Evenfall (172 page)

He thought of all of these things and opened his eyes again, hawk-like gaze spearing into Vivienne directly as the door to Connors' office suddenly creaked open and the sound of the Marshal's alarmed voice spilled out loudly into the lobby. There was a low murmur, the sound of the other man offering a quiet 'goodbye' and then the loud bang of a solitary gunshot that left their ears ringing.

Vivienne didn't even flinch at the noise but the look she gave him seemed at once thankful, more determined and, somehow, heavier. A small amount of tension seemed to leave her shoulders but she didn't dare move from the wall, the scant amount of protection she had from the man now in the inner lobby.

Sin's gaze finally left her face and he twisted slightly to peer around the corner of the desk just in time to see a figure all in black standing in the doorway of Connors' office as a pool of blood spread outward from the door and under his booted feet. He was standing calmly, looking completely relaxed, and even though his back was to Sin and Vivienne, the mask was pulled up from his face. He was staring down at Connors' body quietly, watching the growing crimson puddle, as he fingered the trigger of his gun.

Hands tightening on the shotgun once again, Sin shifted and began to rise but before he could totally react, there was the sound of footsteps coming towards them from the main lobby and a female voice calling out to Connors' killer:

"Everyone else is out-- we have to get moving if we're finished here."

Just as the man began to turn and Sin intended to blast a hole in him, the woman came jogging into the lobby and her eyes zeroed in on Sin's back. Gunfire erupted almost immediately and as Sin ducked out of the way of the rain of bullets, the man yanked the mask back over his face and quickly made his way across the room.

The man looked in Sin's direction, paused briefly, but before Sin could react the woman noticed him. She aimed her gun at him, shouting out a warning to her teammate, and Sin swore under his breath. He leaned out abruptly, sending a powerful blast at the woman with the shotgun. She jumped out of the way, dropping her own gun in the process, as the shell tore through the wall. The woman landed on the opposite side of Samuel's desk and glanced back at the man briefly before Sin rolled out from his side of the desk, abandoned the shotgun and grabbed her by the throat in an attempt to drag her up.

She cried out in pain as his powerful fingers dug into her skin brutally but sent an elbow slamming into the side of his face before twisting out of his grasp and sending a flying knee directly into his midsection. Sin grunted in pain but didn't let it phase him as he pounded a powerful uppercut into her face and wrenched one of her arms behind her back as he pinned her against the side of the desk. He'd done it with the intention of using her as a human shield for the barrage of gunfire that he expected to come pouring in from the outer hall but when it didn't come, he looked up and saw that the man was already gone.

The woman tensed against him and began struggling frantically as she realized she was now alone. Her panic only increased as Sin pressed his Ruger against her temple but before he could pull the trigger, Vivienne stepped out of her hiding spot and stopped him.

"Don't," Vivienne commanded, her unreadable, cool expression back as she studied the woman struggling against his grip. She calmly walked over to them and yanked the mask off her face. The woman looked to be in her late twenties to early thirties, with light skin, long black hair that was mussed from the fight, and light brown eyes that were currently glaring furiously at Vivienne. Although Vivienne's expression gave nothing away as to whether she recognized the woman or not, Sin knew he'd never seen her before. "She could be useful."

The woman wrenched against Sin forcefully, looking ready to tear Vivienne's head off as she spat, "I won't talk, if that's what you're thinking. You may as well let him kill me now."

Sin snorted softly. "That's pretty loyal considering one of your guys just left you to die."

She twisted to turn her glare on Sin. "You don't know anyt--" She stopped speaking abruptly as soon as her gaze fell on his face, eyes widening in a strange mixture of shock and alarm as she took in his features. The sentence died in her throat as she continued to stare up at him and his eyes narrowed suspiciously, quickly picking up on the fact that she recognized him from somewhere.

Vivienne's eyes narrowed very slightly at the woman's reaction but she didn't bother asking her about it; it was obvious the woman wasn't willing to cooperate. "Knock her out. We will bring her with us."

The woman turned back to Vivienne and started to speak but before she could, Sin brought the butt of his gun down on her head without hesitation. She went limp in his arms and he picked her up effortlessly, slinging her over one shoulder. He stared down at Vivienne silently for a moment, not knowing how he felt about this entire situation although he did know that his goal was still to get her to safety. "Temporary command post up until now has been the central bunker."

Vivienne nodded but didn't move to leave immediately. "Summarize the situation first; I have not been off this floor since this began. Who is in control at the command post, what mission did they give you that resulted in your presence here, do we know who the enemy is and what is the status of the rest of the compound?"

"Stephen, Willis and Carhart have been in control up until now but it seems they'd only managed to group up shortly before Boyd and I returned from our assignment so at that time the only information they had
come
from hypothesizing and scouts. All they know so far is that the enemy is operating in small bands, that they know the compound very well and that they got in through the underground tunnel system. They used demolition on three residential halls and killed the lights to cause confusion and distraction as they came here, which I assume now was their ultimate goal. It was also assumed that many agents were down because of the damage to the residential buildings but the agents that managed to gather at the bunker were sent in groups to the hot spots in the compound to get control of the situation."

Sin paused briefly, deciding that he would leave out the fact that Boyd had been the one to ask him specifically to help her. "Me and a few others were sent here because we figured the Tower was the main target and because it was assumed that you and the Marshal were still inside even though it'd been blocked off until now."

She considered that a moment. "The woman said everyone is gone. As a worst case scenario, assuming she was lying because she was somehow aware of our presence and it was a trick, what sort of resistance do you believe we will run into between here and the bunker?"

Sin couldn't help but note that this was the first time she was speaking to him as if he was an actual intelligent being and not just an entirely irrational psycho. "They've been operating in small bands from what I can see, using the cover of darkness to their advantage. Now that some light has been restored and Agent Archer is patrolling downstairs, assuming he hasn't been killed, I should be able to get us out effectively unless for some reason they suddenly swarm us and I become outnumbered."

He stopped talking briefly, glancing out the window. "Although the sun is beginning to rise and since darkness was their only ally here, I'm assuming she was being truthful when she said they were out. Sunrise was probably their signal to retreat. Unless they suddenly double back to save her, which is doubtful since the man left her to die, I think going back should be relatively painless."

Vivienne nodded. "If it is only a rescue party for her we would need to fear, then I doubt we need to worry."

She started to leave then paused and looked back toward Connors' body, which she could finally fully see from her angle. Sin couldn't see her expression but she held herself still for a moment and said nothing. Her gaze slid over to Sin as she appraised him intently, probably deciding the likelihood that he would talk. After a moment she quirked an eyebrow with a look that seemed to say she would not tell anyone about their role in Connors' death and she expected the same of him.

He only nodded in response and together they moved out of the office and made their way down the seventeen flights of stairs in the dim flickering lights from the backup generators. As they expected, they encountered little to no resistance and it really did seem that with the exception of bodies, the only militant left on the compound was the woman that was currently draped over his shoulder. After all that had happened, all of the damage and casualties, it frustrated him that they'd basically gotten what they wanted and left.

They'd achieved whatever their goal was, whether it was assassination or information retrieval or both, and escaped just as they'd planned. Even though they had a prisoner who could potentially talk, he couldn't shake the tension, the anxiety, that they still didn't know what that had been about... who these people even were and how they knew all that they'd known. Still he couldn't help feeling as though the entire confrontation, as brief as it'd been, had ultimately rocked the core of the Agency as a whole and left them with unanswered questions and an overwhelming sense of helplessness at the idea that someone had managed to pull off such a presumptuous plan and that they could very well do it again.

And for some reason he didn't believe it was Janus. This group had been too tightly organized, too deadly, too quiet and stealthy. When Janus attacked they wanted everyone to see it, hear about it and know it was them. They wanted their power to be known and their propaganda to be spread; this just wasn't their style at all.

Even though that was possibly a good thing, that Janus was still in the dark about their base and their identities, it just meant that there was some new threat out there and that this one knew the Agency like the back of their hand.

It was a disturbing thought.

The thoughts crowding his brain kept him tense on the walk down to the lobby and as his gaze swept the area and they took in the gore in the Tower, the unease only built inside of him. The metallic smell of blood was heavy in the air in the main lobby and it seemed that many of the dead were agents would had tried to fight off the intruders as they'd initially stormed the building. Archer caught up with them as they headed towards the now unsealed entrance and he shortly reported that many of the non-combatants had simply been hiding or locked away by the intruders while many of the field agents that had put up the initial fight were dead. He also reported that Williams had been killed as the militants had begun to make their escape and that Banks was badly injured but holding up for now.

Sin took in all of this information with little reaction and they continued on their way as the non-wounded employees of the Tower slowly began re-emerging from their hiding places to find out exactly what had gone wrong in the compound that was supposed to have served as a safe haven for them after the horror of the war.

The walk across the courtyard was no better; the area immediately surrounding the tower had a large quantity of dead agents and intruders alike and they passed more than one dead or wounded person on their way to the bunker. The entire time, Sin kept one hand on the woman and one hand on his gun as they strode quickly across the courtyard although he stole a couple of glances at Vivienne now and then. Her face was as frozen and unreadable as always, lips pulled together tightly and shoulders tense as the clacking of her heels seemed to echo across the ground eerily because of the silence.

When they reached the bunker, there was no sniper fire this time and they were granted entrance without delay. They were greeted with mixed emotions and expressions as they entered but Sin released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when he spotted Boyd standing off to the side; when he saw that he'd returned safely.

Boyd looked over the moment he heard the clicking of his mother's heels striding into the room. She appeared physically unharmed but he could tell from the way she held herself that she had something grave on her mind, which he suspected was the fact that the Agency had been infiltrated. She never appreciated it when situations were not fully in her control and he could imagine her taking it as a personal affront that the organization she had spent much of her life working for had been so easily taken over for even a short period of time.

The second he knew she was okay he looked at Sin, quickly checking him visually for any signs of injuries, anything that implied he was putting on a front when in truth he needed to be in the medical wing. Sin seemed to be perfectly fine; the only thing that seemed out of place was the person draped over his shoulder.

Carhart glanced between Vivienne and Sin with an unreadable look but the way his shoulders relaxed slightly showed that he'd been worried. Stephen glanced at Archer as he entered and seemed pleased to see him safe while Willis only looked irritated to find that Sin had managed to survive.

Vivienne strode directly across the room toward the generals, for the most part largely ignoring the people around her. A few of the agents turned to watch; she often spent much of her time in her office so there were some people who had still never seen her in person and others who simply followed her movement because she was the highest ranking person in the room.  When she passed two nearby agents who were watching her dumbly she suddenly stopped and turned a cold blue gaze on them, causing each to straighten to attention.

"Relieve Agent Vega of his burden," she ordered coolly while the two of them glanced quickly over to Sin. "See to it that she is for the moment sedated, secured, and under constant watch. She is not to escape and not to be given the opportunity to do anything inconvenient such as killing herself. Do you understand?"