By the time Dalton reaches the room, the only evidence that Jaz was ever there is a few droplets of drying blood on the floor and her gun tossed haphazardly near the window she would have been perched at. McGuire has beat him to the spot, but he was also too slow - somehow, they had managed to detain and get Jaz out of there in a matter of minutes without being caught. These weren't just opportunistic kidnappers: clearly, they had some skill and stake in the matter to risk their own lives and get in and out of their without detection.
"God damnit," Dalton hisses, crouching down near the droplets of blood. There isn't too much which he knows is a good sign - it's likely Jaz isn't bleeding out from her wounds, something that could be catastrophic without proper medical treatment - but he's been in the world of war long enough to know that just because someone isn't bleeding, doesn't mean something can't be life threatening. Jaz was tough: there were few things that could make her scream like he heard over the mic, and Dalton's mind was actively compiling a series of images of the worst possible situations, doing little to ease his rising anxiety. "Her mic has gone silent, too."
McGuire nods from above him and spares a glance out the window. He sees no movement, no sign of Jaz or the rest of the team for that matter.
"Don't know how they got away, Cap," he says, absently scratching his beard. "No sign of anybody out there - unless they're camped out somewhere inside here."
Dalton shakes his head and pushes himself from his crouched position on the ground. "There's - what, 15 floors? And dozens of rooms on each floor?" The building is an abandoned office building, left to rot in the old industrial city. Too big for two people to ever clear in a timely matter, no matter how skilled they were. "No way we can clear it all without knowing what way they've headed. They'll wait until we are occupied to make their escape if they haven't yet."
The whole time, the voices on the other end of the mic had been quiet. Dalton, Noah, Campbell - they've all been listening closely but refusing to interrupt in the search until their intervention seems necessary. As Dalton and McGuire stand in the empty room without their teammate and without a plan, Director Campbell thinks it's a good time to make their presence known.
"Adam?" She knows he can hear him but wants to make it clear that it is him she intends to speak directly to him. "We've reviewed the drone footage from before the raid and after: we can't see any movement around the building other than your team. These guys either have an alternate way in or know the blindspots."
"Did you get anything from Jaz's mic?" Dalton recalls the muffled voices he heard before the mic was turned off, but they were drowned out by the background noise and Jaz's own responses. Back in DC, he hoped they would have the right equipment to isolate and analyze the voices. "I know they asked her some questions or something."
"We're working on it, but nothing solid yet." This time, it's Hannah's voice. "They sound Russian, but there is no recognition within the system of the specific voices."
"Do you have anything for us then?" It comes out harsher than Dalton intended, snappy and accusatory.
He doesn't know who the sigh comes from on the other end of the mic, but it is Director Campbell who responds next. "Dalton, it's a fluid case. Whoever has Jaz kept her alive for a reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's someone your team has encountered before. We're waiting for any sort of contact from them to see if we can get naked and a location. For now, Dalton, you get the rest of your team together and get your target on the plane back to us."
Frustration was seeping further into Dalton's bones.
Realistically, he knew Jaz had to be close; she's was probably within walking distance from them, close enough to hear if she yelled at the top of her lungs, but they couldn't get her. McGuire seemed to sense his growing anger and took a slow walk over to his side of the room, offering a comforting pat on the his shoulder. Dalton knew better than to be bitter - he wasn't the only one affected if something happened to Jaz. She wasn't the same to everyone in the team, but she was something to them all.
Her and McGuire were too easy-going for their own good when they were together. It seemed as if they were eternally bouncing jokes off each other at the team's expense. Preach was protective over her, somewhere between a father and an older brother regardless of how confident he was that she could protect herself. At first, he doubted that she would ever come to accept Amir; he couldn't blame her for the bitterness she held, still upset by the loss of her former best friend. Yet, even that morphed into something more along the way: something that happened in Paris had apparently cleared the air between the two, and since then they had been acting like old friends.
If someone asked him what Jaz was to him, Dalton would have trouble pinning it down.
They were, first of all, partners. She was often the one by his side in missions, whether it be linking arms as they patrolled city streets posed as a couple or spotting together from a concealed window. In those situations, he trusted her with his life.
And then there was something else layered on top of it all. Friends, of course - but something more. It was blurred around the edges, a constant unsure, but comfortable, tension that existed between them. Sometimes it was him that initiated it, but most of the time it was her; she seemed to realize that he was too closed off to be the one to act upon any whims. While she certainly had control of her actions and her emotions, she was willing to risk more than Dalton was. It was something he felt like he needed in the darkest of moments: a little light in their sometimes dismal profession.
At that moment, he knows there is little he can do that will help the situation. He has no choice but to comply with Campbell's directions and situate their original target. For now, he had to wait.