Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so as I tend to fix things that don't look quite right to me in the final form.
No-one was at all surprised when Shaw ignored his orders and went straight up to Carina in the Airport's departure lounge, but when he grabbed her arm roughly and tried to force her to do what he told her on the plane (seduce the target to get his luggage tag so they could get the bag and therefore the key), she almost broke his wrist as she twisted free of his grip, and then kneed him in the family jewels hard enough to leave him rolling around on the floor in agony. She got a round of applause from men and women alike as she stalked off, muttering angrily about how women should be protected from being attacked by perverts like that. Airport security grabbed Shaw and dragged him away, so Carina became the primary for this mission.
Chuck got into the system and added records to put Shaw on the terrorist watch lists under another name, to ensure that he would be held there until after their plane took off once they started checking into him. He sent a private message to Jane to ask her hold off bailing Shaw out until their agent had taken off, and just got a winky face response. He monitored the systems and smiled as he showed Sarah that she'd dodged the calls from Homeland Security, so Shaw stayed in detention until he managed to contact his sponsors in the CIA via the dodgy 'lawyer' that he called to represent him. As well as keeping Shaw out of the way long enough to stop him screwing everything up, that gave them a few more names to look into.
Sitting in First Class on the plane, Carina, Mei and Vinnie were wearing Augmented Reality glasses with cameras, and they were all scanning the passengers and cabin staff. Their feeds were being fed back to the Dungeon, where they were running everyone through facial recognition systems and Chuck was checking the Intersect databases for a match.
They didn't get any hits on the big guy, Panzer, who was in the seat that was supposed to be the Ring courier's, but there was no question that he was in the business, because the man was obviously trained muscle. Built like Mike but a few inches shorter, the way he moved said that he knew how to handle himself, so the fact that Shaw had tried to set Chuck up to go after him without any idea of what he was up against made most of them want to hurt the tool, bad. The others accepted that they'd have to stand in line behind Sarah for that privilege.
While they didn't get any hits on the courier though, they did get a hit on one of the flight attendants, as she was a freelance assassin, Serena Horton. So unless she was there to kill one of the First Class passengers during the flight (which a professional wouldn't risk because she'd be trapped on the plane with no escape route and as a flight attendant she was more noticeable than a passenger), she was probably there as backup for the courier.
When they didn't find anything about anyone else in First Class, Carina decided that she'd have to work Panzer to get the key, it was the only option that was viable in the environment they had on the plane. They did have a problem in that they didn't have any real information about what the key looked like or where it was though, and they needed to get that. One advantage that they did have was that they were in constant communications with all three of them via the satellite communications gear that Stephen, Leslie and the Rabis had come up with.
As soon as his contacts got him out, Shaw went straight to the Cinders Security office and was threatening Alex to try and make her let him into the base when John came through the door from the main office and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him up against the wall. Chuck, Sarah and Zondra came through from the main Cinders office and Chuck barked. "John! Not out here! Take him inside!"
John just nodded and hauled Shaw into his office and down into the Intersect bunker without letting go of his throat.
When they were in the meeting room of downstairs, Chuck demanded that Shaw tell them everything he knew about the key and where the courier may have it.
Shaw sneered at him. "Why should I tell you anything Bartowski?"
He noticed Walker hold up a finger as if she were counting something off as Bartowski spoke.
"Because you screwed up the mission when you went against your orders and got yourself arrested by making a scene at the airport, so now my agent has to get the key off the courier in your place. Tell us what you know about where he has the key!"
Shaw sneered at him again. "Fuck you Bartowski! Your whore can try and screw it out of him like she usually does!"
He saw Walker hold up another finger and smile as Bartowski turned to the other woman.
Chuck asked Zondra. "Can you see if you can induce him to be more helpful please Agent Rizzo?"
Zondra nodded, saying "Yes, Sir" demurely as she sashayed towards Shaw. His smile grew as she leant in so he got a good view down her blouse, but that abruptly changed to a scream when she drove a knife through his hand into the conference table. A slap hard enough to loosen his teeth cut off his scream, and Sarah held up a third finger with a big smile.
Chuck barked. "What do you know about where he has the key?"
Shaw gasped "Fuck you!" and Chuck said "Agent Rizzo?"
Zondra smiled as she grabbed Shaw's other hand and produced another knife from somewhere and Shaw screamed. "Stop! Stop! I'll tell you!"
She looked disappointed as she let got of his hand and stepped back and Chuck said. "Well?"
When Shaw didn't say anything, Chuck looked at Zondra and she stepped forward again.
Shaw screamed. "Get that crazy bitch away from me! I need medical attention! I have a fucking knife stuck through my hand!"
His blood ran cold at the pain and mayhem promised in Chuck's voice as he said. "You'll need a lot more if you don't start talking... Right. Now!"
That was enough to break him, and he spilled everything he knew about Panzer, the key and the fact that the key was in his checked luggage (he'd scanned Panzer as he passed him at the airport and the locator tag on the key had shown that it was in his suitcase), so they'd need to get the luggage tag that was with his ticket. He also freely admitted that he'd been planning on making Sarah engage Panzer and seduce the key out of him, proving that he was as much a failure of an agent as he was a human being.
Chuck called the information through to Carina and the others while Casey pulled the knife out of Shaw's hand, carefully wiping both sides of the blade off on Shaw's sleeve before politely handing it to Zondra, who thanked him with a smile as she took it from him.
Chuck decided to twist the knife, so to speak. "How the hell did you get through the Farm without having any resistance at all to torture Shaw?"
He turned to Sarah. "Doesn't the CIA include that in its agents' training any more more Agent Walker?"
"Yes it does Sir, or at least it did when I did my training, the bones they broke in my hand in resistance to torture training took a month to heal."
He nodded, mentally thanking her for setting this up for him so well, and suddenly turned to John. "That reminds me Major Casey... has the thumb you broke to get out of your handcuffs so you could rescue us in that operation last year healed properly? I'm sorry, I should have checked on that before, it's just that we've been so busy."
"No need to apologise Sir, I know that you've had a lot more important things occupying your attention. The thumb has healed alright, not a hundred percent though because I don't heal like I did as a teenager. At least we're usually somewhere warm so it doesn't bother me much. Thank you for asking Sir."
"Nothing's more important than the team Major. I should have asked a long time ago, seeing as you did that to yourself to get us out of there..." He grinned. "I'll try and keep you out of any operations we have in the cold from now on, or at least leave you in the lodge with the Après ski bunnies if I can't."
John laughed at that. "Thank you Sir, that would be appreciated."
He threw a field dressing and bandage at Shaw and dragged him off to a holding cell.
On the plane, Carina had formulated her plan. Because of the probable backup Panzer had on the plane, they would have to be discreet, so they couldn't just tranq him as that would attract too much attention. The only way she could see this working was for her to go to Panzer and engage him, lift his ticket (she was as good a pickpocket as Sarah, as that was part of how she'd supported herself when she was a teenager on the streets) and pass it off to Mei so that she could locate his luggage, then return the ticket while she was distracting him. As their stealthiest person on the plane, Mei should be able to get into the baggage hold, retrieve the key and return to the cabin, passing the key off to Vinnie for safe keeping in case anyone made her.
The plan was good, there was still an element of risk of course, but it minimised that risk for all of them, so they went with it. Carina pulled her part off without a problem, babbling away like a horny bimbo who was into muscles, she distracted him enough by stroking his arm and hinting to him that she she'd like to join the mile high club that he didn't notice a thing as she lifted, and then returned his ticket. She didn't even have to kiss the pig, the worst she had to endure was him grabbing her leg roughly in what was presumably meant to be a caress.
Mei had no trouble slipping past the flight attendants (including the assassin) to get down into the baggage hold, and she got into Panzer's bag and located the key within ten minutes. The worst part for her was seeing all the disgusting porn he had in his bag, but she was back upstairs and had passed off the key to Vinnie and ticket to Carina in a little over fifteen minutes, which then let Carina disengage from Panzer by saying that she better get back before her 'friend' woke up.
Using the 'friend' excuse meant that she had to spend enough time talking to the older man she was sitting next to on the plane and as they were leaving the plane at Orly to pull off the idea that they were together, but he wasn't a letch, he was actually a sweet old gentleman who enjoyed chatting with such a beautiful and captivating young lady as her. At Orly, Carina was taken aside to answer a few questions when they reached passport control, and Mei and Vinnie slipped away while no-one was looking, so they were all punted straight back out to their C70 on the tarmac for the flight home with Panzer and everyone else being none the wiser. They also had the assassin quietly arrested to get her out of circulation, luckily she usually disappeared after an operation so that shouldn't raise any warning flags.
Once they were in the air again, John went to the holding cell and frog marched Shaw out of the building again, telling him not to come back this time.
When the others got back with the key, they observed all the proper containment protocols as they opened the lock box, and then went through its contents. A few of the things in the lock box raised questions, so they had Jane call Shaw back in from Los Feliz. When he arrived, John grabbed him and marched him into the meeting room, pushing him into the same chair he'd sat in earlier.
As soon as they were settled, the screen lit up with the images of General Beckman and Director Bentley. Jane started off by saying. "Agent Shaw has made a number of serious accusations against you and your team Special Agent Carmichael, can you explain about his arrest at the airport, and how he was injured?"
Chuck looked at the screen. "None of my people had anything to do with his arrest at the airport Director Bentley, that was all his own doing, this is the video from the Airport's security cameras."
He played the clip of Shaw going up to Carina and grabbing her roughly as he spoke aggressively to her (and the audio was clear enough to them to hear what he was saying to her), followed by her giving him a knee to the groin and Airport Security running up to drag him away.
Jane said "Would you care to explain that Shaw? I specifically ordered you not to go anywhere near Special Agent Miller, and yet you caused a scene that almost blew her cover as well as your own when you attempted to force her to seduce the target to get the key you were supposed to be getting... Putting aside the fact that you deliberately disobeyed my orders for the moment... how can you claim that the Intersect team had anything to do with your arrest when it was clearly your actions that caused it?"
Shaw blurted out. "They had me put on the terrorist watch list! That made me miss the flight and it took me hours to contact anyone to get me out of there!"
Jane just asked. "Special Agent Carmichael?"
Chuck shook his head. "I am not aware of anyone on my team doing that Director Bentley, we can check though."
With that he brought up the terrorist watch lists and looked for the name 'Daniel Shaw' with no result, so Jane asked Shaw what he was talking about.
Shaw spat out. "It was under the name 'Roger Moore'!" John snorted at that as Chuck brought up an entry, supposedly added over six months ago, which showed an image that looked much like Shaw.
Jane said. "It appears fairly obvious to me that this was a quite understandable case of mistaken identity from an old record Shaw, and I can assure you I will be noting how your actions jeopardised the mission, as well as how you disobeyed your orders and tried to cover up your own failure with false accusations. Now Special Agent Carmichael, is there any truth in Shaw's other accusation, that you stabbed him the last time he was here?"
"Yes and no Director Bentley, I asked Agent Shaw repeatedly for the information that Special Agent Miller needed to complete the mission, but he flat refused to give us that information, and was in fact quite abusive and derogatory about Agent Miller, so he had to be persuaded. This is the video of the entire incident Director, including him threatening our civilian receptionist to try and force her to let him into the Intersect bunker, and informing us that he'd had detailed prior knowledge of the target and a device that pinpointed the location of the key in Hugo Panzer's suitcase before he checked it in... we could have retrieved the key from Panzer's bag with a lot less risk to my agent before it got on the plane if he'd shared that knowledge! It also shows him admitting that his plan was to force Agent Walker to seduce Panzer on the plane to get the key so that he wasn't at risk himself."
When the video was finished, Jane said. "It is disturbing that you would use these methods on one of our agents Special Agent Carmichael, even with the way Agent Shaw was refusing to give you the information you needed for your agent and withheld the critical information which could, as you said, have allowed the key to be recovered before it went onto the plane with significantly less risk than the operation on the plane required. Why didn't you try contacting me to have me order Shaw to provide the information?"
"We did try to contact you as soon as Agent Miller advised us of what had happened at the airport Director Bentley, but we couldn't reach you, and we weren't certain how long we would be able to maintain contact with Agent Miller. To be honest, I was angry about the fact that my agent had been put in this position by Agent Shaw's unprofessional and threatening behaviour, especially with what he was trying to force her to do, so when Shaw turned up here, once again deliberately jeopardising our team and base's cover, and kept refusing to give us the information that we urgently needed to assist her, and on top of that was saying those things about her, I made the call to treat him as an enemy operative."
Shaw went to say something at that, until Chuck fixed him with a look that chilled him to the bone and he clamped his mouth shut.
Jane nodded. "Oh yes, I was out of cell coverage areas for a few hours that night. While I can't say that I am happy with the approach you took Agent Carmichael, given the video you have shown me, treating him as an enemy operative wasn't an unreasonable call on your part under the circumstances. Could you supply me with a copy of that, and also the recordings of the previous incidents and the Airport video for our records, please?"
Chuck nodded. "Of course Ma'am."
"Have you discovered anything of value in the lock box?"
"All the information on the disks that were in the lock box was four years old, but it was still useful Ma'am, we're liaising with our people in Europe, as well as the DGSI, DGSE and Interpol, to narrow the noose on the Ring's people over there, primarily in France."
Shaw jumped up at that, screaming. "Everything to do with the Ring is my operation! You had no right to open that lock box or look into any of this without me!"
Jane barked at him. "Sit down and shut up Shaw! When Agent Miller returned with the key, as she promised she would, I authorised Agent Carmichael to proceed with all dispatch before the Ring had a chance to close down or move any of their operations as they invariably would once they discovered that the key was gone. And I shouldn't need to remind you of this, but I obviously do, this was never your operation, it was the CIA's operation, but for now it has been formally handed over to the Intersect team because they have proven themselves to be more capable." She nodded to Chuck to continue.
"Thank you Ma'am, we've merged the information on the disks with the later information, such as it is, to configure the search engines to identify Ring activities, as results come in, we're evaluating them, and using them to optimise the search engine behaviour where appropriate."
"Thank you Special Agent Carmichael, is there anything else at this time?"
"Actually, there is Director Bentley!" This came from Sarah as she stood, picking something up from the table and heading for Shaw. Chuck went with her, knowing what this was about.
Sarah held up the wedding rings that had been in an envelope in the bottom of the lock box, asking. "Did you send a married woman into deep cover in an organisation like the Ring by herself without any support for two years Shaw?"
Chuck braced himself to take Shaw out if he attacked her, but aside from snatching the rings off her he didn't do anything, he just looked at the rings and said. "She was Evelyn Shaw, Eve... My Wife."
He looked up at Sarah and said quietly. "We both made the same mistake Sarah, we both fell in love with spies."
From his expression, he actually believed that they were sharing a moment there, even though Sarah was staring at him in horror and disgust, but Chuck put an end to that when he asked in a cold, hard voice. "Did you know about the Ring's loyalty tests for women before you sent your wife into their organisation Shaw?"
Silence came crashing down in the room, as everyone who'd been there when they made Shaw tell what he knew about the Ring knew the answer to that.
Shaw wanted to lie, but even he knew that there was no point in trying so he quietly said. "Yes."
Di hadn't been in the loop for that video conference, but she could tell from the anger in the room that this was something significant, so she asked. "Agent Carmichael, what loyalty tests are you talking about?"
Chuck was having trouble controlling his disgust and rage enough to answer, so Carina did. "When Director Bentley finally managed to force Shaw to give us the information we needed about the Ring, he made a point of telling us about what he'd been hearing from when he first he started looking into them. About how any women who join the Ring are passed around their superiors, and anyone else they're given to and told to look after. They have to do anything and everything they're told to by any of these men without complaint in order to prove their loyalty."
Neither Di nor Jane made any attempt to hide their disgust as Jane asked. "Do you need Shaw for anything else Special Agent Carmichael?"
"Not unless you wish him to be present when we discuss the penalties that need to be paid for this operation Ma'am."
"I don't see any need for him to be present Agent Carmichael... Shaw, report to Los Feliz and await further orders!"
Chuck glanced at John, who nodded and pulled Shaw up out of the seat, frog marching him from the room.
Once Shaw had left the room, Jane looked at Chuck (well, his image on the screen). "So, the penalties?"
"We had two separate incidents of Agent Shaw wilfully risking the exposure of our entire team and base by openly stating the fact that he was Special Agent Shaw to our civilian employee and threatening her in attempt to try and make her let him into the Intersect Bunker, which of course she couldn't do, even if she had known about it before he told her. I was inclined to make them two separate penalties, but I have been convinced to combine them into one penalty of One Million Dollars, that is Seven Hundred Thousand for wilfully putting all the core Intersect Team members at risk, and Three Hundred Thousand for putting the Intersect Team's base and cover business at risk of exposure and increasing the probability that we will have to relocate. That's nothing more than a drop in the bucket compared to what it would cost to relocate our base and create a new cover business but that's the limit of what was defined in the penalties. Then we have Agent Shaw specifically attempting to set me up to go into an operation on the plane unprepared to deal with a dangerous character like Panzer, who in his own words he hadn't gone after himself because he was too dangerous to face, that's another Two hundred Thousand, plus a Hundred Thousand for forcing Agent Miller to engage Panzer on the plane by deliberately withholding information that we could have used to recover the key before it got on the plane, and another Hundred Thousand for attempting to force a married woman to engage in a seduction mission against her will. Added to that we have recorded proof of his plan to force Agent Walker to recover the key and assume all the risk for what was his task, and another incidence of him attempting to force a married woman to engage in a seduction mission against her will, so that's another Two Hundred Thousand. All up that comes to One Point Six Million Director Bentley."
Jane nodded. "I agree with your tally and justification for the penalties Special Agent Carmichael, send the invoice and I will see that it is paid."
"Thank you Director Bentley..."
Chuck looked to see if anyone had anything else to add, then looking back at the screen, he said "You know that there's a good chance he'll run, don't you Director Bentley?"
Jane nodded "Yes, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning Agent Carmichael?"
"Well firstly, every male CIA Agent I've ever met bar one believes that he's god's gift to women and can't imagine any woman resisting him. When he made advances to Agent Walker though, she just shot him down and treated him like the pig that he is, that was the first blow to his pride."
"Second, he came in here with the expectation that we'd all bow down to him and do whatever he said, because he was a CIA Special Agent, but we all put him in his place, me most of all I'm afraid, because of the disrespect he was showing my people and the blatant way he was going after Agent Walker."
"Third, he obviously believed that as his superior in the CIA, you would back him in any disagreements with other agencies, no matter what he did, but you were coming down on our side right from the start."
"Finally, and possibly the most significant, was his wife's rings. Now that it's on record about what happens to any woman who goes into the Ring, he would have been desperate to get rid of that evidence. I don't know how the CIA's run, but I expect that proof, in the form of his wife's wedding rings being in there with the last of the intel she'd collected, that he'd knowingly sent his own wife into something like that and left her to fend for herself in that environment for two years to further his own career would kill off any hope of advancement, at least I hope it would. I'm sure that someone like Shaw would have expected at least to be made a Section Head or Deputy Director after he managed to pull off a major operation like this, so this would be a major blow to him."
Jane nodded thoughtfully "Thank you Agent Carmichael, you've presented some angles that I hadn't considered... I've sent agents to his tracker's location to pick him up, what do you think he'll do?"
Chuck considered for a moment. "It will basically come down to just how big his ego is. If he looks at the situation logically, he's likely to run, because he'll know he's finished, and may be facing punishment. If his ego is still what's driving him though, he'll turn up at Los Feliz, confident that Special Agent Daniel Shaw can't lose. The fact that he actually believed that he still had chance with Agent Walker when he knew that we had seen proof that he'd sent his own wife in there to be used and abused for two years implies that his ego will win out."
Jane nodded again "We'll see soon enough, thank you Agent Carmichael."
With that, they cut the links, but Sarah suddenly grabbed Chuck's hand and dragged him back to the Dungeon. It was obvious that something was really upsetting her, so the others followed.
In the Dungeon, Sarah asked Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's files, and given how upset she was, he didn't ask any questions, just got into the CIA's archives to locate them and bring them up on screen.
As soon as the woman's image came up on screen, Sarah started crying. Chuck pulled her into his arms to comfort her, asking. "What is it?"
Sarah pointed to the image on screen. "I terminated Evelyn Shaw as a double agent in Paris in 2005, while the CAT Squad were being broken up. I was a mess because the CAT squad was being torn apart and I was worried about what my next assignment would be, with good reason obviously, so I didn't question it too much when Graham didn't give me anything more than a picture and a location. I accepted the idea that they didn't know what name she was using at the time because it hadn't been uncommon for me to go through up to a dozen identities in a fortnight when I took on short missions, go in, do the job and move on."
"It didn't click until Shaw said that the woman he put in there was his own wife, because this woman almost welcomed death, I've never seen such haunted eyes before or since, and when he said that, it occurred to me that nothing could be worse than being in a hell like that for years, knowing that it was your own husband who put you there. It shook me up so much that I was going to let her go, but then she went for what I thought was a gun, and I shot her. The gendarmes must have been close because I heard sirens coming straight away, so I didn't have a chance to confirm the kill, or whether she had a weapon, I just ran."
That made Chuck go back into the CIA systems and dig up the kill order. When he located it, he discovered that there was also a video attached to the file and played it. It was a recording of the termination, and from that and the images that Sarah had been sent, there was no question that it was the same woman.
While they were thinking about what Shaw had done to his wife, Chuck had a realisation. "Shit, if Shaw finds out that it was you who carried out the order to terminate his wife, he's bound to come after you for taking her from him, even though he was the one who'd already killed her on the inside. We need to do something about him."
They all nodded at that, and Chuck looked at Sarah. "We need to tell Jane."
She didn't really like the idea, but nodded, as it was the sensible thing to do, so they headed down the small meeting room.
As soon as the Jane and Di were on line, Chuck jumped into it. "Do you have Shaw in custody yet Director Bentley?"
She shook his head. "No Agent Carmichael, he appeared to be coming in as you suggested, but then he got a phone call and pulled over. A few minutes later the trackers in his phone went dead, and when our people got to the location, his car was there, but he was gone."
She watched them looking at each other, worried. "What is it Agent Carmichael?"
"We've had a worrying development in this matter Director." He looked at Sarah and she nodded resignedly, and looking at the screen, she told her and Di pretty much what she'd told Chuck and the others, adding that she'd got Chuck to bring up Evelyn Shaw's records to confirm that the woman she'd been ordered to terminate was her.
Jane looked disturbed about this. "Director Graham ordered this?"
She hadn't missed that Chuck could and did access secure CIA records, but that wasn't important at the moment.
Sarah nodded. "Yes, Ma'am, it should be in the records for March 2005."
When she brought up the files and compared the images from the kill order and Evelyn Shaw's file, she had no doubt that Sarah was correct about who it was that she'd terminated.
The question of why she'd been ordered to terminate her was disturbing, but it'd take some time to get access to the records that could answer that question, and there were more immediate issues to worry about. "You know that Shaw will come after you if he finds out about this, Agent Walker?"
She nodded. "Yes, we've discussed that Ma'am."
"I presume that you are taking all necessary measures to ensure that Agent Walker is properly protected Agent Carmichael?"
Chuck nodded. "Of course Ma'am"
With that they wound up the discussion and broke the connections.
After they went back to the operations centre Chuck was staring at the image of Evelyn Shaw, and then he suddenly swore and called for Dorothy Baum to come to the Dungeon.
When Dot arrived, Chuck pointed to the images up on screen and asked. "Is that Lynn Mason Dot?"
Dot peered at the image and said. "I think so…..?"
Sarah asked "Does Lynn have a bullet wound around here?" She indicated the area where she'd shot Evelyn Shaw.
This time Dot didn't hesitate. "Yes, she does."
Chuck grabbed the keyboard and checked something, then sent out orders to ready one of the J50s and lodge a flight plan for Houston, Texas, talking as he did so. "Dot, can you go and pack an overnight bag in case we need to stay overnight please? I'd like you to come to Texas with us, Lynn knows you so your presence will hopefully make her more comfortable."
She nodded and headed upstairs.
He glanced at Sarah. "Lynn Mason is working for our security company in Houston, Texas, she joined us in Two Thousand and Five. She must have been taken to hospital and then gotten away before the CIA or the Ring could locate her to finish her off and made her way back to the States."
He picked up the phone to call Auntie Charly and ask her to get ready for a possibly overnight trip to Houston, too, before sending Sarah, Zondra and Carina upstairs to do the same. While they were getting ready (Sarah would get his things), he called Auntie Di to tell her that Evelyn Shaw apparently wasn't dead, and in fact it appeared that she was part of the 'family' now.
On the J50, they filled Dot and Charly in on what had happened back in two thousand and five, as well as what had happened to Lynn in the two years leading up to that and the fact that her ex-husband was back on the scene causing trouble. They were all spies, they understood kill orders, and knew that Lynn did as well.
Charly also knew that they wouldn't be going to Houston if there wasn't some benefit for Lynn in this, because she'd known Chuck all his life, and she had a fairly good idea of what made him tick.
When Lynn walked into the meeting room and saw the woman who'd almost killed her, she froze, but Dot signalled her that it would be alright, so she came in and sat down. After Dot came around to give her a hug and a kiss, Sarah and Lynn discussed what had happened that night, and the kill order. Lynn confirmed that she had in fact been going for a gun, because it was only when she was faced with her imminent death that she realised that she wasn't ready to die.
As Chuck had surmised, the gendarmes had arrived right after Sarah ran off and rushed Lynn to hospital. No-one had picked up her purse, so she was admitted as the French equivalent of a Jane Doe, and she was lucid enough to pretend to have temporary amnesia. By the time the gendarmes went back to the site, someone had stolen the purse, so her identity was lost.
Lynn knew that the CIA or the Ring, whoever it was who had sent Sarah, would make sure that they finished the job, so as soon as she came out of the anaesthetic and was able to get out of bed, she grabbed some clothes and ran, grabbing the money and passports that she had hidden away and getting out of France as quickly as she could. She took the train to England and then flew to Mexico and used a coyote pipeline she knew about to get into Texas.
While she was recovering in Texas, she'd created the Lynn Mason identity and started trying to establish a new life for herself, approaching investigation and security firms where her mixture of analyst and agent skills would be useful. When she came to their firm there, it was obvious to Charly that she was a burned agent, so they'd checked her out (through Chuck, but she didn't know that at the time) and when nothing too suspicious showed up, they took her on because she had good skills. She'd been there ever since.
They were all thoughtful as they considered how it had happened. Chuck was the one who broke the silence. "How do you feel about your ex-husband Lynn?"
Lynn looked at him. "You mean the one who sent me in there to be a sex slave for those sick bastards for two years to further his own career, and then sold me out to get killed?"
"Yeah, that one."
"I hope he's still alive so I can kill the bastard!"
Chuck nodded. "As far as we know he is still alive, so we may be able to help you with that. He ran after an operation with us didn't go the way he wanted, and we found out that the agent that he had sent into the Ring was a married woman when we got into your lock box and found your rings. He told us that you were his wife, trying to get sympathy I think, but it backfired. I believe that he's actually with the Ring now….. By the way, you didn't know about the sex slave angle before you went in there, did you?"
"Do you think I would have ever agreed to go in there knowing that? No, of course not!"
"Well that's something else you owe Daniel for, because he did!"
Lynn went white. "No!…. He sent me to those animals knowing what was going to happen to me? He argued that I couldn't waste my sacrifice by getting out when I managed to contact him after I'd been passed around for a few months, but he knew that they'd do that to me and still sent me in there?"
Sarah, Carina and Zondra were nodding sympathetically, repeating what he'd told them about hearing about the loyalty tests when he first started looking into the Ring, and Dot went to hold her as she cried.
When she managed to compose herself, Chuck asked Lynn if she knew why the kill order would have been issued on her. Lynn nodded "Yes, I had been extracting information about the Ring's movements and activities and leaving it in dead drops for Daniel. Then, at the start of Two Thousand and Five, I discovered evidence of high level connections between the CIA and the Ring. After a couple of months I managed to find out the code name of the senior CIA connection, and soon after I sent that to Daniel, you showed up to kill me." she nodded at Sarah.
Chuck asked. "Do you remember the code name of the CIA connection?"
"Yes, it was Shaka."
Chuck had a flash and shook his head. "Shit, well that explains the kill order! Shaka was Langston Graham!"
Something else occurred to him then. "Did you manage to find out who he was dealing with in the Ring?"
"I never found out anything but another code name, 'Rasputin', does that mean anything to you?"
Chuck shook his head. "No, I'm not getting anything on that." He hesitated, and then asked. "Lynn, will you come back to Los Angeles with us, and help us chase down the Ring? Everything you gave to Daniel is gone, so what you have in your head is the best information we have on them. The last disks that you had in your lock box took us far further than we'd managed to get before that, so you'd be a great help. And if you really want a chance to go after Daniel, that's where he is and we'll help you."
Lynn looked at him. "How long are we talking about Chuck?"
"At least as long as it takes for you to tell us what you know about them, but I was hoping that you'd join us there permanently, we can do with someone with your skills and you should be safer with our core group. If you have a partner here we could find a job for them as well."
Lynn shook her head. "No, after Daniel and those bastards in the Ring, I'm not sure that I could ever trust any man enough to get close to one again. There's no-one keeping me here, and Texas never really grew on me, it was mainly just somewhere to hide from the CIA and the Ring. I'm happy to move to Los Angeles, but what about my job here? They wouldn't just release me would they?"
Chuck smiled. "Don't worry, Auntie Charly and I can arrange that, so why don't you go pack what you need for the foreseeable future and we can get everything else moved for you. Do you own where you live, or are you renting?"
"Renting, tying up your money in a place doesn't make any sense when you may need to run at any time."
He nodded. "That makes it easier, we'll have someone see about getting you out of your lease or subletting the place for you. Do you need a hand packing your things? I'm sure that Dot and the girls would be glad to help?" He raised an eyebrow at the women and they nodded, saying. "Of course!"
Lynn smiled. "A few more pairs of hands would be a help, thanks!"
With that, Lynn said goodbye to the few friends she had in the office and headed back to her place with Dot, Sarah, Carina and Zondra, while Chuck and Charly made the arrangements to transfer Lynn to Cinders Security in Los Angeles, made the arrangements for the movers and to handle her lease, and then booked them all into a hotel near the airport.
As things were packed up at Lynn's, they were sent to the airport to be loaded into the J50. Everything was packed and they were back at the hotel by ten that night. They dropped the keys and paperwork off to the people who would be handling everything else for the move, then they went out for a late supper.
At the restaurant, their table attracted a lot of attention, because Sarah, Carina, Zondra, Dot and Lynn were all beauties, and for that matter Charly was still very attractive too, but between Chuck's dangerous look and the very obvious and angry 'Not Interested!' looks they shot at anyone who seemed inclined to come over to introduce themselves, they weren't bothered.
Lynn's story came out over supper. "I was an analyst when I married Daniel, but that apparently didn't meet his expectations, so he cajoled me into becoming an agent so we could became 'the next Turners', whatever that is, because supposedly there would be no stopping us then."
She sighed at that and said. "I should have seen the signs and ran back then when I still had a chance!"
Zondra jumped in with a laugh to try to pull her out of her depression. "Shit, I'd be terrified if Leslie tried to become an agent, the man's a genius, but him with a gun? The possibilities for friendly fire would be horrendous!"
Sarah laughed as well. "Well this one was supposedly a civilian when I found him again, if you can believe it!"
Lynn turned to her. "What do you mean by 'found him again', Sarah?"
Sarah smiled at her. "Well, we were quite literally childhood sweethearts, our mothers are best friends and Chuck's only six months older than me, so we grew up together. Then my father took me with him to use in his cons when he ran off when I was seven. I spent eight years on the road with him as a con artist until I got him to stop so that I could finish school and get a chance to go to university, but even though he'd promised not to, he went back to the con game behind my back and got himself arrested again. Graham caught me and convinced me that he had my Mama in custody, and if I didn't do what he wanted he'd take it out on her, so I did. It was less than two years ago when I was sent after this one that I found out that Mama was safe, and the two of us were finally reunited. Of course he wasn't the bumbling civilian he was supposed to be, he's one of the best there is…. Mind you, with Frost as his mother, that's not so much of a surprise."
Lynn looked confused again. "Frost?"
"Did you ever hear about the Infamous Agent Frost when you were in the CIA?" Lynn's eyes went wide and Sarah grinned. "Yep, that's my mother in law!"
In the morning, it was only a short trip to the airport and they were back in LA before lunch. They were going to set up Lynn up in one of the guest rooms in the Keep until she got settled, but by the time they got to LA it had been decided that she would share with Dot and her son.
Because they were expecting the Ring to come after them, through Shaw or otherwise, they reconfigured the feeds from the satellite cameras that they had set up for a few blocks all around them to generate alerts 24/7 and they had people manning the screens all the time as well.
Chuck couldn't stop worrying about the danger Shaw represented to Sarah. By himself, he wasn't bright enough to be dangerous, but if he was being coached and directed by others who were, well that could be dangerous.
The issue of Evelyn's kill order brought up the question about what else Graham had been involved in that might come back to bite them. Graham's original files were probably the only place that they'd ever get the answers about the plans for all of them, and he'd been interfering with Chuck and Sarah's families since the eighties, Carina since she was seventeen, and even the way that John had coerced into joining the NSA at the beginning of '89 had a smell of Graham's methods about it, it certainly wasn't approved NSA practice to do something like that. If they wanted to get ahead of this, they needed to find the history of what had been done.
Chuck diverted time to troll through the CIA's archives, and had others earmarked after that, as they knew that the CIA, DEA, NSA, Military and Senate had all been heavily infested with Fulcrum and Ring people, so they probably had to expect that the FBI, DIA, Homeland Security and the rest were infested as well. The immediate problem, though, was that they knew that Graham had been in bed with all the wrong people, and his legacy was a time bomb that they couldn't find the counter for.
While they wanted to comb through all the archives, the current thorn in their side was Daniel Shaw, so Chuck was concentrating on the period of 2002 – 2006, to work out what the hell he was up to. Luckily, Graham had been egotistical and believed that he was brighter than everyone else, so he didn't make a good enough effort to lock down his private files, and once Chuck got through the layers that Graham had used to hide them, he had the template to get into the rest of his files. It was a worry when he found how much he'd missed when Carina came on the team, because he'd only been looking for direct references to the girls when he was cleaning out whatever evidence was being kept on them.
The files on Daniel Shaw weren't that much of a surprise, because they confirmed that Graham had promoted Daniel Shaw to the rank of Special Agent, and made him the one in charge of any and all investigations into the Ring, because he knew that Shaw was lazy and egotistical, and therefore wouldn't make any real effort to uncover anything important. This let Graham kill off any legitimate investigations by the simple mechanism of funnelling everything to do with the Ring into the black hole of Shaw's investigation, where it would disappear. What Graham didn't factor into the equation, though, was the fact that Evelyn Shaw, the ex-analyst, was actually a much better spy than her husband ever was.
When Daniel Shaw told him that he'd managed to insert his wife into the Ring, Graham, or rather Shaka, immediately warned his buddy Rasputin (Who they had yet to identify. There was something at the edge of his consciousness that was telling him that he should know who this was, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.) about her, so she'd been passed around more than any other woman in the Ring in an attempt to keep her too busy and abused to do any investigations. When Shaw kept giving Graham proof that she was still doing a hell of a job, even with everything she was going through, he kept passing that on to Rasputin, who in turn kept ramping up the abuse that she was being subjected to.
Her death warrant was signed the moment that Shaw ran to Graham, eager to tell him that Eve had uncovered the code name of the key Ring contact within the CIA, someone called Shaka. The next time there was a hole in Sarah's schedule that aligned with Evelyn Shaw being in the target area, Sarah was given the kill order for Evelyn.
While Chuck was looking into this (and he was showing Lynn the files that proved how effective she'd been against the Ring), he was also working with Lynn and the others on uncovering the Ring, and they were watching the increasing activity outside. Chuck was burying the fact that he was getting the Ring teams trying to watch them arrested and put away on criminal and terrorist charges by feeding the police information on criminals throughout the entire area, so the arrest rates around Arcadia were going through the roof.
This dragged on into September... the problem was that someone seemed to be serious about putting pressure on them, because no matter how many minions they got arrested and taken off the streets for the duration, they were being replaced. After a couple of months, though, the other side started changing their tactics... They started using bait, in the form of Daniel Shaw. They started to see Shaw's new black Tesla (the one the Ring gave him to replace the one they made him dump to prevent the CIA tracking him) around the area, and it was like waving a red rag at a bull to them, especially Lynn.
Carina and Zondra tailed Shaw to a building in an out of the way business development even though they knew that he was being used as bait. They called it in when they started following him and stayed back to watch when they reached the building, but when the first ones to arrive were Sarah and Lynn in Carina's Lamborghini, they all decided to give Lynn her chance for retribution. Carina and Zondra quickly changed into the battledress, body armour and helmets that they always carried in the boot and armed up.
Between Sarah, Carina and the toys they'd been provided, there wasn't much that they couldn't break into, and they were soon inside. They quickly took down the dozen Ring agents who'd engaged them on the ground floor with the suppressed AS VALs before attaching the remote access devices (all of their cars were equipped to be relays for the remote access devices) for Anna and the others to take over the systems, disabling the lifts and heading up the fire stairs.
On the first floor, they presumed that Anna had unlocked the door, so they said 'Thanks Anna' and went through. They came under fire in the first open area that they came to though and they had to take cover, as there were at least two to three times as many Ring agents up here.
While they were engaging the enemy, Sarah saw something out of the corner of her eye, and when she looked, she saw Shaw mockingly wave and head through a door way. She called to the others "Shaw's getting away! I'm going after him to stop him. Don't worry Lynn, I won't kill him, I'll leave that to you."
With that, she broke off and ran for the doorway Shaw had gone through. She heard the door close and lock behind her when she followed him, and it sounded suspiciously solid. Shit! This building obviously wasn't what it appeared to be!
The next thing she noticed was that she wasn't alone, as Shaw was still in the room with her. As soon as he started talking, she knew that he wasn't just an pompous fool with a god complex any more, he was absolutely fucking crazy.
Shaw started ranting at her. "I've seen the video Walker, I saw you murder my Eve, and you're going to die for that! First though, you're going to show me what you've given up to Graham, Larkin, Bartowski and everyone else... You're going to show me just how good a fuck you are! Hell, if you're as good as they all say, I may just keep you around for a while and let you make up for taking my Eve away from me…. when you murdered her!"
"Are you really so delusional that you think I'd ever let you lay a finger... or anything else... on me Shaw? There's no way anything like you will ever touch me!"
Shaw let loose a maniacal cackle. "There's nothing you can do to stop me now Walker, the NSA aren't the only ones who have the Intersect, and I have the Ring's Intersect in me now, you don't have a chance against the power of the Intersect!"
Sarah smiled grimly. "Let's see about that, shall we?"
Shaw moved in, supremely confident that she'd be down and he'd have her clothes off in seconds, but as he closed on her, she just pulled her Glock 20 and kneecapped him. When he went for his pistol, she shot it out of his hand, taking half of his hand with it... thinking to herself that Chuck was right about these Ten Millimetre Autos. With that he was effectively disabled so she said "Wait there Shaw, there's someone here who wants to talk to you." and turned back to the door.
She tried calling Anna, but when she couldn't get any signal, she swore, thinking 'I guess that explains why she hasn't got control of their systems yet' and pulled out her digital lock breaking tool to try and get that door disabled.
Two of their minivans had turned up downstairs by then, and Chuck, John, Bai, Mary, Mei, Vinnie, Sam, Robin, Zoe, Rocky, Marco, Gertie, Javier and Rick had piled out and were running for the building, as they could hear the fire fight going on on the first floor. Chuck had suspected that this would be no ordinary building though, and he wasn't about to waste any time getting through obstacles here, so the guys were were all carrying SOCOM M32 Mk 14 grenade launchers as well as the VALs. They announced their presence by blowing in the front doors.
While they were enabling one of the lifts, Chuck gave them their orders. Rick and Javier would stay on the ground floor to cut off any escapes and try to hold off any reinforcements that may arrive, he, Rocky, Zoe and Bai would take the first floor, John, Mary, Mei and Vinnie the next, and Sam, Robin, Gertie and Marco the top floor. It went as planned... he, Rocky, Zoe and Bai jumped out of the lift on the first floor and took out the ones keeping the girls pinned down from behind. Carina pointed at the door that had closed and locked behind Sarah, shouting that she went through there, chasing Shaw.
Chuck called Sarah (reasoning correctly that if the building was a Faraday cage, the radios would still work inside), and told her to let him know when she was well clear of the door, as soon as she did, he blew the door in with a 40mm High Explosive round and entered the room. Sarah called Lynn in when the door was gone.
When Shaw saw Lynn, he stopped swearing and trying to threaten Sarah and just stared at her, stunned. "Eve, you can't be here, you're dead!"
She gave him a grim smile. "How does it feel to be always wrong Daniel? And how many times do I have to tell you that I hate being called 'Eve'... I always have?"
"We don't have much time, so shut up and listen you bastard! You really are a piece of work Ankles, you hounded me into becoming an agent to further your own career, then you knowingly sent me in there to be passed around as a fuck toy by all of those sick bastards, to be used and abused any way they wanted. And do you know why they knew what I was there for and abused me the way they did, you sick fuck? Because you told Shaka that I had infiltrated the Ring, and Shaka told his buddy Rasputin, who ordered them to abuse and degrade me to try and keep me from looking into them. But stupid me, I was doing it for the man I loved, who loved me, so I endured all their abuse and got you your intel, and you told Shaka, who told Rasputin, so I was abused and degraded even more, do you see the cycle here, you bastard? Then, when I finally dug up the names of the two kingpins who were the primary connection between the CIA and the Ring, you run straight to Shaka and tell him that I've identified him, so he puts out a kill order on me! The only thing that saved me was the fact that Sarah didn't want to kill me, she only shot me because I went for my gun."
"I don't hold what she did against Sarah, she was only doing her job like we all do, but you, you bastard, you sent me in there, knowing exactly what they were going to do to me, not caring what would happen to me as long as I got you the intel to further your career for you before they killed me off! Were you ever faithful to me you pig? I know that you've been chasing women all over the place ever since you thought you got me killed off, but I'll bet that you started as soon as you sent me into the Ring, didn't you, you sick fuck? Didn't you?"
Lynn had been putting bullets into Shaw to emphasise her points, but she was pulling the trigger without anything happening, so Sarah swapped the empty VAL in her hands for one with a full magazine, putting a charged magazine into the one she took off her when she had it. She noted that, for all of Lynn's rage, she was placing her shots carefully to inflict maximum pain without killing him too quickly, except for all those shots to his groin, he would bleed out fairly quickly from those.
Ten minutes later, they were just about done mopping up the rest of the Ring agents in the building (there had been over a hundred of them in there) when Rick advised them that Anna had called to say that the cops were getting close (Rick was in front of the hole where the front doors used to be, so he could get a signal while no-one else could). That was enough to make them quickly finish off the opposition and exit the building, blowing Shaw's head off to ensure that he would no longer be a threat to any of them and activating the Armageddon devices as they did so to wipe out any systems and recordings and fry whatever was left.
Carina and Zondra had made an interesting sight as they ran out of the building, stripping off the armour and battledress so they could change back into the casual clothes they'd been wearing before (as an open top Lamborghini, wearing battledress and edgy cops wouldn't be a good mix). They threw the battledress and main weapons into the boot of the Mustang and jumped into the Lambo, still trying to do themselves up as they took off. They all got the hell away from there, with Carina and Zondra in Carina's Lamborghini and Chuck and Sarah in the Mustang convertible (with the top and windows up to avoid the battledress they were wearing attracting too much interest), while Lynn and the rest were in the minivans.
The four vehicles took off in different directions, and none of them ran into the cops. Back at El Castillo, the four women all got 'talkings to' for taking stupid risks like that, but everyone understood why Lynn had to get closure with her ex husband, Sarah had to make good for the woman she almost killed, and Carina's nightmares about similar scenarios to what Lynn had had to endure drove her to support Lynn in killing her demons. Zondra had mainly gone along to watch the others' backs.
A/N: For the purpose of the story, Dorothy Baum was Graham's original Enforcer, he dragged her into his program in Ninety One when he heard that Frost had escaped from Volkoff. She was burned around 2000 because he felt that his hold over her was slipping and Sarah showed more promise so he decided to get rid of Dot before she turned on him. Chuck intercepted the kill order and they got her out. It had been a lot harder to track her son to the farm where he and other children Graham was holding ransom to ensure their parents' compliance were being raised by so-called militant white supremacists and getting them all out of there. From what they got out of the ones running the farm, Graham's plan had been to come in and 'bust' the operation there when they were properly trained so that the kids would see him as their saviour, giving him a ready made covert strike force who were loyal to him. NB: If anyone wants a mental image of Dorothy, it's Lena Heady from the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
A/N2: Ifn ya don't know what 'Ankles' means, I ain't gunna tell ya! ;^)