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"So where did you go?" Jeffry asked from the living room of their suite at the Fairmont hotel in Chicago.
"Down by the lake." Lena answered as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "It was really windy."
"hmpf." He sighed. "and here I thought you were probably sneaking off to that cemetery you looked up yesterday."
Lena sat down her coffee mug hard on the counter. How did Jeffry always seem to be one step ahead of her. "You saw me get in the cab?" she questioned.
"No, I just know you." He smiled gently, "the creamer is in the fridge." He gestured toward the minifridge. "So what did the taxi driver say to a twenty year old girl with a bruised neck and a black eye leaving a hotel at 5am?"
Lena smiled softly. "well, I got a look. But he kept his mouth shut."
"This arrived for you while you were gone." Jeffry walked over to the desk and picked up a manila envelope "I read it, just so you know." Lena held her hand out for the envelope.
She snatched it from his hands and ripped the papers out and collapsed on the floor next to the couch.
Private Second Class
Michael Samuelle
June 21, 1977- May 3, 2001
It took her a little over an hour to read the record from front to back, three times. She needed to be sure she didn't miss anything. With almost every word her brother perpetuated her childhood idea that he was capable of anything he put his mind to. Each sentence of the record read like a biography of an American hero to Lena, but she knew it would all come to an end. The third line of the first page told her that this biography would not be a novel, it would be a short story.
He had graduated high school near the very top of his class, not an easy feat in a town home to a prestigious university. He played varsity football and soccer in high school, he was in National Honor Society, and was the class vice president his senior year. Although he applied and was accepted into several well known universities he entered the Navy after graduation. He moved up through the ranks quickly and acquired awards and commendations along the way. Lena remembered how he never seemed to stay in one place long. He would come home for a short time, and then they would be driving him to the airport again. Her memories of him were fleeting, one moment he was there, and the next, he was gone.
He'd been taken off active duty for a brief period of time around the time their parent's accident. After the accident he put in a request to be deployed abroad. He married Elizabeth and she moved away with him. Lena vaguely remembered her, tall and blond, and always exceedingly kind to her as a child. They had a child together, Haley.
Seeing Haley's name brought tears to her eyes. She had always been convinced that her family was dead, all of them. At one point they were wrong, she had a brother, a sister-in-law, and a niece and all of them would have loved her.
It seemed like Michael had somehow moved on after their parent's accident, her accident too as far as he would have known. This was a feat she had yet to accomplish, but he had created a life for himself. He must have been happy, she thought to herself, with a daughter, a wife, and a successful career. He was only a couple years older than she was now, and he had accomplished so much, so much more than her.
2001 was where it all fell apart; in fact it fell apart in less than two months. On March 21, 2001, Elizabeth and Haley were murdered in a car bomb. Her stomach gave a violent lurch and she knew, without needing to read any further; what had happened to her brother. A man who has lost everything is a dangerous thing. Terrorists took away everything Michael lived for, and on May 3, 2001, Michael finished the job. He was found dead in a hotel room in New York, from an apparent drug overdose.
There had been so much sadness and despair in her brother's short life. She wished she had been there to hug him, and to ask him not to do the unthinkable. But she couldn't judge, she hadn't been there, she hadn't experienced his loss and she couldn't imagine the depth of his loneliness. How could he find peace in a world that dealt him so much misery? Perhaps now, he could find peace, away from the world that never allowed it in life.
So often Lena had thought of herself as alone, but the one thing the Alliance had not deprived her from was at least the illusion of a family. She had Jeffry and Charlotte and she had two friends that she trusted. If she hadn't had those people she would be a monster by now.
She leaned back against the couch letting the thoughts of her brother skim in and out of her mind. She felt a vague sense of peace when she thought about him. Of course she wished he hadn't ended his own life but she didn't blame him. He wasn't equipped to deal with such enormous loss.
Soon Jeffry appeared in the doorway to his bedroom. "Have you finished reading?" Lena nodded. "I'm sorry Lena."
Lena nodded again and blinked hard to swallow back tears. "So, about the CIA deal?" she changed the subject. She didn't want to talk about her brother, and she didn't want to cry in front of Jeffry. She needed to stay strong, just like she was taught. "Tell me if I've got this strait." She said not allowing her voice to falter. "Forester believes that there is a terrorist organization, essentially that's what they are right, that killed my parents and sold me to the Alliance. But why does he want me to be part of this?"
Jeffry eyed her with concern, he was suspicious of the sudden change in subject. Jeffry had never been the type of man that welcomed women's emotions, but he found it equally disturbing when Lena hid them. After a moment of eyeing her he finally answered her question.
"We need you because we are closer than we have ever been." Jeffry said calmly. "We believe they will make contact with me in the next six months. When they do I need my partner,…"
Lena scrunched up her eye brows, Jeffry didn't have a partner in his security business, it was just him…and her… and a few contract employees from time to time. "you Lena… you're my partner!" he said with a smile crossing his face for the first time since before she read the file. "I need you to be up to speed, so they can't manipulate you."
Lena smiled softly at Jeffry calling her his business partner, she honestly didn't think of herself as an equal in the company. "What do you mean make contact?"
"The Diamond Client, the one you just finished the update to the security system. The organization is looking for places to hide intelligence, they've contacted the company because of their sophisticated security system. They want evaluate whether the security system is complex enough to meet their needs. They are supposed to schedule a meeting with them so they can inspect the system onsite."
Lena nodded. "Ok, I still don't see why you need me. You could do that."
"I wouldn't go down there, all the way to South Africa, just to install an update." He scoffed "I would send a second in command, you." He walked through the living room and sat down on the couch. "If it appears this company is too important to me, it will set off a red flag that perhaps I have too much interest in this interaction and they may reject the company." He sighed "We need them to hide whatever they want to hide there, because that gets us infinitely closer to finding out who they are than where we're at now."
"When?"
"We expect them to contact us soon, we don't know definitively. I expect when they do make contact the meeting will be urgent, maybe only 48-72 hours to make preparations, that's why we're planning it now."
"So I go down and act as your representative? That's all?"
"That's all for this mission. But when you join the CIA it's not for one mission Lena, its complicated, it's political, and it's longterm. It's to find the people who killed your parents and bring them to justice. You need to stay the course."
"Well, I'm in. I'm going to tell Forester I'll do it." Lena said confidently
Jeffry nodded but he hid any other emotion. "I thought you'd be glad…" Lena whispered annoyed with Her father's sudden indifference.
"I am. I think it's the best decision for you and I'm proud of you for doing the right thing. It's just a complicated mission, and it can be maddening how just when you think you are getting a handle on it you get blindsided."
"Yea, that comes with our line of work."
"This is different." He said shortly
"Different how?"
"There is just so much we don't know." He started to fumble in his pants pocket and pulled out a photograph. "Like this, you stumbled upon this, who knows how long it would have taken us to come upon this information." He held the photograph just out of Lena's grasp. "The men who kidnapped you yesterday, Forester is certain they are part of the organization we are investigating."
"yea, I got that yesterday."
Jeffry handed her the photograph. She glanced quickly at the standard issue military portrait. "This is the man I fought yesterday, but he's younger in this picture, he was a strong fighter, and he was the commander of the group. His name was Michael." Lena paused slightly as she examined the picture. "No..." she whispered. "That's...not possible..."
"That's what I thought and so I ran him through facial recognition, it is the man you met yesterday but…" he hesitated and shifted uncomfortably on the couch as she gazed at the photograph. "Lena, this is the picture from your brother's file."
Authors Note:
Sorry for the short update and long time between chapters, a 50 hour per week internship, job hunting, and attempting to maintain some sort of social life is difficult to balance. Not to mention I kinda agonized over this chapter, and I'm still not exactly pleased with the result but I need to move on, and I'll probably edit it in the future.
The next chapter is in the works... in fact its more than in the works, it should be a relatively quick update cause I was avoiding working on this chapter cause I didn't like it, so I got quite a bit done on it. Its longer, a mission, and we're going to add another Nikita character who happens to be my other favorite character on the show!
Random CW rant, I'm trying to stay as consistent as possible with the Nikita storyline from CW, but Michael's timeline just doesn't add up, I honestly tried it about 10 ways… so I went with the "lets be vague route" (kinda like CW did) so that I could finish the chapter and move on with the story. I think Shane West is a little young to be playing Michael, but don't get me wrong I'm not a Shane West hater, I like him a lot (I'll admit it, seeing him on the promos for the series was the ONLY reason my best friend and I started watching. I am from the age group that swooned over A Walk to Remember) But the writers didn't adjust the Michael story line to accommodate a younger actor.