Ava had seen a lot of disturbing things in her time as a CTU agent

Ava had seen a lot of disturbing things in her time as a CTU agent. Torture victims, blast zones, hostages that had outlived their usefulness...but there was something different about the scene in front of her. Five men had been stationed in the control room to oversee the entire event; they were NSA, FBI, CIA, CTU and Homeland Security. The banquet wasn't supposed to just be about the delegates from different countries, making eneffectual speeches about the nations working together - the President had specifically requested that the different, and often warring, agencies put on a show of unity as well. And now those five men were dead, each with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

"The President," Ava whispered.

Jen frowned at her friend, obviously grateful for a reason to turn away from the carnage. "He was supposed to be here tonight, wasn't he?"

Ava nodded. "He pulled out at the last minute - something about a visit running over in Russia."

"Do you think they're after him?"

She shook her head. "That wouldn't make any sense."

"The President of the United States being a target for terrorists doesn't make sense?"

"His decision to pull out might have been last minute, but everyone knew about it. It was all over the news. If these guys were really after the President, they'd be damn sure that he was here."

"So...who are they after?"

"The 64,000 question," Ava murmured. Looking around, she realized that they were wasting too much time. "Close the door and make sure that it's locked."

While Jen did that, Ava moved across the room, looking under tables and chairs. Inwardly, she cringed every time she had to walk near one of the bodies, and she wanted to cut and run when she had to shift Cassidy a little to see under the desk he was sitting at. She tried to block out the image, to forget that she was next to a corpse that used to be a coworker. Finally, her eyes landed on what she was looking for, and she moved across the room quickly to retrieve the bag from behind a table.

"What's that?" Jen asked as Ava hurriedly unzipped the bag and started pulling things out.

"Extra supplies. Call me paranoid, but things never go as planned for me."

Jen frowned, watching her friend pull out guns and knives. "God, it's like you're Mary Poppins."

"I'm pretty sure Mary Poppins never carried body armor." She handed something to her friend. "Put it on."

"This is body armor?"

"Yep."

"And you want me to wear it over my dress?"

"Under. More sneaky that way. I've found that some bad guys, when they know you're wearing protective gear, just try to shoot you in the head. And then it doesn't matter what you were wearing."

Jen sighed. "Good point." She turned her back, undoing the top of her dress as she put the armor on. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw Ava taking off her nylons. "What are you doing?"

Ava shrugged. "My shoes make noise when I walk and I'd like to have the advantage of surprise if possible. But my nylons will make me slide. So we're going barefoot."

"I like that idea."

"I was pretty proud of it."

The body armor in place, Jen zipped her dress back up and rejoined her friend at the table. "This stuff is much lighter than I expected."

Ava grinned. "I know. I love it. That's why I wear that more than I do Kevlar."

"So...do we have a plan?"

She handed Jen a gun with extra clips, and a big hunting knife. "Take 'em down as quickly and quietly as we can."

Jen stared at her. "That sounds an awful lot like a Jack plan."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

"Jack doesn't usually have more than one gun. I've got a whole bag."

"You know what scares me? You're actually serious."

Ava shrugged. "I'm a rebel." Looking around the room, she saw the control panel that controlled all of the audio feeds with the agents. She moved closer, frowning when she saw a piece of paper sticking out of Cassidy's inside jacket pocket.

"What are you doing?" Jen asked.

Swallowing hard, Ava reached out a shaky hand, plucking the paper out of the pocket as quickly as she could, and doing her best to not touch the body. She turned it over and unfolded it, a smile on her face as she saw what it was.

"What is it?"

Ava looked up. "The list of agents with ear pieces in. And the frequency that they're on." She turned the paper to so that Jen could see it. "And Curtis is one of them."

She moved closer to the control panel, studying it for a moment before fiddling with some of the buttons and levers. Hoping that she was doing this right, she pulled the little microphone up to her mouth, and pressed the button on the base.

"Curtis?" she ventured. "If it's safe, let me know that you can hear me."

There was silence for a painfully long moment, and then the faint crackle of static.

"Manning here. Is that you, Ava?"

She almost cried with relief. "Yeah, Curtis, it's me. Glad to know you're still alive."

"They've only shot one of us so far, and that's the singer. Right now it looks like they're searching for somebody."

Ava frowned. "Who?"

"I don't know. Heller has tried asking them, but they pretty much tell him to sit down and shut up." There was a pause. "Are you in the control room?"

"Yeah."

"Cassidy there?"

She took a deep breath, steadying her voice. "They're dead, Curtis. All of them."

"Fuck," he hissed. "There were good men in that room."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Curtis sighed, taking a second to think. "Wait - so they killed everyone in the room, but didn't destroy the equipment?"

"I think they just wanted to cut off communication with the people who could see everything. Kill the agents and the lights, and we're running blind."

"So what's the plan?"

"I was kinda hoping you had one. Is there any way you can get out of the main room?"

There was silence again, and Ava knew that he was taking a closer look at his surroundings.

"I think so," he said finally. "Michelle and I are in the back, and there's only one guard. I could probably slip out. Where do you want us to meet you?"

"How well do you remember the layout of this place?"

"Pretty well. Buchanan made us study it."

"Alright. There's a work room on the eighth floor, where the stuffy businessmen can hook up their laptops. You know what I'm talking about?"

"Yeah. We'll be there as soon as we can."

Ava pulled away from the microphone and went back to the bag of weapons. Zipping it up, she slung it over her shoulder, deciding that she didn't want to leave it anywhere that the bad guys could get their hands on it. Then she reached into a hidden fold in her dress, pulling out her cell phone. Jen stared at her in amazement.

"What are you doing?"

"Texting Curtis."

"Why? You just talked to him."

"And chances are, that the bad guys are listening in."

"Okay..."

"When I asked Curtis if it was safe, that was a code phrase, telling him that I didn't think the line was safe."

"But you told him where to meet us."

Ava shook her head. "Another trick phrase. That's why I told him the eighth floor - it's our code for 'I'll let you know on a secure line.'"

Jen sighed. "This secret agent stuff is complicated."

"You should see the list of phrases we have to memorize every week. It's ridiculous." She tapped her foot impatiently. "Has it been five minutes yet?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Curtis should have been able to slip out by now." Her thumb moving rapidly, she sent him a message.

"What did you tell him?" Jen asked.

"To meet us on the third floor. Come on, let's go."

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Ava bounced her knee, a gun clutched in her hand as she sat at the desk in the manager's office. Every few seconds she would glance at the door and then sigh, her anxiety clear.

"You're making me nervous."

"Good. I'm working on sharing my feelings."

"He'll be here."

"I know."

"Then why are you so nervous?"

"Because we're in a hostage situation where we don't know who or what they want? Or maybe because there are people I care about in that room, and I don't know if they're okay?"

Jen nodded. "Those are all valid points. But at the same time, you need to calm down. We need a plan. And as creative as I am, I don't do well with weapons and fighting. So we need to think."

Before Ava could answer, there was a sound at the door. She raised her gun, aiming it at chest level, her finger whispering over the trigger. The door opened slowly, and she saw another gun, but it was quickly followed by an arm and then the rest of Curtis. Sighing in relief, Ava lowered her weapon, standing up and moving over to him. She stopped when she saw that there were others behind him.

"You brought company."

Michelle and Bill came in after him, shutting the door quietly and locking it. Curtis shrugged. "They insisted on coming."

"The more the merrier," Jen murmured.

"Correction," Michelle said. "The more guns, the merrier."

"That's true today," Ava agreed. She turned to the CTU director. "Are you sure you're up for this, Bill?"

He gave her a little smile. "What, you think because I sit behind a desk all day that I don't know how to shoot? I've done my fair share of field work."

Ava chuckled, holding up her hands in surrender. "Just making sure." Looking over at Curtis, her expression grew sober. "I don't suppose you saw Tony?"

"He's fine," the agent assured her. "I could see that he was with Jack before we left."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright. So what do we know?"

"The majority of our captors are in the main ballroom," Michelle told them. "They all look like ex-military types, no masks. The man in charge is on the stage, and pretends to be very polite. He's says he's looking for someone, and then they'll leave."

"Do you believe him?"

"I'm not sure. But I don't think he's in charge of the whole operation - just the firepower. Someone else has to be behind this."

"So who is he looking for?"

"I can't speak to the who," Bill said, stepping forward. "But I might be able to speak to the what." Everyone looked at him expectantly as he cleared his throat. "This delegation wasn't just about unity between countries. Some of our agents were supposed to make an exchange."

"An exchange of what?" Ava asked warily.

"A plan for a new weapons prototype. The Chinese have been developing it for years, and we finally found someone to smuggle the plans out to us."

"What kind of weapon?" Michelle asked.

"A new gun. Highly dangerous, and definitely not something we'd want out on the streets. It's experimental technology, and it could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands."

"Are you suggesting there are right hands?" Ava asked. When Bill opened his mouth to answer, she held up her hand. "Never mind. I don't want to know. So chances are, the person they're looking for is the person who was supposed to hand these plans over." She looked at Bill. "If you knew about the exchange, then why don't you know the identity of this person?"

"Because this wasn't a CTU operation. I was given only the basics because Homeland Security wanted to use one our agents to make the trade."

"Who?" Michelle asked.

"Me."

Everyone turned to look at Curtis in surprise. Out of the corner of her eye, Ava could see hurt and shock mingled on Michelle's face, and she knew that her friend hadn't known about her boyfriend's mission. Sighing, she let that go - for now, they had more important things to worry about.

"Who's the contact, Curtis?" she asked.

"He runs the computer security for the Chinese company that came up with the plans."

"Who?" Ava pressed.

Curtis sighed. "Paul Raines."