A/N: Just a quick note. Those familiar with how I write, I stick to canon. Canon in this particular case is contradicted by the show itself. I chose to believe Chuck telling Sarah in vs the Delorean that he was 16 when his father left (10 years prior) rather than Chuck telling Vivian he was 13. Ellie was 3 years older–both of them minors alone would have attracted child protective services or something. If Ellie was 19, Chuck could have remained under the radar like he did. My thought process anyway.
I've seen dark skies
Never like this
Walked on some thin ice
Never like this
"It's In The Way That You Use It"
Eric Clapton
Interlude
Darkness surrounds him. He feels his body, the tactile sense of his fingers touching each other. But nothing is beneath his feet, nothing is near him. The absolute isolation should be terrifying, but it somehow isn't. He observes it the same way he would observe the state of the sky, quiet and detached from his being.
He feels the rapid fire of his neural network—the rapidly flashing images and sounds. He feels his nerve fibers twitching, in anticipation of the motor stimulation that accompanies the many physically challenging skills knowledge embedded in his memory.
The Intersect.
The full extent has remained long hidden, submerged in his subconscious. But it has surfaced, and now it dominates.
He marvels at the dull, cold sensation at the center of himself. Only rational thoughts there, the emotions far at the edges like framed photographs. Things he knows and understands, but things that do not affect him, merely two dimensional figures, background noise.
Starting like an itch, a tingling nerve fiber, he senses something else. One of those photographs—he knows, is love. He instinctively understands that though this program is designed to suppress that emotion, he is its ultimate master. By destiny, by accident—it does not matter. He controls it—it does not, will not ever, control him.
The glass on the photograph shatters, and he feels it, like a warm flowing river through the frozen wasteland inside him. The Intersect is supposed to suppress this—it's a distraction, a liability, an exploitable vulnerability.
But no. He knows, has always known, that his greatest strength has come from this. Not the Intersect and its power, but this feeling. Bestowed upon him by pure grace, a gift he cherishes and reciprocates a thousandfold. Everything he has ever done—whether the Intersect was firing or quiet, has been for this purpose. Everything he is—he is because of this.
He senses the presence, a constant presence now forcefully here, more so than at any time he has experienced since lying in a coma nine years ago.
"Dad?" he calls, hearing his voice echo into the void.
"I'm here, Son," he hears, in his father's voice. He knows he isn't alone, though he still sees nothing but darkness.
"Is something wrong with me? Why are you here like this?" he asks, an edge to the curiosity.
"Something is coming. You are going to have to be strong, Son. I know you are, you always were. But it's harder when it affects the people you love," he hears again, his father's voice tinged with melancholy.
The Intersect is not strong enough to hold back the raging fright caused by his father's words. "Dad, what are you talking about? What is this?"
"The Intersect always had the power to interact with your subconscious. You understand something—and it's real. It's coming." There was a long silence. "Sarah."
The terror seizes him. "What about Sarah?"
"You know more than you understand right now. And so does your son," his father tells him, his voice heavy, as if with despair.
"What do you mean? Dad, this doesn't make sense. This feels like a riddle," he insists, a sharper, angrier edge to his voice.
"If it seems that way, it's because it's how you are understanding it. I'm here. I'll always be here. But this is your brain, your thoughts, your memory," Stephen's voice explains.
"Why doesn't that make me feel better? And what about Sarah, Dad?" he questions desperately.
"Trust your son," his father commands, his tone forceful.
"Dad, he's too young!" Chuck almost screams.
"His age doesn't negate his abilities. Any more than it did yours, all those years ago. He may be meant for different things. Let him find his own path," his father advises.
"I have to protect him, Dad. It's what you would have done," he counters.
"He's different than you were. Protecting him means letting him become who he is supposed to be," he says gravely.
"Dad, you have to help me. I don't think I can do this by myself," he adds, his voice shaking in his desperation.
"You can. You aren't by yourself. You have Sarah, and you have your family. You have me. I've seen it myself. You can do just about anything," he says quietly.
"Dad…" he calls into the darkness, feeling the presence recede, this time not getting an answer. He calls again…
September 30, 2021
Burbank, California
He sat up abruptly, gasping in the dark, so forcefully he pulled the covers off his wife as she slept beside him. His ears rang, remembering the sound he must have made, though he couldn't remember making it. Calling out for his father, from the Intersect dream. He put his hand against his chest, feeling his heart hammering against his breastbone, agitation eating away at his calm.
"What's wrong?" he heard, a slurred whisper, knowing he had woken her up in his state. He was wheezing, trying to catch his breath, looking over his shoulder as she reached up a hand to touch his arm. At his silence, she proposed a reason. "Did you have a nightmare?"
He plopped back down next to her, a soft thump as his head hit the pillow hard. She crept over, nestling herself against him, silently surprised at how tense his muscles were, how labored his breathing sounded inside his chest. "The Intersect…my father," was all he could say, as he attempted to sift through the disorientation.
More awake, she spoke more coherently. "You haven't had one of those for such a long time, Chuck. Do you think it's because you forced that flash last night?"
"I don't know," he answered, sounding distracted, like he was trying to listen to something other than her voice.
"Your father's overlay doesn't usually cause nightmares, either, Chuck. What happened?" she prodded.
"He was trying to warn me," he said ominously.
"About what?" she asked in alarm.
"I don't know," he said slowly, feeling the disquiet take hold, prying his conscious mind away from the drowsy place where he could relax again. She stayed close, saying nothing else. Eventually, he felt her shift against him, the tension in her body slowly relaxing as she fell back to sleep. She jerked against him, twitching, as she transitioned back to dreaming.
His eyes stayed focused on the ceiling, tracing the blotches of pale moonlight in the inky darkness. Her closeness to him had always been a comfort, but instead now, he found his mind scrolling back in time–to a place he would rather not have remembered. Why? Why think of this now? he asked himself, getting no answer, and even as he closed his eyes, not able to avoid the recall.
June 9, 1997
Encino, California
"Dad?" Chuck called as he walked through the front door of his house, closing the door quietly as he waited for the usual muffled hello through his closed office door. His father was always home, when he usually arrived home from school. But his jeep wasn't in the driveway. It was strange, but not unheard of. What had raised his suspicion was Ellie's car in its place. Yes, Ellie was home from college–she had been for almost three weeks. But she was always working at this time of day.
His feet had danced along the sidewalk as he'd walked from the bus, elated to be done with the school year. He was now a junior in high school. This year had ended splendidly–good grades, good classes for next year, good performance on his final exams. And a blissfully long summer ahead of him that started with dinner this evening. His father always made pancakes for dinner when it was a special occasion, like he had promised this morning before Chuck had left. The last day of tenth grade.
He heard the sniffling sound, moving his lanky frame quickly into the living room, to see his sister, her back towards the door. She was cross-legged on the sofa, a black shoebox sitting in the cradle of her lap. She still wore her work uniform–her black supermarket apron's strings visible against her back, a stark contrast to her white t-shirt. "El, what are you doing home? Where's Dad?" he asked, dropping his lightweight backpack onto the chair next to the window.
He watched her jump, like he had startled her, although he had made no effort to be quiet and was surprised that he could have in any way done so. She fumbled quickly, clumsily covering the box, missing the angles, pushing it hastily to the side at the same time she swiped her hands over both cheeks, exaggerating the sniffling sound he'd heard.
When she turned he felt his heart sink to his feet. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks raw from rubbing away countless salted tears. She forced a smile, so weak and lifeless, but somehow he knew, she was struggling to not show him with her features the devastation he could see in her eyes. "Chuck, he's gone," she said slowly, a deadly still finality in her tone.
His eyes narrowed to thin slits, he questioned, "What do you mean, he's gone?"
His sister jumped to her feet, rushed up to him, grabbing him in a fierce embrace that almost hurt him. She said nothing, trembling gently against him, more tears gradually soaking into his shirt. He knew she had meant it as a comfort, but not explaining, gripping him so tightly it hurt to breathe, was only fueling his uneasiness. He pulled himself out of her arms, twisting away from her. "Ellie, what's going on?" he asked, his voice shrill.
His eyes scanned to the shoebox, now resting jauntily uncovered on the edge of the sofa. There was a note, half folded, half crinkled, and what looked like more money than Chuck had ever seen in one place in his entire life. There were stacks and stacks of money, banded with rubber bands. His eyes flew wide as he saw each inch-thick stack consisted of hundred dollar bills.
He felt her brush past him, never taking his eyes off the piles of money. She reached down for the note, and handed it to him. He met her stare, her large green eyes enormous and overflowing with pain. When he looked down, he could see the water marks where her tears had blotted the paper. His hands trembled as he opened the paper. His father's distinct handwriting stood out, perfectly written. This was not done in haste, while he was rushing. Chuck knew, without saying anything out loud, that this note was old. Something he had composed and saved. How odd, he thought, until he started reading.
My dearest Eleanor and Charles,
There is $50,000 here, for both of you. This is to cover your life, going forward. Eleanor, you were the one who always managed the money anyway. I trust you'll know how to ration this. As much as it breaks my heart, I had to go. I wish I could say that it's not forever, but I don't know that. And I won't make you a promise I can't keep. I've already done enough of that for one life. I hope someday you'll understand why and maybe be able to forgive me, though I wouldn't blame you in the slightest if you don't. If you can't.
Anyway, please take what you need out of this house, because you need to leave this behind. Paying the mortgage on this house is too much for what I was able to leave you. In the bottom of the box is a set of keys to an apartment I rented in your name, Eleanor, since you're over 18. The address is 1838 Franklin Street, in Echo Park. Chuck is registered in the Encino school district, so he can graduate without switching schools. It's very sparsely furnished. I did the best I could trying to fill it before I left.
I'll try to stay in touch, as much as I can. Please be there for each other.
Please know no matter what, I love you both, always, so much more than you will ever know.
Dad
The note fluttered to the floor, unnoticed, as Chuck turned and ran down the hallway to his father's office, the door usually bolted closed from the inside when he was home. He pushed the door, hearing it creak noisily as it swung wide, the extra locks and chains on the inside adding the weight that pulled the door along. The enormous bank of computers that was his father's work was still here, but lifeless like he had never seen it. Every last piece of paper, box of information that he knew used to be in here was gone, cleared away purposely. The room looked deserted, and every last hope left inside Chuck died in that instant. Their father had left them, just like their mother had done when he was nine.
"Chuck!" he heard his sister call, her voice broken with anguish. He noted that she hadn't followed him down here, instinctively knowing she had already looked, seeing and understanding what he now knew, and unable to look at it again.
He walked back into the room with her, falling into the couch, sliding painfully to sitting on the floor. He was hyperventilating, unable to catch his breath, muttering in fear to his sister under his breath. He felt like the room around him was dissolving, like he was shifting into another realm. The only thing that grounded him was his sister, dropping to her knees beside him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tightly.
Her own fear pushed aside, she was in mother mode, there to comfort her little brother, to protect him, like she had promised her father she would do. As angry as she was at her father, she wouldn't break the promise. Because Chuck was now all she had left in the world. All they had was each other.
Chuck just rambled, aimlessly, saying the same thing over and over again. "First Mom…now Dad…why, Ellie, why?...What are we gonna do?"
Whispering, holding onto him tighter, she tried to calm him. "We'll be ok. I promise you, Chuck."
Rage seized him, and he broke through Ellie's arms, reaching quickly for the note, fumbling in his fury as he tore the note into continuingly smaller pieces, shredding the paper as the tears poured from his eyes. Years would actually pass before Chuck would look back to this moment, wishing he could have controlled his wrath, because it was the last bit of his father left in his otherwise solitary existence without his parents, instead of destroying it in a blind blitz of anger.
As his dreams about summer lay in shatters around him, he found the farther down the road he looked, into the shapeless void that had become his life, the more it threatened to swallow him whole. They had no one. Not an aunt, a grandmother, a family friend. It was literally his sister and him. Teenagers. Alone in the world.
He clung to his sister's words, her voice. At 16, he could still draw strength from her self-assuredness. Not completely understanding that some of that was just a front, put forth to protect him from worry. She had already grown up too soon, when their mother had left them seven years ago. He acknowledged how he had relied heavily on her, not understanding how much until now their father was gone. His days of being a child were over, he accepted. It was too much for his sister, at 19, to have a 16 year old son. Being honest, it had been too much for her to have a nine year old son at 12, but he had only been nine. The maturity in between then and now taught him that.
He had no idea how long they sat like that, huddled together on the floor. But when she finally let go, the world around him had changed. It was like walking through a door into another place, knowing as he shut it behind him, he could never go back to the comfortable place where he had been. He was a different person, and would continue to change into someone neither his mother or his father would truly know, had they ever bothered to return to see.
They hadn't.
Not until he was an adult.
September 30, 2021
Burbank, California
"Chuck?" Sarah asked, feeling him sitting against the headboard, his arms crossed over his chest. The light in the room was dim, an hour before dawn broke. The gray shadows washed all the color out of the room.
"Hmm?" he mumbled, his attention elsewhere.
"What's on your mind?" she asked, rubbing her eyes as she accepted she was now awake, a little too early. "You had an Intersect dream last night, didn't you?" she recalled.
He nodded, haltingly, like he wasn't quite listening to her still.
"Chuck?" she asked again, more insistent, worried at his distraction.
"I have this…awful feeling. I can't shake it," he muttered.
"Things are really crazy stressful right now. I think that's just normal. We're all worried," she consoled him.
"It's more than that," he told her. "This feels like…like…when I knew Shaw was still alive, but everyone thought I was crazy. Until we saw him on the subway."
Her stomach twisted into knots, she sat up, leaning on his shoulder as he sat up. He moved his arm around her without even thinking. "What is it this time?" she asked quietly.
He sighed, looking away, his jaw shifting side to side as he struggled. "I feel like this is worse than we think it is. I wish I could be more specific, but I can't. I'm sorry."
How could it be worse? she thought, but didn't say, knowing it didn't help, would in fact only make him more upset. The thought persisted, chilling her blood. Even when he thought in the past he had been wrong, in the end, they had found he had always been right. About all of it.
The thought was too frightening, as she suddenly heard the noises of her children, slowly waking up and beginning to start their days. She wanted to stay next to him, feel the comfort of his arm around her, but the day was calling. She heard the sound of the dog's feet on the hardwood floor, giving him an apologetic, crooked smile, and kissed his cheek before flipping back the covers to rise. He followed.
September 30, 2021
Carmichael Industries, Los Angeles, California
When Chuck was lost in a coding session, it was like time was standing still. Routinely, running his company kept him disconnected from such activities. He hired computer programmers to do this work. He had started, but after the government contract with the NSA, he had needed to delegate. He supervised sometimes, offering problem solving advice and strategies. Much of his time had been spent in training those he hired, showing them how to do what he did so effortlessly. But the sheer joy of doing it, mainly because it had been one of the very first things he had discovered he excelled at, when he was much younger, never went away. His life had gone in different directions, for a multitude of reasons, but this was still a comfortable place where he was a subject matter expert.
The rest of his company felt separate from him today, Morgan having taken his and Casey's advice and steered everyone else away from them, to complete the rest of their work on their own. So today, he was alone in his office, with noise canceling headphones over his ears, cross-referencing every lead the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence possessed concerning intelligence and data acquired over the last nine years, about the Sentries and all adjacent actors. Digging deeper than any of their operatives had ever had the opportunity to go. He had a firewall in place, as well as a communications blackout, which Morgan had had to explain to the others, rather sheepishly.
Morgan had been quiet, understanding. Everyone in the building knew the last time he had ordered the building blacked-out had been the day Sarah had almost died. It had been necessary that day, as they had been attempting to thwart a cyber attack on air traffic control at LAX International Airport, with highly credible evidence that a counter-attack could be launched and cripple their efforts. He had debated after that, in the end, asking General Beckman to involve another team when that was necessary in the future. She had protested, trying to reason with him, at how those particular circumstances could almost never be duplicated. The argument hadn't lasted long, after she had heard the sound of his voice. That compounded with the memory of what he had looked like that March, until July of the same year, when Sarah had finally gotten pregnant again with their twins, and she had relented.
Sarah was here, the NSA was following his family, and Corrine Winterbottom was protecting his children. He had calmed himself with all of that knowledge, even as he had felt the cloying panic descend. Shutting himself down, lost in the abstract computer language he was effortlessly translating, had calmed him more than he had thought it would.
His only distraction came as he saw Sarah's hand, sliding a paper plate with a sandwich and a side of chips in front of him. He pulled the headphones off, looking up at her, previously unaware of her approach. "You need to eat, even when you aren't chugging Chardonnay," she said with a soft smile, resting her hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you, Sweetie," he said with a smile, looking up at her before focusing back on his food. "Is this what I think it is?" he asked with a smirk.
"Yes," she smiled back. "Hartley brought lunch from Lou's Deli. That is the Chuck Bartowski 2.0. End cut pastrami, muenster cheese, and cole slaw. Grilled," Sarah quoted, rolling her eyes upward as she tried to quote the sandwich. She cringed slowly in disgust as he took a bite. "I don't know how you can eat that," she mumbled.
His mouth full, he smirked and told her, "I seem to remember you eating this with peanut butter when you were pregnant with the girls."
She almost gagged, covering her mouth with a hand. "Oh, god, there goes my appetite. Thanks, Chuck," she grumbled.
He shifted a mouthful to his cheek, saying sweetly, "Love you, Sweetie."
"Sarah, your soup is getting cold," Chuck heard from outside his office door, a soft spoken voice with a mild British accent. Hartley peaked into Chuck's office behind Sarah as she moved to shut the door.
"Thank you for lunch, Hartley," Chuck called with a smile, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin.
"Of course, Charles. You are putting my wife up as a houseguest, you know," he said with a smile. His hair was all gray now, like Casey's, though his hair was still thick and combed with the same part. He wore a cowl-necked cardigan sweater and khaki trousers.
"Why don't you come for dinner tonight at my house?" Chuck asked, gesturing to Sarah as he watched her clipped nod that affirmed his invitation was acceptable. "I know you must miss her."
Hartley blushed, his shy little smile on his face. "Good lord, Chuck, it's only been one night." He chuckled sweetly. "But you know I do."
Sarah had only looked away for a moment, watching Hartley as he left to go find his daughter, but Chuck had somehow wolfed down the rest of his sandwich and almost all of the chips, and was in the process of gulping from his water bottle as she looked back. "Wow, Chuck, I thought I ate fast," she laughed, shaking her head.
"That was just the twins, you know, eating all the food off your plate. It was sort of fend for yourself for a while there, if you recall, Sweetheart," he teased.
She was halfway out the door, a smile on her face, listening to her stomach growl as she thought of her bowl of vegetable soup waiting for her in her office, when she asked him quietly, "How's it going?"
"I wish I had help," he murmured. "This is going to take me a long time. There is so much data here, and everything I find leads me to more."
"Have you reached the proverbial bridge that Beckman was talking about?" Sarah asked him.
"I hope not," he sighed. "I really don't want to have to read Skip in on this if I can help it. If he had any idea how dangerous a task I'm doing now, I think he'd quit. And he's my best programmer."
"At least when Jeffster is out of town," Sarah said, winking at him gently.
"Don't remind me," he grumbled. He looked up, squinting. "When is that Farewell Japan tour over, anyway? Jeff said they'd be back in L.A. for six months when that was over."
"Chuck, are you seriously asking me that? Do I look like I keep track of Jeffster's touring schedule? Ask Morgan," she huffed.
Smirking, he reached to put his headphones back on, telling her, "Come on, Honey. I know you love listening to that Jeffster Live MP3 I downloaded onto your iPod, right?"
"That was you?" she asked in mock outrage. "I thought that was Stephen. I guess I should have known."
He secured the headphones, folding his lips inward to disguise the sheepish grin. She smiled, and shut the door behind her as she departed.
Chuck had been working for another solid few hours when his secretary knocked on his office door. She opened it, remembering he wasn't able to hear and instead needed to rely on him seeing her. When she knew she had his attention, as he pulled off the headphones, she told him, "Mr. Bartowski, you have General Casey on a secure line."
He set the headphones down, nodded to her, and clicked the speakerphone on his desk when she shut the door again. "Hey, Casey, what's up?" he asked lightly.
"Listen, Chuck. We have some information. Cole's team has proof from some tapped security feeds from Heathrow that Liam was seen late last night London time. The girls are en route as we speak. In the meantime, Cole received quite a large data packet from one of his sources. Accounting data mostly, trying to track the money going back and forth between the Hungarian and his various contacts. Some kind of money laundering involved, if he's keeping track of dirty money like that in a traceable way," he finished sharply. "The NSA is calling on a few of its forensic accountants, but there's a significant delay before we can start them working."
Chuck had been nodding all along, understanding that things seemed to be progressing on the other end of this. But he spoke up, as an alarm started ringing in his head, as he went into problem solving overdrive. "Casey, Carter has a dual master's degree in both financial and forensic accounting," he said quickly. "We haven't had that much work where the forensic portion is needed, but that's why I hired him in the first place, because he was more versatile."
Casey grunted. "Loverboy's gonna have to be read in, Chuck, if you want his help. Are you sure that's wise?"
"He already has the necessary security clearance. I trust him, Casey. And the man is a genius. If you're looking to find the trail of money, he's your guy. Trust me," Chuck said assuredly. He chose to ignore Casey's quip.
Casey grunted again, and sighed. A vote of confidence from Chuck was enough for him. "Alright, Chuck. I'm sending what we have. Read him in."
XXX
Chuck wasn't sure if he needed to reach across his desk and actually smack Carter across the face to snap him out of the stupor the entire story had caused. Granted, Chuck had parsed the information–telling him just enough, without telling him more than was necessary or would endanger him for the knowledge.
"Are you breathing? Are you still with me?" Chuck asked him.
Carter ran a hand over his face, threading his fingers into his hair and holding his head for several seconds before he responded. "Look, I knew you and Sarah had some…past government contacts. The kind of government contract you secured doesn't just fall into the lap of rubes. General Casey was a field operative before, I knew that as well. I know you can't tell me everything, but this…this…danger that you're in, has to do with what you used to do for the government before?"
"Yes," Chuck told him plainly. "Sarah and I left when we had children. But that doesn't mean just because we left, it left us alone."
"Are your kids in danger, Chuck?" he asked, leaning forward, the genuine concern for his friend evident on his face.
"We're doing everything we possibly can to keep them safe. But the information I need you to find out–all that money was changing hands, for the most part, because the people involved are trying to get to us. That's why I need your help," Chuck told him, keeping his voice steady, determined to keep Carter from freaking out.
He nodded, pressing his closed fist over his mouth, the gravity of the situation pressing onto him. He focused on the floor, asking Chuck urgently, "What about Vivian?"
"What about Vivian?" Chuck asked, flinching in embarrassment as he realized he'd parroted back the same question in a different tone.
"Did she, you know, work with you, like that?" he asked, sounding slightly intimidated.
Chuck coughed as he swallowed down his dry throat. "Not exactly," he wheezed, afraid to elaborate for a multitude of reasons. Whatever specifics about Vivian he would ever find out, Chuck thought it best if he heard it from her. "We've known her for a long time, though. And her parents. They're all family to us."
"You said…you said Liam, her ex-boyfriend, was selling information? Was he just…insinuating himself into her life, to get information? That's what you meant?" he asked again.
"It certainly seems like it, Carter. Which is why we don't have a lot of time left. He lost his access. Whoever wants to make a move, they're gonna do it soon. We have to get ahead of this if we want to keep everyone safe," Chuck told him.
"Is she in danger, Chuck?" Carter asked quietly.
"Yes," Chuck admitted. "Not necessarily the same way we are, but she is."
He nodded several times without speaking, dropping his hands down onto his knees. "I'll figure it out, Chuck." His eyes looked like ice on fire sitting there, a quiet intensity inside him Chuck had seen on occasion, something that came from the deepest recesses of himself.
"I'll have to enhance the security on your system first. Doing the books and sifting through classified data is different," Chuck told him, clicking away on his computer. "Vivian's been pulled from regular duties, just so you know. She's helping me–I'll let her know you're on this. If you have any questions, anything like that, use her as the liaison. Ok? Morgan knows what's going on, but no one else but Vivian, Sarah, and I do. It keeps everyone else safe that way."
Carter stood, a calm resolution in him that was new, Chuck realized. "Thank you," he said to his friend. Carter tipped his head only once, and left for his office.
XXX
Sarah approached the door to Chuck's office, watching him through the blinds on his glass wall. He was still concentrating, but the fatigue around his eyes was apparent, after almost eight straight hours on the computer. His eyes were pink, most likely dry and itchy, she knew from the past. He had eyedrops in his top desk drawer, but he never remembered to use them, most often the reason for the dry eyes the same as the attention stealing cause--he was singularly focused.
She did note, he wasn't typing, though. He was looking at the screen, his eyes darting back and forth, as he must have been reading or studying something. She watched as he placed a clenched fist over his mouth. She walked into his office, smiling as he glanced up at the sound of her shutting his door. "What did you find?" she asked, knowing the look on his face.
He sighed heavily, shaking his head, an open palm gesture pointing forward as if in confusion. "What would have happened if Interpol had missed that courier?" he asked, the dread chilling the air around them.
She sat on the chair across from him, crossing her long legs and cupping her knee. "We wouldn't have had any warning at all," she said seriously, not able to process the consequences they had just so narrowly escaped.
"Was it really just a coincidence? Did they make that huge of a mistake? Sending all the data with one person?" he thought out loud.
"Everyone makes mistakes, even criminal masterminds," Sarah reminded him.
He spun the computer monitor around, so she could see what he had been looking at. "The Hungarian was relatively easy to track, once I broke into enough security footage. He's a hired henchman, from what Cole described him as, correct?"
She nodded in confirmation.
"For someone who was supposedly just doing the bidding of the Sentries, he was all over the place. He had all that passport data, which makes no sense and doesn't connect in any way to the Ultima Intersectio project. Did he have a side job? Aiding and abetting terrorists? And most of the delays in their progress had to do with him being in prison. Again, if he is just a henchman, aren't they just a dime a dozen? What was so special about him? Better yet, Sarah, what does he know that makes him so valuable?"
She knew the question was rhetorical, just him thinking out loud and bouncing his ideas off of her.
"Zondra and Carina are on their way to London to investigate a reported sighting of Liam. Everything I found tells me the Hungarian was on his way to England, before Liam even left the states. I sent the report to Casey. Hopefully they can find him before he finds Liam."
Chuck saw Sarah's eyes come alive as her mind started turning, following what he'd said. "He was looking for Hannah. Cole moved her out of Europe after the Hungarian killed her husband. That's why Cole moved her to L.A. from Santa Barbara. But you heard him. The only confirmed incursion on U.S. soil was the theft from the substation in Halifax, over two years ago. Whatever they were using all that data for, they were using it in Europe. But the courier Interpol picked up. Where was he going?"
"If he was on his way to the United States, who was his contact here? With literally every stitch of intel they had been accumulating all that time?" he asked.
"They're still questioning him. But we need those answers. We don't even know where to look until he can tell us," she told him.
"Why did he have your information and not mine?" Chuck asked her, out loud but almost to himself. "Is the passport data related somehow we don't know yet?"
She sighed heavily. "There's a lot of questions, not a lot of answers. That's what's so hard not being in the field. Waiting for everyone else to do something." She looked down, then looked back up, her face twisted in thought. "Speaking of that. You know Stephen's going to realize the NSA followed him and the girls to school. The reason I gave him last night may not hold up any more when we get home. Our work doesn't explain that."
"But it does. I mean, in reality, it does." He sighed, the breath slowly turning into a growl. "We have to tell him a watered down version of the truth."
"He might not feel safe if we do, Chuck. He's too little for that," she insisted.
Chuck's eyes were wide, unblinking as he stared at Sarah. "The dream I had last night, with my father. He told me the way to keep Stephen safe was to let him become who he's supposed to be. What does that mean?"
She stared back at him in silence, perhaps a bit too long, and her voice was rough when she answered him. "He's nine. But he's an Intersect. Maybe trying to protect him, shield him from this, is a detriment. If he can solve a problem, figure something out that the rest of us can't. I don't know, Chuck."
"It's such a fine line," he hissed angrily. "One slip off in any direction, and his childhood is gone, worse than mine and Ellie's or even yours ever was."
"You don't think he's mature enough to at least understand? He would need more reassurance, and not every gory detail. But he's extraordinary, in so many different ways. Don't underestimate him, Chuck," she advised.
"Really, Sarah?" he asked, still so uncertain. She watched him wringing his hands, pulling on his fingers as he worried.
"You're his father," she said proudly, her eyes shining with love and admiration. "How could he not be?"
September 30, 2021
Secret CIA Holding Facility, Washington, D.C.
Karul lay on the thin fabric cot inside his cell, the dim light from the corridor scattering uneven blocks of light across the wall behind him and the ceiling above. He was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep. Was there any person left in the CIA they could send in to question him? he thought. He had been told of how mild interrogation tactics in the United States could be. He had known the moment Interpol agreed to the transfer. Of course, his stay here was not indefinite. Eventually, they would move him out of U.S. torture jurisdiction. His hope was that if he held out, his employers would be able to extricate him before that happened. There was very little loyalty among thieves, truth be told, but he was more valuable with the intel intact.
Time moved slowly when its passage could not be tracked. There was no natural light to mark the time of day, no change in the stale fluorescent light unless the lights were extinguished when it was time to sleep. Added was the monotony of idle time, staring uselessly at a plain gray wall. However, he had a very thin prickling thought at the back of his mind, acknowledging that it seemed an irregularly long stretch of time had passed before he had heard the footsteps and jingling keys of the guard.
His unease would not settle. He had no way to know how much more time had elapsed, but when he realized he did hear footsteps coming, the tell-tale tinkling of the belt-loop key ring absent. He sat up, swinging his legs to the side of the cot, just in time to see the shadow break the square of light in half.
It took several minutes before the figure stepped into a swath of light where his features could be discerned.
Karul gasped, backing away towards the wall, completely aware he had nowhere to run. He saw the gun, heard the quick sputter as the silencer muted the shot, an instant before falling dead from the cot to the floor. The thought that the darkness cut off was solitary–if the Assistant Director was here, in a CIA facility, it had already begun.