A/N: This is pretty dark and violent. Readers beware. Guess I'm in one of those moods. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

Sarah vs The Missing Asset

Chapter Four

Sarah sat down at Yuri's desk and waited for Yuri to enter his office. She put her feet up and mentally forced herself to relax. She knew that she had never been in more danger in her life. Not in ten years of CIA service had she been as close to death as she was right now. She quickly glanced out the office window, she couldn't see him in the dark but she knew he was there. On a mission Bryce was the equivalent of Chuck in her private life. She knew that she could always count on him. Count on his instincts.

"Bryce, no mater what happens do not fire unless I give the command. You better listen to me on this."

X-X

On top of the roof a building away Bryce Larkin was focused on the door of the office Sarah occupied. He blinked numerous times to keep the tears from blurring his vision. He had known Sarah for some time. He had never seen her this far out in space. He knew in his spirit that Sarah had completely given her heart to Chuck Bartowski and at this point she was willing to give up her life for the chance to find him.

That knowledge hurt.

He put that behind him now. First and foremost he wanted to make sure she walked out of that office. The only way he believed that that would happen is if he were to put his first shot between Yuri's eyes.

X-X

Sarah heard a hand on the office door and steeled herself to pull this off.

Yuri opened the door and turned on the light. Although he only showed surprise on his face for an instant, Sarah saw it and noted it with a sense of accomplishment.

Yuri silently regarded her for a moment. "I guess this means you've decided against killing Larkin for me?" His jaw muscle worked vigorously as he regarded her.

Sarah didn't want to anger him too soon. She knew that she needed information before Yuri got so incensed that he lost control of himself and blindly attacked. She wanted to control when everything went down.

"I was hedging my bets. If I have to kill Larkin I will. My preference is not to…but I need that information," Sarah said hoping that Yuri would become interested again why she needed it.

Yuri took a purposeful step towards her. "You're in my seat."

Sarah found it curious that he stop where he was and waited for her next move. She decided she wanted him talking. Sliding her feet off the desk and stepping out of the chair she risked moving towards him and around his desk instead of away from him. It was all calculated to show that she was not frightened, to keep him guessing. She then sat in the chair on the other side of his desk. She knew for sure that Bryce would have a perfect shot at Yuri while he sat at his desk. The only problem was that she needed Yuri alive at least until he told her the location of John Casey and what Amanda Irving's mission was.

Yuri sat down in his chair opposite of her. His eyes bored into her like lasers. He stared like this for some time before speaking.

"What are you doing here Katie? I mean why are you here, really?"

Sarah was puzzled. There was a difference in Yuri's attitude. He still had that confident bravado that he always had but there was something different about him. He seemed more reserved, more cautious than normal.

"I told you Yuri, I need the location of John Casey."

"Katie, I'm going to ask you one more time and this time I would suggest you answer me. Why do you want to know where he is?"

That's when Sarah knew that somehow Yuri was connected to Amanda Irving or Fulcrum. They must have found a way to get to him. Sarah knew that in Yuri's business it was suicide not to stay neutral. He couldn't afford to align himself with any one faction in the espionage world, to be beholden to one group over another. So, the question was…why had he?

She quickly calculated everything she knew about Yuri from their past and then added in what she had discovered from the files on his desk. She came to one decision and prayed that she was correct.

"Yuri, this is not business it is personal."

His brow drew down. "Personal how?"

Sarah looked away for a second embarrassed to speak of personal maters in front of this sociopath. "It has to do with love." She finally looked up to meet his eyes. She could not read the change in his expression.

"I see. Why has he left without leaving you a way to contact him?" Yuri seemed to stare at her even deeper. Sarah knew that he was looking to see if she was lying.

"He had no choice." Sarah did not elaborate and by the look on her face Yuri knew that she had no intention of saying more.

"This obviously means a lot to you. Only a stupid person would come into my office and try to cheat me like this," he said his voice becoming low and menacing. "And I know you're not a stupid person. But it is a mistake." Yuri took a deep breath and then looked at his desk. Sarah saw that he noticed the files. His eyes left the file of John Casey and locked onto hers.

"You're willing to get yourself killed in order to find this Casey?"

"If it comes to that. But I'm hoping we can reach some other agreement."

Yuri laughed. "We had an agreement. I don't alter my agreements. Bad for business." Yuri's face took on a deadly expression. "Katie, why don't you ask your CIA spy to come on in? I know he's out there somewhere." Yuri nodded towards the window.

Sarah's expression turned just as dark. "Yuri, my name's not Katie and I have no intention of calling Bryce in here."

Yuri smiled as he understood the nature of her visit. But along with the smile, someone that would have been close to him would have noticed something foreign to his countenance. Concern, only a hint mind you but it was there. For some reason, Yuri knew that the woman sitting across the desk from him was deadlier than her appearance suggested.

"And?" he said.

"And…I'm not leaving this office until I get that address."

Had Sarah had the receiver to her earplug on she would have heard Bryce screaming at her to run. But she heard none of it.

So there they sat staring at one another. Sarah had one of the four knives in her leg band ready as she waited for Yuri to make the first move. She thought she had anticipated his jumping out of his chair to come straight over the desk at her. She knew if he got his huge hands on her the fight was over.

What she had not anticipated was that he would stand up and actually toss the whole desk at her. He had moved a two to three hundred pound desk as though it were a card table. Sarah barely got out of the way by diving to her right and once she was stable she threw the first of her knives at Yuri's chest.

Much to her surprise he just batted it away with his hand. As he began to walk towards her, she threw another and then another with the same result. She was down to her last two throwing knives when the office door burst open and Bryce came running in firing his Berretta at Yuri.

Yuri dove out of the way and picked up a paper weight that had fallen to the floor from his desk and threw it at Bryce striking him in the head and dazing him just long enough for Yuri to grab him around the waist and squeeze.

Sarah could hear the sickening snapping of bones as she hurried to get into position to save Bryce but she knew in an instant that she was too late. Her survival instinct kicked in and she positioned herself on the far side of the office giving her as much room to maneuver as possible.

Sarah grabbed her last remaining throwing knives and positioned them in her right hand holding them by the blades. She stood up straight and stared at the behemoth facing her on the other side of the room.

Yuri took one step forward with a sly smile on his face. "You're gonna die no mater what your name-" His sentence was cut short from one of Sarah's knives cutting into his throat.

Sarah had thrown her last two knives together at the same time aiming one for Yuri's lower midsection and the other for his neck. She had guessed correctly that his automatic response would be to protect his privates and she was right. He had knocked that blade from reaching its mark.

She ran to Yuri before he had a chance to pull the blade free ramming her elbow into his sternum, incapacitating him further.

With her hand in control of the blade in Yuri's neck, Sarah now had control of Yuri.

"Where's John Casey?" She hesitated while drilling into his eyes with her own. "I won't ask again.

Yuri Karlanov was a man having a bad day. He knew if he did not tell Sarah what she wanted to know, she would pull the knife across his jugular and it didn't mater how strong he was then, he was a dead man. On the other hand, if he told her the whereabouts of her lover John Casey, he would have a Fulcrum hit squad after him and his elderly father. The only man in the world he loved.

His face showed the strain from the pain he felt.

Sarah had started to put pressure on his throat with the knife. Yuri had thought that he would die rather than give up the information that would inevitably kill his father but when he felt that pressure he broke.

"Cedar Rapids…There in Cedar Rapids, I swear."

Yuri closed his eyes to concentrate. The pain in his throat made it hard to think.

"How do I know you're not lying to me?" She put more pressure on his throat to make her point.

"Reach into my coat pocket and pull out my cell phone. I've had a call from a fulcrum agent there that's with your boyfriend."

Sarah didn't bother to correct him. "You pull it out and show me. And it better be a cell phone I see or your janitor is gonna have a big mess to clean up."

Yuri pulled his phone from his coat pocket and handed it to her.

"No, find the number and show me."

Yuri almost whimpered from the pain and having to keep doing Sarah's commands. But he complied. When Sarah saw the number with a 319 area code she look back at Yuri.

"Make the call." She had gotten very calm. Yuri had never been in this situation himself as the victim but he had been the perpetrator enough times to know that the calm voice of the woman he knew as Katie signaled that he was very close to dying. One wrong move and his life was over.

Yuri pressed the button and Sarah took the phone from him. She put it on speaker and then met Yuri's eyes as she waited for the phone to be answered.

"Hello…hello. Yuri is that you?"

Sarah disconnected the call and threw the phone on the floor beside them.

"Who was that?"

"Her name is Amanda Irving, she works for fulcrum."

"Why is she with John Casey?"

"I don't know. There looking for something and believe John is the key to finding it."

Sarah looked him hard. "Is there anything else you think I would want to know?"

"Look, I've told you everything I know." He had started to sweat profusely.

"How am I going to make sure you don't warn them?" Sarah's voice still had the ice of a murderer within it.

"Don't kill me Katie. I swear I will-"

Sarah pulled the knife across his neck with as much force as she could almost decapitating Yuri. He fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

"That's for Bryce," Sarah said still meeting his gaze.

Although he tried he could not speak and within an instant his eyes glassed over in death.

Sarah ran to Bryce who was lying on the floor unable to move. She was surprised to see that he did not seem to be in any pain.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Bryce. She pulled out her phone and began to dial 911.

"Sarah, don't."

When she met his eyes she knew what he was really asking of her and tears filled and then ran out of her eyes.

"Bryce, please no."

"Just leave the gun…Sarah I can't live like this. I don't want to be the brave man in a wheelchair for the next fifty years. Just leave the gun when you go."

Sarah took a deep breath to compose herself. She looked into his eyes and tried her best to smile.

"Bryce when I met you I was broken. My heart was broken. Not from love but from the lack of love. I didn't how to love or how to accept love. But then I met you and although I tried to tell you I wasn't interested you wouldn't listen until finally, little by little, very slowly, I began to feel something for you." Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes. She laughed through her crying as she continued. "You brought me to this point. I don't think another person on the planet could have done what you did." Sarah looked out the widow into the darkness of the night. "But now I have to find Chuck to see what my heart can learn from him. And as much as you where the only man who could have brought me to this point…he is the only man that can carry me further."

Sarah looked back at the broken man that lay beneath her. "Please don't hate me. I just have to do this."

Bryce tried to smile at her. His eyes filled with tears as well. "Sarah, I could never hate you. I will love you until my last breath."

Sarah let out a jerking sob as she buried her head in Bryce's chest. She cried like that for what seemed like an hour to her. But then slowly, she knew it was time to leave….leave Bryce forever.

She reached over and grabbed his gun and put it in his hand she then moved his arm so that it was in the right position to do the will of its master.

Standing up, she looked at him one last time. "If things do work out for me I want you to know that I will never forget you. You are the foundation to my happiness. She blew him a sad kiss and then walked towards the door.

"Sarah," Bryce said.

Sarah stopped standing rigidly and did not turn around.

"I hope you find him."

Sarah used every last inch of training not to cry. She knew that Bryce honestly loved her and wanted the best for her. She closed the door behind her expecting the familiar sound of the berretta to break the silence at every instant.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs the sound that she had been expecting startled her anyway.

She stood completely still for a moment and then began to walk again. She walked out of the front door over the pile of men that Bryce had killed getting up to her in that office. She walked calmly towards her car and within the hour was on a plane to Cedar Rapids.