Time Sensitive Target

Part 23 - Calm Before the Storm

Ant sucked in a breath as he glanced around the room at the faces of his men. Each of them had served faithfully by his side, they all had each others backs, they all moved as one. 

"I can tell you all now, we have a confirmed helo exfil at 2300- ten hours time," he paused as he gathered himself for the rest of his speech. "I can also tell you, DEVGRU have detained Paige as an official person of interest and a potential threat to US national security," the faces staring back at him were not ones of shock; they had seen the scuffle in the courtyard. But they were grim, and full of unspoken anger. "For Paige's sake I will tell you she is not a threat to anybody's livelihood. She has not been affiliated with any form of extremism. She has been exposed to intel the US government will go to great lengths to keep quiet, and that is why she's been taken into their custody. Because of our relationship with the States it wasn't in anybody's interest to immediately fight this. But I am working on every possible way to make sure she comes back home with us," Ant said every word with deliberate enunciation, his own way of trying to rationally explain the situation. "Don't ask me any questions about it, I can't give you anything other than that," he finished, finally dropping their figures from his gaze. He walked swiftly out of the room, heading straight down the corridor to the bathroom. 

Ant twisted the tap until water groaned through the pipes. The sink filled, slowly and splutteringly with flecks of dirt and debris swirling inside the basin. Ant cupped his hands and let the water pour over the sides of his fingers until it overflowed. With a deft movement he threw the contents over his face and rested his palms against his skin. What a mess. His command was AFI for now. Await further instruction- that was all they had to say. They hadn't even pushed back the exfil, and he wasn't certain if that was a brilliant or terrible sign. Either they were certain the situation could be remedied their end within a few hours, and she would finally get to go home. Or they knew the likelihood of freeing her from the Americans was so low there was no point in keeping their assets here longer than they needed to be. Ant swallowed hard and sniffed, beads of water on his face already evaporating in the heat. 

The hallways of the main building seemed infuriatingly long as he pounded his boots against the fractured tiles, desperately wishing he didn't feel the anchored sense of obligation that consumed him. With Paige across the other side of the compound, despite knowing Rob was with her and wouldn't let her out of his sight, Ant felt an agonising tug of duty pulling him back to her side. Ten hours... what would he do in ten hours? 

He rapped his knuckles against the middle door of the cell block building and with a laboured swing Perry hauled it open. It led to a dark horizontal corridor, no windows illuminated the filth covered walls, and immediately in front of Ant was an entrance to another room; the one in which Paige was fearfully awaiting her fate. Ant glanced to his left down the length of the narrow space to a bolted entryway. He knew al-Raheem was behind those walls, slowly wasting away. 

                                                                                            *

I yanked my head upwards in alarm as the door opened, but only Ant stepped through the threshold to my new prison. I kept trying to process it, to make sense of the twisted humour of the universe, but I couldn't get there. I knew I was less scared than I had been the first time. The first time. I'd thought that had been a one off, a horrible dose of bad luck paired with naïve decision making, and now I was on to capture number two.

"How are you feeling?" Ant assessed me from head to foot with his icy glare. 

"It's strange..." I started. I knew how I felt, but it made no sense. "I feel maybe the most calm I've felt since I've been here."