Chapter Text
The rental van they’re using for surveillance isn’t much to look at, which is pretty much the point. Rusty and dented, from the outside it looks like the least likely vehicle to be involved in a spy caper. In the first three hours since Riley parked it at the scenic overlook halfway up the hill, it did its job pretty well.
That all changes when Mac and Jack get caught planting cameras along the fence line outside the warehouse on the top of the hill. She hears the whole thing on comms before they go dead, and then tracks the goons who caught Mac and Jack as they march them uphill to the warehouse, where they all disappear. She hasn’t been able to find any cameras in the warehouse, which was why they were planting some in the first place. The thermal satellite view isn’t very useful either. There are far too many hotspots in the warehouse.
“The tac team is nearly three hours out,” Matty tells her. It’s just bad timing; another team’s op went sideways before theirs did, and Matty had to deploy the tac team that had been nearer to them. “Sit tight and keep comms open in case Mac gets a signal out.”
She does, setting up the van’s receivers to notify her about new or unusual signal patterns, because she can’t listen to every channel on her own and the analysts back in LA don’t have remote access to all of the equipment. They were supposed to be done with the whole op before the satellite she’s using moves out of range, and now she has to find another one, but there’s a solid fourteen minute gap in the middle.
Riley knows she’s in trouble as soon as the next satellite comes online, showing her an updated view of the area around the surveillance van. The number of goons patrolling the fenceline quadrupled after Mac and Jack got caught, and sometime between one satellite and another, the goons started pushing their patrol perimeter outward. Now they’re almost to the van. Worse, it looks like they’ve already set up a checkpoint down the road.
“Matty,” she says, “I’ve got a problem.” Jill is remote-mirroring Riley’s screen in the war room, so she knows Matty will be looking at the same view she’s just pulled up. The warehouse is tucked into a clearing at the top of the steep hill, and the van is parked on the side of the road about a half-mile away from the main gate, at the scenic overlook.
The patrol has already cut off the escape route, and there’s nowhere to go if she drives the other way except to the warehouse. But abandoning the van isn’t necessarily going to keep her out of trouble either. There aren’t that many places to hide, and very little cover near the scenic overlook. If she tries to cross the road, she’ll probably be spotted.
That leaves just one option. “I’m going to hide behind the lower electrical panel,” she says. It’ll be a squeeze, and someone will eventually look there, but probably not right away. Only someone her size could actually fit there.
She shuts down her laptop before Matty can reply and grabs Jack’s spare gun and the sat phone before she crawls backwards into the space behind the panel. She barely has time to snap it back closed before the side door slides open.
#
The door closes with a bang, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Mac lets out a long breath and tugs his arms, testing the duct tape again. He and Jack are taped to separate chairs, with one band of duct tape around each wrist, and one at each ankle. The chairs look like they were stolen from an auditorium, with a silver metal frame and upholstered–but firmly uncomfortable–pads on the seat and back. “I’m taped down too tight to get a rip started,” he says. “How about you?”
Jack’s struggles are vigorous enough to make his chair rock, but he shakes his head. “No good leverage. Maybe if we get our chairs bumped up together one of us can reach the other’s wrist.”
Mac doesn't have a better idea and that’s worked for them before, so he starts to throw his weight back and forth, making the chair inch across the floor toward Jack. He’s worried enough about the men who tied them up that he ignores the way the lower half of his right leg throbs in time with his movements. “Did you get a look at the bottles they injected us from?” he asks, partly to breathe through the growing pain, partly to distract Jack from the fact that he’s in pain, and partly because mystery injections are always worrisome. He can still feel the sting of the needle in the juncture between his neck and shoulder. “You feeling anything unusual?”
“It was somethin’ yellowish,” Jack says between bouts of throwing himself sideways.
“Thanks, that really narrows it down,” Mac deadpans, pausing to check the distance between them. They started out five or six feet apart and have closed half the distance. “This is taking too long,” he adds, looking toward the door at the faint sound of another door somewhere else slamming. A jolt of alarm goes through him, and he grits his teeth and resumes shaking his chair. His lower leg isn’t going to matter much if they’re still stuck in the chairs when their captors return. “I wish we knew if Riley tracked us. Those guys are going to be back any second.” He rolls his neck, hating the tension he feels building there. “Wish I knew how long it’ll be before these drugs kick in.”
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “What kind of thing gets injected into your neck normally?”
“Not many things are supposed to get injected into the neck.” Mac pauses to check the distance again. He’s near enough he could reach out and pull the tape off Jack’s wrists if he wasn’t tied down. He’s breathing hard–could that be from the drugs? Or is it just the effort of moving the chair without use of his arms or legs combined with the throbbing pain?
Jack’s still shuffling his chair across the floor with enthusiasm. Within a few seconds his knees knock into Mac’s, and Mac only contains a cry of pain because it hurts too much to get out more than a wheeze.
Jack doesn’t notice, fortunately; he’s too focused on shuffling his chair around to get his left arm up by Mac’s.
When Mac stretches his fingers, he can just touch the edge of the duct tape on Jack’s left wrist with his fingertips. “Hold still,” he says. The edge of the tape is visible but not useful; he can’t move enough to unwrap Jack. He angles his fingers to push his fingernail against the edge and rubs at it.
“Is your finger a saw now?” Jack huffs a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s gonna do it before those guys get back in here, hoss.”
“I don’t have anything else to work with.” Mac presses harder on the tape. His efforts aren’t making much of a dent in it. He glances at the door, half-expecting they’ve already taken too long and he’ll find their captors returning, then back at the stubborn tape. “Do you?”
“Nope, nothing.” Jack angles his arm to pull the tape more taut, then starts bouncing his arm upward. “Press your finger against the very edge, Mac.”
Mac does. His scratching isn’t enough but it’s the best plan he has. He glances toward the door again then back at Jack’s wrist, scratching harder. He needs a better idea, but they just don’t have much to work with. They aren’t going to be able to break the metal frames of the chairs, and the room’s walls are smooth drywall, not a splinter or rough edge in sight. There’s a small table to one side with the two empty syringes laying on it, but it’s too low for him to reach the needles.
“Hey, calm down,” Jack says. “You’re not feeling those drugs are you?”
Mac realizes he’s breathing too fast and tries to slow his breath down. “No, nothing like that,” he says. The one thing he’s pretty sure is that it wasn’t sodium pentathol, because that would have been a clear injection and he doesn’t feel any particular urge to confess to tell Jack about how his pain has gone from the mild ache of a possible twisted ankle to throbbing pain of some worse injury in the thirty minutes they’ve been in the chairs. Whatever the mystery substance was, it definitely doesn’t have any analgesic properties. But there are a hundred other substances their captors might have come up with to trick or torture information out of them. “Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s kicked in yet.”
Just then, the tape starts to rip. Jack gives a whoop as his arm comes free.
“Quiet,” Mac hisses immediately, looking at the door again.
“Yeah, sorry, just excited.” Jack shakes free of the tape and reaches for his other arm. Within seconds, he’s freed both his own arms and Mac’s, and they’re both working on their own ankles. Mac hisses at the way the tape yanks at his leg.
Jack gets himself loose first and stands up, reaching down to give Mac a hand. Mac takes it and lets Jack take some of his weight on his right side.
“How’s your ankle?” Jack asks, looking toward Mac’s feet.
Mac’s wearing boots and he’s going to have to rely on them for ankle support, because there’s absolutely nothing else in the room that would help. Even if there was, he doesn’t think they ought to stick around any longer than necessary. “It’s fine,” he says. “Let’s keep moving. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner you can drag me to medical, right?”
“You betcha.” Jack grins and they move to the door, and it’s no surprise the door handle is locked, but Jack produces two paper clips from a pocket and hands them to Mac. “This one’s on you.”
Mac unfolds them and starts to work the lock. It’s a stubborn one, and he’s quickly frustrated. It feels like time is slipping away. Even if their captors don’t catch them breaking out of the room, they’re not going to be able to move quickly even after they get out. Not with the way his ankle hurts with him just standing up. “Doesn’t want to come.”
“You’ll get it,” Jack says from behind him, and the chipper tone of his voice makes the tension that’s creeping through Mac unwind a little. “Either that or I get to punch a few guys.”
“Better if we just get out of here without being spotted.” He pulls the paperclips out, adjusts the angle they’re bent at, and tries again.
This time the lock finally clicks, and he ditches the paperclips and glances at Jack, confirming his partner is ready before he opens the door.
There’s nobody in the hall. Jack takes the lead even though he doesn’t have a weapon anymore. Mac limps along behind him, doing his best to keep up and not let Jack get distracted worrying about him.
The door at the end of the hallway opens right up when Jack tries it, revealing a large room with large crates stacked to one side. It’s some kind of warehouse, but they can’t read the words printed on the crates.
Jack plunges into an aisle between crates, with Mac still behind him. He pauses in the doorway to lean against the jam for a moment, letting his right leg rest. “You sure this is the way out? None of this looks familiar.”
“Nope,” Jack says over his shoulder. “But we gotta keep moving, right?”
Mac could argue that they’d be better off hiding, at least until he can find or construct some kind of weapon or communications device, but Jack is already moving away from him at a jog and he doesn’t want to raise his voice. He follows along, telling himself that Jack’s instincts are usually right about things like this, and wishes he didn’t feel like he’s about to shatter, less from the pain that runs up his leg with every step and more from the raging anxiety that’s suddenly plaguing him.
He’s not usually a ball of nerves on missions. Maybe those drugs are doing something after all. On the other hand, Jack doesn’t seem to be on edge like he is; if anything, he seems just the opposite. So it's probably just the pain getting to him, putting him on edge. He just needs to hold it together while they find a way out.