Nowhere is Safe | Pt. 15 Triangle

[owned_by_a_cat]

Title: Nowhere is Safe
Pairing: JaeMin / MinJae
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, Suspense, Romance, Army!fic
Summary: Invisible up close, able to kill from a long way away… when an elite sniper operates in your neighbourhood nowhere is safe. To Major Kim Jaejoong, being a sniper is more than a job. It's a mindset he needs when the people around him fall prey to a shooter with a high-powered rifle and his new partner, Captain Shim Changmin from Army Intelligence, turns out to be as much a distraction as he is a help. Undeniably both smart and gorgeous, the man has issues. And an attitude. And he's about as subtle as mortar fire in showing his dislike of Jaejoong.
Thrown together by the crisis, both Jaejoong and Changmin struggle to reconcile mutual dislike and mutual attraction. But when events escalate and the stakes get higher, they must put their attraction and differences aside and work together.

Under Attack|| Return to Base|| Pissedand Pissed Off|| Do Over|| Attempts at Apologies|| Discoveries|| Close to Home|| Backfoot|| Traps|| Confession|| Plansand Pleasure|| Reasonable Doubt|| Desired Outcomes|| Old Foes, New Allies

A/N:This chapter was seriously tricky to write and might have been better had I left it alone until after the holiday. But I had so much fun reading all your comments and speculations on the previous chapters that I would have felt awful making you wait that long. So with the proviso that I might edit this when I'm back home...and that you've given me ideas for at least two new stories... here's the next bit of what was never meant to be so long. Or so involved. Really, please, someone gag Jaejoong.

Triangle

By the time the jeep jolted to a stop, the cuffs circling Changmin's wrists were little more than jewellery. Not that he let on about that. Neither did he advertise the facts that he was wide awake and that his ears were on stalks. Literally. The soundbead he had buried in one ear worked along similar lines as a hearing aid. And while it caught and enhanced the edge of the engine's drone, the scritch of tyres on rock and the bone-jarring screech of the jeep's bodywork on the surrounding vegetation until his head throbbed, it also allowed him to follow the half-grumbled, half-shouted conversations between his captors without having to strain himself.

Thinking him unconscious, the four had talked freely. While Changmin worked to breathe around the gag in his mouth, to keep his body soft and his eyes almost closed, the four had mentioned names. To his great satisfaction, they had confirmed his suspicions, had allowed him to justify the chaos he was about to unleash. All that just before the jeep had had to make its first detour. Changmin had used the confusion between the check-in call and the driver almost running into a ravine to free the short length of wire from its hiding place in his waistband and start to pick the lock on the handcuffs.

When an uncharted rockfall prompted the second detour, Changmin started to pay closer attention.

By the third diversion, he was sure they were being trailed and he was hoping that Jaejoong had caught up with them and was outside, slowing the jeep down to create a chance for Changmin to escape. The check-in call the leader of the four had made had done more than confirm that a highly placed mole was passing information to the North Koreans. Changmin had also learned that the jeep was headed towards the border and a helicopter was on the way to take him across the DMZ and into captivity.

Which he couldn't allow to happen.

He didn't need a vivid imagination to picture his fate should he be taken across the border. His tongue probed at the last molar in his lower jaw, satisfied when he found the tiny catch that would release a cynanide capsule. His last escape route, should everything else fail.

He rarely thought about failure. In his line of work, the stakes were always high and he'd too much yet to do to go quietly. An image of Jaejoong's dark gaze swam through his mind, most likely conjured by the struggle to get enough oxygen into his lungs. Changmin didn't fight it, just accepted the comfort it offered and relaxed as much as he was able. The gaze beckoned and enticed, reminded him of some of those things as yet undone. All while he worked the lock on his cuffs and planned how to get loose once the jeep stopped.

He needed more than a verbal confirmation of his suspicions, which could be easily denied. He needed solid proof, which meant he needed the four men who had ambushed him. Alive.

And the helicopter crew, if he could manage it.

Changmin was determined to manage that.

Jaejoong could pontificate about snipers and patience all he wanted. Just because he could hide in the bushes for hours without moving didn't mean Changmin was impatient. He had spent three years of his life gathering data to prove his suspicions. He'd be damned if he allowed anyone to compromise what he'd wrought.

He was playing with a fire that could consume them all. He could accept that.

Placing Jaejoong's life on the line alongside his bothered him more, but the sniper was fast and smart and skilled in survival. He had a better chance than the men Changmin had watched die over the last three years. And whatever he was about to unleash, Changmin owed it to the nineteen men whose names he carried in his heart to end this now.

Even if his own life was the price. Or a small, bare cell in a jail for all his remaining years.

A thump rocked the jeep to the side. Abused metal screamed and the panels at Changmin's back caved when they hit a tree trunk. The floor dipped and Changmin rolled, convinced that the thump had been a bullet hitting… a tyre, maybe?

The four men with him were suddenly quiet. Watchful. Brushed metal glinted dully in white-knuckled fists. And when Changmin's body stopped sliding and he turned his head, he stared right down the barrel of a gun.

"If I were you, Shim, I wouldn't even think about it."

***

Ran Joon's finger hovered over the trigger of his high-powered sniper rifle. He had his eye to the scope and his teeth ground in frustrated fury as he watched his baby brother, gagged and handcuffed, being dragged over rough terrain by men he despised. He memorised every shove and push, every kick and punch, determined to exact bloody, painful revenge as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

He'd accepted the job thinking he was going up against the solo squad. That idea hadn't bothered him at all. In fact, he'd been almost gleefully grateful for a chance to get one over on the bastard who'd ruined his life. An opportunity to hunt Kim fucking Jaejoong had seemed too good to be true.

Turned out it was.

Ran Joon had no idea how he'd kept his temper when he'd been told who the real target was, when he realised that he'd been played by men he thought understood him. Only the tiny suspicion that those trying to use him for their ends had no idea that Shim Changmin was his younger brother kept his tongue still and his face impassive.

That suspicion had bloomed into conviction as time passed. None of the men he'd been forced to work with would have run their mouths the way they had if they'd been aware they were insulting the only man Ran Joon had ever cared about.

That incompetence would make his revenge, when he came to exact it, all the sweeter.

Meanwhile he'd had a chance to sabotage that fuckup of a mission while watching over Changmin as he was used to do. He'd not seen his brother for almost three years and for the first few days after his arrival he'd soaked up the sight of the younger man. He'd noted the way Changmin carried himself, the easy assurance that he'd not seen before, the hint of swagger in his walk. He'd added muscle to his lean frame and the extra pounds in just the right places made his uniform look like couture. He saw the glances Min attracted from men and women, both, but nothing cheered him as much as the public animosity he showed towards the solo squad's sniper ace.

Now, of course, Min was in the line of fire, captive and threatened with worse, and it was just Ran Joon's luck that the only man around to help him save his brother would be the one man he only wanted to meet in hell.

Ran Joon hissed a curse as one of Changmin's captors rammed an elbow into Changmin's stomach, hard enough to make the younger man curl forward protectively. His trigger finger itched, inching towards the point of retribution, and he closed his eyes and breathed. He couldn't let himself react. Not yet. Not until the helo was down and the men inside it either dead or captive.

He'd prefer dead, but delivering captives might save his life. Not his freedom. Not that. But it might keep him out of the way of the firing squad. Whether it would keep him out of the way of Changmin's wrath was an entirely different question. One he pondered while he lay in wait, patient as the tide,and kept a weather eye on his brother and a finger on the trigger.

***

It always pays to know the playground.Jaejoong's first CO had hammered that into his head and Jaejoong had never forgotten the lesson. Knowing the one place in the area suitable as a landing zone had allowed both him and Ran Joon to get ahead of Changmin and his captors.

They'd not spoken again, but they'd both found well covered, defensible positions on opposite sides of the clearing and settled in to wait. They didn't need to communicate to know how to ground the helo. Or take down Changmin's captors.

Now Jaejoong kept his rifle trained on the two men who had remained with Changmin, trusting Ran Joon to take care of the two who had gone to signal the helicopter sneaking across the border under cover of dusk. Sending a helicopter across the DMZ was an unbelievably audacious move that could trigger immediate reprisals of the ground-to-air variety. And all hell would break loose shortly after that.

It begged the question, really: What did Changmin have or know that made him valuable enough to risk a war?

None of his musings compromised Jaejoong's situational awareness. He didn't miss the moment when Changmin flowed from the ground as silently as mist rising from a river — gag and handcuffs gone — and appeared behind one of the men supposedly guarding him. The knife in his fist was just as silent, but there was nothing hesitant about Changmin's moves. One straight slash across the man's throat ended the threat and Changmin was gone before the body had fully hit the ground. Only to appear behind the second guard and take him down with a quick chop to the throat.

Slipping into the trees, Changmin threw a brief look around, then flashed the hand signs for loose and intel and Jaejoong couldn't hold back a grin. He left his perch to help Changmin secure the man, only to find that both enemies were still alive.

"We need all of them alive if possible," Changmin said, voice a dry rasp even after he'd emptied most of Jaejoong's canteen of water. He looked rougher than Jaejoong had ever seen him, a fine tremor in his hands and his pupils pinprick small despite the lack of bright light.

"Status?"

"Functional." Changmin waved the attention away. "Bitch of a headache and a few bruises. Nothing else unless I start throwing up. Is that the helo?"

Jaejoong stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, even though the distinctive thwap-thwap-thwap of rotor blades was growing closer. "Don't rush. Why would you throw up? Are you concussed?"

"No. They darted me and I took the antidote moments later. It's… a shit way to do it, but it worked. But that and the damned soundbead… and the jeep rattling around like a bitch…" He swallowed heavily, then breathed deeply through his nose to ward off the nausea.

"I get you. I have peppermint oil. You want?"

"Later. The helo—"

"It's covered."

"What? How?"

"Ran Joon followed you and slowed the jeep down until I could catch up with you."

Changmin's expressive eyes narrowed to slits and the lush mouth that Jaejoong had taken such pleasure tasting became a sharp, angry slash. "Bastard," he hissed. "How could he do this?"

"You don't know that he's done anything," Jaejoong found himself inexplicably defending a man he would have sworn he'd rather punch in the face.

"Yeah, right,"Changmin scoffed bitterly. "He wouldn't be here if he wasn't in it to his neck. I'm gonna kill him. Slowly. With pepper spray and the dullest spoon I can find."

Coupled with Changmin's venomous tone, the image in Jaejoong's mind was vivid enough to give him shivers. "Remind me not to piss you off," he begged.

The sound of the approaching helicopter grew distinct. The familiar ssssss….thump sounded from the other side of the clearing before Jaejoong could say anything else. Four shots sang out in rapid succession as the helo set down. And for a few heartbeats the dusky woods around them burned as bright and hot as midsummer noon.

Part 16: Unravelled