LifeTimes3

A/N: Looks like I'm moving back home to PA. Old farts fell victim to her charm and wit and transcripts. Should have married a dumber woman and then we wouldn't have to move. Here's Part 3. APR

Casa Bartowski
Burbank, CA

The book was edited with minimal changes and hit the shelves of the big book stores in November. He already had another completed and in the hands of the publisher for editing. Sales were slow until a review from the Los Angeles Times hit the streets. Papers across the country carried the syndicated columnist's reviews in the next few days and sales skyrocketed.

"Download is an impressive first novel by a young, raw talent. Barton Charles is reminiscent of an early Cussler or Clancy. Watch out for this guy. He hits all the right buttons and it's a damned good read."

Ellie finished reading the review aloud and then presented Chuck with a framed copy of the Times review. She was just about to bust with pride. Lou had read the author's notes on the front page and was a little confused. She asked him about it and he said 'it just came to me in the night and I knew I had to write it'.

'The good things I've done but don't remember, the people I've loved but don't remember, I regret not knowing; the hurts and ills, I'm better off having forgotten. These scribblings might be memories or they might be madness. The jury is still out.'

Chuck had arranged that all 'fan mail', checks, requests for interviews, any other book-related activities were to be funneled through his attorney. All he was interested in was the check. Augie would deduct her retainer and fees from his checks and reissue a check payable to C. Bartowski. He didn't know why he'd refused to put a photograph on the jacket of the novel but something told him that anonymity was the road to go. Augie handled everything and all Chuck had to do was deposit the checks.

He gave a few telephone interviews but nothing in person. This reluctance to be seen in person fueled some of his fans (who also believed that Area 51 held a flying saucer and that JFK was assassinated by LBJ in a silent coup) to conjecture on various web sites that he was actually a CIA agent and was writing about actual events and people.

He told the interviewer from NPR that it was all a bunch of crap and that it was his imagination that provided the material for his novels. Yes, novels. By now his second book was in pre-release and the reviews were just as good if not better.

NPR: Why won't you allow your photograph to be used on your book jackets and why is your biography so skimpy, Mr. Charles?

BC: I value my privacy over everything else.

NPR: And your biography? No personal details at all. Just that you're a writer living in Southern California.

BC: You have no 'need to know'.

NPR: A shameless plug for your new novel?

BC: [Hangs up the phone]

San Josei Int'l Air Port
San Jose, PR

Carina Hansen had a weakness (other than men). She loved reading spy and adventure novels. Sometimes she even used lines from her favorite books in her job. She'd picked up Download in the airport in Miami and had it almost read before she arrived in Puerto Rico. It was a real page-turner and she was so absorbed that she found herself halfway through the scene on page 137 where the main character, Graham Beck, is lured into the hotel room of the story's femme fatale, Zoe Phelps. Beck grins nervously at her and plots a quick escape without giving her what she thinks she needs, calling her the Arabic word for succubus: Q'arinah.

Coincidence? It has to be. He's dead. Killed saving his team.

"Casey, secure."

"Hansen, secure. Go private, John. No one around. Call me back."

He was intrigued. She sounded edgy and ultra-professional. He walked down two flights of stairs to a mechanical room in the hotel he was staying at and called her back.

"Hansen, you in trouble?"

"No, John. I'm in shock. Tell me again how Chuck died."

"Carina, that's 'need to know' stuff. He died in a long-term care facility without regaining consciousness. That's all I can tell you. Walker was reassigned and I stayed until Beckman gave up and pulled me back for an op in Eastern Europe."

"John, you know he's The One Who Got Away, don't you? I told you about that, right?"

"Yeah. So what?" He was getting mad now. She dragged him off on a personal stroll down memory lane.

"I bought a novel in the Miami airport. The kind I like. It's great, John. Really stays true to our jobs."

"So you called to recommend it?" The DEA must be crazy to keep her around.

"In a way. Remember when I lured him out to Westwood on that fake trouble call? I was going to have him just to piss Sarah off. Well, we exchanged words. The exact same words that are in that damned scene in the novel."

"Coincidence, nothing more. He's dead, Carina. It's a shame but it's also a fact."

"He called the woman in the scene a succubus using the Arabic term: Q'arinah."

"What's the book's title and author? Publisher? Page numbers? OK. I'll get back with you. Keep this quiet. Don't tell anyone else. Especially not Walker, understand?"

"I'll want to be in the loop on this one, Casey. I liked that guy. If someone's using his history to make money, I want in on taking him out."

"Don't be ridiculous. Interrogate? Yes. Liquidate? Not very damned likely, not if he turns his source material over to us."

"Read the damned book, Casey. Remember, I want in."

He didn't get around to buying the book for a few days. He was wrapping up other things. He found a paperback copy and took it home with him. Three hours later he was on the phone with General Beckman.

NSA HQ
FT Meade, MD

"Ma'am, someone at NSA or CIA has used our mission reports to write a damned novel."

She listened carefully to his explanation, snickered at the Q'arinah scene and then told Casey to investigate the author and report back to her before taking any action. "Who ever he is, he knows Carina Hansen…very well." She snickered again and then turned back to her inbox with a sigh. She called her Aide de Camp and asked him to find her a copy of Download by Barton Charles.

Five minutes later the lieutenant handed her his copy of the book. "I've finished it, General. It's a damned good read. Someone knows how the game is played. The Geek and the Blonde don't work well, but the rest is pure magic."

She frowned and he thought he'd gone too far. She'd asked for the book, not a critical review.

"What's your opinion of the writer? Is he any good? Is he just wrapping words around possible mission reports? Is any of it familiar to you at all?"

"He's good but the 'ops' in the novel are written like a novice would describe them, not a trained agent but the narrative improved with each scenario in the novel. I'm waiting for his next book to come out in paperback. It's called Nothing Under the Cover. It's already out in hard back and it's got people buzzing. The author's note in the first novel got some people talking, wondering and postulating."

"The new novel is also a page turner with the same kind of opening author's note. It's a quote from Charles Baudelaire: 'How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him. But remembering is only a new form of suffering.' Pretty deep stuff for a spy novelist."

"Deep indeed. Get me a copy of the hardbound edition. No, get several. I'll want you and others to read it and give me your thoughts. Then I have some highly sensitive reports for you to read. I'll want a comparative report before week's end. Dismissed."

It was almost the end of the duty day and she'd put in a full 10 hours and so felt entitled to a short 'break in place'. She opened the novel to page one and read the author's note in place of a dedication. Two hours later she was almost done with it. The mission descriptors remained true to history but the perspective never changed from that of the protagonist's narrative.

There were never any conversations between the handlers without Beck present and never any 'introspective monologs' except on the part of Graham Beck. She smiled at the name.

Why not wave a red flag or send up a star shell or take out an ad in the LA Times. 'I'm here. I'm alive'.

'Serena Cole, Sarah Walker. John Casey, Jackson Macy. Graham Beck… Barton Charles… Charles Bartowski….' The question was 'why'?

She flipped back to the author's notes. Noting the time, she looked up a phone number and dialed it.

"Hello."

"Yes, can I speak to Chuck Bartowski, please?" Open conflict with strength.

"I'm sorry. Chuck is…gone. I'm sorry. I'm his sister. Can I help you with something?" She sounded sad, almost heartbroken.

"No, no thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you." So, the sister believes he's dead…'gone'. Interesting. From what she'd read and observed, he was devoted to his sister. Why would he let her think he was dead?

Ellie hung up the phone. She missed her little brother. She missed being able to walk into his room and talk to him. She missed having him around. Well, they still had dinner at each other's apartments once a week.

Chuck & Lou's Apartment
North Hollywood, CA

Lou cried while she was preparing dinner. She had the night off and Ellie was coming over.

Chuck's chapters, his 'dreams', were fast approaching the point where they'd broken off their relationship and she was afraid of what it would mean to them as a couple when he reached and passed that point in time. She'd long since abandoned any notion that his 'dreams' were just figments of his wonderful mind. She knew they were memories of real events that he'd been a part of.

The feelings he described for Serena Cole when he went all angsty as Graham Beck were real. Her boyfriend, her future, had been a spy. And he loved someone else. He just didn't know it. He'd lost all those memories in his conscious mind. They were there, though, in his subconscious and they manifested themselves as dreams.

How long would it be before he realized it. How long would it be before he intellectually acknowledged what his subconscious was telling him: Graham Beck is you. You are Graham Beck. Graham Beck loves Serena Cole. Chuck Bartowski loves…someone like Serena Cole. Someone like…Sarah Walker. Lou made a connection that Chuck would have applauded. It all made sense to her now, horrible, future-fucking sense.

Chuck came back from the gym he'd joined to 'get into shape'. They could afford it. He'd driven home in her surprise, a Land Rover like the one she'd been commenting about every time she saw the commercial. She'd been his rock and he wanted her to know just how much he appreciated her being in his life.

"Hey, babe, c'mere. I brought a little something home for you."

She didn't turn around. She just kept cutting the vegetables for their dinner into smaller and smaller pieces. It had to be done now, before she was in too deep and it would hurt too badly if she waited any longer. It would destroy her if she didn't free him now.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He walked up and put his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. She smelled like freshly cut grass and summer.

Still not turning around, she began her speech.

"Chuck, this thing we have, it's not working for me. I'm sorry. Really I am. I thought maybe this time would be different but it isn't. You – you need to find your own place or move back in with Ellie. We'll split up our stuff and…and we can still be friends. I just don't want to invest any more time in a relationship that isn't going where I want it to go. This isn't the relationship I want. I need someone who's…mine."

He was stunned. He hadn't seen this coming. He thought they were on the same page.

"I thought we were happy. I am. I thought you were too. What haven't I done that I should have? What can I do to make you change your mind?"

"You're happy. I'm not. I – I don't want to change my mind. I don't love you, Chuck. I can't be who you want me to be. I can't be… I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We can still be friends."

Chuck looked down at the key chain and thought about the small blue jewelers box in the glove compartment. He'd take back the ring but he'd keep the damned Land Rover.

"I'll pick up my stuff tomorrow while you're at work. I'll get Devon to help me. I'll talk to Augie about some sort of financial arrangement. You deserve something for your time and effort, Lou. I couldn't have written the crap without you. I'm sorry too. I thought – never mind what I thought. Obviously I was wrong. I'll spend the night at Ellie's."

"Chuck, I don't want your damned money! I want – I want – I just want you to go. Please."

"Lou, if I leave, I'm not coming back. If you turn your back on us, it's over. Period."

She'd gotten cooler to him as the new book had progressed. As Beck grew closer with Serena Cole, Lou had begun to withdraw from Chuck Bartowski. He should have seen it.

"Lou, are you jealous of Serena Cole?" He was deadly serious and she heard it in a tone she'd never heard him use with her before except when he'd been describing his actions to the cops at her Deli when he'd kil-.

"No, Chuck. I'm not jealous of Serena Cole. I'm jealous of Sarah Walker." There. She'd said it. The name of the Unnamable, She Who Must Not Be Named, the specter that haunted her as his novel progressed. As more and more scenes (OK, memories, they were his damned memories) involved Beck and Cole, she felt the fear grow in her belly like a tumor.

The hand that had been resting lightly on her shoulder throughout the entire fight now flew from her. She heard a gasp and without thinking, whirled around. He looked gray and drawn, the color gone from his face. His eyes were unfocused and he appeared to be in a trance. Then clarity washed over them.

"You're all alike, Lou. You women let me get close and let me start to feel something again and then you all do something like this. Fine. I'm gone. I won't be back."

He was almost out of control. He was consumed with grief-driven anger and the feeling of betrayal. He didn't know any Sarah Walker. He obviously didn't know Lou either. She was accusing him of having feelings for a fictional character, a figment of his overactive imagination.

Chuck drove his new Land Rover up to Burbank and to the old apartment. He didn't knock. He still paid his part of the rent and now he was glad he did.

It only took Ellie Bartowski a second to recognize the look on his face. Oh, shit.

She turned and looked at the smiling man sitting at their kitchen table finishing a beer. He stood and walked over to Chuck, holding out his hand in greeting.

"Hey, Chuck. Good to see you up and about. I was just in town and stopped by to see Ellie and she gave me the good news about your recovery."

Chuck stared at the man he'd come to know as Jackson Macy, a character in his novels. He felt the familiar bolt of pain and the wave of dizziness. He ignored his hand and instead turned to his sister. He knew who he was. He knew all about him. He just didn't know how he knew these things.

"Eleanor Fay, who the hell is Sarah Walker?"

APR
Ugly Erie, PA