Disclaimer: I don´t own anything and I´m not making money with.
Tangier, Morocco, February 2008
It was sunny, almost idyllic day in Tangier. A constant cool breeze from the strait of Gibraltar maintained a bearable temperature. The city was buzzing with new tourist from several cruise ships. Together with the permanent residents of the city they gave a colorful image. For a young man they were not his concern. He held only one person in interest. A middle age man with the name Mario Maurizio Conntorno. Italian citizen, arms dealer, enthusiastic polo player and lately a fan of historic inventors, among them Milo Rambaldi.
The young man checked the surrounding area with a scrutinizing look for threats of all kind. He knew that any information about Milo Rambaldi devices was dangerous. He may not have been there two years ago, when Arvin Sloan and Irina Derevko were stopped in there endgames, but he helped a lot in the aftermath. Among the several missions he conducted, were his first solo mission. His organization, the C.I.A, sometimes he still couldn't believe who he was working for, now held most of the remaining Rambaldi artifacts or documents. But you never know, what is still out there. He concentrated on the arms dealer again and followed him in an unsuspecting distance.
"This is Thoth, have eyes on the target. No pursuers or bodyguards. Target is wearing a blue shirt and dark gray pants. No hat or cap or other concealing features. He carries a black shoulder bag. No distinctive markings on it."
"This is Phoenix. I see him. He turns left into the Rue Ibn Toumert."
"Here Shotgun. Oracle and I are approaching you from the Place al Madina. Phoenix, get the car ready. Thoth, prepare for a grab."
"Roger." The two replied. The young men speed up his footsteps to get closer to his target. With a quick look over his shoulder, he could already see the SUV approaching, driven by his teammate. He got a syringe with a sedative ready and looked for his other two associates. He saw Shotgun and Oracle cross an intersection in the distance before him. He looked again over his shoulder. The SUV was now nearly on the same level as him. Only one intersection was left and the lights were red. The young man was now only standing several feet's away from the target. He took the syringe out of his bag in his right hand. The lights turned green. Oracle and Shotgun came up to him, Mario directly in front of him. As they were on the left and right of him, his left arm darted forward around the neck of the arms dealer. He injected the sedative as Oracle and Shotgun were tackling the target and kept him under control. The SUV stopped beside them, side door already open, and they quickly lifted the Italian man into the car.
The whole procedure didn´t took longer than a minute and Phoenix was already on the way to their first checkpoint, where they would dump the car and split in two teams. Shotgun and Thoth were looking for possible pursuers, but so far nothing. It took them ten minutes to the location; Oracle and Thoth were leaving to foot; Phoenix and Shotgun would use a second car and transport their prisoner. Roughly four hours passed until they all came back together in a safe house, their mission accomplished. Mario Maurizio Conntorno was already on his way to the U.S.A for interrogation.
Two hours later, they were all sitting on a plane also bound to the U.S.A. The team was quiet. Phoenix and Shotgun were sitting beside each other. Phoenix seemed to the sleep, while Shotgun was reading. Oracle was sitting several seats away, tipping on her laptop. Thoth was sitting in the back of the plane, a book in his hands, headphones on and listening to Brahms 4th Symphony performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Georgi Solti. Classical music, he had to smirk, considering he was also listening to metal, punk, ska, rock, jazz with a lot of their sub genres. He surely would have never guessed five years ago that his, at least musical horizon, would so much expand. He was still smirking as he got a glimpse of his distinctive features in the reflection of the little window glass.
The features of Jess Mariano, a rebel without a cause, constant screw up, high school dropout and probably still feared hoodlum in a certain town in Connecticut. The only possible positive thing any person from his old life would say about him was that he was well read. But he had no contact with this life, his first life, he cut it lose and tried now to stay away from it as far as possible. But sometimes he couldn´t help and wonder what would have happened if he had stayed. No, he had to stop, he did go down so often this memory lane, that he nearly got a bittersweet taste in his mouth from it, this were only what if´s and in his line of work, he knew they would never matter as long as the what if´s were regarding the past and not the future. And his future was clear; he would serve as a field agent, until he was either dead or old enough to become a director of a department or to retire. His mentor, Marcus Dixon, had shown him, that only this was the way to go about things for a man with his training. He wasn´t even grim anymore about that he could easily die; he had a way found to cope with it as is it was recommended by his psychiatrist and his mentor.
And when he looked at Sydney and Michael or Phoenix and Shotgun, as they were called on missions, he knew he could still find happiness. And he wasn´t unhappy with his current job, he was good at it. Sydney, who underwent a similar training to his, often said to him, if he kept pushing, he would exceed her one day easily. She and her husband was like family together with Rachel aka Oracle to him. Syd and Michael resembled most of the time aunt and uncle to him. Sometimes spoiling, sometimes pushing, sometimes strict or the only real source of advices. Rachel came close to a sister for him, on occasions older than him, on others she was like a baby sister to him, or so he would imagine like a baby sister would act. Never before the dark haired man had to admit had he ever felt so much belonging to a group as with his colleagues at the APO, even if they were a black ops division specialized in wet work. Before it, there was only one person, his real uncle Luke Danes, who really tried to give him this kind of feeling or so he thought.
Again he recollected the memory of the day he left Stars Hollow for a second time, for good. He probably might have handled the day and a lot of conversations this day better, but then again he was a somewhat stupid teenage boy, who was mad at the world and everybody, or just about everybody. He shook his head as if to lose the bad memories and read his book again. He wasn´t like that anymore, he had grown up and was doing something with his life.
A/N: My first fic, go easy on me ^^, I will mostly scribe with Jess as the main person but the others will get their share, don´t worry, next Chapter first Flashback!