章 81: CHAPTER 80
I drove to Charlie's in record time and a few minutes later a woman who I couldn't recognize walked up to me which made me put up my guard before she peeled off the face to show the young Yelena.
"Nice trick. Get in." We drove around without aim for a while to shake off any tail we had before I asked her what had happened.
"Nat thought that we might have some tails on us for the past few days so she told me to change the routine and route I took so as not to fall inside any net they might have around us while she continued to put herself out there to draw them out."
I frowned at that. "Why didn't she just pack it up and move when she found out that your cover had been blown, or rather called me."
The young Yelena scrunched her brows in contemplation. "I-I don't know. She only said something about not wanting to run and nailing the problems at the head."
It didn't take a genius to realize what Nat was playing at. She was pitting me against whoever was after her and her sister, since she knew I would eventually find myself trenched inside whatever this quagmire was.
She knew someone was bound to come for me after that drama with the council so she took a swan dive, but she couldn't have picked a worse time to do this.
"Did she tell you anything else?" I asked the kid besides me. Sometimes I forget that she is just 15 due to the type of lives we live.
"No. Nat only told me to call you first and no one else if something ever happened to her."
"Wow. Didn't figure she trusted me that much."
"She didn't have much of a choice. It was either that or we spend our whole lives running from people who see us as prospective assets."
Right. "Do you know where she is?"
She shook her head. "It looks like they were being thorough, all the trackers she had on her were disposed of in less than 15 minutes after she sent the distress call."
There was a part I still couldn't wrap my head around – why didn't Nat just tell me about her stalkers when we met a few days back? I shook my head to get rid of the extra thoughts and drove to my house.
I met Steve and the door as we went in and between looking at my face and the distraught expression on Yelena's, it didn't take him two seconds to know something wasn't right.
"What's wrong?"
"Someone kidnapped Nat."
More didn't need to be said as he immediately understood the situation. "You think the council did it?"
"They are the only ones with plausible motives and are also aware of Nat's location in the city. It is either them or some special agents from the Soviets, but I don't think it's the latter this time." I explained.
"How long has she been gone?"
"2 hours and counting." Yelena answered.
"They could be anywhere within the city during that time frame, or outside of it." I exhaled. Steve was right, for all we know they might have bagged Natasha out of the city while I ran rendezvoused with Yelena.
"They got us in a box and the worst part is we don't see an opening."
I dialed Fury and waited for the two rings before he picked up the call.
"What?" He still sounded salty after the whole Stryker thing.
"Someone just took Natasha. Could you maybe help us find a trail?" I could feel Fury scratching his bald head through the phone for a while before he answered.
"I could run recognition but I doubt it'll help any since they did it in broad daylight. Chances are it's a trap and you're walking right into it."
"We'll deal with any traps that they spring up, just try and get me a location."
"…Draul?"
"Yes?"
"You know they're the council right? One misstep on your part and you are wanted throughout the country."
"I know." He heaved a sigh of relief which I cut short at the next moment. "Hopefully they don't do anything stupid." I hope that didn't sound as arrogant as I thought.
I ended the call with Fury and looked at Yelena. "What do we do now?" She asked me.
"We don't have anything to do now. All we can do is wait and see if Fury can get a ping on them and then we'll take it from them." She didn't seem to like that answer as she stood up from her seat and shouted.
"What if they do something to her like torture?! For all we know, she's a breath away from death for every moment of time that we dally!" She was hyperventilating.
"Calm down Yelena. We don't know where they are from or know where to look from. We have no lead whatsoever, so our best option right now would be to lay low until we find a thread to pull." Steve consoled her.
I stood up from the chair and made my way to my workspace. "I'll try to see if I can dig up anything from the cams around Charlie's."
I guess the universe won't give me a small chance of reprieve.
…
I spent hours hacking into cams and whatever I could but it looked like the people who were doing this were pros. The cameras around Charlie's and the neighboring establishments all had a thirty minute lag which was more than enough for a team of professionals to get the job done and hightail it the fuck out of there without anyone being the wiser about what went down.
To be honest, I still couldn't understand Natasha's train of thought when she let this happen. Sure, maybe there is merit in not being the first one to draw fire but they could have very well killed her if she wasn't forthcoming with what they wanted to know.
The digital stamps of the feeds made it pretty clear that whoever caused the lags had a back key to the street cams. That already narrowed down the entire suspect list to only a few people.
The ones who most likely did this was the council, of that I had no doubt about. But I doubt they would go for such a straight forward play.
The people who kidnapped Nat were likely disposable goons or other parties of interest. I refuse to believe that those stuck ups of S.H.I.E.L.D councilmen would be foolish enough to go for a frontal assault. So either they are in collaboration with someone else or it is an entirely new player on the field.
Fury called a while back to tell me he hit a dead end with his search which was all the proof I needed that it was the work of the council, but I still couldn't get their play. What was it that they wanted apart from me being their personal goffer boy? They seriously didn't think that I'd take it all lying down did they?
'Government.'
I dropped all I was doing and went downstairs to meet Yelena. Bucky was sitting at the front of the TV, as he usually does recently, while Steve sat with Yelena who was still fidgety.
"Is there anything?" Steve asked me as soon as I entered the room.
"No. All the cams around the area it happened had lags." I replied.
"Then that means you are either dealing with a capable group or they had help." Bucky gave his two cents.
"The council is the only one with motive if we remove interested parties from Russia. And right now we are in the blind." I sighed as I poured a drink for both me and Yelena.
"So you don't know where we can start looking for her?" Yelena asked. I could feel like she was on the verge of crying as even her hands were trembling when I handed her the drink.
"Fury is running another route since there are the ones with the satellite, all I could do was hack into the local cams. But Fury seems to think that they are still in the city since he doubts they could remain under the radar for that long even if they had left." I tried to console her but I could see that I wasn't doing better.
"In other words we have nothing?" Bucky said and the way her eyes went downcast made me give the handicapped soldier the stink eye.
I even tried hacking into the tag she placed on me to see if could use it as a locator but it seemed like whoever kidnapped her was smart as they didn't leave a chance. Even her phone was gone, definitely broken.
We were all in the sitting room in silence when my phone rang. I picked it up and answered it only to be greeted with silence.
"*Sigh* Hello, who's this?" I asked.
"… Mr. St. Cross, if you want us to spare this woman's life, you'll come alone to the address sent to you…" And with that they cut the call even when I tried calling back.
"That's a pretty nice way to say, 'Hey! We made a trap and we want you to jump right in. We'll be good we promise!'" Bucky mimicked.
He didn't have to tell me as everyone in the room could definitely see that. But the problem was that I didn't have much of a choice and the current situation was fragile.
Sure, killing the council was easy but the main problem came after. I wasn't that patriotic that I would miss the country or anything like that but it would definitely be a pain in the ass to run from people trying to kill you on sight. I was still keeping my fingers crossed on them not doing something stupid even if I was just being delusional.
"Where are you going?" Yelena asked as I made my way out of the house.
"To whatever location they sent. Sitting here and trying to guess where they are when we've hit a dead end is just wasting everyone's time."
"Then I'm coming with you!" I couldn't fully resist the urge to roll my eyes because they did. "What?! You said it yourself, it's most likely a trap."
"Yes and one they prepared for me given that they have some degree of information on what I can do." I shot her down.
"But you'll need help." She still didn't relent.
"And it's entire plausible that where I'm going is not where they kept Natasha. So it will be for the best if you wait for Fury before deciding on what you want to do." I then looked at Steve since he was the only viable soldier around, "You sure you can handle it alone?"
He didn't even take more than a second before he nodded.
"Yelena, you can go with Steve after you've gotten any info from Fury." I told the little girl. Even I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with sending a fifteen year old girl to a gunfight.
If it was my former life, I'd be dragged before a disgusted jury and persecuted my life out straight to jail with 20 as a minimum sentence. But Yelena was a Widow candidate, and she had been sent on missions and even killed plenty during her training.
This world was definitely as fucked up as it was strong.
I drove around for a while before I received the location from another number. Natasha just had to think today was the best day to be kidnapped.
I swerved through the lanes and made my way to the edge of the city because why not? They had to draw me out to such a far place so that any kind of reinforcement I tried to bring along would be delayed and they would know immediately if someone was tailing me.
It took me thirty minutes to get to the location they sent me, which was a 4-storey abandoned complex.
And what do you know? Natasha wasn't here. I mean it would be the height of stupidity if she really was.
I could see through the walls and their bodies and all the people that were hiding while holding some kind of weapons in their hands.
Without any tell on my face, I walked inside the building and stood at the center as I waited for them to kick this meeting in motion. Sure I could just have reversed-ambushed them but I figured this way was better.
We stood in silence for a while, me in the open while they kept it their hiding places before someone had to be dramatic with the lights.
"Draul St. Cross. I did not think you would be brave enough to come here on your own. You are as arrogant as you are foolish."
I couldn't help the sarcastic remark that flew out of my mouth as he said that. "Not like you gave me much of a choice did you?"
"So you would willingly walk into a trap even if you knew it was one?"
"Like I said, you didn't give me much of a choice."
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