Second Chance by Sian1359 (Second Verse Challenge) 2/3

[sian1359]

********

One of these days, John Sheppard was going to find himself another CO worth working for. The only reason Caldwell was here with them in the field instead of back at Quantico was because their charge had three different governments involved in maintaining his welfare, and possibly a fourth standing in the shadows of their bad guys. Caldwell was a natural back in the corridors of Washington, and he might have even been good in the field back when he'd been hungry to make his next grade, but sacrifices to the alter of political expediency had been John's enemy throughout his entire career.

In twelve years with the Air Force, only Colonel Jack O'Neil had earned his respect after John had been pegged for some of the black ops shit the Air Force wasn't supposed to be involved in. But they'd worked together only six months before all of Jack's people earned special consideration for their work in the Balkans, which turned Jack into General who then got sent back home to work at the Pentagon.

John had got his gold oak leaf out of those six months himself, along with subsequent covert missions into North Korea and even Iran, then a CSAR deployment during Operations Desert Storm, Desert Shield and Provide Comfort along with two more COs who actively loathed him and enough dead friends to fill up his apartment in Maryland before he finally gave up on making it to his twenty years in service. He'd been damn lucky that General O'Neill had liked him for more than his 'mad piloting skills', as Jack then put in a word on John's behalf to the various alphabet soup agencies interacting with the Pentagon, and he received several immediate offers before John had even made it back to the states.

Of course, the offers had really been about Jack's reputation and not John's.

Still, John had figured he'd be something of an asshole if he didn't consider taking one of them, and transferring to Federal employment would let his time in service count with regard to his eventual retirement benefits. It wasn't as if he'd been eager to pursue any of his own prospects anyway, since they would be in academia or as a corporate drone, and if he had wanted to pursue that kind of career he might as well have followed the path his father had greased for him since he'd been fourteen instead of walking away from his family and the nice corner office with his name on it in the family's corporate headquarters.

The major drawback had been that each of the offers had meant giving up the air other than going with the CIA's offer, but the whole point had been to get away from war zones and COs who valued missions over people -- and he wouldn't have been flying as a college professor or some corporate middle manager either. Working in the Capitol also put him too close to his father, Dave and Nancy, yet by choosing the FBI John had the entirety of the United States as his field of operations instead of being trapped in an office. So all in all he'd never regretted the choices he'd made to lead him here -- even if here, currently, was Houston in September. And no matter that his boss, Supervisory Special Agent Steven Caldwell, was yet another in a long line of dicks he ended up reporting to.

In this particular instance, Caldwell pulling John away from his contact had been a bone-headed move even if it was because two of his team had gone off radio. Bates and Dex could have handled the search without John's supervision -- or they could have called in the local office and local LEOs and set up the Task Force that already should have been done upon the team's arrival. Except, for all of his political savvy and the underlying nature of working in the Bureau's Critical Incident Response Group, Caldwell didn't like playing nice with local law enforcement over some grudge against LA's SWAT teams earned during the '84 Olympics. Yet one more reason Caldwell should have stayed back in DC; jurisdiction wars were a waste of time and effort, and were all too often at the expense of the victims.

It wasn't that John wasn't concerned about his men or didn't want to be leading the search for them. While it could be something as innocuous as a radio glitch or some sort of interference, it could also just be that they weren't doing what they were supposed to be. So if someone was going to rip them a new one, it should indeed be John, leaving John to take the heat for them with Caldwell.

Only John's gut was saying it wasn't innocuous, and while he was damn concerned for Markham and Stackhouse, if something had truly blown up in their faces, then his assignment needed him more than his team did. That was why the team and Caldwell were there, after all, to address the Canadian Government and the Nobel Foundation's concerns for the safety and protection of one Doctor Rodney McKay. And if someone was going to get hurt, well that was also why they were there, and what they got paid for.

Fuck Caldwell! John was going to do what his experience and training said was necessary and if that wasn't what his CO was expecting, then Caldwell could bust him down to a GS 9 and chain him behind a desk -- or he could just fire John's ass. Caldwell was already convinced that John was seeing Kolya and his Genii Resistance Front behind every current terror threat, never mind that they probably were behind the stuff the growing radical Islamic Jihadists weren't. Just because you were paranoid…

John had no doubt Caldwell was just as much here in the field to evaluate the impact of John's 'obsession' as he was to kiss political ass.

"Ronon, Gene, meet me at the street level stairwell," he ordered over the radio and began his own jog downward. "We're not going to find them by just randomly checking out garage floors."

By the time the other two arrived, John had pull out one of the local downtown maps from his pocket and spread it out over the hood of the nearest car.

"Okay, Tony and Greg's last radio check was as they exited the freeway on Memorial," he lit up the western purple section of the tourist freebie with the penlight on his keychain. "That's only five city blocks from here," pointing to the square that identified the Lancaster Hotel where he'd left McKay, "and even with the current traffic they should have made the trek within thirty minutes. "Assuming the hotel garage and the theatre one were full, that still leaves two just across the street and then five more just one street over." There were thirty-seven more marked with direct access to the downtown tunnel system, so it had been a crap shoot from the very beginning.

"I refuse to believe they're still cruising for a parking spot," John frowned down at the map. "Chuck made sure their pick-up vehicle had handicapped plates since we couldn't get diplomatic ones in time to meet the Foundation's plane. The guys also would have radioed in an update or fucking called on their cells if all of the spots were mysteriously filled. Even if they've ended up a couple of miles away and were trekking in through one of the Pedestrian tunnels and all phone or radio signals are being blocked by all that steel, lead and concrete, they would have gotten to the Lancaster by now, or would have used one of the public pay phones to contact Chuck over at the Doubletree. So I'm going to say that someone is interfering with them and not just something." He folded the map and lifted his eyes back up to Bates, handing it over.

"Gene, find a local LEO and contact our local agent in charge. That's just too damn many places for three people to check out. Get them to start isolating the security footage from whatever security cameras that might blanket the area, starting from the location and time of Greg's check in. The private firms might pitch a fit without a warrant, but maybe we'll get lucky on one of the public cams and it will have at least picked up the car to give us a better starting point for our search."

Needing a warrant would involve notifying Caldwell, and while John's … revision of Caldwell's orders would be discovered soon enough, there was no point in rushing it.

Bates' nod was grim, his overall expression apprehensive and mildly condemning. They had all been subjected to Caldwell's objections in involving the locals upon arrival -- even of their own local Bureau office. Were this bit of insubordination on John's part not involving the safety of some of their team -- or the viable search area not suddenly seven times wider -- no doubt Bates would have unloaded his own objections. But even then he would have still done as ordered.

Eugene Bates might be a little too by the book for John's taste, but it had only taken them a couple of months in butting heads for John to discover that at least Bates' devoted adherence to the rules wasn't due to personal ambitions. The former Marine was simply a plodder, not real good at thinking outside of the box but with a pit bull's tenacity for checking out even the smallest detail and for seeing things through to their finish. He didn't like being asked to go outside of his comfort zone, but he was crazy loyal to his team and too good of an agent to let political bullshit get in the way of saving lives. So he left, calling on Chuck who was manning their communications base to start getting him contact names for the private systems too as the elevator doors closed on him.

John then turned to his newest team member and once again found himself marveling at how Ronon Dex had managed to get around dress codes and hair regs, since the shoulder-length dreads had to be giving Caldwell kittens. John's own unruly hair pissed Caldwell off enough for him to make the occasional comment, although the FBI wasn't military enough to force John to get a buzz cut and that was the only way he could get rid of the cowlicks. He could only think that Dex had claimed them as some sort of religious significance, and more power to him for taking advantage of the current level of PCness gripping the government as he suspected Dex was at best, agnostic, just like John.

"We need to get to Teyla and Doctor McKay. If Bates comes up with something, we'll figure out how to deal with it, but if Caldwell contacts you directly again instead of me, just tell him we're still looking." John still wasn't sure why Caldwell had called Dex when he'd been in the restaurant with McKay, but would worry about it once the situation was finished.

"You're asking me to lie to our boss?" Dex stopped for a moment before they entered the lobby, his brow raising.

"Is that going to be a problem, Special Agent Dex?" Best to find out now where Dex's limits were, and if he trusted John enough to know that he would have Dex's six.

Dex shook his head. "You're the Senior Agent. If you think we'll find our guys by staying close to McKay, I've got no reason to doubt you. Teyla says you know the group who's behind the threat, so..." Upon entering the lobby, Dex's gaze moved automatically to check the positions of everyone else nearby, something that had normally been Bates and John's thing while Teyla and Aiden would be the ones to actually make conversation with those nearby folk when necessary.

This change up was just one more reminder of the Aiden Ford-size hole in the team. But Dex deserved to be judged on his own merits and not just in comparison to their medically-retired friend. In their first three ops together, Dex had said and offered little beyond a looming presence and a steady hand, yet that and his a calm, quiet professionalism had been exactly what had been needed. Still, it was only been a matter of time before the man's true personality would win out -- whatever that turned out to be -- and John did encourage honesty even if it might put them at odds, as it occasionally still did with Bates.

John also might have preferred if Dex's first off-topic question hadn't been about the Genii, but it was still a valid one, especially with Caldwell discounting the likelihood of Kolya's people being involved. It wasn't as if Teyla didn't have her own history with the Genii, and her own reasons for giving Dex a heads up.

"Yeah, well, according to Caldwell and Deputy Director Woolsey, I'm the Boy-Who-Cries-GRF, like Fox Mulder with his little green aliens. In this particular instance, I'm pretty sure Caldwell's thinking the threat is all in Doctor McKay's mind, even though McKay isn't the one who brought us in and has, in fact, not said word one to anybody about being approached or threatened. Something on account of all the harassment claims he's filed -- and the ones that have been filed against him."

"But you think there is a real threat?"

John nodded. "Even before Tony and Greg went missing with the Nobel Foundation people."

"So do the Genii want McKay for ransom or something else?" Dex asked as they entered the restaurant. The maitre d' started forward, but then his face lit with recognition and he let them pass with no further contact.

"McKay's on record as a theoretical physicist, but according to his file, he built a completely accurate, non-working nuclear bomb for his sixth grade science fair and that's someone Acastus Kolya would be very interested in."

"Especially if there just happened to be missing uranium from Uzbekistan for sale on the black market," Dex proved that not only was he keeping up on potential threat rumors, but also able to put together the same pieces John was matching up.

"Especially if Kolya's man Radim is already on his way to pick it up," John amended grimly. "Or so a couple of my sources have reported. Unfortunately they are not Bureau sanctioned, and Caldwell thinks the uranium is the Agency's problem anyway."

"Until they bring it here," Dex growled. "Caldwell's not stupid, so why is he burning you on this?"

"Kolya and I have a history from before I joined the Bureau. Caldwell thinks --"

"John, Sora is here --"

Teyla's voice cut out as quickly as it had broken in over their comm. units. John didn't even waste the time to send a look Dex's way before he was starting to run, pulling his badge so that it would be visible. "Teyla, we're on our way," he sent back to her, hoping that she'd heard even as they heard nothing else from her.

Dex took the lead; he was younger, faster and in this instance John didn't really mind as Dex's size was certainly more intimidating. Waiters fell back when John held up his badge, although he had no doubt that several someones were frantically calling 911, and that hotel security would soon be on site.

"Federal agents," John started as one of the patrons proved less intelligent than the employees and rose to get in their way. Even as he and Dex sidestepped the redneck to either side, the sharp report of several gun shots sounded over the general increase of concerned crowd noises, turning the noise into screams.

"Federal agents," Dex roared above it all. Neither he nor John pulled their weapons yet, adding guns into the mix of people panicking and scrambling to get out of the way or trying to escape unnoticed would only make things worse.

"Chuck, notify the local authorities that we've got gunfire at the Lancaster Hotel," John panted out over the radio net as he kept up with Dex and did his own broken-field running to get around the fleeing patrons. Chuck should be constantly monitoring the team's frequency after Bates had called in -- really after Stackhouse and Markham had not.

"And let Caldwell know that the GRF are on site." He tried not to sound smug or vindicated; Chuck hadn't been the one who'd thought John had been off the mark here.

If Sora was here but Radim was away procuring the Uzbekistani uranium, Kolya would also be nearby. She was Radim's wife, but Kolya special protégée. John had no doubt that if Sora lived long enough and stayed out of any number of nations' jail, then she'd end up leading her own strike force, but by all the information the FBI had on the current state of the Genii leadership, she wasn't to that point in her training or level of trust yet -- in part because of Sora's tendency to get bogged down in personal vendettas. Like against Teyla Emmagen.

He and Dex reached the Pei Room. There had been no more gunshots, but neither had Teyla come back on the radio net. They took up positions on either side of the closed door, John taking one last glimpse to the restaurant at large to make sure there wouldn't be anyone in the line of fire if Sora had gotten the advantage and opened fire. John then counted down with his free hand and on one, Dex not only kicked the lock open, but kicked the door off its damn hinges.

Sora had not gotten the upper hand. John wasn't really surprised; Teyla certainly kicked his ass on a regular basis when they sparred. But Sora had had surprise on her side and could have gotten in a lucky shot. That would have been her only opportunity, however, and while Teyla looked a little … smudged, there was no evidence that she'd been shot or even particularly winded before she'd taken Sora down. Her radio hadn't fared as well, as evidenced by the broken bits and pieces scattered around the two women, and by the darkening bruise high up on Teyla's left cheek that John noted when Teyla turned her attention to them.

"Teyla?"

Teyla nodded and lowered the gun she'd held on them to return her attention back to Sora and make a last check on the slack of the zip tie restraint she'd been tightening at their explosive entrance. "I am fine, John," she sounded just a little more exhilarated, and little more fierce than normal, but then the vendetta between the two women had been personal and mutual to a large extent -- quite a bit like his and Kolya's thing, actually.

And speaking of Kolya… And McKay, who wasn't here.

"Where's McKay?"

Teyla frowned. "He never made it here. When I went to check after your recall, I saw Sora and figured it would be better to let her come to me and contain any collateral damage."

While John wanted to curse their luck for losing McKay, the fault had been his, not Teyla's. "Good call," John praised her as he moved toward her so she knew he wasn't blaming her about anything. He knelt down and helped Teyla sit Sora up against a table leg. The Genii terrorist sagged, her body limp and her eyes groggy, although she managed a pretty dark look and curse once she gathered her wits enough to take in her situation.

"Where's he going to take McKay?" he asked Sora, though he only expected the answer he got. And made a note to look up a couple of the words she used. Even after all of his years in the Air Force and its various overseas deployments, he was always interested in learning new profanity.

"Save it for your lawyer," he grinned and patted her on her cheek, then quickly pulled his hand away with a chuckle when she tried to bite it. "You might want to consider cutting yourself a deal, since you've got, what, five countries looking to put you away for terrorism and war crimes? If you cooperate with us, we'd probably fight for jurisdiction and --"

"Locals are coming," Dex warned from the door.

John gestured for Dex to deal with them. "You know I'm going to find him, Sora," he turned back to Teyla's prisoner. "And if anything happens to McKay, I promise I'll withdraw our claim and escort the three of you personally to The Hague. Oh, yeah," he added off of her widening eyes. "The local Uzbek NCB picked up Radim and his team before they got the uranium. Your husband is on his way to Lyon even as we speak."

"You're lying," Sora spat. Without denying that the GRF had been behind the uranium purchase.

John exchanged a look with Teyla and then nodded. "Whatever you say," he agreed as he and Teyla pulled Sora to her feet. She was right, actually, although John certainly hoped that Interpol were currently involved with catching Ladon Radim's team. His casualness about his answer, however, convinced her that he wasn't lying, at least in going by her sudden look of fear and desperation.

"Take her to a secure facility," John instructed to the cops Dex had filled in. He turned Sora over to them with an additional caution. "She is a suspected terrorist. Do not put her in with any others, and do not allow her to call or see anyone at all, not even her embassy, until you get the okay from Special Agent Bates or Caldwell."

Sora got a couple of looks from the LEOs before John got a nod. He would have sent Teyla or Dex along to make sure they understood he was serious, but if they were going to track down McKay and Kolya, he'd need all the back-up he could get.

"Bates, where are you?" John asked as he stepped back out into the main restaurant and Teyla was the one who moved to run further interference with the hotel security. While there weren't a lot of exits Kolya could have used, there were a couple just out of restaurant and then three more from the hotel.

"Seven blocks away at the police headquarters," Bates voice came back over their radios. "They run the master system for the public security cameras that include the rail station and the city run garages. Biggest bang for our buck, such as it is. An Evan Lorne is the agent in charge of the local office and he's putting his people to work on the private cams. No one's found anything showing Greg and Tony yet."

"Check real time for whatever they have near the Lancaster for any of Kolya's people or for McKay. Also have the put a BOLO out for McKay's vehicle." There was always still the possibility that McKay simply cut and run on his own, and a be on the lookout with the local cops would be the best way to determine that.

"Even with the distraction of Agents Markham and Stackhouse missing, if Kolya sent Sora after me, he would know that you would be after him immediately," Teyla frowned. "So he either had a car waiting for them, or he has a way of going off radar."

"The valet would likely note a waiting car, although Kolya could have set up a second car to switch to just a few blocks away," John expounded off the same thought. "Right now there aren't enough people on the street for them to just get lost in a crowd, but there certainly will be in a couple of hours when the theatres empty. So he's either stashing McKay somewhere quiet to wait, or is going for quiet and deserted in the first place."

"He could have checked in," Dex pointed to the bank of elevators halfway between the restaurant and the hotel lobby.

"Teyla, you know the descriptions of all of the likely players. Get back with hotel security and the front desk to see if anyone remembers one of Kolya's people checking in today. Also ask them to start compiling names over the last three days for Chuck to run against flight manifests." Probably a waste of time, but Caldwell would have John's balls if he didn't check, and if anyone could talk someone into providing something without a warrant, it would be Teyla.

"Bates, what's the scoop on the pedestrian tunnels?" John then asked as he led Dex over to the elevators. If they needed to waste another few minutes while they tried to get a lead on Kolya, they might as well spend it checking cars and parking levels again.

"If you can believe it, most of them are privately owned and they get locked down when the businesses close for the evening," came Bates' reply. "You're next to the theatre district, however, and it's not only open late, but has the most public access points. It does not, however, connect directly to the Lancaster. That system is one of the private ones and has already closed for the evening."

Dex looked as surprised as John felt. Private tunnels under a city's downtown? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?

"You've got my map, Gene, how many access points are we talking about?" John held them up at the elevators, moving to the side so that they wouldn't be in the way of the hotel guests that were already eyeing them a little strangely. Both he and Dex were still wearing their badges on their belt, however, so no one approached them.

"At least eleven just going over the same fifteen block area we started with on the parking garages, but probably double that with all the private connections. And that includes two separate tunnel systems, the North Louisiana which covers the theatres, and the North Travis which is the connected with the Lancaster. The two of them intersect in one location, and that's one block up and two blocks over. Same as with the parking, there isn't anything nearby off the Travis line except for the hotel. And that garage has been full all day, so unless Kolya put his people in before this morning, he's parked at least two blocks away."

Bates never sounded apologetic, but it was easy enough to hear a thin layer of futility underlying his words. Too many fucking areas to cover, just like the search for Tony and Greg, which they already didn't have the manpower for. Maybe if Caldwell hadn't had them coming in like prima donnas, but even then they would have had to hope their initial search grid would simply overlap with this second need.

"Let's assume Kolya did not park in the same garage as McKay parked, or he would have just intercepted him there instead of in the hotel restaurant." And they wouldn't have two missing Nobel Foundation members had it been planned as a simple grab. John was certain their disappearance still had to be tied in somehow, though he had no reason why Kolya would have gone to the bother. "McKay looked hot and bothered when he arrived, but I'm thinking that's his default state. What he didn't look like was as if he'd had to hike too far, at least not on street level and in the heat and humidity. If you remove the ones that are only a block away, what does that leave us for Kolya's driver?"

"Still too many if you add in the open tunnel system. Four different garages just another block away with street access, and one more factoring back in the Louisiana system."

The Louisiana system would be open and populated -- so witnesses versus easier access. But also a public system versus private and real cops versus rent-a-cops. Rent-a-cops were always easier to bribe, coerce or simply steal from.

"Dex, get us access to the Lancaster's tunnel entry point." Kolya didn't like witnesses.

"Gene, see if you can find out if there is any part of the Travis system that is closed off for maintenance. If not, make me a guess as to where Kolya would have chosen for his access anyway."

With a fifteen minute head start, Kolya was most likely already out of the tunnel system, they just weren't the fucking long. But John had a feeling that McKay would be doing something -- anything -- to slow down his kidnapping. Kolya would threaten all he could, but he needed McKay alive and on the top of his game if they were going to be playing around with refining uranium into weapons grade plutonium. There was certainly no guarantee that Kolya had approached McKay with only two people, but conversely, why would he have taken out the Nobel people if he wasn't intending to impersonate them and maybe try to get McKay to come with him voluntarily? John figured just the two was more likely and, assuming Sora had been one of them, then Kolya or whomever he'd sent with Sora would now be one person trying to contain McKay mobile. Knocking McKay out would only mean the GRF guy would be dragging McKay -- and that would be slowing them down too.

Bates was still off mic, though John could still hear the tone if not his actual words. Until Bates used a couple of the ones that Sora had. Those came through quite clearly and then Bates was back on the radio. "No scheduled maintenance, as I had already checked, but the brain trust in charge of the Travis system didn't bother to mention that they're in the process of finishing a new junction of tunnel to provide access points to the two towers at Main, Rusk and Travis. How about infiltrating a construction crew for your access?"

Infiltrating or simply breaking into. It was still putting all their money on one roll of the dice but, based on their limited intel, it was damn well what John would have done had he been in Kolya's place.

"You said two towers?"

"Only the Travis Tower had public parking, but the Main Street Tower is the one with the construction elevator. You'll need to go East one block, then South for three more before you get to the construction to your East again. Or up one, over three and up one more once you start from the Lancaster, ignoring a couple of little jogs and spurs that don't really go anywhere."

John suspected that for this once instance, Bates' words weren't meant as a subtle dig about John's lousy sense of direction on the ground. If the tunnels were allegedly locked down for the night, at best there would be emergency lighting and even if Sergeant Force Recon Bates was there taking point, not getting lost or turned around could be a challenge.

"Okay, work on getting your own access and take a team to start down from the street at the construction side. Have the LEOs put men down where the Travis and Louisiana tunnels connect just in case, and get them checking any maintenance routes since I still don't see Kolya trying to take McKay out with other people around."

Dex was back with a key card and no sign of hotel security to get underfoot.

"Teyla, coordinate with the Lancaster people to make sure no one comes up after we've moved into the tunnels, just in case they're simply waiting down below for us to go chasing ghosts, and they sneak back up here," John instructed as he and Dex moved into the elevator. "Chuck, I want an ambulance or paramedics in the area." He wasn't sure whether his feeling that they might be needed was for McKay or for the Nobel team, but he knew it with the same certainty that he'd honed flying combat search and rescue for two long, sandy years. He had a feeling the coroner wasn't going to be remiss either, but he hoped that gut feeling would be on Kolya's behalf.

"From this point on, maintain radio silence unless Ronon, Gene or I break it first." It wouldn't do to give their position away from careless chatter; it'd be bad enough if they would end up needed flashlights to get around and thus serve as a damn spotlight for the targets they'd be presenting. At least if it was pitch black otherwise, Kolya would be lighting himself up too.

Not pitch black. Feeble emergency lighting cast their initial landing into a shadowy gloom that was reminiscent of flying with night vision goggles. Everything was two-toned, black or not black, and obstructions or protuberances loomed only with close proximity, as John would guess at least two thirds of the lights weren't actually functioning. Whether this had been a precaution by Kolya, or simply shoddy maintenance, John had no way of knowing without breaking radio silence -- it really didn't matter anyway other than as a point of distraction.

While Dex had thought to have the bell disconnected before they landed, there was nothing they could do about the much brighter spill of light the elevator's opening let loose. Fortunately no immediate gun fire greeted their arrival, or when he and Dex cleared the door, with John taking low and left while Dex covered high and right. They both held their positions for a few long seconds and strained to hear anything above their own shallow breathing, but found nothing and finally Dex broke position and took the lead.

Not even Bates with all of his Marine training moved as silently as Dex and Teyla both did naturally. John's own regularly military training hadn't deemed it a necessary skill, but his special ops work had, and Jack had also been a master, so John had trained himself to move to where he could at least give Bates a run for his money. That he still retained and maintained such as skill was more ego at this point, but his ego wasn't so big as to deny that Dex (or Teyla) were much better on point in this type of situation.

John was the better shot, anyway.

Up, then over before up again didn't really help even when John assumed the bends to be analogous to city blocks and they had less than a mile total to cover. For these being pedestrian walkways intended to relieve traffic impediments and to keep people out of inclement weather, they were damn claustrophobic. Being underground, of course there was only walls, but nothing had been done to relieve the blank drabness, no posters or artwork, which made the occasional smear of graffiti all the more ugly and vulgar. All in all, it was like walking in an underground bunker, more suitable to Eastern Europe or the old Soviet states than under an American city -- unless you were heading to one of the original fallout shelters built in the fifties.

Being night and supposedly locked down, the air conditioning had also been turned off, so John wasn't sure if the still and stifling air was its normal state, although the sheer mustiness of it had him thinking that was rather the case. It smelled a little like a locker room and too many sweaty bodies, also of faint exhaust fumes and heavy machinery although that could be more drifting over from the construction areas rather than down from the street above them. It didn't have the stale odors of vomit and piss, so obviously the security people did regularly run the homeless out -- or maybe it was too drab and claustrophobic even for them.

John had already lost his sense of time and distance by the time they reached the first turn to the right. He was simply following Dex much as he used to follow Jack, paying more attention to his surroundings along the sides and behind than he was to the front, and always straining for any noise that could be the enemy. The one thing they hadn't run across was the ubiquitous water dripping down any of the walls, but they were still surrounded by the general creaks and rumbles of concrete settling as the buildings transitioned to the temperatures of the night, and the various machinery keep whatever systems necessary still running. Just a few minutes from the first turn, there had been another noise, something that wasn't venting or footsteps or really anything John could identify. Had he been outdoors and especially in the mountains, he would have thought it a rock slide, and he supposed it could have been something over within the construction area that had collapsed, but they would have no way of knowing unless they literally stumbled across it since they weren't about to go exploring every nook and cranny, at least not until they proved that McKay wasn't along the main path.

A quarter of the way down their first turn, the tunnel suddenly opened up into twice the width they'd been traversing. The security lighting was a little stronger here, and showed an escalator (turned off) and a recess not leading into a shop that was most likely an elevator for handicap access. Nowhere along the way had they found benches for sitting, just a few (too few) placed trashcans and the darkened doorways leading into the shops and restaurants that were now darker than the tunnels. In truth, John couldn't imagine this looking much more inviting in the daytime, since it would just be fluorescent lighting and garish window displays, but still a bunker.

Dex gave a quick signal and Dex jogged up the escalator steps while John moved to check out the elevator. They were still betting that Kolya would be moving McKay directly to a vehicle instead of taking the chance of leading him across a street, yet they shouldn't ignore other potential exit points without first checking. But as Dex jogged back down, he shook his head and the same for John, when he couldn't call the elevator. None of this guaranteed that just because they were now locked up that McKay hadn't been taken that way, but any egress here most likely led directly into one of the office buildings instead of to the street, and that was one more level of security that Kolya would have had to work around. Kolya was a lot more Occam than he was Machiavelli.

They kept going toward the construction.

Their logic paid off as they passed another eastbound junction, although John would have given a year's salary not to be right in this instance. Dex was in tuned enough to notice that John was no longer behind him and quickly retraced his steps to join John as he moved toward a maintenance alcove from where something had caught his attention, so that both of them were there to discover the bodies.

Not just Tony and Greg's, but two others that no doubt belonged to the Nobel representatives. Not particularly hidden, but moved out of the way and obviously placed here after the tunnels had been locked down. The bodies looked more like abandoned dolls than people. Markham's neck had been broken, while Stackhouse was sprawled over him, the entirety of his back covered in blood from what John suspected would have been a stiletto -- Kolya and Sora's modus operandi respectively.

At first glance John wasn't sure how the Nobel folks had been killed, but he doubted they'd been any trouble once their Bureau escorts had been eliminated as the male looked to be in his seventies, and the woman smaller than Teyla and Sora both. He and Dex still knelt and checked, of course, and John couldn't help his chuff of surprise when he discovered Greg still had a faint pulse despite losing way too much blood.

Dex instantly began removing his jacket as John lifted Stackhouse away from the others and slid out the small blade he kept inside his belt buckle so he could widen the slit on Greg's shirt and began checking the wound. One of them would have to stay; although Bates' team would have come in cars and with sirens flashing, John suspected they could just as much still be arguing with their building owner or the construction people to gain access as being on their way down from the street, and it was already a miracle that Stackhouse hadn't bled out. When Dex brought over his jacket to be used as a makeshift bandage, John cheated and pulled Dex's hands down to take his place, ignoring Dex's look and angry, but near silent, exhale as John rose back to his feet in the obvious decision as to who was going on to find Kolya and McKay.

A tap of his radio didn't even get him white noise back. He'd have to go back to the wider landing and hope that the top of the escalator was be high enough to overcome the structural interference, otherwise he'd have to go all the way back to the Lancaster and that would pretty much end any opportunity to find Kolya and McKay -- assuming it wasn't already too late.

Fortunately the escalator got him clear enough to more or less reach Teyla. While neither of them could then reach Bates from their respective positions, John was hoping that meant Bates had already entered the tunnel system from the other side, and that their hook up was eminent. Teyla, too, would soon be leading the paramedics and additional cops down from the Lancaster to take over for Dex. Probably not soon enough for Dex to be able to join him before John and Bates met, but hopefully at least soon enough to keep Greg alive.

John ignored the burn of his lungs as he raced back down the escalator steps and ran back to Dex's position, offering only a thumbs up before moving back out into the tunnel's center and the last section of opportunity. By the number of east junctions he'd now passed twice, John figured he had less than three hundred yards before reaching the construction zone, although it could have been three hundred miles for the time it took him to get there. The emergency lighting was completely out along this final stretch, leaving him only the overlap from back toward Dex and that was only enough to keep him from stumbling into one of the concrete trashcans. Once he turned the corner into the construction, he'd have no light at all unless something had been rigged and left on over night or he pulled out his own.

Surprisingly, the construction was only a few taped off barriers to discourage the curious and he didn't have to move one or even break the tape to slide past. Bates had said they were just finishing this junction, which should mean the tunnel was carved, that perhaps only the lighting and venting were left to be installed before they smoothed any jagged edges and slapped on what little signage they bothered with. So no holes to fall into and, hopefully, no juts or low ceilings to run into if he did nothing to relieve the darkness.

Except there were juts, four fucking turns whose purpose John couldn't fathom other than for him to bash into since they weren't even proper bends and the longest was maybe twenty-five feet. After the first, he'd moved with his left hand against the wall, however, which had provided it's own adventure since near the walls was where the construction people were storing some of their equipment and supplies; he'd been forced to slide his foot along the floor as well as his fingers along the wall so as not to disturb something that might clatter -- or break his fucking toe.

Thus needed to slow down so significantly, John was also surprised that he hadn't run into any sign of Bates yet; this section of tunnel should be approximately five hundred yards, and he'd started out from twice that distance and covered an extra four hundred or so yards of it twice. Before he could worry to much about what was keeping Bates -- or if Teyla had reached Dex and Greg yet, John realized he was hearing voices, even though he couldn't make out any words. While he couldn't be sure that the high-pitched and shrill one was a stressed out Doctor McKay, he recognized with dead certainty the sharp gravely cadence of a Kolya who wasn't entirely getting his way.

Although there weren't supposed to be any more junctions off of this branch, the voices were not coming from the last stretch of tunnel, but rather to one side and as John carefully made his way along the wall, a flare of light spilling out from a recess pinpointed their location. And maybe gave a clue as to why Bates hadn't arrived yet.

It had to be a maintenance alcove again, and John was guessing it led to a stairwell going up by the nature of Doctor McKay's complaints that he could now make out.

"Why in the fuck would you think threatening me more is going to help me up the stairs with what is obviously a broken foot?"

If Kolya was taking the stairs, then maybe he hadn't gotten access to the construction elevator -- or he had, in fact, disabled the elevator so that no one was going to be able to use it until it was repaired.

"I assure you, Doctor, that I am not just threatening," and whatever Kolya was saying next was overridden by a harsh bleat of shock, then, "…know exactly what types of pain can motivate, and which can be overcome."

"Yes, no d-doubt while I spent my t-time learning useful things -- things that you n-need m-me for -- you s-spent your t-time p-pulling wings off of f-flies and burning ants with magnifying glasses."

While the stutter and the whine of his tone undercut the severity of Doctor McKay's quite deserved righteous anger, John was still proud of the good doctor for standing up to Kolya. John knew first hand just how dicey it was in making Kolya mad, as well as just how skilled Kolya really was in delivering pain -- and how much Kolya enjoyed it.

"S-so you can go on cutting m-me, and thus ensure that I pass out from the blood lose or the p-pain, or you can help me up instead. B-but either way, the only way I'm going to be able to make it up those s-stairs is by you carrying me."

"I'm afraid Kolya isn't very good at helping people, Doctor McKay." John wasn't sure who looked more surprised in the beam of the maglight down between their feet -- Kolya or McKay -- although Kolya should have known that John would be after him. It made John wonder if somehow he and Dex had missed one of Kolya's little surprises along the way, and to worry that Teyla and the paramedics might not be as lucky. Worry and then lock it away as there wasn't anything he could do to warn her. He raised and centered his gun on Kolya's forehead.

"Ah, Agent Sheppard. I must admit I had a hard time just letting you walk away from me in the hotel." With his words, Kolya rose up from where he'd been leaning over Doctor McKay who was sprawled against the bottom steps of a steep stairwell.

John didn't take his eyes away from Kolya's, but in his peripheral vision he could see that Kolya was still holding onto a combat knife in his left hand, and he was holding onto Doctor McKay in a bruising grip with his right. "I'm not going to walk away this time," John promised as he calculated the probability of shooting Kolya before the other had a chance to do more damage to Doctor McKay.

"Yeah, that's true, but not in the way you're thinking, man."

*********

Part Three