Nemesis Chapter 30

Nemesis Chapter 30

A few hours later, with Max having been released and Jim settled in, the four men reconvened behind a closed door in the fourth floor hospital room.

"Well, this isn't our normal setup for team debriefing," Max quipped, "but it isn't bad."

Nicholas smiled at him, then his smile faded.  "We're still incomplete, you know," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Grant concurred in the same tone.  Shannon was special to all of them, and her absence was palpable.

"They're going to try to wean her from the ventilator this afternoon," Nicholas informed them.  "If that goes well, they may try removing the sedation first thing in the morning."

Jim nodded his approval, as Max turned to his friend.  "What happened to you guys?"  he asked.

Nicholas recounted what had happened during the rendezvous with the "informant."

"So it was a red herring, after all," Grant mused, echoing Jim's words from the mission briefing.

"Yes, I think the whole thing was a setup to get rid of all of us," Jim concurred, "masterminded by none other than John Christie."

"Christie?!"  Max and Grant cried out simultaneously, each recalling the previous mission in which they faced the ruthless former agent.

Jim nodded.  "When the farmhouse exploded, Christie found Nicholas' communicator and used it to taunt me."  The white-haired leader looked at Nicholas.  "He called you 'the priest' and Shannon 'the reporter.'"  He turned to Max and Grant.  "And he admitted to setting up your chopper crash and called the two of you 'mercenary men.'"

"The very jobs we did in the last mission," Max recalled. "It's like he knew exactly what kind of setup would lure us in."

"And Garcia is just his patsy," Grant added in disgust.

"That makes sense," Nicholas admitted.  "When Shannon was talking to the man in the gray suit, I heard the telephone ring, and shortly after that Shannon shouted that there was a fire.  And the second explosion didn't happen until I went inside."

"So he took Shannon to that house knowing you would follow, and Christie identified you from somewhere nearby," Grant theorized.  "Then he set off the first fire and waited till you got inside to trigger the second explosion."  He shuddered slightly.  "Talk about calculating."

"But how could he have known we'd come at all?"  Nicholas inquired.

"Now, remember, Nicholas, Christie was an MI6 agent," Jim reminded his friend.  "He knows how the IMF works.  And he knew that if he upped the stakes high enough, the Secretary would send us in."

"And killing the other agent would do it," Max elaborated, his voice low.

"Exactly," confirmed Jim.  "Make no mistake; Christie is ruthless and dangerous, and he's already proven how badly he wants us dead."

"He almost succeeded," Max stated grimly, and everyone listened as he took up the story.  He was interrupted once by nursing staff that came in to check on Grant and his team leader, and again by the arrival of dinner.

At this event, they took a break from the debriefing while Max and Nicholas walked down to the cafeteria to grab something to eat.  Once everyone had finished, Grant resumed the story, shifting back to Max when he came to the parts he didn't quite remember.

When they were finished, there was silence in the room for a few long moments as the weight of Max and Grant's ordeal set in.  Then Jim filled them in on how Christie's men had broken into their headquarters after tracing the communicator signal, how he'd ended up at the bar, and how he'd heard about the helicopter crash on the news and lost all awareness of everything until Nicholas had found him at the hospital.  The pain in his eyes shook the other three men to the core.

Nicholas stood up from his seat, walked over to Jim's bed, and laid a hand on his shoulder in empathy.

"Jim, we can only imagine what you went through, thinking all of us were gone," he said softly, echoing what everyone else was also feeling.  "We're sorry we couldn't get in touch with you."

"None of you have anything to apologize for, Nicholas,"  Jim replied quietly.  He smiled briefly at his friend, but then his smile faded and the look in his blue eyes turned icy.  "Christie is the monster here."

"So what happens with the mission now?"  Max ventured, and all eyes turned to their leader.

Jim looked around the room at his team, fully cognizant that they had all nearly lost their lives, that two in the room and one absent upstairs were still in hospital beds, and that one additional member was nursing a broken arm.  He waited for a moment, choosing his words carefully, and when he spoke his voice was barely audible.

"We are all very lucky to be alive," he said, "and none of us are on our best game right now.  There's a part of me that wants to get on a plane and head back home and leave Christie for another IM team."

Jim's eyes darkened.  "But the bigger part of me wants to finish the mission, and give John Christie exactly what he deserves."

Jim stopped speaking and braced himself for the inevitable questions and protests about how, in their current conditions, could they possibly hope to succeed.  But when he looked into the eyes of his three friends, all he saw there was the same calculated determination that burned within his chest.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Max responded, his voice low.

"Let's nail this bastard," Grant added.

"Count me in, Jim,"  Nicholas concurred, "and I'm sure that Shannon would say the same."

Jim sighed in satisfaction.  This was his team, all right.  He glanced out the window.  Time had flown by; it was getting dark.  He turned to Max and Nicholas.

"It's getting late, fellows.  We can talk mission strategy tomorrow.  You two need to get out of here and get some rest."

Nicholas nodded, not keen to argue the point; he was exhausted.  "I just need to go and check on Shannon first," he answered.  He and Max bid their goodbyes and headed up to the sixth floor.

*****

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