A/N: What if ownership of Chuck was set to music? Just a thought. 🎵

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The team, augmented by Brown and Yuri, was sitting in the comfortable living room of a huge old apartment on a quiet residential street on the Buda side of the river. The ceilings were ten feet tall and rimmed with intricate molding. Sarah thought it likely that the solid gray stone building had been built before the turn of the prior century. Brown had made tea and coffee for them, insisting that he was the host and they were his guests in Budapest. He had been warned not to ask any identifying questions about Yuri and Yuri had been admonished not to volunteer any information. Brown did not need to know that the CIA had an asset inside the Volkoff organization. After a few hours sleep and a few hours of research, Chuck, open computer on his lap, was beginning to brief them on their target.

"Selenica is an ethnic Kosovo Albanian. He was born in 1971 in the city of Istog in the Kosovo region of Serbia, which was part of the country of Yugoslavia at the time. An only child."

Brown raised a hand, "How are Kosovo Albanians different than Albanians?"

"Albania is a country filled with Albanians. Kosovo is a region of Serbia also filled with Albanians. Not citizens of the country of Albania, but ethnic Albanians, who, for example, speak Albanian. In fact, as a percentage of population, there are more Albanians in Kosovo than in Albania itself," explained Chuck. "Selenica was nine when Tito died and the Federal authority inside Yugoslavia started to crumble. By the time he was twenty, he was enrolled in the University of Pristina studying law. As a teenager, he had managed to avoid the rising ethnic tensions between Serbs and the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. His father was a low-level civil servant in the local building department. His mother was a homemaker. Neither seemed to have been interested in politics, even in 1989 when a state of emergency was declared by Belgrade, ostensibly to protect the ethnic Serbs in Kosovo."

"Too little, too late," said Yuri. Brown looked at him surprised. Yuri explained, "I'm Russian. We tend to see these events from the Serbian side of the argument. They were struggling to keep their country together. It obviously didn't work out for them."

"Yuri, I'm doing my best not to take a side here. Just to recite the facts as we know them. I know Russia...Russians don't view these things the same way the West does and I'm really trying to be sensitive to that," said Chuck.

Yuri raised a hand in acknowledgment, "I understand, Chuck. I'll try not to interrupt too often." He smiled a little as he said it though. He was certain he'd be interrupting again.

Chuck continued, "Anyway, by 1991 the Kosovo Albanians had …" with a glance at Yuri, "illegally ...declared independence from Yugoslavia. A number of Albanian lecturers at the University were dismissed for breaking Yugoslav law and replaced with ethnic Serbs. The University shut down and a parallel education system formed for the Albania students, mirroring other parallel institutions formed following the declaration of independence. Selenica left school and returned home to Istog. The economy sucked and he couldn't get a job. Like many civil servants, sometime in 1993, his father was dismissed from his job and replaced with a Serb. It seems the father began to drink.

"Selenica still mostly stayed out of politics. The turning point came in 1994 when his mother was killed by a Serb policeman in what was officially described as an attempted assault on the cop. I'm sure there's more to that story, but that's what I can find in the files. His father committed suicide less than a year later.

"Selenica drops off the radar at that point. We next find him as part of the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army. It's likely that he went to the Albanian military for training, but there's no record of it."

"Naw. Probably the BND," said Casey.

"Who?" asked Chuck.

"BND. The German Secret Service. They were busy training up the KLA guys in the beginning," said Casey, with his trademark deep growl. Yuri and Brown both looked surprised.

"Oh. I didn't know that," said Chuck. "Anyway, ostensibly the KLA formed to resist the Serb oppression..."

"The legitimate government of Yugoslavia," said Yuri with a little smile.

"True enough, I guess. The government forces. But a higher goal of the KLA, at least for some of its members, seems to have been the creation of a Greater Albania. Uniting ethnic Albanians in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece and Macedonia.

"In 1996, Selenica was involved with the first action seen by the KLA when they began attacks on the Serb police in Kosovo. They were, predictably, seen by the government forces as terrorists, but even the NATO forces agreed that they were attempting to drive the native Serbs out of Kosovo."

"Yes," said Yuri. "Exactly."

"Selenica disappears from the record for a couple of years. It is likely that he was fighting in various engagements, but we have no specific information about his activities. He reappears in 1998 at the Lapušnik prison camp. A number of Serb civilians were killed at the camp and it is for these deaths that Selenica is eventually indicted by the ICTY."

"The KLA specialized in the rape and murder of unarmed Serb civilians," said Yuri. "They were cowards and terrorists, not soldiers."

"Be that as it may, Selenica once again drops off the radar of NATO intelligence services for a few years before the trouble four years ago at Prizren. In the meantime, NATO intervenes on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians, bombs Belgrade and installs KFOR into Kosovo to keep the peace. The violence at Prizren happened pretty much as Yuri told us. Rioters torched houses and burned a Seminary with elderly Serbs inside in a further effort to drive Serbs out of Kosovo. One of the old men was killed. KFOR sat on its hands. The West had no idea where Selenica was after that, but the best guess was Albania. Turns out, he was here in Hungary, probably protected by the IH. Unfortunately for Selenica, he was spotted by Yuri last night and, through Yuri, came to our attention."

"We have anything else, Chuck? Known associates? Girlfriends? Anything like that?" asked Sarah.

"No. Nothing in the files," said Chuck. "Casey, you want to pick up from here?"

"Sure, kid." said Casey. "I called a guy I used to know who fought with the KLA in the 90's. He's hung up his gun and is now a politician of all things. With the NATO intervention and the involvement of KFOR came a UN set up for provisional government in Kosovo. My friend was elected to the Kosovo assembly as part of their most recent election. I asked him about Selenica. He didn't have a single nice thing to say about the guy. Kosovo is on the verge of voting for independence from Serbia..."

Yuri mumbled, "Illegally."

Ignoring Yuri's interruption, Casey continued, "...and Selenica thinks that should be merely a first step to a Greater Albania. In particular, he wants to unite with the Albanians in Macedonia. It's his position that merely settling for independence for Kosovo is a betrayal of Albanians elsewhere. He doesn't give a shit that most of the Kosovo Albanians just want to get on with their lives and live in peace...join the EU...buy a color TV...you know, the normal shit. The guy I know said that the last time some of his old KLA comrades had seen Selenica, he had screamed at them and called them cowards. In return, they had threatened to turn him over to the authorities to head to trial at the Hague. Seems there's no love lost there."

"Right, Casey. Thanks," said Chuck. "And now we know he wants to blow up something in Serbia next month. Single-handedly re-ignite the war, if he and his crew can."

"So we stop the asshole," said Casey.

"Yeah, Casey. We do," said Chuck.

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Dren Selenica sat in a quiet booth in his local bar and sipped a beer while appearing to study his tablet computer on the table in front of him. He was looking at it, but not really seeing it or the words it displayed. It was just a prop to fix his gaze upon while his mind was elsewhere.

He was in a pretty foul mood. He thought of himself as a veteran soldier. He had been in countless skirmishes with the Serbs. Had killed many men, and, truth be told, some Serb women too. He had beaten men twice his size. People were afraid of him, and for good reason. He had proven himself over and over again in dangerous situations. For a few years now, the Serbs called him the Butcher of Prizren. It was a particularly dramatic appellation to strike fear into Serb hearts. He was proud of himself and the reputation he had worked so hard to create over the last twenty years or so.

And he had been robbed in a simple street crime. Three men had knocked him out and taken his valuables and left him lying on his grass like any civilian idiot in the city. It was humiliating. He should have been so much harder to attack. He should have sensed a man behind him before the blow struck. He had seen the two men pass and paid attention to them, not by reason of paranoia, but merely wary as any urban dweller would be at the late hour on a quiet street. But the two men had been a distraction. It was a third man who, with ghostlike stealth, had struck him from behind like a coward. There was no other possibility, as the first two men had passed outside striking range when he had been hit. They were a talented team, he had to give them that modicum of credit. Of course, professional respect would only go so far. If he ever saw them again, he would kill them. It wasn't anger that motivated the desire for them to be dead by his hand. It was simply sensible that, after so many years of cultivating a reputation, he act decisively to preserve it. Of course, if the men had known who he really was, they would have stayed kilometers away from him and thanked their God that they hadn't picked him as a mark.

The act of the robbery itself was bad enough, but then he had to telephone his contact at the IH and report it. The man had advised him not to go to the police to file a report. All his identification was false and, although it was expertly prepared and supported, it made no sense to take any chances. Replacement credentials in the same name would be delivered to him sometime today, he had been assured. The IH man had feigned concern for him, but Selenica could sense an underlying disdain. There was a tiny twinge of humor in the man's voice at his expense and that was something that Selenica deeply resented.

He had no choice but to deal with the man however. Without the support of the IH, he'd have been on the dock in the Hague years ago. Probably serving a long prison sentence for those of his actions that the Western idiots considered "war crimes." Those fools were soft. They didn't understand the nature of the war he had been fighting. There was no distinction between civilian and soldier. They seemed to think that all dangerous Serbs wore uniforms or had penises. The world in which Selenica lived was not nearly that tidy and orderly. To avoid the results of those, in his mind, justifiable actions, he would have to rely on the IH man and his friends. They had provided him with a new name and identity in return for a continuous flow of information about the Kosovar Albanians. Other than his spy friends, the only people who knew he was Dren Selenica, the Butcher of Prizren, were his seven compatriots involved with him on his latest project.

His latest project. It was a brilliant plan, if he did say so himself. Once executed it would rally Albanians everywhere to rise up and unite. Macedonia would be first. The aborted Albanian uprising there a few years ago was only a taste of what would happen soon. When the bomb went off, all Albanians everywhere would understand the nature of the danger they faced. They would understand that only with a united homeland could they protect themselves and their loved ones. He had no particular love of the country of Israel, but he had a huge professional respect for the accomplishments of the Jewish people. They had realized after the Nazi's attempts to eradicate them that only with a homeland of their own could they truly be safe. The Albanians would soon realize the same thing. And he and his friends would be the instigators of that understanding. His actions would start the Albanian people on the road to a Greater Albania.

He was so caught up in his dreams of glory that it took him a moment to realize that someone was approaching his booth. He looked up at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, flawless skin, an athletic sexy body. She was looking at him squarely and seriously as she arrived at the table and slid into the booth.

Speaking in Hungarian, she said, calmly, "Jó napot, Dren. Azt hiszem, beszélnünk kell." [Good afternoon, Dren. I think we have to talk.]

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A/N2: There is a region in northern Greece called Macedonia. The southernmost state that formed from the break-up of Yugoslavia, located along the border with Greece, was also called Macedonia. Greece objected to the use of that name by its neighbor to the north. It wasn't until 2018 that the dispute over the name was resolved when the name of the new state was changed to North Macedonia. At the time this story is set, though, it was still just called Macedonia.

A/N3: The Lapušnik prison camp is real and a camp guard was sentenced by the ICTY to 13 years in prison for the crimes committed there against Serb civilians. The fictional Selenica was, obviously, not.

A/N4: Between February and August 2001 the ethnic violence convulsing the rest of the former Yugoslavia spilled over to Macedonia when the Macedonian Albanians staged an uprising. With international mediation and pressure the dispute was resolved relatively promptly and with only several dozen casualties in total.