The Transfer of Sovereignty is coming far too quickly and MI6 needs to stay informed on Chinese activities before their official presence in Hong Kong is dissolved.
This means Tiago will be lucky to see James at all in the next year.
They pull him out of the field and put him behind a computer with vague instructions to "find anything useful". It's a cheeky little line that really means "hack anything with government encoding", but M can't put that on paper so Tiago gets to work 'debugging' Chinese computers.
He adores Hong Kong. He loves the food, the people and the atmosphere that screams indulgence. What he does not like is being shoved into a cramped office like a drone in Q Branch, stuck digging through years of backlogged files and data when he could be doing so much more. He loves the complexity of computers, the brilliance of millions of lines of code creating an interface that can do so much damage in the right hands. His hands.
That is not what he is doing here.
However, if this is what M truly needs from him, he will complete his given tasks with the grace and aplomb expected of a double-O.
So he plays the good little soldier and he follows up on cold leads in his spare time to combat boredom. He spends months bypassing Chinese security measures, reporting his findings to the Thames office regularly because that is what he's been told (unofficially) to do.
'For Her Eyes Only' is skillfully inked across the top of each report in his own hand. It's a small gesture.
Something to remember him by.
Buried in the poorly encrypted mainframe of an off-grid Guangdong prison, Tiago finds suspiciously incomplete documents regarding six unnamed 'political prisoners'. A little digging finds them to be missing MI6 employees assumed dead weeks ago; drones that dissappeared from Section H under his watch. Not even junior agents, not a single one trained for the field and none of actual use to the Chinese.
They're just collateral. Bargaining chips.
China wouldn't risk upsetting relations now by abusing men and women who, at the end of the day, amounted to little more than civilians. The blowback would be horrendous if MI6 failed to get them out, likewise if the Chinese tried to barter them in a prisoner exchange.
The situation has to be handled delicately. He brings everything to M's attention and she agrees they have to act before the Transfer. Later she gives him a firm smile and approves his request for a week of leave. His reward for a job well done is that he gets to see James.
It seems fitting that after years of fluidity he finally has something to return home to.
A month later he's on an MI6 charter en route to London-Heathrow with M and a small contingent of agents out of the Thames office.
She's stressed about the Transfer. Tiago can see it in the shadows under her eyes and the exhaustion in her voice. Everyone is strained, but over tea and Chinese airspace she tells him there's something else.
The Chinese have been monitoring Section H. They know about the hacking and they know he was the agent responsible. The Prime Minister is asking questions. Too many questions.
She doesn't elaborate further.
"Well Mum, next time I'll just have to be more careful." He laughs, but M looks forlorn. Tiago can only grin to himself.
So what if another country has his number? He'll add China to the list. Their's would not be the first government to want his head on a spit. Or will it be the last, for that matter.
The moment passes and he recognises the conversation is over. The other agents mull about and Tiago is bored enough to bring out his laptop. He resists the urge to send a quick message to James - there are too many unfriendly faces in the cabin, the last thing Tiago wants is to draw any undue attention to his Corazón.
He's not as big a fan of idle gossip as James might like to think, and MI6 is a veritable hen house for all it is an intelligence agency.
Some time passes and distantly Tiago recognizes the decompression that comes with a swift decrease in altitude. He ignores it. The jet-streams in this part of the world are unique and he never expects a smooth flight anymore. It's only when his teacup rattles, indicating the lowering of landing gear, that he meets M's gaze. She doesn't outwardly appear concerned, but that's why he's here. To take care of her should anything go wrong.
They've been in the air an hour at most, not enough time to be out of Chinese airspace; which means they're being forced down or the pilot has been compromised.
He waits a beat.
The descent is too smooth. The pilot.
He sets his computer aside, unfastens his safety-belt, unholsters his pistol and motions for M and the other agents to remain silent. She looks suddenly pained, but it doesn't register for Tiago why that might be. He makes his way to the cockpit. Peripherally he can see two agents forming up behind him to block M from any direct line of fire.
He clicks off the safety and reaches for the door, prepared for whatever might come at him.
He doesn't expect what comes from behind.
He wakes up in a windowless room, tied naked to a chair. His wrists and shoulders ache from the handcuffs restraining him. The air is hot and stale. His captors scream questions at him in Mandarin about what he knows, demand that he reveal how he gained access to their files. Their systems. Their facilities.
It's all depressingly standard. The initial beating is unpleasant, to say the least, but his immediate concerns lie elsewhere.
If they have him, odds are high they have M.
He fights tooth and nail against his jailers. Uses everything MI6 has ever taught him to plot his own escape and M's potential rescue. His fearless struggle only earns him bamboo shoots under his nails.
He knows he won't have to wait long for help if he can't do it on his own, and it's becoming increasingly clear that his chances of unaided escape are dwindling. It's no matter. MI6 will send the cavalry if Mummy is involved in any significant capacity.
Until then he just has to endure some slight discomfort.
Days bleed into weeks. Slowly he realizes that no MI6 means no M.
He's alone here.
His current jailers grow bored with traditional measures when they realize he isn't going to talk and mess around with electro-shock for a few days.
He must piss off someone important because that same week a round of guards he's never seen before decide to step up to the power-play that is rape. If his Mandarin is to be trusted, and it is, the guards are going to attempt to "choke him with cock until he vomits or suffocates".
The first man that forces Tiago to his knees loses a good two inches.
They stay away from his mouth after that.
It's a small blessing they don't pull his teeth. The false molar might come in handy later if he needs to poison a guard to escape.
One month becomes two. Then three. He loses count of the days when they stop feeding him.
Tiago bites his nails down to the quick so they won't rip them out. He knows it won't actually prevent anything from happening to his hands, but it's a small comfort all the same.
If he can cause himself pain, he can remember who he is and what he's doing this all for.
When they have him contorted into blindingly painful positions, he tries to meditate.
He thinks about the garden he left in Madrid and of fresh air, of his grandmother and his childhood and her beautiful island. As he loses concentration his thoughts turn to MI6, to M, to James.
Mostly he thinks about why no one has come for him yet.
It is roughly about the time he passes out that he entertains the horrific thought that M left him here on purpose.
After four months he can barely remember his own name. They force him to drink scalding water and he sleeps only after he's blacked out from pain. They starve him for weeks and then laugh when he pounces on the diseased vermin that infest the prison.
They call him "YīngGuó lǎoshǔ". The English Rat.
He can't remember if they're wrong.
He can't meditate anymore.
The island that was his respite is twisted and dead.
All he can see are the rats.
They eat everything beautiful.
He misses James. Misses being able to comfort someone without feeling compromised.
He must start talking in his sleep, because the jailers begin taunting him with his Corazón's name while they do unspeakable things to his flesh.
He feels anger for the first time in months.
For some reason it's directed at James.
A corpse once told him that a double-O's ranking wasn't just determined by ones ability to take a life, but by how many missions on which the agent in question been assumed dead.
He wonders what his rank is now.
The torture isn't what drives Tiago to suicide. Though, realistically, it should be, given what he's endured the last one hundred and forty-nine days. He only knows this because he overhears the date and does the math in a blissfully lucid moment. Otherwise time has no meaning here.
He's an MI6 double-O, the best of the best. Torture is not something he's unfamiliar with. He's been shot, stabbed and poisoned more times than he can count. He's been trained to deal with "non-consensual sexual contact" and "forcible interrogation techniques".
He can deal with the pain, with the Chinese, and for five months he has done just that. He is still alive.
In the end what gets him is the waiting. Waiting for M to realize her mistake. For MI6 to raid this hell hole and take him home because he's long given up on escape under his own power.
He's kept his mouth shut for months. Just waiting. Until one night his jailers wake him with a shock baton and show him his own obituary, written by dear old Mum herself, recognizing the loss of a great operative and calling him an "example of British fortitude."
It's a testament to how far gone he is when his only criticism of the piece is that he's Spanish.
He wakes up the next morning eyes bright and mind clear for the first time in a long time, knowing for certain that he's been burned.
The last conversation with M was his notice of severance, how he didn't recognize it before he'll never know, but what's done is done. He feels so free, now that he finally knows what he has to do.
He says his goodbyes.
The Chinese think he's going to turn.
He only opens his mouth to dislodge the false molar.
He doesn't die.
As he screams through what's left of his macerated jaw, he wonders why that is.