Bryce Larkin.
Actually the focal point where my life first intersected with Chuck's, many years before we met face to face. Bryce…was a different experience for both of us, as we both knew him at different points in his life—a life that, no matter what else, Chuck and I both agree, was cut tragically short.
Because of the shared history, and the fact that I was involved with him in the past, Chuck and I never talked a lot about him. I believe I personally met everyone my husband was in a relationship with before he met me…so it makes perfect sense. He didn't want to hear it. It left too many pictures in his mind he wished he could unsee. I know exactly what that feels like.
As close as Bryce and I ended up being, there were huge pieces of each other's lives we just didn't know. We were technically together, in a legitimate relationship, before I met Chuck. But we were spies. That stipulation limited every interaction we ever had. As long as we were in that world together, there was a wall between us that could never be climbed, never knocked down, no matter how normalized our interactions were as a couple.
Chuck met Bryce when they were 17 and 18, respectively. Chuck saw a side of Bryce I never did. Chuck and Bryce were friends almost immediately after they met. They were both engineering majors–both full blown, five alarm nerds, as Chuck would say. I have a hard time picturing Bryce that way. He was so different by the time I met him. But, I know he would have thought the same thing about me if he had met me as a teenager.
From the little Chuck and I did discuss, I can at least paint a picture of his life before I met him, to give his life as much perspective as I possibly can. I need to do that. I have, even now, totally mixed emotions about Bryce, just as Chuck does. Chuck's friend, but also his nemesis. My old flame and my partner, but also my greatest source of betrayal. The best of intentions paired with the worst of consideration. Bryce was superhuman in a lot of ways…but human and flawed in the most basic, just like the rest of us. His fatal flaw, if you will, was his inability to see those flaws for what they were, to instead believe he was almost above mistakes and failure. That literally cost him his life.
At the end of the day, for all of the disruption he caused, both Chuck and I accept that he truly never meant to cause the pain that he did. And if it weren't for Bryce, I would never have met Chuck. For all the misery I have already described, and all that is still to come, it was still worth finding Chuck. I would do everything again, exactly as it happened, so long as I was guaranteed I would end up with him, the way we are now.
To explain how all of that unfolded, I have to tell the full story. Bryce Larkin's beginning, all the way to his end.
If I use my Farm assessment—Bryce was in the rich kid category. He grew up in Connecticut (a fact I didn't know until Chuck blurted it out on the helipad after our first date ended by being hunted by NSA agents.) He wasn't a spoiled brat, though, just left to his own devices a lot growing up. He wasn't close to his parents. He spent his youth teetering between harassment and conditional acceptance. Picked on because he was quiet and smart…at the same time sought out by others because he was from a wealthy family.
Psychologically speaking, Bryce joining the CIA made perfect sense. Same reasoning why the bullied boys grow up to be police officers…that deep seeded need to get back at everyone. Bryce had something to prove to the world, and all his naysayers. Five alarm nerd…to James Bond…in three years. That was Bryce.
This part I know from Chuck. They were fast friends. Chuck and Bryce took a lot of the same classes and they studied together. Chuck helped Bryce more than vice versa, at least in terms of schoolwork. Bryce had an easier time meeting people, especially girls, since despite his nerdiness, Bryce was quite handsome and charismatic. Girls followed him around campus. The few random dates Chuck had in college, he got because of Bryce acting as his wingman. Chuck had no parents left in his life by the time he was a freshman in college, just his older sister. Bryce had two parents, no siblings, but understood Chuck's predicament more than one would have thought. Bryce envied Chuck's relationship with Ellie.
Chuck met his first serious girlfriend, Jill Roberts, through Bryce when they were freshmen, although it took some time before he and Jill went from being friends to being a couple. Bryce dated casually, according to Chuck, and hooked up with girls more than he did anything else. That meant sex for fun, sometimes partnered with alcohol.
Chuck and Bryce both pledged the same fraternity, Lambda Delta Phi, which was the engineering fraternity at Stanford. The only thing I know about fraternities I learned from watching stupid 80s movies, but Chuck assured me that, though there was prolific drinking and partying, the engineering fraternity was a little tamer than what I was thinking. You needed good grades to be in Lambda Delta Phi. It was a who's who, a way to make contacts when seeking employment after graduation. Fraternity brothers took care of each other.
That also meant they were roommates, living in the fraternity house as opposed to the standard dorm. Bryce and Chuck shared a room for three years. Morgan was back in Burbank, and Chuck's best friend since they were in kindergarten, but Bryce was a close second.
Bryce Larkin was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency when he was a junior at Stanford, in 2002. What does that mean? No one in Bryce's life could know what he was really doing. He would train while still at college, graduate, then report to the Farm. Ivy League colleges like Stanford were prime hunting grounds for recruits. Just for reference, Bryce and I were the same age, and yet in 2002, I was already a member of the CAT squad.
This is where it becomes hazy and confusing. For Chuck, in 2003, something happened that changed his life forever. His version, before any of the truth was known, would go like this. A few weeks into his last semester of his senior year at Stanford, in the spring of 2003, Chuck was called to his professor's office. Professor George Fleming, a company scientist, was part of the recruitment processing infrastructure at Stanford from 1992 until 2007, when he was killed. Fleming told Chuck he had proof that Chuck had cheated on his exam, and that the answer key was found in his room, with the accusation that Chuck had been selling the answer key to other students. Chuck denied it of course, for Chuck was brilliant enough to have a 4.0 at Stanford all up to that point without cheating. Fleming told him it was Bryce who had ratted him out, so to speak.
There was an investigation conducted and a hearing held. Chuck didn't do anything other than defend himself, because he knew he had done nothing wrong. A week after the accusation, Chuck was expelled from Stanford. Between the initial accusation and his 48 hour vacate order, Jill Roberts broke up with him, ready to believe the lies that were being told. One month after he went home to Burbank, Chuck actually drove back to Palo Alto to talk to Jill, only to hear from her that she was now dating Bryce.
Chuck never saw Bryce or Jill again until after I had met him, in 2007.
What really happened…now that we know everything, is an entirely different story. But Chuck's version stayed implanted in his brain for five years, eating away at his confidence and his self esteem. The truth came filtered in bits and pieces. Before I launch into that, it is important for me to explain something, even if it is out of sequence here.
It is a story Bryce told me about Chuck, when he came to Echo Park the night of Thanksgiving in 2007, and was almost killed, again, by John Casey. Bryce made it a point to explain to me what a good person he thought Chuck was. True, heartfelt emotions held dear to Bryce before he learned how to be a cold spy at heart. Chuck was the guy who would walk drunk girls home after wild parties, make sure they were safe, and then leave. Chuck was the guy who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, or stay up late helping other people study information he already knew by heart. Bryce admired Chuck. He never said it so plainly–Bryce almost never said anything plainly–but I know he did. For all the times Chuck felt he would never measure up to Bryce, it ended up being Bryce who tried to emulate Chuck as best he could.
That was why Bryce stole the Intersect. He was channeling his inner Chuck.
It was why I had such a hard time making sense of those actions, when Graham told me he had gone rogue. It was easier to believe he had gone rogue, than to believe he had defied the U.S. government because he thought what he was doing was the right thing to do. The Bryce I knew was a spy who followed orders. I let myself be convinced that he had turned somehow, never understanding Bryce had instead reached back to a time before he had become a spy, and lived the lesson he had learned from Chuck about how to do the right thing.
So, back to what really happened in 2003. This is what I knew, what I pieced together and what we learned during Operation Bartowski. Bryce was recruited, and was fully briefed by Fleming about the Omaha Project, although why exactly, and for what purpose, we had no idea. Fleming died after being skewered by a crossbow, so we never had a chance to clarify anything. The screening process for Omaha involved a subliminal image test, with certain percentages of correct answers flagging them as potential CIA recruits. Chuck scored higher than anyone ever had by that point in the program. The score was never connected directly to Chuck himself, primarily because Bryce intervened and invalidated the results, but it set the wheels of the project in motion. Fleming left a message on Chuck and Bryce's answering machine, asking Chuck to report to his office for a meeting. Details were left vague.
Bryce heard the message before Chuck went back to their dorm room. Because Fleming had briefed Bryce, he knew exactly why Fleming wanted to talk to Chuck. Bryce erased the message, then reported to Fleming's office in Chuck's place. Bryce made a stand then, telling Fleming he wanted Chuck off of the CIA recruitment tract…for all of the reasons that Bryce told me about a month later when I finally saw him again. Bryce figured out a way to make it look like Chuck had cheated, a sure way to invalidate the score, and better, to dispel the CIA's interest in him as a perfect candidate. Their plan worked. All it required of Bryce was losing the closest friend he had ever had.
Also happening simultaneously, Chuck's girlfriend had been recruited by Fulcrum, that same inside access group within the CIA that killed Graham in 2008. That was just as much of a secret. Only, I have to remind myself, Jill was sleeping with Chuck at the time, and committed multiple lies of omission by never telling him any of her clandestine activities. The same woman who then had the nerve to rattle Chuck during a mission Casey and I worked with Chuck, accusing him of being dishonest. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, for Chuck's sake, but there was always something about her that just rubbed me the wrong way. Of course part of that was just jealousy, I am not afraid to say.
Fulcrum ordered Jill to break up with him, and to spread the rumor that she was dating Bryce. Fulcrum ordered that because they knew Chuck wasn't speaking to Bryce. Unbeknownst to Jill at the time, or anyone for quite some time, Fulcrum also knew that Bryce was CIA. Bryce never knew about the lie Jill told, nor did he ever know Jill was Fulcrum. Had he, Chuck's attitude toward him might have made more sense, although Bryce didn't do well with doing good deeds for the sake of doing them. He liked the recognition. Bryce thought he had saved Chuck, this amazingly courageous act, only to be met with hostility and hatred from the one person he considered his friend. Just one of many of the tragic aspects to Bryce and how his brain worked.
The next time Bryce and Chuck interacted was the email Bryce sent Chuck on his birthday…the email that contained the entirety of the Intersect, which was downloaded into Chuck's brain when he read it.
But between 2005 and then is the story of Bryce and me. And it started in Lisbon.
The target was a company scientist who was selling nuclear information to Iran. I know this much detail because of the circumstances that played out during the entire affair; normally, I knew next to nothing. I don't know if any other assassins were given more details than I was. We never collaborated. I know that practice, at least for me, protected Graham explicitly. He gave the orders and I carried them out. To this day I don't know how many were as threatening to the security of the United States as Josiah Temmer, my target this time. Knowing now that my first target ever, during my Red Test, was innocent of what she was accused of, I have suspicions. At this point in my life, I've had to make peace with that. What was out of my control back then was in Graham's hands…and he is dead, having met his maker long ago. If he's in hell, if that does in fact exist, he belongs there.
Assassination as the solution to said problem? Seems extreme, doesn't it? Just keep in mind—he was CIA. Company versed and company trained—selling secrets to bad actors and governments. High treason.
If he had been a run of the mill terrorist—Temmer could have been apprehended, tried, or detained. The terrorists it seemed were luckier in situations like these. Outright execution of foreign nationals led to tricky diplomatic scenarios. In the field we always had to prove loss of life was imminent for us to kill. But trained spies turning? It undermined the safety and security of the organization…and oftentimes the whole country, even rarely the whole world. When it was warranted, I could begrudgingly accept it, despite any personal damage it did to me. In my case, because of Graham, I never was certain if it was truly warranted. The mission in Lisbon was my first real doubt about Graham.
Graham sent me the communique. Within the hour I was on a plane out of D.C., headed for Lisbon. I had a hotel, and a detailed itinerary of all of Temmer's projected whereabouts. I was to follow him first, flush out whatever intelligence I could, discerning what was compromised, and then terminate him. A little more involved, but not all that unusual. He was to be number 14.
Strange that I was still counting like that, I know. It wasn't notches on my belt, hatch marks on my gun. Not at all. It was almost as there was this imaginary scale, two sides teetering up and down. How many bodies could I add before it tipped completely and bottomed out? My own soul was so leaden I don't know what the actual number would have been to cause that. I no longer know that number…but it is much higher than 14. Too many to count, if I'm honest. All I am sure of is that after I met Chuck, everyone I killed was for the purpose of protecting him. That, and no matter what the true number is now, that darkness in my soul has been replaced with love.
Chuck loved me…even while he stared into the darkest pit inside me. He pulled me out of that hell, even though for a while I almost dragged him back with me.
I followed Temmer to a function at the Swiss Embassy in Lisbon. He was due to meet his contact and exchange information. I was dressed to kill in a slinky, tight silk evening gown, but I blended in with the other guests at the party. I scoped the entire area, no one noticing my actions, as they were much too busy ogling my half-exposed cleavage. I eventually made my way through the throngs of people to be next to Temmer. Fortunately, he was just as interested in how I looked. I had almost convinced him to move to a more secluded area of the embassy with me when I felt the butt of a gun at the small of my back.
I froze, amazed, for I hadn't even heard anyone approach. "Don't make a sound," I heard, over my left shoulder. I felt a hand clasp my elbow and pull me backward. The room was too crowded, I thought, and attacking my assailant in front of everyone would compromise my mission and my cover. I decided it was best to let whoever was behind me move me, confident enough in my skills at this point that I could take him out safely. He wouldn't let me turn, but I could tell from his shadow on the floor next to mine that he was roughly my height, which meant a sharp blow backward with my elbow would hit him right in his solar plexus, my best option for escape.
"Who do you work for?" he asked, just as I felt the gun lift from contact with my body. I spun, my leg crashing backward at the same time my elbow hit him in the gut. He fell, but he pulled me down with him. I rolled out from underneath him, chopping upward and cracking him across the jaw. I saw both of his hands, noting there was no gun in either hand. He must have dropped it when I attacked. Instead, I pulled my gun from the holster on my thigh and pointed it straight at the center of his chest. Only then did I look at his face.
He had brown hair and piercing, intelligent blue eyes that held me captivated. His jaw was chiseled and sharp and he had a prominent chin. He looked startled, like he couldn't believe I had gotten the better of him. But, he was also looking at me like he thought I was familiar. "You're Sarah Walker," he said quietly, shifting his hands in front of himself so I could see he was unarmed.
Hearing my name like that, out of the mouth of someone who had just held a gun to my back, alarmed me. I pressed the gun against his breastbone. "How do you know that?" I snapped.
He looked down, disregarding my weapon and the threat in my tone. "Damn it, Graham couldn't even wait for me to report," he grumbled.
"Answer me, damn it!" I screamed.
"I'm CIA. Bryce Larkin," he huffed. He flashed his badge by opening the lapel of his tuxedo jacket. "Graham sent you to eliminate Temmer, am I right?"
"Why would he send us both? It doesn't make any sense," I argued.
It's worth it to mention here how much lack of collaboration there was in the intelligence community, both within and without. At the very beginning, I think Chuck got this inaccurate sense that everyone in the CIA knew everyone else. There were no company picnics, no team building exercises once we left the Farm. We were intentionally separated from those we first trained with. Agents worked alone or in pairs, but loosely and independent of each other. That was just within one agency. The NSA and the FBI never shared information with the CIA unless they were ordered to. Add in international organizations like MI6, the DGSE, FSB…well, there was a reason just in the short time Operation Bartowski was in the field, we were run aground by undercover MI6 agents the CIA and NSA knew nothing about. It was Bryce's explanation that made sense.
"Temmer killed my partner," Bryce started. "Jesse Knowles." I knew of him, but had never met him in person. He was at the Farm when I first started. "We were posing undercover as buyer's for the information Temmer promised to the Iranians. Temmer made him, just from a random comment he made that Temmer pegged as CIA. Graham was convinced my cover was still intact. He ordered me to retrieve the intelligence."
I put my gun away and stood, offering him a hand to pull him to his feet. He had said enough that I knew his story was legitimate. "Yeah, well, Graham sent me to find out what was compromised, and then take him out," I told him.
The calm, confident swagger I noted that seemed to radiate off of Bryce wavered a bit. He paled slightly. "Graham thinks I'm working with Temmer," he mumbled, a hushed anxiousness in his tone.
"How would you know that? Why would you think that?" I asked him. It was such a strange assumption, not connected to anything else we had said up to this point.
"Because he sent you," Bryce announced.
