Torchwood Advent Challenge - 14th December

[m_findlow]

Title: Under threat
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Kathy Swanson
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,859 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for prompt "Saboteur"
Summary: An accident leaves everyone reeling

Bloody hell, Kathy Swanson thought, as she rolled her car up to the scene. It was a goddamn mess. Dusk was falling but the flash of police cars and paramedic vehicle lights was unmistakable. She pulled over nearly half a block away, forced to compete against other rubberneckers and journalists, hungry for a story that included lots of carnage style images they could beam back to their producers. She flashed her credentials to the officers manning the line of police tape, not bothering to notice whether she knew their faces or not.

'Jesus Christ,' she muttered, seeing the large black vehicle wrapped around the pole and smashed into the frontage of the block of houses at the bottom of the street. She'd know that car anywhere, as would half the citizens of this city. So much for this being a nice simple case.

It didn't take long for her to spot the distinctive silhouette of that long grey coat, stood against the back of one of the paramedic vans. She marched over before he could interfere further with her scene, about to read him the riot act.

'I should've known you'd be involved somehow,' she said, closing the gap. Her boot heels clicked across the road, noting the long black curving skid marks left by their vehicle. She'd have them shut down permanently. There was no escaping the mess they'd caused this time.

As she came within a few feet, she watched as Jack was being swatted away by his companion Jones, who was annoyed enough at being fussed over by a paramedic.

'I'm fine,' he complained. 'It's just a sprain,' he said, showing Jack his bandaged wrist, waving it around as if to prove it didn't hurt, though she could tell he regretted the action.

'And a mild concussion,' Jack lectured. 'Just sit there and let them do their job.'

Kathy cleared her throat loudly, getting both their attention. The paramedic took one look at her and quickly disappeared. 'Would you care to tell me what they hell you were doing? From the looks of things, you could've killed dozens of people with your complete disregard for the law. Fortunately, no one seems to have been seriously hurt. Not that I'm letting that get in the way. You've caused your last crisis in this town, you mark my words. Now, tell me what happened.'

Jack turned on her, his face full of thunderous anger. 'You tell us,' he said. 'We were nearly killed.'

'I should be so lucky,' she muttered.

'Detective,' Ianto said, standing up, but looking dizzy in doing so. Jack grabbed him by the arms and sat him back down. Undeterred, he continued. 'Someone sabotaged our vehicle.'

'Come again?'

'Someone cut our brake lines. When the car came down the hill, we couldn't stop it. It was all we could do to throw on the handbrake and spin it sideways to slow it down.'

Kathy looked back at the car, now half crushed, considering what she'd just been told. 'How on earth are either of you still alive?'  

Ianto was wondering the self same question. He'd been the one driving at the time. At first he thought he must have missed the pedal.

'Come on, Ianto,' Jack said. 'Now's not the time to mock my driving.'

'I'm not,' he said. 'The brakes aren't working.' He pressed the pedal again, all the way to the floor, but the SUV just kept sailing down the steep road.

'Ianto, brake!'

'I can't!' He griped the handbrake hard, pulling it back, but it did almost nothing against the inertia of the vehicle speeding down the hill. 'Jack!'

'Get out!' Jack said, watching as the t-intersection loomed closer and closer.

'What?'

'Open the door and jump.'

'What?'

'Now!'

He wasn't sure how, but he managed to unclip his seat belt and thrust the driver's side door open, rolling out and hitting the pavement hard. He watched in horror as the car continued to hurtle down the road, suddenly swinging and spinning hard left, before a second body finally fell from the passenger door just a split second before it slammed into the long stretch of suburbia. A car speeding along the road swerved as the big black SUV tore across its path and Ianto squeezed his eyes shut, unable to watch.

 

Ianto looked up at Jack. He had a distant look in his eye. 'We just got lucky,' Ianto said.

'And you didn't notice anything wrong with the brakes before?'

Ianto shook his head. 'They mustn't have severed the cables completely. It wasn't until I tried braking hard that they failed, probably snapping the cable in full.'

'Ianto drives like an old woman,' Jack said. 'Probably saved both our lives. If it'd been me driving down that hill...'

Kathy couldn't remember when she'd stopped being angry at them and started taking a genuine interest. Perhaps it was just the years of police training kicking in, questions bubbling to the surface of their own accord.

'Okay, and when do you think the vehicle might have been tampered with?'

'Hard to say,' Jack confessed, 'but we left it parked for a good two hours while we were interviewing someone. Plenty of time for someone to come along and do it.'

'If they knew we were going to be there,' Ianto added.

It was a good point, Jack admitted. He cricked his neck from side to side, feeling the strain from his awkward landing, and the whiplash catching up with him from his very sudden stop. He remembered tugging the wheel hard left, sending the car into a tailspin before throwing himself out the door. The next thing he was rolling across the road, watching as an oncoming car swerved and missed him by inches. It hit a low stone fence instead, its driver stunned, but not injured. If there'd been a car coming in the opposite direction, he'd have been smeared all over the road. Small wonder no one had been seriously hurt. Ianto was right, they really had been lucky.

'Who'd want to kill us?' he said out loud.

Kathy looked at him, trying hard not the smirk and to keep things serious. 'You want a list?'

Jack's expression darkened. 'People might not like what we do, but I don't think they hate us enough to want to kill us for it.'

'Maybe it's not your team, but one individual,' she suggested. 'Could they have known who'd be in the car at the time?'

'They followed us out to the scene,' Ianto said. 'I guess it's possible they knew I was driving.'

'No,' Jack said. 'No one would want to kill Ianto.' No one would dare try it, Jack thought. If they did, he'd tear that person limb from limb, slowly and painfully.

'Now you're talking about a stalker,' Kathy said, feeling the speculation getting out of hand. 'You do have a high opinion of yourselves.'

'Detective, you've seen what happened down there,' Jack said. 'My whole team could have been in that car at the time. If they were...' He shook his head, 'we wouldn't all be here now.' He knew for a fact that there simply wouldn't have been enough time for them all to get out. He and Ianto had barely managed it. Thank the gods that Ianto was alright. He reached out an arm and placed it around his shoulder.

'Someone has targeted us for a reason. None of us are safe until we find whoever did this. It could be some complete nutter, or it could be someone who'll try something again. Next time their plan might not fail.'

Kathy saw the way Jack look at her and the penny dropped. 'Wait, you want me to investigate this?'

'You're the police, aren't you?'

'Any other time you'd tell me to sod off and go write some traffic infringements.'

'Not this time.'

She folded her arms over and looked at the pair of them. They'd been nothing but a thorn in her side for years, and now they wanted her to drop everything and investigate their problems?

'Why should I waste my resources on this? You're the ones who go around taking over my crime scenes, stealing my evidence. You think you're better than us, so why don't you solve it?  You keep telling me you've got all the resources, and that the police are a joke. What makes you think I feel like helping you now?'

Jack stepped up to her, his eyes cold. 'Because if you don't find out who did this before I do, and lock them up first, I promise you, I won't leave so much as a finger for you to find.'

Kathy narrowed her eyes at him. 'That's an admission of murderous intent.'

'Yes, it is.'

'I could have you arrested for that,' she warned.

'But you won't.'

She saw the fury in his eyes and she knew he was right. She could hate them all she wanted, but at the end of the day, they were still citizens, and they still had a right to live safely and peacefully. Was there a certain amount of fear in knowing that someone wanted to harm them? Jack was right, it could be some crazy person, but it could just as easily be someone who had planned this meticulously. What was to say the next time they wouldn't succeed, or hurt other people in the process. She did have a duty here, whether she liked it or not.

'You need to go to the hospital and get checked out,' she said, directing her comments at Ianto. 'There's nothing more either of you can do here. Give me a call at the office in a day or two and we can start filing reports once you're back on your feet.'

'Thank you,' Jack said, sounding genuinely grateful for what must be the first time on record.

'Forensics will want to impound the car, mind you. Are they going to find anything in there that they shouldn't?'

'I can send Tosh to supervise, assuming that's not breaking your chain of evidence.'

'I think we can come to some kind of arrangement.'

She pocketed her notepad and walked away back to where SOCO and local beat cops were surveying the scene, intent on checking their progress. When she cast a look back over her shoulder, she saw the pair of them huddled there on the back of the paramedic van. Jack was wrapping an arm around Ianto and kissing him on the forehead. Funny how they looked so ordinary now, just like any two people thoroughly shaken by a horrific car accident. Just two more victims of a crime in a city she was charged with protecting.

She didn't have to like what they did, but they did perhaps keep the city safe in their own way, just as she did. The police always looked after their own, so maybe just this once she could extend the favour across agencies. If there was a saboteur out there, she'd find them, and before Jack could. The last thing she needed was to have to come and arrest him for murder.  

Comments

[jo02]

I enjoyed this. It really sounds like the start of a much longer story.

Not that I would suggest you need any extra writing projects any time soon - have you kept a word count of how much you've written in the last two months ???

[bk_forever]

I really hope Kathy catches whoever targeted Torchwood. I don't like to think of someone trying to kill the team, especially not Ianto. =(