NOTES: First of all, I have not abandoned the story, even if it's been five months since I updated. Real life issues are eating my time like Uncle Bernie at a buffet. But the story is continuing.
There is a TV Tropes trope called 'Ron the Death Eater'. It refers to rewriting a canon character to be radically different, out of character, usually more evil or more stupid, in a fanfic, to make a ship work or a plot happen. I dislike that trope intensely, but it occurs to me that I could be accused of using it in this story with regard to Langston Graham. So I thought I should briefly explain why I think it is reasonable to portray Graham as a big bad, in light of the canon.
In season one, we saw that Graham was ruthless. In the pilot, he was ready to have Sarah terminate Chuck if they could not control him, he gave her specific orders to murder Chuck if he tried to run or escape. Later, we saw that he recruited a young (probably 16 year old) 'Jenny Burton' into the CIA and groomed her as his personal 'wild card enforcer'. He was the person most likely to have assigned Sarah to murder Evelyn Shaw as her 'Red Test'. All through season one, it was made clear that the plan was to murder Chuck once they no longer needed him. Beckman appeared to be on the same page...but was she really?
Once Graham was gone, the implied threats changed. I don't recall Beckman ever threatening Chuck's life after season one. At times she threatened to bunkerize him, but only in extreme moments and with some reason, and bunkerization is a lot better than a bullet between the eyes. When he melted down at the start of season three, Chuck was worried about a hit, but Beckman did not. Later, Beckman often protected Chuck and Sarah and Casey and Morgan from the consequences of other people's threats or sometimes their own foolishness.
As soon as Graham was removed from the equation, everything seemed to change. So I don't think it is inconceivable that Graham was actually one of the bad guys all along.
Words and thoughts contained in / / are in Russian.
CHUCK vs. THE NO-WIN QUESTION Chapter 28: DARK DEALINGS 1
A secret location, Thursday, June 4th, 2020, 7:06 p.m. local time...
Langston Graham was nervous.
There were many things that could be truthfully said about Langston McCall Graham, and many of those truthful things were positive. Graham was intelligent, he was perceptive, and he was dedicated to his personal ideals, though those ideals were not what most of his former compatriots at the CIA would have espoused. Graham was neither a physical coward, nor an intellectual craven.
Yet right now Graham was nervous. Not frightened, per se, but nervous.
The reason for that nervousness was quite simple: he was about to interact with several of the most dangerous people on the face of the planet Earth. The fact that he himself was one of that same group did not make the others any the less dangerous. They were dangerous even to each other. Graham was dangerous to them as well, of course. Which was little comfort at the moment.
Graham adjusted his tie, and carefully tamped down his various tells with the efficiency of years of training and decades of experience. By the time he reached the meeting room, Graham was showing no signs of his internal conflicts.
Assembled in the meeting room were a number of individuals, all of whom were more or less the equivalent of Langston Graham in their own...organizations. Graham preferred to avoid the term 'conspiracy'. He considered it both needlessly melodramatic and semantically sloppy.
The door slid open, and Graham stepped through, into a dimly lit room with a large oval table in the center. The central part of the table was open, but twenty-five individuals sat around the table, with an empty seat waiting for Graham himself. The entire chamber was dimly lit, but the individuals in their chairs were in deeper shadow.
Very melodramatic, Graham mused to himself. This room looks like something out of a bad spy movie. But then again, the sitting in shadow thing is simple and it does work. I can't make out any of their features, the only ones I could identify are the ones who I already personally know. Which is fewer than a fourth of them.
Everyone in the room was there because they could be vouched for by someone else in the room, but none of them knew all of the others. Which was intentional.
Graham could not make out the facial features of any of the people at the table. He could dimly perceive enough, in some cases, to recognize whether the individuals were men or women. Most of them were men, but Graham knew of at least four women at the table, and he suspected five others of being female as well, though in some cases he could not be certain in the shadows. Even the height of the seats could be adjusted to conceal tell-tale indications.
Behind each chair was a door. Even this apparently ridiculous overengineering served a purpose, enabling the members of the Conclave to each enter separately, remaining in shadow as they did, to reach their seats. Graham himself entered through one of the twenty-six doors, walking in his own lane of shadow to his seat at the table.
As Graham approached his seat, he calmed himself, and sat down with no sign of his internal nervousness.
As the member who had called the meeting, it was Graham's role to chair it. He sat down, taking a sip of ice water from the glass in front of him as he did, and said, "The Conclave will come to order."
As if they weren't already in order, Graham mused. He took another sip of his water, noting in amusement that even the pitchers of ice water in front of each seat had been brought by their occupants. Better safe than sorry.
"I've asked you all to assemble because a problem has arisen," Graham said, "regarding Project Persephone."
For the first time since he entered the room, Graham saw that the attitudes of the shadow-figures had suddenly changed. Even in the dim light, Graham could recognize the change. A tension filled the room.
Good to know they aren't all robots, Graham thought with wry amusement. He tried to cling to that amusement as he explained their mutual problem, and what he suspected they needed to do to cope with it. Graham was fairly sure that his proposed solution was not going to be particularly popular.
Somewhere in Moscow, Russian Federation, June 4th, 2020, 9:40 p.m. local time...
Thomas Delgado had not been having what he would call a 'good day'.
Ever since the failed 'capture operation' against Carina Miller the day before, Delgado had been attempting to salvage something from the situation. He had all too little sleep in the previous twenty-four hours, and his efforts had been frustratingly short of results. Carina Miller remained at large, though Delgado remained personally convinced that she was somewhere in the general area of the Hotel Gagarin-Tolstoi.
Probably hiding in plain sight, the FULCRUM operative mused.
Likewise, the other CATs had apparently gone underground, though again, Delgado was sure they were not far away. Previously, they had been using Augusto Gaez and his blonde airhead floozy to 'tease' the CATs, drawing them in, but now Gaez and the blonde 'Amy' reported that they had had no success in locating any of them over the previous day.
To make matters worse, more and more agents were turning up in Moscow. Agents of national governments, of private interests, of criminal groups, all closing in on the trail of the EREBUS fungus that had been stolen by the Chinese intelligence service from the FULCRUM lab, and which the rogue Chinese agent had so recklessly put up for sale. The more agents appeared in Moscow, in turn, the more paranoid the Russian security organizations became. All of which made their own objectives that much harder.
It was a basic principle of tradecraft that the more different objectives were in play at the same time, the more difficult the operation became. It was much harder to pursue two goals than one, and it was incredibly tricky to pursue three or more. Unfortunately, circumstances left them no choice. FULCRUM needed to recover the weaponized fungus, of course, and neutralize anyone who knew much about it. They also had to make sure that their various enemies, and especially Carmichael Industries, did not learn the full scope of its purpose, or about Project Persephone. Shadowman was very specific that of all their opponents, it was especially critical to keep CI in the dark.
They had to do these things at the same time and while also concealing the full scope of FULCRUM's reemergence and activities from becoming well known in the intelligence world again.
All this was of course made the worse by the disastrous failed 'hit' on Roberts and Bartowski the day before.
The thought of those two sent a shiver of anger through Delgado. Most people who knew Tommy Delgado at all would have said that he was a cool customer. The people who knew him well (a very short list) would have said he was made of ice. Certainly, he rarely indulged emotional distractions in professional matters. Rarely. Almost never.
But those two...Delgado had deep personal reasons to hate them both. Completely separate reasons in each case, but when he had discovered that the mysterious Wild Card woman who was romantically associated with Bartowski was Roberts, his ice-cold self-control had come close to fracturing. The very idea that those two were together, either professionally or personally, on any level or to any degree, seemed like a taunt from the universe. The idea that the loathsome pair reportedly had a child together only added to the anger and resentment.
Hmmm...when all this is said and done, even if Roberts and Bartowski are dead, I think I might just look up that brat of theirs, Delgado mused, as he waited for his men to deliver their 'package'. It might be a nice cherry on the sundae to send their brat to the underworld after them.
A knock on the door announced the arrival of four of his men. Delgado nodded to the man standing guard at the door, and he let them in. The four of them entered, carrying a bound female figure.
"We caught her, sir. One of their Kittens, just as you ordered."
The woman was awake, but helplessly tied. Her ankles were secured, and her wrists snugly tied behind her back. He recognized her from the intel files Shadowman had given him, it was 'Lana Payton'. Delgado appraised their captive coolly, taking in the brown-blonde hair, the pretty face partly concealed by the expertly tied blindfold and the gag stuffed in her mouth, and the superbly-in-shape form. Delgado guessed her age to be mid-twenties, and another time he might have appreciated her beauty. Right now, though, he could not care less about such irrelevancies.
"Excellent," Delgado said. "Now let's see how much leverage we can apply with her."
Delgado gestured at one of his men, who immediately stepped over to the prisoner and injected her with a very powerful sedative. A few moments later, the agent was out cold.
"Start making the preparations," Delgado ordered. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was now well past ten in the evening. "We don't have much time to get everything ready, not if we're going to make the morning news."
The Hotel Gagarin-Tolstoi, Moscow, Russian Federation, June 4th 10:45 p.m. local time...
The man who was currently going by the entirely fake name of 'Tony Rogers', and who had also often used the equally unreal name of 'Jack Burton', had been in the process of scouting the Hotel in preparation for the culmination of his current con when he heard the commotion. It always paid to be as aware of the details of the situation, the surroundings, and everything else one could possibly track before a con reached its climax, the more details you had under your control, or at least were aware of, the less the chance of some unexpected joker in the deck at the worst possible moment.
Of course, Tony mused, one could never get the chance of that joker turning up down to zero. The joker was always in the deck, and the there was always a chance that the Dealer would deal the joker. Even if you were holding a dream hand of cards, the joker could always turn up.
Heck, Tony mused, sometimes the joker turns up even in a game where it's against the rules. But that's life and all you can do is try to prepare for it if it happens.
The Hotel Gagarin-Tolstoi was a huge complex. The main building was actually three buildings in one, a large central tower and two smaller side-towers, with a large sprawling base area around all three. A multi-level parking garage was across a street to one side, linked to the main buildings by a skybridge on the second floor. It had hundreds of individual rooms and reasonably comfortable suites, as well as dozens of high-end, extremely luxurious (and even more expensive!) suites as well. A handful of incredibly luxurious and expensive rooms were present as well, not advertised by available to those who had the money and knew how to ask for them. A complicated web of corridors, hallways, elevators, and other connections linked it all together into an intricate multi-storied maze.
In the common base of the complex, a sprawling four story linking building that covered two city blocks, there were many other facilities for entertainment, including four large ballrooms. Tony was in the process of scouting the halls and chambers around those ball rooms, making sure he was familiar with the layout, the doors, the elevators, the stairs and escalators, every little detail that might become important in a few days when their con went down...if all went well.
Dressed in jeans, a work shirt, and carrying a toolbox, Tony looked very much like the employee he was pretending to be, blending in with the practice of a lifetime of criminal enterprise. As he was continuing his preparation work, he heard a young man talking to another callow youth about an uproar a few minutes earlier.
/"Yeah,"/ the first young man was saying. /"He was so drunk he couldn't even walk! I mean that man must have spent the whole day guzzling booze to be that bad! But the women helping him! You wouldn't believe how gorgeous they both were!"/
/"Probably 'escorts',"/ the other young man was saying, as they rode up the escalator a few steps behind Tony. /"Just another drunken salesman probably. That kind of jerk usually makes more money in a day than we do for real work in a month. Makes you sick, doesn't it?"/
/"Yeah, I guess so,"/ the first young man replied. /"But if they were hookers, you never saw any that looked that hot! I mean they were both hotter than jalapenos! And they were wasted on this drunk idiot who couldn't even walk! Heck, the man was making rude comments to passing ladies as the girls with him helped him stand up! It's a wonder somebody didn't take a swing at the twit!"/
Tony had a sudden suspicion as he listened to the ongoing conversation. There was not much basis for it other than instinct and the descriptions of the people the first young man gave to his friend, but something told him that the 'drunk' they were referring to was probably the Schnook, and that Jill was likely one of the women with him. He had no idea who the other woman might be, but his instinct said it was the Schnook, and Tony trusted his gut.
Jill should have been back by now, one way or the other, Tony thought. I don't know why but I've got a hunch she's one of the women those guys were talking about. I'd better see what's going on.
Tony made his way, indirectly and without any sign of hurry or even that he was going any place in specific, toward the floor upon which he, Darya, the Schnook, and Jill currently had their suites. Avoiding attention meant that it needed a few more minutes than would otherwise have been required, but soon enough Tony was pressing the entry buzzer on the door to the Schnook's suites.
A few moments later, and the door opened to reveal Jill, still with her hair in that improbable shade of red, and Tony stepped inside. Jill shut the door behind him, and then Tony gave her a subtle hand signal, one he had taught her years before, when she was first learning the 'con game' from him. It meant something like 'OK to speak?'
She gave him the matching signal that there were no bugs or other reasons they could not communicate.
"Trouble," Tony asked, "what's going on with the Schnook?!"
Jill looked pensive and sighed. Then she said, softly, "He's hurt, Tony. Just like I was afraid he was, it looks like Chuck has a concussion, maybe something worse. We're not sure yet. He's asleep in the bedroom right now."
"I was afraid of something like that," Tony replied equally quietly. "When I heard a story about two women helping a drunk into the Hotel, the description sounded like it might be the Schnook."
"Yeah, we were-"
Even as Jill was speaking, though, Tony found that his entire attention was suddenly on another woman, a beautiful blonde who emerged from the bedroom. A woman that he had known for her entire life.
"Well, well, well," Tony said, concealing his momentary surprise behind a lifetime of practice at deceptive mannerisms, "if it isn't Angel herself! So what brings you to Moscow, Angel? Still protecting the Schnook?"
"Damned right," Sarah Walker said, as she walked over toward them. Her tone was stern, but the eyes were shining. "That's what I do, and you know it! What kind of trouble have you gotten Chuck into this time, Tony?!"
"Just a little business," Tony replied, as Sarah reached them. "But Trouble here says the Schnook got hurt."
"Trouble?" Sarah asked, looking from Tony to the red-dyed woman with them.
"That's what I call her," Tony replied with a soft smile.
"Well, I can't argue with that," the blonde replied with a disdainful glance at Jill. "She's the reason Chuck is hurt!"
"The Hell I am-" Jill started to protest.
"How bad is he?" Tony asked his daughter, forestalling an eruption.
"We don't know yet," Sarah replied. "He's asleep in the bedroom at the moment. I hope we can avoid the hospital, because that could be...difficult...under the circumstances."
No kidding, Angel, Tony thought. There were so many ways that could go totally sour under the circumstances.
"So I take it that you two are acquainted?" Jill asked, sounding resigned.
Maybe a little, Tony laughed to himself, remembering the day he and Emma had first looked down at their baby girl, asleep in her mother's arms in a hospital halfway around the world from Moscow. Two weeks premature and full of fire and fight already on the day she was born.
"I've known Angel here as long as I've known the Schnook," Tony said to his old friend. Not a lie, he mused, just not the full truth. "There was this real estate deal, and Angel here helped the Schnook and me carry it off."
"And Chuck almost got killed," Sarah snapped. "And now you've got him mixed up in another con!"
"She knows about the EREBUS fungus, Tony," Jill said with a sigh, as she sat down on the sofa. "Chuck insisted...over my protests."
"The Schnook knows what he's doing, Trouble," Tony said softly. "I don't suppose you brought Copface? He might come in handy, actually."
"I'm not sure if he's in town or not," Sarah replied. "But I hear he might be."
"Copface?" Jill asked, from where she sat in a frustrated mood on the sofa. "Wait-Casey?"
"Yeah," Tony grinned. "But Copface fits him better."
Jill actually laughed. "You're right about that, it's perfect."
Tony saw that his daughter was trying to maintain her stern expression, but he knew better. He could see the laughter in her crystal-blue eyes.
"Did you bring your backup singers with you, Angel?" Tony asked. Part of him was becoming somewhat more optimistic as the conversation went on. Even if it makes trouble with Trouble, having Sam to help out could make all the difference in this swindle! And if she brought Copface and her girl gang...
"Yes, my coworkers are here," Sarah said with dignity.
"Oh, yes," Jill said sourly. "She and her gang of kitty-CATs are going to be involved now. I take it you've met them too?"
"Once or twice," Tony confirmed.
"Chuck decided we should read them in, since we're short-handed and he thinks we can't afford to go it alone...and he's right. Unfortunately," Jill added with a glare at Sarah.
"Well, if you know the business, Angel, did Trouble here and the Schnook tell you exactly what we're trying to do?"
"Only in outline. And I'm still not sure how much of what she says," Sarah added with a dark look at Jill, "that I believe!"
"Trouble," Tony said, "do you think you could keep an eye on the Schnook why I fill Angel here in? If we're going to be working this angle together, Angel needs to know the details."
"Wait a minute-" the blonde started to protest.
Jill immediately cut her off, "Oh, I'll take care of Chuck, don't worry."
"Oh, I'll just bet you'll take care of Chuck," Sarah snarled, "that's exactly what worries me!"
"Don't worry, Angel, we'll be right down the hall," Tony assured the blonde. "The Schnook'll be fine for a bit, and you can check on him again in just a few minutes."
"And I will," Walker said firmly, looking at Jill with a glare as she did. "A very few minutes!"
Tony hid a smile. He had seen that look on his daughter's face many times, going back to when she was very, very small. A mixture of ferocity and stubborn will that was so characteristic of his daughter, perfectly captured in that glare.
"Come on," Tony said to Sarah, "I know a place where we can have a little chat."
He headed toward the door, with Sarah following, still exchanging hostile glares with the red-dyed brunette as she did. Jill warned him as they left, "Be careful, Tony, she's more dangerous than she looks. Remember that she's CIA!"
In spite of himself, Tony broke into a grin and said, as they left the suite, "That's fine, Darlin'. I kind of like dangerous women!"
Somewhere in Moscow, Russian Federation, June 4th 11:20 p.m. local time...
The Carmichael Industries operative code-named (currently) 'Lone Wulf' was glanced around at the busy streets of Moscow, carefully keeping his movements casual and his physical attitude that of a tired worker. He deliberately shuffled slightly when he walked, he only looked around now and then as he walked down the sidewalk. It was getting late, but even at this late hour in a city the size of Moscow, there were people out and about.
Lone Wulf had arrived in town a few hours before. He had ridden the truck full of ore for most of the distance, then jumped off when it stopped to let the driver take a lunch break. From there he had concealed himself in the trunk of a car to cover some more distance, and he had left that ride behind to board a passenger bus at a bus stop. Aboard the bus he had remained in a rear seat, keeping to himself, and that had led him slip quietly into Moscow in the late afternoon.
That had been the easy part.
Lone Wulf's initial plan had been to make his way to one of the three Buy-More sites in Moscow, and there use one of the hidden substations to contact his employers. He had not expected that part of the plan to be difficult, but it had proven to be a challenge, because he quickly discovered that something was Going On in Moscow.
He had not been in the city for an hour before he spotted someone he knew from his CIA days: an operative for one of the Chinese intelligence groups. That in itself might not have been remarkable, he might have had any number of reasons to be in Moscow. Lone Wulf had simply made sure the man could not spot him, because it was quite possible he would be recognized if he did.
Unfortunately, it was not half an hour later that Lone Wulf encountered another acquaintance from his former CIA days, a beautiful woman of middle years that Lone Wulf knew had once worked for the British, and was now a freelancer. She would have definitely recognized him, considering that they had been lovers for a time, before a betrayal in Alexandria had put an end to that liaison. The memory of the betrayal was bitter, the memory of the time before was pleasant.
Damn but she made my partner jealous, though! Lone Wulf recalled with amusement about later encounters. Lone Wulf had been partnered with a female CIA agent in later years, and they had become more than colleagues. That woman had had a tendency toward jealousy, though, whenever they had encountered a woman from his past.
Which happened more often than it probably should have, Lone Wulf recalled with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I sowed more than a few wild oats when I was younger...but she wasn't a saint either.
He and his partner/lover had been quite a team, while they lasted, and their breakup had more or less been caused by outside forces. At one time, losing that former partner had been a painful wound, but time had passed, and now he wished her well.
Regarding the previous former lover, Lone Wulf barely avoiding having her see him, mostly by luck. He happened to look her way and spotted her a moment before she would have seen him, and he had been able to duck into a crowd to avoid having her see him.
Then, less than half an hour after that, Lone Wulf had come upon a veritable convention of agents, some of which he had encountered before, all uneasily eyeing each other in a street-side cafe. He spotted American, British, Japanese, and Argentinian operatives in the group, as he 'casually' strolled past, and he was sure some of the other men in the cafe were agents as well, from their bearing and 'attitude'.
It must have been some kind of meeting about to go down, Lone Wulf mused afterward. No way this is a coincidence, something's going down and it must be big.
What worried Lone Wulf was that what it was might be associated with his own theft from the SD-35 facility, or that if it was not, it would interfere with his efforts to contact CI.
Which was exactly what did happen.
Lone Wulf was making his way quietly toward the closest of the three Buy-Mores, doing his best to stay casual and seem like a tired worker just finished with a late shift, when he felt a sting in the back of his neck that he recognized instantly: the needle-tip of a tranquilizer dart!
Lone Wulf whirled toward the direction of the attack, but even as he did, he felt the drug taking effect. Moments later, the world faded out.
The Hotel Gagarin-Tolstoi, Moscow, Russian Federation, June 4th 11:25 p.m. local time...
Sarah was almost shaking with nervous excitement, worry, anger, and confusion as her father led her down the hallway from the suite where she had so reluctantly left Chuck alone with Jill. A few moments of walking led them to a locked door to a service closet, which her father opened with a key he produced from somewhere. The closet proved to be empty, but once they were inside and 'Tony/Jack' shut the door behind him, he gave her the hand sign that she knew from her teenaged days meant 'safe to speak'.
In spite of that, Sarah insisted on pulling out a small electronic device, disguised as a compact/makeup mirror, and scan for 'bugs'. Better safe than sorry, she mused. The device read out 'clean'. It took her only a moment to run the check, and as she did, her father said, with that lopsided smile that Sarah remembered so well, "Good to see you again, Angel. It's been a long time!"
"Dad," Sarah breathed, and then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He seemed surprised for a moment by the sudden intensity of her reaction, but then she felt his strong arms go around her and hold her close. For just a moment, Sarah was 13 again and being held safe and sound by her daddy. She had been so worried about him over the previous few weeks that she almost felt weak now that he was holding her close.
"There, there, Angel, it's okay," Tony murmured. "Everything's okay."
"No, it isn't!" Sarah said fiercely, if a little shakily. She pulled back, and blinked the moisture out of her eyes. I am NOT going to cry! Sarah ordered herself firmly. I do NOT cry, I am a CAT and a grown woman and a CIA agent and I do NOT cry in moments like this! She kept telling herself that as she wiped her eyes with the back of a hand.
"Dad, I have been so worried! What are you doing in Moscow?! How did you end up here and what have you gotten involved in and how in Hell did you end up working with that...that...that treacherous bitch?! Do you have any idea what she's done? And who is this woman you're seeing and do you trust her and how well do you know her and why are you mixed up with so many of the agencies I mean I've been scared to death ever since Chuck told me-"
Sarah stopped speaking, if only because her rapid rush of words had left her with a compelling need to breathe. Tony smiled reassuringly, and said, "That's why I asked the Schnook not to tell you what was going on. I knew you'd worry, and I didn't want to be losing sleep over it. And I'll bet you did!"
"Hell Yes! I lost sleep, Dad!" Sarah snapped. "Of course I was worried! You've got trained killers stalking you and you're mixed up with that lying piece of-with Jill, if she knew you were my father she might try to hurt me by hurting you! How is it you even know her?! And when were you going to tell me about this...woman, what's her name-Darya?!"
"Well, that's not her real name, Darlin'," her father said, seeming both sympathetic to and amused by his daughter's emotion storm. "But yeah, that's what I usually call her."
"Do you even know her real name?" Sarah demanded.
"Now Darlin'," Jack said, brushing a lock of blonde hair out of his daughter's eyes, "what kind of question is that? What's in a name, anyway?"
Sarah sighed internally. She knew the signs that meant her father would simply refuse to answer a question, no matter how she posed it.
"How did you two meet?"
"I was working an angle in Paris, about eighteen months ago," Jack said, as he sat down on the floor of the unfurnished chamber, gesturing at his daughter to do the same. After a moment, Sarah obeyed, sitting down beside her father with their backs against the wall, facing the closed door. "I had lined up some sheep to be fleeced, and was just about ready. They were about to pay up to buy some shares in a smuggling operation that didn't happen to exist."
Sarah listened, nodding now and then as he described the various details. A hundred memories came back to her as he did, she and he had pulled variations on that same scam many times back in her teenaged days, when they were a small-time father and daughter con team.
"Well, just as I was about to close the deal, I found out that were on to me...or thought they were. Turned out Darya'd been working a scam on the same suckers," Jack said with a fond smile.
"They were natural marks, rich, greedy, and arrogant, and she'd spotted what I was doing and told them. She posed as a French cop, and threatened to arrest them for trying to buy into an illegal scheme, but that she'd put in a good word for them if they helped her nail the smugglers and their representative...namely me!
"She wanted them to go ahead and pay me-in cash of course, I'd already set that up-the way I'd planned. Then she would 'arrest' me and take the money herself and split. That part worked for her like a charm! I knew as soon as I saw her in that ridiculous uniform that she was one of us, of course. A real cop in that sort of arrest would be in plain clothes, even if she had uniformed backup."
Sarah nodded. "She'd have needed somebody to help her out," Sarah said.
"She had them, three big brutes that were twice my size and had their own ridiculous uniforms. They were small time muscle she'd hired, but they were big enough to pass for gorillas and they had guns. So I had to let 'em 'arrest' me, cuff me, and take me out of the room. I was mainly worried she'd off me to avoid witnesses, but turned out that's not her style. She left me tied up in a car trunk and made off with the cash."
Nothing Sarah was hearing reassured her in any way about 'Darya'! As far as she was concerned, the only good thing in the story was that 'Darya' had refrained from killing her father.
"Well, it didn't take me long to get out, of course," Jack said, putting an arm around his daughter's shoulders. In spite pf her emotional state, or perhaps because of that, Sarah rested her head on his shoulder and it felt good. "I was royally pissed off, and I wanted my money back. She'd covered her trail pretty well, but I tracked down her goons, and sure enough, they weren't the brightest bulbs. I was able to fast-talk on of them into giving me a lead on her, and I spent a month tracking her down.
"When I did, I worked a variation on her own con, I had her convinced that I was a cop myself, and that she'd screwed up a genuine police sting! I actually had what was left of the money back-she'd already spent some-when she tumbled to me. I think she was half furious and half thought it was hilarious. We ended up going out for a drink afterward, and I took her dancing a few days later, and, well...things went from there and I started seeing her pretty steady."
"And you just completely trusted her, just like that?!"
"I said was seein' her, Angel! When did I say anything about trusting her?"
"But-but-" Sarah said, "you've been seeing her for over a year?!"
"Yeah, and I trust her more now than I did then," Jack replied. "We started working some angles together, in Paris, and Berlin. Worked pretty well, too. We sheared a rich idiot in Berlin, sold him a piece of land on the sly he could've bought legally for a third as much, but he just had to be clever. We did a two-person con in Hamburg to get a wealthy heiress to b uy some diamonds 'cheap', she probably still thinks she got the better of us and she paid us three times what they were worth!"
In spite of herself, Sarah laughed. She could recall a dozen times she and her father had taken advantage of that sort of greed, a lot of marks set themselves up by trying so hard to get something for nothing.
"We finally ended up in Moscow because we'd gotten wind of a bunch of Russians with a lot of loose cash that they didn't know what to do with, and we knew some greedy-guts in Germany with some patents and other intellectual property that they couldn't unload because of various problems. So we figured why not get them together...indirectly, that is. Just go betweens, we'd gradually bring 'em together, let each one think the other was about to walk away, skim off the money as we went. We set ourselves up to pass as lawyers, and with a little help from Trouble we were rolling along, and rolling in it! You wouldn't believe how much loose shady cash is flowing in this country, Angel!"
"Yes I would!" Sarah said fiercely, her anger and worry coming back with the mention of the scam her father had been running, and who had been backing him. "I know damned well how many rich thugs, how many murderers in three piece suits and how many former KGB torturers and assassins are running around with wads of money they want to hide or move! And I know damned well what can happen to people who cross them!
"Dad," Sarah went on, "do you have any idea how dangerous some of these people are?!"
"Well, I kinda found that out as we went on," Jack admitted. "Jill kept telling me to be careful of them, too, that's why she insisted we have a handful of her security men with us when I told her what we were doing!"
"Wait-so it was you who brought Jill in? Not the other way around?"
"Yeah," Jack said. "Darya and I set the scam up ourselves, but I knew we'd need some help with some bits of it, and Trouble owed me a few favors. So I called in a couple of them and we were good to go."
"I still don't like it," Sarah said. "So how did all this go from being a middleman-con to being involved in this super-bioweapon?"
Jack sighed and explained, as Sarah listened in a mixture of anger and fear and horror to the story. He told her about how someone had contacted of their shady German sellers with offers to sell the EREBUS weapon, and how Jill had recognized from the reports and 'teaser' information what it implied.
"Normally, that would have been the time to cut bait and run for it," Jack said. "Once we knew how dangerous this thing was, but I kept thinkin' about what might happen if it got loose, and, well...I didn't want you or Charlotte-Mary living in what might follow if it did. Trouble's got family, too, she kind of felt the same way...so we started trying to run the angle to capture this thing and make sure it doesn't get used."
Sarah stared at her father in a mixture of disbelief, love, and shock.
"Really?! After all these years, now you suddenly get brave and selfless?!"
"I guess so," Jack said with a smile. "Funny what kids and grandkids can do to you."
Sarah looked at her father, and wondered where this side of him had been hiding for so long, or if it just had not existed before. She was not sure she even liked it...but at the same time the thought of her father worrying about her and Charlotte-Mary touched a part of her that she rarely allowed anyone to see.
Sarah was about to say something, when two soft quick knocks on the door startled her into silence.
"That was Trouble," Jack said, rising to his feet and offering his daughter a hand up, which she accepted. "We're not using our phones more than we can help, somebody's been messing with them!"
"I know," Sarah replied, as they left the closet. Jill was already gone, but Sarah was sure the red-dyed brunette was already back in the suite with Chuck, a thought that left her fingernails digging into her palms.
As they reached Chuck's suite, her father knocked and Jill opened the door and gestured them both back inside, and as soon as they were inside Sarah heard another very familiar female voice coming from the bedroom.
"Ellie's here," Sarah said softly, as she headed for the bedroom. She did not run, but she was aware Jill was heading the same way, and without running she managed to get to the door first. Some little part of her was aware of an amused smile on her father's face as she and Jill had tried to get there first without seeming to hurry, but most of her mind was on her worry about Chuck...and her irritation at Jill's presence.
But when she sat Chuck and Ellie sitting on the bed talking, thoughts of Jill were replaced by questions.
To Be Continued...