>OUTSIDE BOSTON LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
>15 MILES FROM BRAINTREE
>23JUL2019
>0045...///

Clouds drifted in the midnight sky leaving pools of inky blackness, looming and heavy shapes in the velvet. Breezes sent chills down spines in a night lit only by streetlights, washing out the streets in bleak orange. A bus squealed to a stop and hissed its doors open, a procession of sagging shoulders and shuffling feet lumbering inside. A lone car passed, bass thumping behind black windows. Donnelley watched it pass, sighing a breath of pale steam into the cold, still air. He’d opted to find himself on his lonesome, one of the first to exit the plane and grab his luggage.

He wondered why he did this to himself, fretting on what was to come. Knowing in every bit of himself and still trying to fool his mind into being surprised by what he’d see come the following hours. He sighed a curse into the air and took another drag off his cigarette as the bus passed, leaving a breeze that made him quiver again under his hoodie. He slipped the hood over his Thrasher cap and coughed into a fist, letting his head hang. He’d wait for the sunrise.

Not that this one would bring any joy. The slight heaviness in his limbs from the drinks he’d had on the plane and the overpriced airport bar did nothing to lessen the darkness of his mood. The only sound accompanying his reverie was the sounds of passing cars on the road and a far off siren lending its echoing call to the atmosphere.

Laine stood away from Dave and Ava, checking her messages from work and family. It seemed almost a lifetime since she had been at the office let alone talk to her parents. She looked at her mother's messages and started to reply then shoved the phone back into her pocket. Instead she took out her Djarums and headed outside, leaving the crowd of the airport. 

She scanned the well lit walkway, faces of strangers passing by, blissfully unaware of Russian hellhounds and undead wives. As she moved passed the taxi stand, carrying her bag and laptop case over one shoulder, the people fell away until Laine spotted a lone figure. 

From his stance she knew him, Donnelley's frame was already familiar in her mind. Laine waited, watching him brood in the dark as she lit a clove cigarette. Not wanting to intrude but unable to leave him, she walked slow and took a long drag as she studied the dim stars beyond the clouds and light pollution.

Getting over herself she approached Donnelley, looking over his hooded profile and she asked, "Sex Pistols or the Damned?"

“Crass.” Donnelley said, “Ain’t for revolution, it’s just for cash.”

He huffed a chuckle through his nose and ashed his cigarette, quoting that line. It might have been about the Clash being too poppy, and not the Pistols but he wanted to hear what Laine would make of that, “You think that young punk from Dalhart would hate me if he saw me now?”

Laine gave a little smile, his answer not conforming to the choices. "I don't believe you're all about the cash," she said, moving closer, her shoulder brushing his. "You're not a sell out, no matter who is signing your checks."

She tapped the black cigarette, the embers flickering and vanishing. "I don't know, maybe. But young punks never believe they'll grow up."

“Ain’t that the truth of it.” Donnelley chuckled, taking another long drag off his cigarette and sighing into the night. He looked around, the first time he’d been to Massachusetts and the circumstances were not promising. His mind drifted to a hundred other places besides there and he worked at quieting it all down so he could focus on what mattered.

His team.

“How’re you feeling?” He asked, switching out of his drawl to better fit this northeastern coast, “Feels like it’s been a month since we’ve had any time to wind down.”

Laine shrugged, raising the clove cigarette to her lips. She wore only the Siouxie and the Banshees t-shirt and black skinny jeans, her Converse sneakers finishing the unassuming look. "I feel like time has warped and those days were actually a month. I'm also very concerned about Ava and Avery, about the girl we failed to retrieve from the hospital. I feel like every smidge of victory has been kicked like an empty can across a road of defeat. But that's the nature of tough cases."

She blew out a stream of fragrant smoke and glanced over at him, Donnelley's eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap. "We might not win every battle but we keep fighting. Even when it seems futile."

Laine crossed one arm over her stomach, tucking her hand under the other arm. "I'm fighting my own doubts, questioning my sanity at getting into this mess but here I am. With you, with UMBRA."

After the little speech she glanced aside, then asked, "What should I expect from this meeting?"

“Expect them to ask you about a lot of things that don’t even pertain to the case we’re working on right now,” Donnelley said, “They’ll hook you up to a polygraph and grill you. It’s important that you tell the truth about everything and stick with it.”

Donnelley cleared his throat and took his last drag, flicking the smoldering butt into the street, “The Agency, and the Program even more, takes these things seriously. A nuke or a dirty bomb. Stolen files, that’s one thing, but,” he shrugged, “You know what we deal with. You need a radicalized chemist or a foreign agent to get on the Agency’s radar. The Program has to be pinged every time a crackpot says something weird.”

"So help me, God," she quipped after he had laid out the inquiry they faced. Laine looked over at him, hugging herself. "What about you?"

Donnelley shrugged, “I’m fine.” He said, tugging another cigarette from his pack and clucking his tongue that he was getting low, “Fine as I ever am. Foster secured some rooms at the Envision hotel in Boston, single night. We won’t be here for long, I’m not even going to unpack.”

“Hopefully the hotel’s bar is cheaper.” Donnelley snorted.

"I don't think I'd like to face the Inquisition hungover," Laine replied. "What do you think about the outcome? With our case?" 

“We’ll get them. No doubt.” Donnelley shook his head with some resolve.

[hr]

Ava felt numb. She wondered if maybe she was feeling some kind of shock after the rapid change in location. She had scarcely had a chance to deal with her midnight walkabout in the comforting security of her team when they were quickly shuffled out of the hospital, speed packed their belongings at the hotel and then grabbing the first plane to Massachusetts.

They were just a few hours drive to her home state, Rhode Island. Just a few freeway exits and she could be knocking on her parent’s door; go up to her childhood room and...Well she wasn’t sure what, but it was an idea that was very appealing to her right about then.

But, she couldn’t. Aside from the fact that the Program would tan her hide for abandoning an assignment, she didn’t want to risk bringing the attention of the Russians or their pet from the bowels of Hell to her family.

So, she stayed, standing with Dave as they waited for... something. A ride maybe? She didn’t know. Her mind felt blank and she was currently staring over at the line at the Cinnabon in the food court. A warm pastry sounded good. 

Dave eyed Ava subtly, trying to gauge her emotional state. Her sleep-walking session seemed to have taken a toll on her. While he'd never experienced it first hand, he was feeling some distress himself at their sudden shift in focus and relocation. He couldn't imagine how she was feeling.

She'd been silent most of their flight; that was odd. Recently she was more talkative, at least with him. He tracked her gaze and gave her a gentle elbow.

"You look like you're wantin' somethin'," he grinned. "Hungry?"  

Ava started a bit from the nudge, glancing up at him and trying to must a ghost of a smile. “A little.” She said with a small shrug of her shoulders. “Plus, it’s Cinnabon.”

"Well let's get Cinnabon," he said. He put his hand briefly on the small of her back, guiding her towards the restaurant. "Got a feeling we ain't gonna have time for snacks for a bit."

As they walked he kept his gaze moving. He was unarmed, and hated it. His pistol was checked on the plane, the other gear left with the two goons from THUNDER. He felt naked. 

Ava followed Dave’s guiding touch, the warm hand on her back bringing a small spark of comfort with the contact. “Yeah, probably. We should get some stuff to go, in case the others need a little pick-me-up.” She said, eyes roaming over the approaching menu, but she already had an idea what she wanted.

"I've got cash," he said. "Never been here before though, so tell me what I want. I trust ya." 

“It’s a little messy, because cinnamon buns.” Ava said as they joined the short line. “I’m getting the Center of the Roll, which comes in a bowl and makes eating a little easier. Because bowl.” She said, a bit of a smile appearing on her face. “Center of the Roll in a bowl.”

"Sounds good to me." He returned the smile as he dug out his wallet, glad to see a spark of happiness out of her. "So should we just get a buncha cinnamon bums for the others?" 

“They have like little donut holes we can get that are easy to eat or we can get the bite sized cinnamon buns.” She said, looking over the menu to see what they had. “Maybe some hot chocolate?” 

"I don't know anybody who don't like hot chocolate and donut holes," Dave said seriously. When their turn arrived he approached the counter, exchanging pleasantries with the skinny, tattooed hipster running the register before giving their order. He paid with cash, as he had always preferred, then led Ava off to the side to wait on the food somewhere he could put his back to a wall. 

"So," he said quietly. "How you holdin' up, sugar?" 

“...” Ava looked down at the ground, fiddling with the soft peach colored sleeve of her sweater. “It’s...a lot.” She finally answered him after the seconds of tense silence ticked by. 

Dave watched her, sympathy in his steel-blue eyes. He nodded; things were rough for him, too. He wasn't surprised she was having trouble. 

"Yeah, it is." He rested his hand on her shoulder, gave it a short squeeze. "But I'm here for ya. The whole team is. We all got each other's backs." 

“I know, thank you.” She said, looking at the hand and then looking up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “I just...I don’t know what’s going on with me.” She said, dropping her voice to a whisper. 

"I know," he said. His voice was gentle, and he leaned down to put their faces level. "But we're gonna figure it out, alright?" He gave her his most confident smile. "We got this, and we got each other." 

She sniffed and nodded, pushing up her glasses to dab at her eyes with her sleeve. “I know.” She said, lowering her glasses back down and turning to wrap her arms around his neck and shoulders. “Thank you Dave.”

Dave gave her a firm squeeze, holding her for a few moments. "'Course, sugar." On impulse he leaned down and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. "You're a tough lil' lady, you know that?" 

Ava blinked in surprise at the kiss, feeling her skin grow warm in response and her heart giving a little flutter. “It’s the pastels and cartoons, isn’t it?” She asked with a half smile, trying to perk herself back up.

"Definitely," he nodded. "Anybody who'll wear cartoon pun shirts ain't to be messed with," he said. "It's a sign of strength. That's why I love my hat." He touched the brim of his ball cap and winked. 

She smiled a little wider and chuckled. “You are definitely a strong man.” She said, reaching up to tap the brim of the hat.

He laughed. "Yeah, I try," he said. He leaned back against the wall, a small smile on his face and his hand resting on Ava's shoulder. He stayed that way until their order was called. 

"Alright, snack time," he said. "This was a good idea, junk foods always bring the mood up." 

“It does.” She agreed, picking up her hot chocolate and her Center of the Roll in a bowl, which were just chunks and pieces of warm cinnamon roll covered in icing. “Should we go find Donnelley and Laine? Or eat our bowls first?”

"Eat first," Dave said emphatically. The moment he'd gotten his food his stomach had started snarling. "They got our numbers, they need us they'll call. Won't take us long anyway. I'm starvin'." 

“Cinnabon has that effect.” Ava nodded sagely, picking up the bag of donut holes and leaving the box of mini cinnamon rolls for Dave to grab. She led them over to a nearby table and sank into the hard plastic with a sigh. “Maybe we should have gotten actual food.” She noted when Dave joined her. 

Dave gave her a blank look as he sat down across from her. 

"I don't understand," he said. "Anybody who says cinnamon rolls an' donuts ain't food sounds a bit like a communist to me." 

Ava smiled, a startled giggle bubbling out from her chest. “Well, I do have red hair…” She said, trailing off while looking at him pointedly.

"Oh hell, you're right," he said, his eyes widening. "I shoulda seen the signs!"  

Ava grinned, poking at her cinnamon roll innards with her fork before picking up a piece to eat. There was a comforting feeling to eating a warm bit of pastry, though who she had for company could have also played a role in the sense of ease she felt. 

“How long have we been on assignment?” She asked Dave with a curious frown. “It feels like weeks.”

"Um… Like, three, four days?" He frowned, pausing in his chewing. "I dunno, honestly. I don't think it's been a week yet." 

“Jesus.” Ava muttered, frowning down at the bowl of baked goods in front of her. “The cookout feels like forever ago.”

Dave flashed back briefly to the cookout, the sense of comradery and general ease they'd felt. 

"Yeah, no kidding," he sighed. "Shit feels like it's comin' faster and faster, don't it?" 

She nodded, staring at her bowl for a moment longer before looking back up at him with guilt in her eyes. “I’m sorry about scaring you all. I really am. I don’t know why it happened.”

"Hey, it's alright sugar," he said. He smiled. "Shit happens. We're just glad you're alright, ya know?" 

“Yeah.” She tried to return his smile and took a bite of her pastry, trying to ignore the guilt still clawing at her insides. “I guess lucky for us Renko was close by, apparently.” She said, a thoughtful crease appearing between her eyebrows. “In a weird way, I did find him again.”

"Yeah, that is… Kinda weird, really," Dave frowned and shook his head. "Guy is helpful, but shit man… I dunno. I'm just…" He shrugged and poked at his cinnamon roll. "He just keeps comin' outta nowhere." 

Ava nodded, frowning down at the table as she mulled it over. “I guess he was paying us back for helping him. I wish he would have just brought me back to you all, but he probably wanted to avoid joining Jay in the bathroom.” She tapped her fork against the rim of the bowl. “Tony, the nurse at the hospital, said it seemed like he cared.”

"Well, I'll hafta thank him when he pops up again," Dave grinned. "Unless he brings that thing along. Then I'ma punch him." 

“I’ll punch him too.” Ava shuddered visibly, setting down her fork to take off her glasses and rub her hands over her face; slumping back into her chair and almost curling in on herself. 

Dave reached across the table and took her shoulder for a moment, giving it a squeeze.

"We'll get through this," he said confidently. "Have some faith. In God, or just in the team. We're gonna be alright." 


“It’s not that.” She said, her voice small and her hands trembling against her face. “I’m just...remembering the nightmare I had when I was sleepwalking.”

"You wanna talk about it?" He put his fork down and leaned forward. “We can do that in a bit, if you wanna. Away from… You know." He gestured at the crowd around them. 

She started to shake her head, then paused for a moment before she slowly nodded. “Yeah.” She said, taking in a deep breath and lowering her hands down. “Later, but, yes, I want to talk about this.”

"Alright," Dave nodded. He ate the last of his cinnamon roll and sighed, leaning back in his chair with satisfaction. "That was a good idea." 

Ava mustered up a smile for him, her bowl relatively untouched in front of her. “I’m glad you liked it, Cinnabon is always a good idea.” She looked down at her food, her stomach flipping but she forced herself to take a bite. “Better hurry and eat this before we have to go.”

"Yeah, I don't think it'll keep," he said. He checked his watch, then his phone. "They ain't callin' for us yet so we got a minute."  

She nodded, swallowing what she had been chewing before reaching over to touch Dave’s hand. “Thanks again Dave, for everything.”

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "'Course," he said lightly. "Ain't no trouble at all, sugar." 

[hr]

When the team scrambled out of West Virginia Jason was quick to follow. They had paraded out of the makeshift base with quick sense of purpose he hadn’t seen since his Air Force basic training days, though what they were heading into Donnelley kept close to the chest. He didn’t like that, but he trusted the team lead otherwise—either by choice or necessity he had to. While they waited to board one text had been enough to cancel Jason’s flight just minutes before taking off to Boston. He had mouthed something quick and vague to Donnelley at the boarding gate before they parted, and there was a business-like glare in his eyes hinting it was something important. It would be hours after UMBRA landed when he’d finally arrive in Boston, but it would be worth it. His DIA team linguist, Dan Treston, had finally come through with a follow-up on the ghostly phone data coming out of Syria.

Jason couldn’t remember the last time he had talked to Dan, but when he had Dan had promised intelligence over the phantom signal. The promise had been a tentative and unspoken one, both men knowing the fine line they’d have to follow chasing the lead, and that meant weeks, perhaps months, before either of them could communicate safely. The text came on his burner phone, Dan being the only person outside of the Program to have the number. 

[i]Dead account: 174_NoxiA_tim.burrough2427@Euhost.net, standard pw, NO PGP! Email has encryption script[/i], the text said. 

Jason was no tech analyst but even he knew PGP encryption would be out of the question. Lettered agencies loved it when the bad guys used PGP. It would light up their presence like a gas station on a desert night, and although the messages would still be encrypted, the meta-data was free for the taking. Jason and his team had caught too many terrorists using this method. The irony was the same encryption his targets used was the same the CIA had engineered and feigned as a Mujahadeen secure network. Anytime a terrorist would use messaging systems like Mujahideen Secrets or whatever half-assed encryption program their tech guy cooked up their meta-data immediately framed them as potential terrorists. 

It seemed to Jason there was little anyone could do to hide from the all seeing eye of technology these days, and that made him nervous opening whatever Dan had sent him. He had to download and install the several executable files in the dead email account, the actual data an encrypted jumble floating somewhere unknown in the unindexed void of the dark web. Jason didn’t dare read anything until he was in the air and physically disconnected from any network, the data downloaded moments before boarding. 

What Dan had uncovered produced more questions than answers. The original anomaly was a series of encrypted messages from an asset cellphone in Syria, a series of messages from a dead man. Anis al-Shamard, Jason’s late asset, had been the previous owner. He was beheaded around the time Jason was recruited by the Program, right when a firesale’s worth of agency spies turned up dead or missing. Jason had watched the execution video himself, Anis’s dripping head flashing in his mind’s eye as he sat in the back rows of the small, commercial two-engine plane. Any other time it would have prompted Jason to take anything to numb his trauma-shelled mind, but he was fixated on the intel. 

After Anis’s death his phone, written off as lost equipment, began sending the series of  messages. Dan had mentioned before the phone was deactivated, meaning it wouldn’t be able to access the DIA towers even if it was recovered, but somehow the messages came through. What Dan discovered was even more puzzling. The phone pinged from only one cellphone tower, a tower no American agency knew of, deep in a Syrian town called Ar Rastan in the Idlib province. The province had been notoriously difficult to operate in due to heavy fighting, even more so since Russian military intervention. That’s who Jason thought of as the culprit initially, but Dan seemed to have ruled out the Russian’s as well. He had checked all cell tower data in the country, which didn’t show the phantom tower at all, and all Russian equipment squawking any electronic signal had been accounted for. And still the messages came through. 

Dan had compiled and sent the logs, yet as Jason began reading an incredible drowsiness came over him. Just moments before he had been wired awake, his mind racing with potentials and theories, but now a heaviness pulled at his eyelids and rolled his head forward. He fought a losing battle against it. Perhaps it had been the week of restless sleep, deep and dreamless yet no more satisfying than if he had tossed and turned all night. Perhaps it was the girl, who they couldn’t recover, or the man he had killed, or Ava’s disappearance. And then he read it halfway through the logs of garbled nonsense.

[i]Y76….$..4;r6
    Gqalshamard20&3602…<+[-Mathieu%adf
,          (./     Stewart
WEissman 
T heLong 7  sleep,dreaming6^.*..@34
come@1.j.,aNd see /syt9dufk4

(Note: One of the few texts with words “al Shamard Mathieu Stewart Weissman the long sleep dreaming come and see” failed encryption wouldn’t do this)[/i]


    Jason woke up to the jostling of the plane as it settled on its landing gear. The unknowable hours of his sleep spread like a panic, but his mind was immediately focused on the last message he had read. The message that had been sent weeks before Laurie, Gwen, and Tom had died. 

[hr]

>ENVISION HOTEL, BOSTON, MA
>0200...///

Goddamnit, Donnelley thought. No hotel bar. Nothing to speak of in the mini fridge, either. He couldn’t even bring his flask along on the trip. He’d have to find a bar before going to sleep or he just fucking never would. Either that, or… Donnelley looked at himself in the mirror, shirtless and in nothing but his boxer briefs. There were bags forming under his eyes the closer he looked. He brushed the gnarled scar on his thigh from whatever that thing was in the forest, eyed the old burn. The longer he looked, the less he liked everything he saw, so he turned away.

He needed a drink. Whiskey and cocaine. The dreams would feel less real that way. Like a mad hallucination, hazy and disjointed. He pulled on his jeans and slipped the first shirt he found on himself, a plain black thing, and threw some shoes on before walking to the door. He placed his hand on the knob before remembering to get his gun, shoving it holster and all into his waistband.

He eased his room’s door open and stepped out into the hallway, small footsteps that felt laughable to be attributed to the bold and brash J. Donnelley carrying him to his destination, like a squirrel along the forest floor instead of the proud bull tramping down weeds in his pasture. As much as Laine’s presence filled him with a sense of comfort and some sense of nervousness he hadn’t felt since he was a scrawny teen, he wanted something else. So he rapped his knuckles over Dave’s door. Something about the steady and stalwart Dave made Donnelley comfortable. Reminded him of the days when the soldier on his left and on his right were the only things in the world he had to worry about, and he didn’t have to worry about them at all. “It’s Donnelley, man.” He said. 

There was the rustle of fabric and a few moments passed, then Dave pulled open the door. He wore a white beater and jeans, his Sig tucked into the front in what his bastard father had always called [i]Mexican carry[/i]. He eyed Donnelley, his initial welcoming smile becoming a frown.

"Hey, man, you alright?" He stepped aside, waving Donnelley in without a moment's thought. "You ain't lookin' great." 

Donnelley returned the smile, mirrored as best it could be through the filter of his stress. He stepped inside and the smile faltered. “Ain’t been sleepin’.” He said, slipping back into his drawl as he always did when Dave was around, “Just can’t some nights.”

He plopped himself down in a seat and settled into it. “I don’t want to be a mood killer, man, but Foster didn’t call us to Massachusetts for tea.” He frowned, “He sounded stressed. That makes me stressed. The fact the Russians and us got each other on our radars, the fact that Tom lives here near Boston… it don’t look good.”

Dave listened attentively, nodding along as Donnelley spoke. The only interruption was the snap of his dip can. After he'd packed a lip he offered his friend the can. 

"Well…" He poked and prodded his dip into place with his tongue, his cold-steel gaze far away. "It sure ain't good, I'll give ya that. Russians… That's some shit I never thought I'd be mixed up in." Dave paused, concern once again creasing his features. "You think there's something with Tom?" 

Donnelley took the can and tucked some of the tobacco in his lip. He’d never been a fan of the stuff, even when some of his buddies in Batt would go so far as to pack a dip and run with it in. He liked the feeling though. A distraction. “I really don’t know, man.” He said, offering the can back and settled back in his seat. “Listen, I’m not one to spread scuttlebutt and shit, but I’m just tellin’ you, because if what I think happened did happen.”

He shook his head, “It’s a real fuckin’ situation. Any chance you get, get whoever you got back home waitin’ for you squared away.” He said, “There’s another thing I need to let you know about.” 

Dave's eyes grew hard, his genuine concern replaced with a deep-seated fury that came on all at once. 

"You think someone might be comin' after my boy?" His calloused hands curled into rock-hard fists. "You tell me the truth now." 

“The Russians. I don’t know what they know about. I need to tell my wife…” Donnelley cleared his throat, “My ex-wife to make sure she’s safe out there. I got a little girl too, man, I’m pissed as you.”

“But whether or not the Russians have their sights on our families, we gotta answer to the Program about Renko.” Donnelley said, “You worried?”

Dave shrugged a shoulder, prodding at his dip. It was a nervous habit he'd never been able to break; it had driven Kahlia nuts.

"I been fucked with by feds most my life," he said finally. "I ain't lookin' forwards to it, but I figured I'd hafta talk to suits eventually...They uh...We gettin' black-bagged if they don't like what we say?" 

Donnelley shrugged, a macabre smirk on his face, “Never been on the other side of the recorder.” He chuckled, “Expect a polygraph. Expect ‘em to bring up your ol’ Pa. You only talk about what happened with Renko and that’s it. Tell the truth about everything and stick to it. They’ll try to fluster you, but don’t take the bait.”

“We’ll come out of these fuck-fuck games and get back to the case in no time.” Donnelley nodded. “But they got your file, Dave. Don’t let ‘em use it against you, you’re with the good guys doin’ the real work while they’re stapled to a fuckin’ desk. We’re their entertainment.”

“Besides, the cells there are nicer than this fuckin’ room. Beds are pretty comfortable.” Donnelley smiled.

Dave grinned, his good humor back in an instant. "Probably better than the racks at Boone County, huh?" 

He laughed and shook his head before trailing off, his gaze settling on the far wall. "I been questioned before. ATF. The Old Man, you know? Didn't snitch, I ain't that kind even if the Old Man does deserve a bullet, but…" He sighed. "This kinda seems… I'unno. More serious."  

“You’d be right.” Donnelley nodded, a little more gravity weighing his smirk down, “That black bag you mentioned earlier? I don’t think any of us have anythin’ to worry about. Renko made contact with us, not the other way around.”

“I know you’re new to this spy shit, but you’re doin’ pretty alright so far. Since we’re goin’ to Langley, maybe I’ll put y’all through some courses at The Farm.” Donnelley shrugged and chuckled, “Shoothouses and everythin’, CQB. Show you how the pros kick doors. Higher clearance, better perks.”

Dave perked up, his eyes alight at the prospect of gunplay in professional facilities. 

"I like shoothouses," he said, grinning as he thought it over. "Ain't been in one in a minute, but I like 'em." 

“You’ll like those ones.” Donnelley nodded.

“I need to know, man,” Donnelley said, “What happened that night?”

Dave paused as he considered the words. He'd told the story before, they all had. 

"I really ain't sure," he said finally. His gaze grew distant and he stared at the far wall, digging deep for details he'd been trying to forget. "We were fine. Hangin' out. Then that Renko guy came bangin' on the door. We started smellin'... Burned wires. Like when you got an electrical short. Or maybe we smelled it, and then Renko showed up. Or it mighta happened all at once man, I dunno."

He shivered, sighed, looked down at his hands. "Then there was guns out and everyone was yellin', but nobody was doin' nothin'. So I did. I told him to drop his gun and he did, so we got in that circle. Then that...thing came. We said a prayer or somethin' and it went away… Ava, she was in bad shape. Said she saw it before it got there. Like in her head."

Dave fell silent, staring at the wall and messing with the dip in his lip. Finally he looked up at Donnelley. "If I fucked up I'm sorry, man. Don't let 'em take it out on the others. But somebody had to make a decision, an' I figured it was gonna hafta be me. I just wanted to keep everyone safe."  

Donnelley nodded along as Dave’s eyes grew distant and looked far back to that place. His story was consistent with Laine’s, for sure. He’d better keep it that way, he thought firmly, but when Dave’s eyes came back to the present and he’d said what he did. Well, Donnelley knew he’d made the right decision leaving him in charge that night. “You did everything same as I would, man, don’t you worry ‘bout that.” Donnelley nodded, “I’m glad I chose you. Ain’t any better you could’ve done.”

Dave gave him a grateful smile, pleased with the praise. "Thanks, bud. I appreciate it. Way I figure it, we got too many enemies right now to be questionin' friends. I ain't sayin' we should trust Renko, really, but… If he's helpin' he's helpin'. If the mob is after him too, least we can do is wait to start shootin' at each other 'til they're handled. An' he seems like an alright guy. Helped Ava out right?" ”

“It’s what they’re sayin’. Least he could’ve done was leave a note,” Donnelley snorted, “This ain’t gonna be the last time we see Renko. We’ll find out if he’s a friend soon enough.”

Donnelley prodded the wad of tobacco in his lip and clucked his tongue, nodding in the silence, “So, you alright, still?” Donnelley asked, “We been through some shit.”

"I'm okay, I guess." Dave looked at the wall, then at his hands. He shook his head. "I dunno. I'm scared, man. I'm seein' shit I didn't even used to believe in. I'm killin' people. Shootin' 'em down." He gave a bitter, sad laugh. "Just like the Old Man taught me, right? His li'l [i]soldier[/i]." 

Donnelley nodded, eyes going over the whole of Dave’s face. Some people took to it, killing. Those were the ones he worried about, but Dave was too solid for that. He couldn’t see the well-meaning mountain boy getting addicted to pulling triggers. A little part of Donnelley wondered if he was the same as Dave, or if he was just a little bit like Ghost.

“I get it.” He said, “I’d say this is what you volunteered for, but… I know I didn’t know what the hell I’d be doin’.”

“For what it’s worth,” Donnelley thought about what he was about to say and found himself wanting, “You ain’t doin’ it for whatever bullshit reason your old man told you to. My door’s always open, man.”

"Thanks, hoss," Dave's smile grew a little brighter. "What about you? You holdin' up okay?"

Donnelley nodded, gave him a smirk, “Every day. Waitin’ around for that sunrise, man.”

Donnelley felt the need to keep up the image of the cool and calm leader. His team didn’t need to see the side of him with doubts and fears, but that side of him reared its head more as the years went on. He sighed, “Twenty-eight fuckin’ years, man.” The slow shake of his head might have clued Dave in to how Donnelley felt about those years, “I’m good at what I do. I just done it for so long I got bad at everythin’ else. You got a boy and a woman waitin’ for you. I lost that privilege way back, man. This case is the first time I been stateside for more than a week. My daughter don’t even know me.”

He rolled his jaw, “Just don’t get so caught up in savin’ your boy that you forget a father is more important to that kid than some dude runnin’ and gunnin’ doin’ shit he’s never goin’ to know about in a place he’s never heard of.” Donnelley gave Dave a beaten down smile, “Copy?”

"Yeah man, I copy," Dave said. He reached over and patted Donnelley on the shoulder. "You hit me up if you need to, though, alright? We'll have us a few beers." 

“You wanna run to a gas station right now, partner?” Donnelley chuckled, only half-joking.

Dave nodded. "I can do beer, as long as the government's buyin'." He grabbed his pistol and tucked it in his pants. "Let's do it." 

[hr]

>ENVISION HOTEL, BOSTON, MA
>0200...///

Laine stared into the darkness of the hotel room, up at the ceiling that had a spot of faint glow from the alarm clock. Sleep evaded her as her thoughts raced through recent memories, trying to solve the puzzle with so many pieces missing. She rolled over onto her side, alone in the bed since Pari had insisted on getting her own room which allowed Ava her own bed. 

The idea of Ava sleepwalking again also kept Laine awake, since she had failed to notice last night even though they had shared a bed. No sounds of sleep could be heard and Laine was certain Ava was awake despite the hour. Sleep was no longer a refuge.

Laine sat up and asked in the darkness, "Are you up?"

“...Yeah.” Ava answered back, her voice weary as after a moment and the rustling of sheets, she sat up in the bed. “I don’t want a...repeat of last night. I’m seriously considering handcuffing myself to the bed frame.”

Laine turned over on her side, peering at Ava in the other bed. "We could bar the door or maybe some kind of alarm. I don't want you getting out either but tying you down seems drastic."

She glanced at the door, then stood up and went over to a wood frame chair and jammed it under the door handle. "That might slow you down," Laine said as she turned to face Ava, dressed in an old band shirt to sleep in. 

Laine went over to her and sat at the edge of Ava's bed, "You said something that's been bothering me, about your dream. You mentioned 'Tom', was it our Tom? The FBI agent that left us just after you arrived."

“I-I don’t know.” Ava answered, her voice quaking in the dark. She shifted on the bed until she could reach the nightstand and turn on the lamp that rested there. Her expression was disturbed as she turned her dark ringed eyes to Laine. “I couldn’t see past the...blood and fear.”

Laine watched her as she spoke, then replied, "If it's hard to talk about, you might try writing it down. It's a dream, a very powerful dream but a dream. It can't hurt you."

“It can’t-That thing came for us!” Ava shouted, her voice raising higher than she had ever spoken with it before. Something behind her eyes seemed to visibly snap as she got up out of bed, standing with her hands shaking and clenched into fists at her sides. “It came after us and it would have torn us apart just like it did in my dream or whatever it was! Because I’m starting to think it’s not ‘just a dream’!” 

She shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes but her face was still twisted with anger. She brought her hands up to her head and ran her shaking hands over her hair. “It could come for us again and you’re going to sit there and tell me it can’t hurt me!? I watched that fucking [i]thing[/i] slaughter two innocent people and it felt like it was happening to me! So don’t tell me it can’t hurt me! Because clearly it can, even when I’m sleeping!” 

Her voice cracked near the end, her breathing heavy from both the volume of her yelling and the effort it took to not break down completely.

Laine's expression remained calm as Ava let go of what she had been holding in, the torrent of horror spilling out. It needed to be exposed, the shine the light of conscious day onto the writhing dark mass of nightmares. 

"It came for Renko," Laine said, softening her expression, "But it doesn't mean it won't get sent after us. Did you recognize the people? I know it's hard, I'm sorry. But if this thing somehow made a connection or is somehow projecting into your mind then we need to know. We have to figure it out to find out if we can stop it."

Ava sniffed, her anger lessening in the face of Laine’s calm and leveled reaction. “They...They just looked like normal people.” She said, shaking her head as she deflated and sat back down on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumping. “Upper middle class, middle aged married couple from what I could tell, but...There was so much happening I didn’t get a good look. I,” She swallowed past the tightening of her throat. “I think I was seeing it through the eyes of the wife, I could feel her terror as she watched the Hound…” Her voice broke and she shook her head. “I don’t think they survived.”

"That is a horrible thing to witness, even in a dream," Laine's said,"And if it's real, then there's a possibility you have some sort of...well, psychic connection."

As soon as the words left her lips she blinked then sighed, slumping against the bed, resting against her palms.

Ava turned and blinked at her, her face blank for a moment as Laine said out loud what she herself had been quietly trying to avoid saying. But as the words drifted into the air, she felt her lips start to twitch. 

Then a giggle started to bubble up in her chest. She startled herself as a grin began to form on her lips and she snorted. “I’m sorry,” She said as she felt strangely amused by the whole thing, even though she suspected it might be true. “Just, hearing it out loud...It sounds so fucking stupid.” She managed to say as the laughter finally came tumbling out as though Laine had just told her the funniest joke in the world. 

“Psychic!” Ava laughed, the grin now wide on her freckled features as she tried to contain her sudden onset of jocularity. “I’m the Rhode Island Medium!”

Laine looked up at her and then smiled ruefully, shaking her head. "That's how I felt when they called Mrs Baughman a zombie. Unreal, except...well, it fucking is real."

Ava laughed more, leaning forward as the full absurdity of the situation descended on her. She knew it was strange to laugh about it, but she couldn’t help it. The stress, confusion and anger of the whole thing came out in the form of what she was sure was manic sounding laughter.

She pitched over sideways on the bed, her laughter eventually dying down to a fit of sporadic giggles. “We’re in an episode of Supernatural.” She said around her chuckling. “We even had to stand in the middle of a salt circle to keep out the demon!” 

[hr]

>BRAINTREE, MASSACHUSETTS
>24JUL2019
>0900...///

The sunrise had come just like it always did. Donnelley missed it as it hid behind the blinds of his hotel room while he showered and got ready for the day. He dressed professionally- blazer, tie, gun. When they caught their ride out to Braintree, which were two very fitting blacked out Chevy Tahoe’s, they cut the image of the men in black from the stories. The duo of cars raced down the highways towards their destination and only slowed when they got a few blocks from where Foster had told them to meet up.

A police cordon had been set up on the street, CSI in white jumpsuits and men in sunglasses and black suits were the order of all in attendance as Donnelley looked out the window and watched the happenings of the day. It was like a slice of El Paso dropped haphazardly into a sleepy Massachusetts suburb. Red and blue lights, uniformed cops farther down the streets giving the suits space. Foster turned and waved at the two cars from his place in the driveway.

“Your stop.” Said the bald man in the driver’s seat, and Donnelley dismounted, smoothing down his shirt and fixing his tie.

Foster stepped away from the crime scene and up to Donnelley, pressing his hand into Donnelley’s own, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

“Mm.” Donnelley nodded, feeling a numbness set its hands over his shoulders. “So, I was right.”

Foster looked Donnelley up and down, his eyes squinted in scrutiny as Donnelley stared at the house, “Yeah.”

“What happened?” Donnelley asked, jaw set in the stoney calm of his face.

“Tom was working a case against Russians, don’t know if you remember.” Foster shook his head and shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets, “Caught up with him like it caught up with us… with you. He wasn’t as prepared.”

“We were fucking lucky.”

“Whatever.” Foster sighed, “These are all Program folks, if you were worried. The cops down there don’t need to know shit, so they don’t.”

“That’s good.” Donnelley’s frown grew a bit more.

“I think you’ll want to see every-“

“No.” Donnelley shook his head, finally breaking his gaze from Tom’s house, “No, I don’t. I’ve seen enough, I know enough.”

Foster returned Donnelley’s frown, looked at Donnelley and finally nodded in understanding. These things might be common in the Program, but Donnelley never liked it. Liked it even less when it was his people. He swore under his breath as he watched two of the crime scene workers step out of the house with two body bags. “She was pregnant…”

“Yeah.” Foster nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Donnelley folded his arms tight against his chest, “Tell that to Tom.”

“Two nights ago.” Foster said, nodding at everything around them, “I already visited the FBI office today and notified that Tom’s death and the circumstances surrounding it warranted people of a… higher clearance investigating.”

“Investigating what? We know how and who, it was textbook. They were going to do this to Carlisle if me and Ghost didn’t get to him first.” Donnelley spoke pointedly, turning to face Foster, “You let me off the leash and recall the rest of THUNDER, I’ll wipe this whole fucking thing away.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Foster shook his head, looking at Donnelley like he was a misguided kid offering simple solutions to a problem that had none. Maybe he was. “Office of Security wants you. They get what they want.”

Donnelley’s lip curled in contempt as he turned away and stalked off for a cigarette. Everything was becoming a fuck-up and unlike Chechnya, it wasn’t kalashnikovs in the bushes. It was a threat that wanted them all to know just how easily they could be touched.

Ava stepped down from the car, dressed in the blazer she purchased at the start of the case, a mint green blouse and a pair of dark jeans. Not strictly professional but it was the best way to carry her gun and she was reluctant to be without it after everything. 

She looked toward the nice, quiet and tasteful house at the center of the crime scene. A shudder ran through her body as she felt a crawling prickling sensation tickle her scalp. She didn’t know if it was from general unease or, God forbid, it had something to do with...whatever was happening to her. 

She watched Donnelley stalk away from the familiar form of Foster. She tightened down on a surge of nerves and anger, tried to keep her emotions in check and marched over to him, her hands clenched at her sides. If anyone could tell her what was going on with her, it would be the man that had her recruited into the Program in the first place.

“I need to speak with you.” She said when she walked up to him, trying to keep the glare off her face as she looked up at his features. 

Foster looked away from Donnelley and nodded to Ava, eyes noticing the small nuances of her stance. If it put him off, it didn’t show, “Yes?”

Ava glanced around for a moment to make sure no one was close to over hear them, because what she was about to say would make her sound crazy. “I’m having dreams and visions and I’m sleepwalking again.” She said, looking up at him and waving her hand to the house. “I saw this last night, through the eyes of Tom’s poor wife. Something is happening to me and I need to know what because I can’t make sense of it.”

“I’m sorry.” Foster said, frowning at Ava, “I can’t tell you what’s happening. Not in the sense that… you know, but I really can’t.”

He shook his head and sighed, “If you have time, I need to show you something. It might shed some light on some things for you.” He said, “You have to promise me that this stays in our Group.”

Ava felt her frustration drop out from under her, followed quickly by a sense of disappointment and then dread. “What is it?” She asked nervously, her head turning slightly to try and catch sight of Dave or Laine or Donnelley from the corner of her eye.

“Come with me.” Foster said, turning for his car parked along the curb, a grey Chevy Malibu. He opened his driver door and beckoned for Ava to follow him inside. Once she’d closed her door, Foster reached into the back seat to get his laptop. On the screen was a website, it’s layout in a grey and red color scheme. A forum, the name ‘Dream Syndicate’ boldly emblazoned at the top of the page.

He let Ava watch his screen as he scrolled through the site, clicking on a board called ‘Dream Meanings and Analyzing’, and then clicked on the newest post- “HELP ME FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS!!”

There was a detailed post going through the events that seemed to eerily mirror what had happened two nights ago, the post made at the early hours of the morning. The poster seemed frenzied, barely formatting their writing in an attempt to get everything they’d seen onto the page. Ava may have recognized it more and more as she read. Below the original post were others that said they’d had the same dream, every detail matching the others’ experiences to a tee. “We could never find out why you were like you were or who your real parents were. I ran background checks and everything.” Foster said, “We hadn’t seen anything like you from the files I could get access to. But the Program has tracked this website for a while now ever since the Malaysia Airlines jet went missing.”

He passed the computer to Ava to scroll through the website herself, “These people are like you. Some of these dreams, we traced them and pinned them to real happenings.” He shook his head and sat back, “Some of them match case files from our own lockers.”

Ava sat quietly, scrolling through the website with the faint blue light of the computer reflected in her glasses. “Did you look into the people posting these?” She asked, looking up at him with furrowed brows. “Is there...some kind of connection between them? Us? A pattern?”

“None of the IPs belong to anybody that should have access to anything nearly as secret as what they’re talking about.” He said, looking between Ava and the computer, “They’re all [i]kids.[/i] Some of them as young as twelve. Most have CPS files, but not all. Most of the posts come from Stateside. Most of them are only-children, no siblings.”

Foster shrugged, “I don’t know, but if anything,” Foster sighed, “You’re not the only one out here dealing with it.”

“Look up the term ‘Marlene’ in the site’s search function.” He said, “Tell me what you find.”

Ava’s frown deepened, but turned back to the computer to type in the name ‘Marlene’. She read quietly for a few moments, a chill running down her spine. “These...They’re talking about the thing back at Baughman’s cabin. The thing that nearly killed Laine.” She said softly, leaning back into her seat, her expression stunned as she stared at the screen. “They’re talking about the exact events that happened when UMBRA got there.”

She shook her head, running a hand over her hair. “Where did these kids come from?” She shook her head again, still processing the information. “There has to be some kind of connection...What is the Program going to do with this?”

“Office of Intelligence and Security monitors it for anything that might be useful. It’s how I got to Tom’s house so quick.” Foster frowned, “I wanted you to see it. When I recruited you, I knew the Program would need an actual asset with the same ability. Turns out, UMBRA does. You might be a tinkerer, a hacker, but there’s so much more.”

“For what it’s worth…” Foster looked at Ava, “I’m sorry it has to be you here.”

Ava stared back at the computer screen, her childhood and adolescence bouts of nightmares and night terrors rushing back to her. “I don’t see how it’ll be helpful.” She said, looking up to the house with an expression of sorrow mingled with exhaustion. “It didn’t help them.” She took in a deep breath and tried to pull together some amount of strength. 

“It’d be nice if I could throw things around with my mind or shoot Force lightning, but I guess we’re stuck with dreams we don’t understand.” She said, turning to him with a forced smile, making the joke mostly for her own sake than his. “Is it safe to say that I’m the oldest of these kids?” She asked, shifting her eyes back to the computer.

Foster nodded, “We think so.” Foster said, “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “Do you know where I was abandoned?”

“West Virginia.” Foster shrugged, “Anything other than that is a mystery. All we know is that someone found you. Wouldn’t be having this conversation otherwise.”

She passed his laptop back to him. “It’s a start at least.”

[hr]

Donnelley flicked the last of his cigarette far off past the borders of the crime scene and withdrew another from his pack. He only had his lucky one left and he sucked his teeth at that, shoving it back in his coat’s inside pocket. He spotted the man he was looking for standing away from everyone else, looking even more the sore thumb than he might’ve hoped in his flannel and jeans… and the sizeable lump in his lip.

Donnelley stepped up to him and lit his cigarette, looking Dave up and down through his Ray Ban style shades. Finally, his lip turned up just a hair, “I thought I said dress for the occasion, Bunyan.”

Dave glanced at Donnelley, gave him a sheepish grin. "I forgot my suit," he shrugged. "Well, I didn't [i]forget[/i] it forget it, but it's in my bag and kinda… You know. Squashed. So I figured this was better than showin' up lookin' like a bag of smashed assholes, you know?" 

“Fair ‘nuff.” Donnelley nodded, looking back at the house and feeling another wave of hot anger, “I’m gonna kill ‘em. All of ‘em.”

"I'll help," Dave said seriously. He didn't know Tom, not well, but he was still one of their own. An attack on him showed that none of them were safe. "You gimme that call, man, an' I'll be there." 

Donnelley exhaled smoke and nodded, “Keep the phone close.” He said, looking about the scene and shaking his head, “I seen enough. Let’s go.”

[hr]

>ENVISION HOTEL
>BOSTON, MA
>1030...///

“Remember to be on your best behavior.” Foster squeezed Donnelley’s shoulder and was promptly shrugged off.

“Fuck off.”

“If you’re nervous, just remember I’m there.” Foster was trying to lighten the mood, Donnelley could tell, but there wasn’t any lifting of his spirits just then. Evidenced by the glare, “I’m sorry.”

“Did they hire you [i]because[/i] you’re an asshole, or did they teach you at The Farm?” Donnelley frowned. Foster just pursed his lips and shrugged.

“They’re not going to find anything,” Foster inclined his head towards Donnelley as he packed his suit back into his bag, “Right?”

“Foster, are you insinuating that I’m feeding intel to Russian GRU?” Donnelley narrowed his eyes, “Fuck. You.”

“All I needed to know.” Foster nodded, “Now, remember to answer them just like that. See you there.”

Donnelley shook his head and growled, busying his hands with folding his clothes and stuffing them into his luggage. How Foster could go from grieving Case Officer to an impish little prick circling his head, he could never know. Perhaps it was payment for all the times Donnelley was an asshole. Whatever it was, a break would be welcome, but he knew Foster was right about what he’d said earlier.

Office of Security wanted them. Office of Security got what they wanted.

[hr]

>LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
>CIA HQ, UNDERGROUND PARKING
>24JUL2019
>1700...///

“Listen,” Donnelley’s voice hard and serious in the back of the sprinter van they were all stuffed into at the airport. Even Avery had joined them. They were cargo, roughly handled by suited assholes belonging to the Program. The Inquisition, Donnelley thought bitterly, “I’ll say this one more time. We all know what happened that night. Stick to it. Tell the truth about everythin’, we’re fuckin’ innocent.”

He looked around at the faces of his team, all of them here awaiting to be thrown deep into the belly of the beast. “Anybody got anything they wanna say?”

Before anyone could answer, the back doors of the van were thrown open, their driver and his partner stepping back and nodding, “It’s time. Follow us.”

The walk was brisk, the pace of their inquisitors that of busy men with a dearth of time to spend on formalities such as saying anything or smiling. At least Donnelley and the others were spared being paraded through the Agency HQ in handcuffs. Those of them that didn’t have badges provided to them by the Agency or one of its contractors like Donnelley or Ava were scanned in and told that badges would be made for them.

The last part about the badges only being made if they weren’t found to be guilty of treason or espionage, or whatever charges could be drummed up, was politely left unsaid. The walk finally took them far deeper into the underbelly of Langley, a place seldom few ever got to see. Past a guarded gate they had to scan through, and a walkway that led into a bland, windowless, concrete citadel of an office complex. After a brief foray into the offices with hushed conversations interrupted by their passing, trilling ringtones, and the sounds of a small and secretive government agency at work, they were dumped off into a glass meeting room.

A long table adorned with still steaming coffee mugs apparently poured out for them prior to their arrival was at the center. They were expected to take a seat, and so Donnelley did, taking up his roost at the head of the table. “This is gonna be so fun.” He droned, “Just one last time, before the vultures of the Office of Security peck us to death… y’all ain’t double agents, right?”

Dave made a sound of nervous amusement. Unlike Donnelley he was standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and sweat on his brow. 

"Hell, I ain't barely a regular agent, let alone a double one," he said with an uneasy grin. Still, beneath his nervous demeanor he was angry. In fact he was mad as hell.

Being manhandled by federal goons had pissed him off good. Only his trust in Donnelley's leadership had kept him from manhandling them right back; that, and the knowledge that they undoubtedly knew about his boy, and he didn't trust them not to play dirty. 

Ava turned her chair around to smile at Dave, picking the one closest to him without much thought. She left her coffee where it was sitting, she was already anxious enough, she didn’t need to make it worse with caffeine.

She didn’t know how they would react to her visions and she hoped that they didn’t know about the hospital incident. It wouldn’t exactly help their case, or at least not her’s.

“I think I’d notice if I was.” She said, forcing a bit of good humor into her voice. “The only thing Red about me is my hair.” 

Laine sat in a chair adjacent to Donnelley’s head of the table position. She had been silent nearly the entire trip, her face a mask of calm professionalism in a predictably black suit blazer and skirt combination. She forced herself to go over the events, making sure nothing was overlooked or switched around. Forcing herself not to think of the little girl they were never able to rescue because of plans going awry, Laine watched the door, waiting for the call. 

Across the table from Laine was a quickly silent Jason, a wrinkled blue dress shirt snug against his bulky form and lined with messy creases. He avoided eye contact, letting his eyes skate across the table’s surface, Adam’s apple bulged against his collar as he swallowed. His mouth was on the verge of a sticky dryness and he chanced the bitter coffee to wet his throat. 

“Always hated this building,” Jason croaked, slurping another scalding splash of coffee. “Reminds me of Houston. You sweat inside the fuckin’ buildings.”

He had been wholly absent in Boston, confined to his room pouring over Karen Barr’s Sky Devil and a plethora of John Keel kindle books. Even now his eyes seemed distant, checked out. He felt it too, feeling almost hypnagogic. Waking but not awake, not sleeping but dreaming. All he had to do was tell it straight and get back to what mattered. Today was just another song and dance, it had to be. A faint shean of moisture settled on his forehead, and another sip of coffee kept his body temperature uncomfortably high. 

“Better than Seattle.” Donnelley sighed.

Laine shifted her gaze looking at Jason starting the sweat. The room was stuffy and growing more warm with all their bodies in the closed space. She sat up and unbuttoned her blazer, slipping it off and hanging it on the back of the chair. The snug gray blouse was light weight and she immediately felt better. 

"This is estuary country, marsh," she said, after a long silence through the ride. "Neither land or water, something else entirely. A border between worlds." 

Her thoughts had not been on the ecology of the DC area but of the Hound and his handlers, where it came from and how it traveled. There must be something, a portal or path, a border. But it was a subject out of her depth and she would have to change it, force herself to embrace that strange reality. 

“Mud,” Donnelley frowned, looking around at the cubicles and offices situated a small distance away from this glass box. They were locked away like animals in a zoo, “And secrets.”

Jason leaned back in his chair and gave each of them a darting glance. He wish he had more coffee, something to do with his hands. Secrets. After some of his hotel aesthetic reading it had an entirely different context. 

“Back in 73 the CIA had this program, psychics used like spy planes,” Jason said, tone and pitch airy as if amused with myself for telling the story. “This guy Ingo Swann is putting on a show for some spooks and they only give him some coordinates, longitude, latitude. Ingo starts describing this place, first the hills and trees, the driveway, the cabin.

“He goes inside,” he quotes with his fingers, “offers to look inside a black filing cabinet. Reads this codename on a document and gives a sketch. Problem is one of the spooks gave coordinates to his summer cabin and it’s the wrong building. No one knew nearby there was a NSA code breaking facility. Codename even confirmed it. When they asked how he got it wrong, he just said ‘the more you hide something, the more it shines like a beacon.’”

Donnelley quirked his brow at Jason before he locked his eyes on a pair of suited men quickly closing in on their holding cell. One of them held a dossier and the other was Foster, whose face looked like he was holding nothing but nervousness. His brow was knit firmly together as he and the other man opened the door. The man next to Foster spoke first, “My name is Booker, Office of Security with Internal Affairs.”

“Your Case Officer Steven Foster has signed you over to us for the minimum duration of two days to get everything sorted out.” Booker looked around at Working Group UMBRA, his eyes boring into each of theirs with the most subtle hint of what a cat must feel with a mouse in its sights, “But we are fully prepared to extend this if we find any discrepancies.”

He smiled tightly as his eyes ran over the assembled agents in reverse order, fangs peeking out from behind thin lips, “We have two rooms dedicated to this investigation. You,” He nodded to Laine, then looked at Jason, “And you.”

Laine glanced at Donnelley, a moment of seeking reassurance before the cool expression settled into place and she stood up, swinging her jacket over her shoulder. She turned her gaze to the man who held their freedom in his hand, he had a weasel smile and a slick look that showed he enjoyed their discomfort. Her attention pulled away and Laine waited for Jason, keeping her eyes on him. 

Jason smirked, sighing as he rocked to his feet. He wondered how this place would look to Ingo Swann, lit up like a sad parking lot carnival he could walk through like a ghost. Damn, he didn’t want to be here. A waste of everyone’s time. He passed Ava and looked down at the top of her head, his smirk fading. Jason wanted to hide her from them, from the whole agency. Whatever was happening to her wasn’t meant for I.A. or oversight committees to see. They’d only determine her a risk and pin her to a table like a butterfly. They’d peel her wings off, alright. If the team had time they could figure it out, what it meant. And they could keep her safe, despite recent events. It was a comforting lie.

Ava tore her eyes away from Agent Booker after a few moments studying him, finding it hard to not glare at the man for seemingly enjoying the delicate position they were in. Like he assumed they were already guilty of something and he couldn’t wait to needle it out of them.

She felt her nerves grow and was glad she hadn’t touched her coffee. She was beginning to doubt telling them what she had gone through before the Hound appeared. 

She glanced over her shoulder as Jason passed, then looked up at him; offering up as encouraging a smile as she could when she saw the expression on his face. She didn’t envy him having to go first.

[hr]

>LAINE
>INTERVIEW ROOM 1
>1710...///

“Please, stay put.” Booker droned as he pulled the metal chair whining across the concrete floor and offering it to Laine.

It was a drab place, of the same menace as Beckley Prison. Four sterile white walls looming over the two of them, and a mirrored window stretching across one. No doubt, a team of Counterintel and IA agents were clustered around it to watch the show. Foster might be behind it, and he was the only friendly face any of them had here. “Your interviewer will be here shortly.”

The last thing Laine heard before the room grew silent with only her breath was the shutting of the door. Moments passed by at the speed of a glacier, seeming almost an hour in this stagnant and dusty lonesome. The sound of the door opening heralded Laine’s interviewer, the tall, dusky man coming into view and plopping himself down in the seat across from her. His curly black hair pulled back into a bun and he pushed his glasses up his nose as he set a Manila folder on the table.

“Hello,” he smiled, seeming almost friendly in comparison to Booker’s wolf’s grin, “My name is Feroz. I am your interviewer. Please state your name, date, and place of birth.”

Laine waited out the time recounting details, not just of the events but of her team. Each person held a place now in her heart and her life, even Tom, poor dead naive Tom. And Laury and Gwen, they had been killed by the thing that hunted Renko. It could be anyone of them next, UMBRA picked apart one by one until they were gone. It meant at least they were getting close, the more dangerous it became.

The door opened and interrupted her thoughts, the man did not look like a CIA spook but that meant little, he was still there to try and pick her story apart. 

"Hello Feroz," Laine responded in the same polite professional tone. She was giving him information he most likely already had, control questions. "My name is Dr  Heather Laine, born January 30th, 1985 in Van Nuys, California."

“California,” Feroz chuckled, “Some ways from home.”

Feroz kept his smile as he reached into his bag and pulled out a recorder, a pad, and a pen. He began scribbling down notes and pressed record, reciting the names of both of them and then looking back at Laine, “So, I would like to know something. Did all the members of Working Group UMBRA witness the unnatural incursion vector- this [i]Hound[/i]- and were you all there when the GRU Officer made contact?”

Laine gave him a tight smile and a slight shrug, "You go where the work is."

"All the members that were present," she replied, "Myself, Dave, Ava, and Avery not a member of UMBRA but he was there as Safehouse security. And we were all there when the man calling himself Renko showed up on the doorstep." 

Feroz nodded, “Okay. And the rest of the team?”

"You mean Mr Donnelley? He was out with two other Program members to apprehend a local drug runner working for the Russian mob in this area, the Tadjbegskye Bratva," Laine said, looking directly at Feroz, clasping her hands loosely as they rested on the table.

“At about what time was their return with this target?” Feroz asked, “Just trying to get a timeline between their leaving and Renko’s arrival.”

Laine shrugged slightly, “It was very late or early rather, in the dark of the morning. I don’t recall checking the time, things were very tense. I just know it was at least after 2 AM and before sunrise.”

She could not remember, even after recalling and going over the events for hours. That night time seemed elastic to stretch into long minutes that lasted a lifetime and snapped forward flying  towards the reckoning.

“I see,” Feroz scribbled more notes, “And your Team Lead was not present for Renko’s arrival? Can you recount everything you can remember? Please, do try to be detailed, Dr. Laine.”

"No, he was out on a ... mission, I guess you might call it. We were resting at the Safehouse, going over the case when there was a knock on the door. Dave and Avery held guns on the door. There was nothing at the door, Avery saw nothing but you could feel it. Like the tension before the storm breaks."

Laine took a sip of the cold coffee and glanced at the interviewer. "There was a smell, like burning wires. Then more knocking but Avery kept saying he couldn't see anyone until we heard the voice. The man appeared. Just like that, from what I understand. He didn't walk up the sidewalk.
He was telling us he needed our help, that something was coming through. That we needed to help him. There was a moment of uncertainty, we had our guns out and this guy, who he later identified himself as Renko, held his own gun to his head. It was very tense but...well, he said he could stop what was coming, turn it away but we had to help."

Laine paused, reaching up to rub her forehead then brush her thick dark hair back. "Then he drew a circle on the carpet in salt, and when we were all inside it gave us these papers to read. A phrase in a language I didn't understand."

Her eyes flicked away from Feroz for a moment before meeting his gaze again, "Then the Hound came."

Feroz nodded slow, keeping his gaze on Laine’s, taking his moment before he spoke, “So, Renko made contact, asking for your help, and then instructed you on how to turn away this Hound?” Feroz nodded again, looking down finally to scribble more while speaking, “Interesting. Thank you, Dr. Laine. We can follow up on this for the duration of your stay here at Langley if needed.”

Feroz stood and offered his hand, “You are helping a lot with this.” He smiled, “We take things like this very seriously.”

Laine nodded, giving a slight lift of her shoulders, "That's fine."

She stood once he did and shook his hand, "I would assume you would. And are you going to need me around the entire time? I live not too far in Stafford County and I'd like to check up on my place."

“We’ll have some of our people take care of that for you during your stay here.” Feroz smiled politely. Something to put her at ease coming from anyone else, but a veiled show of just how much the Program knew about her already without her giving it to them. How deep that rabbit hole went was anyone’s guess. “Have a good day, Dr. Laine.”

Laine bit her tongue, then just smiled slightly before leaving the room. A reminder they were basically prisoners until they were cleared. She walked with a quick, purposeful stride out to the waiting room.

[hr]

>JASON
>INTERVIEW ROOM 2
>1710...///

There were no formalities for Jason. Booker had split the pair of Jason and Laine, leading Laine down the corridor and disappearing behind a metal door. Another set of footsteps were coming up the hallway, belonging to a stocky gentleman that Jason could see was a few inches shy of himself. If this bothered the man, he didn’t show it. He smelled of cigarettes and too much body spray, his frown nestled in a rug of beard and brows that seemed permanently knit together.

He held his hand out for Jason, a friendly gesture from a man who looked anything but, “What’s up, big man?”

“Oh, just waiting for the foreplay,” Jason said, taking the hand and reciprocating a firm, respectful squeeze and shake. He beamed a playful smile, thinking good humor could defuse the muggy tension. He tried to keep his mind clear, blank. Tuned out.

“Mm.” His face hadn’t even twitched into anything different than what it started off as. “First time here? You’re one of Foster’s, yeah?”

“This floor? Nah,” Jason said, looking around at nothing in particular. “Been around for interagency training, consultation. You know how it goes.”

Jason didn’t smoke but the thought of working a cigarette from table to lips and back again was appealing. He wanted to do something with his hands, and smoking looked more calm than idly tearing up paper or fingernails. The interrogator hadn’t given his name but Jason hardly thought it mattered. He turned his gaze to his questioner and sank into whatever chair he was ushered into.  

There were questions, but Jason thought it best to respond, not give any leading curiosity. It hadn’t been internal affairs but he had been on the other side of the desk before. Any leading comment, answers too quickly given, fake events corroborated out of fear—anything he said now was evidence. 

“You point, I march, Agent,” Jason said, almost surprised at his own confidence. “Just tell me where we need to go.”

“Alright,” The other man smiled, “First things first, name’s John. Figure that’s enough for my introduction. I take it you know that I already know your name, so let’s take it back a bit.”

John rested back in his seat, demeanor as if this was a chat at a bar and not an official interview. “What did you talk about when you went back to Florida after your debut with Donnelley and Foster?”

“Department head wanted a chat, well—he wanted to chew someone’s ass. At the time we had a major Ops fiasco and my recruitment was timed during the windfall. I guess I turned into the fall guy.”

“Ain’t that some shit.” John shook his head, “I understand they shoved you into Embassy duty riding a desk somewhere. Can’t have been fun.”

John smirked and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the stainless steel table between him and his subject. “Where’d they put you again? And how long until you made it CONUS?”

“Amman,” Jason said, watching John move with a canine-like like focus. His eyes were practically glinting with thought. “I can’t remember how many weeks it was until I was back home. Mostly I was approving daily reports for embassy staff, sometimes answered questions for the ambassador’s risk assessment team.” 

The embassy wasn’t fun the way detention wasn’t a thrill for a teenager. Monotony was its own torture. If Jason could have done it again he would have read more, would have scrounged any material that related to high strangeness, anything to make sense of the Program. He still hadn’t found an intersection between what was happening to the team and the growing gamut of paranormal accounts in the modern world, but it was a wide world, growing wider by the day. Who knows what Syrian town where the residents dream together could be linked to a strange being stalking livestock in Puerto Rico, or a section of an Australian refuge known for its ‘time slips.’ There was so, so much happening around the world. They were just interested in the boogeymen. 

Jason spread his elbows on the table and leaned in, thinking over John’s questions. “But you know all that John. Report no later than dates, agency accountability, flight itineraries. This isn’t about where I was.”

John seemed to warm as Jason showed his teeth so early from the start. Like the master meeting a peer, a twinkle of interest shone in his eye. “Nope.” John put it bluntly, “We both know Russians are active in Syria. After Ukraine gave up their nukes, they handed Russia their balls too.”

“And they’ve been getting braver ever since.” John’s smile widened, “Everybody here at the Agency heard about the little asset who knocked over so much. I wonder how that happened.”

“I’m not here to prod at scabs, Jason. I know the DIA is already doing that enough. I’m just wanting to know how a single asset royally fucked US interests in Syria just around the time British Intelligence loses track of a big ass American there, Daesh comes out of the shadows in Iraq and starts skinning people, and Russians kill three of our own agents with demons in Massachusetts and bumfuck West Virginia- agents you knew- a stone’s throw from Quantico and Langley.” John’s eyes took a hardened edge, voice like rasps over a whetstone, “A single asset with a single handler. You been busy lately, Jason?”

John sat back, laying his hands over his lap, as he regained his Devil-may-care smirk, “Just asking.”

Jason’s lips tensed in a closed lip smile, his eyes on the table. He was nodding as he listened to this ‘agent John,’ could see the narrative he had put together. It was all conjecture as far as Jason was concerned, how he inferred Jason’s place in all of this. He could see the ways he could pick it apart, and he was getting lost in its mental sinkhole. 

“That big American in Lebanon, the ones British intelligence lost track of, that’s a crock of shit,” Jason said. He crossed his arms and leaned against the back of his chair, eyes now glowering at John. He didn’t mean to bite back but he couldn’t help the outburst.

“And think about that asset,” he went on, “A fucking nineteen year old looking for an amnesty ticket to the states. Low level running boy. And he orchestrates this shitshow? He, it—they’re symptoms, not causes. What is this, fuckin’ pin the tail on the commie?”

“That’s fair.” John shrugged, “I just hope you understand when I say that I’m still fucking suspicious about all of this.”

[i]Aren’t we all, Johnny boy.[/i]

“Even if I give Foster and that asshole Donnelley the benefit of the doubt that they weren’t too busy pulling cowboy shit to remember the Program’s SOPs,” John leaned forward again, elbows on the table, “A foreign intel officer from a hostile agency locking a Working Group in without being flagged themselves by Program CI, much less those Fucking Big Idiots in Quantico…”

John frowned, shrugging his shoulders as he stood and sighed, “I don’t want to believe that some of our people are being clocked. I don’t want what happened in the Middle East to happen here, [i]Jason.[/i]”

John locked Jason into a long stare, eyes searching for something. Emeralds glinting in his aged face, dissing out anything they could in the tiniest movements of Jason’s own dark eyes. He sighed long and hard, pushing off the table and he didn’t even say goodbye as the door shut on Jason, leaving him alone in the room.

[hr]

>DAVE
>INTERVIEW ROOM 1
>1740...///

The door shutting heralded Dave’s false solitude. Behind the two-way mirror were probably faceless inquisitors waiting for the Mountain Man to make one fatal slip of the tongue so they could swoop down, slap the cuffs on him, and lock him away for espionage. Or maybe not. Who knew? In short time, the door opened again, and from around Dave’s peripheral, a gruff looking man with a scruffy beard stepped into view and set himself down in the chair across from Dave.

He smelled of tobacco, and something about him could’ve been likened to Donnelley. The smirk, the thick black beard that crawled up to his cheekbones and reached down past his neck, the heavy eyes that seemed to be taking Dave apart in his head. It stopped there, his hair was obscured by a gray Carhartt cap that fit with the neutral tones of his gray 5.11 pants, olive drab shirt and brown bomber jacket. He had maybe twenty pounds in burly heft and gut on Donnelley. The accent was close though, “How’s it, man?” The man asked, “Let’s start with names, mine’s John.”

"Dave." He hated him. His stupid smirk, his stupid operator beard, his dumbass bomber jacket. Dave even hated his hat. "Dave MacCready." 

The mountain man eyed his interrogator, the Fed who'd been sent to pick holes in his story and try to find a reason to black-bag him off to some CIA gulag in Alaska or something. He bit back a growl and reached into his pocket, taking out his Cope and snapping the can a few times before digging out a respectable wad and jamming it in his lip. He'd seen half a dozen 'tobacco free' signs as they were led in. Fuck 'em. 

"Guess we might as well get started," Dave grunted, prodding his dip into place with the tip of his tongue. "I don't figure my constitutional rights are terribly important here, so just ask your questions."

John’s smirk only widened as he nodded, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. So, it was like this, then. He’d be a little less pleasant than the big ass Mexican. “Still talk to your Pa, Dave?”

"Not since I put a gun in his face for darin' to show up when my boy was born," Dave said, a touch of anger showing that was brought on not by the question, but by the memories they conjured. "I ain't on speakin' terms with them. They ain't my kin." 

“Huh.” John seemed unimpressed, that infuriating and self-assured smirk still playing across his face. “Look, man, I’m not here to play who’s the biggest asshole in the room. I’m saving that for Donnelley.”

John leaned back in his chair and placed his hands in his coat pockets, bringing them out with a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo with the 101st Airborne insignia engraved into it. He put a cigarette between his lips and lit up, “I’m just here to ask all y’all just how in the heck a Russian spy pranced right up to your front door and wrecked a fucking Safehouse.” John shrugged, “Because, as I have it, everybody else has some firm ties to LEAs and the CIA. What do you think I see when I read your file, Dave [i]MacCready?[/i] Not pointing fingers, of course.”

“Aren’t you the only one left out of Working Group BLACKBEARD?” John frowned, cocking his brow, “They were killed the same way as a shitload of Sinaloa, killed the same way as Tom.”

John held his hands out, “What a heck of a coincidence, man.” John sighed, “And you haven’t even called Bob Kopelmann to tell him all about your adventures with UMBRA. Who have you called when Donnelley dropped you off back home and fucked off to drink and fuck somewhere?"

"But you ain't here to play 'who's the biggest asshole', right?" Dave snorted, thoroughly unamused. "You serious? I don't even trust our fuckin' government, and you think I'd trust Ivan? And lemme guess, I'm some sorta super-assassin, runnin' around skinnin' folks like the goddamn Predator." 

"First off, I ain't called Bob 'cuz I don't fuckin' know how. He never gave me a number, an' when I talked to Foster 'bout it he just said not to worry, he'd handle it," Dave began counting off on his fingers. "Second, BLACKBEARD got killed by some big-ass goddamn monster that chased me halfway to Hell, and put a hole in Donnelley's leg when we was tryin'a get away from it. I ain't talked to nobody about what I'm doin' cuz I ain't got nobody to talk to 'cept my boy and his mom, an' my grampa, an' I ain't talked to them 'cuz they don't need to be mixed up in none of this shit."

He shook his head, lowering his hand to the table. "An' as for the Russian, I dunno how the fuck he found us. He just came bangin' on the door with a gun to his own head, hollerin' about monsters. An' then one [i]fuckin' appeared[/i], man. Now I ain't a spy, an' I ain't a soldier. I'm just a dumb-ass shitkicker from Arkansas who's handy with a rifle an' a bag of fertilizer. How about [i]you[/i] tell [i]me[/i] what the fuck's goin' on?" 

“I don’t know, ask your Team Lead.” John shrugged, taking another drag and blowing it toward the ceiling, “I’m just trying to piece together this fucking shit-show of an Op y’all are running, and so far, you’re the only one I can even think of pointing a finger at.”

“Colorful history. Tough childhood, whatever. I been there. Just I didn’t get put to sleep getting read the Unabomber’s manifesto and eating MREs for breakfast before marksmanship practice.”

"We read [i]Mein Kampf[/i]. The Old Man thought Ted was a government plant. An' Donnelley don't know what's goin' on either, or he'd tell us," Dave grunted, bristling slightly at the implied slur against his friend. "Look, if you know my history like ya say, then you'll understand why I think this whole deal is fuckin' stupid. I got guns an' some Tannerite, an' a record that's mostly bar fights an' drivin' without a license. I ain't ever been to prison, an' more than half the dudes I've roughed up at the bar had Confederate flag truck stickers an' swastika tattoos. I ain't a choir boy, but I sure as shit ain't no Russian spy, neither."

“Then tell me about Renko.” John offered, “We have polygraphs if y’all want us to break them out, or you could just make it real easy on me.”

"They ain't admissible in court, too unreliable," Dave said, almost by reflex. "But fine. Donnelley, Ghost, an' that other fuckin' clown were off doin' some operator shit, an' left me with Avery an' the ladies."

He recounted the tale step by step, from his decision to sit up in the living room after the attack on their previous safehouse, up through Renko's arrival and departure. Everything, the sounds, the smells, the way the words he chanted burned his throat and made his gums bleed. The only things he neglected to mention were Ava's visions; Foster had made that seem like a secret, and it wasn't any of this jackboot's fucking business anyway.  

"He's a weird dude," Dave finished, sitting back in his chair. "Some kinda… Witch or somethin', I dunno. Whatever he did, it made that demon or Hound or whatever-the-fuck go away, an' it seemed like it went away pissed. Maybe hurt." 

“So, some fucking [i]warlock[/i] threatens to kill himself and expels a demon.” The humor was not lost on John, as he chuckled a bit before nodding, “Okay. So, after he does his magic trick, he tells you about a suspect in Charleston, leaves you some vodka and skips away.”

John let out a good laugh and slapped the table, leaving his hand there and pushing himself up from his chair. He ground the end of his cigarette on the table and left it, pausing at the door. “Oh, and Dave?” John said, “I think I won that game, by the way. Dismissed, get back to the box.”

The last sound in the room was the shutting of the door.

[hr]

>AVA
>INTERVIEW ROOM 2
>1745...///

The hum of the overhead fan had gone on so long that Ava hardly noticed it now. Everything about the room was almost hospital sterile. The floor was concrete, the furniture was shiny metal, white walls, and a mirrored window across one wall. Her lonesome had gone on for a long time, perhaps seeing how she acted. They were expecting nervousness, of course. Who wouldn’t be? Whoever was behind the glass seemed faceless monsters, licking at their chops. Or silent judges.

Finally, the door opened, the loud sound echoing through the interview room suddenly enough to be startling. A tall woman with pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes took her place across from Ava. She smiled pleasantly, offering her hand over the table, “My name is Angeline, with Internal Affairs. I’m sorry I took so long, how are you?”

Ava blinked at the woman, standing up so she could reach over and shake her hand. When thinking of the appearance of her interrogator, Ava had not been picturing someone like Angeline.

In some ways that made her more nervous. “I’m alright, all things considered.” She answered

“Good,” Angeline settled back in her seat, knitting her fingers together, “I think you know why you’re all here, I’ll spare you anything about that.”

Angeline reached down to her leather bag and withdrew a dossier, gently placing it unopened on the table, “Please, can you recount what happened the night Renko made contact?”

Ava took in a deep breath, recounting the events of the night with relative ease thanks to her ability to vividly recall memories that she was cursing right about then. 

When it came time to get to the detail of her vision of The Hound before it arrived; she hesitated. The silence stretched on for a moment too long and Angeline pursed her lips, “Is that all, Miss Moore? Nothing particular stood out about that night?” Angeline smiled sheepishly, a little consoling, “Besides the, um, Hound.”

“There was this smell in the air, like burning wires or kind of like how you smell ozone before a lightning strike.” Ava resumed slowly. “I was the first to smell it, I remarked on it and then Agent Laine left Agent Pari and I in the room. Then... I felt this,” She frowned as she tried to put to words what she felt before her visions came. “Shift, like I was struck with vertigo all of a sudden.”

“Interesting.” Angeline nodded, “So, the others didn’t notice it at first or… was there anything different between your perception of events versus your team’s?”

Ava pursed her lips in thought for a moment then gave a self deprecating smile. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

Angeline took the smile and ran with it, a textbook showing of trust in some amount between the two. Angeline smiled back, a small chuckle, “Miss Moore,” she began, leaning forward almost conspiratorially, “You and I both know who we work for. If anybody outside this building knew what we deal with, they’d call us all crazy.”

Angeline leaned back again, gentle smile still on her lips, “Please, I won’t think you’re crazy. Go on.”

Ava sighed, there was no turning back now. “I saw the Hound before it...I guess materialized is the best word for it. I saw it looking at me and even when I closed my eyes, I still saw it.” She frowned, staring down at the table. “I don’t really...remember much between that and it disappearing. I remember Dave grabbing me and running, but my mind was filled with the image of that [i]thing[/i].” She shuddered and shook her head. “Hard to forget something like that.”

“I can imagine.” Angeline nodded along, a frown to mirror Ava’s on her own face. She cleared her throat after studying the other woman, carrying on with the interview, “And have there been any incidents of this same nature before or after this happening?”

“When I was originally recruited to the Program.” Ava answered, her stomach curling as the hospital incident flashed back to her. “And I had an episode of sleepwalking after the Hound.” She sighed again and pushed her glasses up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I’m never going to get to sleep again and I already didn’t sleep much being IT.”

Angeline’s eyes flicked to the two-way mirror on the wall before she continued in stride, “Please, tell me more about the sleepwalking after the Hound.”

Ava straightened herself up enough to notice the glance towards the mirror and realized that they were drifting away from the original topic set at hand. “With all due respect.” Ava said carefully. “That has nothing to do with the incident involving Renko, which is what this interview is about.” She smiled apologetically. “Please, let’s not get off topic. I’d like to get back to our case.”

Angeline’s smile grew a bit as she nodded, “Of course.” She said, “Another role of this interview is making sure that members of the Program are fit for duty. Another thing IA does, is all.”

“You wouldn’t be having any… thoughts or feelings about your readiness to resume the Blackriver case, would you?” Angeline asked, tone every bit the concerned colleague. “This is a pretty extenuating occurrence that the Program takes seriously. Witnessing an unnatural incursion firsthand can be… traumatic. Both to physical and mental health.”

Starting to see her game now, Ava brought her guard back up and shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned? I’m ready to get back to work as soon as I leave this room.” She said with genuine conviction and determination in her eyes. “We have some madmen to stop and we aren’t getting anywhere by being here.”

Angeline nodded slowly, “I understand.”

Angeline leaned back in her chair, eyes going up and down Ava before she continued, “I’m not trying to hinder your case, Miss Moore. I’m trying to make sure we have all the pieces, and someone of your… disposition… paired with the details we have of Renko’s appearance is a little concerning.”

She nodded to the mirror, “Their words, not mine.” She smiled, “So, we want to know if Renko is playing a dangerous game with US interests or not, whether or not Renko is who he says he is. The quicker Working Group UMBRA gives their statements, the quicker you can catch your madmen.”

“Who is to say Renko isn’t one of them?” Angeline rose a brow, “Now, Miss Moore… tell me about the circumstances surrounding your sleepwalking incident post-incursion.”

“I fail to see what that has to do with your investigation. Whatever triggered my sleepwalking had nothing to do with Renko.” Ava said, frown deepening. “If you want my honest opinion on why Renko showed himself when he did? I think he needed help getting rid of it, whatever that entailed.” Ava arched her own brow. “Now would you like to hear what happened afterwards, as you claim, because I remember that part quite vividly.” 

She smiled, the expression surprisingly chilly. “Because I’m sure I can find some kind of form to file against you for overstepping the parameters of your investigation.” She adjusted her glasses. “I’m quite good at that kind of thing.”

“So I’m told.” Angeline smirked, leaning forward again and knitting her fingers together on the table in front of her. “I’d like to hear about what happened afterwards, then, if you remember it [i]vividly.[/i]”

“Gladly.” Ava smiled, resisting the urge to crack her knuckles as she took in a breath and launched into a detailed explanation of what happened after the Hound disappeared. An extremely detailed explanation, from time to time she would intentionally veer off in her retelling in order to describe minute details that added absolutely nothing of interest. 

She described the placement of the furniture after the Hound was banished, then went to explain how the furniture USED to be set up in the living room. She took minutes describing not only how many holes were knocked into the walls but also the relative size and shapes of the holes. Anything trivial she could think of from the scene that wasn’t important, she made sure to describe, in vivid detail, to Angeline and the people in the glass window behind her.

Not only that, but she decided to call up every bad public speaking habit she could think of and threw those in for a little flavor and make it extra excruciating to listen too. If she had a stick of gum, she’d be chewing it and snapping it as loudly as possible.

Angeline’s smile had disappeared long ago, replaced with a look that could kill that was only barely masked. Whatever vestiges of a smile she had left had been twisted into a crooked smirk. To her credit, she slowly rose, grabbed her things and looked back at Ava. “Thank you.”

The words seemed almost to cut her tongue on the way out and she took a seat on the table, leaning closer to Ava, “If Renko is responsible for the death of Tom, the death of one of our own agents,” Angeline’s lip curled up as her eyes narrowed, “There isn’t a fucking form in existence you could look up if the Program gears up to overstep all over your asses.”

She held Ava’s own glare, “Foster, Donnelley, the goddamn President. No one is stopping [i]my investigation.[/i]” Angeline gave Ava one last look over, “Dismissed.”

Angeline stood and the haughty clack-clacking of her high heels only ended with the door slamming shut.

Ava sat there for a few moments before glancing over to the mirror, seeing her pale, freckled face looking back at her with dark bags forming beneath her eyes. She forced a smile back on her face, a crooked little grin she had picked up from another red head. “I think that went well.” 

[hr]

>DONNELLEY
>INTERVIEW ROOM 1
>1810...///

It had been a long, long time since Donnelley was in one of these rooms. An even longer time since he was on the other end of the recorder. The air inside was stagnant, lukewarm. He sat in his uncomfortable metal chair with his arms crossed, chanced a look at the two-way mirror set in the wall and only found himself looking back. Was Foster behind the glass? Who was? He sighed, deciding that train of thought wasn’t worth indulging in.

The door opened behind him and the sound of footsteps brought a familiar face to sit in front of him. Donnelley gave a tight smile, feeling his arms tighten around himself. John smiled back, “Hello, Joe.”

“John.” Donnelley almost growled the name. He immediately knew how this would go. Some years ago, the man in front of him was grilling him about different things. Baseless accusations, trying to get a rise out of him using every stupid shaky line of evidence and possibility there was under the sun.

“How’s the leg?” John asked, “Dave told me about your boo-boo.”

“Dave tell you to go fuck yourself?” Donnelley smirked, “Because if he didn’t, I can.”

“More or less, yeah. It’s in the eyes, you know?” John shrugged, taking his pack of cigarettes out and lighting one, “Want one?”

“Sure, fuck it.” Donnelley took the Marlboro red offered to him and lit it with John’s lighter. He set it back down on the table and spoke before John had a chance, “You gonna ask me if I pointed Renko at my own team, because I think we both know where I stand with Russians.”

“I was.” John admitted, blowing his smoke through his nostrils, “I was going to ask you about Dave and Jason.”

Donnelley laughed, a loud bark full of spite that sounded like a gunshot in the echoey interrogation room. Donnelley had expected that much when Dave had come back to the holding cell with fire in his eyes, “You don’t change much, do you?” Donnelley spat, “I found Dave shiverin’ in the fuckin’ woods and I trust Jason. They were vetted and brought in. That’s all I need to know.”

“You’re not worried Dave’s people are gunning for you out here? They have ties. Maybe not Dave himself, but I understand he pissed off more than a few people from his old life-“

“Oh, shut the fuck up, man.” Donnelley rolled his eyes in exasperation, “You think I’m new to this? All you care about is shuttin’ whatever case file you have on UMBRA while you got us benched here and goin’ back to knockin’ back brews at the bar with the rest of the cocksuckers in IA and CI.”

“Tell a few war stories ‘bout this so y’all can feel like [i]real agents.[/i]” Donnelley mocked, his lip curled up in contempt.

John took it in stride, his smirk not drooping an inch while receiving the fiery tirade, “You redheads are feisty.” John chuckled, “So, what were you doing in West Virginia, more cowboy shit? I understand you so love keeping up your image.”

“I’ll let you know it ain’t fucking cute.” John was dead serious at the drop of a dime, “Just because you made it out of Chechnya alive and half-assed an Op by yourself instead of aborting, crawling your sorry ass to safety and trying again with a new Group, it doesn’t make you fucking [i]James Bond.[/i]”

“Two Program vets were killed because of your shitty decisions, and I have half a mind to recommend that you get taken off of UMBRA before you do the same to these guys.” John growled. “So you better pull some reasons out of your ass, or I’ll PNG you to some embassy and blacklist your ass from any Program work.”

Donnelley’s eyes darkened at that, his head tilting towards John, “Whatever y’all’s game is here, it ain’t gonna be fun for you. You take us off this case and it’s gonna blow the fuck up in your fat fuckin’ face, John.”

“You try to take the easy way out of this and take one of mine to the gallows, I’ll personally fuck your world sideways, boy.” Donnelley’s fists were balled on the table, the filter of the cigarette flattened between two fingers. He let go a sigh and took a draw.

“Two fucking safehouses. You got clocked by [i]Russian GRU[/i] in [i]America,[/i] dumbfuck.” John jabbed his finger into the table to accentuate his points, frowning something deep, “If anybody sees any of you talking to this dude and the conversation doesn’t end with a lead slug to his forehead, I’m putting you away where no one’s going to find you.”

“I got two ways to work this out, either you’re a fuck-up and getting sloppy with your tradecraft,” John held up a finger and then added another, “Or somebody is giving the Russians your location. Someone close. Could be any of you.”

“Fuck you.” Donnelley growled. “Nobody wanted what happened to happen. Tom was my guy, I’m not a fuckin’ turncoat, you fuckin’ prick.”

“Uh Huh.” John shrugged, “Laine says you were away when Renko showed up. Care to elaborate?”

“Me and the boys in THUNDER hopped over to McMecken’s Run to nab an HVT. He’s a good source so far.” Donnelley said, ashing his cigarette. “Anything else?”

“Yeah.” John smiled, “Do you usually blow up an entire house when you’re trying to be covert?”

“Plausible deniability.” Donnelley smiled back ruefully.

“How many people got killed that night?” John asked.

“Enough of ‘em.” Donnelley answered.

“And the night the Blackriver Safehouse was compromised, how many then?” John asked.

“Enough of ‘em.” Donnelley answered, again.

John chuckled ruefully and shook his head, drawing off his cigarette and looking at Donnelley the same way a school principal might a troublesome child. “I’m telling you, Donnelley, you keep playing fast and loose and you’ll learn life isn’t a fucking movie.” John said, leaning forward across the table, “The hero dies sometimes.”

Donnelley touched his chest and pushed his bottom lip out, trying to muster up some wetness in his eyes to complete the performance, “Did you just… call me a hero?”

John’s eyes narrowed to sharp slits, “I’m starting to think I care about the lives of your team more than you do.”

Donnelley snorted, “Oh, shut the fuck up, you’re the one trying to black bag Dave for the sins of his father, [i]Pontius[/i].” Donnelley held his hands out, “Whatever Laine or Foster or anybody else said happened is the truth. None of us fuckin’ know Renko, none of us are double agents. We’re just a poor ol’ Working Group tryin’ to solve the deaths of some girls, man.”

John got up from his seat and shook his head. He ground his cigarette into the table and stalked off, “Dismissed. This isn’t the last conversation we’ll be having.”

“Yep, nice seeing you again, John.” Donnelley waved back at the man.

“I still don’t believe you did Chechnya by yourself. I find out you got friendly with [i]any[/i] Russians over there and just forgot to tell us…” The sound of John smacking a fist into his own palm made Donnelley grin as he stood.

“I’ll tell you like I told IA back then.” Donnelley threw his arms out to the side helplessly, “[i]I don’t remember all of it.[/i] You wanna lock me up for forgetting something, go ahead. Agency General Counsel is gonna make you bite the pillow, [i]John.[/i]”

John lost his usual good humor in the face of the only man who was as much of an antagonistic asshole as he was. Donnelley nodded slow, “And it’s gonna be me behind you.”

The door slammed loud as a gunshot as John left, leaving Donnelley alone in the room. He knew they’d have trouble putting him away for something he didn’t remember huge chunks of. Chechnya was a very non-permissive environment, and on a lot of days, he didn’t really believe he finished the Op all by himself. Anything he didn’t remember was worth as much as a lie to John and IA, especially CI. The bluster seemed to deep out of his chest as he wrung his hands and sighed, looking back at his reflection in the two-way mirror.

He scowled then, giving the people behind it his finger and walked out after, flames in his eyes.

[hr]

>MEETING ROOM
>1810...///

You could have heard a pin drop inside the glass meeting room. If they had any illusions of comfort in the Program’s hospitality in the form of coffee mugs and a place to sit, they were all gone now. Each one of them were perturbed in some way as they sat in the silence, waiting for Donnelley to get back to the meeting room, now feeling like a zoo enclosure. Two steely-eyed big men in black multicam Crye outfits had taken their place flanking the only door into the meeting room, backs turned. Pistols were holstered at their hips, magazines and cuffs hung at the ready.

The familiar face of Foster stopped in front of them and exchanged a couple words, nodding before he opened the door and stepped inside. He took a seat at the head of the table and sighed, looking at all of them. “I’m sorry.” He said, voice lame in the silence, “About all of this. I don’t know what they’re trying, but this is… it’s something.”

Ava lifted up her head from her arms when the door opened, blinking tired eyes over at Foster. She glanced over to the men outside the door while picking up her glasses. “It certainly seems like they’re interested in more than just what happened with Renko.” She said, leaning back in her chair with a frown. “Unless that was just my interview.” She added, glancing around at the others with a mixture of curiosity and worry.

"Course they are," Dave grumbled from his place against the wall. His blue eyes were stormy, his arms folded, and a fresh dip in. He'd been going steady since they got there.

"They're Feds. Buncha nosey fucks, just tryin'a pick us apart for dirt." He glared at the door, still furious at his [i]interviewer's[/i] insinuations that he might secretly be a Russian spy or, worse, in league with his Old Man. "They're all so shifty they can't believe some folk might genuinely wanna help. Gotta think everybody's got an agenda." 

"Because they often do," Laine said, glancing at Dave. "It's always a hunt for a bigger fish and the deals you have to make to find him."

Ava frowned and sighed, leaning back in her chair. “This is why I stick with computers, they’re a lot simpler.” 

Dave grunted. He didn't know computers, but he was missing his mountain, his dog, and more than anything his son. He sniffed hard at that thought, pushed it away.

"I'm sorry, y'all," he said. "About the Fed thing. I don't mean present company, just these fuckers. Y'all are alright in my book." 

Ava turned her chair to smile over at him. “It’s alright, after all this, I’m inclined to agree with your sentiment.”

Dave returned her smile. "Yeah, well, we'll get through this sugar. Be back on the trail before ya know, and stompin' Russian ass any day now." 

Laine smiled slightly at his statement, then glanced towards the door. They were still missing some of their team and though she tried not to show it the longer Donnelley was away the more worried she became. They were interested in him, Feroz didn't seem to care what she had done but it was Donnelley her instincts told her that was their interest.

From down the hallway a man stalked out, steps with purpose and shoulders pinned back, fists clenching and darkness in his eyes. He stopped just short of the two guards and spoke a few words. The moment grew tense, the three of them seeming to freeze in time. One finally reached over and opened the door, the sounds of the offices outside the meeting room blaring in for a moment as Donnelley stepped inside, and just as soon the door closed, cutting off the outside.

“This is a fuckin’ show.” Donnelley growled, standing where he was for a moment before he reached up and rubbed at his face. “Dog and pony. Fuckin’ circus.”

“What did they ask-“

“The fuck you think?” Donnelley cut Foster off. “They’re not tryin’ to protect us, they’re just lookin’ for someone to point the finger at.”

Donnelley went to the table and took a seat, shaking his head, “It’s all political. You know how embarrassing for the Program it would be to tell the Director an op was compromised by a [i]foreign agent in our own backyard?[/i] It’d be different if this was some East Europe shithole, but…” Donnelley pursed his lips and showed his hands. “Well, how’d everyone else like it?”

"I don't like it, I want my money back," Laine replied dryly, looking over at him. She wanted to ask how it went but the stormy look on his scarred face said enough for now. "When do you expect them to let us go?"

Donnelley shrugged, “Could be tomorrow, like they say. Could be they extend our stay.” He shook his head, “I was tellin’ Dave, ‘least the beds are comfortable here.”

Ava deflated slightly hearing that, she had been hoping she could go home. Her house was only twenty minutes away and it would be nice to have at least one night in her own bed. “Do they provide room service?” She asked, trying to inject a note of light sarcasm into her voice.

"Holdin' us without charges," Dave grumbled, toeing the floor with his boot. "Tramplin' our constitutional goddamn…" 

The mountain man prodded his dip with his tongue, then glared first at the door, then at Donnelley. "And fuck John. And Foster, why the hell didn't you get 'hold of Bob, man? They were grillin' me about that. I thought it was all good or I'da reminded you or somethin'." By this point Dave didn't look angry, just frustrated. He'd long ago moved past his anger at Foster, particularly after the man had, in his eyes, straightened up his act as a leader. 

Foster pursed his lips, “I did. It’s either Bob being territorial or John being an asshole.” He said, “I called him when I said I would, submitted the paperwork for a transfer.”

“Oh, shit.” Donnelley stood erect in his chair, peering past the two guards to see someone who might be familiar to one of them.

He strode with a purpose towards the meeting room and the guards opened the door for him without question. Bob Kopelmann, the forgettable ISA man stood in front of them. The look in his eye was hard to read past the small grin on his lips, looking at all the assembled faces and finally settling on Dave. “What’s up, Dave?” Bob grinned, “Was using a phone with one number programmed into it not part of your pops’ curriculum?”

He looked to Foster next, “And you. You fucking poacher.” The smile was still there, but there was an abrasiveness in his tone, “Going above my head to get one of mine transferred to your teams. You’re the epitome of CIA, Steve.”

“Howdy, Bob.” Donnelley smiled.

Bob fixed him with a stare, and the smile still hadn’t left, “I’m not here for you.” He pointed at Dave, “I’m here for him.”

Bob pointed with his chin at Ava as he put his hands on his hips, “Stark was looking for you.”

"Here for me? Fuck you, man," Dave said. The anger was back, his blue eyes flashing. "I ain't heard shit outta you since my whole goddamn team got killed, and now you wanna come in here and run your mouth? You ain't earned the right to talk shit to me like that." 

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Bob held his arms out wide, “From the bottom of my heart, David MacCready, I apologize for making you feel as though I don’t care about an entire [i]fucking team[/i] of mine biting the dust.”

“Except they aren’t. One’s right here and he’s a little angry at me. I’m sorry, I should’ve opened with ‘Oh, David, I’m so glad you’re safe, may I throat you in front of everybody now, or later?’” His smile had vanished completely, “Fuck me? Fuck you. Stark and I are your only chance of getting back out there.”

Bob pursed his lips at Foster, “And you, I guess.” Bob shrugged, “I started writing my letter of recommendation, if only to make sure I can go a few more weeks without seeing these two pricks.”

Donnelley held up his middle finger and Foster folded his arms and turned away from Bob.

Whatever relief Ava felt to hear Stark’s name, quickly evaporated as she listened to the infamous ‘Bob’ speak to her friends and teammates. She narrowed her eyes into a glare at him, her hands clenched into fists on the table. “We’re having a bad enough day as it is, do you really need to come in here and make it worse?” She snapped at him.

Laine observed the dick swinging in silence, watching the interaction of the team leaders. She then leaned over towards Ava and whispered aloud in a passable English accent, "Now observe the change in posture and volume of vocalizations. The rut has begun between the rival males of  each clan to vie for supremacy of the choicest members. See how the newest arrival tests his strength against both the seasoned pack leader and the young upstart."

Donnelley leaned towards Laine and quirked a brow, “If I’m the young, handsome upstart, then who’s the seasoned pack leader?”

Laine raised a brow back at him, a hint of a teasing smile on her lips before continuing in the hushed accent beside Ava, "Our cameras have been spotted and the younger male comes to preen, to show his vigour before the older males. He had better be careful, the older males are wily and dangerous, displaying their armament of paperwork and backdoor connections."

Bob rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, shaking his head at the evident maturity of these people. He took a last look at Dave, “I’ll finish the letter. Clearly, you’re in good company.”

Despite her exhaustion and her frustration in general with the way things were going; Ava felt herself start to crack a grin. “Thanks Miss Attenborough.” Ava chuckled at Laine.

Dave grunted at Bob’s words, not trusting himself to speak. He was keyed up, and he knew that. When he got stressed he ran off at the mouth, and sometimes his temper got the better of him. Scarred knuckles and his Drunk and Disorderly charges were proof enough of that. 

Instead, he settled for leaning back against the wall, unballing his fists, and giving the man a nod of begrudging thanks.

As Bob stepped out, it seemed the attention they were getting was not yet over. Booker had appeared from around the corner and the guards opened the door, flanking him as he stood opposite UMBRA. He regarded them with that same look of predatory amusement, as if the interrogations had actually been useful. Donnelley held his stare and snorted. Booker turned his nose up at him, “These two fine gentlemen will be escorting you to your rooms tonight. One to a room.”

...///

Just as Donnelley had told Dave, the rooms here at Langley were nice. Better than most hotels, a miniature fridge stocked with water, a bed, television, the essentials. It hardly even felt like a cell with cameras positioned to watch every movement short of showering. Not like they’d find anything from Donnelley other than the 50th Navy SEAL burpee, and the ones that followed. He needed to work off the nervous energy, and without his flask then drinking about it wasn’t an option. His smoker’s lungs thankfully hadn’t gotten the best of his aerobic capacity, so that was something.

After the 100th, he flopped himself onto the bed drenched in sweat and flipped off the first barely-hidden camera he eyed. He’d never been to prison, but he figured this was just the tiniest taste of it. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping a grip on his soap. The interview with John kept replaying in his head. As much as he’d liked Dave and even as keen as he was to defend him, he wondered if John didn’t have a point. Dave’s people did have connections. If anything, what if Jay’s people had a line of communication to put Dave’s family in danger?

What if they had a line of communication to put any of them in danger? He shook his head, of course they did. Whatever dark force the Bratva could conjure up…

He growled, sitting up on the edge of the bed. He was starting to think like John, run wild with any shred of evidence and never look back. The truth of it was the only reason Tom got killed was he was meddling in Bratva affairs even in his extracurricular activities. It had to be. Maybe. Fuck, he hardly knew how the Bratva aimed their fire-and-forget demon. That was something they needed to figure out. That was valuable intel to UMBRA, and the Program beyond that.

Perhaps that trip to the BLACKBOX would be sooner than later. He almost flinched as a knock came at his door. He stood, resting his hand on the handle and lamenting the lack of a peephole. Agency’s rules, we can see you, you can’t see us. Something he’d used against terrorists and enemy agents now used against him. He opened the door and saw Foster standing on the other side. Almost immediately his blood began to boil, “Where the fuck they keepin’ you?” He asked, “We’re dumped in here and you get to rub elbows with them?”

“Calm down.” Foster rose his hands in peace, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Donnelley’s eyes narrowed. After the interviews he’d had enough of talking about things with people who thought they were above him. “What.”

“Iraq.” Foster said. The word made Donnelley quirk a brow. “Let’s talk somewhere else, come on. No cameras.”

“They let you-“

“Fuck them. Let’s go.” Donnelley smirked a bit, he liked it when Foster seemed to be on his side. He nodded, maybe this would be worthwhile. He threw on his shirt and followed Foster out of his room.

“So, what about Iraq?” Donnelley asked as they walked.

“Not here. Your office.” Foster replied over his shoulder.

They didn’t speak another word as they took the labyrinthine route through the Program’s underground sprawl back up to Langley proper, and finally into the offices of the Special Activities Center. Donnelley closed the door of his office behind him and crossed his arms, “Okay?”

“Program doesn’t have permission to plant surveillance devices in Agency property. I wanted to wait until we were out of there before I told you this.” Foster spoke low, as if what he said wasn’t even true. The aged Operations Officer wasn’t quick to break habit though. “Your team in Iraq, you told them to meddle, didn’t you?”

Donnelley looked away from Foster for a moment before nodding, “Yes.”

“Well, they meddled. They found what you wanted. I was going through your emails,” Donnelley stepped towards Foster, but Foster again held his hands up in peace, “We need to share every piece of intel with IA and CI we can. I didn’t share this though, it’s all your business.”

Donnelley softened a bit, but not a lot. “Just fuckin’ tell me.”

“They meddled. They did what you told them and they smuggled a body back to Baghdad. Perfectly skinned, but they don’t have an autopsy yet.” Foster pursed his lips, “They’re waiting for you.”

Donnelley rolled his jaw and nodded slow. “How long are they goin’ to have to wait?”

“Not long. Everything everyone on UMBRA has, IA and CI have too. They see they’re full of shit and we’re only here to do our jobs.” Foster held Donnelley’s gaze, “Which means those letters Bob and Stark are handing up the chain are only icing on the cake. We’ll get out of here soon.”

“[i]How soon?[/i]” Donnelley pressed, his voice raising with his impatience.

“Right after the two days they have us here. Until then, do whatever you can. IA and CI are obviously pissed, but any surveillance they have on us is passive at the worst.” Foster shrugged, “Why do you think we’re able to be here?”

“We got full use of Langley?” Donnelley asked.

“The fullest. Shoothouses, ranges, the Farm. Take your boys and girls out, have them learn a few things.” Foster nodded, “It’ll do them some good. Better than being cooped up. We still have Dulane to take out on a hike and I expect Blackriver to still be hostile. Whatever they can learn here will be useful.”

Donnelley nodded, watching Foster walk to the door and stop to lay a hand on his shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze, “I was always on your side, Joseph. We’ve been at this together too long to be on anyone else’s.”

Donnelley patted Foster’s shoulder in turn and the other man closed the door behind him, leaving Donnelley in his office alone. He pulled his office chair out from his desk and plopped himself down in it, rearing to get eyes on those emails.

...///

Ava knocked lightly on the door of the office Foster had directed her toward. “Donnelley?” She called out through the door with a frown. “Are you still in there?”

Donnelley’s eyes shot toward the door at the knock. No matter what Foster said, he still felt like he’d broke some rule for sitting in his office outside of his cell. When he recognized the voice as Ava’s, he calmed a bit. He took one last look at the emails and minimized the window, pushing up from his chair and making his way toward the door. He opened it, looking at Ava and finding her appearance relieving. Too much time spent in hostility and defensiveness had him bearing his teeth at everything.

“Come in,” he opened the door wider for her to step through, “I was just lookin’ at some work emails.”

He went to his chair and set himself back into it, gesturing to the seat on the other side for Ava, “What’s up?”

Ava gave him a small smile when he opened the door, following him inside and shutting the door firmly behind her. She glanced around the office as she stepped in further, her arms folded over her chest and expression pensive. “Is it...safe to talk in here?” She asked him, sitting down in the chair with a frown. “There’s no cameras or anything?”

Donnelley nodded, “Program doesn’t have permission. Even the Agency doesn’t trust us.” He winked, “We’re safe.”

She smiled. “Good.” The smile fell away and she wrung her hands together. “I think I messed up my interview. I told them about my visions of the Hound and I mentioned my sleepwalking episode after. I didn’t tell them anything beyond that!” She added quickly. “Just that it happened, I didn’t say anything about walking out of the hotel or who found me or what I saw during my sleepwalking, but...they were really interested in knowing more about it.”

Donnelley’s brow furrowed as he leaned back in his chair, looking away from Ava. John had seemed to focus so much on Dave and Jason, even focused on his own past in Chechnya. He hadn’t even mentioned Ava and her dreams. “Who interviewed you?”

“Some woman named Angelina.” Ava answered, her frown deepening. “She was...really good at playing nice until she started focusing on my sleepwalking and I didn’t answer her questions.” She colored slightly and cleared her throat. “But then, I stopped playing nice after that so that could have also played into it.”

Donnelley snorted, almost seeming a bit proud, “You? Tell me, what’d you do?”

“Um,” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, I told her that my sleepwalking had nothing to do with her investigation, and threatened to file a report against her. Then I said I remembered the Renko incident vividly and she told me to describe it vividly sooo I did.” She cleared her throat. “I told her every single little detail I remembered.” She looked at him with a sheepish smile. “And I mean every little detail.”

Donnelley smiled and huffed a chuckle, scratching at his forehead. He shook his head and felt an urge to shake his finger at her, if only because he reminded himself of his own antics. The more he was around Ava, the more he saw his influence rubbing off on her. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, he did know that it was damn amusing.

“I’m a little proud.” Donnelley smiled back at her, “I probably wouldn’t make that standard procedure, but that’s some funny shit.”

He leaned back in his chair and set his feet on the desk, smile shrinking a bit as he dug back to the roots of the conversation, “They focused on your dreams and that stuff?”

She smiled back sheepishly before the conversation shifted back and she frowned with a nod. “Yes, it was very strange. She used some really flimsy argument about why it mattered to the investigation and she also looked at the mirror when it was mentioned.” Ava folded her arms and leaned back into the chair. “It was like she was waiting for it.” 

She tightened her arms around herself. “Now I’m worried they’re going to dig into it, find out about the hospital and who brought me there and use that to turn me into some kind of scapegoat.”

“I wouldn’t let it happen.” Donnelley said almost immediately, folding his arms and holding Ava in a stern and serious expression. “Not to you, not to Dave, not to any of you.”

“Trust me, I know how they work. If they had everythin’ their way, I would’ve been non-operational forever and y’all wouldn’t have met me and my wickedly good looks.” He smiled at her, hopefully lighting up the conversation a bit, “Foster says we’ll be out of their custody after tomorrow. We’re free to do whatever we want after. It’ll be worthwhile to train up on somethin’ while we’re here for a few weeks. Or just take some pressure off.”

Ava smiled, her shoulders relaxing as she took some measure of comfort from his assurances. “Thanks Donnelley.” She furrowed her eyebrows. “A few weeks? What about the case?” She asked with a light frown. “Didn’t you leave Jay with Queen and Ghost?”

“He’ll be fine.” Donnelley nodded, “The case can wait. We’re goin’ back to Blackriver and I’ll be damned if our tactical skills aren’t brushed up on. How’s your shootin’?”

“I know not to point the shooty end at myself.” She answered with a self deprecating smile. “I was thinking about practicing my shooting anyway, before all of this happened.”

Donnelley chuckled, “Come to the range with me and Dave, we’ll show you what’s what. You’ll be a sharpshooter before long.”

“I’m going to be talking with a Southern drawl in no time.” She chuckled, her hand reaching up to adjust her glasses. She took them off to look at them with a thoughtful frown. “I guess I should bite the bullet and switch to contacts.” She said with a sigh, putting her glasses back on. “I don’t want to be like Velma when she loses her glasses. Especially if people are shooting at me.”