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An optimistic wind stirred loose papers in an alleyway, but gave up in the face of heavier trash. The chill of the nighttime air lingered, worming its way in through any available cracks. It had made good progress on a battered sedan, inside which a faint pool of heat was all that remained - heat put off by a figure huddled in the dark.
Distant music started, and Lamb checked his watch. Partner would be getting into the bath in a moment or two, his nightly gulp of whiskey consumed.
Damn. It had taken him too long to convince the O.B. not to frame Standish. In the end, he’d had to threaten to walk away. The resulting argument had put him a quarter of an hour behind schedule. He would have scrubbed the mission by now if Cartwright hadn’t insisted on the date.
Outside, the Dogs paced, silent and watchful. Two on the street, two on the roof, one on the door. A casualty amongst the Dogs would mean any chance of a convincing suicide was out.
There was a crash up the street - the wind, maybe, knocking a trash can lid loose. Both of the street Dogs glanced that way, and Lamb moved, fast and silent. He slipped behind them, avoiding the entryway, and pressed his back against the wall behind the bins.
A few minutes later, the Dogs on the street relaxed enough to return to their positions. The Dog on the door responded by shifting positions unconsciously, stepping away from the building to keep the gap in their lines covered. Lamb used his moment of movement and distraction to creep to the back of the building, where a small garden grew within thick, tall walls. The kitchen door was locked, of course, but his lockpicks made quick work of both locks. There wasn’t a chain on the door, an oversight he’d noticed when he ducked into the kitchen to make small talk with the staff the week before. Still, he hesitated before opening the door. It was possible there were Dogs inside - he’d never gotten this far in his exploratory runs, and Chapman was enough of a pro to keep operational details locked the fuck down.
He crouched in front of the door, turning the knob slowly and silently and giving the door a soft shove. Inside the kitchen was dark, his view mostly blocked by countertops. No one shouted an alarm, but he still let a minute trickle by to determine that there wasn’t a Dog patrolling the room or a silent alarm on the door.
He crept inside, keeping his profile below the nearby counter, and risked a glance over the top.
He saw the muzzle flash first, and instinct had him on the ground before he could process anything else. A bullet tore through the drywall behind him, and he pulled his own handgun out. A precaution, and a last-ditch one, because any poorly-timed gunshot would bring the Dogs.
Bad intel, Lamb thought first, then his brain finished turning over the glance he’d gotten of the kitchen - Partner himself, sitting in a chair by the doorway to the hall. Blown op. Much worse. Someone had told Partner he was coming.
Lamb wasn’t in the habit of making mistakes. No one knew anything about this plan but the O.B. himself. So either First and Second Desk were both Russian moles and the Service was absolutely fucked, or someone had been watching him. Someone good.
Even as he thought through what had happened, his body was moving on autopilot. He dodged forward, a second gunshot shattering glassware above him, and fired off a few shots in Partner’s direction. There was a distant crash as Dogs burst through the front door, shouting. He could hear voices in the yard, too, barking orders.
Cut off. No escape route. Only thing left to do was try and finish the fucking job. Save the next joe. Avenge his.
He abandoned his cover to stand and aim, firing four times. Partner jerked with an impact a second before something hit Lamb’s stomach, sending him toppling forward to the tiled floor. He rolled over, reached for the point of impact. Blood on his hand, enough to be seen in the dark, and a dangerous kind of mind-erasing pain. Gunshot wound.
A figure appeared above him, blurry and threatening, and wrested the gun from his hand. He couldn’t put up much of a fight - too much of his attention was being taken up by the way the edges of the room were growing dark. If he lost consciousness now, odds were good he’d never wake up. Even if he did, both he and Cartwright would live to regret it.
“Clear!” the figure snapped, tucking his gun away somewhere. A Dog. They’d shot him from behind. Not Chapman, thank God for small favours. “You okay, sir? Vest hold?”
Partner grunted an assent. Lamb could do little but lay on the floor, disarmed and nearly certain his fate was decided.
The pain was still tremendous, but more worrying was the spreading chill sending involuntary shivers through his limbs, the too-rapid beat of his heart.
“Checkmate, Jackson,” Partner whispered, somewhere near his ear, and he realized he’d lost a beat of time in there somewhere. “Cartwright said you’d go to Hell for your joes. I guess you’re about to.”
Killed by a First Desk who gave villain monologues. Fucking perfect.
“Standish!” Partner called, louder.
Lamb managed to thrash weakly at that. The fuck was he playing at?
Another familiar figure appeared in the door. Too familiar. Clever eyes that he had paid attention to one too many times. If she was in on this, then he was glad Partner had shot him, because he was well and truly compromised. But no - horror painted her expression, and there was little reason to lie now.
“Tea,” Partner said, and left the room. Catherine just stared at him, eyes slowly sharpening.
“How could you sell us out like that?” she hissed, stalking to the teapot and picking it up like she planned to use it as a weapon. “Selling secrets to Russia.” A flicker of hesitation across her face. “He’ll bleed out like that. Aren’t you going to put pressure on?”
The last to the space over his head. No - to the Dog standing over him.
“No, ma’am,” he said flatly. “Orders.”
“To, what, let him bleed out in my- this kitchen?” A rising note of panic.
“Catherine,” Lamb managed, voice rough. “I would never sell out a joe. I’m not that kind of asshole.” Her eyes flicked back down to his face, her gaze meeting his. Wondering why he would still be lying, no doubt.
“Charles said-“
“You aren’t safe here,” he choked. No point in telling her Partner was the traitor now. Without evidence, it would only sound like a lazy counterargument. “You should get out of the Service.” Before Partner decides he needs a new scapegoat, he thought, but his breath was now coming in shallow gasps as his body tried to make up for the oxygen spilling to the floor in the growing pool of blood. It had nearly reached Standish’s sensible shoes.
“Don’t threaten her,” the Dog growled, and despite the fact that Lamb braced for it the pain of the kick to his side tore a hoarse yell from his throat. For a moment, the world went dark.
Catherine’s pulse was hammering, her hands shaking so hard she was almost certainly going to break one of the mugs.
“A shame,” Charles had said earlier that night. “We got word that Jackson Lamb is going to make an attempt on my life. What a waste, a mind like that going to the Russians to sell our secrets.”
So she had tried to harden her heart, prepare for a moment like this. Tried to put soft, shoulder-length hair and eyes that turned a little less hollow when trading barbs with her out of her mind.
Once, when she’d still been drinking, she’d caught him chain smoking outside the Park. She’d asked him when he was going to give it up, and he’d tilted his head at her mug of tea and simply said: “You first.” The first and only person who’d called her on fortifying her tea with liquor, though she suspected Charles knew and had simply been too polite to say anything.
Tea slopped over the edge of the mug and onto the floor, returning her to the present as her trembling returned with a vengeance. Lamb was stirring once more on the floor, despite the pool of blood around him. God. It was so much blood.
“I’d never give up a joe,” he’d said, and every instinct she had was screaming at her to trust him. But surely that was because he was a spy? He could manipulate people like her.
He groaned softly and blinked his eyes open. Met her gaze.
“If you can’t leave-” he said, his expression strangely open. The blood loss, she assumed. “-you need to at least stay sober.” She set the empty mug down with a sharp click. “Makes it harder to pin anything on you.” His breathing was much too fast, whistling slightly through parted lips. This night would haunt her the rest of her life, she knew that much. The silhouette of the Dog standing guard added to the nightmarish nature of the scene - was he making sure Lamb didn’t hurt her, or making sure she didn’t help him? Not that she’d tried to.
She took an experimental step forward and the guard tensed.
“Stand back, ma’am,” he said sharply.
“It’s fine,” Lamb said, eyes sliding closed. His voice had faded to a sleepy sort of mumble. “There’s no saving me now, anyway.”
She noticed when he stilled, noticed a few minutes later when he stopped breathing.
Then she emptied out the ruined tea, refilled the kettle and started over.
Lamb wanted her out, wanted her safe. This was either because he was a traitor trying not to get her killed by his employer, or because he was right and someone had framed him so that it looked like he was trying to kill Partner.
Partner wanted her in here because he was testing her dedication to the cause. Or because he thought a direct attack was a likely follow-up, and he was trying to protect her. Or he wanted tea, and didn’t care what it cost her.
No matter the truth, she would have to keep an ear to the ground at the Service to confirm it. Safety be damned, she thought, risking another glance at the body on the floor. His hair fanned out in the blood, and she had the phantom memory of running her fingers through it. But that had never happened, at least not that she remembered.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, so soft it was out of even her own hearing.
Jackson Lamb, a pawn of unclear alliance in a long-standing game, would never respond.