[MacsChick]

Don’t Forget Part Six
Rated: PG

Bound and gagged, MacGyver was thrown into the back of a vehicle painted to resemble a parcel delivery truck. In the back with him was the bomb Eddy planned to explode in the parking garage of The Phoenix Foundation. Dressed in the authentic uniform of a deliveryman, Eddy smiled easily as the security guard approached him and projected a calm, friendly demeanor as he pulled up to the garage.

“How are you doing today?” He asked cheerfully, showing no traces of fear or nervousness that would have been so obvious with Russ.

The guard didn’t return the smile, moving stiffly in militaristic style toward the vehicle with the stern expression of a man completely focused on his duty to protect and enforce regulations.

“I need to inspect your vehicle, sir,” he said, his voice flat. “I’m sure you will understand the reasons. This is a secure government facility you are entering, and it is protocol.”

Eddy shrugged. “Hey, no problem with me,” he said. “Do what you have to do.”

Squirming against the ropes tightly binding his arms and legs, MacGyver knew there would be no chance Eddy would be able to smuggle the bomb into the building. The guard would discover it, along with him. He waited until that moment occurred, wishing he could speak to reveal its location immediately, but the tape sealing his lips prevented him. All he could manage were small, muffled grunts that the guard would never hear, enclosed inside the van. He listened as the guard opened the back door, examining the contents. MacGyver and the bomb were hidden behind stacks of packages that reached the ceiling, but MacGyver knew that if he could somehow knock them over, it would arouse the suspicion of the guard and alert him to the true purpose of the van, foiling the plan before it could ever begin to be set in motion. Wriggling like a worm, his tied body lying on the floor of the van, he tried to move himself toward the boxes. He knew they weren’t heavy, containing little more than air and packaging materials—mere decoys designed to hoodwink searching eyes into believing they were legitimate cargo. If he could get close enough to them, it wouldn’t take much effort—even with his limbs restrained—to cause them to tumble. A slight push, and they would fall. Before he could reach them, Eddy opened the glass partition that separated him from the back and pulled out his gun, pointing it at him, shaking his head silently and holding his index finger to his lips, the boxes piled high inside the spacious van concealing his actions from the guard.

“Everything appears to be in order, here,” the guard said. “You are free to enter.” He slammed the doors shut.

No! You have to look more thoroughly! There’s a bomb in here! MacGyver shouted inside his mind, his lips still glued together by the tape.

Eddy grinned at MacGyver, a mirthful, mischievous twinkle in his eyes indicating how amusing and pathetic he considered his attempts to get the guard’s attention were. Quickly, he hid his gun, closed the glass partition, and turned to face the guard, once again assuming a charming, casual disposition. He looked like any average, easygoing workingman on another typical day at the job, delivering packages, successfully eluding the unsuspecting guard.

“I appreciate it. Have a nice day!” He said, saluting the guard and nodding deferentially toward him.

The guard merely inclined his head in response, still unsmiling. Eddy put the van in gear and drove it into the parking garage, laughing to himself. He slid open the glass partition to talk to his captive again.

“It really couldn’t be any easier,” he said, glancing back at MacGyver, who glared at him hotly with his intense dark eyes. “You know, your security here is still pretty lax. Then again, nobody ever suspects a simple, everyday delivery van. As Poe said, hide it in plain sight.” He grinned, glancing back at MacGyver again, pleased to see him looking so helpless. “You probably didn’t think I knew that reference, did you? You probably thought I was just some ignorant, illiterate backwoods militiaman. Well, I’ll prove to you that we’re more sophisticated than you ever thought. After all, I did manage to bring the bomb into your building without anyone noticing.”

MacGyver continued to struggle against his bonds, but they wouldn’t slacken. Eddy had obviously had some military training of some kind, and he seemed to know enough about knots to know which ones held the best and were the strongest. Eddy looked back at him and watched him writhe, laughing again.

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” he said. “Those ropes will hold you pretty well, I made sure of it. Besides, why would you want to escape when I’m about to make you a part of history? What is it you government types always say? Terrorists—or patriots as I prefer to think of us--like to strike targets they know are symbolic in some way? Well, I can’t imagine a better symbol than destroying not only The Phoenix Foundation building, but its star occupant as well—you, MacGyver.”

He parked the van next to some other cars, its appearance still innocuous and unassuming. It was so ordinary that no one in the garage would ever bother to give it a second thought or glance. All the while, the deadly device that was about to demolish everything around it and unleash a violent, devastating explosion waited inside, as yet unarmed. Eddy was about to change that as he reached over and activated it by flipping a few switches, once again pointing his gun at MacGyver should he try something daring or stupid and try to stop him. MacGyver listened as it began to beep, showing it was now live.

“You know, in some ways, I’ll miss you, Mac. You were a great teammate, and you taught me a lot, but I have a mission to fulfill, and the country’s business takes priority over friendship.”

Laughing again, he closed the glass partition and removed the uniform, revealing his street clothes underneath. He got out of the van and slammed the door, making sure everything was locked. In different clothes, he knew he could disguise himself enough to where he would look like a visitor. He even clipped a cleverly manufactured visitor’s badge to his shirt, knowing he could once again easily slip beneath the scrutiny of security undetected. He patted the side of the van as if for luck and then walked away from it, leaving MacGyver trapped inside with a bomb that was about to explode in mere minutes.

***

Aware that his timing was critical, MacGyver knew that he could never defuse the bomb when his arms and legs were restricted and rendered useless by the ropes encircling them. He had to concentrate on freeing himself first before he could ever attend to the bomb. Lifting his head and craning his neck so he could see the timer, he noticed it was counting down from five minutes. Five minutes was not a lot of time, but it was ample enough for him find a solution—after all, he had no alternative. His fate and the fates of every life in The Phoenix Foundation building—including Pete—depended on his ability to quickly liberate himself from his bonds and try to stop the bomb. Positioning himself, he began kicking at the glass partition with his long legs, knowing he could use the shards of broken glass to slice through his ropes. It was difficult to continuously thrust his legs forward, having to use his full body to push them, rolling on his back. He grunted through the tape over his mouth with his exertion. Eventually, the glass cracked and then shattered, leaving several large, jagged fragments clinging to the frame that he could use as makeshift knives. Dropping his legs and rolling onto his side, he used his shoulder to push himself up, the effort it took to remain upright while he had no use of his arms to steady himself was also a challenge, but he eventually managed to bend his knees under him and raise himself to a kneeling position. Unable to move his legs independently of each other, also locked together by the ropes around his ankles, he scooted himself forward toward the broken partition, wondering if he could reach it while on his knees. It was level with the driver’s head, and since he would be in a sitting position, MacGyver figured there was a chance he could reach it somehow.

Unfortunately, with his hands tied behind him, he could barely lift them enough to reach the glass unless he wanted to dislocate both his shoulders. He tried to stand by pushing his forehead against the side of the van and using his entire body weight to push himself completely to his feet, but to no avail. With his legs tied together, he couldn’t support himself enough to remain standing. They simply hindered his movements too much. He groaned in frustration behind the tape covering his mouth, realizing he was wasting precious minutes and had to act faster. Glancing at the digital timer glowing red and ominously like murder, like the bloodshed that was about to occur, wiping out innocent lives with one swift blast, MacGyver noticed it was almost down to two minutes left. Turning back to the glass, he saw only one viable option for breaking apart a piece of glass he could use. He would use his shoulder, even though that meant he might cut himself, the glass digging into him. Still, a superficial cut was insignificant compared to the rubble and bodies that would be strewn about in the wake of the explosion. He was also wearing his leather jacket, which was thick enough to provide him with some protection from the sharpness of the glass.

Leaning sideways, carefully sticking his neck and upper body through the hole he had created, he twisted his shoulder forward several times until he successfully knocked a decent sized piece of glass to the floor beside his knees. Sighing with relief through his nostrils, he sat down and grabbed it. Once it was secured in his hands, he worked blindly, groping for the sharpest edge. He found it when it cut his finger. Even with his blood flow constricted by the ropes squeezing his wrists, he could still feel some blood seeping from the fresh cut. Ignoring it, he worked quickly, using what he could of his fingers to rock the piece of glass back and forth until the ropes slowly began to give. They loosened enough to a point where he could slip his legs through and bring his hands forward. Using the glass piece a little bit longer, it cut the ropes and made them looser yet, falling from his wrists to the floor. He next worked to undo the ropes around his ankles. Studying the knot, he knew it was complex but nothing he didn’t know how to untie. It was a simply a matter of following all the knot’s twists and intricacies until he found its origins. Working backwards from there, he could understand the structure of the knot and begin to untangle it. With as much patience and endurance as he could muster in the situation, he finally undid the knot, the ropes binding his ankles also sliding to the floor, looking like a pile of dead, limp snakes. He ripped the tape from his mouth and gasped, both from the initial brief moment of pain from adhesive ripping off small parts of his facial hairs and flesh, but also from the relief of being able to breathe more fully, and more importantly, restoring his ability to speak, to inform others of the bomb.

The timer now read less than one minute. MacGyver was an expert on defusing bombs or removing explosives, but he never considered himself as qualified as the professional bomb squad. In situations such as that, it was tempting to think there was one quick, easy solution as there was in the movies. This was reality, however, and MacGyver knew it was never as simple as it seemed. It wasn’t just a matter of cutting this colored wire or that colored wire—there were a lot of triggers and possibilities to consider. He was dealing with a sensitive device that could blow with one touch of his hand or one small, jarring motion, unclear what materials were being used. It didn’t appear to be booby trapped, but he knew from painful experience that appearances could be deceiving. Still, he studied its mechanisms as best as he could with the limited time available to him, eventually disengaging it by doing the unthinkable, the last minute panic solution, the clichéd—he yanked out one of the wires. The timer stopped, and it stopped beeping. He stared at it, incredulous. When he had a moment to calm down and study the device more closely, he realized he had managed to unplug part of the bomb’s power source. He still couldn’t believe his luck. Eddy may have claimed his group was sophisticated, but their bomb wasn’t composed of any of the clever triggers used by the more advanced bombers he had encountered. It was basic and utilitarian, its only purpose to explode without considering something more elaborate such as second and third triggers or booby traps. MacGyver was grateful and relieved that was the case. Now, he had to let Pete and the bomb squad know, since he knew the device could still be active and unstable in some capacity. Also, Eddy would soon learn that his bomb didn’t go off, probably timing it with his watch and he would grow suspicious. Once again, MacGyver knew his timing was crucial. He crawled over the front seats, unlocked the doors and got out of the van, running towards the nearest security guard he could find.

***

“You have to close off and evacuate this area immediately,” MacGyver said, still panting from running.

Ironically, the first security guard he found around the building happened to be the one who had inspected the van.

“Why? What’s going on?” The guard asked, still maintaining his composure.

“There’s a bomb in the parking garage.”

“What? But how? That’s impossible.”

MacGyver shook his head. “It was brought in with a delivery truck,” he said.

The guard’s stony façade crumbled, his mortification showing in his expression as his eyes widened with shock and he stared stupidly at the ground, embarrassed by his failure to find it. He moved his quivering lips several times before finally forming words.

“How…how do you know this?” He asked.

“It’s a long story. Look, we’ve got to bring in the bomb squad. I managed to disconnect part of the power source, but portions of it could still be active and dangerous. Assemble your men and get started on it now,” MacGyver said.

A part of him felt sorry for the man, who felt he was a capable officer only to learn that he had been duped. Another part of him wanted to demonstrate that anyone could have overlooked it and made the mistake, showing his confidence in the man by asking him to undertake the task of securing the area, calling the bomb squad, and evacuating the building. It seemed to work. Regaining some sense of his shattered dignity, the security guard moved quickly, jumping into his station to call all the appropriate authorities.

***

Pete was in the middle of reading some classified documents when the alarms sounded and an announcement carried on the P.A. system.

“This is not a drill…I repeat, this is not a drill! All personnel are to evacuate the building immediately! This is not a drill!” the stentorian voice blared over the speakers.

“Now what?” Pete asked out loud.

His thoughts instantly shifted to MacGyver, wondering if he was anywhere within the vicinity of the building or if he knew what was happening. A cold shiver ran through him when he thought about MacGyver’s memory problems, dreams, and the explosion he kept seeing in them. Could this evacuation order somehow be related? Wasting no time, he headed toward the designated evacuation route with his fellow colleagues, hoping that either MacGyver was nowhere near the building, safely miles away from it, or he was aware of what was happening and had issued the order in the first place.

***

It was difficult distinguishing from all the faces crowding the streets as they surrounded the cordoned off Phoenix Foundation building, staring at it, speculating about what was going on inside. Navigating his way through them, seeing some other people he recognized, he eventually found MacGyver, standing not far from the bomb squad and other officials who had arrived on the scene, seeming to direct them.

“That’s right. The bomb could still be a threat. I stopped it so it wouldn’t explode, but it could still be volatile and unstable, so use caution,” he was saying to one of the men in a protective suit.

“MacGyver!” Pete shouted, running over to him. “Thank God you’re all right! What’s happening? We received orders to evacuate the building!”

“I know, Pete. There’s a bomb in the parking garage.”

“You mean…your dreams?”

“They’re real. I couldn’t remember the events surrounding them because of my concussion, but they’re real. Someone plotted to blow up the building.”

“Who? Do you know?”

MacGyver nodded at the men from the bomb squad when he felt they had enough details to work from and had the situation under control. He motioned for Pete to follow him, distancing themselves from the crowd.

“It was two men from my hockey team—Russ Finley and this other man, Eddy,” MacGyver said quietly.

“I knew that Russ was a shifty character,” Pete said. “I suspected him from the moment I saw him in the hospital.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not all. It seems Russ and Eddy schemed to remove me from the picture when I overheard their plans one night after practice. They set up the fight so that I would get a serious concussion and forget what they said.”

“But you started to remember,” Pete said.

“That’s right. Apparently Russ had enough regrets and liked me enough that he didn’t want to kill me. He tried to when I agreed to meet with him again, but he couldn’t do it, so Eddy shot him instead.”

“When did this all happen?”

“Hours ago. Eddy tied me up and managed to smuggle me and the bomb in through the parking garage, disguising the van he drove as a delivery van. Security never suspected anything.”

“Incredible,” Pete said, imagining how his friend had once again cleverly escaped an almost fatal situation and forestalled what could have been a major tragedy. His grit, determination, and heroism never ceased to amaze him. He never gave up, no matter what the circumstance.

“That’s not all,” MacGyver said. “They were part of some militia, practicing in the woods and planning on overthrowing the federal government. They were going to use The Phoenix Foundation building as their first official target.”

“I’ve heard of these groups,” Pete said. “Unfortunately, their numbers are increasing. Many of them are disillusioned and disaffected ex-soldiers from our military.”

“Yeah, well see what you can do to find any background information you can on Eddy. We have to find him and crack down on his group before he tries this again.”

“Of course. I’ll get on the investigation right away. Do you happen to know his last name?”

“It’s Wozniac, I think,” MacGyver said.

“Okay. That will help me when I search criminal and military records.”

“Good, Pete.”

Pete looked at MacGyver. Despite his exterior calm, he could tell his friend still seemed shaken by all that he had seen and experienced within the span of the last few weeks.

“Are you all right?” He asked.

MacGyver heard the level of concern in his voice and turned to him, smiling. “I’ll be just fine once we catch this guy and his group,” he said. “While he’s still at large, there’s always a chance he’ll try again.”

To be continued…

[ghostdoll]

OMG!!!!!
*running around in excitment*
Updateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

*glomps*

[MacGyverGod]

Wozniac?