Chapter Text
Fourteen Years Ago
“Alright, so we use Karam to lead us to Mahdi.” Michael said quietly as he leant back in his seat.
They were currently squatting in an empty apartment in the port city of Latakia in Syria, tracking two arms dealers selling stolen US military weapons to the rebel forces occupying the region. Two brothers with a penchant for disappearing as soon as their deals were done, sometimes even midway through. Whatever it took to avoid being captured. It didn’t help they had friends in pretty much every city in the country, unsavoury folk who were quick to distrust foreigners. Even quicker to slip a knife between the ribs of someone who asked too many questions. It had taken her a week to track down Karam but so far three days of following him had shown his younger brother was currently nowhere to be found.
“Do we have a plan b?” Vivienne asked. “For all we know they aren’t planning on meeting up for a while.”
“Use Karam as bait?” Tess suggested, getting up where she’d been sitting cross legged on the floor to stretch her legs while she tried to work out the kink in her neck; she knew she shouldn’t have slept curled up against the wall like that.
Her and Viv had played rock, paper, scissors for who got the couch and Tess had lost.
Three out of five.
“I think we are placing too much on their bond.” Nysa said softly from where she sat going over their files. “They’ve left each other before, I don’t think they will hesitate to do so again.”
“But they always come back to each other. That shows some amount of familial bond.” John responded, Vivienne nodding in agreement.
“Or convenience.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Michael cut in, bringing their attention back to him. “We can reassess later if we have to but right now we stick with the plan.”
He kept talking but she was only half-listening, her attention now on her phone. On the alert she’d just received.
About Jay.
She’d heard from him just once since they’d parted, a letter in response to hers. Going home had been… hard. Seeing Lydia and having to explain, having to move forward… It had been every bit as difficult as she’d feared. Writing to Jay was one of the first things she’d done, one of the few things that had made her feel better, even if she’d spent most of the letter talking about how she missed him. She’d been honest about how difficult coming home had been, as easy as talking to him in person- the only time she’d hesitated had been when she said she wished she still had her sleeping buddy, joking that her ‘stalker box’ only liked being the little spoon and didn’t cuddle the same way, hoping he would laugh when he read it. She also hoped he’d enjoyed the kit-kat she sent along. She’d also included some gossip she’d gotten from Sophie, the nurse promising to keep her involvement a secret. She hadn’t heard back before she’d returned to active duty but there had been a letter waiting when she got home last. He’d also wished her well, and that he wished he could be there to help keep her nightmares away; she’d taken the clothes he’d lent her with her and he said he hoped his hoodie was cuddling her better than the box. Which it was. His scent still clung to it but it was slowly fading and she genuinely feared the day it would be gone completely. He also called her a stalker, multiple times and she’d laughed at every one. He’d told her to say hi to her aunt and that despite the war the part that he hated the most was that she was no longer there with him. But her favourite part of his letter had been the polaroid of him sarcastically flexing, with ‘for your stalker box’ written under the photo. She’d laughed so hard but had taken several long moments to look it over before safely tucking it into her bedside drawer. Even thousands of miles away he could make her laugh.
But not right now.
Her finger shook as she finally opened the notification and then her heart stopped. It was a direct order from Bronson, internal communication to the rest of the base.
Retrieve Lieutenant J. Halstead and his team ON SIGHT. Return to base IMMEDIATELY.
She was in their system in seconds, scanning everything they had. Three days ago Jay had sent his team to meet a local woman who was supposed to give them information on a Taliban leader they were searching for, someone named Mullah, but there’d been an attack. Two of his platoon had been killed outright, another taken. Williams. The soldier who had pointed her to where Jay was the night they’d captured Selim. He and the younger boy seemed to have grown quite close and Tess could only imagine what Jay must be feeling right now. She didn’t want to imagine where he was because no one knew. The same day he’d gotten the news he had taken his team and gone to get Williams back. Alone.
And without permission.
“Yedida.” She looked up to find her team looking at her curiously, Nysa already standing, Michael quickly following her lead.
“What happened?”
“It’s Jay. A member of his team was taken. He and the others went rogue to try and find him.”
There was a beat of silence then John and Vivienne also pushed to their feet, Michael now taking a deep breath, the understanding on his face just as clear as the hesitation.
“What are Bronson’s orders?”
“Find them and bring them back to base. With or without Williams.” Vivienne’s nose immediately crinkled with distaste, she hadn’t liked the General before and her opinion didn’t seem likely to change now but she was more focused on how Michael’s jaw clenched ever so slightly.
“I need to go.”
“His own people are looking, they’ll find him-”
“They won’t. Mouse will be able to cover their tracks easily. They’ve already been gone two days.” Michael’s jaw clenched again so she looked to the others for support and of course Viv gave it immediately.
“You just said all we’re doing for the next few days is tracking Karam. We don’t need her for that and anything we would need her for she can do on her phone. If there was a time for her to go it would be now.”
Nysa stayed quiet, the woman’s dark eyes going between her and their team leader but John looked just as wary as Michael. “Tess I know you feel like you owe him, and I get it, I know what he did for you-”
“You don’t.” Tess cut him off sharply, holding his gaze for a long moment before she sighed- she hadn’t ever wanted to tell them this but for Jay...
For him she’d do anything.
“There wasn’t anywhere to escape to.”
His brows furrowed, everyone’s did for the short moment it took them to understand and then they went slack with shock. With hurt and guilt. She knew the remorse they felt over what had happened with Hess and Selim, how they thought they should have protected her better, Michael especially. She was the newest member of his team, the greenest - he thought he should’ve done more. That Luke had died trying to save her had only made him feel worse.
Until now.
“I got one of their knives and was aiming for my heart when he shot it out of my hands. But he didn’t just save my life. He made me want to live again.” She whispered, pushing her lips together to stop them from trembling.
She was still working through what had happened to her, understanding the hatred that some people bore, where it came from and how to not let her own fear turn so dark. It was difficult but it was work worth doing, and it had helped. Her nightmares were less frequent, and much less traumatic, and though returning to work had been a struggle she’d adjusted. More than that, she wasn’t scared to be in the field, to have it happen again. What she’d said to Jay was right; if she continued on this path then other people were going to take her again, it was only a matter of time. But she knew now she was strong enough to handle it. Strong enough to handle whatever was thrown her way. For a moment they just stared at her and Tess finally let them see it, how much what had been done to her had broken her, let them see the depth of gratitude she held for Jay for bringing her out of the darkness she’d fallen into. And she let them see that she was going to save him.
With or without their blessing.
Michael finally gave a dip of his chin, his sky-blue eyes swirling with emotion, pride chief among them. “You stay in contact the entire time.”
“Of course.”
“I can get you in.” Nysa spoke up, the intensity in her gaze quickly replaced by focus. “I’ve got a friend in Pakistan, a smuggler. For a fee he will fly you in, probably out too but if not he has contact with the nomad tribes who live on the other side of the mountains. They aren’t fond of Americans but they dislike the Taliban even more.”
“Well then I’ll make sure to tell them I’m Canadian.”
“Alright. Let’s get you into the Valley of Death.” Vivienne said with a broad smile, John giving her an unappreciative look at the reminder of the region's nickname.
Nysa was still trying to get a hold of her friend, Sayed, when she got to the airport an hour later but assured her he would help so she didn’t see the point in wasting time. It was already going to take her over a day to reach Peshawar the cultural and economic hub of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern region of Pakistan that bordered Afghanistan. But despite being quite prosperous it was also one of the country's most dangerous cities. Actually one of the worlds. Warlords fought often and they hated foreigners with a passion. Thankfully she’d be exiting as quickly as she arrived; she would meet Sayed at one of the border cities and together they would travel into the mountains where he operated his smuggling business.
Tess spent the flight going over everything Jay had collected on Mullah and his organization, which wasn’t much but she knew that wasn’t his fault. The man kept an incredibly low profile, it was impressive they’d even been able to get a confirmed identity since he rarely made public appearances, made possible by his strong underground connections that allowed him to keep off the military’s radar. Still, what they had learned was chilling. A Taliban leader who specialized in suicide bombers. The death toll he’d accumulated in his time, which seemed to be around two to three years as best the intelligence could tell, theirs and internationally, was high. And did not differentiate between soldiers and civilians, foreign or local, man or woman. Or child. He reminded her of Selim but she quickly shut that train of thought down before it could go any further- projecting her feelings about one man onto the other wasn’t going to help.
She wasn’t going there to find Mullah, she was going to find Jay.
He was her priority.
He was all she thought about, where he might be, how he might be doing, what he must be feeling. How he was going to react when he realized she’d come for him, which was probably not great. But she kept coming back to the tent he’d made for her. She’d loved that tent. Loved the chocolate, beer and music, the opening so they could see the stars. Tess knew it wasn’t normal to feel this strongly about someone after such a short time, even considering the circumstances. These kinds of feelings, that tug…
It was something she’d only ever read about in her novels. The kind of love she’d always secretly hoped to find but had never actually thought she would. And now that she had she was not going to let it go. She would use whatever it was that bound them together to bring him home safely.
This was not their end.