Director of Intelligence
Posts: 7,214
Joined: 2 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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The Rainmakers, ch 26
Coming Up for Air
Pete took the rescue in hand personally… with no protests from Director Burke.
Burke was oddly submissive, in fact, to ‘Andy Colsen’s’ complete initiative – almost as if he knew that the balance of power had shifted out of his hands. That, or he didn’t care to be in charge anymore – he was certainly overjoyed at the sight of Steubens’s bandaged head appearing at last through the access hatch; his was one of many hands reaching to assist the battered scientist as he stumbled on the last few rungs out of the Kiva’s depths.
Next up came Marlow – umbrella first – whose first utterance upon setting his feet steadily on the floor was to announce his immediate desire for a cup of tea, if any happened to be available.
There was a much longer wait for the next survivor to emerge. Barbara Spencer, snugly wrapped and secured to a rescue stretcher, was handed up through the hole like a fresh baguette, strong hands below and above working to make the movement a smooth as possible for the injured woman.
Cases of equipment were handed out, between the emergence of men in their safety gear, one after another until Pete thought he might go mad with impatience – until at last a familiar mop of unruly hair appeared. The last two members of the rescue team who had exited just before MacGyver reached down and handed him up, setting him deftly on his feet.
MacGyver’s face was lit with a smile, made somehow more brilliant by the layers of dirt on his face and clothes. Aside from the bandage he had wrapped around his right hand, he looked as if he’d just had the time of his life. Pete wondered suddenly why they’d all been so worried… after all, MacGyver was MacGyver!
Pete’s first impulse was to gather the young man up in a bear hug… but there were still appearances to be maintained. Instead, he waved an unlit cigarette at him and said, “I can’t believe you did it.”
“Believe it.” MacGvyer waved away an eager paramedic, but gratefully accepted a damp towel from another rescue worker and wiped away most of the dirt from his face. “You got a doctor up here for Spencer?”
“Yes. They’re with her right now.” He nodded toward the knot of medical technicians clustered at the end of the corridor. They had smoothly transferred the woman to a gurney and were bustling efficiently around her. “They’ll stabilize her before taking her by helicopter to the hospital – but how on earth did she manage to get a bullet wound?”
“It was an accident – ” MacGyver said. “A mistake.”
“A mistake!”
“Yeah... look, it’s pretty scary down there. By the time we found them, Steubens had given up on being rescued. Then we showed up and told him about the plan to flood the place with sodium hydroxide. He said he didn't want to die ‘like a seltzer tablet in a glass of water’... he had a gun and tried to take the easy way out. Barbara stopped him. The gun went off and she got hit ... but he wasn't really trying to hurt her.”
Pete looked over at Steubens. “He shot her? Is he still dangerous?”
“No. I got the gun away from him before he did more damage. He's – ”
“MacGyver!” Gantner had been waiting for the injured survivors to be cleared out before he pounced on his friend, locking his hand around MacGyver’s and grasping his elbow, shaking his whole arm in delight. “Good God! You had me worried half to death!! Don’t ever do anything like that again!”
MacGyver winced slightly as Gantner’s grip directly squeezed his hand—exactly where he’d managed to cut himself when he was breaking through the glass to escape the Gas Chamber. One of the men who had come to help them carry Spencer out had taken a moment to wrap some gauze around it for him—he’d forgotten about the injury completely until the medic had pointed at the dried blood on his wrist.
He smiled to displace the pain, and placed his left hand on Gantner’s shoulder and gave him a friendly jostle. “What? This was nothing. I’ve been through theme parks that were scarier than this.”
Gantner shook his head at him in disbelief, wiping the sweat from his brow with a hand that was still trembling. “You’re going to age me before my time!”
MacGyver chuckled, giving Gantner another playful shake before releasing his shoulder. “Don’t mention it. Just tell the State Department not to be late with my fee.” Gantner gave him a quizzical look. “I need the extra cash to upgrade my life insurance policy.” Gantner flushed and chuckled, nodding happily.
“You did it!” Burke burst into the group next, making the narrow corridor where the men were standing feel quite cramped to MacGyver – especially after the ordeal he had just endured down in the Kiva. His claustrophobic feeling evaporated when Burke seized his hand and pumped it.
Must still have a splinter of glass in there…ow.
“You did it! Steubens and Marlow alive and safe! How on earth did you stop that acid leak? What happened to your radio? – we nearly… I mean, you almost ran out of time– well, I’ve never been so glad as when we finally heard from you.” Burke finally released his hand and drew in and held a breath, waiting.
MacGyver let them wait for a few heartbeats, then he said, “Which question do you want answered first? Actually–” he broke off and edged past Burke and Gantner, “I need to check on Spencer.”
The medics were wheeling Barbara’s gurney past. “Hey, hold it a second, guys.”
Barbara was strapped down, but she looked mostly comfortable. Mac suspected that they’d given her a fair dose of some kind of painkiller. Her eyes were shining, and a little color had returned to her face.
“What is this, Spencer – you tryin’ to get outta here without sayin’ goodbye?”
Barbara smiled dreamily up at him. “I’d kiss you, MacGyver, but I got this cold…”
MacGyver smiled back at her, his heart full of pride and affection. “So what’s a little cold between friends, huh?” He leaned down and kissed her. “You’re terrific, Spencer.”
Barbara held his eyes for a moment. She wasn’t able to say any of the things she really wanted to say – not just to thank him for saving her own life, the lives of her friends and colleagues – but also for making it possible for her to fulfill a dream of a life with the man she loved and admired – still loved, in spite of all that had happened, by keeping his silence about what had really happened in the Kiva.
Mac seemed to know already what she wanted to say. He closed his eyes in response, half-a-second longer than a blink: acknowledgment, admiration, respect, faith – all in one fraction of an instant.
MacGyver looked up at the medics, tilting his head toward the exit. “Move her out.”
They rolled her away. MacGyver followed their progress, seeing both Marlow and Steubens waiting, attended by their own cloud of medics. Steubens caught his eye briefly, giving a slight nod of thanks. MacGyver returned a tight smile.
Mac’s Voice-over:
It wasn’t over yet for them… not by a long shot. Once they were out of the hospital, there would be a press conference – requested by Sidney Marlow – and it would be revealed that the ‘Rainmaker’ project was a complete and total failure, that all the results that had seemed so promising had been manipulated and falsified by Karl Steubens. Marlow had to debunk the entire line of research – his life’s work – and his friend Karl’s career would be ruined – but the secret of the Rainmakers would be safe… for the present.
Steubens had seemed relieved by the idea of forced retirement. He had agreed to go along with the entire charade willingly, wanting nothing more than to retreat into a quiet life ... especially after Spencer had made it clear that he wouldn’t be alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so tender as the exchange that occurred between those two bedraggled survivors. Steubens had reached down to smooth away a stray lock of hair from Barbara’s face, and then leaned down and touched his forehead to hers in a gesture as eloquent as a kiss. I had to look away to get rid of the lump in my throat.
Something told me that those two didn’t need me to rescue them anymore.
⌂
“Let’s move this to the Ops Room,” Burke suggested. “I want to hear about everything that happened… but let’s talk somewhere more private.”
MacGyver followed Burke, Gantner sticking firmly to his side with Pete at his back. As they passed through the command center, the technicians and engineers broke into applause, whistles, and fresh cheers.
MacGyver grinned and flushed, humbly dipping his head to acknowledge their greetings. “Thanks, guys… I couldn’t have done it without your help.” The applause increased. Mac held up his bandaged hand in a plea to avoid handshakes, but each man moved in to take a turn buffeting him on the shoulder or patting him on the back as he worked his way around the room.
Burke waited at the foot of the short stair that led to the Operations Room, too relieved to be impatient. As MacGyver slowly drew closer, he saw Keele come in through the garage entrance. The colonel spotted Burke and started across the room, avoiding the cluster of happy men.
“Burke—how much longer before you clear your people out of here? We still have the problem of keeping the acid that was leaked from reaching the river. If I'm going to launch this missile, I need to do it while we still have Delta III conditions.”
“The missile may no longer be necessary,” Burke answered earnestly. “I need to talk to MacGyver before I can send down the team to begin the clean-up. His report will have significant bearing on what procedures will follow.”
Keele took off his helmet and ran his hand over the short bristle of hair on the crown of his head. “I wouldn’t mind hearing this for myself, Burke—I’ve got reports to fill out, too.”
“Join us.” Burke raised his voice to speak to the men in the control room, still noisily celebrating. “Gentlemen! Thank you all! Please clear your stations and report to the evac-point. We’ll all be clearing out here soon, too.” Reluctantly, the men turned away to begin the final evacuation.
Burke stood aside to allow MacGyver, Gantner, Keele, and Colsen to enter the Ops Room. He closed the door behind them. “MacGyver—I know it’s been said already, and you probably still haven’t heard the last of it—but I wanted to say thank you again. You really came through against the odds!”
“I’m glad that I could help,” MacGyver said.
“Now that the lower levels are cleared, we have to take steps to neutralize what acid did spill… as well as the other hazardous materials below. The HazMat team will be working at that now. Anything that you can add to help them would be greatly appreciated.”
“I got a list,” Mac said. He dug into his pocket for a battered and wrinkled scrap of paper. He unfolded and flattened it as much as he could before passing to over to Burke. “I figured you’d need something like this, so I took a few notes on the way back up.”
“Perfect. I’ll get this to the team. Now tell us—sit down, man! you must be dead on your feet—what happened down there?”
“Did you see what caused the explosion?” Keele injected before MacGyver had a chance to speak.
A chair would have been too comfortable; after the excitement of escape and seeing everyone safe, the day was starting to catch up with MacGyver. He propped himself on the corner of the desk instead, to help keep himself alert.
“I found evidence in the Metallurgy Lab that pointed to a large explosion—” MacGyver answered truthfully,“—I found some metallic fragments of the canister of a highly explosive compressed gas. Exactly what it contained I can’t say, the pieces were too small to identify. But if it was volatile enough, it could have set off a chain reaction through the nearby labs, as well as cracking the foundations and collapsing the upper level.”
“It was an accident, then,” Burke breathed, relieved. MacGyver said nothing; he was fiddling with the bandage around his hand. “I told you, Andy… it could only have been an accident.”
‘Colsen’ nodded, but he was watching MacGyver from the corner of his eye. “Yep… you called it, Charlie.”
Gantner puffed out his cheeks, releasing an exaggerated breath. “I'm just glad this is all over now... except for the clean-up.” He nodded toward Keele. “Are you still planning on using that missile?”
MacGyver looked up. “Missile? What missile?”
Burke looked extremely uncomfortable; Keele fixed his glance on a point on the wall behind MacGyver's head. At Mac's side, Gantner was glaring at the others daring them to confess.
Finally, Pete explained, “It was a secondary plan to prevent the acid from reaching the Rio Grande, to fuse the rock strata beneath the Kiva. When we lost contact with you... well, we had no way to tell you about it... and no way of knowing if you had succeeded in stopping the acid.”
MacGyver nodded, processing the information in silence. “If I had failed, it would have helped slow the saturation... but I think you'd have only succeeded in adding a hundred other dangerous chemicals to the soil... there's a lot of stuff down there I don't feel comfortable knowing that they'd be buried in the same hole. Burke's HazMat team should clear out as much of that stuff as possible—then you can fuse your substratum rock. I'd flood the Third level for good measure. There's a lot of acid down in that cracked foundation... and that needs to be neutralized.
“But that's not my job.” MacGyver said, slapping his good hand on his knee. “If you gentlemen don't mind—I'd appreciate a ride back to L.A. I got a very important appointment to keep... and I wouldn't mind a shower and a change of clothes.”
“Of course!” Burke came forward to shake MacGyver's hand again, but Mac moved his bandaged hand away. “Sorry! Gantner, can you arrange for transportation--”
“It's done,” Gantner said quickly. “The State Department will provide a jet back to Los Angeles. We just need to catch one of the choppers to the Air Force base.”
“Beautiful.” MacGyver stood up, stretched slowly, and ambled over to the doorway. A coat rack was fixed to the wall next to the exit, and his jacket was hanging on one of the pegs. He took it down and shrugged into it, sighing contentedly to feel the comfortable familiarity of the sturdy garment. He picked up his game bag where he'd dropped it by the door. Reaching under the flap, he brought out a ruined pair of binoculars. “Who do I send the bill for this to?”
Gantner laughed and slapped him on the back, half-pushing him down the stairs. “Don't think you can pin that expense on me! Binoculars! Who'd have brought a pair of binoculars on a rescue mission underground? What about a rope? Or a flashlight? What were you thinking—?”
Gantner continued to rant in a friendly fashion as they walked away, leaving Burke, Keele and Pete in the office.
“Well! I'm going to get this information to the HazMat team,” Burke waved MacGyver's notes through the air. “Colsen, I want you to follow up the final evacuation of personnel. Make sure we retrieve all the data that we've recovered. Might as well try to reduce our losses for as long as we've got people down in what's left of the Kiva.” To Keele he said, “I think that MacGyver is right... we should follow up with the missile to make double sure that we contain the damage that this accident has—” they moved down the stairs, talking to each other, leaving 'Colsen' alone in the Ops Room.
Pete's Voice-over:
Burke and Keele might be satisfied with the 'accident theory'... but I noticed that MacGyver didn't actually say that it had been an accident. I've worked with him long enough to be able to spot when he's hedging on the truth. But I also know him well enough to know he'd never omit the facts without a damned good reason.
I am in an odd position, though. I know he's not telling the truth... well, not the whole truth, anyway... but I can't really corner him and ask him directly. Because, if I know— I'll have to report it.
I'm going to have to trust MacGyver. That isn't so hard for me to do.
But someday—when I'm retired or no longer working for the Company—I'm going to ask him what really happened down there.
 Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
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You really know how to take an opportunity that presents itself.
