Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.
-M-
She got the door, moving inside and out of the way as Jack carried in what had to be fifty pounds of groceries, and nodded at Bozer, who was elbow deep in a metal mixing bowl full of hamburger meat.
"I got cow and beer," Jack announced, and Riley closed the door behind him.
"Cool. Wings are marinatin', so all we need now are some veggies to round us out and we're good."
Jack stumped into the kitchen, the paper grocery bags rustling loudly as he made counterspace, and Riley glanced around the living room before making her way out onto the deck.
Sure enough, he was there. He was standing right up against the railing, she'd always thought it was crazy low and not to code, but it was the perfect height for sitting on.
He wasn't, though, just his beer. Two thirds full. And she knew it'd stay that way, all night long. Just like it did last week, and the week before that.
"Hey Mac."
He turned a little, she got the corner of his eye, and the portion of his mouth she could see was turned up.
"Hey Riley."
She was gonna turn that a real smile.
"Think it'll hold off?"
Mac glanced up. Thunderheads were rolling in, they hadn't reached the city yet but were probably an hour or so out. It didn't rain often, in LA, but when it did it usually meant it.
"At least until the cooking's done."
She just nodded, wandering over to stand beside him. There really was no better view in the city, she'd come to love this one best. The trees on the property kept the air a little cooler, and maybe a little cleaner, and on days when the wind actually carried the smog out of the city, it was insane how far you could see.
The kickass binoculars Mac had scattered all around the house certainly didn't hurt. They'd watched two wildfires from this deck in the last year alone.
"So how was your Thursday? Enjoy kicking Jack's ass?"
Mac's smile became a little more genuine. "He can take it."
"Yeah, I guess he can." She reached up and adjusted her sling, sliding the collar of her tee out from under the neck strap. Jack's car was fine, but the bucket seats sunk her a little lower than ideal for the stupid thing. While she was in there, she fished out her phone, transferring it to her back pocket, and popped out her lip balm, giving herself a fresh coat.
Mac watched her, his expression bemused. "Wow. What else do you have in there?"
She peeked inside the sling. "ID, in case I gotta drive Jack back to his place, forty bucks for the taxi back to my place if I gotta drive Jack back, uh, apparently a dorito –" She fished the chip out and tossed it over the railing, "Earbuds. Scar cream. Anker battery pack. And this thing."
She pulled the old watch out by its brown leather band, face towards Mac, and gave him an impish smile. "Think it belongs to you."
For a split second, it was two months ago, the night before Turkey ever happened, and Mac was Mac. His face lit up like a little kid, and she handed it over, smiling wider as he turned it over in his hands, making sure it was intact and whole and really his.
"NATO found it in the colonel's manor, along with your wallet, but I didn't figure you were all that attached to Luka Morrow, so –"
"Yeah, no, this is –" He laughed a little, clearly delighted. "This is amazing, Riley. I thought it was gone for good."
He wasted no time in putting it on, and as he stretched his left wrist out of his long-sleeved shirt, she saw the angry red scarring, not too different from her own.
She waited until his father's watch was back where it belonged before she indicated his wrist. "You been using Boze's scar cream?"
He heaved a little sigh, but the second he glanced back at the wrist he grinned again. At the watch, obviously. "Yeah, he's a real stickler about it. Who knew the best skin care products come out of horror makeup kits?"
"Well, it is Hollywood, Land of the Plastic," she reminded him, looking back out over the city. "Not sure what's in the stuff, but it's way helping."
"Yeah, I meant to tell you earlier, it looks like it's healing great. When do you get out of that sling?"
Riley went ahead and put some cream on her neck, just because she knew Boze would ask as soon as he was done playing with his meat. "Another week, maybe two. It doesn't hurt anymore, it's just to keep the weight off the ligament." She screwed the cap back on the small makeup pot. "Then I get to do PT. Yay."
He raised an eyebrow at her less than enthusiastic tone. "The first couple weeks will suck, but it's worth it. You'll probably want to use that arm again someday."
"Yeah, well something tells me my PT won't be nearly as much fun as Cage's was, that's for sure."
Mac glanced at her, curiously, and she smirked. "She got deep tissue massages three times a week from a hot Cambodian masseuse named Keo."
He chuckled. "Yeah, that . . . just sounds awful."
"I know, right?"
They settled into a companionable silence, and Mac surprised her by picking up the beer and taking a swig. They might get a whole twelve ounces into him yet. She understood why he was limiting his alcohol consumption - he still wasn't sleeping. They hadn't exactly talked about it, but now that his face was all healed up, it was hard for him to hide.
He probably wanted to solve that problem first, instead of relying on alcohol to get some shut-eye.
"Still wake up surprised to be home?"
He set the bottle back on the railing. ". . . couple times a week."
So, she could figure it was about twice that. "You can fall asleep, just not stay asleep, right?"
Mac gave her more of his attention, turning to face her and leaning his hip on the railing. "Hey, if you've got a cure for insomnia, I'm all ears."
She smirked. "I'm a hacker, Mac. I don't exactly keep normal hours."
He mulled that over. "Yeah, I guess that's true. You don't have issues with that?"
She snorted. "Nah. Used to, though. Couldn't sleep more than about four hours in a stretch in high school."
He gave her a teasing look. "So that was what, last year?"
"Hah hah. I'm only a couple years younger than you, dude. And I kinda had to learn, when I went to the big house. Had a lot of long nights with nothing to do but count the cracks in the ceiling."
She had no doubts he had some recent experience with that. She also had no doubt that once he woke up, he was finding something productive to do with the time, instead of teaching himself how to sleep like a human again.
"How long'd it take you to adjust?"
Riley took a deep breath, and stared out at the city a moment. "I dunno. Months, probably, but I was fighting a seven year habit at that point. I chipped away at it a minute at a time."
He followed her gaze back out to the view in front of them. "Minute at a time, huh?"
"Hey. One more minute I could stay asleep at a stretch was one more minute not staring at the ceiling." And another day checked off the calendar.
She didn't say that second part, but he seemed to hear it. "Good advice. I'll have to try that."
"No problem. Need any more, I'll be here all night."
Another small smile, at the old comedic reference. "And I should try the veal?"
"No, but I'm pretty sure there's an entire cow in pieces in the kitchen right now. I think Bozer's taking your recovery pretty personally."
Looking at him, she'd guess he dropped somewhere between eighteen to twenty-five pounds during the three weeks he was gone. He'd probably managed to put back about ten of it. You could still see it in his face and his hands. At least his clothes didn't look like they were two sizes too big anymore.
Mac's eyebrows twitched. "Trust me, he's doing a good job. I dunno if any of the chocolate mousse he made Monday night is left, but it was . . ." He trailed off and patted his stomach.
"And I'm glad you liked it," Bozer's voice floated out the door, and Riley turned to see him carrying two platters heaped with burgers, steaks, and vegetable skewers. Jack was right behind him, holding three beers, and he set one down on the grill table for Bozer, and then crossed the deck to hand one to her.
She knocked the neck of the bottle against his, and Jack took a sip, looking out at the clouds.
". . . eh, we got time," he concluded. "Wind'll pop up over that ridge there, give us a little buffer."
Riley blinked at him. "So . . . where'd you get that meteorology degree again?"
Jack gave her a mildly wounded look. "Now I know you know I was raised on a ranch. Guessing how and when a storm was gonna blow through was the difference between gettin' the cows in and gettin' my hind end tanned for not gettin' the cows in."
"Well, I'm pretty sure no one here's going to beat you if Bozer gets a little wet grilling," Mac pointed out reasonably.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Bozer clicked the grilling tongs threateningly a few times. "If the cook ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
"Oh yeah, I heard that one." Jack's eyes unfocused as he thought back. "And Ma had a wooden board hangin' on the wall in the living room, with this big-ass white hen in a blue apron, and a couple little chicks there at the bottom." He grinned at the memory. "It said, I'm the mommy, that's why."
Bozer looked startled. "Damn, I think my gramma had that same thing. But it was needlepoint."
Jack frowned suddenly, and set his beer down on the railing, fishing his buzzing phone out of his pocket. He studied it for a moment, his face serious, before he broke out in a huge grin.
"Hell yeah!" He laughed, then handed her the phone, and Riley transferred her beer to her right hand before accepting it with her left.
"Surgery was a success. Looks like Basha's gonna be okay."
Sure enough, it was a photo from a hospital room. There was a little gypsy boy sitting upright in the bed, with wide, white bandages wrapped around his head, and a little tuft of dark hair sticking out of the top. Beside him was a disapproving-looking woman Riley knew to be Karela – Jack referred to her exclusively as 'Mrs. Goral.' Riley assumed the spry little gypsy himself was the one behind the phone, because Goral wasn't in the picture.
Riley held out the phone so Mac could see, and he glanced at it, then grinned himself. "That's great, Jack."
"You bet it is," he declared, taking his phone back. "Gonna have to do something for Sarah for talkin' them back into that hospital. What do you send someone for that? Like, a fruit basket?" He turned back to her. "Is it cool to send your married ex a fruit basket?"
Riley was in the process of thinking that over when a female voice interrupted. "If it were me, I'd send her that new Sig concealable."
Cage was already on the deck, and Jack showed her the image on the phone like a proud papa. "Is it cool to send your married ex a gun?"
Riley didn't bother to look at Mac – they knew all his opinion. "Well, it is Sarah, so . . ."
She'd probably love it.
Bozer finally got as much of the meat jigsaw on the grill as was possible, and closed the lid with a clang. "Dinner's probably about forty-five minutes from now. There's crudité in the kitchen, and we have some themed cocktails for the evening."
"Ooo, fancy," Riley murmured, and beside her, Mac chuckled.
"Yeah, I guess he kinda misses cooking for a crowd."
It was still hard for her to decide what they could talk about, and what was off limits. "I'm not gonna lie. We ate like kings. He made this awesome spice tea-"
"The cinnamon stuff?" Mac took another sip of his beer.
"That's it. I take it he's made it for you?"
"The french toast version. It was pretty tasty."
She nodded, then grinned as Cage wandered over. "So, how was Vienna?"
The blonde agent – and thank god it was blonde again – tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. The breeze felt great, but it was starting to pick up, and Riley wasn't sure Weatherman Jack's prediction was going to hold.
"Vienna is always amazing." Samantha looked remarkably refreshed, considering she'd touched down about four hours ago. "On that topic, do you mind if borrow Mac here for a moment?"
Riley gestured. "He's all yours."
The other blond looked between them quizzically, and then followed Samantha back towards the house. Jack held out a fist as he passed, and Mac bonked the top of it as he went by. Jack was still grinning down at his phone.
"Hey, been meaning to thank you-"
"Again?" Riley transferred her beer back to her left hand. "I told you, Jack. It's cool."
"Nah." He walked over, staring at the image. His eyes were soft. "This is a big deal, Riles. Seriously. Thank you." Then he chuckled. "Look at Mrs. Goral. God, I can't believe Sarah got her to agree to let real doctors touch her son."
He pinched the photo larger, and Riley watched him studying the gypsy woman's face. "Just look at her. That woman poured every kinda nasty tasting muck she could find down my throat, but I wouldn't be here today if she hadn't. It worked, I'll give her that."
Riley gave the phone a neutral look. "What, it wasn't because of all that Jack Dalton blood in your veins?"
"Well, that too," he said dismissively, like it was a given. "Oh, she hates me, Riles. You could see it in her eyes. She looked at me like she thought I was gonna up and boil her family alive. Expected the very worst outta me." He trailed off, and Riley watched his expression melt into something more serious.
"Wonder what happened to her to make her that way."
It could have been any one of a million things. "She's Roma, Jack. That's not an easy life."
He shook his head, and looked like he was going to say something else, but then he clicked the power button and blacked out the screen, slipping the phone into his pocket. "You prolly saved that kid's life, Riley. Thank you."
Riley nodded again, a little uncomfortable, and took a pull on the beer. Jack gusted out a great big sigh, staring out at the city. "Been meanin' to talk to you about something else, too."
A glance told her Bozer had also gone inside, and they were alone on the deck.
Not that that mattered. This was Jack, after all.
"Shoot. Figuratively."
He made an amused noise. "Now, I'd never shoot you, Riley. I was pretty mad, don't get me wrong. Maybe spittin' mad. But never shootin' mad."
Ah. It was finally that time. "So. We finally got to the part where you yell at me for scaring a couple suits in Europe." She shook her head. "They made it sound worse than it really was. I did way more destructive stuff before-"
"Eh, eh, eh." He held up a hand. "I don't wanna know. And no," he added, "you know I couldn't care less about giving ol' Vlad a black eye. He knows better than to call Matty, she'd just make him apologize again." He sighed, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Riley . . . you can't . . . you can't do that again. You do know that, right?"
She grinned. "Hack a country's healthcare system? 'Cuz I kind of can, Jack, pretty much any time I want-"
"That ain't what I'm talking about and you know it." His tone was more serious. "Riley, I appreciate it, sweetheart, I do, and I'll never forget it, but –"
"But nothing." She gave him a challenging look. "I've been working at the Phoenix, what, about two years now? We've stopped a nuclear war. Helped overthrow dictators. Stopped ecological disasters, and terrorist plots, and every time we do, it's by seconds, and if we screwed it up, even a little –" She stopped.
Then people would have died.
"That is exactly my point." He turned to face her. "Riley, for two years you've seen ops go way better than they ever had a right to go. Yeah, we screwed the pooch a few times." He very tactfully didn't remind her about the handheld EMP she'd allowed to parachute out of a cargo plane. "But we got lucky, Riley. That's all that was. Luck."
She shook her head. "No, Jack. It wasn't just luck-"
"Now, see," and he waved a hand in the air, "that's exactly what I'm talkin' about. You got two years of this under your belt. I got two decades. What happened in Greece . . . that's how things usually go. That's how fast an op goes sideways, and that's what one mistake – just one – costs."
His eyes were on her sling.
She could see where this was headed from a mile away. "What if it was Mac? Huh?" It kinda had been, and his face seemed to say as much, so she elaborated. "What if it was Mac in that box, it was Mac's body you couldn't find. You're going to stand here and tell me you'd just give up? You wouldn't rip Europe apart looking for him? Or me? Or Boze?"
Jack pretended to give that some thought. "Well, Boze now, that's another story –"
She swatted him on the shoulder, and didn't care if she spilled the beer.
"Riley, you know I would, but the difference is, I been around the block a few times. You don't think I ran straight into lead showers goin' back for my boys in the sandbox? You don't think I ever ignored orders, snuck onto transports, lied about what I was doin' there, blamed Russia – cause yeah, that Russia part was all you." And he gave her a dark look. "The difference here is that I learned that when somethin' looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a damn duck."
Then he frowned. "Unless it's a flare gun," he muttered. "Point is –"
She waved her hand at him, trying to cut him off. "I get your point, Jack. I should have just cried my eyes out and believed you were dead and let you get found by Colonel Aydin. Right. Because I'm too young to understand the way the world works."
"Now, I didn't say that-"
"Yes, you did," she shot back. "I think I got a pretty good idea how the world works, Jack. I hacked the NSA. Do you think what I was looking for was just lying there tagged 'This is for Riley Davis'? What do you think is on the dark web, Jack? You think someone has to march off to war to see all the terrible shit that happens?"
In his day and age, they probably actually did. "We have the internet, Jack. All the horrors of the world are just a few clicks away."
He was looking at her like he didn't know what to say. "Look, I know you haven't had it easy-"
Trust him to misunderstand. "Jack! This isn't about you leaving, or Elwood, or any of that. This isn't even about the fact that you didn't give up on me when I gave you plenty of reasons." Though, it kinda really was. A little bit. "I get it. Okay? I know that what you do is dangerous. That what we do is dangerous. I knew what it looked like. And maybe at first it was denial, but the fact is we couldn't find a body. That would be good enough for you, and it's always going to be good enough for me."
He glared at her, then sighed. "'Cause we don't get to choose what we mean to someone else, right?"
Of course he'd been listening. "That's right."
The glare softened into grudging respect. "I ever tell you how damn proud I am of you?"
"More than a grown man probably should."
Jack put an arm around her, and Riley let him.
"I just worry about you. You know? If Sarah hadn't a been there-"
Then none of them would have walked out of that villa. It would be a memorial for eight agents, instead of four.
"Jack . . . you do know supermax sucked, right?"
He chuckled silently; she could feel his chest shaking. "Yeah, Riley. I do."
"Trust me. I like this better. Even with the knife-throwing assholes."
Jack was quiet a moment. "Speaking of, I know Patty was givin' you a little instruction. I'm sure Matty'd do the same."
Riley pulled her head back to look at him. "Matty?"
He nodded, with no trace of humor. "Oh yeah. She'll put you flat on a mat before you even see her comin'. She goes for the knees." He bent his to demonstrate.
Riley continued to give him a skeptical look. "Yeah, well, hand to hand is part of the classes I'm already taking, so I think I'll just stick with that."
"Okay."
"Okay," she agreed.
He gave her a little squeeze, and she relented, and rested her head on his shoulder a moment.
"So, you know what Cage wanted with Mac?"
Certainly nothing related to her mission in Vienna. That had been straight recon, one little piece of a long term gig targeting an illegal weapons ring. "Nope. All her intel came back this morning, bunch of Croatian nationals. Mostly middle men. Don't think they have any ties to any of your old ops."
He hmmed, then released her and turned for the grill. "Boze ain't careful, this stuff is gonna burn-"
"Don't you touch my grill!"
-M-
Sometimes they just made it too easy.
Boze knew it, too, because he held up the hamburger flipper. "And if you go there, the only thing you're gettin' is grilled zucchini. You read me?"
Jack held up his hands in surrender. "Won't get in your face. Comprende, mi amigo." Then he glanced into the house. "You put the wings in the oven?"
"Now where the hell you think I been for the last ten minutes?"
" . . . makin' drinks?"
Bozer gave him a long look, but it morphed quickly into a smile. "Yes I was. I call 'em the Mojito Mule. Don't forget the cucumber slice."
Jack gave him a two-fingered salute and walked back into the house. A mere ten years ago, you didn't need any veggie besides bloody mary mix to make a drink. It was a brave new world, indeed.
Cage and Mac were in there, standing on the far side of the living room towards the bedrooms. Neither of them looked terribly upset, and they were speaking in low voices. Jack figured the row of copper mugs and the pitcher of a mostly clear hooch full of mint leaves was the aforementioned mule, and he poured himself one while staring at a plate of thinly sliced, neatly arranged cucumber.
Jack regarded them a moment, then picked up a slice and put it in his mouth.
They weren't even salted. They were just cucumbers.
He turned to find Cage most of her way to him, so he offered her the mug he'd just poured. "Something about cucumbers," he added, and she accepted the mug with a smile, and selected a cucumber slice as well, dropping it in the drink.
"Thank you," she murmured, and she sampled it while he poured himself another mug.
Jack fished out what he decided was an excessive amount of mint leaf, taking a second to glance at Mac. The kid didn't look like anything earth-shattering had happened in the last few minutes, but he did disappear down the hall, and Jack knew he was busted when Samantha delicately cleared her throat.
"So how is he?"
Jack took a gulp of the mule. Basically a mojito with ginger beer.
Oh. And rum. There was rum. Quite a lot of it.
Jack swallowed it, then inspected the copper mug again. For a fru fru drink, it wasn't terrible.
"Mac?" he said, just to be sure they were on the same page.
"Yes, Mac." She seemed willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, winding her fingers around the copper mug like it was a coffee.
"You tell me." He took another draught of the drink, still not quite sure what the point of the cucumber was. "You used to do that very thing, didn'cha?"
Might as well be direct.
Cage's eyebrows quirked, and she watched him over the lip of the mug. "No. My focus was short-term interrogation. They were playing the long game on Mac."
Nothing he didn't already know, though he was still a little fuzzy on the why. "How long is the long game typically played?"
"Longer than three weeks." She glanced down the hallway, where Mac had disappeared. "He's lucky. And he seems to be adjusting very well, considering."
Jack wondered how much of Mac's file she'd been privy to. Her knowledge of the type and focus of the interrogation would be useful, but near as he could tell Oversight still hadn't come down one way or the other on whether the ex-SASR agent was going to be remaining part of Phoenix.
He didn't have a seat at that table. Best he could manage was to slip a card into Matty's hand. Outside of what he'd said during his debriefing, there wasn't much else he could do for Samantha.
"If you're wondering how much more I know than you do, it's not much."
Damned woman was a mind reader.
"And if you're wondering what I told him, I merely made a couple recommendations to help him cope."
Jack turned and leaned against the counter, choosing to stare out on the deck rather than get caught watching the hallway. "You can't just run down the PTSD shortlist with him, Cage. Those techniques are way too close to what he already does."
She smiled. It even touched her eyes. Jack was pretty sure it was fake. "I would never recommend cognitive processing therapy for someone like Mac. He's far too green." Jack glanced at her, and she managed to look completely unsurprised that he had no idea what that meant. "Green is a color we assign certain Myers-Briggs personality types. Mac controls his world with facts and logic. The scientific method is his religion. He wholeheartedly believes he's looking at his guilt without bias. It's truth to him. No amount of reframing will break him of that thought habit."
She took a sip of the mule, like what she had just said was perfectly obvious. "I recommended active coping and mindfulness. He's been conditioned not to sleep, so the research will give him something soothing and familiar to occupy his early morning hours, and like any good scientist, he'll try out the method and document his results."
Jack thought about that. As frequently as he played the dumb card, post traumatic stress disorder was a real, serious thing, and he'd put in the time and learned as much about it as he could. He'd seen a lot of men fucked up, permanently, by the sandbox. Some of 'em so bad they never left, and a bullet seemed better than a fifteen hour flight home.
He knew about active coping, and as far as Mac was concerned, that was pointless. It was something Mac already did; he'd been doing it since he was a kid. The paperclips. If he needed to figure out a problem, if he was stressed or doubtful, he molded that problem out of a paperclip, and then he could hold it in his hand and see it, see how small it was.
Mindfulness, on the other hand, that had merit. Getting him out of his brain and into the present, where there was less might've and more did and did not. And she wasn't wrong; his boy loved to learn stuff. Cramming more facts into his brain was definitely the kind of quiet hobby you were supposed to work on if you couldn't catch those damn sheep.
Further, actually going through concrete exercises, which most mindfulness books provided, would give Mac the framework he loved so much to chart progress.
And that was really what he needed, more than anything else. He needed to be able to see that he was making progress. Mac kept thinking that one day he was just gonna stop flinching, and didn't recognize any steps along the way. It was either on or off to him.
"Watch him, Jack." Samantha turned for the deck. "He'll tend towards risk taking, particularly if Matty puts him back in the field, to prove to himself that he's capable. Make sure he doesn't go too far."
"I'll make sure he's careful."
And what the hell was that, if Matty put him back in the field. 'Course he was going back into the field. That was what he wanted, that was what he'd get.
"I know how alien that concept is to you," she added, tossing a teasing smile over her shoulder, and Jack gave her a dirty look.
"I'll have you know I am very careful, when I need to be-"
"Yeah, you're Mr. Jack Careful Careful." Mac had emerged from the back hallway, and Jack raised the copper mug in his direction.
"Yes I am, thank you for noticing."
His friend shook his head. "You realize that right after you made that statement, you knelt down literally on top of an IED. Not even to the side, the actual center-"
"Hey, I was looking for a good position to cover your slow ass –"
Jack reached for an empty mug, but Mac shook his head. "No, thanks. I don't think I'm up for drinking cucumbers tonight."
"Yeah, man, what is with that, anyway?" Since his attention had already been drawn back to the plate, Jack picked up another one.
Nothing wrong with cucumbers. They were just premature pickles.
Mac circled the island, scanning it for a moment before grabbing a small plate and loading it up with all the staples of a Bozer crudité display: raw veggies, various dips, cheese and crackers, and cold meats. Of course, Mac went for the veggies, no dip, no cheese, no crackers, and no cold meats.
Jack shook his head. "Can't build muscle with rabbit food."
Mac gave him a look and, maintaining eye contact, reached down and grabbed two rectangles of cheese. "Calcium. Happy?"
"Thrilled."
Mac shook his head again, heading back around the counter, and Jack held out the mug, stopping him. "Been thinking about what you said earlier. In the gym."
Mac cocked an eyebrow, inviting him to continue, so he did.
"Look, I know you're bored, man, waiting to get reinstated. Got a lot of time to just sit around and think."
Mac popped a slice of red pepper in his mouth.
"Seems to me what you need is something to look forward to."
Mac mulled that over for a minute. "You mean like a vacation?" He looked pointedly around the house. "And that's different from this . . . exactly how?"
"No, not a staycation." Though a destination vacation might be just what the doctor ordered, at the very least it would get him out of his head for a little while. "A moment of truth."
Mac was watching him, now. He knew what that term meant, to Jack, and Jack had used it intentionally. Because that was kinda what it was. "Yeah. You heard me. What we're gonna do is get a baseline of where we are right now – you and me, limp and scrawny ass and all – and we're gonna put it on paper."
". . . gee, that sounds really fun, Jack."
Jack grinned at Mac's monotone reply. "Then, we're gonna work on it. You know, like we been working on it these last couple weeks, but this time like we mean it. Come two months from now, we're gonna run those same tests, that same course . . ." He glanced around the kitchen, his eyes falling on the twelve month calendar they had on the wall. About two months put them –
"Well hell. Thanksgiving Day."
Mac followed his gaze to the calendar. "Thanksgiving Day, you want to run an o-course."
Jack gave him a broad grin. "Oh hells yeah. Don't you? Maybe throw in a little range action, a little two on two . . ."
His grin was infectious; despite himself, Mac was starting to smile. "Well, you know . . . I do love a good obstacle course –"
"Damn right you do! What could be more fun! Work up a sweat, beat our old record, come back and eat our weight in turkey . . . come on, man. Whaddaya say?"
His partner looked at the calendar another moment, clearly putting several days' worth of conversations together, but he didn't say anything about it, or call him on it. He just held out a fist.
"Alright. Let's do it."
-M-
"Come on in. Have a seat."
Matty inclined her head politely at the invitation, scanning the room. It was just the three of them. The statuesque African-American woman behind the sleek contemporary stainless steel desk, and her foil, in his perfectly tailored suit, choosing the more casual cube-like couch.
Her instinct was to choose to stand, which put her still below their seated heights, but superior in terms of overall presence. Then again, she'd been asked to take a seat.
Actually, she'd been told to take a seat. There hadn't been much of a question in that offer.
Matty chose one of the two chairs at the desk, which were just as contemporary as the rest of the furniture, and constructed of rounded logs of upholstered foam in an artful curl. Not terribly difficult to get into, which she appreciated.
The Amazon gave her a brief, cold smile. "This is just a formality, Matilda, to make sure we check all the boxes. I have just a few questions."
"Of course." That was all there was to say. It wasn't as if the woman had a title.
Or a name.
"I'd like to start with . . ." She glanced at the desk, which appeared to be completely bare, yet now Matty could see was a large, flat touchscreen. She had a variety of reports, but they were in piles, like real pieces of paper might have been, and Matty glanced ever so briefly at the organizational style before she brought her gaze up, making her expression attentive.
"Camp Bondsteel."
That wasn't a question, and Matty waited patiently.
"It seems your Agent MacGyver did turn over codes used to disable the Raytheon system used to protect not only weapons and staff, but also multiple high value persons of interest to the United States."
"Yes," she agreed. "We noted Raytheon's failure to update their administrative passwords in our recommendations to Raytheon after we closed our investigation into their breach. I'm confident that particular oversight – you'll pardon the term," she added with a cold smile of her own, "will not be repeated. As for the UN credentials that allowed Lieutenant Kenan Yavuz and his team onto the base to use the codes, our investigation led us to the State Department before we were ordered to stand down."
The Amazon raised a perfectly manicured brow. "And did you ever determine the true perpetrator of the Raytheon breach?"
Matty met her eyes steadily. "We did not. The hacker, whoever they are, is skilled."
"Was there any evidence of that hacker at the colonel's manor?"
"Not to my knowledge. We think it may have been a freelancer who became sympathetic to the Turkish youth movement. General Doukas' influence and finances run deep. That investigation is still ongoing."
"Is there any evidence that hack was executed by Agent MacGyver?"
"Not his wheelhouse," Matty responded immediately. Boy Genius was many things, but his hacking was geared to much more rudimentary things. Like cars, planes, and apparently missiles.
The Amazon bowed her head back to her desktop, flicking a bundle of files off to her left like she was flicking a crumb from a tablecloth.
"He has no memory of enabling Colonel Aydin's men to track the NATO fleet stationed in the Sea of Marmara, nor of alerting the Phoenix to his situation."
That was a statement of fact, and Matty saw no reason to respond.
"Given the timeline of events after the first transponder pings were identified by the fleet, there were several days that Agent MacGyver could have been compelled to accomplish further tasks for them, or to reveal intelligence."
"Yet he remembers disarming a suicide vest during that timeframe," Matty pointed out. "That leads me to believe the technique used to compel him had a half-life, and required physical breaks. That has been corroborated by our own interrogators."
"Or they simply didn't want him to be aware of or able to measure the time he was losing," came a male voice from behind her.
Matty didn't bother to turn and look at the man in the suit. "They routinely interrogated him to the point of unconsciousness. I can think of no reason they would take the special step of having him complete something as complex as a bomb disarming just to provide him an anchor point."
"I agree," the Amazon added. "If the supposition that Major Salih Oguzhan followed Agent Cage and her team back to the villa after the recovery of Agent Dalton is true, they would have been too careful to play with their food. The autopsy of the American civilian and her French paramour definitively put the major in the timeshare in line with that supposition."
Matty didn't even blink.
It wasn't often one half of Oversight openly contradicted the other.
"Still, there are dozens of hours unaccounted for," the man in the suit pressed. "Even if they had been employing more traditional means, they could have compelled the agent to reveal intelligence that he does not remember surrendering."
"With respect, we've confirmed the deaths of all of the Bordo Berrililer associated with the colonel. Their servers, technology, and vast majority of holdings are currently under NATO control. If Agent MacGyver provided them further intelligence, it's six feet underground."
The Amazon focused on another set of icons. "I have confirmations on only three dead. The other, Sergeant Kadir Hakan, whom Agent MacGyver identified as his primary interrogator, is unconfirmed."
Matty inclined her head, once. "A body too burned to identify, in one of the jeeps taken out by artillery fire during the raid, matches the sergeant's height, weight, and blood type. Dental records could not be confirmed due to the condition of the body, and as you know, none of the Bordo Berrililer wear any other type of identification."
The male half of Oversight tsked. "With their contracted hacker still unidentified, it's too soon to say what intelligence may have been retained."
Which was, unfortunately, a good point. "The same nets we have in place currently to monitor for leaked classified information will catch it. If the hacker attempts to sell anything on the black market, we identify them and the buyer, and secure the intel."
She wasn't worried about anything else Mac might have told them. Aydin's aspirations hadn't been world domination. He just wanted to get rid of Erdogan.
"Agent MacGyver's record has been, to this point, exemplary." The Amazon sounded thoughtful. "He's valuable, if he's still undamaged and obedient."
"He's the human equivalent of a labradoodle puppy," Matty assured her. "That's why he's partnered with Agent Dalton."
The Amazon studied her. "Your labradoodle piddled all over a valuable Turkish rug."
"Well, maybe we shouldn't have left him locked up so long," Matty observed politely.
"I wonder, would he have turned on his master if we had left him longer still?"
This time, Matty graced the male half of Oversight with a look. "There was a contingency in place, should the recovery op have failed. Agent MacGyver was leaving with us or not at all."
She turned back calmly to the Amazon, who flicked an invisible piece of paper towards her. "You're referring to your orders issued two days before the recovery operation?"
"I am."
It too was cast aside, another crumb. "I have no other questions regarding Agent MacGyver."
From the couch, there was a quiet sigh. "Nor do I."
Two more piles of documents, that as far as Matty could tell had never been referenced, were also flicked to the crumb pile.
"It is not the mission of this agency to meddle openly in the politics of sovereign nations."
That was a statement, and Matty continued to look attentive. After a moment, the Amazon continued.
"Your agents drew far too much attention, particularly for the recovery of an agent declared KIA."
"Yes, Agent Davis was overly ambitious," Matty agreed.
"Are you going to compare her to a German shepherd, perhaps? A pitbull?"
Pitbull wasn't far off the mark. Not that she was going to tell the man in the suit that. "Agent Davis is a very capable woman with a skillset we require. She's young and impetuous, and I dare say she learned her lesson."
A digital page was transferred to the middle of the desktop. "You lost four agents recovering two, Matilda. Even I can do that math."
Matty gave her a wide smile. "We lost four agents investigating the assassination by terrorists of a US diplomat, his wife, and his young daughter, as well as unveiling a mole in the State Department that was otherwise completely undetected, and we revealed a massive breach into one of the top three military contractors the US employs. Recovering two agents was secondary to those objectives."
"And if your remaining agents had been arrested by NATO forces, you would have disavowed them?"
Matty simply inclined her head. "There was nothing unusual about the recovery operation at the manor. We regularly exfiltrate CIA, NSA and military targets without permission on allied territory."
The two halves of Oversight considered that. It was the man in the suit that challenged her. "Yes. It seems you forged a close relationship with NATO during this operation. Strategic Commander Ian Ives was very satisfied with your level of collaboration."
If Jack hadn't come clean about that earlier in the afternoon, she might have been blindsided.
But he had. And she wasn't.
"I thought it was about time we formed a decent relationship with that organization. NATO is taking a more active role in Middle East security. A bottle of scotch can go a long way."
The Amazon glanced at the man in the suit, and after a moment, inclined her head. "I agree."
Matty didn't bother to turn around. It didn't matter what the man in the suit thought. Oversight had to be unanimous in disagreement to terminate her contract.
"Regardless, mistakes were made. This is your second black mark, Director. You don't want to earn a third."
Matty did her level best to look contrite. "Of course not."
"I presume the appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken."
Matty inclined her head. "They're already in process."
"Very good. I think that wraps us up."
The woman brushed all but one pile of virtual files off her desktop, and Matty nodded again, as an excuse to cast her eyes towards it, and then dismounted the chair.
"Good evening," and she made eye contact with both of them before proceeding out the office door.
-M-
Slight spoiler for the last episode – looks like I made Jack a little too old. If he graduated in '93, that makes him 42 in 2017. I figured he was pushing fifty. Oh well. I guess I'll clean it up when this monster is finally finished. Also, he can't have met Mac during his first tour if he joined the Army after high school, unless Delta training is crazy long. Whoops.
You guys probably already figured it out, but this thing is winding up. There's a couple more things to cover. In summary: Jack and company are being there for Mac, and in typical Mac fashion, he's tolerating them, and maybe even listening, just a little bit. Riley and Jack have come to an agreement regarding how far she went to get Jack back. Jack and Cage had a little heart to heart on how best to handle Mac. And Matty has met with Oversight and successfully defended her op and her people – with a little help from Jack.
(Though I wonder which agent it was she ordered to take Mac out if it looked like they couldn't get him back . . . ;)