Episode 1: The Immortal Code - Part 2
"MAC!!" Nikki Carpenter screamed as she pounded on the door inside the closet she'd been locked into. "If you don't let me out of here this instant, I swear to God..."
The door suddenly opened and fluorescent light spilled into the small, cramped space. Nikki stumbled out as Paul pulled the door away. She rubbed her neck and grumbled under her breath the many obscure ways she was going to kill Mackenzie Gray the next time she saw him.
Paul tried not to laugh but this stunt was classic Mac.
"I can't believe the gall of that man!" Nikki said to both Paul and Ramsey Redcliffe. "He deliberately stuck me in there like I was some bubble-brained blond who couldn't hand herself in a dangerous situation."
Nikki faltered and found her legs again as she sat down. The room wasn't spinning now as much as it had been minutes earlier.
"I'm an agent, dammit! I trained for this!"
Paul watched Nikki rave on about Mac and his underhanded tactics while he placed a call to headquarters. It was just as he feared. Mac had hopped the last available plane out of the country.
The Midwest chief sat down opposite Nikki just as she finished her last tirade.
"I hate to break this to you Nikki, but Mac grabbed the last Legacy transport out of the country. The next one won't be available for ..." Paul calculated in his head. "Maybe two days."
"That son of a ..." Nikki trailed off her last word and gasped. "He knew... He knew I'd have to either take a commercial flight or find another way to Europe. Damn him! This is what I get for trying to be civil to the man? He loses his girlfriend and he takes it out on ME?" Nikki stalked back and forth, her high heels pounding like gunshots on the hardwood floor.
"There is there another way," Paul suggested, trying his best not to smile at Ramsey who knew exactly what he was thinking.
Ramsey, being a smart man, cracked a barely noticeable facial expression and left the room suddenly as if he had remembered something he'd forgotten.
"Whatever you got, Paul. I'm willing to do anything."
"Anything?"
"Oh, no," Nikki said as they approached a small commercial pane on the runway at Lambert Airport. "No way. This wasn't part of the deal."
Paul smiled.
"You said you were willing to endure anything."
Jack Darcy appeared from the hanger wearing his usual leather bomber jacket that had seen better days. He brushed back his course black hair and fitted a cap on his head that read: Darcy Air. We fly you anywhere.
"Nikki, my love!" Jack said bounding toward her.
She searched for an escape route but with Paul, her boss, being there, well, there just wasn't one.
"You never said anything about Jack, Paul," she whispered as the bane of her existence approached.
"I seem to recall you saying you were wiling to endure anything. This is the best we can do with such limited options." Paul shook Jack's hand.
"But Jack Darcy?!" Nikki shook her head in frustration.
"That's my name, don't wear it out," Jack said as he pulled her into a big bear hug. He lifted her off the ground and swung her around in a small circle. "It's good to see you, Nick."
"Yeah, I'll bet. Jack, put me down!"
"But mon cher," he said in his fakest French accent. "I have so missed the lovely lady."
Nikki's tan, Hawaiian face contorted into an ugly mask. She quickly broke free from the embrace.
"I'm touched, Jack, really."
"You hear that Pauley boy? She's touched." Jack slapped Paul on the back. He then sidestepped closer to Paul and whispered. "I think she likes me. I'm wearing her down. I can feel it."
"Jack, if I were you... I wouldn't hold my breath," Paul said trying not to burst the younger man's bubble.
"Please, Jack. Hold your breath."
Nikki said it as a slam but Jack took it as a compliment. It was just the incentive he didn't need. His eyes grew wide as he ogled her up and down.
"Yup, ole Jack is just the irresistible ladies man." He elbowed Paul and opened the plane's side door. "My lady's carriage awaits."
Before she disappeared inside, Nikki turned and glared at her boss. "You are
Paul only smiled and waved. He watched from the tarmac as Jack's plane taxied down the runway. In an afterthought he wondered if Jack had ever finished paying off the small twin engine job. He quickly brushed the thought away and waved a second time.
Jack and Nikki. Such an unlikely pairing. Nikki was all business and Jack, well, Jack was just Jack. Sometimes he tried so hard and usually found himself wanting for more. Nikki was everything Jack wasn't. Jack was laid back. Nikki was uptight. Nikki was intelligent while Jack had a different type of smarts. A type that Paul hoped might come in handy on this assignment. He couldn't officially include Jack in Knights Foundation business but if Jack decided to get involved on his own, well, he was hardly going to stop him.
Paul congratulated himself with hazelnut coffee from the St. Louis Bread Company before returning to the office. He knew exactly what it was like to spend an extended amount of time with Jack Darcy. Two years ago when he'd broken his leg at the ski lodge, Jack had been the only one there to help him.
Even with all his good points, Jack was still an annoying pain in the butt. But if Nikki were to ever need him, Jack would be there for her, no question.
Maybe in their extended period of time together, they'd get close. But he wasn't holding his breath. Nikki was pining away for Mac Gray just as ferociously as Jack Darcy was pining away for her.
The streets of Athens, Greece appeared much like he remembered them. Pale cobblestones contrasted against the columns of the Parthenon. Such a beautiful city. So rich in its culture and heritage that it seemed improbable that some of the most nefarious people came from this part of the world.
But it was true.
For all its splendor, Athens, Greece was a city under siege. Evil masqueraded as good and it was hard to delineate one from the other. The evil had taken over modestly for a long period of time. The evil prince of the city now was none other than Julian Black. Masquerader extraordinare. He made evil look good, pure. But that didn't change the fact that Julian Black was a criminal of the highest caliber. The difference between him and ordinary law breakers was that Black made his crimes look pretty. Almost as if they weren't crimes at all. He could definitely talk himself out of any situation and had on many an occasion. But making a crime seem like anything but a crime didn't make his crimes any less nasty or wrong. It just made Julian Black very good at his job as the head of the Black Council.
Fitting name. Black death. Black plague. Black Council. Black equals evil. Black equals death. Yes, a very fitting name for a very ruthless man.
Mackenzie Gray flipped his cell phone open, pushed speed dial 1, and rested the cool silver case against his ear. The phone automatically dialed into a secure Foundation phone line. This technique not only ensured that his call would be scrambled, it ensured that it would actually go through to the designated caller. European phone systems were known for their terrible international phone service. Knights Foundation systems were more reliable. Which is why he used the latter instead of the former.
Paul Thomas picked up the extension at the Midwest Office. His almost automated response was quick and to the point. They'd been getting a lot of wrong numbers since the Government Document Office's number was one digit off of the Knight's Foundation Midwest Offices number now.
"Hi, Paul. It's me," Mac said as he stared out his hotel window.
"Mac! It's about time you checked in. You know, leaving me to deal with Nikki was not one of your better moves."
"I know. I know. But dammit, she's on the list too. You knew that. How could I do anything less than try and protect her?" Mac fidgeted from one foot to another. There would be hell to pay once Nikki got a hold of him. It was a confrontation he wasn't looking forward to.
"In case you hadn't noticed. Nikki's a big girl, Mac." Paul chucked then continued. "She told me that herself." Paul had tried not to laugh but he was completely unsuccessful.
"Let me guess. Right before she boarded a plane for Europe, right?"
"You know her so well." Paul was beginning to think that maybe Nikki and Mac were a match made in heaven... or hell, depending on how you looked at it.
"I should. She's been a pain in my backside longer than I can remember."
"Be careful Mac," Paul suggested. "There's a thin line between love and hate."
"How about between hate and indifference?" Mac knew that Paul knew that he would never reveal to him the nature of his and Nikki's former relationship.
"You aren't indifferent toward Nikki, Mac. Otherwise why knock her out and lock her in a closet?" Paul thought that if he prompted enough that Mac would by osmosis get the idea that he and Nikki were good for each other.
"I did it for her protection. Nothing more."
"I know you did. You did it because you care." Paul said Mac like a father would to his son. "About her I mean."
"The hell I do!" Mac snapped. "Stop analyzing me and send the kid's coordinates to my Palm." The sooner he finished this case and got Nigel out of trouble, the better.
"Sure thing, Mac." Paul hit a few keys and the information popped up on his screen. He sent it directly to Mac's Palm Pilot.
"Got it," Mac said once the transfer was complete.
"Remember, this thing between you and Nikki isn't going away just because you think it's inconvenient. Ignore it all you want, but sooner or later you'll have to deal with your feelings for her." Paul hated doing this to Mac so soon after Theresa's death but he knew it was something that had to be done.
"Who do you think you are, my father?"
"No, just a friend. A good friend."
Mac jerked his cell phone closed and hung up without saying goodbye. That's the way it was between them. No goodbyes. Never a goodbye. That way they were mentally assured of coming back alive. At least, so far it had worked out that way.
Shoving the phone in his right shirt pocket Mac steamed about Paul's insinuations. He and Nikki? A couple? The thought was absurd. Paul had a lot of nerve talking to him like that. If it had been anyone other than his boss, he would have railed on them without mercy. But it had been Paul, and since Paul knew him so well, Mac considered the suggestion... for a second. Then tossed the idea away like a wadded up piece of paper.
Turning his eyes back to his Palm Pilot, he memorized the location of Nigel Bennett. It was a café not far from his hotel. He released a sigh of relief. Mission almost complete. All he had to do now was save the day, save the kid, kill the bad guys and save the fate of not only the Legacy but the Knights Foundation itself.
Just another day at the office.
The sooner he started the sooner he could unleash his own sort of justice. Justice against those who had killed Theresa. Once he discovered the culprit, they were as good as dead.
Nigel Bennett was one who, although naïve at times, knew quite a bit about deep cover operatives and their reactions to hostile situations. John Hastings-Sinclair was not acting like an operative. He was more like an annoyed CEO who had been hastily taken out of an important board meeting to come down and sit with Nigel and his wife about what Nigel only assumed John thought was nonsense.
It wasn't nonsense. Nigel knew it.
Nigel had a gut instinct about things of this nature. Even though John wasn't an agent, he knew that Angela was. She had all the classic signs. Her eyes scanned the perimeter slowly, almost without moving her head, and she had a bulge near her waist that surely wasn't a fat deposit since her eyes were so big and round - usually the first signs of lack of body fat. So if it wasn't fat, what was it? Probably a very small and very powerful gun velcroed there. A prototype he'd seen in the weapons area of the Knights Foundation.
So here was an operative of unknown origin, loyal to God knew who, sitting at his table claiming she was the dead wife of the most powerful and ruthless man in the world.
It was a little hard to swallow.
On instinct he'd nearly jumped out of his skin at the mention of Black's name. Nigel had encountered the man before and had escaped with his life. He wasn't eager to jump back into the fray and get his feet wet again, especially if it meant death. And to him, Julian Black was exactly that - death itself.
"Mr. Bennett?" John coaxed. "Are you still with us?" He shook the younger man's shoulders drawing him out of his contemplation.
"What?" he muttered, rather mystified. "With you? Yes. Yes, I am. Where were we?"
Nigel tried to reorganize his thoughts but John's interruption of his ruminations had caused the topic of conversation to fly straight out of his mind. The last thing he remembered was the spilt drink, then nothing till that moment.
Before John or Angela could respond a cell phone chirped. Customers around them hastily checked their bags and purses. Angela did the same although where she'd keep a cell phone in that outfit, Nigel didn't know. The only place it would fit was between her breasts and it seemed particularly cramped in that area considering how - good mother nature had been to her.
He drew his roaming eyes from her bosom and blushed a little when she caught him staring at her. She had to be use to it by now, Nigel thought, she was a beautiful woman.
The cell phone in question chirped once again then prattled on playing this very annoying tune instead of ringing. Whatever happened to the good ole fashioned bell noise?
"It's mine," John said, whipping it out of his inside breast pocket and placing it to his ear. The patrons around them all ceased their searching and continued on with their conversations and coffee drinking.
The cell phone was no bigger than a credit card. Nigel marveled at the advancement of technology. Pretty soon they'd be surfing the internet through brain waves instead of cable connections.
Whatever the caller related to John Hastings-Sinclair must have been bad because it set his boyish looking face into a mask of anger. John glared at Nigel as if he'd committed some heinous act or crime against him. Nigel knew he'd done nothing to either John or Angela. He'd only been talking to them for less than five minutes.
"They've found us."
It was a cold, dark and oppressive day. The type of afternoon where you were either glad you stayed in the office or called in sick not wanting to brave the elements. Mac wished he could call in sick. This was the type of weather where he would rather be skiing - not searching for deep cover operatives.
"Mac?" Mackenzie Gray heard the faint whisper then pulled the palm pilot closer. In the top left corner of his screen was the face of Paul Thomas. "Mac, we have trouble. We got a tip that Council assassins are converging on Nigel's position. He used his computer and it led the agents straight to him."
"Damn!"
Mac didn't take the time to respond to his boss. Now was not the time for pleasantries, now was the time for action. Shoving the mini computer into the pocket of his jacket, he raced down the street outside his hotel. As the café came into view, Mac pulled out his gun.
Council assassins were roaming the outskirts of the café trying to look inconspicious. They all wore the same thigh length leather jacket and the council insignia tattooed on their wrists. If you knew what you were looking for, Council terrorists stuck out like a sore thumb.
Mac did his own sweep of the area. Nigel was positioned under a table near the rear of the garden. The mass of tables around him was sheltering Nigel from view which for now, Mac was thankful for. One thing at a time. First the assassins.
Since they were out in a public setting Mac preferred not to cause a national panic by drawing his pistol and gunning down the bad guys. Even though he had a license to kill, he didn't want to become a celebrity spy like James Bond. You weren't really considered a spy if everyone knew who you were. So he opted for the subtle approach.
He shoved the gun back into his shoulder holster and came up behind the first man. He was at least twice as big as Mac, but size didn't mean anything if you knew how to use your opponents strengths against them. Mac stepped back into the shrubbery and waited until the man drew close enough, then he attacked. He pulled the man into the shrubs, used a few quick motions and one was down.
Two to go.
The other two men were put down with equal ease. The first Mac came up behind and in one fluid motion, broke his back. Then with the poise and confidence of a boy scout Mac settled him into one of the empty café chairs at a table near the rear of the open area. The last man was the only one to truly know he was in danger. His first option was to escape, but Mac stuck a whisper-silent silencer on his gun and shot him dead between the eyes. The man fell into the shrubbery almost on top of the other assassin who was lying there.
Not once had any of the patrons known they were in peril. Only Nigel who was still cowered under the table.
"Nigel?" Mac said. "You can come out now."
Nigel drew a nervous hand upward and grasped onto the table. It shook with the fear of a man who had looked into the eyes of death and survived.
Mac placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Nice to see you again kid. I see you've just used your second life up. Seven more to go."
"Don't say that," Nigel said in disgust. "I thought for sure I was dead that time." He paused then said, "I don't understand, how did they find me?"
"When you logged into the Immortal database, they pinpointed you almost to the centimeter. Which of course, is exactly how I found you."
"They got into the database?" Nigel thought he was only hearing things and when Mac confirmed it with a nod Nigel withdrew in horror. "They've broken the Immortal code? I thought that was impossible."
"So did we."
As John Hastings-Sinclair and Angela slipped silently away, Nigel pointed them out to Mac.
"That was who I was meeting. She says she's..."
"Teryl?"
Nigel stopped short and gave Mac a particularly perplexing stare.
"Teryl? How many personalities does that woman have? First she said she was Angela Hastings-Sinclair, then she said she was Jannette Black and now she's Teryl? Good god, how does she keep them all straight?"
When Mac didn't respond, Nigel continued. "Who is she Mac?"
"Operative. CIA. She's an assassin. They call her the Huntress."
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