Chapter Text
Prologue:
"You should get down there, you're missing the best bit."
His eyes followed her walk away, unhurried and undeterred, until they could not make out her figure in the shadows of the dark corridor. On the floor below, Gemma Garland sat in front of the substation’s main screen, defeated as the exposé of the decade played and the Americans already packing their equipment.
He should be worried too, he supposed but, it just would not come.
It would be too much to claim he expected this, only that he knew something was amiss the moment he stepped in today. If Garland were a bit more cognizant of the people working for her, she would have noticed that half of the Operation Vanguard was missing; not to mention that Tom Hendricks, SO15’s permanent fixture, was nowhere to be found. Or that Rachel Carey would ever be compliant. All this time she’d been covertly building a case, a few punches and a split lip will not break her now.
The corner of his lip quirked up.
How fast they grow.
"Danny!" Garland spots him watching from the mezzanine. She marched up the stairs, the metal rattling under her heels. “What are we to do? They’ll arrest us the moment we set foot outside this place.”
"I don't know, Gemma," he shrugged. Standing straighter, only leaning on the one hand holding onto the rail instead of on his forearms, "I'm retired, remember?"
“Sayonara amigos!” Frank Napier announced deliberately loud as the CIA agents filed out. Closing the back door with a resounding bang.
Garland blinked. Her panic morphed into anger. She grabbed on the rail as well, matching Danny`s posture but, where his was lax, hers was rigid. "Not for another 30 days," she said very near to his face. "I am not going down alone. Or god help me, I will make sure you all will have no life to return to."
There was a gleam of manic in her eyes as he found himself reflected in the DSU’s dilated pupils. It reminded him of the wildlife documentary his son watched on wild cat behaviour moments before it pounced. He had never seen the DSU in such a state. Gemma and Frank have been playing off on each other's pragmatism and bloodthirst but, without the CIA section chief, it tipped the scales for Gemma Garland's on the latter.
Danny did not speak for several beats as he wont to do when deliberating. He tapped his hand on the mezzanine railing, his ring hitting the metal bar echoed in the underground substation office. He observed her grip tightening, knuckles almost white. A live stream of Isaac Turner standing in Piccadilly played in one of the smaller screens of a GCHQ agent below.
"The government will not arrest itself," Danny finally offered. "At most there will be reforms, counterchecking agencies. Much like how they damage controlled Snowden."
"Any one of those muppets will not hesitate to have our heads rolling if it means they can take the premiership for themselves."
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Gemma. You panic because you know the truth. They,” he waved his hand, regarding the world outside, “don’t know that.”
Garland calmed a little. Almost, Danny sighed. He could not help but, feel a pang of sadness at how short-sighted his supposed successor was. "Getting arrested should be the least of your concerns," he said, walking past her to head back to the main floor.
He was on the first metal step when his words clicked for Garland. She turned on her heels, "This is your fault," she called after him. "It was you who wanted to bring her in. Now look at what she's unleashed, every single terrorist we worked so hard to capture will be let out and believe it, they will come after us."
"Then we should get started in making sure they stay behind bars, shouldn't we?" Daniel Hart answered without missing a beat as he continued descending the stairs.
It was time they learn what happens when people go against SO15's Commander, Daniel Hart thought, and if Rachel Carey had half a mind, she would go as far away as she can now.