xp_logs | Skeleton Coast: Back Into Africa

After eight months with the Hellfire Club, you'd think Pete would be due a vacation. Unfortunately, if the quiet life is what he wants, he has the wrong taste in women. News of Domino's kidnapping finally crosses the Atlantic, and yes, of course it's a set-up. That doesn't mean that Nathan and Pete aren't going to walk right into it.

(OOC: Posted slightly ahead of time on account of player unconsciousness.)

Even Xavier's was quiet at 3am. Especially if you were out by the lake, away from even the boathouse. Pete stubbed his cigarette out, and reached into the pocket of his jacket for the flask he'd brought with him, and poured himself some of the contents.

As he was putting the lid back on the thermos, there was a crack of wood behind him, and he almost dropped the flask. As it was, the drink he'd already poured went all over his hand, causing him to drop the plastic mug.

"Ah! Bastard fuck! Hot!"

"I'd apologize," came Nathan's voice. From the tree. "But I think that can wait for a bit." There was another creak of wood and a rustle of leaves, and then he was landing lightly on the ground. He looked pale and strained in the wan moonlight, and was regarding Pete with a certain amount of concerned wariness. "I came out here with my cell phone," he said, "because I didn't want to wake up Moira and Ray, and because you need to hear whatever GW's going to tell me when he calls. Something's wrong."

"That's the last time I listen to the bald git when he tells me that tea would be a better idea that a fucking drink, I tell you." Pete shook his hand vigorously, trying to get the last of the tea off, then stopped suddenly as what Nate had said sank in, all trace of amusement vanishing in an instant. "Wait, what's wrong?"

Nathan straightened, taking a deep breath and telling himself that he had to be the calm one here. Pete had a nice little facade going on, really - although the avoidance tactics were giving him away, even if you weren't a telepath - but it was liable to crack wide open if the news was bad. And as much as he himself was probably going to be fighting the urge to spontaneously combust if it was, someone needed to be keeping a semi-level head.

"As soon as we got back," he said, meaning 'back from the Hellfire Club', "I sent out half a dozen emails and left almost as many voicemail messages, so that we'd have the best chance possible of GW getting the news as soon as possible and sticking her on a plane for New York." He wasn't quite processing things as well as he should be, Nathan knew that, not with a huge fucking void in his mind where the Askani should be, but that much he'd been very clear on. Dom needed to be here. Now.

"I got a two-line email back from him an hour ago telling me he'd call at 3am our time - he's still in the Congo, he said - and that there was trouble with Dom." Nathan realized he had a deathgrip on the cellphone and forced himself to ease back a little. "I don't like the sounds of that. We have a sort of code, you know, and he didn't say that she'd gone lone wolf, or that she was amusing herself. He said there was trouble."

"Ohfuckno." The words came out in a rush. Pete closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, while he fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette. He lit it, and took a drag, then opened his eyes. "How worried did he sound?"

"If he won't tell me over email, it's not good, Pete." Nathan stared down at the cellphone's backlit screen. Past three. Come on, GW... "That generally translates as 'something I really shouldn't be telling you if I'm not there to personally sit on you.'" He put the volume on the phone up to maximum, wondering why GW wasn't calling one of the landlines at the mansion. "They're split up in pairs all over the fucking continent," he muttered, finally looking up at Pete. "Chasing down leads on these camps. She was with Piers, the last I heard, and anything that could cause 'trouble' for both of them..."

Pete opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if thinking better of whatever he'd been about to say. He shrugged, then sat down, and stared out over the lake.

"Times like this, I have to remind myself that it's Romany that believes in karma, not me. Used to be a lot easier to convince myself of that, too."

"Let's... not go there, all right?" Nathan would have said more, but the phone chose that moment to ring, and he sat down beside Pete as he answered it, so that GW's side of the conversation would be audible to both of them. "GW, what's going on?" he asked, instead of hello. "Where are you?"

"Kinshasa still," was the reply, easily heard even though he was holding the phone between himself and Pete, several inches away from anyone's ear. "I saw your messages when I was sitting down to try and get in touch with you. Pete there?"

"Yeah, he's here," Nathan answered before Pete could. "Details, GW."

"Dom and Ian were in Angola. I guess he worked in-country there with Mistra a few times, so he had some contacts he could hit up for information. He went to a meeting, she went to the market to restock their supplies and never showed back up at their meeting point." Both Nathan and Pete heard Bridge's sigh. "He got in touch with me to tell me what happened, and David and I headed down there to help search. We looked for six days, Nate. I have no idea where the fuck she could be. It's like she vanished into thin air."

Pete's hand shook as he took another drag on his cigarette.

"Someone disappeared her in broad daylight? Without a fucking trace? Fuck. FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!" Another deep breath, and the shaking in his hand subsided. "Alright, keep looking. We'll get in touch as soon as we can get flights arranged. Maybe I know someone in the area you don't."

"We're in Kinshasa to hook back up with the others... I called them all in. Once Mina and Theo get here - they were the farthest out -we're all headed back to Angola." GW sounded tired and worried, moreso than Nathan could remember hearing from him for a good long time. "Let us know about the flight arrangements and I'll have someone meet you wherever you're flying into."

"All right," Nathan said, his voice even. "Talk to you in a few hours."

"Yeah."

Nathan hit the button to end the call, then stared at the phone for a moment. "Angola," he muttered, then stood up. "Getting in fast's going to be tricky. The country may have settled down some in the last few years, but it's still not a popular destination..."

"I could always see if I can get a hand off the British army. I got in touch with Doyle as soon as I got a spare ten minutes, so he's talking to me again, and he owes me after I got shot up last year saving his daughter. I haven't done a HALO in a few years, but it might be quicker than fucking around trying to land anywhere legal..."

Pete's tone was flat, and he hardly moved, just sat there, staring out at the lake.

"Pete," Nathan said as steadily as he could. "We'll find her. I know this doesn't look good, but if I have to scan every man, woman and child in Angola one at a time, I will."

"I just keeping thinking about one of the last things she said to me. That she didn't want to go the rest of her life hating me, and I told her that she wouldn't have to." He took another drag on his cigarette. "I thought I was being so bloody clever. Thought I'd taken care of every angle, made sure that the worst that could happen was that I'd wind up dead. And now it's all over, and it turns out that it might be much fucking worse than that..."

This was a bizarre sort of reversal of positions. Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, and summoned up a tiny, wry smile. "Pete? A little more optimism here, please? That she-devil I raised is too ornery to give up, whatever kind of shit she's gotten herself into this time. I fully expect us to find her and get bitched at for thinking that she needed a rescue."

Pete blinked, then shooked his head suddenly and looked at Nate, half smiling. "Yeah, that sounds about right. It's just that..." He paused. "Look, before I agreed to Al's mad plan back in May, I talked to Dom. She doesn't have any memory of it at the moment, but I wanted her to know what was going on."

Nathan blinked. "She doesn't have any..." He stopped. "Charles?" he asked, tersely. Pete nodded, and he sighed. "She's torn herself to pieces this year," he said quietly. "Put herself back together quite nicely in the end, but... if I'd had any doubts about what she felt for you beforehand, which I didn't, I certainly wouldn't now."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I've done a lot a shitty, shitty things this year, but I wasn't about to start it all by lying to her. And yeah, it makes no fucking difference to how she's felt this year, but I wanted her to know, and I wanted her to agree that it was worth it. Or I wasn't going to fucking do it. I couldn't have."

Nathan looked away for a moment, at the lake. "You know what she told Alison back in July?" he asked quietly. "That she would have gone with you to the Hellfire Club if you'd asked her."

"Yeah, well, there was no way in hell I was going to ask her. It's fucking stupid, I suppose, but despite the fact that she's the only woman I know who I don't feel like I've got to hide the worst shit I do from, I wanted her somewhere else. Christ, never mind the idea of a fucking insurance policy, I just wanted there to be someone outside of Xavier's who meant a damn to me that knew the truth, even if they had to forget. Someone I could think had only lost faith in me because they'd been made to, rather than because it wouldn't surprise them to discover I was capable of what I've done."

He ground his cigarette out.

"Christ, I sound like some kind of fucking hippy."

"It's going to be okay," Nathan said after a long moment. "We're going to find her, and you can-" He was cut off by the phone, ringing again, and he answered it swiftly. "GW? Forget something?"

The answer made him go so ashen that it was visible even in the moonlight.

Pete took one loot at Nate's face, and shot to his feet. "What-?"

"Why?" Nathan asked after a moment, his voice flat. At the answer, unheard by Pete, his expression went just as flat, the shock fading. "Damn you." Another stretch of silence, and Nathan's jaw clenched. "Fine. I'll be there." He hung up the phone and then dialed again. "I know why GW called me on the cell phone," he gritted to Pete. "He knew he was being monitored."

He took a step closer as the phone rang on the other end, dialing the volume up again so that Pete could hear.

"Nate?" was Bridge's terse response. "Did you-"

"Yes. Explanation, GW, now."

"Eris is watching us," was the immediate answer. There was a fair bit of noise in the background, unhappy-sounding voices and a variety of sounds that suggested nothing so much as hurried packing. "Matsuda twigged to the surveillance here in Kinshasa three days ago. We haven't seen Faraday, but it's his people, and don't ask me how we got that."

"It was Gideon on the phone, GW," Nathan said, his voice still flat, betraying nothing in the way of the emotion. "He's got her."

"Good." Pete said. At Nathan's shocked look, he smiled, just slightly, and continued. "What? We're further on that we were ten minutes ago, and it turns out that the bastard who's got her won't have killed her if there's a chance he can use her to yank your chain, and as impressively mental as your uncle is, he's still very fucking stupid, and all things considered, I've had worse news. Bridge, can you lot make sure you keep the bastard's attention?"

He won't kill her, he'll just let someone else do it, was Nathan's first thought, but he stepped hard enough on that to keep it from coming out.

"Depends on what precisely he throws at us," was Bridge's answer. The noise in the background picked up a little. "We can sure as hell make lots of noise, if nothing else... and fuck, that appears to be the Zairean army coming up the road." Bridge started speaking more hurriedly. "Nate, quickly. What did Faraday say?"

"Namibia," Nathan said. "Windhoek, he wants to see me in Windhoek." He rattled off the address rapidly. "Have you got air transport out of there?"

"No, Mina's got the chopper. We've got to go, Nate - I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can." The line went abruptly dead, and Nathan looked up at Pete.

"Windhoek," he said, unnecessarily. "Namibia, not Angola. It simplifies things. We can fly right in." He smiled, a bit tightly. "Helps to be married to someone who can pick up a phone and order us up a Gulfstream at an hour's notice."

Pete chucked his cigarette away.

"You go wake your wife up, then. I'll pack a bag, and see what the most recent intel we've got on the area is, just in case. Your uncle has wound me up good and proper, and needs stamped on."

Nathan stuck the cell phone in his pocket, his expression gone flat again as he wondered what, if anything, Saul knew about this. "A whole lot easier said than done," he said tightly, turning back towards the mansion. "If you're reviewing records while I'm getting us transport, call up the mission file on Chad from July. I don't know how many times you met him while you were playing White King-" And setting me up, Nathan didn't say. "-but he presents a tactical complication I haven't quite managed to solve."

"Met him enough times to get an idea what his hobbies are, yeah. And funnily enough, it was that that got me thinking about 'solving' him at some point, but I'm not so stupid as to think it's easy."

Pete shrugged.

"But I can't think of much better incentive to give it a go, can you?"

"I don't need any more incentive to want him dead," Nathan said, his voice low. "He's given me nothing but incentive. And if my father's there with him, maybe we can make it two for one."

"I think I could live with that." Pete said, blandly. He looked down at the flask he was still holding in one hand. "You know, Charlie suggested peace and quiet and tea might help, but somehow, I think going out and happening to someone that really fucking deserves it is more my metier..."

Nathan blinked and looked at Pete - really looked at him, hard. "The peace and quiet and tea are going to be necessary at some point," he said, his tone suddenly unreadable, "but I think you'd do a whole lot better on some peaceful, quiet beach with Dom mocking you for drinking tea." He shook his head abruptly, as if shaking off the conversation. "You go review the intel files. I'll wake up Moira."

With that, he leapt straight upwards, the telekinetic assist taking him to the top of the tree again, and then into the air from there.

Pete glanced up, watching Nathan vanish, then sagged against the tree. He dropped the flask without looking down, then pulled another cigarette from his packet, and fumbled with his lighter, but found his hands were suddenly shaking too badly to light it.

"Not now, Wisdom. Fall apart when the job's done..." he muttered, before dropping the lighter, and concentrating on the cigarette momentarily, causing the tip to flare. He took several deep drags on it, staring fixedly at the shaking hand holding it, until the worst of the shaking subsided. He pushed himself off the tree, gathered up the flask and his lighter, and with one last deep breath, strode back indoors.

--

And while Pete's reading up on intel files, Nathan's waking up Moira, who has some very definite Issues with the idea of the two of them running off to Africa unsupervised. You'd think they were prone to getting themselves into trouble or something.

Moira was asleep. Of course she was asleep, it was three in the morning and if she'd known he was out wandering around she would have been quite aggravated with him. Since he was supposed to be sleeping and all. Nathan shook his head, blinking a little, and then bent over her sleeping form, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Moira? Love?" He gave her a gentle shake. "I need you to wake up and order me a plane. Nice fast plane..."

Her first reaction was to smack him in the face with a pillow. It probably was a good sign of how distracted he was that it actually hit. "Why th' bloody hell do ye want a plane?" Moira grumped, not even bothering to open an eye.

"Because Pete and I need to go to Namibia tonight." Nathan tugged at the blankets as she tried to pull them up around her chin. "Tonight, Moira."

At that, she looked at him, pushing his hands away and sitting up. "Namibia...wha' th' hell? Tonight?"

"Gideon's got Dom."

Twisting around him faster than she should have been able to move, Moira grabbed for the phone. "When are ye leavin'?" she asked, dialing a number.

"As soon as you can get the plane." Nathan turned away and moved hurriedly to the dresser, throwing a few things into a duffel bag at speed. "He's got Dom," he said, "and he sicced the Zairean army on Bridge and the others."

"They alright?" Impatiantly she tapped her fingers until someone picked up the phone. "Roger? 'Tis Moira MacTaggart. Aye, aye, I know 'tis late but I've an emergancy on me 'ands. Need ye ta transport a few folks ta Namibia, fast as ye can. Aye, Namibia. Nay, I dinnae...hang on." Tucking the phone against her neck, she look at him. "How many are goin'?"

"Two. Pete and I, and if we could fly right into Windhoek that would be best." Nathan paused, staring blankly at his duffel bag. "I need to talk to Charles," he said, "get him to clear us through customs so that we don't have to waste any time..."

She waited until he went into the bathroom before returning to the phone. "Th' bloody idiot says two, except more. Ye'll be needin' ta go ta Windhoek but I'll let them tell ye where they need ta go." Moira smiled. "Ye dinnae 'ave ta do this for free, nay matter tha' fact I 'elped yer niece. We'll discuss tha' later. Talk ta ye soon an' be careful."

Quietly, she hung up the phone and dialed Alison's extension, thankful that it was her and not Haroun who picked up. "Get dressed, Nathan an' Pete are attemptin' ta get their 'eads blown off. Darlin' 'usband o' mine is still packin'." When said husband came back out, the phone was already back in the hook. "Everythin's ready for ye."

Nathan stared at her, quite sure he'd missed something. Not quite able to focus on what that might be, however. Too much else on his mind, and not on his mind, and... "If he hurts her, I'm going to kill him," he said, his voice unsteady. "I may kill him anyway."

"Kindly dinnae get yerself or Pete, I owe him a few beatin's, killed," she asked, sliding out of bed to help him pack. Moira delibaretly bumped into him. "Dom will be fine."

"The Pack's running. They're going to try and meet us in Windhoek." His hands were shaking violently, and he told himself to get it out here. Because he was going to need to be the one in control of himself once he and Pete left, because he was really not sure about what was behind Pete's facade. "He's had her for a week, Moira."

Moira gripped the edging of the drawer so hard that her fingers creaked. "Fuck." She now regretted Nathan not keeping any of his weapons in the mansion for easier access. And her more modern pieces were locked up tight on Muir. "Th' gun closet will nay do ye any good, ta many rifles. Though I think 'tis scary tha' I'm thinkin' o' givin' weapons ta ye an' Wisdom."

"Two of us." Nathan shoved a few last things in the bag. "He can't synch to two of us at the same time. That's got to count for something." He zipped the duffel shut and rubbed at his eyes. "I've got to focus," he said, almost savagely.

"Wha' ye need ta do is once yer on th' plane, ye'll need ta sleep." At the noise he made, Moira put her hands on her hips, managing to make herself look scary even in one of Nathan's old baggy t-shirts. "I'll bloody well drug ye, an' Wisdom, if I 'ave ta. Ye need yer rest or ye'll bot' be sittin' ducks."

"I'll knock him out if I have to. If he won't sleep." Nathan swallowed, rubbing his hands over his face for a moment. "I may need to take my evil little green pills with me. I don't think I can sleep. It's too quiet in my head."

"Ye can always reach for me, on th' plane, though th' distance will make it 'ard," she reminded him, turning back to fish out a couple more of his socks. For some reason, he always forgot extra socks. "When will this end?" It was supposed to have been quiet but she was so tired of this.

"Has to be soon." Nathan took a sudden step forward and wrapped his arms around her, trying to stop shaking. "Stay here. At the mansion. You and Ray. Please? Until I get back... don't even go off the grounds."

Leaning back against his chest, Moira nodded, her hands folding over his. "We'll nay even look tha' way," she promised. "If somethin' 'appens at Muir, I'll figure somethin' out. We'll be safe but...ye need ta come back ta us, ye understand?"

"We'll be all right. All of us." He wasn't losing anyone else. Not to Gideon, not to anyone. Nathan closed his eyes, holding her for a moment longer, and then let go. "I have to talk to Charles." As she turned, he leaned down and kissed her. "I love you," he murmured roughly. "Kiss the munchkin for me. I don't want to wake her up."

Returning the kiss, she blinked back sudden tears and blamed it on the late hour. "I will, she'll be wakin' up for some food soon enough. I'll make sure she doesnae levitate off me while I'm doin' it. I love ye and come 'ome safe. Ye an' tha' bloody arse Wisdom."

"You can hit him when I bring him back home. I promise."