Mitch Rapp's Mission to Central City Book 4: The Sound and The Fury

Chapter 8

Barry and Mitch walked Hartley Rathaway through the elevator of S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin and Cisco met them in front of the elevator. "Being scooped up by two guys clad in head-to-toe leather is a longtime fantasy of mine." Hartley said glancing at both the Flash and Mitch Rapp. Mitch and Barry kept a stone cold look at him. "So thanks." he said as they got out of the elevator. "Well, well, the gang's all here." Hartley said to Caitlin and Cisco. "You've lasted a lot longer than I 'd have thought, Cisco." he jabbed at Cisco. However, Cisco kept his cool and deflected his jab.
"And you didn't last 10 seconds against the Flash or Mitch Rapp." Cisco talked back to him with a serious look in his eyes, and his arms crossed over his chest.
"I was thinking of calling myself Pied Piper." Mitch rolled his eyes in annoyance. Hartley looked everywhere else but the other people in the room.
"Hey." Cisco said. "I assign the nicknames around here." Cisco told him. "Although that one's not bad." Cisco admitted to him.
"Caitlin," Hartley said noticing Caitlin hadn't made eye contact since he came through the elevator. Caitlin raised her head and looked at Hartley with a stone look. "never did get that wedding invite."
Mitch clocked Hartley in the back of the head with his gun that was still pointing at his back. "Shut the hell up." Mitch threw Hartley in front of him to make him keep walking. "Stay in front of me." Barry said as Mitch handed Hartley off to Cisco, The Flash followed Cisco to make sure Hartley didn't run off. Caitlin walked off to be alone.
They all were at the pipeline. Hartley was locked in one of the cells. Cisco was running a scanning program on the outside of the cell. The program was informing Cisco that the human he foreign objects in his ear. "The scanner's detecting foreign metallic objects in your ears. Take them out." Cisco told him. Barry was back in the Cortex watching everything through the cameras. Mitch was standing beside Cisco.
"I can't." Hartley had his arms crossed. Looked at him like he was stupid. "I suffered head trauma when S.T.A.R. Labs exploded." Hartley explained. "My hearing was severely damaged. Without these, I'm in pain you can't imagine." Caitlin walked into the Pipeline with her arms crossed and a frozen stare in her eyes. "We all lost something that night." Hartley said looking at Caitlin. Mitch wanted to shoot him in the kneecap so bad. He knew what it was like to have people like that nip pick at almost everything that happened in your life, all the lives that were lost or taken. "Heh. Very clever, repurposing the antiproton cavities into confinement cells." Hartely complimented fakily. "Wells' idea, I'm sure."
"It was mine, actually." Cisco corrected him.
Then in Spanish, Hartley. "Little Cisco," Hartley said with a coneeving smile. "Still begging for his master's approval."
"If you're so smart why are you the one in a cage?" Cisco said back n perfect Spanish.
"Hartley, don't make this more difficult than it has to be." Caitlin told Hartley interrupting the two arguing in perfect fluent Spanish.
Hartley cocked his head over to Caitlin. Then in French he said to her, "I forgot, you don't like emotions. They're messy."
Then Mitch jumped in to defend Caitlin. "Si vous ne la fermez pas, je vous tuerai!(If you don't shut the hell up I will kill you myself!)" Mitch said back to him in a perfect French accent.
Hartley glanced at Mitch. Caitlin and Cisco looked over at Mitch wondering exactly what he said to Hartley. Before Hartley could ask his question. Dr. Wells rolled into the Pipeline, and told Rathaway to knock it off before, Hartley could say another word to upset anyone else in the room. "Give us a minute." Caitlin, Cisco, and Mitch all exited to let Dr. Wells have a word with Hartley.
When they got to the Cortex, Caitlin finally spoke up. "You didn't have to stick up for me, Mitch," Caitlin said. "But, thank you."
"Woman shouldn't be treated like that, I don't care what you prefer there's a right and wrong way to talk to a woman." Mitch said.
"I think you shocked him." Cisco said. "How many languages do you speak?"
"I speak 10 different languages." Mitch explained then walked into the Cortex to watch with Barry on what Hartley Rathaway and Dr. Harrison Wells were talking about, leaving Cisco and Caitlin alone to talk about what they witnessed.
As Barry and Mitch were watching the security camera screen on the computer. "God, I wish I had taken a language in school." Barry said quietly to himself.
"It's not that important just greeting each other." Mitch said glancing at the screen. "It's Latin. Rathaway said 'Your silence speaks volumes,' and Dr. Wells responded with, 'No man is more deaf than he who will not hear.'" Mitch explained then walked away to sit at on of the far away desks in the Cortex.
"How did you know we were working with the Flash?" Dr. Wells asked Hartley.
"I wrote a hexagonal algorithm," Hartley said, "tracking all of his sightings, extrapolating a theoretical exit trajectory." Afterwards, Hartley Rathaway then simply explained to Dr. Wells, "In other words, every time he ran fromt eh scene of the crime, he ran in this general direction."
"You are brilliant." Dr. Wells said after slightly shaking his head and smiling in a quiet demeanor. "And any anguish you have been through because of me was never my intent." Dr. Wells apologized.
"Not bad." Hartley complimented. "As far as heartfelt apologies go. Except that wasn't for my benefit. That was for you, Flash." Hartley looked directly into the camera in the cell, that Barry was watching from. "It feels good to have the great Harrison Wells behind you, doesn't it?" He said out loud. "But one day, this man will turn on you," he paused. "In a flash. And even you won't see it coming. My only hope is that he leaves you in better shape than he left me. If you're lucky, you'll only be dead. Because every day, I have to live with the agonizing, piercing screaming in my ears." Mitch took a moment to think. Mitch understood his pain but Hartley doesn't understand what it is like to make tough decisions doesn't understand to want to no longer follow by the rules, to be free. "I almost forgot. I told your pet I know your deep, dark secret, Harrison." Hartley laughed. "Have fun letting him in on that one."
Harrison left Hartley alone in his cell, Hartley was left alone with the cell locked but still can see the exit of the Pipeline. Barry, Caitlin, Cisco, and Mitch were still in the Cortex listening on everythign that was being said between Hartley and Wells.