There was only one truly valuable, real life lesson I learned from my father when I was growing up. Never speak ill of the dead. Sure, he taught me how to read people, how to rely on only myself, how to lie and cheat and figure out how to say what other people wanted to hear. Those were life lessons too, just not for any kind of life I wanted to live. Unfortunately, for my life, and all its tribulations, most of the poor advice was utilized.
That comment I think he must have learned from my grandmother, his mother. When I was still very young, but after I had decided to leave my mother and go off with him, for a time, my father had what he called difficulties, and had me live with his mother. It only lasted for about eight or nine months. He would visit, while at the same time always asking her for money. Once, I overheard her demanding he stay away from me, for he was a terrible influence and was causing me pain. She was right, of course, probably feeling partially responsible for raising him to be the disappointment that he ended up being. But, at eight years old, I railed against the injustice of it all, that I would have chosen to live with him and she was then taking that decision away from me. It eventually led me to run away from her house. Whatever financial difficulties that precipitated my need to live with her were resolved, and once we left her house the final time, I never saw her again. He never spoke about her either–his own mother.
I found out after I was in the CIA, after scouring the database, that she died from cancer in 1999, while I was training at the Farm. My father was in jail during that time. I doubt he ever saw her again either after that day we left. Even now thinking about it, it makes me sad. My own children have two grandmothers who are regularly in their lives, and one grandfather who sends them birthday and Christmas cards…sometimes, when he remembers.
John Casey, Mr. NSA Burn Out himself, at least at one time, is more of a grandfather to our children than my own father. Casey, as we still affectionately refer to him, is Chuck's best friend Morgan's father-in-law, as well as an actual grandfather to Morgan and Alex' children. Morgan and Alex are as close to us as Chuck's sister, Ellie, and her husband, Devon, whom we still also call Captain Awesome. He used to hate it, but it grew on him, and now he doesn't even question it anymore. He signs my children's birthday cards as Uncle Awesome, which is, unironically…awesome.
Chuck and I have always been as open and honest with our children as we can possibly be. We explained as much as we could, trying to justify my father's poor behavior while not speaking ill of any family member in front of them. They will learn on their own that just because someone is a blood relation, they aren't necessarily family, and vice versa.
But back to my point–never speak ill of the dead. Specifically, Langston Graham. He was killed in 2008, three years into his tenure as CIA Director…ten years into his tenure of controlling my life. Officially, he was killed by a secret access group within the CIA known as Fulcrum, caught in the blast after the second Intersect computer was destroyed.
The National Security Agency's Director, General Diane Beckman, who had been a co-director of Operation Bartowski in the field, suddenly oversaw the entire operation after he died. The whole thing was strange and suspect. The two of them always seemed cohesive when they gave orders, or when they conferred with Casey and me. There was just always something about their interactions that left me wondering.
Not that he was a double agent, or anything even remotely like that. More like he had been potentially corrupted…most likely by blackmail or extortion. Nothing I could ever have proven if I wanted to, but, just something…not quite right. I will explain that in a bit.
I will add a little anecdote here, though. I only found this out years later, after Chuck and I had quit the CIA, and Casey quit the NSA and was working for us at Carmichael Industries. The beta version of the Intersect, as it was called, had been reinitiated the second the first one had been destroyed by Bryce after he downloaded it, right before he emailed it to Chuck. That was the same version whose sabotage ended up killing Graham. However, Casey had been given orders by Beckman and Graham to eliminate Chuck. Basically execute him, because there was no way for the government to remove the Intersect, and no practical way, or necessity if the cold truth be told, to protect Chuck. Casey didn't tell me at the time, probably because, like almost everyone else who knew us, he knew I was in love with Chuck.
Of course, he didn't do it. He didn't refuse either, although I know he argued with them, trying to advocate for Chuck and his value to the team. Casey specifically told me he had almost swayed Beckman, and then Graham shot him down. Hard. Casey was actually inside Chuck's apartment, ready to shoot him, when I arrived to tell Chuck the beta version had been destroyed. I get chills even now when I retell that, thinking how close I actually came to losing him. Ask Casey now, 20 years later, and he will swear that he wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger, that even back then Chuck had gotten under his skin. I don't know if I really believe that, but I accept it, because it's water under the bridge, and he's family now.
Graham had wanted Chuck out of the picture. Once Graham was dead, though the Intersect and various iterations of it were always in production somewhere, Beckman never made it an issue again. Her failsafe solution to the complexity of protecting Chuck in the field was to bunker him, a threat that still always hung over our heads. That's where I can't help but wonder. Did Graham somehow know that I was developing feelings for Chuck? Everyone, and I mean everyone else knew, so why would he be any different? Even if he was a cold reptile of a man.
As far back as I remember interacting with him, he had nothing but ill will and complaints about the NSA. I can only imagine being assigned to that joint Black Ops team was his worst nightmare. It had never occurred to me that General Beckman would have the same sentiments about him. She was just as harsh and stiff, all military, in the beginning. I think Chuck had the same effect on her that he had on everyone else. "Going soft" would be the term, something both she and Casey said a lot. But, there was no love lost between the two, and his death gave her free reign to develop Chuck the way she wanted.
So rewind to the late fall of 2004, after I was pulled back to Langley once we were debriefed about the failed mission in Pakistan. I returned to D.C. expecting to be chewed out, or at least questioned as to how the mission could have been so badly compromised. I got none of that. Like I said before, it made me think he was glad that the CATs failed, like a dream come true for him. He gave me this long, impassioned speech about my underutilized talents, how I was the shining star in that group and that the others had only held me back.
I was suspicious of him, just like I was suspicious of literally everyone. He had ulterior motives for stroking my ego that way. I knew it; I just didn't know the full extent of what he had in mind. I had been through standard weapons training at the Farm, but he sent me for specialized firearms training after that. Sniper rifles, automatic weapons…simulations that made Secret Service training look like a carnival game.
He was evasive at first, but he eventually explained. His original idea about Omaha had been for a very specific reason. The project had gone completely defunct by the late fall of 2004, so he felt very confident that telling me was of no consequence. The potential operatives…the ones being screened in secret at Stanford University, and a handful of other ivy league schools…were, in effect, disposable. Those who met the requirements, but then for whatever reason failed out, would not be allowed to just return to their regular lives, not knowing what they would have to know to train for said project. Omaha needed an assassin, and Graham's hope had been that assassin would be me.
Sometimes when I'm stuck in L.A. traffic and my mind wanders, I concoct all different sorts of scenarios around that path not taken. Meeting Bryce three years early would have only been the tip of the iceberg. Had Bryce not meddled with the entire process in order to protect Chuck, Chuck would have been screened, and most likely processed by the CIA without his consent, which actually could have happened. Really sleazy, dirtball…the true dark underside of power shit. Chuck may have outright refused to participate in Omaha, or he could have accepted, then later denied it once he realized what was being asked of him. Knowing the whole truth, they could have completely usurped his personal agency and put him in the field, and his power over the Intersect would have still created that failure. And, if I was there, it would have been my job to eliminate him. I have to shake my head to clear those thoughts, before they overtake my thinking process and I crash my car.
For as much as I am sure they would never have been able to use Chuck in the way they would have wanted to, I am also sure there is no version of reality that exists where I could have killed Chuck. Even if our lives hadn't intersected the way they did, forgive the pun (I can hear Chuck groaning as I use that term), I have enough confidence in his ability to affect me. He disrupted my entire world in the first five minutes I was with him, and never stopped, even until this very moment.
Omaha may have died, but Graham's ultimate goal of sculpting a perfect assassin out of my unshaped potential never did. That was the dark side of the CIA only whispered about while we were training. We were spies. That meant we gathered intelligence and we developed assets to gather intelligence. Nonetheless, the ultimate goal always was the security of the United States, and sometimes her allies. Not all intelligence was the means to the end. Sometimes the only way to ensure absolute security was to eliminate the threat forever, to protect something from leaking, or something being discovered by an enemy agent. Those were the ultimate goals, but that much information was never passed to us as agents. We were on a need-to-know basis. As in—you go to this place and kill the person in the photograph.
The final exam, if you will, in assassin training, is what is called a Red Test. It was whispered about, but never blatantly described…until it was issued to me. I knew eventually mine would come. I had been waiting since I learned about what the CIA had sent Sam to the Middle East to do. Assassination.
There was no easing me into that. The CATs, for all the havoc that wreaked on my life, were the only easing I ever received.
In mid January of 2005, Graham summoned me to his office in D.C., telling me he was giving orders for a new mission. Just me, by myself. The only solo missions I had done were reconnaissance in Europe, twice, in quick overnight trips away from the CATs. It was frightening, the thought of being on my own in a dangerous situation like that. I had to keep reminding myself that was what I had been trained for all along, and the Secret Service and the CATs had just been a little detour, mostly because of my age.
I stood before his desk, and he slid a file across to me. He flicked his finger and nodded his head towards it, indicating I should pick it up, without saying a word. I opened the cover and saw the photograph. It was a young woman. Long brown hair, striking green eyes, and a charismatic smile. I remember thinking how odd it was—how happy she looked in the photograph. I had never seen a photograph like that of anyone other than with a straight face.
"This is the target. We have credible evidence she is acting as a double agent. Your orders are to eliminate her," he said coldly.
I remember holding the file tightly, digging my nails into the manila folder in order to disguise the slight tremble in my hands. A million thoughts bounced around inside my head. Could I really do this job? One photograph after another, mission after mission, dead bodies piling behind me in my wake? It made me sick and frightened.
But, what else was there for me? Did I have a choice? Could I have told Graham, no, I will not become your right hand assassin. I think maybe I could have, and then I'm sure, he would have found someone else who would…and then killed me in the process to protect the information. The CIA gathered intelligence with manipulation, and protected intelligence with bullets.
The scariest thing—if I could have somehow previewed how I would feel after completing my mission, I would have said no. I probably would have let him put a bullet in my head, just to make those pictures go away. Getting a little ahead of myself here.
I only nodded, and put the folder back on his desk. He spoke in a dry monotone, giving me specific instructions. I was to fly to Paris, stay in a hotel, and report to a certain place at a certain time, and take her out. They booked the flight and lodging, and arranged the necessary documentation for me. I had a personal weapon that had been issued to me, but for assassination missions–the firearm was always obtained on site. No airline or customs issues, and then no way to trace the death back to the CIA specifically. That is the nature of Black Ops. People with incredible power–the very power of life and death–working in obscurity with virtual impunity.
My flight left in one hour. They would never give me advanced notice for any of my missions like that. Too much time to ponder if I had known for days or weeks. I never received more than eight hours notice before an assassination was handed down to me.
I took the red eye to Paris, sleeping on the plane, what little rest I could get with my nerves on fire. I checked into my hotel, finding the gun exactly where I had been instructed it would be. I checked the gun, made sure it was in working order, and loaded it. The entire time I was doing all of the monotonous work, I was coaching myself in my head, telling myself that I had trained for this. This was my job, something I knew how to do. What they were asking me to do was being done to protect a greater good.
I was jittery like I had never been in my life. I remember fussing about the clothing I was going to wear. Do I change from the flight clothes? Look like a tourist? I could hear the crazy conversation I was having with myself, and I forced it to stop. My regular clothes. Nothing else mattered. I also remember stopping in the mirror before I left my hotel room. I almost didn't recognize my reflection. I had a strange, almost out of body experience, feeling like I was watching myself from behind. The sensation distracted me, and I shook it off, and then departed. Looking back, I know I should have gazed at myself longer, to imprint that image on my mind.
For the girl looking back at me in the mirror died on the street right along with my target. She never returned. The reflection I saw when I returned an hour later was of another woman I didn't know. I knew her name, though. She was no longer a mystery. Sarah Walker was a CIA assassin. Killer. Murderer. Euphemisms, all meaning the same thing. Taking a life.
I made sure the time and place were precise and exact, and I waited. The street was dark; only a few scattered streetlights were visible. The air was cold, steaming from my mouth and my nostrils as I breathed. I wondered how the CIA knew she would be exactly where she was when she was supposed to be…how they could have tracked her, when she was walking, seeming like she was just walking from one place to another. It makes sense now, knowing who she actually was, but it just fluttered into my head and then out again in my agitated state.
I never knew her name or anything else about her. I didn't even know what she had done, or who she worked for. Graham said double agent. Double agent for whom? She was CIA…where could she possibly be compromising info? Al Qaeda?
The world…my world…the spy world…was darker than I had ever imagined. I learned slowly, but this was my initiation.
I heard her footsteps on the sidewalk. Normal gait. She was strolling…like she was walking home from the Metro or a date at a cafe. But she was alone, just like I had been instructed she would be. I was hiding, out of the canopy of the streetlight. I scanned the street, making sure we were alone. She was oblivious to me and I had a perfect shot.
She was wearing a wool coat and her purse was dangling at her side. Her hand fluttered back and forth between the top of the bag and the strap. I raised my gun, and something flashed quickly from her hand to her feet. She dropped something…something shiny, maybe like jewelry. She crouched down to pick it up.
I hesitated. I couldn't pull the trigger. She looked so helpless, almost on her knees like that. Every doubt in my head multiplied instantaneously, threatening to burst my brain from the inside out. But I still looked.
I only remember it now as it appeared she was reaching for a weapon in her purse. Whether or not that was real…or just my brain rearranging the moment to protect me, I will never know. But I thought she was reaching for a weapon, and I fired straight at her chest.
She flailed backwards. I heard the sound her body made when it hit the ground—a heavy, lifeless thump. Even in the dark I could see the puddle of blood beneath her. I wanted to check…needing to know…if she had actually been reaching for a weapon. But I didn't have time. I heard a siren, shouting…someone who noticed something was amiss.
I turned and hurried away. My instinct was to run…run until I could no longer breathe, but I couldn't. Too suspicious. I tucked my hands in my coat and changed my direction. I walked the longest route around back to my hotel room. It took almost 45 minutes.
The relief I felt at being safely inside the hotel room was short lived. I was shaking violently, like I was chilled from the inside out, and I couldn't get warm. I left my coat on in the room, though the heat was on. My legs felt like rubber and my arms ached. I was restlessly pacing, unable to sit still. My flight out wasn't until very early in the morning, so I needed to sleep here tonight. Although, I didn't actually sleep at all. I tried, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw her…my victim, my assignment…flailing…falling…her life blood flowing onto the sidewalk in the darkness.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, I decided to take a shower. I scrubbed my skin raw with a coarse facecloth. I had this thought about splattered blood, that I needed to remove it, though none of her blood ever touched me. The water ran cold. I dried off and climbed back into bed. I cried for almost three hours straight without pause. Even at my age now, I can still only count how many times I have broken down in tears on one hand. That was the first.
Part of my life with my father, an imperative part, was learning how to control my emotions. Bury them, so they never interfered with whatever it was that I needed to do. The world was a stage, and I was always acting. To strangers, and to my father. With no depth there, acting was all I could do, and all I believe I ever got in return. My emotions were a tool of the trade.
That night, at the end of the worst day of my life up to that point, I was overcome. I wasn't just weeping for what I had done, but for everything, all at once. My lost childhood, my broken life, my hopeless future. The worst part was the fear. How could I keep doing this, my entire life, if it made me feel like this?
The answer came to me while I was unaware. I was the Ice Queen. A teasing by Carina, about my inability to have fun, or indulge in the pleasures of the flesh that she so frequently did, suddenly became something else. Once the tears had dried up, I could feel the cold wind inside my heart, the blizzard that had started raging. I could feel the emotions receding, fading into the background, shrinking inside me until they were locked away and inaccessible.
The only way forward, to live the only life I knew, was to not feel. So I learned to feel nothing.
I met Bryce in May of 2005. In between my Red Test in January and May, I killed 13 more people…assassinations ordered by Graham. I was handed files, looked at their faces, did my job, and then erased the memory of their faces from my mind. I worked and I slept. The more I worked, the less time I had to think. Not thinking made everything easier.
They called me Graham's Wild Card Enforcer. I was a sort of Teacher's Pet…his ace up his sleeve, his favorite project. I was too busy not thinking to question any of it then, but I know now. He used me to clean up his mistakes. Eliminate threats to intelligence being leaked because of his carelessness, or his compromised state. Eliminate loose ends leftover after partially successful missions by other agents. I kept his pristine reputation intact, while I bloodied my hands and poisoned my soul.
Graham never wanted me partnered with Bryce. He wanted me for his own, isolated and alone. The mission to Lisbon, the first mission Bryce and I did together, happened by accident. As a team, Bryce and I dazzled the powers that be, even the powers above Graham's head. He tried to separate us every chance he could, but we managed to stay together.
It was Bryce, in the end, who left me alone again, a little over two years later. Clarification would work here, for I know what I told Sam all those years ago was true too. I was always alone…always had been, always would be. But…I never felt alone while I was doing wet work, as it is so euphemistically called. Shutting down your emotions protects you from loneliness. Bryce opened me up to be able to feel after that time, the worst in my life up to that point. So then his loss left me all the more alone, because I could feel it…for the very first time in my life.
