Cry 'Uncle'
"Orion's Reach" Ranch House
McDaniels Family Residence
Appalachian Mountains, VA
01.05am EDT Sunday
01.05am Sunday 

Clay reversed out of the garage, the headlights switched off.
The minute they left the safety of the parking structure they began to take fire.

The sound of bullets whining through the still night air and embedding themselves in the metal body of the jeep, sent chills down Casey's spine.  

She leaned over the centre console and pushed Anya down in her seat. 

"Stay down honey. Keep your head down."
She said softly, trying to reassure the frightened little girl. 

Clay tried to keep one eye on the road ahead and also keep an eye out for their assailants.
A shot shattered the back windscreen with a deafening sound.

Casey saw one of their attackers come to stand in the middle of the access road, weapon in hand. 
She took aim and fired a volley of shots out the passenger side window.
The man fell to the ground with the second shot, and lay, not moving on the gravel drive. 

Anya whimpered with fear in the back seat, and although Casey longed to comfort the little girl, getting them out alive was her primary concern.
Three more shots hit the drivers side door, the reinforced steel taking the brunt of the impact.

Clay swerved to miss a rut in the road, the Jeep coming up onto 2 wheels then righting itself with a bone jarring thud, another volley of shots impacted the drivers side shattering Clay's window. 

"Clay, slow down and let me out. I'll draw their fire while you get Anya to safety." 
Casey said, coming to the conclusion that their current plan was not going to work. 
One of them would have to stay if the other were to get Anya out of this. 

"What? Are you insane? There's no way I'm letting you out of this car Casey." 
Clay said vehemently. 

"Clay, it's the only way. You can drop Anya off with Rabb and come back. It'll take fifteen minutes." 

"Casey, it's suicide! We don't know how many of them there are, how they got here...or even who these people are for that matter!"  

"Clay, it's the only chance we've got of getting her out of here. This Jeep can't take much more of this, and if they shoot out a tyre...then what...we're all stuck here like sitting ducks. We'll be trying to hold them off with three guns, and sooner or later we're going to run out of ammunition."

"OK but I'll stay." He said quickly. "You drive the Jeep to Geraldton."  

"Forget it...hurry back Clay."
And with that, she opened the passenger side door and leapt to the ground rolling away from the road and into the brush. 

Clay swore under his breath as he watched Casey tumble from the speeding car and disappear like a shadow into the underbrush. 
He knew deep down that she was right. 
The Jeep wasn't going to be able to take much more of this assault and the only thing he could do now that Casey had taken matters into her own hands was get Anya to safety and get back here as soon as possible. 
Resisting the temptation to slam the brakes on and go back and pull Casey into the car by her hair, he stepped on the gas, speeding away from the property to the staccato rhythm of gunshots ringing out in the night. 
The sooner he got Anya to safety ,the sooner he could come back for Casey. 


01.10am Sunday 

Casey watched Clay speed away and let out a sigh of relief.
She knew that he had wanted to stay instead of her, but she also knew that she was best suited to this particular field of battle. 
She had grown up here, she knew every nook and cranny of this place and because of this she had the home ground advantage. 
The tail-lights of the jeep disappeared from view and Casey made her way through the brush towards the house. 

It took roughly 5 minutes for her to make her way to the brush closest to the house, she had come across two of the assailants in the pasture near the garage. 
Dispatching them had been neither easy, nor pleasant.
It was a part of her job that she hated with a passion, but tonight her survival was at stake, there was no room for conscience.

She quickly climbed the ancient oak tree that reached to her old bedroom window, (this had been an entrance and escape route for her for many years, and tonight she thanked her Uncle for not chopping down the tree as he had threatened the last time he caught her sneaking in at 2am.) 

Once inside her old room, she quickly and silently made her way to the room at the far end of the hall. Reaching inside the old oak dresser, she took out a spare weapon and magazine and quietly clicking it in place she made her way to the staircase.  

Lying flat on her stomach, she could see right into the living room and down the hall. 
It did not appear her assailants had come into the house yet.
With a swiftness born of both practice and necessity she made her way down the stairs and into the living room. 
Realising that her best chance of survival lay in surprising her attackers she made her way into the living room, of all the rooms at the cabin, this one had the greatest field of vision, she crouched low and waited for her attackers to arrive.  

01.30am Sunday 

The first shot came, shattering the living room window and sending shards of glass flying across the room, it was followed closely by a stun grenade. 
Casey dived for the cover of the large sofa, but the blast hit her with the force of a truck.
When Casey came to, she found herself watching shadows move through the house. 
With her eyes watering and her balance affected, she managed to fire and hit at least one of them, the screams of the wounded man ringing out in the cold clear night. 

The last attacker caught her by surprise, grabbing her from behind and pulling her through the shattered glass of the living room window. 
She landed on the porch with a bone jarring thud. 

"Get up."
Her attacker said, kicking her in the ribs for effect. 
The voice was familiar, the accent a thick Russian. 

"Who are you?"  
She rasped as she tried to get to her feet. 

"I'm offended that you don't remember me Agent McDaniels, we've met on several occasions." 
He attacker said cockily. 
The voice grated on her nerves, it was then that she realised who it belonged to. 

"Bytchkov."  
She said as she got to her feet, leaning against the porch rail for support.

"Well done, McDaniels...where's the girl?"

"What girl?" She asked feigning ignorance.

"Fielding's daughter, you know exactly who I mean."  

Bytchkov said moving towards her and grabbing her arm, twisting it painfully up behind her back.
Casey winced at the pain that shot up her arm. 

"I don't know anyone called Fielding." She stated. 

Bytchkov stared at her for a second then slammed his fist into the side of her face,  knocking her back through the window and into the house. 

"Don't lie to me McDaniels, or I'll have to hurt you again, now where is the girl?" 

Casey struggled to her feet, here eyes filled with venomous rage. 

"Why is she so important to you?"  
She asked wiping her hand over her mouth, noting that her hand was covered in blood from her split lip.  Bytchkov laughed and slapped her across the face, knocking her to her knees again. 

"I'm asking the questions here....now where's the girl?"

Casey looked up at him her eyes defiant, her lips curving into a malicious smile. 

"Somewhere you'll never find her!"  She snarled. 

"Tell me...or I will shoot you." 

Casey struggled to her feet, the pain shooting through her head was making it hard to stand and she was sure her left arm was broken. 
Standing, a herculean effort on her part, she struck Bytchkov in the face with her right hand, her mothers engagement ring turned inward leaving a scratch across his face that oozed blood. 

"Go back to hell Bytchkov" She rasped. 

"Argh, you bitch." He said running his finger over the scratch. "You'll pay for that!" 
He drew his gun. 

The last thing Casey saw was the flash of gunfire, and felt a searing pain in her side.   

01.37am Sunday 

Clay, got to the hotel in Geraldton in less than 15 minutes. 
After locating Rabb at the 'Welcome Inn', the small towns only hotel, and informing him of Casey's situation, he made his way back to the cabin.  
Everything seemed to moving in slow motion, no matter how hard be pressed the accelerator, the Jeep never seemed to move fast enough. 
As he pulled the Jeep into the drive he saw a helo take off some way in the distance, it's shiny black carriage contrasting starkly against the moonlit night. 

Clay was out of the Jeep and up the stairs of the cabin before he could think. 
He looked at the shattered glass of the front window and his stomach churned with fear. 
It didn't look like they had fought fair, the logical, analytical part of him knew that the best he could hope for was that Casey was still alive when he found her. 

He walked through the front door, his pistol at the ready. 
Shattered pieces of furniture lay everywhere, having fallen victim to the stun-grenade.  
He walked quickly into the living-room, and what he saw there stopped his heart. 

Casey lay in a pool of blood on the polished wooden floorboards, her eyes closed, her expression peaceful. 

"Casey?"  

He could barely get the words out, for the lump in his throat. 
He reached down and felt for a pulse, his own heart leaping when he found one, it was weak...but there. 

"Hang on Case, Oh God, please hang on."  
He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and dialled for an ambulance.

Casey's eyes opened briefly and she looked up and saw her partner. 
"Don...don't...leave me....Clay."
She whispered softly, her breaths coming in short gasps.  

"I won't leave you Case, not ever. I promise, I'll stay right here." 

Casey drifted back into unconsciousness. 

02.00am Sunday 

He couldn't say what happened next, it was all a blur. 
He remembered taking off his windcheater and using it to cover her with, taking off his sweater and using it to stem the flow of blood from her side. 
He vaguely remembered calling Rabb and letting him know what had happened and asking him to call the Admiral. 
Then the paramedics had arrived and had taken over from him, and he had sat helplessly beside her on the long ride to the hospital, holding her hand and praying to any god that would listen to him to let her live.   

02.45am Sunday 

Rabb was waiting at the hospital for the ambulance to arrive. 
He took one look at Clay's blood covered t-shirt and the grim look on his face and hoped that the Admiral got here soon. 

Clay never left her side, not for a second. 

When the ER team had tried to get him to leave so they could operate he had lashed out at one doctor and had to be restrained by an orderly. 

"No, I promised her I wouldn't leave her Harm...I promised."
He said weakly. 

Harm came to the ER teams aide, convincing Clay that he could do Casey no good in jail, and that he was delaying her treatment by refusing to let her out of his sight. 
An hour after she had gone into surgery the doctor came out to speak to Clay. 

"How is she?"   Clay asked his expression saying he expected the worst. 

"I won't lie to you Agent Webb, she's not in good shape. She's sustained heavy trauma to the head, and the bullet hit an artery. She's lucky to still be alive. If you hadn't kept pressure on that wound, she would have bled to death inside of 5 minutes." 

"Will she recover?"   Harm asked the question Clay was afraid to. 

The doctor looked at Harm and then to Clay. 

"She's in with a chance. We've managed to stem the flow from the artery and we've induced coma to help her through the head trauma.
In my opinion, with the injuries she's sustained, that young lady shouldn't even be alive right now, but she's made it this far...so I'd say she's in with a fighting chance." 

Clay let out an explosive breath. 

"Can I see her?" he asked. 

"We're moving her to a lockdown ward as per Agent Fawkes'  request, so when she's safely there, you can see her. It shouldn't be more than 10 minutes." 

Clay thanked the doctor, shook his hand and turned to Harm. 
"Tim Fawkes is here?"   He asked. 

Harm nodded.  "He's taking care of Anya." 

Clay nodded, staring at his hands, still covered in Casey's blood. 

"Did you call the Admiral?" 

"Yeah, he was on his way to New Orleans, something about visiting an old friend of his. But he was getting the first flight home. He should be here in a couple of hours." 

Clay sat down on the hard plastic seat in the waiting room, numb from shock. 

"Clay, maybe you should see someone, you don't look too good." Harm said. 

Clay looked up at Harm, tears in his eyes. 

"She can't die Harm...she can't." 

Harm placed his hand on Clay's shoulder, the only support he could think to give.   


END FLASHBACK 


Present Time:
Bethesda Naval Hospital
Washington VA
05.00am. 


"She just leapt out of the car Tim, I couldn't stop her."
Clay said brokenly from his seat by her bed, he looked up at Tim Fawkes.
"How did you get here so fast anyhow?" 

"AJ called me about the Embassy job, said he thought it was too easy to get Anya out of there." 

Clay nodded, he should have know that AJ would pick up on that. 

"After he called, I started monitoring your cell phone's, keeping tab's on you both.  When Casey called Rabb about picking Anya up at Geraldton, I got a helo up here to personally check out the situation." 

"She's AJ's daughter." 

He said softly, looking at Casey laying so still under the stark white sheets. 

"I know." 

Tim answered, AJ had told him long ago that Casey was his daughter.
It was one of many secrets they shared.

"She only found out tonight. All this time and she never knew,..."

He looked up as AJ walked back in, steaming cups of coffee in his hands. 

"Clay, why don't you come and see if they have something you can change into." 

Clay looked down and for the first time noticed that he was covered in bloodstains.
The white cotton tshirt he wore was stuck to him in places where the blood had dried.
He nodded, realising that AJ needed to spend time alone with his daughter but still not wanting to leave her side.
He had made Casey a promise, he was going to keep it. 

Tim left the room to find an orderly and had soon located a pair of scrubs for Clay to wear until he could get some clothes of his own.
After a bit more prodding Tim managed to get Clay to shower, telling him that the last thing Casey needed when she woke up was to see him covered in her blood. 

5 minutes later Clay emerged from the surgeons locker room in a pair of scrubs, his hair still damp from the shower.

"Feel better?" 

" I feel clean at least." He said wearily "AJ's taking this hard isn't he?" 

Tim nodded. 

"He's still in there with her, maybe I should get you something to eat?" 

Clay shook his head, not feeling in the least bit like eating, but knowing that if he was going to be strong for Casey, he needed to keep his strength up.  

"You should call your mother too, let her know what's happened. I know she's very fond of Casey too."
Tim said softly 
Clay nodded as he walked back to the waiting room and sat down. 

Harm and Mac looked up as Clay walked in and sat down. 
"How is she?" Harm asked. 

"She lost a lot of blood."

Clay said looking down at his hands, remembering how he had tried to stem the red flow from her side, holding it closed with his bare hands. 

"Clay, you did everything you could. Remember the doc said if I wasn't for you, she would have died. You saved her life."  Harm said gently. 

"Yeah, but she wouldn't be in this situation if I had gone back to the house instead of her."  
Clay said holding his head in his hands. 

"Clay, she jumped out of the car. You said yourself, there was no way you could have stopped her..." 
Mac said moving over and putting her arm around Clay's shoulder. 

"She's right Clay" AJ said from where he stood in the doorway watching. "Casey's as stubborn as they come, just like her mother was. She would have jumped out of that car no matter what you did, or said. She made a judgement call, she knew the risks and she took them anyway." 

"I still should have stopped her."  Clay said softly, knowing that AJ was right but feeling the weight of guilt anyway. 

"Clay, I have known Casey since the very day she arrived in this world and I've never known anyone...including me...to be able to stop her from doing something she had her mind set on doing." 
AJ said sitting down on the waiting room sofa next to Harm. 

Clay looked over at AJ, he looked completely unaffected by Casey's condition. 

"How can you be so stoic? Your daughter is in that room, in a coma for pete's sake! Don't you even feel anything?" 

AJ looked at Clay, and for the first time Clay saw fear in the older man's eyes.

"Don't be fooled Clay, I'm just as upset as you are and I'd show it...but..." 

"I'm sorry AJ, I didn't mean to..."

"It's alright Clay I understand." AJ said softly. "You love her, don't you?" 

Clay nodded looking towards the room where Casey lay. 

"Does she know?" AJ asked. 

Clay shook his head. 

"I was going to tell her the last time we were up at Orion's Reach with Harm and Mac, but she had just gotten back from that other assignment and with all the things that happened with Wilkes...I just didn't think the time was right y'know?" AJ nodded.  "And now this has happened and I might never get a chance to tell her." He said softly. 

"Why don't you go back in and sit with her, talk to her for a while. They say that talking to coma patients is good for them." 

Clay nodded and walked back into Casey's room.  


07.15am Sunday Morning

Clay sat with his head in his hands in the chair next to Casey's bed, thoughts and memories running helter skelter through his head.

He wondered if the outcome would have been different, had he told her that he loved her that night at Orion's Reach...maybe they wouldn't be in this situation right now.

"Clay?" 

A tiny hand touched him on the cheek and he looked up, somewhat surprised to find that Anya was standing in front of him. 

"Hi." He said trying to manage a smile for the little girl. 
He had almost forgotten that she was here, he had been so wrapped up in his guilt and sorrow. 

"Are you sad too?" She asked looking at Clay's tear streaked face. 

Clay nodded, trying not to break down and cry in front of the little girl. 

"Yes sweetheart I'm sad." 

"Is Casey gonna be ok?"  Anya asked, turning around and gently stroking Casey's hand with her fingers. 

"I don't know..." 
He cleared his throat trying to dislodge the lump that had formed there as he watched the little girl's comforting gesture. "I hope so." 

"This is all my daddy's fault."   She said with a frown. 

"What do you mean Anya?" 

Clay asked watching the look of sadness that crossed the little girls face. 

"Daddy maked me learn those numbers and then the men came and tookded me away." She said

"What numbers did he make you learn honey?" 

Clay had an eerie feeling that he was about to find out something crucially important about this whole situation. 

"The numbers on the paper"  

She said, pointing out towards the waiting room. 

Clay got up and walked out to the waiting room and picked up the drawings that Anya had been doing earlier. 
There on the pages were 25 numbers in 5 separate sequences. 

"Tim, look at this." Clay said handing the pages to Tim. 

Tim stared at the numbers and letters in front of him. 

"Is this what I think it is?"  Clay asked. 

Tim opened his lap-top and logged onto a classified site. 
He entered the numbers into the computer...a few seconds later, the Department Of Defence Missile Launch Sequence flashed up on the screen. 

"Clay, these are missile launch codes." 

Clay looked at Anya, who sat on the sofa next to Mac. 

"What's a missile?" she asked Mac. 

"A missile is like a big bomb that flies."  Mac said, wondering what kind of monster would teach a child missile launch codes. 
Tim continued to enter the codes into the computer, checking them all against the DOD Master List. 

"They all match."
He said finally, logging off the site. 

Clay let out a low whistle.

AJ and Harm came back from the cafeteria with steaming cups of coffee and food. 

"What's wrong...has something happened to Casey?"

AJ asked looking at the dumbstruck expressions on their faces. 

"No AJ, there's been no change in Casey's condition, but we've found out why they were after Anya."

Clay said handing AJ the pieces of paper. 
AJ looked at the papers in his hand, handing them to Harm to look at. 

"These look like..."  Harm said. 

"Missile launch codes."  AJ finished for him. 

"They all check out too, I just cross checked them. Anya's father had her memorise them. No wonder people were after her."  Tim said. 

AJ sat down next to Anya and pulled her onto his lap. 

"Anya, can you remember if your daddy told you about anyone he was working with?" 
Anya looked up at AJ. 
She had seen the big bald man crying before when he went in to see Casey.
He had wiped his eyes quickly and pretended that he wasn't crying when Clay had walked in, but she had seen him.
Clay said he was Casey's daddy, she liked him, he was nice. 

She tried to think really hard about her daddy's work, he worked in a big important building, where you had to wear a suit.
He said he was like a policeman only he didn't wear a uniform. 

"Daddy said he was working for a gumment" 
She said to AJ, she didn't know what a gumment was, but it must be important if her daddy worked there. 

"A gumment?" Harm asked. 

"...The government maybe?"  Mac asked, trying to decifer Anya's childish language.

"Yes...The Gumment."  Anya confirmed.

"What else did he say?"
AJ asked, pleased to have gotten at least something out of the little girl. 

"He didn't like the man who kept ringing us up at home all the time, he always rang really early and woke us up." 

"Do you remember the mans name sweetheart?" 

Anya thought back to when she had been sleeping in daddy's bed, there had been a storm outside and she was scared so she had crawled into bed with him.
The phone had woken them both up very early.
Her daddy talked to the man...telling him not to be late...what had the mans name been? 

"Fish cough, that's what daddy called him" 

"Fish cough?" 

AJ asked thinking that maybe Anya couldn't remember the mans name after all.  Anya nodded. 

"He told fish cough to remember that he didn't speak rushin' and that he had to speak england when he talked to him."" 

Clay sat down suddenly, all the colour draining from his face. AJ turned and looked at him. 

"Clay, what's wrong?" 

"Clay?" Tim asked. 

Clay looked from Tim to AJ. 

"It's not Fish Cough...it's Bytchkov...Nicholai Bytchkov." 

Tim immediately got on his cell phone and called Langley, informing them of the situation, AJ listened as Tim organised to triple the guard around Anya and Casey and Clay. 

"Who the hell is this guy?"  AJ asked Clay. 

"Nicholai Bytchkov is ex KGB.
The man's a psychopath.
He makes Clark Palmer look like an angel."
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