A/N: I want to say thanks to everyone for the reviews. It feels really great to get that feedback. I've gotten some concerns about Fulcrum as the driving plot force behind this story and I want to let it be known that other than a few familiar characters, some familiar in name only, this is total departure from canon. I'm not using any stories in canon for reference at all. I'm using this as a sort of growth process to improve my own plotting and story building skills as a writer. With that said, as it pertains to writing (hell, as it pertains to most activities I engage in) don't forget that I am the rankest of rank amateurs.
Sarah stepped off the elevator into the lobby of the Federal Building at about nine thirty in the morning still in a little bit of a rage induced fog. All she wanted at that moment was to see Chuck; to have him wrap her in his arms and just hold her for a while. At the same time she was a little afraid for Chuck to see her like this. Ultimately she knew that they had moved beyond hiding their intense feelings, even the negative ones, but it was still new enough to her for it to be a difficult transition to make.
One thing that had made the situation even more difficult was the fact that she knew she was never going to be able to keep all this secret from Chuck. He was too observant, too smart and even trying could create a rift between them. At that moment, she realized she wouldn't have to. This project was going to be about building a team on a foundation of trust, and there was no one she trusted more than Chuck. And it just so happened that he was a master White Hat hacker. She was building a team and she was going to need the Piranha on that team.
She also recognized that if she did bring Chuck on board, she was pulling him into Project Intersect. The one founded on Dr. Fleming's encoded images project, albeit in a rather circuitous manner. She'd make sure he was coming in under a protected alias. It would have to be enough because she couldn't do this without him.
The more she thought about it, she realized that it actually made sense to bring Chuck in. If they couldn't get away from Project Intersect, then it was actually smart to embed themselves in it from the periphery, learn as much as they could about it. There were still too many questions about the technology behind it all. How far along was it? Who else was working on it? A project with this kind of funding, going on for this many years? It occurred to her that Dr. Fleming couldn't possibly be the only scientist involved, especially considering that he hadn't even been working on it full-time.
It suddenly seemed like Fleming might actually have a fairly minor role in the development, and yet Graham was still willing to spend a million dollars to protect him and keep him on the project. Given the level of funding, it seemed this project had to have multiple teams of scientists working around the clock on various facets of the technology. Sarah suddenly felt like Project Intersect was a lot more important than she had previously realized. Were they potentially close to imbedding knowledge in people the way Chuck had described? The thought was a little terrifying.
She was driving towards Chuck's apartment and she wanted to push the little sports car to its limits to get there as fast as possible. Instead she made herself drive sedately, at least as compared to how she normally drove, staying close enough to the various speed limits so as to not draw undue attention. She needed the extra time to gather her thoughts. There was no way she was going to let this completely fucked up situation ruin them getting their apartment today, so she needed to plan her conversations with him accordingly. He was going to know as soon as he saw her that things did not go at all as expected with Coburn and she had no intention of trying to hide it.
As she pulled up to the curb outside of Chuck's apartment, she realized that she still didn't have an approach on this, so she decided to "pull a Carina" and just wing it. She knocked on his door and he opened it quickly, as if he'd seen her coming. His smile upon seeing her was almost enough to wash away the foul stench of the meeting with Coburn. She just walked up to him, dropped her bag on the floor inside the apartment and wrapped herself around him without saying anything.
"Sarah, what's wrong? You're so tense it's like hugging the world's softest length of rebar," he asked, concerned, pushing the door closed with his foot. "I'm guessing this means that I was wrong about what they want from you?"
Sarah was surprised her voice didn't waiver when she spoke, such had been the level of her anger. "No, you were right on the money. It's just some things changed after I talked to Coburn on Friday and the result is that I just got fed the world's biggest shit sandwich," she said and couldn't help a relieved sigh. Hugging him felt even better than she'd imagined it would and she let herself breath into it.
"That doesn't sound good," he said, distressed. "Can you talk about it?"
"Yeah, I can. In a minute. Just keep doing what you're doing for a few more moments," she said into the crook of his neck, hugging him just a little tighter. As comforting as it was, she knew she couldn't delay too long, but it just felt so wonderful to hold and be held by him. She wondered how she'd made it as long as she did without this sense of peace and comfort to level her off. She eventually, reluctantly pulled away, walked him over to the couch and sat down, pulling one leg under her so she could sit sideways facing him. She took a deep breath and dove in. "You remember a part of our conversation last Thursday afternoon when I told you everything about Stanford?" she asked.
"Of course. I won't forget that conversation if I live to match Methuselah."
"One part specifically where I told you that crazy insane coincidences seem to be the norm around you?" He nodded warily. "About six years ago I was read-in to an NSA task force to catch a White Hat hacker known as Piranha," she said plainly. "I opted out of the mission because it just didn't seem worth my time."
Chuck's mouth was hanging open. "Uh…"
Sarah couldn't help but smile a little. "I know, right?" she said amused. "It boggles the mind doesn't it? Like you're completely boggled at this moment. Imagine how I felt when I heard Joe call you that at the fish-fry last Monday night."
That seemed to help him a little. "Yeah, completely boggled is a pretty fair statement," he said softly.
"Chuck, why'd you stop hacking when you did? I mean the timing was crazy. Right as the task force was put together, Piranha dropped off the radar completely."
Chuck looked embarrassed. "Yeah, uh. That's an interesting question Agent Walker, of the CIA. Why exactly did I stop doing that crazy illegal thing I may or may not have been doing."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Chuck, I know about five different ways to get you to tell me what you're holding back right now. Four of them will have you begging me to not stop."
He nodded and gave her a shy smile. "So, yeah, I never stopped hacking. I just stopped tagging my hacks. I think I'm known as 'nameless' now. Seems kind of ironic because I'm not the only one who doesn't tag, so the moniker 'nameless' is actually several different White Hats. I think there are three or maybe four of us? I've actually met a couple of them in deep web forums." It was Sarah's turn to be boggled again, mouth open and no words coming out. She shook it off.
"Chuck, I know it really doesn't matter at this point, but I've got to ask. Why haven't you taken this skill mainstream? You have to know how in demand Cybersecurity Specialists are. You could be making an absolute fortune using that skill for legitimate purposes," she said, completely confused.
He sighed. "I know and that was actually my plan moving forward. It's what I wanted to talk to Joe about, see if he could help me get things rolling. But before you came along and turned my life right-side up?" He paused, considering. "I thought I was in this sort of comfortable bubble that I didn't want to burst, but really I was hiding from the world. Or maybe I just needed time to heal or something. I had been thinking more about my future the last couple of months. Even if you hadn't come along, I think maybe by the end of this year, I would have been able to pull myself up and out of the rut I was in," he said, honestly.
She shook her head and smiled at him. "I have absolutely no doubt that you would have eventually figured things out for yourself, Chuck. But, get ready to be boggled again." She took another deep breath and dove in a second time. "I need you, Chuck. I mean, I need to hire you. Like no bullshit, I need you to come to work for me as a consultant. At the FBI. I can give you amnesty for your prior acts as Piranha, in writing. I may have been given a shit sandwich today but I'm going to make the best of it."
"Sarah, I'm so confused right now," he said, looking at her with wide eyes.
She couldn't help but laugh a little at the absolute absurdity of their situation. "Yeah, I know. I completely understand. It seems our insanity is bleeding over from the personal and into the professional, but it is what it is. It's a question of trust and there's no one I trust more than you. And there's more to it Chuck, more stuff that's going to blow your mind, but I can't tell you until you agree to come work for me. You won't report directly to me because that would be weird, but we'll have to figure that out as we go." She looked at him as openly and honestly as she could.
He nodded slowly. "I'm still crazy confused, Sarah, but you've already said the words that had me on board." She looked at him quizzically. "You said, 'I need you, Chuck'. I was on board at that moment, no matter what it was you needed." She smiled and couldn't help herself. She leaned in and kissed him.
She pulled back after a moment before things got carried away. "Ok, I have a very difficult phone call to make and it has to be private. I'm going to go make the call from my car. We still have some banking to do today and some furniture shopping. I'm not going to let a national security emergency interrupt our life." She saw his eyes get wide. "It's okay, Chuck. The world isn't going to stop spinning today. I'll call you when I'm done so we can get started with our day. We'll talk as we go. Ok?"
He gave her a silly two-finger salute. "Got it, boss!" He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes.
She scanned the street for any strange vehicles as she walked to her car, looking hard for any work vans that had telltale antennae mounted on them and was confident there was nothing around. She pushed a toggle switch on her dashboard that activated a high-frequency resonance device. It would prevent a laser or parabolic microphone that might be pointed at her from picking up her conversation. She dialed Graham's number not yet sure what she was going to say. He picked up right away. "Graham. Secure."
"Walker. Secure." She sighed.
"Sarah," he said simply. "Thank you for calling me so quickly."
"Have you spoken to Coburn yet?" she asked.
"No, I was waiting for your call to determine the next course of action."
She sighed. "Sir, I'm not going to waste our time with recriminations or complaints or any of that. I'm pissed off by the extraordinarily inconvenient convergence of circumstances, but I know you didn't manufacture them so shitting all over you wouldn't get us anywhere. I guess the bad guys just have no respect for our personal agendas," she said ruefully. "So, I'm in."
She heard a relieved sigh on the other end of the line. "Sarah, you have no idea how much easier that makes this entire ordeal for us," he said, sincerely.
"Well, I think I have some idea, sir," she said with a private smirk. "But I'm afraid I'm going to complicate things for you a little bit."
"Agent Walker, whatever you need," he said simply.
"You remember my Stanford friend?" she asked.
"Of course."
"You remember an NSA task force about six years ago to catch a White Hat called Piranha?"
"Vaguely," he said, confused.
"They are one in the same," she said, giving him a moment to parse to the situation.
"That seems extraordinarily unlikely," he said after several long seconds.
"I agree, sir, but It's true all the same. And I'm bringing him on board. He has the requisite skills and we need everyone around us we can trust on this." She said, making it clear it wasn't a request. "I'm going to have amnesty papers drawn up for his previous acts as Piranha so that he can move forward on this project with a clean slate."
"You're saying that that the man who scored a ninety-eight percent on the encoded images test, a full twenty-five percent higher than the next closest score, is also one of the world's foremost White Hat hackers?" Graham asked.
"Yes, sir."
"This man must be an exceptional individual, Sarah. But if I remember correctly, Piranha was presumed dead because he stopped hacking. Certainly, if your friend stopped his activities six years ago, his skills have atrophied?" He asked, still taken aback.
"Sir, you know these guys don't stop. There's no evidence against him but apparently there's a group of White Hats known as 'nameless'. That's all I'll say at this point."
"Yeah, that's a good idea. That would open up an entirely separate can of worms we just don't have time for right now. Draw up the amnesty papers and I'll sign them. We can't get bogged down in the minutia. You know how exposed we are here. If you have people you need, people you trust, bring them in. I have to assume you want Agent Larkin but will his connection to… Stanford… complicate things for you?"
"I do want him in on this and no, I think after the initial shock, it will be fine. I also want Carina Miller from DEA. If you could get that ball rolling on your end I'd appreciate it. I may have someone from Secret Service I want as well but I need to think about it."
"Like I said, whatever you need. I'll make whatever calls you want, but now that you've accepted the role, you can make them as well and expect compliance. This is a covert CIA Task Force with FBI cover and oversight, authorized by Executive Order. You're in the driver's seat here, Sarah. I'm your primary point of contact but the E.O. gives operational authority to the head of the task force, not me. Leadership of this Task Force promotes you to the level of SES-4, effective immediately. You have the authority to call just about any federal government office and demand whatever resources you think you need. Just be aware that depending on the outcome of the mission, you might be called to account for your choices. Once you agreed to head the task force, you assumed ultimate responsibility for the mission. I know you understand the implications of that," Graham said openly.
"Yes, sir." It meant she was calling the shots, but the success or failure of the task force would fall on her and her alone. Her ass was truly in the hot seat. "With that in mind, I need all the information that the last two months of investigations have turned up. Video logs of interrogations, logs of when interrogations were performed and by whom, associated files, everything. I also want the unredacted personnel files of the investigating agents and all their communication and travel logs whether it was related to the investigation or not. It's possible we've had Fulcrum agents investigating their own people, so I also need all those agents put on standby. DC deskwork only, no overseas assignments. I will eventually want to question them. I also need a copy of the executive order to verify my authority and blow past resistance when it occurs."
"I've been working on putting all that information together in anticipation of the request. The problem is that we need to scrub the data from the CIA servers and get it all on an isolated system. That will take a few days. As to the E.O., it's coming to you via secure messenger from the State Department. You'll have to sign for it at the FBI LA field office tomorrow. Use it sparingly."
"Yes, sir. There's one last item we need to talk about."
"The source of the funding for the Task Force," he said, anticipating her concerns.
"Yes, sir. Obviously if I'm using funding from that project, I'm going to need to be read-in after all. I need to understand all the implications and it occurs to me that Fleming is probably a pretty small piece of that overall puzzle. I don't want ignorance of what's going on there to bite me in the ass later. Like you said, I'm the one responsible for the success or failure of this Task Force. I need to know, it's that simple."
"I was prepared for this. We obviously can't do that over the phone, no matter how secure we think it is. I'll come to LA next week and bring you up to speed."
"Thank you, sir."
"No, Sarah. Thank you. Your participation here represents the best possible beginning to this situation, and it gives me hope for a positive resolution. Good luck. Call me if you need anything in the interim, otherwise I'll call you when I get into town."
"Yes, sir," she said, then disconnected. She called Chuck and he answered immediately. "Let's get this show on the road, Chuck. Daylight is burning."
"I'm on my way," he said. She looked up to see him walking towards the car.
"Ok, are you ready for the next mind boggling piece of information, and the reason I need you to come to work for me?" She asked as he slid into the seat and closed his door. She floored it as soon as his seatbelt clicked into place, but he didn't seem nervous. He appeared to be getting accustomed to her aggressive driving.
"Yeah, let's hear it."
"I've been promoted. Under a classified Executive Order that the President signed yesterday morning, I've accepted a position to build and lead a code-word secret FBI task force."
Chuck's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. "You're not serious?"
"Yep. This Task Force has been formed to find and eliminate a domestic terrorist organization that has infiltrated the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the ATF that we know of, and probably other Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well."
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. Sarah gave him a minute to process what she'd told him. "Why you, Sarah? And why did you say yes? This is exactly what you were afraid of, isn't it? Getting roped back in?"
"The 'why me' part is pretty easy. I'm the one who originally uncovered the group's existence in the first place. It's all related to my last mission and why I was out here cooling my heels in LA to begin with. As to why I said yes, I guess that's a little more complicated."
"Does this mean you're officially transferring to the FBI?" he asked, still processing the information she'd shared so far.
She thought about the question for a moment. "You know, I'm not really sure about that part of it. I suppose it's up to me. I don't think it matters because like I said, the Task Force is codeword secret. It might matter later if this gets to the level of Congressional hearings. I'm breaking all kinds of laws telling you this stuff before you officially have your clearance, but I have a feeling that as the task force leader, I have the authority to assign clearance as I see fit. Having to jump through bureaucratic hoops would ham-string us before we got started."
Chuck was looking at her with wide eyes. "Sarah, this is just freaking surreal. I feel like somebody slipped some LSD in my coffee this morning. Everything you're saying is just off the charts crazy. Congressional Hearings? Codeword Secret? Executive Authority from the President of the United States?" He shook his head disbelievingly. "I'm the Nerd Herd Supervisor at a Buy More!"
Sarah couldn't help but laugh. "Chuck, don't freak out, but I haven't even gotten to the really crazy parts yet."
His eyes got even wider. "Ok, you're going to have to hold off on the rest for a bit until you can give me some background and a little time to process what you've told me so far. I think I just need some context on all of this."
Sarah proceeded to give him all the background regarding the mission against her former handler, his plans and how at first it seemed like he'd simply gone off the reservation and was running an illegal operation with other rogue agents. She explained how they'd uncovered the information about Fulcrum but that until the captured CIA contractors had flipped on Friday, they'd thought Fulcrum had pretty much been eliminated. Now it seemed like they'd only scratched the surface. Chuck was silent for a long time after she finished telling him the story. Sarah whipped the car into the bank parking lot and pulled into a corner spot.
"Are you ok, Chuck?" she asked finally.
He nodded slowly after a moment. "It's just so horrible, Sarah," he said quietly. "They were going to kill this entire family and kidnap a baby? All just to steal this Russian guy's fortune? I mean what kind of twisted, evil mind even comes up with an idea like that? It hurts to even think about!"
Sarah could tell he was struggling with the enormity of what Fulcrum had been planning. How far they were willing to go to bring their plans to fruition, whatever they might be. She took his hand and held it in both of hers while she talked to him. "You're absolutely right, Chuck. And that sort of answers, at least in part, why I agreed to lead the team. This group Fulcrum needs to be eliminated and I'm one of the only people who even know they exist. This is bigger than any personal issues I might have with the CIA right now. I have a responsibility to set all that aside and do what I can to find out who they are, what exactly they're up to and stop them."
Chuck looked at her intently for a long time. "And I will do whatever I can to help you," he said.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned in her seat to face him. "Thank you, Chuck. You have no idea how comforting it is to know that you're going to be there with me during all this. Just knowing I won't have to do this job while keeping it a secret from you at the same time. Maybe I'm being selfish. I'm sorry to pull you into it."
"No, don't apologize. I'm here by choice. You're not being selfish at all. You're giving me the opportunity to do incredibly important work, to really put my skills to use. I just hope I'm up to the task." He smiled at her.
"You've got this. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you have what it takes. I agree with the terrible choice that Bryce made to protect you from forced recruitment, but under different circumstances, I think you would have made a truly amazing field agent."
He smiled as he leaned across the console and as she kissed him, Sarah was amazed at how completely her mood had turned around after just being in his presence for the last hour. The anger was simply gone, and resolute determination had taken its place. She realized that there was another piece of information she needed to share with him, so she reluctantly pulled back. She ran her thumb back and forth across his lower lip and smiled at him.
"So, there is one other thing," She paused for a moment. "Bryce Larkin is going to be on the team," she said quickly.
He sat back in his seat and got a bit of a far-away look in his eyes. He looked back at her after a couple of moments and said, "Good."
"You're ok with that?"
"Yeah," he said. "I mean, sure, I have residual anger towards him, but Bryce was a really great friend and what he did to protect me was pretty brutal. For him as much as it was for me, I've got to think. At the same time what he did was the same as what the CIA was going to do, which is take away my choices. I guess the real difference is that he was doing it to protect me, whereas the CIA wanted to use me to further their own goals regardless of my safety," he said carefully. "And like I said before, it put me on a path to you, so I can only be grateful for that," he said, giving Sarah a meaningful look.
"I'm grateful for that too, Chuck," she said with a smile.
"So, can you tell me who else is going to be on this task force?"
"The only other person I've chosen so far is Carina Miller."
"Who's she?"
"She's an undercover DEA agent I've worked with a lot in the past and one of the few people in the world that I would call a friend," Sarah said sincerely.
"Wow, ok. Looking forward to meeting her," Chuck said, with a grin causing Sarah to roll her eyes.
"Carina is something of a force of nature. She's very direct. She can be a bit of a wildcard in the field and likes to play things a little fast and loose for my tastes, but she's a great ally and I trust her. Which like I said before, we don't have enough people we can trust right now."
"That's it? Just the four of us?"
"That's it for now. Coburn is in the loop and is a resource for us but isn't officially on the team."
"How does this affect my situation at the Buy More?"
Sarah shrugged. "I'll be honest with you, Chuck. I really am not concerned with the Buy More. This is literally a national security issue of epic fucking proportions. I need you immediately on this. Our entire infrastructure needs to be built from the ground up and you will need to come up to speed on a lot of operational stuff. You're going to be working eighty-plus hour weeks to start. We all are."
"So, I kind of felt like this might be the case, and I sort of had an idea," Chuck offered hesitantly.
Sarah waited a moment. "Don't keep me in suspense, Chuck. Let's hear it."
"Well, I know the Buy More is nowhere on your priority list, but what if we could sort of use it as a front. Like, literally," he offered.
"I don't follow."
"It's built on top of an old bomb shelter from the sixties. A big one that the city had built as a public shelter during the cold war. It was decommissioned in the eighties and they built over it. I've never been down there, but an electrician showed me the main access area back when I worked there while I was still in high school. They need to be able to get down there and maintain the water pumps that prevent flooding during heavy rains, which admittedly aren't that often. From what I hear it's still in pretty good condition or was ten years ago. There's also an OC-48 internet junction not far away that we could tap into."
Sarah couldn't believe what she was hearing. Part of her had been wondering where she was going to headquarter the team knowing the sensitivity of the operation. She needed something completely off the books and this sounded perfect. It might take a little time to get fully operational, but she needed to take a long view on this operation anyway. "Chuck, that sounds like it might be exactly what we need," she said hoping it wasn't too good to be true. "We need to get access to that shelter. We'll need to find a contractor to take with us and see what it would take to turn it into a base of operations for the final team of maybe twenty or so people. Unfortunately, we can't use agency approved contractors on this, so we'll have to find our own." That was going to be its own nightmare. She realized nothing about this operation would be too good to be true.
Chuck was obviously shocked. "Seriously?" he asked.
"Seriously," she said smiling at him.
"Holy shit!" he mumbled to himself. "This is really freaking happening."
"Now, are you ready to deposit that check and go furniture shopping?" she said with a smile.
"We're still going to do that today with everything else that's happening?"
She looked at him earnestly and squeezed his hand. "Chuck, if there's one thing I've learned in the decade that I've been doing this, it's that there will always be more bad guys to catch. This operation could take years to complete. It's easy to look at the supposedly trivial things in your life and say, that can wait, I need to do this important thing first. I'm not going to let that happen with us if it can ever be avoided. This group has been out there for who knows how long and will be there for a while yet until we can take them down. Us going furniture shopping today isn't going to have any effect on it at all. The other members of our team aren't here yet. We need to remember to live our lives or we'll get lost in it."
"Wow, I've been doing this for all of ten minutes and I'm already blown away by how hard it is to compartmentalize it."
"It gets easier," she said. She leaned across the console, wanting to kiss him again and reestablish that connection. As soon as his lips met hers she was instantly reassured. He put his hands on the side of her face and kissed her like he meant it. They were together in this. She finally had a true partner and her love for him glowed like the sun.
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Less than an hour later, after having dropped off the cashier's check at the leasing office, they were in the elevator headed up to their new apartment to look at it again before they went shopping for furniture.
"It's even more amazing in the daytime I think," Chuck said, as they walked in to the bright sunlight streaming in through the immense windows.
"Yeah, this is going to be nice to come back to, as hard as we're going to be working, Chuck," she said, looking at him intently.
"I still haven't even wrapped my brain around that yet but I'm percolating some ideas."
Sarah started walking backwards towards the large sliding glass door leading to the deck, her eyes on Chuck as she started unbuttoning her blouse. "I have ideas of my own right now, Chuck, and they don't involve work," she said as she let her blouse fall to the floor.
It had been the first time they'd made love in the full light of day, the bright noontime sun illuminating them, and Sarah couldn't get enough of the way Chuck looked at her. The way he almost worshiped at the altar of not just her body, but her being. The combination of his desire not just to have her but to please her, standing on the foundation of the love he felt for her. It all fused together in her mind to drive her deliciously mad in ways she would never be able to describe. More than once she found herself tipped over the edge into ecstasy just by letting herself feel his gaze as she felt him inside her, his hands on her. Being washed away not just by her own orgasm but by how he must see her to have such a wondrous look on his face, seeing in his expression how looking at her made him feel.
By the time they left the apartment, she knew there was small hope of getting anything delivered that day, so they stopped at a Large Mart and picked up an air mattress, some bedding and pillows so they could at least sleep there. Sarah had withdrawn enough from her offshore account to not only pay the rent, but also enough money to furnish the apartment in the style it deserved, and Chuck was completely stunned that she'd been walking around with that much cash.
After all was said and done it was nearly as much as the rent check had been, and she knew they had a lot more to go. That was just furnishings. They still had to decorate, though that would take time. It turned out that they wouldn't get anything delivered for a couple of days, but she found she didn't care all that much. After their day of shopping, they stopped and picked up some basic groceries and cookware so Chuck could make them breakfast in the morning, then picked up take-out Chinese food for dinner.
They were sitting on their balcony watching the city lights come alive when Sarah's phone rang. She thought she might know who was. "Walker. Secure." She said, though technically Chuck was sitting right there. After everything she'd shared with him today, he was in the loop enough to be present while she talked on the phone.
"What the fuck, Walker?" She heard Carina exclaim from the other end of the line. "I'm just a few days away from bagging a Columbian drug lord and I get a call from the Deputy Director of the DEA telling me to drop everything and report to fucking Burbank, California?"
"Bah, it's Columbia. Drug lords grow on trees down there. I need you up here to do some real work. I'm building a team Carina. I've got E.O. authority and what amounts to a blank check. What I don't have are enough people I trust. You're one of the people on that very short list, so quit whining and get your skinny ass to LA," Sarah said, derisively.
"Did you just say you have E.O. authority?" Carina asked, trying not to sound shocked and failing.
"I did. POTUS signed it yesterday and I accepted the Task Force Leader position this morning. We've got a lot to talk about so just get here, Ok? Like fucking yesterday."
"Jesus, keep your panties on. I'm actually waiting for my flight now. It leaves in about an hour with a two hour layover in Miami. Hey, you could catch a flight out and meet me there. We could have a sequel of the night after our first mission when we both almost took dirt naps together!"
"Yeah, I'm afraid those days are over for me. Well, not over necessarily, but if I did fly to Miami to party, I'd be bringing my party date with me. Sarah Walker is off the solo party scene," she said with a grin, knowing what Carina's response would be. She took the opportunity to twine her fingers in Chuck's hair, waiting for the explosion.
"You shut your fucking mouth right now!" Carina exclaimed, completely disbelieving.
"I will not, and don't forget I'm your boss now. That's not the way to get ahead in today's FBI, Carina Miller," Sarah said, amused.
"You're seriously telling me that you're in a like… monogamous… relationship with some random dude?" Carina said the word like it was slightly poisonous.
"Well, I can tell you that tonight is the first night we are spending in our new apartment together. Just got the keys this afternoon and in a short while, I'm going to be having spectacular sex – for the second time today mind you – on our fantastic penthouse deck, while you breath recycled air in a metal tube for the next 11 hours," Sarah said, grinning at the blush on Chuck's cheeks.
"I don't believe it. Someone was actually able to thaw out the Ice Queen and release the woman inside," she said quietly, sounding fascinated.
"Carina, you have no idea how true those words are. Text me your flight info and I'll have a Fibby pick you up at LAX tomorrow. Don't talk to your driver, this is closed book."
"Uhg, what am I, a newb just out training?" she asked, sounding offended. "But hey, if he's cute, can I blow him? That doesn't require talking. Kind of spoils the effect actually," she asked thoughtfully.
"Oh, my God, Carina. Just text me your flight info," Sarah said laughing.
"Maybe we could blow ea-" Sarah didn't need to hear the rest, so she disconnected. As soon as she set her phone down, Chuck was suddenly kneeling in front of her, slowly sliding the zipper down on the side of her slacks.
"Chuck, what are you doing?" she asked, smiling down at him.
"You know. The spectacular sex thing. I just want you to know, when the boss gives an order, I don't mess around, I get right to work," he said, slowly tugging her pants and panties down her legs. It wasn't long before her prior prediction to Carina was proven completely true.
They slept that night on the air mattress laid out in the middle of the large main living space, the inflated rectangle looking like a raft put adrift on a smooth ocean of dark hardwood planks. Since the apartment was on the south-east corner of the building, they would get the morning sun coming through the tall windows. The building was a large rectangle, wide on the east-west axis and narrow on the north-south axis but was offset slightly so that one side of the building faced mostly south and a little west, while the other side faced north and a little east. Their corner was the best of all worlds as they could still see the sunset from their living area and deck, while also receiving the morning sunrise as well.
Trying to sleep on the air mattress had been amusing at first, then somewhat frustrating as any movement by one of them would bounce the other around on displaced air. While she hadn't had the best night of sleep, Sarah thought it had still been pretty wonderful. She thought that even a mediocre night of sleep was improved just by waking up and seeing his crazy curls going every which way. It was better than the most dreamless nights she'd had alone. His presence brought her a sense of belonging and comfort she hadn't known existed in the world.
She slipped off the mattress as delicately as she could, but inevitably displaced Chuck to the point where he started to stretch and yawn. She padded into the kitchen and started prepping coffee while Chuck watched her in all her naked glory. She was facing away from him, putting coffee in the machine, when she heard the squeaks of the mattress as Chuck rolled off and stood up. She didn't hear his silent approach but felt the warmth of his body an instant before he wrapped his arms around her from behind, cupping her breasts, his fingers brushing lightly then roughly across her nipples in a way he was learning drove her crazy with desire, kissing and biting her neck. "You are every bit as much a goddess in the morning sun as you are in the afternoon sun and the moonlight," he whispered in her ear. She realized it was time to christen the kitchen.
After their lovemaking, they took turns getting scrubbed for the day in the main floor bathroom, and while Chuck donned a pair of pajama pants and t-shirt to cook in, Sarah chose to wander around their new apartment unclothed for a while. Something she never would have done before, never would have even thought of doing, just letting herself bask in the way he looked at her. Doing it solely because the way he looked at her made her feel so goddamn beautiful and so warm inside that she wanted to laugh and cry simultaneously. She wondered if this was a preview of what living with him was going to be like; like being in their own private little nudist colony and she smiled at the thought. If it meant feeling like this, bring it on. She finally, almost grudgingly, put on a long night shirt as he finished cooking and laid their omelets out on paper plates.
This second omelet he'd made for her in their short time together was as delicious as the first and she realized that if this became her new morning routine she was going to have to step up her work-outs just a little bit to compensate for the extra calories.
"So, what's on the agenda for today?" he asked as they ate.
"Well, we need to work on getting access to that bomb shelter, so we know if it's even going to be a workable space. If not, I'll need to find something else," she said, thinking about the absolute mountain of bullshit she was going to have to wade through before they could even really begin their investigations.
"Well, back in the day, I know it was city maintenance crews who would go down there periodically to check on the pumps. Seems like a good place to start," Chuck said, between bites.
She nodded. "I'll put in a call. Then there's a truckload of administrative stuff that needs to be done. I still need to get access to the funding, which should be interesting. You need to contact a criminal lawyer and have amnesty papers drawn up for your prior hacking acts as Piranha. I need to think about who we can recruit to help us."
"Wow, that's a pretty big list of priorities. Assuming the shelter is workable, what's the next step?" he asked.
"That part is actually pretty easy. All those shelters were built with Federal Government funds, so we can step in with a little Federal Government muscle and quietly but firmly take it over. We don't really have to tell the city anything. Ultimately they'll be happy because then they don't have to worry about maintaining it. Then we can get in there with our contractor and get to work making it a usable space."
After breakfast, Chuck jumped on his laptop with a look of concentration on his face that Sarah thought she probably didn't want to interrupt, so she got on the phone with the city to arrange getting into the shelter. She also called Coburn to let him know that she'd accepted the job and that she was bringing Chuck on due to his technical skills and asked him to put together temporary FBI credentials for him. He seemed dubious but didn't question her on it. When she hung up with Coburn, Chuck indicated that he'd found a contractor they could use.
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A couple of hours later they found themselves in the massive bomb shelter with a city planner and a contractor, standing under the harsh glare of powerful construction lights mounted on tripods. Considering the space was 50 years old and unmaintained for half that time, it was in amazing condition. It was perfect, if a little too-big for their needs. It had access to three-phase power and according to Chuck, one of the biggest multi-fiber direct access internet trunks available in the world. The bulk of the space was about 20 feet under the Buy More parking lot with the original public entrance located in a shared basement of the strip mall where the Orange-Orange and several other businesses were located. A second, smaller emergency exit had been walled off but seemed to come out somewhere directly under the Buy More, which Sarah had trouble believing.
Sarah told the city planner she'd be in touch with him and the Mayor regarding the FBI taking over control of the site, and once he left she turned her attention to the contractor, who was actually the owner of the small company Chuck had found, Joel Stanley, of Stanley and Sons Construction.
"Mr. Stanley, you became accredited to bid and build Level 4 sites for the DoD 5 years ago but have lost every bid you've submitted. Why is that do you think?"
He laughed ruefully. "Because I'm too goddamn honest is why. I know how much these things cost but I keep getting undercut on my bids, then the guys that win always go over budget, or skimp on materials."
"Mr. Stanley, this is a no-bid contract. I need this place fully functional with workspace for a team of up to 30 Federal Agents, a secure holding area, his and hers bathroom facilities with private showers, a bunk room, a kitchen and cafeteria, a medical bay, a gym and exercise area. I need multi-layer biometric access controls on the new primary entrances, redundant backup power, and I need it tomorrow." She added the last part with a sardonic smile.
The contractor smiled. "Well, the good news is that I'm not seeing any asbestos in our initial survey. If that holds true throughout, we should be able to get things moving quickly. The ability for us to work outside the normal permitting process will save us a huge amount of time. We'll be able to have all of our various contractors working together to get this done in the shortest amount of time possible."
"Well then, let's get to work. I'm willing to include a 15% bonus for timely completion," she said bluntly. "I'll have a retainer transferred to you by the end of the week."
He smiled deeply. "Yes, ma'am. I'll have some preliminary plans for you by then."
As they were leaving the site, coming out into the shared basement space of the strip mall, Sarah's phone rang. "Walker."
"Larkin."
"I see you heard from Graham." She was avoiding saying Bryce's name in front of Chuck until she could give him advance notice of them meeting.
"Yeah, he called me yesterday. I was wheels down about 20 minutes ago at LAX. This is starting to feel like a longer-term assignment and I'm wondering about transportation," he said.
"Well, I always just use my own personal car, but we're also going to have our own motor pool with a selection of standard issue Fibby Crown Vics," she told him.
"I'll be fine with that," he said.
"Another member of the team is due to land in about 15 minutes. She's being picked up by FBI and taken back to their office. I'll text you her number, so you can call her to catch that ride. I'll have the SAC issue you guys a couple of vehicles for the interim and call you back for a meeting place later today."
"Roger that," Bryce said, then disconnected.
"Do I get to drive an FBI Crown Vic?" Chuck asked jokingly.
"Why grandma? So you can put on the lights and sirens and still drive five below the speed limit?" she asked, teasingly. His mouth dropped open as he took on a hurt expression that she didn't believe for a second. "Speaking of the FBI, we need to go there so I can sign for something."
As they were walking out of the business that had allowed them access into the shared basement, Sarah noticed that a couple of the store fronts in the strip mall were currently vacant and she made a mental note of the number to the management office.
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"So how often do you actually get pulled over?" Chuck asked casually as Sarah sped towards the Federal Building. She noticed again that he didn't seem at all bothered by her aggressive driving now. No longer was he white knuckling the grab handle or center console and she had to admit she often forgot to chill out when he was with her.
"Not as often as you might think, but it does happen. I usually just flash my FBI credentials and they let me go for the most part. There have been a couple times where they threaten to call my boss and tell them I'm a menace on the roads, at which point I just dial a switchboard number on my phone and hand it to them. A very official sounding CIA operator starts demanding their name and badge number, asking them if they don't have more important things to do than harass a Federal agent. They drop it pretty quickly after that and I'm on my way within a couple of minutes."
He smiled at her. "Seems like working for the CIA is a speeder's dream come true."
She laughed. "It's definitely a perk for someone like me who enjoys a fast car. And you seem to be handling my recklessness with aplomb lately. What gives? Did you start popping Xanax when I'm not looking?"
"Nope, no pharmaceuticals involved. I just realized how much I trust you. That and I started watching you when you drive. You're hyper aware of everything going on around us. You're five steps ahead of everyone else on the road. I'll see something come up and realize you're already responding to it. And there have been times where you changed lanes quickly, sped up or slowed down in response to something I didn't see until too late."
"Well, I did ace the pursuit and evasion driving tactics course at The Farm. The instructor said I could come back and teach if I wanted to."
"Sarah, what classes at The Farm didn't you ace?" he asked.
"You won't believe me."
"I would find it difficult to believe that you didn't ace every course, but which one in particular would I not believe?" he asked.
She could help but laugh as she remembered. "It was formally called 'Infiltration and Inducement of Enemy Personnel'."
"Ok, am I supposed to know what that means?"
"It was also known as 'Seduction School'." She looked at him and gave him her version of the eyebrow dance.
Chuck burst out laughing. "You're right, I don't believe you."
"It's true though."
"How is that possible? No hyperbole, Sarah, you're literally the most beautiful woman I've ever met. Seduction should have been a cake walk for you. Any person interested in the female form would have been fawning over you. I mean in all honesty, when you're out and about in your daily life, how often do men hit on you?"
She shook her head and smiled. "Chuck, think it through for a minute and you'll understand. This class was in our second year at The Farm. How old was I then?"
"Oh, yeah. You would have been like eighteen, right?" he said, remembering what she'd told him on the beach in Carmel. "You had only just lost your virginity, to a fellow classmate."
"That's exactly right. And I wasn't a beauty queen as a teenager. I was raised by my dad the con artist. It's not like he was showing me how to put on makeup or style my hair. I didn't think of myself as being physically attractive back then and it's not something I was hearing from guys. Context is important, Chuck."
"I guess you're right," he said sympathetically. "I'm sorry if I'm bringing up difficult memories."
"No, it's not difficult at all. It's a little nostalgic actually. I was so naïve but also so full of passion and fire." She shook her head a little, remembering that young woman who lived to kick the shit out of her fellow classmates in the dojo and run them into the ground on the track. "So yeah, Seduction School was uncomfortable for me to say the least. I made a promise to myself back then that I would never use sex to get the job done."
"Does that really happen? Are agents expected to have sex with a target or asset if it will help the mission?"
Sarah grimaced a little. "Well, it's not really something that we talk about. Technically we can't be ordered to do that – I mean in today's world, think of the Human Resources and legal implications. We had to go through sexual harassment awareness training just like the rest of the Agency." She paused thinking about it. "I know most field agents try to avoid it, regardless of their gender, but does it happen? Yeah, it happens."
"That's just so contradictory, though. At one point you're going through a seduction class where they're effectively teaching you how to use the implication of sex to complete your mission, while in the next class teaching you about 'quid pro quo' and 'hostile work environment'."
Sarah laughed at the juxtaposition of the two ideas. "Yeah, well, no one ever said working for the CIA was easy."
Sarah pulled the car into the underground parking garage at the Federal Building and found a spot near the elevators. She called Coburn's direct line as she turned off the engine.
"Coburn."
"It's Walker. I'm here with Chuck. Do you have his credentials ready?"
"Yeah, they're right here on my desk."
"I appreciate it. Is the courier here from DC yet?"
"No, but he's on his way from LAX. I estimate 15 more minutes."
"Well, this should make for an interesting afternoon. Larkin and Miller are due in shortly as well." She looked at her watch. "In fact, they should be making their way to their FBI taxi service right now."
"Yeah, my guy's supposed to check in when they're on the way back."
"Ok, we'll come on up and wait in your office."
"Sure thing, Walker. You want me to have tea service brought in? It's not like I don't also have one of the largest FBI field offices in the country to run." He ended with a grunt, but Sarah felt like his heart wasn't in it.
Sarah grunted right back at him. "You want to trade with me? You're as up to speed as I am. I just have to build a small covert intelligence operation from the ground up is all."
"No, I'll pass," he said.
"A tea service does sound nice. Do you have those little cookies?" she asked. She heard a click as the line went dead and couldn't help but laugh.
"You like yanking McGruff's chain don't you?" Chuck asked with a snort.
"He just makes it so easy."
As they stepped out of the car and made their way to the elevators, Chuck asked, "What if we made this our temporary office?"
Sarah shook her head. "Too risky. Odds are that he's got… undesirables in his office. We can't let them see anything out of the ordinary."
Chuck nodded. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
They stepped off the elevator and Coburn was there waiting for her again. "This way," he said, taking them down a different hallway than the one he'd taken Sarah down the previous day.
The office set aside for the Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles field office for the FBI was actually pretty large. It was a corner office on the 55th floor that had a dramatic view of downtown LA. He had a large desk against the back wall and a sitting area with an overstuffed leather couch and two matching chairs.
"You don't actually have to set us up in here. I was mostly messing with you," Sarah said, as she sat down on the couch and Chuck took one of the chairs.
"It's fine. I've turned a lot of things over to the Assistant SAC so I can help you get things started. If you hadn't taken on the role, I would have probably had to, and I wanted it less than you did. I don't envy you here, Walker. You've got a steep mountain to climb, and no safety harness to catch you." He picked up a set of FBI credentials on a lanyard from his desk and walked over to the other chair across from Chuck in the sitting area.
It was Sarah's turn to give him back one of his grunts. "That's the CIA way, Coburn. Did you often have someone waiting to catch you over at NSA if you fell?"
"As a rule, no, not so much. But then this isn't quite like other missions, is it?"
"I don't know. I've headed up other task forces in the past and while the implications of this one are more far reaching, it's ultimately the same thing. Just do the job as best you can, make sure your people do the same, and hope it's enough to get the job done."
Coburn looked at Chuck. "What about you, Carmichael? You realize what she's looking at if this endeavor doesn't bear fruit?" He tossed the credentials he'd been holding across to Chuck, who caught them.
"I can't say I know anything about anything as far as all this is concerned-" Chuck waved his hand around to encompass the room. "-except that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure we don't fail. And I'm not coming to the party without my own set of skills. Sarah didn't ask me to be here because of my pretty face," Chuck said with a smile. Just like he had confidence in his Karaoke, he had even more confidence in his computer skills.
Coburn's grunt said he'd believe it when he saw it. Sarah was impressed that Chuck wasn't letting himself be intimidated by Coburn, or at least was hiding it well if he was. At that moment the intercom tone sounded on his desk. "Boss, the courier is here from D.C.," the receptionist said through his phone.
"Thanks, Angie. Have someone bring him back to my office," he said, across the room.
"Yes, sir."
"Here it comes, Walker. Last chance to back out. Once you sign for this document, you're committed."
"Pff. This is a formality," Sarah said, waving her hand dismissively. "I wouldn't have told Graham I'd take the job if I wasn't already committed."
There was a knock at his door. "Come in!" he barked.
The door opened and Sarah saw the older of the two agents she'd ridden up on the elevator with the day before. "Visitor from the State Department, boss," he said, ushering in a young man in his early twenties, carrying an aluminum briefcase that was actually hand-cuffed to his wrist.
"Thanks, Bill. We'll take it from here." The agent nodded and closed the door as he left.
The young State Department officer spoke up. "Agent Coburn, I'm Lieutenant Fredrickson, US Army liaison for the State Department," he said formally. "I'm here with an official document from the President of the United States. I have been instructed to open this case in the presence of Agent Sarah Walker."
Sarah raised her hand. "That's me Lieutenant. Come on over here and have a seat. Let's get this done," she said, waving him over.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, walking over. "I need to verify your identity from three separate sources before I can open the case, ma'am," he informed her as he sat down on the couch and started unlocking the hand-cuff on his wrist.
Sarah pulled her wallet out of her purse and removed her California driver's license, pulled out her CIA Inspector General credentials and also provided her FBI credentials. "Is this sufficient Lieutenant?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am." He said. He inspected each set of identification in turn, taking time to compare the picture to her face, as well as inspect the documents themselves. "Ma'am, I can confirm that based on the identification you have provided that you are the recipient of the documents I have been instructed to deliver." He said, handing her IDs back to her, "Do you wish for the room to be cleared before I open the case, ma'am?"
"That won't be necessary, Lieutenant."
He simply nodded as he opened the aluminum case. Inside was a leather bound folder with the seal of the President embossed into the cover along with some stapled documents. He pulled the stapled documents out first. "You need to read, sign and initial these documents in the areas noted, ma'am."
Sarah read them over and understood that this was the document that officially tied her to the Executive Order in the leather folder. This was where she was legally agreeing to lead the Task Force. There was only one copy but she noticed a barcode at the bottom of the document. She signed and initialled it in all the appropriate places, the Lieutenant signed as a witness and then applied a seal to it similar to what a notary public would use, only this one used the President's Seal. He then slipped the documents into a manila folder that also had a bar-code printed on it, and slipped that into a pocket of the briefcase. Once that was complete, he removed the leather folder from the case and handed it to her. He cleared his throat and said, "The President asked me to wish you Godspeed and good luck, Agent Walker."
Sarah smiled at him. "Thank you very much, Lieutenant."
The young Army Officer closed the briefcase, reattached the handcuff to his wrist and stood up. "Agent Walker, Agent Coburn, Sir," he said, nodding to each of them in turn, ending with Chuck, whose name he obviously didn't know.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. An agent will see you to the elevators.," Coburn said respectfully.
"Yes, sir. Thank you." He left the office and closed the door behind him.
Coburn grunted wistfully. "He makes me miss my days in the Corps."
"That was really freaking cool to watch," Chuck said with a smile.
Sarah admired the leather bound folder that held the executive order. She noticed there was also a matching barcode on the back side of the folder. As she read the Executive Order she was a little shocked at the depth and breadth of the powers it gave her. As she'd thought, she had Executive Authority to assign Top Secret clearance to individuals who didn't already have it, as she saw fit. She could demand federal resources and personnel from just about anywhere she wanted, including the military. Using the Patriot Act, she had broad powers to arrest and detain suspects. As she was continuing to read it, her phone rang. "Walker," she said distractedly.
"It's Carina. The fucking airline lost my bag, so we're still at LAX."
"Ok, well, figure it out. Was there anything irreplaceable in the bag?"
"A couple of Versace dresses and some Jimmy Choo's."
"You realize this is primarily going to be a covert surveillance mission, not an Embassy assignment, right?" Sarah asked, amused.
"Nobody's told me shit about this assignment, so I figured be prepared. And what, we're not going to have time to go dancing, like ever? It's fucking Hollywood. I plan to bag at least one A-list movie star while I'm out here."
"You're not going to have time to bag the manager at an AMC. We've got a full plate here."
"There's the Ice Queen we know and hate. It's not fair to the rest of us if you're getting sexed up on the regular, you know. A girl has needs."
"You're a full grown agent, you'll figure it out. Get your ass to the Federal Building. Either the airline will find your bag, or they won't. If they do, they can deliver it to you. I'll leave the key to my suite at the Marriott for you here at Fibby HQ." She pulled the key card out and handed it to Coburn. "You can stay there. Larkin should get a room there as well so we're all relatively close."
Carina sighed. "Ok, fine." Sarah disconnected, still amused with her old friend.
She looked at Coburn. "I need to raid your motor pool for a couple of Crown Vics, and please don't give us the ones that are 5 years overdue for replacement," she asked politely. "One each for Larkin and Miller when they get here."
He grunted. "Okay, but only because you asked so nicely."
"Also, we're getting the band together tonight, time and location TBD. You feel like coming along to provide backup vocals?" she asked with a smile.
He sighed and grunted. "Yeah, I'll be there. Just don't wait until the last minute to tell me where."
"I'm working on it," she said, standing up, unceremoniously putting the Executive Order in her bag. "Let's go, Chuck. I can feel all these FBI rules and regs seeping into my pores," she said as she shivered dramatically. "We have to go before I start Mirandizing everyone."
Coburn grunted an amused chuckle.
A/N: insert witty and insightful comments here, then beg for reviews