Bit of a set up chapter - Bear with me. And I promise Amir will make a reappearance soon.
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The team rendezvoused back at the safe house that the DIA scrambled for them. Preach and McG beat them there by a few minutes and already had a secure laptop set up and a connection prepped when Dalton and Jaz arrived on scene. Jaz pulled up a chair and put her feet up on the table taking a second to regroup while Dalton went straight to the computer and pressed the code for the DIA.
"Okay command, what have you got for us"
Patricia stepped into the screen, "Well as you suspected, the french police believe they have captured Hamid Khedani and are having a field day"
"How did they make him?" Dalton asked rubbing a hand over his face.
Noah's voice joined in from off screen "It appears when Mina contacted the police she gave the police a very detailed description of Amir aka Hamid..."
" ….and lucky us we got the one competent police officer who's good at wheres Waldo" Dalton finished the sentence for him.
"Yah, lucky us" Jaz scoffed "didn't help that Asim could use a few lessons in terrorist 101…. Lesson # 1- Don't make eye contact with your buddies"
"Okay, so can't we just explain the mistake to the police, no harm no foul, like we did earlier?" McG chimed in from the other side of the table where he was busy cramming a protein bar in his mouth.
"You'd ruin his cover, he would never be able to go under again" Hannah's worried voice came from the other side of Patricia. "Once it's in police records that Hamid Khedani is a cover identity it would never be safe to use again. Couldn't trust that it hadn't been leaked somehow"
"Exactly" Dalton agreed, "Amir clearly wasn't willing for that to happen so we will follow his lead. If he needs to he can give up his real identity and they will confirm it with us but we will leave that ball in his court for now"
McG looked incredulous "So what, we are just going to leave him in prison so he can continue to have a double life? "Hamid" isn't going to be much use to anyone if he is locked away in "le Bastille" for the rest of his life"
Jaz stifled her laughter at McG's use of air quotes and butchered attempt at french. She couldn't resist mouthing "LA bastille" back at him and got an eye roll and a shrug before he turned back to scavenge for more food in his pack.
Honestly, she shared McG's exasperation at the thought of all this stress over a problem they could easily make go away. If only most of the problems they dealt with could be solved this easily. But obviously that solution wasn't acceptable to Amir and by extension to Dalton who gave Amir a long leash when it came to these kinds of things. After seeing the former spy in his natural habitat today she was starting to understand why Top seemed to trust Amir's judgement unreservedly. Even she had to admit the man was good at what he did. Couple that with what she learned about his family history from Top, and maybe his motivations were not as complicated and unclear as she had previously thought. She was slightly hesitant to judge him for the first time, and wasn't quite comfortable with that uncertainty, preferring things to be black or white. Grey was messy and she didn't have time or place for that.
Preach's voice shook her out of her musings. "Can we convince the French government to transfer "Hamid" to our custody. Little quid pro-quo for all the help we just gave them?"
Dalton paused thoughtfully " it's doubtful they would do that. They want the credit, he's too high profile for them to give up. But it would be worth a shot"
"It's not an option anyways" Noah interjected, seemingly always the bearer of bad news.
"Why not?" Dalton's tone made it clear that he knew he probably wasn't going to like the answer.
Noah grimaced "check out the 5 o'clock news"
McG flipped on the TV and the team was greeted with a familiar face displayed prominently on the broadcast. He changed channels but each change brought the same mugshot with different varieties of headlines proclaiming the capture of a top terrorist with international ties to terrorism.
"Well at least it's his good side" he offered continuing to flip through channels. "Man they are really going to town on this aren't they"
"Well it is a big win for them... Patricia started.
"Even if we did all the work" McG muttered
Patricia ignored his comment and continued on " ...they stopped a terrorist attack and got the extra bonus of a storied ISIS member captured alive"
Dalton was ready to move on " well now the whole world knows Hamid Khedani was caught so his cover is never gonna work again anyways, no one is gonna believe he just waltzed right out of prison and back to their terror cell…"
His voice trailed off teeth tugging at his bottom lip in frustration.
Preach quirked an eyebrow at Dalton… "well maybe not waltzed out"...
Dalton's head tilted thoughtfully "you think? With a little help?"
Preach nodded thoughtfully "it would certainly be public."
"Yah, I'm sure we could find a way to make a splash" Dalton's face was alive again, eyes gleaming as the start of a plan formulated rapidly.
" It would have to be a fake spash, we can't protect his cover at the expense of lives"
Patricia interrupted their duologue, apparently tracking the conversation better than the rest of the confused faces who were watching the two go back and forth like a tennis match.
"Of course, and we could we could always abort if needed and fall back to plan B" Dalton nodded in agreement.
" We would need to get someone on the inside to get the information to Amir" Preach continued on full steam ahead.
Dalton tilted his head pensively looking at Patricia who nodded on the screen. "That's doable, how do you feel about some new tattoos Preach?"
Preach laughed, "I'm really more a Shawshank man myself"
Jaz shrugged when McG looked at her quizzically. She had no clue what was going on but they both were accustomed to Preach and Dalton communicating practically telepathically. She had given up on reminding them that the rest of the team needed more than half formed sentences to keep up. They would fill them in eventually once they got where they were going.
Noah apparently was not satisfied with being out of the loop and had suddenly caught up with the last couple tv/movie references " Wait are you suggesting we break Amir out of a high security French prison?" his voice rose with barely concealed horror.
Jaz and McG sat up in their chairs looking to Preach and Dalton with renewed interest.
"You says that like its a bad thing?" Dalton said innocently
Noah sat down heavily with a thud that was heard clearly a continent away. He gave a weak and not at all convincing " OK then."
Dalton smirked "See, now thats the enthusiasm we are looking for.. Alright let's see how we go about breaking our guy out"