The door closes behind Fernando with a loud slam.
After a quick review of the pair, Marco and Fernando head to the one who was still awake.
Fernando: You want to take of him or shall I?
Marco: Why don't you take care of him yourself?
Fernando: I'm rather fed up with all of this. If he says anything to further piss me off, I'll just kill him outright here and now!
Prisoner: I'll tell you anything you want, I swear!
Fernando takes the folder from Marco, which contained the investigation information, including the infiltration mission Bink and Tammy were on. He opens if and pulls out the picture of Bink and Tammy from their mission briefs, holding it up to prisoner's face.
Fernando: You know who these two are?
The prisoner can only shake his head.
Fernando: They were my wife and daughter... and somebody from your organization killed them, you know how?
The prisoner again shakes his head.
Fernando: Some bastage from your organization threw LSD at my wife's face while she was driving on the highway, causing her to hallucinate. So give me a damn good reason why I should not gut you like a fish and leave your carcass in the forest for the feral animals to eat the flesh off your bones...
Marco: Fernando, you're scaring him.
Fernando I want names, addresses, supply run routes, time schedules, everything you know and may then I will decide your fate... depending how many others I go kill for my revenge.
Prisoner: But The Other Said That He Would Talk To The Judge!
Fernando: I am... Your Judge, Jury and Executioner... Now... Talk Or Die.
Prisoner: Aren't you the police?!!
Fernando: #$@! the police... We are just one big family here, a rich and powerful family- one you and your friends have hurt, so now we have pulled our resources together to do what the police will not do...
Fernando pulls his gun and puts it to the prisoner's forehead!
Prisoner: NO! WAIT!
Fernando: What do you have to say?
Prisoner: Let me sit down, and get me the map from the truck...
Fernando: What for?
Prisoner: So I can show you, everything!
Fernando steps away backwards, lowering his gun.
Fernando: We will be back with your map. Marco, lets go.
Fernando walks over to the door, allowing for Marco to leave first. He then turns off the lights before stepping out and slamming the door behind him.
Marco and Fernando walked down the underground hall.
Marco: That was one of the cruelest interrogation I have ever witnessed.
Fernando: Oh? I hear you're just as vicious, often leaving bodies behind when you're done.
Marco: Like I said, 'witnessed.'
They continued to walk back to the safe house, going up through the basements and to the main floor. Fernando makes his way to the kitchen, taking on some water. Marco sits down with the others who have made the dining area into the meeting area. He gets Priscilla, Olga and Ferro to join them and starts discussing with them about the prisoners in the basement. A few minutes into the discussion, Ferro calls to Fernando who was leaning against the service island counter top that separates the kitchen from the dining area.
Ferro: Fernando?
Fernando: Yes?
Ferro: You did what Marco is telling us?
Fernando: I'll do it again if I must.
Ferro: Where did you get the intell to go about on your own like that?
Fernando: Intell is my business. Seeing patterns in random data is my forte. What else you want to learn?
Ferro: Tell me why would you not join us? We need somebody with your abilities.
Fernando: I like my life the way it is. Pick up money here and there for jobs that I do, freedom to do as I please. And no higher ups breathing down my neck.
Ferro: We would make it very comfortable for you. Give you a little killer tot-cyborg of your own, freedom to do as you do like right now, free room and board, a good 6-figure pay, and a medical plan that cant be beat.
Fernando: No.
Ferro: No?
Fernando: You lost me at the 'little killer-tot cyborg' part. Tell me, how can you do this to the girls like Angelica and Bink?
Ferro: They were already dead when we got them...
Fernando: That gives you no excuse to turn them into cyborgs and send them on killing missions.
Ferro: It gives us all the rights...
Fernando: Who knows many lives I have saved in my time, I lost count a long time ago. Brought them back from the claws of death, but that did not give me the right to do with them as I please when they were breathing again.
Ferro: You are just a person, we are an institution.
Fernando: Keep thinking like that, don't you. Many in the Nuremburg Trials all said the same thing- 'We Were Only Following Orders...' Well, following orders is no excuse to allow what is going on here.
Ferro: You propose for a better idea?
Fernando: No. I am not of your nation, and have no voice in the matter of those in charge.
Ferro: Then remember that. You and your friends will be rewarded for your assistance and capture of those involved.
Fernando: I'm not in it for the reward, though I not an idiot not to accept it. I am in it for 2 others.
Ferro: I see. Well, they have accepted positions in our organization. Why don't you?
Fernando: Do they have freedom to leave at anytime? Will I?
Ferro: No.
Fernando: Then there is a problem.
Ferro: We're not stopping you or Tammy from having a life together, or getting married and having a family. You would be free to live a life, but like any other job- is tethered to the responsibility to the company you work for.
Fernando: Her freedom is more valuable than any responsibility you can throw at her. And as for Bink, how many years she has left? 4, 5? She would be dead before she hits her twenties according to my calculations. Is that fair for her?
Ferro: What is done is done. If it were not for us, Bink would be buried with the rest of her family.
Fernando goes into the frig and sees a few bottles of beer and wine that were placed in there. He takes one of the wine bottles and a glass from the over hanging rack.
Fernando: You have prisoners to attend too. I got a date with this bottle and the roof.
Ferro: Our offer still stands.
Fernando finds a bread roll, and takes it before starting to walk away from them. He walks up the stairs as quietly as possible.
He makes his way to the storage room and attic and then to the balcony. He takes a ladder that was stored in the attic, placing it against the roof. In a few seconds, he was sitting on the edge of the front of the house looking out onto the highway. He began munching on the bread roll and drinking from the wine, losing himself in deep thought.
Voice from behind: Thought you would be up here.
Fernando: So, what of it, Hondo?
Hondo: Hey, I'm not the enemy here.
Fernando: Who says you were?
Hondo: Then why the attitude?
Fernando: Well, let me tell you a long story.
Hondo: I'm all ears.
Fernando: A very long time ago, there was a city in the clouds called Aerodina.
Hondo: I thought that was only a legend like Atlantis.
Fernando: Oh it was real alright. It was where all civilized beings that could fly lived in. The birds, the bats and us flying squirrels- all lived there in peace. We looked down on the ground dwellers for thousands of years as they developed technologies and cities of their own, but they were always on the ground. We developed science and mathematics, studied the heavens, and while the ground dwellers professed that the world was flat, we knew that it was round, orbited about the sun and stars and there were other planets like ours out in space. It was our own arrogance and misguided self interests that destroyed us. Nothing is left Aerodina, except for our collective memories, the tales we tell our children and our inborn arrogance and attitude. Tell me Hondo, how does one undoes a mille-generations worth of social programming?
Hondo: You think you're better than anyone of us here?
Fernando: Ask any bird and any bat you see and they will tell you the same thing- because as can fly on our own without technology, that we are. But that's a collective social conditioning. Personally, I don't care anymore.
Fernando gulps down the wine from the glass and then refills it. Then he takes a bite from the bread.
Hondo: You fell like you're alone in the world because there are no other flying squirrels around?
Fernando: No.
Hondo: Then what is it?
Fernando: There has to be a better way... as like it was in Aerodina- during its prime, before the great fall of the cloud city. Peace, understanding, love and respect for all living creatures.
Hondo: We got a long way before we realize that.
Fernando: A very long way. I know that.
They both sat there looking out onto the highway. Fernando continued on with eating the bread and drinking the wine. It was gone before the hour was. Hondo gets up and sticks his hand out to Fernando.
Hondo: Give me your car keys.
Fernando: What for?
Hondo: You're too loaded on that wine...
Fernando: Aisapi can drive for me.
Hondo: That's not the problem.
Fernando: Then what is?
Hondo: I don't want you to go out on solo missions like this.
Fernando: Like what, drunk? I'm not drunk. Not in the full sense of the word.
Hondo: Then show me that you're not drunk.
Fernando reaches into his pocket and tosses at Hondo an open Packet of RU-22, an alcohol neutralizing pill.
Hondo: What the... I thought this was just fake.
Fernando: For the mass market it's a low dose version. For us in our cloak and dagger world- its at industrial strength. Of course, it upsets my stomach, which is why I took the bread.
Hondo looks over the packet.
Hondo: Don't do anything stupid then, or I'll let the air out of your tires.
Fernando: I don't mess with your truck, don't threaten my Porsche.
Hondo: I'm just letting you know.
Fernando: Then rest up for a while. I got another hunch to go after later this evening.
Hondo: Any flying again?
Fernando: No, this time it will be at Rome.
Hondo: Who are we going after this time?
Fernando: Go ask Rose and Marco for a copy of the intell that I gave him. In there it will be rat we would be looking for.
Hondo: I see. I'll be back then.
Fernando: By the way- ask Bink for some E-String Violin strings.
Hondo: Huh?
Fernando: It will be needed.
Hondo (as he starts to walk away): OK, then boss.
Fernando: And cut it out with the Boss thing!
-- -- -- -- --
As if in a dream, a scene repeats itself.
..
.
Fernando: Why are you here?
Anne: Just paying my respects for the kids who died at the hospital recently.
Fernando: Is that so?
Fernando walks over to a grave marker several stones and an aisle away from Tammy. He looks down at it.
Fernando: You know, this poor sap had nobody show up at his funeral.
Anne: You knew him?
Fernando: I would say that the three of us did.
Anne: I knew him?
Anne walks over to the grave marker and looks down at it. It says:
Quote:
Fernando G.
{Date of death- date of the 737BBJ's destruction}
Died in the line of duty for his country.
-carved image of a flying airliner on the side by his name-
Anne can only stand there staring at the stone, covering her mouth as she stares.
Fernando: That was one of your bombs, wasn't it?
Anne remains silent, not wanting to answer, not sure how to answer. Tammy stops crying and looks at them both from her kneeling position.
Fernando: When life loses its meaning, and is taken for nought, then the pact is Revenge.
Fernando takes his AA .45 out of his holster and he puts it at Anne's chest between her breasts.
Fernando: Was that your bomb?
Anne tries to remain as silent as possible, though tears begin to pour down her face.
Fernando: I have defused 2 of your constructs, so I know what you are capable of and can identify it when I see it.
Anne looks up at him.
Fernando: Was it one of your bombs? All I want is a 'Yes' or a 'No'
Anne: And if I say 'Yes'?
Fernando: I don't want you to lie to me. That would break a silent but sacred trust between us.
Anne: You are too trusting.
Fernando: And you have cost me my life.
Anne: You seem to be doing fine for a dead man.
Fernando: I'm not into games, Ms Rossellini Now about that answer.
Anne: I have Franco waiting for me at the gate.
Fernando: So? One answer will have you seeing him again, the other will have your blood enriching the soil of my grave while your dead body rests on it. Now, which one is it?
Anne: Yes it was mine.
Fernando: You knew that there was a possibility of me and other other rangers on that plane.
Anne: I only knew...
Fernando: I flew that plane here, I was the pilot of that plane back. I was to fly it back with my co-pilot who is a ranger. I was to bring back the rangers, the UN investigators and the SWA prisonners back to New York.
Anne: Then explain why you are still here.
Fernando: I found the bomb and had no tools to defuse it. I also found another 2 bombs cloned from the one you made; each one attached to the landing struts. There could have been more, I am not sure. But I do know this... I was not going to endanger my team and my mission when I find a danger in our way. Nor was I going to endanger anyone else, so that UN Team was not on that plane. It was only made to look that way because you and I play a most dangerous game.
Anne: Then who flew the plane?
Fernando: It was done by remote control. You actually think I was going to allow innocent people to be killed like that?
Anne: So all of this was a rouge?
From several rows down, a voice can be heard calling for Anne. It was Franco, walking towards them.
Franco: Woman, what's taking you so long?!!
Fernando turns to face him, seeing that Franco has started to reach for his gun that was stuffed into his belt. Fernando reacts quickly, putting a .45 round into his forehead. Then he puts the gun back at Anne's chest. Anne wants to react against him but it met with a 9mm SIG to her temple. It belonged to Tammy.
Fernando: I would not move if I were you...
Anne (as tears ran down her face): You might as well kill me here and now.
Fernando: And what, do you the favor?
Anne drops the flowers on the floor.
Anne: You do not know what you have done.
Fernando: Somebody coming at me reaching for his gun will be met with the same force he intends to use. Unfortunately for him, I am a lot faster than most. So I know what I have done.
Anne: You do not know what you have done to me.
Fernando: I killed your bomb making partner. Any coupled pair in such a task are usually lovers, so yes, I know what I did to him, and to you. All I can say is- One down... one to go. Tammy- leave us.
Tammy: No.
Fernando: Tammy...
Tammy: Just like he was her partner in all this, I am yours. And if she is to suceed in killing you, I will kill her.
Fernando: She wont suceed in that task.
Tammy: I will make*---....
Anne turns to Tammy to try to take her gun, pushing Fernando's arm away. Fernando quickly recovers his aim and releases two shots into Anne's back. She falls as she struggles with Tammy in taking her gun. Anne lets go of the gun before she hits the floor. She lays there dying, just barely holding onto life.
Fernando reaches down and picks up the spent casings and pockets them. He then turn Anne on to her back and lays her on the floor. Blood spews out of her mouth as she tries to talk. Fernando covers her eyes and gently closes them.
Fernando: Save it for the creator... I already passed judgement on you, and this is the price you pay for breaking our trust.
Anne takes one last gasp of air before coughing up a ball of blood. For a second as she does, she goes taught and then limp...
-- -- -- -- --
Anne wakes up, suddenly sitting up despite the pain she is enduring in doing so. She breathes heavy, almost gasping for air.
Mr. Christiano: Glad to see you up and around again, niece.
Anne looks at him, almost blankly and then takes the blanket to her face and starts crying. Mr. Christiano leans over the bed and puts his hand to her back.
Mr. Christiano: There, there... its all over, things will be better now. Just a few more days in the hospital before you can leave.
Anne keeps her face covered, but stops crying for the moment.