Treachery - Failure Is Not An Option 7/?

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TITLE:   Faiure Is Not An Option (Part 7 of the Treachery Series)
RATING:  PG-13
WARNING:  Graphic violence, character death.
CHARACTERS:  Ianto (John), Tosh, Ocs 
DISCLAIMER:  Not mine; Aunty B's and RTD's
WORDS: ~ 1840
SUMMARY:  A post-cyberwoman fic.  Tosh continues her search for Ianto. Ianto(John) is part of an unsuccessful mission.

Treachery (Part 1) here:  http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/49816.html 
All chapter are linked.

 

 

“So, anything new and exciting happening today?” Liz asked as she handed Tosh a cup of coffee.

“No, the rift is quiet, the Weevils are staying in the sewers, no suspicious incidents anywhere near Cardiff and no calls from UNIT or the PM expected.”

“That’s good; I just found another small storage closet in the 4^th sub basement that’s chocked full of odd gadgets. No idea what they are and they don’t appear in any of the data bases.”

Tosh shook her head. It was amazing that even after all this time, there were still unexplored areas of the Hub. Liz had been with them almost three years, bright, energetic and a bit nosy. Jack didn’t seem to mind her snooping; as he told Tosh early on, “this one comes with no baggage, that I can guarantee.”

And Tosh had to admit that she was harmless enough, a decent archivist, quiet and unassuming and, as a bonus, she liked to bake. The treats on everyone’s birthday were a nice touch; “if only she could make a decent cup of coffee,” Tosh thought as she took a sip.

“Do you want me to come down with you this afternoon and see what we can sort out?” Tosh offered. “Why not,” she thought, “it’s not like I have anything else to do at the moment.”

“That’d be great,” Liz answered looking a bit distracted. “Hey, what’s going on in Oman,”   Claire asked as she looked over Tosh’s shoulder at the computer. Tosh always had one computer set on a local news feed in order to spot anything unusual being reported. Occasionally when major events occurred in other countries a scroll of red text traveled across the screen.

“Attempted assassination of Oman’s Sultan, Qaboos bin Sa’id Al ‘Bu Sa’id fails,” the scroll read. “Possible Western involvement suspected.” The text went on to say that various sources were blaming the UK, the US, Israel, other unnamed western powers and even the UN.

Tosh shrugged. “Thank goodness it’s got nothing to do with us.” Just then a somewhat fuzzy surveillance photo flashed across the screen.

“Picture of suspected assassin released to Interpol.”

Liz laughed. “He looks a bit like that guy, what was his name, who used to work here.”

“You mean Ianto? That’s impossible.”

“I mean the suit, anyway. Certainly not the blond hair, and didn’t he have that typical turned up Welsh nose?”

Tosh stared at the grainy picture. “It’s a nice suit, but no, the body is too muscular, the hair and nose are all wrong, and the forehead isn’t as high. And this guy looks a bit older. But other than that, he could be Ianto’s twin.”

Liz laughed in embarrassment. “Yeah, guess I was thinking about him because I found a file with his picture in it a few days ago.”

Tosh felt a shiver run up her spine. “A file? What kind of file?”

Liz snorted. “It’s his original personal file.” Seeing the look on Tosh’s face, Liz rolled her eyes. “Yes, snoopy Liz took a peak. Nothing interesting beyond his history at Torchwood One and subsequent nervous breakdown after being attacked by two weevils. You should see some of the other files, that Suzie, now she was an interesting character.”

Tosh sighed with relief. It was just a decoy file in case any new employees got curious about their former archivist. Tosh had forgotten that she was the person who created the file at Jack’s request. They had all agreed that a story about Ianto not being able to cope after a weevil attack was the most benign but realistic explanation that they could devise. If pressed, like Gwen had been by P.C. Andy, the story was that he had a new job and at his request, and he didn’t want any contact with anyone from his time in Cardiff.

Tosh spent the afternoon working with Liz in examining the mysterious items in the storage closet. Most of the items look like exotic weapons, but none of them worked. A few made noises or had flashing lights, but there was nothing discernibly dangerous about them. Around 4 PM Jack came down to the sub-basement to see how they were doing.

“So what’s this with futuristic weapons that don’t work,” he asked. Liz showed him the items and Tosh began a long explanation of how they had tried to test them when Jack burst out laughing. He held up his hand signaling Tosh to stop.

“I forgot all about these,” he said chuckling. “They are a collection of toys that came through the rift. Around 1975, I think.” He picked up one of the ones that looked like a futuristic gun and pointed it at them. “Watch you two, or I’ll have to shoot you with my paralyzing ray gun.”

“Very funny,” Tosh replied. “Why didn’t you just incinerate them?”

“You know, they are very good replicas of some early 22^nd century weapons. I think I meant to catalogue them as toys but also describe what the real weapons were like for addition to the database.”

“That never happened, did it?” Liz asked as she looked at Jack with exasperation.

“Guess not. I’ll tell you what, if the rift remains quiet the three of us will sit down tomorrow and begin to work through them, OK?”

That seemed reasonable, so they boxed up the toys and brought them up to Jack’s office. 

“Ok, why don’t you two head off home. No point in hanging about. We’ll get started on these first thing tomorrow.”

As Tosh and Liz left his office, he smiled to himself. Liz sometimes reminded him of Ianto. He reckoned the need for everything to be in its proper place was inherent to the profession. And the look on her face as she came…well, no point in going there, he thought. Instead he pulled up the latest report from UNIT on Ianto’s progress. He snickered as apparently the tour agency had given Ianto a promotion. He wondered if he should tell UNIT that the reports weren’t really necessary anymore. Tosh hadn’t attempted to look for anything in almost two years, Gwen never had, Owen had started to once about a year ago, but had given up after about an hour of frustration as he was unable to penetrate the simplest of security walls.

And then there was Liz, their very own Miss Nosy Parker. She didn’t know anything about Ianto except what she had been told, but took a peak at the progress reports every couple of months. No, best to keep the reports coming. Couldn’t do any harm.

Later in the evening Tosh sat at home trying to figure out what was bothering her. She was a bit bored at work lately, and she knew that some of her unease came from unnatural quietness of the rift. In her experience, periods of low activity were often followed by a sharp spike bringing some very dangerous thing or things to Cardiff.

But it was something else as well. All day and all evening, Ianto had been rattling around her brain. What was he doing? How was he doing? Did he have a new girlfriend or boyfriend? Maybe she could take a look at Jack’s files… She admonished herself, “Don’t do this Tosh, you’ve only got six months to go before you are free of UNIT, don’t risk it.”

She sighed and went over to her laptop and began to search.

***

He couldn’t believe this was happening. He’d completed ten missions without as much as a hiccup. Now this one had to go tits-up. As he stealthily made his way to the rendezvous point, he discarded the blond wig behind a house, disposed of the brown contacts onto the street, threw his suit jacket, tie and shirt into a trash bin to reveal the polo shirt underneath. "Nothing to be done with the torn pants, just walk on, look casual." Slipping on his dark sunglasses he pushed his own short dark curls back on his head and moved quickly toward safety.

They picked him up in a town car with darkened windows and a Russian Federation Flag. He sat in back with a man in a dark suit on either side. He couldn’t see the driver as the back of the sedan was separated from the front by darkened Plexiglas. Nobody said a word the whole time they were driving. They pulled into a courtyard and John shivered as they hustled him inside. He was ushered up some stairs and into what looked to be an ordinary apartment.

Two additional men entered the room and ordered him to sit. As they debriefed him, he felt increasingly uncomfortable. It was almost as if his brain was turning on him, making him feel edgy and nervous. The four men were professional, nodding as he explained that the guard at the front gate who was supposed to be already taken care of was in place when he arrived and wouldn’t grant him admittance. He had knocked the guard out and moved forward to complete the mission, but, as they explained to him, another guard had come along, seen the unconscious sentry and set off the central alarm system. John had been able to escape by climbing over a barb-wired brick wall at the back of the compound. He had been unaware that there was a security camera near there; fortunately the blond wig would help to throw Omani security and Interpol off track.

“We realize that this is not primarily your fault. We want to assure you that the agent who failed to remove the gate guard has been dealt with.”

John felt a little nauseous, his heart was pounding and cold fear ran through him. His head was throbbing and it was hard for him to concentrate. A small buzzing sound seemed to surround him; the whole situation felt surreal.

“Of course, we can’t allow you to go undisciplined.”

John felt it increasingly difficult to breathe. He tugged at the collar of the polo shirt trying to get some air.

“Relax, we’re not going to hurt you,” one of the men said nodding at the two men who brought him to this apartment. The two men exited through the same door the interrogators had entered. There was a sound of footsteps and the door was flung open. The two men had Carlos tied and gagged between them. His shirt had been ripped open and he was bruised and bleeding. Ianto felt a numbness creep up from his feet and the buzzing in his head increased. He tried to stand, but was unable to get his limbs to respond to his desires.

“But you need to learn a lesson. Failure is not an option. You screw up; something you care about gets taken away.” As the interrogator walked over to Carlos, the numbness crept further up John. When he pulled the knife and sliced across the boy’s throat, Ianto felt the buzzing and the numbness overwhelm him. His last conscious thought was that he wished they had killed him instead.  

Chapter 8 is here: http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/88040.html