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st_aurafinaTitle: Buying the Time on My Knees, Chapter 13
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 4.2K (this chapter) 80K overall.
Characters/Pairings: Jessica/John, Jessica/John/Nathan, John/Nathan, John/Harold, John/Kara, Harold/Grace, Rick Dillinger, Mark Snow, Grace Hendricks, Lawrence Szilard, Daniel Aquino
Warnings/Content: Pegging, D/s dynamics, Dubious Consent, Domestic Violence, Infidelity, Light Bondage, Threesome - M/M/F, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe: Jessica lives, Alternate Universe: Nathan lives
Notes: This fic is complete at 80K and will be updated weekly. All the ships mentioned do happen, but some of them not for a long while. (Harold/John doesn't happen for a long while, for example, but it gets there.)
Dubcon warning is for the Kara/John relationship, which gets dicey from time to time.
Thank you tolilacsigil and talkingtothesky, who both helped me get this behemoth finished.
Title is from Iron and Wine's song, House by the Sea
Master post with chapter links
Chapter Summary:
Nathan makes a final attempt to secure his friends' safety. John and Harold have to find a way to save him.
Overall Summary:
After he joins the CIA, John stays in touch with Jessica as best he can without endangering her marriage or alerting the agency. He doesn't realise that these breaks from his professional life are as much a respite for Jess as they are for him.
Meanwhile, Jessica's number keeps coming up and Nathan has a plan to keep her safe.
Also at the Archive
John spent the next week in New Jersey, moving from cheap motel to cheap motel, hitting the bottle harder each night, until the future was nothing more than a question of how to survive his hangover and where to get more booze.
In the brief moments of sobriety, he supposed that eventually he'd end up begging for his job back, or take a chance on re-enlisting. That was all he managed before shame and fear and disappointment sent him to the liquor store to repeat the cycle.
Fifty dollars got him a burner phone and enough data to check up on Jessica, to watch her Friendczar, Instagram, Angler. Her feeds were empty, though he saw the ghost of her presence from posts she'd liked, or polite, bland comments she left on people's birthday photos.
He was in a grimy truckstop diner, shrugging off the past night's booze with a plate full of greasy food when Nathan's face flashed up on the small TV suspended above the counter. He didn't notice for a little while; he just let the burr of noise float over him while he pushed a piece of bacon through the eggs while his stomach churned and threatened to rebel. Then the rest of the diner went quiet, the rattle of plates and low conversation stopped, and he finally looked up to see what had happened.
"I want everyone out there to pick up their phone. Look at your last text, your last photograph, your last web search, because the government certainly has."
John put down his fork. "Shit," he said. "Nathan, what the hell?"
"It started on September 11th," Nathan said, on the screen. "I wanted to help, I wanted to make sure that something like that never happened again. But I made a terrible mistake, and I need to tell you why."
All around John, people were doing as he said: holding their phones, checking their call lists and texts. He saw some take out their sim cards, and one man snapped his in half.
"What the American public needs to understand is that we are being watched," Nathan was saying. "Every minute of every day. I know, because I helped them do it." On the screen, his expression was sombre, a disconnect from the vivid backdrop of the early morning talk show. The studio, along with the diner, was surprisingly silent. "They don't want anyone to know this. They've tried to kill anyone involved."
The host, his own face better known for jocularity, leaned forward over the desk. "And this is why we're broadcasting from an unknown location?"
Nathan nodded. "They bombed the 34th Street Ferry Terminal to get at me," he said. He pointed to the scars across his cheek. "They don't care who they hurt in the process."
John's stomach dropped. This was a bad gambit, this was too much bluff for Nathan to front. He might have been able to protect those few under his umbrella by keeping himself in the spotlight, but there was only so much the government would take.
The host nodded understanding of this situation. "You're expecting another retaliation – something they can cover up, or write off as an accident or attack."
"I expect we'll be cut off as soon as they can figure out where this is coming from, and then I'll never be seen again," Nathan said. "So I've put the data up online: names, dates, details of the program that runs my software." A web address scrolled across the screen. "That site will go down, but there will be others. Or you can find that link on my Twitter – please share it, please keep it moving from platform to platform. These are the people they've tried to kill. Their names are Daniel Aquino and Laurence Szilard." Their faces appeared on the backdrop. "If anything happens to them, you will know who was responsible."
On the TV, Nathan leaned forward to face the camera. "I'll keep the link up as long as possible, and when it eventually goes down, I guarantee it will reappear. And of course, to the people who know how to keep these facts alive: it's called Northern Lights. Bring it into the sunshine. Uncover the…" The screen turned instantly to static, and a low murmur spread through the diner.
John pulled out his burner phone and started calling. He was already making plans: get transport, find Nathan, get him out of the country. He tucked some bills under his plate, gave a nod of thanks to the waitress and went to check if there were any security cameras covering the parking lot before he boosted a car and sped towards the city.
Nathan wasn't answering his phone, which John expected but had to check. He tried a few of the numbers he'd collected for Harold next. The first two ran out, but Harold picked up on the third, obviously realising that whoever was calling knew him well enough to have several of his numbers.
"John," he said, his voice tight and angry and frightened, and then nothing else. There wasn't much else to say.
"Do you know where he is?" John watched the speedometer climb. Nathan had to be somewhere close to Manhattan. It had only been – he glanced at the dash clock – seven hours since Nathan last tweeted or posted on Instagram. That didn't mean so much in the life of a billionaire who could hop on a plane, but even a plane needed a few hours to prep before take off. And why leave a city full of studios and production crews, why leave a small island crammed with seven million people to hide among? He sighed. To keep everyone else safe, that was why. That was the point of what Nathan was doing after all.
"I have some ideas," Harold said. "How far out are you?"
"Not far. Harold, they'll have given a termination order on Nathan," John said. Then as Harold sputtered into the phone, he said, "Not me. I resigned. But someone, and they'll be fast and brutal. You need to figure out a plan for him. Nathan has to disappear now. Properly. Will the others be safe?"
Harold sighed. "To give him credit, he's planned this well. They're in hiding for now, I know he blames himself – well, both of us, and rightly so – for the danger the others are in. I just wish he'd chosen a less…ridiculously self-sacrificing method of dealing with his guilt." Those last words were frantic and angry again.
"The others are safe. That's good. That buys me time. You can be angry at Nathan later when I've pulled his ass out of this," John said. He fumbled in his pocket for the earpiece that had come with the phone. "And Grace?"
A second voice spoke on the line. "I'm with Harold, sweetheart. The library is off the grid, for all that means in the middle of the city, and we can hole up here for…"
"For a few months," Harold said. "If we have to."
"Really?" said Grace, immediately distracted. "Harold, do you have a bunker in here?"
John grinned despite the situation. Grace's optimism was contagious. For a little while, he forgot that he'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, or that his brain was beginning to notice the absence of alcohol in his system. There'd be consequences for the last week, he knew, but right now he was in the middle of a mission and everything else could wait.
He drove in silence for a good forty minutes, watching the miles tick down as he drew closer to Manhattan and considering his options for extracting Nathan.
"I see you now," Harold said into the silence, after John passed under a huge overpass that he knew was fitted with cameras optimised for facial recognition. "And I have a location for Nathan. You'll want to avoid the city completely."
The GPS on the dash lit up. "That's me," said Harold. "Next time steal a vehicle with fewer commercial tracking devices on board, if you want to stay covert."
The GPS showed a location, a warehouse in White Plains.
John took an off-ramp to change freeways, the better to avoid city-bound traffic. "It was this, or an eighteen wheeler with a dog in the cab."
The line stayed quiet, but somehow accusatory.
"I had to take some personal time," John said. I don't have to explain myself to you, he added silently.
"Ms Arndt is well," Harold said. "I thought you'd like to know. She and her husband seem to have found a kind of détente. They're in counselling."
It doesn't matter how much therapy you do together, or how many times he apologises, Kara had said. John felt a thin prickle of sweat break out between his shoulder blades, because despite the fight he was going into right now, despite the risk to Nathan and himself, the thing that scared him the most was the sword of Damocles hanging over Jess's head, and how responsible John had been for fraying that rope.
"Oh, Nathan," said Harold, suddenly.
In John's car, the radio switched itself on, an eerie expression of Harold's presence, like a helpful ghost. John nudged up the volume and listened to the news report.
"…with an estimated personal value of four billion US dollars, Mr Ingram is just now being taken into protective custody at an undisclosed location in White Plains. He is expected to be charged with a number of offences under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."
Harold's voice was silent on the phone line but John could hear him breathe in quick, panicked gasps.
John could imagine what he was thinking: how vulnerable Nathan would be in prison, even in protective custody. Hopelessly exposed, difficult to protect, especially when the people coming for him didn't have to obey any law but their own. He glanced over his shoulder then cut sharply through traffic to leave the highway. He'd do better now on the back roads where he could speed without being chased by well-intentioned traffic cops.
Then he spoke to Harold, calm and steady. Harold was his back-up now. If John was going to save Nathan, he needed Harold at his best.
"It's not over, Harold, but my options narrow once he's in a cell. My best bet is to intercept the transport, but that's a short window of opportunity. I need you to find the vehicle he's in now. It will have a government GPS tracker in it, probably Homeland Security."
He heard Harold take a deep breath, and then the soft tap of keys. "Where will they want to take him?"
John had a short list, and all of them were out of state. "They're going to want him close to DC, and they won't risk driving all the way. Look at small airfields. Or hell, anywhere you can quickly put a chopper down. And check airspace, if you have access, get me a list of what's in the air right now."
The typing was a steady rhythm now, the background purr of a drumroll as Harold gathered facts.
"They arrested him at a local news studio. There's been an emergency landing organised at a nearby soccer field," Harold said, surprisingly quickly. "I'm you sending co-ordinates now, then I'll track down what I can from traffic cameras."
John glanced at the screen to see a red line connecting the studio with the soccer field. There were a few points of vulnerability on the route, and he steered towards the one closest to the landing site. He went fast and steady, cutting neatly through morning traffic. The extraction team would be driving a heavy armoured SUV, difficult to breach but easy to unbalance. John mentally listed the best impact points to destabilise an armoured vehicle, and very soon after, Harold had a couple of blurry stills for him.
He swung onto a narrow suburban road, and took a moment to examine the photos for make and model.
"Thanks. No sense running the wrong car off the road," he said, for the pleasure of hearing Harold's appalled gasp.
Harold did not disappoint. "What?" he said, his voice rising in pitch.
John laughed softly. Even in this situation, on the run from the CIA, trying to save Nathan from the same agency, it was good to work with Harold. Harold was lightning fast with details, never tried to subvert John's work, and if he had a protest or problem, he stated it up front before it became a life-threatening issue. This was how it was supposed to be. He realised this was what he wanted to do, now that he knew it was possible. This was something for which he would be happy to risk his life.
"When we're done," he started to say, but Harold interrupted him.
"Mr Reese, they've turned onto this road. They're sixty seconds away from you at your current speed," Harold said. Then, "Please be careful, John."
John switched off his lights and made sure his seatbelt was locked in. He saw the halo of lights around a sweeping corner, and he adjusted his speed and angle, aiming for the crumple zone of the oncoming SUV. There were a couple of seconds past the point where he had committed to the collision, where time slowed down and he saw the projected orbit of each vehicle sliding into place. Adrenaline slows the perception of time, and even though he was calm and prepared, his body reacted to the perceived danger with a prickle of sweat and a rush of heat through his body. He rode it through, using those moments to prepare himself for the crash. He relaxed his shoulders, reminded himself that the airbag would flash in front of him, he made sure his arms were bent and ready to resume steering as soon as possible. The last things he saw before the impact were two horrified faces in the front seats.
The impact itself was nothing unexpected. He'd done this plenty of times before and knew what to expect. There was the percussive thump against his ribcage which shoved all the air from his lungs, then the bloom of the airbag. He rode the impact out easily, felt the tires grip the road surface then slide. The two vehicles spun to one side as if partners in a square dance, then the SUV lost traction and rolled over twice.
The SUV came to rest against a line of trees, bouncing lightly on all four wheels, and time snapped back into proper speed. John was out and moving before the other drivers had a chance to react. The air was cold in his mouth, and he tasted blood. He'd bit his lip on impact, he realised, as he ran up beside the SUV.
Hot metal ticked and hissed all around him but nothing was on fire. Modern cars are pretty good at maintaining structural integrity during a high-impact collision, and the SUV was reinforced with bullet-proof glass and armored plating. John shot out the lock on the rear passenger door and prised it open.
Inside, Nathan was folded into the footwell, his body pressed hard against the driver's seat, a black bag over his head. He'd done well to get himself safe, John thought, considering his hands were cuffed.
Nathan tilted his head, still covered by the black bag, but obviously conscious and aware that someone was there.
"It's me," John said. "Stay there till we're secure."
Nathan coughed and moved in his direction. "John?" he said, wheezing through the bag.
"Stay still." John made his voice authoritative: he didn't want Nathan to move until John could check if he was injured.
He strode through the roadside brush to the front cab, pulled one of the mangled doors open jerkily and checked the pulse of the driver. She was alive but unconscious, pillowed against the airbag. He left her, but took her badge and weapon. These two were ostensibly FBI, but it was far from FBI protocol to black bag a prisoner. In the passenger side, the other agent had managed to draw his weapon, but John took it easily.
"Thank you," he said politely, then zip-tied the man to the steering wheel.
Despite what John had said, Nathan was hauling himself free of the wreck. He had hauled off the black bag and used it to brush shattered glass from the back seat so he could wriggle free. "This is a hell of a rescue," he said, creakily manoeuvring his legs out. "Not that I'm complaining."
John hurried over to help him, grabbing under his arms and easing him out. "Did you hit your head?"
Nathan sagged against him. "Honestly John, I think I hit everything." He peered over John's shoulder into the darkness. "Is this your partner?"
John was moving before Nathan had closed his mouth, but Kara had her gun drawn on them both already. Adrenaline flowed and time slowed down again, just as it had before the collision, but this time John felt far less assured about the outcome. It meant that when Kara walked out of the darkness, her stride seemed slow and languorous, like an actress taking the spotlight for her big speech.
"Oh, John," she said. Time snapped back into perspective at the sound of her voice, a mix of disappointment and delight. "Didn't I teach you anything? Mark's going to be so surprised, but he shouldn't be. All this time and you're as predictable as ever."
There was nothing else to say but her name. "Kara." John moved in front of Nathan, and Kara laughed, loud in the night air.
"Look at you. So protective. You're adorable," Kara said. "This is even better than that thing you have with your ex. You know, maybe this is the real team-up you wanted – you should have brought her along. We could have had a foursome." She winked at John. "I know you've gone most of the way there, lover. It's only one more in the bed, after all."
John rolled his shoulder gently, bringing his hand closer to his hip holster. Kara knew that move, unfortunately, and she fired on him. Nathan gasped and ducked down in a crouch but John stood still. If Kara wanted him dead, she'd have killed him before she'd stepped into the light. No, she wanted something lengthy and involved.
"Come on, Kara. Get it over with," he said, hoping she'd give him some indication of what her next move would be. His heart thumped, far more than it had when he'd steered into the oncoming SUV. He'd have to kill her. There was no other way. If she'd been given the kill order, if she tried to execute Nathan, John would have to take her out first and for many reasons, some he didn't understand himself, he didn't want to do that.
Kara shifted her weight, and John realised she was torn: shoot Nathan now and complete her mission, or string it out and get maximum pleasure out of tormenting John. His mind raced, trying to find a solution that left Nathan and Kara alive. It had to be something she would value. There were only a limited number of things John had that Kara craved, and giving them up would hurt.
He heard Nathan behind him, breathing hard, still crouched over in the brush.
"I've got a deal," he said, as the plan formed in his mind. He didn't like it; it felt leaden in his mind, worse than what happened with Jess, worse even than the nothingness he'd been trying to achieve this past week.
Kara took a step closer, near enough that John thought he could jump her before she took a shot at Nathan. "Tell me more," she said. "I can't imagine what you could offer me that is better than bringing in this one's head on a plate."
"Let him go," John started, and waited for Kara's bark of laughter. When she'd finished, he continued, "And I'll come back in under your terms. And I'll owe you. A life. Mine if you want."
Behind him, Nathan swore under his breath, and spoke. "John. I made my decisions. You don't have to pay for that."
"Oh, he does, you moron," said Kara. "Haven't you figured it out yet? The thing about John is he likes the paying. He'll pay and pay for your stupid ideas." She stared at John, considering it. "I really do want to make this stupid man scream, John, but I could see myself making you scream instead."
John lowered his eyes, looked at her through his eyelashes. "You do like to make me scream," he said. In his ear, Harold was thankfully silent. John didn't have the mental energy to cope with Harold's anxiety as well as ensuring Kara bought what John was selling.
"John," Nathan said again. "Let her kill me, for God's sake. I'm not that important to the world anymore."
Kara grinned at John, and John knew that she wouldn't leave it at that. Nathan had a son, an ex-wife, friends and family. All the people he'd helped, all the lives he'd saved. Kara would enjoy tearing all that down, and she'd make Nathan watch.
"Shut up, Nathan," John said. "It's not just your life at stake here." Let me save you, he willed him to understand. The ugliness went much deeper than Nathan could imagine, and Kara was perfectly comfortable swimming around at those depths.
In his ear, Harold finally spoke up. "I know what you're doing," he said. "I think I know you well enough by now to realise I can't talk you out of it, so I will promise you that it won't be in vain. I will make sure Nathan understands. And I will keep Jessica safe."
John felt a shudder go through his body at that. Jessica was his last connection to normality, and letting go of the image of her hurt in ways he couldn't even comprehend yet.
"She's going to be angry," he said out loud.
"Yeah, I will," said Kara. "You love it when I'm angry, don't you, John?"
Harold understood him, knew he was talking about Jessica. "I know. But she will be safe. I can promise you that much. Do you trust me to do that, John?"
"I do," John said, and ignored Kara's little preen of triumph. "Nathan, get up. This is happening."
Nathan awkwardly clambered to his feet. There were tears on his cheeks; he'd been crying silently down there on the ground. He opened his mouth to say something, but John gave a tiny shake of his head.
"Just go," he said. "Someone will send a car." The sound of typing in his ear told him Harold was already organising it.
Kara wagged a finger at them and tsked, as if they were naughty children. "Oh, no, not yet," she said.
"What else do you want, Kara?" John said, impatient, tired and ready for this to be done. "You've got me, you'll have me for as long as you want. Just let him go."
"Come on, lover, this isn't your first rodeo. How do we get proof of death?" Kara reached inside her jacket and retrieved a pair of pliers. "A couple of molars, please. Unless you want Mark to come sniffing around?"
John's heart sank. He didn't want to do this. She was right, but he didn't want to do this to Nathan.
"Give them to me," said Nathan, holding out his hand. "You don't know pain till someone's scrubbed off your dying skin in a debriding tank." He took the pliers from Kara, and sat down in the brush, ignoring the mud soaking into his pants.
To his credit, Nathan got one tooth loose enough to wiggle, and even then it was the awkward angle that stopped him, not the pain. Kara watched him, entertained for a while as, eyes streaming, he shoved those pliers into his mouth gamely in attempt after attempt. Eventually though, Kara got bored.
"Finish it off, John," she said with a possessive wave. "My feet are getting cold."
John reached down for the pliers and Nathan surrendered them gratefully. Before John could get them into position, Nathan said, "It's okay, John. This is my fault. I'm sorry you have to do this."
John's stomach flipped over and he thought, with a queasy realisation, that the apology made it somehow worse. Then he gripped Nathan's hair to hold him still and went to work.
When it was done Nathan got to his feet, swayed and looked at his trembling fingers in dazed surprise. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, smeared along his jawline where it had gotten under John's wrist. John checked his own sleeve and saw a bright red stain on the cuff.
"All right, enough fun," said Kara. "One last kiss for luck, and we'll be off. I can't wait to break the news to Mark that you're coming home."
Nathan blinked and reached for John, wrapped his arms around him and squeezed. John didn't know how to react – to show emotion gave Kara leverage – but fortunately Nathan seemed to have everything under control.
"I'll be fine," Nathan said, somewhat blurrily, into John's ear. "You look after yourself." Then he was leaving, but his hand brushed John's as he walked past, giving it one last squeeze before he had moved outside the circle of light cast by the crashed cars.
Kara smirked and holstered her gun. "There. Now I have you all to myself."
The last thing she made him do was shoot the other agents in the head.
Chapter Twelve // Master Post // Chapter Fourteen
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Explicit
Words: 4.2K (this chapter) 80K overall.
Characters/Pairings: Jessica/John, Jessica/John/Nathan, John/Nathan, John/Harold, John/Kara, Harold/Grace, Rick Dillinger, Mark Snow, Grace Hendricks, Lawrence Szilard, Daniel Aquino
Warnings/Content: Pegging, D/s dynamics, Dubious Consent, Domestic Violence, Infidelity, Light Bondage, Threesome - M/M/F, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe: Jessica lives, Alternate Universe: Nathan lives
Notes: This fic is complete at 80K and will be updated weekly. All the ships mentioned do happen, but some of them not for a long while. (Harold/John doesn't happen for a long while, for example, but it gets there.)
Dubcon warning is for the Kara/John relationship, which gets dicey from time to time.
Thank you to
lilacsigil and talkingtothesky, who both helped me get this behemoth finished.Title is from Iron and Wine's song, House by the Sea
Master post with chapter links
Chapter Summary:
Nathan makes a final attempt to secure his friends' safety. John and Harold have to find a way to save him.
Overall Summary:
After he joins the CIA, John stays in touch with Jessica as best he can without endangering her marriage or alerting the agency. He doesn't realise that these breaks from his professional life are as much a respite for Jess as they are for him.
Meanwhile, Jessica's number keeps coming up and Nathan has a plan to keep her safe.
Also at the Archive
John spent the next week in New Jersey, moving from cheap motel to cheap motel, hitting the bottle harder each night, until the future was nothing more than a question of how to survive his hangover and where to get more booze.
In the brief moments of sobriety, he supposed that eventually he'd end up begging for his job back, or take a chance on re-enlisting. That was all he managed before shame and fear and disappointment sent him to the liquor store to repeat the cycle.
Fifty dollars got him a burner phone and enough data to check up on Jessica, to watch her Friendczar, Instagram, Angler. Her feeds were empty, though he saw the ghost of her presence from posts she'd liked, or polite, bland comments she left on people's birthday photos.
He was in a grimy truckstop diner, shrugging off the past night's booze with a plate full of greasy food when Nathan's face flashed up on the small TV suspended above the counter. He didn't notice for a little while; he just let the burr of noise float over him while he pushed a piece of bacon through the eggs while his stomach churned and threatened to rebel. Then the rest of the diner went quiet, the rattle of plates and low conversation stopped, and he finally looked up to see what had happened.
"I want everyone out there to pick up their phone. Look at your last text, your last photograph, your last web search, because the government certainly has."
John put down his fork. "Shit," he said. "Nathan, what the hell?"
"It started on September 11th," Nathan said, on the screen. "I wanted to help, I wanted to make sure that something like that never happened again. But I made a terrible mistake, and I need to tell you why."
All around John, people were doing as he said: holding their phones, checking their call lists and texts. He saw some take out their sim cards, and one man snapped his in half.
"What the American public needs to understand is that we are being watched," Nathan was saying. "Every minute of every day. I know, because I helped them do it." On the screen, his expression was sombre, a disconnect from the vivid backdrop of the early morning talk show. The studio, along with the diner, was surprisingly silent. "They don't want anyone to know this. They've tried to kill anyone involved."
The host, his own face better known for jocularity, leaned forward over the desk. "And this is why we're broadcasting from an unknown location?"
Nathan nodded. "They bombed the 34th Street Ferry Terminal to get at me," he said. He pointed to the scars across his cheek. "They don't care who they hurt in the process."
John's stomach dropped. This was a bad gambit, this was too much bluff for Nathan to front. He might have been able to protect those few under his umbrella by keeping himself in the spotlight, but there was only so much the government would take.
The host nodded understanding of this situation. "You're expecting another retaliation – something they can cover up, or write off as an accident or attack."
"I expect we'll be cut off as soon as they can figure out where this is coming from, and then I'll never be seen again," Nathan said. "So I've put the data up online: names, dates, details of the program that runs my software." A web address scrolled across the screen. "That site will go down, but there will be others. Or you can find that link on my Twitter – please share it, please keep it moving from platform to platform. These are the people they've tried to kill. Their names are Daniel Aquino and Laurence Szilard." Their faces appeared on the backdrop. "If anything happens to them, you will know who was responsible."
On the TV, Nathan leaned forward to face the camera. "I'll keep the link up as long as possible, and when it eventually goes down, I guarantee it will reappear. And of course, to the people who know how to keep these facts alive: it's called Northern Lights. Bring it into the sunshine. Uncover the…" The screen turned instantly to static, and a low murmur spread through the diner.
John pulled out his burner phone and started calling. He was already making plans: get transport, find Nathan, get him out of the country. He tucked some bills under his plate, gave a nod of thanks to the waitress and went to check if there were any security cameras covering the parking lot before he boosted a car and sped towards the city.
Nathan wasn't answering his phone, which John expected but had to check. He tried a few of the numbers he'd collected for Harold next. The first two ran out, but Harold picked up on the third, obviously realising that whoever was calling knew him well enough to have several of his numbers.
"John," he said, his voice tight and angry and frightened, and then nothing else. There wasn't much else to say.
"Do you know where he is?" John watched the speedometer climb. Nathan had to be somewhere close to Manhattan. It had only been – he glanced at the dash clock – seven hours since Nathan last tweeted or posted on Instagram. That didn't mean so much in the life of a billionaire who could hop on a plane, but even a plane needed a few hours to prep before take off. And why leave a city full of studios and production crews, why leave a small island crammed with seven million people to hide among? He sighed. To keep everyone else safe, that was why. That was the point of what Nathan was doing after all.
"I have some ideas," Harold said. "How far out are you?"
"Not far. Harold, they'll have given a termination order on Nathan," John said. Then as Harold sputtered into the phone, he said, "Not me. I resigned. But someone, and they'll be fast and brutal. You need to figure out a plan for him. Nathan has to disappear now. Properly. Will the others be safe?"
Harold sighed. "To give him credit, he's planned this well. They're in hiding for now, I know he blames himself – well, both of us, and rightly so – for the danger the others are in. I just wish he'd chosen a less…ridiculously self-sacrificing method of dealing with his guilt." Those last words were frantic and angry again.
"The others are safe. That's good. That buys me time. You can be angry at Nathan later when I've pulled his ass out of this," John said. He fumbled in his pocket for the earpiece that had come with the phone. "And Grace?"
A second voice spoke on the line. "I'm with Harold, sweetheart. The library is off the grid, for all that means in the middle of the city, and we can hole up here for…"
"For a few months," Harold said. "If we have to."
"Really?" said Grace, immediately distracted. "Harold, do you have a bunker in here?"
John grinned despite the situation. Grace's optimism was contagious. For a little while, he forgot that he'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, or that his brain was beginning to notice the absence of alcohol in his system. There'd be consequences for the last week, he knew, but right now he was in the middle of a mission and everything else could wait.
He drove in silence for a good forty minutes, watching the miles tick down as he drew closer to Manhattan and considering his options for extracting Nathan.
"I see you now," Harold said into the silence, after John passed under a huge overpass that he knew was fitted with cameras optimised for facial recognition. "And I have a location for Nathan. You'll want to avoid the city completely."
The GPS on the dash lit up. "That's me," said Harold. "Next time steal a vehicle with fewer commercial tracking devices on board, if you want to stay covert."
The GPS showed a location, a warehouse in White Plains.
John took an off-ramp to change freeways, the better to avoid city-bound traffic. "It was this, or an eighteen wheeler with a dog in the cab."
The line stayed quiet, but somehow accusatory.
"I had to take some personal time," John said. I don't have to explain myself to you, he added silently.
"Ms Arndt is well," Harold said. "I thought you'd like to know. She and her husband seem to have found a kind of détente. They're in counselling."
It doesn't matter how much therapy you do together, or how many times he apologises, Kara had said. John felt a thin prickle of sweat break out between his shoulder blades, because despite the fight he was going into right now, despite the risk to Nathan and himself, the thing that scared him the most was the sword of Damocles hanging over Jess's head, and how responsible John had been for fraying that rope.
"Oh, Nathan," said Harold, suddenly.
In John's car, the radio switched itself on, an eerie expression of Harold's presence, like a helpful ghost. John nudged up the volume and listened to the news report.
"…with an estimated personal value of four billion US dollars, Mr Ingram is just now being taken into protective custody at an undisclosed location in White Plains. He is expected to be charged with a number of offences under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."
Harold's voice was silent on the phone line but John could hear him breathe in quick, panicked gasps.
John could imagine what he was thinking: how vulnerable Nathan would be in prison, even in protective custody. Hopelessly exposed, difficult to protect, especially when the people coming for him didn't have to obey any law but their own. He glanced over his shoulder then cut sharply through traffic to leave the highway. He'd do better now on the back roads where he could speed without being chased by well-intentioned traffic cops.
Then he spoke to Harold, calm and steady. Harold was his back-up now. If John was going to save Nathan, he needed Harold at his best.
"It's not over, Harold, but my options narrow once he's in a cell. My best bet is to intercept the transport, but that's a short window of opportunity. I need you to find the vehicle he's in now. It will have a government GPS tracker in it, probably Homeland Security."
He heard Harold take a deep breath, and then the soft tap of keys. "Where will they want to take him?"
John had a short list, and all of them were out of state. "They're going to want him close to DC, and they won't risk driving all the way. Look at small airfields. Or hell, anywhere you can quickly put a chopper down. And check airspace, if you have access, get me a list of what's in the air right now."
The typing was a steady rhythm now, the background purr of a drumroll as Harold gathered facts.
"They arrested him at a local news studio. There's been an emergency landing organised at a nearby soccer field," Harold said, surprisingly quickly. "I'm you sending co-ordinates now, then I'll track down what I can from traffic cameras."
John glanced at the screen to see a red line connecting the studio with the soccer field. There were a few points of vulnerability on the route, and he steered towards the one closest to the landing site. He went fast and steady, cutting neatly through morning traffic. The extraction team would be driving a heavy armoured SUV, difficult to breach but easy to unbalance. John mentally listed the best impact points to destabilise an armoured vehicle, and very soon after, Harold had a couple of blurry stills for him.
He swung onto a narrow suburban road, and took a moment to examine the photos for make and model.
"Thanks. No sense running the wrong car off the road," he said, for the pleasure of hearing Harold's appalled gasp.
Harold did not disappoint. "What?" he said, his voice rising in pitch.
John laughed softly. Even in this situation, on the run from the CIA, trying to save Nathan from the same agency, it was good to work with Harold. Harold was lightning fast with details, never tried to subvert John's work, and if he had a protest or problem, he stated it up front before it became a life-threatening issue. This was how it was supposed to be. He realised this was what he wanted to do, now that he knew it was possible. This was something for which he would be happy to risk his life.
"When we're done," he started to say, but Harold interrupted him.
"Mr Reese, they've turned onto this road. They're sixty seconds away from you at your current speed," Harold said. Then, "Please be careful, John."
John switched off his lights and made sure his seatbelt was locked in. He saw the halo of lights around a sweeping corner, and he adjusted his speed and angle, aiming for the crumple zone of the oncoming SUV. There were a couple of seconds past the point where he had committed to the collision, where time slowed down and he saw the projected orbit of each vehicle sliding into place. Adrenaline slows the perception of time, and even though he was calm and prepared, his body reacted to the perceived danger with a prickle of sweat and a rush of heat through his body. He rode it through, using those moments to prepare himself for the crash. He relaxed his shoulders, reminded himself that the airbag would flash in front of him, he made sure his arms were bent and ready to resume steering as soon as possible. The last things he saw before the impact were two horrified faces in the front seats.
The impact itself was nothing unexpected. He'd done this plenty of times before and knew what to expect. There was the percussive thump against his ribcage which shoved all the air from his lungs, then the bloom of the airbag. He rode the impact out easily, felt the tires grip the road surface then slide. The two vehicles spun to one side as if partners in a square dance, then the SUV lost traction and rolled over twice.
The SUV came to rest against a line of trees, bouncing lightly on all four wheels, and time snapped back into proper speed. John was out and moving before the other drivers had a chance to react. The air was cold in his mouth, and he tasted blood. He'd bit his lip on impact, he realised, as he ran up beside the SUV.
Hot metal ticked and hissed all around him but nothing was on fire. Modern cars are pretty good at maintaining structural integrity during a high-impact collision, and the SUV was reinforced with bullet-proof glass and armored plating. John shot out the lock on the rear passenger door and prised it open.
Inside, Nathan was folded into the footwell, his body pressed hard against the driver's seat, a black bag over his head. He'd done well to get himself safe, John thought, considering his hands were cuffed.
Nathan tilted his head, still covered by the black bag, but obviously conscious and aware that someone was there.
"It's me," John said. "Stay there till we're secure."
Nathan coughed and moved in his direction. "John?" he said, wheezing through the bag.
"Stay still." John made his voice authoritative: he didn't want Nathan to move until John could check if he was injured.
He strode through the roadside brush to the front cab, pulled one of the mangled doors open jerkily and checked the pulse of the driver. She was alive but unconscious, pillowed against the airbag. He left her, but took her badge and weapon. These two were ostensibly FBI, but it was far from FBI protocol to black bag a prisoner. In the passenger side, the other agent had managed to draw his weapon, but John took it easily.
"Thank you," he said politely, then zip-tied the man to the steering wheel.
Despite what John had said, Nathan was hauling himself free of the wreck. He had hauled off the black bag and used it to brush shattered glass from the back seat so he could wriggle free. "This is a hell of a rescue," he said, creakily manoeuvring his legs out. "Not that I'm complaining."
John hurried over to help him, grabbing under his arms and easing him out. "Did you hit your head?"
Nathan sagged against him. "Honestly John, I think I hit everything." He peered over John's shoulder into the darkness. "Is this your partner?"
John was moving before Nathan had closed his mouth, but Kara had her gun drawn on them both already. Adrenaline flowed and time slowed down again, just as it had before the collision, but this time John felt far less assured about the outcome. It meant that when Kara walked out of the darkness, her stride seemed slow and languorous, like an actress taking the spotlight for her big speech.
"Oh, John," she said. Time snapped back into perspective at the sound of her voice, a mix of disappointment and delight. "Didn't I teach you anything? Mark's going to be so surprised, but he shouldn't be. All this time and you're as predictable as ever."
There was nothing else to say but her name. "Kara." John moved in front of Nathan, and Kara laughed, loud in the night air.
"Look at you. So protective. You're adorable," Kara said. "This is even better than that thing you have with your ex. You know, maybe this is the real team-up you wanted – you should have brought her along. We could have had a foursome." She winked at John. "I know you've gone most of the way there, lover. It's only one more in the bed, after all."
John rolled his shoulder gently, bringing his hand closer to his hip holster. Kara knew that move, unfortunately, and she fired on him. Nathan gasped and ducked down in a crouch but John stood still. If Kara wanted him dead, she'd have killed him before she'd stepped into the light. No, she wanted something lengthy and involved.
"Come on, Kara. Get it over with," he said, hoping she'd give him some indication of what her next move would be. His heart thumped, far more than it had when he'd steered into the oncoming SUV. He'd have to kill her. There was no other way. If she'd been given the kill order, if she tried to execute Nathan, John would have to take her out first and for many reasons, some he didn't understand himself, he didn't want to do that.
Kara shifted her weight, and John realised she was torn: shoot Nathan now and complete her mission, or string it out and get maximum pleasure out of tormenting John. His mind raced, trying to find a solution that left Nathan and Kara alive. It had to be something she would value. There were only a limited number of things John had that Kara craved, and giving them up would hurt.
He heard Nathan behind him, breathing hard, still crouched over in the brush.
"I've got a deal," he said, as the plan formed in his mind. He didn't like it; it felt leaden in his mind, worse than what happened with Jess, worse even than the nothingness he'd been trying to achieve this past week.
Kara took a step closer, near enough that John thought he could jump her before she took a shot at Nathan. "Tell me more," she said. "I can't imagine what you could offer me that is better than bringing in this one's head on a plate."
"Let him go," John started, and waited for Kara's bark of laughter. When she'd finished, he continued, "And I'll come back in under your terms. And I'll owe you. A life. Mine if you want."
Behind him, Nathan swore under his breath, and spoke. "John. I made my decisions. You don't have to pay for that."
"Oh, he does, you moron," said Kara. "Haven't you figured it out yet? The thing about John is he likes the paying. He'll pay and pay for your stupid ideas." She stared at John, considering it. "I really do want to make this stupid man scream, John, but I could see myself making you scream instead."
John lowered his eyes, looked at her through his eyelashes. "You do like to make me scream," he said. In his ear, Harold was thankfully silent. John didn't have the mental energy to cope with Harold's anxiety as well as ensuring Kara bought what John was selling.
"John," Nathan said again. "Let her kill me, for God's sake. I'm not that important to the world anymore."
Kara grinned at John, and John knew that she wouldn't leave it at that. Nathan had a son, an ex-wife, friends and family. All the people he'd helped, all the lives he'd saved. Kara would enjoy tearing all that down, and she'd make Nathan watch.
"Shut up, Nathan," John said. "It's not just your life at stake here." Let me save you, he willed him to understand. The ugliness went much deeper than Nathan could imagine, and Kara was perfectly comfortable swimming around at those depths.
In his ear, Harold finally spoke up. "I know what you're doing," he said. "I think I know you well enough by now to realise I can't talk you out of it, so I will promise you that it won't be in vain. I will make sure Nathan understands. And I will keep Jessica safe."
John felt a shudder go through his body at that. Jessica was his last connection to normality, and letting go of the image of her hurt in ways he couldn't even comprehend yet.
"She's going to be angry," he said out loud.
"Yeah, I will," said Kara. "You love it when I'm angry, don't you, John?"
Harold understood him, knew he was talking about Jessica. "I know. But she will be safe. I can promise you that much. Do you trust me to do that, John?"
"I do," John said, and ignored Kara's little preen of triumph. "Nathan, get up. This is happening."
Nathan awkwardly clambered to his feet. There were tears on his cheeks; he'd been crying silently down there on the ground. He opened his mouth to say something, but John gave a tiny shake of his head.
"Just go," he said. "Someone will send a car." The sound of typing in his ear told him Harold was already organising it.
Kara wagged a finger at them and tsked, as if they were naughty children. "Oh, no, not yet," she said.
"What else do you want, Kara?" John said, impatient, tired and ready for this to be done. "You've got me, you'll have me for as long as you want. Just let him go."
"Come on, lover, this isn't your first rodeo. How do we get proof of death?" Kara reached inside her jacket and retrieved a pair of pliers. "A couple of molars, please. Unless you want Mark to come sniffing around?"
John's heart sank. He didn't want to do this. She was right, but he didn't want to do this to Nathan.
"Give them to me," said Nathan, holding out his hand. "You don't know pain till someone's scrubbed off your dying skin in a debriding tank." He took the pliers from Kara, and sat down in the brush, ignoring the mud soaking into his pants.
To his credit, Nathan got one tooth loose enough to wiggle, and even then it was the awkward angle that stopped him, not the pain. Kara watched him, entertained for a while as, eyes streaming, he shoved those pliers into his mouth gamely in attempt after attempt. Eventually though, Kara got bored.
"Finish it off, John," she said with a possessive wave. "My feet are getting cold."
John reached down for the pliers and Nathan surrendered them gratefully. Before John could get them into position, Nathan said, "It's okay, John. This is my fault. I'm sorry you have to do this."
John's stomach flipped over and he thought, with a queasy realisation, that the apology made it somehow worse. Then he gripped Nathan's hair to hold him still and went to work.
When it was done Nathan got to his feet, swayed and looked at his trembling fingers in dazed surprise. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, smeared along his jawline where it had gotten under John's wrist. John checked his own sleeve and saw a bright red stain on the cuff.
"All right, enough fun," said Kara. "One last kiss for luck, and we'll be off. I can't wait to break the news to Mark that you're coming home."
Nathan blinked and reached for John, wrapped his arms around him and squeezed. John didn't know how to react – to show emotion gave Kara leverage – but fortunately Nathan seemed to have everything under control.
"I'll be fine," Nathan said, somewhat blurrily, into John's ear. "You look after yourself." Then he was leaving, but his hand brushed John's as he walked past, giving it one last squeeze before he had moved outside the circle of light cast by the crashed cars.
Kara smirked and holstered her gun. "There. Now I have you all to myself."
The last thing she made him do was shoot the other agents in the head.
Chapter Twelve // Master Post // Chapter Fourteen