*Authors note*
This was my favorite chapter to write so far. It just really advances the plot along for the last quarter of the story. It does pain me that Auggie is spending so much time away from Annie, but I was really striving for a roll-reversal for the pair of them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Just to put the time frame in perspective, this chapter takes place about 15 hours after Auggie were recaptured (which was about 37 hours since they'd gone missing) so the timeframe of this chapter is 52 hours in.
Also, when I outlined this I hadn't caught up with the second half of season 2 and was working with 2x1-10 template. So Jai is still working with the DPD throughout the story.
Chapter 7
"Annie... Annie wake up," the un welcomed voice seemed to be standing over top of her bed.
"not now. Wake me in the morning. 'Kay?"
"Annie...," this time there was a hand shaking her lightly "It's 12 in the afternoon and you are asleep at your desk. You worked all night remember?"
Her eyes shot open at that revealing a tall dark-complected man sitting at the edge of her desk regarding her casually with a smirk on his face. Jai. Rubbing her face and the indentation her papers left on it- she asked how long she'd been out.
"You passed out sometime between 4:00-4:30 Joan was going to offer you a cot but you were gone already by the time we found you."
Remembering back the night before how she, along with a few others in the DPD agreed to work around the clock trying to find their missing Head Of Tech OPs and his young asset. These last 48+ hours had been hard for the entire department since unlike Jai, there were few who disliked Auggie, but it was really taking the emotional toll on his inner circle: she, herself; his team; Joan; and for some inexplicable reason: Jai, insisted on hanging around- though his motives unclear. Arthur came down every couple of hours just to touch base on how they were going but upon hearing nothing positive he would retreat back to the safety of the 7th floor.
Pulling a posted note out of her hair he informed her of a meeting with Joan in the conference room in ten minutes, leaving her to collect herself.
…...
"Vasily Nikov," Joan clicked on the power-print, bringing up a mugshot of the man in question, she was in a rush and didn't even bother to wait for the last few people (Annie included) to enter the room before continuing, "he is a former soldier for the Russian Ground Forces, discharged for diverting guns and ammunition out of Eastern Europe in exchange for drugs and foreign money in 2002. Since then he was rumored to be working as a hired hitman for the Russian mob- but nothing concrete. That brings us to why he's up here today: yesterday two suspects who were caught on camera before the bombing at the pub told us about a man who contacted them fitting this man's description, we asked if they could describe him and our sketch artist gave us a picture that we then ran through facial recognition software and the match came in this morning. Barber? I want you and the rest of the team to scan it and see if we can get a match on it in our surveillance database-"
"-if he was caught on camera In the last 24 hours it shouldn't be a problem, but anything earlier than that becomes encrypted by date not by location, and it just gets messier from there." Barber said as he tried to quell the twitching induced by the one-too many energy drinks he was currently running on.
"well get on with it then," said Joan, eyes issuing him and the rest of the tech department out the door to get to work, "the rest of you, I want anything you can find on him. Any leads or paper trails that might suggest where he is right now. He is our only link to Thomas Harker and I want no stone left unturned. Dismissed."
As they all poured out of the conference room, Joan walked over to her office but not before venturing a look in the direction of the glass office that usually housed her favorite tech OP. All of his trinkets sat exactly how he had left them on his desk, with the exception of his chair which sat out-obviously moved by Barber or one of the others. Changing her direction, she entered the small office and respectfully moved the chair back to exactly where he had liked it.
The Florida Everglades, 5 hours later...
Sounds slowly started swimming back up to the surface once again, his dulled senses slowly taking stock of his surroundings; the air felt noticeably different- more heavy and humid then their last location, the smell was musty and industrial. He couldn't discern if the echo he was hearing came from the building he was being held in, or a side effect of whatever drug they gave him, though, given that he was sitting upright, probably tied to a chair, it was most likely the former.
Footsteps slowly made their way towards him, the echos bouncing off the walls- definitely a warehouse he thought.
"Welcome back to the land of the living August," said a new and unfamiliar voice as the person leaned over his shoulder to free the restraints around his wrists, but left the ones around his ankles tied however, "please allow me to properly introduce myself: I'm Thomas Harker, welcome to sunny South Florida," he said as he grabbed Auggie's hand in a gesture of a gentleman's handshake.
Auggie immediately snapped it away, "Where is Molly?"
"my daughter is sitting right next to you. We gave you both heavy sedatives this time so you wouldn't make the mistake of trying to run off again as you did last night,"
Despite being tied to a chair, Thomas treated Auggie with the utmost respect of a houseguest. The man was a soft-spoken, calm, relatively short man in his mid 40's, who upon first glance looked more like a business yuppy, rather than cyber terrorist. His profession paid him well and he dressed as much: designer suit, shoes, tie, and watch, and was also impeccably groomed to match. This was a bizarre contrast giving the fact that he was standing in an abandoned factory in the middle of the Everglades.
He looked over to his daughter who was just beginning to stir, slowly waking.
"I must say August...,"
with that Molly's senses started kicking in, picking up fragmented pieces of the ongoing conversation happening around her.
"...I did some homework on you after Hogan contacted me to to tell me that Molly was bringing an unintended guest with her. You are really quite impressive, August Anderson of Glencoe Illinois. Graduated with top honors from MIT, aced your SERE training at Fort Bragg, and quickly went to the top of your class at The Farm. You became a CIA field operative at age 22 and even a Captain with Special Ops in Iraq. Knowing all this there was just no way I could have my people shoot you in the head."
"Thanks. I'm so honored," Auggie added sarcastically.
"Dad?"
Switching his attention to his daughter as he spoke: "hey honey, sleep well? I was just having a chat with your friend here," he reached over to pull down her blindfold, but not her hands as he did with Auggie. He knew his daughter too well.
As soon as the blindfold lifted she slowly opened her eyes and willed the blurry objects around her to focus. Everything around her was bright and throbbing, but she was able to make out a small figure with 3 larger figures standing directly behind him. Seeing her father smiling smugly as the images around her began to sharpen, she turned to her left where she found a groggy but unharmed Auggie at her side.
Thomas continued "...we've been discussing just how impressive and valuable Mr. Anderson is. He probably didn't tell you he was ex-super soldier, world-class spy, and technical genius did he?"
Molly snapped her head from her father to Auggie in shock. She knew he was skilled-obviously, but had no idea to what extent. Her mind instantly flashed back to the conversation in the trunk:
"Just when I contacted the CIA...for help I kinda expected..."
"Not a blind guy named Auggie?"
"bingo."
She stopped to consider how awful that must have sounded to him. Watching his reaction as her father continued to triumphantly regard him and all his accomplishments she noted that his head was down, emotions schooled with exception of his eyes darting around the room as if searching for something on the floor. This was obviously bothering him more than he was letting on.
Noting the presence of only three guards, "Where are Miguel and Dash?" she asked attempting to steer the conversation away from Auggie.
"Oh, they were holding us back last night and since they failed miserably at their jobs to anyway," Hogan said looking to both she and Auggie for her benefit, "we decided it was in their best interest if they'd stay behind,"
Jenning's the youngest of the three made a mocking gun gesture towards his left temple, effectively leaving nothing to imagination.
"so what are you going to do with us?" she snapped.
"now THAT is just between me and Auggie," he gestured towards Nikov and he walked up to her with a syringe in hand.
Auggie caught the sounds of panic at his right shoulder as she fought with every fiber of her being against whatever he was doing to her. He called to her and let out a vehement "don't." in the direction of the man that gave the order.
It was too late as the struggle died to standstill all too quickly beside him.
"Relax. Its just a light sedative, she'll be fine." he turned to the guards gesturing them out, Nikov stopping to untie the sleeping girl, carrying her out along with them. Thomas picked up the now unoccupied chair and sat it facing the young blind man who still had his head tilted down with his features schooled, hiding any emotions that might give him away. "you still got it don't you?" he added with a slight laugh.
"Got what?" he asked through clenched teeth not bothering to lift his head.
"that SERE training that made you such a talented operative"
"what do you think," he spat out as confirmation to his question.
Thomas just smiled and nodded.
"What is this?"
the sighted man scooted closer and leaned in towards him, "'this' is me telling you what is going to happen later tonight without that little bitch screaming in my ear," his voice was lethal "truth is that intel was useless- too old, and the programs I used to obtain it were just copies, but my main reason I wanted my 'insurance plan' back was because of one single blueprint. Your a tech man, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of 'project Golden Eagle'"
Auggie winced at that.
"Ahhh so you have heard of it. An unmanned, rocket-launched, hypersonic assault aircraft that can exit the earths atmosphere, tends to get the geeks talkin.
"That's why DARPA abandoned it," said Auggie connecting the dotts, "the project was compromised, 'you' compromised it."
"one man's loss is another's gain, and North Korea doesn't seem to be having any trouble taking someone else's leftover dinner scraps."
"And you have no problem with that. Just handing it over. You know what they will do with that technology."
"Hey! what do I care? I'll be so rich by then I can set up shop as far away from all their enemies as physically possible."
"So why do you need Molly and I then?"
"well see... thats the thing. Waiting two years for the blueprints I promised them has left them doubting my abilities as a valuable asset to them, so when I contacted them last night to tell them the good news, I threw in an extra little incentive for being so patient," he leaned into Auggie's ear, "you and Molly."
Auggie could only nod. Everything finally clicked into horrific place: "they want live American hostages in exchange for someone who can build it."
"An American hostage and a CIA agent," he corrected. "you'll be leaving on a hijacked South Korean freighter from the port of Miami tonight."
Annie knocked on Joan's office door.
Upon hearing the other woman's confirmation, she asked "you wanted to see me?"
"yes. Go home and get some sleep."
Upon seeing Annie's look of protest and disbelief she added "I've called in an additional group to take over the case while you and the rest of Auggie's team, who've been working non-stop for the past 57 hours can get some real sleep. I can't have my best people running on fumes while we try to rescue one of our own."
Annie watched Joan as she appeared to resume whatever work she was attending to at her desk. The very embodiment of stoicism. She was about to make her exit when she paused for a moment "do you think he's ok?" she asked her boss turning back around.
The older woman let out a small humorous huff under her breath as she opened her desk drawer, "come here,"
Annie walked over reluctantly as ordered by her boss and peered forward towards whatever Joan was holding. "ohh my..." whatever she was expecting it hadn't been that, "is that?..."
"it was taken a day before his 24th birthday. He had just gotten back from hostage crisis in Colombia. The situation had turned sour quickly and all lines of communication went dead. He had barely two years under his belt at the agency when he had begged me to take that mission, despite being totally unprepared for any contingency, he convinced me that he 'had it in the bag'- so I let him go. He was MIA for two weeks in the Colombian rain forest during the still-ongoing volatile civil war. We were about to send word to his family, when we got an incoming transmission from a Peruvian truckers CB with the first 4 words coming out of his mouth being, I kid you not:
"did you miss me?"
Annie looked closely at the photo: he was scraped and dirty, but cleaner-cut and she thought, wildly less humbled, by the looks of the 'know it all' smile he had plastered across his face with his arm jokingly wrapped around Joan in the middle of the DPD, as she held a sack of cocoa beans that he brought back as a "souvenir" from his trip to hell.
The look on Joan's face in the photo was priceless: the look of a mother who lost all patience with her child and just decided 'screw it' and posed for a picture.
Annie laughed as she took in the look on his face, carefree: as if nothing had happened to him, while trying to fight back simultaneous tears that were trying to choke her.
She held onto it a few seconds longer, letting it sink in, before passing it back. Looking in Joan's direction, she nodded to her boss in understanding before she left the office for the night.
Joan didn't have to say a single word to reassure Annie, the picture spoke for itself.
FYI:
SERE stands for Survival Evasion Resistance Escape training. If you were wondering what he was talking about during the actual polygraph in No Quarter.
DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The technology is based on the Falcon HTV-2 I just thought it would be a good idea to change it to something less official. DARPA scares me.
...
*Additional Authors Note* What was everyones thoughts on the finale?
While it didn't make much headway Annie/Auggie wise, which was disappointing, I still thought it was a big improvement to season 1's finale. Auggie broke my heart in all his scenes; I wanted to throw a shoe at the television during Jai's; And I've now developed a new appreciation for 'Shake It Off' which drove me crazy throughout the episode trying to place it lol.