Chapter Text
2014
“Yes, of course I remembered AND I've already taken care of it. I'll be at the office today, but...”
Suddenly Clarke loses the thread of what she was saying as something suddenly feels off.
She's not really listening to her cell phone anymore, instead inconspicuously looking around the trafficked street. As usual for the time of day it's full of people hurrying to work, a noisy line in front of the coffee cart takes up half the sidewalk and... A man on her right is sitting on a bench and reading the newspaper, but his eyes aren't moving. He's pretending.
She continues to walk assessing her surroundings more closely, looking for more inconsistencies before overreacting. Unfortunately there are. A guy in jogging gear is stretching against a tree, his shoes look brand new and his hip pack hangs too heavy. That meter maid across the street is checking the same license plate for a third time now. She's using the car's rear window to keep track on what's going on behind her, Clarke realizes. Keeping track of her.
The blonde's stomach clenches in dread, but she keeps a calm exterior and doesn't change her pace.
“Hey listen, I have to go now. Yeah, talk to you later. Love you.”
She smiles at the snappy response she gets, then hangs up and slips the phone in her pocket.
Her heart is beating wildly, it takes all her self control not to take off running, hoping against all odds to get away from the dragnet surrounding her, but instead she forces herself to take a deep breath and stops. She sets her purse on the ground besides her and slowly lifts her hands up, palms open.
There is a sudden tire screech from behind her. “Move in! Move!”
The man has dropped his newspaper and is heading for her with a gun in hand, so is the jogger. Two nondescript vans spit out more agents in tactical gear, and soon there are a dozen bodies closing in.
“FBI, don't move! Down! Down on your knees! Hand behind your head!”
Clarke complies with the orders, let's it happen. Somebody kicks her purse away, sending all it's contents rolling off and the concrete. Strong arms push her to the ground. Her phone lands badly and cracks. Handcuffs click closed on her wrists. During all of this guns stay trained on her.
“Clarke Griffin, you’re under arrest for espionage and conspiracy against the United States of America.” A female voice announces as she's roughly pulled back up to a standing position. They turn her around and she comes face to face with the agent in charge, a high cheeked Asian woman looking at her in ill hidden disgust. For a moment it looks like she wants to add something else, but then thinks better of it. “Get her out of here.”
“Yes, S.A. Woods.”
They drag her to a vehicle, doors are closed after her and that's it.
One holding cell to the next, windowless transports, closed-door hearings, maximum security detainment. The news or the arrest spreads like wildfire, there isn't a channel or news anchor that day that isn't reporting on the story over and over.
“...CIA Deputy Director of Operations Clarke Griffin disclosed highly sensitive information...”
“...officials are saying at least four American agents were killed as a direct result...”
“...one of the worst traitors this country has ever seen...”
“...the most hated woman in America...”
“...she’s a traitor if I've ever...”
“...a traitor...”
“Traitor.”
FIVE YEARS LATER
2019
The sun is just rising over DC, the streets still rather empty, but Supervisory Special Agent Lexa Woods is already wide awake and running the river walk trail. Focusing on her rhythmic footfalls over the soft music in her ears, she tries to push herself even further, to the limit where she knows her legs will burn for hours later. Some days it's the only thing that can keep her at her desk and by the number of reports waiting for her she knows this could be one of those.
Suddenly out of nowhere a black SUV cuts her path off. It stops on the greenery of the traffic island and she has to brace herself against it's hood to stop her momentum, but it doesn't seem to bother her sister, who jumps out the driver's side. Lexa rips out her earbuds.
“What the hell, Anya? Are you trying to kill me? If it's about yesterday, I told you I wasn't feeling like going out, I really...”
But it's not about yesterday, even as she is talking Lexa notices there is a chopper in the air somewhere nearby and she can hear sirens. Anya has a somber look on her face.
“We've got attacks, Lex. Three different cities: Philadelphia, New York and here in DC..”
The irritation instantly forgotten she goes in FBI mode, checking her phone for notifications she might have missed. “Victims?”
“A dozen dead so far. Among them three Treasury Department Officer, a U.S. District Attorney and two CIA operatives.”
The sweat down her back goes from hot to ice cold in an instant and her mind starts to race while she's climbing inside the vehicle. She'll have to change at work. “Bombs?”
“Drive by shooting at 6, an explosion at 8:30. We aren't yet clear when the last hit went down, the body was found by a sanitation worker around seven. Looks like a stabbing.”
“Coordinated.” She looks down to her watch. “It's a quarter past nine now, this could still be ongoing.” She hesitates for a moment, thought formed but unsure if she should say it our loud yet. “It's Azgeda isn't it?”
“You tell me.”
“It's Nia. Call everybody in.”
“Nia Tal a.k.a. Nia Queen or the Ice Queen, 59 years old, former SVR agent, founder of the Azgeda terror network, and considered one of the greatest threads to America today. She is currently number three on the FBI Most Wanted List.”
A thirty year-old grainy black and white photo is up on a monitor in a briefing room somewhere in the two million square feet of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building. Lexa had barely time to shower and put on a suit before her team was summoned in front of the Division Chiefs, quite a number of other assorted intelligence officers seem to be sitting in on the meeting as well. She carries on.
“In 2013 she was responsible for the bombing of American Airlines Flight 6175 in Boston.”
The monitor switches to a passenger jet with a charred, gaping hole in its fuselage.
“Fifteen people lost their lives when a nitroglycerin-based bomb was detonated while the plane was at its gate. Had it been airborne, the death toll would have risen to include every single one of the 283 passengers on board. That’s what most know about the attack. What they don’t know, is that the Flight 6175 bombing was a trial run... for twenty-six more bombings just like it.”
The visual of a world map showing all those planes bound for the U.S. is chilling, clearly not even everybody in this room had been read in on this part.
“Four thousand American lives were saved thanks to intel gathered by the CIA. Two months later, Nia retaliated, using a CIA insider to find and kill the operatives responsible for stopping the bombings in a way similar to what we saw...”
“Cut to the chase agent, Queen is behind this?”
The older man interrupting her seems to give voice to more then just his personal impatience, so Lexa put down the remote she was using for the presentation and turns to the gathered group. There have not been any more attacks, but the FBI is still scrambling to get on top of things as the news is starting to spread to the general public.
“There is no doubt in my mind, Sir.”
“The attacks five years ago were retaliatory.” Somebody objects.
“So were these. Lincoln?”
Her colleague sitting nearby in front of a laptop pulls up a series of magnified internal memos on the monitors, relevant passages already highlighted. In his deep calm voice he walks them through what they found.
“Some of the victims killed this morning were part of a CIA led task force targeting Queen's finances. We can assume everybody else was collateral damage, the attack was aimed at crippling our work on one of the most promising leads on her we were currently working.”
One of the chiefs throws the file he was thumbing trough on the conference desk. “One of the only ones. We’ve been investigating her for years and this is all we have on the organization?”
“She went to ground after the airport bombing. We’re dealing with one of the most sophisticated and elusive enemy operatives on the planet Sir, she's a ghost.”
“Well this ghost just killed fourteen people, Agent Woods. If you aren't up to the task you better move aside and let somebody else have the ball.”
Before she really can tell the career bureaucrat that talked down to her exactly what she thinks about him and his inappropriate sports metaphor, Deputy Director Marcus Kane clears his throat and puts and end to the discussion.
“Special Agent Woods and her team have our full confidence. No need to remind everybody the Director has an eye on this one, I expect your fullest cooperation in anything they may need moving forward. If there is nothing further we are adjourned. S.A. Woods, a word in my office.”
With the dog and pony show over, Lexa was looking forward to a more productive meeting with her direct superior. The first investigative reports are already trickling in from the crime scenes and with them hopefully some new leads on the Azgeda menace, but it seems that she wasn't the only one that has been worked over by the higher ups this morning.
Kane closes the door behind them and goes straight to the point.
“The chiefs may be right Lexa, all eyes are on us on this, we need to bring in another weapon. ”
Lexa rolls her eyes, there has been minimal support for the Azgeda investigation for years and now the paper pushers think they can pull some kind of rabbit from the hat and solve everything in a week. “Fine, I won't refuse help on this. Who is it? Another agency, foreign intelligence?
“No. No, someone else. An inside source.” He hesitates and breaks eye contact pretending to look down to a file on his desk. “I want to bring in Clarke Griffin.”
The name comes like a punch to the gut. “You can't be serious.”
He looks apologetic, but nods. “They hit us hard today Lexa, we could use a break. She was one of the most brilliant analysts in the history of the CIA, knows more about Queen then any...”
“Yeah, she's also a fucking traitor.” Lexa never curses, particularly not in a work environment, she takes pride in her professional conduct. (Anya would call it being a stickler.) She also has a deep respect and even fondness for Kane, who has been something akin of a mentor for her during the last few years, but right not that's all out the window. “That's why she's rotting in a maximum security prison.”
“She worked with Nia, she knows how she thinks. Hell, before that she was point on Azgeda for years at the Agency, who knows what kind of intel she could be sitting on.”
Kane helped her when she was at her lowest, when she considered leaving the Bureau and her entire life behind, he knows what... He should know better...
“She killed people, Kane. Did you forget that?”
There is a long silence, as they both understand perfectly what she really means.
“No.” Lexa turns away, ready to leave. “No, I'm not doing that.”
“I know what she took from you, believe me I do, and I understand. I can transfer the case to a different team, nobody will hold it against you. I just wanted to be fair and give you a heads up first, you've done more then anybody on this.”
“You are not taking this case from me!” She has trouble thinking clearly, she's filled with rage and at the same time painfully aware she's completely out of line. It's all too much.
“It's your choice, but Lexa... Americans are dead, God knows how many more are at risk. I don't suggest it lightly, if there was anything else I wouldn't even bring it up... The way I see it she's the only card we haven't played yet.”
It's true.
It's true, she repeats to herself again. As much as she personally hates it, as much as it feels like a betrayal of everything they stands for, Kane is just doing his job. And asking her to do the same.
Or she could take the out he's offering her. The reason that abrasive asshole earlier tried to butt heads with her is that this case is clearly a career maker, but she doesn't need it. She's one of the best agents in her age group, she's already on track for a prestigious posting. She could just walk away.
She could...
“God dammit Kane.”
He gives her and understanding look, reaches out even, but stops himself. “Listen, I'd like to give you some time to think about it, but that's not possible right now. Regardless, I will have your back, you've more earned the right to write your own ticket in this division. You also have a monster load of vacation days if you need to put some distance between yourself and...”
“No. No, if we are doing this I want it.”
Kane nods and gives over a manila folder.
“The offer stands.”
Lexa sat in silence between two SWAT agents for the whole helicopter ride, her windbreaker and dark glasses in contrast with their tactical equipment. Opposite her Anya was observing her every move, but she too hadn't breached the subject yet. Until now.
“Are you really doing this?”
Of course she would want to talk about it when agents and pilots were all listening in on them. To be honest she was asking herself the same thing over and over since they'd left the Hoover building. She hadn't thought about herself as fragile for quite some time now, but there had been a time... a time not so long ago when she felt raw, nerves exposed to every little thing that came her way. This felt like a slow backsliding into that fun experience.
“Too late now.” Lexa nodded to the windows, were the flat buildings and wall perimeters of the ADX Polaris Supermax Prison were now in sight. In a matter of minutes they completed their descend and were ushered inside by a very anxious prison staff.
“S.A. Woods and Woods I presume.”
“That's right warden, I'm guessing you've been informed why we are here.”
The balding man nodded vigorously while trying to keep his tie from trashing around in the rotor winds. “We have prepared a visitation room for you to use, I'm sure you are already familiar with regulations about prisoner interactions and such. If there is anything else I can do...”
“That will be all for now, warden. Thank you.”
Inside heavy metal doors buzz open and then fall shut, each one accompanied by the wail of sirens. The group of guards walk a step in front and one behind them, all built like brick walls and with shotguns in hand.
“Sector six, door “A”! Open door!”
At each intersection they call out their location on their radio, until they are at their destination and watch through a one way mirror as two more guards bring in the prisoner in shackles.
There she is. Clarke Griffin.
She’s a stark contrast to the photograph Lexa has studied many times during her work. She’s without makeup, in a beige jumpsuit and cloth slippers, but even here, in the most humiliating, demeaning of circumstances, she looks straight ahead with a dignity she in no way deserves.
She takes a seat and the guards undo her handcuffs long enough to secure her to the table bolted at the center of the room, then they leave. It's time.
A hand touches Lexa's shoulder and she almost jumps out of her skin, but it's just Anya.
“Ready?”
She nods and unclasps her pistol holster. Gun, badge, glasses and almost the entire contents of her pockets end up in a plastic container before she can enter the room. She's about to step over, when one of the guards gestures to her neck and reminds her to take off her necklace also.
She nods and wordlessly does so, depositing the simple silver chain and the ring hanging from it on top of everything else. Then pushes the connecting door open and goes in.
The room is bright white, with fluorescent lights on the ceiling protected by a wire mesh. It takes a moment to get used to it, when Lexa does she finds deep blue eyes already on her.
“Hello Agent Woods.”
She tries her best to remain stone faced. “This won’t take long. I want to be here about as much as you do.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” Griffin retorts with a hint of mockery.
Lexa approaches slowly, never taking her eyes off her like you would with a dangerous predator. She leans her hands against her chair but doesn't sit down.
“I’m here to make you an offer. The FBI, under authority of the Department of Justice, is willing to grant you certain concessions in exchange for your cooperation.”
“With what?”
“Nia Queen.”
There is a deliberate pause. Griffin observes her, keeps eye contact longer than is comfortable.
“I haven’t cooperated before. What makes the FBI think I will now?”
So much for a quick in-and-out. Lexa takes her seat.
“You live in a concrete hole miles away from anything, you may as well be on the moon.. They keep you separate from all other prisoners and you haven’t been allowed a visitor in more than three years. But believe it or not, I can still make life worse for you.”
Griffin stays silent, giving nothing away, waiting.
“On the other hand if you decide to be useful we are prepared to renegotiate some of those circumstances. Some personal items perhaps. A one time supervised visit..”
“I'm listening.”
Lexa considers her approach.
“We recently picked up chatter that Nia Queen is planning to carry out another attack on members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The FBI wants your help to stop it”
A long beat.
“You’re lying.”
“Excuse me?” She grits her teeth.
“We've met before. Agency Christmas Party 2012, 21th of December. You were there with...”
“Don't you dare say it.” Lexa snaps and Griffin genuinely seems abashed for a moment, but she readjusts quickly and carries on.
“The point is, you are going against at least a dozen internal regulations about personal involvement by talking with me. You’re here because you want information about Nia Queen, that much is true, but the FBI would have flown somebody else out if it was for some chatter and speculation.”
She looks to the one-way mirror and the observation room where Anya and the guards is watching, her highly discerning, highly observant mind working like a machine. Then she turns back.
“There was no time. Minor regulations don't matter now, because there is a clock running. The attack has already happened, hasn't it Agent Woods?”
Irritated Lexa pushes her chair back.
“This stuff may impress other people, I'm not here to see parlor tricks or woo you. I was sent here to deliver the message, if you aren't interested I will gladly leave you to it.”
“Wait.” Griffin puts up her hands, but the movement is cut off by her chains. “To be clear, for me to be of any help I'll need access to real time data. The incident reports, forensics, everything. If you plan to have some errand boy bring me a FBI vetted summary you are wasting both of our times.”
“You are in no position to make demands.”
“Those aren't demands, just prerequisites. The demands come now: One fast food meal a week, unrestricted access to the showers and a subscription to a national newspaper of your choice.”
Taken aback by the sudden turn of events it's Lexa's turn to look over to the mirror.
“Acceptable terms, I think.” Griffin goes on. “Feel free to talk it over with your superiors.”
When Lexa gets back to the observation room Anya shakes her head.
“Who knew that a deal with the devil would be this cheap...”
“Do you think she's messing with us?”
“She's a fucking spook, you can be sure she has some angle in mind, but it could just be that she's fed up with this place and needs a breather. I don't know.”
Absentmindedly Lexa picks up her ring necklace and toys with it while she thinks. She's had hours to push her emotions in a corner and coldly focus on cost-benefit analysis instead, and yet it's still not cut and dry in her mind.
“What would you do?” She asks her sister.
“I don't think you really want to hear that.” She smiles humorless.
“Yeah, probably not... What's the status of the containment unit?”
“Ready if we need it.”
Before she can think any deeper about it she turns to the warden. “We are taking her with us, have your men escort her to the chopper. Special Agent Woods will sign any paperwork you need.”
“I hope you know what you are doing.”
“We'll see.”