m_findlow

Title: Trading places
Fandom: Torchwood
Prompt: Blackmail at hc_bingo
Wordcount: 13,803 words
Rating: M
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Ianto will have to team up with an unlikely ally to save Jack

The warehouse was located down by the old docks. Like so many others, it had become rundown and disused, all of the major shipping contracts having been diverted to Newport and Bristol.

The derelict fixtures now sat there, idling away their time until the council decided either to inject money into the area and revitalise the once busy shipping port, or to sell the land to rich European developers who would turn the whole area into modern, one and two bedroom apartment blocks, advertising them as having stunning waterside views.

Stunning was definitely not the word that came to mind, and staring out at the stagnant murky brown vista, even calling it water was a bit of a stretch. Tidal muck was more accurate.

The first thing you always noticed down here, Ianto thought, was the salt encrusted tang of rusted metal that stung inside your nose. You could have taken him down here blindfolded, and he would have picked the spot from the smell alone. If he had to give a name to it, like a perfume, he would have called it abandonment. Even the weeds trying to push up through the cracks in the pavement had almost given up their subsistence. It also made it the perfect spot to set up if you were in the business of shonky dealings, and wanted somewhere you wouldn't be disturbed.

'This is the place?'

'That's the coordinates I was given,' John replied, re-checking them.

'No life signs,' Ianto observed, reviewing the readings from his PDA and looking around again.

'There wouldn't be. They're cold blooded. Rather apropos wouldn't you say?'

'Have you got it?' Ianto asked, pausing to check.

'Yup,' John replied, pulling the device from his pocket and brandishing it in the air.

'Good, let's go then.'

'Wait.'

Ianto stopped and turned around, his brow furrowing.  

'Before we do this, I want some surety.'

'What?'

'Two million Sarvian dollars, or the earth equivalent.'

'You can't be serious!'

'Consider it a ransom payment. I'm sure Torchwood can afford it.'

'That,' Ianto said, pointing at the device in John's hand, 'is our ransom payment.'

'Sure it is, but they were going to give me two million more to seal the deal. Not much chance they'll still be up for it after I crossed them. That currently leaves me with nothing. I get two million, and you get Jack. He's gotta be worth at least that much.'

'That's blackmail. I thought you said we were doing this to save Jack!'

'We are, but I want my cut for helping. Commission, finder's fee, call it whatever you like.'

Ianto was livid. Everything they'd done so far was on the premise of helping rescue Jack. He'd even been lead to believe that John truly did care about Jack, and that he was genuinely sorry that he'd landed them all in this mess. Now here he was holding Jack to a second ransom.

Ianto whipped his gun up, holding it just inches from John's face.

'I should shoot you right now, you bastard.' And he really did want to.

'Go on then, big boy. Dare you.'

They locked eyes, and Ianto could see the cold hearted callousness buried within. 'Going once...Going twice...'

Ianto's gun shook angrily in his hand, and he instead smacked John backhanded across the face with it.

'Sold,' Ianto mockingly replied.

'Argh,' John moaned in pain, wiping the blood from his split lip. 'Feel better now?'

'Loads. We rescue Jack. Then we can talk about your "payment".' He nearly spat the last word out, it was so distasteful.

They walked along the side of the adjoining warehouse. Normally, his instincts would have told them to approach from the back, but in this instance they were aiming to be more overt. It wouldn't look good if they were coming to make good on the agreed exchange, but caught trying to sneak in the back door.

'How many of them are there?'

'Three. Their head honcho and his two flunkies.'

A sudden gust of wind whipped up off the water, whistling its way through the narrow passages between buildings. An empty tin can got caught up in its fury and clattered noisily across the concrete, masking their footsteps, and those of their followers, hidden in the shadows cast by the structure.

'Are you sure they're here?' Ianto asked again. 'It doesn't look like anyone's been here for weeks.'

'You're just not looking in the right direction,' came the reply from a new voice.

The pair of them turned to find themselves at gunpoint. Four tall, grey pallored beings stood there, blocking the way they'd just came. They appeared reasonably humanoid, but different enough that you could tell they weren't actually human. As they turned, another two appeared from the shadows in front of them, fencing them in on both sides now.

'Did I say three?' John mused, as he slowly raised his arms overhead. 'I guess I meant six.'

Ianto didn't have a chance to respond. A sharp electrical jolt hit him in his upper back and he watched helplessly as he and John both crumpled to the ground unconscious.

His head hurt when he woke up. It was like the worse kind of hangover. He hadn't been that drunk since before he joined Torchwood, and had forgotten how much he didn't miss the feeling. John was next to him, tied and slumped forward in a rough wooden chair, just as he himself was apparently.

The chair back jutted up uncomfortably between his elbows, with his hands tied tightly behind it, locking his arms in place. He half remembered all those Jackie Chan movies he'd seen where he managed to used the chair like a ninja weapon, taking out four guys with samurai swords single handedly, whilst still being tied to it. He fancied his own chances of replicating that as being zero. His overtired brain shouldn't have even been entertaining those thoughts, but Torchwood had a way of altering your perception of immediate danger.

He watched the five of them, plus their leader, approach. In his head he'd named them all after Thomas the Tank characters. He wasn't sure why, but it helped to keep them straight in his mind. Percy, James, Edward, Gordon, Toby, and their leader the Fat Controller.

The Fat Controller strode across to John who was just coming around, and kicked out the back leg of his chair. It was a deft move, and more than the alien had seemed capable of with his rotund physique. It caused the chair to tumble backwards to the floor, slamming John's head onto the concrete.

'I don't like being screwed, Hart.'

As soon as he began talking, Ianto knew his namesake was appropriate. He was one part spoilt child, to two parts angry Russian mafia boss.

John groaned.

'Pick him up,' he instructed Edward, who pulled the chair back upright.

'You think you're going to get more money from me?'

'I brought you the device, didn't I?'

'Not without some additional incentive. And who's this, your lover?' he asked, looking across at Ianto, who thus far had been ignored.

'Hardly,' Ianto seethed. He should have kept quiet, but he couldn't help himself and defend his own reputation. Fat Controller seemed to sense the undercurrent of emotion.

'No? Maybe lover of the one we already have, then?'

'What have you done with Jack?' he growled.

'Ah, now the truth comes out. You're not here with Hart. You're here because we took him. What did he promise you for helping him? Hmm? Whatever it was, I doubt very much you'll see it.'

'He said if we handed over the device, you'd let Jack go.'

He laughed maniacally. 'John thinks we are stupid, trying to blackmail me for more money. But apparently, he thinks you are even more stupid. He is a swindling swine of a man. So we took his lover, or yours, and we spent a little time together. Now I know that he has information, and perhaps you do too. What will you tell me to save his life, hmm? Maybe today is my lucky day and I get two for one?'

Fat Controller snapped his fingers and Gordon and Percy dragged John up from the chair and away through the doorway.

'End of the road for you Hart,' Fat Controller called out across the room at his disappearing figure. 'The next time you see me it will be as I shoot you standing in the grave you've just dug for yourself.'

John struggled against his two cohorts, but they had the size advantage. Gordon was well over seven foot tall, and Percy was as broad as Gordon was tall. Even unshackled and armed, John would have had his hands full tying to win a fight against them.

Fat Controller turned and leered at Ianto. At the same time Ianto worryingly noticed the way that James' face contorted in an angry sneer, and he flexed the muscles in his large grey hand. He was clearly the Fat Controller's pit bull, just waiting to be let off the leash.

'Now that we're alone, let's have a chat about this place called Torchwood.'

Chapter seven...