Liara led the way to her cabin. Jade kept her peace until the door was closed and locked.
"What do you know?" She demanded once Liara was seated.
"Only what was in the reports," Liara began. "It seems that there was a huge section, mostly surrounding your involvement, that was purged from official records and, since the invasion has cut off all access to the original files, I was hoping you could fill in a few holes. Like what exactly 'Typhon' was. All I could dig up are a few declassified operations reports from nearly two centuries ago and some references to it when I was digging into Cerberus, but it seems to predate that organization, significantly. "
Jade loosed a bark of bitter laughter.
"Typhon Command, I should have known that particular ghost would come back to haunt me," she shook her head. "Christ, it's like a bad penny that keeps turning up. You wanna know about Typhon and Beirut? Then settle in sweetheart, this is going to be a long story.
"I have to start at the beginning. I was never a part of the 24th STS they were just a convenient cover. I was in the Air Force for a while though, just your average cop until I stumbled across the wrong people doing the wrong things and got drummed out when I tried to blow the whistle.
"I'd been out three weeks and was blind drunk when a guy in a suit showed up at my door and offered me a position with Typhon Command. I damn near told him to go fuck himself before my good sense kicked in. I was 22, dishonorably discharged, unemployed, drunk and living in a pay-by-the-hour fleabag motel so, as you can imagine, I jumped at the opportunity. Turns out they were a deep-black organization dedicated to maintaining American superiority. They'd been following the same rabbit trail I had; only it went a lot deeper than I'd ever imagined.
"I took to the work like a fish to water and, let me tell you, it felt good to see the look on that traitorous son of a bitch's face when he recognized me," Jade chuckled darkly at the memory. "Just before I planted a bullet between his eyes. For a few years, things were good. I was part of a solid team and we did good work, important work."
"What kind of work?" Liara asked.
"Assassinations, espionage, a couple of smash-and-grab ops, anything that would help advance American interests." Jade shrugged. "Then Beirut happened. It was supposed to be a simple in and out mission. We were extracting a scientist and some tech from Syria. The guy wanted to defect with his research but couldn't get out on his own. This was my team's specialty and the first bit went smooth as silk."
She chuckled bitterly at that. "I guess that should have tipped me off. Nothing goes as planned. But things didn't go to shit until we were at the safe house in Lebanon, waiting for extraction.
Liara fixed Jade with her unwavering blue gaze. "That's where your team died, isn't it?"
"Not all of them," Jade's voice was low and rough with memory. "Some of them died in Israel, some of them in Turkey. We split up. Tracking eight people with changing identities and itineraries is harder to do than just looking for an eight person team."
The late afternoon sun poured cheerily through the streets giving everything a golden glow, the kind only seen in romance movies and Thomas Kincade paintings. Jade had been out at the market, simultaneously reinforcing their cover as a pair of German honeymooners and checking for any enemies who may have followed them from Syria.
Satisfied they were in the clear, Jade mounted the steps, whistling their signal and wondering if she could convince Joe to skip straight to the dessert tonight. Tomorrow there would be debriefings and they'd have to pick Ana up from his sister's. This would likely be the only time they'd have to themselves for a while. She smiled and stopped for a moment in the kitchen to slip her underwear off. Joe could never resist her when he knew she was "going commando."
She padded to the living room calling his name and stopped dead in her tracks. Joe was on his knees and five men were standing in the room, armed to the teeth.
Jade forced herself back to the present, and met Liara's eyes.
"I can't honestly remember how I escaped the ambush on our safe house, all I know is when my memories finally pick up it's five days later and my left arm is so mangled they had to amputate it below the elbow."
Jade squeezed the hand in question into a fist and held it up for Liara to see.
"It seems Cerberus did a bit more than just revive you and fit you with a translator, doesn't it?" Liara asked, looking at the limb.
"Oh honey, that's not the half of it," Jade chuckled darkly. "I used to be six-inches shorter. And, apparently there's a massive something fused to my spine that the Doc can't figure out what it's supposed to do."
"Goddess."
"I know, right?"