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“Can you explain what went wrong in Tehran, Agent al-Raisani? From an intelligence officer’s perspective?”
Amir seemed to pause, like he was taking a moment to collect his thoughts. But he wasn’t. From any perspective, the only answer to the question was everything. Everything had gone wrong. Except one thing— they’d gotten Jaz back.
Amir shifted, deliberately bringing his hands to the table and clasping them together. The agents on the other side of the table were in rapt attention, waiting for one of his simple, CIA-style briefs. They would be disappointed. The glint in Amir’s eye was dark.
“I think the question you should be asking is, ‘Can I explain what went right in Tehran’?”
“Can you explain why not a single member of your team, including yourself, Sergeant McGuire, questioned the orders to stay in Iran, when they clearly went against protocol?”
McG was oddly serious. Even in debriefs, he flung out his answers, flirted through questions, slouched in his seat. He was a charmer and even federal agents liked to be charmed. But since the moment he’d sat down the easy smile had been a mask, his answers vague.
McG wasn’t usually one to play hard to get, but he didn’t mind making these agents work. Not when they were asking why he hadn’t questioned getting one of his best friends back.
“Not my job to questions orders.”
“Did you ever believe your team leaders' or team members’ actions in Tehran to be out of place, Chief Petty Officer Carter?”
Preach wondered if the agent sitting at his hospital bedside doing this interview was fishing for anything in particular. It didn’t matter— the answer wouldn’t change.
He carefully considered his words as he always did in debriefs, particularly in the individual interviews. As his team would say, he’d Preach them; give simple statements with double meanings. This time, though, this time he wanted his meaning to be crystal clear.
“We went in as a team. We were going to leave as one.”
“Walk us through your actions and decisions in Tehran, Captain Dalton.”
Dalton was controlled, stoic, but somehow also respectful. A man used to being in charge but who understood that authority in the field didn’t always transfer to rooms with one-way glass.
Dalton’s approach to interviews was always the same; answer the questions quickly, directly, and with as little detail as possible. The suits asking the questions would just misinterpret the details. He respected the checks and balances that the process placed on the power of men like him. But despite the conviction that he held for the decisions he’d made then and the result of Jaz being here now, he knew the details of Tehran might make an already messy situation messier. A smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, almost lost in the serious set of the rest of his face and his clipped words.
“We improvised.”
“Did you have any reason to believe that your team would breach protocol to rescue you in Tehran, Sergeant Khan?”
Getting Jaz to answer questions in debriefs with words of more than one syllable was challenging enough. When questioned, she always seemed to freeze from the inside out, her icy demeanor leaking into the air around her. The temperature of the room was always under her command and now it was dropping, absolute zero. Whoever thought that brown eyes could only be considered warm had never seen Jaz Khan’s poker face.
“No.”
“Why this team, Patricia? What makes this team so special that you would risk your career for one young, albeit promising, sniper?”
Patricia wasn’t used to being questioned in the individual interview. In fact, Patricia wasn’t used to being questioned at all. Even by her equals.
“If you have to ask that question, then I believe you need to take a closer look at those reports, Jason.”
“Answer the question seriously, Patricia.”
Patricia slipped her glasses off and closed them, one arm at a time, setting them on the unread file in front of her.
“We build these teams, we put these people together and we force them into interdependence based on skills and experiences. The better a team works together, the more interdependent they are. You think that ends in the field? They live together for months at a time; spend every waking and sleeping moment in close quarters. CPO Carter spends more time with this team than his own daughters. And even when they’re apart, they keep in close contact. Losing Sergeant Khan would not only have been losing a valuable asset— to this team, losing her would have been like losing a family member. And they’re not quite over the loss of the last one. This team is interdependent and special— it’s what makes them the best. That’s why ‘this team’.”
Amir knew that in order to release Jaz’s video and live, he’d have to be smart about it. He also knew that the mood that had settled over the team in the last few days of debrief— particularity over Jaz and Top— was toxic and needed to end. It was something that had begun because of Jaz and needed to end because of her too.
No, no. Amir didn’t need to just be smart— he needed to be as smart and sneaky as their ninja herself.
Instead of a mass email, he sent it strategically: first to Hannah (okay, it was her idea), then to McG, then Preach. The fact that McG was smiling every time he saw Jaz had already lifted the team’s mood enough, despite Jaz’s suspicious glares.
Amir finally took pity on Dalton the second last night of debriefs, when the other man had gotten particularly broody at dinner. He’d given his individual interview that day and the final straw was when he’d refused the vodka shots that McG and Jaz were downing like candy. Amir had sent the video immediately, watching as Dalton checked his phone and looked up with tired amusement and a raised eyebrow. Jaz was distracted and drunk so Amir really hadn’t been worried and the slow smile that had filtered over Dalton’s face and reached his eyes was worth the risk.
But letting Jaz in on the joke was a little, well, scarier. The subtle changes to everyone’s moods has already been enough to lift Jaz’s, but she was still a little sharper and snippier than usual (McG said it was usual for end of deployment and for debriefs. Jaz wasn’t fond of people questioning her judgment). Amir figured that Heavily Hungover Jaz would be the best option to show the video to. At least her reflexes would be slower.
“Why do I feel like I’ve got a Kick Me sign on my fucking back,” Jaz grumbled. She was slouched in a chair in a waiting area, sunglasses perched on top of her head. That morning she and McG had both stumbled down to the hotel lobby in uniform and sunglasses. Dalton had been waiting with coffee. Amir had known it was now or never.
“Maybe you do.” McG said, the words muffled from having his face buried in Jaz’s shoulder. She’d allowed it only because she was using his head to prop up her own.
McG’s point was emphasized as the attention of the agent coming to collect Amir was firmly placed anywhere but on Jaz.
When Amir had sent the video to Noah, he’d made sure the other man wouldn’t accidentally put it on the big screen but would share it strategically with people he liked. This guy had apparently made the cut, which was probably the reason Hannah sent him to take Amir to his exfil point.
“Agent al-Raisani, Ms. Rivera wants to clarify some information in your reports. Please come with me.”
The agent spun on his heel, and exited stiffly, but not before a suspicious Jaz narrowed her gaze at him. Amir knew there was no chance that Jaz knew this whole thing was a ploy by him and Hannah to get him out of the room when Jaz’s temper exploded, but her suspicion was... worrisome. But he had a mission to complete.
Amir paused for a second, pocketing his phone and sending a small smirk at Jaz before following the agent.
As the door locked behind him, Jaz flung her sunglasses onto the table in front of her and glared at it. “What the fuck?”
“Shh, Jazzy. Naptime,” McG whispered, blinking at her.
“You’re not curious why Hannah and Amir need to discuss something in private?” Jaz asked in disbelief. McG had made it his personal game to disrupt the obvious chemistry between Hannah and Amir since they’d gotten stateside. Jaz had to hand it to Hannah— the girl had game enough to enjoy but see through McG’s moves, while still flirting with Amir.
“Not really. The lovely Ms. Rivera only has eyes for Amir, and I know when to admit defeat. They both deserve it,” McG shrugged, and Jaz felt his eyebrows raise suggestively against her shoulder, “especially if their current little rendezvous involves a closet that locks from the inside.”
“Okay, whatever. But why the fuck did our door just lock from the outside?” Jaz wiggled her shoulders until McG leaned away from her with a huff. “Top?”
Dalton was leaning back in a chair, eyes closed, feet propped up on the table, and hands closed around the coffee balanced on his chest. He didn’t even open his eyes to answer. “The doors lock automatically, Jaz. It’s just the DIA’s security.”
Jaz rounded the table and tried the door. The handle jolted in her hand but didn’t open. “It didn’t lock automatically an hour ago.”
“Maybe you just missed it?” McG tried to soothe her but Jaz didn’t like it. She especially didn’t like the look Amir had given her before he left. It was too smug.
“I’m hungover, not an idiot,” Jaz muttered. Her head felt stuffed full of cotton but she would have heard the door lock the first time. It hadn’t.
“Take a breath, Jaz. You’re acting like Amir’s out get you,” Dalton sighed and sat up in his chair.
Jaz watched him from the other side of the table, wary. Dalton seemed less tense than he had the day before and there was a new light behind his eye when he looked at her that made her think he knew something she didn’t. Jaz wasn’t paranoid; It was the same new light her whole team had and she had a sinking feeling she knew what it meant.
At that moment, her phone beeped. Jaz froze and then relaxed. That was the alert for a text message not an email.
“It’s just Preach,” Dalton said, glancing at her screen. “He says- oh.”
“He says...” Jaz prompted. If her suspicions were correct then Amir had pulled one helluva prank on her, one that had her wishing for a Kick Me sign.
“He says, ‘I love you, you bloody menace. Terrible accents and all’,” McG answered instead, also leaning over to read her phone.
Jaz’s face collapsed in confusion. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It’s Preach, it could mean anything,” Dalton supplied, his tone a little too flippant.
“It’s probably nothing,” McG tried to assure her.
Jaz glared at both of them. They knew something.
Jaz’s phone went off again, this time a chime that did signal an email. The sinking feeling in Jaz’s gut intensified.
“Huh. ‘Sharing is Caring.’ That sounds like an interesting email from Amir,” McG taunted as he slipped Jaz’s phone into his hand and slid open the lock screen.
“McG, if you want to keep that hand, you’ll drop my phone,” Jaz warned him, arms firmly crossed across her chest.
“I’ll take my chances with a possible flesh wound,” McG grinned knowingly, pushing his chair back from the table. “I love this video.”
“Wait- you’ve already seen it?” Jaz was frozen in horror as she watched McG open the email.
“I’m just glad you did the accent better in the bar,” Dalton grinned at her in response, mouth quirked mischievously. McG squawked a laugh.
“Give it!” Jaz lunged forward, her arms sweeping towards McG across the table. But the table was too wide and Jaz was too small; McG jumped sideways out of his chair, holding the phone hostage above his head.
“Nah uh, Jazzycat. Payback.” McG’s smile was a little vengeful.
“McGuire!” Jaz snapped, but McG just smiled wider. Jaz’s eyes searched the small room before settling just in front of her. She lurched forward abruptly, forcing McG to stumble back into the wall. Then, ignoring the annoying pounding in her head at all the movement, she jumped onto the table.
“Give me the phone, and no one gets hurt. Except Amir. He’s a dead man.”
“Jaz, get off the fucking table,” Dalton rolled his eyes, reluctantly setting his coffee down as he rose out of his chair.
McG stared up at Jaz, a little concerned. The table took up most of the room. Jaz knew he wouldn’t be able to escape her.
“Top!” McG threw the phone low across the table. It sliced through the air and landed neatly in Dalton’s hands.
His face was mildly apologetic. “Sorry, Jaz.”
Jaz turned completely towards Dalton and let her shoulders drop in defeat. She slid down from the table and with big, pleading eyes she looked at him in the way that usually made her guys bend to her every whim. “Top. Please.”
He shook his head. “Not so funny when it's you, is it?”
Jaz grabbed for the phone, but Dalton tossed it straight upwards and McG snatched it out of the air. Jaz had completely missed him climbing onto the table. Both men had shit-eating grins on their faces.
“I hate all of you,” Jaz groaned, falling into the nearest chair, crossing her arms and legs sharply. “I give. Just play it.”
A look of pure glee crossed over McG’s face.
“Stand aside, worthy adversary,” he crowed before holding the phone towards Jaz and, very dramatically, pressing play.
Before Jaz could respond her own video-distorted voice was ringing through the air.
“Where are the darts?”
Jaz let out a long breath. She even sounded drunk in the video. Video Jaz looked drunk too, sitting on a desk and swinging her legs like a little kid while a practically naked McG attempted to bandage her hand (even wasted he was a solid medic). Video Jaz was also looking around wildly for the darts.
“Gone.” Video Amir was speaking but not visible.
Video Jaz pouted. “I want to play.”
“Drunk darts are never a good idea, Jaz. You’re already hurt.”
“It’s a scratch.”
Video McG stopped bandaging her hand to snort. “It’s almost half an inch deep.”
“I’ve had worse,” scoffed Video Jaz, pouting more at the camera and at Video Amir behind it.
“You bled all over the floor, Jaz.”
Video Jaz rolled her eyes and snatched her hand away from McG. “‘tis but a flesh wound.”
The English accent was exaggerated and ridiculous and Video McG started giggling at almost the exact moment that real McG did.
“Fuck,” Real Jaz buried her face in her hands. “Monty Python.”
“Apparently you have it memorized,” Dalton laughed and Jaz kicked at him.
“Come on, you pansy, give me the darts!” Video Jaz whined as she darted towards the camera and Real Jaz spluttered a laugh. McG was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes and Dalton’s shoulders were shaking with the force from suppressing it.
“Jazzy, stop, you’re bleeding through the bandage,” Video McG begged as the video started shaking as Video Amir backed away.
“The Black Knight always triumphs! I’m invincible! Give me the darts!” Video Jaz started running and kicking at Video Amir and Video Amir started cursing and running. The video ended in a shaking black screen.
Real Jaz stared up at McG, who slowly collapsed to lie on the table and wheeze laughter, her phone clutched to his chest.
“I thought that was all a jaeger-induced dream,” she whispered, horrified.
Dalton sat back in his chair, lounging. “Afraid not, brave knight.”
McG choked on his laughter. Jaz smiled sweetly and let her middle finger do the talking.
Despite the embarrassment that was making her stomachs turn, Jaz had to admit she felt like the last week of tension had finally eased from her shoulders. She could see why each of her guys’ moods had lifted dramatically over the course of the week.
Jaz let her head fall and loll against the back of her chair. She reached one leg up to the table and poked McG in the ribs.
“I can’t believe you fucking hit me with a dart.”
“I can’t believe you fucking put your hand over the target and told my drunk ass to get it between your fingers,” McG defended himself.
“And you all wonder why I sit outside with the dog,” Dalton retorted.
“’Cause he’s the best boy?” Jaz grinned, and McG laughed.
“’Cause he doesn’t bleed everywhere or do bad karaoke,” Dalton slipped his arms behind his head and smiled lazily at them both. Jaz couldn’t help but smile back.
“When do you think Amir is gonna let us out?” McG hung his head off the edge off the table and stared at the very locked door. His sunglasses hung awkwardly over his eyebrows.
“Not anytime soon,” Jaz supplied, “He’s not stupid.”
“In that case,” McG sat up and brandished the phone at Jaz. “It’s funnier the second time.”