General Kosokov's jaw clenched as he surveyed the scene in front of him.
"It happened too fast for us to stop," the soldier in front of him stammered, his heart beating rapidly as the cold stare settled on him accusingly. The soldier had killed many people, some out of revenge, some for money, and some just for the hell of it, but he had never seen death up close before.
Now he was staring it in the face.
"Too fast," Kosokov's voice was like frozen ice. "My beloved nephew lies dead before me and all you can say is that it happened too fast. The prisoners were unarmed."
"One of them had a piece of glass. He held us off and forced us to disarm. Dimitri ordered us to stand down."
His explanation was cut off by a single bullet to the head.
Kosokov turned back to the next soldier. "Bring my nephew's body to the chapel. I will call a priest to give him last rites and then we will mourn him as he deserved to be mourned." His eyes hardened. "And before I bury Dimitri I will cut out the heart of the one did this and feed it to the dogs. They cannot get out of the compound. Find them and bring them to me." He snapped the last order out as he turned to walk back down the hallway.
Damn it. He should never have given into Dimitri's pleas for the girl. But he had never been able to deny his nephew anything. He shrugged as he turned the corner. And if the truth was told, he'd looked forward to f**king the chit himself. He'd imagined her tied to his bed, his marks on her, hearing her whimper for mercy as he drove into her. It would have been....nice. Of course when he was done breaking her he would have turned her over to Dimitri.
All of this, the elaborate ruse to put him into contact with Morgan so that he could take Morgan's sister, they had been so close to pulling it off. Hell, he'd rushed back to Europe instead of staying in that damned little town that Morgan called home because he'd been looking forward to some quality time with his new house guest. Now it had all blown up on him. Dimitri was dead. He would kill both of them, the girl and his nephew's toy. He would make sure they died begging for him to kill them.
Just as the thought made him halfway smile, an explosion rocked the compound and then another and another. He could hear the sound of gunfire from the courtyard.
All of his instincts had kicked in. This was bad. The compound's defenses were such that they should not have been breached.
He stopped at the intersection of the hallway, but instead of turning left to the command room where his men would be waiting for directions, he turned right towards his own private quarters.
He was after all, in the end, a survivor.
Kosokov stepped into his private suite and headed towards the dresser to remove something from the top drawer when a voice stopped him.
"Running away."
He turned and found himself staring at a tall young woman with golden hair pulled back into a simple ponytail and blue eyes that seemed to burn through him. In her hand she held a simple weapon with a casualness and steadiness that told him she wouldn't hesitate to use it.
He looked at her more closely. "Morgan's slut."
She smiled. "The name is Sarah. Sarah Webber. But don't bother worrying about having to remember it or anything. You won't live long enough for it to matter."
"You want to kill me?"
Sarah's smile was cold and her stare was somehow both intense and empty. "Want has nothing to do with it. I need to kill you."
"You will be dead before you leave this room."
"I know. I'm prepared to go to hell as long as I get to take you with me."
"A young and beautiful woman like you should not be shopping in Paris not talking about killing." Kosokov gave his best and most charming smile. "You were quite.... 'Delightful' the other night and for the opportunity to sample your delights again I can be persuaded to overlook this little tantrum." Kosokov lied easily.
Sarah shook her head. "You don't seem to get it. I'm going to kill you. One single bullet. Probably to your head. I'd aim for the heart but I don't believe you have one."
"I don't believe you."
"It's the hair isn't it? I keep thinking red hair will make me look older but I never seem to have the guts to actually do it. Funny isn't it? I can kill a man at the drop of a dime but I can't bring myself to have my hair colored."
"I'm sure you have killed many men...." Kosokov began mockingly.
"Fourteen face to face. Probably up to a hundred if you count bombs I've set off or little things like missile rockets hitting towers. Or wait, make that sixteen if you count the two soldiers I had to kill to make it into this little sanctuary of yours."
For the first time in a long time, Kosokov tasted his own fear. "Who in the hell are you?"
"I told you. My name is Sarah. Sarah Webber. Normally I'd use an alias or something, but I feel safe in telling you all my dirty secrets since we all know that dead men don't talk." Sarah smirked. "God that sounded so cliched. I'll have to brush up on my witty repartee when this is over."
"Who are you?"
"You don't recognize my name? Tisk-tisk. I guess that's what happens when you work for a secret covert organization that doesn't have its own PR department. Of course I could live without the PR if they upgraded our retirement benefits but since most operatives don't live long enough to retire I guess they don't see it as a huge priority." She smiled at Kosokov's confusion. "You still don't get it do you? Maybe this will help." She held up her hand so that he could see the golden glint of her ring.
"Who in the hell are you?"
"Oh please, now you're getting tedious. You know who I am or at the very least you know the people I represent. Just the fact that I'm wearing this ring should tell you that I'm fully prepared to kill you no matter what the cost. You will die General." She shrugged. "The rest is...not important."
"Whatever that damned Consortium is paying you I will triple it."
"This isn't about money. It's about settling an old score."
"What old score? I barely know you."
"Wrong again. You're not doing that well Kosky baby. The truth is that you and I have met before." Her face remained impassive even as the hand holding the gun tightened.
"I don't remember."
"No, you probably don't. You probably can't remember half of the people you have hurt or the lives you have destroyed over the years." Sarah moved closer. "Let's see if I can't jog your memory a little. Think back a few years. One of your little campaigns in the Balkans, you know the kind where you sent your men to kill entire villages full of women and children. What do they call it? A scorched earth policy. Leave nothing standing. Leave no one alive. It didn't matter to you that some of the people your men killed were good people. Innocent people. People whose only crime was in wanting to help. People like my father who were trying to save lives when you took their lives."
"But those that died in the first wave, they were the lucky ones in the end. Because the ones who were alive became your prisoners. Living in cages. Eating scraps. No blankets to keep out the bitter cold. No sanitation to prevent disease. Nothing to prevent the insanity that slowly creeped in minute by minute." Pause. "Of course it wasn't enough to just take their humanity from them. You had to take their very souls. So you sent your men to find you a toy to play with and they did. A young girl, but then you like them young don't you. And a virgin to boot. Innocent. That appealed to you, didn't it. The idea of destroying that innocence. You raped her. Not once. Not even twice. Repeatedly. With your body. With whatever you could find. A gun. A bottle. Anything to tear that innocence apart. Of course you were generous. You didn't keep all that innocence to yourself. You shared it with your men. How many were there that night? I've always wondered. You see I stopped counting at ten. No that's not quite right. I stopped thinking at ten and I started praying. Oh, I didn't pray to be rescued. I knew no one was going to rescue me. I prayed that you would kill me. What I didn't realize was that you already had." Sarah looked him straight in the eye. "You killed me. I just want to return the favor."
"Then do it. You bitch. Do it."
"You're afraid. I like that. You should be." A pause. "You have reason to be."
Kosokov carefully reached behind him into the opened dresser drawer.
"Would it help if I said I was sorry?"
"Nope."
"It was war. Unpleasant things happen in a war."
"Unpleasant. I didn't know you were so fond of understatements. Try this one for an understatement- your death will be only mildly uncomfortable."
"Kill me but it won't solve anything."
"I've heard that." Sarah remarked thinking of what Jason had said. "And you're probably right. The thing is, it doesn't make me want to kill you any less. It might not make a difference to me. But then I stop to think about the people you won't get to hurt and the lives you won't get to destroy and I think what the hell- I'll kill you anyway."
Even as she pulled the trigger, the door opened and knocked into her sending her bullet into Kosokov's shoulder and her to the floor, the gun falling out of her hand and landing a few inches from her.
He grinned at the soldier who stood in the doorway.
"Excellent timing." He motioned to Sarah. "Shoot her."
Sarah braced herself for the impact but before it came, the soldier fell forward dead.
"It's hard to find good help these days." Jason Morgan said a with shrug as he kept his gun trained on Kosokov.
"Morgan."
"General. Now that we have the formalities over with....."
Jason didn't get a chance to finish as Sarah cried out.
"Watch out. He's got a gun."
Before Jason could move, Kosokov fired single shot that hit Sarah in the chest.
"Sarah!" Jason moved to kill Kosokov but Kosokov's gun was now trained on him.
"I wouldn't. You and I kill each other and she bleeds to death. You want her to live then you let me go quietly and she might have a chance if you can get her to a hospital quick enough."
Jason's hands tightened on his gun.
"It's your choice Morgan. You kill me or you save her."
Jason watched the pool of blood that was rapidly growing around Sarah. He could hear her gurgling and knew that if he didn't do something she was going to die.
And he wasn't going to lose her. Ever.
He lowered his gun.
"Idiot." Kosokov murmured as he squeezed the trigger and heard the echo of the gunshot.
And then stared at the gaping hole in his chest.
His stared at Sarah who was holding the still smoking gun. "I told you that I was going to kill you." She whispered.
Kosokov fell dead.
Jason ran to Sarah, frantically trying to put pressure on the wound to her chest.
"I did it," Sarah murmered as her eyes glazed. "I killed the monster."
"Yeah you did," Jason whimpered. "Don't die on me Webber."
Sarah opened her eyes. "Michael. Jagger knows."
"Damn it Sarah. I don't give a damn about Michael right now. I just want you to live."
But there was no response and Jason swore as his hands went to her neck. He breathed again when he felt a pulse, faint and erratic but there.
Ignoring Kosokov's body, Jason picked up Sarah determined to get her out of there and find her help before it was too late.
She wasn't going to die. He wouldn't let her.
Blindly, he moved down the corridors retracing his steps, making it through a combination of sheer luck and the fact that Kosokov's men were still so busy coping with the fall out from the missiles that they didn't notice him.
Until he stepped into the courtyard.
And heard the click of a gun pointed at his head.
"Stop or we will shoot."
Gently Jason kissed Sarah's still cheek. "I'm sorry Sarah." He turned ready to face his death when another explosion rocked the compound, taking out a section of the wall and forcing Jason to use all of his skill to not drop Sarah in the shockwave that followed.
"I don't think anybody is going to be shooting anybody today." A voice said as a figure emerged from the shadows and the courtyard filled with a dozen heavily armed men.
"Mac?" Jason stared in shock. Physically it was Mac Scorpio but everything else about the man was completely different than the Mac he knew.
"Scorpio," the soldier who had given Jason the command to stop spit the word out.
"You know me?" Mac grinned. "Good. That should simplify things. If you know who I am then you know who I work for so when I tell you that all I have to do is nod and this entire compound is going to blow you'll believe me."
Jason stared in confusion. Why would Kosokov's men be afraid of the PCPD? And the soldier evidently was if the sudden pallor to his features was any indication.
"You lie."
"I don't lie. I make promises. And I give people choices. Your choice is simple. Stand down or die."
"If you blow the compound up you will die to."
"So? I'm not afraid to die. Neither are my men. My men would die and die willingly if I commanded it, if you know anything about me you know that. You want me to blow this hellhole up to prove my point, I will. I'm willing to die. My men are willing to die. Can you say the same?" Mac moved closer. "There's a satellite trained on us as we speak. I give the signal, and this place will be flatter than your I.Q." Mac smiled. "If your boss pays you well enough to die for him....."
"General Kosokov...." The soldier began stammeringly.
"Is dead." Jason interjected.
"See?" Mac grinned mockingly. "I guess this is a good day for all of us to die."
"Wait!" The soldier looked at his fellow soldiers who nodded. "Hell, if Kosokov is dead and the kid's dead, there's no one to pay us for our services and no reason to fight."
"Trust a merc to be either greedy or stupid," Mac shook his head. "And predictable. So predictable. Here I was looking forward to some really intensive fireworks." He turned to one of his men. "Take their guns. I want this place secured in ten minutes. You meet any resistance, feel free to kill the lot of them."
"And if their smart enough to do what we say?"
"Kill them anyway."
The soldier who'd been negotiating screamed.
"Just kidding." Mac laughed dismissively. "Lock them in their own cells. The clean up crew can take care of them later."
He looked at a totally stunned Jason. "How is she?"
Jason shook his head to clear it. "It's bad. Really bad."
"Right." Mac flipped open a communicator. "Send in the medic evac team. We have a GSW,critical."
Five minutes later, they were in a helicopter flying away from the compound and a medical team was frantically trying to stem Sarah's bleeding. Jason watched them intensely, his world narrowed down to one too still form and monitors that did not look good.
"Your sister is okay." Mac said to Jason.
"What?" Jason tore his eyes away from Sarah. "Oh. Emily. Where is she?"
"She and Cates are in a second helicopter. With Lucky Spencer of all people. She's in shock and she'll probably need to start seeing Kevin again, but she'll be okay."
"I..." Jason hesitated staring at the man he thought he knew. "I....thank you. For everything. I still don't understand what happened back there but..."
Jason's words were cut off by the sudden alarms that went off and the medic's cries.
"She's crashing. Blood pressure is almost zero. She's lost too much blood. There's too much damage. Dammit Scorpio we need to get her to a hospital." The young man who was heading the medical team looked up as he hooked another IV into her. " Okay,crisis over for this second but I can't fix the damage without surgery."
"What's our ETA?" Mac asked the pilot.
"Fifteen minutes till the Swiss border."
"She hasn't got fifteen minutes. We're going to lose her."
"Just keep her alive Ramsey. The facilities at the safe house have everything you need."
"Just keep her alive," the young man mutters. "What the hell do I look like, a miracle worker? More of her chest is missing than is there." The monitors went off again and he shook his head. "Damn it. Here we go again. Okay. Come on Sarah. Stay with us. You heard Scorpio. Just a little longer." As he spoke, he filled a needle and injected it into her heart.
"Her blood pressure is still dropping. Heartbeat is slowing." The nurse said even as the machines careened angrily. "She's in full arrest."
"Paddles. Charge to 300. Clear. Damn it there's too much blood. Her heart's not starting. Charge it to 350. Clear. This isn't working. losing her."
As the machines flat lined, Jason heard the medic yell. "We've lost her."
And it took him a few seconds to realize that the scream he heard was his own.
