So soon just after you've gone
My senses sharpen
But it always takes so damn long
Before I feel how much my
Eyes have darkened
"Careless Memories"
Duran Duran
October 2, 2021
Burbank, California
Chuck was unusually quiet in the car on the way back to their house. On any other day, when things had been normal, car rides like these were the best time Chuck had to just talk to his son, one on one. Their family functioned perfectly well, but there were just some things he wanted to talk to his son about alone, and Chuck knew there were also just some things that Stephen wanted to talk to him about without his sisters' input, more specifically his sister, Abby's. Some of those conversations were the best the two of them had ever had–something Chuck cherished close to his heart, the space in his own memory between having been able to talk that way to his own father and when his father had withdrawn before ultimately leaving for good now glaringly wide as reminisced in his adulthood.
Chuck continuously glanced in the rear view mirror, checking the expression on his son's face. Stephen was looking out the window, but his lower lip kept sliding in between his teeth in a nervous rhythm. There was something Stephen wanted to say, but he was also taking a cue from Chuck's own reticence and not speaking. Chuck never wanted his son to feel like he couldn't talk to his father if he needed to. "What's up, kiddo?" Chuck asked quietly, waiting for his son to turn his head to meet his eyes in the mirror before he shifted his eyes back to the road.
"Nothing, Dad," he sulked.
"Uh, hello? This is your father asking. Don't tell me 'nothing,'" Chuck mimicked the last word, exaggerating the deflated sound of his son's voice.
"Nothing…" Stephen sighed, slightly exasperated.
Suddenly serious, Chuck interjected, "Don't not tell me because you're worrying about me."
Stephen sat forward, straining against the seatbelt across his chest. "But I am worried, Dad. I just wish someone could explain it to me."
Chuck swallowed, searching for the words he could use to ease into the discussion. "It's very complicated, Son. Too much for right now, even with the Intersect."
"Dad," Stephen almost interrupted. "Why did that name freak Mom out? Who is she?"
Blinking back his tears, struggling with all his might to stay calm, he breathed in and out several times before he answered. "Someone who means a lot to your mother. And she needs our help. That's why your Mom left." Not just to your mother. Me, everyone. All of us. Our family.
Chuck wished he could tell his son. But even him telling Cole Barker had nearly put Sarah over the edge. She had been willing to never speak to her mother again to protect Molly, and then later risking her own life trying to handle everything with Ryker alone to protect everyone else. He'd asked for the truth back then, and she had confided in him, but both then and now, Sarah had also been right about the danger everyone was in because of those secrets.
"I miss her," Stephen gushed wistfully, sounding so much younger. "She hasn't even been gone a whole day and I miss her so much."
Chuck raised his hand to his face, covering his nose and mouth with his palm, trying to disguise the strangled cry that echoed in his throat with a phony cough. Anything to distract from the tears in his eyes.
"You miss her too, Dad. I can tell," Stephen said, the gentle understanding and compassion in his voice covering Chuck like a salve on his wounds. He only nodded in response, knowing his voice would fail him if he tried.
"I don't even remember a whole day that ever went by that I haven't seen her," Stephen marveled. "Except…" He started, then seemed to realize he'd brought up the wrong thing, and quickly added, "Never mind."
Chuck knew what his son was going to say. He knew Stephen remembered, however fuzzily, about the time his mother had been in the hospital when he was very small. He obviously remembered what he'd mentioned in the hospital on Monday, about his memories of Chuck during that time. Chuck understood his son was trying to spare him, not bring up something else that had the potential to upset him.
"I've…uh…known your Mom for almost 15 years. There weren't that many times I had to do that, either," he mumbled, forcing the strength into his tone.
"Ally and Abby never have, ever, right, Dad?" he asked.
"No," Chuck said, shaking his head. "That's why you need to be extra nice, ok?"
Stephen knew his sister, Abby, was extra grouchy, and his sister, Ally, was extra sad, this morning as they'd woken up alone in the house with their father. Ally cried, Abby got angry. But he had already vowed to be as patient as he could possibly be, to not add any stress at all to his father. Adult emotions were complex, and sometimes very hard to interpret, but he knew at least now, his father was teetering on the edge of something. It was just a feeling Stephen had, a sense that something super small, like the dog tearing apart the trash or eating one of Abby's shoes, would be the last thing before his father erupted like a volcano.
Stephen's father almost never got really angry, he knew that. Griffin would tell him stories sometimes about how his Dad would yell at him or his older sister, get screaming mad over some stuff that didn't seem that big of a deal. Stephen's Dad always talked to him first, no matter what. And he was very understanding, never jumping to accuse him or his sisters of anything until he had the whole story. It was multiple times of doing the same unacceptable thing, or multiple times of his father asking the same thing that never seemed to get done, that would fry his Dad's patience, and cause him to yell.
The angriest Stephen had ever seen his father become was when either he or his sisters were doing something that his father would later tell them was dangerous, that could have resulted in someone getting badly hurt. Like riding his bicycle on the main road, skateboarding without his helmet, or putting his hand close to the hot stove top. That was what Stephen knew was really, blazingly angry, but it was always a little easier to take because he knew it was only because his father loved him as much as he did that he cared so much.
Volcano. He actually stopped to think why that particular image had popped into his head. Like in cartoons, maybe. They would draw a volcano to mean someone was really, really mad. However, Stephen had learned about them in school as well. They were what his teacher had explained as release valves for the pressure building inside the earth, like the steam that would burst out through the valve on a tea kettle filled with boiling water. Volcanos did spew ash and lava, which is why he understood the metaphor. Sometimes volcanoes hurt people, especially when the people lived too close and couldn't get away in time when an eruption was happening. But eruptions, real scientific eruptions, were gradual. Instead, pressure built up over time, little by little, until there was no more room under the earth's crust for any more pressure, and it just exploded.
Maybe it wasn't really anger then, but it was something, building up on the inside, little by little. Stephen knew that. He also knew there was almost no room left inside his father. Any little thing could be too much. He would just have to do everything he possibly could to not add to it. Hopefully it wouldn't overflow before his mother returned.
When Chuck pulled up to their house, the first thing he noticed were all the extra cars here. Familiar cars, not just the scattered surveillance vehicles all over his street and spaced out in the neighborhood. Morgan and Alex, Ellie and Devon, Casey and Gertrude, as well as Carter's car, which he now knew meant Carter and Vivian. It was his son's birthday party redone, he thought. He knew inside his home he would also find his mother, as well as Hartley, considering Corrine was already there. Good lord, there would be pandemonium in there, Chuck thought.
"We have company!" Stephen yelled with glee, jumping from the car the moment it stopped rolling.
Left alone in the car, Chuck let out a shuddering sigh. Dealing with Andrea and Jim and the other parents and coaches in his current state of mind was harrowing. But this crowd, he thought, his eyes filling with tears, was here for him. To help. Because they were his family. In that single moment, he felt more loved than any other time in his life. The collective lot of them had been through some pretty difficult times, but they had always been there for each other. He just wished, uselessly again, that this time he wasn't the one in need of support.
His mind drifted to thoughts of his wife, relatively alone in England. Sarah too was part of that family, and over the years had drawn strength and comfort from them. He wanted her to know somehow that everyone was there for her as well, but the dichotomy stood out in his mind. Maybe they would distract her from her mission, he thought with a pant of fear and sadness. She would need to be cooler and in control, not distracted with the thought of home and her family.
He shook his head to clear the morbid thoughts. No point in letting those thoughts dwale inside his head. Most importantly, he wanted her home safe. By any means necessary. Even if her safety depended on her ability to put all of this out of her mind.
October 2, 2021
Los Angeles, California
For the moment, Hannah was alone with her children in the safe house. She knew from the message she'd received Cole was on his way back.
She knew it was getting more difficult to explain away all the oddities about the situation to her intelligent and astute children. She had already confounded them by insisting they speak English with her, even when they were alone. Cole had explained it eliminated the need for a translator on the surveillance feed. One unnecessary step that could impede action should it be needed.
Worse were the questions about Chuck and Sarah's children. More specifically about how she had known them, when she had lived in Los Angeles and why. It was a part of her life she had never described to them, such a brief and relatively upsetting part. And then she'd had to tell them only part of the truth, ultra filtered as it turned out, because she herself didn't know all of the truth about it all.
Hannah had put all of her faith in Cole, and then later Chuck, after they'd spoken. She had never wavered when he had asked for her help. It was still so strange and new, but she had realized she had spent a ridiculously long time resenting someone who had never truly deserved her animosity. This bizarre situation now seemed almost normal, her surreal feeling of living in a movie now all but gone. But settling into this place, now left her wondering, turning thoughts through her head she before had been afraid to consider.
Hannah was in danger. Cole had moved her to America to protect her from the people who killed her husband. But a week ago, Cole had been shown proof that the same people had her information, because of the false passports he had secured for her and her children, and thus knew how to find her.
Chuck and his family were in just as much danger. She wondered if the reason was the same. But how could it be? Chuck and Sarah had lived this other life as spies for years. But not just him. His children were being protected as well. And now his wife was gone—whatever the cyber attack against Carmichael Industries had been done to complicate, it was imperative that these people be stopped now. Whatever had been brewing all this time had come to a head. Of that she was certain.
Hannah had seen Chuck last night, beside himself when the topic of Sarah leaving had been passed around. Why had he remained here?
Because of his children.
It was a rational, logical conclusion. But something shifted inside her head as her mind was racing. Her thought now was irrational, but it made more sense than anything else. Frantic all of a sudden, she grabbed her phone and moved down the hall to the office. She needed to call Chuck. She just hoped he could tell her what she wanted to know.
October 2, 2021
Burbank, California
Chuck was still in the driveway when his cell phone rang. Curious and slightly alarmed at seeing it was Hannah, he stopped walking and answered the phone.
She cut to the chase, he thought as he heard her reply. "Chuck, they think you fathered my children, don't they? The people who killed Jacques." Her voice was unsteady, close to tears. But at least, he thought suddenly, she didn't sound angry.
He sputtered his words, nearly dropping the phone. "I…I…"
He heard her gasp, nearly shrieking. "Oh my god… you know they aren't yours, don't you?"
He felt like his head was spinning as he felt himself flush. "Hannah—" He started to say, hearing his own voice start to waver. Damn it, not like this, he thought, wondering why she now thought this.
She interrupted him again, but speaking so quickly he couldn't understand her words. She was near hysterical, and he wondered how her state would appear in the safe house.
"Hannah, Hannah, Hannah! Slow down," he stuttered over her. "This is complicated. Not a discussion for the phone." He heard talking in the background, guessing it was Cole.
"Ok, ok, we need to talk. But can you at least answer me that?" she insisted.
"I know, Hannah," he said quietly. "Cole thought it was a possibility, at least at the beginning. But my…blood type…ruled it out. The CIA never had that data on me. I wasn't processed through Langley. If that makes any sense," he grumbled softly.
"But you thought…" She started, but couldn't finish. She sounded choked, like her throat was sore. She sighed, laughing humorlessly. "I was so awful, I guess you didn't know what to think. But…I guess I hope that you could have had enough faith to know I wouldn't keep something like that from you."
He shifted the phone to his other hand, turning away as he saw the curtain on the window shift to the side—little eyes peering out, now that they knew he was home but somehow still outside. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you had, not after…well, everything. But you're right."
The silence became awkward and uncomfortable as neither of them spoke. Chuck finally spoke. "Can Cole get me back there, you know, to you, so we can talk?"
He heard murmuring in the background and what sounded like footsteps. "He said yes. He'll pick you up at 8:00. Does that work for you?"
He thought about his full house. "I've got lots of…uh…company right now. But, yeah, I'll work it out."
"Ok," she breathed out, sounding slightly out of breath. She hung up without another word. The comfort he had first felt knowing his family had gathered around to support him was slowly evaporating. Thoughts were bouncing around inside his head, spinning and reeling, as he realized he would probably have no choice now but tell her the truth. About the Intersect.
His sleepless night now crowded out his focus, exhaustion grabbing him in its talons. Each step made him feel like he was dragging a lead weight behind him. He didn't know what he looked like, how he would be perceived. His phone call only made it worse. The steps to the door, turning the doorknob weren't initially there in his consciousness, like he had forgotten walking. "Dad, what took you so long?" he heard, his son rushing to meet him at the door. He wasn't sure how long he'd been outside, but Stephen had his shoes off and had changed clothes.
"Just…uh…just the phone. No big deal," he murmured, wondering if his son heard him over the din all his houseguests seemed to be making. Of course he heard, Chuck thought right away, noting the suspicious narrowed-eyed look Stephen gave him.
"Hey, Chuck!" he heard next, looking up to see Alex, leaning out his kitchen. "We're making beef stew. Dinner should be ready in a few." Her smile was sweet and warm.
He quickly scanned the room. Ellie was standing behind Alex in his kitchen, her back turned as she was washing his dishes. He scanned the living room, noting the concentration of the crowd. Ally and Max were seated together on the floor, coloring in one of Ally's coloring books. Abby was on the floor in front of the television with Ellie's two sons, while Clara sat on the edge of the couch with Morgan's younger son on her lap. Devon, Hartley, and Corrine were crowded onto the sofa while Vivian and Carter sat in the love seat opposite them. Casey, Gertrude, and his mother were seated at his kitchen table, Casey's back to him as he conversed with his daughter.
Everyone in the room seemed to turn at once, each face lit with a soft and sympathetic smile. The ache in his chest eased, even just slightly, knowing he had a buffer of sorts, a cushion that protected him from his worries. He relaxed into it, and let his mind shut down. He glanced at the time, noting he had almost three and a half hours before he had to talk to Hannah. He vowed to revel in this time, however short.
October 2, 2021
London, England, United Kingdom
Sarah opened the car door, stepping out into the open parking lot. Colin followed her, standing slightly behind her. "Are we sure about this contact?" she asked him blandly.
"I've worked with her in the past. She can be trusted, Sarah," he swore. "She's been out of the field for some time, but she still maintains almost all of her contacts."
The black car pulled up alongside them, and Sarah scanned both the car and the surroundings for possible surveillance. Colin saw her eyes as they shifted around, and he added quickly, "The location is secure. None of the local surveillance apparatus is within range of this particular spot."
On the opposite side of the second car, Sarah saw the motion, as the driver stepped out and stood. From behind, Sarah could see her long, dark hair, secured tightly behind her head in a delicate french twist. Her hair was salt and pepper, evenly colored very dark and very light gray throughout. When she turned, Sarah recognized her immediately.
"Ilsa," Sarah breathed, her jaw slack. Colin looked quickly between the two women, obviously surprised that they knew one another.
Ilsa smiled gently, without her teeth. "Not anymore," she said in perfect, unaccented English. "That cover was blown a long time ago. To Colin, I'm Alina."
"I wasn't aware you would be familiar. I would have told you beforehand had I known," Colin explained.
"It was a long time ago. We never really even spoke, not really," Sarah said with a soft smile.
"No, you're right. But you did save my life," she added with another small smile. Sarah saw it on her face, what she didn't dare say in front of her contact. Casey's too.
Ilsa turned to Colin, speaking crisply with a somber neutrality in her tone. "MI6 said their POC with the CIA had been compromised. That's why I agreed to this. I don't routinely engage in this kind of fieldwork any more."
"Correct. The Special Agent in charge is in the U.S. with an asset. The two CIA agents on the ground were attacked. By the Hungarian. We had visual confirmation," Colin told her.
"What is it you need from the DGSE?" she asked.
Colin produced a manilla file folder, flipping it open in his hands as they stood in a broken circle. He pulled out a grainy, badly focused black and white photograph, something Sarah thought must have come from residential or commercial surveillance footage lifted through digital means somehow. It was strange, Sarah noted, knowing if more sophisticated means of surveillance had been disabled, there was little chance that the security cameras on the outside of a home or business would have survived the same medling. Unless, whoever it was had believed they were in a safe zone, and no longer concerned with any surveillance of any kind. Perhaps knowing how poor the resolution of those images would be. "Can you identify the person in these photographs?" he asked, extending his hands outward to show Ilsa the file. "We have reason to believe he may be known to the DGSE. But there was no traceable record. He saved both members of that CIA team, and then disappeared. We believe he may have gone after Kovacs. He definitely engaged Kovacs in a flat here in London."
Ilsa took the photo, holding it at an angle to reduce the glare from the setting sun. Looking over Ilsa's shoulder, Sarah thought how hopeless a task identifying whoever it was would be. It was only a profile shot, from a great distance, and so unfocused his features were too undefined for any kind of positive identification. He was tall, white, with dark hair. Very nondescript. Still, Ilsa studied it carefully for a very long time.
"How were those obtained?" Sarah asked Colin.
"Outside the hospital," Colin said softly.
Ilsa looked up sharply, while Colin clarified. "He fought Kovacs, but let him get away to render aid to those agents. One of whom was seriously wounded."
Ilsa saw the look on Sarah's face, unmistakable sadness. Someone she knew? It seemed likely. "So he not only called the ambulance, he followed them to the hospital?" she asked incredulously. She resumed scouring the photograph. "Then just disappeared into the night." Her lips pursed in frustration, Ilsa handed Colin the photograph. "There's very little to go on."
He was tucking the file back together when Ilsa spoke again. "I hate guessing. But it's not just a guess. It's a hunch, a gut feeling. I wouldn't be here right now if I hadn't learned to trust those." Colin looked at her expectantly, his eyebrows raised. "I had only been under this new cover for about 18 months. One of our agents disappeared. He was on a mission in the United States. Code name Abat-jour Argenté. Silver Shade in English. He was declared dead about six years ago. Until we intercepted some intelligence that he was back in Europe. He was spotted in Hungary. And France. The DGSE sent agents, but he eluded them. For three years we kept getting conflicting reports. Two years ago, we had a positive ID outside Paris. The DGSE moved in to apprehend them, but he was killed before we had the chance. MI6 got involved and we were told to stand down."
"You think this could be your missing agent?" Sarah asked, wondering why Ilsa would think so by looking at such a terrible photograph.
"Look at his hand," Ilsa said, gesturing with her outstretched palm. Colin flipped the file open to reveal the photo. Sarah's eyes followed. He was wearing a dark overcoat, his left hand in stark contrast against his side. "He's wearing a wedding ring," Ilsa proclaimed. Sarah immediately had seen the darker line across the third finger on his hand.
"That's your evidence? Your reason?" Colin asked, dumbfounded. "How nondescript could that be?"
"It would seem that way, wouldn't it?" Ilsa said, lifting her eyebrow in question. Sarah felt very exposed as she felt Ilsa's eyes boring into her as she gazed at Sarah's hand. "It's not a cover. He wouldn't have left it on like this, here, without the woman he was pretending to be married to. Argente was rumored to have gone missing, AWOL you call it, for someone, not something. The positive ID in 2019 had him marked with a wedding ring, same scenario. It's not common, not in this world. It's suspicious enough to make me wonder."
Colin sighed in frustration. "This isn't helping anything, is it?"
"If it is him, what you say he did makes sense. And he's no threat to you or your team. He's most likely after Kovacs for the same reason your team is." She sounded so matter of fact, it made Sarah feel sick. That reason, one she couldn't explain to Ilsa or Colin, was to protect her son, and her husband, and her young sister. Did Sarah actually have hope that someone else was on her side?
"What if there is no way possible that he could know why we're really after Kovacs?" Sarah said, her voice thick. Colin's brow furrowed, as he pondered the fact that there was still so much he wasn't informed about.
Ilsa pondered that for a long moment. "What if he does know, despite what you believe?" Ilsa had meant it as a comfort, sorry the moment she said it, when she saw Sarah's anemic pallor as she rocked on her feet.
"Then we are in serious trouble," Sarah said, her voice deathly still.
October 2, 2021
Los Angeles, California
Cole and Chuck sat in the car after they had arrived. They waited, looking for the sign that signified safe approach. Getting back out the door of his house, full of his family and friends, had been extremely difficult. In the end, he'd had to pull Casey aside and tell him where he needed to go and why. Casey, never one in the past known for his social graces, did an excellent job of smoothing everything over. Gertrude had certainly helped him in that area, he thought.
He was still slightly haunted by the look his son had given him before his last exit. Curious, worried, that same narrowed-eyed squint. It was a completely new sensation, realizing he felt as if his nine year old son was looking through him. He abhorred the thought of lying to his children, all the while knowing that he couldn't tell them the real truth. His son somehow seemed to know he wasn't being completely honest, in the letter if not the spirit. Stephen had been distracted enough by the amount of people in his house, but Chuck leaving at that time had most certainly rattled him.
As soon as Chuck shut his car door, Cole was standing in front of him. "Look, I don't know how. But she figured out that the people who killed her husband thought you could have been those children's father. She's very smart. I'm sure it wasn't that much of a stretch, considering she knows Sarah left over this. And it would have to be something very close to both of you for her to do that."
Chuck turned his head, looking away as he spoke. "She thought…that I could have thought that."
Cole smirked. "For a while there, you did, didn't you?"
Chuck swallowed nervously, shifting on his feet uncomfortably. "I have to tell her the truth. All of it, not just the watered down version."
"Chuck, that puts you in incredible danger, and her, telling her about the Intersect," Cole insisted.
"Damn it, she already is! And she has been for a very long time. Her life is upside down and she still stayed there all day and night helping me put that computer back together. The truth is the very least that she deserves. Hasn't she shown you she can be trusted?" he said, lowering his voice on the last few words as he realized he'd started shouting.
Resigned, Cole shook his head, and walked Chuck to the door. She was standing right inside the doorway, looking like she had stopped herself mid-pace as she'd been waiting. "I'm sorry, Chuck, for taking you away from your kids at this hour. With everything else that's going on. I just…" She started rambling, pausing to catch her breath. "I just need answers." She looked at him, his countenance a study in frazzled and frantic worry.
Chuck scanned the room, seeing they were alone. "They're in their rooms, watching movies on their laptops," she told him quietly. "We're fine out here. They know we knew each other before." Cole nodded to them both, and left them alone, as he exited through the front door.
She was blunt. "Why would it matter to anyone, enough to kill for, if you had somehow actually been my kids' father?"
She heard him breathing across the room, watching as he wrung his hands in his lap. His cheeks and the skin on his neck under his collar flushed. "Your son," he said quietly. He forced himself to look at her, his eyes flooded with what she could only call remorse. "They're after your son."
She stared, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.
"Look, Hannah, this is a very long, complicated, and dangerous story. But you need to know," he said. He thought for a moment, gesturing with his hands as he talked. "Once you found out I was a CIA agent, weren't you at least a little curious how that, you know, came about?"
She smiled ever so slightly. "I don't know. I guess I just thought somehow the Buy More was just a cover. That you'd been recruited or something. You were too smart to be doing that as your regular job."
He smiled sheepishly. "Uh, Hannah, you were way too smart for that job too. I never thought you were a spy."
Her smile widened. "I told you how I ended up like that." She pursed her lips, tilting her head slightly as she tucked her hair behind one ear. "So tell me how you ended up like that. Like this."
He chuckled. "It's going to sound crazy. Ok, maybe not as crazy as it could if you were starting from zero, but…crazy. Someone I used to know in college was a CIA agent and he sent me an email that had government secrets encoded in subliminal pictures. I didn't know it at the time, but I remembered everything I saw. And I could recall specific memories when exposed to the right triggers. Sarah and Casey came to Burbank, first to investigate. But they stayed to protect me.
"It took five years and me having those secrets…removed…for the government to realize that the reason why I could retain those memories and no one else could was because I have a genetic mutation that makes it work. A mutation that I inherited from my father. One that my son inherited from me." He took a breath, gauging from the look on her face she was slowly absorbing his words. Shock, yes, but something else. He was making her anxious, he noted, watching how she had started to pick at the fabric on the sofa with her fingernails. "The group of criminals that killed your husband…they have been trying to build an artificial, implantable computer that does what my brain does on its own. They've been trying for over 10 years and constantly failing. They need a…a map, to build it. They thought your son was an easy target, unprotected and in Europe. If he were my son, he would have inherited my gene. They knew that."
She had started with a normal color, shifting first to pale, then white, now positively green, like she was holding her stomach in her throat. "The…" She choked on her dry throat, almost gagging, as Chuck feared she would just vomit right here in front of him. He may have thought he had an idea of what she might have said, or asked him, or questioned. What she did say floored him. "The…implantable device. They had a code name for that, didn't they?"
"Wha…" He couldn't form a word, or a coherent thought.
He almost keeled over when she answered herself. "Ultimate Intersect."
Frantic beyond reason, he nearly lunged at her. "How do you know that?" he nearly screamed.
He had grabbed her by her shoulders, pulling her forward in a desperation he hadn't been aware he'd been feeling until he saw the discomfort on her face as she grimaced at the ferocity of his hold. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, immediately retracting his hands.
She stammered, stuttering, closing her eyes to force the words out in a coherent stream. "At DMI. The IT firm where I worked with my husband." She stammered some more before she continued. "It was a brand new contract, secured from the French government. Jacques was the project manager."