A/N1 Almost all our pieces have been in place for our stretch run for a little while now. This chapter begins that stretch run. It will take us from Paris to…another place. But there is still darkness to fight in the City of Lights, and this is a busy chapter, so, here, without further preludial ado, is the next installment of The Eiffel Tower High Mission.
Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Don't own Chuck. Writing for my amusement and yours. (Ok, so there was a little further preludial ado.)
Turned Tables
The Eiffel Tower High Mission
Monday, February 24, 2008
A street in Paris
Early afternoon
CHAPTER 29 A Dreary Utilitarian Day
Chuck felt Sarah drop his hand. He pivoted to her. The holiday she had carried in her eye since they had gotten out of sight of the hotel had ended. Her expression was grim, despairing. She wasn't looking at him—or at any typical Parisian gazingstock: people, shops, buildings.
She was staring at a spot on the sidewalk a few yards ahead of them. 'Staring': too weak a word. She was wholly fixated, eyes—and all the rest of her as well, body and mind—epoxied to that spot.
"Sarah?" Chuck whispered her name before it struck him. The address. Photographs. Her file. The origin of the Ice Queen. Her Red Test. Chuck looked to her face but couldn't get past her eyes. They were awash in pain and regret—but he could also see that she was struggling against showing it, clamping down on herself, shutting the emotions inside herself.
She tore her eyes from the spot, although she remained otherwise fixated on it. Looking at Chuck, she pressed her full lips into a thin red line. "We shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't be acting like this in public. We are on a mission. You are supposed to be married to Carina." He reached for her hand but she held it away from him. "Focus, Chuck."
Chuck pulled his hand back like it had been smacked. He felt anger flash in his eyes. They weren't in Burbank or even Batumi anymore. She'd been as caught up in the moment as he was, as fully and happily invested in them, there, then…together. He saw her register the anger-flash in his eyes and hers changed—from blue-apocalyptic to blue-apologetic.
Her words came out in a rush. "Oh, damn it, Chuck, I am so sorry. I…time-travelled for a moment, I became the person I was when I was last in this spot. Please, Chuck, forgive me." She reached for his hand tentatively, her eyes almost begging. Chuck felt the anger run out of him. He should have understood, even anticipated her flashback.
He gave her his hand and squeezed hers gently. "No need to ask, Sarah, and I apologize. I shouldn't have taken that personally. Are you ok?"
He could tell she was gray around the edges, unsure of herself. He saw a café nearby and gestured toward it by tilting his head. She nodded hers. They walked to it and found a seat outside in the sunshine. They sat in silence until they ordered. When the waiter left, Sarah leaned toward Chuck. "Are we ok?"
He nodded definitively. "We are. And, you are right, I shouldn't let all this, Paris, go to my head and insist on being a couple in the middle of a mission in which I am part of a different 'couple'. I'm sorry about that. But you, Sarah Walker, you are a potent drug, and I am hooked."
She smiled at him, a small smile but freighted with meaning. "It's ok, Chuck, I was every bit as involved as you, every bit as overwhelmed by us, by us in Paris, as you were. I'm looking at all this for the first time too, even if I technically have seen some of it before." She turned involuntarily toward the spot on the sidewalk, now behind them instead of ahead of them, and he saw a tremor pass through her.
"I'm guessing we now know that it was my Mom who kept me from ever facing a Red Test," Chuck offered. "Being the one person who could get results from Dad gave her real power, enough to withstand Graham, at least some of the time. Too bad she didn't have that power yet when you faced yours…" Chuck gazed at the ground, not at her. He felt guilty about being spared when she had not been.
Sarah spoke, her voice now firm and even. "That's not anyone's fault, Chuck. The cards got dealt facing down and I turned over the ones I did. Luck of the draw, even if it was bad. I am sorry for my response a moment ago.
"That was the worst day of my life. I honestly thought I had lost my humanity that day, become something else. I started running after I pulled that trigger, and I didn't slow down until Budapest, didn't stop until Burbank. This," she pointed unobtrusively to the spot to which her eyes kept returning, "this was the starting line of a years-long race against myself, my own history, my own feelings…"
Chuck was silent. So was she. The waiter brought them sandwiches, salad, and sparkling water.
Chuck started again. "In some ways, I almost wish my Red Test hadn't been waived…or whatever the right term is. I would've had to make a real choice. I think I would have just left.
"But I can't get myself to really regret that now, Sarah. I would never have found you. As much as I hate this life, I can't bring myself to regret having made the choices I've made, for keeping that resignation letter in my pocket after I saw your file."
"Do you know how much I want to kiss you right now, Chuck?" she asked, leaning a fraction further toward him, but a fraction that he could feel register in his body, in a tightness below his stomach.
"Me too, Sarah."
She smiled at him and leaned back slowly, picking up her water and sipping it while she gazed at him intently, a blue smolder. She closed her eyes and moaned, the moan audible only to him. "And I will not stop with one kiss, or stop at your mouth…"
Chuck shifted his feet under the table and made himself look away from her eyes. He gulped some of his water. Cooled slightly, he brought his gaze back to her. She was smiling in the enjoyment of his struggle with himself, her ability to move him.
After a minute, the smolder died down and she tilted her head to the side, a question forming.
"Why did you go to the Farm, Chuck? I asked back in Savannah and you dodged the question. Why?"
Chuck blew out a breath slowly. He looked away, but not to hide anything. He was thinking.
"You are right, Sarah, of course. I did dodge the question. But not because you asked it. I dodged it even when Mom asked it, and when Ellie did, back before I started. They thought I would become an analyst. I never said I wouldn't, but I just went on to the Farm, to become an agent, and they went nuclear. But the reason I have never answered is that I have never known. I felt…compelled to do it. But I…I guess I know the answer now, or the most important part of it."
Chuck stopped talking and took a bite of his salad. A cloud had passed in front of the sun, and it was suddenly very cool there seated outside. He pulled his jacket closer. When he glanced at Sarah, she was watching him with a patient bemusement.
"So?"
"So, as a kid, I felt like I was my father's son…Everyone thought of me that way. I identified with him so strongly. I loved him so much. I wanted to grow up to be just like him. Thoughtful, empathetic, patient, far-seeing. When he left, I was lost. I was too young to understand, but it was like I had been a compass and true north just…vanished. My needle started to spin.
"I blamed everyone—Mom, especially, but also always myself. How could he have left unless I had disappointed him? Done something wrong? For a long time, I remained like that, lost. High school, even college. My relationship with Julie Roark helped me for a while, made me feel like maybe I had found a direction. But then she hit the ejector-seat button too."
Chuck knew he hadn't really told Sarah that story, except in a myth-eaten form, as a story about Jill Robertson, Chuck Bartowski's college girlfriend. He flicked a nervous glance at Sarah, but she did not stop him; she let him go on. He knew he was spiraling, struggling to tell this all coherently, but he didn't try to edit or organize. He let it spill out, raw. He could reconsider it later.
"And so, I needed direction, I needed a place to go. I was so angry, Sarah. My freshest anger was with Julie, but I had old fury against Mom, blaming her for Dad…and old fury against Dad for abandoning me, and an old fury against myself for not being lovable enough for either of my parents really to love me…" He jerked to a stop, clenching and unclenching his jaw.
"It's ok, Chuck, we don't have to do this…not now, anyway." They sat quietly for a moment.
"No," Chuck replied gently, forcing himself to relax a little. "I need to hear myself say this out loud." He took a breath.
"When I decided to become an agent, I did it to hurt myself, to see if I could shock myself into being…someone else…someone different. To fan those old furies into full blaze. I did it to hurt my Mom, because I knew she was terrified of it, even if I didn't fully understand why. But I did it particularly to hurt my Dad, to stop, to stop by force," Chuck slammed his eyes shut, "to stop being my father's son, to choose a life my gut told me he would hate for me. I joined the CIA to throw myself—at least as I had known myself, understood myself—away. To trash me, and the people who had made me, Dad most, I think…" He dropped his fork onto the table, as if he was frightened of what he might do with it.
"Oh, Chuck, sweetie…" Tears were running down Sarah's face.
"It didn't work. One day, I don't know which one exactly, but one day at the Farm I accepted that I wasn't becoming someone else. I could learn how to do the things they taught me, but I knew I could never do most of them, not as the CIA would want me to.
"I learned the lessons they taught me but I never became what they wanted me to be. I was my father's son after all—although that is not how I understood it at the time, not the way I explained it to myself. I wouldn't face it, couldn't face it. I don't know that I fully understood it until the last few days, until after Castle. I just had no idea how angry with Dad I have been—and for how long. I mean I am furious with Mom—an old and new fury. But seeing Dad…It opened things I didn't know I had closed, or tried to close."
Chuck sat in silence for a moment. He did not know quite how to go on. All of it was so jumbled. Sarah seemed to understand. She tried to eat but she had lost her appetite too. He took a sip of water.
"Sarah, why did you go through with it? With your Red Test? Why not just walk away? Could you have gone college or even started pulling cons again—you did that with your dad, right?"
Sarah nodded choppily. "I suppose in some sense of 'could', I could have done one of those things. But Graham had implied to me that my dad's fate, his jail time, and perhaps other things, would be made shorter, or easier, if I agreed to join the CIA, and if Graham was happy with my 'progress'.
"Unlike you, although there was much about the Farm I disliked or, frankly, feared, it was the closest I had come in years to a…home. Sad, I know. But it was stable. I knew what was expected of me. I was good at it. Sometimes even extraordinary. Graham cheered me on, bolstered me. I was pleasing someone, even someone important. And, although much that I was learning was indistinguishable from what Dad taught me, I was told it was all going to be put to a better, a noble purpose.
"I showed up in Paris back then not understanding what was going to happen. Graham explained it all to me only a half an hour or so before I showed up here. He did it by phone. He had a female agent I had never met supply me with the gun and give me directions to the place where I would find the target, find the woman.
"I was in a daze. The target was a traitor. A danger to other agents and to innocent people. She needed to be terminated. There was no recourse. I had to do it to prove that I was ready, that I was loyal, that I was an agent. The other agents had done it. The agent Graham sent told me she had done it and that it had…" Sarah closed her eyes, "…clarified things for her.
"So, I went. I don't know what I planned to do. But the target, the woman, stooped down there on the sidewalk. I don't think I would have done it—although I am not sure—but then she reached for something. I thought 'Gun!' and my training, the Farm, took over. She was dead before I even decided to pull my gun. It was out and smoking while some part of me thought there was still time to deliberate…"
Sarah took a moment. She was clearly again back in Paris on that night. "I thought that I proved not only that I could kill, but that I was a killer, Chuck. I did it so…automatically."
"I had the shakes that night, after. I couldn't eat for a couple of days. I kept dreaming the whole thing, trying in my dream to locate the moment I decided to kill that woman. But I couldn't find it. I could only find my recollection of her reach, and then of the spit of the silencer, and her slumping down. Down. Right over there." She had looked at that spot again. He got the waiter's attention and he took their food, packaged it for takeaway, and returned it. They got up and walked back toward the hotel without talking. The weather was actually changing now, grayer and chillier.
About halfway there, Sarah muttered a phrase to herself, shaking her head. Chuck took it to be French. "What was that, Sarah?"
She seemed not to realize she had spoken. Then she realized she had—and what she had said. "Oh, some lines to a poem someone told me back on that first visit here. It's a summary of Paris life. I was quoting a part of it that gets quoted often—"metro, boulot, dodo". It's taken from the end of the poem. Roughly translated it goes:
Rush in, boy, punch your number:
Thus to earn the salary,
Of a dreary utilitarian day:
Metro, work, bistro, cigs, sleep, zero.
It stuck in my head—probably because of my Red Test. D'un morne jour utilitaire. That became sort of my slogan for my life as Graham's Enforcer, as the Ice Queen. A dreary utilitarian day. Ending in…zero. Nothing." She thought for a moment.
"I knew that was where it would end after the Red Test. Zero. But I guess I did avoid the cigarettes." She laughed briefly, a laugh mostly bitter. "Another reason it stuck in my mind: the poem's title is Coulers d'unsine—Factory Colors. My Factory Color was red….All Day Permanent Red." She bit her bottom lip, her gaze inward. They walked on, slowly. Each wanted to hold the other's hand, needed to. Sarah saw Chuck glance at her hand longingly. She shook herself bodily, not just her head.
"I know what I said during my Red Test flashback a little while ago…and we should be more careful. But, like you, Chuck, I just want to be, to be in Paris and to be with you. I don't want to go back to the way we were—the way I made us be in Batumi, or tried to make us be in Romney.
"I've lived enough dreary utilitarian days, enough days ending in zero, hurtling toward nothing. I will try to do better in public, even if no one from the team is around, until this is over. But in our room," she turned a predatory gaze on him, "you are mine."
"I live to serve, or be served up—as in on a platter." Chuck replied, bowing at the waist. Sarah licked her lips.
But after he stood, the smile left his face. "Since you haven't brought it up, Sarah, I will. What do you make of Ryker coming to Paris? I didn't want to say anything about him, particularly around the others, because of…you know, Budapest, but it seems bizarre that he shows up now."
"Yes, it is an odd coincidence. But I do think it is a coincidence. I meant to talk to you about this over lunch, but the walk and the sunshine and you…" Sarah's face lit up, "and then we came upon that spot…" and her face darkened.
"Anyway," she went on, "that bit about Ryker buying-in...I wonder if that was what Ryker was hoping for if he had gotten Molly? Enough money to buy his way into the Ring? It seems likely that the Ring was the link between Graham and Ryker all along, in some way. Martin was supposed to tell Frost that Ryker is here, to see if your she or your Dad could come up with anythng…"
"So, what did you say about Ryker to Martin?"
"Just that he had been my handler on a mission in Budapest. No more. Let's stick with that unless we have to say more."
Chuck nodded.
}o{
Sarah turned her head, considering the room, the suite. Everyone was there. Ilsa, Carina, Martin, Chuck. Martin had set up a feed that would allow them to talk to Frost. Planning for the floating Ring party was beginning in earnest. Frost wanted to talk about preliminaries.
Sarah was almost certain that Frost wanted also to see Chuck, not just hear his clipped impersonation of her on the phone. Chuck seemed reconciled to the video conference, although he was far from pleased.
Sarah sipped her black coffee. Rooms like this, planning like this, had been a regular feature of her life. But never had she felt so connected to the people in the room. Chuck, the man she loved, Martin, his best friend and a man she was rapidly coming to respect, Carina, her best friend and well…her best friend, Ilsa, a likable, competent agent.
In the past, the others in rooms like this had been more like equipment than like people, mattering only as mission parameters dictated they mattered. But these people mattered, full stop. She hoped that rooms like this would not be a feature of her life soon. The people in it, yes. Mission planning, no. She wanted to finish the Ring—and get out.
The monitor came to life. After a moment there was Frost, seated in Castle. "Team, good to see you. Let me get right to it. First, there is a serious but hush-hush search on for Graham's body. We do believe the photographs are genuine, but a body would, of course, prove it. We don't want to let on that we suspect he is dead until we know he is.
"Second, we have been looking for leads to Ryker. Our best guess is that he is not in Paris, yet. We haven't gotten a hit on any of his known aliases. We can locate no one who has seen him recently. He's in the wind. We will do everything we can on this end to find him.
"Third, we have made some progress identifying the holders of the email addresses on Sartre's invitations. But of course, getting an invitation is not a crime. Knowing who these people are is good, very good, but it would be better to have proof that they are Ring.
"Fourth, the agenda you found refers to plans but does not detail what they are. We need to know that, and presumably Sartre, or someone, will be detailing them. We need to get a bug into that meeting. No doubt, they will sweep the boat before the meeting, so we need the bug to get put into place as close to the beginning of the meeting itself as possible. Ilsa?"
Ilsa stood up. "We need to get someone in the meeting, on the wait staff. I am the natural person. Chuck and Carina are known to Sartre. Sarah will join the kitchen staff but will stay in the kitchen as a backup for me, should I need help. Only kitchen staff should see you. Martin, you will coordinate from a secure location near the Seine.
"Sartre has contracted with Yachts de Paris. He will be using the pride of their line, Paquebot. Eighty-five meters long…" A picture appeared on another screen. A very large boat, a flattened, miniature ocean liner, white and lovely, with two red and black smokestacks (amidships, as it were), filled the screen. Chuck whistled.
"This company is first-rate, they run events 'with bespoke know-how' as they like to put it. Paquebot can hold eight hundred, if all you are doing is serving cocktails. Sartre is, of course, hosting far, far fewer—and serving dinner. He will host ten Ring elders, probably another twenty rank-and-file Ring agents, and various bodyguards and hangers-on. Sixty guests, total. That's what the paperwork says.
"My guess is that after dinner, the agents and bodyguards and others will be sent out, onto the sightseeing deck if it is warm enough. Into the ballroom if not. Lenôtre will supply the kitchen staff and prepare the meal. You are already on their roster, Sarah, backdated.
"The boat will be boarded and the party will embark from Port Henry IV. It will travel very slowly to Port de Javel Haut, where the party will, eventually, disembark. Chuck, Carina, you will follow, but at a distance. The speedboat you will have will allow you to overtake Paquebot easily, if that is necessary." Carina nodded firmly. Chuck just looked at her.
"The first goal to positively ID the Ring Elders and anyone else of interest. We will get photographs as they board, and then photographs at the meeting. The second goal is to place a bug, so that we have access to what is said during the meeting. I will try to be in the room during the meeting, but it is likely that I will be unable to stay."
}o{
The next three days, Tuesday to Thursday, went by slowly. Sarah was happy for it. It was raining hard for much of the time, and she had suggested that they stay in, order room service, and be together. This meant that they were in bed for the better part of the three days, but they were far from inactive. Besides making love, they spent time talking, telling stories.
Sarah managed to tell Chuck about her father and about a few of the 'adventures' they had shared when she was a girl. She told him bits and pieces of missions, funny or silly things that had happened to her. He told her about his Dad, his Mom, Ellie—and he told her about college, Julie (and Bryce), and more about his early days of spying.
Initially, telling Chuck things was hard for Sarah, still. Words came out singly, slowly, painfully, each one held by its edges. But after a while, she began to find entire sentences, then whole stories tumbling from her. All her life, at least the parts she could remember, she had kept everything in—first out of guilt and shame (with her father), then out of duty or what she took to be duty (with the CIA).
Mystery, partly self-created and nearly impenetrable, had surrounded her for so long that she began to despair that she could make herself known. Frank, open contact with other people, to be able to speak out her heart and mind without regret, to be at no cross-purposes—all of that seemed denied to her.
But there, in that Paris hotel room, she spoke out her heart and mind to the man she loved, and found that she not only felt things, but felt them deeply and engrossingly, and that she could share them. No regrets. There was no end to the things in her heart and mind.
Chuck hung on every word, on every subtle nuance of tone and feeling. He judged nothing; he heard everything. He loved her, every syllable, every word, every story, beginning, middle, and end.
Sarah could see Chuck returning to himself. He was far from ready to reconcile with Frost, even with Ellie. But he had gone out a couple of times for coffee with Martin. The two men were finding their way back to friendship.
}o{
But things between Sarah and Carina remained difficult. When Chuck went for coffee with Martin on Wednesday afternoon, Sarah went for drinks with Carina. They went no further than Le Bar downstairs in the Athéné. Carina had dressed provocatively, and as soon as they sat down, she began to inventory the men in the bar. Sarah tried to ignore her, but, after a moment, Carina got up and walked to the bar. She returned a few minutes later, a drink in each hand and a man on each side.
"Albert, Gabriel—I would like you to meet my best friend, Sarah." Carina slipped into the booth, allowing enough room for Gabriel to slip in beside her, but not enough for Albert. He looked expectantly at Sarah. She shot Carina a glance and slid over, watching a smile slide onto Carina's face as she did so. A moment of complicated, uncomfortable silence passed.
Albert, dark-haired and olive-skinned, spoke up, looking at Sarah. "Two such beautiful women and so far from home. Your friend tells me you are, as she is, in Paris alone." He then caught himself and smiled. "I mean alone except for each other, of course." Sarah kicked Carina hard under the table, and Carina nearly spilled some of her gimlet. She covered her annoyance with a light laugh. Sarah took a sip of the gin and tonic that Carina had brought her, staring hard at Carina above the rim of the glass.
"Yes, well, Albert, Sarah and I are together, but not together. We are lonely—all these long, rainy days, and we were trying to think of something we could do…indoors…to keep ourselves occupied." Albert sent a look to Gabriel he intended to keep between himself and his friend, but he failed. Sarah saw it. Gabriel had just put his arm up on the booth, around Carina's shoulders but not in contact with her yet. Sarah tensed. She realized that Albert was about to mimic his blonde friend. Sarah gave him a cold look and his arm stopped in mid-rise, hanging awkwardly in the air for a second, before he thought to put it down.
"Albert, Gabriel, I am afraid Carina has given you the wrong idea. I am not lonely—I am in Paris with my boyfriend, and I have all I can handle indoors," Sarah aimed the remark at Carina, allowing her fury to show for a second, "so, if you will excuse me?" She started to slide out of the booth, forcing Albert to his feet. He looked at Gabriel with a shrug and Gabriel stood up too. Together, talking in low but animated voices, they went back to the bar. Sarah stayed in the booth.
"Carina, I swear to God, if you do that to me again…"
"Just making sure you were still intent on this bizarre plan to domesticate yourself." Carina's eyes flashed. She was now angry too. "You are a wild thing, Sarah. You can't be tied down. You don't do tame. Middle-class conventions leave you cold…"
"Stop, Carina. Just stop. I know we have both been guilty in the past of trying to live through the other. Did you ever wonder why we did that? Could it have been because we both had so little that was real in our lives we needed what was real—or what we thought was real, wanted to be real—in the other's? The person you are describing, Carina, is not me. It was never me. The person you are describing is you."
Sarah paused for a second. Carina was so taken aback that she managed no immediate response. "You've always confused us, always tried to make us one person, one set of desires, one set of needs. You've never really tried to get to know me. You just projected yourself onto me."
Sarah paused again, took a deep breath, and went on. "But maybe the worst part of it all is that the person you projected onto me isn't even really you. It's the you you want to be.
"I've seen your eyes, Carina, on late night stakeouts. I've seen them when you've said goodbye to your latest mission fling—men like Gabriel over there at the bar. I've seen you register the emptiness of all this. But you won't own that feeling and you won't tolerate any behavior that might make you own it. You always just brazen it out, play the game harder."
Sarah reached out and put her hand on Carina's. Carina started to jerk hers away, but Sarah grabbed it.
"No, Carina, for once, I am going to speak and you are going to listen, even if you don't like that role-reversal. I was never a wild thing—I was a lost thing. I was never resistant to ties—I just had no idea how to have them. I do tame, although I wouldn't call it that, I would call it gentle. I want a life in which I can be gentle. So-called middle-class conventions are only 'middle-class' in the pejorative sense if you live them that way. A home need not be walled-in dysfunction like mine was when I was little…"
Carina seized the word. "Home? Oh, my God…you are not just romantically involved with your partner, you are planning…What are you planning? Leaving the spy life? A house? A mini-van? Rugrats?" Carina's eyes were as big around as the cocktail glass holding her drink. "Chuck's turning you into his broodmare?"
Despite her anger, Sarah couldn't help it—she chuckled. "Broodmare, Carina?" Sarah shook her head and made herself plunge in. It was time. She let go of Carina's hand. "Carina, I have asked Chuck to marry me and he's accepted."
Stone silence, heavy and unmoving. An eternal pause.
Slowly, slowly, Carina found her voice, choking out the first few syllables. "You…you…cannot be serious. You can't be." Sarah just gazed at Carina steadily. "You asked him? That man must be a Svengali in the sack, because he has mesmerized you." Carina frowned ruefully, her eyes becoming unfocused. "Now, I'm not sure whether to be glad or sad I never bedded him…"
"We are not going to talk for long, Carina, or be friends for long, if you keep talking about bedding my fiancé." Sarah's voice was monotonic—a warning.
The word 'fiancé' seemed to jolt Carina back to the conversation. "How can you do it? Give up this life? The glamor? The excitement? The beautiful places?"
"You know, Carina, for someone who hates the 'romantic', you have romanticized this life. How often have you actually been to houses like Sartre's in the years you've been with the DEA?" Carina did not answer. "How many times have you stayed at hotels like this?" No answer. "How often have you been dressed in gowns?" Still, no answer.
"What sights in Paris have you seen in the past? Have you ever just sat in a café, nursing a coffee, and just been there? Not worrying about sight lines or exits, not worrying about a mark or an asset or a target?
"How many of the men we have worked with have looked like Bryce? How many of the bad guys have looked or dressed like that scumbag Sartre?"
No answer. No answer. More silence.
Finally, Carina responded, whispering fiercely, intently. "But there were good times. There were mansions and gowns and beautiful cities and handsome men..."
Sarah softened her tone. "I never said that there were none. But they've not been frequent. Mostly it's been a series of dreary utilitarian days.
"I've seen the world through a scope, Carina. I've lived in shadows and on side streets. I've spent so much of my professional life waiting—not for a party, or a handsome stranger, or whatever it is that romanticized spies wait for. No, I've spent so much of my professional life waiting—to squeeze a trigger, to end a life.
"And, yes, although I will be no one's broodmare, I do want to children. I want to give life, if I can; I've taken enough of it."
Carina stared at the tabletop, breathing hard, as if she'd been running. Sarah could see the panic setting in. She felt for her friend but she also needed to tell her the truth.
"Don't pull any more stunts like Albert and Gabriel, Carina. What you are calling 'a middle-class life', a life with a husband and children, is what I want. I don't want the televised version of it; I want the version that Chuck and I will work out together.
"I don't want someone else's marriage; I want mine and Chuck's. What that will look like is something that we will create together. But, Carina, what I want is not what you have to want. I'm not projecting my choice on you. Be a wild thing, live your life outside of 'middle-class' conventions, if that is what you really want. I still hope to be your friend, still want to be your friend. But I want you to see me, to see my choices, and respect them."
Carina searched Sarah's face for a moment, then she managed a defeated smile. Her fingers tapping on the table marked the passing of time. Finally, she picked up her napkin and waved it. "I surrender." She gazed at Sarah in wonderment for a long moment. "Sarah Walker marrying Charles Carmichael. The lion lies down with the lamb."
Carina looked back over at Albert and Gabriel. Her smile turned sneaky then audacious then brazen. "They seem like buddies, right?" Sarah nodded. "You think they'd be willing to share? I hate to have to choose just one."
Sarah shook her head at Carina and got up. "I don't need to know how this ends." Carina stood. She picked up her glass, toasted Sarah with the last of her gimlet. Then she headed to the bar, perhaps to try her two-for-one gambit.
Sarah turned and went upstairs without a backward glance. But Carina stopped, and stood, and looked back at Sarah.
}o{
Friday came, clear and cold. But the rain stopped, finally. Preparations were finished.
At 3 pm, Sarah and Ilsa boarded Paquebot with the other members of the kitchen and wait staff. Ilsa, knowing of Sarah's skill with knives, had gotten her stationed as a food preparation worker, and all she was required to do was cut up vegetables and trim meat. She managed each well enough that no one paid any special attention to her. She had on the standard Lenôtre uniform—white jacket and pants. She'd donned a brunette wig, just as a further disguise, and put on a pair of large glasses.
They had all been checked in and been searched as they boarded. Sarah had not been able to bring her pistol or her knives—but the kitchen was full of potential weapons, so she wasn't too worried about that. Ilsa had smuggled the bug aboard by stowing it in her bra. The trick for her was going to be getting the bug stationed between the expected final sweep for bugs and the beginning of the meeting. Ilsa was busy helping to set the tables in the dining room.
At 5 pm, the Head Steward came aboard, formally taking 'possession' of the boat. He went through it slowly, checking to be sure that everything was just so, proper and in place. Pressure showed on his face. Clearly, Sartre and his group were important customers.
At 6 pm, the Head Steward made his final checks and guests began to arrive. Sarah wondered if Ryker would make it after all. Frost had not been able to find him or even a trace of him. He might be in Paris, but if he was he had managed to get there without leaving even a fingerprint behind him. Sarah felt her pulse begin to race at the thought of Ryker. She wanted him to be here. She wanted to be able to finish things with him. Then, her mother and Molly would be safe. She could call them, maybe even visit. Chuck could get to know them.
The boat was underway. Sarah felt the engines, felt the motion.
Ilsa came into the kitchen. She did not look at Sarah, but as she passed her, she slipped a piece of paper into Sarah's jacket pocket. Sarah waited until Ilsa had been gone for a couple of minutes, then, looking around to be sure no one was paying attention, she pulled the paper out. Two words: Ryker's aboard.
Sarah tore up the piece of paper and threw it in the trash, beneath some vegetable trimmings. She told herself to calm down and focus. It was unlikely that she could do anything about Ryker tonight. Her job was to be present if Ilsa got into trouble. If everything went to plan, they would disembark later, with photographs and vital information, but with no confrontations, nothing to alert the Ring to what had happened. But Chuck had a car waiting. If everything went as she hoped, she and Chuck would be able to follow Ryker away from the meeting—and take him.
Things in the kitchen sped up. Hors-d'oeuvres were served. Appetizers were prepared. Everyone and everything in the kitchen was in motion, it seemed. The main course went out. Dessert was being readied when the kitchen door opened. In walked Sartre and Ryker. Sartre smiled his dentist-white smile. "We've come to give the chef our compliments." Shit, of course, they would.
Sarah ducked her head, attending to the strawberries she was slicing. Sartre was chatting amicably with the chef. Ryker had disengaged and was walking around the kitchen, watching the various preparations.
He walked to where Sarah was working. She didn't dare look at him. She stayed intent on her task, slowing her pace, though, and deliberately making her knife work a bit clumsy. She felt his eyes on her, lingering. She tightened her grip on her knife.
}o{
Chuck and Carina had watched the boarding from a distance, through binoculars. They were well hidden behind a large shipping crate a distance away from the boat. The speedboat they were to use was at waiting nearby.
"Ok, there's Sartre and his insect friend—what was his name?"
"Marcel, Anatole Marcel."
"Oh, yeah. The clown instructor. That guy looks like he couldn't make a hyena laugh, to be honest. Huh. Sartre's also got some arm candy. Redhead. Vastly inferior to Yours Truly—but then all women are, redheaded or not. Any port in a storm, I guess, eh, Sartre?" Carina lowered the binoculars to look at Chuck.
"So, I hear you are an engaged man, Blondie's fiancé?"
Chuck nodded. Sarah had shared the Le Bar incidents with him. Luckily, he'd had a couple of days to get past it. Initially, the story had made him angry. "Yes, I am the lucky man she chose."
Chuck paused. Carina put the binoculars back up to her eyes. "I hear you chose them in tandem, Carina." Carina did not lower the binoculars but Chuck saw her color rise. After a moment, she was back in control of herself. She lowered the binoculars and shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe."
Chuck wasn't interested in the details, or whether there even were any. He let it go. He'd gotten a reaction—score one for the Burbank Boy, a small payback for Carina's antics. "Anyway, yeah, Sarah proposed and I said yes. We're really happy, Carina."
"I get that, Chuckles. I grant I have never seen Sarah like this, all glowy…" She put the binoculars back up. "Are you sure she'd not fooling herself, Chuck. I mean she is Sarah Freakin' Walker. The Wildcard Enforcer. The Ice Queen. Do you honestly think she's going to be happy for long in an ordinary life?"
"I thought you waved the white flag, Carina, that you were done with this." Chuck's voice was clipped.
"I did. I am not trying to cause trouble between you. I'm just trying…to understand." She let the binoculars hang from the cord around her neck and gestured at him with both hands open, palms up. "Help me to understand."
Chuck sighed. "You're right. She is Sarah Freakin' Walker. She'll always be that. She's not a normal girl. I'm not trying to make her one. She's extraordinary. She'd be extraordinary at anything, because she's that special, that smart, that amazing. I hope to share in the extraordinary life she'll have. I hope to contribute to it, if I can, not detract from it. We want to be together, and we will figure out how to do that as we go, like we have been. When she proposed, she was no more asking me to be Ward Cleaver than I'd have been asking her to be June, if I'd proposed."
Chuck reached out and took the binoculars from around Carina's neck. She bowed her head to make it easier. He put them to his eyes, continuing to speak as he did so. "I can't see the future, Carina, how everything works out. I just know I want to be with her, to make her happy. Damn."
Carina snapped to attention. "What is it, Chuck?"
He grimaced, still looking through the glass. "Ryker. He's here…Oh, and he brought a date." Chuck froze. Carina noticed. "Chuck…?" He dropped the glasses to his chest.
"It's Julie Roark."
A/N2 You knew we wouldn't escape the story without a visit from Chuck's ex, now, didn't you? And what is her story, exactly? Tune in next time for Chapter 30—"Dead Set on Destruction".
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