if she wanted to be buried, I didn’t know anything about her-

Except that she wasn’t a spy. Couldn’t have been. Not with the way Marburg had- not with the way he- she couldn’t have been, couldn’t have been anything but afraid and calling the police to- and I- this was my-

No. “You pulled the trigger,” I growled at the fucker on the stairs. I had my rifle. One of Marburg’s men put a warning shot past my side.

Marburg had his pistol in hand and a neutral smile on his face. “Don’t blame me,” he said. “You made your choice.”

“Don’t give me that third party bullshit, Marburg. I’m-”

No. No, he wasn’t getting out of it that easy. No cops. No police. She’d wanted it but that, that was…over, or…should be? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I was going to kill that son of a bitch and I was going to do it now.

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and an air of impatience.

He deserved to know. Deserved to feel it coming. Deserved to know.

“I’m gonna kill you,” I told him, smiled when he didn’t react, because it was going to be all the better when his new reality suddenly sunk in. “Quickly. Which is more than a coward who shoots women in the back deserves.”

“I may give you that chance, Thorton,” he said, clasping his hands together in front of him, gun disappearing into a holster. “If only to further your edu-”

His guard’s shotgun blast went wide. He hadn’t been expecting me to move backwards. An angry, impulsive rush up the stairs, maybe, and- and I almost did, it would have been so satisfying, but I had to live if I wanted to kill him. Backwards it was, dashing back and falling into cover behind a pillar, a wide view of the stairs and the body at the base- and-

Marburg’s men came hurrying down the stairs, laying down cover fire with shotguns. I shot blind. They survived it.

“I’m impressed,” Marburg shouted over the constant sound of shotguns, layered one after another, and return rifle fire, frantic, ill-timed, going to get me killed if I kept up like that.

“You stay focused,” he rambled, “carried out your mission, disarmed the bombs…”

I ducked back as a shotgun blast caught the edge of the pillar, and blew apart the outer layer of wood.

“…and left her for last. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Mike,” Mina warned, “he’s trying to provoke you.”

I didn’t care. I wanted it. I curled a finger around the trigger-

“Mike,” she said stern, absolute, angry.

Swallow the feeling. Force it down. Try to breathe-

“Oh, the choices an agent in your line of work has to make everyday…” he mused. His shoe soles tapping as he went down the stairs. If he touched her, if he so much as went near her…

“Did you think you had time? No, no, no. No, I was quite clear with you about that. You knew, Thorton.”

Another cold Thorton from Mina. A shotgun round from a VCI – Deus Vult – from a guard.

More of his footsteps.

“Maybe you thought you could be a hero, save her…”

He didn’t know a goddamn thing. I was going to tear the sick fucker apart.

“Agent Thorton…” Mina said.

His footsteps stopped. I glanced out in between shotgun shots. He was standing next to her body, pistol pointed at her head.

He glanced over at me and tsked. “It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

A round from a shotgun forced me back into cover. There was a single pistol shot, and I knew, I knew-

I came out shooting. He smiled. There was an awkward hole in the marble beside her body with the bullet casing right there, and he smiled.

“Shit, Mike, fuck-” Mina swore. “Get out of there!”

It didn’t matter. If they hit me. So long as I got him. And I did. I had him. He was smiling and he didn’t expect it, underestimation, distraction? Who the fuck knows, I had a line on his forehead and a finger on the trigger and in the distance, faint sirens, Madison’s sirens.

I froze.

I was going to choke. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t even see him. Except I knew I had the shot, I knew I did, I had to have had it. And I didn’t do it. I sat there shaking because the rifle was so damn heavy in my hands.

He smiled even more.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you, Thorton,” he said, and ran.

NO.

I went after him, the shotgun guards ducking out of cover. One went down, doubled over, the shock of taking a frisbeed assault rifle to the stomach, the other surprised enough for a second that I had a chance to tackle him, pull his shotgun free, bash his nose in with it and send him running in the opposite direction at gunpoint. The other one shot at me with my own damn rifle, the shots going too far to the left. I yanked it out of his hands.

“It does that,” I said.

I added several shots at his feet, and he ran too.

There were heavy metal security doors closing at the top of the exhibit. Marburg was already through them. I slid through at the last second, nearly having to roll.

The autoturret wasn’t smoking anymore. The room almost looked peaceful. Columns and art and pots on stands. It should have been full of tourists this time of day.

Noise from the back of the room, near the main exit to the exhibit.

“I expected more from a self-appointed hero,” Marburg said, voice echoing, sneer audible. “You are disposable and obsolete.”

I crouched beside the nearest cover, a large column with a painting on the other side.

“Says the corporate tool who answers to Leland,” I told him, concentrating, listening. Triangulating.

“I work for Halbech. You…”

He laughed. I could almost see where he was standing, almost…

“You’re a man without a country, Thorton. You’re me, twenty years ago.”

“What’s that in dog years?”

“Even if you escape, I know how your story ends.”

Got him.

“Keep talking,” I said. “Lets me know where to shoot.”

“Enough of this,” he spat, with sudden venom.

Let this work. Please.

I picked the right column, decorating it with rifle rounds, but he went running and I couldn’t do it. I fucking- I had him, I swear I did but I was dizzy. He ran off with only one token shot back at me, ran off and through the next security door, and I couldn’t and I was cursing myself because I was halfway across the room and I was never going to get there, and I was never- I tried, though, I-

“Mike!” Mina said, cutting through a steam of angry curses.

“Dammit, he’s getting away!”

“There’s nothing you can do now, Mike,” she said placatingly, gently, giving up. “Get out of there.”

She was right, and if I could stop feeling sick for a second I could move- I could-

“There’ll be another time,” she promised.

Right. And that was a fucking promise I could hold on to. This wasn’t it. I was going to kill that son of a bitch, I was, I swore it. I promised.

The sirens were louder now. The tunnels were still intact. An escape route.

I glanced back at the closed security gate leading to the Crusades exhibit. I couldn’t even go back to-

Don’t think about it, I thought.

Don’t think about it.

Just…don’t.

Okay.

I won’t.

“Heading out,” I told Mina, and headed for a side exhibit. “Get me direction to the tunnel.”

“Got it,” she said.

I ignored the sound of relief in her voice.

#the omega report #major character death #i mean we all knew this was coming right?#this will be on ao3 in a hot minute

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