Sarah didn't have a new assignment right away after Johannesburg. In fact, it was a few weeks before she got a new one. But that was okay.
On December 20th, she had returned to her apartment, and discovered that it had been entered. This wouldn't have been clear to the untrained eye, but the tells that she had left had been changed. So, she entered the apartment, gun drawn, to find…
Piers de Klerk sitting on her couch. The gun went away quickly.
It seemed that he had managed to somehow get himself a temporary duty assignment to the South African Embassy. "Only two weeks," he said, "but by some sort of coincidence, that just happens to encompass Christmas and New Year's."
Sarah had a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year indeed. She considered taking Piers up to Boston to meet her father, but decided that explaining that would be more work than she could deal with just then. On top of that, she wasn't sure how he'd feel about her having a…boyfriend, she thought in amazement, from another country.
On January 3rd, 2004, Piers left to return to Johannesburg. On January 4th, Sarah received a new assignment.
"We're assigning you to a multi-agency task force," Director Graham informed her. "It seems there's a group of former KGB agents who live in Prague. They're receiving opium products from the Taliban, which they're selling to U.S. markets. They're using the money from that to purchase old Soviet weapons, which they are in turn shipping to the Taliban, which distributes them to Al Qaeda, the Iraqi insurgency, Hamas, and so on and so forth.
"You'll be working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Security Agency," Graham continued. "I don't think you've met the NSA agent before, but I believe you're acquainted with the DEA agent – one Carina Hansen?"
Sarah's eyebrows went up. "You could say that."
"Well, then. It's good you already know her, because the NSA agent is a bit of a loose cannon. He's a pilot that they plucked out of the Air Force right after he received his commission, Captain John Casey. Be careful around him. He tends to go a bit overboard from time to time."
"Yes, sir."
Sarah's instructions upon arriving in Prague were simple – check in to your hotel, make contact with Agent Hansen and Captain Casey, and stay put until you receive further orders.
She had done the first, and was now attempting to do the second. She was outside Carina's door, knocking. Nothing, nothing, and then…
Sarah heard what sounded faintly like somebody struggling against something and trying to speak through a gag. This was not good.
She backed away from the door, took a deep breath, and planted her foot against the door right above the latch as hard as she could. The strike plate burst out of the door frame, and the door flew open. Sarah dived to the floor and rolled in, gun drawn. She leapt to her feet, to find…
A man in his early thirties, handcuffed to the bed, clad only in black socks, a USAF t-shirt, and boxers with four-leaf clovers on them
Sarah couldn't help but laugh. "You must be John Casey," she smirked.
He glared daggers back at her, unable to really say anything.
Then she heard the unmistakable click of a safety being disengaged. Whirling around, gun up, she screamed, "DON'T MOVE!"
Carina Hansen looked back at her. "Oh, it's just you," Carina said. "I see you've met Captain Casey."
"You could say that," Sarah replied. "What exactly happened here?"
Casey started struggling against the handcuffs. He made noises that sounded distinctly like, "DON'T YOU DARE SAY A WORD!"
Carina looked at him, shrugged, looked back at Sarah, and said, "My idea of casual sex is a little rougher than Captain Casey's."
Sarah looked at her in disbelief. "Is that your idea of what you're supposed to be doing on this mission? Sleeping with another agent?"
"Oh, come on, Sarah," Carina shot back. "Don't be such a hypocrite. The global intelligence community is FAR too small for you to get away with your little liaison with… what's his name, de Klerk?"
Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Yes, but I didn't sleep with him until AFTER the mission was over."
Carina rolled her eyes. "Whatever. It's not like it's affecting our mission."
Sarah shook her head. "I'm pretty sure that handcuffing an agent to a bed might affect the mission!"
Carina sighed. "Why are you being such a drag, Sarah?"
"I'm being a drag!" Sarah asked. "Well, I'm so sorry if I'm not the happy-go-lucky, horny-as-hell, needs-it-all-the-time, oh so philanthropically donates a month of her time to the Sparrow School each year agent that you are, CARINA."
Carina's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying about me?"
Sarah cocked an eyebrow. "I believe you know exactly what I'm saying."
"Say it, Agent Walker. Just say the word."
"I'm pretty sure you've already figured it out."
"JUST GODDAMN SAY IT!"
"YOU'RE A SLUT!"
Carina gritted her teeth. "You bitch."
Sarah nodded. "Whore."
And Carina hauled off and socked Sarah square in the nose. She staggered backward, but putting a hand on the frame of the bed, launched herself back forward, tackling Carina with what could only amount to a war cry.
Carina went down, but with a handful of Sarah's hair. The two women rolled around on the floor, each struggling to get the upper hand.
Meanwhile, John Casey was struggling to sit up in the bed, trying to get a better view. He had an enormous smile on his face.
Finally, after about five minutes of this, Sarah landed a good kick to Carina's gut, knocking the wind out of her. Sarah rolled away and stood up, breathing heavily.
Carina slowly got to her feet, using the bed frame to help her up. She looked over at Sarah, then looked down at Casey – and a smile reappeared on her face, her eyebrows climbing.
"Oh, Johnny, did watching that fight get you all worked up down there?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Jesus Christ."
She turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Half an hour later, Sarah was joined in the hotel lobby by Carina and Casey – both now fully dressed. In the interim, she had called Director Graham to report what was going on to him – and though he had sighed in disgust, he told her to just live with it. "There's more important things at stake here, Walker."
Carina's eyes glittered with a certain amount of contempt as she stared at Sarah. "Let's go, Walker," she snapped. Sarah sighed and stood up, following Carina and Casey to the parking garage.
"May I ask where exactly we're going?" Sarah inquired as they got into Carina's Mercedes ML55.
"We're going to go stake out the operations center for this group of former KGB thugs," Carina replied. That was all she said. No further explanation.
The ride was silent as they drove through Prague. When a white Lexus limousine passed them going the other direction, though, Carina's eyes grew wide, and she breathed, "No way…"
"Was that them!" Casey exclaimed, practically straining out of his seatbelt.
Without answering, Carina yanked up the handbrake, jerking the wheel around to the left. The ML55 spun around in a one hundred eighty degree arc, creating havoc on the roadway. Releasing the brake, Carina hit the gas, speeding after the Lexus.
"Would somebody mind telling me what's going on?" Sarah asked from the backseat.
"We're not going to their ops center," Casey replied excitedly. "That's them in that Lexus!"
Carina floored it, flying down the boulevard behind the Lexus. In fairly short order, the driver clearly realized what was going on.
"Nice driving there, Carina," Sarah said sarcastically as the Lexus turned down a side street. "Way to stay inconspicuous."
"Walker, SHUT UP," the DEA agent spat. Casey struggled to lean out the window, aiming his gun at the limo's rear tires.
The Lexus began to swerve back and forth across the street, throwing off Casey's aim. However, he finally got off a couple of good shots, and the limo's rear tires both deflated and began to shred. The limo slowed rapidly, with Carina having to stand on the brakes to keep from rear-ending it.
"Stay in the car, Walker," Casey said as the two other agents jumped out.
"Stay in the – what the hell!" she said, but they were already out, approaching the car, guns drawn.
The back doors of the limo burst open, two men jumping out with submachine guns. Casey and Carina both dove for cover behind the ML55 as the two men sprayed randomly.
"Oh, to hell with this," Sarah said as the windshield of the ML55 shattered. Pulling her gun up, she aimed out the front, shot, aimed again, shot again. Both men dropped to the ground, dead.
She climbed out of the Mercedes as Carina and Casey approached the back doors of the Lexus again. Sarah covered them as they pulled three very frightened looking large Russian men out of the back seats.
"Greetings,tovarisch," Casey said with a smirk on his face.
He looked up at Casey. "John Casey," he said slowly, in heavily accented English. "You're a dead man."
"Oh, I don't think so, Pasha," Casey replied.
Then the driver's door of the Lexus burst open. The driver flew out, and before any of the three agents had time to draw their guns, he had clambered into Carina's ML55, and was driving away down the street.
"Oh, hell," Carina sighed. Reaching in her pocket, she pulled out a remote, and pressed the panic button. The rear end of the ML55 fireballed, flipping it end over end, until it crashed into a burning heap in the middle of the street.
"THAT's why you were told to stay in the car, Walker," Carina hissed. "I'm sick of having cars stolen and then having to blow them up."
"Oh, well, EXCUSE me," Sarah retorted. "But the two of you both would've been DEAD if not for me."
Casey looked at Carina. "She's got a point."
Carina glared back at him. "Casey, shut UP, or no more sex."
Casey's eyes widened. He shrugged and looked back at Sarah. "Sorry, Walker. You're on your own on this one."
Sarah shook her head. "You're a real inspiration, Captain Casey."
Sarah sat on the bed in Carina's hotel room, trying not to think about the things that had transpired on it. Of course, as distasteful as those were, what was going on in the bathroom was even more distasteful.
Casey was practicing a technique on the Russians that Sarah was pretty sure was banned by every international treaty ever. He would pour water on their face until they almost couldn't breathe anymore, and then stop. When they still refused to talk, he would go back to it. He called it "waterboarding", and Sarah was completely repulsed by it.
"How can he just sit in there and do that to a human being?" she mused, not realizing she was talking out loud.
Carina overheard her. "Are you nuts, Walker?" she asked. "Those guys are helping arm Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Iraq insurgents – how is what we're doing bad?"
Sarah shook her head. "I know that we need the information, but it seems like there's other ways of getting it," she said, frustrated.
"Believe me, there's not," Carina replied. "I've tried."
Sarah looked over at her. Of course she has.
Finally, Casey came out of the bathroom. "He cracked."
"Do we need the other two?" Carina asked.
"I don't think so," Casey replied. "I got just about everything I need out of Pasha."
"Alright. I'll take care of them."
Sarah covered her ears. "I am so not hearing this."
Casey looked at her. "Whatever, CIA. Do what you've got to do to maintain plausible deniability, or whatever it is you spooks call it."
She looked up at him. "How am I a spook and you're not?"
"I'm a real agent," he spat back. "I'm actually willing to get my hands dirty when need be. You spooks, you just put together your little pieces of information, and then blow people up from a safe distance."
Sarah couldn't believe what she was hearing. Standing up, she crossed the room to Casey, and before he knew it, she had him pinned against the wall, her arm on his throat.
"Let me ask you something, Captain Casey," she hissed. "Have you heard about last September, the Belgrade Eight?"
"What about 'em?"
Her brain screamed,No, don't do it! However, she refused to let Casey run roughshod over her.
"That was ME, you ass."
Casey's eyes widened. "Holy crap."
Carina had a look of shock on her face. "Jesus, Sarah, I didn't know you had it in you."
"I've apparently been underestimated," she said quietly, releasing Casey.
They spent the next two weeks dragging as much information out of the three former KGB men as they could. When they were done, at Sarah's insistence, they dumped them on the doorstep of a Prague police station with a DVD that contained all three of them confessing to numerous and varied crimes against the Czech people.
Using the information they had gotten, they spent a good amount of time after that going after the network that the KGB men had built in Prague. One at a time, they took down their contacts, their cutouts, their middle-men. On February 18th, they took down the last man.
The three agents decided a little bit of celebration might be in order.
A bar was found, and toasts were made. The three of them were effusive in their praise of one another.
"I should never have called you 'just a spook', Walker," Casey said.
"You're damn straight," Sarah replied.
"Don't get a big head," Carina warned her. "Casey's like this with everybody when he's been meeting with Jack, Jim, or Jose."
"Ah, the three wise men," Sarah mused.
"Exactly."
In the background, Sarah could hear what seemed to be a very familiar synthesizer tune playing. "Hey, I actually know this song," she said quietly.
Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals, I get my back into my living.
"Yeah," Casey replied. "Everybody knows it – it's the Who."
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right, I don't need to be forgiven.
"Come on, Casey!" Carina said, grabbing his hand. "Let's hit the floor, shall we?"
Don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage wasteland.
Sarah laughed as her two fellow agents moved onto the floor and really started making fools of themselves. Then something caught her eye.
Sally take my hand, travel south cross land – put out the fire, and don't look past my shoulder.
Men dressed in black. Deeply tanned complexions… and guns.
The exodus is here, the happy ones are near… let's get together, before we get much older.
Sarah stood up and started toward the two agents on the dance floor, but before she got five feet, a hand grabbed her and roughly slammed her back down on her bar stool. "Move again, and my knife wreaks havoc on your delicate little organs," an accented voice whispered in her ear. He twisted the point of his knife in her back for emphasis.
Teenage wasteland, it's only teenage wasteland…
Barging through the crowd, the men made a beeline for Casey and Carina. A man walked straight up to Casey, and decked him, brass knuckles and all. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Teenage wasteland, oh, oh, teenage wasteland… they're all wasted!
Two of the men grabbed Carina and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the club. As they walked out the door, the man holding a knife to Sarah's back removed it, and then ran out the door.
"Baba O'Riley" was building to a fever pitch, and it was making Sarah's head pound. She drew her gun, and ran out the door. A hail of bullets forced her back inside the doorway. When the gunfire stopped, she heard a car door slam.
Stepping back outside, she saw an old Chevy van screeching away down the alleyway. Trying to draw a bead on its tires, she started shooting, but the combination of the van swerving and the alcohol she had consumed was just too much. The van disappeared around a corner, leaving Sarah standing in the rain.
In shock and disbelief, she holstered her gun, and then went back inside the club. The final notes of the Who's classic song played, leaving nothing but silence. Casey was just beginning to struggle up off the floor.
"Wha… what happened?" he asked drunkenly.
"She's gone," Sarah replied, her voice devoid of emotion. "Whoever they are, they've taken Carina."
