A/N Three guesses why this episode is named 'Pushing Daisies'. It has nothing to do with flowers.
"We found her ring in the patient's pocket."
"You're only as good as your last heroic rescue, I guess."
"I don't like it when my experts use words like 'may', Doctor."
"Special Agent Charles Bartowski."
Somewhere between where he was and where he was going…
Manoosh wasn't sure which car he liked better. Rye's ride had every gadget the CIA could dream up, and security like nobody's business. Even if they could see the car they couldn't catch it, and even if they caught it they couldn't get him out of it. That sort of protection meant a lot to a guy like him. Or it had once.
Some old guys in suits had given him the opportunity to do something other than cringe and hide. To have girls look at him with something other than contempt or amusement. Even though he'd lost his glasses and his freedom in Dubai, he still had that, the looks in the eyes of those bikini babes up on stage with him.
It wasn't enough, though. They were surprised and amazed, but he wanted, needed more than that. Ellie gave it to him. They had a rocky start at first, sheer terror, but he had skills she valued, and she had drive and intelligence he'd never seen in a woman before. And respect. She knew what he could do and pushed him to do more, even if it was only by making a better lock for the soda machine.
The other car was her car. Scary awesome, just like her. The owner's manual wasn't for the car but for the add-ons. The car got him noticed, but it didn't get respect. He was just a little guy in a big car. More than once he'd seen the old contempt in the eyes of some yahoos and their skirts as they pulled up alongside and played my-car-is-bigger-than-yours games. He played for a while, but then he left that disrespect in the dust behind him, where it belonged. The car was a model of perfection every way.
Except that something kept bumping under the driver's seat.
Somewhere near DC, a nondescript airport for nondescript purposes…
Ellie wished she had Manoosh with her now. Her assistant loved the scanner, loved tinkering with it, improving it. More important, Manoosh had saved her brother with it. She'd assumed that little line at the bottom of the screen was an artifact, something created by a brain scan that wasn't built by a brain specialist. That non-specialist, her own father, didn't care about the extra line, if he even saw it. That little line was the clue to her brother's unique mind, and Manoosh was the only one able to see it.
"He called himself what?"
"Agent Bartowski, General," said Ellie. Beckman heard a mumbled comment from Leo Dreyfus, and Ellie added, "Excuse me, 'Special Agent'."
"Not Agent Charles? Not, God help us, Agent Carmichael?"
"Agent Carmichael is gone, General. Manoosh and I proved that conclusively."
Not distrustful but…expectant. "Prove it again."
She had to get the scanner to the facility first, though, and walk Dr. Dreyfus through the changes she and her assistant had documented. He was reading her papers now, but nothing was better than living color. After his astonishing announcement, no way they were going to let 'Special Agent Charles Bartowski' anywhere near the front door. The scanner was arriving today, with the rest of the lab equipment, but Manoosh and Sam were still on the road.
Once the plane settled, her driver took the van out onto the field, as far as he could go before the cordon of guards stopped them.
"This is a restricted area," said the agent in charge to her driver.
"You should have gotten amended operational instructions from North Star, while en route," said Ellie. She showed him her ID, and gave him the message index Diane had given her.
The man didn't simply repeat his warning, confirming her statement. "What's your first rule?" "First, do no harm." Ellie was no spy, so a familiar code phrase was the best option.
"Check. We have the designated packages ready to load. Drive around to the ramp, we'll get them on board." The rest of the stuff would go to the original drop-off point.
"Thank you, Agent."
He nodded sharply, once. "You're welcome, ma'am."
He stepped back, and the driver moved their van to the designated spot. She got out, clipboard in hand, and verified the contents of the required boxes. This was definitely not the time to find out they'd misplaced one cable. It should be just a formality, Manoosh and Sam had been quite thorough in their packing job, but this diversion of these crates hadn't been planned for at the time. Once she gave her approval, the squad came forward and moved the boxes carefully into her transport.
Ellie couldn't get out of there fast enough. She had to make sure her brother was alone in his own mind.
Later, back in the lab…
"Good afternoon, team," said the General. "What have we learned about this Yuri Gobrienko?"
"Not a lot, General, and none of it's good" said Casey. "We started with his incarceration in Seabrook, but the trail runs cold very quickly. It's his only datum in our system."
"One arrest and he's in a supermax facility?"
"He was captured pretty much by accident at a crime scene involving a building collapse," said Carina. "They linked him to the victim by his teeth marks. Plus he's bigger than Casey. Actually, the victim was bigger than Casey."
"Neither of them had any history in our criminal databases," said Casey, teeth clenched. "This guy may have been pulling a Pichushkin, going after a local enemy on foreign soil. We were about to expand our search to foreign sources, especially Russian."
"Don't bother, Colonel. I farmed that work out already." Another window opened up, with Hannah's face framed in it. "I believe you're already familiar with her qualifications. I've tapped her to be the team's analyst and C-and-C specialist during Chuck's absence."
"That's excellent news, General," said Casey. Carina waved, and Hannah smiled back. But while the news was good, the reason for it was probably not. "Any word on Chuck's status, ma'am?"
Beckman clasped her hands, leaning into the monitor somewhat. "I have to say…favorable, but complicated. You will be happy to know that Mr. Bartowski has already regained consciousness."
Even Casey smiled at that news.
"However, whatever the Belgian did to him has had unexpected side-effects. Ellie and Dr. Dreyfus are evaluating him now. The best scenario presently available has him absent from the team for several months at least."
"Months?"
"In the less favorable scenarios his absence is indefinite, Agent Miller, so let's count our blessings. In the meanwhile, I believe Hannah has some additional insights about Mr. Gobrienko's activities."
"Yes, General." Hannah's hands sprang into action, while Beckman's window retreated into a corner as she yielded the floor. A number of photographs, none of them high-quality, filled the interior space. "Yuri Gobrienko is Alexei Volkoff's constant companion when he travels, which isn't often." Circles sprang up around pairs of men in each image. "Prior to his arrest and Mr. Volkoff's appearance in the Buy More, these were the best pictures we had of either man. The only sign we have that he is a bodyguard is Miss Volkoff's statement, and I am inclined to distrust that."
"Why?" asked Carina.
"His presence in the US at the time of his arrest had no purpose, as Volkoff was still in Moscow. As Colonel Casey and Agent Bartowski were closing in he would have kept a bodyguard nearer."
Casey grunted a negative. "Neh, he wasn't afraid of us. We were–" just bait.
"You were what, Colonel?" asked Beckman into his silence.
Casey cleared his throat. "We were there and we were convenient, General, but Marko said they were really after a pair of master spies, who openly used public transportation and U.S. Embassies, like ordinary people." He looked at Carina.
"He was afraid of us?"
"You were following Orion's trail, digging up Volkoff operations even Marko didn't know about. He said you got closer than anyone, and we were sitting in the factory when he said it."
Carina smiled, looking pleased.
"Don't let it go to your head, Miller. Orion did it first, without a map, and he didn't get caught."
Now Carina frowned, displeased. "You're a real buzzkill, you know that, Casey?"
"Thank you."
"Are they always like this?" asked Hannah.
"You learn to live with it," said Beckman.
"I think I can do that. So the question remains, why would Volkoff send his main bodyguard away with either threat approaching, and do we want Volkoff to get him back?"
"We could bring him in," suggested Casey, always in favor of the direct approach. "His cover's blown and he's already in custody."
"That would alert Volkoff we know of the Gobbler's importance, and leave Sarah hanging," said Hannah.
"If we leave him there she'll get him out, and then he's back to Volkoff."
"Unless we stop her."
Beckman shook her head. "We need to defeat him, Agent Miller, not just stop him."
"Plus his opposition is kind of static at the moment. Stop Sarah and he'll take it personally," said Hannah with a shudder. There was a time and place for that, and this wasn't it.
"It's a classic Trojan scenario," said Carina, taking the General's hint.
"Volkoff will know that as well as us," said Casey. "Anything we plant on Yuri, Volkoff will find on him just as easily, probably while he's five hundred miles away."
"So don't plant it on Yuri," said Hannah. "Plant it on Sarah."
Moscow…
"Come with me," said Frost, and Sarah did as she was directed. Frost led her to her office, a Spartan place for all of its size. "Here." She handed Sarah a small computer.
"What is it?"
"My notes for the breakout. I collected them back when it was my mission."
Sarah took the device, not sure why Frost was so eager to claim something that would get her killed. "Thank you." Was she that eager to die?
"Don't thank me yet, Agent Walker," said Frost. "Along with this computer you get one week to plan and execute the breakout."
"A week?"
Frost nodded. "After which he'll consider your deal forfeit. Volkoff isn't kind to those he feels have cheated him, but I think you know that already."
Manoosh pulled the car into a space by his motel room, ready to walk for a little while. He'd driven farther than he'd planned, not stopping for much, and he was starving and tired. Standing there by the door, he stretched, forcing his body upright after too long in a sitting position. For a second he got dizzy, and dropped the keys.
He caught them on the way down, whacking his head on the car door. He rubbed the spot, setting himself down next to the driver's seat, and a soda can rolled toward him until it hit something. Oh yeah. He felt around under the seat for whatever had been sliding around under there.
"A Roarke Seven?" repeated Ellie. "No, I don't know what it was doing there, Manoosh, the last time I was in that car I was four…Is it working? Do you have your–?" She rolled her eyes, unseen by him at least. "Yes, I know it's a stupid question. Of course you have them, what kind of a nerd would you be if you didn't…You do that, it's better than the crap on those TVs. Let me know what progress you make. Have fun."
"Trouble in River City?" asked Dr, Dreyfus, once he had her attention again.
Sometimes Ellie wished she could just sit and eat a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream all by herself. "No, just a computer where it shouldn't be, in my Dad's car."
Dreyfus recognized her imminent meltdown, and minimized the window with the scans in favor of his calming and neutral desktop. "From the description, he has a lot of computers. It could have just gotten lost."
She looked at the landscape on his screen. "I'd like to believe that, really I do, but…I don't think my father knows how to do meaningless things anymore."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
She rubbed her eyes. "Fortunately that disaster is a few days off yet. Shall we continue?"
"I think we've made a great deal of progress today," said Dreyfus, shaking his head. "I'm willing to accept that the waves associated with Carmichael are gone, and I will report that to your General."
"She's not my General."
He raised a brow but otherwise ignored the comment. "However, with these more recent changes since his kidnapping still unexplained, I'll have to keep him in the secure wing for observation and interviews, for at least a few days more." He settled back in his chair. "You need some rest yourself. Go home to your husband, spend time thinking about someone other than Chuck for a while, and don't come back here until day after tomorrow at the earliest."
Ellie grimaced, the closest she could come to a smile. "Yes, Doctor."
Leo shook his head again. "Not Doctor, just a concerned colleague and a friend. This has been a very stressful time, and you handle stress better than anyone I've ever seen, but let's not find your limits today."
The next day…
Ellie pushed open the door to her office, to find Carina sitting in her chair making notes. "Hey, Carina. Nice desk, looks just like mine."
The redhead didn't look up. "Aren't you supposed to be home?"
"Leo wants me to think about something other than Chuck, but there's only 'awesome' at home, which really doesn't bear thinking about." Ellie walked up to her desk, hoping Carina might have learned how to take a hint. "What's all this?"
"Mission planning," said Carina, who had learned how to take hints but just…didn't, most of the time.
"Isn't that Hannah's job now?"
"Making the plans is," said Carina. "I'm messing them up."
Ellie gave up trying to be subtle and sat in her own guest chair. "What's the mission?"
"Hannah found a highly-placed Volkoff crony right under our noses. We're trying to find a way to put a bug on him that he doesn't know about and Volkoff won't immediately find."
Ellie said the first thing that came to mind. "Dose his food."
"The obvious ploy," agreed Carina, "But this guy eats people, so, not so good." Suddenly she looked thoughtful, while Ellie looked disgusted. "Unless we dosed one of the other prisoners, no, there's too many of them…"
"You could go in as a medical team," suggested Ellie, to get her to stop talking.
"Why?"
"He'll have every disease known to his fellow man. His victims would be perfect carriers."
"Hmm, non-standard medical care, that might work. Better than the plan I came up with." Carina pressed the call button on Ellie's monitor.
Ellie rotated the screen so she could see it better. "What was that?"
"Distract the guards while someone beats the crap out of Yuri, then bug him while he's down."
Ellie laughed. "Do plans like that really work?" The monitor lit up. "Hello, General…"
A few days later, at Seabrook Correctional facility…
Guard Steve showed up as usual for his shift on the boards. After his party yesterday he was a little bit muzzy, but he was covering the board for the rec room this week. If he was lucky, no one would get stabbed, or worse, like what happened last week, during the new guy's watch. Maybe I should trade with him today. Nah. Much as he wanted a quiet shift, he'd just gotten the board working good again.
Ellie watched the forbidding grey stone walls loom over their completely fake genuine medical van, as it drove past guard stations to get into the loading area. "Tell me why I'm doing this again? I'm not a spy. I should be in DC with Chuck."
"Well, I'm not a nurse, but you don't see me complaining," said Carina as she drove the van. "You've done everything you can for Chuck, Ellie, and we need a medical professional to do this."
Right. "I'm a doctor."
"You're a doctor," said Carina. "You're doing what doctors do, and if one of the shots you give this guy happens to be more than purely medicinal, well, that's my business, not yours. Just pretend you're in Thailand."
God, no. "I didn't go to Thailand for the fun of it. I went because you needed an excuse. I went into that cesspit for Chuck's sake!"
"Well, now you're going into this one for Sarah's."
The van pulled up to the dock as the new guy watched on the monitor. Ellie and Carina handed over their credentials and were escorted into the prison on their mission of mercy.
Underneath the van, a black-haired woman clad in leather lowered herself to the ground. Quick as a cat she slid into the shadows and went to the door. It had a better grade of lock, but she had a better grade of lockpick.
The door opened in front of her.
"Agent Walker, hello," said the new guy on the other side. He pointed to the camera in the ceiling. "Smile for Mr. Volkoff."
"That's not part of the plan," said the woman, not smiling. She handed him a buzzer for the way out.
He took it and shrugged. "The plan's changed." He offered her a silenced gun.
She shook her head. "I brought my own," she said, holding up a tranq pistol. She smirked at his confusion. "The plan's changed."
Ellie and Carina waited patiently in the Medical office, chatting with the prison doctor about topics of mutual interest, medicine on the one hand and rock-climbing on the other. Outside the door a parade arrived, and two guards stepped inside, ending their quiet time. "Duck your head, prisoner."
A third guard entered, pulling a chain attached to a little wheeled cart. Attached to the cart was a giant of a man, cuffed, chained, and even muzzled.
"What's all this?" asked Ellie.
"He maimed another prisoner a few days ago," said the doctor. "Three fingers, down the hatch." The doctor tried to be nonchalant in front of Carina. "Good morning, Gobbler. Try to be nice for the nice ladies."
Yuri head-butted him to the ground. Carina caught the edge of the muzzle with one hand and shoved the hard nails of the other against the underside of his jaw. "Try that with me and I'll rip out your tongue and shove it down your throat," she said. "You'll enjoy your last meal and you'll die, and you'll even do it in the right order. We're trying to help you, dumb-ass, make sure you're nice and healthy…for your execution."
She stepped back and a guard took her place, aiming his rifle at the Gobbler's head, but Yuri seemed more impressed by Carina.
Ellie stepped forward, holding up a syringe. "I'm going to take a blood sample, so I can see what we're dealing with here." Once that was taken, she held up another, and squirted out a small stream of liquid. "A broad-spectrum antibiotic, until we can find out what else might be needed."
As she approached, everyone focused on her proximity to danger, and so they were slow to notice or respond to the sound of sacks of meat dropping outside the door.
The new guy made sure to let all the other guards know what was happening. Once he had their attention firmly elsewhere, he triggered his gizmos to loop the screens they weren't watching. He opened the last door with a bang, making Guard Steve jerk in his chair. "Steve, you've been neglecting your duties." The new guy stepped out of the way, as the other guards brought in the rest of the surprise. "Why did they all have to hear about your birthday from me?"
A black-clad whirlwind swept in and with a precise shots incapacitated the guards nearest the door before they could turn. The doctor with the syringe fell next, and the man with the rifle behind her.
The doctor's assistant took a swing at her, but the invader blocked it and dropped her with a kick. "And stay down," she said, shooting the nurse with a final dart. The prison doctor came up but she merely pushed him into a wall and he dropped.
The woman took the guard captain's keys, along with the van keys from the nurse's pocket, and turned to the prisoner. "Volkoff wants you back," she said. "But all things considered I think I'll leave you as you are." She picked up the chain and with no obvious sign of effort, pulled his cart from the room and back to the loading dock.
The new guy ate his cake slowly, drawing out the pleasure of it. So moist. The other guards felt the call of duty first and left, until finally it was just him and the lucky fellow. The phone in his pocket buzzed twice, and he checked the screen. With a tap he activated the self-destructs on the gizmos he'd planted in all the boards last week. With a sigh he dropped the plate with a frosting flower into the trash. "I better get going myself. You know what they say, no rest for the wicked." He moved past Steve to the door.
Steve looked confused. "Isn't that 'no rest for the weary'?"
"No, I'm pretty sure I got it right." The new guy hurled a knife into Steve's neck, closing the door on the spray of blood. "Happy Birthday."
At a small, nondescript airfield…
The cargo plane was small, not big enough to take the whole van, so Sarah got out to oversee the handling of her prize, as another lady got in. She tossed a bundle of clothing into the former guard's lap. "Get in the back. Take off that uniform, we'll leave it in the van when we torch it."
He did as she said, trying not to fall as the van bounced around on its way somewhere else. "This square's me with Volkoff, right?" he asked as he pulled on his pants.
She shot him in the back. "Yep. No hard feelings." Following her instructions, she put on a black wig and drove the van to a bus station. She splashed some ammonia onto the man's fingertips, left the van in the lot, and got on her bus, never to be seen again.
In the air, Sarah handed over the keys to the chains, as the gurney team wheeled Yuri over to a spot with lots of equipment ready and waiting. "Checking for bugs?"
"Da."
She nodded. It's what she would have done. "I'm going to go wash off. I am all over filth under this suit." She scratched at her arm.
The guard pointed to a bathroom and walked away. A robe hung on the back of the door. She killed the lights and washed in the dark, until she got the robe on, then continued cleaning the exposed bits in the light.
Someone pounded on the door. "Give suit!"
She opened the door and shoved the leather rag at him. "Take suit."
Finally, clean and itch-free, she walked barefoot out of the room and winced. Yuri looked much better chained and muzzled than he did naked. The outside of her suit, too tight to have anything except her on the inside, was getting a thorough going over as well. Volkoff was taking no chances.
"Your turn," said a guard, pointing at the equipment.
"I don't think so."
The guard moved his gun to a more ready position. "Volkoff orders."
The room was filled with an air of anticipation. Great. "To anyone here who thinks that anyone other than my husband will be seeing me naked, I have a word of advice. Fingernails are hard, eyeballs aren't."
Air of anticipation completely gone. The guards clutched their guns more tightly, while the techs brought out a folding panel. "You have screen, da?"
"Da."
She stood behind the screen, checked for tripwires, and took off the robe, adopting the same position in front of the scanner that Yuri had been in. "Go ahead." When the machine stopped humming she put on her robe.
Someone stepped behind the panel, not a technician. This guard had no gun, and wore blue rubber gloves. "Cavity check," he said, leering at her.
When the screaming started, everyone turned to see. The screen fell. The guard was writhing on the floor, hands over his eyes, his face smeared with blood and other fluids. Sarah stood over him, wiping her gory fingers on the robe. "Don't look at me," she said mildly. "The cavity check was his idea."
A/N2 The show tried to portray Sarah as a pretty girl in love, but she started out just as much of a burnout as Casey, and they stayed away from her darker side for the sake of the romance. In the Pilot and Baby, we saw her more violent aspects, the woman trained in over 200 ways to kill. She's different without Chuck.