I don't even know where to start, Sam thinks exhaustedly. He anxiously scans the area surrounding the front desk before breaking out into a jog towards the first floor suite room that he had dropped Deeks off in. While he runs, Sam can't help but picture multiple bad ending scenarios for Deeks from him completely losing it out in a strange city or the blonde haired, blue eyed man drawing attention from Nahili and any known associates.
"Ok," Sam mutters when he steps into the room. Deeks' duffel bag sits on the lone pillow on the bed with the map placed on top. Sam takes the map in hand and sees that it's the same map that the detective had been clutching earlier in the day except it now had a giant red circle around one of the most prominent buildings in the city- the Sheikh Grand Mosque.
Please tell me that you didn't go on a sight-seeing trip. Sam places the map and begins digging through the duffel bag without a thought. The detective had packed everything that Sam had seen in the bag back in los Angeles except for one thing- a Samsung tablet.
"What the hell?" Sam mutters. He turns on the tablet to see an article on Khalid Nahili. "Deeks, when in the hell did you have time to get…" He quickly quiets when he peers down at the screen at the highlighted phrase, according to the local community, Nahili makes a private appearances at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque on Fridays.
"Today's Friday. Damn it!" Sam bolts out the door and begins sprinting towards the front door. I'm going to kill him.
½ mile away from the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
Deeks can't help but feel a bit impressed with himself.
He can barely form sentences without wanting to cry out in pain and has about 20 minutes worth of knowledge on Arab culture and yet Deeks has managed to make it five blocks from the clinic without drawing attention. He wears dark shades, a brown scarf and a black cap to cover his blonde locks. With his backpack slung over his shoulder and a digital camera in hand, Deeks looks nothing more than a simple tourist.
As he makes his way down the street towards the mosque, Deeks stops every few minutes and takes a picture of the crowd and the buildings around him. It's mostly for the surveillance he plans to do at the mosque, but also for his personal collection. Abu Dhabi has a unique mystery and wonder to the detective, so much that he makes a mental note- I have to catch up with everyone else on this world.
His eyes soon fall on the mosque- the white marble stone that coats the towering domes takes his breath away. Deeks stands less than a mile from the popular, historic mosque. In the plaza half a block away, a few groups of tourists and worshipers move around the plaza, either to explore the stunning mosque or to worship with family and friends.
Deeks holds his camera up and begins taking a countless amount of pictures as he nears the temple. He crosses the street and smiles at the towering dome to his right. There's a brief second where Deeks forgets that Sidarov had broken his spirit a few days ago, he's in a country with a man that barely trusts him and that there's a nuclear weapon out in the world. In that brief second, he's a regular tourist- a future agent- who wouldn't mind bringing his partner on the trip she owes him.
"Excuse me."
Deeks turns his head and sees a tall Middle Eastern man in a suit standing behind him. The detective steps back and holds up his camera in fake confusion. The man points at Deeks' camera him and asks in barely understandable English, "You take pictures?"
Deeks' heart rate triples when he sees two similar men a few feet away looking suspiciously at him. He can't seem to find the words or his charm that had gotten him out of hundreds of incidents during cases, arguments, dates, and oddly, many parking tickets. For the first time ever in his life, Deeks is speechless and scared.
"You not understand? You take pictures?" The man in the suit repeats.
I can't breathe. I can't breathe. What do I say? The detective's hands are shaking, his heart is about to burst, and his mouth is dry. "Umm…"
"Max, there you are!"
Deeks anxiously looks to his left to see Sam walking towards him with a cellphone in one hand and the map that he had left on the bed in the other. Sam is calm, relaxed and even chuckling as he puts an arm around Deeks' shoulders and points to a random building on the map. "I told you that this road would lead to the mosque and not the restaurant. Oh, who are you talking to?" Sam exclaims while looking up to the man in front of Deeks.
"I…..I…."
"Is there a problem?" Sam asks in perfect Arabic.
"I just wanted him to take a picture of me at the mosque. Proof for the wife that I'm here," the man laughs, also in Arabic.
"Actually, we can't. I'm an assistant with an international partner travel program and this guy here got lost," Sam says, "We have to catch up with our group at a restaurant, but I'm sure there's someone nearby that can do that for you. Thank you."
"Sor-ry," Deeks stammers before Sam steers him back towards the street and the clinic. Although Sam maintains the smile on his face, the grip he keeps on Deeks' shoulders shows his anger. "Sam?"
"Don't speak," Sam growls under his breath, "Look as casual as possible."
You are cutting off the circulation around my neck, Deeks thinks, grimacing in pain. "Ouch."
"Ouch? I had to sprint five blocks to find my partner who I had left with very strict instructions to stay at the clinic," Sam growls. He holds up a hand to wave down a cab. "You can barely talk and you have a serious case of PTSD. What made you think that you could go on a walk?"
"Surveillance?"
"You aren't here for surveillance! Give me the camera," Sam demands. He takes the camera from the detective's hands and to prove a point and because of his curiosity; he quickly clicks through the photos, expecting no more than a few shots of the mosque. What he finds is beautiful shots of the mosque and clear faces of nearly a dozen bystanders, including the three men in suits from earlier.
"How did you get these?" Sam asks in wonder. Deeks shrugs and looks over to a cab slowly pulling up to them against the curb.
"Especially your photo guy? These are really good, Deeks," Sam pauses to see Deeks avoiding eye contact. The SEAL hates that he can't tell if it's either because of the apology, the photos or because of the panic attack that he knows Deeks will deny.