A/N I had to work at it to come up with some decent puzzles for the corridors, I hope you don't mind that I stole some of them from other places. I always thought the way they went from the first floor to the fifteenth without showing any of the other hazards was a little too cheap. I know they had a plot to get on with, but still...
"I have a remarkably efficient subconscious."
"Promise me you'll do your best to master these damned things."
"We have been tasked to verify the security of our own facility here in DC."
"I'll take good care of your nerd."
"She wants me to break into the CIA?" 'Not freaking out' was apparently not an Intersect skill.
Sarah shook her head, trying to calm him. "Not the whole CIA, just the vault."
He wasn't calmed. "Because that makes it so much better!"
She shrugged. "Chuck, it's a trace-cell mission, we do them all the time. The only way to make sure our security is really spy-proof is to prove it against spies."
"But I'm not a spy."
She took his face in her hands. "No, you're even better. You're my husband, a good man, with all the abilities of a spy, who isn't a spy." She dropped her hands, kissed him lightly. "I put a bet on you to win."
"You what?"
"Of course we bet on these things, silly. Win or not, how many levels, that sort of thing. It's not like it's dangerous, just…possibly…humiliating."
Worse than being pantsed in gym class? "What does that mean?"
"The guns are tranqs, the grenades are flash-bangs . The most danger you'll be in, is getting taken out before you reach your tip-over point, and like I said, I bet on you to win."
No tip-over point for him. "Has anybody ever won?"
"Not for a while, but you're not supposed to, either. I got good odds. Not as good as they might have been, but good."
He smelled a rat. Might have been? "I'm going as Charles Carmichael, aren't I?" That made it easier, not like it was his real identity.
There's nobody else you could go as. "You should be flattered, I wasn't the only one with a bet to win, just the first. First time in years."
Beckman was furious. "What the hell happened, Colonel? This entire operation was supposed to stay under the radar."
"Begging the General's pardon, there's no way a trace-cell mission in a CIA vault with a non-CIA team was going to fly under anyone's radar, ma'am. We have three agencies betting on it."
She had to know. "What are the odds?"
"Extremely good, ma'am, once it was known that Charles Carmichael was taking his injured wife's place."
A good fall-back position, but…"Do you think Chuck's up to swinging that kind of load?"
"He'd better be, ma'am, I have fifty on him to win." Absolute confidence. "Through intermediaries, of course."
"Put me down for another fifty, Colonel. To win."
Three figures in black converged in an alley.
"Are you ready, Mad Dog?"
"As ready as my team, Colonel." Eyes flicked left, then right, to see nothing but eager lack of expression on his partners' faces. "Let's get started." He used a hook to lift the manhole cover at his feet.
"Uh, Mad Dog?" Such a stupid code name, but they couldn't use the others. "The entrance is over there."
"I know that, Carina." Chuck set the cover to one side. "And when we enter 'over there', the clock starts. I want to get this thing finished before they even know it's begun." He made a point of checking his watch.
"What if they haven't completed the switch-out?"
Chuck looked up from the ladder he was climbing down. "Your point being…?"
Casey snarled, but gestured Carina to follow. He brought up the rear, sliding the cover into place over his head. "It's just a name, don't feel you have to live up to it."
First Floor – It seemed an innocent little corridor, just a door and a scanner at the far end. "Looks simple enough," said Chuck.
Casey pulled a coin from his pocket. Somebody had to think like a spy. "Looks can be deceiving, Mad Dog."
Carina smiled. "A mattress test, Casey?"
Casey bounced the coin across the floor. Darts sprayed from concealed holes in the walls.
The 'Mad Dog' voice came easier now. "Once more, Colonel."
Casey pulled another coin. "I'm not made of money, you know." He threw it as Chuck watched intently.
"Good. Stand back." Chuck leapt into the hallway, bouncing of the walls, leaping, ducking, at one point coming to a complete stop and then falling flat on his face. Faster than they thought possible he was standing at the scanner and deactivating the hall.
Casey sort of smiled as he approached. "Looks like they got their money's worth."
Chuck held out his hand, and Casey's two quarters. "Your change."
Third Floor – "I didn't know you could dance," said Carina as they waltzed past the swinging blades.
He liked the sensation, even though he wasn't holding the right woman. "Neither did I."
Eighth Floor – "Look, you guys, I can't keep juggling these grenades forever. Just shoot something!"
Casey braced himself against the wall and pulled his gun. "On three," he said to Carina. "One, two, thr–" They fired, blinding the sensors and the launcher stopped. Carina went to the panel as Casey sagged.
"You okay, big guy?"
"Yeah," muttered Casey. "Just that tranq dart from upstairs, you know." He opened his eyes to see Chuck flinging the 'grenades' down the hall. "No, you idiot, those are still live!" Casey jumped to protect Chuck, slapping the last one out of his hand before the first detonated and they all went up together.
The world went white.
Something grabbed Casey's hand, tugging him along. Carina, probably. Her hands were smaller and she hadn't been looking their way. He fumbled for Chuck, he'd just had him in his hands but now he wasn't there. He took a step forward and tripped over something, going to his knees in his blindness. Even from an angle those things pack a wallop.
He put a hand down on something that wasn't floor. Chuck. It had to be since Carina was still pulling on his hand. Pretty sure she was saying something too, but they're called flash-bangs for a reason. He found an arm and pulled Chuck along to wherever Carina was leading them.
Stairwell. He wasn't about to risk stairs in this condition. Fortunately flash bangs are only supposed to temporarily incapacitate the enemy, so people like him had time to do the job permanently. Vision and hearing came back to him pretty quickly, but Chuck seemed to be unconscious. He'd heard that lights could do that if they were bright enough, but–
Chuck's eyes opened, and he sat up. "Status?" Gathering his legs under him, he rose straight up, hands ready and eyes scanning as the uncurling of his legs spun him about.
"Stairwell two, level eight, flash-banged but functional."
"Very good. And you, Colonel?" Casey nodded. "Any remaining aftereffects from the tranq dart?"
"I don't think so…Mad Dog."
Charles smiled. "Excellent. Let's win this thing." Because Charles Carmichael doesn't lose.
Fourteenth Floor - "Come on, Casey, you've never played Simon?" Charles stepped onto the blue tile, then onto a yellow, then a red. Carina followed to the yellow, and then Casey onto the blue. The screen at the end of the hall flashed a new pattern, and Charles and his team moved forward in sequence.
At the midpoint of the hall they ran into a problem. "Hold on. The floor has none of these colors now."
The first section of hallway went dark. The screen flashed the pattern again.
"Well, think of something else, genius. The pattern's gotta match something, right?"
Charles looked down. Orange for blue, purple for yellow, red and green swap. "Correct."
Another section went dark.
Charles stepped off, onto a new tile, and they followed.
The screen flashed a new pattern, and Charles followed. Then he stopped again. No orange, no purple. No primary colors at all.
"What now?" asked Carina, as another section of hall went dark. One section to go.
"Working on it." He stepped off and they followed, not in the least understanding why he put his feet where he did. Charles hit the scanner.
"What the hell was that?" asked Casey as the hall lit again.
"Computer colors," said Charles, grinning. He pointed. "Cyan absorbs red, magenta absorbs green, yellow absorbs blue, so black equals yellow by default." Simple.
Carina shared a look with Casey, and shook her head. "You're weird."
"Sarah, what are you doing here?" Morgan looked around the bar section of 'his' restaurant. "Where's Chuck?"
"He's working tonight, something big. I thought maybe I could use the time to get together with you, like I called about last week."
He made a show of smacking his forehead. "I'm so sorry, it completely slipped my mind. Right after you called there was a major, um, plumbing failure, and I forgot."
She smiled, pleased that he remembered to give her the cover story. "That's all right, you have a hard schedule to work with anyway, so I just thought I'd come down here and maybe we could fit it in."
"Sure, if you don't mind staying up late. This is my morning."
She and Chuck had gone to bed earlier in the afternoon and actually slept, in preparation for their separate missions tonight. "This is for Chuck. I can stay up as late as you can, as late as I have to."
Wow, that's love. Last he knew, she worked the day shift at the Orange Orange. "What's up with Chuck?"
"Nothing." She took a deep breath. "Here's the thing…"
"Letters? Is this a joke?"
"I think…yes. This is a movie puzzle, 'walk in the name of the Lord', that sort of thing. All we have to do is figure out the joke."
"I see a lot of Cs. Should we walk on the C, I and A tiles?"
Charles got out his manhole cover hook, set the hook end gently on a C tile. "Colonel, your foot, please."
Casey stepped on the handle, and the hook pressed down on the tile. A dart shot out to impale his phantom self in the leg. Charles moved the hook to an F tile and they repeated the experiment, with no dart. He chuckled. "I thought as much. The CIA walks all over the FBI."
They walked to the vault. Casey stayed outside, guarding the approach. Even though the test was mainly of the security in the halls, it wasn't unknown for an assault team to prevent a mission from succeeding. The job wasn't done until the safe was opened.
He was very glad Chuck had the Intersect. He was more glad that no one else did.
After less than a minute, the door opened and his team came out. "Any problems?"
"None." Chuck passed him a single sheet of paper.
Casey read it and grunted, handing it back. He touched his pocket, the one with the victory cigar he'd be smoking once they got topside. He took point. Officially the test was done, but he'd put nothing past these CIA pukes.
Chuck followed, touching the pocket with Beckman's message inside, proof of his victory. He couldn't wait to show it to Sarah, as soon as they got topside.
Carina followed, touching her own pocket as well. It no longer contained the key.
Late at night, men dressed in black approached a door dressed in red. They surrounded the house in the dark, infrared scanners enabling them to do it without so much as a cracked twig or a tripped wire to give warning to the inhabitants. One man stood guard while another picked the lock on the door, and then they were in. They headed straight for the bedroom, sure-footed in the dark.
They opened the door without a sound.
Someone turned on the lights, blinding the two men. Someone grabbed their guns and twisted them up and away, leaving them open and vulnerable to first one kick and then another. As the two men fell Sarah took one of their guns and spun in place, slamming the door and bracing her foot against it.
Two more men were already in the room, guns aimed at her Chuck. "Stand down, Agent Carmichael," said one of the masked figures. "This is a legitimate incursion." He gestured to his subordinate, who safed his weapon and brought over a paper for her inspection.
She watched him back away to his former position before reading it. "You're arresting my husband? On what charge?"
"Treason, ma'am."
A/N2 This story doesn't need the Casey/treason element, so I conflated the two break-ins into one. Beckman's still pissed, though. Comments gladly accepted, thanks.