Sarah's side of the story. Thanks to reviewers who pointed out foundational flaws in my initial draft.

Chapter 2

Sarah settled into her life in DC with satisfaction. Her position as second in command of anti-ring operations was prestigious and her relationship with Shaw was one of mutual respect for fellow professionals. The sex was a bit mechanical but the dates were at fabulous restaurants, the hottest broadway shows, exclusive resorts, black tie galas and leadership retreats. Sarah truly felt that she had 'arrived.' This was everything a grownup relationship should be, she told herself. As she led teams on field ops as Shaw's enforcer she was excited to see that they were making better progress against the Ring in five months than Shaw had on his own in five years.

They closed in on an intelligence leadership conference in Danbury, CT which included all three of the people they had identified as probable Ring Elders. There were only two exits from the secure auditorium and Sarah wired them both with explosives that would keep them shut. She proceeded to the floor above and set up a breaching system that would cut a hole in the ceiling and drop a canister of chemicals to the floor below. Internal containers would shatter on impact and the chemicals would mix creating a large cloud of knockout gas. Her extraction team would find their targets among the unconscious and the ring would be dealt a devastating blow. She activated a powerful jamming field to silence cellular and satellite communications and blew the doors, then called for the extraction team and donned her face mask. She triggered the breaching system and it neatly cut through the floor as expected. When the canister hit the floor below, the operation went completely sideways.

Instead of a cloud of gas, the canister unleashed the fires of hell. "Abort, abort, abort!" Sarah screamed into her microphone as she ran to the roof to assemble her extraction team and bug out. The roof was completely empty and her urgent demand for an update from her extraction team was answered with silence. She quickly whipped out her grappling hook and secured a line to the roof of the next building then took a running leap and hauled herself up. Flying down the stairs she exited on the opposite side and found a secluded spot to steal a car. She drove to Providence, RI and found a cheap motel, then bought a burner phone with cash and left a message at the emergency contact point she and Shaw had set up.

An hour later her burner rang. It was Daniel. "Sarah, where are you?" Shaw asked anxiously.

"Providence, what the hell happened?" Sarah asked.

"It looks like we were set up," Shaw replied. "I need to get you to a safe house off the grid. Can you get to the Providence-Newport Ferry at 11pm?"

Sarah checked the route, "Affirmative," she answered confidently.

"Excellent, I'll have my contact meet you there. Look for a Yankees baseball cap with the word 'Suck' written in black marker on the bill," Shaw said, sounding upbeat and in control.

"Yankees suck, got it," Sarah repeated back.

She drove to a thrift store, got some ratty baggy clothes and changed into them. She got into her stolen car and ditched it near the ferry. Then she wandered in that general direction, asking passers-by if they had any spare change. As she passed the booth of a parking lot attendant she noticed a portable TV set. She pretended to sift through her shopping bag and stopped to listen.

"We have further details on the terrorist attack on the defense conference in Danbury," the newsreader said in a very serious tone. "Authorities have identified Sarah Walker of the terrorist group Gentle Hand as the ringleader." An unflattering recent candid shot from one of her dates with Daniel stared back at her blankly.

Sarah started mumbling to herself as she slowly walked in the opposite direction from the water. She continued asking anyone who crossed her path for change as she drifted toward a nearby park. She went into an alley and squatted next to a dumpster, pulling down her pants. She dropped her burner and her chip cards and stomped them to bits after she pulled her pants back up.

She continued making her way north until she neared Brown University. Carefully examining the cars on the street she found a late model SUV with a current Harvard parking sticker on the windshield. After carefully disabling the alarm system she eased open the rear door and climbed in. She closed the door quietly and made herself a nest beneath some blankets and took a nap.

It was still dark when she heard the driver's side door open and the stereo began spitting out rap music. A young male voice joined in on some of the hooks and soon the vehicle was in motion. As the SUV continued its journey, Sarah mulled over all the underworld groups she could remember in the greater Boston area. By the time the vehicle finally made its way to a student parking structure in Cambridge, she had decided to seek out the triads.

It took several days of careful reconnaissance but she was able to find one of the shipping containers a local gang was using to smuggle in people and stow away in it for the return trip. When the ship had been at sea for a couple days she snuck out and did more recon to pick out the least loved member of the crew who had private quarters. She hid there and strangled him when he came back for the night, creating a makeshift hidey-hole where he might have been keeping her as a slave for his personal use. She made sure she was dirty and bloody before she emerged like a banshee holding the severed head of her victim with his genitals stuffed into the mouth.

She got them to accept her as a scut worker. She bounced around the South Pacific for a couple of months doing scut work before she found an opportunity to join an Indonesian gang. It was ugly dirty work but it allowed her to keep a low enough profile to survive unrecognized. The toughest part of her job was fending off the sexual advances of the senior members of the gang. She had to walk a fine line between being enough of a mad dog to make them understand exposing their genitals might get them gelded but not so out of control that they'd decide she was more trouble than she was worth.

During the long hours as she lay in wait for people who had become lax in paying the gang for protection, she had plenty of time to think. She had invested a lot of effort into building a relationship with Daniel. How had he been able to burn her so cold-bloodedly? The more she thought about it, the more she realized their 'relationship' was all about Daniel. He was the one getting nearly all the credit for their work fighting the Ring. The enjoyment she took in their lavish dates was incidental to Daniel, she realized. His goal was just to be seen enjoying the good life with a fabulous piece of eye candy. He TALKED about wanting to lavish her with attention and about his respect for her professionalism but every nice thing he did for her was fully public and served to burnish his own reputation. In the end, she was nothing but an asset to him. She had been used and burned as soon as he could wring maximum value out of her.

Being thrown away like a piece of garbage really hurt. The humiliation was more than twice as intense as any pride she felt when she considered herself a respected insider in the intelligence community. She was surprised to discover there was no heartbreak in her. She may have respected Daniel and even cared for him but never really loved him. She knew what love felt like. She had only really loved one man in her life, her sweet nerd, Chuck. When she realized her sweet nerd was dying she opened up to Daniel. When he finally died and was replaced by a CIA assassin, she threw herself into a relationship with him. In hindsight she could see that Daniel had cold-bloodedly exploited her vulnerability. It was so obvious now. He had practically read straight from the CIA manual on cultivating an asset. She had been SUCH a fool.

"I wonder if that's what Chuck felt like?" she asked herself. When she turned her back on him, did he feel thrown away like a piece of trash? Did he feel the same humiliation she felt now? No, she realized, remembering the anguish in his eyes. That wasn't humiliation. That was real heartbreak. But she had no choice, her Chuck was dead. His ability to kill Perry proved it. He had become a real spy and Shaw had been proven right. She was a crutch that held him back by protecting him when she should have been challenging him. Real spies don't fall in love. She needed to let Chuck work through his pain on his own and internalize that lesson. The after action reports Daniel had shared with her detailing Chuck's successes in Italy proved that the heartbreak of losing her was the catalyst that unlocked his true potential.

She really missed her sweet nerd. She could still feel that strange and unfamiliar flutter inside her when she saw how kind he was to that young ballerina. As a tall girl herself, she wanted to kiss him when he told the girl that she didn't need to hide in the back because real ballerinas were tall. The years that followed only added to her belief that he had the magic to turn her into a real girl.

Prague had been devastating for her. When Chuck refused to run away with her, it destroyed her trust in that magic. He wasn't going to help her escape the spy world, he wanted to join it. His motives were pure but even now remembering the moment that had shattered her dreams felt like a knife twisting in her gut. Chuck becoming a spy was great for the world but it really sucked for her.

But she had no reason to complain. Time after time after time she had pushed Chuck away. He did it to her ONCE and she was done. She could have answered his calls after he washed out of spy school. She was hurting in a way she had never hurt before and it gave her some satisfaction to see him hurting as well when he failed. If she were more like Chuck and had tried again, if she had comforted him instead of leaving him to twist in the wind, if she had more compassion than bitterness in her soul she could be living the American dream with him instead of hiding in the mud flats of Indonesia.

The WORST part was that she was one who had given Chuck the kill order. Shaw admitted he wouldn't have done it for anyone else. He also admitted that if she knew it was coming she would have refused to be part of it. If only she had the backbone to refuse in that moment, her life could have gone in a completely different direction. Shaw making her the one who pulled the trigger on Chuck's red test was deeply manipulative and utterly heartless. Why couldn't she see that until now? She had rewarded Shaw's contempt for her feelings by running off to DC with him, becoming his lackey and warming his bed. What the hell was wrong with her? She deserved to suffer and had no one to blame but herself.

After a few months, she had an opportunity to bribe a local law enforcement officer to check a list of international fugitives. As she had feared, there was still a substantial reward for Sarah Walker, infamous terrorist. She continued to keep her head down. It wasn't until she had been in the gang for over a year that she was able to perform a significant service for a family of wealthy Chinese expatriates and feel confident that the matriarch wouldn't sell her out. She transitioned to the family's security team, working mostly in Singapore.

She was grateful for the fact that she was considered completely unsuitable as a romantic partner for any of the males of the family and for the first time since she left the US, she allowed herself to clean up. She was careful to keep her hair black and to forgo makeup that accentuated her eyes so she wasn't as striking as she had been but her figure was still the stuff that male fantasies were made of. Working security for the family she once again found herself attending the same kinds of black-tie galas that she had so enjoyed in DC. As a young agent, she had played a role and pursued an objective at such events and had paid scant attention to the intricate dance of alliances, rivalries and posturing between factions. As a player in DC, it was all about working the dance to the advantage of her faction. As a family retainer she still had the interests of her faction in mind but was invisible to the players for the first time. The new perspective was definitely eye-opening. She was shocked at how much of the behavior she saw was predictable and how closely the players kept to a handful of stock types. Her pride took a serious blow when she recognized the type she played to in DC, tame social climber. She watched as a young woman playing that part earnestly worked the room for her husband's approval while he sat back and lorded it over his peers because his wife was a trophy AND an asset.

She had been working for the family for almost a year when her boss called her into the detention area at the family compound and asked her about a name she hadn't heard in quite some time. "I understand you used to be known as 'Sarah Walker', Wei?" Hu Chang said to her. Sarah nodded. "We captured some of your old friends. Apparently they were very eager to see you again." Hu led her to the cells where she was shocked to see Carina and Zondra in adjoining cells.

"Come a little bit closer, bitch," Zondra snarled. "I'd LOVE to get reaquainted with you."

"Down girl," Carina said to Zonda. She turned to Sarah and asked, "So does the family Shang know you work for Gentle Hand or are you planning to sell them out like you did us?"

"I never worked for Gentle Hand, Carina," Sarah said slowly. "That was a lie Shaw made up when he burned me."

"Drop the act, Amy told us you were the one who turned her," Zondra was livid. "And we both know the transmitter you 'found' in my boot heel didn't get there by accident."

Sarah walked to Zondra's cell and stood just out of a lunging arm's reach staring directly into her eyes, stone-faced, saying "If I had contacts at Gentle Hand, I wouldn't have spent a year sucking mud and beating up pig farmers in Indonesia."

"Sure, Sarah," Zondra shot back sarcastically. "That's all you were doing. There no way you could have been training terrorists in the jungle."

"Now you're insulting ME," Hu was dangerously calm. "Do you think me so sloppy or so easily fooled?"

"OK, Sarah, let's say you're telling the truth. WHY would Shaw burn you?" Carina probed.

"Because all three of the people we had identified as likely Ring elders were at that conference and Shaw would do ANYTHING to make the Ring pay for killing his wife," Sarah replied, the shadow of remembered anger clouding her face.

"Or maybe you were just getting boring in bed," Zondra sneered.

Sarah shrugged, saying, "That could have been part of it, we weren't exactly lighting each other's fire at that point."

"Alright so who turned Amy?" Carina asked.

"Augusto Gaez? How the hell should I know? I didn't know she was dirty until tonight," Sarah admitted with some irritation.

"Who smuggled you into Indonesia?" Carina continued.

"Nobody. I stowed away on a triad boat in Boston and did scut work for a while. Indonesia was just a better place to hide."

"Why did you start working for the Shang family?"

"Higher class hiding place and they reward loyalty."

Carina stared at her for a couple of minutes. Sarah stared right back. "OK, I believe her," Carina announced.

"What?" Zondra shouted. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Chill, Zee," Carina shot back. "We both know the real reason you're pissed at her is because of what she did to Charles."

Zondra turned away, fuming.

"Charles who?" Sarah asked, genuinely confused.

"See?" Carina was triumphant. "Charles Bartowski, Sarah. Remember him?"

Sarah sighed heavily, "Yeah I remember Chuck. What I did was cruel but necessary. Last I heard he was kicking ass. I doubt he spends much time thinking about the time he spent with me."

"He stopped kicking ass shortly after the incident in Connecticut," Carina shrugged..

"He did?" Sarah looked up at Carina in surprise. "What happened to him?"

"He's still in Italy, semi-retired. They say he's started a second renaissance if you can believe that," Carina clearly did not.

"You really didn't know?" Zondra asked in a very different voice.

Sarah shook her head. "I gave him his red test. After he passed he wanted me to go to Rome with him. I told him I didn't trust him any more. That's the last I saw of him."

Zondra stared hard at her, "What made you not trust him?"

"He had gone full spy. We all know what that means," Sarah shrugged. "OK, I admit that's weak but I was dragging him down. I was his security blanket. He had to grow up and leave me behind."

Zondra chewed her lip thoughtfully, her expression no less hard. Finally she reluctantly admitted, "OK, I believe you too."

"So we're all friends again?" Hu asked impatiently. "If we release you two you will make no more trouble for our family retainer?"

Carina and Zondra both nodded.

"Do you believe them?" he asked Sarah.

After careful consideration, she nodded as well.

"Good," Hu was clearly ready to be done with them. "As soon as each of you pay a $250,000 fine to apologize for the disrespect to the Shang family you are free to go. Any more trouble from either of you and no one will ever know what happened to you."

They paid their fines, Zondra clearly feeling the pinch more than Carina. Carina offered to put them all up at Raffles for a week and Hu, feeling generous, gave Sarah permission to go.

They were on Carina's balcony with a couple pitchers of margaritas when Sarah said, "You two know my sad story. What have you guys been up to?"

"I'm running a private company, doing contracts for the DEA," Carina was clearly happy with the arrangement. "The only way to move up would have been a desk job and we all know I'm not made for THAT." The three of them shared a knowing chuckle. "I'm based in the Caymans, can't beat the weather, and I have contacts anywhere in the islands where you can find a good party." She smiled beatifically.

"I'm still working for The Company," Zondra admitted. "Doing missions, mostly out of North Africa," She shrugged. "Same old, same old."

There was a lull in the conversation. Glances were traded, and a few nudges until Carina finally said, "C'mon Zee. You know we're not going to be able to relax until you tell her about Charles."

Zondra took a healthy swig of margarita and took a deep breath. "OK, a couple of months ago I sent in an audition for the sanctuary..."

"Whoa, back up girl," Carina interrupted. "Remember Sarah's been hiding in the mud for the last couple of years. She probably never heard of the sanctuary."

Sarah nodded.

"OK, fair point," Zondra nodded and took another drink. "A couple years back, Charles Galois, billionaire playboy and cover identity for the agent you trained..." she nodded to Sarah. "dropped out of sight for a while to think about his life. He was actually pulled from duty and put into mandatory and intensive CIA therapy. He came out of this process with a passion for the arts. The Company loved it because it gave him access to lots of important people."

"Over the next couple years, he promoted concerts and art shows and all kinds of festivals, launching dozens of careers. The jewel of his arts empire was his online media. He bought several rundown tenement buildings in the village near his villa and turned it into an arts hostel. He made enough money to buy the villa the CIA had been renting and do a lavish renovation. He turned the main building into the 'Galois Sanctuary' where he invited beautiful artistic women to find inspiration."

Sarah's head was spinning. What could have transformed her adorably awkward geek into the Hugh Hefner of Italy? Did the intersect include seduction skills he never told her about? The man she had known was obsessed with pop culture and video games. How the hell did he get from there to old school 'patron of the arts'?

"The Company wanted to use Charles' sanctuary as a substation and he told them no. He had enough clout to make it stick. His only concession was that if a female agent made an audition tape of their artistic talent he would consider inviting her."

"Does he still go on missions?" Carina was surprised, apparently she hadn't heard the full story before.

"After the flap with the substation, the Rome office started handling Charles very carefully. They only call him in for missions when they REALLY need him," Zondra replied.

"What kind of mission would they really need him for?" Carina asked.

"The impossible kind," Zondra said quietly.

"How come I haven't heard about any of them?" Carina was still skeptical. "I've still got friends in the Company who love to gossip and they've never mentioned his work."

Zondra motioned for Sarah and Carina to get close and whispered, "There is an open contract, Camorra wide, on anyone overheard discussing Charles' involvement with The Company."

Carina stared hard at Zondra, "You've GOT to be shitting me. The Company would never put up with it."

"Rumor is that Charles claims he had nothing to do with it," Zondra continued whispering.

"So what's the story behind your audition tape?" Sarah asked.

"Modern dance," Zondra said simply. "I practiced for months and taped my performance at a professional studio. It scored me an invitation to the sanctuary."

"Oooo, dish girl!" Carina said eagerly.

"Charles takes inspiration VERY seriously," Zondra said severely. "I told him I wanted to be the stone that David used to kill Goliath. Two days later he had a trebuchet set up on the beach." She shook her head in wonder. "He said he could have had it set up the next day but insisted the safety calculations be triple checked. He wanted to be absolutely certain I could take it right up to the red line. He wasn't kidding. It was the first time I lost my lunch on a ride since I was ten years old."

"Dinner was amazing and completely clothing optional," she went on. "His chefs are the best. The first night he kinda creeped me out by taking notes on my reactions to every dish. I didn't find out until later that he uses reactions to food to customize scents for his guests."

"So what is he, some kind of perfume chemist?" Carina asked.

Zondra nodded. "The perfume laboratory and the massage room are where he spends most of his time."

"He gives massages?" Carina was beginning to sound like a parrot.

"Don't your gossipy friends tell you anything that happens in Europe?" Zondra was clearly annoyed. "Anyway, every evening after dinner, Charles holds salon." She held up a hand to stop Carina from asking again and explained, "Salon is an old tradition where artists get together to talk art. Salon in sanctuary is the wildest collection of insane ideas I've ever heard. My first one literally made my head spin. Charles has a way of getting women to really open up and take risks."

"After salon, Charles invites some lucky woman to his massage table. His tradition is that newcomers and recent performers go to the front of the line. That first night he made me a believer. He did things to my body there are no words for. The best I can do is say I was never that awake before in my life," Zondra sighed happily at the memory.

"Who are you and what have you done with Zondra?" Sarah asked.

"So I take it this massage had a happy ending?" Carina prompted.

"No," Zondra shook her head. "He took me right from the massage room to the dance studio. He laid out this springy waterproof sheet and I danced the oil off my body. It was incredible."

"And THEN he had sex with you?" Carina teased.

"Nope," Zondra said with a smirk. "I wasn't about to melt into a puddle for him no matter how magical his fingers were. But I slept well that night. The next morning, Charles invited me to play a game with him in the studio. No Carina, there was no sex involved. We were sparring to music but were only allowed to strike on a particular beat. We started simple with a 4/4 tempo, I got the 2 beat and he got the 4. Then we mixed it up so we switched off every measure. Then we played progressive so the first strike was on the 2 beat, second on the 3 and so on. I was doing pretty well until we switched to some different tempos. Charles kicked my ass in 7/8. It was weird but playing got me to a level of focus I'd never experienced before."

"It sounds like he was really serious about turning you into a dancer," Sarah said. "He DID know you work for the Company, didn't he?"

"Absolutely," Zondra agreed. "But he's completely serious about the inspiration thing. The second day the whole sanctuary did the trebuchet, which was an absolute blast. By the end of day three I think Charles could tell I was getting antsy and he offered to give me another massage."

"And was the second verse the same as the first?" Carina asked.

"Oh HELL no," Zondra shook her head in wonder. "Second time around Charles had the sheet I did the oil dance on laid out in the studio inside a wooden box with sides around 18 inches high. We both oiled up and did some Greco-Roman wrestling. Charles was using some technique he got from God only knows where and was pretty much taunting me the whole time. He was hitting pressure points that totally threw me off and smoothly slipping from my grasp every time. I wanted to strangle him. And yes, Carina, THEN I had sex with him."

Sarah felt like she was in an alternate reality. Zondra seduced by Chuck? Her brain simply refused to process it.

"That's my girl!" Carina grinned. "And..."

"And yes, it was the greatest sexual experience of my life. Charles played me like a musical instrument and the orgasms were earth shattering. When he had completely wrung out every muscle in my pelvic region he gave me a more traditional massage, had me drink some tea, wrapped me in a giant scented towel and tucked me into bed," Zondra finished with a flourish.

Sarah's brain slipped under the pressure she was putting on it and substituted HER for Zondra in the story her friend was telling. The wave of intense yearning this caused hit her like a sledgehammer.

"Damn, I would have bet quite a stack that there was no way Sarah's pet nerd was really the legendary sexual Jedi the rumors describe," Carina said, shaking her head in disbelief. "But I know how much you hate to have anyone get the better of you in a physical contest.'

"True dat," Zondra agreed. "But I've never been owned so completely in my life." She turned to Sarah, "OK your turn to spill, girl, how good was he when he was still your pet geek?"

"I wouldn't know, we never had sex," Sarah said flatly, still trying to recover from the picture in her brain.

"You worked with that man for years and never had sex with him?" Zondra said, shocked. "I guess it makes sense, if you had you'd probably never have let him go."

"So once again, Zee. With the sex was the second verse the same as the first?" Carina prodded.

"Nah," Zondra admitted. "Don't get me wrong, it was great but I'm pretty sure the human body wasn't meant to sustain anything like that first night on the regular. At the end of the week I performed 'The Harder They Fall' and Charles gave me two perfumes he'd cooked up for me. It was actually really sweet. He called the first one 'The Harder They Come' and yes the sexual innuendo was intentional. The second one was 'The Harder They Fall'. It was the best damn week of my life."

"So the invitations are for one week only?," Carina asked.

"No, there is no time limit but trust me, girl, no woman can keep up with that man for long," Zondra explained. "After a week I knew if I didn't go back to The Company I was going to have to quit and become a dancer full time."

The three women sipped their drinks in silence for a while before Carina asked, "So what made you think Sarah had somehow hurt him?"

"Give me your tablet and I'll show you," Zondra replied. Carina handed over her tablet and Zondra explained while she searched, "While I was at the sanctuary, there was a painter who had created a really amazing oil painting. During salon she explained that the eyes came from something Charles said about the eyes of a disappointed woman. He admitted to me that the woman in question was Sarah. The look in his eyes when he said it was so crushed that no one wanted to ask about the details."

Zondra found the picture and showed her companions a copy of 'Defending the Nest'.

"Well I guess Sarah is immortal now. At least her eyes are," Carina said staring at the image in wonder.

Sarah's guts tied themselves in a knot. Was that really how Chuck saw her when she told him she could no longer trust him? She remembered the look on his face. He might have felt like that in the moment but she had assumed he'd get over it. She assumed he'd realize it was for the best. If he was still feeling that kind of pain years later, she had cut him deep. She wished very badly she could go back in time and take it back.

"So do you know the story behind Shaw's death in Italy? There are whispers it had something to do with Charles," Carina asked.

Sarah's ears perked up. Shaw was dead? She found herself unreasonably angry that she would never get the chance to kill him herself.

"Remember what I said earlier?" Zondra asked pointedly. "Shaw came to Italy to see Charles, probably to demand some kind of favor. He was in a busy cafe, bragging about how he had trained Charles and taught him everything he knows. His local contact tried to get him to shut up but Shaw pulled rank. He said deputy directors aren't bound by urgent directives issued by mere station chiefs. They found him dead in his hotel room the next morning. No one fucks with the Camorra in Italy."

As she refilled her glass, Sarah wistfully ticked 'Kill Shaw' as completed on her internal to do list.