Truth In The Tequila: Part One

by Alicia McKenzie

HOTEL MERIDA, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

AUGUST 27th, 7:39 pm

Stretching out in the massive bathtub, Domino sighed contentedly. This was nice--very nice. Too bad the Pack couldn't stay in five-star hotels on a regular basis. Still, Bridge, paranoid as he was, had a point. Someplace like this was too--visible for people in their line of work. It was common sense, she corrected herself sternly, not paranoia; Logan had said pretty much the same thing to her, more times than she could remember. But, thankfully, there were times that discretion wasn't absolutely essential--like now, when the Pack was between missions and in dire need of a breather, if not a full-fledged vacation.

Closing her eyes, she laid there in the steaming water, letting it soak away the aches and stiffness from last night's 'excitement'. She'd gotten off lightly, with only a few bruises--of course, she hadn't been in the thick of the fighting. The others were nursing various minor injuries. Nothing serious, but considering how totally they had been taken by surprise, it could have been worse, so much worse. She felt her muscles tense in anger at the memory, and forced herself to relax. It had been a close call, but it was over. No point in 'stewing' about it, as Logan would have put it.

Once the water had cooled, she got out, wrapping a large towel around herself. As she headed back into the bedroom to get ready for her dinner date, she toyed with the idea of giving Logan a call. She needed to vent to someone, and he was a good listener. Besides, she didn't think that his personal differences with Cable would prevent him from being just as indignant as she was over how the Pack had been used. There were certain rules to the game, after all, and their employer had just violated one of the most basic. The thought of how Logan would have dealt with that little weasel Sykes succeeded in bringing a brief, grim smile to her face.

By the time the expected knock finally came at her door, she was fully dressed and just pulling her damp hair back into a braid. "That you, Theo?" she called, her eyes flickering from the door to the gun she'd laid on the dresser, thoughtfully measuring distances--just in case.

"Yeah," Grizzly rumbled from the other side of the door. "It's me," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

"Well, c'mon in, then!" she said with a laugh. The door opened partway and Grizzly stuck his head in, looking a touch apprehensive. Domino chuckled. "Don't worry, big guy," she reassured him. "I'm decent."

His expression brightened as he stepped in and got a good look at her. "Wow, Dom!" he said with an almost boyish enthusiasm. "You look like a girl!"

She arched an eyebrow. "Was that supposed to be a compliment?" she asked wryly. "I certainly didn't dress up for you, pal." She hadn't brought much in the way of civilian clothes with her on this trip, but while she'd been out this afternoon, trying to blow off steam, she'd seen the red dress she was wearing in a shop window and been unable to resist. Admittedly, it was cut a little low, but so what? She felt like she lived in her body armor these days, with the amount of time they spent in the field. It was refreshing to wear something that made her look like a woman, for once. Hammer might make one of his patented sexist comments if she ran into him tonight, but she'd gotten used to them over the four months she'd been with the Pack. Screw him, anyway-- It was just his charming way of testing her, she knew--annoying, but easily handled.

Cable and Bridge, on the other hand, made her uneasy. They were taking her measure too, in more subtle ways. Bridge had this habit of striking up 'discussions' on various topics--sounding her out, she thought. And Cable watched her. Constantly. If he wasn't quite so cold about it, it would be a little creepy. At least Grizzly had never been anything but friendly. She was really getting to be quite fond of the big guy, actually.

"Umm--I didn't mean--you look nice, Dom," Grizz finally said, looking chagrined. Taking pity on him, she grinned and patted his cheek.

"That's better. So do you, by the way," she said quite sincerely. "Though I don't want to know what you had to go through to get a suit that fit you--"

Laughing, he offered her his arm. She gave him a sarcastic little half-curtsy, and, together, they headed down to the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. On the way, they were the object of more than a few surreptitiously curious looks from other guests. Reminding herself that this was a tourist hotel and that the two of them stood out rather markedly (to put it mildly), Domino smiled pleasantly at each person they passed, mostly to counteract Grizzly's glower. The elevator they stepped into had two other passengers, both elderly women who stared at Grizzly in obvious terror all the way down to ground level. Taking pity on them, Domino attempted to strike up a conversation about the weather, but they didn't respond. Eventually, rather irritated by the whole thing, she gave up on trying to soothe them. Grizzly certainly wasn't helping any.

"Quit swearing under your breath," she muttered as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby and the two old ladies beat a hasty retreat.

"I don't like being stared at," Grizzly said, sounding grouchy. "What did they think I was going to do to them? Eat them?"

"Probably," she said with a straight face, and he cracked a reluctant grin as they stepped out into the lobby.

"Not enough meat on their bones," he rumbled.

"And too well-aged," she joked. "You only eat babies, right?"

His booming laugh echoed loudly in the lobby, and Domino grinned, satisfied that she'd teased him out of his brief bad mood. "Eat--babies," he wheezed, struggling to get control of himself as they walked across to the restaurant. "Oh--that's good. Nice to have someone with a sense of humor around."

"Tell me about it," she said slyly. "This is an awfully grim bunch we've thrown in with, big guy."

"Yeah, well. Wait 'til G.W. plays his first practical joke on you."

"Should I be afraid?" she asked in an innocent voice, and his grin grew wider. Quite honestly, she hadn't pictured Bridge as the practical joker type. But then again, it's always the ones you don't expect, she thought, amused. She wasn't particularly worried. If he started a practical joke 'war', she'd win, after all.

"Oh, yeah," Grizzly chuckled, opening the door for her. "You wouldn't think it to look at him, I know, but he's downright evil, Dom."

"I can hardly wait," she said with a grin, and went through the door.

Inside, the restaurant was cool, attractively decorated, and softly lit. Quite nice, Domino thought appreciatively--and then froze in her tracks, just inside the door. Grizzly nearly ran over her, but his surprised grumble turned into an incredulous curse as he followed the direction of her gaze and saw what had caught her attention.

Domino's first inclination was to express herself in a similar fashion, but most of her brain was busy simply trying to process the scene in front of her. When she'd called down to the front desk earlier, the clerk had made a reservation for them, even though he'd assured her that there would be plenty of tables, the hotel being only half-full at this time of year. That in mind, she hadn't expected a crowd, but she hadn't expected the place to be all but empty, either. And the reason why was abundantly clear.

Sitting at the bar, two empty bottles of tequila in a neat row beside him, was Cable.

And he was singing.

"You're old enough to kill, but not for voting--"

Dear God, his voice was terrible, Domino thought, half-amused, half-alarmed.

"You don't believe in war, then what's that gun you're toting?"

"Oh, shit!" Grizzly muttered beside her, aghast. "Tell me I'm not seeing this!"

"When even the Jordan River has bodies floating? But you tell me, over and over and over again my friend, you don't believe, we're on the eve of destruction!" Cable coughed, and finished off bottle number three in one swallow. "I like that song," he confided in the bartender in a voice that was remarkably clear, considering the amount of alcohol he'd clearly consumed. "I don't know why, I just like it. Don't you like that song?"

The bartender looked like he was about to wet his pants. "Um--it's a very nice song, sir," he said in a strangled voice.

"Glad you think so. I hate people with no taste in music." Cable set the bottle down beside the others, arranging them meticulously, and then looked back at the bartender. "You know, that one tasted better than the last one. I think I'll have another."

"You're seeing it, Grizz," Domino told her stunned companion, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. Looking up at him, she raised an eyebrow at the expression of near-panic he wore. Isn't he overreacting just a bit? "You know, Theo," she said conversationally, "I'm pretty sure I remember G.W. telling me that Nate doesn't drink." She'd noticed it herself, even in such a short time with the Pack. Just last month, when they'd completed that job in Bulgaria and gotten a hefty bonus to go along with their usual fee, they'd settled down to do some serious celebrating one night. Hammer and Bridge and Grizzly had all gotten stinking drunk--with her higher tolerance for alcohol, she'd been just sober enough to laugh at them.

But Cable had just sat there in the corner of the bar, all night long, sipping water and watching them. He hadn't said ten words all night. The next day, a very hung-over Hammer had made some nasty comments about Cable's standoffishness--that hadn't been the word he'd used, of course, Domino thought sourly--but Grizz and Bridge had seemed to take it as a matter of course.

"He doesn't drink!" Grizzly said in a voice just as strangled as the bartender's. "He NEVER drinks!"

"Well, he certainly is throwing himself into it wholeheartedly tonight." Domino looked back at Cable, and couldn't help a laugh. "And doing a pretty good job of it too. I think I'm impressed." Even Logan, with his healing factor, would be a little wobbly after three bottles of tequila. But Nate hardly even looked tipsy. Except for the singing, of course.

Grizzly gulped, and then seemed to come to some kind of decision. "Okay," he said, his voice breaking a bit despite his obvious attempt to sound determined. "I'll go get G.W. You stay here--and don't let him kill anyone!"

Before Domino could say a word, he was almost sprinting across the lobby, headed for the elevator. "Right," she muttered, turning and regarding Cable again. "I seriously hope that was a joke, big guy."

A large, burly bouncer-type emerged from a door marked 'Employees Only' and gave Cable a wary look. Domino decided it was probably time to step in. "Hey, Nate," she said amiably, walking up to the bar and sitting down beside him. The bouncer started towards them, and she gave him a 'let-me-handle-it' look. He backed off, and she nodded to herself in satisfaction, turning her attention back to Cable. The last thing they needed was a dead bouncer. "What're you doing?" she asked lightly.

He snorted. "And here I thought you were observant," he said almost disgustedly. "It should be perfectly obvious that I'm getting drunk." He leaned forward, glaring down at the bartender, who had retreated to the opposite end of the bar. "I said I wanted another!"

Domino gave the bartender a reassuring smile. "With two glasses," she added. He nodded jerkily, obeying. Cable's head whipped around and he gave her a thunderous look.

"I don't remember inviting you!" he growled. "Why do you always have to do this--push your way into situations where you don't belong--"

Domino raised an eyebrow, but continued to smile. "Since you're new at this," she said placatingly, "I'll let you in on a little secret. Drinking alone is not a good thing." The bartender brought them the bottle and glasses. Domino took the bottle before Cable could, and poured for them both. "Otherwise, you just end up brooding, and you sure as hell don't need to do any more of that, Nate."

He snatched the glass she offered him, and continued to glower at her. "Go away," he muttered.

"Not just yet," she said calmly, studying him intently. Grizzly had been right to be concerned, she decided. There was something wrong here. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he held himself, and something told her that it wasn't just the amount of tequila he'd clearly put away already. That was a reaction; a symptom, for lack of a better word. She suspected that she already knew what was at the root of it. What, but not really why-- "I'm not going anywhere. Not until I know you're all right."

He downed what was in his glass almost defiantly, and slammed it down on the bar so hard that she winced, surprised it hadn't broken. "Oh, I'm fine," he growled. "Better than fine. Just fruity."

It took every bit of self-control she had not to laugh in his face. "I think you meant peachy, Nate," she said delicately. "Not fruity."

"I said fruity and I meant fruity!" he shouted, flushing.

"Well, that would explain you and Bridge--" Domino quipped, before she could help herself. Oh, damn, tell me I didn't just say that--shit, I did--

Cable gave her a thoroughly evil look. "Let me guess," he said, very precisely. "Fruity has some com-connotation I'm not aware of."

"You could say that, yes--" she managed, trying very hard not to laugh.

He muttered something that could have been a curse. "Don't patronize me, Dom," he finally snarled.

"I wasn't patronizing you," she said soothingly. "I'm just worried, that's all."

"I'm touched," he muttered, eyeing her suspiciously. Domino gave an exasperated sigh, but told herself to keep calm. The last thing she wanted to do was provoke him. Cable could do a startling amount of property damage when he was only mildly irritated. She didn't want to find out what he was capable of if he was really pissed off.

"Look at it from my perspective," she said patiently. "One of the first things Bridge ever told me about you was that you didn't drink, for whatever reason. But yet here you are, getting smashed. Aren't I allowed to be a tiny bit concerned?"

"Getting smashed?" he asked somewhat vaguely, the anger fading from his face for a moment. "I thought I was getting drunk."

Domino opened her mouth to point out that it meant the same thing, but stopped herself, shaking her head ruefully. "Never mind. I'm just wondering why you're doing this, Nathan--what's wrong?" His eyes narrowed, the left glowing a baleful gold, and she sighed again. "Right. Stupid question."

***

79 MILES NORTH OF ZACATECAS, MEXICO

AUGUST 26th, 11:02 pm

"Three, you read me?"

"Roger, Two," Domino answered, wincing at the static that accompanied Grizzly's voice over her headset. Beside her, the driver gave her a questioning look. She bared her teeth at him, and he hurriedly turned his attention back to the excuse for a road they were on. Domino smirked. "All clear out there?" she asked Grizzly.

"Yep." Grizz sounded bored; Domino couldn't blame him. "Nothing but dirt, rocks, and one heckuva moon."

Domino leaned forward, peering out at the perfect full moon hanging in the cloudless sky. "Pretty," she commented idly. She hadn't noticed the moon back in Zacatecas. "We're almost to the mine, Two. You figure the bad guys took the night off?"

"Hope not, Three. I'm in the mood to break some heads."

"You're always in the mood to break some heads, Two," she said wryly.

"Personality flaw," Grizzly said laconically.

"Two, Three, would you quit the skipchatter?" Hammer said irritably. "Some of us are trying to work here!" He was set up with some alarmingly sophisticated-looking equipment in one of the trucks behind her, scanning for any movement out there. She didn't know whether the scanners looked for heat signatures, bio-signs, or something else entirely--and she hadn't been about to ask. Hammer would just have rattled off some technical explanation that would have sounded like perfect bullshit to her, and Cable, who'd provided the equipment in the first place, would probably have given her that stone-faced expression and pretended he hadn't heard the question. He tended to do that a lot.

"You're breaking my heart, Four," Domino muttered.

"Girl, get that tiny mind of yours back on business, will you?" Hammer said acidly.

"I think you should all shut up." Cable's whisper was emotionless, but Domino instantly swallowed the retort she'd been about to make.

"Copy, One," she said grudgingly. Hammer didn't deign to respond. Domino lifted her night-glasses, scanning the area off to the east. Cable was out there somewhere, shadowing the supply convoy, just as Grizzly was doing on the west, while G.W. and a bunch of Petrosian Mining and Exploration's own security people (she didn't envy him, saddled with that bunch of incompetents) took point and she and Hammer rode back here with the trucks.

They hadn't seen hide nor hair of the 'brigands' (to use the P.M.E. rep's word for them) who'd been making a bad habit of blowing up equipment and attacking convoys like this one. The attacks had been successful enough that production at P.M.E.'s brand new silver mine was months behind schedule. So, the company had come to the Pack--or to Hammer, rather, Domino corrected herself meticulously. Which made this whole thing a little irregular from the get-go. Cable and Bridge negotiated the Pack's contracts. Anyone who knew enough to come to the Pack should know that. But it was Hammer that Sykes, the P.M.E. representative, had approached--and why does that make me feel so uneasy? she wondered darkly. She didn't believe in premonitions--

"One, I'm reading movement on your twelve'o'clock," Hammer suddenly said, his voice sharp.

"Copy," Cable answered. "I've got visual contact. Seven--no, eight of them, moving towards the road. Heads up, Five."

"Copy," Bridge said. "Two, anything on your side?"

"Negative, Five."

"One, I'm getting some pretty funky energy readings--assume they're packing heavy weapons."

"Watch yourself, One," Domino said, unable to help herself. C'mon, Cable, no cowboy shit, she thought anxiously. Let Bridge spring his trap-- Lack of solid intelligence was what had made her so nervous about this job. They knew next to nothing about who'd they'd be facing, how many or how good they were. During the previous attacks, P.M.E.'s own security guards had been too busy screwing up to note information like that. Still, if there were only eight of them--

"There's something wrong," Cable said, and Domino frowned, hearing something odd in his voice--bafflement? "Five, wait, don't--"

There was the sound of an explosion over the com-channel, followed by a burst of static.

"Nate!" G.W. shouted. Domino cursed, and gave the driver a single, blazing look.

"Keep going!" she snarled, throwing open the passenger door and jumping out. She landed rather heavily on her right shoulder, but rolled and came back to her feet, flipping the safety off her gun. "Hammer! Give me a location on Cable!"

Hammer started to rattle off directions and distances, but was cut off by another thunderous explosion, this time somewhere near the front of the convoy. The trucks came to a screeching halt, several of them colliding.

"Shit!" Bridge snarled. "The bastards mined the road!" Gunfire erupted near the site of the second explosion. "Two, get your ass down here!"

Now there was gunfire from the rear of the convoy, too. Their 'rearguard' was made up of the better element of P.M.E.'s own security force, helped along by a couple weeks of training from Bridge. But from the sounds of it, there were a lot more than eight hostiles out there. For a minute, Domino froze, not sure what she should be doing. Then instinct kicked in.

"Hammer! Where is he?" she snarled.

"About five hundred yards away on your four'o'clock!" Hammer said rapidly. "Five, where do you want me?"

Domino could still hear Bridge cursing. "Get to the rear, Ham, make sure those idiots don't shoot themselves in the foot--"

Gritting her teeth, Domino headed as quickly as she could in the direction Hammer had indicated, hoping she didn't run into any hostiles along the way. Or fall and break her neck--this was pretty rough terrain.

She found Cable in a few minutes. He was sprawled on the ground, already struggling to get up.

"Nate!" she snapped, going to her knees beside him. "Damn it, don't move!"

"Mine," he muttered dazedly, blinking up at her. "Caught it--but the feedback--"

"A mine?" she asked incredulously. "But--" He wasn't even scratched! He did look a little on the concussed side, though. "Just--take it easy," she said rather lamely.

He squinted at her, as if trying to focus. Then, even in the moonlight, she saw the color drain from his face. She instinctively reached out to support him, but that look of shock was gone in an instant, replaced by a terrible urgency she'd never seen in his expression before. Before she could say a word, he was on his feet like a shot, breaking into a stumbling run back towards the road, where she could still clearly hear the sounds of a firefight.

"Cable--hey!" She went after him, but he was already snarling orders over his communicator.

"Bridge, cease fire! Stop shooting, stab your eyes!" The gunfire continued, and Cable stopped dead in his tracks, cursing in some language she didn't know.

Domino would never be sure quite what happened next. She was hit by a wave of dizziness, she seemed to hear someone shouting at her, and, the next thing she knew, she was fighting the urge to throw her gun to the ground, as if it had suddenly become something so distasteful that she couldn't bear to touch it.

Blinking, she shook her head to clear it, and the impulse faded. "Cable? What the hell--"

The gunfire had stopped.

Cable stood there, swaying on his feet for a moment, but then shook himself and kept going down towards the road. Domino followed, too bewildered to protest, and they reached G.W.'s position quickly.

The lead truck was still burning merrily away, and there were a number of bodies lying around, most in the uniform of P.M.E. security, but quite a few others, as well. *The enemy?* Domino thought dully, noticing how cobbled-together their gear looked--how young some of them were.

Bridge and Grizzly looked intact, more or less. She heard Hammer saying something over her headset, but tuned him out. She watched as Bridge came forward to meet Cable, limping heavily and looking utterly perplexed.

"Nate? What the hell's going on--"

Cable gave him a look that Domino could only have described as tormented, and then turned away, scanning their surroundings. "Ramirez!" he shouted, and G.W. suddenly swayed, as if someone had hit him. "Ramirez, it's Cable!"

There was no answer for a moment, and then a tall man in black limped from cover. Handsome, maybe Bridge and Cable's age, he was totally unfamiliar to Domino, but he certainly seemed to know her teammates. The look on his face, in the light from the burning truck, was an odd mixture of shock and ironic resignation.

"Nathan?" he said, shaking his head with a weak, humorless laugh. "Madre de Dios--we knew Petrosian had hired professionals, but the Pack?"

"Oh, shit," G.W. whispered, slumping to his knees. "Shit, what a fucking mess."

"I'd say that just about covers it," Cable said in a low, emotionless voice. But his left eye was blazing bright gold, almost spitting sparks, and he was trembling slightly. Not from shock, Domino realized as she saw his expression, but from rage. Pure, murderous rage like nothing she'd ever seen from him before. And it wasn't directed at this Ramirez, either.

Ramirez studied Cable for a moment, and then gave another of those weak laughs. Domino noticed that he had his hands clasped tightly to his side, blood seeping around his fingers. "Ah," he said. "You're beginning to see, now--"

"See what?" Domino demanded, and Cable cursed bitterly.

"That we just got duped," he snarled. "By our employers."

"Hey," Ramirez said with a cough. "Happens to the best of us, amigo."

***

HOTEL MERIDA

7:55 pm

"You couldn't have known," Domino said quietly.

"Oh, no?" he asked, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. "You'd be surprised, Dom." His hand tightened spasmodically around his glass. "I should have known," he grated, his left eye glowing fiercely again. "Stupid, careless--why didn't I SEE?"

Domino scowled. "Maybe because you're not omniscient? It wouldn't kill you to ease up on yourself, you know."

He took the bottle away from her. "It wouldn't kill ME, no," he said bitterly.

"Of all the--where's this fucking God complex coming from, Nate?" she demanded. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

He snorted. "One of these days I'm going to give you an answer to that question," he said almost wearily. "I wouldn't look forward to it, if I were you."

"I see getting drunk hasn't cured you of those nasty little cryptic tendencies of yours," Domino said a little snidely.

"Why is everyone always--" He stopped for a moment and then gave her a very evil look. "Maybe I do it just to be irritating." He downed the rest of the contents of his glass in one gulp and then muttered something under his breath.

"I wouldn't put it past you," she said acidly, sipping from her own glass.

"Or maybe I have a reason, did you ever think of that?" he snarled, his eyes narrowing. "But no, you've always been too busy indulging your rampaging curiosity to think of that. I'm not a flonqing puzzle, girl. You can't solve me."

Domino tilted her head, regarding him with a sudden smile. "That sounds like a challenge, old man."

"Oath! You take everything as a challenge!"

"So?"

"So--stop it!" he almost sputtered. "Do you have any idea how irritating that is?" She raised an eyebrow, and he flushed. "Don't EVEN say it," he growled warningly, and she raised a defensive hand. He leaned back against the bar, watching her closely. He looked angry, but there was a strange tightness around his eyes, almost of pain. Her own irritation with him faded immediately.

"Nate," she said gently, reaching out and putting a hand on his knee. He gave it a suspicious look. "'Gentlemen's agreement' or not, the Pack and the Harriers were bound to end up on opposite sides of a job one of these days. Part of the risks of the business." Grizzly had told her the whole story on the way back to Guadalajara. Ramirez was ex-SHIELD, just like Bridge and Cable, and an old friend. The two groups had fought beside each other on more than one occasion, and always refused any job that would bring them into direct conflict with each other. Cable and Bridge would have turned P.M.E. down flat if they'd known all the facts--and not just because of the Harriers, either, Domino reflected grimly.

"Not like this," Cable said harshly, and Domino nodded wearily.

"No, not like this. You're right." Part of her just didn't want to deal with the whole picture, the truth behind this contract and how badly the Pack had been used. Okay, so maybe I do understand why he's getting drunk. "You and Bridge checked everything out, right?" she asked helplessly.

"Triple-checked everything, considering that it was Hammer who arranged the contract." Cable lifted his glass with exaggerated care, and gave her a conspiratorial look. "I don't trust him, you know."

"Really," she murmured. "I'd never have guessed."

"Of course," he said, making a careless gesture with the hand holding the glass and giving the bartender a tequila shower, "he doesn't trust me, either. So we're even. That's good, isn't it?"

"Always good to be even," she agreed, regarding him from over the rim of her glass. "Even better to get even, though--" She knew that he knew she wasn't talking about Hammer, this time.

"Oath, Dom, if you have something to say, say it! Don't beat around the hedge!"

She'd been taking a sip at the moment he said it, and the tequila most definitely went down the wrong way. He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were supposed to drink it, Dom. Not inhale it."

Once she could breathe again, she gave him an evil look. "Funny man," she growled hoarsely. "I had no intention of beating around the--um, hedge, Nate. All I was going to say was that I would quite cheerfully have killed Sykes myself, and I'm surprised you let Bridge stop you."

"Not good business, to kill your employers," Cable muttered, but the look on his face told Domino quite clearly that he was already regretting that he hadn't.

to be continued...

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