Chapter Text
"Captain John Price, great to see you again," said one of John's least favorite people, General Shepherd.
Hearing his voice come through the speakers of the computer, John has to work to keep his face blank. He knows how he looks, covered in soot and dirt and blood. Not his, somehow he's solid. "Good evening, General Shepherd. Ready for brief when you are, sir."
"Good. Get started." General Shepherd commanded, leaning back in his chair.
"Myself and Task Force 141 deployed at 0300 as directed, sir. Arriving at the landing zone at 0600. Greeted and debriefed by..." so it continued, John giving his familiar speech. The rest of the Task Force, except for Soap and Sparrow, standing outside the door listening in. They all know what happened, they were there. They watched, unable to get to her in time. To protect her. They lost her.
Price ordered the team outside before the meeting even began. He knew he would have to play this a certain way, to make sure the General agreed to allow them to start the hunt for her. Playing it that she was the one with the sensitive intelligence they were deployed to retrieve so he would have no choice but to allow them to get her back. Because they would stop at absolutely nothing to find her. To return her safely into their awaiting arms.
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The brief lasted two hours. Shepherd is, as anticipated, pissed. And willing to let them go on the hunt. Of course, they might be allowed to hunt, but this isn't sanctioned. They will be on their own if they are captured. John walks out of his office, cigar already lit, to find the entire team outside. Their scrapes and bruises, Sparrow's nasty cut included, bandaged. Already ready to go again with little to no sleep in the past twenty hours.
"I am taking ten hours until we deploy again. You will eat, you will shower because you smell, and then we will go over the retrieved intelligence that piece of shit so badly wanted. And then we will go over what we know and try to figure out who these assholes are. No arguing, so get your heads screwed on and as level as you can. She is one of ours and we will get her back." John looks at each of his men, his friends, the people he is supposed to protect at all costs, his eyes landing on Gaz last.
Looking at Gaz right now hurts. A soul deep hurt because he can't do anything to fix the grief and sadness in his eyes. Both are Sergeants, came through Basic then all the extensive and rigorous and downright brutal training together. Both are best friends. Hell, he thinks to himself, looking at any of them right now hurts. Half his team is her pack, the other half her best friends. Siblings honestly.
They will get her back.
Nodding at the others, he turns on his heels toward their semi-private kitchen. Trying to start on the list of things he laid out for his men, Gaz following close behind. What he doesn't expect is to see Laswell waiting with coffee.
"Kyle, hate to see you under these circumstances again. John, you need to sit when I tell you this," Laswell says.
John groans, taking the coffee and sitting down at the table. "Is this going to make an already shit day worse? If it is, perhaps it should wait. I've got one member MIA and the rest breathing down my neck to find their other half."
"No, John. My information can not wait because it's about that MIA member. It's about Dove."
Hearing this, the rest of the team walks in still in full tactical gear. "Do you know where she is?" Ghost is the first to speak, he words gruff and low. A threat.
Laswell looks up, sighing, meeting Ghost's stare head on. "No. However, I recovered video footage from the ambush. One of their members had a specific tattoo on their forearm. I would know that tattoo anywhere." She leans down, pulling a tablet out of her bag, sitting it on the table and fiddling with it before turning it around and pressing the spacebar to play the zoomed in and enhanced video of Dove being drug off the field and into a waiting vehicle.
Each member watches as the video plays through again. Laswell watches each reaction, hearing Sparrow's low growl as he takes a step back. "Who?" He grits out through clenched teeth, barely holding onto his sanity.
Laswell then looks at John, flashes of her own horror in her eyes. "The Russian has her John."
John sucks in a quick breath, staring at her. "I thought we killed that piece of shit for what he did to you."
"So did I. Turns out he had an... apprentice, that I knew nothing about."
"Who the hell is The Russian?" Soap quips up from the back, not understanding.
Laswell sighs, looking down at the table, her hands fisting in her lap. "In 2009, I was captured on a solo recon mission. Watching for whispers of a new program the Russian government has started. Was supposed to be 2 months. I was taken by The Russian, brutally tortured..." Laswell quickly gets up and walks away, shaking her head.
John picks up the story. "Took me five months to find where they were holding her. When I found her, it was the worst I've ever seen someone. She was completely feral. I didn't think she would recover. She had been tortured and brutalized in every way you could imagine. Took her years to properly come back from it. Fifteen years later and she still can't fully talk about it." The look in John's eyes is far away, fighting the memories.
Laswell speaks up from the opposite corner of the room. "No one should ever have to go through what I went through. You have every resource I have at my disposal. But you should prepare for the worst because this program the Russian government came up with is... well, brutal is putting it lightly. And they are very hard to trace. You know how to get a hold of me, John. This stays off everything but our secured communication channels."
John looks up, confused and hesitant. "Why?"
Laswell sighs "Because Shepherd endorsed this training. For a while, wanted to implement it here until-"
Laswell is abruptly cut off, the sound of Sparrow's loud growl echoing through the now quiet room. Soap looking over at him, shocked the Alpha has reacted in such a way when he is normally so reserved.
Ghost moves to put his body between Sparrow's and the rest of the room, gripping him behind the neck and murmuring to him, his growl slowly tapering off, replaced with Ghost's soothing rumble.
Gaz walks over to his John, partially leaning his weight into his side, John's head between his knees. He sighs, pulling the flash drive out of his pocket and sitting it on the table. "This is what Shepherd wanted so badly, might as well see what's on the damn thing."
Laswell walks over, grabbing her tablet and running the flash drive through encryption programs before loading it up. What she sees makes her face go pale before she turns it around.
The team gathers around, their Alpha scents strong this close, all their eyes fixed on the screen as it plays a live video of a room full of people chained to a wall with the Russian flag painted on the ground, covered in bloody marks.
Thrown on a table, chained down, and left there is the first glimpse they have of their Omega since she was captured.