Chapter IV

Agent Insanity

Chuck was still lying in his bedroom, having no idea what to do next. Where was his father? Does he spend the night here or back at the hotel, with this crazy Carina girl?

And why wasn't Sarah answering? He decided to go back to the hotel. Here he was alone. And the eventuality of meeting Casey once he wakes up, not so awesome, bro.

He smiled at his imitating of Devon. Good that they were OK there. Or were they? He wasn't sure. Why did Devon and Ellie call him instead of enjoying their honeymoon?

Chuck took his laptop, got into Ellie's car and drove to his new home with Carina, his new angel protector… .

But first he checked to see of Casey was OK. His pulse was 71.

Xxx

Carina was awake in her bed. Or rather her and Chuck's bed. She smiled at the thought. Everything was going according to plan.

Somebody knocked on the door.

'Carina, it's Chuck, can I come in?'

'Sure, Chuck, no problem, I'm decent here', she lied.

Chuck opened and stepped in.

'Of course, you're not decent, why should you be?' he pursed his lips while watching her.

Carina laughed out loud. 'Come on, Chuck. You'll never become a real spy if you believe everything somebody chooses to tell you. I'm just trying to teach you a lesson.'

'And by the way you are not seeing anything, are you?'

DEA's undercover agent Carina Falcone wasn't exactly the typical US secret agent you read about or watch on TV. Or even as they were in real life.

There were two major reasons for this. First, at least half of the psychiatrists around the world would diagnose her as insane, the other half, just border-crazy, probably because of the reasons for her pretty mature multiple personality disorder.

Second, she was the best undercover agent ever, with the second being a function of the first.

Then how did she get to become a government agent without her insanity being detected?

Her real name according to the birth certificate was Alessandra (Sandra) Falcone, not Carina. Carina was her little sister. The real Carina died when she was only 5, together with her Mom and Dad in a car crash. They were driving back after visiting Alessandra, then 9 years old. The elder sister had asthma and was staying at a sanatorium.

Her stay there had been helping her lungs a lot but broke her heart. Forever. She would never be able to see her mom, dad and little sister, ever. And they were there with her just 50 minutes ago.

Only 90 minutes after the crash, US Federal agents took Sandra away from the sanatorium and moved her to a safe house. Yes, they were all under the witness protection program.

Her granddad was member of one of the mafia families there in New York in the 40s and early 50s. Middle level, nothing that special. But once all these gangster wars had gathered forced, it became just too much for Carlo, Sandra's grandfather. He got really disgusted of the killings, the cruelty, everything.

The FBI smelled that just in time and managed to recruit him. Not that it was easy. He was so worried about his wife and only kid. It took the FBI some extra effort to convince Carlo that everybody would be protected. A signed letter from the then deputy-director.

Later on, he had to testify in one of those mafia trials. While not a star witness exactly, he had witnessed actual killings and what some of the killers were saying. How their bosses ordered them, everything. He was sincere, his testimony was compelling and the jury believed him.

So Carlo made the top of the mafia hit list. While hiding, he died of a heart attack several years later. Nobody could be sure whether it was natural or somehow sponsored by the long hand of some cappo. The FBI assumed that the mafia would prefer another method of killing him just to set example, and demonstrate that traitors get what traitors deserve. Thus, they decided that it was just a heart attack. And so it was.

But the car accident with his son and his family was another matter. Once the mafia learned Carlo was dead, they have decided that his son may decide they were responsible and go after them. So they decided to preempt. Stay on the safe side.

Gradually, Sandra learned more and more about it. First from her lawyer while she was still a teenager. Then, becoming a government agent, she got access to a lot of databases.

Now, she was after the killers of her family, especially her 5 year old sister. She was the one deprived of everything. Sandra didn't even know how Carina would turn out to be. What kind of life she would want, what kind of men she would like. Everything about life was taken away from Carina at the age of 5. Sandra's mom and dad lived up to their 30s. They had the chance of learning the joy of love, family, children… Even if under the limitations of the witness protection program.

The real Carina never knew any of that. Never had the chance. Sandra's blood boiled up every time she thought of it. The rage wave would engulf her every time she remembered her little sister. And it happened every damn day. By the time she was 18, she had lived through more rage than the average American would experience over the course of his or her entire life. Sandra often felt she was losing her mind. She tried many things to prevent that.

Yoga seemed to be helping a tiny bit, especially breathing. But nowhere near enough. If Sandra was watching a movie, she would be wondering if her poor little sister would like it. She was talking to her in her mind.

If Sandra had come across a boy she liked, she would be soon asking herself if Carina would like him. If Sandra was making out with the boy, she would soon get furious at the thought that her little sister would never feel this. She would explode with anger and the boy would leave terrified. Crazy chick. The boy would then share with his friends about his experience with this really beautiful but so crazy girl.

Sandra knew her obsession was driving her crazy but she couldn't help it. She wondered how soon she would end up in some asylum. She had decided that when this moment comes, she would rather end her life than stay locked with crazy people for the rest of her life.

It was because of her self-observing, self-analyzing mode that she managed to avoid clinical insanity.

The rational part of her brain was constantly observing her almost permanent emotional distress.

And then, when Sandra was in her last year at high school, everything changed.

An FBI agent asked her one day, whether she would be interested in joining any of the FBI departments.

It was an ingenious idea. The FBI had to keep its side of the bargain and protect her after graduation. So what's the best way? Become one of us. Thus, you get training, salary, health insurance, retirement package, secret identity, everything to increase your chances of survival, considering her circumstances.

They envisaged her as an analyst somewhere, a desk job, so there would be no risk for her life, that field agents were exposed to.

The officer who came up with this solution got promoted for this brilliant plan.

'We should use this approach more often,' said the deputy director of the FBI waving a pen. Then he signed her papers.

When Sandra heard the offer, she immediately knew that this was a breakthrough for her and that she would accept it.

All she said however was that she needs to think about it and asked for a week. She was in no mood for rush decisions no matter what. At age of 18, she wasn't the average US teenager, going for emotional, rushed decisions. She had survived clinical insanity beating all the odds, thanks to staying rational.

After careful consideration, she accepted and 4 months later turned up at Quantico, Va.

Of all kinds of agents, DEA undercover is the most dangerous one. Most CIA agent runners are stationed at embassies around the world and are protected by diplomatic immunity. Those few, who aren't, usually operate in friendly countries such as Austria or Switzerland. They enter danger zones only for short periods of time. CIA agents usually work against foreign governments. Even if they get caught, the US government would try to exchange them or apply some leverage here and there for their release. Governments are usually reasonable and the US government was able to help most of the time.

Not that their missions aren't dangerous. But they are nowhere near what an undercover agent has to live through in, say, Colombia, trying to infiltrate a drug cartel. You deal with irrational animals there. Those brutes would chop your head off not because you failed your mission and your cover is blown but just for the sake of the outrage itself.

A drug dealer may decide to kill you just because they want your cut, even if they already made a lot of money from you and you are promising for the future. Many of them were just irrational brutes. Thus, you are in a life or death situation 100% of the time.

How did Sandra end up in this most dangerous type of spy craft when the FBI had offered her some of the safest desks of the Hoover building?

Sandra made this choice herself, signing a waver, relieving the FBI of their duty to protect her. She couldn't survive a week behind the desk, probably even a day. The thought of her murdered sister would start coming back minute after minute, the rage, the boiling blood. She would end up with the FBI shrink in less than a week. The only way for her to counter her mental problem was danger, adrenaline, lots of it. Life and death situations. That was her escape mechanism.

Only under tremendous pressure was she able to find her mental balance, activating her cold-blooded rationality. In life or death situations she was always able to shoot the enemy right in the heart, or between the eyes. When practicing, at the shooting range, she was mediocre most of the time. Never able to concentrate properly.

This ability of hers, to be at her best under the greatest pressure made her the best agent.

She had another tremendous advantage, as well. She was very beautiful indeed, the rare type that most men craved for.

Her body did not have the perfect proportions of Sarah Walker. She was slimmer, almost bordering unhealthy. But that was the beauty of it. So were all these supermodels on the covers of all these stupid fashion magazines. A little unhealthy. That's why her marks, the people she wanted to seduce for some reason just couldn't pass on her.

How often do you get to sleep with one of those Vogue supermodels, a Claudia Schiffer or something? Much less than once in a lifetime, of course.

Sandra's DEA career served her long-term personal goals magnificently. Swimming in the ocean of drug deals she had found out what kind of money had been floating around.

She started to divert drug money from all these missions. Once, when she hacked the bank accounts of a drug dealing group, she diverted 5 million, and set up the boss she had seduced to have been trying to steal from the rest. They ended up shooting at each other.

In her mission report she wrote only about divering 1 mln, and 1 mln she sent to US Treasury. That was her biggest hit of course. She had three other scores, where she managed to acquire significant amounts, each over 1 mln.

She knew this is extremely risky so she tried to be very careful. 200 grand from here, 300k there. But she was accumulating wealth pretty fast.

When she had almost $20 mln. she invested in stock. The stockbroker she hired was the stockbroker she seduced.

Carina made sure he would never cheat on her. He was only "allowed" to add 10% a year.

Before she explained to him the 5 particularly painful ways she would kill him if he screwed up with her money she did something. She poisoned his coffee, and told him about it once he started feeling the symptoms. She even googled them for him. He was both vomiting and wetting himself while reading. Then she gave him the antidote.

'Relax, Johnny' she cheered him up, " I need you alive and well, investing my money. I just had to make sure you don't screw up with me. Invest wisely, get me 10% profit a year, anything you make above those 10% is yours, and you'll be alive and well. Is 10% reasonable for you?'

'Yes, Carina, yes, very reasonable, thank you,' Johnny would only say to that. "Crazy woman!"

'Oh, one last thing, Johnny, I have the tapes of our three encounters. They can end up in your wife's hands if you screw up with me. Just one more insurance policy, nothing to worry about.'

Before Carina approached Johnny, she had already checked 3 more things about him: he was really good at his job; he himself already had millions so he would reimburse her if he happened to invest some of her money badly; and he didn't have any relatives or connections within the intelligence community. So he wouldn't call tomorrow somebody in the FBI to prompt investigation on her extracurricular activities.

Most probably, she assumed, he already got himself involved into some insider trading, at least technically, so he wouldn't be interested in getting involved with the Feds.

She also arranged her first business meeting so that they met next to the Hoover building. Thus, he saw her come out of the FBI HQ. And then enter it again when they finished. He knew that she was doing some important government job already.

That's how good Sandra was, when she needed to be. Her money was very safe and growing steadily.

Once she finds the killers of her family ("program minimum", as she called it) she will be free to pursue a wider agenda. That's what she needed her money for.

But first she needed to find the killers. That's what she needed Chuck for.

XXX