Episode 13: Mysterious Son

EPISODE 13: 

MYSTERIOUS SON

"What guy?" Matt said slipping a glance out the back window.

The night was dark. Michela Forsythe laid on the ground as rain lightly tapped on her skin. Her eyes blinked open and stared up at the canopy of trees above her. Lightning flashed sideways across the sky, and she barely flinched as the thunder boomed seconds later.

She tried to move -- tried to sit up but her eyes rolled back into her head. She collapsed back onto the soft grass, her head lightly thudding on a mound of dirt.

A loud noise cracked in the distance causing an adrenaline response in her chest. She shot upward. Her long wet hair slapped against her cheek. The weakness she'd felt moments earlier were temporarily gone. Her eyes assessed the situation. She was lying behind a parking structure next to a muddy dirt road. The road looked barely used. The backside of a skyscraper towered above her.

"You have to get up," a young man's voice said impatiently. He reached down to lift her to her feet, but Michela's weight sagged against him.

"I'm not feeling so well," she said.

Her head lolled against his shoulder. The young man looked back toward the building as if he was expecting someone to walk outside and catch him at any moment.

"Come on," he said to someone in the distance. "We have to get her out of here. It's not safe."

A young girl peeked out of the bushes. She was wet, rain dripping in her eyes. "You're crazy to come here. If they catch you, they're going to kill you."

"I know, but I can't leave her here not knowing the truth."

"The truth? Matt, you don't even know the truth," Reese told him.

"I may not know the truth but at least I know that something is going on. She's clueless. Look at her. Is this the woman you remember?"

Reese sighed. "Of course not. But Matt -- what are we going to do with her? We have to get back before someone realizes we're gone. It's crazy leaving the compound at night. If the guards find us gone, there's not telling what might happen.

"I have a friend on the other side of the compound. He'll help us." Matt's eyes were uncertain.

"You better hope he'll help us. If he doesn't, we're all screwed."

***

Austin McRae glanced down at Diana's sleeping form. She was going to be fine. He fingered her hair. She'd had it highlighted so it seemed almost blond on top but still dark beneath. It was the style now. He wasn't sure where these trends came from but on her they worked. He checked her chart one final time and decided he better make an appearance in his wife's room. Didn't want the hospital thinking he wasn't a devoted husband to Honor. It wouldn't do good to get the gossip mill turning.

His wife's room was one floor down. It took less than five minutes to get there but he dreaded every step. When he arrived there were people already in the room.

"Glad you could join us, McRae," said a skeptical male voice.

"Excuse me?" Austin said.

"Don't mind him," Glory said suddenly. "He's just miffed you weren't here earlier. You know, when they brought Honor in."

"I'm not my wife's personal physician. But I don't feel the need to explain why I've only now arrived to visit my wife. Is there a reason why I'm getting the third degree?"

Hope stood and crossed the room. She looked back at Honor's sleeping form. Her eyes for Austin were hard and cold.

"Your wife should be your first priority, Austin. Not something you put on your to do list."

Austin could feel the slightly hostile vibe emanating from all three of them. What had changed since yesterday when everything was normal? He weaved through the hostile threesome and made his way to Honor's bedside.

"What happened to her?" Austin asked, trying to appear unaware of the events that had transpired tonight.

"Like you don't know you -- you big jerk!" Glory's words came unexpectedly. She was going to have to work hard at winning back her trust. He needed to remain friends with her brother, Lucky. Having a source on the inside of the FBI was a valuable commodity to his other employers, the ones who had forced him to marry a woman he didn't love and now was having her exterminated. Deleted like a wayward file they wanted erased. If he didn't defuse the situation and do it quickly, the head honchos at Alpha Site would not be pleased.

"I'm sorry you feel I haven't been as attentive as I should have been to my wife, but I was assisting your brother with a situation at Anthony's. A group of men came in and shot up the place."

"I"m aware of the situation, Dr. McRae. The man those men took is my father."

"Which one are you? Caine or Peter?"

"Peter."

"Well, then, Peter. You may want to stop judging me and make an appearance in your own sister's hospital room. She's one floor up in Room 314." Austin felt smug dropping such a bomb on Peter Forsythe, but it made him feel a tiny bit better about his own situation.

"What are you talking about?"

"Your sister, from what I gather from the ER nurses, was in an elevator at ForeCross when the cables snapped. Sounds like a pretty nasty deal to me."

Peter stood immediately. "Is she alright? Why didn't anyone call me?"

"I'm sure the nurses are attempting to notify the family but you all seem a bit preoccupied with Quentin's kidnapping."

Peter turned to Hope. "Tell your sister I'll come back and see her later." He squeezed her hand, glared at Austin then left.

"Was it something I said?" Austin replied, managing not to chuckle.

"You're such an ass," Hope remarked. She'd never been Austin's biggest fan and he was losing points with her by the second.

"You've never had a high opinion of me, Hope. So why don't you drop the attitude and tell me what happened with my wife."

"She was home alone and someone broke into your house. They pushed her down the basement stairs. She's lucky to be alive."

"My God. How did that happen? We have a security system."

"Oh, like you don't know," Glory said suddenly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We know your dirty little secret. We know you want to kill our sister."

Austin couldn't have been more surprised if she'd slapped him.

***

Reese didn't know why she followed Matt tonight. Every time she broke the rules she always managed to get caught. Maybe with the special shindig at the Site, no one would notice either of them were missing. She checked her watch. The guard would be coming around in an hour and twenty minutes for a bed check.

"If we're not back for bed check, we'll be in solitary for the rest of our natural lives," Reese said.

"I'm not going back, Reese. Now that I've found her, I'm not going back there."

Matt somehow managed to drag Michela's body over to the car he'd borrowed from one of the medical staff. "Either help me or leave now."

Reese stamped her foot and then grunted. "Oh, all right. But if they kill us, it's all on your head."

The two of them carried Michela to the car. They could hear police radios echo through the bottom of the parking structure. Reese couldn't stop looking over her shoulder.

"You are so going to owe me for this."

Reese crawled into the back first so she could pull Michela's body across the seat. They nearly had her completely inside when a group of men burst out the back entrance. All were wearing dark clothes and hooting and hollering.

Matt jumped into the car and closed the door before the group could see them.

"I've seen that guy's picture," Reese whispered.

"The one with the gray hair. The one those two man are dragging to the van. I think he's Michela's father."

"What?" Matt focused in on the elderly gentleman. "I think you're right." He crawled into the front seat and slouched down until the men in black passed their car. "I'm going to follow them."

"What? No way, Matt! Those are some dangerous looking guys."

"You know we can handle ourselves," Matt said mysteriously.

"I know, but what's the point? You came to get her."

"I came to find my family, Reese and Quentin Forsythe is my family." Matt started the car and drove after the men holding his grandfather captive.

***

Lucky Faraday glanced around the hallway of ForeCross. "Where is she?" He lowered his weapon and stalked up and down the hallway. "She's gone."

Piper Ferguson tried to hide the smile hinting at the edges of her mouth. "In the scheme of things, I think she's the least of your problems."

"I know, but she's acting strangely. She's not herself."

"Not your problem at the moment. But the hostiles inside ForeCross, that's who you should be worried about," Piper said. "You were right about Roanna. She probably went gang-busters and got in over her head."

"With no prompting from you, I'm sure," Lucky snapped.

"Hey, she's a big girl. She's been making her own decisions for a long time now."

Piper pulled a security card from her back pocket. "This gives me access to any door in this building. What room did you say Carlos was hold up in?"

"Follow me."

***

Reese stared at the woman lying next to her in the back seat. She hadn't gotten a good look at her until now. Previously, she'd only heard Matt talk about her.

"Matt, I've seen this woman before."

"I told you. She's my mother." Matt followed Carlos' men as they drove a familiar path.

"No, I mean, I've seen her at Alpha Site. It was a long time ago, maybe two years, but it's definitely her."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is that if she's who I think she is, she couldn't technically be your mother."

"What?"

"She looks like your mother, has the same DNA as your mother, but she's not your mother." Reese moved the wet hair away from her neck. "She has the mark." She fingered the strangely shaped 'A' she and Matt had come to know so completely since they had marks of their own.

"She's the plant?" Matt said skeptically. "No, no, she can't be." He stopped the car suddenly and the wheels skidded slightly on the gravel of the access road.

Reese looked out the window. She recognized the terrain.

Alpha Site.

The men they were following entered the outer gate of the facility.

"This is getting weirder by the minute," Reese whispered.

She barely had time to think a second thought when Matt's driver door came open and a rifle was thrust into his face by a shadowy man. He was wearing a hooded, black parka that dripped with rain.

"Don't move," the man said in a menacing voice.