Two

Chuck opened his eyes and yawned, stretching himself. He looked around the study. The smell of rose berries, fried eggs and fried chicken had woke him up. "Good. You're up", Sandy said. "Is it really healthy to be eating that?" he asked. She shrugged. "It's better than nothing. Which describes your situation right now", she said. At that his stomach growled rather loudly. He clutched it.

"We'll be on the move for a few days, we can't afford to eat balanced diets because we don't know where this assignment will take us. We might be eating stranger foods. So remove the thought of a good healthy diet out of your mind", she said.

Chuck grabbed the nearest chicken and bit into it. He tore away at it. Sandy just watched him. She shook her head as he ate noisily. "Let me help you catch this killer. I can help you." Sandy nodded. "Of course. You're helping us by doing exactly what he told you in his will", Sandy said. "No, I can do more than obey blindly. I can help you catch the spy". Sandy shook her head. "Absolutely not. It's"-"Too dangerous? How more in danger could I possibly be?" he asked.

"We have our best people working on it and how could someone like you possibly help us with something like this? You barely knew your father and his work. How could you do what he and my people have not yet succeeded in?"

He looked at her eagerly. "Rash, immature, self-centred and arrogant. I've been called all of these. But never, ever stupid. My father made sure he trained us well. At least intellectually. There are very few people who are my equal in that regard. And maybe your analysts and agents need as much help as they can get. But if I'm going to help you, I want to be in on it, the whole nine yards. You've got to give me my father's schedule. His business contacts and his intelligence contacts.  I want the good, the bad and the ugly."

"You're twenty-two, barely out of college and with no prior working experience, not to mention your lack of training in any government institution of any kind. What kind of qualification do you have?"

"My sister's pretty smart. And although she's young, she matures faster than I do. My father said something that day, before you came in. I didn't realise his words had more than one meaning. He wants me on this case. He wants me to succeed where he failed. He said these words " I know there's a bit of me inside you son. You can be a better man. Better than I was, better than I am". You want qualification that's it. You said my father was a fixer. Tell me, how often was he wrong?" he said looking so keenly into Sandy's eyes she moved backward slightly.

"Hardly ever", she admitted. "I will help you catch this person. Because...because I'm my father's son".

 

The jumbo jet was priced at 350million. It was Arthur's favourite and thus his most protected. Arthur usually used his second favourite jet because he deemed his favourite to special to be used on just any occasion. In fact he'd only used it twice.

They boarded the plane and not far off, Chuck saw Amy. He ran to see her but was blocked by a man, tall and hulking in a dark brown suit with dark glasses. "Agent", he said. Chuck looked confused for a second and looked behind him. "Agent", Sandy said and bowed slightly. "Are you Asian?" Chuck asked. 

"You can't talk to your sister", Sandy said. The man held out his hand. "Hello, my name is Agent Shaw". Chuck ignored him. He turned instead to Sandy. "Why not?" "Security precautions which I can't get into now. See? This is just a small taste of what you will be dealing with as an amateur. Do you really want more of it?"

"What's up Sandy?"

"Oh nothing. Just the target giving me a rough time that's all." Then turning to Chuck she said. "You can talk when we reach our destination". "Where's that?" Sandy ignored. Chuck bit his lip and sank into his seat. "Can I at least get a sleeping pill? I have a feeling this is going to be a long trip", he said.

France, Paris 0900 hours

They sat poring over papers, documents, photographs. The coffee that was in the jug had been emptied. The four agents and analysts had been up all night trying to line up all plausible suspects. And they were no short of them.

"Hey", Frank said. "There is a chance it's one of our own". "What do you mean", Gary asked. Gary had brown hair. All the agents at Langley resorted to the most common hair colours; brown and black. It was part of the stealth procedure. Blaring colours like blonde were easier to spot and remember. Some even had plastic surgery to make their faces ordinary. It helped them blend in.

The four analysts were Gary, Frank, Sheila and Kate. A fifth agent was hanging around to keep up on their progress.

"He's asking if the agent who blew the whistle was one of our own. Or at least connected to one of our own", Kate said. She paused and looked at a photo dated 2006 November. "Here, in November and here in February. On both occasions we were confronted by VASCO".

VASCO was a code name for a secret organisation that had emerged during the early 2000's. Their projects expanded in influence in 2006 , around the time Desmond volunteered his services to the agency.

Now, in 2014, He'd all but dismantled it, along with some key branches of the al-Qaeda.

The group was codenamed VASCO for lack of a better word. They were different from most fanatical terrorist groups. They were more methodical, more goal-oriented. Nothing they did was without purpose. They didn't plant bombs or commit mass murders. They specialised in political and intelligence warfare. They rooted out info and sold it to the highest bidder. It was a friend of everybody's and of nobody's. Governments' special forces were forced to submit for fear of their information being leaked to foreign agencies. At least until Desmond came along.

In Desmond's later years he had failed to crush the VASCO completely. Many of its top generals were still at large. Until they had them, VASCO would continue to function no matter how many others they captured.

They all understood what Frank was insinuating. What Kate had mentioned was one-side of the argument. The other side was that the agency itself had disposed of Desmond and was sending its agents on a wild goose chase after a spy who might not exist. They were analysts after all, and in their work they had stumbled upon cover-ups, whilst working other cases. Actions taken by the agency which were questionable.

It almost made sense. Desmond had been compromised, he was too much of a celebrity not to be noticed. He was a glaring weak point for the agency. And weaknesses had to be cut off. And the statement of a spy would be simply to obscure the truth. That Desmond was losing his touch. These two combining factors would make it expedient for the agency to get rid of him.

Sheila cleared her throat and broke the silence. "What exactly are you trying to say Kate?" she asked.

Everyone else turned to Kate. "I'm saying that VASCO is the group more likely to come after Desmond. He dismantled their operations. Al-Qaeda, Taliban and many other groups wouldn't single out Desmond. This is, excuse my words, too intelligent. It has to be VASCO or some less famous group."

"Like Arcane?" Frank asked.

Arcane was probably the opposite of VASCO. They also dealt in that information and intelligence. But they didn't sell it. They used it to strengthen their position and gain more power. The CIA suspected some countries might have actually collaborated to form this group. A great 8 behind the shadows.

The methods of Arcane and VASCO were subtle and more dangerous. They could kill one person and create more chaos than killing a thousand. Just last month Arcane had succeeded in murdering the French president. Even with their best analysts, the CIA had been clueless at the reason for such an action. They could also collapse a country's economy. Or simply expose undercover agents to criminal rings. That was VASCO's. A year prior to Desmond's arrival, several agents had been rooted out and killed by al-Qaeda because of them. This had caused quite some fear in the agency for some time. America had refused to meet some of VASCO's financial demands and that was their retaliation. After that incident, there were no attempts at not responding until Desmond.

The four analysts were famous for their ability to arrive at conclusions even with very scarce evidence. There were able to make sometimes leaps in their analysis. They were like a team and they were the best the agency had. But even they could not be certain of the circumstances that led to Desmond's demise.

 

Reviews

[Nana]

Whoa, so there are two bad groups that chuck should be worried about.