It was morning; that much she knew was true. It was hard to tell since there were no windows but given the fact that she had a guard standing at the open door of her cell, that gave a pretty good indicator that it was morning. The exact time, she had an idea but it wasn't like she was going to tell them how she knew that.

Sitting up, she took her time stretching and finally stood up. Noting the scowl on the guard's face she said, "You should take a laxative."

The grumbling had her grinning as she was escorted to the box. It didn't matter what profession you were in; when you are interrogating someone, the room was always the same. It was called the box for a reason and designed to break someone. Her lip twitched at another story she knew about a friend who had suffered in the box but she didn't let it show.

Going through the hall, she didn't let anything get to her. There were far worse places to be than a Company interrogation black site. She knew those stories and they would be told eventually. They were counting on her to tell the truth and make things clear. She would do this for them as she had always done.

She was pushed into the box and into her chair rather hard. She looked at the guard and said, "At least you're not a gentleman."

The door to the box was slammed shut after he left and she was left to her thoughts. She sighed and played with her fingers. Her right forefinger stroked her left middle and she twitched a smile. It had been a running joke for years ever since she first broke it during that exfil after they executed Al-Asad. She remembered one particularly good time when she emphasized with her finger to make a point and the conversation that followed…

The door opened and David Said walked in. He had spent the night going over the dossier he had received and listening to the conversation while he uploaded it onto his computer. He looked at his prisoner now as she sat in her seat just waiting. He sat down across from her.

"You know the drones you have as guards need to find some manners."

"Perhaps if you were more cooperative…"

"And where is the fun in that, Said?"

Said looked at his prisoner and she had a teasing expression in her eye. He wasn't sure if she was taking this completely seriously or if it was one of her mechanisms of survival. Her file certainly gave basic information, basic vital statistics but even he didn't have clearance to go beyond the redacted and classified status of Shadow Protocol. He got the feeling that she knew that and she was in control of whether or not she was going to tell him.

Sitting in his seat, he opened the file and said, "Agent Nicolette Walker, recruited into the company while completing a Master's degree at Georgetown. Specialization in political-socio systems… You really are an analyst."

"Told you," Nicolette replied with a slight grin. It grew when she saw Said's face change as he continued to look at her file. "You'd be surprised at how many times that look appears."

Said cleared his throat when he realized that she was laughing at him to make fun of him. Then again she was the kind to know what worked and what didn't. The bonus was that she had been through that line of questioning before. "So… I checked out your story."

"What I told you so far?"

"Yes. It checks up but I am in the dark about afterwards. You mentioned going to Birmingham?"

Nicolette sat back and made a slight face, "Do you really want to hear about my boring training regimen?"

"It's a start. You did mention accompanying MacTavish to Birmingham. For what purpose?"

Nicolette scoffed and shrugged, "Is it too much for you to get that I was helping a friend?"

"Is that all? No intelligence gathering? Anything?"

Nicolette gave a single shake of her head and a slight smile, "Nope. It was all training from there and the long and short of it was that I was called the cheeky Yank bitch from hell more times than I could count and I can count pretty high."

Said looked at her, not sure that he believed that. He found it odd that she hadn't done anything during the first year after Zakhaev. He pressed, "But what about Operation Kingfish?"

"As far as I know, the operation was a trap and the operative was codenamed Black Fox," Nicolette replied, "And that was from my contacts within Intel." She sighed and asked, "Do you really want to know what has been catalogued down to detail per protocol regarding ops? And from secondhand?"

Said looked at her. He got the feeling that she knew more about Operation Kingfish than she let on. It occurred to him that maybe it was part of the story that she was telling. He knew he had to ask the right questions if he was going to get her to tell the story. "I guess not."

"Good. So what do you want to know?"

"How did you get onto Makarov's tail?"

"I fell in like the last time," Nicolette offered.

There was pounding on the glass and muffled shouting, "Quit playing around."

Nicolette looked at the glass with a raised brow and then at Said and said, "Looks like your ass wipe has a temper. I know someone who can do better." She looked down at the table and picked at her hands like it was no consequence.

Said was annoyed that Pope interfered like that but perhaps it was better that it did occur this way. At least he was onto something. He replied, "Do you? Will it be a part of today's story?"

"Depends," Nicolette offered with a shrug.

"I am curious though," Said replied, "You mentioned that Zakhaev knew you were involved in his son's death. How did he know about that?"

"Like any organization, the head has his lackeys that report back to him. I suspect that there was someone who was within Viktor's inner circle that knew me and saw me then," Nicolette replied. She glanced at the mirrored window and then at Said. "You could say that I was part of the larger plot that ended up in the way things were at that time and what they are now."

"You want to tell me about it?"

Nicolette looked at Said with a raised brow. He was learning fast but she wasn't going to be easy with the information. She replied, "I'll tell you a little more about how we got to know who decided to make a grab for the throne so to speak. There were quite a few at the time but one or two that proved profitable in terms of information."

Said took it as his cue. He pulled out the digital recorder and turned it on. He pointed the microphone portion towards her. "So what major players are we talking about?"

Nicolette looked at Said and folded her hands. She studied him for a moment while thinking about what she was going to say. "With any hole punched into a system, there is a vacuum that others are eager to fill it…"

Zakhaev and Al-Asad were just the beginning. Like any established system, when a part goes bad, it is replaced and sometimes with something that has unforeseen consequences. The void left in the wake of Zakhaev's death left room for those who would never be considered. Kingfish was one of them. Koshin and the South African Danie were others and even some low level drug lord from Columbia named Lorenzo Montero wanted a piece of that pie.

Thirty thousand Marines had been killed in a single blast and the retaliation created a hole for more trouble. But that is normal for the world on any given day. Had we known what the consequences would have been if Zakhaev had not been killed, then maybe things might have worked out a bit differently. We wouldn't have gone down the path that would lead into…

Scars of Duty: Outbreak

Chapter 1

The Russians were closing in. They were outnumbered and outgunned but they had to get their man down in for dust off. She kneeled beside Price and fired her M30 with grenade launcher. It looked ridiculous in her hands but they needed the firepower if they were going to get MacTavish out alive. She took the right and Price took the left.

"We need to move back."

"They'll overrun the LZ," Price countered. He barely glanced at her, "Get out of here Nico."

"Nice try old man," she replied as she took out two more tangos. She then launched a grenade that threw them off.

"Get out of here Nico. That's an order!"

"I'm not leaving without you Price," she shouted.

Price shoved her out of the way and got hit by incoming fire. He shouted, "Get your Muppet arse out of here Nico. I mean it."

An RPG explosion hit and she rolled out of the way. She got to her feet, firmly desiring to stay but the man was adamant. "Price!"

"Run Nico! Get out now!"

She ran and headed for the forest for cover. The chopper was already in the air. They had to go otherwise they would be gunned down. At least the others were safe but it pained her to leave Price behind and after she found him alive and kicking when she and MacTavish thought he was dead. Now for certain… She heard his gun still going off but…

She continued to run towards the secondary extraction she had planned. Price would have been proud of her for her planning in terms of location and timing for extraction. She managed to make it to where her ride was but she wasn't alone.

He had come out of the woodwork and almost shot her but she managed to duck and get in close. They fought hand to hand and she tried to get in to neutralize him. The bastard was one of Kingfish's men so she had no problem killing him. Then he escalated it with a knife.

She ended up getting kicked against a tree. Her back slammed into the truck and she slumped slightly. The bastard came rushing towards her and the knife was headed for her chest.

I will find you Anya. You will pay for everything…

Nicolette opened her eyes and gasped for air. The night air was cool for a night in a desert environment even with the humidity figured in as well as the dry heat that quickly turned into iceberg cold. Even with all that she still woke up in a sweat and she could feel her heart thumping rapidly within her chest. It threatened to pound its way out if given the chance.

Sitting up she took deep breaths and looked through the netting that protected her from the bugs. Her had reached up to her chest and rubbed over the keffiyeh that was wrapped around her neck. She continued to rub her chest and look out into the night as she thought everything.

It had been almost a year since the day Operation Kingfish, nine months to be exact, and she still had nightmares about that. It varied but it all went back to the same ending; hearing Zakhaev's voice saying that he would find her and that she would pay for everything. Sometimes it was accompanied by the photo that they had found in the target building. It was of her and Viktor Zakhaev smiling and a red circle drawn around it and a line towards a phrase. It marked her for death by Kingfish.

She had tried hard not to react especially since it was so close to the photo of Bravo Team. She knew that Price and MacTavish had seen it and there was going to be a serious discussion about it when they returned to based and in private. The others didn't know who she was and her face had been covered by a black keffiyeh like Muslim women… a contradiction to her code name for that op. She could see the look on their faces before they realized it had been a trap.

They had to make a run for it to the chopper with enemy fire showering down on them. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Then the RPG came and hit, knocking MacTavish off his feet. He wasn't dead but he was injured and two of his team carried him out while she and Price provided cover. She had tried calling in for aerial support but no avail and then Price shouted at her to leave.

Nicolette tried to suppress the sob that broke through but couldn't. She had left a man behind and she never did that. It hurt like hell, like a piece of her had been torn out. Ever since she was a kid, she had always looked after the others. The other kids that came through Karen's house in the system… she and Kyle looked after them. They looked after each other but… That had been failure on her part and yet Price had pushed her away… told her to run.

It probably was punishment that she had been attacked at the secondary extraction point. She was left with a memento of that even though she was alive. She couldn't even go see MacTavish while he was recovering… while he was awake. She couldn't tell him that she had left Price behind. She was a coward deep down.

"Nico, are you all right?"

Nicolette turned to see a little girl with bright brown eyes looking at her. Her chocolate brown skin reflected the light from the nearby fires of the village where she had been staying to await her ride out. She took a couple of breaths and smiled at the little girl and said, "I'm fine Sanaa. Just had a bad dream."

"The juju man can fix it," Sanaa replied with concern.

Nicolette looked at the little seven year old and gave a gentle smile, "It'll be all right. It's just a bad memory."

"You were thinking about your friend again," Sanaa pointed out with the frankness of a child her age. "You kept saying Soap. What person is called that?"

Nicolette had to laugh. She had asked a similar question like that. After patient waiting and heckling, she finally got the answer and she ended up falling down laughing while MacTavish scowled at her. She did tell him an embarrassing story about her in fair trade and he got to laugh at her. She replied, "Sometimes people get a name because of something that happened. It is a reminder of good times and bad times and they try to be better because of it."

"Like yours?"

"Well Nico is short for Nicolette and the person who gave it to me… he's a good man." Nicolette smiled at the memories and brushed away the shadows of the nightmare.

"Was it Soap?"

"No but another good man."

Nicolette humored Sanaa a little and even allowed the little girl to come into her tent area. She blinked in surprise when the little girl curled up beside her to cuddle with the intention of going to sleep. She wasn't used to cuddling by anyone who gave complete trust like that and she was always wary of sleeping in tight quarters anyway. Yet this was refreshing and she really didn't know what to do since the girl was out like a light, cuddled next to her body. Eventually Nicolette settled back down to sleep and it was relief that she had not gotten another nightmare.

The morning promised the day would be a hot one. Nicolette could feel it the moment she awoke with Sanaa curled by her body. She blinked as she looked at the ceiling of her tent and sighed. Today she was leaving the village and heading back to the UK. Her mission here was completed and almost at a cost to her life once again. How she managed to get away she only could give as luck or the superstitious ritual she did of kissing her thumb. Either way, she got what she had come for and she was going to report in.

The sounds of animals told her people were getting up and she figured she might as well too. She gently nudged the girl awake and told her that she needed to go to her family. Sanaa was reluctant to but Nicolette wanted some privacy and didn't want to waste time packing up her equipment. She had imposed enough on these people especially when she walked in a couple of days ago with a nasty injury to her left on her ribcage and a red patch on her left eye.

They took her in because she was injured and very dehydrated and in danger of having an infection. From what she had gathered, the medicine man had cured her of the sickness and healed her injuries. She wasn't sure what to make of it but accepted it. The gash on her ribcage was bad but whatever the medicine man did, it was well on the mend and the injury above her eye was not too bad but she did have a permanent scar on her brow. It made her look a little angry if she contorted her features right.

Nicolette gave a slight groan as she stretched her back after putting her gear away. She was overdoing it since she wasn't exactly a hundred percent but she was well enough to get moving and yesterday she had made contact for her ride home. She bent over to catch her breath and ended up grunting and was forced to put her hands on her knees.

"You work too hard. You stay one more day."

Nicolette straightened out and turned to look at the medicine man. He was a wizened old man whom she was sure was as old as the dinosaurs but she respected him. She felt compelled to actually stand at attention in front of him. She replied, "I can't. I have to go back."

"The night visions are strong. Bad memories even haunt the waking hours," the old man pointed out, well actually towards her face. "The bird is lonely and worried."

Nicolette gave a slight frown as she looked at the old man. "I don't understand…"

"The bird is lonely and worried. The dark thoughts that haunt the waking hours… they all stem from the same source."

"I don't…"

The old man put a gnarly finger right in the center of her chest. Nicolette gave a slight wince from the initial poke but it was a gentle pressure on her chest. The old man said, "From the same source. The cure is here." He tapped the area he had applied pressure on and looked her in the eye. "Stay one more day."

Nicolette looked at the area where the old man tapped and rubbed it with her fingertips like she did the night before. She looked off to the distance and thought about it some more. She then looked at the old man and said, "I can't." She sighed and continued, "I can't bring danger to your people because of what I had to do and…I have to go."

The old man looked at Nicolette and nodded. He then took off his necklace that had a carving of a totem hanging on it. "Then take this. It will help with the night dreams."

Nicolette knew better than to refuse to the point of insulting the old man but she did give polite refusal. In the end she had it around her neck and she looked at it as she sat in the cargo hold of the plane that she was taking on her way back to the United Kingdom. That was more home to her than her side of the pond as the phrase went.

It was a matter of making a quick drop off at the meeting point with her contact and handing over what she had been sent to retrieve and she was home free to go to her flat near Hereford. If you were to ask her why that place, she would have said she liked the races. The truth of the matter was that it was a sort of tribute to Price. The man had liked to go there for the races. In a way it was sort of like asking for forgiveness.

It was a modest flat and reflective of her cover job at small firm in terms of cost… not that she had to go in to work. She was an employee in name but if she was needed to prove employment, she would be there. It was a little rundown though and while she could have been at one of the more affluent neighborhoods, she chose that place and made a fairly good living out of the place. She even managed to decorate with some pieces that wouldn't completely terrorize guests.

Walking through the place, she looked around and felt a slight feeling of relief at being home. Yet it felt a little empty. Her gaze turned toward a picture that she had kept out of habit even though she was certain things weren't really smooth sailing. It had been taken here at Hereford at the races and more as a result of a dare. It was of her and MacTavish and they both had a cigar, Price's favorite blend, and they looked happy. MacTavish said that she looked a little green. A lie actually but it was a good time and more for remembering and helping a friend.

So you're leaving.

"I have to," Nicolette whispered as she remembered, "I have been assigned to a deep cover." She sighed as she dropped her bag by the couch and started stripping her clothes to head to the shower.

Fifteen minutes under hot water revitalized her and she stood looking at herself in the mirror. She stared at her face and then looked down to the top of her sports bra. The very tip she could see. It was not unsightly or noticeable if she had to wear the little black dress number for a job but that was little consolation. Her gaze drifted to the totem that she hadn't removed except to shower and then at her face.

A knock on her door broke her concentration and she frowned. There was no scheduled meeting and her handler knew better than to come here. She pulled on a flannel shirt and grabbed her pistol. It was the M1911 that Gaz handed off to her. She had other guns in the place but they were in various places just in case she needed them. Right now a pistol was enough.

She held it ready to fire but pointed downward as she walked towards her door. She glanced at the windows to make sure that nothing funny was going on before she looked through the peephole. She let the person knock on the door again before she slowly opened the door to get a better look before opening it enough to let her impromptu visitor in and said, "You know our arrangement. No house visits."

Jensen looked around the flat and then at Nicolette as she put the safety on her weapon. He didn't expect anything less from one of his best agents and was willing to bend over backwards to cater to her request. He looked around and let himself into the living area saying, "I know but this really couldn't wait."

"Nothing ever waits when it concerns the Company," Nicolette deadpanned as she walked to her kitchen to pull out two beers. She had her pistol tucked into her pants as she carried the beer back and handed one to Jensen. "They just do what they do."

"True but this is a time sensitive issue," Jensen replied as he accepted the beer, "And I suggested that we give you a day…"

"But you want to send me in right away. Oh by the way the jet lag was nice," Nicolette finished with a sarcastic look. She took a sip and sat on the couch across from Jensen. "So what is it?"

"We need you to go undercover and possibly for the long term."

A/N: Welcome folks to part 2 of the series. Looks like we take off with a bang in the interim. Seems like Nico is still on the job and a new assignment. What gives? Find out next time on Outbreak...