It's too late to change events

It's time to face the consequence

For delivering the proof

"Policy of Truth"

Depeche Mode

October 3, 2021

Budapest, Hungary

Sarah was reeling, but she was also desperate, and forced herself to focus. The situation had spiraled out of control, but she felt at that moment she could still somehow pull it back. If Chuck were here, he would know exactly what to say, how to get through. She thought of him, and she spoke. "You're Jacques Robert, or at least he was your cover, right?" Sarah asked.

He fixed her with a steely glare, breathing so hard she could see his chest rise and fall across the room. His composure was gone. He was showing her fear, uncertainty, but something else at the same time, something she would not have always seen. Something she could draw out of him, and quickly.

Sarah felt herself staring at him, as well as the other eyes in the room fixed on him as well. She needed answers, maybe even a lengthy explanation. And she also needed to get Casey back on the phone, to find out what had happened to her family in Burbank. "You saved our friend's life in England, you know," Sarah told him cautiously.

"She survived?" he asked, taking Sarah's bait as she steered the conversation.

"She did, and so did I, thanks to you," Carina told him, nodding slightly toward Sarah.

"If you're Jacques, then I know you love Hannah," Sarah blurted, evoking confused looks from the other two women. Carina almost rolled her eyes, knowing innately Sarah was somehow channeling Chuck. "I promise you, she's safe. She was extracted from Europe and is in protective custody. With both Pierre and Cozette. Do you know who Charles Bartowski is? Did Hannah ever mention him to you?" she asked urgently.

His eyes widened, then narrowed. "You're Sarah," he said as if it were a fact, though he seemed to be asking.

Whatever that potential conversation could have been, Sarah was sure he had heard a skewed version, or at least a version that was not complete. What he actually knew, otherwise, she could only imagine. "Yes," she confessed. "And I need to get back on the phone with the person you forced us to hang up on. My son is in danger and I–"

"Call him back. Call right now," Jacques insisted, gesturing toward the phone. "I'm sorry I made you stop."

Sarah spun, frantically gesturing to Ilsa to redial the phone to get in touch with Casey. Ilsa clicked on the speaker, and they waited.

"Ilsa? Walker?" they heard Casey bark. "What the hell is going on over there?" he demanded.

"Casey, what happened at my house? What happened to my husband and my son?" she asked desperately.

"I'm not certain," he admitted. "It definitely looks like they shot their way out of there." His voice was layered with compassion, which evoked only worry from Sarah, as she understood the gravity of what he was saying based on his tone.

"Oh god," Sarah gasped, sinking into the chair next to the table.

"Cole was with them. We apprehended one, who was wounded on the scene. We pulled an arrow out of his forearm," Casey said knowingly. "Your son emptied his quiver. That was number 12, out of our friend's arm. The rest were scattered all over your backyard and driveway. Half of them were bloody."

Sarah moaned, low and deep, keening. Horror overtook her. Her nine year old son, forced to defend himself like that. He could easily have killed those people. Necessary if they had escaped with their lives, but she knew the burden of taking a life, even when it was sanctioned, even if it was completely self-defensive. For her child to have been put in that position, when he had been with his father, the situation had to have meant mortal danger.

"We can't get in touch with anyone, but we're still trying. Chuck's phone was found on the lawn," Casey said, the worst of the evidence he had found.

Her voice shaking, Sarah asked, "Were they taken, Casey?" She was asking his opinion, knowing he had already told her everything factual he had gleaned from the scene.

"I don't know, Sarah. I have every available agent in both agencies looking for them. I will let you know as soon as I know. I promise," he swore, knowing it was not enough to assuage any of her fears.

Sarah murmured something unintelligible. Ilsa and Carina offered wordless support. "Walker," Casey called into the silence. "Who is there with you? What happened before?" he asked.

"Jacques Robert," she said, knowing what she was doing as she tossed that information into the fold. She was still processing, hoping the in depth explanation could wait.

"Well, I guess I should have seen that coming," Casey grumbled.

XXX

"I think we're on the same side. But we need to mesh this intel, right now. It seems we each only have a piece of the puzzle, and we need the whole thing. Who are you?" Sarah asked, premising her ask with her rational explanation. "Really."

"Why are you here, involved in all of this?" he asked, a strange compassion underlying his tone.

"This is getting nowhere, very fast," Ilsa said as she stepped into the center of the group. "Lots of questions, no answers. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Her strength and composure radiated off her, as she took command of the situation.

"The one the CIA knew as Silver Shade, Argente, you're him, aren't you?" Ilsa asked him.

"Even if I were, why would I tell you here like this, under duress?" he shot back.

"We don't have time for this," Sarah said impatiently, repeating it louder as she looked back at Ilsa. "You're going to have to trust us," Sarah asserted. "And as a sign of our trustworthiness, I'll begin. MI6 contacted Hannah Robert at Jacques Robert's funeral. An agent who went rogue by doing so. The DGSE had intel that the vehicle Jacques was driving was driven off the road by the Hungarian. The same agent had intel that the Hungarian was coming after her, and possibly her children. He moved her out of Paris, to California, against orders from MI6. That was in August of 2019."

He closed his eyes, holding his hand against his chest. "California. With her parents," he muttered to himself, as if he was learning something he should have always expected.

"You never tried to find her? Look for her?" Sarah asked him suspiciously, a thinly veiled contempt in her tone.

Sharply, he peered at her through narrowed eyes. "I was convinced I saw her die, with my own eyes," he said, stressing each word as if it burned against his tongue. He took several deep breaths. "Car bomb," he said slowly. "That was what they wanted me to think, though, wasn't it?" He looked at Ilsa, daggers in his eyes.

Ilsa took the accusation for what it was. "Because you are Argente. It was for that girl, in the beginning, why you disappeared. That's correct, isn't it?"

He ran his hand over his face, massaging the skin on his cheeks. "Yes. To all three. Yes," he sighed. Ilsa's eyes never left his face. His stony glare was impenetrable. "The DGSE sent me to investigate her, once she arrived in France. They knew about her association with Charles Bartowski. At the time they even suspected she could be a Ring agent. I knew in five minutes that she wasn't. And I found out in two days that the children she carried weren't fathered by Bartowski. But by then, I was already…compromised."

Sarah felt the pang of understanding. Compromised, just another word for hopelessly in love with someone who interfered with the performance of the job. She could see Carina, ready to scoff, knowing Carina had never understood when Sarah had talked about Chuck, falling in love with him five minutes after she had met him.

"So you never told her the truth," Sarah surmised. "You went deep undercover, and stayed with her. You never worried for her safety? Her children's safety?"

"Me being there with her was the best protection she had. Until they engineered the Hungarian's release from prison. I had to act fast. He was trying to kill me. The man who died in the car crash was an innocent bystander caught in the crosshairs. But I used it to my advantage. I know I hurt them, by doing that, making them mourn over me, when I was still alive." The pain in his voice was palpable. "But I thought I was keeping them safe. I didn't know about the medical records the Hungarian had acquired," he explained.

"The ones that proved medically that you weren't Pierre and Cozette's father. Your stem cell transplant," Sarah said calmly.

"Before I could do anything, I saw the bomb go off. The DGSE staged that whole thing, didn't they?" he accused again, his eyes narrowed to thin, angry slits.

"They had high suspicions at that point that you were their rogue agent. And they knew why. They thought they could pull you in out of the cold, if you thought she was dead. Not a method I condoned, or even participated in, but a tried and true method all the same," Ilsa confessed.

Sarah tried to absorb it, at the same time she knew she needed to press onward. "Explain this," she barked, shoving her palm towards him, the device there.

"We know about Operation Stormchaser," Ilsa said briefly, as a way to shorten the lengthy explanation.

"If you're here in Hungary, then you know, don't you?" he asked. "Graphitech. All of it."

"They asked you to modify Graphitech's design. Is this what they gave you? A field tested implant?" Sarah interrogated.

He looked at her, questions on his face. "You don't know all of it, do you?"

"Obviously not," Carina snapped. "I have a splitting headache and I don't do riddles on a good day. Spit it out. What are we dealing with here?" Carina interjected.

"Graphitech," he said again. "The first capital investment the company made in 2005 was to develop a next generation cochlear implant. Inside the skull as opposed to an external port. It increased the decibel hearing range a thousand fold. It was revolutionary."

"I don't understand what that has to do–"

Jacques cut Sarah off, waving his hand in front of them. "Katalin Szabo was born deaf. With ARN. Autosomal recessive nonsyndromic hearing loss. That device in your hand was cut out of her skull."

Sarah felt her vision start to swim, her head suddenly light as a balloon. Molly's mother's blood. She had been so focused in the moment, defending herself against so many, she had never paid all that much attention to the bodies of Molly's parents, on the floor as she had rushed past, killing everyone in her path. Sarah started speaking, only becoming aware of the sound of her own voice after many words had escaped her lips. "Both Szabo's were killed in their home in 2007. In a rogue spy operation."

"And that was why," Jacques told them, gesturing to the device. "It could store sound, the way the Intersect stored data. They realized it after the fact. How easily adaptable it was." He felt the need to explain more, noting how pale Sarah had become. "I don't believe the rogue agents involved had any idea what had really happened, at the time."

"No, they didn't," Sarah said, a deathly chill in her words. She breathed quietly, forcing herself to remain calm. "So you stole it, and hid it. Why? It's a cochlear implant," Sarah said.

"It was a cochlear implant. Until it was modified," he explained.

"But it was never implanted again, after it was removed from Szabo, correct?" Sarah asked.

"No. I stopped that from happening when I hid it," he proclaimed.

"They had other prototypes. What made this one so special?" Sarah demanded.

"It was the only one that would have actually worked."

October 3, 2021

Burbank, California

Chuck flashed the moment he was out the door. The sensation lasted for what felt like an interminable stretch of time. He gasped when it stopped, reaching deeper for the control that he knew he needed to exert over the programming in his brain. His anxiety decreased, his heart rate slowed down. He hoisted the gun in his hand, held it steady, without the sick feeling he knew would have appeared without his enhanced emotional control. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his son watching him, knowing Stephen understood only part of what was happening. Looking at his son tempered the effect of the Intersect, his love for his son irrepressible.

Chuck turned, and saw the first man approaching quickly, his firearm drawn. "At six!" Chuck yelled, using the shorthand reference that he knew his son would understand effortlessly. Instantly, he stepped to the side, watching Stephen pivot, aim, and fire all in a split second. The arrow hit the man's right hand, grazing the skin and knocking the gun from his grasp. Disarmed, he was then shot as Cole followed through. "Three!" Chuck yelled, and his son turned 45 degrees and repeated the same feat.

Their forward progress was slow, but methodical. Chuck vaguely worried at what his son was witnessing. Though he was focused like never before on his own archery, the carnage happening all around him, as Cole took down the assailants with lethal force, had to have at least encroached into his conscious mind. There was no other option, Chuck knew. These people were here to take his son away from him, to deliver him to the people who would use his brain as the template to place the implant.

Chuck kept count of his son's arrows, allowing him to focus only on aiming and shooting. Despite the dire situation, he was nothing short of amazed at his young son's ability, even under extreme stress. That was all Sarah, he thought. She had taken everything she had known and taught it to him, the moment he had expressed any interest in it. The pang in his chest amplified when he thought of her, how much he missed her, how worried he was for her.

Just as much you, Son, he heard his father say. He is both of you together, in one person. Chuck breathed, comforted by the words even in his enhanced state of mind.

They approached the edge of the neighbor's yard, and the coverage of shrubbery that could keep them hidden. Cole had told them eight men. Chuck had watched his son and Cole take down seven of them, astoundingly, with a calculated precision. While he was scanning for the last man, Chuck felt the bullet whiz by very close to his head. He couldn't gauge what direction the shot had come from, spinning in his confusion. A split second too late, he finally saw him. Stephen was turned away, with not enough time to aim properly. Chuck dove in front of his son, firing his gun at the same time Stephen shot the arrow, as he was falling.

Chuck's shot grazed the man's right shoulder, at the same time that Stephen's arrow lodged in the man's forearm. He screamed and went down.

Chuck knew that was his son's last arrow. Stephen was ashen, shaking, as the adrenaline rush that came with his own flash slowly dissipated. "It's ok, you're ok," Chuck reassured him, as they rose from the controlled roll they had used to clear the affected area.

"You were absolutely incredible, do you know that?" Cole said to Stephen. Chuck's son turned scarlet red and shifted his eyes to his shoes.

"Although, I'm not sure I expected anything less from one of your children," Cole smirked, cautious to not be as specific as he wanted to be, hence he divulged too much. He was still panting, but he added, "Now, I've got to get the two of you out of here."

October 3, 2021

Budapest, Hungary

"How could you be certain of that, if it had never been tested?" Carina asked.

"My job, as the project manager, gave me access to every simulation. I knew what they were trying to do, to modify it. The other programmers on the team made the modifications. Apparently the Sentries had been butchering people for nine years, using them as human guinea pigs. The defective implants mamed or killed every single test subject. But the cochlear implant had a different attachment protocol in the brain. Because it was wired into a nerve. In all of the previous trials, they were attempting to attach it to the memory center of the brain. But the human brain stores memories differently than in a computer," he finished.

Sarah listened with rapt attention. She had heard this before, from Ellie's mouth, once she had discovered the Agent X files on Chuck's father's laptop. It was how she had corrected the original defect in the Intersect version Stephen had stored there, how Chuck had regained access to the version his mother had suppressed. "How do you know that? You aren't a doctor," Sarah offered, at the very least understanding that Stephen had known to seek Ellie's input, once he knew she could assist.

"No, but I understood molecular data storage. I worked with a pioneer in the field, when I first started working for DGSE. I learned from the best," he breathed out, his eyes feeling like they were cutting into Sarah. "Orion."

"You knew Orion?" Sarah asked, surprised at how winded she sounded. "There…there was never–"

"No, there wouldn't have been. The circle of people who knew about the Intersect, all of that, were very small. Perseus, Orion, Zarnow, Roark. Once Orion went underground, he had to be careful. I was his contact, but I had never met him in person.

"He had a purpose all along, contrary to all of that and what he shared with me. I never knew what it was, until after he was killed by the Ring. When they used your sister-in-law to pull him out of the cold," he said, sighing, knowing he was shocking them. "I was already in Paris, undercover, when that happened. I made the choice to stay and protect my family."

"I can understand that," Sarah told him kindly. She waited, then asked him, "So why tell your wife, in code like that? There was no way she would have known what you were talking about."

"Hannah has an eidetic memory. She can remember literally almost everything I ever told her. I knew she would be able to remember that," he insisted.

"But to relay it? It doesn't make sense," Sarah countered.

"It was an insurance policy. If something happened to me, it stayed hidden. If something happened to her, it stayed hidden. If she somehow was approached by an agent for the Sentries, she knew nothing. If she was approached by the CIA or MI6, there was a chance. Keeping it hidden was paramount."

"Why are you here, in Hungary?" Ilsa asked him, as she inserted herself into their conversation.

"The Hungarian knows the CIA has the drive. He's on his way here, to get the last piece. I'm trying to stop him," Jacques told them. "You're here as well, but you didn't know?"

"Stop with the riddles. We're here because the Hungarian is looking for a way to claim the Reizner fortune," Carina blurted out.

"The money? Is that what you think?" he asked.

"What else could there be? The heir's identity is on that drive. We know they know," Sarah almost shouted.

"Not because she's the heir, as in collecting the funds. She's the heir. Katalin's daughter. Who inherited the recessive gene from her mother," he said, as if it should make perfect sense.

"She's not deaf," Sarah said, cautious to not reveal too much.

"No, because her father wasn't. She only has one functional gene." His expression changed, as he realized he needed to explain something complex. "Katalin had the rarest mutation known in humans. It's called ILDR1. She would have passed that to her daughter. The proteins that gene codes for are what would translate to making the implant work. It's a multimeric receptor."

Jacques had expected the blank, dumbfounded stares, when he was trying to explain something so intricate. Carina grumbled, "Well, I'd say he's fairly well vetted on the science part, in case you were wondering."

"Molecular computing, in which Orion was a true pioneer, is about storing information in DNA and RNA, as opposed to computer processors. That's why the Ring was looking for him. Shaw killed him out of spite, when they needed him for a much more significant purpose. Anyway, this part isn't important. What is–the girl, the baby, was what they've been looking for all along. Ever since they found out you took her out of Hungary with the fake passport."

"Oh no," Sarah gasped, dread chilling her to the core. "They went after my son, but…"

"They need them both. The map, and the key," he said.

"Ilsa!" Sarah suddenly screamed. "Get Casey on the phone! Now!"

October 3, 2021

Burbank, California

"Dad, what just happened? Since when do you shoot people? What's going on?" Stephen asked him, frantic, now that he was out of immediate danger.

"I'll have to explain later. Much…later," Chuck breathed, knowing now was not the time. "For now, we have to get out of here."

"There was one still alive. When the unit picks him up, they can question him. For now, I think we're safest heading away," Cole instructed, as they cowered together, moving quietly through Chuck's neighbors' backyards.

"We have a place where we can go," Chuck said. "With advanced computer access, that isn't traceable. It's about a four hour drive, though."

"You're certain it's secure?" Cole asked.

Chuck sighed, wishing he didn't have to say everything in front of his son, but knowing he had no other choice. "The Ring tracked…us…there. I'm not sure Shaw would have known its location. When Sarah and I were running, during that Omen incident, we were safe there, even though he masterminded that whole thing. I'm betting when and if he was passing information to the Sentries, he didn't include something that obscure."

Chuck felt his son's hand on his arm, and he looked down to see Stephen, his eyes wide. "I…just…flashed, when you said that, Dad," he said slowly. It was subtle, but Chuck noted the distinction his son had just made, referring to his memory recall the same way as his father now. His befuddled face was absolute. "What did you do, before you had us, Dad? What is going on?"

"I promise I will explain everything, once we are all through with all of this. Right now, you just have to trust me. Can you do that?" Chuck implored.

"Yes," Stephen said, with a certainty that made Chuck's eyes sting.

"Chuck, leave the phone," Cole instructed. He waited while Chuck shut his phone off, and dropped it in the grass. It nagged at him, knowing when word got back to the team in England, he would be causing unneeded worry, and also knowing it could be a long time before he could initiate any communication to reassure them. He would also have no way to know if they were all right.

"Let's go," Cole said, and he led the way out.

October 3, 2021

Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California

"Team Lead to General Casey," the tall man in tactical gear spoke into his communication device. "The perimeter is secure. The entire team outside here was disabled, Sir."

"I'm on my way. Sit tight," he barked back.

The Team Lead made a sound like he was going to protest, but knew better, and stopped himself. "Yes, sir." General Casey on a field op was highly irregular, but so was questioning him.

Before he could even shift positions, the General was at his side, dressed in full combat gear. Grumbling, Casey told him, "Your objections are noted. I am too old for this. But I'm here, and we're going in."

They were crouched on the front lawn of Sarah's mother, Emma's, home. Casey was in full combat mode, his emotions buried, although not as deeply as he would have preferred. He had certainly changed over the course of the years. Having grandchildren had softened him in a way even Bartowski hadn't. Believing a child, Sarah's young sister, was in imminent danger created a feral anger inside him.

Casey went in first, moving quickly through the door that had been kicked in. The house was dark, furniture scattered everywhere, broken glass crunching under their feet. He felt the team move behind him, spreading out slowly. The stillness didn't bode well. They appeared to be too late.

Dear God, please don't let me find Sarah's mother dead here, he thought helplessly.

As if almost in an answer to his silent prayer, he looked down as his foot brushed something in the dark. He raised his arm, clenched fist in the air. Multiple beams of light converged at his feet at the same time all forward motion ceased.

Emma was on the floor, unconscious. The carpet beneath her head was stained with blood that appeared to be dripping from a large gash on the side of her forehead. Casey crouched down, reaching for her pulse on the side of her neck. Her skin was warm, her pulse thumping steadily against his fingers. He gestured to the team to secure her, get her to medical attention.

He moved past her in the hallway, to the doorway of what was Molly's bedroom door. The door had been ripped from the frame. Her bed was tousled, but empty. Casey ran to check the rest of her room, into the closet. Injured Emma had been alone in her house.

Molly was gone.

Tamping down his panic, listening over the sound of heavy boots trampling through the home, he heard the sound of a phone buzzing. He reached the floor with his flashlight, reaching down as his light bounced off the screen. It was Emma's phone. It looked like Molly was calling.

After so many years, Casey knew what to expect, as he clicked on her phone.

"We have the girl," Casey heard in a thick Hungarian accent. "Tell your people we want the implant. In London. In the flat where the CIA agent was shot."

"Who is this?" Casey shouted, knowing.

"You know," he barked back. "You have 24 hours."