Once more for the cheap seats. If you want to post a review, don't try and hide behind 'anonymous reviews', I just delete things where pathetic trolls are ashamed to say what they think under their own names. Was that you Marc? It had your 'style'. Don't worry kids, unlike some people, I only bite in response to an attack, so if you don't attack, I won't retaliate. You have your right to an opinion, whether or not I agree or think it's stupid.
I think Moaning Myrtle pissing me off enough to act on this 'If you feel as strongly about her story as you do why not let her know instead of dealing with your dissatisfaction indirectly?' when he said it actually did me a favour, because it's made me face the fact that I've had it with him and the other self righteous tools on this site, and how their only response to any comment is a personal attack.
I'll try to wind up the story here (as we're getting into the final season and there isn't much more to work with anyway) and then I'll be thinking long and hard about whether to give up on this site and going back to the steampunk world, because it's rather more grown up and civil there. While there are still a few in the writers' forums there who will throw tantrums when people don't tell them that everything they do is wonderful, no matter how bad it is, most of us accept constructive criticism in the spirit intended and try to improve, not like here, and people don't throw abuse around they way they do here either.
Yeah, I know, they never actually said that Hartley's Mum was an agent in the show, but can you think of a better explanation for why this little old Grannie had machine guns, grenades and plastic explosives and knew how to use them, or why her son was a brilliant scientist working with Stephen on a top secret project?
As far as the timeline goes, we're effectively around the end of season four, but only three years have elapsed in this story.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this isn't real, it's made up.
It took another day or two of discussions, but in the end all those who were involved with Vivian and her pregnancy had reached a point where they could accept the circumstances. Many of them weren't happy about the circumstances, Vivian wasn't happy that she was having the children of a man she could never have, Sarah wasn't happy that Vivian was having her husband's children, Chuck wasn't happy that Vivian was pregnant as a result of the fact that he'd been convinced that he had to seduce her, and Harvey and Vera weren't happy that their eighteen year old daughter and granddaughter (respectively) had been seduced by and was having twins to a man that she wasn't in a relationship with, but they all understood and accepted the circumstances that had led up to this.
When they'd all returned from Russia, they sat down to discuss what Harvey, Casey and Bry (and to a lesser degree the others who went with them) had discovered. They started with the good, Harvey, as Alexei, had made almost $40 billion from selling off the remaining Volkoff Industries assets and the other assets they'd acquired. He'd also acquired a stake in the majority of the significant players in the world's illicit arms industry by blackmailing them into signing over a big enough piece of the business for them to be in the loop on any major dealings as part of the price for the Volkoff and other assets he'd sold off.
Harvey also explained about the Contessa, her history as the Soviet helicopter carrier, how she'd been upgraded and converted to effectively become one of the first super-yachts and how she was registered as a research vessel, but actually served as his secret base as well as the home of his elite security forces.
Casey, Bry and the others went over their findings in regard to the people who made up the ex-spetsnaz units and helicopter wing on the Contessa, along with the rest of the ship's crew and complement, and other loyal personnel, such as Gertrude Verbanski, who'd been one of the KGB's top operatives, along with Ilsa Trinchina and the operatives known only as Barbara and Jasmine, who were all extremely competent operatives as well. The fact that they were comfortable with all of these people was quite a surprise, but a welcome one.
While they were all happy about what they'd come away from Volkoff Industries with though, the intel that Casey, Bry and Vinnie got from Riley and the others before they were dropped into Red Square from a great height was rather worrying, especially what they'd gotten out of Riley. It turned out that Riley had been one of Langston Graham's off the books CIA agents who had been inserted with Alexei Volkoff to act as his handler. Initially, Riley had been given a number of Intersect trigger words and phrases that he could use to help him keep Volkoff under control, but the brain degeneration caused by the Agent-X Intersect (especially after it had been interfered with by Ted Roark) progressively reduced the effectiveness of those triggers until it was no longer safe to try and use them, as they'd become more likely to trigger a psychotic episode. By then though, Riley had been in a position where he had little trouble manipulating Volkoff into doing most things he wanted him to, as evidenced by the way he'd manipulated him to authorise getting rid of Vivian's mother.
Volkoff Industries' other lieutenants hadn't had Riley's direct links to Graham, but they'd all been Riley's selections, back in the days when he could use the Intersect triggers to influence Volkoff's decisions, so they were all loyal to Riley, rather than Volkoff. Casey and the others did manage to extract a lot of useful information from them, but it was Riley who had provided most of the background of what had been going on, as well as the most chilling of the intel.
A few months after this, most of them had to go back to D.C. again for another round of promotions and Aunt D's removal from the Special Projects structure, as well as her induction into her new role. What it came down to was that the total destruction of Volkoff Industries had generated almost as much notoriety as the way they took down the Ring had, so politics demanded that the United States government and the military show proper recognition for their achievements, just as other countries were doing. The result of this was that most of them received more medals, and their flag officers, including Aunt D, were all pushed up a grade (Chuck became a full Admiral, Ellie Vice Admiral, Sarah Lieutenant General, Emma Rear Admiral, and Mary and Casey Major Generals), Bry was also pushed up to a Brigadier General in the Army to replace Aunt D in their string of Flag Officers.
The reason for Bry's promotion was that while this new round of promotions was being organised, the DNI made a rather public error that was effectively political suicide, so wrangling began in earnest over his replacement, but nearly every candidate had vehement opposition from some quarter, until Aunt D's name was put forward. Her long tenure as the head of the group that everyone was currently falling over themselves to be seen rewarding, and her part in many of the on-going achievements of that group were sufficient to provide the impetus to steamroller over any opposition to her nomination. This resulted in her pending promotion to Lieutenant General being pushed to full General and her removal from the roles she held within the Special Projects Group structure (most notably being replaced by Sarah as the Deputy Director of the group). Once all that was done, her nomination as the DNI was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and General Diane Beckman became the United States' new Director of National Intelligence.
They had the usual round of promotion and award ceremonies in the Oval Office, followed by the dinner in the White House Dining room and, of course, the usual explanations about who everyone was at the dinner. There was at least one change, as it was the new Secretary of the Army who was asking this time, rather than the Secretary of the Navy as it had been at the last two dinners, but his eyes were just as wide as he was being told about the family connections between the core officers, that the very tall, stunning brunette twins were actually Admiral Carmichael's daughters and that the toddlers they were holding most of the time weren't theirs, they were their little brother and sister (this last could only be explained after the Secretary of Defense managed to stop laughing at the shocked and scandalised expression on the Secretary of the Army's face after the very married Admiral Carmichael openly kissed one of these girls in front of everyone).
After the ceremonies, they headed back to Joint Base Andrews for the flight home. This trip was the first time they were using the new VTOL/STOL Supersonic Light (VSL) aircraft. After the operation to take down Volkoff Industries was concluded, 'the twelve' had had time to stop and think about things, and they decided/agreed that there was a serious gap in the group's transport options. The HyperNovas could carry thirty odd people plus a couple of vehicles the way they were normally configured and cruise at nearly Mach 5, but they required a full sized airport when loaded up. The VTOL/STOL craft could land and take off just about anywhere and could carry up to the capacity of a C5 Galaxy (the VHs) if necessary, but while their max cruise speed of around Mach 1 was impressive by most standards, it made for a long trip across the world, and with their European stations and their new base on the Contessa, they were doing those trips all too often.
What 'the twelve' brain trust came up with was a development of the VTOL/STOL flying platform. The initial UAV flight prototype was the length of the VTOL Lights, but a much more slender fuselage, and using the same engines, plasma emitters and the like, it could land and take off anywhere, but it could cruise at Mach 2.5. The success of the prototype excited them enough to leap into building the VSL airframe before they'd even finished updating the designs. The VSL was the length of the VTOL Medium, but with the more slender design it'd only carry maybe thirty people. Still, carrying thirty people at Mach 2.5 and being able to land anywhere was nothing to be sneezed at! They also updated the designs for the VTOL Supersonic Heavy (VSH). Once again, this design was the same length as the VTOL Heavy, but they'd only have about the same capacity as a DC-8-73. They'd cruise at Mach 2.5 with the VH's engines and plasma emitters, and like the VHs, they could land on the Contessa if you cleared enough room on the helicopter deck for them (the VMs had no trouble, so neither would the VSLs). The team were quite looking forward to seeing the VSH aircraft operational.
The inaugural flight of VSL1 went quite well, taking them to and from D.C. in under half the time that the VMs did, there wasn't as much room to move about, but more than halving the time served to reduce the need to do so fairly well. Just as they'd done with Sonic, the twelve went and retrofitted the UAV flight prototype into a tandem two seater aircraft once VSL1 was flying, and this quickly became quite handy, because they'd just started having to have a LOT of urgent (and secret) meetings with DCIA Preston over the activities of a group of old-school senior CIA people who appeared to be trying to follow through on Graham's, or the Ring's, or both, plans, and the one to watch in that group seemed to be a shady character by the name of Clyde Decker, who'd been doing Langston Graham and others' dirty work for decades.
The re-purposed VS UAV was tagged 'Wraith' because it was small and quiet enough to bring into most places without people realising that it had arrived, so Chuck (generally) could put it down on the roof of the CIA building and get in to see the DCIA without most people being any the wiser. Sneaking into the CIA was made easier by the fact that Chuck, as CIA Special Agent Jacob Bowman, was in fact a legitimate CIA agent now, because one of the new DCIA's first tasks had been to have the new Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service (Roan Montgomery) create a special group reporting only to him and the DCIA which had the Special Projects team's people in it.
The old order had been quite put out when Preston was appointed Acting DCIA, and then confirmed by the Senate, because he disrupted most of their plans (which had been the whole point, really). The first thing the new DCIA did was throw out ALL of the staff in the Executive Office, everyone close to the DCIA's office/position basically, and replace them with people he knew and trusted, making sure that every one of them knew to come straight to him if anyone started coming on to them or after them, or tried to pressure them in any way, letting them know quietly that he had resources outside of the CIA who could look after them.
What this meant was that everyone in the CIA's Executive Office were loyal to HIM, and were also relatively safe from being compromised. (The only crossovers were the Deputy Director of the CIA, who they'd had enough confidence in to leave in place, and the fact that Roan had been appointed as the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, as Director Preston had had enough confidence in his previous Deputy to elevate him to Director of the National Clandestine Service when he was made Acting DCIA, but they wanted someone they could trust in place to watch what was happening within the operational side of the CIA.)
It didn't take long to get the procedure established, Chuck (usually) would arrive and the DCIA's assistant would send him straight in unless someone else was in there. If there WAS someone in with the DCIA, Chuck would get stashed away in a meeting room until they'd left.
The problem that they had was that, even with control of the CIA in the right hands now, the other side still had their own people and back channels in place to carry on with their plans, and they were running a good end game behind the backs of the people running the CIA. It took Roan nearly four months to reliably identify activities that were proceeding in the background within the CIA, and this was with him very much on his game (he'd loaded the Piranha Intersect, cut back his drinking and other questionable activities quite a bit and was motivated to do his best to protect his daughter and the rest of the 'family').
It was only after he'd checked and re-checked what was going on in the NCS a few times that he started to identify irregularities that he could advise the DCIA of and take to the others. They were also hampered by the fact that while they had a good relationship with the CIA's Deputy Director of Analysis, as the CIA had been relying on them like everyone else for the past sixteen years, she wasn't one of them and they couldn't rely on her. Of course, the fact that Chuck and his tech team could access ANYTHING on-line that the CIA had helped them get around that little problem.
While they were investigating the clues and scraps of information that Roan managed to dig out, the name that came to the fore was Clyde Decker, he wasn't the most senior of the ones they were looking into, but he was certainly the slimiest! Chuck had gone through what they'd extracted from the CIA's backup archives, and the reports of what Decker had done for Graham and others were quite disturbing, and sickening, as it didn't appear that there was anything he wouldn't do without question.
The legend of Sarah as the Enforcer, the Ice Queen, had been growing ever since she'd been in training in ninety eight, due to the way she was blitzing everyone else and setting records right, left and centre, and people were already starting to be afraid of her in ninety nine, because as soon as she started going on missions, her mission reports were confirming what those who'd seen her in training had been saying, that no-one could stand up to the Ice Queen. The thing that was coming out as Chuck went through the archived records which was worrying him though, was that while the Ice Queen, Graham's legendary Enforcer, had been famous for doing what no-one else could do, Decker was infamous as the one that did what no-one else WOULD do. In the world of the morally handicapped, Clyde Decker was known as the one who'd do what no-one else could force themselves to do without blinking an eye, and the idea of being up against something like that was rather disturbing.
They found out that the other side, whoever they were, still held a few trump cards that they hadn't been expecting at Carina and Leslie's wedding though. About a month after the last round of promotions, Carina discovered that all the damage that had been done to her down there through all the rapes and sexual abuse she'd been forced to endure since she was eleven must have been repaired by the PI, because she was about three months pregnant. While neither she or Leslie were at all religious, as soon as they discovered that, they immediately agreed that they wanted to get married before she started showing, so the girls all leapt into organising their wedding.
A quick phone call to Vera Wang had her demanding that, more than agreeing that, she do the outfits for the new wedding, because these people were nothing if not interesting and she'd had a great time dealing with them for their double wedding. This one wasn't going to be a military wedding, as Leslie's rank was mainly a formality, so that simplified things a little, but the fact that they really wanted to have their wedding in a matter of weeks to ensure that they beat the baby bump was pushing it. Luckily the VSLs worked quite well to shuttle the girls back and forth across the country, and half of them had at least a couple of meetings a week in Washington anyway, so there was no trouble getting them over there for the fittings.
Ellie and the others rushed around like headless chickens for a couple of weeks, but then they started to breath a sigh of relief, once they had the dresses, the wedding venue, the celebrant (they didn't have time to jump through all the church's hoops, especially considering the fact that Carina was already pregnant), and the guests all sorted. The only guests coming over from D.C. this time were Aunt D and Roan, but Roan was giving away the bride, so he HAD to be there. There were a few agents and special ops people coming in from overseas, but they were all being flown in at least a day ahead, so the bride and groom weren't worrying too much about that.
When the day came, it dawned fine and clear, to which everyone breathed a sigh of relief, as worry was starting to turn Carina into Bridezilla. All of the 'family' were at the wedding, including Vivian with John and Josef. As their doctor (and the twins' Aunt), Ellie had been dubious about bringing them to an outside function like this when they were only a week old, but the way Vivian's face dropped when she started to say that made her turn it around and make the arrangements for them to be taken to and from the wedding venue and keeping them out of the sun and wind.
The ceremony was simple but beautiful, and they were relaxing and laughing around the wooden parquet dance floor that had been laid on the lawn when any of them who had the PI heard something to make them worry, the racing diesel engines and other sounds that were indicative of a number of Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) being driven hard. There was no doubt in the minds of those who recognised what they were hearing that these were coming for them, so they leapt into action, the bride and groom, Sarah, Ellie and Vivian with the kids, Lottie and Charlie, Emma and Molly, Stefan and as many other other non-combatants who would fit were rushed into VSL1 and it lifted off, immediately dropping over the edge of the cliff and racing away before the LAVs arrived, keeping out of sight below the cliff line. Chuck and John were, of course, reminded about what would happen to them if they did anything stupid and got themselves hurt as their wives and family were being hustled away.
Back at the wedding venue, any non-combatant guests left were directed to get down and out of the way while pistols, sub-machineguns, assault rifles and grenade launchers were distributed to the combatants (the family never went anywhere without being prepared for an altercation). Chuck saw the LAVs just before they crashed through the gates and fence and identified them, calling out to Roan "Roan! They're SAD!" That news made any trace of the charmer or buffoon disappear from Roan's face as he and the CIA SAD guests quickly moved forward to stand beside Chuck.
As the LAVs came to crash stops on the lawn and their heavily armed occupants piled out to take up positions covering the wedding guests, Chuck could feel Roan winding up to an explosion beside him, but when a suited figure exited one of the LAVs and strutted forward Chuck froze, because it was Clyde Decker! Decker put a bullhorn to his mouth "We're here to take the criminal and escaped federal fugitive Laszlo Mahnovski into custody, anyone opposing us will be considered to be committing an act of treason and shot! You are authorised to shoot to kill!" (This last was obviously for the CIA's SAD operatives.)
Chuck was quite impressed that Roan managed to make every man there hear him WITHOUT any device to assist him "Under what authority and who's orders are you acting here?" Decker started going for his pistol before he realised the same thing all the CIA's SAD operatives did and froze, that this man was in fact the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, who the CIA's SAD operatives and agents reported through.
Decker of course knew that nothing about this operation was legitimate, but there were only a few others in the SAD force who knew that. Now that they'd identified Roan Montgomery, as well as Smith, Brown, White and a pile of SAD and ex-SAD operatives in front of them, the SAD operatives were all lowering their weapons. Decker wasn't paying attention to anything but Roan Montgomery though, and realising that the operation was starting to fall apart, he decided to take out Montgomery and claim that he was defending himself against an unknown assailant to get control of the situation again. He wasn't part of the special operations elite and therefore didn't recognise any of the special ops legends and SAD operatives he was facing here, so he was couldn't see why his plan to kill Montgomery and then hit the dirt, letting the CIA's SAD operatives take out of the rest of them when they started to shoot back, wouldn't work.
Of course as he raised his pistol, what Decker didn't realise was that;
a) He had no hope of getting a shot off against half of these people, and;
b) Now that the SAD operatives knew who it was that they were facing, none of them was going to do ANYTHING until they had a lawful order from the proper authorities, which in the current situation was in fact Roan Montgomery.
As Decker's pistol cleared the holster, Chuck called out "Stop! Drop it! Drop the gun!" He kept calling for Decker to stop until Decker started aiming at Roan, then quickly brought the SR-3 Vikhr in his hand up to blow Decker's gun hand shoulder apart with a 9x39mm round. The SAD operatives snorted at seeing that shot, they'd watched him try to use words to stop Decker until he started lining up his shot, then took him out with a non lethal snap shot from 30M away with the close quarters assault rifle he'd been holding down at his side before Decker could pull the trigger. Oh, yeah! That was Smith alright!
Roan nodded to Decker, indicating that someone should see to him, and SAD medics ran forward to do so, clearing away any weapons before they started working on him. The others who'd been in on this with Decker had missed the details of what happened before Decker got shot and were screaming at the SAD operatives to attack, so Roan nodded again, grim faced, and the SAD operatives disarmed them and took them into custody.
While he was pretty sure what the answer would be, Chuck pulled out his phone and called Director Preston to ask whether he'd authorised this SAD strike on U.S. soil? Preston was of course stunned and assured him that he'd known nothing about it. Director Preston asked him to wait while he called the Director and Deputy Director of the NCS to find out whether they'd authorised it and advised the DNI about this, but Chuck told him not to worry about calling the Deputy Director as he was here, he'd been giving away the bride, and the DNI had been there too, so she knew. That made Preston pause, and then he said that be back as soon as he called the Director of the NCS.
While Chuck was waiting, Decker and the other four men were dragged over, screaming in pain (Decker) or screaming threats (the others), so Casey barked at the SAD operatives to gag them. That was done by the time that Director Preston came back to tell Chuck that Director of the NCS had assured him that he had no knowledge of this either, and he was inclined to believe him. He asked Chuck what had happened, and Chuck told him that two of their people had been getting married, and that the ceremony had finished and they were having an outdoor reception when they heard LAVs coming, so they got the wedding party and as many non-combatants as they could away before they went to face whoever was coming in.
It had been a surprise to see that their attackers were CIA SAD, but the DD NCS and existing CIA SAD operatives among the guests moved front and centre to be seen and recognised. The next surprise was when the one in charge of the raid showed himself, as it was Clyde Decker. Director Preston growled at that, and asked how soon Decker could be returned for questioning? The SAD operatives in earshot were taken aback when Chuck looked down at the five bound and gagged men at his feet and said "I'm sorry Director Preston, Decker was one of the five men who were killed in the engagement" but that didn't stop them knocking a few of them out with rifle buts to the head when they started thrashing about and trying to make themselves heard.
He and the director talked for a bit more, but Chuck stopped as he looked around at the damage that had been caused, and he mentioned that it would need to be made good. Director Preston promised to make sure that everything was be repaired to the owners' satisfaction, but stopped as he wondered aloud 'how the hell can we explain something like this though?' Chuck snorted "It's L.A. Director, people have seen so much stupid shit being done by the studios and actors that it shouldn't be hard to convince people that some idiot actors destroyed the wrong property by mistake, just say the first vehicle turned the wrong way and then ploughed into the first place that looked like what the set was supposed to be, and the rest just followed them without questioning it. You'll have to get another site set up somewhere nearby to look enough like this to support the story, but that shouldn't be too hard with the CIA's resources."
The Director laughed "That might just work! Sometimes you've gotta love Hollywood. Thank you Admiral, I'll get the Special Agent in Charge from Los Feliz out there to deal with the owners as quickly as I can, we'll handle it the way you've suggested." The moment he'd disconnected the call though, the laughter disappeared and Chuck ordered the five men loaded into one of their vans, which took off with Casey, Mary, Bry and Zondra. Chuck told the rest of the SAD operatives to get out of there in the LAVs and not to mention anything about the men who had been taken away. The look he had in his eye as he said that last left little doubt in their minds about what they may expect if they opened their mouths, they'd all heard stories about what Smith could do when he was forced to, and none of them wanted to take the risk of being on the receiving end of THAT if even part of it was true.
When five bodies turned up unexpectedly at the city coroner's office looking as though they'd been at the wrong end of a firefight a few hours later, no-one questioned where they'd come from, the autopsies were done, showing that they'd died of gunshot wounds, and then they were immediately cremated in accordance to the instructions on record. The CIA got copies of the records, and four of the men were recognisable from the photos but Decker's face had been blown off by a shot which appeared to have hit him while he was looking back over his shoulder (according to the autopsy report).
Director Preston knew that he was wasn't getting anything close to the whole story here, and was more than a little suspicious of the way those autopsies had been done as soon as they arrived, and then the bodies had been immediately cremated, but he also knew that the only way he was going to get the story was if Admiral Carmichael chose to tell him. He had to concede that if someone like Decker had come after HIS family with a SAD team that big, geared up for war the way they were, he would have been taking extreme measures as well.
As soon as Roan was back in Langley, Director Preston requested a meeting with him to find out how Decker, or the ones behind Decker, had managed to organise that big a SAD strike on U.S. Soil without the knowledge of either the Director or Deputy Director of the NCS. Once Roan was in his office and they were both satisfied that the electronic counter measures that they'd activated were sufficient to defeat any bugs that may have eluded detection, Director Preston started by asking how he was associated with the bride and this group.
Roan looked at him for a moment and decided to share the story, leaning back as he started talking. "I first met the bride when she was in CIA training about fifteen years ago, like Agent Walker she'd been dragged into this business by Langston Graham as a young girl, only sixteen or seventeen. Graham traded her to the DEA a couple of years later, but the then Agent Miller and I have crossed paths many times over the years, both on operations that we were both brought into, and when we've happened to meet off mission. I've always liked and admired her, so when she asked me if I'd give her away, I was thrilled to do so. As for the Admiral and the rest of them, I've known Admirals Carmichael and Casey since they were children, and their parents and godparents as well, so I've been associated with the Special Projects Group people from the start."
The Director thanked him for sharing that, and then asked about the SAD strike at the wedding and how it had been organised without their knowledge. Roan explained what they'd found out, that the players in the CIA had had their associates and minions organise everything off the books and showed the SAD teams paperwork that looked legitimate, the final step had been to have their people in the SAD handle the orders for the teams.
He also brought up that Decker claimed that they were there to capture a CIA scientist who'd been kept in a bunker and forced to work on Graham's projects against his will, but that man had escaped and disappeared years ago, so they were presuming that it was just an attack on the Special Projects Group, and told him about Decker's shoot to kill order, along with the agreed story that Decker and the four others had been put down when they started firing at the wedding guests, while the other SAD operatives had lowered their weapons when they recognised the people who were there.
Director Preston put aside the charade and asked whether they'd gotten enough from the men to tell how far through the CIA this had spread, and Roan smiled, as none of them had thought for a minute that he'd miss what was going on. "Not from the four who were part of the SAD, no, but we've got some useful intel from Decker, unfortunately some of them appear to be quite senior, the Special Projects people are investigating them now."
The Director looked worried at that "Not my Deputy or the NCS Director I hope?"
Roan shook his head "No sir, they both seem to be clean, as far as we can see so far."
Director Preston sagged back into his seat in relief, then asked "Are you available to come explain the incident to the DNI with me?"
Roan looked confused at that, saying "You know that she was there, don't you?"
The DCIA nodded "Yes, I know that she was at the wedding, but not during the incident, and no-one who wasn't at the wedding should know that she was there, so it would be expected for us to provide a report of what happened to her."
Roan smiled at that, Charles was right about this man, he was no fool "Yes sir, let me know when the meeting is and I will make myself available."
With that, they wound up the meeting and Roan headed back to his office, his smile fading as he thought about what they'd discussed back at the Dungeon while the others were extracting information from the five they brought back. They still had Decker and were working on him, but they were fairly sure that he didn't have the piece of intel that they desperately wanted at the moment either, that being which of the twelve had betrayed Leslie and the rest of them. Other than the core team, only the twelve had any chance of knowing who Leslie really was, and where he'd be that day, so the fact that Decker had raided his wedding and asked for him by his real name was a pretty clear indication that one of the ten who had been brought in by Stefan had leaked that information.
Chuck and his tech team were now concentrating on tracing the backgrounds and communications of the ten scientists. When they were initially talking about who it could be, the tech team had been considered as well, but the only ones on the tech team who knew Leslie's real name were Chuck, Jeff and Anna, and while Anna had been with Pete for nearly two years now, she certain that she'd never discussed Leslie's background, and for that matter Chuck, Jeff, Anna, Sarah and Carina were all certain that they could trust him. It HAD to be one of the ten who were brought in, but the question was how they could identify who it was?
In the end it wasn't too hard, because when Chuck went through the CIA's archives, they found that Graham had had one of them grabbed around the time that Stefan disappeared to replace Stefan, but he'd proven too unstable and went crazy when he was brought into the same type of environment as Laszlo was kept in, so they'd released him. Apparently he was so afraid of what Graham had threatened him with that he'd kept telling Graham and his successors anything he knew about Stefan and the rest of them for stop them doing it to him. Luckily Stefan's paranoia had been so rampant through that period that he never let any of the people he was working with know where he was, so the man's betrayal hadn't gotten him caught, and the man's speciality was structural design, so while he'd shared their airframe designs with the CIA, he never had access to the rest of the designs or components (only Chuck, Stefan and Leslie had access to everything), so the CIA only had a small part of what they'd created as a team, and that wasn't enough to make anything useful.
Unfortunately, the man had been holding back when he worked with Dr Dreyfus, and his underlying fears and issues were still there in force, so when they went to arrest him, to question him and find out what he'd passed on to the CIA about the family, he killed himself rather than endure whatever it was that Graham and the others had been threatening him with.
That incident was very sobering, and there wasn't much joy in the family for a while, the only thing that was guaranteed to get a smile from everyone was the kids. At just over 1, Zena and Piotr were both chatterboxes (something that Sarah always made a point of stressing came from their father), and Johanna was starting to talk almost as much (Ellie couldn't blame that on John, as that trait definitely came from her side of the family), Molly was a happy and loud four year old as well. At least Johnny and Joey were still a fair way off talking, but they were just over a month old, and Sarah actually had some good bonding moments with Vivian when she laughingly warned her that she had this to look forward to when they couldn't shut the twins up.
The thoughts that they couldn't get out of their heads about Geoffrey and what had almost happened because his fears made him betray them made them eagerly embrace the mission when the NSA came to them with concerns about a new virus that they'd been hearing chatter about, the Omen virus. Seeing the tech team go pale when they were told that it was capable of erasing a hundred zetabytes of data per second gave the others the idea that it was serious, but it was only when Chuck explained that that meant that it theoretically could wipe out every database in the world in about five seconds that they grasped HOW serious it was.
The NSA forwarded what intel they had and the team went to work. Jeff, as their expert on extracting information from the code, went through the samples that they had and came up with some tags that allowed them to identify the designer, he also saw signs that the virus was some sort of binary system, and the two parts would be needed to be combined for it to work.
Once the virus' designer was identified, it didn't take long to track him down in what appeared to be a cult commune in the back of Massachusetts. Apparently he was only comfortable staying close to what he knew, as he was Boston born and bred, and an MIT alumni to boot. When they first started using satellite imagery to look for the man in the compound, they burst out laughing, as it appeared to be some sort of nudist colony, but the bickering and laughter about who'd be going in faded when they started taking in the security systems that they had in place, and saw the paramilitary guards, this place wasn't what it seemed to be, at all!
A suggestion that Chuck was the most logical one to go in was vetoed by Sarah (and more quietly, Vivian) on the basis that he was a father and wasn't going into a hornet's nest like that, and he was too recognisable as Charles Carmichael, a very public figure, anyway. To shortcut the process Anna just turned to the others and said "For fuck's sake! Which of the people on the tech team has the most experience of being naked, or near naked, in public, and has the most field experience?" She matched Chuck, Jeff and Ellie's grins at that as they remembered her exploits over the last seven or eight years. "That's right, Me! So, now that we've agreed that I'm the logical tech person to go in, who's going in with me?"
That required more debate, Carina was out because she was pregnant, and Alex (Forrest) and Vicky would attract too much attention with their height, Rick looking like a male model and Mike's imposing bulk would also attract too much attention, at that point Mei-Ling spoke up to cut across the discussions as Anna had "Vinnie and I will go in! We don't stand out enough to attract too much attention and we have the experience to handle whatever we may come up against."
Chuck asked them if they were sure that they were comfortable with going in there naked, and when Mei-Ling assured him that they were, he hugged them, saying "Thank you". That of course had Anna saying "Hey, what about me?", so he rolled his eyes and pointed out that she LIKED people seeing her naked, but he hugged and kissed her as well. With the entry team determined, they sorted out the rest of the team that was going, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie (for medical issues), John, Jeff, Pete, Lucas, Zondra, Mike, Rick, Vicky, Sydney, Alex, and four fire teams from the support team if they needed heavier support. They took VSH1, with two armed VLs to get people into and out of the compound and provide support. They also set up extensive computer systems in VSH1 for their five person on-site tech team to use.
They landed VSH1 a little way from the compound and while the guys were getting the VLs ready to go in, they sent in a dozen tiny UAVs to locate Colin Davis, the virus designer. They'd located him by the time the VLs were ready, and identified a spot close by that wasn't covered by any cameras and was big enough to put both VLs down. Anna, Mei-Ling and Vinnie were going in one VL, with John and Sydney up front, while one of the fire teams went in the other, with Zondra and Mike up front, that meant that they had six fully armed operatives and two armed aircraft for support, but the fact that the three of them were going in naked against armed paramilitary guards wasn't something Chuck was at all happy about.
Unfortunately, Colin had gone inside the building by the time they arrived, so they had to go in looking for him. Anna had enough experience on missions to have no trouble chatting to people and casually ask where she might find her friend Colin, Colin Davis? Some friends in the old hacker circles where she'd known him had mentioned that he was out here nowadays?
Anna played her part perfectly and the people she talked to had no qualms in sending her, or rather her and her friends, his way, but unfortunately the ones running the compound had people planted all through the community and one of them overheard her asking. Colin was apparently a valuable commodity to them, because she immediately called for the guards. As soon as Chuck intercepted that call he called to tell Anna and the others over their earwigs to get out of there, they'd just reached Colin at that point so they knocked him out, Vinnie slung him over his shoulder and they headed for the door. As they did so, Chuck sent the VLs in.
The VLs touched down outside the entrance just as about a dozen security guards ran up, the fire team rolled out of the open doors of the VL they were riding in as it touched down and John and Zondra stood to fire over the windscreens in front of them, the suppressed AS VALs they were all using making no appreciable sound as they dropped the guards before any of them had a chance to raise their weapons.
The fire team were still confirming that the guards were properly down as Anna, Mei-Ling and Vinnie came running out with Davis and piled into the VL, but the woman who had called the guards on them came out the door right on their heels, with a razor blade in her hand. Sarah called a warning over the earwigs and Mei-Ling turned to take the woman out before she could get anyone with the razor, and luckily before she raised the alarm either.
With that, they all piled into the VLs and got the hell out of there. When they reached the VSH, Vinnie carried Davis inside while the others were converting the VLs from flight mode to transport mode, but Anna asked Vinnie to hold him up as she grabbed some sweatpants and put them on him.
When she'd completed her task and Vinnie dropped him on the seat to secure him comfortably, she took in the amused looks she was getting from the others "What? I had to look at his junk all the way out of that place and it WASN'T a pretty sight! Jeff's looks a hell of a lot better than his!" Pete spat his coffee all over the keyboard and grabbed a cloth to clean it up, giving her the same looks half the others were as he did so "Pete! We shared an apartment for nearly a year, and sometimes I came home early from clubbing and would catch him coming out of the bathroom because he wasn't expecting me, that's all!"
She saw Chuck having a good laugh at that and caught Sarah's eye, Sarah gave her a smile and a 'go ahead' signal so she did "And I don't think I could count how many times I've seen YOUR's in bed or in the bathroom Chuck!"
Ellie had caught the look and the signal, so she decided to buy into this "Oh come on Anna! Do you know how many women have seen what Chuck has? Or for that matter how many women have HAD Chuck? That's no claim to fame, I can assure you!"
By now, those who were still stupid enough to be drinking coffee after Anna's comment about Jeff had now sprayed their's around the cabin too, but it had had the desired effect, and no-one was thinking about Anna seeing Jeff naked any more.
Colin Davis was coming to now, so Chuck sat down to talk to him. After the initial panic and fruitless attempt to escape, Davis settled down and started to answer questions. He was horrified when Chuck showed him the security systems and paramilitary guards in the compound, and played him the call for the guards when people were looking for Davis, telling them to hurry because he was worth too much to lose!
Davis explained that a friend had recommended this nudist colony as a place to drop out where no-one would ever find him. When Chuck pointed out that this 'friend' had apparently been looking out for someone other than him, he looked despondent and agreed. That provided the opening to ask him about the Omen virus and Chuck, Ellie, Sarah, John, Zondra, Mei-Ling, all of them who were experts at reading people, agreed that his panic as he insisted that the Omen virus could never be released was very real.
Chuck calmed him down and assured him that they were here to get it so that it couldn't be released, and he, Sarah and some of the others showed him their IDs to confirm that they were working for the government. That got him calmed down enough to tell them about what the Omen virus was, when he said that there was two parts, and the part he had on the chip in his necklace couldn't be used without the other part, Jeff snorted, making Davis look at him, so Chuck explained that Jeff had worked that out from looking at the samples of the code that they could get their hands on, which prompted a much more impressed look from Davis.
It didn't take much to get Davis to tell them where to find the other part, which they needed to recover, because even if Davis did have the only full copy of the virus key, there were enough segments around that someone could probably make up something dangerous enough to do damage with the deployment mechanism which was the other part. When Davis explained that the other part was locked up at the Collective where he was working when he developed it, Chuck and Anna groaned, as they'd dealt with the Collective in the past. That made Chuck send a furtive look Sarah's way, which of course she didn't miss "Chuck? What aren't you telling us?" As Chuck fumbled with how to answer, Anna piped up "What he's trying to find a way to tell you without upsetting you is that only the Piranha can do this, I'm not good enough to get in and out of there without a fight and neither is anyone else on the team, it has to be the Piranha."
Davis sounded awestruck "You guys know the Piranha? How do you know someone at that level?"
Anna was watching Chuck as she answered "We're sort of elite ourselves, I'm the Lotus, and that's Roscoe, the Mongol and Gimli." She waved in Jeff, Pete and Lucas's direction.
Davis wasn't an idiot, so he turned to Chuck "So who is Agent Carmichael then?"
"Haven't you worked that out yet? He's the Piranha."
Chuck was ignoring them as he looked at Sarah, he knew WHY she was angry, he just couldn't see any other way to do this, Anna was right, he was the only one who had a chance of getting in there and out again without having to shoot it out with their guards.
Sarah looked at him with angry tears in her eyes and stalked off towards the tail of the plane, Chuck jumped up to follow her and talk to her straight away. They were still talking when the VSH landed outside of New York, and as soon as the rear ramp opened, they walked off far enough to finish their talk in private. She'd given in to the inevitable by the time they had the VLs in flight mode and the rest of the entry team were coming out of the VSH in full gear.
Chuck knew about the Collective's recruitment process, or rather entry test. The only way into the Collective was to beat the best they had in a hack-off contest, and the penalty for trying and failing was a bullet in the head. (He obviously didn't tell Sarah about that part.) That meant that whoever he'd go up against would have to be pretty damned good to stay alive, and as well as the very effective electronic and cyber security controls that they employed, they also had a force of mercenaries providing their physical security, so no part of this was going to be easy.
While Chuck had been talking to Sarah, the others had been putting together a site where he could quickly access all the tools he'd need to pull this off and the gear for him to take in, as well as organising some FBI strike teams to breach the building when the time came. Given what he'd seen (and been told by Colin) about the nature of the entry tests, Chuck knew he'd be sitting on one of the dual homed gateway machines, so he should be able to access this staging site to grab his tools and deploy them against the internal systems (or other systems). To pull this off, he had to run four operations, the first three pretty much concurrently and the fourth to finish them off.
The first operation was to get into all the internal systems and databases and pump any data or code stored on them out to the staging site they set up, so it could be analysed and followed up on once they took them down. The second operation was to gain control of the security and lighting/power systems, so that when the time came he could a) give the others access to the vault where the Omen deployment device was stored, and b) crash the security and power circuits to give them an escape route and let the strike team in to get control of the facility, capture anyone present and collect anything else that was in there.
The third operation was to actually win the hack-off part of the Collective's entry test (to avoid the bullet to the head), while the fourth operation had to wait for the first operation to be completed and terminated, because it was to insert worms and other malware into the internal network to wipe out all of their systems and databases, and he'd have to pull off the three non-test operations without anyone there realising what he was doing. While he was doing all of this, they had to have a team get into the facility from the roof and slip past or take down the guards without being discovered, and extract the Omen delivery device from the vault where it was stored (Colin had given Chuck all the detail he could about where the device was stored, how to identify it when they found it and what they would be up against).
Given that the others were all ready, Chuck rushed in and got changed into some unobtrusive (and marginal) protective gear, grabbed the bag that had been prepared for him and came running back out, hopping into the empty seat in the front of one as they took off. They dropped him off about a street away from the Collective's building and then flew up to the roof of the building, where they broke in and started heading down.
Chuck got into the building and jumped straight into the hack-off, flipping back and forth between multiple windows the entire time to cover up what he was doing in the background from the people looking over his shoulder. The tools he had on tap on the site they'd set up made quick work of getting into the Collective's systems and databases so he could siphon everything back out via the encrypted pipe he'd created to the site, and the same applied to getting control of the security and power systems. When the others were at the door of the vault, they signalled Chuck and he unlocked it for them. Thirty seconds later they were back outside with the delivery device in their possession and let him know. Chuck confirmed that the operation to extract the data was completed and sent the commands to lock down the server room and then crash the security and lighting systems, injecting the malware into the computer systems (appending the commands to disconnect the encrypted pipe to their external site at the end of the malware transmission), just before crashing the rest of the power systems and bolting. (The computer and database systems were on uninterrupted power supplies, so they'd stay up long enough for the malware to wipe out all the systems.)
As soon as he'd crashed the power systems, Chuck bolted, using wide spectrum imaging glasses disguised as sunglasses (a Novatech creation) to see where he was going in the almost complete dark, and from the gunshots he heard behind him as he left the room that the coders' area was in, he'd left none too soon. When someone grabbed his shoulder he spun to engage his attacker, but stopped when he saw it was Casey, and Zondra was there as well, so he grinned as he turned and resumed running towards the roof were the VLs were. As they were heading up to the roof with their team, they could hear the FBI strike teams breaching the building downstairs and engaging anyone too stupid to drop their weapons.
They were in the air less than thirty seconds after they reached the roof and headed back to the VSH as fast as they could. Sarah was in his arms almost as soon as he exited the VL and they stayed that way until the VSH took off. On the way back to V.A. they locked the device away and sat down to explain Colin's options to him (these being Witsec or working for the government, IE: Them).
With their work done for the moment, Chuck and Sarah went down to the tail end to find a quiet corner away from the others and talk, they'd managed to recover and contain the threat of the Omen virus, but Chuck had a lot of explaining to do about what Colin had let slip to her regarding the Collective's entry test. He knew that she'd forgive him eventually for doing what was necessary without telling her about the risks involved in that, but it'd take some smoothing over.