"She must go! Get out of my country immediately!" the Deputy Foreign Minister of Malaysia shouted at Mandy, Jason and Ray and more or less, the rest of the Bravo, in front of a police station in Kuala Lumpur.
Ray held up his hand. "You asked us to come here for our assistance in finding Jessica Austin, who you lost by the way, and now you want to kick out a CIA Officer?"
The Deputy Foreign Minister shook his head. "She is no good. I will consider her persona non grata."
Ray, Jason and Mandy all shared a look. That wasn't good. However, "persona non grata" status was usually reserved for diplomats and not CIA Officers so they weren't exactly sure how much sway the Deputy Foreign Minister had, but throwing those words around wasn't going to be taken lightly. "Alright, calm down. We did nothing illegal," Jason said.
"Nothing illegal! You arrested my man!" the Deputy Foreign Minister screamed.
Jason held up his hand. "You are kicking my CIA Officer out of the country because she found out one of your men was dirty? Was sleeping with hookers, taking kickbacks and undermining your own country's foreign policy? Prostitution is illegal in Malaysia, by the way."
"Get out of my sight," he growled at Americans.
Ray rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, guiding Mandy away from the Deputy Foreign Minister, who looked like he was going to blow a gasket any second. Mandy, smartly, shut up during the whole meeting, instead studied the off the hinge diplomat, considering her next move in this chess game. She had no intentions of ever returning to Malaysia but being labeled persona non grata didn't sit well with her either. And she was a betting woman that it wouldn't sit well with her superiors either. She expected a phone call from her boss by the time they landed back in Virginia; probably an irate one too.
"Lord Sackville, 1888," a familiar voice from behind the hotel wall stopped Mandy, dead in her tracks. She had a long day in meetings at Langley over what happened in Kuala Lumpur, the CIA not happy but understandable, for once. They weren't going to fire her but they did tell her they were going to tighten her leash a little. They did admit that the Deputy Foreign Minister of Malaysia was completely out of line at kicking her out of the country, he had no authority and she was not a diplomat. What she did in Malaysia was within her rights and the American government was more than happy to see a crooked diplomat out of the way, even if he wasn't that important.
Every instinct of Mandy was telling her to go back to her hotel room, have a nice long hot bath and ignore the voice. But she turned around to see Paul Mulwray, leaning against the hotel wall, inevitably waiting for her return from that said long day at CIA headquarters. She turned around. "Sorry, I don't know who that is."
He nodded. "Lord Sackville. One of the first diplomats to be considered persona non grata by the way of Article 41 of the Vienna Convention."
Mandy studied the reporter she met in Afghanistan. "I haven't quite decided if that last statement was creepy, beyond nerdy or a little funny that you are able to quote all of that."
"So it is true," Paul replied.
"Oh please," Mandy shot back. "I'm not playing this game with you."
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pocket. "Believe it or not, I came to see how you were doing. Not often you make the trip to CIA Headquarters. Must have been a doozy for you to come all this way to get called onto the carpet."
Mandy gave him a side glare as she stepped a little closer into his personal space. "How did you find out I might be in the area, anyways?"
"I have my ways."
She nodded. "I see. And my hotel choice?"
He rolled his eyes. "That was an easy one. All out of town CIA agents basically stay at one of three hotels in the area. I just had a lucky guess on this one."
"Paul, I've never even disclosed who I work for," she replied.
He rolled his eyes again. "Stop being stupid, Mandy."
"Fine. How'd you really find out that I might be here?"
"That piece of information only comes if you'll have a drink with me."
She studied him. "You practically wanted to kill me back in Afghanistan and now you want to ask me out?"
"Just catching up. I did actually want to see how you were doing."
"I see. I'm fine, thanks for asking."
He shrugged. "That expose that I wrote on Xeon Tactical did a lot for my career."
"I don't hear the thanks coming," Mandy snidely replied.
Paul smiled. "Still not there yet in my feelings for you, Mandy. You know that. After all you did give me that information in exchange for something else."
"And here we are again, exchanging information. This time for a drink," Mandy replied.
"So you just agreed that you will go out for a drink with me," Paul pointed out.
"I'm still thinking," she said. "But it's better than standing in a hotel lobby, wanting to kill you with my bare hands."
Paul gestured to the hotel bar with his hand and Mandy led the way. They sat in a back booth, where absolutely no one could see them and no cameras were pointed at their direction. Both Paul and Mandy made certain of that. They both ordered what was on tap for beer.
"Didn't take you as a beer girl," Paul observed as the waitress brought their drinks over.
Mandy sipped the beer. An IPA from Washington. Not bad. "Then what did you peg me as then, Mr. Bartender?"
"Gin on the rocks."
"I like to keep my wits about me in regards to conversations with reporters I don't fully trust," she shot back.
He eyed her. "You're having a drink with me in a hotel bar in Virginia. I don't know about trust, but I'd say there are probably other reasons you're sitting here and not having a long, hot bath with a glass of wine in your hotel room. So cliché, by the way."
She wanted to punch him. "You really are annoying."
"Part of my charm. But I did nail every one of those, didn't I? So, Mandy, why are you having a drink with me in a hotel bar?"
Mandy sipped the beer again. "Curiosity is getting the cat."
He raised his eyebrows as he took a drink of his beer. "Inquiring minds want to know about me. Huh. I guess there wasn't a lot of that you could do back in Afghanistan with Jason Hayes watching your every move."
God, he irritated her. So she decided to play into his ego a little bit. "You really are an interesting guy, Paul. How'd you know I was going to be here?"
He shrugged. "That wasn't actually that hard at all. Didn't even have to step on any toes. All it took was my brain."
She eyed him. "You managed to deduce the fact that I'd be in Langley all from unclassified material?"
He nodded. "Not the exact day and time they'd call you onto the carpet, but yes."
"Throw the girl a bone, will you?"
He held up his hand. "You did agree to go for a drink with me so I will let you know. See Malaysia is a little interesting in their news and they somehow wanted to make it big public news that they kicked persona non grata'd a CIA Officer. The rest of the world knows that the term is only reserved when you do that to diplomats, but we will let them slide."
"I'm not," Mandy muttered.
"Well, except you and the CIA because you are the one they kicked out. Back to the story, I found out about that news article from Malaysia. And then I also remembered a story of a missing American teenager that some weird ass Malaysian gang had kidnapped. And then I put it all together. They'd send in a Tier 1 team and I only know of a couple special ops groups that have a CIA Officer working with them. One of them being Jason Hayes. So I called down to Dam Neck and was told that Bravo was out of the country. All I needed."
Mandy put her head into her hands and sighed. She knew, ultimately, no one else but Paul had inside information like that but she didn't like being outed. "Seriously?"
Paul put his hand on her shoulder. "Relax, I'm not making a story of it."
She sat up a little straighter. "You're not writing a story on this?"
He shook his head. "Sorry to be crass, but nobody fucking cares. That and I'm not a dick. I'm not going to out you and Bravo just because I'm smart enough to put the pieces together that you guys were the special ops team that went to go rescue Jessica Austin and happened to be in Malaysia at the same time as a CIA Officer getting publicly kicked out."
Mandy let out the breath she was holding. "I feel a lot better now."
He looked at her quizzically. "Mandy, I know you're probably not going to believe it, but I genuinely like you as a person, so no I am not going to write a story that is going to, well, would completely expose you as the CIA Officer involved and utterly ruin your career."
She stopped listening after the first half of the sentence and put up her hand. "Did I hear that correctly?"
He sighed. "You did."
"Even with everything that happened in J-bad?"
He nodded. "Hard to believe, I know."
"Huh. Well, thanks for not blowing my entire career to pieces. I, and my employers, really do appreciate that," she said, drinking her beer.
Paul rolled his eyes. "Your welcome."
"Truce?" Mandy asked.
"What do you propose in this truce?"
This time it was her turn to roll her eyes and sigh. "That we maybe get to know each other beyond the snide comments about each other's professions and more on a personal level."
"Thought that would never come from you, Mandy. How thoughtful," he replied. "I'm in, if you're in."
She drowned the last of her beer. She was going to need a lot more after that agreement. "I'm in. On one condition."
"Name it."
"Nobody fucking knows about this."
He looked at her and sighed. "Mandy, that was a given."
She nodded. "Then, I guess I am in."
AN: Eh, not enough purely Mandy stories around here. I was re-watching Season 1 (boo on such a long break) and this idea came up. I think there could have been a lot more explored between her and Paul. Enjoy and leave me your thoughts!