Peter Quinn walked into a room he'd been in many times before. His boss and director of the CIA, George Nette had summoned him - along with a small handful of other agents - to an urgent meeting.
Quinn noticed almost immediately upon entering the room that he was the only officer from his sector present. The black operations sector.
Quinn had worked for Dar Adal for 7 years now. Classed as a special forces officer, Quinn was often assigned to dangerous missions with high level targets. He was the best at what he did. That didn't go unnoticed - especially by the director.
Quinn either operated alone, or with 'The Group' - which was just a nickname for the few selected top SAD officers in the Agency, and Dar's favourite door to knock on come a tough mission.
Quinn took his seat on a wooden chair, just like everyone else in the room. He sat up straight when Nette walked in and switched on the projector at the front of the room.
"I hope you've all enjoyed your Christmas. Now you'll enjoy coming back to work after a nice break." Said Nette.
Quinn hadn't taken a break. Most of the officers had spend time with their kids or travelled to their parents' houses for Christmas. Quinn didn't have any family, he'd worked all through Christmas, as per usual.
"I've gathered you all here to discuss an urgent matter." Nette opened a laptop and a picture showed up on the projector. It was a man, clearly middle eastern, captured on what looked like a security camera.
"This," Nette pointed to the man's face, "Is Osama Bin Laden." He said. 'Most of you will recognise him from your case studies as the leader and founder of the terrorist organisation, Al-Qaeda."
Quinn frowned, as he curiously looked closer at the face on the projection. He had seen him before, but he couldn't pinpoint where.
Nette continued, "Th-"
He was interrupted by the door opening. All heads, including Quinn's, turned to the back of the room where a young woman - slightly flustered - came into the room.
Her dark hair bouncing along halfway down her back behind her, she grimaced, "I'm so sorry I'm late." She said, slipping into a seat near the back of the room next to a lanky looking guy with glasses.
Quinn took a moment to gather his thoughts, finding his brain momentarily fogged over. His frown lifted slightly, and he folded his arms against his chest.
"Don't let it happen again." Nette gave the girl a stern but reasonable look.
She nodded grimly, and put her bag down in front of her, the blazer on her shoulders looking uncomfortably tight as she tried to catch her breath.
When she raised her head, her gaze met Quinn's for a split second. There was an entrancing quality about her eyes, mirroring the shade of a hazelnut's skin, pupils wide and full of curiosity.
Quinn quickly drew his own eyes away and turned back around, shaking the thought from his mind as the debrief continued.
"We have reason to believe Bin Laden is planning to attack American Interest. Possibly even our land." Said Nette, with no trace of the usual smile beneath the black stubble on the chin he rarely had time to shave.
Quinn let his thoughts wander. What could be the possible target? Al-Qaeda was infamous for mass murders of innocent civilians.
There was always terrorism and conflict somewhere in the world. This particular threat had to be significant for Nette to give a full debriefing on it.
"The operation will be led by Bill Griffiths, and will commence immediately following this meeting's conclusion. We are following these two targets who have been identified by Saudi intelligence during a meeting in Riyadh," Nette flicked to another slide, and two faces appeared. Nette pointed to the first face, "This is Nabeel al-Hashim. He is a close friend and known associate of Bin Laden. 23 years old, born in Saudi Arabia."
Nette stepped to the other side of the projected picture and pointed to the other face, "This is his younger brother, Salim, also born in Saudi Arabia."
He turned the projector off and stepped forward, "The NSA has just informed us that there is to be a meeting in Malaysia about possible attack plans. Nabeel and Salim are both expected to be present," Nette told his officers.
"We need to find out when this meeting is happening, and locate its whereabouts so we have eyes and ears on the whole thing."
Nette had assigned the operation to one of the rooms on the ground floor.
Quinn quickly got to arranging the two suspects on one of the pin boards, writing their names on their respective photographs.
Underneath that, was all the information the CIA currently had on the two men, which wasn't much.
Quinn put his hands on his hips and took a step back to scan the board.
"Peter Quinn?" He heard a low, husky voice come from behind. Quinn turned his head, to see a man he recognised as Bill Griffiths.
Mousy brown hair, flopping over his head with streaks of grey running through it indicating his age of at least fifty, Bill smiled, wrinkling the skin beneath his warm brown eyes.
Quinn matched Bill's friendly smile, and stuck out his hand, "Mr Griffiths, sir." Quinn said with a nod as they shook hands. Bill shook his head, "Please, call me Bill." He said politely.
Bill stepped closer to the board and pinned up a third suspect beside the al-Hashim brothers. This name read 'Kadar al-Marwan'. Bill glanced at Quinn's narrowed gaze knowingly, "The request to surveil Marwan has been denied. They refused to put him on the watch-list. I know he's an essential part of the attack plan."
"Refused?" Quinn was puzzled, "If he's a known associate..."
Bill shook his head like he'd asked that question one too many times himself, "Fuck if I know," Bill put his hands on his hips, "Shit like this keeps us two steps behind, and we can't afford to be behind. Not with this kinda threat."
Quinn nodded, "So Nette doesn't know?"
Bill shook his head again, "No. I'd like to keep it that way. Word on Marwan doesn't leave this room, understood?"
Quinn answered with a silent, single nod.
A tall man appeared at Bill's side, "Sir, when will we be needing surveillance?" The man asked in a casual way.
"Peter, this is Lenny Harmon," Said Bill. Lenny was lanky, pale and his shirt was wrinkled and half untucked. He struck Quinn as the kinda guy whose work came before anything else. Similar to Quinn.
Lenny gave Quinn a polite nod and stretched out his hand.
Quinn quickly shook Lenny's hand before he returned his gaze to Bill.
"Immediately," Bill said, before walking off towards a younger looking guy sitting at a computer, with a troubled look on his face. "What is it, Scott?" Bill asked, as he walked away.
Lenny followed soon after Bill.
Quinn turned back around to the board.
All of a sudden, a second pair of hands reached towards the board and pinned a list of addresses underneath Marwan's name.
Quinn turned to look at the person, it appeared to be the young woman who was late to the debriefing. She was slightly more put together now, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail and her sleeves rolled up over her wrists. Quinn had noticed her bitten fingernails as she had reached up to the pin board, another thing that made him curious about her.
"Peter Quinn," Quinn stuck out his hand for the young woman to shake. She smiled warmly and took it in hers, "Jia Page. Nice to meet you, Peter."
She turned back and frowned at the board. "Why don't we have any more info than this?" She said, as if thinking aloud, "I thought we at least had a date of birth for Nabeel."
Quinn peered closer at the board and noticed that they had no birth dates up there.
"That photo had to have come from a passport, maybe you oughta check the file again." Quinn said, shrugging.
Jia turned to him, "Are you one of the analysts?" She asked. "Apparently." Quinn replied. "Apparently?" She repeated, with an unconvinced look on her face. Quinn gave her a slightly condescending smile, harmlessly teasing, and then went back over to the files on the other side of the room.
After 2 minutes of searching through the papers, Quinn found a copy of the photo that had of Nabeel and noticed a faded date of birth was printed in the corner, and had clearly been cut off.
He walked back over to the board and wrote, '8/9/76'.
"Now we just need one for the other two," Quinn said to Jia, who looked at him with folded arms. She nodded in agreement.
"Surveillance is up and running, we have eyes on Marwan right now. He's in his home in Yemen." Said the guy Bill had called Scott.
"Do we have audio?" Quinn asked. "Not yet," Lenny added, before turning to Scott on his right, "Scott, we got audio?"
"Coming, just give me a sec." Scott replied.
Quinn glued his eyes to the screen. Kadar al-Marwan appeared to be sitting down to dinner with his wife and three children.
The audio came on, and Marwan was speaking in Arabic to his children.
"We got a translator in here?" Quinn asked Lenny. "We got two, though one's currently in the field," Lenny wheeled back his chair, "Karima, over here." Lenny waved one of the other agents over.
Karima had long, wavy dark hair, that fell over the shoulder of her blazer in a braid. She picked up an earpiece and squinted for concentration.
Lenny and Quinn turned their attention to her.
"Marwan says, 'Son, how was your day at school?'" Karima translated, "The son replies, 'It was good, father, we learned the alphabet just like you said we would.'"
"Alright, it's just dinner conversation. Just listen for now, try and pick up on anything other than small talk." Quinn said, with a nod.
He turned around to see Jia giving him a strange look, "I thought you said you were an analyst." She said.
"No, you said that." He said, facetiously, before walking past her back towards the board.
"Lenny?" Quinn called out from the board, "Do we have a name for the wife yet?"
"Negative. None for the kids yet either." Lenny replied. "Could we put her through facial recognition, please?" Bill added, walking through the room.
"On it." Another agent said.
As Bill walked past the board, he tapped Quinn on the shoulder, "Good work, Peter." Then Bill went over to Jia, and they started talking in hushed voices.
Later that afternoon, Bill gathered everyone to dismiss them.
"Good work today. We're on the track to something big here, I know it." He said, "Peter, Lenny, you'll take first night shift. The rest of you, I'll see you in the morning."
"Apologies, Sir, wife needs me home tonight," Lenny said, packing his stuff up.
Jia put down the bag she had recently slung over her shoulder, "I'll stay," she volunteered.
"Done," Bill said, "I'll see you both in the morning," His eyes darted between Jia and Quinn, who briefly exchanged a glance.
Quinn settled in front of the monitors, digging into a box of takeout he'd had leftover from lunch.
Scott had cleverly programmed English subtitles onto the screen so neither Karima or Samir, the other translator needed to constantly be present. Marwan seemed to know no English whatsoever, or at least had no current use for it.
Jia, sat down on the desk chair beside Quinn and sighed, pulling half a sandwich out of her bag.
Quinn turned back towards the monitor, and they both sat eating in silence for a moment. The whole Marwan family was sleeping.
Quinn found his sudden occupational change of pace intriguing. It had been quite some time since he'd kicked back in a desk chair for a night shift. He was used to having his knees in the dirt, rifle on his shoulder, ready to pop the first thing that moved out in the desert.
"So," Jia piped up, eating just as hungrily as Quinn. "If you're not an analyst, what are you doing here?" She asked, pressing him.
Quinn raised his eyebrows, "All hands on deck, I guess. They told me they needed someone from the SAD sector, so here I am," He said, plainly.
Jia frowned, "You're one of Dar Adal's guys?"
Quinn, evading the question, gave Jia only a smile in response. He figured this would tick her off.
She rolled her eyes, "You're really something, you know that?"
She looked down, balling up her now empty sandwich bag, attempting to stifle a smile.
"Anyway, I'm gonna go over these files again, you have fun watching Marwan lie horizontally," Jia got up, moving to a nearby desk, covered in piles of paperwork.
Quinn shoved more food into his mouth, and sat back in his chair, content.
—————
The following morning, Quinn and Jia were relieved around 6am. Lenny strolled in whistling, much to Quinn and Jia's annoyance.
"Lenny, I don't even tolerate show tunes when I've slept," Jia had said, promptly cutting off the whistling.
"Each to his own," Lenny shrugged, "I wonder if Marwan is a fan," He sat down, with a facetious smile as he fixed his headset on.
Jia shook her head, "I'm not waiting to find out," She said, gathering up papers into her bag.
Quinn picked up his jacket off the back of a chair, and threw it on, picking up his own shoulder bag.
"Don't forget about the meeting at noon," Lenny said to Jia as she and Quinn exited.
"Shit. Thanks for the reminder," Jia called out behind her as she passed through the doorway.
"We have a meeting at noon?" Jia said to Quinn when the door had shut.
Quinn shrugged, "News to me."
"Brilliant." Jia said, sarcastically.
Quinn nodded as they headed for the glass doors, "See you at noon."
Jia shot him a smile as they parted ways, heading for their cars.
—————
The meeting was about a new surveillance, on Hiram, Marwan's father in law, who was possibly giving them a meet place for an attack plan.
"Party just got one bigger, get to work," Bill had announced, once he'd gathered everyone together.
Afterward, Quinn walked over to Jia, who was standing back, taking in the entire pin board.
He stood with folded arms, watching as she ruminated over something.
"Seems like this thing is a family get together," She remarked after a moment.
"Bit more elaborate than a picnic," Quinn added.
Jia breathed a laugh, before shaking her head,
"We should check over the dialogue. See if there's any travel plans."
Quinn nodded, and crossed the room to print the translated script from the surveillance.
Together, they went through the dialogue, sharing half the pile of pages each.
Yemen was commonly mentioned, whether in context of interest or not, and Jia and Quinn proceeded to highlight any times Yemen had been mentioned by Marwan in past instances as well.
As they were finishing up that evening, Quinn's second phone rang. Only group members called him on this phone, so he stepped outside to take the call.
"Peter," Dar Adal's familiar voice rasped on the other end, "I'm glad I caught you. The flight's a man short, I need you tonight. We've located some known associates of Fazul Mohammed, involved in last year's embassy attack in Nairobi."
Quinn frowned, he was needed at Langley too, but he couldn't say no to Dar.
"Nette's got me involved in an operation at Langley." Quinn informed Dar.
"I remember. Since when does that come before the group?" Dar asked, sharply.
"It doesn't, but it's all hands on deck," Quinn said, scratching the back of his head.
"Must be important," Dar said, struggling to take the inclined 'no'.
"We're onto something, I might be needed in the field here," Quinn said with hesitation. The only person he ever hesitated responding to was Dar. However tough and immovable Quinn's demeanour was, Dar's was more so, and had been ever since Quinn had known him. Sometimes, Quinn still felt like a reckless street kid talking to him.
"If this hadn't have come straight from the top, you'd be on that plane tonight. Let this be the last time," Dar said sternly over the line.
"Will do," Quinn said, before hanging up.
The truth is, Quinn wasn't sure how long it would be until the operation moved out into the field. He had found himself enjoying being behind a desk for once, not being shot at.
While he loved the covert operations, it had been wearing him down lately and it was nice to get a break.
He hadn't realised it until now. Not until Dar's demanding tone came through the phone speaker.
—————
Quinn got home shortly after 9. An early finish, something he wasn't used to.
He walked inside his empty apartment, throwing his keys onto the small, bare table in the dining area.
Pulling out a frozen meal, he grunted as he tossed it in the microwave, envying the days when he had the time and resources to cook an actual meal.
Having not slept since the morning before wasn't new for Quinn. His endurance on lack of sleep was remarkable. As long as he kept up the momentum, he could go for days at a time, a week even. He'd been forced to on missions before, and his relationship with sleep was a strained one to begin with.
Since Somalia, Quinn hadn't quite settled into a deep sleep. He was always one layer from consciousness, alertness, ready to stand up and run with a second's notice.
It didn't bother him too much, he kept busy and pushed the thought from his mind. The nightmares weren't so frequent now, if ever he slept long enough to actually dream.
He choked down the unevenly heated casserole, sitting in front of his computer screen, scrolling through as much content as he could find on Marwan and the eldest Hashim brother - which wasn't very much.
READ ME: This is my version of Quinn's backstory. I decided to write a sort of prequel for him (although it is a standalone story as well). It fills in some blanks about his character but also changes some slight canon details (e.g. Julia Diaz character replaced with an original character.)
This is just my interpretation, as I felt Quinn was a character with such potential for backstory!
You can also find this fic on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33637171/chapters/83588548
Summary: Peter Quinn is an intelligence officer in for the CIA in the SAD branch. Recruited at 16, he has seen more warfare than almost any other officer in the agency. In the winter of 1999, age 24, Peter gets assigned to a new operation regarding terrorist threats to attack US interest. He's taken out of the field and assigned to an on-the-books operation, which is new territory for him.
This book explores the relationship between Dar & Quinn, and also goes through Quinn's childhood and origin stories of his parents. (Not canon - obviously.)
PROLOGUE
Betty's diner was never this quiet on Sundays. Standing out front, Peter pulled out a smoke pack from his jeans pocket. He slid a cigarette through his fingers, and lit it with his other hand. He leant back against the jagged bricks and closed his eyes.
"Spare me a smoke?" A kid around Peter's age tapped him on the shoulder. Peter's eyes snapped open, he looked the kid up and down and said dismissively, "Get your own."
The kid was taken aback, and quickly became aggressive, "Oh yeah? My guys got a bet that I can't beat your ass. I got a bet that I can," the kid's face contorted with anger.
"Look, I don't wanna fight. Just get outta here," Peter shook his head.
"Course you don't wanna fight. You're that runaway kid. All you do is runaway. You're too scared to fight." The kid taunted.
"Not scared, just not stupid," Peter replied, dryly. The kid stared at him for a moment, before he threw a punch to Peter's left cheekbone. Peter dropped his cigarette and ducked the kid's second punch and kneed him in the gut, hard. The kid fell to the ground.
"Hey, hey, hey. What's going on out here?" A middle aged man approached them, with a stern look on his face, "Break it up, will ya? Geez." He shook his head, grabbing the squirming kid on the ground's arm and yanking him to his feet. "Scram." The man said to the kid. As the kid ran off, the man turned to Peter, "What's your name son?"
Peter frowned, "John." He said. He often gave people a different name when he didn't trust them. It wasn't far from the truth, though. His middle name was Johnathan, and he'd often gone by John or Johnny as he hopped through foster homes.
The man's face cracked into a slight smile, "No, it's not." He said, "Don't lie to me, kid. I know when someone's lying, it's my job."
Peter said nothing, until the man finally shrugged and gave up, "Okay, John, are you hungry? Come on in, I'll get you something to eat."
Peter shook his head, knowing better than to follow strange people into places, "I'm good." He said.
The man insisted, "You look starved. At least have a coffee."
Peter narrowed his eyes curiously, there was something about this man that separated him from other strangers. The way his speech ran off his tongue in a gravelly drawl struck a nerve with Peter. This man held himself with sophistication. A charming finesse.
His plain button up shirt was covered in a suit jacket, and his hair was combed back neatly. His long face ended in a chin beard, a handful of grey hairs sticking out amongst the prickly chestnut fur.
He was a man of authority, Peter sensed that much. But not threatening - a dynamic unfamiliar to Peter. Authoritative, but not threatening. It was strange.
Intrigued, Peter followed the man into the diner, and they sat down at a booth next to a window.
"What's your story, John? Do you live around here?" The man stirred his coffee.
"I don't really live anywhere." Peter replied, shrugging. The man looked up with a quizzical face, urging Peter to continue.
Peter obliged, "My current fosters live down the street. So I guess I live there." He said, bluntly.
The man went on to ask more questions, "What school do you go to?"
"None, I dropped out." Peter replied like they were batting a ball back and forth.
"Didn't like studying?"
"Didn't like the people."
"You get into fights often?"
"Only for a good reason."
"What would you say is a good reason?"
"What would you say is a good reason?" Peter challenged him.
The man narrowed his eyes briefly, as if he was piecing Peter together with each bit of information obtained - a thin, intrigued smile never leaving his face.
"There are a lot of good reasons. That guy back there, he looked like an asshole. I'd say that's a good reason." The man replied.
Peter was surprised to hear this sort of answer, and stared blankly at the man, as his burger was put down on the table in front of him.
"Do you know what I do, John?" The man asked. Peter thought for a moment, "Yeah, you said you catch liars or something."
The man shook his head with an amused smile, "That's one very small part of it. What I do, is something I would like you to be a part of. But you must accept my offer wholly before I can tell you."
Peter frowned, "Why would you want me to be a part of it?"
"You have a very specific set of skills, John. Useful skills. I have heard a lot of things about you. I was curious to see if they were true, so I came to this diner today."
Peter sat up straighter, "Who the hell are you?" He said defensively, in a tone of voice he'd used for most of his life.
The corner of the man's mouth turned up, "I'm Dar Adal."
In the S5, Peter decided to come back and help those people wanting to go to Syria. He was then captured and made the guinea pig for sarin gas.I am a little lost here. Why did he go back to help those people? I assume he wanted to set those people up since he had told Dar Adal about their plan?Once captured, he didn't seem to try to escape at all.
He had always been a resourceful guy up until then, so it did not make sense seeing how he just sitting pretty, accepting his fate. Anyone able to help me understand this?
I'll be straight with you. I haven't watched these episodes in nearly six years and don't intend to return to them. "I'm a little lost here" is the HL fandom motto circa autumn 2015.
Just remember the writers were planning to kill Quinn off at the end of the season and were prepared to use just about any means possible to do so--coherent storytelling be damned--except, you know, ACTUALLY KILLING HIM.
Quinn met up briefly with Dar before he reconvened with Bibi and his men. Bibi’s uncle was a high terrorist target so Quinn was posing purely as a freelancer to collect intelligence from these guys. Once he was captured, I thought it strange initially that he wouldn’t try to escape but I also remembered that he had been severely wounded not too long before this and probably wasn’t 100%... and he was against a whole cell of terrorists with automatic weapons.
I guess there wasn’t much he could do. They duct taped him and chained him to the fucking wall 😞
S 2/3: His romance with Nicholas Brody is as 'wrong' as it is 'insane', yet Peter understands. (How so?) In Mathison, Quinn recognizes another soul as painfully alone as he is. As mentioned here, Saul hated Brody just as Quinn just didn't kill him because of Carrie. (Now Quinn hated Nick Brody?)
Are you quoting someone (sorry if it's me, I can't keep track of what I've said)?
But, if Quinn understood Carrie's love for Brody despite believing it be both "wrong" and "insane," it was only insofar as he himself knew that he loved Carrie, which I'm sure he would acknowledge (later, if not then) was both "wrong" and "insane."
Quinn hated Brody. Saul hated Brody. Dana hated Brody. Brody hated Brody. Everyone hated Brody. Even Carrie. Carrie hated Brody. She loved him too.
I think the scene (I’m a guy that kills bad guys) was important for Quinn’s transitioning from a guest character to main. I also think he and Carrie had really started to bond in a way by this point. The lonely world of the CIA leaves very few options for friends and close relationships. They sorta magnetised to each other in a really short time, so it’s understandable how quickly Quinn was to protect her happiness. Plus, though I’m sure he wasn’t aware by this point, he was in love with her.
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