Carjacked

Why is it that when things go bad, they always have to go bad in such spectacular fashion, Alex wondered to himself as he charged around the corner of a building and paused to catch his breath. He chanced a look back towards the parking lot of the gas station. The car he had been sitting in moments ago was a flaming wreck. He could hear sirens in the distance, and Cardinale and Simpson were jogging across the parking lot, scanning the nearby alleys and buildings for his hiding place.

Alex briefly felt for the digital tape in his jacket pocket and was relieved to find that it was still there. It was his best chance for survival. That and the dressing down that Cardinale and Simpson were in for when they returned from this failed mission where the only positive points in this entire scenario. Of course that assumed his former partners didn't find him and finish the job. With that pleasant thought on his mind, Alex broke from cover and sprinted down the alley.

The alley ended in a wide open and nearly deserted street. Dammit, Alex cursed. He could hear the footsteps of his pursuers getting closer. There was only one car nearby -- a minivan actually -- and Alex dashed towards it.

The minivan was still running. Maybe his luck would hold out after all. Alex grabbed the door handle on the passenger side. Yes! It was unlocked! He wrenched open the door and leapt inside.

As he did, an indignant child's voice cried from the back of the van, "Hey! Mom said I could ride shotgun!"

Just then the driver's side door opened and an armload of dry-cleaning followed by a woman clambered inside.

"Ok, everybody," the woman began even before she was fully in the car. "Buckle your seat..." Her instructions trailed off to a whisper as she noticed the leather-clad man sitting in her passenger seat.

Alex followed the woman's panicked glance and for the first time noticed the other occupants of the minivan. In the very back were a pouty pre-teen girl with braces on her teeth and a young boy in a soccer uniform. The middle seat held two children in car-seats, a cute blonde toddler and a baby, sucking on a pacifier. Alex considered getting right back out of the car and taking his chances on the street, but the sight of Cardinale and Simpson rounding the corner changed his mind.

"Drive!" he growled at the woman. She stared at him for a moment, clearly terrified and unable to move. Alex opened his jacket slightly and showed her the gun. "I said drive," he insisted and she drove.

"Whu...whu...where are we g..," the woman gasped.

"Just get on I-95," Alex told her. "Head north." She took the appropriate turns that would lead them to the interstate, so Alex settled back into his seat to think. He needed some time to figure out what he was going to do now that his employer obviously thought of him as more of a liability than an asset. A nice quiet drive was just what he needed.

"Mom!" the boy yelled from the back of the van. "You're going the wrong way!!!"

"I know, Cameron," the woman said. "Just be quiet."

"But we're gonna miss the game!" Cameron shouted.

"I know, be quiet," she replied more loudly, her voice trembling with tension.

"But its the championship!!!" Cameron wailed.

"I didn't want to go to the stupid soccer game anyway," the young girl slouched in the back seat commented.

"Shut up, Ashley," Cameron hollered as he turned to confront his sister.

"Cameron, don't say shut up," the woman scolded.

"You shut up, spit wad," Ashley whispered.

"Mom! Ashley called me a spit wad," Cameron yelled.

"Ashley, don't call your brother names," the woman yelled back.

"But Mom," Ashley whined

"Ashley, Cameron, both of you just..." the woman yelled, on the verge of losing control. "Just shut up!"

There was a moment of shocked silence from the back of the car, then Cameron burst into tears.

"I hate you Mom!" Ashley shouted, indignant.

Alex had had more than enough. "Everybody shut up!" he barked, pinning the woman and each of her children with a cold stare. Ashley glared back at him, then slouched into her seat and put on a pair of headphones, effectively tuning out the other occupants of the van. Cameron hugged his soccer ball to his chest and sobbed quietly. Silent tears flowed down the woman's face.

"Look," Alex said more quietly, "I won't hurt you if you just keep quiet and drive. Understand?"

The woman nodded.

"Good, now what's your name," Alex asked.

"Jennifer," she replied.

"Ok, Jennifer, keep it right at the speed limit," Alex advised.

Jennifer nodded again. The tears had stopped, and she was a little calmer now that the kids and Alex were no longer yelling. Both adults breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

The baby chose that moment to begin shrieking.

"Shhhh, its ok Jordan, shhhh," Jennifer called quietly. "Shhh, its ok."

Her soothing words had absolutely no effect. The infant screamed and wailed and reached a decibel level Alex hadn't thought possible with the human voice alone. He covered his ears but the sound continued to penetrate straight to his brain.

"His pacifier fell out," Ashley informed everyone in a bored tone of voice.

"Well can you put it back in?" Jennifer asked, the tension back in her voice.

"Forget it," Ashley replied as she turned up the volume on her headphones.

"Uhm, could you..." It took Alex a moment to realize that Jennifer was addressing him.

"What?"

"Put the pacifier back in the baby's mouth," Jennifer finished.

"Forget it," Alex replied and then blushed as he realized exactly how much he sounded like the defiant teen in the backseat. After a few more seconds of wailing Alex decided that he'd do whatever it took to shut that baby up.

"What do I do?" he asked hesitantly. He'd never touched a baby in his entire life.

"Just put the pacifier back in his mouth," Jennifer told him.

Alex got out of the passenger seat and knelt next to the baby. He looked around but didn't see any pacifier. "I can't find it; what's it look like?"

"Its blue and shaped like a butterfly."

"It's not here," Alex insisted.

"Look on the floor," Jennifer insisted right back.

"There's no god-damned blue butterfly shaped pacifier on the floor," Alex shouted. The van was utterly silent, except for the sound of the wheels on concrete, for just a moment after his outburst.

Then the shrieking started up again.

"There's a spare in the diaper bag," Jennifer hollered over the noise.

Alex sorted through the piles of junk on the floor of the van. There was a gym bag. A book bag. Empty juice bottles. Cheerios and other assorted cereals and snacks littered the carpet. A baseball. A purse. Shopping bags. Alex shoved the dry-cleaning out of his way and spotted a pink and blue vinyl bag covered with pictures of cute teddy bears. He snatched it up and began to search through its contents.

"Mine!" cried the toddler.

The car swerved a bit as Jennifer turned quickly to see what was going on. "No, that's Brittany's diaper bag," she informed Alex. "Jordan's diaper bag is purple."

Alex handed the pink and blue bag to the toddler and grabbed the purple bag. He pulled out blankets, diapers, clothes, hats, toys, bottles and Cheerios. His hand closed around something soft, damp and heavy and he pulled it out. As the odor hit him, he realized it was a 'full' diaper and dropped it back into the bag, wrinkling his nose with distaste.

"I can't find it!" Alex called over the baby's screaming.

"Look in the top left pocket on the front side of the bag," Jennifer suggested.

Alex opened the indicated pocket and inside were at least five butterfly shaped pacifiers in various colors. He chose the green one. Alex looked at the pacifier and the crying baby and back at the pacifier. He was at a complete loss as to exactly what to do.

"What now?"

"Just put it in his mouth!" Jennifer yelled.

Alex waited for the baby to open his mouth and gulp in some air between wails, then stuck in the pacifier. The baby's tiny features looked surprised for a moment, then he sucked the pacifier into his mouth, closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep.

The car was blessedly quiet, and Alex sat down on the floor of the van and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mom, I'm hungry," Cameron said.

"I wanna go to McDonald's!" Brittany insisted. "I wanna play in the balls!"

"No way!" Ashley rejected the idea. "McDonald's sucks! I want pizza!"

"Burger King!" Cameron shouted. "I wanna get a Pokemon toy at Burger King!"

"No way! Pizza!"

"Yeah, pizza! I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese!"

"Chuck E. Cheese sucks!"

While Cameron and Ashley continued to debate the merits of Chuck E. Cheese versus Pizza Hut versus Burger King, Brittany caught Alex's attention by grabbing his hair and pulling...hard.

"I have to go potty," Brittany informed him.

"Can't you hold it?" Alex asked the toddler.

"No, I can't," she whined. "I have to go potty, now!"

"Brittany, you have to hold it," her mother told her.

"No! I want my Daddy," Brittany screamed. "Daaaaaddyyyyyy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I want my Daaaaaddyyyyyy, Daddy, Daddy..."

"Pull over at the next rest stop," Alex told Jennifer as the little girl continued to cry for her Daddy. He was absolutely desperate to get out of this car. He'd walk. He'd bum a ride from Cardinale, himself. Anything so long as he didn't have to listen to any more screaming, whining kids.

Brittany's litany of Daddy's stopped as abruptly as it had started. Alex glanced up to find her smiling happily. He had no idea what had happened to affect such a drastic change until he felt something wet drip onto his jeans.

"Ahhhh!" he yelled as he noticed a stream of liquid flowing down from the car-seat and onto his leg. He leapt up and scrambled back into the passenger seat. Brittany giggled at his antics.

"Here's a rest stop," Jennifer said quietly.

"Great," Alex muttered under his breath.

Jennifer smoothly guided the car onto the exit ramp. Suddenly a purple stuffed dinosaur came flying from the back seat and hit her in the back of the head. She swerved violently. The dinosaur was followed by a big yellow bird. Then several multi-colored alien-like beings hit Alex. He glanced back to see Brittany pulling toys out of her diaper bag and flinging them towards the front of the car. He'd had enough.

Alex cursed loudly and all hell really broke lose.

"He said f***," Cameron commented, eyes wide with shock.

"How come he can say f***, and I get in trouble for saying spit wad," Ashley demanded to know.

"F***, f***, f***," Brittany repeated over and over and over again.

The baby started shrieking again.

"He said f***!" "How come, Mom? Huh, how come?" "F***, f***, f***, f***!" "He really said it!" "Mom?!?!?!?" "F***, f***!" "Waaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaa!"

Jennifer slammed on the brakes just outside of the rest area and she and Alex both leapt out of the minivan and slammed their doors. Alex glanced around. The parking lot was empty except for a single 18-wheeler. No problem. He could probably hitch a ride; he wouldn't even have to resort to flashing his gun. He headed inside the building to look for the trucker. Jennifer and her demon spawn were quickly forgotten.

The restrooms were empty, so Alex went back outside. As he did, he saw the truck begin to pull out.

"Hey, wait a minute," he yelled at the truck. It slowed and the passenger side window was rolled down. Jennifer poked her head out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Alex asked, absolutely dumbfounded to see her in the truck.

"I'm sorry," she wailed. "But I just can't take anymore! Let's go," she said to the trucker and Alex's ride pulled out of the rest stop and disappeared down the interstate.

Alex considered walking down to the highway and trying to hitch a ride when he noticed a black car with government plates exit into the rest area. He had two choices. Take his chances with the men in black, or get back into the minivan with Jordan, Brittany, Cameron and Ashley...

Alex Krycek was a liar and a murderer. He was ruthless and unprincipled. He was a dangerous man, dammit. And there was no way he was getting back into the minivan with those four kids.

The government car drove up to the building that housed the restrooms without slowing. It continued past Alex and the minivan and headed back towards the interstate. It was nothing more than a couple of bureaucrats who had taken the wrong exit.

Alex quickly made up his mind. He threw his hands into the air and started running after the car

"Wait! I surrender," Alex called out.

The black sedan continued towards the highway.

"Call Agent Mulder," Alex yelled.

"He'll tell you!

I'm wanted by the FBI!!!!!!!!!"