Chapter 41: Base

I found her…

Charlie almost stopped breathing. The mental whisper had been so faint that he could have sworn it was just wishful thinking if he hadn't been dreamwalking, sitting on the floor of the quarters he shared with Cam, thinking about her as he let his mind hover in the semi-conscious state between awake and asleep. It was one of the things he was adept at doing, as a Navajo shaman and medicine man and that Cam herself had a little skill in as an Iroquois medicine woman-in-training.

He closed his eyes, tried to refocus after his heart gave that first, wild leap at hearing her voice. She was such an integral part of him, of his life and who he was, that now he couldn't imagine a life without her. He didn't know what he'd do without her. The arrangements she'd made with her tribe had ripped his heart out; she'd been preparing for the eventuality that she wouldn't be coming back; she knew perfectly well that there was a chance—there was always a chance—that she wouldn't. They all knew that.

After a moment he opened his eyes and sighed. If that had been Cam—and he was almost certain that it was—then he would take it on faith that she was now with Shana, that she'd found Shana. Since Allie and Conrad had only gotten back that morning—and looked like they hadn't slept a wink in the time they'd been gone—it was a good bet she'd found Shana at the Amsterdam market.

He uncurled his limbs smoothly from where he'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor and stood, stretching and working the kinks out of his back one by one as he thought. He'd heard Allie and Conrad talking about Snake Eyes and how he'd inexplicably woken up from a dream about Shana with bleeding wrists; he'd wondered at the time if Snake Eyes wasn't subconsciously dreamwalking himself and not knowing it; now would be as good a time as any to go and face the man with this bit of knowledge.

He knew where Snake Eyes was—everyone on base knew where he'd been spending his days. Shana's quarters. Not hiding from all of them, despite what some of the recruits were saying about having their hand-to-hand instructor suddenly absent from the class—Flint had taken over that particular class, though he wasn't as good an instructor as Snake Eyes and Shana were. No, contrary to what the recruits thought, he wasn't hiding; he was trying to stay as close as possible to the things that mattered most to her, to the one place Shana was most familiar with, trying to wrap himself in the remnants of her life.

Well, maybe he could give Snake Eyes some hope.

He dug around in a drawer for some bundles of herbs, a lighter, some incense, then changed into traditional Navajo shamanic clothing and left the room. He carried everything to Shana's room door, ignoring the startled glances the recruits shot his way; the regular Joes, accustomed to see in him striding around base in half-native half Army garb, simply nodded and gave him some respectful room. Even Frank Talltree, Charlie's Navajo brother, gave Charlie one appraising look then shrugged and let him pass. He continued walking until he got to Shana's room door, then knocked three times. When there was no answer from inside, he knocked once, again, then stepped in.

Snake Eyes looked up from where he was sitting on the floor of the room, and Charlie winced. He looked like he wasn't sleeping or eating well; his eyes had a lost, haunted look to them, his hair looked like it hadn't been combed in days, and he hadn't showered or shaved in a very long time either. Life, for him, seemed to have just suddenly stopped; the fact that his hair grew and he had the beginning of a beard growing because he hadn't shaved was the only indicator that time had passed at all for him.

Charlie squatted on his haunches in front of Snake Eyes as the other man dropped his head and his eyes again. "Snake Eyes."

Snake Eyes looked up slowly, and it was like looking into the eyes of a man with no soul. There was nothing behind his eyes except a lost, anguished emptiness, and Charlie sighed. "I heard Allie and Conrad talking the other day about you waking up from some very vivid dreams of Shana with matching wounds. Is this true?" not that he needed a response to that question; though Snake Eyes was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, Charlie could see a peek of white bandaging around the other man's wrists.

Slowly, Snake Eyes brought his hands up and signed. Doc didn't say it but he thinks I'm crazy. Said I should talk to Psyche-Out.

It was the first form of communication that they'd had from Snake Eyes in a long time; over the past week he'd seemed more ghost than person. A small victory, but one that Charlie would take, nonetheless. There was still a living person in there somewhere.

"I know you're not crazy." Snake Eyes raised his head, and there was a faint spark of hope down inside his eyes. "What you're describing is something we shamans call dreamwalking, where the mind casts itself out on the pathways of dreams and can experience another's dreams as if it was their own. Only I don't think you're experiencing Shana's dreams, I think her conscious mind is being subdued, somehow, probably with the drugs that we saw in the medical lab back in the Congo and because of the close connection the two of you have, you're able to slip into her mind in some way and know what she's experiencing. It usually happens during sleep, but since you're experienced with meditation and far-east martial arts practices, some of which aren't all that different from Native American shamanic practices, I thought maybe I could show you how to achieve the same connection while awake and conscious, thereby able to control it."

Snake Eyes' eyes widened. I'm not crazy? There is such a thing? Doc told me it was just wishful thinking.

"There is such a thing. The white man's medicine doesn't cover everything, and Doc doesn't know everything. Are you willing to give it a try?"

Snake Eyes thought about that for a moment. Yes, he finally signed, and Charlie hoped that they'd be successful; there was hope in Snake Eyes expression and body language for the first time in weeks.

"You and Shana spent a lot of time in the dojo, correct? We need a place where both of you have strong emotional ties, both to each other and to the place, and where you've spent a lot of physical time. I'd do it here since you two were here most of the time—I've heard Court and Allie whispering about the sounds coming from this room." Snake Eyes blushed—blushed!—but signed, we spent a lot of time in the dojo. We'd…go there for some privacy when Allie or Courtney was…entertaining.

That was a little more than Charlie actually needed to know, but at least he knew that Shana and Snake Eyes both had the requisite ties to the physical location of the dojo. "Come with me. I'm going to show you how to slip into the trance that will let you consciously control your dreamwalking."

Snake Eyes got up and followed Charlie out of the room. They passed Allie, just coming out of her room; she did a double take, staring at Charlie and the back of Snake Eyes' head, but Charlie gave his head a tiny, negative shake; Allie just stood and watched them vanish around the corner toward the rec and gym levels.

They sat in the middle of the dojo, cross legged; Charlie placed the incense burner on the floor and lit the end of an incense stick, then quickly blew out the flame at the end and let the scented end glow. The smell of a pine woods filled the dojo, a scent both sharp and refreshing at the same time, and Snake Eyes looked at Charlie in surprise and pleasure. "You have a cabin in the California mountains, I know that, so the pinewood smell will remind you of open air and the mountains. It'll help you relax. Cam's tribe lives in the middle of the pine woods in western New York on the Canadian border; so the scent of pine brings her a lot of good memories with it too. Now, close your eyes. Breathe in deeply and try to clear your mind. Let yourself drift. I know you and Shana meditate in here so I know you can do this. Close your eyes, let your mind drift, and try not to think of anything. Let your mind go completely blank."

Charlie tried to keep his voice low, soothing; as he finished speaking he began to chant, and old Navajo prayer that was more a focus of intent that it was a plea for spiritual guidance. He didn't want guidance on this, their intent was to find a way to reach their soulmates, wherever they were, somewhere on the other side of the world.

He swayed slightly with the chant; something he did unconsciously. There was no one true way to do this, and every shaman had their own unique ways of reaching the dream paths.

He could feel himself slipping onto the paths, and despite his resolution to keep an eye on Snake Eyes, he simply couldn't help himself anymore and he slipped into the trance. Once here, on the dreampaths, he could see the shining silver thread that stretched from him to Cam, the thread that bound their souls together; the thread through which he could feel her emotions and get some vague sense of her physical condition.

She was asleep, but only lightly; her conscious mind was still too active for him to slip past the interference and settle into her subconscious. It was harder when someone was awake because their conscious mind sent up a wave of white noise that interfered with the subconscious; the dreampaths could be more easily reached through the subconscious and it took a lifetime of dedication and training to be able to access them consciously.

That wasn't what he was aiming for; he needed to know if she was alive, and if she'd found Shana. He sensed another presence beside him, and he 'saw' with his mind's eye Snake eyes joining him on the dreampaths. So the ninja master could make it, then—and although he couldn't see their bond himself, the way Snake eyes seemed to be following a path indicated that he and Shana had the same threads between then as Charlie and Cam did.

They both traveled on parallel paths, Charlie becoming more and more convinced that he and Snake Eyes really were heading for the same 'place' on the dream plane. And then it was confirmed as he heard the first murmur of Cam's mind ahead, as he saw the expression on Snake Eyes's face as he 'felt' Shana in front of him too.

And then a huge vibration shuddered down the thread, and Charlie felt off-balance for a moment. Cam was being woken, shaken awake roughly, and if something happened to him while he was here on the dreampaths, he would never come back to his body. So he grabbed Snake Eyes and towed him backwards, swiftly, until with a shocking suddenness, they both opened their eyes and found themselves back in the dojo, sitting there blinking in the light. The incense stick had burned to a thin line of ash on its holder, and Charlie felt every muscle and sinew complaining and stiff.

Snake Eyes was blinking dazedly; it was some time before he could finally bring his hands up to sign. Is that what it's supposed to be like?

"Yeah, that's it. You got the hang of it."

It was incredible. I could see this shining thread coming out of me and heading away, and I just felt that if I followed it I would find her. And we got close, and I felt her, I could hear her thoughts. I could almost see her, a glowing light at the end of a dark tunnel, but there was something…I don't know, off, like it was here but there was a cloud or mist covering her, preventing me from really getting to her.

"I think that's the drugs. They are probably keeping her very heavily drugged to make sure she stays compliant and easy to handle. As soon as they realize that threatening Cam will get Shana to follow their demands, they're going to ease off on the drugs and it might be possible for you to finally reach her. For now, though, I'm tired and I'm hungry. Will you come with me to the mess and eat?"

For just a moment Charlie thought Snake Eyes might say yes, then the ninja shook his head. And Charlie sighed and folded his arms. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm not going to give you an option. When Cam's tracer stops moving and we go out to get the girls, they are both going to need us to be in good enough physical condition to help them get through whatever has been done to them. So you are coming with me to the mess hall to eat. It's Friday, I know what they serve on Fridays, and I've seen you eat with Shana on enough Fridays that I can tell the servers what you like and what you don't so you don't have to even put the tray down. So get up and come on."

Snake Eyes got up meekly and went.

Hawk stared at Allie and Duke as they put the duffel bag in the desk in front of him, opened it, took out a smaller briefcase, and opened that too. Inside were wads of Euros. "What the…what's this?"

"The money that 'Master Singletary' got for selling Cam." Allie bit the words out with a viciousness that surprised Hawk; she rarely ever got this angry. "Ten thousand dollars."

"T—ten…thousand…dollars?" Hawk couldn't wrap his head around that amount of money, Okay, yes he could, but not in conjunction with the idea of how much it would cost to buy a person. It seemed like a lot of money, but when you thought about what an actual person—thoughts, feelings, experiences, all the interpersonal connections that that one person had with so many other people—ten thousand didn't even begin to equate to what he thought a human being should be worth. "I…I…what do we do with it?" It didn't feel…right…somehow, for him to add it to the Joes' funds.

"Burn it!" Allie snapped, and as he looked at her, surprised again at the hard, angry edge in her voice, he realized that the anger was masking Allie's shock and hurt feelings. She was too pale, her eyes too wide, and he realized that as hard as it was on them watching Cam, Conrad and Allie leave, it had to have taken every ounce of effort and will both Conrad and Allie had to turn away and leave Cam there—knowing about her past and what she was likely going to experience while she was out there looking for Shana—had to have been one of the hardest things his two battle-hardened, seasoned soldiers had ever done.

"Don't…don't burn it." Conrad swallowed hard, trying to be stoic, trying to be a good soldier, but Hawk wondered what was going on in his head, wondered if Conrad was going to have nightmares that night. "It's blood money, yes, but…it's Cam's money, it was her sale. Add it to her pay for doing this, for being willing to go in there and do this, and Jesus, Hawk, you have no idea what its like there. My God, I never knew stuff like this still happened, if it wasn't for the clothes I would have thought we were still back in Colonial America in the slave days. There is no difference between colonial slavery and modern day slavery, absolutely nothing different between buying and selling people then and buying and selling people now. It's an abomination. We are supposed to be civilized, we're supposed to have progressed beyond all of this!"

Hawk felt a little more guilt settle on his shoulders at the haunted looks in Conrad and Allie's eyes. "We are supposed to but we aren't. If it makes you feel any better, once we have Cam and Shana back I am going to apply pressure to a lot of different agencies and the international community to shut the place down."

"Do that," Allie snapped, and then spun on her heel and stalked out of Hawk's office.

As she approached the door to her own room she saw Courtney coming out of Shana's. When she'd seen Snake Eyes leaving with Charlie earlier, she'd quietly told Courtney to slip in, take care of the laundry and change the sheets and pillows on the bed, which Courtney had apparently done, by the thumbs up the blond gave her as she disappeared down the hall toward the laundry with an armful of bedding. Allie swallowed the lump in her throat, then pushed open the door to her room, walked in without even turning the light on, and closed it behind her. Only then did she lean her back against the door and give in to the sobs that wracked her body.

Gentle hands reached for her shoulders, picked her up as if she were a child, and crushed her to a broad chest. She didn't even have to ask who it was; she knew whose fatigues felt rough under her cheek, knew who was hugging her so tightly, and she let go of all the pain and anguish and guilt and loathing she'd been carrying around for the last few days as they traveled back to New York from Amsterdam. "Oh, God, Dash," she sobbed, and then couldn't find words. There was nothing she could say, nothing he could do except hold her and hug her and try to comfort her as best he could.

"How do people do this, Dash?" she finally whispered, her eyes burning and red from crying, her voice harsh from the lump in her throat. "How do you buy and sell a person like…like clothes in a store, like picking out apples in a grocery store? What kind of sick freak would buy and sell a person and force that person to do something against her will?"

There was nothing Dash could say to that, so he didn't even try; he just held her as she cried, finally lying down with her on her bed as her anguished crying gave way to exhausted sleep, then he twitched the covers over both of them and cradled her in his arms. Hang the rules. He wasn't leaving Allie tonight.