Chapter Two-Have not had much time to write, busy life. Have a ton of story lines in my head and an end to the series too. Mostly happens pre, post and during Ep 7.
Updated: Just revised/edited Chapter 2: Digging Deeper. I was too quick to post it late last night.
Chapter Two-Digging Deep
During the rest of the flight, McQuaid does some digging on Simon, he didn't have a last name, but he would soon. He wonders why Simon didn't show up in the file he had procured on Annie after she first called him. Thinking back to the first time he met Annie Walker, he smiled. The meeting itself lasted only a couple of minutes, but the impression she left lingered with him much longer after he boarded his plane.
After McQuaid had gotten the call from an operative named Annie Walker asking about Borz Altan's time at his security firm, their paths continued to cross. The convergence of Borz' involvement the Chicago bombing and McQuaid's new intel on Borz's suspected ties with the mole in his agency led him to want to meet Annie Walker in person versus field her questions over the phone and that decision altered the course of his life. McQuaid had a lot of plates spinning as the CEO of a growing private security firm, but in the days before he met Annie Walker he received some news that could potentially cause a very negative impact on his business. It was clear that someone working in his organization was leaking classified information. McQuaid was unsettled when he heard Annie ask after Borz Altan. He needed to track Borz down as well and for a different reason or were they related?
McQuaid had taken the time to reach out to his old professor Arthur Campbell because he needed someone he could trust and someone with connections and a strong network to cultivate new business and keep clients satisfied. Though controversy had surrounded Campbell, he was still highly regarded by many in the domestic and international intelligence community. McQuaid had met with Campbell in person to woo him over to the private sector, but was left disappointed that Campbell did not jump at the chance to work for him. He was hopeful because Arthur didn't say no either, he had gone home to sleep on it. McQuaid had not felt desperate before, he was used to being in control of his world, but he had lost some of that recently. He vowed to regain it by finding the person who was responsible for making a bad name for him.
McQuaid's queries into Simon were returned quickly after his pings to a few sources. Thought his inbox was full of contracts to review, daily operation and security briefs and meeting invitations, he took the time to read everything he received and tried to digest it all quickly. How did Annie manage to turn one of FSB's most dangerous operatives and get him to kill his handler? He was amazed at what she had accomplished and the intelligence she gathered as a result of her liaison with Simon Fischer. Her investigation lead to finding a mole who was deep and high up in the CIA, so she knew a thing or two about moles and the damage they could do. As he sat back and thought about it, he answered his own question. Simon like him, could not help falling in love with Annie Walker. From Annie's reactions to his probes about Simon, he gathered that she was deeply affected by her affair with him and perhaps was not over losing him. McQuaid knew he had to give her space.
Right before the plane was to descend, McQuaid went over to check on Annie and to tell her that they would be landing in DC soon. She thanked him, but said nothing else. Upon landing, they parted, but he knew he would see her again soon. They had a meeting in two hours.
When McQuaid came by to inform Annie that they were about to land, Annie was still not feeling one hundred percent, her drugging and subsequent scuffle with Ivan Kravec left her feeling weaker and more vulnerable. She was quite honestly scared. She needed to refill her prescription as soon as possible. After landing, Annie went home to quickly change, then took a detour to a pharmacy in a rundown part of DC to get a bigger supply of her nitrate meds. It wasn't cheap and it was digging into her shoe budget, but Annie wasn't too bothered. She had lived for months in flip-flops and running shoes, she didn't mind the same pairs of Leboutin pumps and Weitzman boots. Thinking about shoes reminded her of shopping with Danielle and put a smile on her face. The nostalgic moment was broken with a call from Joan Campbell saying that Ivan talked while being questioned. It will take Annie about an hour to get to the office for the debrief on Kravec's interrogation and the new intel gathered as a result.
It is decided that Annie will suss out Mueller, a new figure in the investigation into the Chicago bombing. Kravec was told to cash out Mueller's accounts and to bring him the funds on cash cards in a remote region of Azerbaijan. But due to the volatile nature of the region and the area's views on women traveling alone, Annie is ordered to have a security detail and McQuaid Security will be there to fill that role. Annie is less than thrilled and tries to do all she can to free herself from the burden of a group of guys. She always felt that to be a good operative she needed to blend in and going with three extra men of McQuaid's will only hinder her and make her stand out. But Joan and Calder won't have it any other way. Enough agents have been lost and with them so close to nailing down the Chicago bomber, they could not afford to have any missteps. Despite all Annie's protests, the decision was made. Joan and Calder wanted her to go with McQuaid's team. If Annie didn't like it, they would assign another agent to the task. With that threat, Annie was on board. There was no way someone else would run down Mueller. Annie had gone this far and risked so much, she wanted to see this case through.
As it turned out McQuaid found a way to go himself. It wasn't easy, but he trusted that Arthur Campbell and Caitlyn Cook would handle the running of McQuaid Security while he was away. McQuaid runs into Annie as he enters the office for the debrief with Joan.
"You're a bit late" greets Annie.
"I had to freshen up," replies McQuiad with a smile.
Then he lets her know he will be leading the team accompanying her to Azerbaijan. Annie rolls her eyes and says, "that won't be necessary and don't you have a company to run?" They exchange banter about how she should trust him by now and how he has backed her up not once, but twice in the field now. Annie stops and looks at him and says, she does appreciate all that he had done for her and that she does trust him in the field. This makes Ryan happy. He asks, "And off the field?" to which Annie replied evenly and without expression, "There is no off the field for me. You're behind, Joan is ready to brief you. We leave in 45 minutes."
Then all of Episode 7 happens. Once again, McQuaid has proven that Annie can trust him. He had moved quickly and skillfully to help her when she was down and nearly passed out due to her heart condition. Annie was surprised when McQuaid mentioned that he read about a new therapy for her heart condition. She had looked into it herself and it hadn't given her any hope, but hearing McQuaid was researching her condition made her feel strangely comforted. She had no one to talk to openly about her condition after she left Eyal. Even though Auggie knew, he was too busy juggling two women to have a drink with her. Truthfully their recent differences and past connection did make things awkward. Annie also wanted him to know as little as possible in the event that her illness were to come out.
After they narrowly escaped the drone strike, McQuaid approached Annie to let her know that she was nothing like Mueller, he could tell that she had taken what Mueller said to heart and needed her to know that she has the strength he didn't and he wanted to let her know she didn't have to be alone. He didn't say much more though he wanted her to know that he wanted to be the one who was there for her to share her struggles with.
Once again, the pair are on a plane back to the states, but this time was a different plane ride. It didn't feel like the Cold War on board. While they both had work to do and briefs to write, they shared a couple of moments in between. Annie is actually feeling less on guard around McQuaid.
For his part, McQuaid with the hours he had now spent with Annie, and the intel he was gathering on her through his surveillance on her has learned how to give her space, show some care, but not enough to make her feel the need to push away. He is learning how to handle her, how to read her, and how to show in small ways that he is there for her. She's stubborn, full of heartache, secrets, suspicion and hurts. He knew after Paris, she was not feeling well. He had someone watching her and reporting any significant details to him. He knew she had gone to a terrible neighborhood in DC to refill her prescriptions. He had done a lot of reading on her condition-Myocarditis- and he knew that if she had an episode she would need her medications immediately to reduce the chest pain and help her heart pump allowing her to breathe again. With the information, he meant to keep an extra eye on her while they were in Azerbaijan, but he was also a man with laser focus on his mission at hand. McQuaid was concentrating on the terrain and looking out for anything out of the ordinary when he had forgotten about Annie's condition. It was easy to do, she never let on that she was tired or winded. She was tough and acted tough. He feared it would probably be her downfall.
McQuaid was angry with himself that he was not right there when Annie took down the scout and fought him. He was for sure impressed by her hand-to-hand combat skills despite her condition. In Maracaibo she took down Borz and in Paris, she fought off Ivan as hard as she could while her hands were tied. Hell, she might even be able to take him down. Well, maybe if he gave her the advantage by using his left hand. But he kept thinking that if he had been right there, she might have been spared the triggering of her condition. McQuaid knew that she was lucky he was nearby, but feared that she might not be so lucky next time she had an episode. Ryan knew it was a matter of time before Annie would succumb to her condition when he could not be around to help her. What would happen then? He knew what being in the field meant to her, it was her life, the only life she appeared to have at the moment. And he understood her drive to be an operative and to be in the throes of the action, because he was the same. While he felt strongly that CIA had no business knowing about her condition, he had a plan brewing to allow her to continue to work in the field, but with the support she needed and without the judgment of the bureaucracy that the CIA had become.
On the other end of the plane, Annie felt there was more to the mission. She could not shake the feeling that things were not over though Mueller had been taken out. She thought a lot about what Mueller said to her those tense minutes on the mountain. Even though Ryan told her she wasn't anything like him, she couldn't help, but think that deep down they weren't all that different. She did have a lot of blood on her hands including now Mueller's. He was just a broken soul, much like her. He went down a dark path, but did he deserve for his country to blow him up? What was it that he did toward the end? Instead of running off the mountain when he heard the reaper, he cut her restraints. He could have left her and Ryan on the mountainside to be killed by the very drone she had a part in ordering, but he didn't. Why not? She kept replaying what had happened until Ryan walked toward her to say that they were almost home.