CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I can live with God and with suicide

The same thing holds if I close my eyes

It's a truth so pure it can kill you dead

A taste of heaven mixed with hell

Inside of my head

"God and Suicide"

Blitzen Trapper

July 13, 2012

Timișoara, Romania

The sun had completely set, but the last beams of light at the horizon washed the sky in azure that lightly faded to black the farther away from the horizon they looked. The ambient air temperature was cooler, a heavier breeze rustling their hair as they faced into the breeze. Casey walked forward, while Chuck saw Morgan circling back to talk to him. "Hey, Chuck, can I ask you something?" Morgan said, hesitating on the last few words.

"Now, Morgan?" he asked, more snappishly than he would have liked.

"You never know, Chuck. Just want to clear the air," he said seriously, shuffling his hands in nervousness.

"Ok," Chuck said, drawing the word out and ending as a question.

"Why haven't you called Sarah yet? I know she was sleeping before, but, Dude, it's been like six hours. She's probably awake by now. And probably practically coming out of her skin waiting to talk to you," he added in a rush.

Chuck walked a few steps towards Corrine and Casey, looking at the ground. Morgan saw the hard set to his jaw, like he was clenching his teeth. "The truth, Morgan?" he said stiffly.

Morgan just tilted his head in affirmation. "What else is there, Chuck?" he asked, his voice deflating.

Chuck swallowed, forcing his breath out in a hissing rush. "I'm afraid." His voice wavered as he continued. "I keep thinking about how close we are. And I remember we were there before and it was all just...ripped out of my hands. I can't go back there, Morgan. I can't do that again, not after all this," he said plaintively.

"So not calling her, not hearing her voice, makes that better somehow?" Morgan asked.

"If I just wait, just leave it alone, maybe I won't be tempting fate to damage something again. Sarah thought I was crazy before, when I told her I thought my family was cursed. But I can't help thinking she might have been wrong," Chuck insisted.

"What's all that I hear about a curse?" Corrine called, stepping toward them, a grim determination on her face. "I wasn't eavesdropping, and I apologize if I'm butting in, but Charles, the only curse in your family was your father's arrogance." She tucked both closed fists on her waist, almost as if she were scolding him.

Taken aback as if he had been slapped, Chuck recoiled. "My father's what?" he questioned, his eyes thinning to slits.

She shook her head, realizing she had put him on the defensive. "Don't get me wrong, Charles, I loved your father like he was my brother. But he could never admit when he was wrong. Even your mother knew that. Maybe you only knew him, you know, really knew him, when you were young. You never would have questioned your parents being right, not at that age."

She implored with her eyes, hoping he would understand. "Your father was a brilliant man. A genius. He was rarely wrong. But because of that, he couldn't fathom that he could commit such a colossal failure. He was thick-headed when we tried to tell him the Intersect had failed. By the time he couldn't deny it anymore, it was too late."

Chuck took a deep breath, looking up at the sky, as if some answer was there that he had missed. "You know, he threw a knife at my face, when he thought I had the Intersect and I was lying to him. He said that to me, that he was never wrong." Chuck repeated slowly, then scoffed at the memory.

Corrine shot out a humorless laugh. "So you can imagine how arrogant and self-righteous he would have been 30 years before that, before he knew he was just a little bit fallible," she added, making a gesture with her index finger and thumb, indicating a space less than an inch wide. She looked on in sympathy. "All tragic heroes have a fatal flaw, the thing that is their undoing in the end. Your father spent his entire life paying for that, and he lost everything that ever mattered to him because of it, but you have to acknowledge the truth. That it was his sin, alone. You've taken it on, out of love, but it was never yours to bear. Understand that, Charles."

He pondered that for a while, took a breath to steady himself. "I'll just be a second," he said softly, pulling his phone out of the pocket on the side of his pants. He stepped back, turned away. He could hear the faint buzzing of insects in his ears as he moved towards the line of trees that edged the path where they stood.

Thirty seconds later, he returned, his face crunched in worry. "I can't get a signal. It seems like it's on their end, not here."

"It could just be the towers," Corrine said.

"If I call Casey from here, it should still be bouncing off the same tower, right?" he asked. She nodded in confirmation. He dialed quickly with a few clicks of his phone, and was immediately rewarded by the sound of Casey's phone ringing. "It's not the tower, is it?"

Watching Casey click his phone off in annoyance, Chuck said, with a slight edge to his voice, "Why can't we reach anyone in my sister's house?"

Sounding worried himself, Morgan said, "Call Beckman. She's in D.C., but she's in a better spot to check, don't you think?"

Chuck dialed her without commenting, more worried because the call connected easily. He stepped away to talk. He was still on edge when he returned. "Her secretary got the message. They're in the process of trying to contact her."

Turning away, squashing down the panic, knowing he still had a job to do, and that General Beckman had the situation in hand back in the states, provided she got the message, he moved into the circle of four, and motioned for them to proceed.

July 13, 2012

Oak Park, Illinois

Three hours after they had arrived, it seemed to Ellie that Jeff and Lester were well on the way to solving the problem. The desktop was in chaos, the computer dismantled. Heaps of tools, clutter, paper, and cords covered every inch of the desktop. Ellie wasn't sure how any work could be accomplished with such blatant disorganization, but as she watched the flashing display on the computer scroll and change, she knew they were making headway.

Alex had volunteered to put Clara to bed. She had brought the little girl in to say goodnight. Ellie had kissed her as she sat hitched up on Alex's hip, noticing how the little girl also stretched her arms outward towards Sarah as she sat on the chair, observing the work being done with mild irritation. Smiling, Alex said in a high-pitched voice, "Let's say goodnight to Auntie Sarah," walking towards her.

Sarah smiled, leaning into the kiss that smelled like apple juice and chicken nuggets. Her ire melted away as she looked at the sweet face of the little girl. "Good night, Clara," she said softly.

"It's tub and then story time and then bedtime," Alex cooed to her, bouncing her gently on the same hip.

"That's so sweet of you, Alex. But I can-" Mary offered.

"No, you're busy here. I'm useless until the computer works. I'll be back," she said, leaving with a smile.

Turning to the pair in front of the computer, Ellie asked impatiently, "So, how's it coming?"

Lester continued working, never looking up from his work. "It looks like some kind of security protocol was tripped, and disconnected your server from the mainframe. We bypassed it, reconnected it."

Her brow still furrowed, Ellie turned back to Lester. "So it works now? You fixed it?" As Ellie's gaze shifted, she saw the expression on Sarah's face, tilting her head, her eyes scanning the floor, as if she were trying to remember something.

"Voila," Jeff said, breaking his silence, hitting a button as the screen came alive, the familiar background flickering into place as if nothing had ever been wrong.

"Any idea what could have caused it?" Ellie asked him. "The data line for this system is encrypted. The security protocols are part of that, aren't they?"

"No, no, this was something additional. Embedded in an encrypted file, part of the whole system. A little tricky, you see, but nothing we couldn't handle," Lester said smugly.

Mary was on her feet, a bleak and troubled look on her face. "This is supposed to be a secure line, in and out. Are you telling us that someone hacked into Ellie's server?"

"Hacked? No," Jeff said slowly. He typed a few more things on the keyboard. "The security protocol came from the same source as the encryption protocol."

"What does that mean?" Ellie asked, to both her mother and Jeff at the same time.

"I don't know," Mary said slowly, though Ellie could tell by the way her eyes shifted back and forth that her mind was working in her silence.

"It means that someone in the Pentagon was monitoring your computer," Jeff said plainly, nonchalantly, like he was telling her the weather. "The amount of data coming through the filter crashed the server."

"Like Beckman, or Bentley?" Ellie asked, beginning to worry, as her mother looked almost stricken.

"Someone who didn't want to be detected," Jeff proclaimed.

"It's blocked now? When you put the server back online?" Mary asked urgently.

"I scrambled the pass code on the other end, so yes, it's blocked," he added.

Her usually calm and collected mother turned to her, on the verge of what Ellie thought was panic. "Then we're running out of time."

July 13, 2012

Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

The best way to gain access to a place where she had no authority to be, Diane Beckman had learned, was to pretend that she did. She projected an air of authority, despite her petite stature, in all situations. This was no different. She nodded to people as she passed, ignoring some of the questioning looks, people who weren't used to her presence in this area. The more questioning a look she got, the tighter the greeting, complete with rank.

Ever since meeting with Shaw over six months ago, she had been working behind the scenes, looking for the traitor, someone much higher ranking than Clyde Decker, who had compromised the Intersect somehow. All the while she had been trying to show proof that the project was a complete failure, a project that had no practical application, certainly not the application it had been developed for. Knowing what she knew now, what she had started to suspect after Shaw had been taken into custody, she was thankful she had gone with her gut, and protected Chuck Bartowski's Intersect status. It seemed this entire project was destined to haunt her, each chop meant to destroy it had resulted in only more moving pieces, all capable of returning to wreak havoc. She wanted this done and over.

The Intersect had been her only focus for five years, and while her team had grown to be the best, by far, successful beyond all expectations ever laid out, it was five years of her life that she could never get back. Team Bartowski, while starting with the Intersect, hadn't ended that way. Truth be told, the Intersect had only a small part in the success of that team. It was the team dynamics, the experience and intelligence of its members, as well as, as much as she hated to acknowledge, their devotion to one another. It was no coincidence that her most successful team had been her most unorthodox ever. It wasn't a general working model, but it worked here. And that was all that had mattered.

This investigation she had undertaken had three separate legs, all in her hands, and hers alone. Her suspicions implicated someone who was her superior, and she was treading on thin ice without another ally. But she couldn't get any information at all unless she got access, more specifically access that didn't implicate her. Just in case she was wrong.

Although she would have bet anything that she wasn't.

The stale fluorescent lighting turned the skin on the back of her hands sallow, their glaring brightness amplifying the pounding of her headache. She waited, out of sight of anyone, until she heard the section doors clink open. Hurrying around the corner, making sure the person who had opened the door was out of sight, she dropped to her hands and knees, deftly avoiding the range of the security camera. For once being five foot nothing was an asset and not a liability, she thought.

Once inside, she crouched around the next corner, waiting for the same situation. Her knees ached in contact with the hard, dusty floor. She repeated this routine three times, until she was in the area where she needed to be. Her joints cracked as she jumped quickly to her feet, and pulled out her decoder, attaching to the door in question, running the program until the combination unscrambled, disabling the security cameras at the same time. The red light blinked, flashing against the wall, then ceased as she completed it.

Inside the dark office, it smelled of dusty unuse. She ran to the desk, stepping only on her toes to avoid making noise with her shoes. She reached up and pulled out a hairpin to pick the lock on the center drawer. It unlocked with a click, and she slid the heavy wooden drawer open, lifting it slightly to keep it from scraping. Inside was an extra key card, one that had access to the area she needed to proceed to next.

She checked the time, counting down the time in her head until the non functioning cameras attracted attention. She had three minutes to reach the doors that acted as the partition to the next section. She resisted the urge to run, instead walking with a brisk and steady stride, proving to any onlookers that she belonged here, a commanding presence, as always.

She checked over her shoulder, making sure she was alone, then scanned the appropriated card through the slot next to the door. It beeped, and she darted through, ducking inside the utility closet she knew was just to the left before the corridor turned again. This tiny room smelled of cleaning chemicals and murky water. She sidestepped a broom and an eye wash station as she closed herself inside.

She pulled the infrared scanner out of her pocket, clicking it on. The hallway was empty, she saw. Cracking the door open without a sound, she left the closet, used the card to scan her way into another door. This room was also empty, but imminently recently, so much so that the computer hadn't even timed out yet, so she knew how close she was cutting this. She pulled the blank drive out of her other pocket, inserted it into the computer, and counted on her watch again. She had two minutes.

It took a full minute to download the files. Beginning to sweat, she tucked the drive away, using the scanner to check for guards. The coast was still clear, but there was a signature registering at the end of her scanning range. She hurried out and ran.

She made it back to the security camera checkpoint with only seconds to spare. Dropping down on her hands and knees again, she scurried out using the same path she'd entered on, knowing as she did so her knees had the potential to be bruised tomorrow.

The entire operation had taken only ten minutes. Not bad for an old spy like me, she thought.

Now she had something to look for, before she could complete the last leg of her mission.

July 13, 2012

Timișoara, Romania

Chuck held the infrared scanner out in front of him, balanced over his tranq gun. He advanced, leading the group. The nagging worry that something was terribly wrong in Chicago wouldn't leave him. All he could do was have faith that between Beckman and his mother, they would be all right.

"Ten," he spoke quietly, trying not to sound alarmed, though he was, considering the number outside was more than the estimated total for both inside and out.

Casey gave a grunt, registering as grunt number four, dismay, which seemed to agree with Chuck's assessment.

They confronted the guards as one mass, guns drawn. The buzzing of insects around his head seemed so loud it was almost deafening. Outnumbered and outgunned, Chuck knew the only way past them and inside was using the Intersect. Despite his reluctance, he could still flash on demand.

Casey saw it, the slightly disoriented expression on his face that alerted them. Although, as they looked on, any of them would have been hard pressed to deny the existence of it.

Ten armed guards by himself. Such a spectacle, Chuck's three teammates ended up standing in a line, watching him in fascination. He became a flurry of arms and legs, kicks and chops, pulling guns from multiple hands before the gunmen even had time to react. It was over in a matter of minutes, all of them disarmed and unconscious.

Casey knew so well the look in Chuck's eyes as he turned back to them. He had seen it before, many times, even sometimes in the mirror looking back at himself. Seeing it in Chuck's eyes left him disconcerted and uncomfortable. Sarah hadn't exaggerated when she'd described it two years ago. Casey was looking at someone he had never seen, wild with blood lust and disregard for life.

"Chuck!" Casey called, only lightly breaking into the fugue.

Morgan looked back and forth between Chuck and Casey, confused at first, but recognizing the look from before, only in this moment seeming to at last comprehend the root cause.

"Chuck!" Casey called again, feeling Corrine's eyes at his back, concerned.

With a stiff, unnatural motion, as if he were fighting his own muscles, they watched as Chuck reached for his left wrist with his right hand. Casey watched as Chuck slid his index and middle fingers underneath the face of his watch, lifting it up and out of contact with his skin.

He flinched in pain, shaking his head as if to clear it away. He staggered down onto one knee, once having lived with pain worse than this for months on end, but now unaccustomed to it. Corrine rushed past Casey, kneeling beside him.

"Was that your Intersect, Charles?" she asked, louder than necessary, but trying to shake him.

He nodded, gasping for breath. She watched him pull his fingers away from under the watch, the deep crease down the center of his forehead relaxing as the pain and disorientation subsided. "Yeah," he breathed. He held up the watch for her to see. "This regulates my neural network. Without it I have headaches and I can't concentrate. My father made this for me."

"You couldn't stop?" she asked.

"I don't know how else to clear that part of it. When I don't have the luxury of unconsciousness. That's the only way I know how to stop that bit. It didn't come with a manual," he said as he slowly caught his breath.

"God, they used that to create a killing machine. You said you ended up with this by accident?" she asked, the horror in her eyes not completely masked.

Corrine spun backward, feeling Morgan's eyes on them, penetrating. His face was white, a pain radiating out of him so incongruous with his genial nature that she started. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?" he asked, indignant with hurt.

Corrine noted how Chuck couldn't quite look at him when he answered. "No one but Casey and Sarah knew. It was just safer. I'm sorry, Buddy."

"No, Chuck," he stabbed, angrier than he felt the current situation called for. "Not that you had it. That that was the reason. For all of it. My God, why didn't you tell me?"

"Chuck, what is he talking about?" Casey asked warily.

"We don't have time for this, I'm sorry," Corrine said stiffly, taking control of what seemed to be a devolving situation. "Talk to each other afterward." She stood, pulling him up to his feet with one strong tug. "Are you alright to continue? Do you need another minute to get your bearings?" she asked him pointedly.

He nodded, fully aware now how tenuous the team's cohesiveness had become. Corrine was actually holding them together. Casey was confused, awaiting an explanation for Morgan's behavior. Morgan was as close to heartbroken as Chuck could remember, perhaps worse than right before he had accidentally found out that Chuck was a spy, when they had been captured by the Ring. Remembering the horrors Morgan had witnessed in his goal of helping Chuck cope with living without Sarah, it stung worse, now, as he knew Morgan finally understood what had actually happened. Chuck was so ashamed, he could barely look at his friend. Never a good situation when heading into danger, but he didn't have a choice. He had to compartmentalize it, and wait for a better time.

Corrine took the lead this time, as they entered the building, scanning with Chuck's device. "This doesn't make any sense," she said almost to herself.

"What, Corrine?" Chuck asked.

"There's no one else inside. I'm not registering any guards on the next three levels. One person on the floor where you said that room is. There were ten outside. Why? What are we missing?" she asked again.

Casey looked pale, the whites of his eyes visible in circles around his ice blue irises. Chuck met his gaze, knowing they were thinking the same thing.

"I have a very bad feeling about this," Chuck mumbled.

"What, Charles?" she asked.

"We might be too late."