Jack was ready to either climb the walls or tear some faces off, and the team around him who didn't seem to be able to come up with one thing that might get Mac clear were the first on his list at the moment. Even the stuff that they usually did as a matter of course, like using thermals on the building, had been absent on this hastily laid on op.
He'd never liked Samantha Cage more than when she offered to be fresh eyes on their information, until she started her subtle interrogation of the team. She did have a knack for asking questions in ways that got people talking. Even Bozer, who usually you couldn't shut up, had been unusually tight lipped as they tried to figure this out. Cage got the words flowing again.
Bozer was glad that Matty wasn't in the room when he had to admit to him and Mac just blowing off work to play ping pong down in the lab. It was even harder to admit that Mac had been letting him win. He'd suspected it, but almost felt hopeful that he'd actually upped his own game when Sparky suggested that an injury was the reason for Mac's subpar play.
The dirty look Mac had first shot the robot had almost made Bozer think that was it. Nothing his boy hated worse than being outed for being hurt if he was determined to ignore it. But the guilty glance Mac threw his way let him know, there wasn't some pulled muscle behind how high Boze had been scoring, or Mac's obviously sluggish movements in play. Mac had been letting him win.
And, as usual, Mac was just doing it to be a great friend. Bozer swallowed hard as he recounted their conversation for the rest of the team. What he didn't say was that he thought Mac read something in his face when he had to look Mac in the eye and pretend that he was still all broken up over Leanna being out of his life. He thought, as he looked around the War Room, that maybe Cage had his number, too. But like Mac, she didn't say anything, just let him keep talking about the mission.
As they talked through the scene in the War Room that led to this disaster, Jack shook his head. Other than how damned sexy that gun was, he didn't really have any interest in going over it again. The intel was garbage from the get go. Incomplete and hasty. And Matty had known it.
But, Jack pulled back on his anger; it wasn't like they'd had much choice. CIA couldn't touch the op with a ten-meter cattle prod (his and Mac's favorite Ghostbuster's quote for any untenable situation) and since this was going down on their home turf, that left them. So they'd headed out, knowing just how sketchy this was going to be to get those guns off the streets before they did any damage.
0-0-0
Mac swallowed hard when the cops showed him the evidence bag with the melted and twisted G36. Great. Now they thought he was not only a bomb maker, but an arms dealer, too. He could almost hear Jack's voice in his ear. "And the hits just keep on comin'."
Yeah, pal, they really do, he answered the imaginary Jack with a sigh. He was starting to lose his ability to just keep still. His cuffed hands started tingling a couple of hours ago and now they were going back and forth between being numb and aching.
And honestly, as he watched time tick by on the clock, he found himself more and more angry about this whole situation. Besides, the bush league interrogation tactics used by the police were just getting on his nerves. Did anyone really just cave to this crap? He remembered thinking more than once that Cage's abilities as an interrogator were maybe being a little oversold by both her and Matty, but in retrospect, he thought she was pretty damned smooth. He was going to have to tell her so.
If he ever got the hell out of here.
"You learn that in EOD?" was clearly meant as bait, to shock him that they knew about his past.
Mac just stared back, face just shy of impassive now.
The cop seemed to take that as a challenge and set down what must have been their key piece of evidence against him. Mac kept his reaction off his face, breathing carefully though his stomach dropping and the cold sweat that was breaking out all over his body. He was looking at a very clear image of him right next to that warehouse.
Son of a bitch.
Then, in quick succession the cops laid out the time stamp on the picture placing him at the scene, as well as the fact that they'd recovered finger prints from the bomb he'd used to destroy those guns.
Mac was worried for himself, sure, but he was also worried that if they kept digging, they'd find some connection to the rest of his team, to Phoenix. If the cops tumbled to what really went down before someone had started damage control on the intel, things could get bad. Really bad.
He didn't know where the hell Phoenix was, but he was by God going to find out. "I want my phone call. Now," he said, not quite able to keep his anger and frustration in check anymore.
When the cops laughed at him, they seemed genuinely amused.
"What do you mean I don't get a phone call?" Was this more poor-tactic interrogation designed to shake up someone who didn't know their rights?
When the cop responded that he was being charged with domestic terrorism, Mac felt for a moment like the bottom had dropped out of his world. Stopping terrorists was what he did. The idea of being thought of as one of them … He felt a brief moment of panic, and then he did what he always fell back on.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to think.
Unfortunately, his normally nimble mind came up completely blank.
