Chapter 4- The Op

A/N- Sorry it took so long to update, in the event you didn't read the previous update I've been out of the country and couldn't bring my laptop.

Bryce stopped the van a block away from their target, normally he would have stopped further away, but looking at his two partners he wasn't sure that the new one would be able to make it. They both looked dead tired, but Bryce knew Sarah she could deal a little sleep deprivation. Chuck not so much. When he had first seen their state earlier that day he'd silently shook his head, he'd hoped that Sarah would have waited until after the mission to make a move on Chuck, but that didn't look like the case here.

Bryce was right in the fact that neither Chuck nor Sarah had managed to get much sleep the previous night, but the late night had nothing to do with sex. Chuck's late night was the result of trying to deal with Sarah.

The beautiful agent had decided to throw herself fully into her cover. When she and Chuck had finally gone to bed she wanted no time in wrapping herself around him. He'd expected to have to share a bed with her with maybe some light cuddling, but she had taken it to a new level. She had one hand that disappeared somewhere behind him and reappeared entwined with his on the opposite side, a leg coiled around his own, and her other hand appeared to alternate between his hair and shoulders while he'd lost track of where her other leg hand gone. Last time he'd felt it, it had been creeping a little too close to his groin for comfort. Of course the fact that she had essentially foregone the use of her side of the bed in favor of using him as a bed didn't help matters. Sarah had certainly proved that she was the more nimble of the pair, not that Chuck had ever had any illusions to the contrary, and her head had ended up peacefully on his chest with a contented smile from listening to the sound of her "lover's" steady breathing. Chuck had no idea how she'd managed to get herself into whatever position she has in and while it felt fantastic it didn't seem like it could be very comfortable to her.

Sarah disagreed. She found the position very comfortable. She would have preferred a little more help from Chuck, but she'd ended up in her current spot happily enough. The slow rise and fall of his chest sent her into a deep slumber almost instantly. Unfortunately she hadn't managed to stay asleep for long as he attempted to disentangle her from him, something he was not very good at, she realized that she had been making him uncomfortable all night. The rest of her night had been spent worrying about her actions and his reaction.

And so Bryce found himself with two partners who both looked like death itself. The coffee had helped them, but only the adrenaline of a mission would manage to wake them up. "Okay, Chuck you and Sarah stay in the van, when I get the door open that's when you two move in."

"Okay." Chuck responded with a falsely upbeat tone. He turned back to his bank of computers from which he could monitor everything.

Sarah nodded at Bryce to go, "Watch him for me will ya Sarah?" Bryce asked as he slipped out into the cold Swiss air. A light snow was falling so the approach wouldn't be difficult; no perimeter guards to hear any snow crunch under his boots either.

Sarah calmly climbed into the back with the remains of her coffee and calmly sipped out it while she watched his progress. "I cleared some R&R for us with the director. After the last mission we'll head up into the Alps for a week of skiing, and sipping hot coca by the fire."

"How'd you manage to get two rooms on such short notice? It's the middle of the ski season!"

She almost dropped her precious, lifesaving coffee at the word "rooms" she hadn't booked "rooms" she had booked a room. Would he cancel just, because they had to share a room? "Yeah they didn't have two rooms available, we'll have to share a one bedroom." She honestly had no idea if it was a lie or not, the place was pretty full, but she'd never asked about a second room.

"Oh, okay."

Sarah glanced at the monitors and saw Bryce at the door. She knew him, and the lock, it wouldn't take him much longer. "Come on Chuck, time to go." She downed the rest of her warm, caffeinated drink and pulled open the van door.

"But Bryce hasn—" Chuck stopped when he glanced at the monitors and saw Bryce break open the door and disappear inside. "How did you do that?"

Sarah just shrugged and started heading towards their target. Chuck did a quick double check to make sure the correct camera loops were running and headed out after her.

"Damn its freezing here, how'd you survive here for a week let alone a couple of months?"

She smiled at him through the darkness, "you get used to it."

It didn't take them long to reach the open doorway and they quickly disappeared inside it. Bryce was nowhere to be seen. Sarah had memorized the plans to the installation, Chuck had a PDA out with the most recently updated plans displayed, along with the fastest route to his target and the camera locations.

They were both on the same mission, but had very different styles.

"Four guards, main atrium. Two stationary, two patrolling. No, make that three patrolling and one stationary." Bryce reported, his voice the pinnacle of professionalism. "Kill the lights on my mark."

Chuck flipped through his PDA screen until he got to the appropriate macro that would kill the lights and jam communications.

"Three…Two…One…Mark!" Bryce called through the calm. Chuck tapped the button on his digital assistant and he flipped back to the security camera screen. The atrium cameras all went out simultaneously and Chuck assumed the lights went out as well.

***

Bryce emerged from the bathroom he had been hiding in. The guards weren't well trained and Bryce easily stalked the first guard. As soon as the lights had gone off each guard and reacted by turning on a flashlight and trying their radios. When the radios failed the formerly stationary guard headed towards the door. "Chuck shut down the atrium, no one in or out." A moment later Bryce heard the doors lock. Bryce was glad for the moonless night, the atrium was almost pitch black and his night vision goggles provided an incredible advantage over the ill equipped guards. Their flashlights barely managed to penetrate the inky blackness, but his night vision filled the world with a green light that allowed him to easily identify the guards.

He approached the first guard, silently moved into position behind him. He wasted no time in grabbing the guard, pushing his gun into the poor guys head and choking off his windpipe. The guard struggled to breathe or make some kind of sound, but between the gun and Bryce's strong arm the guard succumbed to unconsciousness without alerting anyone.

"Tango one down." Bryce reported over the radio.

***

"We should be able to head through the staircase on the right up ahead." Chuck said in a hushed voice as he bumbled about in the darkness. Apparently the atrium lighting was connected to the adjacent hallways.

"Are you sure?" Sarah wasn't happy; she hated it when small things like shutting off extra lights happened that was usually the first sign that a mission was going bad.

"Yes." Chuck turned the device around so that it faced her, "See?"

She nodded and took off to the stairwell.

"Tangos two and three down." Bryce said over the radio.

By the time they and yanked open the door Bryce had dispatched the final guard and called for Chuck to open up the doors again. As Chuck went through his PDA to reverse his previous action he turned to looked at Sarah, "How did he take out four guys that quickly?"

Sarah shrugged, "Taser, a quick knock out, some drugs, and a pistol whipping—he really likes doing that—it's really not as hard as it sounds." If he had been allowed to kill them it would have been quicker, but would have raised way to many questions when dealing with the Swiss authorities.

"Chuck lockdown the building NOW!" Bryce screamed into his mic.

Chuck wasted no time in complying with the order. "Why? What's happening?"

"They've got way to many guards down here, upstairs looks better. I'll get up there myself, but you need to make sure that this whole building is locked down."

"It is." Chuck said as he continued up the stairs behind Sarah.

Sarah kicked out the stairwell door and burst through like a category five hurricane. The mission wasn't going to plan and she needed to get him into position quickly. "Let's go, it's down the end of this hallway." Sarah had her real gun in one hand a tazer gun in the other. She really wasn't intending to use the tazer gun, but it would make Chuck feel better if she at least had it out.

A security guard appeared in her field of view, his back to her. She had nearly put a few rounds into him, but decided instead to use the less-than-lethal weapon. She depressed its trigger and sent the massive jolt of electricity into the guard. He collapsed to the floor a couple of seconds later and she dropped the tazer, now using both hands to aim her weapon.

The pair moved quickly and when they finally got to the door Chuck dropped down on one knee and attached his hacking unit to the electronic door lock. After a couple of very tense minutes the door unlocked and the team slipped inside. "Bryce we're in. Report your position."

The air was thick with anticipation as only silence greeted them on the line. They exchanged a nervous look, "Agent Larkin please report your current status." Sarah asked again as she directed Chuck to start his work on the computer.

"We've got to go back, he's probably hurt or in danger."

"Chuck we can't until you get that information. Once you do I get you out of here and call in the Marines to get Bryce out of here.

Chuck glared at her, but was interrupted when the radio burst back to life, "I'm on the roof. I'll be outside the office in a few seconds." They both breathed a sigh of relief and Chuck went to the computer while Sarah took up a defensive position across from the door.

Bryce joined the pair a few minutes later and took up his own defensive position. "We weren't supposed to get caught." Sarah said derisively.

"Well that's why we prepared for the worst." Bryce retorted while reloading his weapon.

Fortunately it appeared that while the guards were aware that some kind of intrusion was happening they didn't know where so the team was able to remain in the office without being attacked. Sarah periodically checked the security camera footage and the guards appeared to be focused on the ground floor. One of them was attempting to call someone on the outside, but Chuck had managed to disconnect the phone line. The guards were faced with six of their fellow security guards down, large sections of the facility without power, cameras that weren't reliable, random security alerts popping up, and no contact to the outside world. It astounded Sarah that the guards weren't able to think of something as simple as taking out a cell phone and calling the police. Then she realized why, their bosses had probably given strict orders that the police were not to be called in order to protect the confidentiality of their clients

The exfiltration back to the van wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the infiltration was. With Chuck watching the cameras and two highly trained agents leading the way they'd avoided most of the guards and quickly dispatched the ones they did come into contact with. Back inside the van Sarah smiled, the op wasn't perfect, but it was a success.

***

Washington D.C.

Thursday

Mary Pat rubbed her tired eyes. It was late and she had an early meeting the next morning, but as she looked at her list she knew she wasn't done for the night. She'd been asked to name five agents one of whom would be selected for a special assignment. The decision was tough and filled with crossed out names.

Sarah Walker

Bryce Larkin

Maria Ross

Cameron Williams

Domingo Chavez

The last name was the one giving her the most trouble. Ding's name had been crossed out, penciled back in, erased, crossed out, and rewritten a dozen times already. He was certainly qualified for any assignment, but she wasn't sure she was comfortable losing him. She erased his name again and added in one of her newer agents

Jacqueline Lopez.

Her list was ready for Friday. She knew Walker had her final op scheduled for Monday and she hoped that either her or Larkin got chosen. They'd been her second best performing team recently, behind Clark and Ding of course, Sarah and Bryce had launched two ops this week. The first had gotten off to a rocky start, but ended up fine; the second mission had gone perfectly. They were taking a couple days off to plan the last one, but MP had no doubt it would also work out perfectly.

***

Friday

As The Deputy Director of Operations MP entered the White House without her usual air of confidence. Already present at the meeting was her direct boss, CIA director Graham, her ultimate boss President Ryan, her former mentor and trainer, John Clark, the NSA director General Beckman, and the Chief of Staff Arnie. More than a few heavy hitters.

"Sit down MP, you have your choices?" POTUS asked.

She nodded, "Yes sir. My first recommendation has to go to Sarah Walker, but all of the agents on the list would be an excellent choice for your assignment."

They all nodded, minus Ryan who elaborated. "I'm sure you're wondering what the project is, this classified top secret, not even Ed can know about it."

"Yes, sir." The DDO answered.

Graham handed her a file, but Ryan was the one who spoke. "The NSA are calling it The Intersect. It was, until recently, a simple super-computer. The NSA would feed everything, every last piece of intelligence we got into it and it would spit back out data on known terrorists. However in more recent years we've managed to expand its role."

"Into what sir?"

"'Human compatibility. One of the agents you chose will be the first test subject." Graham answered, this portion of the Intersect was his baby.

MP flipped through the file trying to understand this new reality. Someone was getting a computer in their brain? When the hell had this started?

"What we're going to do is take an Agent already comfortable with technology and outfit them with state-of-the-art computers, optics, weapons, and everything else we can. The Intersect will be one of those computers. It's going to be linked, wirelessly, to a camera in either the agent's contacts or glasses; whatever the cameras capture will be fed into the Intersect and it should recognize any terrorists. It'll vibrate a bit to warn the wearer and the dossier will be displayed." Graham explained.

Arnie spoke up next, "It's a joint operation between the CIA and NSA, Beckman has already chosen her operative, you were recommending Walker?"

"Given the nature of the assignment I think Larkin might be better, he is more comfortable with technology than Walker is, but who's going to be in charge?" MP hoped that was the reason Clark was here, if anyone could make this harebrained scheme work it was him.

"Mr. Clark will be in command of the operation," Graham answered.

"What are we going to do with Walker?"

"She'll be working with Larkin, we need someone very dedicated to protecting the Intersect."

***

Monday

The op had been going well, Sarah and Chuck were making good time, and Bryce had managed to take care of all the guards without alerting anyone. The entire operation seemed off though, there were far too few guards on duty. The whole thing didn't feel right.

Halfway up the staircase all hell broke loose. The low number of guards made sense if they had been planning an ambush and were now springing it. As bullets filled the tight staircase Sarah dragged Chuck into the adjacent hallway, "Bryce it's an ambush we need covering fire." Sarah barked through the radio as Sarah led them deeper into the floor.

She didn't get very far before the first guard appeared in the doorway. He opened fire and shredded a copier that was between Sarah and the enemy. She wasn't taking any chances this time and she returned fire with lethal precision. She continued rushing Chuck forward, I need you to get that data, can you get it any other way?"

"No."

Sarah nodded and headed for the staircase at the opposite end of the floor. "We need to get that data."

Fortunately Chuck had gotten down both his door hacking and computer hacking down to a science. It only took a few seconds. "Bryce secure some fast ropes to get us down on the straight from the office."

Fortunately the other stairwell appeared to be empty, a quick glance down told Sarah why: it had been sabotaged, the lower levels now offered no entrances.

When they reached their destination Sarah attempted to shoot her way in, but the glass was bullet resistant and successful resisted her weapons fire.

It didn't take the guards long to figure out where they were, Sarah was quickly up to her eyes with action. She spun out of cover, sent two rounds towards the guards and then retreated back to cover. It probably saved her life as a fusillade of bullets impacted and peppered the location of where she had just been.

That was the last time Sarah had attempted to stick her head out. She went on giving warning shots from cover for the next minute or so as Chuck finished his job. "Bryce we good?" Sarah asked over the radio.

Bryce had headed up to the next floor and hung the ropes down. "Hook on Chuck," he called as he slipped down on the opposite side of the window. Chuck did his best to comply, but between the bullets, mission nerves, and a fear of heights he wasn't exactly sure he had done it properly. Bryce twisted around and saw a stream of approaching police cars. "Move it we have to go now." He let the rope slip between his hands and he dropped down.

Sarah saw Chuck on the rope and nodded for him to go down, before taking off after her own rope. She launched herself out the window grabbed the rope and slid down. She felt like there should have been some accompanying explosion, but none came. Being experienced and trained she made it to the ground well before Chuck.

Chuck managed to do pretty decently until the last several meters. Whether it was a shout from below, a gunshot from above, or the police sirens, but Chuck panicked and bumbled the rope. He fell the remaining distance and crashed into the snow covered side walk. When Sarah saw him, she rushed over to him. Sarah's eyes were wild with fear as she hovered over him, "Chuck! Oh god, are you in a lot of pain? SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR." He groaned in pain as he tried to roll over, "Chuck, don't move, hopefully paramedics will be here soon."

"Sarah, we need to get him into the van, he'll be in a world of hurt if he gets caught." Bryce was concerned for his friends well being, but being caught spying in a foreign country wasn't very good for either Chuck's long term health or any team member's career.

Sarah was still over Chuck frantically searching for anything that could help her attend to his wounds. "Go, he needs real medical attention; I'll take care of him. Call MP and let her know what's happening."

Bryce looked at her; he knew she was right a fall like that would require some real medical attention, but he didn't like it.

***

Colonel Casey leaned back against his chair. He looked longingly at the photo of his favorite president sitting on his desk. He removed he cigar from his lips and exhaled the smoke. The M4 slung across his chest was a sore reminder of what he'd never again get to do. The banks of computers were now his hunting grounds, analysts his weapons. He missed the feel of firing his weapon at an actual enemy, missed the sounds, smells, and taste of combat. He belonged with his unit in Waziristan, not overseeing Echelon analysts and the enormous amount of data they generated each day. They were a bunch of desk jockeys, he was a soldier.

Out of the corner of his highly trained eye he spotted his superior enter the floor. He quickly tossed the cigar, sat up and returned the rifle to its usual place across the office from him. General Beckman walked up to his glass office and entered without knocking, "Colonel Casey."

He snapped to attention. "At ease Colonel." She said before he could respond.

"How do you like your current assignment?" She asked, she didn't particularly care if he liked it or not, but it would be a nice piece of information to know.

"May I speak freely ma'am?"

She nodded, "Yes Colonel."

"I'd rather be out there in the action, ma'am." He said hoping he wasn't crossing some line. When she smiled he knew that he hadn't.

"Good, I think I might have the perfect assignment for you Colonel."

A/N- I haven't decided if I'm going to have the full blown Chuck Intersect in the brain included. What would you guys like?

Please feel free to leave any and all comments, complaints, issues, critiques, hellos, or anything else.