Famous Last Words #7
Title: Famous Last Words
Author: jendavis
Fandom/ Pairing The Losers (comic 'verse, with some help from the movie), eventual Jensen/Cougar
Rating: R overall
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Summary: Cougar was bleeding all over the bomb in his lap, the last time Jensen saw him. But that was then.
Link to Master List & Previous Chapters
---
It was a shower and a panic attack and three cups of coffee later that Jensen bullshitted himself up enough to go back for another round of uselessness and dead ends.
He wasn't ready to walk into the office to find Stegler grinning. "Think I might be on the right track, finally."
"Yeah?" Jensen sat down and booted up his laptop, but Stegler was shoving a file folder across the table.
"Got some emails between project management and finance," Stegler said. "They've pushed something through under the table with the DOD, which I was able to confirm with some friends in DC." Jensen flipped through the folder, nothing but drafts of appropriations bills and memos. "Go to the back," Stegler said, fingering a post-it note stuck to one of the pages.
It was a message from an administrative assistant, writing to her boss and asking how he wanted a bunch of data sets sorted for the programmers at the St. Paul office. A little back and forth, and the terminology was spelled out. Down towards the end was a finalized list, the header above it reading "Naming Conventions."
"Holy crap," Jensen grinned, "Fuck, man, why didn't I see it?" In another window, he opened the original spreadsheet and looked again. "Yeah, eleven columns here. Each cell is one part of the cataloguing number." Stegler watched over his shoulder as he plugged in the column headings.
"Like a library catalog?"
"Same principle, but they've got their own code." Jensen scrolled down the list. "Okay. Yeah. I'm seeing a bunch of repetition, here, so it looks like these," he highlighted a chunk of the list," are in the same area."
"Awesome."
Jensen shook his head. "Not so much. See, we don't have access to whatever this refers to. It's just the catalog. The library itself isn't in here, or we would've seen it sooner."
"Any idea where it is?"
"I'm guessing Minnesota," Jensen confirmed, going back to the email chain. "The St. Paul office."
Stegler's expression lost its enthusiasm, then, but he shrugged. "Can you get in?"
Jensen just grinned.
---
It took an hour and a half to break in. Another half hour to figure out their server array, and another ten minutes to find the one he was looking for.
It took ten minutes, opening files at random, to become very, very worried.
One folder seemed mostly to be contracts and master agreements. First on the list was one between Goliath, the FDA, and the Department of Defense. The next was filled with copies of agreements between university chemistry and physics departments and the Department of Education. There was a memo with the signatures of everyone on the appropriations committee, with three members having mild reservations regarding disbursal of the funds across the colleges. Another memo wondered why Goliath wanted it's name kept out of it, and a reply from Goliath's legal counsel stating that any undue attention from forced outside of the United States could result in tensing relations between the US and any number of other countries.
The next folder had more from the FDA, and it was all worryingly vague. Blank forms and samples of regulatory documentation required for Phase I experimentation on human subjects, nothing more.
The more notable items in the next folder included NOAA tables, census data, power grid information from over seventy plants throughout the US and nine from a Goliath subsidiary in India. Tectonic maps and airstream data. All sorts of weird shit.
Jensen's eyes were starting to blur. He hated this kind of work, just trawling through file after file hoping that something would jump out at him.
Still, though, he wasn't ready when he realized the last few subfolders were the collective jackpot. Research results, memos, reports- all the possible documentation one could have on a given research project. There were probably thousands of pages of experimental data, but without abstracts, the physics and chemistry of it all meant little to him, but a lot of it seemed to be about additives being mixed in with the plutonium somehow.
It meant a little more, though, when he came across some comparative radiation exposure data points.
It meant a hell of a lot more a while later, when, buried in the email chain attached to a meeting memo, in a list of names that meant nothing until he reached the bottom of it, he picked out the names C. Alvarez, L. Porteous, F. Clay and A. al-Fadhil. Scanning back up again at the header, the subject read: "Presumed dead after explosion of test unit 4AF-835-2."
Jensen wasn't the type who liked to see his name in print. He really wasn't the type who liked seeing it here, but he read on. And then he found it.
Six and a half months ago, Robert Stratenfield, who worked operational security, emailed the director of research, with the subject heading "What should we do about this?" No text, just an attachment, a video. Jensen downloaded it and leaned forward to watch. Security footage, hard to see, all fuzzy grays and blacks, more shadow than anything. And then he saw it.
Cougar, walking around naked, for some reason, pulling things off the shelves. It wasn't until he disappeared again, out of the cameras range with a handful of MREs that Jensen suddenly got it. The footage, here, what he was seeing, was the ship Cougar had found before he'd made it back to shore.
Jensen knew he was panicking, he did, but he read onwards, now, faster than before, his eyes clear and his mind focused. A few messages down, past the month long debate regarding the video's authenticity, Stratenfield received a response to his original question.
"It's been decided that we're going to bring in a specialist to deal with Alvarez, I've already got someone in mind, and forwarded the video. Those of you who will be involved with the specialist, I'll talk to in person, but for now, I'm ordering you not to interfere."
---
The flight was long, confined, and between the never-ending hiss of re-circulated air, the random coughs and conversations of passengers who couldn't see him, and the noise of the engines, he thought he might go mad.
Below, though, out the windows, there was nothing but water, stretching out forever. Darker than it looked up close, and after hours on this plane, Cougar began to realize that he was homesick for a lot of things.
His mothers house in Carrizo Springs. The beach in Mazatlan, with all the careless vacationers. Hector's back yard, the weekend after the wedding. Jensen's unending stream of hotel rooms, all the stupid words he used that said nothing of plans, intel, or anything at all. But the months he'd spent riding the ocean's currents were the most peaceful he'd ever known. And compared to the rest of them, it wasn't that far out of reach.
For two hours, he contemplated it, and wondered if he had enough time. There was still the better part of three days before he had to be in Chicago. He made himself wait, though, until the pilot said that they're beginning their descent into Los Angeles, and then he let himself fall.
Through the floor, the sky, and towards the ocean. Pulling himself together enough that his mass could gain speed. He still had a long way to fall, after all, so he still had the time to notice it.
There was a storm coming in from the south, and Cougar watched it with disinterest until he realized that it was moving, very quickly, in his direction, but by that point, he was only a few hundred feet above the surface.
He cast himself out more widely, then, buffering his fall, and felt the crash of every one of his molecules hitting the surface, and it was only then that he realized that he hadn't been ready to land, not at all. The water was roiling, rough and crashing, ahead of the storm, and it pulled him in a thousand directions all at once.
It tore at him, ripping him apart faster than he could pull himself together.
---
Six months before Jensen had a clue, Goliath had known Cougar was alive. And they'd been planning on dealing with him ever since.
They were so, so fucked.
When Jensen looked up from the screen that he hadn't actually been seeing for ten minutes or more, Stegler was watching him think. It was kind disconcerting, to be honest.
"So what the hell do you have, Jensen?"
"I. Don't even know. On the surface, it looks like Goliath's setting up a bunch of schools with a lot of money to work on something big, which may or may not include meteorology, nukes, and human testing. I don't get it, though. I mean, why go through the universities when they have their own labs and massive budgets?"
"Time constraints, maybe? Spread the load?" Stegler shrugged, then a worried look crossed his face. "Shit." He paused a moment, giving it some thought. "Or, they could already suspect that the research is going to be suspect, and it's a better idea to spread that around, as far from themselves as possible."
"A cover up? This big?"
"Goliath seem like the type of company to mess with small-scale?"
Jensen quirked his lip, but didn't laugh, because Stegler already looked like he was about to have an aneurysm already, but fuck it, Goliath already knew, the Cougar was already out of the bag.
"It gets better," he said, sliding his laptop across the table. "Play that file." He watched Stegler for a while, saw the point at which he recognized Cougar.
"The hell? Is that Alvarez?"
"Fucking looks like him," Jensen said, sounding deliberately shocked and maybe a little angry. "But the video's time stamped. Several months after he died, man. I don't get it."
"A ghost?"
"You believe in ghosts?"
"Spooks are close enough, don't you think. Were you actually there when the bomb went off?"
"No, me and Pooch cleared the scene."
"And so too, did al-Fadhil. You think they're working together?"
"I don't know," Jensen said, straight-faced, but if he was going to play dumb, here, he had to go all the way. Because yeah, Goliath already knew about Cougar, but loose lips shanked shits.
"Okay. This is insane." Stegler pushed himself away from his desk. "I'm going to head down to the pub, get something to eat, try to unravel my brain a bit. You interested?"
"You kidding me?" Jensen scratched at his chest and grinned. "This is the most fun I've had all week." Roque would've glared, and Clay would've grimaced, shrugging. Pooch, though, his complaints would've turned into laughs soon enough. Cougar would've smirked, maybe shaken his head a little. But Stegler? He didn't smile, didn't even blink. It was a little disappointing.
---
As soon as Stegler was gone, Jensen let the smile drop from his face got back to work, determined, now.
He couldn't find anything more about a specialist, and as much as he thought it might be referring to Aisha, the timing was off. The woman was smart, yeah, but not patient. She wouldn't have waited six months to come after Cougar.
As far as Jensen could tell, that left Borodin, though there was no direct reference to any names anywhere. The more he thought about it, though, the more it made sense. Aisha was one hell of a weapon, but she wasn't the sort most people could afford to be connected to, even on the thinnest of trails.
Eventually, Jensen sighed, glaring at the screen when it could tell him no more, before getting up to pace the office.
Outside, London was carrying on like it did every day, and if anybody in the street below noticed him, they didn't care. They were too busy wrangling their kids, or heading out towards the tube. Home or to the shops, arguing about football.
They had no idea what he knew. No idea that the ball was rolling down the hill, now. That one of the world's largest military contractors had edged its way into every major college and university in the states, and why would they? It was an ocean away.
Probably wouldn't stay that way for long, though. Goliath already had offices here in London, it was less than a mile away. Their pilot program would expand soon enough, hitting the continent as well, probably. Or, hell, maybe just the results of that research.
And Jensen was standing above them all, watching from his window, and the knowledge was making him feel like some sort of willful co-conspirator.
Hands in his pockets, he could feel the silencer button on the burner phone with his fingertips, and was pulling it out to call Cougar when he thought better of it.
Jensen was a genius, yeah, but Goliath had known a hell of a lot more than Jensen did for a while, there. And maybe they still did. For all he knew, that cat down there on the corner, climbing into a taxi, was Borodin himself. And if anyone on the planet could afford the massive amount of time, money, and patience it would take to track down calls between two burners, it was Goliath.
He just didn't fucking know.
---
The storm passed long before Cougar was able to pull the last shreds of himself back in, and he moved towards the shore as quickly as he could manage.
He couldn't manage much. The water was still rough, and progress was slow, too slow. His entire being felt weak, tired, and he wondered if he hadn't left part of himself out in the water behind him.
There was no point in going back to look, though.
The sun had gone down by the time the water pushed him to shore, and once he arrived, he made his hands and grabbed at the sand, holding on, bracing for the next wave. When it came, though, it washed over him entirely.
But it didn't move him. He had to open his eyes to realize that he'd become visible, and had to close them again as his body registered new complaints. The fatigue was sharper, now, pressing him into the sand, and with every muscle in his body feeling so strained, it took more effort than it should've to roll himself over.
Estoy chingado, he decided, because it was easier to do this if there weren't any false hopes getting in the way.
Slowly, carefully, Cougar began to take inventory. Limbs first, fingers, toes, they were all there, and as far as he could tell, all his major organs remained where they should've been. Nothing was bleeding, nothing was broken.
But he was exhausted, though.
Looking up the beach, he saw the boardwalks, and realized that the ocean had spit him up on what was probably Venice beach. It was as good a place as any to take a nap.
It wasn't like he had a home to get to, after all.
---
"Nobody puts baby in a corner," Jensen knew his grin was a little off-putting when Stegler stopped short, The Times in his hand.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, and it was funny, the way he forgot sometimes that Stegler wasn't Clay, Pooch or any of the others. That he had no idea how awesome Jensen could be when he was bored and pissed off.
"I have a plan, made of one hundred percent pure brilliant idiocy. I suggest we enact it post-haste."
"You just said-" Stegler shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
"We're sitting on enough info, here, to completely fuck up Goliath's game plan." Jensen toyed with the thumb drive that he'd filled once he'd finished the upload. All the pictures of his family, a few songs he'd found online, and copies of the most damning files he'd been able to fit on there. If he went through with this, he could have the information out and the computer clean within minutes, now.
"We don't even know what their game plan is."
"Dollars to donuts it doesn't include their entire server being copied to the internet, though."
Stegler stared, his face filling with dread. "You can't be serious."
"As a general rule, I try not to be, but I've been known to make exceptions." Jensen sighed. "But yeah, seriously. It's one hell of a jack move, and my ass isn't the only one I've got on the line, here, which is why it's uploaded and ready to go, but hasn't actually gone yet. Wanted to run it by you first."
"And that wasn't enough to tell you how bad your plan is?"
They were getting off on the wrong foot, here.
"Look. It's been weeks, now, and you're no closer to setting up our inside man, and who knows how long it'll take to bear fruit. We still don't know who Borodin is, and we still have no idea why the hell Aisha killed Marsden. Way I see it, we can sit here on our asses and wait around for a few more months, or we can see how the cockroaches scatter when the lights come on."
Stegler sat down in his chair, leaning back with a scowl on his face, but he said nothing, and Jensen didn't push it.
"I don't like it," Stegler said. "It's reckless as hell, and it's going to be huge. They're not going to be cockroaches, Jake. Their retaliation is going to be massive."
"Well, they're not going to be able to come back to us. I covered the hell out of my trail, man. This ain't my first rodeo," Jensen replied, smirking.
Stegler snorted, shaking his head, and stared off into the middle distance. After a few minutes, he rocked his head back in Jensen's direction.
"Fuck it. I can't move on with any of my prospects anyway, not until Borodin's identified. You really think you'll be able to shake him out?"
"If anything can, this will. Aisha too, if we're lucky." Jensen stopped talking then, even though he knew Stegler was already on side. He'd pushed it a bit to far with him anyway, and fuck, it wasn't like Jensen was running high on allies, these days.
"Fuck it. What the hell. One thing, though. You don't do it from here."
"Wasn't planning on it," Jensen shook his head. "I'm heading down to-"
"Don't tell me," Stegler said. "I really don't want to know."
---
The timer was on the files, they'd go public in three hours from a server in Shanghai, and Jensen wiped his hard drive.
The computer was gutted and scattered all over the East End within four hours. By the end of the fifth, he was standing on a street near the Chelsea Embankment, thumbing his burner open to share the news.
And then he remembered.
Goliath was going to come back hard.
It would make the news. Front page for a month at least. Cougar wouldn't be able to miss it if he tried. In three days, Jensen would be screwing with a flight out of Chicago, and another day or so after that, he could explain it all to his face.
He'd risked enough, today, too fucking much, and he really didn't need to be painting a target on Cougar's back, or his own.
The sim card went out into the water, the phone itself into a bin seven blocks away.
On his way back to the hotel, he used his regular cell to call Stegler, tell him it was all sorted, and that he was going to get out of London, soon, just to be on the safe side.
"Good idea. I'm heading out of the office now, getting a flight out when I get to my hotel. Be in touch, and good luck, yeah?"
"Sure thing. You too." Jensen said, and ended the call. Heading up the street, he noticed an Apple store and checked his watch as he crossed towards it. They'd be closing in ten minutes, but fuck it, he had more than enough cash on him to make it worth it.
---
Setting up the new computer, stripping it of everything he didn't need, kept him a little bit more sane, helped him keep his eye off the clock. He checked the departure times and found that his flight was still on schedule to leave in eleven hours, but refrained from checking up on the O'Hare timetables. He still had three days, yet.
He couldn't call Cougar if he wanted to, which he did, badly, but he didn't check on his sister, either. It wasn't a skill. Jake Jensen had paranoia honed down to an art.
Putting their pictures up on this computer was stupid enough, but he was going to do it anyway. He reached into his pocket for his thumb drive, but it wasn't there. It wasn't in his other pockets, either, or his coat, and then he could see it, in his head, sitting on the table back at the office.
If Cougar were there, his glare would probably read, that was careless, and you're a crappy artist. The fact that Jensen was seeing it anyway was probably a sign that he needed to get some sleep.
---
Screw it. It's not like sleep's good for you, anyway, he decided, letting himself into the office building. At least you still have the keys.
He climbed the stairs to the third floor and let himself out into the hallway, passing the internet startup, the law firm, and the two bathrooms the offices shared on his way towards the end, and he was very nearly to Stegler's door when he realized four things. The door was open. The lights were on. Someone was moving around inside, and Stegler had gone home hours ago.
Unless he's lying dead on the floor, his brain supplied.
Easing himself against the wall, he looked across the hallway. The shared bathroom was his best bet for hiding, and if he needed to fight, there was probably something useful up in the ceiling tiles, if Stegler was Stegler.
Man, I hope you're not dead...
But all his hopes and fears with regards to Stegler were confirmed the moment he stepped inside.
The bathroom was clean- as clean as it ever got, really, but the ceiling tile above the toilet was sitting slightly askew. Upon closer inspection, it was also empty.
Which meant he'd gone for it, earlier.
Damn it!
Jensen searched through the cabinet under the sink, found a can of aerosol air freshener. It wasn't a gun, but it would sting like hell, long as he got it in their eyes. Also, they would smell nice, and Jensen was down for all the small mercies he could get.
Listening first to make sure the hallway was clear, he eased the door open again, slowly, and stepped across, freezing when he heard the voice coming from inside, then nearly laughing out loud when he realized it was Stegler.
And then nearly crying, when he realized what he was saying.
"-got everything out there, and it's spreading like wildfire… I don't think we can contain it at this point. No, I have no idea how he did it, and that he's in the wind already… No, I called Stratenfield already, and as far as he and his care, you and me, we're in the clear from that side, at least."
Motherfucker, Jensen thought, adding in an extra fuck for good measure. He'd been played, so damned bad.
"Look, what I'm saying is that it's out, who the fuck knows how far it's going to blow. If Jensen doesn't figure it out, someone else will. I'm killing off the Borodin alias as of now, just to be on the safe side, and frankly, Aisha my dear, it might be time for you to try one on….Yeah. Okay. Uh-huh, well, I'm almost out of here. Gone by first light. No. I'll talk to you once I get Stateside. Just lay low. A few days, tops. Okay, bye."
---
Jensen hadn't realized he was frozen to the spot, but he was back in the bathroom, air freshener at the ready, for three minutes before he heard the office door shut.
He waited another five before peeking his head out the door. The hallway was clear.
Hurrying into the office, he found it mostly gutted. The equipment was still there, but all the boxes of files were gone, and the computers had probably been wiped. Or not, maybe, but in light of things, it really didn't matter.
He rummaged through the scattered empty folders on the desk, searching for the drive, becoming more and more confident that Stegler'd pocketed it, but then he found it underneath the chair.
It wasn't much of a relief, though. Not fucking at all.
---
Uneasy on the streets, Jensen hurried back to his hotel. It was too late to find another room, but as far as he could tell, nobody had been in while he'd been on his errand. Nothing was out of place. If bugs had been planted, Jensen wasn't able to find them.
Which meant the room was probably clean. Which meant that either they weren't coming, or they just hadn't come yet. Long as he stayed awake, he could hit the airport first thing in the morning, and at least wait to be killed in public.
Which meant that at the moment, it was probably time to fill Cougar in on everything while he still had the chance. Jensen sat on the edge of the bed and tried to figure out where to start, what to say and what not to, as he rummaged around his pockets looking for the burner.
Damn it.
He'd thrown it into the river already. Even if he called from a different phone, Cougar wouldn't pick up. He'd cut him off to spite his face. Real nice. And fuck it, after that last call, there was no telling if he'd pick up, anyway.
Jensen's knuckles stung, and they were a bit bloody when he looked down at his hand. He'd probably cut it on the edge of one of the file boxes back at the office.
He'd never gotten around to finding out of Cougar could use his abilities to heal himself. Right then, it was the kind of thing he would've liked to know for sure.
Yeah, cause a guy who can walk through walls needs to worry about paper cuts.
Still, it was a thought experiment, trying to figure out how it all worked. The exact sort of thing nights like this were made for, trying to take the known data and push it into something useable. Like his capability to bring things with him, or how thinly he could spread himself out, or at what point, exactly, he became more visible than invisible.
If he was just waiting here for Stegler or Aisha to burst in, guns blazing, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of having their traitorous bullshit anywhere near his mind when it happened.
And if his brain kept turning to Cougar, well, it hurt a hell of a lot less, keeping to the academics.
---
By the time the sun rose, Jensen was a mess, exhausted, but he could sleep over the Atlantic soon enough. He took a quick shower, glared at himself one last time in the mirror, and headed out to the airport.
Standing in line to pick up his tickets for New York City, his eyes wandered towards the arrival and departure screens. Soon enough, he'd have O'Hare's computers hacked, and he'd be waiting for Cougar to arrive. He toyed, for a few minutes, with the idea of Minnesota, of getting a jump-start on hitting Goliath's offices there, but they'd be going in blind. Better to get organized as far away from the fire as possible.
Miami, maybe?
"Jensen!"
No. Fuck no. Without turning around, his eyes scanned the area, the ticket desk, the security queues, but he knew, already, that all the best exits were behind him.
"Jensen!" Stegler's voice called again, sounding surprised, happy even. Nothing like he'd sounded last night, when he'd announced himself as the traitor he was.
Jensen kept his eyes on the line in front of him. There were three people ahead of him, a tired looking couple and a very stressed suit. He wouldn't make it to the counter before Stegler caught up with him, and already, others were turning to search out the source of the commotion.
Relax, he told himself, turning around. You saw him, he never saw you. Play it cool. Stegler was carrying his jacket, and it looked like he'd sweat through his shirt already.
"Hey, man, what's up?"
"Can I talk to you a minute?" he asked, nodding back towards the doors. There were enough people milling that Stegler couldn't pull shit if he tried.
"I'm going to be late for my flight," Jensen lied, but Stegler shook his head, shrugging.
"Then get on the next one. This is important."
Jensen did not want to move. He did anyway, following Stegler out the doors and back outside.
"What do you got?" he asked, as soon as they'd stepped away from the doors. At least if anything hinky went down out here, he could make a decent run for it.
Stegler leaned close, glancing back over Jensen's shoulder nervously. It was confirmation enough that he had no clue Jensen was onto him. "That shit you pulled with Goliath's blowing up all over the place, you seen the news?"
"No, I've been sleeping," he lied. "What's up?"
"I managed to get into Stratenfield's files. He's going to be here, in London. Tomorrow," Stegler smirked. "Meeting with a bunch of execs and a few MPs. If we you get ears in that room-"
"I can't," Jensen raised his palms, shrugging, taking a step back.
"But we're so close!" Stegler complained, following him like some over-aged puppy, and Jensen rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, but we'll still be this close next week," he said. "And I need a few days off from all this, man. I'm tired."
"I can't promise we can wait for you," Stegler said, straightening his spine and regarding Jensen curiously.
"I know," Jensen said, before his brain could catch up to the word "we."
"No. Really." Easing his shoulder back, Stegler glanced down at himself, at the coat he was carrying. The nozzle of a handgun was just barely sticking out, and it was aimed at Jensen's chest. "I don't think we can wait. Now come along, Jake. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on the list."
---
Chapter 8
Author: jendavis
Fandom/ Pairing The Losers (comic 'verse, with some help from the movie), eventual Jensen/Cougar
Rating: R overall
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Summary: Cougar was bleeding all over the bomb in his lap, the last time Jensen saw him. But that was then.
Link to Master List & Previous Chapters
---
It was a shower and a panic attack and three cups of coffee later that Jensen bullshitted himself up enough to go back for another round of uselessness and dead ends.
He wasn't ready to walk into the office to find Stegler grinning. "Think I might be on the right track, finally."
"Yeah?" Jensen sat down and booted up his laptop, but Stegler was shoving a file folder across the table.
"Got some emails between project management and finance," Stegler said. "They've pushed something through under the table with the DOD, which I was able to confirm with some friends in DC." Jensen flipped through the folder, nothing but drafts of appropriations bills and memos. "Go to the back," Stegler said, fingering a post-it note stuck to one of the pages.
It was a message from an administrative assistant, writing to her boss and asking how he wanted a bunch of data sets sorted for the programmers at the St. Paul office. A little back and forth, and the terminology was spelled out. Down towards the end was a finalized list, the header above it reading "Naming Conventions."
"Holy crap," Jensen grinned, "Fuck, man, why didn't I see it?" In another window, he opened the original spreadsheet and looked again. "Yeah, eleven columns here. Each cell is one part of the cataloguing number." Stegler watched over his shoulder as he plugged in the column headings.
"Like a library catalog?"
"Same principle, but they've got their own code." Jensen scrolled down the list. "Okay. Yeah. I'm seeing a bunch of repetition, here, so it looks like these," he highlighted a chunk of the list," are in the same area."
"Awesome."
Jensen shook his head. "Not so much. See, we don't have access to whatever this refers to. It's just the catalog. The library itself isn't in here, or we would've seen it sooner."
"Any idea where it is?"
"I'm guessing Minnesota," Jensen confirmed, going back to the email chain. "The St. Paul office."
Stegler's expression lost its enthusiasm, then, but he shrugged. "Can you get in?"
Jensen just grinned.
---
It took an hour and a half to break in. Another half hour to figure out their server array, and another ten minutes to find the one he was looking for.
It took ten minutes, opening files at random, to become very, very worried.
One folder seemed mostly to be contracts and master agreements. First on the list was one between Goliath, the FDA, and the Department of Defense. The next was filled with copies of agreements between university chemistry and physics departments and the Department of Education. There was a memo with the signatures of everyone on the appropriations committee, with three members having mild reservations regarding disbursal of the funds across the colleges. Another memo wondered why Goliath wanted it's name kept out of it, and a reply from Goliath's legal counsel stating that any undue attention from forced outside of the United States could result in tensing relations between the US and any number of other countries.
The next folder had more from the FDA, and it was all worryingly vague. Blank forms and samples of regulatory documentation required for Phase I experimentation on human subjects, nothing more.
The more notable items in the next folder included NOAA tables, census data, power grid information from over seventy plants throughout the US and nine from a Goliath subsidiary in India. Tectonic maps and airstream data. All sorts of weird shit.
Jensen's eyes were starting to blur. He hated this kind of work, just trawling through file after file hoping that something would jump out at him.
Still, though, he wasn't ready when he realized the last few subfolders were the collective jackpot. Research results, memos, reports- all the possible documentation one could have on a given research project. There were probably thousands of pages of experimental data, but without abstracts, the physics and chemistry of it all meant little to him, but a lot of it seemed to be about additives being mixed in with the plutonium somehow.
It meant a little more, though, when he came across some comparative radiation exposure data points.
It meant a hell of a lot more a while later, when, buried in the email chain attached to a meeting memo, in a list of names that meant nothing until he reached the bottom of it, he picked out the names C. Alvarez, L. Porteous, F. Clay and A. al-Fadhil. Scanning back up again at the header, the subject read: "Presumed dead after explosion of test unit 4AF-835-2."
Jensen wasn't the type who liked to see his name in print. He really wasn't the type who liked seeing it here, but he read on. And then he found it.
Six and a half months ago, Robert Stratenfield, who worked operational security, emailed the director of research, with the subject heading "What should we do about this?" No text, just an attachment, a video. Jensen downloaded it and leaned forward to watch. Security footage, hard to see, all fuzzy grays and blacks, more shadow than anything. And then he saw it.
Cougar, walking around naked, for some reason, pulling things off the shelves. It wasn't until he disappeared again, out of the cameras range with a handful of MREs that Jensen suddenly got it. The footage, here, what he was seeing, was the ship Cougar had found before he'd made it back to shore.
Jensen knew he was panicking, he did, but he read onwards, now, faster than before, his eyes clear and his mind focused. A few messages down, past the month long debate regarding the video's authenticity, Stratenfield received a response to his original question.
"It's been decided that we're going to bring in a specialist to deal with Alvarez, I've already got someone in mind, and forwarded the video. Those of you who will be involved with the specialist, I'll talk to in person, but for now, I'm ordering you not to interfere."
---
The flight was long, confined, and between the never-ending hiss of re-circulated air, the random coughs and conversations of passengers who couldn't see him, and the noise of the engines, he thought he might go mad.
Below, though, out the windows, there was nothing but water, stretching out forever. Darker than it looked up close, and after hours on this plane, Cougar began to realize that he was homesick for a lot of things.
His mothers house in Carrizo Springs. The beach in Mazatlan, with all the careless vacationers. Hector's back yard, the weekend after the wedding. Jensen's unending stream of hotel rooms, all the stupid words he used that said nothing of plans, intel, or anything at all. But the months he'd spent riding the ocean's currents were the most peaceful he'd ever known. And compared to the rest of them, it wasn't that far out of reach.
For two hours, he contemplated it, and wondered if he had enough time. There was still the better part of three days before he had to be in Chicago. He made himself wait, though, until the pilot said that they're beginning their descent into Los Angeles, and then he let himself fall.
Through the floor, the sky, and towards the ocean. Pulling himself together enough that his mass could gain speed. He still had a long way to fall, after all, so he still had the time to notice it.
There was a storm coming in from the south, and Cougar watched it with disinterest until he realized that it was moving, very quickly, in his direction, but by that point, he was only a few hundred feet above the surface.
He cast himself out more widely, then, buffering his fall, and felt the crash of every one of his molecules hitting the surface, and it was only then that he realized that he hadn't been ready to land, not at all. The water was roiling, rough and crashing, ahead of the storm, and it pulled him in a thousand directions all at once.
It tore at him, ripping him apart faster than he could pull himself together.
---
Six months before Jensen had a clue, Goliath had known Cougar was alive. And they'd been planning on dealing with him ever since.
They were so, so fucked.
When Jensen looked up from the screen that he hadn't actually been seeing for ten minutes or more, Stegler was watching him think. It was kind disconcerting, to be honest.
"So what the hell do you have, Jensen?"
"I. Don't even know. On the surface, it looks like Goliath's setting up a bunch of schools with a lot of money to work on something big, which may or may not include meteorology, nukes, and human testing. I don't get it, though. I mean, why go through the universities when they have their own labs and massive budgets?"
"Time constraints, maybe? Spread the load?" Stegler shrugged, then a worried look crossed his face. "Shit." He paused a moment, giving it some thought. "Or, they could already suspect that the research is going to be suspect, and it's a better idea to spread that around, as far from themselves as possible."
"A cover up? This big?"
"Goliath seem like the type of company to mess with small-scale?"
Jensen quirked his lip, but didn't laugh, because Stegler already looked like he was about to have an aneurysm already, but fuck it, Goliath already knew, the Cougar was already out of the bag.
"It gets better," he said, sliding his laptop across the table. "Play that file." He watched Stegler for a while, saw the point at which he recognized Cougar.
"The hell? Is that Alvarez?"
"Fucking looks like him," Jensen said, sounding deliberately shocked and maybe a little angry. "But the video's time stamped. Several months after he died, man. I don't get it."
"A ghost?"
"You believe in ghosts?"
"Spooks are close enough, don't you think. Were you actually there when the bomb went off?"
"No, me and Pooch cleared the scene."
"And so too, did al-Fadhil. You think they're working together?"
"I don't know," Jensen said, straight-faced, but if he was going to play dumb, here, he had to go all the way. Because yeah, Goliath already knew about Cougar, but loose lips shanked shits.
"Okay. This is insane." Stegler pushed himself away from his desk. "I'm going to head down to the pub, get something to eat, try to unravel my brain a bit. You interested?"
"You kidding me?" Jensen scratched at his chest and grinned. "This is the most fun I've had all week." Roque would've glared, and Clay would've grimaced, shrugging. Pooch, though, his complaints would've turned into laughs soon enough. Cougar would've smirked, maybe shaken his head a little. But Stegler? He didn't smile, didn't even blink. It was a little disappointing.
---
As soon as Stegler was gone, Jensen let the smile drop from his face got back to work, determined, now.
He couldn't find anything more about a specialist, and as much as he thought it might be referring to Aisha, the timing was off. The woman was smart, yeah, but not patient. She wouldn't have waited six months to come after Cougar.
As far as Jensen could tell, that left Borodin, though there was no direct reference to any names anywhere. The more he thought about it, though, the more it made sense. Aisha was one hell of a weapon, but she wasn't the sort most people could afford to be connected to, even on the thinnest of trails.
Eventually, Jensen sighed, glaring at the screen when it could tell him no more, before getting up to pace the office.
Outside, London was carrying on like it did every day, and if anybody in the street below noticed him, they didn't care. They were too busy wrangling their kids, or heading out towards the tube. Home or to the shops, arguing about football.
They had no idea what he knew. No idea that the ball was rolling down the hill, now. That one of the world's largest military contractors had edged its way into every major college and university in the states, and why would they? It was an ocean away.
Probably wouldn't stay that way for long, though. Goliath already had offices here in London, it was less than a mile away. Their pilot program would expand soon enough, hitting the continent as well, probably. Or, hell, maybe just the results of that research.
And Jensen was standing above them all, watching from his window, and the knowledge was making him feel like some sort of willful co-conspirator.
Hands in his pockets, he could feel the silencer button on the burner phone with his fingertips, and was pulling it out to call Cougar when he thought better of it.
Jensen was a genius, yeah, but Goliath had known a hell of a lot more than Jensen did for a while, there. And maybe they still did. For all he knew, that cat down there on the corner, climbing into a taxi, was Borodin himself. And if anyone on the planet could afford the massive amount of time, money, and patience it would take to track down calls between two burners, it was Goliath.
He just didn't fucking know.
---
The storm passed long before Cougar was able to pull the last shreds of himself back in, and he moved towards the shore as quickly as he could manage.
He couldn't manage much. The water was still rough, and progress was slow, too slow. His entire being felt weak, tired, and he wondered if he hadn't left part of himself out in the water behind him.
There was no point in going back to look, though.
The sun had gone down by the time the water pushed him to shore, and once he arrived, he made his hands and grabbed at the sand, holding on, bracing for the next wave. When it came, though, it washed over him entirely.
But it didn't move him. He had to open his eyes to realize that he'd become visible, and had to close them again as his body registered new complaints. The fatigue was sharper, now, pressing him into the sand, and with every muscle in his body feeling so strained, it took more effort than it should've to roll himself over.
Estoy chingado, he decided, because it was easier to do this if there weren't any false hopes getting in the way.
Slowly, carefully, Cougar began to take inventory. Limbs first, fingers, toes, they were all there, and as far as he could tell, all his major organs remained where they should've been. Nothing was bleeding, nothing was broken.
But he was exhausted, though.
Looking up the beach, he saw the boardwalks, and realized that the ocean had spit him up on what was probably Venice beach. It was as good a place as any to take a nap.
It wasn't like he had a home to get to, after all.
---
"Nobody puts baby in a corner," Jensen knew his grin was a little off-putting when Stegler stopped short, The Times in his hand.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, and it was funny, the way he forgot sometimes that Stegler wasn't Clay, Pooch or any of the others. That he had no idea how awesome Jensen could be when he was bored and pissed off.
"I have a plan, made of one hundred percent pure brilliant idiocy. I suggest we enact it post-haste."
"You just said-" Stegler shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
"We're sitting on enough info, here, to completely fuck up Goliath's game plan." Jensen toyed with the thumb drive that he'd filled once he'd finished the upload. All the pictures of his family, a few songs he'd found online, and copies of the most damning files he'd been able to fit on there. If he went through with this, he could have the information out and the computer clean within minutes, now.
"We don't even know what their game plan is."
"Dollars to donuts it doesn't include their entire server being copied to the internet, though."
Stegler stared, his face filling with dread. "You can't be serious."
"As a general rule, I try not to be, but I've been known to make exceptions." Jensen sighed. "But yeah, seriously. It's one hell of a jack move, and my ass isn't the only one I've got on the line, here, which is why it's uploaded and ready to go, but hasn't actually gone yet. Wanted to run it by you first."
"And that wasn't enough to tell you how bad your plan is?"
They were getting off on the wrong foot, here.
"Look. It's been weeks, now, and you're no closer to setting up our inside man, and who knows how long it'll take to bear fruit. We still don't know who Borodin is, and we still have no idea why the hell Aisha killed Marsden. Way I see it, we can sit here on our asses and wait around for a few more months, or we can see how the cockroaches scatter when the lights come on."
Stegler sat down in his chair, leaning back with a scowl on his face, but he said nothing, and Jensen didn't push it.
"I don't like it," Stegler said. "It's reckless as hell, and it's going to be huge. They're not going to be cockroaches, Jake. Their retaliation is going to be massive."
"Well, they're not going to be able to come back to us. I covered the hell out of my trail, man. This ain't my first rodeo," Jensen replied, smirking.
Stegler snorted, shaking his head, and stared off into the middle distance. After a few minutes, he rocked his head back in Jensen's direction.
"Fuck it. I can't move on with any of my prospects anyway, not until Borodin's identified. You really think you'll be able to shake him out?"
"If anything can, this will. Aisha too, if we're lucky." Jensen stopped talking then, even though he knew Stegler was already on side. He'd pushed it a bit to far with him anyway, and fuck, it wasn't like Jensen was running high on allies, these days.
"Fuck it. What the hell. One thing, though. You don't do it from here."
"Wasn't planning on it," Jensen shook his head. "I'm heading down to-"
"Don't tell me," Stegler said. "I really don't want to know."
---
The timer was on the files, they'd go public in three hours from a server in Shanghai, and Jensen wiped his hard drive.
The computer was gutted and scattered all over the East End within four hours. By the end of the fifth, he was standing on a street near the Chelsea Embankment, thumbing his burner open to share the news.
And then he remembered.
Goliath was going to come back hard.
It would make the news. Front page for a month at least. Cougar wouldn't be able to miss it if he tried. In three days, Jensen would be screwing with a flight out of Chicago, and another day or so after that, he could explain it all to his face.
He'd risked enough, today, too fucking much, and he really didn't need to be painting a target on Cougar's back, or his own.
The sim card went out into the water, the phone itself into a bin seven blocks away.
On his way back to the hotel, he used his regular cell to call Stegler, tell him it was all sorted, and that he was going to get out of London, soon, just to be on the safe side.
"Good idea. I'm heading out of the office now, getting a flight out when I get to my hotel. Be in touch, and good luck, yeah?"
"Sure thing. You too." Jensen said, and ended the call. Heading up the street, he noticed an Apple store and checked his watch as he crossed towards it. They'd be closing in ten minutes, but fuck it, he had more than enough cash on him to make it worth it.
---
Setting up the new computer, stripping it of everything he didn't need, kept him a little bit more sane, helped him keep his eye off the clock. He checked the departure times and found that his flight was still on schedule to leave in eleven hours, but refrained from checking up on the O'Hare timetables. He still had three days, yet.
He couldn't call Cougar if he wanted to, which he did, badly, but he didn't check on his sister, either. It wasn't a skill. Jake Jensen had paranoia honed down to an art.
Putting their pictures up on this computer was stupid enough, but he was going to do it anyway. He reached into his pocket for his thumb drive, but it wasn't there. It wasn't in his other pockets, either, or his coat, and then he could see it, in his head, sitting on the table back at the office.
If Cougar were there, his glare would probably read, that was careless, and you're a crappy artist. The fact that Jensen was seeing it anyway was probably a sign that he needed to get some sleep.
---
Screw it. It's not like sleep's good for you, anyway, he decided, letting himself into the office building. At least you still have the keys.
He climbed the stairs to the third floor and let himself out into the hallway, passing the internet startup, the law firm, and the two bathrooms the offices shared on his way towards the end, and he was very nearly to Stegler's door when he realized four things. The door was open. The lights were on. Someone was moving around inside, and Stegler had gone home hours ago.
Unless he's lying dead on the floor, his brain supplied.
Easing himself against the wall, he looked across the hallway. The shared bathroom was his best bet for hiding, and if he needed to fight, there was probably something useful up in the ceiling tiles, if Stegler was Stegler.
Man, I hope you're not dead...
But all his hopes and fears with regards to Stegler were confirmed the moment he stepped inside.
The bathroom was clean- as clean as it ever got, really, but the ceiling tile above the toilet was sitting slightly askew. Upon closer inspection, it was also empty.
Which meant he'd gone for it, earlier.
Damn it!
Jensen searched through the cabinet under the sink, found a can of aerosol air freshener. It wasn't a gun, but it would sting like hell, long as he got it in their eyes. Also, they would smell nice, and Jensen was down for all the small mercies he could get.
Listening first to make sure the hallway was clear, he eased the door open again, slowly, and stepped across, freezing when he heard the voice coming from inside, then nearly laughing out loud when he realized it was Stegler.
And then nearly crying, when he realized what he was saying.
"-got everything out there, and it's spreading like wildfire… I don't think we can contain it at this point. No, I have no idea how he did it, and that he's in the wind already… No, I called Stratenfield already, and as far as he and his care, you and me, we're in the clear from that side, at least."
Motherfucker, Jensen thought, adding in an extra fuck for good measure. He'd been played, so damned bad.
"Look, what I'm saying is that it's out, who the fuck knows how far it's going to blow. If Jensen doesn't figure it out, someone else will. I'm killing off the Borodin alias as of now, just to be on the safe side, and frankly, Aisha my dear, it might be time for you to try one on….Yeah. Okay. Uh-huh, well, I'm almost out of here. Gone by first light. No. I'll talk to you once I get Stateside. Just lay low. A few days, tops. Okay, bye."
---
Jensen hadn't realized he was frozen to the spot, but he was back in the bathroom, air freshener at the ready, for three minutes before he heard the office door shut.
He waited another five before peeking his head out the door. The hallway was clear.
Hurrying into the office, he found it mostly gutted. The equipment was still there, but all the boxes of files were gone, and the computers had probably been wiped. Or not, maybe, but in light of things, it really didn't matter.
He rummaged through the scattered empty folders on the desk, searching for the drive, becoming more and more confident that Stegler'd pocketed it, but then he found it underneath the chair.
It wasn't much of a relief, though. Not fucking at all.
---
Uneasy on the streets, Jensen hurried back to his hotel. It was too late to find another room, but as far as he could tell, nobody had been in while he'd been on his errand. Nothing was out of place. If bugs had been planted, Jensen wasn't able to find them.
Which meant the room was probably clean. Which meant that either they weren't coming, or they just hadn't come yet. Long as he stayed awake, he could hit the airport first thing in the morning, and at least wait to be killed in public.
Which meant that at the moment, it was probably time to fill Cougar in on everything while he still had the chance. Jensen sat on the edge of the bed and tried to figure out where to start, what to say and what not to, as he rummaged around his pockets looking for the burner.
Damn it.
He'd thrown it into the river already. Even if he called from a different phone, Cougar wouldn't pick up. He'd cut him off to spite his face. Real nice. And fuck it, after that last call, there was no telling if he'd pick up, anyway.
Jensen's knuckles stung, and they were a bit bloody when he looked down at his hand. He'd probably cut it on the edge of one of the file boxes back at the office.
He'd never gotten around to finding out of Cougar could use his abilities to heal himself. Right then, it was the kind of thing he would've liked to know for sure.
Yeah, cause a guy who can walk through walls needs to worry about paper cuts.
Still, it was a thought experiment, trying to figure out how it all worked. The exact sort of thing nights like this were made for, trying to take the known data and push it into something useable. Like his capability to bring things with him, or how thinly he could spread himself out, or at what point, exactly, he became more visible than invisible.
If he was just waiting here for Stegler or Aisha to burst in, guns blazing, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of having their traitorous bullshit anywhere near his mind when it happened.
And if his brain kept turning to Cougar, well, it hurt a hell of a lot less, keeping to the academics.
---
By the time the sun rose, Jensen was a mess, exhausted, but he could sleep over the Atlantic soon enough. He took a quick shower, glared at himself one last time in the mirror, and headed out to the airport.
Standing in line to pick up his tickets for New York City, his eyes wandered towards the arrival and departure screens. Soon enough, he'd have O'Hare's computers hacked, and he'd be waiting for Cougar to arrive. He toyed, for a few minutes, with the idea of Minnesota, of getting a jump-start on hitting Goliath's offices there, but they'd be going in blind. Better to get organized as far away from the fire as possible.
Miami, maybe?
"Jensen!"
No. Fuck no. Without turning around, his eyes scanned the area, the ticket desk, the security queues, but he knew, already, that all the best exits were behind him.
"Jensen!" Stegler's voice called again, sounding surprised, happy even. Nothing like he'd sounded last night, when he'd announced himself as the traitor he was.
Jensen kept his eyes on the line in front of him. There were three people ahead of him, a tired looking couple and a very stressed suit. He wouldn't make it to the counter before Stegler caught up with him, and already, others were turning to search out the source of the commotion.
Relax, he told himself, turning around. You saw him, he never saw you. Play it cool. Stegler was carrying his jacket, and it looked like he'd sweat through his shirt already.
"Hey, man, what's up?"
"Can I talk to you a minute?" he asked, nodding back towards the doors. There were enough people milling that Stegler couldn't pull shit if he tried.
"I'm going to be late for my flight," Jensen lied, but Stegler shook his head, shrugging.
"Then get on the next one. This is important."
Jensen did not want to move. He did anyway, following Stegler out the doors and back outside.
"What do you got?" he asked, as soon as they'd stepped away from the doors. At least if anything hinky went down out here, he could make a decent run for it.
Stegler leaned close, glancing back over Jensen's shoulder nervously. It was confirmation enough that he had no clue Jensen was onto him. "That shit you pulled with Goliath's blowing up all over the place, you seen the news?"
"No, I've been sleeping," he lied. "What's up?"
"I managed to get into Stratenfield's files. He's going to be here, in London. Tomorrow," Stegler smirked. "Meeting with a bunch of execs and a few MPs. If we you get ears in that room-"
"I can't," Jensen raised his palms, shrugging, taking a step back.
"But we're so close!" Stegler complained, following him like some over-aged puppy, and Jensen rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, but we'll still be this close next week," he said. "And I need a few days off from all this, man. I'm tired."
"I can't promise we can wait for you," Stegler said, straightening his spine and regarding Jensen curiously.
"I know," Jensen said, before his brain could catch up to the word "we."
"No. Really." Easing his shoulder back, Stegler glanced down at himself, at the coat he was carrying. The nozzle of a handgun was just barely sticking out, and it was aimed at Jensen's chest. "I don't think we can wait. Now come along, Jake. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on the list."
---
Chapter 8