A/N: Sorry this chapter has taken some time, so thanks for sticking with the story. Obviously, thanks also for the review, if you left one.
It's taken me a while to write this one because I'd ended up with Decker involved in more than one concurrent story, and I had to make sure I kept the storylines apart in my head.
This chapter is not a long one, but important for the main threads to follow.
Caribbean Retreat
Chapter 13
It had been two weeks since Carina had left. Sarah tried hard not to worry about her friend.
In the past it had often been months, or even years, between contact from Carina. Admittedly, sometimes that was because she herself had gone dark, but usually it was because Carina had gone on long-term assignments and had to go silent.
However, this was a different situation. Carina wasn't herself.
Sarah shook her head to dispel these concerns. There was nothing she could do. She didn't even know which island Carina was on, let alone where on that island.
She refocused on what she and Chuck had been doing when they had time together, gathering evidence against Langston Graham.
They had mainly focused around his illegal activities. That included recruitment of operatives while they were too young, like he had with Sarah. Underage recruitment wouldn't get him removed from office, but it would get other activities under scrutiny. He'd be questioned further.
They weren't satisfied with that, but they had other activities they could follow. However, this had not been easy for Sarah. She had to list the assassinations she'd carried out for Graham. That included the name of the individual or individuals, the locations and dates.
Telling Chuck about them was certainly not something she should really do. It was probably illegal in itself, but he needed the information to find out which were sanctioned from anyone other than Graham.
After he'd been searching for a day, he had discovered something of significance. Not all of her assassinations were recorded and those that were had more authorization than just Langston Graham.
As those weren't the only assassinations she had carried out, Chuck was sure that Graham must have a private record on the others. Sarah had to leave him to hunt for that, but only after getting his assurance that he wouldn't get caught. Mind you, just being in the CIA file system was treason enough.
It had taken him another three days before he hit the jackpot, although neither of them thought that to be the right word to describe what he found.
Chuck had discovered Graham's private file store. There were records kept against a number of CIA operatives, not just Sarah. They were stored in a tree file structure. The main branches were named after the operative. Within that there was a file containing their profile, including their dates of birth, where they were recruited and when. Obviously from that, their age on recruitment could be calculated. Sarah's date of birth was assumed, but she confirmed that it was almost correct, only out by a couple of weeks.
Alongside that was a spreadsheet with a list of assignments. Dates, places, targets and a code that started with an O or a T. The O was followed by lowercase letters: b, f, s or t. Chuck had no idea what this meant, and nor did Sarah until she looked at the assignments for a while.
"I think O means 'obtain,' acquiring something. That could be files, information or something solid like a weapon. The subcategories are s for 'steal,' f for 'force,' t for 'terminate once acquired' and b for 'by any means.' She shivered as she said that. "I only had one of those. It is usually used where the operative has to infiltrate a gang or something like that. They are expected to sleep with the target."
Chuck looked in horror at her. "You had to have sex with someone?"
She shook her head. "I took the words to mean exactly what they say. I wasn't infiltrating a gang, but was targeting a gang leader. I just chose my main skill and killed him." She'd virtually stopped worrying about what Chuck thought about her as her dark past was revealed more and more. She knew he hated it, but his love for her was stronger.
"I take it the capital T is for termination missions," he said. She nodded. "So, these were all illegal assassinations," he commented. She'd worked that out, but him saying it made her feel sick.
There was one other file at this level, which they would come back to. But there were also sub-folders for each assignment. Each contained a file with the recorded reason and one for why Graham wanted it. Those were damning in themselves. There were also all her reports and some images of the terminated target. Chuck gagged on some of those.
After a couple of minutes, Sarah placed her hand on his shoulder. "Chuck, you have to stop looking at these."
"I know you did this type of work, but it is hard to see it," he admitted.
"You don't need to look at the images, just capture the details of why he ordered the terminations," she virtually pleaded, obviously not wanting him to continue to see evidence of her work that was making him feel so queasy.
He nodded.
"And please get some for other operatives," she added. "Otherwise, you'll be taking me down with him as his accomplice."
She walked away, unable to continue looking at what she'd done.
When Chuck finished digging through Graham's files, he felt both exhausted and disgusted.
Sarah's was the only one that contained that additional file which they'd skipped over at the start. Chuck suspected he knew why that was, and why he looked at the document he was proven correct. It was her termination order. Sarah wasn't surprised.
He decided to discuss this with more than just Sarah. She was initially horrified, but when he gave her a brief outline of his findings she agreed. They would probably need help on this.
So, he invited Bryce to join them at the apartment. He gave his friend an outline of what they needed to discuss and Bryce's reaction was pleasing. He put up signs and told the customers that came in during the evening that the cafe would be closed the next day.
So, the following morning, Bryce turned up. He'd not seen the apartment before. "Wow. Nice place," Bryce commented. He grinned at Sarah. "Doesn't feel like a CIA apartment."
She snorted. "God, my apartment in DC was just an empty shell." She paused after saying that, then muttered, "Much like I was."
Chuck wanted to pull her into his arms, but he had to make the call to include the final person.
"Hello, all," his dad said as his image appeared on the monitor before them.
"Long time, no see, Stephen," Bryce said.
"Indeed." Stephen looked at his son. "I'm all ears, Charles."
Chuck smiled. His dad was never one for small talk. "I've been digging through the personal files of Graham Langston. Not a pleasant thing to do." He noticed the two with him shudder. He was now sitting beside Sarah and reached for her hand to give it a squeeze.
"He has more assassinations recorded there than the sanctioned ones. Far more. Although Sarah was his main assassin for a while, she was not the only one who received them." Another hand squeeze. "He called the five of them his Enforcers, but that was a misnomer. They didn't enforce, but eradicated those he felt were a threat to his goals."
He could feel Sarah trembling slightly and looked down at her. Tears were welling up in her eyes. He bent down and gave her a kiss. She smiled shakily at him as he pulled away.
"Sarah was probably the most efficient, hence Graham using her most, whereas the others obviously enjoyed the job more."
"How do you know that?" his dad asked.
"From their reports," Chuck replied. "I also looked at some of the images of the victims." He shuddered remembering those. "Gruesome doesn't adequately describe them. It was noticeable that some had a preferred method. Forrest most commonly knifed repeatedly, far more than necessary. Quinn liked blowing things up, usually taking more people than just his targets. On one assassination, he strapped explosives to the target and sent him into a crowded train station, telling him he'd live if he followed instructions. That wasn't what happened."
"We don't need to hear all this," his dad said. He looked grim. "Are you saying you have enough information against Graham to bring him down?"
"I also pulled together a timeline of the assassinations and what else was happening alongside them and what the victims were doing. I couldn't do that with all the victims, but a pattern emerged. Graham was definitely eliminating anyone who was in his way. For instance, a number of senior military and political figures were removed."
"I'm surprised that they aren't protected better," Bryce stated.
"That's why the assassin needed to be very skilled." Chuck looked at Sarah. "Some were so skilled that the assassination wasn't even noticed for a while, and others still haven't been explained."
Sarah swallowed hard and looked down at her hands.
"Clyde Decker was used on some of those, but mainly focused on senior CIA officials that Graham wanted eliminated. He was efficient, but cruel. However, he found his line of work was more lucrative outside the CIA. That worked well for him, until he tried to eliminate someone useful to Graham. He has been in a highly secure offshore prison for the last year." He looked at his notes before continuing. "However, Graham arranged for him to escape, or rather, sent men to get him out."
Bryce looked at Sarah and asked, "So, how do you plan to use this information?"
"That's what we're here to decide," she replied.
"Looks like you don't need to take him out," Bryce replied.
Chuck hadn't even thought that was an option. He looked at his girlfriend. She replied, "That would be difficult, but not impossible. However, I don't want to do that."
"Would sending the information to the press work?" Chuck asked, as much to pull them away from discussing assassination as anything.
"It would be discounted as just smearing his name," Bryce replied. Sarah had already told Chuck this. "And the source would be checked. The hunt for Piranha would restart."
"I have a contact that would welcome this information and act on it," Chuck's dad said. They all looked at the monitor to hear more. "Diane Beckman has no love for the man," he said.
The two with Chuck gasped.
"You never told me you knew her," Bryce said.
"Er, who is Diane Beckman?" Chuck asked.
Sarah answered, "General Beckman is in charge of the NSA. She is often at loggerheads with Director Graham on how to proceed with action against threats to the United States."
"But isn't the NSA just based in the States, whereas CIA elsewhere?" Chuck asked.
"The boundary blurs when missions cross that border, in either direction," Sarah stated. "And Graham often ignored it, anyway."
"How quickly would she act?" Chuck asked, not sure who could answer that.
"She'd want the information scrutinized," his dad replied. "How they could verify it would be the challenge."
"What if I created a tunnel for them to access his files?" Chuck asked.
Sarah stared at him in surprise. "You could do that?"
"It would be difficult, especially if you try to minimize what they could see," his dad commented.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"Wouldn't want to give NSA access to all the CIA information," Bryce explained.
"No, just Graham's own file system," Chuck said. "But I could do it."
His dad smiled. "I never doubted it."
"Better start digging that tunnel, Chuck," Bryce said. He then looked at the monitor. "Can you contact your friend?"
"She's not a friend, just someone that Mary worked with. Call her an acquaintance."
Chuck wanted to know more about this, but knew now was not the time. He'd contact his dad separately.
"But you think you can persuade General Beckman to act on this?" Sarah asked.
"I think she'll even enjoy it," Stephen Bartowski replied.
They were just about to end the call, when Sarah's phone beeped with a message.
Chuck knew what that meant. She grabbed the phone and Chuck asked his dad to hold on.
Sarah gasped and looked up. "It's Carina. She never sends texts, but has now."
"What does it say?" Bryce asked.
"'Help' and a location."
"Not very informative," Chuck's dad said.
"She probably can't talk and is worried about being caught," Sarah guessed.
"Is this more urgent than tackling Graham?" was the question from the speaker.
"We'll close the café and you and I go," Bryce said. He looked at his friend. "You and your dad continue with Graham."
"I'll work on the tunnel in parallel with helping you," Chuck immediately replied. He looked at his dad, "You contact your acquaintance."
That all agreed, they ended the connection.
"What are you going to do to help us?" Sarah asked.
"I'll get what information I can about her location. If there's any about the people there, I'll get that too."
Sarah gave him a kiss, then thanked him.
He immediately got started on that while the other two started planning. He wasn't sure how much help Bryce would be, but they had no other choice really.
A/N: As mentioned, just a short chapter to prepare for what's coming up.
As you can see, I hardly mentioned Decker in order to help my thought processes!
The next chapter will be a while as I've not started it yet and am juggling too many stories. Sorry.
