Author's Note: This ended up pretty long! But I'm hoping it still makes sense, and is interesting enough that no one falls asleep. To the guest reviewer who said they'd trade a kidney for an update - it's okay, you can keep it! I have two already! :D That did make me giggle.
The room contained six occupants, in addition to the three who'd just been invited inside. Kurt's eyes immediately gravitated towards Frank Davenport, the orchestrator of the Daylight operation.
He'd been keeping an eye on the congressman's political actions since Mayfair had revealed her secret to him, and hadn't needed Nas' dossier to recognise him. Unlike Weitz, who aspired to a similar position to that now occupied by the ex-Chief of Staff, Davenport didn't exude sleaze from every pore, but Weller didn't doubt there was plenty of it below the surface professionalism.
The chair of the meeting, Director of National Intelligence Gabriela Olvera, greeted them near the door, offering her hand to Jane with a warm smile that didn't fool Kurt in the slightest. "Ms. Dover. Gentlemen. Welcome to Capitol Hill—have a seat."
After shaking hands with all three of them, she went to the middle seat on the occupied side of the conference room table. Kurt noticed Jane moving to take the seat opposite her, then realising she'd have Kurt on one side, but Keaton on the other. After only the most imperceptible pause, she moved to take the seat beside it, and Kurt sat in the middle, a barrier between Jane and Keaton, with an empty seat on either side of them.
Olvera was petite, stocky, and exuded the same kind of authoritative confidence Mayfair had. In subtle ways, she reminded Kurt of his late mentor. With the addition of Davenport to the mix, he experienced a moment of overwhelming grief and anger, but pushed it aside. Focus. Jane needs you.
As they settled into their chairs, Olvera nodded at the secretary, who poured the newcomers glasses of water before sitting at the side of the room, slightly removed from the rest of them, with a small electronic notebook in her lap. Presumably, she was here to take the minutes for the meeting. Wonder how many people have requested a copy of those minutes, once we're done.
To the right of Olvera, opposite Jane, were two men who looked like they'd probably spent three quarters of their lives in boardrooms—white men in their late fifties or early sixties, with grey hair, sharp suits, and virtually identical dour expressions. Olvera identified them as Jack McDonagh and Benjamin Tanner, the heads of the National Counterterrorism and National Counterproliferation Centers. Frank Davenport sat on Olvera's left, and next to him was Lisa Banfield, a tall, blonde woman from the Office of the Secretary of Defence, whose icy demeanour left no doubt where she stood on the issue of Shepherd.
As he always did when beginning a meeting, Kurt fixed the roles and interests of each participant in his mind, from left to right. Terrorism, WMDs, intelligence, politics, military. Got it.
As the introductions were concluded, Kurt realised everyone on the other side of the table was surreptitiously checking out Jane's visible tattoos. He had no doubt they'd all read the casefile, and wondered for the millionth time how Jane stood it, knowing that her body had been almost fully exposed, in photographic form, to dozens of strangers.
Jane showed no signs that it bothered her, sitting with her back straight and her hands resting on the table in front of her.
Olvera took a sip of water before speaking again. "First of all, Ms. Dover and Deputy Assistant Director Weller… On behalf of all of us, thank you for your hard work and determination in solving this case. We've never come up against a plot this complex in the entire history of our nation, and we're all deeply grateful that your taskforce was able to uncover its roots."
"I appreciate that, ma'am," Kurt said.
"Thank you," Jane added softly.
"It must have been especially hard for you, Ms. Dover, given that your family, and you yourself, were implicated in this conspiracy."
"I only have flashes of memory from my prior life, but from what I remember, Shepherd didn't do much to inspire my loyalty."
"Clearly, your pre-ZIP self felt differently," Tanner interjected. "Erasing your memory and having your whole body tattooed, to become Sandstorm's mole in the FBI…that was a pretty drastic move. And now you're here to ask for leniency on your mother's behalf?"
Kurt bit back the retort he wanted to make, waiting for Jane's response.
Jane's voice became stronger. "Remi Briggs' actions were provoked by Tom Carter, as well as by Shepherd. I'm sure everyone in the room already knows that Remi served as a US Navy SEAL under her birth name, Alice Kruger, and that Alice Kruger is listed as killed in action. Alice Kruger was doing everything the US military asked her to do, until Carter decided she and her squad knew too much about how Daylight intel had been used. They tried to kill her twice, and failed. Instead, they wiped out an entire village—and a humanitarian aid hospital—full of innocent people. And that's what made Remi run back to Shepherd."
Davenport shifted in his seat at the mention of Daylight, and Keaton cleared his throat. Kurt attempted to unclench his jaw, wishing he could take out his rage on both of them.
"You blame the Pentagon and the CIA for your radicalisation?" Banfield said coldly.
"For my former self's radicalisation, I would say that Orion and Shepherd were equal catalysts, yes," Jane answered, her voice tight with suppressed anger. "Don't try to imply that the US is blameless in all this. This country made Ellen Briggs into Shepherd when government officials looked the other way, while Lake Aurora was poisoned. She named her whole organisation after that lake."
No, Jane. Don't even try this. They won't listen, and they won't care. He shifted in his seat to gain her attention, and shook his head slightly when she glanced his way. Jane clenched her fists on the table, but didn't push the point.
Banfield opened her mouth to reply, but Olvera cut in, "Your recent actions have clearly shown that you stand with the US. But you can understand our concern that you're here to petition us on Shepherd's behalf. This is a woman who plotted to bring the whole country to its knees, ending millions of lives, and blighting the landscape for decades to come."
"I don't dispute her guilt. But putting her in a black site would be wrong, and it would be futile. I'm not here on Shepherd's behalf. I'm here because I refuse to be complicit in the torture of a US citizen. I might not be able to persuade you, but at least my conscience will be clearer, knowing that I haven't turned a blind eye."
McDonagh grunted. "Ugh. An idealist."
Olvera shook her head at him, and he fell silent.
Keaton sat forward, looking past Kurt, towards Jane. "Ellen Briggs is the head of a major terrorist network. She orchestrated this whole thing. From the cases you've worked based on your individual tattoos, she had moles and informants in every level of government, probably every level of every branch of the military, too. Those people could still be there, could still be threats. We need to get that information out of her by any means necessary. The FBI have had her for a week, and you haven't gotten anything useful out of her. It's time to look at other methods."
Jane stared back at him with ice in her eyes. "Because that worked so well with me. Who do you think trained me to resist torture techniques, before I even enlisted? Before ZIP was even invented?"
"That's—" Keaton started.
A heated argument between Jane and Keaton would destabilise Jane's position. As much as Kurt agreed with her, he also knew this issue was delicate. He raised his voice a little, silencing Keaton. "Let's just look at the facts, here. May I?"
Keaton sighed, but gestured for him to go ahead.
"By all means," Olvera said.
"Thank you. As the lead agent on the Jane Doe case, and one of the heads of the Sandstorm taskforce, I've seen the point Shepherd was trying to make. She went about it all wrong, but the corruption she was pointing out in each tattoo? That was all already there. The truth is that the US government—civilian and military—has elements of corruption at every level. There's just no way that Shepherd planted those seeds. She just went looking for it, and pointed it out, specifically wanted me to see that. And black sites are part of that corruption, especially on US soil."
"Black sites provide valuable intel that's critical to the safety of this nation." McDonagh said.
"We're not discussing the general use of black sites as part of this meeting. That's way above your pay grade, and mine," Keaton protested.
"Noted," Jane said, steel in her voice. "I know that I can't change the government's position on black sites in one secret meeting. I also know that the reasons Tom Carter tried to assassinate Remi are still a concern, and we know a whole lot more now than she did back then."
She pulled the USB stick Nas had given her out of her pocket. "I'll be blunt. The Sandstorm taskforce members know far more classified information than any of you are comfortable with, and I know that since I'm not an official FBI agent, I'm now considered a liability. It's pretty obvious that Deputy Director Keaton's inclusion in this meeting is partly an intimidation tactic, and partly convenience, because you plan to have us arrested and black sited by the end of this meeting, despite the fact that if not for our work, everyone in this room and most of their family members would have been killed last week."
Kurt tried not to show the wave of dread her words brought on. God, I hope she knows what she's doing.
Everyone sitting on the opposite side of the table was showing at least minor signs of discomfort with Jane's direct approach. Evidently, this wasn't how things were done on Capitol Hill.
Jane slid the USB stick across the table to Olvera. "You should all be receiving emailed copies of the full collection of files, but this USB has an overview and an itemised list. Agents Kamal and Patterson have compiled some of the dirty little secrets Shepherd was using as blackmail, plus unredacted copies of my tattoo casefile and the Sandstorm casefile. If any member of our taskforce mysteriously disappears or dies, or is arrested under false pretences, copies of these files will be sent to every major media outlet in the United States, plus the media in many other countries. The same applies to my brother, Roman Briggs, assuming that he passes his polygraph tomorrow and is granted immunity for his crimes, as agreed by the Department of Justice."
Kurt stared at her, slow to process her revelation. Then he had to fight the urge to grin, his unease fading to amusement. Nas and Patterson are threatening to pull a Douglas Winter. The Daylight leaks will be nothing, compared to what we've uncovered since Jane joined us. The black sites, the domestic drone program, the fact that corporate lobbying resulted in the birth of a US terrorist network—all of those things will be major scandals. All of their careers will be over.
Everyone but Gabriela Olvera recoiled, showing various degrees of outrage and unease. The Director of National Intelligence merely frowned and beckoned to her secretary, asking her to bring over her tablet.
"I'm shocked that one of the highest-ranking agents in the FBI is aiding and abetting the blackmail of a sitting US administration," Tanner blustered at Kurt.
"Actually, sir, Weller had no idea," Jane told him, before Kurt could speak."If he had, he might have stopped me from doing this, and I knew it was the only way to protect us."
"Well, now he knows," McDonagh said. "Agent Weller, are you going to arrest her for this brazen attempt at blackmail, or do I have to take it up with Director Pellington?"
Kurt shrugged. "Take it up with Pellington if you want, sir, but he's currently out of the office, recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. If not for Jane's intel, he'd be dead, just like the rest of us, so I'd advise you not to waste your time. He'll protect her with everything he's got, just like I will, because we owe her our lives."
"We all know why you're protecting her," McDonagh sneered. "It's common knowledge that you're fucking her."
Jane sucked in an angry breath, but Kurt was way ahead of her. "Don't you dare go there, Tanner. Our personal lives have nothing to do with this. Maybe you should be more worried about the fact that Shepherd was able to smuggle large amounts of nuclear material into Capitol Hill, all the way from Bangkok, without anyone in your department realising it."
"I don't care whether you stopped Shepherd or not. You'll all be unemployed by the end of the week. No one blackmails me!" McDonagh hissed.
"You might want to wait and see what's on that USB stick before you start making threats, Jack," Davenport said tersely.
"We're not asking for money, or promotions, or for anything unreasonable," Jane said, while McDonagh's face grew redder by the second. "This isn't blackmail—it's a safeguard, and it's one that we shouldn't even have to use. All we're asking for is to not be thrown into a dark hole, just because we know things you think we shouldn't."
Olvera cut across Tanner's response, her voice resigned. "Give it up, Ben. They know about Omaha."
Omaha? Kurt was drawing a blank, but he'd be damned if he'd let these people know that. Nas would have some explaining to do when they got back to Manhattan.
"All the more reason that Keaton should take custody of them, right now!" Tanner protested.
"All due respect, sir, but if I do that, the whole world will know about Omaha, whatever it is, by this time tomorrow."
Kurt raised an eyebrow. Keaton was openly siding against the administration? That, he hadn't seen coming.
Olvera set down her tablet and folded her arms. "Let's assume that Deputy Director Keaton is only here to weigh in on the issue of the enhanced interrogation of Major General Ellen Briggs, and move on."
Kurt rested his thigh more firmly against Jane's, knowing she'd see red at the words 'enhanced interrogation'. To her credit, Jane remained still and silent, though her anger was plain.
"Happy to do that, ma'am," he told Olvera. God, I hate politics. I just hope Nas' intel is enough to hold them off.
"Ms. Dover, legally and objectively speaking, your mother is a terrorist. Under the Patriot Act, we have the power to detain her indefinitely, without charge or trial, while we obtain intel pertinent to national security."
"I'm aware of that, ma'am. But just because you can, that doesn't mean you should. Torture won't help. Not with Shepherd."
Olvera looked pained at the mention of torture. "Enhanced interrogations are a last resort, Ms. Dover."
Jane took an angry sip of water, then set down the glass with a little more force than necessary. "Ma'am, I've been tortured by the CIA in two separate stints within the past year, and they didn't try normal interrogation first, so you'll forgive me for being sceptical about that. Maybe they're supposed to be a last resort in theory, but in practice, they're anything but."
"I understand why you feel that way," Olvera said non-committally.
"When I first arrived at the FBI, I didn't even know what black sites were. We were called to a hostage situation because one of my tattoos led us there, and that hostage situation was created so that Dabbur Zann terrorists could break a man out of the black site in the basement of the site. Dodi Khalil, a former asset of the CIA turned terrorist."
Keaton groaned wearily. Kurt wondered if he'd personally been involved in the actions that had led to Khalil's defection to the Dabbur Zann, but he decided not to ask. He wasn't trying to get Keaton fired—the way he'd tried to warn Jane of the possible consequences of her actions had earned him that much goodwill, at least.
"Ms. Dover, everyone here has already been fully briefed on your case—" Olvera began.
"If you'd let me finish making my point, ma'am, it's pretty simple. When I asked why my tattoo had pointed us to a CIA black site, Weller told me that the CIA aren't allowed to operate domesically, and that if black sites on US soil became public knowledge, that information could bring down administrations. The presence of the black site was the reason Patterson's system had alerted us about relevance to a tattoo—not the hostage situation itself. Yet that wasn't the only black site on US soil. It wasn't even the only one in New York City."
"That's none of your concern, Ms. Dover." Olvera folded her arms.
Jane's eyes flashed. "It was very much my concern a week later, when I was being waterboarded by Tom Carter. If Sandstorm hadn't intervened and killed him, I would have been transported to a dark hole that night, and that was what made me keep what had happened a secret from Kurt, which delayed the Sandstorm operation by months. I didn't know what to believe about law enforcement anymore, because I'd been so wrong about the CIA."
"Did you come here just to whine about how the CIA treated you? Because frankly, this is a waste of my valuable time." Banfield checked her watch.
Kurt ground his teeth. If you had any idea what it's been like for her—
Jane gave her a tight, icy smile. "No, I didn't. Though I think I'd be justified in doing just that. My point is, you should understand why I don't trust the CIA's methods of obtaining intel. And I know Shepherd. She hates the goverment, she hates the military, and she hates the corporations that lobby our politicians. She won't give you the satisfaction of even a single answer, and every blow she takes will only make her more stubborn."
"You can't expect us to just take that for granted," Davenport said.
"No. I want you to take his." Jane indicated Keaton, who looked taken aback as everyone's focus transferred to him.
"I'm not sure where you're going with this, Jane, but—"
"How long did you have me in custody?" Jane asked.
"Ninety-three days," Keaton said reluctantly.
"And how much 'intel' did you 'extract' from me during my 'enhanced interrogation'?" Jane's voice was drier than the Sahara. She didn't make quotation gestures in the air, but everyone could hear them in her intonation.
"None," Keaton muttered.
Olvera's secretary leaned forward. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it?"
"None!" Keaton raised his voice, exasperated. "But she was an amnesiac. Shepherd isn't."
Jane smiled coldly. "When you had me strung up in that basement, I knew that I was sent to the FBI by an organisation headed up by someone going by the name 'Shepherd'. I knew that I'd agreed to it beforehand, and I knew that there was some bigger plan in the works, some 'phase two' that involved burning the country to the ground, so it could rise from the ashes. But most of all, I knew that I was never, never going to tell you that, and my resolve not to break grew, every time you dunked my head into that water, or attached the electrodes to my skin, or had me hung from a hook in the ceiling so that you could hit me with a lead pipe, or a baseball bat, or a—"
"Jane," Kurt said softly, his heart aching. He knew how much she was hurting, but she was letting her emotions get the better of her.
She leaned back in her seat and went silent again, heeding his unspoken warning without looking at him. Her jaw was set, but her composure was returning.
"Sounds like you're confessing to knowingly withholding information vital to national security," McDonagh said. "Isn't that an arrestable offence, Weller?"
"She told me, as soon as I found her." Kurt's voice hardened. "And frankly, we're lucky she did. She'd planned to tell me everything she knew in the FBI interrogation room, but instead, the CIA swooped in and tried to torture it out of her—illegally, on US soil—before I could act. We're just lucky Jane doesn't have a grudge against our country. What the CIA did to her could have changed that, and she could have just disappeared, gone to work for Aurora or the Dabbur Zann."
Keaton shifted, opening his mouth. Kurt fixed him with a pointed stare. You know I'm right, you bastard.
Keaton was wearing a long-suffering expression that made Kurt long to punch him.
Olvera ignored Keaton. "On behalf of the whole country, I'm sorry for the way the CIA treated you, Ms. Dover."
Jane nodded acknowledgement, but didn't speak. Whether she thought the apology was genuine, Kurt wasn't sure.
"Are you suggesting that Deputy DIrector Keaton should be held culpable for his part in it? You certainly have the leverage to have him fired," Olvera added, and Keaton bristled.
Jane sighed. "No. I don't know who's next in line for his job, and I don't have any confidence that whoever replaced him would be any better. All I want is for him to remember my case before he tortures the next person, and the one after that. And use better judgment."
"Seems fair," Keaton said grudgingly.
Jane stared at him. "My point still stands. As someone who's been in the same situation you want to put Shepherd into, I'm telling you that she won't do anything but play games with you, if she even speaks at all."
"You escaped our custody," Keaton said. "Shepherd won't. We can break her."
"No," Jane said. "She's ex-Army. She underwent SERE training just like I did as a SEAL, and not only that, but she trained me on her own. During my torture, a memory came back, of my brother testing my resistance, coaching me on how to endure. And he wasn't part of the military. Shepherd taught him that. She taught us both how to disconnect from the pain. She knows how to do it."
"Keaton, you admitted in Bulgaria that taking Jane wasn't your finest hour," Kurt said. "Shepherd is gonna be just as tough. More so, because unlike Jane, she hates the American government. Now she's in custody, she's not gonna break and dismantle everything she still has in place—if she even has anything. She'll stay silent no matter what. And you know it, don't you?"
Keaton sighed. "I suspect we won't get much we can use. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try."
"We already have the entire contents of Shepherd's compound," Jane said. "Patterson has an entire division of forensic and computer science specialists going over it, and my brother, Roman—he's on our side now. He's been helping us decode some of the ciphers Shepherd used. We have other ways of getting intel on Sandstorm's reach, ways that don't involve violating anyone's constitutional rights."
"The Patriot Act—" Davenport began.
"—doesn't explicitly endorse torture," Kurt interrupted, "and we already stopped her plan."
"So your alternative would be what, exactly? She almost killed everyone in this room, and all our families. She needs to be punished," Banfield said.
"With respect," Jane said, her shoulders tense, "it sounds like you want to get revenge on Shepherd for humiliating the Pentagon, not just prevent her from future criminal activity."
Banfield's expression darkened, and Kurt intervened before things got ugly. "Life in supermax, without a chance of parole. No judge would ever let her out, and there's more than enough evidence to stop her from walking free."
"Unless she has a judge in her pocket," Davenport muttered.
"So what happens if she has a CIA agent in her pocket? One who just unlocks her black site cell and lets her walk out of there?" Kurt retaliated. "Look, Shepherd has exposed a lot of weak spots and made a lot of people look incompetent, and you can't be seen to be lenient. I get that. But we stopped her plans, arrested her people, dismantled her network. Without Shepherd pulling the strings, all her plants that we haven't found yet are just malcontents, with no one guiding them. If we can identify them from Shepherd's documents, we'll pass on the information and round them up. But the way she kept things need-to-know, those plants probably don't even know each other's names. There is no Sandstorm without Shepherd's inner circle, and with the exception of Jane and Roman, they're all imprisoned, dead, or deported."
"Her hatred for the US government is way, way stronger than her fear of pain. She watched her whole family die of cancer, and she had a tumour removed herself, that led to her infertility. She will always bear a grudge against this country for that. There's nothing you can offer her in exchange for information, except her freedom, and we all know that's out of the question." Jane fixed Olvera with an almost pleading look. "That's all I have to say. All I can ask you to do is consider it. No one deserves pointless torture, not even Shepherd."
Olvera glanced at the men and woman on either side of her, then back at Jane as she rose to her feet. "We'll need some time to discuss your request before we decide the best course of action. We'll be in contact with our decision within twenty-four hours. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Dover."
"Likewise," Jane said, as she and Kurt stood.
Kurt didn't need fifteen years' experience as an FBI agent to know they were both lying.
As much as he wanted to get out of there, as his eyes fell on Davenport, he found himself pausing. There was so much he wished he could say to the man who had coerced Mayfair into acting illegally. "Bethany Mayfair was a good woman. She didn't deserve to be your pawn, and indirectly, she died because of you."
"Bethany Mayfair made her own choices, and her work with Daylight put a lot of very bad people away. Life isn't black and white, Weller."
Kurt opened his mouth, his temper fraying, but Jane gently rested her hand on his shoulder. When he glanced over, her expression was compassionate, but held a hint of a warning, as though she was telling him, Don't, Kurt. It's not worth it.
Don't make an enemy of him, Mayfair's voice in his mind cautioned him. Threats won't change the past. You know that.
He left the office without another word, silently fuming.
In the elevator, on the way down to ground level, Kurt pulled Jane into a tight hug. "You good?"
She exhaled shakily, holding on to him. "I'm good," she said, after a moment to process. "I can't believe I actually did that."
"Well, no matter what they decide, you did your best. And if that wasn't enough to convince them, then their minds were already made up." He held on to her a moment longer, then drew back as the elevator began to slow.
"Felt like a viper's nest in there," she murmured. "Were they even human?"
"People who rise that high? They deal in money and statistics. I think they have to just see it all as abstract figures, or they'd freeze up. That much responsibility for hundreds of millions of people? They shut their empathy off. They're so concerned with the big picture, they lose sight of what's important. The people who get hurt, or worse." Kurt's expression was dark, and despite his concern for her, he still radiated anger.
"Are you okay?" she asked, laying her hand over his heart. "Davenport…"
He shrugged, covering her hand with his own. "I'll be okay. Seeing him squirm whenever Daylight was mentioned—it doesn't make up for what he did, but the Daylight leaks cost him something. That's something, at least."
"You didn't punch him in the face. I'm impressed," she teased gently.
He gave her a slightly crooked smile, but she could tell he was hurting, beneath the surface. "He's still a New York Congressman. Maybe next time."
As they left the building, Jane tried to distract him from brooding about Davenport. "They seemed really shaken up about that Omaha file. What is Omaha?"
"If I had to guess, some secret NSA project they don't want the public to know about." He shook his head. "Hope Nas wasn't angling for a promotion anytime soon. Her bosses are gonna be pissed that she threatened to pull a Douglas Winter."
"What about Patterson?" Jane asked. "Can you and Pellington protect her, if it comes to that?"
"Patterson's the best in her field. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they damagedher career. They need her." He took her hand as they left the elevator. "Patterson will be fine. We all will be."
And if we're not, all we have to say is the word 'Omaha'. Jane had taken a quick look at the USB Nas had given her, but there hadn't been any details about the Omaha Project in the overview.
Their chauffeur-driven car pulled up next to them, ready to convey them back to the FBI jet, and they settled into the backseat together.
"You really held your own against Keaton," Kurt said quietly, as the car began to move back into traffic.
"I wasn't sure I could," Jane confessed. "But seeing him there, wearing a suit, playing the Deputy Director… He was just a man. Not the monster who's been keeping me awake at night. I think I needed that, after what happened in Bulgaria. I needed to prove to myself that I could face him down without panicking. I kinda lost my temper a couple of times, though."
"So you got a little mad. That was justified. And you didn't tie him to a pipe or hit him this time—progress. I'm proud of you," Kurt told her, kissing her temple.
Jane leaned against him, not caring what the chauffeur thought. "What's that saying? Something about being either very brave, or very stupid?"
"If we can get home without being black-sited, I'm gonna call it a win."
They laughed a little, but Jane couldn't quite relax. Kurt was tense beside her, despite his outward calm.
Neither of them let their guard down until they were in the air, Washington, DC receding below them as they rose above the clouds.