AN: As always, I do not own Covert Affairs or any of the characters. BONUS CHAPTER this week, to make up a little for the multiple months without any. All the italics are pulled verbatim from the show. This will be the likely be one of the last chapters to follow canon so closely. I've got the next 8 chapters (out of probably 10 more) outlined out, so I'm hopeful that there isn't another months long break before I wrap up this story. This chapter is a look at what is going on in DC while Annie is in Northern Africa. Reviews and constructive criticism always welcome!
Dreaming Through Regret
Chapter 9 - It's Gettin' Good Now
The sound of drumming fingers greeted Joan Campbell as she walked into the Office of Special Projects that afternoon. Annie's flight from Dulles had departed the prior day and she wanted to check in on Auggie before she left for the day. The lights were off in the office Auggie occupied, but that didn't surprise her in the least, the dark screens and lack of the sound from the braille reader Auggie used did surprise her.
"Auggie? What's wrong?" Joan asked, concern apparent in her voice.
"Annie's flight landed in Cairo around 4am our time."
"That's good, no issues or delays held her up."
"I haven't heard from her." Auggie snapped.
"Were you expecting to?" Joan retorted. "This is an off-books mission. We told her to run it as she saw fit. There is no protocol in place for her to adhere to, nothing that says she has to check in with you on a set cadence."
"She always checks in." Auggie murmured sullenly.
"What's this really about, Auggie?"
"Something was off, the day we met at the Lincoln Memorial. She was distracted and dodged my questions."
"You noticed too? I figured she was just still shook up about Jai and nervous about the mission. Do you think it was something more than normal nerves?"
"Maybe… oh, I don't know. I experienced her nervousness on her first day, this just felt different, it felt like… reluctance?"
Auggie's stumbling reply got Joan thinking about that afternoon, reviewing the details even closer.
"I remember her concern about having to be noticed, rather than blending in. Maybe the idea of blurring the lines between her personal and professional lives is something she's struggling with?"
"Could be. I'm probably just reading way too much into this."
"The best operatives listen to their instincts, they don't typically steer us down the wrong path. Don't let it consume you, but don't ignore it either." Joan said as she placed a hand on Auggie's shoulder. "She'll call. When she needs you, she'll call."
Auggie listened as Joan's heels tapped their way down the hall back towards the elevator. Once he heard the elevator doors shut behind her, he let out the breath he'd been holding, and let his head fall back to rest on his chair. The unanswered questions surrounding Annie frustrated him to no end, he was really beginning to hate not being able to see her face or pick up on her body language. Being limited to picking up on tone changes in her voice was a restriction that he thought he'd gotten over.
Auggie didn't hear anything from Annie until two days after she'd landed in Cairo. Suddenly his phone alerted him to an incoming call.
Annie Walker calling...Annie Walker calling…
'Finally!' was the only thought crossing Auggie's mind as he picked up the phone.
"Hey, Walker! Enjoying the heat in Egypt?" Auggie quipped as he answered his phone.
"It's glorious." Annie deadpanned back.
"What's happenin'?"
"I need your help building a cover out."
Just as Auggie began his response to Annie's request, Joan walked into the office.
"A cover? I thought you were going in with just your NOC?" Auggie was surprised at the departure from the basic plan he and Joan had established prior to Annie heading to Cairo.
"I found an interesting connection between all the recent land purchases in Northern Africa outside of urban areas that I think will get me in with Fischer quicker than just playing the blonde beauty."
"Explain." Auggie was intrigued by where Annie was going with this and his frustration started melting away.
"I was looking into the 3 land purchases we identified a little more closely and found that all purchases in the last 5 years similar to these were either made by private purchasers or by the International Land Conservation Network."
"Interesting. So you want to get a cover established with this Conservation Network?"
"Yes. I think it's going to give me a credible reason for looking into the purchases in the area if I'm looking to find land for the Network to purchase in the same area."
"Smart, Annie. This is great work." Auggie was impressed, and hopeful that this solution would mitigate the reluctance he had been picking up from her about the mission.
"Thanks. I honestly was looking for a reason to not have to play the stereotypical dumb blonde." Annie replied.
"Where are you?"
"Just east of Cairo, headed out to the Sinai Peninsula to check out the purchase near Mount Sinai."
"You planning to go through Suez?"
"I hadn't planned on it, but I can make that happen if needed."
"I have a contact there that I'll send all the docs you'll need to, I need a couple hours."
"Okay, According to GPS I'm about 90 minutes from Suez, but once there it'll take me some time to find your contact."
"Sending you the location now. Stay safe Walker."
"Thanks, Auggie."
Auggie hung up the phone and turned to where he thought Joan was standing.
"It's a great cover idea, Auggie."
"I know. Should we have tried harder to find a solution like that before sending her in to essentially seduce Fischer?"
"We didn't have the time, Auggie. Annie is showing great initiative here, she knew that she wanted to avoid the seduction tactics, and she came up with a brilliant way to do just that."
"How did we miss her utter disapproval of those tactics?"
"We didn't Auggie. She has never been assigned a mission like this before. I'd put money on her not even knowing herself until she was confronted with the possibility."
Auggie sighed, "Joan, she's still so green."
"She's a fantastic operative. Believe in her." Joan responded before reminding Auggie he was on a time crunch to get Annie's cover built out for her.
Auggie was already dialing a number on his phone as Joan walked out of the office, a slight smile on her face. She'd trained great operatives in those two, she had faith in their abilities even if they didn't.
Auggie managed to get the basics Annie needed ready in time for her to pick up in Suez by the skin of his teeth. A young woman he'd met while in Iraq was studying at the university in Suez and agreed to pass along the documents and technology Annie needed for her cover. A quarter hour after the scheduled meet Auggie received a text from his contact stating that the handoff had been completed.
'Pleased with the docs?'
Then he waited, slamming down his impatience at the lack of immediate response by reminding himself that she knew better than to look through the docs out in the open. The next 10 minutes felt like hours, but he finally heard his phone ping.
'Your contact does good work. Everything I need is in here. Thank you.'
Auggie spent the next several hours finalizing the details of Annie's history with the ILCN in case she happened upon Fischer in Egypt. It was late in the day when he headed home, hoping to catch some shuteye before having to dive back into the boxes of Big Dipper documents.
Joan was waiting for him as he entered Langley the next day, one of the only downsides of using the CIA approved car service was that the higher ups would always know when he was expected to get to work. She handed him a cup of coffee and offered to help him get the Big Dipper files scanned onto his computer so he could review them himself.
"That seems a bit below your pay grade, Joan." Auggie offered after taking a sip of his coffee.
"Just think of it as me getting back to my roots as an operative. Besides, do you really want some newbie reading these docs?" Joan countered quickly, though Auggie caught the smile in her tone.
"True, thanks for the help." Auggie murmured in apology before turning to head to his office, accepting Joan's elbow lead.
"You should take a look at the NOC DB before you dive into these docs. It'll take me a bit to get them started scanning." Joan suggested before walking over to the laptop set up in the far corner of the OSP office.
Intrigued, Auggie sat at his desk, pulled on his headphones, and logged into the NOC DB. Guessing that Joan would be alluding to the NOC they were building for Annie, he pulled up that record and was impressed by the level of detail that had been added.
"Joan… Annie's good at this, REALLY GOOD. The level of detail she has added about this cover is amazing. Travel history, courses of study, personal relationships…." Auggie trailed off there, catching Joan's attention.
"Ah, I was waiting for you to see that." Joan said with a sigh.
"She included a fiancé in her personal relationships."
"You can't be truly surprised, Auggie. Not after our talk the other day."
"More like guilty, Joan. I feel awful for pushing the idea of seducing Fischer on her." he responded quietly, before continuing to read through the details Annie had added. "Hey Joan, this fiancé seems really familiar, like I should know him."
"She probably based him off someone here, Auggie. The first several pages of documents are on the laptop now." Joan stated, trying to pull Auggie back to the task at hand. She hadn't expected him to dwell so much on Annie's NOC.
By the end of the day Joan had scanned all 5 boxes of documents into Auggie's laptop, but even after spending the last 3 days digging through them Auggie wasn't coming up with much of anything actionable that they hadn't already known. Considering all the possible next steps, he settled on one before heading down to the DPD to speak with Joan.
Joan's head pops up from the file she was reading when she heard the knock on the frame of her open door.
"Come in, Auggie."
After entering and closing the door, Auggie takes a seat on the small couch in Joan's office. Joan comes from behind her desk to sit next to him before asking, "What is it?"
"I think I need to talk to Henry Wilcox." Auggie blurted out after a moment. Joan sat back in surprise at the request.
"That's not a simple request, Auggie. To make that happen we have to read Arthur in. Are you ready for that?"
"I don't have any other ideas, Joan. I've read all those files at least three times through at this point, I can't glean anything new from them. We need the other files otherwise we might as well call off the whole mission."
"Let me call up to Arthur and see if we can get in to meet with him. Gather your intel and hopefully we get what you want. I'll call you when I know something."
Auggie knew a dismissal when he heard one, and left Joan's office quickly to gather everything he would need for this meeting, including his wits.
3 hours later he and Joan were sitting at the small conference table in the DCS office reading Arthur into the intel they'd found and the mission they'd launched. Arthur was a mix of impressed and angry. Auggie, with the help of Annie and Joan, had a lead on Jai's killer in record time, but he'd also initiated an off-books mission that could put an operative in more risk than he cared to have any operative in.
"So what do you need from me? You've got a solid mission scoped here and have already initiated it." Arthur asked, closing the file and placing it on the table in front of him.
Joan remained quiet, signaling to Auggie that he was going to have to make the request of Arthur himself if he wanted to get in to see Henry Wilcox.
"We need the other files. Without that intel we are running blind, which puts Annie at risk."
"Well, where are they?"
"I think they are at Jai's safehouse. Annie mentioned that Jai wanted to take her somewhere to show her the files. I can't imagine that he would have kept them anywhere other than a safehouse."
"I'm sensing a but here…"
"Jai never told Annie where his safehouse was, and you know that we don't track operative's safehouses. There is only one person I can think of who might know where it is."
Arthur sighed in realization, before muttering, "Henry Wilcox. You want to talk to Henry Wilcox."
"Yes, I want to talk to Henry Wilcox." Auggie responded frankly.
Arthur mulled on the request before answering, "Okay, but I want to observe without him knowing I'm there."
"Okay."
"As you know, working at the CIA gives me certain privileges too, and they include summoning a federal prisoner whenever I damn well please." Auggie said as enter the interview room Henry Wilcox was waiting in.
"Fair enough," Wilcox replied before sarcastically calling through the observation window, "Guard, hold all my calls."
"I'm here to tell you a story about the first time I met Jai. Langley was buzzing. The son of the DCS was coming off the farm and everyone said he was arrogant, entitled, self-absorbed…"
"Just like dad, " Henry cut in.
"Exactly. But that wasn't my impression of him." Auggie continued, "Maybe it was because I was blind and I couldn't see the $1,000 John Lobbs or that hardened glare."
"What was your impression, then?" Henry inquired.
"Jai had this unstoppable thirst for knowledge...a yen for solving puzzles and understanding the complexities of this world."
Henry looked down before countering, "He got that from his mother." he paused and then firmly stated, "If I did have something… what could you give me in return?"
"Nothing." Auggie responded honestly, "You want to keep playing these angles, Jai's murder will remain unsolved. But for once, instead of son trying to emulate father, maybe father should try to emulate son."
Henry considered Auggie's comments and then leaned forward to whisper, "Chantilly Lofts, Unit 317"
"What is that?"
"The location of Jai's safe house."
Arthur was speechless in the observation room where he and Joan had just seen the interchange between Auggie and Henry. Never in a million years did he believe that Auggie would have been able to get that response from Wilcox, especially without asking for it directly. Joan had a satisfied smile on her face, getting to see the operatives she'd developed and mentored succeed was incredible.
As Auggie left the interview room where Henry Wilcox still sat, his cell phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was from Annie, 'Fischer not our buyer in Egypt, heading to our next stop.' He let Joan and Arthur know that Annie was on her way to Algeria after coming up empty handed in Egypt.
Late that night Auggie and Joan headed over to Jai's safe house. They walked quietly into the apartment and found that the lights refused to work, which was disappointing though not unexpected. Joan led the way further into the apartment, Auggie taking her elbow lead, when suddenly she stopped.
"I take it by your stunned silence, we're in the right place." Auggie quipped at Joan.
"Yes, we need to get Arthur here ASAP."
While they waited for Arthur to arrive they looked around, "Jai was definitely running an investigation here. It looks like it lines up with the files we found at Langley. Don't touch anything until Arthur is here, I want him to see it exactly as Jai left it." Joan directed at Auggie.
After showing Arthur the room, Auggie asked "So on a scale of one to ten, how big a deal is this?"
"Knowing Jai, 12." Arthur retorted.
"How much trouble is Annie in here? What did we unknowingly send her into?" Auggie asked, concern lacing his tone.
"We won't know until we go through it all. We need to pack all this up and bring it back to Langley."
Hours later the three CIA operatives were holed up in the OSP offices. Joan and Arthur were reading through the plethora of files and scanning them into the laptop on Auggie's desk so he could review them as well.
"Anything in these files sticking out to either of you?" Arthur asked, knowing both Auggie and Joan had more familiarity with the existing files than he did.
"Annie mentioned that Jai had told her that he believed there was a leak inside the CIA, I'm starting to agree with him." Auggie commented.
"How so?" Arthur questioned.
"6 out of 50 OSP operations have been compromised. There was a note of the 6 blown operations and a connection to Simon Fischer in the files we found."
What's the connection?"
"There are code names mentioned over and over again in these files, with dates, times, and notes that all lead back to one of the compromised operations."
"You believe one, or more, of these code named informants could be a CIA operative?"
"Yes, I do."
"Get me more than a hunch, Auggie." Arthur threw over his shoulder as he departed the OSP offices.
Joan and Auggie spent the next two weeks sorting through the files they'd found and comparing their findings with Jai's notes. About a week into their digging, Auggie received an email from Annie that detailed the first 2 weeks of her mission in Northern Africa. He was impressed with the level of detail she was able to provide but simultaneously concerned at the lack of personality she typically included in her reports. He put the concern he was feeling down to the fact that he was reading her words rather than hearing them as he typically would have, and decided to keep his feelings to himself for now.
Not expecting contact from her for at least another week or so, Auggie was caught off guard the next day when he received a text from Annie. Joan was with him as the text came through and his phone read it out loud to both of them.
'Target Acquired. I need a black Samsung smartphone charger with a built-in tracking device.'
"Holy shit, Joan. She did it, Annie found Simon Fischer." Auggie murmured, impressed.
"Auggie, Annie asked for equipment, get to it." Joan prodded to get Auggie out of his daze and help is operative.
This request was significantly easier than having to build out a whole cover in the span of 90 minutes, so he was tapping out a response to Annie's text within a quarter hour.
'31.624184669720645, -7.992897003716718 Pick Up Location. Allow 24 hours for delivery.'
The next several days were spent similarly to the days before Annie let them know she'd found Fischer. By the end of the second week of rifling through all of Jai's files Joan and Auggie had managed to narrow their list of codenames down to 10. They noted the dates and locations tied to the codenames and took them to Arthur. He was the only one in the building who would be able to initiate a DB search without anyone being alerted to it, just one of the many perks of being the DCS.
The DB search was slow, but thorough, due to the fact that there were at least 5 dozen dates and locations to cross reference to and hundreds of CIA operations to review. It took 6 days to run a full comparison against the DB, and as Auggie entered Langley on the 7th morning he had 2 surprises waiting for him. The first was tied directly to the grapefruit perfume that suddenly filled his senses; Annie was back. The second was hearing Joan inform the two of them that Arthur had requested them in his office.
