A/N: Be careful. The time sequencing jumps and the pacing shifts.
The Missionary
(Follow me, don't follow me)
I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush
(Collar me, don't collar me)
I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush
(We are agents of the free)
I've had my fun and now it's time to serve your conscience overseas
(Over me, not over me)
Coming in fast, over me (oh, oh)
— REM, Orange Crush
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Orange Crush
Sarah's gun handle crashed against the soldier's temple. He crumpled.
She never saw his face.
A moment later, she was on the elevator.
Machine gun fire. Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!
The sound was metallic, staccato, deadly — she knew that sound.
Bitter, bloody memories.
Flashbacks to hell, but no time. Black ops.
Sarah heard it, coming from above ground, followed by an explosion, a heard, hard boom, and a felt, fatal rumble.
What is happening?
The elevator car trembled as she stabbed at the buttons to take her below ground.
Lights flickering, the car jerked, shook, moved. It seemed to be swinging on its suspension rope.
Sinking.
From above ground, the sound of a helicopter, coming in low, coming in fast — she knew that sound.
She heard for a second but then it became too faint. All she could hear were shouts from below her. She checked her weapons and made sure the goggles were on her head, ready to be pulled down and snapped into place.
She gripped her gun with both hands, arms extended, stance wide. Cleansing breath, relax your shoulders. Be still, heart.
She adjusted her shoulders under the weight of the backpack.
I'm here, Chuck.
The doors opened and then the lights went out.
Pitch black.
She reached up with one hand and flipped the goggles down.
The thought rose in her mind that she was deeper in the ground than the corpses in Reboot Hill, far deeper than six feet.
Earlier
Sarah was standing beside Casey in a small clearing not far from the Intersect Lab site.
The West Virginia woods, dark and deep and full of snow, surrounded them, like a silent, watchful army.
Besieged by trees.
Sarah and Casey equipped themselves, the trunk of Casey's car open, the trunk light glowing weak yellow-orange on them beneath in the warship-gray late afternoon sky.
The sky was spitting snow, but the forecast called for heavy snowfall after dark, turning, eventually, to ice.
Sarah wore work boots, dark brown dungarees, and a tan sweater. Over the sweater, she had a brown duck jacket, its corduroy collar standing up.
Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail.
Flakes of snow were gathering in her hair.
Casey wore a surplus military jacket over his black jeans and sweater, a faded olive drab jacket.
He took off his MAGA hat and tossed it carelessly into the trunk. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a scrunched-up navy wool watch cap, shook it out, and pulled it on.
Sarah fastened a gun belt tight around her waist. Casey bent over and took a small box out of the trunk, perched it on the rear fender, and opened it.
Sarah, dark circles under her eyes, blinked and then whistled low.
Her voice sounded compressed, clipped.
"Jesus, Casey, where did you get those? They're like — more than ten grand, aren't they? The latest night vision goggles. Only seen them used by seal teams on black ops a year or two ago," (a lifetime ago) "I've never had my hands on any."
Casey shrugged.
"More like twelve grand. I have them; leave it at that. Take them. Once you get down there, you need to be capable of seeing in the dark. No telling what might happen. Won't be many soldiers below ground, at least, there's not much room for soldiers down there.
"My guess is two, more likely three or four. They'll have most of the lights shut down by 10 pm. I mean — 22:00." He shook his head. "Burbank's made me soft, stopped thinking in military time."
He glanced at Sarah, gauging her reaction to his comment, as she carefully took the goggles from the case, examined them, then put them on her head. She neither seemed to agree nor disagree about Burbank as a softening agent.
Casey smiled tightly at her with the goggles on her head, pointing diagonally at the sky.
He put a hand on his waist and titled his head. "Good look, miss," Casey said as if he worked at Warby Parker, "they suit your face."
All jokes aside, Casey thought to himself, they do.
Walker looks like a weary Norse goddess of war.
Some of that was a projection — Casey projecting Walker's history onto her, both fact and rumor, as she now stood before him in the orange-yellow glow, but some of it was the holocaust fire banked in her eyes, the orange crush of what she was willing to do for the kid.
Casey wondered about being loved like that, and he both envied and pitied Bartowski a little.
It had been a long, torturous day for Walker. They'd found a hotel in a mountain town to sleep in, but only Casey had managed any sleep. His room was next to Walker's, they shared a wall, and he could hear her pacing, fretting, during the handful of hours when she might have slept.
Casey at least managed to catnap. But, at one point, at a moment when Walker had stopped pacing and a deeper sleep threatened to claim Casey, his phone had vibrated. Not the phone that came in the package in DC, but his phone.
He picked it up. It was a message from Carina.
Miss you. Gone dark.
From then on, he was pacing in his room as Walker paced in hers.
Four words repeated in his head a million times.
Earlier
Sarah could not be still.
The motel room bed was still made as it had been when she came into the room. She had taken a shower, hoping it would relax her but it had not. Since then she had been pacing and could not make herself stop. She had to move, although she fought with herself about it.
She had learned long ago, after many missions, that most mistakes spies make are the result of being unable to sit quietly in a room. Much of being a good spy was little more than that.
Sitting quietly.
Waiting.
Patience.
But her life had been taken from her — the life she wanted. Chuck.
Chuck was in Graham's damned bunker, a sealed tomb, and she was the death angel that would roll back the stone. Graham had taken her life from her at the moment she finally understood that Chuck was her life.
What was that line, that bible passage?
I helped Dad memorize it for his sermon when he pretended to be a visiting preacher, on that Easter Sunday when we conned a church out of its mission funds.
She felt herself blush hot red at the memory, thankful that Chuck's Intersected knowledge of her did not include those days with her Dad.
"Why seek the living among the dead?"
That was the passage.
That's what she was going to do tomorrow, at Graham's Lab. Seek the living, Chuck, among the dead, the ruins of the Intersect project, ruins Graham was trying to reanimate. Reboot Hill.
She took a sudden, deep breath, but she resumed her pacing.
Chuck was trying to wrap his mind around Langley as the beginning of the Bartowski story. Graham smiled at him and opened one of the massive doors to Chuck's cell.
Graham turned and motioned for Chuck to follow. Chuck had seen nothing outside his cell but the ceiling (during his arrival, from his stretcher). He was standing in a concrete hallway, lit by recessed lights protected by cages.
The walking and the sudden length of the hallway, running off past seeing in two directions, made him feel agoraphobic. It must have been the last after-effect of the drug; the feeling quickly vanished. But Chuck deliberately stumbled, hoping to make it seem that he was still under the drug's effects.
Graham smiled. He pointed down the hall in one direction. "This direction is of no interest to you, so I will omit any discussion of it, but," he lifted his other arm and pointed in the opposite direction, "this direction is of interest to you. Follow me."
Graham turned his back as he said those words as if he was used to being obeyed. Chuck decided to obey; he wanted to know what Graham had to say. Graham assumed he was talking to someone he had given a life sentence. Chuck plodded along behind Graham as if a broken man.
"Ah, yes, Langley, the site of young love. You see, your father was working on an AI project for the CIA. It probably won't surprise you to hear that we were among the vanguard in that area. My predecessor, Thurman Riggs, saw the potential in AI, and in your father as an AI researcher. It was Riggs who recruited your father, although he did it by sleight of hand. He, the CIA, became the source of your father's funds without your father knowing that, and Riggs only revealed that fact to your father once his research was far enough along that Riggs knew your father was invested. What's it called in logic, Mr. Bartowski, the fallacy?"
Chuck stopped, not expecting the question. But he had studied lots of logic. His father used to give him logic textbooks as a boy and prodded him with logic games. His childhood had been obsessed with forms and patterns.
"The Sunk Cost Fallacy. We tend to follow through on a course of action if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it — whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits. It's what chains us in our original line at the grocery store even though another line now seems to be moving faster."
Graham nodded. "Very good, Mr. Bartowski. You, like your father, are clever. Yes, Riggs tempted your father into a Sunk Cost Fallacy. He could either begin to work knowingly for us, in effect become our employee, or he could lose all the work he had so far done, since, as the source of his funds, and by an agreement between Riggs and the university administrators, all your father's results were legally ours. Your father could not give up on his work, so he made the bargain with Riggs."
Graham went on. "He traveled to Langley to share his results and to be briefed on the CIA's ambitions for the work. Although I cannot prove it, and although Riggs never admitted it — he's dead now, you know," there was a return of malice to Graham's look when he glanced back at Chuck, "I believe he used your mother to more securely…chain…your father to the Company."
Graham had not walked far.
He stopped and opened the door. "Ah, yes, Dr. Astley's lab. Come in, come in."
Chuck followed Graham through the door into a brightly lit room. A large chair, like a nightmarish barber's chair, was stationed in the center of the room, beneath the brightest of the lights. Metal tables flanked the chair, but at a distance, and they were covered in machines and test tubes, and laptops. A tray of instruments, disturbingly surgical and disturbingly sharp, stood near the chair. Graham stopped beside them as if to make sure Chuck saw them.
"You'll be spending a lot of time here soon. I've supplied everything the good doctor asked for. All that she could imagine…"
Chuck lifted a sardonic eyebrow. "It looks like Floyd's Barbershop — if it got moved to Hell."
Graham gave Chuck a look and Chuck realized that sarcasm was a bad idea. He was supposed to be drugged, and compliant.
"Yes, well, we were discussing your family, your mother. As I said, she was an analyst, Riggs' best, and her beauty equaled her brains. Given that combination, your father was doomed. Riggs assigned her to your father's project. The goal was to create mission covers, legends, and identities that agents could download and thus assume, without the need for memorization, or acting. The goal was to make the agent become, temporarily, the cover. Now, of course, your father had been pursuing his research with educational outcomes in mind. Riggs twisted that in our direction: it became about the education of spies, in a sense of the term. — Anything else you want to see here?"
Chuck shook his head and they left the lab. Across the hallway was another door, and Graham opened it and went inside without any ceremony. "This is where you will do some of your work. I know being stuck in the same room constantly would be oppressive. All work and no change makes Chuck a dull boy, eh?" Graham grinned like the skull looking in at the feast, proud of his allusion.
There was a desk in the room exactly like the one in Chuck's cell, with an identical leather chair and identical empty IN And OUT trays. Off to the side, there was a kitchenette, a microwave, a small refrigerator, and a round table surrounded by four chairs. A laptop on a rolling stand stood near the desk.
"You will have access to computers here, Mr. Bartowski, but only air-gapped ones, ones with a dedicated operating system for you."
Chuck screwed his face into a frown. "Can't say there's much difference between this and my cell."
Graham laughed soundlessly. "It's a matter of perspective. Right now, you remember having all of Burbank at your disposal. As that memory becomes more distant, the differences here will seem larger. Perhaps. But we weren't done talking about Mary, were we, mother Mary?
"I don't know whether Riggs turned her into an agent, tasked her with seducing your father, or whether he simply foresaw their coupling as inevitable, but — almost scandalously soon after she moved to Burbank — they were bedmates as well as research partners. As his research partner, she provided him with the kind of data crucial for agents to understand on missions, as well as with sketches of the sorts of identities agents used when undercover, histories of actual undercover assignments, and so on. Riggs' particular hope was to design a downloadable identity for deep cover, for long-term cover assignments."
Graham left the room, again expecting Chuck to tag along. Back in the hallway, Graham resumed, walking Chuck further from his cell. "When your mother got pregnant with your sister, she decided she was done. By that point, Riggs had his hooks so deeply into your father and your father's work that he was willing to let your mother go."
This was all news to Chuck. He had known his mother as a sharp real estate agent, and his father as a somewhat befuddled college professor. That they were both employed by the CIA made him feel like he did not know who he was.
"I probably shouldn't have shared all this while you are under the influence. That may make it harder to process. Anyway, here's our last stop." He opened a door and led Chuck inside. "This is the gym. I suggest you make good use of it. Stress relief."
Several lifting machines sat in the room, some free weights, and a bench for bench press, an empty bar in place. A rowing machine and a stationary bike completed the equipment.
Graham had nothing more to say about the room.
"Let's get back to your cell, and finish our business. I need to be back in DC in time to get a little sleep." Graham was looking at the heavy Rolex on his wrist.
They walked back to where they started. The door was still open. When they were inside, Graham went back to where he had been seated earlier. The egg plates were gone.
Graham reached into a pocket and took out Chuck's phone. "Here you are, Mr. Bartowski." He checked his watch again. "We should be at peak effectiveness for the drug. How do you feel?"
"Hot Water-bottle-y," Chuck answered.
Graham grinned. "Perfect. Now, call your sister; it's still early evening in California. Do not talk for long. Tell her that it looks like you will have to stay in DC for business for another couple of weeks. Do not elaborate. If she asks where you are going to be staying, tell her you will text her when you've found a longer-term place. Then, end the call. Remember, her life is in your hands, which means her life is in my hands. I can crush her, Mr. Bartowski, and Dr. Woodcomb too."
Chuck nodded and called Ellie. The phone rang.
"Hey, Chuck!" Ellie sounded happy. "Took you long enough to call."
"Sorry, El. Look, I'm calling with bad news. Sarah and I got here and it looks like business is going to take longer, quite a bit longer, than we thought. Another week or two, at least."
Ellie was silent for a minute. "What about Christmas? You're going to miss Thanksgiving. Will you miss Christmas? We've not missed one together since Mom and Dad — "
Chuck cut her off. "I know. I'll get back to you about Christmas. I hope to be back before then," the words choked him as he said them, looking around his cell, "and I'll text you with the name of the place we're staying, as soon as we figure that out."
Ellie sounded unhappy now. "Okay, Chuck. Are you sure everything's okay? You sound…off."
"It's just being away for Thanksgiving, and the uncertainty of my situation, El."
"Well, at least Sarah's there to help you."
"Yes, there's that." From your lips, Ellie, to God's ear. Help me, Sarah.
"Talk to you soon, Chuck. Good luck with the work."
"Okay, Sis. I love you, you know that?"
"Sure, Chuck. You too."
Chuck ended the call. He held the phone for a moment and then Graham reached for it. Chuck yielded it.
He would bide his time. His nagging sense that the Chomsky book meant something was growing, growing as the Intersect…metabolized?...Astley's drug. He wanted to get back to the book.
Graham stood. "Dr. Astley will be back soon. Have a good life, Mr. Bartoswski," Graham said, passing sentence.
Earlier
Casey parked the car in a clearing. He initially had followed a path cut in the woods by the power company, used to install and service power lines. Sarah had been worried that the car might hang up in the mud, but the rapidly falling temperatures had frozen the mud solid.
Casey drove on, leaving the path, twisting between trees, until he found the clearing. It looked like a spot where someone had homesteaded long ago, although there was no evidence of it now except for the clearing itself.
Casey shut off the car. "Alright, we're here. The Intersect Lab's a little over a mile that way." He pointed quickly, "We should be okay here. In the past, Graham allowed no air traffic over this area, at least nothing low-flying or non-commercial. It's going to be a slog, though. The woods are thick. We'll have to get there before it gets dark, so we can do some recon. I know the area, so basic terrain's no problem. Don't know what Graham's changed as far as security measures and personnel."
Sarah nodded. "Okay, let's go."
Casey put a hand on her shoulder. "We could call Beckman, or call Stanfield. I've got pull with her. He told you he'd help you."
Sarah blew out a long breath. "I know, and I've been thinking about that since Graham ordered us to DC. But at first, I hoped we might get into and out of Langley without a problem, and now I can't wait for the time it would take for them to help. They might both be willing, but we know how interagency, interdepartmental clashes go, how much time they take, and how careful everyone is about other people's turf. Even if Beckman or Stanfield wanted to help, and help fast, it's not clear that either could. Let's get him out of there, hide him from everyone, then we can talk to Beckman, Stanfield, or both."
"Forgiveness, not permission?"
She nodded sharply. "Exactly."
Bob got out of the car on one side, Bryce on the other.
They were parked by the side of an airstrip at an abandoned airfield. A helicopter was on the ground, an MH-6E, a small, light, attack craft. It was painted black. Bob knew the type well. He had sold a few in his day.
Two groups of men were standing, waiting, all heavily armed, combat-ready, twelve in all. Three Jeep Cherokees, also black, were parked off to the side of the helicopter.
Two others, a man and a woman, were standing next to the helicopter, each wearing a leather jacket. Pilots.
Everyone stood at attention as Bryce got out.
He took a few steps toward the group and stopped. "Everyone's been briefed?"
A general nod.
"Good. Remember, there's a man inside who must not be harmed. A civilian, the only one inside we care about. You've seen photographs. Tall, lanky. We must take him alive, unharmed. No one else matters. Hit them hard and fast. Get the man out. Is the demolition team here?"
Two of the men raised their hands.
"Right. You will follow the others in. Wire the place fast, then blow it to hell. We'll attack from the ground and the sky all at once. Any questions?"
No one spoke. All seemed grim, determined, and fearful of Bryce. Bob had not seen Bryce around Fulcrum operatives before.
He was impressed.
Bryce's smile was like razor wire.
"Let's go."
Breathing hard, Casey knelt in a stand of small pines. Sarah was beside him, breathing hard too, but not as hard as Casey. It was dusk; the wind whipped around them.
She gave him a look. "I told you to go to the gym. Carina's not in town enough to keep you in cardio."
He gave Sarah a roll of the eyes. "She texted me. Last night. 'Miss you. Gone dark.'"
Sarah looked at him. "That's something, John. I've never known her to miss someone, let alone tell the man."
Casey bit his lip. "I'm worried. What you and Chuck saw in Mexico, what you said about that Tyger."
Sarah could not lie to him. "I'm worried too. But Carina is full of tricks, wily. We have to focus on this."
"I know." Casey breathed deeply. "Okay, below us in the shallow valley atop the ridge we just climbed. The Lab's in the center of the valley. Here, take the binoculars and look while I describe it."
She took the binoculars from Casey after he took the strap off his neck. "Do you see the installation?"
She peered through the binoculars, straining in the low light. "A small concrete block structure."
"The top, the entrance to the elevator, the way inside. What else?"
"A modular building near the block structure."
"Soldiers. Security. Vehicles?"
Their conversation became more staccato as they readied, only the essential words.
"Two Humvees, one with a gun mount. A transport truck."
Casey grunted in displeasure. "Damn. More soldiers than I expected. Still, we're lucky Graham believes no one's interested in this place anymore. Anyone outside?
She scanned the area. "No."
"No civilian vehicles?"
"None."
"So, get into the elevator and down. Once there, find Chuck, and get him out. I'll keep the soldiers up top busy, but I won't start immediately. How long?"
"Five minutes from when I enter the elevator."
"Once you're down there, you can't reach me. Phone or radio."
"Right."
"Got everything you need?"
"Yes," she touched the goggles perched on her head, "I'll work my way down the hill as close as I can. Once it's dark, I go. I'll flash my light once, at you, then start."
"I'll be watching." He held up his sniper's rifle. "With any luck, you'll get below without alerting anyone. I can pin them inside, and keep them from the elevator. I'd rather not kill any of the soldiers. This horseshit ain't their fault. Remember, though, a rough tunnel leads out of the far end of the lab, east. Near Reboot Hill. At least, it was there before. The explosion that destroyed everything above ground might have caved it."
"Okay." She smiled at him but her eyes were hard in the dusk. "Wish me luck."
"I do."
She gave him a strange look as if considering his word for themselves.
With a rustle of brush, Sarah disappeared down the hill.
It was dark. Snow was still spitting.
Casey had the night scope on his rifle. He worked his way down the hill a little farther, watching for Walker's signal.
He stopped and crouched. There it is! He saw a momentary flash of light directed at him, so fast it seemed imaginary.
He started to shoulder the rifle but something vibrated in his pocket. The other phone, the one from the package.
"Damn."
He was unsure what to do. He held the rifle with one hand and grabbed the phone from his pocket.
"Green?"
"Yes," said a voice Casey did not know, electronically distorted. "You've got trouble. Fulcrum is there too. Twelve men and a combat chopper. They're 30 seconds out. Couldn't call sooner."
Casey dropped the phone back in his jacket and shouldered the rifle, sighted through the scope.
He found her. Walker was on the move, almost to the elevator, crouched but moving fast.
Snow started to fall, heavy, as he watched her. He felt a fat flake fall against his neck, melt, a trickle down his back.
Walker arrived. She disappeared inside.
Casey heard the chopper. In a moment, it passed over his head, low and fast. He looked up at it, a blacker shadow in the black.
Dropping his head, he looked through the scope. Soldiers were rushing out of the modular building.
Off to the west, automatic rifles fired, Fulcrum men on foot. A soldier running out of the building spun and fell.
Orange flame burst from the end of the guns on the chopper. Shells ripped the ground and splintered the sides of the building.
Chaos.
Casey shook his head, then put his eye back near the scope.
"Motherfuck, when it snows, it pours."
A/N: More soon.
