Chapter Three #5
“If anything happens to me, please tell my baby birds that I went down fighting,” she said. “Tell them I loved them until my final breath, and I’m sorry they will have to grow up without me, like I did without my mom.”
That hit them all hard, but it hit the man who also lost his mother around the same age like a ton of bricks.
Ethan had tears in his eyes.
Why?
The idea that his kids would suffer like he or Elizabeth did…it was crushing.
In fact, all of them knew how it felt to lose a parent but Gene. His father died when he was in his thirties, and his mother and brothers were still alive.
“Elizabeth,” Chris said.
She stopped him.
“We have to be realistic. His goal is me. If he gets any of you, I’m offering myself up, and he knows it.
I won’t let him torture any of you. He doesn’t want any of you.
He wants me, so my end strategy, if I can’t find and beat him, is that I’d rather he take me out.
Then, it’s over. Just tell them I died loving them, and under no circumstances let them know what he did to me. ”
Gene didn’t like this.
Not.
At.
All.
“He’s not getting us, and he’s not getting you. I didn’t just marry a broad so I can lose her in the same year. Fuck that shit, Elizabeth. That’s not happening on my watch.”
She was to the point.
“I hope not, but I’m losing faith in me now, too. I may not beat this one, and The Hunters may not be able to help. This might be the end of my story.”
She turned her head because she needed to get this shitshow on the road.
Oh, and she needed to get off of this call.
Desperately.
“MATE, disconnect call. We’re landing.”
With that, she disappeared on the screen, and there was that uncomfortable silence in the room.
Finally, Callen broke it.
“Ethan, for the love of Christ,” he stated. “What the holy fuck? You couldn’t tell her you had faith in her?” he asked, angrily. “You couldn’t just fall on your goddamn sword instead of being so ridiculously bitchy?”
He said nothing.
Why?
Callen was right.
His brother laid into him, and he deserved it.
“She’s carrying all of this. You could have given her that. You could have swallowed your fucking pride and just gave her that little thing. She’s out there alone, and we’re in here safe!”
He was aware.
Honestly, he didn’t know why he didn’t. Now, he wished he did. A part of him was shattered apart thinking that he might have just seen her for the last time, and it ended like this.
Instead of rationalizing it, or talking it out, he did what he did best.
He ran.
“I’m going to start working on a profile to see if I can figure out who is next,” he stated.
When he went to walk away, Callen reached for him because he wasn’t done, only, Gene was there and stopped him so his new husband could escape.
When Ethan was gone, Gene kept his voice low.
“We can’t do this. This is exactly what he wants. Ethan just let anger happen, and look what it did. Stop being pissy. We can fix almost everything, but we can’t fix it if he wins.”
Chris touched Callen’s arm.
“He’s right. Gene, go deal with Ethan. Callen, we’re going to get ready to head to the FBI building. You have to let it go. Elizabeth told us he studied all of us, so he likely knows that you and your brother were estranged. You’ve mentioned it in interviews before.”
He had.
Callen was to the point.
“I love my brother. I love everyone here, but if she dies, I don’t want to do this.
If she decides she can’t be with us, because of Ethan, I’m going with her.
That’s my wife. That’s the mother of my children.
We’ve all carried a lot the last few months as Ethan decided to find himself.
I can’t be around if he causes her to leave.
That’s my promise. If I stay, after he causes her to leave us, I will be ungodly to deal with, and I will be vicious to him. ”
Gene understood.
While he loved Ethan, he knew that the man made EVERYONE work for it. Oh, it was worth it, but it took a certain kind of strength that was wearing thin as of late.
“It will work out. I have faith. I believe in her, and this. We’ll stay together. I know we will.”
Well, that had better be enough.
Because at this point, the Blackhawks were ready to break.
In pieces.
* * * The Blackhawks * * *
The Jet
Same Time
Evening
When she disconnected the call, Raphael sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing she was hurting, and the reason was Ethan.
She shrugged.
“I mean, it’s never been the same since we left DC. Maybe I should have let him stay with Gene and I should have gone back home. It feels like he hates me, and I don’t know what I did. We stayed so he could find himself, and the longer he looks, the less it feels like that’s happening.”
Raphael tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
And he was honest.
“He’s scared. We’re all scared. Watching you go down, or seeing you do something so stupid as giving yourself over to Devon…”
She was aware.
It wasn’t like she wanted to do that, but if it came to one of them, or one of her children, she’d sacrifice herself.
“I’m scared too. I just don’t have the luxury to be scared right now. There’s so much on the line, and I’m balancing everything. To think someone could lose their life because of me isn’t something I can handle. I’m one minor inconvenience away from a breakdown.”
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and calmed herself down.
What choice did she have? Someone had to run this mess, and that someone was the head of The Violent Crimes Unit, and also Deputy Director.
HER.
So, she sucked it up.
In that moment, she put on her big girl panties.
Oh, and focused.
“Contact the Secret Service. When we arrive, I need to get right behind that gate. I can’t risk being outside and held up for a check. Make sure we have transport ready too. I have to do this as quietly as possible.”
Raphael understood.
He and Uriel had been working on transport and finding a way to get her to and from the plane to the White House for her meeting.
Unfortunately, they’d shipped all but one of the armor-plated vehicles West to be used out there. The other was the decoy car already at the White House. So, they’d have to be sneaky.
Raphael made the call.
He also told Tiffany when they’d be arriving, so there would be no risk to Elizabeth. If that didn’t work, Raphael warned her that they would contact Gabe and raise so much hell no one would keep their jobs.
And that worked.
As the jet headed to DC, she was going over the information she had.
“He’s telling me where he’s going to drop the bodies. It will have to be someplace familiar. He’d want me to be able to find it, but not have it too public.”
Uriel was of no help on this one.
“Maybe something will come to you when you’re talking with Gabe. What does he want to see you about?”
She shrugged.
“Who the fuck knows? Hopefully, it’s not to bust my balls.
This is NOT the time,” she admitted. “I can’t even work this like a normal case.
None of the victims will tie to him, and I already know who he is.
This is about just leaving bodies around for me to get clues so that I can chase him. He loves the chase, apparently.”
Uriel leaned forward and in no uncertain terms laid down the law.
“If you think I’m going to let you hand yourself over to him, I won’t. I’ll kill you myself.”
She snorted.
“Well, that’s telling,” she said. “Here we are thinking we’re safe and we have a wannabe killer on staff. I never saw that coming,” she joked.
He lifted her chin.
“I mean it. You’re our mother. I know what he’ll do to you. You’re not getting into his grasp. If he takes one of us, you don’t do us dirty by swapping yourself for us. That’s shitty. We’re fucking Marines. We protect you. Why would you damn us to the same fate as having to mourn you?”
And she touched his cheek.
“And you’re mine too, Caspian. I’m getting you back home to your pretty Native woman.
I want you to get married, have babies, and be a dad.
Sometimes, Mom has to do distasteful things to protect her family.
The moral of this story is then don’t get captured.
If you do, then it looks like we’re at a standstill on this one. ”
He made her go there.
“If The Hunters get here in time, will you let them help you?” he asked.
She nodded without hesitation.
What she couldn’t do is risk the nation’s security over her own, but if they could get shit handled, and get back on a transport, she’d utilize them.
She wasn’t crazy.
Her initial intent was to bring him in legally, but after seeing that crime scene, and being two days behind him…
If the universe dropped them in her lap, she’d do whatever it took to save some lives. Despite what she told them about wanting to bring him in legally, she knew she’d break that if given the opportunity to save someone she loved.
Her gut said they were beyond ‘the law’ on this one.
“If they get here, in time, I’m going to do what I don’t want to do, Cas. I’m going to go fucking rogue and kill Devon Slater. If he so much as touches a hair on my children’s heads, husbands, or grown-ass Marines, I’m taking him down with a vengeance.”
He was glad.
“Problem solved.”
She wasn’t so sure.
When justice was destroyed out of need to be the center of the universe, it was ruined forever. Like everything, there had to be checks and balances.
No one could have too much power.
That’s why they had a justice system.
A Constitution.
Everyone was entitled to a fair trial, and not to be gunned down, even if they were Devon Slater.
For her, continually bending that rule was a problem, and one easily rectified.
Just don’t break the rules.
You’d think it was simple enough, but it wasn’t.
Apparently.
As she sat there, trying to figure out where the next victims would show up, the jet was headed to a private landing strip in Virginia.
Again, Jim came over the intercom.
“Director, your chariot is landing. Buckle up, and welcome back to DC, your home.”
Yeah, she wished it was under better circumstance.