Teamwork

Chapter 9 - The Rescue

"Where?" Oliver said as he quickly walked over to the computer, leaning in to see the map that Sara had brought up on the screen.

"She's in a building on the edge of the Glades." Sara said, noting the slight relief on Diggle's face. She knew he had been beating himself up over the fact that Felicity had been missing mostly because he had been the onetasked with keeping her safe. "Looks like a small warehouse."

"Show me the plans Sara." Oliver demanded. He had to get the information that he needed so that he could go and rescue his girl.

"Bringing them up now." Sara stated, ignoring the demand in his voice. She knew he was tense over the whole situation and she simply worked as fast as she could to bring up the requiredinfo. "The building is currently condemned. It was last owned by… Queen Consolidated." She finished carefully as she looked to Oliver noting the look of fury that he was attempting to hide. "It was emptied and abandoned just before you came home."

"Diggle, you ready to go?" Oliver turned to his partner and asked. He knew Diggle felt bad, but hecould not help but be more than a little irritated at him as well. All he had to do was watch overher, make sure she didn't get hurt and Slade took her from right under his nose. Oliver thought, as he started to clench his fists in an attempt to clamp down on his anger.

"Oliver!" Sara called to the man who she could see the anger coming off of in waves. "It's no one's fault. If Slade wanted her he was going to take her no matter what we did." She wanted him to understand that neither Diggle nor he could have stopped Slade, no matter what they did.

"You're right Sara." Oliver said as he visibly relaxed, even if only fractionally. Turning to Diggle he addressed the older man with sincerity. "I'm sorry Diggle. I've been blaming you and it's not even your fault."

"You have every right to be mad at me." Diggle replied, knowing that it really was his fault that their bubbly teammate was gone. "I should have been watching more carefully."

"No, Diggle, it's not your fault." Sara said, standing and laying a hand on his shoulder. "Slade is a sick, twisted man and he will always find a way to get what he wants. Trust me, there was nothing we could have done."

Diggle slowly nodded his head as he heard what they were saying. Maybe once we bring her home I won't blame myself so much. He thought as he turned to be sure he had all the weapons that he needed. After a moment he turned to Sara and Oliver. "Let's go get her back!"

They all left the lair to go find Felicity. It took them a considerably shorter amount of time than it should have to reach the building and it was surprisingly deserted for having been used as a prison recently. There were no signs of life anywhere. That doesn't mean that Slade isn't watching, waiting to ambush us when we least expect it. Oliver thought as he looked around carefully.

The building was much smaller than what Oliver had thought Slade would actually be using. Especially if he was trying to lure me in. He had also thought that there would be a lot more security than, well, no one. He turned to Sara to see that she also was surprised that no one was there to 'greet' them. This was all too easy. Just as Oliver walked to the door to open it Diggle laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait, the door is rigged." Diggle had seen the faint sign of a wire at the bottom of the door. "I saw doors rigged like this in Kandahar. Almost blew up a buddy of mine because he didn't see it." He kneeled down at the bottom of the door to inspect the trap carefully. He searched to see if he could find where the wire led but unfortunately for them it looked like it led inside the building. "The wire's within reach, so I could cut it, but I can't tell what it's hooked up to on the other side. It could be explosives and I don't want to set it off accidentally. Not with Felicity in there!"