Director of Intelligence
Posts: 7,214
Joined: 3 Dec 2005
Gender: Female
Country: USA
SAK owned: Camper&Swissbit
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Season: season 5
Episode:Serenity
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Brown bomber
House: House boat
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Mac in Martinique, ch 11
Musketeers Divided
Mac’s Voice-over:
I’m not normally a malicious person… but I have to confess that I was having just a little bit of fun teasing Chink. His face was changing from green to grey to fish-belly white. A great part of my pleasure was the fact that the muzzle of the gun was no longer pointing at me, but was now angled down at the floorboards between Chink’s feet as he hung his head and gulped to keep his lunch down.
Jones began to give Chink a detailed and colorful description of a recent airline disaster, while I kept one eye on the hanger that DuGaul had gone into. I watched until he came out again, followed by a man shrugging into a flight jacket. This man hurried toward the helicopter while DuGaul headed toward us.
A moment later, another man came running out of the hanger, shouting and waving an object in one hand. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but DuGaul turned and the man handed him what turned out to be a cordless telephone handset. It looked like one of those radios you see in the old war films, but not quite as bulky; a brick with a long antenna poked up from the top.
It reminded me of something a buddy of mine had said to me not too long ago. He was one of the eggheads that I’d hung around with in Computer Science while I was at Westport University. One late night after a halfhearted study session right before our Finals, he had made a prediction that one day in the not-so-far-future, everyone would be able to carry a telephone with them wherever they went. I of course had to make a joke about the dangers of tangled cords. I remember that we laughed about it for the rest of the night. It made me smile again now.
My amusement drained away as I watched DuGaul begin to smile himself, at whatever was being said into his ear. Anything that pleased DuGaul was not likely to be good news for me.
Mac heard a disagreeable noise coming from the front seat. The car door pop open and Chink dashed off into the bushes, one hand over his mouth.
Jones picked up the gun his partner in crime had dropped, and removed the ammunition clip. He also ejected the bullet from the chamber. Both of these things he pocketed, then reached into another pocket and removed a different clip—Mac could see that there was no ammunition in it—and loaded it with a slap.
“Insurance,” he said, offering Mac a brief smile.
Mac’s Voice-over continues:
I suppose I should have been comforted by this, but my Dad had once told me that any gun—loaded or unloaded—is dangerous… and nothing in my experience so far has ever suggested that he might have been wrong.
DuGaul was still smiling when he got back to the car, but when he spoke his voice held no trace of amusement. He indicated to Jones to get out of the car.
“Where is…?” his question was answered by the retching sounds still issuing from the bushes. DuGaul raised his eyebrows and Jones shrugged.
“He’s got a thing about flying, sir.”
DuGaul sighed and held out his hand for his gun. Jones placed the weapon in his hand coolly. DuGaul then seized the door handle and motioned Mac out. “Let’s go.”
For one long second, Jones was afraid that DuGaul was going to take MacGyver and leave him behind.
Jones had come very far in his undercover investigation, and now that it was known which airport and helicopter DuGaul used, it was possible that the flight could be traced and he could discover who DuGaul’s mysterious boss was. But he wouldn’t be able to help MacGyver if he wasn’t along for the ride, and he was sure that the man would be killed as soon as they discovered who he was.
For all of his hardness and determination, Jones did not want MacGyver to die; he rather liked the fellow, even though he’d only known him briefly. He was quick-thinking and clever, and he had not betrayed Jones in an attempt to save his own life. Jones also felt somewhat responsible for involving him as he had.
Jones’ fears were allayed with DuGaul’s next statement.
“Chink! Stay with the car, you miserable excuse for a man! Jones, you stick to this guy like white on rice; do you hear me?” He gave Mac’s shoulder a shove with the muzzle of his gun. “Get into the ‘chopper. We’re going for a ride.”
⌂
Jack pushed and shoved on the sill of the window with all his might, but it wouldn’t budge. He’d already tried to break the glass, but he had no tool other than his own hands to try with, and his knuckles and palms were bruised and torn from repeated efforts. This room was perfect as a prison; there was no furniture and no fixtures other than a small grate for ventilation. The only door to the room was metal and solidly locked. There wasn’t even a knob or keyhole on the inside. The window was a small rectangular aperture high in the wall, showing a stretch of lawn and part of the garden spreading away at eye-level. There seemed no way out… but that didn’t stop Jack Dalton from trying to find one.
If it had been just him alone, locked away in some gangster’s basement storage room, Jack might have sat down and waited, prepared to buffalo his way out of things as he had managed to do all of his life. As much trouble as his tongue had gotten him into, it had gotten him out of even more.
But Jack wasn’t alone. Mike was here—somewhere—and he felt that it was his job to protect her.
They’d separated Jack from Mike once they had entered the huge house. Jack had tried to hold onto her, but he got a thump in the gut for his efforts and they had taken Mike away from him. The thought of her alone, with those goons and that creep in the white suit, made Jack nearly manic enough to try to gnaw his way through the walls.
‘They’d better not touch her,’ he thought darkly, heaving fruitlessly once more on the window. ‘They’d just had better not.’
⌂
Mike sat on a cushioned chair in a room that looked like it could have been used by Napoleon Bonaparte himself. There was a telephone on the desk within easy reach, but she didn’t move toward it. Who would she call? She didn’t even know where she was exactly.
After being separated from Jack, Mike had been escorted to a suite that was decorated in early 18th century French fashion, right down to the huge fresco on one wall; an ancient map that showed rough drawings of the scattered islands of the Caribbean. North America was an unfinished, vague outline that bordered the left-hand side of the painting. Europe and Africa were sketched along the right-hand side in vague strokes except for the France and her colonies, which were wrought in exquisite detail. The Atlantic Ocean splashed down the center in cerulean blue, criss-crossed with old shipping routes and little pictures of sea monsters. The rest of the walls were paneled in dark wood. The furnishings were rich and well maintained, the wood gleaming with oils and the silver and crystal shining. Not a mote of dust was allowed to settle. It felt like a museum.
She had been left in this room with a single man standing by the door, cradling his machine gun in his arms like baby. When Mike looked at him, he seemed to be studying the patterns on the carpet, but when she looked away she could feel his eyes on her.
She experienced a moment of self-consciousness; her clothes were clinging to her, still damp from the water-sprinklers. She dismissed the feeling immediately as useless. Summoning calm, she walked around the room, investigating exits and possible things to use as weapons before she settled herself in a chair. She wanted to comb out her damp hair, but she resisted. She wanted to pace out her anxiety, but she refrained. She sat quietly and waited, hands in her lap, and waited.
As calm and quiet as she looked, her mind raced and hummed. She wondered where they had taken Jack and how she would find him again. She wondered where Mac could be and hoped that he was safe. She knew that he’d come and find them—Mac had never failed to find them yet—but this time, she was worried. She wasn’t even sure she knew where they were, not after having been lost in the jungle for so long. But they were still on the same island… still on Martinique… so there was a chance…
Armed guards and arrogant men in fancy white suits added up to trouble in Mike’s mind… more than just trespassing and illegal detention. Mike was sure that Jack’s gold coins had come from this man, and that though he had gotten them back he was unlikely to just let them go their own way. Was he a drug smuggler? A corrupt political official? A mercenary commander? From what she saw in this room, she wondered if he was some kind of throwback pirate, lost in the glorious past of the French Colonial Expansion. ‘He must not be too popular with the natives of this island,’ Mike’s thought. ‘That’s probably why the armed guards and isolation.’
Before she could further explore this idea, the man at the door stiffened, grasping his gun as if preparing for inspection. A second later, St. Just walked into the room. He paused by the guard and gave a little nod of his head. The man immediately left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
That feeling of insecurity returned stronger than ever as St. Just stood in front of her and stared openly at her. She refused to show how disconcerted she was, returning his gaze evenly. Mike put her trust in her friends. They would come for her; he believed this.
And should something happen before they appeared, she would put her trust in the karate lessons she had taken since she was five years old.
~~~tbc
 Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
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Uh-oh! How unlucky for Mike and Jack to stumble right in to the lions den! 
