Two Weeks Later
Magnum was exhausted, and he knew that the rest of his team was equally tired, but they were trying not to manifest it. They had traveled by train, car, and foot down to the middle east over the course of the past two weeks. Now they were all crammed inside a tent, deciding what their next move would be.
In the past three weeks, since he had gotten the band back together, they had gotten back to their form of silent communication with little talking while they traveled. He knew that he was going to have to split them up if they wanted to accomplish the mission faster.
"Okay does everybody remember the events that led up to this?" Magnum questioned, thinking about them himself.
February 2011
Magnum looked at White, Smith, and French, they all exchanging baffled expressions, as they stared at the terrorist who was sitting there in front of them, with a gun in his hand pointing to himself.
"Ah Americans, better than the Russians, anyways I am confident that a lot of people will be after you especially when they found out that my legacy was secured by you," He said beckoning toward the folder on his table, "Remember a lot of people will be searching through the dust for you."
Then there was a terrific bang, and the terrorist contained a bullet through his skull, Magnum grabbed the folder not bothering to look at it and rushed out of the compound eager to get out of there.
Upon arriving outside they all got in the truck and headed to their camp, upon arriving at it Magnum set the folder down on the table and opened it surprised to find, a map, and code.
What it led to was a mystery, but if what the terrorist said was true and that they would be hunted. Magnum debated what to do, he could either have his team follow the codes and maps, or they could hide it and separate hoping that whatever the terrorist legacies were never found,
"Okay, Seth and I have agreed that we will separate, gather intel and meet up here in one month, White, and French you are together get in touch with any of your contacts, try to find out more about this Ivan. Allen, Taylor, go find our stash of info that we buried, Smith and Drew, stay here and protect the base, keep your SAT phones on, only call in case of emergencies." Magnum said.
"What about you?" Seth asked.
"I bet he is going to visit that French agent," James said with a teasing tone in his voice.
"The one he claims is only just business, and nothing more," Tala said curiously.
"I am going to visit people, but who is none of your concern currently," Magnum said sternly, "Now everybody get some sleep, Red, and Seth are on the first watch."
With that Magnum went and laid down on his bed waiting for the sleep to overtake him when he felt a form sit on the end of his bed. He instantly knew that it was Red.
"You have not seen DeRose in a while have you," Red asked, curiously since there was constantly some sort of tension between the two.
"Not since 2018, she went MIA for a while right after we got freed from the Taliban," Magnum said reminiscing about the first time he had met Natalia DeRose.
October 2001
Magnum was on his first tour in the middle east in the chaotic aftermath of 9/11, and he was meeting up with a French operative who he was going to work with on gathering intel for a few weeks.
So magnum waited in the hotel room for the exchange of info, he was sitting on the bed with his hand around his gun. When there was a sharp knock followed by a slightly accented French voice saying,
"Kayak,"
"Frog," Magnum said in response to the codeword when the door opened to a short, petite woman with shoulder-length dark brown hair, amber eyes, and olive skin that had a splash of freckles across her nose.
"Thomas Magnum I presume, I am Natalia DeRose," She introduced herself, shutting the door behind her.
"I inspected the room, no bugs," Magnum said, not sure what else to say.
"Good," Natalia said awkwardly when their eyes met before they both lowered them.
"So, do they always dump assignments with randoms operatives on green people or is that just me? Magnum said sarcastically not excepting an answer but was pleasantly surprised to hear a light chuckle. He could not help but smile maybe this would not be that bad after all stuck working with the charming French operative who actually found him funny.
"Wow I did not realize that she had visited you," Red said surprised.
"Yeah, she sends me updates now and then, so I know where to find her," Magnum said.
"What was your guy's whole deal anyways," Red said as she was not sure of the nature of their unusual relationship.
"It is complicated," Magnum said not wanting to give anything else away.
"Sure," Red said sarcastically, before giving up and heading out to watch.
Outside the Tent
"I think that he is still pining her Smith," Red said once she had gotten outside with Seth. The two of them bonded over the task of looking out for their leader, with Seth being his right-hand man and Red his childhood best friend.
"Was it ever really pining, though?" Seth asked referring to the tense relationship between, DeRose and Magnum.
"So Seth, you ever put a ring on your girl's finger," Red asked hopefully.
"Yes," Seth said joyously.
"Tell me about her again, I got used to hearing about every little thing," Red said.
"Claire is the most beautiful woman you will ever meet," Seth started, causing Red to smile at how far they had all came in the past ten years.
Inside the Tent
Tala pet Stricker as she sat on her bed, looking over everyone, analyzing them, and what she saw disturbed her slightly. Red, was as cheery as ever, even in the circumstances, Seth looked like he missed his girl, Luke and Kat were staring at each other with love in their eyes. James kept glancing around at everybody nervously, then there was their faithful leader, who looked excited, and slightly haunted.
Tala shook her head at the team and hoped that all of there mental states were good enough to survive this, if they weren't she would probably be the first one after all she did not do psychology two years in college for nothing.
James laid down on his bed and stared up at the beige roof of the tent, debating whether this was really what he wanted to do with his life. He was only in his early thirties; he had gotten this assignment straight out of training.
James had thought that this assignment was to advance for his level, so he personally thought that the only reason he got was because of his high-ranking father. Or at least that is what he told himself as he drifted to sleep.
Kat and Luke were huddled up on the thin bedrolls they had put on the floor, instead of the heavier bulkier cots. Thinking about how happy and safe their life was before everything was brought to light, again and they could only hope that they could be happy again.
6hrs later.
Magnum watched as the other two groups of people left, while he headed towards Cairo, towards his friend. As much as he did not like to split up, they needed to gain feet on the ground and figure this out so they could go home.
Magnum started walking towards the direction of a village wearing a vest under his loose-fitting clothes similar to what the people of this region wear, and in his backpack was an unassembled gun along with ammo.
He thought about the last time he embarked on a mission without any backup or reliable allies and how it ended with him getting rescued in the triple frontier, but this time he knew that his friends would not be able to aid him unless they got help from his sister. Which he prayed to God they did not, because he would have a lot of explaining to do.
He could not help but wonder how Natalia would react to his appearance, since the way they had parted had been tense and confusing. Although that was before she stood vigil, by his bedside, waiting for him to wake up, while in the hospital. Before that, though they had a big falling out to put it lightly.
What happened between him and Natalia, had really hurt both of them so he was surprised to wake up and find her concerned eyes watching over him contently. His dominant thought was that he did not deserve her concern, after all, he got the men under his charge captured.
That was a problem for when he arrived though, well anyways.
Time to hijack a car hopefully.
One Week Later
Rick could not help the nagging feeling in his gut that not everything is as it seems, so he decided to look around the guest house. It turned out that Higgins and TC had similar ideas because when he arrived he was greeted with them.
"Therefore we all agree that something is not right," Higgins said.
"Agreed, it has been over a month and no contact," Rick said shaking his head and frowning slightly.
"Which is not like him, there were a couple of times where his tour did not align with ours but he kept in touch with at least a letter a week," TC said.
"Wait there was times when your tours did not align up?" Higgins questioned, clearly filing the information into her head.
"Yeah, but that is not relevant right now," Rick said, attempting to stay on task.
"Well, what do you suppose we do?" Higgins asked.
"Higgy, do we have permission to search your property?" TC asked.
"Let us get to it, boys, start in the bedroom see if you can find anything, I am going to look into any contacts I have," Higgins said, Grabbing her computer and heading to Magnums room with Rick and TC right behind her.
Rick started to look around, the guesthouse and noticed how void of personal items Magnum had considering he had lived there for almost three years now. Most people would have photos on display or other personal items, but not Magnum. In fact, if he did not solely know that someone lived there, he probably would have never guessed.
Rick could not ignore the fact that a lamp was missing from one of the bedside tables, he could only guess that Magnum had broken it during one of his nightmares. He tried not to dwell on it, though as he tried not to think of his friend suffering and not asking for help.
a photograph laying in between the pages of a book, walking over and pulling it out he was met with the face of a fifteen years younger Magnum, wearing a vest and grasping a gun in the middle of a dessert, with his arm slung around a petite young woman, with shoulder-length dark hair and amber eyes. The most shocking part was the fact that she was wearing Magnums Detroit Tigers hat, which he never allowed anybody to wear.
Looking at the photograph, he looked at the woman and could not get rid of the feeling like he knew the woman, trying to remember where he had seen her before he turned towards TC and Higgins he held up the photograph and asked,
"What do you make of this?"
Walking over to take a more thorough look Higgins grabbed the photo from him and said,
"I think I might know her, she seems familiar, but I can not put a name to the face. On top of that is she wearing Magnums hat?"
"She is wearing Magnums hat the one that he barely lets other people touch let alone wear," Rick said.
"Wait, Rick is that the person with the accent who managed to get into a US hospital?" TC asked.
Trying to remember Rick scanned his memory and came up with a person who probably a week after they arrived at the hospital, had come in wearing a bulky black sweatshirt, jeans, and a baseball cap hiding her face, he distinctly remembered an accent that he could not place, though.
"Yeah, it was most likely a week after we arrived, a couple of days before Magnum woke up, I remember her walking past my room talking rather heatedly in French to someone on the phone," Rick said.
"I remember now, she is a French operative I met in passing, but I still can not for the life of me recall what her name is." Higgins said, "And why is Magnum so close to a French operative to begin with?"
Suddenly a voice none of them had heard before said from behind them,
"I think I can help with that,"
Turning around Rick was met with a Hispanic woman, wearing a leather jacket, jeans and a black cap covering most of her face with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
What do you think of my OCs and potential ships? What about the latest character appearance.