Sometimes it hurts so badly
I must cry out loud
I am lonely
I am yours, you are mine,
You are what you are
You make it hard
Remember what we've said
And done and felt about each other
Oh, babe, have mercy
Don't let the past remind us
Of what we are not now
"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"
Crosby, Stills, and Nash
May 19, 2036
Cairo, Egypt
Stephen's gut instinct was to put himself between Cozette and any potential threat, however futile the action may or may not prove to be. He shifted, turning, pushing her against the wall as his grip on her arm relaxed.
"Del," she sighed in relief. From the angle she stood, she had a better vantage point up the stairs.
Stephen leaned forward, craning his neck to see what she saw. It was Del, on the stairs, with five GIS members in full tactical gear. "What happened to one minute, forty seconds?" Stephen quipped as he moved to the side to let the new arrivals move downward.
"That was them. I never told you I was already moving," he replied as casually as if he had been describing his breakfast.
"You're all heart, Del," Cozette said through gritted teeth, trying to smile through her pain.
"The intel was obviously inaccurate. No one would have sent you in there against 29 hostiles," he said as they emerged from the stairs back into the room, the floor now littered with bodies.
"What about the other ten downstairs?" Stephen asked as he held Cozette's hands while she crouched to sit. One of the team members lowered his weapon and reached for his medkit. He moved towards her to treat her bleeding wound.
"There was another entrance. Their little multiplying act gave it away. GIS went in that way," Del explained. He paused dramatically, tilting his head like he was listening. Two seconds later, they heard the staccato rhythm of multiple guns being fired at once. "And the GIS took them down."
"Mission accomplished then?" Stephen asked him.
"Part one, anyway," Del replied. "If we are going to figure out why Temhota stole the mummy, which is part two, we'd better move fast. Once the Egyptian authorities get a hold of this, it will be all over Al Jazeera and CNN and every other news outlet in the world. Access is as good as it's gonna get right now."
"Are you ok?" Stephen asked as he turned to Cozette. "Is she ok?" he repeated to the man bandaging her arm.
She thanked her medic and pulled herself to stand. "Yes. Let's go," she said, passing both men to reach the top of the third flight of stairs. Del and Stephen followed, shrugging simultaneously at each other in the process.
The third anteroom was the largest, with a ceiling that towered above them where they stood. The secondary egress route was obvious visually, a hole in the stone wall. The air in the room was fresher, indicating access to the surface more closely than where they had come from. There were several bodies on the ground and another handful of GIS operatives milling about. The enormous gray cement casing visible on lidar was there in the center of the room like an altar.
There were two men attempting to slide the lid back. They murmured something in Arabic to both he and Del. Stephen didn't understand Arabic, one of just a handful of languages of which he understood no words. Del moved up, grabbing one edge of the lid and started pushing. Assistance, Stephen thought. They were asking for help lifting. He rushed beside Del and offered his strength to the group effort. He strained until his face was red and he was sweating, but eventually the lid started to move.
It made a grinding sound, stone on stone, as they made slow progress. The lid was half way off, at a 45 degree angle, when they paused. There was another loud conversation in Arabic, one man stopping to tell them in English, "It is Nefertiti. You have done a great service for Egypt today."
Stephen wasn't accustomed to praise in the field, but he took it in stride, nodding his head once, mimicking the motions Del made. Subtly, Del gave the sign for Stephen to scan. The cement had blocked their technology, but with the lid askew, their devices could penetrate. In order to not draw undue attention to his actions, Stephen couldn't watch what his scans were detecting. He just made sure he stayed close and took scans from varied angles. Twenty-five minutes of scanning seemed sufficient, so he concluded the task.
By the time Stephen had finished, the amount of GIS officers in the room had doubled. There was also representation by local law enforcement. Routine site processing and subsequent debriefings usually took several hours, however, this one was rather extended. Part of the delay was finding translators with enough security clearance to work the scene. It was early morning of the next day by the time the team went back to their van.
May 20, 2036
Cairo, Egypt
"This is the X-ray of the mummy taken by the British Museum at the start of the exhibit in 2032. It was the only manipulation of the mummy the Egyptians allowed outside of Egypt," Stephen said as he worked at the computer in the van. He pressed a few buttons on the keyboard. "This is what I just scanned."
The images on the computer screen changed. The basic anatomy was the same, and seemed to only flicker as he changed views. However, even to an untrained eye, the views were not identical. "This is definitely Nefertiti. But what is that?" Stephen asked as he pointed to a small rectangular object that looked to be suspended above the mummy's clavicle in the new image.
"It was clean in England," Del explained. "Customs doesn't screen exhibits like that, which would have been an ideal way to smuggle something in. But they didn't."
"Someone was trying to smuggle something out," Cozette said. She pointed to the mystery object. "Only someone stole the whole mummy before it was due to go back through customs."
"Stepanov stole the mummy," Stephen replied. "We know that. This op proved that."
"The CIA had intel that seemed to indicate another party paid Stepanov to steal it," Del reminded them.
"That's what I thought. But look at this," Stephen said, as the view on the screen changed again. It was a much closer, much more detailed diagram of the foreign object detectable in the first scan they had reviewed. "What does that remind you of?" Stephen asked.
"It looks like a microchip," Cozette said. Del nodded in agreement. Stephen smiled and winked very slightly.
"Yes. And," he said, pointing to a specific part of the diagram, "it's CIA design."
"Damn it, kid, you're right," Del said, not disguising the wonder in his voice. It was a very subtle feature he noticed, and a manufacturing stamp almost indistinguishable from the general circuitry. "Was that a flash?" he asked.
"Yes, but that's not important," Stephen replied quickly. "Why all this? This underground fortress, all these guards…" Stephen shook his head. "This thing has been down here for four years, minus the transport time it took to smuggle it back here and the construction required to house it. Who would have paid them to not just steal it…but hold it?"
"You think they stole it for themselves," Cozette said, recognizing her fiance's tone of voice.
"I'm certain of it," Stephen replied. "But something is missing here. We need to scan that chip, find out what information the CIA was trying to pass into Egypt. Once we know that, I think we'll have a better idea as to why Temhota still has this base with the mummy here."
"It hasn't even been eight hours and already Oxford University sent a team of archeologists. Egypt's foreign minister's face and voice are on every channel of news in the world. How are we even going to get within ten feet of the mummy? Let alone extract a microchip from said mummy?" Del asked bluntly.
"Come on, Del," Stephen said, smiling widely. "This is me." It was a joke, not an arrogant comment. Del still rolled his eyes. "We're just waiting for nightfall."
May 20, 2036
Burbank, California
Sarah jumped when the phone rang. Her heart only pounded harder when she saw that it was Casey calling. He never gave her the chance to speak after she answered the phone.
"We have confirmation on the ground. Definite activity at the cabin. Problem is whatever he's doing with the computer there is blocking almost every advanced type of surveillance we have at our disposal," Casey sighed.
That was only to be expected, Sarah thought. Chuck's father had hid in the cabin for years, impervious to the CIA and NSA and bad actors alike. "If you know that he's there, why can't you just send a team to retrieve him?" Sarah asked.
"It's like I told you, Sarah," Casey explained patiently and intensely. "I can't call attention to his status by sending anyone after him."
"What about us? Casey, what's stopping us from just driving out there?" Sarah asked him.
"He was running from us," Casey stressed. "I don't know what will happen when he's found, especially by us."
She felt a cold hand close around her heart. "Casey, you don't seriously think he would hurt us, do you?" she asked. All she heard on the other end of the phone was Casey breathing, and it became more labored as the silence stretched. "Do you?" she demanded to know.
When Casey finally replied, his voice was heavy. "I think we need to wait for your son."
It was an odd request, Sarah thought. "Casey? All that stuff on the news…that was them, wasn't it?" she asked, knowing full well he couldn't just tell her, based on her security clearance. His silence, and lack of denial, she took as proof. "He said three days, max," she repeated.
"Two more days…that sounds accurate, not counting travel time," Casey said tightly.
"Waiting seems the wrong thing to do, Casey," Sarah argued.
"Wait for Stephen, Sarah," Casey said gravely. His use of her first name spoke volumes to his frame of mind.
Her voice trembled when she asked, "Why, Casey?"
He was silent again for an uncomfortably long stretch. "Because the only thing that can defeat an Intersect…is another Intersect. Leonid Poshenko knew that a long time ago, and he was right."
"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked shrilly.
"Even from the rudimentary scans we were able to obtain, in just a little over a day, Chuck has managed to turn that cabin into a death trap. It's quadruple booby-trapped with explosives. And that's only what we can see." He was quiet again. Sarah's breath was ragged enough to fill the silence.
Casey's voice broke when he attempted to elaborate. He started again. "He ran because he was afraid he would hurt us…you. The time that's elapsed between now and then may have been the final break. Whatever he called it, Stephen knew what it was. Chuck's father's engram prevented the program from taking over all these years. I don't think he has access to his father's voice or thoughts any more."
Weeping, Sarah asked, "What if he blows himself up before Stephen can get there?" Anger mixed with hopelessness. "How can you just leave him there, alone?" she growled.
"I wouldn't, Sarah, and I am not," Casey said vehemently. "I'm two hours away from Bishop."
"Casey!" she screamed into the phone, furious that he had left without her, that he called with enough of a delay that her following was moot.
"Please, just wait for your son," Casey pleaded. "That's all I'm asking." Sarah could hear his battle to stay composed as he continued. "I owe your husband my life a thousand times over…in more than just one way. I'm going to try to appeal to that. But I know one thing. He would never forgive himself if he hurt you in any way. And he would never forgive me…if I let him."
The line went dead.
It took almost a full five minutes before she was composed again, enough that she could speak coherently. It went against everything she knew was right, against her better judgment, but she was desperate. She called her son…in the middle of his mission.
May 20, 2036
Cairo, Egypt
Stephen hung up the phone.
"Oh my god…what?" Cozette asked as she saw his affect, pale and shaking. He sat on the edge of the bed in the hotel room, and she was sure he was sitting because his legs were about to give out.
"My father," Stephen whispered. "It's worse than what we thought. He was actually worse before we left. My mother just…didn't want to worry me."
"What happened?" she asked softly as she sat beside him, resting her hand on his knee.
He answered her slowly, stammering over the words like he was in shock. "He lost control…of the implant. My grandfather's imprint…isn't accessible any longer." He sobbed, then growled as he steeled himself. "He's barricaded himself inside my grandfather's cabin. Casey told her to wait for me. Damn it, Zette, we're two days away…if everything goes right!"
"Look, if you need to go, you need to go," Del said plainly.
"I'm not abandoning my team mid-mission," Stephen snapped back. He chuckled humorlessly. "How the hell did my parents do this? My dad told me about it sometimes…the Buy More and my Aunt Ellie and my Uncle Morgan…how he could be dealing with a life and death situation in his spy life and still be dealing with problems in his regular life. I just…don't think I ever had anything like this happen to me before."
"I think it got a whole lot more complicated when your regular life became part of your spy life," Cozette explained. "My dad always told me that. It was why he left the DGSE…and later, why he disappeared."
He huffed out his breath in one sharp, determined puff. "We finish this. Tonight. Come hell or high water. Then we are all, and I mean all, Del, going back to California," Stephen said intently.
"Fine," Del replied in a clipped voice. "But we are all chronically sleep-deprived. Three hours of shut eye. And I mean all, Stephen. No computer work. Sleep. We'll have an hour to prep, and by then it will be dark enough to move."
I wish I'd slept before, he cursed himself. He had no idea how he was going to fall asleep, when he felt the entire weight of the world was on his shoulders.
Or more precisely, the weight of his mother's world.
He loved his father, and both Cozette and Del were fully aware of how important Stephen's family was to him. But everyone who knew them knew how close Sarah and Chuck were. If his father's condition had deteriorated to the point where General Casey feared for his mother's life, at the hands of his father, then it was worse than anyone could possibly know. It could be so bad that his plan wasn't good enough, Stephen had been thinking.
His mother had known, and had no qualms about being brutally honest. It was possible that Casey would be forced to eliminate Chuck before he caused serious damage. It was almost impossible to comprehend…how someone as close as John Casey had been to their family could do something like that.
Until he realized the alternative. Then it made all the sense in the world. It was a promise on the most basic of levels, something beyond spoken word. Nothing mattered to his father more than his mother, even, and most especially, his own life.