Ghosts That Haunt—37
It was habit to learn everything he could about any target he was given, so despite never having laid actual eyes on the man holding a gun on him and Riah, Casey knew exactly who the man behind him was. He'd been a known associate rather than an actual target, though, so Casey knew the name and face, his affiliations, and very little more. The cliché in this situation would be to name him, but he doubted that would mean anything to Riah, so the move was pointless—though he could play the game just as they often did in those godawful spy movies where the bad guys talked until the cavalry arrived.
Instead, he decided on a more productive route. He met Riah's eyes, saw that despite the fear she was holding it together, and raised a brow, hoped she remembered her father had insisted she wear an operative emergency beacon before letting her leave the house. He gave a slight nod when she took her arm from him, stroked a hand over her shoulder to the logo on her heavy parka and pressed slightly on the raised design.
He was more troubled by the fact her other hand burrowed further under his own coat to the gun in its holster at the small of his back.
"Show both hands, Adderly," the man ordered.
Riah removed her hand, left the gun in its holster.
"Roll off her and on your back, Colonel."
Casey did so slowly, calculated whether or not he could draw the SIG under his left arm before the man shot him, and decided the risk was too great with Riah there.
"Hands behind your heads—both of you."
"Do I know you?" Riah asked as they complied.
God, Casey hoped not. If she knew him, there was more to this than he thought.
"We've never actually met," the man told her.
Casey noticed he didn't introduce himself, either.
Matthew Kincaid had once worked for ISI. These days, he free-lanced. Casey hated private spies who had no loyalty to anyone but themselves and, technically, to whomever paid them. He could admire the enemy who was true to his country, who served his homeland and the ideology he'd been raised with—no matter how wrongheaded it might be—but the men and women who were only in it for the paycheck were beneath contempt.
Kincaid mostly watched Casey, and he saw an advantage in that. It meant the other man thought Casey was the greater threat, and that meant Riah might be able to exploit the situation, even if it was only to make a run for it.
Even as he thought it, he knew Riah wouldn't run. That meant buying a little time to consider options that kept her safe.
"So who's paying your bill this time?" Casey asked. The man had come to his attention on a case he worked before Bartowski. At that time, Kincaid had been the occasional partner of a rogue CIA agent Casey had to put down before she finished selling secrets that weren't hers to sell to the Chinese.
His question made Kincaid grin. "Not your concern, Colonel."
"The better question, John," Riah said quietly, "is likely what he's being paid to do."
Casey lifted a brow, cocked his head in the snow, and gave as much of a shrug as he could manage in the position he was in. She had a point, but Casey was pretty sure he already knew what Kincaid was being paid for.
Like bad guys everywhere, now that he thought he'd won, Kincaid got chatty, and Casey was disappointed. They were going to play out the spy movie scenario after all, and he hoped Adderly arrived with reinforcements a little sooner than the movie agents generally did.
"Well, you, Adderly," the man said with a flash of grin. "The bonus is that I get to kill Colonel Casey."
"Casey," Riah said in a cranky tone that puzzled him until he realized she was protesting being called by her maiden name. He bit back the smile that threatened.
Kincaid, though, was apparently as stupid as he looked since the man frowned. "That's what I said."
"No," she corrected. "It isn't Adderly—it's Casey."
Casey imagined her rolling her eyes when Kincaid's frown deepened and he said like the moron he was, "No, I'm pretty sure it's Colonel John Casey."
She let out a frustrated growl and gave up. Casey realized the man's ignorance might prove to be leverage—if it was genuine ignorance and not prevarication. "Her father has men crawling all over this place," he told Kincaid.
"And nearly every one of them is sleeping it off—if they aren't dead."
He heard Riah's shocked, choked breath. That meant the cavalry might not come, so Casey sized up the man, considered options, and wondered if he could manage a chance for Riah to get away and get to her father. Assuming Kincaid was a lone idiot and not part of a team this time, the odds were better they might get out of this alive without the two ISI teams. "V. H. Adderly will see to it you're dead before you get to the property line."
"At this moment, V. H. is on the phone with the Prime Minister," Kincaid said with a grin. "When that call is over, he'll be on his way to St. John's—no passing Go, no collecting two hundred dollars, no looking for the daughter he usually forgets exists to say goodbye."
Which showed how little this particular imbecile really knew V. H., Casey decided. The man would at the very least tell Riah he had to leave, and he'd sure as hell check with Curtiss to give him orders. V. H. wouldn't leave if he didn't know Riah was safe, no matter what his masters told him to do.
"What happened?" Riah asked.
Kincaid flashed a self-satisfied smile. "Small national emergency in an African nation most westerners have never heard of," he said cheerfully. "Thirty-two Canadian nationals, some of whom clandestinely work for the Canadian government, are hostages of local guerillas."
Whoever Kincaid's allies were had arranged that, Casey knew, and that put his money on the Ring.
"You know, Adderly—"
Riah ground out, "Casey," but the man ignored her.
"—the last time I was paid for you, you should have died." He looked at Casey, raised his brows. "Thanks to the Colonel here, I had to refund the fee."
Casey looked at Riah to see if she knew because he couldn't think of an assassination attempt he had thwarted where she was concerned. She was as pale as the snow beneath her, and he was pretty sure that had nothing to do with the cold. From her expression, he was certain she understood whatever Kincaid referenced while he still tried to fit the pieces together. The only attempt Kincaid might have played a role in that Casey could recall was at the Institute. He assumed Mick Faraday was still safely doing time for that one, though, so he wondered what else Kincaid meant. It was always possible, he supposed, that Kincaid had subcontracted the work there since he would likely have had difficulty getting on the training ground that day.
"The good news for you is," Kincaid sailed on, "they want you alive this time. Of course, the people paying aren't the same people who footed the bill the last time."
Like that mattered, Casey thought. Kincaid's bosses weren't going to get what they paid for this time, either.
The man turned his attention to Casey then. "The bonus is the bounty on Colonel Casey's head."
It wasn't the first time the bad guys had offered a cash incentive to get rid of him, and Casey simply considered it proof he was damned good at what he did. This time, though, if Kincaid killed him, the man got Riah, and if he got Riah, he likely got Victoria as well. He was certain Kincaid was here to finish what Finley had attempted and failed.
"Many have tried." Casey gave another shrug that sent snow down his collar. He calculated how to distract the man and then disarm him, preferably without harm to Riah or to himself.
"Many weren't me," Kincaid returned smugly.
Casey wondered why the moron didn't just pull the trigger. If he was smart, he'd simply shoot him and drag Riah off. The man had to know that the longer he drew this out, the more likely it was help would come and he'd be the one someone put a bullet in. Bad guys, he reflected, were really terrible at what they did often enough to make his own job that much easier.
Riah drew Kincaid's attention, then. "If you're going to kill John," she said softly, "then do you mind telling me why? For that matter, I'd like to know why you're here for me."
He noticed Riah didn't say they were married, didn't make the connection clear for the idiot with the gun.
Kincaid looked at her, and Casey tensed, waited to see if the other man would realize his mistake in taking his attention from him. "Montreal Project."
"I'm a failed experiment." Her words kept Kincaid focused on her, and Casey eased his right hand out from behind his head, left it on the snow above his shoulder, and watched Kincaid closely.
"According to reports, you function—not well," he conceded, "but you function enough for the people paying me to want to take a closer look at how."
"Were you part of the original project?"
Casey took note that she didn't claim not to know what he was talking about, nor did she deny having been a participant of sorts.
Kincaid grinned. "Why would I have been?"
To his surprise, and Kincaid's, too, judging from the other man's expression, Riah began reeling off a stream of details about the former operative, from his birthplace, to his schools, to his scores at the Institute, to the positions he'd held at ISI, all the way up to his dismissal for repeated insubordination and dereliction of duty. Casey didn't remain frozen as the other man did. He was on his feet and had the man disarmed and unconscious before he could even think to ask Riah how she knew that or react.
Making sure the man wasn't getting up or going anywhere any time soon, Casey reached down and helped Riah to her feet. She flung her arms around him, held on tightly. "I don't know how I knew that," she told him breathlessly.
Casey was more worried about the fact that she'd just performed the way she was probably supposed to—like Chuck—and the bits about Kincaid's record were considerably more recent than twenty-five years ago. He wasn't going to say a word about that, though. He wondered if V. H. knew, but if he didn't Casey wasn't giving him any reason to separate them further.
It also meant he needed to find a way to see if the senior Bartowski could get that out of Riah's head. This would only stop when she couldn't do what she'd just done—he hoped.
He fished out his phone and tried V. H., but the line was busy. The house's landline went unanswered when he tried it, and Casey wondered if Kincaid had cut it or if something else was wrong with it. He tried Emma next. Riah had retrieved Kincaid's gun and kept an eye on the man, and Casey wondered why in hell no one had answered Riah's beacon when she activated it while he waited for Emma to answer her phone.
"Get V. H.," Casey told his sister-in-law when she answered.
"Why?"
Did women never just do as they were told? he wondered. Did they always have to question why? "Emma, just do it."
Riah looked up at that, a little frown drew her brows together. He leaned in and kissed her while he waited.
"He's busy," Emma told him a few moments later.
"Interrupt him."
"Why?"
"Because it's connected to what he's on the phone about," Casey told her and tried not to do so in a way that would end any cooperation she was lending.
"Mariah's okay?"
He sighed. "Fine, right here, and you can talk to her after I talk to V. H."
While he waited, listened to Emma try and get V. H. to talk to him, he watched Kincaid, looked for any sign the man might be about to regain consciousness.
"This better be worth putting the Prime Minister on hold," his father-in-law bit out.
"Someone staged an incident in Africa to distract you long enough to take Riah."
If he'd expected an explosion from V. H., he would have been disappointed. The hissed, "Where is she?" was all he got.
"Right here," Casey told him, "and she's perfectly fine, but Matthew Kincaid is down and out, and he says your two teams are, too."
"Get her here, now," V. H. ordered.
"I don't have anything to secure Kincaid with."
"Kill him."
Casey would love to, but he knew better. "We need to find out what he knows."
"Drag him back, then."
He stared at his phone. Under other circumstances, he'd be pissed the man had hung up on him, but V. H. had a boss on another phone who needed him and they had said what needed saying.
Eyeing the still unconscious Kincaid, Casey considered options. He handed Riah the backup from his belt holster so Kincaid couldn't get it if he came to, and then he bent and pulled the man up in a fireman's lift. "Behind me," he ordered Riah, "and if he even looks like he's going to twitch, club the hell out of him with his gun."
They returned to the house the way they had come, which made walking through the deep snow with another man's weight a hell of a lot easier for Casey. Emma was, thankfully, watching for them and opened the door when they got there. Casey walked to the kitchen, and at the stairs he told Riah to get his cuffs while he headed downstairs to the wine cellar. He stopped outside the safe room, and when Riah arrived, he asked her to open it. She punched in a code and then stepped back.
Inside and against the back wall were a couple of bunk beds, metal and built in. He dumped Kincaid in the lower bunk of one and cuffed him to the bedframe. He started to leave, but then he went back and took the man's shoes. He doubted he'd want to cross the snow barefoot, so at best it might simply slow an escape down. Then he went through his pockets for anything he might be able to pick the cuff locks with. He raided the small fridge for a bottle of water he set near enough the man could reach, and then he ushered Riah out and had her shut the man in.
As he watched, she changed the code, and he considered it a smart move. For all he knew, there were several people who knew that code, and if Kincaid had had friends on her security details, they might have known it and could aid his escape.
She was shaking when she wrapped her arms around him, and Casey held her close. They were leaving as soon as it could be safely arranged. He wasn't waiting for the next time, because this time it might be with overwhelming numbers—which wouldn't take much as long as the ISI teams were down. "Go pack."
In the gloom she studied his face. "Is it safe to leave?"
"I'll make it safe," he promised. "I won't risk you or Victoria, and staying clearly will."
Emma was still in the kitchen, and when asked, she told her sister Victoria was down for a nap. She and Riah headed upstairs, and Casey called Beckman.
After he quickly explained the situation, making sure he left out Riah's surprising retrieval of data on Kincaid, he waited. "I'll speak to Adderly," she finally said. "I'm aware of the situation in Cimarron," she added, "and we're providing support to that operation. We'll offer assistance getting your family out of Newfoundland, Colonel, but you'll have to be responsible for their security."
In other words, they'd get help leaving, but they were on their own once they did. It was the best he was going to get, so he took it.
As he went to find V. H., he considered options. Going back to Echo Park would be predictable, and that endangered Bartowski further. If he took his wife and daughter to his mother's that endangered his larger family. He supposed Riah could take Victoria to Ottawa for a while, but he knew she would refuse to go. She hadn't been happy about their separation before, and she'd be even less happy if it was extended. Perhaps she should go with Ariel.
For a brief moment he enjoyed the idea of Ariel at the hands of Ring operatives. Then he realized that all the bodyguards in the world wouldn't keep his wife and daughter safe—not to mention Ariel might inadvertently hire people who represented those after them in the first place.
The best thing all around was probably to take them home with him if Riah couldn't be persuaded to go to Ottawa.
V. H. was off the phone when Casey found him in the library. "I've got more operatives on the way from St. John's," he said as he crossed the room. "Let's go take a look at the damage."
As they headed for the door, Riah intercepted them. "I'm going with you."
Her father recognized the determined look on her face just as Casey did. "Honey, someone needs to stay with your daughter and the rest of the family."
"Dad, you and John may need me, especially if all your operatives really are incapacitated."
It was true that another trained set of eyes and another capable shot might come in handy, but since Riah and Victoria were both apparently targets, it made more sense to leave her to guard the house since there was no one else. Casey really didn't want to be the one to tell her that, though.
She could apparently read expressions, too. "I'm going. The house has an alarm system, and Emma's promised they won't answer the door or phone while we're gone."
"Mariah—" her father began. Since Casey knew how well she could escalate an argument, he decided he'd let her father take her fire, so he remained silent and let the two of them hash it out.
"Non-negotiable, Dad. This happened because of me, so I'm going with you to see the damage."
Casey imagined that it wasn't going to be a case of unconscious or otherwise incapacitated operatives—given Kincaid's usual operating procedures, it was likely to be dead. On the other hand, Kincaid was one man, and unless he had friends he hadn't revealed, it probably was incapacitated.
That was the moment he knew he couldn't let her go. If two ISI teams had been incapacitated or killed, he sincerely doubted Kincaid had acted alone. It was possible his partners had abandoned him when Casey took the man down, but it was unlikely—they hadn't acquired their targets. That left Victoria wide open, and it was entirely possible they were more interested in her than Riah.
"You stay," he told her. The intensity of her anger took him by surprise. "I doubt Kincaid was alone," he explained before she could start, "so Victoria needs someone here."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Then you stay," she ground out, "let ISI deal with its own."
He shot V. H. a glare when the other man snorted. "You're not ISI any more, Riah," he reminded his wife. "You stay here and watch for Victoria."
"Sure," she scoffed. "Leave both targets conveniently unprotected while you two go see the damage. Classic distraction." She looked over at her father. "Has anyone bothered to try and call Curtiss and see if Kincaid's story is even true?"
For his part, Casey had simply accepted on the surface that what Kincaid claimed was true. He hadn't questioned it, he realized, because he hadn't thought the other man could slip through the measures Adderly had had his teams set in place any other way. When he turned to V. H., the other man had his phone to his ear.
His wife chose that moment to turn on him. "If it is true, you need me," she said.
"Victoria needs you more." He wasn't sure why she was so insistent on going with him. He wasn't the one wearing the target.
"If he has friends, I won't let them kill you," she ground out.
He'd forgotten Kincaid's comment about a bounty. She stepped back when he reached for her. That pissed him off, but before he could say something, V. H. said, "Curtiss answered. He says some of his men are down—tranqs probably—but not all. They're looking for anyone who might have been with Kincaid."
"You stay," Casey ordered his wife.
"I'm not a damned dog, John!"
He rounded on V. H. when the other man laughed, narrowed his eyes, but V. H. held his hands up. "Maybe both of you better stay."
Predictably, Riah protested that. "You're not going alone."
There was an edge of exasperation that Casey sympathized with when V. H. responded: "Mariah, you can't have it both ways." He gave her that arched brow, and hard stare ISI operatives feared. "Casey's coming with me, and you're staying here to take care of your mother, your sister, and your daughter."
Finally, she accepted her father wasn't going to let her out of the house, threw up her hands, and stalked off.
That didn't stop Casey from waiting until they were a good distance from the house to say, "You'll be lucky if she doesn't poison your food."
"She won't get the chance," V. H. said, and Casey could hear residual anger under the cold statement. "As soon as the team from St. John's gets here, I'm on the road and on a plane. I'm due in Ottawa immediately."
"It's that bad?"
Casey listened as V. H. detailed the issue in Cimarron. Guerillas were trying to overthrow the current dictator—not for the first time, and not the first group of guerillas, either—and they'd taken control of a mining operation. ISI wasn't the only intelligence agency who had planted their own in the company running the mine, Casey knew, but it appeared Canadians had been targeted over other westerners. Of course, ISI had lent help to the dictator's enemies before, so it shouldn't have been surprising they were targeted by guerillas that might not actually be guerillas after all.
Curtiss met them near the guesthouse where the operatives stayed, and Casey wondered why he was the only one in sight. He could feel it, that strange little tickle on the back of his neck that had saved his life more than once. His eyes swept the area while V. H. talked to the man, looked for anything out of place, studied the disturbed snow, and grew more uneasy as he listened with half an ear to Curtiss report to his boss.
Casey didn't believe a word of it. His instincts had a high accuracy rate, and they were telling him Curtiss was the inside man.
It was possible the other man was innocent, but when he lifted a bare hand to scratch his cheek, Curtiss's knuckles were bruised. He could have done that hitting an intruder, but that wasn't the story the man spun for his boss. Instead, he claimed to have seen no one, claimed he came back to the guesthouse and found the agents inside out cold and wasn't able to revive them. He told V. H. that he couldn't raise the others on their radios, and Casey wondered why he wasn't activating their beacons or out looking for them. Besides, Curtiss didn't seem in a hurry to have his incapacitated agents dealt with, nor was he in any hurry to show the bodies, figuratively speaking, to his boss. He had also not asked why Riah's beacon had activated, let alone responded to it.
He looked over at V. H., and while the man wore a concerned mask, Casey relaxed when he realized the other man wasn't buying Curtiss's story, either.
While V. H. questioned the other man, Casey made a show of stepping around them and looking around. When Curtiss quit sliding looks his way, he drew the SIG and walked behind him.
"I'll take your weapon," V. H. said quietly.
"Why?" Curtiss asked, but he didn't sound like an innocent man when he said it.
"You're relieved of duty until we sort this out." V. H. removed his good hand from his coat pocket, and Casey was relieved to see he was armed. "We can do this the easy way, or Casey can shoot you and then we can sort it out later."
Curtiss shot a look over his shoulder, and Casey did his part, looked as menacing as he could manage as he trained his weapon on him.
For a moment, Casey thought the other man would choose the hard way and a probable bullet, but then his shoulders dropped and he handed over his weapon. Casey took it, checked to make sure he didn't have others, and then he cuffed the man with his own handcuffs.
In the guesthouse, V. H. stood guard while Casey worked his way through. Six operatives were inside, and all were unconscious. That left five operatives unaccounted for, and given the weather, he figured the first order of business was to locate them before they froze—assuming they were outside on the grounds and not actually hunting Kincaid's possible assistants. That would have to wait for the agents to arrive from St. John's, though, because neither Casey nor V. H. was willing to risk an ambush on the perimeter. On the other hand, Casey felt an urgent need to get back to the main house.
He called Riah, who was still pissed off judging from the way she answered her phone. He filled her in succinctly and told her not to open the door to anyone except her father or him. He wasn't entirely sure he'd trust the new operatives coming in, and he told her so. He finished by asking if she was packed.
"And so are you," she told him tightly.
It was probably a good thing he checked the words Good girl and substituted, "Thanks."
"How long, John?"
"Not sure," he told her, eyeing Curtiss. "Your mother and the others need to be ready to go, too."
"Not a problem." From the way she said it, he wondered if she'd had to threaten Ariel and how.
When the replacements arrived, Casey was glad to see they were agents V. H. obviously trusted. He left them to it, returned to the main house.
They left with V. H. and with an escort of ISI and Mounties. Riah was tense up until the moment they were airborne, this time in Ariel's plane. He'd made arrangements for a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, and as they settled in, he pulled Riah against him, and decided to catch up on his sleep.
They flew commercial out of Chicago under assumed names and identities with several NSA agents keeping an eye on them. He'd had a text when they landed in Chicago telling him what he'd asked for was on its way. It was delivered on the O'Hare concourse by, of all people, Isobel Gerrard.
She intercepted Casey when Riah took Victoria into a women's room to change her.
He hadn't had a real chance to talk to her at his wedding, so he tried to remember the last time he'd actually talked to Izzie, finally realized it had been at least thirteen years, about the time she had married her husband. Izzie was at least a decade his senior—Casey had never been sure exactly how much—but she looked younger. She was several inches taller than his wife, and given the brightness of her auburn hair, she had taken to dyeing it. Her face was still smooth, and her body was still good enough to merit several second looks.
Izzie gave him a hug, and he hugged back, felt something slip into his pocket. "V. H. said to make sure you got that," she told him. She gave him a hard look. "He also said to make sure that your man is the only other person who sees it."
After he gave her a nod, he said, "Sorry to hear about Don."
She gave him a bitter smile. "So was I, Casey."
"You look good," he added.
Her smile slid to amused. "So do you." A brow went up and Izzie crossed her arms. "If you weren't married to Mariah, I'd consider picking up where we never went."
Casey grinned at her. There hadn't been a chance in hell, and he knew it. She'd never had eyes for anyone but Don Gerrard, who had been a damn lucky man. "Years too late, Izzie—though I confess when I found out V. H. was sending a female operative to L. A., I hoped for a while it would be you."
Izzie looked over at the restroom where Riah had taken Victoria. "I'm flattered, but you and I both know that would never have worked." She reached out, squeezed his arm. "Take care of them, Casey." And then she melted into a crowd of travelers who had just come off a plane.
Riah apparently hadn't seen her as she rejoined him, so he took Victoria from her and put a hand in the small of her back to guide her to their gate.
On the flight, Victoria took some distracting, but Casey managed to help her mother do that while he ran contingencies.
Bartowski and Walker were at the airport when they landed, and he relaxed when he saw Walker had brought company—a small CIA team.
Riah took Victoria upstairs when they got home, and Casey waited only until he was sure she was out of earshot. "I need to know how to contact your father," Casey told the kid.
It wasn't hard to read Bartowski's confusion, nor was it hard to see Walker's. "Dad—"
"Needs to do a job," Casey told the kid. He fished the flash drive Izzie had delivered out of his pocket. "These are files from the Montreal Project—the schematics for what they did to Riah. Your dad's getting it out of her head, so you're going to find him and convince him to do this because if I have to find him, I won't be asking."
Something lit in the kid's eyes, and Casey realized he shouldn't have told Chuck what it was. "Maybe I could—"
"No." Casey had his orders, and he fully intended to follow them. "Your dad and only your dad gets a look at this."
Bartowski blew out a breath, buried his hands in his pockets. "Ellie is the one who knows how to find him."
Biting back the instinctive Bullshit, Casey had to admit what he said instead was little better: "Dad can't take the runaway mouth, either?"
"No," the kid said, brown eyes frozen mud as he glared at Casey. "Ellie's the one who needed to know she could find him, so he told her how."
Walker interceded then. "I can find him, get a message to him."
Because, Casey thought snidely, the CIA owned the older Bartowski now that he'd turned up once more. He knew Beckman had had a come to Jesus meeting with the man, but he hadn't been privy to the finer details. Bartowski Senior got to do his thing, but if Uncle Sam called, he had to at least acknowledge the call. He suspected Stephen Bartowski would make sure they couldn't find him even as he minimally complied.
"Do it," he told Walker.
His partner looked like she would protest, but she closed her mouth, shifted her weight and gave him a grim nod. Then she asked, "Chuck's safety?"
After they made plans to keep Bartowski, Riah, and Victoria safe, she took the kid home and Casey went upstairs.
It took nearly a week for him to hear from Stephen Bartowski. When he did, he made arrangements to meet the man, promised to tell no one else.
For once, the man didn't act flaky. Casey had assumed the man was somewhere on the autism scale since he always seemed distracted, barely spoke, rarely met anyone's eyes, and fidgeted, but this time Bartowski's father met his eyes squarely and firmly asked for the schematics. He handed over the flash drive, and the man pulled a laptop from his bag and plugged it in. Casey watched him read through the files. When he finished, he closed the laptop and looked at Casey once more.
"I'm not sure I can do what you want."
Casey unclenched his jaw. "Why not?"
Stephen Bartowski sat back in the passenger seat of the Suburban. "This is different than what I did." He ran a hand through his hair, shrugged, and looked out the windshield. "Truthfully, Casey? I'm afraid removing this might do more damage than it may have already done." Bartowski turned to face him again. "When Chuck was little, he inadvertently took in my first Intersect—he doesn't remember that because when I removed it, which wasn't at all easy, it took some of his memories with it."
"That didn't happen the last time," Casey pointed out.
"No," Bartowski agreed, "but the last time I knew what I was doing, what I was working with. This," and he patted the laptop he still held, "this is something completely different. Even if I can get it out, it's entirely possible I'll take more than just their version of the Intersect."
Casey met the man's stare, weighed his words, and finally decided Stephen Bartowski was telling the truth. "She wants it out."
"I can understand why," the other man said. "It's a flawed design, but that might actually have been to her advantage."
Unable to imagine how, Casey asked.
"It didn't work right," Bartowski said. "That kept her off the radar. On the other hand, there are some side effects to the Intersect I designed, and from what Chuck has said and what I've been told, she hasn't been prone to those."
"What kind of side effects?" Casey asked, his concern shifting from his wife to the problems they would have if this man's son suddenly started malfunctioning. Beckman would have Chuck killed if he didn't work, after all, and Casey was at the point he didn't really want to be the trigger man.
"Some mental instability, some malfunctions that seem to come with prolonged flashes," Chuck's father admitted, "but you'd know if Chuck were having problems." He sighed. "No one's ever had this long-term," he told Casey, "except your wife, whom, I'm told, has trouble with depression but otherwise seems fine."
Before Casey could ask again, Bartowski added, "There's risk to your wife, Casey. If I get this wrong, she'll be brain damaged or, possibly, simply lose her memory. Are you sure you want to risk that?"
As far as he was concerned, the answer was hell no, but, he knew, it wasn't his decision to make.
Bartowski read his answer. "If she really insists, I'll need to talk to her father." Casey frowned, and the man added, "There's more I'll need to know to minimize the risk." He removed the flash drive, handed it back to Casey, and said, "Talk to Mariah. If she still wants to do this, call me."
"How do I—" Casey began as the man reached for the door release.
"It's on the drive."
It took Casey a couple of days to raise the issue with Riah. He was reluctant to do so because he wasn't certain he wanted her to do this. Ellie offered to keep Victoria for him so he could take her to dinner, and over sushi, Casey quietly told Riah what he'd learned.
That night in their bed, she told him, "Much as I want it gone, it's never really been a problem."
"Just a magnet for trouble," he said tersely.
Riah sighed, lifted her head from his shoulder and met his eyes in the dim room. "Yes, but mostly nothing happens. Maybe it's best to leave it alone."
To his surprise, he was relieved by her decision. She put her head back on his shoulder, and he tucked her closer.
Hopefully, he thought as he settled into sleep, the bad guys would give up, leave her and their daughter alone. He'd never thought he'd hope Bartowski would be the target—except in his most excruciatingly bored moments or when the kid had done something spectacularly dimwitted enough to thoroughly piss Casey off—but he'd learned to cope with the risks to the kid. The ones to his family were harder for him to accept.
To his relief, the Ring quit going after the Intersect directly. It made Casey more suspicious than he naturally was, especially coupled with some increasingly odd behavior on Beckman's part. If he didn't know better, Casey would think the woman was afraid of something—or at least hiding something. What about the kid could make her so, though, he couldn't imagine. He put it down to occupational hazard, and shrugged it off.
And then that Commie bastard Goya came to Los Angeles.