Wednesday, 19th
---------------
"STAY IN THE VAN!"
Casey grunted. He had a difficult time telling himself to stay put. He might need to say it again just to keep himself awake.
When Casey had transferred to become a member of the NSA, he knew that things would be different. Duties that had included flying jets and blowing things up would be traded for new types of missions. In order to better serve his country, he was willing to give up half of that action. A position at the NSA would still include some regular gunplay, and he would certainly get to blow things up from time to time.
As he sat alone, he did the math. A mission like this had none of that; half of nothing was still nothing.
Casey could feel his attention waining. He felt himself daydreaming about ways to shoot or otherwise blow up the dog. It was the only way he thought he would ever be free from listening to the ambassador's constantly inane monologue of how he needed to pamper his poodle. The various methods that led to the pet's demise made Casey grunt with relief.
It had been nearly five weeks of intercepting encrypted communications and still he hadn't discovered anything that would suggest that the ambassador was transferring any stolen secrets.
He ate another chocolate chip cookie to refocus on the task at hand.
An incoming call on one of the van's monitors disrupted his boredom. He straightened himself in his seat immediately.
"Major Casey. This is a secure line?"
"Yes ma'am, secure."
General Beckman continued, "Good, I am reassigning you to a new mission as of this moment. There's an immediate security matter in Washington that I need you to handle personally."
Casey's wish fulfillment caused him to speak out of turn, "What kind of security matter?"
"We have recently become aware of a traitor within the CIA. This traitor may be working with a group plotting against this country."
Casey became invigorated with an added sense of purpose. "What shall we do when we come in contact with this. CIA traitor?"
"Major Casey, we all have our skillsets. You will do what you do well. If there are no other questions I will brief you further on your arrival."
Casey shook his head, "Understood, no questions ma'am."
The image of General Beckman went dark.
Casey hummed with pleasure.
A traitor was no better than any villain, any terrorist, or any other "bad guy" that he had to deal with. Anyone who fell into one of these groups directly opposed the United States, and in doing so, directly opposed him.
In some ways a traitor was even worse. A traitor not only betrayed whatever they had stood for, but also betrayed their country and the people they had worked with. A traitor was a disgrace to anyone who had ever believed in that person.
He remembered the first traitor he was responsible for apprehending. A federal agent by the name of Dobson had attempted to kidnap a protected government asset and sell her to the highest bidder. Casey's early dedication to his craft led him to Dobson in relatively short order.
Casey could once again feel the anticipation of that day. He had been permitted to interrogate Dobson in order to discover who he had been in contact with. His superiors had instructed Casey to only utilize the standard intimidation techniques to draw out the information. The younger NSA agent however got carried away in the moment and found himself using a more hands-on approach. Thinking back on it now, he wouldn't have changed a thing.
He had gotten his information quickly, and it had all been validated. In the process, he had even impressed a General who had been observing through the interrogation room window. The General had been impressed with his level of efficiency. When Casey left the room, the General told him that 'off the record', he gave him 'a gold star in his book'.
Casey's experience on missions and his years in the business had taught him that pain could indeed be scary.
His quickening pulse brought him back to the present. He grunted with pleasure again. The CIA had a traitor on board, a traitor that they couldn't deal with themselves. The NSA would never have a problem like this. Agents like Major John Casey would see to that.
Casey drew his gun, and admired it for a while. During this kind of mission, there would definitely be gunplay.
This was going to be fun.
---------------
It was only halfway into Sarah's day off, and she wasn't having fun. She had already run out of things to do while at her apartment.
She sat up and nibbled on her pecan and cinnamon pastry.
As much as she had told herself she wouldn't think about him, her thoughts turned to Bryce.
What had she done to him that he would continue to give her the cold shoulder?
Sarah sighed loudly and looked down towards her toes.
Whatever it had been, she wished that she could understand and be forgiven. It just wasn't the same without him, there was an emptiness that was beginning to get the better of her.
"Snap out of it Walker," she addressed to herself. An agent would never become this distracted.
She got up and stood next to the window. She looked down and started watching the normal everyday people she kept safe when she successfully completed her mission objectives.
Sarah began hearing the familiar echoes of her dad.
"Angel, you know I need you on this - I can't do it by myself." he told a much younger Jenny.
Jenny looked down at her bruised knee.
"We can do this!" he continued on with an increasingly encouraging tone.
Her father's attempt to win her over was being an uphill battle.
"Look honey; everyone lies, everyone cheats, and everyone steals. If we don't do it, someone else will."
"C'mon, it's what we do. It's the reason today you got to be 'Tricia McMillan'. It's the reason you got a new bike, a new Walkman, and why we get to live like this!"
Jenny looked up at her father. Her face portrayed her true state of mind.
"How come I can't have any friends?"
Her father paused for a moment as he began fishing for the right words before sitting down next to her.
"They're not good enough," he finally answered.
"Those people you see out there, they're just normal everyday people."
"You don't want to be normal. You and I are better than that."
"Normal people," he began to emphasize, "are stuck in their dull, boring lives. They limit themselves to the same place, the same house, the same car. They don't have any variety or any excitement. That's part of what makes them normal."
"Besides, being normal means being forced to settle instead of getting what you really want."
"But you know why they do that darlin? It's because they're too trusting. They're too willing to listen to people like us because they are missing something. They let themselves get talked into things, they let themselves get conned, and they let themselves get hurt."
"You don't want to be like that do you?"
Jenny shook her head.
"Right! Look at us! We're living our dream!"
"We have the kind of life that normal people are jealous of. We aren't dull. We aren't limited. We get to travel across the country. We get to see new places. We get to meet new people. We get to be whoever we want. And, we get to buy ourselves whatever we want."
Her father's salesmanship began to take effect, Jenny smiled slightly.
His tone became more serious. "Honey, you can't left yourself be normal. You have to be careful who you trust. The only person I trust in this whole world is you. You know that right?"
Jenny nodded.
"Good," he said with a smile, "because what I want is for us to have fun. and anything and everything we dream of!"
Sarah continued to observe as the people below walked along the shops, sat together at outdoor cafes, and met up with friends. They seemed happy enough, and didn't appear bothered by so many self-imposed limitations.
She glanced around her apartment. Her dad had another 7 months to go before he would be out of prison.
She shook her head slowly. She felt almost embarrassed to admit to herself that she used to think of those con jobs as 'quality family time'.
Sarah turned for another piece of sweet comfort food, only to notice that it too was also absent from the room.
"Damn," even her attention to detail had been affected.
Her voice carried sharp sarcasm as it repeated a line that had been drilled into her mind: "A good con man can get out of town any time he wants."
How did he excuse his situation now, or any of the other times he had been caught?
Jenny had been left behind before. She understood it was necessary for her dad to go on solo missions, and that when she did get a chance to be involved, that she wouldn't be needed for every step.
She had looked after herself staying in hotels or while waiting patiently in the car. There had always been a TV or radio to keep her company.
Sarah began to slightly frown. One of the cafe employees had put out a sign advertising their Thanksgiving themed coffee.
Thanksgiving was one of the three holidays she didn't care for. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all felt alien to her. There was something about them that made her feel uncomfortably out of place.
Her favorite Thanksgiving so far had been when Jenny wasn't needed for one of her dad's con jobs. He had left her at a nicer than typical hotel because "she was worth it". After he left, she began flipping through the channels on TV, enjoying the meal from room service.
Many of the channels featured crowds of cheering people at one parade or another. To Jenny it was incomprehensible. Why would all those people so willingly stand in the cold together like that? Eventually she flipped to some kind of comedy channel. It was running a marathon of episodes from a show that she couldn't get enough of.
Sarah's frown began to convert into a faint smile.
Why couldn't there be more in life like that show, she wondered. It had made her feel good. It had a simple premise: a guy and some robots made fun of the movies they were forced to watch. The jokes they made and the things they pointed out were all clear and straight to the point. In between movies, the show's characters even jokingly gave each other a hard time, but it looked like they were always having fun and it always seemed like each day ended on a happy note. The most surprising thing to Jenny had been just how much it made her laugh.
Sarah felt the corners of her faint smile begin to fade. She hadn't laughed like that since Jenny had on that day - at least not without it needing to appear as part of some con or cover.
She wondered what it must be like for an everyday person to feel normal. As an agent with the CIA, she knew that life was really much more complicated than they would ever realize. Even so, there was still some appeal to it.
She had hoped her relationship with Bryce would be less complicated. Normal people had relationships too, and this one had nothing to do with the CIA's involvement. There shouldn't be any hidden agendas, no ulterior motives, no lies, and no one getting betrayed.
Why hadn't the CIA given her the details of her first mission back on the job? Right now she felt like she would take almost any kind of mission, preferably if it would be with Bryce. She wished for another holiday together. Something felt different between them, she just couldn't put her finger on it.
Sarah noticed the faint reflection of Jenny in the window. She took a deep breath. This lack of control was exactly the kind of distraction that had gotten her benched in the first place. Sarah Walker would do something more constructive with her time.
She grabbed her gloves and walked towards the dining room.
There her punching bag waited for another of her therapeutic workouts.
---------------
Casey felt like punching something.
He looked at the live satellite image to find out why he had been sitting in traffic for nearly 45 minutes. Ahead an accident was in the process of being cleaned up - on the other side of the highway. Casey gripped his steering wheel tightly.
"Rubberneckers!" Rubberneckers were keeping him from getting to DC on time.
He growled at the morons ahead of him.
Casey turned to face his trusted copilot. He gathered a full breath of air before slowly exhaling.
"Sorry sir," he said apologetically to the photo of President Reagan.
Reagan was riding shotgun tonight with a small bonsai tree. Casey knew by looking at the contents of the passenger seat that he would have to remain calm. He needed a distraction and he needed it now.
Casey focused his thoughts on how he enjoyed travelling light. All he had in the Crown Vic were his assorted weaponry organized neatly in the trunk, his photo, the bonsai tree, and the new handgun he had recently been taking everywhere.
"My gun!" He had almost forgotten that while searching for his sanity during his mission that he decided to name his gun. It seemed the proper thing to do after spending this much time together.
The guy that operated his preferred shooting range had suggested 'Vera'. He liked the name 'Vera', but 'Vera' sounded better for a bigger type of gun - maybe a sniper rifle.
Casey had been partial to the name 'Diane', but his boss would never approve of that.
He imagined himself drawing his weapon on a badguy. "Zoe!" he shouted. 'Zoe' had a nice sound to it - powerful, but calm. Calm was not the way he felt when he got to fire a weapon.
Casey imagined himself drawing his weapon again. "Emily!" he said surprising himself. 'Emily?' 'Emily' was a happy sounding name. His imaginary villain was smiling back at him. Nobody should be smiling at him when he had his gun pointed at them.
He tried again. "Ilsa!" Casey paused before grunting with pleasure. 'Ilsa' was a great name. It conveyed power, control, finesse, skill, and an undeniable sexiness. Casey's gun demonstrated most of those traits, but it wasn't deserving of a name like 'Ilsa'. 'Ilsa' was the kind of name that he'd grant to a stealth fighter.
He needed a name that said power and control without the happy parts. He imagined drawing his weapon at the badguy. "Mother!" he said assertively. 'Mother' felt like the right name. Who didn't obey their mother? Who always had the final say in one's destiny? 'Mother' was the perfect name. Casey's imaginary villain was laughing at him. He shook his head.
This traffic jam needed to stop now. The satellite image showed he was getting pretty close, but not quite there yet. Casey rolled his eyes at his misfortune.
Naming a gun shouldn't be this hard. Pilots named planes all the time, and no one sat around like this coming up with a name like 'Mother'.
He grunted in frustration at his equivalent of writer's block. As he drew his weapon, his imaginary villain yawned while waiting for him to introduce his gun.
"Saffron!" he mumbled in desperation. Casey raised his eyebrow at the thought.
"About time!" he yelled as he stomped on the gas pedal. He had finally reached and surpassed the source of his automotive anger.
Maybe now he could actually make it to DC.
---------------
Casey stood tall and saluted.
"At ease Major," General Beckman said.
"Our intel suggests that a rogue group of agents we have recently become aware of are planning to target one of five possible government facilities. You will be responsible for ascertaining which is the intended target, and preventing them from their objectives."
Casey noted the pause in the General's speech as his opportunity to ask his first question, "What do we know about this rogue group of agents?"
"We know that they have been actively recruiting burned agents, and recently at least one active duty agent."
General Beckman presented a stack of photos to Casey.
"The man sitting on the park bench is Phillip Cowen. From what we have been able to determine he is the group's primary recruiter. His latest recruit is the CIA agent Bryce Larkin. We believe that he is the traitor that they will use to break in to one of our joint-venture research facilities."
"Agent Larkin's most recent partner at the CIA is an agent by the name of Sarah Walker. Currently she is off of active field duty, and hasn't yet had any direct contact with the members of this rogue group."
"I want you to assemble and lead the security team to make sure that this group does not succeed in whatever they are planning. Keep an eye on both Larkin and Walker. Am I clear Major Casey?"
"Yes ma'am, crystal clear." said Casey failing to hide his eager smile.
"Good, you are dismissed. Happy hunting."
