A/N: Thanks for following our new Calzona AU story which has a Homeland vibe, but you don't need to have watched the show to follow it. We have around 18 chapters already completed and my amazing writing buddy Maaike83 will be dropping a new chapter every week. In the next two chapters we meet the team and find out a little bit more about the past.
As ever, we'd love to hear what you think or the story.
Chapter 3: Meet the team
Mark Sloan and Callie Torres pulled up in the parking lot at Langley.
"God I hate this place!" Mark said as he switched off the engine and looked up at the building through the windscreen. "It's like the most miserable place on earth, and I hate the way they walk around like they have sticks up their asses!" Sloan declared as he unbuckled his seatbelt and took off his Raybans.
"Sing it!" Callie replied as she did the same, placing her sunglasses on top of her head. "I feel exactly the same, but you heard the boss, we have to be on our best behaviour for this one," Callie responded, opening the passenger car door.
Like her fellow agent, Torres was not a fan of the Central Intelligence Agency, but her reasons were more personal and not something she intended on sharing with her work partner. As they reported to reception and presented their badges they were directed to the sixth floor where the CIA Intelligence Special Operations team were expecting them in conference room two.
As they waited for the lift, Mark couldn't help but quiz the Latina on the lady that Callie had been getting down and dirty with when Shepherd had called.
"Honestly…," Callie said, giving her colleague a slightly embarrassed look, "...I can't actually remember her name, but she was hot and super flexible!"
Mark laughed. "Let me guess, another yoga hook up? Surely you've made your way through the class by now!"
Callie chuckled. "Do you know how many different types of yoga there are Mark?" she said, winking as they stepped aside to allow a couple of CIA suits to exit the lift. "Hatha, Ashtanga, Bikram, Viny…," the brunette joked to her friend.
"OK, OK...I get it," Mark laughed, cutting Callie off as they entered the lift. He admired the fact that Torres loved women almost as much as he did. Once he had accepted that she was gay, or as she had explained to him, 100% lesbianic, he had admitted defeat and quit hitting on her. Initially, it had bruised his ego that even he, Mark Sloan, FBI Agent extraordinaire, was unable to win Callie Torres over, but once ground rules had been set they had become good friends and he trusted Torres with his life.
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Arizona was in the conference room alongside Officers Lexie Grey and Ben Warren waiting for the FBI agents to arrive from their base down the road at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
"Typical Feds, keeping everyone waiting!" Lexie Grey said with an eye roll. She was super pissed at having been called in on a rare day off and so was getting impatient.
Arizona looked up from her laptop and gave the young IT analyst a stare that told her in no uncertain terms to behave. Officer Grey was young. Super young in fact, but she was by far the best IT wiz that had ever worked at the Agency. Grey had graduated from MIT at the age of 19 and had been recruited before she had even put a foot out of the door. Despite her still tender age of 22, she saw things that people with years of experience would miss, and whilst she had a reputation of being a little bit prickly, it was a price worth paying for her skills.
Early on Robbins had paired Grey up with Ben Warren, who she affectionately called her Mr. Reliable.
Ben had worked together on Arizona's first case, and his calm and measured personality complemented Lexie's more, some might say, unorthodox approach to tasks. Lexie would often come up with a solution, but it was Ben's practical nature that would see it through. Together they had helped crack many cases and were the first names on any task group that Arizona was in charge of.
Despite having the best resources possible, the fact remained, that over a year had passed since the devastating attack at the mall and they were no closer to solving the case. It was as if the suspect had just vanished into thin air. The confirmed Interpol sighting was massive for them and she was determined to catch the culprit. It had kept Arizona awake for nights on end and had taken its toll on her marriage. Four months ago, whilst on a rare weekend break with Tom, news broke of a possible sighting of the main suspect in Mozambique. Arizona hadn't hesitated before leaving Tom at the cabin they had rented and flying out to lead the team. When she had returned home, having unsuccessfully chased a false lead for over a week, her marriage had felt even more fragile and things hadn't improved since.
Arizona was standing up at the end of the room engrossed in her laptop when the door opened and Kepner showed the FBI agents into the room. She quickly finished reading a sentence on her screen at the sound of April's voice, "Ma'am this is FBI Agent Mark Sloan and…," before looking up over at the door. As Arizona did so she felt her knees buckle slightly and quickly placed a hand discreetly onto the table to steady herself
"... and Agent Callie Torres," April finished the introductions before exiting the room.
Agent Calliope Iphegenia Torres to be precise, the blonde thought to herself as she looked up and watched the two agents walk into the room. Fuck! Arizona's mind was racing. It was years since she had last seen Callie, 6 years and 174 days to be precise, not that she had been counting! The brunette hadn't changed one bit. She still had the ability to make Arizona's palms go sweaty and her heart rate to increase tenfold.
In fact, Arizona's heart was beating so fast she was convinced everyone in the room must have been able to hear it, maybe they had even spotted the slight blush that she felt creeping up her neck as she locked eyes with the Latina. Damn! She hadn't felt that neck blush thing for years, why did it have to happen now.
Clearing her throat, she mentally told herself to get her shit together and purposefully walked over to where the agents were standing. Even though the sight of the brunette had her insides churning, she had no intention of showing it externally.
"Agent Sloan," she said confidently as she stuck out her hand to shake the tall man's hand, before turning her attention to the brunette who by the look on her face was as equally as shocked as she was by the turn of events.
"Agent Torres," She said as the two women exchanged a quick handshake whilst avoiding direct eye contact. "I'm Special Operations Officer Arizona Robbins, and as I believe Director Shepherd has explained, I am leading this operation and from this point onwards…. you both report to me".
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Shit! Callie couldn't believe her luck. She had been super excited for this gig given how high profile it was. That enthusiasm had quickly vanished when she had realised who her new boss was. Callie took in the CIA Officer who had maintained her toned physique and she couldn't help but notice that those eyes hadn't lost any of their sparkle over the years.
Arizona quickly turned and introduced Officers Grey and Warren to the agents, before taking a seat at the head of the table. "OK Grey, what do we have?" Arizona asked the young analyst, still unable to look directly at the Latina agent.
Lexie Grey stood up and walked towards the screen as she pulled up some data on her tablet.
"Since 9/11, jihadists have killed 107 people on United States soil. Just over a year ago, on the 25th of March, that figure doubled with the Culver City Mall bombing in which 124 people lost their lives..."
Lexie paused and turned to the screen which was now displaying a picture of a happy-looking teenager, "...including Gabriella Yang…." The room was silent as they looked at the picture of the screen which showed a laughing Gabby Yang, her mother Vera, and her Aunt, President Cristina Yang. It was a photo that had featured on every news outlet across the globe, capturing the human loss of the attack.
Lexie continued, "Gabrielle was at the mall with her friends shopping for her prom dress. The attack was without warning and came after a relatively quiet period of Islamic State terrorist activity on US soil. The primary subject has been identified as Abu Ahmed, a 23-year-old Algerian national who at the time of the bombing was studying Chemical Engineering at California Institute of Technology."
The agents and officer looked at the image on the screen which was the picture used on his CIT student ID card.
"My God, they get younger and younger, he looks about 12!" Officer Warren said what they were all thinking. Abu Ahmed was at first glance a regular-looking student with short hair, tortoiseshell glasses, and a slightly wonky smile. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, but that was how the terrorist cells liked their soldiers to look. The more ordinary looking, the better!
Lexie continued again, "Ahmed had no known links to terrorist organisations, and was, by all accounts a model student. Profile modeling has since identified that he was recruited by ISIS whilst volunteering in Mozambique in the summer of his second year at College. It is believed that he escaped to Europe via a private freight aeroplane heading for Spain that we have been able to link directly back to a company with links to ISIS leader Mohammed Abu Walid".
As Lexie spoke Arizona couldn't stop herself from glancing over at the brunette FBI Agent. It was typical that her first interagency operation would have involved her former classmate. As if sensing she was being watched, Callie turned her head and their eyes locked. It was only a fleeting moment, but it was enough for both women to feel something extraordinary.
Focus Robbins, Focus! Arizona instructed herself as she looked back at the screen.
"Despite an intensive global manhunt for Ahmed, he has evaded all efforts, until now. At 17 hundred hours on the 18th March, he was sighted leaving the Ishbilia mosque on the outskirts of Seville, Spain by Andrew DeLuca, an Interpol operative on the ground." Lexie flicked her tablet and a photo of DeLuca appeared on the screen.
The two FBI agents shot each other a look as they saw a familiar face on the screen. Callie and Mark had worked on a few cases with Interpol over the years and both knew Andrea through his sister Carina, who, like her brother, worked for the International Police. Mark and Carina had hooked up a couple of times and deep down, the brunette suspected her partner really liked the Interpol agent.
"DeLuca was able to capture this image and we can confirm that it is indeed a match for Abu Ahmed." Lexie displayed a grainy image on the screen of a young man wearing traditional Muslim clothing of a thobe, ghutra, and egal.
"Thanks, Lexie," Arizona said as she stood up and walked over to the speakerphone console in the middle of the conference table. "DeLuca's boss and Interpol's intelligence director for Europe, Addison Montgomery should be joining us on the line now," Arizona said pushing a button to start the call.
"Addison, thanks so much for joining us given the time there," Arizona said at the woman who was now appearing on the screen via video link.
"No problem, Special Officer Robbins. I happy to help however I can," Addison responded
"Any update on DeLuca?" Arizona asked with concern.
Addison shook her head. "Unfortunately, shortly after DeLuca reported the sighting to us, we lost contact with him. We currently do not know if this is as a security measure in case he was spotted, or in fact if it is something more serious. We are mobilising a small team from Madrid who should be there within the next three hours."
"Shit," Callie said under her breath at the news that DeLuca was still missing. She made a note to send Carina a message after the meeting to see how she was doing.
"Do we still have eyes on Ahmed?" Agent Sloan asked.
"We did," Addison paused before continuing, "until zero eight hundred hours this morning, when we, unfortunately, lost sight," Addison informed the team, who were busy taking notes.
"Do we think he's still in Seville?" Callie asked the Interpol Director.
"We obviously cannot be 100% sure, but it seems that Abu Ahmed has been busy creating a somewhat normal life for himself in Seville and our intel believes that he and his Spanish-born wife are expecting their first child soon. We are therefore hopeful that he is still in Seville or the surrounding area. Whilst we obviously want the suspect arrested, as I am sure you will appreciate, our top priority is to locate our missing agent DeLuca and confirm his safety, we therefore very much appreciate you joining the operation. I will meet you at Morón Air Base tomorrow and we can update you on the way to your accommodation."
"OK, so you now know as much as I do. I suggest you go home, pack, say any goodbyes that you need to…," Arizona couldn't help but look over in Callie's direction as she spoke, seeking some sort of response to her reference about having someone to say goodbye to. They had lost touch years ago, and so Arizona had no idea if Callie was married or seeing someone. The brunette's face and body language gave nothing away, so she continued "...and I'll meet you at Andrews Air Force base at zero six hundred hours tomorrow morning."
Arizona closed her laptop signaling the end of the meeting and watched as her team started leaving the room. Just before the brunette FBI agent vanished from the room Arizona spoke.
"Agent Torres," Arizona called out as she stood up. "Could I please have a word?" Arizona's heart was pounding as she watched the Latina stop at the door.
