Okay, I'll admit, this chapter is a lot fluffy and a little angsty. But that's okay - after a chapter like the last chapter, I think Sarah deserves a bit of a break from being a full time badass.
Also, she does go a little bit nuts while working out to the sounds of a Rage Against the Machine song, so beware a couple occurrences of the F-bomb.
Sarah Walker was in a foul mood.
When she came back from Belgrade, Director Graham had told her that he’d have a new assignment for her a week later.
Over a month, and still nothing. Seems that one of the Serbians she’d killed – mob boss Radomir Bogdanović – had been a contact for the National Security Agency.
When she was informed of the situation, she had angrily replied that quite frankly, she could give a flying fuck. He’d been an evil individual, and she’d been ordered to eliminate him. She’d done her job, and she had damn well done it well. But as a result, she’d been raked over the coals and been dragged before a Congressional committee, with the NSA (completely unfairly, in her opinion) insisting on attaching an addendum to her newly awarded Intelligence Star.
Right now, she was in the gym at the CIA’s Langley facility, stretching and warming up, and hoping to work out some of her aggression. Another agent had loaned Sarah her new digital music player – “These new iPods are amazing,” she’d said – and told Sarah that every song on it was perfect for letting go of some aggression to.
Sarah quickly scrolled through the playlist. She didn’t really recognize anything, having almost exclusively listened to 60s and 70s music up to this point. So, she selected the “shuffle all” option and decided to let the iPod take her where it would.
The first song that came up was perfect. It opened with a solid drum hit, which she matched with a kick to a punching bag. It was followed by a similar hit every four beats, until it started in on a little guitar riff that was perfect for boxing with the punching bag.
Sarah was just starting to get into a rhythm when the music stopped, and a distorted voice said, “Killing in the name of!”
Then a new riff, and a new rhythm came in. It was even better.
For the next five minutes, Sarah danced around the punching bag, beating the shit out of it as Rage Against the Machine basically told the story of her time in the CIA – “You’re under control, and now you do what they told ya!”
The song was very repetitive, and toward the end of it, Sarah even found herself muttering the lyrics along with it. But it was the end of the song where she really got to let loose.
The first time she heard the line, she was mildly shocked. But every time it repeated, she let loose on the punching bag, and by the end of it, she was screaming it out loud along with Tom Morello – “FUCK YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!”
When Morello let loose his final, “Motherfucker!”, Sarah just released a scream of primal rage and bicycle-kicked the punching bag. The chains holding the bag to its frame snapped, and it whipped end over end through the room, slamming into the wall and bursting open.
When the song ended, she heard somebody say, very quietly, “Uh, Agent Walker?”
She whirled around, murder in her eyes. “WHAT!”
It was Director Graham’s assistant, a woman who, though in reality about Sarah’s age, was as meek as a high school student. Her eyes widened, and she looked like she wanted to shrink into the floor.
“Uh, Director Graham wants to see you,” she practically whispered, and then made a beeline out of the gym.
Sarah stormed out of the gym, hot on the assistant’s tail. Dressed in her workout gear, she blew through the halls of the complex like Hurricane Andrew, leaving a trail of somewhat frightened people in her path. One analyst was bold enough to actually send a whistle in her direction, and the look she gave him when she turned would have, had it been physical, impaled him against the floor.
Sarah arrived on the administrative floor with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. At least one administrative assistant literally cowered in fear as Sarah went marching past, the door of Director Graham’s office her immediate objective.
Blazing directly past Graham’s assistant, who was sitting at her desk and meekly objecting, “You can’t just walk in,” Sarah slammed the door open, and parked herself directly in front of Graham’s desk.
Most men would’ve been startled by the door slamming open in the fashion in which it did. Most men would’ve been even more perturbed to turn around and find an insane-looking woman, clad in workout gear, hair askew, and fingerless sparring gloves still on her hands, standing on the other side of their desk.
Not Director Graham. He turned around, and very calmly said, “Thank you for coming so quickly, Agent Walker. Would you care to sit?”
“Not particularly,” she grated.
“Well then. How would you feel about a new assignment?”
Before she could stop herself, she had sarcastically uttered, “Well, it’s about goddamn time.”
Director Graham raised an eyebrow. “Agent Walker, you might want to consider how close to the edge of insubordination you are right now.”
She sighed, but it came out sounding more like a growl. “Director Graham, with respect, I have been sitting around here for the last month while those brainless shits at the National Security Agency have villainized me for efficiently carrying out a mission that was personally authorized by the President! Please, give me ONE good reason why I should not be frustrated!”
Director Graham didn’t say anything, but instead, just tossed a folder on the desk. Sarah looked at it, then picked it up. The anger began to melt from her face, being replaced with the barest hints of a smile.
“Is this for real?”
“You leave at midnight tonight, Agent Walker.”
Sarah was back at her apartment, a few hours before she had to leave. As she was packing, she grew rather hungry. Picking up the phone to order a pizza, she heard a curious set of clicks. It took her a moment to place it. When she realized, her eyes widened.
“Son of a BITCH!”
She went outside, to the telephone junction box on the exterior of the apartment building. Yep, there, attached to the line for apartment, was a transmitter. Running back into her apartment, she got a signal tracking device, and then held it up to the transmitter. The signal was going to…
That blue Dodge van across the street.
Murder in her eyes, she stormed across the street, and wrenched open the back door of the van, revealing two geek types sitting in front of a set of surveillance equipment. They both looked at her like deer in the headlights.
“You have ten seconds to tell me who you are,” she growled, drawing her gun.
“NSA! We’re NSA!” one of them shouted as soon as her gun cleared the holster.
Sarah shook her head. “Get out.”
The two quickly complied. Sarah went around to the driver’s door of the van, turned the key in the ignition, and then put the van in neutral. She released the handbrake and jumped out.
The street she lived on had a downward slope, so the van started rolling, picking up speed – down toward the Georgetown Pike. She watched in grim satisfaction as it rolled out into the street, where it was nailed by a semi. Total loss, instantly, as the truck screeched to a halt.
The two NSA analysts stood in the street behind her, heads in their hands, looks of utter shock and despair on their faces. She stalked back over to them.
“Give a message to your bosses,” she hissed. “Do NOT fuck with me!”
Sarah was met by the CIA Station Chief for Johannesburg when she landed at OR Tambo International Airport. He had a rather amused smile on his face the instant he saw her.
“Welcome to South Africa. Director Graham would like you to call in right away,” he informed her, handing her a cell phone.
Dialing zero and then the code to call the United States, she waited while the call was patched through. Finally, Director Graham answered.
“Agent Walker,” he rumbled when she identified herself. “The National Security Agency is not very happy with you.”
“The National Security Agency god damn well shouldn’t have been tapping my phone –“
“Which I have already told them,” he interrupted. “You should know that I have told them that I have no intentions of holding you responsible for what happened. However, the only reason I can get away with that is because there was no loss of manpower. You did destroy about a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment.”
“Which shouldn’t have been parked outside my apartment ANYWAY.”
“I KNOW that, Agent Walker. I’m just saying, you need to get a handle on your anger. I can’t have you turning into the Hulk every time you go a month without an assignment, because it’s going to happen more often than not.”
She sighed. “Yes, sir.”
Sarah’s assignment was to work with the South African National Intelligence Agency, because they were having a little problem with a missing nuclear bomb. It seemed that a general in the South African Air Force had gone rogue and sold the bomb to a little group known as Hamas.
Naturally, this made Israel a little nervous, and when Israel got nervous, the United States tended to get nervous. The bomb was believed to still be in South Africa, and it had been made quite clear that the consequences would be dire if Hamas actually managed to get the thing into Palestine.
She had been assigned to work with Agents Markus Sobukwe and Piers de Klerk – “No relation to the former President,” he made clear upon introducing himself.
“So,” Sarah started, sitting down in a Starbucks – What else? she thought – with the two NIA agents. “This bomb. Where did it disappear from, when did it disappear, and what possible motivation could the general have?”
“Motivation is easy,” Sobukwe replied. “General Nelson Herzog’s an anti-Semite bastard. The jackass truly thinks that Hitler had the right ideas.”
“Christ,” Sarah uttered, unable to stop herself. “Are these morons everywhere?”
The two agents looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?” de Klerk asked.
“Just a little, um, encounter I had in Belgrade,” she replied, trying to obfuscate.
They both looked a little more closely at her, then at each other. “No,” Sobukwe said. “It can’t be.”
De Klerk turned and looked at Sarah. “Please, please tell me that you’re the person responsible for those New Serbian Party lunatics being sent to meet the Lord.”
Sarah felt like her heart had stopped. She started to stutter. “I, um, um, I can’t, um, confirm or deny…”
Their eyes went wide. “Hot damn!” Sobukwe exclaimed. “We are in the presence of an intelligence legend!”
“How did you find them?”
“How’d you poison Klisara like that?”
“Did you really seduce Popović and stab him in the heart while he was in the middle of an orgasm?”
“ENOUGH!” Sarah roared, slamming her hands down on the table and propelling herself to her full 5’9” height. The men practically shrank, clearly intimidated.
She took a deep breath and sat back down. “The two of you are supposed to be professional intelligence agents. That being the case, you SHOULD know better. So, let me ask you this right now. Do you want my autograph, or DO YOU WANT TO FIND THE FUCKING NUKE!”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, but finally de Klerk spoke up softly. “If we find the ‘fucking nuke’, can I get your autograph afterwards?”
Despite herself, something about the way de Klerk said it got to Sarah, and a smile managed to find its way to her face. “Let’s just concentrate on one thing at a time, shall we?”
The lax security at Waterkloof Air Force Base was absolutely astonishing to Sarah. What was even more astonishing was to learn that General Herzog had driven a Hummer right up to the nuclear storage bunker, had the technicians on duty load a fifty-kiloton air-burst weapon into the vehicle, and then driven away into the night, without a single word from anybody.
A week had gone by, with no luck finding the bomb, or General Herzog. Sarah was starting to get worried. This had much larger implications than just the future of her career – if Hamas got their hands on a nuclear bomb, the Middle East would simply be done. There would be no saving it.
Sarah had tried to look at the week in a positive fashion. She was developing a good rapport with the two agents. However, she was also, though she refused to admit it to herself, developing somewhat of a soft spot for Piers de Klerk.
She discovered that he’d been born in Cape Town, six months before she had, but that he’d grown up in Houston. As a result, when he’d moved back with his parents at the age of sixteen, his Texas accent had blended with the South African accent in a way that made his voice sound very interesting indeed. Sometimes he’d say something that sounded downright British, and then follow it up with a “y’all”.
Sobukwe ribbed him about it mercilessly, and sometimes Sarah would join in on it. Not that she had any room to talk – despite being fluent in fourteen languages, her English still had a distinct Boston accent. She was working on that, though.
Every so often, when one of the three had said something to make the others laugh, Sarah would look up and catch de Klerk looking at her. When she made eye contact with him, his eyes would light up for a moment, and then, embarrassed, he would look away.
On the eighth morning she was there, she woke up having slept on her neck wrong. She must have pinched a nerve or something, because it hurt like hell. She mentioned that while poring over more (and useless) intelligence on General Herzog.
“There’s really not much you can do about it,” Sobukwe said. “I know this, because it happens to me all the time. Usually when I go to bed drunk.”
Sarah laughed, and even the laughter caused her pain. “Owww,” she groaned, reaching up to rub her neck.
“Here,” de Klerk said, walking around to stand behind her. “My grandmother taught me this technique that she learned during World War II.”
He put his fingertips on Sarah’s neck, and began very gently moving them around – almost as if his fingers were dancing on her neck. She could feel him applying just the slightest bit of pressure at certain points – and amazingly enough, it actually began to work.
About fifteen minutes later, her neck was still sore, but there were no more shooting pains. “Thank you,” she said softly. Reaching up to her neck, she put her hand on de Klerk’s. It rested there for a moment before he pulled away and walked back around the table. Looking up at him, she could see that he had turned bright red.
He took a moment to compose himself, and just as he was about to say something, his phone rang. Frowning, he pulled it out of his pocket. “De Klerk.”
His eyes widened, and he motioned for a pen and a piece of paper. Sobukwe stood up and gave both to him. As he wrote furiously in Afrikaans, his eyes lit up. “Yes. Yes. Detain him immediately. Thank you.”
De Klerk hung up, his eyes on fire. “Herzog was spotted, in a military Hummer, at a truck stop fifty kilometers from the Zimbabwe border. Local police are on the way.”
“How far away from us?” Sarah asked.
De Klerk looked at what he’d written down, and then at a map. “Ummm… an hour’s drive?”
“Then why don’t we get out there,” she said. “We need to verify that the nuke is actually in the Hummer.”
He grimaced. “Dammit. That’s a good point. Alright… uh, crap. All I’ve got is my Tacoma, and that only seats two.”
“No worries,” Sobukwe said with a grin. “I’ll get a car from the motor pool.”
He winked at Sarah as he passed her on the way out the door.
As Sobukwe exited the room, de Klerk turned behind him, opened a cabinet, and removed something. “Here,” he said, turning and handing it to Sarah.
A gun and a holster. “I can’t,” she replied. “I’m a foreign intelligence agent. I can get into huge amounts of trouble if I’m caught carrying a weapon here.”
Piers de Klerk looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Sarah Walker, I hereby deputize you as a provisional agent of the National Intelligence Agency until such time as this deputization is revoked.”
Sarah was shocked. “I don’t think you can do that!”
“I just did,” he replied. “Now are you going to take the gun, or not?”
She took the gun.
The ride from Pretoria had been silent. They were about halfway to the town of Swartruggens when de Klerk spoke.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable back there.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’m just not sure of the legality of it all,” she replied. “If the CIA has a problem with it… well, let’s just say that there are already certain other parts of the American intelligence community who would like to see me go down.”
“Why!” de Klerk blurted. “From everything I’ve seen, you’re one of the best agents they’ve got!”
She smiled slightly. “Thank you. But… well, it’s political.”
“Well, screw that!” he replied. “That’s just… that’s… completely asinine!”
Sarah laughed. “It is… but you know, I’m not quite sure I understand why you care so much about whether or not a foreign intelligence agent gets into trouble.”
It was a loaded question, and she knew it. He didn’t seem to recognize it, though, as his mouth overrode his brain, and he said, “Because I like you, Agent Walker, and I think…”
His brain caught up to his mouth at that point. “Um, I mean, I like you as a person… and… well… oh, to hell with it. I like you. There. I said it. That’s why I deputized you, too. I care about you, and I want you to be able to protect yourself if the need should rise.”
Sarah looked downward. For as bumbling as de Klerk had just been about his admission of his feelings for her, it was also probably the most sincere and true admission she’d ever heard. Of course, that put the ball squarely in her court.
“Piers,” she said softly. “I like you too. I think you’re a really nice guy, and you can do something which a lot of people can’t do, and that’s make me laugh.”
She paused. “Uh-oh,” he said. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
Sarah sighed. “The only ‘but’ is this – I’ve never been good with relationships. I’m horrible at them. I went through high school like a bat out of hell, and truthfully, Piers, it’s less painful for me to avoid them. Part of my job is seduction, and I don’t know if I can handle the pain.”
Piers de Klerk gripped the steering wheel of his Toyota Tacoma and stared at the road ahead. He didn’t say anything for a moment – and then, he slammed on the brakes, jerking the Tacoma off the side of the road.
He threw the gearshift into park, and then turned to look at Sarah. “I… I… I don’t… I don’t care, Sarah.”
And with that, he put his hand behind her neck, pulled her to him, and kissed her. Sarah’s eyes went wide with shock, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes, and allowed herself to sink into the kiss, raising her hand to de Klerk’s cheek. It seemed to go on for an eternity – but it had only been a few seconds when his phone rang.
“God dammit,” he muttered, pulling away. He pulled out the phone. “De Klerk.”
He listened. “You’ve got him? AND the nuke?”
A smile lit up his face. “Fantastic. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He hung up, and put the truck into drive. His wheels spun momentarily in the roadside gravel, before he finally fishtailed out into the road. He didn’t look at Sarah, didn’t say anything –
So he was surprised, and very pleased, when she reached out her hand and put it on top of the one he had on the gearshift.
Sarah was in South Africa for two more days. She spent a good chunk of that time interrogating General Herzog, and a pretty significant chunk of time being debriefed by the NIA.
The rest of her time, she got to see a little bit of South Africa, with a friendly local by the name of Piers de Klerk acting as her tour guide.
They were both a little disappointed to have to part, but e-mail certainly made things easy. Sarah also decided that maybe, just maybe, it was time for her to get a cell phone.
When she got back to Langley, she went directly to see Director Graham. As she walked into his office, he noticed a significant change in her attitude.
“Agent Walker,” he said. “You’re no longer massively pissed at the world in general, I see.”
“No sir,” she replied. “I guess I really took what you said to heart. I can’t get mad about every little thing and lose control.”
He nodded his head. “That, and you got laid, right?”
Her eyes went wide. “How… how the hell?”
Graham smiled. “Walker, I’ve been an intelligence officer for my entire adult life. I can tell by watching you if you got laid, if your favorite TV show got cancelled, if you got drunk last night – hell, I can usually tell if people change the brand of toilet paper they use.”
Sarah nodded. “Well… creepy, but alright then.”
Director Graham laughed. “You did well again, Walker. Certainly no Intelligence Star for this one, but a good job nonetheless. Take a few days off, and I PROMISE I’ll have a new assignment for you this time.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sarah Walker was in an excellent mood.
