Elsewhere

A man sat next to a phone, his hands shaking. He knew that his plans had gone haywire before it could be contained. Special individuals had beaten the ambush and it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. He kept checking that it had a signal. He checked the battery level, even though it was still plugged into a charger.

He picked up the phone and dialed it. He listened to it ring for a prolonged period of time. Finally he heard someone answer it.

Meanwhile

Michael and Lani heard a ringing, coming from the man with the removed jaw and the punctured throat. Michael dug the phone out of his pocket and hit answer. He held the phone to his ear and waited to hear who spoke on the other end.

“Did you seriously use phosphorus stateside?” “Whatever, did you get away?” “these freaks are relentless” “you can’t let this lead back to me, do what you have to”

Michael recognized this voice. Bernard.

Lani leaned in and listened, not yet recognizing it for herself.

“That ordinance I gave you wasn’t meant to be used in America,” he continued on.

Michael had a choice. He could continue to listen to Bernards bullshit, or he could make it clear that he knew what kind of traitor he was, which would cause him to wreck his nerve and start making panicked mistakes. He went with the chaos option and spoke into the phone. “Don’t worry,” he said softly into the phone, “it won’t happen again.” He hung up the phone before Bernard had a chance to respond.

Lani took the phone and shoved it in a pocket after taking the battery out. “Who the fuck was that?” she asked with an agitated tone.

“Our favorite weasel,” Michael said, “that bern-headed fuck whose cable you wanna bite on.”

“Oh,” Lani replied angrily, “that little motherfucker!”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Back at the office

Bernard stood up in a cold sweat. He stepped out of his office, stumbling about and leaning against a wall as he moved. His breaths grew shorter before he clutched his chest and fell over. He tried hard to pick himself back up, but he collapsed a moment later and blacked out.

A guard walked by and noticed Bernard had fallen. He touched his shoulder to get his attention, but there was no response. Quickly making a call, he had medical personnel rush to his location and carry Bernard outside to the entrance where they attempted to resuscitate him while waiting for an ambulance.

Tom rushed out as the ambulance found the parking lot, followed by two contractors. As the ambulance stopped, He turned to his men and said with slight urgency in his tone, “get in your truck and follow the ambulance.” The men nodded and ran to their patrol vehicle and prepared to escort the ambulance to the hospital. Tom meanwhile went to Bernards side, his presence well timed as he jolted back to consciousness.

“He’s gonna kill me!” Bernard shouted, “Michael’s coming! We’re gonna die!” He couldn’t do much shouting as his efforts to talk wore him down. The medics placed an oxygen mask on his face, giving him the finger against the mouth gesture, requesting as politely as they could for him to please shut up.

Tom stood there, knowing full well that something wasn’t right. We’re gonna die? He couldn’t quite understand why a man having a heart attack was afraid for his life from Michael, who was many miles away. He quickly walked back into the front door and dialed Michael.

Down the road

Michaels phone rang, though this time he was in the driver's seat. He glanced down and saw that it was Tom. He hit the answer button and handed the phone to Lani. “Driving,” he mumbled, “Let’s see what Bernard’s trying to do to cover his scheme.”

Lani brought the phone up and put it on speaker. “Tom,” Lani said with detectable frustration in her voice, “Stay away from Bernard, He’s a traitor!”

“Is that so?” Tom replied, “He just had a heart attack.”

“Good,” Lani snapped, “fuck him, we’re still headed to his office, he might have something proving that he helped get criminal shit into peoples hands!”

Michael had to interject, “she means phosphorous,” he barked into the phone, “they shelled us with white phosphorous, and he called the enhanced that I just had a fight with-”

“Enough of this!” Tom shouted through the phone. He paused for a moment, then resumed talking with his calm and collected tone, “Don’t jump into any kind of action just yet.”

“We’ll link up with you first, then we’re going into fuckers office,” Michael said firmly into the phone. “If we find out that he’s willfully trying to have us killed off, we can fuck him right.”

Lani giggled a little, ideas already going on in her head.