All right, hold on tight now
It's down, down to the wire
Set your hopes up way too high
The living's in the way we die
"The Living Daylights"
A-ha
October 5, 2021
London, England, United Kingdom
"Damn it, Nigel, don't shoot!" Cole shouted as he appeared at the top of the stairs in the secret base, looking down to see the MI6 agent poised with his gun aimed at the door.
"What the bloody hell…" Nigel started, his voice failing as he saw the group, led by Cole Barker. Behind him was a tall man, with a young girl in his arms. They ran down the metal steps, a steady beat of clunking as they moved.
"They told us you were dead!" Nigel exclaimed. "And who…no, wait, you're Charles Bartowski, aren't you?" Nigel concluded.
"And this is Sarah's sister, Molly," Chuck huffed, slightly out of breath from the speed he had descended the stairs. "Have they already gone?" Chuck asked urgently. "The team," he added.
"They're in position, right now," Nigel said tightly, laying his gun on the table top and rushing to the monitor, just part of the wall of surveillance equipment before them. He scanned the monitors, and pulled the headset up, stretching it to fit over his head.
"Are you alone in here?" Chuck asked. "She needs help," he said softly, knowing physically Molly wasn't harmed, but she was in shock, completely shut down emotionally after her long ordeal.
Silently, Cole took the girl from his arms and turned. Molly clung to him just as tightly, his safety assured by Chuck and now accepted as fact. He nodded to Chuck and moved away with Molly cradled in his arms.
"I am. Casey and Carina are making the exchange. Colin is looking out. Jacques and Sarah are lying in wait," Nigel explained. He looked away, then secured the headset, fitting it behind his ears. "Your wife…she thinks you're dead, you know that, right?" he asked, flinching at the words, knowing how ridiculous he sounded. Of course he knew that. That was, in actuality, the point for all of this.
"I know," Chuck said softly, scanning the monitor, looking for information. He was anxious to get out of there, and get to the meeting point. "Molly heard them. They're going to be ambushed! You have to warn them," Chuck said urgently.
Nigel started typing, his hands like spiders as they danced over the keys. "Do you know?" Nigel said softly, almost under his breath as he worked. "I told General Casey to pull her. She's like a volcano on the verge of an eruption."
"Raise them on the comm. If you can just let me talk to her, I can explain," Chuck said, worried at Nigel's description of Sarah's state of mind. He waited, watching as Nigel's typing became more frantic. "What? What is it?" Chuck asked.
"Comms are down. There seems to be a jammer somewhere at the source. They can still communicate with each other, but not with me," Nigel nearly shouted.
Chuck heard Cole rush up behind him. "I gave her a mild sedative. Someone needs to be here when she wakes up to explain a little better. I doubt if she's going to remember how she got here," he told Chuck quickly.
"We have to go now, Cole. Communication is down. There's no way to warn them," Chuck said urgently. Turning to Nigel, Chuck added, tilting his head in the direction of the area where Molly was sleeping, "Can you make sure she's alright?"
"Yeah," he assured them. "I will."
"Do you have enough ammunition?" Cole asked Chuck, standing in front of the base's armory, which was behind the area where they were situated.
Chuck was pale and shaking, but he nodded. Cole had started quite worried, but he wasn't any longer. He had seen Chuck in full tactical mode, protecting his son, even shooting one of the assailants. At the house, at an awkward angle, Chuck's shot had hit the man's shoulder, but Cole knew all along Chuck had been aiming for his chest. It was how Chuck had been trained what felt like a million years ago in Prague…how they all had been trained. Neutralize the threat.
"I'll do what I can to break through the interference from here," Nigel told them, the last thing he said as the two men charged up the stairs and out the door.
XXX
"We go in the front. You two up the fire escape, in through the window at the back," Casey instructed inside the van that was parked across the street from the flat Carina and Zondra had first searched. Carina was paired with Casey. Casey could see the light on the second floor, as well as the dark window at the end.
"The team is moving out. Nigel, do you copy?" Colin said. "Nigel, do you copy?" he repeated, louder and more intensely.
"General, I can't raise them," Colin announced. "Coms seem to be down."
"Ours are still working," Jacques told them, speaking into his watch to prove it.
"That's all we need," Casey instructed, ignoring the cold feeling in his stomach that something was wrong. No matter what happened, this was not going to be a smooth transaction. No one on the team had any belief that it would be. "Let's go," he said, nodding once stiffly to the rest of the team. They parted. The last thing Casey saw before they entered the front door of the building was Sarah, scaling the outside of the fire escape like she was climbing a rock wall, with Jacques close behind.
Casey went through the door first and immediately was thrust up against the wall. He splayed his hands out, watching as another man did the same to Carina. They both stood still while they were frisked. He, and Carina for that matter, were still armed by the time they were completed. He had a small firearm tucked on the inside of his pant leg. He knew, before they had left the van, Carina had a knife holster so far up her thigh he didn't know how she could still walk. They were prepared to be disarmed, and he was strangely surprised that these henchmen had done such a poor job of checking them over.
One of them drew a weapon, and pointed, asking them to climb the stairs to the second floor. He matched his steps with Carina, making sure both guards stayed behind them. At the top of the stairs, Casey saw Kovacs, waiting in the hallway outside the door to the flat. He could see the door was open, surely with extra men inside.
"The device and the attachment," Kovacs barked in a sharp Hungarian accent.
"Where is the girl?" Casey growled.
"Plans have changed. When we know the device is legitimate, she will be returned to you unharmed," Kovacs replied.
Now where have I heard that before? Casey asked himself, remembering specifically the warehouse where he and Sarah had been ambushed, after Quinn had taken Chuck.
With a rapid flick of his eyes, Casey saw Sarah and Jacques, just on the edge of the corridor, one on either side. Knowing they were in position, Casey pulled the device from his pocket, and held it up, splaying his fingers to display the entire piece, then closing his fist around it. "I'll crush this to dust…unless you give me proof that she is still alive," he threatened.
Casey made eye contact with Sarah, but that was the last thing he saw…before he felt the pain explode at the back of his head. Carina hit the ground a second before he lost consciousness, collapsing partially on top of her, partially on the floor.
XXX
"I don't have a clear shot," Sarah hissed to Jacques. Kovacs' men had knocked both Casey and Carina unconscious, but the subsequent confusion of people in the corridor, moving to pull them both into the flat with the open door, had blocked any shot either she or Jacques could have taken. Instead, they waited until the hallway cleared.
"Why take them?" Jacques asked her, almost rhetorically. Sarah flashed him a grim face, half shrugging. It didn't make sense.
She could hear muffled talking, suddenly realizing the walls of the flat were thin, and she was actually hearing the discussion inside the room. She put her hand up to her lips, more to indicate she was listening than for him to be quiet.
"A lany elment. Stall." Hungarian was one of the languages Sarah spoke fluently. They had to be talking amongst themselves, if they were conversing in another language. The girl was gone?
She strained to hear more, but the words were too muffled. Gone? What did that mean? Panic threatened to overtake her. Could Molly have escaped? It didn't seem likely. There was no one else to rescue her… please let her still be alive. She heard that thought, almost like it was spoken by someone else, then pushed her emotions down, adding them to the black hole that had been slowly consuming all of her insides.
"I don't know the specifics…but they don't have Molly any longer. They're stalling," Sarah whispered.
Jacques leaned against the window at the end of the hallway. "We've got company," he whispered with dread. "There's another six on their way inside."
Twelve against two, Sarah thought.
Only seconds after Jacques pulled away from the window, a bullet, fired from the ground level outside, shattered the window beside them. Jacques and Sarah dove for the floor, a shower of broken glass raining down upon their heads. The commotion drew the attention of the men inside the flat, and soon the hallway was full to overflowing with people.
Jacques rose up onto his knee, pointed his gun, and fired. He picked off two of them in the time it took Sarah to rise from her stomach. He advanced,and then she fired her weapon in rapid succession. Five men lay dead in the hallway.
Sarah moved first, stepping over dead bodies like they were piles of laundry. She leaned against the door frame, feeling Jacques was behind her, but never turning to look at him and break her concentration. Sarah inched closer to the door, zipping her head back as bullets flew out the door.
Her training as an assassin had been so long ago, when she had been honestly still only barely older than a child. She was one of the best assassins the CIA employed by the time she met Chuck. He had set her free from that life, given her back her dreams and her hopes, allowing her to change into the woman who could be his wife and the mother of his children. She had put it aside, tried to forget it, but it was, in fact, ingrained in her. Something that despite her greatest wishes, she had never shed. She was a killer…and she had been…since she was 17 years old.
The assassin spun, her eyes like darts as they scanned the room. Kovacs was alone with Casey and Carina. She gave no heed to the captives, unconscious, tied to chairs positioned in the middle of the room. She raised her weapon and fired.
Kovacs dived behind a sofa, scrambling to pick up his own weapon, which had somehow fallen from his grip. She had two shots left, she knew. She fired into the sofa, through the back cushions at their thinnest point, advancing like a stalking panther with her gun held out in front of her. She saw the blood splatter against the wall and on the curtain, feeling a peculiar rush inside, acknowledging she had hit her target. She crept to stand before him.
She had shot him in the shoulder, and he was struggling to roll to his side. The gun was outside his reach. Her face set like stone, she demanded, "Where is the device?"
He was red-faced, straining to breathe, in obvious pain as she watched the puddle of blood slowly spreading beneath him. "Here…" he wheezed, sliding the shell-like device she had pulled from the gargoyle's mouth on the Notre Dame Cathedral, attachment and all, out and away from his body. She pulled it forward with her foot, never shifting her gaze or moving the gun.
"You don't…you don't…understand…she's dying…" he moaned, thrashing in pain, while Sarah stood still like a statue and watched. "That…was the reason…all along…"
"Who?" Sarah barked in a clipped voice.
"The…Director…" he wheezed.
The last thing Kovacs saw was the icy blue depths of Sarah's eyes. The second to last thing he heard was Sarah, coldly enunciating each word, saying, "Give her my regards…when you see her in hell." The last thing he heard was Sarah's last bullet, fired out of the barrel of her gun, straight into the center of his forehead.
XXX
Chuck was out of the car only one second before Cole, just in time to hear the glass of the second story window shatter after it had been shot out. His eyes scanned down in the darkness, counting the group of men who were moving as a crowd toward the entryway.
He took off running, hearing Cole's feet as they pounded against the pavement behind him. It felt strange, holding the gun in his hand at his side, that training so infrequently accessed, yet right at the forefront when suddenly needed. Chuck entered first, sliding to the side of the door and making room for Cole to press himself against the opposite side. They both heard the gunshots ricocheting down the stairwell as their presence was observed. Both men ducked for cover.
Cole shot his way clear, climbing halfway up the staircase before another fired bullet echoed. Chuck tucked himself behind Cole and moved slowly.
"Sarah, I need help out here!"
Cole turned to look at Chuck, instant understanding passing like electricity between the two men. It took every ounce of strength Chuck had left to not shout out to her that he was here. Distracting her in the middle of a gunfight was the worst thing he could do, nevermind calling more attention to their presence in the stairwell. He didn't recognize the speaker, but he heard the light French accent and assumed it was Hannah's husband, Jacques. He was helping them, Chuck thought with relief, remembering how concerned they had been previously about his affiliations.
Chuck was deafened by another hail of gunfire exploding in the second floor hallway. It soon gave way to what he knew was hand to hand combat, hearing the sounds of bones crunching, blows landing, and the tight grunts of both Sarah and Jacques, as well as those of the men they were fighting. Standing on either side of the entrance, Cole and Chuck nodded, then spun into the hallway, guns drawn.
"Drop your weapons!" Cole shouted, freezing one of the two men still on his feet in the hallway.
Chuck saw Sarah's backward kick, heard her grunt as she leveled her assailant. Frozen in horror, Chuck watched her pull her gun forward, aiming it at the head of the unconscious man. Had she even heard Cole speaking? he wondered.
"Sarah!" Chuck shouted, out of breath.
Her head whipped around before her body, the gun clattering out of her hand and onto the floor. He saw her eyes, wide and unbelieving, and her face as white as a sheet. "Chuck…" He saw her mouth move, but the sound was barely audible. He watched her face crumple, and then watched her move, running full speed at him, launching herself into the air and wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his body.
He staggered as the momentum of her weight threw him off balance, squeezing her painfully tight at the same time. He could hear her hysterically babbling, shrieking, feeling her shaking as she cried in his arms. "I'm sorry, baby," he whispered, over and over, close to her ear so she could hear him over the sound of her crying. "Stephen's alright. He's with Beckman," he whispered, knowing she was overwrought and just wanting her to know.
Cole had moved away, farther down the corridor, looking to free Casey and Carina. One of the victims on the floor rolled upward, kicking his foot upward and knocking Cole downward. In a split second, the man had Cole's gun in his hand, aimed it upwards, and fired.
The gun was aimed at Chuck, but in the second before he fired, Sarah twisted her body out of Chuck's arms and angled herself between his body and the bullet.
Time seemed to start moving in slow motion. Sarah felt the pain like a red hot poker go through her left shoulder, feeling the splatter of her own blood on the skin of her neck and under her chin. She felt Chuck's arms around her and heard the distant echoing sound of him screaming…just as she started sliding downward, and the world turned to blackness as a long buried memory rose to the surface.
March 15, 2014
Burbank, California
Sarah was dreamily half-awake, watching her husband move about the bedroom as he got dressed after his shower. An amorous morning had left her peacefully content, relaxed under the covers in the dent in the pillow his head had made as he lay beside her. The scent of his shampoo and body wash filled the room as he hurried about, and she closed her eyes, breathing it in like an elixir. Her eyes shifted to him, standing in front of the closet mirror, buttoning up his sapphire blue shirt over the gray t-shirt he had pulled over his head.
"I love that color on you," she said with a smile.
He reached into the closet with one hand, smiling over his shoulder at her. "Because it brings out your eyes?" he teased. He whipped the tie in his hand around his neck, fiddling with the collar to set it so he could tie it. He was moving exceptionally fast, like he would have if he was running late. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. He wasn't ridiculously late, but behind, she thought, smiling at the reason just the same.
She propped herself up on both elbows, the blanket draped over her chest. "Side by side on video chat? Ha," she teased back. He stopped in front of his dresser, running a comb through his wet hair, smoothing his curls back into a gentle wave over the top of his head. "Why are you rushing? You're still the boss, you know. I'm sure no one will care," she said slowly.
When he turned, she saw how animated his face was, and also how crooked his tie was tied. She waved him over to her wordlessly. "From all the intel Beckman sent in the data packet, it's definitely today. This could be a disaster of epic proportion if we don't do this right," he said, pausing only briefly on the last word as she pulled the knot in his tie in place over the button.
"You will." It was all she said, all she needed to say.
"With you running on the secure line from here, I certainly hope so. We have to block almost all incoming communications. They have the technology to completely crash our system if they detect our interference," he said. "The reverse algorithm is one of the worst--"
She leaned forward and kissed him, his eyes still open as she stopped him mid-sentence. "You're cutest when you're nerding out, have I ever told you that?" she said against his lips.
Half of his mouth turned up in a smile. "Maybe," he said with a gentle smile. He kissed her in return, more sensually, resting his hand against her cheek.
"You'll really be late now," she said, pulling away from him slightly breathless from the kiss.
"They all know what a smoking hot wife I have," he said against her ear.
They were interrupted by the loud babbling from the end of the hallway, teetering very close to the edge of tears. "Who has a baby to take care of," Sarah said with a crooked grin, reaching across the bed for her robe.
Chuck glanced at the clock quickly. "I'll go change him before I leave. Go hop in the shower. He'll be fine in there for a few minutes." He pecked her cheek and stood.
"Thanks, Honey," she called as he exited the room. "Love you," she called as she heard him start to talk to their son.
As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she felt a dull ache in her lower back, a twinge of pain she wasn't expecting. Attributing it to a muscle injury caused by her early morning tryst with her husband, she dismissed it without another thought. She showered quickly, having learned how to complete the entire process in less than five minutes now that she had a young child. It's only going to get more hectic, she thought, as she ran her soapy hand over the slight bulge at her abdomen where her and Chuck's second child was growing. In her haste, she also missed the tensile firmness there, something much more significant than she had ever experienced before. She closed her eyes under the steady stream of water from the shower, pushing back her hair to rinse the last of the shampoo away. The clot of blood she passed swirled unnoticed on the shower floor, escaping down the drain before she opened her eyes again. She did see the vague red tint of the water pooled next to the silver mesh of the drain, curious but not understanding. Was their water rusty? She knew they had been flushing hydrants on their street all week. Strange after the water had been running, but, as she shut off the water and heard her son babbling loudly for her, she hurried out towards the towel and never gave any of it a second thought. The towel she used was dark navy, not registering the droplets of blood as she dried herself off.
Dressing was also something she had learned to do rapidly, always with her son crying or getting into mischief somehow. Her clothes went on roughly, not having time to apply body lotion. She ended up yanking her denim capris up, the band twisting uncomfortably, unfolding it in a hurry and pulling the button closed. Not much longer in my regular clothes, she thought to herself. She was still slightly damp from the shower, feeling both her shirt and pants clinging and sticking in several spots, distracting her from what in truth was more moisture than was normal. Her wet hair dripped slightly on her back and onto her arms as she hurried into Stephen's room…
…Only to see her son, holding onto his crib rail, in the lowered position, flipped over the bars and hanging, his little feet dangling in anticipation of the ground. Diving, she raced to him and grabbed him before he fell. She felt her heart racing, even as he giggled. "Did Daddy leave the rail down, Stephen?" she asked him as she pulled it up with one hand, setting him back down inside with the intention of getting his clothes out of the dresser. Once her back was turned, she heard the rail shift downward again.
Spinning quickly, as well as upward in the same motion, she saw him, his hands on the rail, a wicked little grin on his face and his belly shaking as he laughed. "Daddy didn't leave it down. He did it while you were looking," she concluded, shaking her head. Her smile disappeared as the twinge in her back appeared again, followed by a dull ache that seemed to throb along her waistline. She grabbed her impatient son, dismissing the pain for her past explanations, as well as her need for maternity pants.
She dressed him, combed his hair, and picked him up to take him downstairs. Entering the kitchen, she deposited him in his high chair, and turned her attention to the counter. Her computer was on, logged into the secure NSA mainframe and the virtual connection to Carmichael Industries that she could use to communicate with Chuck while their communications were locked down. A hot cup of coffee sat next to the computer, as well as Stephen's sippy cup of milk. On the table behind her was a plate of peanut butter toast for her and a cup of yogurt for Stephen.
"Yo yo yo," he said, seeing his food waiting on the table.
Next to her breakfast was a note in Chuck's handwriting. "Molly is babysitting tonight. We are going out, Mrs. Bartowski."
XXX
"I know, Mom, I know. I can't believe it," Sarah cooed into the phone that was cradled between her chin and shoulder, as she used her hands on the laptop computer. "He was off the charts for height."
"Well, your husband is rather tall. You're no petite model either, Sweetheart," Emma replied with a smile in her voice.
Sarah had one eye on the computer and her work. Chuck frequently called her when she was working from home, a way to spend time with their son and still contribute to their anti-cyberterrorism business. She was running a detailed search for a name that had surfaced concerning a threat Beckman had alerted Carmichael Industries to earlier in the day. The other eye was on her 18 month old son, seated on the floor of the living room, safely gated in with his toys while she worked. They'd had to buy every gate that they could find until the one now in place. Child proof had taken on a new meaning when it came to her intelligent son. The moment a lock or safety fastener was engaged within his line of sight, he could undo it in just as quickly a time.
"Oh, we finally found a carseat that he can't undo the harness on. It's like a Rubik's cube, so you can imagine how fun that is when we're in a hurry. But he can't get out of it. I finally can drive from our house to downtown L.A. without having to pull over 20 times," Sarah laughed.
"Oh, Sweetheart, I just looked at my battery! My phone's about to die! I'll call you later, ok?" Emma said in a rush, and quickly hung up.
"Bye, Mom," Sarah said, not sure if her mother was still there, but doing so instinctively. She clicked off the phone and set it down. When she lifted her head back to the computer screen, she felt vaguely light-headed, like her head continued to move upward even after she had stopped moving. Four months pregnant now with their second child, she had been horribly morning sick for months, and was only recently beginning to feel better, more like herself.
Maybe I'm just dehydrated, she thought, realizing she hadn't finished her morning cup of coffee when her mother had called to inquire about Stephen's check up the day before. She turned away from the computer expecting to take the cold coffee cup to the microwave. An overwhelming urge to sit down, a restlessness in her legs and a churning in her stomach, overcame her. Quickly, she pulled a kitchen chair out and sat, seeing the edges of her vision darken in a fuzzy haze.
Alarmed, she put her head down on the kitchen table, waiting for the sensation to pass. She felt better when her head was down, but the moment she lifted her head again, her vision began to swim. Her heart started racing, her palms sweating. The phone was on the counter, which in her state was as good as on the other side of the house. Anxious, she rose to grab the phone. Certain she was going to faint, she grabbed the phone and stumbled into the living room. Stephen only glanced up from his toys for a second, murmuring something Sarah associated with her, "Mam mam," though it sounded distorted in her head. She dove onto the couch, dialing Chuck as she held the phone with both shaking hands.
She got his voicemail. Damn, she thought. She was here doing what she was doing, on the secure line, because they were in lockdown, attempting to thwart an attack meant at disabling their ability to defeat this new threat Beckman had identified. "Chuck, it's Sarah. Call me when you can, please." She didn't tell him everything was fine, not to worry. Because at that moment she was worried, and she needed some reassurance from him, not the other way around.
When she sat the phone down next to her, she noticed a red streak on her forearm she hadn't seen this morning in the shower. It looked like a fingernail scratch, but it didn't hurt in the slightest. She noticed a crazy pattern of red speckles on the both sides of the streak that looked like a rash. Delicately, she ran her index finger over the arm, feeling only smooth skin as she did so. As she pulled the finger away, she noticed fresh speckles appearing where she had ever so gently touched.
Panicking, and using all of her strength to keep her son from seeing her reacting, she grabbed the phone again. She called Chuck again, hanging up when he didn't answer. She tried Ellie, remembering as the voicemail picked up that she was working. She left a hurried message, not certain it was even a complete sentence. She called her mother, the phone never ringing, as she also remembered her mother's phone battery had died. Frantic, her mind was racing over who else she could call. Call 911, she told herself, but fretted. Who would stay with her son if she needed an ambulance?
She had been sweating, feeling her underarms wet with perspiration. Thinking the wet sensation she felt on her inner thighs was more perspiration, she was overcome with sheer terror as she looked down to see the inside of her denim capris were soaked with blood. Even as she shifted her weight, she felt the blood gushing out of her. She slumped forward, falling from the sofa onto the floor, the phone clattering out of her hand and skidding across the floor.
Not enough time…she screamed inside her head. Stephen was loose, sitting on the floor…unsafe. Her protectiveness of him took over, and instead of crawling towards her phone, she moved to him, and with all her remaining strength hefted him clumsily over the edge of his playard. In her last lucid moment, she saw her son, climbing on his pile of toys, using it as a ladder to extricate himself from his mesh prison.
She was drifting in and out of consciousness when she saw her son, her phone in his hand.
"Hello?" Sarah heard the British accent echoing in the edges of her mind.
"Vivian…" Sarah wheezed, not certain she was loud enough to be heard. Her son had somehow dialed Vivian, and put the phone on speaker.
"Sarah?" she heard, a question. "Sarah?" she asked again, urgently.
"Mam mam," Stephen said into the phone.
"Sarah?" The call was strident, urgent. "I'm calling 911!" Sarah heard Vivian shout, the last thing before she lost consciousness, lying in a pool of her own blood.
October 5, 2021
London, England, United Kingdom
Sarah sank down to the floor, leaving a streak of blood down the front of Chuck's shirt. He heard the distant sound of Cole fighting in hand to hand combat with the shooter, as he desperately struggled to ease Sarah down. He was pulling at his jacket, crumpling it into a ball to press over her bleeding wound. "No, no, no…" he muttered. He felt his vision darken around the edges in his frantic state, pulling himself back to the moment, and her. He needed to stay calm and in control.
"Chuck!" Cole suddenly shouted.
Chuck looking up and the flash it caused were instantaneous. A gun aimed at him again…answered with another gun, moving so quickly Cole almost didn't see it, in Chuck's hand, firing straight into the chest of Sarah's shooter, killing him instantly.
