A/N: I took a little poetic license with perspective in this chapter. Just go with it. It'll probably make sense by the end, but if it doesn't it should later.

Content Warning: This chapter gets a little messed up. Not dental drill torture on Deeks messed up, but messed up nonetheless. Please don't judge me. haha (I'm not going to give a spoiler by going into detail.)

Chapter 7

Ops

Wednesday, 12:37 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time)

Hetty is in Ops looking at the big screen with a satellite image of an airport. Eric and Dave are at their respective workstations.

Eric connects Ops to the team by phone.

Callen: "Tell me you have a visual on the airport, Eric."

Eric: "The airport either has no cameras, or it's a closed circuit, or maybe an analog system. I don't know. All I know is that the best I can do is an hours old satellite image and a rough estimation of where Nell is from the overwatch. Gah, I hate this!"

Deeks: "I know, buddy. So do I, but we're here to reunite Roger and Jessica Rabbit, and that's exactly what we're gonna do."

A dot appears from off screen overlaid on the satellite image. It moves fast along the runway, then rapidly slows.

Hetty: "It looks like the plane just landed."

The dot turns toward the general aviation part of the airport with private hangars on the far side.

Callen: "Talk to me."

Eric: "I'll send you her… their location once she stops moving."

The dot moves slowly along the taxiway and then briefly stops between two hangars. The dot moves very slowly to a hangar and stops inside.

Eric: "It looks like they've settled somewhere. I'll send you the location of the hangar."

Dave: "I'd estimate that you're just over thirty minutes out."

Airport Hangar in Pasto, Colombia

Wednesday, 12:58 (Pacific Standard Time) / 2:58 p.m. (Local Time)

The hangar is set up with a camera trained on a T-shaped catwalk set against a dark gray curtain a few feet from the back wall. What can't be seen on the camera at the end of the catwalk is a small bank of computers behind the camera in one corner of the room and several fenced in areas lining the opposite side wall. There are accordion screens blocking the view from the cages to the catwalk.

Harare, Zimbabwe

Wednesday, 12:59 (Pacific Standard Time) / 9:59 p.m. (Local Time)

Looking over the shoulder of a nondescript figure in a black hoodie sweatshirt, a small goose neck desk lamp illuminates a computer monitor and keyboard in an otherwise dark room. On the screen, a window opens to a login screen. The Caucasian man's hands type in a username and password of random characters read from a small sheet of paper.

After logging in, the window changes to a large box with a narrow strip along the right side. The main part of the window shows a white message on a black screen indicating that the live stream will begin shortly. The small strip on the right of the screen has a grayed out button with the word 'Bid' underneath the line above that displays '$ (US)' next to a grayed out box.

Suddenly, on the main part of the screen, the white text is replaced with the words 'Lot #1'. The man slowly exhales, trying to exorcise his nerves.

Soon, the live stream starts, showing the T-shaped catwalk in front of a dark gray curtain. Within a few seconds, the man sees a petite auburn-haired woman dressed in black enter the left side of the frame. She's at the top of the 'T' in the back part of the catwalk. Once the woman stops in the center of the screen facing the camera on a tripod at the bottom of the 'T', he recognizes that she is dressed in a Black Widow outfit, but she also has a metal collar around her neck. It's attached to a five foot metal pole going off to the left of the screen / to her right. The pole is presumably being held by one of the unseen hoodlums. Her arms are at her sides, but also awkwardly behind her.

The woman's head is up, but her not fully open eyes are glazed over as if she's been drugged. She nods her head slightly toward the pole and bats her eyelashes like she's struggling to stay conscious, then moves her head back to neutral.

Although she periodically pushes and pulls against it, the pole leads her down the runway toward the camera. As she walks, her head falls forward about 45 degrees to her right, and her eyelashes flutter again before returning to neutral. About three-quarters the way down the runway, her head bobbles once again in the same direction and her eyes blink before she regains control of her head.

She is stopped at the end of the catwalk. Bidder takes a screenshot of the woman's blank stare into the camera just before she lowers her chin briefly, with more blinking. She's held there for a few seconds.

Bidder quickly grabs a pen from the desk and the paper with his login information. He turns the paper over and steals several brief glances at it as he marks down several X's. Meanwhile, he watches the pole angle up and almost disappear from frame as the unseen hoodlum walks behind the camera, leading her to turn her back to the camera.

The pole returns to view on the other side of the frame. She pauses briefly after completing the turn and the source of her awkward posture is revealed. The bidder sees her arms are cuffed just above the elbows and connected with a short, taut length of chain behind her back.

As soon as she's forced to start moving back down the runway, the woman's head tilts twice backward diagonally to her right at about 45 degrees. Her head returns to neutral after each head bobble. She finishes waking the runway and disappears off the screen on the side opposite from where she entered.

The words: 'Prepare to Bid' slowly flash on the screen five times before the redhead reappears back on the left side of the catwalk just like the first time. This time though, she is brought to the top of the 'T' and stopped at the back of the runway. In the main window, the words: 'Bid Now' flash on the screen five times. Then the bid button and number box in the narrow strip on the right of the screen are no longer grayed out. They're joined by a 60 second timer below the bid button.

The woman is standing blank faced as the timer starts to tick down. At 58 seconds a metal stick is jammed into the side of her rib cage. When she flinches, the bidder gasps in surprise. At 55 seconds the cattle prod style stun gun is removed and she stops flinching and flailing. She fights against her restraints and looks as though she screamed then started yelling something, but the live feed has no sound.

With 39 seconds left, numbers appear on the screen in the bid box next to '$ (US)': '6,770,000'. The cursor moves to the 'Bid' button, hovers, and then is clicked.

The bidder takes a deep, slow breath as the woman regains a degree of composure while the timer counts down from 18 to zero and disappears. The bid button and box return to being grayed out and the main screen goes to black. Soon, the words, 'Lot #2' appear in white.