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The Sentinel Project Part 8
by Lianne Burwell
January 2003
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Krycek's meet was held in location that no one in their 
right mind would expect from him: one of the finest 
restaurants in Chicago. Dressed in pressed slacks, a dark 
green silk shirt, and a cream tie that he'd bought just 
that afternoon, although he still wore his favorite leather 
jacket, he strutted into the restaurant and told the 
maitre'd that he was meeting someone, then brushed past the 
man to go to Marco's table. The man -- mobster, if you 
wanted to be blunt about it -- was sitting at his usual 
table at the back, between the emergency exit and the 
kitchen. From that location he had an excellent view of the 
entrance and his choice of exits if he didn't like what he 
saw coming through the door.

Alex slid into the seat opposite Marco, ignoring Mulder as 
he was seated at a table at the other side of the 
restaurant, over near the bar.

"Your friend not joining us?" Marco asked, nodding towards 
Mulder.

Alex snorted. He should have known that Marco wouldn't be 
fooled. "I didn't think you'd want to talk with him 
around," he said. "Besides, he's just waiting for me."

"Sure," the elegantly dressed man drawled. "Somehow I think 
that Agent Mulder has a bit more of a... personal interest 
in this, don't you?"

Alex frowned, although he knew he shouldn't have been 
surprised. "Enough, Marco," he said coldly, but the other 
man just laughed. If he'd been able to convince Mulder to 
stay back at the hotel, he would have, but like Skinner and 
Scully before him, he was finding that controlling Mulder 
was like herding cats. In a word, impossible. Better to 
have him close by where he could keep an eye on the man.

"What were you able to find out," he asked instead of 
resorting to anything so crude as threats. Marco knew that 
he better keep his mouth shut about Krycek's business, even 
though selling information was *his* business.

Marco picked up his wine glass and sipped from it, delaying 
answering. It didn't bother Alex: Marco liked to play mind 
games, but he was the best around, and he liked to keep his 
eye on anything. He wasn't actually a member of the 
Consortium, but he'd done the occasional job for them, 
which was how Alex had met him. And despite being a Chicago 
mobster, he was also a veteran of the intelligence 
community, which explained why no law enforcement agency 
had ever been able to pin anything on him. John Gotti, the 
so-called Teflon Don, had nothing on Marco Armone.

Marco was frowning, which was not a good sight. "Alex, 
you're a good kid, for a Ruskie, and I like you, you know 
that, right?"

Alex went still, except for his hand, which was inching 
towards the small gun tucked into its holster under his 
leather jacket. "I wish you wouldn't call me kid, but 
yeah," he said, noncommittally. He liked Marco too, but if 
there was any sign that the man was going to betray him, he 
was going to take Marco out first.

"Well, keeping that in mind, trust me when I say, you 
should get the hell out of this country. Go north, go 
south, go to Europe. Anyplace but here."

Alex didn't relax, but he was no longer expecting an 
ambush. Still, Marco wasn't the type to panic, and this was 
as close to panic as he'd ever seen the man. "Why?" he 
asked, frowning.

Marco's lips tightened and he put the wine glass down, 
getting down to business. "My sources inside the Consortium 
says everything's going to hell. Michaels has broken ranks, 
and plans to use his current office to destroy Spender. 
Spender on the other hand plans to take Michaels down 
before he gets them all in deep shit, and as part of his 
plans, he's activated something called The Sentinel 
Project." Marco paused, but Alex just shrugged. He'd never 
heard of the project, but that wasn't surprising. While 
he'd been good at ferreting out information back when he'd 
still been on the inside, he'd still only been a bit 
player.

Marco sighed. "Michaels apparently has big plans right now, 
but only a few people close to him know what those plans 
are. He's getting very paranoid, and rightly so. But 
whatever it is, it's big. Rumor has it that there's a 
broken arrow, but they're being very careful to make sure 
that the press doesn't find out about it."

Alex hissed at that. Broken Arrow was a term for a missing 
nuke, as popularized in an action movie several years 
earlier. "He plans to explode a nuclear device on American 
soil," he said bluntly. Marco nodded.

"That is what I think."

"This doesn't explain why you think I should pick up and 
run."

Marco leaned forward, and his voice dropped even further. 
"You should run because there are at least three death 
warrants out on you. Michaels wants you dead. Spender wants 
you dead. The Feds have a shoot on sight order. And there 
is a bounty on your head out on the streets. Frankly, I'm 
amazed that you're still in one piece."

Alex glanced over to where Mulder was sipping on a drink. 
Mulder knew better than to look directly at him, but their 
eyes met in the mirror behind that bar. "And Mulder?" he 
asked. While changing the man's hair color slightly and 
giving him colored contacts had helped change his 
appearance, Mulder's nose was too damned distinctive to 
disguise without resorting to full cosmetic surgery, which 
needless to say, was out of the question. Alex, on the 
other hand, knew enough tricks to hide himself in a crowd. 
Being more conventionally handsome, people noticed him 
less. Or rather, they saw him, but didn't really remember 
the details.

Marco didn't bother to look towards the bar. "Michaels 
wants him dead, but Spender wants him alive," he said, and 
even after the incident in Colorado, Alex wasn't really 
surprised. Spender had always worked to keep Mulder alive. 
There were those who thought that it was because he was 
Mulder's real father -- he had been having an affair with 
Teena Mulder at the right time -- but Alex knew that it was 
untrue, having seen the blood tests. Perhaps Spender 
thought of Mulder as the son he always wanted. He didn't 
*think* it was because Spender had... less that fatherly 
feelings. Anyway, Spender was the only person who could 
explain just why he'd gone to such lengths to keep Mulder 
alive and in one piece.

Marco was starting to get nervous, and Alex wasn't 
surprised. There was not sign of surveillance, but there 
was always the chance that they were being watched, and 
being seen with a man under a shoot on sight order was 
something that might goad the Feds into finally moving on 
him. "Is that everything?" Marco asked pointedly.

"Walter Skinner."

"Accused of being in the pay of terrorists. There are 
arrest warrants out for him, as well as a number of others, 
including Agents Mulder and Scully."

"Any sign of him?"

Marco smiled. "Absolutely none. Either he's dead, or in 
hiding, and if he's in hiding, I am very impressed."

Alex nodded to himself. "We're looking for a Consortium 
facility referred to as the Mexico Facility. No idea if 
that means Mexico or New Mexico. Do you know anything about 
it?"

The other man frowned and tapped one elegant finger against 
his chin. "Not off the top of my head, but I can look into 
it."

Alex pulled a card out of his pocket. On it was an e-mail 
address and nothing else. He slid it across the table to 
the other man. "If you find out anything more about either 
subject, or what Michael's target might be, contact me 
here. Be careful what you put in the message though."

That annoyed the man. "I have been in this business longer 
than you've been alive, kid. I know how to be careful."

Alex grinned at the man's expression, then sobered. "Watch 
your back, Marco. Things are getting messy, and I don't 
want to see you get taken down." Marco was more than a 
source, he was also one of the few friends Alex had in the 
world.

"Neither do I, kid. Neither do I."

>>>~~~<<<

The waiting was the worst part. When Kowalski and Fraser 
had returned from Spender's office, they were carrying a 
file folder and wearing worried expressions. Everyone had 
gathered in the cafeteria and had gone over the 
information, coming up with a workable plan of attack for 
the two men before they had to leave.

Plan A was simple enough: The two men would use the 
identification badges Spender had supplied to get into the 
building at the end of the day when most of the staff would 
have gone home. The badges were top level, so they wouldn't 
have any trouble with curfew. From there, they would go to 
the office in question, break into the safe, take the files 
Spender wanted, close everything up without leaving any 
signs that they'd been there, then walk out again. Simple.

Of course, life was never that simple. No matter what their 
IDs said, they would still be strangers to the guards, who 
were probably on high alert. There were also regular 
patrols, even in the middle of the workday, looking for 
people in locations where they shouldn't be. As well, 
considering the current events, there were going to be 
people still in their offices at midnight, probably. All of 
these things meant that getting in and out was likely to be 
more than a little tricky.

Ellison and Colonel Ironhorse were the only members of the 
group with any covert operations experience, so they led 
the brainstorming. By the time the guards came for the two 
men, five different escape routes had been planned, and 
contingency plans had been rehearsed.

Didn't stop Jim from pacing back and forth in the cell he 
shared with Blair. His imagination insisted on coming up 
with scenario after disaster scenario, leaving him unable 
to get any sleep. At least when he was back in the army, 
after these planning sessions, he was the one going on the 
mission, either alone or as part of the team, and towards 
the end, leading the team.

And that was the problem. This wasn't the army anymore, but 
he still felt responsible for the rest of the group. Old 
leadership instincts.

"Jim?"

The sleepy question from the direction of the bed stopped 
him in his tracks, and he felt guilty. This was the first 
time Blair had slept more than three hours without waking 
up from nightmares. No matter how much everyone reassured 
him that it wasn't his fault -- and Jim's senses told him 
that most of them, at least, were honest about it -- Blair 
still blamed himself for their predicament. 

"It's nothing. Go back to sleep," Jim said softly. 
Unfortunately, Blair wasn't very good about taking the 
hint.

"What's wrong?" Blair asked, sitting up in the bed, pushing 
a mass of tangled hair out of his eyes, even though with 
the lights off, he had to be nearly blind. Jim, of course, 
could see every detail as if it were day.

Giving in to the inevitable, Jim sat down on the edge of 
the bed. "I'm just worrying about Stan and Benton," he said 
as Blair waited expectantly. Damn, his lover had him well-
trained. He *used* to be able to keep things to himself. 
Really. Just ask his ex-wife. Of course, his marriage to 
Carolyn had been over in less that a year, while Blair had 
been a part of his life for nearly five years now.

"We're all worried," Blair said, sounding more and more 
awake by the moment, which just made Jim feel more guilty. 
"But the plan was good, and all we can do is wait now."

"I know that," Jim said with a sigh. "I just wish I was the 
one going in. Well, not really, but damnit, at least I have 
the experience to do the job. They're going to be in over 
their heads."

Blair snorted. "Don't sell them short. They know what 
they're doing, and they have umpteen contingency plans for 
every possibility. Trust them."

"I do. I just... It doesn't make any sense. Why send them 
when Ironhorse and I have more experience in these sorts of 
operations? It doesn't make any sense."

"These days, what does?"

Jim shook his head. "Ignore me. I'm just feeling..."

"Out of control?" Blair grinned. "My favorite control 
freak."

Jim laughed at the fond tone in his lover's voice, then 
gave him a nudge. "Go back to sleep Blair."

"Too late. You're up, I'm up. Wanna go play some darts? You 
can imagine Mr. "I own you" as the target," Blair suggested

Blair was up, and *he* certainly wasn't going to get any 
sleep. "Sure, why not. I'll even give you a handicap."

"Excuse me?" Blair said, standing up. "Just who whooped 
your ass the last time the Major Crimes group went out to 
Dooley's?"

"Luck, pure luck," Jim quipped as Blair got up and pulled 
on a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt.

"Yeah, well this 'luck' is going to wipe the floor with 
you. Again."

They headed out the door towards the games room, and Jim 
found his mood lightening. Maybe everything would work out. 
If not, he would sic Blair on it, and his partner would 
*force* it to work out.

>>>~~~<<<

Although he covered it up well, Fraser was concerned. While 
in the course of various cases he had indulged in a little 
break and enter, he had never done so in an official 
government building before. And while he knew that they had 
come up with plans to cover every contingency, he was still 
worried about what could happen.

As well, he could not help feeling guilty for the fact that 
Stanley was in this mess with him. If not for him, Stanley 
would be living an ordinary life in Chicago, a decorated 
detective without worries. Well, perhaps that wasn't true, 
but even Stanley would have to admit that his life had been 
anything but ordinary since Fraser had come into his life. 
Sometimes, when he woke in the middle of the night, Fraser 
wondered if, knowing what would happen, Stanley still would 
have chosen to accept the undercover operation in which he 
had impersonated Ray Vecchio. He had never broached the 
subject, though, having a good idea what the other man's 
reaction would be. Still, he wondered.

Spender had certainly planned well, he had to admit. They 
had been supplied with military uniforms with enough 
ribbons on their chests that security was likely to 
remember them rather than the faces of their owners. 
Fraser, for some reason, had been given the higher rank. 
That, plus the ID cards they had been given allowed them 
easy access to the building that was their target. However, 
access was only the start.

Their excuse for being in the building was a meeting with a 
mid-level bureaucrat in an office down the hall and around 
the corner from the office that was their target. This was 
risky, since the man in question *was* in the building. 
Otherwise, they would have been turned away. This meant 
that there was someone in close proximity to them as they 
worked. As well, there was always the chance that security 
could call the man to check up on them, which would be a 
disaster.

The office was found easily enough, since they had spent a 
great deal of time going over blueprints. They also knew 
where the security cameras, which allowed them to either 
avoid them, or at least avert their faces at the right 
times so that they would not be identifiable on film 
afterwards, assuming that they managed to get away cleanly.

The office door was locked, but a skeleton key quickly 
dealt with that. They locked it behind them, to prevent 
anyone from happening on them unexpectedly.

"All right," Stanley said, cracking his knuckles, then 
pulling his glasses out of a pocket and setting them firmly 
on his face. "Let's take a look at this safe."

The safe was exactly where the plans had said it was, set 
behind a portrait of a former president. The portrait was 
easily removed from the wall, revealing the safe with its 
old-fashioned spin dial. That seemed to indicate that the 
safe had been there a great while: A more modern safe would 
have an electric keypad, connected to an alarm should 
someone try to enter the wrong sequence too many times.

The additional equipment Stanley pulled from his pockets 
was compact and very high-tech. The listening device was 
more sensitive than the stethoscopes that safe-crackers 
used in the movies, and another tiny device would detect 
tumblers locking in place. Stanley attached them to the 
metal surface of the safe door next to the lock.

Stanley licked his lips, then set his hand on the dial. 
"Okay, let's see if I still got it," he muttered to 
himself.

At this point, there was little that Fraser could do to 
help his partner. Perhaps his own enhanced senses could 
have done the job better that the tools Stanley had, but it 
was the other man who had the skills to open the safe, and 
there had been no time to teach Fraser.

As well, although the other man's confidence had improved 
greatly since their first meeting, Stanley still suffered 
from time to time of a lack of self-esteem, seeing himself 
as the less capable member of the pairing, so it suited 
Fraser to step aside in his partner's favor whenever 
possible.

Instead, he moved to the side of the door and extended his 
hearing outwards into the hallway, listening for any sign 
that their illicit presence had been discovered.

TO BE CONTINUED