ChuckParis2

A/N: Whoa, the minions of the Shippers have assaulted in force. Tough.

I'm waiting for a connector to Cleveland and then am spending the holiday weekend with Nik. Nothing until next Tuesday when I have to wait for TSA to get off on sniffing my florsheims.Don't review if you don't have an account. It's hard to respond when you've blocked PMs or just didn't log in. Especially when your comment absolutely CRAVES rebuttal. Very unsatisfying for an author.

Reference to calling Walker well Walker. Depersonalizing. Try it.

Read7585, keep your frozen Cannuck mitts offa my lady. NO MORE PMS to Nik! I have a vague idea where you live.

Enigmamdw, so be it. Note my genesis of the Ring in this chapter.

King Chuck – welcome back to good health. We missed ya, Dutchman.

Chapter 2 – The Old Man, Abandonment Issues and Conflicts in the Team

Jacques Dubois was an unusual man. He was a wealthy man. Not unusual in this day and age. He was a veteran of the Legion Étagère and a French citizen. He had served France and was granted citizenship when he was discharged honorably for medical reasons.

His birth name, of course, was not Jacques Dubois. That was the name he adopted when he joined the Legion in 1964 at 19. He'd almost forgotten his real name – Rupert Callahan – and that he was from Northern Ireland and had left during the 'troubles' one step ahead of the authorities. The Legion had provided him with a home and a new identity when he needed one badly.

He had no family but like so many Legion veterans he did have a child. He had loved her mother with an almost Gallic passion but never married her. She was gone now, to America, but his daughter lived in France and worked for a company his organization controlled.

His organization. A fact but not a truth. He was Director General of what had begun as a loose network of affiliated intelligence operatives who'd exchanged information without the knowledge of their respective agencies or governments. At first it had been a matter of survival but soon it became more. There was money in information and nations were willing to pay well for such information if it proved valid and reliable.

Dubois had been 'noticed' in the earliest phases of Legion training and had been taken aside and put into a different training regimen. While others learned to march and did rifle drill, he was taught the skills necessary to shoot a man at very long distances.

When he mentioned that he had some familiarity with explosives he was trained in the art of bomb making. His training was much longer than the average Legion recruit but it made no difference to Dubois. He had found a home and a family.

He soon was paired with a partner, a German, and together they roamed Asia, Africa and other places where La Belle France had interests and they protected those interests. An assassination here, a bomb in a marketplace there, a dictator bribed or threatened there, it was his job and he did it well.

He did it so well that he attracted the attention of other intelligence operatives and thus began a long association with a cabal of spies who exchanged information, unofficially assisted in tasks and became more loyal to one another than to their homelands. All except Jacques Dubois who maintained a steadfast loyalty to the country that had given him shelter, an identity and purpose, and ultimately a home.

This loyalty to his adopted country was what made him 'unusual' in the context of the cabal. It was his steadfast refusal to allow any actions by any 'members' of the spy ring to act from within or against France that made him the perfect one to head the organization and act as its final arbiter of disputes, policies and actions.

He became a bureaucrat within a nonexistent bureaucracy, something of an oxymoron, but incredibly effective.

The cabal or spy ring or The Ring, as it became known, profited from fomenting political or economic disruptions that benefited their paying clients, usually but not always governments.

A client country wishes to distract a potentially stronger adversary and the Ring creates a political scandal or economic panic as a distraction. An industry representative asks for an easing of regulations regarding mining in some backwater nation and suddenly the president, premier or chieftain becomes ill, rich, or dead and regulations change.

Country A wishes to obtain the intelligence data of Country B and the Ring will compromise, subvert or recruit operatives in Country B's intelligence service and provide the data. The Ring sometimes would provide the information to a 3rd party, Country C, with an interest in Countries A & B, for a fee, of course.

All very lucrative. All very dangerous. All performed by Ring operatives directed by a leadership council of Directors known together as the Directorate and headed by one man, a cripple, known only as the Ring Director General.

Jacques Dubois.

Chateau Almandine
15km SW of Paris

"Director, Mr. Panzer and his associate have been freed from the Chateau as you ordered and both are waiting outside for your disposition." The man was one of his bodyguards. He and several others rescued the operatives captured on the plane from the Chateau, a notorious 'off the books' CIA detention facility.

"Are they well enough to speak with me?"

"Yes. The preliminaries had hardly begun."

"Show them in to the outer office and bring refreshments for them. They've had a hard time of it."

Hugo Panzer and the woman who had been his backup were escorted into the office and given refreshments and told to 'sit and wait' for the Director. The woman blanched and sat, thinking her life was over. Panzer sat comfortably waiting. He knew that failure was 'not an option' but the Director was a fair man, something that both surprised and impressed him when he'd first joined the organization.

Dubois was handling a personal problem. His daughter had been summarily fired from her job and was in Paris to close out her apartment and go home to the US. His investigators had determined that the swine that was her boss expected more from her than her superior computer skills and when she refused, he sacked her. He would die in a motor accident. A shame.

He loved his daughter even though they had only met three times since last seeing her when he and her mother parted and each of those times he'd passed himself off as someone else. She thought her father was dead. He encouraged that. It protected her from his enemies and protected him from those same enemies who wouldn't hesitate to use her to kill him.

He reviewed the surveillance photos his investigators had obtained from the airport. She was traveling with a young man, an American, who was staying with her at her apartment in Paris. A few hundred Euros later and the investigator obtained all the information available on her fellow passenger. There were a few discrete phone calls and the investigators verified that he was also a computer technician in Paris to do a complicated installation of equipment.

In a few hours he would know everything there was to know about Charles Bartowski of Burbank, California. He looked again at the photographs and shook his head. This one had better behave or he'd never see Burbank, California again.

Scooping up the photographs and the other information, he entered the outer office to greet his guests.

After an hour of conversation he'd reached his decision. There was nothing his operatives could have done, short of destroying the aircraft, to have accomplished their mission. There was no fault here. He authorized each a hefty bonus for their ordeal with the CIA and asked again for a description of the young man who'd bested them. It tickled something in the back of his brain.

He reached for the folder but brushed it onto the floor instead accidentally. Since the diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease, his movements were awkward.

The woman jumped to retrieve the folder and it's scattered contents and showed a photograph to Panzer.

"Director, why are you asking for description of the man when you have his photograph already? This is the man we tangled with. A formidable opponent who used a ruse of being a frightened and clumsy fighter to take me out not once but twice. Watch out for this one, Director."

"You are certain of this?"

"Yes, Director, certain."

They met for another hour. No, he did not 'use' the young woman he was flirting with. Yes, it seemed authentic. His emotional responses were too spontaneous and genuine to be faked. Yes, the young woman approached him, not the other way around. Yes, he did seem protective of her and he risked his life to keep her out of the 'business'.

He thanked them and dismissed them. He had more important things to deal with.

'Oh, Hannah, what have you gotten yourself involved in? Who is this young man and why is he staying with you? What are you doing?'

He summoned his personal aide and issued instructions. "I wish to meet with this young man and ask him for a personal favor. Pick him up and bring him to the Café Lafayette at 11pm on Thursday night. Do not do anything to alert my daughter, Henri."

"She must not know of my involvement with him. He is staying with her at her Paris apartment. Be gentle with him, Henri. Until I know different, he's just Hannah's beau. Treat him as such. No heavy hands, understand?"

They had 3 days to assemble a complete dossier on Charles Bartowski. He would be prepared for his meeting with the man who was staying with his daughter.

Hannah's apartment
Paris

Chuck was locked out and he had his hands full. Dropping one bag and balancing the coffees, he rang the bell repeatedly. 'Damn, the girl could sleep through a Jester concert.'

Finally he heard a small voice ask 'Who's there?'

"Hannah, it's Chuck. I brought breakfast but I locked myself out. Can you let me in? Or just throw my stuff off the balcony?" He was kidding. She sounded upset about something.

The door flew open and she dragged him inside leaving the door wide open but not caring. She'd been crying, thinking he'd left her, and she threw herself around him, almost spilling the coffee. 'Jesus, talk about abandonment issues.'

"Hey, I just slipped out to surprise you with breakfast. It's outside on the ground by the way unless a homeless person snatched it up. Can you let me get it?"

She backed off, suddenly realizing she'd thrown on just a kimono and it wasn't fastened properly and she was 'baring her wares' as her mother used to tease her. "Sorry, sorry, I just thought you'd left. I didn't see your bag and the bed was folded back up and…"

"Hey, I wouldn't leave without a goodbye and I just got here. My sister taught me to be a good houseguest, that's all. Let's eat. I should have left a note but I didn't want to dig around in your things looking for something to write on. Sorry."

"No. I overreacted. I don't know why I'm so clingy with you. I'm not normally that way at all it's just that…I just met you and I thought you might have gotten the wrong impression from the paintings and the kiss…"

"Hey. I don't love 'em and leave 'em. They always leave me. This is a surprising and pleasant change for me. Feel free to cling. It's not often that beautiful women throw themselves at me. In fact, beautiful women have never thrown themselves at me…and really meant it."

He thought of Walker and how the warmth in their relationship had cooled to the point of frostbite.

"I'm not beautiful. Look at me, I'm a mess and you must think I'm some kind of psycho stalker or something. I'm sorry. I'm just so emotional lately. I really am sorry, Chuck. I'll get you a spare key so when you sneak out you won't worry about waking me when you get back."

She started walking away but he turned her around and put his arms around her. "I meant what I said, Hannah. This is a first with me so I'm trying not to screw things up, OK? I'm sorry I upset you. I wanted to do something nice for you so I slipped out to get you breakfast so you wouldn't have to do anything out of the ordinary." He hugged her and then let loose but she stayed leaning against him.

"Mmm, you give good hugs, Chuck."

"You're weak from hunger, woman. Lead me to the kitchen."

Vacant Apartment
200 meters away

"Well, someone sure has a way with the ladies. According to Shaw he just met her yesterday and she's greeting him as if he's a lost lover. Some guys have all the luck."

"Note the time. I got the photo. I'm emailing this to Shaw and then I'm heading out for a closer look at the apartment in case they want bugs. These old places are hard to bug without having a lot of time. We may have to settle for audio only for a while."

"Not our call. Shaw will tell us what he wants."

Shaw's Paris Apartment

"OK, there are three bedrooms. Unpack and let's see what the sleeper cell has for us so far? Colonel Casey, there's a weapons locker in that bedroom. I'd like you to review the contents and let me know if there's anything we might need that we don't have."

Shaw fired up his laptop and opened his secure email and read the report from the sleeper cell and viewed the attached photos. His grunt would have done Casey proud.

'Bartowski, what are you doing and how did you manage to find a warm woman in only 16 hours? There's more to you than simple first impressions apparently.'

Sarah was reading over his shoulder, her fingertips lightly grazing his neck in a subtle caress. He knew exactly when she saw the photo of Chuck and a beautiful half-naked young woman. His smile was genuine while the young woman seemed to have been upset by something. The next shot was of the couple embracing and it was obvious to Shaw from Chuck's body language that he was uncomfortable about something.

'Don't tell me he's still carrying a torch for Walker? Maybe Casey's right. Maybe he is a moron. Walker's interest now is purely professional but she does seem to hinder his progress. Is it retribution for something that happened before I arrived on the scene?"

"Well, I see the moron has fallen in with a fast crowd. How long's he been here? 15 or 16 hours? Boy works fast and furiously. She seems attracted to him, wouldn't you say, Sarah?" Take that, CIA. Your days of jerking the Nerd around by his dick are O-V-E-R.

"Get stuffed, Colonel. She's obviously a pro. Probably picked him up at the airport. I thought he had more sense…" '…And better taste.'

"Enough! Let's get organized. I'll stay here and coordinate things with the sleeper cell and find out all I can about this young woman who's has so captivated our young agent. You two go out and start setting up the surveillance and the tail. I have a driver downstairs who knows the area and is fluent in English."

"Ah, Shaw, why the sniper rifle in there? You figure on taking out a bad guy?" Casey loved gunplay and the 'any-light' scoped sniper rifle felt so good to him. The smooth barrel and the wooden stock, the sight picture using any light available, the laser aiming point…

"No. You'll use it to set up a safe zone around Chuck. However, if Chuck strays from the fold, you'll take him out with it, Colonel."

He smirked at the conflicted look on Casey's face but schooled his features when he heard Walker's almost unvoiced gasp. 'There is still something there. I'll have to work on that. She's weak and I can't have a weak agent as a partner – or a lover.'

APR