Sanctuary 02 - The Only Easy Day (CMS) (MM) (10 page)

"I knew this would happen. Knew as soon as you hit US soil you would be tracking this shit and causing chaos."

"She's my sister."

"I know."

"So I say again, if it was your sister, what would you do?"

Dale looked up at the dark-haired guy who stood over him with his arms crossed over his chest. Dale shook his head.

"Anything." 

The silent moment of introspection was broken by the sound of Dale's cell. He winced when he pulled it out of his jeans and pain shot through his side. He answered it quickly, thanking the heavens it hadn't been broken in the shit he had just gone through.

"Nik?"

"You need to get back here."

"What's wrong? Is it Morgan?"

"No, Robert's contacted us and says he needs our help."

"Do we need to call this in to Ops?" First instinct was actually to go on record with the people that had been unofficially included from day one.

"Already on it," Nik confirmed evenly.

"Okay, give me twenty."

Dale ended the call. Worry shot through him. The kid was in trouble, and it was probably his fault. He should never have agreed to a meet, but Robert had been so damn insistent on putting a face to a name.

"What's happened?" Joseph was holstering his weapon and grabbing a jacket as if he was coming too.

Dale cursed that his first instinct was to tell the idiot who had just been sitting on him to back off and let him deal with this. Joseph wasn't yet a squeaky clean hero in his eyes, but at least Dale had somehow gotten past some of his initial hate to see a glimpse of the man under the SEAL.

"I'm going back; Robert's in trouble."

"I'm coming with you."

"Okay. You come with me but you do what I say, when I say it. This is my team, my call, and if you want to be anywhere near it—"

"Agreed." Joseph interrupted. He grabbed his laptop bag and followed Dale out of the room. Not more than a few minutes after receiving the call, and in complete and utter silence, they were on their way back to the house.

* * * *

They listened to the recording. It was short and to the point and cut off far too quickly for Dale's liking.

"I'm trapped in a bathroom. I fucked up, and I'm scared. I can't get out—"

Dale began pacing the short width of the kitchen.

Robert didn't sound like the confident man who'd negotiated protection for himself. This Robert sounded way past scared. 

"I'm going to get him out," Dale finally said.

"How?" Joseph asked.

"What do you mean how?"

"Look." He pulled his laptop out and pressed the power.

"I haven't got time for this—"

"Wait…" The screen flashed bright in the dimly lit kitchen. Dale couldn't help himself. He peered over Joseph's shoulder to see what had the other man stalling him from running out to get Robert now. Maps cascaded across the screen, and Joseph was tabbing between them.

"Intel on the Bullen place. There's only one realistic way to get to it, bar going in the front door, which I am assuming is not an option?" Dale was shaking his head.

"See?" Joseph indicated the topographical region and traced a faint mark in the lines. "This hiking trail here is part of the Devil's Path that goes around and over Plateau Mountain. It's one of the most difficult and dangerous hiking paths in the world, and an offshoot, here, takes you to the rear of the mansion. I'm guessing they're not expecting anyone stupid enough to ingress at that point."

Dale listened to what Joseph was saying.

"Were you going to break in to their damned home?" he snapped. He instantly realized that was exactly what he himself was considering. Joseph simply shrugged.

"So that's our way in. What about getting out?" Nik was the voice of reason, and Dale, despite his training, wanted to say something like, "we'll worry about that after we have Robert". He didn't. He wasn't stupid.

"Getting out is fine," Joseph said simply. "There's an entire collection of cars and 4x4s in the larger garages to the left. I can handle that."

"
You
can handle it? I'm going in on my own." Dale wasn't expecting this to be a team thing, well, not apart from Nik maybe. "Nik can have my back."

"No offense here," Joseph started. He sounded infuriatingly levelheaded. "This Robert guy could have intel that leads me to who killed Elisabeth. I'm going in. I don't give a flying shit who goes with me, but two of us will be hiking to the mansion and one of them will be me."

"He has a point, Dale," Nik said gently. "He's trained for this kind of thing. Hell, you must have had training in this kind of thing." That was a first. Nik never brought up the whole ex-SEAL thing to his face.

"There is a good reason why they call it the Devil's Path," Joseph added.

"Whatever," Dale said. "Let's hit the road."

"We're not going now," Joseph said simply. "We'll hike in daylight then stay low until dark tomorrow for ingress."

Dale rounded on Joseph, and not for the first time that night, they were toe-to-toe, with Dale bristling in temper. Of course hiking the path would be dangerous in the dark, but Robert needed an out—now. "What the hell?

Robert could be dead by then."

"And if you go in tonight,
you'll
be dead. You know yourself paths are treacherous in daylight; it will be a million times worse in the dark." Joseph was so damn calm, and Dale decided to change the subject, directing his next question to Nik.

"What did Ops say?"

"They'll give us what we need." Nik shrugged. "But as far as the records show at Sanctuary, this is an unauthorized operation, only because it involves Morgan, and the FBI is still smarting we held him back. Sanctuary is mid inspection with an FBI team, and we have to do this on the quiet."

"Sanctuary is who you work for? They're some kind of government protection service, a private army or something? Am I right?"

Joseph sounded curious, but Dale couldn't stop and think about how to answer that one. Robert was in trouble, and the kid needed an out. The longer they waited the more Robert would be thinking no one was coming for him.

Gregory Bullen was reputed to be quick to dispense with those that stood in his way, although there was no proof to back up the rumors. Still, it was likely Robert was alive only because his dad was the one in charge.

"Failing that, we switch to escape and evade."

Joseph's voice interrupted his musings. When Dale had sunk into introspection, Joseph had clearly moved away from deliberating on Sanctuary and had been carrying on discussing this with the other two. Mentally, Dale kicked himself to get back in the game. "So we need proper hiking equipment and we have to be certain we can get there in this weather." He thumbed out the window where rain beat against the glass. A long time had passed since Dale had crossed the kind of terrain the maps showed. Despite the shiver of apprehension, it didn't mean he couldn't do it.

Seems like he had no choice.

* * * *

No one slept, despite Morgan worrying that Dale and Joseph needed downtime before the next morning. Nik and Morgan actually disappeared into their room for an attempt at sleeping, Oscar the Lab going with them. Dale waited for the kits to arrive from Sanctuary, and at just before five, Manny Sullivan arrived, hauling in enough climbing and hiking equipment they could probably conquer Everest.

"I was running system work. I said I wasn't available," Manny groaned under the weight of bags of gear. "But guess who was the only one in the office at ass o'clock."

"Manny, you never leave the office."

"I do—" Manny frowned and then grinned widely, "—sometimes."

Dale introduced Manny to Joseph, but Manny already had a hand extended while juggling a box onto the pile.

"Manny Sullivan, IT expert and general deliverer of important stuff," he said distractedly, then he looked up at Joseph. In the space of a second, IT geek had been replaced by wide-eyed gay geek. "Holy shit," he muttered under his breath as he looked up at Joseph. "Please tell me you like to date short computer experts who fantasize that new version Kirk and Spock are actually spending their time off camera fucking in low gravity?" Dale groaned inwardly. It wasn't right to call Manny socially awkward, but hell, the little guy was out and proud and wasn't backwards at coming forwards at the best of times. God. Dale felt like he had to save the whole awkward situation.

"Manny, he's not—"

"I prefer Han/Luke myself," Joseph interrupted with one hell of an incredibly serious expression on his face.

"And I'll date any guy who can climb mountains and run five-minute miles." Dale could only imagine how stupid he himself looked standing there with an open-mouthed expression. Joseph had not only outed himself in one sentence, but he knew what the hell Manny was talking about? No one knew what Manny went on about half the time.

"Damn," Manny said, pouting. He wrinkled his nose. "Running is not my thing. Guns yes, running no. Never mind."

"What the hell is in this?" Dale asked as he rooted in the first bag and pulled out a multitude of things.

"They said climbing, so I pulled it all."

"Hiking more like," Dale corrected.

"What you brought is perfect, Manny." Joseph slid to his knees by the same bag. "Weather is looking like shit for tomorrow, and they'll put warnings for the path. We'll need rain-weather clothes, layers of them. There is some climbing, so we'll need ropes—"

"I know," Dale interrupted. "I was…" He had a lot of affection for Manny, and he had only been teasing. Now big bad SEAL thought he knew shit about dangerous terrain. He sighed inwardly. "Never mind," he finished with a shrug.

The three of them finally laid everything on the floor, and between them, Joseph and Dale packed enough in backpacks to counter most everything. Manny rooted in his pocket and pulled out what looked like two watches.

"Grabbed the GPS gizmos as well. I'll be tracking you from Sanctuary just in case."

"Nik said this wasn't sanctioned." Joseph said this more as a question, and Manny sat back on his haunches.

"Officially, this whole thing is on operative downtime, but we'll be with you. We always are."

"I asked before about Sanctuary, but no one seemed to want to answer."

"Go on." Manny looked intrigued. All Dale could do was sigh. Manny loved all this superspy shit.

"Is it a government offshoot?"

"Hells no." Manny looked aghast, and Dale stifled a yawn. "It's a private foundation. We protect people, help them when they fall outside normal jurisdiction or when the alphabets get compromised or screw up."

"The alphabets? You mean FBI, CIA—"

"SEALs," Manny interrupted with a sly smile.

Joseph grinned. Dale put it down to lack of sleep added to the whole finding-out-Joseph-was-gay thing, but hell, Kinnon had a dangerously sexy smile.

"So, Dale and Nik are off the books on this," Joseph said carefully. "Why? Isn't this kind of thing exactly what Sanctuary should be involved in?" Manny looked at Dale and then back at Joseph. Dale closed his eyes and then opened them again. Manny clearly wasn't happy explaining that one.

"It's Morgan," Dale started. "The FBI wanted Morgan back under their jurisdiction, but Sanctuary wouldn't allow it. We tend to take these things quite personally, and when someone shot Nik and hurt Morgan, we pulled Morgan away from the alphabets like a hand from a fire. Thing is, at the moment, we have this FBI rep who is shadowing the boss to get a feel for intercompany relations. If he got wind we had Morgan and were aggressively pursuing interest in the case, we could lose any leverage we have saying that Morgan isn't involved in this case any more."

Dale thought of his friend Nik. Damn guy was so far gone on Morgan it was verging on sappy. Well, sappy wrapped in a side order of big tough guy anyway. A few weeks in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly, Nik had Morgan, a man he would die for. Joseph nodded while Manny explained, and Dale watched them thoughtfully. He couldn't imagine ever settling down in this world he lived in and actually wanting the Nik/Morgan level of love. Although hot sweaty balls-deep sex would be quite nice.

Joseph caught him staring as he turned to ask a question, and Dale dropped his gaze as if he hadn't been watching Joseph's mannerisms for the last half hour.

"Leave in thirty?" he said. Dale winced as he moved to stand, the soreness in his muscles from earlier making him feel so much older than his twenty-nine years.

"Yeah."

"You may want to pop some pills for the ribs, old man." Joseph said this and pulled his lower lip with his teeth. He was clearly holding back a laugh. Damn. Dale wished he could come up with a clever answer, but there was nothing forthcoming. So he resorted to glaring and then disappeared into the bathroom.

Out of sight, he rummaged in the first aid under the sink and popped some Tylenol. Standing up and checking himself in the mirror, he wondered if he really looked like an old man. Twenty-nine was still young. Yes, he had seen a lot of the world, first in the Navy, then his short abortive stint as a SEAL, then with Sanctuary. So if experience made him old, he was ancient, but in his heart, he was young.

"You look good." The words were only a half whisper behind him, and he spun on his heel. Joseph was leaning against the half open bathroom door with a smirk on his face. Again words failed Dale. "For an old guy."

Joseph stepped into the bathroom and took the few steps to stand toe-to-toe with Dale. "Did you take some meds?"

"Uh huh."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Joseph shrugged. "I held back as much as I could."

"Ouch—" Dale grasped his chest dramatically, "—
my pride."

Joseph took another step forward, and despite Joseph being the shorter of the two, Dale felt somehow crowded to the sink.

"I enjoyed getting up close and physical though. It's been a long time. Does that freak you out?" Dale's throat was suddenly tight, and the flush of lust rose so quickly in him he had to concentrate on getting his brain to work. 

He finally managed to pull the three words together.