A/N Crap. I put Carina and Zondra in the same room together.
I also have the idea in my head that Zondra's last name is Rizzo, and Amy's is Johnson, but I have no idea where I got that idea, since I can't find anything backing it up. Maybe a fanfiction or two, somewhere. Carina has no official last name either, as far as I know.
I've been reading a lot of fanfics lately with Gaez in them. It's a welcome change from Shaw, except that all of us seem to be doing it at once.
"Anything for you, babe."
"Anybody in there?"
"Sarah must love you."
"Sarah's on the move!"
Casey shut the door. "Aren't you supposed to be in Russia, Miller?" he asked, emailing the picture he'd just taken to one of his other accounts, in case Chuck somehow got hold of his camera.
"I got blitzed," said the naked, sheet-covered redhead. Blitzkrieg, lightning war, a sudden attack by one enemy on another. She'd been taken by surprise, possibly betrayed. A spy's worst nightmare.
"That explains the clothes, at least," said Zondra, fingering the collar of Chuck's shirt.
Casey turned on video.
"Mine are in the laundry." Carina looked at Zondra's outfit. "Whose hay have you been rolling around in, Z?"
Zondra pointed at shirtless Chuck. "Ask him, if you want all the blow-by-blow."
That explains the clothes, at least. Carina looked to the other side of the bed, frowning. "Sudden death wish, Chuckles?" she said, her voice low and dangerous.
"Um…"
"Does he look stupid?" asked Casey, trying to get her mind out of its usual gutter.
No, just too, too easy. Carina played to the camera, jerking a thumb at the half-clad nerd. "Dressed like that?"
"I said 'stupid', not 'scrawny'."
"I am not scrawny!"
"And I think he looks like a gentleman," said Zondra. He really did give her the clothes off his back.
"Do you even know what 'gentle' means?" said Carina, an evil glint in her eye. "You didn't on the CAT Squad."
"Wait a minute, the what squad?" asked Chuck.
Bait taken. "CAT Squad," said Carina. "Clandestine Attack Team." She smirked at Zondra's discomfort. "Didn't tell him about that, did you?"
Zondra made a fist. "I'm going to kill you, C."
"Clandestine Attack Team Squad?" said Chuck. "That makes no sense. Is it a team or a squad? And the only place either of you could be clandestine is a high-end fashion show. Well, no, I take that back, that Milan thing didn't exactly go under anyone's radar…"
Zondra put her fist away. "I thought that sounded like you." Unless he was talking about the other Milan thing.
"This guy who called you the CAT Squad, is he still alive?" asked Chuck.
Carina turned back to him. "Between you and me, they should have called us 'Three CATs and a dog, because everyone called her the bitch of the group–"
Two could play at that game, if the second was Zondra. "Better than what they called you, Ice Cube."
Casey stood there, ears bleeding. Unable to stop the train wreck and unable to look away.
Carina acted blasé. "I'm warm where it counts…"
"That explains how you got out of Russia naked."
Carina snarled at her former teammate, hands like claws, digging into the thin fabric that was all that protected Casey's delicate sensibilities.
"So who blitzed you, Miller?" said Casey quickly, before the sheet and the gauntlet went down. He pushed the button, ending his recording. One video he'd never watch, but he didn't make it for himself.
"Volkoff's men?" asked Chuck, knowing it couldn't have been, but more concerned with keeping his undercover partner under cover.
Carina glared at him. "Obviously not," she said, letting go of the sheet to point up. "Or my little eye-in-the-sky, whatever you finally eventually get around to calling her, would have given me enough warning that it wouldn't have been a blitz."
"Carina, focus," said Chuck.
"Yeah, Miller," said Casey. "Your cover got blown, you've got bigger things to worry about than a stupid code-name."
"No, Casey," said Chuck. "I meant that 'Focus' was the stupid code-name. A lot better than the other, for this end of things."
Casey slowly shook his head. "Am I the only grown-up in the room?" Suddenly his phone started playing the Imperial March. They all stared at it, right there in his hand.
"Uh, Casey," asked Chuck, delicately. "You were saying…?"
"I was saying I'm gonna make my daughter single again." Casey stabbed at the accept button. "Yes, General?"
Quick scene change to Washington…
"Acquire Agent Bartowski and get to a secure communicator, Colonel," said Beckman without preamble. "We have a critical situation."
"Yes, ma'am," said Casey. "I'm with Agent Charles now. Uh, we have Agent Miller with us, as well. Is her presence needed for this meeting?"
"Agent Miller is with you?" asked Beckman. "Thank God. That makes the situation much less critical."
Quick scene change back to Prague…
Casey's brows rose, and he turned to look at Carina silently. "Are we both talking about the same Agent Miller, General?"
Carina grinned and made a crude hand gesture.
"Her signal terminated abruptly five days ago, Colonel. We feared the worst." Beckman audibly pulled herself together. "I want her report ASAP."
"Yes, ma'am." Casey put his phone away. "Charles, make yourself decent. And get a robe for Red, the General wants her story yesterday. Rizzo, you stay here. They've got cable, but all that means is the shows suck in Czechoslovakian."
"Uh, Casey," Chuck finished pulling a new T-shirt over his head. "I think we should bring Agent Rizzo with us."
"Yeah?" He looked at Rizzo, looking at Chuck. "Why?"
Chuck tossed Carina his robe. "Call it a hunch, but I think two agents, at one time on the same team, both blitzed in the same week, is worth reporting."
Another quick scene change, but still in Prague..
Half of Team B wan on the secure line with the other half, while Zondra waited to be called. She had no need to know and so she wouldn't. Ellie must not have known about Carina's return, from the look of relief on her face. Hannah took it much more in stride, with a little wave of her hand.
"Good evening, team, although I suppose it's good morning where you are," said the General. She nodded at Carina. "Agent Miller, good to see you safe and sound, if more casually dressed than usual. I assume there's a reason for it?"
Chuck raised his hand. Old habit. "Uh, General, before we begin, we have another agent with us. We extracted her from a little…situation here, and I think her story may have some relevance to whatever Carina has to say."
"Relevant how?"
"They were both members of the same team, and they were both attacked in the same week," said Casey, backing up his partner. He left out the rest for now.
"Would this agent be either of these two women?" Two official file photos popped up on the monitor.
"Yes, ma'am," said Casey. "Agent Rizzo."
"Bring her in." As Chuck got up to do that she added, "Ellie, Hannah, shut down your cameras please."
When Zondra sat down only General Beckman was on the monitor. "Good evening, General."
"Agent Rizzo. I understand you've had an eventful night."
"Yes ma'am. My car was attacked, I barely escaped the explosion. Agents Casey and Charles were the first to respond."
Beckman didn't bother to correct her choice of title for Casey. "You're very fortunate they happened to be in the area."
Casey leaned into the pickup. "No, General, Agent Rizzo was part of Chuck's training scenario last night."
"And that happened by chance, did it?"
"No, ma'am, but I suspect you already knew that."
"I can smell a rat as well as any cat, Colonel," said Beckman with a little smile. "When analysis of the picture Agent Miller sent in failed as a whole, the circled faces in it were fed into the system separately." A row of small images appeared at the bottom of the screen, faces cropped from the larger image.
"Wow, General, I didn't even see you move your hands."
"Agent Charles…"
"Can I just take a moment to tell her that her alternate code-name is "Focus', General?"
"Chuck, f-" Beckman caught herself, looking confused, but she recovered quickly. "This is not the time." She glanced at Hannah's monitor and caught the tiny Yes! gesture, and suppressed a smile. Back to business. "While Sarah appears to have exploited their more personal proclivities to accomplish her goals, they were all business associates as well."
"Yes, ma'am," said Rizzo. "Carina and I recognized them from our days on the CAT Squad. When your Facial Rec failed she asked me to play courier."
To the Intersect Host. "By so doing she may have painted targets on both your backs. Doubtless you'll remember this man, a known associate of theirs who is not in Carina's picture and so was probably not at the house." A man's handsome, bearded face appeared on the monitor.
"Augusto Gaez," snarled Carina and Rizzo together.
"And from the look of things, it seems he remembers you."
Frost sat in her chair on the Volkoff plane, working quietly away on her laptop, as if she sat in her tiny office back in Moscow.
Sarah came up with a cup of coffee and stood across from her.
"Suited up already?" asked Frost.
Sarah hadn't noticed Frost look up. She put the coffee down and twisted inside the catsuit, pulling and stretching the tight leather. All the gear had to go on the outside, but she didn't have any of that on yet, or the annoyingly high-heeled boots. "The leather squeaks." She hadn't worn it since she'd returned with the Gobbler.
"Yes. Good idea, breaking it in up here."
"Better than down there." Sarah sat and took a sip of her stimulant beverage. "Why are you here?"
Frost didn't lift her gaze or stop typing. "What do you mean?"
Sarah scratched at her arm. The whole thing itched abominably. "I'm done with Volkoff and him with me."
"That may be true," said Frost, "But you tend to leave opportunities in your wake, and Alexei sent me to be on hand to seize those opportunities. Or to make apologies, if you fail." Now she lifted her gaze, pinning Sarah. "I hate making apologies. See to it that I don't have to."
Chuck raised his hand again. "Uh, General, who–?"
"Augusto Gaez in the arch-nemesis of the CATs, and the leader of the Gentle Hand." A different picture of Gaez popped up.
"The 'Gentle Hand'?" said Chuck. "Are these bad guys or a massage parlor?"
"They're ruthless terrorists," said Zondra.
"Killers for hire," added Carina. "And now he must believe we're after him again."
Zondra nodded. "If you want the competition blown away, they're who you call. Pretty literally, too. I rocket launcher would have been more their speed than what they did to me tonight."
Casey grunted. "Probably wanted proof of death."
"Or maybe they were stretched thin hunting me," said Carina. "I was dodging these clowns for days, They almost had me at one point, but I…managed to get away."
"What happened?" asked the General, suspicious of that pause.
"I don't know. I was in a barn, no ammo, just my knife. I could hear them outside, closing in, and then, I don't know, it sounded like a spaceship hovered over the barn, I'm surprised the thing didn't fall down. Lots of gunfire, some explosions, and then it just…went away."
"Did you get a look at it?" asked Chuck. It probably wasn't a spaceship, but still…
Interlude of sorts, in Washington…
Ellie was grateful for her invisibility as she watched her brother. The General had been keeping her informed, sent her statistics, photos. One memorable afternoon, they'd even gotten together at an undisclosed location to go over actual footage. In theory it had been a medical briefing for the Intersect Host's primary caretaker, but without medical data of any kind it was really just an opportunity for Diane to show off her star pupil to her star protégé.
Generals don't say 'I told you so.' They don't have to.
The whole sequence had been carefully orchestrated, of course. First the numbers, dry facts that would appeal to a medical statistician like Ellie, without setting off any of her brother-alarms. The photos had been carefully selected to show him at his best. Lots of head shots, his expression calm and concentrated.
The images from the pistol range were initially from behind, the emphasis on form, although Diane was careful not to wax too enthusiastic about that to a woman who had only once ever held a gun, and never fired it. The circular targets had nice large holes in them, usually just the one each. The human shapes were much worse, or they had been, until someone who'd just received a commendation had suggested using a paintball gun instead.
As General Beckman had laid those targets aside, she'd said, "You see, Ellie, he's still your brother."
Then all that static imagery was put into motion, with selected footage. Gymnastics and juggling. Martial arts and weapons skills. All things Ellie was used to seeing, but this time he had no Intersect to help him. All of these skills had become his, somehow. He wasn't Intersect-level perfect but he was still virtually unstoppable. He was still Chuck, too, a fact for which both Ellie and the General were unspeakably grateful. If anything he was even more Chuck than before.
Then came the scenarios. To Ellie they looked like spy action movies with her brother as the star, but Beckman was careful to point out the little flaws in his performance. Eventually even Ellie was able to notice Chuck's tell, every time someone called him Agent Charles. He wasn't comfortable with that whitest of lies, and made it as true as he could as soon as possible.
"Call me Chuck."
And he never used the gun the way guns were supposed to be used. As Chuck had demonstrated a few weeks back, Intersect accuracy and dart guns are much better than mere bullets for leaving enemy agents alive for questioning, so Beckman eventually reconciled herself with the idea of an agent's primary weapon being a mere tranq pistol, as long as he was the agent. Ellie thought that was a good thing, that he was still her Chuck.
Out of all that story Carina told, he focused on the spaceship. What a nerd.
Real-time, back in the briefing…
"I got a good look at nothing except the ground, trying not to step in man-paste." Carina shuddered in memory. "I rearmed, stole a motorcycle and got the hell out. Hocked the bike in Poland for some medical care, a rail pass, and a ride to the train station in a turnip truck."
"Gotta love the classics," muttered Casey.
"What kind of medical care?"
"Metal fragment in my left leg, that's how I ended up in the barn."
"She's not field-capable, General," said Casey.
"Agent Miller will return to DC as soon as possible," said Beckman, "And see Dr. Woodcombe about her injury."
On the little screen to her left, Ellie mouthed a 'Thank you' to her boss. Devon loved to be useful.
That sounded like she was being benched. Carina hated being benched. Who'd watch Sarah? "I walked here, didn't I? Snuck in, and made it all the way to Chuck's room."
"Naked," added Casey. "In his bed."
"To wait until he came back, and you," Carina shot back. The only men on the continent she knew she could trust. "No clean clothes. Five days."
Chuck put a hand on her shoulder and she calmed.
"General, what about Amy?" asked Zondra, amazed at the change in her former friend. "If Gaez is after us he could go after her too."
"We thought of that, Agent Rizzo," said Beckman. "While I'd like to say she's safe and sound, the best I can do is to point out that if her whereabouts are unknown to us, they should be even more unknown to whatever mole gave away your own locations."
Carina snorted. "Just look for the biggest party, General. She'll be in the middle of it."
"I have Mr. Clark monitoring her phone."
"That'll work too, I guess."
"General, what's our response?" asked Casey. No one went after his team and lived to smirk about it. "Are we going after Gaez?"
"No, Colonel, you're going after Sarah. Her tracking nanos have become active again. It appears she's on her way to South America as we speak."
Somewhere in the world…
Amy Johnson held the phone to her ear, nodding occasionally as she memorized the instructions she was receiving. "Yes sir. I'm in Miami now. I'll fly down to Rio and meet them at the safe house, call me with the location. Yes, sir. I hope they bring lots of weapons, this sounds like my kind of party. I want to do my bit to take down that bastard at last. Thank you, sir." She ended the call.
A male hand reached over and plucked the phone from her grasp, putting it on the bedside table. The man whose hand it was gazed down on her from above, as they lay in bed together. "Bastard?"
She slapped him with the now-empty hand, lightly. "Bastard," she confirmed. "You going after my friends behind my back, 'Gusto baby?"
A/N2 Okay, first of all, I'd like to apologize for a little bit of confusion. I made a mistake and named this story nine2five 2.13 when I created it, but it's really nine2five 2.12.
In canon, episode 12 was only halfway through. In this story we're approximately two thirds done. If my count is correct, in these 12 episodes of mine I've rewritten 17 canon episodes, with another getting a barely-honorable mention.
I'm glad I don't have to hide Amy's treachery either. They really jumped through hoops to hide it until the big reveal, in canon, and the story suffered for it. Not only was it never a surprise, they forced all sorts of illogical and implausible actions on people who really should have known better.
Last, I'd like to thank author ygbsm for his story A Good Man Goes to War. A small part of this chapter borrows from it. Those of you who've read it will know what I'm talking about. Those of you who haven't read it should.