Red glinted off the back of the pickup truck as it backed into place next to the pile of lumber. Four men in shirts plastered to their backs by the heat of the sun dropped from the truck, and swung around the back. They popped the gate down like a dropping jaw, and workers from around the site filtered in. A brunette woman gripped the side of one plank as she helped a Latino in a tight white shirt and frayed blue jeans cut off at the knees move it across the dirt to the pile. It clattered down gently, kicking up a thin cloud of dust that clotted the air.

She turned to look out over the rest of the rebuilding project, shading her speculative eyes against the sun. According to reports, it was going fast. Workers from all sides of the village and surrounding areas has swarmed in to work on some saint philanthropist's pet project vision of a new school and a hospital. Even some soldiers from the AUC and FARC had seen something in the project, volunteering time on the side. It was impressive. Lenna assented to agreeing with that. Whoever this philanthropist that Cortez had such an interest in was, he was one hell of a leader. But still, as gazed at the main part of the building as workers hammered from the scaffolding and cut wood on the sidelines, she had to ponder the relevance... what was so special about saints?

Another plank dropped down on top of the first, knocking the dust away. She snapped back to her duty like the arc of a bow: Hoisting and moving. The job of the day was infiltration, and casual information-gathering was the MO.

"So, what brought you to working here?" Lenna asked casually in Spanish as she helped a man with a doll's face move a heavy plank. They struggled between four other workers each competing to be first to the pile. One brushed against the black of her sleeve.

"It pays the bills." He chuckled unhelpfully, lowering his end.

"Ah." So he was a dead end. Right, then. She clapped her hands together and went for the next plank and a different guy. He stood on the bed of the truck, lowering wood. "Hey," she caught his attention, stopping him mid-motion, arms cocked like a revolver.

Silence. He stared down at her for a second that stretched too long. "..." God. She could feel his eyes trailing...

"... Right then. Anyone else wanna help me with this? He's creeping me out."

The rebuilding was going well, at least it looked that way to Lee. At any rate, it seemed to be moving considerably faster than any construction project that she had seed in Canada or the US.

Even the men in charge of the contracted workmen, the men who were directly in charge of the building, seemed pleased with the progress. As long as the volunteers stayed out of their way. Then there was a good amount of yelling that went on.

So for now, Lee was simply helping to move lumber. Another load had recently been delivered, and it needed to be moved to where the contractors wanted it. That was definitely something that Lee could do to avoid the contractors' yelling. At least for now.

It was hot, though, insanely hot. Even without the physical work, Lee had been sweating. Adding in the labour, she hadn't been able to stand wearing the long-sleeved over shirt they had bought for when they were in the jungle. So, making sure she had absolutely slathered herself in sunscreen, that left Lee with an olive-drab tank top, beigish cargo pants, her boots, and sunglasses, with her hair pulled back into a sweaty pony tail.

Lee was just coming up to the pile for another trip when she caught sight of a woman she was sure she hadn't seen before. Not overly strange that they had someone else helping, there had been a lot of newcomers arriving to help, but most of the women who had offered help were doing things like making food for the workers. Very few of them had wanted to help with the actual construction of the building.

And then as she stepped up to the pile, Lee was able to hear the woman's comment about the man standing in the back of the truck creeping her out. In Spanish. Thank god for those jewel things that Slate had given them.

"Keep your eyes to yourself," Lee told the man, he tone only strong enough to show him that she meant what she said. "We're here to work."

Then Lee turned to the woman, a small, tired smile on her face. "You said you needed help with that?" She asked.

"My hero!" Lenna smirked, glancing at the woman out of the corner of her eye. Black hair, grey eyes, approximately 5'6". Her skin appeared Caucasian, a rarity in the depths of Columbia. Definitely out-of-country. Lenna assessed. Maybe she was connected to… this mysterious benefactor. “Here.” She jerked a plank of wood from the back of the truck, sliding it towards Lee. It swung out over the tailgate, and she angled it down. The man on the tailgate waved.

"Wait!"

Lenna’s grip on the board tightened as the man spoke again. They always spoke again... Did he really value his life? Her eyes raked across him, waiting to see what was so important to risk it. Closet pervert? Jilted boyfriend?

"I feel as if I've seen you before."

Or worse. Maybe someone she hadn't killed. Inwardly, she crinkled her nose. Was he a soldier? AUC? FARC? Was her cover blown? Again...? Or… A sinking feeling bubbled in the pit of her gut. Her tone went up accusingly. "What... exactly when?" A hand dropped to her hip as she looked at him with a tilted head of concern.

"A while ago... if it was you. Two years? Maybe 6? Hard to tell." A thumb ran over the roughness of his unshaven cheek. She judged him as he spoke. Lips flopping too calmly to be bluffing, eyes too serious for flat out flirt. What was his game...? Her hand drifted cautiously to her gun-side, ready for anything. Just give me a reason… His eyes sparked like a match had been struck. A fist dropped into his palm. “Aha! I know. You used to come to my brother’s bar in Cartagena with that friend of yours! Liked to change the channel from soccer to them Yankees. We always had a theory you had a death wish…”

Her hand went slack as she laughed it off. “Oh right!” Heh heh heh. Boy was she being paranoid. She shifted uncomfortably to casual chat. “You were Guadalupe. I remember your brother… how is he?”

“Never the same since some doll named Roberta came into his life.”

“He married?” She laughed.

He drew a thumb across the bridge of his nose. “You could say that. For all the hell she brings, he’s happy. One devil of a lady.”

“Well, that’s great. Real nice…” Her eyes cut back to the black-haired woman, her job, the day’s lead. “Anyways, tell him I say ‘hey’. We need to get back to moving these boards. Sorry for the comment.” She added weakly, jaw loose from laughter. How weird was this?

“No worries. A long time ago. Give my regards to—” Lenna tuned him out with a bitter nod of the head. Another reminder of Eliana. Inwardly, she sighed. He didn’t know. Whatever, though. The momentary flush of memory dashed against a wall in her mind, like vodka on the rocks. Day one of being a dog for Him. She had to act professional.

"So, hey. What's your name, Miss Hero? Sorry about the side-conversation. Old friends? Whaddya know?" Lenna extended a jovial hand, wore a stupid grin. "My name's Lee."

The woman exclaimed, and Lee smiled slightly. Just by how she said it, it seemed that the other woman clearly hadn't needed help stepping in with the man, simply with the board. Either way. If the men continued to act like that, Lee was definitely going to have to have a talk to Slate about his employees.

Seeing a board from the back of the truck being slid toward her, Lee stepped forward and grabbed the end of it, getting ready to heft it up once the woman had hers.

Only, before they had started on their way, the man in the back of the truck called out, and the woman waited, actually waited, to hear what the creep had to say.

But it turned out that apparently they knew each other from years ago. Huh. Maybe, just maybe, the creep wasn't such a creep after all. Maybe he had been looking at the woman like he had been to try and place where he remembered seeing her.

Huh.

The exchange didn't last long, and almost before she knew it, the woman was turning back toward her, apologizing for the side conversation that had surprisingly erupted between her and the man that Lee had come to 'rescue' her from.

And then she was extending her hand, which Lee took for a shake. Only to blink in surprise as the woman introduced herself. Did she actually say that her name was Lee too?

Finishing the handshake, Lee pulled her hand back as she smiled slightly. "Name's Lee too," she told the other woman. "Come on, we should probably get back to work before the foreman starts yelling again."

Bang bang. Her Russian Roulette Roll-o-dex of names had backfired again. "Oh... Strange coincidence." Lenna muttered. Over the years, she'd gotten quit good at smiling through her teeth. Mood terse, but outwardly calm, she hefted the board up to waist-level and gave an earnest look to Lee.

"If you want, I could go by something else for a bit to prevent confusion? Like last names? Middle? My surname's Smith..." A common enough surname, yeah? What were the odds she'd shoot herself in the foot again with this one? Pretty low, right? No. Judging by heroic Lee's reaction, deceptively better than she imagined.

"Oh... Well then! Tale of two Lees. Righteous! Let's get this moving..." Her boots scuffed across the dust of the construction site, brown leather against dirt. Eyes focused on the shadow of the board as it stretched across her feet. Below the surface, she kicked herself. I really have to update that list...

The board swung out onto the pile as they dropped it, clattering with all the rest. A worker walked over to snag it, then carried it off to be cut. Hammering clattered in the background as Lenna dusted off her knees. She was on a roll. Dare she press her luck further with Miss Lee Ex-Smith? Tugging on a friend-making smile, she bolstered her resolve.

"You seem a bit different from the other workers around here. In Columbia on holiday or something? Strange way to spend it, working on schoolhouses? Then again, who am I to judge?" The line flew into the drink. Now to see who bit.

Going by something else might work, Lee thought when the other Lee suggested it. But then she brought up the idea of using last names, and Lee realized that wouldn't work too well. Even before the other woman said that her last name was Smith, Lee was sure that it wouldn't work too well; she still wasn't completely used to introducing herself as Lee Brooks yet, and Tarin would likely be the one most likely to react if people were to go around saying 'Brooks'.

But apparently the woman's name was Smith too, and while it was more than a common enough name, it was just too great a coincidence; after what had happened with Slate and Tarin just days earlier, this was just too much. Lee's whole body tensed as she looked in surprise. And then there was the whole thing that as soon as the other woman realized that she was Lee Smith, or at least had been, she seemed to become rather uncomfortable and tense, too.

So not good.

"Well," Lee said, hoping her voice wasn't sounding as nervous and worried as she felt while she made sure to keep her eyes on the other woman. "At least I got married so there aren't actually two Lee Smiths here."

Finally, they made it to the wood pile, and tossed their board on top. Just in time for the other Lee to ask about why she was there. Since she seemed different than most of the workers there. Great, just great.

"Uh, yeah, I guess you could call it a vacation, or something like that," Lee said after a moment's thought. And sure, they were getting paid to be there, but it was so much different than everything they had to deal with at home that it could be considered a vacation, at least of sorts, right?

"What about you?" Lee went on to ask. "What brings you out here?"

"To tell the truth?" Lenna-Lee's eyes trailed towards the sky as she looked off a moment, resting her hands on her hips. The whole thing with the names was trying her patience. It seemed like it was making the other Lee wary too. Now was the time to apply restorative pressure to the situation. And so... "My boss wanted me to look into this school rebuilding here. He's interested in what we're doing here. It's such a kind gesture. He'd like to meet the man behind it."

She turned to face Lee again. The corner of her mouths turned up in a confident smile like the curve of a bowl again, and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she explained.

"Not many philanthropists come to Columbia. It's an inspiring thing when they do. With the Youths for Change conference going on now in Bogota, and the school rebuilding here, all of Columbia's feeling less and less at-war... like there's hope for us yet. My boss likes that. He wants to know what he can do to help."

She paused and started walking towards the back of the truck for another board. Her voice trailed over her shoulder to Lee. "And I do, too."

She had a boss, who wanted to know about Slate and what he was doing here. Normally, that wouldn't have sent up warning flags, normally, that would be just as understandable and reasonable as the other Lee was making it sound to be.

But normally didn't happen to be just days after her husband had almost been killed because someone else was interested in what Slate was doing here in Columbia.

Though, to be honest, Lee's words were sounding rather innocent, it was just her own left over feelings from the attack on the village that was probably making her feel this way.

"I'm not sure what your boss could do, really," Lee told the other woman. "Well, unless he wants to come out here and give us a hand himself. But I'm sure there's other places in the country that could use help like this just as much as here, he could maybe try that."

Lee shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "I'm just here to help out."

"That may be," Lenna shrugged, stalking towards the wood. She jerked a hefty plank up by the center and hauled it over to the pile as casually as if it were a surf board. She shook her head at Lee, teeth baring back in a smirk. "But I don't think telling him that will stop him from wanting to help. He's stubborn, Cortez is. But he has a good heart."

Good heart. Right... About as good as a devil at the 7/11. The timber clattered behind her back as she went to get another. Small talk bubbled up in her veins like acid, but she wore her jovial smile like a noose. "So, what else is there to talk about now that we've said why we're here? It's good weather today, I suppose. If we were playing baseball, we'd have the perfect sun. And it's setting, slowly but surely. There's not much that can top a cool beer as the heat of the night sets in, trailing a warm breeze down your neck."

The process was sweeping her up now. Get planks, set planks, grab wood, advance it. Repeat process, ad infinitum. Bark on command, respond, make nice. Keep up the smalltalk in hopes something came out of it all. Her neck still ached from the shock collar. This work was irritating her to no end, but smiles! Small talk, small talk, small talk, wearing a damn facade. Underneath it all, she wondered what He saw in this damn job. Was he dismissing her, forcing her into slave labor on a short and sharp leash? And was there anything of value she was gaining here... or gaining from staying alive!? Chained like some animal, tossed in the middle of manual labor with the set goal of finding out something Cortez already knew....

Dammit!! She threw a board down! Gently... controlling her rage. There was nothing worse than this, was there? Honestly. And deep down, she knew it too. There wasn't anything important in being here at all. Sure, she might find answers for him tomorrow if she waited, stealthily biding her own time. Or would it be the day after, or the day after that? One day would lead to another, and they coiled in wait.

Ready to bite my heel, yet? Dammit, Cortez.

He was just waiting to strike when she least expected. This whole process was a dead end, so why even bother carrying on? He'd given her a mystery. That's what he'd said! A mystery... that needed unraveling. Right. But the only thing unraveling right now were the threads of her life as her temper slowly burnt away the rope.

And he'd wait, like a viper. She'd never see it coming, and then...

"How about them Yankees?" She smiled at Lee. Beneath her jaw, a young girl quivered, doubted her existence for the very first time.