We’ll find out very soon.
Roswelllostcause: Lol, it may get more confusing but eventually it’ll make sense.
L-J-L 76: Things will become clearer before too long.
begonia9508: Lol, Bane is many things but patience with this particular blonde is not one of them.
Eva: We’re glad because there are going to be a ton of questions as we move forward.
sarammlover: Buying time may just keep them alive. We won’t have long to wait before we find out what Valkyrie’s next move is.
keepsmiling7: We’ll find out soon!
Part 7
Home of Liz Parker and Max Evans – Washington DC – December 2015
“She’s gone.” Liz stumbled into the bedroom, agitated, ripping the small walk-in closet open to find a new shirt to wear even as she was fighting her way into a pair of skinny jeans.
“What?” Max’s voice was still hoarse from sleep when he sat up in the bed slowly, squinting against the light coming from the hallway. “What time is it, babe? Why’re you already up?”
“She’s gone, Max,” she repeated, throwing his pants at him. “I was just getting a glass of water and found a note from her. You have to get up.”
He was suddenly wide awake and he jumped out of bed, getting dressed as well. “What’d the note say?”
She turned towards him while buttoning her white shirt up. “That she had to leave and she’s sorry.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah,” Liz looked at him, worried. “Damn it, Max, we should’ve tried harder. We knew something was bothering her. What if she went to see that guy again?”
“Maybe she just went home. It doesn’t have to mean-”
“I already called. She’s not at her uncle’s place. She hasn’t been there since yesterday.”
“What about her cell?”
“Goes straight to voicemail. I already called in to locate it, but they said there’s no signal.”
He frowned. If there was no signal it could only mean one thing. Someone had turned it off and most likely destroyed it.
“I told them about her odd behavior and they’re already running checks with every local security camera to see if there’s any sign of her.”
“Okay, good,” he pulled the tee shirt over his head. “Maybe they’ll find something.” Most likely they wouldn’t, he thought. It was dark, security cameras didn’t deliver high quality feed and if someone had taken her, then he supposed they had been smart enough to do in a safe location.
“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed without any hope.
“Hey,” Max went to his upset girlfriend and took her in his arms, “they limited our job down to protection in college and while she stayed with us. We didn’t have clearance to investigate so we couldn’t protect her the way she needed to be protected.”
“I know, but she’s more than a job. She became our friend and I feel horrible enough about lying to her, but now we couldn’t even prevent something that shouldn’t have happened. It feels like we’ve failed her twice.”
He sighed, feeling the exact same way. Playing undercover college kids to secure Maria Deluca’s life hadn’t been their favorite job when they’d received the assignment. But over that time they had built a friendship with her and some days it had felt like a real life even. “We should call Reginald Halverson.”
“I already did and he was on his way to DC anyway so he should be here within the next few minutes.”
“Okay, good.” It wasn’t good because the guy wouldn’t be happy about it.
They went downstairs so Max could take a look at the note and as soon as the coffee was ready to be served Reginald Halverson hammered against the front door. The racket sounded agitated enough to make them both pause for a moment.
“He’s gonna fire us,” Liz said.
Max nodded and went into the living room to answer the door. “Yeah, I know. Maybe it’s for the best. We can put a request in to help with the case.” Although it was more likely the senator would do everything in his power to cut them from any involvement in the case. He placed his hand on the doorknob, giving his girlfriend a silent nod before opening it.
“Good morning, Senator Halverson. We-”
“How could you let her leave in the middle of the night?” the man barked, breezing into the room like a hurricane. “Was it too much to ask to keep an eye on my niece while she stayed in your apartment?”
“We weren’t allowed to-” Liz started.
“I don’t care what the orders from your office were. She was with you and common sense says it’s a bad idea to walk around DC alone at night. You should’ve stopped her.”
“With all due respect, Senator,” Max pushed himself between the man and his girlfriend, “it’s against every law we’re all fighting for to hold a person against their wishes. We weren’t authorized to take such action. Our orders were clearly stated. We were only to observe her and report anything in her regular day-to-day life that was suspect, which we did.”
“A piss poor job is what you did.” Halverson ran a shaking hand over his face, the newest events pushing his blood pressure higher and higher. “I’ll be calling your boss to let him know your services are no longer required, but first I want to know every small detail you noticed within the last few days, and I mean everything.” Maybe he could narrow potential threats down this way because he knew if his niece was in the hands of a certain someone then he hadn’t much time – maybe it was already too late.
A motel northeast of Washington DC – Maryland – December 2015
Bane watched her sleep. Her features were mobile and her movements were restless, but she slept. He had dozed off and on throughout the night, trained to sleep so lightly that the slightest sound would immediately wake him. He had been awake for the past hour, well before dawn even thought about breaking, and he had run out for a few necessities. The warning system he’d set up would immediately alert him if anyone attempted to enter or exit the room so he’d determined the short run for errands was an acceptable risk.
He couldn’t be stopping on the road at regular intervals. They had to move on to the next safe house and get there as soon as possible. If Parker and Evans hadn’t realized she was missing yet, it wouldn’t be much longer before they did, and then a report would be filed. Her uncle was a politician, a high-profile one at that, which meant before long her face would be plastered all over the news. He couldn’t risk having someone identify her and pinpoint their location.
No one knew about the safe houses. They were all set up under different identities and he’d never physically been to a single one of them. He needed to get her to the second one he had decided on, give it about eighteen hours, and then move on to the next one. He wanted to be on the move for as short a time as possible to minimize the chances that someone might recognize her once the story hit the news.
He had allowed her to sleep as long as possible but time was running out on them and they needed to get moving again. “Hey, Blondie.” His voice was raspy as he called her and with nothing more than that she began to stir. “Let’s get a move on. I wanna be on the road before the sun comes up.”
Maria frowned and rubbed her forehead against the pillow, wishing that this was all a nightmare, and when she opened her eyes he’d be gone and she’d be home in her own bed. She reached up to rub them before forcing them open and as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room she sighed. So much for that wish.
“C’mon, go wash up or whatever so you can get ready to go. Soon as you eat we’re outta here.”
Eat? She sniffed the air delicately, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and after a moment the scent of pancakes and sausage filled her nostrils. McDonalds’ pancake platter would definitely hit the spot, but she wasn’t hungry. She refused to be hungry because he expected her to be. Her stomach had other ideas though. Against her will it rumbled and she pushed herself up as she glanced down. Ungh, she’d slept in her clothes and she had nothing to change into.
“What’s the problem now, Princess?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Good, then hurry up.”
She got to her feet and disappeared into the bathroom, washing up as much as she could before returning to her gourmet breakfast. “Where are we going now?”
“Further away from DC,” he mumbled while he checked his weapons.
She ripped the plastic off of the plastic utensils and popped the top off of the Styrofoam platter. The pancakes weren’t hot but they weren’t cold either. Although there were better things for breakfast than lukewarm pancakes with congealed syrup. “You can tell me where. I mean, it’s not like I can go anywhere or tell anyone.”
“No, but it’s better if you don’t know. That way no one can torture the answer out of you.” He went to the window and pressed himself against the wall next to if before looking outside. There was an old red truck parked outside. It didn’t seem suspicious but it hadn’t been there before either.
“So you don’t wanna tell me in case I get caught because they might torture me for information about your location?”
Bane let go of the curtain and looked at her intensely. “Exactly.”
“Well, don’t I feel special,” she muttered. “You’re not very friendly.” She poked around the paper sack and sighed when she unearthed the hash brown and several ketchup packets.
“Friendly people don’t kill others,” he told her coldly and went to pack the rest of his things.
“That would explain a lot.” She slathered ketchup all over the hash brown before taking a bite of it. “Mmm, these are the best. So why does someone want me dead? You have to know that, right?”
“No, I don’t,” he answered truthfully. “But if I had to guess I’d say someone doesn’t like you sniffing around in the past.”
“Why? Because I’m right? Because my entire family wasn’t killed by an explosion related to a gas leak?”
“I fucking don’t know.” He pulled at his hair, frustrated.
“So you kill people without asking any questions? Why? What if you’re assigned to kill some nice person just because they did something someone else doesn’t like? What if they’re a decent person with a family and a life and you kill them and take all that away from some nice family?”
He grabbed her arm hard. “Then it’s still my job. What’s the difference between good and bad? What should I look for before I make a decision? Do you think rapists or child abusers don’t have nice families sitting at home? Kids who would never believe what their dads do in their free time? There are people out there carrying the guilt for hundreds of murders and every night they come home and play happy family.”
“Well, I’m sure a certain amount of discretion needs to be used, but what about someone like me? All I’m apparently guilty of is poking around into my own past. How is that a good reason to kill me?”
“Well, Blondie, obviously there’s something that someone doesn’t want you to find.”
She sighed and finished off her pancakes. “I still don’t think it’s a good reason to kill me. It’s my past. I have a right to know why my family was killed. And yes,” she said as she shifted around to look straight at him, “I believe they were killed. It wasn’t an accident. My grandpa was too careful for something like that to happen.”
He nodded. “What about your uncle? Was he ever involved in anything illegal?”
“Uncle Reggie?” She snorted. “What the hell could he be involved in? Other than the bullshit political machine he’s a slave to I can’t imagine anything else.” She fell silent for a moment as she thought about all the meetings he went to, meetings that didn’t seem to have anything to do with politics on the Hill.
Bane snorted. “Are you kiddin’ me? Politicians are the worst kind of all of ‘em.”
“So you think he had something to do with what happened to my family?” She shook her head. “He’s a pompous ass most of the time, but he wouldn’t have done anything like that. If he had why would he bother taking me in after it happened?”
“Maybe he wasn’t the one planning it, but he could still be involved.” He shrugged, throwing everything on the table into the trashcan. “Let’s move.”
“On your motorcycle?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it gonna be a short ride? Because I hate to be the one to bring it up, but it’s kinda like freezing cold.”
“It’s not short, but it’s necessary. They’re after us, Blondie. Do you have any clue just how much separates you from death?”
“Yes, you.”
He nodded. “At least you got that right.”
She made a face at him. “You know, you should work on your people skills.”
“And you should work on your shut up skills,” he replied drily.
“Work on your shut up skills,” she mocked under her breath. “So, just out of curiosity, if someone were to come after us and capture me... would you let them get away with me? Or would you just kill me to make sure I didn’t reveal any information to them?”
“What kinda information do you have about me?”
“I don’t have any information about you!”
“Then it wouldn’t be necessary to kill you.”
“You wouldn’t come after me though, would you?” She stared at him, wanting the answer and scared of it at the same time.
He faced her directly, studying her features and taking in every sign of her body language, starting with the fast pulse showing at her throat and ending with the nervous movement of her eyes. “You haven’t given me a reason to do so.”
“So you’d just let them kill me.” She nodded to herself. Of course he would, he was a hired killer. She had let the fact that he had saved her the night before cloud her thoughts for a moment.
“If they captured you, you’d wish they’d kill you,” he growled.
“That’s sooo not the point.” She got to her feet. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”
He went to a paper bag and fished a black jacket out. It wasn’t stylish but it was the only thing they had in the little store and it would keep her a little warmer on their ride than his sweater would. “Put that on and let’s go.”
Had his answer been different she might have thought his gesture had been made out of kindness, but she knew better. It was a means to an end, nothing more. She shrugged into the jacket and zipped it up before waiting for his next order.
Bane looked at her, trying to decipher what was going on in her head. She played it tough, but she had to be confused too. “I want you to stay close behind me,” he said in a monotone voice while he pulled on the bulletproof vest.
“Um, as the moving target, I’d really like to have one of those.”
“If you do what I tell you then I’ll block you from every possible danger. When we start driving, you’ll sit in front of me. We’ll change places after a few miles.”
Was that even possible? “You want me to drive?”
“Hell no, you’ll just sit in front of me.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. “I didn’t know the passenger could sit in front.” She shrugged when he just looked at her. Hell, she’d never been on a motorcycle until last night, how was she supposed to know?
Bane walked to the window and glanced outside one more time before opening the door and grabbing the backpack next to it. “Put the helmet on.”
Maria did as she was told without another word in spite of the desire to tell him where he could shove the damn thing. She was fed up with this entire situation, but he was the only thing standing between her and a bullet. Until he turned on her, she reminded herself.
Movement caught his attention. A silver Ford was passing on the street and turning onto the dirt road that led to the motel. He adjusted the black ball cap on his head, pulling it deeper over his face while he watched.
Shit. With a quick more he went back inside and closed the door.
“What?” she asked, hating the fear she could hear in her voice.
He switched the light off, leaving the room in semi-darkness thanks to the time. “Bathroom.”
She hurried into the room, ready to turn and tell him that she didn’t need his help when he shoved her into the bathroom.
He went past her and opened the small window. It was big enough to climb out of it and it was at the back of the building, facing the parking lot.
Valkyrie watched as Bane climbed through the window, squeezing his muscular body through the frame. She shook her head and waited for the woman to appear, lining her head up in the crosshairs. Her finger brushed the trigger but she didn’t squeeze it. She smirked at the impatience on Bane’s features as he rushed the woman while scanning the area for her. He could feel her presence, he knew she was there, but he couldn’t see her. It would be driving him crazy.
“Stay behind me,” he told the woman with him and reached behind to feel if she was there. “Head behind my back. Don’t look around, just follow.”
She followed their every move as he conducted evasive maneuvers while keeping the woman carefully hidden behind him. She waited until they were on the motorcycle, taking her time as he kick-started the machine and it roared to life. She had to find answers and to do that she needed time. She shifted the angle of her weapon, taking them out of the crosshairs, and taking a shot.
Bane felt the rush of the bullet that missed them by a few inches. Valkyrie, he thought, relieved they hadn’t sent someone else yet – but it was just a matter of time. She hadn’t planned to kill them otherwise she wouldn’t have missed the target. But how had she known about his location so quickly?
Valkyrie removed any trace of her presence on the wooded hill behind the motel and made her way back along the unmarked trail. She needed to get back to the city so she could look for some answers.
The wind was harsh and cold against them while they drove at a high speed. No one was following them, which affirmed his guess about the shooter. The small body in front of him trembled, mostly from fear he’d guess, but part of it was probably the weather as well.
He stayed on the highway for half an hour then turned off onto a small road that led towards a small town. It wasn’t on his list of safe places but they needed a car to continue. And they needed to talk, he mused. She had to tell him what she knew if she wanted him to go on. She had to tell him about the pictures or else he would end this right here and now.
Maria looked around, not recognizing the name of the small town. Population 137, she thought with a second glance at the sign to make sure she hadn’t missed a number. That wasn’t small, it was practically non-existent.
The motorbike came to a stop when they pulled up in front of a small supermarket. It was still closed, but he knew it wouldn’t take him more than two seconds to get inside. These small towns hardly dealt with many visitors, they wouldn’t bother to buy a high end alarm system.
“What’re you doin’?” Maria asked, her voice trembling as he helped her off of the bike roughly. She was freezing and she might not be an expert but she was pretty sure someone had taken a shot at them.
“We need a car,” he stated, glancing around and finding a few parked trucks close by. The whole town seemed to be still sleeping which was to their advantage.
“I don’t think they have a car rental place here and if they do it won’t open for hours probably.”
He didn’t dignify that with an answer, just dragged her towards the back of the shop. As expected, there was a door and he worked quickly to open it. There was a camera at the edge of the building, but he knew the type and as soon as they went inside he found proof. Yeah, just put up there to scare potential thieves off, there wasn’t even a recorder attached to it.
“Find some food, a few items of clothing, water, and wait here for me. Don’t move past the windows.”
“You want me to steal from these people?” she gasped.
He inhaled sharply and stuffed his hand into his pocket to pull a few bills out. “Leave it on the counter.”
“Okay.” She felt a little better with his concession. She made a face when he issued another order not to touch anything other than the things she was taking because she’d leave fingerprints behind. She placed the money on the counter and turned to move to one of the aisles. She collected the things he had sent her for, locating a backpack hanging on a display and shoving everything into it. “Hey...” She frowned as she realized she didn’t even know his name. “If you’re so worried about fingerprints, is it safe to leave the money? I mean, I don’t wanna steal from them, but the cops would look for fingerprints, right? That’s why you said to take anything I touched.”
“My bills are coated,” he answered shortly. “Stay here.” With that he left and jogged across the street towards an old green Ford truck that had seen better days. He snorted when it wasn’t even locked. Good old trusting small town people, he mused and got behind the steering wheel to prepare the vehicle to hot-wire it as soon as Blondie was ready.
When he was satisfied with his work, he climbed back out and returned to the store, going through the rows and picking out a granola bar to eat right there.
His bills were coated. Of course they were. Probably with some kind of superspy secret coating to prevent fingerprints from being left on the bills. She rolled her eyes at that thought and watched him wolf down the bar before shoving the wrapper in his pocket.
Bane grabbed another one and started to eat it immediately. His gaze darted around the room and he went for several things that could be useful at some point. Scissors, wire, band aids.
“Do you need another backpack?”
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered while he looked through the maps laid out near the register.
“Anything else?”
“Did you find any clothes?” he asked, taking a few of the maps and joining her in one of the aisles.
“Yeah, I grabbed some jeans, sweats, a few essentials.”
“Good.” He took the backpack from her. “Let’s go.”
Gosh, he was insufferable. “I’m guessing you didn’t find a rental counter for the vehicle we’re about to leave in.”
Instead of an answer he just snorted, locked the door behind them again and jogged across the street to the truck, making a waving movement with his hand when she hesitated.
“We’re stealing somebody’s car?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“We’re leaving my motorcycle, which is worth more than twice what this pile of junk’s worth.” He climbed behind the steering wheel and turned the engine on, waiting impatiently for her to get in.
“Well, can’t they trace your bike? It has a VIN number, license plates...” she fell silent when he glared at her. “Just sayin’, it’s not like they can sell it.”
He drove onto the street and returned the way they had come to get back on the highway. When he saw the little deserted street leading to a small wooded area he took a turn, driving fast and making the whole vehicle shake violently until they reached the trees. When he was satisfied that there location was hidden and couldn’t be seen from either side, he turned the engine off and faced her. “Before we go any further you’re gonna tell me what you know or I’m gonna leave you right here.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I don’t know anything!”
“Tell me where you took these pictures.”
“Why? What does it even matter?” She was so frustrated with this entire situation.
Why couldn’t she just answer one damn question? “Maybe it’ll help us figure out why they’re after you. So where and when did you take ‘em?”
“At my aunt’s wedding back in 2005.”
“What’s the location?”
“My grandparents’ home in Cape Cod.”
“Cape Cod,” he muttered, looking at her. “The day of the explosion.”
“Yeah. My cousin and I were running around, waiting for the wedding to get started, and I was taking pictures. I had gone in the house to upload the photos and make room on the memory card when the explosion happened.”
Bane nodded. “Who’s the guy in the picture?”
“He was the nephew of the man my aunt was marrying. His name was Michael Guerin.”
Michael Guerin. Was this his original name? How could it be that he had been assigned to a target who knew his past? A past he couldn’t remember. “How old was he that day? Do you know?”
“Yeah, he was sixteen.”
He swallowed. Could that really be? Had they sent him on a killing mission to take out the only person who had the answers to his past?
Maria studied his features as he stared at her, absorbing every word she said. There was no mistaking the similarities between this man and the boy she’d known so briefly, but he didn’t seem to recall anything that would connect him to Michael. “What’s your name?”
He’d had so many names through the years that he had no clue which one to give her. “Bane,” he finally said after a while, deciding it would be best if she just knew the codename assigned to him by The Circle.
“Bane,” she echoed. “That’s not a real name. What is that? Your secret spy name?”
“I’m not a spy,” he said, starting the engine again.
“And that’s not a real name.”
He sighed, slowly driving out of the small wooded area. “William Turner, Jefferson Hardy, Adam Green, Matthew Poney. Pick one, I have passports for all of ‘em.”
“Well, what’s your real name? Those are all phony ID’s.”
He thought about the pictures she had taken of him. The boy in them looked exactly like him at that age. He even had the same scar. And he was involved in an event that could explain his memory loss. “Michael Guerin, I suppose,” he finally muttered.
“You suppose?” She shifted to lean back against the door so she could look at him directly. “You don’t know, do you?”
Bane drove back onto the highway and set up a regular speed within the posted limits. “No.”
“So you don’t know anything about your childhood? Like you don’t remember?”
“Yes, alright?” he snapped.
“Hmm. Then you could be him. That’s completely plausible.” He tapped her thumb against her bottom lip for a few moments. “What’s your earliest memory?”
“Why did you take so many pics of him? Me,” he asked instead of answering her question.
So they were gonna play that game, were they? Answer a question with a question. Okay, fine. “There were plenty of other pics,” she said with a shrug. “You just happened to be the focus of that particular set.”
Bullshit, he wanted to scream but he swallowed it down. They drove for in silence for a while until he broke it with calmer nerves. “The answer to your earlier question is yes.”
“Which question was that?”
He looked at her briefly. “The one where you asked if I’d come for you if they took you.” She was the person who had just given him back his identity. Therefore she had earned the right to his protection.
“Oh.” She smiled. “I’d appreciate that. How’d you get into this line of work?”
“It’s easy when you don’t have a past.”
“So... you don’t have any family, anyone you’re close to?”
Damn, she had to trash out his patience every damn time. “This conversation is over,” he informed her and slouched down in his seat.
“I don’t know why you have to be so unpleasant.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted around to stare out through the front windshield. There was a crack running straight through the middle and it annoyed her for no reason other than it was there. “Obviously part of that is because you’re a loner, but your social skills are in severe need of an upgrade.”
“You know, just because I won’t kill you doesn’t mean I won’t gag you and throw you in the bed of this truck, so shut up, alright?”
“Fine. Next time you have questions about your past, just remember this moment.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together and ran them across her lips, right to left, and then tossed an imaginary key out the window.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly before he could act on his words. How was he going to get rid of her now?
Maria reached over and turned the knob on the ancient radio, manually turning the dial in search of a station that wasn’t broken up by static. Country... no. Talk radio... no. Classical... She glanced at Michael – she wasn’t going to call him by that stupid spy name – and saw the muscle in his clenched jaw jumping erratically. No classical, although it was tempting just to irritate him. Oldies... well, they were fun to sing along with, but somehow she didn’t think he’d be joining in for that little game, so no. Hard rock... probably more in line with his tastes. She left it there and leaned back against the door again, lifting her feet to rest them on the dashboard and leaning her head against the door as she closed her eyes.
