A/N: Ownership of Chuck is still in the mail, I guess. No (De)Joy yet. [See what I did there?]
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It had been a beautiful early spring day in Virginia, with sunny skies and a light breeze. The new buds on the trees were the light green only seen for a few weeks in the beginning of spring, before the darker green of summer made them a mere pleasant memory. Now, though, it was later in the afternoon and the shadows were getting longer.
The administrative staff had set up chairs and a small podium in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, facing the Wall of Honor. Chuck had read about it before being invited to the day's ceremony. He knew that when an officer of the CIA died in the line of duty, his or her name was inscribed in the Book of Honor, a black Moroccan goatskin-bound book. The book sat in a steel frame enclosed by bullet proof glass on a wall of the lobby. Above the book was the Wall of Honor. Each fallen officer was honored by a black star etched into the white marble. There were over eighty stars on the wall already, together with the simple statement: In honor of those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the service of their country. As a result of the secrecy inherent in the job, sometimes the actual names were not even recorded in the book and the name was only represented by a star. In those cases, it was possible that the name of the fallen officer might not be revealed for decades.
Chuck and Sarah, together with Casey and Amy, were attending the ceremony to unveil two new stars to be added to the Wall in honor of Agent Barry Longshore and Agent Thomas Reis. Both men had died assisting them in the fight against Fulcrum. Chuck and Sarah sat holding hands in the middle of the assembly. Casey and Amy were sitting just past them down the row. The front rows of chairs were reserved for the families of the two agents. Longshore had an ex-wife and a teenaged son. Reis had a plump wife and five children, which Chuck considered surprising given Reis' taciturn nature. Guess you never know, he thought.
Graham stepped up to the small podium. He began to speak, his voice measured and serious.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I am Langston Graham, the Director of Central Intelligence. Ceremonies like this one are a solemn obligation for whoever holds my position. We can never forget that protecting our country can come at high cost. Sometimes that cost may seem higher than we can bear, but bear it we must.
"The mission of this Agency is to gather intelligence to assist the men and women elected to lead us by the our fellow citizens to make better decisions. That intelligence is sometimes difficult to obtain. Often our adversaries wish to conceal the information from us. They will take whatever means may be at their disposal to stop our officers from succeeding. Including violence.
"The men and women laboring together in this institution are often the first line of defense against those who might do harm to our fellow citizens. Especially today, with the horror of the September 11 attacks still so fresh in our minds, we must remember that they are often called upon to put themselves in harm's way on behalf of all of us. And, because of the clandestine nature of the work we do, they are most often not recognized for the sacrifices they may make. But they are recognized here. They will be recognized today.
"I'm incredibly proud to lead these extraordinary, selfless, dedicated patriots in their efforts. They are working tirelessly to protect and serve the citizens of the United States and they deserve our gratitude.
"Some of them have been called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice."
Graham gestured behind him. "We call this the Wall of Honor, and those are not random meaningless words. There are 87 stars on the wall behind me. Each star on this Wall of Honor represents an officer of this Agency who gave his or her life for our nation. We honor each of them. In my time here, I have known dozens of men and women who have come to be memorialized here, and we should never forget what they have given on our behalf.
"Today, we have the sad occasion of adding two more stars and honoring two more men. Two men who lost their lives so that their fellow citizens may live in peace and security. Thomas Reis and Barry Longshore...
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Amy was trying to listen with serious attention, but as Graham began to describe the lives and careers of the two dead agents, her mind began to wander a bit. Listening to Graham talk about Barry made her sad, and she didn't know Reis, other than the rest of her team telling her that he had been killed by a Fulcrum agent before she joined the team.
She thought back to the last few weeks at the Farm to improve her mood. She schooled her face to avoid smiling, when in other circumstances, she would have laughed out loud or shrieked with glee.
It was a large demolitions class of about forty students that they were assigned to be a part of. Mostly younger recruits running through the Farm for the first time, but with the random smattering of some older students. Right away, the new recruits looked at them with awe amid the whispers surrounding her and her team. The Carmichael team. As the rumors spread, the level of awe increased a thousandfold. She, Casey and Sarah were experienced in the subject matter of the class and almost effortlessly excelled at the tasks assigned.
Chuck, on the other hand, well, Chuck was just being Chuck. Although it was probably the first time the instructors had ever had a Stanford trained electrical engineer take the course, it was Chuck's insatiable curiosity that made the course such a wild experience. Certainly, he paid attention and strictly adhered to all of the safety precautions and procedures. He handled the basic demolition and especially the electrical aspects of demolitions as if it were no more challenging than stacking alphabet blocks in a pre-school classroom. Having read the textbook before his arrival, the theoretical aspects of demolition were already comfortable to him.
But Chuck asked questions. Why did they set it up this way as opposed to that way? What would happen if you doubled the explosive power, but halved the blast radius? What if you made the cavity of a shaped charge larger or longer? Could you time two blasts to get the pressure waves to reinforce each other? On and on. The instructors never lost patience with him. They knew of his reputation and were a bit in awe themselves. To know how to knock something down, you had to know how it had been put up in the first place. A number of his questions focused on the engineering portion of the syllabus.
With little other option, soon the course's instructors had passed Chuck on to the senior demolitions instructor at the Farm, a man who had been studying, teaching, and practicing his craft for more than thirty years. He and Chuck became fast friends. During breaks from the class, Chuck could be found with him, talking and debating, drawing diagrams and eventually running computer simulations.
Amy had teased him about being the teacher's pet and told him that the other kids in the class would pick on him, but it was just a joke as Chuck was also exceptionally friendly to all of the other students and flat-out ignored the awed looks he was given. He made sure that any of them that were having trouble with any aspect of the material knew that he'd pitch in to help them. Led by his example, the remaining members of Team B did the same, acting as unofficial instructors, tutoring the others between classes.
As the students, with Team B's help, began to show extraordinary mastery, it didn't take too long for the Farm's instructors to up the level of the class from the introductory level to more advanced material. Team B worked very hard to make sure that all of the other students were on board with the newer, harder material.
But, at the same time, Chuck was being introduced by the senior instructors to the newest cutting-edge technology and equipment. The lead instructor was pulling things off the laboratory benches to show Chuck. He was getting Chuck's opinion on devices that wouldn't be deployed to the field for years to come.
When it came time for the final evaluations, the instructors took a vote of the students. An overwhelming majority of them chose to undergo an evaluation that reflected the curriculum of the advanced demolitions course rather than the basic course they were supposed to have been taking. Nevertheless, every single member of the class passed and almost half of them received a perfect score. Chuck was ecstatic and effusive in his congratulations. And the men and women in the class were beyond thrilled. To say that they were grateful to Team B, and Chuck in particular, would be a huge understatement. After the conclusion of the class, in a bar in Williamsburg, Chuck and his team were roundly cheered. Their money was no good, as they were bought round after round by the other students.
The Farm's instructors made it very clear that one and all of Team B were welcome to return in an instructor's capacity whenever they may feel the urge to leave the field.
Amy almost smiled at the memory. She had been part of something truly special. That just seemed to be par for the course with this team.
She lay in bed those nights marveling at her luck to be assigned to be with these people. She knew that before this experience, she was good. Very good even. But here, with them, she'd become immeasurably better. She knew that before she'd been assigned to Team B she could have passed the advanced demo class and might have even gotten a perfect score. But to do so while assisting every single other student in the class to excel was wild. She was in awe, and she was one of the people the rest of them were in awe of. Her life was crazy.
She once again found herself fighting to keep a straight face on this sad occasion.
Graham was wrapping up the speech. He removed the hanging cloths from the wall, revealing the two new stars carved into the marble. The assembled officers, family and visitors politely applauded. Graham took, from a shelf on the podium, two small pieces of white marble, each of which had an identical black star carved into it and gave one to Reis' wife and the other to Longshore's son, shaking their hands as he did so.
He finished, "Thank you all for coming. I hope you will stick around for a few minutes. There are refreshments just over there. Maybe we can share some stories of Tom and Barry. But no classified stories, of course."
After a smattering of polite laughter and light applause, the crowd began to break up and head to the table with coffee and cookies. Amy noticed that the coffee came from the Starbucks shop in the lobby behind them. She and Casey made their way over and got coffee, then she said, "Excuse me a sec, Case. I'm going to talk to Barry's ex."
"Sure, Turner," the big man said.
Amy made her way over to Longshore's ex-wife and their son. "Hi, Barbara. Hi, Phillip."
"Agent Turner, good to see you again," said Longshore's ex-wife, shaking Amy's hand.
"Hi," said Longshore's teenage son, quickly looking away.
"Rough circumstances," said Barbara, with a shrug.
"I'm so sorry about Barry," said Amy. "He was a great guy. I really liked working with him."
"Thanks. Yeah. He was a good man. A good father. Not a great husband, but you know..."
"Yeah. It's the job. It's jealous of our personal lives," said Amy.
"I know. I should have known all along." She shrugged. "So, you weren't working with him at the end?"
"I wasn't. They had moved me to another team a few weeks earlier."
"I'm sorry," Barbara said. "If they hadn't maybe he'd still be alive."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Barbara, but it's at least as likely that I'd be getting my own star today," said Amy with a grimace.
"Barry always liked working with you, Agent Turner. He said you were a good partner."
"Thank you," Amy said. Turning to Longshore's son Philip, she said, "What are you up to now, Philip?"
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Sarah said to Graham, "Nice job."
"Thanks. A sad honor, but an honor anyway."
"I know. I'm a little surprised, though. The Agency lost a lot more than these two lately."
"Yeah," said Graham. "The Fulcrum guys. Guys like Mead, or some of the guys you've taken out. Hell, even the ones being picked off overseas by whoever has a hard-on for Fulcrum. I know."
"Well, you haven't internally even declared that Fulcrum exists. It's still secret inside the Agency. So, how do you not put them on the wall?"
"The way it works is that the internal committee, the Honor and Merit Awards Board, makes recommendations to me and I make the decision from there. I made the decision. I'm catching a bit of shit from some of the old timers on the Board, but I'm ignoring it. Fuck 'em. I'm the Director. It's my decision."
"Wouldn't it be easier to put them up there?" Sarah asked with a gesture to the wall.
"Maybe. But this is a Wall of Honor. I really believe that. I know every single person represented by a star here that we've lost in the last twenty-five years. Every single one. I will not have the honor provided by this Wall, by this ceremony, diminished or sullied because doing so gives me cover. Gives me an easier time with the members of the Board or anyone else. Hell no. This wall means something to me. It's special. No Fulcrum men will be on this wall if I have anything to say about it. Not one."
"You're a very good man, Langston. I'm proud of you," she said quietly. They were in public and wearing their Director/Agent masks or she'd have given him a hug. She and Chuck were having dinner with Langston and Anna that night. She'd be sure to give him a hug then.
Graham was pulled away by some senior executive in the Agency and Sarah began to talk to someone she'd known since the Farm.
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Chuck was talking to Reis' widow and learning about her plans for the future when his phone buzzed. He glanced at it and saw that it was an unknown number. He dropped it back into his pocket. A few moments later, he felt the buzz of a voicemail message being left.
Another couple of people came over and began to speak to Mrs. Reis and her family. Chuck excused himself to get more coffee.
He turned away from the other guests and pushed the button for his voicemail to listen to the message from the unknown caller. The message was very short. Just one word. Chuck heard Bryce Larkin say, in Klingon, "QaH." [Help]
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A/N2: I've set this chapter in early April of 2008. By 2009 there were over ninety stars on the Wall, but I don't know how many were there in April of 2008. So, eighty-seven was a guess. A little over a month after this chapter is set, on May 10, 2008, another CIA officer died and would have a star added to the Wall in his honor. Donald A. Barger was killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan.
In 1974 the Wall of Honor was created by Harold Vogel (a master stone carver) to be an integral part of the CIA headquarters building in Langley. It was opened in July of that year with thirty-one stars. At least as of 2014, the stars were carved by Mr. Tim Johnston and Mr. Johnston would carve a separate star to be given to the family, as Director Graham did here. As of March 6, 2021, there are 135 stars on the Wall, of which 42 remain anonymous.
The ceremony is held annually, usually in May. I moved it up by a month.
A/N3: Yes, there is a Starbucks in the lobby of the CIA headquarters (although I'm honestly not sure if it was there in 2008). Officers are directed not to give their real names to the barista. Seriously.
A/N4: Although our friends would have no way to know it, to have been a student in that demolitions class was destined to become a bragging point in the CIA for decades to come. "Yeah, well, I was in the advanced demo class at the Farm with Carmichael and his team, and let me tell you..."
A/N5: Here we go. A call for help from Agent Bryce Larkin, Operation Thirty. As Holmes would say, "The game is afoot." Let me know what you think, folks.