[Fic] International Relations

[kittydesade]

Title:International Relations
Fandom: Night Watch/Human Target
Characters: Tiger Cub, Guerrero
Word Count: ~28,000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When children who have yet to make their Choice go missing up and down the West Coast of the United States, the head of the Moscow Night Watch sends Tiger Cub to help the Americans investigate. Her encounter with the assassin Guerrero seems to be a coincidence, but the deeper she goes into the investigation the fewer coincidences there seem to be.
A/N: Written for scifibigbang and beta'd by the ever-tolerant kikibug13


It was dark, it was cold, and something was dripping.

Not that it was a cave, like she pretended it was. With her eyes closed she could almost feel the stone walls and the moss of her imagination. But she was on a bunk, a rickety old bunk slapped together with timbers and half-penny nails, in a place that was well put together enough that she figured they weren't going to hurt them or kill them. And she'd been here for a little while, so they had time to, well. Um.

If they were going to, that is. She didn't think they were.

That was all she knew about this place, though. It could have been anywhere. The walls rattled with the sounds of an air conditioner or a heater, and they both sounded the same, so she couldn't tell which it was. And in between the sounds behind the walls were the sounds coming from under the blankets and in the bunks, and under the bunks sometimes. The sounds of other children sniffling, crying.

Winters was a quiet child. Bright for her age, and prone to listening very carefully to the adults around her before coming up with something so observant as to startle the adults. When she'd developed this habit (out of, it must be said, glee at watching the adults stare in poorly disguised horror when they realized she'd heard everything they said and understood it) her mother had started to tell her certain facts of life.

Not those facts of life, which Maggie had no interest in, but what her mother had done for a living before she became a librarian. And why they took five or ten minutes longer to get anywhere than anyone else, and it wasn't just because the car was bad. And why they had locks on their trash cans and poured out bottles of blue ink into the plastic bins. And why her mother had two or three cell phones more than anyone else.

And then her mother had started to teach her how to think about things and what they meant. Not just in their household, but doing the same kind of thing elsewhere, too. She could work out almost anything as long as she had enough time, enough information, and was patient.

For example. The bunks were put together so that beds would stay on frames and children could climb up to them and nothing more. Everyone got splinters when they climbed the ladders. So, either they didn't care or they had built the things in a hurry, because when you were in a hurry you didn't stop to worry about anything but what you absolutely needed to do. The nails were the kind you got in bunches from the big box store, and she didn't know about the wood but the sheets were kind of papery and the mattress was lumpy and cheap.

So, they wanted to make sure everyone was comfortable. It wasn't like it was just a spot on the ground and a bucket like some of the kids in the news her mother didn't let her watch. They wanted to make sure everyone had a place to sleep and a blanket to sleep under, and they thought that kids should have beds. Parents were people who thought kids should have beds. Normal people. Not monsters.

Normal people were scarier than monsters, Maggie decided. Because they could look just like anyone else so you wouldn't see who snatched you until it was too late.

No one came in to look on them after the lights were out, either. Which meant that they couldn't all be parents, or they'd know. Kids got into trouble when you turned the lights out. Kids got restless, they crawled out of bed and they did things. Especially when they missed their mommies and daddies.

It dawned on Maggie that these were all signs that the people who had taken them all viewed them not as children, but as things. Tools, means to an end. They were here for a purpose, to do something, which meant they would be fed and kept warm and safe. You didn't break your tools. You kept them in good condition so you could use them again and again.

She didn't really like the idea of being used, but she liked the idea of being kept warm and safe and well-fed. That meant she could escape.

Her thoughts were dragged off track by a shifting in the bunk beneath her. Someone rolling over, it sounded like. And after a little while, there were sobs. She knew what that sounded like very well; she'd been listening to it off and on for the last several evenings. Up to this point she hadn't felt the need to cry, herself. They weren't doing anything too bad to her, and her Mom would be looking for her.

Maggie climbed down from her bunk and sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't know this person, he was just very little, and definitely a he. Boys could be weird about crying sometimes.

"Hello," she said, when he didn't look up at her sitting on his bed. "I'm Maggie. What's your name?"

He sat up and gave her the most shocked look she'd seen on any face her own age. Not as in, how dare she speak to him, but more like how could she talk about things like hellos at a time like this? Maggie thought that right now was the perfect time for Hellos, because they were all on their own and could talk about what they liked. But he'd probably just been taken.

"Duncan," he said.

She stuck her hand out for him to shake. "I'm Maggie. Welcome to... well, wherever this is."

He shook her hand with his sticky, sniffly one, and she was careful about not wiping it on her nightshirt. "I thought everyone was asleep."

"You weren't," she pointed out. "No one's making a noise but you bet they're not asleep. Leastways, not all of them." Some of them were crying, like he had been. Some of them just couldn't sleep.

"Why are you awake?" he asked, now too curious to blubber and sniffle.

She lowered her voice just a little more, just in case. "I'm figuring out how to get out of here."

Poor Duncan's eyes about popped out of his head. "Out of here? But you can't get out of here, not by yourself, you don't even know where here is."

"That doesn't mean I can't get out. I just need to ... to figure some stuff out. Besides, if I get out, I can make it easier for Momma to find me."

"How do you know she's looking for you?"

"I just do." Her Momma would look all over the world for her, if she had to. Never mind what the police did or didn't do, and the police were supposed to find missing kids, she knew. But the police also didn't find them all in time. And she was pretty sure this was the kind of thing that was too big for the police to handle anyway. "I just do," she repeated.

Duncan didn't look too convinced. Maggie patted his hand anyway.

"Now, you get some sleep. If we can talk tomorrow, I'll tell you all about it at breakfast."




"No."

Boris Ingatievich didn't even look up from his desk. It was very late at night, Svetlana was (he hoped) still asleep in their bed and all Anton wanted was to get back to her. To curl up in his warm bed and be safe and pretend that nothing was troubling them for a few hours. Instead he was here, because he could not forget her worries about their friend and because he knew what the American Watch was like. He did not trust them to be thorough, to watch over his friend in their territory.

"No, absolutely not."

Anton's face twitched a bit. "I think there is some merit to her intuition, and if we were to..."

"To what?" the old man looked up. "To leave your duties here, to abandon your responsibilities and your friends whom you have promised to assist in their projects, and go haring off on the guess of your girlfriend?"

He knew Boris Ignatievich was trying to upset him, to get him angry and force him to make a mistake. That didn't make his words any less irritating. In fact, it made the whole effect worse. The Night Watch leader was manipulating him again.

"To go and offer our help. If we offered, it wouldn't be interference. You could disclose fully to the Day Watch and we would be taking action only if she and Alisa," he remembered the name of the Day Watch agent at the last minute. "Agree to accept."

Boris Ignatievich waved an impatient hand. "That isn't the point, Anton. You're not needed in San Francisco. You are needed here."

And that was the end of that. Not only was there no arguing with the boss, there was no arguing with the fact that the Night Watch needed him around. For whatever reason or collection of reasons they had been suffering an attrition of their personnel in the last several months, and they were stretched somewhat thin as it was.

Which made him wonder why Boris Ignatievich was sending a vital operative to the United States in the first place, now that he thought about it.

Perhaps it was connected?

"Please let us know if there are any further developments," Anton asked finally, not sure if it would do any good but at least he would feel better that he had made the request. Boris Ignatievich looked up at him and nodded.

"If there was nothing further...?" It was a dismissal. Anton shook his head, made his pleasant good-byes, and headed back home to slip into bed beside Svetlana.

She murmured something as she rolled back under his arm, and he knew he would hear about it in the morning. She would know where he had been and to what purpose, and after they had agreed to take no action as well. Still, now he had been infected with this uneasiness. He wondered what was going on, what was behind the leader of the Night Watch's seemingly random and haphazard decisions. The old man had a mind like a chess master's, thinking several jumps ahead while everyone else was scrambling to stay out of checkmate.

Useless to think on it while he was this exhausted, Anton decided. If he was lucky, or perhaps if he was unlucky and the bastard had further plans for him, he would find out soon enough whether or not Tiger Cub was in trouble.




"That doesn't give us a whole lot to go on."

Guerrero gave his old friend a look. They'd done more with less, although usually they'd also done more with a client or an assignment. Or with the backing of the old man behind them. This was half-assed at best. This was a rumor told to someone else, leading to a half-overheard investigation that could bite them all in the ass.

"I'm guessing they got a lot more resources than we do," Guerrero pointed out. "If we work with them, we'll be able to use that. If we don't." Shrug. "Not our problem."

Chance nodded a little, frowning. It was obvious that the whole business with a mass-scale kidnapping of young children didn't sit well with him. "It sounds a little far-fetched, to be honest. What kind of organization would..."

And he stopped right there. Because they both knew what kind of organization would do that, because they had both been in and out of a couple dozen different small countries, territories, that did exactly that. That disappeared men, women, and children without a trace or a word or a hand raised in protest. And it wasn't that much of a stretch to think it could happen here. Part of why organizations like that got away with it was because everyone thought things like that didn't happen here.

The question stood, though, and he did finish it. "What kind of an organization would want to kidnap that many small children? For what?"

"Cheap labor?" Guerrero shrugged. "Maybe it has something to do with the whole magic thing."

Chance made a face at that. He didn't like the whole magic thing, and Guerrero was pretty sure that he liked it even less because Guerrero was the one who had brought it to his old friend. Which lent it some kind of weight, no matter how ridiculous it seemed.

"No way..." Chance let out a deep exhale, for the moment not making faces at how ridiculous it all was. "We don't know how that works, so there's no way for us to know whether or not that's plausible."

Another shrug. "All I know is that they say that people are born with some kind of... potential. That something unlocks, and then they have to choose a side."

"I don't like that."

"Me either."

Crooked smiles exchanged. At least they agreed on that. They were men who had built lives around the moral ambiguity of their actions, or just ignoring the morality of it altogether. The idea of picking a side or being made to pick a side was, at best, irritating.

"Why do people normally disappear..." Guerrero spread his hands, pushing the empty Chinese food container around on the table with his fork. "You know. People."

"To preserve the stability of a ... a nation. Or an organization."

"Or to destabilize it." But he nodded, because that was two thirds of the disappearances that he knew of, at least. Preserving the stability of a dictatorship. "So ... do you think they could destabilize at least the United States branch of this organization? Organizations," he corrected himself. She'd said there were two.

Chance thought about that for a second, then shook his head. "Not enough information on how the organization works. But it's definitely a major trigger point. If they're kids with parents in the organization, if they're kids with abilities that the organization might want to recruit later... Did she mention how old the kids were?"

"Young, mostly. The way she talked about it I got the feeling this is pre-teens and younger." Not that he liked the idea of children of any age being abducted, and the older he got the more he revised his definition of 'children.' Still, this was a little much.

"All right. So..." Chance scrubbed a hand over his face. "Young enough to be re-trained and indoctrinated. Young enough to be used somehow."

"Whether or not this magic thing is real, people have been using child soldiers for decades. Centuries." Or so he thought. He wasn't that big on military history past a certain point, but he was pretty good with military history and tactics. "If these are kids, and especially if these are kids of people in their organization, that's really got to screw with their heads, dude."

"You think they're planning to field these kids later. As child soldiers, against their parents."

Guerrero shrugged. It wasn't a possibility he really liked, but it was one he'd given some thought to. Going home only to find that his kid didn't know him. Or worse, that his kid knew him and thought he was a monster. For him, it was a little more immediate these days. It was also something he'd been thinking of a little since the Old Man showed up.

"Insufficient data. But it's a possibility we kinda have to at least consider."

"Along with the possibility that these people are magic-users, and that magic really exists. That they have some kind of... special connection to the beyond or something like that."

Guerrero shrugged, unfolding himself from his chair and walking past Chance to pitch his empty box into the trash. "I never said it would be easy, dude."

"No," Chance murmured as he passed him. "No, you didn't."



"They what?"

Guerrero had the feeling Winston's voice would be cracking a lot higher if they'd told him about the magic part. By mutual, near-unspoken consensus, none of the three of them were going to tell him that. Neither Chance nor Guerrero wanted to spare the energy to try and convince Winston of something they barely believed themselves, and Katya was too irritated to bother.

Even with that left out, the details of the case were still enough to make Winston look at them as though they'd all gone insane. Which maybe they had. It wasn't the smartest thing Guerrero had ever done, but he had a feeling about this one.

Plus, neither Alisa nor Katya (especially Katya, who everyone seemed to call Tiger Cub) had had much experience with this kind of thing. Or maybe just, in their country. Which gave Guerrero a whole other impression of their boss, one that he wasn't likely to share with anyone but Chance.

"Are you crazy? And I don't mean, in the usual sense of you being crazy, I know that, but have you finally lost your mind?"

Guerrero stared back at him with a bland, faintly hurt expression. He'd wanted to be the one to break the news to Winston solely to see the look on his face. "They're kids, Winston." Which he knew was the one argument that would break down the man's barriers and get him to listen to him. "They're just kids, and they've been caught up in this. And these people aren't exactly equipped to handle this kind of investigation."

Not that he knew that about the San Francisco side of things, but Tiger Cub and Alisa certainly didn't seem like they'd had a lot of experience toppling small countries or whatever.

Winston grunted. "Look, I don't know if this has made it all the way in there to Guerrero world, but we're not exactly equipped to handle this kind of investigation, either."

"We may not have the resources," Chance broke in, "But we do have the experience. And they have the resources." He did not elaborate on what those resources were, and Winston gave him a look for that.

"They're ..."

"An independant religious organization. Kind of like the Freemasons. Or the scientologists." Guerrero offered. Somehow, Chance managed to keep a straight face, although he thought he saw his friend's mouth twitch. "Just don't let them offer to test you for anything and you should be fine."

"Uh-huh." Winston looked at them both as though they'd lost their minds, but at least he had the good sense not to say so. Guerrero was ready to go on his own anyway, but he thought Chance intended to tag along. Which made Winston's approval pretty much a formailty. "Are you sure we're not biting off a little more than we can chew, here? Getting our noses stuck where they don't belong?"

"You got a few other cliches you want to toss at thi..." Chance held up a hand and Guerrero snapped his mouth shut. Behind them, Tiger Cub stood up and spoke for the first time since they'd come into the office.

"I understand if you can't help," she said, with the slightest bit of undertone that this might be a failing on Winston's part. "Our problems are certainly not yours."

Guerrero didn't bother hiding the smirk. Winston came to his feet slowly but with the weight of his ponderous bulk behind him. "Now, hold on there a second, miss. I didn't say we couldn't help. Just..." He was trying to backpedal off of backpedaling. This was fun. "I'm not exactly sure what it is you think we can do for you."

By the look on her face she didn't think they could do anything for her either. Equally obvious was the fact that someone had told her to get their help, which Guerrero wanted to know more about. That aspect of things, at any rate. "Unfortunately, Mr. Chance and Mr. Guerrero..."

He fought off the moment of cognitive dissonance and the urge to snicker at being a 'mister.'

"... are right. We are not experienced at looking into this kind of thing. And we could use your help." If you think you can do better, was the unspoken part of that. If you think you have more experience and more insight. Guerrero was pretty sure they were up to that kind of challenge, at least. Dealing with the magic part, that, he wasn't so sure of.

Not that he was going to let anyone know about that.