'A tattered photograph my pocket holds,
I keep you secretly.
I've studied every line,
You're etched upon my mind,
For not a million soldiers
Could take you from me.'

"My Heart With You" ~ The Rescues

"Come alone, Parker."

"You know I will."

"No, I don't, with how tight your little rag-tag team is rumoured to be. You're infamous in law enforcement circles, you know that?"

"Fifteen minutes," Greg reiterates. "If I don't see you by four, I'm gone."

The other line goes dead. Greg sighs.

His house is quiet, Marina still asleep and Dean doing homework at the table. Greg convinced the other members of Team One, past and present, to go home for the night. Now, if only he could follow his own advice and sleep.

He sneaks down the stairs, noting Dean's head pillowed on his arms, back rising and falling slowly. Out like a light.

The drive to the diner ends up taking closer to twenty minutes, even with the absurdly early morning hour and the fact it's a Saturday.

Greg has been a cop in this city for over twenty years and even he has never heard of the 'Poke Stoke Diner.' It's a hole in the wall, barely large enough to be called a cabin, and it's in the middle of nowhere, near the abandoned dry docks.

Greg can hear the Lake even through the diner's thin walls. Despite the hour, there are a few patrons eating breakfast. One man is nodding off into his coffee. Someone reads a paper at the booth, shoes tapping to the muzak.

And on one of the counter stools sits Director Hartford. Greg recognizes his salt and pepper hair, that matching beard, from his photo.

"What can I get you?" the waitress asks. Her hair is red, the same shade as her apron.

Greg waves. "Just coffee, please."

"Greg." Hartford takes a sip of what looks like green tea. "You Canadians make good pancakes."

"It's the syrup," says Greg, sliding up next to him. "You're eating the real stuff, not that synthetic garbage."

Hartford looks impressed. He eyes the bottle on the counter. "First time in my life, then. Real maple syrup has a salty aftertaste I wasn't expecting."

Greg shakes his head. "Want to tell me what was so important that we had to meet in a rundown diner at four in the morning? How do you even know about this place?"

"You'd be surprised how many agents feel comfortable holding meetings here because it's so unknown." Hartford holds out his hand. "Hypothetically of course."

Greg shakes his hand. "Of course."

"I'm sorry about not contacting you sooner, as arranged," says Hartford, and the act drops. He looks the way Greg feels—tired. A dried up, wrinkly apple. "My government took me off the case too. It's all hush hush, which isn't normal for these types of cases. I'm here unofficially."

That's a new one. Greg's eyes widen. "Official story?"

"Officially…I'm taking a week of vacation. Thought I'd see your excellent city of Toronto."

"Is that so?" A smile creeps over Greg before he can stop it. "A week of vacation, huh?"

Hartford leans towards him with a mock conspirator's tone. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

"We're both just people who've lost friends." Greg gets straight to the point. "The better question is: how are we going to get them back?"

Hartford watches the waitress, until she goes behind the kitchen door and they are relatively alone. He removes a small envelope from his jacket pocket.

"What I'm about to show you may be alarming. Prepare yourself."

Not what I want to hear. Greg opens it anyway, steeling himself.

Inside is a series of photos, locations and agent names scrawled over the bottom. Some are taken in third world countries, others in high ranking European embassies.

A Herculean fist punches the air straight out of Greg's lungs.

The men in these photos don't look right, their eyes blank and angry all at the same time. That isn't what makes him do a double take, swallowing back bile—

They're all firing on American troops. On their own countrymen.

The crystalline images show the agents with AK-47s, teeth bared, taking head shots. Some of the photos are of those same agents moments later, dead.

"They're good," says Hartford. "These men are so well trained that we often can't stop them, and when we do it's with a high casualty rate. The perfect soldier for your enemy."

Something shifts into place. Greg looks up, voice feather light. "What about the ones that survive?"

Hartford shows emotion for the first time, a lilt around his mouth and eyes hooded. He removes another photo from his pocket.

"Only one ever has. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Greg demands. "What does that—"

Hartford slides the photo across the counter. The man in this one is dead eyed, surrounded by agents in an interrogation room. So they did get him back on US soil, in custody.

Hartford rubs his forehead. "He was found murdered in his cell three days after this photo was taken."

Greg's mind sifts through that to the important point. "His cell? Wasn't he reunited with his family?"

Hartford doesn't say anything for a long time. Greg's coffee goes cold, but judging by sludge at the bottom, he's not sure he wants it anyway.

He does, however, steal a bite of Hartford's pancakes. The man hardly notices, lost somewhere in his mind.

"Greg, I know this is going to sound very dramatic and Cold War, but the only way I can describe what happens to agents is brainwashing."

The fork clatters to the counter. Greg's shock blooms like a mushroom cloud. "Excuse me?"

"They're taken and trained to work for enemy forces." Hartford looks Greg straight in the eye. "This man had a wife and three children. We couldn't get a word out of him when he came back, though he did try to attack our agents."

Hartford's lips press together, white, and then release. "He was a good friend."

"I'm sorry," Greg whispers, once he gets his reaction under control.

The director shakes himself into something more professional. "We tried to save him, to reprogram some of the fight responses. But it takes time, and our enemies got to him first."

Greg runs a hand down his face. This is…this isn't even remotely what he imagined.

How can good people completely forget who they are? He's heard of it happening, of course, but the practice of brainwashing enemy combatants isn't as common any more, mainly because ideology is harder to imprint on modern day people. First world people who live without constant fear of war.

And now they want to do the same thing. To Spike and Ed. Horror is the appropriate emotion, but he can't wrap his head around it at all.

"My people are good," says Greg, a weak protest even to his own ears. "Ed's been in hostage situations before. So has Mike."

"Greg, this is the first time they've taken someone who's not an American operative. This is also the first time they've taken SWAT." Anticipation, a hunter before the kill, lurks in Hartford's eyes. "They're getting cocky, bold—and this might be our chance to trip them up in that hubris."

"Our chance?"

"Like I said, you have the right to be a part of this." Hartford closes his eyes briefly. "I need your help, all the help I can get, really."

Greg mulls it over. "Do you know who the man with the wasp tattoo is?"

"He's what linked your case and ours." Hartford retrieves yet another piece of paper from his pocket, this one a faxed memo. "We don't know his name—he's careful to avoid camera angles for a full facial scan—but there's a distinctive pattern to the ink that's not American."

This seems too good to be true. Greg's eyes narrow. "How can you tell?"

Hartford taps the paper. "I had a colleague, an immigrant from Afghanistan, who recognized the pigment and strokes used. It's a Middle Eastern tattoo artist who did it."

"And you've followed up?"

"Of course," says Hartford. "We scoured the continent for Middle Eastern artists. There are surprisingly few, because Sharia law forbids tattoos, and most are too clean to fit the profile. We interrogated several possibilities but came up empty."

Greg's heart kicks up a few notches. This might be it. Their chance to end it once and for all.

"Greg, you should know…once an agent goes missing, they usually turn up halfway around the world within the month."

There's a soft gasp, coming from Greg's blind spot by the door. It catches him off guard and he jumpes even as he smiles, knowing exactly who it is before he even speaks.

Greg wants to shake his head, to be mad, but all he feels is intense affection. "You can come out now, Dean."

Sheepish, Dean pops around from behind the jukebox. "What gave me away?"

"You're a mouth breather." Greg pins him with a shrewd, searching gaze. "And I'm your father—I could pick your breathing pattern out of a line up."

Hartford eyes the sudden addition with surprise, halting his mad scramble to hide the photos from what he must have originally seen as a random civilian. He throws a confused look at Greg and Greg can't blame him one bit; their family can be nosy sometimes.

He ignores the director, looking upwards for strength while turning around. "You too Jules, Sam."

There's a beat of silence and nobody moves. Then Jules slowly lowers the newspaper concealing her face while Sam slides off the toque hiding his golden hair. They too stare at him, gobsmacked.

"How long have you known we were sitting here?" Jules finally blurts.

Greg points, trying not to laugh. "That newspaper is from yesterday. I knew something was up the minute I walked in, though I wasn't exactly sure who it was until I noticed your boots—they still have a glitter kitty sticker on the bottom where Sadie was playing with the laces."

Sam laughs for him. "Stealth is not our gift, apparently."

"I told you to come alone, Parker," says Hartford with a scowl.

"I did." Greg crosses his arms. He glances again at Jules. "Dean was your watchdog, I'm guessing? I knew there had to be a reason he insisted on staying at my place instead of the dorm."

"We just wanted to keep an eye on you, boss." Jules looks at him a spear of anguish, with the same pain inside Greg's gut.

"Or in case you did something stupid," Sam adds, breaking the heartfelt moment. "Go lone wolf on us."

Dean smirks at him. "That's rich coming from you."

"You're such a brat."

"That's also rich coming from—"

Sam gets him in a headlock for a faux noogie. Dean's bright giggles fill the diner and even Hartford can't maintain an irritated facade at the sound. They all end up in the giant booth together, Greg sandwiched between Dean and Hartford, Sam and Jules across from them.

Jules holds Greg's hand under the table.

Together, they pore over the photos and case notes.

"He's right." Sam taps the memo. "This is a Middle Eastern tattoo artist's work. I've seen it before. Guys in our unit used to stop in at the local—illicit—shops and get them."

"And you never hear chatter on them?" Jules asks again.

Hartford shakes his head. "They're ghosts. They grab one of our agents and then there's no footprint. No electronic trail. Not even a cellphone or credit card to track."

"Until now."

Everyone stops to look at Dean, who's been content so far to silently lean against his father's side.

"You guys said there was footage of the paint van," Dean continues. "He hired Rook for this job specifically, right? A Canadian who knows the lay of the land."

"True." Jules cants her head. "We interviewed Rook's uncle. He never got the van back. Rook said he'd found a job that meant he wouldn't have to work for another eight months, if he didn't want to. He left his cellphone behind."

Hartford looks grim and Greg catches it. "You think this is a cover up, Director? To have a mastermind of the whole operation this rich?"

Hartford's eyes circle the table. He looks overwhelmed to have such sincerity directed at him in one place. "Maybe. I've thought about that, why the US government would be stonewalling me and how this has to go so much higher than some gang connection. This is big. Really big. I've tried to bring it to the attention of my superiors, but they don't agree."

Dean's still shaking his head, eyes wide and insistent. A realization begins to dawn in them. "You can never track them on security cameras after a certain point, right?"

"Right." Hartford draws the word out into two syllables. He leans around Greg to peer at this eager youth. "Sometimes we get lucky enough to see Mr. Tattoo driving on the interstate or stuffing our agent in a trunk. After that, nothing. Probably off to a private airstrip or safe house somewhere and flying over the Atlantic. Long gone."

Dean stares at them all. "This job forced them to be different. They can't fly Spike and Ed right away!"

Greg clasps his the nape of Dean's neck and feels his pulse flying. "Okay, son. Why is it different?"

"Because we're international territory."

Jules and Sam and Greg do a three-way dance with their eyes, trying to put it together. Greg has been a cop for years, a detective for almost half that, and even he can't decode this whole fantastia.

Dean huffs, clearly waiting for them to get it. "Did any Toronto airstrips, even private or diplomatic ones, report a passenger with a bee tattoo?"

"No," says Jules. "We checked that. They clearly drove into the US after grabbing Spike and Ed, since we set up road blocks within the hour on every other route leading from the gas station, their last known location."

"Right." Dean's leg bounces. "And then Wordy tried cameras in every neighbouring province and US state."

"We didn't find anything, Dean." Sam's brow creases. "Not a trace of any vehicle or person passing through the border, not even a stolen or switched out vehicle with different plates."

Dean's eyes are shining now, excited. He waves his hands. "Don't you see?"

"No." Greg's voice is dry. "We really don't. Help an old man out."

Dean calms a hair, leaning forward. "Where's a place with roads but no cameras?"

He's staring at Director Hartford, like the only American at this table should understand. Greg begins to form a suspicion.

No way. No flipping way. It's so outrageous that Greg thinks it might be the truth. They've been there this whole time because nobody ever thinks to look.

A light goes on in Sam's face too. He quickly thumbs through his phone, pulling up maps and GPS routes, if there even are any.

Hartford just looks bewildered.

"Director," says Dean, "this is a type of place you guys have but we don't, except maybe in Manitoba. A place with little electricity and that, I'm assuming, you usually leave well enough alone. It would be the perfect place to hide two men you just abducted."

Jules looks wary too, but her eyes grow big. "You can't seriously be suggesting that they…"

At last, Hartford goes pale. "Mr. Parker, it would be ludicrous for anyone, let alone career criminals like Rook and his bee necked friend, to seek asylum there. They don't harbour fugitives. And people throughout history have tried, believe me."

The side of Dean's mouth quirks up. "There's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

"We can't," Sam argues. "Legally, we're locked out."

Greg catches some of the thrill swirling through his son. If one crazy plan worked for criminals, why shouldn't it work for them?

He smiles at Jules. "How do you and Dean feel about a little road trip?"


AN: I've had the joy of making my own maple syrup and sometimes it really does have a salty aftertaste. I'd love to know the science behind it, if any of you knowledgeable people know.