Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another—too often ending in the loss of both. – Tryon Edwards
Don't Mess With Mrs. Rogers
28 SEPTEMBER 2007
20 KM FROM ATHENS, GREECE
17:17 BST
By Chuck's estimation, they'd used every type of travel possible—train, taxi, plane, the good old sneaker express, car, and finally, boat. They'd chartered a ferry from Thessaloniki, and he could count the miles solely by how tense Sarah grew, stuck on a boat with no chance of escape. He traded his time watching the stunning blue waters churning below the ferry for watching Sarah scan the skies, expecting perhaps a helicopter or a team of Navy SEALs to come bursting onto the ferry. That was, of course, when he himself wasn't watching the other passengers suspiciously. It was a limited number on the ferry deck, but far, far more than he was used to. So he kept his guard up and distracted himself by tweaking the tail of his personal tiger/traveling buddy.
"I'm just wondering, but are we ever going to talk about Poland?" he drawled when Sarah had checked the sky for the fifteenth time that hour.
She jolted, but recovered quickly. "Talk about what?" At his know-it-all smirk, she rolled her eyes. "For the last time, I was using you for body heat. I was not snuggling."
"Cuddling. Cuddling was the word I used."
"Whatever." Sarah adjusted her Jackie O sunglasses and stared forward. "I never should have caved and agreed to a rest stop. If I'd known it would lead to this, I would have just made you keep marching, Pete."
Chuck raised his eyebrows at the cover name. "What's a little cuddling between friends?"
She hit him in the shoulder. She'd done it before, but this was the first time with any power behind it. Though he'd likely have bruises, Chuck had to fight a smile. He didn't admit that it had been nice to wake up wrapped around somebody else, even though four hours was an insane amount of sleep after everything they'd been through.
"Who's to say," Sarah said, "you weren't the one that started it?"
"I was exactly where I'd fallen asleep. You were the one half on top of me," Chuck pointed out, and watched the faintest pink tinge spread over his traveling partner's cheeks.
Interesting.
Because he wasn't a complete jerk, he changed the subject. "Wouldn't it have just been faster to take the train?"
"They'll be monitoring all of the trains in the area," Sarah said. "Maybe not vigilantly since we threw your watch on the eastbound train before we left Siberia. But we can't risk them getting lucky."
"Hence the weird travel pattern," Chuck finished. It had taken him awhile to realize that they'd landed in southern Poland. Upon waking—and untangling themselves—they'd grabbed sleek travel bags from the plane and had covered ten kilometers at a trot. Sarah had set the pace. Chuck had merely done everything he possibly could to keep up, but after so long living in an enclosed space, he wasn't used to walking great distances, much less almost jogging them.
Nine hours in a small car hadn't made things any better. Though Sarah had let him split the driving with her.
They'd spent the day playing tourist, of all things. Sarah had ditched the car, they'd stowed the bags at a train station, and had gone all over Thessaloniki. If he hadn't been battling another serious case of agoraphobia, he might have had a blast. Sarah kept insisting they pose for couple-type photos with the camera she'd brought—Chuck was positive that when they reviewed the pictures later, he would be covered in sweat in every single one.
The ferry had left in the wee hours of dawn, giving them time to find a quiet, out of the way bar to eat and rest. Though Sarah had kept a cheerful façade going all throughout the seafood smorgasbord, Chuck had just felt like melting into his seat and sleeping for about fourteen hours straight.
Of course, sleeping on the ferry got interesting. They hadn't booked berths, so they'd slept sitting up—and since Sarah really wanted to sell the married cover, she'd used Chuck's shoulder as a pillow. He hadn't gotten much sleep.
The voice over the intercom gabbled at them, making Sarah glance up. "Twenty minutes," she announced.
"And then we're in Athens?"
"And then we're in Athens."
"Fantastic." Chuck fiddled with his sunglasses. "We'll go meet your ex—"
"My cousin," Sarah warned and added, under her breath, "Pete."
Oh right. Their cover was a married couple and Chuck figured Pete Rogers probably wouldn't want to spend time with any of his wife's exes.
"We'll go meet your cousin," he finished. "Silly me, I've forgotten his name."
"And yours, too," Sarah apparently couldn't resist adding.
When they disembarked, the cab took them to a bungalow not too far from the coastline. "Nice place—is he just not at home or something?"
"No, this is where we're staying tonight." Finally out of sight of the public, Sarah rolled her shoulders to release the kinks. She tossed her bag onto the bed—the only bed, Chuck noted—and immediately began to root around. Looking for bugs, Chuck realized. "What's going to happen is that I'll go see Randy, and you'll stay here and not set foot outside. Do you understand me? I want you to stay in here. Take a shower, go to bed. And whatever you do, do not go outside." She turned and drilled a finger into his chest. "I mean that, Chuck. I don't care if the four horsemen of the apocalypse want you to come out and play strip poker with them and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, you are to stay. In. Here. Preferably away from the windows."
The four horsemen of the apocalypse and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders? Now there was something to have very erotic nightmares about. Chuck frowned. "Why can't I go with you?"
"Because what's in your head is a valuable piece of intelligence to the United States government and Randy's…not exactly kosher."
Something about her tone, and the way her eyes cut to the right, made Chuck grab her wrist before she could leave. "I really think I should go with you."
She stared at his hand as if baffled. "Chuck, how many ways do you know to kill a man?"
Well, that was a weird question. "Um…shoot him? Shove him off a bridge?"
Sarah leaned in and whispered exactly how many ways she knew to send a man shuffling from his mortal coil. Chuck decided not to bring up the hayloft cuddling again. Ever.
"Got it," he said, swallowing audibly and taking a micro-step back. "I'll just stay in here tonight, learn some Greek from 'Happy Days' marathons or something. Tell Randy I say hi."
But before she left, Sarah handed him a piece of paper. "If I don't come back, call that number and ask for Clark. Just tell him I'm vouching for you, and he'll get you to DC."
Chuck scanned the paper, grateful it didn't cause a flash (that had been a problem during their tourism jaunts—apparently, there was intelligence buried in ancient Greek ruins), and stuffed it in his pocket. "Will do. Any idea what time you'll be back?"
"Late. Don't wait up, honey."
"Yes, dear," Chuck replied in exactly the same tone. Because it was polite, he escorted Sarah to the door, but stood where he wouldn't be seen by anybody outside. Through a slit in the window blinds, he watched her amble away.
His first priority was a shower. The last time he'd had anything approaching the real thing had been an improvised sponge bath on the Russian train. He stripped out of the sweater and jeans he'd been wearing since the plane and, shedding clothes, hurried to the bathroom to wash away the reek. It was heaven, he decided, not to freeze to death right before and after his shower.
So heavenly that, assured Sarah wouldn't be back for awhile, he felt comfortable lounging around in nothing but a towel, flipping through the channels on the television.
Greek. Greek. Possibly Italian. That sounded like French. Greek. Spanish. English. Gre—Chuck flipped back to the English-speaking station and set the remote aside. BBC news broadcast. It had been so long since he had actually watched a broadcast on the television rather than streaming from the internet. It didn't matter that his connection in the bunker had been strangely fantastic. There was just something to watching TV on an actual TV set, even if it was the crappy 13-incher that this bungalow provided.
He absorbed details, cursing whenever a leader's name activated some spark within the Intersect and caused a mini-migraine. Flashes, he'd decided to call them, as they were great flashes of insight. Since the Intersect had quite a bit of dirt on most of the world leaders, watching the news was like receiving his own dossier on behind-the-scenes politics.
He rubbed his forehead to clear some of the lingering muzziness from the flashes. "Wonderful. Is it going to be like that for the rest of my life? Geez." Rising, he decided it was probably time to don boxers and maybe find something to eat, as his stomach had begun making its presence known—and loudly.
He downed half of the contents of the refrigerator, eating whole chunks of Feta and olive bread with his fingers, eating everything cold because he was too hungry to bother with cooking. When his frugal side alerted him that he should save something, should the next shipment of food and Tang not come…He listened, though he knew, he knew, that he had fled the bunker for good. But he wasn't alone anymore, he had somebody else to think about. Sarah might be hungry later.
Habit made him tidy up the place before he turned off the TV and crawled into bed. They hadn't brought any books, not even the one comic book he had read through thousands of times in the bunker, so his normal pre-sleep activities were out of the question. Instead, he pawed through his parka, glancing about to make sure that he was truly alone. He had no idea if Sarah had the bungalow bugged, but he'd have to risk it. His fingers found the seam and ripped with long practice. He'd have to sew it back up later, but that hardly mattered.
Two photographs fell away into his hand. They were crumpled, covered with spidery white lines of use, discolored due to sweat. But they were all he had. Indulging himself, he set them on the nightstand and, with those photographs watching over him, fell asleep.
29 SEPTEMBER 2007
ATHENS, GREECE
06:17 BST
He woke, aware of two things.
The first, more pressingly (literally), was that he once again wasn't alone. Somehow, Sarah had managed to slip inside without waking him. It showed quite a bit of skill on her part, for years in the bunker had made him paranoid to the point where he'd set up the sensors across the door the night before during a waking spell. He'd set the sensors at knee height—apparently she'd not only spotted them, but had jumped over and had landed soundlessly enough not to wake him. Or she'd come in through the window.
She'd also managed to climb into bed and true, she wasn't cuddled up against him like in the hayloft, but he could definitely feel the way the mattress pulled, adjusting to her body weight behind him. It mortified him somewhat that a beautiful woman had climbed into bed with him and he'd slept through it. Even if she was completely off limits. There were just some things a guy should be awake to appreciate.
The second thing he noticed was that the pictures were no longer alone. They were still on the nightstand, two of them, cracked and bent. But there was a take-out menu lying flat beneath the pictures, a menu he was certain hadn't been there the night before. Confused, Chuck reached out an arm and picked it up, careful not to move the mattress and wake Sarah.
Gio Pete's. A family run restaurant, it appeared. The menu was peppered with bad English. Chuck's eyebrows went up. Was this where Sarah had met up with the mysterious ex-boyfriend Randy? Except if it was, why would she put the menu underneath his pictures—and prop them up just like they'd been the night before? It made no sense.
Wait—what if it had been somebody else? Sarah had easily entered the bungalow without waking him. Why not somebody else? It couldn't be a coincidence that Gio Pete's shared the same name with Chuck's current cover identity.
He flipped the menu over—and his eyes crossed.
A picture—two girls playing on the swing set in a sunlit park.
Photocopied documents, black bars running across all of them. PROJECT OMAHA. Established May 2002, subjects tested. Proficiency in subliminal retention and pattern recognition. Subjects scored within 99.6 percentile of—
OMAHA moved to San Antonio, placed under the care of DR.—
Successful testing in Subjects Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot—
PROJECT REDACTED.
"Oh, God," Chuck groaned, and pushed his head into the pillow. He dropped the menu.
Sarah jolted awake. In a blink, she was sitting up, knife in hand. "What is it? What? What?"
Chuck's words were muffled by the pillow.
Perhaps now wasn't the best time to learn that Sarah wasn't really a morning person, but he did so anyway. She grabbed his shoulder and brutally yanked. "What is it?"
"Uncle! Uncle!"
His reaction seemed to make her relax. She sighed and put the knife away. "You're not hurt, are you?" It was almost rhetorical.
"Just a flash." Chuck massaged his sore shoulder, grateful it wasn't the same one she'd pummeled on the ferry the day before. Well aware of the fact that he only wore boxers now, and that the sheets only covered him to the waist, he gingerly leaned over to pick up the menu and handed it over without a word. "Something on this incited a flash about Project Omaha. You ever heard of it?"
Sarah frowned as she took the menu. "No, but—" Another blink and she was out of bed. "Where did you get this?"
"It was—it was on the nightstand."
Sarah said a very bad word. Chuck's eyes widened—in all the time they'd spent together, exhausted and on the lam, he'd never heard her curse. He threw aside the covers, ignoring his next-to-naked state. "What is it?"
"Get dressed." Sarah was already hurrying to do the same.
"What?"
"Get dressed! The room's been breached. We need to move!"
His movements clumsy, Chuck scrambled into the first outfit from his travel bag—a button-up shirt that fit like a tent and his jeans from the day before, no matter what they smelled like. He stuffed things into the bag, while Sarah raced around the bungalow, restoring things to exactly how they'd been before arrival. She tossed him a cloth and this time Chuck understood without words that she wanted him to wipe the place down for fingerprints.
Two minutes later, they fled the bungalow, bags in hand. Sarah had apparently arranged for some sort of transportation for the day, for she all but pushed Chuck into the passenger seat of a chunky sedan. They made it out of the parking lot without peeling out, but only just.
29 SEPTEMBER 2007
THE ACROPOLIS
08:12 BST
"So we're possibly being chased by spies, secret agents, maybe bad guys…and the first place we go is the Acropolis." Chuck scratched the back of his head and stared at the ruins around them. He was once again covered in sweat, but he was used to that, as well as the feeling that the walls—the ancient, crumbling, open walls—were closing in around him like a tightening fist. It was early enough that a fair amount of tourists were abed, but there were enough people roaming the Acropolis to drive him beyond edgy.
"It's public, it gives us an advantage," Sarah murmured. She'd been on alert since they'd raced away from the bungalow. Only Chuck could tell, though. To everybody else, she just looked like half of a couple of tourists seeing the sights, holding the hand of her husband. Nobody else would realize she was holding Chuck's hand to keep him from freaking out—and that she'd noticed everything about everybody and nothing about the beautiful ancient architecture all around them. "We'll probably be able to see somebody coming."
"Probably?" Chuck echoed, not reassured by that in the least. "Who do you think could have left that menu, Sarah?"
"Diana," Sarah corrected under her breath.
Chuck gave her an impatient look.
"I have theories," Sarah hedged.
"Any you're willing to share?"
"Peter," and Sarah deliberately laced her voice with a playful air, "we're on vacation! We should be enjoying this—ooh, look, let's go see the Erectheion!"
Chuck forced his cheer to match hers. "Anything you say, sweetheart."
He heard her echo the last word under her breath in amusement, but let himself be pulled down the path to the Erectheion. For a little while, neither spoke. Chuck focused on walking or staring at the toes of his shoes. If he looked up, he noticed two things—the people, and the people. His stomach rumbled, but not from hunger. He was perpetually about two swallows from choking up the breakfast Sarah had practically shoved down his throat.
"You remember what we talked about," Sarah said under her breath as they wandered on. "About if we get split up at any point today."
Chuck shook his head, bewildered. "I still don't understand. Why do you want me to go to an Air Force Base rather than wait somewhere for you to find me?"
Sarah checked to make sure nobody was nearby before she leaned in close. To anybody observing from a distance, it would only look like young lovers showing a bit too much PDA. "Because I might not be able to make it to a meet-up, and what you have in your head is a valuable piece of government property. Your protection isn't worth the risk of waiting for a meet-up."
A cold flash of insight made him understand. Might not be able to make it? "Sa—"
"Diana."
"Are you in more danger than me right now?" Chuck swallowed. "Like, they'll shoot you on sight?"
Sarah looked away. "Just enjoy the architecture."
"Answer the question." Suddenly, it didn't seem to matter that there were far too many people, or that the sky was too broad and expansive and open. That he was sweaty and shaking. Chuck kept his eyes on her face. "They think you're rogue. They can't kill me because I've got the only copy of the Intersect in my head, but you…they'll see you as expendable."
"I'm off the grid," Sarah said. "My partner stole a valuable piece of government property, and two days later, I went off the grid with the only remaining copy. Right now, by all appearances, I'm guilty of high treason."
Chuck stared at her for an eternity. "Okay." He pushed past her.
But Sarah grabbed his arm, whirling him around. "Okay, what?"
"I'm going to the Air Force Base, I'm giving them the phrase you told me, and I'm turning myself in. And I'll tell them you had nothing to do with it, and that you were innocent." Perhaps it was the pictures he'd foolishly stuffed in his pocket instead of hiding them like he always did, perhaps it was the fact that everybody in the area had vanished, leaving nobody but him and Sarah left on the entire planet, but he felt a stronger resolve than anything he'd encountered over the past five years. It made him stand up just a bit taller. "I appreciate the help, but there's no way I'm letting you get killed trying to keep me from getting thrown back in a bunker. I'd rather die alone in a bunker than let you get shot protecting me."
"Chuck, it's my job to protect you." It was the first time she'd broken their cover all morning.
But Chuck just shook his head. "No way, Sarah. No way are you getting killed because of something Bryce or I did."
"I've been a field agent for years," Sarah pointed out, her grip on his arm tightening. "I can take care of myself."
"I don't doubt that. I'm just not willing to risk it." Chuck waited and jerked his arm suddenly, breaking her grip. He started to stroll away—
—Only to find Sarah blocking his path again. "Get out of my way."
"I know fourteen ways to knock you unconscious without either of us moving right now," Sarah warned. "And I'll do it. I swear I will."
"Here?" Chuck pasted a sarcastic smile on his face as he deliberately looked around at the admiring crowds all around them. Early or not, late September was still tourist season. They were far from alone. "Try it."
It was Sarah's turn to stare. She stayed in his path, her gaze absolutely level on his face, her features perfectly mirroring the stubbornness on his. After a moment, she looked both sad and resigned. "I'm sorry."
"For what—" Chuck managed to say before her hand lashed out.
All he saw was black.
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