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Rogue pt.2

***

"Relax," Torres muttered, "we're on the same side."

"Are we?" Maya asked, unsure.

***

Immediately upon return, Maya and Gibbs brought Torres up to Director Vance's office. "Your mission was to suss out any corruption within U.S. sanctioned training," Vance said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Torres eyes stared straight ahead though Maya was on the other end, her hands on either end of the table. She was looking at him, trying to search his eyes for something, but his would not meet her own. "Which is what I was doing successfully at G.E.A. for the past year and a half."

"Until you fell off of the grid," Maya muttered, bringing up the obvious, but expecting a reason in response.

"We thought you were dead," Vance sounded almost angry but not quite.

"But that was the point," he said, finally moving his gaze to Director Vance.

"What the hell happened in Argentina?" Director Vance asked, standing to the side of Torres, his eyes burning.

"Well, while he was undercover as a trainee, Miguel Lorenza, I was befriended by a classmate," he opened a folder and pulled out a photograph, "David Silva. He was the best of the best at the academy. A crack shot with an affinity for explosives. He is the son," he paused again, pulling out another photo, "of Leo Silva, a South American businessman who made a fortune off of the Argentinean oil boom."

"That's not where he started," Gibbs muttered, finally speaking.

"How do you know, Gibbs?" Maya asked and she should have known the answer. Gibbs had an extensive past, she knew there were things she would never know about him. 

"Mike Franks. NIS invested Silva for crooked business deals with military vendors in Cartagena," Gibbs replies, explaining how he knew about Silva.

"And what's Silva's play with G.E.A?" Vance asked Torres.

"He's recruiting mercenaries, scouted out by his son. Extortion, tampering with evidence, even hired hits," Torres eyes darted between Vance and Gibbs, but finally rested on Maya's, "anything to keep his name clean."

"M.O. hasn't changed much. Mike never could get a charge to stick," Gibbs chimes in.

"Because he keeps his operations in-house, which is why I had to go rogue to infiltrate his inner circle," Torres says, his eyes not shifting from Maya.

"How did you do that?" Maya asked, she hadn't realized that she had leaned even farther forward as he spoke.

He licked his lips, a look of sadness crossed his face for less than a moment. She was sure no one else had caught it as he pulled out another picture, "I started a relationship with his daughter. Elena. As time passed, he began to trust me as one of his own. He told me that were in the midst of planning something big, and soon. And before I could find out what, well, my sister showed up in Buenos Aires asking questions."

"She blew your cover," Maya said, standing up straight.

"Yeah, figured that out when I was jumped by one of his men. I came here to warn Lucia, but I was too late," Torres says.