Dark roots

Chapter 2

I was struggling to open my eyes, a loud pounding was ringing in my head that was still sore after being hit on it. Confusion hit me once I looked around the room and didn't know where I was. My eyes were still adjusting to the light. Once they did, I noticed that I wasn't alone in here. There were these tall men gathered all around a big round table at the other side of the room, they were speaking another language that I didn't quite understand.

They were very focused on their conversation, so I tried to move my hands but they were tied up to a chair as were my legs. I scanned the room for something to free myself with, my eyes landed on the table on my right were I saw a knife pushed into it, puncturing a whole in the map underneath it.

I leaned on the back legs of the chair to try and reach it while still keeping my eyes on the men that were on the other side of the room, hoping that I wouldn't alert them. I was so focused that my heart jumped out of my chest when the door suddenly flies open, making me drop back on the chair in fear.

A woman walked in the room surrounded by 3 large men wearing the same black leather jackets I saw back in Amsterdam, maybe this is some kind of signature of a gang or something. Underneath her arm she was holding a laptop and she moved closer towards me. The man next to her reached for my chair and pulled me closer to the table. The small latina woman with black hair placed the laptop on the table and opened it for me before she turned to face me.

"I'm glad you're finally here. I look forward to working with you."

"What do you want from me?" I asked her unsure of why they took my captive. "And what makes you think I'm gonna help you."

She only replied with a winked grin on her face, switching her gaze from me to the huge man next to me. Both of them were just standing there looking at each other, it was like they were having a silent conversation using their minds.

When the man looked back at me, I felt something inside of me rattle with fear. If these people were in some sort of gang, then they wouldn't mind torturing me to get what they want, and that was shown on his face. He was eager to inflict some pain.

IN THE MEANTIME (3th pov)

The elite task force 141 links up with Los vaqueros to locate a terrorist called Hassan who is in possession of a stolen American missile. Soap and Ghost landed in Las Almas last night and met with captain Alejandro and his team.

Right now they were staying at Alejandro his base until they can capture Hassan, bring him in for questioning and stop him from launching that missile. Price and Gaz just arrived at the base where they briefly met the team before they all linked up at the conference room. They just got back from a mission in Amsterdam and they wanted to discus what they've learned with the others.

Everybody was seated around the table while Price stood behind a laptop, working on connecting a videocall with Laswell who said that she found some important information. Once the call went through and Laswell was seen on the screen, did the meeting continue.

"Thanks to the Iranian we captured in Amsterdam, we now know that Hassan is working with the Mexican cartel." Price starts to inform the rest of the intel they found.  

"It seems like our Iranian friend wasn't our only target." Laswell interrupts him, announcing the important information she had found. The room went silence with this new information and all eyes were on the screen waiting for her to continue.  

Everyone had a confused look on their faces so Laswell went to explain further, she pulled up some footage from a security camera from the plaza in Amsterdam where Price and Gaz had captured the Iranian. At first everything seemed normal, we could see the church and a part of the cafe and lot's of people walking around. Once she reached the part from the shoot out, she paused the video.

"What am I supposed to see?" Gaz asks her while narrowing his eyes, trying to look for anything unusual on the screen.

Laswell doesn't say anything. Instead she zooms into the cafe where Price waited for the Iranian. The scene is still playing on the screen but because of the angle, they only saw a huge man walking towards the cafe and minutes later coming back with a hostage who's face was covered by a bag.

"Do we have any different angles? We can't see a face." Soap states. It took a minute for Laswell to show the footage from one of the other cameras.

"Laswell rewind that footage and show me who that is" Price said impatient, a feeling interrupted inside of him that was screaming that something was wrong, that they missed something.

He leaned forward to take a better look at the screen right before Laswell managed to switch to a different camera that shows them how the man walked over to a table at cafe 'Gracht', grabbing a woman by her arm and pulling him forcefully with him.

They had to wait for the woman to start pulling away to get a clear view on who they took hostage. The color in Price his face drained, he recognized her from when he was sitting there, talking to her even. Angry he slapped his palm on top of the table.

"How could we have missed this?" He said with a raised voice.

"Who is she? And better, what do they want from her?" Soap said, rather thinking out loud then directing his question to anyone.

Price asked Laswell to rewind the footage one more time to be sure it was the woman he spoke to earlier. Frustrating was boiling inside of him once he saw how scared the woman looked, how they dragged her from underneath the table and forced her to go with them.

Laswell pulled up some information from the local police departement to see if they can identify her and find out why they decided to capture her. In the meantime the rest of the team started talking and sharing their thoughts about what they saw, but the main question remained 'Who was she?'.

"Her name is Ashley. She must be from around there." Price said after recalling the events from earlier. How she had cut him off and told him her name.

A few confused looks were thrown towards their captain, who had his eyes locked on Laswell, hoping that it could help her find out more about the woman. It took a while to get in contact with their local PD and even after that, there wasn't must information that they could give us.

Most of the information in her file was deleted, which came as a big shock to their local PD. The team went back to discussing a plan to capture Hassan, find the missile and also find Ashley.

"General Shepard informed me that he will be sending Graves and his Shadows for back up to find Hassan and the missile." Laswell said right before everybody got ready to leave.

"And Ashley, we need to find her." Price stated before walking out of the conference room to take some fresh air and light up one of his cigars.