Chapter 29: Plan

"You okay?"

Cam held up a hand to stop Charlie from speaking and instead led the way to their quarters. She'd been spending a lot of time there when she wasn't on duty or training; the rest of the time had been spent in the 'Girlz Only' workout room, and Charlie hadn't interrupted, although he'd had a quiet word with Duke about Cam's mental state. She'd been very quiet, even for her; and while normally she would talk to Charlie when something bothered her, this time she'd been absolutely silent.

Duke had been sympathetic. Shana's disappearance had hit him hard too; but as third-in-command here at base, he hadn't had the luxury of giving in to his feelings; work still needed to be done, all the day-to-day minutia. Due to the current emergency, Clayton had pushed his leave back, although 'leave' was a laughable idea when he'd brought Liv to stay on base with them. There wasn't a single soldier here who would complain, not after the events of the summer. He was actually getting rather more sympathy from the rest of the guys than less; as Olivia's delivery date drew closer and her discomfort became more and more evident, Clayton's mind was a little less on minutia and rather more on the incipient birth of his son; which was only fair, after all.

And they were relieved at this turn of events; Allie had been very worried about Clayton's seeming indifference to the news that Liv was having his baby, worried enough that she'd had a quiet word with Psyche-Out about it. Psyche-Out had reassured Allie that it would change as the pregnancy progressed, and after Olivia had been tased at Sealview, Clayton's entire viewpoint had changed (much to Allie's relief.) Now Flint and Duke were splitting up the day-to-day minutia and trivialities of base life and duty between them, freeing Hawk to spend as much or as little time as he actually wanted with Olivia, and in the process giving Duke some experience so he could run a base of his own someday.

Cam didn't speak until Charlie was inside their room; at her nod, he closed the door and faced her squarely. Fingers laced tightly in her lap and avoiding his eyes (something she did when she wasn't sure Charlie was going to like what she said) she whispered, "Everyone here misses her so much. I miss her. We have to get her back, Charlie."

"The FBI and Homeland Security are doing everything they can, Cam."

"No they aren't. The DHS guy said they'd been watching Shana as a potential 'threat' to national security for some time now. Trust me, they aren't really putting in much of an effort into looking for her."

There was nothing Charlie could say to that; after hearing Cam's account of what had happened at that interview, and hearing the same story from Flint and Duke, he couldn't help agreeing with her."The Army has sent out alerts to Interpol, they've sent word to all the governments of all the West African nations to be on the lookout for her. You can't feel guilty about this, Cam, there's nothing more you can do to bring her home. At the moment there isn't anything anyone can do to bring her home."

"I've been thinking about that." Cam said slowly, staring at her clenched fingers. "You're not going to like this, but please hear me out, okay? Let me finish and then you can yell at me."

Charlie sat down in the chair across from the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and composed himself. "All right. I promise I'll at least hear you out. What's your plan?"

"I want to go undercover to find her and get her out."

It was said in a rush, all her words tumbling out at once. Charlie had to take a minute to process that, sort out her words, and when he finally found the meaning under them, he stared at her in astonishment. "You're kidding."

"I told you you weren't going to like it."

"Forget about me not liking it, Cam, just how do you think you'll manage that?"

She took a deep breath. "Up at my house, there's that trunk of papers my aunt and uncle kept. The name of the man who owned the house they kept me captive in is in those papers, along with address and bank account information so my Aunt and Uncle could transfer procurement payments to him. He also arranged for a lot of the 'clients' to take a 'vacation' up at the cabin; officially it was listed as an exclusive upstate New York mountain retreat with all the right amenities for the discerning client—amenities being me." Charlie winced. "Olivia and Alex are law enforcement; I'm sure they could track him down using that name and address and bank account. Once they have him I can get him to set up a deal to 'sell' me to a slave owner, and I'll work my way through the slavery underground until I find her."

Charlie was staring at her with his mouth hanging open. She looked up at him, and she smiled crookedly even though her eyes were worried. "Close your mouth, sweetheart."

Charlie composed his thoughts. "All right. Assuming Alex and Liv can find him; then what? How do you get him to cooperate? Wouldn't he think you died in the fire?"

"No because the newspaper clipping Jennifer saved that told her who I was said that only two bodies were found. So he probably knows that I'm still out here somewhere; he probably thinks some client of his decided he wanted me all to himself and killed my Aunt and Uncle, burned the cabin to look like an accident, and ran away with me. He can't go to the police and report that his property—me—has been stolen, because then he'd be arrested for human trafficking and child prostitution. So he has no idea where I am at the moment."

"How would you get him to cooperate?"

"He's facing a lot of different charges for a lot of different things. But Alex feels guilty about Shana's disappearance; she thinks, and rightly, that if she hadn't insisted on going back to the Congo, this wouldn't have happened. I'm sure she can work out some sort of deal for him whereby she'll drop or reduce some charges in order to get him to help. Legal blackmail, in other words. I've read the newspaper stories about some of her court cases, she's done it before."

Charlie inspected the logic so far and had to conclude that he couldn't find any holes in it, damn her. "So he'll sell you into slavery? Cam—you barely survived it once. What makes you think you'll survive it again?"

"I'm not fifteen anymore, Charlie, and Shana's taught me a lot about self defense. If I have to I can physically threaten whoever buys me, force them to take me around until I hear something of Shana. If she isn't in the 'circle' I'm sold into, I'll have whoever owns me sell me to someone else—they'll be only too glad to—and go on to a different country, a different circle of slaveowners. And I'll keep doing that until I find her."

"It could take years."

Cam tilted her head. "I don't think so. Look at the facts, Charlie; Shana's going to be sold in Amsterdam; it's one of the largest slave markets in the world, and the one where people with the most money go to get quality slaves. Shana is a very 'good quality' slave, she's physically unique and she's a born fighter. Someone with a lot of money to burn will buy her for an astronomical sum in order to have the an unbeatable fight slave. Whoever buys her is going to be very rich; there are very few people in the world who have that kind of money plus the will to buy slaves. It's not going to be some movie star, they're too much in the public eye, and it would be very hard to hide that sort of thing from the paparazzi. It's going to be some business figure, an international; most likely to be an American, a European, maybe a Middle Eastern sheik, one of China's elite, or a Japanese business tycoon. In other words, the pool of possible buyers isn't as big as you'd think it might be."

"And once you find her, how will you get her out? Both of you are slaves."

"In the mission briefing—they found Alex in the middle of the Congolese jungle using an implanted tracer. I can wear one of those so you all will know where I am and can come and pick us up when I find her."

"And how will we know when you found her?"

"When the tracer stops moving. I won't stop working my way through Europe until I find her, and once I find her I'll stick to her. "

"And how will you do that?"

She spread her hands. "Charlie, look at me. I'm damaged. By slaver standards, I'm damaged meat and not worth much at all except as an appetizer to the main meal." She saw his incomprehension. "Look. For someone to be interested in Shana he—it'll have to be a male—is going to not only be interested in turning her into a sex or fight slave. And you and I both know Shana's going to fight that with everything she has in her. Her buyer won't dare hurt Shana because she's too valuable to scar. So he's going to need a slave who is already damaged, a slave who he can hurt as much as he wants in as many ways as he wants, in order to get Shana to cooperate with whatever he's asking her to do."

"Stop. Stop. I don't want to hear anymore. I got it." There were tears in Charlie's eyes, and his voice was rough with emotion. "Cam, think about this, please, okay? You've been hurt more than any one person should ever have to be. You've been a victim of more than your fair share of pain. Don't do this."

"Can you think of any other way to get Shana back?"

"Well…couldn't Allie and Duke use your trafficker to get in, and then go into the slave market intending to buy Shana? If they don't see her the first time they can keep going back until they do."

"The more times they come back to look without buying any slaves the more suspicious the slavers will get. Eventually they'll just kill the two of them outright and we'll still not be any closer to getting her back. Try again."

Cam looked steadily at him, and he stared at her for a moment, silently, then dropped his eyes. He'd been hearing people around base talking about wanting to go rescue Shana, but every suggestion had been improbable and impractical; everything, from Courtney wanting to go into Amsterdam, guns blazing, to Duke and Allie's quieter 'want to go in and have a look around.' There was no way either suggestion was going to work. The way Cam was talking, this might—it was a long shot and depended on a lot of if's, but if everything went the way Cam was planning, they could get Shana back.

"I don't like it," he said finally. "I really don't like it. But the more I think about it the harder it is for me to find holes in your logic."

"I don't like it either, Charlie," she said slowly, her eyes welling up with tears. "I really don't like it. I killed two people to get out of that life; I never, ever expected to go back into it. The thought…" she shuddered. "The thought of people hurting me like that again makes me want to throw up. I know perfectly well that the moment I reveal my purpose to my buyer I could very well be killed. But Shana is my best friend, Charlie, and I can't…I can't just abandon her. I have to try something. Anything. Even a long shot like this."

"I'm not going to talk you out of it?"
She shook her head. "I've been thinking about it for two weeks, hoping it wouldn't become necessary, but we haven't heard anything and time is running out. Shana's not the kind who will endure captivity for long, Charlie, and on the flip side, a buyer is only going to put up with rebellion from a slave for so long. Shana will never stop fighting, you know that, and it will only be a matter of time before the buyer is going to either get impatient and try something drastic to break her—which will almost certainly hurt scar or permanently cripple her for life—or kill her outright for her defiance and we will never, ever know what happened to her." She swallowed. "Snake Eyes is already suffering so much from her not being here—I look at him and he is in so much pain it hurts just to see him. And I know what Shana's likely going through and I know that wherever she is she's hurting too. And if I can help, I want to."

Charlie looked her consideringly for a long time. In the short time they'd known each other (and the even shorter time since he'd married her) he knew how she could dig in her heels. He knew how stubborn she could be. And while that stubbornness could be damned irritating sometimes, it was a part of her, it was a large part of who she was, and she would probably not have survived her life without it. And he also knew that if he set himself against her on this, she would still go ahead and do it anyway; he could see the conviction in her eyes, the absolute certainty that she was right and she could do this.

"Come on," he said, standing. "Let's go see Clayton."

She stared at him, and this time it was her jaw dropping. "That's it? You're not going to fight me on it?"

"Do you want me to?" he saw the look on her face. "Cam, you already made up your mind about this. And you're stubborn. And even though I tried to poke holes all over your plan, I can't. IF everything goes they way you said, we could get Shana back. It'll be a hefty price to you—"

"I'll pay that price."

"—I knew you'd say that. And as much as I hate the very thought of someone else touching you, hurting you, the fact that you've thought this through means there's not much I can do to stop you. So let's talk to Clayton."

"I want to talk to everyone. Clayton. Flint. Duke. Alex, Liv. Allie. Snake Eyes."

"All right. Let's call a meeting."

There was stunned silence in the conference room as Cam finished outlining her plan. For just a moment. Then the room exploded.

"There is no WAY—" Clayton.

"Absolutely NOT!" Dash.

"Cam, I know you miss Shana but—" Conrad.

"How can you even THINK—" Allie.

"Cam, you're asking me to cut a deal—" Alex.

"How do you know he's still alive—" Liv.

Snake Eyes was silent, not even signing. He seemed totally numb, impervious to the fussing going on around him, a shell of a person sitting there, no reaction, no movement. Like he wasn't even there anymore.

Clayton finally waved them all to silence. "Cam, I can't believe I'm saying this, but—honestly, I can't find any holes in your suggestion." Charlie had interrupted Cam once as she outlined her plan to the Joes, to tell them about the alternative he'd suggested to her plan—and what she'd said in response to that, and how he had concluded that, as much as the entire idea horrified him right down to the bone, he couldn't come up with any alternatives. As much as the very idea horrified all of them, it was the first—and only—feasible suggestion anyone had come up with so far to find Shana.

"It's not going to be easy. Not only for me, but for all of you." Cam let her eyes rove around the table, finally coming to rest on Snake Eyes as he sat, a silent, unmoving black-clad monolith, at the end of the table. Everyone else glanced at him, reflexively; his eyes were blank and he didn't acknowledge their concerned looks. He might as well not have been there. "But…for Shana's sake…and Snake Eyes…we have to try."

"I don't like it," Allie said, tears in her brown eyes as she looked at Cam. "Instead of losing one, we could lose both of you. I don't…I don't like it." But they could sense the reluctant acceptance in her voice, the inevitability.

"Let's backtrack for a moment."Clayton spoke firmly. "The success of this plan rides on a lot of if's. I say Cam goes and gets these ledgers and other documents she found; then Liv, if you can get one of your coworkers to search for this guy—as you said, we don't know if he's still alive, and if he isn't this whole thing could be moot. When you find him, then we'll see what he wants in exchange for help. He could decide not to help us, and without his help, we won't get into the slave market. If he wants some sort of legal consideration in exchange for the help, there's no guarantee that Alex is going to be able to talk her boss into doing whatever it is that he wants. Child prostitution and human trafficking are very serious charges and they may not be willing to cut him a deal. If they don't there's nothing we can do past that point and the plan is scrapped anyway.

"Alex, once you have the DA's approval—yea or nay—then let us know before you talk to that bottomfeeder and whatever sleazebag lawyer he gets. IF—and I'll stress the 'IF'—we get this far we can have another meeting at that time to determine if we actually want to go through with this. Hopefully by that time someone will have come up with something that won't involve such…personal sacrifices… or maybe international authorities will have found her and we'll have her back by them." His tone expressed hope; his eyes didn't. "In the meantime, I want everyone to think long and hard about this. Particularly you, Cam." His voice softened. "Think about it, very hard. You could die doing this and we could lose both of you. If everything goes according to this plan and you want to back out when we reconvene, I will be the first one to applaud the fact that you've come to your senses. Charlie," he said to the big Navajo. "Take her up to her cabin tomorrow and get those papers she wants. I'll give you a day pass to get up there. Stay the night up there if you want. I'll see both of you after Christmas." His eyes said, just in case she never sees her home again.

Charlie nodded understandingly.