#oc short

XXXXX

Quebec reached down and wrapped an arm around Romeo’s upper body. Romeo winced in pain but nodded that he was ready. Pulling him up from the floor slowly Q guided his friend to a standing position. Once he was back on his own two feet Romeo nudged out of Quebec’s grasp. Despite needing his friend’s help Romeo wanted to show that he was indeed capable. Even if he was only capable of standing and walking at the moment.

Don’t be a baby, he said to himself, you can do this.

Romeo teetered for a second and Quebec shot him a worried look. But he righted himself quickly enough and smiled. He could do this. He needed to do this. Q smiled back and went to work gathering all of Romeo’s bloody clothes, and bloody towels, from the floor. Once he had them in his hands he left Romeo to watch Minkowski. He carried the clothes to the bathroom and emptied them into the sink. They piled inside the small sink and made a small mound. Patting his pockets he searched for the lighter he knew he had somewhere. After a minute or two he found it.

Flicking the wheel ignited a flame and he threw the lighter onto the pile.

It had to be enough since he did not have his kit with him so he didn’t have any lighter fluid or gasoline. Nothing to fuel the fire and completely destroy the evidence. If Quebec was being honest with himself he felt naked without his gear. He felt helpless with only the pocket knife even though he could turn anything into a weapon if the need arose. None of those facts changed how he felt.

“Q, he’s waking up!”

He shook his head and watched the flames for a minute. Then he left the bathroom and stared at Douglas Minkowski. He stirred and began to come around. Quebec really wanted to shoot this man where he sat and he just needed the right reason. What Minkowski did to the two of them was reason enough in his book but other people would disagree. And besides there was the fact that the man wanted to kill everyone involved in H.E.R.A.C.L.E.S. This man had to die for that and that alone.

The blood on his face had dried and turned a dark red; crusting over his lips and his broken nose. His left eye was swollen shut and bruises had already formed around it; staining the skin with color. He looked ghastly.

And yet he still laughed; “Heh. Heh. You think you’ve won this fight? I may be down but I’m not out. I’m still alive so that means something. And you two are still alone in here with me. We’ll just have to see who leaves here alive tonight.”

“Oh sod off you bleeding tosser.”

“You seem angry little man. I wonder why that is? Oh right. My boys got you pretty good.”

“Knock him out again, mate, I’m tired of listening to this sod. I’m going to try the comm. link he’s definitely lying about that.”

Quebec ignored Romeo and crossed over to Minkowski. The petty officer tried to back away when he saw the look of death in Quebec’s eyes. Kneeling down in front of the man Quebec’s face was not five inches from the other man’s face. Too close for comfort. He grabbed Minkowski’s left hand, the one he had stepped on earlier, and squeezed. His face scrunched up in anger as he squeezed harder. Minkowski’s face twisted in pain but he refused to let a single sound leave his lips.

Then he laughed; “You can’t do anything to me. You don’t even exist to the rest of the world. You don’t have any badges or id to show that you have any authority. So what’s stopping me from calling the police and arresting the both of you?”

He scoffed and turned his shoulder so that it faced Minkowski. Quebec pointed at the U.S. flag patch on his uniform. Tapped it twice for emphasis. Then he turned the opposite direction and tapped the H.E.R.A.C.L.E.S. logo patch. He turned back to face Minkowski with a serious look.

“Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t need to show you no stinking badges!”

“I’ll get you for this,” Minkowski said through grit teeth, “I’ll get all of you.”

Now it was Quebec’s turn to laugh. The sound of it sent a chill down Minkowski’s spine. Quebec dug a finger into the knife wound in Minkowski’s thigh. The man winced in pain and Q stared him straight in the eye and said; “I will look for you, I will find you. And I will kill you.”

“You’re a funny guy.”

“You mean I’m funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you?”

Minkowski nodded.

“Leave him alone, Q,” Romeo interrupted. “He likes pushing your buttons, mate. You leave him alone and he won’t bother you.”

Quebec nodded and started to get up from the floor. But just before he did he spit on Minkowski’s face. The man grimaced in disgust and wiped the spit off with his hand. Quebec smiled and rose to his feet. Romeo nudged him slightly and pointed to his ear but said nothing. Quebec understood immediately and tapped his comm. to life.

“We’re too far away from them to actually call them. Send the distress signal.”

He tapped his comm. three times in a row and whispered; “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

XXXXX

November told the others her plan. Those in charge of H.E.R.A.C.L.E.S. had created two separate solutions to problems such as this one. The triple tap was one. And the trackers that each and every operative had embedded into the muscle of their inner thigh was the other. Whether these were created so that the handlers could keep better tabs on the ops or for moments like this one November didn’t know. She was just grateful that she remembered these things existed.

They decided to try the triple tap first.

“Good idea, Em,” Lima said. “If they’re still alive they definitely would’ve used the triple tap.”

“And sent out a distress signal,” she added with a nod.

But there still was the problem of distance. If they were too far away from the boys then none of their comms would catch the signal from the other ones. And the same went for the trackers. So they piled into the car and went back the way they came. November had an idea and just hoped that her hunch was right. They were always told to never assume things. It was one of the rules after all.

However there was nothing else they could do.

As Mike drove through the streets of Los Angeles, back to the safe house they were at the day before, the others tried the comm. link. So far nothing had came through. The group drove in silence for the most part. Only interrupting the monotony of it with short questions or comments. But the group had reached a consensus about what to do with Minkowski when they found him.

He was going to die.

It didn’t matter that they were supposed to protect this man with their lives. He changed the mission objective the moment he took their men. He hit them where he knew it would hurt. Minkowski had upset the balance and now he was going to pay.

“Smith is going to kill us,” Lima muttered nervously.

“No she won’t Bubba,” Mike said looking over at Lima. “She won’t do a thing. Want to know why?”

“Why?”

“’Cause we’re doin’ the right thing. We’re protectin’ our own.”

“No. We’re not,” Lima shot back. “We’re doing the complete opposite of the right thing, Mike! We’re going against orders and she’s going to kill us for it.”

“Don’t worry, Li,” Oscar said from the back of the car.

“Smith is probably not telling us everything that’s going on here. And who knows? She might want us to kill him.”

An hour or so later they made it back to Minkowsi’s safe house. There they tried the triple tap again. And sure enough their comms began emitting a light beeping. Faint and faraway it meant that they were close enough to get a signal but not close enough to be near where the signal was coming from.

But they had hope.

XXXXX

Romeo and Quebec both watched Minkowski. The man had recovered enough to stand on his feet. He wasn’t fully recovered of course but he was still dangerous in his condition. And with the added disadvantage of being without the proper weaponry they had nothing to threaten him with.

But Minkowski didn’t have any weapons either.

Stumbling on his feet the Navy SEAL tried to walk towards them.

Quebec took up a fighting stance. He wasn’t going to let this man hurt Romeo again. He didn’t care if he got hurt in the process but Romeo was already down and out once this mission. There was the possibility that he wouldn’t survive another. And so Quebec was more than ready to attack. He was about a foot or even less away from Minkowski; in range for a couple attacks.

Suddenly Minkowski swung a harsh left hook.

Ducking underneath the blow Quebec dodged it. But he came back up quickly enough to send a right hook into Minkowski’s gut. The man doubled over slightly and held the spot Q hit. His face scrunched up in pain.

“I told you I was down but not out,” he said between breaths. “But you didn’t listen. And now I’m going to kill you all.”

Quebec shrugged; “Mama says, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’”

Minkowski rushed at him but Quebec moved out of the way just in time. Romeo snuck up behind the petty officer and kicked him in the back of the knee. His left leg gave out from underneath him and he kneeled on one foot. Breathing heavily he sat in that position for a minute or two.

The door to the apartment opened slowly and with a slight creak. The three men turned to look. Minkowski had a confused expression on his face but Romeo and Quebec knew exactly what was happening. The Navy SEAL turned to them with an angry look.

“But I ruined your comms! How could you call for back up?”

Romeo smiled; “That’s our little secret, Minkowski.”

The group entered the apartment with death in their eyes. But once they saw the other guys their expressions brightened into smiles. Mike threw Quebec a gun. He caught it with a sick and twisted smile. Cocking back the hammer he pointed it directly at Minowski’s forehead. As he did so he saw the Navy SEAL shake in fear. And that made him smile wider.

“You expect me to come quietly do you?”

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

With that Quebec shot him in the head. Then he shot Minkowski once more. Double tapping a target was always something they were told to do. Even after years and years of doing this job that never changed. Minkowski’s body fell forward and then fell to the floor with a thud.

The others had searched the apartment in the meantime. The bedroom held more than enough evidence to justify the man’s execution. There were many notebooks with countless information on the operatives Minkowski worked with all those years ago. And a map of what he suspected the HERACLES base to look like hung on the wall. Opposite that, on the other wall was a world map and photos of operatives were taped up on the edges. Each photo had names written on them in red marker and were connected by a red string. The red strings all lead back to Afghanistan which was circled over and over again.

The words Never Forget were scrawled above the circle.

November tapped her comm. and called their handler for an extraction.

What about the SEAL?

“He’s dead. We killed him for what he did to Ro and Q. And because he had detailed plans to take out every operative.” Silence rang through the comm. and November waited for her handler to start berating her.

We suspected Minkowski had ulterior motives and needed to be disposed of but we weren’t sure. I’ll send Cleaners to gather the evidence. Make your way to the extraction point.

Good work.

They all breathed sighs of relief when their handler signed off. November was thankful that everyone was relatively okay; except for Romeo. But he would be properly patched up once they got back to base. And they were all safe from both Minkowski. It was good day.

Mike turned to Lima with a smile; “What did I tell you, Bubba, there was nothin’ to worry ‘bout. We’re fine.”

“Well, you did almost kill us all earlier,” Oscar said with a laugh.

XXXXX

One of Bouvier’s goons grabbed a fistful of short, blonde, hair and yanked his head back. As the man pulled further another one of the goons put a towel over the spy’s face. Closing his mouth, and holding his breath, Victor tried to prepare himself for what was to come next. Time spent with the Enforcers, during training, was meant to acclimate every operative to all manners of torture. Other times it was used to subdue rebelliousness in certain operatives. Neither of which was really achieved despite the Enforcers’ best efforts.

And even though the Cobbler had been through similar situations many times it didn’t mean that he didn’t feel the pain.

At this point he couldn’t feel the bottom of his feet at all thanks to a heated iron fire poker. Or the majority of his face. His right eye was heavily bruised and swollen shut. Lips split and bleeding. Bruises were forming on his left cheek. His arms ached from being tied behind the metal back of the chair for so long.

At least it’s not a strappado position. Now that’s torture.

Cold water poured over Victor’s towel-covered face and his mental preparation didn’t matter. Water soon filled his nostrils and he had to open his mouth regardless. But just as quickly his mouth was also filled with water and he began to choke. That went on for a few minutes then the water stopped flowing and the soaking wet towel was finally removed. He spent the next couple minutes choking, gagging and gasping for air. When he regained his senses Victor smiled at his captors and spoke in hoarse voice.

“Water you guys doing? Torture doesn’t work.”

Bouvier paced, in front of where his men had tied up the spy, with his hands behind his back. He was obviously getting restless and annoyed. The night was not turning out how he expected it to go. He wasn’t getting a single thing he wanted. And not only did he want the team to back off of his ex-lawyer but he also wanted them to turn over the dirt they found on him. For Victor to personally give it up or at least give him the means to.

“I played nice before but I will let it know that I am no longer going to play nice. I had my men recover the laptop it had on its person. Tell us how to retrieve the files.”

“What files?”

Victor’s secret weapon, or fail safe, had sent a copy of every single thing on the laptop back to base. And then it erased every shred of evidence from the laptop’s hard drive. There was no way he could actually recover the files unless he was at his little setup back home. It happened in the matter of a few seconds. All thanks to a little bit of programming activated by the simple stroke of three little keys.

“It will do what I asked or it will suffer the consequences.”

“Listening to you is unbearable enough.”

Yves Bouvier’s face goes red with anger as he open palm smacks Victor in the face.

If you could see your face, man. Priceless.

“Are you a female dog? Because you slap like a bitch.”

Smiling annoyed the Swiss man turned to one of his men and whispered something in the guy’s ear. Victor strained to hear but once he tried to move two massive hands pushed down on his shoulders; keeping him in place. The man nodded to Bouvier and walked out of the light. Victor listened to the man’s footsteps as they fainted; trying to figure out the size of the room he was in but Bouvier began talking and covered the footfalls.

“I know who it works for and I know why its masters are after me. But know this; neither will be able to prove anything. I was able to get the best lawyer money could buy and I won. What makes it think this time will be any different? I win. I always win.”

This guy really needs to stop calling me it or I’m gonna sick Jule on him.

When he finished Bouvier grabbed a set of pliers from one of his men.

“It will tell me how to open the laptop or I will start with the pinky finger,” he said as he tapped the metal of the pliers lightly against Victor’s fingernail.

“Hand job? No thank you.”

After angering Bouvier with yet another stupid pun the blonde chuckles at the man’s attempt at a show of desperate aggression. He had seen real desperation, real aggression and viciousness, and knew exactly what certain people were capable of when they had no other options. But the man who stood before him? Bouvier? He was not the vicious person he tried to come across as. Maybe he could fool other, less experienced, people but he wasn’t fooling the spy.

“There’s just one thing I want to know before you start grasping at straws here,” Victor said.

“And what’s that?”

“How’d you find me?”

This time it was Bouvier’s turn to chuckle. But instead of answering Victor’s question he simply opened the pliers, slid the end under a fingernail, closed it and yanked with all his might.

XXXXX

“I’m here if you need me, hon,” Sierra called as Kilo took her slightly smashed equipment and locked herself in Wallchester’s bedroom.

Kilo was still beating herself up for Victor’s capture. The only difference was now she was using that as fuel to find him. Being the team’s Musician, and in charge of all the comm. operation as well as tracking devices, Kilo knew what she had to do. Problem was the usual way she would go about this would be to simply do what they called a Triple Tap but that would not in this particular situation.

A Triple Tap is pretty much exactly what it sounded like.

Each comm. link was outfitted with a special radar based tracking system. The radar could only be activated by tapping the ear comm. three times very quickly. The tapped comm. then starts to emit a low beep in the ear of the operative wearing the comm. But the beep is also emitted in the ear of the nearest comm. as well. And the closer the two get the faster and louder the beeping becomes. The comm. is simply reset by a double tap.

The problem with the Triple Tap is that the radar only works if the other comm. link is functioning properly; which Victor’s wasn’t.

So Kilo had to use the backup tracking device. Just like the ear comm. the backup also used radio transmission even though no one was living in the eighties anymore. There were only two good things about the backup trackers. Backups were always on the operatives, since they were embedded in their inner thigh, and they only turned on if the ear comm. stopped working. This meant that Victor’s was definitely working, and, that Kilo could get it to work.

In theory at least.

The main problem with the backup was that even though the radio wave was UHF the signal would most likely be very weak. It almost always was and that’s why none of the ops used the backups unless they had to. Not to mention there was no telling if the people who held Victor found the backup, and removed it. But this was Kilo’s only shot so she had to take it.

Kilo looked at her banged up equipment that lay across the thick black comforter on Wallchester’s bed. The audio/radio receiver wasn’t too badly damaged considering how hard she smashed everything. A handful of bugs were completely ruined but a couple of them were still good. And the StingRay was fine except for a couple slight nicks and a few scratches. Not that she needed either of those at the moment. But the one thing she could use at the moment was completely busted; the long distance amplifier.

Choosing the only option she had at the moment Kilo turned on the radio receiver.

She shook her hair out of her face and put the headphones on. Nothing came in. Trying to keep her cool as best she could she turned it up to receive VHF waves. And still nothing came through. If Kilo was honest with herself she would’ve admitted that she didn’t expect anything to come in. And yet she was still angry when nothing did. Biting her lip and staring she thought hard about what to do next.

Kilo found herself thinking about what Victor would say if he was there.

He’d sit right up against the headboard, or the wall, depending on how the bedroom was laid out. The Kevlar-lined laptop, which was decked out with stickers, would be lying on his crossed legs. Knowing her brother as well as she did she knew that he would never pass up the opportunity to make a horrible pun. He was definitely annoying his captors with them. Or who knows? Whoever held him hostage might even like the dude’s stupid puns. Suddenly a voice came through her comm. disrupting her thoughts.

Ki?

“Vic?! How did you…”

It’s Sierra, hun.

“Oh…” Kilo felt like an idoit.

Just wanted to ask you if tried ramping up the radio receiver to catch VHF.

“I did but I got nothing. Either Vic is too far or there’s too much stuff in the way. I’m gonna bump it up UHF.”

Like Bluetooth?

“Exactly. Might even get a few cell phone calls mixed in and that would be cool.”

XXXXX

They needed the lawyer as coherent and cooperative as they could get her to be with the Ketamine in her system. This meant that Papa couldn’t risk hitting the woman’s head against anything. So she went about moving the unconscious woman as slowly and carefully as possible. When the five minutes had passed for the drug to fully take effect Papa connected to Hotel on the comm. link. He wasn’t that far away from her location as it turned out and it only took him six minutes to arrive. Together they successfully got Holly Wallchester into the backseat of the black Audi without anyone noticing.

Hotel was oddly quiet during the drive which bothered Papa immensely.

Then again they all had Victor’s capture weighing heavily on their minds. No one knew where he was or what was happening to him. None of them could figure out how Bouvier, an art dealer for crying out loud, got the drop on them. But Papa had an idea. Looking in the rearview mirror she looked at the criminal defense lawyer’s sleeping form. Her black eyebrows furrowed in anger and her lips curled into a scowl.

I am going to screw with her head so much for this.

It only took ten more minutes to arrive at Wallchester’s residence. It helped that Hotel always drove like his life depended on it. He dropped Papa at the door and then zoomed off to drive and clear his head. And now Papa entered the penthouse apartment with an unconscious Holly Wallchester in a fireman’s carry. Her duffle slid off her shoulder to the floor she didn’t even bother to try to close the door.

“Sleeping beauty coming through,” she announced as she carried the woman deeper inside.

“Jule, grab a chair,” Sierra commanded once she heard the Swallow’s voice. Juliett quickly ran into the only area of the penthouse apartment that went unscathed by the intruders. She swung the white double doors to the closet, which sat at the back of the living room, wide open and grabbed one of the few small metal chairs from inside. Once she set it down firmly in-between all the debris and broken glass on the floor Papa sat Wallchester on the round, black, seat.

“Hotel got you here fast, didn’t he? He say anything, hon, about sticking around?”

“Rope, I need some rope,” Papa said, ignoring her leader, as she started to wrap the lawyer’s arms around the back of the chair.

Juliett rushed over to Papa’s duffle with a slight glee in her emerald eyes. Rummaging around, she quickly found the rope and then slung the bag over her shoulder before rushing back. As Papa tied Wallchester’s arms Juliett helped tied the woman’s legs to the chair. And then Papa wound the rope around the woman’s stomach two, three, times and pulled it tight before tying it to the back of the chair.

“And now we wait.”

Sierra stood with her arms crossed over her chest and a silent angry look on her face.

“You know Hotel. He’s off zooming down the highway blasting Nirvana and whatever other grunge crap he listens to,” Papa said with a wave of her hand as she checked each knot to make sure they were as tight as could be. When all were good and tight she pushed herself up to a standing position.

“I can’t believe you let him go off like that.”

Papa turned to face Sierra her face scrunched up in a mix of confusion and anger; “I didn’t let him. He went off on his own like he always does. Besides you know regulation better than the rest of us so you know he’s not allowed to be with us on missions.”

“Regulation doesn’t apply when things get out of hand and last I checked I’m team leader so, in moments like this, what I say goes.”

“You didn’t say anything before so how was I supposed to know? I’m many things but mind reader isn’t one of them, Sierra. And yeah? Well, last I checked I’m not his fucking mom!”

Either the Ketamine wore off like it was supposed to, or, all their arguing woke Wallchester up.

“Wah… Where am I?”

“I guess regulation is out the window but I still have a job to do,” Papa said bitterly before turning her attention to the woman tied to the chair. Turning on her Robin persona Papa went to work. They were losing the night and even though no one said it none of them wanted Victor to be missing in the morning.

“Don’t worry, baby, you’re home. You’re safe.”

Papa’s sultry voice seemed to calm the lawyer down a bit. Her face was calmer than before but she still looked around with confusion in her eyes. Kneeling down in front of the chair the Swallow gave Holly one of her doe eyed smiles. Plan was to lull the woman into a false sense of security and then grill her. With the connection they already shared, and the drug in her system, it would be rather easy. But before Papa could question the woman Kilo burst through the bedroom door.

“Waterfront. Papa, dude, ask about the waterfront.”

All four women, including Wallchester, turned to Kilo with almost identical confused looks.

“You know how I was listening to UHF radio waves trying to latch onto the signals from the backup? Papa doesn’t know since she wasn’t here but that’s what you missed, dude. All caught up? Good. Catching the right UHF from the backup isn’t easy since the signal is really weak. Well, the equipment picked up a ton of other things that I had to get rid of. People talking, TVs, radio stations, alley cats. Stuff like that. But, dude, guess what? I picked up something else.”

“What?” Sierra asked with a raised eyebrow. She hoped that Kilo’s excited rapid fire was ending with some good news.

“I picked up a very weak cell phone signal. The phone was being used when I picked up on it so I booted up the StingRay and I located the cell. It came from the waterfront. And I intercepted the call, so, I’m more than sure Bouvier has Vic.”

“Get to the damn point, Ki! What was the call about?” Jule said impatiently.

“Oh. The guy was asking someone to bring something they both called The Pig Squealer. The other guy asked what he wanted it for and the first guy said, and I’m quoting here, the Swiss said he wants the spy to squeal.”

Papa turned to Holly at the same time that Juliett did.

Both women had firey anger in their eyes but the difference was that Juliett also had a knife in her hand. And she was holding the blade firmly against Holly’s neck. It was clear to everyone, except for the lawyer, that if the woman moved her head in the slightest her throat would be slashed open. If that happened then the Cleaners would have a less hard job on their hands and in Juliett’s book that was a good thing.

“Tell us what you know.”

“Bouvier is super paranoid. During the trail he wouldn’t let me talk to anyone and I mean I’m not supposed to talk about ongoing cases but this was different. He took my phone and didn’t give it back to me until the trail was over. Three of his men have been following me ever since. When they saw us together he got even more suspicious.”

“How did we miss multiple rabbits?” Sierra spat angrily.

“Easiest way for him to find out that we were in Holly’s penthouse would’ve been a bug, right Ki?” Papa asked.

“Yeah, regular people can get their hands on bugs, of course. Or he could’ve had a tiny alarm set up somewhere that he knew Holly wouldn’t set off. But, dude, I did a full sweep of this place three times so I doubt I missed anything.”