The identity of MacGyver's mysterious nemesis is revealed...how many of you dear readers already guessed it correctly?
Waking the Dead Part Five
Rated: R
He could follow them, too. After eluding them in the woods, he was able to learn where MacGyver and Pete were going after their funeral trap failed, following them in an ordinary, late model pickup truck with faded blue paint that was slightly dented, remaining a distance behind them so as not to appear suspicious to them, blending in to the semi rural scenery of the area, looking like nothing more than a country motorist. When they reached their destination--a plain, small house--he parked nearby, watching and waiting. Although the house appeared to be simple, unadorned, and easy to gain access to, he knew that once again it was a clever deception. It was heavily fortified with security teams and equipment, ready to apprehend anyone who wasn’t authorized to enter the premises. He had seen it before. The funeral might have almost fooled him, but this house would not. The small, humble residence was perhaps the second most secured home in America besides the White House, protecting MacGyver—but it wouldn’t protect him for long. He could wait. After all, he had waited before—for years. Something would happen. He knew MacGyver would grow restless, feeling imprisoned and smothered and would want a moment free from it, much to Pete’s protests over his safety. It was only a matter of time. He could wait.
***
“I can’t believe we lost him!” Pete shouted, rubbing his face in exhaustion and frustration. He paced the dull, cream-colored living room of the safe house. “I’m sorry, Mac. It was just as if one moment he was there, and the next…gone! I’d never seen anyone move so swiftly and be able to disappear so quickly! It was almost like…he didn’t entirely exist, like a shadow.”
“It’s okay, Pete. We’ll think of something,” MacGyver said, disappointed as well.
“Like what? I’m tired and running out of options, here. Let’s face it, the funeral was a well executed plan. We should have been able to catch him, just as you said we would, but somehow he managed to escape us anyway!”
“Maybe…” MacGyver began, but then he stopped himself, sighing. “I don’t know. Never mind.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something. You’re right about that. This is getting serious. If he fled the funeral, he must’ve known that you were still alive.”
“Not necessarily. He might just have realized that he was being set up. The funeral could have seemed very real to him. Maybe he knew that even though he was concealed from us, there was a chance that he would still be found and get caught because you and the security team were there overseeing the funeral and ready to dispense justice if you saw him.”
“That’s a fine theory, but I don’t think it’s true. He knows now. He knows you’re out there. You’ve spoiled his plans, and now he’ll be angrier and more unpredictable than ever, seeking his revenge and some kind of resolution. We have to consider every possibility.”
“I agree, but we have to take another proactive approach to this situation. We can’t just sit here idly waiting for him to make his next move.”
Both men were worn out, irritable, and discouraged, revealing more of an edge than usual to their voices. Yet Pete noticed MacGyver’s was more pronounced. His movements were jittery and agitated, as if he was having trouble remaining still, his dark eyes flashing with barely contained angry and impatient energy. He looked like a caged lion, ready to pounce and unleash his pent-up, raw reserves on an unsuspecting prey, resenting being caged.
“You mean,
you can’t just sit here,” he said. He sighed and looked at his friend with deep sympathy. “Look, I know it’s hard not being able to take a more direct involvement in the hunt for this man, but you have to realize it’s for your protection. If he sees you…”
“If he knows I’m alive, what’s the difference? Why hide from him when I could do something?”
“Because he could
kill you Mac, and I don’t want that to happen! It’s too much of a risk!”
“I’m tired of being locked away like this! I feel less safe here than I would at my house boat. I’m about to go stir crazy here! The walls are closing in on me, and everywhere I go there’s some monitoring device or some Phoenix security guard following my every move. How could I possibly feel safe when I feel like I’m a prisoner? I have absolutely no freedom!” MacGyver shouted, bouncing his leg faster as he sat on the sofa.
Pete wasn’t shocked by how his friend lashed out so abruptly. MacGyver needed freedom of movement and his independence, otherwise he grew anxious and cantankerous. He had always been that way, which was why he had difficulty establishing roots or connections, his relationship with Pete and The Phoenix Foundation the only constant in his wandering life. He couldn’t imagine how panicked and uncomfortable he must’ve felt when shut away inside his unresponsive body, realizing that there was nothing he could do, for once no escape route available to him.
“I know this is the last place you want to be, but I have no choice,” Pete said. “I care about you. I don’t want to see you…” he closed his eyes, picturing MacGyver’s stiff body in his arms again. “It’s only temporary, as I’ve said before.”
MacGyver shook his head and stood up, placing a firm hand on Pete’s shoulder. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” he said. “It’s just…nothing will be accomplished if I’m stuck here, being coddled. I have to do something. I have to take action. I can’t be a spectator on something that will ultimately affect the course of my life.”
He began walking towards the front door, a nervous guard glancing at Pete when he saw him. He tried to block him from leaving. MacGyver turned to face Pete, his expression almost plaintive.
“Please tell him to let me go,” he said.
“I can’t,” Pete said, hating to see his friend feel so restricted. “Where did you think you were going to go?”
“I just want to go for a drive. I have to get away from here to think. I can’t concentrate here with all this so-called protection surrounding me. Can’t I even do that?” MacGyver asked, almost growling. He felt the whole situation was absurd, as if he was a teenager asking his father to borrow the car, trying to prove he was responsible enough.
Pete sighed, trying to control his emotions, his voice trembling. “I’m sorry, Mac,” he said. “You know I would let you if I could, but it’s too dangerous right now.”
“I won’t be in my jeep. I’ll take one of our pool cars out front. How will he even recognize me? Besides, I just want to go drive on the local roads near here. Come on, I’m an adult. I can take care of myself. After all, I’ve been in worse situations than this. I can handle it—alone. And anyway, I’ll be right back. I just need to get away for a moment.”
“You’ve never been in a situation as unique as this one. If this man finds you again, and injects you with another dose of that…God knows what he’ll try on you next? No, I can’t permit it. I’m sorry.”
“Pete, how could you have such limited confidence in me? My life has been threatened countless times when you weren’t around to provide extra security, and I managed to survive it just fine. I know you’re concerned for me, and that’s normal. You wouldn’t be considered a good friend if you weren’t. I know you want what’s best for me, but what I need right now is a moment’s peace. If you really care about me, you’d respect my wishes.”
Pete knew MacGyver was right. He didn’t need his hand held over every decision. He had sent him around the world on assignments, always uncertain if he would return unscathed or even alive, no direct contact with him for months. As much as it worried him to send MacGyver on those missions, he also knew that if anyone could survive the impossible, it was him. Seeing his miraculous return from the dead and his subsequent recovery from the poison only reinforced that indisputable fact. MacGyver wasn’t an average man, able to pull off the extraordinary. He had to let him go, just as he did whenever he sent him away on those assignments. If he didn’t, he knew his clever, resourceful friend would craft his own way out of the safe house, slipping away unnoticed. Nobody could hold Mac, even if it was for his own good.
“All right,” he said quietly, nodding and closing his eyes. “You can go, just for awhile. At least take a member of our security forces with you.”
“Pete, I have to do this alone.”
Pete nodded again. “I know,” he said. “Go ahead. Be careful, though—for me. Please.”
MacGyver smiled at him. “I’ll be back soon,” he said.
He turned to leave, stepping around the guard at the door. Pete watched him, knowing that MacGyver needed to release his tension, but also wondering if he was making a mistake by allowing him to go. He couldn’t let go of the uneasy feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong and that he would regret his decision.
***
The man waiting grinned when he saw MacGyver emerge from the small abode that served as his protective cocoon, looking around cautiously before he got inside the plain white sedan in the driveway. He couldn’t believe the accuracy of his predictions, the timing of MacGyver’s exit perfect. As the car backed out of the driveway and began to turn down the road, he turned the truck around and went in the same direction, giving himself a head start. MacGyver’s car was now behind him, and he watched it out of his rearview mirror. He sped up until it was gone from his line of sight, searching for the perfect location where MacGyver would eventually meet him, and his business could conclude.
***
MacGyver could already feel himself relaxing as he drove, the lush greenery on the sides of the narrow, almost deserted road giving him the peace and freedom he desired, away from Pete’s mothering attitude and the overzealous protection of the security team. He was under no illusions that his life was no longer in danger, but away from that tiny, cramped fortress of domestic hell he began to feel the urgency of his situation lessen, allowing him to enjoy his time alone, completely unfettered by demands or threats. He refused to let this mysterious man stalking him in the shadows control him with fear and uncertainty. He would not be intimidated. His drive was an act of defiance as much as it was a therapeutic release. He was almost daring the stranger to try again, taunting him. A part of him continued to strategize, wondering if his presence away from the intense security could draw the man out into the open. Perhaps he could lure him into another trap. Maybe there was also a decoy situation they hadn’t tried, creating a double that the suspect would confuse for him. The more MacGyver drove, the more ideas he generated for catching the man. Free from constraints, his mind was functioning better. That was not always the case. Sometimes, the pressure of the moment released all his creative energy, but this time, it was being separate from the pressure that allowed him to brainstorm more effectively.
An old, powder blue pickup truck was halfway off the side of the road ahead of him, clearly disabled. One tire looked flat, and the passenger side door hung open. It looked abandoned, but MacGyver slowed down and approached it anyway. He could already hear Pete’s objections in his mind.
Don’t do it! Don’t stop! It could be a trap! For a brief moment, he wondered if it was indeed a carefully constructed ploy, designed to entrap him, so he took precautions, slowing next to the truck but not fully stopping, rolling down his window. The closer he got to the truck, the more badly damaged it looked, the windshield smashed, blood on the dashboard. Unsure of what to do, knowing it could be a serious accident, MacGyver reached for the car phone in the pool car to call the police only to find that it had no reception in that area, fading in and out and crackly.
“Help…please…” a weak, pain-filled voice whimpered inside the truck. It was a woman’s.
Knowing now that he had no choice, MacGyver stopped fully and got out, moving towards the truck slowly.
“Please…I’m badly hurt…”
“It’s going to be okay,” MacGyver said as he got closer to the driver’s side of the truck. “I’ll send for some help, but I’ll take a look at your injuries first.”
Once he reached the driver’s side, he noticed the door was dangling from its hinges, twisted and mangled. A crumpled form lay across the seats face down, trembling. MacGyver gently reached out and touched it.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said. “How badly are you hurt?”
The weakened, broken form moved with a sudden burst of vitality, turning towards him and sticking him in the leg with a syringe before he could even react. The man in the truck leered at him and laughed.
“I always told you that your humanity would be the death of you,” he said.
“Murdoc…” MacGyver managed to squeak, already feeling his throat muscles tightening.
He tried to lunge at him, but the familiar, frightening sensation of his legs hardening caused him to tumble to the ground, the sinister poison once again racing through his veins, stiffening his joints and stopping his heart. It seemed to be taking effect much more rapidly than it had the first time, locking him solidly into place, his jaws clamping tightly shut and his eyelids falling over his eyes, nothing he did to resist its progression stopping it.
NO! He screamed inside his mind.
Oh God, no! He tried to fight it, but once again he was paralyzed and helpless, feeling himself dying but not fully, his heart fluttering weakly then stopping, a strangled gurgle of air escaping his lungs before they ceased functioning. His nightmare had begun anew. This time, he knew the perpetrator, and this knowledge made it even more terrifying than it had been the last time. He knew Murdoc was relentless and would not let the poison fail this time. He dreaded what he had planned for him next, still able to hear him and feel his presence as he stood over his motionless body, laughing freely now that MacGyver knew he was the one who could control him with such power. He now wished he had listened to Pete’s reservations about him going out on his own, knowing there was no way Pete would discover him in that condition this time. Murdoc had complete possession of his body, and he could do anything to him that he pleased.
“Well, MacGyver, it seems both you and I have a difficult time letting go of this life,” he said. “I was impressed and somewhat irritated with you that you were able to awaken from your death-like state last time. Unfortunately for you, I have increased the dose. The poison won’t release you from its grip for days, but I wouldn’t worry—you’ll be dead before then.”
Come on, Mac! Fight this! You can get out of it again! Fight it! MacGyver shouted inside his trapped mind, struggling to move but once again making no progress, his body remaining still and unresponsive.
“You cannot beat it this time, MacGyver,” Murdoc whispered viciously. “Its strength is far too great. You should resign yourself to your fate. You will never move again…unless of course, there is an afterlife where you’re going.”
Laughing again, Murdoc lifted his body, straining against its dead weight, the stiffness and hardening of it making it even heavier. Still, his determination not to fail again made him press even harder until he managed to place MacGyver on the bed of the truck, covering his body with a tarp. MacGyver heard the rustling noises, wondering what was happening but at the same time wishing to remain ignorant.
“Don’t worry, MacGyver,” Murdoc said, patting him on his rigid leg. “It will all be over soon.”
He slammed the tailgate closed and got inside the truck, starting it. Despite the damage he had inflicted on it, the engine still ran. MacGyver heard it start, and he felt it as it lurched forward and began rolling down the road.
Pete…help me… he said in his mind, but he knew Pete would never find him.
He was sealed inside his non-functioning, frozen body again, at the mercy of Murdoc, and no one would hear his cries, his mouth clamped tightly shut, his body paralyzed. The truck continued to roll down the road, and MacGyver could only imagine what unspeakable horrors Murdoc was about to subject him to in that state. He might have escaped the poison’s insidious effects last time, but now he was faced with the very real prospects of losing the battle against it.
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
I guessed right it was Murdoc!!! 
Of course... who else could it have been? 
