Hello. I have to admit struggling with this particular chapter. I thought it would be much easier to write because every piece was planned out. But then I was on a bit of a weird schedule this past week and change actually doing work...and I don't just mean writing this story. It was temporary work but work nonetheless. I just have to keep plugging away.
The team is still apart at this point, but we're going to start organizing the plotlines that will inevitably get them back together. I'm not sure how well this worked, so please let me know what you liked and what you didn't like.
As a quick aside, I should tell you the part of this story in Paris was written before the horrible events in Nice. I apologize if I made anybody upset by that, and certainly everyone here in the States will be there with the people of France.
The parts that come from the show (not as many this time) are still the property of NBC and Fake Empire Productions. Please leave reviews.
Thanks!
Fleury-Mérogis Prison - Fleury-Mérogis, France
May 7, 2016
6:00 PM CEST
Two guards walked down the hallway towards one of the cells, one of whom carried a tray of food. The person they were visiting was in solitary confinement for his own protection. Many of the prisoners knew of this man. Being a foreigner in a French prison was a dangerous thing in and of itself. The fact this man had a hand in a subway bombing fourteen years ago made it worse. And two of the gangs in the prison had ties to criminal organizations in Russia who would love to see this man die a horrible death.
The first guard unlocked the cell and pulled it open. The man with the tray entered. "Voici votre diner (Here's your dinner)," he said disdainfully, dropping the tray on the table in the cell.
The guard turned to exit…and ran right into the needle the first guard plunged into him. He began to convulse and fell to the ground.
"Obtenez dans son uniforme (Get in his uniform)," the first guard ordered the prisoner. The guard went down the hallway and turned off the feed for the security cameras.
"Vite! Nous avons seulement deux minutes! (Quickly! We only have two minutes!)," the guard ordered the prisoner as he returned to the cell.
The prisoner finished putting on the uniform of the dead guard, and both exited the cell, the first guard locking it. They walked slowly, careful not to draw attention as the cameras were overridden and switched back on.
"Cellule Bloc rapport C2 (Cellblock C2, report)," the guard was ordered over his radio.
"Bloc C2, tout va bien. (Block C2, all is well.)" was the reply.
The two men quickly walked into the loading area where a laundry truck waited for them. Both of them got inside and hid under the hampers of dirty uniforms and towels using a false floor in the truck bed. The truck departed the loading dock and signed out with the guard. The truck drove off and went ten miles, pulling into a garage not far from the border of Paris.
The two men in the front of the truck got out and opened the back. The guard and the prisoner extricated themselves from under the uniforms and towels and exited.
"OK, you are out," the driver of the truck said. "Now give us what you claimed you had."
"Let's see the money first," the prisoner replied.
The man took out his smartphone and showed the prisoner the account where the money currently sat. "It's there. Once this is over, you'll get every dime of it."
"Just remember our deal. You may capture her, but I get to kill her myself."
"Her? How are you so sure it's a woman?"
"I know exactly who you're looking for," Victor Federov said. "And I know how she thinks."
MI-6 Headquarters – London, UK
May 6, 2016
9:30 AM BST
Carina, Cole, and Amir walked into the large computer center in the basement of MI-6.
"Carina, this is Grace Hawkinson," Cole said, pointing to a woman sitting at a desk surrounded by a series of large monitors that would make the most hard-core gamer all tingly. "Three guesses as to what we call her and what she does."
"Good to meet you," Carina said. "Do you actually like to be called Hawk?"
Hawk shook her head. "Doesn't help my dating life much. And partying with these two helps it even less."
"How has the search been for our mystery woman?" Amir asked.
"So far, not a lot of success. But we know she's out there somewhere. She's committed at least six acts of sabotage against ISIS, but even that number might be a little low. She really is like the wind: there's no timetable, no pattern to her movements. Our only guess is that she moves in and out of villages near her targets and has a way to hack into encrypted information coming from British, French, and American militaries. Whoever this woman is, she's good. Damn good."
"A fellow agent, perhaps?" Carina asked.
"That was our first thought, but none of the agencies we've been in contact with say she's with them. Not British Intelligence, not the CIA, not the DGSE, FSB, not even the Mossad."
"That doesn't mean she isn't working for one of them," Cole replied. "She could be doing the dirty work and they'll deny her if she's killed or captured."
"And that's the very thing we need to prevent," Amir said.
Carina looked at the screens showing the locations where the Azure Wind had committed acts of sabotage, either by destroying ISIS munitions herself or preventing civilian casualties when British and American missile strikes took out those strongholds. Amir and Hawk were right; there was no pattern to follow.
Suddenly she smiled. "How about we give her a target?"
"What do you mean?" Cole asked.
"We talk with British military forces and have them circulate intel that they intend a strike against a large enough target where they're convinced weapons are. Azure Wind won't be able to resist making it work. And then we sweep in and pick her up."
"But if ISIS hasn't been successful in catching her, should we just leave well enough alone and consider ourselves lucky she's on our side?" Hawk asked.
"That's the problem, Grace," Amir said. Hawk always liked that Amir called her by her actual name. Why did the jerk have to have a boyfriend? "Luck always runs out."
"And in this business, when your luck is gone, so is your life," Carina added solemnly.
Grand Hôtel – Stockholm, Sweden
May 8, 2016
10:00 AM CEST
Chuck and Sarah packed their remaining items and got ready to leave. Chuck went to the car rental desk at the airport to switch vehicles. Sarah took the chance he wouldn't be recognized as easily, particularly wearing a Swedish soccer shirt and hat. Sarah may have loved Chuck telling her over and over how beautiful she was, but standing out in a crowd was not exactly helpful in their current situation.
"Did you get a good car for us, sweetie?" Sarah called out from the bathroom.
"Just as you told me," Chuck replied. "The most nondescript, vanilla car they had on their lot. And I parked it by the southwest stairwell behind the hotel."
"Great." Sarah walked into the living room and grabbed the TV remote. "One of the best inventions for spies: checking out on the television."
"But you're supposed to take the room key with you, right? Our personal information is stored on there."
"Actually, I'll do us one better."
Sarah pulled a small device from her suitcase and grabbed the two keycards for the room. She held the device over the toilet and fed each keycard through it. The device shredded each card into hundreds of pieces that landed in the toilet. She then flushed it.
"OK, that's almost as secure as my suggestion," Chuck said with a grin. "Just keep our credit cards away from it."
Sarah smiled at that and put the shredder back in her suitcase. "Ready to go?"
Chuck walked over to her and took her face in his hands, giving her a gentle kiss. "Ready."
He grabbed the two large bags as Sarah carried her laptop and the two backpacks they also had. They exited and took the elevator to the ground floor. Instead of turning towards the lobby, they went down the hallway in the opposite direction to the southwest stairwell. They opened the door to the outside.
One hundred fans started screaming at seeing them there. Chuck and Sarah froze in shock.
"What the hell?!" Chuck was astounded.
"Come on!" Sarah yelled, pulling him towards their car. They quickly got in and took off, the fans sprinting after them and calling their names.
"How the hell did they know we were here?" Chuck asked in complete bewilderment.
Sarah pulled over near a newsstand. "That's why," she said.
She pointed at a copy of the newspaper. Splashed across the front was the headline Charah Räddar Dagen (Charah Saves the Day), complete with a picture of them dancing at the hotel.
"I don't believe it!" Chuck said in exasperation. "How did anybody figure out we did that?"
"CHUCK OCH SARAH!"
Chuck and Sarah bolted up in the car. They looked back to find a throng of screaming fans heading their way. Sarah quickly put the car in gear and high-tailed it out of the city.
"Staying out of the spotlight will be almost impossible," Sarah said, shaking her head. "I know we're famous, but I didn't know we were THAT famous."
"Well, look on the bright side," Chuck said.
"What's that?"
"We're officially The Beatles."
Sarah glanced over to see the big grin on Chuck's face and couldn't help breaking up in hysterics.
Unknown Location
May 13, 2016
9:30 PM
A CIA agent sat in a darkened room, her wrists and ankles shackled. She put out the code 7700 just in the nick of time; she was captured two minutes later. But she was not optimistic. Beyond the mere fact putting out that code only resulted in a rescue 10% of the time on a good day, she was one of the agency's most hated agents. A number of her colleagues…not that any of them would ever consider her to be one…lost their jobs or were sent to desk duty based on her recommendations.
Alex Forrest shook her head. She didn't expect this to happen on her first mission since returning to the field. After what happened with Walker's team, she finally realized her past had too often clouded her judgement in her assessment of other agents and knew she had to return to actual field work. She abhorred agents showing any sort of closeness to assets, and Walker broke pretty much every rule in the book regarding Chuck Bartowski. But thankfully they stuck to their guns, and it saved her life. The little clue Jimmy Slade dropped to get Vincent away from her so he could take him out would only have worked with a team that trusted each other implicitly. John Casey was right: Sarah Walker was a good leader.
That very trust might have kept her out of the very situation she was in now.
The door opened and someone entered. Rigoberto Salazar was a fence for Basque separatists who provided them with weapons and personnel, but providing information was his specialty. Forrest had put herself in position to sell a list of covert agents working in countries in the EU in order to steal any data she could on Salazar or his clients, but Salazar thought it would be less expensive to just kidnap her.
"Good news," Salazar said. "We found the disc in your hotel room. We're going through the encryption now. If everything pans out, I promise we'll kill you fast. If the data isn't there, your death will take a bit more time. And you might be the victim of a few 'violations' before you die."
"I'll save you the trouble," Forrest spat at him. "There's nothing on that disc. And don't think you'll get a chance to lay a finger on me."
"Then I guess we'll have to settle for everything you do know," Salazar retorted with a sleazy grin, ignoring Forrest's threat. "We'll need the tools for this." Salazar turned and walked towards a closet behind him. He opened the door.
A figure swung down from above the door frame, planting their feet right into Salazar's chest, sending him flying across the room, and knocking him out completely. Forrest stared in wide-eyed shock at the person in front of her.
"You have no idea how glad I am you don't hold a grudge," she said in amazement.
"I really wish I was rescuing someone else right now," Jimmy said, not exactly in the greatest of moods. "I was doing something important when your call came in."
He went behind Forrest and cut off her wrist and ankle cuffs. "Let's get out of here," she said.
"Wait, why were you here anyway?" Jimmy asked.
"I was supposed to get whatever intel I could on Salazar and his clients by selling them a disc of agents, but they decided capturing me was cheaper."
"Do you know where the stuff is?"
"Two rooms down the hall if I was right about the layout of this place."
Jimmy went back to the closet he came out of and leaped up to pull down a duffel bag. He took out a Glock 17 and handed it to Forrest. He then pulled out two for himself and slung the bag over his shoulder.
"Let's finish the job, then," he said.
The two went down the hallway to the room where Forrest thought the information was. Sure enough, they entered to find a laptop computer and a series of documents on a table. Forrest grabbed a backpack underneath the desk and shoved the laptop and documents into it.
They then turned to see a half-dozen of Salazar's men in front of them.
"Aren't you on that TV show?" one of them asked Jimmy in total surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Jimmy straightened to his full height. "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass."
"And he's all out of bubble gum," Forrest added.
Jimmy's eyes widened. "You knew that one?" he whispered to her.
"Rowdy Roddy Piper, They Live," Forrest whispered back. "I loved that movie."
Jimmy shook his head. "Serious nerd cred," he said to himself.
One of Salazar's men tried to draw their gun and Jimmy dove, opening fire at them. They ducked to the ground as Forrest got behind the desk and also began shooting. Two of Salazar's men took hits and fell but the other four started to get the upper hand with their weapons as Jimmy and Forrest started running out of ammunition.
Jimmy pulled out a flash grenade from his bag. "Fire in the hole!" he yelled at Forrest.
Forrest ducked down completely and covered her eyes as Jimmy threw the flash grenade at the remaining men. It went off, blinding two of the men, but the other two managed to avoid also being blinded. Jimmy charged at the group, using his Glocks to pistol-whip the two blinded thugs. One of the two remaining ones sent a hard kick across Jimmy's face, knocking him back. He turned back towards the desk…just in time to receive a kick across his face from Forrest, who was standing directly behind him. The last man tried to aim his gun at Forrest, but she spun to knock it out of his hands, and Jimmy finished him off with a roundhouse.
Jimmy and Forrest grabbed their weapons and Salazar's information and dashed out of the room. They ran right into an extremely pissed-off Salazar, who was now brandishing a shotgun.
"Move it," he growled. A half-dozen more of Salazar's men were behind them with their weapons trained on the pair. One of them took their weapons and the two bags. Salazar led them back to the room where Forrest had been tied up earlier.
"OK, we're going to try this again," Salazar said in barely-contained fury, grabbing the table of tools he attempted to get earlier. "You will tell us every last thing you know. Especially you, Mr. Slade. Or is it Agent Slade? You not only play an agent on TV but are one in real life?"
"Who do you think I am, Sy Sperling?" Jimmy asked in disbelief.
"Enough with the one-liners," Salazar growled. He put down the shotgun and started rummaging through the tools to see which one to use to begin the torture.
"I'm really sorry about this," Forrest whispered to Jimmy. "About everything."
"Not a problem," Jimmy whispered back. "We just have to do the Time Warp."
"The Time Warp? What does Prince have to do with this?"
"That's Morris Day and The Time. The Time Warp? Brad and Janet?"
Forrest figured it out. "Oh, I remember now. It's just a jump to the left…"
Forrest's eyes widened and she quickly jumped to her left. Jimmy pressed a button on his watch as he dove. The ceiling above them exploded, and several guns fell to the floor in front of them. Jimmy grabbed two pistols, rolled onto his back, and emptied both clips at Salazar's men, taking all of them out. Forrest grabbed the other gun and pointed it directly at Salazar.
"Now what were you saying about giving me a slow death?" Forrest growled at Salazar.
He gave an evil grin and reached for the rifle. Forrest pulled the trigger, nailing him right between the eyes.
Jimmy watched as Forrest tucked the gun behind her back. "I just have to say it. Being a total bitch really looks good on you."
Forrest nodded. "I need to learn how to bring it out at the right times."
"I'd say just now would qualify."
"True," Forrest said with a smile as she reached out with her hand to pull Jimmy to his feet. "I don't know what I did in this life to deserve defying the odds of a fellow agent rescuing me, but I'm really glad it was you."
Jimmy shrugged as they walked down the hall to retrieve Forrest's mobile phone and belongings. "I don't know. I just get this sense that I…" he let the sentence trail off.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing. It's not important," Jimmy replied in a highly-subdued voice.
"No, something's bothering you…"
Forrest's smartphone began to beep. She took a look at the message on it. Her face then went completely pale. She staggered a bit and held onto the table to stop herself from falling.
"I…I need…can I have your car keys?" she asked in an almost ghostlike tone.
Jimmy handed them to her. "It's a blue sedan parked a hundred yards south of the building. Is everything OK?"
"I…I need to go." She handed the laptop to Jimmy. "Bring this back to the CIA. I'll find you soon."
She ran out of the room, leaving Jimmy completely stunned. He thought he saw a few tears in her eyes as she ran off.
MI-6 Headquarters – London, UK
May 13, 2016
2:30 PM BST
It took almost a week to set up the plans with the British Navy. They got the Prime Minister and the head of MI-6 to approve the plan to smoke out the Azure Wind. Carina's idea was simplicity itself. The British Navy would leak information of a munitions depot in Astara, just inside the Iranian border. However, leveling the depot could lead to heavy civilian loss if the missile strike from the Caspian Sea was off-target. MI-6 would set agents in the field along the road from Lankaran to the border. They figured the Azure Wind would either take out the munitions dump herself or paint the target so the missiles would have almost zero chance of missing. They would then take the Azure Wind into their custody.
"When are we scheduling this 'missile strike'?" Carina asked.
"Seven days," Amir replied. "We want to make sure everybody has plenty of time to get into position. We give the Azure Wind enough time, and she can be more cautious with her setup."
"Exactly," Cole concurred. "We don't want her panicking. She becomes too much of a wild card and we could get her and our agents killed."
"Have we kept the D.C. in the loop on this?" Carina asked.
"That'll be your job. Actually, this would be a good time to get your friends involved. We could certainly use some of the CIA's best agents for this."
Carina nodded. "I can forward what we have and what we plan to John Casey. But Sarah's off somewhere with Chuck Bartowski. It'd take me time to track them down."
"What about Jimmy Slade?"
"I don't know." Carina's look turned to worry. "I've tried calling him three times in the last three days, but I've gotten nothing. That's very unusual. I really hope nothing has happened to him."
That got Cole's attention. "We should let Casey know. Something is definitely not right. Maybe cancelling the show hit him harder than anyone thought."
"Yeah," Carina said in a much softer voice. She hadn't thought of it before now, but she suddenly remembered what Jimmy said to her before they went to rescue Cole. He said he couldn't let her risk her life because without the team, he had nothing. And now there was no team.
"Grace, gather everything you have and link up to our servers," Carina said. "I'll tell Casey to keep an eye out for your data and get him to put out a search for Jimmy."
Rue Vieille du Temple – Paris, France
May 10, 2016
8:30 PM CEST
Chuck and Sarah tried to keep a low profile as they walked down the street. Both of them wore baseball caps and nondescript clothing and were careful to not look up and be caught on any surveillance cameras.
It took almost an entire day to get from Stockholm to Paris, but driving was their only option. Flying may have been faster, but they didn't have enough money to charter their own plane and they would spend too much time with people that might recognize them with no means of escape if they flew commercially. Of course, driving to one of the most highly-populated cities in Europe…a city where the show also happened to be incredibly popular…would seem like an idiotic idea. However, Sarah had a few contacts in this town from her pre-Spy Girl days, and she would need their help if they were to stay one step ahead of everybody.
"Want to get some coffee?" Chuck asked her, gesturing to a café a few feet in front of them.
"Mmm, that sounds good," Sarah replied.
They entered the café hand-in-hand and placed their orders. As they waited, Chuck turned to Sarah and took her in his arms.
"So, how do you feel tonight?" he asked, to which she raised an eyebrow. "I mean, apart from this 'instantly recognizable' problem we seem to be having," he added with a grin.
"Still loving every minute of it," she replied, caressing his cheek. "I'm so glad we're together." She pulled him to her and gave him a kiss.
"Me, too. And we'll figure this out somehow. We're two very smart people. One way or another, we can make this work."
"No more heroics, though. Right?" she said, placing a cautionary finger in Chuck's face, although her grin belied the threat.
"No more heroics."
They grabbed their coffees and paid the barista. They began to walk out of the café when Chuck spotted two men sitting at a table with pastries in front of them but otherwise not talking. He started to flash, seeing images of skyscrapers, explosions, and kill orders written in Arabic.
"Chuck?" Sarah asked with considerable fear at seeing him flash.
"Uh, is there a way we can stop those two men over there from blowing something up without using heroics?"
"Who are they?"
"Part of a terror cell based out of Syria."
Chuck and Sarah walked past them slowly, pretending they weren't paying attention to them. Sarah used Chuck as a shield to hide her looking at the men's clothing.
"Both of them are wearing vests," she whispered. "We need to get the police here. But how do we go back to the barista without raising suspicions?"
Chuck looked around and had an idea. He took a sip of his coffee and spit it out. He walked back to the barista looking extremely upset.
"Vous mettez trop de sucre dans ce (You put too much sugar in this)!" he said to the barista.
"Je suis désolé monsieur (I am sorry, sir)," the barista replied.
Chuck looked back at Sarah, who had taken out her knife and was hiding it underneath her sleeve.
"Appelez la police dès maintenant (Call the police right now)," he whispered to the barista.
"Porquoi (Why)?"
"Vous êtes sur le point de savoir (You're about to find out)," Chuck replied.
He turned to see Sarah walk towards the two terrorists. She then executed a perfect pratfall, using the knife to cut the jacket of one of the men. He was wearing a vest of explosives underneath.
The man rose in anger, but Sarah jumped up and landed a spinning kick on him. The man's partner tried to attack, but Chuck flashed on his combat program and went after him, leapfrogging over a table to land a chop at the man's throat. The man took out a knife and tried to lunge at him, but he spun, grabbed the man's arm, and flipped him to the ground. The man Sarah took out stirred and grabbed a detonator attached to his vest, but Sarah dove for him, grabbing the detonator and elbowing him in the face to knock him out. Sarah started to get up.
"Don't let go of that!" Chuck said, having had a very quick flash on the device. "That's a dead man's switch. You release it, and it sets off the bomb."
"Can you defuse it?" Sarah asked.
Chuck ran behind the counter and grabbed a very sharp knife. He kneeled down and felt underneath for a wire hidden along the shoulder of the unconscious terrorist. He cut the wire using the knife.
"It's safe now," Chuck exhaled in relief. Sarah dropped the detonator on the man and took Chuck's hand to get up. They walked towards the door.
Two more men outside readied a pair of assault rifles.
"CHACUN BAS (GET DOWN)!" Chuck screamed. He tackled Sarah to the ground as the other patrons and employees also hit the deck.
"Tout le monde derrière le comptoir (Everybody behind the counter)!" Sarah yelled.
The employees and patrons crawled behind the counter as they took refuge underneath the windows. The two men shattered the windows with their assault rifles, and glass rained down on Chuck and Sarah.
"What now?" Chuck asked.
"We better pray the police get here fast," Sarah said in a rush.
Chuck crawled a couple of steps back to see the approximate location of the shooters. He then had a flash. Various physics equations and measurements went through his mind.
"Sarah, can you reach that chair?" Chuck asked, pointing to the chair behind her.
Sarah lay on the ground and reached for the wooden chair, tipping it over and pulling it to her. "What now?"
"Hold the back of it."
Sarah held onto the back of the chair, and Chuck brought his heel down onto the legs of the chair.
"AAAAGH!" he screamed. "OK, I've seen ALL FOUR OF YOU do that on the show!"
Sarah huffed in frustration and grabbed the back of the chair, smashing the legs against the window frame. The legs splintered, and the two pulled them off.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Take one of the legs and crawl over by the door. When I tell you, fling it outside as far away as you can from those two."
Sarah grabbed one of the legs and slid along the floor to be next to the door. Chuck grabbed two other legs.
"Now!" Chuck shouted.
Sarah whipped the chair leg out the door. The two men instantly turned in that direction and continued firing. Chuck stood up and whipped the chair legs he had at the iron planters hanging across the street. The chair legs knocked them off of their posts and fell on the heads of the two men, knocking them out completely.
Sarah looked out at the two unconscious terrorists and then looked at Chuck in total astonishment. "That was…that was amazing," she said, her mouth agape. "How did you…"
Chuck shrugged and pointed to his head again. "This Intersect thing? It's kind of cool."
"That's an understatement if I ever heard one," Sarah said in appreciation, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a hard kiss.
They suddenly heard sirens filling the air. "I think they're playing our song," Chuck said.
"Yeah, we better quit while we're…alive."
"Time to make like a tree and get out of here."
"Isn't it 'make like a tree and leave'?"
"OK, we need to have a movie night sometime," Chuck said in frustration as the two ran out of the café and out of sight.
Ivy Hill Cemetery – Philadelphia, PA
May 16, 2016
12:00 PM EDT
Jimmy walked through the rows and rows of gravestones, the surrounding trees gently rustling in a cool breeze. He stopped behind one of those trees, careful not to make a sound, as he saw the small burial taking place just ahead of him. He didn't want anyone to know he was there; he wanted to respect their privacy.
He watched Forrest stand almost motionless, clutching what looked like a policeman's hat. It made sense, as he discovered her father was a Philadelphia Police officer for over thirty years. He had to chuckle at that: it explained so much about her. Standing next to her was a couple with two small children. That was likely her brother and his family.
Forrest placed her father's policeman's hat on top of his casket, and her brother put his hand over it before stepping back and pulling his wife and children into a tight embrace. His wife gave Forrest a hug, as did the two little girls. They then walked to their car. Forrest stayed behind and continued to stare at the casket.
Jimmy slowly approached her and waited patiently. She then turned when she felt someone watching her.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered in complete surprise.
Jimmy looked at the ground. "The way you left the other day, I was worried it was something really bad. I did not want to be right. Although your father being a cop probably shouldn't shock me, given what I've seen of you."
He gave a tiny smile. "Are you OK?" he asked softly.
Jimmy could see Forrest's guard go up. "I'm fine." He wasn't buying it. "Look, people go through this all the time, right?"
"And you were 'fine' when your mother died of breast cancer ten years ago but the CIA couldn't get you back for her funeral?"
"How the hell did you know…"
"I was…I was worried," Jimmy replied. "I did some homework on you. Including why you joined the CIA. I mean, I thought I didn't have it easy back then, but you…you lost your fiancé on 9/11."
"It's in the past," Forrest replied sharply, but Jimmy could see her hardened demeanor beginning to crack. "You're in the wrong business if you can't handle…I mean, bad things happen all the time…"
Jimmy pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. She broke down in tears and held on to him as for the first time since joining the CIA, her emotions had completely overwhelmed her. Her life had been positively idyllic until the day her fiancé was killed in the Pentagon. She was two months away from graduating from Quantico on a fast track to being one of the FBI's best agents. And in that moment, that plane crash that severely damaged the E Ring of the Pentagon and killed her fiancé and twenty-nine others, her world was torn apart. She never recovered from that, and the CIA turned that borderline-suicidal woman into an emotionless killing machine who had no tolerance for agents that strayed one chapter from the manual.
"Goddammit," she wailed as she buried her face in Jimmy's shoulder, unable to stop crying. "I can't believe I'm doing this. And in front of you, no less. God, I hope nobody else finds out."
Jimmy hugged her more tightly. "If I couldn't keep a secret, I'd really suck at my job."
Forrest gave a gentle laugh snuggled closer. "You are really good at this. It's like…um…"
"Like hugging a big teddy bear?" Forrest nodded. "Yeah, Sarah and Carina have told me that before."
Forrest looked up at him. "Not Casey?" she said with the tiniest hint of a smile.
"Nah. If we get through the day without killing each other, then it was a good one."
She wiped her tears away. "I feel like complete shit for what I put your team through. I just never realized how much losing John on 9/11 had affected me. It colored every assessment I ever made against other agents. I…I can't seem to forget my past."
Jimmy leaned back against the tree and looked out over the cemetery. "I think I'm the last person who can tell anybody to forget their past. I don't know…just try to make yourself happy, I guess. I mean, your parents probably worked hard and made a lot of sacrifices so that you would grow up to be a good person. And I have to believe John would want you to be happy now."
He then froze as he made a startling realization. "I'm starting to think there might be something to believing in fate."
"What do you mean?" Forrest asked him.
"I…"
Jimmy was interrupted by a beep on his phone. He listened to the message on his voicemail. He then hung up and stared at his smartphone.
"I…I have to return to L.A."
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure. But are you OK to drive home?"
Forrest nodded. "I'm staying at my brother's house. We have to go through my dad's things."
"I'll talk to you soon."
Jimmy took off for his car. He hoped he was only being paranoid. But why would Morgan leave him a voicemail?
National Security Agency – Fort Meade, MD
May 14, 2016
11:00 AM EDT
Casey patiently waited for the NSA techs to finish the download coming in from MI-6. Carina had called a couple of hours ago. She outlined the plan to entice the Azure Wind into attempting to go after the munitions depot inside the Iranian border and discussed the best way to implant agents in the area to intercept her. Casey had briefed Beckman regarding the Brits' plan, and she authorized Casey to lend any support they needed. Right now, however, he was interested in studying the intel British Intelligence had, especially since they had far more than what he had seen so far.
He took a seat at the computer and started to look at the images. Most of them were high-resolution satellite images from various countries. Based on the clothing the Azure Wind was wearing, Casey quickly figured out this was a female who was causing all of this damage. It was a smart strategy: women were suspected less when it came to suicide missions or sabotage such as what this woman was doing. However, none of the images had a clear picture of her face.
He then clicked on the mouse to look on the fourteenth image.
This image was taken from a security camera on the streets of Kabul. It was the closest shot of the Azure Wind he had seen thus far. He quickly ordered the tech to zoom in on the woman and clean up the image. The tech opened the image in photo-editing software and programmed it to clean up and sharpen the image.
"That's the best we can do with it," the tech said after fifteen minutes. He put the retouched image back on the large monitor. He then zoomed in and programmed the computer to repaint the image at maximum resolution. Casey took a good long look at the image. He stared at the woman's eyes.
His breath then caught in his throat.
"Ilsa?"