Cry 'Havoc': To Mutiny and Rage | FOUR
Title: Cry 'Havoc': To Mutiny and Rage
By: tea_diva
Chapter: FOUR
Word Count: 9,827
Evan has never liked James Mattis, which he suspects is why it took him so long to come to the obvious conclusion. In his pursuit of the truth, to find the person responsible for the deaths of his agents and to seek justice he has been making a concerted effort to avoid any potential bias, which meant he overlooked and turned a blind eye on certain details, convinced he was letting his personal feelings color his perception. Now, it's all more or less staring him in the face; no longer possible to avoid, but in the interest of maintaining a veneer of impartiality he tries to avoid it anyway.
In retrospect, he can see the flaw in this method. Especially when, under any other circumstance, Evan would have acted more sensibly. He would at least have requested Espera accompany him to the hotel, available as back up should the need arise. Instead, Evan is entirely on his own when he strides into Mattis' hotel room saying, "The door was unlocked…" only to find himself facing the barrel of a gun aimed directly at his chest.
James Mattis is sitting at his hotel room desk, his chair facing the door. His right arm, which is currently holding the gun, is braced casually on the wooden armrest. The only light in the space comes from the brass desk lamp that illuminates the man's profile, half of his face lit and the other half in shadow. Somewhat hysterically Evan considers there might be some sort of metaphor there.
Mattis' expression is bland, no indication that he is at all disturbed by his own actions, by the fact that he has a gun trained on a colleague. He says, “I’m a patriot. I serve my country.”
Evan’s thoughts offer a number of sarcastic remarks in answer to this statement. He calculates that ninety-eight percent of these remarks will get him shot, while the other two percent will likely get him punched in the face, and then shot. It doesn’t feel like wasted time though, because the odds of Evan ducking for cover before Mattis can fire his weapon are slim to none. Without any indication of guilt or remorse it seems equally unlikely that Evan might manage to talk the man down, make him rethink his actions. Short of a miracle, Evan is pretty much out of options.
Mattis stares at him, the gun cocked and aimed, his expression inscrutable. Evan stands very still and tries not to say anything inappropriate. After the silence stretches on he asks, “What do we do now?”
The other man’s chin jerks upward, defiant. “I’m not sorry.” In one swift movement Evan watches as the other man swings the gun in an upward arch. A brief moment of relief at no longer being held at gunpoint is quickly overrun by the realization that Mattis has braced the weapon beneath his own chin.
There’s a second when it feels as if time has stopped. Where Evan thinks there is all the time in the world to do something.
He stands still, his eyes wide.
The gun fires.
________________________
The Berlin train station is busy considering it is almost midnight. Brad finds his locker and opens it. From inside he pulls a small fold of money and exchanges his American ID for a Russian passport, his own face peering up at him from the photo: same face, same eyes, but his hair is dark. The name reads Алексей Варушкин. Alexai Varushkin.
The train to Moscow is already sitting in the station with its doors open, waiting. He nods at the conductor who is strutting along the length of the train with purpose. On board, Brad has no difficulty finding an empty cabin. It’s a direct route and the late hour means there are few other passengers.
The seats are beige cloth and there’s a faint grid pattern in the fabric. He drops down onto the bench by the window and lets out a sigh, allowing his head to fall back as he closes his eyes. Sitting down, sitting still for what feels like the first time since he woke up in Goa a little under a week ago, Brad realizes the extent of his exhaustion. It goes beyond his twisted ankle, still aching even as he props it on the bench opposite.
It's the type of exhaustion that sinks deep, through muscle and bone and into the very core of him. For the first time since Goa he isn't being chased, isn't running for his life. Brad estimates that it will take the CIA roughly three hours at minimum to scan through the surveillance footage and determine his destination. He could get lucky; Wright's people could be entirely incompetent and completely miss him because he made some effort to keep his head down and his shoulders hunched, but he refuses to be overconfident and sloppy.
So, for the next twenty-five hours give-or-take, he’s home free on this train, no one is looking for him here. The adrenaline seeps out of him and leaves him spent.
Wright's interest in Brad should end when he finds the manila envelope, Brad thinks. If the man really is interested only in finding answers and seeking justice, he'll have everything he needs in there. The last loose end can be easily resolved with a little cooperation from the Russian police, and that's an end to it.
In the interest of preserving company resources, Wright will probably stop pursuing Brad, but that doesn't necessarily mean the CIA will be satisfied to let him go. It should, however, buy him some more time.
Brad stays awake long enough to hand his passport and ticket over to the provodnitsa, who compliments him on his dye-job and then tells him his hair looks better black. Brad disagrees but rather than argue he smiles and, in perfect Russian, says, “That’s what my mother thinks.” The man laughs and shakes his head and moves on to the next cabin. Brad flips the collar of his coat up and drops his chin down to his chest.
He falls asleep.
________________________
Nate is sitting at a computer scanning through hours of surveillance footage from around Berlin. It's not a task that he volunteered for. After briefing Espera on what had happened with Brad in the tunnels -- admittedly a highly abridged account -- the other man had brought him up to speed in time for Wright to call-in from the hotel and notify them that James Mattis was dead.
Espera had looked at Nate with genuine sympathy and concern and offered him the mind-numbing task of sifting through the footage as a means of 'keeping his mind off things'. In this case 'things' meant the suicide of James Mattis. "I'm sorry," Espera had said. "It seemed like he was a bit of a father-figure for you."
Nate had grimaced. "Yeah." There was no point explaining the numerous and varied opinions he had about Mattis, especially as it was to Nate's advantage if Espera went ahead and assumed he was shaken and grieving. So Nate accepted the task with a suitably brittle smile and considered what he should do if Brad shows up in any of the footage he's scanning.
Wright seems reasonably intelligent and even-handed. At the very least, he has navigated this entire investigation so far without calling-in an asset to eliminate Brad, which is a courtesy Nate hasn't seen extended to the ex-Paris asset since he lost his memories. Dowdy himself had called in about four different assets before he had been killed. Nate believes that Wright's primary concern is seeing that the right thing gets done. The question is, what exactly does Evan Wright consider to be the ‘right’ thing?
Up until a few hours ago it had been running Brad to ground and then hauling him in for questioning. Whether Wright intended to release Brad once he was satisfied is moot, because there is no way the CIA will permit the thirty million dollar, highly trained weapon that is Brad Colbert to walk out of their clutches again.
Two years ago his asset had said, “I’m not an assassin. I’m done” and Nate feels an obligation to protect that request. Bringing Brad in for questioning is not an option. Convincing Wright to step back from pursuing Brad however, seems unlikely.
At that moment, Wright leans out of his office. "Nate," he says, motioning him over when Nate turns from the computer.
Pausing the footage, Nate pushes away from his desk and crosses to Wright's office. "What's up?"
Wright is standing behind his desk, in answer to the question he holds up an opened manila envelope. Nate recognizes Brad's precise printing in black marker across the front: 'For Evan Wright'. Wright looks perturbed more than anything. "Colbert left this for me. The hotel was holding it at the desk.”
Nate buys himself some time to school his expression by turning around and closing the office door. "The Brecker?" he asks when he looks back. He remembers the edge of panic in Brad's voice as he'd demanded to know when he had last been to Berlin. Nate's job as Paris Bravo included being able to answer those sorts of questions without fail. It also included facilitating on difficult assignments that could compromise his asset's combat readiness.
Nate should have been at the Brecker with Brad.
Evan shakes his head recalling Nate's attention as he answers, "The Westin Grand."
Nate isn't certain why Wright called him in here. He doesn't know what's in the envelope. He suspects but has no conclusive proof as to why Mattis shot himself in the head, and Nate very much dislikes being at a disadvantage. He stands still and keeps his expression perfectly schooled.
Apparently, in his effort to remain professional he has failed to demonstrate the reaction that Wright was looking for. "You don't seem surprised."
Nate shrugs off the question, raising an eyebrow. "Should I be? He found your base of operations, why not your hotel?" Jerking his head at the envelope, he asks, "What is it?"
Wright's shoulders slump and he tosses the envelope onto his desk so his hands are free to rub at his face. "It's everything," he says, and then sighs again. "There's a pretty damning audio recording of Mattis speaking to Russian business tycoon Yuri Gretkov. On the same recording Mattis admits to calling a hit on Colbert in Goa, and my agents in Berlin. Not to mention Vladimir Neski and his wife. There’s some notes in there that fill in the gaps too, though honestly, it's obvious what all this points to.”
Nate stares at the envelope. Mattis was irritable and abrasive and rubbed most everyone the wrong way, but he had taken Nate under his wing and even if they never had much cause to interact with one-another, on the occasions when they did Mattis had been paternalistic; he had never made a secret of his plan to move Nate through the ranks and eventually hand over the reigns. Not that Nate ever wanted that.
Apparently Mattis was also a lying, treasonous, backstabbing bastard.
Nate releases a slow, quiet breath. “What do you need me for?”
Wright meets Nate's eyes head-on. “Is Colbert a threat?”
For such a seemingly straightforward question, the answer is complex and delicate. Nate weighs his response carefully.
The CIA cannot allow a credible threat to walk free. Brad’s survived as long as he has because of his training and because he hasn’t let his guard down, not because the CIA has decided to let him go. The simple answer to Wright's question is 'yes'. Yes, of course Brad is a threat, that's what he was trained to be.
If that is the response Wright is looking for he didn't need to call Nate in here for it, unless it's a test. The man has read Brad's file - what little his clearance might permit him to read, at any rate - so he knows about the training and the ops. He knows what Brad is capable of, and yet he's still asking.
Nate has no intention of walking into a trap when he's come this far. Two years is too long to invest in something just to lose it again because he got careless, because he wanted to trust someone for a change. The number of people Nate actually trusts can be counted off on one hand. Right now, he can't afford for Evan Wright to be among them, not when the man's opinion might affect whether Brad lives or dies.
So Nate lies. "I don't really know him."
“You worked with him as part of Treadstone for years.”
“He’s a different person now,” Nate points out. “He has amnesia.”
“Sure, but amnesia doesn’t make you a completely different person. You met him at Alexanderplatz; you spoke with him.”
“Are you asking my opinion?” Wright flashes him an impatient and frustrated look and Nate tips his head to the side, pretends to be considering the question carefully. “I don’t think he’s a threat.”
"Okay," Wright says, as if this is the answer he was expecting. Nate this finds troubling. “What are you basing that on?”
"You asked my opinion, sir."
Wright looks exhausted. It's clear he's looking for something from Nate, is maybe a little desperate to have someone confirm his own suspicions and so Nate takes pity on him. "If you want facts, I don't have any. His training alone directly contradicts my assessment. You read his file; Colbert was considered a top asset."
"But you still think he isn't a danger."
"Not to us, sir. Not if we leave him be," Nate answers carefully.
"And Paris?"
Nate remembers scrambling to figure out what was happening with Brad while simultaneously juggling Schwetje's persistent panicking and Dowdy's demands to green light every asset in their control and send them out after the supposedly renegade asset. Nate also remembers what Dowdy's initial plan had been, and can't help but feel that all of this could have easily been avoided if Mattis hadn't interfered. He's speaking nothing but truth when he says, "In my opinion, Paris was handled improperly. Every indication was that Colbert was retracing his steps, not pursuing the agency. Any collateral damage strikes me as an understandable reaction to circumstances.”
“He assaulted two police officers in Switzerland, to say nothing of the damned embassy." Wright seems to be mulling all of this over, however, which is more than Nate had hoped for. "What about now?"
Raising his eyebrows, Nate tips his head. “Now?" He shakes his head. "Colbert was living a civilian life under the radar until someone tried to kill him and nearly took out two civilians in the process. He came out of hiding to resolve a situation that threatened not only his life but those of his friends, as well. This time he did it without any fatalities, which I believe is because no one was trying to kill him." Nate doesn't mention that, apparently, Mattis was trying to kill Brad, it goes without saying at this point.
After a moment, Wright lets out a breath. “Sounds to me like you know him pretty well.”
“Like you said, I worked with him for a few years. You asked for my opinion, sir.”
There’s a quick double knock on the door that cuts off whatever Wright was about to say. A second later the door swings open and Espera steps in, sparing a quick nod at Nate before turning to his boss. “Langley called. They’re going through Mattis’ records. Reyes wants to know what’s going on with Colbert.”
Wright glances over and Nate makes certain to look professional and unconcerned. There's something in the look Wright offers him, but Nate can't determine what the other man is trying to communicate. All he can think is that he is at a crossroads, the next words out of Wright's mouth will determine his course of action.
If Wright issues a kill-order on Brad then it will be Paris all over again. Except this time Nate will have no excuse to be involved. His position will be infinitely more precarious because any orders directed to assets won't be going through him, which would make issuing counter orders and calling in favors damned near impossible to keep secret for long.
It's right then that someone from the main room shouts: “We got him!”
Wright and Espera are out of the office in a flash. Nate follows, hanging back as everyone crowds around a computer monitor that is showing black and white surveillance footage of the Berlin train station. “That’s Colbert,” someone says. “There he is, he’s just entered frame.”
“That’s the train to Moscow.” Espera squints at the footage. “What’s he going to Moscow for?”
Two and a half years ago Nate could have answered that question with absolute confidence. Back then he had known Brad almost as well as he'd known himself. Two years ago, after the amnesia, Nate knows he would have hesitated, doubting himself. Now Nate has a solid idea about Brad's destination but Espera isn't directing the question to him, so he keeps it to himself.
Wright says, "Get me the Russian Interior Ministry." Espera turns away from the screen to find a phone. Since no one is calling in an asset and sending out Brad’s picture, Nate’s just happy to sit back and observe. This time, they might actually have made it through just fine.
“You coming?” Wright says a moment later, rushing out of his office and pulling on his coat as he goes.
The question catches him off-guard. As Deputy Director, Wright should be ordering him back to the Madrid outpost, back to work. He wonders if Wright hasn't yet figured out that by the time he arrives in Moscow Brad will have gone to ground again. Nate has already briefed Wright on everything the man's clearance allows him to know about Treadstone. For all intents and purposes his function here has been completed.
The other possibility is that Wright is inviting Nate along because he thinks Nate might like to know how all of this wraps up. As a courtesy. What's dangerous there is that Nate has done everything in his power to portray a worn-out Bravo agent who has turned gun-shy following a fiasco so extensive it shut down an entire operation. If Wright believed that act then he'd be offering Nate the first flight out, not giving him the chance to continue monitoring the operation; to potentially run into Brad again.
Pursing his lips, he asks, "Sir, shouldn't I be returning to Madrid?"
Wright looks back at him. "Sure, I can arrange that, if you want. But wouldn't you rather come with us to Moscow?"
________________________
There’s a huddle of cab drivers in the parking lot outside the train station. It would be simple enough to steal a car, but even in Russia cab drivers have cell phones and radios and Brad needs to be kept in the loop. Undoubtedly the CIA will make some kind of effort to reclaim him, to say nothing of the Gretkov, the man who was working with Mattis.
Gretkov is most likely the one responsible for actually calling-in the hit on Brad, which means there's a strong likelihood that the assassin who shot Ray in Goa is also somewhere around the city as well. All of these are very good reasons to take a cab.
Three police cars zip by heading into the station with their sirens blaring as Brad’s taxi pulls out. He wonders if Wright’s team is really that slow, or if the man just gave him a head start. It doesn’t matter either way; it’s not like Brad will ever have the opportunity to ask.
It‘s a fifteen-minute drive to the six-story stone apartment building, just off the main road. The landlady is sweeping the front steps with a straw broom, and after the second ring of the doorbell Brad turns to her. “Excuse me,” he asks in Russian. “I’m looking for the girl who lives at number forty-eight. Do you know her?”
The woman glances up and stops sweeping. “Yes, the Neski girl. She doesn’t live here anymore. She moved away from this place.” She gives Brad a new address, and then turns along with him as the taxi that had been waiting for him suddenly revs its engine and speeds away. “He was in some hurry.”
“Looks like,” Brad says, watching as the car speeds around a corner and disappears out of sight. “Thank you for your help.”
The warning didn’t come as early as he’d hoped. As he strides down the street he can already hear police sirens closing in on his position and the only thing he can think about is getting off the main road. Brad can't move as quickly as he'd like because his ankle still hurts. He’s been limping since he left Berlin and it makes him a noticeable figure -- too noticeable. Walking is not ideal; he needs to find a vehicle, and quickly.
Crossing the street toward the bridge, Brad cuts down a staircase to a cement sidewalk running parallel to the river. Briefly, he considers stopping beneath the bridge long enough for the sirens pass, but dismisses the idea. His current position will be obvious once the police consult with the woman he spoke with and learn what direction he went. For now, his best option is to keep moving.
There’s the screech of tires behind him and he reassesses the situation. At his three o’clock is an icy river that is too cold to even consider leaping into; at his nine is a cement wall that he doesn’t have time to climb, given the state of his ankle. He’s stuck moving either forward or back and the only advantage he has lies in trying to blend in, which is difficult to do with his damned ankle fucked up. He keeps moving.
There’s the low snap of a silenced gunshot and a punch in his left shoulder that sends Brad pitching forward onto the snow-covered ground. Now he has a twisted ankle and a bullet in his shoulder. He’s bleeding heavily and the pain is significant, but it probably won’t matter for long because the next shot will likely be through his head.
Brad turns around. There's a man standing on the bridge, his arm extended as he levels the gun. It’s the same man Brad remembers seeing in Goa, the one who shot Ray. Out of options, Brad calculates his odds and doesn't like what he ends-up with. He could make it into the river before the man can discharge his weapon again, but trying to swim in below-freezing water with a bullet lodged in his shoulder won't be pretty. Not to mention the fact that the river is on a predictable course through the city. He'll pop up, soaking wet and suffering the effects of hypothermia and chances are high that this guy will already be waiting for him.
On the other hand, if Brad tries to run he'll be shot down before he makes it three steps. Instead, Brad stands still and waits for the inevitable second shot.
It doesn’t come.
Instead there are more sirens and the drifting sound of shouts. The man drops his gun and moves his hands behind his head, which is when Brad realizes the Russian police have the guy surrounded. He's yelling at them, trying to indicate his right pocket -- probably he has a badge, real or fake. Brad knows the man is trained, it’s possible he’s Russian secret service, or maybe he’s a corrupt cop. Either way, he’ll get clear of the police without trouble because he has friends in high places.
Brad doesn’t linger.
Around the bend in the river is another staircase back up to the street. He walks one block above ground before cutting down to a labyrinth of underground shops. He needs to do something about his bullet wound because he’s losing blood too quickly; he can feel it dripping down his arm and off his fingertips. It’s leaving a trail. The blood is warm on his skin; the rest of him feels cold.
There are no useful shops in the underground plaza. No pharmacy or grocery store. Brad keeps moving and tries to ignore the hot biting ache that is his shoulder, the piercing stab that reaches a little further up his leg with every step. Just ahead a small child screeches and wails and stomps a foot only to be picked up by her father and carried along. Brad wants to sit down.
There’s row after row of nothing but clothes stores and shoe stores and walking is draining him too quickly. He hasn't put enough distance between himself and the assassin but Brad doesn’t have much of a choice. He needs transportation; at the very least he needs something that he can use to staunch the bleeding. He cuts up the next staircase he sees and huffs out a laugh when he comes face to face with a bright green sign for a produktovyy.
His luck lasts for about three minutes because the moment he walks through the front door of the grocery store he notes the two security guards. At the moment, Brad is far from looking his best: there’s blood dripping off the fingers of his left hand, he’s limping and moving fast because he’s being followed. With the amount of blood he’s lost he estimates that he’s extremely pale with darkening circles beneath his eyes. There’s a thin sheen of sweat that he can feel on his skin, and the dizziness is making him stagger like he’s drunk.
The guards take note of him more or less immediately. That’s okay because they’re standard security. He can take them down, even wounded as he is. The fact that they’re already following him means he doesn’t need to be subtle, which means that he can move faster.
He grabs a map of Moscow from a rack by one of the cash registers, picks up a stack of thick cotton socks (on sale, six pair for eighty five rubles), and a tall bottle of Vodka off a shelf beside the Chef Boyardee. Lifting his arm for the bottle sends a wave of dizziness over him and he staggers, fumbling his grip and sending five cans of soup and two bottles of vodka crashing onto the floor. It’s all the permission the security guards will need to start something.
Brad slips the vodka into his pocket and pulls out his gun, holding it up as he rounds the corner, right in the face of one of the guards. “Get down,” he orders in Russian.
Half the civilians in the grocery follow his orders, dropping to the floor along with the guard, but the rest go spilling out the front entrance, causing a scene. Whatever time he had, it’s lost. Brad spares a moment to kick the guard’s gun out of reach and then he hurries out the back entrance.
He steps out onto a narrow street, cars parked along the curb, a row of cabs standing and waiting on the opposite side, the cab drivers in a huddle, smoking. There is a large truck delivering bread, and a standard white police car moving slowly in his direction. The lights and sirens are off, but it’s only a matter of time.
Apparently, he can’t catch a break.
Brad takes a swig of his vodka as he heads toward a taxicab but doesn’t swallow it. “Hey, asshole,” the cab driver says, breaking away from his friends. “Get away from my car.”
The cab driver reaches him at the same moment the police step out of their vehicle, pulling their batons from their belts. Cops have procedures. They have rules about everything, including how to approach someone who may be dangerous. They’re too slow, for one, and spend too much time making certain they have appropriately identified themselves as officers. As if that will be enough of a deterrent. Maybe for most people, it would be.
Brad doesn’t wait to see what they’ll do next. When they're close enough he turns his head and spits his mouthful of vodka directly into their faces blinding them. Then he strikes out, two hits to the gut and one to the head, the men topple back onto the asphalt, groaning and rubbing at their eyes and stomachs like they're not sure what hurts more. After that, the cab driver raises his hands and actually tosses Brad the keys.
The thing about high-speed car chases is that they’re really only fun if you know the area. Brad doesn’t know Moscow at all. There are two police cars on his six the moment he pulls onto the main road, their sirens blaring. Most likely there’s backup on the way.
The people pursuing him know Moscow. Also, they’re not slowly bleeding out because of a goddamned bullet wound in their shoulder. Brad’s trying to navigate the roads without killing anyone. He’s got the map he stole from the grocery propped on the wheel, glancing at it when he can. There’s a streak of blood obscuring a portion of downtown Moscow because he’s still bleeding, the bundle of socks and the alcohol both riding shotgun but not, as yet, of use since all his attention is focused on the road.
His first goal is to get to a fairly long stretch of narrow road, which he finds after taking a sharp right turn onto a one-way street with parked cars clogging the shoulders. It forces his pursuers to drop behind him single-file, which gives him a time to concentrate on other things, like first aid.
Shrugging his coat off his left shoulder Brad pulls his shirt aside and then pours the alcohol directly onto the gunshot wound. “Fuck,” he snarls. He’s not sure if he means this about the searing pain in his shoulder, or because he sees another police car joining the group tailing him down the street. He makes a grab for the socks as the corridor of parked cars falls away as the narrow one-way connects to an uncluttered main road.
Out of the corner of his eye Brad spots a police car bearing right down on him but there’s not enough time to do anything but brace for the impact. The car slams right into the side of his car denting the driver's side door and sending him into a tailspin.
“Mother fucker!” he hisses, steering into the skid. “Don’t they teach you fucking idiots how to drive in a high speed chase?” He slams his foot onto the gas pedal and the back end of his yellow car fishtails before straightening out. Idly, he thinks about road safety rules: wearing your seat belt, not disabling your air bags, and staying focused on the road. Not to mention not bleeding all over your steering wheel. Brad leans over and snatches for the map that has fallen down into the foot well on the passenger’s side.
There are no clever narrow streets here in which Brad can lose his pursuers. His stolen cab is the same size as the standard police vehicles anyway. He never thought it would ever happen, but Brad finds himself sparing a fond thought for Ray’s obnoxious orange monstrosity and its ability to fit into narrow places.
He drives into a parking lot half on accident because there is no clear demarcation of where the road ends and the lot begins. Apparently, boulevards are rare in Moscow. One of the cops on his six stops on the road, anticipating his doubling back, and another slams into a parked car. Brad starts to feel a bit optimistic as he finishes tying off a sock-tourniquet around his shoulder.
There’s an empty parking spot just ahead, which Brad pulls through, bouncing onto the sidewalk and then out onto the main road once more as pedestrians leap out of his way and shout high-pitched Russian profanity at him. He’s driving with the traffic but he’s traveling well above the speed limit. There’s one police car on his six, with another rushing to catch up, but he’s made some headway.
Then out of nowhere a giant black Jeep cuts in front of him, clipping the front-end of the cab as Brad slides into a turn. It’s startling. He didn’t see the Jeep coming. Brad checks the rearview and recognizes the face behind the wheel.
The assassin has found him.
It was inevitable but Brad had sort of hoped he’d have more time. He punches the gas. Instead of following, the Jeep drives away down another street, which doesn't alleviate any of Brad’s stress. The assassin knows these roads, Brad doesn’t. He keeps driving, checking his rearview and glancing to the left and right whenever he can. He spots the Jeep, heading along the road on the opposite side of the river, which runs perfectly parallel to the road Brad is on. Ahead, he can see a bridge where both roads intersect, undoubtedly where the assassin plans to ambush him again.
As he gets closer, a white and green accordion-style bus passes in front of him heading across the bridge and Brad braces himself, cranks the wheel hard left dropping into a lane alongside it. With any luck, the assassin will drive straight past him before he realizes where Brad has gone and they'll pass each other without either of them having to get hurt. Brad's not kidding himself, he'd probably be the one to get hurt.
Except then Brad remembers that he doesn’t seem to have any luck.
He crosses the river safely and when he relinquishes the relative security of the bus, he spots the Jeep, which is now driving in reverse. When there’s a gap in traffic the assassin spins his vehicle around and then he’s right back on Brad’s tail, uncomfortably close. Brad hasn’t even managed to lose the two cop cars.
The brand new Jeep far outclasses the piece of shit ancient yellow taxicab that Brad is driving, and with the option to outdrive the other man off the table, Brad has no choice but to outmaneuver him.
Just ahead is Brad’s destination: a tunnel bridge four lanes wide. He gets T-boned crossing a four-lane roadway but Brad spins into the skid and keeps on driving merging into the faster moving tunnel traffic. He loses one of the police vehicles to a 24-foot moving truck that fails to break in time.
The Jeep and the other police car are still in pursuit.
Brad plays cat and mouse with the Jeep, civilian vehicles skidding out, around, and crashing in their wake. He can’t help noticing that the police have fallen well behind. He still hears their sirens but can’t see any sign of their vehicles.
All around other vehicles are slowing down, stopping, and generally trying to get out of the way. The last high-speed chase that Brad can remember was in Paris, no one even seemed to register there was anything unusual happening around them on the road. This makes for a welcome change.
Of course, it is rush hour and there are still some drivers who carry on, oblivious or determined, while Brad swerves around them as best he can. He uses a brown Lincoln as a buffer against the looming Jeep, but the threat of civilian casualties hasn’t stopped either one of them yet and the Jeep steers hard to the right, pushing Brad’s cab against the wall of the tunnel, pinned by the Lincoln, which is in turn pinned by the truck.
If Ray were in the vehicle he would undoubtedly be making perverse three-way jokes. It’s impossible to decide whether the metal of both vehicles screeching shrilly like nails scraping down a chalkboard is preferable to Ray’s bawdy humor. Brad can see the driver of the Lincoln yelling at him but then the assassin in the Jeep holds up his gun and fires a shot and Brad has to duck out of the way, crouching awkwardly in an effort to drive and avoid being shot. Again.
The Jeep and Brad’s cab are both moving much faster than the man caught between them, and as their cars pull forward the Lincoln spins out of control in their wake. Brad doesn’t have time to think about the driver of that car because he’s focusing on gaining enough headway to avoid getting pinned against the wall again.
The next time the Jeep presses him to the right he's pulled far enough ahead to avoid being trapped. It's only the rear of the vehicle that’s caught and when Brad cranks the wheel to the left the cab goes, until he has spun a complete circle around onto the Jeep’s other side. Driving in reverse, Brad holds his gun out the broken glass of his window and takes the front wheel of the Jeep with four quick, successive shot. The tire blows out.
Advantage gained, Brad switches gears and spins his car around, the nose of the cab pressed to the side of the Jeep mid-spin, so that the cab is driving both vehicles forward. Brad punches down on the gas and drives unrelentingly on, the assassin still trying to line up a shot since he can’t manage to disengage the vehicles. He’s oblivious to where he is heading.
At the last moment Brad yanks out his seatbelt, leaning over and gripping it hard as he braces his legs wide. They slam into the concrete divider separating northbound traffic from westbound. The collision knocks the breath out of him but the moment he’s steady enough, Brad climbs out of his car, his gun trained on the driver’s side of the Jeep as he approaches.
Everything hurts. His vision is half blurred and his head is thrumming and spinning. He’s half staggering as he walks. When he’s close enough to the Jeep to make out the driver Brad realizes that the gun isn’t necessary. The assassin is collapsed onto the passenger side, his face covered in blood, the man’s breaths coming slower and slower.
He wants to ask if this was worth it. If the man was fighting to protect something important, or if it is just a job, was just a job. Was the money good enough to warrant all of this? Not too long ago Brad wasn’t so different from this man. It was his job to kill people, and he did that job with little compunction. He’s fairly certain there was no heroic backstory there; he had found something he could do well, so he did it. He doesn’t have delusions about himself. He won’t ever be a hero. But whoever that person was, it was someone he used to be.
Brad tucks the gun back into his pocket. Turning, he walks out of the tunnel.
________________________
Yuri Gretkov is not a difficult man to locate. Like most businessmen he keeps to a predictable schedule, which is kept on his phone, as well as on his assistant's phone, to say nothing of the black leather agenda book his assistant keeps at her desk. Since Evan is more or less through leaving anything to chance he orders the man followed the second he gets off the line with the Russian Interior Ministry.
Between the CIA agents dogging Gretkov's footsteps and the Russian police waiting in the wings to swoop down on the man, there probably isn't much of a reason for Evan to make the trip but he does it anyway. Closure, he thinks. That's all he's interested in.
“So that’s it?” Espera asks as they stand on the street corner, watching a startled Gretkov being pressed face-first against the side of a dark sedan and handcuffed. “All the loose ends wrapped up?”
Fick is standing a few feet away, his hands in his coat pockets as he watches the arrest. Evan nods. "All the loose ends that matter."
Everyone at the agency -- the ones not reeling from shock -- are heralding this as a big win. They keep congratulating Evan like he’s responsible but all he can think is that without Colbert, Evan would probably still be running around chasing leads until the CIA got tired of paying expenses and getting nothing in return.
Espera heads back to their car after Gretkov is ushered into the backseat of the sedan and driven off. Evan watches from the sidewalk as the car disappears down the road. When it's out of sight, he moves to stand beside Fick. "I wanted to thank-you for your help on this."
Fick keeps still but his green eyes shift, fixing on Evan. "Is that on the record?"
Evan smiles. "Yeah. Of course." He fights the urge to question the other man about Colbert, to ask what exactly happened in Paris. Fick is a walking contradiction, he is imperturbable, so carefully controlled and capable; and yet fragile, vulnerable, maybe even naive. Evan is having a hard time imagining this man running from anything but he can't deny that the reassignment to Madrid is precisely that.
Somewhere along the way Evan has found himself hoping that all Fick really needed was time. Maybe after this the agent's confidence will be restored. Even if it doesn't seem all that likely, Evan still finds himself blurting, “I can get you transferred to New York.”
The frown he gets is a little disappointing. He can’t tell if Nate's confusion is feigned or genuine. “New York?”
“Or Langley," Evan offers. "If you don’t want to work one-on-one with assets then okay, but you don’t need to be stuck pushing papers behind a desk.”
When Fick turns both his eyebrows are raised, there's a sparking brightness in his eyes. “Evan, I asked for the Madrid posting.” A bit of the disbelief Evan is feeling must show on his face because Fick smirks. “You know, Madrid is kind of a nice city.”
“Sure, I’m not arguing on the city, but everyone knows that outpost is a dead end. There’s no division of labor, there’s Eckloff, and then there’s his secretary, and you have an awful lot of training and field experience to be a secretary.” The other man's expression is a flat, inscrutable mask and so Evan gives-up. “At least think about the transfer.”
Fick tips his head forward, not quite a nod but Evan suspects it's as much as he can hope for. He lets the issue drop. “I should head back to the hotel. I have to get my bags packed for the flight.”
“You unpacked?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you?” He remembers the small black carry-on bag that Fick had brought onto the plane. No checked bags. Fick travels the same way Colbert does, and it's another thing that he wants to ask about.
He's read the man's file. Fick’s easygoing, unassuming and quick-witted and Evan keeps thinking that the man is like Espera, but Espera's personnel file has no black lines. There is nothing that Tony Espera has done that Evan isn't cleared to know about. Fick, however, is shrouded in mystery. Evan gets the feeling the man prefers it that way.
“Aren’t you coming to the hotel?” he asks, halting when Fick doesn’t fall in step with him.
“I’ve got another stop to make. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
There's a theory that he has been kicking around for a while, based purely on intuition rather than any actual proof. Fick's behavior doesn't even lend support to this idea and sure, Evan knows it's ludicrous and maybe a little fanciful. The thing is, it doesn't add up. Fick was a Recon Marine, was recruited and trained for the CIA and then handpicked and trained some more for Treadstone. He became a Bravo agent through what Evan suspects was a trial-by-fire, and all reports support the picture of Fick as a highly capable agent.
What happened in Paris was a mess, there's no way around that. As far as Evan can see though, nothing happened that would explain why an agent of Fick's caliber would get rattled. So rattled, in fact, that he would stop working with assets altogether. Something's missing; something that isn’t in the files.
After this mess with Colbert, Evan is willing to admit the awe and reverence reserved for Treadstone assets is well deserved, which makes him wonder about Treadstone agents. Fick doesn’t seem like the sort to souvenir shop, and as far as he knows there's no other stop the man might need to make.
Fick's easygoing, unassuming and quick-witted. He's spent the majority of his time with the CIA passing as a student studying abroad. Evan’s done with taking things at face value. “Once a Bravo agent, always a Bravo agent?” he asks.
The corner of Fick's mouth quirks up and he dips his head forward, looking up from beneath a fringe of auburn hair. “Something like that.”
Evan's got a theory but it’s only gut instinct and the CIA isn’t interested in his gut, no reason why they would feel any differently about his theory. Especially when really, it’s not any of their business anyway.
________________________
The Orannyi Projects are just outside the city. A claustrophobic stretch of four tall, wide buildings walling off a parking lot and courtyard, eerie green-yellow fluorescent lights spilling out in vertical lines from windows that Brad thinks might be kitchens or bathrooms beside other windows of orange-bright warmth. The streetlamps in the courtyard are not lit when he walks up to the building he’s looking for.
He calculates the odds of having an opportunity to speak Irena Neski as slightly better if he is already in her apartment when she comes home. True, he isn’t thinking very clearly as a result of blood loss, but Brad is aware that presently he doesn't cut a very respectable figure. Irena lives alone, in Moscow, in the Projects. A young woman on her own is not going to invite a strange man into her home.
Not if she’s got any sense, anyway.
Brad loses count of the stairs he climbs on his way to the apartment but once he gets there it’s easy to pick the lock to get inside. He re-locks the door behind himself and leaves the lights off. He doesn't touch anything, he wants to talk to her, not investigate her space. Besides, every part of him is aching and he’s exhausted. It’s just about all he can do to find his way to a chair at the kitchen table, and then he collapses into it to sit and wait, half-dozing but always listening.
It’s not a long wait. The sun has only just begun to set when he hears the jangle of keys at the front door and Irena’s soft footsteps as she walks into her apartment, kicking off her boots, hanging her coat in the front closet and tossing her keys aside.
She steps through into the kitchen and her wide brown eyes fix on him immediately, her whole body freezes. “Quiet,” he says, speaking in soft Russian. “Keep silent, all right?”
She nods, her eyes flicking over him where he sits, and then around the room. Brad wonders if she is looking for something with which to defend herself, or if she’s checking to see if anything has been moved or taken. “I don’t have any money or drugs.”
“Sit down.” She doesn’t move, keeps her back pressed to the wall. “Please.”
Frowning, she settles on the edge of a floral patterned armchair, her hands tucked beneath her knees as she hunches forward, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulder. Her eyes shift and fix somewhere just below Brad's shoulder.
After a second, it occurs to him that she's staring at the gun he's been holding in his hand. He'd meant to put it away before she came home but he'd forgotten about it. “Sorry.” He tucks it quickly into his coat pocket. He never intended to threaten her, that he had to intrude on her space to speak with her is regrettable, but necessary. He’s caused her enough pain as it is; it is not his intention to cause even more.
“I speak English,” she offers.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Brad hurriedly says in English, then repeats it again, slower, holding both his hands up so she can see he has no weapons. “I won’t hurt you.” On the table beside her chair is a photograph of a man and a woman, smiling into the camera as they hold their young daughter up between them. Brad nods at it. “That picture. It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
She breathes a shaky breath, her eyes involuntarily shifting over to the photograph. She meets his stare evenly and Brad finds himself admiring her courage. “It’s nothing,” she lies. “It’s just a picture.”
“It’s because you don’t know how they died.”
Her chin jerks up. “I do.”
Brad shakes his head slowly. “No. You don’t.”
He’s not certain why he’s here except for the firm belief that if their positions were reversed, he would want to know the truth. He would want to know what had happened to his parents. It’s not a trend he intends to pick up; there are a number of faces he remembers, names written in his book, but Brad has no intention of seeking out their families and making explanations.
They were bad people doing bad things. For the most part, he doesn’t feel especially guilty.
Her parents, though, are another matter. They're dead because of his mistake, his naïveté, and that’s something he’ll learn to live with, will have to live with, but there’s no reason why anyone else should suffer. So Brad says, “Your mother didn’t kill your father.”
This time when her eyes drift down Brad realizes Irena's looking at his left hand, which is streaked with blood. The entire left arm of his jacket is damp with it and he’s been battling dizziness for a while. He wonders if she’ll want to kill him for what he did. Wonders if she will cry.
“It was my job.” Brad notes the way her jaw clenches and her eyes widen. “It was my first time. Your father was supposed to be alone, but your mother decided to surprise him, and I had to change my plan.” It shouldn’t sound as simple as it does. He could explain the politics behind it, why her father suddenly had to die. That there was no good reason except for two men and their greed, and his inexperience that made him follow the directive so blindly. He could tell her that it’s a mistake he’s struggling with, and that he’s sorry.
He doesn’t say any of that. Brad doesn’t need her to forgive him, he just wants her to know the truth, for her own sake. “Your mother didn’t kill your father. She didn’t kill herself.” He licks his lips, forces himself to say, “I killed them.”
There are tears sliding down Irena’s face but she is utterly silent. “It changes things, that knowledge. When what you love is taken from you, you want to know the truth.” Brad gets up and crosses the room, pauses by her chair wanting so much to offer an apology. He stops himself. Is he sorry for making her cry, or for bringing up past hurts, or for taking her parents away from her?
Sorry is such a small word, such an inadequate word, when there is so much to be sorry for.
He leaves her to grieve, to carry on and move on in a way he doesn’t think she could have done before.
When he steps back outside he doesn’t feel the cold so much but he feels every ache in his body, from the pinching burn from the bullet that’s lodged in his shoulder to the dizziness from the blood he’s still losing, though at a less alarming rate. He’s tired, so incredibly tired that he briefly considers sitting down right where he’s standing. The only thing that stops him is that he knows if he stops now he won't start again.
At the moment, the only thing holding him up is sheer force of will and his own innate stubbornness.
The sky is turning a dark, purpling grey in preparation for night. Brad is fairly certain that he should feel itchy: all those windows, each one a perfect hiding place for a sniper. There could be a squad of police cars around the corner, waiting; he could be heading directly into a trap. He doesn’t feel any of that. Instead, he feels the same rushing sense of relief that he felt on the train. 'Home free' he thinks, for the moment at least.
There are only a handful of people in the wide expanse of the courtyard and Brad is perfectly aware that he has the full attention of one of them. The figure stands in the middle of the small circular bricked spot where all the paths converge. He’s wearing a long dark coat with the collar turned up around his neck, his hands hanging loose at his sides. He’s staring right at Brad.
Brad keeps a steady pace, his limp slowing him down but he’s not worried because he’s not running away. When he’s close enough he asks, “Does Evan want to send me a ‘thank you’ card for finding his mole?”
Nate’s expression doesn’t change. It’s still quiet and calm; it’s still intensely scrutinizing. “I’m not here on behalf of the CIA.”
“Are you stalking me now?” It’s a little embarrassing that what was supposed to be a teasing statement comes out sounding choked and hopeful. Brad doesn’t know this man but sometimes it feels like he maybe remembers him.
The corner of Nate’s mouth quirks up just slightly. Brad wonders why the man always seems to fight the impulse to smile. “Is she okay?” Nate's eyes shift quickly up toward Irena's apartment and then back to Brad.
He hesitates, sifting through the tones in the question. Does Nate think that he came all this way to tie up a loose end that was never really a loose end to begin with? Nate seems calm; relaxed and casual. Brad realizes that more likely, Nate is simply wondering how the exchange went. Regardless, Brad's aware he sounds a bit sharp when he says, “She’s fine.” Pale copper eyebrows hitch upward at his tone. Brad clears his throat awkwardly. “She’ll be fine. At least now she knows what happened.”
There’s a kind of warmth in Nate’s green eyes that has Brad unconsciously shifting forward. He halts after one step when he realizes what he’s doing. Nate hasn’t stepped back in an effort to maintain the distance between them, but he hasn’t moved forward either. Brad’s not sure what conclusion he should be drawing here.
They stand there quietly, a foot apart, the silence stretching between them before Nate clears his throat. “Evan is still looking for you.”
“Let him look. What part of ‘I am done with this’ do they not understand?”
“I don’t think it’s that easy to walk away from the CIA, Brad. Besides, Evan’s not trying to kill you, he just wants to talk.”
Brad shifts again, restless. He licks his lips. “You called me ‘Brad.’”
Nate’s eyebrows draw together. “That’s your name.”
“You’re one of three people who calls me ‘Brad’. Everybody else calls me ‘Bradley’, or ‘Colbert’.”
This time the smile isn’t hiding, half-suppressed, at the corner of Nate’s mouth; it stretches, a smooth curve, until it lights his eyes. “I know a thing or two about you.”
Brad wants to ask what it is that Nate knows. He wants to confirm what he thought back in the tunnels when he pressed the other man against the wall and caught the scent of cloves and citrus. He wants to ask if Nate is the one who travels around the world and describes everything he sees like a bedtime story that soothes Brad into sleep; if he’s the one who quotes Seneca at unlikely times; if he reads The Odyssey and makes scrunched yet precise notes in the margins -- if he’s maybe missing his copy because then Brad can explain that he thinks he might have it.
All Brad can manage to say is, “Yeah?”
Nate drops his head, hiding away his smile. When he looks up again his face is calm again, steady. There’s a brightness in his eyes that Brad can see though, and it makes him think that maybe Nate has an answer for each of the questions he can’t quite bring himself to ask. “You should see a doctor for that shoulder, Brad. Get your leg looked at while you’re there.”
“I’m fine.”
There's another flash of that grin. “I know,” and when the grin settles Nate's expression isn't quite neutral, Brad can see amusement glinting in those green eyes. For some reason his completely inaccurate assessment of his own physical state has pleased the other man. “Do it anyway.”
Nate steps back and it feels wrong somehow, like they are polarized magnets being pulled apart. Another step, and Brad has successfully quelled any urge he has to reach out. He holds himself perfectly still, keeps his expression neutral. Nate slips his hands into his coat pockets. "I’ll see you around.” Then he turns and starts walking away.
Rocking forward onto the balls of his feet Brad raises his voice to carry over the distance. “You’re not going to tell me where you live?”
“You’ll find me.” Nate’s voice drifts back on the crisp wind, steady and perfectly confidant.
Nate works for the people that Brad is trying to walk away from. Finding him would mean Brad will probably get tangled up with the CIA all over again. After the high-speed car chases, the three different road accidents he has had in a single afternoon, the bullet currently lodged in his shoulder, the general mess that is his leg, and the overall ache that is his body, it doesn’t feel like hyperbole to say that he barely survived this round.
Smiling, Brad turns on his heel, walking in the opposite direction. Hopefully a taxi will be parked nearby and he won’t have to stand around in the cold while his leg gets even more stiff and painful. He’ll go to a doctor, but only because he’s fairly certain the odds of fishing a bullet out of his own shoulder and still having full use of it after only a short recovery time are against him.
After that, he’s not certain where he’ll end-up but at least now he knows what he’ll be looking for.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART FOUR ||
MASTERPOST
Series' MASTERPOST
By: tea_diva
Chapter: FOUR
Word Count: 9,827
Evan has never liked James Mattis, which he suspects is why it took him so long to come to the obvious conclusion. In his pursuit of the truth, to find the person responsible for the deaths of his agents and to seek justice he has been making a concerted effort to avoid any potential bias, which meant he overlooked and turned a blind eye on certain details, convinced he was letting his personal feelings color his perception. Now, it's all more or less staring him in the face; no longer possible to avoid, but in the interest of maintaining a veneer of impartiality he tries to avoid it anyway.
In retrospect, he can see the flaw in this method. Especially when, under any other circumstance, Evan would have acted more sensibly. He would at least have requested Espera accompany him to the hotel, available as back up should the need arise. Instead, Evan is entirely on his own when he strides into Mattis' hotel room saying, "The door was unlocked…" only to find himself facing the barrel of a gun aimed directly at his chest.
James Mattis is sitting at his hotel room desk, his chair facing the door. His right arm, which is currently holding the gun, is braced casually on the wooden armrest. The only light in the space comes from the brass desk lamp that illuminates the man's profile, half of his face lit and the other half in shadow. Somewhat hysterically Evan considers there might be some sort of metaphor there.
Mattis' expression is bland, no indication that he is at all disturbed by his own actions, by the fact that he has a gun trained on a colleague. He says, “I’m a patriot. I serve my country.”
Evan’s thoughts offer a number of sarcastic remarks in answer to this statement. He calculates that ninety-eight percent of these remarks will get him shot, while the other two percent will likely get him punched in the face, and then shot. It doesn’t feel like wasted time though, because the odds of Evan ducking for cover before Mattis can fire his weapon are slim to none. Without any indication of guilt or remorse it seems equally unlikely that Evan might manage to talk the man down, make him rethink his actions. Short of a miracle, Evan is pretty much out of options.
Mattis stares at him, the gun cocked and aimed, his expression inscrutable. Evan stands very still and tries not to say anything inappropriate. After the silence stretches on he asks, “What do we do now?”
The other man’s chin jerks upward, defiant. “I’m not sorry.” In one swift movement Evan watches as the other man swings the gun in an upward arch. A brief moment of relief at no longer being held at gunpoint is quickly overrun by the realization that Mattis has braced the weapon beneath his own chin.
There’s a second when it feels as if time has stopped. Where Evan thinks there is all the time in the world to do something.
He stands still, his eyes wide.
The gun fires.
________________________
The Berlin train station is busy considering it is almost midnight. Brad finds his locker and opens it. From inside he pulls a small fold of money and exchanges his American ID for a Russian passport, his own face peering up at him from the photo: same face, same eyes, but his hair is dark. The name reads Алексей Варушкин. Alexai Varushkin.
The train to Moscow is already sitting in the station with its doors open, waiting. He nods at the conductor who is strutting along the length of the train with purpose. On board, Brad has no difficulty finding an empty cabin. It’s a direct route and the late hour means there are few other passengers.
The seats are beige cloth and there’s a faint grid pattern in the fabric. He drops down onto the bench by the window and lets out a sigh, allowing his head to fall back as he closes his eyes. Sitting down, sitting still for what feels like the first time since he woke up in Goa a little under a week ago, Brad realizes the extent of his exhaustion. It goes beyond his twisted ankle, still aching even as he props it on the bench opposite.
It's the type of exhaustion that sinks deep, through muscle and bone and into the very core of him. For the first time since Goa he isn't being chased, isn't running for his life. Brad estimates that it will take the CIA roughly three hours at minimum to scan through the surveillance footage and determine his destination. He could get lucky; Wright's people could be entirely incompetent and completely miss him because he made some effort to keep his head down and his shoulders hunched, but he refuses to be overconfident and sloppy.
So, for the next twenty-five hours give-or-take, he’s home free on this train, no one is looking for him here. The adrenaline seeps out of him and leaves him spent.
Wright's interest in Brad should end when he finds the manila envelope, Brad thinks. If the man really is interested only in finding answers and seeking justice, he'll have everything he needs in there. The last loose end can be easily resolved with a little cooperation from the Russian police, and that's an end to it.
In the interest of preserving company resources, Wright will probably stop pursuing Brad, but that doesn't necessarily mean the CIA will be satisfied to let him go. It should, however, buy him some more time.
Brad stays awake long enough to hand his passport and ticket over to the provodnitsa, who compliments him on his dye-job and then tells him his hair looks better black. Brad disagrees but rather than argue he smiles and, in perfect Russian, says, “That’s what my mother thinks.” The man laughs and shakes his head and moves on to the next cabin. Brad flips the collar of his coat up and drops his chin down to his chest.
He falls asleep.
________________________
Nate is sitting at a computer scanning through hours of surveillance footage from around Berlin. It's not a task that he volunteered for. After briefing Espera on what had happened with Brad in the tunnels -- admittedly a highly abridged account -- the other man had brought him up to speed in time for Wright to call-in from the hotel and notify them that James Mattis was dead.
Espera had looked at Nate with genuine sympathy and concern and offered him the mind-numbing task of sifting through the footage as a means of 'keeping his mind off things'. In this case 'things' meant the suicide of James Mattis. "I'm sorry," Espera had said. "It seemed like he was a bit of a father-figure for you."
Nate had grimaced. "Yeah." There was no point explaining the numerous and varied opinions he had about Mattis, especially as it was to Nate's advantage if Espera went ahead and assumed he was shaken and grieving. So Nate accepted the task with a suitably brittle smile and considered what he should do if Brad shows up in any of the footage he's scanning.
Wright seems reasonably intelligent and even-handed. At the very least, he has navigated this entire investigation so far without calling-in an asset to eliminate Brad, which is a courtesy Nate hasn't seen extended to the ex-Paris asset since he lost his memories. Dowdy himself had called in about four different assets before he had been killed. Nate believes that Wright's primary concern is seeing that the right thing gets done. The question is, what exactly does Evan Wright consider to be the ‘right’ thing?
Up until a few hours ago it had been running Brad to ground and then hauling him in for questioning. Whether Wright intended to release Brad once he was satisfied is moot, because there is no way the CIA will permit the thirty million dollar, highly trained weapon that is Brad Colbert to walk out of their clutches again.
Two years ago his asset had said, “I’m not an assassin. I’m done” and Nate feels an obligation to protect that request. Bringing Brad in for questioning is not an option. Convincing Wright to step back from pursuing Brad however, seems unlikely.
At that moment, Wright leans out of his office. "Nate," he says, motioning him over when Nate turns from the computer.
Pausing the footage, Nate pushes away from his desk and crosses to Wright's office. "What's up?"
Wright is standing behind his desk, in answer to the question he holds up an opened manila envelope. Nate recognizes Brad's precise printing in black marker across the front: 'For Evan Wright'. Wright looks perturbed more than anything. "Colbert left this for me. The hotel was holding it at the desk.”
Nate buys himself some time to school his expression by turning around and closing the office door. "The Brecker?" he asks when he looks back. He remembers the edge of panic in Brad's voice as he'd demanded to know when he had last been to Berlin. Nate's job as Paris Bravo included being able to answer those sorts of questions without fail. It also included facilitating on difficult assignments that could compromise his asset's combat readiness.
Nate should have been at the Brecker with Brad.
Evan shakes his head recalling Nate's attention as he answers, "The Westin Grand."
Nate isn't certain why Wright called him in here. He doesn't know what's in the envelope. He suspects but has no conclusive proof as to why Mattis shot himself in the head, and Nate very much dislikes being at a disadvantage. He stands still and keeps his expression perfectly schooled.
Apparently, in his effort to remain professional he has failed to demonstrate the reaction that Wright was looking for. "You don't seem surprised."
Nate shrugs off the question, raising an eyebrow. "Should I be? He found your base of operations, why not your hotel?" Jerking his head at the envelope, he asks, "What is it?"
Wright's shoulders slump and he tosses the envelope onto his desk so his hands are free to rub at his face. "It's everything," he says, and then sighs again. "There's a pretty damning audio recording of Mattis speaking to Russian business tycoon Yuri Gretkov. On the same recording Mattis admits to calling a hit on Colbert in Goa, and my agents in Berlin. Not to mention Vladimir Neski and his wife. There’s some notes in there that fill in the gaps too, though honestly, it's obvious what all this points to.”
Nate stares at the envelope. Mattis was irritable and abrasive and rubbed most everyone the wrong way, but he had taken Nate under his wing and even if they never had much cause to interact with one-another, on the occasions when they did Mattis had been paternalistic; he had never made a secret of his plan to move Nate through the ranks and eventually hand over the reigns. Not that Nate ever wanted that.
Apparently Mattis was also a lying, treasonous, backstabbing bastard.
Nate releases a slow, quiet breath. “What do you need me for?”
Wright meets Nate's eyes head-on. “Is Colbert a threat?”
For such a seemingly straightforward question, the answer is complex and delicate. Nate weighs his response carefully.
The CIA cannot allow a credible threat to walk free. Brad’s survived as long as he has because of his training and because he hasn’t let his guard down, not because the CIA has decided to let him go. The simple answer to Wright's question is 'yes'. Yes, of course Brad is a threat, that's what he was trained to be.
If that is the response Wright is looking for he didn't need to call Nate in here for it, unless it's a test. The man has read Brad's file - what little his clearance might permit him to read, at any rate - so he knows about the training and the ops. He knows what Brad is capable of, and yet he's still asking.
Nate has no intention of walking into a trap when he's come this far. Two years is too long to invest in something just to lose it again because he got careless, because he wanted to trust someone for a change. The number of people Nate actually trusts can be counted off on one hand. Right now, he can't afford for Evan Wright to be among them, not when the man's opinion might affect whether Brad lives or dies.
So Nate lies. "I don't really know him."
“You worked with him as part of Treadstone for years.”
“He’s a different person now,” Nate points out. “He has amnesia.”
“Sure, but amnesia doesn’t make you a completely different person. You met him at Alexanderplatz; you spoke with him.”
“Are you asking my opinion?” Wright flashes him an impatient and frustrated look and Nate tips his head to the side, pretends to be considering the question carefully. “I don’t think he’s a threat.”
"Okay," Wright says, as if this is the answer he was expecting. Nate this finds troubling. “What are you basing that on?”
"You asked my opinion, sir."
Wright looks exhausted. It's clear he's looking for something from Nate, is maybe a little desperate to have someone confirm his own suspicions and so Nate takes pity on him. "If you want facts, I don't have any. His training alone directly contradicts my assessment. You read his file; Colbert was considered a top asset."
"But you still think he isn't a danger."
"Not to us, sir. Not if we leave him be," Nate answers carefully.
"And Paris?"
Nate remembers scrambling to figure out what was happening with Brad while simultaneously juggling Schwetje's persistent panicking and Dowdy's demands to green light every asset in their control and send them out after the supposedly renegade asset. Nate also remembers what Dowdy's initial plan had been, and can't help but feel that all of this could have easily been avoided if Mattis hadn't interfered. He's speaking nothing but truth when he says, "In my opinion, Paris was handled improperly. Every indication was that Colbert was retracing his steps, not pursuing the agency. Any collateral damage strikes me as an understandable reaction to circumstances.”
“He assaulted two police officers in Switzerland, to say nothing of the damned embassy." Wright seems to be mulling all of this over, however, which is more than Nate had hoped for. "What about now?"
Raising his eyebrows, Nate tips his head. “Now?" He shakes his head. "Colbert was living a civilian life under the radar until someone tried to kill him and nearly took out two civilians in the process. He came out of hiding to resolve a situation that threatened not only his life but those of his friends, as well. This time he did it without any fatalities, which I believe is because no one was trying to kill him." Nate doesn't mention that, apparently, Mattis was trying to kill Brad, it goes without saying at this point.
After a moment, Wright lets out a breath. “Sounds to me like you know him pretty well.”
“Like you said, I worked with him for a few years. You asked for my opinion, sir.”
There’s a quick double knock on the door that cuts off whatever Wright was about to say. A second later the door swings open and Espera steps in, sparing a quick nod at Nate before turning to his boss. “Langley called. They’re going through Mattis’ records. Reyes wants to know what’s going on with Colbert.”
Wright glances over and Nate makes certain to look professional and unconcerned. There's something in the look Wright offers him, but Nate can't determine what the other man is trying to communicate. All he can think is that he is at a crossroads, the next words out of Wright's mouth will determine his course of action.
If Wright issues a kill-order on Brad then it will be Paris all over again. Except this time Nate will have no excuse to be involved. His position will be infinitely more precarious because any orders directed to assets won't be going through him, which would make issuing counter orders and calling in favors damned near impossible to keep secret for long.
It's right then that someone from the main room shouts: “We got him!”
Wright and Espera are out of the office in a flash. Nate follows, hanging back as everyone crowds around a computer monitor that is showing black and white surveillance footage of the Berlin train station. “That’s Colbert,” someone says. “There he is, he’s just entered frame.”
“That’s the train to Moscow.” Espera squints at the footage. “What’s he going to Moscow for?”
Two and a half years ago Nate could have answered that question with absolute confidence. Back then he had known Brad almost as well as he'd known himself. Two years ago, after the amnesia, Nate knows he would have hesitated, doubting himself. Now Nate has a solid idea about Brad's destination but Espera isn't directing the question to him, so he keeps it to himself.
Wright says, "Get me the Russian Interior Ministry." Espera turns away from the screen to find a phone. Since no one is calling in an asset and sending out Brad’s picture, Nate’s just happy to sit back and observe. This time, they might actually have made it through just fine.
“You coming?” Wright says a moment later, rushing out of his office and pulling on his coat as he goes.
The question catches him off-guard. As Deputy Director, Wright should be ordering him back to the Madrid outpost, back to work. He wonders if Wright hasn't yet figured out that by the time he arrives in Moscow Brad will have gone to ground again. Nate has already briefed Wright on everything the man's clearance allows him to know about Treadstone. For all intents and purposes his function here has been completed.
The other possibility is that Wright is inviting Nate along because he thinks Nate might like to know how all of this wraps up. As a courtesy. What's dangerous there is that Nate has done everything in his power to portray a worn-out Bravo agent who has turned gun-shy following a fiasco so extensive it shut down an entire operation. If Wright believed that act then he'd be offering Nate the first flight out, not giving him the chance to continue monitoring the operation; to potentially run into Brad again.
Pursing his lips, he asks, "Sir, shouldn't I be returning to Madrid?"
Wright looks back at him. "Sure, I can arrange that, if you want. But wouldn't you rather come with us to Moscow?"
________________________
There’s a huddle of cab drivers in the parking lot outside the train station. It would be simple enough to steal a car, but even in Russia cab drivers have cell phones and radios and Brad needs to be kept in the loop. Undoubtedly the CIA will make some kind of effort to reclaim him, to say nothing of the Gretkov, the man who was working with Mattis.
Gretkov is most likely the one responsible for actually calling-in the hit on Brad, which means there's a strong likelihood that the assassin who shot Ray in Goa is also somewhere around the city as well. All of these are very good reasons to take a cab.
Three police cars zip by heading into the station with their sirens blaring as Brad’s taxi pulls out. He wonders if Wright’s team is really that slow, or if the man just gave him a head start. It doesn’t matter either way; it’s not like Brad will ever have the opportunity to ask.
It‘s a fifteen-minute drive to the six-story stone apartment building, just off the main road. The landlady is sweeping the front steps with a straw broom, and after the second ring of the doorbell Brad turns to her. “Excuse me,” he asks in Russian. “I’m looking for the girl who lives at number forty-eight. Do you know her?”
The woman glances up and stops sweeping. “Yes, the Neski girl. She doesn’t live here anymore. She moved away from this place.” She gives Brad a new address, and then turns along with him as the taxi that had been waiting for him suddenly revs its engine and speeds away. “He was in some hurry.”
“Looks like,” Brad says, watching as the car speeds around a corner and disappears out of sight. “Thank you for your help.”
The warning didn’t come as early as he’d hoped. As he strides down the street he can already hear police sirens closing in on his position and the only thing he can think about is getting off the main road. Brad can't move as quickly as he'd like because his ankle still hurts. He’s been limping since he left Berlin and it makes him a noticeable figure -- too noticeable. Walking is not ideal; he needs to find a vehicle, and quickly.
Crossing the street toward the bridge, Brad cuts down a staircase to a cement sidewalk running parallel to the river. Briefly, he considers stopping beneath the bridge long enough for the sirens pass, but dismisses the idea. His current position will be obvious once the police consult with the woman he spoke with and learn what direction he went. For now, his best option is to keep moving.
There’s the screech of tires behind him and he reassesses the situation. At his three o’clock is an icy river that is too cold to even consider leaping into; at his nine is a cement wall that he doesn’t have time to climb, given the state of his ankle. He’s stuck moving either forward or back and the only advantage he has lies in trying to blend in, which is difficult to do with his damned ankle fucked up. He keeps moving.
There’s the low snap of a silenced gunshot and a punch in his left shoulder that sends Brad pitching forward onto the snow-covered ground. Now he has a twisted ankle and a bullet in his shoulder. He’s bleeding heavily and the pain is significant, but it probably won’t matter for long because the next shot will likely be through his head.
Brad turns around. There's a man standing on the bridge, his arm extended as he levels the gun. It’s the same man Brad remembers seeing in Goa, the one who shot Ray. Out of options, Brad calculates his odds and doesn't like what he ends-up with. He could make it into the river before the man can discharge his weapon again, but trying to swim in below-freezing water with a bullet lodged in his shoulder won't be pretty. Not to mention the fact that the river is on a predictable course through the city. He'll pop up, soaking wet and suffering the effects of hypothermia and chances are high that this guy will already be waiting for him.
On the other hand, if Brad tries to run he'll be shot down before he makes it three steps. Instead, Brad stands still and waits for the inevitable second shot.
It doesn’t come.
Instead there are more sirens and the drifting sound of shouts. The man drops his gun and moves his hands behind his head, which is when Brad realizes the Russian police have the guy surrounded. He's yelling at them, trying to indicate his right pocket -- probably he has a badge, real or fake. Brad knows the man is trained, it’s possible he’s Russian secret service, or maybe he’s a corrupt cop. Either way, he’ll get clear of the police without trouble because he has friends in high places.
Brad doesn’t linger.
Around the bend in the river is another staircase back up to the street. He walks one block above ground before cutting down to a labyrinth of underground shops. He needs to do something about his bullet wound because he’s losing blood too quickly; he can feel it dripping down his arm and off his fingertips. It’s leaving a trail. The blood is warm on his skin; the rest of him feels cold.
There are no useful shops in the underground plaza. No pharmacy or grocery store. Brad keeps moving and tries to ignore the hot biting ache that is his shoulder, the piercing stab that reaches a little further up his leg with every step. Just ahead a small child screeches and wails and stomps a foot only to be picked up by her father and carried along. Brad wants to sit down.
There’s row after row of nothing but clothes stores and shoe stores and walking is draining him too quickly. He hasn't put enough distance between himself and the assassin but Brad doesn’t have much of a choice. He needs transportation; at the very least he needs something that he can use to staunch the bleeding. He cuts up the next staircase he sees and huffs out a laugh when he comes face to face with a bright green sign for a produktovyy.
His luck lasts for about three minutes because the moment he walks through the front door of the grocery store he notes the two security guards. At the moment, Brad is far from looking his best: there’s blood dripping off the fingers of his left hand, he’s limping and moving fast because he’s being followed. With the amount of blood he’s lost he estimates that he’s extremely pale with darkening circles beneath his eyes. There’s a thin sheen of sweat that he can feel on his skin, and the dizziness is making him stagger like he’s drunk.
The guards take note of him more or less immediately. That’s okay because they’re standard security. He can take them down, even wounded as he is. The fact that they’re already following him means he doesn’t need to be subtle, which means that he can move faster.
He grabs a map of Moscow from a rack by one of the cash registers, picks up a stack of thick cotton socks (on sale, six pair for eighty five rubles), and a tall bottle of Vodka off a shelf beside the Chef Boyardee. Lifting his arm for the bottle sends a wave of dizziness over him and he staggers, fumbling his grip and sending five cans of soup and two bottles of vodka crashing onto the floor. It’s all the permission the security guards will need to start something.
Brad slips the vodka into his pocket and pulls out his gun, holding it up as he rounds the corner, right in the face of one of the guards. “Get down,” he orders in Russian.
Half the civilians in the grocery follow his orders, dropping to the floor along with the guard, but the rest go spilling out the front entrance, causing a scene. Whatever time he had, it’s lost. Brad spares a moment to kick the guard’s gun out of reach and then he hurries out the back entrance.
He steps out onto a narrow street, cars parked along the curb, a row of cabs standing and waiting on the opposite side, the cab drivers in a huddle, smoking. There is a large truck delivering bread, and a standard white police car moving slowly in his direction. The lights and sirens are off, but it’s only a matter of time.
Apparently, he can’t catch a break.
Brad takes a swig of his vodka as he heads toward a taxicab but doesn’t swallow it. “Hey, asshole,” the cab driver says, breaking away from his friends. “Get away from my car.”
The cab driver reaches him at the same moment the police step out of their vehicle, pulling their batons from their belts. Cops have procedures. They have rules about everything, including how to approach someone who may be dangerous. They’re too slow, for one, and spend too much time making certain they have appropriately identified themselves as officers. As if that will be enough of a deterrent. Maybe for most people, it would be.
Brad doesn’t wait to see what they’ll do next. When they're close enough he turns his head and spits his mouthful of vodka directly into their faces blinding them. Then he strikes out, two hits to the gut and one to the head, the men topple back onto the asphalt, groaning and rubbing at their eyes and stomachs like they're not sure what hurts more. After that, the cab driver raises his hands and actually tosses Brad the keys.
The thing about high-speed car chases is that they’re really only fun if you know the area. Brad doesn’t know Moscow at all. There are two police cars on his six the moment he pulls onto the main road, their sirens blaring. Most likely there’s backup on the way.
The people pursuing him know Moscow. Also, they’re not slowly bleeding out because of a goddamned bullet wound in their shoulder. Brad’s trying to navigate the roads without killing anyone. He’s got the map he stole from the grocery propped on the wheel, glancing at it when he can. There’s a streak of blood obscuring a portion of downtown Moscow because he’s still bleeding, the bundle of socks and the alcohol both riding shotgun but not, as yet, of use since all his attention is focused on the road.
His first goal is to get to a fairly long stretch of narrow road, which he finds after taking a sharp right turn onto a one-way street with parked cars clogging the shoulders. It forces his pursuers to drop behind him single-file, which gives him a time to concentrate on other things, like first aid.
Shrugging his coat off his left shoulder Brad pulls his shirt aside and then pours the alcohol directly onto the gunshot wound. “Fuck,” he snarls. He’s not sure if he means this about the searing pain in his shoulder, or because he sees another police car joining the group tailing him down the street. He makes a grab for the socks as the corridor of parked cars falls away as the narrow one-way connects to an uncluttered main road.
Out of the corner of his eye Brad spots a police car bearing right down on him but there’s not enough time to do anything but brace for the impact. The car slams right into the side of his car denting the driver's side door and sending him into a tailspin.
“Mother fucker!” he hisses, steering into the skid. “Don’t they teach you fucking idiots how to drive in a high speed chase?” He slams his foot onto the gas pedal and the back end of his yellow car fishtails before straightening out. Idly, he thinks about road safety rules: wearing your seat belt, not disabling your air bags, and staying focused on the road. Not to mention not bleeding all over your steering wheel. Brad leans over and snatches for the map that has fallen down into the foot well on the passenger’s side.
There are no clever narrow streets here in which Brad can lose his pursuers. His stolen cab is the same size as the standard police vehicles anyway. He never thought it would ever happen, but Brad finds himself sparing a fond thought for Ray’s obnoxious orange monstrosity and its ability to fit into narrow places.
He drives into a parking lot half on accident because there is no clear demarcation of where the road ends and the lot begins. Apparently, boulevards are rare in Moscow. One of the cops on his six stops on the road, anticipating his doubling back, and another slams into a parked car. Brad starts to feel a bit optimistic as he finishes tying off a sock-tourniquet around his shoulder.
There’s an empty parking spot just ahead, which Brad pulls through, bouncing onto the sidewalk and then out onto the main road once more as pedestrians leap out of his way and shout high-pitched Russian profanity at him. He’s driving with the traffic but he’s traveling well above the speed limit. There’s one police car on his six, with another rushing to catch up, but he’s made some headway.
Then out of nowhere a giant black Jeep cuts in front of him, clipping the front-end of the cab as Brad slides into a turn. It’s startling. He didn’t see the Jeep coming. Brad checks the rearview and recognizes the face behind the wheel.
The assassin has found him.
It was inevitable but Brad had sort of hoped he’d have more time. He punches the gas. Instead of following, the Jeep drives away down another street, which doesn't alleviate any of Brad’s stress. The assassin knows these roads, Brad doesn’t. He keeps driving, checking his rearview and glancing to the left and right whenever he can. He spots the Jeep, heading along the road on the opposite side of the river, which runs perfectly parallel to the road Brad is on. Ahead, he can see a bridge where both roads intersect, undoubtedly where the assassin plans to ambush him again.
As he gets closer, a white and green accordion-style bus passes in front of him heading across the bridge and Brad braces himself, cranks the wheel hard left dropping into a lane alongside it. With any luck, the assassin will drive straight past him before he realizes where Brad has gone and they'll pass each other without either of them having to get hurt. Brad's not kidding himself, he'd probably be the one to get hurt.
Except then Brad remembers that he doesn’t seem to have any luck.
He crosses the river safely and when he relinquishes the relative security of the bus, he spots the Jeep, which is now driving in reverse. When there’s a gap in traffic the assassin spins his vehicle around and then he’s right back on Brad’s tail, uncomfortably close. Brad hasn’t even managed to lose the two cop cars.
The brand new Jeep far outclasses the piece of shit ancient yellow taxicab that Brad is driving, and with the option to outdrive the other man off the table, Brad has no choice but to outmaneuver him.
Just ahead is Brad’s destination: a tunnel bridge four lanes wide. He gets T-boned crossing a four-lane roadway but Brad spins into the skid and keeps on driving merging into the faster moving tunnel traffic. He loses one of the police vehicles to a 24-foot moving truck that fails to break in time.
The Jeep and the other police car are still in pursuit.
Brad plays cat and mouse with the Jeep, civilian vehicles skidding out, around, and crashing in their wake. He can’t help noticing that the police have fallen well behind. He still hears their sirens but can’t see any sign of their vehicles.
All around other vehicles are slowing down, stopping, and generally trying to get out of the way. The last high-speed chase that Brad can remember was in Paris, no one even seemed to register there was anything unusual happening around them on the road. This makes for a welcome change.
Of course, it is rush hour and there are still some drivers who carry on, oblivious or determined, while Brad swerves around them as best he can. He uses a brown Lincoln as a buffer against the looming Jeep, but the threat of civilian casualties hasn’t stopped either one of them yet and the Jeep steers hard to the right, pushing Brad’s cab against the wall of the tunnel, pinned by the Lincoln, which is in turn pinned by the truck.
If Ray were in the vehicle he would undoubtedly be making perverse three-way jokes. It’s impossible to decide whether the metal of both vehicles screeching shrilly like nails scraping down a chalkboard is preferable to Ray’s bawdy humor. Brad can see the driver of the Lincoln yelling at him but then the assassin in the Jeep holds up his gun and fires a shot and Brad has to duck out of the way, crouching awkwardly in an effort to drive and avoid being shot. Again.
The Jeep and Brad’s cab are both moving much faster than the man caught between them, and as their cars pull forward the Lincoln spins out of control in their wake. Brad doesn’t have time to think about the driver of that car because he’s focusing on gaining enough headway to avoid getting pinned against the wall again.
The next time the Jeep presses him to the right he's pulled far enough ahead to avoid being trapped. It's only the rear of the vehicle that’s caught and when Brad cranks the wheel to the left the cab goes, until he has spun a complete circle around onto the Jeep’s other side. Driving in reverse, Brad holds his gun out the broken glass of his window and takes the front wheel of the Jeep with four quick, successive shot. The tire blows out.
Advantage gained, Brad switches gears and spins his car around, the nose of the cab pressed to the side of the Jeep mid-spin, so that the cab is driving both vehicles forward. Brad punches down on the gas and drives unrelentingly on, the assassin still trying to line up a shot since he can’t manage to disengage the vehicles. He’s oblivious to where he is heading.
At the last moment Brad yanks out his seatbelt, leaning over and gripping it hard as he braces his legs wide. They slam into the concrete divider separating northbound traffic from westbound. The collision knocks the breath out of him but the moment he’s steady enough, Brad climbs out of his car, his gun trained on the driver’s side of the Jeep as he approaches.
Everything hurts. His vision is half blurred and his head is thrumming and spinning. He’s half staggering as he walks. When he’s close enough to the Jeep to make out the driver Brad realizes that the gun isn’t necessary. The assassin is collapsed onto the passenger side, his face covered in blood, the man’s breaths coming slower and slower.
He wants to ask if this was worth it. If the man was fighting to protect something important, or if it is just a job, was just a job. Was the money good enough to warrant all of this? Not too long ago Brad wasn’t so different from this man. It was his job to kill people, and he did that job with little compunction. He’s fairly certain there was no heroic backstory there; he had found something he could do well, so he did it. He doesn’t have delusions about himself. He won’t ever be a hero. But whoever that person was, it was someone he used to be.
Brad tucks the gun back into his pocket. Turning, he walks out of the tunnel.
________________________
Yuri Gretkov is not a difficult man to locate. Like most businessmen he keeps to a predictable schedule, which is kept on his phone, as well as on his assistant's phone, to say nothing of the black leather agenda book his assistant keeps at her desk. Since Evan is more or less through leaving anything to chance he orders the man followed the second he gets off the line with the Russian Interior Ministry.
Between the CIA agents dogging Gretkov's footsteps and the Russian police waiting in the wings to swoop down on the man, there probably isn't much of a reason for Evan to make the trip but he does it anyway. Closure, he thinks. That's all he's interested in.
“So that’s it?” Espera asks as they stand on the street corner, watching a startled Gretkov being pressed face-first against the side of a dark sedan and handcuffed. “All the loose ends wrapped up?”
Fick is standing a few feet away, his hands in his coat pockets as he watches the arrest. Evan nods. "All the loose ends that matter."
Everyone at the agency -- the ones not reeling from shock -- are heralding this as a big win. They keep congratulating Evan like he’s responsible but all he can think is that without Colbert, Evan would probably still be running around chasing leads until the CIA got tired of paying expenses and getting nothing in return.
Espera heads back to their car after Gretkov is ushered into the backseat of the sedan and driven off. Evan watches from the sidewalk as the car disappears down the road. When it's out of sight, he moves to stand beside Fick. "I wanted to thank-you for your help on this."
Fick keeps still but his green eyes shift, fixing on Evan. "Is that on the record?"
Evan smiles. "Yeah. Of course." He fights the urge to question the other man about Colbert, to ask what exactly happened in Paris. Fick is a walking contradiction, he is imperturbable, so carefully controlled and capable; and yet fragile, vulnerable, maybe even naive. Evan is having a hard time imagining this man running from anything but he can't deny that the reassignment to Madrid is precisely that.
Somewhere along the way Evan has found himself hoping that all Fick really needed was time. Maybe after this the agent's confidence will be restored. Even if it doesn't seem all that likely, Evan still finds himself blurting, “I can get you transferred to New York.”
The frown he gets is a little disappointing. He can’t tell if Nate's confusion is feigned or genuine. “New York?”
“Or Langley," Evan offers. "If you don’t want to work one-on-one with assets then okay, but you don’t need to be stuck pushing papers behind a desk.”
When Fick turns both his eyebrows are raised, there's a sparking brightness in his eyes. “Evan, I asked for the Madrid posting.” A bit of the disbelief Evan is feeling must show on his face because Fick smirks. “You know, Madrid is kind of a nice city.”
“Sure, I’m not arguing on the city, but everyone knows that outpost is a dead end. There’s no division of labor, there’s Eckloff, and then there’s his secretary, and you have an awful lot of training and field experience to be a secretary.” The other man's expression is a flat, inscrutable mask and so Evan gives-up. “At least think about the transfer.”
Fick tips his head forward, not quite a nod but Evan suspects it's as much as he can hope for. He lets the issue drop. “I should head back to the hotel. I have to get my bags packed for the flight.”
“You unpacked?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you?” He remembers the small black carry-on bag that Fick had brought onto the plane. No checked bags. Fick travels the same way Colbert does, and it's another thing that he wants to ask about.
He's read the man's file. Fick’s easygoing, unassuming and quick-witted and Evan keeps thinking that the man is like Espera, but Espera's personnel file has no black lines. There is nothing that Tony Espera has done that Evan isn't cleared to know about. Fick, however, is shrouded in mystery. Evan gets the feeling the man prefers it that way.
“Aren’t you coming to the hotel?” he asks, halting when Fick doesn’t fall in step with him.
“I’ve got another stop to make. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
There's a theory that he has been kicking around for a while, based purely on intuition rather than any actual proof. Fick's behavior doesn't even lend support to this idea and sure, Evan knows it's ludicrous and maybe a little fanciful. The thing is, it doesn't add up. Fick was a Recon Marine, was recruited and trained for the CIA and then handpicked and trained some more for Treadstone. He became a Bravo agent through what Evan suspects was a trial-by-fire, and all reports support the picture of Fick as a highly capable agent.
What happened in Paris was a mess, there's no way around that. As far as Evan can see though, nothing happened that would explain why an agent of Fick's caliber would get rattled. So rattled, in fact, that he would stop working with assets altogether. Something's missing; something that isn’t in the files.
After this mess with Colbert, Evan is willing to admit the awe and reverence reserved for Treadstone assets is well deserved, which makes him wonder about Treadstone agents. Fick doesn’t seem like the sort to souvenir shop, and as far as he knows there's no other stop the man might need to make.
Fick's easygoing, unassuming and quick-witted. He's spent the majority of his time with the CIA passing as a student studying abroad. Evan’s done with taking things at face value. “Once a Bravo agent, always a Bravo agent?” he asks.
The corner of Fick's mouth quirks up and he dips his head forward, looking up from beneath a fringe of auburn hair. “Something like that.”
Evan's got a theory but it’s only gut instinct and the CIA isn’t interested in his gut, no reason why they would feel any differently about his theory. Especially when really, it’s not any of their business anyway.
________________________
The Orannyi Projects are just outside the city. A claustrophobic stretch of four tall, wide buildings walling off a parking lot and courtyard, eerie green-yellow fluorescent lights spilling out in vertical lines from windows that Brad thinks might be kitchens or bathrooms beside other windows of orange-bright warmth. The streetlamps in the courtyard are not lit when he walks up to the building he’s looking for.
He calculates the odds of having an opportunity to speak Irena Neski as slightly better if he is already in her apartment when she comes home. True, he isn’t thinking very clearly as a result of blood loss, but Brad is aware that presently he doesn't cut a very respectable figure. Irena lives alone, in Moscow, in the Projects. A young woman on her own is not going to invite a strange man into her home.
Not if she’s got any sense, anyway.
Brad loses count of the stairs he climbs on his way to the apartment but once he gets there it’s easy to pick the lock to get inside. He re-locks the door behind himself and leaves the lights off. He doesn't touch anything, he wants to talk to her, not investigate her space. Besides, every part of him is aching and he’s exhausted. It’s just about all he can do to find his way to a chair at the kitchen table, and then he collapses into it to sit and wait, half-dozing but always listening.
It’s not a long wait. The sun has only just begun to set when he hears the jangle of keys at the front door and Irena’s soft footsteps as she walks into her apartment, kicking off her boots, hanging her coat in the front closet and tossing her keys aside.
She steps through into the kitchen and her wide brown eyes fix on him immediately, her whole body freezes. “Quiet,” he says, speaking in soft Russian. “Keep silent, all right?”
She nods, her eyes flicking over him where he sits, and then around the room. Brad wonders if she is looking for something with which to defend herself, or if she’s checking to see if anything has been moved or taken. “I don’t have any money or drugs.”
“Sit down.” She doesn’t move, keeps her back pressed to the wall. “Please.”
Frowning, she settles on the edge of a floral patterned armchair, her hands tucked beneath her knees as she hunches forward, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulder. Her eyes shift and fix somewhere just below Brad's shoulder.
After a second, it occurs to him that she's staring at the gun he's been holding in his hand. He'd meant to put it away before she came home but he'd forgotten about it. “Sorry.” He tucks it quickly into his coat pocket. He never intended to threaten her, that he had to intrude on her space to speak with her is regrettable, but necessary. He’s caused her enough pain as it is; it is not his intention to cause even more.
“I speak English,” she offers.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Brad hurriedly says in English, then repeats it again, slower, holding both his hands up so she can see he has no weapons. “I won’t hurt you.” On the table beside her chair is a photograph of a man and a woman, smiling into the camera as they hold their young daughter up between them. Brad nods at it. “That picture. It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
She breathes a shaky breath, her eyes involuntarily shifting over to the photograph. She meets his stare evenly and Brad finds himself admiring her courage. “It’s nothing,” she lies. “It’s just a picture.”
“It’s because you don’t know how they died.”
Her chin jerks up. “I do.”
Brad shakes his head slowly. “No. You don’t.”
He’s not certain why he’s here except for the firm belief that if their positions were reversed, he would want to know the truth. He would want to know what had happened to his parents. It’s not a trend he intends to pick up; there are a number of faces he remembers, names written in his book, but Brad has no intention of seeking out their families and making explanations.
They were bad people doing bad things. For the most part, he doesn’t feel especially guilty.
Her parents, though, are another matter. They're dead because of his mistake, his naïveté, and that’s something he’ll learn to live with, will have to live with, but there’s no reason why anyone else should suffer. So Brad says, “Your mother didn’t kill your father.”
This time when her eyes drift down Brad realizes Irena's looking at his left hand, which is streaked with blood. The entire left arm of his jacket is damp with it and he’s been battling dizziness for a while. He wonders if she’ll want to kill him for what he did. Wonders if she will cry.
“It was my job.” Brad notes the way her jaw clenches and her eyes widen. “It was my first time. Your father was supposed to be alone, but your mother decided to surprise him, and I had to change my plan.” It shouldn’t sound as simple as it does. He could explain the politics behind it, why her father suddenly had to die. That there was no good reason except for two men and their greed, and his inexperience that made him follow the directive so blindly. He could tell her that it’s a mistake he’s struggling with, and that he’s sorry.
He doesn’t say any of that. Brad doesn’t need her to forgive him, he just wants her to know the truth, for her own sake. “Your mother didn’t kill your father. She didn’t kill herself.” He licks his lips, forces himself to say, “I killed them.”
There are tears sliding down Irena’s face but she is utterly silent. “It changes things, that knowledge. When what you love is taken from you, you want to know the truth.” Brad gets up and crosses the room, pauses by her chair wanting so much to offer an apology. He stops himself. Is he sorry for making her cry, or for bringing up past hurts, or for taking her parents away from her?
Sorry is such a small word, such an inadequate word, when there is so much to be sorry for.
He leaves her to grieve, to carry on and move on in a way he doesn’t think she could have done before.
When he steps back outside he doesn’t feel the cold so much but he feels every ache in his body, from the pinching burn from the bullet that’s lodged in his shoulder to the dizziness from the blood he’s still losing, though at a less alarming rate. He’s tired, so incredibly tired that he briefly considers sitting down right where he’s standing. The only thing that stops him is that he knows if he stops now he won't start again.
At the moment, the only thing holding him up is sheer force of will and his own innate stubbornness.
The sky is turning a dark, purpling grey in preparation for night. Brad is fairly certain that he should feel itchy: all those windows, each one a perfect hiding place for a sniper. There could be a squad of police cars around the corner, waiting; he could be heading directly into a trap. He doesn’t feel any of that. Instead, he feels the same rushing sense of relief that he felt on the train. 'Home free' he thinks, for the moment at least.
There are only a handful of people in the wide expanse of the courtyard and Brad is perfectly aware that he has the full attention of one of them. The figure stands in the middle of the small circular bricked spot where all the paths converge. He’s wearing a long dark coat with the collar turned up around his neck, his hands hanging loose at his sides. He’s staring right at Brad.
Brad keeps a steady pace, his limp slowing him down but he’s not worried because he’s not running away. When he’s close enough he asks, “Does Evan want to send me a ‘thank you’ card for finding his mole?”
Nate’s expression doesn’t change. It’s still quiet and calm; it’s still intensely scrutinizing. “I’m not here on behalf of the CIA.”
“Are you stalking me now?” It’s a little embarrassing that what was supposed to be a teasing statement comes out sounding choked and hopeful. Brad doesn’t know this man but sometimes it feels like he maybe remembers him.
The corner of Nate’s mouth quirks up just slightly. Brad wonders why the man always seems to fight the impulse to smile. “Is she okay?” Nate's eyes shift quickly up toward Irena's apartment and then back to Brad.
He hesitates, sifting through the tones in the question. Does Nate think that he came all this way to tie up a loose end that was never really a loose end to begin with? Nate seems calm; relaxed and casual. Brad realizes that more likely, Nate is simply wondering how the exchange went. Regardless, Brad's aware he sounds a bit sharp when he says, “She’s fine.” Pale copper eyebrows hitch upward at his tone. Brad clears his throat awkwardly. “She’ll be fine. At least now she knows what happened.”
There’s a kind of warmth in Nate’s green eyes that has Brad unconsciously shifting forward. He halts after one step when he realizes what he’s doing. Nate hasn’t stepped back in an effort to maintain the distance between them, but he hasn’t moved forward either. Brad’s not sure what conclusion he should be drawing here.
They stand there quietly, a foot apart, the silence stretching between them before Nate clears his throat. “Evan is still looking for you.”
“Let him look. What part of ‘I am done with this’ do they not understand?”
“I don’t think it’s that easy to walk away from the CIA, Brad. Besides, Evan’s not trying to kill you, he just wants to talk.”
Brad shifts again, restless. He licks his lips. “You called me ‘Brad.’”
Nate’s eyebrows draw together. “That’s your name.”
“You’re one of three people who calls me ‘Brad’. Everybody else calls me ‘Bradley’, or ‘Colbert’.”
This time the smile isn’t hiding, half-suppressed, at the corner of Nate’s mouth; it stretches, a smooth curve, until it lights his eyes. “I know a thing or two about you.”
Brad wants to ask what it is that Nate knows. He wants to confirm what he thought back in the tunnels when he pressed the other man against the wall and caught the scent of cloves and citrus. He wants to ask if Nate is the one who travels around the world and describes everything he sees like a bedtime story that soothes Brad into sleep; if he’s the one who quotes Seneca at unlikely times; if he reads The Odyssey and makes scrunched yet precise notes in the margins -- if he’s maybe missing his copy because then Brad can explain that he thinks he might have it.
All Brad can manage to say is, “Yeah?”
Nate drops his head, hiding away his smile. When he looks up again his face is calm again, steady. There’s a brightness in his eyes that Brad can see though, and it makes him think that maybe Nate has an answer for each of the questions he can’t quite bring himself to ask. “You should see a doctor for that shoulder, Brad. Get your leg looked at while you’re there.”
“I’m fine.”
There's another flash of that grin. “I know,” and when the grin settles Nate's expression isn't quite neutral, Brad can see amusement glinting in those green eyes. For some reason his completely inaccurate assessment of his own physical state has pleased the other man. “Do it anyway.”
Nate steps back and it feels wrong somehow, like they are polarized magnets being pulled apart. Another step, and Brad has successfully quelled any urge he has to reach out. He holds himself perfectly still, keeps his expression neutral. Nate slips his hands into his coat pockets. "I’ll see you around.” Then he turns and starts walking away.
Rocking forward onto the balls of his feet Brad raises his voice to carry over the distance. “You’re not going to tell me where you live?”
“You’ll find me.” Nate’s voice drifts back on the crisp wind, steady and perfectly confidant.
Nate works for the people that Brad is trying to walk away from. Finding him would mean Brad will probably get tangled up with the CIA all over again. After the high-speed car chases, the three different road accidents he has had in a single afternoon, the bullet currently lodged in his shoulder, the general mess that is his leg, and the overall ache that is his body, it doesn’t feel like hyperbole to say that he barely survived this round.
Smiling, Brad turns on his heel, walking in the opposite direction. Hopefully a taxi will be parked nearby and he won’t have to stand around in the cold while his leg gets even more stiff and painful. He’ll go to a doctor, but only because he’s fairly certain the odds of fishing a bullet out of his own shoulder and still having full use of it after only a short recovery time are against him.
After that, he’s not certain where he’ll end-up but at least now he knows what he’ll be looking for.
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|<< END PART FOUR ||
MASTERPOST
Series' MASTERPOST