What the hell is wrong with my brother? This feels so surreal. I can not believe he risked his entire secure clearance for this information. He can not work for me, he can not work for the NSA, he can not work at the classified projects at CalSci, heck he can not even use the super computer anymore. I am not sure whether to feel proud of him for following his gut or disappointed with him for breaking the law. What if he goes to prison? Charlie will not fare well in prison. It will be like the bullies in middle school only a hundred times worse because I will not be there to fend them off when he drives everyone insane with math theories.
Oh great. Now I am at this scene crime and I have to tell my team what is going on. As if we do not have enough happening this week with Megan leaving, and having to find another agent to replace her.
And the worse part is that Charlie regrets doing it. I can tell, he hates the decision he made and he is going to have to live with it. I literally can not believe it. I can never talk about work at the house again, never ask for his advice, never hear him explaining math to my teammates again.
I spot David and Colby standing with the local police. I walk up and their faces change to expressions of slight concern almost immediately.
"Don, what's up?" Colby asks.
I motion them over to a corner of the crime scene and prepared myself to tell them the stupid move my brother made.
"Charlie lost his security clearance; he emailed the files from the last case to four universities in the Middle East. Some agent just arrested him and his lawyer is negotiating his surrender to the FBI".
I watched a myriad of emotions flicker across their faces: shock, disbelief, some anger, confusion, hurt, worry. They trusted Charlie as much as I did and while his heart was in the right place and technically the information he passed along was not dangerous, he still broke the laws of the United States. Charlie had put us all in an uncomfortable position as we swore to uphold the law, but Charlie, a man we all know and respect, broke one of those laws. We were caught between wanting him to punished for his crime and concern for Charlie' life if he went to prison. Charlie's actions forced us to pick sides, divides our loyalties between the Bureau and him.
It changed the way we looked at Charlie. These types of events makes you rethink every interaction you had with him. After Colby's cover was blown I spend weeks rethinking every discussion I had with the man, trying to fit the two pictures together. How did the man I trusted spent two years reporting on his team? How does the picture of my little brother being so eager to fight crime meld with the picture of him breaking the law? Will I ever think of Charlie the same way?
"Well...what happens now?"