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It had been three weeks, four days, and twenty-one hours since team Rainbow had been shipped out to Truth or Consequences to deal with the outbreak. The team had returned triumphant, with the unaffected members of the population being inoculated against the virus and those who had been turned being swiftly eliminated. Foreign media constantly wrote about the mystery group who had saved the remaining population, and Six had showered the group with praise. Not everyone was happy with the results of the Outbreak, though.
It had been three weeks, three days, and seventeen hours since the CBRN operators had been fully integrated into team Rainbow. Finka and Lion had been easily accepted into the team, despite the protests of a certain pre-existing Rainbow operator. He had already witnessed what Lion was capable of and could list the reasons of why he should have never been invited to join the team, but his words had fallen on deaf ears.
It had been two weeks, five days, and twelve hours since Doc had begun to break. He had thought he had moved past the Ebola crisis in Guinea, but as soon as Lion stepped back into his life everything seemed to turn upside down. No matter where he went all he could see was the constant reminder of death – Lion was practically a reaper to him. Guinea continually flashed into his mind; the pictures of those who had died wouldn’t leave his head. Lion’s arrival was conjuring up the past, and Doc knew that he couldn’t handle it.
It had been two weeks, four days, and six hours since Doc had decreed that Lion would have to go – and despite it all, Lion was still there.
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Everyone could notice that Doc had changed. They could all see the vacant expression in his eyes and the dark circles that formed under them from countless sleepless nights. They all noticed how he locked himself away in his office instead of speaking to the others. They all noticed how he immersed himself in his work, only leaving it if there were urgent reasons.
Everyone tried to help, too. There were countless knocks on his office door just to check in, there were offers after offers of people there to speak to him about what had happened after Truth or Consequences if he needed it. Even Lion tried to reconcile with the doctor at one point. It was likely that somebody had pushed him into it – by this point everybody had heard about Guinea, but only a limited number of the team knew it all from Doc’s perspective – and it sounded as if someone wanted them to genuinely speak.
Doc had ignored Lion’s calls from outside his office door, though. That man could never reassure him, he could never reconcile with him. Once upon a time Doc had been a forgiving man, once upon a time he would have been willing to listen. But Guinea wouldn’t leave his head, and Truth or Consequences had just reinforced his view that Lion was the problem, that Lion was the threat. He continued to petition Six to have Lion removed from the team, but the director merely became increasingly annoyed with him, saying that he was being irrational and that he would have to grow up and learn to work with Lion despite their history.
As it became clearer that Lion was there to stay and that there was no way to make him leave, Doc continued to descend into the constant visions of death that he thought he had gotten over so many years ago.
It was on a mission that the doctor truly snapped.
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They had been attempting to secure a parliamentary building which had been overrun by terrorists. Numerous hostages had been taken and were hauled up in a room – Doc and his fellow defensive operators had been called in upon hearing that a hostage had been wounded while trying to escape. They were to hold the hostages’ room securely until the entire building had been swept by the other operators – that way the hostages could be kept safe until a medevac could be arranged. It was far too hostile of a situation to attempt to get them out with one wounded and a squad of terrorists still prowling through the building.
Doc had swiftly patched up the hostage as best he could and had crouched beside his casualty, eyes never straying from the door that the terrorists could enter through. Lion seemed to be patrolling the corridor outside, he had noted with distaste, but it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. Everybody had been given a position that would ensure that they could keep a safe hold on the situation, and he couldn’t argue with that.
From his position guarding the door he had just been able to make out the stairs – Lion had been facing away from them, and there was vague movement slinking up the stairs behind him. Doc had aimed at the person, watching; he couldn’t shoot without identifying them as a hostile… But as soon as he noticed the figure’s balaclava-covered face and the way they had their rifle aimed at Lion’s back he fired. The figure went down and Lion spun around, hastily moving over to the terrorist’s position to ensure that there weren’t more hostiles on their way… And as he moved over, he became visible in the sight of the doctor’s gun.
Doc had known that he should lower his weapon, that the threat had been eliminated and he could look away… But something was holding him there. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from Lion in front of him, the way the man’s head was so perfectly centred – it would be so incredibly easy to put a bullet through his brain, right there and then… He had felt his finger twitch on the trigger when someone had put a hand on his shoulder and he had frantically turned around, miraculously managing not to fire at the person who had stepped up behind him.
The figure had flinched and rapidly jerked their hand away from the doctor’s shoulder as he had turned so rapidly. Bandit was standing there, a frown visible on his features. He had asked Doc if he was okay – “you seemed to be frozen in place, I wanted to make sure” – and in return the doctor had snapped and pushed Bandit aside, telling him to leave him alone. Of course, Doc’s actions made Bandit instantly suspicious that something more was going on, but he didn’t press further at the time.
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Following the mission Doc had holed himself up in his office, trying to focus on disinfecting his equipment and filing away numerous sets of patient report forms that he had fallen behind on, but something was pulling his concentration away. No matter how many times he tried to focus on his work, all he could think about was that mission. He moved on from trying to clean down his medical equipment to cleaning his weapons, and it was in an almost trance-like state that he raised the gun to look through its sights, the shadows of figures darting in and out of his vision. One was clad in desert coloured camouflage, one of the soldiers who had tried to invade his field hospital despite the medical practitioners and volunteers being under the protection of the Geneva Convention… One’s face was hidden behind a white mask, part of the notorious terrorist group that Rainbow had been fighting back against. The third figure was different, though. This figure was clad in bright yellow, holding a Rainbow-issued weapon and bearing the CBRN emblem on his arm. This figure was not like the others… But he was a threat all the same, one that Doc would inevitably have to kill, just like he had done to the rest.
It took all his willpower to stop himself from attempting to kill the phantom, right there and then.
It was in that moment that he realised that he would be the one to stop Lion. He had always known that Lion would have to go – he had been saying it since before the man was even officially part of Rainbow, he was determined for it to happen after Truth or Consequences – but this time something was different. His attraction to putting a bullet straight through Lion’s head had become far too intense, words could not express how intense his desire to kill that awful man was… He understood in that moment that he would be the one to stop Lion.
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Doc had been silently musing over that same deep feeling of desperation when a knock came at his office door. He had opened the door with a slight smile to conceal what he was thinking of, what he couldn’t help thinking of, but the smile was immediately wiped from his face when he saw who was standing there.
Bandit.
He had completely forgotten Bandit’s involvement between him and Lion on that mission. Bandit had gotten in the way, Bandit had stopped him from killing Lion… Had Bandit been protecting the CBRN operator? No, no, it couldn’t be a personal thing – the team looked out for one another, that’s what they did, the German operator would have just been trying to make sure that Doc was okay… But at the same time, what if he had noticed the way that Doc’s gaze never faltered with his sights aimed directly at Lion’s head? What if he had noticed Doc’s finger twitching on the trigger, what if he had noticed Doc’s vacant expression and the sudden fear upon his face as he spun around?
It was evident then that Bandit might know, Bandit might know, Bandit might have realised that he was set on taking Lion out. Bandit could have noticed how the doctor was so tempted to kill the fellow operator, and that meant Bandit could report him, could act against him, could turn to Six and express his concerns… And Doc couldn’t let that happen. Something deep down inside of him didn’t want to hurt Bandit – Lion was the enemy, he didn’t need any other casualties of his desperation to eliminate the CBRN operator – but another part of him said that Bandit had now become a threat, just like Lion had.
Bandit was now on the list of people that had to be stopped too.
Doc’s train of thought was cut off when the German operator looked to him, that same picture of concern upon his features again. As we went to question what was going on Doc merely stepped inside, letting him past. Bandit immediately waltzed over to the doctor’s desk and hopped up onto it, completely ignoring the still-unfinished patient report forms that were scattered over the top. Bandit always sat up there, no matter what he was doing, and normally it irritated Doc… But this time, he thought to himself, it would mean that he could turn away, pretend to carry on with his work while Bandit talked… For an event that had no planning put into it previously, the doctor reckoned that this could work rather well.
He let Bandit ramble on for a while, listening to his talk of how the GS9’s room got flooded by some mysterious person and how Blitz was planning on flooding the entire base in retaliation. Eventually Bandit got onto the topic of the day’s mission, as the doctor had expected him to. The German went on for a little while about how it was great that they had successfully gotten all the hostages out alive, including the one that had been previously injured – the one that Doc had tended to. As he brought that up he glanced over to the doctor, who had still been pretending to work away. He brought the point up calmly, asking in an almost casual sense, “hey, were you okay earlier anyway? You seemed… kind of out of it.”
At that Doc had glanced around, an almost sad smile playing across his features. He paused, exhaling slowly, before he replied. “I really was out of it, wasn’t I? I could have gotten us into a bad situation… And I’d like to apologise for that. I was… Distracted. I can’t deny it. It has been hard for me to get used to working with Lion again. In Truth or Consequences it was easy to ignore the tension between us because we were constantly faced by an imminent threat, but sitting there in that room today, having to watch and wait and ensure that no harm came over the hostages… It was too easy for me to get distracted by him, and by our past.”
Bandit had nodded sagely at that – but Doc, who was still turned away, hadn’t seen it. In fact, the doctor wasn’t caring much for what Bandit was doing at all. He was too busy thinking of the easiest way to get rid of him instead. He had far too many weapons at his disposal here – it was too easy to turn a medical tool into a weapon. His eyes hovered over the various chemicals he had – yes, a lethal injection would work… Not all of the team knew about it, as Bandit had only confided in a few people, but he had fallen back into his drug habit following a particularly bad mission a few years back. Rather than kick him out, Six had sent him to Doc, and together they had worked out a strict regime to wean him off the drug. He could use that situation to his advantage, yes, he was sure he could…
Bandit continued speaking as the doctor gathered his supplies. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, sounding genuine, “it’s okay to get distracted sometimes, and no harm came of it. I’m just glad that you were fine. And I get that it must be hard working with Lion again, I mean, I don’t know the full story, but I know that something bad happened between you two… So I can get it if you’re stressed with him around. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure no one finds out that you got distracted, okay? And if you have any other problems with him… Well, you can talk to me, I guess. If you want to. I feel like you’ve always been there to help me, so… I want to do the same in return. For you.”
Doc had been smiling as he turned around, looking genuinely thankful for Bandit’s offer. He walked back over to the German and climbed up to sit on the desk beside him. He looked at Bandit with a soft expression. “Honestly, thank you for understanding… I wasn’t sure if you would understand the tension between myself and Lion. And thank you for the offer, as well. It’s nice to know that there’s someone I can rely on. And speaking of helping one another out – I believe you were due an injection this morning, but we were interrupted by being sent out on that mission?”
Bandit chuckled then, looking almost sheepish. “I was kind of hoping that you had forgotten about that. Not because I don’t appreciate what you’re doing, because I really do! But, you know…” He lowered his voice to a bit of a whisper then, glancing downwards, “I just feel really bad about the whole thing.”
Doc smiled sympathetically, clambering down from his desk and motioning for Bandit to head over to the examination table. “You don’t have to feel bad about it. I understand, and so does Six. We just want to help you.”
As Bandit sat back Doc gathered his equipment, pulling on his blue latex gloves. He seemed to move on autopilot: he had done this so many times before, just with a different substance filling the syringe… There was nothing telling him to stop, there was nothing holding him back and saying you can’t kill a friend. There was only the feeling of familiarity, Bandit’s trusting gaze, and the precision of a practitioner as he methodically cleaned the injection site with an alcoholic wipe. There was nothing different about this situation, he thought to himself as he found a vein for the injection to be administered into. This was just a medicinal procedure – he had this chemical available for medical reasons, anyway. Sodium nitroprusside could be used to rapidly stop an acute hypertensive crisis, or could be used as a vasodilator… And it was also a cyanide compound.
Injecting a lethal amount when he had the complete dosage available was just too easy.
This was all just medicine.
Following the procedure he casually cleaned the injection site again, giving Bandit a smile before he disposed of the items in the clinical waste and sharps bin respectively. “You just stay seated over there and I’ll do some observations,” Doc said, following their normal procedure. There was no need to do observations, though. He knew exactly what the symptoms would be.
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Only a minute had ticked past when the German put his hand to his head, frowning in concern. “Doc? I… Something feels wrong.”
Bandit stood up, swaying on the spot, only managing to stay upright by holding onto the side of the examination table. He was already struggling to regain his breath just from standing up – the symptoms were coming faster than Doc had anticipated. Bandit struggled over to him and as soon as he was close enough he grabbed the doctor’s upper arms, possibly out of desperation, possibly because he needed something to help him stay upright. Bandit was confused, he was so confused, it felt like his chest was restricting and his head was aching and something was desperately wrong, and he knew that Doc should be helping and Doc should be looking after him- but Doc was just sitting there, a completely blank look on his face, his eyes glazed over like he was in a trance.
Bandit didn’t want to accept it, he didn’t want to even think about it, but he was too paranoid and he knew the signs of overdosing and he had dealt with it before and he knew that this matched it, but this was worse, this was so much worse-
He knew that the doctor had drugged him, had poisoned him.
He should have noticed it before hand, the way that Doc seemed so out of it, how he had aimed at Lion’s head and looked so ready to kill him.
He should have known that Doc had snapped.
Bandit dragged the doctor off the desk, one half of him acknowledging how he made no move to defend himself as Bandit attacked him. Bandit punched him once, then twice, driving the doctor back across the room. There was something ringing in his ears, he had no idea that it was the sound of himself screaming, his voice becoming hoarse, but still pitched in a tone that indicated something between anger and terror. In truth, he was terrified, terrified, he had to stop Doc, he had to alert the rest of the team, to tell them what had happened here – but his strength was failing and his muscles were starting to spasm and he could barely stand up any more. A final punch sent the doctor into a cabinet of equipment, the glass door at the front of it smashing upon impact and Doc cracking his head on the wooden shelf inside.
As the doctor went down, so did Bandit – all that the German could make out as the pain overtook him and he lost control of his body was Doc crumpled on the floor, blinking blearily as he tried to stay conscious.
All that Doc could make out as his vision turned to black was Bandit sprawled on the ground, beginning to convulse, and he knew that his plan had worked.
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Doc awoke to the sound of voices. It was hard to make them out to begin with, but they slowly became louder, all of them laced with concern. He blinked slowly and fought desperately to ignore the blinding pain that was radiating throughout his head. How – how had he ended up on the floor? How long had he been out for? And as his vision started to clear and he could make out a figure on the floor, he wondered how they had gotten there too.
The majority of the people who were speaking were crowded around the other figure – they were blocking the person from view for the most part. He heard the sound of someone counting - twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five – and that voice being cut off by a mechanical one: do not touch patient, analysing heart rhythm. For a moment he was glad that he kept an AED in the base in case something went wrong and he wasn’t around, but then it suddenly hit him.
Bandit.
He struggled to sit up, stifling a groan as the pain in his head intensified – that was a definite concussion, and he was going to have to monitor himself for a compression now too. Ash was beside him, holding his arm. He realised with a sudden intensity that they would expect him to do something, that he was the doctor, not them, but as he tried to make his way forwards Ash held him back, knowing that he was hurt. He managed to call for them to give Bandit a shot of epinephrine, his voice slurred as he did so.
After that he could only sit there, half slumped against Ash, and watch. The operators took it in turns to do chest compressions, one person on the chest, the other person at the head to perform rescue breaths. IQ and Pulse, Mute and Fuze – they went back and forth in that pattern, swapping over when one pair got too tired. Time seemed to pass in slow motion and it took forever until it reached twenty minutes, but they kept on going, determined to bring Bandit back. The AED continued crackling out instructions but they had fallen into the pattern by then. Another ten minutes passed, and another ten, and soon enough forty minutes had elapsed and no progress had been made.
From his place on the floor across the room, Doc spoke.
“It’s been forty minutes… I’m so sorry. But I’m going to call it.”
IQ was reluctant to stop but Mute and Fuze managed to get her to move, and as soon as she did tears started streaming down her face. Blitz and Jäger weren’t present in the room, but Doc was certain that the news would spread to them rapidly. Ash left him there as she went to put in a call to Six, and slowly the operators began to leave the room, leaving only him, IQ, and Bandit’s body there.
As IQ stood she walked over, a look of determination becoming evident through her tears. “What happened?” she all but demanded, somehow managing to keep her voice from cracking under the emotional strain. “How… How did this happen?”
Doc had to compose himself for a second – his thoughts seemed to be scrambled, he was certain that he had a concussion – but he managed to straighten up and look IQ in the eyes, his voice steady as he spoke. “He came to me… About his drug habit. I had been helping him for a while, we were making good progress… But something must have gone wrong. He came to me earlier, demanding for a higher dosage than usual – and when I told him I couldn’t do that he got violent with me. He raided my cupboards, and I tried to stop him-” he paused, motioning to the glass cabinet behind him “-and this was what happened. I saw him injecting himself as I was trying to stay awake… It must have been a lethal amount. He overdosed.”
IQ stared at him for a few moments before sniffing and turning away. It was only Doc and Bandit left then, and he looked over to the lifeless figure on the floor.
Something deep down in him said that he should be sorry for what he had done…
But truthfully? He didn’t feel any remorse at all.
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Following Bandit’s death, Team Rainbow seemed to be at a bit of a standstill. Six arrived to offer her condolences and to plan out the funeral arrangements, and the German operators all stood by her vigilantly while they did so. Everybody seemed to be in a state of mourning, including Doc, who logically knew that he had to keep up appearances.
There was one operator who was more curious than anything, however.
Pulse had always had an innate ability to sense when something was going on. He was a good investigator, per say, and investigate was just what he did following Bandit’s death. When they had removed poor Bandit’s body from the office and forced Doc to be checked over by another medical professional he had snuck in, looking around. Something just seemed… Off to him. Perhaps it was the fact that he had seen Bandit only an hour before his death, and he had seemed practically fine… Or perhaps it was the fact that he had been suspicious about Doc for months now, following his change in attitude after Truth or Consequences.
Pulse rifled through Doc’s office, searching through the cabinets and equipment drawers. He was about to give up when he noticed that he hadn’t checked something – the bins. And when he did check them, he was rather surprised. In the sharps bin was a hypodermic needle, and in the clinical waste bin were two alcoholic swabs. Now, this immediately put him on edge. Everyone had heard Doc’s statement by now, that Bandit had overdosed due to his unfortunate drug addiction, but the syringe that Bandit had apparently “used” had never actually be found. There was only the singular needle in the bin – and why would it be there? Why would the swabs be there either?
The entire situation just seemed incredibly suspicious to him. It was highly unlikely that Bandit would have been concerned with hygiene if he was so desperate to inject himself, so why purposefully put the needle in the sharps bin? And why clean the area that he was going to inject both before and after? If he had been as desperate and as violent as Doc said, then there was no way that he would have cared about anything like that. Pulse had seen it before, out on the streets: if you were addicted and knew that you had to get your hands on a drug, then it was the only thing you cared about. Nothing else would even cross your mind.
Pulse snatched the items up and put them into evidence bags – there was no way that he was going to let these bins be emptied away. He wasn’t going to let the evidence disappear. He went straight to Ash to explain his findings but she pushed him aside, saying that he was being paranoid. She put too much trust in the doctor, Pulse thought. Hell, everybody did. It was no secret that the man had changed, that something dark had come over him, but everyone seemed to think that he was dealing with it fine. Pulse thought differently, though. He was quite certain that the doctor had broken.
When Ash ignored his reasoning he got in contact with Six, but she stated that she was too busy trying to conduct funeral arrangements for Bandit. He hid the evidence away from everyone else, keeping it in with his own personal belongings in the hopes that no one would try to take it. He couldn’t let it go missing, he couldn’t.
He tried to stop himself from looking suspicious in the next few days, desperately trying to keep calm and wait for Six to do something. He tried to stay with the team, to make it look like nothing was going on. On one occasion he sat there with the others in the mess hall as they were talking about Bandit, and about how they wanted to ship his body back to Germany and conduct the funeral over there. He listened in on the conversation, agreeing that Bandit had the right to be taken back to where he thought was home – and that he would want to go back home following his own death as well. It was then that Pulse had suddenly realised that Rainbow wasn’t safe anymore, and home wasn’t even safe because Six had information on all the operator’s personal details, and if Six could get a hold of it, so could anyone.
Home wasn’t safe, and Rainbow wasn’t safe.
He had to act, and fast.
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When Doc realised that the equipment from the clinical waste and sharps bins had gone missing it immediately set him on edge. If the contents of the syringe were analysed they would easily find out what had been inside of it – and worse still, if it was decided that a post mortem examination would be performed on Bandit then they could easily match the two up. The remaining family that Bandit had didn’t want an autopsy to be conducted solely because they found it to be disrespectful to the dead, but if something came up and there was a legitimate reason for it to be conducted then Six could have easily overruled the family’s judgement. Because of this, Doc had to find where the evidence had gone – and fast.
It wasn’t hard to work out who had taken the evidence. Almost everybody was in mourning over Bandit’s death, but one operator seemed to push through and continue working as normal without even a hint of grief. Pulse and Doc had never had the best of relationships – they were colleagues, nothing more, and they rarely spoke outside of a professional situation – and Doc had felt Pulse’s gaze on him for the past few months. The American seemed to be a person who found it hard to trust others, and it didn’t take long for Doc to notice how Pulse would go out of his way to avoid him, even to the extent that he was ducking into random rooms if the two spotted one another in the corridor. For all his training, Pulse was too suspicious – and judging by the fact that his evidence had been removed, perhaps Doc had been too suspicious too.
Maybe their training hadn’t been so good after all.
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Until he had made the decision that those who might stand in his way of removing Lion would have to be stopped, Doc had never been one for poison. Chemicals had been used for medicinal purposes, and he had never approved of his fellow operator’s uses of them in the field. Substances had been dangerous unless properly handled – but now he was utilising them for his own goals.
It was far too easy to swap out Pulse’s routine medication with one that had been amplified by a few grams, causing him to instantly overdose.
Honestly, the hardest part of it all had been dragging Pulse’s body out of the base and putting him six feet under ground while trying to avoid the surveillance cameras that surrounded the entirety of their territory. He had been tempted to disable the cameras nearest his position, but he knew that taking out one would lead the operators directly to the location of Pulse’s body when they checked them over… So instead of disabling one he had disabled them all, using the base’s very own control room to do so.
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Only four days after Bandit had died, Pulse went missing.
When he didn’t get up for his usual 6am workout the alarm was raised – Pulse was gone, he wasn’t here. When they investigated they noticed that half of his belongings were still in the base – items such as his phone, his collection of sunglasses – but his clothes and wallet and identification were all gone. It seemed as if the operator had just upped and left by grabbing the most essential items and leaving.
A manhunt for the American was conducted, but after days and days of trying to search for him it was decided to call off the search. They scoured almost the entire region, being in contact with transport authorities and the local police to see if there had been any sign of the missing operator, but nothing had come up. Furthermore, the base’s very own surveillance system had gone down, possibly conducted by Pulse himself to sneak away without being seen.
The team had gotten nowhere, and deep down, all of Rainbow knew that if any of their rank wanted to disappear then it could likely be done. Hell, they were trained for it, just in case of extreme circumstances. No one had really considered that something might be going on with Pulse - that was, except from two of the operators. Ash and Six had known of Pulse’s sudden paranoia towards the doctor of their team, but there’s no way that he would have deserted them just because of that. After a brief conversation together the two of them decided to investigate the case that Pulse had presented them with, the “evidence” regarding Bandit’s death – but when they tried to find the items among Pulse’s belongings there was nothing to be found.
While Ash and Six became increasingly more suspicious due to the sudden disappearance of evidence that Pulse had deemed so crucial, another operator set out to target the strange shut-down of the CCTV system.
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Mute had specifically designed his surveillance system to never fail.
An EMP or a power surge causing it to shut down would have left an alert message on the systems log, and if someone had remotely tried to access the system then he would have been alerted instantly. It was far too obvious that this had been conducted by somebody on the inside, and after speaking with Ash and Six it was presumed that Pulse had likely disabled the system for him to sneak away without trace. Mute had been inclined to agree but wanted to make sure that it had in fact been Pulse – and had reminded them that he could physically check to see who had disabled the system.
No one knew about it except from himself and Six, but hidden in a corner of the roof of the control room was another surveillance camera, one that was linked to a separate system that only Mute could access. It had been designed for occasions just the same as this – the entirety of the team was meant to be trustworthy, hence why anybody could access the control room in case they needed to, but his monitor system in the room itself had been set up just in case. Mute had encountered enough people in life to realise that not everybody was good, and that people could change.
He powered up his little old laptop that the camera was linked to and went back through the footage, rewinding through the video of the room – there was him just now, himself and Ash from earlier when they had been discussing the lack of available footage from when Pulse went missing, there was Kapkan raiding through the drawers for DIY equipment, so that’s who had been taking his kit… And there he was, the person himself, leaning over the controls and shutting the system down without issue, then slinking back out of the room again as if he had never been there.
Ash and Six had thought that Pulse had shut down the system himself – or at least, that’s what they had hoped. The strange case with the evidence had made them suspicious that something more was going on here, and Mute had just proved to them that was the case, and that perhaps they should have listened to Pulse from the start.
It wasn’t Pulse that was on the video.
It was Doc.
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As soon as he reviewed the video from the control room, everything that Mute thought to be right in the life of Rainbow seemed to shatter around him. He was confused, he was so confused, and confusion wasn’t something that he was used to. Doc, the person in the video was Doc, and Ash and Six had already told him about how Pulse had been suspicious of the team’s medic, but why, why, why would Doc have switched off the cameras, why would he want to, why would he need to-
As his thoughts threatened to spiral out of control he held onto the only thing that had remained a constant throughout his life: rationality, logic, and reason. He knew he had to review the facts before assuming – he couldn’t get carried away. He had to start from the beginning, and so that’s what he did.
Bandit had died in what appeared to be an overdose – no post mortem had been conducted, and so the cause of death hadn’t truly been confirmed.
Pulse had been suspicious about Doc and had provided evidence to suggest that he had played a part in Bandit’s death. Ash and Six had both turned him away.
Pulse had disappeared, and the base’s security cameras had gone black during this time. It had been presumed that Pulse had deactivated them to get away, but it hadn’t been him. It had been Doc.
Mute had always been good at linking issues together to find the truth, but he didn’t really want to here. It would either lead him to a reality he didn’t want to face or it would leave him with unanswered questions. Either way, he had to face it. It was suspicious, far too suspicious, that Pulse had provided the evidence against Doc, that he had then disappeared, and that Doc had been the one to deactivate the cameras during this time. The facts pointed towards the possibility that the doctor knew more than the rest of the team did regarding Pulse – perhaps he had agreed to help Pulse escape for whatever reason, and that’s why he had been in the control room that day?
That was one theory, one that involved quite a bit of wishful thinking. Mute was too good at facing harsh realities and extrapolating true possibilities from them, though, and one was staring him right in the face.
What if Pulse’s evidence had been right, and Doc had been involved with the German operator’s death? What if Doc had – no, he wouldn’t, why would he – what if Doc had killed Bandit? And then because Pulse had been suspicious and had investigated, what if he had killed Pulse too to cover up the truth? One question remained, though: why?
Why would Doc have needed to kill Bandit in the first place, and what would have driven him to do such a thing? The doctor’s change in personality had been noticed by everybody, but he hadn’t exactly seemed… Malicious. It had looked like he was struggling with the situation after Truth or Consequences, but from what Mute had heard, the counsellors had passed him on all his psyche evaluation tests. The doctor had been reserved, certainly, but that was it… What event could have triggered this? What could have changed them?
It was only when he brought the control room video to Ash and Six and had explained his theorising to the two that they realised what had changed the doctor.
It hadn’t been Truth or Consequences after all.
It had been Lion.
------
As soon as Mute delivered the video to Ash and Six, everything fell into place. There had to be something darker surrounding Bandit’s death. Pulse had gone to extreme lengths to get the evidence, and he had gone missing as a result. They didn’t have Pulse’s evidence to prove it just yet, but instinctively the operators couldn’t imagine Bandit snapping and overdosing – he had worked so hard to move on from his drug habits. Again this led them back to the doctor and how Pulse thought he was involved. They speculated Doc’s motives for quite a while before reviewing the events directly before. A correlation became clear to them: Doc and Bandit had been stationed in the same room, and Lion had been stationed directly outside.
As soon as they realised that those three had been together, everything became so much clearer. Everyone knew the history between Doc and Lion – and Six herself had listened to the doctor’s desperate protests for Lion not to be integrated into the team. Six had told the doctor that he would have to start acting like an adult and learn to work with those who he had trouble with, that part of being an operator for Rainbow meant managing to move past your differences and trust one another. It seemed like Doc hadn’t managed that, though. Instead of coming to terms with working with Lion, he had turned against it instead.
Despite their revelations, the three were still left with the question of why. Had something happened with Lion, and Bandit had gotten in the way of it? The obvious option was to question Lion about the matter, but he merely informed the team that everything had been calm next to the hostage room. At one point a terrorist had tried to make their way up stairs but he had taken them down, and when he had looked back to ensure that the others were okay, Bandit and Doc had seemed to be at the ready but both were perfectly fine – concerned, perhaps, but that was natural during events like this.
This left Six and her operators at a dead end. They couldn’t ask Doc what had happened as they didn’t want to make him suspicious, and Bandit… The dead couldn’t be asked either. This left them with one logical course of action: find the evidence from the Bandit case. It wouldn’t be easy for them to sweep the base with the doctor being there, so they managed to push him to attend an emergency response training day, stating that it would be good for him to experience working with the other responders such as the ambulance service. They sent Finka out with him too – while she wasn’t exactly a trained physician, her equipment would be valuable in an emergency response situation. At the beginning Doc was reluctant to go. It wasn’t often that he directly co-ordinated with the other services as his abilities were reserved for the team. However, Six managed to convince him that following his application of first aid during the recent hostage event they had decided that he would be on the response list for any other occasions like this, and so he would have to go through the training.
Thankfully the doctor hadn’t seemed too suspicious about this and had merely accepted it as a change to the way he was going to operate within the team. The majority of the team knew better than to question Six, and he was within that number.
With Doc out of the base on a three-day training course and the other operators going about their schedules as usual, it was easy for Ash and Mute to begin their intensive sweep of the base.
------
The first place to look, logically, was among Pulse’s belongings. They had neatly been left in the quarters that the Americans shared – no one was willing to move them in case he returned. They raided through everything, filing through pages of the books he kept, to searching underneath his mattress, but Ash and Mute found nothing. Following that, they decided to move on from Pulse’s personal items and to raid through Doc’s instead.
As they rifled through the doctor’s personal effects first and then moving onto the cabinets in the office, the two officers both came to the same conclusion: Doc must have taken the evidence back from Pulse after finding out about his suspicions. They knew that he was smart, and knew that he likely would have found a good place hide the items – there were several locked drawers and cabinets in the room, likely due to them containing private and confidential files. The locks on the drawers were pointless, though, as the keys were in the pencil pot where Doc always left them. A quick search around the cabinets revealed to them two items inside of evidence bags, carefully hidden away in the pages of a medical textbook – swabs and a hypodermic needle.
As soon as the evidence was retrieved the operators passed it on to forensics, and forensics were given strict orders by Six to do the job as quickly and as accurately as possible. They gave Six a quote of 48 hours before the results would be available, so in the meantime, the director decided to take another course of action against the doctor while they waited.
Team Rainbow had become used to working alongside law enforcement when they were out in the field but letting the police into the base was another thing. Most of the operators were taken aback at the sight of the police patrolling outside, but instead of sitting idly by, they decided to join in the efforts. It was everybody’s logical conclusion that there was no possible way that Pulse had been taken too far from their grounds, and Mute confirmed this; no surveillance from the areas out with the base showed any of the operators heading into town.
Law enforcement brought in their dogs to scour the entirety of the base and beyond, and during this time a fact that no one wanted to acknowledge constantly played on everyone’s minds. These canines weren’t trained for search and rescue. They were cadaver dogs.
No one wanted to come to terms with the harsh reality that Pulse was likely dead, but only half an hour after the beginning of the search the truth was brought to them in the form of one of the dogs sitting firmly on the ground and refusing to move from that spot.
Pulse’s body was retrieved a few hours later and the results from forensics came in the next day, bearing two sets of results. The contents of the syringe was determined to be sodium nitroprusside, a cyanide compound that was also found in a blood sample from the deceased. It was confirmed that Bandit’s blood was on both the swabs and the needle, and just visible from the evidence had been the other condemning factor – slightly unfocussed, but still distinguishable, were Doc’s finger prints. The doctor had likely been wearing gloves, but there was one thing he hadn’t realised; latex didn’t always conceal finger prints.
It was time to take the doctor in.
------
Despite having been reluctant to go on the emergency response course, Doc had found the experience rather enlightening. He had been given the opportunity to demonstrate his field work, and Finka had worked well beside him – for the first time in quite a while he had felt like he could work with one of the team. The emergency services had all been informative, and the volunteer emergency responders had been incredible with their welfare. For those two days he had felt like his head was clearer, like he had a purpose, like this was what he was meant to be doing, that he could escape from Rainbow and Lion and the expression on Bandit’s face as he started to convulse and the feeling of Pulse’s limp figure over his shoulders as he dragged the man’s body out of the base-
But then the two days were over, and the reality came crashing down upon him. Rainbow was beckoning, and to them he had to return. He had to return to the reality that Lion would be there, waiting for him. He had to return of the reality of what he had done, and that he couldn’t escape it. He had tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, but something told him that young Mute would have seen past the CCTV black-out and would be trying to work out the larger picture.
Doc had no idea what the team knew, if they knew at all – but something deep down was nagging at him, clawing its way upwards and threatening to take over him. Something that chanted they know, they know, wouldn’t leave him alone, and he knew that something had to be done – and then it hit him that there was nothing he could do.
He couldn’t run. He was set to travel back to the base with Finka, and there was no way that he could get away without her stopping him. She might have known, she might have known that the suspicions were on him and that was why she was there from the start. Maybe she had been sent there to watch over Doc, to keep him away from what was happening at the base and to stop him from asking questions about it, to make sure that he couldn’t run away.
For a few moments the possibility of killing Finka crossed his mind, but when he thought about it reasonably he realised that he had no way of doing so. Weaponry hadn’t been allowed at the event so he only had his stim pistol and medical kit – the remaining kit that he hadn’t used in demonstration was quite limited too, and none of it contained anything that he could properly use. Had this been done on purpose, he thought? Was it possible that Six had reached out to this event to ensure that no weaponry would be allowed, or to force the doctor to do more demonstrations that would require the use of his kit?
It seemed like he had been outmanoeuvred in every possible way.
He was quite certain that as soon as he stepped back into the base that he would be apprehended, or even just killed on sight – there was no way that he could go back there, and there was no way that he could escape. The only thing that drove him on and made him decide that he would have to go back to the base for certain was one thing, one person, and the possibility that he could get to that person before the operators got to him.
He would try to finish what he had started before the operators could stop him.
He would try to end Lion’s life.
------
They were waiting for him when he returned to the base.
The truth had been revealed to the other operators and they were all standing there, surrounding the base, watching and waiting for the doctor to return.
Finka had been briefed, too.
Six had made her aware of what the doctor had done, and how dangerous he was. She understood the order to shoot him if he tried to run. She understood that the once friendly doctor had turned, had killed two of the team, and that he had to be apprehended no matter the cost.
It was hoped that the doctor could be taken in alive, but if he tried anything, then they had orders to shoot.
No one wanted to kill him, though.
The operators knew that their lives were at risk here, they were all aware that Doc had killed their fellow operators, had killed their friends – but something… Something didn’t feel right about keeping a constant aim at the doctor’s head and analysing his every movement as he approached the base. Doc was meant to be a colleague, a confidant. He was the one who was always there to help a teammate, no matter how trivial their issue was. He was the one who would wander around the base at three in the morning to make sure that no one was struggling to sleep. He was the one out there in the battlefield, patching you up and keeping you going and helping you through the recovery afterwards. He was the one to go to when you couldn’t fight your inner demons by yourself.
He was meant to be the team doctor.
And doctors didn’t kill.
Despite their apprehensions and the feeling of dread, every operator stood vigilant, their gaze never wavering a Doc walked through the gates. They understood the gravity of what he had done, and it was the only thing that was keeping them straight on this mission. The knowledge that he had killed Bandit and Pulse was managing to override the voice that was screaming he is a friend. They had their orders. They would carry them out.
------
It was Ash who stepped forwards as the doctor entered the grounds, Mute flanking her on her side, Finka flanking the doctor’s on theirs. You could practically see Doc’s thought process – the brief flash of panic that swiftly switched to one of neutrality, the way his eyes flitted back and forth as he took in the position of the other operators stationed around the base. After only a few seconds of looking around he settled his gaze on Ash, looking almost… Serene. For someone so dangerous, and so troubled inside… He almost seemed to be at peace with what was happening.
Maybe he had known that it would end like this after all. Maybe he had given up on trying to eliminate those who stood in his way – maybe he was aware that with the whole team standing against him he had no chance. Maybe he was aware from the beginning that murdering two of Rainbow’s family would mean that he could never be free, that it would end with the people he once called friends being ready to eliminate him at the slightest of movements. Maybe he had known all along. Maybe he had been forced to kill Bandit and Pulse anyway.
Ash couldn’t help but feel remorseful as she looked at the team’s doctor. Something had gone wrong, something had gone terribly wrong within his head, and there had been no way to stop it… The guilt almost threatened to overwhelm her as she realised that if the team had just gotten through to him after Truth or Consequences then all of this might not have happened – but then she snapped back to reality at the realisation that no matter what they could have done differently, this was happening now. They couldn’t change the past, and they couldn’t change what Doc had done. He had killed, murdered, two of their operators; two of their friends. Bandit and Pulse were dead, and they were dead because of Doc.
The operator had to take a moment to clear her throat before speaking, finding that her mouth had gone dry. Since they had retrieved the evidence from the office this scenario had been playing out in her head, but she just hadn’t been prepared. Not for the real thing.
“Gustave Kateb,” she spoke, staring up at him through narrowed eyes and standing firm, “you are wanted for the murders of Dominic Brunsmeier and Jack Estrada. We would like to deal with this case quietly. You will likely be tried in a British court of law, out of the way of public eyes. As per British law, you will likely be given a lifetime sentence. You may be extradited to France at the request of your government, but this remains unknown. At present you shall come with us for transport to the holding facility. You may have us contact the French Embassy on your behalf if you so wish it. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
When she stopped speaking Ash exhaled slowly, trying not to physically slump as soon as she had ensured that the legal proceedings were out of the way. She had expected Doc to reply, to say something, anything, but instead he just stood there, that same expression of neutrality present on his features. There was something darker about his expression in his eyes now, though, that was noticeable when she looked closer. The man wasn’t neutral, the man wasn’t peaceful. She could see it in how the light in his eyes had dimmed, how he stared ahead as if in a trance but still seemed to be logically analysing and processing the situation. He wasn’t peaceful. He was just broken.
Ash nodded to Finka who was still stood behind the doctor and the other operator moved forwards, taking the set of handcuffs that she had been entrusted with from her pocket. Doc stood painfully still as Finka approached, he even held his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed – and as soon as he felt the cold metal just skiff his hands, he has moving. He spun around instantly, grabbing Finka and pulling her in front of him to use her as a shield – one hand crossed her body to keep her firmly in his grasp, the other reaching inside her jacket for the already loaded gun, extracting it and putting it to her head.
The other operators had been left in a shocked silence – the only one who didn’t seem to be entirely perplexed was Thatcher, who had moved to shoot but had been stopped by Sledge.
No one had dared to take the shot, not with Finka and Doc standing so close. One half of the minds of the operators spoke that they should take the shot, that it was worth the risk, that they had their orders – but the other half said no, we can’t do this… We can’t lose another operator today.
Time seemed to drag on forever as the doctor stood there with Finka’s own pistol against her own head. Eventually Ash lowered her weapon to the ground, raising her hands up to ensure that the doctor could see that she didn’t pose a threat any more. Doc’s eyes seemed to flicker back and forth between Ash’s weapon and her hands, and then back and forth between the other operators who were still surrounding the base. He could see the vague smudge of yellow from nearby, still aiming at the doctor. No one else had lowered their weapons.
As he struggled to hold Finka firmly in his grasp with her fighting back he glanced back to Ash, speaking with a surprising level of calm in his tone. “Tell the others to put their weapons down,” he said, eyes flitting back and forth between Ash, Finka, and the other operators. When Ash made no move to speak he repeated the command again, the slightest hint of anger now tinging his voice. “I am being serious. Tell the others to lower their weapons, now.”
Again, Ash stood there without acting, looking almost indecisive about what she was meant to do. Finka was trying her hardest to nod over to the rooftop where he could just make out the glint of the scope on Glaz’s rifle, telling him to take the shot… So instead of Glaz taking the shot, Doc took it instead.
Finka’s head exploded into a mess of red, blood and brain matter staining the ground beneath them as she fell to the ground. Through the ringing in his ears from the gunfire Doc could hear another shot, and then another, and a sudden pain was taking over him, forcing him to the ground. Instinctively he tried to grasp the wounds to slow the blood loss, but his limbs felt so heavy, so heavy… And as he toppled to the side all he could make out was a roar of anger and the pounding of feet rapidly approaching him. With his vision swimming it should have been hard to make out who was standing above him, but the yellow of the uniform easily gave it away. Lion still had his gun pointed at Doc’s head, even though he could tell that his first two shots were going to end the doctor’s life.
After all the planning, after all the anxiety and the desperation… After all of the plans to ensure that the other operator was eliminated from the team, Lion had gotten there first.
As he lay there on the ground, the yellow figure above him swirling into the infected of Truth and Consequences and of his colleagues in Guinea, he couldn’t help but laugh. It was a harsh, rasping, choking sound – and to begin with he couldn’t process why he sounded like that until he realised he was coughing blood. He grinned up at Lion, blood staining his lips, hands twitching from where they wanted to act on sheer surgical instinct to put pressure on the wounds.
“You… This is- because of- you…” he managed, coughing between his words and wheezing painfully as his breath shuddered and he exhaled for the last time, “this is because of you.”