NOTES: OK, I'm planning to start using some show-style flashback scenes more often, so watch the dates I assign to given scenes. Speaking of flashbacks...in Chapter 17, there is a flashback scene in which young Chuck Bartowski and Jill Roberts are together at Stanford in 2001, already romantically involved. Yet in episode 2x08, Chuck vs. The Gravitron, there is a flashback to Chuck seeming to suggest that he and Jill start dating romantically, dated 2002.
The thing is that the TV show canonical background timeline is kind of cross-tangled. It's at its worst in Sarah's backstory, but there are issues with the other characters. Chuck and Jill would have graduated from Stanford in 2003, except that the CIA/Bryce/Fulcrum mess happened. So the flashback in 2x06, Chuck vs. The Ex, almost certainly is happening at the end of the spring semester in 2003. Also, in Chuck vs. The Alma Mater (1x07), we get a flashback in which Chuck meets Bryce, and Bryce mentions that he knows a nerdy girl named Jill and wants to introduce Chuck to her, implying that Chuck met Jill in 1999, which would have been either their freshman year at Stanford (if it happened in spring of 1999) or their sophomore year (if it was in fall semester). Most of the references to their time together at Stanford say they were boyfriend/girlfriend for two years, which would put the start of their romantic relationship back sometime in 2001.
For my purposes, I resolved the conflict by assuming that Chuck and Jill on the first Ferris Wheel in 2002 was some kind of makeup-after-a-breakup, or a 'next level' sort of moment, and that they had been dating as a couple for a year or so before that, and close friends for a few months before that, going back to when Bryce introduced them in 1999. It's not a perfect assumption, but the show timeline is kind of messed up for the college-age period for many of the characters, so we have to make shift as best we can.
Timber63 commented: I would love to see sort of a 'throw back' chapter to go over Sarah divorcing Chuck, then how she and Jill both ended up pregnant, not a smut chapter per se, but a little more context.
I'm actually planning (and have started writing) another story set in the same world, that starts up right after the end of the season 5 finale and goes into detail about how things played out, how Chuck got involved with Jill again, Sarah's return to his life, how Ellie decided to stop fighting the trend toward becoming an agent, and why, along with a lot of other stuff. And yeah, how Jill and Sarah ended up pregnant with Chuck's kids at the same time, too. There are some hints about all that in this story, that story will go into detail.
In my version of Chuck's world, Sarah/Samantha was actually born in Australia, Jack and Emma were there when she was born, but she's all American in background.
Dialogue within / / indicates Russian.
Onward!
CHUCK vs. THE NO-WIN QUESTION CHAPTER 18: Our Daily Bread 2...
Moscow, Russian Federation, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, 8:40 p.m. local time...
Thomas Delgado was uncharacteristically on edge as he approached the edge of the rooftop. Uncharacteristically, because years of practice and training had brought Delgado to the point that he could almost always suppress his emotions entirely when he was on mission. It was a useful talent, one often developed by agents, paramedics, threat response personnel, and the like, the ability set aside extraneous distractions and focus on what mattered in the critical time. Most of the time, Delgado was one of the best of the best at this skill.
Most of the time, Delgado thought to himself, but not all of the time. This was a special case, and as much as he admonished himself to suppress his emotions, it was all but impossible to entirely do so. He had been looking forward to such a possible moment from the moment the new FULCRUM had liberated him from Ebony One, but he had never dreamed that an opportunity might arise so quickly.
The more reason to stay focused, Delgado reminded himself.
Delgado spoke quietly into a throat mike, saying, "Eyes One, status?"
"Eyes One ready," the operative on the rooftop across the boulevard responded. Delgado could see no sign of the presence of the other man on the other rooftop, which was good. It meant that he was behaving professionally.
"Eyes Two,, status?"
"Eyes Two, ready," came back, this time from a man posted on ground level across the intersection where the boulevard met a side street.
"Eyes Four?" Delgado asked, and went down the list of the six men he had surveilling the area.
Delgado would have preferred a few more men for this operation, but FULCRUM personnel were spread thin at the moment, he was grateful that the men Shadow Man had assigned him were professional and competent. They were CIA trained and knew their business.
Delgado was lying face-down on the edge of the building, looking down at the boulevard thirty stories below. His rooftop was easily three hundred and fifty feet above street level, but that would make little difference given the small but powerful 'night sight' binoculars he was using. In the meantime, the spreading darkness of mid-evening worked to conceal his presence and that of his men. On the opposite side of the boulevard from him, at ground level, was a nice restaurant currently serving the dinner trade. If filled much of the ground floor, and Delgado had his men spread out to watch all the entrances and exits, though he was fairly sure their quarry would come out the front door.
"Possibles emerging," Eyes Two reported. Delgado brought his binoculars to his eyes, and shook his head as soon as he saw the couple coming out the door of the restaurant below.
"Negative," Delgado said softly. "Stay alert. When they do come out, they'll only be exposed for a few moments."
Shadow Man had contacted Delgado less than twenty-four hours earlier, with information that had set Delgado's heart to beating faster. It seemed that one Charles Carmichael was in Moscow! Furthermore, Shadow Man had read Delgado in on a secret that had eluded him for over ten years: that the legendary Charles Carmichael was none other than the Buy More nerd Chuck Bartowski, who with Bryce Larkin had sent Delgado into exile in a steel cell over a decade before.
The idea that the legendary super-agent Carmichael was the bumbling inept near-civilian Bartowski was hard to credit, but the more Delgado thought about it, the more twisted sense it seemed to make. He had deduced that Bartowski had been the actual Intersect-agent, instead of Larkin. That had explained Bartowski's involvement in CIA and NSA operations, or at least it had explained why he was valuable to them. It was still strange to Delgado that the JIA, dominated as it was by the CIA and NSA, would ever permit the human Intersect into the field at all. That made no sense on any level, especially if Bartowski had simply been a civilian who happened to end up Intersected.
So that suggested that Bartowski must have been an agent pretending to be an inept civilian.
That also seemed improbable, however. Delgado had already been an experienced agent, and his every instinct, and every physical and emotional 'tell' Bartowski had displayed, that day in the Buy More, had been consistent with the idea that Bartowski was terrified, almost to the point of panic, and a civilian in far over his head. If that had all been an act, than Bartowski must be a truly awesome actor, it seemed difficult to credit.
But then again...Delgado remembered again, with renewed anger, that strange babble that Larkin and Bartowski had exchanged. Delgado had long since figured out what they were saying. Larkin had to have been asking Bartowski if he was wearing a protective vest, and Bartowski confirmed it, letting Larkin fire at him and take away Delgado's leverage in one fell swoop.
But what was that babble? It sounded like no code or cipher Delgado had ever encountered, but Larkin and Bartowski apparently had it ready for use. So that suggested that Bartowski had been an agent all along.
No way to know, Delgado reminded himself. Maybe, just maybe, before all this is over I'll get a chance to ask Bartowski a few pointed questions...very pointed questions. A very sharp point, maybe under an eyeball...
For the moment, though, Delgado had a mission. FULCRUM sources in the CIA and the SVR and GRU had indicated that Carmichael/Bartowski was in Moscow, in the company of the mysterious woman known as Wild Card. Shadow Man wanted Wild Card identified.
It had taken relatively little effort to pin down Carmichael/Bartowski, because FULCRUM sources in the CIA had learned of the 'Terry Stanton' cover he was using. That had let Delgado track him to the Hotel Gagarin-Tolstoi. It had been tempting to go after the hated Bartowski, but Delgado knew better. Succeed or fail, that could reveal the larger ongoing operation that Shadow Man was preparing. So instead they had tracked Bartowski's movements, and their sources in Russian intelligence organizations indicated that he was to meet the mysterious Wild Card in a nice restaurant that evening.
So now he and two other FULCRUM men were staked out, waiting for Bartowski and mystery woman to come out. Delgado had a device with him that linked to a mainframe computer, with visual recognition software that was well ahead of the best commercially available versions, better than much of what the CIA and SVR used. Once they came out, it ought to be fairly straightforward to identify Bartowski's companion.
"Possible emerging," Eyes Two reported, and Delgado raised the binoculars to his eyes again, looking at the restaurant across the boulevard. As soon as he did, he saw a tall male figure emerge, and his jaw clamped.
Bartowski! Delgado mused. No question about it. A nice suit, polished shoes, a loud tie...but it's Bartowski, may he rot in a shallow grave soon!
For a moment Delgado wished he had a rifle with him, as he watched Chuck Bartowski emerge onto the crowded street below. It would have been a fairly easy shot. He felt his trigger finger curl reflexively as a wave of hatred washed through him at the sight of Bartowski.
A moment later, though, Delgado's emotional control was strained even more intensely, as a tall woman stepped out through the doors to join Bartowski as they began to walk down the sidewalk, toward a parking garage not far away. The woman had her hair up under an auburn wig, and was wearing a pair of dark glasses in spite of the fast-darkening evening,, but even so Delgado knew that the visual analysis was not going to be necessary.
"Roberts!" Delgado snarled to himself in a whisper. He would know that face anywhere. What the Hell was Chuck Bartowski doing with Jillian Roberts?!
Several soft curse words, in English and Spanish, were whispered in the night as Delgado looked down at them.
Moscow, Russian Federation, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, 8:55 p.m. local time...
"What's wrong?" Jill asked softly, as she and Chuck navigated the crowded walkway. Even at almost nine in the evening on a Tuesday evening, a megalopolis like Moscow was bustling, especially in this neighborhood.
"I don't know," Chuck admitted in an equally low voice. "My shoulders are itching. I've got the damndest feeling that I'm being watched. I haven't made any tails, but it's been eating at me all afternoon."
"In this city, it could be anyone," Jill said. "But maybe we should take some evasive action when we get to the car."
As they approached the door to the parking garage, Chuck saw a man emerge, and something that had once been common for him, but which now happened relatively infrequently, happened to him: he 'flashed'. Without intending to activate the Intersect. The moment he saw that man, information suddenly flashed into his mind, brought up by his subconscious without any intent...William Nevil Johansen, MI6, fifteen years experience, former SAS...
"What?" Jill asked. "Chuck, did you just flash?"
"Yeah," Chuck said. "For the fourth time today."
"What?!"
Chuck watched the British intelligence agent has he vanished into the crowd, showing no sign of interest in Chuck himself or his dinner companion. Chuck declined to say anything further until they were safely in their car, and the various security features Jill had installed were activated.
"That man was British intelligence," Chuck told the mother of his younger child. "Earlier today, I flashed on people associated with Chinese intelligence and later on a woman with ties to the Japanese secret services. I also recognized the normal way people I know for a fact work for Australia's spymasters."
"A.S.I.S.?" Jill asked, an edge to her voice, as she steered into traffic.
"Yeah," Chuck replied.
"Damnit, that's just what I needed. Right in the middle of the most delicate operation I've tried to pull off in years."
"Jill, what exactly is your issue with Australian intelligence?" Chuck asked. "I know you've got some kind of beef with A.S.I.S., but you've never told me what it is."
Jill brought them to a stop at a traffic light, and flashed a smile at Chuck,, that same smile that had been able to make his hormones surge since he was 19 years old.
"Now Chuck," she said, "you know I'm not going to tell you that for free! Let's just say that Australia has...annoyed me in the past."
"Just because Sarah was technically born in Australia isn't any reason for you to carry a grudge against the whole country," Chuck said.
"I'll carry a grudge against anyone I damn well please, Mr. Bartowski!" Jill said, and then laughed. "Seriously, it's not Walker...well, it's mostly not Walker. Though that helps."
"Fine, don't tell me," Chuck said. "Just remember, I don't want to have to get up some morning and find out I have to explain to Stephie that her mother tried to sink Australia or something."
Jill giggled. "You make me sound like some kind of comic book supervillainess. Thank you, I'm flattered."
"Seriously," Chuck said, "the odds of me spotting that many different agents from that many different governments are too long to bother calculating. It's got to be EREBUS. The briefing I received back in California mentioned that the CIA had intel that agents from most of the major states were chasing this thing. If they're all showing up in Moscow now, they they must be closing in on it."
"All the more reason for us to finish up the operation before they get any closer," Jill said. "Tony's ready, so is Darya and my people. Frankly, I can't think of a single national government I'd trust with that damned thing, not now that I know what I think it is. I'd just as soon keep it entirely out of circulation. We could really use your help, Chuck. Are you in?"
The mental image of his daughters, hungry, gaunt, looking at empty plates, came back to him, and Chuck shuddered.
"Yeah," Chuck said. "I'm in."
For the moment, anyway, Chuck mused. He was in complete agreement with Jill that EREBUS, if it was anything close to as bad as she thought it was, was best taken out of circulation. Of course, that left the question of what to do with it once they had it, but they could deal with that when the time came. Plus, of course, the fact that he had been hired by the JIA to convince Jill to work with them on this matter, not to assist Wild Card in keeping the prize out of everyone's reach.
One problem at a time, Chuck reminded himself. First we catch the rabbit, then we can figure out how to cook it.
Moscow, Russian Federation, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, 11:15 p.m. local time...
"Ellie, I think we might be getting a nibble," Casey said to his employer and friend, as the two of them sat in a monitoring van, sipping lukewarm coffee and fighting boredom.
"Really?" Ellie replied, fighting back a yawn. She had lost count of the cups of coffee she had drunk during this stake out, the current one was getting cold. She longed for sleep, she had been awake for nearly twenty hours. She knew her companion was in no better shape, though he was better at hiding it.
"Bocharov just had a guest knock on the door of his motel room," Casey said with a wolfish grin. On the display screens, Ellie and Casey could see a non-descript man standing in the rain outside a motel room door. Casey zoomed in, and Ellie saw the tell-tale bulge that spoke of a concealed pistol inside his coat.
The plan to identify the person who had subverted SVR resources to go after the Nachera family had been simple and so far had worked more or less as intended. Agapov and Bortnik had reported to their immediate superiors that the Nachera's were ready to sell out, and failed to mention that Mrs. Nachera had been exposed. They had reported the actual truth to their superiors several levels higher, who were now working with C.I. to identify the source of the rogue orders. The plan had been that the fake report would rise up the chain of command until it reached the person or persons responsible for the rogue operation. It had gone up two levels, and reached a mid-level apparatchik by the name of Micha Bocharov. Bocharov, interestingly, had not passed it further up, but had instead traveled to a motel room in a seedy area of the Moscow megalopolis, and spent several hours waiting and watching television in the motel room, blissfully unaware that he was being monitored by both the CI team and his SVR superiors.
After waiting several hours on a rainy Moscow night, the watchers had finally seen someone come to the motel room door, an armed man who was unrecognized by either the CI personnel or their temporary SVR partners.
Thoughts of sleep receded as Ellie became alert again, she set aside her coffee and watched on the screen as the stranger knocked, was admitted, and went inside.
Unfortunately, since they had not known where Bocharov was going earlier that day, they had not had a chance to bug the motel room. They had, however, had a chance to send a man in to plant a sensor on the door that could pick up some of the conversation inside, if not as well as a proper bug inside would do. Now they heard fragments of conversation, including references to a bank account and mentions of the Nachera shipping company.
"Should we move now?" one of the SVR people asked over the communications network.
"Not quite yet," Ellie decided. "We've got the motel staked out on all sides, so they probably can't get out unseen. Let's see if they reveal anything else interesting. We might want to let the contact go and follow him. It'll depend on how all this plays out."
They listened to the fragments of the conversation that they could get, recording it for later study. As they did, a word was picked up from Bocharov that caused Ellie and Casey to look at each in surprise.
"Did he just say what I think he just said?" Casey asked. They had both heard what sounded like an English word amid the steady Russian exchanges.
"It sounded like he just said 'FULCRUM wants you to'...something. FULCRUM?!"
"Damn but I wish we could have proper surveillance in there," Casey said. "But surely we didn't hear that right!"
Then, quite clearly, even with a wooden door in the way, they heard their microphone pick up, /"...I'm not being paid enough for this! I think my superiors suspect something, if FULCRUM wants me to take such a risk, they're going to have to pay me for it!"/
This time, the English word 'fulcrum' was quite clear amid the Russian, as Bocharov's voice rose in his nervousness.
There was no answer from the other man, as Casey turned up the gain on the door-mike. Unfortunately, even as he raised the gain as high as it would go, a sudden roar erupted from the speakers, causing both John Casey and Ellie Woodcomb to wince from the noise. Before the echoes faded, the roar repeated.
Even amid the shock, though, Ellie recognized that sound all too well, and Casey was ahead of her, ordering their CI and Russian forces into action. Ellie suspected it would be too late, though. They had just heard the sound of two quick gunshots, and Ellie suspected that Bocharov was already dead.
Norfolk, VA, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, 6:40 p.m. local time...
"Are you packed yet, Roan?" Brigadier General Diane Beckman (ret.), asked her boyfriend. "It's getting late, if we're going to catch our flight we have to leave in the next fifteen minutes!"
"Ready," Roan replied, emerging from the bedroom carrying a suitcase and running a hand through his currently-sandy-blonde-gray hair. Clad in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, the man looked nothing like his usual self, which was of course the idea.
Beckman was likewise dressed in a way that would have confounded most of the people who knew her in the later stages of her long career. Gone was the usual uniform, instead she was clad in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and her hair was dyed to a silver-gray. Gone was the usual rigid stance, the formal bearing that embodied 'command presence'. She could easily have passed for a retired teacher or accountant, which, again, was the idea.
"About time," Diane said, as she picked up her own small suitcase. She had a slightly larger one in the car waiting, but she was long experienced in 'traveling light'.
"We'll make the flight, don't worry, Diane," Roan said soothingly. "I know some short-cuts that'll cut twenty minutes off the trip to the airport."
"We're not stopping for a last drink on our way, Roan," Beckman said firmly. "I need you sober and at your best!"
"I'm not at my best when I'm completely sober," Roan Montgomery replied with a smile. "But then, you know that."
As they went out to the car, Roan put his suitcase in the trunk and slid behind the wheel. Beckman was about to get in on the passenger side, but she paused for a moment as she did, looking at the modest two-story house that had been her home since retirement, some months before.
"Do you think it'll survive this?" Beckman asked Roan as she got into the passenger seat.
"With us gone?" Roan replied, as they merged into the evening traffic of the city. "Most likely. It may get ransacked, but Graham would have no particular reason to destroy it."
"Other than malice, or revenge," Beckman said thoughtfully. "I should have had that man buried in the bayou years ago, when I had the chance."
"And when did you have that chance, Diane? For real, I mean? We both know that even after you took him down, there was enough resistance in the organizations to killing him that you couldn't have gotten away with it. If you had terminated Graham back then, you yourself would either have disappeared shortly afterward, or ended up in jail on some trumped up fake charges, and you know it. You did what you could to make him harmless."
Neither said anything for a few minutes, then Beckman said, "Bartowski warned me, back in 2012."
"Warned you about what?" Roan asked, as he took them through a side street to cut off some time.
"That FULCRUM would revive," Beckman said. "That there was a whole network of secret groups and organizations, bigger and more powerful than the Ring ever was, and that FULCRUM would draw on it to restore themselves. I knew he was right, that's part of why I pushed for the CIA and the NSA to allow C.I. to get started and operate independently, back when it was new and fragile and they could have crushed it easily."
This was new to Roan Montgomery. Of course, in their line of work, keeping secrets from each other was not just a possibility, it was to be expected. The more so, when one was dealing with Diane Beckman, who knew more secrets than just about anyone in the government.
"How did Bartowski know this?" Roan asked, as he merged back into the traffic heading into the airport.
Beckman was silent for a few moments, and Roan had just about decided that she was not going to answer. Then she drew in a breath and said, "He had come into possession of a huge amount of information his father had collected over the years, information we thought had been destroyed when Bartowski's childhood home was destroyed. As it happened, though, Bartowski learned that his father had a duplicate facility with the information securely stored."
Beckman laughed. "We really should have assumed that, in retrospect. Stephen Bartowski was a genius, and more than a little bit paranoid, too. With reason, considering everything they-no, everything we did to him and his family. I was at fault too. He had mastered several scientific disciplines, but at bottom he was a computer and cybernetics man. Backing up his files and data and software was second nature to him. He backed up the information we thought was destroyed, too, and Bartowski tracked it down and recovered it."
"When did this come to light? I don't recall hearing anything about it over the last eight years!"
"Bartowski and I agreed that it was best kept secret," Beckman said. "I don't think even most of his people at Carmichael Industries know anything about most of it. But that information became the foundation of the work he and his sister have done since, especially regarding the Intersect. It also included a lot of information about these secret ultra-deep groups that Bartowski thought underlay FULCUM and the Ring.
"One of the reasons I agreed to act as an unofficial sponsor to CI, in their earliest days, was because I concluded that the best defense against these secret groups would be to let Bartowski oppose them. There were other reasons too, of course. CI can do things against foreign opponents that the government doesn't dare to, even in secret. I frankly trust Bartowski and his sister more with the power of the Intersect than I do our own intelligence apparat. But the secret groups were a big factor too."
"And now FULCRUM is back in force," Roan nodded, "and Graham is loose, and so is Zarnow. Why are we going to try to contact Bartowski in person? If Graham is planning to strike out you, won't that put you and Bartowski in the same cross-hairs?"
"It might," Beckman said. "But I don't trust any of our communications. I have reason to believe they've been suborned. I spoke with someone who was supposedly a communications officer at CI on the phone two days ago. I don't think it really was, I think someone intercept my call and directed it to someone else. I mentioned a couple of special code phrases the Bartowski's and I had worked out long since, and the man didn't catch either of them.
"So I need to get to Bartowski in person. My latest intel says he was heading for Moscow, so we're heading there too."
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," Roan observed, as they arrived at Norfolk International.
A FULCRUM safehouse in Moscow, Russian Federation, Wednesday, June 3rd, 5:30 a.m. local time...
"Yes, sir," Delgado said. "It was definitely Jillian Roberts. Her FULCRUM code name was SANDSTORM, her file number was 7RCCK, her CIA standard alias was 'SAVANT'. I worked with her on Project MAZEWORM in 2005. Yes, sir, she is trained in biochemistry, has a PhD in it, and she knows more than a little about related subjects, too. Yes, that thought had occurred to me, if she's seen the EREBUS information, she might very well be able to understand what it implies."
Augusto Gaez listened intently to the ongoing conversation between Tommy Delgado and his mysterious FULCRUM superior. The bedroom of the safehouse was dark, Gaez and 'Amy' were in bed, too all appearances asleep. In fact, Amy was asleep, snuggled against him, a pleasant feeling indeed, Gaez mused.
Most of his attention, though, was on the earbud. It had not been easy to tap the safehouse phones, nor was it remotely a safe thing to do. On the other hand, forewarned was forearmed, and Gaez was under no illusions about how expendable his current 'hosts' considered Amy and himself to be. It had needed a lot of coordination between himself and Amy to pull it off, including Amy distracting a FULCRUM man while Gaez actually installed the tap, which they had stolen from FULCRUM's own equipment in the safehouse.
Fortunately, Gaez mused fondly as he looked at the blonde sharing his bed, Amy knows how to be very distracting.
Now, as he pretended to sleep in the early-morning darkness, Gaez was listening in on the conversation between Delgado and the mysterious Shadow Man, and taking mental notes as he did.
I could swear I've heard that voice before, Gaez mused about Shadow Man, as he listened in. Somewhere, a long time ago, but I know I've heard that voice.
A secret location, 3:42 a.m. local time...
"Be ready for any order," Graham said into the phone. His voice was calm and level, but inside, he was shaking with anger, and struggling to control his emotions so as to think clearly. Good decisions needed calm thought, not emotion. For now, he had to decide what to do about the bombshell Delgado had just given him. "I was hoping to delay direct action for another few days, to get everything into place, but this changes things. If this Wild Card is actually a trained biochemist and bioweapons expert...we may need to move up our timetable. Be ready, Mr. Delgado. Shadow Man out."
Graham broke the connection, and grabbed up the files his efficient adjutant had already provided him when he had signaled her during the conversation.
Hmmm...recruited out of Stanford, the CIA recruited her in their covert program there and Ominsky double-recruited her for FULCRUM. Damn, she dated Bartowski at Stanford?! What the Hell is this?!
Graham's mind flashed back to his shock, the day he learned that the Alpha-Intersect database had ended up in the head of a retail big box store computer nerd, and that nerd was the son of legendary CIA agents Stephen and Mary Bartowski. It had seemed like an impossible coincidence, but no indication had ever arisen that it was anything but a coincidence.
But the CIA recruited his best friend and his girlfriend at Stanford, Graham mused, and FULCRUM also double recruited her. I'll have to look at Ominsky's notes about why...assuming he left any! That fat idiot! Between him and Roark, it's a wonder FULCRUM didn't self-destruct without any help from Larkin and Bartowski!
Apparently she had useful talents, though, she was involved in several of our bioweapon programs, and she carried off some useful missions, according to the files. Leader thought she was competent, and I know he was a good judge of talent. But according to our files she runs into Bartowski again in 2008 and that man turned another FULCRUM op into a freaking clown show. She and Leader disappeared after that...no further mention of them in any file we have access to.
But she became this Wild Card somehow...
Even as Graham was directing his minions to find out everything they could about the former FULCRUM agent, Graham's mind was racing ahead.
We can't wait any longer, Graham decided. She could understand too much to soon if she's seen those files that that damned Chinese rogue is selling. We need to take her out of circulation, even if it means alerting the others.
He picked up his phone again, and a few moments later he had Delgado on the line once more.
"Delgado, this is Shadow Man," Graham said. "You are to expedite a hit on Roberts and Bartowski with all deliberate speed. No personal touches, just take them out ASAP."
TO BE CONTINUED...