Chris

"That'll help," Chris says, giving a short nod. She turns to look at Tony who has their back turned to the group as he watches the guards.

"We're going to split into two groups. Tony and I are going after the guards, once they're out, you three come up around the other side and head into the prison. Tony and I will be following you. Inside, there will be two routes and we'll have to split into two groups again. With two outside and three guards inside the mine, there are five guards in total."

She grabs one of the maps to show them. "Aside from this entrance, there's another entrance to the mine that will bring us closer to the abandoned guard post. It's not guarded but we haven't seen anyone use it despite it being shown on all the maps."

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Chase is watching Tony and the guards out of the corner of his eye. "All right. Let's shut up and move." He joins his team.

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The group splits into two with Tony and Chris going in one direction, slightly ahead of the other three.

Chris follows behind Tony, mimicking his movements, careful not to step on any stray twigs. Off the trail, this path is steeper and every step has to be taken with caution. Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness enough that she can see but not much.

Near the bottom, they flatten against the side of the mine and she can hear the guards talking. Tony looks over at her with a brief nod. This is it.

Tony steps out first, grabbing one guard and stunning him into submission, hand clamped on his mouth to stifle the yell. The other guard looks around with a start, fumbling for his gun when Chris comes up behind him, the electricity from her taser providing the only light.

He never saw her coming.

She binds his wrists and ankles, knowing he won't be out for too long. Grabbing his ankles, she drags him over to the side, the adrenaline pushing her along.

Once she sees that Tony has the keycard to get inside, she waves the others forward.

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Tony holds the door open and Chase and his team slip past it. Breathing quietly, he squints into the darkness of the mine.

His night vision is usually good, but it's still a little difficult to distinguish the two tunnels ahead. He leaves his team in the entrance to scout a little closer, keeping an ear out.

The right-hand path is silent. The left-hand one, if he strains his ears, resonates with faint chatter.

His hand moves to his gun. "We'll go this way." He jerks his head towards the end of the tunnel.

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"All right," Tony whispers as he steps into the mine, closing the door behind them.

She can hear what sounds like talking in the distance and it's difficult to think clearly when all she can do is wonder if one of those voices is Jack.

Forcing herself to focus, she follows Chase down the corridor, Tony right behind her.

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Chase moves ahead, moving quietly as possible, paying close attention to the voices down the corridor.

Carefully, he peers into each cell, hoping that one of them will contain Jack.

Please, need to find him for Kim and Angela, need to find him...

But none of them do, and he moves down the corridor gradually, listening.

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There's a row of doors lining each side of the tunnel, some open and some closed. They approach the open ones carefully, staying close to the wall before looking through, guns pointed into the empty rooms.

Chris comes onto a closed door and pushes open the slot that's just above eye-level. As she does a voice comes from inside the cell, pleading with her in Chinese.

She closes the slot quickly but quietly, heart pounding.

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The noise startles Chase, and his teeth clench, heart pounding.

Shit!

Chase hurries forward, gesturing for Chris and Tony to follow, looking around for somewhere to get out of the way of anyone coming.

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A litany of prayers and curses runs through Chris mind, she ducks into one of the empty cells, Tony almost pushing her inside.

For several long moments it's completely silent. The man from the cell has gone quiet (thankfully) but so have the voices from down the hall.

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Chase dashes in, and they stay quiet for a while, until their hearts stop pounding and their breath slows down.

And then Chase nods and motions for them to start down the corridor again.

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Tony and Chris follow him, fanning out into the dark tunnel. They go back to looking through the rooms and she starts wondering if they're ever going to find Jack, if he was even here. Maybe their intel had been wrong, maybe he'd been moved...

Maybe we're too late.

Chris hears a sound, maybe someone whispering and she startles. She looks at Chase and follows his gaze to Tony now standing by one closed cell door.

With the ghost of a smile on his face, Tony nods.

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In the dead silence of the mine, even the softest noises tend to break through the mental fog Jack is wrapped in most of the time. But few noises are ever soft; maybe the movement of a rat through the tunnel, a solitary bat that's lost its way. Human noises are louder; the guards don't bother hiding their footsteps as they want their prisoners to hear them coming.

But the noises that pull him out of his haze don't fit that mold. They're soft, but not animal. It takes him a moment, but these sound like footsteps, deliberately muffled.

Jack tenses, unable to keep from letting out a soft note of pain as he attempts to move back as much as he can, buy himself some time if they come in. Trying to peer through the darkness with eyes that won't focus, he braces himself to face whatever unknown is outside his door.

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Tony opens the door and Chase and Chris head inside.

Jack looks...well, awful, and Chase swallows when he sees him. "Jack, we're gonna get you out of here," he whispers, looking over at Chris.

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"Jack? It's me," Chris whispers, her voice almost breaking. He was bruised and bloody, his left arm in a crude splint and she'd swear he had lost weight.

She talks a breath, trying to keep her voice as even and calm as possible. "Chase and I are going to get you out of here, Jack."

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At first he has to think that he's slipped into another hallucination, because Chris and Chase can't possibly be here. They seem real, but he's almost frightened to reach out and see for certain; whether because they'll melt away or because they'll stay, implying that he's gone deep into some fantasy world, he's not sure.

But he can't not reach out to the people he's been thinking of for so long, using his memories of them to help him cling to sanity by his fingernails.

He reaches out to her with one shaking hand as she fades in and out of focus, praying that this isn't a hallucination brought on by another round of psychotropic drugs.

"Chris? Chase?"

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"It's us." She reaches out to touch his face with her fingertips and she can't keep from crying now. "We're here."

There's a sudden noise from the corridor that sends a chill down her spine. She whips her head around and can hear voices and footsteps approaching.

"Jack, can you stand up?"

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At the noise, Chase leans down to to offer Jack his shoulder to hold on to, putting his arms around him.

"Jack, you gotta stand, we've got to hurry."

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"Come on, we've got to go," another voice says from just outside the doorway, and it dimly registers as Tony's voice before Jack's hauled to his feet, the room spinning.

Jack lets out a soft moan as his weight rests on his left leg, his knee screaming in pain as nausea sweeps over him, but he grits his teeth, trying to move past it. He puts his arm around Chase's shoulders, but it's clear that Chase is holding onto him more than he's holding onto Chase.

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A gunshot breaks through the night, followed by several more.

"You try to get him out, Tony and I will provide cover," she says, racing towards the doorway. Flattened against the wall, she can see the guards approaching and mouth tightens into a thin line.

We're so close. We just have to get out of here. So close.

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Jack jumps at the gunshot, trying to turn and look, but it only make his head swim even more than it already is. Oh God, no, they can't get caught, they have to get out of here!

"No, leave me here, get out--" he says weakly, trying to break from Chase's grasp.

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But Chase just holds on and tries to get Jack out, so many things rushing through his head, only knowing that they have to get out, but knowing in the back of his mind that it's going to take a miracle...

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Chris switches over to the otherside of the doorframe so she has the guards right in her sights.

"Chase! Hurry!

She can almost make out Tony across the hall, in another doorway. The hallway lights up with gunshots and it's then she gets clear glimpses of him...

...And another figure coming up behind her.

Before she can turn around, there's a gun against her neck. "Drop the gun."

Nonononono.

"Drop the gun!" He pushes it into her neck. One of the guards has a flashlight and shines it in her eyes. Chris squints but she's seen enough to know that they're surrounded.

She drops the gun.

With a quick movement of her hand, she tries to hit the transponder on her watch but a guard catches her arm, twisting it around her back and pushing her against the wall.

There's a flash of blue light near her face, burning against her neck, then her world goes dark.

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Behrooz then edges toward the other tunnel, trying to sniff the air - he can't get a scent of anything human, though the smell of earth, rock, and dust is a little hampering.

He can't see much, as far down the corridor as his sight goes, and maybe soft voices in the distance. His gold eyes go to Sharpe, waiting.

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Sharpe is following silently, sticking close by.

"You want to take point, lad, or should I?"

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He doesn't hesitate to murmur, "I will", before starting down the tunnel, trying to make out any human smell or the sign of a door along the wall.

There isn't much immediately. The small space and darkness start to bother him a little, but he doesn't show it.

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Sharpe's boots are, somehow, near-silent on the floor as he follows.

He doesn't speak, not seeing any need to.

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He pauses abruptly once they're farther, smelling something human, rather close by...

And there's a door on the right side. He silently leans closer, and sniffs the air again.

Then shakes his head with certainty. Not him. Very carefully, he walks past it.

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Sharpe glances curiously at the door as they pass, but... if the boy says that's not the one, he's prepared to believe it.

Onward, then.

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Behrooz continues, a little more slowly, sometimes sniffing at the doors if they pass, sometimes going past altogether. But he's not getting anything of Jack's scent.

A little ways, and he notices another tunnel intersects up ahead. He can't smell anyone, though there are dim footsteps from the tunnel heading left. He pauses and strains his eyes in that direction, but it's a ways off.

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Sharpe stops abruptly behind him, peering over his shoulder.

"What is it?"

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"I'm not-" But he cuts off abruptly, moving closer, leaning in the direction of the footsteps.

And now voices. He doesn't know any form of Chinese, there's definitely no English -

- are they getting louder?

He backs up, foot scraping on the ground, he's not used to being the one that hides - "They're coming this way."

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A glance around shows there's nowhere to hide except back the way they came.

"How many, do you think?"

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Three distinctive voices, but too many footfalls, there's metal and residue and four separate - did a door open -

"Four - I -" Lamplight starts to crawl forward, ahead of the approaching men, but he turns away for a second -

"I thought I -" But when he abruptly swivels and raises his gun, it's too late. At least it seems the man coming up behind them hadn't expected Behrooz to turn, and the shot hurried - goes off, closer to the stomach. It's pure instinct that causes Behrooz to return fire at all and he's stumbling against the wall without really noticing if he hit.

It definitely won't help them stay hidden, though.

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Sharpe swears under his breath in several languages, and doesn't stop as he turns to face the men who are now approaching at a run, pistol drawn.

He glances at Behrooz, just long enough to check he's still alive, and that the man who shot him's down, before there's no more time.

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He missed.

That's kind of a strange thing to think.

But there isn't much else when he's trying to climb out of thoughts muddled mostly with pain and the sudden, rather clear scent of blood. He grasps at the wall very hard and tries to look in the direction of the other men, the light stinging his eyes.

"I'm - all -"

But he stops speaking, realizing it doesn't matter all that much.

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Three men come racing down the tunnel. Only three, and he's faced far worse odds than that and come out alive.

He aims the pistol, fast but accurate, and fires before any of them have a chance to realize their danger. One.

The sword, drawn smooth and quick with practise, slicing into a neck and almost taking the man's head off. Two.

The third, staring at him wide-eyed, gets a vicious smile and shares the benefit of a quick death with his colleagues. Three.

And then it's back to the fallen boy, helping him up hastily.

"Come on, lad. Let's get you out of here."

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He doesn't really protest this. Though, it's not clear he's thinking much about it, either. His eyes seem rather distracted by the blood, though it's really the smell that's starting to overpower him. It's just to be left there.

He does nod dimly to this, after a moment.

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"Can you walk?" he asks Behrooz hastily, supporting him so much as to be almost carrying him.

The question's intended as much to keep the boy alert as anything.

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