>GRU-UMBRA SAFEHOUSE
>JULY.5.2019
>1000HRS...///

Laine opened the door to the woman’s bunk room quietly, resisting the urge to be petulant and slam it. He was not the only one under stress, she thought then shook her head. It sounded like her mother, everything about her, [I]her[/I] suffering was always worse. Her mother never put aside her own hurt and she hated when she saw that in herself acting in that manner. 

Laine breathed out loudly and then noticed the small lump in the bunk opposite of her bed. Wild curls of red sprouted out of the blanket like some delicate moss and Laine closed the door. She sat down on her own bunk and put her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes then sat up and said, “Ava? Ms Moore, it’s time to wake up.” 

At least now she had an excuse to hide from the embarrassment she felt at her sharp critical comment tossed at Donnelley. “They might have eaten all your donuts.”

“Mm,” Ava grumbled under her blanket and one hand emerged to slap around for her phone. She found it resting next to her head on the bed and moved the blanket aside to speak into the phone. “Alfred, is coffee ready?” She asked it, her voice croaking with grogginess. 

Her sleep fogged eyes blinked as her mind sluggishly took in her blurred surroundings. “Oh, right.” She dropped her phone back on the thin mattress and rubbed her eyes. 

Laine gave her a bemused smile, “Alfred? Are you expecting your butler, Batman?” 

“There’s a Keurig in the kitchen,” she added, then stretched her long legs out, crossing her arms under her chest.  

Ava groaned and covered her face with her hands, from both waking up and embarrassment. “Sorry, Alfred is my home assistant.” She said, taking a moment to stretch before sitting herself upright. Her hair fluffed up around her head like a cloud, wild corkscrew curls and waves of red and copper colored strands sticking up in odd directions. “Good morning.” She said around a yawn, her hand reaching back to pick up her glasses also beside her pillow. 

She afixed the glasses to her face so she could see and turned bleary eyes to her roommate. “Dr. Laine, right?” She asked and moving the blanket aside to plop her feet over the edge of the bed, revealing the pink plaid sweat pants she wore as well as an overly large white t-shirt with the NASA logo over a pink, lilac and periwinkle nebula. 

“Yes,” she replied, watching her then reached for her blazer that hung on the chair, taking out a black pack of cloves, shifting her hips up to stuff them in the pocket of her tight jeans but kept the lighter in her hand. She was still casually dressed, her black ink tattoos bold on her pale skin and she knew she probably did not look much like a Bureau agent. “Heather Laine, Feeb. I’m a psychologist with the BAU. Which, by the way, I’m sorry about leaving those crime scene photos out, I was preoccupied. I know they’re graphic.” 

Laine clicked the lid of the cheap metallic lighter back and forth, the imitation zippo somehow had lasted more than a month. She watched Ava, noting the dried drool on her chin. She slept hard. 

“Oh,” Ava grimaced and pushed her glasses up to grind the heel of her palm into her eye as the images of the skinned corpse flashed through her mind. It technically wasn’t her first time seeing a flayed body, but it didn’t make it any less stomach lurching. “It’s alright, it looked like you were working so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Feeling the dried drool cracking on her chin as she spoke, she turned her head slightly to try and rub it away.

“It’s not alright, you’re here to do computers not dig into that,” Laine replied, then stood up, clicking the lighter again. “We’ll probably have a briefing soon, then figure out what we’ll do. Listen, I’m expecting a call but my previous plans fell...”

Her thoughts flashed to Laurie, dead Laurie. Dead cocky Laurie with his damn Rubick’s cube. She felt unexpected tears prick her eyes and she glanced at Gwen’s blue duffel bag on the footlocker. They were gone and not coming back but Frank Wilkins still needed her help. 

“Do you know how to make fake IDs? False identity, disappear a man’s virtual trail and build him another?” She asked, palming the lighter to keep from fidgeting with it. 

Ava put her glasses back on her face and gave her a curious look. “I do, it was part of what I did for The Program back at the CIA headquarters.” She looked at Laine closely and bit her lip for a moment before asking, “Are you...okay? Things seemed a little chaotic last night…” She let the sentence trail off as she realized ‘a little chaotic’ was a bit of an understatement. 

Laine huffed a laugh and flicked her lighter’s cap again, slapping it down hard, “I’ll be alright, I am just trying to get back to understanding what the hell is going on. I thought I might then last night happened. I’m not sure what it was but something was in the woods with the men, something that killed Ranger Mathieu and Airman Weissman. I don’t know how much you know, Ava but something is really rotten in Blackriver County. We’re here to clean it up but we hardly know which way is up, now.” 

She glanced at the folder on the small table beside her bunk, “But when you’re lost, the best thing is to figure out where you went off the path, go back to familiar ground. Right? I don’t know, I never was much of a hiker, but it sounds good to me.” 

Ava stared at her with wide eyes as she processed the new information and fit it into the context of last night. No wonder everyone was so jumpy, if someone or something attacked them and killed two of their own, she couldn’t blame them.

“I’m sorry you lost two teammates.” She said, her eyes sympathetic. “And I'm afraid I don’t know much of anything.” She admitted with a wincing squint of her eyes. “I was told to come here and Foster said my job was to assist UMBRA however I can. He didn’t delve into any other specifics just ‘get to work’.” She shrugged and then motioned to Laine’s bed. “But, given your credentials and the pictures, I’m guessing you’re investigating a homicide?”

Laine nodded, tucking a lock of short black hair behind her ear, the silver skull earring winking in the overhead light, “We did, it was something I don't know could have been avoided but tragic nonetheless. And yes, a body was discovered, also in the mountains of the State Park. She was skinned, mutilated and has yet to be identified. I have sent dental and DNA to the lab and we’re waiting to see who our Jane Doe is, in the meantime, the man who found her. Who...well, he said someone showed him, he didn’t see him but heard the voice. Anyway, he found the body and now he’s shit scared and wants to get out of town.” 

She gestured to the manila folder under her arm, “He’s afraid, things are very closed off around here. Even more than one might expect in a small town and he isn’t a local dude. We need to get Wilkins moved, I promised I would try and the plan we had with Park Ranger Mathieu died with him. We need to wipe his existence, there never was a Frank Wilkins, you know?” 

Ava nodded, her brows knitting together with thought as she mentally went over what to do to help this witness. “I think I can pull that off.” She said with another small nod. “I can’t really say I blame him for wanting to leave after experiencing...that. How scrubbed clean do you need this to be? Just this town and this county level? Or State or even Federal level?” She asked, her tone taking on a faint note of steady confidence as they shifted to talking about her work. “Does he have any family he could go to? Outside of Blackriver since you mentioned he’s not a local. There’s also the issue of transportation...He could take my rental car to get out of town, I should be able to change the names around easy enough.”

“I don’t know too much yet,” Laine admitted, “He’s supposed to call me, he saved some important information about a hiker killed a few years back, I suppose in exchange for us coming through with what I promised. I would like to get that information, it could be important. I think he’d like to get as far away as possible, but we’ll talk to him see what he wants. Hopefully he’s calmed down, he was ready to jump out of his skin when I talked to him.”

Laine stopped, curling her lips in a grimace, “Sorry, bad choice of words.” 

Her attention went back to Ava, still sitting on her bunk in her pajamas. “Look, I’m throwing this all on your lap before you’ve even got out of bed. Why don’t you go shower and get ready, we can continue our discussion. I need to smoke anyway.” 

“Oh,” Ava glanced down at herself and the confident, professional expression slipped away to be replaced with one of mild embarrassment and she flashed a sheepish smile. “Right, that’s probably a good idea.”

Laine noticed her reaction of embarrassment and recalled her anxiety as she tried to both help and be out of the way last night. And the way she had been greeted by the team, at gunpoint, it was no wonder she had been a bundle of nerves. Laine gave her an encouraging smile, “Totally my fault. I’ll leave you a fresh towel in the bathroom, better get a shower before Dave. He’ll probably leave it full of dirt, poor guy. ” 

She added quickly lest Ava think she was somehow usurping the shower privilege, “He’s eating and talking with Donnelley, that’ll take him some time.” 

“Okay, thank you.” She nodded with a smile, pushing herself up to her feet and looking up at Laine. “Donnelley is the man that was wounded in the leg, right?” She asked, wincing at the memory of Jason stitching the man up on the coffee table. “Is he going to be okay? There’s that artery in the leg and something tells me hospitals aren’t really an option for us.”

At her question, Laine nodded, the flush rising in her face from shame at how she had snapped at him. He had been wounded and she remembered the strain of worry as she drove those dark roads that he might be dead by the time she got to the cabin. What would they do without his guidance here, without the familiar chain smoking leader guiding them into the unknown. And what would she have felt if he had been lost, what could have been lost that was only a fragile ghost of a spark right now. Not wanting to dwell on that, she shook her head slightly and looked back at Ava, “If it had hit the femoral artery he probably wouldn’t have made it, even with a tourniquet and Jason’s help. And you’re right, we can’t trust anyone that’s not under this roof out here in Blackriver. I’m learning this so you might as well get a head start.” 

She took out the black package of Djarums and packed them, absently smacking the box against her hand. Donnelley and his bad leg, he would not be able to lead the tactical team. It would probably fall to Tom, even though he had been wounded she had seen the blood on his cheek but had no idea how bad as he had gone to bed without a word. It was not something she should worry about, she reminded herself. You’re not the babysitter of UMBRA. 

“Right, I’m gonna grab a smoke, enjoy your shower,” Laine said, turning to head to the door. 

“Thank you-oh!” Ava perked up and held up her hand slightly. “This might be weird, but I think you mentioned everyone eating the donuts I brought? Could you set one of the maple bar donuts aside for me? In case both boxes get eaten?” 

Laine huffed a soft laugh, “Sure, and it’s not weird to want to save yourself your favorite donut. I’ll put one aside if there’s any left. Want me to save you some bacon and eggs?”

Ava nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, that’d be great, thank you Dr. Laine.”

“No problem,” Laine said, heading out the door and though she had hoped to bypass the kitchen she had the donut promise to fulfill. 

Ava watched her leave, her mind buzzing with questions she wanted to ask the FBI psychologist. Questions that Foster had sparked after what he told her about Laine and Seattle. 

She kept them to herself though, for now. She may not be very socially savvy but she knew you didn't ask such prying and personal questions after just meeting a person. No matter much she wanted to know.

Letting out a breath she started gathering up her clothes and toiletries.


[hr]

[SIT DOWN WITH FOSTER: DONNELLEY, DAVE, PARI]

[hr]

Once the team had assembled, Foster and Donnelley took their places at the front of the room. Dressed in a suit for Foster and business casual for Donnelley. A salmon dress shirt and gray slacks, brown leather belt and oxfords. He scanned the faces from behind his ray ban style sunglasses, like before. Some, he’d grown to know, others not yet. And some were missing. He sighed, crossing his arms tighter and trying his best to slip back into that stoney leadership role. Foster stood and he opened the briefing once everybody looked settled, “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” He nodded, “We have a couple new faces here, make them feel like part of the team, but make no mistake. We’re hitting the ground running on this case today.”

“Two days ago, we made decent headway on the Jane Doe found in the woods. Potential leads and a good direction to take for the rest of the case. Thanks to Doctor Laine and her resources,” Foster gestured to the woman, “We have a way forward in ID’ing the Jane Doe and a lead from the toxicology reports consisting of very niche drugs in her system. Evidence found on… [i]on[/i] the Jane Doe as well have convinced me to treat this as part of a bigger case some of you may be familiar with. Black Slabs.”

“Because of this, I have called in Parinaaz Bhatt of the FBI to consult for her expertise and experience. Likewise, a new transfer brought us Avaline Moore of Booz-Allen Hamilton to handle our technology, and…” Foster pursed his lips at Dave, “Uh, David MacCready. He will supplement the tactical team, his skills will be important and needed, knowing how these things sometimes go. I’ve put in a request to transfer you from BLACKBEARD to UMBRA.”

He addressed the man personally, then turned his attention back to the bigger picture, “In the meantime, valuable intelligence has been gained and is yet to be gained. Laine has an asset in the NPS willing and ready to give us information on the state of Blackriver and its authorities. David Dulane is a potential source of information and we’ll set up a visit to the facility he’s being kept at.” Foster looked to Donnelley, “We also have valuable equipment to recover. Donnelley will be handling that in the meanwhile. Due to concerns about security, Tom and Justin will be holding the fort here with me.”

“As for today, Jason, Laine, and Donnelley will be awaiting the call from Ranger Frank Wilkins and meeting with David Dulane. David, Ava, Pari,” he nodded at the three, “I’d like you to meet with Detective Maryanne Roy of the State CID over in Charleston. See if we can get information on local dealers and suppliers in the Charleston area.”

He gestured to Jason and Donnelley, “When you two get a chance, I’d like to speak to you as well. That’s for later. For now, everybody, focus on those objectives given for the day.” Foster brushed aside the bottom of his suit jacket to place his hands on his hips, “Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Jason said from the back. Sometime late in the morning he had roused himself from a dreamless sleep and without much banter went straight into the meeting after guzzling down some coffee. Foster’s mention of him did a lot more than the coffee was currently doing in waking him up. “You mentioned rare substances in Jane’s system. What was it and would local dealers be able to get their hands on it?”

“It’s pretty damn niche.” Foster nodded, “What was it?”

“Midazolam… and Propofol. Conscious sedation. Ain’t heard of anybody asking for those to have fun.” Donnelley frowned. “The killer didn’t want her to move. Didn’t give a shit if she could feel it though. Whoever supplies that is gonna be few and far between. Whoever asks for that in Blackriver? Even fewer.”

Dave raised his hand. He’d finally gotten a shower, and had washed his jeans and flannel shirt. “Why don’t we just start askin’ around at pharmacies? Or doctors’ offices? If it’s that hard to get ahold of, then your average hillbilly meth cook probably ain’t gonna have it on hand. Somebody would’ve had to fill a prescription or whatever, right? Unless the guy’s a doctor himself.” 

“It could have also been stolen?” Ava suggested from where she was sitting on the end of the couch, her hair pulled back into a french braid and dressed in a crisp blue blouse as well as a grey plaid tweed skirt over a pair of black stockings. There was a thoughtful frown on her face as she tried to focus on the origin of the strange drugs and not the agony that poor woman must have suffered; her fingers idly playing with her necklace. “Midazolam is a controlled substance, if someone wanted it bad enough, they could have stolen it from a hospital or pharmacy.”

Donnelley nodded, looking at Laine for a moment, “We took the Jane Doe to a local doc. She might have the drugs on hand. I’ll have my team swing by and ask around, not like she had the best security at her… facility. Make it easy for anybody to get in and snatch it.” Donnelley smirked at the memory of the mossy Quonset hut. “Anythin’ else?”

Dr Laine had also dressed for the day, dressed neatly in the snug charcoal gray turtleneck and black slacks, power heels on her feet. There was a little discomfort on the cut foot so she had made a mental note to grab her sneakers on the way out. As she listened, she also snuck surreptitious looks at the team. Dave's face was mottled with bruises but he looked clear eyed and attentive. Ava seemed much more pulled together as well. 

When Donnelley glanced at her she met his eyes briefly before looking away. Not wanting to contradict him or argue, she held her breath for a moment until Foster asked for any other questions.

"The doctor [I]might[/I] but it's probably not  common among family doctors though she could get it legally. It's worth checking into, anyway," Laine observed.

Jason, arms crossed and wide chest hidden behind the wrinkles of a faded black shirt, was working out the substance mystery with his eyes darting around the floor. Physically thinking was what someone had told him that was once. He had been dead for years now. "No, that sort of drug wouldn't be floating around a local practice or a CVS. If we start asking around for it too overtly we could tip off our perp—or out him. We convince local police to compile hospital pharmacy records we could see any weird orders or inventory changes." Jason looked up from the ground to Ava, adding, "Or thefts. Could rule out some suspects." 

He looked around the team, not for assurance of the idea, but if he had stepped on someone's toes. It was hard not being a team lead anymore, and it was just as hard to figure out what his role here was. 

Laine nodded, "That's a good idea, better to be quiet about this. Especially after seeing how nervous Wilkins was and the reception at the sheriff's office."

She looked over at Ava, leaning back as she did, "We're going to find out if the sheriff has gone digital, maybe you could sneak in the virtual back door and look into their records."

“[i]Someone[/i] has to install one first. Someone needs to get in there, slip a usb into the right slot.” Donnelley shrugged. “Ain’t gonna be easy. If the Sheriff is fuckin’ us, we’re operating under Moscow Rules here, boys and girls. They’re opposition.”

“Wait, why?” Ava asked, eyes widening slightly in surprise. “What has the Sheriff done?”

Laine crossed her legs and shifted in her chair, slightly uncomfortable at the thought of one of them breaking into the office full of armed deputies, "He's been on 'vacation' for awhile. Indefinitely we were told."

“On top of that, there was evidence found on the body besides the black shard. A piece of fabric, something cryptic. It was there when Frank called in the Sheriff,” Foster looked around the room at the sets of eyes on him, “And nowhere to be found when State Police arrived. It’s something the Program would like to have, potentially. Anybody going into the Sheriff’s will have to recover that.”

Donnelley spoke up, “I wanna get my hands on the Sheriff. Figure out where and why he’s hiding.”

Pari sat quietly towards the back. Straight backed, one leg crossed over the other, her arms crossed and a finger resting on her lips - statuesque. Her eyes were closed as she listened along. It was not out of a lack of paying attention, in fact quite the opposite. The conversation had of course rolled on, but soon she removed the finger from her lips and placed it in the air in front of her as her eyes shot open. “I’d like to see those scene photographs,” she said with a level of dissonance in her voice. “If that would be alright, before we leave to our activities of the day.”

[i]It’s not right,[/i] she thought, an eyebrow quirked upon her face that shifted her countenance. She had a theory, but it was based on the facts banded over the table, not gleaned from the tangible evidence. 

Dave himself remained silent throughout the discussion, leaning his chair back with his arms behind his head. They'd shot his idea down, but he wasn't bothered by it. He'd made peace with his limited skillset the day he'd met the members of BLACKBEARD. He blew stuff up; that was enough for him. 

The thought of BLACKBEARD did bring a twist to his gut though. He hadn't known the men long, but they'd pulled some serious shit in Arkansas. There had still been a bond. That brought a thought to mind, and he raised his hand again. 

"Hey, so...if it ain't too off topic, can I look over our ordinance? I need to know what I've got to work with before I need to work with it." He grinned. "Though if there's a Home Depot in town I can probably come up with somethin' to hold us over." 

Laine perked up at Pari's request, "I have the photos and the autopsy report, you're welcome to look them over. We should be getting lab results anytime, hopefully today or tomorrow. We're still waiting on an identification on Jane Doe and the scene samples. I can brief you after this briefing."

Her gaze shifted to Dave, his suggestion reminded her of why the MacCready name seemed familiar. Arkansas, home grown anti-government terrorists, white supremacists. Laine stiffened in her chair, recalling a course taught be a friend of hers at Quantico about domestic terrorism. They had put their heads together in building a profile of the suspect in a mass shooting at a black church in Georgia. And this man, Dave MacCready, was one of the family notorious in the sovereign citizens movement. 

Laine studied his handsome bruised face and thought over the small pieces she had gleaned from him. Now she was definitely curious to know how he ended up here. 

Ava also gave Dave a curious look at the mention of making home explosives from a hardware store. She didn’t recall catching what branch of the government or military he worked for, though she wondered why Foster just didn’t say…

[i]Oh.[/i] Realization clicked behind her eyes and she glanced away from the man. Another civilian hire like herself it seemed. She switched her thinking back to the Sheriff and frowned as she mulled over the sketchy behavior described and Agent Donnelley’s word that they were ‘opposition’ now. 

It was unpleasant to think that a Sheriff would be dirty and possibly connected to the killing, but if that was the case then they’d need any information they could get.

She slowly rose up her hand. “Um, did the Sheriff station look like it had a camera system?” She asked with a thoughtful crease between her eyebrows. “I could design the backdoor virus to give us remote access to the security cameras as well and we can monitor the station for suspicious activity ourselves. Or I could use it to manipulate the feeds if we have to break in.”

“Shit,” Donnelley shook his head, not even bothering to look at Laine. He wanted to leave the details of that scene in the past, but, “I can’t even remember. I might have to show my face around there again, or someone is. Case the place.”

Donnelley nodded to Dave, “Everythin’s in the garage. We ain’t ready for a shootin’ war with the county, but we got some things.” Donnelley shrugged, “Whatever you brought when we hauled ass out the forest is what we got in the way of explosives.”

Pari nodded with a smile in Laine's direction. "I'd appreciate it. There's context to be obtained by looking at them [i]here[/i]." The woman's arms unfolded, and she held them out, palms down. After a slight pause, she brought them to her lap, and glanced over to Dave - who wasn't looking too unlike the Phantom of the Opera with the mottled bruising that crept around his face.

"I actually wouldn't be averse to the Home Depot myself, and well, if it makes you feel more at ease I'm sure there is time to be found." Pari added, drumming her fingers over her thighs.

Dave nodded at Pari. "Well, we'll be makin' the trip then, 'cuz I used everything I had on whatever the hell attacked us in those woods. Claymores, C4, and a handful of frag grenades, didn't even slow it down."

He glanced around. "Er… Not that I brought those from home. That'd be illegal." 

“Hoss, you knew the shit I done for the Program, a few hand grenades ain’t shit.” Donnelley chuckled. “No ATF here.”

Laine said, "Anything I have on the case is yours to peruse, I would like another set of eyes on it."

Her gaze shifted to Jason, meeting his eyes briefly and she made a subtle motion, a slight tilting of her head to indicate she would want to speak after. 

Once again Ava found herself staring at Dave with wide eyes at the mention of heavy explosives not even affecting whatever was in the woods they were talking about. Did they run from a T-Rex? What the hell was [i]out[/i] there? Ava made a mental note to never go near the forest at night, especially alone. 

Jason's attention drifted to each team member as they spoke, his passivity gleaning any details he hadn't been privy to. Legwork, he always loved legwork. It was like making something with your hands, like the most complicated of puzzles. The stakes were at their highest and it gave him an almost boyish thrill. Finally, he could dive into something of true substance. 
 
As for the new team members, Dave was interesting in the way watching an animal hunt was interesting. There was something dangerous and eerily familiar about his matter-of-fact, casual demeanor. Jason wouldn't question who the Program picked or why. He was here and that was that. The other new member, Pari, was analytically minded in a way he couldn't help but appreciate either. And Ava? Finally showing her skillset as well. She'll be invaluable for sure. [I]A good team[/I], Jason thought. [I]Way too fucking attractive too[/I].

When he met Laine's gaze he caught her non-verbal and replied with the slightest of nods. Seemed he was popular today. Good, he liked being popular. It was better than being treated like the smelly kid in Amman. It felt strange not having talked with her since arriving, not after their conversation over the phone. He felt like something was owed, especially with how they both were to each other last night. 

Jason then turned his attention on Donnelley and cocked his head Foster's way. [I]Whatever this is let's get it out of the fucking way[/I]. 

“Do we have a security system?” Ava asked, thinking back to what Foster said about security concerns and the tidbit of information Dave dropped making her nervous about what was lurking among the trees. “Cameras? Perimeter sensors?” 

Foster looked to Donnelley, who looked at him and then to Ava. He mimicked pulling a trigger. “We’re not at Langley anymore. Whoever we’re badgerin’ isn’t supposed to find us. We don’t exist here at this very moment. If they have probable cause to come and no-knock us, we fucked up. Our tradecraft wasn’t up to par. We’re disavowed and left to the wolves.” Donnelley shrugged, “Officially, we are all employed as an FBI team descendin’ on Blackriver to catch this homicidal fuck.”

Donnelley crossed his arms, eyes growing darker and brow furrowing, “Unofficially? Realistically? Those who haven’t caught on by now, we aren’t gathering evidence to prosecute. We don’t. We make problems like this disappear.” Donnelley frowned, “In vats of acid and shallow graves sometimes.”

Laine glanced up at Donnelley at his last comment, her mouth pressing into a line. She had heard it before from him but in front of the team it made her realize the seriousness. No one they caught for this murder would last long. She took a deep breath and held her tongue, clasping her hands over her knee to keep still. 

Tom stood silently at the back of the room, listening to the briefing. His arms were folded. He had looked at all the new members and was confident in their abilities, reasoning they belonged in this group. He took in what Donnelly had just said with seriousness. It was a difficult pill to swallow. He sort of assumed that was the case here, but since he was truly an agent with the federal bureau of investigations, he felt uneasy about this. As long as Mister Joseph Donnelly can make the perpetrators disappear into his mysterious vat of acid that won’t leave a trace to any of these people assembled here, he was OK with this. He never wanted to place himself in a position where it would jeopardize his family back home in New England.

Ava looked down at her necklace as she ran her thumb over the image pressed into the metal as well as the Latin words carved along the edges. She had known about that aspect of The Program for some time and had always felt unsteady about the validity of just killing targets rather than putting them through the due process of prosecution. However...After seeing the pictures of the skinned woman, learning about the unimaginable pain and suffering this madman put her through; she wouldn’t feel any sympathy for him when The Program caught up with him.

"Great pep talk, Donnelley," Jason chuckled out. 

"Long as they have it comin'," Dave said firmly. His eyes were cold chips of ice set into the bruised mess of his face. "I heard rumors. From the boys in BLACKBEARD. 'Bout witnesses, people who talk outta turn… Just want it known I won't be part of that." 

Donnelley nodded, a knowing glance at Dave’s words. A very real truth to the rumors and Donnelley wasn’t going to divulge how in-depth his knowledge and experiences of that was, “Different breed.” Donnelley frowned, “Hopefully we won’t have to call folk like them. Just want it known, if we do, another sign we fucked up.”

"Long as we know where I stand," Dave grunted. 

"Since we're all supposed to be Bureau agents here, if you have any questions about how to act or what to say, please ask Agent Stewart, Agent Bhaat, or myself," Laine offered, not mentioning the sideshow that Weissman had made in the Park Ranger office. She glanced towards Dave, at his comments and gave a little nod. "Hopefully we keep appearances up enough for it to look like a routine FBI investigation and we'll not need those [I]breed.[/I]"

“She gets it.” Donnelley said, examining his nails and waiting to head out. “Any more questions or clarifications?”

Ava silently shook her head, her mind already drifting to how she would put together the backdoor virus, especially if there was a camera system to gain access too. If they were really lucky, maybe there’d be a few webcams and microphones in the computers she could tap into as well. Given the backwater status of the town however, she wasn’t getting her hopes up.

Laine stood up as a signal she was ready, fetching up her bag to retrieve the manilla folder of crime scene photos and set it on the kitchen table, waiting for Pari since Jason would still be occupied.

“Alright then, dismissed.” Foster nodded, then pointed at Donnelley and Jason, “You two. Quickly, before you go.”

Donnelley nodded, glancing at Jason before following Foster to the garage. Before Jason followed in he gave Laine another glance, a [I] I’ll be right back[/I] look, and disappeared with Donnelley in the garage. 

[hr]

Foster and Donnelley sat in silence. Donnelley crossed his arms while Foster gestured for the seat opposite them. Already, Donnelley was wondering just what this was about. He wasn’t going to answer to Foster like a parent. The two of them knew where they stood with each other, so he knew this wasn’t about the drinking and drugs last night. Two things that could easily be explained away by the grief of two lost agents.

The seating arrangements, Foster’s look that Donnelley knew well. Were they going to do this now? Here? “Foster?”

But Foster didn’t even so much as hold a hand up to quiet Donnelley. He reached into his coat pocket and placed a small recorder on his lap. Donnelley’s brow quirked as Foster pressed the recording button, “Jason Jimenez. DIA put you in Jordan, is this correct?”

Jason couldn't hide his concern as the recorder came out, and gave Donnelley, not Foster, a questioning look. "Uhhh," he verbally paused. Finally he made eye contact with Foster.

"Um, yeah," Jason said after a moment, pushing his hesitation away with a shake of his head. "Amman but we frequently hit the Syrian border and...beyond it."

“Mm.” Foster nodded. The entire time, Donnelley was wondering why he had to be here, but he guessed it was because he was the middle man between team and Case Officer. Team Lead. The first with a grimace when the shit rolled downhill. “Tell me, at any point were you called back home? Stateside? And for what reason?”

"Yeah, after Baughman I was called to CENTCOM HQ," Jason replied. [I]This was what the meeting is about[/I]. He hadn't imagined either operative played the bureaucrat game. Jason was confident of it, in fact. [I]Then what[/I]? "My deputy director tried to get details about the Program. Worked me hard, actually, under the guise of internal affairs. Sidelined me because I won't talk."

“Good.” Foster gave a smile that did not shine or glow with warmth. A cold accountant’s gaze set on Jason for a few moments. Each breath heard in the silence the whooshing of a great metronome.

Foster slowly lifted a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, all the while his eyes remained on Jason’s, “At any point during your time at the CENTCOM HQ, anywhere else Stateside, or in Jordan did anybody claiming to be Program, or operating under the pretense of Delta Green personnel attempt to make contact with you or at any point did you get the impression that you were being put under surveillance?”

Jason’s brow contorted as he thought about the question. How would he answer this? “What if I told you something I thought would be in the purview of the Program happened to me?”

Foster even broke his cold exterior to glance at Donnelley, who leaned forward in his chair. Both were curious expressions that begged him to go on.

The image of Dan’s limp body, his slack mouth oozing vomit, violated Jason’s thoughts. The scene crashed into his mind’s eye, inescapable and demanding all of his focus that moment. The Arabic shouting that had rang out from a floor below, and the violence that erupted before the men had stormed upstairs for them both. For Jason. Not even the DIA knew about that incident. Or had they sent them?

“The linguist on my team was tracking a ghost in the system. A dead asset pinging us from a phone that shouldn’t exist anymore. There’s more intel I’m waiting on but—”

He paused.  Dan had been rigid in his chair in the bottomless depth of a K-hole, but Jason had heard it. The chanting from the hallway, its hypnotic repetition like the ravings of a monk possessed with zeal. Tueal washahid, Tueal washahid. The man with empty sockets and the writing on the walls. The names, some a mystery, but most painfully known. The team from Ghazni. SOUTHCOM assets lost to counter-narco ops. And then some names that were an impossibility; Donnelley, Laine, Stewart, Clark, Mathieu, Weissman, Moore, MacCready, Bhatt, Foster, Jimenez. His name over and over again, smeared into the wall with something not quite blood. But it had all be the trip, he thought. It had to have been the ketamine. All before the scene turned to shit. At least Dan was still alive.

“—but it’s slow going. We’re waiting until it’s safe for it to be sent.” He didn’t know why, but Jason withheld mention of the attack. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Foster, as much as he could trust anyone anymore. He didn’t even question it internally. Subconsciously Jason simply didn’t say. “I wanted to study it before I brought it up to the team, see if I actually had something. Maybe it’s just the agency playing me, I don’t know.”

Foster’s frown grew again. He inclined his head towards Jason. There was a tangible cloud of tension in the room. Donnelley could feel it and he suspected Jason did too. Foster spoke, “[i]Is that all?[/i] Jason, we need full disclosure. Is that everything?” Foster asked, “Holding out information is a grave decision. It would be like letting someone through an airport gate with a dirty bomb. Only worse. That’s what the Program deals with, Jason.”

Donnelley leaned back and he finally chimed in, seeing as the questions branched away from just Jason himself and the suspicions of the Program versus the DIA. Petty interagency pissing contests. Something like this piqued his interest though, “Is there an ETA? What are you waiting for the intelligence to be safe from? DIA?”

Jason responded to Donnelley first, “Bingo. Linguist is making sure he isn’t caught sending classified over the pond. I’m expecting something from the darkweb, PGP at least. And, huh—” Another pause. [I]Do I tell him the vision or the attack[/I], he wondered. [I]What’s telling me not to tell him[/I]?

“We were attacked. In a hostel in Amman. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be an abduction, but if it was they were sloppy as shit. There wasn’t a plan, just trying to rush us. Maybe they just wanted to off us then, but uh...it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t report it either.” 

[I]Because you were shooting ketamine, you druggy fuck. You can’t even tell Foster.[/I] Jason shot Donnelley a grim stare. He wasn’t asking for a lifeline, nor his sympathy. It was the front he always had to embrace. The lie he kept at the surface. No one could know, no one that didn’t partake the way he did, that didn’t understand. 

“So, they weren’t professionals then.” Foster nodded.

“Maybe just to flush him out. See where he’d… [i]you’d[/i] go,” Donnelley tactfully switched language. He wasn’t going to talk about the man like he wasn’t right there, “So these were, what? Thugs? Daesh militants? They found you somehow…”

Donnelley sighed and scratched at his black and red beard. It was a puzzle they didn’t need right now, but he very much wanted to revisit it when he could. He reminded himself that Viktor Ozan was in CIA custody and he too was waiting for word back from Kingsley and Smitty, and INIS. What if Daesh had somehow gotten word of Ozan and Bekzhaev getting hunted down and mistook the operation for Jason’s DIA? Trying to get back on the offensive?

“You said you went beyond the border? Did your HUMINT ever extend into Turkey?” Donnelley shrugged, “Chechens? Daesh funnels fighters through there, drugs and people too. Foster and I are privy to another ongoing string of incidents in Iraq that’s in connection.”

Jason shook his head, thick arms crossing over his chest. “Turkey? Never. I didn’t go past Deir al-Zour physically but I worked with some assets that went as far north as Aleppo. As far as foreign fighters not too many. Your typical smattering of central Asian and Chechen fighters. We ran into a few African recruits coming up from Yemen. As far as Iraq? All the time. But they outted me it was because I was a Westerner, not because of my ops. I’m fuckin’ positive of that.”

“Alright.” Donnelley nodded, clucking his tongue, “Anyway, you keep us posted. None of this leaves this house, it comes to me and Foster first. We both have mutual interest in this, man. You show me yours, I’ll share what I’ve got.” Donnelley frowned, “Deal?”

“We can read the intel together once I get it,” Jason replied. “Maybe more eyes can help me make sense of it.” He looked at Foster, grim sincerity flashing in the amber-brown of his eyes. “This is the team I bat for, sir. I don’t give a shit about DoD and the closet they’re pushing me into. [I]This[/I] means something.”

“It should.” Foster said as he and Donnelley stood, Foster making for the door while Donnelley lit a cigarette, Foster called back over his shoulder, “We make sure there’s still a world to fight for.”

[hr]

Taking a small breath, Pari rose from her seat - her height impressive in the heels, rounding out at a nice 5’10 in the patent pumps. It would most likely be the last time she would be wearing them, she thought momentarily as she glanced down at the reflective shine on their surface, and then her eyes took note of a scuff too. Her fingers twitched at it, and Pari took in a sharp breath through her teeth. [i]Just a scuff. Most likely gravel from the driveway, possibly touched dirty slats on the steps. Only needs a quick wipe.[/i]

A smile returned, and she moved to Laine’s side in graceful strides that maintained her balletic posture with each step. She did not open the folder, instead turning to face her new colleague with a somewhat serious expression. “Dr. Laine, you were at the scene, yes?” She asked in a softer tone, her accent more prominent when she was softer - relaxed. “Before I look - is there anything you can remember about the scene that could not have been captured by the camera? Smells, sounds… [i]feelings.[/i]?”

Laine stood looking at the first picture, one she had taken herself of a wide view of the entire scene. Trees in summer leaf casting shadows, dappling the ground with light and dark and among them was the young woman skinned like a deer, left on the ground. She was laid out neatly, not bundled or dropped in a callous manner but her arms and legs straight, her face tilted up to watch the sky with sightless dark sockets where eyes once were. Around her there was police tape, bright yellow against the green foliage and the raw black and rusty red of the body. 

She turned to Pari, meeting the woman’s dark gaze and took a deep breath, “I prefer not to tell you any of my thoughts before you look this over. Whatever I say might make an impression, you know, unintentionally of course. But as for the sounds and smells? It was normal. Nothing to out of the ordinary, not that I noticed but I’m not exactly a woman of the woods. It smelled like earth, leaves, and death. Temperature was in the mid fifties I think, something ordinary for the mountains in the summer. No rain in the last couple of days, so the samples the state CSI took should be good for trace evidence.” 

Laine touched the folder and pushed it across the table towards a chair so Pari could sit and look through it. “Once you’re done, tell me your thoughts and I’ll tell you mine.” 

As Pari looked at the images, she remained unflinching at the sights, instead focussing on the information provided by Laine. She tried as best as she could to imagine the scent, to feel the sticky balm of the heat. Her eyes closed, and she placed a splayed hand beside the series of photographs - letting her thoughts ruminate. She stayed like this for some time, it must have been at least a couple of minutes - taking a series of deep breaths in and out until at last she opened her eyes and took her seat.

Pari cleared her throat, lifting a particularly grizzly photograph up in a pinch of her fingers closer to her face. She found herself focusing on Jane Doe’s genitals - for obvious reasons. The lack of eyes was alarming, but not something that Pari found unusual. Was she younger woman, her lack of emotional response might have worried her. It was a skill she had developed, a necessary one. Still, the violence to her most private parts was just enough to tap at her. There was always something personal about violence to women, wasn’t there? 

She placed the image down and reclined in the chair. “Dr. Laine, as a psychologist, and well educated woman, I will make the assumption that you know of Ockham’s Razor, yes?” she asked, glancing to the side to meet the eyes of the woman beside her.

Laine took a seat on the opposite side of the table, folding her hands and waited. She watched Pari, her cool green gaze unwavering until the other woman spoke. 

“Keep it simple, stupid,” she replied without batting an eyelash. 

“Yes, precisely,” Pari replied, her breath was almost a laugh. “The principle being that the simplest theory, or speculation is usually correct.” Her head lowered as she collected the photographs back together, fingers tracing the edges so they were exact on the pile. So that no photograph was lying at any angle other than the correct one. “A doctor, a licensed medical professional would have had access to the drugs found in our Jane Doe’s system. They would have also had the knowledge of the absolute correct dosage to administer.” Pari paused again, placing the photographs back into the folder, she pressed a finger to the cover and slid it back across the table to Laine.

“The mutilations of her body took a great deal of precision and expertise, a strong stomach also.” Her eyes flickered to the corner of the room and they narrowed as her thoughts continued. “That would be my theory thus far, from what I’ve seen,” Pari’s gaze snapped back to Laine. “I’m not a psychologist like yourself, I can’t profile this kind of person. But, if you would listen to my advice, I’d look to local doctors and surgeons as suspects.”

Laine nodded, tapping her manicured nails on the table, “There was certainly precision in what he did, this was not his first, even if we had not found other bones you could see he’s had a lot of practice, he has a method. This also seems to be his comfort zone. You’ll see with most organized killers, they will start in their area and then branch out as they continue to develop the fantasy and their skill, their confidence. But this man, he’s drawn back to that spot. At least we have not found others that match this MO in particular.”

Leaning forward, she looked at the picture of Jane Doe, “As for a doctor or surgeon, I had not thought too much on that as you can see we’re in a rural undereducated area, poor and closed off, not exactly a hotbed of professionals. Unless he has a vacation cabin around here. I was thinking he might be local, a hunter or amateur taxidermist. I’m sure we can find more of those than surgeons around these parts. But it’s something to consider, we can’t weed out anything yet. The prescription drugs he used is very niche, it’s not something regular people would go out to buy, you can’t get stoned but honestly it’s a lot easier to learn to administer a drug with practice than skinning a large body so complete and without cuts or tears in the muscles. I think we need to look at both local hunters, anyone in the area that might have gone to medical school at least and anyone renting cabins in the area. Which is going to be a long list. I would cut it down to men in their late 20s to early 40s, it’s a wide gap until we learn more. But he’s had experience killing and he’s still strong enough to carry a body out into the woods. No tire marks were found. ”

She took a breath and pushed up the sleeves of her soft grey sweater, her lower arms bare of any hint of the tattoos that were just a few inches above. “Once we get the tests and ID back, we’ll be able to start narrowing that list.”

“My expertise, Dr. Laine, is in religion and crime. Cults and the like,” Pari offered with a wave of her hand. “I’m afraid I can’t be of any assistance in the getting into the mind of our killer. I can only offer you suggestions on the knowledge and experience I have. This all feels…. Familiar to me. You’re right that this isn’t the first - and she sadly will not be the last…” Pari sighed, her posture almost deflated but with a slow blink she pulled herself back together. “I’d guess that the next victim will be more theatrical, bolder.”

She ran a finger over her lower lip again, meeting Laine’s eyes, offering her a reassuring smile of sorts - it was heavy subject material for this time of the morning, truthfully though, their jobs didn’t run on a clock. There was no such thing a ‘bad time’. “This all reminds me of ritual killing. This is why I was brought here, I suppose.” Pari heaved a sigh and for the first time, leaned forward, she uncrossed her legs and placed an elbow on each thigh. “This is about power. Possibly a gift - sacrifice, for some higher purpose. Did he keep the eyes and tongue?” She asked, looking up at Laine, lines appeared across her forehead.

Laine shifted in her chair, reaching up to tuck her short dark hair behind her ears, “I need you for that, for looking into the things I don’t see. What might be in my eyes an odd cut might mean something more to someone with your skill, but from what I see right now is an organized killer. He is trying to recreate his fantasy, it is rage, lust and control. We found no semen but nearly every serial killer is motivated partly by sex. The penetration wounds obviously speaks to that, it was a lot of anger. Cutting out her ability to see and speak? It could tie into shame about sex, perhaps he couldn’t rape her because he was impotent when she could see him and mock him? Who knows just yet. Skinning her...he takes away her beauty, her humanity yet he displays her, so perhaps more akin to a hunting trophy. He wanted us to see her. Look at his work.”

Out of habit she reached for her pocket, hunting for the cigarettes still in her blazer that hung on a coat hook on the wall. Giving up, she looked at Pari, “Perhaps he did, maybe he ate them? We haven’t found them so it could be in a jar in his refrigerator. You know, Ed Kemper threw his mother’s larynx into the garbage disposal, a sort of poetic justice for him I suppose. She was very verbally and emotionally abusive and he actually turned himself in after killing and mutilating her. Of course, that was the end of a reign of terror in which he killed several young women. No, this guy here isn’t done. He’s perfecting.” 

“I’d be inclined to believe he ate them. If this was a ritual killing, then what he took with him he would have consumed. It’s spiritual-” Pari’s back straightened again, and an eyebrow quirked as she rolled her wrists while emphasising her thoughts. “To consume is to become the victim in spirit. Not to mention that in that there are certain supernatural connotations…” The conversation between herself and Laine had reached a point of interest she hadn’t expected it too. There was one thing she could be sure of, it was that Laine was switched on. Not that Pari had reason to doubt that, but she felt assured to know that this was a woman with whom she could discuss her theories and not have them brushed to the side. Talking supernatural often got her funny looks, whispers behind her back.

“Wendigo.” She stated, narrowing her eyes. The rogue strand of hair that was her side swept fringe had moved from behind her ear, and mirroring Laine she too tucked it away again. “An individual whose entire equilibrium is shattered. Often outcasts of the community, so they seek to bring destruction and shake the balance of their environment around them in turn…” Pari closed her eyes, and placed a palm flat on the surface of the table.

“Spiritual beings, humans corrupted by greed - that extends to the greed for flesh. Perhaps he ate the skin too.” Her tone was cold, serious. She knew what she was talking about, to most, would sound crazy. But this was as Laine had said, a small town, and myths like that of Wendigos become rampant and real in small towns. It was an area for her to research into, at the very least. Her almond eyes shot open again, and warmth returned to her demeanour before she drummed her fingers three times over the table. “But that’s me getting ahead of myself, I apologise.”

Laine listened, watching the woman think and slowly nodded, “Well, that’s an angle I did not consider. But you’re right, there are many myths and legends that persist in places like this. In fact, I have a stack of library books that we need to go through, some with very interesting Blackriver history in it along with Shawnee tales. They’re the most recent of tribes to have lived here before being shoved off to Oklahoma, poor bastards.” 

She tapped her nail, “Now, in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, we established that cannibalism when connected to serial murder is usually not the work of a true psychopath, someone who gets off on the pain he inflicts. It’s more about inferiority and possessing that person, they were only a means to a corpse. Now, Ted Bundy, now that was a psychopath. He reveled in the pain he caused and I think this guy does too. Why else give them a drug that immobilizes them and yet allows them to feel everything? But, I won’t discount what you’re saying, we could very well be onto something new here. Someone that is not going to fall into categories neatly. But again, all of this is just spitballing until we know if he did with the pieces missing. He could have tossed in the garbage disposal for all we know. We just need more information.” 

Laine glanced at the living room, the people still waiting for Donnelley and Jason to emerge, “We did not get a good chance to meet properly because of...well this morning, but welcome to the team, Agent Bhatt. I was up here the last time UMBRA came out, I’ll tell you about that one day if I can, there was some interesting things found in the cabin we cleared out.”  

“After the activities of the day, I’d very much like to look at those books. Cross reference anything with my own studies and writings - those of my peers,” Pari offered, shelving the books to the back of her mind for later. “Yes, just spitballing for now. I’ll be interested to see the results of the later testing of the body, and her ID.”

She took a look over her shoulder too, glancing at Dave and Ava who were both still in the room. This morning she would be heading off with both of them, and like her, they were also green to the team. There was comfort in that, but it also stoked a fire inside of her that they needed to work hard to impress, there would be absolutely no room for missteps. Not on the first day. With that in mind, she stood from her seat too and gave a smile to Laine. “It was good to have this conversation, I’m glad we’ve established a page to write on, at the very least. I’m glad to be on the team, I can only hope to prove myself useful in as many capacities as I can.”

Her eyes fell to the scuff on her pump again, and her lip twitched this time. “If it’s alright with you Dr Laine, while we wait for the others, I'd like to take my belongings to my room, freshen up some, it was a long drive.”

“This is your home,” Laine said, making a gesture towards the living room and the hallway beyond. “Though, I hope you don’t mind but..”

She gave a sly amused look towards Ava then back at Pari, “Bottom bunks have been claimed.”

Amusing as the words probably were, all of a sudden - Dave’s couch was looking pretty comfortable by comparison. “Perfect,” Pari replied with a half smile. Her head tilted in the direction of her suitcase, still by the door - gravel and dirt stuck in the wheels. She always packed light, at least. Only that which was necessary - anything else could be bought.

"You could pick up a step ladder at Home Depot, to make it easier," Laine suggested.

Pari cocked her head back to Laine, “Well, now we definitely have to make it a priority to get there.”

[hr]

The briefing done, Ava stood up and went to the women’s bunk room to fetch her laptop. She returned shortly after with it in hand, a hard cover resembling light blue marble with veins of gold encasing the device. She flashed a small smile at Dave, still sitting in his chair as she sat back down on the couch, smoothing the back of her skirt forward so it didn’t wrinkle, setting her laptop on the coffee table to get started on the virus.

As it powered on, she looked back over to Dave and fought the urge to wince in sympathy at the dark bruising that covered the top half of his face. “How’s your head feeling?” She asked him with a concerned frown, hoping that his head just looked worse than the damage actually was.

"It's fine, a little sore but that's just the bruise, I figure." He grinned and gingerly poked at the knot on his forehead. It had shrunk, but was still visible from the right angle. "Look like a damn unicorn."

He was leaned back in his chair, watching the room, learning his new team. He knew he wouldn't have much to contribute to the investigative process; he was a physical problem solver, not a mental one. Mechanical force, explosive yield, those came easily to him. Abstract thinking made his head hurt. He needed things to be grounded, acting on each other, not floating.

"So uh… What ya workin' on there?" He scooted his chair a little closer, using the motion to take a peek at Ava before taking a peek at her computer. "This is that virus, right? Supposed to fuck up their computers?" 

“Yes it is and it won’t really mess up their system.” Ava said, smiling over at him as she opened a program on her laptop and started typing away. “It’s basically going to give me remote, admin access to their computers. It’ll let me poke around in their systems, let me see through any cameras they have and copy and download files to my laptop here. That’s why it’s called a Backdoor.” She looked back over at him, her fingers still typing without looking at the screen. “The tricky part is it has to be downloaded onto one of their computers first.” 

Ava hadn’t really had a chance to study Dave past his head injury since it was so eye drawing. Now that they were sitting there in a calm environment and talking, she was surprised to note how handsome he was. Even with the bruising it didn’t really detract from his appearance. 

[i]Huh.[/i] She thought and then turned her eyes back to her screen.

Dave nodded along as she spoke, quickly finding himself over his head as far as the raw details were concerned. He could use the internet, he had a teenage son, after all. But his mechanical business was handled via a landline, and for the actual work he relied on hard-copy books, personal experience, and technical manuals. The same was true of his less legal hobbies.  

"So we're gonna have to do some spy shit then?" He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement. "Go James Bond and sneak inside?" 

Ava smiled at that and a soft giggle bubbled up from her chest. “Or Mission Impossible.” She said, mirth clear in her quiet voice. “If the Sheriff’s station has a skylight.”

"I can always [i]make[/i] a skylight, if y'all ask me real nice." He glanced over at Laine and Pari, watching them speak for a moment. Both seemed heavily invested in their conversation, and from what he could glean it probably wasn't something he wanted to be involved in. He was of the opinion that evil was real. Evil people didn't need to be understood, and they didn't deserve understanding. All that was needed was a tall tree, a short rope, and a few beers for a job well done. Or a few bullets and a shot of whiskey if you had shit to do that day. 

"So this virus," he said, turning his attention back to Ava. "You do that sorta thing a lot?"  

“Kind of, I have a pretty diverse portfolio.” Ava answered with a slight shrug of her petite shoulders, looking over at him again. “My job before I was transferred here had me working across different departments. I mainly sifted through raw data, but I also helped with coding programs, testing new security software by making viruses,” She nodded her head to her laptop to indicate that was how she developed her virus skills. “I even did a little hardware and mechanical engineering.”

She studied him for a moment, her eyebrows arching curiously. “So, what is it that you do?” She asked him. “What’s your specialty?”

"Explosives, mostly," Dave said. "I've got kind of...a background with them, I guess. And survival stuff. I'm from the Ozarks, grew up doing hardcore survival training. I still spend a lot of time out in my mountains."  

“Wow.” Ava said, her tone and expression taking on an impressed note. “That’s amazing. So did you use to do artillery for a mercenary company?” She asked, her blue eyes bright with interest and curiosity about the other civilian’s background.

"Er...More demolitions, I guess?" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously; any talk about his family tended to make him antsy, particularly surrounded by so many Feds. "Anyway, it's kind of a story. What about you? What got you all into computers and spy stuff?"  

“Oh, um,” Ava looked back at her computer, suddenly bashful at the question of her past. “I’m a little...weird?” She started, glancing at him from the corner of her eye nervously, hoping he didn’t think she was bragging about herself. 

“I was basically one of those kids who understood complex math right away? I went to MIT when I was about 10 and that’s where I really got into computer science and engineering. I got my doctorate in computer science when I was 18 and I guess Booz-Allen Hamilton had like...connections there because they offered me a job shortly after. It was well paying and it was work I loved so I accepted.” She shrugged again, her focus turning back to her laptop. “And I’ve been doing it ever since, I’m basically an outside contractor with a security clearance so my contract has been shuffled around a few times between agencies.”

"Huh," Dave said. "That's pretty cool. I don't understand complex math [i]now[/i]." He was quiet for a moment, watching her type away. "Honestly, I don't know how useful I'm gonna be, goin' out with you and the Agent there. I'm mostly a one trick pony. Though I guess if we have to blow up a bridge or get lost in the mountains I'll have somethin' to do."  

“I’m unsure about it myself.” She admitted to him with a smile, happy to change the subject. It was also relieving to hear someone else was unsure about doing investigative work like she was. “Unless the drug dealer we’re looking for left an obvious digital trail, I probably won’t be much use.” She looked over to where Pari and Laine sat, both professional FBI women engrossed in their conversation. It sounded like they were using their combined expertise to put together theories on who the murder suspect was. 

Laine seemed nice and friendly from their brief conversation in the bunkroom before the briefing. It truthfully amazed her how the woman with such different credentials from the rest of UMBRA was able to form a cohesive working dynamic with them. She was so poised and confident, even when there were guns and injured people about. 

She hadn’t a chance to even say hello to Agent Bhaat yet, but from how she spoke during the briefing and the sound of her now; she was confident and calm with a sharp mind that clearly understood what she spoke of. She was also a seasoned FBI agent, which was a comforting thought as she and Dave would be stepping into uncharted territory with police work.

Ava nodded her head to the table. “I think we should follow Agent Bhaat’s lead and we’ll be okay. Maybe we’ll be able to help by offering outside the box thinking?” She suggested, turning her eyes back to Dave and the bruise on the top half of his head. “Um, should maybe make up a story for that though.” She said, pointing to the bump and bruising on his head.

"Huh? Oh, the Halloween mask," he grinned. He had noticed it in the mirror after his shower and had gotten a chuckle out of it. "Yeah, it looks kinda ridiculous. If I had a suit I could be the tough guy. The Bad Cop, you know?"

He looked down at his red flannel shirt. He'd washed his clothes the night before, but they still had a bit of a rumpled look to them. 

"Right now I just look like a clumsy lumberjack or somethin'."   

“At least you’re okay.” She said with a slight grin as she turned back to her laptop. “Maybe one of the other guys here has a suit you can borrow?” 

"Maybe," he said. "I'm bigger'n Donnelley and smaller'n the big guy. Jason. I'll probably be fine. Just tell 'em I'm your undercover jackboot. It ain't too far off."  

She nodded, continuing to type away on her keyboard. “That could work, I’m sure Agent Bhaat or Dr. Laine will have an idea for a cover for you.” She liked this, socializing wasn’t so bad when she had work to help keep her from obsessing over saying the wrong thing. Or maybe Dave was just easy to talk to. Despite their first meeting, there was an easy laid back energy to him, the way he held himself and the relaxed manner he spoke, in that rolling drawl of his, was infectious in it’s soothing tones. 

She typed a few more lines of code and then leaned back from the coffee table, stretching her arms up above her. “Okay, I’ve got the basic framework for the virus done.”

"Cool," Dave said. He meant it; high technology baffled him, but it was still interesting. He gave Ava another surreptitious glance as she stretched. "So uh… From there you just kinda tweak it? Make it do whatever for a specific system?"  

“That’s right.” She nodded, reaching back forward to save her work and close the program; leaving her desktop wallpaper in view. A picture of her cat Thor sitting in the front basket of her bicycle, which looked just barely big enough for him to sit in. “But that’s pretty detailed work that’ll take me longer than I think we have.” She said, starting to shut down her laptop. “Agent Foster and Agent Donnelley made it seem like we’re supposed to hit the ground running on this.”

"Yeah, seems like they're in a hurry. Which makes sense, I guess." His eyes grew cold for a moment. "Got some asshole out here killin' innocent women, doin' God knows what. Sooner he's in the ground, the better."

Then it was gone, his easy mirth back in an instant. "But 'til then, guess we gotta play our part of the game and catch his ass, right?"  

“Yes,” She frowned and reached up to touch her pendant as her mind flashed to the pictures she saw of the Jane Doe. “I’ll do what I can, hopefully we catch him before he does something like that again.”

"We'll get him," Dave said. There was confidence in his voice, a firm conviction. Good always won, in Dave's world. Even when it did it at gunpoint. "We'll get him and all his buddies. Let God figure out the rest." 

In the kitchen, Laine was observing Dave with Ava as the young woman worked on her computer. He looked like the mountain man he was and she looked like an Ivy League student cramming for finals. Not FBI agents. She glanced at Pari and then reached for her bag, counting out  several twenty dollar bills and winced inwardly at her dwindling funds. 

"While you're in Charleston, do you mind taking Mountain MacCready shopping for a decent suit so he'll look like a Bureau man. And I'll see if Ava has a blazer, if not have her pick one up," Laine suggested, then folded the money in a piece of paper. "Tell Dave it's on the Program and bring me the receipts if you would."

Pari discreetly took the notes, and nodded. She could have made a quip about the task, but elected to keep such thoughts to herself for now. “Of course,” was her response, and with that said she made her way back to her own purse on the counter. 

[hr]

The sky was blue again. Donnelley’s smoke clouds mimicked the slow current of the wispy clouds. Again, the smell of diesel and the echoes of blasting charges making their way to his senses from miles away. It was meditative, almost. A little reminder that life went on despite everything, a bittersweet reality check. No one but who had been with him knew that two young people died on his command last night. He felt like he killed them himself, and like a remorseful murderer, he was waiting for justice to come.

He shook his head, shooing those thoughts away like flies as he took another drag. “Fuck…” he breathed.

The front door to the Safe House creaked open and there was the slightest scuff and creak of footfalls on wood as the door gently shut again. “Um,” Ava’s soft voice called out as she approached the burn scarred man, staring off into the distance with a cigarette perched between his lips. “Hello, Agent Donnelley.” She greeted, with a slight but polite smile. “Is this a good time?”

“Just Donnelley.” The man said, looking down at Ava. Just like he feared, he recognized something in her. Maybe it was the eyes, the hair was too easy an assumption. He could’ve just seen her around the Program HQ. He shrugged, offered his hand out, “Good a time as any. What’s up?”

She reached out and shook his hand, noting how rough and calloused it was. A life of hard work? Or a life from running and gunning? “I just thought I should officially meet you. It’s been a little...hectic.” She said, letting go of his hand and glancing over to the driveway where their first, unfortunate meeting took place. 

“And, offer my condolences, for the two people you lost.” She added, her bright blue eyes looking back up at him from behind her glasses. He was a rough looking man, the scar aside, she could see that the years of stress of whatever events he had survived etched into the hard lines of his face. Yet, he didn’t give off a very intimidating presence to her, even after that briefing he had just given them.

He could feel the hard edge of regret play across his brows at that. If it had been anybody else he would’ve firmly asked them to shut their hole. Death, you could get used to. Sending someone to die… “Yeah.” Donnelley nodded, sucking in another drag and offering Ava a sheepish grin, “I’m sorry about last night. We were on edge. I hope you find this place good enough to lay your head at night, at least. Lotta guns, lotta dudes to shoot ‘em. Makes me feel safe.” He chuckled.

“Thank you for the donuts, by the way. I like a good maple bar.” He nodded.

“It was surprising, but I’m okay now.” She assured him. Her anxiety medication helped a great deal and having some work to focus on also didn’t hurt, but he didn’t need to know that. Or she didn’t need to say it, if he had access to her file than he likely knew already. 

She smiled at the mention of the donuts and she rubbed the back of her neck. “You’re welcome, I’m glad everyone liked them. I like the maple bars too, I bought three for myself when I got the rest.” She said, shaking her head at herself. 

Ava found herself glancing down at his leg, vividly remembering the sight of Jason sewing the bleeding wound shut. “So,” She felt her voice growing soft as her curiosity got the best of her and she raised her eyes back up to him. “What...happened? If I can ask? Dr. Laine said something attacked you? And Dave mentioned...well...” She let the unspoken statement of explosives doing nothing to whatever [i]it[/i] was, hang in the air.

“Yeah,” Donnelley’s expression soured a bit, suppressing a shiver at the memory of the roar and the footsteps, “Something. You do tech? Ever been in the field?”

Ava noticed the change in his expression and latched onto the change in subject. “I do, I was a data analysis and technician for The Program and before that, the CIA.” She winced at the mention of field work. “I’ve never done field work before, this is my first experience with it.”

Donnelley took a long drag, clucking his tongue before speaking, “Have to start somewhere. Don’t worry, you probably ain’t gonna be tramping around the woods with me.” He looked down at his leg, “Not that I’m gonna be any time soon. Best get ready now, we’re rollin’ out soon.”

“Right,” She nodded and flashed another small but polite smile. “I’ll get to work finishing that backdoor virus as soon as I can. It was nice officially meeting you.” She said while taking a small step back to turn and head back inside. 

She paused for a moment, glancing back at him and the questions about his experience with the Black Slabs surfacing once again to her mind, just like when she had spoken with Dr. Laine. And just like then she bit her tongue and looked away to go back inside, afraid of prying too deep too soon. 

[hr]

>WHITETREE
>ANNIE’S DINER
>1100HRS...///

The jukebox that sat at the back of the tavern clicked a CD into place, filling the tavern with Dwight Yoakum as the early lunch crowd shuffled in to shovel mashed potatoes and cheap chopped steak that swam in greasy gravy into their mouths. Men that worked in the mines splurging on something that wasn't bologna and white bread, enjoying both their own company and the warm reception of Annie herself. The Christmas lights and flyspecked overhead lamps lit the dining area dimly and the booths were empty near the back. 

When the duo entered, the murmured conversation came to an abrupt halt, suspicious eyes wandering over the man in a suit and a tall woman in high heels. The silence hung around them and Laine felt the tension not unlike what had been in the car the whole drive up. The crooning  twangy voice cut  through, the mournful guitar filling the tavern.

[I]You've got your little ways to hurt me
They're not too big but they're real tough
Just one cold look from you can knock me down[/I]

It wasn't until Annie greeted the feds with a smile and invited them to sit wherever that the hard faced men went back to eating, discussing bum transmissions and politicians. 

Laine turned to make her way to the back not waiting to see if Jason followed.  Eyes marked her progress, watching the sway of hips as she strolled across the diner. An empty booth waited and she slid into one of the benches, setting her phone onto the menu and clasped her hands over it.

Jason met the hostile gazes with a disarming smile that deflated into a silent nod and a mouthed hello. He expected the stares, the air vacating the room in big wooshes of unwelcome moods. The smile worked better on women, but he wanted to come off as harmless as possible. Better to be the jackass pretty boy than the big lug to sucker punch and gloat over. He was thankful Laine took most of their attention, and he couldn’t help but appreciate her walk to the back of the diner as he followed. She knew she could turn heads, Jason concluded. It was a good tool, a good tool until admirers became too courageous. That’s where her intellect would come in. All rosy from a distance, but thorny if you didn’t keep it. He was quick to pull his gaze away from her hips as she shuffled into the booth, and without a pause he took the seat opposite of her.

Since their first meeting Jason had been avoiding any prolonged looks or obvious gawking, but now he let his restraint go. Though his demeanor was stoic, perhaps a tad stern, his eyes glowed with an admiration that was graduating from friendly towards something lascivious. He told himself it was harmless as long as he kept his eyes from dipping below her neck. Besides, she was off limits. She had to be.

“About last night—” Jason began, but then Annie came from a patron at the bar top to their booth. 

“You two lookin’ too creased to be havin’ anything other than coffee,” Annie said, her bright but tired eyes rimmed with heavy makeup and her yellow tooth smile genuine.

Jason flashed his best handsome smile at her. “Oh don’t write me off just yet. I’m a big boy, I need to eat,” he said, giving her a wink.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Annie giggled out. She turned to Laine, “and I could peel you right off the front cover of a magazine. What’ll you two be havin’ to start?”

“You were right about the coffee,” Jason answered. “Make it at least two, we have a third comin’.”

“And you, hun?” Annie asked Laine. 

Laine watched Jason squeeze into the booth, he seemed to fill the space with his broad chest and shoulders. She glanced up to his face, at the youthful sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose that had caught her eye before. They seemed to contradict the hard stare he had given her the last night, when his eyes had been cold and flat in his boyishly handsome face. 

When she met his eyes this time, it was different. No anger but something else just as strong and easy to understand. Laine glanced away, feeling unexpected warmth start to rise to her face and was grateful when the owner of the diner walked up. She remembered her from the previous visit with Donnelley, Foster and Detective Roy, she had been the same, the well practiced small town sunshine of customer service. 

Laine smiled in return, close mouthed and conservative then replied, "Just coffee for now, please, black."

Once she had left Laine looked back at Jason, now better prepared to face him and what she needed to discuss before Donnelley returned. She studied the dark phone for a moment, expecting it to light up any moment with Frank Wilkins wanting his ticket out of Dodge. 

Folding her arms, sleeves tugged up to her elbows, she leaned forward which pushed her chest against the snug sweater. Meeting his eyes once more, she let the moment rest before asking, "Yes, about last night?"

She would let him finish his thoughts before expressing her own, curious to see where his mind was, especially since they had not spoken since the phone call months ago. The night before had been fraught with tension and danger, fear and confusion. And worse. Laine felt both the guilt at her meddling and righteous anger of being so dismissed but mostly she wanted to clear the air.

The reciprocal union of their gaze quickly became uncomfortable for Jason. Partly because he had always felt his prolonged stare was aggressive, invasive. It came with the territory of someone his stature, and a face prone to an idle glare made it no better. But there was also her intensity, the depth of a cool gaze as fluid as water and as unyielding as the mind behind it. He broke it up with occasional glances at the menu.

“I wanted to apologize. I was a bit rude and that was probably the last thing you needed then. Just felt like you were intruding on my job at the time,” he said. He wanted to say he wouldn’t do that to her were she to use her skillset, if she were to engage in any psychological discourse. Does she even do therapy, he wondered. It was worth a future question. In any case, saying so would only stain his apology. The last thing he wanted was for Laine to be cutting. Something about her confidence exuded the capacity to be venomous, at least he assumed as much.

“But you weren’t,” he went on, as if to stymy his own thoughts. “You were concerned for Donnelley. I get that. What did you want to talk about?”

Annie came back with her steaming industrial coffee pot and two dishwasher warm mugs. She slapped down a shallow bowl filled with creamer packets, Sweet’n Low, and sugar, then filled their mugs. She asked for their order, to which Jason politely responded they weren’t ready, and began to study Laine again. 

Laine waited until Annie left, picking up her cup of coffee and blowing gently across the steaming dark liquid, inhaling the scent. She held the cup there, both elbows on the table and gazed at him over the mug. 

"I also wanted to apologize for stepping on your toes with my concern," Laine said, "Obviously you're well trained and he's a grown man. If he wanted to suck down whiskey after losing so much blood, who am I to interfere?" 

She took a tentative sip, the heat still too much so she set the mug down, a dark red lipstick stain on the rim of the industrial white porcelain. Clasping her hands against the warmth, Laine looked back up at Jason, gauging his expression.  " I wanted to ask you about Donnelley's wound, before you closed it, did you notice details? Was it ragged or a smooth puncture? Any splinters of material perhaps embedded? I should have taken pictures to compare to...well, just in case. It would be wise to record anything related to what's going on in those woods."

Jason’s gaze narrowed in a focused study. There was a reason beyond the statement, and she was gleaning details for something..Of what, he had to know. Ever since Amman he’d been wary of questions; Brunser, Foster, and now Laine. The dinner suddenly felt constricting, cage-like. There was a roiling of his tongue behind pursed lips, his eyes focused on the excessive creamer and sugar he was adding to his coffee. 

“Wasn’t a fuckin’ bullet wound,” he said. He looked over his shoulder at the patrons, and feeling sufficiently isolated from any prying ears he added, “Reminded me of a time I had to pull rebar out of an Afghan’s leg. IED sent it right through his thigh. This was...larger, no metal residue or fragments. Like a stingray wound but way larger. Little tearing around the edge of both the entry and exit point so not likely to be serrated. Your guess is as good as mine. I was going to ask Donnelley what he saw, but all he could give me last night was that it was big.”

He swirled his sugar addled coffee with a spoon before slurping it between his lips. “You said you wanted to compare it to something then you stopped. Compare it to what?” he asked. 

Laine made a mental note of his description and then leaned forward again, “It’s just a hunch, probably nothing. This is a case like no other so I’m not going to discount any ideas before I explore them. I’m waiting until we can get some tests back before delving further into this one. You see, the victim was found with a shard of that black stone, for lack of a better term, embedded in her heart. I would like to know what it is, if it’s a mineral then where is it from. But it did not get sent to the lab, Donnelley took it and I haven’t seen it since.” 

With a sigh, she sipped her coffee again, the idea nagging at her but she did not want to voice it just yet. There was some sort of connection between the thing in the woods and the dead girl, there had to be. Laine was not a big believer in coincidence. 

“Well, I suppose that’ll be something we can both ask Donnelley once he’s done outside,” she said, setting the mug down. Her green gaze flickered over Jason’s face and then touched his eyes, a hint of a smile now on her lips. “How have you been, by the way. Since we last spoke.”

“Like shit,”Jason said, and took a big gulp of his coffee. He wanted to leave it at that, but it was hard not to respond to her smile. He felt like she wasn’t allowed the true answer. Not yet. “The shard. Was forensics able to determine if its placement was deliberate or—”

“Alright, you two,” Annie said, sashaying their way, “figured out what to order?”

Jason’s gaze never left Laine’s as he answered, “Chicken fried steak, eggs over easy ma’am.” 

“Toast?”

“Hashbrowns.”

Annie clicked her pen and took it down. “And you, sweetie?” she asked Laine. 


When Annie approached Laine stopped talking, her jaw clicking shut and the veil of polite courtesy fell over her features. “I guess I should eat while I have a chance,” she said, it would be a long drive to talk to Dulane. Laine glanced at the menu and remembered Bakker’s judgement of the meatloaf. “I’ll have a BLT on toast, with fries. And an ice water.” 

Laine added, “We’ll have someone joining us shortly, if you could bring another coffee cup with the food.” 

Annie nodded and wrote it down, “Be back shortly.”

“Sorry to hear that,” she said, sincerity in the answer to how he had been doing. Laine resisted prying once he turned back to the case and she sat up in the booth, “A friend of mine from Quantico did the autopsy, he was certain it was what killed her despite all the other damage.”

Laine folded the menu back up and glanced at her phone, no missed calls. She checked to see if the ringer was on, as she had a habit of leaving it on silent. It was on full volume, not to miss Wilkins call. Her attention was brought back to Jason when he spoke again. 

“Did someone put that shard there or was it broken off in her heart?” he asked. There was an emptiness in the question, a void of emotionality. Jason might as well have been talking about what paint to use in the kitchen, or what groceries he’d need to pick up. The apathy’s cause was apparent; desensitization. It came with the job, least the job swallow you whole. 

Laine nodded, her own tone neutral, “Both. The autopsy report shows that it was inserted vag...” 

She lowered her voice in case the word caused ears to perk up, “Vaginally, lacerated her  through the cervix and punctured into the uterus to penetrate through her body, nicked the liver and lung before stopping in the heart, lodging in the aorta. A terrible amount force had to be used to do something like that, Jason. The best estimate Dr Bakker had was maybe the shard had been a sort of spear head, something like that. Honestly, I don’t have a better guess than that. Except...”

Laine tilted her head, the pink of her tongue brushing her lips as she thought, “Nothing shows any sort of wood splinter or bruising from a shaft of any sort, at least that we can tell. With lividity and her lack of skin, it is almost impossible. It’s probably the strangest murder I’ve come across. And that’s just the internal damage.” 

She shifted again in the booth, crossing her feet at the ankles to push them back against the bench and leaned on her elbows. “I can get you the report if you’d like to go over it, I’m having Agent Bhaat looking over it today. Maybe you’ve seen something similar...over there, you know.”

Her eyes flashed with curiosity then she smiled a bit, her eyebrows ticking up, “If you want, it’s not exactly light reading. But I would like your insight, I have a feeling you're here for more than just bandaids and muscle." 

Her gaze unconsciously dropped briefly to his shoulders and flicked back up, meeting his eyes. 

Jason’s boyish warmth returned at her quip, his head bobbing as he choked down a chuckle. “I’m no detective, but I’d be more than happy to look it over. Call it professional curiosity,” he said. He took another sip of his coffee, his eyes following hers, what they were studying.That was it, that’s what he was looking for. He couldn’t stand to admit it until it was glaring him in the eyes, tracing itself along the contours of his shoulders.

Bandaids. How apt a word, how metaphorical it all was. Wasn’t most things just that, he thought, bandaids to patchwork what we wouldn’t accept, what we couldn’t. How much of a distraction would he be for her, or her for him, he wondered. There was a solace in their wandering eyes, or at least what he thought was a conscious wandering. He wouldn’t lie to himself and say it wasn’t just that. There was a danger in that recognition, but all the same he took a moment to study the sculpted arch of her eyebrows and the intensity flashing in her olive eyes. 

“I haven’t seen anything that fits the bill,” he went on. “Do you have any other victims? Is it just women or have you seen males this way?”

"I haven't seen another in this condition," Laine admitted,  "The Olympia National Park case was different, she was not killed the same way. In fact comparing the two, Childress' killer seems more of an amateur or at least one still content with simply slitting throats. Granted, I never got to see the autopsy report but observed her neck opened up ear to ear."

She started to speak again, brushing a lock of dark hair back as she leaned into the conversation. It was something she needed, even if it was not his specialty, Jason knew and understood death and maiming, his observations would be valuable. It didn't hurt that he was handsome and built like a brick house, but he himself intrigued her, ever since their phone conversation. 

The long years spent as an Intelligence Sergeant in the Green Berets and compounded upon as a CIA Ground Branch Operator had drilled it into Donnelley that the eyes were the windows to the soul. Less poetically put, lingering eyes usually meant two things- they want to fight you or fuck you. And from his place standing some ways away at the front of Annie’s Diner, he got a feeling Laine wasn’t wanting to challenge Jason to a duel.

“Have a seat anywhere, Hon’, nice to see you again.” Annie greeted him warmly. She obviously remembered the man with the scar. He made a mental note of covering it up with makeup or a longer beard again.

“Thanks, Annie.” Donnelley smiled back.

The few steps towards the booth that Laine and Jason were in seemed a mile, of a sudden. He knew the reason, but he just didn’t want to bark up that tree. Yet. Donnelley stepped up to the table the two were seated at, wearing his face plain. The face Holly knew meant he didn’t like what was going on, but just waiting for the exact moment to spring whatever vitriol he had. He clucked his tongue and his lips turned up in a smile. A cold thing. The alternative was a piercing glare, but professionalism forbade something so overt. “Y’all gettin’ along well,” Donnelley huffed a chuckle through his nostrils, looking at Jason and Laine, and back again. Every word out of his mouth jacketed with a sprinkle of enmity, “Good, glad to see the team gettin’ closer.”

He squeezed in next to Jason, the bigger man. Even so, past the difference, both their builds contained in that little booth didn’t leave much seat left. There’s the moment between two big dogs with one bowl, the moment that there was no prospect of sharing. He gave Laine a tight-lipped smile that reached his eyes, but not in the right way. He knew, he just didn’t bother faking anything more than he needed to, “What y’all havin’ for brunch? You two look kinda hungry.” Frank Wilkins’ testimony hinged on whether his three guardian angels could play nice. This one was trying very hard to give a shit about Frank Wilkins at the moment. He sighed and clucked his tongue, “You think they got Pendleton?”

Laine glanced down at her cup, the coffee more than half gone then she met Jason's warm eyes. There was something else there, behind the golden brown and in the depths that made her want to challenge him, to see how deep his shadows lay. 

Laine reached for her cup, a small half smile forming on her lips as she caught sight of Donnelley moving towards them. It died when she met his eyes, the cold tight smile and forced chuckled. He was still angry from this morning she guessed but there was something else. Something more in how he bulled his way into the booth with Jason and how he glanced between them, as if catching them doing something shady.

She said nothing at his thinly veiled insinuation, but her green eyes narrowed  and Laine set her cup down without taking a drink. Tilting her head slightly, like a bird of prey spotting movement, Laine responded, "We're discussing the case, you know, like two agents would do."

Laine refilled her cup of coffee and then slid it over to him, saying flatly, "I ordered a BLT. But if you're so [I] thirsty [/I], please help yourself to some coffee."

Jason felt that animal aggression throb in his chest, spurred on by Donnelley’s rigidness and feigned smile. He couldn’t help but feel the human equivalent of heckles stand on end, a pressure tightening his back. He met Donnelley’s gaze with an expressionless stare, the muscles of his jaw flexing as his teeth pressed together. It wasn’t the intrusion, nor any perceived notion of foul play. It was simply the hostility Donnelley was exuding. [I]I’ll break that fucking femur through your wound if you keep looking at me like that[/I], said a voice in Jason’s head. He stifled its venom immediately and hoped his eyes didn’t belie his thoughts. 

Jason took a long sip of his coffee as Donnelley sat next to him, and then answered, “Chicken fried steak.” He wanted to be an ass, to mouth of ‘[I]oh Laine don’t be coy, we were talking about how to fuck each other without getting you jealous[/I],’ but he swallowed that down with another gulp of coffee and then he smirked. [I]And here I thought him and I were getting along. Some things never change.[/I]

“Was asking details about her case,” Jason said, his words coming out like he had something bitter in his mouth. “Well, she was asking if I had ever encountered anything like it. Do the powers that be have anything on it?”

Donnelley shrugged, “Compartmentalized. You know how it goes. Ask and you shall receive,” he shook his head, “Just gotta know when and what to ask.”

With a dismissive finger he pushed Laine’s cup back towards her. He didn’t even look at her as he uttered something innocuous but knowing the two of them would get the meaning of it, “I don’t like sharing.”

Laine took a deep breath and counted backwards as her cup slid back towards her. She could feel the rush of heat to her face, hating that it would be so apparent as her fair skin flushed. 

[I]I don't like sharing.[/I]

Her eyes gleamed hard as she stared at Donnelley, her own teeth clenched. She knew his meaning and the fact he would reduce her and spark they had shared to the equivalent of a bottle of whiskey made a hard burning knot in her chest. 

Laine took a drink of the hot coffee, ignoring the pain as it burned her tongue. Licking her lips slightly, she felt herself start feel the calm spread as she mentally counted. 

"Compartmentalized," Laine repeated with another curious tilt of her head, her eyes on Donnelley. "Putting something of interest into a little box and locking it away. Until you deem it fit to be let it out."

An almost feline snarl of a smile crossed her plush mouth then vanished almost as quickly as it has appeared and she leaned back in the booth. She lay a cool green gaze on Donnelley, "Well, [I]boss[/I], we were just discussing if there had been similar cases found. I'll definitely be running ours through VICAP, see if anyone has been arrested for or victim of a murder of this nature."

As if siphoned from his own vehemence, Jason felt the tension of something unsaid settle over the table like a fog. Something unsaid between Donnelley and Laine. Coffee cup suspended in the air before meeting his lips, Jason peered at Donnelley and then across the table at Laine. [I]Oh shit. No...[/I]. He couldn’t stop his eyebrows arching in exclaim, and he turned to stare out the diner window to hide it. Had Laine and Donnelley already went down that route? Would that make him the interloper? Jason was ashamed to admit that if what he felt from Laine was true he liked it. It showed a promiscuousness he couldn’t help but be attracted to, a caustic honey pulling him into the depth of its flower. 

“Call it conjecture, “Jason said, hiding his face from them as he watched the lull of a truck grumbling down the road, “but the placement of the stone seems ritualistic. But that also implies a consistent M.O. One I’m guessing you haven’t quite seen yet.”

“Killin’.” Donnelley shrugged, “Olympic Peninsula. Fuckin’ Arkansas. [i]Pakistan[/i]. Maybe there’s more somewhere, I don’t know. I know how I took care of the one in Pakistan.”

Donnelley smirked, one that wasn’t hiding any pithy little remark about the situation at hand, “Big fuckin’ bomb.” He looked out the diner window with Jason, “Or the CIA spook they sent to take us Green Berets out for a field trip did, anyway. Worked a charm, far as I know.”

“How deep into that rabbit hole did you go ‘fore they took it?” Donnelley’s eyes went to Laine, genuine curiosity instead of a scathing gaze this time.

Laine caught the raise of eyebrows from Jason before he turned away, as if he had realized something, a piece snapping into place for him. She watched him a moment but as he stayed focused out the window Laine turned back to Donnelley. 

"Not that deep," she admitted, "Preliminary examining of the body at the site, the autopsy report never made it to my desk. I have my own photos but none of the official CSI or lab results. But I know her, the victim, Sofie Childress. I was up there working her kidnapping before it became a homicide. I had a couple leads...in fact that day I called you. I spoke with a man I'd be interested in probing into a little more."

She had gestured slightly to indicate Donnelley as the one she had called that rainy day in Seattle. Laine sighed, then picked up her coffee, "She was involved in more than met the eye, I think. While she cultivated a very good college girl image, one of her professors mentioned her quality of work slipping, her being late or distracted. Mid semester overload probably but it could have been something else. She had bruising that might have been lividity or not  But I guess it doesn't matter, it's not [I]my[/I] case anymore."

Laine drank her coffee, it tasted bitter and appropriate. She ignored the urge to take her frustration out on Donnelley, his snide comment still burning in her mind. He didn't share. Apparently no one in the Program was good at sharing. She wasn't allowed back near the Childress case and she still had lingering doubt about Special Agent Chan's suicide. 

She finished the coffee and slid out of the booth. "I'm going to the ladies room."

Laine took her purse and strolled away, heels clicking on the cheap linoleum. She did not bother to check which eyes might follow her progress, if they both watched her or neither.

Donnelley watched her go. Now that the table was without the linchpin that held all the tension together, Donnelley felt at once relief and sheepishness. As if he’d just slipped from the grip of hysteria, or some such other foolish notion. Without turning to Jason he spoke, still watching her until she disappeared, “She’s somethin’...” He looked back down at the table, studying the grain and making like what he was about to say was what he meant, “Hell of a detective.”

He cleared his throat, soft coughs into his fist, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think Foster was gonna put the nails to you. ‘Specially right before we left.”

As Laine rounded a corner into the bathroom Jason felt his own anxiety creep up, snagging his ribs like climbing the rungs of a ladder. He gulped down some bothersome saliva and like Donnelley his eyes panned over the table. If he was going mend this he had to do it quickly. 

“He man,” he said, voice low and sincere, “Not trying to step on anyone’s toes. I didn’t know.”

Either Donnelley would confirm what he implied or it would be telling in another way. Anything lingering from the brief moment with Laine, if one could even call that a moment, dissipated. Now his mind was racked with the fallout of the previous aggression spike and the mental image of Sofie Childress, her body cold, pale, and exposed in a Northwestern dampness. He had so many questions about her condition, the minutiae of details any one of which could bridge the gap to understanding.  

Donnelley let go a nervous, humorless chuckle, something that dissipated and left a small smirk on him as he shook his head, “I don’t think she wants anyone to know. Not that I’m thinking on how to propose soon or anything.” He sighed, “It’s, uh… sensitive. As long as this stays between the three of us and absolutely [i]never[/i] gets to Foster.”

Jason grunted his affirmation as he bobbed his head, his stare becoming longer by the moment. There was an easy fix to all of this, and he thought he could find it one of these nights waiting for him in a run down honky tonk. Small towns had a way of producing a desperate loneliness he was more than happy to oblige. He would have to soon before he did something stupid.

“I’m not trying to save my ass, Foster already knows I’m an asshole an iota away from… fucking something up.” He shrugged, “Mostly for the Working Group’s sake. We’ve got a real good team here, best feeling I’ve had in a bit about the team I’m in. I want to keep everyone in.”

“And I want to stay here,” Jason replied. “So if Foster has my back when it comes to DIA I’m not worried about him prying. He’s probably my lifeline anyway. “

He sighed, gulped down the rest of his coffee, and turned his attention back to the stillness outside the diner. The depth of the seemingly endless trees, the asphalt chipping away by the moment. [I]God damn[/I], he thought, [I]I just want to get into some shit now.[/I] He pictured a black slab, something jagged and reflective like obsidian. And then Sofie Childress, a blank stare into an evergreen canopy. 

“You’re right,” Jason said after a moment. “She’s good. Can see through bullshit and I kinda can’t stand it.” He exhaled a laugh and shot Donnelley a smile. Maybe not a disaster after all.

“Fuckin’ right,” Donnelley chuckled out, “Shoulda been there at Baughman’s apartment. Didn’t even know me a day and already tryin’ to pick me the hell apart.”

Inside the restroom, Laine stood at the sink, washing her hands and checking her makeup. Her lipstick had been left on the cup so she touched it up, taking her time to give the men a moment without her disturbing presence. She frowned, her brows drawing closer together, leaving a delicate vertical line furrowed between them. 

She would have to talk to Donnelley soon, in private before anything worse happened. Like his reaction to Bakker, the same hostility towards Jason was inappropriate. They had to all work together and disruptions of a personal nature could be disastrous for team chemistry. Laine took a deep breath, hunting for her resolve before finally exiting the ladies room. 

As she approached, Laine looked at the men, almost amused that they had stayed sitting together in the same bench. The previous tension seemed to have dispersed, both men more relaxed than she had left them. 

Laine slid into the booth, putting her purse beside her. Folding her hands, she looked at both of them but said nothing about what happened before. 

"So, while we eat, we should come up with a game plan for Dulane," she suggested, glancing up at both of them. "I've interviewed people in prison, some are eager to talk and others not so much, especially if they are worried about a snitch rep after talking to feds."

“Seems like a him problem if he gets a snitch rep.” Donnelley shrugged, “Put him on watch if what he has to say seems important, but past that, I don’t owe this guy and I don’t know him. If he can tell me anything that seems fishy about Blackriver I’ll make sure he’s set up good.”

“As for Frank Wilkins? I’m treating this like we’re extractin’ a friendly HVT. He’s seen some shit, and for them to keep him right where they can have an eye on him at all times?” Donnelley chuckled and shook his head, “I could give a shit if Mary and Joseph themselves come up to me and tell me to hand him over. He’s ours, only ours.”

He leaned in closer to his two partners in the booth, “I’m not saying we turn this into a shooting war with Blackriver Sheriff’s or NPS, but they seem a little too zealous in keeping Wilkins from us…” he clucked his tongue and shrugged. “Any problems with that?”

Laine looked across at Donnelley as he spoke, her face had remaining closed off. She nodded slowly, but when the subject turned to Wilkins she looked sharply at him. 

Her eyes sparked as she leaned forward, speaking in a low but firm voice, the slight raspy quality of it noticable. "And if we get in a goddamn firefight with the locals we can kiss this crime scene goodbye. So try to keep the cowboying to a minimum. I'm sure we can find a way to sneak him out if we must."

Laine sighed then swept her hand up to tuck a dark lock of hair behind her ear then leaned back against the booth seat. She resisted the urge to cross her arms under her chest, instead pressing her palms against the table and added, "I trust you both to know your business in that area. And obviously you know the stakes more than we do, Mr Donnelley."

“Obviously,” Donnelley’s lip curled in contempt for the slightest moment before he calmed himself, “Know how long I’ve been doin’ this shit, [I]Miss[/i] Laine.”

“You want me on countersurveillance with Wilkins’ extraction or you?” Donnelley turned an eye to Jason.

"[I]Doctor[/I] Laine," she corrected him quickly, meeting his blue eyes and felt the temper returning rapidly. He certainly had a way of pushing her buttons and she reminded herself to stop responding. She turned away, first picking up her phone but no call or text from Wilkins and when he addressed Jason she looked over towards the kitchen, to watch in case Annie might walk up on them. 

Jason was reserved through Laine’s return, closed off and stern as he observed their interaction. He watched Laine’s body language, read the disdain. She wasn’t used to strongarming the “same team,” but some notion of collusion was teasing his gut feeling on the matter. Someone somewhere in this town didn’t want the same things they did, and he had the feeling they might have to push back. Or shoot back. 

“You’ve already established rapport,” he said to Donnelley. “I can countersurveil for Wilkins. And Dulane?”

He returned Donnelley’s gaze and then whipped it over to Laine. “Fuck him. We tell him what he wants and that’s that. We deliver or we don’t, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. Same thing with the sheriff. Crime scene or not we have to get progress, even if it means playing dirty.”

Jason knew the route Laine wanted to go, insisted on it even. That was the trouble with a room full of smart professionals; they always had the only answer to the situation. He had to remind himself she wasn’t used to the viper’s kiss that was so common overseas. Cordialness bred tightrope bureaucracy here, parameters he assumed the sheriff expected. 

“Alright, Laine’s the lead with Wilkins since she interviewed him.” Donnelley nodded, “I’ll go with her just in case, dependin’ on where he wants to meet us, you’ll have an easy job.” He said to Jason.

He looked back to Laine, “The dice are loaded in the Blackriver Sheriff’s favor. The Park Rangers around here might be in his pocket and in case you forgot, we’re not…” He looked around the diner, righting his next words before they could potentially wrong them sometime down the road, “We’re not on good terms. I said we’re playin’ under Moscow Rules, so I’m not goin’ to harass the opposition. But they’re still opposition. They ain’t gonna keep me from finding the sick fuck skinnin’ people ‘round here.”

“They want to keep us from gettin’ Frank? I’m goin’ to show them how bad I want him from them.” Donnelley sucked his teeth and shrugged, “Sometimes it gets like that. Ain’t sayin’ I’m pushin’ for it.”

Laine heard them out, they were right about the sheriff not wanting them there but the subtle denial of assistance was not the same as open hostility. That was the facade and up until now she was content to keep it that way, especially when it came to Frank Wilkins. 

"That's fair," she said simply, then glanced between both of the men, her hands b "I just want assurance we'll try a nonviolent approach until it proves impossible. And if you say you're not pushing for it...I believe you."

Her gaze met Donnelley's briefly, then flicked away, moving to Jason. "Alright then, Dulane we'll just have to figure out what he wants and say what we need to get what we want. I don't like it but I understand the situation time is ticking and this is not an academic study. Who is going to question him by the way?"

“Me and Jason can get at him. I’m not tryin’ to take this case off your hands or play cowboy, but if there’s one thing they taught me at The Farm it’s how to cultivate assets.” Donnelley jerked a thumb Jason’s way, “This guy knows it too. If Dulane’s a fuckin’ nut like Roy says he is then he’s hopeless. But if he’s not? He’s damn ripe to cut a deal for table scraps at this point. He don’t want to be there, or he’s used to it, but that little voice in his head is going to be begging for the outside world.”

Donnelley looked at Jason, “We’ll give it to him.” And then went back to Laine, “If we got to, we’ll arrange to take him for a walk to the place it all happened, jog his memory and have him tell us why he did what he did. You’re right, he should’ve been put in a mental ward. Somebody wanted him shut up somewhere he couldn’t talk. We’re goin’ to be his two guardian angels out of there.”

Donnelley frowned, “For a price. Good intel.”

Laine frowned slightly, mulling over what he told her, "Then where do you want me during the Dulane meeting? If he is mentally unstable, you might need my advice...not that I doubt either of your capabilities of handling this. Look, he's probably suffering from untreated PTSD and other side effects of trauma, though I'm inclined to believe the crazy label might have just been assigned to him because of what he said he saw."

Her eyebrows quirked up and a ghost of a smile touched her lips, "As I'm sure it would if I talked about the problem in that septic tank to anyone other than [I]plumbers[/I]."

She caught herself, glancing over as Annie approached with a tray. Annie smiled a greeting and slid the oversized chicken fried steak hanging off the plate in front of Jason and the BLT and a glass of water before Laine then peered down at Donnelley, pulling the order pad from her apron, "And you, hon? What can I get you?"

“Coffee and, uh,” He rolled his jaw in thought, “Omelette.”

“Sure thing, hon’.” Annie smiled and hurried off.

“You and Jason then. I want him out of there, givin’ him some time outside the prison might make him more receptive to talk. I wouldn’t trust police if they were the ones who put me in Beckwith.” Donnelley folded his arms, his corded forearms across his chest, “We’ll need to get it okayed and have Marshals with us, but it’s better’n nothin’. Hell, promise anythin’ you need to squeeze him dry.”

“I’d tell him I believed him if he sticks to his mine devils story. Ain’t a far stretch with the shit… [i]we[/i] deal with.” Donnelley didn’t want to utter the name of The Program out loud in public.

Laine took a sip of water, watching Donnelley her gaze drifting to his folded arms then back to his face. She set her glass down, nodding slightly. As she had when she questioned Wilkins she would try to make Dulane comfortable and hopefully he would tell everything they needed. If not, there was Jason and whatever DIA tricks he might have up his sleeve. 

"Right," she said, "We can handle it, I wanted to get a look at the mines myself anyway."

Laine paused, then picked up a piece of the sandwich, examining it before taking a bite. Once she swallowed, she looked at Donnelley, the memory of the tavern in Charleston came rushing back. But so did the sting of his comment earlier. 

"If you want some fries while you wait, I'm not going to be able to finish them all," Laine said, shrugging slightly, her eyes searching his. 

He looked up from the table to find her looking at him in that way she always did. Like conversation was chess, picking people apart was one-part hobby, one-part habit. He nodded a few times, slow, as he reached over to her plate. He stopped just short, “Thank you.”

He plucked one from her plate and sunk his teeth into the thick steak fry, ripping half of it from itself and chewing. His gaze didn’t leave hers until he flicked it away to the window, watching a bird on a powerline before they went back to the grain of the table. He finished off the last morsel, wanting to say something to Laine. An apology, as the good night he’d had in Charleston with her came back to him with the taste of it. But he wanted it to be private. Admitting that he was wrong, that he was an asshole for no good reason was not something easily pulled from behind his teeth. Especially if it was to someone he liked,  “Good fries.”

“So, Frank Wilkins. Wherever he has us meet him, we get in, get him, get out. Any interviews we save for when we get to the Safehouse. Anyone not at this table is a potential hostile.” He said, infinitely more comfortable speaking on the case than trying to pick up pieces from his entrance. Shit, he thought, was he going to have to apologize to Jason too? Maybe not. There was an understanding between them.

Yet, he felt guilty for even insinuating that Laine was [i]his.[/i] They’d known each other personally for what? A couple days, past a phone call and three months of passively knowing what she looked like and a name to her face. With Laine, there was no [i]us[/i], yet. Yet? “We’re kicking the hornet’s nest as it is by taking Frank Wilkins. It’s one thing taking a bad guy off the street and… liquidating him.” His eyes flicked from Jason to Laine and back to the table, “I’d rather not shoot anyone in the face if I don’t have to.”

As soon as his plate of food was handed over Jason took to the steak with his fork and knife, an animal replied spreading from its warmth settling in his empty stomach. He'd have to work off the gravy, but figured he'd be burning lots of calories throughout the days. He had shoveled two heaping cuts of steak and hashbrowns before Annie had walked away, nodding in response to both Laine and Donnelley. 

"I hope we don't either," he said, pushing the food in his mouth to one side as he spoke. "If it comes to that we know where they stand, what they'd be willing to do. Getting Dulane out of the prison is going to be hard. We sweet talk the warden already? What's our angle?"

“US Marshals are going to have to be a part of it, that’s a done deal. We can tweak things if I can talk to Foster before the outing is scheduled, if it even gets approved.” Donnelley said, eyeing the two plates at Laine and Jason’s busy hands. He felt hunger pangs in his gut which meant potential distractions and even complications with low blood sugar if and when things went awry.

He sighed, “Anyways, if our people can intercept a request to the local Marshal’s field office, we can have one of our own teams pose as Marshals SOG for security during transport.” He looked at Jason, “Like anybody else, I’m sure the Warden would be receptive to large amounts of money to approve it and keep his lips tight.”

“If that happens, then I can’t be exposed to anyone in Beckwith, not even a gate guard. It wouldn’t do if people were scratching their heads at Special Agent John Davidson also being a US Marshal. You two need to be the only ones handling Dulane. I can pose as the Lead Marshal when the time comes.” Donnelley reached over and plucked another fry from Laine’s plate and made it disappear in two quick bites, chewing over the plan, “We only tell everybody what we absolutely need to. Dulane’s testimony is part of an ongoing case, nothing more or less.”

Laine finished half her sandwich as Donnelley spoke, the reality of the situation of getting Dulane out to the mines sinking in. Bribery of all things, hopefully she could convince the warden before getting to that point and she had an idea. Before she could speak, her phone lit up urgent piercing chirps and she snatched it up, answering. 

"This is Agent Laine," she identified herself then jerked her head up, looking at Donnelley. Giving a push to her plate towards him, she slid out of the booth and said, "Just hold a moment, its noisy here."

As she stood up, she silently mouthed, "Wilkins."

Laine strode away, making a beeline to the restroom, it was a one stall affair and would afford her the most privacy. 

After she locked the door, she said, "Frank, it's good to hear from you. Talk to me."

“Hey, um,” Frank paused, sounding somewhat more calm than the last time they’d spoke. There was still an edge there, though, “I packed my shit that night you came to talk to me and got out of there. They can’t keep me there, I won’t let them.”

“I took the bus to Charleston and I’m at a Motel 6 along the way. I don’t know, but I think someone’s watching me.” He said, a whisper this time.

"Good, that's good," she said, leaning against the sink. It was worrisome but not surprising that he was being watched. Loose lips sink ships. 

"Frank, you probably are being watched but I want you to stay calm and don't leave your room," she said, her voice even and confident, even as her stomach knotted. "We're coming for you. What's your room number?"

“I’m in room 204.” He swallowed, not exactly relieved that his conjecture was probably confirmed by Laine. “Just get here quick. It’s the Motel 6 on the main road to Charleston.”

"We'll be there as soon as possible, call me if anything changes," Laine said, reaching to unlock to door. 

Once he disconnected Laine left the restroom, walking quickly back to the booth. She reached over to grab her purse, pulling her wallet out to leave a tip and glanced around for Annie before addressing the men. "Looks like we'll be needing to-go boxes, that was our boy."

Donnelley simply nodded, looking to Jason, “Let’s git.”