Time Sensitive Target

Part 29 - Bury It

Ant heaved the weighted bar back on to the rack, sweat dripping from his brow and off the end of his nose. Between his own grunts of exertion it was impossible not to hear tinny echoes from the cell block. Sonny spotted for him, raising his voice a little louder every time there was an unidentified noise. Ant sat in the dirt to regain his breath and poured water down his gullet, annoyed at having over exerted himself on such little sleep. 

"How much longer?" He panted, wincing up to Sonny as a bead of perspiration hung over his eyebrow. 

"Just under nineteen hours to go," Sonny puffed his chest and seized the bar, legs straddled apart to spread the weight. 

"Not until exfil, until he's done. How long does it take?" Ant glanced to the beginnings of the door he could see across the courtyard, imploring it to open and signal the end. Sonny didn't answer immediately, the veins in his neck bulging as he worked the bar up and down, his mouth creating a perfect circular 'o' as he exhaled with force. He launched the equipment back on to the rack with a controlled but swift movement and spat on the ground, shaking his head slightly. 

"Depends how resistant she is, but obviously there's a limit to how much you can give someone. It only takes about a minute to work, should only last ten maybe twelve minutes each session..." Sonny did the math out loud, realising Jase was pushing the hour mark. 

"They've been in there forty five minutes," Ant stood abruptly, instantly assuming the worst until he reminded himself he'd heard her cries. Unless he was doing other things. 

"Relax man, you have to give them a bit of down time between doses. Time to question them, give them some water..." Sonny trailed off, privately acknowledging that he would have expected Jase to have emerged by now. 

As though the thoughts of both men were being read, the door to the end cell room clanged shut, Jase pounding his boots quickly around the corner of the building. 

"Jase!" Sonny hollered, Ant overtaking him in his beeline for the Master Chief. 

"What's going on, you done?" Ant eyed every inch of the man before him, looking for small signs to indicate Paige's condition. A curdling scream came from the inside of the building. Ant's nostrils flared as his feet automatically launched him towards the door, his body halted by Jase's huge frame seizing him at the shoulders. 

"We're not finished, I needed a leak," Jase eyed him steadily, his muscles tense and ready for the fight. Ant smiled slightly in disbelief, not in the least intimidated by Jase despite his counterpart being at least three inches taller. Sonny stared at Jase carefully, knowing his friend was lying and Ant wasn't fooled.

"You- you needed to take a piss?" Ant repeated dumbly. "Don't you fucking leave her in there!" Ant yelled at Jase as he continued on his path around the building, drawing his zipper open and leaning his head against the cool wall. He just needed... a moment. Just a moment, to reset, that was all. He ignored the bubbling need to violently vomit with a hard swallow and finished his imaginary toilet trip. 

As he emerged back around the building Ant collided into his body, shoving him backwards. 

"You give her the respect she deserves and look her in the eyes while you do what you have to do, you understand me?" Ant aimed a finger at Jase warningly, his voice an ominous snarl. 

Jase nodded slowly with nothing to parry back at Ant. What could he say? He was being a coward, and endangering her because of it. With relief he noticed Sonny was absent from the front of the building, the door slightly ajar. Jase knew he was keeping watch from the shadows. Ant broke the lock on Jase's eyes when he turned away in disgust, the American remaining still in the dark courtyard for a fraction of a second before he compelled his body back to the cell block. 

"Thanks," he muttered to Sonny, who slipped out behind him without a word. He let the door clatter to a close and observed his victim as her eyes lolled to the back of her head, on the brink of passing out. Finally. 

Jase sniffed and trudged towards Paige, bringing her back to consciousness with a soft slap to the cheek.

"When's the document being released?" There was no question in the words Jase was saying, he stated it flatly, bored, knowing the response would be no different, knowing she had no answer for him or for the CIA. 

In a haze of exhaustion and emotion Paige considered for a moment murmuring a date, any date, a random assortment of numbers or a month or something, just to give him something. But she was too tired. She couldn't make abstract thought become functioning words. Her brain and body were so deeply shattered it was all she could do to maintain consciousness. As the waves of pain began to subside she felt her eyes roll again and succumbed to the darkness. 

Jase watched her with silent relief. They were done, it was over. Before he could release Paige and make her comfortable he paced back to the front wall and switched the camera off, the suffocating weight on his chest instantly alleviated the second the red light dimmed to nothing. He had done it; a stellar performance that had every likelihood of appeasing any concerns the CIA still held. Paige was alive, and would recover perfectly after some fluids and rest. Paige...

Jase whipped the knife from his pocket and sliced the restraints, freeing her arms and ankles from the chair. He lifted her with one deft motion and kicked the door open, nearly clashing with Sonny as he carried Paige out into the night. 

"She's just unconscious," he said quickly, before Ant had a chance to react. "Get Matty to set up an IV by her bed, she needs fluids." Jase ignored Ant's glaring expression and walked swiftly to the main building, bursting through the door and pacing down the corridor until he reached the small room they'd given to Paige. He set her down gently, giving her a quick visual assessment and avoiding the nausea in his belly as his eyes hit the sliced fabric of her trousers. She's safe now, it's over. 

Barely seconds later the room seemed swarmed with men and their varying tasks. Ant knelt beside her bed, keeping a stern eye on Matt as he inserted a cannular with some difficulty into Paige's hand. Jase retreated to the corner of the room, edging closer to the doorway but forcing himself to stay. 

"Master Chief," Perry addressed him, watching the scene around the bed in discomfort. 

"What are you here for?" Jase responded, desperate for some air. 

"Sonny told me to see you about the recording-"

"Not now," Jase dismissed with irritation. "Later." 

Sonny stepped towards Jase from where he'd been loitering in the hallway.  "Why aren't you having Perry do it now?" He drawled quietly. 

"They can have it four hours before exfil. When it's too late to change their plans," Jase explained without animation. Why are you still standing here? 

"What if they figure you're stalling?" 

"I may have disturbed the satellite earlier, we've had signal failure since the afternoon. Keep an eye, will ya? I need to take a shower," Jase didn't wait for Sonny to reply, turning away from Paige and the bustle around her and striding down the corridor in deep despondent thought. 

The pipes emitted a now familiar groan as water spluttered from the showerhead, emerging in a pathetic spittle that had absolutely no hope of washing the memory of the last hour from Jase. This was part of the job; suppress it, bury it, drain it away. 

The patter of water across his chiselled torso churned Jase's stomach. It hardly needed any provocation, he'd been swallowing back the need to empty his belly of it's contents for hours. He leaned forward, hands resting on his damp thighs and hurled into the drain, again, and again, until he had nothing left to bring up. He let his open mouth fill with the probably stagnant water and sloshed it inside his cheeks, spitting into the now steady stream of water. Jase leaned an unsteady hand against the grimy tiles, holding himself still and letting the water run down his back. It's over now.