Hello. Things have been a bit busy in the last couple of weeks, mostly with interviews and making changes to my resume and online profiles. You wouldn't believe the number of times I had to retake my picture just so I looked semi-human. But hopefully some of these new strategies I'm trying will help me get a job.
Anyway, I'm bringing you the latest chapter to the story. I have a couple of ideas for stories after this, one being a Forrest & Slade story that will be more comedy than anything else, then I'll have a new Next Generation story. I have to work out a few details on that one, but the plot will be more along the lines of a John McClane-type story. And I mean the first Die Hard, not the one that's getting ripped from stem to stern today.
And if you like romantic stories (that are very M-rated), I'll have my traditional Valentine's Day story out later today or tonight. A little tease: Sarah races against the clock to do something in it. Let your mind wander on that one. ;-)
Enjoy this chapter, and please leave reviews.
Mill Road, City Centre, Cambridge, UK
October 7, 2033
1:00 AM GMT
Samantha hung on to John as she looked at the people inside of his apartment. The last thing she wanted was for this to spin out of control, but that was academic now. She needed the people in front of her if she was to prove her innocence and stop whoever was doing this.
She then caught the eye of Chuck and Sarah and stepped away from John. She hung her head in shame.
"Mr. and Mrs. Bartowski, I am so sorry. I didn't want to involve John in this…"
"Sam!" John exclaimed. "I told you that wasn't your fault. My parents would never get mad at you. Mom, could you tell her, please?"
"I am mad at her, John," Sarah replied, her eyes locked intently on Samantha.
John turned to her in shock. "I can't believe you. She didn't put me in danger. She was in trouble and she turned to the one friend she has…"
"…but not about that," Sarah continued. John looked at her in silence as Sarah turned her attention back to Samantha. "You're worried there might be a traitor inside of MI-5 and your first instinct was to handle it by yourself? It never occurred to you there are people out there who are willing to help you?"
Samantha continued to look down at the ground in shame. "I…I didn't want to put anyone in danger. I didn't want anybody risking their lives for me."
"So you think that would stop us from worrying about you? Let me tell you right now, it didn't. You risked your life to rescue us when we were kidnapped, so I think we have the right to be upset when you gamble your life like this." Sarah's voice continued to rise. "And you must have a very low opinion of your mother if you really think she wouldn't understand having difficulty being a brand new agent."
"Sarah, come on," Jimmy interjected. "We all had to learn that lesson, even you. Think of how your first year was on the job. Hell, I screwed up twice as bad when I started and I wasn't a nineteen-year-old kid at the time."
Sarah calmed down at that and her stance softened. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Samantha. "I'm sorry, Sam," she said gently as Samantha shook in her arms.
"I never wanted to put your son in danger, I swear," Samantha said as she sobbed quietly.
"I know, honey. I know you would never do that. But I worry about you just like I worry about my own children. Your mother and I have been best friends longer than either of us will ever admit. And I can't stand to see you in trouble any more than seeing John or Emma in trouble."
"I'll tell my mother what's going on. I promise."
Sarah gave a tiny smile as she looked at Samantha. "Chuck and I will be there with you. Just no more thinking you can do this alone, OK?" Samantha nodded and Sarah gently guided her to a seat near the equipment Casey and Jimmy had already set up. "Now tell us exactly what happened tonight. Don't leave anything out."
Samantha pulled her gun out of her purse and placed it on the table. "Michelle texted me yesterday and told me she had some information about what was going on from the IT guy she was dating. When I got to the restaurant, I saw her at the table she said she would be at, and she…she was dead. And my gun was lying right next to her."
Casey nodded. "Even without the gun, it won't take the police long to figure out what kind of gun was used based on the ammo. And whoever did this knew that, too."
"Do you still have Michelle's text message on your iComm?" Chuck asked.
"Yes, yes I do," Samantha replied and immediately handed it to Chuck. He hooked it up to a laptop computer he designed at Carmichael Industries that rivaled the best machines in the NSA. He analyzed the information.
"I don't know. The message could have been faked, but if it was, whoever did it is really good at covering her tracks."
"We can probably get the log records from BT and synchronize everything," Alex said. "We'll figure it out."
"Michelle told me to meet her at seven but then said she would be late…" Samantha suddenly put the pieces together. "She never sent that second message. God, how could I be so stupid?"
"Don't beat yourself up," Jimmy replied. "It was a high-risk play on their part. They had to get you there within minutes after they killed Michelle to pin it on you. The coroner can get the time of death to within fifteen minutes, so their window was pretty narrow. I'd also be willing to wager there are no good surveillance shots of the killer."
"What exactly did you tell Michelle to look for?" Casey asked.
"I told her about the disappearance of several agents. A couple of them turned up dead, like that one couple in the pub. But several of them are still unaccounted for. Everybody in the office is on edge right now. There are rumors floating around that the higher-ups ordered them to be eliminated."
"No way," Alex replied sternly. "Chancellor Nolan doesn't operate like that. If he was permitting this to happen, he'd make damn sure everyone knew about it and why. At the very least, he'd call us in to investigate so it could be done objectively. Someone is killing these agents to create discord, just like they are trying to pin Michelle's murder on you."
"But why?"
"That's what we're going to find out. And the best way to do that is to make sure everybody knows you've been caught."
"Wait, you want me to be arrested and charged?"
"Whoever did this didn't set you up because they wanted you out of the way," Gertrude replied. "If some organization inside British Intelligence can do all of this, why would they be worried about one rookie agent? No offense, Sam."
Samantha shrugged. "None taken. Well, I don't think any is."
"They want you for a reason. What that reason is, I don't know, but they could have just as easily killed you if they thought you were a risk. You're more valuable to them alive than dead. But first they need you desperate. They need you in a place where you don't have any choice but to take whatever it is they offer. We're going to play right into that."
"You, your mother, and I are going to visit Chancellor Nolan first thing in the morning," Alex said. "He knows I'm in town but he doesn't know why. We'll take you to him and tell him everything that has happened. If I'm right, he'll agree to our plan."
"We're going to let the Metropolitan Police catch me and make a very public arrest?"
"Exactly. We'll leak evidence that you and Michelle were both seeing the same guy and that you went into a jealous rage when he left you. And you killed your former friend."
Samantha shook her head. "Whoever did this is never going to believe that."
"That's the idea. It's a smokescreen for the public's benefit. But whoever did this will assume British Intelligence and the Met are working together and plan to let you rot in jail. That's when we hope they'll offer you an alternative to a life behind bars."
"But how do we find out who these people are?"
"We're going to play a little high-and-low," Casey replied. Samantha looked at him in confusion. "Chancellor Nolan will order an internal investigation. And to insure objectivity and no chance of influence, he'll ask the head of the DNI to lead the investigation. Who will, in turn, send one of her best agents to London."
Samantha looked at Alex and Jimmy and smiled, suddenly catching on to the plan. "So while Jimmy plays the 'high' and investigates in plain sight…"
"…Gertrude, Chuck, and I will go in and turn over every rock looking for the people behind this and nobody will ever know. Hopefully, Slade making a lot of noise will send these bastards in our direction."
"If you need someone to talk to, you should start with the IT guy Michelle was dating. He might know something."
Casey nodded. "That's Chuck's first stop. Also, we have to keep that person protected. If he does know something, he could be in danger. At the very least, he might be considered a loose end too risky to not take care of."
Samantha exhaled. "Oh, God. I didn't even think about him being in danger."
"Not to worry," Chuck replied. "That's why we brought these." He held up an IntComm. "Jimmy and I each have one. And if there's anything in the computers at MI-5 the bad guys left in there, we'll find it."
Samantha exhaled in relief, although it still astonished her how easy everybody made solving her problem sound. But she had seen them in action before, so what would be impossible to some was child's play in their hands.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "You're right; I should have come to all of you when I found out this happened. I made a mistake."
"We rented a couple of apartments across the street," Casey said to conclude the evening. "We'll reconvene in the morning."
Casey, Gertrude, Jimmy, and Alex packed the equipment and exited John's apartment. John closed the door and turned to his parents. "What can I do to help?"
Chuck shook his head. "Not a thing. You're going to attend your classes like normal."
"What? How can I concentrate on school with all of this going on?"
"John, I know you want to help, but this situation is too dangerous," Sarah gently replied. "And remember, you chose to go to college. You didn't want to become a spy. And that's what we want you to do."
"But…"
"They're right," Samantha added. "Besides, if you keep attending classes, the bad guys might think I didn't try to get help before being arrested. As long as they don't think you're involved, they should leave you alone."
She took John's hand. "Please? Just do me this one favor?"
John looked at her for a long moment. His parents had told him a few times of how frustrating their jobs as government agents could get, such as when Casey went rogue or when Carina improvised an idea they weren't expecting or Jimmy pulled some crazy stunt that almost killed him. But patience was something both of them tried to teach John in his life, especially when he was going through baseball tryouts as a child or wanted to ride Space Mountain despite not being tall enough.
John nodded gently. "OK."
Chuck gave his son a hug. "If you see anything out of the ordinary on campus, call us right away," Chuck told his son. "No matter how innocent it might look."
"I will, Dad."
Sarah also gave John a hug. "Be careful. Love you, sweetie."
"Love you, too, Mom."
Chuck and Sarah exited the apartment, leaving only John and Samantha there.
"I am so sorry about Michelle," John said quietly.
Samantha looked at the ground as her eyes welled up. John held onto to her as the events of the evening gave way to the reality of losing her friend. She cried softly as John kept a tight grip on her.
"It's OK, Sam," John whispered gently into her ear. Samantha may have been right that it would be safer to pretend he knew nothing, but damned if he wasn't going to comfort a friend who needed it.
After a few moments, her tears subsided. She looked up at John, who tenderly wiped a few tears away from her cheek.
"Remember when I told you not to call your parents and let me handle this on my own?" Samantha asked.
"Of course."
Samantha slid her hands to either side of John's face and pulled him to her for a kiss. It was a kiss she felt in her soul. "Thank you for not listening to me."
"You're welcome," John said with a smile that calmed any last apprehension Samantha still had in her. She stroked his cheek again with her hand before slowly turning away and exiting the apartment.
Regent Street, West End, London, UK
October 7, 2033
7:15 AM GMT
Alex's chauffeured car pulled up to the residence of Chancellor Timothy Nolan, head of the Secret Intelligence Service. It was far from the first time Alex had been at his residence, given she communicated with C, as the Director General was known, on a weekly basis. Jimmy and she had C and his wife, Delia, to their house in Chevy Chase several times for parties. While the boys would wile away the evening shooting some pool in the game room, Delia and Alex would talk about their families and how insufferable their husbands could be, Delia wishing her husband would loosen up and Alex hoping Jimmy would be less playful.
The valet was standing by at the door as Alex exited the car with Chuck, Sarah, and Samantha. He gestured for all of them to enter the residence, taking their coats in the process. C walked down the stairwell to greet them in the main hallway.
"Alex, good to see you as always," C said as he shook her hand. He then turned to Chuck and Sarah. "And I am honored to have a pair of legends in my home." He shook both of their hands. "Many of your exploits are still required reading."
Finally, he turned to Samantha. "Agent Collins, I am very sorry for your loss. I know Michelle was a close friend of yours. It was a senseless crime that will not go unpunished."
"Then you know I had nothing to do with her murder?" Samantha asked.
C gave a slight smile. "If you were that sloppy in killing your best friend, you never would have been promoted in the first place. I've been studying all of the data the Metropolitan Police have been forwarding me since last night. Unfortunately, there's no surveillance video on the actual murder. A few glitches in the cameras around the restaurant happened right around the same time. Of course, they are only glitches if you believe in coincidence."
C gestured towards a door just off of the main hallway. Inside, a conference table wa set up with a laptop similar to Chuck's projecting an image on a screen on the far wall. Everybody took seats at the table, choosing not to grab a pastry or coffee lying on a second table against the wall.
"Someone on the inside erased them?" Chuck asked.
"They had a two-hour window to get into the system and erase the incriminating evidence. It would not be difficult."
"So the Met has only eyewitness testimony and ballistics to go on, correct?" Alex asked.
C nodded. "They already know the caliber of the gun is one issued by the SIS, so the Inspector at the crime scene made the right decision in calling the Commissioner last night, who in turn called me."
"Have you had any luck trying to find who has been hacking your systems?" Chuck asked.
"Not so far."
"Michelle told me one of the IT people might have found something in one of the systems, but she didn't tell me anything specific," Samantha replied.
"We want Chuck to talk to him and perhaps the two can find out more," Sarah added. "With your permission of course, Chancellor."
C nodded and smiled at Chuck. "I am well aware of Mr. Bartowski's qualifications. My IT people are at your disposal. Now what shall we do with Agent Collins?"
"We want the police to arrest her," Alex replied. "Once word leaks through the SIS that one of their agents was arrested for murder, you'll call for a top-to-bottom investigation and will bring in an outside agent to conduct it to insure objectivity."
"I take it you have someone in mind?" C then nodded in recognition of Alex's plan. "You want your husband to conduct a very public and very loud investigation."
"Hopefully, that will send people running in the other direction, where John Casey and Gertrude Verbanski will keep a sharp eye out. If someone tries to hide something from Jimmy, they'll find it."
C sat back for a moment and mulled over Alex's plan. He then rose from his seat. "Let's get started. I'll call the Commissioner and inform him of their part. Meanwhile, get your people ready. By the afternoon, the rumors about Agent Collins' arrest should pick up around the SIS. Then I'll be ready to announce the investigation."
Everyone rose from their chairs, grateful Chancellor Nolan agreed to their plans. They headed out of his residence to get organized.
MI-5 Headquarters, London
October 10, 2033
12:55 PM GMT
Chuck knocked on the door to the IT department and a very timid man came to answer it. Judging by the combination of fear and heartbreak on his face, Chuck figured this to be the person Michelle was dating.
"Gerald Cooper?" Chuck asked him, to which he nodded quietly. "I'm Chuck Bartowski. I think your supervisor told me I'd be by to ask you about Michelle."
"Yes, of course. Please come in."
Chuck walked into a small office with a server set up in one corner, which was connected to the main servers one floor below.
"I'm very sorry to hear about Michelle. I understand you had been seeing her."
Gerald sat at his chair and wrapped his arms around himself. "Yes, I was. I mean, we had only been going out for a couple of weeks, but I thought it could have been something. I still can't believe she's gone. I heard Samantha was arrested for her murder. I can't believe that. Those two were such close friends…"
Chuck put his hand up. "She didn't. That's why I'm here. Her arrest was for the public's benefit so they'd forget about the incident. But I need your help to find out who really did this. Michelle asked you to look for something a few days ago, is that correct?"
"She wanted me to comb through the computer systems to find anything unusual within the last few weeks. Memos, emails, anything out of the ordinary. I told her I found something weird with the backup logs."
"Like what?"
"Well, I don't know what it means, but I checked some of the computer logs over the last few weeks vs. the nightly backups. The computers would normally flag anything unusual, but if the timestamp on the logs is less than a minute off, it doesn't bother with it, thinking it's a processing delay."
"But you went in and checked the backups and found some discrepancies?"
Gerald nodded. "It's the sort of thing you wouldn't find unless you were looking for it, but a series of timestamps came up that weren't right. All of them were between 50 and 55 seconds off from the same marks in the backup files, and all of them occurred the day of or the day after another agent had supposedly disappeared."
Chuck sat back in his chair. "Well, it may not be enough to find these people, but it's a good starting point. Can you show me what you found?"
"Certainly. But I don't know how much it will help."
"This is just one part of the plan. The next part will be starting any minute."
"You mean, the Director's talk?"
Chuck nodded and smiled. "You won't have to attend. We can keep working. I'll fill you in on the highlights."
-/^\-
Monitors throughout MI-5 Headquarters froze and their image was replaced with Chancellor Nolan's image. A group of one hundred people who did not have their own desks in the facility gathered in the main theatre to catch his talk in person.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking a few minutes out of your busy schedules. I need to address some of the events that have happened over the last few weeks. I am sure you have heard by now of the murder of one of our agents-in-training, Michelle Travis, and the arrest of one of our agents, Samantha Collins, for her murder. This is what the public believes. However, a preliminary investigation into this leads me to suspect Miss Travis' murder may be much more complicated than that. Over the last several weeks, we have lost three field agents, and four others are not accounted for. Up to this point, we have relied on the Metropolitan Police to investigate, but rumors began to circulate through this building that someone in the SIS was involved. It is possible Agent Collins is the perpetrator, but I have concluded a top-to-bottom internal investigation of the events of the last several weeks are in order. And to insure impartiality and objectivity, I have asked my counterpart, Alex Forrest, Director of National Intelligence for the United States, to appoint someone to conduct the investigation. At this time, I wish to turn this meeting over to him. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to former CIA Special Agent Roger Murdock."
C stepped aside as Jimmy walked up to the microphone, holding back a smile as the Chancellor remembered to use the name the world knew him as. "I've spent over twenty years as an agent, and the second assignment with which I was tasked involved the very organization I'm addressing today. The men and women of the SIS have been as magnanimous and as helpful to me as the people I've come to know at Langley. So you can certainly understand my distress to find out someone in this organization would betray their own brothers and sisters for some selfish gain.
"Let me assure all of you right now, those responsible for these betrayals will be found. I will talk to every last employee, every last contact, and informant. I will investigate the cleaning crew if I have to. Every last piece of paper, recording, and computer file will be scrutinized for any last bit of information I can find. I will not stop until I find out who is responsible for this. And I will expect and demand your full cooperation because I know that you share my disdain and anger for anyone who would destroy all that you have helped to build in this organization.
"To the people who are responsible, do yourself a favor. Come forward now and admit your wrongdoings. Save yourself the humiliation of inevitable failure. Because most of you know my reputation as an agent; I always got the job done and nobody ever stopped me. And you won't stop me from finding you and bringing you to justice. This is not a threat, because I don't make threats. I make statements of fact. And the fact is, you will be caught."
Jimmy stepped away from the microphone and the meeting was concluded.
-/^\-
John Casey and Gertrude Verbanski attached the leads to the last of their monitors. If there was a surveillance camera in London, they could watch it. Their setup reminded Casey of the old Intersect room where his path was forever altered to this reality. It was a roller coaster ride he would never forget if he lived a hundred lifetimes, and it introduced him to some of the smartest, wildest, craziest, and yet most loyal people he ever knew in his life. He never considered the early years of his life to be all that fortunate, having lost his father at a young age and having to give up a fiancée to serve his country. But meeting these people made up for that a hundred fold. Fortune had definitely shone upon him in the last twenty-five years.
Gertrude booted the system, and the monitors came to life. Casey started the computer to run the facial recognition software and to run the program Chuck and Jimmy programmed for him to sense and record unusual movements on any of the monitors both inside of MI-5 Headquarters and around London. Although the system wasn't perfect, it was an effective alternative to staring at over 200 monitors all day long.
Gertrude went to the coffee maker Casey was smart enough to purchase over the weekend and poured two cups of coffee. She handed one to John, who tipped it to her in appreciation.
"To finding the bad guys," Gertrude said with a tired smile.
"And dispensing some justice," Casey replied. "Some very long, hard, and painful justice."
Redbridge, London, UK
October 10, 2033
9:30 PM GMT
Mr. Lightman looked across the table at Tyler Cook. The news Tyler gave to him wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"If I were to guess, I would say Cooper is trying to look for the files I implanted."
"How long before he could find them?"
Tyler shrugged. "I covered my tracks pretty well. It would have to be a shot in the dark for him to find them. However, someone visited him early this morning, and they spent most of the time during the Chancellor's talk in the computer systems doing some research."
Mr. Lightman nodded. "Did you recognize the other person?"
"No, and his name wasn't registered on any visitor sign-in logs."
"Interesting," Lightman replied quietly. He knew Samantha Collins sat in a Metro jail at the moment, so it's quite possible there was no link between her and the person looking for the files. Lightman knew that Gerald Cooper had seen Michelle Travis a few times, so revenge could have been on the young man's mind. Still…
"Tyler, find out everything you can on anyone Samantha Collins has been associated with. Particularly any links to Alex Forrest or Roger Murdock. Let's not assume them coming over here to investigate is simply coincidence. And find out all you can about her friend at Cambridge, just in case we need to use him as leverage.
"In the meantime, we knew this would have to happen; we'll just move the timetable up a day or two. Mr. Pollard, can you get your hands on an EMP grenade?"
"Not a problem," Arthur Pollard replied. If it took him more than two phone calls to get his hands on a crate of EMP grenades, then he was slipping in his old age. They were the perfect device to use to short out and detonate electronic equipment because they left few traces of their existence.
Get them and then coordinate with Tyler on setting them off. Make sure the fire doors are disabled. Mr. Cooper and his friend will be the victims of a tragic accident."