Chapters 16 & 17 - The Monastery

 

Scene 16 Darkness fell on the Bulgarian countryside but the remnants of the night wasn't noticed inside the dim monastery. Mike watched Ethan as he slept. He had taken a room near the back of the hall and was crashed out like some teenager lying on the bed fully clothed. His chest rose in sharp degrees and fell a bit too rapidly for her liking but she had to remember he was injured. That had to account for his heavy breathing. She remembered a time when she was the only thing that rose his blood pressure to that extreme. That had been so long ago. A time before Franklin's untimely accident. A time before Franklin had asked her to make the biggest sacrifice of her life. The decision was still haunting her. She had to stop thinking like this. Her life with Ethan was over, and it was all because of this damn Paris project. Ethan would never know that she was doing this for him. That she was pushing him away to save his life. To save him from the Foundation and the Black Council. To them, the ends justified the means but Michela wasn't willing to pay such a high price. Ethan's life was worth more than turning him into one of the Council's personal assassins. He was meant to do just what he was doing, working for the Legacy and saving the lives of the innocent, not taking them. The massive door creaked behind her as she closed it. She trained her eyes on Ethan's face watching it every second as the door closed completely finally tearing him from her sight. Before she had time to turn around, Michela tripped over something behind her on the floor.The sound of her gasps reverberated down the hall as she tumbled over the massive object in her path. Kevin howled as Michela stepped on his arm and then his chest on her way down. They were a tangle of arms and legs looking more like a tarantula than two different people. Michela blew a long piece of hair out of her face but it plummeted back to where it was. It continued to block her vision. She glared at Kevin through her mussed hair. "Planning on sleeping in front of Ethan's door all night? Or is this what you call roughing it?" Michela said through gritted teeth. "I can't believe you're lying here in the middle of the hallway. You could have killed me." "Settle down princess. I'm only here to stand guard. We talked about this before we came, remember?" Kevin watched Michela sigh as a glimmer of their earlier conversation penetrated through her anger. "Of course I remember," she snapped. "How could I forget something like that?" "Maybe because that big lunk in the next room is acting like a major jerk again? It still bothers you doesn't it?" Kevin wadded up a sleeping bag to use as a pillow and jammed it under his arm. "Well, if you must know... yes, it's still getting to me. But I can handle it. I just never expected him to hate me so much. He never did that with any of the other girls he dated." "You weren't any of the other girls. You're the only one who managed to crack that shell he lives in. He may not admit it but he loves you." "And I betrayed him in the worst possible way. I took my love from him and ripped his father's memory away at the same time. I'm a horrid, horrid person, Kevin. How can you be associated with me?" For the first time since she could remember she let herself feel and a tear slid down her cheek. "You don't have to be strong all the time. What you're doing is damn hard. I don't think I could do it with such grace and dignity. Don't sweat it. When this is all over you'll be back together." "If this is all over, you mean. I wish I was as positive as you but I'm beginning to think this assignment will never end. That it will be the end of what Ethan and I once had." Mike wiped the tears from her face and set her features back to what she'd come to know as her normal daily look. The groves in her head set in two long deep lines and her eyes which once had sparkled with life were now dull and hooded. Somewhere between then and now she'd lost her zest for life. Michela pivoted her legs away from Kevin's chest and positioned herself in the middle of the floor next to him stretching her arms over her head. "You never answered me before. Are you planning on staying out here all night?" "Maybe." Kevin slapped the sleeping bag beneath his head a few times and tried to find a more comfortable position on the solid wood floor. "Care to join me, princess?" "If you call me that one more time your ass has had it." Mike tried not to crack a smile but failed miserably. "How did our lives get so screwed up anyway?" "Justify it like I do, blame it all on Dad. He's the one who got us into this mess to begin with." Kevin stared at the wood beams angling down the cathedral ceiling. "He may not have been ultimately responsible but he set the wheels in motion. Neither one of us wanted our lives to be like this, Mike." "I wish we could get a lead on who WAS responsible. I KNOW your Dad knows. He won't tell me because he's afraid I'll go out and kill someone and ruin his plans." Mike made imaginary quotations in the air when she said the word, plans. "We may not entirely know what's going on, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that Gia and Philip are in this up to their eyeballs." Mike cocked her head to the right and looked at him in contemplation. "I can understand Philip, but you really think Gia would stoop so low?" "Lower." The comment drew long stare from Mike who sat up and studied him curious to hear the entire story. "You don't know her like Ethan and I do. That is one cold bitch." "I guess I'll have to take your word for it, then. I must be thinking of someone else." Kevin closed his eyes but they flew open suddenly. "Are you saying you might have known Gia before she was in the Legacy?" He sat up eager to hear anything about the Legacy's most mysterious operative. "She's been a enigma for years. I've heard rumors that she has amnesia but I'm not buying it. You can't fake an attitude like that. I have always wanted to put a chink in that icy armor of hers. Tell me about this woman you knew. Maybe it's her, maybe it's not but it beats counting the ceiling tiles while we guard my big brother." "The way you talk about her, I'm not certain it is the same woman." She swiveled around and leaned against the closed door to Ethan's room. "Five years ago I was masquerading as a college professor in Amsterdam. I could have sworn from the pictures Frank showed me that she was the same woman I knew back then. Same hair, same body shape, but apparently a different personality." Mike closed her eyes as she vividly remembered the flower lady of Amsterdam. "Her name was Gina, and she lived next door to the University. The land around their estate was amazing. Flowers every where. All shapes and sizes and her garden bloomed in all seasons. It truly looked like a scene right out of the Secret Garden. Many of the other professors liked to comment on her purple cone flowers and Shasta daises. It had come to be a joke on campus. Daises were everywhere. She even decorated her kitchen with them. She was the ultimate daisy freak." Kevin began to laugh. "Has to be a different woman. Gia and daises doesn't compute." "Well, all I can tell you is that the woman I knew had a flourish with nature. From what you tell me of Gia, they're probably two completely different women." Kevin ruminated on the thought of Gia interacting with nature. "Nah, couldn't be her. Only thing Gia does is kill things. _______ While Kevin and Michela spoke in soft tones outside Ethan's door, a mysterious figure cloaked in black appeared from a secret passageway crafted eloquently into a corner of the room behind a fireplace. From her looks she was most definitely a woman, slim, long chestnut hair and a gas mask covering her face. Slowly throughout the night she had let a drop of mercury bead on the bare light bulb which dangled above his sleeping figure. Clearly he was now into hallucinating about his darkest fears. He thrashed on the bed mumbling. Another face appeared through the passageway, this one blonde. She too had a mask fitted on her face. Together they pulled his pale, limp, sweating body from the bed and dragged him through the secret passageway. As they slipped through, the fireplace slowly closed behind them leaving no trace that the intruders had been there. _______ An hour later Michela flinched drawing her from sleep. "Did you hear that?" she said in a muffled tone. Her eyes were droopy and sleep was quickly claiming her body again. Kevin mumbled no and turned over facing her. He was blissfully snoozing away as Mike was drifting somewhere between awake and asleep. "All right then, good night." A second later she was out like a light. ______ Back at Headquarters, Jeffrey paced in front of his computer terminal glancing with concern at the blinking red word. It flashed the word DARK over and over. "It can't be," he said somewhat in shock. "She couldn't have gone dark. I didn't initiate the protocol." This had Jeffrey more than concerned. Both Gia and Philip were gone and he didn't know what to do. This was a serious problem. An operative went dark only under certain circumstances and the Bulgarian mission didn't warrant going dark. There was no reason to. He glanced up to Gia's darkened office and knew he had to get advice from the only other senior member in the building. "Hey there little buddy. You look down. What's the problem?" Boswell Chapman said as soon as Jeffrey entered the weapon and computer arsenal where he was working on fixing a broken Palm Pilot. "I wish you wouldn't call me that," he said in a somewhat harsh tone that was very unlike him. "Sorry, old habits die hard. What's up?" Jeffrey moved closer and turned his back to the security camera near the front of Boswell's office. "Something fishy is going on. Octavia went dark." "So? What's the problem with that? You've implemented the dark procedure many times." Boswell didn't take his eyes off the computer before him as they talked. "That's just the problem. I didn't implement it. It was done remotely from somewhere in Bulgaria." Jeffrey sighed. In all his years in the Legacy he had never had to deal with such a problem alone. "Yup," Boswell said absently. "Sounds like a problem." "Well?" he asked, searching for some answers. "What should I do?" "What can any of us do? Pray." Boswell picked up the now working palm pilot and replaced it in one of the clear sliding compartments around him. "But Boswell, that's not my only problem. Look at this." Jeffrey pulled a mini CD from his pocket and placed it into the computer in front of them. The image was only partially there and most of it was static and white snow from the interference but what he wanted Boswell to see was indeed on the tape. "What am I looking at?" "This is the beginning of Octavia's mission. Look here." Jeffrey pointed to an older man nearing sixty. "He was initially the target." "So? What went wrong? Did he get away or something?" Boswell was getting impatient with Jeffrey's deductive reasoning. "No, ah, well, yes, he got away but he wasn't suppose to. Octavia shot the other man, here." He enlarged the shot of the two men near the picnic table. "Now tell me, who does that look like to you?" Boswell stared at the image but couldn't believe what he was seeing. "That's not...? Ethan? Damn, what are they doing? I had a feeling something like this might happen one day." "You knew that someone would try and kill Ethan?" Jeffrey stepped back in horror that Boswell would let Ethan go in without adequate information to save his life. "No, no. I didn't know anyone would kill Ethan but it fits. I've heard rumors over the years. Knights Foundation doing experiments with implanting chips into operatives brains trying to make the perfect soldier. An agent with no conscience who would kill then could be switched back to their normal personality. But it was only rumors. I never believed them. But the grapevine has been getting worse over the years. I've heard more stories in the last six months than the entire time I've worked here." "There's more," Jeffrey said as he fast forwarded the tape. "I was able to enhance this part so we could see what was happening. "Ethan got away. Look, he has an injury but he somehow managed to get away with the help of these two kids." "Kids? Like we need that complication. Who are they?" Jeffrey closed out of the CD image and settled in front of the keyboard clicking away until the information he wanted appeared before them both. A photo of each teen was displayed before them. "Scarlett and Phoenix Gray. Their father is Graham Gray, the NATO lawyer. I put a few feelers out and he's listed them as missing." "Just what we need. A NATO lawyer sticking his nose into Legacy business. So, what do you think this is, a Knights Foundation scheme or one of Gia and Phil's?" Jeffrey sighed and remembered back to when he was in Philip's office. "I don't think Lancaster is involved. He seemed pretty miffed when he discovered the mission log had been deleted for the Bulgarian mission. I got the distinct impression that he didn't order it even though the log says differently." "Must be Gia then, Ms. Mystery Bitch herself." "What am I going to do? If Octavia and Gia are working together that means this has been ongoing for quite awhile. Octavia is Ethan's girlfriend and has been for two months." "Shit," Boswell mouthed trying to keep his cool. His gray salt and pepper hair flipped around as he turned to grab his coat. "Make the preparations. We're going to Bulgaria."   Scene 17 All Ethan Fairchild could make out was that he was lying prone on a bed, a very lumpy bed. Somewhere above him a light swung slowly back and forth in an irritating rhythm. The rest of the room seemed dark as pitch but the light was extremely bright. He didn't actually know this for certain but through his closed eyelids an arch of red crossed the horizon above him. He wondered why red and not white. Lights weren't red. He couldn't open is eyes to make sure They felt heavy as if pulled down by some massive weight. For awhile he remained in a somewhat agitated state. Every little noise startled him. The vent coming on above him every fifteen minutes was of particular annoyance. He thrashed on the tiny bed afraid to open his eyes. In the back of his mind he found the situation quite humorous. The great Ethan Fairchild was afraid to open his eyes. How pathetic was that? How great was he now? Then his thinking shifted when he heard the tingle of laughter, Michela's laughter. What was she chuckling about? Wondering about this increased his agitation. Was she laughing at him? Were she and Kevin both laughing at him? Had she moved on with her life and found a future with his own brother? The sounds grew louder in his head. Now Kevin was laughing at him, pointing at him. He could see Kevin right in front of him holding Mike and beaming, both howling with laughter and pointing. He held his hands over his ears but the movement didn't diminish the snickers. "Shut up! Shut up!" he yelled. "Stop it. Make it stop!" Sweat beaded on his forehead and thoughts of Michela ran rampant through his psyche. He flashed back to all the times they shared before. She smiled up and him from a rumpled bed and told him she loved him. The scene quickly changed. She was getting ready for a night on the town standing in front of a full length mirror placing a silver bobble on her earlobe. She smiled at him through the mirror and positioned the matching earring in place on the other ear. "What are you looking at?" she said in the vision. "You," he remembered saying. "You're beautiful." She then smiled the most radiant grin and kissed him lightly on the lips. "You should have a better line that that to win a girl's heart." "With you I never needed a line." "True, but you should come up with one and keep it handy. You never know when you might need it." If Ethan could have physically thrown the image from his mind, he would have. Watching the past replayed was too painful. It made him aware of all that he'd lost. It had all been taken from him in one fell swoop as if it had been planned that way all along. How could he believe anything she'd ever said to him? She was the one who killed their father. He had given her his heart and she'd crushed it like yesterday's newspaper. He wasn't one to give his heart to a woman. He'd never become emotionally involved with one before. Too many complications. Too many risks. But he'd seen something in Michela. At least, he thought he had. It was all a sham. An elaborately planned sham. She could be so sweet and vulnerable but at the same time tough and bull headed. She did everything uniquely from the way she dressed to the way she talked. Mike was someone he'd come to want his sister Faith to look up to, and she had. But Michela had played him for a fool. First the theft of the money and then her part in their father's death. It was all too much to think about and the pain was overwhelming. Every mission after that made her seem more guilty, more to blame. How could he ever forgive her for what she'd done? She'd taken his father away from him. Deep inside he knew that this new relationship she'd started with Kevin was the worst betrayal of all. And it only convinced him more of her character, her true character. He hadn't been able to see it before now, but now... now it was all becoming perfectly clear. _________ "What's wrong with him?" Octavia placed a hand on the one way glass and watched as the man in the room next to them thrashed on the bed. His entire shirt was now drenched with sweat, and he was mumbling incoherently. "Why is he acting like that?" "Don't go all soft on me Octavia. This is what we've both wanted." "You don't hear me complaining, do you?" Gia offered a slight crack of a smile, something you didn't see from her very often. This new direction the Black Council and the Knight's Foundation had taken was providing her with endless pleasure. Octavia could see the glee glimmering in her eyes even if it was barely evident on her face. "It's the mercury vapor. It's inducing hallucinations." "That doesn't explain why he's shouting Mike's name like that. He sounds like a wounded animal." "Oh, he's wounded all right and it's only going to get worse." Gia produced a tape she'd been filtering into the room through the ventilation system. "This is Michela Forsythe's greatest hits." She played a snippet for Octavia's enjoyment but it was more for her own entertainment. "I hate you, Ethan," the voice from the tape player snapped. "I'll never love you. I killed your father and I enjoyed it." Gia pressed the stop button. "Where did you get that? Did she actually say those things?" "Of course not, not Miss Goody Two Shoes. But Ethan doesn't know that and in the state he's in, it will only make him hate her more." Gia laughed but it didn't sound amusing. It was hard and cold. "I had one of our computer team piece together conversations between Mike and Ethan. Sounds flawless, doesn't it?" "Pure perfection." Octavia smiled. It may not have been the way she would have handled things but this tactic also worked quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. _________ Faith peered into the darkness made somehow more dreary by the torch lights illuminating the clay walls of the monastery. She knew Scarlett and Phoenix were ahead of her somewhere. She could hear their footfalls echo down the corridor. "Hi," she whispered from behind when she finally discovered them deep in the monastery. Scarlett jumped and Phoenix snapped his head back and glared. "Whatcha doing?" Faith said with a smile. The gesture was sincere but Phoenix was riding on his last nerve and Faith was about to step right on top of it. He stalked off and lumbered ahead a short distance. "Well," Scarlett sighed thoroughly ready to be back in her own warm bed. "We'd be going home if we could only find our way out of this maze." She picked up her pace and trotted forward to catch up with her brother. Faith tried to hold in a snicker but wasn't successful. She grabbed hold of Scarlett's arm and whipped her back around. "If you want to get out of here..." The two gazed up the long corridor. "That's *not* the way." Phoenix turned the corner up ahead and was stopped staring at something on the wall. When the two girl's approached they discovered what had him so fascinated. "Faith, what is that?" She examined it curiously and came up with only one answer. "That, my friends, is a bomb." "What?" Scarlett shrieked. "Well, stop it or something." Her shrill voice echoed down the hall. "I'm sorry," Faith tossed back sarcastically. "Bomb Disarming 101 isn't a course they teach at boarding school. But we don't have anything to worry about, yet, that one isn't armed." "Let's get it out of here. I don't want it exploding on us." Phoenix tried to grab the device from it's place lodged between two support beams but Faith blocked his move. "Do it and this monastery will become a crater." He snapped his hand back as if he'd been burned. "We have to warn Ethan and Kevin about this." Faith started to run back the way she'd come but Scarlett's gasp stopped her dead in her tracks. "What now?" "The panel. It's counting down." Scarlett latched on to her brother's arm for support. "If it wasn't armed before," said Phoenix. "It is now."