Twenty-four oceans, twenty-four skies
Twenty-four failures in twenty-four tries
Twenty-four finds me in twenty-fourth place
Twenty-four dropouts at the end of the day
2:30 P.M., Pacific Standard Time
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, California
Her clothes were dry – well, close enough to dry, if a little salt-encrusted. The roll of cash she had had in her pocket was still damp, but that couldn’t be helped.
She had just over five thousand dollars cash on her. Thank God she had thought of grabbing it the night before – the thought that she might be able to bribe Longshore had occurred to her, and so she’d gone to the hotel to retrieve her emergency cash.
Fucking Longshore, she thought bitterly. Not that any of this was really his fault – he’d just been following orders when he came to extract Chuck. Nonetheless, he was a rather convenient, if dead, target for her anger.
She’d thought that the hike into Avalon was going to be significant, but it turned out it was actually pretty easy to just walk down the beach. There weren’t too many tourists on Catalina at this time of year – sure, the island still did pretty good business, but the end of January was a little cold off the coast of Southern California.
Arriving in Avalon was comforting. Even though she’d only been there a couple of times, it was at least familiar. She walked south into town until she reached Whittley Avenue, and then turned right.
There it was. The Avalon Hotel. She’d stayed there once on a mission, once just for fun. She had really wanted to bring Chuck there –
STOP IT, she commanded herself. You will just drive yourself crazy.
As she entered the lobby, she drew a couple of stares. That wasn’t surprising – she probably looked like the wild woman of Borneo at that point. At least, though, she probably wouldn’t be immediately recognizable as the Vincent Thomas Bridge jumper – not with her hair tied back, and her black jacket tied around her waist.
She walked directly to the front desk. “Can I help you… ma’am?” the desk clerk asked, raising his eyebrow.
“I need your least expensive room with a king bed,” she replied.
“Do you have a major credit card, ma’am?”
She sighed. “I do not, but…” She pulled out the roll of cash. “I will give you cash for ten nights, up front. By the tenth night, I will either give you a credit card, or I will check out.”
The appearance of the large roll of cash instantly changed the clerk’s demeanor. “Excellent, ma’am,” he replied. “Our least expensive room is one hundred ninety-five dollars per night, plus a ten dollar nightly hospitality fee, and nine point five percent tax. For ten nights, that will come to a total of…” He fiddled with a calculator for a moment. “Two thousand, two hundred forty-four dollars and seventy-five cents.”
She peeled twenty-three one hundred dollar bills off of the slightly damp roll. “Here’s twenty-three hundred,” she said. “Just apply the difference to the account as well.”
The clerk smiled. “Of course. If you could please fill out this registration card…”
He slid the card and a pen across the desk. She hesitated for a moment. What name to put on the card?
After a moment, she began to write. Elizabeth Reynolds, she wrote on the card. Her real name. A name she hadn’t used in nearly six years. For her address, she put her long unused post office box in Herndon, Virgina.
She slid the registration card back across the desk to the clerk. “Very good, Ms. Reynolds,” he said. “May I see your driver’s license, please?”
Beth Reynolds peeled another hundred dollar bill off and handed it to him. “Most excellent,” he said with a smile. He reached into a drawer below and pulled out a key card. Placing it into a reader, he punched in the room number. A moment later, he handed her the card. “Room 112,” he informed her.
“Thank you,” Beth said. “Is your concierge around?”
The front desk clerk pointed to a stand near the desk. “Thank you for all your help,” she said.
Beth headed toward the concierge. On her way, she snagged an Avalon Hotel notepad and a pen from the desk. She began to write out a list of things she would need.
“Good afternoon,” the concierge said as she approached, standing to his feet. “How may I be of assistance?”
“I need some items,” Beth replied. She tore the top sheet off of the notepad and handed him the list. “Clothes, toiletries, hair color, so on – everything on this list. My sizes for the clothes are listed there.”
“Where would you like me to acquire these items?” the concierge asked.
Beth retrieved the cash roll and peeled off six one hundred dollar bills. “Six hundred dollars,” she told the concierge, handing him the money. “Now, I don’t care where you go to buy these things – it can be here on the island, or you can have somebody go to Target in Long Beach and send them over on the ferry for all I care.”
She leaned in with a smile. “Just keep in mind – wherever you go, you may keep the change.”
The concierge smiled back. “Thank you very much, ma’am. We’ll have this for you by six o’clock.”
As Beth Reynolds walked away from the concierge stand, she heard him pick up the phone. “Eddie? Hey, it’s Bob. Listen – I need you to go to the store, get some stuff for me, and bring it over on the ferry.”
Life is not what I thought it was, twenty-four hours ago
Still I’m singing, Spirit take me up in arms with You.
And I’m not who I thought I was, twenty-four hours ago
Still I’m singing, Spirit take me up in arms with You.
Beth stood under the hot stream of water in the shower for nearly an hour. The dirt, the grime, the dumpster sludge, the salt – they all washed away in the first five minutes. But she just felt so unspeakably dirty, so unbearably filthy – she tried to wash it all away.
When she stepped out of the shower, she toweled off, and wrapped one of the hotel’s bathrobes around herself. Picking up the pair of jeans she had been wearing, she began to go through its pockets, to make sure that there was nothing – absolutely nothing – that could be used to identify her if somebody were to find them in the trash.
She reached into the back pocket – and there was something in there. Something printed on heavy paper stock. Curious, she pulled it out and looked at it – and her heart froze.
It was a picture of her and Chuck at Christmas. They weren’t looking at the camera, but at each other. She smiled sadly as she looked at the unabashed affection, the love for her on his face – and was surprised but not shocked to see the same look on her own face.
The ink on the picture had run a little bit from being in the water, but not too terribly so. She sighed. She couldn’t keep the picture. It was too much of a risk.
Tears started to come to her eyes as she grasped the picture and prepared to rip it in half –
No. She refused to do it. Beth Reynolds was not going to give up this last tiny reminder of what her life as Sarah Walker had been like, what she could have had with Chuck Bartowski. As long as she was alive, that picture was going to stay with her.
Beth collapsed onto the bed and turned on the television. That was a mistake, because the lead story on KNBC-4’s news was about the Vincent Thomas Bridge Jumper – her. “The jumper has been identified as twenty-five year old Sarah Walker of Los Angeles,” anchor Paul Moyer was saying. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff has been unable to find any next of kin. They have also not as yet found the body, although they did discover a school of tiger sharks in the area.”
Beth shuddered. She probably wouldn’t have taken the plunge if she’d known there were sharks in the water.
She flipped the TV to Comedy Central. Hmmm, Half-Baked was on. That was good mindless entertainment. It would take her mind off of things.
Half an hour later, as Harland Williams was being hauled off to jail for killing an unfortunate police horse, there was a knock on the door. Instinctively, she looked around for her gun – no gun. That had been left in the Porsche on the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
With a sense of trepidation, she crossed to the door and looked through the peephole – oh, it was just the concierge. She unlocked the door and swung it open.
“Good evening, Ms. Reynolds,” he said, handing her three large Target bags. “Everything you asked for.”
“Thank you very much,” she said.
“Have a good evening,” the concierge replied. He turned and walked away down the hall, not expecting a tip – and he damn well shouldn’t have, Beth thought, looking at the receipt. The total bill had only come to four hundred thirty-seven dollars, which meant that the concierge essentially got a one hundred sixty-three dollar tip out of it. She hoped he’d shared at least a portion of that with his friend on the mainland.
The bags contained just what Beth had requested. Five black fitted t-shirts. Three pairs of black jeans. Two black blouses. Two black skirts. Seven sets of black underwear. A pair of black tennis shoes, a pair of black dress shoes, a pair of black flip-flops…
And a pair of black Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. She smiled sadly at seeing those. Okay, so she would keep two reminders of her life as Sarah Walker.
The bags also contained the basic makeup she needed on a daily basis, a pair of scissors and a hair clipper, and a box of red hair dye. Necessary toiletries were in there, along with a cheap fake leather wallet, and possibly the most important item – a Virgin Mobile pre-paid cell phone.
Picking up the bedside phone, she followed the instructions to activate the cell phone. Then, depressing the hook, she dialed another number from memory.
After two rings, the phone on the other end was answered. “Good evening, you have reached the Cayman National Bank,” she heard. “My name is Robert. How may I be of assistance?”
“I need to access account Victor one four seven nine Bravo six four nine,” she replied.
“A moment,” was the response. Then: “Password, please?”
“Mothball soup.”
“Thank you.” He was quiet for a moment, and then when he spoke again, he said, “Sixty-two.”
Oh, shit. The challenge and response code. Beth thought for a moment. What was the formula? Take the number given, find the next ascending prime number, divide by three, multiply by pi to two decimal places…
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, thinking about it for a moment. When she figured out the answer, she said, “Seventy point one three.”
There was another moment of silence as Robert used a calculator, and then he spoke again. “Thank you, ma’am. Your identity is confirmed. How may I be of assistance to you this evening?”
She breathed a sigh of relief. She’d gotten it right. “I need to transfer five hundred thousand dollars to a Bank of America account,” she replied. She gave him the transit number and the account number. “I also need the contents of my safe deposit box shipped to Elizabeth Reynolds in care of the Avalon Hotel, 124 Whittley Avenue, Avalon, California, USA, 90704. In addition, I will need an American Express Black card, issued in the same name, drawn on my remaining credit with the bank.”
There was another moment of quiet on the other end as Robert punched the instructions into his computer. “Very good, ma’am,” he finally said. “The funds will transfer immediately. The other items will be delivered no later than 6:00 PM Pacific Time on Friday, February 1st. Is there anything else I can assist you with this evening.”
“No, thank you, that’s all,” Beth replied.
“Have a good evening, ma’am.”
Twenty-four reasons to admit that I’m wrong
With all my excuses still twenty-four strong
See, I’m not copping out, not copping out, not copping out
When You’re raising the dead in me,
Oh, oh, I am the second man
Oh, oh, I am the second man now,
Oh, oh, I am the second man now…
An hour later, she barely recognized herself in the mirror. Gone was the haircut she’d had since her freshman year of high school, replaced by a shoulder length bob. Gone were the platinum tresses that had so often weakened men’s knees – Chuck’s included. The blonde hair was replaced by a subtle amber tone with vague blonde highlights that actually looked natural, she was surprised to see.
Shedding the bathrobe, she began to dress. She winced at the stiffness of the Target-bought bra. There was a reason why she generally shopped at Victoria’s Secret, but when one was trying to disappear, one went with what one could get.
Beth pulled on one of the black t-shirts and a pair of the jeans. Putting on socks, she reached for the tennis shoes – but then, reconsidered, and grabbed the Converse shoes.
Fifteen minutes later, she walked out the front door of the hotel onto Whittley Avenue. Just after seven o’clock, it was already dark out. She sighed, but remembered that this WAS Catalina, and she DID know over a hundred ways to kill somebody, should they be so foolish as to attack her.
She turned left, headed toward the beach. When she turned right, she reached Crescent Avenue. She smiled as Antonio’s Pizzeria came into view. She’d been there once before, with Bryce – before he had turned into a total tool.
Beth frowned at thinking of Bryce that way. She couldn’t help but think that it had been partially her fault. After all, she had lied to him repeatedly about the mission in London – the mission to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko – and in the end, that had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for him. Oh sure, he’d tried to make it work, but their relationship had never recovered.
It didn’t help that he’d showed up again back at Thanksgiving. If he hadn’t shown up, Fulcrum probably wouldn’t have figured out that Chuck was the Intersect. Chuck wouldn’t have been in constant danger, and maybe Sarah Walker would’ve been able to let her guard down just enough to show Chuck how she really felt about him.
Beth slapped her hands against her legs in frustration. She had to stop thinking that way. She had to stop thinking about Chuck, stop thinking about Bryce. She had to go back to being Beth Reynolds, Boston Latin High, class of 2000, genius, U-Mass dropout.
And You’re raising these twenty-four voices with twenty-four hearts
With all of my symphonies in twenty-four parts
But I want to be one today, centered and true
I’m singing, Spirit take me up in arms with You
Two days after Beth arrived on Catalina Island, a FedEx box arrived for her at the Avalon Hotel. The sender was Cayman National Bank, Ltd., and the box was marked urgent, fragile, and confidential.
Taking it back to her room, she spilled the contents onto her bed. All her old documents that identified her as Beth Reynolds were there – a Massachusetts driver’s license, good until June of that year, a US passport, good until 2010, a debit card for the Bank of America account, good until March of 2009, the American Express Black card that she had requested, and most importantly, the broken-down parts of a Colt M1911A1 handgun.
She had not been happy at having to leave behind the Marine Recon edition M1911 that Gunny Martin Adams had given her six years before, but it had been necessary. She only hoped that it somehow ended up in John Casey’s hands – she knew he’d appreciate such a gun.
Beth quickly assembled the M1911A1, slapped in the one loaded clip, and slipped it into the waistband of her jeans, behind her back. The reassuring presence of the gun behind her brought a small measure of comfort.
The driver’s license, the AMEX Black, and the B of A Visa debit card all went into her wallet, which still contained more than two thousand dollars in cash. She felt almost back to normal again, a wallet in her left pocket, a cell phone in her right, her passport in her back pocket, and a gun in her waistband.
Her first stop was downstairs at the front desk, where she presented the desk clerk – the same one who had checked her in – with the AMEX Black card and her driver’s license. Dollar signs practically registered in his eyes at the appearance of the American Express card, and he offered to upgrade her – for free – to a nicer room. Beth thanked him and declined, saying she liked the room she was in.
Beth’s next stop had been at a house near the beach. A retired optometrist lived there, and according to the concierge, he ran a small part-time practice out of the house. He was home when Beth arrived, and he had been more than happy to provide her with eye-color changing contact lenses in exchange for several crisp hundred dollar bills.
So now, Beth Reynolds had red hair and green eyes. When her driver’s license expired in June and she went to the mainland to get a California one, she would have to remove the contacts, but the hair could easily be explained away.
She needed something to do with her time, too, but something that would keep her hidden. So her next stop was at Catalina Computers. Sure enough, they needed a part time tech-support person, and Beth had picked up more than enough in her time spent with Chuck to fill that role.
You’re raising the dead in me
Oh, oh, I am the second man
Oh, oh, I am the second man now,
Oh, oh, I am the second man now,
And you’re raising the dead in me
Beth acquired a MacBook laptop by the time she’d been on the island for a week. The Avalon Hotel provided WiFi access included with the stay, so she’d been able to get onto the Internet no problem.
The problem had come when she needed to do some hacking. However, the assistance of a rather unscrupulous Nerd Herder at a Buy More in Dallas had allowed her to get basically anywhere she wanted.
One of the first computer databases she had visited was that of the Central Intelligence Agency. The first thing she looked at was the file on Sarah Walker. It had already been closed, and she was marked as DECEASED. An addendum to the file showed that the CIA was leaning on the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office to officially declare Sarah Walker dead, body or no.
That satisfied Beth in a strange way. If the CIA thought she was dead, so much the better.
She then accidentally stumbled upon a proposal known as Project MOAB. As she read through it, she realized in horror that it was a plan to extract Chuck from Los Angeles and place him in a secure facility in Utah. After determining that it had not yet been forwarded to Graham or Beckman, she deleted the proposal and everything she could find that was related to it. Then she put an “official” reprimand in the file of the analyst who had made the proposal.
February turned into March. Spring turned into summer. Tourist traffic increased. Beth managed to keep a low profile, not attracting too much attention, but not flying too far under the radar. She managed to just be a non-entity.
In June, she was sent to the Villa Portofino Hotel for a tech support call. The order was for an individual named D. Woodcomb. The name didn’t register, but it did set off alarm bells. She decided to go in a bit of disguise, just as a precautionary measure.
She added a pair of black-frame glasses to her green contacts. A San Diego State ballcap went on her head. A rainbow t-shirt with a peace sign along with a pair of torn and faded blue jeans completed the nerd image. The rarely-worn Chuck Taylors went on her feet.
When the door was answered, she almost passed out. D. Woodcomb was Devin “Captain Awesome” Woodcomb.
Beth was shocked, but recovered quickly. Fortunately, Devin didn’t seem to recognize her, and she breathed a prayer of thanks that she had decided to go in disguise.
Devin explained that Ellie’s computer had somehow developed a corruption of Windows XP. Beth worked hurriedly to repair the problem, hoping against hope that Ellie wouldn’t come back to the hotel room and find her there. Devin might not have recognized her, but she was certain that Ellie would. Women – sisters of wronged men, especially – just seemed to be that way.
Ellie fortunately did not show up before she finished. When she filled out the invoice and handed it to Devin, though, he looked at it strangely, as though he recognized the handwriting. He looked up at her. “Have we met before?”
She did her best to put a bemused look on her face. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “I grew up in San Diego, and I’ve lived her for quite a while.”
He shrugged. “Eh. I guess you just look familiar.”
She smiled. “I get that a lot.”
Devin finished filling out his credit card information, signed the invoice, and handed it back to her. “Well, thanks. My fiancée will appreciate it.”
Beth nodded, her smile becoming strained. “Glad to hear it. Have a good day!”
When she got back to the Avalon Hotel, though, Beth collapsed on her bed and went on a ten minute crying jag. It was not amusing at all to run into Chuck’s family like that, and it was quite an emotional strain to be around Captain Awesome for nearly an hour and not be able to indicate AT ALL that she knew him.
I want to see miracles, to see the world change
I wrestled the angel, for more than a name
For more than a feeling, for more than a cause
I’m singing Spirit, take me up in arms with You,
And You’re raising the dead in me.
After Devin and Ellie left the island, Beth breathed a sigh of relief. There were no more encounters like that.
June passed and turned into July. In early July, there was a story about a sleeper cell that had gotten their hands on a shipment of Stinger missiles and parked themselves outside of MCAS Miramar. They had actually managed to shoot down an F/A-18 Hornet – piloted by one Lieutenant Will Williamson – but he had ejected safely, and the sleeper cell had been quickly found.
Beth discovered that she could get used to living on Catalina Island. It was quiet, it was peaceful. There wasn’t much noise pollution, air pollution, or light pollution. She could spend her free time on the beach, and only once had she been asked by a teenager if the “curtains matched the drapes”.
That teenager had gotten his ass kicked.
The only problem with enjoying living on Catalina so much was that Beth discovered she was lonely. She didn’t really have any friends on the island, and the one person who she wished more than anything could be there with her, she could never allow herself to see again.
She refused to start drinking again. That had caused her more trouble than it was worth in college. And so, she went through each day, lonely, her mind clear and more than able to process the fact that she was lonely.
And then, one day in late July, the shit hit the fan.
Beth was working at Catalina Computers one afternoon, when she heard the door open. A moment later, the bell on the counter rang. “Just a moment!” she called, reattaching the side panel to the Alienware desktop she was working on.
Setting the desktop down, she exited the back room and walked up to the counter –
And came face to face with Arthur Jerrod Graham, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
There was a barely contained look of rage on his face. It was clear that he was not surprised to see her. He had come here seeking her out.
“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GODDAMN MIND, WALKER?!”
Twenty-four voices, with twenty-four hearts
With all of my symphonies in twenty-four parts
I’m not copping out, not copping out, not copping out…
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