Overseas Operation
August 1 st , 2022
“Nate Sheppard you are officially cleared for missions again,” Lynn said before giving the man that was sitting on the examination table a loving kiss.
“Yeah! Finally! Marta gonna be happy because the team is scheduled for another operation on Wednesday. We weren’t sure if I’d be able to be part of the team, but now I am. Can’t wait to get back in the field.”
“But be careful. Not only because of the knee,” Lynn looked at him with worry flickering in her chestnut eyes.
“Of course, darling. No matter what mission I’m on, I’ll always come home.” He grabbed her hand and placed tender kisses along her knuckles.
“To you,” he added after seeing tears in the corners of her eyes.
“Good because I can’t imagine a life without you,” Lynn whispered, her lips curling into a shy smile.
“Hey, you’re my first girlfriend in a very long time. I wanna enjoy that a little longer.” Nate was trying to lighten the mood. His heart was full of love and his eyes shone bright with happiness.
“I’m okay with that,” Lynn laughed, stepping back and grabbing her iPad to finalize the report .
She wanted to send it to Marta immediately so that she was able to consider Nate as available for the upcoming mission.
Nate waited on the table for Lynn to give him some final instructions but when she was deep into typing the report on her iPad he jumped off the table and gave her a quick kiss on the nose.
“I’ll go to Marta’s office and tell her the good news,” he whispered before rushing out of the examination room.
Lynn only nodded, totally focused on the screen in front of her. A few minutes later Nate arrived in front of Marta’s office, smiling at her assistant Blaire.
“Hi. Is she free? I need to talk to her.”
“Agent Sheppard. Good to see you. Yes, you’re lucky. Deputy Director Gómez just finished a meeting and now has a thirty minute gap in her calendar.”
Blaire looked him in the eyes, a wide smile on her face. Nate nodded, turned around and knocked on the wooden door. A muffled “come in” could be heard from the inside and so he opened the door.
Marta sat on her desk with her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her. She had furrowed her eyebrows while Nate could see her eyes flicker across the screen as if she was reading something. Her lips were parted and she huffed a low “huh” while still reading. A few moments passed before she raised her gaze from the screen to look at the person that had entered the room.
“Oh Butch, do we have a meeting?” she asked, a mixture of confusion and panic in her voice while she made some hectic clicks with her computer mouse .
“No. No. I just had my final check-up with Lynn and wanted to tell you in person that I’m cleared for missions. Oliver said there’s one coming up very soon and I can support the team with that.”
Marta looked at him, her features widening while she processed what he had just told her.
“Oh, Butch that’s great! So your knee is all healed then?”
“Yeah. As good as new. Lynn’s currently typing the final check-up report to send to you, Oliver and HR but as I know time’s ticking for the upcoming mission, I wanted to let you know in person.”
“That’s good. Well…” Marta cleared her throat “… you better talk to Oliver about the mission. He’s in charge of it and he can give you a debriefing. They’re headed out in two days.”
“Okay, thank you!” Nate smiled at her and was about to leave the office when Marta cleared her throat loudly.
The brunet man turned around and looked at her. He knew this behavior from Lynn, when she wasn’t sure if she should say something or just ignore whatever was bothering her.
“Yes, Marta?” he asked with a cheerful smile on his face.
“Other than the knee, you’re good again?” she asked, her eyes showing regret the moment she finished the question.
“What do you mean?”
“You were in a pretty bad headspace over the last few months. I know you two are on good terms, official relationship and all that but is your mind okay with it all? Are you able to go on a mission again? ”
Nate knew she was partly worried on a professional level but also because she was a good friend. And she was right. It had been a rough few months and he’d been in his rabbit hole a few times but things with him and Lynn were going great, he was happier than ever. He hadn’t thought about the betrayal in a few days. It was all good.
“Yes, actually, my mind is better than ever.”
“Good. I’ll believe you without a professional report on that. We need you out there again. Also, I haven’t seen you smiling like a love drunk idiot for nearly ten years. I don’t know what Lynn does differently than the other therapists, but it’s working,” she laughed.
“I don’t know either, but it’s just amazing. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
His mind drifted off to the brown-haired woman with the chestnut eyes.
“Maybe it’s the sex that lightens your mood,” Marta giggled.
“Pardon?” Nate looked at her with widened eyes.
“Thin walls, Butch…” Marta laughed even more.
“Oh my god…” Nate groaned and turned his back towards Marta.
His and Oliver’s room were right next to each other and he even fled to Lynn’s room when Marta and Oliver were too loud in the middle of the night but he’d never thought about the fact that they would be able to hear them, too.
His face had the color of radish by now and he buried it in both of his palms.
“I'm just gonna pretend we never had this conversation. Thanks for ruining my day, Marta,” he huffed and quickly stepped out of the room without closing the door. Marta couldn’t stop laughing and sent a text to Oliver to warn him.
When Nate entered one of the offices their team could use to investigate and plan missions, he saw Oliver, Peter Davis, and an unknown young woman, leaning over a large map that covered almost the entire desk.
The door had been open, but he still knocked on the doorframe to let them know that he had entered. Still a gentleman.
Oliver’s head was the first to turn around and Nate could see his eyes light up when he saw his best friend.
“Butch.” He smiled at him.
“Need some support on the mission?” Nate asked while stepping towards the desk the others were gathered around.
“You’re cleared?”
“Yes, Sir. Cleared and ready to head out on Wednesday!”
“That’s amazing. We could really use someone with your experience. I was about to let Eliana come with us, because the more the merrier but she only joined the CIA two weeks ago and doesn’t have any experience in operations abroad,” Oliver explained and pointed to the woman standing with her back towards Nate. She was still observing the map in front of her until Oliver called her name then she turned around and stared at Nate with a neutral face. Nate raised an eyebrow at her, made two steps in her direction, and extended his arm.
“Nate Sheppard, but you can call me Butch.”
“Eliana Richards and just for the record, I would’ve been able to do the operation with the team. I was the best Agent on my team at the FBI.”
Nate could hear Peter huff and roll his eyes in response and now he was even more curious as to what was going on.
“FBI to CIA is a major difference but I’m sure you would’ve been great support.”
Nate gave her a fake smile, feeling confused and a little insecure about the situation. He had been more comfortable around people over the past few months but something that Eliana radiated made him feel uncomfortable..
Eliana only gave him a fake smile in return but he could see something flicker in her eyes. She was still young, in her late 20s, and by her facial expression and sassy comment he realized she was still very much a greenhorn. An arrogant greenhorn that overestimated herself badly. All bark, no bite. Which was okay. A lot of Agents were like that. One day they would get grounded. Mostly involuntarily.
Nate respected FBI Agents a lot but what they did in the terrorism task force was much more than any of the FBI Agents he knew could ever dream about. It was risky, it was mentally and physically challenging, and only the best of the best got a spot on their team.
Many tried. Many failed .
Oliver had strict rules and to pass the tests he prepared was hard. Nate was sure even he would fail some of them but luckily he’d worked with Oliver for over a decade and they understood each other without words. Which was a great advantage out in the field.
“Eliana is the first one to pass all my tests in the past few months and Marta, Director Burns, and I decided to hire her. She did the regular on-boarding process for the first week and joined our team just a couple of days ago.” Oliver explained after he had curiously watched the first interaction between their new team member and his best friend.
It was important for him to make sure the dynamic in the team was good and that they were able to work together no matter what happened during an operation. There was already a weird rivalry forming between the two younger Agents on his team and he was happy that he had Nate as a buffer between Peter and Eliana.
“That’s great to hear. Welcome to the team,” Nate said to the woman that was still standing in front of him, challenging his gaze with a stare.
After a few seconds of them just looking at each other, Eliana shrunk back and gave him another smile before turning around to Oliver and Peter again. Peter just looked at her and every cell of his face screamed hatred.
Nate wondered what had happened in the few days that Eliana had been on the team to piss off Peter to this extent. The boy was always friendly, easily followed orders, but still remained open-minded and flexible even in the heat of battle. He had a perfect instinct for when he needed to disobey Oliver’s order in order to sustain the success of the mission. Like when he shot Az-Zawahiri to save Oliver’s life.
Peter was like a rough diamond. He had it in himself but he was also very insecure, always needing Oliver to support him and tell him that he’d done a good job. He was a good Agent and, in time, he would get the necessary confidence, Nate was sure about that.
It took a lot to piss someone like Peter off. Nate made a mental note to observe the two and he was sure Oliver expected him to do exactly that.
Oliver cleared his throat, pointed his finger on the map on the desk and asked,
“You’re here for a debriefing or you wanna do that later?”
“Yeah, sure. Go on. Let me know the plan.”
Nate stepped towards the desk, finding his place between Peter and Oliver and gave the young Agent a wink and a clap on the back. Peter whispered “good to have you back” before Oliver started his explanation.
“After Az-Zawahiri’s death the Middle East feels like a ticking time bomb. Different terror organizations are trying to take control of the region but all of them are weak in comparison to Az-Zawahiri. He inherited Bin Laden’s territory and managed to extend and defend it for a long time. Now this huge territory is split between the remaining factions but none of them actually hold the scepter for the whole region. Until a month ago, when one of them started to battle against the others, gathering sub-organizations of al-Qaeda under his command. His name is Mohammed Atef. He was mostly active in Afghanistan but seemed to change location because now he’s very active in central Iraq. We observed his activities over a number of weeks and now they can’t be ignored. The operation itself is very clear: enter the hide-out, find and eliminate Atef. His organization is growing so we expect a bunch of hostiles in this hide-out. Too many to handle alone. So we’re getting support from the SEALs.”
Nate raised his eyes from the map of the hide-out towards Oliver.
“Who’s in charge?” Nate asked carefully.
“They are. It was a long and hard discussion on the call and they don’t care that we were the ones that found the hide-out. Liam was actually a great help with that. We wouldn't have been that successful at this early stage without him.”
Nate nodded. He hadn’t worked much with Liam Thomas but the little computer nerd with the glasses was actually a huge gain for the CIA.
“Anyone on the SEALs side that we know?”
“No, pal. All the comrades we know are way too old to be SEALs now. They changed to other companies I guess,” Oliver laughed.
“Do they know we’re former SEALs?”
“Yeah, they do.”
Nate sighed, his eyes never leaving Oliver’s. It was a conversation between the two of them, totally ignoring the fact that Peter and Eliana were with them in the room.
“How much do they know?” Nate asked, his lower lip started to tremble and there was pain in his stomach like someone had stabbed a burning hot knife in the pit of it. As if on cue, Peter started to move from the desk, giving the two older Agents the privacy they needed but Eliana was still standing at the desk, her gaze alternating between Nate and Oliver.
“Eliana, come on. Let them talk alone,” Peter whispered to her.
“Why? We’re part of the team as well so we should know what they're talking about,” Eliana responded.
“Because it’s not a topic we should hear about. It’s something private,” Peter explained, but Eliana remained standing where she was so Peter grabbed her by her arm and pulled her out of the room but not without listening to her tremendous amount of cussing.
After a few moments the room was silent again and Nate found himself drifting off in his own mind. It was the first time that he was confronted with the SEALs again and he knew that the operators on their side would do detailed research on all the members of the terrorism task force. That meant they would get to know his history, would get to know about the Pakistan mission, the kidnapping, the torture, his mental and physical state.
He’d never wanted to know how much the SEALs actually documented about his state. After being released from the hospital he went straight home to see his mom, worked on the rest of the rehabilitation from there, and then joined Oliver at the CIA. He’d never even called his former colleagues.
Nate never wanted to talk about that topic again.
But now he was confronted with this chapter of his past.
He took a deep breath, waiting for Oliver’s answer .
“They know about Pakistan, the kidnapping and how we found you, and that you left the SEALs because of irreparable physical damage.”
“Physical?” Nate’s eyes widened.
“Yes. We needed to give them a reason as to why you wouldn’t return to active duty and the doctors, therapists and me decided to go the easy way. And to be honest with all your injuries and the broken bones that were treated way too late, nobody actually expected you to be back to 100%.”
Oliver let out a loud sigh, before regaining his composure and shot a tiny smile at his best friend.
“I didn’t know about that. Thanks, Oliver.”
“Of course.”
After the short, vulnerable moment between them, Oliver explained to Nate when they would leave headquarters, where and how they would meet the SEALs, and how the cooperation between CIA and SEALs had been planned. He had already got a message from Marta, that she’d informed the military operator that Eliana was replaced by Nate. They were still waiting for the final approval but Nate should make sure to be ready on Wednesday morning.
After everything was cleared up, Oliver answered all of Nate’s questions to make sure he knew exactly what to expect. Afterwards they both left the office to look for Peter and Eliana. It was already late so they found them in the communal kitchen, together with Lynn and Marta. Marta had prepared a huge pot of chili con carne for everyone and they enjoyed their dinner in company.
August 3 rd , 2022
“Be careful, okay?” Lynn whispered before giving Nate a last kiss. They were standing in the communal kitchen, waiting for the terrorism task force to leave for the operation in Iraq.
“Always,” Nate answered, giving her a kiss on her nose and grabbing his backpack.
Marta looked at Oliver with heart-eyes, but as they were surrounded by Eliana and Peter, they didn’t kiss each other.
“Yeah, be careful,” Marta said.
She looked between all three of her Agents, but her words were mostly meant for Oliver.
“I’m not gonna say some cute last words to you, Davis. Sorry. Need to find someone else for that,” Eliana huffed and Peter gave her an annoyed look, before turning around to the others while mumbling “then just shut up” so quietly that only Eliana had heard it. Her face fell, she hadn’t expected him to give a sassy response.
An hour later the three men were sitting in a military plane on their way to Iraq. They had met the SEALs at the airbase before leaving together. Nate and Oliver were feeling nostalgic as the whole situation reminded them of their shared past as SEALs themselves. They had been to that airbase plenty of times before, a feeling of excitement and nervousness filling their stomachs. No matter how many missions they did, those feelings never subsided. It was a similar feeling right now but the circumstances were completely different. The three SEALs that completed their team were Hyena, Gorilla and Crocodile.
Classic SEALs callsigns.
During the 21-hour flight to Iraq they had several conversations about the plan, checked the blueprints of the hide-out again and prepared their guns and other equipment like flashbangs and headgear.
The SEALs would go through the front entrance and the Agents would take the one on the side. The blueprints had revealed that the side entrance was mostly used for deliveries as it was close to the infirmary and a warehouse-like storage area. They had to be quick and quiet, making sure to catch Atef before he was able to flee.
After arriving at a secret base, they stored their bags in the barracks that were in the same area and prepared to head out to the hide-out in just under fifteen minutes. They didn’t want to waste anymore time.
When they gathered around the vehicles that would transport them to the target, Nate observed with a smile that the SEALs were still using the M4 carbine rifles, even when they definitely had a more modern version.
He looked at his own AK-47, sighed and looked up to Oliver who shot him a questioning side-eye.
“I loved the M4’s. They were light, reliable and easy to handle. So much better than the ones we use now.” Nate shrugged his shoulders.
They couldn’t see the SEALs’ faces, but Nate was sure he detected a smile underneath Gorilla’s ski mask after his comment .
The ride towards the hide-out was quiet, all of them in their own mind, trying to mentally prepare for the upcoming task. They didn’t know what to expect as Liam wasn’t able to hack into the cameras this time.
“Finally one of the terrorists upgraded their security system!” he’d shouted into the room, getting a warning from Marta that this was nothing he should be happy about. But Liam was just Liam.
It took them almost an hour and a half from the base to the hide-out but when they arrived Nate already had a bad feeling. They parked the vehicles outside, making sure that none of Atef’s men were able to see them arrive, but when they left the transports all he could hear was silence. It was so quiet. Too quiet for the hide-out of a terrorist that was trying to gain control over the whole of Az-Zawahiri’s former territory. He was fighting a war and for a war you needed people.
With some silent commands Hyena gathered them around him and whispered,
“The goal is to catch him alive. No shooting unless you have my permission. Understood?”
They all nodded and started to spread out towards the hide-out. The closer they came to it the worse Nate's gut feeling became.
“It’s too quiet,” he whispered towards Oliver and the blond nodded.
They had done so many operations together and knew how those were supposed to go.
They reached the side entrance, halted their movements, and waited for Oliver’s signal to enter. Peter clenched his fingers around the AK-47 in his hands. The young Agent was still nervous on operations, especially after what happened last time, when he decided to kill Az-Zawahiri to protect Oliver. The lead Agent shot him a knowing look with a little nod, calming Peter’s insecurity in an instant.
It was time for work mode.
As quietly as possible, Oliver opened the door, while Nate and Peter covered his back with their weapons ready to shoot.
They entered a small room with large metallic doors on each side. Nate entered first, closely followed by Peter, with Oliver bringing up the rear. The brunet man stepped in front of the door on their right, turned the knob, and pushed the door open. Like the blueprints had shown them, this was the warehouse area. But it was abandoned. Quiet. Empty.
With quick steps they rounded the shelves before Nate mouthed a “clear” towards his colleagues.
They left the room again and prepared to enter the other metallic door. It led them into a long hallway with multiple doors to both sides. They knew that behind three of these doors they could find offices, at least they looked like that on the blueprint.
Before they were able to open the first door, they heard Hyena talk over comms to them.
“So far everything is clear. Not a single hostile.”
“Same here. We’re about to check the offices before heading towards the med-bay and the attached holding cells to make sure,” Oliver answered before signaling for Peter to open the first door .
The room had been an office once but was mostly abandoned, with a thick layer of dust over the desk, the computer screen, and the cabinets in the back.
“Clear,” Peter whispered, who had stuck his head through the doorframe first.
The second office looked the same but the third one was used recently. A closed laptop was laying on a clean desk, two burner phones laying right next to it. On the wall behind the desk they found a pin board with dozens of photos on it. They showed different popular locations in Washington D.C and New York City like Times Square, Capitol Hill, The Lincoln Memorial, or Mount Vernon.
“What’s this?” Nate asked with a raised eyebrow, taking a closer look at all the different pictures. Between them he found notes in Arabic.
“I have no idea, but this room was used recently,” Peter commented while Oliver told the SEALs via comms what they had found.
“I’m on my way to inspect it myself. Don’t touch anything,” Hyena had answered, making Oliver roll his eyes and hiss.
“Who do they think we are? Kindergarten kids?”
“Oliver,” Nate suddenly said, his eyes fixed with one of the handwritten notes.
“What is it?”
“My Arabic is a little rusty, but I know this word. Qunbula . This means bomb.”
Oliver froze on the spot, a shiver running up his spine, before he slowly made his way to Nate and looked at the note himself .
The brunet man pointed to one of the words on the note. After years of working for the SEALs and now in the terrorism task force, they had learned a few words of Arabic and this was one of them. His heart stopped beating for a moment.
Did that mean Atef planned on bombing one of these places in Washington or New York? Or maybe even all of them?
Before he could tell Hyena about it, the SEAL entered the room, looking at three very shocked Agents.
“Atef planned some attacks. We need to find him as soon as possible!” Oliver shouted at him, seeing even the SEAL surprised at the discovery.
“Okay, hold on. I’m collecting and documenting the evidence here. McGreen, Sheppard and Davis, you’re checking the med-bay and the holding cells to see if you can find any hostages. Crocodile and Gorilla are still checking the sleeping accommodation. They should be done soon.” Hyena commanded.
The three CIA Agents looked at each other, held their rifles in front of them again, and went to the end of the hallway.
“I’ll check the holding cells and you and Peter can go through the med-bay. That area looked bigger, so you can easily split up. They only have three holding cells, so I should be done at the same time as you two.” Nate suggested but saw hesitation on Oliver’s eyes.
The hands that were holding the AK-47 started to tremble a little, something that was unusual for Oliver .
“I don’t know if I like that. Let’s stay together.” The blond responded, but Nate had only focused on the storm that appeared behind Oliver’s green-blue eyes. What was wrong with him?
“I’ll be fine, pal. No need to worry about me.” Nate gave him a smile.
Oliver smiled back at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Okay. Let me know if you find anything.”
“Sure.”
Nate opened the door to the holding cells, feeling Oliver’s eyes bore into the back of his head. He wondered what was going on with his best friend. This was more than just unusual behavior, worry, or insecurity. Something was up but Nate couldn’t put his finger on it yet.
The hallway was empty and dark, the lights didn’t work, and it looked like they hadn’t held a hostage here in a while. He passed a locked door and wondered what was behind it. He remembered from the blueprint that it had been a bigger room that didn’t look like one of the cells, but he wasn’t exactly sure.
So he passed the closed door and saw three open ones distributed over the hallway. One on the right and two on the left side. Their metallic doors had small, yellowed windows in them that made it impossible to look through but he didn’t need to anyway as the doors weren’t locked. Two of the three doors even stood ajar so that he was able to kick them open with his boot. A weird tingling spread through his body and made the hair on his neck rise, but he couldn’t figure out what exactly caused it. The hallway looked oddly familiar, but so had the one they found Ann in a few months ago. This didn’t mean anything but the feeling in his stomach was different this time.
Nate’s body was pulled towards the first door on the left side of the hallway so he carefully stepped towards it and kicked the door open.
On the other side of the door frame was a metal-framed bed, if this was even the appropriate name for it, as it was more of a plank than a bed. A thin beige blanket was crumpled on top of it and Nate could see that it already started to wear away into pieces. The fabric that was left was blotched with dark brown splotches that resembled blood.
In front of the bed he could see the remnants of a wooden chair, fallen apart years ago. He could still see all four legs lying around, with leather shackles on two of them.
He turned his head to the side and saw a metal table on rollers standing right next to the door. It had still different sized knives lying on top of it, the blades rusted.
Nate’s heartbeat increased until all he could hear was the galloping of his heart and a loud tinnitus in his ears. His vision blurred and black dots appeared in front of his eyes. Breathing was impossible for him as if his lungs were filled with cement.
The rifle fell to the floor while Nate struggled to stay upright. With every second the darkness came closer and he considered just giving up and diving into it.
But then he heard loud steps echoing through the hallway, straight in his direction. The remnants of his clear mind clawed onto these new sounds and tried to pull him back to reality but only Oliver’s large hand on his shoulder was finally able to do it.
“Are you okay, pal?” Oliver asked, but it took Nate several minutes to process his words.
Finally he turned around and looked at his best friend with an expression that looked as if he’d seen a ghost.